#Also does Cliff have any children? If he did then they would potentially have something in common with Howard...

[strawberryclementine]

He should've played Smoke on the Water

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 307: The One With Shindou

Previously on BnHA: Endeavor and Hawks (and Jeanist too, although he didn’t really do anything, but BY GOD, WHAT IS UP WITH HIS NECK) held a press conference and were all, “everything you’ve heard is true, so we would just like to say, from the bottom of our hearts... our bad.” U.A. opened its doors to the public as an evacuation shelter. Deku and All Might told basically EVERYBODY about OFA, which is absolutely wild, and yet somehow we hardly paid any attention to this at all. Mostly because the chapter ended with Deku being all “I WALK A LONELY ROAD, THE ONLY ONE THAT I HAVE EVER KNOWN” and peacing out of U.A. to embark on a solo journey of angst. So this is either gonna be the best or the worst thing that ever happened to this series, so TIME TO FIND OUT WHICH IT IS.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi is all “so who do you guys want to see next? Deku? Bakugou?? Well how about SHINDOU?” Shindou is all “hi :) I’m Shindou :) :) remember me :) :) :)?” Horikoshi is all “I’m so sorry for depriving you guys of Shindou for so fucking long, how about an ENTIRE CHAPTER ALL OF HIM” and then he REALLY FUCKING DOES IT because, I don’t know?? Did we make him mad?? Am I being punished for something I did in a past life?? It really is, honest to god, seventeen whole goddamn pages of Shindou, punctuated by a few pages of Muscular, and topped off with one (1) whole appearance by Deku at THE VERY END. And we don’t even get to see his face. I am beside myself lmao I’m sorry you guys, you can skip this recap if you want. Or just skip straight to the end, because movie 3 promo.

“long time no see” now what could this mean?? can’t think of too many characters this phrase would apply to right now. although I can think of one big one, and I know that fandom has been trying to manifest his deadbeat ass to finally show itself for years now. could it finally be that time? if Hisashi shows up and debunks DFO a big chunk of the fandom is probably going to riot lol

(ETA: why oh why did I get my hopes up like that lmao. I’m pretty sure Hisashi doesn’t actually exist and Deku was either immaculately conceived, or the stork really did bring Inko a lil green baby from the cabbage patch.)

anyway, so the chapter is opening on this random scene of CRIME and DISARRAY

was this all done by that big villain from the previous chapter? utility poles knocked down, random holes in the sides of buildings, and it looks like this one car pulled over in a hurry and the driver just hopped out and ran

who are these people talking

OH NO, OH GOD

I am immediately struck by the urge to push Shindou off of this ledge. is that mean? probably that is mean, but also fuck this guy lmao. every year you cheat someone out of their well-deserved spot in the popularity poll, and every year I want to punch you in your stupid face for it

bah. and how are you doing, Tatami. love that hero name even if you do have arguably the dumbest superpower in the entire series

listen, though. here I am shitting on these Ketsubutsu kids for no good reason, and I’m sorry about that, and truthfully it’s mostly because I just want to see Deku and/or Kacchan and so it’s hard to give a fuck about anything else right now. BUT, I will immediately cease and desist ALL of my complaining if this means we also get to see my best girl Ms. Joke, omg. Horikoshi please

sdlkfjlskalk

FUCK YOU SHINDOU OMG. I’M SORRY GUYS I CAN’T HELP IT, EVERYTHING ABOUT HIM IS SO EMINENTLY PUNCHABLE AND DETESTIBLE. IT’S LIKE SOMEONE COMBINED WESLEY CRUSHER WITH JEAN RALPHIO

but LSKJFLEK at this random reminder that Bakugou refused to shake his fucking hand. like, that’s his “fun fact” apparently lol. it’s what he deserves

also living for this “cringe” here, too. fuck you Shindou. I am so, so sorry to any Shindou fans out there you guys because I’m just going to be like this the entire time he’s here. the hate is flowing through me

how has it been three whole pages and I still have to look at his stupid face

anyway so it seems like the kids are having to pick up the slack for Old Man Samurai and all those other assholes who retired. I’m guessing the U.A. kids will be seeing a lot more action as well

but in the meantime let’s hope no villains attack here all of a sudden, because all Tatami can do is make herself shorter while Shindou creates an earthquake to bring the entire building down around them dflkjslk

these guys don’t particularly want to go with them and I can’t say I blame them

so now Shindou is saying that yeah, they can probably handle the looters and such by themselves, but it’s a different story when it comes to the Noumu and the escaped Tartarus prisoners. Shindou how dare you make a reasonable point that I can’t immediately argue with

he says that one of the escapees was sighted in the area, so that’s why they’re trying to evacuate everyone

and the guy disagrees and says he doesn’t trust the heroes and thinks they’re pompous

fdskljk. fucking...

ME: Horikoshi can we please stop and get Deku HORIKOSHI: we have Deku at home THE DEKU AT HOME: 

Horikoshi. please. we get it, the civilians don’t trust the heroes anymore. I UNDERSTAND. I COMPREHEND THIS. so unless there is some other point to this scene I respectfully ask that you hurry things along because omg

did Tatami always have this habit of speaking in meme language and such? I thought that was Camie’s thing but hey

listen, I’m here for anyone who’s willing to drag this man down into the depths of the earth. I would just also rather not spend the entire fucking chapter on this oh my god. Horikoshi do you have any more of those chapters where things happen in them?? those are good, I like those

YESSSSSS FINALLY

so whoever’s on the other end of the call (ETA: it’s that rock-looking guy who can harden anything that he touches. why does BnHA have so many hardening powers) is telling them to run because there’s apparently a villain heading right for them, oh my

WHO IS HE

depending on who it is I can’t promise I won’t be rooting for them over you, buddy

ohhhhhh shit

huh. well that’s... hmm... but on the other hand...

okay lol no, I know it’s bad. Muscular fucking LOVES murdering kids. not even Shindou deserves that. I’m sure he has a family that loves him and stuff. and Tatami seems like a sweet girl. they don’t deserve to be murdered

that is the question isn’t it? are we really going to spend the entire chapter with Limbs-Retracting-Girl and her boyfriend, Joseph Gordon-Levitt from (500) Days of Summer??

YES OMG

YES PLEASE CALL YOUR SENSEI. my god do you know what I would give to see Ms. Joke take down an S-class villain??

(ETA: all I’ll say is that we were robbed here, you guys.)

now Tatami is running away while Shindou stays behind omg

Horikoshi I know I said I hate the guy, and I do, but my god. seems I don’t hate him half as much as you do you. been nice knowing you Shindou my man

are you serious Tatami really ran all the way back up here to try and evacuate these guys one more time

SHE’S SUCH A GOOD PERSON omg if you assholes don’t listen to her you deserve to get murdered

BRO

HORIKOSHI DID YOU REALLY FUCKING DO IT I CAN’T BELIEVE IT

LOL OKAY NO, SO FAR HE’S ONLY MESSED UP HIS FACE

WHAT A SHAME WHAT A TRAGEDY. THE WORLD MOURNS

okay but seriously, now he has to be dead

r.i.p. Shindou. he died doing what he loved, talking a lot and being utterly useless

then again, damn Shindou are you really gonna come out here and be a badass?? gonna make me eat my words there kiddo?

I have absolutely no idea if I should expect this to work or not. all I know is that this is page 14, and so it would seem we really are going to spend the entire fucking chapter on fucking Shindou. this beautiful chapter had so much potential, Horikoshi. and now look at it. I hope you’re happy

nope it didn’t fucking work at all lmao

IT’S JUST LIKE I SAID. r.i.p. you pretentious handsome lump

OHHHHHH SNAP

DEKU YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO LOL. anyway but it’s good to see you!! it’s good to see ANYONE other than these guys sob but especially you

FINALLY SOMETHING COOL OMG

somehow Horikoshi actually made the bunny mask look badass?? I don’t think this is sustainable, but I am here for it while it lasts

Shindou should by all rights be nothing but A HANDSOME PASTE at this point lol but WHATEVER. it’s BnHA; getting smashed into walls and cliffs has more or less the same consequences as being set on fire. slap a band-aid on it and you’re good to go

we are REALLY ENDING IT HERE huh

well. and that’s it. I just did not care about any of that lmao. a rare dud of a chapter. well, but we’ve had something like ten in a row that ranged from “pretty good” to “amazing”, so I guess that’s fair

anyway I feel like I owe you guys something other than endless bitching and moaning, so! BONUS:

now this is more like it

first of all, I’m absolutely living for this promo’s “YEET THE CHILDREN OUT OF A HELICOPTER” vibes. FUCK YEAH WE’RE HEROES BITCH

is Deku wearing a jetpack/parachute?? let’s hope he is because I’m assuming he doesn’t have Float yet, so if that’s not a jetpack then it is a LONG WAY DOWN kiddo

these maniacs actually got Deku to wear something other than his red shoes holy fuck. I’m speechless. are we sure that’s not an imposter??

Shouto has the funniest falling position I’ve ever seen. I’m assuming his left arm is not in fact tucked under his leg like it appeared to be at first glance?? like, wtf is the outline of your body right now Shouto

this is what I think it is after careful analysis, but at first I thought this kid had some hidden contortionist abilities

and then there’s this guy

I MISSED YOU YOU BIG GOON. loving the new gauntlets!! and he’s changed up his impractical metal neck thingy into arm thingies! but most importantly, ARE THESE WHAT I THINK THEY ARE

ARE THOSE WEENIES. KACCHAN. KACCHAN HAVE YOU GONE NATIVE OMFG

and meanwhile, look who’s with them! Endeavor makes perfect sense of course, but Hawks is a very welcome surprise. does this mean we can expect to see Tokoyami too? because I would fucking love that

lastly, so this confirms the whole “world heroes” thing! which we all pretty much guessed anyway lol. I wonder if this movie will take place in another country (fingers crossed). the city in the background doesn’t look particularly familiar, but this image probably wasn’t meant to be analyzed in that way lol. anyways, looking forward to this so much, PLEASE GIVE US A TRAILER SOON omg

[k-s-morgan]

Hey Katrin, I am on tumblr after a long time and one of the first things I do is checking your blog ! I don't know if this has been recently answered, how strong do you think 's4 dark Will' prediction is ? Initially I was very convinced of Will being sure shot dark at core, and being in an internal turmoil and predicted him going totally evil in s4. But after listening to different opinions and interviews, and some other blogs (which I don't actively follow) I have doubt now, there are open ends if Will has goodness inside him like otherwise why will he go for the murder-suicide at the end. If he was ok with being dark why suicide ?

While it is true he threatened Bedelia which felt like he wants to come back and not die/not kill Hannibal. I see the creators leaving behind very confusing trail of thoughts. Is that just Will being confused or deliberately leaving clue of Will's goodness.

So thoughts like this are bugging me right now ! In a good way because I love thinking. I have a second part but I want you to keep that private please ..

Hello! Ah, thank you so much, it's really great to hear :D And welcome back!

So, there are three possible answers: what I think, what I think Bryan Fuller thinks, and what Bryan Fuller actually thinks.

That Will has some goodness in him is undeniable. Hannibal does, too - apart from Mason, I don't believe anyone in this show is 100% good or 100% evil. Will cares about his dogs and people he can relate to; he shows warmth to those who care about him. Sometimes he feels sympathy to the victims overall and he's primarily interested in killing those who did something bad.

But I don't think this goodness would play any big role in S4 and S5. Will's struggles for all three seasons were with who he was and who he wanted to be. He retreated into his self-constructed shell again and again, and at this point, I think it's enough. He said he Became in TWOTL - it means he embraced who he is. Him and Hannibal living after the Fall means he's ready to start a new life, and to me, it would feel cheap and repetitive if his self-struggles suddenly resumed.

In S3, Will got innocent people killed without blinking just for his own selfishness. He set Chilton up in a horrific way and joked about it later with Bedelia. He conspired with a serial killer who murdered families with children just to stage the escape of another serial killer despite not knowing what he wants to happen next. This decision cost officers their lives, endangered Alana and Margot, endangered Molly and Walter, and many other people. For a character who did all this to suddenly feel like he wants to be good and start fighting his darkness again? I would find it horrible and so extremely hypocritical that I'm not sure I would keep watching. Because it's one thing to be a terrible person and be honest about it, but being bad and trying to pose as good again after everything? I'd explode from frustration :D

As for Will's murder-suicide attempt, I like what Bryan said once: "I think one of the reasons it seemed so organic for Will to go over the cliff with Hannibal at the end was that, in his mind, as he understood the universe in his world, he had peaked. It’s also stopping a monster and stopping himself from becoming a monster, but I think part of him was thinking, “That was beautiful. I don’t think I can do that again and feel as high as I do now.” Everything overwhelmed him and he went over that cliff because there was an apex to his experience, in a way that was poetic and dramatic. ... The kind of suicide where somebody jumps off a bridge, part of them hopes they survive and part of them wants to be over."

Will gave the fate the last chance to stop himself and Hannibal, knowing that if they live, they would be monsters together. He knows there is no way back for him now, that normal life will never work for him, so he's willing to either die or live with Hannibal by his side. He chose pushing them off because it gave them both a good chance to survive (Hannibal told him before that there are no rocks there). If he wanted to protect the world and kill them, he could always shoot Hannibal and then himself. He chose something more poetic and ambiguous.

Bryan called this action of Will his last heroic deed. I wouldn't say it's actually heroic, but I like the overall message. This was the last ambiguously good thing Will did before fully Becoming and accepting his new, free life.

In S4, I expect to see him and Hannibal as a team. I expect some conflicts, but not about Will's darkness because this arc has reached its climax. But what would actually happen? No idea. Bryan's attitude worries me often because he gives different explanations and creates different pictures. There are so many thing he said about dark Will, Hannibal's soulmate, but then he also often tried to justify him and make him look more vulnerable and much better than he is.

So, I believe Will would never struggle with his darkness again; I think, since Bryan is usually consistent in his writing, that he wouldn't make Will suddenly agonize over the same resolved conflict. But what he would do in reality? I don't know, and it's one of the reasons why I'm wary of the potential S4. If I hate something, it's character regression.

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 07 part two

(Masterpost)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Lantern Lighting

Now we have the famous lantern scene, where everybody gets to express their character and have dates, ranging from disastrous to delightful, with the objects of their affection. 

Wei Wuxian continues to be ridiculously good at drawing. 

We’ve all seen Lan Wangji’s lovely first smile in the show a million times, so...let’s look at it again!

This scene is important not just because of the smile, but because there’s a distinct shift in the way they talk about their growing relationship. In the pond, it was “come visit me” and “never!” “I want to be your friend” “No need.” Basically Lan Wangji firmly saying no to Wei Wuxian’s offers of friendship.

This time, Wei Wuxian says “let’s do this together” and Lan Wangji says “I’m used to being alone,” which is not actually a No, just an explanation. And WWX says, you can change that. And then Lan Wangji DOES change it, sharing the lantern and the promise with Wei Wuxian.

Whoever painted this flower is even better than Wei Wuxian at plein air painting. 

(more after the cut!)

Everybody’s wishes

Nie Huasang makes a practical wish. Wen Qing prays for her brother and Jiang Cheng notices how she’s like Yanli. Jiang Cheng isn’t very intense about Wen Qing, which could be a sign of his shyness but could also be a sign of his gayness or aceness. After all, later in life he’s an apparently wealthy clan leader who is hot as fuck, and needs an heir, since his nephew is a Jin. But he’s still not married, 16 years after breaking up with and uh, helping to kill and cremate, the girl he liked in summer school.

The Promise We Made Together

Wei Wuxian makes an ultra-idealistic wish/promise while Lan Wangji watches and falls the rest of the way in love with him, and silently makes the same pledge inside his head. Later they will each refer to this as a promise they made together, which is a really super high level of face-reading by Wei Wuxian, to understand that he really is speaking for both of them here.  While making this promise, Lan Wangji brings out his Yin Iron Magic Bag and waves it around in front of everyone, but nobody notices. 

Let’s take a moment to consider *why* this moment is so powerful for Lan Wangji. Lan Wangji is a boy whose emotions are always on the boil. He’s 100% upset all the time, at this age, and he keeps it clamped down all the time. His cultivation level is probably as high as it is partly because of all the work he does in emotion regulation. (note: if you haven’t read all the meta at @howpeacefulislwj​ , go read it; it’s awesome and hilarious)

Wei Wuxian doesn’t GAF about emotion regulation; he just expresses what he feels, all the damn time. 

