#i feel that if i would rewatch monk now i would think it's a bad representation

[pesky--dust]

I've started to see a pattern in my favorite detectives at different stages of my life and I'm not sure how to feel about it

[biconickyoshi]

Hi! The Zukaang prophecy dream person here. What you said about a lot of people not even considering Aang and Zuko as a ship made me think. Following that thought, I fell down a rabbit hole that turned into something a lot deeper than just shipping discourse. I'm not a professional psychologist or anything, but I hope some of my insight on this topic is interesting. I apologise in advance for so many words to read!

As a kid I remember being very clueless about romance. I never really interpreted Aang's affection towards Katara as romantic at all, and I honestly have no idea why, since they literally kissed on screen multiple times. So that's why, for years, I remember trying to find a ship that I would like, yet nothing seemed to click just right. That is until the Avatar Renaissance of 2020 when a lot of new people joined the fandom, and a flood of new discussions arose, way different than it used to be years ago. It made me realize that the core of the issue lies in Aang himself. At least that's my own theory, feel free to disagree. A lot of popular avatar ships include everyone from the main cast, but rarely ever Aang himself, apart from the canon Kataang. In all aspects, Aang is an unconventional protagonist, one unheard of at the time. He is a monk, he is a pacifist, he is a vegetarian. For an average kid or teenager in 2005, I don't think much of these aspects are too relatable. We were and still are used to seeing agressive, determined teenage protagonists, ready to beat up the bad guy at any opportunity. That's what was considered "cool". So a bald 12 year old boy with an arrow on his head who grew up in a temple, surrounded by monks, who avoids hurting people, even those who wiped out his entire nation, is simply foreign. You often hear arguments against Kataang: he is too young for her, she sees him as a little brother, they simply don't fit. Those are all false statements, as rewatching the show without bias you can clearly see them love each other deeply and mutually. Aang is a child, but he is a person too, someone with his own values and principles, and so is Katara. To me, both of them are deserving of love, Aang is deserving of Katara's love.

I am now going to talk about the genocide of the air nomads, as I think I can provide a unique perspective on this. I am Ukrainian. The russian invasion of my country has been going for 10 years now, but two years ago specifically my whole world turned upside down when russia launched a full scale invasion, intending to conquer all of Ukraine. A lot of my beliefs of how the world worked changed drastically. Seeing myself from years ago in people from around the world, not yet knowing war, I think this is something you have to experience yourself to truly understand what it means for another nation to want yours erased from existence. Aang's entire nation is gone. Everyone. No one is alive, not a single person. I don't think many people truly let that sink in. He has to keep going every day with the knowledge that the world he is in doesn't have a place for his nation anymore. He has nowhere to go and no one to come to. He has the gaang, and that's wonderful, but it's not the same. He is the only person in the entire world who truly bears this pain. To me, imagining that for myself, is an indescribable horror. To imagine having no place to come back to, living among strangers who know nothing of you and your people. Yes, he has the temples that preseve history, but how much of them has been destroyed? Even the people at the Northern air temple, although fleeing a disaster, still contributed to the destruction and loss of that history.

Yet, bearing this unimaginative hurt, Aang is able to forgive. He is able to make peace with his loss, and let go of his feelings of rage. He wants to see good in the Fire nation people. And through that, he is the only one who can truly see Zuko as he is. Having let go of anger and hurt, he can see the genuine wish Zuko has for atoning for his family's sins. He can literally see through him, all his feelings and thoughts, like no one else. He holds no grudge, no hatered for him. If you ever have a war, genocide unleashed on your country, you would know how impossible it is to forgive. Yet, Aang, as the avatar, has no choice but to do just that, to let go. I think that alone makes Aang one of the strongest people in the avatar universe.

But how is this relevant to the Aang ships being dismissed? Circling back, to me, this is a matter of understanding. People resonate with Katara for her experience as a younger sister, thrown into the role of a mother figure, for her experience as a teenage girl in a sexist world, someone with a desire to become stronger despite being denied that opportunity, be it by the circumstances or by someone stronger than her deeming her "unworthy". People resonate with Sokka for his struggle to become a reliable leader, for his insecurity being the only one without a special "talent" (aka bending). Toph for her sheltered upbringing and parents that are unwilling to see her as more than just her disability. Zuko for his struggle with his identity, his own values versus those forced upon him, an abusive household, repressed emotions and anger, being a sibling of someone way more naturally talented, coming to terms with the hurt he has caused and atoning for it. But what can people find in Aang that resonates with them? All of what Aang is, is grand and bigger than yourself. I relate to Aang as someone whose nation is being subjected to genocide, but is that a common experience? I'm sure that nowadays a lot more people came to appreciate Aang's character more, but as a child in the 2000s, would you really say you saw yourself in Aang as much as you saw yourself in Sokka, Katara, Toph or Zuko?

In conclusion, my theory is that, because of how unique Aang has been written, that prevents people from seeing him as someone they could imagine in a relationship with someone else. After all, how can you write about someone you don't share many life experiences with? How do you write them in love? How do you make someone so different from you come to life?

Anyway, thanks a lot for reading all of my brain vomit. Avatar is truly a goldmine for character analysis and study. Would really love to hear what you think!

I absolutely loved reading your analysis on Aang's character, anon. I agree wholeheartedly with everything you've brought up here. I think it's so true that many people (whether they're conscious of it or not) view Aang through a certain lens due to how unconventional of a protagonist and person he is. To many, he's not "supposed" to be the one who "gets the girl". He's not your stereotypical handsome/buff/rugged teenage boy protagonist; he's small, kind, goofy, and pacifistic. And I think in general that people find it difficult to wrap their heads around a male character like Aang not conforming to Western and/or patriarchal society's expectations/conventions when it comes to behavior and overall physical appearance. I think this also results in a lot of people unconsciously infantilizing Aang and having a hard time viewing him in a shippable way.

It's also interesting that you brought up Aang's almost "otherness" when it comes to the world he finds himself in when he awakens from the iceberg - he is the last one of his kind in a world where nobody remembers his people. He's from a culture that is vastly different from the ones that remain in the world. His philosophy, mannerisms, gender expression, appearance, etc. are all completely unique, not only canonically in the post-genocide AtLA world, but in our world as well, especially in the West.

The fact that despite everything Aang has been through, despite all the atrocities he has witnessed, he still is able to remain true to himself at his core through to the very end is so moving to me. Aang will always be my favorite character all time simply because of who he is. Even as a kid, I loved him so much - I never had a crush on Zuko or Sokka, it was always Aang. He represented not only the type of person I would want to be, but also the type of person I would want to be with. And sure, he's not perfect, but that's another one of the many things I love about him - he's human, he makes mistakes.

I feel like I could say more, but you already wrote so much good stuff in your analysis, and I'm not sure if there's much I could add haha.

Also, thank you for sharing your perspective as someone who lives in Ukraine - I can't imagine how difficult it must be to be dealing with all of Russia's BS the past decade, and especially recently. I sincerely hope you're staying safe and healthy! <3

[dibbs-n-scribbs]

I need to make a Monk x Columbo crossover so bad its not even funny. They would contrast each other perfectly but complete each other in ways I can't even fully understand yet. I'm thinking it might be a Marty Eels situation where Monk isn't really used to someone upstaging him but it baffles him even more than Marty cause Columbo seems to actually be legit and know the detective lingo! However, even Monk himself probably wouldn't be able to tell whether Columbo's being true or not with his questioning tactics. Like yeah Columbo is mistaken as this and that all the time, but is he telling the truth? Not even Monk would truly know!

What would the case even be about? Surely it would involve someone who's rich and has a lot of power, as most Columbo villains fit that description.

And Trudy! I feel like the Trudy reference would be deep, maybe not 100 percent integrated into the plot, but definitely something that would possibly warm Monk up to Columbo and strengthen their partnership. (Now I hear there's an actual Columbo episode way later on that involves something happening to Mrs. Columbo, but if those spoilers I saw were true, then that'd also make their connection stronger - but I haven't gotten that far yet!)

How would the rest of the team feel about Columbo? Would they be impressed? Would they find him a little annoying cause of his bumbling nature? Would it be just like being with Monk? I think all this stuff is interesting to think about.

I spent last night rewatching this Columbo x Fraiser crossover comic dub (can't find who made the original comic but Jacob The Loofah did the comic dub on yt!) and I was just fascinated by it. Now I haven't watched Frasier but everything seemed to fit so perfectly, not to mention the drama and comedy was on point! To make a crossover comic so well, you could definitely see the hard work put into it! I want to be able to make something just as great, especially after its been a long while since I feel as if I've made something of quality. I'm far from being a writer myself, but I do want to make this project some sort of reality, truly. If anyone has any writing resources or know where to start with personal projects like comics or even animatics, I would really appreciate it.

[mr-stottlemonk]

MCanon back again,

Molly meets Stottlemeyer and immediately clocks that this guy is into Adrian, and is just like "aw I'm glad you two have each other" leaving him so confused and a little nervous cause he's realizing he's a lot less subtle than he assumes and also is into Monk. Adrian just hasn't picked up on anything cause it's how Leland has always been. (also speaking of those last two episodes, we see Monk as a regular fucking dude 12 years back. a normal fun loving guy, smiling. and then Leland gets the call and his face drops cause everything is about to go down hill and then thinking back to Monk meets the Candidate and he's doing so bad and we know this isn't even the worst he's been)

HI MC ANON <3.

so sorry for the late reply i had to refresh my memory with this ep (ive been avoiding rewatching it LOL. so i only remember sparse details from when i watched it years ago...)

but my god, thank you for that image T-T i love Molly making a comment about that!! her (step)dad might be miserable but at least he has someone who cares and loves him... woah. makes me wanna cry (*꒦ິ꒳꒦ີ)

i love the idea that Stottlemeyer thinks he's so subtle. cause like, he's not. it's so, so, so obvious everyone and their MOTHER KNOWS, LOL. like sir, captain, you look monk whipped 24/7, you're not hiding it as well as you think you are...

omgfgg xD Monk thinking "yeah Leland is always like this" IM DYING. MR. MONK HE LOVES YOU!! WHAT DO YOU MEAN. THIS man would do EVERYTHING for you... "the captain's a great guy" -> yeah, to YOU, with YOU.

mc anon, your last point makes me wanna rewatch those last eps so bad lolol. i'm afraid i've been avoiding them like the plague 😔✊️. i also have SO MANY feelings about pre-series monk and how it affected their friendship/relationship. gosh, the hurt... the pain... i love it and want it but also *coughs*.

thank you for the ask!!! gonna be thinking about this daily now :"D.

