#had to actually look into dw ship lists for this one because dude has so many

[vypridae]

gifting you akutagawa and vox‼️‼️

[i feel it should be noted vox autocorrected to box three times]

IM GONNA ASSUME THIS IS FOR THE CHARACTER ASK THING AND IF ITS NOT THEN I APOLOGIZE SO MUCH ACTUALLY (also dw ive typed box thousands of times trying to type vox)

(this got long so under the cut it goes!!)

akutagawa

my first impression

hello when akutagawa showed up i think i actually was like "OH...?" i loved him actually so much (still do)

my impression now

LOVE AKUTAGAWA ... i dont obsess over him like i used to (thats reserved for fyosiglai) BUT I STILL LOVE HIM SO MUCH

favorite thing about that character

oh my god uuhmm im ngl probably his ability lIKE ITS JUST SO FUCKING COOL

least favorite thing

his bangs because theyre IMPOSSIBLE to draw

favorite line/scene

"CALL ME 💥‼️🤬😈DIABLO😈🤬‼️💥"

favorite interaction that character has done with another

probably the uuhh "DONT YOU EVEN DARE... COMPARE ME... TO THIS GUY!!" just cuz im sskk trash

a character that i wish that character would interact with more

CHUUYA !!!! 100% CHUUYA CHUUYA CHUUYA !!!!! HAVE THEY HAD ANY INTERACTIONS AT ALL???

another character from another fandom that reminds me of that character

oooh uuuuhh i really dont have a lot ... uuh fuck hmm. i dont actually think ive ever seen a character thats reminded me of akutagawa for any reason?? or that akutagawa's reminded me of, at least

a headcanon about that character

GRAYSEXUAL DEMIROMANTIC AKUTAGAWA . also he has a soft spot for animals but refuses to ever tell anyone ever

a song that reminds of that character

DOES IT COUNT IF ITS A SHIP SONG ??? i can't fix you (yes the fnaf song) atsushi singing about akutagawa . this is partially because i was searching for sskk ship playlists a few years back and that song just was int he playlist and igot fucking JUMPSCARED

an unpopular opinion about that character

hello i dont think i have one BHABHASH im really bad at having opinions that arent what everyone else thinks i go with the crowd

favorite picture

he just looks so ethereal here give me a break ...

vox

my first impression

when vox had like 0.2 seconds of screentime in the pilot i remember being like "ooh neat dude. why does he have a tv for a face"

my impression now

OH MY GOD. POOKIE PIE BOYFAILURE I LOVE HIM SO MUCH ES AWFUL AND I LOVE HIM

favorite thing about that character

dont make me cHOOSE ... im ngl probably the fact that hes like, "you cant go around doing drastic things over angel dust because what about our image as the vees" and then proceeds to do exactly drastic things as soon as he hears alastor is back BAHAJASKGHAJK

least favorite thing

DO I HAVE ONE ?!??? I ... CANNOT THINK wait i thought . the way the fandom characterizes him as so much better than val . NO HE IS NOT !!!!!! val has been shown doing awful things but vox is almost if not equally as bad as he is, just in different ways . fucker told pentious to khs of COURSE hes not good uwu boy PLEASE UNDERSTAND THIS *shaking the fandom aggressively by the shoulders* PLEASE

favorite line/scene

I HAVE SEVERAL IM LISTING SEVERAL

+ after alastor absolutely kicks his ass in stayed gone and he goes "FUUHUUHUUUUUUCK!!!!"

+ "NO!!! FUCKYOUFUCK YOU FUCK YOOOUU!! PUSSY!!" from ep 8

+ "THIS IS BETTER THAN SEX!!!" and the look val gives him in ep 8

+ "I AM SO ! HARD ! RIGHT ! NOW !" while alastor is dying in ep 8

ALL OF HIS SCENES ARE AMAZING THO I LOVE HIM LITERALLY SO MUCH

favorite interaction that character has done with another

MAKING OUT WITH VAL. I REST MY CASE.

a character that i wish that character would interact with more

again, i have a few, those being velvette (which im sure we'll see in s2), alastor (because its funny) and shockingly angel dust (im curious to see if theres jealousy there because he has a lot of val's attention a lot of the time)

another character from another fandom that reminds me of that character

in my head vox is just a waay fucked up version of sigma and i dont really know why

a headcanon about that character

i like to imagine that vox's hat has his tv antenna so its like al's mircophone that lets him have more range, if he takes his hat off he buffers and glitches like CRA Z Y so he never takes it off because antenna !

a song that reminds of that character

ive never listened to it myself but thanks to a friend assigning voxval i like u by niki i am forever going to associate that song with them (im gonna go listen to it . at some point)

an unpopular opinion about that character

HES NOT BETTER THAN VAL !!!! its not really an unpopular opinion at this point BUT LIKE . HES AWFUL LIKE VAL IS i know i talked abotu this earlier BUT LIKE ITS JUST RBRHBRHRRHR WHEN PEOPLE SAY "NOO VAL IS AWFUL VOX DESERVES BETTER" NO HE DOESNT!!!!! VOX AND VAL ARE PERFECT FOR EACH OTHER BECAUSE THEY ARE BOTH ABSOLUTE SHITHEADS TO EVERYONE ELSE (minus velvette)

favorite picture

DONT. MAKE ME CHOOSE

this one holds a particular place in my brain tho cuz he looks like hes like "WHO CARES WHERE ALASTOR WENT !!!!! RIGHT GUYS!!?!?? RIGht!????!?!??" hes so desperate i love him so fucking much ALSO THEIR FACES AHASKJGFAHSJKFG "NOT THIS SHIT AGAIN"

[olderthannetfic]

Escapade Vid - The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty

Here’s my writeup of my vid, crossposted from DW.

This is one of my two vid premieres for Escapade Con 2021. It spoils all of The Sleuth of The Ming Dynasty, specifically anything involving Wang Zhi. The discussion below is similarly spoilery.

