#i think the lost of interest because of the backstory/flashback taking over three episodes made that happen

[mostlyfate]

ONE DOLLAR LAWYER (천원짜리 변호사) 2022, dir. Kim Jae Hyun.

[gemkidsau]

Season Three

I made some posts on Tapas about this but I guess some people missed them, so the confused people in that crew, here is a screenshot of an explanation:

The original plan was to draw the entirety of season two before scheduling it all to post. But a handful of episodes in I got caught up in something else and by the time I had time to work on it again, I just couldn't. I tried and tried but I really just could not get back into it.

So continuing in my promise, here is season three:

Super watermelon island

Garnet sees Malachite surfacing on Mask Island so they go there and ambush her. Peridot stays behind to work on the drill and Rose volunteers to supervise her. Alexandrite defeats Malachite. Jasper is lost in the ocean again and Lapis is brought home, passed out.

Gem drill

Same plot but replace Steven with Rose.

Same old world

Lapis wakes up and Amethyst helps her process what she went through and finds a new home for her (similar plot but Amethyst has a different approach cause of her personality). She chooses the barn.

Barn mates

Peridot insists the barn belongs to her because she’s already been using it. Lapis insists it was promised to her even though Amethyst never actually said that and doesn’t own the barn in the first place. Amethyst decides this is going to be hilarious and makes popcorn. She soon realizes she’s too close to it for it to be funny so goes to solve the problem, but it’s harder than she anticipated. It generally follows the same plot though. The red eye shows up at the end and lapis flicks it.

Hit the diamond

Yeah this one’s the same.

Steven floats

Rose learns she can float.

Mr greg

Steven & Connie’s backstory (Never fleshed this out)

Too short to ride

TBH the same but replace Steven with Rose.

The new lars

Rose wakes up in the middle of the night in Pearl’s body. Terrified, she shakes herself awake, which triggers the switch back. Pearl wakes up groggy and asks Rose why she’s awake. She says she had a bad dream and they go back to sleep.

Beach city drift

The cool kids invited Lars to a party and he’s bragging about it. When Pearl and Amethyst show interest, Lars says little kids aren’t allowed. They fuse and try to keep Opal stable so they can attend the party.

Monster reunion

Rose figures out that she does, in fact, have healing powers. She’s sure it’s a Diamond thing, but thankful as heck it’s also a Rose Quartz thing. Rose says she should try and heal one of the monsters and Pearl says she should do corrupted Rose Quartz. Once CRQ is half healed, it’s the same plot switching Steven for Pearl. We get to learn about the Crystal Gems’ demise. They were fighting at the beach and where Beach City would eventually be built. A Quartz fusion chucked the warp pad to prevent further backup from arriving. Rose notices a Nephrite receiving orders to retreat and looks up to see the diamond attack. The warp pad lands on the Nephrite. Rose doesn’t have a means to protect her friends(sword instead of shield), so they all succumb to the attack. (exit flashback) Rose runs to the temple, but can’t get in. Pearl lets her in. Pink Rose is in there like “wat happen why.” (Maybe CRQ finds something in the chest? IDK where to go from here.)

Alone at sea

Peridot is sad because Lapis is sad and she can’t figure out how to make not sad so she asks Garnet for help. Garnet takes Lapis into the ocean and does her best to show her more of the beauty of Earth. Lapis is finally starting to cheer up when Jasper sneaks up on them and begs on her knees to become Malachite again. Lapis tells her no and makes her leave. Garnet and Lapis go home wary.

Greg the babysitter

Sour Cream is excited because his baby brother is being born today. The gems are like what is a baby. We learn that gems don’t start out quite that small. They theorize that since humans only incubate for 9 months, they don’t develop as far. Gems incubate for years. They come out as 5-year-olds ish. Then Connie wonders if gems were to incubate for a very long time, would they form as adults? The gems laugh at such an idea. :^)

Gem hunt

Connie is getting very good at being close to danger even though she can’t fight or anything, so when she hears the gems are going to the frozen North, she insists on tagging along to supervise. The gems think that’s stupid but they aren’t gonna say no to Mom. Connie and Garnet get separated from Pearl, Amethyst, and Rose. While separated, Connie actually helps Garnet take out one of the beasts. Pearl, Amethyst, and Rose encounter Jasper, who poofs their beast and walks off menacingly as Connie and Garnet find them. (Rose summons her shield for the first time when trying to protect her teammates)

Crack the whip

Amethyst loses a sparring match to Pearl for the first time and is super self conscious about it.

Steven vs amethyst

Amethyst internalizes the problem instead of confronting Pearl.

Bismuth (This is out of order. Should happen before Monster Reunion)

Rose asks why she doesn’t have a room in the temple yet and the gems are like yeah that’s chill we have another spot go for it. She makes her room and to her surprise there’s already stuff in it. The other gems are like yeah there were a few things in our rooms too. We think they’re left over from the previous owners. Stuff like swords and relics. But Rose has some peculiar items in her room. There’s a chest, a sword, a flag, and a bubble. Rose likes the sword and wants to use it in battle.

Beta

Amethyst still feels like shit so Rose takes her to Peridot and Peridot takes them to the beta kindergarten. Same plot.

Earthlings

We find out that even though Jasper was originally made for Yellow, since she was young when PD emerged she was actually training to be given to Pink.

Back to the moon

Same plot mostly. The other gems hear for the first time (from the rubies) that Pink Diamond was shattered on Earth. ‘Who would do such a thing?’ It was a Rose Quartz. All eyes on Rose. Not having planned for this, she panics and runs downstairs. Pearl says she’ll talk to her since she’s closest to her and asks the other to continue helping the rubies without her.

Bubbled

Pearl talks to Rose about what they’re going to tell the others. They decide Rose was bubbled and when Pink returned to Earth in search of her Pearl, she released Rose. Rose asked who she was and she told her she’s a Diamond. Rose is a Crystal Gem so she identified her as a threat and took the opportunity to strike. Soon the others return but their cover (pretending to be homeworld gems for the rubies) is blown at the last second. Rose opens the airlock to blow them into space and one of them grabs her, trying to pull her with them, but she escapes the ruby’s grasp safely.

[spike-and-faye]

Hello, I require your infinite wisdom please!! :O So I just finished cowboy bebop and I am so confused like who the fuck was Julia. WHAT was Faye's past. I literally never process tv shows and the bebop was not immune to my stupidity LMAO like... I guess the ending just really confused me, from what I gathered Spike and Vicious were friends? But then they weren't? And Julia dated Vicious but also Spike? And he? Went after Vicious even after Julia had died? I am Confusion. Please help. Thank u...

Oh BABEY I am so glad you asked! :) Be prepared for a long answer and I apologize in advance for how incoherent it will probably be.

ALSO Please note: this show is fucking complicated. I have watched it all the way through several times a year, every single year, for over a decade now, and I am *STILL* finding new shit every time I watch it. It's packed with symbols, motifs, allusions and underlying themes that are just so rich. It is so extraordinarily well-written that it could give a lot of classic literature a run for its money. I'm literally working on an in depth literary/film analysis my husband lovingly calls my Manifesto on the series right now. SO PLEASE don't beat yourself up about not catching everything on the first go round.

HEY BTW for anyone who hasn't finished the show, please know there will be MANY spoilers ahead!

Anyways ~

1.     Spike / Julia / Vicious:

The information we get on Spike's past, including Vicious and Julia, is pretty limited considering how big of an impact they have on the story. We get our first glimpse in Session 1: Asteroid Blues, then again in Session 5: Ballad of Fallen Angels, Sessions 12 + 13: Jupiter Jazz, and Sessions 25 + 26: Real Folk Blues. I recommend reviewing these episodes for you Julia and Vicious fix.

What we know:

Spike and Vicious were both members of an organized crime syndicate called the Red Dragons, which is roughly analogous to the Yakuza or the Mafia. Their positions in the organization are not clear, but there are some images alluding to them being hitmen, and they likely rose up in the ranks as they were close acquaintances of Mao Yenrai, a Capo of the Red Dragon.

Spike and Vicious were close comrades. Spike taught Vicious everything he knew about fighting, and the two had a deep trust in each other. Which Spike fucked up ….

^^Vicious looks hot asf here

Julia was Vicious' lover/girlfriend. One night in 2068 (three years prior to the time we watch in the Bebop) Spike is injured, presumably from a syndicate-related fight and he passes out in front of her door. She takes him in and nurses him back to health and he SIMPS HARD for her. We’re all but told he's in LOVE love with her. They start an affair, and Spike tells her he's ready to abandon the whole life - the syndicate, Vicious, Mao, all of it - and they could run away together.

WELL Vicious finds out about this whole affair, and is DOUBLY betrayed because his literal best friend and girlfriend have been having an affair, and tbh I think he was just as jealous of Spike's attentions as he was of Julia's. (Whether or not it’s a sexual thing for Spike … well … I have my own headcanons about that). SO when he finds out they're going to run away together, he gives Julia an ultimatum: you can either kill him, or I'll just kill you both. Spike had written her a letter about meeting him in the graveyard to start their new life together, which she tears up to hide his location from Vicious. (This is the falling ripped up pieces of paper we see in Spike's flash back in Session 5).

^^ r/gifsyoucanhear

**NOTE: There are those who disagree with this view, (looking at you Cowboy Bebop wiki) instead suggesting Vicious and Spike were buds in the past, but then hated each other once they were both considered as potential successors to Mao. That's why Vicious wanted him dead, and he was enlisting Julia (who he didn't necessarily have a romantic connection to) to help kill Spike since he knew Spike loved her. Personally, I think there is plenty of evidence that Vicious also wanted Julia, and in fact was already with her, when Spike started seeing her. If you want me to cite my sources please send an me an ask about it :)

Spike gets the idea, whether by her just not showing up or word around the syndicate being like YO Vicious wants you dead. Despite Vicious' ultimatum to Julia, he was gunna kill Spike either way. SO he sets up an ambush, and SadBoy™ Spike walks intentionally into their trap. Somehow, he doesn't die, though the entire syndicate thinks he did. (Note Annie's reaction to seeing him alive in Session 5). It’s also implied that this is where he lost his eye.

HIS EYE - possibly the most important symbol in the show so I do have to mention it. In episode 26, he explicitly explains to Faye that one of his eyes only sees the past. (PS this isn't dissimilar to Jet's arm… we can get into that another time). Basically, he's constantly living halfway in the past and halfway in the present, and describes the past like a dream he can never wake up from. Because dysfunctional or not - the syndicate WAS his family. (Again - see his relationship with Annie, Mao, and Vicious (prior to Spike's betrayal)). It's his reminder that Julia didn't run away with him, and that he'd left behind that life for her. (He didn’t know she was being threatened until the final episode). Basically Spike is hyper-fixated on what he had and what could've been.

Not long after this, Spike starts bounty hunting because like? What else is he going to do. He doesn't care if he lives or dies but if he has to be alive, he may as well be able to eat. He joins up with Jet Black on the Bebop.

TL; DR: Spike stole Vicious' lover, Julia, so Vicious made Julia choose between her killing Spike or Vicious killing them both. She instead went into hiding and Spike thought he'd been stood up. He fake died and got the hell outta dodge.

2.     What was Faye's past?

Ok let me start by saying Faye is my wife and my life. HOWEVER I hated her the first time I watched this show circa age 13 because I thought she was annoying/vain/shallow (also because #internalizedmisogyny lol am I right fam). Good news! She is all those things! But she's also very lonely and scared and an amnesiac and secretly a sweetie and she realizes she loves the crew of the Bebop like family.

SO my wife's backstory:

she was born in the 1990s (#only90skidsremember). There's some debate over her race/nationality, but due to the images of her hanging out in Merlion Park in Singapore, my bet is that she's Singaporean. She comes from a wealthy family with a big house, and we see some utterly *adorable* film of her as a child/young adolescent in Session 18: Speak Like a Child. I cry everytime </3

^^ Holla for the representation

In 2014, circa age 20, she and her parents were going into space when the shuttle they were on had some kind of malfunction/accident and it killed an unknown number of people, including her parents. At the time, the technology didn’t exist to be able to save her, so she was put into a cryogenic sleep state. Meanwhile, the Lunar Gate accident occurs, breaking up the moon and causing rock showers on Earth's surface. Most people died, moved to Mars, or settled underground.

She wakes up from her cryogenic sleep in 2068. (Also the year Spike leaves the syndicate.) She's 'woken' by the corrupt Dr. Bacchus who plans on charging her for the years and years of medical debt she's accrued. (See Session 15: My Funny Valentine.) Luckily a lawyer takes interest in her case (Whitney Haggus Matsumoto) and tries to help get rid of her debt. The two fall in love, but turns out Whitney is a Scumbag. He's actually Dr. Bacchus's nephew, and faked his death, writing Faye as the sole inheritor to his will. This means she'll take on all his debts. So baby girl has LOTS of debt at this point.

In the intervening years prior to her joining the Bebop, she gambles, cheats, gains a lot of street smarts, and adopts a very seductive character to get her way. She joins the crew on the Bebop in Session 3: Honky Tonk Women.

TL;DR: Faye is Austin powers

YIKES this is so long I am so sorry. Bitches are obsessed with this show. (I am bitches)

3.     The Ending

Okay I'm going to present this in the way, in my scholarly opinion, would be correct, though there are SO many interpretations other than simply 'Spike died :/".

To understand the plot of the last couple episodes we actually have to go back to Session 5: Mao is instructed* to sign a treaty with a rival syndicate called the White Tigers. (*He's instructed by The Van (Council of identical creepy old men) who are the actual head of the dragon. I think we only see them in Session 26.) Well - Vicious is a Bastard Man and he and his fellow mutineers blow up the White Tiger guys' ship and slit Mao's throat. Before he dies, Mao is like "Gotdamnit if Spike was still here this shit wouldn't have happened." Later in the Cathedral battle, Vicious explains to Spike he killed Mao because Mao 'lost his fangs'. He planned on killing Spike for good her, IMO, so there'd be no rival to take over as Capo for the Dragons.

^^These guys are The Van btw

THEN in Session 25, the Van basically catches Vicious and is like “you killed Mao and now you have to go to Time Out.” The Van also decides to just kill everyone associated with Vicious, just 2 B safe. That's why there's a big ass shootout at the Loser Bar where Jet and Spike are chilling, drinking, (missing Faye and Ed and Ein lol) and Shin (younger brother to Lin, who's helping Vicious overthrow the Dragon) explains all this to Spike. OH and PS JULIA IS ALIVE AND HERE IS HER LOCATION :). (**Notice Spike's reaction at this point is different than his reaction in Jupiter Jazz when he hears there's a Julia on Calisto. Much less excited… hmm…).

SO THEN you know we get some flashbacks of the past as previously explained *and* Julia just happens to run into Faye. She recognizes that Faye is one of Spike's friends from the Bebop (she was keeping tabs on him it seems) and picks her up. Faye doesn't know who Julia is but is like damn bitch I'm a little gay for you. (I mean … that may just be my bi ass projecting, but Faye is REALLY struck with her. Look at how she describes her to Jet, I mean come on.)

 Faye's like, 'we should team up' and Julia says 'no thanks but also tell Spike to meet me at *the place*'. Meanwhile back on the Bebop Spike and Jet are talking and Spike goes on about some dream woman who was his other half. (We assume he means Julia … I have my reasons to doubt this … I have a lot of angry DMs about my opinion here lol but I just do not give a fuck (: I can expand on this in another post or you can refer to the title of my fucking blog haha) Personally, I think Watanabe personally left this specific scene open ended, the same way he does with the ending and various other things.

more like SIMP Spiegel

ANYWAY Faye comes back to the Bebop to tell Spike about Julia, and Jet gets intel from a former cop buddy that there's some shit going down with the Dragons. (Again, the Van is hunting down everyone ever associated with Vicious, including your pal Spike). Bebop is attacked, Faye tells Spike what's up with Julia, and he heads out.

 PAN TO VICIOUS chained up - about to be executed - but what's that!? It's a bird!? It's a pla- no it's just a bird. (With one glowing red eye … hm … reminds me of Spike, also the drug Red Eye. Pls let me know if you have any thoughts on this). Just a bird with a BOMB! Explosion (RIP bird c. 2065 - too soon), Vicious kills the elders, his buddies show up and are ready to go fuck shit up.

this show could not be more of an aesthetic

MMMPhhh okay RAINY CEMETERY. Spike and Julia. She draws a gun, explains why she didn't meet him that day, and then hugs him. Now Spike is not *great* at showing his emotions but he literally just stands there. Maybe it's a stoic expression of how sad he is that he never knew she still cared, when it seemed like she dumped him. Maybe he's finally getting some closure on his past. Maybe the past doesn't mean the same thing it used to. (I'll elaborate later on this).

They go to Annie's to get stocked up on stuff, she lets them know she denied knowing Spike was still alive and hey also the Van was assassinated by Vicious and his guys so. Watch out for that. Then her shop is surrounded by Vicious' guys and she dies :(. Spike and Julia escape to the roof, but she's shot and dies in Spike's arms, and says 'it's all just a dream' :(. (Refer to: Spike living in a dream of the past).

Anyway Jet SAID he wasn't gunna go after Spike but. Jet's parental instincts kick in (oh yeah he was shot in the leg earlier btw) and he goes to Sitting Bull to see if he knows where Spike is. He basically says yeah Spike's about to die somewhere. (I want to do a further analysis on all the Sitting Bull scenes.) Well conveniently Spike returns to the Bebop, eats, tells his story about a tiger-striped cat. (At one point Jet asks if he's going there for her, and Spike is like well she's dead now so whatever). THEN we get to the scene where Faye is like HEY YOU CAN'T GO OFF AND DIE ASSHOLE and he's like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I 've been living in the past so I might as well see if I'm living now. (**This will play heavily into my interpretation of the ending). Faye is pissed, shoots the ceiling and he goes off to the syndicate headquarters to fuck shit up.

He basically John Wicks his way through the building, Shin dies, he and Vicious have the big boss battle and whatnot. He kills Vicious and stumbles back out down the stairs and says "Bang!" and collapses. We pan to the sky and see a star fade away.

Well that explains the plot … now here's what I think happened!!! ALSO may I mention, anon - you picked up on something I feel like a lot of people miss out on. Why *did* Spike go back to kill Vicious if Julia was already dead??

Basically, once it became clear that anyone associated with Vicious was being killed, Spike knew they'd hunt him down, and they weren't beneath Kill-Billing their way to him, (i.e. systematically destroying this companions to get to him). And for all his apparent indifference - he really loves his new found family. Jet is literally like an older brother to him. Ed is a little sister. Ein is well … a very good boy. And Faye? Well the relationship is complicated, and I'm not going to get into the 69,420 reasons I ship them here, but I think it is beyond argument that he really does care for her, even if that just in a filial way. He didn't want the syndicates to kill them for their association to him, or in order to get to him. So he did what he had to do to protect them. *AND NO* I am not saying that he didn't love Julia. But it was clear that his desire was no longer to run away with her. I think he genuinely loved and cared about her, but at some point between Jupiter Jazz Pt 2 and now, he accepted that their time together was over. Now he had a new raison d'etre, which is the Bebop.

