#eight arcs and the show's cast is still in MIDDLE SCHOOL | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

avidoro · 4 years ago

Text

Edit: Guess I’ll put this in here since everyone is just glossing it over to look for the negative parts. I never said you couldn’t ship SessRin. I never said I was anti-SessRin. I know I tagged it as such, but it isn’t because of my opinion. I have friends who ship SessRin. I love those friends. What I mean by these statements is that the community in general is toxic because of the people in it who have caused problems for others. Like, for example, the person who felt the need to jump me about my personal ship because it wasn’t with Rin when I wasn’t even talking about a ship. Or the people who harassed the English voice cast to the point that even they were calling the SessRin community toxic. Or the people who are fighting to have any Sesshoumaru shipping blog deleted if Rin isn’t involved. I am capable of peacefully sharing Sesshoumaru with other shippers if they could be civilized. But since they aren’t, then I feel like I have the right to speak my mind. And those of you who feel the need to fight me about it are just proving my point because you’re so worked up that anyone could have a different opinion that you absolutely have to argue. That being said, I also stated that I would never have said a word about this if it weren’t for the fact that Rin is underage in Yashahime. Sunrise is trying to lie about how much time passed. They clearly didn’t do their own math. And while I’m fine with SessRin shippers who ship her as an adult, I will not tolerate the people who justify her being underage in Yashahime. Also to those trying to argue about Yashahime being canon, I would love to provide the evidence to the statement I saw, but it’s gotten lost in the sea of people arguing about the show being canon. It was something along the lines of her saying the story wasn’t canon or wasn’t hers but the three girls were and that she was washing her hands of InuYasha and other’s could do what they wanted with it. Which kind of implies it’s not canon but she doesn’t care. If I find it again I will definitely share it. But if Rumiko steps up and actually says the show is canon, then I’ll accept it as canon. But that doesn’t mean I’m okay with Rin being underage. But go ahead and continue to comment with your ridiculous arguments. New edit: @tiny-foots It’s not what I saw but I was provided this where Rumiko stated InuYasha was complete within herself meaning the story was done. She left it up to Mr. Sumisawa to write. Take it as you will, but I see that as her giving the okay for a fanfic to be officiated. But I don’t see it as canon. I suppose that can be left up to interpretation. But my personal belief is that it’s not canon. Even before all this I never even saw the original anime as canon.

I am going to start off by saying that I always said I would never be anti-ship. But if this is what it's come to then I am completely against what is happening right now.

Let's just pretend my OTP isn't actually my OTP right now. What I ship has nothing to do with this. In fact I am a multi-shipper, so don't even think about that. This is beyond more than my personal shipping opinions. InuYasha was my comfort series during a very rough time and Sesshoumaru is my favorite character because of his massive character development and redemption arc. He is an astounding character.

The fact that Sunrise has "officially" (I refuse to say canon because it's not canon. Rumiko said so. Fight me!) paired him with Rin is the most disturbing and disgusting thing they could have possibly done. Again, I am not against people who do ship them. If that's what they enjoy then that's fine.

HOWEVER!

The SessRin community is toxic AF! They have been for a long time and now they've been given a reason to really be horrible people. And that's only one reason why I'm disgusted by this entire thing. And mind you, since Yashahime isn't canon anyway, I wouldn't have cared as much if they hadn't done it the way they had. Let me break this down for you. I'm going to list why SessRin is unhealthy, toxic, and morally wrong and I'll even list some of the justifying arguments shippers have tried to use to support it and explain why they're wrong too.

Pairing Sesshoumaru with Rin destroyed his character development and redemption.

Sesshoumaru's father had a strong desire to see his son learn compassion. Toward everyone! Humans and youkai alike. He learned that lesson through both a human and a youkai. Rin and Kagura. These were the characters who were meant to teach him to be compassionate toward others. By pairing him with Rin you have taken away that compassion that he learned. It's like sticking a giant middle finger up to all the humans he was supposed to learn to respect and say he only tolerates Rin and no one else. There goes his redemption! Way to go, Sunrise!

SessRin was never meant to become a thing.

Rumiko went out of her way to create a bond between Kagura and Sesshoumaru as well as Kohaku and Rin. It's clear who we were meant to ship them with. These characters were placed as a barrier between Rin and Sesshoumaru to avoid an improper ship. SessKagu is the ONLY canon Sesshoumaru ship.

No child in their right mind grows up to fall in love with the man who raised them from childhood.

And if they do then they need to seek counseling because that's not healthy. A normal child would grow up to view that man as her father.

And how about these lame and unjustifiable arguments that SessRinners are throwing out.

"He waited until she was an adult! She's 18!"

Do some research. She is not 18! Look at the the facts that have been compiled. She is 15 MAX. She's underage!

"This was normal back then!"

No it was not! Again, do your research! Nobility groomed children to be wives, yes, but it wasn't normal. Even then the girl wasn't bedded until she was an adult. Also, would you portray a black person, in media, as an abused slave in 1800s America by your story's "good guy" and say it's okay because it was normal back then? I don't think so!

"They were meant to be together! It was a given! It was clear!"

Again, no it wasn't! Kagura was placed in the story for this purpose! She was in love with Sesshoumaru and he was falling in love with her. They are the ONLY canon Sess ship!

"Well, you're forgetting about the original series being about a 15-year-old girl getting with a 50+ year old man!"

There are so many reasons why this is an illogical statement. - InuYasha and Kagome met when they were mentally the same age. Sess and Rin met with he was mentally a young adult and she was EIGHT! - Kagome and InuYasha didn't have an official relationship until she returned from her time after three years... WHEN SHE WAS 18! - Every moment in the original story where Kagome was in an inappropriate situation she got mad and did something about it! She didn't just giggle and let the men around her ogle or touch her! - And my personal opinion, I also believe InuYasha and Kagome’s relationship was toxic anyway, so don’t try to hold that one over me. There’s a reason I’m a multi-shipper.

And one of my favorites, even from pre-Yashahime

"NO ONE is shipping child Rin with Sesshoumaru!"

Yeah? Go do a Google image search, you sickos. Edited to include this little treasure in the comments:

Who’s putting words in her mouth? She stated, in an interview plain as day, that Yashahime was not canon! She didn’t write it. An official publication does not canon make! Not to mention “the woman who changed him” is such an incredibly vague statement. If it was meant to be Rin, she’d have just said Rin. As mentioned before, she was very adamant about pushing the Kagura x Sesshoumaru ship. And Kagura definitely changed him. Was it not his compassion toward her specifically that regained his arm and gave him a sword? I’m pretty sure “the woman who changed him” was meant to be a vague statement because the canonical intention was just to leave it open to interpretation and is probably meant to be some random village woman who bonded with Sesshoumaru and ultimately completed his change.

And if, by chance, she did mean Rin, she didn’t say it was canon. Just that she was his wife meaning that is who Sunrise set as his wife in the show. Think about it? She was answering the question of “who had his children in Yashahime.” If she meant Rin, she was avoiding spoilers and giving a hint to who Sunrise chose as his wife. That’s not saying she would have picked Rin, herself. She didn’t write it. So it seems to me that you are the one putting words in her mouth.

Now tell me, if your best friend from grade school who was adopted told you when she was a teen or even an adult, "My dad's hot. We decided to sleep together." would you not find that disturbing? That's SessRin right now.

Also:

HANYOU NO YASHAHIME IS NOT CANON! THIS IS PER RUMIKO TAKAHASHI HERSELF! DO NOT TRY TO JUSTIFY THAT SESSRIN IS CANON NOW BECAUSE IT ISN'T! IT'S JUST AN OVERGLORIFIED AND POORLY WRITTEN FANFICTION!

ONLY THE MANGA IS CANON! OG SESSHOUMARU IS THE ONLY SESSHOUMARU!! That being said, I still say if you do happen to be a SessRin shipper, then you do you. Enjoy what you want. But what is happening right now does not give you a right to justify any toxic behavior that your community is expressing. Again, I wouldn’t even be mad if Sunrise hadn’t portrayed Rin as still being underage. I won’t stand to see people justify this!

#InuYasha #Yashahime #Anti Yashahime #AntiYashahime #Sesshoumaru #Sesshomaru #pedomaru #loliconmaru #antisessrin #Anti sessrin #Yashahime is not canon #anti sunrise #sessrin is toxic #sessrin is unhealthy #grooming is toxic #I would sooner ship Sesshoumaru with an actual dog than I would with Rin #Sesshoumaru is Rin's father

262 notes · View notes

mintsuke · 4 years ago

Text

Aspectabund (k.s.)

(adj.) letting or being able to let expressive emotion show easily through one’s face and eyes

In which; you’re only ever taught that all yokai are evil, until Kita Shinsuke proves you otherwise.

WC; 7.8K

Warnings; Violence, Minor deaths, Mention of Kita’s tongue but implied

A/n: An addition to my Yokai!AU and a “subtle” request from a lovely anon! If you haven’t already, read my first work of this AU for Suna (link here!). Lmk what you think and if I should write for any other characters <3

+I last minute started adding more stuff lol, so some parts might be kind of unedited and have mistakes so I apologize.

References to Nurarihyon no Mago <3 (and a Hisoka reference if you catch it ;’))

For the majority of your life, your family nearly talks your ear off concerning the dangers of the existence of yokai, also termed ayakashi. Any member of the (L/n) clan were countlessly taught that these strange, supernatural monsters and spirits were all evil and only existed to bring harm and strife to the human race. They fed off of terror and most times humans.

Onmyoji were humans that had evolved in order to use their innate spiritual power to fight back and exorcise such apparitions. Any and every sightings and encounters with the supernatural were to be taken care of.

For you, you followed after your father and brother without question, promising to bring honor to your family.

Dressed in your school’s uniform still, you leaped to dodge the swing of the monstrous imp’s fist. The impact crushes the ground, kicking up pieces of debris that fly in all directions.

“Nimble little thing!” The imp growls in frustration at your swift movement, “I’ll have your head and heart on my dinner plate soon!”

“Dinner plate?” You repeat, snapping your fingers to materialize a palm-sized paper with ink strokes written over the front, “That’s quite classy for your kind, I commend you.”

Brandishing the parchment, a pale yellow aura engulfs it momentarily before extending into a long pole, a curved blade fixed at the top.

“As much as I’d like to sit here talking, I’ve really got to head over to the conbini before they sell out of the pork buns!”

The imp lunges, arm wound back in preparation to attack as you take a stance with your halberd held behind you, other hand flashing another parchment. Roaring, he shoots his fist forward to make a grab for your body, but you shift on your feet quickly, turning to evade before stepping firmly on the concrete and swinging the pole upward in a half figure-eight motion. His arm comes flying off as you circle it around to finish the shape and drag the blade across his bulky torso.

Viscous, dark liquid pours from the wounds, the imp roaring in pain as his other hand swings around in a hook. Spinning the pole, you holding it firmly to the side to block the strong punch that sends you skidding across the pavement.

“I’m going to enjoy eating you, you bitch!”

With a flick of your wrist, you shoot the paper out and it easily attaches to his fist. Crackles and sparks of electricity emit from it, causing him to grunt at the temporary paralysis. Quickly, you kick off, arm winding back before moving in an arc to sever his head from his bulky body. It falls with a heavy thunk on the pavement before his body dissipated into steaming black miasma.

“Ahh... I’m all dirty now,” You sigh hopelessly at the blood splattered over the material of your uniform. Surely the employees of the local conbini wouldn’t question the mysterious stains.

You snort as you head home instead, the halberd long disappeared as you walk along the stone path past the large gates and into your home.

“I’m home,” you mutter as you slip off your shoes in the foyer, placing it against the raised platform leading to the rest of home (facing towards the door).

A smile graces your face at the sound of soft pattering of hurried footsteps. Stepping onto the raised flooring, you’re welcomed by a small body leaping up into your arms. You giggle at the little boy, dressed in the onmyoji white garments.

“You look disgusting.”

You snap your head up to the male, also wearing the same clothes, standing at the doorway.

“It was just a small scuffle, onii-san,” You grin cheekily with a small bow that he mirrors.

Shuji, the eldest, snorts while Kou, the youngest, beams up at you.

“Nee-san, good work as always!”

“Thank you Kou-kun,” You smile down at the boy as he separates from you.

The stark difference between your two brothers is amazing, but you wouldn’t want them any other way. Kou always seemed to look at you with starry eyes, amazed by your skills. Shuji was a tough love. He was the doting big brother that didn’t like the idea of you taking after the family business, but at the very least you were able to defend yourself from yokai. It was more of protective older brother things.

The next night, you find yourself in the conbini you had meant to raid for pork buns. Humming joyfully to yourself as the worker puts your order into a brown paper bag, you don’t notice the wobbly lady whose body is stretched and bulging in different places that are hidden under her massive coat.

To others, she might’ve looked like a city-folk with her prim hair-do and manicured nails. All the way out here in Hyogo, however, she definitely looked out of place slithering into a small conbini like so.

“Men...” She shudders in delight, tilting her head up while her eyes stare down at the other customers in the store.

You don’t cast her too much of a second glance as you pay for your pork buns. The curious thought of what someone like her was doing over here in the countryside crosses your mind, but you ignore her anyway.

Shouts arise as a male customer walks past her to leave, and with a flick of her arm, his head comes clean off and sprouting with blood. A woman shrieks in surprise as the body drops to the floor, motionless.

Head snapping towards the commotion, you gawk as her arm stretches, hand seizing the poor cashier by his neck. Retracting, his body is flown across the mart and towards the entrance. The woman makes a display of shoving her nose into the back of his hair before exhaling loudly with content.

“Mm simply exquisite! Much more refine than the city!” She bellows as the nails on her other hand dig into his arm. The man is kicking the air frantically, screaming in pain as he claws at her hand crushing his neck. Ripping off skin and heavy strands of muscle from his forearm, as easy as if he was made of string cheese, she nearly releases a salacious moan before devouring it. Disgust churns in your stomach at the obnoxious smack of her lips and loud chewing.

“Fuck,” you curse as the other customers cower and take the cashier’s sacrifice as a distraction to run outside to safety. They trip over each other, forcing themselves through the small opening the sliding door can allow.

The woman’s mouth widens, incredibly so, to swallow the cashier in one gulp (his pleas muted once her mouth closes around the remnant of his shoe. She ignores your presence and turns to exit the shop, in favor of the men that had run outside. Her arms stretch like rubber, flinging around like a lasso, and latch onto their heads like gum.

With a flick of your wrist, a talisman appears in your hand. Heading outside as well, the paper burns brightly with a familiarly pale yellow aura before extending and materializing into a large wooden bow. It was a long bow, similar to the length and style of the traditional bamboo of the hankyu bow, appearing like the branch of a tree.

“Stop!” You call out after her, straightening out your bow arm and aiming it steadily in the path of a fleeing customer. Reaching toward the arrow rest, with your index and middle finger extended, you carefully draw back as you trace the materialization of an arrow shrouded in bright aura until you reach your lower face. Taking in a deep breath, shoulders falling lax as you follow the path of her whip-like arm. You release just before she can snag his head, causing the arm to sever at the point of contact.

She shouts, the remains of her arm spewing with dark blood as her eyes turn towards you.

“You... You’re one of them!” She growls, “I’ll make sure to savor you, cute little onmyoji! Ripping your skin off, then each muscle one by one!”

Quick drawing, the arrow is much smaller this time as you release it at her, but she dodges easily.

“That puny little arrow won’t work on me!”

Your eyes widen as her body splits; a dark body, covered in mouths with shark-like teeth, emerging and taking over her human-like form. More arms sprout from this form, mouths wide and baring their teeth at you.

What was a yokai like this doing in Hyogo?

Her arms flail, a large hand with a snarling mouth set in the middle of its palm comes hurtling straight at you.

Flicking both of your wrists, one contains multiple talismans and the other a single one. Shooting them in front of you, they stick to an invisible barrier, creating a temporary shield that receives the brunt of the attack. The other takes shape into your halberd.

With a wrist roll of the long pole, spinning it over the back of your hand before catching it, you hold it with two hands to block the heavy hit from the side that the paper barrier isn’t protecting you from. Fire suddenly burns through your body, pushing you forward and off balance as an attack from behind knocks you over.

