#Michael Ole

[vampyrhydes]

JENTRY CHAU FIC RECS

a collection of my personal favorite jcvtu fics !

brought to you by a huuuuge fic snob lmao. so rest assured these are high quality

(i do need to check out more works from the jcvtu tag tho so chances are there might be more out there that i could like a lot but haven't read yet. might make a part 2 at some point)

✒ stray away | one shot | jentry cheng au | words: 534

Jentry Cheng is a sheltered child. Well, as sheltered as you can be while being raised in Diyu by the Mogui King himself. She's not stupid though, she's human unlike all other native denizens of Diyu. Somewhere out there exists a place where she truly belongs and with her new powers she's determinated to find it.

✒ seeing ghosts (if you are one) | one shot | grief/mourning | words: 1,418

griefs a funny thing. maybe she should see a counselor. or jentry struggles after kit.

✒ i hope our souls find peace | one shot | grief/mourning | words: 1,704

Jentry struggles to reconcile the sides of Kit that she knew.

✒ mixed feelings | one shot | paintedflame | words: 1,099

Hearing her own voice in his refined timbre is strangely pleasant. It makes her sound cool, confident, maybe even handsome. This evening has been so bizarre. She tucks a bit of blonde behind her ear. Kit does the same.

✒ i hope | one shot | grief/mourning | words: 1,559

Two years later, an adult Jentry talks to Kit.

✒ paint, glue and stitches | one shot | words: 601

Jentry and Kit worked on their respective cosplays as they talked. There's a lot to talk about.

✒ salt rings and salty lines | one shot | stella centric | words: 674

Overachievers are often burdened with ambition. The Living shouldn't be able to interface with the Ephemeral, but what if…

✒ speak of the devil | one shot | words: 959

It was supposed to be a relaxing weekend at a cabin in the woods. The picturesque lake, the quiet and calm nature far from their usual worries and demonic shenanigans. Alas, some old folktales are more real than others.

✒ the hollow boy | one shot | part 1 of series | words: 2,377

Episode eight goes a little differently when Jentry tries to keep Michael out of danger... and Kit realizes that even a centuries-old yaoguai can fall victim to a moment of No Thoughts, Head Empty. Or: what I thought was going to happen when Michael showed up at the door.

✒ how to win friends and influence people [a guide for the wannabe-human] | multi chapter, on-going | part 3 of series | words: 85k+

Kit's going to make some real friends if it kills him and everyone around him. Which it just might.

✒ longing, desire, contempt | one shot | words: 1,101

This was all wrong. It was all wrong. They were all wrong. Fake. Counterfeit. An Imitation. A forgery. A sham. Its Not Real You Aren’t Real

An exploration into the birth of "kit"

✒ what guides me | one shot | michael centric | words: 501

Michael had powers. Where did they come from? What were they? He had no idea, but his parents were clearly hiding something from him.

✒ tea, coffee and odd conversations | one shot | kit survives au | words: 1,981

Less than an inch, that's how close he came to dying. He survived, but maybe he shouldn't have. He couldn't face Jentry, he couldn't leave the house, there was nothing out there for him anymore. He didn't expect anyone to reach out to him, but sometimes what we need comes to us when we least expect it.

✒ the roller skate incident | one shot | kit survives au | words: 1,285

What would happen if a friend group made up of a demon and two barely friendly with each other exes got stuck in the hospital waiting room without their vibe buffer bestie? Jentry gets distracted easily and despite her finely honed reflexes, her clumsy side comes through at the worst possible time. Without her, the trio has to somehow manage staying in the close proximity for an hour or two. It couldn't possibly be too bad, right?

✒ whispers in darkness | one shot | paintedflame | words: 2,575

Kit manages to survive after being stabbed by Mr. Cheng. Jentry takes him in to get him to rest, not wanting him to go back to his undoubtedly silent house.

✒ mirror, mirror | one shot | paintedflame | words: 631

Kit thinks about his body. (Set between episodes 5 and 6).

[daiwild]

hi my one christmas wish is that u watch this show. pretty please.

fanart that contains major spoilers under the cut:

kit i miss u 💔💔💔

[arjengelly]

Sooo I watched Jentry Chau

I was hoping it could fill the void of The Owl House….

