#brazil arc is so special to me

[susanoois]

Ninja shoyo IS COMING!!!!!!

Hinata Brazil arc let's go. I'm not prepared to see the person I will become seeing this animated 😭.

[viktoriakomova]

i want to make this a separate post instead of tacking it onto the last post i reblogged, because a) i feel like its getting way too far away from the point of the OP and as someone who has been in that position several times on my main blog its annoying as shit, and b) i dont want it to feel like anybody is ganging up on OP or "dragging" them or whatever, i dont think what they said was mean spirited or came from a place of bad faith etc etc etc. (if i did i would have been a whole fucking lot meaner in replying lmfao) and i also dont think anything it said was Wrong tbh.

okay all that being said!

i will put my tags of my last reblog in the main text here, because this is something i want to expand on:

not to get too Deep about it but. the colonizing countries literally have more wealth and resources and opportunity *because* th#*they stole so much from the global south. they have the $ and the stability to develop ‘frivolous’ things like gym#at the direct expense of the colonies who are left penniless and in perpetual chaos and upheaval

(for context this is re: children of immigrants in diaspora and their connections to their parents'/grandparents' homelands and culture, and maintaining those ties when the reason they came to the global north are for increased opportunity for success and upward mobility etc.)

i wont turn this into a treatise on economic exploitation and its consequences like i alluded to in the tags (i would if i had like 3 glasses of wine tho lol) but the following is something i really do want to underscore:

i love nemour for a lot of reasons. the gymnastics itself, yes of course. i know i snark and make jokes all the time about her shitting on the FFG every time she does anything great under the 🇩🇿 flag. but sincerely, what she is doing for gymnastics in algeria, in north africa in general (hell even in africa overall given the attention that african champs got because of her), is truly something special. i will admit that i dont stay on top of algerian sports media lol but i do speak french and what ive seen, just what has come across my radar, in the francophone algerian press (both in france and in algeria) is drumming up major excitement about her. this is the kind of attention that gets people who otherwise wouldnt give a shit emotionally invested in the sport. the social and historical baggage of the treatment of algeria and algerians in france, and the olympics being in paris, is just the icing on the cake.

its not exactly the same dynamic, especially not in terms of the Discourse about resources and access in diaspora, but i cant help but to be reminded of daiane dos santos, who famously started the sport at the age of 12. and only 8 years later she became a world champion on floor. she was the first world champion in WAG from brazil, south america entirely in fact, ever!!!! rebeca andrade mentions her all the time as an inspiration for her as a little girl. rebe went out of her way (i mean that figuratively as well as very literally, we all know the story about her brothers escorting her through the favela to the gym and back) to do the sport, because she saw dos santos do great things and looked up to her. and now shes REBECA FUCKING ANDRADE. would we have Rebe™ if it hadnt been for daiane? no probably not!

i guess it just..... not "upsets" me, thats not the word im looking for, but maybe gives me pause when i see anybody say (about any of the aforementioned US-born gymnasts representing other countries, not just in this case with nemour) that its opportunistic or undeserved to be competing under the flag of a country your parent(s) came from but you've never properly lived in. because...... isnt that the whole purpose of the multi-generational Narrative Arc? dont they pick up their whole lives and move to "wealthy" countries to pursue better lives for themselves, and more importantly, for their children? and then their children do take advantage of those opportunities they would not have gotten back "home" and reach the highest levels of a (very expensive and, until very recently, highly "inaccessible") sport. and then there's a chorus of "well it isn't like she's FROM from there and came up from the ranks within that country." i mean you're not wrong but thats.... kinda the point!!! she couldnt have done it at "home," shes a clear example of how much talent there is in places that are torn apart and dirt fucking poor and how if you give those people the opportunity, they can be really fucking good at this! world class, even!

she is, in a very REAL sense, "representing" algeria. if she does well in paris (🧿🧿🧿🧿 *furiously knocking on every wooden surface in my apt*) she will become an emblematic iconic sports star for algeria. she will be the reason a ton of little girls in algeria (and even franco-algériennes in france) will want to sign up for gymnastics! she will have (and has already had, by the looks of it) a tangible impact on the popularity and the future of the sport in algeria. it cannot be overstated how fucking much that means.

[gabyloves18]

Hinata's Brazil arc is so special to me.

I read it right after having a conversation with my mom about how I feel all this constant anxious pressure about my future, about having to do things in a conventional way in a conventional timeline. That if I don't manage to reach by a certain timeline, I feel like a failure.

However, Hinata went a completely different route than anybody else to become a pro volleyball player. He went to the otherside of the eart to do something that he thought would help him, "sidetracking" him for three years. But, when he came back to Japan, he was confident in himself his abilities, and his place in pro volleyball.

I desperately needed that storyline to change my mindset. After college, I don't have to get a job in my field straight away. I can try a couple of things to make sure of the path I'm leading. My father doesn't work on what he graduated with his bachelor's with, so there's no pressure besides the one I put on myself to be conventionally perfect.

My anxiety about the future is all due to what I think I HAVE to achieve by a certain point.

But Hinata didn't do what he expected, when he went to Brazil, he didn't follow the path of his peers. He didn't follow Kageyama on his path. He did what he thought he needed to do for himself and no one else.

And I think that really has changed me.

[panzershrike-pretz]

THIS! This tag game seems so fun! Made by the amazing @ronald-speirs!

Favorite place in the world you’ve visited?

That would be either the alps in Germany or the Salinas beach, here in Brazil! I adored both the snow and thes amount of stuff i find at the beach there

Something you’re proud of yourself for?

The amount of progress I made since being diagnosed with autism, depression and anxiety. Even if I stopped going to therapy, I feel like the diagnosis (esspecially the autism one) shed so much light on my life, and I was able to makes the world around me (even if just at home) more confortable for myself by understanding myself more and adjusting the way I do things so it's easier on me.

Favorite books?

Hmmmmm let's see- the Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children series, obviously, but I also LOVE The Book Thief, American Gods and definetely Warrior Cats (I only read the first arc, so Idk how good's the rest xD)

Something that makes your heart happy when thinking about it?

My dog and my characters! Love them :]

Favorite thing about your culture?

Hmmmmmm probably food? But I'm extremely picky so I don't even eat most of our stuff 💀 i do love feijoada, brigadeiro, pastel and coxinha tho- Idk about the rest KAKAKAKA other than that, the slangs. So cool. Love it

When did you join the HBO War fandom? What was the first show you watched?

Back at the end of 2022 or early 2023 was when I first heard about it, but as for officially joining...? Probably like. 5 or 6 months ago? I have no idea what time even is-

The first show was Band of Brothers :D

Have you read any of Easy Company’s books? If so, which ones were your favorite?

Nope. And won't.

Favorite HBO War character and your favorite moment with them?

Webster. Him shoving himself on the ground was the best. Just like me fr💕

Do you make content for any fandoms, if so; what sort of content?

Uhhhhh I make memes and occasionally fanart? I wouldn't classify this as content but when I'm really into something I take some aspects of it for my own world, so I can always keep it close to me, even if the hyperfixation faded a bit with time

Favorite actor/actress and your favorite film of theirs?

I know no one- but I do like Bud Spencer and Terence Hill's movies. They are the only actors I know the name of 💀 I like the funny coeboy movies, many good memories watching them with dad when I was a kid (and still doing so, every now and then)

Favorite quote/s that you wish to share with others?