[eyedelater]

here is a post of thoughts i had while rewatching the golden kamuy anime (and while watching the new episodes airing now, up to s4e3)

rewatching early episodes, i suddenly feel like tsurumi's voice should have been sexier. i mean, maybe people think it already is. but i think it should have been sexier given how his favorite underlings view him. his voice fits his character design from the perspective of "this is a scary archvillain military guy in his 40s who is threatening to kill sugimoto and acting kinda crazy! ooh, he's the primary antagonist!!!" but it doesn't quite fit the aspect of his character that is so incredibly charismatic and admirable to certain people around him. so that aspect should maybe be reflected in a sexier voice…? am i insane though

(slams table) if tsurumi's voice was even HALF as sexy as ogata's voice… that would be… more appropriate…!!!

i already made some broad statements about the anime in a previous post, but i'll make some more. the golden kamuy anime (at least the first season or two) has taken the approach of no stretching, all squashing, no addition of any nuance or fun extras, only pure and compressed adaptation of manga into anime-- with broad omissions. no extra jokes thrown in or anything. some jokes partially or completely omitted. and i think the timing suffered from all the squashing. also, the episode breaks are in weird and unnatural places, but i guess they're in weird places in the manga a lot too. but i don't mean that the anime is Bad bad. i would say the anime does approximate justice to the manga but is rather clumsy and could have been much better. my feelings about the OPs and EDs (that they're lame) have not changed.

all the voice actors have been doing a great job, though. especially asirpa, played by (looks up her name) (double take) haruka shiraishi.

okay, revising my opinion slightly. the 2nd OP is a little better than the first because, among other things, tsukishima does a high kick. and the song is slightly more engaging. and did the production value increase a little for season 2? it's becoming apparent that my first time watching the anime was not a Close Watch. the 2nd ED is unpleasant because i really don't like the song.

i think the anime is too dark sometimes. i mean dark as in the amount of light. and i mean actually a lot of the time. i can't fucking see. i understand that it takes place in our real world, but i think you can bend that by properly illuminating things you've gone to the trouble of carefully animating, enough so that i can actually see them. key examples: the scene where ienaga's tattoo is first revealed. the coal mine. infiltrating abashiri. every scene that takes place at night!

the first time i watched the anime, i watched it on vrv.co, which i think has some connection to crunchyroll and therefore has the official subs. the second time watching the anime, a paywall had sprung up on that site, so i went elsewhere and ended up watching episodes with fan-translated subs. so it was interesting to compare (based on my memory) some different translation decisions that were made. the fan subs were a little worse.

the main reason i'm studying japanese is because translations can be so iffy that i can't trust them. here's an example i just came across in the anime (unofficial subs done by some rando). the whale is pulling everyone toward fishing boats that contain henmi kazuo, and shiraishi is yelling to watch out, and a fisherman says, "That [bouzu] is yelling something." "bouzu" means "monk," and it is often used as a way to refer to young boys, but because monks are often bald/shaved, you might also call a guy with a shaved head "bouzu." so clearly in this case the fisherman, referring to shaved-head shiraishi, meant the latter. but the subs translated it as, "That boy is yelling something," because the translator forgot that second connotation of "bouzu." and you, the viewer who can't understand the japanese being said, might just think that that man referred to shiraishi as a boy because he looks that young, and you might come away thinking shiraishi is younger than he is. his age isn't explicitly mentioned in canon (apart from being over 20), so you might try to piece things together from various little clues, and if you took the use of the word "boy" there to be a clue, you would get the wrong impression. that's why painstakingly precise translations are not only worthwhile but in fact necessary! if you're an absolute nitpicker like me!!! this is just a bad example for making my point, actually!!!

i think a lot of the cinematography in the anime wasn't dramatic enough. manga is nothing but raw cinematography, so you need strong cinematography in order to adapt a manga properly. (i also think it's important and worthwhile to preserve the framing of panels in the manga when translated into anime, when possible. i mean like treating the manga like a storyboard to some degree.) in some dramatic moments, much of the drama is lost because it is not framed dramatically enough. and i think leaning toward excessively dramatic framing would be better for golden kamuy than playing it excessively safe, since it would enhance both serious moments AND ridiculous moments! just think about how things are framed in the nichijou anime. more animes need to reach in that direction with their cinematography. just go nuts with it! like nichijou! please!

when tanigaki and kenkichi are talking to each other in a cave, i like listening to their dialect. genjirou is pronounced like "genzərou" and kenkichi is pronounced like "kenkitsi." it's like, oh, you can just change that part, huh? that's how japanese dialects sound to me as a japanese language learner. though satsuma dialect is a much higher level of unintelligibility. they change a lot of parts. but tanigaki's akita dialect is very interesting. and he can utterly erase it and speak in "standard japanese" when talking to tsurumi or others. he and koito and tsukishima have code-switched their various dialects into oblivion. many soldiers in this story erased a part of themselves. (side note: i think hidoro and the rest in barato also had some dialect in that OVA, but i wasn't paying that much attention…)

coward animators showed ogata's entire boobs during the sea otter scene but omitted his nipples. (cups hands around mouth) boo! weak!

the strings-heavy soundtrack of the anime is pretty earnest. i appreciate that.

usami's voice is appropriately nasty even from his very first appearance. props

gotta wonder how much of usami's pursuit of jack the ripper they'll show in the anime. they can't just omit the whole thing and make it an OVA because the surrounding context is incredibly important to the story. but will they even imply the shiko-shiko? and the sound of it? is he gonna say "hihiin"?

i didn't realize the voice of tsukishima is also the voice of miles edgeworth. i went to his wikipedia page to see if he is known for being able to speak russian or if that's something he worked on for his role as tsukishima (or if they got another voice actor to do the russian parts? i don't think so, but i can't tell…). i didn't get an answer from reading that article. can you imagine if you sign up to voice a character who speaks russian and has a bunch of russian lines and you just have to learn to pronounce russian well enough for it to pass? it's like on america's next top model when they'd travel to milan and then have to film a commercial in ad-libbed italian… not that i ever… anyway…

noda-sensei wasn't such a coward that he erased everyone's nipples in the vital and irreplaceable stenka scene, one of our rare best tsukishima appreciation scenes. only the coward anime staff would decide to do that! (cups hands) boo! boo!

i think mostly everything about the anime improved slowly over time, with season 2 being better than 1 and 3 being better than 2, in terms of timing and cinematography and stuff. of course it's still a lot of squishing and omissions. i wish they could have done a great job from the start, because the story really deserves it. also they show nipples on the tattooed skins when tsurumi wears them as shirts but not on the living men. boo! a chest without nipples is like a night without stars! it's a matter of principle!

i love when ogata is depicted from the correct angle to show his eyelashes going off the side of his face and it's like, oh. they are eyelashes. it's very rare in the anime and the manga. happens in s3e3 though.

the line where tsukishima has a moment of clarity while searching the beach is hard to hear well enough to compare the translation :( i was wondering about this one. i suck

season 3 episode 5 around 16:12 ogata does a little laugh. why do you ask?

these voice actors playing russian border patrol… they're definitely japanese voice actors sounding it out, right? i haven't heard a whole lot of spoken russian, but something's definitely off, right? also, is vasily's voice actor from that scene going to continue playing that role and say nothing but "hm hm" 30 times?

in the anime, at the end of the sniper battle, vasily decides on the coffin and fires one shot and then waits. but in the manga, vasily got really confident and fired at least 3 shots into that coffin before getting shot in the face. why would they change that? or did it get changed in the volume version? no, i'm pretty sure it was 3 shots in the volume version.

ogata's little cape was green earlier in the anime and later it's white. you thought i wouldn't notice??

i can't understand exactly what yuusaku is saying in s3e6 when he tells ogata that people who don't feel guilt shouldn't exist in the world. i was really wondering about that line because i think the translations i've seen differ significantly. i suck

ogata notices asirpa remembered something important and he's like (trying not to put on a scary face) (trying not to put on a scary face) (isolates asirpa from the others and approaches her from behind with the scariest face ever)

"then why are you asking me when kiroranke and the others aren't around?" then ogata looks at her with a face that says, "BECAUSE I'M NOT GOOD AT THIS!" and a little later (s3e11 14:12) he's making an "argh, this is so difficult…!" face that i really enjoy

ogata fleeing, sugimoto "i'll aim for the horse!" (shoots clearly at ogata's head level three or four times) that's plausible deniability.

before i knew it, i caught up with the anime and now i'm watching the first episode of season 4. this OP is quite good compared to the others. it made me smile twice. it's got a good intensity about it. the ED is good too! it has a subtle charm. it should be very useful for viewers who might not remember who all these characters are in relation to each other. and the song is nice. now, about what happened in between the OP and ED. that was a pretty faithful adaptation of the manga. i read that part of the manga just recently so i remember and it syncs up almost perfectly. i had kind of expected them to cut out a lot of the stuff with kadokura and kirawus, but then i remembered we saw figure skating ushiyama in the trailer, so of course the surrounding context has to be included.

the second episode of season 4… i think these fan translated subs could have used a little delicacy, a little beating around the bush about what obencho means.

they show us kadokura's nipples on the lake, but not everyone's nipples at the banya?? boo-- wait didn't they switch animation studios? maybe these new animators aren't so cowardly. maybe they'll show us everyone's nipples, as justice demands. wait, people are naked in the opening (which constitutes another point in its favor, for capturing the sentiment of the source material), and i didn't look closely. do they have nipples? i must ascertain… for research purposes. (short pause) result: they show us boutarou's nipples in the OP. i think kikuta's nipples were shadowed, but shadows are fair game. i accept this.

i'm watching season 4 episode 3, and they didn't chicken out on showing us everyone's nipples. well done (respectful nod.) they did chicken out on showing us the silhouette of kikuta's huge dick on his very first appearance like in the manga, but that's perfectly understandable. i couldn't hold that against them. really, it's too much to even call it chickening out. absolutely nothing wrong with that decision. as far as i'm concerned, everyone involved acted correctly. and that's all i'm going to say on the matter.

this new animation studio really is much better at keeping a dramatic momentum in terms of timing and framing. they're also very faithful to the manga in terms of showing us little extra things that i think would have been cut out before (e.g. in this episode, the snow geta and baby ipopte with a torch). kikuta ties on toni's sweaty bandana without a second thought. and next week's episode is what i've been waiting for… it's what i've been eagerly waiting for!!! it's the koito otonoshin kidnapping incident! argh! so long to wait! just kidding, time already passes painfully quickly because i'm an adult.

[gtgrandom]

“Why I ship Zutara - since so many are inclined to believe it’s a Zuko fetish”

Is Zuko my favorite animated character of all time? Why yes, yes he is. Do I identify with Katara as a barrier-breaking feminist and woman of color? Yes, yes I do. Is that why I ship them together? No.

Look, when I first watched ATLA, I was 7 years old. I don’t remember shipping anyone, but I didn’t hate that Aang and Katara ended up together. They were cute! It’s whatever.

When I rewatched the show at 13, I still thought Kataang was cute, but I ended the series shipping Zutara, and as the years went by, they rose higher and higher on my list. Now they’re my #1 OTP.

So why do I ship them?

1) They���re two sides of the same coin. Both of them grew up too fast with the loss of their mothers. Both grew up under an elder’s influence. Both of them constantly fought to prove their worth to their peers, and both held resentment toward their fathers. Both spent the entire series improving their bending and incorporating each other’s bending styles into their own.

They have so much in common, and so many shared experiences and important bonding moments (defeating Azula together, Zuko saving her life, confronting Yon Rha together, the cave scene / turning point, their battle at the North Pole...)

2) They’re opposites. Fire and Ice. Sun and Moon. Passionate male energy and the soothing, healing touch of a woman (and her chilling bite). Realism and hopeful idealism. The Blue Spirit and the Painted Lady.

Zuko grew up without a healthy sibling or father relationship. Katara eventually obtained both of these. Zuko lived in an elite world surrounded by people and bending teachers, yet he felt alone. Katara grew up on an ice cube with no bending masters, but she loved her home and family.

The parallels go on and on.

3) Symbolism. They could have embodied the Cave of Two Lovers perfectly: benders separated by cultural divide, a cave to meet in secrecy where outside conflicts are put on hold, allowing them to grow closer, to love one another.

Plus, what better way to bridge two nations with seemingly irreparable tensions than a marriage between lovers? These two went from enemies to partners in crime to friends. Imagine if they’d fallen in love. Imagine a water bender as Fire Lady, and what influence she could have on the Fire Nation’s perceptions of the Water Tribe. Imagine the prejudices she could shed herself, living in this new culture, serving its people.

4) They’re good for each other. Zuko needs someone who can help him shift his nation’s perceptions of the world. He needs someone who can take on responsibilities of her own, rally a crowd, bring hope to his world, and not only become a mother to his children, but his people. He needs a woman who, like his mother, can encourage him to be the best version of himself.

Katara needs to feel useful. She needs to feel like she’s helping people and making a difference. She needs to be more than a wife or a mother. More than a traveling companion. She‘s a caretaker, but she’s also a leader, and she needs a mature man in her life who she can leave alone, unattended for a while. Someone she can speak to about harsh realities. Someone who will not judge her for feeling negative. Someone who will understand her sarcasm, and who will vent with her when she needs it.

5) I have always shipped them for their potential, not necessarily what we were fed in the show. So I understand how others don’t see it. But as a writer, I recognize that this pairing could have been an extremely valuable storytelling tool. Aaron saw that, the actors saw that, but Bryke wanted Kataang, so we got the typical “hero gets the girl” scenario. I get it. I just wish they would have gone the extra mile.