He is openly bored, lusty, playful, hungry, whiny. He straight up tells Lan Wangji “you’re boring and you have a stick up your ass” as part of saying he wants to be friends; no deference and also no falseness.  

And he can see right through Lan Wangji’s reserve, barging into his loneliness and isolation without any regard for all of his wards. Wards are made to be broken.

(Unrelated note: Young Lan Wangji's rare moments of contentment seem to come from looking at something beautiful--the moon, falling petals, these lanterns, his mirror.)

But Wei Wuxian is also good. Lan Wangji desperately wants to be good. And here’s Wei Wuxian embodying this awful, amazing, tempting alternative path, in which all the interesting things in life get explored thoroughly, all the sweetness and beauty gets consumed unreservedly, all the pain and ugliness gets confronted and endured without hesitation. 

In this moment, Wei Wuxian tells Lan Wangji “you can change,” and then offers up this prayer/promise that is just pure chivarly, speaking straight to Lan Wangji’s heart. Very simply, I want to spend my life doing right. Not 3500 rules; just one.

This infuriating boy, who breaks rules and who flirts indiscriminately and who pushes and pushes and pushes, reveals himself in this moment to be a hero at the beginning of his journey, and Lan Wangji sees it, and his heart goes right over the cliff.

The Girls’ Room

The girl cultivators all rush over to Yanli to get in her business about her betrothal, inspiring Jin Zixuan to act like a jerk to her and get even further onto Wei Wuxian’s bad side. 

Talk Shit, Get Hit

Yanli’s wish was that Wei Wuxian would grow up and be good. He promptly launches his own personal Sunshot campaign, punching her fiancee so hard that the sun falls out of the sky and the previously well-lit scene transitions to full night.

So, in English, “don’t mention it again” is really mild, akin to “I don’t want to talk about it.” Wei Wuxian’s reaction makes it seem like Jin Zixuan said something really shitty, like “don’t you dare mention that woman to me!” So I’m assuming something is being lost in translation. 

Lan Wangji tries to calm him down. He grabs Wei Wuxian’s sexy arm muscle and basically holds it until the Jiangs exit the scene. 

Nie Huaisang has placed himself between the opposing factions, which is unusually direct of him. In the future he’ll stick to being an unindicted co-conspirator when Wei Wuxian starts trouble. 

Ants in my Pants

Lan Wangji thinks kneeling can make Wei Wuxian cry, which is adorable of him. 

He really relishes this opportunity to be a pedantic tool to his new boyfriend that annoying boy he hardly ever touches, and it really doesn’t work out for him, poor lamb.

Jiang Fengmian stops by to show exactly how deep his affection for Wei Wuxian runs, and to give him whiplash from constantly changing parental expectations. In a couple of hours he’ll be laughing over WWX & JC’s hijinks.

Wei Wuxian takes this opportunity to fantasize about bad things happening to the other boy in the fight, which is in no way foreshadowing of anything.

Douche Dads Conference

We now convene this meeting of the douchebag council. Jiang Cheng is also invited even though he’s a prick, not a douche. <--important distinction

This is our first time meeting Clan Leader Jin Guangshan. He's actually the most sensible and best parent in this scene, but his smug self-satisfaction hints at his true nature. This actor, Shen Xiaohai, has been active in cdramas for a long while now. I wonder what he looked like 15 years ago?

...Holy mother of god.

Jiang Fengmian is the worst dad and the worst husband here. His clan believes in letting children do what they want - uhh YOUR child wants to marry Jin Zixuan. “I wrote a letter to her mother, who arranged this marriage.” Uhhh she arranged for her sickly, low-cultivation-level, sweet and vulnerable child to marry the heir of a rich and powerful clan, with a powerful mother-in-law who’s looking forward to loving and protecting her. Basically she’s guaranteed her daughter’s safety and comfort, and even potential happiness, since her husband may learn to appreciate her (and in fact, does, thanks to soup and repeated beatings from WWX).

Mom worked hard and probably spent a fair amount of social capital to achieve this. And you’re going to toss that aside because the boy thinks he’s too good for her? What the everloving fuck, how are you a clan leader in the first place? 

You can see that Jiang Cheng understands all of this and what a terrible choice his father is making here. 

So do the other adults in the room.

Jin Guangshen: our wives are going to kill us

Lan Qiren: I'm looking at a couple of dead men

Jiang Fengmian pointedly won’t listen to Jiang Cheng or let him speak, showing that all his talk about being free is actually bullshit, that only applies to other people’s children.

Jiang Chang vaults off of the deck to tell Wei Wuxian about it. Hottt

Sorry Sis

Wei Wuxian goes to Jiang Yanli to sorta-apologize and sorta ask to be let off the hook for fucking up her engagement, which he absolutely did. He knows it, which is presumably why he bows to her in paperman form while hiding outside.

At no time has Jiang Yanli indicated to anyone that she doesn’t want to marry Jin Zixuan, as far as I can see, or said she wanted to be defended from insults with punching. Look how good SHE is at defending a person from insults, for comparison.

Yin Iron Blah Blah Blah

The senior Lans meet with Jiang Fengmian  to talk about the Yawn Yin Iron. Yawn. 

Jiang Fengmian addresses Lan Xichen as Lan Gongzi, which is adorable, since he is a big boy to everyone else. His family calls him Xichen and other people call him Zewu-Jun.

Farewell and Fuck You

The three Jiang kids come to say goodbye.

Lan Quiren says goodbye with a heap of criticism for Wei Wuxian and the horse he rode in on, and Jiang Fengmian basically says, yep, that’s what he’s like, all right.  

Good thing Wei Ying gets so much verbal abuse at home he doesn’t take it very hard when he finds it in the field. 

Wangji doesn’t say goodbye properly, which will be a recurring theme for the two of them.

I don’t know if this is because he has a problem with goodbyes, or is just being a jerk, or because he’s so bad at lying he doesn’t dare talk to Wei Wuxian lest he reveal his travel plans. 

Indulgent Dad Continues to be the Worst

Jiang Cheng complains at Wei Wuxian for wanting to say goodbye to Lan Wangji, and WWX says he likes him because he is equal to WWX in fighting, whereas JC sucks. JC hits him tries to hit him--gosh, he DOES suck, comparatively. 

Yanli, who has been keeping these boys in line all summer, sighs deeply at her Dad’s tolerance for their hijinks. OP has five brothers and this sibling-hijinks behavior is 100% accurate, except for the part where it is happening at someone else’s house in front of the hosts. 

WWX pretending to be Lan Qiren where Lan Wangji can see him doing it, in front of Lan Qiren’s colleague and supposed friend, and just earning a laugh from the patriarch? Good lord.  Dad Jiang tolerating this is shocking, particularly in the in-show culture where corporal punishment is as common as tea. 

We’ve tried Nothing, and we’re all out of ideas!

Uggghh why are you like this?

Here in the real world, OP uses “positive discipline” with her child, and encourages other parents to consider it, particularly if your child is neuroatypical or asynchronous.  That said, JF should be punishing the crap out of both boys for this behavior every time it happens, or should quit being a clan leader.  He’s relying on Jiang Yanli to keep them in line while he gets to just be amused by them. And he’s letting Lan Qiren discipline Wei Wuxian instead of doing it himself. He suuuuuuucks. 

Lan Wangji watches all of this. Lan Xichen reminds Lan Wangji that without Wei Wuxian, he’s completely fucking miserable. Lan Wangji still doesn’t plan to bring him along on his trip, though.

Time to return to our lives of crushing loneliness

Rabbits

At this same moment when Lan Wangji is staring down the barrel of future loneliness, Wei Wuxian is already deciding to leave the (forbidden) rabbits in Cloud Recesses “In case Lan Zhan gets lonely.”  This small decision by Wei Wuxian - breaking the rules of Cloud Recesses for the millionth time - is kinder than he knows. Because what is the job of these rabbits? Let’s have a desaturated flashback. 

Lan Zhan spent 3 years in the ice cave. The rabbits kept Lan Yi company in the ice cave. So...did the rabbits sneak in to keep Lan Wangji company in the ice cave as well? I’m going to say yes. By ep 43 they are following him to the gate of Cloud Recesses so they are very attached to him.  Well done, Wei Ying.

Where my bitches at? Seriously, our warren needs bitches

(Is Watership Down still a thing people read? If not, just go ahead and assume all of OP’s rabbit jokes are about Watership Down because OP ain’t going to stop making them)

While Wei Wuxian annoys the bunny he has a flashback to the scene that happened 4 minutes earlier. The Untamed editors assume the viewership has the attention span of a goldfish, and I personally appreciate that they understand me so well.

Wei Wuxian figures out that Lan Wangji is going on the road alone, and tells the bunny immediately. The bunny is very concerned.

Writing Prompt: What do next-generation cultivators Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi wish for at lantern-lighting time?

[hermits-that-craft]

In My Dream (Will You Remember Me?)

Flower Husbands Fic - Chapter Six - Can You See It In My Eyes (Am I Finally Awake?)

Ao3 in the comments

“Good morning Lizzie!” Gem says, gliding to the ground. “What are you doing?”

“Checking in on Jimmy, he was upset when we left last night.” Lizzie replies, wringing out her wet hair. “I want to make sure he isn’t angry with me, Joel and Pixl can solve this themselves.”

“Jimmy’s harmless, though?” 

“Not if he has access to glitter.” Lizzie stares off into the distance, and Gem winces sympathetically. Lizzie knows that Gem also has brothers, and though Jimmy is not Lizzie’s twin he is her younger brother.

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Gem says, patting her back. 

“Why are you here?” Lizzie asks, curiously. 

“I wanted to ask if he’s had any nightmares recently.” Gem admits. “I have a… Theory.”

“Well, let's go together.” Lizzie offers, smiling brightly. “He should be up by now.”

Lizzie and Gem walk side by side, silently taking in the area. Citizens mill about, trading produce and laughing. Young children run around with cookies and cakes as their parents discuss produce with farmers in their stalls. A young person busks on the side of the road, and an old woman puts some coins into their violin case.

The sun shines bright over the cod empire, a good day for families and emperors alike.

Lizzie pulls a key out of her pocket, unlocking the door to Jimmy’s house. Gem shivers uncomfortably - where are the guards? Who protects the Codfather while he sleeps? - and enters the high ceilinged house.

“I’ll get him up.” Lizzie says, after a moment of silence. “If you want to sit at the table.”

Gem sits at the table, looking around the house. It’s quaint, the only indication that royalty lives here being a picture of Jimmy and Lizzie as children, their hands covered in paint. An azure bullet sits in a pot on his table, clearly a gift from someone, and very well taken care of.  If Gem had to say anything about the house, she would say that it’s like any other house in Jimmy’s empire. Humble, with high ceilings to trap the heat, and little to no special privileges granted just for being the ruler.

It’s so rooted in his empire that Gem feels uncomfortable, out of place in the humble abode. No wonder Jimmy shows up to meetings with dirt on his shoes - he lives among his people, not above them. Her wizard tower is a work of art, but Jimmy’s house is a proof of life.

A shriek from Lizzie sends Gem running into Jimmy’s room, ignoring her previous discomfort. Hopefully Jimmy is masked, she’s never seen his face and she doesn’t want to look at it without his permission.

Jimmy’s lying on his bed, almost as though he were asleep, but his eyes...

His eyes are wide open, glowing a bright, unnatural white as something akin to tears drip down his face. He has no iris, no pupils, nothing but glowing white and unnatural tears. His mouth moves, silently pleading with a disinterested god. 

“What is this?” Gem says, her hands over her mouth. A curse? Or something worse, something that makes Sausage right, something that puts the kindhearted Codfather in a type of danger he won't survive?

“It’s something.” Lizzie says, shaking. “Used to be normal for his nightmares, stopped when he turned 16 though, unless he’s been lying about it.”

“This isn’t normal.” Gem says, shaking her head. She wants to look away, she has to look away. Jimmy doesn’t show his face, not to anyone. Gem is intruding.

“I need you to hold him down.” Lizzie swallows. “I’m going to wake him up, but I need you to hold him down.”

“Why?” Gem asks, standing next to the bed.

“Because if he doesn’t fully wake up, he’ll kill me.” Lizzie swallows. “Jimmy’s nightmares don’t make him the peaceful codboy we all love, Gem.”

Gem nods, swallowing nervously as she holds Jimmy’s shoulders down. Lizzie pours a small amount of water onto Jimmy’s face, making him scream. His eyes stretch wider open, glowing bright before they slam shut. Lizzie steps back, pulling Gem away. Lizzie gestures to the door, and Gem walks out it, though she watches through a crack in it. Jimmy sits up, and Lizzie sits down on the bed, silently looking at him. Nothing moved. Noone spoke. 

“I died.” Jimmy says, shattering the unnerving silence that filled the home. “My husband and I died.”

“Okay Jimmy.” Lizzie says softly.

“Why am I back? I was on my red life.” Jimmy says, disjointed. “He should be back, he was only on green. Where is he?”

“Jimmy-”

“Who are you? Where am I?”

“I am your sister, Lizzie. You are currently in the cod empire, which is the newest empire in this world. You founded it in a swamp that connects to the ocean, so we could visit each other easily.” Lizzie takes a deep breath in, before smiling. “You’re in your bedroom.”

“Lizzie.” Jimmy frowns for a moment, before realisation flashes before his eyes. “That wasn’t real, was it?”

“It wasn’t.” Lizzie nods, solemnly. “You were having a nightmare.”

“It felt real.” Jimmy’s hand touches his neck, a broken look on his face. “I heard him scream - he sounded so familiar.”

“Are you back with us?” Lizzie asks, her voice and face carefully blank.

“I think so?” Jimmy doesn’t sound certain. “I… I have a meeting today, don’t I?”

“You should probably cancel that.” Lizzie says softly. “Gem’s come to visit, do you want to meet with her?”

“She’s the wizard?”

“Yes.” Lizzie nods, smiling. “She is the wizard. Lives at the crystal cliffs.”

“I need a mask first.” Jimmy says, and Gem backs away from the door.

She shouldn’t have witnessed that. She shouldn’t have eavesdropped. It wasn’t just rude of her, it was downright cruel. Invasive, even. If Lizzie found out, she could easily declare war. So could Jimmy.

Though, if news got out about Jimmy’s nightmares, it could lead to the cod empire losing their ruler.

Lizzie’s dealt with the nightmares, with the glowing before, but this isn’t normal. Cursed nightmares don’t cause glowing - screaming, yes, and forgetting who you are occasionally - but not glowing. This isn’t a curse. 

Maybe Sausage was right. Maybe, for some reason, Aoer chose Jimmy. Gullible, naive, caring Jimmy to be his champion. Jimmy, who’s fighting skills leave much to be desired and whose empire would not be able to save him if he were to be forced into war. Aoer chose the weakest of them to shoulder the responsibilities of the world.

Jimmy, to potentially die in battle against an enemy that holds no love for anyone.

“Goodmorning Gem.” Jimmy says, walking into the living room. Gem jumps, forcefully taken out of her thoughts.

“Goodmorning, Codfather.” Gem says, smiling lightly. His cod head is crooked and tufts of blonde hair poke out of the base, but he doesn’t seem tired.

Though that could be because she can’t see his face.

“Did you have a reason to be here? I’m sure you know that the nightmares are back, and it would be a lie to say that I’m not tired right now.” Jimmy admits, rubbing the back of his neck.

“I don’t believe that it’s a curse.” Gem says, and Lizzie walks in. “However, I can’t say for certain that it wasn’t placed on you from a supernatural entity.”

“So it could be a curse.”

“Not one given by a mortal.” Gem rebuts. “A demon, potentially. A god, even.”

“I’ve been experiencing this since I was a child, who could I have pissed off that bad?” Jimmy wonders. “What demon could I have offended as a kid?”

“I don’t know.” Gem lies. “I’m sorry, I can look into it further.”

“Thank you.” Jimmy says. “But don’t stress yourself out too much. It’ll go away.”

“When?” Gem asks, frowning slightly.

“The last time it went away in six years, so…” Jimmy smiles. “Here’s hoping it’s sooner.”

“Take care of yourself, Jimmy.” Gem says, walking out of the humble house. 

She needs to look into the great stag war. She needs to know what happened afterwards.

---

“Why are you here, Lizzie?” Jimmy asks, sitting down at the table.

“I’m here to apologise for last night.” Lizzie turns on the kettle, taking two mugs out of the cupboard. “You stole my favourite mug.”

“You left it here - anyways you don’t need to apologise. Pixl was the one who lied to me, and something was going to happen at the ball anyways.” Jimmy shrugs. 