I fell hard for The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, harder than for The Untamed or anything else for ages. (Okay, that's a lie, I fell that hard for Kingdom, but I don't ship anything there.) I knew I wanted to vid it for the con because it's so beautiful and because I knew a lot of people wouldn't be familiar with my favorite character via osmosis.

Sleuth is a historical mystery series (no magic/fantasy) based on a danmei novel. It has three leads: the two halves of the book ship and my fave. Facepalm.

I got into the series by knowing it was new-ish, some kind of buddy mystery series, and that fans liked it. That's it. I glanced at a poster, but I hadn't properly osmosed that there were three leads, not just two, so when Wang Zhi showed up, I naturally assumed he'd turn out to be a villain. His introduction is him driving a man to suicide. Practically the first thing we find out about him is that he's a palace eunuch with a high political position whom the politicians fear, look down on, and hate.

Could there be a more stereotypical villain for a historical drama?

So I went through a rapid progression from thinking he'd be the smiling pseudo-ally they have to defeat later to loving him and being like "They'd better not make him a villain!" to realizing I'd completely misosmosed this series.

I had a lot of feelings.

Picking a song / How I got into BTS:

Finding a vidsong for Sleuth was tricky. I had other vid ideas I could have made. I was tempted to make three vids, one for each lead (though not all for Escapade). I was tempted to make an OT3 pimping vid. My problem was that I also have had a lot of feelings about BTS this past year, and I knew I wanted to use them for an Escapade vid, but that presented a problem.

BTS… man… How to explain…

I grew up not really listening to music. My mom was a music teacher and only listened to Classical. When I eventually got into popular music, it was Enya and Alice Cooper. (Yes, syrupy Celtic crooning in various languages + shock rock is a pretty good summary of teenage me, why do you ask?) Also Cat Stevens, who was even more of the wrong generation for anyone else to care. The first time I really gave a shit about music was when I was living in NYC in my 20s absorbing the taste of someone with strong and specific music interests. I would by no means call myself knowledgeable about music.

A year ago, I tried to learn a little about BTS before Escapade so I could pick some shippy vid and stick it in the dance party. I want people to be able to go to the party and feel like they've got their finger on the pulse of fanfic-adjacent fandom even if they aren't into all of those fandoms themselves. I've never been into idol music, and it's not for lack of exposure: many successive waves of jpop and kpop idol-loving friends have tried, and I've been immune. It's the soppy ballads. I cannot. Some of the bouncy stuff is fun, but it wasn't enough.

Unfortunately for me, BTS is fucking confusing, so there was no easy 101. The only way to know anything about the fandom dynamics and which ships are popular was to know a lot. And once I'd bought in that far, I was up for some fic reading because huge RPF fandoms always have tons of AUs that are practically original fic, and hey, that sounded fun… I tried their reality shows a little bit, but my allergy to idol music is second only to my allergy to reality shows. I'm bad at getting things done if I don't sit down and commit properly, so I made myself a spreadsheet of all of their albums, guest appearances, and side projects and sat down to listen to the lot via Youtube…

They blew me away.

I didn't know. No one told me! I would never have predicted what they actually sounded like. It's not that they're good. Lots of idol groups are good. It's that they can rap. Korea has plenty of good rappers, but they're not in idol groups! I cannot properly convey the level of shock I experienced or even how and why BTS are so good. I like hip hop, but I don't know enough to describe anything properly.

When I made it to Hip Hop Lover, it all made sense. Imagine my reaction as a much more confused and incoherent version of this youtube video. Of course RM is into Talib Kweli and everyone else like that. Of course he's into conscious hip hop, a lot of it from NYC. Everything about their dense lyrics and their choice of subject matter made perfect sense after looking at their self-described list of influences. But in a way that Monq can articulate and I cannot.

I love shit that requires buy-in. All nerds do. I swear, hip hop is the nerdiest damn music there is because it's so into referencing its influences and responding very directly to other artists and to current culture, assuming the audience will keep up if it cares to. BTS know far more than I do about hip hop from here, plus they're Korean and like puns in a language I don't speak, so understanding what the actual fuck is going on in some of their songs is an adventure involving multiple youtube explainers. But they also have enough goofy dance music and rap that just sounds awesome to keep me interested even when I don't get it.

Daechwita dropped in May 2020, and holy shit, can we have a fandom just for that video? Historical architecture, hot dudes with swords, be still my beating heart. This is totally why I ended up watching Kingdom. I was dying to start learning some Korean, but then I got distracted by more Chinese media. Damnit. How do I choose?

So Escapade 2021 was rolling around, and I knew I wanted to make my Untamed vidbunny from last March, but I also wanted to vid Sleuth, and I wanted to vid it to BTS. I was now presented with my problem:

BTS is a 7-member group, and most songs prominently highlight 3-5 of them if not all 7. One might be able to do this as aspects of one character's personality, but it's very hard to make it work for a two- or three-person ship. I started looking at the rap line's songs, which have just the three of them, but even then, you're stuck saying that Character A is singer X and so on. How do I divide up the Sleuth leads? Do I make the angry one the angry one and the sunshine one the sunshine one? But the sunshine one is not the bookworm in BTS, unlike in Sleuth, and that just feels wrong!

That was when I decided to do a character vid rather than a ship one, to pick Wang Zhi, and to choose something off of one of the rap line's solo side projects. And what combination could be more obvious than tiny, angry, beautiful Yoongi paired with tiny, angry, beautiful Wang Zhi?

In the end, I did not pick Daechwita because, much as I love it, it has that kind of monotonous, hypnotic flow, and I feared I'd end up making a boring vid. I went back to Agust D's first mixtape, which is much angrier, and picked a song I felt had more obvious internal structure. I picked it mostly based on sound, as I always do. I needed vocals that I felt conveyed Wang Zhi's personality. Once I had a song in mind, I looked up the lyrics… And kept looking.

