#episode 44 part 2

[zoe-oneesama]

Pollen’s also incapable of being subtle, Tikki.

Episode 44 Part 2

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[yourfavoritehouseplant]

I watched James Somerton's final video, and all I got was this 6 page document

As soon as I learned his final unreleased video was on Revolutionary Girl Utena, I knew I had to hate watch it. I didn't know that I'd spend the following 4 hours making a comprehensive doc on everything I hated about it. But here we are.

The TLDR (is this too long to be a TLDR?)

The intro section, as well as Part 2, are directly plagiarized from wikipedia. The rest is unclear.

He makes a “haha this show is so weird right guys” joke 10 different times

He reads Anthy as so emotionally stunted she literally has to be taught how to think for herself, and believes that being the rose bride makes her feel good

He says that his reading is ‘vastly different” from the rest of the community, before boldly stating that this is because he sees it as a “deeply allegorical and symbolic story”

He sees the sexual abuse as “not to be taken literally”

Insists that the show be separated into parts that are strictly literal and strictly allegorical for the entirety of parts 3 and 4, before making the contradictory move of analyzing characters as allegories during part 5

The only characters that get dedicated sections are Akio and Dios, who he doesn’t believe are the same person. 

He says Dios gets his powers by “deflowering women”

He calls Akio, known child predator, a chaotic bisexual

Uses 14 year old SA survivor Anthy’s passive personality to make a joke about her being a bottom

His final point is that Utena was the real prince all along

There are no citations

Anyway, full version for people who hate themselves under the cut. With time codes, because I cite my sources.

Part 1: Intro

This entire section is almost exclusively quoted from the Wikipedia article for Revolutionary Girl Utena. Words have been changed, but the order at which certain topics come up is not. Highlights include:

0:56 In his introduction of Be-Papas, lists the founding members in literally the exact same order as Wikipedia.

1:40-2:00 His list of Be-Papas previous works is lifted entirely from wikipedia, only with the words changed. This leads to a strange moment at 1:52 where he claims Be-papas ‘lent their talents to’ Neon Genesis Evangelion, a show which started production at least a year before Be-papas was founded. On the wikipedia article for Utena, this is instead referring to the previous work of Shinya Hasegawa and Yōji Enokido

4:23 he uses a quote by Yūichirō Oguro describing the production as a “tug of war”. He seems to have lifted this in its entirety from Wikipedia, as he does not cite the actual source it is from (the box set companion book, btw)

As for James Somerton originals, at 0:44 he claims that out of all magical girl series,”none to my knowledge have been more discussed and dissected than the 1997 series Revolutionary Girl Utena” He will go back on this at 5:05, where he states that “Sailor Moon takes the lion’s share of discussion” in regard to influential magical girl anime

Part 2: Part 1

(At least I know I’m not funny, unlike James Somerton)

Speaking of which. Here is every single time he makes a “wow this show is sooooo weird you guys” joke: 6:00, 8:50, 10:40, 10:58, 13:46, 17:07, 24:16, 30:34, 41:19, 48:01

Here’s every time the punchline to the joke is the existence of Nanami, a character who he otherwise completely disregards: 10:56, 12:05, 16:22, 42:40

6:16 Claims that the “Apocalypse saga” and “Akio Ohtori saga’ are two names for the same several episodes, depending on the release. This is untrue. Instead, different releases either only have the Apocalypse saga, or split the episodes into an Akio Ohtori saga and then the Apocalypse saga. 

7:58 Claims Utena intervening on Anthy’s behalf begins the first duel. While this happens in the movie, Touga intervenes in the scene he uses clips from (like literally right after the shot he uses in the video). Utena only gets drawn into the duels when Wakaba’s love note to Saionji is posted. Youtuber Noralities’ Utena video also gets this wrong, which makes me wonder if this was copied.

9:09 Claims Akio’s “End of the World” moniker is actually more closely translated to “Apocalypse”. In reality, the translation moves away from a more apocalyptic reading, with 世界の果て (Sekai no hate) apparently translating closer to “the furthest reach of a known world” or “edge of the world”. (Love the implications of this translation, but I digress)

9:10 As can be assumed from the previous point, this means I can’t find any sources that point to them not using the title “apocalypse” for religious reasons

10:10 Uses Anthy’s extreme passivity under her Rose bride persona to make a top/bottom joke. I’m gonna repeat this in case you’re just skimming. He uses a trait that likely stems from years of abuse, (possibly exaggerated by the persona Anthy uses to manipulate people), and uses it to call her a bottom. 

He also just doesn’t seem to understand how the whole point of Utena constantly telling Anthy that she's just a normal girl who should make more friends is framed as Utena imposing her will on Anthy, just as much as the previous Engaged have done. 

11:54 Apologies in advance for my most “um, actually!” point yet, but technically his statement that Anthy stops being host to the Sword of Dios is wrong. Akio literally pulls a sword out of her chest in the final duel. It's a more evil-looking sword of Dios, granted.

13:02 !!! CANTARELLA SCENE ALERT !!! He interprets it as them fighting over Akio?? Which like. I will allow people to have their own interpretations of vague and symbolic scenes. I will. I swear. This is not technically incorrect. It just makes me want to eat my own intestines.

14:44 Bad Anthy take #1: He states Anthy “is emotionally stunted to the point where she needs people to make decisions for her because she does not know how to think for herself” This ignores several moments of Anthy clearly making her own choices throughout the show, including the suicide attempt Somerton mentions about a minute prior. This also strips Anthy of what little agency she has throughout the story, usually exerted through messing with Utena or Nanami. (The fact that she repeatedly makes choices that contribute to her own abuse is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting parts of her character, and it's a shame that Summerton’s ‘reading’ of the story completely disregards that)

Additionally, he once again reads Utena ‘urging Anthy to think for herself” in the first arc as an unambiguously good move, and not as something critiqued in the show.

14:52 Summerton reads the Swords of hatred as symbolizing men’s hatred specifically. Again, I’m trying not to completely disregard differing interpretations to a show like Utena, but this feels very simplistic, especially considering the harm we see aimed towards Anthy by other women

16:42 Here he claims that his reading of the story seems to be “vastly different” from the bulk of Utena discourse. What is this reading? That the show shouldn’t be read literally. Or, in his words, “[we can interpret] Revolutionary Girl Utena as a deeply allegorical and symbolic story about the struggles of coming of age amidst widespread institutional corruption in a high school and which describes a passive culture of inaction in regard to brazen instances of domestic exploitation in which there is not only a question about the caporeality of the events transpiring but also which events can be taken for granted and which events are meant to signify abstract sociological institutions.” The idea that he believes this is in any way a new reading of the material honestly baffles me.

Part 3: Part 2

17:48 through 18:50 differently quotes the Wikipedia article for postmodernism. He even makes a joke at 17:55 about Wikipedia. Please kill me. 

The first three themes he lists at 19:11 are just the three main themes listed on the Revolutionary Girl Utena Wikipedia page. What was that about a “vastly different” reading, James?

You’re gonna have to take my word for it, but this section is so short because it's just him talking about the various ways the story can’t be taken literally. He does, ironically, call this a hot take.

Part 4: Part 3

Here’s where the reading falls apart folks

At 23:15, he states that some things in Utena are allegorically coded, while others are to be taken literally. This is true. However, he seems to take this to mean that some parts of the show are Strictly Literal, while others are Strictly Allegorical for things going on in the Literal World. 

This is apparently why he prefers the Anime to the Movie, where there basically is no separation between the Literal and Allegorical

This take is bizarre to me for several reasons, but here is my favorite. At several points, he mentions how Revolutionary Girl Utena is a work of Magical Realism. Magical Realism is literally defined by its blending of the “literal” and “allegorical”, the mix of fantastical elements in a mundane, realistic setting. This idea of the impossibility of a blurred line, that Utena must either have lore where the magic is all real and means nothing, or dedicated allegory segments quarantined from the rest of the story, is contrary to the very idea of Magical Realism.

I can’t help but wonder if Somerton took his mentions of Magical realism from a previous work, due to how little it is consistent with his final argument. Either way, this section suggests a great lack of creativity in his analysis, a shame for such a creative work.

24:36: Shiori slander, for those who care

After this he gets really worked up about people assuming symbolism in everything, even when the author ‘doesn’t make it clear something is symbolic’. He shuts down a reading of a shot in the Lord of the Rings. Miley Cyrus is there? Very The Curtains Were Blue of him. 

28:22 Claims that Wakaba is the key to telling where the Strictly Literal segments end and the Strictly Allegorical segments begin. He states that, under this lens, deeply personal moments of character suffering such as all of the sexual abuse and Anthy’s suicide attempt (which he literally cites) should be read as symbolic and be “approached with uncertainty rather than confusion”. (28:24-29:13)

This also somewhat falls apart when you consider Wakaba is the jeep in the movie's car chase

And then he rants about people not liking his Attack on Titan video for a bit. Since its potential symbolism also doesn't follow hard enough rules to be symbolism. Once again, the separation of “fact vs allegory” I haven’t watched AOT, so that's all I’ll say.

Part 5: Part 4

Thank god this part is short. Much like Dios’ on-screen presence.

32:55 Makes the extremely bold claim that Dios is not Akio. As in, never even became Akio. because Dios is Strictly Allegorical.

Just to be a pedant, this is pretty explicitly disproven in the show

Confusingly, both earlier and later he will address these two as the same character. 

33:04 he also explains the root of Akio’s name in a tone that suggests this is supplemental information and not like. Literally something he explains out loud in the show?

Part 6: Part 5

This section is nearly entirely about Akio Ohtori. I would like to note that him and Dios are the only characters with dedicated segments.

38:30 The part where he states that Dios gets his powers from deflowering women.

38:46 Claims, once again, that Akio’s abuse of Anthy “may not be literal”. 

38:59 “the instance of exploitation here is used because assault has deep roots as indicating that akio's gender is the source of his imbalance”  THE ASSAULT IS ABOUT AKIO NOW???

39:45 Bad Anthy take #2: “Anthy’s conformity to the Rose bride is based around the fact that she feels good being subservient because this is the only thing in her life that has ever brought her any kind of positive reward”. This is a direct quote. Anyway, I can’t think of any instances in the show where Anthy’s subservience gives her a positive reward, except maybe when she’s intentionally using it to manipulate others. As for her feeling good being the rose bride. She tries to commit suicide. Dude.

Side tangent, but isn’t this exactly what Akio says during the final 2 episodes? That Anthy enjoys being a witch? Is the main villain, who consistently says things during that very episode that are blatantly false, our source of information for this take? I guess so, since this is the dedicated Akio section.

At 40:20 he decides to introduce the concept of Anthy, Akio, and Utena as stand-ins for wider concepts, which is antithetical to his approach in analysis beforehand

Part 7: Part 6

42:40 he finally acknowledges that he’s been spending too much time talking about Akio, and literally no time on characters like Nanami

46:10 states that Utena’s exclusive motivation “is to protect Anthy from the predatorial intentions of the other dualists”, which disregards the fact, which she states herself, that she was largely participating in the duels and protecting Anthy to feel like a prince

48:04 The part where he says that Akio has ‘chaotic Bi vibes’ in regards to him sleeping with Touga, who is 17 and implied to be a long-term victim

Part 8: Part 7

54:01: His concluding point is that Utena was the real prince all along. 

In true Somerton fashion, the video then ends over a scrolling wall of patrons, with not a single citation in sight.

[bluebelleisabelle]

Free G3 Monster High Episodes (to be continued)

SEASON 1

1. The Monstering or option 2 (for those who may not have access to the Nick website)

2. Food Fight or option 2 (for those who may not have access to the YouTube channel)

3. Unfinished Brain-ness or option 2 (for those who may not have access to the YouTube channel)

4. Case of the Moondays or option 2

5. Portrait of a Monster or option 2

6. Witch Hitch

7. Part of the Pack

8. That Thing You Deuce or option 2 (preferred option, as it’s through an official medium)

9. Werewolf Weekend or option 2 (same information as #8)

10. Paw-zzle Pieces or option 2 (same information as #8)

11. Nightmare Nightmore or option 2 (same information as #8)

12. Out of Step or option 2 (same information as #8)

13. Pyramid Scheme or option 2 (same information as #8)

14. What’s Up, Watzie?

15. So Familiar

16. Crushed

17. Over Bro-tective

18. Horoscare

19. Flaunt Your Skeleton

20. Creepover Party

21. Creature Clash

22. Monster Movie

23. Earworm

24. Spell the Beans

25. Growing Ghoulia

26. Casketball Jinx (same link as above)

27. Cleo in the Kitchen

28. Case of the Missing Squeak (same link as above)

29. Pet Problems

30. License to Rock (same link as above)

31. Power Heist

32. Monster Midterms

33. Fur-mergency

34. Boogey Nightmare (same link as above)

35. Best Fiends

36: Scareer Day (same link as above)

37. Stone Alone

38. Horsin’ Around (same link as above)

39. Moonlit Fieldtrip

40. A Little Boost (same link as above)

41. Fresh Waters Run Deep

42. Sew Fierce

43. Witchful Thinking

44. Monster Match

45. The Monster Way

SEASON 2

1. Rule School

2. New Witch in Town

3. Play It Again, Clawd (same link as above)

4. Mummy in the Mirror (part of the beginning is missing; the first few minutes can be found in this video)

5. How to Scare a Banshee (same link as above)

6. So Chill

7. Mixed Up Meowlody

8. The Haunted Sand Castle Caper

9. Fangs for the Memories

10. Two-Riffic

11. Monster High-Jinks

12. Vamps Just Wanna Have Fun (same link as above)

13. The Babysitter’s Crypt

14. Humans in Highschool (same link as above)

15. Dawn of the Dread

16. Frankie Patrol (same link as above)

17. The Deuce Date

18. Big Paw, Little Paw (same link as above)

19. Ghoulishly Ghoul-ma

20. Gill to the Rescue (same link as above)

21. Oh Rats

22. Fired Up (same link as above)

23. The Shapeshiftian Candidate

[ckret2]

Chapter 44 of human Bill Cipher wishing he was trapped in the Mystery Shack again:

The Eclipse: Part 2

Gravity is disappearing, and to find out why, Ford's inspecting the sites where the fabric of spacetime might have been damaged by Weirdmageddon. Dipper's glad to come along.

Bill really, really, really isn't.

"I am genuinely offering you helpful advice, that also happens to be self-serving because you idiots wouldn't trust me if I claimed I was being charitable anyway," Bill went on, as he'd been going on for the past five minutes. "This isn't a trick! I'm not running a con! I'm completely serious: being outside during an eclipse is the stupidest thing you could do. You don't want to watch it, I want to watch it even less, staying inside is mutually beneficial!"

