#if i were less tired i would write an analysis on this episode because it was really fucking cool

[judebilation]

none of my friends listen to me when i talk about malevolent, which is the true tragedy. anyways episode 31 was a thing that happened.

arthur why do you make noises when you wake up.

omg kellin throwback. why the FUCK IS HE HERE.

WHERE IS MY BOY

was the sister always called samantha

we love john in the background trying to wake arthur up

what did we expect from an episode called ‘the nightmare’

ooo are we going to see the butcher again ??? thatd be cool

arthur wdym did you kill your wife. do we get bella lore.

“i cant SEE anything”

oh dear. i could write a full essay on faroe and her role in the development of arthur’s character

graveyards are Not Fun when your wife, your best friend and your child are all dead and 2/3 you had a direct hand in.

mr scratch?? damn okay.

even in dreams, john disapproves of arthurs choices

are we going through all of the trauma this man has. if so, im surprised this episode isnt three times the length.

for antagonists this season we have the butcher, whatever the fuck marie has in her house, larson indirectly and now mr scratch. how fun

i know its still harlan, but harlan-as-john and harlan-as-kellin are so different

we love arthur and all of his self denying internal monologues

the entire episdoe is just arthur’s guilty conscience.

anna stanzyck again? ooooo

AHA FUCK. WE GET BELLA LORE BUT AT WHAT COST. shit. that makes faroes death even worse tbh.

will i relisten to this entire podcast to find more connections?? yes.

i fucking knew that baby would be important.

what do you mean you knew what he looked like. you are blind.

is this some weird form of catharsis?

fucking GOD. literally everyone in this guys life is dead. his parents?? fucking hell.

arthur lester do not make me cry on the 8:47 bus.

:((( dont make me feel sad about kellin again.

AHA ITS THE FUNKY MERCENARY GUY AND HIS LITTLE ACCENT

awwwh they care about each other <3333 they are friends!

if arthur and john get separated again i am going to riot.

there was a poll about this and why arthur and bella were married. ig this is canon

AHA. aromantic headcanon more confirmed by the day.

I CANR LIVE FOR SOMEONE ELSE BUT WHAT ARE YOU DOING RIGHT NOW??? LIVING FOR JOHN???

do we actually know james or did i just forget him

so this is why he feels guilty over bella’s death.

shit shit shit shit shit

god FUCKING damnit harlan why must you hurt us so.

parallels between arthur not knowing about faroe at first when she was born, and then not knowing where she was when she died. i may make a post on this.

okay i want to see how scratch ties into marie.

i hate larsons srupid fucking accent

do i have to make fanart of arthur and faroe at the park now. it feels obligatory.

those were the happiest days of your life and then she died and it was your fault and after that you wanted to kill yourself and oh my god im sobbing

yeah fuck you, scratch.

its so disconcerting that scratch sounds like john

the eldritch figure will in fact, stab you.

i think jts funny that the voices in arthurs head always narrate when arthur gets stabbed. like. i think he may realise that he has been stabbed.

WAIT SHIT I SWEAR IF THIS RELATES TO THE GUY ARTHUR KILLED AND ATE IN THE PITS

aha this is Not Good. Not Good At All.

she is free?? who is she??? wha

OMG BOY!!! :DDD

AHA SHIT FUCK GODDAMN IT THIS CANNOT BE GOOD.

FUCKING HELL. WHAT THE FUCK.

shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit

FUCKING HELL

this is very very bad.

yeah well. mans can never get a break. ever. what did we expect.

is this the song kellin was singing. maybe.

[inkblackorchid]

What the hell happened with Crow: an autopsy (Part 1)

*deep breath* Hiiiiiiii.

After sitting on this for ages, I finally decided to make the Crow post. And because this ended up getting stupidly long, I decided to turn this into part one of two, maybe three, we'll see (which I honestly should have done with the Aki posts too, but oh well). So let me quickly make it clear what I'm about here: This analysis is not meant to convince people who hate Crow to change their mind. It is also not meant to dissuade people who love Crow from doing so. Instead, I wanna look at how Crow was handled during the show (up until the end of the DS arc for now, I'll dive into the rest later) and give my own take on why he developed the way he did and turned into such a polarising character. Also, disclaimer, despite the fact that I'll be making an effort to analyse things objectively, I am a mere human and obviously not the one and only expert on all things 5Ds. My only claim to knowledge here is that I've watched 5Ds several times now, love the show and its characters deeply, and like to think I have a decent amount of media literacy. Also, I take no responsibility for the length of this post. Despite me splitting things up, it's stupidly, exhaustingly long. Like, very, very long. So. Let's hop to it, shall we?

Before I get into the meat of things, there's one more thing I would like to get out of the way: I know plenty of people, even now, so long after the show ended, would answer the question of "what happened with Crow, anyway" with something along the lines of "well Blackwings got so popular" or "well Aki's VA got pregnant so Crow stole her spotlight" and I need to burst some people's bubbles here because no. Neither of these things are true. Nor is the infamous "well Crow was meant to be the main villain", actually! And I could go into all of that here, but that would be a whole post of its own for each topic, and luckily, someone else has already done all of that work. I direct you to two posts over on Reddit from @mbg159, who did an absurd amount of digging to comprehensively disprove two of the 5Ds fandom's favourite scapegoat theories:

No, Crow was not meant to be a dark signer, and most certainly not the boss of the dark signers.

No, Aki being sidelined and suddenly having less presence in the narrative than him was not because her VA got pregnant.

I really don't want this to come off as an "assigned reading"-thing, but it is so, so important to keep these things in mind when looking at Crow, and honestly? I'm just tired of these rumours at this point. It's been 12 years since the show ended, we don't need to keep believing this nonsense. And the posts linked above aren't crackpot theories or anything of the sort—they provide sources all over and all of the links still work. If you still can't be bothered to read them (they are long, yes), then at least take away this tl;dr: Crow allegedly having been planned as a villain doesn't work because there is no evidence that supports it, and both his spike in screentime being caused by the Blackwings' popularity and him "taking Aki's spot" because her VA got pregnant make zero sense because they simply don't match up with the production timeline of the show. It is literally impossible for either of these things to be true. (And believe me, I am as mad as anyone that Aki got shafted, maybe even madder than the average fan, but if it doesn't add up, it simply doesn't add up and there were no regrettable outside influences, someone just actively made shitty writing decisions and that's that.) So please. It has been 12 years. Forget this stuff. Ditch it. Let it die. Because I'm not here to spin conspiracy theories, I'm here to analyse the writing of the show as best I'm able. Okay? Okay.

Now, for the good part. Shall we start with some facts? Let's start with some facts.

Crow is introduced to the audience in episode 30, shortly after the dark signers arc kicks off. And considering that he later ends up as one of the main characters, arguably even the third most important character in the show after Yusei and Jack, this immediately stands out. For reference, the rest of the signer group is introduced within the first 14 episodes of the show. Even Aki, who is the last signer to be introduced, takes less than half the number of episodes Crow does to finally make her debut. And I don't think you could blame anyone for finding this weird. 30 episodes, even in a show with a relatively short episode length like 5Ds, is an absurd amount of time for a protagonist to get introduced. As for how he's introduced to us...

We get the gist of his character pretty quickly. He's a daredevil, he's used to flipping sector security the bird (pun not intended), he's got a soft spot for kids, and he knows Yusei well—well enough for the two of them to tag-duel some security officers almost immediately after not seeing each other for an undefined amount of time, which, if you know anything about yugioh, says it all.

(Pictured: two lads getting up to Shenanigans.)

There is history there. These two know each other's decks. They know how each the other plays. They can work together immediately and seamlessly. This is a big deal. Aaaaannd... It immediately begs some questions: If this guy knows Yusei so well, and they are really close friends, why the hell is he only showing up now? Why wasn't he helping Yusei put together his duel runner? Why didn't he help him stick it to sector security at the start? Why weren't they in contact?