This would probably have been helped by not making the vid in like 3 days, mostly after the deadline because my other premiere dragged on way longer than I expected. Doh. Someone said that the vids were great this year because everyone had been stuck indoors with nothing else to do. I can assure you that I was my usual disaster self and was still trying to pick songs like a week before the deadline. There's always next year. Sigh.

So while vidding, I had a couple of okay but not great translations of the lyrics and at least one line I straight up did not understand. My process for all vids is to make a spreadsheet and put the lyrics down one side with clip ideas in another column. If the song isn't in English or isn't straightforward, I have other columns on the lyrics: original writing system, transliteration, translation, notes. I often have a column for song structure (verse 1, chorus, verse 2, chorus version A, chorus version B, etc.), or I might do that part by color coding chunks of the lyrics/translation. In this case, I had a lot of different columns of translation bits that moved around, and I also color coded column A based on whether there was a significant English language lyric. Here's a screencap of part of my planning spreadsheet with colors changing to show song section breaks and some clip concepts I was considering written in. (I usually end up abandoning most of my content notes once I get into actually editing a section.)

I finally found a good translation of it the morning after the vidshow. Sheesh. It wouldn't have radically affected how I vidded that part because the lyrics are so fast that you can't hit every little thing with a relevant clip and still have your audience visually parse anything at all. I still wish I'd had a better translation beforehand.

I foolishly thought it wouldn't be a problem vidding something in Korean, but it turns out I have such a hard time understanding Korean phonology that it's very hard for me to tell which bit is which even with a phonetic transcription. On top of that, most of the translations swap clause order for no good reason--"Your mother will be sad when you lose your last asset, health" instead of "When you lose your last asset, health, your mother will be sad"--despite both working perfectly well in English.

For the purposes of making the vid, I only needed to understand well enough to know how I was matching the lyrics or not, but for posting, I had to come up with something a little more polished. In the end, half before vidding and half after (oops), I have gone through with like 4 different translations, google translate, and an online Korean dictionary to cobble together something that I think is a fairly accurate translation, with clauses in the order they fall in the song, and some attempt at idiomaticness and correct tone and level of informality in English.

Lyrics translation:

The best of the translations I found in terms of being annotated and fairly easy to understand in English is this one by Muish.

Here's my version:

They call me new thang The new recruit is here: take my bags Whole world, concert Not bad, Asiana Asia You could be my new thang Different from the guys who neglect their duties Insubordination from a celebrity Damn, only the strong can fuck with me Some say I made it too easy Fuck you, I'm a thorn in the side of those guys So far from success Honestly, "SSaihanuwar" is embarrassing1 Now, we sell half a million copies a year The k-pop category Ain't big enough to hold me, whoo! Right, go ahead Try booking first class My seat is business You're economy, forever behind me kissing my ass Next goal is Billboard Brazil to New York My passport gets no rest A to the G to the U to the STD I'm d boy because I'm from D I'm crazy, a lunatic on a beat My rap will blow your mind with2 My tongue technology A to the G to the U to the STD A to the G to the U to the STD A to the G to the U to the STD I'll blow your mind with My tongue technology I hunt down those who copy the copiers. Get 'em down no matter who the fuck they are. Doesn't matter if I'm a jerk or if I'm wack or fake, I'm the one who carves history across the field. Among boring rappers, I get the lion's share. I'm about to take your bread. Bros' jealousy making all this noise. Hey ho I don't give a fuck Keep shoveling shit I'll bury you alive in the grave You dug yourself Hey ho you can't handle me You wasted rappers should be grateful I'm an idol Cause I'm busy, I'm busy, 24/7, what rest? Latecomers, go play amongst yourselves. Jealous and childish you wail, Yet you don't know shit.3 Paris to New York, damn My non-stop schedule A to the G to the U to the STD I'm d boy because I'm from D I'm crazy, a lunatic on a beat My rap will blow your mind with My tongue technology A to the G to the U to the STD A to the G to the U to the STD A to the G to the U to the STD I'll blow your mind with My tongue technology I’m sorry. Honestly, I am. I'm sorry I took your daily bread, boy. I'm sorry. Don't be mad. When you lose your only asset, health, Your mom's going to be upset. I'm sorry. Change careers. Amazing how you keep digging, So change, boy. I’m sorry. Honestly, I am. That your rapping sucks compared to mine. A to the G to the U to the STD I'm d boy because I'm from D I'm crazy, a lunatic on a beat My rap will blow your mind with My tongue technology A to the G to the U to the STD A to the G to the U to the STD A to the G to the U to the STD I'll blow your mind with My tongue technology A to the G to the U to the STD I'm d boy because I'm from D I'm crazy, a lunatic on a beat My rap will blow your mind with My tongue technology A to the G to the U to the STD A to the G to the U to the STD A to the G to the U to the STD I'll blow your mind with My tongue technology

1. I straight up had no idea what the "SSaihanuwar" line is supposed to mean when I was making this vid. People said it was a pre-debut song, so I assumed he meant his skills had improved. What it actually refers to is that song bragging that they'd sold 30,000 copies, while as of this song, they were selling 500,000, so that childish bragging about a tiny past achievement is embarrassing now. Of course, as I type this, BTS sells like four million albums a year…

2. This is referencing a movie title, The Wailing, and then a famous line from the movie, which is said in dialect. I haven't seen the movie and nothing online explains the context in which "Important? You don't know what's important!" is used. If anybody's seen it, feel free to drop me a comment. Hopefully, it won't be something I'd radically change in the vid.

3. Literally 'take you to Hong Kong', which can be used like "blow your mind" in the regular sense, but is also used to mean "give you an orgasm", hence the italics on 'blow' above. Yes, it's an oral sex joke. Yes, he means it like that.