But there was a lot of similarities to other things

Also how dare they… the Neji reference was a dead giveaway

It almost felt like the old Sabrina cartoon mixed with American dragon and Juniper Lee.

[bananahkim]

Jentry week day 3: body horror + demons

[iaf]

[hamliet]

Jentry Chau Vs Netflix

So, I watched Jentry Chau Vs. The Underworld.

If you like beautiful (and unique) animation, complex storytelling, themes of coming of age and grief, and references to my favorite band (shout out NCT127), this is a story you should definitely check out. I would recommend it highly, even though I'm going to critique later on in this review.

Complex People and Complex Love

Gugu was a very complex character whom you could both hate as someone who was clearly manipulating Jentry in an almost unforgivable way after doing the unforgivable to her family. And yet, the series opening literally had Gugu sacrificing her life for Jentry, so no matter what was revealed, you always had to handle the uncomfortable reality that Gugu really loved Jentry.

And therein the series explored complexities in love and life, an understanding that comes with growing up and brings on its own grief. The people who raise us, our heroes, turn out to have their own lives and worlds too, their own motivations, that are often not exactly altruistic. We are not at the center of their world as much as we, as children, thought we were.

Jentry's wrestling with her relationship with Gugu was complex and interesting. The handling of Gugu's character was consistently the best in the series, and I loved it even if I'm still not sure I like Gugu. That's a good character--someone you're left pondering the legacy of.

Grief

Jentry working through her grief was a major theme of the series--grief for her parents, and grief for Gugu, not just in terms of her actually dying (which does happen), but in terms of her understanding of who Gugu was and who her parents were.

Jentry's grief journey contrasts with Gugu's grief for Iris and of course Cheng's for Xiao Lan. Which is why Jentry reaching out and healing her inner child through saving Xiao Lan was ultimately a beautiful way of handling her arc. She saw a child who was scared and didn't know what was going on, and destructive in that pain, and saved her.

If you look at the series, Gugu was scared and didn't fully understand the consequences of her actions and destroyed Jentry's family as a result. Kit was scared and didn't understand how to be human and was destructive in that pain.J entry too grieves Kit and projects that fear onto the possibility of losing Michael, which leads to a rift in their relationship. And some of that fear is not understanding who they wanted to be. To quote C.S. Lewis after the death of his wife:

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. 

Grief and fear intertwine in many ways in Jentry Chau, including through Moonie allowing herself to be possessed by the Mogui to get her husband back. This also then leads to Gugu's second death.

Gugu's farewell at the end had me full-on sobbing. In a sense, Jentry's entire arc throughout the story is a symbolic way of working through her grief for Gugu, settling with her accepting via choosing to focus on Gugu's love for her, and carrying her memory on in a literal form (the necklace). After accepting Gugu loved her, Jentry loses her fear of the underworld and her powers, and her fear of losing the people closest to her as well.

A Soul Is What You Choose

Jentry's ultimate power isn't burning, but it's being able to see people for whom they want to be. Kit and being human. Ed and being scary. Michael and joining the band.

In a world where everyone, demon or human, is trying to be what they think they need to be, trying to please others, Jentry asks them to be who they want to be, to live how they want to live.

The Best Character and the Worst Writing: Kit

Kit is by far the most compelling character. He's continually sympathetic (while Gugu is somewhat not), conflicted, and torn between how desperately he wants to be human and the inhuman acts he believes he has to commit to be one. Plus, he doesn't understand what it means to be human, nor the complexities of human relationships.

The scene where he helps Jentry create a skinsuit is really a metaphorical sex scene--like fairly obviously. It isn't subtle.

It starts in a bedroom (and yes, animators know what they're doing when they choose setting and objects).

Then we have talking about looking under layers.

Then we have some yonic symbols and this.

Like. And he uses a knife (a traditionally phallic symbol), and the next thing we see is cloth falling... with literal the next frame being clothes (ie, clothes coming off).

Sticking a brush (another traditional phallic symbol) in a vat of wet paint (yonic).

Kit: I've never done this before. It's strange. Jentry: I stand by what I said in class. You do have a soul, and you're more human than you know.

Also note the hand clasped position.