The thing is, the show never really answers any of that. At least not properly. We can only read between the lines as to why Crow wasn't with Yusei from the start. (At least in-universe. Irl, it's easy enough to guess that Crow was not there at the start of the show because the writers at first didn't think they'd be putting this side character Takahashi originally came up with into the show.) Which brings me to the Enforcers. (Side note: As a sub watcher, I know the Japanese name is Team Satisfaction and I know Kiryu's catchphrase works a million times better with that name, but "Team Satisfaction" will always sound like a boyband name to me and I like to mix and match the sub and dub names based on what I like better on an individual basis anyway, please bear with me.) And before I properly open that can of worms, I feel the need to point something out: After Crow made his debut in episode 30 and got the opportunity to show off his duelling a bit during episodes 30-31, we are immediately introduced to Kiryu/Kalin at the end of episode 32. What this means for Crow is that he has zero backstory at this point and his character had zero time to settle. His only tie to the main story, as far as the audience is concerned, is that he's Yusei's friend from however long ago, and aside from that, he's only got two other things going to endear him to viewers: 1. he stands up to sector security (whom the first season did a pretty good job of establishing as pigs) and 2. he cares for abandoned children. He gets a "Save the Cat" moment and a tie to the main character, and that's it. Just to put that into perspective, we know the most important points of all the other signers' backstories by that point. Jack and Yusei's deal is made obvious to us within the first five episodes; the twins, though the narrative largely only spares them breadcrumbs, anyway, at least have that bit about Ruka/Luna having been in a coma at one point and having a connection to the spirit world shown during episodes 18-19; and though it once again takes Aki the longest to reveal what she's all about, we at least have a good idea of why she is the way she is by episode 24, and we get the icing on the cake of her traumatic past during the narratively excellent duel in episodes 40-41 (no, I will never shut up about how much I love this duel). Plus, she arguably has the most complicated backstory, so it's no surprise that it takes longer to reveal. But here's where the Enforcers come in again.

(And here we see the arguably most deranged rat bastard of a man (affectionate) in the entire show. But hey, at least he has an exquisite sense for dramatics.)

As far as backstory for Crow is concerned, the Enforcers drama initially revealed during episodes 33-35 is as much as we get for him after his introduction. His later duel with dark signer!Bommer/Greiger during episodes 51-53 offers a bit more, but more on that later. First, I want to preface this by saying that I don't think it was a coincidence that Crow and Kiryu/Kalin were introduced so shortly after one another. Because at this point in the story, I think Crow's main role is to add a counterweight to Kiryu/Kalin. To Crow, whatever happened with the Enforcers was evidently not enough to break the friendship between him and Yusei—they're still close and get along well. And then we have Kiryu/Kalin—for him, whatever happened with the Enforcers was a big deal and he's more than a little resentful about it, to the point of wanting to murder Yusei in revenge. (It is also noteworthy that this is the first thing that ever calls Yusei's character into question, because here is a guy who evidently knew him well once and absolutely loathes him, and it's clearly not because of his Satellite upbringing, his marker, or any of the stuff the other antagonists up until this point hated him for. Yusei fucked something up here. Big time. But let's not get sidetracked.) So, what does the Enforcer drama tell us about Crow, anyway? Frankly, not much. We learn two things: One, same as Yusei and Jack, Crow was all for the "liberating Satellite"-thing at first. Two (and this one's way spicier), unlike Yusei, he had the guts to ditch Kiryu/Kalin when it became clear he was willing to go too far. He was even the first to do it. (And I'd argue that if Crow hadn't walked away, Jack wouldn't have, either, but the relationship between these two is a whole other funky can of worms.)

(I love how Yusei grabs him like a naughty cat every time Crow gets worked up.)

The thing is, I wish I could say this tells us something integral to Crow's character, but looking at the rest of the show... it kind of doesn't. Implicitly, it shows us that he draws the line somewhere, and where people he loves doing absolutely insane things is concerned, he does it sooner than Yusei. It's just that this is never brought up again. And as far as his introduction is concerned, this, the first dark signer!Kiryu/Kalin duel, and him rushing to get Yusei to Martha's on his runner is the last we see of Crow for a while.

(For the love of all that's good and holy, why on earth did he deposit Yusei on his runner like that, shrapnel-stab-wound-side down?? Did he pull out the biggest piece of shrapnel before doing this? How did Yusei's legs not drag on the asphalt? Why did nobody think to tie something around his stomach to slow down the bleeding? Ok I need to calm down I'm overthinking this)

After this bit, the signers are pulled centre stage for a while—which was to be expected, for one, and also seems like the right call, writing-wise. After all, they're the ones the audience expects to save the day. As far as viewers are concerned at this point, Crow is just Some Dude who happens to be good friends with Yusei. We've had characters like this before. Hell, the opening episode of 5Ds introduced us to a whole four of them, and for all we know, Crow could have a first been intended to be precisely that, just another Satellite side character, who just so happens to have ties to the Enforcers-debacle that the others don't.

However. Where the writing for Crow as a character, especially considering where he ends up later, is concerned, this looks like less of a smart move. Because the "set-up" (if you can even call it that) to make Crow a protagonist later is... shaky, to say the least. And I'll be frank with you, I'm pretty sure this is because Crow was intended to be neither a dark signer nor a signer (which the Reddit post about him I linked above also proposes). In other words, it was never meant to be set-up in the first place. Considering how the show developed and turned him into a protagonist later, though, I can't help but wonder how Crow could have been written differently to make him actually slot in well with the rest of the signers without stepping on many people's toes. But before we dive into hypotheticals, let's continue looking at what they did with him first.

We see him between episodes 30 and 35, and then he briefly poofs out of existence until episodes 43-44 where he... mistakes Yaeger/Lazar for a dark signer and has a duel with no outcome against him, which only barely serves to keep him relevant.

(The face of a dark mastermind, servant of an ancient, immeasurable evil. Truly.)

Though him outmanoeuvring the vice director despite all the data he has on him shows him to be a cunning duellist, it feels a bit like a throwaway episode, like the show saying "oh yeah wait don't forget that this guy's also there". Crow exists in the narrative—and gets to duel, which sets him apart from Yusei's other Satellite friends—but he does nothing to advance the plot, despite getting whole episode segments dedicated solely to what he's currently getting up to. He's just kind of there, and it doesn't help to set up any of what comes later, except the idea that he can and will fight a dark signer if he finds one, maybe. But the thing is, Crow vanishes after this duel. Literally.

(Run, bird boy, run! Or, uh... drive?)

And look. The way this moment looks? With the black fog literally catching back up to Crow on-screen? And with what he says, swearing that he won't die here, which is strikingly similar to how the other dark signers refused to die, swearing themselves to revenge instead? I get why people thought this would be the moment Crow died and turned into a dark signer himself. But the thing is, even without all the hints pointing to Goodwin instead of him from the start (Goodwin speaks about being willing to sacrifice Satellite within the first ten episodes, the condor is literally on his shirt, ffs, and the corresponding geoglyph is shown in the background when he talks about the Nazca Lines, I am not making this up), Crow becoming a dark signer makes zero sense because it doesn't fit his character. He has no motivation to become a dark signer, because the dark signers ultimately aim to destroy Satellite. And even with what little the audience knows about Crow at this point, it is crystal clear that Crow would never destroy Satellite, not to speak of sacrificing the children he cares for to summon an Earthbound Immortal. It simply doesn't work, because his character doesn't work like that. Crow is deeply protective of Satellite—as his devotion to making it better during the Enforcer days shows—and he is even more fiercely protective of the kids he takes care of. Destroying either or both to turn the world into a literal hellscape instead goes against everything we've seen him say and do up until this point.

However, this is where we have to address the refrigerator in the room.

(Ah yes. The fridge for Crow. The fridge for Crow that was there from the start. The fridge that Crow totally had the time to curl up and hide inside of. The fridge specifically for Crow. Crow's fridge.)

Every time I watch this moment, I don't know whether to laugh like a maniac or heave the biggest sigh of my life. Even when you're being extremely generous with the show and its writing, there is no getting around the fact that this is as though someone wrote DEUS EX MACHINA all across the screen in bold, red letters. And again, I get why people thought this was the moment where the writers decided to do a 180 and turn Crow into a good guy instead of a dark signer due to the popularity of his cards or whatever. The production timeline still doesn't add up, but I get it. And cards or no cards, you can tell that someone made an out-of-left-field decision in Crow's writing for this moment to exist, because the way things were going for him before, purely based on visual evidence, it looked more like he was going to be another victim of the ominous black fog here, for someone (presumably Yusei) to have an angsty moment about later. (Or, hell, perhaps somewhere around this point, they decided that the final boss duel against Rex Goodwin would be a 3v1 turbo duel, which Aki, despite being a kickass duellist, categorically couldn't participate in because she doesn't have a license at this point! It could have been as simple as that.) To contextualise this, between Crow vanishing and him reappearing here, 7 whole episodes pass. He vanishes in episode 44 and reappears in episode 51. His saving grace is that all the duels in between canonically take place within the same night, which is why it's technically not unrealistic for him to be stuck in a fridge for a few hours. Technically. Ok, but what does he reappear for? Well, to have his very own dark signer duel, of course.

