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potionwine · 20 hours ago

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Oooh, you’ve also seen Nirvana in Fire?!? That was SO good. And as inspiration for PF?? That, explains some things, dang! It works

My friend. My dear. My lovely Cimi—

WHAT in the world—

Have I seen the drama that bloody changed my life; my favourite comfort c-drama; the series that I rewatch yearly the way I rewatch lotr every Christmastime; that exquisite story with the most incredible breadth and variety of characters with impeccable character work and amazing themes and an ending that respects its viewers which however tragic is thoroughly earned and identity porn and politics and pride and grief, god, so much grief—and an Emperor who is shakespearean in his tragedy and—

Okay. Okay, no, you could not have known, tis a failure of my part if I have not spoken enough about it—I probably mostly reply to other people's posts as they liveblog their watching but. BUT. God when I saw your ask it felt like you came up to me to remark "hey wow so you also ship PF?" that's how gobsmacked I was lol!!!

I have dragged everyone in my life into watching this show! I have mutuals on here who can testify to my introducing them to it omg. I just checked and the earliest NIF post I reblogged was in 2016 so I have been watching it every year since 2016 hahaha!!! Although it's pretty complex chinese, and since so much of the show is made up of characters sitting around talking the intricate plot into existence, it's not really a beginner-friendly c-drama either!!!

NOW I DIDN'T KNOW YOU'VE WATCHED IT TOO???!!!

I. have. been. going. UTTERLY MENTAL. at the lack of anyone with whom I could talk about it? OR SO I THOUGHT. So many times I thought of going into our discord to be like "has anyone ever heard of NIF because hhhhhhh the phoenixflare resonance" or like "so is anyone into TGCF perhaps perchance mayhap???"——because heh. hehehehe. heheheh??? My fic is practically a NIF/TGCF mashup, it's a Lin Shu+Xie Lian!Joshua Rosfield & Jingyan+Hua Cheng!Dion Lesage——and I CANNOT TELL YOU HOW MANY TIMES I wanted to ask god please does anyone else see my vision please god does anyone?? but no one would even understand the references, and I couldn't even ask in areas (asian fandom) where there would be a higher chance of people knowing what crack I'm on because asian fandom is all about that...you know...that I loathe—and I have been in pain and I thought right well fine I'm writing the fic anyway it's fine if I have no one to scream about it with because I'm writing it and then I'll find fellow competence porn+politics enjoyers if they find my fic and—and.

God. What an earth-shattering message to receive in my askbox! You are some sort of miracle <3

Do you see it??? Do you see it? A boy who burned to death in an inferno as an innocent betrayed youth in a catastrophic event caused by his own family, his father slain, his entire clan (and all the troops under his banner) wiped out or scattered. A boy reborn after extensive and horrific injuries after an agonisingly long period of recovery: a ghost who crawled his way out of the gates of hell, the last of his broken once-noble house.

That boy's transformation into his new identity of Mei Changsu/Margrace. His off-screen discovery of the truth that led to Meiling/Phoenix Gate and his continued on-screen quest to learn more. His determination to hold the true culprits accountable at immense personal cost and suffering. His dogged persistence despite incredible odds and visibly failing health. Being surrounded by people who love him and want to protect him, and himself constantly undermining their efforts because his goals are more important than his health. (Because in truth he knows perfectly well that he won't survive, but he can make a difference while he is alive.)

Something that amuses me hugely is how Lin Shu and Joshua literally both come back as 宗主? I love it so much! They come back with the same title! Both of them come back as clan leaders of an organisation that obeys their every command! Margrace is the 不死鳥教団の宗主(=leader of the cult of the undying bird) and Mei Changsu is 江左盟的宗主(=leader of the Jiangzuo alliance).

AND. Hooooo yea this PF fic is just JingSu at this point because oh, a handsome, principled, prideful, and stubborn prince who is a decorated warrior famed for his numerous military accomplishments and the man who is essential to the success of Lin Shu's/Joshua's plans? The resurrected boy barging into his prince's life: no matter how insane it is to choose your side, still "I choose you, Your Highness Prince Jing"??? The fact that the undervalued prince has a history with our secretive ghost protagonist? And (arguably) frequently thought about and missed the bright boy he knew once upon a time in happier days—"I know you," says Dion Lesage without a shadow of a doubt, extremely normal of him to instantly recognise a dead boy he met 20 years ago?

Mutual admiration of each other's integrity and capabilities? Reciprocal faith and remembrance? The foundation of deep respect and enduring friendship, their shared goals and shared family??? I froth at the mouth. JingSu are cousins, PF are stepsiblings by their parents' marriage. Each pair is bound by destiny and by choice—other people have made choices that permanently entangled each pair's lives together forevermore (Joshua+Dion and Jingyan+Xiaoshu), and the choice they themselves personally made to choose each other—

DO YOU SEE THE VISION.

How difficult it is to pursue justice when everyone involved is family and how impossible it is for Lin Shu the nigh-extinguished Chiyan fire for Joshua, the guttering flame, to indict Jingyan's father the Emperor of Liang Dion's father the Emperor of Sanbreque of his crimes against Joshua's family without opening old wounds and hurting many loved ones in the process including Dion himself. The people directly responsible for the tragedies are related to the protagonists in one way or another! If Lin Shu Joshua ever wants resolution for his grief unending, he has to strike at his beloved's father, and plot meticulously to avoid all of the dangers of attacking such a powerful enemy.

(Of course, I acknowledge the critical difference in Jingyan's versus Dion's feelings about their respective fathers.)

Now if only Joshua had done the famous blizzard scene with Dion instead of letting him go off to carry out his ill-advised coup—"Xiao Jingyan! You stand where you are! If I don't stop you today, what are you going to do? What do you think you can possibly accomplish if you charge in to challenge imperial power like this? Do you think you can simply force the Emperor [to do what you want/change his mind about Anabella Wei Zheng]? You have honour and valour but why do you just not have brains! How many more people must be hurt, you tell me!"

Anyway Joshy doesn't have the insufferable smugness of Xiaoshu but he does absolutely have Xiaoshu's pride, the sort of pride that is not just personal pride but familial pride too (after all Joshua comes from extremely prestigious lineage)—just look at how he speaks to Ultima in every scene, his lordly manner. Joshua I think has more Consort Jing to him, and Consort Jing is only my favourite character in all of NIF, in a drama where I love every character to bits—steel in softness, ever gentle ever polite yet not to be bullied and not to be underestimated and also extremely perceptive and learned and patient. Extra sweet bonus that Consort Jing is also a healer. Elegant, restrained, and very repressed. Who knows the depths of Joshua's Consort Jing's grief and loss?

But you know, Jingyan, near the end he is completely in charge—the prince who was always a great and respected general on the battlefield is now more than that, he's directly taking responsibility for all of his people as their future ruler—that means thinking on multiple fronts and exerting control over all of the key governing officials, not merely his military officers. He's leading with confidence, and there's that little scene where he apologises to Xiaoshu for taking action on several plans without consulting him, and Xiaoshu says no, this is the way it should be, this is the correct state of affairs: you are the crown prince, and this is rightfully your arena. You lead, you decide, you command.

Jingyan now sees clearly, he's found out and accepted the truths of his father's role in the atrocity at Meiling and everything that happened back then. He rightly perceives the failings of his family and seeks to redress past wrongs and avoid repetition of past mistakes, he weeds his court of the corrupt and the cowardly, he's become the best possible version of himself: stronger than ever, not just a powerful wartime commander-in-chief but an inspiring leader in the imperial court, careful, thoughtful and politically up-to-speed, finally stable in his sense of self instead of being permanently stuck as that angry and lost and hurting child. He has renewed purpose, he possesses hope for the future, he is able to dedicate himself fully to what he truly believes to be right and act in furtherance of righteous causes—

Critically, this is the man he becomes only because Xiaoshu came back into his life to shake it up. Without Xiaoshu he wouldn't even have the opportunity or means or knowledge. The radiant and fiery boy who Jingyan missed all his life came back to save him. From the outsider prince without contacts or support within the imperial court->to the crown prince who has the court subdued within the palm of his hand. From his pitiful existence as a neglected, unfavoured prince, his lowkey constant simmering resentment, his half-dutiful half-forced obedience of paternal orders that chafe at his conscience->into the steadfast and self-assured prince who is capable of fighting for the betterment of his country and the rallying point for virtuous officials who share those aspirations. The drama shows the audience that Jingyan is unquestionably ready to assume rulership, and together with the person he loves most, they achieve their goals, they save each other and their country (by arresting its downward slide due to the rotten state of its governance).

It's just a strong headcanon of mine (albeit one that I can absolutely present extensive arguments for) but to me Joshua Rosfield is the one and only character able to perform that same abovementioned function for Dion Lesage. Catalyst, turning point, spark that ignites the fire—whatever you call it, this is salvation. It is beautifully poetic that both Lin Shu and Joshua are characterised by fire. They are the fires of change that burn away the old life: before their arrival, the two war princes exist in a state of wearying routine, long-suffering and almost hopeless. Both Jingyan and Dion are shackled by their stations and duties, both are unloved sons with virtually no chance of their circumstances improving without drastic action, and both are trapped in precarious situations where they are subject to the whims of their father (if their imperial fathers turn on them, it will result in irrevocable loss of their status).

Dion's position is weak in the Oriflamme imperial court—pretty sure this point isn't up for debate, since no one ever speaks up in support of him despite the obvious injustice of his ill-treatment. His degree of influence in the court is much, much, so much less than any reasonable person might expect someone who is literally Bahamut and crown prince to have. The Council of Elders and other officials stand by haplessly while he is progressively stripped of power in favour of Olivier. Nobody defends him, nobody objects. (Or maybe some did, and were eliminated.) Even Dion himself submits to the abuse despite inherently superior abilities. Career politicians know which direction the winds blow—they don't defy their Empress, meaning they are either her cronies or too fearful of her to make themselves a target by any raising any opposition. Added to that is the implication that Dion was often away for long periods—and as Xiaoshu explicitly tells Jingyan in the drama, the crown prince cannot leave the imperial capital untended because that is the surest way to lose power. Dion may be Sanbreque's mightiest weapon and revered by the populace, but in practice his political sway is almost negligible. He is not able to leverage himself effectively.

Don't get me wrong, for these reasons I extra extra love the canon portrayal of J*** obeying Joshua against her wishes and T****** obeying Dion against his wishes—I absolutely think their obedience is, to them, the truest and highest and final demonstration of their love and understanding of their respective masters. And both Joshua and Dion expected no less from them. [I've not typed the names out just in case the search function ends up capturing the post and putting it in their tags, not because I hate those characters; I just don't want to be uncivil within fandom.]

But the very point here is that, you know, sometimes you aren't supposed to leave someone just because they say so. Sometimes it is the worst possible course of action to obey someone just because they command it. Sometimes it is undesirable at best and disastrous at worst to support someone's every decision out of unchanging (if uncharitable, one might even say unthinking) loyalty. That is a fundamentally unequal relationship, and while beautiful in its own way, is also uniquely doomed. The truth is, Joshua was always going to pull that trigger, and Dion was always going to pull that trigger: the master was always going to sever the relationship. Those pairs were doomed as soon as they began, because one party can only ever say yes, and yes means the end, you see? That is The End, that is the final break. By their very subordinate nature and by their established personalities within the game, "yes" is the one and only answer J*** and T****** can ever or will ever give. Their master will say, "Leave me", meaning it is over, and they will reply, "Yes, I obey". Because this is the only answer that proves their devotion, leaving them totally incapable of changing the script. Both J*** and T****** knew it and played their parts to perfection, and my heart hurts for them.

In NIF terms, I reckon J*** is Gong Yu, and T****** is Lie Zhanying. Zhanying will follow Jingyan to the end, whatever it may be—in fact in one episode he explicitly says so, and his loyalty is never in doubt. He will go to his death if Jingyan orders it. He will always support Jingyan's decisions. He and the rest of Jingyan's men have been following Jingyan even when the prince was out of favour and cold-shouldered and constantly dispatched to safeguard the country's frontiers—inconvenient places where comfort is low and the environment harsh. Jingyan's favoured brothers live in the lap of luxury within their palaces (like Olivier), while Jingyan himself (like Dion) has always been at war. And as with Zhanying, T****** will never be able to change this status quo on behalf of Jingyan (Dion). For all his boundless dedication to his lord, Zhanying will never be able to improve his prince's standing in the court, never be able to secure more political power for his prince (unless his prince decides to revolt/coup), never be able to make his prince's father love or prize his prince.

It is not a problem of character or willpower or desire. It is, simply put, a problem of power. It is a problem of class. The servant rises as their master rises, and falls as their master falls. In other words, the servant's status is determined by their master's status. Zhanying is Jingyan's deputy. When Jingyan's status was elevated, Zhanying naturally also assumed commandership over more troop divisions because those were allocated to the prince by the Liang Emperor. (There is no doubt in my mind that T******'s status as second-in-command is because of Prince Dion. He's too young to have earned that position by gradual promotion through meritorious accomplishment. Unless you're telling me that the knights dragoon don't have a single officer above age 30.) Zhanying is invaluable to Prince Jing in security, in warcraft, and in a variety of generic daily tasks. However, he is part of the rigid imperial system and lower in the hierarchy. He may persuade his lord, but he cannot order him. He may disagree, but he cannot defy. He may privately despise the Emperor/Empress, but he cannot show it and cannot act on it (literally treason). His role is to follow and obey. If he does not perform that role for whatever reason, he fundamentally negates his utility to his lord.

Ergo, endgame Jingyan is only possible because his true equal and soulmate, his real zhiji, came back to challenge the status quo. In fact, came back to challenge him. It is not merely the fact that this person understands him above all, it is also the fact that this person has the ability to act on that understanding. Jingyan is technically also Xiaoshu's prince, master, and eventual Emperor—so where is the difference?

The difference is, Lin Shu is comparable in nobility. Lin Shu is the cousin of princes and the incumbent Emperor's nephew, Lin Shu was raised amongst the imperial household, and played and studied and fought and hung out with them as peers of roughly equal rank. In this respect Joshua actually outstrips Lin Shu: Joshua is a prince by blood, and had Rosaria not fallen (especially if Sylvestre had not risen to the throne), would have been higher status than Dion. It's a massive pet peeve of mine that so many fans in XVI fandom don't seem to realise that Joshua was crown prince? Everybody knows Dion is crown prince, but do they realise Joshua is the original? In the English version prologue, the knights do call him "prince" and "your highness". The Rosarian throne is Joshua's by right of birth. At the time of their meeting as children, Joshua outranked Dion. They were equals as Dominants of their nation, but Dion back then was the child of a Cardinal and not the child of Sanbreque's ruler at that time; i.e. he was not a prince and not in line for the Sanbrequois throne.

The other wonderful similarity is Lin Shu's and Joshua's statuses as outsiders to the system when they reintroduce themselves to Jingyan/Dion. As Jingyan's strategist, Lin Shu has more leeway with regards to making his prince listen to him and take his advice. But importantly, he is now Mei Changsu, and that means he is able to play outside of the system. The imperial system effectively cast him out when it killed him. The strict codes of imperial conduct no longer chain him as they chain those confined within its structure. As a free agent unlike Zhanying, he has the right and privilege of choosing his own master. That includes the right to leave or to change his mind. And although the prince's strategist is supposed to be subordinate too, Xiaoshu would never truly be subordinate in the same fashion no matter how many times he bows his head, because at his core he is still high nobility and it still shines through despite everything. His manners are still perfect. He still navigates life with the easy expectation that people will serve him. He grabs the Duchess' hand and yells at Prince Jing and gloats at Marquis Ning. It's all the little ways that remind the audience, over and over, that this man was raised as a posh lordling. You can remove the boy from the upper class but you can't remove the upper class from the boy. It's the same with Joshua. His manners are still court-perfect. He still moves through life accepting that he will be served. He may bow his head to Dion and call him "your highness" but he also takes the liberty of throwing himself at Dion for a hug. Because to him, the prince is not some lofty and untouchable figure to be addressed with unfailing deference, he's just a friend.

(I know T****** is minor nobility, to be honest Zhanying definitely is too. The deputies of high level royals aren't going to be commoners. But I don't think I have to explain the gulf between ruling class/a close blood relative of the monarch versus lower nobility.)

Joshua too is an outsider that isn't beholden to Sanbreque's Emperor in the way that all of Dion and his knights owe their fealty. Again in this respect Joshua has it better than Xiaoshu—Joshua is his own sovereign master, and that should impact his perspective, his sense of self, and therefore his behaviour with others and how he navigates the world.

Gong Yu... I think anyone who's watched NIF will know exactly why I say that J***'s counterpart is Gong Yu lol. I think the s/h/u/a/t/e/s want her counterpart to be Princess (Duchess) Nihuang and they certainly produce fanwork in that vein, and I respect them for it because fans be doing what they love and hooray for that. But..... she's Gong Yu.

For all these reasons I am utterly obsessed with a Joshua that pushes back at Dion. The person able to challenge the status quo and challenge Dion. An equal who listens to Dion's absurd speech in the palace at Twinside and calls utter bullshit, who says, "A matter for the imperial family? are you joking? that's my mother, that's my younger brother. an imperial matter for you to resolve? say rather, our family, OUR problem to resolve. You don't get to go off half-cooked to arrest or kill my mother without actual political strategies, notwithstanding your military capability to launch a coup. And also, what about your dad? However much I love you, my darling Dion, we have to talk about the way that you insist on poor little meow meowing your awful father because my dear old mum didn't do Phoenix Gate alone and she for sure didn't immaculately conceive Olivier."

Endgame Dion isn't satisfactory in several glaring ways and it annoys me hugely that even unto the end he never grapples with and confronts the truth of his father instead of the idealised version that lives in his head. It's a little bizarre how Dion's arc is often praised by fans, since it feels very incomplete to me. Or, well, fine, perhaps just unsatisfying (since XVI simply isn't his story). His deep-seated need to be loved by his father prevents him from seeing anything clearly, which is so ironic for the only character to possess a third eye in canon? His honour and his might have been squandered in service to a selfish, uncaring, and objectively bad monarch, yet despite how earnestly Dion wants to be a good prince to his people he seems wholly incapable of recognising this fact? His mind repeatedly shies away from his father's shortcomings. In one scene he calls his father out for words befitting a tyrant, yet ultimately he persists in the belief that his father simply needs to be saved from Anabella's evil influence as if Sylvestre Lesage isn't a 50-year-old adult man who schemed his way to the throne and killed a woman's whole family and happily married that woman to beget legitimate offspring with her.

Soooo....... I've just spoiled the whole plot of my fic but it's really just NIF nonsense as usual and that is actually extremely predictable of me. But honestly the spoiling is not a big deal, because as with NIF, fundamentally my story is not meant to be plot-twisty and suspenseful—the real storytelling skill of the NIF drama is that the audience should be able to quickly grasp the overarching plot with no difficulty because the pleasure of this particular type of story is to watch the protagonist achieve their heart's desire, step by delicious step. The objective of this type of story is to properly pay off what it promises. NIF=the wronged protagonist seeks justice. We already know Lin Shu will obtain justice by the end of the tale, what we are here to enjoy is the journey! Same really for IEM I reckon; by the end of chapter 1 Joshua's goals should be really obvious, and since my little fic will have the happy ending tag because I only ever write happy endings, the audience basically knows he'll succeed—it's very much a journey not destination kind of story.

Ooof the post is crazy long and took me 3 nights to compose an answer and I haven't even managed to go into any TGCF elements but that work mainly contributes to characterisation instead of plot. One of the craziest XVI scenes was the Hideaway's sickbay after Twinside, the genuine regret Joshua expressed and how he blamed himself for not reaching out to Dion sooner; now the Empire and her prince lie in ruins etc. Surely he remembers this is the country that destroyed his own? Surely??? What kind of person, robbed of home and throne, can find it in himself to respond with so much empathy and kindness? Sanbreque has now experienced pretty much the same tragedy they inflicted on Rosaria two decades ago, and isn't that just the funniest parody of divine retribution? Instead of viewing this as Sanbreque's just deserts, Joshua Rosfield pities them and wishes he could have helped them avert this disaster.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wonderfully Xie Lian-coded. Something something someone who has been through the worst and nevertheless chooses goodness and kindness. Someone who intimately understands the ugliest and lowest depths that people sink to, yet refuse to lose themselves in that temptation even when vengeance would seem perfectly justified.

You've known for a long time now that I love a Joshua who is very similar to his mother. This is why lol. It's about that delicious, delicious contrasting foil. It is the difference between Jun Wu & Xie Lian, as it is the difference between Anabella & Joshua. That the indestructible integrity we see from Xie Lian or Joshua didn't come easy, they weren't born perfect, their ethics were tested and forged and earned through suffering the likes of which most people will never know. The person that they have each become is the sum of their choices actively made. In the canon of TGCF and XVI, both of these ex-crown-princes live on in disgrace, in circumstances best described as reduced and humiliating, their respective kingdoms fallen, their wealth and glory spent—but they are better and braver human beings than everyone around them, they are beautiful and noble souls, quiet and unacknowledged, and only Hua Cheng and Dion truly see and fully understand that (and therefore cannot help but love them utterly).

I've a few more thoughts regarding Joshua swirling around as captured in other Xie Lian posts: here, here, here, and here. Not sure if you know TGCF or are into it as well, but just leaving links to those posts here for my own benefit too. I've been gravitating towards phoenixflare comparisons in various hualian meta posts since early 2024 so clearly these concepts have been stewing in my head for some duration, but I haven't fully teased out what it is about these two ships that gives me that niggling sense of connecting similarities.

^ Whereas I clearly know exactly what it is about JingSu that makes me point and holler "THEM!"

#that was a whopper of an answer #THANK YOU KATIE for giving me the opportunity to gush about this <3 <3 <3 #i didn't even say everything i wanted to #brain is pretty cooked i can't wait to sleep in every day between christmas and new year #i hope my thoughts and concepts will actually come through in my fic but to be honest i am worried about the skill issue LOL #also nirvana in fire has a huge cast because political stories require a lot of moving parts and i'm worried about introducing too many ocs #literally the ocs are only there to support the plot they are extremely secondary to joshua and dion #but one simply needs more undying and more rosarians and more sanbrequois persons to work with for such a story you know?!?!?!#also this doesn't fit in the main post but the servant saying no to the master is possible and would herald a significant change #'no' is a shock to the system and sometimes that's exactly what is needed #saying yes to the status quo reaffirms it and solidifies any imbalance #it is precisely the narrative importance of elizabeth rejecting darcy's first proposal in p&p #acceptance from her would be tantamount to condoning his insult of her and her family #it'd have the effect of saying “i agree and/or i am prepared to overlook everything in submission to you”#and each time this occurs it reinforces the imbalance until it reaches a state of permanence #until it becomes the default that neither party can deviate from #no might be the very thing that prompts him to reconsider himself and his assumptions and reflect on his conduct and values #prompts him to consider exactly how he views [] and relearn how to appreciate [] in a new and different light #it's extra tricky when yes=love and devotion while no=shakes the boat and unpredictable and adds stress in already trying times #but!!! in an equal relationship partners must be able to impose on each other! rightfully take up time and space in another's life!#to never ever ever be an inconvenience is not healthy love it's servitude it's shrinking oneself it's being secondfiddle in one's own rship #look it's practically a whole chapter of my pf manifesto ahahahaha #it's not all social class there are other chapters like long slim legs are best slung over strong broad shoulders #and prince with obedience kink requires a partner in whose moral character he has absolute faith #iem #potion’s periodical

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animehouse-moe · 1 year ago

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Undead Girl Murder Farce Episode 2: Vampire

A mystery series has to have a good mystery, correct? I'd agree, and so would Undead Girl Murder Farce. I don't have a really good segue for this because I'm just so excited to discuss it. It's good, really good, okay? Great mystery, great dialogue and direction, and Lapin Track still manages to hang on, impressively enough. Now, lets get started, shall we?

Where to begin? I guess the start wouldn't be too bad so I can paint a better picture. We're dealing with the murder of a vampire that had integrated with the human side of the world. An almost locked room mystery that presents plenty of questions, and probes deeply into the minds of the characters involved through our ever enjoyable duo of Aya and Tsugaru.