What the song means and what I did with it:

Okay, so now that we know the main lyric of this song is apparently "STD", what's it actually about?

Overall, this is a diss track. Like most BTS dis songs, the concept is: I may be an idol, but I'm still twice the man and twice the rapper you are.

I'm not the only one who was surprised to hear good rappers show up in an idol group: the underground rap scene that Suga comes out of thinks of idols as both inauthentic sellouts and as embarrassingly girly. They wear makeup and sparkly outfits. Laaaaaame.

This felt like an excellent parallel to the social position of eunuchs in The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty: Wang Zhi is one of the most competent and ruthless, yet loyal and honorable administrators we see in the entire series. If he were running the government, all of them would be better off. He's like that version of Lex Luthor or Emhyr var Emreis that astolat likes to write.

Throughout the series, politicians and generals see Wang Zhi as less than a man and thus not a worthy enemy or not worthy of his high position, but he's twice as worthy as any of them. He's not only better at being a ruthless badass, but he's better at keeping the body count low. Sure, he's introduced forcing a guy to commit suicide… But Wang Zhi promises him his family will be spared the same fate, where normally a traitor's entire family would be wiped out. The only reason things go poorly later is that the guy's son is too stupid to realize what a favor WZ did them.

Even Tang Fan is a complete asshole to him repeatedly. In this case, he doesn't treat WZ as lesser, but he's so naive and fixated on fluffy feelings that he assumes WZ is cold and cruel when he's pragmatic or that he has no feelings when he's clearly devastated but trying to fix the situation instead of breaking down about it. TF is the worst sort of idiot who values superficial virtue over practical results. It's a good thing he's so endearing!

There's this heartwarming bit at the end of the series about how WZ learned humanity from TF and SZ or something, but it's complete nonsense: him adopting child orphans and pretty much all of the rest of his behavior for the whole series was already merciful within the bounds of their society and the demands of his position.

On to my vidding process: I laid the song out on the timeline and put markers for the sections, color coded by what type of section they were and also made the spreadsheet seen above. That helped me see the structure of the vid. One of the first parts I tackled was the opening, which is long and slow and samples another song. It feels like it should have establishing shots, and it's long enough they could get boring. I realized it was an excellent opportunity to have some text on screen. I love typography, but I normally don't do it because there's no space in the song I've chosen, and I'm making the vid on the day of the deadline and have no time to think about fonts. Poking through all the confusingly-named Chinese fonts I have installed took as long as all the editing in this section.

I then had to figure out what to do with the chorus.

Yoongi's normal rapper name as part of BTS is 'Suga'. He's from Daegu and proud of it. So his solo rapper name is 'Agust D', which is 'DT Suga' backwards. A to the G to the U to the STD is just him repeating his own name. Aside from saying Agust D = Wang Zhi, I didn't have a lot of specific ideas here. Wang Zhi has a really hot mouth, but there isn't that much in canon that's an obvious oral sex joke.

I knew I didn't want to make the vid strictly a linear retelling of canon since the point was more conceptual. I also love the emotional impact of the Yang Fu stuff, both the times it's funny and the times it's upsetting for characters, but it's hard to communicate it in a vid without spending some time, so I decided to use the choruses entirely for Yang Fu. At the very end of the vid I had more story that needed to go somewhere and no more Yang Fu (and I wouldn't have ended on Yang Fu anyway), so I had to vary that pattern.

The final verse is a 2-part one that is slow and even more sneering than the rest of the song, so I picked WZ's most idiotic enemy for that. WZ literally took away his job by killing his father, which caused him to come home from the military and his brother to be fired from his job as an official. His mother is ill because of grief, and everyone keeps telling him to go look after his family instead of chasing WZ around and trying to start shit, so the lyrics are quite apt. This guy is just not up to WZ's weight class, and that's what this verse is about.

The first two verses required more thought. They have a 3-part structure and are fast. I looked for individual Wang Zhi plotlines that matched the specific lyrics of each section thematically. There are shittons of speed effects all over this vid for obvious reasons, but I still needed to pick footage that was naturally more dynamic. The show has a fair amount of talking heads, slow scenes, and cute and fluffy stuff that didn't fit the tone here, not to mention WZ being the least important of the three leads, so selecting the correct bits of WZ plot was essential.

I originally planned to use verse 1 for the horse market case, but there just isn't enough great footage to do the whole thing, so I did the first two thirds. Section 1 has military-sounding lyrics about a new recruit taking over from "hyungs" (older guys) who neglect their duties. This idol (a celebrity) is going to show the underground rappers how it's done. I had wanted to use the 'new thang' lyric with flashbacks to WZ first getting his position at the emperor's side, but that footage makes him look too meek and doesn't connect well to anything. 'You could be my new thang' I wanted for Jia Kui, but again, there isn't good footage that communicates their relationship visually.

The general from this arc has a similar thematic role: He's a ~real man~ who cares only about duty and is rude to the effete, useless official from the capital, while the other local powers fawn on him… Except Wang Zhi responds to this by being amused, showing up the others, and approving of General Chen. (By the end of the arc, Chen is all offended on his behalf that other dudes think he's merely a eunuch instead of a total hottie capable and honorable servant of the empire.) The first section is WZ on 'new thang' and Chen on 'my new thang'. This third ends with 'only the strong can fuck with me' as Chen joins the welcome feast. Out of all of the people in charge of border security, he's the only one who's strong.

The next third of the verse is about people thinking Suga got to his position too easily, which is also something basically every official feels about powerful eunuchs in Sleuth (and also in every single other historical drama with eunuchs because holy shit is this a common trope, and also in actual history, which is why). In this plotline, WZ is there to deal with the incompetent border guards and sort things out in ways they haven't been able to. He is certainly a thorn in their sides. For this part, I showed one of the obsequious officials smiling, WZ toasting them, and Chen being unamused.