I think at this point Spike has 'woken up' to reality (as he implied to Faye in their final conversation in episode 26: "Look at these eyes. One of them is a fake, because I lost it in an accident. Since then, I have been seeing the past in one eye, and the present in the other. I had believed that what I saw was not all of reality...I thought I was watching a dream that I would never awaken from. Before I knew it, the dream was all over." (This is from the sub btw I'm too lazy to look up the dub transcript.) He wasn't going there to die, he's going to find out if he's really alive. This line is fucking cool and everything - but it's implications are multitude. I won't go into them all here but basically : what makes him alive now is that he's free from his past. He's alive because he has this new family and protecting them is all he really wants now. Spike was protecting Jet, Faye, Ed, (and Ein) by going and facing the entire syndicate, knowing that their lives would all be in danger.

SO - did Spike die? Well again - Watanabe has purposely and artfully left this open ended. Well, if we're following the symbolism from Sitting Bull, then yeah, the man is as dead as disco, and wouldn't that be a fitting ending? BUT at the same time, Spike always refers to having 'died' before (meaning when he was ambushed by the syndicate, and they all thought he died, and he pretty much did). Don't forget that in  movie (takes places roughly between episodes 22 + 23, and yes, was made AFTER the series but whatever) he like .. DIES dies. He goes to the afterlife and everything. He wakes up to find he's chilling with Sitting Bull, who's like nah it wasn't your time to die yet. So the fact Sitting Bull confirms Spike will die in the final episode, means yeah, Spike is pretty much dead.

BUT -- okay now hear me out -- could this death in the final episode be a death to his previous life? The person he was in the syndicate? Now that he's extinguished the Red Dragons for good, is it not possible that its merely *that* life which has ended? That's the optimist in me saying that, but if it keeps me from staying up all night crying, I guess it'll have to do. Watanabe definitely wants to leave it up to the viewer, so whatever you think, I feel like there's validity to it.

WELL any anon, sorry for the fucking lecture - and believe me, I could've said MUCH, MUCH more - but I enjoyed this question. I always love talking about this show so please all you fuckers feel free to message me or send an ask about anything any time. I am really slow at replying because #life'sAbitch.

Love you all.

SY,SCB <3

[dalasteller]

shadow and bone spoilers! malina/mal fans this is not for you but it’s not pro-darklina either. i’m an alina x alina supremacist

so, somehow, the show made me like book!malina more than show!malina after weeks of thinking the opposite would be true. i don’t even like book!mal/malina, but my neutrality towards them is nothing compared to how much i detested show!malina.

I WANTED THE TV SHOW TO MAKE ME LOVE THEM. the trailers made me think i would!!! i'd heard screeners and reviewers talk about this epic love story that transcends everything—these two people who would do anything for each other—and i don't disagree, they definitely would. i just wish they would shut the fuck up about it.

sorry.

looking back, i'd rather the show gave us mal with flaws, who wasn't perfect to alina, who would die for her, but still said the wrong thing and flirted with other girls and was afraid of her power at first. archie did a great job. he just couldn't make me love mal, and neither could the writers opting to make him main character no. 2 and alina’s prince in shining armour who supports her endlessly and has never done anything wrong in his life ever. writers, please, why did you think that was a good idea? when i said i wanted a more likeable mal, i meant i wanted his flaws accompanied by positive traits, by compelling backstory, by personality outside of being alina's hot best friend who never noticed her. i didn't mean i wanted a guy who could be wrapped in a gift box and sold as a robo-boyfriend designed for romance.

no, i mean, they really did write him that way.

what i definitely didn't mean i wanted was over an hour of the show dedicated to watching mal’s perspective of hunting the stag and making besties with his military bros and writing letters to alina and getting shot at a bunch of times instead of letting the book characters who were already beloved by fans get the screentime they deserved. what i wouldn't do to have gotten more genyalina and well-written zoya instead of mal dissecting deer shit...

you would think with how much talk about malina basically being soulmates, childhood flashbacks, fighting and nearly dying for each other at least four times (and did i mention more narration about being soulmates?) that i would take the bait and just let malina set sail. but this show held me at gunpoint for eight hours straight and told me that these two are going to have the same cultural influence as new romeo and juliet and that if i disagree i am going to be killed on the spot. because of this, i have now died.

don't tell me what to do, narrative, because i'm not going to do it!

i am also annoyed that they took the time to redesign mal in perfect childhood-friends-to-lovers dreamboat fashion but refused to retcon zoya's stupid misogyny-fueled bitchy YA girl arc and instead made it even worse by having her be racist to alina? what was the thought process there? they seriously fucked her over. i tried to pretend it didn't happen moving forward but why do they want to use racism as a tool for developing a "bully" character anyway, especially a woc? am i meant to forget about it? they lost me there. i feel like the female characters, with the exception of inej, generally weren't given the same care the male characters were. there was a lot of sidelining in favour of mal's redemptive rewrite and the darkling's 15 minutes of half-assed backstory and crying in every scene for some reason. “make me your villain” .... okay, simpboy, i’ll try my best.

i've already talked about why i hated mal's role (i clarify his role, not his character, because there was literally nothing wrong with him and that’s why i hated him so much) but i'm going to address it from the perspective of my love for alina and why i think this decision was so disrespectful to her. alina in the books was already in need of more characterization, time for herself and her internal development as opposed to her relationship with the three male love interests she acquires through the series. somehow this show took a main character already underused in her own story (though at least the books are told from her pov) and neglected her even further. alina is tied almost entirely to her male counterparts, mal especially, but i'd say the darkling is used as a narrative rebound. i think they both have chemistry and can serve a purpose in the story but the emphasis on codependency is impossible to ignore.

in the first four episodes, every scene that could have been alina struggling to settle into a new life and dealing with the emotional weight of her pressure as a saint was instead about mal. she writes him letters, and cries over him, and slips him into conversations that have nothing to do with him, and gets sad after slipping him into conversations that have nothing to do with him, and can't use her power because she's thinking of him, and then only decides to fully accept her power because of his absence.

alina's feelings are lended to nothing but her missing mal. he isn't just her best friend and love, he's this colossal piece of her identity that she doesn't get to exist without, even when he's gone. the show's exhaustive attempt to make mal loveable and make malina an epic love story turns our female protagonist into a sulking, miserable shell of a character everytime he's mentioned, which, by the way, is like, every two minutes. and apparently it's necessary to draw parallels to the same three flashbacks in all of them. i knoowwwwwwww, they held hands and now they can't anymore, i knowwww. they ran through a meadow, i knowwwwwwwwwwwwww.

watching her scenes almost drove me to printing out a bechdel test and ticking off as many boxes as possible.

i hated it. it made me sad.

i wanted more alina. i want her power to be her own. i wanted that tension between her and mal in the books because his flaws gave her a chance to stand up for herself and say that she liked being powerful. that summoning is a part of her and she would never give it up. that there was a tinge of corruption, of greed, of wanting to be the sun summoner, and it was intriguing! mal's issue of not accepting alina's power allowed her to express how much it meant to her. i wanted the alina who said "the night was velvety black and strewn with jewels. the hunger struck me suddenly. i want them, i thought." i wanted a hint of the sun summoner who decided when it got dark and relished in it (yes i know this can be expanded upon in s2). alina has a cocky side, her insecurities are explored and she finds strength in her new gift and eventually has to find strength outside of it, but in the show the catalyst to her powers is mal. always. is it romantic? sure. but it's hard to enjoy the romance when all we see of alina is her romantic connection to mal. can't she be more than that?

[deltaengineering]

that was the winter anime 2021 that was

Still not quite ready for a dozen posts about how terrible the likes of Combatants Will Be Dispatched are, sorry. Watch Vivy though, it owns. Here’s some more things that are (mostly) good. As always, worst to best.

Yatogame-chan Kansatsu Nikki S3

Yatogame has long run out of hot Nagoya facts and its ensemble comedy never amounted to much, so now it seems mostly content to just spam more and more wacky character designs. About the only thing that it has left going for it is that 3 minutes a week are more effort to drop than to watch, so I expect them to make a movie next. 4/10

Go-toubun no Hanayome S2

Quints is a weird one. S1 was a barely good enough (i.e., well above average) implementation of the ages old harem chestnut. S2 is actually better at the core of its appeal, since it gives all the characters a sharper profile (things like taking Nino from joke to badass and making Ichika a villain are no mean feat), but it does pay a steep price for it. You see, to deliver a steady drip feed of meaningful character moments it apparently has to rush through the source material at a breakneck pace, which completely wrecks the "story" part of this story and makes every episode seem like a recap. And it still keeps wasting precious time on vestigial nonsense like its framing device and the Kyoto flashback scenario that was already the worst part of S1. But by far the most annoying aspect is its insistence on keeping all the options valid, since it prevents any real progress and makes everything seem arbitrary and pointless. So sure enough, after a season of much ado we still don't end up anywhere — you can't really raise the stakes if all at stake was "who wins" to begin with. It's watchable and even enjoyable scene-for-scene but it's getting harder and harder to call it a solid show overall. 5/10

Skate Leading Stars

I was watching this primarily because I didn't like Yuri on Ice much and wanted to see if something that is a blatant attempt to cash in on it would be better — because while YoI delivers on one aspect (being hella gay), it really is an absolute shambles of a sports show. And sure enough, Skate Leading has none of the auteur appeal of YoI, but it just works much better. In particular I appreciate how it managed to make me care even a little about a cast of assholes, which is a nice contrast to the nauseatingly ingratiating way YoI tries to make you love its characters. Also, Skate Leading is just generally cheap and unambitious, so not susceptible to trying hard and painfully flaming out on the presentation side like YoI is. But at some point you gotta let go of these comparisons and on its own Skate Leading is... just fine, I guess? Competent, mildly engaging, not very memorable. And that's probably where it loses to Yuri on Ice in the end after all, even if I think it's "better". 6/10

Idoly Pride

Idoly Pride sold itself on me with a really good (and hilarious/tragic) first episode that was just too bizarre to ignore — I mean, how can you ignore GHOST IDOL MANAGERS. Well, the majority of the show isn't like that. It's a competent and solid version of the idol franchise show, yes, but it really had more potential than that. Especially midseason, it gets lost in these dozens of characters, and while they're all likeable, it does seem like a waste of a good story just centered on Mana/Kotona/Sakura. By the end it comes back around to the heart of the matter with a Maeda-style sob story, which could be a disaster but seasoned veteran Jukki Hanada makes it work anyway. Overall, there's quite a bit of ridiculous hacky melodrama in this, but quite honestly that's the best part and I wish it would concentrate more on it. The rest is just okay. 6/10

Yuru Camp S2

Yuru Camp is still likely the best pure iyashikei show when it gets down to business. Compared to S1 though, this seems to happen less and less. At its peaks (i.e., basically any quiet moment with Rin) it's at least as good as ever, and there's some good cast additions like Mini-Inuko, but it appears that Yuru Camp simply has run out of things you can do with camping and it fills up the time with other... stuff. This stuff includes the generic school club shenanigans it was never particularly good at, and a gigantic helping of crass consumerism. Yeah, I would say the majority of Yuru Camp is just a straight up infomercial at this point, which itself ranges from the perfectly acceptable (which cute anime isn't about food constantly), to the sketchy (I don't know whether the Izu tourism board cut this production a fat check, but if they didn't, Yuru Camp still gives its best effort to make it seem that way) to the highly irritating – I am aware that camping requires gear and you can't just ignore that, but you most definitely do not require whole arcs dedicated to talking about raising funds for the purposes of acquiring the Lamp of Comfy Happiness at your friendly local Caribou™ either. Not to mention an arc where the aforementioned lame school club does the same, for double irritation. Make no mistake, this show is so riddled with scenes that beg for a solution to embed affiliate links in video files that it makes me wish I was watching something as anticapitalist and underground as Love Live. And irritating really is the last thing a show with this core concept, as stellar as it is at that, can afford to be. Bummer. 6/10

SKOO the Infinity

Skoo has one really huge asset: ADAM, its magnificent villain. It also has one really huge liability: Reki, its not magnificent protagonist. To be more specific, it's very good at anything outrageous, physics-defying and silly, such as most scenes ADAM is in, and quite bad at anything serious, dramatic (in a serious way) and down to earth, such as most scenes Reki is in. So, what's the verdict? Well, the rest of the cast is more ADAM-like, and Reki's co-protagonist Langa is fine as the straight (yeah, right) man. The tedious buddy drama is a comparatively small part of this show, and at least it pays off quite well in the end. Seriously, I was ready to give this a 6, but the final episode is probably the best one of the show, in all of its aspects. That's really not something you see often. Skoo's a great time. Except when it's not. 7/10

Non Non Biyori Nonstop

Speaking of the rare good ending, what about we gave one of those to a slim and inconsequential slice-of-life show? NNB has always been solid, comfy and amusing quality with a couple of standout moments (usually something with Renge), and Nonstop has that plus an ending as conclusive as any show of this type is ever going to have. Besides, it does a lot of things right by focusing on more characters than the central 4 (especially Konomi has great material in S3), it expands the universe just enough to not get stale, and it moves things forward — It's definitely a lot better than the movie, is what I'm saying. Apart from that, well, we're three seasons in, if you have any interest in this you probably don't need me to explain what's good about NNB at this point. Bonus points for being nothing but an ad for the manga. 7/10

Wonder Egg Priority

Oh boy, so here's the big one. Wonder Egg is the rare Meaningful Arthouse Show About Real Issues You Guys, as you might have heard. And well, the long and short of it is that it's a very good show with quite a few glaring problems (besides not actually being finished due to production issues, but what we have is enough of an ending to be able to meaningfully talk about it). In particular, one problem: WEP is, at its core, one of these metaphorical Magical Girl-ish series that are just a thin layer of abstraction over coming-of-age or societal problems. The issue is that "metaphorical" in this case means "literal" and "thin" means "basically nonexistent". This show is not subtle regarding what it's about, at all. This is a double-edged sword �� on the positive side, some things really should just be said aloud, and I'm really, really fucking tired of the Ikuhara style of "here's some wacky things, maybe a blog post will eventually tell you how it's actually about the most important thing ever" obfuscation — if it's really so important, just spell it out. On the other hand, there are limits to this and when a second, different Ai appears I don't really need a voiceover line telling me that yep, this show is about parallel universes now. WEP spells out many important things, but it also spells out many things that are implicitly clear or better left vague. Not to mention that with being so obvious up front, the show's tendency to leave figuring out what it's actually saying about it up to the viewer can leave the wrong impression. Again, I settled on the opinion that it's subtle after all where it counts the most, but you might easily get the impression that it pulls its punches (Ikuhara does this the exact other way around — once you figure out what the fuck he's talking about it's abundantly clear what he's saying about it).

In fact, this show is so good at subtle, quiet character moments that it calls into question the need for big huge fighting fantasy layer in the first place, especially since I'm not a fan of the fantasy designs and the fights aren't great. Sure, they look impressive on a technical level (this show is very good looking in general), but the lack of actual impact or rhythm makes me think this is not made by people who are very familiar with action and maybe they should have asked some seasoned shounen veterans for this — or just, you know, not do it. They can (and do) impress with character acting in quiet scenes just the same. And while Ai's character story actually does pay off quite nicely by the end we got, and Momoe and Rika are also handled well, Neiru's backstory is significantly less good, not to mention the whole Frill subplot regarding the show's mythology that they introduced just before (and that's the part to be resolved at a later date), which is a huge can of worms. We'll see how well they handle that, I suppose, but as it is it's a weird and vestigial detour that doesn't add much besides thematic headaches.

But yeah, apart from all that — I like it, a lot. Great character writing in the details, cool looks for the most part, tons of ambition, and a message that I consider to be appropriately handled — for the most part, and for now. Not quite ambitious arthouse anime at its finest, but also not a pretentious disaster like Sarazanmai, Monogatari et al. 8/10

[randomfandom815]

Defending the women of LOST/Sexism in LOST

People say they don’t like Kate Austen because she’s “annoying” “can’t choose between Jack and Sawyer” “always wants to join every single mission”. Kate has way bigger things to worry about than sorting out her romantic feelings. Yes, she is developing feelings for both Jack and Sawyer, but she doesn’t have time to figure them out while trying to survive on the island. And the fact that people don’t like her because of the whole “I’m coming with you” thing is a little ridiculous, because they’re hating Kate for wanting to protect her friends and do whatever she can to help. You know who else does that? Jack. But plenty of people love him for those very same reasons. Yeah, a lot of Kate’s character was centered around the love triangle, but that isn’t the character’s fault, it the writers’s.

Then there’s Claire Littleton. People always complain about her “my baby!” thing, but... she only actually says that a few times, AND, if your child was taken from you or you thought your child was going to be hurt, wouldn't you be worried out of your mind? Wouldn’t you want to do anything to help them? People also criticize Claire for her entire Season 6 arc. She was alone, on the island, thinking everyone had abandoned her, with only the MIB for company. She was also tortured by the temple Others, who she thought had taken her child. Claire was a single mother who just wanted to keep her son safe, give her a break. 

Sun-Hwa Kwon is a character who actually doesn’t receive that much hate, but there is still the fact that people don’t like her because she left Ji Yeon to go back to the island for Jin. Here’s the thing: Sun had no way of knowing what was would happen on the island. She had no way of knowing that Jin had time traveled to the past, and she had no way of knowing what would happen with the MIB/Locke. She thought that she would be able to go to the island, bring Jin and the others back, and the two of them would reunite with Ji Yeon. And then in the submarine incident, Sun didn't want Jin to stay. She wanted him to live and take care of Ji Yeon. It was Jin who made the decision to die with her, not Sun.

Shannon Rutherford is a very unlikable character. Even I don’t enjoy her character, or Boone, and that is a view shared by many other people in the fandom. Many people call her selfish, spoiled, and just plain rude. And she was all of those things, but that wasn’t her entire character. Remember, they had all just been through a plane crash, landed on an island with no chance of rescue. Also, friendly reminder that she was only 20 years old. She was scared, and her way of coping with that was to try to do something normal. Let’s not forget, in Pilot, Part 2, she volunteered to go on the mission to fix the transceiver. She was constantly feeling useless, and it didn’t help that other characters, especially Boone, were constantly putting her down and mocking her. When she started to see Walt, she genuinely made an attempt to help him, even though she wasn’t sure if he was even there. Her death was untimely, and I wished we had gotten to see her grow more as a person. Also, her death was used for shock value and to further Sayid’s character development.