"I'll beat you with a dead cat 'till it starts mewing" - a popular brazilian saying (the best ever)

Random fact your mutuals/followers don’t know about you?

HmmmmmmmmI share so much about myself that I don't even know 💀 probably that I once fell facefirst on a river when I was 4, while I was fishing? That was A Day

If you’re a writer, do you need a beta reader (say yes so I can be your beta reader 🤭)?

I don't write much but!! I did write something yesterday about my characters and idk if I should post, but if you're interested, I can show you :D

Three things that make you smile?

My dog, my characters, birds

Any nicknames you like?

Based off my real name I like "Rah", but only when used irl. As for the internet, I love Pretz! And I have a special one my best friend @isazmoon gave me, which is Pretzu, but this ones I feel like it's only hers :3

List some people you love to see around on tumblr!

@1waveshortofashipwreck @xxluckystrike @ronald-speirs @ronsparky @minha-xuh @whollyjoly @sweetxvanixlla!! I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!! AMAZING PEOPLE!!

What would you do during a zombie apocalypse?

What would I live for, my stupid ass can't even run 😭 i'd die fast as fuck. And I know all my friendswould die too so we all just perish together 💕💕💕 friendship goals

Favorite movie?

How To Train Your Dragon? Wolfwalkers? Saving Private Ryan? Pirates of the Caribbean? Can't probably choose only one, it's torture

Do you like horror movies?

Ehh, not much? I prefer animations

Tags (no pressure): @xxluckystrike @whollyjoly @ronsparky @sweetxvanixlla @grumpy-liebgott @1waveshortofashipwreck @blueberry-ovaries @minha-xuh (hey Gih, if you want you can take off the HBOwar bits and/or replace them with MPHFPC, since you're from another fandom, feel free!)

[pumpkabees]

(some of the) haikyuu manga moments i need to see animated desperately:

the very end of nekoma v karasuno where kenma collapses to the ground and says that he had fun

"we are the protagonists of the world" bokuaka shenanigans

the entirety of takeda's speech to hinata when hinata has to be pulled from the kamomedai v karasuno match

kenma giving hinata his tablet :(

tanaka offering to hold kiyoko's bag and her actually accepting

"it's light." "that's what i always say."

all of the brazil arc but more specially; hinata's locksreeen, oikawa and hinata playing beach volleyball against the buy me a drink brothers, pedro and hinata gushing over one piece, heitor wanting to propose to nice only if they win and nice being like no dumbass i'm gonna propose to you instead, heitor and nice's wedding, hinata in a suit at heitor and nice's wedding

ken watanabe

also all of msby v alders

hinata reuniting with everyone right outside a bathroom

bokuto tumbling before the match starts

"i'm here!" "welcome home!"

hinata's receive

hinata's set for atsumu

romero recognizing "the ninja shoyo"

kagehina handshake

miwa. kageyama.

athletic trainer iwaizumi huehue

oihina hugging at the olympics

honestly there's definitely way more but these was just what i coukd remember off the top of my head lol. i am so unequivocally excited for the movie - haikyuu brainrot never really goes away for me but it definitely feels like if's been jumpstarted :')

[becauseplot]

Hi hi hi :D

My header was gettin crowded so I figured I might as well just make an intro post lmao.

Welcome!

My name is Curly! You can call me Curly, or becauseplot, or bp, or bitchass---anything along those lines will do <3

I use he/she/they pronouns (in no particular order, go nuts) and I am not a minor!

Below the cut: interests, style of posting, tags list/system, ao3, and more! (Important bits are bolded!)

[x]

The things I'm Normal:tm: about

QSMP remains a background interest of mine but it's still beloved. Faves are qphilza (rly just ANY philza rp characters) and qcellbit. I also love DSMP, TotK, and BotW. Sometimes I'll jumpscare you with a Sherlock Holmes post just because. (Holmes and Watson have my whole heart. They <3)

I'm also in the middle of watching Ordem Paranormal! I've watched AOP, OSNF, OPD, OPC, and am making my way through OSNI. Liz my beloved. Arthur my beloved. All of them my beloved. Watch tags are curlyaop, curlyosnf, curlyopd, curlyopc, etc.

I am nothing if not long-winded (if you couldn't already tell from the length of this lmaooooo)

I like+reblog+tag pretty much EVERYTHING. So sorry if I clutter your notifs, I just have the inexplicable urge to add Every Post to my Hoard.

I talk a lot in tags. Like, a LOT. Also, my posts have a tendency to ramble. I have thoughts and internet access and that is a very ill-advised combination <3

I do swear a lot!!! Always know that if I'm swearing I am never genuinely mad/upset I do it for the funnies and the funnies only.

#organized (not really)

I do have a tagging system but it's kinda!! Wonky!!! I'll organize it one of these days I swear. For the most part, if you want stuff (qsmp-related) I've saved on...

a specific character: "q![character]" (yes even the npcs like the eggs)

duos: "[______] duo" (or their ~special~ duo name, ex "codebreakers", "crimeboys", etc)

shipping content: the ship name lmao

clips: "qsmp clips for the soul"

funny/neat in-game/webcam screenshots: "qsmp reaction images"

I also save stuff about major arcs and special events under specific tags, so keep an eye out for these too:

"qsmp festa junina"

"qsmp spiderbit wedding"

"qsmp election event" (stuff to do with the whole election arc)

"qsmp dinner event" (the election dinner with the imposter eggs)

"egg-napping part 3" (posts to do with the egg disappearances, mainly the first few days and the black concrete)

"happy all the time" (happy pills arc)

"a dose of reality" (the end/aftermath of the happy pills arc)

"q viva mexico" (mexican independence day event)

"qsmp dia de muertos"

"qsmp purgatory"

"qsmp purg finale" (or 11/18, what we thought was a finale)

"purg 2 electric boogaloo" / "qpurgatory 2" (AWWW SHIT HERE WE GO AGAIN)

"@v@" (qforever possession stuff)

qsmp prison event

q2024 opening (YOOO HAPPY NEW YEAR)

A couple other tags!

"qmongus" (qsmp amongus lobby)

"qoutlast" (qsmp plays outlast trials)

"qtwitter” (twitter posts, usually does NOT include event updates tho)

“qsmp event updates” (HERE are the event updates!)

"twitchcon paris" (mostly stuff about qsmp cc's meeting up)

"qsmp brazil meetup"

"qsmp vegas meetup"/"twitchcon vegas"

"qsmp french alps meetup"

“streamer awards 2024”

"fruit mountain tournament" (cellbit's fruit mountain tournament!)

"qpositivity" (positive posts praising qsmp, for when the discourse and neg gets to be too much <3 )

Another random tag I have: "the dynamic of all time" - Posts that give me vibes of a character/relationship dynamic but nothing specific enough to tag it as a given character. I just think they're neat :]

COME SHOUT AT ME

YOU HEARD ME. ASKS ARE OPEN. TALK TO ME!!!

Bear in mind you might get a wall of text in response. You have been warned.