6) I don’t ship Kataang anymore

Aang is 12 years old. He’s a child (and a monk). That’s what makes the series work, why his victory is so powerful. His youthful innocence is a reoccurring theme throughout the series. And yes, he learns to accept many hard truths of the world, but in the end, he chooses mercy and idealism. As an adult, I can’t see him as anything but a child. And I don’t ship children. I definitely don’t want to see them make out with anyone 😷

Katara acts like his mother for most of the series. She’s his caretaker first and foremost. And it’s clear she loves him, but she’s not even sure how she feels about him several episodes from the finale of the series. I’m not about to act like their relationship wasn’t romantically coded, but it felt forced at the end. It felt like they set Katara up to be his mother more than his partner. It’s regressive to her feminist arc (and don’t get me started on Korra’s depiction of her!)

And yeah. I did not find 12 year olds attractive when I was looking forward to my first year of high school. If I had the choice between Aang and Zuko at her age, you bet your ass I’m swooning over the prince of the Fire Nation. 🤷🏻‍♀️

7) I really don’t ship Maiko. I love Mai as a character (gray characters are always fun). But her relationship with Zuko formed off-screen (never a good choice for a romance arc) and she was only ever regressive to Zuko’s character. She was never going to help him grow, to be a selfless leader, to consider the importance of other nations or the lower class (she jokes about ordering servants around for fun, big yikes). She couldn’t be a positive influence on Zuko until she had an enlightened journey of her own, which she didn’t get - her only arc revolved around Azula and her love for her boyfriend. She was a source of constant negativity and pessimim. That’s the last thing a leader of a war-torn nation needs.

So yeah. I’m not trying to convince anyone to ship my ship. I’m simply explaining why I love these two so much (since so many of you think it’s a bad boy fetish), and why I reject the pairings the show left us with.

I think Zutara would have created a stronger narrative for a near-perfect show, a better romance, and a more relatable protagonist, and no one will ever change my mind about that.

[whentheynameyoujoy]

So the ATLA Movie Is... Good, Actually?

Just kidding, of course it’s not, it’s so bad it sucked the paint off my walls. But after ten years of people pointing out its glaring flaws, why would anyone bother talking about this garbage heap if not to go the other direction? So here’s a very brief and very superficial list of things the movie does get kinda... not atrociously wrong.

And they won’t be fake hipster pokes, like “It’s fun to laugh at”, “The Rifftrax for this is OK”, or “Kudos to the actress for managing to say we believe in our beliefs as much as they believe in theirs with a straight face”.

(though now that I mentioned it, it is fun to laugh at, the Rifftrax for this is OK, and massive props indeed.)

Rasta Iroh

Yes, I know it’s not exactly the aesthetic of the real Iroh or that it makes no cultural sense for him to sport this do when no one else in the racebended Indian “OMFG what were you thinking Shyamalan” Nation does but goddamn, long-haired dudes are my one mortal weakness and I will ogle the hell out of him.

Jesus is that a man bun I see that’s it mum I’ve been deaded

Yue’s hair

No.

Now we’re talking. Yue’s hair turned white when the Moon spirit gave her life, so it makes sense for it to go black again when she sacrifices herself to revive the koi fish. It’s a neat detail I find myself expecting whenever I rewatch the scene in the show. Yes, I realize it’d be a pointless hassle to animate since she, unlike in the movie, immediately goes on to become the Moon herself but still. I like.

The Blue Spirit’s mop

Zuko, hun, what’s with the dance-off?

First of all, I want to imagine that Zuko the Theatre Nerd was about to leave his ship with just the mask like in the show but then stuck his head into the cleaning cupboard and went, “Yeah, more coverage might be good, even though it do seem mighty fried to shit”.

Which makes me giggle. I like to giggle.

And secondly, the hair’s movement is what makes the static mess of the Blue Spirit’s solo fight scene appear at least bit more dynamic because God knows the cinematography isn’t doing it.

Any particular reason why it’s at the edge of the action, shot all boring-like?

Now, I get why circular shots would be reserved for Aang while he’s in the practice area and then used once the two join forces. What I don’t get is why Aang’s part of the action scene has a defined visual style while Zuko’s delegated to a few stationary wide shots from afar as though he’s a tertiary goon, meaning that when the time comes to combine the respective pieces of cinema language and visually convey collaboration, there’s not really much to combine.

But as long as Zuko is stuck in this static mess, it’s that awesome disaster on his head flopping about that draws the eye, helping me understand that something even is going on over there.

It also prevents me from paying much attention to how the extras are mostly just staying put and a lot of the hits don’t land, so that’s good.

The music slaps

James Newton Howard is too good for this.

Pls ignore that the word “gods” is used in the ATLA universe

I can’t be the only one who constantly uses this piece to daydream about writing specific fanfic scenes instead of, you know, actually sitting down and writing them. It’s just so good at communicating a sense of sorrow while speaking of rebirth that I find myself getting misty-eyed whenever I listen to it. Unfailingly, the soundtrack as a whole manages to break through the mile-thick crust of horrible acting, confusing writing, and uninspired cinematography and make me feel things. And considering how everything on screen is working against it, that’s no small feat.

Imagine what a powerful experience it would be if the score was used in service of an actual movie.

Dev Patel

No wonder since he’s the only one in the film occupying that crucial intersection between “is a good actor” and “was given something to work with”. It also doesn’t hurt that he breaks with the trend of actors starring in martial arts flicks despite never having done any martial art.

And all EIP-jokes about “stiff and humorless” aside, he’s a pretty decent Zuko considering how abridged this version of the character is. A while ago, I remember hearing a reviewer say that with his comedic chops, Patel should have been cast as Sokka. And on one hand, yes, god, absolutely, I need to see that asap. But on the other? He captures all layers of Book 1!Zuko, the desperate obsession, rage, and self-loathing, and at the same time gives you a peek at the soft momma’s boy dork that’s buried underneath. For Christ sakes, he exudes intensity and ambivalence even when acting against an emotionless hunk of wood that’s giving him nothing in return.

Oh, and I guess there’s a tree in the frame.

Ba dum tss

What can I say, the guy’s good.

Showing vs telling

OK, so this movie is all tell and no show, except for one single moment. And it’s the exact moment where the original goes in the other direction in terms of how information is conveyed.

See, I never liked this. The revelation is preceded by Iroh giving advice to Zuko who scolds him for nagging. Iroh then apologizes, moves in to say the line above, and is interrupted by Zuko who seems rather uncomfortable with Iroh laying his feelings out like this. And once they’re out, Zuko verbally confirms that he knew already and Iroh didn’t need to bother.

All this extraneous information and pussyfooting ends up weakening what should be a profound scene that reveals to us, the viewers, how deep the relationship between these two in fact runs.

Compare to the movie where Dadroh acts like a parent by fussing and worrying, with Sonion needing a single look to tell him and us that he understands what it’s all really about.

It’s genuinely efficient and just good.

No Cataang

Fine, a bit mean-girl bitchy from me since I only start minding the ship in Book 3. And probably unintentional on the part of the creators since there are moments where I think they’re trying to set the romance up? There’s a, well, an attempt to recreate the famous introductory shot of fateful meaningful destiny of meaningness, there’s some slight note of saving each other’s bacon going on, I’m pretty sure they’re the only ones in the film who smile, and oh, right, Katara’s shoved into her post-canon useless role where she doesn’t ever do anything, and is all about Aang right from the get go.

Yes, I will blame the “executive producers” because a) I’m incredibly petty, and b) it’s perfectly in line with their vision of the character so why the hell not.

Hilariously, none of it reads on screen because the actors are just... yeah. These poor kids are struggling so much with delivering their own lines and portraying their own characters they don’t seem to have any strength left to create something between them. To be fair, the bare-bones shot-reverse shot style of their scenes doesn’t exactly lend itself to the idea they occupy the same universe, let alone are friends or each other’s crushes.

And I enjoy this immensely because it allows me to forget the depressing horror show Katara’s life turns into post ATLA.

Yes Zutara

I need to delve into this because it’s fucking hilarious. So in a movie which fails to establish the original’s central romance so spectacularly that if Aang got lost in a crowd I don’t believe Katara would notice, SomEOnE thought it’d be a good idea to add an utterly unnecessary non-canon moment where Zuko for some reason feels the need to pause his character-defining hunt for the Avatar which otherwise has him ignore everything and snap at everyone, and explain his central conflict to an unconscious peasant he doesn’t know, complete with gently pushing the hair from the pretty girl’s the soulmate’s the Water Tribe Ambassador’s the Fire Lady’s the love of his life’s her face away, AFTER his uncle nagged him twice to find a girl and settle down.

I just wanted to make sure we’re all on the same page and this is what we really saw.

Celibate Avatars

I have no idea why the decision was made, if TPTB thought expecting viewers to understand the story through the lens of Buddhism would be too much, or if the “executive producers” already worked their retconny magic. What I do know, however, is that there’s a big shift in worldbuilding and Aang’s struggle with his role as the Avatar stops being a personal conflict defined by a) his grief for Air Nomads, b) his notion of being robbed of the loved ones in his life, and c) the selfish attachment to Katara he confuses with true love. Instead, what he has a difficulty to accept is apparently a general notion of who Avatars are supposed to be, i.e. a fantasy version of Catholic monks, no family and worldly relations, period.

I guess either someone understood the original’s portrayal of de/attachment as “hermit no freaky”, or thought the audience would so why not go there outright.

Now, do I like this on its own? No, God no, it makes the world infinitely poorer and changes the story from an exploration of ideas which aren’t all that ingrained in the West, to a cliché tropester about a Catholic priest going Protestant so that he could be with a girl.

At least I assume that’s where they were going to take this eventually.

I mean, I think the direction was “look conflicted, this isn’t the final stage of your journey”?

But consider this—the show went there, it built on the concepts of Eastern philosophy and touched upon the ideas of spiritual awakening, only to swerve in the end and strongly imply they’re bullshit and Aang should have never wasted his time with them.

So honestly, I much prefer scanty worldbuilding to an insulting retcon by a damn rock.

Multiracial Air Nomads

Probably the most substantial “no hint of irony” point on this list and a genuinely good addition to the universe’s worldbuilding.

See, the notion of the elemental nations being perfectly separate and never mingling before Sozin has always been sketchy but it’s especially ridiculous in the case of airbenders. It never made sense to me for all airbenders to be Air Nomads and for all Air Nomads to be monks and for all monks to be chilling at the temples all the time to facilitate a quick everyone-dies genocide should an imperialistic warlord ever decide to commit one.

Because committing everyone to a single way of life at a handful of places kinda goes against the central philosophy behind airbending. Like the freedom and nomadism part.

Instead, there should be more variety to the airbending culture, with some staying at the temples as monks, hermits, and teachers while others live as nomads, travelling the world and creating more airbenders, with the resulting children in turn being influenced by the non-airbending cultures they grew up in.

And thus, not only should airbenders not be modeled after a single culture to create a one-size-fits-all lifestyle, but they should have the most diverse and dynamic culture out of the four nations.

And it’d be precisely this diversity which would pave way for an eventual reveal that some of them survived, that their complete extermination is impossible.

Because they’re everywhere.

You know.

Like air.

[nimedhel09]

SDBH commentary - episode 32 (spoilers ahead!)

Well, it's a weird time to do it, but each episode is less than 10min so whatever.

As always, prepare for rants more than anything lol. And random commentary.

- Power scaling is weird in SDBH........ IN DBS. I mean, it made more sense in DBZ? (Can't remember if the Buu saga was a mess of power scaling or not, but I feel like it was)

- Show me more of my psychopathic legendary husbando, please. Even if the animation is poop. Even if they made his face all roundish. And the noses weird (Girl, I hate the DBS/SDBH noses soooo much)

- Fuu created his new universe! And it's a tiny ugly thing, lol.

- Angy Monke fusion.

- Fuu being obsessed with his experimentation process, lol. At least he stays in character throughout.

- Lol. Towa and Robel going kind of magical girl on us with their "demon god" transformation hahaha.

- Demigra makes a move!

- Also, I hate the fights. They're soooooo booooooring. They lack dynamism.

- 🎶'cuz I'm frooooooooooooozeeeeeen! 🎶 (SS4 Gogeta and Fuu lol)

- Vados and Whis! Destruction kittehs! (aka the only good thing to come out of DBS, the series. Still waiting for that Broly slice-of-life on Vampa or even him joining the Saiyan crew on shenanigans. I'm waiting Toei! You cowards).

- Goku is confused. I'm confused. Everyone is confused.

Ok. End of episode feelings.

I don't like the fights. I need dynamics other than "ki! bam! screen shaking to show us that they're powerful!" over and over and over again. Give us the martial arts, DAMMIT!