(Not pictured: Bommer's hilariously large runner.)

This is the first time we get to see Crow actively contributing to the larger plot, and in light of where he ends up later, I think this duel does a world of good for him. Firstly, it offers us more backstory (though still less than for the other signers), establishing why Crow's so attached to his orphans, why he's so close to Yusei, and throwing in tidbits like how he learned to read from duel monsters cards. It's "Save the Cat" moments all over, and it also does two other things well: For one, this is the only dark signer duel we get where both parties technically have the exact same goal—revenge. Bommer wants to avenge his hometown, Crow his kids. This duel, more than anything else, shows us that Crow could have become a dark signer—in a world where doing so didn't also mean destroying Satellite and killing his kids. Plus, it's the only duel against a dark signer we get that is fought and won by someone who, at this point, is not a signer. And this is especially important to me because it supports themes the show already began establishing with Rudger/Roman Goodwin and continues much later with Team Ragnarok and the likes: Fate is bullshit, the future is not set in stone, it is determined by what we do here and now and we have to fight to make it better. Therefore, contrary to what "fate" would dictate, Bommer/Greiger is not beaten by a signer. He's beaten by Crow. This is an extremely solid bit of writing that 100% supports the show's themes. (Arguably, this duel might have been even more solid if Crow hadn't actually turned into a signer, because him as a non-signer who stayed a non-signer would have been an even bigger "fuck you" to fate than him becoming the replacement fifth signer later.)

And, well, we know where Crow ends up after that. Seeing as he's been freed from fridge-prison and seeing as Aki doesn't have a runner yet, but the final boss duel is set up as a turbo duel, he joins the fray next to Yusei and Jack to fight Rex Goodwin. And the only thing this duel does for Crow character-wise is bring the whole Daedalus Bridge story full circle.

Which. Let me swing back to that for a second and put on my extra big nerd glasses because wouldn't you know it, I'm a greek mythology nerd and when I hear the name "Daedalus", I perk up like a dog that just spotted a piece of ham.

(Pictured: The least OSHA compliant bridge in the world, probably.)

So. As not to derail this with greek mythology, the short version of the Daedalus myth, as far as it's relevant here, for people who don't know it: Daedalus was a famed architect of Crete, who (among other things) built the labyrinth that kept the Minotaur imprisoned. What he also built was a pair of functional, sort-of mechanical wings held together by wax (because he needed to make a quick getaway at some point, but let's not go there). And he had a son: Icarus. Who famously donned the wings his father built and flew too close to the sun, which made the wax holding the wings together melt, causing him to fall into the sea and die, leaving his father to grieve.

I don't think it's hard to see how the Daedalus-Icarus story connects to the bridge. The Daedalus bridge is named after the genius inventor, reaches into the sky towards the sun, and our mechanical wings in this case are the wings attached first to Rex Goodwin's duel runner and then, you guessed it, the Blackbird. This would lead us to liken Rex Goodwin, of all people, to Icarus, then. And I'd argue the comparison works, too. See, the reason for which Goodwin actually built the bridge at first is left completely up in the air. We know that Crow believes a version wherein the "legendary duellist" wanted to build that bridge to reunite Satellite and the city—and the thing is, for all we know, that might be true. Goodwin never contradicts it, he only claims he was doing it to "oppose destiny" (read: follow Rudger/Roman's plan to take his brother's mark, assemble the signers and fight and win against the dark signers instead of having someone bear both a dark signer and a signer mark on themselves).

(Since when does becoming a dark signer make people swole, anyway? Where was that beef when Kiryu became a dark signer?)

Perhaps along the way, he thought he might as well reunite Satellite with the city, since things were already going to hell there. (Before he became director, which I find very interesting. Did the city decide immediately after the explosion that Satellite was contaminated and needed to be isolated or some such? Were efforts made to reunite city people with their relatives who might now have been stranded in Satellite? Did MIDS, hoping to cover up their mistake, lobby for cutting the Satellite off from the city? Was corruption involved? So many questions...) Or perhaps he simply built the bridge for himself, to get back to civilisation in order to follow his brother's plan and everyone else just interpreted it differently. It matters little—the only thing that matters is how Crow sees it. To him, building the bridge was obviously an attempt to reach the city, despite how hopeless things in Satellite seemed, and Goodwin's final ditch effort to jump off the bridge and "fly" on his duel runner was an act of defiance that turned him into a legend. Most importantly, both these things connect to freedom for Crow. Freedom from the misery in Satellite, freedom from sector security, and arguably, freedom from destiny. But then Goodwin tells him that all building the Daedalus Bridge and jumping off it did for him was teach him that destiny is inevitable. And Crow calls bullshit, because of course he does.

And I'd argue this is even more of a reason why Goodwin works as Icarus: He jumped off the bridge (flew too close to the sun), fell and lost his arm (the wax melted and he crashed into the sea), and ultimately, that fall completely changed his outlook on life and turned him from a (possible) hero into a villain (he "died", metaphorically speaking). This led to him now confronting every hopeful, younger person with the outlook that fate cannot be altered unless you're willing to sacrifice your very humanity itself. And there's Crow, a non-signer partaking in a "destined battle" only signers are supposed to be part of, calling bullshit on all of that merely by breathing.

(Bird boy is angry, watch out)

This moment could have been exemplary to emphasising the show's later themes (and I think to those who love Crow, it is), yet, at the same time, I understand why some people think the writers fumbled the ball with his introduction and role in the plot and cast of characters too much for it to hit as well as it could have. There is also the argument to be considered that the whole Daedalus Bridge-thing, though it might thematically fit Satellite, feels like it could have been written in solely to prop up Crow's character and give him something to clash with Goodwin about. Which, you know. I can't refute that, really. It might have been. And the timeline on Goodwin's shenanigans as the legendary duellist is a bit wonky, too, unfortunately—after all, we know only that the Zero Reverse happened 17 years before the show's start, when Yusei is only a year old. Crow's story would then lead us to believe that Goodwin, after somehow surviving that explosion, stayed in Satellite long enough to see it start turning into a floating heap of junk. (Which means this either happened very quickly or it took him a good few years to start building the bridge; both options have some logisitical issues.) Then he builds the bridge, gets cornered by security, jumps off, and... Then what? He looses his arm (but somehow manages to hold onto his brother's??), somehow makes it over to the city anyway (wow, he must be a great swimmer), then... manages to get hired by the public maintenance bureau somehow, only to climb the ranks at record speed and become director within only a few years? (Or did he meet Iliaster first and they somehow helped him climb to the city's political top?) It's all rather nebulous, and does suggest that Goodwin was not originally written with this bit as part of his backstory in mind. But can I prove that? Nope. Might also just be another instance of the writers fumbling the ball, despite having a solid story outline.

At the end of the day, Crow closes out the dark signers arc by establishing himself as a part of our team of heroes—which is, of course, strongly emphasised by him receiving the dragon's tail mark, while the dragon's head switches over to Yusei.

(The Crimson Dragon, probably: Oh, sod it. Fine, the other guy went batshit and you actually helped. Here's your mark. I'll get you a dragon later or whatever.)

Now, I know this in and of itself was already a polarising moment for people—and the funny thing is, I know that even some people who like Crow hated this moment. And I can see why. Crow's whole thing during the latter half of the DS arc up until here was that he was the only one taking part in the destined battle who was decidedly not destined to be a part of it. He was repeatedly spitting in fate's face, and as I mentioned, this could have been brilliant to throw some weight behind themes the show later brings up again. So in terms of character writing, this moment might have undermined Crow's character, rather than supported it, because it feels like less of a reward and more of a "gotcha": If you're extra uncharitable, Crow suddenly isn't the guy who defied fate and fought for the future (does that ring a bell?) anyway, he's the guy who was supposed to become a chosen one anyway and, like Yusei during the start of the Fortune Cup, simply didn't have a visible mark yet. However. There is also the bigger picture to consider. Character writing aside, Rudger/Roman Goodwin dying would have had a rather sizeable impact on the story, had nobody else become a signer in his stead—because there are supposed to be five signers and Rudger/Roman dying would have seen the group short one chosen one (and short one dragon, but we'll get to THAT can of worms in part two). So, to add my two cents for a minute, I don't think adding a new signer was a bad idea, per se. The execution of this move, however...