You groan as you hit the pavement hard, the razor-like teeth tearing into your left thigh and another at your torso.

Blood. Blood. So much blood. You think hazily, head spinning from the large wounds.

Were you really about to become fodder to this thing?

Her giggles are high-pitched and chilling, voice no longer sounding human-like. Transformed, her body slithers like a snail, appendages grabbing blindly at the ground to propel her towards you.

“You had a little kick to you, spunky, I like it. I love it when they struggle y’know?” The woman laughs as you grip a talisman in your hand, reaching out to stick her with it.

“Onmyojutsu is really something,” She hums, one limb whipping onto your wrist, a mouth open to bite into your arm.

You cry out, tears springing to your eyes as you blink away in attempt to focus your gaze on her.

“Quite annoying, but it makes killing my prey a little less... boring.”

With a shaky breath, you wonder if maybe this was really it. Shuji and Kou come to your mind, wishing you could have one more moment to express how much you loved your brothers.

Until the pain on your wrist is gone. The burning ache in your leg and mid-section continues, but you have just enough energy to make out the figure that slices the woman in numerous sections before she dissipates into miasma.

Eyes, irises just as fiery as the pain shooting through your body, are all you remember as you feel your body being lifted. A soft voice chastises you to stay awake for a while longer but you protest weakly until you slip under.

You don’t know how long you were out, but you come to with a raging headache, head throbbing wildly as you sit up. If not for the dull ache in your left thigh and the right side of your midsection, you would have been happy to forget the fight against the Akujo Nokaze.

Glancing around through the throbbing of your temple, you huff in attempt to calm your unbalance from sitting up too quickly. Tatami and shoji surround you, and you almost believe you’re back home at the estate, but you can sense the heavy amount of fear around you. The building is nearly drenched in the aura that exudes from yokai.

You had been lying down on the tatami, head once resting on stacked seat cushions in an attempt to make a pillow, and a familiar maroon jacket resting over your body. Squinting down at the fabric, you recognize the characters that spell out Inarizaki High School on the backside.

Then you remember your savior, those glowing eyes.

“Looks like you’re awake,” a calm voice surmises along with the soft slide of the shoji door scraping open and close.

Oh. This jacket, you piece together now as you look up to the captain of your school’s volleyball club.

Kita Shinsuke, third year from class seven, dressed graciously in an aegean blue yukata, with a haori (a more cloudy shade) resting over his shoulders. You’d only seen him a few times in passing, walking to the conbini with a few of his rowdy teammates, or that one practice match your friend had dragged you to in order to gush over the infamous Miya twins. He was only put into the match once or twice, but you found something quite admirable about the tenacity his ability to pick up seemingly strong spikes or screwed plays.

What was he doing here? Dressed like he was ready to attend a fireworks festival. Was this his jacket?

Then your eyes focused on the perked ears that sit atop his silver hair, a fluffy tail swishing back and forth behind him.

“Don’t panic—”

Sucking in a breath, you whip out a talisman. The parchment taking the shape of your bow, aimed directly at him.

“That’s not a good idea (L/n)-san,” Kita says firmly, a tone similar to one he uses when chastising the boys, “The yokai outside will sense your onmyojutsu from a mile away, even worse they’ve already caught wind of your blood.”

“Put it away.”

He doesn’t falter in his stare down, gazing into your eyes without waver. It’s not until they flash a dangerous golden hue before you finally let the bow dissipate into thin air. Nodding in thanks, he takes a step further into the room but senses your stiffness.

“You’re a yokai too?” You say defensively, fingers gripping tightly at the jacket covering your lap. It made your chest hurt. He was deceiving his team, the whole school. Was he planning on preying on the entire student body? Was he going to pluck each student one by one, and devour them until he had to move onto a new feeding ground?

What were you doing abiding by his orders?

All yokai are evil, the cold and hardened voices of your father and Shuji echo in your ears like ice cold water in attempt to bring you back to your senses, any and every encounter with them must end in exterminating the darkness.

“I can hear your heart racing, just relax, I won’t hurt you.”

You glare at him, holding out your hand with a talisman clutched in between your thumb and index, “You’re lying! All yokai are evil and deceitful!”

“I’m not, I swear,” He says with his hands up to show innocence, “I won’t try anything.”

Biting your lip, you relent and put it away, and he does well to stay rooted to his spot, so not to get a rise out of you again.

“Where am I?”

“The yokai district,” He answers simply.

Your heart beats faster. No wonder you can feel such heavy amount of aura around you, so palpable you could cut through it with your halberd. You’ve never felt so thick of fear that you nearly felt overwhelmed, fingers near shaking as you grip tighter to the maroon material.

“Did you take me here?”

Kita lifts a finger, noting the way you tense, to point at your leg, “If I didn’t act sooner, you would have bled out from the Akujo Nokaze. Although forgive me for my actions I had to take to heal you..”

Blinking, you don’t quite understand what he means by his apology as you lift the jacket to gawk at your healed leg. There’s no mark left, no wound, only the slight discoloration from your blood. Your arm has no indication of her last attack. He turns his head away as you lift your uniform top to stare down at your healed torso.

“Wh—”

Heat crawls up your neck, settling in the apples of your cheeks, as you whimper with an especially painful throb of your headache.

“You don’t mean...”

“It’s a secret,” He says with a more teasing lilt to his voice, the subtle quirk of his lips a contrast to the faint shade of red that blooms at the tips of his ears when he continues to look away from your exposed waist.

You respect that, despite his recently discovered identity as a yokai.

“I could’ve treated it at home, you know,” You frown, shoving the material back down.

The male shakes his head, “Please, onmyojutsu can do more destructively than healing.”

That didn’t mean he had to take it upon himself to— you stop yourself from the perverse image of Kita kneeling over your body. Face burning at the thought of his digits brushing over your thigh before his tongue— you slap your hands over your face, releasing a strangled groan to his confusion.

Although, your flustered expression is tell-tale of what you must’ve been thinking about and he too flushes at the memory of your precarious position an hour ago.

“I think I’ve stayed long enough,” You finally manage, although clutching your head at the continuous onslaught of your headache.

“At least stay until your fever goes down,” Kita offers, he turns away to leave the room, not before casting a glance back at you, “Just sit tight, I’ll bring some porridge for you.”

The sharp glance could have been translated as: don’t cause any trouble or just try to escape. You nod vigorously in response.

The shoji shuts with finality and you let yourself relax. His fear was intense, daring you to try something. Someone as powerful as that was not something you could try and exorcise yourself. It never changed the fact that he did save you, but he was a yokai. Not only that, he was a kitsune, known to be malevolent and conniving. They were infamously known to play pranks and deceive others.

Your chest twisted again at the thought. The captain of the volleyball club, someone known to be perfect and confident. He didn’t seem like the type to bring misfortune and death upon Inarizaki. Were you to report him to your family, and have Shuji or your father exorcise him?

He saved you though... the thought continues to tug at your mind.

When he returns with porridge and a glass of water, he makes sure to stay a safe distance away given your continued caution.

“If you’re thinking about exorcising me, you won’t win,” His blunt voice cuts through the silence like a blade, causing you to flinch. It wasn’t even meant as a bluff or to look down on you, he was confident and merely stating the fact that he was stronger than you.

You don’t answer, but continue to eat and hydrate yourself with a troubled pout that juts out your lips and strews your brows together.

Cute, he thinks, tail swishing behind him jovially.

“Shall I take you home now?”

Your fever calms, headache reduced now, as you blink up at him in surprise. A chuckle bubbles from his lips surprisingly, the sound not entirely unwelcome to your ears, it’s almost adorable.

“Don’t look so defensive, I won’t try anything, we’ll just take a small scenic route.”

“Small?” You repeat as he motions you to follow him out the door.

“Put on my jacket, you’ll need it,” He says, ignoring your questioning glance as you leave what seemed to be a private room. You gulp, hesitantly slipping your arms through the track jacket before following after him.

The fox leads you down the hallway of more rooms, laughter and raucous voices to be heard from within some. You both enter the main dining room of the restaurant, filled with yokai both human-like and not so human-like seated at the arrangement of low tables. They were boisterous, drinking from mugs of beer and porcelain ochoko (you wondered how the tiny cup didn’t shatter under their grip). Delicious looking food was served to their tables, making your belly rumble at the smell of it.

You catch the glimpse of a grey-haired cook in the kitchen, similar fox ears sitting atop his head like Kita’s. Was that...?

“Come on, they’ll smell you if you linger.”

Biting your lip, you turn away from the cook, who looks back at your retreating figure with a knowing smirk. The host is equally as familiar, but Kita swiftly leads you outside the restaurant and further down the alleyway.

“Are you planning on disposing of me now that I know your secret?” You gulp as the lights of the restaurant seem to dim now that you’re further away.

He laughs, “I would’ve eaten you as soon as I finished off the Nokaze, if not then, then when I’d gotten a taste of your blood.”

You shut your mouth, cheeks burning as he smiles slightly at your reaction.

“I said I was gonna take you home, no?”

With no more complaints on your part, he places two fingers partly in his mouth, producing a shrill whistle that summons a large snake yokai, with a bushy mane around its head, to come flying.

“O-oh my Gods, oh no, I don’t think I could,” You squeak as he holds out a hand towards you.

“Not all yokai are dangerous, (L/n)-san, trust me.”

Did you trust him? The thought still weighing down in your mind. You didn’t think about it then, but you realize he knows your name, even without having actually met you before.

He turns to you with a beckoning glance, smiling patiently and kindly, coaxing you to put your trust in him.

This was going against every moral taught to you ever since you began training to become an onmyoji, but against your inhibitions, you took his hand. It was warm, searing almost, against your fingertips. He saved you, kept you from death’s door, and never harmed you throughout your time spent in the yokai district. Maybe he was right.

With no effort, he lifted you onto back of the snake demon. Muttering a small apology, hands on your hips in order to lift you up. He joins you, hopping on behind you in a comfortable cross-legged position.

“Is dropping you off at the school alright?”

You nod, sucking in a breath when the snake rises into the sky, just meters above the tops of the buildings. Not expecting the height, you gasp and reach to hold on to the snake, but there’s no reigns or handles.

“Careful, you’ll fall,” Kita’s voice whispers from behind, an arm settling around your waist to secure you against his chest.

Nodding mutely, you purse your lips in attempt to silently will away your definite consciousness of his warmth spreading across your backside. He didn’t seem all that bothered by the proximity, but you guessed after having to heal your wounds in rather intimate locations, he wasn’t all that embarrassed around you now. Still, it was unbeknownst to you, his ears burning as he focuses his gaze on the buildings below.

Who knew the ever confident captain of Inarizaki could act so coy, almost as though he wasn’t exactly sure of his own actions for once.

“It’s quite pretty,” you comment finally, awestruck by the view of your hometown from a higher point of view. Hyogo was not as entirely modern as other places in Japan, but you enjoyed the simplicity and the traditional aesthetic of your part of the prefecture as opposed to other districts like Kobe.

“Mm,” he makes a noise of agreement, “I like to take strolls like this from time to time. The view never gets old.”

Admittedly, he quite enjoyed the view with your addition, eyes cherishing your own, wide and sparkling with curiosity at the view above and below.

You glance up at him, heart skipping a beat at the way the wind sifts through his hair. Kita Shinsuke was admittedly very handsome, his expression serene as he turns his attention to watch the minuscule specks of light scattered across the dark sky above you three. Ignoring the prominent fox ears, he was still appeared to be that normal high school boy you saw. He still exuded that same air of confidence around him, holding himself up just like how he displayed every instance you saw him in passing.

How was he able to live like a normal human and yet still very much be a potentially dangerous yokai? Was that possible?

You sensed no killing intent, no indication of malice or the like. Why? When you’ve been constantly told that ayakashi were the enemy.

“I see...”

He looks down at you, noticing the troubled look in your expression, quirking a small smile in response, “Surprised? The onmyoji like to spread that us yokai are monsters and only live to wreak terror among humans. Some of us had once been humans before, you know?”

Chuckling at your questioning look, he shakes his head, “I was a born yokai, although I know a few who have had to suffer and became apparitions like us.”

“I cannot speak for the ones who do prey on humans and seek to harm them, but we too only mean to exist peacefully. Just like humans, we work and eat and have our own families. I go to school with you, do I not?”

He doesn’t wait for a reply, releasing you from his hold as the snake lowers to the school courtyard. Once landed, or at least hovering just above the ground, he slips off first before offering you a hand.

You can’t place a finger on the feeling; you’re not quite sure why you feel slightly disappointed to end your time with the kitsune so soon.

“Are you okay from here, or should I see you home?” Kita asks after you bow in thanks.

“I can handle myself, thank you very much!” You glare at him weakly with an adorable pout to pair with.

He raises a brow, “It wouldn’t be very gentleman-like if I were to allow you to walk home alone...”

Flushing, you turn away with a rushed good bye, muttering about how it’d be a problem if your clan sensed him accompanying you home.

Watching as you leave school grounds, his lips quirk slightly before patting the snake yokai and hopping back on to head back to the restaurant.

You were still wearing his jacket.

“Good work today,” Shuji says when you meet him at the foyer.

It was later than usual, you didn’t anticipate just how long you had stayed in the yokai district with Kita, nor how long your scenic flight took. Kou must’ve been asleep by now, given it was still a school night.

“I’m back,” You reply with a tight lipped smile. A part of you felt guilty. Kita was a yokai, a being you were taught to treat with no mercy, but you let him run free. It was true, his fear was immense, probably enough to easily overpower you, but it didn’t change the fact that he still treated you kindly. It was as if he wasn’t capable of snapping your neck with just a flick of his wrist, as if you weren’t able to exorcise him. He was kind and patient, and wanted to show you that just like him - yokai can be civil and walk alongside humans. His last statement stuck with you: just like humans, we work and eat and have our own families. Were you all just indiscriminately killing possibly innocent ayakashi who had their own families to go home too?

That was just not how your family saw it. Shuji despised them, just like your father, just like the rest of the clan. They would laugh and punish you for such radical thinking.

“You reek of blood,” His nose scrunches when you pass by to enter the house. His eyes focus on the particular garment you’re wearing, one he’s never seen you wear before.

“I had another little scuffle,” You reply, scratching your cheek meekly with your pointer, “A huge one from the city I presume.”

He doesn’t question it, but you can most definitely see the imaginary cogs turning in his brain. You had almost forgotten to give back Kita’s jacket, and he must’ve sensed the remains of the fox’s aura lingering on the material.

Returning to your room before he can ask about it, you’re not sure what to make of it. Pulling the jacket tighter around you, you feel almost shameless as you sniff the remains of Kita’s scent on the material. It smells like the early morning dew that clings to the blades of grass, and a hint of something citrus like disinfectant.

It’s soothing.

Come the next morning, Kita’s only half expecting it when you rush into his class during break, calling out his name. Gaining the watchful eyes of his lingering classmates when you sit in the seat in front of him, his teammate occupying the one beside him, Omimi, casts a wary glance your way as other students whisper in question of your identity.

What was a second year just randomly waltzing up to the captain of their volleyball club doing? Not only that, he watches with wide eyes when you present a paper bag with Kita’s washed jacket.

“Do you need somethin’?” the silver-haired boy asks after putting away the paper bag with a grateful nod, unwrapping his bento that his grandmother had lovingly made that morning.

“I decided to keep an eye on you,” You declare with a confident smile, one that his teammate looks to him with a confused glance.

“What for?” He beckons you to continue, saying thanks for the meal before digging in.

“I’m just making sure you don’t try to eat anyone.”

Omimi nearly chokes on his spit.

“Shinsuke, she...”

The boy simply nods at the implication but doesn’t say anything else.

You make it a habit to eat lunch with the two as much as you can, with the premise that you were making sure he wouldn’t do anything heinous.

Perhaps you were starting to look forward to lunch with Kita. He too had also began expecting you to come running into the classroom with your own bento clutched in your arms.

You had slowly become a norm in his daily life and he wasn’t complaining.