Anyways, the story actually starts with our father vampire Godard, and his youngest son Raoul out in the woods hunting a deer. Right away, the gears start turning and the symbolism and significance of their relationship and existence as Vampires is put on display.

Godard tries to shoot a deer with a rifle but cannot, so he resorts to using his abilities as a vampire to kill it, for example. A pretty clear piece of symbolism of Godard attempting to mesh with the rules and lifestyle of humanity, but being unable to fully assimilate with them, despite his efforts.

More interesting than that is the disparity with which he and Raoul interact and are depicted. Where Godard has a deer over his shoulder, Raoul is more interested in the mushrooms growing peacefully in the forest. For as much as Godard remains his father, and that Raoul is forced to look up to him, their relationship isn't as idealistic as one may believe, and instead uses the typical trope to promote the idea of the pair not seeing eye to eye.

Just a quick interlude before moving onto the next piece here. Lapin Track is struggling with the series, as expected. I wouldn't say it's anything outside of what you might think however, as there's 3D carriages, and other smaller issues like the lack/poor quality of compositing through this short scene here. Aside from that though, Lapin does a rather impressive job of hiding the bald spots of their work.

Back into it though, a very interesting piece as Raoul and Godard talk about confiscating a silver stake from a hunter they ran into a while back. An incredibly interesting visual that may strike viewers as odd upon first inspection. The most peculiar thing about it being that it looks more like a flashlight than a silver stake, especially when you look at the hunter's expression.

Returning to our father-son pair, they make their way back towards their home to skin and clean the deer. But not before Godard makes the discovery of the hunter's silver stake, which was coated in blood. Thus starts the (literal) descent into fear and mystery.

I say literally, because we begin by following behind the duo as they descend the staircase of their mansion. It's an insanely well tracked scene through the 3D space that the characters move in. The only thing that really gives it away is how the walls move compared to the characters.

Overall, they do a really great job of creating both a sense of terror as well as weaving a subtle and interesting mystery. Creating natural alibis for each of the characters as they go, sometimes even superimposing those alibis onto the sinking feeling that the scenes themselves create.

Now superimposing, I chose that word for a reason. It's a very strong theme from this episode (and is from what my thumbnail for this review comes from). The idea of placing one thing atop the other while both remains distinct is a common aspect of visuals, of course. But it does not just apply to the visual world. Layering conversation and interactions to present to explicitly separate concepts is something that's done impressively well through this latter half, and I can't wait to (sort of) explain it (to the best of my abilities). But for now, Godard's wife Hannah, is dead. Killed by presumed impalement in their family home.

It's from here that Tsugaru and Aya pick up the trail, though not after a few interesting pieces first. To begin with, we see Godard interact with regular human news reporters in regards to the situation, which highlights the mistreatment and prejudice held against non-humans in the world. More than that though is this young (presumed girl) reporter that tries to squeak some details out of Godard. Familiar? She appears in the opening atop of Aya's body. The detail of red hair is also something that stands out with the significance of the child's positioning in the opening. A possible relation to the mirrored hybrid oni that fights against Tsugaru in the opening, who stole Aya's body?

Okay okay, Aya and Tsugaru now, I promise. Alright, I lied. Godard's youngest child Charlotte. Just for a little bit, I swear. She's playing with a doll house in which the dolls are modeled after her family. I wouldn't even go as far as writing it off as child's play either. While the placement of the dolls is not accurate to any moment from the episode, what I find most interesting is that Godard is missing alongside the Hannah's maid and Godard's butler. I can almost guarantee there's something to this scene, but at this moment I can't put together its significance.

I swear on my life this time we'll see Aya and Tsugaru. Alright, the pair arrive at the mansion and go through the expected pleasantries that a bodiless immortal and twisted oni-hybrid would. As funny and witty as it is, it tells a very interesting story in addition to this interaction, immediately making use of that theme of superimposition.

Tsugaru places Aya's head directly in front of his for the reveal, simply stating that he is the body of Aya, and that Aya is the brains of Tsugaru.

Also, this really interesting/bold transition. Very curious as to where the red from this scene comes from that's quickly replaced with green later on. As you can tell, there's a mountain of curiosities with this mystery already.

The more-slash-most interesting piece however is the idiosyncrasies of Raoul that are intermixed. Namely, his penchant for placing his hands in his pocket when he's stressed/uncomfortable. We see it prior to this in the scene where him, his older brother, and his father are discussing things prior to Tsugaru and Aya's arrival. It very quickly separates Raoul from his brother and father, but for what purpose we don't yet know.

So, exchanges are made and the mystery begins, but not without flair. I really like this cut of Godard remembering the key aspects of the murder as he saw them. Very telling in where and what his focuses were as things like the wedding ring appear once more.

Alright, time to speedrun the mystery because lord knows this is already an incredibly long post and I'm boring everyone that's made it this far to death. Down to brass tacks. We know that Hannah was once human, we also know that she was rather active in regards to carpentry. There's a clear setting in the room: a dead body with a stake-shaped hole in it, an empty bottle of holy water that is dusty (on the inside) and has a tinge of blood to the cork, a bloody coat, and a book opened to a very specific page.

Right away, you understand the possibility of there being a false compartment in the drawer, as well as the potential for Hannah to have killed herself due to her human past. Though the latter is just as likely as a human coming to kill her for betraying her kind.

Regardless, the mystery presents itself as something improbable: a container that's dusty on the inside, a death that is almost entirely improbable, and an order of events that doesn't make any sense.

Our only "real" clue is this page of a book that was left open on her table (image flipped so it's easier to read). The translation is as follows:

"Death, I appeal to your harshness, Who stole from me my delightful mistress, And yet were not sated Until you see my languishing: Since then I've had neither strength nor force; But how would it harm you- if she were alive, Death? There once were two who shared a heart; If that heart is dead, that power is deflected, If so, I must live without love Like those statues, in my heart Death!"

Is this a message from the killer, or a message to viewers? It's hard to give a real answer, but this poem/song does in fact (apparently) come from a work from 2009, of all things. Whatever the intent, it was explicitly meant, so I'm very curious to see to what it applies.

Anyways, time to tidy up. Superimposition, let's start with that. It happens quite a bit through this conversation. Placing Hannah atop Aya as the latter's eyes wander through the scene to pick up details. The hunter being placed atop Gordad to bring the thoughts of Godard murdering his own wife to the forefront. They're incredibly intentional decisions that force viewers to reconcile the two scenes and decide why it is that we're shown them, and why it is that these two characters share similar visual cues.

From here, we arrive at the conclusion that Aya understands what it is that's happened to Hannah, and she walks Godard through the issues she finds with the murder. Incredibly interesting, it teases her thought process as well as potential theories to viewers thanks to insanely clever sight lines and blocking, like this scene that places Godard between the fingers of Tsugaru.

Seriously, and I really do mean seriously, I could go on for paragraph after paragraph about how expertly done this episode is from a mystery perspective. How the scenes lead (or really mislead) the eyes of the viewer, how well it translates the perspective and wanderings of the characters through the scenes, how it uses superimposition through both visuals and dialogue to tell a story, and just the overall storyboarding, blocking and visuals. It's one of the few episodes of a dialogue heavy series that has had me actually say to myself, "that episode went by in the blink of an eye". It's just so rich, so full of content, context, and clues that you aren't given a second to catch your breath or feel idle when viewing it.

Undead Murder Girl Farce shows that it does unfortunately have limitations imposed by its studio, but in the same breath proves that despite those chains, it's able to provide incredible quality and delivery of content to viewers. I'll probably say it with each episode, but this will most certainly be the dark horse series of the season.

#undead girl murder farce #アンデッドガール・マーダーファルス #mystery anime #supernatural anime #anime recommendation #anime review #anime and manga #anime

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heloflor · 2 years ago

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Finally saw the Mario movie last Thursday (I like to wait a week so that the theatre is emptier) and here are my 2 cents on it (very long post + spoilers ahead) :

- First of all note that I’ve seen many spoilers before going in because I didn’t know what to expect so I wanted to know what people thought of it, but it’s one of those movies where knowing things in advance doesn’t ruin the enjoyment for me. Hell I intended to go with no expectations whatsoever and reading spoilers actually got me a bit more excited about it.

- Overall, it was fun. Like many people here already said, the movie really could’ve used more time in order to be more character-focused, and I’ll admit I got a bit bored by the time the third act rolled in. But if you just want to have a good time, it’s a good movie for that. Nothing groundbreaking, but fun enough.

- As an adaptation as in “bringing the world into the big screen regardless of the story”, I do think that it does a fantastic job at it ! Absolutely everything feels like it comes straight out of the games. And while some references are a bit in your face, most of them flow very naturally with the world they created. It’s especially impressive how they managed to make a small Toad Town work while mixing it with platforming elements.

- The story is simple like you’d expect but sometimes simple is effective, and I do think this is one of those times. Only issue is that simple stories are meant to be carried by the characters, and there was a heavy lack of character-focused moments. On top of this you have the weird pacing, in particular the promise of a great adventure only to have a 15 seconds montage and boom, Kong Kingdom.

- The action was honestly very good all around ! They knew how to idolize both the power-ups and the environments, and it looked really cool !

- At first I thought people were exaggerating when saying there was too much slow-mo but after the 6th time or so…yeah, there was too much of it.

- Loved when the music used were remixes from the games or songs like the Mario Cartoon theme/DK rap ! Not so much when it was random pop music…

- Usually when I see people gush over characters I tend to view it as exaggeration but OH MY GOD I CANNOT OVERSTATE HOW MUCH I LOVE BOWSER IN THIS !!! As someone who grew up with Super Paper Mario I can assure you he is 100% in character and he is literally the best thing about the movie ! They managed to bounce off of both his menacing and goofy sides in an amazing way and I cannot get enough of him ! Kinda wish we saw his kids tho : /

- As someone who doesn’t ship it, I wasn’t expecting to enjoy the sexual tension scene between Bowser and Luigi as much as I did but damn that scene is gay ! Love it !

- The humor was something I was really afraid going in and I was honestly surprised by how medium-good it was actually ! Can’t say I laughed every time but the bros shenanigans definitely was fun.

- On that note I could’ve watched an hour long movie of just the two bros doing Brooklyn stuff. This whole sequence was adorable.

- Speaking of Brooklyn, the ending was…weird on that front. First of all I’m surprised Mario didn’t expect the Bullet Bill to arrive in Brooklyn and literally kill everyone (like dude, do you realize how dangerous that thing is ???) and second of all those people are surprisingly calm to see the invasion of a whole other species. Seriously, why are these people so chill about it ?

- I guess I could also mention the fact that there’s no dialogue related to Mario and Luigi deciding to settle into the Mushroom Kingdom but considering the lack of development in everything else, I’m not surprised they went so fast on that.

- I’d also add that the ending of the Rainbow Road scene felt a bit jarring in how dramatic it was, though I don’t know how to explain it other than saying it felt like the movie didn’t “deserve” to have such a dramatic moment ? Really not sure how to explain it better… And on that note, the whole “fake death/everyone think they’re dead” moment with Mario and DK felt very unnecessary, but at least they didn’t drag it out.

- Last negative comment on the story itself because it is so true : I saw the review of a French youtuber (Mayo-Lek) and he pointed out how the whole story is about Mario and Peach going to the Kong Kingdom for help, only for the Kongs to get kidnapped a few minutes later. So…what was the point in asking for their help if they ultimately don’t do anything ?

- Going back to the characters, Luigi was great ! And like everyone else here, I do wish he would’ve had more screen time. But other than that, love his character for what we saw of him.

- The Luma that is apparently divisive amongst people was very funny in my opinion. Also at some point they literally get out of their cell for a second there ! Tells you all you need to know about their character (low-key surprised they didn’t jump into the lava by themselves but then again it’s a kids movie).

- That blue-shelled koopa dude clearly loves his job. Good for him. Weirdly enough, his enthusiasm in trying to kill Mario makes him very fun and a pretty compelling character for the small screen time he had.

- Toad was…there. At least he was entertaining instead of annoying. So that’s a plus.

- Btw the fact that they didn’t have Toadsworth was already a bit sad but THEY HAD ANOTHER TOAD WHO HAD THE EXACT SAME ROLE AS HE DID WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL NINTENDO ??!!! WHY DO YOU HATE ORIGINAL DESIGNS SO MUCH ???

- Kinda random but I don’t know the reference for that Kong who drove Mario and co to Cranky Kong, so my only thought was “it should’ve been Funky Kong”. I mean he had the glasses ! And yes I know Funky is in the movie in the background.

- I cannot fucking stand Donkey Kong. Not exactly sure what kind of personality I expected them to give him since he doesn’t really have one in the games, but I absolutely hate what they did with him. “Boastful douchebag with nothing in their brain who tries to be the center of attention constantly and annoy the hell of everyone around him” is a type of character, and on that note a type of person, that I can’t fucking stand. That being said giving him a power up for a minute was really cool and made for a great action scene ! Same for his fight with Mario in the arena, but again the action in general was really good.

- Peach. Oh Peach. Peaches. Peachounette as he calls her in French. Look how they massacred my girl !

- More seriously, my biggest issue by far with Peach is just how much she was willing to throw hands all the goddam time. I’m sorry but to me that’s just not Peach ! While she can absolutely spring into action, her constantly wishing to fight as a first solution is just not something she does. Hell why do you think her people are so weak and pacifist in the games ! Peach is a diplomat who only fights herself if there’s no other option.

- On that note, I have no issues with her knowing how to parkour, how to use power-ups or how to drive. It makes sense she would given she was raised in this world. Her being athletic isn’t an issue, she’s always been athletic (just look at any sports game). Plus in the games where she’s playable she’s capable of keeping up with the others.

- My second biggest issue with her is her body language. Again, most of it didn’t feel like Peach. She had none of the delicateness and elegance of the games. Literally the only moment her body language felt like her was during the fight between Mario and Dk, and even then it was only when the movie wasn’t focusing on her (aka when she wasn’t talking to Mario but just reacting). Her face was also unsettling to look at sometimes, I think it has to do with her eyes. Idk, sometimes some of her facial expressions made her look old and I can’t explain why. 🤷‍♂️

- (Also it’s incredibly funny how some youtube thumbnails have edits of Peach moments but as Daisy and that body language fits Daisy perfectly. That being said, I wouldn’t call Movie Peach a clone of Daisy, as Daisy is a very spunky tomboyish character who gives a “I don’t care all that much about ruling my kingdom” vibe. So while movie Peach has a body language that fits Daisy, their personalities are still completely different.)

- A good example of my issues with her behavior and body language has to be the way she addresses Cranky and the rest of the Kongs. Peach in the games would have a completely different behavior when asking for their help, regardless of how dire the situation is.

- And on that, the only scene where she felt in character personality-wise was when she confronted Bowser and he threatened to hurt her people if she doesn’t marry him. This scene was absolutely *chief kiss* for both of them (then again every scene with Bowser is amazing; I can’t get enough of this guy !). But then she started becoming a martial-artist and suddenly we were back to her being OOC (you can have her use the power-up and manage to stall the cages + trap Bowser without having her look like a professional fighter, Smash Bros apparently already does it).

- I guess I could also mention how overly sassy she is, which again doesn’t feel like Peach as, while she does have some sassiness in the games, it’s not to this extent. The fact that the Toads made her their princess doesn’t make much sense either, like why electing some random person who comes from another world ? What about the government before her ? (note that I’m a big fan of the “she’s a toad wearing a super crown, in this case her blue gem” headcanon so I might be biased) But yeah those two issues are kinda minor for me compared to her behavior and body language.

- All this to say if they wanted Peach to have a more action-oriented role, they should’ve taken inspiration from Super Paper Mario in which she’s incredibly sweet to pretty much everyone but can still easily get angry and has no issues throwing hands when needed (thinking of her confrontation with Mimi in 8-2, and even then, like I’ve seen people point out, the first thing she does after the fight is trying to save/befriend Mimi).

- I guess there’s also that one comic people keep bringing up but the fun thing about Peach in it is that she’s all bark and no bite. She keeps getting angry like she can actually do anything but then gets captured very easily, spends most of the fight scenes running around, only gets away from Wendy’s tower by sheer luck (finding the cape) and does nothing when Wendy calls her bluff with the bombs. The most she does in this comic to defend herself, outside of when she outsmarts the Koopalings (which I’ll admit was pretty badass) is throw furniture around. In a way, it’s pretty reminiscent of the 1986 anime/movie in which she gets angry on several occasions, defends herself by throwing shit around and manages to outsmart Bowser at some point, but ultimately doesn’t stand a chance against him.

- (Btw if you haven’t read this comic you need to ! Everyone is an absolute dumbass in it but in a funny way and it’s great ! Can’t say I know much about them but reading it low-key feels like watching an absurd play. Nothing and nobody take itself seriously in this comic and I love it !)

- On an unrelated note since I mentioned the wedding, I really liked the pink tones on her wedding dress ! The ice dress did look a bit weird tho in the sense that it makes me think too much of Frozen, though I’m not sure what they could have done about it since ice = blue and white colors so I can’t blame the movie for this one 🤔 (also fireflower Peach didn’t have her ponytail, 0/10 /j)

- And since I’m talking about clothes, not much to say for the most part as it’s all stuff the characters wear in the games but still I really liked the look of DK using the fire flower, plus the Koopas wearing helmets was a nice touch.

- Last thing about Peach and then we move on to the others, apparently Miyamoto said this version of Peach is what he’s always imagined the character to be and honestly, I’m having a hard time believing him. Like, I can definitely see it when it comes to the old comic and the 86 anime, since in both Peach is very temperamental (the comic especially). Paper Peach is also not one to sit idly and tends to have a lot more agency, at least in the first trilogy. But if you look at more modern depictions of her…Luigi Mansion 3 ? Mario Odyssey ? The online ads and shit ? Mario and Luigi ? The second Paper Mario trilogy ? The Rabbids games ? Hell in the first Rabbids game she had a gun but in the second they went back to her parasol.

- What I’m trying to say is that if Miyamoto had always wanted Peach to be written this way, why didn’t he write her this way ? Isn’t he one of the most higher-ups at Nintendo, at least when it comes to Mario games ? How come her older depictions are closer to her movie self in terms of temper than her modern depictions, to the point where people need to dig up some old comic to “prove” that Peach had always been this way instead of using modern material ?

- And for those who might say it’s because the goal of the games is almost always to save her, it’s not like she can’t both get angry easily and be the damsel in distress. In the first two Paper Mario games and the comic/86 anime, she was the one in need of saving but still had some agency. The two aren’t mutually exclusive (and like I said the humor with her in the comic is the difference between how much she wants to throw hands and how weak she actually is). Hell, on the opposite end Super Paper Mario had her as an active hero but portrayed her as sweet and kind + a diplomat. So yeah, I’m having trouble believing that this whole “this is how I always imagined her” is anything other than a publicity stunt.

- And on the other end of the body language, Mario was absolutely fantastic as a character, especially when it comes to his reactions to things ! Best example I can give because it amused me a lot was when Luigi mic-dropped his phone and Mario hid his face behind his hat in embarrassment, made even cuter due to him jumping to Luigi’s defense a second later. But yeah, overall, I really liked Mario’s character, not just his body language but his personality as a whole.

- They kinda tried to give a few hints that Peach and Mario like each other but honestly I found it to be very clumsy. Basically you could tell they were planting the seeds for a possible romance but were using moments that you’re used to see in a movie where the characters end up together. And since they never truly commit to them ending up together, while it does make perfect sense as they just met, it still makes the whole thing feel weird. Also the scene with DK teasing Mario about it and Toad jumping in was cringe af.

- Not really any opinions about Mario’s family. They were there. It’s nice to acknowledge them being Italian-americans and how they feel about the bros’ new job in regard to their upbringing, but other than that, I don’t really have anything to say about them.

- I watched the movie in French and the voices were pretty good ! Different from the game voices, but fitting enough for the characters. Only issues were Peach sounding too deep but then again that’s not my biggest issue with her character, and the second issue is the song “Peaches” where the French voice just…doesn’t sound all that good in some parts ? Though I think it might have been on purpose to accentuate the comedy of that scene ? Idk, I need to listen to the English version. Maybe the fact that people kept hyping up this song led me to believe it sounded genuinely good instead of people liking it for the comedy and how out of left field it was (on that note, I was surprised by how short this scene was due to how much people talked about it; this song is actually the one thing I regret being spoiled about).

- (also you have no idea how much I hope someone will make an edit/animation of Bowser playing the piano but with “You’re the Greatest” from Wander Over Yonder)

- And since we’re talking about voice actors, obviously Charles Martinet was 100% robbed and the only valid reason that I can accept is “Martinet himself said he didn’t think he had it in him to voice Mario and possibly Luigi as well for over an hour, given he’s getting rather old; especially if he does it in several languages”. If that’s not why he wasn’t casted, then he was robbed ! He’s literally the main reason why Mario and Luigi have the personalities that they have in modern games ! (at least I think that’s the case ?)

- Overall, favorite character has to be Bowser, with Mario and Luigi not too far away. Least favorite character is DK. It could’ve been Peach but my issues with her stem from how different she is from her games counterpart. If you take her movie character as a brand-new character rather than a game adaptation, she’s actually pretty great as a guide and strong mentor. But DK, regardless of whether or not he’s faithful to his game counterpart, is just a character I can’t stand.

- Favorite scene is either the beginning at Brooklyn with the bros being bros because it’s adorable (granted the whole dog thing wasn’t very funny. I have no issue with them doing slapsticks but the fact that they used some random dog just doesn’t do it for me), or the scene where Bowser proposes to/blackmails Peach because finally Peach is in character and that whole interaction is really great ! Least favorite scene is by far the insides of the eel with Mario and DK. I just don’t give enough of a shit about DK to feel invested in an emotional moment focused on him.

- And lastly because I realized I forgot : the movie was really pretty, with the decors and animation being absolutely fantastic. Only issue is that it’s not the type of stuff that sways me into liking a movie. I’m the type of person who finds retro games to look great so yeah… Same for the references btw. Like if you ask me about a detail in the movie I liked, instead of mentioning a reference, I will mention something like that confrontation/confession between Bowser and Peach and how, when Peach threatens Bowser with her weapon, the koopas around her immediately raise their spears, ready to protect their king. Like I said, this has literally nothing to do with references, it’s just a random detail I really like. I still really enjoyed all the references but it’s just not the type of stuff that makes me like a movie. I’m here for the story, the characters and the emotions first and foremost.

Final verdict : either 5.5/10 or 6.5/10 The simple plot makes it seem like a character driven story but outside of the bros’ adorable relationship and Bowser being Bowser, there wasn’t much character here. Also Peach and DK were pretty bad, the former due to being OOC most of the time and the latter because he’s just annoying as all hell.

I’d also add that, in my opinion, the biggest mistake Nintendo made with this movie was trusting Illumination with it. While I’m very much aware that Nintendo likely had a very strong grip on the team working on it and that Nintendo also isn’t known for liking deep Mario stories (*cough* modern Paper Mario *cough*), I still think that the lack of character development and interesting dialogue interactions (+ pacing issues) are due to Illuminations, given their track record.

Weirdly enough since I’ve only seen a few of their movies, I feel like Dreamworks would have been the best at handling this property. Like we’re all quick to jump on the Disney/Pixar bandwagon (and tbf Disney does know how to write female characters that are considered princesses) but in that case I can’t help but think that Dreamworks would have been the better choice. Maybe it’s due to Disney and Pixar being not so great recently. 🤷‍♂️

In any case, I do think that making it an animated movie was 100% the right call. Mario is a bright and colorful world filled with imaginary creatures, something animation excels at. Also Nintendo already tried Live-action once and failed miserably so maybe that’s why they took the animation direction.

#Mario Movie #Super Mario Bros Movie #mario movie spoilers #Video Games #I need a Mario tag eventually #Flor talks #long post #fun fact : I actually started writing this last week as soon as I came back from watching it #but everyday would add something new to it; hence why it took so long to post #also I love how 1/3 of this post is a rant about Peach because of course it is #kinda sad how Peach as a character has TONS of potential in regards to her role as a monarch; her relationships;#and the magic she supposedly has according to the RPGs; but Nintendo doesn't do shit with that potential #and that movie doesn't tap in this potential either #Super Mario

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shimmerbeasts · 8 months ago

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I played some more Baldur's Gate 3 and boy, did the plot move forward and fast! Probably, because I finally discovered the goblin camp. And funny enough, or well, not so surprisingly enough, Jinx likes this place way more than the grove. Mostly because her weird inklings - like her enjoyment of roasted dwarf - do not come across as weird. Plus she had a ton of fun torturing that druid. Which somehow earned her plenty of plus points with Lae'Zel while Gale and Wyll were less pleased.