"Do you think I should have brought my camera?" Dipper asked, determinedly ignoring Bill as he trailed behind them.

"What for?" Ford asked, also ignoring Bill.

"I've been trying to expand my Guide to the Unexplained series this summer—I've been doing longer episodes, a couple of them are ten minutes—but I wasn't sure if we'd see anything cool and my backpack was already heavy..."

"Hmm. I suspect either there won't be anything worth seeing—or, if there is, we'll be far too busy dealing with it to record footage."

"Yeah," Dipper sighed, "I guess you're right."

"This is why my journals have more illustrations than photographs."

Bill let out a loud groan of frustration before jogging to catch up with the humans. He checked the trail ahead to make sure he wasn't about to trip, then turned to walk sideways, facing Dipper and Ford as they walked. "Okay, fine, you win. So, just to be clear—the only reason you two are dragging me out here is to check a few locations for these imaginary 'micro-rips' you think are shredding the fabric of reality apart. Right? As soon as we've checked the three places you want, it's over, you admit you were wrong, and we go back to the shack?"

"Yes, Cipher," Ford sighed. "Once we've checked those locations, if we can't find evidence that any of the areas of most concern are near the one hundred thousand micro-rip danger threshold, we'll go home. Since dimensional rips could pop up anywhere around Gravity Falls, there's a possibility there could be clusters over the danger threshold away from the three areas of concern, but with no way to guess where they might be—"

"Fine. Then let's get this over with," Bill said. "Totality is in two days, if we're back home by tomorrow night we'll still avoid it. But if you try to drag me outside again after we get back, I'm hitting everyone with the Amnesia Limina curse and nobody's going outside."

With that threat delivered, Bill cartwheeled ahead of the humans, landed on his feet, and bounded ahead in long moonwalking lopes.

"Any idea why gravity's going down faster for him than the rest of town?" Dipper asked.

"Only that, if there are rips opening between us and the Nightmare Realm, perhaps they're giving Bill back some of his powers," Ford said. "Perhaps his powers are stored in the Nightmare Realm. Although I don't know how that would work." It was a better explanation than Bill's claim that he could just float better than humans, anyway.

The bracelet around Dipper's wrist momentarily tightened as Bill reached the far end of his invisible tether, then loosened as Dipper continue forward; and then tightened a second time, and a third time. From up the trail, Bill shouted, "Would you hurry up!" 

"You slow down! Some of us still have to walk!"

But even so, the slowly decreasing gravity was making the hike noticeably easier. Their backpacks sat lighter on their shoulders, and each stride seemed to carry them a little higher and farther than they expected. They startled a deer, and then the deer startled itself with how high it jumped.

"On second thought, it might not be a good idea to take him back to the shack while this is going on," Ford said. "Even if there aren't enough micro-rips in the basement, I'm not wholly convinced it won't end up the epicenter of whatever's about to happen. And if Bill wants so badly to be so close to it..."

From further up the trail, Bill shouted, "If you were any more paranoid, you'd be asking your own shadow why it's following you!"

"If you had access to any more of your powers, you'd be possessing my shadow!"

"Ha!" Bill had stopped to perch on a fallen tree that on any other day would have been far too slender to hold an adult's weight, balanced on it like a tightrope, and waited there for the others to catch up. "Fine, we don't need to go back to the shack, whatever makes you happy! As long as we get inside. Stanley's camper, a motel room, the old Corduroy cabin—hey, the Northwest place is pretty empty these days, isn't it? Is Specs renting out rooms, or...?"

"I am not taking you to Northwest Manor," Ford said. "Fiddleford's had enough trouble without letting you into his life again." Although that was only one of several reasons Ford wanted to keep them apart. For Fiddleford's safety, they couldn't risk Bill finding out that Fiddleford had been told his identity; and, now that Bill had confessed he could see through walls, they couldn't give him a chance to peer through the manor's walls and discover the ongoing paradox fuel synthesis project.

Bill laughed in disbelief. "Oh now you're concerned about somebody else's wellbeing, when it's his—fine! Fine, fine, fine! That's just fine! That's great! Terrific!" He hopped off his perch. "No evidence of self-preservation and let's not even think about respecting the triangle's wishes, but when the hillbilly might be in imaginary danger—!"

"That 'hillbilly' is one of the most brilliant men alive and the best friend I've ever known—"

"Ha!" Angrily, Bill yelled, "Some best friend, he erased you straight out of his head! You don't even know what a best friend is!"

Ford winced—he knew he'd never been much of a friend back to Fiddleford—but while he was gearing himself up to defend himself against whatever accusation Bill lobbed next, Bill turned away from the humans and stormed up the trail, leaving them behind as the weaving path took him behind several trees.

Every couple of steps, Dipper's bracelet twitched against his wrist as Bill tried to get even further ahead and was thwarted. He chuckled. "Do you think you touched a nerve?"

The corner of Ford's mouth quirked up; but he shook his head. "He's just mad he's not getting his way. As usual."

####

"I take it this is our first destination," Bill said, hands planted on his hips, looking around the forest. "This looks like the area where Shooting Star gave me the rift."

Dipper said, "You mean the place where you tricked—"

Bill shoved Dipper's hat down over his eyes. "Anyway, that aside, all the glued-shut wormholes and this are a bigger hint." He tapped the tip of one dress shoe—dusty after a walk in the woods—at the start of a long crevasse in the ground weaving through the trees.

"Yes," Ford said distractedly, taking his micro-rip scanner out of his backpack and turning it on. "This is the place." He took an initial reading, frowned, and followed the crevasse deeper into the woods.

Bill trailed along after him, gesturing at the jagged lines of bending light hanging in the air. "You did a terrible repair job, by the way. Stretching the edges of the rips to meet like that puts more stress on the reality in between the rips. You should have sutured them and let them heal naturally," Bill said. "If there are a bunch of tiny rips in the area, your own shoddy work probably caused them."

"Mm-hm," Ford said, fully focused on the scanner.

Bill's shoulders slumped. He hopped to the other side of the crack in the earth from Ford and strode ahead purposefully, ignoring him.

He glanced at a wooden sign staked next to the crack, nearly passed it, and did a double take. The sign read "MABEL'S FAULT". Bill laughed in surprise. "Who did this?"

"What—?" Dipper caught up and saw the sign. "Oh."

####

2012

Mabel's smile faded as she entered the clearing. "Oh. I... think this is the place where—Bill tricked me in Blarblar's body."

"Guess that explains all the rips in this area," Dipper said. He patted Mabel's back.

She looked down—and spotted the new crack in the ground. She gasped, immediately latching on to the distraction. "Hey, what's that! That wasn't here before!" She knelt next to the crack and peered inside. "Whoa!"

"Huh. Maybe it opened up when the rift broke?"

"How deep do you think it goes?" Mabel hopped back up, straddled the gap, and yelled down into it, "Hello!"

"Careful," Dipper said. "What if it's unstable?"

"We should give it a name," Mabel said. "It's a new geographic feature! We can put it on maps and be famous! What'll we call it?"

"Huh." Dipper stroked his chin. "Well... it looks kind of like a miniature fault line... and you were here when it formed, so I guess that kinda means you discovered it... so maybe... 'Mabel's Fault'...?"

Mabel stared at him.

Dipper's eyes widened in horror. "Oh. Ohh no."

Mabel bit her lip.

"I didn't mean it that way! I swear I didn't mean it that way—"

"Dipper!" Mabel cracked up. "We're calling it that."

"No," Dipper said, mortified. "Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry. Please please don't—"

"Grunkle Staaan, Grunkle Fooord!" Mabel took off toward where they'd last seen their grunkles. "Did you hear what Dipper said—!"

"I'm sorryyy!"

####

2013

Dipper cringed. "Look, I didn't hear it until I said it out loud, okay—"

Bill burst out in shrill cackles.

"I didn't mean it!"

"Y-you're the worst brother ever!"

Dipper groaned, contemplated climbing down into the fault, and instead settled for pulling his hat down over his face again.

Ford passed by with the scanner, shot Bill a suspicious sideways look, and demanded, "What's so funny?"

Still laughing, Bill gestured at the "MABEL'S FAULT" sign.

"Oh." Ford glanced at Dipper, fought not to smile at the poor kid's embarrassment—he'd gotten enough teasing last summer—and said, "Right." He moved on.

"Hey," Bill called, "What's the score?"

Ford paused, but didn't reply.

"Well?" Bill pressed. "You're already past where the rift broke! Don't you figure that's where the most rips would be?"

Ford said, "The scanner's detecting about fourteen thousand."

Bill whistled. He meandered back to Ford's side of the fault. "Sounds like a lot. I'm telling you, the wormholes in this place should've been sutured, that's what your problem is."

"It is a lot," Ford said brusquely. He hesitated. "But."

"But?" Bill prompted.

"But... it's less than a fifth of what we'd expect to see if the fabric of reality were falling apart."

"Wow. Let me pretend to be surprised." Bill made zero effort to look surprised. "That's because the fabric of reality isn't falling apart. You idiot."

Ford glared at his scanner silently.

"You fool," Bill tried. "You buffoon."

Ford rounded furiously on him. "The more you say it's nothing, the more you just convince me that you're lying!"

"Which is stupid! If you always assume I'm lying, how do you know I'm not saying 'it's nothing' to trick you into thinking it's something when it isn't!"

"I don't know! There's no way to know with you! That's why I'm checking with a scanner!" Ford pointed aggressively at the scanner. "Because I'm a scientist!"

"You're a pretty pathetic scientist if you refuse to listen when the expert on a topic tells you what's—"

"—maybe if the self-proclaimed 'expert' weren't a mythomaniac—"

"Guys," Dipper said tiredly. "You've had this argument three times. Can we move on?"

Ford closed his eyes and let out a long sigh. "Right."

"No," Bill said. "Not until I win it."

"Can it, Bill." Ford glanced toward the sky to orient himself, looked around for the path through the trees, and started walking. "Come on. Next site—the place where the rift closed."

Bill clenched his jaw. Under his breath, he muttered, "As if I've ever done anything in my life to make me look untrustworthy..." He glanced up as well—and his gaze lingered on the sky much longer than Ford's.

####

"So I was thinking about what we could do after this," Dipper said, looking hopefully up at Ford.

It took a moment for Ford to drag himself out of his thoughts and look at Dipper. "Yes? You mean after..."

"After the ecl—" Dipper winced, "the... rips get sealed, or whatever's going on." He'd pulled out his journal and was holding it hopefully. "Maybe... I could show you the research I've been doing on the Fremont Nightwigglers? I think they've been stealing pants in town."

He gave Dipper a little more attention. "Is this one of their migration years?" 

"Yeah, I think so! One was caught on a security camera—or at least what looks like one. Here." Dipper flipped open to the two-page spread he was currently working on and held it up for Ford to inspect.

He studied the pictures, smiling slightly. "Would you look at that. Very impressive research. I only experienced one migration during my time in Gravity Falls, and they'd all but moved on by the time I caught wind of it. Never even saw one—I had to interview the townspeople to get a description of them."

"Really? I don't remember seeing them in your journals."

"Ah, they never made it in. I was focused on compiling magical spells and artifacts for Journal 2 at the time. I took some notes with the thought of putting them in Journal 1, but never felt like I'd collected enough information to write about them—especially when I hadn't witnessed one myself," Ford said. "You've already collected more here than I ever did. I wasn't even sure they were real!"

Dipper's face lit up. "Really? It's not that much—I still haven't found one yet either, it's mostly interviews about the crime spree."

"It's more real investigative work than I did on them. I only got as far as asking a couple of people at the diner to describe the local stories. You've got the dates and times they've been hitting the stores."

"I guess so." Dipper beamed proudly. "I haven't heard any 'local stories' about them, though. I only recognized them from a documentary I saw on Californian cryptids."

"That might be the Blind Eye's handiwork. Everyone recognized the name when I lived here. I'll see if I can dig up the notes I took, you might find the information valuable," Ford said. "I'm not sure where I left them, but they're probably still somewhere in my study."

"Scrapbook in your study on the top right corner of your desk," Bill said. "Under the box of glue bottles. You're welcome."

Ford threw him an irritated look. Bill had gotten ahead of them while Ford was looking at Dipper's journal, and now he was crouched beside a creek, scooping up handfuls of water, momentarily inspecting them, and letting them spill back out. The eye on the hood stared balefully up at Ford from Bill's back.

Ford asked, "What in the world are you doing."

"Communing with the dread harbingers of the coming eclipse," Bill said flatly. "You can't see them of course, they're invisible to you."

"Of course." Ford muttered, "I don't know why I bother to ask."

Under his breath, Bill mumbled, "Don't know why he bothered to ask."

Ford studied the creek and checked his map. They were hiking east toward the lake, with the town to their south and the cliff to the north; the creek ran north to south in front of them. On the other side of the creek, southeast of them, was a thicker, overgrown part of the woods, the shadows between the trees darker and quieter. "This seems like a safe place to wait," Ford said. "Dipper, you stay here while I scan the next site. Keep him out of trouble."

Dipper nodded. Bill cast Ford a sullen look, then rolled his eye and looked back at the water.

"After I've checked the next spot, we'll follow the cliffside to the lake," Ford said, pointing northeast, away from the dark area of the forest. "If there's still daylight, we can take a boat behind Trembley Falls and set up camp inside the cave."

"Sounds good." Dipper looked at Bill's tiny borrowed backpack. "You... didn't bring a tent, did you."

"Sorry, do you think I have a tent to bring?" Bill asked. "Do you expect me to slide an entire tipi out of my—"

Ford interrupted, "Dipper, you brought a tent, right?"

"Yeah?"

"Then that's sufficient. You can share my tent and we'll set up Bill's as far from ours as possible. We'll be safer that way."

Bill ignored the implicit accusation with silent dignity.

Dipper nodded. "Good idea." 

"Now, let's see..." Ford studied the creek. It was much wider than he could usually jump, but under the current gravity conditions... He bounced on the balls of his feet a couple of times, testing how light he currently felt; then took a few steps back, got a running start, and with a "hup!" leaped across the creek. He cleared it by several feet and almost ran into a tree.

Dipper gasped. "Are you okay?"

"Fine, Dipper! Just... don't know my own strength." How low was gravity now, he wondered? He could see grass swaying beneath the surface of the creek. It hadn't rained lately; without as much gravity, even water was being pulled down less, letting it rise higher and flood the creek's banks. He hoped they figured out how to reverse this before the lake flooded. When they made it into the cave, they'd have to camp on high ground. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

Dipper side-eyed Bill; but when he kept gazing into the water without a word, Dipper said suspiciously, "What, no complaints about camping?"