He didn’t speak much, but he listened to you prattle about school and your friends being suspicious of your sudden absence at lunch break. He gave input here and there, sometimes throwing in a teasing comment that catches you off guard every time. It even surprises Omimi to see you two getting along, especially when the captain had explained the situation to him after the first time you had barged into the classroom.

It had to be impossible to have a yokai and an onmyoji getting along like so, even if you did threaten to exorcise him when he teased you a little too far. There were only a few figures in history who held friendly relations with ayakashi in the past. The hatred between the two groups were still much more prevalent despite that.

Could it be, he thought as Kita chuckles at your flustered expression, there was something more to this than friendly banter and such?

It was only inevitable that the rest of the team would catch wind of this... friendship. Not that Osamu and Atsumu shut up about the whole ordeal at practice after Kita had brought you to the restaurant the first time. They teased relentlessly him about bringing a girl, a human girl, into the yokai district, nearly going into details of healing your wounds until he shut them up with a scathing look.

“Why do you still put up with her when she could possibly exorcise you, or all of us even?” Aran asks as they gather their things, at the end of practice, in the clubroom.

The captain pauses what he’s doing to appraise his friend’s troubled frown.

“She won’t. She’s strong but she has a good heart.”

He ducks his head to continue packing his things, but the blush that rises on the skin of his cheeks and the tips of his ears are evident to the other. It’s quite endearing to the team to see their captain appear so smitten. To an onmyoji descendant nonetheless.

Leaving the clubroom, he greets you outside the gates, as if expecting you to be waiting for him. You always whistle nervously, playing off that you didn’t want him preying on any straggler students still left at school.

“Darn, you got me (L/n)-san, should I just eat you up instead for foiling my plans?”

He enjoys the fluster that always crosses your expression, stammering out as his team watches in mild surprise at the interaction.

When you do wait for him, he takes it upon himself to walk you home. In spite of your worries of alerting your family, he pushes the limit and usually drops you off a block before, watching as you disappear around the corner before he heads home or to the district.

“You like her?” Akagi asks during break of their practice, nursing his water bottle while dabbing a towel at the sweat dripping from his forehead. The libero glances at his captain’s expression, not at all expecting the suppressed smile that threatens to break across his face.

“She’s... special,” Kita affirms.

“Special, as in a crush?” Atsumu cuts in with a wiggle of his eyebrows, “Please Kita-san, Suna’s been simpin’ over the girl in his class for the longest time, ya can’t fool us by callin’ her something as vague as special.”

The mentioned middle blocker chucks his towel at the setter in response, much to the amusement of the rest of the team.

“I’m... not quite sure,” He admits, although he couldn’t ignore the way he felt at ease being around you. The days you didn’t walk home with him or eat lunch with him and Omimi, they felt empty or he felt concerned even for your absence. When you smiled or laughed at something or grew shy at his teasing, he felt his chest swell and flutter. He wanted to see more, he wanted to see every kind of expression you had to offer. Your ups and downs, absolute mirth making your eyes appear warm as they crinkle with delight, the determination burning in your eyes when you had faced the Nokazu, the doe eyed and flustered gawking when he pushes his luck and touches you in some chaste way. He wanted more. Unlike himself, you were able to express emotions so explicitly, it amazed him.

Did this mean he liked her? Well, of course he liked her, otherwise he wouldn’t enjoy her company the way he did.

Were they referring to his feelings as romantic? Was that what this was?

Did you feel the same way he did? Could he read the small glances exchanged between you both, the cute little bashful expressions, the pain in his chest, all of these small instances as something akin to being romantically infatuated with you, and you to him in return?

“Who was that?”

You stiffen when you enter your home after another walk home with Kita. He’d invited you to watch one of their practice matches before accompanying you home, despite your usual banter about his plotting to kill you or his inability to allow you to walk home alone.

Shuji stands, leaning in the doorway like usual, his arms crossed over his chest. Narrowed eyes watch as you swat your hand in dismissal, timidly calling the boy your friend that lives on the way home.

You don’t think much of it, hoping that your elder brother won’t try to question Kita’s identity any further. You almost forget about it even, lost in the beauty of the fox’s glimmering coral glow, the calming bubble of a chuckle that rises from his throat, that serene smile that could sate any fears you had. Not sure when it had started, you always feel like you’d swallowed a whole cage of butterflies. In your chest, your heart seems to flip and twist as your face grows hotter. Walking home, side by side, almost always entails your hands brushing against one another, causing you both to look away timidly.

Perhaps you couldn’t keep deluding yourself into thinking you were hanging around him (and his team after finding out about their true identities, when Atsumu cornered you after class one day) just to keep an eye on his actions. When did you start to enjoy being around him and experiencing more than his outward bluntness and blank gazes? Smiles seemed to grace his lips more often than not when he was with you, surprising much of his team when he spotted you in the second floor viewing balcony. You adored each and every one of his smiles, even if they were all subtle and almost unnoticeable. Or possibly the storm of emotions that raged in his eyes. If not for his usually monotonous tone or blank expression, you always adored the way his eyes were the window into his emotions. They crinkled similarly when happy, burned with a flash of warning gold when irritated or upset, and even grew murky when tired and having a bad day. Although the last one was rare, you enjoyed this side of Kita Shinsuke that no one knew of.

No one could experience him the way you did when he took you on more strolls on the snake yokai, soaring the skies or travelling to the coast of Hiyoriyama or the Hattan falls where you both watched the moonlight shine brilliantly over the reflective surface of the water.

When you both stop at the usual spot, a block away from the estate, he doesn’t say anything at first. Pursing his lips before catching your curious gaze.

“Listen, (L/n)-san,” He starts, but his eyes focus behind you and his voice cuts off to your confusion.

Turning around, your chest tightens in dread to see your older brother standing there. He glares coldly at the boy in front of you, hatred and disgust almost rolling off of him in palpable waves.

“Onii-san...”

“Shut up and step away from him, he’s been deceiving you this whole time,” Shuji snaps, eyes never leaving Kita’s, “Get away from him, his fear is way too powerful for you (F/n).”

“Your brother?” the fox mutters to you in questioning.

You nod in trepidation, gulping as your brother demands you step away again.

“Onii-san, he’s not dangerous I swear!”

“He’s lying to you!” He snarls this time, “He’s a deceitful fox!”

“I know that!” You stammer, but still take steps to approach him in hopes of calming him down, “Please, he’s not like that, he saved me a while back!”

“Bullshit, yokai are evil, I thought you knew that by now,” He grits, fury burning in his eyes as he shoves you to the side and out of his way. You yelp as you nearly lose balance and stumble to catch yourself. “If you knew this whole time and said nothing, you’re a fucking disgrace,” the elder says with a deep frown at your choices, words cutting through you like glass, “Letting this monster continue to live and run around, neglecting your duties.”

Your eyes widen as he summons his shikigami, the glowing apparitions of twin wolves made up of dark blue aura.

“No!” You shout as Kita’s tails and ears sprout from their respective places, eyes glowing that fiery hue as palm opens upward, igniting a volleyball-sized foxfire. The flame flickers a marine hue as he brings his arm back, towards his chest, and shoots the flame to the ground in front of the wolves. They, however, jump through the blaze and continue their haste towards him without waver.

Launching multiple palm-sized parchments, they flatten and create a barrier in front of Kita as the shikigami converge on him, slamming into the shield with sparks flying from the impact.

“Stop being stupid (F/n)!” Shuji growls, stomping over and grabbing you roughly by the collar.

You glare back at him, gripping his hand twisting into your uniform top.

“I’m not! I like him a lot, and I won’t allow you to hurt him!”

“Stop with this bull crap!” Shuji roars, beyond irritated by your sudden confession.

Kita’s eyes flare wildly at your ousted feelings, focusing on the desperation in your eyes as your brother throws you down once again. You weren’t in any danger like before, but it didn’t sit well with him for you to be treated like that.

In a flash, he picks you up with ease, slipping his arms under your back and knees. Stepping firmly down, he spins over his shoulder to send Shuji flying backwards with a back kick. The latter is quick to protect himself with a single talisman, although not able to stop himself from being pushed backwards.

“Get away from her,” The elder grits through clenched teeth.

Kita swiftly dodges an attack of his wolves, lunging to the side to set you down gently. You reach towards him worriedly, but he shakes his head.

“Kita-san...”

“Don’t worry, just sit tight here, okay?” He reassures with a good natured smile, brushing the backs of his fingers across your cheek affectionately. The action is sudden, making your stomach erupt into a fit of butterflies, as his eyes flash gold before he turns around to face the older male.

“Why don’t we calm down, there was no reason for you to berate and hurt your sister like that,” the kitsune says levely as he stands across from the elder, both standing tensely in case the other attacked suddenly. His eyes, however, contrast the patience in his voice and burn brightly intune with his inner emotions.

“Cut the crap, I can’t believe you blinded her into thinking that you monsters could be anything but evil,” Shuji snaps, “I’ll have your head and take the liberty of exorcising garbage like you myself!”

Kita dodges, shifting on his feet easily and slipping away from narrowly getting swiped by the shikigami. The wolf-like apparitions growl and snap at him viciously, unwavering in their attacks. Without his sword, he was left with his extended claws, diving into a roll before slashing at one and causing it to disappear in a cloud of smoke.

His jaw clenches as Shuji appears through the smoke screen, a short blade in his right hand. Brandishing the blade, the onmyoji attempts a slash downward but the fox catches the blade. The sharp end bites into his palm, blood dripping down his forearm.

“Kita-san!” You call out, but he doesn’t make any sign of acknowledgement.

Stepping forward into your brother, he drives his elbow upward, stopping before Shuji’s own, then retracting his arm and instead driving it into the other’s solar plexus. The elder’s mouth widens, gasping as oxygen forces its way out of his lungs all at once.

He nearly folds, sucking in a sharp breath but Kita is relentless. Pressing his palm into Ryuji’s neck briefly, he then drags his hand down and twisted ihs claws into the material of his overshirt.

Easily, the fox subdues the other. With Shuji on the ground, further winded from being slammed into the pavement that had caused a small crater from the impact, he glares up at Kita kneeling above him. Keeping an elbow settled over his sternum, he holds up his hand teeming with tendrils of his foxfire.

“Do it, kill me now,” Ryuji wheezes under the slight pressure on his chest, “I’m a disgrace to the clan if you allow me to continue to live.’

“What a shame then, I don’t crave killing like you think we monsters do,” Kita says as he retracts his arm and stands above him ,”I think you’re deeply mistaken by my intentions, or the intentions of many other yokai that don’t feed on humans.”

“I care about (L/n)-san,” He declares, ears tinging pink at his boldness. Even he, the most blunt person on his team, wouldn’t have expected this kind of confession to come out of him, “I could never harm her, nor would I want to when she’s someone important to me.”

“That’s hard to believe,” Shuji clicks his tongue, although hesitantly accepting the hand held out to him to help him stand.

“Please believe him!” You interject (although blushing at Kita’s own confession), helping to hold your brother up as he calms his breathing, “He saved me from being eaten by the Akujo Nokaze and showed me that not all yokai are evil as Father says they are. Please believe him!”

“You know Father won’t be happy about this,” Shuji says after relenting in his hardened glare. Placing a gentle hand over your head, an action he’s never done before, you gaze up at him as his eyes look back at you with a certain sense of adoration.

“I’ll take responsibility,” You assure him firmly, “I’ll show him that yokai can coexist with us peacefully, save for the ones that we should exorcise of course.”

You help Ryuji back to the household before you immediately return to Kita waiting outside for you. He smiles warmly as you jump him with a hug around his middle. A surprising development, given you both were too shy to brush hands when walking together.

“I’m so sorry you had to go through that!”

“Not at all, I apologize as well if I went too far...”

You shake your head vigorously, “No! In fact, it’s amazing how much control you have! You could’ve broken his arm or something, but you really taught him a lesson and I’m grateful!”

“I don’t think showing my strength will convince your brother that I’m harmless...” Kita chuckles softly as you two part from your brief hug. You quickly grow conscious of your lack of distance and step away, looking down at your feet shyly.

He clears his throat to catch your attention, looking you straight in the eyes this time, with those gorgeous coral irises, “If I may ask... did you mean what you said earlier? That you like me?”

Your face flushes at the memory. It was the spur of the moment, but you’d blurted it out in an effort to make your brother stand down.

“If I said I meant it...”

“Mm I suppose the feeling is mutual then,” he whispers under his breath, but loud and clear to your burning ears as he reaches over to brush his fingertips over your cheek like before. There was something predatory about his gaze, his ears still perked above his head and his tail wagging in contentment, it felt like he could eat you whole right then and there. Eyes gleaming down at you, you felt like a rabbit caught underneath the paw of a fox.

“Wha... you don’t mean...!”

“Or should I keep this one a secret too?” He teases, although his voice is low and almost daring you run away or defy him.

You shake your head vigorously as he chuckles. Letting his hand fall, his fingers tangle with yours, watching greedily at the bashful way you stare down at your linked hands before gazing up at him in confusion.

“Have time? Let’s go on a stroll then, shall we?”

How sly of you Kita Shinsuke, you think as you smile and let him whisk you away.

#haikyuu x reader #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenarios #haikyu x reader #kita shinsuke x reader #kita x reader #kita imagines #kita shinsuke scenario #haikyuu x you #kita x you #kita x y/n #kita shinsuke x you

57 notes · View notes

ja-khajay · 4 years ago

Text

2020-2021 Animation Watch(ed)list

I haven’t posted about animation in a while that I remember, and I know a lot of my followers are into it as much as me so I decided to make a list of the animated movies and series I watched on the past year or so, coupled with my short, spoilerless take on them. Enjoy!

Organized by

Things I saw for the first time

Things I rewatched

Under a cut for the sake of your dashboards! PS: I have not added any images yet. If you are interested in knowing more about the visuals of these movies, I might make an old fashion ask-prompted imageset list.

Part One: Things I saw for the first time

The Bear’s Famous Invasion of Sicily

Movie, 2019, Italian/French

9/10, a delightful little movie with amazing visuals. It feels like an animated picture book.

One of those “plot is in the title” media! I had never heard of this before but was heavily recommended it by my family members, who all loved it! It’s a sweet story, nothing groundbreaking but the unique colorful visual style alone makes it worth it.

The Castle of Cagliostro

Movie, 1979, Japanese

10/10. Reminded me of all the books i loved reading as a child

I assume its because it’s so old and the art style and themes are so different that it gets little to no love compared to other Ghibli movies, which is a shame! It’s fun with an endearing cast and as always, great animation and music

Mushishi

Series, 2006, Japanese

10/10 three episodes in I knew it was going to be my favorite series ever

One of the few things I’ve seen I’ll describe as life-changing. It’s absolutely lovely but never toots its own horn about it. Humble, calming, emotional and surprisingly mature. It’s pretty impossible to binge due to how intense the experience is. I just want to walk in the forest now...

FMA: Brotherhood

Series, 2009, Japanese

6/10 Dissapointing adaptation of a classic story

I read the manga for this when I was in middle school and remembered loving it. The animated version does an ok job of presenting the characters and worldbuilding and has some nice action scenes but overall looks really damn cheap and just. Not very good. Seeing I already knew most of the plot I did not have the element of discovery that made me marvel so much reading the original. It’s still a nice series but I really recommend reading it instead.

Code Lyoko (s1+2)

Series, 2003, french

3/10. 1.5 being for the opening song alone

This show sucks ass if I hadn’t been watching this with my bestie I would have dropped it two episodes in. The art style is ugly the stories are always the same and the first season has a (later removed thank fucking god) LITERAL “erase any consequences” button as a plot device in every episode. If you watch it for one thing let it be the nostalgia factor of early 00s Vidya Game Plot

The Legend of Hei

Movie, 2019, Chinese

7/10. Impressive visuals and a poor story

I finally watched this, peer pressured by the load of gifsets on my dashboard! It’s a sweet movie with really impressive animation, sometimes a bit too flashy for my taste (the action sequences go so ham they become not very readable...) but the story was just ok? The setting is barely explained and you are instead bombarded with vague epicspeech about powers and stuff that made me fondly remember Kingdom Hearts lol but that asides it’s a really good time! I need to watch more Chinese movies the few I know are just delightfully off the shits in how they approach action and I love that

Hunter x Hunter

Series, 1999, Japanese

9/10. Superior to the recent one!