I remember my ao3 login sometimes

My ao3 is BecausePlot! I haven't been super active recently, but if you're interested in some of my stuff, here's a list of my 10 favorite works atm, from most to least recent <3

Relative (QSMP x Ordem au) (au is tagged: "TWLITFAU")

The Calm (Spiderbit fluff)

Miss Me? (f!Cell shows up at f!Felps' apartment)

Waking Up On The Wrong Side of the Bed (c!Phil in QSMP)

Insanity (q!Cellbit character study)

An.G.E.L.S. (OSMP x Antarctic Empire, Military au)

Danse Macabre (Parentsduo <3)

But You're Not Yourself (c!Phil and c!Techno raising c!Wilbur)

A Helping Hand (Phil gets adopted by a flock of crows)

Take My Hand (Retelling of the handcuff scene from BBC Sherlock: Reichenbach Fall)

Leaving a comment on the fic itself or in my askbox is the best way for me to talk to you and say thank you for reading! Let me appreciate you ya nerd!!

Other Schtuff

UHHHH I MADE AN ORDEM AU CALLED 90 SECONDS TO MIDNIGHT. YEAH. PUTTING THIS HERE :D

My pfp is from GranadaTV's Sherlock Holmes adaptation (with Jeremy Brett), specifically the episode The Greek Interpreter.

My banner is by wolfythewitch (from the Creature animatic I think?? I honestly don't remember lmao.)

My favorite color is green (if you couldn't tell), my favorite animal is horse, my favorite flower is dandelion, my favorite imagery to play with in writing is space/universe/atoms/stars/etc, I'm studying mechanical engineering and physics, I do shitty drawings on super rare occasions, and, last but not least,

If you are a dick about anything you will simply be blocked.

Peace and love on planet earth <3

If you have any questions, send an ask! I hope you enjoy your stay :Drl

[loveephia]

phases i had of each hq boy before i go and turn my phone off (ranked by how long i liked them)

ushijima wakatoshi. when i got back into the hq fandom, him and shirabu were my absolute faves until i gradually started liking kita shinsuke.

suna rintarō. a fanfic actually made me lose most of my interest in him, which i didn't even know was possible. 😭

lev haiba. honestly, i still love him, just not enough for him to be in my top 5. his timeskip is chef's kiss. :3

shirabu kenjirō. honestly, it's an on-and-off crush. i will be writing more content about him soon because HE'S SO CRIMINALLY UNDERRATED.

goshiki tsutomu. again, also underrated. he'd be like a little puppy in love, trying to get your attention all the time. i'm so sick. he's so cute. 😞

yaku morisuke. i found it cute how he'd be strict with everyone else on the nekoma team, but be so lovey-dovey with his girlfriend.

shōyō hinata. his brazil arc has me swooning.

special mentions are: kuroo tetsurō, keiji akaashi, tōru oikawa (IT WAS BACK IN 2020. IT DOESN'T COUNT!!!!), akira kunimi, and kanji koganegawa.

i'd make a list every month on who my top hq crushes were, and usually ushiwaka and suna would fight for #1. my friends would always be like:

"GIRL YOU'RE SO UNLOYAL"

"NO, I PROMISE THIS TIME. HE WILL STAY NUMBER 1!!"

"uhuh, YOU SAID THAT LAST TIME."

well, jokes on them, cuz kita has been number one for months now, so HAHA

[spacelesbiandisaster]

Is very funny to me that everytime Lux Bonteri appears in the show we immediately got a female character to stole Ahsoka's attention from him:

In Brazil we call that a "empata foda".

I started to get lore for a few saffics Ahsoka fics I'm planning to write an did had some plans for Lux, specially bc he is her "first" crush but the more I look the more lesbian I think Ahsoka is. The "crush" she has on Lux only sustains itself when there's no woman's in the room.

And although I do like Lux character (being one of the few "good" separatist and also the one responsible for Ahsoka understanding of the complexity of the war she is fighting in) but now that I had a chance to think more careful about his relevance on Ahsoka's live is only a political one, and even them we had Padmé how does a much better job on that. Heck I argue that he could be entirely removed and we would still have great arcs if we focused only on the Death Watch and the Onderon Rebels (Specially Saw Gerrera since we gets so many importance in later on cannon materials). And I think Ahsoka would agree with me to delete his character:

I would keep his mom on the show though.

So I guess I don't like Lux was much was i did was a kid. But maybe that's just me being very gay and trying to make Ahsoka look gayer was well.

[weirdplutoprince]

If this isn't too much, would you mind telling me about your ocs? Or directing me to a post that has all the info lol

Sure! I think I've posted about a few ocs before, but the ones you've seen were probably from my webcomic Renegados! It's one of my very first stories, and I got around posting it in 2018. As of now it's on a long break lol because I'm working on rebooting it. The core concept is still appealing to me, but turns out it needed a lot of polishing! dfhsudhuf

You can read some of the first pages in english on Tapas ( https://tapas.io/series/Renegades--ENGLISH-ver ) but I was still getting the hang of digital art and panelling so it's a bit of a rough product lol.

The current 'summary' of the story is roughly this thing I wrote for Artfight:

Malu, Cairu, Lan and Grifo are renegados: people with a magical-emotional disorder that compromises their magic flow. In a world where people either have magic flow passively through them, or can actively channel this power for spells, Renegados are a strange middle ground; Instead of freely harnessing the magic in them, they either struggle to release it or have a nearly unstoppable flow that they have little control of.

Failing to release this magic or doing so excessively has harmful physical and emotional consequences for them, so they need early interventions and assistance to cope with their powers. These four children all attend a school that contains a special side program meant to help Renegado children manage their condition. Magic tends to take unique shapes when flowing through Renegados, so each kid has an unique power that feels the most natural to them!

The premise of the first arc of the story so to say should be that there's a São João party coming around (I think originally a portuguese festivity but it became its own thing in Brazil and thats what I'm going for, basically this big dancing party with traditional food, clothes, music etc - children usually celebrate them in school and they need a pair to dance with. ) and Malu - a little girl whos still coming to terms with finding out she's a renegada - feels like she should get Lan, the most beautiful boy in school and her best friend's older brother, to be her partner so she can be good enough for said best friend - the bride of the party ( são joão dances usually are centered around a 'bride' and 'groom' figure. if you google noiva de são joão you should find pictures, its cute. ). That's the rough idea!

They have little profiles on my artfight! You need an account to see them but its organised. My toyhouse as well!

https://artfight.net/~Cath-que-desenha

https://toyhou.se/Cath_que_desenha

Malu in her magic class outfit!

[shihalyfie]

Ruki and Ryou's first on-screen encounter I can understand being contentious. When they meet again, I do feel a bit more okay with their interactions, since the teasing feels friendlier.

You'll have to forgive me for bringing this up, but one of my personal complaints about Tamers is that a lot of the time there seems to be a number of unfocused ideas/thought experiments that sound great in a vacuum but have unfortunate implications when actually put together. From what my understanding is, Yoshimura was the one who informed most of the nuances of Ruki's character in terms of her difficulties in being singled out as a girl, and (quoting a certain blog I'm uncomfortable linking) Konaka was the one who wanted Ryou to be an "accomplished senior" who randomly comes into the story and wows everyone, citing Tuttle from the movie Brazil. Then he and Yoshimura determined that if Ryou had been an accomplished unbeatable Tamer with the card game, he must have met Ruki once. Those are all great ideas in isolation, but put it together and you have a very nasty implication here: a character arc about a girl succeeding in a male-dominated field crashing right into an ending that involves her having to "admit" humility and deference to a boy (which includes all the way up to the finale where Sakuyamon conspicuously has to sacrifice her power for Justimon). It's honestly a pretty offensive way to end that kind of character arc if you think too hard about it, and it can easily feel like Tamers just up and backtracked on everything that made Ruki's character so special.