As a former martial artist (because I've not practiced in a decade, shame on me), one thing I've always loved in DB and DBZ (well, until it changed into a big ki fest, lol, mostly in the Buu saga, I think? Would have to rewatch the Cell games to really see if there's fight-fight to go along the ki-fight) is the way that the moves were depicted in such a beautiful and dynamic manner. Look at the Garlic jr. film with baby Gohan, when Goku comes in and begins to fight the baddies. Gorgeous. Perfection. Magnificent.

What we've got in SDBH? Bleh. Uninteresting. For a series built on martial arts, the martial arts are kind of absent in most of the current material (DBS: Broly, once again, shows its superiority over anything done in the series until then, lol. The beauty of the animation and the MOOOOOVES. Damn, the fights were orgasmic in that film), which is a pity.

We barely saw my sadistic monke husbando, which is always sad. He's so beautiful, even with the horrendous noses and animation of whatever the hell this is (can you feel the salt?).

Still confused on what the heck Demigra is doing here.

Fuu is best boi. I think I like him so much 80% because of the original voice acting. It's perfect.

The plot is, as always, confusing or really badly exploited. Like, I get the anime is a small little promotional thing and that the animators and all the people working on it are paid nothing and put under lots of pressure, but it's tiring as a fan too. Toei, instead of greedily milking that cow till its death and giving us bad quality content should let the creators have the time they need to make a proper animation, build a proper story, pay them fairly and finally have the fans being as happy as they can be. Am I asking for too much? I don't think I am.

Another criticism that I will never shut about because I WON'T and I NEED: BLOOD. I need blood in this franchise. It's not made for children. It's not made for children. Ok, it's a shonen, its target audience is early-teen/pre-teen boys. SO. WHERE. IS. THE. FREAKING. BLOOD!!!!

Finally, WHERE THE HELL ARE MY CHILDREN????????? Again. the Xeno crew outside of (*le big sigh*) Veggie and Goku is left on the side because it's not enough to fan service or whatever the heck it is that they always give us Goku and Veggie. NO! Now they have to give us TWO Gokus and TWO Veggies. And, yes, I love the Xeno crew in its entirety. Xeno Goku acts way less dumb than main Goku (as he should, Goku is not dumb. Goku is silly and 100000% has ADHD, but he IS. NOT. DUMB. - another reason I hate 95% of DBS outside of the Broly film, lol) and the wholes Xeno crew is stunning. And I NEED MORE PAPA GOHAN AND PANNY, pleaaaaaaaaaaaaase, for the love of all that is good in this world!

Anyways. I think next time I'm watching an episode, it's going to be with a glass of wine. Need to buy more white wine though, because we only have red left, and I HATE red wine (urk).

[jenniferstolzer]

Babylon 5 Rewatch ep 2.20 The Long, Twilight Struggle

Sheridan and Delenn receive an invitation to Epsilon III where Draal pledges the Great Machine to the campaign against the Shadows. Meanwhile Londo commits his Shadow allies to one more attack against the Narn, allowing the Centauri to commit war crimes and end the Narn conflict.

Things I like about The Long Twilight Struggle

1, An energy fluctuation happens on the planet and Corwin turns to his coworkers like “There’s something happening. Contact Commander Ivanova” then the camera drifts to a private quarters. A shower is running. We see the steam as we coast slowly toward the bathroom for a tasteful near nude shot of Claudia Chris—NOPE Bruce Boxleitner. I CACKLED.

2, Draal is great and I love him. It worked out that Sheridan is new here to get a refresher on who Draal is and what’s going on with the Great Machine. Also the Great Machine making him younger is a good way to explain why he’s Herman Munster now. I’m guessing he’ll stay young and vibrant until he disintegrates like the last guy.

3, I appreciate seeing Londo’s true colors in his conversation with Refa. He’s tired, both from the trip to Centauri Prime and of all the war and darkness he’s involved himself in. He’s also still mourning Ursa Jaddo from Knives which was a nice callback considering he had a significant moment of doubt and regret in that episode, and it’s good to be reminded that he’s not totally sold on what’s going on right now. It’s also nice that he’s against the mass drivers at the outset but is convinced to go with Refa’s plan because he considers the glorification of his people more important than himself or anything else. He talks himself into doing something truly horrendous, but it’s wrong and his face knows its wrong. And then Refa makes him watch, when he fully intended to hide from what he’s done. Gguhh the pain is wonderful.

4, Watching this in a rewatch hurts so bad. Like Franklin gives G’Kar a warning about the Centauri’s interest in homeworld. There’s the possibility he can stop it.

5, Delenn and Sheridan go down to Epsilon III she is acting super cocky and in control because she wants to impress her crush, even using clever colorful English phrases. Everyone remembers Abasfrigginlutely Damnit. Oh Delenn….

6, Sheridan looks at the inside of the Great Machine and is like  “Lord, I may not go home” and I laughed b/c it looks like Tron in there.

7. The jump-kicking Centauri.

8, The mass drivers really are the most disgusting move. To devastate a civilian population from space is the ultimate ranged weapon. What could they possibly do? Watching Londo watch it happen is peak drama because as disgusted as he is watching, you know he’s as disgusted with himself in facilitating it. The drama is there but also horror on a level few shows can communicate, that of self-horror. The moment earlier where it was established and Londo still had a concept of right and wrong even as he was dealing with the Shadows is pulling full weight here. At the beginning of this season he was a buffoon struggling to stay afloat, in the middle of the season he finds the power and respect he wanted but loses the trust and friendship of the station in the process, and here at the culmination of his choices he sees what he was really willing to sell his soul for. He could have remained powerless and kept his sense of self, but instead he chose advancement and learned to hate what he’s become. It’s just staggering.

9, G’Kar is also pulling full weight in this episode. He’s prepared to go back to Narn, be with his family, and die among his people but he is the only member of the Kha’Ri not on homeworld and being so, he is an in credibly valuable asset for the race now that surrender is unavoidable. The tears in his eyes when asking for sanctuary are soul crushing, and the horror and shame he’s feeling is an inversion of Londo’s… powerlessness and being suppressed despite knowing he could do more verses being powerful and regretting it.

10, The Centauri terms of surrender are so cruel. It’s the turn of a knife that��s already been plunged to the hilt and Sheridan coming in to yank the dagger back an inch like a badass is extremely galvanizing and give Delenn grounds to commit the Rangers to him later in the episode. Also something I want to note about this scene that I think is even more important than Sheridan being a hero, it’s G’Kar sitting in his normal spot in complete despair, enduring Londo’s terms. Londo is dressed in every decoration and medal he’s ever owned, screaming at the top of his lungs like being the loudest makes him the rightest, yet G’Kar is silent. Londo demands G’Kar be removed from the council chambers like an invader. Sheridan replies by recounting the request for sanctuary, resulting on the two fighting over G’Kar’s head, but no one calls the bailiff to come get him. No one except Londo tells him he needs to go. They give G’Kar the chance to move. Even Kosh waits to see what he’s going to do. Will he attack? Will he scream and cry? No. He stands and with every ounce of self control he contains, delivers one of the greatest axefalls in television history.

“No dictator, no invader can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power, governments and tyrants and armies cannot stand. The Centauri learned this lesson once, we will teach it to them again. Though it take a thousand years, we will be free.”

11, AND THATS NOT EVEN THE END OF THE EPISODE! I can’t believe this wasn’t a two-parter with everything that’s happened in this one half an hour of screentime. Sheridan essentially tells G’Kar he’s on his side in this war. He offers G’Kar his hand as an ally, and G’Kar considers it saying; “The last time I offered someone my hand, we were at war 24 hrs later” He pauses to make you wonder if he’s lost the ability to trust, then shakes with Sheridan and the look on his face tells something completely different. He still believes he’ll be at war very shortly, but he’s hoping for it. He’s counting on it.

12, Finally we get the introduction of the Rangers and the only thing that can kind of fit on my “Liked less” list. I like this just fine, but there’s something about Delenn who is in charge of a secret sect of warrior monks pledged to side with the Vorlons against the Shadows, turning the control of those monks over to Sheridan without fully introducing him to their existence. To be fair, she gives him partial control and doesn’t hand it over to him, removing herself from the field and I know having watched the rest of the show that she still is the sole figure in charge of the Rangers and is more accurately pledging herself and those in her service to Sheridan’s cause… but the way they read in this episode it looks like she’s giving Sheridan the reins. The next episode is KIND OF dealing with this with the inquisitor, but in general I think we could have avoided a lot of nonsense if she just phrased her pledge more accurately.

13, And this leads me to a theory… that Babylon5 was labeled their best hope for piece, but really it was built specifically as a neutral ground for the staging of the Shadow war. It really is Babylon 5, as in a replacement for Babylon 4 which was used as a warbase. This is why the Minbari co-founded the station, this is why it ends in fire at the end of everything. It’s existence is specifically tied to the the return of the shadows and the drama and diplomacy of the Narns, Centauri, Telepaths, Earthdome, etc etc are events of the universe that happen to occur there. Wihtout the Shadow War, there’d be no Babylon 5, and without Babylon 5 the universe would not continue.

14.

Finally.

The ARMY OF LIGHT

I got teary-eyed

Things I liked Less about The Long Twilight Struggle

The Delenn thing. But we’ll get back to that next episode. And that’s it.

This episode is truly one of the greatest and most emotionally wrenching pieces of television ever created. It’s a silly scifi show with rubber masks that dares to delve deeper beneath the skin than anything else I’ve seen. We see the horror and depravity of war, but we also see the people turned inside out by it and what colors they are within. Ten out of ten. Thanks for breaking my heart. This is why I had to take pause on my rewatch to prepare.

oh by the way @gin-007 and I are resuming our rewatch from 2019.

and I’m putting all these eps up on @b5picanep as well if you want to go back to see previous episodes. 

[popwasabi]

Why I don’t give a fuck about canon

Recently, after randomly coming across some dope pictures of Transformer toys on Instagram that gave me a strong case of nostalgia, I was inspired to revisit an old childhood favorite in “Beast Wars.”

“Beast Wars,” in case you never watched or heard of it as a kid, is the continuation of the Transformer’s story set in the future as descendants of the Auotobots and Decepticons, the Maximals and Predacons, respectively, accidentally travel to prehistoric Earth to continue a centuries long battle between the two opposing factions.

There’s a lot of to digest there, so I’m not going to go into extreme detail over the plot, but the cast features colorful characters such as Optimus Primal, Cheetor, Rattrap, Dinobot and Megatron to name a few. They all have interesting and distinct personalities and generally play well off each other. It was a big part of my childhood and I collected an ungodly amount of their toys back in the day.

(This was my first ever Beast Wars toy and I think it’s beautiful.)

My rewatch though was…a mixed bag to say the least. The graphics have not aged well. The adventure of the week setup of the plot was repetitive and lacked real character development at times. There were characters that were added in last minute to the show clearly to promote a new action figure over the story on numerous occasions. Though I found the humor to still be pretty good, the action was stale and just lacked high stakes most of the time, save for a few episodes.

I was not shocked it didn’t land terribly well on my rewatch but you know what did? “Beast Machines!”

“Beast Machines” was the follow-up to Beast Wars that had the Maximals fighting on Cybertron where Megatron has taken control of the whole planet using a virus that changes Transformers into mindless drones to do his bidding. The remaining Maximals manage to survive however after Optimus discovers The Oracle which reformats them into animal robot hybrids that are both mechanical and biological. This sets them on a quest to stop Megatron and bring biological and mechanical balance to Cybertron once and for all.

The series is much more narrative based than the previous as it follows a steady trajectory to its epic conclusion. The animation is much sharper, and the soundtrack is fun as hell to listen to still. The pacing is much faster as the stakes couldn’t be higher for the Maximals and all the old characters from the previous grow in interesting ways and develop into more organic people (literally in some ways). Optimus is a more hardcore and emotionally damaged leader and Megatron goes from being something of a punchline in the previous series to a far more menacing and calculating nemesis. The story touches on themes of balance, authoritarianism, PTSD, love and reunion to name a few and for a kids’ show it is, dare I say…more than meets the eye.

I absolutely loved it as a kid and I might actually love it even more as an adult, so it was shocking for me, to say the least, when I read further into the history of the show, that a lot of fans straight up rejected it back in the day.