This section finishes up with Suga saying his past bragging is embarrassing because he's so much more badass now, and k-pop isn't big enough for him (which I think is less about wanting to break out of kpop and more about definitions having to be readjusted to accommodate his awesomeness). The scenes from Sleuth are WZ suddenly revealing he speaks the local languages flawlessly--something no normal official from the capital does and that he's been hiding up till now as people insult him--and then WZ resolving the case with murder and smart political maneuvering that puts one of the local chieftains in his debt. The category of eunuch is certainly not enough to encompass Wang Zhi's political ambitions or abilities.

The final section of verse 1 is using a plane/flying metaphor to talk about Suga being ahead of everyone. It also has a particularly awesome lyric in English that I wanted to emphasize. This was the last part of the timeline I filled in, and I used a scene that is not one of the major enemies WZ cares about but where he is wonderfully bossy and in charge. The guy tries to pull rank on him, and he throws away his supposed police informant badge, being like I am the police.

The second verse has the really fast part in this song, so I wanted to show a lot of different cool shit WZ does. Section one is about Suga hunting down poseurs, whether they're new or long-established and powerful. Suga says he's going to take the other rappers' "rice bowl" (livelihood).  WZ similarly goes after all kinds of people, including very highly-placed politicians. The serial killer duke was supposedly untouchable, but WZ tells him he's an insect. He'll do the low-level dirty work (running around at night in ninja outfits) and the high level supervision (commanding men at the depot). The line ends by talking about other rappers' jealousy making noise. For this, I used Wang Zhi's trial where all of the politicians team up to wrongly accuse him of a laundry list of crimes.

The next line is about how Suga will bury other rappers alive in the grave they dug themselves, and they should be grateful he's an idol (because if he were a fellow underground rapper, they'd be shown up even worse). There's a suggestion in Suga's lyrics that part of the "wasting time" (digging/shoveling used as a metaphor) these other rappers have done is talking shit about him. They hurt their own reputations by doing it, and he had no desire to take them on until they forced the issue. I used WZ's introduction. That politician doomed himself by talking shit about the emperor's consort. Before he goes to meet with WZ, he talks shit about how eunuchs aren't actually powerful or scary to his drinking buddies. WZ spends the whole scene outlining how his downfall is his own damn fault.

The last section of the verse is about how busy Suga is. Losers should go bother each other, not him, because he has real shit to do. They have no idea what's important, unlike him. I opened with a quick shot of WZ's trial and then the silver case. WZ continually waves off concerns about the trial, even while he's in prison for a few days, because he's concerned about the actual problems occurring at the same time, namely that the entire government is about to go bankrupt and collapse. He's fending off assassins and getting people executed. Wan Tong's embarrassing attempt to mindfuck him in prison is laughable. They're just not on WZ's level.

I capped it off by showing the end of the plot and WZ winning. The three shots of his enemies looking upset are all from times he fucked with them earlier in the series. The final shot of him looking smug is from very early on when he'd just informed his chief rival, Shang Ming, about the suicide he caused in his intro. At the end of the vid, we're back at the beginning of the plot: Wang Zhi was always better. He would have worked with his rivals, but they just had to make it a contest. From the very beginning, they should have known they couldn't win.

The vid I’ve already posted to tumblr, but here’s the AO3 link again:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29573175

[nodesiretogrowup]

ok, I think I’m ready for my in depth recap/analyse/review of today’s episodes, one by one

hopefully this shows up in the tag because my last few posts haven’t for some reason

Challenge of the Senior Junior Woodchucks!:

Frank-This season is about legacy. The first word we hear-LEGACY

The graduation ceremony took me back to my Girl Scout days. And is pretty accurate to the graduation ceremonies I did in scouts, though they had more levels. And the names of their ranks made more sense than the Girl Scout ones. Not sure how the Boy Scout ones work.

Poor Donald. Though from what we see in this episode, it might be better to not be a Woodchuck. They’re a bit...intense.

RETURN OF THE FANNY PACK

Launchpad’s notes were great. He totally wrote them, hence the grape jelly stain

THE LITTLE BABY SCOUTS ARE SO CUTE

The title is a lie. They’re trying to become Senior Woodchucks. And the challenge itself was called the Junior Woodchuck Wilderness Challenge

Poor Huey, that’s always awkward

DUCKTALES SAYS GAY RIGHTS

LENA SAYS GAY RIGHTS

Lena cheering Violet on was ADORABLE

The “I’m with Dad” shirts...chef’s kisses. I now want them to make NEVERENDING DAD JOKES

Vi’s little blush DAAAWWW

Why would Huey have seen her at scout events? I thought Violet had just moved to Duckburg, though I might be remembering wrong. Even then, Duckburg is a fairly large city she might have gone to events closer to where she lived

That fold out sash is DOPE

“DEWEY’S BROTHER!” Ouch, Launchpad.

Huey’s little wave

PROUD MAMA DELLA MODE ACTIVATED

DELLA’S IN THE THEME SONG! We all knew it would happen, but still. I NEED more Della/Launchpad interactions. They look like they’ll have a fun dynamic

He probably isn’t, but I’m gonna pretend that little asian scout is Russel from Up

Webby is a good friend

When Launchpad took Huey’s guidebook it reminded me a lot of whenever someone took the Journals away from Dipper. Complete with self doubt

Dewey is a horrible pep-talker

“Show the other nerds that you are king nerd.” Louie is actually a pretty good pep-talker. He could be a motivational speaker

I like Violet’s quirk of calling the others by their full name (ie Webbigail, Huebert)

Lena takes her new big sister role SERIOUSLY

I really like that the person Scrooge looks up to is a woman. And him sharing a room with his parents was a nice touch

“Story about Scrooge as a kid in 3..2..” Louie knows the formula (probably why he just accepted the sitcom lol)

The bee one made me laugh because alliteration...and bees

How did that map/painting work? It looked like she was actually holding it but the picture still looks fine after Scrooge peels the map off

“OOO, TWIST” I love you Della

I love the Tittertwill and its song and dance. I want it as my ringtone. And I want plushies. STAT

“I’m speechifying” I’m gonna use that next time someone interrupts me

I hope someone gets a good screencap of that post. I want to see what all is on there

Violet trash-talking is ADORABLE. She wants to fit in

“CALL HIM A CLOWN!”