So I think even when they do get on friendlier terms, that nuance is still going to be looming behind it, and it's a bit troubling, to be honest...especially since Ryou is a whole three years older than Ruki, so that nagging feeling of a power imbalance between the two is still going to color their relationship even if they do it on a more equal level. I think the idea of Ruki loosening up a bit against someone she had a grudge against is a great idea in theory, and it's possible to have wide age gaps between the kids but still have them treat each other as equals in practice (Iori in 02, or Astra in Appmon), but the context behind Ryou's introduction and the nasty implications it holds for Ruki's character arc make it very difficult to swallow.

It's a popular ship in Japan right now, and I think it's because of the potential of the dymamic; I think if we took out the concept of storytelling and narrative themes, I definitely would like the idea of them warming up to each other and getting along better, so I think the part that rubs people the wrong way is just the context it was presented in. Personally I also happen to be somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of shipping on such a proportionally large age gap at such a young age, but I'll leave that as a separate issue.

[mach-speed-spin]

Rating Beyblade tournaments

This is a rating of the tournaments themselves, not the arcs. Stuff like character growth will be ignored here in favor of how the tournament itself is structured, the battles, and how they use characters in the context of the tournament

Season 1 Japan qualifiers: 7/10. Not a bad tournament, but it could’ve been better. There’s a lot of background bladers but only 9 named competitors, with 3 of them barely being non-background characters. They had 2, admittedly minor, characters who were there in episode 1 who didn’t appear here. They wouldn’t have made this a 10/10, but their inclusion could’ve bumped it to an 8

Chinese tournament: 8/10. Great arc overall. Even the matches against minor teams were great battles in their own right. My only complaints are how they glossed over the match against India, but that’s very minor (and we got to see one round in full at least)

American tournament: 9/10. No complaints here. It’s the Chinese tournament but better (the tournament itself, not the whole arc). The match against Thailand stood out as one of the best in the Chinese tournament (right behind the finals), and every minor team in the American tournament felt as powerful as Thailand’s. If you showed me one round from the matches against Mexico, Ecuador, and Brazil (excluding Kai’s rounds), and told me this was a major battle in the series, I’d believe you. And the final match against the US is even more action-packed than the final match in China

Russian tournament: 7/10. I’m counting Russia’s matches against China and the US as part of this (even if they’re exhibition matches). Ray vs Bryan and Tyson vs Tala are some of the best battles in the season, but the rest of the tournament doesn’t stand out as much

Local tournament at the start of V-Force: 1/10. I know I’m grasping at straws, but V-Force only has 1 major tournament. I know this is a minor tournament, but absolutely none of the battles were good. It’s a few background characters fighting, Ozuma quickly defeating one of them, and the final which also looks like 2 background characters fighting, despite having 2 major characters in it

Psykick Island: 4/10. It’s tournament-adjacent so I’m including it. The battles were alright, but nothing special. Figel had a cool design and I love Dark Emperor Bat, but the battles were just ok

Battle Tower: 8/10. Also tournament-adjacent. Each of the battles was good, with the battle against Kane being one of my favorites in the season. It could’ve been better with the other battles, but I can’t complain

2v2 tournament: 8/10. Same as the Battle Tower. A bunch of good matches with a few great ones mixed in. Only problem is how they handled Kane and Jim. I get that they don’t have Cyber Dragoon and Cyber Draciel anymore, but why make them this weak? Most of Zagart’s goons could probably defeat them in a 1v2

G-Rev Japan qualifiers: 6/10. The major battles were good, but there should’ve been more important characters. We had Tyson, Kai, Kenny. Daichi, and Kotaro. That’s 5 bladers. And Kotaro’s battles weren’t that great. They weren’t bad, but were nothing special

G-Rev world championships: 9/10. Every battle shown was great. Only problem is that a few rounds were glossed over. But the great battles were some of the best in the series, so it stays at a 9

Justice 5 Tournament: 10/10. Not really a tournament but it’s called one. Every battle was amazing. A major tournament like this, with no battles glossed over, and every battle being great? Easy 10

Aquatic Tag-Team Tournament: 4/10. It has everything I don’t like with previous tournaments (few important bladers, battles glossed over), but the stadiums made up for it. The original series had special stadiums, but more often than not they seemed to only exist for visuals. The special stadiums made battles look nicer, but here the special stadiums affect the battle much more

Survival Battle: 8/10. Good tournament with original rules that make it stand out amongst other tournaments. It doesn’t have anything that truly stands out, but it doesn’t have anything bad either

Battle Bladers qualifiers: 9/10. I decided to group all the qualifier tournaments together, but keep them separate from Battle Bladers. It’s a 9/10 because of how well it introduces new characters. Every single one of the characters in these tournaments are properly fleshed out enough to be major characters. Most of them weren’t, but by the time Battle Bladers came around, it meant to a single one was a background character. Also, the special stadiums we see in some of them are great (shoutout to Gingka and Tobio’s match for the stadium)

Battle Bladers: 9/10. Most of the first round battles were glossed over, but everything from the second round onwards was great. The first round would’ve taken this down to a 8, but the unexpected body horror toward the end and the final match keep it at 9

Metal Masters Japan qualifiers: 7/10. The battles we saw were great, and we truly didn’t know who’d make the cut (except Gingka) since all the important characters were there. I just wish we saw some matches with characters like Teru, Ryutaro, Tobio, and Tetsuya

Metal Masters Africa qualifiers: 6/10. The battles were just ok, but the format with the group battles followed by the 24 hour challenge bump it up from what would originally have been a 3

Metal Masters world championships: 9/10. All the battles were great, and the few special stadiums we got were also great. My only complaint is that there was a whole double-elimination thing we didn’t see. You’re telling me we could’ve seen Lera battle, or more of Desert Blaze, and we didn’t?

Mohenjo-daro tournament: 4/10. It’s just Ryuga stomping background characters, but the possibility of King Indus being a Legendary Blader added to it. King Indus doesn’t do anything after the battle, but the multiple red herrings we got during the season for Legendary Bladers were well executed, including King Indus

Gateway to Success: 7/10. The battles were great, but we only had 5 relevant teams, and the 2v2 format doesn’t quite work when you don’t have many characters. The number of important competitors sadly doesn’t live up to the grand scope of the tournament’s presentation

Showdown at the Tower of Babel: 6/10. The battles themselves are a 5, and the red herring was disappointing compared to the others. The 6 is because the Tower of Babel is not only canon to the series, but it hosts tournaments

Destroyer Dome: 8/10. The battles were great and the stadium was unique. My only complaints are that they didn’t use Jack as well as they could have, and that of the 20 competitors, 5 were background characters. They could’ve brought back Damian, or actually had Excalibur compete (Damian plus Excalibur perfectly fills in 5 slots). Or do bring back Desert Blaze since they didn’t get much focus in Masters

Beyster Island: 8/10. Great battles and a unique format. However, the format means that you can lose the tournament even if you win every battle for being too slow in your wins. It works to make this tournament different from the others, but it also means that it doesn’t settle who’s the better blader (something which most tournaments seek to do)