"What's there to complain about?" Bill asked.

"I don't know, you've complained about everything else so far."

"This is the only part of your expedition that isn't a terrible idea," Bill said. "I love camping! Hypothetically. The Nightmare Realm isn't known for picturesque campgrounds. But hey, I like being surrounded by trees. And a private tent? Deluxe accommodations! It's just too bad you'll be dragging the mood down."

"Hey."

Bill laughed. "You're too easy."

Dipper scowled. "You don't seem like the type to be into camping."

"Why not?"

Dipper thought about it. "Man, I dunno, you just—seem like a city person? You're always talking about how much you want to throw wild parties, that's basically the opposite of camping in the woods."

"Is it?" Bill asked. "Welcome to the cult of Dionysus."

Given what Dipper could remember about Dionysus from the book of Greek mythology he'd read in sixth grade, he supposed wild parties and hanging out in the woods weren't mutually exclusive. So what was it about Bill that made Dipper feel so strongly that he wouldn't be caught dead roughing it?

Finally, Dipper said, "I guess it's the top hat and bow tie."

"They're not a top hat and bow tie."

He gave Bill a perplexed look. "Really? What are they?"

"Did you ever read that horror story about the bride with a velvet ribbon tied in a bow around her neck, and when her new husband unties it, her head falls off her neck and bounces down the stairs—?"

Dipper shuddered. "I'm sorry I asked."

Bill laughed.

After a brief silence, he finally dragged his eyes away from the water and impressively flicked a couple of mosquitoes out of the air with a finger. (Dipper wished he could do that. His arms were coated in soothsquito bite messages. He wondered what "BURN TACK" was supposed to mean.) Bill took off his backpack, rummaged around in it, and muttered, "I should've brought a book." He looked around the bank of the creek for a patch of sunlight, pushed his sleeves and leggings up to expose as much skin as possible, and flopped down in the light, eyes shut and hands laced on his chest over the backpack.

Dipper supposed that meant he was being ignored. He took his journal back out and flipped to the section on the Nightwigglers. He'd need some empty space to add Ford's local folklore once they got home. Was there any open space in the next few pages?

"It really shouldn't be called 'Mabel's Fault,'" Bill said out of the blue. "It's not her fault. It should be called 'Bill's Fault.' I'm the one who made it, aren't I?"

Dipper lowered his journal. "Sorry, are you actually accepting blame for something? You're admitting you did something wrong?"

Bill didn't even open his eyes. "I'm not 'accepting blame,' I'm claiming credit. Weirdmageddon was great. Can't help that you're all too boring to see that."

"But you said 'Bill's Fault.' Not 'Bill's Triumph' or something."

"Sure, because we're talking about a geological fault. Don't read too deep into it, kid."

"Pff, no, you definitely said it was your fault. I can't believe Grunkle Ford missed that—"

Bill abruptly sat up. "Hey. What's the 'next site.'"

"What?"

Bill counted off on his fingers, "Six-Fingers said there are four sites you want to hit, right? The place where the rift formed, the place Weirdmageddon started, the place the rift was during Weirdmageddon, and the place Weirdmageddon ended. The rift formed at the portal—been there—Weirdmageddon started at the fault—been there—during Weirdmageddon it was in the sky—going there tomorrow—so where did Weirdmageddon end? Wasn't it in the sky too?"

"Oh," Dipper said. "It's just. Y'know. It's just a... place."

Bill gave him a sharp look.

Dipper swallowed hard. "No big deal. Just... trees and stuff."

Bill flipped up his eye patch, staring in the direction Ford had disappeared. Dipper could see the white of his eye turning red.

"Hey!" Dipper got in front of Bill, trying to block the view of the forest. "It's nothing important. You—you wouldn't even be interested. Really."

Bill just stared straight through Dipper. And then, before Dipper could react, Bill was on his feet and bolting past him. By the time Dipper turned around Bill was already across the creek, following the path Ford had taken.

"No no no, come back!" Dipper jumped the creek and sprinted after Bill, shouting, "Don't go that way, you can't go that way, Bill—"

There was a dark, quiet knot of overgrown plant life deep in the forest, as if no animals had dared visit the area for nearly a year, leaving it to choke itself on its own greenery. Bill was headed straight for the heart of it. He moved through the trees like a swimmer through underwater ruins, kicking off trunks to propel himself forward, grabbing branches to help twist his body around and between them without slowing down—more flying than running, gravity hardly seeming to touch him at all.

He barreled past Ford and his scanner without even acknowledging him. Ford gasped, "Wait—" He turned the direction Bill had come from.

Dipper was squeezing between two trees and tripped over a hidden root. "Grunkle Ford—!"

"Dipper! You still have the bracelet!" Ford pointed, "Run the other direction!"

"Right!" He turned around and squeezed back between the dense trees.

And Ford took off after Bill.

Wild brambles tore at Bill's skin and ripped at his hoodie; he ignored the pain, letting the prickles bite into him as he forced his way through the shrubs—

And then he stood in the clearing, gasping in unsteady breaths, his wide unblinking eyes staring.

In front of him, wide unblinking eye staring vacantly into the trees, was his corpse.

"Bill!" Ford fought against the brambles, trying to figure out how Bill had gotten through. "Don't touch it! We don't know what could happen—"

Bill lunged for the statue.

The bracelet snapped tight around his wrist. Bill's fingers were inches away from his corpse's outstretched hand.

Thirty feet away, Dipper's bracelet went tight while he was trying to scramble over an ancient log. He awkwardly tried to keep his balance on the log; rather than risk toppling back in Bill's direction, he flung his weight the other way, keeping the invisible thread between them taut by leaning so far over that if it weren't for the bracelet holding him up he'd fall to the forest floor.

Bill fell to his knees, clawing at the dirt and grass with his free hand and feet, desperate to drag himself closer in spite of the completely immovable bracelet.

It seemed impossible to Ford that the thin invisible thread wrenching Bill's arm back would hold him for long; Bill would sooner dislocate his own shoulder to gain those last few inches. Ford fell out of the brambles and seized one of Bill's legs. "Bill—"

Bill tried to kick Ford in the face. "You KNEW!" he shrieked. "You knew I was here this WHOLE TIME and you NEVER TOLD ME, you ANIMALS! I could have had my body back! I COULD BE HOME!"

That was exactly what Ford was afraid of. Gritting his teeth, Ford wrapped an arm around Bill's torso and the other around his neck, struggling to get enough purchase on the torn-up ground to move Bill.

Wheezing for breath, Bill tried to kick out one of Ford's knees. Ford took advantage of the split second one of Bill's feet wasn't dug in to drag him back; he only managed to move him a few inches.

But a few inches of slack on the invisible thread was enough to throw off Dipper's balance. He instinctively tried to flail back upright, overcorrected, and tumbled off the log the wrong way. "No—!"

Bill lunged out of Ford's hold, scrabbled across the last few inches to his corpse, and planted his hand on his stone face.

He froze.

Ford froze.

Nothing happened.

"N..." Bill grabbed his arm, grabbed his hand, as though trying to shake on a deal with his own body; nothing. "No." He sounded more confused than anything. "No, no, nonono..."

He hung off the statue by his grip, pressed his forehead against their joined hands. And then he let go and slowly put his trembling hand on the dead face. And then he sat there, breathing shakily, every few seconds sucking in a hitching gasp that made his shoulders jerk.

Ford gingerly got to his feet, brushed his clothes off, and looked at Bill. He didn't move for a moment; then reached for Bill's shoulder; then stopped, curled his hand into a ball, clasped it behind his back, and turned away. "Dipper," he called. "You can come back. It's..." He cast one last glance at Bill, then forced himself to look away. "It's safe."

By the time Dipper caught up, Ford had made his way back into the overgrowth, leaving Bill alone in the clearing. Dipper started, "What...?" but fell silent when he saw Ford's face. He looked past him at Bill and winced.

Ford shoved his hands in his pockets and mumbled, "We should give him..." Dipper nodded.

Bill remained kneeling for less than a minute. Then he leaned forward, used his sleeve to wipe some of the moss off of his dead eye and the bird crap off his hat and hand, and unsteadily heaved himself back to his feet. He moved like he was very, very old. He glanced over his shoulder at Ford and Dipper. "What're you two staring at." His voice sounded like somebody was attempting to strangle him and his smile looked like a zombie had pulled its skin back on wrong. "You should've said you were waiting on me. I was just..." His eyes briefly unfocused. He shook his head. "Just taking a break." His cheeks were dry. He hadn't even cried.

They stepped back as Bill wove around the brambles. Dipper swallowed hard and asked, "Are you alr—"

"Of course I am." Bill plodded mechanically toward the path out of the dense dark woods. 

Ford asked, "Do you want t—"

"What I want is to get wherever we're pitching our tents before nightfall." Bill pulled his eyepatch back in place. "You're making us camp, right?"

They had no choice. If they wanted to get to the top of Trembley Falls, reach Gravity Peak, and get back down the same day, they had to be ready to ascend in the morning. They couldn't afford to go back to the shack tonight. "Are you s—"

"What were the readings like," Bill asked.

Ford hadn't even gotten as far as taking readings around the statue; he'd still been checking the perimeter of the overgrown zone when Bill ran past. He looked for where he'd dropped his scanner, picked it up, and checked. "215 micro-rips detected. Higher than baseline levels, but—not even as high as readings around the portal."

Voice thick with venom, Bill said, "What a surprise."

When the forest had brightened again and the creek was visible, Bill turned to travel upstream alongside it. Dipper pointed across the creek at Bill's backpack. "You forgot your..."

"Right," Bill said tiredly. He hopped across the creek. 

And gasped in shock when, instead of floating across as before, he landed heavily in the middle of the creek. He squeezed his eye shut, pinched the bridge of his nose, and took a long, silent inhale; and then he climbed out and grabbed his backpack. This time, he put enough force behind his jump to make it back across the creek. 

Dipper and Ford exchanged a look. Ford said, "Do you need a minute to dry—?"

"No."

"You could catch a cold in those damp—"

"I knew how germ theory works on your planet when your gill-breathing ancestors were still swimming around in their own feces," Bill snapped. "When I say 'no,' it's not because I don't understand, it's because I don't care. Don't treat me like I'm ignorant and don't act like you care."

Ford's jaw tightened. No, he didn't care. Bill accepted basic human decency as easily as he offered it. "Fine. Catch pneumonia."

"Fine!"

Ford pushed past Bill to lead the way to the lake. He tried not to notice how Bill was trembling.

####

Maybe ten minutes passed in silence before Ford worked up the nerve to say, "You—know why we didn't tell you." It was the closest he'd get to an apology.

Bill was silent for a long moment. "Of course I do." It was the closest he'd get to accepting it. "When I get my power back, I'm going to invent a very clumsy, easily startled species of bird whose feathers are scalpel blades. And then I'm unleashing a million in the shack, barricading the doors, and blowing an air horn."

Dipper grimaced. Ford muttered, "Thanks for reminding us not to feel too bad for you."

Bill let out a raw, broken laugh.

It was a very quiet hike to the edge of the lake. 

####

After spending the first half of the expedition trying to hurry Ford and Dipper up, now Bill was the anchor slowing them down. He trudged so slowly that Dipper kept having to stop to give his bracelet a little slack; but Bill kept moving, and Ford and Dipper agreed without speaking not to say anything about it.

By the time they reached the lake, the sun was just touching the rim of the mountain curling west around Gravity Falls. The water had risen so far, it flooded the roots of the trees nearest the shore. Far down the shore, distant dark dots, locals were doing cannonballs off the submerged pier, reveling in how high they could jump, how slowly they fell, and how their splashes hung suspended in the air.

Under the unusual conditions and with night coming on, Ford decided that it wasn't safe to try to set out for the cave under the falls. They'd camp on shore and start in the morning.

This, unsurprisingly, started another fight with Bill. "If we were falling behind, you should have said so, I'd have picked it up—!"

"I'm so sorry, I didn't want to imply you were too ignorant to tell the time—"

"The time isn't the issue, I just didn't think you'd give up for the night before it's even civil twilight—!"

Dipper just found a low hill to pitch his tent on.

When Bill noticed, he broke off the argument, flung his hands in the air in defeat, and crouched by the lake to sulk and study the water. He reflexively scratched his arm, pushed up his sleeve with a frown, and read the soothsquitos' message. "'Deeth in the mourning,'" he muttered. "What's deeth? That's not a word."

Maybe they'd been trying to spell teeth, Ford thought. Why would they warn Bill about teeth?

Ford pitched his tent, he and Dipper made a fire, and they attempted to reconstitute some of Ford's dehydrated astronaut food to mixed success. Bill stayed by the lake and tried to eat the cereal he'd brought, but gagged on the second handful and decided dinner wasn't worth the effort.

As Ford cleaned up after dinner, Dipper rummaged through his backpack. "Hey, Grunkle Ford. So..." He pulled out a portable chess kit. "I brought this to Gravity Falls back when I thought this would be a normal summer and I thought we might go camping? And, well, here we are, and I guess things are kiiinda weird, but, I mean... might as well...?"

Fiord smiled wanly. "I think that's just what we need to unwind."

They unrolled Dipper's canvas chess board and took several tries to set up the pieces on the uneven surface. Ford let Dipper take white; he figured the younger and less experienced player could use the advantage of going first.

Bill wandered over with a can of cider early in the match and crouched at the edge of the firelight to watch. He had rolled his sleeves back down, tied his bow tie, and flipped up his hood, and in the dimming flickering light he looked disconcertingly like his real self. He hadn't bothered to stuff his hair into his hood, and it gave the impression that some strange golden internal organs were spilling out of a gash beneath Bill's eye.

After watching for several minutes, Bill said, "Dibs on playing the winner."

Ford and Dipper said, "No."

"Why not!"

"Because we don't like you," Dipper said.

"Oh, come on." Bill ignored Dipper, turning toward Ford. "Remember how much fun we used to have?"

"I remember that you're an incorrigible cheat and made every game miserable," Ford said.

Bill reeled back. His face was hidden under the shadow of his hood, yet somehow the shadow gave off the impression of fury. He chugged half his cider, unslung his backpack, and dug around inside it. "Who wants to play against humans anyway." He unscrewed a bottle of cold medicine, topped off his cider, and poured the concoction down his throat. "Ugh. You're not even any good. Black's got mate in three and I bet neither of you can see it."

Ford and Dipper stared at the board, trying to find the looming checkmate.

Bill stood. "I'm gonna go hallucinate, pass out, and hallucinate some more. More fun than hanging out with a couple of nerdy losers playing a stupid game of..." He trudged off toward his tent, muttering to himself.