Also, my little ranger got herself a nice new, more animal-themed outfit, which she clearly seems to like a lot more. I still adore how all the ranger garb is like warm tones of leather and soft cotton and fur and then you have her Death Stalker Mantle, which is this deep rich, crimson silk. The contrast between simple, earthy tones and practicality, and blood red, fancy cloak is amazing!

In the Goblin Camp, outside of torturing a prisoner for information, Jinx also underwent a strange whipping trial, which got her a permanent buff from the Goddess of Pain. And I love how Jinx spent all this time, basically insulting the whipping man. She basically kept intimidating him to hit harder and suggested they could trade places. I cannot get over what a masochist she is, and yet it feels so in character. Like of course, Jinx would enjoy both the receiving and the delivering of pain.

Meanwhile, storytellingwise, Jinx went through involuntary hell. Outside of being almost found by the Voice of the Absolute, which was one scary trip, the dream visitor showed up. I also really love the way, Thiefling demon eyes glow in that cut scene. Sadly I failed to make a good screenshot here, but oh, well.

However, what I really love is how my design of the dream visitor works with Jinx's design because I had something really specific in mind.

Basically, I made the dream visitor look as much as Vi as possible, and I love that when you put them next to each other, they look like they are related. Plus I think playing with the concept that Durge Jinx used to have a sister, namely Vi, who was killed way before the events of BG3 and whom Jinx cannot remember well, would explain why she trusts the dream visitor. Like "I don't know who you are, but I knew someone like you who I could depend on, and therefore, I feel like I can do the same here as well." We shall see if that trust is misplaced.

I also cannot get over how much of a twink Jinx is compared to the dream visitor. Like you put her next to Dream Visitor!Vi and it is just "Yes, hello, this is a Bhaalspawn and also she is a freaking toothpick!"

#cat wrangler: out of character #nothing ever stays dead: jinx||in character #bg3

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internetanomaly · 1 year ago

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September 8th, Day 4/365

Counting down to September 5th 2024.

Two days back – on this blog, I talked about how I've been defining myself by my interests and the media I consume, but weirdly, I haven't actually shared what I'm into. That was pretty much why I started writing the Day 2 entry, but I got clearly sidetracked by other thoughts.

I want to say that I've taken up this digital niche because I lack someone in the real world to talk to about what I enjoy, but that's not true really. There are people, friends in my life who'd gladly listen to me babble about my newfound favorite song. But even though I've been reassured about this before, there's always this nagging fear that they're just listening to me out of pity. I believe enjoyment is personal, and even if someone likes the same stuff as me, even when our interests align, the way they experience it will always be different from mine.

A great example of a personal experience of mine would be the videogame 'Disco Elysium.' I introduced it to a friend, knowing they'd connect with the main character, and so they did. Yet, every time we talk about the game, it's clear that we took pleasure in completely different aspects. The way we decide to elaborate on the messaging and development of the story is vastly different, and it couldn't be any other way.

This will sound like some spiritual, new-age mumbo jumbo, but what i'm really trying to say is that the vibes and sensations we created and experienced during the game are fundamentally different and they never had a chance to be the same. The same movie viewed through someone else's eyes becomes an entirely different experience. By existing in a context our experiences are necessarily subjective and tainted. In this context empathy is limited, it is fundamentally impossible to find someone who truly enjoys something for the same reasons you do. Isn't that sad?

I think this is why I'm so reticent about the things I enjoy with those close to me. Words often fall short in conveying emotion, and the moment you try to explain or show something, the essence inevitably gets diluted.

A few days ago I've started watching 'Dekalog' (1989) by Kiéslowski. It's got quite the reputation for its depth and profound thematic exploration, but if I may voice my skepticism, I'm not entirely sold on the hype. I already spilled my guts in a few Letterboxd reviews, so I won't go into detail here. Overall, I just feel that the stories are surprisingly surface level for how universally acclaimed this is. Maybe that's the very reason it brings enjoyment to so many – there's not much deep thinking required but it's great at hinting at a deepness and nuance that is just not there. This way people can still feel the rush of philosophy without having to put any effort in; Kiéslowski serves his messages up clear and loud, leaving the viewer with the single responsibility of getting exposed to it. I truly do feel like I'm being too harsh with this series of films but my expectations were too high to justify what I saw.

On the polar opposite end of the spectrum, Matsumoto's 'Funeral Parade of Roses' (1969) completely blew me off. I went into it blind and I was so completely took by surprise right at the beginning – when *spoiler* Eddie's shower scene showed that she didn't have breasts I audibly gasped out loud; I literally had an involuntary physical reaction to an image on my laptop screen, I cannot stress enough how impressive that is. From that moment I was completely hooked, I knew this film was going to be a journey of self-exploration for me and it unequivocally delivered. Maybe it's not for everyone, but I would dare to say that it's a masterpiece. Apart from all the technical praise I could give it, what truly stuck with me is that it just made me feel seen. I guess that's simple enough, but it really means a lot to me. Maybe that's why people enjoyed 'Dekalog' too, there's a lot of family themes that I'm sure resonate with people. Once again: by existing in a context our experiences are necessarily subjective and tainted, my empathy is also limited so who am I to judge? What's probably happening is that I just don't get it, I'm certain there has to be beauty in the simplicity of it, I'm just not the person it speaks to.

#diary

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astrohaterz · 2 years ago

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“It’s not like that,” Apollo explains. “I know spirit mediums are a thing. I grew up around them.” “Really?” “Mhm. I don’t doubt that there’s…something after death. I mean, I don’t think there’s an afterlife or a rainbow bridge or whatever. I think you’re just stuck like you’re asleep until someone channels you. It’s not like the dead know that they’re dead.” “But you’re still on the fence about ghosts?” “I’m not on the fence. I know they don’t exist.” “How can you be so sure?” “Because it’s never the dead that haunt you, is it? It’s always the living who have unfinished business and it’s not, like, Frankenstein or whatever that makes you feel like there’s something waiting to strike in the shadows. It’s the past. People aren’t scared of ghosts. They’re scared of memories.”

- unquiet shores: a not-quite ghost story || cosmicpoet

if you enjoy gothic literature and boys flirting while investigating a murder and the haunting that takes place in every story where characters walk the path of the narrative over and over again until they take each other’s hands and write a new story together and also strange and charming old women, boy oh BOY does the lovely and brilliant @gabr1elkit have just the story for you!

@klapollo-minibang

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beatcroc · 2 years ago

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tl;dr+disclaimer: this is NOT intended as some kind overarching review or analysis, just my thoughts on various things, and while i am absolutely enthralled by nge’s narrative tone/style/execution, i dont really give a shit about what the narrative is actually saying. This is not a writeup on its plot or themes, but rather the way they are presented and explored. [actually mostly a lot of obsessing over small details and side characters]. the end of evangelion movie is not included here and will have its own post.

secondary disclaimer: apparently nge has a fuckload of cultural context and stuff about How it exists as a commentary or subversion of stuff of its time or whatever. rest assured i know neither jack nor shit about any of it, and am just seeing how it functions as its own thing in a vaccuum. alright here we go.

earlygame evangelion was absolutely nothing like i was anticipating, and as a person who Generally Does Not Enjoy Anime, i cannot stress enough how much this was to its benefit. first thing i noticed was a distinctive Lack of those ‘anime visual gag’ type of character expressions/reactions; refreshing just for my own petty disdain for them, but also notably important to its overall tone. eva’s tone is absolutely one of the best things it has going for it; i’ll get into specifics as i go, but even before i would get to seeing how it strengthens both individual plot beats and the narrative at large, it was by far my biggest draw to the earlygame.

i think i can best describe it as “contemplative”. there’s very little real dialogue in the sense of characters having 2-way conversations. there’s a lot of emphasis on weighted silences, a lot of minor exposition delivered through background noise/chatter like radio broadcasts, a lot of just... the world moving around and contrasting with the characters as they Exist. The ep where shinji runs away definitely has the biggest focus on this, but it’s noticeable as a unique tonal thing right out of the gate. I feel like anime often tends to explain things too directly, whether it be story or lore; or a character's feelings or intentions. here, you rarely get more than a simple zoom in on a character’s face to denote They Are having Thoughts About This. No internal monologue rambling walking you through their whole thought process, It’s left to just their expressions and reactions. evangelion’s execution of “show, don't tell” still holds up pretty well in 2022 imo. maybe not the best out there these days, but definitely still effective. I’m far from well-versed in media like this, but i’d still say eva’s fairly standout, and anything that manages to do that after nearly 30 years deserves some kudos

Very related to that, “Doing a lot with a little” i think is the best way to sum up all of eva’s strengths. The subtleties and things left unsaid, as it were. Aside from the obvious jab at their making do with a nonexistent budget, this sort of thing comes through in its somber and down-to-earth tone, its character writing, and most especially, its support cast.

Both in the handling of the characters themselves and their dynamics with the main cast, the nge side characters are really, really good; like, probably the actual best i have encountered in any media ever. Each of them in their own way provide perfect backings and contrasts to everything the main cast has going on, they’re laser-focused efficient to enhance the others’ characters and arcs and the overall narrative messages--and yet they never feel like plot devices and are still really solid and wholly enjoyable as their own individual Characters, all without overstepping their boundaries AS support cast in terms of both screentime and narrative presence/influence. suzuhara and akagi demonstrate this best from very different angles and from here out this thing is pretty much just gonna be a breakdown of thoughts by character, but i’m doing suzuhara first because his being much more narratively dynamic means he gets to shine in a plethora of ways, so most of the Cool Narrative/Tonal Shit i wanna say about nge can be said by talking about him.

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you’d think the character whose introduction is “beating up the kicked puppy protag because he’s pissed” would be pretty one-note and uninteresting; i still wouldn’t really call suzuhara deep, per se, but….well, again, they do a lot with a little.

usually for this role you’d get something like “i’m gonna bully shinji because he’s stupid and lame ”, and it’s not like this would be misplaced because like... shinji IS lame, other kids DON’T like him, but suzuhara’s motivation being his hospitalized sister instead of anything with shinji himself changes the entire dynamic here to a pretty profound degree. it’s still a really simple and understandable motivation, but it lets him say a ton more than you usually could with this kind of role. the overt message still just sits at “we’re gonna make shinji hate himself life a little more“, but instead of just, like, making him feel shitty because there’s Mean People who will beat him up even though he’s trying his best or whatever, the implied message is more along the lines of “you’re hurting people you can’t see, but they’re still people who mean something to somebody, and they can damn well see you.”, and it’s for sure noticeable this is the kind of stuff that’s weighing on him the next couple eps. It’s not that he’s afraid of some random bullies that could jump him at any time, it’s that he’s now acutely aware the consequences of him messing up are exponentially larger than he can see.

it also gives suzuhara much easier room for growth! He doesn’t need some huge distracting character-altering event, he just needs to see that this is all way bigger than him and that he was out of his lane and being a shithead. getting caught face to face with an angel is a pretty effective way to do that, i’d say! Being saved by shinji specifically and having to see his trauma firsthand is an especially great note coming out of that too, realizing that shinji is neither a cocky asshole nor some incompetent coward, but that he’s really just. Yknow. Trying. I also think it’s a really…. Idk, cute? detail that while the scene in the cockpit clearly Affects him, he doesn’t apologize or offer comfort right away and just spends the next few days kind of sulking/angsting about it instead. Just a fun little humanizing err for him i think.

not a lot happens with him for awhile from there but i do really like him and his little nerd friend as just background pals for shinji. Comic relief isn’t usually a very…esteemed title in terms of narrative value, but in this case he’s earned it. Which isn’t something you’d usually say about comic relief characters! So good for him i guess.

The Fourth Child stuff coming into play is what really made me pog at this guy and his handling though. Just like. the framing of it. not telling the audience directly but showing that it’s someone all the other main characters already knew+the persistent scene cuts to him after someone brings up or asks who the fourth pilot is.

The character familiarity is cool mostly because of how small eva’s cast is overall. Like there are really not any random passerby citizens ever shown, let alone given dialogue, that they could have tossed in to use. Everybody who could be considered even remotely important/main cast is already occupied, and seeing that both asuka and katsuragi recognize him, it’s gotta be someone they would have met fairly recently–most likely someone we’d already seen on the show–and not some random guy from their backstories or something. They had my curiosity but i wouldn’t have guessed it! At least not without the scene cuts lmao. They do this like 4 times it’s really funny. Oh yeah the 4th pilot? Yeah we won’t say who but heyyyyy check This guy out.

my favorite bit from this is seeing the change in his demeanor in these cuts before vs. after he gets the news; his usual cheeky self in the first couple versus his going out alone to stare forlornly off into the distance in the latter few. I am like such a huge fan of this ok. Once again, things left unsaid: there’s so much he could be thinking about here and refusing to have him say any of it in itself speaks volumes.

What’s in there? Regret? Apprehension? Resignation? You’d need a monologue half as long as this damn post to really get into all the different angles of him unpacking the idea that he could now be the one unwittingly dropping a building on someone's little sister + reflecting back all the fears that he’d left shinji with after that little beatdown, but simply Not Saying It leaves a much stronger impression of the sense that it’s just A Lot for him to be thinking about. very cool in other characters’ reactions to it too; suzuhara himself never explicitly verbally confirms his being a pilot, but everyone notices he’s acting different. Hell, they even used SHINJI to point it out, and he’s usually the guy who’s worst at noticing these things.

small side note but there’s also a delightful bit of last minute rubbing salt in the wound with how bad his nerd friend wanted to pilot eva….seems like that kid is about the only other one who didn’t realize suzuhara is the 4th pilot too, which. lmao.

anyway then he gets in the eva and doesn’t really get to do anything. i don’t have any comments on that it’s the pretty obligatory “oop we gotta have our Angel Encounter for this ep”+”gotta find a newer and more powerful way to traumatize shinji” quota. There’s really good character moments here for some of the other cast which i’ll get to later but uhhh yeah suzahara just gets his shit fucked.

ok now full disclosure here i’m actually a huge bitch about character deaths like this, it is quite possibly my biggest pet peeve when characters go through something that is 100% presented as fatal or a killing blow, only to Not Actually Have Died At That Moment; either so they can give some kind of Emotional Speech:tm: and then die anyway, or by revealing they actually only got wounded or something bc of some kind bullshit plot armor. i thought eva might possibly be the kind of thing that’s brutal and/or disregarding-of-dramatic-narrative-flair enough to actually just leave it at him being dead there in the mech, but to an even bigger surprise i think this is maybe the only thing i’ve seen that’s played “they didn’t actually die in that horrific scene” to a way bigger impact.

The following hospital scene is already pretty interesting just with neither shinji nor suzahara knowing why the other was there; Shinji never learned who the fourth pilot is, and toji shows no animosity for the fact that shinji[’s eva] just beat the shit out of him so apparently he just wasn’t conscious for anything after his mech got taken over? and it’s just kind of like, spooky, to have what has every right to be an emotionally charged character reunion amount to nothing more than vague confusion between them. They don’t even get to talk to eachother! i don’t often see the thing of “audience knowledge vs. character knowledge” used like this; usually it’s the Characters who are sad or angry beause of some knowlege they lack, and You know that things are actually better than it appears to them; in this case you know things are way worse than they look and the characters are spared that burden. it’s weird and cool and potent but it’s not even my biggest takeaway from this. You know the thing that really fucks me up here?

we never see suzuhara again after this.

he isn’t given any sort of real farewell, he’s just gone. not dead, but gone. i’ve never seen that done before!!! it’s like....haunting to realize a guy who had been a minor but consistent constant is just not part of the picture any more, and it’s an especially odd feeling since you can’t really notice until it’s too late. now yeah, part of it was also that the plot had kinda moved beyond having time for side characters, but most of them do still make brief appearances, and we’re also specifically shown a brief scene in the schoolroom where all four pilot kids are conspicuously absent. their friends comment about how the main 3 are missing, and suzuhara is still never mentioned.

i genuinely feel more strongly about suzuhara’s narrative death than anything else in the show. i dont even care that it doesn’t mean anything this is my hill to die on. i love this dude and i love how every single beat with him makes me ape my shit.

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rei is the other end of Stuff Eva Is Really Good At. i mostly want to talk about her Big Reveal here but i do also want to give kudos for their committing so hard to the whole uncaring/ambivalent thing with her. feel like a lot of stuff that tries to do ‘emotionless’ characters chickens out and still gives them like one specific personality trait or thing they’ll react to or care about, probably for the sake of still making them relatable or enjoyable or something. granted, the context for this kind of character matters all the more when they’re Supposed to be empty, but even so this kind of thing is usually done to show there’s something Off about the character; rei’s being so aggressively, blatantly nothing and nonreactive about literally everything is just like. oh there is something OFF with you. Her and asuka’s exchange of “i bet you’d even kill yourself if they asked“ “i would, yeah“-said not out of devotion or depression, but pure disinterest, is probably about the strongest extreme you can take this idea to.

The whole series she’s such a powder keg waiting to blow and they let you smell its smoke in the flashback with akagi’s mom where it seems to be revealed that she’s 1-possibly a clone, and 2-apparently got killed the same day as she was unveiled, which obviously feel like pretty significant revelations but then they move on from it with zero fanfare and i was like huh. Wait. no wait hold on go back. i had actually intended to go back and rewatch that scene just to i’d actually make sure i’d clocked it properly because it was just that was chilling* and disorienting to have left it sitting pretty much unacknowledged for several episodes, but then it comes to ep23 after her dying for real in the eva and she says “i think i’m already the third one” as a soft confirmation and you’re like OH SHIT I WAS RIGHT but then theyre still not done blowing up everything with the actual reveal and it all comes out in the following scenes and it’s just like oh this is all so much worse than i could have imagined. all that was my peak of being Affected By Evangelion. i kinda just sat there In A State for a solid 30 minutes afterwards, just, rotating the series as a whole in my mind. man.

the scene with 01′s awakening is done with a pretty similar structure to this, and even though i actually knew about the twist of eva units being Literally Humans before going into the show, that scene was....hoo. like the knowledge does not prepare you for the presentation. I credit this mostly to its tone as well; there’s something really awesome about how evangelion can pull huge fucked up twists like this, yet the raw shock value of the scene itself [which should not be understated!] never outweighs the gravity of the situation as a whole. Like the takeaway from 01’s awakening isn’t just “oh shit!!!! The government is making fucked up mechs full of blood!!!”, it’s “these measures may be extreme but they are a necessary price to pay for survival[though is it really worth it?]”. And also maaaaybe a little “mankind is hubristic as fuck and we Love to fuck around and find out.” but that’s kind of just the deal throughout the whole series

Coincidentally, it’s also rei’s brief first couple appearances that i think initially help establish that gravity. very often when a character is badly injured it’s only really used to change how either they or another character engage with a situation; usually to remove them from it and/or spur another to action, which IS exactly what her role in e1 was for shinji. Thing is, unless the injury itself is a plot beat to be built upon, it just sort of gets swept under the rug at soonest convenience -so seeing her still really beat up a few episodes later, for pretty much no real purpose other than to say “yeah no that’s gonna take her a bit to recover from” was defintily a striking moment to me.

*spooky, haunting, chilling, i’ve used these words for these turns a good few times now. I know it’s a bit repetitive, but there really is something just so… hollow, so empty about these scenes; something that you know should be there and just isn’t and it feels weird. nge is damn good at anticipating where its emotional beats should be, and then intentionally leaving you with nothing when they come up. You wanted hype? You wanted catharsis? No get fucked. In most situations this would feel cheap or like some kind of buzzkill but with eva’s tone being how it is it’s just sort of… humbling? i know this is a bit of a pretentious read, but eva seems to make it a point to never go to hard into this being A Story, rather than Just Life; in the sense that life doesn’t always have the satisfying narrative conclusions you can expect in a story. They know enough not to Always do this because then the whole show would be actually lame and unrewarding, but the times they choose Not to deliver definitely have…a palatable contrast.

Also i know i made the jokey post about this already but LITERALLY why did they make rei go to school? There’s no?? Practical advantage to this??? I mean obviously from a narrative perspective it’s just to help sell the illusion that shes a normal human child but like. In-universe. Whose idea was this. Shes not even learning or getting Involved with anything she’s just staring out the window the whole time. She’s regularly absent and they’ve always gotta have people go check on/cover for her, not to mention that she doesn’t retain memories between bodies and they have to cover for her deaths too so like WHAT is the goal here!!!! Literally there are nothing but downsides to sending ur godspawn kid out into the public. Ok anyway. Moving on

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why DO people meme so hard on ‘get in the robot shinji’?? coming into this i really thought it was gonna take him half the damn series to get in the robot and that that was gonna be some kind of Climax, but it actually just happens in the first ep, and no one ever really has to ask or force him do it again after that? yeah he tries to quit half a dozen times, but all it really takes for him to come back around for another go in the eva is a fresh perspective. it’s more or less always his own choice.

i’ve heard a decent bit about shinji being an annoying or difficult-to-like character, and i... don’t get that at all? hes literally just a dude. A fucking babychild. coming into this i understood that he was young but i didn’t know he was Literally Fourteen, good lord dude. he’s definitely not a ‘good’ or standard type of personality for an anime protag but that’s literally the point? Like that is entirely central to what we are doing with this show. I’m not gonna say i’m a shinji Enjoyer; he’s mostly only my fave of the pilot kids by default, since asuka is,,,,,,, well. i’ll get to her in a moment, and rei you’re not Supposed to have an opinion on; but i am a shinji Defender. he has a couple of fun and strong character moments, and doesn’t really do anything egregiously awful or obnoxious so like. Literally leave him alone hes doing his best???

do people dislike him for that little tantrum he threw when he threatened to destory nerv hq? that one i can understand, but personally that was his strongest character moment for me. i’m pretty much always in favor of characters taking bold action for themselves, even if said action is outright a terrible/destructive choice. i think he shoulda done it. i would have supported him. the fact that he didn’t get to though is so.... oof. his most impactful moment for me for sure. Like he absolutely was not bluffing, and the ONE time he really gets it in him to take charge of his own life and surroundings and he just gets such a harsh reminder that he’s still not the one in control.

this is kind of just the whole show with shinji. A friend pointed him out as being “trapped in the narrative” and wow god yeah. It’s just a cycle with him. he goes out in the eva and something fucked up happens to traumatize him and hes like oh my god why am i doing this and then while hes out trying to sort that out something nice happens to make him accept whatever fucked up thing he had to deal with so he gets back in the eva again and then something fucked up in a totally different way happens and rinse and repeat. it’s pretty good at escalating the different types of trauma each angel inflicts on him; if i really cared about plot or thematic analysis it might be fun to pick apart what exactly each does, BUT i dont. The two final ones dealing with having to hurt other humans is definitely cool though.

the one part i felt his characterization was Questionable was when he was going up against the jaws sphere, it is like. Super not his deal to ignore orders and leap into action? Really kind of a ‘he’s gotta do this because the plot needs him in this position’ moment but it was ultimately pretty minor so whatever

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So yeah asuka……Hm. Asuka. good lord. i’m not a fan of the whole ‘tsundere’ thing in the first place, but that alone wasn’t actually grating just bc it plays up against the much more stiff shinji and rei in really fun ways, and it’s also extremely funny just knowing she’s The Progenitor for that whole Type. her concept is fine and she very easily could have been a thoroughly Fun character but uhhhhhhhhhhh. uh oh. uh oh. oh no.

as the unfortunate vessel for most of nge’s Awful Bullshit i can’t say i was ever looking forward to having her onscreen. in the beginning she wasn’t even instigating it they just loved shoving her ass in shinji’s face for no reason or doing the classic wind blowing up her dress and shit like that. now to be clear i know this wasn’t the first instance of Fanservicey Anime Bullshit in eva, but it was much easier to tolerate before because.. well, one, katsuragi isn’t fucking fourteen, and 2 even when that shit happened with rei she didn’t have a Reaction to it. I think its really the reactions that make it insufferable for me. the kyaa! pervert! nonsense and the self-conscious anime girl yelling and the characters being visibly humiliated, also the halting whatever else was going on at the moment to do all this. this also did not happen with the katsuragi ass shots since she was still just having a normal fuckin conversation and carrying on the plot BUT i digress. asuka did start saying weird shit of her own accord later in but i still didn't hold it against Her Character so much as just "the writers are being weird". Yknow like it would just feel so forced and arbitrary every time she made some comment like that. For the longest time the only thing i blamed her character for is being fuckin sexist all the time. ‘shinji youre a man arent you’ he is 14 and traumatized as fuck leave him alone you are making things worse >:|

In the end though, and i cannot believe i am saying this, i do think all of that was at least conceptually justified. Not in execution, because all that came through there is their insistence on shoving naked 14-year-olds in your face, but conceptually the idea of asuka’s desperation to be seen as capable and mature manifesting as forced aggressive sexuality is honestly really solid. She wants to be seen as an Adult, so she jumps to the first idea she has for Things That Adults Do, which i guess is sex. This is kind of a fantastic notion for her character because 1, it’s shallow-showing she’s A Goddamn Child who has no actual understanding of what adulthood really means, and 2, it’s loud-a very visible and hard to ignore thing which bolsters her all the more to stick to it. While portraying this is obviously a super touchy subject, i can’t help but feel it wouldn’t have been. All that hard to so without it being,,, this bad. Don’t show it to the audience? Literally just don’t show the audience. I get they need to make the other characters uncomfortable to land the concept but like. Dont put asuka herself onscreen while it’s happening jfc. i still would have been HARD side-eyeing at it that way too but just. anything had to have been better than this bro.