When they tried handshaking...too cute! I don’t really like shipping the kids because of how young they are and that they haven’t had much experience in the crush/romance department...but Huey and Violet are adorable and I think they both have crushes on each other

I kind of wonder what Launchpad was doing while everything was going on. Also he looks SO HOT in that uniform

I didn’t notice it the first time, but all three groups took a different path. Neat

I got upset when Huey used his water bottle to make a compass. Now that lid is dirty and the rest of your water will spill

Violet dots her i’s with a Mickey. The note also made me think of the halfway there joke in an episode of Spongebob

“Do you feel appropriately razzed?” This girl is too sweet

Huey going back to pick up the note so he doesn’t litter

The little growls Donald was doing while swatting at the mosquito were cute. Also FUCK MOSQUITOS

Dewey INSTANTLY forming a connection with the bird is great

“Aw, they’re both cute” My thoughts exactly

“It’s JUST a mosquito, you should give it some of your blood”

I like that over the episode we see Huey continue to forgo the rules to try and boost his chance of winning while Violet follows them

WHY THE FUCK IS THERE LIGHTNING RAIN?!

In Huey’s panic he forgets what he knows. I feel like that’s gonna come back

“That was the smack-talking” Vi is extra adorable in this episode

Webby’s disappointment in the lack of actual giants, cute

Donald and Della should start a slapstick comedy duo

“YOU WANT US TO FOLLOW YOU ON A BRAND NEW ADVENTURE, WELL LET’S GO”

I love when Huey sings

Huey needs to see a therapist cuz that shit ain’t normal

I like him giving the guidebook a soothing, southern voice. Did anyone else think of Ratatouille when the book showed up? Like how Remy imagined Chef Gusto

“Well that’s a pickle of a different color” Oh southerns and your weird expressions

My sister kept saying that the bear looked like it was mixed with a hyena and I can totally see it. Maybe he’s a lost Wuzzle lol

“THAT BEAR DON’T CARE FOR BOOK LEARNIN"

“I’m the food"

VIOLET HAS A KNIFE

Even though I knew it would happen, I was still very disappointed in Huey for not helping Violet. That’s a dick move

“CURSE MY FLAWLESS SLAMS”

God, poor Donald

WHY DO YOU WANT YOUR FAMILY TO DIE, SCROOGE?

I love how blunt Louie is

“EVERYONE FOLLOW THAT BIRD” *Blue Bird of Happiness flashbacks*

WHY THE FLYING FUCK IS THE LAST MARKER IN A GODDAMN ACTIVE VOLCANO?! 

“Where you go I cannot follow” I love JW

“I DON’T KNOW, I’M GONNA THROW THIS ROCK” That’s how I solve my problems

HUEY’S LOSING HIS GODDAMN MIND

“I’m so mad I can’t even aliterrate”

“I’m cold and terrified, sounds like an adventure to me”

“Poppycock, whoever told you that?” “YOU”

“So let’s rewrite history” That was last season, Dewey

Scrooge doing the song and dance was great

“WHAT IS HAPPENING?!” “I DON’T KNOW, WHY ARE YOU IMAGINING THIS?!” That’s some fucked up shit right there

“Wait, there’s a failure badge?” I would like one

I’m glad they clarified that the challenge isn’t a one time only thing because I was confused

I like that this show included the lesson that it’s ok to fail. I still struggle with that to this day

Violet opening up to Huey is sweet. And offering to share the win. She’s a good noodle

“I thought this would be more climatic” BITCH YOU IN THE MIDDLE OF AN ACTIVE VOLCANO! WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT?

“I RESPOND TO AUTHORITY” And she just pats him on the head

“LAUNCHPAD?!” “LAUNCHPAD?!” “Hey, I’m Launchpad” COMEDY GOLD

I KNEW DELLA WAS GONNA BE THAT MOM! I NEED MORE OF IT!

“YEAH, CUZ YOUR A...” “Lena, please”

Launchpad giving Huey one of his failure badges is kind of adorable. Though I thought you could only earn one of each badge. Then again they have a failure badge so normal scout rules probably don’t apply here

Dude, that DEATH GLARE Della gives Launchpad. Something tells me this isn’t over yet. I hope this means Della is gonna see Launchpad as her Sitcom Nemesis while he’s completely unaware of it. Like DW and Gizmoduck

The Sabrewing family is ADORABLE and MOST BE PROTECTED AT ALL COSTS

JW returning as a ghost. I’m not sure if that’s funny or dark

I feel like the Duck family finding the journal is...unfair in a way. Like Violet got to become the Senior Woodchuck but Huey and his family are gonna find tons of treasure/get rich and famous

I think we’ve got some future episode titles in there

I thought Goldie said she found the fountain of youth, why was it in the journal

“MY NAME IS DEWEY”

OMG FOWL!!! I think it’s funny that Phantom Blot is still wearing his FunZone mascot costume

And now we know what this season’s goal is

Seeing Della with her family was great. Like everyone has said, it feels like she was meant to be there the whole time. Her and Donald were great. It was nice to see them being all sibling-y. I heard that this wasn’t intended to be the season opener but you could of fooled me. This sets up everything so nicely for the season. Huey is going to question who he is and what defines him. We have a list of treasures to be discovered. And we see the FOWL are after those treasures too. This was a solid season opener that has me excited for the journey ahead.