Ford concluded that Bill was probably making up the mate in three—although not confidently—and returned to the game with a sigh. "It will be nice to drop him back in the shack," he muttered.

Dipper nodded. "Yeah."

Ford won—not in three moves—and they started a new game. Several minutes in, Dipper asked hesitantly, "Grunkle Ford? Do you really think the micro-rip theory...?"

Ford pursed his lips, but admitted, "Out of all the locations of concern, you could argue that the spot in the sky where the rift spent a week floating has the highest probability of sustaining lasting damage, so we still need to check. But..." He shook his head. "Based on the empirical evidence—I'm beginning to have my doubts."

Dipper's shoulders relaxed; part of him had worried questioning the Acceptable Theory would be taken as disloyalty. "Then, what do you think about Bill's...?"

Ford snorted. "'Gravitational eclipse' explanation?" He propped his chin in his hand, thinking. "I'm only certain of two things: Bill knows exactly what's going on; and he's hiding something he doesn't want us to know. Everything he's told us so far is what he wants us to think is the truth, and because of that, any of it could be lies. He hasn't given us anything we can independently verify in any way—just vague claims he expects us to take his word for and refuses to elaborate on. Even if he is telling the truth, it doesn't matter. We have to act like... not like he's lying, per se; but like what he says has no correlation with whether it's true."

And thus had been the case with everything Bill had said and done since his capture. Every power he claimed he still had, and every power he acted like he'd lost. Every bit of magical, historical, or interdimensional trivia he spouted off to make himself sound smarter. Every sweet thing he'd said to Mabel, every favor he'd offered Stan—and every time he'd told Ford he wanted to be "friends."

Dipper nodded. "Mabel says that's just how Bill talks. He doesn't care about whether what he's saying is true, he just tells you what he thinks should be true."

Ford would have to keep that in mind when talking to Bill in the future. "That girl's a wizard with Bill. Maybe she's right." Still—he had a hard time believing that figuring out what Bill was really saying had actually been that simple all along. (Maybe he just didn't want it to be that simple, after all the time he'd wasted.)

Ford glanced down at the ring the Hand Witch had gifted him. The first time she'd given it to him in the eighties, she'd told him that if the ring ever turned black, he'd chosen the wrong friends and doomed himself. He couldn't tell if it was just the firelight, but as he looked in the deep blue cabochon now, he swore he saw a swirl of black spiraling beneath the surface. He wished he knew what that meant—was he supposed to trust Bill more, or had he already absentmindedly taken something Bill had said on faith that he shouldn't have? Had that swirl first appeared only now during the eclipse, or when Ford had started studying the miniature grimoire Bill had gifted him? Was it even due to Bill? Ford hadn't studied mood-ring-o-mancy.

Dipper snuck a rook onto Ford's back row. "Checkmate."

Ford huffed. "Well done." He'd been so distracted, he hadn't even noticed Dipper lining his rook up.

Dipper pushed Ford's king over. It dramatically fell in slow motion.

They packed up the chess board, put out the campfire, and slept uneasily.

####

In spite of the sedative cold medicine, Bill couldn't get any decent sleep. It wasn't even a good trip. Every time he shut his eyes for a few minutes, he hallucinated/dreamed that he was locked back in the shack staring at the high attic ceiling, or staring silently at Soos's bedroom—or watching over the town graveyard from high above; or locked like a hunting trophy in a glass display case in some local hick's darkened den; kidnapped and tied up beneath Gideon's bed; closed in a dark airless leather box; preserved like an ancient relic in the museum; hovering above Gravity Falls' valley and trees in the still night sky —

—or petrified in the middle of a quiet knot of overgrown plant life deep in the forest. 

Or still in the tent but with his head wrenched around wrong, unable to move or feel his limbs, staring out at an angle that should have been impossible—until he awoke with lungs heaving to find his body was right and he wasn't dead; only for the humanity of his shape to reassert itself and he envied the stone corpse.

He crawled out of his tent, threw up his ill-advised concoction of cider and cold medicine, and collapsed, slipping in and out of a delirious doze until morning.

####

(I have been so looking forward to inflicting this chapter on y'all. Hope you enjoyed, please let me know what you think, and if you thought that was bad then stay tuned for things getting even worse for Bill!! 🎉)

[enavstars]

King and Lionheart - Of Monsters and Men

Do not tag as Greenflame! They are brothers!

Here it is another song :D. I heard it and inmediately thought of them and somehow managed to do this.

I wanted to use Possession scenes for the chorus but I ended up using the 3 big events of the show. I also wanted to use canon things but I had to invent some because there aren't enough on the show and it's in chronological order so I couldn't add more dragons rising scenes.

More details:

For the final part I also had to invent them but the hugs are most of them after the fight of the season, which are, in order:

-Dragons rising (episode 2)

-Crystalized

-March of the Oni

-Possession

-Tournament (after the staff scene before the end)

-Rise of the snakes

-Rise of the snakes (after Kai's true potential episode)

As always there are a few details in some drawings, have fun looking for them :)

The other song, Daylight, had 44 drawings which some of them were repeated, so it was around 35 original drawings; this one had 55 all different drawings and it took me 2 weeks

Again, some of my favourite drawings:

[beansprean]

Oh, there he is.

My Familiar’s Ghost part 44

Masterpost

(ID in alt and under cut)

ID: 1. Shot of Nandor from the rear as the lights to the break room suddenly click on, the table with the dead female vampire in front of him. He whirls around in surprise, eyes wide, and chokes out, ‘G-‘ 2. Close up at last of vampire Guillermo standing in the doorway, the hall dark behind him, arm retreating from having flipped on the light. His skin has lost color, his cheeks are tinged blue, his eyes are a deep orange with slitted pupils, his hair is slightly mussed, and he is wearing the same blue-striped button down that his ghost has been stuck in this whole time. Blood, new and old, stains his collar and all down his front, more smears on his neck and flicks on his face and chin. His expression is impassive, gaze steady on Nandor. Offscreen, Nandor manages to continue: ‘Guillermo!’ 3. Close up of Nandor on the same beige background as the walls of the break room as he turns, eyes shining, a small, hopeful smile twitching onto his face. In the background, a memory of ghost Guillermo fades into view, teary and desperate, crying 'Please! Please find vampire me! Please don't give up on him!' Nandor breathes out in relief, 'You're-' 4. Repeat. Nandor drops the smile for a nervous grimace, tucking in his chin and holding out one hand, palm out, towards Guillermo as if to halt him in place. He says, 'Hold on, before you say anything, let me speak, please!' 5. Reverse shot of Guillermo again in the same position, gaze steady on Nandor. He furrows his brow a bit and raises one in confusion, lip slightly curling as if in disgust or disbelief. Nandor continues from offscreen: 'I know that you have been very angry with me, and I forgive you for that. I even forgive you for letting that Eric guy bite you.' 6. Full body of Nandor in profile, his shadow stretching out long and dark behind him. Darkness behind him, light ahead. He is holding his hands out palm-up and staring at them pensively, sadness and regret taking over his expression. Nandor says, 'Despite my reservations on the matter... Guillermo, I... If it had to be anyone... I wanted it to be me. I know that is what you wanted too, and I may have taken it for granted that you would wait until I was ready to...to let you go. ...I regret not being your sire. If I had known the lengths you were about to go to...' In front of Nandor on the lighter side of the panel are three faded flashbacks of Guillermo in sepia tone from times he asked to be turned: A disappointed frown as he holds his collar open in the pilot episode; a desperate plea, hands out, bundled up and flushed from the cold, from the wellness center episode; and a teary, grateful smile, rosary bunched up in his hand, from the season 3 finale. /end ID

[b3achysurfer]

I really wanna talk about this scene where “Logan saves Ashlyn” because I really believe it’s more than just that

I’m gonna be referencing mostly episodes 34, 35, 43, and 44 just in case you want to do your own digging 😋!

for starters I kinda bugs me when people brush this whole scene off as ‘Logan saving ash’ because 3 things:

1.) Logan saving Ashlyn didn’t really feel natural! mans was allllll the way in the graveyard, he was scared, it was dark, and he didn’t have any prior experience with using guns. but he still somehow did it in 1 shot. I honestly feel like that bit was so that he can’t be excluded from the later celebration and so that him being left behind had a purpose.

2.) ASHLYN WOULDVE SURVIVED WHETHER OR NOT HE MADE THE SHOT!!!!! if anything we’d probably learn a lot more about the phantoms if Logan had never shot his gun.

3.) I feel like Logan making the shot was suppose to distract us from the important lore aspect we see during the scene. we already know red loves throwing in foreshadowing and small hints for us. Especially when these hints get covered by other scenes so that we only notice them after we get the new information and we re-read old chapters. We can see an example of this in the same episode when Taylor offers to go see why Aiden was screaming and Tyler quickly takes action instead and sends her upstairs. it’s obvious that going back outside was the more dangerous option which is why Tyler told her she shouldn’t do it. But at the time many people brushed this off as Tyler caring about his sister as much as any brother would, and a part of his ‘jock/I’m bigger and better than everyone’ attuide seeping through. then later on in chapter 49, we learn about Tyler’s promise to always take care of Taylor and their mom, and we see how their safety is always his priority even if it’s to much for him. Taylor’s frown makes a lot more sense after we get this context.

Anyways what I’m trying to say is that I think Logan saving ash was suppose to draw away our attention to the whole reason he was even able to get the shot in the first place.

Ashlyn is convinced she’s gonna die here and this is her last effort to live. So very strong emotion. But pay attention to her voice box thing. It’s black and has the red streaks around it.

The phantom immediately pauses, as if it understands her. Also, it’s aggression vanished as soon as she spoke. This being LITERALLY TRYING TO KILL HER pauses and starts to question her!! In some twisted way Ashlyn can communicate with phantoms, or at the very least they can tell there is also a connection between her and them. This is literally so important and it’s not talking about enough. Even though no one has ever tried speaking directly to the phantoms before this, I do think this trait only belongs to ashlyn. For starters we already know that she has the strongest connection to the phantom world, and she’s the only one who can actually hear them. Her parents also said that they saw the phantoms after ashlyn was born. This is important for later on.

The only other time we ever see the black text bubble is here when Logan is mad (chapter 42) his shadow has also changed to his phantom world-self. Notice that even though his actions are connected to the phantom there is no red streaks next to his text box?

The fight obviously shows again that they affect the real world because their emotions and phantom and blah blah. This is all stuff we know. But hear me out! View their actions as if they are part phantom.

Ashlyn’s commanding them to do something while feeling strong emotions. Her text box is black with the red streaks again. Just like it was during the scene that ‘Logan saves her’.

And just like the phantom, all of them freeze and their violent behavior disappears. The fact that it’s all in sync and they all stop immediately shows that they didn’t just stop because their friend told them to. They stopped because Ashlyn’s commands have some strength to them. And remember earlier when I said think of them as part phantom? It makes sense why her commands would work, because it’s frozen a phantom before.

AND LOOK!!!! THEY SOUND JUST LIKE THE PHANTOMS! The fact that this guy doesn’t react to that statement means that his organization already knows this. They already know that the kids are partly related to the phantoms. Ashlyn’s especially.

I guess this can split into two ideas:

1.) Ashlyn’s becoming part phantom the fastest. And I don’t mean that she’ll eventually become a full phantom but idk how else to phrase it. Her words can already be understood by phantoms and they have enough impact to confuse and stop phantoms in place. The phantom tilting their head at Ashlyn was kinda like ‘how did you do that?’ .

2.) Ashlyn’s connection gives her semi-control over phantoms. This could be a skill she has to develop over time but the fact that her words were able to break that main cast out of their anger and brought them back into reality shows that they CAN listen to her commands. Either she’s not strong enough yet to control real phantoms or she can only stun them, ash was still able to communicate with the phantom.

That scene is such an important building block that people just brush over. I just don’t see a lot of people talking about the fact that Ashlyn can talk/control phantoms in a way. Or maybe she can’t and all of this means smth else but it’s still so important.

Also before ppl jump on me for saying Ash would’ve lived w/ or w/o logan:

Aiden was literally two seconds away from getting to ash. Plus the phantom was stunned. We don’t know if this hesitation would’ve lasted long or not, but it would’ve been enough time for Aiden to crawl to the top of the roof or for Ashlyn to kick it away. Ashyln was also in shock though so I’m not sure she would’ve been able to do much. But if Aiden saw the phantom on her he would’ve went crazy bro. Do not touch his girl ❌🙅‍♀️❌ All jokes aside though, we definitely would’ve learn more about the connection between Ashlyn and phantoms if Logan didn’t shoot. Not blaming him or anything but I’m just saying.

ANYWAYS THATS ALL THANKS FOR READING!!

[wtslpod]

We don't want to brag, but this might be our highest level episode of the podcast yet. Rings of Power 2x06 "Where is He?" still has us thinking of analysis we want to add. But it's good we can't, because this episode is almost 2 hours long! Discussion preview above, and time stamps below the cut.

As usual, we're talking most about Númenor. We examine the beautiful tension expressed between Eärien, Elendil, and Míriel, as well as the implications of the Sea Trial for our beloved Queen of the Sea. Kat also gives a detailed thematic read of "The Mariner's Wife" from The Unfinished Tales, connecting Aldarion and Erendis' story to the conflicts we're seeing in Númenor. 

Then we gush about Disa and Durin. Wren gets super meta too, analyzing the big picture POV choices the writers are making, and introducing what she calls the "TROP as LeGuinian Tolkien" theory, discussing what Rings of Power understands about Frodo and Gollum. 

Listen through for some slick beats and fresh takes, wherever you get your podcasts.

twitter│instagram│buzzsprout│wtslpod@gmail.com

Time Stamps: 

00:00 - Intro, Visual Feasts, and Musical Moments 

12:18 - Sauron's Design (Beat) 

12:56 - Wonders of the World 

23:38 - Númenor Lo-Fi (Beat) 

24:25 - POV Character Breakdown Part One 

36:29 - "The Mariner's Wife" Thematic Read 

43:33 - Discussion of Eärien and Elendil 

49:52 - Discussion of Míriel  

52:57 - Discussion of Disa and Durin 

56:38 - Galadriel's Theme (Beat) 

57:20 - Discussion of Galadriel and Adar 

1:03:26 - POV Character Breakdown Part Two 

1:10:20 - Performance Awards

1:13:51 - Dialogue Dialogue 

1:15:44 - Critique of the Week 

1:19:20 - Sauron's Design 2 (Beat) 

1:20:06 - Themes 

1:22:48 - "LeGuinian Tolkien" and Discussion of Annatar and Celebrimbor 

1:33:46 - Questions and Speculations

[toreii]

Lost in the Book with Stitch Masterlist [Complete]

Episode 1

Part 1 | Part 2

Episode 2

Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12

Episode 3-1

Part 13 | Part 14

Episode 3-2

Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20

Episode 3-3

Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24

Episode 3-4

Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28

Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32

Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35

Episode 3-5

Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41

Episode 4

Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51

[atlitudes]

I'm Cataloging Every Occurrence of the Piano in Malevolent in a Spreadsheet for Leitmotif Analysis. No, I'm Not Kidding.