ANYWAY. that nonsense out of the way, she did end up being kind of fascinating for her own. i have never seen a character so extremely, terminally, self-damning as asuka. i hear a lot about shinji being hopelessly miserable, and like, sure, but asuka has it so, SO much worse??????? shinji is miserable because he’s directionless; he doesn’t know what he wants or how to get it, but he knows a glimmer of hope when he sees it and never squanders it. were he ever given direction or a way to Find his path to happiness–or to at least a way to care about finding his path to happiness, i’m sure he’d be able to chase it pretty easily.

asuka does not have a path to happiness, or at least not for the time presented in the show. While it’s true if half her issue here is just “being 14”, her “i’d rather be dead than pitied” ideology isn’t something that will automatically solve itself with age. It stays mostly out of the way as long as she never fucks up but as soon as she DOES make any kind of big mistake it becomes pretty much her entire character. damaged pride is one thing, but usually the remedy for that is just other characters lifting her up if she can’t do it herself. here, this is not only not an option but also actively detrimental. It’s already incredibly self-destructive on its own, but i still wouldn’t quite call it “damning” yet just because like. If you’re ride or die committed to your personal philosophy, you’ll still die, but there’s probably some kind of underhanded gratification in it to chase it to its end. The thing is though that she’s not committed to it, and it’s honestly kind of hard to say to what extent she even believes in it at all.

this, i feel, is asuka’s defining moment, especially after her extensive agonizing in previous eps about having to be rescued by both shinji and rei. She can’t live with being helped because she wants to be independent, and yet she can’t live without help- with being alone-because she’s desperate to be seen and regarded as worthwhile.

both of these are damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t situations! this kid is damned 4 ways ‘till thursday and the only way to get around it would be her undergoing some kind of minor ego death, and she is extremely not interested in letting this happen. shinji takes a blow and goes off to sulk for 3 days, has one positive interaction/experience, and gets a whole second wind. asuka takes a blow and falls into a pit of self-loathing [or really everything-loathing by the sound of it], aggressively refuses positive interactions, and tries to kill herself. It’s just like. Very telling i think that even though “everyone's depressed and miserable and dealing with shit Badly” is a running theme in this show, asuka is the only one who attempts suicide.

If my interpretation of all this seems a little weird it’s because “i’d rather be dead than pitied” is uhhhhhh unfortunately an ideology i’m very personally familiar with, and even though characters with that general idea aren’t too rare in media, i’ve never seen it BASICALLY stated verbatim, so. needless to say seeing asuka’s arc go the way it did did some things to me. whoops! anyway.

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i have to talk about katsuragi now ok. Ok. katsuragi is absolutely the hero of this show for me and it’s a little baffling she’s not like, A Recognizable Eva Character in laymen’s circles? Like coming into this I knew the pilot kid trio and a handful of the angels just from seeing stuff floating around the internet, and i could least recognize gendo from memes, but katsuragi? Entirely new territory here. what gives! She’s an incredible character and people should talk about her more because i am NOT about to be out here being the foremost katsuragi enjoyer in 2022. Come on

anyway man where do i even start. she’s everything. she’s got a cool car. she’s fiercely competent. she’s the man with the plan. she’s a domestic disaster. she notoriously cant cook for shit. she has a pet penguin [?!?]. she adopts two kids. shes a little bit crazy. She’s the butt of a lot of jokes. shes a rogue agent. she fucked her ex in an alley [??!?]. She has a drunken breakdown and needs help to get out of it. she hates her father. she has complicated feelings about her father. she’s on a vengeance quest. She accidentally gets attached to the kids in her care. she fucked her ex for government secrets. She’s sick of the expectations on her. she’s petty and emotional and weird, and most of all, she’s allowed to do all this without ever undermining her skill and authority, and the respect other characters have for her. im going to be real i don’t quite think all of her traits and flaws were intentionally written to be enjoyable but damn if i didn’t enjoy them anyway. Katsuragi has this real edge of emotional roughness to her that i feel like most female characters aren’t allowed to get into, and i really just??? Love her for it???? I thought i was gonna have a ton to say about her but honestly it all just comes back to “i really really really like how her flaws are written/handled alongside the rest of her character”.

I don’t have anything to like dissect about this line i just really like it. Eva had built up a pretty good bit of goodwill through its first 7 eps, and this really put a point on it. unfortunately it would then be ruined immediately in ep 8 BUT i did want to bring it up just because it was like. an ‘oh ok i can be justified for liking these characters’ type beat.

Also as far as the series ending goes i do have to be an apologist about her sorry. She literally has not done anything [more] wrong [than any of the other characters]!! they wanna go through and list out all these characters’ insecurities and flaws and they go after katsuragi to slutshame her like “Oh you're lonely so you use men to chase simple pleasures” and like. no?

First of all, every character’s breakdown was “you're lonely and/or afraid so that manifests as x”!!!! if she wants to fuck about it that’s her business! There is nothing inherently wrong with that! this COULD have still easily been a fatal flaw, like they could have presented it as a bunch of partners she’d had in a sort of use-and-abuse fashion and i’d have been like ok yeah this is an issue for you but they didn’t do that! the ONLY thing they talked about was her less-than-stellar relationship--and subsequent messy breakup with kaiji**. Even if said breakup was largely her fault, she already acknowledged this and recognized the issues that led her to it! She has already apologized and openly admitted her fear to him, and that fear was explicitly why she ended the relationship! That is not intentionally “using” someone!!! you cannot call this a fatal flaw without more evidence. she had one messy relationship and she likes to fuck. That's a normal human flaw, try again.

**this is actually a blessing in disguise, as it’s most of why i’m willing to look the other way when it comes to interpreting the more, uh, questionable aspects of her dynamic with shinji in nge. Like if the possible sexual implications there had been a Serious Deal for her character/portrayal i feel like it would have been brought up here, but since it wasn’t im happy to sweep it under the rug so it doesn’t ruin a character i otherwise really love. i do have a decent bit to say on this, but i’m saving it for the eoe post because it’s more relevant there and because, unlike eoe, my feelings towards nge are mostly positive so likewise i want to keep this post mostly positive.

only thing she doesnt get a pass on is the alley sex like come on at least ONE of you has to have more class than that?!?!? It’s gotta be cold and dirty out there you are ON THE CONCRETE GROUND and there is VISIBLY A TRAIN GOING BY someone one is gonna see you!!! You’d have been better off fucking in a goddamn bathroom at that point

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akagi is the other unsung hero of this show, but in an in-universe way. this woman is holding this whole damn operation together. i don’t have much to say on her narratively, she’s got a very small presence, but as with suzuhara i think her lessened involvement really shows how eva lets simplified characters shine. I’m not gonna break down all of her appearances like i did for toji, but she has the same general “every time she’s onscreen they make excellent use of it” thing going on. she’s known the other NERV mainstays pretty far back and they’re really good at showing that familiarity through her dynamics with them. they just Know Things about eachother, and it’s played in a very natural and non-exposition-y way to inform stuff about the other characters’ pasts or motivations or how they’ve changed through the years or something like that. it’s good. she’s good. Always a delight to have you ma’am

Also im gonna say it. She should have been a lesbian. she has the vibes and it would have saved us all from... whatever that lategame nonsense with her and gendo was. c’mon girl LITERALLY anyone but gendo i know you have better taste than this. also x2 her dynamic with katsuragi is already great but i think it could have been even more interesting with some Subtext:tm: at play, even if unrequited. also x3 there is literally official art for this.

its literally right there. come ON

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also on side characters i never learned suzahara’s little nerd friend’s name but he’s really good too. his scene with shinji in e4 is wonderful and i think his being a dweeb does a good bit to enhance suzuhara’s character too, again just showing suzuhara isn’t an indiscriminate bully going after people who are ‘weird’ or lame or whatever since he clearly does not share this guy’s interest in military junk. also him cheerfully apologizing while suzuhara beats shinji up is just a great dynamic.

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I have to bring up penpen real quick just because no one ever told me theres a fucking penguin in this. hello? shinji just opens the door and theres a fucking penguin there and gets told thats his other roommate and we just have to accept that. I was looking at his wiki page and apparently 1. He lives in a spare freezer [very funny], and 2. katsuragi “took him with her from her previous job” HELLO??? Did she steal a fucking penguin???? and what IS this thing’s level of sapience anyway. he eats out of a little doggy dish on the floor and doesn’t seem to have much capacity for communication, but knows how to use buttons and switches around the house, takes his own showers, and is apparently LITERATE???? lots of questions here but nonetheless i am very happy he exists. little guy :)

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kaji is.....*through gritted teeth*...........okay.......i guess. He does a lot of shit i want to kill him for but he also behaved himself at all the most crucial moments [providing gentle support when katsuragi was at her most vulnerable, and flatly ignoring all of asuka’s advances] so that makes him better than a lot of other characters. there’s a lot about him that easily could have gone way, way worse so ill take what i can fuckin get here. i don’t actually care about his narrative involvement at all sorry. i’m taking a petty point on this one. kind of glad he died just for getting to avoid the painfully obvious cliche of being the love interest katsuragi gets together with in the end, especially after treating her the way he does most of the time, and her still being really into him regardless for some reason. Would have felt like a really cheap and bullshit way to “justify” all of that. the most frustrating admission i have to make with this show is that "well, i'd rather it be between misato's tits, but failing that i'm choosing to die right here in my garden" is kind of unironically a fantastic line...he can have that one. That whole gardening scene was just really nice in general, and i do enjoy him as a sort of guide for shinji but other than that jesus christ dude.

i think he’s probably the most messy and plot device-y feeling character, though i recognize at least part of that is my general distaste for him so i have nothing else to say here.

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The little trio of field operations tech type guys…. Listen i know my fawning over literally every minor character is getting absurd at this point but like. I literally enjoy them. Ok. i think it’s really cool having a handful of just Actually Normal Guys along for the ride on this; seeing how The Horrors affect just the average joe kinda guy. For everyone else their own emotional torment is on pretty equal footing with all the impending physical threats, but these guys aren’t already super traumatized and have a much more surface-level relation to the horrors. Idk !i just think it’s neat seeing a different set of perspectives with them that lacks the tint of the Personal stakes/involvement the rest of the cast has with the whole situation; even if their reactions are pretty “generic” and could have been done with any random passerby in the city, i think it adds to it that it’s done with recurring guys, however minor. they are freshly Going Thru It but they persevere and i love them for this.

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gendo is notable just for how much he sucks. like it’s truly astonishing. i dont even mean in the abusive shitty father way. or, well, i do, because he IS also that, but even moreso he is just. so lame? he’s SO lame. all he does is sit there with his hands folded and say edgy ominous shit. some of that was definitely intentional and i think they also just couldn't afford more than one pose for the guy, but also....come on. Get a life loser. even the peppermints guy somehow has more personality and intrigue than gendo and im pretty sure his only purpose is to sit in the bg to be intimidating and to mediate between nerv and seele.

anyway in ep18 he CLEANLY crosses the line from “obnoxiously distant and uncaring/nonreactive” to ”oh this guy is Actually evil”, in a... not really unexpected, but still very brutal way. given his interactions with rei it’s easy to think he’s still a somewhat benign dude overall and just hates shinji for being a failure son or whatever, BUT turns out actually shinji is the rule and rei is the exception instead of the other way ‘round. which, given what rei is... lol. lmao. [you of course don’t know that at this point though.] but no yeah this dude is just totally down to physically destroy some random kid by mentally destroying his own kid. oh and he also killed his wife. literally just astonishing how awful he is.

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oh yeah and kaworu exists. i guess. evidently people actually care about this guy? don’t get me wrong he’s a hell of a plot catalyst, but like as a character? Theres nothing there dude. he only exists for like 1.5 episodes and has zero agency, he’s just there to once again fill the quota of “new angel+traumatize shinji”. To be fair he is very good at this. But yeah i cannot give a shit about him, even as an angel. If i wanted to talk about individual angels i think i’d legit have more to say on that glowing one with psychic beams than the guy whose role is “suck up to shinji for an episode to make it extra painful when he inevitably has to die” i do think it’s insanely funny he shows up in so much of eva’s promo art though, what an absurd way to do a red herring.

--------------------------------------------- ok thats all the characters. umm a few other random misc notes

I moved this part out of the intro bc it’s a longer sidetrack but another thing that hooked me about the earlygame was actually the coverup explanation of the second impact as a meteor strike. It’s the first one you’re given, and a devastating natural disaster plays perfectly to the Somber tone eva thrives on. something unavoidable and unprovoked…. perhaps it is simply the bio nerd in me but the idea of earth and its life just trying to figure out how to exist again in the wake of something like that is awesome to me and did a ton to keep everything down to earth despite the giant robots and otherworldly horrors and whatnot. Definitely kind of a letdown to hear that’s just the cover-up explanation though, sort of turned it into your generic “humanity brought its own end” post-apocalypse thing, which may have been more novel at the time but it’s become pretty overdone these days. granted, eva’s a lot less overtly About said apocalypse than your typical modern post-apoc thing, and the… circumstances for this cataclysm are definitely a bit different, but still. “You couldn’t have stopped this, you can only repair after the fact” is an angle i’m vastly more interested in, and also one i don’t see as much.

coming out of that, 8-17 are definitely the low stretch for me. the introduction of kaji and asuka their Anime Bullshit™, and the tone turning to a more standard monster of the week mech battle thing definitely killed my engagement there. whether there was actually more dialogue or i had just gotten acclimated to the Usual lack conversation i can’t tell, but all the aforementioned stuff put a pretty big hit on my enjoyment regardless. it picked back up HARD with the fourth child stuff though, and the plot motion of the Really Fucked Up Shit from there was plenty enough to outweigh my other gripes.

As far as the ending goes… yeah it’s good. It’s lame as hell in execution but like conceptually it’s fine and i can’t really be too mad about anything seeing as they were evidently Out Of Money. They stuck the landing effectively enough; really about as well as they could have given such strict limitations, and i do actually think it’s extremely cool that they were able to frame “removing backgrounds and colors and clean lines” and “we literally can only get this part out as storyboards” as a legit storytelling thing. Still sad about the dozen hanging lore threads ofc but getting any followup on those means acknowledging the movie so i’ll gladly cut my losses

I think this might fall under ‘fakedeep’ and ‘not actually good’ but i do genuinely appreciate that while nge looooves to have intentionally confusing presentation, when they Want to say something it’s never really inscrutable and/or buried in metaphor and symbolism. This isn’t a narrative critique or anything i’m just not very smart so i like that it’s still pretty straightforward.

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Obligatory section about the angel designs. Yeah they’re good too. Anyone knows me knows i am allllll the fuck about creature design, and even though these aren’t as in-depth as what i usually go for[mostly due to budget stuff no doubt, judging by what they did with ramiel in the rebuild] [again i havent seen rebuild but hot damn rebuild ramiel my beloved], i still really appreciate just how diverse most of them are. They don’t stick to any particular type of design logic, and it’s rare to see something actually embrace an “anything goes” ruleset as well as this does. Like you got ones that are sort of just fantasy animals, ones that are a funky combination or suggestion of earth animals, ones that are just arcane imposing shapes, ones that are kind of abstract interesting shapes, some that are humanoid, some that are just and then like…whatever the fuck was going on with that dna halo thing. The humanoid ones do feel a bit samey but also anyone who knows me knows thats pretty much always the opinion i have on human/oid designs fdjsdjkfd. They have pretty funky and diverse sets of shapes which is rad, but their attack methods are all… Pretty boring. Pretty much all of ‘em just attack with their hands in some way and i feel like theres a million other things they coulda done there but oh well. Bland attacks are consistent across a lot of them though, like half were just “extrude something through the guy”, though i don’t think i can really be too mean about it because elaborate fight sequences would Also require money lmao.

Anyway my fave is the spider, followed by the weird fuckin orange splatter comet thing and the eel type guy

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i just have to say this as a standalone point but why do people not meme on the part where an angel starts fucking shit up and they just drop the hallelujah chorus oh my GOD. we make fun of the elevator scene and rightfully so even though that wasn’t the only instance of a single frame lasting over a minute, but like. idk maybe they thought the hallelujah chorus souned cool and dramatic or something but it just made me lose my shit when it came on. asuka is going fucking through it and the most sanctimonious singsongy music is playing.

another really funny thing is how every time they do a scene with an eva unit they’re like “oh no! something is going wrong! cut the power! aaah it’s not responding we can’t stop it!! oh no this is unprecedented!”. yes this is very precedented actually it happens literally every time. i know theres no suspense in an easy mission and they’re trying to drive that controlling the evas is janky as hell but you gotta have SOME standard of success/normalcy to compare to sjkdskdfdsf

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on the rebuilds....yeah no i don’t intend on watching them [unless it’s as a group with friends or something] If i’ve communicated nothing else in all this, i’d hope i got across that i admire nge mostly for the incredible efficiency of its narrative. It’s tight, focused, makes the most of that it’s got, and doesn’t go anywhere it doesn’t need to. i wouldn’t have been able to see a purpose for the rebuilds to have a new character in the first place, and after hearing a bit about said character’s evident production hell, uhhhhh. Lmao. i’d already think it loses something by not having by not having such tight budget restraints-since those no doubt factored into the way its tone was played here, but if they’re also adding shit just to add shit i Really don’t care.

that’s it i dont have a cool conclusion to all this or anything. i just needed to get all the thoughts out so i didn’t go insane. thanks for reading!

#nge #neon genesis evangelion #evangelion #oh that i cared to tag individual characters. no #evaposting #also i know i talked abput this thing a lot but i hope i didnt like Hype It Up sjfdjsajdf #there probably isn't anything too deep or interesting in here i just had a lot to say.

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moonchildridden · 2 years ago

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NottPun, that couple (who’re not exactly a couple) that showed a lot of nuances in less than an hour: attention seekers, maybe jealousy, secret crushes, fear, pressure and the need for allies (Episode 2)

Hi. Hello. It’s moonchild here. You guys can’t see but my brain is burning right now as a write this, with the amount of things I’m thinking and how messy everything is in here. Why is that happening, you may ask? War Of Y: New Ship second episode just dropped. And I have things to say about it.

I would like to say first that this episode was I-N-T-E-N-S-E and A LOT of things happened, whether they were on the nose or not, and also dropped LORE about what the hell is going on around NottPun, the type of relationship they have and how the industry is affecting them. Most of things that happened were a continuity of the themes I explained in my first post about them and others were a new highlight on things that were shown but not so much.

Second, I cannot stress this enough, the fact that we still don’t have the posts/comments/messages translated is a big hindrance to my full enjoyment of the story. I shouldn’t have to go out of my way to translate things so I can understand the meat of the story, and being susceptible of having the wrong translations and, by default, understand things wrong also. Luckily, even if the translations are a bit…off…because I know the context of their placement, is kinda easy to see what was said and how it affected and impacted the story.

Third, again, this episode was intense. Not because it shoved a lot of ugly things about the industry in our faces just like the first one did but because it went deeper into Pun’s inner life and struggles, his weaknesses and how everything he absorbs made him the man he is, with all that seemingly rude and diva like behavior. It also went into details about his dynamics with Nott and dropped more hints about how both of them may be exactly what the other need.

Because I need to be a responsible adult, I need to make my usual disclaimers before getting started: everything that you guys will be reading in this post is the result of my observations into very specific parts of the episode, frame by frame repetitive viewing and me getting to the most plausible conclusion after taking all in, meaning that most of the things will be on the speculative territory, others in (maybe) theory territory and some can (or so I think) be proven by in-dialogues and scenes arrangements, so take things with a grain of salt, ok?

I’ll try, albeit I may not managed to do that the way I want, to divide this post into segments to facilitate your understanding of my thought process, and those segments will follow the order of events presented in the episode, with things in bold being mostly dialogues and things in italic being me emphasizing or exaggerating my thoughts.

Contrary to what I did before, instead of talking about themes as a whole, I will discuss the events that transpired in the episode and try to tie them with the themes I identified in the first episode. And because there is continuity of themes in this episode, I will reference a few things that I wrote in my last post, but no need to worry about needing to read that post first because I will paraphrase when necessary. But after this, you can check it out, it was a blast writing that.

So, without further ado, let’s get this started.

1. Approval + attention + validation = a desire to exist within the industry

When I made the character profile of Pun in the previous post, I said that he gets a high in being adored and that he’s the type of person willing to do everything he can to get what he wants, and nothing showcases that better than him researching about the TTV’s producer that was going to visit the set where they were shooting Mafia Baby’s second season and using the information he got to “impress” the man and have a big chance of working with him.

Pun projects specific images of himself to certain people and he tries to sell the image that he deems best to a specific person. To the TTV producer, he tries to appear interested in his works, in the cast and crew’s well-being, in being nice and always willing to do his utmost best in the pursuit of doing a good job. To the crew and rest of the cast, he shows a distant and cold man, someone who’s above all of them and should have his desires granted as soon as they are vocalized or expressed. To his fans, he shows a sensitive and caring man, someone worth of being adored and taken care of, someone whom they can put their trust in and follow without an issue. None of those images are really what he is, his real personality.

We barely know who we really are and it can take years to have a glimpse of our real personality, what we really are on the inside and not what the world thinks about us. When the subject is famous people, this notion of not having knowledge of their real personality doubles because the person we see on screen can by anything and we only see what they want us to see, when they want us to see, and Pun is a good example of that. The way he seems to push away people behind the cameras but seems welcoming in front of them, the way he is nice to some but rude to others, the way he keeps some people close but push away others is a classic depiction of the volatility of the human personality and how someone can have “many faces” and we’ll never know which one is the real one.

Pun uses this volatility to fulfill some sort of “need” for approval and/or attention and that supposed need is more related to the industry itself and not him, as Pun. Between his real self and the personas he show the world there is a wall, and the images he projects act as a mask to hide what he thinks he should not be showing, who he really his, so he can survive in the industry and that surviving can only be attained through validation as the persona Pun, the actor, that in turn will become validation as Pun, the real person, the one almost no one knows about.

And so, he fights to get attention (from fans, from sponsors, from producers, pretty much anyone who can catapult him higher), then he fights to get approval (comments on social media, from producers, filming crew, etc.) and in the end he grabs any chance he can get to reach the validation he needs (awards and a more permanent stay in the industry) and continue to feed the personas he created to hide his real self.