One Day Tournament: 2/10. Literally a single battle that matters. There are 2 non background characters in this. There is no reason to make it a tournament

Neo Battle Bladers qualifiers: 5/10. It’s a watered down version of the original Battle Bladers qualifiers. There are some cool matches (like Akuya wanting revenge), but nothing as great as the Stormy Battle Royal from the original

Neo Battle Bladers: 7/10. Enjoyable tournament, but it can’t compare to the original. None of the matches are glossed over, but that’s expected when you have half the number of competitors

Beywheelz World Championship: 2/10. We start in the finals. The battle is good, but it fails as a tournament. I debated giving it a 1 because of this, but the battle is good enough that it’s on par with the One Day Tournament

Beywheelz Grand Prix: 3/10. Not a fan of only having 2 important teams, but at least the format is unique enough

Judgement Bey: 8/10. It’s everything I like about the Justice 5 Tournament, but sadly not as good when it comes to the battles

District Tournament: 4/10. Valt’s wins feel very unearned, and the one major battle not involving Valt, Shu vs Orochi, has it’s own issues. It’s hard to take Orochi seriously as a competitor when he couldn’t score a single point on an injured Shu

Sword Flames vs Beigoma Academy: 4/10. Tournament-adjacent. It has the same problems as the District Tournament (Valt’s performance comes down to sheer luck), and the battles aren’t as good for action, but the stadium and performance of the other Beigoma Academy bladers bumps it up

Regional Tournament: 6/10. It’s a direct improvement to the District Tournament in every way, but still not spectacular

National Team Tournament: 8/10. Takes the core aspects of the Regional Tournament, makes it a team tournament, and improves on it

National Tournament: 8/10. Improvement over the team tournament, but many characters don’t get a shot at the individual tournament (Daigo, Yugo, Orochi, etc.) and the new characters (Naoki and Jin) aren’t enough to make up for it

BC Sol entrance test: 1/10. A single elimination tournament where only 2 characters matter, except both get in so the tournament matters even less

European League: 6/10. Decent team tournament, but nothing all that special (also the anime never showing us the teams’ point standings makes the staked of losing an individual match fell hollow)

World League: 8/10. The European League but bigger, a better format, and cooler battles

International Bladers Cup: 7/10. Every battle we saw was great. The format used points and actually showed us the bladers’ scores so we knew how much each battle mattered. Only complaint is how many battles they glossed over. I wanted to see the Silas vs Joshua rematch, and Xander vs Lui, and Silad vs Lui, etc

Luinor Cup: 8/10. All the battles were good, and the tournament is a regular 1v1 single elimination. There’s nothing that makes it stand out, but it is good

Battleship Cruise: 9/10. I’m counting the match against Valt as part of the tournament. All the battles were good, and the format was very unique. I just wish the battle royale had a bit more substance to it, and that we had gotten to see the full Beyathlon (beyblade golf, beyblade bowling, beyblade swimming, etc.). Seriously, they have Ranjiro bowling with his bey and don’t show us the full game

Dread Tower: 9/10. It’s as tournament-adjacent as the Battle Tower. The battles were all good, Count Nightfell added an unexpected but welcome twist, and the fact that we came so close to a tv broadcast of people dying in a beyblade match elevates this even further

Bey Carnival: 7/10. I’m not counting the guys in beyblade costumes doing the Beyxercise as part of this (that would make this at least a 9). The battles were good, but I am disappointed in how in order to make Lodin seem more threatening, they made Joe seem weaker. I get the power escalation aspect, but “his attack is as strong as Joe’s without the backfiring part” would’ve worked perfectly fine

Battle Island: 8/10. Good battles, an interesting format, and overall a good tournament. However, nothing in it truly stands out, and the odd absences of Joe and Lodin are weird (would it be that hard to have Blindt defeat them to give a supposedly strong blader a better record?)

Inferno Tower: 9/10. I’m counting both Dante’s and Delta’s attempts, and Delta’s rematch. Joe vs Gwyn wasn’t that great. Dante vs Blindt was pretty good. Delta vs Arthur (match 1) was great, and match 2 was just as good. Dante vs Arthur was one of the best battles in Burst. I can’t give it a 10 because that’s reserved for the absolute best, and not every match here is as good as Dante vs Arthur, or even Delta vs Arthur

Victories vs Inferno: 10/10. Best tournament or tournament adjacent arc in Burst. Love the format. Love the battles. Rainbow Turbo is aesthetically the coolest power up to exist in any piece of media I’ve seen (Power Rangers should have a rainbow ranger who is a fusion of the entire team and just glows with the power of a thousand gamer PCs)

Legend Festival: 8/10. Some great battles, and an interesting format. Sadly the format isn’t unique enough to make it stand out (it feels like a less extreme Battleship Cruise), and the randomness of the format (2v2 matches but your partner is randomly selected and changes every round, plus the 1v1 and 5-way matches) makes it feel kinda unfair

Ultimate Tag Series: 9/10. 2v2 round robin, with 6 teams, all of which are well developed, and with all the battles being amazing. None of the battles are glossed over, but in some we only see the second half of the match (which is still better than just showing the result, but not ideal)

Great Aerial Tour: 3/10. 4 (later 5) bladers, all important, facing off against 3 of the Legends. Sounds cool, right? Except the Legend Festival had 7 Legends. The Ultimate Tag Series had 8. Adding a blader mid-tournament was already done in the Battleship Cruise (with it being teased from the stat and having 3 bladers join). What makes this tournament special is that it takes place in a blimp, but the Battleship Cruise already did the “luxury vehicle tournament” thing, and if you wanna talk location, mfb had a tournament on the Tower of Babel. The way they decided who was going to battle sucked. It used a “minigame” format like the Battleship Cruise, but besides the battle royale, none of it was skill based. One of them was literally “pick the right door.” And this is without considering Bel’s blatant disregard for the rules

[maxwell-grant]

In the spirit of Terry Gilliam: conceive a movie called "America", which has nothing to do with America except in the most oblique way. Dystopia optional.

You can't just ask me to come up with something where I'm NOT supposed to build it by connecting the dots but, okay, I'll give it a shot.

Okay so, Terry Gilliam's Brazil is a movie that doesn't take place in Brazil (...I think, I'm not sure where it's supposed to take place but it definitely doesn't seem like it's intended to be Brazil), isn't about Brazil or anything Brazilian in any form, and literally the only reason why it's even called Brazil is because they picked a Brazilian song to name the film after. But the song itself is still significant to the film's theme, because it's a romantic whistling tune set as the backdrop of a brutally decadent dystopian nightmare that the protagonist is desperately trying to find an outlet from in the form of daydreams of a better life, which he finds in the end when he's lobotomized and abandoned in the room, humming the movie's theme to himself.

I guess if I had to do what you're asking and to for America what Brazil did for Brazil, I guess I'd have to create something:

Named after a American song titled America

The film employs the song America for ironic effect, although the song itself cannot be ironic

Absolutely no part of the plot or characters or locations or etc, must refer to America in any form, in fact it should strive to be as diametrically opposite as possible

Have it be weird, because you might as well not bother referencing Terry Gilliam in any capacity if you're not gonna make it weird

Since I don't want to make Brazil again, there's gonna be no dystopia and we're gonna jump locations outside of one city. Also, it's a cartoon, and it's dubbed in Portuguese, and it's a musical.