And I can hear you yelling. "Rua/Leo should have become a signer instead". And yes. I get that, too. And yes, I know Life Stream Dragon was teased before Black-Winged Dragon was ever conceived of, probably. So yes, Rua/Leo should have become a signer earlier. The question is just where. Because the way this final boss duel is set up, nobody could become an additional signer before this point, it would have turned Rex Goodwin's whole shindig on its head. (Even though the duel against Dimak/Devack could have been a good opportunity to reward Rua with a signer mark early.) Arguably, making Rua a signer instead but letting Crow join the main cast anyway could have made for a stronger showing overall. It would have made the twins harder to sideline the way they were later. And it would have kept Crow's "piss on fate"-theme.

But. This is what we got. Crow got a fast-paced introduction, was quickly made as likeable as possible, had an unfortunate stretch of episodes where he vanished very suspiciously (what I wouldn't give to know what decisions were made among the writers in that period), came back to make a very strong showing against Bommer/Greiger and then participate in the final boss duel against Rex Goodwin, where he got to shove his fate-nonsense back in his face, too. A smooth character arc? Hardly. And with everything laid out like this, I get why he rubbed some people the wrong way. Similarly, I get why he's some people's absolute favourite, though. Both sides have a basis in canon. (But please, let's not justify either with decade-old production conspiracy theories, okay?)

To close this out, allow me to do my thing for a moment and imagine a 5Ds canon where Crow was handled in a way that allowed his character to shine more, and maybe not piss as many people off.

Imagine a Crow who was there with Yusei from the start, alongside Nerve, Blitz, Taka, and Rally. A Crow who was, maybe, angrier at Jack for leaving and stealing Stardust than Yusei was, and who was determined to help his friend get his dragon back. A Crow who still had his kids to look after, and who introduced us to the Daedalus Bridge legend way earlier, to establish it as an organic part of Satellite culture, and who maybe drops hints about the Enforcers earlier, too. And we switch back to him every once in a while as the Fortune Cup is going on. Maybe he's the only one who's slippery enough to outrun Yaeger/Lazar's people when they come to capture Yusei's friends in order to use them as blackmail against him. And he starts looking for them, and runs into Saiga/Blister, and learns what's going on over in the city. Maybe he tries to follow Yusei because all of it rings alarm bells for him, maybe he doesn't because he figures security will be too tight now that Yusei has escaped. Instead of them stumbling out of a container to find TV conveniently playing the Fortune Cup Finale, Yusei's friends are found by Crow, who gets them back to the hideout, where they all catch the finale with Saiga/Blister. (Optional: If we want him to stay a signer, maybe he gets a weird feeling while watching the finale.) Then Yusei's suddenly back and Kiryu/Kalin's introduction proceeds as we know it. Yusei's injured, but Crow sticks around for a little longer, leaving only once he knows Yusei's gonna be fine. Then he decides that he needs to take up arms against the dark signers, too, because like hell is he gonna let anyone destroy Satellite and sacrifice his kids. He can still duel Yeager/Lazar while Aki and Yusei are duking it out in the hospital and the signers learn what the hell being a signer means, it matters little. Maybe this time, he outruns the black fog—barely—and there's no fridge. And he realises that stuff makes people vanish. While the signers start their big battle, he races back to check on the kids and finds the same disaster we already know, and everything else from there on out proceeds as previously. (Except that maybe, the first time Crow sees Jack again, he has some choice words for him for legging it to the city and stealing from Yusei.) Whether he turns into a signer at the end or not is up to preference, I think.

Nobody has to be on board with this version, but this is probably how I would have adjusted it to make things less jarring.

For now, see you in part two.

[cato616]

NEGOTIATING OVER US (part eight)

roman roy x fem! reader

notee: I can't believe I only started to write here last week and im already writing part eight (I know tho that they're not pretty long, but :')))

summary: roman takes you back to your place, and since you're pretty drunk, you let out some truth that may unite you more, or even less. We'll have to see

content/warning: hungover?, still a lot of fluff and angst but no +18 in this episode,, be patient :'(

Roman opens the door of your flat for you, while you rest your body hanging your arm over his shoulder. You had sleepy eyes from all the alcohol, everything was still pretty blurry, meaning, you were most likely to bump into everything in your way, but that's where roman was to help you. "Okay careful, sit just right here." He quietly directs your path all the way to the couch, very gently. You were sitting on the couch, definitely not feeling good, it was not a good look. Eyes closed and head down, pretty normal you would think when drinking, but doesn't make it better. Roman was standing in front of you, looking down at you, analysis the whole situation. Your body starts slowly falling down to the right, by then rapidly getting yourself laying on the couch, with both feet still standing on the floor, not very comfortable.

Roman quickly acts and grabs your head and shoulder to lift you up on a slow motion. He knows it was better for you to get some sleep, but he'd thought it would be more comfortable if you were on your bed. So that's when he decides to make you stand up and walk you to your bedroom, he would have your arm hang over his shoulder once again, by then guiding you over your bed, sitting you down. You had never see him like this before, more like you would never thought he would be like this with anyone. Gently puts your head over the pillow and lifts up both your legs on top of the bed. He did also stood right next by your bed, analysis you one more time, so he could leave you alone at last. He squats next to you, "Okay uhh... I won't bother any longer, hope you sleep well by the way." He whispers into near you; you hear him, although it looked like you were sleeping since you had your eyes closed, but you did hear him.

He then get up to make his way to the door; right at the second he put a foot in front of the other, you stopped him from walking any further, by grabbing his arm very strongly. "You can stay." You replied softly, still on hold of his arms as strong as you could, knowing that the alcohol you've drank, had made you weaker, obviously, but you grabbed that arm like life depended on it, however, for you, it kind of did.

Roman froze for a second after your suggestion. "are you sure?... I don't think you actually want me here, it's best if I go." He would let go of you, and when almost getting out of the room, with much effort you tried to lift yourself up from the bed, tho you stayed sat, to make him stop him from leaving again and again. You felt like you couldn't be in your room alone like that ever again. "don't you dare roman." You spoke as hard as you could. "I want you here, I always wanted you here." You stated. "Even that day, when I was in the shower..." You both went silent. "Okay maybe that was a bit of much information." immediately regretted speaking about that. "but if you want the truth, that's that." Roman stayed put, he didn't leave just yet, but was having doubts, he definitely wanted to stay tho, that's for sure, but you needed to give him something more, to convince him. "why on earth do you think I went to the party?." You asked on a loud note, tired he haven't decided to stay just yet, and it's making you uneasy. "um because you felt pity." He smirked feeling bold about his answer. "oh no I have to go to the dipshit's party but I don't know how cope with that idiot, I have an idea, let's drink!" He tried to mimic you with a silly voice. The feeling of rage was what came out of you after his mock. You were so pissed off that you didn't even notice you didn't fall to the ground out of dizziness when you got up from the bed to talk to him up close. "oh my god, do you really think that?."

"All I wanted was to talk, if you could imagine that, but of course you can't, I'm just a half hearted that doesn't have any feelings, and obviously you drank the whole bar to make the night easy for you, and avoid the dumbass, me." You couldn't even try to believe what he deduced. You didn't know if you should feel sad how he would picture himself like that, or be more frustrated with his stubborn ass. "you're making my head hurt, you really are." Unnerved as you were, massaging your front head with both of your hands, trying to think straight. You sat back on the bed, going easy on yourself. "Roman, I may understand why you can't trust me, but I am saying the truth, I was stupid when I got mean like that the other night, but even after you left my apartment that day, I got so, so miserable, you have no idea." You had enough of speaking for yourself, putting your hands over your whole face, out of exhaustion. "so, if I say that I want you here, it's because I do, I need you to." You affirmed, still covering up your face.

After that, roman was more than convinced, he slowly came down to you. You take your hands off your face to then look up at him, he was standing very dominant; however, he sat right next to you, and started gazing at your eyes. "yeah I think so too, I should stay." He spoke without taking his eyes off of you; you laugh a bit. "I don't think you said you wanted to stay." You corrected him of what you think it was just a response in the heat of the moment. "I did think about it, but didn't say it." took advantage of now correcting your saying.