[spiftynifty]

How come it seems like lm and jds can talk more candidly about their intentions regarding other ships like allurance and even k/l but not sheith? I don't understand why they can clarify things like allurance and how it was there from the beginning or flat out state that they never intended for k/l to be a thing, but when it comes to the topic of shiro and keith they won't just clarify what they did or did not intend/want their relationship to be? I'm confused by it. :(

Ooof this is an excellent question and I suspect a complicated one. 

First off, they can be candid about Allurance because 1) it’s a hetero couple (and therefore “acceptable” to executives and conservative parents) and 2) it was strongly implied and built up for almost the entirety of the series before they officially, canonically, became a couple. There’s no ambiguity there. They can be candid about kl because Allurance technically “kills” the ship by virtue of existing, but more importantly kl is the fanship that they have been directly asked about on more than one occasion and probably straight up badgered about it more times than we’re aware of. When your production studio gets blackmailed in the hopes of making k/l canon, that ship is being brought to your attention. 

Also, Afterbuzz is run by kl fans who have anti-like tendencies. They angle kl questions in nearly every interview, and I was pretty miffed by the way in this interview they heavily, heavily implied that only Sheith fans hated s8 “because their ship didn’t become canon” and yet in the same breath talked about how Allurance wasn’t good and came out of nowhere (something JDS delightfully shut down). In the live chat for the recent interview, people from all ship alignments kept begging the hosts to ask about why SK’s friendship wasn’t included in the final season. In the saltiest tone you can imagine, one of the more vocal kl hosts decided to answer the question (”they helped each other grow and evolve and since they’ve done that, we don’t need to see their friendship anymore, it got lots of screentime in other seasons”) and never let the showrunners actually speak on it, instead moving swiftly to another topic that aligned more with the hosts’ own interests. It was almost like she was afraid of what the answer would be. Was she afraid they’d say “well actually, on the matter of that, Sheith was our intended endgame” or was she trying to save them from having to talk about something NDAs prevented them from talking about? 

So why CAN’T they talk Sheith? I have a few theories. This gets long and a little rambly, so I’ve thrown it under a cut. 

1) Don’t ask, don’t tell. Except for post-s7, the showrunners themselves have never been asked about Sheith’s relationship in an interview. I think most Sheiths were afraid of rocking the boat and potentially upending a SK endgame by drawing too much attention to it. We were/are definitely the quieter side of the primary vld ships and honestly most of us were not expecting our ship to be canon. 

But vld ships and the ship wars are notorious across geekdom for vitriol and death threats, and the creators didn’t want to add any fodder to either side. In the middle of production it would have benefited no one for the EPs to say, “yeah sheith is meant to be viewed romantically” or “no, we can’t go back and change the story to make that true”. Either one would have resulted in an uptick of harassment from antis towards them, towards other fans. And nevermind the production side where DW/WEP weren’t ready for even a hint of m/m until right before s7 dropped. It was only AFTER they got the greenlight on gay Shiro that showrunners could finally be vague and say “some people will interpret [sk] as brothers, others will say it’s 100% confirmed they’re in a relationship”. Which is, in my opinion, a pretty interesting way to respond to that question. But again, if that interviewer hadn’t been brave enough to ask it, I highly doubt it’s something that the showrunners themselves would have ever brought up.

2) Sheith was actually intended to be romantic, but was blocked. We know now that Adam being greenlit as Shiro’s boyfriend happened right before (like a week or less) before s7 dropped. This was a show that had been in production for almost 4 years by this point, and the showrunners stated they picked Shiro to be their rep early on in the process. When they planted that idea in executive’s heads is anyone’s guess, as is when the proper fight for it began. I suspect their immediate team of directors, writers, and in-house producers were well aware and supportive, but kicking that up the chain was another story. I also have a suspicion that it wasn’t until season 6 was complete that the matter was brought up because greenlighting everything we got in s6 knowing Shiro was gay the whole time puts a lot of eyes on Keith. 

And really, it was Keith who was the problem all along. 

In every version of Voltron, Keith is the main protagonist. He’s the leader of the team, the primary “image” of Voltron, and thus, certain things about him need to be maintained. I’m not sure if this is sheer coincidence or not, but he is the only person on the team who stayed visually the same to his OG counterpart. All of the other paladins have gone from white dudes (and a white lady) to POC, or have had a genderswap. There is much debate about Keith’s race with people creating their own headcanons but ultimately Keith can pass as white. While the handbook states Lance is Cuban, Hunk is half black-half Samoan, Shiro is Japanese and even Pidge gets “Italian”, Keith is just listed as... human. Which is a surefire way to not upset fans who have HC’d him as POC while also not-NOT saying he’s white. Everybody “wins”. 

In addition I’m confident a major stipulation of the OG Voltron owners (the “gatekeepers”, as a few of the VAs and the showrunners themselves have darkly alluded to) was that Keith could not be LGBT. We know now he was meant to end up with Acxa, a fact that was already obvious to many of us from their Weblum meetcute. But that relationship was never scripted. 

Setting aside the fact that the OG Voltron owners (WEP) didn’t want Keith to be LGBT, I’m sure executives at Dreamworks would have struggled with the idea as well. Shiro stans can come at me all they like about this but Keith was always meant to be the primary protagonist of the show, of every version of Voltron, and making the main, masculine hero of a well-trodden, oft-rebooted franchise gay/bi would have been an ENORMOUS move for animation. Making him end up with the other main, masculine hero would have honestly broken the internet and the minds of countless conservative executives, and been a major benchmark not just for cartoons, but ALL media. Animation often trails behind TV and movies in terms of social progress because something something “protect the chillllldrennn”. And right now I’m struggling to think of a popular live action TV show, or movie, with an older audience, where the main masculine hero is lgbt, and in a relationship with the other main masculine hero. Feel free to offer me examples in replies but the fact that I’m struggling to think of anything is pretty telling. In short, if this revolutionary move still isn’t happening for the live action 13+ audience, asking for it to happen on a cartoon with a 7-11yo boy demographic is like asking for the moon. Keith couldn’t be gay, because immediately it would have been obvious to anyone that he was already very much in love with the other LGBT character on the show. Hell, it’s already pretty obvious in canon that this is the case, and dodging the question about his sexuality is dodging the confirmation that he’s in love with Shiro. 