Common complaints I came across were they didn’t like how characters, such as Ratrap especially, “changed.” They didn’t like the new bio/mechanical Maximals and couldn’t believe that Cybertron was once an organic world.

Their big reason (in just about every forum and video I saw about it)? It didn’t adhere to “canon.”

Now, I’ll start this by saying there is no objective way to critique or even not critique a story. People can like or hate something for a variety of reasons that don’t follow a strict logical pattern. Gods know I have a few questionable/divisive favorites in my catalogue that I have written about here that are based on abstract ideas and personal experiences.

(The Matrix Reloaded is still great btw)

But I will say, if you judge a mega franchise’s latest entry on how well it is supported by established canon it is, in my opinion, a flawed way to critique a work of fiction.

Canon, sometimes referred to as “lore” by fans, is most often applied and used to describe the long running back stories of franchises that stretch beyond just the main books, movies or series, or even the original narrative of the plot. Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, and to a certain extent Harry Potter, all fall into this camp of series with so many interconnected parts, with more than one main character featured in each, that fans follow along this canon like ancient monks studying scripture and history books.

And they can be just as fanatical and over zealous about it.

(I wish they were more fanatical about proper hygiene or at least deodorant...)

My problem with the ways fans often view canon is that their conceptions of what a new story should be is based entirely on the past rather than what is happening right now with the story and what themes the writer is trying express with it this time. 

They base their impressions of the story on external continuity more than the internal continuity.

Yea, the changes in a series like “Beast Machines” are jarring to say the least. Cybertron was formally an organic world like Earth? Rattrap doesn’t have confidence in himself and actually at one point sells out his comrades? Transformers can be biological now? It’s a lot to take in but when watching the story play out it’s not like these elements aren’t explained through the text of the new story.

Cybertron lost balance between its robot inhabitants and its biological life forms and its why it’s out of balance now, and Megatron is the logical progression of that inbalance. Rattrap is struggling to understand his new form, half his friends on the Maximals have been turned into drones, and the remaining team out loud say they don’t have confidence in him. He has PTSD from both the events of this story and the Beast Wars and feels insecure because of how others view him and that’s perfectly logical to not just the story but also the canon. If a fan is willing to give a story a chance they will see that the canon hasn’t actually been destroyed in much of any way and the logical progression is actually there if they simply listen to what’s going on.

(Seriously, it’s not that deep.)

Fans need to stop confusing a character achieving a franchise long arc with being “suddenly different.” In this way, criticisms of canon in new entries in long running series reveal that fans really just lack imagination to connect the dots. It would be like complaining that Luke Skywalker can’t become paranoid and make a grave mistake in judgment because people never change, nevermind the character already has changed a lot from his origins in “A New Hope” to where he was in “Return of the Jedi.”

(Oh wait, people did do that…)

But that’s not to say you have to like the new direction either. You can understand these changes and still be like “well, it’s not for me. I don’t care for a PSTD angle or a new origin for Cybertron,” but that’s whole lot different than saying the new series “rapes your childhood” or “Bastardizes the canon.” All the old canon you hold nostalgia for still exists. My love for “Beast Machines” is not harmed by the existence of newer Transformers properties that don’t meet what I look for in the series.

Too often, fans take changes to established “lore” very personally because it doesn’t fit their expectations or have the same nostalgic feelings they had before. When new entries in mega franchises occur fans often try to judge it by how much it is like what they watched before, rather what makes it different and what it is saying now. Again, you don’t have to like new directions in tone or character but consistency to established work DOES NOT equal good storytelling.

I have not been immune to this myself in the past, of course. Back in the day I wrote a 2500-plus word diatribe on “The Amazing Spider-man 2” that mostly went after how it changed the character I grew up with in a bad way and butchered the established back story I knew him by.

You know what other story doesn’t follow canon very well though? “Spider-man: Homecoming.”

(Now, hear me out...)

Spider-man in the MCU is generally agreed upon to be a good thing by fans. Both movies were big hits both critically and financially and fans often go as far as to say Tom Holland is the “definitive” Peter Parker. 

But Holland’s Spider-man differs quite a bit from the comic-book webslinger. This Spider-man does not have a spidey sense. His best friend is not Harry Osbourne but in fact a retcon of a Mile Morales character. His father figure is Tony Stark, something that never happened in the comics, instead of Uncle Ben, which no matter what way you spin it is arguably his most important relationship in the series.

His character is a reverse of traditional Peter Parker too. Where comics Peter is a reluctant hero, who if anything hates being Spider-man and the burden of his responsibility, “Homecoming” Spider-man actively seeks out responsibility and in many ways enjoys his role as the famous webslinger. In fact, his whole arc is about him earning a spot as an Avenger. He wants to be THE hero and be worthy of it. It’s completely different from what we know of Spider-man.

(He just wants Tony sempai to notice him uWu)

Now I know some fans actually do complain about this Spidey from a “canon” standpoint, but most don’t. So why did this Spider-man get a pass for many but not “The Amazing” one? Quite simply it’s because stories, as cheesy as it sounds, are about feelings and stories like “Homecoming” tell a good story that effectively make those feelings connect with the audience.

We root for this Peter Parker and his journey to becoming an Avenger and successor to Iron Man because the story is told well, the emotions feel earned, and frankly both films are fun and enjoyable.

It’s easy to complain about canon for many nerds because it’s something tangible that they can point to and make a big stink about when they don’t understand why a movie isn’t reaching them. I don’t doubt that many neckbeards genuinely hate a film like “The Last Jedi” (Hell, I’m not a big fan myself) but when those same nerds enjoy something like “The Mandalorian,” a series that has its own loose relationship with canon and establishing new rules in the series, it tells me it’s not about the “lore” to them.

(Easy, fanboys...)

I have come to understand, in my growth as a nerd, that my problems with a lot of movies and TV shows in my favorite series rarely, if ever, have anything to do with the story not meeting some arbitrary guidelines regarding canon. It has more to with the story simply not connecting with me emotionally. The story isn’t drawing me in and keeping me on its narrative path. I’m not feeling the same magic that someone else might feel enjoying it because either a) it doesn’t feel earned to me or b) it just stylistically isn’t for me.

To paraphrase a line from another mega franchise, also owned by Disney, the canon is more like guidelines than actual rules.

(Didn’t expect to see ol’ Barbosa in this write up, did ye?)

It can show you where a story comes from but it isn’t law that you strictly adhere to it. Of course, when writing a new work in a popular series you should consider what came before it but I would like writer’s the freedom to try something new and most importantly fans to be open to it. You don’t have to like it but the idea that new entries in a story MUST remain strict to the canon is bull shit. Not even the original Star Wars trilogy adhered to its own canon perfectly, as clearly the writers were in fact making it up to a certain extent as they were going along.

(hmmmm...)

And that’s ok, because some of those changes were great! Made the story better and made the conclusion stronger.

Again, you don’t have to like every new entry that tries something bold or confrontational in your favorite franchise but if writers strictly followed canon to the T we wouldn’t have things like “Homecoming,” we wouldn’t have “The Mandalorian,” and we certainly wouldn’t have my favorite Transformers series “Beast Machines.”

Canon shouldn’t be a trap for writers and it shouldn’t be a litmus test for fans digesting it. There are so many better ways to judge a story than whether or not it fits neatly into established lore. A good story is a good story, regardless of whether or not it’s supported by something as static as canon.

“Beast Machines” has its flaws here and there, but canon isn’t one of them, at least not for me. Again, if you feel that the lore is important, that’s fine, you don’t have to ignore it but I would ask you to look beyond what came before when critiquing a new story.

Otherwise, you might miss something special that comes next…

Now then... 

[red-i-mean-blue]

A:TLA romantic ships part 1

yes, no one asked for my opinions, yes I will give them anyway, yes because I have decided making a bunch of meaningless decisions and arguing for them will improve my mental state, yes I watched the show all in one very sleep deprived go and i’m not interested in rewatching it so yes I have absolutely no sources, yes this is a really long grammatical nightmare because I don’ t know how to be succinct and i use way more words than necessary at any opportunity because if my point doesn’ t come across exactly like i intend it will greatly upset me, no I have not yet watched Korra or read the comics because i’m tired now let’s do this.

includes Kataang, Zutara, Jetkara, Jinko, Maiko, Sukka, Taang, Tokka, Toko Ty Lokka, Tyzula, Yukka bc these were on the Avatar wiki ship list, part two will go into gay ships more

from 0 I despise people who ship this immediately to 10 I will read absolutely anything with this, I love it and could draw it for hours on how much I think the relationship would be good and how happy it makes me

Kataang (looks like a comic book sound effect so plus points)

very clearly built up over the series

cute kid crushes also ngl did not know katara was 14 and not older 12 or 13 so didn’t care about age when watching

now I know she’s 14 and he’s 12 it’s a little weird but still

haters say katara was just the avatar’s trophy girl, as if aang didnt kiss the ground she walked on and wouldnt stop telling anyone how amazing she is. Katara was the first face he saw from the new world and they immediately became friends. she was so excited to meet another bender, he clearly is trying to impress her and it is working, he listens to her about bending and offers to take her to the other side of the world to master water, TELL ME at this moment she is not ride or die and she doesn’t even know he’s the avatar, he lets her feel like a kid again, which is a feeling she’s forgotten after years of being a mother to sokka and the children. he literally sweeps her off her feet to save her from the fire nations ship i-. rewatched boy in the iceberg and hoo boy had canon not messed it up, this ship could have been legendary

hard to imagine older them working out what with the whole last airbender, preserve air nomad culture, let’s travel the world bc nomadic lifestyle, what’s marriage i’m a monk without biological family values vs last southern waterbender, preserve southern water tribe culture, I believe in the power of family and am ridiculously dedicated to my tribe,  let me go home to my father and tribe shtick, but I don’t care for after the show finishes much except for following the gang fix the world so I don’t really care about the marriage issue

canon was good until that Mess in season 3, WHY did he kiss her after that speech, wish they talked that out properly, wish he learned letting go of her to open the 7th chakra was the only right decision, wish the ending was a little more vague in ships and just left things open but yk whatever

that finale kiss was sweet, they hugged foremost as friends, no blushing, and then got the fuzzies, that moment standing alone? a+ but without any talking about what happened on ember island, a little unsatisfying

overall, fine ship, not my favourite nor do I actively ship it, but I see a kataang moment, i’m like, sweet so I give it a 6

Zutara (apparently fans are zutarians which looks like an alien race, plus points)

latter half of the show had quite a lot of Zutara potential, but idk about Zutara actual

katara was so ready to drop his ass, no way at the start

there is only one dynamic between them in which I can see Zutara working and that is as in the Stalking Zuko by emletish series where katara is so distrusting over zuko she takes to stalking him to make sure he isn’t doing anything to hurt Aang or about to betray them (her) again but he is just such a sweet dork who keeps trying to apologise to her even while she’s apologising to him for being a bitch that she can’t help but start to trust him, i’m a third into the third book in the series not stalking firelord zuko and I am thriving and tbh this is the only situation where I accept zutara, read the series I love it

age gap is weird, I know it’s the same difference between kataang but they made a point of zuko being older in the show also he’s so much taller and I don’t like 16 year old boys with 14 year old girlfriends in real life and so would katara because jet

katara has a bad experience with bad boy sword weilders (jet) but I guess you could see it as the start of her type idk

they are both the moms of the Gaang. sokka is the fun dad.

there is a parallel between their families, with the leader of their people dad, mom who left the picture when they were young, an older brother who is not a prodigy at/can’ t bend their respective element so they become proficient at swords instead, prodigy at bending younger sister with a violent streak. this is why I see zutara as potentially a really close friendship, almost siblings, but not a romance because to me katara is a little too like azula for comfort...

tbh I think a lot of folk shipped it because ooh fire boy and water girl (not the game) that’ s perfect, and bam army of zutarians

overall, kind of weird but ok and good grounds for humour so I give it a 4

Jetkara (bad ship name, why would you like this, minus points)

Jet is bad. yes Katara really liked him, yes he was definitely her first kiss and she would definitely consider him her first boyfriend but they would not define it because it’s easier to manipulate someone when it’s unclear what your relationship is and Jet is bad, with his weird fricking eyebrows and not even real swords those hook swords