Your faces weren't far from each other, you wanted him whole. Although, there was something weird about him, at first he was looking into your eyes, but slowly started to drift off, he was smirking but in a despairing way. "what... what's going on?" Didn't expect he would react like again, in a middle of an act. "This is, um, not very... should- should we maybe see each other another time? it's late and you're definitely still drunk." As he says that, he stood up from the bed, wanting to leave the place once more. You didn't move, completely mystified by his behavior. "what? hold on, what happened? why the sudden change of moods? and I'm fine thank you... I think it's actually wearing off." You stared at him, waiting for an answer. "uuh okay, um well." He was accommodating himself back on the bed, seems like he wants to reveal something, as you stayed on your place, still staring at him, while confusion grew wilder; you smirked at him, thinking he might confess something stupid, one of his shows; 'your mother and I had lovely sex' or something disgusting like that, the usual roman stuff, but, he had more of an sombre expression on his face, maybe no jokey this time.

"what, roman what is it?" You felt nervous what he might say. "so, perhaps this matter won't be a huge deal, and im making myself anxious in vain, but, maybe it will, I don't know, there's just some details I wanted to share, that possibly you would want to know?" oh he's serious; you think for yourself, while you stand back a little bit and full on look at his eyes, trying to see whether he's about to joke or not, you deducted that he wasn't, and so that smile faded. "oh... so, do tell?" Very curious to hear what he was about to announce. "this is about your coffee shop?" You instantly replied back, very worried what he might tell. "wha-what happened to my shop?" The whole vibe was changed in the room, from melodrama to business, you supposed. "I want to talk about something of the deal you- we know about, and some info that you might wanna know... that I didn't tell you before, but because I couldn't, however I do want to, now" He scratched his head and pinched his right ear, very much anxious, making his way to find the words. "the café it wasn't the only deal we had to take, well of course we didn't end it with yours, but the others... they are from the same block as your café" He slows down trying to collect himself, thinking what to say. "I mean, maybe you were hoping what would happen if you were happen to sell it" He kept on making pauses "And the whole thing is, we are taking a few buildings down, to make just the one, a new building for a new product deal you could say..." He doesn't looks at you yet, but not because he was worried for a response, he was hiding something else. "I mean, I suppose I thought they would've taken down my shop, that's why I don't want and won't sell it rome-" He interrupts. "that's the thing, that yeah I suppose that it may not play out like that?" He shrugged. "what do you mean it won't play out like that, wha-what's that." You started to get defensive. "The other owners had already agreed as I told you, and that kind of construction, as it's already planned... it might have no other option but to destroy your shop too, since it's the only way to do it... I don't know you'd have to ask some engineer or architect guy here to explain it, but that's all I know."

The tears that were building up, were boiling with rage. but no action was coming out of you, if you could hit, punch or even slap the hell out of roman, you would, but you couldn't. Mind blank, body moveless.

The only thing that could go through your mind, was memories, of the shop, nothing more, you could only think about her.

[flashback] (only dialogue)

There's a younger version of you, from a few years back, right outside of your coffee shop, not even open, yet to be inaugurated. And right next to you, Kate. Your dear best friend.

kate: "look how far we've come y/n, our dreams have come true."

you: "opening day is tomorrow but oh, how much I would like to grab those scissors now and barge right in"

kate: (she chuckles) "I know, me too." "but we did it, let's appreciate that today, since, tomorrow we start working"

(you both laugh)

kate: but seriously, this is big y/n, our new piece of the world and it will be ours and ours only, we'll make people happy here, I just know this one, will be special, and no one can stop it from make it happen."

kate: "we made it."

[end of flashback]

You stood up, didn't even look over roman; walked towards your window in front of you, you were feeling sorrow. Out the window, you looked up to the sky, wondering where she might be; made you even more vulnerable, your legs felt weak, making you fall on your knees, closed your eyes, and slowly shaking your head. "I couldn't do it, I couldn't." you whisper to yourself, as you grab your stomach firmly, and bent your head down, not opening your eyes. "hey hey, talk to me, y/n I'm really sorry, but hey look at-" You didn't think twice and suddenly decided to hug Roman; you didn't care whatever doing he had with your shop, you knew that you didn't want to be lonely anymore, and roman was the only one you needed unfortunately given the circumstances.

"I don't, understand... I thought you'd hate my guts." seemed utterly surprised. "I don't know if I do anymore." You wipe out the tears running down your cheeks. "is that why... you came to the shop so many times to convince me to sell it?." You were starting to connect some dots, clearing your head a little bit. "I did, yes, and if you were never to sell it, soon enough you were going to get kicked out, with a warrant, but without you knowing about it obviously..." You were both sitting on the ground viewing the city from your window. "so you knew, I did get that, but wow." Roman had already mentioned about it, but you had to still process it, even if you didn't hate him. Roman was still ashamed, looking only to the ground when talking. "at first, it was nothing but business, and shit I know I was the 'roman piece of shit' back on those days, and I guess I didn't, or even, don't care that much about some other people, but... well, I got to know you, and thought, 'she deserves to know' and stuff..." He doesn't know how to react when speaking truthfully about his feelings, but at the moment, you didn't need truth, you needed, peace.

You looked at him, straight in the eyes, he didn't want to look at yours; however, by just placing your hand over his arm was sufficient to seek his attention, even if he was already regretting it. Your eyes met, and you wanted him to see you, you were helpless, needing much his help, thinking it may not be too late. "If you, roman roy, thought I deserved to know that kind of information, then I know you are the one who can help me on this." You turned your body over to him, both knees on the ground, almost pleading to him. "And honestly, I don't know if I can fully trust you, because again, you're roman roy, and you're a piece of shit." You were still on your knees but lifted your upper body, seemingly more taller than him, as he was sitting on the ground. "So I wouldn't be surprised if I lose this, that means I gotta give this a try, you can help me."

Roman doesn't answer, feeling a little bit remorseful for his actions in the past. You made him looked at yourself, lowering your body onto him, gripping on his arms, and then grabbing his face slowly leading to meet your eyes. "it's not business, not money, you know there's just personal value I have on it, nothing more than that, I'm not using you, and you know that." You desperately try to get him to answer to you. You've taken a grip of him by his face and made him listen to you. "I get it, you feel like you're going to screw this up, because you don't trust yourself, that's the problem isn't it? that I can't fix, but I do see you rome, you have to believe me, I don't hate you, but I already told that before haven't I?" You grabbed him by his shirt, tightly. "Then you know it's all in good faith, and oh I know how you find those words together disgusting, but... if you wish to know, I actually need you roman, I need you, always."

You waisted no time, and took action. When having already been on hold of his shirt, you took him over your direction, and kissed him. Something you've been waiting to do for a while, and so did he.

The first surprise kiss was short and tender, but then roman decided to get another significant one, longer, passionate, and playful. You both stood up, and your hands were all over touching each other's body, the neck, the hair, the back; he loved grabbing your face with both hands when kissing you tho. As you were gasping for air, breathing heavier, heart pounding, everything was warmer, and wetter. But roman took the time to make that playful little intimate moment to last for a while.

Until he slightly tries to stop, to talk, while giving soft kisses when still speaking. "I know what you want right now, but not today, but I can stay here just like you wanted, sleep with you, and I will... I will help you." As he kept on kissing you with desire, and you were honestly impressed he was controlling himself like that.

After a long session of a kissing show, starring the very talented roman roy, you decided to finally go to bed, you were feeling very, very much tired, even you. You were laying down inside the bed, facing each other, contemplating your true selves. You have never seen him this relaxed before, he's loosen up, with you.

"thank you, for, seeing me, as you said." His words melted into your heart, your lower lip protruded in a sulky pout, you couldn't help it, you were feeling so overwhelmed he was confessing his gratitude. "thank you, for helping me" You said back.

You kissed on the cheek, and the on the mouth, a long one; both feeling it for a few seconds. Then went to sleep, but facing each other still.

The other night you didn't have no one at all, and so for a lot of other few nights; but now you do, and tomorrow you'll start a new journey with him, helping you keep what you got, and from now, preserve what you've acquired, what you've been needing for a while, so you'll try not to lose him again. Tomorrow will be different.

continue.

[alto-tenure]

Give the people the ranlay fic list we need!

Chances are that, like, everyone's read these fics out of content starvation, but here are my personal favorites anyways.

Emotional mysteries by mangojuicee | T | past Layclaire | 12.8k

There is a day in every year where the Professor Hershel Layton acts odd. When his children begin to realize something is wrong, who better to call for help than the person who knows Hershel best; his best friend?

Reunion Tour by St4re4ter | M (for themes of suicide) | 22.5k

"You love a stone, because it's dark, and it's old, and if it could start being alive, you'd stop living alone." --- A re-write of the Miracle Mask ending with added characterization.

don't worry me (or hurry me) by leo_minor | G | 4k

Hershel sticks his head out of the window and into the night air. A quick glace down is enough to confirm his suspicions.“Most people would use the front door, you know ?” “Hersh,” Randall grins through chattering teeth, “you should know I’m not most people !”