“Do you have any plans for the day? And don’t you dare say you’re going to sit through a meeting.” Lizzie pours the boiling water into the cups, watching carefully as the tea brews.

“I was thinking of checking the docks, making sure that they’re up to code.” Jimmy takes his mug off her, taking a sip before adding some sugar. “How do you always make it bitter?”

“Why do you only drink tea if it has a kilogram of sugar in it?” Lizzie sticks her tongue out at him.

“Two sugar cubes is not a kilogram.” Jimmy grumbles as he puts a third one into his tea.

“Anyways, I really like your idea. The docks have lots of people on them - you should go by the fried cod vendor, it smells devine.”

“I’m assuming you’re leaving soon?” Jimmy asks, not looking up from his tea.

“I have to.” Lizzie says. “I barely got away with coming here this morning. But!” She winks at her brother. “I have decided to take the weekend off of queenly duties to have a much needed picnic with my little brother.”

“Will you bring fried calamari?” Jimmy asks.

“I think I’d lose an arm if I didn’t.” Lizzie laughs. “Sure, I’ll bring you some fried calamari.”

“Yes!” Jimmy says, and Lizzie laughs. She stands up, taking her mug over to the sink.

“I’m taking this mug back on the weekend, okay?” Lizzie says, and Jimmy laughs, slightly too dark for Lizzie’s tastes.

“What are you planning?”

“Does Joel have a favourite mug?” Jimmy asks, and Lizzie pulls out her best insulted actress gasp.

“No! You couldn’t try to ruin my marriage like this!”

“Oh but I could!” Jimmy wheezes. “See you on the weekend.”

“See you then!” Lizzie says, waving as she walks out of the door. 

She can see Jimmy through the window. He’s staring at the azure bullet that Scott gave him, his head resting on one of his hands as he finishes his cup of tea. He’s too used to the nightmares, too ready to get into the day. It’s concerning - he shouldn’t have to deal with the nightmares to the point that no one would be able to tell that something’s wrong.

Lizzie gets off the veranda, walking on the road towards the ocean. Fireworks alert her to someone overhead, and as she turns to greet whoever lands - and tell them to leave Jimmy alone - she watches Scott land, brushing nonexistent dirt off of his cloak. 

A bouquet of flowers are tucked safely in his arms, and Lizzie lights up. Scott gives her a worried look as she gracefully storms over, a large grin on her face.

“Good luck!” She grins. “And for next time - Jimmy has a sweet tooth. Give him chocolates for eternal loyalty.

Scott blushes as Lizzie leaves, and Lizzie watches out of the corner of her eyes as he nervously looks at the house, not moving a step.

[vaguely-concerned]

The Mandalorian Chapter 12 rewatch thoughts

- I would like to thank them for keeping in din’s harried yet triumphant ‘hAH!!’ when he gets the explosives to stick to gideon’s ship in the ‘hey remember when this happened last season’ section, that was a nice gesture from the showrunners to me personally, I assume

- this episode actually helped me find more enjoyment in the last one, because it’s such a nice reassurance that even though they’re pulling in more stuff from other star wars media this show won’t suddenly stop being its own thing and mando won’t suddenly stop being himself and it’s very comforting to me somehow haha

- the small hesitation before din calls out “do you... do you have the wire?” lol lol lol he’s completely aware of the bizarreness of what he’s doing here but hey being alive is already so damn weird etc. 

the softness of his voice the whole way through and the fact that he never, never blames the baby for not being able to do what shouldn’t really be asked of him in the first place, tho... ;____;  

- the tiny exasperated head tilt din does when he realizes the hatch isn’t going to extend all the way fdslkfhasdlashfs  

- din is looking down at the baby the entire time while greef talks to the mechanics ❤️❤️❤️

(the baby seems pretty drawn to/excited to see greef again and mando seems to notice which is extremely cute. he’s becoming really good at tuning in with the kid) 

he also greets cara baby first in much the same way as he does peli, like he knows what the main attraction here is lol, they do a very sweet bro nod at each other. god I wish gina carano wasn’t so terrible imagine if we could just have this BrOTP without hesitations :( 

I think greef is actually a bit worried to begin with after seeing the ship, he sort of takes din in intently before he huffs a little laugh and grabs his arm. it must be a bit stressful to be his friend and not be able to see his expression right away when you worry something might be seriously wrong haha

- people are finally treating the baby like you would a real baby and it’s such a blessing, everyone talking and cooing at him and baby babbling back

(I wonder if greef has children of his own? he does have an undeniable air of experienced grandpa about him in this episode, it’s adorable)  

- din does so much talking -- unprompted, even! -- these days, it truly is an embarrassment of riches 

- capital E Emotional about this shot with IG-11 right behind din and cara inviting him into the school in front of him. some past carried with us into the future shit going on here  

IG-11′s legacy’s still got our back y’all :’) I swear to god if gideon blows up nevarro at some point I’m going to lose it 

the ‘oh yeah?/that so?’ way din leans his head back after she says “wait until you see inside” is also amazing

- baby reaching out his hand like ‘can have?’ is so polite ;______; he takes after his father (including in the ‘fool me twice, I’ll fuck you up’ department haha. listen you get one chance to be cool about it and then no more mr nice mando/baby)

-

go ahead, kid, make a fuss about it. who are you going to tell, huh? who’s going to believe you? you gonna tell them you got bested by a baby? a magic baby? no? that’s right. I took your dignity as easily as I took your macarons, there’s nothing you can do to change it, and now you gotta live with that. sweet dreams.

(this is a joke. the baby is not evil. I hate that I even have to specify this but I’ve seen some stupid shit in the tags in my time you guys haha) 

- I can’t work out what anything on greef’s desk is supposed to be, but if that’s a computer it’s got to be older than even the razor crest lol

- friends: din yes?

mando: din no, only repairs

friends: din yes please?

mando: ... [sigh] din yes 

he truly has next to no defense against people he actually likes asking him for something huh lol. well a self care co-op mission clearly did him a world of good in this one at least it’s all fine

- “I’m starting to dehydrate, Boss” is an excellent line and delivered perfectly, I cackle every time (”You park your gills right there until I say otherwise” is a good runner up too) 

- it’s so nice to see the small moments of communication between them in this one after mando was so out of sync with the team in the last one (and tbf those guys didn’t even try to give him any pointers at all, they really left him to flounder through the whole thing if you watch it carefully haha)

- the mythrol’s jacket still looks so comfy, I want one

- aaaaah the way din says “I don’t like this” is just so... hnnngh it’s perfect, there’s a vulnerability and openness to it for a moment. greef glances over at him like he hasn’t heard him sound like this before too, which just sells it even more

u ok bro?

you know shit’s fucked up when din djarin expresses an emotion without even being forced to by circumstance (I think what I mean is that it’s actually really rare for him to state how he feels about something just to do it, usually his communication is more practically oriented, more along ‘I think this is the best cause of action because of a and b’ lines, or like when he tells omera he’s grateful it’s... more to inform her of it and make sure she knows than to express himself? but he’s starting to do it more with people he trusts now and it gets me in the heart? man I’m finding this hard to articulate let’s move on lol)

- I really, really wonder about pershing’s position in all of this. his plea for the child’s life did sound genuine -- he did try to guard him with his own noodly scientist body when he thought din was out to hurt him, remember -- but is that only because he knows he’s in deep shit himself without the blood the baby can give? is he maybe not quite cool with whatever gideon has him doing? (he does sound quite strained when he talks about the ‘body’ rejecting the transfusion and the ‘volunteer’ potentially suffering the same fate... hm.)

idk why I want there to be something redeemable in him so bad, maybe it’s just my weird yet enduring attachment to ladon radim in stargate atlantis messing with me they’re kind of similar in some ways (yeah don’t ask me I don’t know either sometimes the heart wants what it wants in ways reason can’t explain)

- tfw ur literally launching yourself across a pool of boiling lava because you’re Dad and your baby’s in danger T__________T he just does not stop running towards that kid for even a single second help

- there’s something so innocently pure and... old fashioned? about the scene with mythrol and greef screaming the entire time they drive off the cliff, it feels like something out of a movie from like three decades ago. that whole segment feels a bit like that, it’s just there to be fun and that’s okay sometimes

- every dog fight in every movie should have a baby nonchalantly snacking on a cookie in them, it elevates the experience immeasurably (he squishes his nose a little bit with the macaron when he misses his mouth at one point, which is more than anyone should be expected to bear honestly)

I love that even all fixed up again the razor crest groans and creaks like an old tired thing when din makes it flip to dive, he 100% did take out a bunch of ferraris in his stalwart morris minor of a spaceship and I treasure him     

- there’s so much life and emotion in din’s voice here I can’t!!!! I simply can’t!!!! imagine if we get to hear him openly laugh one day, would I even survive it??!!!!

 also the kid makes such pitch perfect ‘having my lil nose wiped and whining about it’ baby noises when din uses his cape to clean him up (din does turn the autopilot on before he turns around to deal with it, for those who, like me, worry about these things) 

- between carson showing up and the stuff the droid talks about in the lesson they’re doing quite a bit of outer rim vs. core worlds theme building in this one, I wonder if this is going to ramp up more or what

- god but gideon’s theme SLAPS tho 

he’s probably going to try to fuck up everything I love but you can’t fault him on the tunes he’s going to do it to 

[arlingtonpark]

SNK 134 Review

Thank you. Thank you so much. This means so much to me.

(Ofc this chapter is called “In the Depths of Despair.”)

Sigh.

So, I guess I have to have an opinion on this chapter now.

For a while there, it looked like SNK had made the right choice.

Eren was the asshole. He was insubordinate, ungrateful, uncooperative, and above all else, a fucking sociopath. Cool, got it. One and done.

But then his friends started talking about how it was really their fault he’s doing this.

Ok, that’s fine. They’re desperate to stop him, so they’re just saying whatever they think will ingratiate themselves with Eren and help talk him down. Dynamics like that are very common in abusive relationships.

Now we arrive at this chapter, where even random people are saying Eren is a victim *as he is murdering them!*

It is patently absurd that Eren is having a warranted or natural or reasonable reaction to what he’s been through.

If Eren were a better person, he would have known that mass murder against the Eldians was wrong because mass murder is wrong. Unfortunately, Eren is a fundamentally amoral person. The only moral compass he has to guide him is a childish belief in “you hit me, so I get to hit you.”

He’s said as much on multiple occasions. He has said, “If someone tries to take my freedom away, I will take their freedom away.”

Instead of being the better man and ending the killing, his solution was to kill more people than them, faster and on a larger scale.

I think the clearest picture of Eren’s worldview was given when he spoke to Historia. He said the only way to end the cycle of violence was to destroy the whole world.

That is Eren’s deeply felt belief: there can be no peace or coexistence; the only way to win is to be the last man standing.

This mindset is so natural to him that he will even kill his friends for opposing him.

He told them that they were free to oppose him, and he was free to fight back. That’s how he justifies killing them to himself. They have the choice to oppose him, so if he fights back and kills them, it’s their fault they died, not his, because they could have made the choice to flee and live, but decided to stand and die.

In reality, the alliance is fulfilling a moral duty to protect life, while Eren is an asshole who has killed billions.

The series wasn’t kind to Eren about that. He was depicted as a cheering child as he murdered everyone. The Rumbling was not white washed either. The take away was obviously that Eren’s decision was not the product of a sound mind.

And yet.

Now I have to wonder if the series is seriously trying to say the Rumbling embodies some form of justice.

There are multiple layers to this issue, so let’s start at the surface level.

So in what is obviously a ham-fisted attempt by Isayama to lecture the audience about morality, a Random Commander Guy filibusters about the ills cast by the Marleyans on the Eldians and how this has rebounded back at them.

It is generally considered good writing for characters to get their just desserts. If someone sells drugs to kids, you expect something bad to happen to them. If someone helps a kid cross the street, you expect something good to happen to them.

What’s different between a generic case of just desserts in a story and this chapter in SNK is that the dessert is typically delivered through some nebulous, karmic force, rather than a vengeful twerp with God-like powers.

When the drug dealer’s car blows up, it’s karmic fate, not revenge.

The car doesn’t blow up because one of the kids devoted his life to exacting revenge, it’s because the car just blows up for no reason, or because something completely unrelated to the dealer causes a bomb to be planted in the car, or the dealer brought it on themselves by getting caught up with terrorists.

People may or may not deserve to suffer, but it’s fine to show people suffering if you’re just trying to make a point about how people should act.

Eren’s a different case. For several reasons.

To help untangle why, let’s think about the death penalty.

The death penalty is an example of retributive justice. Put simply, it’s the idea that retribution can be morally just.

The Rumbling is immoral precisely because it is something a supporter of retributive justice would emphatically NOT support.

Most supporters of the death penalty would justify it as an act by a legitimate societal authority. Eren is not that.

Eren is not an authority figure. He does not speak for the Eldian people and has no right to exact this genocide on their behalf. No one made him King of the Eldians. It’s not his place to decide what’s in the Eldian’s best interest.

Also, killing people because “it’s what the scumbag deserves” is usually justified because it’s a sentence for a crime handed down in a legal process.

Rights can be taken away, but not arbitrarily. Transparency is an important part of this. Acts that are a crime are public knowledge, as well as the prescribed punishments. The criminal law is also supposed to apply to everyone equally, not selectively. To say nothing of the law itself being duly enacted by a legitimate governmental authority.

The same principles apply to the process by which a right is taken away. The process must be laid out in a law that was duly enacted by a legitimate government authority, applies to everyone, and is publicly known.

Eren’s process, of *fucking* course, is nothing like this. Eren has no legitimate authority. He’s a Guy With an Opinion who bumbled into attaining absolute power, and now he’s acting on that Opinion.

He not the government punishing a convict. He’s a guy with a gun shooting people he doesn’t like. The Rumbling is not just retribution, it’s just murder.

Commander Guy says that if they knew this would happen, they would have acted differently.

That’s a good point.

Why the fuck do they deserve to die, then?

To some extent, everyone’s worse impulses are kept in check by the knowledge that there will be consequences if they act rashly.

But it’s not just that.

Laws are public knowledge for a reason: it’s fair. If you know your act is a crime and that performing said act will result in a certain punishment, then by committing the act anyway you have tacitly accepted whatever punishment will be meted out.

The moral onus is placed on you.

This is why knowledge that you are committing a crime is necessary to be convicted of a crime.

In principle, the case with the Marleyans is the same. Is it fair to punish someone for an act they did not know would carry that punishment? No.

They may know the act was immoral, but that is not the same thing as knowing it will lead directly to their death.

And needless to say, but you only deserve to be punished for an act if you deserve to be punished for that act. The Marleyans do not deserve to be punished for that act.

There are multiple ways a wrong can be righted. There are punitive ways, in which the perpetrator is harmed outright. There are also restorative ways, in which the victim is compensated for the harm done to them, usually at the expense of the perpetrator.

I have already explained why Eren lacks the authority to pass judgement on the world, and that the process by which he made his decision was completely illegitimate, but it needs to be said that this punishment is totally improper in itself.

Wiping out humanity is purely punitive. To use the obvious analogy, I don’t think any sane person would argue white people deserve to be punished for racism. Supporters of racial justice usually talk about restorative, rather than punitive, forms of justice, like reparations.

The Rumbling does not make the Eldians whole again. It does not restore their trampled dignity. It is purely an act of vengeance.

Casting it as some kind of deserving retribution is crazy.

Oh, and, you know, suffering is bad, so retributive justice is wrong even disregarding everything I just said.

You could theoretically believe life is a miracle, but that people forfeit that right if they act wrongly…it’s not something many people would support.

If Dino!Eren had been depicted as a random force of nature that visited ruination upon humanity, we could have potentially gotten a good story about how hatred leads to no good outcomes. Like how Godzilla is a metaphor for the ills of nuclear weapons.

Instead we get a nihilistic tale about two sides punching each other until one keels over dead. And somehow the one that keels over deserved it.

What makes it nihilistic is that you could easily reverse it. What if right before Eren destroys Fort Salta, aliens invade the Earth and help the Marleyans.

Now the Eldians are on the verge of annihilation and *Eldian* Commander Guy gets his turn to say “Woe is us who surrendered to hate. We deserve this.”

There is no right side or wrong side. No deserving side or innocent side. The Eldians were cheering for genocide the same as the Marleyans. The difference is the Eldians had a God on their side.

The morality of this series is just all over the place.

The Alliance and Eren are equally sinful, but now Eren is an agent of karmic destiny and his victims “deserve it.”

There isn’t much to talk about this chapter besides that.

Armin still hopes to take Eren alive, but good luck with that.