And now, one of the most hated characters of LOST, Ana Lucia Cortez. Now, while the characters I mentioned above were shit on and criticized, Ana Lucia was absolutely hated by the fandom. People hated her attitude, her toughness, her dislike of most of the people around her, and the fact that she killed Shannon (who, by the way, was just as disliked by many Ana Lucia haters). You know who else has a similar attitude? Who has that same toughness and dislike of people? Who else killed someone? That would be Sawyer, a fan-favorite, white male character who is beloved by the fandom. Now, for the last point, what I am comparing here is Ana Lucia killing Shannon to Sawyer killing the man he thought was Frank Sawyer in Australia, right before flight 815. Ana Lucia killed Shannon because she was trying to protect the people she was leading (including Sawyer!) from who she thought was the Others, and killing Shannon was an accident. Sawyer killed the man completely on purpose and out of revenge. Oh, and it wasn’t even the right person. Yes, I am aware of the man Ana killed long before flight 815 out of revenge, but if we can take her very small amount of character development, in which she refused to kill Henry Gale, a known Other at that point. Whereas Sawyer was still willing to kill a bunch of people in Season 6, the end of his character arc. And yet, Sawyer is still in most people’s top five characters lists (just to be clear, I do not hate Sawyer at all, and this is not anti Sawyer but pro Ana Lucia). You may argue that people love Sawyer because of his character development, which I do agree with. However, Ana Lucia was never given the chance to have Sawyer-like character development because she was killed off in the same season that she was introduced in. She wasn’t even allowed to be in the church in the flash-sideways, and she didn’t get to “move on.” Ana Lucia deserved way better than the death for shock value that she got.

Next up on the list is Juliet Burke. She, like Sun, also isn’t the target of a lot of hate, but there are still things that need defending. The first thing is, of course, her sudden change of mind when it came to detonating the hydrogen bomb in Season 5. Yes, it was selfish of her to endanger everyone on the island just because of the way Sawyer looked at Kate. But if the plan did actually work, which she thought it would, that meant she would lose everything she had gained over the past few years, including Sawyer. Juliet is incredibly kind and feminine while also being badass at the same time, which is amazing because you don’t usually see those two traits coinciding (usually a badass character isn’t very feminine and a “traditionally feminine” character isn’t a good fighter). As for all of her motives in Season 3, Juliet was trapped on the island for three years. All she wanted to do was leave and go home to her sister. Yes, she manipulated Sun, but right after that, she made things right by helping Jack make a plan to stop the Others. Her death was heroic, and I’m glad she was finally able to be happy in the flash-sideways. (I am declining to mention her whole relationship with Goodwin and all the drama with Ben, although I might dive into that in another post). 

Now, the character Rose Nadler has almost nothing that needs to be defended. She is a constant wise voice of reason who isn’t concerned with the drama of the rest of the survivors. Her relationship with her husband Bernard is very sweet, but she doesn’t let that stop her from doing the smart thing (like stopping his SOS sign idea). Not only that, but Rose has one of the best (and most meta) lines on the show: “If you say live together, die alone to me, Jack, I’m going to punch you in the face.”

Another character who doesn't need much defending is Charlotte Lewis, but not for the same reason as Rose. Charlotte was done dirty by the writers. Of the science team, she is the least fleshed out and explored. She had a single flashback and a little bit of exposition information from Ben, but that’s pretty much it. Every significant thing she did was for the sake of other characters. She had a fake-out death so Ben would reveal that he had a spy on the boat. She was taken to the Barracks so that members of Jack’s group would have a reason to go there. Her going to the Barracks was also an excuse to get Miles and Kate there. And she only died/was dying for shock value, to up the stakes of the time flashes, to provide more questions to the characters and the audience, and to further Daniel’s character development. In the flash-sideways, all she did was go on a date with Sawyer and further his character development. She didn't get to go to the church and move on. Daniel and Miles, the other members of her team, on the other hands were given compelling backstories and centric episodes.

Penelope Widmore is similar to Charlotte in that there isn’t much to defend because she doesn’t do much that affects the plot. Nearly everything she does is about Desmond, and the writers barely even gave her a personality. I’m sure Penny was an actually interesting person, if they had bothered her to give her any storyline that didn't involve her love interest.

Danielle Rousseau is a character that kind of slides in and out of the story as needed. Now, Danielle isn’t the subject of a lot of criticism just because she isn’t very focused on, but from what I have seen, here’s what I have to say: Danielle was alone on the island for sixteen years. And for sixteen years, she had to live with the knowledge that she was forced to kill the man she loved and her team. Not to mention the fact that her daughter, Alex, was taken away from her when she was just a week old. Can you blame Danielle for being paranoid? Her death was not a fair end to the character, and it was only used to kill off Danielle quickly and provide shock value.

Her daughter, Alex Rousseau, is similar to Charlotte and Penny in that she doesn’t need to be defended because everything she does is to affect other characters. In this case, those characters are Ben and Danielle (especially Ben in the later seasons). Danielle’s entire character is centered around the fact that she lost Alex and has been searching for her, and Ben’s motivations after Season 4 are largely motivated by Alex’s death. She herself doesn’t have much of a character arc, and her death was only to provide shock value and further Ben’s character development.

Another character that falls into the category of not having much to defend because every action is for someone else is Libby Smith. Once the tailies and the main survivors joined together, she was almost immediately shoved in a relationship with Hurley. The only things we knew about her backstory were that her husband died, she was a clinical psychologist, she was in the same mental hospital as Hurley, and she gave Desmond a boat. That’s it. She didn’t have a centric episode, and she only appeared in other people’s flashbacks. Her death was only to provide shock value and further Hurley’s character development, as well to show that Michael betrayed the survivors. 

Notice how many of these women died for shock value and/or to further a man’s character development? Notice how many of these women are disliked for traits that other characters are loved for? Notice how many of them barely exist as their own character without a man? I love LOST, I really do, but their treatment of female characters needed a lot of improvement.

[bestworstcase]

a comprehensive guide to zhan tiri’s lore or, it’s not that confusing or contradictory, i promise

first things first: if you are somebody who pays attention to creator interviews and you are interested in canonical zhan tiri lore, i want you to gather up everything you’ve ever heard chris say about zhan tiri and erase it from of your brain. i know he’s made statements regarding his interpretation of her backstory but this post was made by death of the author gang and we are interested ONLY in what is stated and shown in the text itself. meaning belongs to the viewers, and creator interpretation is irrelevant. 

ready? let’s go!

who or what is zhan tiri?

zhan tiri’s first appearance in coronan history occurred thousands of years ago; in plus est en vous, rapunzel specifies two thousand, but every other mention of zhan tiri as a historical figure is “eons” or “millennia,” and the most objective source we have—the plus est flashback—is marked “thousands of years ago.”  

there is no direct evidence to suggest that she existed prior to this, but i think there is enough circumstantial support for this theory to conclude that she did: namely, the existence of idols and other religious iconography associated with her name. my reasoning here is as follows: 

the plus est en vous flashback shows demanitus banishing zhan tiri to the lost realm. this makes it—give or take a few years—the last point in time when zhan tiri would have been free and thus able to make any lasting cultural impact.

it follows that any relevant historical artifacts we see must predate the plus est flashback, as they represent a time when zhan tiri had a significant enough cultural impact to fuel their creation.

moreover, though sugracha and tromus are the only disciples of zhan tiri who directly appear in the series, it is implied that there are many more: 

Lord Demanitus was in a constant battle with Zhan Tiri and his brethren. Over the years, Demanitus captured many of the evil spirits and held them prisoner in that chamber. (S1, Painter’s Block)

much of the coronan folklore concerning the demanitus-zhan tiri relationship is... wrong, but due to sugracha’s verifiable imprisonment in the demanitus chamber, i feel it reasonable to conclude that this tidbit is correct in that there are, or at least were, other disciples held inside the demanitus chamber. and, as with the historical artifacts associated with zhan tiri, it is logical to conclude that whatever cult produced these disciples predated the plus est flashback. 

so, we’ve established the historical artifacts and iconography associated with zhan tiri came before the plus est flashback, but what exactly does that entail, and what does it tell us about zhan tiri’s true nature?

icons of zhan tiri: an overview

#1: janus point

janus point is a henge, and based on the iconography—the ram’s head symbol is plastered all over the jardinière and the henge pillars—it appears to be a site dedicated specifically to zhan tiri. the same symbol also appears on the seal in which sugracha’s spirit was trapped inside the demanitus chamber and is unique in that the muzzle appears to corkscrew.

the appearance of the henge evokes a quasi-religious flavor, and in who’s afraid of the big bad wolf, rapunzel refers to the site as a “mystical ground.” at the very least, this is a ritual site that was heavily associated with zhan tiri, and it would not be much of a stretch to conclude she was outright worshipped here.

#2: the spire idol

this artifact appears in both the keeper of the spire and race to the spire. it’s a small stone idol kept in the spire’s... gatehouse, for lack of a better term, and it depicts the basic ram-headed hulking demon zhan tiri. nothing is said about it in either episode. 

#3: the tree of zhan tiri

there is zhan tiri iconography all over this tree.

the stone ram’s head over the entrance...

...the bas-relief in the first chamber...

...more ram’s heads over all the interior archways and the scroll shelves...

...and a return of the corkscrew-snouted ram’s head from janus point on the altar for this glorious oversized flytrap.

#4: the shell house

tromus’s shrine gives us yet another variation on the ram’s head symbol as well as another full-body idol and also, though i didn’t get a screenshot of it because it’s hard to see with the way tumblr resizes images, a little ram’s head symbol on the clasp of his robes. 

so where did this imagery come from?

with the exception of the spire idol, there is evidence to suggest that zhan tiri herself had direct influence over the design of all this iconography. 

janus point seems to have held some importance to zhan tiri herself; when she appears to varian in cassandra’s revenge, she surrounds herself with pieces of it and superimposes her own head on top of the tree. 

further, the corkscrew-snouted ram’s head reoccurs at the great tree, which is unique among the sites associated with her in that we know zhan tiri actually resided there for what sounds like a significant amount of time; according to the legend adira shares, the great tree was zhan tiri’s “stronghold.”

this means that it’s plausible that either (a) zhan tiri herself shaped the symbols on display in the tree, or (b) they were modeled after her by her contemporaries. the interesting thing about this, there are four distinct variations on the ram’s head symbol inside the tree: 1) long, thick snout with elongated horns; 2) angular, no snout, short horns, 3) corkscrew-snouted, and 4) humanlike skull with ram horns. 

and likewise, the iconography inside the shell house was created by someone we know to have been a contemporary of zhan tiri’s; tromus was one of the students of demanitus who turned against him to join zhan tiri instead, and it is logical to assume that he did, in fact, see zhan tiri in the flesh at some point—and his ram’s head design is yet again different.

this begs the question: if all five of these designs were modeled on zhan tiri herself, why is there such variety in the basic shape? i believe this is a strong point in favor of considering zhan tiri a shapeshifter who chose and stuck with a single general form for long periods of time but casually and frequently modified the smaller details. and in fact, we do see her do this in season three, with the most notable occurrence being. this: 

so, we have concluded that: 

zhan tiri’s historical iconography predates the plus est flashback, and

accurately represented her physical appearance from that time

from this, the only reasonable conclusion is that zhan tiri is a shapeshifter, who spent a considerable amount of time in the giant, ram-headed demon form depicted in all of her pre-demanitus iconography. 

but she’s human in the plus est flashback!

in the series, human characters are designed with a wide diversity of shapes and sizes, but their color palettes stay within the range of realism, with natural skin tones and eye/hair colors. zhan tiri is... not like that.

she may be human-shaped, but her color palette sits drastically outside the norms the series has established for human characters; her skin is dead white, her hair is a dull lilac color, her eyes are bright purple with a circle of gold around the pupils. none of these are natural human colors.

there is precedent in the series for marked changes in appearance and coloration as a result of meddling with magical forces: when cassandra claims the moonstone, it turns her hair and eyes bright blue and gives her an unhealthy-looking pallor. rapunzel’s hair, likewise, turns gold due to the sundrop’s influence. thus, taking this in isolation, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility to conclude that zhan tiri, too, has had her appearance altered by whatever magical nonsense she’s been mucking around with.

however, if we look at this design in the context of the conclusions we’ve already drawn about her historical iconography and what that tells us about her true nature, i think a much simpler and more plausible explanation is that zhan tiri, being a shapeshifter, donned this humanlike form in order to get closer to demanitus. there could be any number of reasons for doing so—considering demanitus’s fixation on seeking the drops for the right reasons, i would imagine creating some distance from the malevolent monster form in order to gain his trust would have played a role in this decision.

five final points in favor of shapeshifting

#1: zhan tiri in the lost realm

we see in plus est en vous that the lost realm causes absurd magical mutations in people who are trapped there. varian theorizes that these mutations could become irreversible if they stay in the lost realm for long enough, but given that they are all freed shortly thereafter and the changes revert, there is no concrete evidence for or against this theory.

still, this raises an interesting question: if the lost realm mutates anyone who enters it, and if these changes become irreversible after long periods of time what would happen if a shapeshifter was trapped there for thousands of years?

when zhan tiri escapes from the lost realm, she isn’t all that different in appearance from when she entered it. she’s much smaller. her hairstyle has changed a bit. she lost the bag at some point. but that’s... really it. it’s a much less drastic alteration than we see happening with the coronans, who are shown transforming into objects and animals, with their bodies distorted, or with pieces of themselves becoming detached and floating away. and these changes also serve her manipulation of cass by making her appear small, weak, and harmless, so it isn’t out of the realm of possibility for zhan tiri to have chosen this form for herself.

i think it is reasonable to assume that zhan tiri, being a shapeshifter herself, was able to, if not outright resist whatever magic in the lost realm causes these mutations, at least “fix” them as they happened. her brief appearance in painter’s block supports the idea that she retained the ability to shapeshift while inside the lost realm, since she appears there as the ram-headed demon.

#2: her shapeshifting disciples

both tromus and sugracha are able to appear human, and sugracha states that she can take “many forms” in painter’s block. though it’s never explained where they got this power, it is reasonable to conclude that they received it from zhan tiri—she is their master, and the implication very much seems to be that it was she who gave them their creepy green spirit form of immortality.

and, if zhan tiri is handing out powers of shapeshifting to her minions, it follows that she must be capable of shapeshifting herself, too. 

#3: gremlin zhan tiri’s demonic shadow

this shows up in cassandra’s revenge and plus est en vous and seems to straightforwardly suggest that zhan tiri’s true nature is closer to the ram-headed demon, with the humanlike form being more of a disguise.

#4: we see her shapeshift in plus est en vous.

she briefly loses her grip on the humanlike nature of the gremlin form when rapunzel blasts her with the sundrop, as i noted above. and later—once she has the drops in hand and the gremlin form has no further use to her—she sheds it altogether to return to yet another variation on the ram-headed demon, albeit one that looks more... monkey than ram: 

#5: and finally, zhan tiri herself says so

in race to the spire: 

I believe Cassandra promised us a proper introduction, but she failed to deliver, didn’t she? Frankly, I’m surprised you hadn’t guessed who I am—seeing as how we’ve already met, in a way. You see, over the centuries, I’ve taken the form of whatever suits my needs: a warlock, a demon... even a blizzard. 

she also portrays herself as the ram-headed demon in the vision she gives to cassandra in once a handmaiden:

now... zhan tiri is a liar, and if these were statements given in isolation of any supporting evidence, i would be skeptical. however, when all the evidence in the text points toward zhan tiri being a shapeshifting entity as the most logical explanation for everything we see of her throughout the series, i’m inclined to take her corroborating statements as a factual confirmation. 

in conclusion: zhan tiri is, and has always been, a shapeshifter. if she has a “true” form, the evidence points toward it being the large, ram-headed, tentacled demon, while the humanlike shape(s) we see in season three are forms she assumed to ingratiate herself to demanitus and, later, cassandra. 

what’s the timeline with her and  lord demanitus?

time in this series is fuzzy. this applies not only to zhan tiri and demanitus, but to every historical event discussed by the characters and the timespans covered by each season, where the only time markers are the lantern festivals that celebrate rapunzel’s nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first birthdays and a few throwaway lines about the passage of months. thus, there is no way to say with absolute certainly when any specific event in zhan tiri’s backstory occurred chronologically. we have to do our best to arrange the events we know about in an order that is logical. 

this is complicated by the fact that we know demanitus fudged some of the details to make himself look better to rapunzel and eugene: he obscured the fact that he and zhan tiri were working partners for an unknown length of time. this verifiable lie of omission casts a patina of doubt over everything else he says regarding their shared past, but it also accounts for discrepancies between what we see and what we’re told. 

as always in unreliable narrator situations, what we see has far more weight than what we’re told. with this in mind, there are three tiers of trustworthiness in the information we are given about zhan tiri’s past: most trustworthy are the flashbacks and things we see with our own eyes; in the middle are the accounts of zhan tiri’s contemporaries—demanitus and the disciples; and at the bottom are the folk legends recounted by xavier and adira. 

so what do we see?

#1: zhan tiri and demanitus searched for the drops together

just how this arrangement came to be is unclear, but i think we can glean some interesting information from the plus est flashback.

DEMANITUS: Zhan Tiri! This is your last warning! Give up this foolish quest for power.

ZHAN TIRI: This quest for the sundrop and moonstone was both of ours.

DEMANITUS: It was, until you made it about something darker. You made it all about gaining power for yourself! You turned your back on what was right!

ZHAN TIRI: And you turned your back on me. As long as I live, I will never stop until I have that power!

DEMANITUS: I know.

[He activates the portal to the Lost Realm.]

ZHAN TIRI: This is far from over! I will have that power, and when I do, I will destroy your beloved Corona! I promise you!

[The portal closes.]

DEMANITUS: I had no choice, Vigor. I had to send her to the Lost Realm.

this suggests a couple things.

first, the working relationship between demanitus and zhan tiri broke down because her selfish desire for power clashed with his idealism. demanitus didn’t want the power of the combined sundrop and moonstone for himself; he wanted to reunite them in the service of a cause he believed to be right. zhan tiri, by contrast, was interested solely in acquiring that power for herself—but given how demanitus reacted when he learned this, it seems obvious that he didn’t know that about zhan tiri until later in their relationship.

in other words, there was some level of deceit on her part involved with their partnership from the very beginning. she hid her true motives from him; she may also have hidden her true nature from him. i think there is support both for and against the latter point: in the present day, demanitus describes zhan tiri as “a warlock”—a word zhan tiri uses as an example of her duplicitous shapeshifting—but he also describes her as being “from another realm”—suggesting he knew her to be something otherworldly or inhuman. 

i tend to fall on the side of demanitus knowing her basic nature while they were contemporaries, but believing she shared his more noble motivations at first, but i think a strong argument could be made in favor of him believing her to be human from the start and only discovering her true nature later. 

second, demanitus appears to have cared for zhan tiri far more than she cared for him. in the flashback, she’s angry at his betrayal, but her focus is on her desire for the power of the sundrop and moonstone. by contrast, demanitus gives her plenty of warning and chances to turn away from her dark path, pleads with her to “give up” her selfish motivations, and expresses clear regret after her refusal forces him to banish her to the lost realm. 

this, again, supports the interpretation that zhan tiri manipulated or used  demanitus to further her own goals, just as she would later do with cassandra, rather than this being a true partnership that broke down as a result of differing goals. she doesn’t care about him any more than she cared about cass.