Not wasting my time, 2

Jinko (cool name, reminds me of Hong Jinkyung, plus points) 

short but so sweet. not the first thing people remember from watching the tales of ba sing se (brb going to rewatch and cry) but really cute, so here’s a running commentary

his first thought was she knew they were fire nation rather than a pretty girl sat in a teashop giving him looks because she had a crush omg

that honest surprise when his uncle suggested she liked her and then she walked up and asked him on a date, adorable

anyone who looked at that god-awful hairstyle and still thought he looked cute has it bad also aww that hair ruffle and the little grab onto his arm

he’s pushing his food around and she’s trying out ice breaker questions and recieving one word responses he has no idea what he’s doing

“she is not my GIRLFRIEND” he’s not over Mai, clearly but he still is trying his best to be a good date even if he’s terrible at making conversation

anyone who sat through that date and the bad lying and the stilted conversation and still thought he was cute has it bad 

he is So Bad At Lying he just told the truth very vaguely and then bam travelling circus

jin so knows the two are fire nation, the whole date she just politely ignores the clear lies and doesn’t react to the obvious firebending, what an icon we love jin

honestly I was really expecting the show to reveal that jin knew he was a firebender if not from the start then from the lights but eh I guess she can keep a secret, good for her

HE KISSED HER BACK BEFORE REALISING A RELATIONSHIP COULD NEVER GO WELL AND HE MAY HAVE ANGSTILY STORMED OFF BUT HE ADMITTED IT WAS A NICE TIME TO HIS UNCLE

that being said I can’t see anything more happening but this date but omg imagine fire lord zuko coming back to visit and they become friends I-

overwhelming support for pre-date jin flirting to an oblivious zuko and the date Jinko, 8

Maiko (name would be a good name for a cat idk why)

childhood sweethearts before the banishment i think

she crushed because he saved her hair from getting burnt by tackling her into a fountain? adorable

I love mai she’s so funny but I think not the best match for zuko? he has a lot of trauma to get over and she doesn’t seem like the let all your feelings out and let’s talk about it until you feel better kind of person.  it was deeply ingrained in her to keep all of her feelings and emotions strongly hidden because she got what she wanted from her politician parents so long as she was quiet, well-mannered, and perfectly behaved according to avatar wiki so I get why she’s that way, until I was 11 I was that way too all the time, I understand freezing your face so you don’t look afraid or upset or angry and risk annoying adults, but I don’t think that that would fit zuko with his social ineptness

they literally broke up twice but are just assumed back together? she just surprised him and said they were back together and I think he forgot she existed

the deadpan firelady and the fire lord would be hilarious together tho she got the ruthlessness he lacks

post coronation I can see it happening, 6 but under Kataang

Sukka (terrible name lmao)

the cutest, sokka very excitedly says “Suki!! :DDD” every time he sees her

she didn’t give him the time of day until HE changed, incredible

just the best canon ship, the two nonbenders in the Gaang but very clearly shown to be important key members.

suki is sneaky and badass, rivalling zuko for position on the team as the sneaky badass one (they tie and bond over being sneaky and badass)

sokka is a great dad, he is the dad of the Gaang and he clearly loves suki and suki loves him back

sokka ships are ELITE, 9

Taang (a delicious orange drink mix that reminds me of home, nostalgia)

foreshadowing from the swamp where someone aang loved in the future really made me think taang was endgame yk

opposite elements ideology that I guess is what zutarians like also leaves everyone in the gang dating a Gaang member if zutara happens

actually the same age but not much else going for it

best friends, 4 but under Zutara

Tokka (great name of a small pet fight me)

sokka ships are elite, childhood crush turned adult strong friendship

I really like seeing the rough, tough, greatest earthbender in  the world have a crush, adorable

sokka is a great friend and his and toph’s canon relationship is so sweet, I wouldn’t change it

toph was fully going to give sokka a kiss on the cheek for saving her life i’m melting

age difference is too weird for a romance he’s like 16 or 17 by the end I think and she’s 12

best friends, 10 as a relationship in the show, 2, but in their 20s after the show... 4 but under Taang

Toko (very forgettable name but both characters have 4 letters so I guess it’s hard to come up with something memorable but every time I read it as Toph because same shape ish so minus points for being annoying)

even weirder age gap than Tokka 

not many moments that could be considered romantic? 

toph first accepted zuko despite him burning her feet, how she sees, which was big and they resolved problems between them quickly

toph clinging to his arm and asking for a life changing field trip caused him to blush, but I see that as him being like oh someone wants to spend time with me?? she’s hugging me??? what is this 

convenient ship for kataangers because the Gaang could be paired off as Kataang, Sukka, Toko

her crush on sokka seemed to go away or calm down when he showed up and she punched him and teased him a lot, her way of bonding

similar strict teaching styles and bonding over secret identities as Blue Spirit and Blind Bandit and parental issues and being the children of important families who made them run away to enjoy not having anything to do with politics and being nobility with impaired vision who have never stepped into a kitchen in their lives and being used to servants and then being on the run

I really see them as siblings with her helping him relax from his duties as fire lord because you already know this boy’s sense of honour is going to make him work tirelessly to fix the world and him helping her relax from the whole i’m not a fragile, weak little blind girl, i’m the greatest earthbender in the world shtick and reminding her she can be both a blind 12 year old girl and the most powerful earthbender in the world, she can accept help without being weak or lesser than anyone, people want to help because they care not that they pity you

best friends 10, relationship in show 1, after show 3

Ty Lokka (I don’t like this name looks like a place but can think of nothing better)

yeah I guess ty lee’s obvious flirting is grounds for a ship but in every interaction he’s involved with someone else and doesn’t seem to like her as a person

do they even interact while on the same side?

friendly aquaintances at best, don’ t understand, 2 but above Jetkara

Tyzula (don’t like this name, like a mineral water?)

canon I don’t care it is canonically a possessive relationship

azula’s only genuine apology goes to ty lee after hurting her feelings

Azula clearly loves ty lee, her betrayal sends her mad

after a lot of therapy for azula and apologies, maybe a healthy relationship could form after the show, 8 above Jinko

Yukka (looks like a childish insult, surely someone could have thought of a better name)

Sokka’s love for Yue stays with him for the rest of his life, she was the first person to die in front of him and he sees the moon as her facing the earth

love this forbidden lovers content, sokka ships stay elite

Sokka and Yue spend as much time together as possible with secret midnight dates flirting (“you wanna do an...activity together?”)  Sokka’s reaction to Yue’s engagement shows that he wants to have a serious relationship with her, and also he thinks Hahn is a bad person for Yue, which he is. 

Yue dying devastated him and he never falls out of love with Yue. her last words “[she] will always be with him” are true. swamp visions show Yue as one of the most important people in his life like a season or so after he last saw her. he wouldn’t kiss suki in front of the moon, and cries when Yue appears on stage, ignoring Suki. he talks about the moon as if it is directly Princess Yue in that cactus juice scene.

she died in his arms oh my god don’t look i crying, he feels personally responsible and guilty

yue was great even though she was the indigenous or black girl with light hair and eyes character and I wish she could have helped aang in the spirit world 

despite her arranged engagement she clearly really likes sokka even though she knows nothing can happen, 9

Kataang, Zutara, Jetkara, Jinko, Maiko, Sukka, Taang, Tokka, Toko, Ty Lokka, Tyzula, Yukka

[aangislove]

Feeling ATLA

Something I have always struggled to put into words is <i>why</i> Avatar: The Last Airbender is my favourite show of all time, closely followed by now She-Ra and the Princesses of Power and I have come to realise that it all comes down to feelings. The feelings the show gave me, the way it captivated me and made me emotionally invested after very little time spent watching.

I was 8 years old when the show first came out and I watched it and I remember feeling an instant connection to Aang and his character. I remember watching in awe and falling in love with him. I remember when I truly started to love Katara and Sokka too and then Toph and Zuko. Then you have Iroh. Monk Gyatso. Bumi. Mai. Ty Lee. And so on. There are so many characters and while there are a few I don’t personally like, the thing about this show is I can’t imagine it without all of the characters. They all added something (all the main/regular characters). It’s such a unique feeling for me to have. When even the bad guys/villains of the show are seen as crucial and part of the overall experience.

The other thing that really spoke to me was the relationships. You have so many. The family, the friendships, the lifetime bonds, the romantic relationships. They are all relationships I can get invested in. Those relationships could get me through some of my least favourite episodes. They were part of what brought me back for me. It’s something very few shows in general get right. It also shows different sides to these relationships and it shows how one relationship type can go so wrong or so right and it does so in what to me, is a very natural way.

I loved the development between Aang and Zuko’s relationship. As an aged-up Zukaang shipper theirs was a relationship that always captivated me and while it’s not canon, even in terms of their friendship and the parallels between them you have something truly beautiful there.

I always felt something watching the show. The ending blew my mind the first time I watched. It made me feel. It was so incredibly satisfying to see a child of war not have to give up his beliefs in a war that had already left damage in his life. It was done so in a way that never felt like a cop out to me, and it never felt OOC.

I think, too, as a side note and on a personal level, these are areas LOK fell flat for me in general. I appreciate the show on it’s own and I am not wanting to hate on it. But people have asked why I like one more than the other or why I don’t love LOK more and I think it comes back to how the show made me feel and how I connected with the characters. And LOK never came close to matching ATLA, for me, in terms of those feelings. SPOP as I mentioned already, would be the closest thing for me.

And those feelings are part of why I can rewatch ATLA so many times and never grow tired of it or get turned off watching again.

[sunbird-tells-stories]

I was rewatching one of my favorite episodes of Xiaolin Showdown lately and I’ve been thinking of Jesse’s/Jessie’s character. I really like her a lot. I was always fascinated with that character from the moment I first saw her. Clay was my favorite Dragon, so to learn he had a sister??? Who was a biker girl??? And a BAD GUY?! Like, it was crazy! I loved the episode, and I still love it to this day. I love the lore, the aesthetic, the Black Vipers, the story, and the ending with Jesse under a starry desert sky flying off into the moon leaving behind a magical rainbow trail behind her? Like, tell me that’s not awesome!

So, since I’m bored and have Xiaolin on my mind, I’m gonna rant about her for a little bit.

First off, Jesse’s listed in the credits with the male version of the name, aka Jessie without the “I.” And the first thing I thought about when I mulled over this choice for a name was that it reminded me of Jesse James, who was a famous outlaw back in the days of the Wild West. So it was maybe a crew choice to give her that name as a shout-out to her criminal nature, and because of that, I like to think that in the show’s universe, Jesse used to be Jessie but dropped the “I” the day she left the Bailey Ranch. You know, to show that a) she was starting a new life and leaving her old persona behind and b) maybe to challenge the stifling old gender norms she was relegated to at the ranch. I mean, Daddy Bailey, as cool as he is, did ooze vibes of toxic masculinity in the one episode we saw him. If he was hyper focused on making Clay the manliest man, then it makes sense that he’d push Jesse to be the girliest girl.

But like, Jesse’s her own person, man. She’s hotheaded and stubborn and determined, and she’s got enough grit and pride in her to say “You know what? Screw this. I’m not happy here, I’ll never be enough for you, and life is too short to live in a place where you’re either ignored because everyone’s paying attention to your brother or being pressured and prodded into being something you’re not.”

So she left. I mean we never got a backstory on that (and I would have loved one, trust me), but she left, and she left on bitter terms too, considering Clay’s instinctive animosity towards her on sight. Like, no “hey, how’s life” or “where have you been.” The first thing he did after recognizing her was to call her a varmint. A nuisance. A lowlife.

That’s....uncharacteristically harsh, Clay. You’re supposed to be the sweetheart of the group, and the first thing you do when you see your baby sister after who knows how long...is to insult her?

Wow. There’s a story there. And if we don’t get any background on it, then maybe I’ll write it later? There’s always fandom, kids! And fanfic. And fanart.

But Jessie really does fascinate me as a character. Like even more than Ashley, or Wuya, or Shadow, or even Kimiko! Out of all the (very few!) female characters in the Xiaolin lore, she’s the one I’m interested in the most. It’s everything about her you know? It’s her backstory, it’s her personality, her skills, her likes and dislikes, the way she chooses to live her life, the way she’s constantly double crossing everyone around her - even her brother! No one is safe from her except for her loyal Vipers, who must also like her and trust her a lot too, since as soon as there’s a brief void in the leadership role, they automatically welcome her and her alone back into it, instead of squabbling over who should be the leader of their biker gang. For all their trouble and deceit, the Black Vipers stick together.