I guess for a start, I'd pick U2's America's Song

As the main theme of the film. However, the soundtrack is all done in the style of Jean-Jacques Perrey.

The main character's name is Eric, and he's just escaped from a secret base along with all the other lab specimens and monsters in it. This is the opening of the movie. And he looks like this

It's never made clear what exactly he is, if he's a brain shaped like a hat, or a sentient hat that's just shaped like a brain, or if he's both brain and hat, or something else entirely. Eric is functionally immortal, and can walk and move around with specialized blood vessel tentacles, like Dio's head at the end of Phantom Blood. He doesn't need to eat or sleep, but he still needs to keep hydrated, and he is upset because he has no body, so he can't talk, and all he really ever wanted was to sing, and to have people love him for his singing. But unfortunately every time he tries to talk he just makes unnerving gurgling sounds.

It makes him very sad.

He is, however, able to fit into the heads of people to control their movements and sing through them (he doesn't control their minds though, they can talk back and think, they just can't control what they do anymore), which is how we get the "I Want" song early on where he tells us. Except, he's got pretty particular tastes, I mean you'd have to, if you were a sentient brain experimented on for god knows how long, who's wanted nothing in life but to sing, and though he understands singing and how to manipulate vocal cords to do it, unfortunately his voice right now isn't as good as it should be, so he wants to find a new one.

And so the whole movie is kind of him going through a journey where he goes from place to place and person to person trying to find the right voice, and because this is a musical, he always finds people who are in the middle of some problem that he ends up helping fix through music and impromptu music numbers. Sometimes one of the monsters who appears in the opening scene show up trying to pass by unnoticed, they never stick around when he tries to talk to them, and it does make Eric a bit sad, that they find him unnerving still even though he's got a voice now.

The whole time he always finds a new excuse to go body surfing, he can never be satisfied with what he has. It's always a voice that's too low or too high, a body that he's not comfortable with, it's always a place that's too noisy or with too much reverb, and really his whole arc is that he's deeply insecure and he just isn't confident in himself enough to actually go through with performing in public.

His arc is him coming to terms with it and ultimately finding the strength to perform as himself, with no additional body. He finds a way to broadcast his true voice, and his previous hosts put together a packed presentation for him. He steels his courage and does it.

And it all goes really well, and he performs America's Song to an adoring audience.

May liberty and justice ring for all

Let your dreams stand tall

May opportunities fall upon you

In the land of the free

In fact, he sings so well, that the brains of his previous hosts, all the audience members and those watching it via livestream, burst out of their craniums as the bodies collapse, and the brains start all jumping along to the song

We have come

And we have prevailed

Who so ever dreamed, this is your will

And here we are

Here we are

We get an extended montage of special forces-type goons hunting down all of the monsters seen prior, as throughout the movie they've been chasing Eric's trail and picking off all the monsters that were supposedly helping him, and none of them were, they all tried fleeing and never hurt anyone. In fact we find out that the monsters were all running from Eric at the start, they bolted out of the facility mainly because of him.

We also get to see the brains forcing themselves on the nearest living humans, through their ears or mouths or eyes, and they all immediately start singing as well.

And may God (may God)

Keep us together

Cause America (America)

Is beautiful (beautiful)

The movie ends with Eric taking off into the sunset Pied Piper-style, intoxicated by newfound feelings of friendship and acceptance, with a whole gaggle of brains and brain-piloted bodies following him and all dancing off and singing into the sunset.

America

America

America is beautiful (beautiful, yes it is)

My America

Your America

Our America is beautiful

America

America

Is beautiful to me

And I swear I did not intend for this to be social commentary, I had no idea that this was going where it ended, I just kinda picked a dumb premise and tried running it to maybe the worst possible outcome, but I guess it's kinda inevitable that a story's gonna be charged when you give a title like this to it.

Anyway, that's what I came up with. It's a terrible idea I have zero qualms about sharing openly because I doubt I'll ever do anything with it, but there you go, this is me doing, uuh, Texeira Gilson's America (not my name, but a "Brazili-fied" take on Terry Gilliam's name)

[nazumichi]

WHAT HAPPENED IN TALES OF ARCADEIA DHKSBSO

OK SO SO SO SO

the tv series is so good, all of them are, so naturally I had very high hopes for the movie. Massive fucking mistake.

everything seemed to be going ok.

Spoilers under cut!

The gang was in Camelot after a big battle that resulted in Douxie (punk rock wizard guy) switching minds with narri (an all powerful nature spirit) so she couldn’t accidentally bring around the end of the world.

ok, cool, no issue there.

heres where things go weird. local badass alien princess aja appears in Camelot, and her boyfriend, regular jock Steve, gives her a big smooch. She freaks out. “If my counting is correct, that was our seventh kiss! In akiridion 5 (her home planet) that means there will be a baby!”and Steve is like “what the fuck. Wait you’re pregnant?? I’m gonna be a dad!!”

and then Krel, aja’s brother just appears in a burst of royal blue like “no. You’re pregnant.”

off to a great start! 

Hardly 20 minutes into the movie, there’s a mpreg arc. 

Great.

off to the second big bad moment. Not that it will be the last. 

Prior to this pregnancy scare, the main character, Jim, is going through a rough patch. Very much a “im not the trollhunter anymore. I’m not special, I’m just a regular kid.“ naturally, his mom and his changeling dad console him.

Then we learn they’re getting married and want Jim to be the best man. This isn’t a yikes moment, this is a “I’m going to cry this is everything I’ve ever wanted” moment.

spirits ever so slightly lifted, the gang splits up to take out the three powerful titans who want to wipe the entire planet clean, and start it anew.

awesome, cool.

we see Douxie, AARRRRGHHHH (massive super strong troll), and Nomura (haughty knife-wielding changeling), try to stop narri, who is under the control of her fellow evil elementals of fire and ice, from destroying brazil.

there’s a fight scene. Guess what happens. Guess.

Nomura fucking dies. She gets turned to stone and smashed into billions of tiny pieces by narri. Which is exactly how draal (her sort of troll boyfriend) died a couple episodes ago.

Don’t worry, this is fine, she definitely wasn’t my favourite character who’d changed so much in the span of 6 seasons, this is fine.

Ready for big yikes number 3?

Up in the cold wastelands of idk I wasn’t paying attention, a cold place, Jim and his parents are doing their best to stop the ice titans from destroying the super cold place that I can’t remember the name of.

Jim, in a rage of boyish anger, hefts a bomb like “i will blow up this ancient and extremely powerful god with a fucking hand grenade.”

And his dad, strickler, ever the voice of reason is like “no, silly! Use two hand grenades! Ugh fine, I’ll sacrifice myself to kill this thing. Take care of your mom for me, plus the THOUSANDS OF BABIES WE ADOPTED IN THE LAST SEASON, BTW. Toodles, young atlas!”

And then he fucking dies.

There’s some crying, from both the characters and myself.

So we usually have three changelings on set, strickler, Nomura, and notenrique, who is Claire’s adopted baby brother. Two have died. One has not made a single appearance. Go team!

Oh and guess what? The ice god didn’t even die. 👍

I’m not even gonna talk about the quest the alien siblings, Claire (Jim’s gf), Toby (Jim’s bestie), varvaatos (alien siblings guardian), Archie (cat-dragon who is Douxie’s bestie, and archies dad went on. That was a whole load of bull. But they did manage to secure a thing beginning with “k” that I forgot the name of. It can see into the past, future, and present elsewhere. Keep thing relic in mind, it will be useful later.