2. Romantic jealousy versus Professional envy

One thing that I noticed (kinda late) is that it seems that we are getting the story mostly through Pun’s perspective, meaning that the only way we can get any glimpse of other character’s behavior and intentions is by analyzing the way they interact with Pun and the dialogues they have with him. Nott’s behavior, for instance, is the strongest indicator of this, being him the other main protagonist alongside Pun, making things a bit difficult to actually see because we need to take into account that Nott and Pun are two actors, doing their job, but they are also separate people, meaning that we shouldn’t only look at their attitudes together as a result of their professional relationship but also look into their personal relationship; and here is where things become murkier.

What we need to understand here first is that Nott also wants to maintain a foot in the industry, even if he doesn’t seem to go through almost extreme lengths like Pun to do that. And so, because he wants to secure his place, he also needs to catch attention of the producers that appear in his way, because we never know when luck struck and the opportunity comes knocking in our door. However, the only reaction we have from him in relation to the TTV’s producer visit to the set is annoyance; annoyance because Pun seemed too interested in getting Tai’s attention.

That annoyance begs the question, what is the reason Nott didn’t seem to like Tai’s presence that day, when what he should be doing was show that he could be a good addition to whatever project Tai may have?. One could argue that Nott was feeling threatened by Pun’s ability to charm producers and steal his opportunities but that falls flat when Nott did nothing himself to also grabs the producer’s attention and instead spent his time expressing his dissatisfaction of Pun’s behavior and telling Pun that it was enough that he was taking advantage of him, Pun shouldn’t do that to others, gaining a “how many people I decide to do it with is up to him” and “mind your own business” as a response from Pun.

With that, I know pose the question: is it really farfetched to think that Nott’s behavior stems from some sort of romantic jealousy, when the way he acted supports that? How much can we infer that his actions were of someone feeling that with Pun getting attention, his days on the industry were counted? Can we assume that Nott feels that his fame is attached to Pun and the fact that they are a shipped couple, so he is doing all he can to keep Pun by his side and, by proxy, his fame intact? Or can we view the little altercation in front of the ice machine, where Nott ate the ice put there specifically to Pun, and used the excuse that Pun gave the ice to others (by “others” here we understand TTV’s producer), so he also could have some, as an attitude who didn’t like that the object of his affection is showing interest in other people? When does Nott’s actions stop being of someone who supposedly likes Pun and becomes something a disgruntled partner would do?

How blurry are those two lines? Can we really consider the existence of them or there is only one, the romantic one, which can be ramified to other ones, using them as camouflage?

3. How social media warped our views and understanding of human relations

Social media, in theory, is a place that can unify large groups of people in one single place, connect people who wouldn’t otherwise have the chance to do so and reconnect long lost acquainted people after many years of contact lost. When we get to the real life, however, social media become a mine field, where everyone is playing mine sweeper and those who are unfortunate enough to step on mined tiles are used as cautionary tales as to what not to do in certain situations. Someday, we will all step on a mined tile, is inevitable.

In the industry, no matter which one, social media is used a metric of evaluation of authenticity of famous people relationship with each other and also as a big sized projection of individual ideas of how human relations should be and their boundaries. In the BL industry, the industry being scrutinized in this episode, the fans really like to use social media to dictate how their faves should behave towards other people, especially when in regards to the actors and their shipped couples.

If an actor X tweets something and their shipped couple does not reply, there is a problem. If actor Y posts something on Instagram and their shipped couple does not like the post, they clearly had a fight and don’t talk with each other. If actor Z does not post a story with their shipped couple, they hate each other. Social media became the only source of validation of authenticity of actors personal relationship with each other and anything that is not shown, any interaction that is not broadcasted, it simply does not exist and so can’t be used to prove that the actors don’t secretly hate each other and only tolerate the other because the work they have together demands them to.

And god forbids the actors have a “fight” or simply disagree with one another, it is definitive proof that they really don’t like each other, they are being forced to be together, and all the schmutz that is associated with fanservice (I will talk about that later).

Going into what happened between NottPun, it is a situation that even if it’s not good, can happen with anyone when they are simply not in the mood to that type of “joke”. Pun is not exactly a lively person and the chances of him being already in a bad mood are kinda high, so when he sees Nott eating his ice, he is not pleased. Then Nott starts doing a live without asking Pun, kisses him on the cheek without asking beforehand, irritating even more someone who’s already annoyed by him and the result was kinda obvious; it is was something being made between closed doors, probably it wouldn’t have being an issue but the fact that that specific event was broadcasted, thus creating a snowball that kept rolling downhill.

That snowball was created mainly through the comments and twitter posts (that international viewers did not had full access to) and for what I managed to gather in my scuffed translations, it went from saying that NottPun did not promoted/talked about the queer community to calling what happened between them during those few seconds clip a case of sexual harassment. And even after the tweet Pun made on Nott’s twitter account, explaining that what happened had mislead many people, that they pretend to tease each other like that and apologizing to Pun and his fans, things were already out of hand, with some not believing on the tweet, other asking how could he “blame the fans” (by saying that they misinterpreted the situation) and other just being a mixture of the earlier comments.

Things were ugly on the fan’s side of things. And were also getting ugly on NottPun’s side too.

[Side note here because even if this happened during the swarm of comments regarding the clip of them “fighting”, I feel like I need to talk about this now. I said in the last post that Pun seemed to recoil every time someone touched/tried to touch him except when the person doing the touching was his manager or Nott. When Nott pressed Pun on the glass, it was the second time in a row we saw him not feeling comfortable with Nott touching him and actively pushing him away, with the first being the situation that caused all of this mess. And, again because the comments that were plastered on screen during that scene were not translated, it gets a bit difficult to feel the tone of the scene but it is very telling that one of the comments mentioned “consent”, tying back with the other comment talking about sexual harassment.

I know it was not something random, because everything that happened so far wasn’t, so it has to mean something. Either being to sparkle conversation about boundaries between actors and what kind of touch they are allowed to do with each other, to show how we take our own conclusions when presented with a situation, even if it’s a very strong stretch, or a combination of both, we cannot deny that Nott touching Pun like that was a middle no-no, and Pun makes that clear by saying “if I didn’t tell you what to do (i.e. give you permission), you have no right (of doing what you did)”; that means that Nott only touches Pun because Pun allows him to and there are certain situations where Nott’s touch is not welcomed. And Nott, at least, understood that.]

Going back to the social media stuff, the fans seem to think that every aspect of a relationship must be broadcasted and when that does not happen, either there is something wrong or the relationship itself does not exist. And that way of thinking becomes toxic because it literally forces the actors to maintain a facade and post about every step they make, everything they do, just to prove to a bunch of people online that feel entitled to their entire lives just because they are famous, that the relationship that exists between them and their shipping partner is not strictly professional, that is not fake. And being obligated to maintain that facade, soon or later, can create strains in the relationship and, if something happens and the relation falls apart, someone people will use that as “proof” that they were right, when they were the reason the relationship failed in the first place.

4. Theory of easy replacement (i.e. Apparent lack of space within the industry/dispute between BL actors

The first theme that I identified in my post about episode 1 was that the industry makes it seem like there isn’t enough space to every BL actor to exist and that for every actor that rises in fame, other must fall to give them space. Pun’s seemingly need for attention/approval/validation can also stem from his fear of “being replaced” in the industry, and that is shown in two ways:

1 – Pun seeing Tai’s attention on GusBew is seeing here, through his perspective, as a threat to his goals of securing a role in any future project that Tai may have. After the scene where Tai is watching GusBew rehearse their scene, there is a tweet shown that basically says that the OP is feeling bored of the old couple (NottPun), because all they do is fanservice (hey, look fanservice being mentioned again!) but the new couple (GusBew) is the one they are secretly cheering for because they give a fresh, shy, happy look and also have good space (?) between them, maybe alluding to the sexual harassment and consent thing.

2 – That fear of being replaced, coupled with the pressure Pun was feeling because of the comments he was reading online were the reason he had his first panic attack while shooting for the love scene, which was not a coincidence. First we had Pun telling Nott that because they know each other for a good amount of time he did not need to like his posts on social media or do any other service (I’m still trying to understand the correlation between those two topics, so if anyone manages to get it, please comment so I can see) and to stay away from him, to which Nott reacted with some indignation, getting a “come on, do as I say” as a response from Pun. Then, we had Nott telling Pun to “do it for him” (meaning immerse himself in the scene for him), which led to them starting kissing and another swarm of non-translated comments appearing on screen, making critiques about the series (saying stuff like the ss2 is practically a porn movie, that the industry is setting the bar low with the series) and NottPun as a shipped couple (that they look awkward, that they are queerbaiting and doing all of that for the pink money), causing him to literally freak out and interrupt the scene so he could calm himself down.

3 – Listening to Tai say that he was actually eyeing him but if he (Pun) was going to be like that (have a panic attack every time he needed to shoot a love scene or some variation of that), he was not suitable for TV drama practically validated Pun’s fears of not being enough and the thinking that what he was doing was wrong, to justify why he was not getting the opportunities he wanted, despite working so hard to get them. He was losing his ground to other people and, clearly, it was his fault.

Pun knows that not everyone will have the same opportunities in life, that’s why he is willing to sacrifice a lot just to have his. But when things outside his control happen, and he is a very controlling person because the more control he has the least surprises he will have in the future, he does not compute fast enough a way out to either get the chance he lost back or run for another one, creating a loop of unfulfilled goals and more pressure over his head to sacrifice even more than before to get to the top.

5. Not so secret crushes

I know I said before that Nott likes Pun, or at least thinks about Pun as more than just friends, but the way his conversation with Pun in the changing room before the event really started to really highlight that there is something there, and that Pun knows about it or, at least, suspects it, really sold that idea for me.

On one side we have Pun asking Nott if he was not tired of having to make fanservice, implying that everything Nott does is just to please their fans and that Pun was tired himself of that. On the other, we have Nott being very careful with his words, saying that him liking Pun’s picture on social media, taking care of him, complimenting him, is all his doing, not some sort of “moral obligation”, and that Pun is “the one who knows best the reason he did what he did”, then asking if it was Pun who did all he did to service the fans. Granted, Nott could’ve been talking about the fact that because they know each other for a while, there is “friendship” formed between them and that Nott doing those things was just what a friend would do to another friend (whether it was a normal friendship or a friendship with benefits, it didn’t matter, as long as it was not in the guise of a professional relationship) but the way Pun’s face softened after those words made me think that he is at least a bit aware that what Nott does to him is not just because they are “supposed” to do that for the fans, but because he genuinely liked him (as a friend or more).

When we entertain that idea, Pun drawing a line between him and Nott having sex off cam and what they do during shooting becomes something bigger than him just preventing his coworker to mix what he considers a time to relieve stress to work but Pun not wanting Nott to mix his romantic feelings into what they were doing and ending up ruining things in a way that would render their work almost unbearable.

I said in Nott’s character profile that he was an easy going guy, really approachable and friendlier, and in this episode we actually got to see that side of him again but he also seems to have a bit of difficulty controlling his actions when his feelings are bubbling very close to the surface, with him eating Pun’s ice just because Pun offered the ice to Tai, then being all lovey dovey in a very short live, then asking Pun to immerse himself on the kiss during shooting and then almost outright confessing his feelings out loud when Pun accused him of doing all he did just for fanservice. That inability could very much create so much tension between them that no amount of “workshop” could fix and, in the process, ruin Pun’s chance of growing in the industry.

However, the look Pun gave to Nott when Nott was helping him fix his jacket, honestly speaking, it was the look of a man letting the words he heard seconds ago really sink in inside of him, absorbing the implied meaning of them and letting himself being vulnerable for a few seconds before putting the mask back on. Pun did not wanted to believe Nott’s words, because he did not wanted to put his faith onto something that could very well be conditional and, if there is something Pun don’t want is to have people liking him conditionally, I mean really like him. He was scared of believing Nott, because the chances of Nott not being true to him were very high; and he could not control the outcome of that, so why bother trying.

And, if we really think that thought, couldn’t that also mean that Pun has some sort of feelings for Nott as well or, at least, is starting to develop some, right?

6. Industry Judas

How do we evaluate how much a piece of information costs? By the ability to create damage and chaos when release? By how long it has circulating around? By whom it affects and how high is the position of the person/people involved in the information? No matter what metric we use to do that, information is power and those who detain power, detain everything.

Between famous people, we all know that there are people close to them selling their information to news outlets in exchange of money or simply just to ruin the famous people lives. Sure, in some instances, the famous people themselves give that information and them pretend to have those same information “stolen” from them but without a way of proving that, the only thing we can assume is that someone close enough to them sold that information for whatever reason. And that’s exactly what happened in this episode; someone decided to personify Judas and “betray” the confidentiality that comes with private matter regarding what happen to actors during the shooting.

One thing would be people using NottPun’s public “fight” and the fact that none of them had been liking each other’s posts to assume that they are having problems between them (going back to the perception we have about the actors relationship through social media) but other thing entirely is the reporters asking if it was true that NottPun fought a lot behind the scenes and cause the shooting team to stop in the middle of the scene because that is not an inference based on what they saw online, it was a very specific question about something that actually happened and they were just asking for a confirmation of the fact. It was not a “so, what happened between you two that made Nott not like the last two posts from Pun?” but a “so, you guys had a fight that caused problems during shooting, right? And that’s the reason Nott hasn’t liked the last two posts from Pun. Can you guys confirm this?” which means that they were expecting for a good moment to just say that out loud.

And also, who the hell is the GossipXoxo’s account owner and how do they know so much about what happens in the shooting set or between NottPun? Seriously, I need to know.

7. Fanservice & personal expectations

I’ve waited since the day the trailer for New Ship came out to see what would be the event surrounding the conversation about Pun’s complaint of fanservice and oh boy, I got exactly what I wanted! I always found the discourse about fanservice fascinating because it can always give you an insight about the person giving you opinions about it and how they perceive human relationships and display of affection in these types of environments.

Speaking for myself, I have a pretty neutral stance about fanservice and what all of it entails. There are moments where I wished the industry or even the fans didn’t demand the actors to do certain things just for their entertainment but in general, I don’t lose sleep over fanservice and pretty much don’t judge the actors relationship based on that. However, being an almost full time twitter person, I’ve seen a lot of opinions about fanservice but the most prominent ones are these two: some people don’t like fanservice and some people really like fanservice.

To explain exactly how the discourse about fanservice really is just a mess sprinkled with glitter, I’m gonna use what Pun said bit by bit and talk about it:

- “When we service, we get insulted and when we don’t service we get insulted” – this sentence alone sums up perfectly the online discourse I see about fanservice. Because when a shipped couple does fanservice, some people literally write essays about how the actors relationship is fake, that they are being obligated to be together by their company or they are just doing it for the “pink money” (for example, OhmNanon are the latest victim of this discourse, especially after their fanmeeting), basically saying that they hate each other’s gut and only tolerate one another because of their job. However, when a shipped couple does minimal to no perceivable fanservice, some people have the impression that the actors hate each other and can’t even stand be a feet close to their shipped partner, to the point of disgust, and not even the money they would receive for doing said fanservice is enough to convince them to actually do something, meaning that their relationship is fake and that they are also being obligated to be together by their company and stuff like that.

Did you guys note something? How similar the reactions for the existence or not of fanservice are pretty much the same, the only thing that changes is what the person is talking about. This is basically the online discourse about fanservice in a nutshell.

I could rant about how some opinions stand out among those I mentioned above, saying that the industry is relying more and more on the fanservice itself and hoping that it alone can sustain the series the actors are promoting, instead of searching for a way of improving the quality of the Thai BL in the country, the ability of the actors and the quality of the story being portrayed, and also how in some instances fanservice can be detrimental to the actors relationship (a good example is what happened with OhmToey during the Make It Right era); this is an opinion I can, in certain cases, stand by it but, as I stated before, my stance is just neutral about it, so that opinion almost always stays in the back of my mind.

- “And what kind of shipped couple do they want me to be? Why all I did seems so wrong? Or just being me, is the reason of their hatred” – this here tackles the part pertaining the expectations the fans put on the actors about the type of display of affection that they want to see and what makes them comfortable. To explain better, I will use an example of something that happened in 2019, that not many people may know about: when the cast of 2 Moons 2 was announced and then started doing promotions and stuff, a well-known person in the “original” fandom of the “original” cast, that is also a fan translator, went on twitter to complain about the kind of fanservice PavelDome (ForthBeam in the new 2M2 version) were doing, saying that they were being too sexual in their interactions and basically accusing Pavel of just being a fuckboy doing all of that for attention and being “cringe” at the same time, relying on his physical attributes rather than his acting skills.

At the time, I took that as the person just being frustrated with the change of cast and not being used to the new one but after I saw that the person was actively shitting on the new cast without giving them the chance to prove themselves, while also indirectly calling Pavel every synonym of slut, I realized that the person placed their behavioral expectations on the new cast based on the old one and simply started criticizing them for it. The worst part in all of that is that Pavel, at the time, was just being his normal self, the only difference is that there were a lot more people watching him do that.

Another example of how expectations really ruin people’s perspective about actors display of affection is ZeeNunew. A lot, and I mean A LOT, of people like to say that their relationship is fake because they are too lovey dovey with each other, using Zee’s previous shipped couple, Saint, as proof of that, saying that everything Zee says about/to Nunew, he used to do the same with Saint and stuff like that, implying that you cannot compliment the person you work with because when the person change, it will render your new relationship invalid.

OhmNanon. Some people accuse them of being fake because they do fanservice (like what happened during their fanmeeting), others accuse them of not doing enough fanservice, thus their relationship is fake and they don’t like each other.

OffGun. A shipped couple that barely do fanservice, to the point of their fans jokingly ask them to do some so they don’t die of starvation, to give them some crumbs, is accused of being fake simply because they don’t do fanservice.

KristSingto. Even if they don’t have a new project (like a series) since 2018, they are still good friends and hang out together with a surprising frequency, but people always say that they hate each other because they don’t broadcast every time they are together. That gained so much traction that Singto got asked if he and Krist hated each other TWICE in the span of six months, and he denied BOTH times, stating that they are fairly private people so whenever they are together, only a few people will know about. Krist, in one interview, said that there are instances of him and Singto going out together and people only finding about that like six months later, because one of them slipped that during an interview/live or because one their friends said something; and their friends/managers/family are always vouching for their friendship, going at lengths to call out those who always spread rumors about KS hating each other. Heck, KS even LAUGHED the last time they were asked that question, and I mean the kind of laughter you give when you listen something so absurd that you cannot believe what you just heard.

BKPP. Another victim of the online discourse of fanservice and they suffer from both sides. People accused Billkin a few times of queerbaiting, accused PP of being “too expressive” (badmouthing him for being feminine), said that they don’t really like each other because they don’t do much fanservice, then flipping the disc and saying that they only pretend to be friends for the cameras, even if they met each other years ago and are on each other’s side in every important moment in their lives.

I could go on and on about a lot more examples of double standards of the fanservice online discourse, because there is a lot roaming around, but I think that the examples I gave are enough for you guys to understand the scope of absurdity that the industry is creating. And don’t get me started on who some fandoms use the existence or not of fanservice to create fanwars with things like “at least my faves friendship is genuine, is not fanservice”, what makes me question “and what is so bad about fanservice that you need to brag about your faves ‘not doing it’?”. Why are we demonizing fanservice, when fanservice itself is not the real problem here but how the industry uses the concept of fanservice and the perception people have about that?

[That reminded me of something. When JIMIN of BTS was asked if he does fanservice with the other members, he said that all is actions are genuine and none of them is just for the sake of pleasing fans, and that response got people calling him a homophobe, just because he said he did not do things to please fans. People were out there equating fanservice with queer display of affection and if that does not tell you exactly the kind of mindset some people have, I don’t know what else can, to be honest.]

I’m not saying that there isn’t issues regarding the concept of fanservice and how it can be harmfully applied in some situations, I’m not that naïve. However, I’m not gonna sit here and pretend to have a higher moral ground and judge those who do fanservice, because I’m not them and I cannot dictate what is the “right way” of showing affection, because different people show affection differently and all we can do, as rational human beings that we claim to be, is understand that sometimes people do things that we would find uncomfortable and that’s ok, we can’t please everyone at the same time, is just not possible. What we can do is distance ourselves from situations that we find uncomfortable and let people live the way they want to, without criticizing their every move, call them names or accuse them of doing things they are not doing.

Nott’s “the world is just as bad as it is” is a good way of seeing the world and understanding that is not worth betray ourselves because of what people say online. Because we cannot please everyone, there will always be a criticism coming from someone, because we did or say something they did not like (I’m not talking about saying or doing offensive stuff) or we didn’t do what they wanted us to do. Pun cares about what people say about it so much that it is affecting him physical and mental health to the point of him having panic attacks during shooting or fainting in the middle of an event, and Nott knows that, he sees it all and it pains him seeing Pun isolate himself so much that he does not reach out for help simply because he does not trust anyone and act like he has no one on his side, like he’s fighting a battle alone and everyone else is his enemy.

It’s not easy to let go of the notion that we need external approval and validation to feel like we have purpose in this world, and considering the fact that Pun’s job literally feeds of external approval and validation, it becomes twice as hard for him to actually understand that seeking the perfect image so that others like him is killing him slowly, like a car crash we cannot avoid. He feels like he needs to have those things or he won’t have anything else in the world, and even if people close to him tells him that he doesn’t need it, it’s gonna take a while for him to start to understand that and really see him for what he is: a person deserving of love and affection.

*************************

As a bonus, I wanna talk about how Nott proved himself to be, again, a sort of safe place/haven to Pun. I said in the previous post (that you guys should totally check later), that Pun seems to be more comfortable around Nott, to the point of not having any problem with Nott touching him or even sleeping and snuggling with Nott after them having sex. As someone who have problems with physical touch myself, I have a very few selected people that I allow to touch me in any given time and those are my two nephews and my best friend, so I see Nott as someone Pun feels safe having around because I see where Pun is coming from in regards to not liking having people touching him, is something he gave Nott permission to do because he feels like Nott is deserving of that trust; and knowing how much of a control freak Pun is, that is very telling.

It may not look like but Nott appreciates the trust Pun gives him but that trust is in regards to physical touch and not trust in a broader sense. That’s why Nott talks about Pun not taking care of himself because of what people talk about on the internet, how Pun built a wall around himself and that because they know each other for a long time he knows that Pun doesn’t trust anyone but asks Pun to trust him, to understand that Pun doesn’t need to act like he’s alone in the world when he has Nott right there, by his side, begging Pun to let him into his world. Nott understands that, no matter how many times they have sex, how many years they’ve known each other, there are parts of him that Pun still keep locked away from everyone and those are the parts Nott wants to see, to see Pun fully for what he is and not just a few glimpses when Pun slips and let his vulnerable side seep through the walls he built.

And it is because Nott understands that that he reassures Pun that, regardless of how badly the world treats him, he “won’t treat him badly”, meaning that Pun can rely on Nott for whatever he needs, can see Nott as an ally, a shoulder he can lean on and cry when things become too heavy for him to bear alone. A side note here, while Nott was comforting Pun, he kept caressing Pun’s ears and talking to him in a soft tone, like someone trying to pass security to a scared animal. And remember what I talked about the possible meanings of that action from Nott to Pun: that it can be used to make Pun more relaxed and less tense in situations where he could usually feel like that and Nott’s way of him saying that he would not hurt him or do more that he was allowed to. Their secret code? Yeah, put that all together and it makes sense that Pun nodded after Nott said that he wouldn’t treat him badly, he knew Nott wasn’t saying empty words, he meant everything he said, from start to finish.

This episode was more raw than the first one because it gave us more insight about how Pun is as a person and how fragile he is compared to what he projects with his personas for other people to see. I showed us how exactly his brain thought process is, how he forces himself to maintain an image that his destroying and how he desperately needs comfort and how Nott is willing to do just that, be his safe haven. It also showed more shots of Pun holding his necklace in moments of stress (based on what Seng said in the recap of the first episode, that necklace was a gift from Pun’s mother, so it can be seen as a source of comfort from his family) and considering the preview of the next episode, we are going to have a glimpse of Pun’s personal life in relation to his family and maybe we can get an idea as to why he doesn’t like being touched.

Overall, this episode was very good, albeit very heavy and hard to digest when confronted with so many raw moments coming from a character that presented himself as a person self-conceited and easy to hate. It showed that is dangerous to use what we see to judge other people, that as humans we have many layers, some of which we don’t even have knowledge of, and how we internalize what other people say about us very easily and how that ultimately can destroy us slowly if we don’t find a way to stop the process before it gets too late.