I first got introduced to the series via the 2011 one. Comparatively, the 99 series focuses way less on action and way more on the characters, which I love because that fits my personal preferences! Despite mediocre filler episodes and some weird slight pointless plot changes, what it changes from the original manga doesn’t have much of an impact on the characters. The animation quality isn’t always consistent including a huge art style change for an arc (???) but it’s overall pretty nice. The series really shines in the last arc it adapts.

Oban Star-racers

Series, 2006, Japanese/french

9/10 a lovely surprise

This series is completly obscure despite having been created by people famous for their other series (Cowboy Bebop, Code Lyoko that i can name) and it’s a crime! It’s a kids show but without being stupid about it who tells the story of an inter-planetary race. If you liked that one scene in the star wars prequels you know what I mean. It’s got surprisingly nice animation for a TV series, and some truly great character design. The art style is a bit unique in a not for everyone sense, but I didn’t mind it much. It’s also THE most offensively 2000s series i’ve seen in terms of visuals. y2k kids assemble

The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon

Movie, 1963, japanese

8/10. Classic fairytale format with incredible visuals

Watched this for the art style because I know it inspired Samurai Jack, and it delievered! I dont’ have much to say about this one, it’s a very simply film but it’s sweet. For my pirates out there if you want to find it in good quality with english subtitles it’s VERY hard to find. If you just want to see the looks of it, it’s on Youtube with portugese subs.

We now enter the Gobelins Shorts Zone....!

My Friend Who Glows In The Dark

10/10 makes me cry each time

Pure delight...great animation writing everything. A little short about death and friendship but not in the way you imagine!

Colza

9/10

Visual treat...homely and nice :) not far from a 10 but a 9 because nothing about it is that groundbreaking

Sundown

9/10

If you’ve ever been ten minutes from failing a group project because of a single dude you will REALLY enjoy this. Loved the colors and personality

T’as vendu mes rollers?

10/10

It’s SUCH a sweet little short I loved that one so much

Dix-huit kilomètres trois

10/10

Surprisingly well written dialog. Visuals are great but the humanity of the characters carries this to another level

Un diable dans la poche

9/10

Amazing visuals and the most tense/creepy of Gobelin shorts i’ve ever seen. Chilling

La bestia

8/10

I had some issues with the pacing. Interesting story and visuals choices but I was not fond of the art style

Goodbye Robin

5/10

Confusing but predictable. Both at once??? Yes!

Le retour des vagues

6/10

Cool animation stuff but felt pretty pointless

***

Part Two: Things I rewatched

Ruben Brandt: Collector

Movie, 2018, Hungarian

10/10. Underrated as hell

Watched this fully blind for the first time in an animated festival and rewatched it with friends. It’s a crime I never see anyone talking about it given the amount of whining I see about the lack of both adult animation and 2D movies? This film is a unique love letter to art in the form of a weird mix of charming crime story and psychological horror with amazing visuals. I recommend watching it blind and also buying it to show appreciation for how nice it is!!! WATCH THIS MOVIE...

Mononoke

Series, 2007, Japanese

10/10 Visual/storytelling masterpiece in the weird shit departement

If you can stomach intense stuff watch this. The visuals are incredibly unique and beautiful and under the jewel tones and art direction high takes it’s a really cool horror series. My only obstacle to enjoying it the first time I saw it was how dense it is - simply put, it’s so...culturally Japanese it’s not very accessible to me who doesn’t know anything about the culture? Watching it for the second time helped understanding the stories more!

Corto Maltese in Siberia

Movie, 2002, french

9/10 but really close to ten. A great adaptation!

I’m a huge fan of the original comic so I entered this a biiiittttt suspicious it would suck but it was a really pleasant surprise! It has all the wonder and charm of the original and the animation was surprisingly good for the little budget. If you’re not familiar with the series, it’s a sort of geopolitical action/adventure movie but with it’s own really poetic vibe to it. It’s almost impossible to find online but happens to be fully on YouTube so go ham I guess?

Redline

Movie, 2009, Japanese

10/10 cinema was invented for this, actually

Every review of this movie i’ve seen gives it five stars and starts by talking about how immensly stupid it is. I’m no different. It’s a masterpiece of escalating energy with the depth of a puddle and it fucking rules. It’s free on YouTube too so there really is no excuse to not watch it. Watched it for the first time on a huge cinema screen and despite this my second rewatch on my small laptop was as/even more enjoyable. If you watch this stoned with friends you might travel to another dimension

Spirited Away

Movie, 2001, Japan

10/10 deserves the love it gets

I watched this a single time as a kid and had little memory of it! I mean it’s Ghibli you know it’s going to be good as hell but this one rly shines in how colorful and detailed it is and in it’s world! It made me remember I had a huge crush on the dragonboy as a kid. I’m gay now

Kung-fu Panda (1&2)

Movie, Usa

10/10. KFP fucking rules

Honestly my favorite franchise of the whole disney/dreamworks/pixar hydra. It’s fun as hell, doesn’t skip a single beat and has amazing animation and character designs. If something is a good time I will not care if it’s deep or not and boy I fucking love these movies

Sinbad, Legend of the Seven Seas

Movie, 2003, Usa

5/10 Some great some really bad and overall generic

I tend to hate american cinema and this includes that era of animation I have no nostalgia for. Sinbad is in a weird place because I love adventure stories and the visuals of the movie absolutely deliver but it’s very predictable and TANKED by the addition of the female character, pushed in your face as “look we have woman!!!” despite her writing being misogynistic as hell lol. The evil goddess rules tho. This movie would have been a solid 9 if instead of the girl the two dudes had kissed

#j #animation #if you want links to these ill provide but not for the indie ones that arent free #i have no remorse p*rating disney or a movie thats over 50 but if its recent and underrated just legally get it!!!

10 notes · View notes

aion-rsa · 3 years ago

Text

How F9 Brings Back Justice for Han and Asian Inclusion

https://ift.tt/3hakkfH

This article contains F9 spoilers.

One thing is for certain about the Fast and Furious film franchise—it has been a wild ride. Other aspects of the Fast Saga are less certain. Although the F9 title definitively labels the latest film as the ninth installment, it’s actually the 10th film. Or the 11th. You could even say the 12th if you include the short film. It depends how you want to count it. For a franchise laden with car chase clichés, the Fast Saga makes a lot of long, winding detours.

Consider how these movies treat death. Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) set the precedent by ‘dying’ back in Fast & Furious (aka Fast & Furious 4) only to return in Fast & Furious 6, working for the other side. Coincidentally, at the end of that film, there was a major reveal about Han (Sung Kang). The character was introduced in the third film in the series, The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift, but dies about three quarters of the way through the film. Yet he then reappears in the next three Fast and Furious movies, which were set before Tokyo Drift. The circumstances of his death were clarified in Fast & Furious 6. Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw killed Han. Now those events have been clarified even more in F9, thanks to returning director Justin Lin. As it turns out, Han didn’t die at all.

F9 is the fifth Fast and Furious film directed by Lin, and by design, Han Jue’s story arc is the central thread for all five Lin installments. Tokyo Drift was Lin’s first Fast film, as well as the franchise’s sharpest turn. It was almost an entirely new cast in a new setting. Lin stayed on to direct the following three installments. To keep Han’s story going, he shifted gears and jumped back in time. Just like with Star Wars, Fast & Furious through Fast & Furious 6 comprised a prequel trilogy, so the order in which the Fast Saga films were released doesn’t match the story’s timeline. The second film, 2 Fast 2 Furious, is followed chronologically by the fourth, Fast & Furious. The next two are in order: Fast Five followed by Fast & Furious 6. Then comes the third release, Tokyo Drift where Han dies. Fast & Furious 6 and Tokyo Drift take place more or less at the same time. Even the beginning of Furious 7 overlaps with the final events of Tokyo Drift.

After stepping away from the franchise for its seventh and eight films, Lin is back in the driver’s seat in F9, which is why Han is also back. However, Han has always been riding with Lin, even predating his involvement in Fast and Furious lore…

High School Han

In 2002, Lin directed the critically-acclaimed Better Luck Tomorrow. That film also starred Sung Kang in the role of Han. It was a story about four overachieving Asian teenagers who start selling cheat sheets and subsequently fall into the gangster lifestyle of drugs and crime. It was loosely based on the murder of Stuart Tay. Tay was an Asian teenager who was killed by his fellow high schoolers when they thought he would betray a computer heist they were planning. The murderers were college-bound with Ivy League potential, and the story was branded as “the honor roll murder” by the Orange County register. In Lin’s interpretation, Han is one of the murderers.

Widely hailed as a benchmark film for Asian-American representation, Better Luck Tomorrow won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance where it was rigorously celebrated by Roger Ebert, which led to MTV acquiring it.

When Lin took on Tokyo Drift, he wanted to add a cool Asian character into the mix. He tapped Kang to reprise the role of Han, albeit an incarnation of Han that was tailored to the franchise. The Better Luck Tomorrow Han is young and brash. Han is a teenager, although Kang was 30 he first played him. In Tokyo Drift, Han is older and wiser, a mentor to the film’s protagonist Sean (Lucas Black). Nevertheless, there are connections that make the character whole. The Better Luck Tomorrow Han is a chain smoker. In Fast Five, Han’s girlfriend Gisele (Gal Gadot in her first feature film). She attributes Han’s constant need to occupy his hand to being a former smoker. Tokyo Drift was only four years after Better Luck Tomorrow but the character of Han aged considerably.

Why Han Matters

The Fast Saga currently ranks as the seventh highest grossing film franchise in the world. And unlike the other top-earners, these movies were arguably the most diverse and inclusive from the onset. While the MCU has Black Panther and the upcoming Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and Star Wars introduced Finn (John Boyega) in its third trilogy, those casts remain predominantly white. In fact, the top 25 top grossing global franchises are all led by white casts. Fast and Furious is the exception. This makes Han the most prominent Asian character in a Hollywood franchise in the world.

What’s more, Han is cool. Until very recently, most Asian Hollywood roles were stereotypical or tokens. Han a richly developed character, even if Better Luck Tomorrow is disregarded. In Tokyo Drift, he’s a wealthy elite street racer with his own garage packed with awesome cars, attached to a club where he’s surrounded by gorgeous women. That was an unprecedented role for how Asian characters were presented in mainstream Hollywood entertainment in the 2000s.

Han’s relationship with Giselle is also extraordinary. While there is a long cinematic history of white men hooking up with Asian women, it was extremely rare for an Asian man to kiss white woman in Hollywood cinema. Han and Giselle become an item in 2009 with Fast & Furious. The following year, it was a huge deal for Jackie Chan’s interracial kiss with Amber Valletta in The Spy Next Door.

Jackie claimed it was his first onscreen kiss and he was already well past a hundred films to his credit at that time, although most of them were China-made. Han got to snog Wonder Woman onscreen before anyone else, including Chris Pine, and if that’s not cool, what is?

Lin carried another actor over from Better Luck Tomorrow. Jason Tobin played Virgil Hu, Han’s cousin and another one of the murderous teens. Virgil is the biggest punk of the gang. In Tokyo Drift, Tobin plays Earl Hu, one of Han’s friends and a master mechanic. Is the Hu surname a coincidence? Not likely for Lin. Tobin also appears as Young Jun in the Bruce Lee inspired TV series Warrior, where Lin is an executive producer alongside Lee’s daughter Shannon. Again Tobin plays a punk gangster. Tobin reprises Earl in F9.

Beyond Hollywood inclusion and representation where Han really matters is global box office. Hollywood was another COVID casualty. During the pandemic, the United States was dethroned as the biggest box office in the world. As of right now, China claims that title. Perhaps this is one reason F9 premiered there first, as well as in other Asian regions along with the Middle East.

Movies

Fast and Furious Timeline Explained (Including F9)

By David Crow

Movies

Hollywood Execs Are Crediting Fast and Furious with Growing Embrace of Diversity

By David Crow

It’s been out for over a month and has already grossed $203 million in China alone, plus an additional $8.8 million in the other markets at the time of the U.S. premiere. Thanks to this, F9 is already the fourth highest earner in the world in 2021. It is right behind Godzilla v Kong, but both of them are trailing behind two Chinese blockbusters that most American are completely unaware of yet, Detective Chinatown 3 and Hi, Mom.

The Fast Saga’s rise has a lot to do with its international appeal, culminating with winning over Chinese audiences. It was under Lin’s steady hand that the franchise became a global player. Adding Han brought Asian representation to an already diverse cast. Tokyo Drift passed an international milestone where the film made more outside of the U.S. in the foreign markets—$33.9 million more. This disparity widened with each successive movie, so by the time Fast & Furious 6 rolled around, the international earnings accounts for nearly 70 percent of the total box office, and the door was open to that lucrative Chinese market.

Furious 7 was the first of the franchise to be shown in China and blew up there with a record-setting $390 million take, earning the title as the biggest non-Chinese film in the country at the time. That helped to elevate the worldwide box office past $1.5 billion, with over 76 percent of it coming from international earnings. The Fate of the Furious did even better, breaking its own record as China’s top-earning foreign film with $392 million, and the international box office accounted for 81 percent of the worldwide take.

Lin is smart to bring Han back. And if he really wants to appeal to that Chinese market, he’ll boost Virgil Hu’s role in F10. Han is Korean. Hu is Chinese. Tobin has appeared in Chinese films previously, including Jackie Chan’s Rob-B-Hood so the Chinese audience is familiar with him.

Justice for Han

At the end of the previous installment, The Fate of the Furious, Shaw is awkwardly accepted into Dom’s cookout. Fans of Han Jue and the franchise were outraged. How does Han’s murderer become part of the club? This triggered the Twitter movement #justiceforhan. Now that we know Shaw didn’t murder Han, it’s up to Lin to decide what happens in F10, which he is slated to direct next (it still doesn’t resolve Shaw’s acceptance at the barbecue because Dom’s gang still believed Han was dead then).

Perhaps it’s all some grand scheme by Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell). With the Fast Saga, so much is uncertain, even Han’s name.

For F10, a confrontation between Han and Shaw seems inevitable, especially with F9’s post-credits cameo showing Shaw. Perhaps the next film will finally give enough closure for Shaw to earn his seat at the table, or for Han to banish him from it.

At the end of F9, when the car drives up to fill the empty seat at the barbecue table, it’s uncertain who the driver is. Maybe it’s Jakob (John Cena), Dom’s newly introduced brother in F9. Maybe it’s Shaw coming back for seconds, or maybe Brian O’Conner (although reviving the late Paul Walker digitally again would be tacky now). Maybe it’s even Giselle (sure, Giselle ‘died’ in Fast & Furious 6 but if Gadot came back, just think of how many tickets they’d sell). Fast and Furious is full to twisty turns, like any good car chase. But with Lin in the driver’s seat, Han is sure to get the justice he deserves.