It ends with them literally "becoming one" in Kit embodying a Jentry skin to help Jentry uncover the truth--in other words, they help each other be human.

Which is why what happens next really doesn't make storytelling sense, and is actually kinda offensive.

Love Triangle: What Not To Write

The love triangle pretty clearly was supposed to represent Jentry's links to the supernatural (via Kit) and her links to the human world (via Michael). Great potential for a love triangle, a trope I generally hate because it's almost never well done.

This was not well done. What makes it even more frustrating is that it had a ton of potential to be well done via the thematic and symbolic potential.

Having Kit suddenly go aggressive ex who can't take "no" for an answer was lazy writing, nonsensical within the characters they'd set up, and offensive. Offensive, primarily, because you absolutely should never introduce a triggering element like, oh, harassment and controlling men if you don't plan on dealing with it in the story. And they didn't. At all.

The only reason that element was there was to resolve the love triangle in a clear way--oh, Jentry should be with Michael because Kit acted threatening, even though he never had before. That's just bad writing, because if there's a clear choice in a love triangle, you gotta actually write it. Make Michael the more compelling love interest. (More on how they didn't do this later.)

The entire sequence with Kit makes no sense. Jentry tells him he's actually "hundreds of years old," parroting Tumblr-esque anti arguments about Twilight and every other paranormal love story ever. Except, the story had always explicitly framed Kit as a child being abused by Cheng and "parented" by puppets. His journey to understand who he was, that he mattered, that he could be a human too, was clearly a coming-of-age story.

You don't tend to end coming-of-age stories with death, but they did, pretty much because after the threatening scene there was no coming back.

Plus, Jentry's treatment of Kit actually was pretty bad. Now, there's never an excuse for a threatening ex, but--Kit was right about her hypocrisy in terms of how she treated demons like Ed and himself, something that Jentry isn't really asked to reckon with.

If they wanted Jentry to end up with Michael, that's fair, but her decision was taken away from her because they just decided to stamp Kit with a lazy and offensive development and then kill him off in a redemptive death that emphasizes everything that can go wrong with that trope.

Michael Deserved Better

I feel like they didn't know entirely what to do with Michael. He started off with a cool arc, torn between his desire to be a band geek and his talent for football. His indecision leading to conflict with Stella and Jentry was also a great flaw, especially given that he also has visions of the future. An indecisive teenager with precognition has a ton of potential.

But, Michael's arc vanishes after the festival. Instead he's just... kinda there. Jentry chooses him because she wants to be a normal, human girl. But this isn't a good reason, because she's not (and arguably, he's not either!). Yet this isn't unpacked--the idea that everyone in this triangle is both human and supernatural, to varying degrees.

One interesting idea I spotted during the scene where Kit (as Jentry) gets asked out by Michael is that--well, it's a romantic-coded scene with two men, even if Kit turns him down for Jentry.

But it also coming on the heels of the metaphorical sex scene kinda seemed to almost hint at a throuple. Plus the scene after Kit's death where Jentry views them as merging, and where Michael expresses that Jentry views them the same. This would have actually been a very interesting turn for the story to take in future seasons, if they get those (especially since Stella x Tokki is apparently a thing?).

Because ultimately:

Netflix: The True Enemy

Honestly, almost all of the writing flaws I've talked about come down to the writers just not having enough time. If they had a guarantee of further seasons, they wouldn't have needed to rush to finish the love triangle. They wouldn't have needed to kill Kit. They wouldn't have needed to abort Michael's arc and conflict with Stella.

And really, Netflix continues to disappoint me in emphasizing just how much they focus on profits and money over art. They prefer fast food over an actual nutritious meal. They give shows like one season to get record ratings and if they don't, they get axed. Of course writers are going to rush to cram their story into a single season, because there's no guarantee of another season. Series aren't given any leeway to explore their interesting elements, or to find their footing. It's bad for art. However, Warner Bros exists so Netflix can't fully win the crown for worst example of capitalistic corporations killing art just yet.

I continue to be disappointed that series with no actual story that the writers want to tell (merely a concept of a plan) get renewed for seven seasons based on the writer's reputations (that they then tank with their terrible non-writing) while interesting stories with beautiful art and animation, complex ideas on grief and growing up, have to scramble to beg for another season.