Eren can manifest other titans from his body, which is cool I guess, though it’s pretty clear this power only exists to give the Alliance things to fight.

There were a lot of allusions to parenthood this chapter. The baby and the cliff. Reiner’s mom realizing how shitty she’s been. Historia’s pregnancy. The Commander Guy saying it’s the fault of “us adults.” The numerous shots emphasizing the kids at Fort Salta.

Child abuse is a common theme of SNK. And not just parental abuse, but societal abuse, too. Children are the victims of individual foibles and broader social ills, like racism and police brutality.

The cycle of violence at the heart of the series’ conflict is bad for everyone, but the story emphasizes that it is bad for children in particular. It harms them, and leads to a world that is worse off for them.

If there’s one takeaway from SNK, it’s that we should think of the children. Adults shouldn’t just take care of their kids, they should fix broader social issues, if not for themselves then for the children’s sake.

It’s a fucking insult.

Historia’s pregnancy is all but confirmed here. There’s no way it’s fake. There may have been motive to fake being pregnant, but there is no fucking way she’d have a reason to fake *birth*.

I always leaned towards the pregnancy being real, so that didn’t get to me. What gets me is that Historia is just…there. On Paradis. On the sidelines.

Not only was Historia, who is the only likable female character in this show now, impregnated, she’s also been MIA most the last two story arcs.

I had thought Isayama was saving her for the finale. Surely, Isayama understands that if you sideline a major character for no reason, they have to come into play at some point, I thought. Surely.

Characters are tools; they exist to be used. So use them.

But no, it seems Historia is legit not going to be a thing in this final battle. My dreams of the domineering boss saving the day are dashed.

But what really messes with me is how shafted Historia has been since basically the end of the Uprising Arc.

Historia’s only contribution to the plot after Uprising, but before the pregnancy was making the disastrous decision to make the truth of the world public, which paved the way for Paradis society to become radicalized and back Eren’s coup.

She has done nothing other than that.

Obviously her pregnancy will have thematic importance, but at this point the best Historia stans can hope for is that she’s the main character in the epilogue.

I’ve always assumed the pregnancy was the product of a loving relationship. For all his incompetence with Historia, I was willing to assume Isayama would not force her to carry a forcibly impregnated child to term.

And you know that even if the child is the product of rape, Historia will still have to say she loves and accepts them as her child and will raise them lovingly, with no regard or acknowledgement of the trauma of having to raise a child born out of her being raped.

Because the theme of the story.

All life is a miracle.

All children deserve to be loved.

Even if it was rape.

Except it’s more complicated than that, and I’m terrified to think that Isayama may not understand that.

So for now, I choose to presume that Historia is pregnant because she loves someone, decided to have a family with them, and we’re being led to believe she was raped for shock value.

But arguably more important is what this means for the queer audience.

Historia’s first love interest was another woman.

She’s queer. A lesbian. A dyke. What have you.

Now you’re telling me she either loves a man, or was not only raped, but has to love and accept the child that results from that trauma?

And for what?

So we can end the manga on a speech by Historia moralizing about the value of posterity?

Historia stands at the nexus of two subjects in this manga: the value of posterity and the denigration of queer people.

It is very homophobic of this series to pair a queer character with a dude to affirm a message about the value of children and motherhood.

As if queer people can’t have children.

We seem to be headed down that path.

It didn’t have to be like this.

Queer people can have children through artificial insemination. And artificial insemination is conceivable with Paradis’ current level of technological development.

Isayama is choosing to do this because queer people are not a part of his vision of a world where people, especially children, are able to live free.

That’s very sad, because it shows how empty SNK’s morals are.

So who’s the slave here?

Who here is truly free?

The ones who are free are the ones who aren’t reading Attack on Titan anymore.

[azurevi]

on land where we can touch the moon (2/?)

PART 1 PART 3

A quick note- this is pretty messy. I'm planning as I write, so there'll be information scattered across the words, and it may be overwhelming...kinda. I have added a little note about what happened in this chapter in the end. This series is also up on ao3.

There is, naturally, a reason Azul was stuck with the name 'The Sea Merchant'.

It wasn't a bad name, and there was no hint of degradation in it. It just wasn't particularly suiting. Azul wasn't a merchant. He wasn't even a shopkeeper. He was just invested in a little magic, and this hobby of his got leaked out somehow. 

His magic was certainly something. It's A Deal allowed him to confiscate another person's valued quality in exchange for their wish. Anything could come to life as long as the deal was equal.

Only the drunk and people in desperate need of help ever went to him for help. After Azul had started mastering his magic, he reckoned that it hadn't been used to its full potential. If the person on the other side of the deal failed to meet the requirement, Azul could take even more from them without suffering any loss. 

And so he sugarcoated and exaggerated his words, put up the most professional smile he could manage. For a few weeks all was well. He'd gained himself a melodious voice, splendid flexibility and a ton of unique magics, but nothing great ever lasted. He was soon exposed as a scammer and his notoriety was whispered among the streets, passed on and on until every family warned their kids not to ever run into him. And Azul, with his fame and prosperity wilting under the gossip and points of fingers, was forced into giving up his success.

He had been in hiding ever since.

He could never understand how something as atrocious could happen to him. If it hadn't been for the sneers and isolation in the entirety of his childhood, he wouldn't have grown up hating everything and everyone around him that called him ugly, unwanted, repulsive. It should've justified his desire for revenge.

Instead, God decided that his suffering was not anywhere close to enough and kicked him down the cliff where he was crying for help.

That being said, Azul was grateful to have Jade and Leech sticking around after everything. The two of them were also unpopular among others, so they eventually got close as a tight-knitted trio.

"No you didn't," Jade said firmly. 

"I did, Jade. I did," Azul sighed, "They were dying, Jade, I couldn't just let them die,"

"Well, you should've."

"Don't be so uptight. Azul was doing the right thing, wasn't he?" Floyd winked. "So. Were they good-looking?"

"What?"

"The human. You must've saved them for a reason,"

Azul hated how Floyd's words implied that he would never do good unless there was something in it for him, but one could never lie in the face of truth. 

"I just didn't want to let them die. It was their birthday,"

"What does that have to do with everything?" Jade asked. "You went above the water. You saved a human. You were almost caught. You could've died up there, you know. How did you even manage to breathe?"

"I just… did." Azul said, twirling his tentacles in nervousness. Jade was entirely disapproving of his actions, while Floyd on the contrary seemed to be mildly intrigued. 

Everything still felt like a fever dream. All the fireworks and cheering and explosion were still vividly scorched into his mind as if they'd been put on repeat. The splendid colors, light giggles and- 

And those beautiful eyes of yours. The way your hair flowed in the night sky with ease, how you laughed like tomorrow was promised and your life had been planned out before you, a clear and untainted path to success. Azul couldn't decide on whether he was jealous or amazed.

"Well, you better hope they didn't really see you, or that they forgot about it. If the humans come down here to hunt us down-" Jade couldn't even bear to finish the imagination. He simply shook his head in dismay.

"I swear I saw someone! I couldn't have just been washed ashore!"

"Apparently, you were," Jack said, stroding with large steps that had you panting to keep up. "Near-death experiences do things to our mind, your majesty,"

"That may be the case for others, but I'm sure I was conscious," you retorted. "I woke up to a pair of pale, azure eyes, then in a blink they were behind the rock. If it hadn't been for you-"

"I apologize for worrying about you, your majesty."

You bit your tongue. Fighting with Jack always ended with him being passive-aggressive and you stepping back reluctantly. Plus he was as stern as a rock. Almost nothing could move his belief.

Shouting and grunting could be heard from inside the medical room where Ace, Deuce and Grim were being tended to.

Jack flung open the door, and the three stumbled to get into the blankets and put on a excruciated expression.

"I see you're all healed up," Jack said. Ace hummed lowly and slapped his forehead with the back of his hand. 

"I'm at death's door, commander. It pains me to say this, but I might need to take more days off,"

Jack was quiet for a while, and you could almost see a drop of sweat sliding down Ace's forehead.

"And you, Deuce?" Jack challenged.

"I'm traumatized," 

"And Grim?"

You arched your brow, at which he shivered in fear. "I- I'm feeling fine already,"

"So it's just Ace and Deuce, right?" Jack said. Ace and Deuce nodded their heads so hard they could fall off.

"Alright. Your health is of utmost importance to us, so I'll contact the Raven Healer…"

"The what?!" Deuce's voice croaked.

"The Raven Healer. Surely you've heard of him. He's best known for being able to treat any diseases, both mentally and physically,"

You were sure there were sweats rolling down Ace's cheeks now. "But- but doesn't he heal by using bizzare mediciness…?"

"Oh yes. His magic is what makes him such an infallible doctor. You two seem to be in a lot of pain. I'm sure he'll free you of your suffering."

You turned sharply towards the door and stifled a laughter. 

"That's… not very necessary…" Deuce's voice faltered word by word. He was fully aware that he'd already lost. "You know what, commander? I think I can dive back into work right this instant!"

Jack smirked smugly. "Splendid. And you, Ace?"

The two of them stared at each other so intensely there seemed to be sparkles between them. Finally, Ace gave in. "I'll start work tomorrow,"

They didn't even wait for Jack to walk completely out of the door to whine. They looked fully healthy, even more energized than you.

"Anyways, did you find your saviour?"

You sighed. Ace and Deuce were still skeptical about your 'story', which you'd corrected to 'experience', but at least they were open-minded. 

"No clues. I've had guards patrolling about every two hours. Nothing has yet to happen,"

They eyed each other uneasily, then back at you with a worried face. Before they could make assumptions, you defended yourself. "No, I'm not sick. My head's not concussed,"

"Well," Grim scurried to your lap. "Perhaps your saviour doesn't wish to be found?"

That'd be unwanted. You would wish for anything but to create troubles for your lifesaver. Nonetheless, you knew you wouldn't be able to sleep without sending your gratitude. 

Alright, there might be a selfish motif. You were admittedly curious about those light, pensive eyes and silvery, gleaming hair under sunlight. All these unknown were like a gravity pool, pulling you deeper and deeper into the mystery.

"Well, you ought not to lose hope," Ace patted your shoulder casually, like you weren't the princette of the kingdom he was serving for. "Maybe you'll actually run into him. Fate has a weird habit for setting unexpected traps."

It wasn't so much love as a tender curiosity, but the line segregating them was so flimsy that one's got to mix them up at some point.

Azul found himself in such a dilemma. He couldn't decide whether it was attraction or nosiness that he was feeling. Either way, it's got him hooked like a drug. Something beautiful had finally entered his life like light piercing through a thick fog of ink, and it was possessive. Azul had a feeling that it wouldn't go away until it had drained him of his mind.

The door to his room was thrown open and Azul had to hide the peeled petals and green stem in a jumble. He had been chanting 'they love me, they love me not' for the past hour. To his luck, Jade and Leech didn't seem to have noticed his haste expression. They were both panting when they swam inside.

"What's wrong?" Azul's first instinct was that something had gone south.

"There-" Floyd wheezed. "There's a sta-"

"There's a fallen statue in the Coral Maze," Jade finished the sentence. "People are fussing over it,"

"Okay," Azul eased back into his bed. He'd already lost interest at 'Coral Maze'. It was at the centre of where the majority of sea creatures inhabited. Nothing could make him go anywhere near civilization and its hubristic aesthetic again.

Or so he thought.

"No- you don't get it. It's a statue of a human that sank along with wreckages of a big ship, and it's made of gold,"

A statue made of gold.

He recalled it now. It was supposed to be your birthday present. The consternation of what followed the present revelation had been so intense that it'd washed the memory of the statue out.

"We just thought that it could be the statue you mentioned in your story, you know? It looked really grand…" Floyd sighed.

Azul wanted to get up and swim over right there, right then, but he knew he couldn't. What would others say to him the moment they saw the shadows of their tentacles crawling on their pure and oh-so royal ground? What accusations would they throw his way? How many children will be led away from him like he was some man-eating, brutal abomination?

Not to mention the unforgiving rage he'd evoked in trying to scam them in the past. Dishonesty was highly criticised in their high-class society. It was as if they were saints that had never done one thing wrong. Bet they'd never even stayed up past midnight.

"You ought to come take a look!" Floyd suggested. A casual, friendly proposal.

"No," Azul snapped. "No, no. I'm not going there,"

"They're planning to use the gold," Jade said. "You know how they are. They see one thing from the ground and start screeching in pain,"

They were going to use your statue. The statue that was perhaps the only thing that was related to you, the one way to never have to forget about you again in case that you never met again.

And to imagine the effect it'd add to his collections! A big gold statue in the centre of his grotto, accentuated by the sparkling of other jewelries. It'd be complete.

"I'll sit on it," Azul decided. He was not to act rashly, lest he walked one step wrong and brought upon himself misery and misfortune. If he really was to pay a visit, he would act in secret. Perhaps in the veil of the night. 

"Just don't act alone, okay?" Jade said. Azul nodded despite not paying any mind to him.

In the dead of the night Azul decided to sneak out. Alone. It was a mistake, really. Azul couldn't stop thinking about your statue, and by the time he realized how absurd it was, he'd already gone to the Coral Maze.

There was nary a shadow except his own. Still, it was much lighter than where he lived even at night. The distorted image of the moon waved from above as Azul made his way through the many identical corals. Then he finally found your majestic statue standing solemnly in the centre. The only beauty in the water.

It was a sight for sore eyes. White, pure light reflected off the gold and created streams of gleams onto the ground. That someone would ever find it to be disgraceful was incomprehensible to Azul. Something like this deserved to be put on display in the museum for all to see.

There was no radiance on your face and no splendid colors in your eyes. It was merely a fraction of what you were. Nonetheless, it was enough for Azul.

"Who's roaming there?" an alerted voice asked. When Azul turned, he saw a silhouette looming from outside the Coral Maze, holding two anglerfishes in hands and waving them in the water.

Panic was the only thing Azul felt as he hid behind the statue, struggling to keep his tentacles out of sight. The light stayed right in front of him for a while before skimming away.

Azul grabbed the statue and swam, pushing his tentacles through the water as hard as he could. 

"Wait there- oh goodness!" 

There were several voices now, mumbling and inquiring. Then light was casted upon his flitting figure and there were bemused gasps before someone yelled, "Seize him!"

Azul was out of breath. He wished he excelled in fitness but instead he was stuck with incongruous tentacles that would never cooperate at the most needed times.

A hand grasped the end of his tentacle but slipped off. He kept the statue tight in his arms, as if his life depended on it. He could tell that they were near now, and was trying very hard not to imagine the gruesome outcomes.

Someone grabbed his tentacles. He faltered and was pulled back despite protests.

"Keep him in place!" another person yelled as the crowd moved to keep Azul fenced in.

Azul couldn't see anything. Everything was a poor mixture of shadow and distaste and sneers. He was probably going to die right there.

"I can't believe you have the guts to come back, Ashengrotto. After all the things you've done!" someone spoke up.

"Yeah! How shameless of you!”

"And he's stealing our properties now! Imagine how desperate he is,"

"You guys don't even want it!" Azul said.

Some guy lurched forward. Azul cowered backwards.

"It's disgusting, yes, but it's still gold." he said as if it was a completely just thing to do. "It landed on our ground, so it belongs to us. On the contrary, you don't have the rights to lay your filthy hands on it. What more do you want to steal from us?"

"I'm taking this because none of you understand the beauty of it!"

This evoked a negative reaction from the crowd, but words could never be taken back. Azul could feel his heart pounding like a prisoner hellbent on escaping. He had to escape. No more of this degrading gazes. No more of the points of fingers.

"Beauty?" the guy scoffed, and for a moment his face scrunched up and he was ready to spit out rage, but then it softened into a smug smirk. "I guess only ugly understands ugly, huh?"

Azul's head throbbed.

"It doesn't justify your actions, ink-blasting thief. Hand that piece of trash over right- uff!"

He was flung deep into the water until he disappeared into nothing but a black dot. People around Azul immediately made way as they fled in screams and wails. His tentacle was still tingling with the impact, but he couldn't quite feel it. Even if he did, he couldn't care less as he skyrocketed to the surface of the water. He blinked and blinked, but his eyes were still blurred by what would be mixed into the seawater eventually. 

He'd had enough. Heard enough, seen enough. If he'd spent one more second down there he would have suffocated to death.

The familiar freshness of air welcomed him the moment he broke through the water's persistence. The land wasn't far ahead. He swam towards it as if it was his sanctuary. 