As the title of this post reads, I've spent the last few weeks listening to every episode of Malevolent and logging every time the piano is heard (both within the story and as background score), to analyze the data for leitmotif/music based theory-crafting. I originally was planning on getting through the entire series before posting anything, but I am very quickly realizing that this is going to take me a while, and I start a new semester in two weeks, so there is a high likelihood I will not finish before I get too busy to chug through as many episodes a day as I am now. I'm on episode 16/44 and I've already logged 137 instances of piano music. I'm not even halfway done. And this is all I've been doing for the past multiple days. For this reason, I've decided to post the link to the spreadsheet before finishing.

If you're familiar with Malevolent, and just how much music is in it, you might be asking, "OP, are you utterly fucking insane?" And well, dear reader, the answer to that is probably yes, but while you might call it madness, I call it love. So, before getting into the meat of things, I wanted to explain why I even decided to do this. Spoilers ahead for Malevolent (obvious, but yeah). If you don't give a single shit about why I did this and want to get straight to the sheet, scroll to the bottom for the link.

So. About 2 weeks ago I finished my first listen-through of Malevolent. One thing about the most recent episodes struck me as very very significant: John and Arthur's "collective force" being titled as the Dies Irae.

Now, a full-bodied explanation of why I find this so important and the possible implications will come at a later date, but long story short, the Dies Irae is a very significant piece of musical literature-- it is, perhaps, the most commonly quoted leitmotif of the past 800 years, and it symbolizes death. So, understandably, the Themes of this kinda sent me down a spiral.

But the Dies Irae being mentioned in such a way also got me thinking: music is a pretty integral part of Malevolent. So, is the Dies Irae quoted anywhere in its soundtrack? I suddenly got very very excited at this prospect, particularly if it might be in Faroe's Song, because well... god that would hurt lol. I scoured the available songs on the bandcamp aaaaand... no luck (as far as I can tell). Regardless, even if the Dies Irae wasn't a part of the soundtrack, I became curious about what kind of leitmotifs were in the podcast, and what they might mean. And so, the spreadsheet was born.

I explain this in the User Guide part of the sheet (please read it before going through the rest btw), but I only track the piano parts of the podcast. The reason for this is two-fold:

First, score wise, piano is very easy for me to pick apart, and I don't see a lot of significance in the suspenseful string music for horror moments (though I don't deny there might be something to it, I simply won't be able to find it.) To me, the piano is also significantly more important than the strings because it's a notable part of the story-- Arthur and his relation to the instrument is a key part of the plot, and multiple of the piano compositions are made by him. For this reason, I found tracking the piano in the podcast worthwhile.

Second, I also don't touch any of the non-original radio tracks in the podcast (i.e. You Call It Madness (I Call It Love)) because this video by The Final Fantasmagorie already does an excellent job of covering them (please check it out!!), and I felt it would be redundant, especially considering the astronomical amount of ground I already have to cover. If these tracks start being featured as leitmotifs in the piano music then... well, I might change my mind, but so far, no dice.

If I noticed a non-piano piece of music (such as the wraith humming in Ep3) that I haven't found any analysis of whatsoever, I also noted it just so there was some record. Other than that, just piano tracks.

Explanations and disclaimers out of the way, here is the link to the spreadsheet. I might open it up to comments and/or editors at some point, but for now, it's just available to viewers. Once again, please read the disclaimer and user guide before the rest of the sheets.

Thanks for reading, I know this was a very long post, and I appreciate it if you've beared with me! Enjoy!

[zoe-oneesama]

Incentive to give up Magical Cosmic Power: 0

Episode 53 Part 37 First < Previous > Next Season 1, Season 2, Season 3, Season 4, Season 5 Ep 41, Ep 42, Ep 43, Ep 44 Ep 45, Ep 46, Ep 47, Ep 48, Intermission, Ep 49, Ep 50, Ep 51, Ep 52

Bonus:

(the problem with drawing myself into these as a cameo is that I NO LONGER LOOK LIKE THAT)

Ko-fi

[tothebestofmyabilities]

@seemoreseymoursbay day 3! OC day

So in the episode 'Bad Tina' Zeke mentions that his dads girlfriend just had a baby, assuming that the dads gf he talks about in early seasons is Cheryl his step mom and that the father of that baby is Zekes dad we can also assume that Zeke has a very young half sibling. And I did go ahead and assume all those things so this is Zekes baby sister Cherish (Cherry for short).

Used the prompt wonder wharf

Im gonna talk some more about her under the cut bc im sure that will devolve into infodumping zeke lore/headcanons and i dont want anyone to get stuck scrolling past a wall of text

Interestingly she's the only oc i have that's part of a different piece of media rather than one of my own projects.

She's a spunky little toddler for sure she's always got tons of energy, she's extremely confident and fearless constantly running off when she sees something that excites her or to ask strangers questions. She has a big sweet tooth but also loves spicy foods, off the top of my head I don't think its been discussed in canon where Zeke is from originally but recently I've been thinking of him and his bio mom as being from louisiana (projection on my part my mom is from louisiana and bc I like Zeke as a chef and the food there is soo good) I love the idea that his mom taught him to cook the local dishes and that he makes them for Cherry. She dresses in a chaotic mix of her own love of bright, clashing rainbow colors and dingey hand-me-downs from Zekes childhood and from their other cousins. I definitely think Zeke has adhd and Cherry does as well.

I tend to draw her/think of her around age 2 1/2- 3 (so when zeke is 16ish) but in canon time she'd still be a newborn. I love the idea of Zeke with a young sibling he's portrayed in the show as being super caring, protective of and loyal to the people be cares about, and good with younger kids all of which read as big brother qualities to me and he's also mentioned wanting siblings hes closer too. (He mentioned having a 44 year old brother in Presto Tina-o but also has said his bio mom was pregnant with him at her prom which is probably just a continuity error with his throway lines but taken at face value makes his dad out to be a gross old creep which is my personal headcanon idk if there's anyone out there who are big fans of Zeke's dad and step mom but my headcanons do not paint them in a nice light so beware of that)

Based on pretty much everything Zeke has ever said about his family I get the impression that the adults in his life are pretty neglectful and irresponsible and definitely not super present (he rarely ever speaks about his dad I hc him having a job that keeps him away from the family most of the time probably something like trucking and Zeke has mentioned Cheryl being an alcoholic I also hc her as much younger than the dad maybe she's a bartender? I definitely see her having a nightlife kind of job also for reference picture her as a redhead with blue eyes and a lot of tattoos that's where cherry gets her eyes and freckles)

I believe with Cherry a lot of parenting responsibilities would be placed on Zeke and while i think he has qualities that are really well suited to that the parentification of an older sibling is not ok and would negatively impact him, I like the idea of him applying for a job at Bob's Burgers bc he needs a more stable way to provide financially than doing odd jobs around town and not only getting a job but also getting a support system and adults who care about him and his sister and their wellbeing. I think Bob would take Zeke under his wing and help him make himself and his education a priority (the belchers helping out with Cherry when they can so he can focus more on school and extra curriculars) and help him get into a culinary school after graduation. Linda would fall completely in love with her (we know how much she loves babies) and basically treat Cherry like she's her own grandbaby. They all babysit her when needed but Louise is her favorite babysitter and maybe person also she really looks up to Louise and likes to imitate her fashion style and the way she speaks, Louise would pretend that this annoys her but not so secretly finds it adorable.

Anyways clearly i could go on and on but ill just cut myself off there hope y'all like her!

[the-chessboard-is-personal]

people have hyped this up so much I'm scared (ii s2 post-s3 liveblog)

(/silly)

ahem. hi. post-watch Knight here, with a big tw: there is a suicide mention and intense death wishing at the end of this post. you can guess who it's directed towards but if you've already seen the episodes I don't think you'll get it wrong.

since there's only 3 episodes this one is going to work slightly differently, I'll have Big Text separating each of them and timestamp each different part of the liveblog. there will also be screenshots.

15:

(intro) wait Taco's trying to steal the win without even being a contestant? (4:48) "Don't Mention That Again" I've said it before it just feels like he speaks in capitalized words sometimes

(5:08) song?? THE SONG FUCKING SLAPS???

(8:02) hold on a moment I need to do someth[finds the song in isolation and adds it to the playlist Good Music]

(10:19) taco!! come on, bringing up beef at the show!

(12:48) "yes :)" oh what a bitch /affectionate

(15:49) tbh I agree with Knife here, if everyone respawns anyway, why is murder so bad? (<- building a death game in Minecraft)

(18:01) DAMNN holy shit, to think this isn't even canonically a scripted game, for Taco to say that?! aough

(19:45) HUH?? TACO CRACKED??? oh. OH she- she fucking died from stress- literally. oh shit. I- tbh I...can relate. I did that once. long story and I can't explain it here but.... holy shit.

(22:46) he's on a platform! MePad teleported him onto a platform!

(27:44) MePhone giving the "next time is the finale" speech rneanwhile there's two episode lef- oh shit

- after episode -

well that was a fucking cliffhanger. OH. MY. what!! WHAT!! COBS?? oh yeah also I don't hate Taco anymore. and the outro music slaps sdgkjhf

oh fuck I'm scared, onto the next episode!

16:

(1:00) HOKAY WELP RIGHT INTO ACTION. that was the same MePhone 3 from 4's memories wasn't it? were those other ones MePhone 2s??

(1:39) hough the parallels, I love this episode so far

(2:38) [his literal worst enemy is repeatedly trying to contact him directly] MePhone 4: [treats it like a minor annoyance]

oh also YIPPEE YINYANG IS THERE!!

(4:17) "are you offering?" lmao I wouldn't have even asked-

uhh

..? why is s3 so bad for Suitcase to hear about..?

(5:30) WHy is he HERE??

(7:28) what HEY IS PICKLE GONE FROM THE INTRO

(15:22) OH IT'S THE GUY. OH IT'S THE GUY o h OJ!! oagh but like. imagine that with humans. your friend starts panicking at something you can't hear or see, screams and then sUDDENLY THEIR FUCKING FACE IS GONE. that would be a neat analog horror actually

(18:32) he's just like me. he's just like me for real,, (<- also has trigger words)

(21:30) OH FUCK HE GOT NICKEL TOO

(23:42) wait- first Pickle then OJ, Nickel- no but OJ never got eliminated in s1. hm.

(25:30) wait- doesn't quite know what a frown looks like? d- does that rnean- wait wait nonono that was Cherry that yeeted Marshmallow-

(27:17) wait WAIT THIS HAPPENED WITH CABBY TOO DO NONE OF THEM HAVE PARENTS?? 27:27 no. nonon NO DON'T SAY IT DON'T YOU DARE DON';T YOU FCUKING DARE TELL ME [unpauses] AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAKDSGJFK AGDFJKHAT'S WHY FAN GHLITCHEDD ADJKGF JAHLOUIAHF OSJHLKF HLA

- after episode -

OH MY HOUSEMATE WAS RIGH T I'M GONNA BR EA K OHH WHAT THE HELLfuck

hokay. okay. okayokayokaoyuayojoaykokoykaoykaokaoauuauhghhh

I am sane. I am normal. that's how he knows things. I need a break- okay so after like an hour, onto the next ep! wait is this the finale-

17:

(1:39) WHA- oh I misheard Knife as Knight.

(2:10) NO NOT TEST TUBE! (3:50) oh they're all going to-

(5:14) NO DON'T YOU DARE

,..,,.,why them,.., b.. but,theyre my favorites,,.

(11:34) wait they need to get that wire out of MePhone. that would stop MePhone X, right? but he doesn't know that..shit

(13:08) yeaAHHWHAT- oh. oh what

(15:14) let me guess Paintbrush got X'd while Fan was rambling. oh nvm. OH THE OTHER EGG IS PART OF MEPHONE 4?? oh that almost made me cry too- welp there goes lightbulb

(17:47) HUH??????????????? TOILET?????? wh a t .the fuck

(21:17) "cause that was pretty reductive!" oh they addressed it!

(22:48) o h. wh- what the HELL IS COBS'S PROBLEM?? LIKE WHAT IS WRONG WITH HIM DOES HE NOT THINK MEPHONE4 IS ACTUALLY SENTIENT OR SOMETHING? DOES HE LIKE TORTURING HIM? EVERYONE'S FUCKING DEAD

(25:40) ohh no.. Bow probably can't be X'd anyway, does she really have to do. that. to someone .....sighhh. if Apple's okay with that happening (somehow) I guess it's not as scary. I won't understand the opinion but I don't really need to tbh.

(sorry no more timestamps I watched the whole rest of it speechless)

- after episode -

I- wh-

h-

but- he-

h-

h-

he- but he just- there was no- winner- Cobs- what about MePhone 3GS?? what abou-

h. hold on

hold on I need to. make an editr ealquick. just

relworld cursor editor almost crashed trying to save this

[rapha-reads]

IWTV rewatch

Season 2 episode 1 [What Can The Damned Really Say to the Damned] - part 4/4

- And now... Mood shift, setting change, back to Dubai, 2022, and the 77 year-long lie. And lord oh lord, we jump right into it with the shot of the bedroom being a cell and Armand selling Louis' art without even telling him the works are up for sale. Greaaaat. This is gonna be fun.

[Louis] "'Could I see the pages we removed? Of Claudia's diaries?'

[Armand] 'We made an agreement.'

[Louis] 'I don't know what else is blurred or misremembered.'

[Armand] 'My name is in some of those pages.'

[Louis] 'I sit across from him and reckon with the knowledge I don't know what other misrememberings made into it. I won't share them with him but I need to read them again.'"

Brb, need to SCREAM. Oh, the control Armand us exercising over Louis... The way he micromanages every aspect of his life. The way Louis has to bargain for everything he wants, and the way he thanks (thanks!!!) Armand for every breadcrumb thrown his way. The way Armand cares more about his image, his reputation, his grip on Louis, than Louis' well-being and peace of soul and mind. And the way the scene is shot and designed, the bars behind the bed and the skyscraper settling, the lack of any colors and any homey furniture, the huge bed with an ocean separating them, contrasting with the comfy house and room of 1132 rue Royale, and how Lestat and Louis used to sleep entwined in each other's embrace... I will go mad.

- BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA THE ENTRANCE HAND IN HAND, ARE THEY SERIOUS. Oh, this is too hilarious. And how they drop the hands as soon as they're seated, yeah, real convincing, fellas.

- Oh, Devil's Minion's crumb! Armand responding to Daniel by mimicking his "Yeah" and those big eyes looking so amused and fond at that old man. Couldn't care less about the Loumand, I'm here for the Devil's Minion. What a performance, Louis rubbing Armand's shoulder, lmao.

- Daniel shutting down Armand immediately is hilarious. "Sure, sire, you're on the record, but you still haven't made an appearance in the story so for now stfu and wait for your turn". No wonder Armand goes crazy about Daniel, that guy doesn't know how to be afraid. And second shoulder pat, Lou, hon... You're enjoying this, aren't you. You are enjoying the way Daniel puts Armand back in his place, something you haven't managed to do in years, despite what you both like to pretend.

- Oh, I love that piece of music! That one is "The Whole World Was Ready to Return" and it is gorgeous. It's played here, as Claudia and Louis go to Paris, and at the end, when Louis issues his threat/warning to the vampires in Dubai. Very thematic. The music in s2 is different from the music in s1, by the way. S1 soundtrack had very folk/blues undertones, New Orleans style, while s2 is much more orchestral/symphonic, Paris style. The music adapts itself to the setting, and I adore that. It gives so much more texture to the story.

- [Louis] "The war had turned off the lights, stripped its streets of their beauty, sent its avant-garde into exile. But now, the whole world was ready to return, to remake their lives. Pilgrims, on their hopeful way."

Nah, the avant-garde, at least artistic, was there, just, waaay underground or dangerously flirting with censorship and hidden meanings. In Paris itself during the war, there were several plays written and played against fascism while the Gestapo was patrolling the streets. Notably, though conflictingly, Jean Anouilh's famous "Antigone", in 1944, Josephine Baker singing and spying , as well as Sacha Guitry, who was arrested after the Liberation and accused of collaboration without any evidence, but who managed to save a lot of Jewish artists and personalities by playing double agent, or good ol' Sartre (who hilariously makes a cameo later on in the show) who writes a lot of stuff between '40 and' 44. Anyway. There's more but I ain't have time right now to do serious research. Back to Louis.

- [Louis] "'I wanna say something to you. I don't need to hear anything back I just need you to hear me. Hard words and soft words. The hard. Our life is shit. It's been shit. It is shit. It's gonna be shit again. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. No one's watching, no one cares. A shit life beats no life. But where we're going now we can't be running away again. Doesn't mean we forget what we saw. What she did in front of us. I see you going that way I'm gonna pull you back. I don't need that from you. As long as you walk the Earth, I'll never taste the fire, you understand me? We're going to find others like us. Aind if it ain't here, cos life is shit, or I fuck it up again, or you fuck it up, we'll go to the next place. We can't be the only good ones out there. Soft words. If you were the last vampire on Earth... it would be enough. It's you and me. Me and you. You and me. Me and you. You and me.'"

And my hallucination of your dead father.

Anyway that's his child, that's her parent.

Gotta give it to Louis tho, he doesn't lie. Embellishes, obfuscates, but lying, no. As long as Claudia's alive, he's not gonna try the sun. But if she dies... All bets are off.

Also Louis is right and hey, actually needed to hear that right now, thanks bae. Now someone needs to tell him back his own words, I think he needs to hear it back.

Episode insider:

Jacob talking about the heart full of sugar and how he spent the rest of the night on a sugar high is so adorable and hilarious when the part that comes next is Dreamstat. Also hey, "Dreamstat" was coined by Jacob himself, nice!

[Jacob] "Anne Rice's vampires are so human. This is kind of a departure from these sort of beautified, glamorous vampires. It's just really fun." - yeah, I like the glam vamp, but the monstrous vampire, a bit like Mike Flanagan does in Midnight Mass, is also a thrill.

Love Delainey saying she loved doing her stunts and all the physical stuff!

[Assad] "Armand wants to protect himself, but also wants to protect his relationship with Louis, what they have. He feels he has no choice except to come in, sharing the narrative with Louis." - yep. Protecting himself. Protecting what he has with Louis, even at the expanse of Louis' own will. Because what does Armand fear above all else? To be unloved. Not necessarily alone, like most vampires, but to be considered unlovable and unworthy of people's care. So if he can't be sure that people's feelings for him are genuine, he will orchestrate and manipulate them to tie them to himself. That's Armand's schtick.

season 1 masterpost

part 1 | part 2 | part 3

episode 2 | episode 3 | episode 4 | episode 5 | episode 6 | episode 7 | episode 8

[bnhaobservation]

BNHA Observations, speculations and assorted info: The facts taking place during the year that ends with Rei's hospitalization and Tōya's assumed death

So, in order to write my fic, I spend much time observing canon scenes, comparing the manga and the anime version, take note of details, translations and info in them as well as finding out how are some things called.

Since what I noticed/speculated/found out can be of use for other fic authors I thought to share as well.

Resources:

Chapter 31 The Boy Born with Everything (全てを持って生まれた男の子 Subete o Motte Umareta Otoko no Ko) Chapter 39 Todoroki Shōto: Origin (轟焦凍：オリジン Todoroki Shōto: Origin) Chapter 44 Relaxing Day Off (休め振替休日 Yasume Furikae Kyūjitsu) Chapter 93 One For All's Ember (残り火ワンフォーオール Nokoribi One For All) Chapter 166 Be Proud, License Trainees (ホッコれ仮免講習 Hokkore Karimen Kōshū) Chapter 187 Flaming Roar! vs. Nomu: High-End (燃えよ轟け！VS脳無：ハイエンド Moeyo Todoroke! Versus Nōmu: High-End) Chapter 188 Your Father, the Number One Hero (父はNo.1ヒーロー Chichi wa Number One Hero) Chapter 192 The Todoroki Family (轟家 Todoroki-ke) Chapter 202 Match 3 (第3セット Daisan Set) Chapter 204 Tuning Up (チューニング Tuning) Chapter 249 The Hellish Todoroki Family (地獄の轟くん家 Jigoku no Todoroki-kun-chi Chapter 250 Ending (エンディング Ending) Chapter 290 Dabi's Dance (ダビダンス Dabi Dance) Chapter 302 The Wrong Way to Put Out a Fire, Part 2 (火の不始末 後編 Hi no Fushimatsu Kōhen) Chapter 350 Bound to a Fiery Fate (エン En)

Episode 19 The Boy Born with Everything (全てを持って生まれた男の子 Subete o Motte Umareta Otoko no Ko) Episode 23 Todoroki Shōto: Origin (轟焦凍：オリジン Todoroki Shōto: Origin) Episode 25 Todoroki vs. Bakugō (轟VS爆豪 Todoroki versus Bakugō) Episode 49 One For All (ワン・フォー・オール) Episode 88 His Start (始まりの Hajimarino) Episode 90 Vestiges (面影 Omokage) Episode 95 Match 3 (第３試合 Daisan Shiai) Episode 96 Match 3 Conclusion (第３試合決着 Daisan Shiai Ketchaku) Episode 105 The Hellish Todoroki Family (地獄の轟くん家 Jigoku no Todoroki-kun-chi) Episode 106 The Unforgiven (許されざる者 Yurusarezaru-mono) Episode 124 Dabi's Dance (ダビダンス Dabi Dance) Episode 130 The Wrong Way to Put Out a Fire (火の不始末 Hi no Fushimatsu)

Series 4th Outro2 "Shout Baby" by Ryoku Oushoku Shakai

My Hero Academia: School Briefs I (僕のヒーローアカデミア 雄英白書 I Boku no Hīrō Akademia U.A. Hakusho I) - Part 2 Notice from School My Hero Academia: School Briefs V (僕のヒーローアカデミア 雄英白書 祝 Boku no Hero Academia Hakusho Iwai) - Part 3 Awkward Year's-End Soba

OBSERVATIONS, SPECULATIONS AND ASSORTED INFO:

Fundamentally the year that lead to Rei's hospitalization and Touya's death is narrated into two different moments, chap 31/39, in which we've a retelling of how bad it was from Shouto's point of view and chap 290/302, in which we learn instead of Touya's side.

However, there's a fundamental difference in the two narrations. When the story tackles Touya's side, we can more or less pinpoint the dates of when this is happening, the same can't be said for when the story tackles Shouto's side. There's probably a narrative reason for this, Touya's whole story (which covers much more than just this year) is a progression of things going from good to terrible, while Shouto's story is likely meant to narrate the constant horror in which he and his mother lived until Rei lost it. So there's not really a need to pinpoint when a scene took place because that scene likely kept on repeating in similar variants for days, until Rei became unable to take it any longer.

As a result I'll narrate some fact that are part of Shouto's side first, so as to give the idea they likely repeated over and over through that year, while I'll follow the timeline of Touya's side of the story more closely.

So anyway let's dig on what happened that year.

Warning: as tumblr now has an image limit (no more than 30 per post), I had to turn more images into a single one so as to show the full scene. The result is that the image quality in some scenes is pretty low... Please, use the images solely as a visual reference of which scene you need to look at and, for the text check your own copy of BNHA.

TIMELINE

January 11: Todoroki Shōto is 5.

January 18: Todoroki Tōya is 13.

April: Todoroki Tōya starts his second year at Middle school - Todoroki Fuyumi starts Middle school - Todoroki Natsuo starts his 3rd year at Elementary school. - Todoroki Shōto attends preschool.

[Preeschool in Japan isn't mandatory but we know Shōto attended to it as Chap 166 shows on its cover the photo taken at the preschool entrance ceremony... the photo might not be necessarily taken in this year as kids can start preschool from when they're 3 but it just confirms Shōto went at it]

Sometime during the year: Endeavor and All Might talked for the last time.

A note on the translation:

‘Chō hisashiburi! 10-Nen mae no taidan furi ka na! ? Mikaketakara aisatsu shi tokou to omotte ne.’ 「超久し振り！10年前の対談振りかな！？見かけたから挨拶しとこうと思ってね。」 “It’s been a long time! It's from the talk/conversation show from 10 years ago, right! ? I saw you and thought I'd say hello.”

Endeavor and All Might's conversation is called ‘taidan furi’ (対談振り) where ‘taidan’ (対談) means “a discussion between two people which is usually set up as a special occasion and whose topic is set in advance”… while ‘furi’ (振り) is “show”. So basically, 10 years ago they didn’t have a casual chat but ended up together in some sort of talk show / combined interview. The anime makes it even more obvious because in it the sentence is:

‘10-Nen mae, media de taidan shite irai ka na! ? !’ 「10年前、メディアで対談して以来かな！？！」 “I think it's been since we had a conversation on the media 10 years ago!?”

During the year: Shōto watches All Might on television when his father isn't around [shown in chap 39 and 206. We see that Shōto's clothes are different in the two scenes and so is his position, meaning he did it more than once which "School Briefs" also confirms]

“You always were a fan of All Might, weren’t you, Shōto? But you had to wait until your father wasn’t around to watch those video clips in secret. Remember?” [Rei from "My Hero Academia: School Briefs I"]

During the year: Shōto's training is so severe it causes him to throw up. Rei tries to get in between him and Enji protesting he's only 5 and gets hit. [shown in chap 39, 202, 204]

Actually we don't know if Chapter 202 & 204 are placed in this same year (Shōto is still small but Rei isn't present and Shōto and Enji are dressed differently so it's not the same time as chap 39... and likely chap 202 and 204 show two different scenes as well since in one Enji has his moustaches on fire while in the other is his beard... never mentioning in chap 202 Shōto already has his scar so this likely happened post him being burn and could as well take place in the following year, though the fact that Enji has long sleeves might imply it's still winter...) but they seems to show other scenes of Shōto's training which still sees him throwing up and crying, which surely confirm an abusive pattern.

A note on the translation:

'Tōya wa oshikatta. Ore ijō no karyoku o sonaete irunoni. Rei no taishitsu o motte shimatte… Aitsu wa… oshikatta' 「燈矢は惜しかった。俺以上の火力を備えているのに 冷の体質を持ってしまって… あいつは…惜しかった」 “Tōya was close/disappointing/something I feel regret for/deserving better. Even though he has more firepower than me. He had Rei's constitution… That guy… was close/disappointing/something I feel regret for/deserving better.”

Oishikatta (惜しかった) has quite a bunch of meanings like to feel regret for, to find something a pity/pitiful, to mourn but also to cherish, to love dearly, to be precious... and is used to express pity/regret of an "almost but not quite" situation, in "a damn it, you were so close" kind of way.

Very likely the emphasis in the sentence isn't that Tōya could almost do it, but that it was so unfortunate Tōya couldn't do it.

This doesn't necessarily mean Tōya was already dead because it was decided Tōya couldn't fulfill Enji's ambitions way prior his death and way prior Shōto's birth.

BTW, Tōya started burning himself before Natsuo was conceived. In order for their age difference to work, it means Enji started training Tōya when Tōya was 3 (yeah, it's possible he started earlier than this age but I find difficult that a child of 2 could pull it out successfully). As a result it's possible he started training Shōto at that age as well. In case someone doesn't remember it, Quirks don't appear when one is 4 but can appear even earlier (luminescent baby anyone?), Shōto could freeze his own snot as an infant and it's implied that Enji knew Tōya had a fire Quirk when they conceived Fuyumi (meaning when Tōya was 2 months or younger) so starting their training before 4 wasn't impossible.

During the year: While Shōto is scared at the idea of becoming like his father, someone who abuses his mother, Rei comfort him saying he can decide who he'll become. [Chap 39... I pieced back the scene for better visual]

During the year: Tōya is desperate because he can't figure his reason to exist and search comfort in Natsuo [Chap 290]

Likely in sprind, anyway prior to July (as Natsuo isn't 9 yet): Tōya, Natsuo and Fuyumi play together while Shōto can only watch them. Enji refuses to let him join them saying he needs to train and they belong to different worlds. [Chap 302 & 39 & 250]

July 1: Todoroki Natsuo is 9.

Likely summer, though it could be still spring: Natsuo refuses to listen to Tōya’s complains during the night, telling him to go talk with Fuyumi. [Chap 302]

August 8: Todoroki Enji/Endeavor is 36.

Likely autumn (Rei's sleeves are longer): Rei tries to stop Tōya from leaving the house and the two have an argument. [Chap 302]

During the year: Rei begins to break starting to cry way too often to the point Shōto will end up remembering her solely crying and will forget her smiling. [Chap 31]

December 6: Todoroki Fuyumi is 13.