If I have to be honest, I don’t even know if my thoughts look coherent in here because even I can’t seem to organize them correctly in my mind in a way that makes sense but I hope that at least you guys enjoyed the reading and also my understanding of the episode. Even with the world being as bad as it is, remember that each one of you are perfect the way you are, no matter what the internet tell you about yourself. You are the one who knows best about yourself and one day you’ll see how precious you are; it may and it will take some time but the day will come eventually.

#warofy #war of y #war of y: new ship #war of y episode 2 #nott x pun #pun x nott #theory #analysis #megapost

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iamanartichoke · 3 years ago

Text

I wasn't sure if I was going to post this, but I may as well.

I keep starting to reply to things and then stopping bc the words just aren't there, and I suppose I figured out the core of what bothers me so much (and is making me have such a rollercoaster of a fan experience) about the show.

(cut for length)

It's not well-written. My opinion is my opinion, so I'm saying this subjectively, take it or leave it, but ... I feel that it's not well-written. The overall story is fine, and the plot is fine, but I don't know if it's because of the limited number of episodes not being enough to house the story, or because of the relative inexperience of the writer/showrunner+director, or both, or something else, but -

In an earlier reaction post to episode 4, I mentioned really wanting to sink my teeth into all of the subtext I picked up on. That was what made me initially enjoy the episode so much - there were a lot of little moments that I initially felt revealed so much about the characters and about Loki, and I wanted to analyze them. But at some point, as I gathered more information, my perspective changed and now I no longer want to analyze the subtext bc ... subtext = good. Subtext w/out payoff = not as good.

I'll go into more detail in a moment, but I think the tl;dr of it is that I feel like the narrative requires the audience to work way too hard to put together all of the moving pieces here and, like, I kinda just don't want to do that work? Not so much of it, and not in vain. A lot of the enjoyment of Loki's characterization is coming from fans who are rationalizing why he's behaving as he is, but the narrative never actually confirms those rationalizations. It's asking us to figure it out and maybe our conclusions will be correct but maybe they won't, though. At some point, subtext isn't enough without explicit follow-through.

I thought my issue was with the lack of character development - that is, not having enough narrative space to really earn the big things that are happening now, like Loki/Sylvie or Mobius turning against the TVA. And that's still true, to an extent; I still feel like the pacing is all very off and it seems like most of these things kinda came out of nowhere (but are not unbelievable - just undeveloped).

But, yknow, it is what it is, it's a limited series, and I can excuse some things. Ultimately, my issue isn't a problem with what the narrative isn't doing, it's a problem with what the narrative already failed to do and probably cannot recover from at this point.

The narrative has left out significant details that should at least help us do some of the work here. If a person turned on Loki and started episode 1 and had no background knowledge of the character besides that he tried to take over New York - how would that person interpret Loki? Would that person say, oh, well, he's been through X, Y, and Z, and plus A happened, not to mention B, C, and D, so really, it makes sense that he seems off-the-rails, or that he'd want to get ridiculously drunk at the worst time ever.

Maybe we'd like to believe they would, but how would they be getting to that conclusion? The narrative hasn't led them in that direction so, no, they would not say well we have to consider this, this, and that. It would be impossible to really understand Loki as a character from just what we've gotten in the series. The general audience would probably interpret Loki as being out of his element and so it becomes, I wonder how this character is going to get the upper hand here. And, while that's not wrong, it's just so limited.

The narrative at face value does not address Loki's identity crisis from Thor 2011. It does not address his hurt and devastation at being lied to, nor does it address how complicated his self-image is (bc it sucked to begin with and that was before he found out he was part of a race of "monsters," as he'd been taught his entire life). It does not reference Loki being so broken at the end of Thor 2011 that he deliberately let himself fall into the void of space (aka tried to kill himself). It does not reference that he was tortured by Thanos or even that he went through a seriously dark time in between Thor and Avengers, and it absolutely does not reference or address any influence or control of the mind stone.

These are all things that we, the fan audience, know because we've already invested our time into this character's story. But tons of people, the general audience, wouldn't know these things. Or if they did, bc they saw Thor and Avengers, they wouldn't be thinking about them as deeply as we would, nor contextualizing them with how Loki is behaving now, or why it would make sense that he needed to get drunk, or why it's understandable that he needs to keep going-going-going in order to not have a spare second to think or feel.

They'd probably look at Loki, again, as a character who was a villain and is now getting his comeuppance in a place where he has no power or control, and no literal powers, and even when he manages to escape and catch up to the variant, he proceeds to fuck up their plan for seemingly no real reason except that he wanted to get drunk bc he's hedonistic. Which Sylvie even berates him for! I mean. This is not exactly a complex character breakdown, nor a very flattering one, but that's what the narrative has given us.

(If the narrative has addressed Loki's mind control, his torture, his mental breakdown, his suicide attempt, and his general shitty self-esteem as a result of his upbringing, please point it out to me. If the narrative has explicitly acknowledged and referenced these things anywhere and I am missing it, please show me where. Please explain to me how the casual viewer would know any of these things that they need to know in order to actually understand what's happening in this story.)

So I mean, okay, we have a narrative that doesn't paint a full, accurate picture of Loki. Fine, sure. But because the general audience starts out on the wrong footing, they're not going to get out of the overall story what the writers probably intended them to. For example, in episode 3, a lot of us theorized that Loki had some kind of plan - that he broke the timepad on purpose, for some reason, bc otherwise it wasn't believable that he'd be such a failure. But episode 4 revealed that no, there was no bigger plan, Loki just plain old messed up. Which is fine if, again, one is only considering the surface-level portrayal here, but it's not true to Loki's actual characterization.

I mean. Loki is not perfect and Loki actually fails a lot, this is true. He fails for a lot of reasons, but incompetence has never been one of them. Usually it's that either things grew beyond his control, or there ended up being too many moving parts, or he had to change his plan at the last minute due to some roadblock or another being thrown his way, or even that he got in his own way - whatever the case may be for his plans' failures, he was always at least shown to know what he was doing.

That wasn't the case here. The "plan" to fix the Timepad failed as a direct result of Loki's actions, which were careless and made him seem incompetent, like he couldn't even handle this mission. "You had one job," etc. And there were pretty big consequences for this; they were not able to get off-world in time and would have been killed had the TVA not shown up at the last second.

And maybe none of these things matter bc the writers never intended any of this to be a reflection on Loki's character, positive or negative. The situation exists solely because the writers needed to put Loki and Sylvie together in some kind of hopeless scenario so that they could get closer, and thus the narrative could set up their romance. I get that - but, there were other ways to do it that didn't require Loki to look foolish.

Furthermore, the whole reason they needed to set up the romance is to show Loki eventually learning to love himself (like, figuratively but also literally). The audience is supposed to gather that Loki and Sylvie fell for one another, possibly due to the high emotional aspect of, yknow, being about to die (in addition to the variant-bond). The intent is clear: Loki and Sylvie almost die but get rescued at the last minute, having now created an emotional bond --> Loki and Sylvie team up and the narrative further establishes that Loki, at least, has caught feelings --> Loki might confess them but is pruned before he gets the chance --> he somehow survives, he and Sylvie are reunited and don't want to lose one another again, and the combined power of their love is enough to break the sacred timeline and spawn the multiverse, and the reason that the power of their love is so, well, powerful is because it's about self-love and self-acceptance as much as it is about having the capacity to love someone else. The end.

I get all that. The writers more or less said all that. And, I mean, it's certainly not the way I would have chosen to go about it, but it's a fair enough arc to explore. I don't really have an issue with the intent - but my question, however, is this: if the narrative has so far not addressed Loki's background issues (as outlined above), and has furthermore kinda gone out of its way to portray Loki as hedonistic and narcissistic, among other things (like kinda incompetent), and the context the audience starts with is that Loki's this villain who deserves what he gets -

- my question is 1, why should the audience care whether or not Loki gets to a point of loving and accepting himself (thus to make the theme of self-love, via the romance, hold weight) if they don't know that he hates himself to begin with and 2, why should the audience root for Loki to reach that point when so far the perception of him is that he's "kind of an asshole"? if he's a hedonistic narcissist, he probably already has a pretty inflated sense of himself, right? A misplaced inflated sense of himself, at that, because, again, the narrative has made him out to be not that capable of much of anything. (And it didn't start out that way! It seemed to start out with Loki being capable and intelligent but it's like episode 3, in trying to set up the romance, just jumbled it all up somewhere. I think this is why I'm harping on the Loki/Sylvie aspect so much - it's frustrating bc it kinda messes up the whole story and can't even accomplish what it's supposed to anyway.)

Anyway, that's beside the point. What I'm ultimately getting at is, at what point is the audience supposed to get invested in Loki's personal growth journey?

They can't, not really. Without understanding and having the context of everything Loki has been through up until now, and why he hates himself, and why it's so important that he learn to love himself, then the "payoff" becomes kinda pointless bc the significance of it is lost in translation. So suddenly we're left with this romance that comes off as either "Loki loves Sylvie bc of Reasons" (best-case scenario) or "Loki loves Sylvie bc he's vain, narcissistic, and kinda twisted" (worst-case scenario). Neither of these conclusions are what the writers intended or were going for, I'm positive, but there we are, regardless.

In order for the writers' intent in these storylines to land, they need to address the context of what makes these particular stakes high for Loki. So far, they haven't done that. They're asking the audience to pick up on all of these things, and they're showing things that subtextually make sense and are relatively in-character - but only if you realize there's subtext in the first place.

But you can't expect the audience to do all of the work for you. If you don't want the audience to think that Loki is a narcissistic asshole and instead you are trying to convey that, worst-case scenario, he thinks he's a narcissist but is an unreliable narrator, then you have to address that. If you need the audience to understand why you're going the selfcest route and why it's important to explore Loki's capacity to love himself and others, you have to address where that exploration is starting from and why it matters. Etc etc etc.

The narrative isn't doing any of that. And it isn't like it'd be that hard to do it. They don't need to reinvent the wheel here; a lot of the pieces are already there. A few lines of dialogue for context, a brief scene here or there addressing the issues, a little more care and consistency in how Loki handles things - these are all little things that could go a long fucking way in making the narrative stronger.

I'm rambling. My basic point is that my rollercoaster of emotions with this show is because

- as a part of the fan audience, not the general one, I can contextualize and analyze the subtext and come to the conclusions the show wants me to, and thus find the story and the characters more or less enjoyable,

- but I am also going to be using the subtext to come to conclusions that aren't there but probably should be (I think it would be a better story, for example, for Loki to confuse platonic love with romantic love bc it would pave the way to explore just how fucked up Loki's understanding of love - whether of other people or of himself, and the different forms it can take - actually is)

- and when they're ultimately not there, then I think, okay why am I bothering doing all this work just to ultimately feel very unfulfilled? They don't even have to write it the way I would, I'm not saying that, but they do have to do something to make the story feel rewarding.

If we don't get some confirmation of what Loki's been through, and where his headspace is, and why it matters for him to love himself, then the story remains pretty shallow and, for me, it's not fulfilling enough. It's not engaging enough. There isn't actually anything to sink my teeth into, so it becomes kind of boring. Maybe it's rewarding to other people, and that's great for them, but like - I need more than whatever this is.

So I'm just like - well, I had a lot of worries about this show, but my being bored wasn't one of them and now there's only two episodes left and am I really not going to get anything out of this, in the long run? No new canons, no new depths or layers, no new information on Loki's experiences? This is it?

I don't dislike it. I didn't start out disliking it, and I probably wont end up disliking it. I mean, there are a lot of good moments, and good things, and fan service-y things that I appreciate. As far as inspiration for fic goes, it's a goldmine, both plot-wise as well as aesthetic-wise. All of that is great. I don't dislike this show.

But I am disappointed in it, and I feel like I'll be watching the next two episodes lacking the sense of anticipation that would make it exciting. I'll still enjoy them, probably, if for nothing else just the sheer Loki content, but whatever it was I felt watching episodes 1 and 2 is gone and I'm sad about that, too. Because I really wanted to feel fulfilled by this series; I wanted it to fill up the void that Loki's death in IW created three years ago. And I just ... don't feel it. Maybe, maybe that'll change over the course of episodes 5 and 6. I don't know.

Everything that I end up enjoying long-term, I think, will come about as a result of my own interpretations and analysis and while theoretically there's nothing wrong with that, if I had known all I'd get out of this series was more headcanons or support for my current headcanons then, well - that's fine, I suppose, but I'll definitely a little bit robbed.

#loki spoilers #loki series negativity #loki tv series spoilers #loki series spoilers #long post

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bandersnatch-cucumberpatch · 3 years ago

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ghosts death theories

because people didnt seem to get it last time: theories (not headcannons, genuine theories) that the captain took his own life play into harmful stereotypes that are very distressing to a lot of viewers. if you don’t agree please take the time to read to at least see another perspective, i understand that a lot of people may have not considered the connotations of these theories and i just want to make everyone aware of them

queerness has a history of being inherent to tragedy - bury your gays obviously can’t apply to ghosts as cap is already dead, but the suicide trope is hugely prevalent in fiction about gay men and is incredibly reductive. it creates an intrinsic link between self worth and queerness and promotes negative mental health within the queer community.

there is not enough space to unpack the theme within the show - some shows excellently balance suicide themes within their plots, afterlife and flowers come to mind. but that is because they are major themes within the show. you cannot take a concept that is so dark and distressing and push it into the background, it has to become focal and ghosts is not the platform to do that.

it undermines progress - them there has done an excellent job at casual representation, as they have done in previous projects. to then take such a serious turn is regressive and makes light of decades of queer trauma. people look to the captain as a relatable and comforting figure, to have him die in such a way would be heartbreaking and a step back in terms of representation

ghosts is a FAMILY SHOW - it has been successful because they manage to tow the line between family friendly and adult comedy. yes there are some cheeky things thrown around but that is far different to major character suicide. you cant expect children as young as 10 who watch and enjoy the show to grasp the nuance of suicide themes, nor can you expect parents to have the resources to explain it to them.

the implications are devastating - it is extremely dark for the captain to have become a ghost after committing suicide. the ghosts stay how they died, can you imagine what constant emotional turmoil he would be in if this was the case. it suggests he was so distressed about living that he genuinely wanted to die, and instead of getting the peace he desperately needed he becomes a ghost, a shell of his former self and is forced into a purgatory for the next 80 years where he physically cannot rest.

the show could not come back from that darkness - if this became cannon there would be no way to ignore it, it becomes connected to everything cap does and would underpin all of his decisions and statements. we would lose the character we love so dearly, we would lose his humour to darkness or risk the entire show becoming insensitive to such a bleak and serious topic

yes the show tackles trauma, but this is not where cap's lies. his trauma is the war, that is what his character is getting over. his coming out arc is hope and personal growth, not a furthering of misery he has experienced. please do not reduce his suffering to his queerness for the sake of entertainment

��it is so hurtful to see so many people taking enjoyment from these theories, as if they want one of their favourite characters to suffer. yes it is just a show, yes it is just a comedy but all media carries a message and it is a message that them there is very aware of and have thought deeply about. so please stop sharing theories that undermine the value of the message we have been given

#it just adds unnecessary darkness #and reduces his character to his death and thereby his queerness #there is so much more to the character #there are far more interesting theories too #bbc ghosts #the captain #ben willbond #them there #ghosts bbc #bbcghosts #tw suicide

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ordinaryschmuck · 3 years ago

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What I Thought About "Hunting Palismans" From The Owl House

Salutations, random people on the internet who certainly won’t read this! I am an Ordinary Schmuck. I write stories and reviews and draw comics and cartoons.

Today, I present to you reason #4,693 for why The Owl House is the best thing at the moment: It's the perfect balance of serialized storytelling with an episodic format. The story always moves forward with an exact order for how episodes should be watched, but each episode still functions as its own standalone tale. Having prior knowledge of what happened before adds more to the experience, but you can still watch whatever you want and still have an enjoyable time. Take "Hunting Palismans," for example. It adds so much more to the overarching narrative while slightly continuing other threads. But it's still something you can watch as is without remembering the past or wondering about the future.

However, to properly explain how requires spoilers. I wasn't kidding when I say that this episode adds so much, so you're going to want to be wary of that when you continue reading.

With that said, let's review, shall we?

WHAT I LIKED

Coven Heads Meeting: We already saw these fellow schmucks in the trailer, but that doesn't take away how cool they are! It's not explicitly stated which head belongs to which coven, but you can already tell who goes where just from their designs alone. And I love that. I love that just by showing us some excellent character designs, anybody with half a brain can already figure out the particular type of magic each Coven Head specializes in. It's a perfect example of the show-don't-tell level of storytelling that is always at its best through animation, and I'm all for it because of it.

What the Day of Unity is: Several fans, myself included, have already speculated that the Day of Unity was that Emperor Belos planned to combine the human world with the Boiling Isles and rule it all with an iron fist. That being said, figuring it out is one thing, but being told that it's true is a whole different level pants-s**ting horror that I AM NOT READY FOR! Even when it's going to happen, I can assure you that I will not be prepared to witness it ...and I am scared of when it does.

Belos Body Horror: ...Disney, I was already scared s**tless of this guy. I DO NOT NEED THIS!

That being said, seeing Belos do...whatever the f**k that was, helps explain further why he needs the magic in palismans. I always assumed because it's like fuel for a car, giving him the power he needs. Now, even though the answer is more apparent, there are still some questions to be had. Is he cursed, and the magic keeps it at bay like Eda's potions? Or did he experiment with the wrong type of magic, and the palismans keep him stable? Only the future can say for sure...and I'm also not prepared for the answers from that either.

Golden Guard is Belos’ Nephew: Gosh dangit, THE INTRO HASN'T EVEN STARTED YET, AND THIS EPISODE IS ALREADY GIVING SO MUCH!

But, yeah, the most powerful witch on the Isles is apparently Golden Boy's Grunkle Belos. That very knowledge is incredibly interesting to discuss while presenting possibilities for future narratives. I don't know about you, but I see the Golden Guard going down the path of Zuko, learning that the magic of friendship is worth much more than whatever power he gains from being Belos' nephew. And possibly earning his uncle's love seeing how he's the only family he has. It's a situation that's vastly different from Amity's because even when she defies her parents, she'll still have Edric and Emira at the end of the day. For Golden Guard, knowing that he lost a great family to wild magic, the inclination to go against Belos is a lot weaker due to him being all he has left.

Oh, and also, Belos' family getting wiped out because of wild magic. Yeah, not only does that give the best type of motivation for Belos' distaste for it, but it also explains the Golden Guard's hesitance to use it. He's inclined to so he can save his uncle, sure. It's only the fact that he knows what happens with wild magic that causes some resistance...Also, we're less than a minute in, and I'm already getting all of this from one discussion between two characters.

HOW IS THIS SHOW SO GOOD?!

Intro Changes: It's about time too. It seems weird that the crew waited to change Eda and King's designs in the intro this late in the game, but it also tells me that Amity dying her hair lavender is the last huge change this season will present. Otherwise, why change the intro at all if you were going to alter Luz, Willow, and Gus' designs anyway? It just doesn't make sense to me.

Luz Keeping the Echo Mouse as a Pet: The fact that she keeps the most important creature in the world to her as a pet...it's...it's adorable, alright? And as we established several times, I cannot hate adorable things.

Don't judge me!

Amity Staying Home: There are two plausible ways why Amity didn't go to school that day. Either she's getting punished for dying her hair or because she's trying to avoid Luz so they won't talk about the you-know-what. Either could work and seem understandable to Luz, thus explaining why she admits how "that makes sense." Although, there is something to discuss in how Luz is curious as to where Amity is. Judging from the tone of her voice, it's pretty clear that she wants to talk about the little peck on the cheek and maybe get some confirmation as to what it means. Because there is no going back from that. You can explain away saying or doing something stupid, but you cannot un-kiss a cheek. That is a point of no return, and if Amity really is avoiding Luz because of it, that means it's up to our favorite weirdo to make the first move. As for what that may entail...we'll just have to wait and see.

Frewin: We get two bits of information here for the price of one reveal here. Knowing that Frewin is a palisman is shocking enough, but the knowledge that Bump is partially blind and needs Frewin to see? That is an intriguing piece of intel that I would have never expected to get revealed. This is reason #5,279 for what makes The Owl House so good. Even when the show presents information you wouldn't guess, it's all so interesting anyways that you can't help but go along with it.

Adopting Palismans: First of all, love the fact that the Bat Queen makes a return to provide a solution to the palisman trees being rare and solving her own problem regarding the discarded palismans. It's a situation where everyone wins in a way that is so clever that I can't help but admire it.

Second, the idea of students choosing to adopt palismans instead is cute. I'd say it gives further insight into who these characters are in how they say what they want to be, but there's nothing really new added that fans couldn't figure out from the get go. But I will say that it's pretty cool to know that these characters have official staffs now. Speaking of which, if you're upset that their palismans don't match up with your headcanons...grow up.

This was a cute and smartly written scene that should not be bogged down by whiney fans who can't accept a series doing something different from what they expect.

Little Rascal: I’d take a bullet for this bird. That is all.

Luz Being Uncertain of her Future: A lot of fans offer several ideas of what the future could look like for Luz. Will she stay in the Boiling Isles? In Connecticut? Or will she go back and forth? We don't know, but one question we rarely brought up is what does Luz want? More specifically, what does she want to do? After everything Luz went through, the adventures she's gone on, and the lessons learned, what is something that Luz wants her future to be? That's an answer she doesn't really figure out, and I'm genuinely ok with that being a question that's tabled for another day. Most kids who ask that question themselves aren't always going to find an answer after a short amount of time and sometimes even need to spend their lives trying to figure it out. So having it be something Luz has to consider and probably find out in a future episode is the smarter option, as it allows time for it to simmer in her own mind and provides more insight into her character. As stated several times in this episode, she doesn't think things through, so it's nice that the writers finally allowed her some time to wonder what's next when the adventure is over.

Luz Having to Improvise Without Paper Glyphs: You want to know what my favorite Spider-Man moments are (this is relevant. Trust me). My favorite moments are when Spidey's web-shooters run out of fluid, and he's forced to improvise with that big brain of his to find a solution. That's sort of what happens with Luz in "Hunting Palismans." She didn't bring her glyphs with her (why would she), so she's forced to use the environment around her to make new ones. Plus, Luz also flexes her knowledge of the Boiling Isles by mixing her glyphs with a magical plant (which Willow certainly told her about) so that she and the Golden Guard could knock out Kikimora's dragon. It's yet another showcase of her intelligence that a lot of fans are too keen to overlook. Unfortunate to see, too, because looking at how well Luz can craft the perfect solutions by fighting smarter, not harder, is a fantastic add-on to her personality. I love characters who win through their wits rather than their raw powers, and I once again hope more people will catch onto that aspect of her too.

Golden Guard Whistling the Theme: Look, I love it when a show acknowledges its own theme song, ok? Leave me alone.

Luz and the Golden Guard: This is one of those dynamics you didn't know you wanted until you have it. And now that I have it, I DEMAND MORE!

Seriously, seeing these two interact off of each other was a ton of fun to watch. When Luz and GG are initially at each other's throats, their threats and mockery towards one another aren't out of spiteful anger between two mortal enemies. It's more like...two siblings who get on each other's nerves yet are supposed to deal with one another. It's equally adorable and hilarious, and yes, I absolutely loved that they're forced to work together in this episode because of it.

Although, while the entertainment value is fantastic, it also adds more proof of why Luz is the best character in the series. She spends one night with this guy, and that's more than what she needed to make a difference with him. I wouldn't go so far as to say that they're buddies now, but Luz definitely sowed the seeds into his redemption. He's far from willing to join her side, but he still does something he rarely does with anyone else: He told her that his name is Hunter. And this is what Luz does. Through nearly every person she meets on the Boiling Isles, she always manages to change them for the better. It'll be a while before Hunter deflects from Belos, but if Amity proves anything, Luz has a way of sneaking into people's hearts. They just need to spend more time with one another, and I can't wait to see what happens next because of it.