There was a man sitting on the rock, face hidden under the hood. Azul considered retreating. He had no idea what would happen to him if he was spotted, but nothing better would happen if he were to go back. So he continued swimming and crawled onto the cool soft sand, only letting his head be seen by the man as he hid behind yet another rock where he placed the much valued statue.

He seemed to be asleep, chest heaving up and down at a steady pace. Just as Azul started sliding out, the man raised his head and looked straight at Azul.

They were a pair of humming, white circles, seemingly void of any sentiments. The man had a mask on that shielded his face except for his tightly shut lips. Two crows were staring right at him with the same uncanny manner.

"You've finally arrived," the man said.

Probably the humans had been searching for him. Azul decided to keep his mouth shut.

"I've been hearing your calls…" he tilted his head. "You can come out. I know what you are,"

Azul still hesitated. But he was much closer to the ocean than to the guy, so he slowly let his tentacles into light.

The man remained calm, not a bit taken back by the revelation.

"Well, I've been hearing your calls…" he resumed.

"I never called out to any humans,"

"Not literally. But you have been calling out a lot," he smiled amiably. "You have to know that it's especially hard for me to hear from creatures undersea, so if your wishes managed to reach me, it means you're pretty desperate,"

"I think you have the wrong person," Azul said and started retreating.

The guy sprang up and his crows curled up together beside him. "Wait- I should introduce myself first. I'm the Raven Healer,"

Azul pondered for a while. "That doesn't explain anything except for the crows,"

"You lots haven't heard of me?" he frowned so deep that his brows and eyes were a cluster. "You guys are really secluded,"

That was when Azul finally realized that he knew about them. About all the lives and creatures that inhabited the deep sea.

"And I mean no harm to your realm. My only target is you," he smiled again, this time at an ominous angle.

"Well, I'm quite famous in this realm. I heal people for a living, whether it be physical or emotional needs. Anything you need, I can grant you,"

That's not very different from Azul's magic. 

"Sometimes, when someone is really desperate for a change, their thoughts can be heard by my crows. And you, Azul Ashengrotto…" his smile dropped a bit and his eyes drooped. "is particularly distressed,"

"Alright. It was nice meeting you," Azul nodded respectfully. The man didn't seem to be harmful. If he fled right now, he could probably throw him off.

The Raven Healer stilled, then burst into piles of blatant laughter. "No, no. I've been looking for you, don't you get it? I'm here to grant your wish!"

I'm here to grant your wish. Like how Azul'd promoted his business as the Sea Merchant.

"I understand that you've been suffering quite a lot, and that you want a change. But nothing ever comes without a cost… I'm sure you can understand,"

The healer stood up, the material of his greatcoat fluttering in the wind. He made his way freely to Azul, who could only freeze up as he inspected the statue with great interest.

"The heir to the throne! I see why you're desperate now. They're a real catch," the healer then looked down at the outstretched tentacles without a word. Azul prayed in his mind that he would turn away from them.

"Well, here are my terms. I will grant you a pair of legs in exchange for your magic,"

Wait, what?

Azul was pretty sure the Raven Healer was just imitating him now. A great figure appearing out of the blue to answer your hopes. The catch was that the figure would always take away your most important thing. It was never a fair deal, Azul was aware.

"I don't think you need my magic," Azul breathed.

"Why, I do!" he exclaimed. "Collecting magic is a splendid hobby of mine! It is because of all these magic that I am such a renowned magician,"

He was obviously lying. His smile couldn't reach his eyes, and the orbs where his eyes were supposed to be were humming like a hazard label.

"I think I'll be just fine," Azul hurriedly brought the statue to his chest and started sliding away.

"...How are you going to survive?"

"What?" Azul swiveled, exhausted.

"Up here. With your…" the healer wiggled his fingers.

"I'll find a way,"

"No you won't," the healer protested. Azul looked up to the sky, took a deep breath and decided to entertain him. 

"Why so?"

"You're gonna cause ruckus. Chaos. People are not especially used to seeing half-man half-octopuses roaming their land," he said honestly. 

Despite knowing all this, Azul still considered his word rude. There was a thin line between blunt and disrespectful, and he'd just crossed it. 

"There won't be anyone dealing with you, will there?"

"...I suppose not-"

"Exactly! I am your only hope!" he exclaimed once again, throwing his hands up in the air like a dramatist. "Unless you want to go back?"

Azul glanced at the serene water. He knew that down there, the mermaids and mermen must be panicking over what'd just happened.

"You can't hold onto that statue forever. If you really wish to stay here-"

"I just came, Mr. Healer. I'm not going to stay,"

"Yet. Come on now," he groaned, as if he was the one exasperated. "I know you want it. You need it. So what are you waiting for? You're never going to see all the beauties in this world in this state!"

He was right. Agonizingly right. He couldn't just walk around as an octopus. It would be like a stain on a quaint painting. Moreover, now that he was here, he couldn't just give up the chance to find you again. It's not like the ocean would welcome him anyways.

As if hearing his thoughts, the Raven Healer reached his hand out, "Deal? Your magic for a pair of legs. It's a fantastic trade if you think about it,"

One second. Two second. Azul didn't wait until the third to act on it. The moment their skin touched, Azul felt a stream of warmth coursing through him, rushing to his throat, where he choked up a luminous blue orb. It was within the healer's fingers within seconds.

"And your legs," he rummaged inside his pocket. There seemed to be numerous tiny objects inside as he dug around. Finally, he pulled up a thumb-size bottle and handed it to Azul.

He downed the slimy liquid inside under the healer's encouraging nods, and almost gagged at the sensation. "Guh! What the hell is-"

His tentacles started glowing a bright yellow, bright enough to attract people in this dead of the night. They started to shrink until they completely disappeared, and a pair of human legs replaced them.

He couldn't believe his eyes as he stretched around and surveyed the changes on his body. It took him quite some time to adjust to it, but he was surprisingly good at it. The fabric of the pants that came with the gift fluttered against his 'flesh' like a mother's caress. He felt normal, for once. Not some ugly monster that preyed on innocent kids. Not a marginalized criminal. Not even a wicked fraud. He was just a human wanting to explore the world.

"Three days," the Raven Healer said.

"What?" Azul was too joyous to pay real mind.

"If you can't find the most beautiful thing after three days, you will dissolve into sea bubbles,"

Azul stilled as he comprehended his words, then he started to chant no in his mind. He'd fallen for his trap.

"You didn't mention it at all!" Azul yelled. "Refund! You're scamming me!"

"The pot's calling the kettle black now. How comical," the healer giggled. Azul's heart dropped to the bottom.

"Consider this your own medicine. It's not like you're completely at loss over here!"

"Wait!" Azul reached out to grasp his fainting figure, which had become an opaque vision. 

"We shall reunite in three days. Until then, enjoy."

All that was left was the crashing of the waves and songs of the crickets. Bathed in the glow of the moon, Azul finally came to the conclusion that he'd fucked up.

Life never stopped to give him a break. There were haste footsteps nearing from behind. Azul instinctively retracted his tentacles, but forgot about their absence and tripped instead.

"Yikes! That was a nasty fall. Are you okay?" 

Looking up, two formally looking men were standing above him, one with crimson hair and another navy. There was a sword attached to each of their sides.

"Yeah. I-I'm fine," Azul cleared his throat and stood up.

"Are you homeless?" The redhead asked and was immediately hit by his companion.

"You can't go around asking people whether they are homeless!" he scolded, then turned to Azul brightly. "You must be in search of shelter! Please follow us!"

"That isn't any better," 

"Shut up," the blue-haired snapped with the same polite smile. "Come on, Mr…?"

"A-Azul. Azul Ashengrotto,"

"Yes, Mr. Ashengrotto. We can't have you catching a cold out here,"

Despite his friendly facade, Azul could see underlying motives lurking beneath. But clueless that he was, he didn't have a choice but to follow suit towards the castle-like building in the far distance.

"Your majesty will be pleased to see you," the redhead murmured, but Azul couldn't quite catch that.

"What was that?" he asked.

"It's nothing," was all that he received. "Just that you'll surely love the place."

Conclusion : Azul had once gone around scamming others with his unique magic but was busted and had been further criticised since. The Raven Healer is obviously Crowley, and his magic will be further explained in next chapter.

[stray-tori]

TPN S02E08 - Initial Thoughts (anime-only)

Reaction Vid: Google Drive

I’m here, finally! Let me just say, I’m glad to see some more positivity around ahh- Not that anyone isn’t allowed to feel negatively about it, I do have my problems too of course! But it’s just nice when things are epic and liked by people :)

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I don’t think I can really separate it into topics this time so I’ll just kind of... go through it by chronological order this time! With “.” paragraphs separating thoughts :)

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Norman figuring out that there’s at least one other person taking tests because he’s left-handed and the code scan thing is placed on the right when he put it down left is such a nice, unspoken execution!

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also. Zaziee :(

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also, what do we think is happening in this room? are those just... dead subjects that they feed to demons or...? experimenting with how certain manipulated humans will affect demons eating them? 

(also they just flipped Norman’s walk here, so his curl is on the wrong side. not blaming them or anything, I just noticed. I hope the staff is doing okay :<)

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also, idk if my brain is melting but when Norman was like "I just need a detonator" and then he focuses on that king chess piece before the explosion, is the implication that the king piece was the detonator? :D

I do like the few subtle hints we do get just from the scenes (like the left hand/right hand thing and the cube communication) but I feel like I'm missing some connecting pieces here, even with knowing Smee was there and supporting him. It’s weird because I feel like the left-hand thing was really nicely done and digestible and the fork thing is presumably checking out how many cameras there are (even if still a little obvious) - but the explosion? Maybe I’m just stupid haha- it had to be Smee helping, right? I just would have liked more hints (but maybe I’m too small brain rn).

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I'm a little confused because Peter said "the era of James as the gatekeeper has ended" (paraphrased), so he’s the gatekeeper right? And Norman was so concerned about the gatekeeper last episode, to the point that I felt like it was a point largely against the "using the gate in GF" plan (aside from uncertainty about the gates and the human world, of course) - but it's literally just a human then? I thought it was gonna be some epic demon or magic concept or something, but it's just that dude pff- whats the dude gonna do against the murder squad? :D Ig he has the farm/demon forces behind him but those would exist either way (and Norman must have considered that), so why is he in particular such a big deal/threat? Is he that ultra big brain? Not big brain enough to have prevented Norman’s escape anyway.

Or maybe he’s just 6 moves ahead and waiting for Norman to lead him back to the hideout that was referenced a few episodes ago where Norman brings all the stolen kids -- but I feel like that’s such a... roundabout way of capturing the GF kids. Plus, that should be Isabella’s doing, if anything. So yeah. Confused about that a bit.

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I love the parallel how in ep1 Ray running from the pursuers and Emma collapsing was the whole thing about like, not taking it all upon yourself -- and now Emma (who mirrored Ray’s exact run through the forest) got help with Ray jumping in and also later Sonju, conveniently timed as usual haha.

(negativity) It’s a nice parallel, though i would have preferred if Ray had run again and Emma had gotten the shot - it’d still carry around the same message (”then vs now”) but please I beg you give Emma one (1) cool bow shot  - or I’ll steal your animation and do it myself >:”(

(ik she got the hunting shot which was slow and cool but idk)

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The animation was so pretty. I loved Norman on the cliff and the wind animation, and the MUSIC when the town raid happened and how everything was framed and the goddamn MUSIC???? DID I MENTION THE MUSIC.

Also Norman’s expression and that shot where he realizes Vyrk has the blood condition and sweeps in for a stab.

It was pretty brutal and I appreciate that they showed it. It’s just... really pretty overall and- yes. thank you. love goes out to the staff. god knows they need some. and money. please give them more money.

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I also like how with how the episode set up the whole, "are you god?" - "I'll be a god or devil" thing, and then when Vyrk asks "are you a human?", my friend joked he'd answer "no, i'm god" and then we joked a bit about his silence. But in hindsight, I really appreciate those jokes, because it made me realize: for a different kind of character, that WOULD have been the perfect setup to have a badass response but that silence was probably on purpose and I can’t really explain it but I just like how that makes the through-line in the episode even stronger and also kind of connects with his wavering?? I can’t explain but I LIKE IT.

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(slightly negative) It's a little bit funny that the parallel didn't occur to him until it was thrown in his face, but I think that's what dissociation and just being observed in one's plan does.

Plus I do get what they're going for, and it was pretty dang emotional. A little on the nose maybe but- yee.

It works well as an eye opener to tear down the mental wall between the two groups. He's also never really been in contact with demons equally before afaik so, I shall accept it. Not that currently killing them all makes him equal in power dynamic right now, but I mean like, in a way where he truly, in real life, got to see that they’re similar -- he made comparisons to humans last episode, so clearly he wasn’t completely unaware. He’s smart, he knew what he was doing would make him seem like a devil to the demons. He probably just numbed himself to it until something that could break those walls down happened, ie the Emma thing.

I feel like it could have worked too if her name wasn’t Emma, but he probably wouldn’t have paused for as long and the voiced lines couldn’t have been given the time needed to make them hit as strongly - but I do think just a line that sounds really similar to what they talked about in GF could have been enough too - but again, that would have potentially taken too long down the exchange between the two.

It also doesn’t seem completely random since the old guy also reacted to Emma’s name before and everything so. Overall, I’m willing to suspend my disbelief - even if it IS funny that the family naming went from Vyrk to... Emma :D (though demons do get old so I suppose that makes sense haha)

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I also wonder how this will impact Norman going forward. Even if he decides for the GF plan now (likely, we don’t have much time), he still did that and even if they return all the degenerated demons with Mujika’s, Sonju’s and Vyrk’s help... I doubt those who were already eaten and killed, can be saved. So that blood is on his hands forever now, likely hurting even more now that he feels personally impacted by it and not just... knows he’s doing something bad.

The anime definitely doesn’t have the time to delve into that sadly but that’s,,, very good angst.

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week 3 of asking where is Isabella- (I mean I am GLAD that she didn’t show up at the temple- yET - because that’d just make them leaving them there worse but fudshjsd- Is she actually just waiting for them to come for the gate what’s happening ahahaha-)

I also don’t know if I mentioned this in my last episode thoughts or not, but I do still believe the gate stuff could have been revealed more incrementally? Like have James include that tidbit of info, please. If we know gates exist, then at least now it isn’t such an extreme change of information to know: “there are gates. yes where you were sent WAS a gate, but they’ve been destroyed. oh and another gate is in GF!” like HOLD UP-

.

I wonder if we’ll ever see the hideout that Cislo or Vincent referenced... I’m sure that’d be lots of random children designs so probably not but,, I am really curious how and if they’ll take all those kids. Norman did say he wants freedom for all cattle children. but with no large scale plan anymore, I’m not sure if that’s gonna work. If any human stays behind, as I’ve often talked about before, the cycle just starts anew and I’m really curious if TPN will go for a morally grey ending like that.

Unless the whole “evil-blood” religion works out this time when the high class is gone. but even Sonju is already in part a counter-example so... we’ll see I suppose.

.

I really loved this episode though! If the anime continues this trend to the finish line, it’ll stay a wonky 7 for me :) (quality wise, you guys know my tpn brainrot won’t make me truly hate it pff- tpn love too big-)

[durotoswrites]

For the Ask Game! 🧑 favorite character to write? And/Or 📒any fics planned?

Sorry for the delay on these - my heat exhaustion has left me knocked out for a while.

🧑 Favorite character to write:

Short answer: Harvest Moon's Cliff (all incarnations)

Long answer: I don't think it's really any secret that my favorite Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons characters to write for are the ones that reside at Doug's Inn. I see Doug, Ann, Gray, Kai, and Cliff as a large, dysfunctional family – AKA Doug and all of his children, haha. There are so many different personalities in one small space playing off of one another, and there's so much fun to be had. I loved how all the guys in shared a room in the GBA version of Mineral Town. It kinda reminds me of those cheesy sitcoms where clashing personalities all reside under the same roof. That being said, there is a particular shy, reclusive young man who blossoms with confidence as he finds purpose in his life. Bonus: he comes with a vague, tragic past that has tons of potential for exploration. I have a hard time resisting woobie-type characters.

📒 Any Fics Planned?

Short answer: Yes. I also plan to bring more of my stories over from ffn to Ao3.

Long answer under the cut, heheh. I rambled quite a bit.

Ask me about my writing processes and stories!

I have so many WIPs that haven't been touched in years that I'd like to finish, so new planned fics aren't posted yet. Some of them have more adult themes than most of the stuff I've been writing, so I get flustered sharing them. I've been at a crossroads, as I feel that you can't have growth without changing things up. On the other hand, I feel like a lot of my readers associate my works with a specific “wholesome” feel-good mood. It's kinda nice to be known for something, although that might just be my ego talking, thinking that people recognize my work as a “type”.