Winter: Tōya’s flames turn blue. [Chap 302]

A note on the translation:

'Hayaumare no chīsana karada ni yōyaku otozure hajimeta nijiseichō’「早生まれの小さな身体に漸く訪れ始めた二次性徴」 "Secondary sexual characteristics have finally begun to appear in the small body of the hayaumare.”

'Hayaumare' isn't a premature kid but someone born between January 1 and April 1. In Japan this is relevant because in order to start school you need to be 6 by the time the 2 of April comes around, meaning the Hayaumare are the youngest kids in the class as they're born in the year following the one in which the other kids, or ‘Osoumare’ (遅生まれ "born in between April 2 and December 31"), were born.

Winter (likely in a different day as the black bars on the corner hint at time passing by... possibly because when Tōya came back home Enji wasn't there yet?): Tōya asks his father to come to Sekoto Peak with him his next day off. [Chap 302]

Winter (likely in the same day): Todoroki Enji/Endeavor hits Todoroki Rei for not stopping Todoroki Tōya from training. [Chap 302]

Winter (the morning of another day as Todoroki Shōto has just woken up): Rei snaps and burns Shōto. [Chap 31, 39, 249, 302]

“Shōto?” he said, facing the sliding fusuma screen. No response. Natsuo slid the screen aside, not expecting to find his brother inside, but there he was-fast asleep on the Futon that he’s clearly plopped down onto without much care, all askew. Moving quietly so as not to wake Shōto, Natsuo crept over and peered at his brother’s face. He looked surprisingly young, despite the burn scar that sat heavily on his face like a shadow. Having been abused by Endeavor-who’s been fixated on his own ambition. Todoroki Rei had snapped one day and thrown scalding water in Shōto’s face. Natsuo would never forget the pair of tear-filled screams he’d heard that day. How painful it must have been, he thought. Natsuo caught himself extending a finger toward the scar but quickly curled it away when he realized what he was doing. Shōto’s scar probably wouldn’t exist if only the boy hadn’t inherited aspects of both his parents’ Quirks. Maybe Shōto could have enjoyed a normal childhood, full of carefree days playing with his siblings. And yet I couldn’t do a thing… Natsuo had been in elementary school when it had happened. Their father, Endeavor, had ignored his family well-being in pursuit of his ambitions-ambitions he’d projected onto young Shōto. Even now, Natsuo would beat himself up over how he used to be before the abuse really began, recalling the period in his life that had made him feel pathetic and ashamed. Before Shōto was born, Natsuo had sought his father’s love and care, and when Endeavor was around, he would turn into an excited ball of energy, eager for attention. But that love never came. It was only thanks to his warm and caring mother that Natsuo had survived those early years and learned to cope with rejection from his other parent. But after Shōto was born, even their mother grew distant, though not out of indifference. Natsuo could sense how much energy she had to devote to protecting her youngest, her baby, from her husband’s so called training-which most would label abuse- but at that age, Natsuo couldn’t help but feel that his mother had been stolen from him. After witnessing his mother and brother crying and screaming on that horrible day, Natsuo had been overcome with crushing shame. [My Hero Academia: School Briefs V]

Winter (the same day or the one after it... Shōto's clothes are different but he might have had to change because he got wet... on the other side it's also possible that Rei's hospitalization wasn't done the same day but Enji had to do preparations for it): Rei is consequently hospitalized and put in isolation. After learning about his mother's hospitalization Shōto decides to blame his father for this. [Chap 39]

A note on the translation:

'Omae ni kigai o kuwaetanode byōin ni ireta. Mattaku… daijina tokida to iu no ni…' 「おまえに危害を加えたので病院に入れた。全く…大事な時だと言うのに…」 "I put her in a hospital because she hurt you. Good grief... even though it's an important time..."

Enji is actually more specific in what he says to Shōto about Rei's fate, saying he put her in a hospital and didn't call her a fool but uses an expression of general exhasperation 'mattaku'.

Winter (likely on Todoroki Enji/Endeavor’s day off, Tōya's clothes are also noticeably different from the ones he had when he asked his father to go with him on Sekoto Peak): Tōya goes on Sekoto Peak, waiting for his father. When his father doesn’t arrive and the lights go down he ends up setting himself on fire losing his lower jaw before he manages to enter in a stream. He is then found and taken away by All for One. Enji reaches Sekoto Peak but can’t find his son except for a piece of his jawbone. Tōya is assumed dead even if Enji at first claims he didn't want to accept it. However this will lead him to focus even more on Shōto. [Chap 291, 302, 350]

Winter (after Tōya's death): After Rei's hospitalization Shōto will never visit her until he'll be in U.A. High school. Rei's psychological condition will get worse. Fuyumi, despite knowing about her family's sad situation was and will remain too scared to do anything beyond keeping up appearances. Natsuo will gradually forget things but will keep on resenting Enji for what happened to his mother and to his siblings. [Chap 39, 187, 250, 302]

TIMELINE CONSISTENCY PROBLEMS

Either Horikoshi didn't plan the Todoroki timeline or decided to change things along the way as, occasionally, what the characters say happened in a chapter get contraddicted in another... or make them seem uncaring of Enji's neglect of Natsuo (and Fuyumi) and of how he eventually casued Tōya's death.

Mind you, I'm sure they all cared about Tōya's death and about the neglect Natsuo and Fuyumi suffered because otherwise the characterization wouldn't make sense. This is likely a problem in the narration, not an attempt of the narration to deny the care.

Anyway I'm gonna list the problems in narration now. Do with them what you want. I'm sure plenty of people has headcanons that solve them just fine. This though isn't a page for theories so I didn't list any of mine either.

Not all of the problems are terrible (the only ones really bad are the ones that consistently change the timeline/why things happened) but some of them can undoubtedly confuse a reader about the characters' feelings.

Let's start with chap 350.

For start this establishes that Tōya assumed his father didn't come to him on Sekoto Peak because he was too busy with work... so the fire took place not after the discussion they had (which fits with how the timeline decided Rei needed to be hospitalized before Tōya were to burn) but neither on Enji's free day apparently... unless Tōya assumed his father gave up on his free day to work some more which is something he had already done in chap 301, when Enji left and refused to train Tōya even though it was his day off... and this can be Tōya's own way to excuse his father for not coming to Sekoto Peak.

However, after this the chapter has Tōya say he has to go back home because he did and say some awful things so he should apologize to his mother and the others and shows his father what he can do.

The problem is... we didn't really see him doing something awful. Yes, he argued with his mother but this was PRIOR to his flames turning blue, as for his siblings his argument with Fuyumi dated to PRIOR Natsuo's birth and the one with Natsuo to PRIOR his argument with his mother and wasn't even a real argument. He just begged his little brother to hear him out.

If there was an argument that day before Tōya left for Sekoto Peak... if he did something... well, this is completely discharged by the plot. It won't even be mentioned when he and his siblings will meet again... not even mentioning his mother was hospitalized and put in isolation PRIOR to him going on Sekoto Peak, so if he had an argument with her we didn't see, it still was way prior to that.

And the same goes for whatever he did of awful... as I've hard time thinking he's referring to accidentally burning down the peak.

Even his discussion with his father doesn't seem to fit the description and if he blames himself for how his father hit his mother... well, that just feel messed up especially since he wasn't even shown being there to see.

Going on.

Chap 39 said Shōto didn't visit Rei because he blamed himself, while chap 250 says it was due to Rei's psychological condition worsening after Tōya's death... to go back on chap 302 volume version which said she was put in isolation PRIOR to Tōya's death (and therefore likely couldn't see anyone even if she wanted to) and then, AFTER Tōya's death she got even worse.

In the magazine version of chap 302 Horikoshi had Rei state that Enji basically became abusive AFTER Tōya's death, and this is what eventually lead Rei to snap and be eventually hospitalized... the whole thing was corrected in the volume version so now the volume version too agrees that Rei was hospitalized FIRST and then Tōya died.

While the thing got 'fixed', the whole correction was done in a sloppy manner... it would have worked much better if the dialogues in whose two scenes were swapped because, if Rei was already hospitalized and put in isolation, she wouldn't have known if, after Tōya's death, Enji got worse. It's hard to think she's referring to the time prior Tōya's death because it feels like a non sequitur since they were talking of the time AFTER IT.

Since the narration was changed retroactively it's possible that in the first planning for the chapter Tōya's flames turning blue, him telling his father, his father abusing Rei and him running to Sekoto Peak (instead than waiting for Enji's day off) took place all in the same day... or better all in the same night as it's dark when Tōya's flames turn blue and it's dark when Tōya burns on Sekoto Peak.

This however becomes impossible when it was decided Rei was hospitalized PRIOR to Tōya dying.

It doesn't help how Rei in chapter 39 focus especially on how she shouldn't stay with Shōto due to his left side being repulsive to her, when chap 302 magazine version also implied Natsuo's look was repulsive to her and the volume version instead change things and made it all about the way they looked at her (but Shōto never looked at her in such a way though okay, she might have been losing it but she should have still worried more about Tōya who glared at her like Enji and also about Natsuo). Of course the problem of chap 39 is likely that what happens in chap 302 was likely not planned and the story was possibly meant to focus solely on Shōto so, of course, she wouldn't want to be near him and wouldn't be troubled by the other kids.

Shōto is supposed to be kept isolated by his siblings, which is also why Natsuo had no idea Shōto liked Soba as, evidently, they never ate together before. However, when Enji attack Rei from the furniture we see they seem to be all in the same room, the television one.

In chap 291 Enji claims he kept searching for Tōya, unable to believe in his death... but chap 302 presents him as resigned and completely focused on Shōto.

Either because Tōya's storiline wasn't planned yet or to keep the secret, the story in its early stages avoid mentioning him... with confusing results.

Shōto, in chap 39, won't mention to Midoriya how his father might have lead to his older brother's demise. The manga will try to excuse it by saying

'Sotsu-sen shita hanasu mon ja nēdaro' 「率先して話すもんじゃねエだろ」 "I wouldn't take the initiative to speak (about it)."

Only... during his first discussion with Midoriya Shōto:

Asked Midoriya if he was All Might illegittimate son

Told him about his father buying his mother for Quirk Marriage

Told him about his mother's depression and how she ended up burning him

Told him about how he was raised to fulfill his father's expecations and how he hated it and how he'll deny his father by refusing to use his Quirk

That's quite a lot he decided to mention, but the fact he didn't mention how his father also lead his oldest brother to his demise made it seems as if Shōto didn't see Enji responsible for it... which also seems confirmed by how, when Fuyumi asks Shōto how he feels about Enji, he replies he blames him solely for his scar and driving his mother to madness, not a word for his dead older brother or for how his siblings suffered of neglect even if Natsuo made clear he still suffers for it.

Shōto is a VERY caring boy. This narrative choice seems to imply he didn't care about his siblings when it's likely the opposite. He cared for Natsuo and likely for Tōya and Fuyumi too. The way the story is told though, is misleading because it makes him look like he only cares about himself and his mother when I don't think that's the case.

Probably though, back in chap 31 Horikoshi either hadn't planned Tōya's storyline yet or wanted to keep it secret and here he didn't want to repeat the whole narration or give too many hints about Tōya's death so he had Shōto skip it and focus on Rei. It's a choice... but it's not a great one.

Enji also for a long while won't show concern for how he caused Tōya's death.

In chap 93 Enji thinks at how his despair lead him to ruin his family... only again there's no mention of Tōya not even visually, again likely because Horikoshi either hadn't planned Tōya's storyline yet or wanted to keep it secret. Still it seems as if Enji doesn't care he lead his son to death for his own ambition.

Chapter 188 is a little better as, at least, Tōya is shown along with his siblings... but it's still not great because, even though Enji is in the middle of his attempt at being a better person, here he worries about his overheating and seems to focus solely on how he married Rei and with her he had three kids who didn't have the Quirk he wanted and then to a kid who had the Quirk he wanted to fight the over heating, and doesn't concern at all with how, in the process, he also abused his family, lead Rei to madness and Tōya to death, but it can work narratively... even if it's not so great because it remarks something we already knew and doesn't focus on his regret (which would have been more important since Enji is trying to be a better person). But okay, it can work.

Probably the worst part is chap 192 because by then Enji is making clear he plans to atone but when he worries about the lives he had cut short, even though Tōya was mentioned, the visual shows us only Rei, as if she were the only life he had cut short (as she ended up in a hospital), skipping the one of his son WHO DIED.

Yes, this is probably to keep the mystery about Tōya but it's still not a great choice since he doesn't seem concerned.

Also probably because Horikoshi either hadn't planned Tōya's (and Natsuo's) storyline yet or wanted to keep it secret in "Ultra Archive" it was said Fuyumi became a teacher solely because she felt bad about the mistreatment Shōto suffered, apparently not caring about the neglect Natsuo suffered or of how Tōya ended up dead.

Fuyumi is also showed 'not caring' when no changes are done regarding to her in chap 302.

In the magazine version Fuyumi saying "I knew our family was broken" with an image of Enji dragging away Shōto and her mother trying to stop it, can be read as "(After Tōya's death) I knew our family was broken" and this allows her to sound like she's in pain for Tōya, Shōto and her mother.

However when the manga version changes things and have Rei hospitalized before Tōya's death, showing her having a flashback of how Enji was dragging away Shōto and her mother trying to stop it, remarks she knew her family was broken PRIOR to Tōya's death but not her feelings in regard to it. This combines negatively with how it was said she became a teacher for what Shōto suffered and paints her as uncaring for what Tōya suffered.

Again, I'm sure Fuyumi cared. It's just when "Ultra Archive" was written either Horikoshi didn't think about this part of the storyline or we weren't meant to know about it so he skipped it, and in chap 302 he merely adjusted things poorly so they ended up having implications he didn't plan.

Shōto going to preschool, where other children are, but being kept isolated by his siblings because they aren't part of the Hero world, seems a contraddiction in the story. While part of it can be due to Tōya's actions when Shōto was a baby, even after Tōya's death it will be said Shōto was kept apart from Natsuo (it's unclear if the same applies to Fuyumi) but then we see that when Shōto is in U.A. he's free to also go out without supervision so it becomes weird how (or why) Enji managed to keep him apart from his siblings, when he was allowed to spend time with whoever he wanted outside of his house... and even in his house he apparently wasn't controlled.

It also doesn't speak so great of Natsuo never attempting to connect with his little brother even if "School Briefs" tries to excuse it by saying it was due to Natsuo's grief.