Kikimora Wanting to Kill Hunter: This shows a lot about who Kikimora is, but it potentially proves just how dysfunctional the Emperor's Coven can be. If Kiki proves anything, the coven must be filled with people willing to backstab and cheat their way to get on Emperor Belos' good side. Just look at Lilith. She literally cursed her own sister just to get in and received all the rewards because of it. The Emperor's Coven may be the best choice for witches to do magic, but if you're surrounded by people you can't trust, then is it really worth it?

The Guards Not Knowing Who Hunter is: This helps add to how much of a big deal it is for Hunter to reveal his name to Luz. If people can't even recognize his face, there's a chance it means that he keeps his true identity a secret except for those in his inner circle.

And the coven guards brushing off his brand is more than believable to me. They may be aware that Belos' right hand is young, but teens will be teens. Anybody with enough artistic talent can fake a brand. So it isn't too far off for those two to think Hunter was just a kid pulling a prank.

Hunter is Powerless Without his Staff: Not much to say here. It's just some more neat insight into Hunter's character that makes me wonder if even Belos' magic is real magic.

But I will say this: The fact that Hunter comes from a lineage of powerless witches, well, who's to say that isn't because of a...certain ancestor?

(*Cough* Hunter is related to Philip *Cough*)

Hunter vs Kiki: A pretty well-animated fight scene that adds potential drama to the story for the future. Now that Kikimora knows that Hunter helped Luz escape with the palismans (albeit unwillingly), she may or may not hold that over his head when the time comes. Or, at the very least, decides to keep a closer eye on him whenever he makes a slip-up.

Eda and King Getting Luz her own Palisman Wood: These last two weeks have been severely lacking in the Eda and King department, but scenes like this more than make up for it. Those two have formed such a bond with Luz to the point where they would do the impossible if it meant she would feel better. It proves just how much of a family they all are and the lengths they would go for each other. After all, weirdos have to stick together.

Little Rascal going to Hunter: Hunter is right. That was surprising.

Given how much Little Rascal stuck by Luz, I was more than positive that she would be the one he chose. So seeing Little Rascal pick Hunter instead is a much nicer twist. There could be multiple reasons why, and I'm just going to leave that to the analyzers in this fandom to decide. Especially since the answer isn't really all that important.

So, instead, I'm going to go ahead and sit in the corner as I wOrRy AbOuT tHe DaY tHaT bElOs FiNdS lItTlE rAsCal!

IT'S GONNA HAPPEN! AND I SWEAR TO ALL THAT IS HOLY, IF THE WRITERS KILL HIM, I WILL NOT BE HAPPY!

WHAT I DISLIKED

First, there's...um...

Well, there was this...

Ok, as much as I liked--No, that turned out well anyways...

…

...

...I've got nothing.

I, honest to goodness, have no complaints about "Hunting Palismans" Not even the tiniest of nitpicks I would usually ignore due to how well-executed everything else was.

It's all written fantastically to the point where it's...perfect.

IN CONCLUSION

"Hunting Palismans" is an easy A+. It introduces even more plot threads, gives insight into characters, and despite being essential to the story, it still manages to be a fun episode all on its own. And, I'd go so far as to say that it's one of the best, if not the best, episodes in the series. There's nothing bad about it, and that surprises me. I rarely find nothing bad to say about any story, even the ones I enjoy greatly. I'm sure there are some flaws that others would be more than happy to point out, but why bother hunting for the imperfections when I could accept that, for once, an episode is simply perfect.

(And that’s six hits in a row...THAT STINKER IS GOING TO HAPPEN! It hasn’t happened yet, BUT IT’S GOING TO HAPPEN! I CAN FEEL IT!)

#the owl house #the owl house season 2 #the owl house reviews #luz noceda #the golden guard #hunter the owl house #emperor belos #what i thought about

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dappercritter · 3 years ago

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Godzilla vs Kong: Brutally Honest Thoughts

(Took me long enough, eh? Depending on home video releases be like that.)

So first things first, I have a confession to make: I spoiled the movie before I watched it. I was impatient and they had only announced an HBO Max premiere in the states and a theatrical run in Canada at the time. Afterward, I got heads-up from a friend and immersed myself in the opinions of those lucky enough to see it early. I’m just saying that I have some preconceived opinions that I’m sticking to.

That said, Godzilla vs Kong turned out to be more fun than I expected! But you already knew that. Everyone did. The two kings of movie monsters had their rematch and this time it was with glorious Hollywood SFX powering it this time.

The human story was fun but it’s clear they stopped trying at this point. Team Kong stole my heart, especially Jia. Team Godzilla (although the Conspiracy Crew would be a more fitting term since they spend more time chasing down mysteries than trying to back or understand Godzilla) was more fun than I expected and their dynamic was surprisingly enjoyable. Bernie is actually kind of funny, it's nice to see Madison acting more assertive, and Josh was fine--he was the only sane man of the bunch but he was also the butt of the jokes. Still, all the hardcore conspiracy jokes got old fast and it feels off seeing the daughter of two scientists turn into an edgy conspiracy crackpot. Why not an edgy science major?

Team Apex are fun villains, especially Walter Simmons who's a great megalomaniacal CEO type, but Ren Serizawa is a joke. I like his actor's performance but he's just another footnote. Nobody bats an eye at his last name, although the only heroes he interacts with are Nathan Lind and he just misses Team Godzilla. He really could have just been any other villain, but instead, they had to sully Serizawa’s legacy further while robbing a good actor of some interesting material. (As is, it turns out he was just an egotistical jerk with daddy issues--an easy puzzle to solve on day one--after all...)

However, I still cannot and will not approve of the fact that somebody thought it would be a good idea to make the heroes of a sci-fi story into hardcore conspiracy theorists in this day and age. Likewise, I’m not a huge fan of how they essentially made the Hollow Earth into its own universe complete with a crazy portal and an environment with its own laws of physics, nor am I totally crazy about the huge leap in technology that was made between this and KOTM, or G’14 for that matter.

The monsters as awesome as they are, are the biggest mixed bag in the show.

Kong is at his best in ages, and while I am all for the new heroic warrior character that Legendary have crafted and I acknowledge that making him a worthy opponent for their god-tier Godzilla was going to be a hurdle, I think they did a splendid job. Seeing Kong using agility and acrobatics was a glorious sight to behold, and something about Kong becoming a tool-user and weapon wielder just feels right. It’s a far better demonstration of Kong as a “thinking animal” (*wink, wink*).

I’m much less thrilled about their treatment of his greatest opponent ever. After everything they’ve done to build up Godzilla as the incredible force of neutral good fighting to maintain balance and all the build up to ancient rivalry debating back to a great Titan war--even going as far as putting his name in front Kong’s this time!-- they’ve reduced Godzilla back to glorified bully for Kong. He only gets the minimum amount of sympathy from the cast of his movie before they go off to deal with the conspiracy plot or focus on Kong and the Hollow Earth. Worse still, he is somehow more powerful and more aggressive than ever for a good chunk of the movie which leads to an outcome I’m sorry to say we all saw coming. Somehow, I suspect that the reason behind this was how Wingard cited Godzilla vs. Mothra, vs. Destoryah, and Shin-Godzilla as influences for the monsters scale and story, which while cool and all, are all movies where he was played up as a mostly stoic antagonist rather than a three-dimensional character like Kong. (Though ironically vs. Destoroyah and Shin did a better job of making Godzilla feel more sympathetic and in both of them he was a walking nuclear reactor meltdown.)

Due to the unfortunate time constraints of the three-way deal between Toho, WB, and Universal at the time this was in production, Kong was unable to secure a proper sequel that could develop his skillset like Godzilla’s did. Nevermind the fact the filmmakers completely surrendered to the “nothing matters but the monsters” mentality that a chunk of the fanbase has been spouting since this universe unofficially kicked off almost 10 years ago. (Sidenote: Oh god, I’m turning in an old fart already.) As a result, the movie trips over itself trying to set up Godzilla and Kong’s rivalry as well as building up Kong as a worthy opponent to Godzilla while expanding on their shared lore, and as a result countless plot points set up in in the previous movie and tie-in movie are thrown out the window. I’m sorry to say but in spite of all hopes and illusions of grandeur, it’s safe to this damn thing is a Kong movie with Godzilla as the bad guy.

...at least until HE shows up. Yup, Mechagodzilla. The biggest spoiled twist of the centuries steals the show so the movie can pull a Dawn of Justice. But! It does it much better than the fractured DCEU’s most controversial entry ever could. Mechagodzilla’s inclusion gets a decent amount of build up thanks to Team Godzilla/the Conspiracy Crew, and when he shows up, does he make an impression! At first, I wasn’t sure how to feel about his inclusion or his design, but I’ve come to like this one. He’s basically a kaiju terminator built in Godzilla’s image made purely out of heavy machinery piloted by the best Ghidorah head. It’s a jarring change of pace compared to previous MechaG’s but it grows on you after a while. With the abundance of weaponry stuffed into him, he feels like a fitting update of the original killing machine, and even if his inclusion feels like an easy way out of the big showdown, it’s fun to see him played as a literal colossal heel for the kings to team up against. Not to mention he looks shockingly good with those red highlights. However, one still can’t help but wonder how and why he was made in this universe, or how he feels like pure heavy machinery one minute and then an extra-large Ultron unit the next.

As for the the big throwdowns we’ve all been waiting for... well, we’re still in the mixed bag deparment. While the fights are all exciting and excellently choreographed, and benefit from some more eclectic lighting and cinematograph, I’m sorry to say that as far as the rematch of the century goes they dropped the ball on this one.

Don’t get me wrong, the fights are all great in their own ways, but there’s a drastic change in the feeling of weight and power with the monsters. Godzilla, Kong, and even Mechagodzilla all feel strangely floaty in most of their fights. One moments they feel like true behemoths shaking the very earth with every movement and then it’s like they’re in Godzilla Unleashed, running, jumping, and throwing each other around with speed that feels that almost makes you wonder if the Hollow Earth’s gravity inversion stuff is leaking out into the world. While it’s all perfectly cool, you can’t help but wonder how Kong is able to leap between aircraft carriers and buildings, when Godzilla got the ability to blow a hole through the Earth itself, or how a colossal machine is able to move so nimbly or why it has to be flashing blue all the time.

It’s fascinating and fun but you just can’t help but wonder how we got from almost posthuman disaster and war movies exploring how we’re at the mercy of the ancient almost mythical forces beyond our comprehension, we’ve found ourselves smack dab in the middle of Bayformers meets Jurassic World levels of Hollywood absurdity where anything and everything can and will happen in the name of getting to the monster fights. Although I can’t say I’m surprised given the director’s take on Death Note made some questionable choices with it’s take on the infamous cast while still coming up with some genuinely inspired choices. Still, all things considered we could have gotten worse compared to ther cinematic universes made by WB and Universal.

As for some misc. thoughts to close up this rambling mess:

-The soundtrack is fantastic. A great continuation of the feel of Skull Island’s mixtape with some truly wonderful picks. Special mention goes to the opening and ending songs, and they GOT AN ELVIS PRESLEY SONG IN HERE! YES!!! The three kings of pop culture together at last!

-While this movie didn’t need to be any more overstuffed, it would have been nice if the rest of the Titans didn’t disappear entirely from this movie. I get that Godzilla: Dominion already explained what happened to them all more or less, but it really is a missed oppurtunity that we never got to see another Titan war. Or Rodan attacking Kong to avenge his pterosaur bretheren from days long past. Speaking of which...

-“Save Mothra” jokes be damned, Mothra would have been a welcome gues star, not just to help break up the big fight, but to show off Godzilla’s softer, more protective side. And yes, I want more Mothzilla. Shut up, we deserve it.

-Boy, Monarch sure does a whole lot of nothing up-top, huh?

-The cinematography is a great update but there’s a little too much neon lighting, especially in the Apex HQ and the Hollow Earth throne room. It feels like they’re trying just a little too hard to sell the more futuristic, Hollywood sci-fi feel.

-The score is... great but not that great. Of course, I’ve always had mixed feelings about Tom Holkenburg (AKA Junkie XL)’s music. I liked Kong’s themes, but they REALLY dropped the ball with Godzilla’s theme. Mechagodzilla’s works really well as long you ignore that it’s just Godzilla’s theme in this movie with an ominious choir added in.

-The new Hollow Earth creatures are all perfectly fine. Actually, I thought they were another highlight! Especially the Warbats, Hellhawks, and Doug the Titanus Foetodon Man.

-I want to do a release the extended cut campaign but I don’t think any of us have the energy for that s**t anymore.

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paper-n-ashes · 4 years ago

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I... am probably going to get some kind of hate or backlash for this but... it’s kind of been sitting on my mind and I think it needs to be put out there.

This is going to be an essay. And I am not a confident or confrontational person so this is real scary for me.

I know how easy it is to take this - all of this blogging, writing, any creative outlet really - a little too seriously. For a lot of us, it’s a lifeline of positivity and a wonderful distraction to the shit show of daily life in 2020/2021. Certainly saved my ass last year. And I spend a lot of my waking hours thinking about it, because it’s my hobby and I adore it.

But (and I remind myself to do this CONSTANTLY) can we collectively take a breath and chill a little bit?

Let me explain.

I’m just seeing little hints poking through of toxic judgemental attitudes regarding how ‘legitimate’ someone’s fanfiction or writing is. That there’s somehow this divide between ‘real’ writing and ‘fast food’ fanfiction. I, for one, really dislike the term but I’m using it here to prove a point.

All of it, every piece put out into the public space, is valid. And I think it’s good to be reminded about that concept every so often.

We are all different people. With different experiences and preferences. We all seek out and consume different things, sometimes surprising even ourselves when we discover something new we didn’t think we’d enjoy.

Some people like more plot heavy and meaningful fanfiction. Those pieces or series’ that effect you and move you, play on your emotions in any and all ways. Some are short, some are 300k novels written over long periods of time. Some are canon, fix it fics or prequels, some are brilliantly imaginative AU’s involving our favourite worlds and characters we know and love.

Others enjoy (sometimes) quicker, sexually charged fanfiction. Fantasies played out in written form. Explorations of sexuality on a vast spectrum of more ‘vanilla’ (whatever that means to you) and more hardcore themes outside the regular realm of sex you might be used to. Characters we find attractive in places of canon or AU territory to thrill ourselves and others, or even just simply to scratch an itch.

Some enjoy both, on differing days. Dependant on moods or needs at the moment in time.

No matter what - All. Is. Valid.

None is better. None is worse.

When you read something you consider exactly or close to what you’re looking for from fanfiction, it is absolutely normal that you consider the piece, and the writer, of a higher standard. But this standard is subjective. Please remember this.

Don’t look down on others who enjoy something you don’t consider as having this standard. And certainly don’t have a lower view of the writer who put themselves out there to write it and post it.

We’re all judgmental fucks at times. I’ll easily admit I am, and have been. I’m in my late 20’s and still learning to be an emotionally intelligent human. I definitely have moments I’ve had to catch myself out. There are things I could rant on for days because of how much they irk me. And I believe it’s healthy to express your emotions about anything. But I do not put it into the public arena. I try my absolute fucking hardest not to let it colour any of my online interactions.

(This is the first time I’ve really put out a significant opinion in my own post and it’s fucking frightening. Seriously.)

Anyway,

If something is bothering me enough in terms of irks, that are completely subjective and my own, I speak to a trusted friend, to get the thoughts out and move on. And even then, some of those thoughts I’ve eventually pondered over and regretted the judgments I made.

But I will ALWAYS defend the right in this fanfiction realm for every writer to write about whatever the hell they want and not be looked down on or belittled for it.

If you are annoyed that certain pieces or writers get ‘popular’ or receive adoration you don’t believe they deserve - STOP YOURSELF RIGHT THERE. You can be annoyed. Go for it. Let yourself feel. But do not spread that negativity. Do not make yourself feel better by bringing others down in public view. It is not an appropriate coping mechanism.

Popularity is a whole other concept I do not have time to fully delve into. But it seriously happens by a decent combination of hard work that people don’t see, the right timing and LUCK. You cannot control it, and it will seriously help your mental health to not attempt to pursue as your goal. I speak from experience.

Whatever your reason for reading or writing fanfiction is, take a moment sometime to remind yourself we are at the end of the day just... fans. Fans of characters, actors, movies, TV shows, all of it. To be a fan is to be an enthusiast of anything that truly captures your interest. We just... like something or someone so much we read more about it, talk with others about it, even create more content about it.

Fandom is one of the coolest things I think humans have ever brought into fruition. People from all over coming together to love and discuss something that brings them joy or challenges their mind. And I’m sorry but I’m just getting a little tired of the competitiveness and superiority complex that works to make fandom a fucking shitty place to hang around in sometimes.

I am not saying everything has to be sunshine and roses, because there are lines that can be crossed and every good thing has it’s bad side. But... this is for happiness. At least, for me it is. Some days, writing out somewhat incoherent, horny thoughts and shorter stories brings me happiness. Sometimes writing out emotional turmoil and long, plot driven novel work brings me happiness. It’s just how my brain gives me that serotonin I crave, and I can’t excessively control that.

When people like one and not the other, I don’t care. I really don’t. I don’t need an explanation. It’s not personal. It’s just what brings THEIR brain serotonin, and I will never judge them for that. I’ve at least brought them a little bit of enjoyment in whatever way and that is just... fucking cool when you think about it.

Can’t it just be as simple as that? Fuck all the ‘popularity’ and legitimacy and notions of what is ‘better’?

Just do what brings you happiness, and give love/support/whatever to others who have done the same for you in what they’ve written.

That’s... it really. That’s all I needed to get out.

Okay. Anons. Yes feel free to counter me and make me feel poopy for my opinion because this is Tumblr and I’m not naive. Just know I probably won’t answer any hateful messages because I’m a wuss and can’t think of good witty replies.

#and now I step down from my soapbox and hide in a cupboard #bye

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armageddon-generation · 4 years ago

Text

Articulating Why His Dark Materials is Badly Written

A long essay-thing with lots of specific examples and explanations of why I feel this way. Hopefully I’ve kept fanboy bitching to a minimum.

This isn’t an attack on fans of the show, nor a personal attack on Jack Thorne. I’m not looking to ruin anyone’s enjoyment of the show, I just needed to properly articulate, with examples, why I struggle with it. I read and love the books and that colours my view, but I believe that HDM isn’t just a clumsy, at-best-functional, sometimes incompetent adaptation, it’s a bad TV show separate from its source material. The show is the blandest, least interesting and least engaging version of itself it could be.

His Dark Materials has gorgeous production design and phenomenal visual effects. It's well-acted. The score is great. But my god is it badly written. Jack Thorne writing the entire first season damned the show. There was no-one to balance out his flaws and biases. Thorne is checking off a list of plot-points, so concerned with manoeuvring the audience through the story he forgets to invest us in it. The scripts are mechanical, empty, flat.

Watching HDM feels like an impassioned fan earnestly lecturing you on why the books are so good- (Look! It's got other worlds and religious allegory and this character Lyra is really, really important I swear. Isn't Mrs Coulter crazy? The Gyptians are my favourites.) rather than someone telling the story naturally.

My problems fall into 5 main categories:

Exposition- An unwillingness to meaningfully expand the source material for a visual medium means Thorne tells and doesn't show crucial plot-points. He then repeats the same thing multiple times because he doesn't trust his audience

Pacing- By stretching out the books and not trusting his audience Thorne dedicates entire scenes to one piece of information and repeats himself constantly (see: the Witches' repetition of the prophecy in S2).

Narrative priorities- Thorne prioritises human drama over fantasy. This makes sense budgetarily, but leads to barely-present Daemons, the Gyptians taking up too much screentime, rushed/badly written Witches (superpowers, exposition) and Bears (armourless bear fight), and a Lyra more focused on familial angst than the joy of discovery

Tension and Mystery- because HDM is in such a hurry to set up its endgame it gives you the answers to S1's biggest mysteries immediately- other worlds, Lyra's parents, what happens to the kids etc. This makes the show less engaging and feel like it's playing catch-up to the audience, not the other way around.

Tonal Inconsistency- HDM tries to be a slow-paced, grounded, adult drama, but its blunt, simplistic dialogue and storytelling methods treat the audience like children that need to be lectured.

MYSTERY, SUSPENSE AND INTRIGUE

The show undercuts all the books’ biggest mysteries. Mrs Coulter is set up as a villain before we meet her, other worlds are revealed in 1x2, Lyra's parents by 1x3, what the Magesterium do to kids is spelled out long before Lyra finds Billy (1x2). I understand not wanting to lose new viewers, but neutering every mystery kills momentum and makes the show much less engaging.

This extends to worldbuilding. The text before 1x1 explains both Daemons and Lyra's destiny before we meet her. Instead of encouraging us to engage with the world and ask questions, we're given all the answers up front and told to sit back and let ourselves be spoon-fed. The viewer is never an active participant, never encouraged to theorise or wonder

Intrigue motivated you to engage with Pullman's philosophical themes and concepts. Without it, HDM feels like a lecture, a theme park ride and not a journey.

The only one of S1's mysteries left undiminished is 'what is Dust?', which won't be properly answered until S3, and that answer is super conceptual and therefore hard to make dramatically satisfying

TONAL INCONSISTENCY

HDM billed itself as a HBO-level drama, and was advertised as a GoT inheritor. It takes itself very seriously- the few attempts at humour are stilted and out of place

The production design is deliberately subdued, most notably choosing a mid-twentieth century aesthetic for Lyra’s world over the late-Victorian of the books or steampunk of the movie. The colour grading would be appropriate for a serious adult drama.

Reviewers have said this stops the show feeling as fantastical as it should. It also makes Lyra’s world less distinct from our own.

Most importantly, minimising the wondrous fantasy of S1 neuters its contrast with the escalating thematic darkness of the finale (from 1x5 onwards), and the impact of Roger’s death. Pullman's books are an adult story told through the eyes of a child. Lyra’s innocence and naivety in the first book is the most important journey of the trilogy. Instead, the show starts serious and thematically heavy (we’re told Lyra has world-saving importance before we even meet her) and stays that way.

Contrasting the serious tone, grounded design and poe-faced characters, the dialogue is written to cater to children. It’s horrendously blunt and pulls you out of scenes. Subtext is obliterated at every opportunity. Even in the most recent episode, 2x7, Pan asks Lyra ‘do you think you’re changing because of Will?’

I cannot understate how on the nose this line is, and how much it undercuts the themes of the final book. Instead of even a meaningful shot of Lyra looking at Will, the show treats the audience like complete idiots.

So, HDM looks and advertises itself like an adult drama and is desperate to be taken seriously by wearing its big themes on its sleeve from the start instead of letting them evolve naturally out of subtext like the books, and dedicating lots of scenes to Mrs Coulter's self-abuse

At the same time its dialogue and character writing is comparable to the Star Wars prequels, more childish than media aimed at a similar audience - Harry Potter, Doctor Who, Avatar the Last Airbender etc

DAEMONS

The show gives itself a safety net by explaining Daemons in an opening text-crawl, and so spends less time showing the mechanics of the Daemon-human bond. On the HDM subreddit, I’ve seen multiple people get to 1x5 or 6, and then come to reddit asking basic questions like ‘why do only some people have Daemons?’ or ‘Why are Daemons so important?’.

It’s not that the show didn’t answer these questions; it was in the opening text-crawl. It’s just the show thinks telling you is enough and never shows evidence to back that up. Watching a TV show you remember what you’re shown much easier than what you’re told

The emotional core of Northern Lights is the relationship between Lyra and Pan. The emotional core of HDM S1 is the relationship between Lyra and Mrs Coulter. This wouldn't be bad- it's a fascinating dynamic Ruth plays wonderfully- if it didn't override the Daemons

Daemons are only onscreen when they serve a narrative purpose. Thorne justifies this because the books only describe Daemons when they tell us about their human. On the page your brain fills the Daemons in. This doesn't work on-screen; you cannot suspend your disbelief when their absence is staring you in the face

Thorne clarified the number of Daemons as not just budgetary, but a conscious creative choice to avoid onscreen clutter. This improved in S2 after vocal criticism.

Mrs Coulter/the Golden Monkey and Lee/Hester have well-drawn relationships in S1, but Pan and Lyra hug more in the 2-hour Golden Compass movie than they do in the 8-hour S1 of HDM. There's barely any physical contact with Daemons at all.

They even cut Pan and Lyra's hug after escaping the Cut in Bolvangar. In the book they can't let go of each other. The show skips it completely because Thorne wants to focus on Mrs Coulter and Lyra.