[terrestrialtraveller]

I really wished there were more moments showing Michael, his powers, and his parents. Because why does it keep showing up in relation to water in some way? Why were his parents nervous about it? How do they know he has powers?

It’s not just his powers. The show illustrated that he was unsure of his future, should he follow want he wants? Or what’s his been destined with?

The moment he follows what he wants, life makes him doubt like his desire to follow his music and his feelings for Jentry. It was realistic in its portrayal of a kid in his 16, trying to go on his life but unsure what to do with it.

It’s fascinating he can see the future, and yet he is so unsure of his future. At the end, he had to rely on his powers to be assured of his future.

[pageofheartdj]

Kit and Jentry know what it's like when their whole self revolves around their larger than life powers. Jentry and Michael know what it's like to have family hiding big ancestral secrets from them. Michael and Kit know what it's like to pretend and change who they are for others.

Excuse me how am I NOT supposed to ship all three of them together???

[emeraldart]

[selachii-lu]

fashion magazine cover for the first day of jentry week :)

[astrocomiical]

made fanart of the hollow boy fic by thosefivechicks on ao3 URGEHRHFHG actuallt made me ill i hate everything

[vampyrhydes]

JENTRY WEEK DAY 7: KARAOKE / BEACH EPISODE

... and that's a wrap !

[supahstarrr]

i can't just emphasize how important stella is as a friend for both jentry and michael. she is the "earth" to jentry's "fire" and to michael's "water"—sharing both of their traits while also having distinct ones of her own that is able to balance out the both of them at once.

even her "powers" being the only one not revolving around supernatural abilities go along with her as the "earth" that they both need to be stable. she represents the "normalcy" that the both of are able to get & feel despite their connections to the supernatural. she's sympathetic enough to get to the both of them but also can act as the voice of reason and an organizer to keep them both grounded.

in a sense, her pushing michael to a future that many others defined for him contributes to her as a symbol for "normalcy" because of how that's reflective of the negativity that comes with social norms, and how in the context of michael's story that was what "normal" meant to him.

jentry & stella becoming friends while one of them has a crush on the other's former partner subvert social expectations about how you should go about and feel about those scenarios. jentry reaches out to stella for her to organize and process the thoughts she has, then for some moments they bond while jentry is able to forget about what being "normal" is like without powers for some time.

without her, the two of them (especially jentry) would have a harder time to define what being normal means to themselves due to the lack of having moments that don't involve the supernatural or constant self-doubt and mourning. she helps them break down social norms as an attempt to gain control over their lives through positive (jentry & stella) and negative (michael & stella) relations.

i'm sure the writers internalized stella's importance. although that plan for her importance was not fully delivered to the audience because stella definitely could use some more depth to her character and her importance is brushed aside at various points of the story, but the potential in the dynamic between jentry/stella/michael and what stella means for the both of them is soooo interesting to me. especially because the show definitely needed an "earth" character— someone who represents normalcy after michael as a symbol for jentry's story has a shift & someone who is able to keep them grounded after the supernatural becomes intertwined in the both of their stories

[arjengelly]

Really thought they were going to ditch Mako, I mean Michael, at the dance and go Korrasami on us….😜

And then there was Tokki at the end…

Hopefully we get season 2 and they expand on the characters some more 🤞🏼

[teradrama]

jentry chau characters + do they like horror movies?

jentry: oh dear God no. she hates them violently. is canonically squeamish so she especially hates gore.

ed: ALSO hates them violently but for extremely different reasons. hates the portrayal of demons. "THE DISRESPECT". doesn't get why jentry is sacred of them when IM SO MUCH SCARIER

michael: doesnt like them but doesnt really hate them either. wouldnt choose to watch one on his own but is appreciative of good ones

kit: could not before indifferent, they're nothing compared to what he's seen/done/been through. his friends make him watch all of the top scariest movies they can find and he just. doesn't even blink. has the disturbing habit of comparing them to stuff he's been through (*watching Jennifer's body with stella* "huh, this reminds me of that one time in milan." "What happened in- nvm I don't want to know")

stella: LOVES THEM. used to make michael watch them with her when they were dating. now she and kit have horror movie nights <3

[joisropa]

WOW lovebirds calm down XD anyways i need to draw these two