Remember Steve who’s pregnant? Yeah there’s a very graphic pregnancy scene. Like. Too graphic. His bestie/bf Eli helps him. And guess what the babies (there’s like 7) look like. Guess. They’re bio copies of Aja with Steve’s hair. I cannot make this shit up.

^ theres the happy mother.

Ok so there’s a big hero speech, all fine and dandy, Jim kills both the ice and fire gods, and realises that he is worth something, and his amulet didn’t make him a hero, really nice.

And then his bestie Toby sacrifices himself.

Toby dies. He dies. On screen.

I sobbed for a couple minutes, cursed mr del toro and all, I was an emotional wreck.

Now. Remember the time relic?

Every seen Madoka magica?

Jim uses it TO GO BACK IN TIME TO A BETTER UNIVERSE where he ISNT the trollhunter, TOBY, is, and if you’ve watched the series, you know that Trollhunters have a habit of befalling PAINFUL AND AGONISING DEATHS.

Jim doesn’t seen to perturbed by this, that it’s very likely that his bestie will die a very very painful death.

So the main cast never really meets. Yes, Jim and Toby continue to be friends. Jim gets closer to Claire. He introduces his changeling teacher strickler to his mom. We see a shot of douxie working in a regular store, which filled me with inhumane rage. We assume that the evil characters that got redeemed are still very evil.

We see no scenes of blinky and aarrgghhhh, none of the alien siblings. They’ve fucked off somewhere else.

I’m so FUCKING tired and so FUCKING disappointed. Goodnight.

[kageyahma-remade]

Whisper of the Heart and Haikyuu!!, both being feel-good stories about personal growth with a foundation of interpersonal support and self-care, how very special places in my heart. Whisper of the Heart’s storyline of two people inspiring each other to pursue and improve in their crafts and Haikyuu!!’s focus on human connection and relationships, specifically revolving around Hinata and Kageyama’s relationship, led me to realize that there are A LOT of parallels between Shizuku & Hinata, and Seiji & Kageyama.

Shizuku and Hinata are the protagonists of their respective stories and therefore undergo the most growth. Shizuku sets a goal for herself to finish her novel by the time Seiji returns from Italy, and Hinata aspires to be good enough to beat Kageyama, the “King of the Court”, declaring that even if it takes ten or twenty years, he will do it.

Seiji is very good at making violins and has high aspirations that will take him elsewhere on the globe to improve. Kageyama is hailed as being a prodigy setter and has a strong drive to become the best there is. (I think the moment these parallels clicked for me was when I realized that their aspirations brought the both of them to Italy: Seiji to be an apprentice violin maker in Cremona, Kageyama playing for Ali Roma). They have worked hard for what they love and their goals have been set for a long time, in contrast to Shizuku and Hinata. Shizuku and Hinata acknowledge they need to catch up; Shizuku says “it must be nice to know what you want to do with your life. Me, I just go from one day to the next” and Hinata, having started playing volleyball later than Kageyama (and playing in a proper team even later), learns along the way what he wants to do and HOW best to do it

Seiji and Kageyama start farther ahead in their personal progress but give Shizuku and Hinata the inspiration and the means to start theirs. They create a place for them to use their talents -- Kageyama using his precise setting to make use of Hinata’s incredible speed/jump height/overall natural athleticism, Seiji being a part of Shizuku’s connection to Baron and part of her inspiration to write. They open up their viewpoints to a world they could have never seen without them.

And these relationships spark passion and drive and inspiration between every individual. Kageyama makes Hinata promise that he will meet him at the world stage one day. Long before Shizuku even noticed him, Seiji admired her talents and checked out dozens of library books hoping she would see his name on the cards. They excel on their own but with Shizuku and Hinata there, they can become even greater.

These relationships are about having someone around who makes you want to be better, who makes you want to dig deep and learn about yourself and go through the hard work of improving without the glamour and glory. I got into it briefly with this post but there’s a whole lot more i want to talk about (especially after seeing this beautiful piece of fanart by hazwqste !)

i got carried away and this got super long so i’ll be going into this in more depth (and including haikyuu manga spoilers!) under the cut:

First of all, they meet and get off on the wrong foot, and don’t get along very well.

They get to know each other and are soon able to fully express themselves around each other and allow each other to excel at what they love. Seiji shows Shizuku Baron’s eyes twinkling in the light and the violin he made, Shizuku excitedly tells him about things feeling like they came from magic or a storybook and even sings the lyrics she wrote when Seiji plays Take Me Home, Country Roads on the violin. Hinata and Kageyama have a love for volleyball in common and once they figure out how to put their skills and abilities together to make their freak quick attack work, they practically glow with excitement and become almost inseparable. 

An event separating these two pairs act as catalysts to their growth (Seiji to Italy and Kageyama to the week-long All-Japan Youth Camp in Tokyo), because Shizuku and Hinata realize how far behind they are and how much they have to work to catch up. They even have similar running sequences that express their fear of being left behind.

Shizuku and Hinata both express the desire throughout their stories to be at an equal level to Seiji and Kageyama. Shizuku tells Yuko, “He wants to find out if he’s talented enough. Well, so will I! ... if he can do it, so can I!”.

One example of this with Hinata is that he wishes to complete the new quick attack during the Tokyo training camp arc so he and Kageyama could be on equal footing: during the Inter-high preliminaries, Hinata an Kageyama’s freak quick attack was something that was uniquely theirs, but it was something that Kageyama controlled. Heck, even Coach Washijo tells Hinata, “Without Kageyama as your setter, I can’t say I see any worth in you.” Hinata expresses a desire to evolve, to be able to pick his shots and stop closing his eyes, to learn from the best in the prefecture and work on everything he needs to improve on.

Shizuku and Hinata set off to go on journeys of their own to improve: Shizuku writing her novel with only Yuko and Nishi knowing, and Hinata in the ball boy arc and Brazil arc. They work hard, but realistically go through periods of doubt.

Here I noticed even more parallels between Shizuku and Hinata: Shizuku ends up skipping dinner, staying up late, and letting her grades slip while she works on her novel. Hinata has a history of not taking the best care of his body -- he practices all the time and needs to be reminded to take a break. He doesn’t start fully paying attention to the food that he’s nourishing himself with until he’s denied food at the Miyagi select rookie training camp. And he has a bad habit of not changing out of sweaty clothing and not wearing a jacket when he should, which leads to -- you know.

They feel discouraged and alone and end up thinking about Seiji and Kageyama’s hard work.

But they learn the importance of balance and self-care and soon feel okay again with wonderful scenes where a mentor figure brings them food to comfort them.

Most of Whisper of the Heart and Haikyuu!! are told from Shizuku’s and Hinata’s perspectives. However, the inspiration taken from Seiji and Kageyama does not go unreciprocated. In fact, even before they met, it’s like Seiji and Kageyama had been waiting for Shizuku and Hinata. Kageyama’s grandfather tells him at a young age that if he gets really good, someone even better will come find him. And it’s not until he gets to high school that Hinata tells him, “I’m here!”. It’s not until 6 years after that that Hinata is able to match/surpass his skill level and they have their fateful rematch to decide who will stay on the court the longest. Seiji hopes Shizuku will notice him a long time before they properly meet, and he waits right by Shizuku’s window right when he returns from Italy. They work hard because of Shizuku and Hinata, too. It’s almost like fate brought them together and keeps them together even when they’re apart.