A New Warmth by bihershel | T | <1k

When Hershel finds Randall struggling at 3 am , he decides to take care of him & confront his true feelings for him.

Testing Boundaries, Deepening Trust by miizure | T | 5k

After a messy afternoon outing, Randall decides that, what better way to get cleaned up faster would be to take a bath together? Of course, having never done this before, Hershel is slightly opposed to the idea at first, but after being assured that everything would be fine- possibly even fun- he agrees to it.

Silver Spoon by Vulpixi_Misa | G | 2.6k

Just two boys enjoying their youth, thinking about the future, and of course, there are puzzles.

The stars were made for falling by Cronch (Cronchycronch) | M (for themes of self-harm and discussed past sexual content) | 23.3k

“…I suppose I should start by saying this is a confession of sorts,” he finally spoke, sullen. And now it was Randall’s turn to excessively mull over some mysterious thought yet also empty out entirely at once. Confess? What could there be to confess? Something to confess, that burns on Hershel’s tongue with so much trouble that he is in such a state to say it? “A confession to what, may I ask?” Randall pried. Hershel looked him straight in the eye, visage deadpan. “My crimes I’ve been covering up for about twenty years.” — A few months after the Masked Gentleman’s last miracle was stopped, Hershel’s love for Randall has resurfaced and he pays a visit to his old friend to finally confess. A much needed conversation about their feelings and values ensues as they drink half a bottle of wine in the slowest, most pretentious and most drawn-out reunion ever. Or, an analysis of Hershel’s trauma from being a bisexual man in the 1960s.

Give me your hand (Because I will gladly take it) by MagicWhiskers_29 | G | 10.2k

Two times, 18 years apart but achingly familiar, that Randall and Hershel were there for each other.

I'm Tired of This Searching (Would You Let Me Go?) by ScarletHoneyBee | T | 1.2k

Something triggers Hershel into a dissociative episode. Randall has to bring him back, and convince him that he’s not dead.

Off to a slightly-less-perilous adventure! by MagicWhiskers_29 | G | 18.8k

Randall's all set to be in Craggy Dale for the weekend until it becomes clear that no one will actually be able to take him down there. Well, no one except for Hershel, and that means an adventure down from London! Flora's not one to turn that prospect down, so she tags along too.

Woodlouse by qwertycake | G | 1.3k

Hershel and Randall try to make a treehouse. Try to.

Case 00: Sums of the Father by Toofpaste | G | 4.2k (ongoing)

The Layton Detective Agency thought today would bring no clients. But a special surprise visit from a familiar face brings them to Monte d'Or for a peculiar case.

[author-updates]

Ohhhh I really like this analysis!! I too often struggled with trying to understand Red Guy.

Especially since he seems so contradictory. Like, when we first meet him in the websites the vibe he gives off is that he's rather chill. And he stays rather chill throughout the websites.

And yet when we get to the TV show he definitely seems more expressive. I said before that it kinda feels like Yellow Guy and Red Guy switched narrative places between the websites and the TV show. In the websites Red seemed like the most passive out of the three of them. Yellow Guy had moments were the teachers disagreed with him - in the first episode we even see this. He also had his own episode where the other two took more of a backseat (Love). Duck always had a pretty big presence, with him (usually) being tbe first to point out when things don't make sense.

In the TV show Red Guy becomes more opinioned. He becomes jealous of Duck when he finds he's dead. He's less likely to follow the teachers, as we see in Jobs. And he starts having outbursts. I think this is mainly done as a comic thing, as you don't expect the "chill one" to yell. Yet going over the series it's actually really interesting to see that Red Guy yells the most out of the three of them.

I was tempted to label Red Guy as a 'narrative mover' character. Basically, it's a trait in writing that you should one or two characters whose job is supposed to move the plot along when it doesn't make sense for other characters to do so. Think of Fred from Scobby Do, and how the writers would frequently give him a new interest each new movie as a way to explain why the gang is interested in visiting a place.

I thought something similar was going on with Red Guy, where the writers kinda gave him new motivations to move the plot along. "Why is the gang so interested in staying at this creepy's family house? Because Red Guy wants a family! He wants a family so bad that he's willing to ignore the red flags." "We need the characters to get out of the house to further expand the lore, who would want to leave the house? What about Red Guy? What if he's so sick and tired and being cooped up in the house that he wants to leave and explore the world?"

I think Red Guy is interesting too I think it's because he's the most likely to play along until he suddenly isn't. Yellow has specific things he plays along with and things he doesn't, Duck doesn't like to play along at all, and Red... plays along until he gets fed up with it. And then when he's done, he just explodes. And then he's fine again. I imagine his inner monologue is complete nonsense until he's annoyed

HES SO WEIRD TO ME!! In the webseries and show both lol, his parts or parts focusing on him have always left me the most confused.

Him being annoyed with certain things always seems to come out of nowhere for me and be totally unreadable beforehand (though like. that could be the autism . _ . ). I think a lot about his jokey pivot from "You- You said you weren't gonna talk to him like that anymore :(" to "I'M DEALING WITH IT" like every time he's annoyed in the series it genuinely feels as jarring to me as that.

I think the only times I was able to get where his head was at was when it was clearly telegraphed to my little baby brain like in the Computer ep in the webseries.

There are some episodes especially in the series like, at the start of Transport, he starts off the episode already exasperated/restless. Nobody else is, just him? It's so weird to me. I would say same with the Jobs ep? Though it kind of mirrors him at the beginning of Time, where he's just annoyed at his routine being interrupted right? But then in Jobs he winds up being one of the two who goes along with everything the most, contrast that with Transport where he stays restless the whole episode.

I DONT GET YOU RED MAN I DONT UNDERSTAND YOU AT ALLLL WEH

^^^ AN ENIGMA.

Like, Duck I get. Full of himself ( I think Joe and Baker in one interview called him delusional 😭), lots of weird rules in his head that only he can make sense of, let's keep this organized, let's keep things right, super blunt, missing half the social cues in the room. That's so easy.

Yellows also again, SO easy for me to get a grip on. Super empathetic,super curious, thoughtful and easy for people to get on with at first, occasionally drops cryptic shit, has a very clear disconnect between his complex thoughts and what winds up coming out through the limited vocabulary of their world ( when charged, this disconnect goes the other way, using wildly out of world words and concepts and not catching how uncomfortable he's making everyone at first) LIKE. I GET IT.

The MOST I can get about Red is that he's definitely got a theme of isolation going? He's got this weird longing to be with people like him ,visually at least, but anytime he is, he's IMMIDIATELY rejected. ( Family ep and Dreams ep) He's way goofier than people remember like Yellow and Duck are down for bits always but on a good day so is he. He gets real looney with it he gets real goofy with it. ( HE MADE THOSE HAND PUPPETS IN THE WEBSERIES!! HES A SILLY GUY) He's also like? weirdly shy about weird stuff? Like, in electricity during his little talk with Duck he won't even LOOK at him when he's saying he likes looking at him?? WHAT IS THIS?? God he's so weird to me I don't get him at all. THATS ALL I COULD TELL U ABOUT HIM. LIKE AT ALL. I DONT GET ITTT

[llendrinall]

Our Flag Means Death

The gay pirates show. I am amazed by the fandom reaction to that tv show and I am surprised by my own joyful reaction to it. I don’t remember when I was last so excited about something. I have been thinking about it for the past few days and I think it’s a combination of factors.

One, the show is good. More later.

Two, the show is complete. Yes, yes, we all want a second season, we need it, we crave it, but the show itself is rounded. We don’t have to pick the good bits around the rotten core, we can take it as a whole and enjoy it whole. More later.

Three, we as the public were tired of very bad fiction from the last few years. Or at least I was very tired. I look back and, really? I had erased from my mind that there ever was a Sherlock Season 4 and I’m sorry to remind you now. And, Marvel? And Fantastic Beasts? Giving fandom even less than what Supernatural was giving. No musical motives, no carefully chosen palette to link two characters, just bland consumer-ready fiction.