#2: zhan tiri’s behavior in season three

season three firmly establishes zhan tiri as a skilled manipulator who does not care about anyone or anything besides herself and her pursuit of her own power. i won’t get into the weeds with this—if you want to read a breakdown of (some) of zhan tiri’s manipulation of cass in season three, i wrote a post about once a handmaiden here—because for our purposes, we just need to understand that the basic character of zhan tiri as we see her in the present should inform our interpretation of her behavior in the past. 

in other words, i think it is safe to assume that zhan tiri applied similar techniques and principles of manipulation to demanitus as we see her do to cassandra in the present; to wit, she would have sought to make him emotionally dependent on her by exploiting whatever vulnerabilities she could find and presenting herself to him as a trustworthy friend and kindred spirit. 

#3: she is not close to her disciples

once she is freed, zhan tiri never so much as mentions tromus or sugracha again. moreover, it is unclear how much personal information they actually know about her: in painter’s block, sugracha refers to zhan tiri as “he,” which could indicate one of several things: 

zhan tiri is female, but her disciples don’t know her well enough for assumptions they made about her gender based on the appearance of the ram-headed demon form to have been corrected, or

zhan tiri doesn’t subscribe to human conceptualizations of gender, and both “she” and “he” are acceptable pronouns because the gendered connotations of both are equally irrelevant.

i, personally, prefer the second explanation, but the first is tenuously supported by how little zhan tiri cares for her disciples.

what do her contemporaries say?

lord demanitus’s telling of his conflict with zhan tiri is as follows: 

Millennia ago, a mysterious event in the heavens divided an ancient power in two. The sundrop and moonstone fell to the earth. Three of my pupils and I researched the legend of the sundrop and moonstone, two elements that longed to reunite. We searched, but alas could not find them.

Unfortunately, we were not the only ones looking. My pupils betrayed me, and summoned my old nemesis, Zhan Tiri: a warlock from another realm, bent on destruction. It took all of my powers to banish the evil from our world.

I knew the research I had written about the sundrop and moonstone was valuable. Dangerous, in evil hands. So I tore the scroll and hid the pieces...

this exposition also shows us the identities of the three pupils who turned against demanitus and joined zhan tiri instead: sugracha, tromus, and gothel.

their identities are all confirmed outside of this sequence: sugracha and tromus appear as loyal servants of zhan tiri, and in a tale of two sisters, rapunzel and cassandra discover gothel’s research on the sundrop flower, including a piece that is an obvious attempt to recreate the demanitus scroll, indicating that gothel was indeed his student at one time: 

though it appears that gothel abandoned zhan tiri as well once she found the sundrop flower, as she hoarded its power for herself rather than seeking to use it to free her former master from the lost realm. 

now... because demanitus leaves out the part of this story that would involve admitting he worked with zhan tiri before she became his “nemesis,” we can’t say with any certainty when this business with his traitorous pupils freeing her happened—or, indeed, if it actually happened that way at all. it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that the three disciples could have been pupils of both demanitus and zhan tiri, who stuck with zhan tiri after demanitus betrayed her and banished her to the lost realm. 

my personal belief is that demanitus gathered his pupils to help him continue the search for the sundrop and moonstone after the flashback in plus est, only for them to be lured away by zhan tiri (perhaps via communication in dreams or visions, as cassandra’s revenge establishes that she’s capable of entering people’s dreams whilst trapped in the lost realm) and free her by reactivating the portal—thus shifting demanitus’s focus from “find the sundrop and moonstone” to “put the demon back in her prison and clean up this mess.” 

however, this is all very up for personal interpretation, because demanitus’s version of events is verifiably deceptive and thus cannot be taken as hard fact.

and what do the folk legends say?

#1: the blizzard

Eons ago, an evil warlock, Zhan Tiri, had a deep hatred for Corona, and cast a spell which caused a blizzard to sweep across the land. The storm destroyed everything in its path. All would have been lost, had it not been for the ancient engineer and inventor, Lord Demanitus. 

Using both magic and science, Demanitus built a massive subterranean machine deep in the Coronan mountains. This mighty device had the ability to change the direction of the wind, and it pushed the flurries out to the sea. The day was saved. Zhan Tiri had indeed been defeated. But some say the curse of the storm lives on, and is simply waiting to strike again...

we know that the basic event described here really happened, because the demanitus device does exist in the location indicated by the legend and works just as described. the details may have been glossed over or elaborated on over the centuries, but we know it is accurate in the essentials.

until recently, i put the events described in this legend immediately before the plus est flashback, to account for the snow on the ground during the flashback, but over the course of writing this post i have actually changed my own mind, and i now think that zhan tiri’s blizzard occurred when the disciples freed her from the lost realm for the first time. why? well, the imagery used to illustrate xavier’s telling of the blizzard legend is directly echoed by the imagery used to illustrate zhan tiri’s release in demanitus’s account in lost and found: 

queen for a day.

and lost and found. 

the color palettes here are identical, and in both, zhan tiri is depicted as the ram-headed demon, in almost the same pose, rising out of the mountains—which fits with both the location of the demanitus device and the possibility that she created (or became) the blizzard immediately after being released from the portal in the coronan mountains. moreover, her hatred of corona is based on her hatred of demanitus and her vengeful desire to destroy everything he loves, which would logically be stronger after he successfully imprisoned her once. 

#2: the great tree

Millennia ago, this tree was once a sentient being, a force for good. But it was corrupted by the evil sorcerer [Zhan Tiri] to destroy any who approached it. It was Zhan Tiri’s stronghold. Inside it, he was invincible. But Lord Demanitus put a stop to the tree’s magic using an enchanted spear. 

as with xavier’s blizzard legend, the fact of the spear’s existence and the behavior of the great tree itself once the spear is removed proves the basic accuracy of this legend. 

the difficulty hear lies with pinpointing when all this occurred. unlike the blizzard, there are no contextual clues to suggest where this conflict at the great tree may lie in the general timeline, so any conclusions we draw must be based on speculation. the only thing we know for sure is that zhan tiri’s residence in the great tree ended during demanitus’s lifetime, which puts a hard stop in it at about two thousand years ago.

my theory is that zhan tiri corrupted and resided in the great tree long before demanitus’s time. adira calls it her stronghold, and as discussed in the first section, the great tree has the greatest variety and frequency of zhan tiri iconography of any location in the series. one of the symbols inside the great tree is even found thousands of miles away at janus point—the corkscrew-snouted ram’s head—which draws a possible line of influence from the tree to janus point. taken together, all of this suggests a long period of time during which the great tree was zhan tiri’s tree.

and as for when it entered into the conflict between demanitus and zhan tiri, i believe there are two possibilities: 

demanitus knew of zhan tiri’s use of the great tree as a fortress, and she allowed him inside while they were collaborating in their search for the drops. she likely hid the violent nature of its defenses from him for a while; then she either let her guard down and allowed him to glimpse more of the truth, or the tree as attacked and he inadvertently witnessed a brutal massacre. either way, this is what clued him in to her ulterior motives, and he crafted the spear to destroy the tree’s magic—and it is this betrayal that zhan tiri references in the plus est flashback when she says “you turned your back on me.” 

zhan tiri had been using the great tree as a home for many years without the aggressive kill-anyone-who-enters security measures, allowing it to function as a library or house of research. this may have been how she and demanitus encountered each other in the first place, and would go a long way to explaining why demanitus trusted her initially. it wasn’t until demanitus turned against her and imprisoned her in the lost realm, and her subsequent release by his pupils, that she became enraged and turned the great tree into an indiscriminate killing machine and demanitus forged his magical spear to stop her.

i think both options are equally plausible, and since there isn’t any direct evidence one way or another, this is another case for personal interpretation and preference to really come into play.

so, to sum up...

at some point around two thousand years ago, lord demanitus encountered zhan tiri, and she persuaded him to trust her and work with her to find the mythical sundrop and moonstone. she was most likely just using him the whole time, while he grew to care for her but became so uncomfortable with her violent methods and selfish motivations that he felt he had no choice to imprison her in the lost realm. 

his pupils—whom he either once shared with zhan tiri, or gathered after the breakdown of his relationship with zhan tiri—turned against him, and either took her side in the conflict, or successfully freed her from the lost realm. i think the latter explanation(s) fit better with the information we are given. 

the blizzard discussed in queen for a day most likely happened after the plus est flashback and her subsequent release by the disciples. 

the conflict at the great tree most likely occurred either right before or at some point after the plus est flashback and her subsequent release, but it is plausible to assume that by this point she had been residing in the great tree for a considerable amount of time prior to working with demanitus. 

demanitus defeated zhan tiri and her disciples, imprisoned her in the lost realm, imprisoned most if not all of her disciples in the demanitus chamber, destroyed the portal to the lost realm so she couldn’t easily be brought back, and transferred his soul into the immortal body of a monkey so he could spend the next two thousand years as a... watchman of sorts, over the drops, probably with the hope that he could step in to prevent zhan tiri’s release if necessary.

[shions-heart]

okay strap in boyos cuz i’ve finished my glass of wine and i’m about to go full ham on this post featuring the one and only tendou satori in my being human ‘verse

a refresher on the years/ages: at Shiratorizawa you enroll at age 13 and you are in year 1; you graduate and receive your license after your 10th year, when most are 22-23, unless you’ve been moved up due to impressive growth in your power and abilities

Ushijima graduated at age 17 and is 23 at the start of the fic. Since it takes place in/around early September, and taking into account the official birth dates, the others ages/years are as follows: Tendou, 23 (year 10); Semi, 22 (year 10); Leon, 22 (year 10); Yamagata, 21 (year 10); Shirabu, 20 (year 10); Kawanishi, 20 (year 8); Goshiki, 18 (year 8). Both Shirabu and Goshiki moved up two years due to their impressive magical growth, power, and abilities.

because i believe it is relevant to their interests, i’m tagging @pulveremcomedesligulas @emerald-psyche @akaashisstar @semdere and @xevikan15

(spoilers for The Awakening under the cut y’all know the drill)

(looooong post, tw for child abuse and neglect, PTSD, and bullying)

okay so some backstory first: we got glimpses of it in the fic but the main run down of it is

Tendou’s mom was already pregnant with him when she did her Hinokoku trial at 18. She didn’t know she was pregnant at the time and went through some really harrowing stuff that ended up breaking her mind. She passed the trial but her PTSD was so bad afterwards she could barely function. That’s when she realized she was pregnant.

She kept the baby secret as long as she could, started isolating herself when she couldn’t hide it anymore, and generally did not do well. The amount of flashbacks she had started to twist her reality to the point where she became convinced that she conceived Tendou in Hinokoku and he was, in fact, a demon spawn.

After he was born and looked human, she tried to convince herself that everything was fine, he was fine, they were both fine, but she only got worse, and the House of the White Rose were no help. When Tendou was about three years old, she petitioned the House of the White Swan to take her and her son into their coven, so she could avoid Tendou facing the Hinokoku trials. The House of the White Swan coven council agreed when they saw how desperate she was, somewhat afraid what she might do to herself or the child if they refused.

So then Tendou and his mom lived in hiding, constantly moving to avoid detection from the House of the White Rose (the punishment for defecting is losing your magic); meanwhile, Tendou’s mother grew worse. He did his best to care for her himself, but she would have days where she would call him a monster and try to attack him, convinced once more that he was demon spawn. These episodes could last a few minutes or days. Tendou became quite good at recognizing and managing her mood swings, staying upbeat and cheerful for her sake, even though her words cut through him each time. 

(This is also when he became really good at Defensive Magic and wards. He had to be. His mother often threw things at him or cast spells at him when she was in this state. He had to know how to recognize the signs of an incoming attack, “guess” at where they’d be coming from and what type of attacks they’d be, and throw up wards quickly enough to block them.)

Finally, he was thirteen and old enough to enroll at Shiratorizawa. Not wanting to leave his mother on her own, he convinced her to check herself into an institution. It was one of the hardest decisions he ever made, but he knew it was for the best.

His first day at Shiratorizawa did not go well. He unwittingly sat in a seat the class bully always sat in, and didn’t move when the kid told him to (not seeing why he should when there were plenty of other seats available). The bully got angry and Tendou, “guessing” that he’d was about to be attacked, threw up a ward. The bully’s hex hit it and backfired, giving him the ears, nose, and tail of a pig. Tendou thought this was hilarious and burst out laughing his loud, unnatural cackle, which put everyone on edge. They didn’t think Tendou should’ve been able to predict an attack or put up a powerful ward so quickly. That’s when the taunts and gossip started around him being a “monster.”

It hurt, because Shiratorizawa was supposed to be a place for him to make a new start. To finally be safe in one place and make friends. But Tendou, always one to bury his true feelings behind a smile and a joke, seemed to take it in stride. He didn’t retaliate but he gave up on trying to find any friends.

That’s when he met Ushijima. The quiet boy was strong and studious and didn’t seem aware of the bully incident at all. He was so absorbed in his homework he seemed to miss a lot of what was going on around him. That made him the perfect person for Tendou to befriend, it seemed. So he did. He sat next to Ushijima and chatted at him about anything and everything. Ushijima didn’t offer much back by way of conversation, but he also didn’t treat Tendou like a monster or someone to avoid.

At least, until Ushijima moved up a year, and then another, leaving Tendou behind and not ever seeking him out or trying to contact him. Tendou was pretty sure he’d just lost his best friend, if Ushijima had ever really been his friend at all, and that hurt pretty badly too.

Enter Semi Eita.

Tendou’s entire world lit up with his arrival. Semi had always been there, of course, but had hung back, not wanting to intrude on Tendou and Ushijima’s friendship, just glad to see Tendou had made a friend because after the bully incident, Semi thought the others’ treatment of Tendou was really unfair but was unnerved enough himself to hesitate to bridge that gap.

But once he saw Tendou sitting alone again, he mustered up his courage and went to sit with him. Tendou was stunned, honestly. He already thought Semi Eita was the prettiest boy he’d ever seen, and here he was sitting with him. Talking to him. Not treating him like a monster at all! Tendou clung to that, to Semi, and even though Semi would call him annoying sometimes, he never really tried to get away from him, so Tendou knew he liked him. They were friends. And when they became roommates a couple years later, Tendou was fricking thrilled, already well on his way to falling in love with Semi.

Having Semi around gave him the courage to start reaching out to the other loners. Leon was next. Being half-black made him a target for some of the more racist students, so Tendou dragged Semi over to meet him and all three of them hit it off really well. Yamagata came after this. The poor boy was a spazz, always misplacing his things, and rather flamboyantly gay. Thus, a target. So, into the group he went!

A couple years passed before Kawanishi and Shirabu arrived. Kawanishi got put in Yamagata’s room, so naturally Yamagata brought him to their lunch table. Tendou found his deadpan humor hilarious and took his aloof nature as a challenge. He went out of his way to include Kawanishi in things and surprisingly, Kawanishi went along with it. He never became a target because they all accepted him immediately, so he didn’t have time to become a loner.

Shirabu was a tougher cookie. He wasn’t a loner because others picked on him. He isolated himself intentionally. It reminded Tendou a lot of Ushijima, actually. The others were skeptical about bringing him in because of this, but Tendou insisted that he was perfect for their group. (“what’s wrong with weird?”) He reached out to Shirabu and got cold rebuffs in return, but he never gave up on him, and after a few months Shirabu seemed to warm up to them a bit more. Tendou found out about the nightmare incident from Semi, and felt himself somewhat akin to Shirabu. He, too, suffered from nightmares for a long time. It was only after he started rooming with Semi that they became less frequent before stopping altogether (so he totally understands Shirabu’s attachment to Semi). He did everything he could to make sure Shirabu felt included and wanted and cared for, knowing first hand how awful it feels when the circumstances are the opposite.

Goshiki came two years after Shirabu and Kawanishi. He became a target because of his outburst his first day of class (declaring he’d be the best, strongest Demon Hunter ever). Tendou found his enthusiasm endearing and basically thought he was the cutest thing ever, so he wasted no time in including him in the group.

And thus his little family was complete! For six years, nobody dared to say anything to his face. He finally had a group of people around him who loved him, wanted him, cared about him. He invested a lot of time into them, individually and as a whole, coming up with ideas for hang outs, outings, “parties,” etc. He was finally happy.

Then the attacks started, and the rumor mill did as well. People grew bold again, lashing out at Tendou as they were all convinced he was the perpetrator. The word “monster” got tossed around again, and Tendou desperately tried to not let it bother him. It didn’t matter, because his friends, his family, believed in him. For a while he succeeded in suppressing those bad thoughts and feelings. He concentrated on encouraging Goshiki’s growth, on watching Yamagata’s hopeless crush on Kawanishi unfold, on wooing Semi Eita through unconventional methods, never quite bold enough to come out and say that he was in love with him (especially because he wasn’t sure if Semi would even return his feelings).

Then Ushijima came back into his life.

Now, Tendou had been following Ushijima’s career. Of course he had. He was proud of his former friend. He was inspiring and powerful; someone to look up to and emulate, at least in his Demon Hunter career. Tendou wasn’t set on becoming a Demon Hunter, but he saw the way his friends looked up to the Great Ushijima Wakatoshi and he was glad for it.

Then Ushijima arrived at the school and Tendou ran into him by chance. There he was, in the flesh: tall, strong, unbelievably handsome. Tendou was starstruck. And then he realized Ushijima didn’t recognize him. It hurt, a lot more than Tendou was expecting, and he played it off like he was just meeting him for the first time. Then of course came his scheme to help out with the investigation and get to know him again, to make up for lost time, to maybe get his friend back. And as all those warm feelings from the past came back, paired with the admiration he already had, plus the fact that Ushijima became damn attractive, it led to deeper feelings, as well.

Let me tell you, Tendou Satori suffered a lot during the events of The Awakening. Being accused of being a demon, or a half-demon, brought back a lot of terrible memories from his past with his mother. (That was why he tried to protect Shirabu once he figured out about him.) But you know? I don’t think he would go back to change a thing. Because despite all that pain and hardship, it led him to Shiratorizawa. It led him to his family.