F9: The Fast Saga opened only in theaters on Friday, June 25.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The post How F9 Brings Back Justice for Han and Asian Inclusion appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3jejd1g

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

2 notes · View notes

majestical · 5 years ago

Note

can you go into any detail about why never have i ever isn't good? i really wanted to watch it, but if it's trash i don't wanna bother. thank you!!

alright I sat on this for a few hours so I could finish the rest of the show and write this in the morning and now it is morning. also there are going to be quite a few spoilers in here so just...do what you will with that knowledge i guess. also, if you still want to watch the show, I’m not gonna stop you. I binged the entire season yesterday and I have final exams next week. warning: this is super long.

ngl I was planning on just deleting the post you’re referring to, because at that point I had only watched half the season but I already saw a lot of things I didn't like: an Indian character who seemed a little ashamed of her heritage, too many pr*yanka ch*pra references, some strange and unnecessary ableism (i mean, all ableism is unnecessary but this particularly so), bad stereotypical Indian accents, the main character thirsting over white/white passing boys (this is Mindy's show, can you expect anything different?), and a disgusting amount of fatphobia (there is one fat character who is Devi’s age and his only personality traits are eating and making a fool of himself).

the show also conflates indian and hindu a few too many times, even though there is a self-aware quip about it. and there’s a joke thrown in about m*di that *i guess* is supposed to show that this family at the least knows who the prime minister of india is? but with india’s current political situation and the knowledge of the atrocities committed by m*di I really did not like that a reference to him was thrown in there. I suppose it is an example of how the desi diaspora (particularly upper-caste, upper middle class Indians) are quite disconnected from the homeland, but like...does Mindy not watch the news? m*di literally committed genocide.

there’s also a lot of antisemitism. Devi’s academic rival, Ben, is introduced like a walking Jewish stereotype: just check out this post because op says it better than I could. there’s also a joke where Devi says out loud that she wishes Ben was killed by N*zis. I honestly don’t even know how that made it into the show and none of the context surrounding the joke is funny.

okay on to my personal qualms with the show. I wasn’t a fan of either of the love interests. neither of them really respected Devi as much as I would have liked, and personally, I found it tiring to see women/girls of color chase after men/boys who can’t reciprocate in the same way. I didn’t love how paxton (the cool jock love interest) kept leading Devi on and would then act aloof and I honestly would have preferred if Devi and ben hadn’t kissed, because I just prefer their frenemy dynamic over some potential romantic one. i also just could not relate to Devi at all...I was just too repressed in high school to relate to anything Devi does. she’s also just super unlikeable in the first eight episodes, but she kind of grew on me in the last two. I saw a comparison made between Devi coping with her grief with hypersexuality and the coping mechanisms used by the main character on Fleabag, which kind of made sense to me, even though they are pretty different shows otherwise. and she does get some comeuppance for her actions towards the end. even then, devi never really confronts her trauma directly, especially her paralysis, and her actions are excused too many times for comfort.

a lot of the storyline depended on teen romcom cliches, and were sort of excused because the main characters are poc. i wish this trend didn’t happen so often, especially when it comes to mainstream stories of young women and girls of color. i was also surprised that this show doesn’t really give much screentime to other indian kids that Devi might interact with. that would have been a much more three-dimensional approach to a show like this, but i also think this had to be sacrificed to keep up with the teen romcom aspect of the show. i was also not a fan of the will-schuester-wannabe history teacher.

BUT (if you have been reading this much I sincerely applaud you) there were a few things I did like about the show. I loved Devi’s friends and honestly if I had her friends in tenth grade I would never ditch them for some boy. when I was a high school sophomore, I was closeted, had a musical theatre obsession, and ate dosas for dinner so I felt like a mix of all three of the girls. in fact, I found eleanor’s and fabiola’s storyline to be a lot more compelling that Devi’s at times. i even really enjoyed ben’s arc (and loved the andy samberg narration in his episode, especially because he pronounced Devi’s name with the soft “dh” sound...absolutely wonderful!). i thought fabiola’s coming-out scene was sweet (even though it was very textbook) and i thought eleanor being dramatic was very funny.

in my opinion, the last two episodes were the best. we really got to dig deeper into Devi’s relationship with her mother and it was eerily reminiscent of my own. she gets told that she has to move to india because family is there, so she naturally fights with her mom and storms off. that literally happened to me (minus the running away part...I actually did end up moving to India in the middle of high school), and other moments like those just hit close to home and made me want to finish the show. i personally didn’t relate to the whole “am I indian or not Indian enough” struggle until I started living in india, but my indian friends who did go to high school in america were all too sympathetic to this struggle.

so overall, there are some bad things and some good things about this show. if you relate to the premise of the show at all, you may like it more than I did, but if you were raised in india (which is the demographic that most of the criticism is coming from) or generally enjoy good writing, you probably won’t like this as much. i do hope that this show helps pave the way for some representation that brings more nuance to indian-american identity, and different types of indian-american identities (working-class, immigrants who aren’t upper-caste, people who have been living in the states for several generations, LGBT people, indian muslims/christians/sikhs/etc) without unnecessarily bringing down other minorities. and once again, i am really happy that a girl named maitreyi ramakrishnan is getting famous and NOT anglicizing her name.

i hope this response was good and if you do decide to watch, let me know how you like it!

#anonymous #asks #never have i ever #jfc this became really long i hope someone is jobless enough to read it #i spent an embarrassing amount of time on this essay #medhini loves to ramble #I also think I missed a couple of things so don't hate me

42 notes · View notes

socialyawkdude · 5 years ago

Text

Top 10 animes for first time viewers

Hello, my socially awkward friends,

I’m back after a much-needed vacation to bring you the content, which you crave. In recent weeks, I’ve been approached by friends and colleagues, about what amines they should watch. To say that it was a loaded question is an understatement. With the world of anime and manga being so vast, it's hard to know where to start.

After thinking it over, I’ve decided to follow suit of my supernatural top 10 and do a top 10 for anime for beginners.

Today's post will cover amines for first-time viewers. Let me start by saying that, This Is my Opinion! Please do not jump my bones because of the line-up. Now with that being said, let get this party started.

(10) Sailor Moon/Sailor Moon Crystal

Written by Nanoko Takeuchi

Genre/subgenre: Magical girl, action, romance, shoujo, superhero

Manga original run: (December 28, 1991, to February 3, 1997)

Anime Run: Sailor Moon (1992-1993) 46 episodes

Sailor Moon R (1993- 1994) 43 episodes

Sailor Moon S (1994- 1995) 38 episodes

Sailor Moon Super S (1995- 1996) 39 episode

Sailor Moon Sailor Star (1996- 1997) 34 episodes

The series follows the adventures of the protagonist Usagi Tsukino, a middle school student who is given the power to become the titular Sailor Soldier. Joined by other Sailor Soldiers, they defend Earth against an assortment of evil villains.

Let us start with a classic, remade for the modern-day. For quite a few of my generation, Sailor Moon was our introduction to the world of anime. I can remember watching sailor moon, in the early morning before the school bus came. Sailor Moon was the beginning of my love affair with anime.

Now here is what I got to say on sailor moon. It is a bit wonky, timeline-wise. Sailor Moon's overall timeline can be a bit hard to follow. That is if you are going in-depth with it. As long as you stay away from the headache inducing timeline, you’ll be ok.

(9)Bleach

Written by Tite Kubo

Genre/subgenre: Action, Adventure, Shonen, Supernatural, Comedy

Original manga run: August 7, 2001 - August 22, 2016

Original anime run: October 5, 2004 - March 27, 2012

366 episodes

What can I say about Bleach? It is one of my favorite anime’s of all time. It's not perfect but what is? You have a diverse cast of characters, a good story and plenty of action. In my opinion, that makes a great anime for beginners. For me, Bleach was my return to anime, after years of not watching. I think that I've watched this anime from beginning to end, one too many times.

I'm talking watching the U.S. airing up to the point that I had the watch in Japanese. I finished the anime a full 2 years before the finale aired in the U.S. I would highly recommend this anime to any beginners.

(8) Restaurant to another World

Written by Junpei Inuzuku

Genre/subgenre= Fantasy, Isekai

Manga Original Run: November 18, 2016, to June 25, 2019

Anime original Run: July 3, 2017, to September 18, 2017

12 episodes

I was recommended this anime by a friend of a friend. I am going, to be honest; I didn't know what I was getting into. This would be my first experience with isekai anime. Looking back on this anime, it is quite an anime. Not much action, but at a great story. I would not recommend watching after a 420 session, you will get the munchies.

(7) Sword Art Online

Written by Reki Kawahara

Genre/Subgenre= Isekai, Fantasy, Action, Adventure

Light Novel Original Run: April 10, 2009, to present

Anime original run:

Sword Art Online = July 8, 2012, to December 23, 2012

Sword Art Online II= July 5, 2014, to December 30, 2014

Sword Art Online Alicization = October 6, 2018, to present

And here we go again with another isekai. The genre in itself is pretty much the same across animes. Someone dies and is sent to another world, but Sword Art Online is different. Instead of dying and going to another world; our main character is trapped in a virtual world and if he dies there, he dies in the real world.

In general, I've been pretty hard on SAO because of its a little too real world for me. It deals with some very real-world issues. To give some examples: Death, rape, incest, and other issues. To top it all off, with it being 2019; we are only months away from when the anime begins. (Where is my damn nervegear?)

If you can get past all of that it's a decent anime. The first arc is by far the best. The second arc is OK and the third I haven't finished yet. Sword Art Online is a good anime for beginners, in my opinion. Plus, Sword Art Online always puts out a beyond great soundtrack.

(6) The Saga of Tanya the Evil

Written by Carlo Zen

Genre/subgenre: Isekai, fantasy

Manga Original run: April 26, 2016, to present

Anime original run: January 6, 2017, to March 31, 2017

12 Episodes

Here we are with the last isekai on our list. I understand that there have been quite a few listed, but besides the honorable mentions, there are no more. The Saga of Tanya the Evil is the perfect end of the isekai on this list.

Following the usual isekai tropes, Tanya the evil can best be described as a fantasy, historical alternative reality anime; taking place in a world similar to World War 1. As of this post, I'm only eight episodes in and quite enjoying it. I highly recommend checking it out.

(5) Fairy Tail

Written By Hiro Mashima

Genre/Subgenre: Shonen, Action, Adventure, Fantasy

Manga Original run: August 2, 2006, to July 26, 2017

Anime original Run: October 12, 2009, to Present

328 + episodes

It was around 7 years ago that a friend recommended fairy tail, to me. At the time, it wasn't my cup of tea. I was following Bleach, at the time, and hadn't leaped into the world of anime. Fast forward several years and it is still not my cup of tea. Now here is the thing, even though I may not be into fairy tail, ii know a good anime when I see it Given that fairy tail is entering its last full season; it a great choice for beginners and old alike. This is why I’m giving it the number 5 spot.

(4) Attack on Titan

Written by Hajime isayama

Genre/Subgenre: Dark fantasy, post-apocalyptic

Original manga run: September 9, 2009, to present

Original anime run: April 7, 2015, to present

Attack on Titan is one of those manga/animes that is a hit from day one. With a post-apocalyptic feel straight out of someone's worse nightmare. This isn't the zombie apocalypse folks; this is something far worse. The following that Attack on Titan has garnered is on par with American shows like The Walking Dead.

Along with the manga and anime, Attack on titan has spawned a live-action movie in 2015. In my opinion, the movie was just as gory and the anime, but a little toned down. If your a fan of post-apocalyptic shows like The Walking Dead, this is one that you have to check out.

A little piece of advice, do not watch the movie until you have seen the first season.

(3) Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid

Written by Coolkyoushinja

Genre/Subgenre: fantasy

Manga original run: May 25, 2013 to present

Anime original run: January 11, 2017, to April 6, 2017

13 episodes plus OVA

If there was ever an anime that should be the official anime of this blog, this is it. Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid has been one of my favorite animes that I've seen in recent years. This is not the usual action-pack thriller, that you'll usually see from animes that make there way west. It the cute and funny story of Miss Kobayashi and how she ended up with a dragon maid and the adventures that follow. I would recommend this to anyone, anime watcher or not.

(2) Fullmetal Alchemist/ Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood.

Written by Hiroma Arakawa

Genre/Subgenre: Adventure, dark fantasy, science fiction, shonen

manga original run: July 12, 2001, to June 12, 2019

Anime original run:

( Fullmetal Alchemist) October 4, 2003, to October 2, 2004

51 episodes plus the movie Conqueror of Shamballa (2005)

( Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood) April 5, 2009, to July 4, 2010

64 episodes

Here we are at the number 2 spot. This was a toss-up for number one, but I decided against it. I would suggest watching Brotherhood because it follows the manga beginning to end. Fullmetal Alchemist ends at episode 51 and it is up the movie, Conqueror of Shamballa to bring an end to the story. I saw Conqueror of Shamballa and overall the movie was great. Well deserving of the praise it got from film festivals around the world. Do yourself a favor and check out this anime.

(1) Dragon Ball /Z/GT/Super/Heroes

Written by Akira Toriyama

Genre/Subgenre: Action, Adventure, martial arts, shonen

Manga Original run:

Dragonball= December 3, 1984, to June 5, 1995

Dragonball Super= June 20,2025 to present

Anime original run:

Dragonball(1986 to 1989)

Dragonball Z( 1989 to 1996)

Dragonball GT( 1996 to 1997)

Dragonball Super( 2015 to 2018)

Super Dragonball Heroes(2018 to present)

And here we are at the number one spot. Come on, everyone should have seen this coming. Anime lovers and non-anime lovers have heard of the Dragonball series. While I was fighting for Fullmetal Alchemist to be in the number one spot; it wasn't going to happen. The Dragonball series is perfect for new anime viewers fro many reasons. One of the main reasons is if you get confused, there is plenty out there to help you understand what’s going on. The Dragonball series has been around in manga form since 1984 and anime form since 1986. There is plenty out there to help newbies and confused them, at the same time. Just don't watch the shitty American made live-action movie.

Honorable mentions: Konosuba, Ghost in A Shell, Food Wars and Naruto

Like always my friends, don't forget to like/share/reblog and follow. To get more of an idea of what's coming, you can follow me over on twitter at @socialyawkdude.

110 notes · View notes

vmheadquarters · 5 years ago

Link

By Alexis Soloski

When we last saw Veronica Mars, the greatest private investigator Southern California has ever birthed and tanned — shut it, Philip Marlowe — she had ducked a corporate law job and returned to Neptune, her beachside hometown, resolved to defend the weak, defy the powerful, wisecrack with the best of them. Happily ever after, on her terms.

But why be happy when you can be hard-boiled? As Veronica’s inventor Rob Thomas said, “Happy and noir don’t go well together.”

“Veronica Mars,” a snappy, sophisticated crime drama about a high school P.I., debuted in 2004 and ran for three critically celebrated but lightly watched seasons, first on UPN and then on CW, returning in 2014 for a fan-funded movie.

That seemed to be the end of it. Its star, Kristen Bell, continued a successful film and TV career. Thomas went on to create and run “iZOMBIE.” But you know the noir trope where a character thinks she has outrun her past and then the past comes on at a sprint? It applies.

In a genre-appropriate twist, the show is back, revamped for the streaming age. An eight-episode fourth season will drop on July 26 at Hulu, where the first three seasons are already available.

Reboots and revivals are as thick on the ground as Neptune beachgoers. A long-gone show that returns after so many years with its original cast, led by Bell’s Veronica, and its distinguishing style (think Dashiell Hammett after a few blender drinks) mostly intact? That’s rarer, and not without its dangers.

Continuing a beloved series after so many years risks tarnishing its legacy. (If we’re being honest, the uneven third season was risk enough.) Besides, how do you make a show about a child prodigy when that child prodigy can apply for a fixed-rate mortgage?

The season’s big mystery, according to Thomas: Is a 30-something Veronica Mars “an interesting enough character on her own to continue to attract fans?”

A few weeks ago, I met Bell on a gloomy June afternoon in her trailer on the Universal lot, an overheated box befrilled in demoralizing beige. She was in the middle of a shoot for her other show, “The Good Place,” and had two caffeinated drinks going, which partly explained the pep. (The messianic zeal she feels for Veronica explained the rest.) In her costume, a lilac sweater over an embroidered blouse and green chinos, she looked about as noir as an Easter basket.

And yet “Veronica Mars,” she said, is the show that launched her, that shaped her, that taught her comedy and responsibility and a commitment to social justice. She will quit it, she said, when everyone in Neptune is dead.

“That’s when I’ll do it,” she said, pushing her cane-sugar soprano into a lower register. “That’s when I will let her go: When the last body is buried.”

“Veronica Mars,” which The Times described, on a list of the 20 best TV dramas since “The Sopranos,” as “a peerless blend of neo-noir mystery and teenage romantic drama,” was always a show ahead of its time. Its heroine, 17 when the show began, looked like a Barbie and scrapped like a G.I. Joe. She was as quick with a comeback as with the Taser she called Mr. Sparky, but still vulnerable to problems personal and systemic.