Regardless, in the end, I feel growth is necessary.

I don't want to leave a lot of unfinished WIPs waiting because they stress me out and I have too many of them already, so I'd like to have a bulk of my new stories with a good chunk written before I decide to post them.

Among those include:

A longfic featuring Pete's farm in Forget-Me-Not Valley (A blend of HMDS with the FoMT plugin and AWL). It takes place in the same universe as The Shy Newcomer (Claire in Mineral Town) and there are a few overlapping moments, although Pete's story starts first. Pete's personality is verrry different from Claire's, and his story was kind of supposed to be the yang to TSN's yin. Pete's best friends in his story are Ruby (not sure if I'm adding Tim yet), Nami, and Rock. Readers will be treated to a poorly-socialized pre-Mineral Town Cliff (if you think he was bad at the beginning of TSN, well... heh... he's a wreck here).

Another planned unpublished story is a crossover of Harvest Moon and the movie “In This Corner of the World”, based on a manga of the same name by Fumiyo Kouno. It was written as a gift for a friend. I have the entire outline figured out and have slowly been filling it in. My friend asked for an AU where Claire and Cliff have an arranged marriage and live with his family in Akiyama, the hometown I had created for Cliff in The Shy Newcomer. I took the opportunity to expand the characters in his family. I have it written during the same time period and society as “In This Corner of the World”, but had decided to write a spreading disease as an allegory for war, but then COVID happened and some parts of it just got really hard to write. There are also a lot of sexually explicit content as Claire slowly grows and learns from her spouse that it's okay to express what she wants despite sex being a taboo issue. If there's enough interest in the story, I'll post it, but I worry it's a little too niche for there to be many people into it.

Pastor Carter and Doctor Trent are one of my favorite rare pair ships. I've had a partial draft for a story about them for a few years now, especially focusing on Trent growing up and acknowledging that he has an unhealthy addiction for things that he knows he can't have. There are some more adult/sexual themes in this piece, too, including the main character lusting after a married woman (who also happens to be his patient) and some lemons. (Does anyone call it that anymore or is it just referred to as “smut” nowadays? Haha) I always feel so bad for neglecting the folks at the clinic in-game and wanted to write a piece that focused more on them, Trent specifically. It's a multi-chap fic, but I don't think I'm going to let it get as long as some of my other pieces.

I also really want to write a short romantic oneshot for every marriage candidate in Mineral Town, around 1,000 words each. So far, I have one for Cliff and one for Gray. I want to write Claire with everyone, because I think it would be fun to explore all the different personalities.

I have more installments planned for A Single Day, including a day in the life of the following characters, all with drafts in varying degrees of progress:

Anna

Doug

Nora (yes, I'm writing from the point of view of the cat living at the inn)

More to come – I think Lillia and Thomas would be especially interesting to explore

I do still have that Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask piece I've been pondering where Link befriends the soul of the deku scrub child while possessed by the mask. I don't have much written about it, but I really love the world of Majora's Mask. Such a fun game.

I also think about the lead carpenter's son in Ocarina of Time and that weird side quest involving the blue chicken and the son being lost to the forest. Then that unique-looking kokiri girl explaining that all who get taken in the lost woods become stalfos. Like, did the guy die? Was he sick? Did he want to die? There's just so much going on there that would be fun to explore.

I also have played OMORI recently and have like... A LOT of feelings about it. I don't know what I'd write, but I'm still damn impressed at how well the characters are developed in such a short game.

Other games I've had vague ideas about writing for include the following:

The Flame in the Flood: I'm thinking a survivalist/action story fleshing out Scout's backstory a bit more and her thoughts as she's traveling. I feel like she's a very lonely person, but isn't given the chance to really dwell on it.

Night In the Woods: I'd love to write more about Mae's dreams and what they mean to her. She doesn't really talk to anyone about them openly, so it's really hard to tell her feelings about them in some regards. We know that she's distressed about them, but I'd like to dive a little deeper. Do the nightmares end after the games does? What about Bea's new nightmares?

Hades (Supergiant Games): I think it would be fun to write more about the events that take place before the game starts, like Zagreus's duties in the house of Hades, and expand on the strained relationship with his father.

[onwesterlywinds]

PROMPT #27: Benthos

This piece is set in roughly the year 1544 of the Sixth Astral Era - thirty-three years before Hydaelyn’s present-day, and thirteen years before Ala Mhigo’s fall.

It’s also set a couple weeks after Where Flood Waters Ran, and references events from that chapter.

"Things don't come out of the river. The only reason that armor did was because those scavengers decided to test their luck on Flood Day."

Neele had regretted speaking those words into being from the moment they'd said them. Sure enough, the site of the next Quorum was soon determined. Neele had had to double-check with Aster, to make sure their anxieties weren't simply getting the better of them - but no, Aster hadn't understood it either. By all accounts, they really were meant to meet at the bottom of the black water.

Their confusion only faded the moment they realized just how much the river's flow had subsided. They arrived at the canal landing to find that the current, usually more than enough to carry someone off in seconds, had receded to almost nothing. The stone steps leading into the waterway twelve fulms below lay damp but perfectly exposed, beckoning Neele to walk to a metal door set into the side of the smooth cliff face.

The Undercity always did like to have its jokes.

Neele arrived to discover the scene mostly as they had predicted it would be, as it had been at each Quorum they had attended. They had been to many other Quorums throughout their time as keeper of the Kalmia Sigil, and they had attended many even before their predecessor had passed on his sigil to them. Most of the lords - the ones who'd survived and maintained their guardianship throughout that time - tended to keep to similar spots in their various meeting places, most always with their seconds, if they had one, close by. If the Undercity's denizens were creatures of habit, then those who ruled over them were the most habitual of all.

Neele's arrival increased their number to eight, including Aster and Dagmar. There were fewer and fewer of them nowadays, and even fewer still who bothered to show up to the Quorum. Someone had placed a chair for Diadra at the center of the room, exactly where she'd liked it - a show of benevolence and grandiosity and provocation all at once - and of course it sat empty. The last Neele had heard, she was still in Ala Ghiri for her recovery, still pulling some strings for her Marigold territory but mostly camped out in the back of an arak bar. A quick skim of the room similarly revealed no sign of Elza meandering opposite the door as she so often did - “the better to keep an eye on everyone,” she’d said once.

"Evening, Palm," Neele said to Seax in greeting as they passed her. Anywhere else, they would have greeted her with her name, but speaking the given names of sigil-bearers at a Quorum had always seemed to invite misfortune, and there was more than enough of that going around. "Thanks, by the way, for taking care of the interlopers up by yours."

Seax inclined her head with her usual sly grin. "My pleasure."

Neele took up their own usual spot beside Wilma of the Eulalia Sigil - a woman with whom they rarely interacted outside of the Quorum, but who had proven herself more than once to be a cool head and stalwart presence. Better to stand beside her than Aster and Dagmar, and potentially find themself and their allies surrounded if blades were drawn. "I presume we aren't getting started without Lily," they said.

"He's not coming." The voice was from Haidar of the Stock Sigil, leaning against the furthest wall. Neele had not seen him there at first. In his hand was a scrap of parchment. "He left this," Haidar said. "It says he's preoccupied with other plans for this Quorum, and that he'll meet us at the next."

Neele took the paper and read it themself - a skill their predecessor had insisted they learn, and one that they were grateful for nearly every day. Sure enough, Blackram's message said no more and no less than that.

Melissa, whose given name Neele did not know, let out a snort. "What other plans?"

"Maybe snapping up our storehouses while we're all gathered here like rats in a leaky barrel," quipped Seax.

Dagmar shushed Seax, causing her haughty expression to curdle into one of disdain.

"What else is there for us here, then?" said Haidar. "I've no quarrel with most of you-" He notably did not look in the corner where Anemone lurked in silence. "-but I need assurances from Bl- Lily that he'll keep Marigold's surface routes clear. I've lost my best runners to knives in the dark, possibly worse."

"'Worse'?" Aster echoed.

"Aye, worse. Yunus' girl was there - said she saw revenants."

"Yunus' girl jumps at her own reflection," Melissa shot back.

Haidar turned on him, but Neele stepped forth before the Quorum could dissolve any further into arguments. "Dagmar and I will look into it," they said. Dagmar nodded her assent from nearer to the door. "Revenants does seem to be a likely case. Given the crusader that came out of the canal at this very junction two weeks past."

Most of the others shifted in discomfort at the mention of it - the idea that so many, most of them children, would have died were it not for Marco and his friend. Seax breathed out heavily, still pouting to herself.

"That's it, then?" said Wilma. "Let's disband, then, before the river comes back."

"I've one more item."

It was Anemone, speaking up at last as always; Neele still couldn't place whether it was out of a misplaced desire for theatrics or feeling stifled by the other voices in the room. She let her words hang in the air for a moment longer, then spoke directly to Neele. "Hélène, of the Fiels. A spider in her web."

"I don't do killings," Neele replied at once. Especially not on behalf of lords who can't keep their own in line.

But Anemone shook her head. "You misunderstand me. Hélène has promised half her treasury to anyone who gives her Marco's head."

The proclamation of bounties was nothing new for Quorums, and yet this one sapped all the air out of the room as surely as though the black water had submerged the room all at once. Aster let out an uncomfortable groan and began to massage the bridge of her nose.

"And his friend?" Melissa demanded.

"Which one?"

"You know the one."

Anemone paused, wetting her lips for a moment as she chose her words carefully. "There's no mention of him in the bounty. But I trust we all know what happens if anything befalls him." She pressed on, rather than leave them all lingering on that thought. "The reason I specified is because Hélène wants her dear little protégée back in the web; she's fallen in with Marco of late."

Wilma muttered something that undeniably contained the words "mother like that."

"She's not to be harmed, either," Anemone continued. "I even imagine there'd be a little bonus for anyone who delivers her back to the Profondeurs." She shrugged. "Something to chew on, at least."

Something to chew on, indeed: setting up the murder of a child to drive a boy into Blackram's arms and a girl into a lifetime of misery. Neele could only imagine what their predecessor might have said at the mere thought of it.

Without another word, they left the room and the empty canal.

[highandlowculture]

MEET THE NEW WEST, SAME AS THE OLD WEST

In the second act of Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood, washed-up actor Rick Dalton is on the set of a TV western as his stuntman and best buddy, Cliff Booth is revisiting Spahn Ranch, a former set for movie westerns. The ranch has been taken over by a bunch of hippies who follow some guy name “Charlie”. The heavy of the hippies is a fella by the name of Tex Watson. When conflict arises between Cliff and the hippies, one of the girls runs off to fetch Tex, who’s busy showing a tourist couple around the ranch. Hearing that there’s trouble brewing, Tex snaps to it, galloping across the western landscape on horseback and wearing a black hat. It’s a sweeping shot straight out of a John Ford film. That’s when it clicked for me…

Tarantino has made his third western.

Although there were always spaghetti western elements in his films (especially in Kill Bill vol. 2), QT hadn’t made a full-fledged western until 2012’s Django Unchained. Though entertaining and with an African-American lead, the film is his most straight-forward movie. We know who the heroes are, we know who the villains are. Wrongs are righted with a six-shooter and a hero’s grin. Its followup was another western, 2015‘s The Hateful Eight, a much darker and far less heroic film. All of the characters are flawed if not outrightly fucked-up. If Django Unchained was the sumptuously shot crowd pleaser, The Hateful Eight was the claustrophobic, nihilistic reversal. The western myth of heroes and villains is subverted by an unsavory group of characters who drag each other through snow, blood and racial slurs. Maybe the Old West was a pretty rough place to live in after all!

And now, in 2019, QT transports us to another Old West: 1969 Hollywood.

Fifty years ago. Half a century. Pretty old, right?

Already contentious with reviewers, one of the main debates surrounding Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood is its handling of Sharon Tate and the Manson Family. In the summer of ’69, when Tate, her unborn baby and her houseguests were brutally murdered by three members of the Manson Family, it sent shockwaves throughout Hollywood and America. The utopian dream of the 1960s was over. That’s the sanitized, less complicated history anyway. At the time many people were blaming satanism and Tate’s husband Roman Polanski for his hedonistic ways. Plus anyone deep in the trenches of late 60s hipdom knew that some of the peace-and-love spouting Flower Children might be psychopaths that could turn on a dime. Such darkness was foreshadowed in the music of The Doors and Velvet Underground. As Joan Didion recalled in her seminal work The White Album:

“Black masses were imagined, and bad trips blamed. I remembered all of the day’s misinformation very clearly, and I also remember this, and wish I did not: I remember that no one was surprised.”

Knowing this I find it disappointing just how many reviewers fail to see how sympathetic QT is to Sharon and her friends. They’re shown as cool people with a good vibe (only Roman is shown to be prickish when he speaks rudely to a dog). Sharon and Jay Sebring like to listen to records and enjoy life. No satanism. No orgies. And Sharon’s a generous person. She picks up hippie hitchhikers and buys her husband a Thomas Hardy novel. She relishes the communal experience of watching herself in the Dean Martin film The Wrecking Crew. It’s not just about her. She’s enjoying the connection she’s making with the theater’s audience. On the infamous August night, the film’s narrator talks about how Sharon, in the late stage of her pregnancy, was feeling hot and anxious. In short, Sharon is humanized. She’s a thoughtful, spirited and benevolent presence throughout the film. I think reviewers who view her just as “a Barbie doll” are revealing more of their own lack of empathy than QT’s. And people getting hung-up on how many lines her character speaks have some skewed priorities. As if the only way a person has worth is if they talk a lot. Talking. Talking. Talking. There are so many empty vessels running at the mouth these days. Social media voices bombard us constantly. There’s something to be said for some quiet dignity every once in awhile. Regardless, Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood isn’t Sharon’s film and it’s not a biopic. It’s Rick and Cliff’s film and it’s a western.

If comedy is “tragedy plus time”, then the same can be said for any work of art. The mythology of the Old West often mixed historical and fictional characters. Whether they were Billy The Kid, Wyatt Earp or Butch Cassidy, we’ve seen countless retellings of their exploits, never exactly the same, never entirely accurate. That’s what makes it a myth. A good portion is made-up. Going back to Homeric and Arthurian legends, the foundation of storytelling has always been a collision of fact and fiction, chronicle and embellishment. People make too much of QT altering historic events. Are the Nazis of Inglourious Basterds and the Manson Family of Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood any different than any other mythical villains of earlier works of art? If a filmmaker can’t riff on a fifty-year-old historical event, then what are we really doing here? Do we just want the cinema of Marvel Comics and discreet biopics? QT doesn’t treat history any different than the filmmakers of the 1960s treated the events of the 1860s. Tex Watson, galloping away in his black hat, is a signpost for this. It’s QT’s way of saying: “Every time has its myths, every time has its black hats and white hats”. And the Manson Family, filled with bloodlust and megalomania from the top down, fulfill the role of black-hatted villains quite perfectly.

Does this make Rick and Cliff, two middle-aged white guys who love booze and hate hippies, our white-hatted heroes? Hell, no. With the exception of Django Unchained, that was never QT’s bag. He’s all about the anti heroes of spaghetti westerns and Sam Peckinpah films. Men who have done plenty of bad, sometimes unspeakable, things. They’re only the hero because they wrestle with their past and because there’s always a meaner, badder fella waiting to shoot it out with ‘em. Clint Eastwood’s character in the The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is only “Good” because Lee Van Cleef is so clearly “Bad” (and Eli Wallach “Ugly”). In 1992’s The Unforgiven, Eastwood’s character talks of killing “women and children” in his past. Yet he’s still clearly our hero. The Old West is a morally complex time in which one’s heroism is often defined by a greater and competing villainy.

So when it’s revealed that Cliff possibly murdered his wife and got away with it, he’s stepping into the role of anti hero with a dark past. Is Cliff haunted by his past? Not seemingly. He’s more inclined to shrug it off with a smirk and swig of beer. Shit happens y’know. This makes him exactly the type of guy murderous hippies shouldn’t fuck with. They justify their bloodlust with a self-serving philosophical bent: Entertainers taught them to kill via TV and movies, so it���s okay to kill the people who are involved in making TV and movies. QT makes the bold and provocative choice to not confirm whether Cliff did or didn’t kill his wife, but if he did, he probably wouldn’t dress it up as anything other than a burst of brutish violence that he was lucky to get away with. He loves his dog though, and he’s a good friend. In real life that might not justify liking the guy, but in a western that’s usually enough. Ultimately these character choices made by QT are to set up a mythic showdown between Cliff and the Manson Family. He’s good because they’re bad. It’s the same reason Cliff was shown going head-to-head with Bruce Lee. Masked racism by QT, a known lover of Asian and martial arts films, or a way of building up Cliff’s status to mythical proportions? There was once this ex war hero, who became a stuntman and maybe killed his wife, and he once threw Bruce Lee into a car door on the set of The Green Hornet! Cliff is Paul Bunyan. He’s Bill Brasky. A folk hero for stuntmen and for his time.