We were starved for stories with density, with something to pick apart and analyze. I am compulsively reading analysis of OFMD’s elements (food, clothes, hairstyles, music, touch, skin, everything!). There are so many! Fandom is used to not getting what it wants and having to squint and read between the lines, but I think that lately the fiction products were so plain and formulaic that we didn’t even have that. No more, “look at Bucky’s way of moving compared to the Winter Soldier” or “Fandom likes Loki because he is female-coded and women know how it feels to be the second place in affection despite being better”. It was all sugar coating and no filling.

Of course, this answers to how I curate my experience and what I consume. Maybe I am missing on a lot of good takes. But it’s telling that the hottest idea I have read in fandom in the last two years is this essay: Everybody is beautiful and no one is horny (so good! Go read it) which precisely points out that there is a certain emptiness in the beautiful superheroes bodies we are presented.

Now, about the first two points, the show isn’t good because it has an explicit loving queer relationship (it has three!). It is good because it is complete. As audiences we are used to pick little details and squeeze them until we get an ounce of meaning we can drink. And we love it! We hate the frustration of never getting more than that, but we enjoy those contextual details because they make relationships feel real and organic.

Too often, white heterosexual relationships are built on empty ground. There is a man, there is a woman and by the laws of cheap narrative they must like each other despite not showing any chemistry on screen. It’s only natural that the woman would show instant interest on the hero even though they barely talked through the movie. Do I need to give examples? Come on, just think of any movie and tell me, why were those two together again?

OFMD doesn’t build relationships like that. Making the queer relationships explicit doesn’t mean they can now be lazy and simply push the two characters together. No, we still get the beautiful hints, the slowly built tension, the story written and coded in the empty spaces. This is good writing.

The show is complete (despite the devastating need for a second season) because it can be consumed whole. There is no obvious element missing, nor things we would rather not see and that we swallow because we have to. There is not “if only” hanging in the air. Sure, some say they would have liked to see more women and more of Mary, but I’m very happy with what we saw of her in episode 10, plus considering the things we have had to put up with…

 Orange is the New Black was the first show where I saw different bodies (fat bodies, thin bodies, tall, short, young, aging, white, black, brown…). It was so revolutionary to see so many different women! Especially 40+ aged women. But the show is a drama and there is sexual assault and after a couple of seasons it derails badly.

Brooklyn 99 was the first show where I saw “more than one”. More than one Latina woman. More than one black man. Eventually more than one queer character. And it’s a comedy! In which the white male hero actually listens and checks his behavior and apologizes and gives up prizes. But it’s also a cop show and even though they had tackled the topic of racism… Yeah, no.

Galavant is a gorgeous musical comedy in a fantasy setting. Amazing. Very recommendable. It tried new things. There is a different take on masculinity. But the best part are the songs not the story.

 These are shows I like, but all of them have a missing piece. I won’t say that OFMD is perfect, but it is rounded and complete where other shows aren’t. It’s balanced. And it’s always giving content. When you aren’t watching the two oblivious idiots fall in love, you are watching POC representation and colonialism and class relations (oh, boy, class relations) and different definitions of what it means to be a man and just a bunch of idiots making each other better, together, by unlearning toxic lessons.

We were licking at the syrup of dummy cakes, looking for crumbs, and finally, finally, we have an actual cake with filling and cream and an orange –not a cherry, no, an actual orange– sliced in two at the top.

[juniperhillpatient]

Care to share one or more of your takes you would consider controversial for atla.

Ooh this is tough cause I feel like I’m constantly sharing my ATLA opinions so they’re mostly known 😅

A rundown of bullet point takes that I won’t budge on & think are straightforward but see people debating constantly anyway 👁👁

The Boiling Rock Betrayal was well written & did make sense people just over complicate it. Mai & Ty Lee deserved more detailed examinations of their views in other instances but it’s extremely plain what happened in this instance: adrenaline fueled actions were taken in an emergency / life threatening situation. Mai & Ty Lee weren’t wrong to save lives (it also wasn’t planned? why & how do people think it was?) & Azula was sympathetic for being hurt after the betrayal (but she was still unequivocally the villain here)

We don’t know enough about Ursa from the show to truly know what her relationship with Azula was like, making multiple interpretations of the dynamic equally valid

This is less about the show itself (though the comics & the writers being insecure about their canon ship don’t help) & more the fandom but K.at.Aang vs. Z.utara arguments are some of the most obnoxious pointless arguments I’ve ever seen & the slander toward both Aang & Zuko from opposing sides is REALLY sad considering their friendship & character arcs are at the heart of the show. It’s a kid’s show y’all calm down you can want whichever cartoon characters you want to kiss it’s not that serious. These arguments also tend to frame Katara as a prize to be won rather than one of the most badass characters in her own right & it’s uncomfortable

Anti Zuko takes from Azula fans & anti Azula takes from Zuko fans are both equally embarrassingly hypocritical & ugly

Hm okay a lot of these have had to do with the Fire Nation characters, let’s mix it up. Sokka isn’t a super genius OR a dumbass. He’s someone who would get bad grades for not doing his homework cause it’s boring but he aces every test. He’d explain some complicated physics subject to you then eat pizza out of the garbage in front of you. This one might not be *that* controversial but I do feel like I see debates over his intelligence lol

Southern Raiders is a great episode & it’s not about shipping (I mean it *can* be but that’s not the main point) it’s about opposing ideologies. Katara not necessarily forgiving Yon Rha but also not killing him is an AMAZING Katara moment where she makes the best choice for HER. If you hate this episode cause of shipping discourse or bad takes or whatever you’re missing out on an excellent episode that finally explores the anger & grief Katara has over her mother’s death. I see so much discourse over this episode but I try to ignore it cause it’s one of my favorite episodes & I don’t want fandom bs to ruin that for me

I loved Jet & felt like there was a lot to explore in this kid who’s charming & manipulative because he had to become that way because of trauma & wanted to care for other kids. I loved his dynamic with Katara & later Zuko & seeing how he’d changed. I initially thought his death, while it made me sad, was narratively fair to drill home the brutality of war. But the vagueness & later jokey callback changed my mind. Can’t drill home brutality if you’re gonna write it like *that.*

Final take & this is about the fandom at large: we forget this is an early 2000s kid’s show. It was fantastic storytelling visually beautiful & we wouldn’t still be talking about it if the characters didn’t grip us. The endless discourse & debates over things that don’t matter are tiring & ultimately a waste of time & energy - so that’s my final unpopular atla take for the day 😄 (also I’m NOT claiming to be guiltless when it comes to partaking in these debates lol) (also this isn’t about *analysis* which is always fun I’m talking more about discourse over dumb shit like why iroh gave azula a doll)

Thanks for the ask!

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

(pt 1) i really enjoy all your atla analyses & you've done a great job breaking down the usual arguments re how eip shows that kataang shouldn't have happened. i'm curious about your take on one specific argument that i just saw today, in an analysis of the show by a zker that was otherwise quite good and respectful (i know you've already talked about eip a lot, so no problem if you don't feel like rehashing). the premise: aang didn't just pressure katara in eip, he threatened her.

(pt 2) they point to when katara joins aang & asks if he’s alright: “aang: no, i’m not! i hate this play! katara: i know it’s upsetting, but it sounds like you’re overreacting. aang: overreacting? if i hadn’t blocked my chakra, i’d probably be in the avatar state right now!” the suggestion is he’s threatening her when he says ‘i’d probably be in the avatar state right now’ to describe his anger. i think this take exaggerates and oversimplifies it, but interested in your thoughts on it.

Hello my friend!! It is true I am Old inside and don’t like rehashing dhdlksjslks BUT your comments on my posts are always incredibly kind and insightful so I am more than willing to do a bit of rehashing for you 🥰 Besides! I’ve seen this general take before a few times and it’s always irked me for the exact reason you point out - it simultaneously exaggerates and oversimplifies the situation (and honestly that’s an impressive duality since it’s seemingly contradictory, so hats off to them lmaooo) - and now is as good a time as any to address it. So, for starters, let’s go ahead and get the excerpt they love to focus on so much:

Cut to Aang standing alone on a balcony. Katara enters and walks up to him.

Katara: Are you all right?

Aang: [Angered.] No, I’m not! I hate this play! [Yanks his hat off and throws it on the ground.]

Katara: I know it’s upsetting, but it sounds like you’re overreacting.

Aang: Overreacting? If I hadn’t blocked my chakra, I’d probably be in the Avatar State right now!

Here’s the thing about so-called analyses of this excerpt: in a manner extremely convenient to the poster, they never seek to contextualize this moment. (I mean, to do so would deplatform their entire “argument” - perhaps that’s why they avoid performing a full analysis?) So let’s avoid that pitfall from the start.