For as long as they have known each other, these relationships have made them want to work hard in their respective crafts and really think about how to best nurture their growth -- whether the reasons are to become the best of the best, to beat the other at the world stage, to prove their worth in something they choose to pursue, or to follow their aspirations to the other side of the world

until finally,

they meet each other again

after a period of being apart,

ceaselessly waiting for each other and inspiring each other

and becoming better people because of it.

[otterskin]

Loki Episode #1 Thoughts

Well it’s 5AM and I still can’t sleep. Surely the safest thing to do is go on social media, right?

Anyway, time to spew some brainwaves on the digital page.

I loved it. I knew I’d love the TVA - I’m a big fan of all its influences and even took some time out to watch some films about fantastic bureaucracies to prime me for it (recommendations: The Trial (1962), Beetlejuice, Brazil, Ikiru, Naked Lunch, University of Laughs, aaaand Astérix and the Twelve Tasks - thanks for attending this brief perusal of my taste in film). I loved the little characters there, and wish we had more time in some scenes (no way was that little stack of paper all that Loki had ever said, it must’ve been an index for it). Casey especially. I want more Casey. Möbius, of course, was always destined to be my new favourite character - affable personality hiding a quietly calculating mind, soft, fluffy moustache you could nestle in during stormy weather, world-weary eyes but a spring in his step. It seems Loki hasn’t quite escaped his habit of finding father figures everywhere he does.

The other best thing was the constant, beautiful, vigorous, creative, slapstick, ridiculous beat downs and humiliations they put Loki through. This show definitely gets the most important thing about Loki’s character - he’s a complete loser. A poseur, an actor in a poorly reviewed show, a wimp, and sadly aware of all of that. Loki is not a dignified character, he’s not a mastermind or a Machiavellian manipulator. Simply put, he’s not cool. He is the designated punching bag of the universe, and anything or anyone that he cares about gets punched because of him. This is what I’ve always loved about Loki since I was tiny kid reading my first books. This is what I’ve enjoyed seeing play out in the MCU most of all. I can’t tell you how important it is to me to see Loki repeatedly punched in the face, thrown to the floor, told hard truths, see his dreams reduced to paper weights and his universe contained in a snowglobe, to be made to feel small and pathetic and worse to reveal that he feels that way to someone in a position of power over him. And here, it’s for a purpose, rather than a quick one-off gag (although I do still love the Hulk Smash like everyone else). Of course I loved this when it happened in Ragnarok as well, but that film was more focused on humiliating Thor until he felt a bit like Loki had (as well it should), although that pride-beating and Thor finally ‘getting it’ did help Loki take off a lot of his false airs. Here we see the same done again in record speed, made possible thanks to Ragnarok’s good work, but nonetheless I do cherish any opportunity to see Loki mortified.

A small fly in the ointment - I’m not a fan how the name ‘Laufeyson’ is just dropped casually upon him by the TVA. The name has never before been used onscreen in the MCU, thanks, I thought, to Loki’s backstory changing so drastically from the comics, making that name no longer work emotionally or even logically (it was Odin and Frigga who named him Loki afterall, so why is he bereft of the other name they gave him? If the TVA records only his birthname, how could it be Loki? I doubt two different sets of people gave him the same name, unless Loki is the equivalent of William or something). To see him not so much as protest its use was strange and out of character, and that the TVA would tell an adoptee their ‘official name’ is something they’ve never used is cruel. I would hope that’s a part of establishing the TVA as an uncaring bureaucracy, but nonetheless it’s an unwelcome, shrieking note that makes me a little nervous. I know Hiddleston has been referring to the Main-Timeline-Loki-Arc as the ‘Odinson Saga’, so it’s possible this is just a way of differentiating the two Lokis, although I do not care for it. Still, I can be patient, and I am willing to see if they will address this possibly insensitive plot point. Maybe it’s something foisted on Loki that he eventually rejects (I’m fine with him forgoing any last name at all if they need a different one) or if it’s a sign the writer might’ve confused the comics canon with the MCU’s. I don’t think that’s the case, since the rest is so well done, if a little...hand-holdy.

This is my other quiet fear.

I loved WandaVision...until episode 4. I went to film school, I excelled at English class, part of the fun for me was always being given a piece of media and deciphering its myriad meanings and interpretations. WandaVision was a Disneyfied Lynch series at first, and I had such fun pulling apart the visual metaphors, deciphering the dialogue, searching for meaning.

And then.

Monica.

Dammit, they did her dirty.

“It’s about grief,” she says. 

From then on, WV spent a significant portion of every episode not only telling you what every little thing meant, but how it should make you feel.

Falling out of love at 9.18 m/s allowed for some serious acceleration by the time we hit the infamous finale.

Loki has not exactly been a difficult puzzle to solve compared to some obtuse pieces of media I adore, but by god, it was easy to take his limited screen time and talk and talk and talk about the guy. While I could fill five pages about Tony Stark, I could write a book about Loki (and it seems like I am with Finnesang, damn it). I liked interpreting, I liked using my limited knowledge of Shakespeare and Mythology to glean insight into creative choices, I even kinda liked arguing with people about who this character was. A part of me is scared that this show will just...say it. Like Monica did. And that takes something away. There was a little of that here, but I’m torn on whether it was necessary to get the people who are way off on Loki’s characterization on close to the same page as everyone else, or whether it was a little too...explain-o-vision. At the same time, speaking frankly about a character we’ve supposed about for years is refreshing, lets us clear out the old air, and maybe gives us permission to open the windows and let new things in.

That’s what I really want from the show. Some old things, plenty of new things, and lots for me to dig into and play with. I suppose I’ve already done so with material from the trailers, which means I definitely do still have something to play with, but...I just want to avoid taking the specialness out of a very special character to me.

It definitely means something that I am so exhilarated after watching it that it is now 5:30 AM and I’ve still no desire for sleep. This is gonna be an...intense six weeks.

I guess I’ll just watch Valhalla again while I chew on this first episode.

[elmaxlys]

*slams* A, I and B for fndm, ya coward(?

A - Your current OTP(s)/OT3(s)/OTX(s)

JUOKA. Main OTP. Who would have guessed lol

I am also currently really into EDEN and its variant (EDENMantis, EDENSnake, combining the 4 of them but i still need a ship name for that)

Special mention to Utaren because it's been one of my longest ongoing OTPs and i really just need a slight push (aka rereading) and Uta's tattoos to disappear for me to fall back into utaren hell

I - Has tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why

I don't particularly like any fandom in the first place, they're all toxic to some degree, that's the point. Fandoms themselves rarely lead me to dislike the source material too, since the block button is my best friend

But Tokyo Ghoul. I enjoyed interacting with the fandom when i was just staying over at DA and interacting with tumblr blogs without one myself (ooooh so long ago), now not so much, my fav blogs are on hiatus since, like, 2017 and everyone else has too much salt and i just wanna enjoy my time talking about Clowns so i just mind my business

B - A pairing you initially didn’t consider but someone changed your mind

Oihina, I guess? the Brazil arc in itself played a big part in changing my mind XD