More politically minded than your average teen soap, “Veronica Mars” had love triangles and cliffhangers and, from its first episode, a sustained interest in wealth inequality. In its depiction of gendered violence, it anticipated much of the #MeToo conversation.

“It continually kept questions about gender inequality in view,” said Susan Berridge, a lecturer in media at the University of Stirling who has written about the series. “There were so many story lines involving sexual violence and other forms of gendered abuse that it became impossible to see these issues as one-off aberrations.”

If you don’t identify as a Marshmallow, the name ride-or-die “Veronica Mars” fans adopted, here’s the back story: A onetime popular girl, Veronica became an outcast when her best friend Lilly was murdered and Veronica’s father, Keith (Enrico Colantoni), then Neptune’s sheriff, mistakenly accused the town’s most powerful man. Keith lost his job and his home. Veronica’s mother deserted the family. Her former friends ostracized her. During a party, she was drugged and raped by persons unknown. At some point she gave herself a terrible haircut.

“It was an adult show about a teenage girl,” Mr. Colantoni said, speaking by telephone. “This wasn’t ‘Saved by the Bell.’”

During the first two seasons, Veronica would solve episodic mysteries while also seeking justice for Lilly and for herself. The third season, which brought Veronica to college, dispensed with the case-of-the-week in favor of longer arcs. It also assigned Veronica a nice-guy boyfriend, Stosh “Piz” Piznarski (Chris Lowell), though most fans shipped her and the poor-little-rich-boy Logan Echolls (Jason Dohring).

Facing cancellation, Thomas tried to interest networks in a revival that saw Veronica working for the F.B.I. No one bought it. Presumed dead, “Veronica Mars” was briefly resurrected when Thomas decided to try crowdfunding a movie. He raised $2 million in less than five hours, drawing the highest number of donors for any film or video project in Kickstarter history.

“Veronica Mars” the movie may not have been a masterpiece — The Times called it “a likable, unmemorable, feature-length footnote” — but it melted the gooey hearts of most Marshmallows. Thomas and Bell could have let their gumshoe-made-good ride into the sunset in her secondhand car, placating the fans with the occasional tie-in novels Thomas co-writes. (“‘Co-writer’ is being generous to me,” he clarified.)

But last year, Thomas called Bell and asked her if she would consider playing Veronica again. It was a big ask: Bell had already committed to a final season of “The Good Place” and a “Frozen” sequel. Also, noir involves night shoots and Bell has two young daughters, which means a lot of missed bedtime.

Weighing the commitment, Bell recalled asking herself, “Do I want a world where my daughters know she exists? Or do I think there’s enough out there for them to look to?”

“I didn’t,” she said. “And I thought, yeah, I have to do it.”

And — “this is going to sound so corny,” Bell added — she still needs “Veronica Mars” in her life, even after all this time and all her success. The show gives her a place to put both her anger at a world that is still unequal and unjust, and her faith that individuals and communities can make it better.

“Just knowing Veronica exists has allowed me to pull strength in certain situations,” she said.

This installment picks up five years after the film ended, with Veronica sleuthing alongside her dad at Mars Investigations and living, reward check to reward check, in the oceanside apartment she sometimes shares with Logan, now an active-duty naval intelligence officer. There are a few B- and C-plots, but mostly Veronica works just one case involving a series of bombings threatening Neptune’s spring breakers.

Thomas and Bell, an executive producer, chose the eight-episode format partly because that’s all Bell’s “Good Place” schedule allowed, but also because they were impressed by what shows like “Fargo” and “Sherlock” were able to do in short seasons. They sold the show to Hulu, which was also able to acquire the past seasons. Craig Erwich, Hulu’s senior vice president of originals, described the revival as “an opportunity to see a beloved character grow up.”

Unlike the movie, this new season doesn’t pander — a few Marshmallows may feel scorched. The emphasis on wealth inequality and structural bias is, if anything, starker. The moral palette is grayscale, and the tone (Thomas described it on Twitteras “Hardcore So-Cal noir”) is dark, though maybe not that dark. “There are a lot of jokes,” Thomas said. “I don’t think we can go full ‘Handmaid’s Tale.’”

Though the earlier seasons of “Veronica Mars” shot in San Diego, the show relocated its exteriors to Huntington Beach, nearer to Los Angeles, where Bell lives. Certain sets, like the Mars Investigations office, have been faithfully re-created and shouldn’t upset continuity hard-liners, though Thomas is wary of checking his Twitter feed once the episodes drop.

The dialogue has stayed slangy. “What’s with the fakeloo, our mark’s no Jasper,” Keith scolds Veronica in the fourth episode. (Among this season’s writers: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. “It never got normal,” Thomas, a basketball fan, said worshipfully.) And Veronica can swear now, though not much. The sex scenes are a little more explicit, the relationships a little more complicated and the emotions real, just like they used to be. “Even when we were teenagers, we all meant it,” Dohring said.

Here’s the big change: A former child prodigy who could out detect men decades older, Veronica has become age appropriate, maybe even immature when it comes to her personal life. (If the series followed real time, Veronica would now be about 32, but these episodes edge her into her mid-30s, closer to Bell’s age.) Thomas wondered if her superpowers — her bravery, her righteous anger, her lack of interest in what others think of her — would seem as impressive on an adult woman. (Speaking as an adult woman: Yes.)

I spoke to Thomas on the telephone a few hours before I met with Bell. Before we hung up, I asked him what he thought I should ask her.

“Ask for her window of availability in 2020,” he said. “That’s what I want to know.”

So I did. Bell told me she had set aside a few months next spring to shoot a follow-up. “As long as people want to watch it, I will do it,” she said. (Hulu is “definitely open to the discussion” about making more of the show, Erwich said.)

But here is what I wanted to know. As a viewer, I’d grown up with Veronica, too. And I’d looked to her as a character who had survived trauma and had accepted how that trauma had changed her, without ever having to sacrifice her humor or her mean-street smarts or her self-confidence. “Veronica Mars was this girl that other girls and boys could look to as an option of what to do with pain, and how not to let it sink you,” Bell said.

So would she ever get that pony? Would we ever see her happy?

“I don’t think we want to,” she said, speaking as Marshmallow in chief. “We want to see her match lit. We want to keep her fight in her. When she’s truly content, the story will be over.”

#veronica mars #NYT full article #veronica mars revival #vm spoilers

21 notes · View notes

recentanimenews · 5 years ago

Text

10 Live Action Adaptations of Anime You Might Not Know About

Anime is no stranger to the formula of live-action adaptations. Filmmakers and showrunners in both Hollywood and Japan have been bringing classic and popular anime stories to life for years. Whether you love them or hate them, they’ve been around for longer than you might think, and will continue to make their way to the big and small screens.

But outside of the recent hit Detective Pikachu movie, a Ghost in the Shell adaptation that received tepid critical and fan response, and the upcoming continuation of the Rurouni Kenshin films, there are plenty of adaptations of anime that you might not know about. These include plenty of Japan-only TV series, movie franchises, and even some dramas that you can view on Crunchyroll right now! Without further ado, here's a list of live-action anime adaptations that you may be surprised actually exist!

Mob Psycho 100 (2018 Netflix series)

The wildly-popular psychic action anime has a 12-episode series on Netflix. It tells the same story of Shigeo “Mob” Kageyama, a young boy trying to live a normal life and learning to understand his emotions while keeping his immense psychic powers at bay.

Though the show takes a few narrative liberties with some characters, including involving Ritsu in Mob’s fights with Dimple and Teru, the drama remains largely faithful to the entire first season of the anime. It even features some flashy effects-driven fights that benefited from impressive stunt coordination rather than traditional animation.

One of the more notable aspects of this adaptation is its cast, which is comprised largely of alumni actors in tokusatsu franchises such as Kamen Rider, Super Sentai, and Ultraman. The eponymous Mob is played by Tatsuomi Hamada, who played the titular main protagonist in 2017’s Ultraman Geed, which you can watch on Crunchyroll now! His self-proclaimed master and conman Reigen Arataka is played by Kazuki Namioka, who portrayed a villain in Kamen Rider Gaim in 2013. Kasumi Yamaya, who played president of the school Telepathy Club Tome Kurata, had a major role as Kasumi Momochi/MomoNinger, the pink ranger in 2015’s Shuriken Sentai Ninninger. Anyone who dabbles in tokusatsu may want to take a second look at most anyone else in the cast, because chances are you’ve seen them using fancy toys to transform into superheroes before!

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable (2017 film)

youtube

Right as part 4 of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure was airing, Warner Bros. and Toho announced a live-action adaptation of Josuke Higashikata’s adventures. The first movie was released in August in Japan and was planned to kick off a series of films that would adapt the whole story. The film told a largely abridged version of the original story, either splicing together various plot points or removing them altogether for the sake of brevity. These included placing Koichi’s Stand awakening during one of the original arc’s earliest fights with Keicho Nijimura, and Sheer Heart Attack replacing Red Hot Chili Pepper’s debut. The film was highly anticipated, but mixed reception left the future of the series in question.

The film stars award-winning Japanese actor Kento Yamazaki as Josuke, who coincidentally stars in several live-action adaptations. But more on him later. The true hero of the film might be Yusuke Iseya, who portrayed Jotaro Kujo in the film. A short-lived meme that emerged during the film's promotion revolved around just how Iseya achieved Jotaro’s signature hat-hair blend. The meme, which showed actor Asano Tadenobu with a large shaven bald spot in the middle of his head, suggested that Iseya might have had to do the same for his own hair in order for the hat to form around it. If true, that would make him one dedicated actor!

Death Note (2015 drama series)

You might have heard of the series of live-action movies in Japan from 2006 that adapted the Death Note story. Perhaps you also caught wind the Netflix adaptation, a movie that sparked casting controversy and received some negative critical response. But did you also know about the 11-episode drama in 2015 that you can stream on Crunchyroll right now! This show tells a shortened version of Light Yagami’s story, but still adheres to his goal of using a magic death-dealing notebook to save the world.

In trying to condense a 37-episode story into 11 hour-long segments, the drama trimmed the narrative and made several interesting changes. This included introducing Near as a detective and L’s protege in the very first episode, making Mello into Near’s violent alternate personality, and a drastically different ending for L. A few changes were made with other pre-existing characters as well, such as making Misa Amane a pop idol instead of a model.

Already a noteworthy actor in his own right, the aforementioned Kento Yamazaki received praise for his role as fan favorite L. In 2016, Kento Yamazaki won the 39th Japan Academy Prize for Newcomer of the Year for his role in Orange, a film adaptation of a slice-of-life romance manga. Shortly after his work on Death Note, he coincidentally found roles in other live-action adaptations. Aside from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and Death Note, these include a lead role in Saiki K., a starring role in a 2020 adaptation in Wotakoi, and a certain piano-playing high school student who we’ll talk about in just a bit.

His co-star and lead actor Masataka Kubota, who played Light Yagami, has also seen work in live-action versions of Rurouni Kenshin, Tokyo Ghoul, and Gintama to name a few. He also won Best Actor in the 86th The Television Drama Academy Awards for his role as Light.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (2003 series)

As a worldwide cultural phenomenon, Sailor Moon has seen three movies, an anime remake in Sailor Moon Crystal, re-releases, stage musicals, and yes, a tokusatsu series in 2003. While it remains faithful to the overall plot of Usagi Tsukino and her friends transforming into Sailor Soldiers to fight evil, this 49+ episode show featured several plot points that are distinct from both the manga and the original anime, becoming its own unique story in the long run.

While originally, Minako Aino is a regular girl who dreams of fame, the live-action Minako balances an idol life, a school life, and being a Sailor Soldier. As Sailor Venus and a veteran Soldier, she’s notably harsher on her fellow Soldiers as she tries to make them understand their duties. Sailor Moon also has an exclusive super form called “Princess Sailor Moon,” a powerful yet dangerous form that combines Usagi and her past self.

The show also introduced two completely new characters in the form of Dark Mercury and Sailor Luna. A short arc in the show saw Ami Mizuno being brainwashed by the Dark Kingdom and turning against her friends. This caused her to take on a new, more evil Sailor Soldier form. Sailor Luna, on the other hand, came about after Luna gained the ability to become a young human girl (albeit with her feline nature still intact). Designed by Naoko Takeuchi herself, Luna replaces Chibusa/Sailor Chibi Moon in the story, as she starts living with Usagi as a human and transforms into a childish Sailor Soldier. Her design takes cues from both Sailor Chibi Moon and Luna's original human form as depicted in the manga and the Sailor Moon S film.

An amusing footnote of the series was Luna and Artemis often being portrayed with cute plushies during various scenes!

Your Lie in April (2016 film)

youtube

Kento Yamazaki continued his trend of working on live-action adaptations by portraying Kosei Arima in an adaptation of everyone’s favorite tear-inducing piano drama. This rendition came hot off the heels of the successful anime that ended in March of 2015.

Though certain characters were omitted from the adaptation, the movie was able to tell the same dramatic and emotional story in its entirety. The film placed at number 3 in the Japanese box office during its initial release, trailing after the Japanese release of Warner Bros. Suicide Squad and the infamous Makoto Shinkai film, Your Name, which maintained its number 1 spot in its third week in theaters. The theme song for the film, “Last Scene,” was performed by Ikimono-gakari, who are known for their work on Bleach and Naruto: Shippuden theme songs.

Tonari no Seki-kun (2015 mini-series)

A hilarious short form anime in its own right, Tonari no Seki-kun saw an eight-episode mini-series. It stayed true to its original story of a schoolgirl sitting next to a classmate who does all manner of ridiculous activities on his desk except pay attention in class. The series stars the actress formerly known as Fumika Shimizu, who previously appeared in 2011's Kamen Rider Fourze and in the first Tokyo Ghoul live action film.

The short segments aired alongside another comedy called Rumi-chan no Jishou. Coincidentally enough, both shows starred girls named “Rumi” as main protagonists.

Ouran High School Host Club (2011 drama)

The popular romantic comedy about an androgynous young girl who gets caught up with the handsome and flamboyant boys who run her school’s host club was adapted into a live action series in 2011. The adaptation's popularity earned it a feature length movie in 2012 that took place after its broadcast, as well as a spin-off miniseries.

youtube

This 11-episode drama adapts a number of the anime episodes faithfully, with each character remaining true to the source material. But the show actually goes a step further to include plotlines from the original manga. Characters like Ayame Jounouchi are featured more prominently than they were in the anime, and the show’s final episode more closely adheres to the manga than the anime did. The 2012 film also uses a manga-only arc as its plot, while also taking creative liberties with its characters. If you wanted to check out the show for yourself, you'd be in for a fresh Ouran experience!

Much like the live-action Mob Psycho 100, this adaptation also included a considerable number of Kamen Rider and Super Sentai alumni actors in its main cast, as well as one who would move on to Sentai. Tamaki Suou was portrayed by Yusuke Yamamoto, who was previously known for his role in 2006’s Kamen Rider Kabuto as Tsurugi Kamishiro/Kamen Rider Sasword. Yamamoto also had a role in a 2012 live-action version of Great Teacher Onizuka.

The Hitachiin siblings were played by twin brothers Shinpei and Manpei Takagi, the latter of whom played Retsu Fukami/GekiBlue in 2007’s Juken Sentai Gekiranger. Shinpei Takagi had brief roles in Super Sentai history as well! The bunny-hugging Mitsukuni “Honey” Haninozuka and the gothic, photophobic Umehito Nekozawa were played by Yudai Chiba and Ryo Ryusei respectively, each of whom portrayed red Sentai rangers in their careers.

Future Diary: Another World (2012 drama series)

This version of the violent survival game anime is a vastly different take on the source material. While it borrows a few details from the original story, there are notable alterations throughout. Seven people (as opposed to 12) are given cellphones that predict the future and are thrust into a dangerous game where the last person standing can create a new future.

The protagonists of the original series have counterparts in the live-action characters, but with different names and personalities. A major example includes Yuno Furusaki, the counterpart to yandere mascot Yuno Gasai. Furusaki retains her stalker-like affection for protagonist Arata Hoshino and immediately resolves to defeat anyone who would do him harm, but she does not initially display any of the hyper-violent tendencies that her anime portrayal is infamous for. As its own original narrative, it's certainly worth checking out to see how unique it is from its predecessor.