I’d like to believe that one of the solutions to the Adam Problem that was proposed was that KEITH ends up with Shiro, but they were laughed out of the office. The pair’s incredibly close bond aside, it would have been the absolute easiest fix production-wise. They already have their shared history doing most of the legwork, all that’d have to be changed is:

-adding Shiro to the L/K scene in 8x01, just sitting there as Keith encouraged Lance.-Re-recording a couple of Shiro’s lines in 8x05 to make him seem at least somewhat upset that Keith was kidnapped-Showing Keith and Shiro hanging out in the video episode. You could just use the shot of Keith and Pidge but replace Pidge with Shiro.

And the best part is, you could change just one or two of these and then do the wedding epilogue you always intended (but write something that doesn’t insist Shiro retired) but with Keith instead of Rando. Not to mention, there is a slight, slight possibility there was a S/K scene (or two) cut along the way. I strongly disagree with the theories that have floated around about the “massive edits” done to s8, but I think there could be truth to the idea that a Sheith scene was cut to make room for Crew Member, or an effort made to downplay the Sheith friendship that comes off way more intimate than any interaction Shiro has with [man]. It’s more likely that SK scenes never existed at all in this season as the showrunners had to cave to pressures to “have more action”, had no idea what to do with Shiro besides relegate him to a stiff cardboard general, and perhaps had to follow strict instructions about the kind of friendliness an out & proud gay man could show to the men he’d enjoyed good interactions with before. 

All this to say, the Sheith battle is messy. It’s fine for the showrunners to say “getting the greenlight for Shiro was a battle” because it’s a battle they won that makes everyone look pretty good. It makes Dreamworks look like they Learned Something and are going to be more open to LGBT content in future properties. It makes WEP look not-terrible because they can add “allowed a character who wasn’t really an OG Voltron character to be gay” to their list of “generous” things they allowed for this re-envisioning of their property. It’s self-congrats all around.

Blocking Sheith has the opposite effect. It reveals that WEP is homophobic because they could allow Pidge to be a girl and Allura to be black but making the hero a non-straight man? That’s TOO FAR. It reveals that Dreamworks higherups are homophobic because they weren’t ready for two LGBT protagonists, just one plus a background character with 3 lines who is literally never named. No one wins, and to be asked about Shiro and Keith and be honest about it could potentially be the showrunners saying, “god, we wanted to, but we were blocked at every single turn”. And thus DW and WEP are the outed villains of the story.

3) Shiro and Keith were never meant to be read as romantic. The showrunners don’t say anything because there’s simply nothing to say. Sometimes the most incredible ships are happy accidents. Sometimes people genuinely don’t realize what they’re doing. I felt a little disheartened watching the AB interview because the way they talked about wanting to include more [man], or how they “hoped viewers would read between the lines” re:Shiro/Curtains, was so casual and flippant it was like they genuinely thought most people would be fine with Shirando if only there had been more scenes between them, as though completely severing Shiro’s relationship with Keith and instead only showing scenes of Shiro bonding with a new character would come off as a good move rather than a baffling (and somewhat hurtful) one. 

I do believe that certain directors were absolutely fans of the pair and angled in what they could. Chris Palmer is behind the famous “shiro loves you baby” art and responsible for the eps that include Shiro’s gay panic, the Sheith hug, “As many times as it takes”, Shiro falling into Keith’s arms, and “We have to stop, Shiro’s out there!!” among others. Steve Ahn was the director behind 2x01, 3x01 with heavily grieving Keith, Blade of Marmora, and the episode where Keith screams Shiro’s name so loud he astral projects and then Shiro holds his hands over the controls. He also got really soft when he talked about the pair in an episode of Form Podcast (before JDS kinda hastily shut him down). And even Eugene Lee, he directed The Black Paladins which is an episode so Sheith I still can’t believe it’s real, and 7x01, the other episode so Sheith I can’t believe it’s real. All three of these guys were the original series directors, which is pretty inchresting. 

But that doesn’t mean the showrunners were necessarily onboard. Maybe it was really important to them to show a positive male friendship since that never happens in media, just as they felt having Allura sacrifice herself was a powerful feminist move. However the thing I keep circling back to is JDS’ early interview about The Winter Soldier and how if he ever got the chance to do that, he hoped it would be in the future when things could be more progressive, hinting that he wanted to throw more overt romantic undertones if he himself ever got a fight like that to write or direct. It’s pretty interesting that he wrote the Black Paladins, which mirrors the Stucky fight in Winter Soldier so much that it actually rotoscopes one of Bucky’s moves. I’d also point out that JDS’ favorite characters are Shiro and Keith, and I find it impossible to be a fan of both and not also be a fan of how much they love each other, and how much that love straddles the line between romantic love and friendship.

This got long, but I hope it was helpful. The likely final-ever showrunner interview will be on Let’s Voltron sometime this month, and I do hope that now that the series is over someone is brave enough to ask them, “so... what was going on between Shiro and Keith? In a perfect world, what would have happened there?”. In a way it doesn’t matter though. There is always the risk of them saying “nothing was going on there” and us agonizing over whether that was a lie to protect their careers or bald-faced honesty in the face of an NDA or fucks-given that might have expired with their contracts. 

But I think the best we can hope for is the same situation that happened with the Avatar creators and that live action movie: 3 years from now when the NDAs are well and truly expired, JDS & LM may come out and say, “SO, on the matter of Shiro and Keith, it’s time to come clean.”