Probably because they’re all they’ve got.

I mean the girls live in a MINE! (An abandoned mine, like seriously, how cool is that?!) and they’ve got pet vultures, and know every inch of their hideout, and the place is falling apart in some areas but it’s HUGE and awesome and it looks wicked cool so it balances out.

But that alone implies that none of them have actual houses or trailers or apartments or condos where they actually crash. None of them have a home to go home to.

And why would they? I mean, you don’t just wake up one day and choose to live a life of crime. The show always likes to hammer in the fact that the world’s not black and white. Everyone’s got some good chi and bad chi in them. Everyone’s a shade of grey. And that includes the Vipers. And something tells me that they’re a darker shade of grey than most girls, and not entirely by choice either. Girls don’t just wake up and become bad guys. It’s a lot more complicated than that.

I worry about these girls. All of them are so young, early-late teens at most, but they’ve each got a criminal record and have scored enough infamy to be known all through the American Southwest. That’s kind of awesome. But mostly really, really sad.

Sadly we don’t get much personality from the girls, but I wish we did, I love the quirks in their character designs like WallEyed Short Girl and Tall Freckled Mopey Girl, and even Belle! Yes, the redhead has a name, and it’s Belle. Personally she’s my favorite design out of all four Vipers. The bright red hair paired with the turquoise in her necklace and hat is simple but unique. And her sass! And the fact that she’s like the ONLY XS character with brown eyes. Aaah! I love her so much!

But even with their lack of screen time or even voice lines, there’s enough evidence to infer that these girls are each other’s family. They’re sisters. They’re partners in crime wherever they go, from the arid deserts of Arizona to the neon casinos of Nevada, from the white sands of New Mexico to the empty-hearted prairies of Oklahoma, and hey maybe even as far west as Baja California!

And of course, Texas.

It’s interesting that even though she cut all ties with her dad and her brothers and her mom (I mean, if she even has one), she still wanders through Texas. The last thing she screamed at Jack as he took off in a huff with no Wu was “Don’t Mess With Texas”! She may have turned her back on her family and the ranch, but she’ll never turn her back on her home state. That’s kind of beautiful. It’s nice to think that the big bad biker chick who rules over a gang that kidnaps people and robs them blind....still has a soft spot.

But I mean, of course she has a soft spot. She’s a person, right? Good chi and bad chi coexisting together in a single human being. She’s got dreams, right? Secret wishes that keep her up at night, keep her going when the chips are down, keep her going when things get hard for her gang and she has to be the one to stay strong and lead them through it despite being a KID...yeah. It’s abundantly clear that Jesse is an adventurous soul. I mean, you gotta be if you spend your days riding through the desert and running from cops, and your nights sleeping in a creepy, abandoned mine that goes on for miles underground. That’s certainly not a lifestyle for the faint of heart, but Jesse seems just fine with it.

Because as crazy and as sad as her situation is, a teen girl with no home and, thanks to her record, no happy future to speak of, she’s happy where she is. Probably the happiest that she’s ever been in her life. She certainly has a lot more freedom, and values that freedom to Hell and back (probably.) She’s seriously gotta love the sweet, simple feeling of going wherever she wants and doing whatever she wants. Stealing from people probably gives her such a thrill, and with the jumps she made with her bike during the Showdown in her one and only episode...yeah, our girl’s an adrenaline junkie. Fer sure.

I wonder if she’d ever leave the desert at some point in her life. I mean, being an outlaw is cool and all but it’s definitely got a lot of drawbacks, and it isn’t very sustainable. And, I mean...people change. Maybe someday she’d just grow out of the lifestyle. Maybe one night she’d sit her Vipers down for one last talk, pass her leadership over to Belle, give them all one big hug and wish them luck, get on her bike and just...leave.

I wonder where’d she go then. Definitely not back home. Probably not with Clay. Being a Xiaolin hero, going to monk school, fighting over Warts...that’s his life, not hers. And I mean, she does have that inferiority complex, which aren’t exactly easy to grow out of. Maybe she’d secretly feel that she wasn’t good enough to be Xiaolin. But she definitely wouldn’t want to go full evil and switch to the Heylin side.

Jesse’s not Xiaolin, or Heylin. She’s just....Jesse. And that’s why we love her so.

I think she would wander. She’d wander all over the US, through every last state, seeing all that there is to see. Some places impress her. Some do not. Some remind her far too much of her home back at the ranch and some are so alien and foreign that her heart almost breaks from the loneliness. Sometimes she falls in love. Then, she falls right out of love, never unexpectedly, but only sometimes by choice. And after a few hours of heartbreak and self care, she’s back on her feet again, hunting down her next adventure. If she sees a Wu, she contacts Clay, and waits for him and the others to come. It’s easier to talk to him now, so they talk often. She sends him a pretty postcard from each city she visits. And with each message, she writes an animal fact about a local critter, just for him.

Home is....it’s not home anymore. Daddy Bailey, Mama Bailey, even Patrick...they don’t consider her family no more. At least that’s what she believes. She never writes to them. She doesn’t see the point. As far as she’s concerned, they all said what they had to say the day she left the ranch. Soemtimes she’s overcome with the temptation to give them a call and see how things are. But no matter how hard she tries, she always hangs up as soon as they answer.

It’s too late to fix what I broke, she tells herself.

And sometimes, she believes it.

But no matter what gets her down, Jessie’s a tough girl. She’s smart and clever and knows how to get by on her own. Her independent nature was hard-earned. She can take care of herself. So she does. And she wanders. And she sees the world beyond the desert.

Hey, remember that one line during her episode where she says “the only thing better than riding is flying,” or that out of all the Wu she could have kept for herself - out of all powers she could have had at her disposal - she opted to keep the Wings of Tinabi, aka the flying Shen Gong Wu?

I like to think that Jesse, like her brothers, is a smart cookie. But while Clay’s got animal facts and Patrick’s got computers, she’s more of an engineer. I mean, she’s got to keep her rides in tip top shape right? And those weren’t ordinary motorcycles either. I wonder if she was the one who designed the Black Viper’s iconic bikes. Maybe she built them all from scratch. Maybe they all did.

And maybe building bikes isn’t all she’s good at. I like to think that as Jesse gets older she takes on a whole new kind of project. As soon as she gets enough material and enough space to house her new baby, she gets to work on something she’s always been wanting to make in the back of her mind but never could before. It’s more complicated than motorcycles or cars or even tractors, and there’s a lot to lose if something goes wrong. But Jesse’s a risk taker, and a dreamer. And above all, she believes in herself. She has to. She’s always had to, because no one ever else did. Not until she chose to be her own biggest fan did she ever have someone in the stands cheering her on. She can do it. Of course she can. She’s Jesse Gotdang Bailey, and she can do anything.

I like to think, after a while on the road, exploring every last corner of America, and hey, maybe even Canada and Mexico, she finally gets around to building herself a plane. Wheels and steel are a beautiful combination, but wings? Wings can take you anywhere. They offer a freedom like no other. Hundreds and hundreds of people over countless generations have looked up at the sky and wished to be up there. And Jesse wouldn’t be any different from them.

I like to think that she finishes it right as she reaches adulthood. I like to think that she actually goes legit - for once - and gets herself a pilot’s license. I like to think that she gives her new ride a bright coat of paint, puts on the last finishing touches, gets herself a viper tattoo as a way to honor the occasion, and takes off towards the Xiaolin Temple the very next morning to show Clay how far she’s come.

And I would like to think that on the side of the plane, in beautiful rainbow lettering, is the name she chose for her new aircraft:

The Wings of Tinabi.

[fairytaleslive]

Dobrý den again, I have another little question for ptak o. At 6:49 Skeleton shouts something to the dog, it sounds like "van". (yt, remastered version) Couldnt find such word in Czech. In German dub it is translated as "verschwinde" (go away). Whats the original word? I have now seen the film several times because of the excellent play of Karel Roden, and it seems to me the film is not as bad as I first thought. The Czech actors play well. The German men play wooden, T. Ruland (princess) is ok.

Hi again! :) (btw sorry for long answers! I can never stop myself when I start to ramble about fairytale films!)

To your first question: I can’t understand what Skeleton says either, lol! At first I thought he says “Ven!”, meaning “Out!” which would sort of make sense in the context. But no matter how many times I rewatch the scene, it sounds more as if he just does a weird roar at the dog – ”vrrr” is a sound of dog growl in Czech.

Oh yes, Karel Roden is great and seeing him in a fairytale role is a rare treat. He is extremely picky about his roles, especially in recent years, and often stars in international projects.

International fans might know him as a villain in Bulletproof Monk and Rasputin in the first Hellboy movie. Not to mention his roles in Lamberto Bava’s Dragon Ring, second Fantaghirò and Sorellina e il principe del sogno.

Karel Roden as villainous Skeleton in The Firebird (1997)

I think that all the actors did the best they could with the material they were given. From the Czech actors: I can tell you that everyone basically plays their standard roles, in which they are good at; I wouldn’t say that they had to try too hard to be believable (e.g. Langmajer plays the sleazy prince, cause he usually plays sleazy roles, even to this day; Roden plays a charismatic villain, as he always does etc.). Kudos to Marián Labuda Sr. who plays Skeleton’s henchman, he was one of the best Slovakian actors in history and yet he took such a thankless little role and managed to nail it! (I imagine he enjoyed it too cause he didn’t often get to play villainous roles on screen :)

Ondřej Brousek, who plays the hero’s brother (why, oh why did they add his character and then killed him off?), is nowdays more of a composer/musician than an actor. He composed music scores for e.g. fairytales School of Princes (”Škola princů”, 2010) or The Treasure (”O pokladech, 2012) among many others.

For me, it’s interesting to see Barbora Leichnerová (Elena’s maid Margita), as it was her last role on screen and I don’t think that she is still acting to this day. She is a lesser known Czech actress, but I remember her well cause she starred in several made-for-TV fairytale films in the 80′s.

Edit: I feel bad for not mentioning the presence of the legendary Horst Buchholz in my original comment! He was a great actor and I wish that he had more screentime as the King in this movie!

I’ve always liked Tina Ruland in both The Magic Pouch and in The Firebird. I think she was pretty and charming in both roles (more in The Magic Pouch since she had more screentime and personality there). And a big shout out to Dana Černá, one of my favorite voice actresses, who provided her Czech voice! (the Prince is voiced by another of my favorite voice actors: Zdeněk Hruška, who also provided his voice to Max Urlacher in The Queen of the Lake btw)

I think that one of the many issues this movie has, one of the biggest ones is how underused the Prince and the Princess are as a couple. (btw I had no idea they became a pair while filming this, thank you for the info!) Their meeting is pretty cute, love at first sight sort of works (*I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream* theme is probably copied from Sleeping Beauty 1959, but I am ok with it). Their chemistry seems alright to me. But then...they never really talk again and all their interactions become forced and wooden. They could have been an adventuring, villain-killing power couple but Elena is then pretty much reduced to a constant damsel-in-distress and the Prince always seems to need the help of other people/magic items to suceed in his tasks...

Like you said, this movie had a lot of good things coming for it. Personally, I think it’s a real shame that the screeplay and execution ended up being so completely superficial and without spark.

This is just my personal opinion, but I think that they should have given the job to someone else than director Vorlíček. Someone younger, with new, creative, original ideas, who would turn the source material into a fun fairytale adventure film....

Vorlíček was about 66 years old at that time and pretty much drained as a creator. I know I sound harsh, I really respect and love his works from 60–70′s, but after that, the quality of his projects started to decline and (judging from interviews he did in his later years), he often seemed to put the blame on anyone but himself and refused to admit that his latest films are trash (I’ve seen his sequel to Girl on the Broomstick and it must be one of the worst movies ever made)....

[luuuna-rambles]

Lost Rewatch: 3x17 Catch 22

If this episode can teach us anything, it is this: Scottish people rule

Okay, Charlie argues that Superman is faster than The Flash by saying ‘Superman can fly around the entire planet in the blink of an eye’, but The Flash could do that too, so that’s a null point

Charlie, come on. You’ve seen some weird stuff on this Island. Why, when stepping on a mysterious wire, would you take your foot off without checking?