Gegege no Kitaro (2007-2008 film series)

Gegege no Kitaro has seen several anime revivals and films over more than 50 years, including its most recent weekly-airing adaptation. It should come as no surprise that two live-action films came about in 2007 and 2008 (not to mention a live action drama in 1985). Portrayed as a young man rather than a boy as he is traditionally shown, Kitaro works with his yokai friends to defend the human world from evil yokai that would do them harm. Using this “monster-of-the-week” format, the live action movies were able to tell noticeably original stories, albeit borrowing from some of the franchise’s classic arcs. The first film reportedly earned more than 23.4 billion yen throughout its theatrical run.

Kitaro was portayed by Eiji Wentz, an American Japanese singer who also performed the theme song for the first film. Kitaro's father, Daddy Eyeball, was voiced by Isamu Tanonaka, who had voiced the character since 1968. He is known for voicing the character in almost every Gegege no Kitaro adaptation throughout his lifetime!

Black Butler (2014 film)

The demonic butler, Sebastian Michaelis, made a silver screen debut in 2014 with a live-action cast. He was portrayed Hiro Mizushima, who also co-wrote and co-produced the film. He is best known for his starring role in 2006’s Kamen Rider Kabuto. He also starred in the live action adaptations of Gokusen and Beck.

youtube

The overall plot remains the same, wherein a young child’s soul is bound to a demon in exchange for its eternal servitude, but it diverges from the source material in multiple respects. The film is set in a modern nation in the year 2020, a far cry from the anime’s original setting in Victorian-era London. Main protagonist Ciel Phantomhive became Shiori Genpou, a female descendant of the Phantomhives who disguises herself as a male descendant to retain her stake in the Phantomhive legacy. Characters like Angelina Dalles and Mey-Rin see Japanese name changes in their live-action counterparts. The film debuted at number 3 in the Japanese box office during its weekend premiere.

Live action adaptations are something of an institution in the anime world. The adaptations listed here are far from the only ones out there, and they'll likely be around for years to come. With adaptations Cowboy Bebop and Your Name on the horizon, it'll be interesting to see how they'll stack up to the original works!

Have you checked out any of the live action anime adaptations listed here? What anime would you want to see receive the live-action treatment? Let us know in the comments!

---

Carlos is a freelance features writer for Crunchyroll. Their favorite genres range from magical girls to over-the-top robot action, yet their favorite characters are always the obscure ones. Check out some of their satirical work on The Hard Times.

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

4 notes · View notes

sage-nebula · 6 years ago

Note

I choose Alan!

First impression:

I first became aware of Alan because someone posted a screencap of the end of one of the Ash and Alan episodes where the narrator was like, “but little did they know that the world is slowly sliding toward destruction” and the person captioned it with, “Not again, Alan” and I was like, “what do you mean ‘again’?!” So my first impression of him was that he had somehow ended the world at some previous point, and that made me go watch all the TSME episodes. (Of course, he didn’t, but this wouldn’t be the PokéAni fandom if it didn’t unjustly blame him for everything.)

Impression now:

HE’S MY VALIANT DRAGON SON AND I’LL DEFEND HIM ‘TIL MY DYING DAY.

Favorite moment:

Part of me wants to say the moment where he finally finds his voice and is able to stand up to Lysandre, given that Lysandre was his abuser and that was such a powerful moment for him.

But the more indulgent side of me says that it was the moment where he spent all of .01 seconds before he threw himself out of an aircraft, swinging down by rope in a piece of stunning animation, to go out on the ice and save Lizardon in TSME 3. Good god that was incredible.

Idea for a story:

Let’s see … in my Works in Progress folder I currently have:

- The sixth chapter of To Devour the Sun (he’s not actually in that chapter, but the story focuses on him primarily, and he’s mentioned a lot).

- Lizardon’s origin story, which is from Alan’s point-of-view and details how he found and hatched Lizardon’s egg.

- A fic where Alan, age eleven, gives a presentation at the annual League funding science conference (it has a more official name than that, I don’t remember) because Sycamore is too sick to do so, and if they don’t attend and do a good job at the conference, the lab will lose its funding. Note that Sycamore does not send Alan; Alan sends himself by enlisting Gabrielle (Sycamore’s garchomp) to cut the cord to Sycamore’s alarm clock.

- A fic where Alan, having newly become Champion, gives a speech / answers questions at his induction ceremony pertaining to what happened in the Flare arc and what his plans are for the future, showing how far he’s come in his recovery.

- A fic in my Immortality AU where Alan and Ash time travel thanks to Celebi shenanigans and interact with Sycamore during XY(&Z). Or at least, this used to be in my WIPs folder, but it was lost when my folder was mysteriously deleted a while ago, RIP. Anyway, I still have a bit of it saved in a draft, so you can have a snippet of it since all the rest was deleted:

“Alan, you can have Lizardon fly you down, can’t you?” Augustine asked, and he smiled as Alan looked over at him, eyes wide. “I saw on television that he had evolved. He should be able to carry you—maybe both of you, depending?”

Alan bit his lip, holding Augustine’s gaze for just a moment before he shook his head and turned away, facing the waterfall’s edge again. “No. I can’t call on Lizardon right now.”

Augustine frowned, his heart skipping an unpleasant beat in his chest. “Why not? Steven said he had healed after the incident in Hoenn. Was he wrong?”

“Steven?” Alan looked back, his brow scrunched in confusion, but before Augustine could answer the confusion cleared and he shook his head. “Oh, yeah—no, he was right. Lizardon recovered from that just fine.”

“Then why can’t he carry you?” Augustine asked. Alan didn’t answer, and instead shoved his hands into his coat pockets and started walking along the edge of the waterfall, down the slope that led along the bank. Ash cast a frown Augustine’s way before he turned and started to follow Alan. Augustine stared after the pair of them for a second—since when had Alan ever just walked away in the middle of a conversation like that?—before he started after himself, a knot of stress building in his chest. “Alan, what’s wrong with Lizardon?”

“Nothing’s wrong with Lizardon,” Alan said, and though he raised his voice to be heard, he didn’t look back. “Come on, there should be another path down over here.”

- A much longer fic involving an organization named Panacea that wants to take over the world, and is doing so by challenging each region’s Champion—and, further, is doing so by challenging them with people who have specifically trained to challenge them. In particular the starting fic had Alan’s antagonist, a woman named Florence, showing up in Isolé Village (where he lived the first five miserable years of his life), and Alan has to go there to chase her out. He encounters the villagers who “raised” him for the first time in seventeen years, and it goes … mmh. It goes.

And probably others, but I can’t remember them right now.

Unpopular opinion:

Oh boy, where do I begin.

- Alan deserved to win the League, full stop. I love Ash, but had Greninja beaten Lizardon it would have been the strongest show of plot armor imaginable. Mega Charizard X outclasses Battle Bond Greninja in every way, especially when ‘Zard X has Thunder Punch which, no, cannot be blocked by Water Shuriken, that is nonsense.

- Alan was not remotely responsible for what happened to Hari-san. Hari-san was able to wander off and become comatose due to Manon’s negligence as a trainer. That was in no way his fault and the fact that no one took the time to tell him that he doesn’t have to blame himself for everything is a crime.

- For that matter, Alan had every single right in the world to decide not to travel with Manon anymore, especially since she never asked to come with him in the first place, and instead just kept stalking him and ignoring his “no” until he gave in. Manon continuously ran roughshod over Alan’s boundaries, ignored his consent, argued with him when he explained his feelings in a way that completely ignored those feelings, and ultimately just had no respect for him as a person, instead only thinking about herself and what she got from their partnership (i.e. talking about how much she can learn and grow, saying she’ll get through danger as long as he protects her, et cetera). Frankly, the fact that it took so long for Alan to actually yell at her just goes to show how nice of a person he is. If it were me, I would have yelled like that back in TSME 1 (instead of just calling her annoying and continuously ditching her like he did).

- To that end, I think that Alan and Manon’s relationship as it is at the end of the series is pretty unhealthy, since Manon never once apologized or learned from any of her behavior (thus she stayed pretty static / will no doubt keep making the same mistakes again and again), and Alan now feels as if he can’t do anything that will upset her because that will make him a Horrible Awful Person Who’s Ruining Her Life. And I mean, we kind of already see this happen; in XYZ045, Alan does try to tell her that he doesn’t want to dance (and he looks seriously panicked and uncomfortable about it), but everyone, including Sycamore in a move that really disappointed me, pressures him to do it anyway. And what ends up happening? He gives in, and he’s not smiling during the dance scene, either. Honestly, that scene triggered me really badly because it brought up memories of times when my own boundaries and consent were completely railroaded—where I was explicitly told that what I wanted didn’t matter—and the resulting panic attack was so bad I got sick and had to bring it up with my therapist. Anyway, while I prefer to write their relationship post-canon as being healthy (at least with regards to Alan not giving into all of Manon’s whims), as it is in canon it has the potential to be so bad, and we’ve already seen that. It’s gross.

- To that end, imagining them romantically is also gross. I think it speaks to the heteronormativity of this fandom that they look at a fifteen-year-old boy and a ten-year-old girl (particularly one who acts like she’s eight) and think, “Hm, yes, this is true romantic love.” The maturity gap between them is palpable. Manon huffs and throws tantrums like a little kid. Alan has to watch over and take care of and protect her. Setting aside that their behavior is much more similar to that of siblings, the fact remains that they met at a stage in their lives where Manon looks to Alan for guidance and protection and Alan, however reluctantly, offers that. This sets the stage for how their relationship will continue to grow and develop. Speaking from experience, Alan’s not going to look at her one day and see a romantic interest. He’s going to still think of her as a kid. And again, I’m speaking from experience here; I know that my nephew is now almost eighteen years old, but when I think of him, I still imagine him as he was when he was a small child. I have step-cousins who are not blood related to me at all that I’ve known since they were small children, and it always blows my mind when I’m reminded that they’re now graduating high school and going off to college. I still think of them as kids, and Alan would be the same way with Manon. And even if one wanted to argue that wouldn’t stop Manon from having a precocious crush on Alan—and I agree, it wouldn’t—that doesn’t mean that Alan would (or should!) return her feelings. Again, she acts like (and in-universe is often compared to) Bonnie. She’s less mature than Ash, Serena, and Clemont, who are supposed to be her age contemporaries. Thinking that Alan would view her romantically makes him out to be really very gross, and I find it extraordinarily insulting to his character. (And again, in this case, even if you age them up it won’t work, because they met at a time when Alan had to be a caretaker for Manon. That makes it squicky.)

And before anyone comes at me — age gaps are NOT inherently bad. My own parents have a sixteen year age difference between them, so believe me, I’m NOT against age gaps as a whole. But when and how you meet (as in the context of your meeting) is important. My parents met when one was forty-six and the other was thirty. They were both adults, they had both been married and divorced before, they met on equal footing. Alan and Manon have not met at an equal footing, and they’ve met at very important developmental stages in their lives. Again, maturity is a HUGE part of it, because it’s the maturity gap that’s squickier than the age gap. If Manon had the maturity of, say, Ash I could see arguing for it, but as it stands she acts far more like Bonnie, and it’s squicky. This ship is a NOTP for me for so many reasons (including the above mentioned how Manon continuously ignores Alan’s consent and runs over his boundaries), and this is certainly one of them.

And last but not least: I know this is all blunt and harsh. I know this. But listen: In the past, when I’ve tiptoed around my feelings (either by writing very vague tags in a blank post that did not mention either Manon OR the ship by name), I’ve received hate for it. I’ve had people vagueblog me, I’ve had people send me rude messages, and I’ve had people yell at and block me for daring to politely voice my own opinions on my own posts when they brought the subject up (i.e. I made the post about something different entirely, they brought up Manon, I tried to state my opinion politely, they got mad and blocked me). So if tiptoeing around the situation and being diplomatic gets me hate anyway, why bother? I’ll be honest about how I feel, and how I feel is that I hate this ship, I think Manon should have been made to take responsibility for her behavior in canon, and her stans have made it incredibly hard for me to like her at all considering how they vilify Alan (or else just reduce him to her trophy boyfriend), constantly excuse everything she does, and resort to vagueblogging, rude messages, and yelling when they encounter anyone who doesn’t like her, no matter how polite or diplomatic they are about it. I still treat her fairly in the fics I write (i.e. I don’t vilify her, I write her as being successful in the future, et cetera), but at this point I’m done pretending outside of fic that this fandom hasn’t ruined her for me, because they absolutely have.

- I don’t think he should have immediately left on a journey again at the end of the series. I think he should have stayed at the lab instead, especially since Sycamore said that Alan was needed there. Alan should have stayed at the lab to rest, heal, and recover, and then later he should have taken the Champion challenge. That he was sent out on a journey again was super lazy writing.

- I also think that he should have been able to keep the Mega Stone and Key Stone, but repurposed into pendants by Sycamore, to give Alan a true fresh start and remove any taint that might have been on them. But that’s less important than all of the above.

Favorite relationship:

It’s a very close tie between his relationships with Lizardon and Sycamore, and an honorary mention to his relationship with Ash.

Alan and Lizardon are platonic soulmates and I love everything about their relationship. I love how Alan moves closer to Lizardon whenever he’s feeling nervous or anxious. I love how they talk to each other, and how Alan perfectly understands what Lizardon’s saying even when they just exchange looks. I love how Alan was willing to risk his life to protect Lizardon without a single thought. I love how Lizardon similarly shielded Alan during the Flare crisis to prevent him from getting hurt. I love how they respect each other so much, to the point where, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene, Alan extends his hand toward Lizardon but waits until Lizardon moves in for petting and cuddling right after they win the League. Alan doesn’t just pet Lizardon, he waits for permission before he pets and cuddles Lizardon. Alan respects consent and boundaries, and doesn’t consider himself entitled to Lizardon cuddles just because he’s Lizardon’s trainer (sorry, partner).

Alan and Sycamore also so incredibly sweet, and it’s a shame we didn’t get to see more of them in canon. Sycamore is Alan’s dad in everything but blood, and there’s so much in the show to point to this … and yet somehow, not enough. But I love how supportive Sycamore is of Alan, how understanding and loving he is, and likewise how Alan will do anything to protect Sycamore, given how Sycamore saved him when he was young. They’re precious.

Finally, honorable mention is to Alan and Ash, because they helped each other so much during Kalos and I honestly love the relationship they had. So many people are tied up in the “rivalry” that was hardly that, and it saddens me so much because they’re missing such quality content. Ash managed to make Alan smile, laugh, and feel excitement and happiness at a time when he was so critically depressed that he couldn’t. Post-canon, he gave Alan a reason to keep living, which Alan says himself saved him. (He also is the one who inspired Alan to fight back at the start of the Flare crisis, on Prism Tower.) Meanwhile, Alan was someone it was okay for Ash to lose against. Ash was put on such a pedestal throughout Kalos that losing was practically deemed unacceptable, and gave him a whole damn crisis around the Snowbelle City time. But Alan and Ash met when Alan and Lizardon were a pair of Big Damn Heroes (the light of the dawn behind them and everything) saving Pikachu from Team Rocket (and protecting Ash from their attacks!). From the get-go it was acknowledged that Alan was so strong that, if Ash lost against him, it was fine. It wasn’t seen as “shocking” like when Ash lost to Shouta. Alan was someone that Ash could just have fun battling against, without something serious riding on it. They have a natural comfort around each other, familiarity like you’d expect best friends to have. I really love their relationship, too.

Favorite headcanon:

Pretty much everything in all of my post-canon fics, haha, but I’m really attached to the matching pendants I gave Alan and Lizardon for their Key Stone and Mega Stone, respectively. (Or rather, that I had Sycamore give Alan and Lizardon, haha. But same thing, really.)

#character ask meme #decadeoldtiger

12 notes · View notes

starringemiliaclarke · 6 years ago

Text

Emilia Clarke, of “Game of Thrones,” on Surviving Two Life-Threatening Aneurysms

Just when all my childhood dreams seemed to have come true, I nearly lost my mind and then my life. I’ve never told this story publicly, but now it’s time.