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

Hypothetical plot outline for season 1 of Hulu’s Ghost Rider series

Before we start, here is our main cast:

1) Gabriel Luna as Robbie Reyes / Ghost Rider

2) Lorenzo James Henrie as Gabe Reyes, Robbie’s younger brother

3) Jose Zuniga as Eli Morrow, Robbie’s uncle and the main antagonist of the season

4) Jessica Parker Kennedy as Lisa Gardner, a detective and Robbie’s main love interest (at least as of season 1)

5) Derek Mio as Kenshiro “Zero” Cochrane, a hacker who befriends Robbie and eventually becomes his go-to tech guy (the “Cisco Ramon” of the show)

6) Josh Segarra as Hamilton Slade, a college professor who is dating Lisa Gardner, thinks Ghost Rider is a menace

7) Becky G as Alejandra Jones / All-New Ghost Rider, a woman whose soul becomes bonded to Eli’s after making a deal with him 

8) Malese Jow as Sister Sara Yang / The Caretaker, a warrior nun who reluctantly joins forces with Robbie in order to battle the supernatural 

Now, the episodes. Since this is the first season and Marvel might consider costs in making the series, I thought that 10 episodes would be a reasonable amount.

Episode 1: Still Angry

* A plot: Introduction to all the main characters. Robbie is a loner who helps a local church during the day and goes out as Ghost Rider at night. The opening scene is of Robbie destroying a local gang. Gabe Reyes is going to a nearby college, which is the real reason why Robbie moved to Texas. Lisa and Hamilton also volunteer at Robbie’s church, which is how Robbie develops a crush on her, despite her being in a relationship. Hamilton is friendly to Robbie but you can also tells he’s the “jealous / possessive boyfriend” type.  

* B plot: Sister Sara Yang, also known as “The Caretaker”, arrives in Texas with the mission to capture the Ghost Rider for the Catholic Church. She recruits Rising Tide hacktavist Kenshiro “Zero” Cochrane by blackmailing him (“if you don’t help me, I’ll report all your cybercrimes”). 

* C plot: Alejandra Jones is trying to cross the border from Mexico to the USA in order to find her long-lost father. In the episode stinger, we learn that she’s being stalked by a ghost, who we’ll learn later on is Eli Morrow.  

* The climax of the episode is Sister Sara confronting the Ghost Rider. The two fight and Robbie easily defeats her. Instead of killing her, Robbie spares her when he realizes she’s not evil. Sara asks why and Robbie just tells her to leave and never come back. 

Episode 2: A Good Man 

* A plot: Robbie tries to go back to his normal routine but is confronted by Sister Sara and Kenshiro. Gabe, who is fully aware of his brother’s nightly activities, tries to convince them that Robbie is a good man but Sara is unconvinced. Sara says Robbie needs to prove to her that he’s a good man or else he will have to come back with her to the Vatican City. Robbie proves he’s on her side by taking down a gang of human traffickers and saving all the people they captured. All the people who Robbie saved bless him, calling him an “angel of vengeance”. Sara and Kenshiro leave, with Sara’s faith shaken and unsure of continuing her mission.

* B plot: Lisa and Hamilton go on a date where they discuss the Ghost Rider. Hamilton hates the man but Lisa thinks he’s a hero. Lisa tries to pry into Hamilton’s past and he tells her bits and pieces but stops short of going into his “family legacy”. Curious, Lisa asks and Hamilton rudely tells her to “stop digging”. 

* C plot: Alejandra tries crossing the border but the cartel suspect her of wrongdoing (she was framed by another person). The cartel kill her on the spot, leading to her making a deal with Eli Morrow. Episode ends with her becoming the second Ghost Rider. 

Episode 3: The Other Rider 

* A plot: While patrolling one night, Robbie hears about a horrifying incident on the other side of the border. A Ghost Rider-like monster led a massacre of a cartel, leaving barely any survivors. As he investigates, he comes across Lisa, who is also on patrol that night, and Sara, who was investigating on her own. Survivors of the cartel attack the three of them, with the cartel shooters wanting payback. Robbie, Sara, and Lisa fight them off and Robbie drives all of them away to safety. Robbie drops Lisa back at the police station and drives away with Sara. Robbie tells Sara he wasn’t responsible for the massacre and Sara believes him. 

* B plot: Gabe is at college, where he meets Kenshiro. They mostly have a humorous subplot, with Kenshiro trying to befriend Gabe since he has no friends in the area and that Sister Sara told him to get close to the Ghost Rider’s family. We learn more about Kenshiro and Gabe’s backstories. We also learn that Hamilton Slade is one of Gabe’s professors but is unaware that Gabe’s brother is the Ghost Rider. 

* C plot: Alejandra wakes up in the middle of the road, not sure of what she did. Her plot is mostly just learning that she’s now bonded to the soul of Eli Morrow and that he has some control over her. She gets into a fight with some truckers and accidentally kills them due to Eli’s influence. 

Episode 4: The Big Man from Down Below 

* A plot: This episode is mainly backstory. Robbie and Sara make it back to Robbie’s church, where they discuss last night’s events. As they come up with a plan to track down the second Ghost Rider, we go into some flashbacks which explains what Robbie has been doing since AOS season 4 without actually referencing AOS. Flashbacks include him taking the Darkhold to some unknown hell dimension, a fight scene with some gang that he wipes out, dealing with his dark legacy, and meeting Mephisto for the first time (who says Robbie’s soul is damned). At the end of the episode, Robbie and Sara decide to officially team up since they have the same goal of catching this other Ghost Rider. With Gabe and Kenshiro, the four of them form “Team Ghost Rider”.

* B plot: Similar to Robbie’s plot this episode, we go into Eli Morrow’s backstory. Alejandra learns, from Eli, that he was turned into a Spirit of Vengeance by Mephisto. When Alejandra asks why, Eli chooses not to tell her. We learn that all Spirits of Vengeance have similar stories to his, implying that Robbie’s Spirit of Vengeance became that way because of a deal with Mephisto. We see Alejandra become the All-New Ghost Rider at the end of the episode and she steals someone’s motorcycle. 

* C plot: Lisa tries to explain to her superiors what happened last night. Her superiors tell her that Ghost Rider killed a bunch of people on the other side of the border but she’s convinced that Robbie wasn’t responsible. Hamilton also tries to tell her she’s wrong, leading to their first fight.

* End episode stinger: Alejandra/Eli opens up a portal to an unknown dimension and a group of demons come out. Alejandra/Eli says, “Welcome to Earth”, ending the episode. 

Episode 5: Hell Hath No Fury 

* Main plot: Robbie, Sara, Kenshiro, and Gabe start investigating the second Ghost Rider while also trying to dodge Lisa, who tells them that GR is wanted for the massacre. She’s part of the investigation but it’s clear she thinks GR is innocent. The investigation leads them to a survivor, who Robbie tracks down. The survivor, who turns out to be the person who framed Alejandra and got her killed, says that Alejandra was murdered by the cartel, then the Ghost Rider showed up and killed everyone. The team finds out that Alejandra’s body was not among the dead. Sensing the dark aura in the area, Robbie puts the pieces together and realizes Alejandra made a deal with the devil. When Sara asks how does he know, he gives her a look that says that his situation was similar. He also points out that the attack happened immediately after Alejandra made that deal, as if the devil was waiting for her.

* Main plot (continued): After interrogating the survivor, Team Ghost Rider is confronted by the All-New Ghost Rider. Alejandra Jones, fully under Eli Morrow’s control, says that she needs to speak with Robbie. Robbie and Alejandra/Eli battle it out for the first time but the fight between the two Ghost Riders leads to a stalemate, even with Sara, Gabe, and Kenshiro’s help. Lisa and the rest of the police arrive, leading to a shootout between them and Alejandra/Eli. Alejandra/Eli kills most of the police force but Robbie is able to save Lisa in time. He creates a portal and takes Lisa away from the scene, but Alejandra-Eli orders her demon henchmen to go after them. Episode ends on that cliffhanger.

* Subplot: Hamilton Slade finishes up a class and we see him in his private study. As he looks through his photo albums, he comes across a picture of a burial site. Immediately, he shuts the book away, disturbed by the memory. We get a flashback to the moment when the photograph was taken and it’s revealed that Hamilton found the burial site of his ancestor, Lincoln Slade, who was a predecessor of the Ghost Rider. 

Episode 6: Like a Woman Scorned 

* A plot: Picking up right after the previous episode, Robbie and Lisa emerge on the other side of the portal. It’s revealed that Robbie took them back to his scrapyard in Los Angeles. Although Robbie tries to hide his identity, he realizes he needs Lisa to trust him and turns back to his normal self. Lisa is surprised to find out Robbie is the Ghost Rider and says he should’ve just told her. As they talk, Alejandra/Eli opens up a portal outside the scrapyard. One of the main demons, nicknamed Hive Mind, has mind control powers and takes control of several L.A. citizens to form an army. Robbie and Lisa fight the mind-controlled army but are hesitant to actually kill anyone. Eventually, the fight comes down to Robbie and Alejandra/Eli and her minions. Lisa leaves, with Robbie telling her to find “Father Reyes”. Alone, Robbie puts up a good fight but is overwhelmed and defeated. Before Robbie passes out, Eli (through Alejandra) reveals himself and says that he’s gonna finish what he started.

* B plot: Sara, Gabe, and Kenshiro are battling Alejandra’s demon henchmen (the ones who didn’t cross over to Los Angeles). During this battle, we get backstory on Sara. It’s revealed Sara was once a normal nun who had an interest in the supernatural. One night, she fends off an attack by a vampire, partly due to her studying on how vampires worked. Impressed by this, the church offers her a place in their top-secret division dedicated to hunting supernatural monsters. Also during this fight, Hamilton Slade, who is driving at this time, accidentally gets involved when a demon attacks his car. Kenshiro rescues him, thus bringing Slade into their group.

* Side note: For the B plot, Gabe starts reflecting on Alejandra Jones. From what he knows about her, he says that he’s sad that she was killed by the cartel and was turned into a Ghost Rider. He questions why she would be wreaking havok. Gabe’s interest in Alejandra Jones will be important later on.   

Episode 7: Tio 

* Cold opening dream sequence: Robbie wakes up in the church and sees (to the audience’s surprise) Chloe Bennet. However, she introduces herself as the Ghost Rider, revealing that the Rider took the form of Daisy to talk to Robbie. Daisy and AOS is briefly referenced. Daisy-GR tells Robbie that he’s in way over his head and that it’s rethinking their deal. Robbie says that he can beat Eli but before we can go any further, Robbie wakes up from his dream.

* A plot: Robbie wakes up on some desert planet. Alejandra-Eli is there. They have a chat where we learn that Eli is planning on building a portal machine with the help of the Darkhold. Robbie asks why and Eli says that he wants to open a portal to hell large enough to allow Mephisto’s army to go through and conquer Earth and turn it into a new hell dimension. Robbie realizes the truth; not only was Eli Morrow turned into a Spirit of Vengeance by Mephisto, he was now Mephisto’s lackey. Mephisto is planning on conquering Earth. Robbie says he’ll never give up the Darkhold but Eli says that he already found it, revealing that Hive Mind used mind control on Robbie to make him give up the location of the Darkhold. Robbie and Alejandra-Eli fight but Alejandra-Eli escapes back to Earth, leaving Robbie stranded on the desert planet. 

* A plot (continued): Robbie tries to make a portal back to Earth but realizes that Alejandra-Eli took his chains with her/him. He starts to wander around, trying to figure out how to get back home. As he does, he’s visited by the “ghosts” / hallucinations of Lisa, Gabe, Sara, and Kenshiro, who urge him on. He’s also visited by Daisy-Ghost-Rider and his parents, who we haven’t seen until this episode. Fueled by pure hatred and anger towards his uncle, Robbie uses the resources around him to find a way back home. He collects iron ores from the desert and uses the Ghost Rider fire to make a makeshift Sling Ring. He crosses through the portal, pissed as fuck.  

* B plot: Sara, Kenshiro, and Gabe try to calm Hamilton Slade down, who is hysterical since being attacked by a demon. While dealing with this, police reinforcements arrive and arrest the four of them. They’re brought to the police station and questioned on what happened. While being interrogated, a werewolf attacks the police station, killing several people. Sara, Kenshiro, Gabe, and Hamilton work together with the police to kill the werewolf. After taking the werewolf down, the head police chief lets them go, realizing he has a whole city to clean up. 

* C plot: Lisa finds Father Reyes, who is revealed to be Robbie and Gabe’s estranged father. The two talk, with Lisa saying that his son is a hero (without actually saying that Robbie is the Ghost Rider). Father Reyes agrees, although he’s worried about his son. Father Reyes and Lisa talk about Robbie and we learn more about Robbie’s childhood.

* End episode stinger: Alejandra-Eli is seen holding the Darkhold. Eli starts making plans to build a machine that could unlock a portal to Mephisto’s hell dimension. However, Alejandra briefly takes over, revealing that Eli doesn’t have as strong of a hold on her as he thought. 

Episode 8: The Phantom

* A plot: Robbie reconnects with Team Ghost Rider, who are all tired from battling the demons. He also brings back Lisa from Los Angeles. Before he goes back to his team, Robbie chats with his father. Father Reyes reveals that he knows Robbie is the Ghost Rider (“You can’t fool me, son”) and that he figured it out several years ago. He also says that he doesn’t think Robbie’s soul is damned, despite Robbie claiming he made a deal with the devil. He says that Robbie is using his powers to fight the forces of evil and that makes him a warrior for God in his eyes. Father Reyes also says that he thinks Robbie hasn’t fully explored his powers, indirectly hinting at the Penance Stare (will become important later on). 

* A plot (continued): With the whole team together, Robbie says that Alejandra/Eli is planning on building a machine that will open a portal to hell. He also tells them that Alejandra/Eli is working for Mephisto, who turned Eli into one of his minions in exchange for Spirit of Vengeance abilities. The team starts making a plan to destroy the portal machine, send Eli back to hell, and reclaim the Darkhold. However, Hamilton Slade doesn’t trust Robbie. He leaves the group with a plan to expose Robbie as the Ghost Rider

* A plot (continued): However, the team stops Hamilton in time and in an angry fit, he reveals that he despises the Ghost Rider since it’s his family legacy. His ancestor, Lincoln Slade, was a Ghost Rider but he abused his power. Robbie says that the Rider isn’t evil, it’s the user. He says that he’s using his powers to fight evil and that he’ll do whatever it takes to stop Eli Morrow and any other villain with plans to destroy the world. Robbie’s conviction to his mission is what finally convinces Hamilton that Robbie is a hero and abandons his plans.

* B plot: Alejandra’s battle for control over her own body gets heated as she tries destroying the portal machine whenever she’s in control. This leads to a surreal sequence where Alejandra and Eli play a game of mental hide-and-seek, with both of them fighting to be the dominant personality. Alejandra gets the upper hand near the end of the fight but, sadly, Eli overpowers her. Now in full control, Eli says to his henchmen, “The woman won’t be a problem anymore”. As he says this, he learns that his machine is close to finish.   

Episode 9: Wrath 

* Main plot: Picking up right at the end of the previous episode, Team Ghost Rider tries searching for Eli Morrow, realizing that he could be anywhere around the world. Robbie, knowing how he hid the Darkhold, begins retracing his steps to see if he could stumble across a clue on where Eli is. This leads to a sequence where Robbie and the team confront a demon named Hoss, who was keeping the Darkhold with him. When the team asks why Robbie trusted the book to Hoss, Robbie says it’s because Hoss is a collector whose personal vault is near-impenetrable. Hoss is also a demon bounty hunter, taking monsters back to hell just like Robbie, which is another reason why Robbie trusted him (although Hoss took demons back for pay). 

* Main plot (continued): At first, Hoss claims that someone broke into his vault and stole the Darkhold. However, after some investigating, the team learns that Hoss backstabbed Robbie by giving Eli Morrow the Darkhold willingly. Hoss says that he wants Earth to becomes a hell dimension, leading to Robbie beating him up. Robbie forces Hoss to give up Eli’s location, which he does.  

* Main plot (continued): The location turns out to be the old Momentum Labs. Eli Morrow, seeing that Robbie and his allies have found him, sends his demon army out to stop them. The rest of this episode consists of confrontations. Robbie battles and kills Hive Mind, avenging his previous defeat. Sara and Lisa team up and kill several demon minions. Kenshiro, despite being a non-fighter, manages to use his wits to take several demon minions down. While this is happening, Gabe tells Hamilton to wheel him to Alejandra. Hamilton questions him and Gabe says that he wants to talk to Alejandra. 

* Main plot (continued): Hamilton takes Gabe into the heart of Momentum Labs without telling the rest of the group and they confront Alejandra/Eli together. Gabe appeals to Alejandra’s humanity and even to his uncle. He asks Eli if he wants to be Mephisto’s servant for the rest of his life and for the first time in the series, Eli doubts his plan. This moment of self-doubt leads to Alejandra resurfacing. She quickly tells Gabe and Hamilton to destroy the portal machine before Eli activates it since the portal will be self-sustaining once activated (meaning, destroying the machine won’t do anything). Alejandra also says they need to kill her before Eli comes back. Unfortunately, Eli does return and, angered, he turns into the All-New Ghost Rider and attacks Gabe and Hamilton. 

* Main plot (continued): Robbie enters the scene just in time and the two Ghost Riders fight again. This time, with the help of Sara, Lisa, and Kenshiro, Robbie defeats Alejandra/Eli. However, before Robbie can burn Eli, “Alejandra” comes back and begs for mercy. Gabe stops Robbie and “Alejandra” begs them to save her before Eli comes back. But this turns out to be a ruse. It’s Eli pretending to be Alejandra. Eli activates the portal machine and the episode ends on the massive cliffhanger of Mephisto’s demon army ready to attack Earth!

Episode 10: Ghost Rider

(Season finale time! If you’re still reading this, I just wanna say, thank you, you’re a real trooper)

We start off right at the end of the previous episode. Robbie immediately destroys the portal machine but realizes that the portal is self-sustaining. Team Ghost Rider flees Momentum Labs as Mephisto’s demon army starts swarming Los Angeles. Things are going bonkers as police and National Guard come in to battle the army of darkness. As this is happening, Eli/Alejandra slips away. 

The group barricades themselves in an abandoned office and Robbie says it’s his fault that Eli managed to activate the portal and he’s the only one with the ability to close the gate. Robbie tells the group to leave but they tell him that they’re with him to the end of the line. They make a new plan; Robbie and Sara will fight their way back to Momentum Labs to close the gate, Kenshiro will be their “guy in the chair” as well as search for Eli/Alejandra, and Lisa and Hamilton will take Gabe and flee the city. 

As they prepare to exit the building, we get some interesting interactions. Lisa breaks up with Hamilton, saying that they’re better off as friends, and Hamilton wonders if it’s because she has feelings for Robbie. Hamilton tells Robbie that he’s surprised that he went from despising the Ghost Riders to working with one. Gabe tells Robbie that he needs to find a way to spare Alejandra since she’s an innocent in all this. Sara says to Kenshiro that she was wrong about Robbie and that he’s a warrior for God. Kenshiro admits that he has a huge crush on Sara but Sara says they can’t be together since she’s a nun. 