They cut Pan and Lyra testing how far apart they can be. They cut Lyra freeing the Cut Daemons in Bolvangar with the help of Kaisa. We spent extra time with both Roger and Billy Costa, but didn't develop their bonds with their Daemons- the perfect way to make the Cut more impactful

I don't need every single book scene in the show, but notice that all these cut scenes reinforced how important Daemons are. For how plodding the show is. you'd think they could spare time for these moments instead of inventing new conversations that tell us the information they show

Daemons are treated as separate beings and thus come across more like talking pets than part of a character

The show sets the rules of Daemons up poorly. In 1x2, Lyra is terrified by the Monkey being so far from Coulter, but the viewer has nothing to compare it to. We’re retroactively told in that this is unnatural when the show has yet to establish what ‘natural’ is.

The guillotine blueprint in 1x2 (‘Is that a human and his Daemon, Pan? It looks like it.’ / ‘A blade. To cut what?’) is idiotic. It deflates S1’s main mystery and makes the characters look stupid for not figuring out what they aren’t allowed to until they did in the source material, it also interferes with how the audience sees Daemons. In the book, Cutting isn’t revealed until two-thirds of the way in (1x5). By then we’ve spent a lot of time with Daemons, they’ve become a background part of the world, their ‘rules’ have been established, and we’re endeared to them.

By showing the Guillotine and putting Daemons under threat in the second episode, the show never lets us grow attached. This, combined with their selective presence in scenes, draws attention to Daemons as a plot gimmick and not a natural extension of characters. Like Lyra, the show tells us why Daemons are important before we understand them.

Billy Costa's fate falls flat. It's missing the dried fish/ fake Daemon Tony Markos clings to in the book. Thorne said this 'didn't work' on the day, but it worked in the film. Everyone yelling about Billy not having a Daemon is laughable when most of the background extras in the same scene don't have Daemons themselves

WITCHES

The Witches are the most common complaint about the show. Thorne changed Serafina Pekkala in clever, logical ways (her short hair, wrist-knives and cloud pine in the skin)

The problem is how Serafina is written. The Witches are purely exposition machines. We get no impression of their culture, their deep connection to nature, their understanding of the world. We are told it. It is never shown, never incorporated into the dramatic action of the show.

Thorne emphasises Serafina's warrior side, most obviously changing Kaisa from a goose into a gyrfalcon (apparently a goose didn't work on-screen)

Serafina single-handedly slaughtering the Tartars is bad in a few ways. It paints her as bloodthirsty and ruthless. Overpowering the Witches weakens the logic of the world (If they can do that, why do they let the Magesterium bomb them unchallenged in 2x2?). It strips the Witches of their subtlety and ambiguity for the sake of cinematic action.

A side-effect of Serafina not being with her clan at Bolvangar is limiting our exposure to the Witches. Serafina is the only one invested in the main plot, we only hear about them from what she tells us. This poor set-up weakens the Witch subplot in S2

Lyra doesn’t speak to Serafina until 2x6. She laid eyes on her once in S1.

The dialogue in the S2’s Witch subplot is comparable to the Courasant section of The Phantom Menace.

Two named characters, neither with any depth (Serafina and Coram's dead son developed him far more than her). The costumes look ostentatious and hokey- the opposite of what the Witches should be. They do nothing but repeat the same exposition at each other, even in 2x7.

We feel nothing when the Witches are bombed because the show never invests us in what is being destroyed- with the amount of time wasted on long establishing shots, there’s not one when Lee Scoresby is talking to the Council.

BEARS

Like the Witches; Thorne misunderstands and rushes the fantasy elements of the story. The 2007 movie executed both Iofur's character and the Bear Fight much better than the show- bloodless jaw-swipe and all

Iofur's court was not the parody of human court in the books. He didn't have his fake-Daemon (hi, Billy)

An armourless bear fight is like not including Pan in the cutting scene. After equating Iorek's armour to a Daemon (Lee does this- we don’t even learn how important it is from Iorek himself, and the comparison meant less because of how badly the show set up Daemons) the show then cuts the plotpoint that makes the armour plot-relevant. This diminishes all of Bear society. Like Daemons, we're told Iorek's armour is important but it's never shown to be more than a cool accessory

GYPTIANS

Gyptians suffer from Hermoine syndrome. Harry Potter screenwriter Steve Kloves' favourite character was Hermione, and so Film!Hermoine lost most of Book!Hermoine's flaws and gained several of Book!Ron's best moments. The Gyptians are Jack Thorne's favourite group in HDM and so they got the extra screentime and development that the more complicated groups/concepts like Witches, Bears, and Daemons (which, unlike the Gyptians, carry over to other seasons amd are more important to the overall story) needed

At the same time, he changes them from a private people into an Isle of Misfit Toys. TV!Ma Costa promises they'll ‘make a Gyptian woman out of Lyra yet’, but in the book Ma specifically calls Lyra out for pretending to be Gyptian, and reminds her she never can be.

This small moment indicates how, while trying to make the show more grounded and 'adult', Thorne simultaneously made it more saccharine and sentimental. He neuters the tragedy of the Cut kids when Ma Costa says they’ll become Gyptians. Pullman's books feel like an adult story told through the eyes of a child. The TV show feels like a child's story masquerading as a serious drama.

LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA

Let me preface this by saying I genuinely really enjoy the performances in the show. It was shot in the foot by The Golden Compass' perfect casting.

The most contentious/'miscast' actor among readers is LMM. Thorne ditched the books' wise Texan for a budget Han Solo. LMM isn't a great dramatic actor (even in Hamilton he was the weak link performance-wise) but he makes up for it in marketability- lots of people tried the show because of him

Readers dislike that LMM's Lee is a thief and a scoundrel, when book-Lee is so moral he and Hester argue about stealing. Personally, I like the change in concept. Book!Lee's parental love for Lyra just appears. It's sweet, but not tied to a character arc. Done right, Lyra out-hustling Lee at his own game and giving him a noble cause to fight for (thus inspiring the moral compass of the books) is a more compelling arc.

DAFNE KEENE AND LYRA

I thought Dafne would be perfect casting. Her feral energy in Logan seemed a match made in heaven. Then Jack Thorne gave her little to do with it.

Compare how The Golden Compass introduced Lyra, playing Kids and Gobblers with a group of Gyptian kids, including Billy Costa. Lyra and Roger are chased to Jordan by the Gyptians and she makes up a lie about a curse to scare the Gyptians away.

In one scene the movie set up: 1) the Gobblers (the first we hear of them in the show is in retrospect, Roger worrying AFTER Billy is taken) 2) Lyra’s pre-existing relationship with the Gyptians (not in the show), 3) Friendship with Billy Costa (not in the book or show) 4) Lyra’s ability to befriend and lead groups of people, especially kids, and 5) Lyra’s ability to lie impressively

By comparison, it takes until midway through 1x2 for TV!Lyra to tell her first lie, and even then it’s a paper-thin attempt.

The show made Roger Lyra’s only friend. This artificially heightens the impact of Roger's death, but strips Lyra of her leadership qualities and ability to befriend anyone.

Harry Potter fans talk about how Book!Harry is funnier and smarter than Film!Harry. They cut his best lines ('There's no need to call me sir, Professor') and made him blander and more passive. The same happened to Lyra.

Most importantly, Lyra is not allowed to lie for fun. She can't do anything 'naughty' without being scolded. This colours the few times Lyra does lie (e.g. to Mrs Coulter in 1x2) negatively and thus makes Lyra out to be more of a brat than a hero.

This is a problem with telling Northern Lights from an outside, 'adult' perspective- to most adults Lyra is a brat. Because we’re introduced to her from inside her head, we think she's great. It's only when we meet her through Will's eyes in The Subtle Knife and she's filthy, rude and half-starved that we realise Lyra bluffs her way through life and is actually pretty non-functional

Thorne prioritises grounded human drama over fantasy, and so his Lyra has her love of bears and witches swapped for familial angst. (and, in S2. angst over Roger). By exposing Mrs Coulter as her mother early, Thorne distracts TV!Lyra from Book!Lyra’s love of the North. The contrast between wonder and reality made NL's ending a definitive threshold between innocence and knowledge. Thorne showed his hand too early.

Similarly, TV!Lyra doesn’t have anywhere near as strong an admiration for Lord Asriel. She calls him out in 1x8 (‘call yourself a Father’), which Book!Lyra never would because she’s proud to be his child. From her perspective, at this point Asriel is the good parent.

TV!Lyra’s critique of Asriel feels like Thorne using her as a mouthpiece to voice his own, adult perspective on the situation. Because Lyra is already disappointed in Asriel, his betrayal in the finale isn’t as effective. Pullman saves the ‘you’re a terrible Father’ call-out for the 3rd book for a reason; Lyra’s naive hero-worship of Asriel in Northern Lights makes the fall from Innocence into Knowledge that Roger’s death represents more effective.

So, on TV Lyra is tamer, angstier, more introverted, less intelligent, less fun and more serious. We're just constantly told she's important, even before we meet her.

MRS COULTER (AND LORD ASRIEL)

Mrs Coulter is the main character of the show. Not Lyra. Mrs Coulter was cast first, and Lyra was cast based on a chemistry test with Ruth Wilson. Coulter’s character is given lots of extra development, where the show actively strips Lyra of her layers.

To be clear, I have no problem with developing Mrs Coulter. She is a great character Ruth Wilson plays phenomenally. I do have a problem with the show fixating on her at the expense of other characters.

Lyra's feral-ness is given to her parents. Wilson and McAvoy are more passionate than in the books. This is fun to watch, but strips them of subtlety- you never get Book!Coulter's hypnotic allure from Wilson, she's openly nasty, even to random strangers (in 2x3 her dismissal of the woman at the hotel desk felt like a Disney villain).

Compare how The Golden Compass (2007) introduced Mrs Coulter through Lyra’s eyes, with light, twinkling music and a sparkling dress. By contrast, before the show introduces Coulter it tells us she’s associated with the evil Magisterium plotting Asriel’s death- “Not a word to any of our mutual friends. Including her.” Then she’s introduced striding down a corridor to imposing ‘Bad Guy’ strings.

Making Mrs Coulter’s villainy so obvious so early makes Lyra look dumber for falling for it. It also wastes an interesting phase of her character arc. Coulter is rushed into being a ’conflicted evil mother’ in 2 episodes, and stays in that phase for the rest of the show so far. Character progression is minimised because she circles the same place.

It makes her one-note. It's a good note (so much of the positive online chatter is saphiccs worshiping Ruth Wilson) but the show also worships her to the point of hindrance- e.g. take a shot every time Coulter walks slow-motion down a corridor in 2x2

The problem isn’t the performances, but how prematurely they give the game away. Just like the mysteries around Bolvangar and Lyra’s parentage. Neither Coulter or Asriel have much chance to use their 'public' faces.

This is part of a bigger pacing problem- instead of rolling plot points out gradually, Thorne will stick the solution in front of you early and then stall for time until it becomes relevant. Instead of building tension this builds frustration and makes the show feel like it's catching up to the audience. This also makes the characters less engaging. You've already shown Mrs Coulter is evil/Boreal is in our world/Asriel wants Roger. Why are you taking so long getting to the point?

PACING AND EDITING

This show takes forever to make its point badly.

Scenes in HDM tend to operate on one level- either 'Character Building,' 'Exposition,' or 'Plot Progression'.

E.g. Mary's introduction in 2x2. Book!Mary only listens to Lyra because she’s sleep and caffeine-deprived and desperate because her funding is being cut. But the show stripped that subtext out and created an extra scene of a colleague talking to Mary about funding. They removed emotional subtext to focus on exposition, and so the scene felt empty and flat.

In later episodes characters Mary’s sister and colleagues do treat her like a sleep-deprived wreck. But, just like Lyra’s lying, the show doesn’t establish these characteristics in her debut episode. It waits until later to retroactively tell us they were there. Mary’s colleague saying ‘What we’re dealing with here is the fact that you haven’t slept in weeks’ is as flimsy as Pan joking not lying to Mary will be hard for Lyra.

Rarely does a scene work on multiple levels, and if it does it's clunky- see the exposition dump about Daemon Separation in the middle of 2x2's Witch Trial.

He also splits plot progression into tiny doses, which destroys pacing. It's more satisfying to focus on one subplot advancing multiple stages than all of them shuffling forward half a step each episode.

Subplots would be more effective if all the scenes played in sequence. As it is, plotlines can’t build momentum and literal minutes are wasted using the same establishing shots every time we switch location.

The best-structured episodes of S1 are 1x4, 1x6, and 1x8. This is because they have the fewest subplots (incidentally these episodes have least Boreal in them) and so the main plot isn’t diluted by constantly cutting away to Mrs Coulter sniffing Lyra’s coat or Will watching a man in a car through his window, before cutting back again.

The best-written episode so far is 2x5. The Scholar. Tellingly, it’s the only episode Thorne doesn’t have even a co-writing credit on. 2x5 is well-paced, its dialogue is more naturalistic, it’s more focused, it even has time for moments of whimsy (Monkey with a seatbelt, Mrs Coulter with jeans, Lyra and Will whispering) that don’t detract from the story.

Structurally, 2x5 works because A) it benches Lee’s plotline. B) The Witches and Magisterium are relegated to a scene each. And C) the Coulter/Boreal and Lyra/Will subplots move towards the same goal. Not only that, but when we check in on Mary’s subplot it’s through Mrs Coulter’s eyes and directly dovetails into the main action of the episode.

2x5 has a lovely sense of narrative cohesion because it has the confidence to sit with one set of characters for longer than two scenes at a time.

HDM also does this thing where it will have a scene with plot A where characters do or talk about something, cut away to plot B for a scene, then cut back to plot A where the characters talk about what happened in their last scene and painstakingly explain how they feel about it and why

Example: Pan talking to Will in 2x7 while Lyra pretends to be asleep. This scene is from the 3rd book, and is left to breathe for many chapters before Lyra brings it up. In the show after the Will/Pan scene they cut away to another scene, then cut back and Lyra instantly talks about it.

There’s the same problem in 2x5: After escaping Mrs Coulter, Lyra spells out how she feels about acting like her

The show never leaves room for implication, never lets us draw our own conclusions before explaining what it meant and how the characters feel about it immediately afterwards. The audience are made passive in their engagement with the characters as well as the world

LORD BOREAL, JOHN PARRY AND DIMINISHING RETURNS

At first, Boreal’s subplot in S1 felt bold and inspired. The twist of his identity in The Subtle Knife would've been hard to pull off onscreen anyway. As a kid I struggled to get past Will's opening chapter of TSK and I have friends who were the same. Introducing Will in S1 and developing him alongside Lyra was a great idea.

I loved developing Elaine Parry and Boreal into present, active characters. But the subplot was introduced too early and moved too slowly, bogging down the season.

In 1x2 Boreal crosses. In 1x3 we learn who he's looking for. In 1x5 we meet Will. In 1x7 the burglary. 1 episode worth of plot is chopped up and fed to us piecemeal across many. Boreal literally stalls for two episodes before the burglary- there are random 30 second shots of him sitting in a car watching John Parry on YouTube (videos we’d already seen) completely isolated from any other scenes in the episode

By the time we get to S2 we've had 2 seasons of extended material building up Boreal, so when he just dies like in the books it's anticlimactic. The show frontloads his subplot with meaning without expanding on its payoff, so the whole thing fizzles out.

Giving Boreal, the secondary villain in literally every episode, the same death as a background character in about 5 scenes in the novels feels cheap. It doesn’t help that, after 2x5 built the tension between Coulter and Boreal so well, as soon as Thorne is passed the baton in 2x6 he does little to maintain that momentum. Again, because the subplot is crosscut with everything else the characters hang in limbo until Coulter decides to kill him.

I’ve been watching non-book readers react to the show, and several were underwhelmed by Boreal’s quick, unceremonious end.

Similarly, the show builds up John Parry from 1x3 instead of just the second book. Book!John’s death is an anticlimax but feels narratively justified. In the show, we’ve spent so much extra time talking about him and then being with him (without developing his character beyond what’s in the novels- Pullman even outlined John’s backstory in The Subtle Knife’s appendix. How hard would it be to add a flashback or two?) that when John does nothing in the show and then dies (he doesn’t even heal Will’s fingers like in the book- only tell him to find Asriel, which the angels Baruch and Balthamos do anyway) it doesn’t feel like a clever, tragic subversion of our expectations, it feels like a waste that actively cheapens the audience’s investment.

TL;DR giving supporting characters way more screentime than they need only, to give their deaths the same weight the books did after far less build up makes huge chunks of the show feel less important than they were presented to be.

FRUSTRATINGLY LIMITED EXPANSION AND NOVELLISTIC STORYTELLING

Thorne is unwilling to meaningfully develop or expand characters and subplots to fit a visual medium. He introduces a plot-point, invents unnecessary padding around it, circles it for an hour, then moves on.

Pullman’s books are driven by internal monologue and big, complex theological concepts like Daemons and Dust. Instead of finding engaging, dynamic ways to dramatise these concepts through the actions of characters or additions to the plot, Thorne turns Pullman’s internal monologue into dialogue and has the characters explain them to the audience

The novels’ perspective on its characters is narrow, first because Northern Lights is told only from Lyra’s POV, and second because Pullman’s writing is plot-driven, not character-driven. Characters are vessels for the plot and themes he wants to explore.

This is a fine way of writing novels. When adapting the books into a longform drama, Thorne decentralised Lyra’s perspective from the start, and HDM S1 uses the same multi-perspective structure that The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass do, following not only Lyra but the Gyptians, Mrs Coulter, Boreal, Will and Elaine etc

However, these other perspectives are limited. We never get any impression of backstory or motivation beyond the present moment. Many times I’ve seen non-book readers confused or frustrated by vague or non-existent character motivations.

For example, S1 spends a lot of time focused on Ma Costa’s grief over Billy’s disappearance, but we never see why she’s sad, because we never saw her interact with Billy.

Compare this to another show about a frantic mother and older brother looking for a missing boy. Stranger Things uses only two flashbacks to show us Will Byers’ relationships with his family: 1) When Joyce Byers looks in his Fort she remembers visiting Will there. 2) The Clash playing on the radio reminds Jonathan Byers of introducing Will to the song.

In His Dark Materials we never see the Costas as a happy family- 1x1’s Gyptian ceremony focuses on Tony and Daemon-exposition. Billy never speaks to his mum or brother in the show

Instead we have Ma Costa’s empty grief. The audience has to do the work (the bad kind) imagining what she’s lost. Instead of seeing Billy, it’s just repeated again and again that they will get the children back.

If we’re being derivative, HDM had the chance to segway into a Billy flashback when John Faa brings one of his belongings back from a Gobbler safehouse in 1x2. This is a perfect The Clash/Fort Byers-type trigger. It doesn’t have to be long- the Clash flashback lasted 1:27, the Fort Byers one 55 seconds. Just do something.

1x3 beats into us that Mrs Coulter is nuts without explaining why. Lots of build-up for a single plot-point. Then we're told Mrs Coulter's origin, not shown. This is a TV show. Swap Boreal's scenes for flashbacks of Coulter and Asriel's affair. Then, when Ma Costa tells Lyra the truth, show the fight between Edward Coulter and Asriel.

To be clear, Thorne's additions aren’t fundamentally bad. For example, Will boxing sets up his struggle with violence. But it's wasted. The burglary/murder in 1x7 fell flat because of bad editing, but the show never uses its visual medium to show Will's 'violent side'- no change in camera angle, focus, or sound design, nothing. It’s just a thing that’s there, unsupported by the visual language of the show

The Magisterium scenes in 2x2 were interesting. We just didn't need 5 of them; their point could be made far more succinctly.

In 2x6 there is a minute-long scene of Mary reading the I Ching. Later, there is another scene of Angelica watching Mary sitting somewhere different, doing the SAME THING, and she sees an Angel. Why split these up? It’s not like either the I Ching or the Angels are being introduced here. Give the scene multiple layers.

Thorne either takes good character moments from the books (Lyra/Will in 2x1) or uses heavy-handed exposition that reiterates the same point multiple times. This hobbles the Witches (their dialogue in 2x1, 2 and 3 literally rephrases the same sentiment about protecting Lyra without doing anything). Even character development- see Lee monologuing his and Mrs Coulter's childhood trauma in specific detail in 2x3

This is another example of Thorne adding something, but instead of integrating it into the dramatic action and showing us, it’s just talked about. What’s the point of adding big plot points if you don’t dramatise them in your dramatic, visual medium? In 2x8, Lee offhandedly mentions playing Alamo Gulch as a kid.

I’m literally screaming, Jack, why the flying fuck wasn’t there a flashback of young Lee and Hester playing Alamo Gulch and being stopped by his abusive dad? It’s not like you care about pacing with the amount of dead air in these episodes, even when S2’s run 10 minutes shorter than S1’s. Lee was even asleep at the beginning of 2x3, Jack! He could’ve woken from a nightmare about his childhood! It’s a little lazy, but better than nothing.

There’s a similar missed opportunity making Dr Lanselius a Witchling. If this idea had been introduced with the character in 1x4, it would’ve opened up so many storytelling possibilities. Linking to Fader Coram’s own dead witchling son. It could’ve given us that much-needed perspective on Witch culture. Imagine Lanselius’ bittersweet meeting with his ageless mother, who gave him up when he reached manhood. Then, when the Magisterium bombs the Witches in 2x2, Lanselius’ mother dies so it means something.

Instead it’s only used to facilitate an awkward exposition dump in the middle of a trial.

The point of this fanfic-y ramble is to illustrate my frustration with the additions; If Thorne had committed and meaningfully expanded and interwoven them with the source material, they could’ve strengthened its weakest aspect (the characters). But instead he stays committed to novelistic storytelling techniques of monologue and two people standing in a room talking at each other

(Seriously, count the number of scenes that are just two people standing in a room or corridor talking to each other. No interesting staging, the characters aren’t doing anything else while talking. They. Just. Stand.)

SEASON 2 IMPROVEMENTS

S2 improved some things- Lyra's characterisation was more book-accurate, her dynamic with Will was wonderful. Citigazze looked incredible. LMM won lots of book fans over as Lee. Mary was brilliantly cast. Now there are less Daemons, they're better characterised- Pan gets way more to do now and Hester had some lovely moments.

I genuinely believe 2x1, 2x3, 2x4 and 2x5 are the best HDM has been.

But new problems arose. The Subtle Knife lost the central, easy to understand drive of Northern Lights (finding the missing kids) for lots of smaller quests. As a result, everyone spends the first two episodes of S2 waiting for the plot to arrive. The big inciting incident of Lyra’s plotline is the theft of the alethiometer, which doesn’t happen until 2x3. Similarly, Lee doesn’t search for John until 2x3. Mrs Coulter doesn’t go looking for Lyra until 2x3.

On top of missing a unifying dramatic drive, the characters now being split across 3 worlds, instead of the 1+a bit of ours in S1, means the pacing/crosscutting problems (long establishing shots, repetition of information, undercutting momentum) are even worse. The narrative feels scattered and incohesive.

These flaws are inherent to the source material and are not the show’s fault, but neither does it do much to counterbalance or address them, and the flaws of the show combine with the difficulties of TSK as source material and make each other worse.

A lot of this has been entitled fanboy bitching, but you can't deny the show is in a bad place ratings-wise. It’s gone from the most watched new British show in 5 years to the S2 premiere having a smaller audience than the lowest-rated episode of Doctor Who Series 12. For comparison, DW's current cast and showrunner are the most unpopular since the 80s, some are actively boycotting it, it took a year-long break between series 11 and 12, had its second-worst average ratings since 2005, and costs a fifth of what HDM does to make. And it's still being watched by more people.

Critical consensus fluctuates wildly. Most laymen call the show slow and boring. The show is simultaneously too niche and self-absorbed to attract a wide audience and gets just enough wrong to aggravate lots of fans.

I’m honestly unsure if S3 will get the same budget. I want it to, if only because of my investment in the books. Considering S2 started filming immediately after S1 aired, I think they've had a lot more time to process and apply critique for S3. On the plus side, there's so much plot in The Amber Spyglass it would be hard to have the same pacing problems. But also so many new concepts that I dread the exposition dumps.

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