And did you hear that one tale about Cliff and the Manson Family…?

Rick’s bread and butter is now guest-starring on various TV shows in which he plays the heavy and gets his ass kicked by the show’s star at the end of the episode. Rick is a boozy, bloated hot mess of a man who’s prone to crying. A lot. His first burst of tears in the film is at the Musso & Frank parking lot, after an agent gives Rick a harsh dose of reality regarding the state of his career. Cliff, always keeping his cool, gives Rick his sunglasses and says, “Don’t cry in front of the Mexicans.” Remember — this is a western. Anyway, if Cliff fills the role of macho, gives no fucks, murderous outlaw, Rick is the contrasting “modern man” or, to use a western term, “tenderfoot”. The film begins with a behind the scenes segment for Rick’s old show Bounty Law. In it an interviewer talks to Rick and Cliff about what a stuntman does. During the interview there’s a quip about Cliff carrying Rick’s load. So right out of the gate, QT brings our attention to the idea that Cliff is the real deal and Rick’s the actor playing a role. This notion is repeated throughout the film (even one of the Manson Girls, “Pussy”, makes reference to Cliff being more authentic because he’s a stuntman rather than an actor). Regardless of whether Cliff murdered his wife or not, he’s an ex military man and war hero, so obviously he’s killed people before. So in addition to taking falls and performing dangerous stunts for Rick, he’s more of a bona fide western anti hero than Rick ever could be. Fittingly, while Cliff and the Manson Family black hats are sizing each other up at Spahn Ranch, Rick is busy acting in a TV western. And Rick keeps crying. A lot. He even cries in front of a little girl who simultaneously coddles and reprimands him. No doubt, Cliff would view this as potentially worse than crying in front of Mexicans. But Rick can’t help himself. He’s both a man of his time and out of time. He can’t roll with the hippies and spaghetti westerns but he’d never last a day in Cliff’s shoes let alone the wild frontier. Even at the end, in which Rick finally gets the chance to become an avenging hero (involving possibly the greatest payoff in cinematic history) if one steps back and thinks of the climactic set-piece, Rick is merely stepping in at the end to grab all the glory after Cliff and his wonderful dog Brandy did most of the heavy lifting. Thus Cliff is yet again carrying Rick’s load.

But this doesn’t mean Rick doesn’t have a victory. He does. It just comes at the midpoint, and it’s the closest thing to a real-life victory in the film. When Rick shows up to play the heavy in the TV western, he’s reached his low-point. Like a different part of the anatomy going into ice-water in Raging Bull, Rick is submerging his face into ice-water in his trailer, struggling with a hangover and hopelessness. Making matters worse, the artsy director shows up and tells Rick he wants him to play a hippie-style outlaw with a fringe jacket, mustache and long hair. The only thing Rick does more than drink and cry is insult hippies. He’s living his worst nightmare as an actor. QT makes another one of his most interesting choices by showing the subsequent scenes from the TV show in the same film stock and style as the main narrative. Thus when juxtaposed to Cliff at Spahn Ranch, Rick’s battle with his growing irrelevance as an actor is given the same cinematic weight. This isn’t just a TV show within the movie — it is the movie! This battle or showdown is just as important as Cliff’s eventual showdown with the Manson Family. Rick struggles. He fucks up his lines. He comes totally unglued in his trailer. This looks like the end of the road for him as an actor. He eventually gets his shit together, embraces the role and goes for broke. It’s a credit to both QT as a filmmaker and Leo DiCaprio as an actor that the villain Rick plays in the TV show ends up being more intense and visceral than the one he played in the main narrative of Django Unchained. Rick’s chops as an actor are restored and he decides to go to Italy and star in spaghetti westerns. He learns to maximize his talent in order to roll with the times.

A protagonist who is at odds with changing times might seem regressive or even reactionary to some people today, but it’s also a hallmark of westerns, especially the westerns of the late 1960s and early 1970s. From Once Upon a Time in the West to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, an impending future of railroads and industrialization is always treated with uneasiness by the heroes. These changing times aren’t going to include them. Their wild and free ways will soon come to an end. Nowhere is this theme most prominent than in the work of Sam Peckinpah. In many of his westerns, The Wild Bunch, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, the heroes are viewed as endangered creatures who are all too aware of their fate. The character of Cable Hogue even meets his end when a motor car rolls over him. He’s killed by the modern age! Another Peckinpah film from this era, Junior Bonner, is set in 1972 Arizona but can also be considered a western (creating a template for QT’s western that’s not set in the canonical “Old West”). The protagonist and title character is an aging rodeo star (brilliantly played by Steve McQueen, who perhaps not so coincidentally also appears in QT’s film). In Peckinpah’s film, Junior has lost his edge and returns home to take a breather and maybe get his chops back. His struggle is not unlike Rick Dalton’s. They’re both aging entertainers and they both fear they’re washed-up. And as with all of Peckinpah’s westerns, encroaching progress is a threat to Junior’s simple cowboy ways. All of these above mentioned westerns are filled with a bittersweet quality; a nostalgic snapshot that’s destined to become yellow and brittle. The power of myths is they suggest immortality for our heroes.They might be long gone but they live through these tales. Whether’s it’s the Old West of outlaws in dusty little towns or the Old West of ’69 Hollywood, people once lived in these places and they lived vibrant, foolhardy and sometimes dangerous lives. Maybe they didn’t live or die exactly as the tale accounts, but they did indeed live and they did indeed die.

In his film QT references another “man out of time” western: The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean. Written by John Milius, directed by John Huston and starring Paul Newman, the film is a highly-fictionalized account of the life of Judge Roy Bean. At the climax an elderly Roy Bean reemerges from a self-imposed exile to have a showdown with businessmen who have surrounded his beloved town with oil rigs. When his enemies ask who he is, Roy Bean shouts “Justice, you sons of bitches!” This is immediately followed by a shootout in which Roy defeats his foes, blows up the surrounding oil rigs and goes out in a blaze of glory. In real life Roy Bean died in his bed after a heavy bout of drinking. What’s most interesting is how QT referenced The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean. After the climax of Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood there’s a triumphant but wistful epilogue in which one of our heroes is faced with a future that we all know is a fantasy. Over this scene is an evocative piece of music that sounds like it’s from a fairytale and it plays over the end credits. The piece of music is entitled “Miss Lillie Langtry” and it’s the main theme from The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean. Lillie Langtry was a British-American socialite Roy Bean was enamored with and he even went so far to name the saloon in his town after her. “Miss Lille Langtry” plays over the end credits of Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood and the opening credits of The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean. But before the credits in Roy Bean we see written in storybook fashion:

“Near the turn of the last century the Pecos River marked the boundaries of civilization in western Texas. West of the Pecos there was no law, no order, and only bad men and rattlesnakes lived there.

…Maybe this isn’t the way it was… it’s the way it should be.”

With Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino pays homage to a socialite/actress who was tragically murdered before her time and two endangered heroes—one an outlaw stuntman, the other an entertainer—neither of who existed but men like them did. For two hours and forty-five minutes, the onward march of tragedy and time is defeated through a spirited, Old West mix of bravado and audacity. Maybe it’s not the way it was…

But it’s the way it should be.

[wordsablaze]

3/13 - daily visions

A Dozen Denials Soulmate-identifiers exist to make things easier unless you’re Jaskier, who’s equally as deep in love as he is in denial. But there’s only so many excuses you can make to avoid the truth… (aka jaskier’s soulmate is definitely a witcher, just not the one he first assumes)

A/N: just to clarify, the trope is that you wake up knowing one event of your soulmate's day - idk the official name and borrowed 'visions' from the awesome jaskel discord <3

previous chapter

-

Life on the path is unpredictable.

Jaskier knows this, but he also knows it isn’t strictly true.

He, like everyone else, wakes up each morning with Destiny having told him something his soulmate is going to do, something Geralt is going to do.

And every morning, he tries to figure out how it applies to their plans and what he’s meant to do about it. He’d say what they’re meant to do about it but Geralt is never particularly interested in any kind of prophecy.

He rarely tells Jaskier what he sees but he must see glimpses of Jaskier's life because he's usually there when things go wrong in taverns or when he gets close to being mauled by a contract. And even if he sometimes has no clue what Jaskier has been upto during the day, it can't be held against him because he usually doesn't listen to Destiny and Jaskier needs to learn to take care of himself anyway.

Which is fine.

His own so-called destined prophecies are a little vague anyway, and seemingly open to interpretation: he’d once woken up with a blinding fear that Geralt was going to fall off a cliff and spent the whole day panicking until Geralt made a mess of his conversation with a Lord Cliff just before midnight.

So when he wakes up with the knowledge that someone is going to plant a curse on his soulmate, he’s not sure whether he should be worried.

“Hey, Geralt?” he asks, rubbing his eyes.

Geralt looks over from where he’s attaching his bag to Roach. “Hmm?”

Jaskier yawns. “You’re not planning on meeting any mages today, are you?”

He’s pulled himself upright before Geralt replies with a frown. “We only met Yennefer last week, didn’t know you were eager to meet her again.”

“Very funny,” Jaskier grumbles, and takes that as a ‘no’.

But Jaskier cares deeply for who and what he loves and he doesn’t stop thinking about a potential curse for their whole journey, so much so that even Roach nudges him at one point as if to ask why he isn’t singing.

“I am merely saving my voice for an audience more willing to sing along, dear girl!”

Geralt glares at him.

“I’m just saying, Geralt, you could perhaps give me some kind of feedback that involves words every once in a while.”

He grins as Geralt rolls his eyes. “Because you were using so many words in that last town?”

Jaskier’s face flushes and he scoffs indignantly. “I could hardly deny the girl one dance, what sort of bard would that make me?”

“One that doesn’t disappear all night,” Geralt grumbles.

Jaskier frowns. “But I didn’t… wait, is that what I’m going to do today?”

But Geralt doesn’t reply, not even when they get to a town. The two of them part ways, Geralt finding the Lady who’d asked for their service and Jaskier arranging to play at the inn for the afternoon.

By the time Geralt returns, Jaskier is just a little more than tired, wanting nothing more than to sink into a bed for the night. But the innkeeper’s nose wrinkles and he curses at the sight of Geralt so Jaskier just sighs before walking over.

“You didn’t say you were travelling with the-”

“I’d advise you not to finish that sentence,” Jaskier interjects, raising an eyebrow even as he realises this kind of cursing is most likely what Destiny was trying to tell him about.

Geralt scoffs. “Jaskier, I thought you were singing.”

The innkeeper raises an eyebrow. “You’d need to do a lot more singing if you want me to accept this.”

Jaskier wants to complain that he’s far too tired to keep performing but Geralt’s words from earlier spring into his mind and, well, if he had predicted Jaskier needing to sing all night, he’s hardly going to challenge that.

So he just grins and picks up the nearest drink, taking a large gulp. “It’s a good job I was only just getting started then, isn’t it?”

The innkeeper grumbles under his breath but Jaskier focuses on Geralt instead, watching as he sighs. “Really, Jaskier? We couldn’t just rest for one night?”

Jaskier winces because he wants nothing more than to do just that. “I’m sorry, my dear witcher. I’ll try and join you later, don’t want to deny Destiny now, do we?”

“What does Destiny have to do with this?” Geralt asks, but lets Jaskier usher him upstairs anyway.

Once he’s gone, Jaskier sighs. He’s played for longer in competitions and all he was trying to do was win in those so now when the respect of his soulmate is on the line, there’s no reason he can’t play. So he does. Almost all night. It’s tiring and his throat is most definitely not happy with the sheer amount of singing he does but he survives and it feels great to see the resigned look on the innkeeper’s face as he takes his share of the night’s coin.

“I can’t feel my feet, Geralt,” Jaskier moans as he stumbles back into their room just before dawn.

Geralt hums. “You can stay here for today then, it’s just a drowner.”

Jaskier might ordinarily have complained but he hasn’t been told his soulmate is going to die or anything so he just nods, throwing himself onto the bed.

“Don’t, uh… get chased by a goat?” Jaskier mumbles, because apparently that’s on the agenda of his soulmate for the day, even though he doesn’t remember seeing any houses with goats on their way into the town. Then again, it's not like he was paying much attention.

Geralt frowns at him. “Are you drunk?”

Scoffing, Jaskier shakes his head. “I’m going to have such a good sleep that my children will feel well-rested.”

He doesn’t exactly hear what Geralt says but he assumes it’s a warning not to get into trouble so he just smiles and lets his eyes close. It’s not that he’s ungrateful or anything, but Geralt really could have warned him a little better; just a little more preparation couldn't have hurt.

But then he frowns at himself because he’s not ungrateful, he’s really not. He’s lucky to have known what he was meant to do and he’s lucky to know that he can now rest and look forward to Geralt arriving with his payment so they can leave.

Yes, he's definitely lucky.

And he’s also tired but luckily for him, he’d earned enough last night to sleep through the whole day and really, he has to consider that as proof of Destiny knowing what she’s doing as well as another reason to stop overthinking so, knowing that it was practically meant to be, he lets himself fall asleep.

(little did he know he'd never actually seen proof of his destiny.)

-

to make up for this chaos, just imagine eskel somewhere out there getting chased by lil bleater ;p

-

thanks for reading! masterlist | witcher blog: @itsjaskier | next chapter

[gilded-green]

In celebration of the 10th anniversary, I’ll probably reread GG and send updates/highlight areas and as for commentary. Probably XD

But first. What aspect of Gilded Green was your favorite? What was something you put in a lot of world building for but never got to show either in fic or on tumblr. Who is your favorite character and why, what makes them special in your eyes? Which character has turned into a completely different one as soon as you started writing them? Which part of the fic did you like most when you finished it, do you still like it? Similarly, which part do you dislike most?

Lasty, anything about gg2’s story you want to share/talk about/rant?

-love, the dai li fangirl

Haha, no pressure! But at the same time yes if you do feel free to send me passages for commentary here! <3

What aspect was my favorite? Hmmm. *thinking face* I think, when I first came up with it, I was just thrilled to have these two small things - minor character Lu Ten, overlooked villain organization Dai Li - that I was able to combine into something so big. That was pretty nifty!

As I started developing the story, I think what really caught my attention was the fact that “Wow, all these characters are awful people!” Like. The Dai Li aren’t good.The Fire Nation aren’t good. Lu Ten is a victim but also an oppressor. All off these people have extremely different beliefs and worldviews - Fire supremacist, police state enforcers, classist academic gatekeepers - and all of them think THEY’RE in the right here and none of them are. I think Tien and Hoang might be the only people with a decent, non-oppressive worldview in the story so far. XD I was growing out of the storytelling trope of black-and-white morality at the time, so it was really fun to start experimenting with writing awful people as enjoyable, sympathetic characters.

World building? Hmm. I was just learning how to use my worldbuilding muscles back then. I seem to remember reading up a lot on how brainwashing actually works in the real world and going “I don’t think this is compatible with what we have in ATLA” and just kinda tossing that whole thing out. XD I also recall looking up a lot of stuff for the bits about Jouin, some of which - kalua pig! - has since shown up again in WFFD. I also recall someone on FFdotnet at the time saying “All this chapter did was tell us more about a dead character than the living one” and I was just kinda like -_- yes because he is DEAD and this is your chance to feel sorry about that, we’ll get plenty more of the living one later on account of him still being, y’know, alive. XD

Oh, and Shirong’s personal side projects. I finally got into that a bit in A Meeting of Minds, but the dude DOES have his own stuff going on, which Delun so rudely interrupted to drag him off to see Long Feng about brainwashing a Firebender.