The groups head out of the building. To summarize what happens, Robbie and Sister Sara battle their way through the demon hordes back to Momentum Labs. Robbie gets his “Thor: Ragnarok” moment and goes HAM on the demon army as heavy metal music blares in the background. He manages to close the portal with his chain, foiling Eli/Alejandra’s plans. 

While this is happening, Lisa, Hamilton, and Gabe try to flee the city. Demons attack them and while fighting them off, Hamilton is fatally wounded. He tells Lisa that he loves her as he dies in her arms. After closing the portal, Robbie catches up with Lisa and Gabe and learns about what happened to Hamilton, enraging him. Kenshiro, who was guiding both groups this whole time, tells Robbie where Eli/Alejandra is, leading to our final confrontation.

Similar to Luke Cage season 1, Robbie confronts Eli/Alejandra while several bystanders watch. The two Ghost Riders go at it, with several big moments such as Robbie destroying Eli/Alejandra’s motorcyle, Eli/Alejandra destroying Robbie’s charger (temporarily, the car comes back of course), and so on. The fight eventually ends with Robbie defeating Eli/Alejandra and ready to destroy them. 

Just then, Father Reyes’ words come back to Robbie and, for the first time in the whole series, Robbie uses the Penance Stare on Eli/Alejandra. Eli’s soul is burned by this but Alejandra is spared. Robbie is unsure how he knew he could do that and Sara suggests that “God gave him the power”. Battle ends with Alejandra thanking Robbie as she’s arrested. 

Cut to several days later. The team attends Hamilton Slade’s funeral. Sara and Kenshiro decide to stay in Texas as Robbie’s main support team. Gabe also embraces his role as a member of Team Ghost Rider. Lisa is the last to join, saying that she always believed in the Ghost Rider. Robbie comforts her, telling her that he’s sorry for her loss, and Lisa thanks him for that. There are some signs of romantic feelings but nothing too blatant since Lisa is in mourning. 

Robbie sees that the news are calling him a hero. Robbie doesn’t see himself that way and he rides off into the night, off to battle another demon.

As he rides off, we quickly cut back to Alejandra Jones, who is in a holding cell. In the cell’s mirror, she sees Eli Morrow looking back at her. He’s still there but it’s clear he has no power over her anymore. 

The episode ends with Robbie riding off into the night...just as a motorcycle starts to follow him. We’re not shown who is following Robbie. Is it Johnny Blaze? Is it Danny Ketch? Is it Carter Slade? You’ll have to find out...in season two! 

tagging (sorry, i know this is a long post): @angel-starbeam, @whistlingwindtree, @lostinthespeedforce, @agentmilayawithshield, @happilyshanghaied, @acerobbiereyes, @isisparker, @shutyourmoustache, @clarasghosts

[exsanguisdraconis]

i don’t have a blog for this so even tho i’m supposed to be fixing this blog up and getting active i’m going to use this blog to viciously complain about HBO’s His Dark Materials. the below opinions are overwhelmingly negative so if you aren’t interested in that, don’t read it.

I just... don’t understand these writers. I feel like over the course of the five episodes we’ve had that I’ve been very laid back. My expectations were high, I’ll admit that, because I needed SOMETHING to save me from the absolute shit tornado that was The Secret Commonwealth. I needed some good HDM to lift me up from that low and I was counting on the show. Maybe that was unfair. 

To start off with some good things the show, for the most part, looks really nice. Most of the actors are really good. I was pleasantly surprised about the number of POC in the cast. The daemons, though not focused on nearly enough, still look really nice. Ruth Wilson is phenomenal in her role as Mrs. Coulter and even in the couple of scenes where I was like “why did they add this to her character” Ruth acts it out so well I’m happy to just accept it. I think this show is adding in a lot of the complexity to her character that Pullman always wanted, and given she was one of my first “older villain woman I definitely shouldn’t be in love with but am” crushes in media I’m thrilled about that.

My main problem with the show is that it’s---boring. And it’s ridiculously frustrating because it feels like you have to put effort into making it so bland and dry.

The newest episode is an absolute train wreck that lumps together all the minor issues I’ve had with the show into one big pile of shit.

First off I’ve never seen Dafne Keen in anything else. I don’t know if she’s a good actress. I know that in this, she’s really really bad. Even when they put her in emotional scenes, her inability to act like she has real human emotions sucks the life out of them. When Coram was recounting the story of his lost son in the last episode I went from being a little choked up to almost laughing with how much it just didn’t seem like Lyra gave a fuck. Her delivery is so monotone that it just zaps the feeling out of everything she touches.

Secondly what the fuck happened with Billy Costa. Or more specifically what the fuck happened with how they chose to handle the scenes with Billy. The death of Billy, the reactions of people toward him, the dialogue from Iorek, these are some of the most interesting parts of the book. But rather than having Lyra ask, get denied, and then ask Iorek to take her anyway, whisking her off into the night and encountering the witches and creeping into the fishing village where they’re met with terrified villagers... they spend several scenes with Lyra just asking people if she can go. And it’s not even heated argument or charming wit. It’s just “I want to go” and “No it’s out of the way and too dangerous.” Over and over again. 

This really hits on a big problem I have with a lot of media right now where they want to tell me something rather than show it. Usually because that’s the cheaper route of doing things. I get it. The bear is probably difficult and costly to animate... however, why have him IN the show at all if he doesn’t get to be a proper character with proper emotional building scenes. I would have much rather them cut that scene where he’s just giving exposition on bears to Lyra in favor of him telling Lyra about the witches going to war and shaming the people for not having Lyra’s bravery in dealing with Billy Costa. Because those are scenes that tell us something about Iorek the character, and that’s always going to mean more than general lore about Svalbard’s bears.

You see it doesn’t mean anything to me to hear the words “it’s dangerous” or “something is really wrong here” and then not.... see it. The scene with Billy is meant to turn your stomach. You’re supposed to think “who the fuck are these people mutilating children in this way” as Billy repeatedly clings to a dead, dried fish and vacantly asks “where’s Ratta” over and over. And something that adds to that revulsion is seeing how other people treat this small, innocent, injured child. It’s not with compassion and sadness. People are AFRAID of Billy. They don’t want to look at him or touch him. The fishermen beg for Iorek and Lyra to come and relieve them of this evil being. They have no compassion for this child, no outrage for what has been done to him. All they have is fear. 

And maybe I missed Iorek’s iconic “when I’m afraid I will master my fear” but I’ve watched the episode through twice and haven’t found HIM saying it first. So Lyra not wanting to look like a coward in front of him, and Lyra mastering her fear in favor of compassion for Billy means NOTHING. Because it wasn’t in the show. There was no scene where Lyra sees that Billy’s daemon substitute has been ripped from his dead hands and she flies into a rage at the utter disrespect of the people around her. There’s no scene where she gives him the coin with Ratta’s name scratched out in an attempt to give him that dignity and respect that was ripped from him before he died. So what did we get to replace these deeply emotional and telling scenes? Two sing-a-longs from people that can’t goddamn sing.

The thing about these scenes is they’re very straight forward, and we don’t care enough about Ma Costa or John Fa to care that they’re sad. At most they tell us “the Gyptian people are united” but we’ve already seen that. It was the FIRST thing they showed us about them. What we haven’t seen yet in this show is Lyra’s character development. Where Lyra starts to go from a pigheaded, selfish child into a more mature and compassionate person. These scenes rob the situation of deeper meaning. Because we KNOW Billy’s mom is sad, we don’t necessarily need to see it. The story isn’t about her or John Fa. The story is about Lyra, and by cutting more meaningful scenes where she deals with Billy and shows him compassion, and instead just showing her be a little sad at his grave side... it feels flat and emotionless. I didn’t feel sickened or sad for Billy.

I’ve read the books over a dozen times, and out of the series I feel like The Golden Compass/Northern Lights is the most special. It is paced well and filled to the brim with interesting characters and when things happen they happen for a reason. The show is making cheap shots at my emotions by showing a crying mother and honestly it’s bouncing off the rim.

To be clear I WANT this show to work. I felt like episode 4 was perfect. I had absolutely no complaints aside from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s painful attempt at a southern accent. I LIKE that they’re showing a bit of Will’s backstory rather than try and juggle flashbacks or exposition in season 2 (if they get a s2 and I don’t think they will unfortunately). In fact, it seems like most of the scenes they add in for themselves, most of the details they insert, actually have a lot of depth and feeling. Mrs. Coulter’s relationship with her daemon and her scenes of dialogue that hint at her self loathing is brilliant. The scene where Tony and his friend break into her home in defiance of Ma Costa and the others is exciting and emotional. 

Third and finally I just feel like this show is trying too hard to say “I’m not the movie.” First off, I don’t think The Golden Compass was a terrible movie. There are a lot of things I don’t like, but when I think of a terrible remake I think of Gerard Butler playing the Phantom of the Opera and the train wreck into a flaming pile of dumpsters that entire movie was. And I think this show is trying so hard to avoid certain lines and scenes that were in the movie that it’s killing some of the best content from the book that they could pull from. The big problems with the movie didn’t have anything to do with the dialogue or source material, but rather pacing, acting, and set design choices that were made. 

Idk. I hope we get a season 2 and I also kinda don’t care. Because if this is what they’re going to do with The Golden Compass I’m a little worried about what they’ll wind up doing with the other books in the series. And I feel bad because I genuinely like His Dark Materials, I even really enjoyed La Belle Savage. Sure the newest book was.... bad. Really bad, but at the very least the first three books of His Dark Materials deserve a really good show or movie and I feel like between some of the direction choices and Dafne’s acting (which I’m not entirely certain isn’t due to choices from the directors) in some ways this show is way, way worse than the movie ever was.

[shadowsong26fic]

Coming Attractions!

First Monday of the month, woohoo!

(And also kind of a NaNo roundup post because that was last month, after all…)

NaNo:

Sooooo I didn’t finish, lol. Not that I was…super expecting to, exactly, but I was hopeful! I think I just missed too many days in a row and lost all my momentum.

In terms of my goals, I was hoping to write:

1. 20-25k on Precipice 2. 20-25k on our faces like a mirror 3. 10-20k on Other Projects. 4. 50-70k total

In terms of what I actually accomplished:

1. 9,241 on Precipice (Sooooooo....about half of what I’d hoped, a little less. But I still got a fair amount done/prepped for upcoming chapters, plus a couple chapters actually posted, even while doing other stuff, so...go me!) 2. 9,043 on our faces like a mirror (Again, a bit less than half of what I’d hoped for, but I got enough done for the story/etc. to take a real Shape in my head. ...ish. See the specific OFLAM stuff later on in the post...) 3. 10,601 on Other Projects (Hey, I actually met this goal! ...barely, but still! Mostly thanks to the Nikita/Rebels crossover, lol...) 4. 28,885 total

Original Fiction:

I got a decent chunk of a big backstory piece for Lux done (in the form of a “then” and “now” set of scenes/vignettes for the five Archangels)--that being said, I’m not sure I actually like what I have there, lol. I know more or less what I need to cover, but the details are fiddly. Also not sure whether I should refer to Lux by her current name, for consistency’s sake, or use a different name (either Lightbringer or just Lucifer) since she does technically reshape her name after being released when the main Apocalypse storyline kicks off…also debating whether Lux should be/present as female way back when--angels don’t really do gender the way humans do in this ‘verse, but the closest human term for Lux would be genderfluid, sooooo IDK. Also also, for the ‘Now’ part…ehhh, I’m not sure I should have this be the first thing I post involving Trixie…but I’ll keep poking at it and see what comes out.

(I’d also planned to work on the big Kesshare character study saturation for The Farglass Cycle this month, and maybe go back to my untitled first-contact story, but neither of those happened, lol.)

Precipice:

We’re in the home stretch! Kinda. So to speak. Probably three to four more chapters in Arc Seven, which I’m hoping-fingers-crossed I’ll finish by the end of the calendar year??? (But given how much other stuff I hope to work on (see Other Fanfic Projects for more details…)

At that point--and I know I’ve said this before, and I’ll probably put it in an A/N in the next chapter or so, but following the end of Milestones, I’m planning to break off into a second/sequel fic, working title Protectors. This is at least in part because length (over 200k wtf I was anticipating 50-75k, maybe 100k, for these seven arcs @.@), but also was sort of planned even without the Length issue, due to some thematic/structure shifts following a six-year timeskip. Which, if you do the math, you can probably figure out where that’ll land us and why I might be structuring it this way…

Anyway, I’ve increasingly realized that there’s some stuff I should probably set up that I’ll need for later arcs in Part 2 involving some Rebels characters, more with the Last Batch, plus a Sith Apprentice who needs to turn up and die (although the gap between Infernalis and the next apprentice I actually care about/have a name and some kind of Plot for is only about four years in my mental timeline, so maybe there isn’t an active Apprentice in that period*…hmmmmm…), some background about the Hands, etc. But I feel like it’s all a little too disjointed for an entire additional arc. So, Arc 7.5, tentatively titled Preludes, is also going to be a thing XD I don’t think I’ll have a fixed schedule for that vs. the main storyline--and, honestly, it’ll probably work more like a collection of one-shots taking place during the timeskip than a proper Arc, but a little more Relevant than stuff that goes in Bonus Content, if that makes sense? It’ll probably be posted alongside at least arcs 8 and 9. Which, incidentally, take place more or less back-to-back and cover a fairly short period of time, but there is A Lot of plot/setup that goes into them. Like. If I tried to do it all as one arc, it’d be at least twice as long as any of the other arcs I’ve done, possibly including Arc Four--certainly over twenty chapters, I think--plus there’s a good (and by good I mean Horrible) place where I can split the arcs, so…we’ll see how that goes.

(…still not sure what to do with Maul, lol. He may just be Sir Darth Not-Appearing-In-This-Fic, or he might turn up in arc 10/11/13, which are the sort of vaguest of the next seven arcs which make up Protectors, in terms of how much I have planned out…)

(*On a semi-related note, I’ve been asked about Inquisitors a couple times in comments lately, and…well, I’ll probably mention this when I reply to the commenter in question, but I figured I’d set it out here as well, in case anyone else was wondering the same thing but doesn’t read other peoples’ comments. Like I’m pretty sure I mentioned at the start, when I plotted out** the bulk of this fic, I hadn’t seen Rebels yet. I’ve since decided to integrate a few characters/plot points (Kallus and Zeb will feature prominently in a subplot in arcs 13 and 14, for example), but, as a rule, characters and plot points from Rebels haven’t been taken into account unless I Really Like Them and/or they’re a good way to fill in a plot hole in a later arc, as with Kallus and Zeb. So, for example, when I include Thrawn, I’m writing more towards Legends!Thrawn in terms of personality, though the two have blended a bit in my head and I do reference specific events in Disney!Thrawn’s personal timeline; and b) more relevantly, I hadn’t made any plans to include Inquisitors, and that…hasn’t really changed. So, I might have them in Preludes, but they almost certainly won’t show up on-page/be super-relevant in the main arcs of the fic, sorry :/ )

(**Loooool I say “Plotted Out” like I’m the kind of author with a Master Plan or at least an outline. But I did have a general idea of the Major Plot Points going in, such as when Rex and Ahsoka would turn up, Luke’s storyline with Lavinia, how many Apprentices I would need to make them work, etc., and I’ve had parts of Arcs 8, 9, and 14 written for like at least two years now, so I know more or less where I’m going--though they’ll be edited once I have more of the connective tissue in place, in case I’ve accidentally Jossed myself…or I change my mind, which is becoming A Possibility with a major event set to happen in Arc 14, so…we’ll see.)

Aaaaaanyway. Exciting times ahead, I hope!

Other Fanfic:

This month, I finally posted another AU outline, woohoo! …I mean, it was a super-niche Nikita/Rebels crossover with a handful of OCs thrown in but who’s counting XD (I do actually intend to finish Let’s Go Steal a Crossover and update the Ventress one at some point but…yeah).

I also put out a Kallus one-shot that I think turned out really well. May do more of those at some point, who knows…

I made some significant progress on our faces like a mirror, as mentioned above! But now I’m waffling a little bit over structure. Basically, the fic covers Bo-Katan’s backstory from the time Satine becomes Duchess, through the Civil War, and eventually leads to Bo’s eventual break with her sister to join Death Watch. It comes in two pretty distinct halves--what I call the Fugitive arc in my notes, which covers the Civil War, and the Breakdown arc, which is everything after her return to Sundari.

So, my original plan was--prologue covering at least part of the final Epic Screaming Match that leads to Bo’s departure; jump back to the Fugitive Arc; and then follow through until we catch up to the prologue, with a coda/epilogue with her and Pre Viszla. The problem is, there’s…really not a lot to connect the two halves??

I’ve got a couple options on what to do about this, but I’m not sure which would be best.

Option One: Keep the structure as-is and just let it be episodic.

Option Two: Keep the structure as-is and find some way to connect the two halves (i.e., a recurring antagonist; I do have an idea of who this could be, but the problem is, it takes away a good chunk of the focus from Bo and Satine’s relationship for the Breakdown Arc…which I don’t really want to do.)

Option Three: Remove the framing device and focus on the Breakdown Arc, and include the Fugitive Arc as flashbacks, since the Breakdown Arc can’t really stand on its own. (The main issue I have with this one is that, if I want to actually write out future chunks of Bo’s life later--meaning, her time with Death Watch, and getting her from TCW to Rebels--I won’t have these flashbacks and I don’t want to change the structure too radically for any eventual sequels? Also, I’m not sure how I feel about a flashback structure for this fic in general…)

Option Four: Remove the framing device and focus on the Fugitive Arc, ending the story with Bo’s return to Sundari. (Two issues with this one--I really do want to go into the Breakdown Arc; that’s where my interest in this story started. Also, due to the constraints of setting and so on, Bo interacts with…like…two canon characters over the course of the Fugitive Arc? And while I don’t really have a problem writing a story that’s essentially a Backstory Epic for a tertiary character, populated by about 90% OCs, I’m not sure anyone actually wants to read that, except as the lead-in to the Breakdown Arc??? But maybe I’m overthinking…)

…so, yeah. Any thoughts/opinions on which option would be Best? (I may make a separate post asking the same question later, but figured I’d lay it all out here, too!)

Also, I’m working on a Secret Santa project, and probably not going to use OFLAM for SWBB, which means I need to come up with and write a different plotline of some kind, so back to the drawing board on that one…

Also also, I do genuinely plan to get Distaff off hiatus At Some Point, especially since I’ve gotten some new comments/responses lately…but given how much else I have on my plate, writing-wise, that probably won’t happen until next year, alas.

Anyway, the long and short of it is--lots of writing planned for this month! Now let’s see how much I actually get done XD

What about the rest of you? What’ve y’all been up to/what do you have planned for next month?

[pilferingapples]

Les Mis BBC: First Episode First Impression

Well, the actors are as excellent as I hoped they would be!

Cut for Spoilers or whatever term applies here

I really really really wanted to be wrong in all my misgivings about this series. I wanted to be blown out of the water by the whole thing, and have to make repentant posts about the error of my ways. 