When giving the green sign to "Vigilantes" Horikoshi likely completely forgot that All Might and Endeavor supposedly didn't meet for 10 years as, in chap 122, the two will cooperate to stop a Villain attack. Since “Vigilantes” takes place AFTER All Might and All for One’s big fight that injured both, it can’t be more than 6 years at the very best but, much likely, it’s less as this takes place at the end of “Vigilantes”. It’s true they didn’t really talk but still, they met.

Also both the anime and the coloured version of the manga give him red hair when, by then, his hair were while.

Credits when it's due though, I don't know if Horikoshi is behind the coloured manga version or another person does the colouring and that person took the anime as inspiration. In the black and white version Horikoshi's design for Tōya is consistent as his hair aren't coloured (while he colour red hair in black), so this could be not Horikoshi's fault.

The anime seems to confirm many scenes took place during night (except for Endeavor searching for Tōya after Sekoto Peak burned)... clearly no one was keeping an eye on Tōya if Enji never noticed how late his son got home and Rei, despite knowing Tōya went on Sekoto Peak to train, never worried about her son being up on a peak alone till late at night...

That's all I could remember/find for now.

The Todoroki storyline remains my favorite in the manga but there's no deny it was handled in a way that ended up contradicting itself, likely sometimes by mistake and sometimes due to change of plans or plot reasons. It's still a great story so don't think I believe the fact it has shortcoming means it's not enjoyable.

[indelicateink]

so today i fell down a rabbit hole with The Vampire Lestat. @aquarines made a good post noting rolin saying TVL will only be one season. which got me sitting down with the book to see how they could possibly speedrun this bad boy to cram it into 8 episodes (worst-case scenario; 15 if there’s a god).

idk about you guys, but I could squeeze it into a tight 9 episodes, MAYBE (estimates below)? BUT: I didn’t account for the present-day stuff, which would surely push it over 9 episodes by my outsider guesses(/wishes; I didn’t make huge cuts, just modest ones). and i adore you, lestat, but the present-day stuff is also hugely important to me. bc although the book is almost wholly autobiography of lestat’s past, they’ve promised us Louis and Daniel and Armand aren’t going anywhere. so they’ll surely be bringing in other plot from the rest of the chronicles, and possibly hints of Talamasca things bc of the sister show...?

like. the beginning of TVL's a piece of cake--

Downtown Saturday Night in the Twentieth Century - 1984

All exposition. Hi I’m Lestat and I’m a vampire and a rockstar. How I woke up from my long sleep. How I started my band. Omg the 20th C, I love it. Interview With the Vampire is a book that exists? Okay: here are some opinions.

This can be massively condensed to an exchange with Daniel, so that’s…16 pages down. Out of 481.

but the central part of the book–

(putting this wild ride behind a cut for book spoilers)

The Early Education and Adventures of the Vampire Lestat: Part I: Lelio Rising (44 pages [hardback])

lol THERE’S SO MUCH, THIS WHOLE CENTRAL “TEEAAOTVL” SECTION COULD BE THE WHOLE SEASON ALONE NO COMING UP FOR AIR, LBR. but it can’t be, so:

his early life/whole childhood summed up. shitty family, the running away, Gabrielle intro/characterization.

the wolves.

meeting Nicki, the romance (if they’re speedrunning, this is probably half montage and we possibly won’t get the witches’ place, his existential crisis, etc??), then peacing tf out from Auvergne.

starting life w Nicki in Paris, joining the theatre, falling in love with acting, signs of strain with Nicki.

hey, I’m being stalked.

Maybe they do a lot of implying with his early childhood/family situation and just jump right to the wolves; 23 minutes for Nicki and their romance; then boom Paris and hello theatre. 1 episode? [or, A BRUTAL EDIT: 5 minutes my life/family sucks beyond the telling, 5 minutes for the wolves, 10 minutes for Nicki, okaylet’sgotoparishii’minparisilovethetheater!! 10 minutes. In a 44-minute episode (why not), we now have 14 minutes for the present day.]

The Early Education and Adventures of the Vampire Lestat: Part II: The Legacy of Magnus (60 pages)

massively important part of the book.

abduction by Magnus, death/rape/turning by Magnus

learning being a vampire, learning how to be rich, rediscovering Paris & haunting/tainting his former life and Nicki, getting his newfound wealth/shit squared away with his attorney Roget, meeting Armand and the coven.

Gabrielle has come to Paris to die.

THIS IS LIKE 2--3 if life loves me--EPISODES RIGHT HERE. idek, the professionals will make this work.

realizing it's interesting louis told lestat's origin story to the whole world (unlike the books, where it's in lestat's book). the story louis had to practically pry out of him. lol uh hope the guy was okay with that.

The Early Education and Adventures of the Vampire Lestat: Part III: Viaticum for the Marquise (47 pages)

Gabrielle, Gabrielle, Gabrielle.

death/turning, learning to be a vampire along with the guy who doesn’t know how to be a vampire yet.

fighting with armand and the coven. armand stalking this guy like JOIN MY COVEN YOU TOTALLY WANT TO BE WITH ME JOIN MY COVEN, SON OF A BITCH WHY ISN’T THIS WORKING— meanwhile lestat is like…I admit this guy is super hot, but maybe a tool?

the coven abducts nicki (who lestat has been avoiding post-vampirism): lestat is officially done with this shit.

god they could make this 1 episode if they REALLY burn rubber, but it should be 2 because there’s so much to cover, and you know lestat would want Gabrielle alone to be like 3 episodes at the very least, lol. they might really change the coven stuff based on what they did in S2, which saves some time. [or, A BRUTAL EDIT: 20 minutes for gabrielle to die, be turned, the novelty of becoming a vampire, woo incest on main. 10 minutes of the coven pestering them and armand coming on heavy with the mind gift and obsessive stalking. 1 minute for omg Nicki kidnapped! we now have 13 minutes for the present-day.]

section 2, part IV. The Children of Darkness (52 pages)

the coven abducts lestat and gabrielle. Lestat’s devastating powerpoint for the coven that their life is a lie and they’re full of shit. existential crisis! the coven collapses. Lestat & Gabrielle drop the mic and leave with Nicki.

Nicki’s deranged from being a vampire chew toy and wants to be a vampire. Lestat only knows how to make really good, reasoned decisions, so ofc he turns him. that relationship implodes. Gabrielle teaches Nicki how to vampire.

okay, deep breath: Armand destroys everyone in the coven who doesn’t escape, Lestat encourages those vampires to figure out the new century, Armand preternaturally studies up on How To Be A Person In This Century (lestat describing him as insect-like as he consumes the contents of a library), Armand is STILL trying to seduce lestat via stalking, shit goes to hell between lestat and nicki and the theater of the vampires is created with Nicki and the former coven members (and later armand)

THISISSOMUCH. that could be like half a season right there. but! they could TOTALLY elide almost all the stuff with the coven here because it’s not hugely important to lestat’s arc? they already filmed lestat breaking it up (from armand’s POV) in s2. the focus of this part could be the relationship with nicki reaching its extinction-level event. okay. it’s not undoable that this is 1 episode, pooooossibly less with merciless cutting. [or, A BRUTAL EDIT: 12 minutes to refute Armand’s version—telling the coven to wake up to themselves and get a life off in the TdV, how Lestat didn’t tap the gremlin…idk, this blends pretty well into the next part. Maybe 24 minutes if they crush the Armand bits in this section with the next section. 7 minutes for the Lestat/Nicki implosion. We now have 1 minute for the present-day.]

The Early Education and Adventures of the Vampire Lestat: Part V: The Vampire Armand (41 pages)

before there was The Vampire Armand the novel, there was this entire section of Lestat’s book.

aaaand it starts out with armand seducing lestat with the mind gift (granted, you sense this was not super needed because lestat was already smitten, but armand is practical if nothing else), and he proceeds to either rape lestat or just drink off him by force, depending on how we’re reading that. lestat breaks the spell and fights him off, and beats the entire snot out of him in front of a crowd of party-goers in the rain.

then lestat and gabrielle take armand back to their place, because—lestat’s still fond of him! LMAO PEOPLE HE REALLY IS A WEIRDO, I CANNOT EXPRESS WHAT A VILLAIN CUT WE GOT IN S1

to hugely sum up: armand’s past, lestat learns marius exists and becomes obsessed that someone could be a Functional Vampire, armand reallyreallyreally wants to hang with lestat (and gabrielle) for eternity but they are like. pal. your thirst is destructive. a world of no. you gotta go figure out how to live in the world on your own.

okay here we get into total unknowns on how amc wants to handle this. do they devote an entire episode to armand now, or save it for his own interview? god, in deference to limited S3 time I bet they don’t go deep into his backstory beyond quickly dropping the vital marius info? this entire part V is potentially a whole-ass episode, though, buuuuut I feel like they could squeeze a decent amount of present-day stuff in that ep, too.

it would be objectively hilarious if lestat started to tell armand’s story and armand threw the shit fit of all time and they decided to skip it. (for now.)

The Early Education and Adventures of the Vampire Lestat: Part VI: On the Devil’s Road from Paris to Cairo (34 pages)

okay thank god we’ve come to a part that it would be easy(?) to majorly cut if need be. gabrielle & lestat travel, existential questions are asked, lestat searches for marius leaving giant carved-in-stone letters to him all over the place like a lunatic, gabrielle gets more and more restless/distant.

what’s important here: we learn about armand cutting off nicki’s hands, and nicki’s suicide.

oh, and that gabrielle sat on a letter for some time about how all of lestat’s mortal family except his father were murdered in the revolution, because she hoped he’d go off to the jungle with her or…idk, some fuckin thing, it’s wildly selfish.

anyway, lestat and gabrielle make their bittersweet split, and lestat is so depressed from everything that's happened that instead of going to new orleans as planned (his father had fled there), he goes into the earth to sleep for awhile.

then: hi marius. (AR does love her cliffhangers)

I mean. bullet points are: nicki’s death explained in a letter and lestat’s family’s death explained in a letter and gabrielle’s departure and marius’s entrance. It’s possible it’s not a whole episode. idk how fast they need to move, though.

The Early Education and Adventures of the Vampire Lestat: Part VII: Ancient Magic, Ancient Mysteries (109!!!!! pages!!!!)

okay. to sum: marius takes him home, we learn marius’s story (more to come in the Blood and Gold novel), we meet Akasha/Akasha allows Lestat to drink from her, Enkil is pissed, Marius asks Lestat leave (friendly) and hey, threatens to fuck his shit up if he tells anyone/any fledglings about the existence of Marius & Akasha & Enkil et al (not so friendly lol). this…matters later. as you know.

Lestat arrives in New Orleans.

lol SORRY MARIUS YOU FUCKO, WE CAN TOTALLY CUT MOST OF YOUR STORY FROM S3, YOUR CHAPTER IS MASSIVE, LOL. i honestly think they have to cut his big backstory except for an outline, jesus. we are so pressed for time. (i don’t truly hate you, marius, but christ you’re a pompous dick who has caused so much suffering.) but yeah, they’re going to have to keep in how he came to be caregiver for Akasha and Enkil and all that. It’s the Marius Mystique Episode. Anyway, the Akasha/Lestat here is HUGELY important, so that and Marius…this is all an episode’s worth at the very least.

Epilogue: Interview with the Vampire (16 pages)

jesus

this part is devastatingly sad.

“But my story isn’t finished, no matter how reluctant I might be to continue it. And I must consider, at least briefly, the painful events that led to my decisions to go down into the earth in 1929.”

here lestat touches on the events of IWTV very briefly; he’s far kinder speaking of louis in his book than louis was speaking of lestat. (also, ofc, when AR wrote IWTV she didn’t know TVL was coming. lestat has to poke holes in some things: yes, we were in love, explicitly [“Read between the lines.”]; louis didn’t know how gorgeous he was; omg I was down bad; I was wealthy and he didn’t understand that; we were doomed, I was selfish; I cursed claudia when I condemned her to that body and I deserved everything that came to me, I did it because I wanted to, I don’t regret our family; I don’t blame her for killing me, “it was the sort of thing I might have done myself”; our family was together almost 70 years, which is very long for vampires to stay together, apparently (note: the show gave this to armand and louis instead: don’t even talk to me right now?); but “little things like this don’t really matter. He told the tale as he believed it.”)

something important that I hope/anticipate they’ll come back to is lestat then challenging the events of the trial and armand’s betrayal. it’s an order of magnitude more fucked up in the book for lestat than how it seemed to play out in s2? so i’m not sure what to expect in the s3 POV.

and then: lestat goes to rot in nola, and eventually goes into the earth. before he goes underground armand visits him here in the 20th C to whine that louis—who, okay, I lied, is alive, and he didn’t know you were alive either bc I lied to him, too—has left armand after all these years together and btw lestat, can I hit? I know you’re busy rotting in your depression hovel, but I really, really could use the d right now. aaaand lestat tells him to go suck a fuck. (I guess we're leaving all that out, though.)

So it's only 16 pages, but this seems pretty important given that lestat’s POV on s1 and s2 seems kind of promised? and a counterweight to the villain edit he's had for the past couple years? do they condense this to 1 episode or pepper it throughout?

Dionysus in San Francisco - 1985 (28 pages?!)

ROCKSTAR LESTAT! aside from the parts of 1984 in the very beginning, this narrow chapter is all that actually exists of rockstar lestat!! rolin, please give us a healthier meal than this. I trust you on this implicitly.

so: vampires internationally threatening lestat and his band, rockstar lyfe, brief reunion with louis (shamefully SHORT), hey it’s the big concert, shit happens, oh shit it’s Gabrielle saving the day!, okay let’s adjourn and regroup tomorrow this has been a wild ride, OH NO AKASHA— finis.

I’m assuming this is threaded throughout s3, heavy on the final episode. the louis part we already know will be different--they've had a reunion.

idk how all that works, but I have total faith they’ll make good television.

I am baffled, on the face of it, how they pull in Louis—unless they get creative with blending in the other books NOW.

frex they could OPEN the season just dumping us in with Lestat at Marius’s island where he/we meet Akasha and touch briefly on that, and then flash forward to the present-day interview and jump around the telling of TVL like that. but, vitally, we’ve been introduced to Akasha from the start, so hints of her can start showing up in the present-day plot in a way that makes sense to the (unread) audience, which gives us a big plot-driving reason to spend a lot of time in the present day, with louis, possibly the talamasca, possibly Jesse and the fam. or the talamasca does an infodump on akasha early, idk.

whatever they do, I need them to be creative and get me so much louis up in here. matched! set! do! not! separate!

honestly I’m not sure how they squeeze this all down to 8 episodes without a chainsaw, but! again: i have faith. though honestly i'm hoping for 15 episodes.