I also did a bunch of research for the birthday party interlude, I think. Mostly appropriate alcohol for such an occasion? And....okay, this’ll sound funny, but.....food containers. I wanted Fen to pack up leftovers for Suyin and Shirong. That’s what my Italian family does after get-togethers, and I assumed that a Chinese family/friend group would do the same! But I also had, like, zero exposure to everyday Chinese life, let alone everyday Chinese life in the 1800s, and I just didn’t have the...idk, cultural osmosis? to figure it out. Like, if you asked me how Victorians would transfer food I’d probably come up with “Idk, wrap it in cloth and stuff it in a basket?” and I assumed people living in modern China would also be able to explain what their people did for food storage/transport 150 years ago but I didn’t have that cultural background, now, did I??? Also this was 10-12 years ago I was looking this up, mind you, the internet was still very different, there was plenty of information on Chinese historical events but not on everyday life objects, CDramas weren’t easy to find if they were translated at all and I certainly didn’t know they existed, and no one was posting beautiful aesthetic videos of life in a rural Chinese mountain village to youtube yet. Eventually I learned that bamboo baskets were a thing, but there wasn’t much info on THOSE either and I wasn’t sure how to describe them, so I just tentatively typed “basket” and called it a day. XD

YOU CANNOT ASK ME TO CHOOSE MY FAVORITE CHARACTER THAT’S LIKE ASKING ME TO CHOOSE BETWEEN MY CHILDREN!!! *shoves Yong off a cliff*

I’m very fond of the Dai family, along with the Trungs and Sais. I’m very proud of how Tuan turned out. I adore Yuan, who you’ve barely met, and Xun, who you haven’t. Huang and Wu Sheng are also definite faves and I can’t wait for y’all to get to know them better.

Characters do usually behave for me in terms of personality development. They surprise me, but they never really turn out to be the complete OPPOSITE of what I was expecting? They just kinda develop organically. Huang and Wu Sheng surprised me, tho, those boys got deep. I knew they had the potential, but developing their backstory actually caused Stingrae and I to develop Ba Sing Se’s socio-political backstory and Long Feng’s rise to power, all because of an inkling I had. That was a very satisfying few years of worldbuilding and story development.

Um, favorite part of the fic....idk, I’m very fond of the final scene, with Azula and her wall chunk from Lu Ten. I’m doubly fond of it because of how it always resonates with readers. Heck, during Azula week last year, I used that chunk of rock as an ongoing theme in Sandstone, and someone commented like “I DIDN’T REALIZE YOU’RE THE ONE WHO WROTE GILDED GREEN” and that made me really happy!

Lu Ten’s time stuck underground - I used the seven stages of grief to get through that one and it was very helpful in structuring that part of the story, and I figured it was deep or something because PSYCHOLOGY.

I’m also proud of myself for getting through the dark brainwashing scenes. So, like, FYI, fanfiction could get...very dark, back in the 00s. People love to play purity police these days and complain about how nasty people get can, but listen. Listen. Do you have any idea how dark FFdotnet got back in the day? Legolas And Aragorn Get Captured By Orcs And Brutally Tortured was an entire genre. I feel like torture fic was actually a lot more common back then, and darkfic in general - I’m sure someone could write a whole thesis on why it’s not so prevalent anymore, I’m gonna guess the fact that fandom is less-insulated and more public now could be part of it, maybe also the fact that the internet is more social media/influencer culture based so people care about their image, and also the purity police which is its own kettle of worms, but I also think that the Bush Administration had something to do with it? You have all these kids who were pre-teens when 9/11 happened, growing up during the Iraq War with an awful presidential administration while everyone was scared and conservative Christianity started to realize that their control over the nation’s “morality” might be slipping and reacted accordingly......yeah there was a lot of darkfic back then.

And I read a lot of darkfic too, but, uh....well, statistically speaking, a lot of writing is bad, okay? A lot of those fics were just weird; you could see where the writer had this idea, and also where they failed to execute it in a way that resonated or made sense. And whatever, writers were young and just wanted to pound out some catharsis, it’s cool, but it still just felt narratively awkward when you could tell how the writer was more focused on LET’S MAKE THIS AS DARK AS POSSIBLE instead of “Let’s tell this as well as possible.”

So the first several attempts at writing the brainwashing scenes, I was nervous because I didn’t want to get TOO dark, and when I finally decided “eff it” and said to Stingrae “I think I need to let this be as dark as it needs to be” I was still nervous because I didn’t want it to end up WEIRD. Idk if that makes sense, but anyway I seem to have done a decent job at it!

As for parts I dislike the most, uhhhhh Iroh’s retreat (I didn’t care, I just wanted to get it over with), Enlai might’ve been promoted too fast? idk, the fact that I came up with Nanyue AFTER I finished publishing GG so I couldn’t work that into the Quy bits, the fact that I was young and innocent and didn’t understand sexual slang or innuendo and randomly chose Dong as the name of the court physician which could lead to some awful puns except no one ever seemed to pick up on that and maybe I’ll regret pointing it out but the man IS going to appear again so I might as well get the first shot in myself. XD

I might have GG2 stuff to talk about but not sure, if I do I’ll make another post on that!

<3

[blursed-ninjago-ideas]

An idea, the fandom over demonizes Lou

This might turn into another essay.

You're absolutely right and completely wrong at the same time.

Almost all the parents in the show are deeply DEEPLY flawed. (The Walkers are valid and nothing else) It's almost a running theme. It's something I really wish the show would explore or hang a lantern of some sort on.

One of the hardest and most important lessons to learn on the road to maturity is to reconcile with your parents' mistakes and failures.

The very sad fact is that you don't pay for your own mistakes when it comes to parenting, your child does. We all are carrying the consequences of our parents' short comings. Everything the did wrong as a parent is our burden to bare. It's one of the most unfair realities in life.

It's painful, but unavoidable. People are human. Humans make mistakes. Ideally we pay for our own, but it's not always the case. Parenting is one of the best examples of that.

The mark of maturity is being about to hold your parents accountable for those mistakes whole still loving them. The intent to harm you is almost never there, but intent doesn't negate harm. If I broke your arm on accident, it doesn't make any difference in how broken your arm is. You're suffering the same as you would if I had done it on purpose.

So relating this back to a lego cartoon...

Lou made mistakes. He did things that were unfair and harmful to Cole. It's not fair and Cole (and by extension the audience) has every right to be upset about it. It's healthy to be angry at your own misfortune, particularly when it was someone else's fault.

The counter is that it isn't healthy to hold a grudge over something that wasn't done intentionally. There is a very hard balance between being angry with others and blaming others. Lou didn't do anything he did out of malice. If he had the option to do everything perfectly and not do anything to hurt Cole he would've done it. Cole's suffering was an accident.

The same can be said about Misako, and Wu, Dr. Juillian, and even Cliff Gordon. They all did what they thought was a good idea at the time. Many of those actions turned out to be cruel and harmful, but they were never done with that intention. The ninja suffered from those mistakes and bad calls. We all call them out on the horrible things they did, but at the same time it wasn't done to be horrible. These were confused parents improvising things as they went. Like all our parents, they didn't have the answers to everything. There is so much guess work in raising a person, and even if you're pretty good at it, none can guess correctly every time.

Some of them were worse at it than others, but every parent messes things up.

Remember The Walkers? Even they aren't immune. Jay has a lot of issues from his isolated childhood. They probably should've done more to give him what he needed. Jay still suffers from his loneliness and it's the root of most his issues. Even his True Potential was him learning that he could be likeable as is instead of having to force himself into being an ideal version of himself.

Point being, Lou and the other parents in the series screwed a lot of things up and it's valid to be upset with injustice.

We also have to keep in mind that the failures of our parents don't make them evil or bad. We will inevitably make just as many mistakes, maybe with our own children if we choose to have them, and it doesn't make us villains either.

Our parents didn't chose to make us suffer, but we still suffered because of their choice.

Accepting that is hard. Thinking in absolutes is easy and simple and that's why we do it as children. Our parents are either all good and can do no wrong, or they're tyrants that we hate. Maturity is knowing that neither is true. They are people that try their best and still come up painfully short.

-Ivy

[secret-engima]

Some Random Reasons I Really Like the Boruto Anime.

(because yes it has it’s problems but honestly I’m tired of trying to enjoy my fandoms with everyone whinging that it’s “not as good as the original”. As if the original two Naruto shows weren’t utter dumpster fires with moments of Pure Awesome to keep it alive and half the fandom isn’t there solely to pick through Kishimoto’s junkyard world building looking for shiny bits to incorporate in their fanfics.  Which is not to say I don’t like the Naruto shows, but seriously ppl you can’t whine about how bad the fillers and slow pacing and weird world-building of Naruto was only to turn around and scream that Boruto is horrible of TRYING TO BE DIFFERENT. Let’s inject some positivity in here. Anyone who has no need for Boruto positivity can kindly move on with their lives and let me have my shiny fandom. Moving on.)

-Reason 1. Mitsuki exists. He is Best Boi™ and I adore him.

-Reason 2. The characters are not carbon copies of their parents, but neither are they polar opposites. They have some of their parent’s traits and some of their own unique traits and honestly it’s so refreshing to have a show that isn’t “Main Character X Take 2: This time with a New Color Scheme”

-Reason 3. Have you SEEN how many girl characters there are in this show? Even if most of them are side characters? Have you SEEN the fact they can actually DO STUFF other than flip their hair and whine about boys? One of them can use seals! And has CAT POWERS!! Another one was the antagonist of the first story arc! And was actually cool! And also got reformed rather than just being yote off the nearest cliff! The main female character is actually useful without being either a whim or a jerk!

Reason 4. The school system has been revamped in ways that make SENSE. The Naruto cast (especially Iruka as the new headmaster) looked back on their early life and went “You know what? It’s REALLY DUMB that we were so unprepared for shinobi life. Let’s change that.” And they did! Students actually learn water and tree walking BEFORE they get thrown into life and death situations! They know jutsu other than the Basic Three! They get to know basic sealing and learn that Summoning jutsu exists! There’s a student who knows medical ninjutsu, so that’s obviously an optional course or something kids can take! They also have an option to NOT BE NINJAS. If they decide partway through they don’t wanna be ninja’s, there’s a civilian middle school program incorporated into the academy! Do you know what that also means? Civilians who get to know BASIC SELF DEFENSE. So even if they aren’t Ninja, they at least know how ninja work and how to not Insta-die the next time someone breaks into their village!

Reason 5. THERE’S AN INTER-SCHOOL TRANSFER PROGRAM. Way to show just how tight the alliances of the different villages are. Even if it’s only mentioned here and there, it’s SUCH a cool thought with so much fanfic potential.

Reason 6. Chocho, flipping, Akimichi exists. Yes, she can be a little annoying with her running gag of “I’m so pretty” but like- SHE IS ACTUALLY PRETTY. And she knows and can use the clan jutsu really well! DO YOU KNOW HOW EASY IT WOULD HAVE BEEN for them to either make her utterly hideous and go “Hur hur look at the fat girl thinks she can actually be pretty lol” OR make her constantly whimpy and shy and lacking any confidence at all because “oh look at the poor girl, she’s FAT so she must feel UGLY all the time, and have no confidence because what FAT PERSON has any confidence unless they’re delusional?” Both of those would be so freaking stupid and defeating. But INSTEAD they make Choho 1. pretty and 2. self-confident. She dresses nice, she looks nice, she’s not stick thin like say, Sarada, but she is actually pretty and she OWNS it. She owns her love of food, and her clan jutsu, and just- herself in general. And yea they use it as a running gag sometimes when she plays it up a little too much, but like- there’s a body positivity character! Right there! Who is also a girl who kicks butt! One of the biggest complaints I’ve seen of the naruto show is that the girl characters are flat and useless and underused save for like- Tsunade. Here you have a useful girl who is also body confident! And that’s not even touching on Sarada “can use both super strength and the sharingan and owns this fact” Uchiha.

Reason 7. Boruto’s issues are not his dad’s issues. There are ... lots of “kid sequels” i’ve seen/read/heard of where all the problems are basically the main character’s problems rehashed. And yeah, the villains so far are that I’ve seen are callbacks to the main show, BUT. EMOTIONALLY. Boruto’s issues aren’t the same. Boruto doesn’t have the “nobody likes me I must earn their respect” issues Naruto did. Or the orphan issues. He has a loving mom, he’s a loving big brother (who makes mistakes and does argue with his sister, which #realistic kthanks), and he is popular. Being alone isn’t his problem. Being unpopular or hated isn’t his problem. His problems are that he doesn’t know how to bond with his always-busy dad (which- of course Naruto is always busy, that’s just the show writers continuing the Overworked Hokage gag from the original show, and yes Naruto uses his Shadow Clones to help with it but come ON he’s running a military force AND a booming village) and that he hasn’t had the same life experiences Naruto had at that age. He’s learning to mature in a different way. If Naruto and Naruto Shippuden were about children who grew up too soon in a brutal ninja world, then Boruto is about kids who grow up in the AFTERMATH of that world. The world where their parents never want their kids to suffer like that and so, just a little, coddle them. It’s kinda like the aftermath of the big wars. The kids who grew up during that war are adults now and their kids have COMPLETELY DIFFERENT life experiences and priorities. It’s just how it works, and I appreciate that.

Reason 8. We have a girl Uchiha who wants to be Hokage. I love the Naruto and Naruto Shippuden shows, but it got ... a LITTLE tiresome that Naruto’s dream was also the dream of both his dad AND his mom and I think also kid Jiraiya at one point? Like- it seemed like at that point the show was going “Of course you want to be hokage! It’s in your blood!”. Boruto couldn’t care less bout being the next Hokage. He’s lived what it’s like to be the Hokage’s kid (something Asuma, if he’s still been alive, could have sympathized with I’m sure) and he doesn’t want to be that person. Sarada on the other hand has lived the live of having no real dad figure until recently, and as such Naruto’s “all the village is my family” motto really rings home with her. She wants to be the next Hokage, not Boruto, and frankly that’s refreshing.

Reason 9. Shino the teacher. I’m pretty sure this is a controversial point but honestly I really liked this. I do have some issues with how the og characters are portrayed (looking at you Kiba and Anko), but Shino I have no issues with. This is an intelligent, helpful boy who grew up struggling to bond with people and who grew up with people constantly interrupting him/not listening. And this gag does make its frequent appearance in Boruto, but that’s not Boruto’s fault that’s actually a case of the show being consistent with its predecessor so, you know, go blame Kishimoto for how his students didn't listen to him in the early episodes. BUT. As the episodes go on, it’s so clear the students do love and respect their teacher. They wouldn’t talk to him if they didn’t. They might not see him as a terrifying warrior, but he’s their TEACHER. Even Mitsuki comes to respect Shino, going out of his way (spoiler) to fight Shino in the graduation exam because Mitsuki saw Shino as someone worth testing himself against. Mitsuki. Orochimaru’s “perfect clone bby”. Thought Shino was badass enough to fight. And also on the student body in general, OBVIOUSLY they listen to him off screen, because if they didn’t then they wouldn’t have learned the things they did and have actually succeeded in the graduation exam, now could they?

Reason 10. Naruto and Sasuke are still utterly epic WITHOUT stealing the spotlight the moment they come on screen. I’m not that far into the show, so maybe that changes, but from the arcs I’ve seen (mostly the Shin arc), Naruto and Sasuke are utter powerhouses, but they don’t ... they don’t just hax the show. In the same way Jiraiya didn’t hax everything and steal the spotlight from Naruto, neither do Naruto and Sasuke, but we still see they’re awesome (after all, they were perfectly capable while fighting all the Shins, and just- the moment one of them got a look at Kuruma it was OVER and it’s SO clear in that moment that Sasuke and Naruto were holding back because they didn’t want to kill a bunch of kids. Naruto or Sasuke on their own could have MASSACRED the Shins, but didn’t, because they’re former protagonists (and reformed antagonist in one case) like that.

So... tl:dr Boruto is not Naruto or Naruto Shippuden but considering all the massive plot holes and world-building errors that happened in those shows, as well as the utter lack of use of its female characters, that’s not a bad thing! Boruto has some stuff wrong with it, and some things that I can see annoying/ticking off fans who had their heart set on another path, but the show has potential, the characters are utilized much better than I expected, and as someone who did not grow up on Naruto and so doesn’t have shiny nostalgia glasses spot welded to my face, I think it’s a really good show.

Honestly if it wasn’t a sequel of such a monolith, childhood-forming show, I think it wouldn’t get NEAR as much hate, and the fact that it gets such flak because it dares have its own unique take on the post-Naruto Shippuden years rather than trying (and inevitably failing) to cater to the whims of every single fan out there makes me sad. If you want to see more of Naruto’s world and see female characters actually get some cool moments to themselves, then give it a try. If you’d rather go with your own Naruto HCs for what happened at the end of the war, then that’s FINE, just don’t get mad at those of us who enjoy Boruto for the glorious animated fanfic AU it is.