Alas, this is not a Repentant Post. 

I liked some things! The set and scenery and props were all genuinely lovely. I enjoyed the animals everywhere? and the nigh-omnipresent beggars in Paris? Nicely done!  And I really, genuinely, appreciate the constant background French; I know just enough to recognize it when I hear it and it does add something to the atmosphere of the piece. 

The actors! What great performances! I want it clear that NOTHING I have to say in the way of character critique is down to them. Oyelowo is as good as I’d hoped he’d be, and that is saying a lot; Collins is doing a wonderful job with Fantine’s shyness and defiant hope; and the bit-part characters like Magloire and Nicolette are really standout. 

I really appreciate the inclusion of the Pontmercy Family situation, and Gillenormand being placed in this first episode makes his social relevance more clear IMO; he feels less like random comic relief than he sometimes can. Really, the whole Pontmercy-Gillenormand family conflict is a standout in the episode; Gillenormand’s emotional manipulation of Tiny Marius and  general domestic tyrannizing was very effectively shown (the scene with the toy soldiers!!!), and my heart was broken all over for Marius and for Georges. And Tholomyes is an amazingly perfect skeezeball; his PUA approach is clear and skin-crawling from the start.

*** Real quick Basic Plot Rundown: this episode covers roughly the era from Waterloo to Fantine being abandoned by Tholomyes. I say roughly  because it weirdly changes the timeline of Fantine’s life to sync up more with Valjean’s;he gets released and goes through the silver theft with the Bishop when she’s getting dumped.   The issue with that is of course that in the book Fantine is dumped in 1817 (the year 1817, when it was 1817); Cosette should just about be getting born around the year of Napoleon’s defeat and Valjean’s release, and now I guess she’s about a year old? This doesn’t necessarily have to be a big issue for chronology if the show’s just going to have Fantine and Cosette suffer for an extra two years (though: D:D:D:D: ) , and heaven knows Hugo is shifty on personal timelines, but...Les Mis *does* have certain unavoidable historical events it has to sync up with, so I’ll see how it plays out. 

Besides Valjean’s last little while in prison and Fantine’s courtship and abandonment, this first episode covers the Georges-Gillenormand-Marius family situation, with Georges limping home from Waterloo only to be refused access to his son. The show cuts between the three ongoing stories so they all progress more or less in sync. We get far enough along to see Georges watching his son in church without Gillenormand knowing (thanks to Nicolette, who’s the only woman in the Gillenormand house so far), Fantine holding Cosette in their apartment and wondering what they’re going to do after Tholomyes leaves them, and Valjean curled up in the road after robbing Petit Gervais.

Okay, Actual Commentary time! Please assume a Personal Opinion disclaimer for things after this point:P 

***

Several of the people I was watching with felt the constant cutting between scenes was jarring or hard to follow; I don’t know if that was the issue but I do think, overall, it just didn’t work as well as it might have. The individual scenes were very brief and the constant bouncing back and forth prevented them from building up any emotional momentum. I think..conceptually, I can see where it would be interesting to twine Valjean, Fantine, and Georges together, in many ways, but none of that thematic connection really came through either (Maybe most disappointingly to me, Valjean’s family is never mentioned, so the potential to connect all three of them as families torn apart by social inequality is lost). It really felt like just Three People Having a Bad Time in France.  it really is hard to follow, because it starts to feel...kinda dull , just a collection of sad anecdotes for no purpose. 

The dialogue doesn’t help. When the show leans heavily on Hugo’s writing (sadly, mostly with Tholomyes) , it’s fine, of course. But the original dialogue is clunky, pedantic, and weirdly flat throughout--and utterly lacking in nuance. It just aggressively clunks at points. 

Valjean and Javert suffer the most for this. Javert basically states aloud his share of the Confrontation while lecturing a bound Valjean for ...reasons?? It’s never really clear. But hey, here you go, Valjean, have Javert’s entire backstory! ( I should say that Oyelowo almost sells it. He is incredible , and does a great job making Javert feel both his adamant self and humanly affected by the world around him. Just. some of this dialogue. Geez.)  This is also one of those episodes with a weirdly more unpleasant Valjean; he doesn’t assault the Bishop, but he does  much more consciously rob Petit Gervais, laughing as he scares the kid away and grinning as he first examines the coin. He also just...yells at people a lot? and argues with the Bishop and asserts his hatred of mankind very bluntly. I found it hard to believe this Valjean had any of the original’s internalized self-hatred or sense of being  lower than a dog; he seems  solidly outraged by his treatment, and confident of the injustice of it all. Which is definitely fair and all, but just...isn’t quite Valjean.

 (Also, as I mentioned above, we don’t really get any of his pre-prison backstory; not an unusual adaptational move, but it sure doesn’t add anything to his motivation.) He seems both more casually violent and less emotionally deep than I’d expect a Valjean to be; I can’t believe , at least not yet, that he’s actually felt the Bishop’s forgiveness as a challenge in any way, even though the Gervais scene ends with him curled in the road--it just doesn’t feel connected. 

Fantine does  get more time--unfortunately, and unavoidably, much of that involves Felix:P . There’s also some brief conversation with Favourite about the general situation of grisettes. I think it’s a good addition, and puts in some useful context. (That said, I’m deeply uneasy about the attempt to portray Fantine and Favourite as actual  friends-so much of Fantine’s story comes from her being really truly isolated. If she’d had real friends to help in the crunch, it would change things-- and if she thinks  Favourite is a real friend and then Favourite fades on her, that’s even worse than canon and makes Favourite  worse than in canon. Hence, Unease.)  

Visually, there’s ..I won’t say nothing wrong,  and certainly I can have fun for ages going over the details of this or that outfit or hairstyle (and I really do  find the weird combos of Looks to be very distracting; if I knew less about the period it wouldn’t be,no doubt, but I do  know a lot about How It Should Look and the fact that it doesn’t  Quite sometimes makes it all feel like it’s happening in a generic Fantasy 19C) . But there’s no BIG thing wrong, it’s...fine?  

It’s just ... it’s just fine. There’s no particular strong visual feel to it, nothing really striking-- unless you count the weird 60s-Acid-flashback-looking timeskip moment. It really does  feel like LM 2012 in its more visually striking moments, and outside of that, it’s just very much a competently filmed period drama made in the last ten years--but that’s all. Without the specific characters, I don’t think there’s a single frame of it I’d recognize as being necessarily Les Mis and not any other random BBC Period Drama. 

I guess this is really my problem with the characters and the story too-- it’s...Fine, it’s technically there , but too often there’s no sense of depth or specificity to it. Part of it’s the dialogue, part of it’s the weird pacing/ story jumps , part of it is because no one ever seems to be given a moment to respond-(Fantine crying for all of thirty seconds after being abandoned before the show decides we need her up and talking and dry-eyed was really actively jarring to me)--

There are a hundred little details I could go through but the overall effect for me was just a whole lot of Underwhelming. Yeah, there’s the Pee Scene and the (correct and fitting) visceral discomfort of Everything About Tholomyes (he ,at least, really is a Triumph of Skeeze). But the real problem so far is just that it feels like a visual outline of a story; it’s not pulling together into feeling like a lived world. It’s not taking my heart, even though, despite my surface grousing, I really want  it to.  It’s here, it’s fine, it’s Whatever; but all my really strong emotional reactions either Cringing  or Cooing (over the very excellent babies). My heart didn’t break but the once, with Tiny Marius, and it really really  should have been in pieces by the end of the episode. 

I’m of course  going to keep watching, as much of it as I can find a way to see; it’s Les Mis and I really  am  impressed with the actors.  Maybe next episode, when the various stories start to come together a little, it’ll all feel more solid and more memorable. Right now, though, I’m sitting at a solid “ meh” about it.

[pomegranate-belle]

For the TV/movies meme: 2, 3, 14 and 17!

2. Top 5 overrated TV shows

- Game of Thrones. There, I said it, I’m sorry world.

- The Bachelor and all its permutations; they’re not popular in fandom-type community but given the fact that it’s STILL GOING AFTER GOD KNOWS HOW MANY SEASONS, well, I think it applies.

- The Walking Dead. I watched like three episodes of it and got bored. Like. I got bored of a show about the zombie apocalypse. How??

- BBC Sherlock just... Isn’t that good guys. Sorry.

- I’m running out of stuff. Uhhhhh... I saw a couple episodes of Vampire Diaries once and wasn’t very impressed, idk?

3. Top 5 underrated TV shows

- Black Lightning is pretty cool, I really like the premise of it and I don’t think I’ve ever really heard anyone mention it. It’s fun to see a superhero that’s really a Grown Ass Adult with like, kids and a job, who kind of already knows what they’re doing when the show opens.

- The Sentinel. Ok, ok, don’t shoot me, I know it’s got some Uncomfy Racist Mysticism, for sure be aware of that, it was made in the 90s, but like... It is genuinely a pretty fun show. The characters are just all so interesting, and Jim and Blair just have the most entertaining dynamic. And hey if you ever wondered where that Sentinel-Guide fanfic trope came from...

- I know it’s a Canadian kids’ show from like a decade ago but Storm Hawks is good ok?? It’s really cute with interesting worldbuilding and a sense of humor I think would resonate with a lot of people right now.

- ABC’s Forever; this damn show only got one season but my brother and I have rewatched that one season probably fifteen times, it’s just so good!! Immortality, crime-solving, hilarious side characters, a son who looks older than his dad, tragic flashbacks?? How could you pass this up?

- Pushing Daisies, for sure. I mean. Guys. Come on. The tongue-in-cheek narration, the wild backstories, the fact that it’s literally about a socially-anxious be romance romance who uses his powers to bake pies?!?! How are people not all over this show like white on rice??

14. Top 5 badass characters

- Rose Tyler broke the laws of time and space, turned herself into a fourth-dimensional goddess, vaporized a fleet of Daleks, and brought a man back to life forever. How do you even top that?? She will end you.

- Ok I was trying to not choose two people from the same franchise but also holy fuck, Rory Williams. I literally shouted “Jesus Christ, Rory!!” at the screen the first time I saw That One Scene in The Wedding of River Song.

- Peggy Carter is a stone cold badass, this woman will brain you with a fucking stapler and be back home in time for tea with her girlfriend. God bless her. This is why she’s the Captain America in Miles’s universe—

- Luke Cage. Look, we all love Matt’s sick-ass hallway fights but you gotta admit that just walking straight down the hallway with bullets bouncing off of you is on a completely new level of badass. I love this man.

- OUAT Rumplestiltskin; dude burned down a castle, killed a man, and became an all-powerful demon creature to protect his kid. Then when that went horribly wrong and he lost his son, he spent 300 years becoming the most knowledgeable and accomplished sorcerer in the world and creating one of the most powerful curses in history to try and get him back. And remember, this guy started out as a hobbled peasant who couldn’t read.

17. Top 5 “deserved better” characters

- Neal Cassidy/Baelfire; my son deserved his fucking happy ending, and even if I ship Swanfire I wouldn’t even care if they didn’t get back together as long as he got to be back with his family, there was literally no reason to kill him off.

- Benny Lafitte; I don’t even. Fucking. Watch SPN anymore but good god. He was nothing but supportive and good and selfless and what does he get for it?? Dumped back into Purgatory and written off the show. I literally created an OC and wrote a wish-fulfillment fix-it fic for this shit.

- Donna. Noble. What the fuck was that ending?? Seriously?? She had all that character growth and gained all those feelings of self-worth and then you slam dunk her with magic amnesia and leave her right back where she started??? No!!

- Can’t believe I’m saying this about a Boardwalk Empire character because they’re all terrible people but you know what?? Angela Darmody deserved better!! She deserved to be able to take her son and run away from her fuckup husband and his pedophilic mom with a beautiful woman!! I stand by that!!

- You know what, I’ll say it, the IF writers should not have done that to Davos, absolutely fucking nobody goes from “*puppy dog eyes* I’ll stay with you, Danny..!!” to “Lol so we should definitely assassinate Danny Rand amirite??” after just one fight. Nobody! They did him so dirty omfg, and no I don’t care that his character is a villain in the comics.

[tangomango2017]

Thoughts on the Chinese DotA Animated Series, The Tower Will Go On, and its two main characters

It’s been five years since this animated series based on Warcraft 3 Dota was made. The fan forum is still alive, and it’s amazing to witness the fan dedication to this work, in the form of essays, debates and even a ridiculously detailed second-by-second analysis of the opening theme.

But I barely got a glimpse of those essays before they were removed, apparently to be scrutinized by their internet police for objectionable content. The series itself has also been taken off all China websites, such that China’s fans themselves can’t watch them even if they wanted to revisit. Which makes me so glad that I have all the episodes in HD.

Anyway, on to the show itself. It’s divided into two parts:

Season One is about Crystal Maiden forming her rag-tag team of Radiant/Sentinel heroes. It’s light-hearted and full of jokes. The heroes die a lot and revive at the fountain every time. Sniper’s death count reaches above 300 at one point.

Season Two (titled Death for the Reborn) is darker as the team clashes with the Dire/Scourge and the war intensifies. The plot gets more complicated with internal factions, spying and conspiracies. The rules change: the river that revives dead heroes gets corrupted, so deaths are permanent.

One’s reaction to this show would likely be: “No! This isn’t Dota. This isn’t Invoker at all! What travesty is this?!”

But first, let’s consider these two things:

Firstly, the story is set in the game map. All hero skills and items stay faithful to the game. There is no ‘lore’ to speak of, as this series came out before Valve took over Dota. During that period, ownership of Dota was attributed to Ice Frog, who’s referenced in episode 2.

Eul’s Scepter in the show

Old Eul’s Scepter in Dota 1

Secondly, it’s fan-made. And as with all fan creations, anything’s possible.

For example,

It’s possible for Bloodseeker to be gay with a jungle creep(centaur) and foster a baby centaur.

Bloodseeker X Jungle Centaur in the show

Old Strygwyr in Dota 1

It’s possible for a carry to be so fed, he’s ten times the size of another:

Daddy Doom and his Little QuoP

Love it or hate it, this fan tribute to Dota is in a class of its own. It’s entertained me for hours, made me laugh, sigh, cringe, think; it was one hell of a nostalgic ride back to Warcraft Dota days. And it will always have a special place in my heart.

And now, on to the main characters…

The protagonist - a tribute to Support Heroes

‘Little Ice’ (China’s pet name for Crystal Maiden) is a fan-service kind of character whose appeal is mostly sexual and emotional. I won’t talk much about her but I won’t write her off completely either.

So Little Ice starts off with a dream to rise above her destiny as a position 5 support. She’s left her team carry (Dragon Knight) as she resents him for being overbearing and overly task-oriented. (It’s unclear what’s the relationship between the two, though they hug a couple of times). She tries to carve a career for herself, forming her own rag-tag team. But reality is a wet blanket, and like her role in the game, her impact on the story is limited and she ends up having her heart broken several times.

Old Crystal Maiden from Warcraft 3 Dota

In the show, she is depicted as a klutz with a bad sense of direction and is sometimes impulsive, casting Freezing Field at the most ridiculous, anti-climactic moment and generally doing stuff that would be considered ‘bad decision making’ in the game.

But despite her limitations, the girl has a mind of her own. She stands firm in her beliefs and is courageous enough to try to protect her male teammates. Even when said teammate is the Dragon Knight being bashed up by Roshan.

She is also fiercely loyal, refusing to abandon the dying Bristleback and instead managing to persuade DK to risk a Roshan fight to get the Aegis.

Overall, I’d say her character serves two purposes here: as a shoutout to under-appreciated Support players, and as a symbol of innocence. This trait of hers is seen as a weakness and is used to comical effect, yet, at the same time it is also something to be prized and guarded. The Queen of Pain (portrayed as a man-hater with lesbian tendencies) mocks her several times for her naivety, yet she admits that CM represents the innocence that she’s lost and that she needs to protect.

From Zero to (Anti) Hero

The central character, Kael (pronounced Ka-er, I’ll refer to him as Carl since it matches the Chinese pronunciation) appears in the second episode and drives the entire story with his zero to anti-hero arc. The title of Season Two refers to him being reborn from the ashes (he was Doomed and almost killed in a fire). He is the only one besides QoP to have a backstory (both underwent the trauma of having their entire homeland and families destroyed).

Invoker from Warcraft 3 Dota

Invoker from Season One of the show

Invoker from Season Two

While this Invoker is as OOC as he can get, there’s no denying the detail that has been put into his design. For example, in Season 2 his orbs are actually faces, perhaps representing the connection of Invoker’s volatile temperament to his elemental powers.

Just as the two parts of the show are divided into a dichotomy of light and dark, there are two different depictions of Invoker in each part.

Season One Invoker

If you’ve ever played this hero, Season One will remind you of how it felt the very first time you tried him in a game. Clueless, powerless, the butt of your teammates’ jokes perhaps.

Carl first appears in episode two quoting that famous line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It sounds really pretentious (not that surprising for Carl), but considering that Hamlet killed someone by accident in the play, it’s also a kind of foreshadowing of what will happen later on.

So Carl is introduced as a depressed guy trying to hang himself. In a comically tragic manner, he tells his story as a former prince who lost his home, sought refuge with the Dire/Scourge but is constantly scorned for being useless as he hasn’t figured out his spells.

With a background like that, who wouldn’t be damaged for life? But CM sees him as even more vulnerable than her, and he brings out the encouraging and protective side of her. Of course, the naive part of her ignores the fact that he is a defector from the enemy side.

Carl is of course extremely grateful, having found the acceptance he’s always longed for, and one can see the beginning of a pure, somewhat platonic love between the two.

In China, Invoker/CM are almost regarded as canon pairing, with roots going back to Kael’thas/Jaina from Warcraft.

Initially, she brings out the good qualities in him, such as courage and self-sacrifice. Noob Carl is actually quite lovable, even willing to take one for the team by ‘donating’ blood to the Bloodseeker. He forges a strong friendship with the gang and they have a lot of fun fending off their one enemy in Season One.

Although he’s harmless at this point, his uselessness repeatedly emphasized by all characters, there are glimpses of his more complicated self, such as when he uses his knowledge and cunning to get the team out of trouble. More foreshadowing of who he is to become is given by the Queen of Pain, who tries in vain to warn CM about his potential for evil.

Meteoric Rise to Power

Two events serve as catalysts to the awakening of his powers. First there’s the excessively bloody whipping that Queen of Pain gives him, just because she feels like it. This happens in the middle of a team fight and in his state of desperation, it is his thoughts of CM (whose nickname is literally, Little Ice Ice) that unlocks his first skill, Ghostwalk. At the same time, the sinister side of him awakens as he turns the tables on the Queen and blinds her in one eye before burying her alive.