It was the beginning of 2011. I had just finished filming the first season of “Game of Thrones,” a new HBO series based on George R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” novels. With almost no professional experience behind me, I’d been given the role of Daenerys Targaryen, also known as Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Lady of Dragonstone, Breaker of Chains, Mother of Dragons. As a young princess, Daenerys is sold in marriage to a musclebound Dothraki warlord named Khal Drogo. It’s a long story—eight seasons long—but suffice to say that she grows in stature and in strength. She becomes a figure of power and self-possession. Before long, young girls would dress in platinum wigs and flowing robes to be Daenerys Targaryen for Halloween.

The show’s creators, David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, have said that my character is a blend of Napoleon, Joan of Arc, and Lawrence of Arabia. And yet, in the weeks after we finished shooting the first season, despite all the looming excitement of a publicity campaign and the series première, I hardly felt like a conquering spirit. I was terrified. Terrified of the attention, terrified of a business I barely understood, terrified of trying to make good on the faith that the creators of “Thrones” had put in me. I felt, in every way, exposed. In the very first episode, I appeared naked, and, from that first press junket onward, I always got the same question: some variation of “You play such a strong woman, and yet you take off your clothes. Why?” In my head, I’d respond, “How many men do I need to kill to prove myself?”

To relieve the stress, I worked out with a trainer. I was a television actor now, after all, and that is what television actors do. We work out. On the morning of February 11, 2011, I was getting dressed in the locker room of a gym in Crouch End, North London, when I started to feel a bad headache coming on. I was so fatigued that I could barely put on my sneakers. When I started my workout, I had to force myself through the first few exercises.

Then my trainer had me get into the plank position, and I immediately felt as though an elastic band were squeezing my brain. I tried to ignore the pain and push through it, but I just couldn’t. I told my trainer I had to take a break. Somehow, almost crawling, I made it to the locker room. I reached the toilet, sank to my knees, and proceeded to be violently, voluminously ill. Meanwhile, the pain—shooting, stabbing, constricting pain—was getting worse. At some level, I knew what was happening: my brain was damaged.

For a few moments, I tried to will away the pain and the nausea. I said to myself, “I will not be paralyzed.” I moved my fingers and toes to make sure that was true. To keep my memory alive, I tried to recall, among other things, some lines from “Game of Thrones.”

I heard a woman’s voice coming from the next stall, asking me if I was O.K. No, I wasn’t. She came to help me and maneuvered me onto my side, in the recovery position. Then everything became, at once, noisy and blurry. I remember the sound of a siren, an ambulance; I heard new voices, someone saying that my pulse was weak. I was throwing up bile. Someone found my phone and called my parents, who live in Oxfordshire, and they were told to meet me at the emergency room of Whittington Hospital.

A fog of unconsciousness settled over me. From an ambulance, I was wheeled on a gurney into a corridor filled with the smell of disinfectant and the noises of people in distress. Because no one knew what was wrong with me, the doctors and nurses could not give me any drugs to ease the pain.

Finally, I was sent for an MRI, a brain scan. The diagnosis was quick and ominous: a subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), a life-threatening type of stroke, caused by bleeding into the space surrounding the brain. I’d had an aneurysm, an arterial rupture. As I later learned, about a third of SAH patients die immediately or soon thereafter. For the patients who do survive, urgent treatment is required to seal off the aneurysm, as there is a very high risk of a second, often fatal bleed. If I was to live and avoid terrible deficits, I would have to have urgent surgery. And, even then, there were no guarantees.

I was taken by ambulance to the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, a beautiful redbrick Victorian pile in central London. It was nighttime. My mum slept in my hospital ward, slumped in a chair, as I kept falling in and out of sleep, in a state of drugged wooziness, shooting pain, and persistent nightmares.

I remember being told that I should sign a release form for surgery. Brain surgery? I was in the middle of my very busy life—I had no time for brain surgery. But, finally, I settled down and signed. And then I was unconscious. For the next three hours, surgeons went about repairing my brain. This would not be my last surgery, and it would not be the worst. I was twenty-four years old.

I grew up in Oxford and rarely gave a thought to my health. Nearly all I thought about was acting. My dad was a sound designer. He worked on productions of “West Side Story” and “Chicago” in the West End. My mother was, and is, a businesswoman, the vice-president of marketing for a global management consultancy. We weren’t wealthy, but my brother and I went to private schools. Our parents, who wanted everything for us, struggled to keep up with the fees.

I have no clear memory of when I first decided to be an actor. I’m told I was around three or four. When I went with my dad to theatres, I was entranced by backstage life: the gossip, the props, the costumes, all the urgent and whispered hubbub in the near darkness. When I was three, my father took me to see a production of “Show Boat.” Although I was ordinarily a loud and antsy child, I sat silent and rapt in the audience for more than two hours. When the curtain came down, I stood on my seat and clapped wildly over my head.

I was hooked. At home, I played a VHS tape of “My Fair Lady” so many times that it snapped from wear. I think I took the Pygmalion story as a sign of how, and with enough rehearsal and a good director, you can become someone else. I don’t think my dad was pleased when I announced that I wanted to be an actor. He knew plenty of actors and, to his mind, they were habitually neurotic and unemployed.

My school, in Oxford, the Squirrel School, was idyllic, orderly, and sweet. When I was five, I got the lead part in a play. When it came time to take the stage and deliver my lines, though, I forgot everything. I just stood there, center stage, stock-still, taking it all in. In the front row, the teachers were trying to help by mouthing my lines. But I just stood there, with no fear, very calm. It’s a state of mind that has carried me throughout my career. These days, I can be on a red carpet with a thousand cameras clicking away and I’m unfazed. Of course, put me at a dinner party with six people and that’s another matter.

With time, I got better at acting. I even remembered my lines. But I was hardly a prodigy. When I was ten, my dad took me to an audition in the West End for a production of Neil Simon’s “The Goodbye Girl.” When I got inside, I realized that every girl trying out for this part was singing a song from “Cats.” The only thing I could come up with was an English folk song, “Donkey Riding.” After listening rather patiently, someone asked, “How about something more . . . contemporary?” I sang the Spice Girls hit “Wannabe.” My dad’s hands practically covered his face. I didn’t get the part, and I think it was a blessing. My dad said, “It would have been hard reading anything bad about you in the paper.”

But I kept at it. In school productions, I played Anita in “West Side Story,” Abigail in “The Crucible,” one of the witches in “Macbeth,” Viola in “Twelfth Night.” After secondary school, I took a gap year, during which I worked as a waitress and went backpacking in Asia. Then I started classes at the Drama Centre London to pursue my B.A. As fledgling actors, we studied everything from “The Cherry Orchard” to “The Wire.” I didn’t get the ingénue parts. Those went to the tall, willowy, impossibly blond girls. I got cast as a Jewish mother in “Awake and Sing!” You should hear my Bronx accent.

After graduation, I made myself a promise: for one year, I would take only roles with some promise. I made the rent working in a pub, in a call center, and at an obscure museum, telling people that “the loos are just to the right.” Seconds lasted days. But I was determined: one year of no bad productions, no plays above a bar.

In the spring of 2010, my agent called to say that auditions were being held in London for a new HBO series. The pilot for “Game of Thrones” had been flawed and they wanted to re-cast, among other roles, Daenerys. The part called for an otherworldly, bleached-blond woman of mystery. I’m a short, dark-haired, curvy Brit. Whatever. To prepare, I learned these very strange lines for two scenes, one in Episode 4, in which my brother goes to hit me, and one in Episode 10, in which I walk into a fire and survive, unscathed.

In those days, I thought of myself as healthy. Sometimes I got a little light-headed, because I often had low blood pressure and a low heart rate. Once in a while, I’d get dizzy and pass out. When I was fourteen, I had a migraine that kept me in bed for a couple of days, and in drama school I’d collapse once in a while. But it all seemed manageable, part of the stress of being an actor and of life in general. Now I think that I might have been experiencing warning signs of what was to come.

I read for “Game of Thrones” in a tiny studio in Soho. Four days later, I got a call. Apparently, the audition hadn’t been a disaster. I was told to fly to Los Angeles in three weeks and read for Benioff and Weiss and the network executives. I started working out intensely to prepare. They flew me business class. I stole all the free tea from the lounge. At the audition, I tried not to look when I spotted another actor––tall, blond, willowy, beautiful––walking by. I read two scenes in a dark auditorium, for an audience of producers and executives. When it was over, I blurted out, “Can I do anything else?”

David Benioff said, “You can do a dance.” Never wanting to disappoint, I did the funky chicken and the robot. In retrospect, I could have ruined it all. I’m not the best dancer.

As I was leaving the auditorium, they ran after me and said, “Congratulations, Princess!” I had the part.

I could hardly catch my breath. I went back to the hotel, where some people invited me to a party on the roof. “I think I’m good!” I told them. Instead, I went to my room, ate Oreos, watched “Friends,” and called everyone I knew.

That first surgery was what is known as “minimally invasive,” meaning that they did not open up my skull. Rather, using a technique called endovascular coiling, the surgeon introduced a wire into one of the femoral arteries, in the groin; the wire made its way north, around the heart, and to the brain, where they sealed off the aneurysm.

The operation lasted three hours. When I woke, the pain was unbearable. I had no idea where I was. My field of vision was constricted. There was a tube down my throat and I was parched and nauseated. They moved me out of the I.C.U. after four days and told me that the great hurdle was to make it to the two-week mark. If I made it that long with minimal complications, my chances of a good recovery were high.

One night, after I’d passed that crucial mark, a nurse woke me and, as part of a series of cognitive exercises, she said, “What’s your name?” My full name is Emilia Isobel Euphemia Rose Clarke. But now I couldn’t remember it. Instead, nonsense words tumbled out of my mouth and I went into a blind panic. I’d never experienced fear like that—a sense of doom closing in. I could see my life ahead, and it wasn’t worth living. I am an actor; I need to remember my lines. Now I couldn’t recall my name.

I was suffering from a condition called aphasia, a consequence of the trauma my brain had suffered. Even as I was muttering nonsense, my mum did me the great kindness of ignoring it and trying to convince me that I was perfectly lucid. But I knew I was faltering. In my worst moments, I wanted to pull the plug. I asked the medical staff to let me die. My job—my entire dream of what my life would be—centered on language, on communication. Without that, I was lost.

I was sent back to the I.C.U. and, after about a week, the aphasia passed. I was able to speak. I knew my name—all five bits. But I was also aware that there were people in the beds around me who didn’t make it out of the I.C.U. I was continually reminded of just how fortunate I was. One month after being admitted, I left the hospital, longing for a bath and fresh air. I had press interviews to do and, in a matter of weeks, I was scheduled to be back on the set of “Game of Thrones.”

went back to my life, but, while I was in the hospital, I was told that I had a smaller aneurysm on the other side of my brain, and it could “pop” at any time. The doctors said, though, that it was small and it was possible it would remain dormant and harmless indefinitely. We would just keep a careful watch. And recovery was hardly instant. There was still the pain to deal with, and morphine to keep it at bay. I told my bosses at “Thrones” about my condition, but I didn’t want it to be a subject of public discussion and dissection. The show must go on!

Even before we began filming Season 2, I was deeply unsure of myself. I was often so woozy, so weak, that I thought I was going to die. Staying at a hotel in London during a publicity tour, I vividly remember thinking, I can’t keep up or think or breathe, much less try to be charming. I sipped on morphine in between interviews. The pain was there, and the fatigue was like the worst exhaustion I’d ever experienced, multiplied by a million. And, let’s face it, I’m an actor. Vanity comes with the job. I spent way too much time thinking about how I looked. If all this weren’t enough, I seemed to whack my head every time I tried to get in a taxi.

The reaction to Season 1 was, of course, fantastic, though I had very little knowledge then of how the world kept score. When a friend called me exclaiming, “You’re No. 1 on IMDb!” I said, “What is IMDb?”

On the first day of shooting for Season 2, in Dubrovnik, I kept telling myself, “I am fine, I’m in my twenties, I’m fine.” I threw myself into the work. But, after that first day of filming, I barely made it back to the hotel before I collapsed of exhaustion.

On the set, I didn’t miss a beat, but I struggled. Season 2 would be my worst. I didn’t know what Daenerys was doing. If I am truly being honest, every minute of every day I thought I was going to die.

In 2013, after finishing Season 3, I took a job on Broadway, playing Holly Golightly. The rehearsals were wonderful, but it was clear pretty soon that it was not going to be a success. The whole thing lasted only a couple of months.

While I was still in New York for the play, with five days left on my saginsurance, I went in for a brain scan—something I now had to do regularly. The growth on the other side of my brain had doubled in size, and the doctor said we should “take care of it.” I was promised a relatively simple operation, easier than last time. Not long after, I found myself in a fancy-pants private room at a Manhattan hospital. My parents were there. “See you in two hours,” my mum said, and off I went for surgery, another trip up the femoral artery to my brain. No problem.

Except there was. When they woke me, I was screaming in pain. The procedure had failed. I had a massive bleed and the doctors made it plain that my chances of surviving were precarious if they didn’t operate again. This time they needed to access my brain in the old-fashioned way—through my skull. And the operation had to happen immediately.

The recovery was even more painful than it had been after the first surgery. I looked as though I had been through a war more gruesome than any that Daenerys experienced. I emerged from the operation with a drain coming out of my head. Bits of my skull had been replaced by titanium. These days, you can’t see the scar that curves from my scalp to my ear, but I didn’t know at first that it wouldn’t be visible. And there was, above all, the constant worry about cognitive or sensory losses. Would it be concentration? Memory? Peripheral vision? Now I tell people that what it robbed me of is good taste in men. But, of course, none of this seemed remotely funny at the time.

I spent a month in the hospital again and, at certain points, I lost all hope. I couldn’t look anyone in the eye. There was terrible anxiety, panic attacks. I was raised never to say, “It’s not fair”; I was taught to remember that there is always someone who is worse off than you. But, going through this experience for the second time, all hope receded. I felt like a shell of myself. So much so that I now have a hard time remembering those dark days in much detail. My mind has blocked them out. But I do remember being convinced that I wasn’t going to live. And, what’s more, I was sure that the news of my illness would get out. And it did—for a fleeting moment. Six weeks after the surgery, the National Enquirer ran a short story. A reporter asked me about it and I denied it.

But now, after keeping quiet all these years, I’m telling you the truth in full. Please believe me: I know that I am hardly unique, hardly alone. Countless people have suffered far worse, and with nothing like the care I was so lucky to receive.

A few weeks after that second surgery, I went with a few other cast members to Comic-Con, in San Diego. The fans at Comic-Con are hardcore; you don’t want to disappoint them. There were several thousand people in the audience, and, right before we went on to answer questions, I was hit by a horrific headache. Back came that sickeningly familiar sense of fear. I thought, This is it. My time is up; I’ve cheated death twice and now he’s coming to claim me. As I stepped offstage, my publicist looked at me and asked what was wrong. I told her, but she said that a reporter from MTV was waiting for an interview. I figured, if I’m going to go, it might as well be on live television.

But I survived. I survived MTV and so much more. In the years since my second surgery I have healed beyond my most unreasonable hopes. I am now at a hundred per cent. Beyond my work as an actor, I’ve decided to throw myself into a charity I’ve helped develop in conjunction with partners in the U.K. and the U.S. It is called SameYou, and it aims to provide treatment for people recovering from brain injuries and stroke. I feel endless gratitude—to my mum and brother, to my doctors and nurses, to my friends. Every day, I miss my father, who died of cancer in 2016, and I can never thank him enough for holding my hand to the very end.

There is something gratifying, and beyond lucky, about coming to the end of “Thrones.” I’m so happy to be here to see the end of this story and the beginning of whatever comes next.

Emilia Clarke, of “Game of Thrones,” on Surviving Two Life-Threatening Aneurysms was originally published on Enchanting Emilia Clarke | Est 2012

#emilia clarke #game of thrones #game of thrones cast #GOT cast #daenerys targaryen #me before you #terminator

1 note · View note