Hell, you’ve even stepped on some weird stuff before. Remember the beehive?

So, within the context of Desmond’s visions, he sees other stuff happen among Charlie dying. And yes, yes, Charlie has to die, la la la, but that very much implys that after Charlie dies he should continue to have visions, right?

Hell, he had a vision not involving Charlie before he was supposed to die!

So why do his visions stop after Charlie dies?!?!?

Desmond asks Hurley ‘Where's the wire?’, and Hurley immediately assumes that Desmond has been taking drugs

Also, what he says specifically is ‘D'you eat those mushrooms Jack warned us about?’, which is odd, ‘cause I thought Jack was supposed to be acting all shifty right about now

Why does Desmond see of a flash of the picture of him and Penny, and just assume that Penny is the one coming to the Island? He doesn’t know at the point that she’s looking for him, he doesn’t even know that she knows about the Island

Hell, he has that very same picture! It could have just been him looking at his picture!

So the show seems to imply that Desmond picked up his call-everyone-‘brother’ thing from his time as a monk. But the flashbacks in these episodes don’t seem to take place over that long a time. Given that he spent most of his residency silent, he really wouldn’t have enough time calling people ‘brother’ to pick it up, would he?

Hur, hur, Sawyer walked in on Kate getting changed, hur hur 🙄

Seriously though Sawyer, what did you think was happening when she didn’t come out of her tent?

Oh ffs, stop staring at her boobs

I’m sorry, the Others are the perverts? You’re the one ogling her!

Oh come on, guys, stop marring my Dezzy episodes with your love quartet bullshit

Desmond is the only one having these visions, he really should have understood the logic. But why does he believe changing one thing changes everything? Even something tiny like Jin, who doesn’t actually do much, coming. You’ve seen that ‘Penny’ comes from off the Island. Jin not being there isn’t going to change anything!

Desmond, Jin and Hurley, all my favourite male Losties in one place. What’s not to like? Oh, and Charlie’s here too, I guess...

YES, WE GET IT, CHARLIE MIGHT DIE. WE KNOW, ALRIGHT?

Desmond gets punch, and then asks for forgiveness for... something. Was it for bleeding on the wine?

Oh, god, now we have to suffer through possibly the worst scene of the entire season

First, we have Kate and Jack talking/ flirting. Everything they say on paper is fine. But I’m not sure if it’s the actor’s on-screen chemistry, or the delivery, but it all seems really awkward to me

And what’s with Kate licking the spoon before giving it to Jack? Just wipe it on your sleeve

Annnd then it gets worse

First off, Jack flirting with Kate and then going off with Juliet makes him just as bad as Kate, so that is two annoying people out of four

Second, why did you think Kate going off to have sex with Sawyer seconds after seeing Jack and Juliet was a good idea? Especially as you have already clunkily inserted the scene earlier where Kate refused sex from Sawyer. It’s just... icky

Hey, for a comparison, why don’t we talk about a scene from Killing Eve?

In 2x07 (I think), Eve hears Villanelle masturbating, and Villanelle essentially offers sex at a later date. Eve then turns around and goes to  have sex with her then-roommate Hugo, who’s been flirting with her all season

On paper, what happens is fairly similar. But in Killing Eve, there’s no musical fanfare, they don’t linger on it. And it’s treated as Eve using Hugo explicitly

On Lost, it’s almost the complete opposite, and I hate it

Even worse, there is no reason for the scene to be there. It doesn’t further the plot, it doesn’t give us new understanding of the characters - we already knew that Kate and Jack are being fickle as hell. It’s just there to make the viewer feel gross

Ah, it’s gone. Thank god. Let us instead enjoy the Boys telling spooky stories

So Naomi clearly arrives on a separate helicopter to the rest of the Science Crew, which crashes into the ocean

First off, Naomi isn’t a pilot - how did she think trying to fly one herself was going to end?

Second, this means that the freighter people have two helicopters - keep that in mind for when we see flashbacks

You know, Desmond seems pretty lucky with the women he dates. Ruth seems really cool too

Jack and Sawyer playing ping pong is pretty cute... but then of course you have to ruin it by discussing Kate

Sawyer is on 18-0, Jack wins a point and says ‘Nineteenth point’. What? No, now it’s 18-1

So why exactly does Naomi have a picture of Desmond and Penny and not, I dunno, Ben? Y’know, the person she was hired to find?

Okay, repeating the flash of Charlie dying once is fine. Twice is iffy. Three times is seriously questioning the intelligence of your audience

FOUR TIMES?!?!

So even the Scottish monk is cool! Like I said, Scotland is where it’s at

Okay, the Flash/ Superman argument from the start is really clunkily inserted into the dialogue. No one brought up Superman, Charlie!

Why does Desmond think Charlie living will lead to ‘Penny’ dying? It slowed them down about five seconds, most

You know, Charles Widmore doesn’t seem like the sort of person to make large donations to a monastery. Ah well, I guess we just needed a reason for Penny to be here

That being said, Desmond and Penny’s meet-cute is very, well, cute

Overall Review:

This is one of the weaker Desmond episodes, in my opinion. Maybe it’s because there isn’t much time fuckery, or maybe it’s because there’s just as much focus on Charlie, and the Love Triangle from Hell, as there is on Desmond. And I like Desmond, and it’s a Desmond episode, so that’s sad

Overall Rating: 6.9/10

And that’s ignoring that scene, because it’s an outlier, and would have dragged this episode down considerably

[gotmilk5101520]

Miraculous Ladybug Rewatch Episode 67 Feast

Let the feast begin!

“Super Adrien…” “Isn’t Adrien Chat Noir?” “Shh. She doesn’t know that”

“Here, a black knight”

“Or Black Cat Miraculous holder”

“Here, a lady”

“Or a Butterfly superhero”

“Now this, Hercules”

“Or Lion Miraculous holder” Alya is smart. And she still can’t figure out Marinette is Ladybug.

“Why not a Bunny Miraculous while you're at it? Oh wait”

Man i wish i could see little details like this.

“According to my old man, the statue is almost two hundred years old!” “From what I found there hasn't been any Miraculous-wearing superheroes for the last two hundred years!” But in Backwarder Marianne knew of the Miraculous and how they work. So that would mean the remaining Miraculous, that Master Fu had, were used in secret.

“Alya is an excellent journalist. Sooner or later, she would have unveiled this secret kept under wraps for centuries” Can’t wait till it’s 100 years in the future and someone puts together the pieces that Marinette and Adrien were Ladybug and Chat Noir.

“Remember when I told you I made a terrible mistake? For you to understand, I must tell you the entire story”

“I was younger than you when I was chosen to be a guardian”

“My parents told me that it was a great honor. That I couldn't turn it down. So they took me to the temple” Okay, 2 things. First what does someone have to do to get picked to become a guardian? Do you have to sense something about them? And second Fu’s parents said this is a great honor that couldn’t be turn down. So people knew the Guardians existed back then? Was there like a village around the temple and the Guardians would go down there looking for successors?

“I wasn't very happy there. I would have preferred to live with my parents and be with other children my age. I didn't want to be a guardian of anything”

“One of the test to become a guardian required me to watch over a Miracle Box. For a full twenty-four hours without any food“ Noticed he said a Miracle Box.

“All I had for support was my apprentice's staff. Soon I was hungry. With each passing hour I became hungrier”

“And it was all because of the Miraculous. Because I had to watch over them. I couldn't take it any longer”

“So I took the Peacock Miraculous and used its power”

“All I wanted was a nice little companion I could sent to the kitchen to fetch me some rice balls. But the Miraculous must never be used for the wrong reasons” All in all this series keeps reminding us the Miraculous can’t be use for selfish reasons or something bad happens.

“The anger I was feeling mingled with my intense hunger. And I created a sentimonster that was very different from the one I had envisioned”

“A ravenous sentimonster out to devour everything, but specifically the Miraculous, since they were the bane of my life at that very moment”

“In my panic I lost my staff. The very object that would have enabled me to control it. I was just a young boy. I was so afraid I didn't even think of destroying it by simply using the Peacock Miraculous”

“I tried to erase all traces of the foolish thing that I had done. A monk told me to run away with the grimoire he managed to save, and the Miraculous Box. The very last Miraculous Box”

“That's when I realized my sentimonster had devoured all the other Miraculous Boxes that were kept in the temple” Wait i wonder if the people in the village i mentioned before noticed and went to check.

“And when the monks tried to stop it—the temple, the Order of the Guardians, everything… it was destroyed” Hold up he said the monks tried to to stop Feast. Did they use some of the Miraculous? Or were they skilled fighters without them?

“I tried to run away from the sentimonster”

“But by doing so, I lost the grimoire and both the Butterfly and the Peacock Miraculous”

“I thought the sentimonster had disappeared forever” Wait so the lava didn’t burn the sentimonster or the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous?

“Nathalie sometimes gets dizzy spells. But it's nothing serious”

“Why the long face?”

“My mom used to have dizzy spells… just like Nathalie. My father said those weren't serious either” *Cries in French*

“I will help you. It comes from the region where we found our Miraculous” “Oh the place where your wife used the Peacock Miraculous, and that’s how we got ourselves in this mess”

How about a duet?

*Cries in French again*

Mayura has made it into Area 51

“Oh, but don't you worry, I'll give them back to you as soon as I'm done with them. I'll even give you the Peacock and mine as a bonus” Why would Gabriel want to get rid of the Miraculous after it’s over? Then all the Miraculous would be gone and no one would use them.

“Really? You just made it bigger?”

“What sort of fucking magic is this?”

Marinette has trained to face her biggest enemy. The Fence.

“Chat Noir? Is that you? Why a Banana? Where did you get it?”

“Well it was just laying around”

“Master, look! Ladybug and Chat Noir, despite their ridiculous costumes, okay where did they get those ridiculous costumes?”

“Hey, have a taste of this! Some exploding banana split from Bananoir!”

“Much tastier than any Miraculous!” Are you sure about that?”

Best side of the love square. Bikerbug x Bananoir.

“Hey! Leave them alone! I'm the one you have been wanting the past one hundred and seventy-two years!”

“The guardian of the Miraculous is this decrepit old man? Wait have i seen him somewhere before?”

“He’s that old man!”

“I am not scared of you anymore!”

“Okay, maybe i still am”

“There are only two places where your staff could be. Where the temple was, or…” If it was still at the temple then they would’ve been fucked.

“Hurry, my lady, this thing already swallowed my stick whole!” Yeah “Stick”

“Uh, you sure it's the right time, my lady?” The right time for what?

“Oh no, not the tongue…”

Yeah right.

“Man, look at all these things it ate. Wait are those humans?” “Pretty sure they’ll die once we defeat the sentimonster” “What if they don’t?” “Then we can show them memes”

“Don't be bemused, it's just the news! Extraordinary and inexplicable!”

“That pretty much sums up the surprising reappearance of this temple in the Tibetan mountains—”

“ —a hundred and seventy-two years after it was destroyed”

“Let's go to Clara Contard on location” Umm why were they watching? It makes sense to see Gabriel, Nathalie, and Alya. But Tomoe and Audrey? Why were they watching it? Are they planning to form some evil bad parents team?

“That's correct, Nadja. But what makes this phenomenon particularly unexplainable is that all the monks who used to live in the temple have also reappeared year 1844!” So who’s gonna show them memes?

“The monks have been freed and the temple has been restored. It’s going to be awkward for them seeing technology”

“I shall go and see them someday soon, and explain everything to them. And show them some fun cat memes”

“And the time has come for me to prepare you to become the new guardian”

“The guardian? But Master, you're the guardian! You have been for a hundred and seventy-two years! Let’s talk about this another time” “Marinette, it’s been 11 episodes since i told you. Stop delaying this”

“I was joking. Those strict traditions did no good when I was your age I mean it’s not like you’ll end up burning Paris to the ground” “Yeah... Hahahaha...”

“Now that Hawkmoth knows who I am it's too dangerous for me to live here” “Is the mustache really necessary”

“I'm not going anywhere until Hawkmoth is defeated. I'll never leave you” *Cries in Miracle Queen*

Now that was a feast to remember.

I want to play video games. No I must finish this!