And then he gets punished by Doom, who’s rather high up in the hierarchy here. Doom (whom everyone calls ‘Daddy’) is furious to find out that his beloved god-daughter, his Little QuoP has been hurt. He finds out about this in an interesting manner - by devouring the jungle centaur that witnessed the incident.

Doom: WHO ATE THE COOKIES?

Tiny, CM, etc: (keeps quiet)

Doom: Very well, I shall find out the truth (devours jungle creep).

(everyone watches on nervously)

Doom: …CARL!

Carl: Yes Daddy?

Doom: How dare you eat my cookies!

Carl: I don’t get what you’re talking about, Daddy

Doom: You’ll get THIS, you little shit.

Season Two Invoker

After being doomed and running into the forest in agony, Carl goes missing for a while. A flashback later shows Dazzle’s saved him and bandaged him up like a mummy. By chance, Windranger finds him when her Powershot arrow accidentally hits him. Probably out of guilt, she brings him home and cares for him for three months. When Ogre Magi harasses WR and sets her house on fire, Carl rises from the ashes with a complete makeover, a costume change, full mastery of magic and a marked change in personality. The change feels really abrupt and I’d have preferred something more gradual. But the writers probably wanted a striking contrast between the two seasons.

So he helps her fend off the Ogre and she falls in love with him. But he stays true to CM.

Despite what this shot in the opening theme suggests, WR doesn’t force herself on him. She’s really cool.

In Season Two, Carl’s personality becomes much more conflicted, longing to return to CM yet afraid to endanger her with Doom hot on his heels. While she thinks about him in her quiet moments, he watches over her in invisible form. The next triggering event is when the Dragon Knight beats him to rushing to CM’s rescue. He is consumed by jealousy and the fire element comes to the forefront. From then on, his emotional instability deteriorates further, and with some goading from Dazzle, he forms a plan to destroy DK with Ancient Apparition’s Ice Blast dealing the killing blow.

However that plan goes tragically wrong when his old friend Bristleback walks into the Sunstrike spot. One mistake leads to another, and he ends up killing QuoP as well. That confrontation between the two is one of the most dramatic scenes I’ve ever seen. When the Queen threatens to reveal his bad deeds to CM, he starts grovelling and begging her for forgiveness, but it turns out it’s all an act allowing him to get close to her for a tornado. Despite the cringeyness there is a special kind of satisfaction in seeing one’s favourite video game character display the whole range of emotions, just as it’s satisfying seeing him perform the whole shebang of spells after being abused for the first ten episodes.

Carl’s final move is one that completely breaks CM’s heart. He steals the Aegis meant for saving Bristleback’s life. However, his motivation isn’t very clear and was the topic of much debate and speculation among the Chinese fans at that time. But going by his character’s trajectory, it’s highly likely he’s doing it for self-preservation. After all, Doom’s absolutely livid that he’s killed QuoP and the Aegis is his only chance at standing against Big Daddy Doom. But the ending leaves questions unanswered. Now that he’s pissed off both sides, what’s to become of him? Is his character totally irredeemable? How will the war end? Season Three was supposed to be in the works, but never materialized. 

[love-little-lotte]

My Top 11 Favorite Outlander Episodes (Seasons 1-3)

Hello! I’m back again with another Outlander post haha. What did you guys think of the latest episode? Wasn’t much of a fan of it (what the hell, Roger?) but I’m kind of looking forward for the next episodes now. 

But that’s not what this post is going to be about. I mentioned from my Outlander Obsession post that I would like to discuss about the cast and characters of Outlander, much like I did with The Handmaid’s Tale before. But then I realized that there are so, so, so many Outlander characters that made an impression and it would be impossible to fit them in one post. So, I decided to make a Top 11 Favorite Outlander episodes. 

These episodes are entirely my favorites. So I don’t care if you agree with me. I’m just sharing to you my fave episodes. You can definitely share your own as well. I also chose episodes from the first three seasons because Season 4 is just starting. Maybe I’ll make another one when Season 4 is done. 

So, shall we begin?

#11: Season 1, Episode 15 - Wentworth Prison

This episode was such a roller coaster, I swear. Since I don’t know anything about Outlander (I just recently started reading the first book, thanks to a suggestion), I was caught off guard when this episode happened. I don’t really have the stomach for torture scenes, so this one almost made me cry. The next episode is more, um, detailed for sure and is more harrowing than this one, but I couldn’t bring myself to rewatch that episode just yet. 

The Wentworth Prison episode, however, is more bearable to watch. I especially love Claire in this episode, since she portrayed a strong modern woman. Jamie rescues her a lot - when she was almost assaulted by Black Jack Randall and the one with the witch trial - and now, we get to see her rescue him. Despite the dangers ahead, she didn’t stay put and she was ready to risk everything.

This also highlighted the acting chops of Caitriona Balfe, Sam Heughan, and Tobias Menzies. They were definitely convincing as their characters, especially Sam and Tobias. I bet this was not an easy episode to shoot (as well as the next one), but hats off to them! 

#10: Season 2, Episode 11 - Vengeance is Mine

Ah, this was such an entertaining episode. I watched this in a public place on my phone while I was eating lunch, and I had to stop myself from screaming when the Duke died. The Duke of Sandringham is one of those characters that you love to hate! And it was such a pleasure to watch him die (most fittingly) in Murtagh’s hands. Mary also got her revenge to the man who raped her, which really ruined her prospects with the love of her life, Alex Randall.

Claire, also once again, became the heroine of the day when she sacrificed herself so that the Redcoats would leave them alone. Thanks to her quick thinking, she was able to save Jamie and the others, and crossed paths once again with Mary, saving her as well. 

#09: Season 3, Episode 1 - The Battle Joined

Finally! All of the events in the first two seasons led up to the historic Battle of Culloden, and it was a delight to see it. Though they only had snippets of it, it was so satisfying to see Jamie finally end Randall’s life. He finally got his revenge! But this triumph is temporary, when Jamie wakes to realize that most of his friends lost their lives in the battle, and that Claire is not there with him. 

Claire, on the other hand, is adjusting to her new life in Boston with Frank. It wasn’t easy, of course, but she was able to make life bearable. She learned to have a new relationship with Frank, even though it was not what they had before. Not only has she to overcome her new relationship with Frank, but also her status as a woman in the 40s, especially since she was regarded as one of the bravest women back in the 18th century Scotland. 

#08: Season 1, Episode 1 - Sassenach 

The episode that started it all. I started watching Outlander because I was bored one Sunday afternoon, but when I watched the first episode, I knew that I came across something special. 

The episode showed a small backstory of Claire in the war and her relationship with Frank, which made us sympathize her character when she time travelled to the 18th century. It also showed us Claire and Jamie’s first meeting with the dislocated shoulder scene! Sparks were definitely flying when they first met, I swear. The title of the episode is also one of my favorite term of endearments Jamie uses for Claire. 

#07: Season 2, Episode 4 - La Dame Blanche 

I have a soft spot for period dramas and dinner episodes haha. Maybe it’s an after-effect of Downton Abbey. 

Other than that scene though, this also introduced us to another villain in the Frasers’ life - Comte St. Germain. That piece of shit tried to poison our favorite feminist icon but being the baddest bitch that she is, she survived. This was also the episode when Claire finally reveals to Jamie that Black Jack Randall is actually alive, and that he will get his revenge. Jamie also got over (more or less) his traumatic experience, and finally has sex with Claire after months. 

#06: Season 2, Episode 13 - Dragonfly in Amber

This episode reduced me to tears! So many goodbyes. So many heartache. My poor heart can’t take it. Though there was a small piece of happiness (Claire is pregnant, again!), it was also the reason why Claire has to go back to her own time for the safety of her unborn child. 

Claire and Jamie’s tearful goodbye were so heartfelt and real, and both Cait and Sam acted so perfectly in that episode. I especially love Jamie’s lines: “Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God, I loved her well” before making love to Claire one last time. In the end, though, we find out that Jamie never really died in the Battle of Culloden and Claire makes up her mind to go back to see him again. 

Oh, and we also get to see Brianna, Claire and Jamie’s daughter. She’s an interesting character, for sure, and I can’t wait to see more of her. 

#05: Season 3, Episode 6 - A. Malcolm 

Yes! The most awaited reunion! After 20 years of being separated from each other, they finally reunite. Even though they’re much, much older than they last met, the passion is still burning and the love they feel for each other is still there.

Aside from the most-awaited love scenes, my favorite scene in this episode is Jamie finally seeing photographs of Brianna. It was such a wonderful moment, that after 20 years of not knowing what happened to his wife and daughter, he is finally aware that the sacrifice he made 20 years ago was worth it. The couple also had a lot to talk about after not seeing for so many years. I watched the whole season 3 in, like, a day so I cannot imagine the agony the fans had to endure while waiting for this episode haha. 

#04: Season 1, Episode 7 - The Wedding 

Ah, of course. You can’t have a Top Favorite Outlander Episodes without including this episode. This episode showed Claire and Jamie’s first kiss (which was weirdly during their wedding lmao) and their first love scene/s (they had sex, like, three times in this episode). 

Like I mentioned in a previous post, I don’t think Claire was in love with Jamie when she married him, but she was obviously drawn to him, and she felt a strong attachment. This was the beginning of an understanding Claire and Jamie shares - may it be physically, or romantically.

Plus, the costumes and setting were breathtaking. Claire’s wedding gown was absolutely charming, as well as the wedding place. It really gave me the 18th century feels. The flashbacks were also nicely put, as it gave more personality to other characters. 

#03: Season 1, Episode 9 - The Reckoning 

Correct me if I’m mistaken, but this was the first episode that Jamie was narrating, instead of Claire. We finally get to hear what he was thinking about the entire time. It was also in this episode where he truly admitted that he was indeed falling in love with Claire.

Claire and Jamie also get their first major fight as a married couple. The whole screaming match they shared was so... entertaining to watch haha. I could watch the two of them bantering the whole day, I swear. And when they forgave each other? Gah, tears me up all the time. 

Though the whole “disciplining the wife” scene was cringey, I guess it was still necessary especially because this was set in the 18th century, and husbands really do that to their wives. Jamie apologized in the end, though, and promised never to do that again and they had the most mind-blowing sex scene in the whole series lmao. 

#02: Season 2, Episode 7 - Faith 

This was one of the saddest episodes, ever. Or probably the saddest one. Claire losing her baby was such a punch to the gut. The whole scene with Claire singing to the baby was also such a heartbreaking moment. Claire is not a stranger to losing family members, since her own parents died when she was really young, but losing a child is something she never even imagined, also probably because she thought she could never conceive. 

The whole scene with the Comte and Raymond was also a nail-biter. The whole thing was directed perfectly and without flaw, and I love seeing the Comte receive his bitter end. Claire is someone you would not like to mess with. 

Caitriona Balfe in this episode was such a force to be reckoned with. Her acting chops were truly highlighted in this episode, and I could definitely feel her pain and anguish. I couldn’t imagine how she handled those feels, because ah, she was so amazing in this one. 

#01: Season 1, Episode 11 - The Devil’s Mark 

This episode is the best, really. The directing, the acting of everyone, the whole thing leading up to the witch trial... ah! Geilles is actually one of my favorite characters, even though she’s a villain. She’s tough and clever, and I have a weakness for female villains because it’s such a breather. Geilles is a very interesting character, for sure.

I’ve already suspected that Geilles was something else, when Claire saw her dance in the woods before, so I wasn’t really surprised when she was also from the future. Lotte Verbeek’s acting was so good, and I couldn’t imagine a better Geilles than her. 

Also, I always believed that this was the episode Claire finally realized that she’s really in love with Jamie. She finally trusts him enough to tell him the truth. And despite all of that, Jamie accepts her and even took her to Craigh na Dun so that she can be together with Frank again. He was ready to give up his happiness, his love for her, so that she could be happy.

But Claire didn’t go through the stones. She decided to stay with Jamie because yes, she’s in love with her. She also told him to bring her home to Lallybroch. It was actually in the next episode where they say “I love you” to each other, but her staying is also a sure sign that she was indeed has serious feelings for him. 

So, there you have it - my Top 11 Favorite Outlander episodes. Most of them are from the first two seasons, because those two are my favorites are more memorable to me. 

This is probably going to be the last lengthy Outlander post I’m going to make, unless there’s something exciting that will happen in the future episodes and I’ll have to rant about it haha. 

[darkzorua100]

Well...that took a completely left turn from what everyone was expecting. Out of nowhere, we are finally going to learn what the deal is up with Emma and Kengo after 13 episodes of waiting since 63′s airing and surprise surprise, they actually are siblings apparently if 77′s title is anything to go by. That theory was there but now that it is all but confirmed at this point, I very much want to know what happened to them that caused to them to be separated. All we know about Kengo’s backstory is his accident and we know nothing about Emma’s backstory at all so they can go about this a number of different ways. Did their parents get divorced when they were little with each of them taking custody of a respective child (Kengo with their mother and Emma with their father), that’s why Emma doesn’t remember having a brother? During Kengo’s flashback, he talked about how his father was absent so that doesn’t seem to far fetched to assume. If Kengo decided he wanted to know more about his father and his mother never gave him the details, he could have went looking for answers himself and discovered a file about Emma and in doing more research about her, found out what had become of her. Knowing Vrains, however, that seems almost to simple though. Maybe Emma got kidnapped herself when she was younger and was raised to become a treasure hunter? Seems a bit unlikely though because if she was kidnapped, I feel like she would have reacted a bit more after finding out about Yusaku’s backstory. Then again, the title for 76 is called “Awakened Memories” and if that title is referring to Emma finding out that Kengo is her brother, she might not even realize she was kidnapped as a child and raised into becoming what she is today. I do see the former being the more likely candidate though but like I said, that almost sees normal for Vrains. No one in this show can have a happy childhood is all I can say and yeah having your parents getting divorced isn’t happy per say but compared to the childhood of the Lost Children, Aoi and Akira, and even Go, that’s normal. It sucks but it happens.

Anyway Ghost Girl vs Blood Shepherd for episodes 76 and 77. Who do I think will win? The thing about this is that Emma needs this win. She lost to Playmaker and Revolver and her only win at the moment is against Brave Max which isn’t saying anything. As for Blood Shepherd, he lost to Playmaker and had a no result against Soulburner that he insisted he would have won if Emma didn’t interfere. The summary for 77 states that whoever loses the duel will also end up losing their account and I’ve seen people so far saying “oh that isn’t a big deal! They can just create a new one!” but can they? We seen people fall into comas from the Another virus and from being absorbed by the Tower of Hanoi, and while this show had made mentions about your account being deleted before, we have never actually seen that yet from a main character’s perspective. We don’t actually know what it means for you if your Link Vrains’ account gets terminated. With how advanced the technology is in Yu-Gi-Oh Vrains, your account really is like an extension of yourself and if you lose that part of yourself, I don’t think you can just get it back by creating a new account if that makes any sense. I mean sure, you can argue that Aoi’s has two Link Vrains’ accounts, one for Blue Angel and another for Blue Girl but the way I see it, it is just to different save files in the same account. A different customization setting that she can switch on the fly. My point is, if Blood Shepherd sets up a program to have the loser’s account deleted, Emma isn’t in a position where she can lose, especially considering she has a more important role to the story then Blood Shepherd does, and just the fact alone that she uses Altergeist, one of the best decks at the moment in the OCG and the TCG. Add in the fact that this is a duel between siblings, and since this show has been leaving Emma in the dark about this whole situation and making it seem that Kengo is the better hacker between the two of them, giving Emma the wins just makes sense to show that she actually is the better sibling between the two since this is what they have been building up towards all this time between these two since the beginning of season 2. That’s just the way I see it anyway. Of course, Blood Shepherd is a manipulative asshole and will do anything it takes to win, look at what he did to Soulburner for example, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he pulls the win out of his ass by cheating, but I’m still placing my bet on Emma/Ghost Girl to pull out the win.

As for everything else we got, wow there is a lot to take in from just two summaries, titles, the cast list for 76, and some screenshots we got for 75. I guess I’ll start with the screenshots for 75. One is of Playmaker and Ai’s reaction to something as well as Earth looking rather pissed about something else (or maybe the same thing who knows). The last three are the ones I find interesting. One is of Go and Akira from what it looks to be before Go took part in those experiments. I figured we were going to be getting a flashback to this during this episode on why Go chose to actually agree to do this. Another is Playmaker and Blue Girl together. Seem that Aoi is actually going to watch this duel instead of just heading after Aqua like I thought she would have. Finally we have one of Queen in what appears to be a scientist outfit, no longer in her bathing suit, so this might be the first time we have actually see her in real life. This is interesting because why are we seeing her in real life? Go and Earth aren’t on 76′s cast list so this is making me wonder if Go actually beats Earth and captured him and Queen is here in real life for her to collect the Earth Ignis? Spectre is still a wildcard in all of this though which lead me into more of 76′s cast list.

WE HAVE TWO NEW NAMES PEOPLE! AND HALLELUJAH, ONE OF THEM MIGHT ACTUALLY BE AQUA’S KID!

I say that now because I looked up our new female character’s name, Miyu, and it can mean “truth” and what is Aqua’s power? Being able to tell the difference between truth and lies. It might just be a weird coincidence but then I saw Ryoken was on the cast list and my god, he actually might be doing what I think he’s going to be doing! We might have a subplot of Ryoken hunting down the remaining Lost Children! YES! I was questioning what Spectre was doing in 75′s cast list but if Ryoken sent him to to try and recruit Earth over to the human’s side, that in turn would prevent Earth from joining Lightning’s side against humanity. Ryoken might actually be trying to hunt the down the kids in order to use them to get their respective Ignis over onto humanity’s side. I don’t know how that’s going to work when he gets to Windy’s kid, if he gets to Windy’s kid that is, but holy crap, I am hyped if this is actually what’s happening right now. Miyu’s mother, another new name (who fun fact is being voice by Carly’s VA from 5Ds (the second one, not the cult one), is just going to end up answering the front door and is going to be so confused when she sees Ryoken standing there. I’m just laughing now thinking about this scenario because my god, this is going to end so badly either because Miyu is going to freak out when Ryoken brings up the Hanoi Project, if she is Aqua’s origin anyway, or Miyu is instantly going to fall in love with him because none of the Lost Children can meet Ryoken one on one without falling in love with him (looking at you, Yusaku and Spectre). Takeru and Jin are kinda on the fence right now since neither of them have met Ryoken one on one but just you all wait, I’m calling this to happen. They have to worship their savior is all I’m saying (yes I am so milking this for all its worth). 

As for everyone else, Soulburner and Flame are still MIA and since we saw them together in the screenshots, it looks like Playmaker and Blue Girl might be heading down into the lower areas in order to help Aqua together. I think when the summary talks about Aoi’s resolve to help Aqua, I think she talking to Playmaker about her doubts about SOL Technology and is telling him that she wants to help him and Soulburner. Will this actually lead anyway who knows. I am hyped though to see where they are going to take all this different plot lines and how they are going to come together in the future.