Firstly, below are some links to related posts; I’m going to do my best to summarize the most relevant parts, but for anyone who desires greater detail, I gotchu 😤

This post explains why EIP (the play, lol) is imperialist propaganda and is intended to belittle the entire Gaang.

This post explains how Aang never acted “entitled” to Katara’s affections, particularly in regard to EIP.

This post breaks down the infamous EIP kiss like Snopes Fact Checker, covering common misconceptions, important perspectives to consider, etc.

Alright. With that out the way, it’s time for some context.

Aang and Katara have this conversation on the balcony after watching 95% of “The Boy in the Iceberg,” a play chock-full of Fire Nation propaganda that demeans the entire Gaang in order to prop up the Fire Nation as superior (hence why the play ends with Ozai’s victory). Here is my general breakdown of Aang and Katara’s treatment in particular from a previous post:

- katara, an indigenous woman, is highly sexualized and portrayed as overly dramatic and tearful, because the fire nation objectifies women not of their own people and views them as less intelligent and less emotionally stable

- aang, the avatar, the sole survivor of the fire nation’s genocide of the air nomads who is incredibly in-touch with his spirituality and femininity, is portrayed as an overly-airy and immature woman. the fire nation portrays him with a female actor to demean him (like, that’s classic imperialistic propagandist tactics) and furthermore writing his character as a childish airhead reinforces the fire nation sentiment that the air nomads were weak, foolish people who did not deserve to exist in their world

In other words, these kids have just watched almost an entire play that preys upon their insecurities and depicts them using racist and sexist stereotypes about their respective nations. It is completely understandable that tensions might run a little high and that their interactions would not be as balanced as usual (Katara and Aang have a great track record of communicating well with each other, as it happens!).

So we have to keep that in mind when examining the aforementioned excerpt. But there are other factors to consider, too! Namely: they are kids. Children. Teens. Aang is 12, Katara is 14.

If we want to be scientific, a person’s brain doesn’t finish developing until they are 25, lmao, and the preteen/teen years are when the prefrontal cortex that controls “rationality,” “judgement,” “forethought,” etc. is still developing. This doesn’t mean Aang and Katara are irrational and make poor decisions 24/7 (obviously not), but it does mean that in an intense, highly emotional situation, like after watching a play that intentionally demeans them and depicts them as inferior, they are more likely to overreact, more likely to be emotional, and more likely to make mistakes. Like, I’m serious, lol. “Teens process information with the amygdala.” That’s part of the brain that helps control emotions! It’s why teens sometimes struggle to articulate what we’re thinking, especially in situations that require instinct/impulse and quick decisions, because we’re really feeling whenever we make those choices. Acting more on emotion. Our brains simply haven’t finished developing the decision-making parts, lmao.

In sum: Aang and Katara are both kids, not adults, and should be interpreted as such. This doesn’t negate their intelligence, because they are both incredibly smart and Aang is arguably the wisest of the Gaang, but they are human. Young humans. They have emotions, and we should not be so cruel as to assume they’d never act on them.

So taking that all together, we can now acknowledge the high stress Aang and Katara are under, understand why they might be upset (*cough* imperialist propaganda is hurtful *cough*), and examine how their youth might play into their emotional reactions. And funny thing - all analyses that come to the conclusion of Aang “threatening” Katara here do not usually bother with this context. I can’t imagine why!

And you know what, let’s add one more piece of context: Sokka states that Aang left the theater “like, ten minutes ago,” which is what cues Katara to go look for him on the balcony. The reason I mention this line is because to me, it suggests Aang knew he was more worked up than usual! He chose to separate himself from his friends so he could process his frustration! He did not take his anger at the play out on them; instead, he purposefully took time and space to be alone.

With that in mind, I don’t understand at all how Aang’s Avatar state quote could be interpreted as a threat? Canonly, Aang is someone who was aware enough of his frustration to separate himself from the others - yet the logical next step is him threatening Katara as a result? He knew his intense emotions were because of the play (which he says himself), so the logical conclusion is that he then pinned the fault on Katara? What?? Sorry, that interpretation has no textual basis, lmao. But I digress!

Aang tells Katara, “If I hadn’t blocked my chakra, I’d probably be in the Avatar State right now!” As you said, this is the line people point to in an attempt to justify their (baseless) conclusion that Aang is “threatening” Katara. So let’s bring in the two key pieces of context: imperialist propaganda and age. Given that Aang is 12, and given that Aang has just watched almost a full play that demeans him and everything his people stood for (and let’s not forget it also mocks his and Katara’s love for each other)…

His reaction is understandable. An exaggeration and needlessly dramatic, but understandable. He feels vulnerable and insecure and Aang is human. He is human and flawed and he overreacts here and I love that A:TLA shows how even our heroes, even people who are truly good at heart and in soul, can get overly upset (especially given the aforementioned circumstances!). Would Aang actually be in the Avatar state at that moment, had it been possible? Of course not! He’s young and he’s hurt and as such he says something dramatic to convey his anxieties and frustrations. The line is not meant to be taken literally, and seeing people do so despite all the factors that should be taken into consideration when analyzing it… Cue a long, tired sigh from me and so many other A:TLA fans.

And to be honest? I cannot fathom how people watch this episode and come to the conclusion that Aang is “threatening” Katara. To me, this episode - besides being a recap episode - is one that humanizes our cast even further. Aang snaps at Katara, kisses her when he shouldn’t (which the story appropriately treats as wrong). Katara pushes down her true feelings and retreats into herself, afraid to start a relationship with the boy she loves because she’s already lost him once before and can’t bear to do so again. Zuko further confronts the hurt he’s enacted upon others, especially upon Iroh. Toph practices being vulnerable and accepting vulnerability from others by conversing with Zuko. Sokka witnesses how others have erased his contributions and labelled him as nothing more than the token nonbender in the group. Even Suki learns that she is not the only person who holds a place in Sokka’s heart and that she can never replace what he has lost.

To watch this episode where our heroes must come to terms with how the Fire Nation deems them inherently inferior, with how they have more fights to overcome in the future with the Fire Nation than a single war, and to come to the conclusion that… that what, Aang is abusive? A monster? Irredeemable? That he would threaten his best friend, someone he loves in every way?

Wow. That says more than enough about the viewer, doesn’t it?

[firelxdykatara]

If you interpret Katara’s aggression towards Zuko as romantic affection, then you have some serious issues of your own. Is a very dangerous message for teenage girls indeed. People who ship Zutara have to seriously analyze how unhealthy the message of the pairing would be. Katara hated Zuko for a valid reason, and to twist it into something it’s not is massively disrespectful to both the character. The outdated and ridiculous notion that a girl who acts like she doesn’t like a guy is simply “confused” and “denying her feelings” is so sexist and degrading. Take her emotions at face value. It's never been

Yawn. Boring. This is the same old tired argument I’ve heard a million times before--the one that proves a) you don’t actually understand how relationships work, and b) you’ve never read a single zutara meta in your life, because that’s the only way you could seriously get the ‘good girl is secretly in love with the bad boy and hopes to fix him’ read of a relationship that bares absolutely no resemblance to that particular collection of tropes either in the show or in our fandom.

But ok! I’ll bite, since you clearly want so badly to be educated and evidently don’t have the time to watch the show yourself, nor the reading comprehension necessary to understand the sort of media analysis that goes on in a lot of atla and zutara-focused meta in this fandom.

Which probably means that anything I write here will fly right over your head, but oh well, what can you do?

At any rate, the first mistake you’ve made here is assuming that I (or zutara shippers in general, but since you came into my inbox, I’m going to be taking this just as personally as you clearly intended me to) interpret Katara’s aggression towards Zuko as romantic at any point in the series prior to their reconciliation (after which point, there is no aggression from Katara aimed at Zuko for anyone, me included, to interpret romantically in the first place). I don’t, and I never have, and neither does a vast majority of the zutara fandom in the spaces I frequent (which encompasses tumblr, occasionally twitter, and the very large zutara discord server I’ve been an active part of for two years now). Pointing out oddly suggestive tension in early parts of the series (such as the “I’ll save you from the pirates” and “you rise with the moon, I rise with the sun” lines, or the fact that Zuko wore Katara’s necklace around his wrist for like nine episodes when there was absolutely no need for it) is just that--pointing out tension.

There doesn’t need to be feelings for there to be tension, antagonistic or otherwise, but that tension is the foundation from which their relationship arc throughout the series grew, developed, and eventually evolved. This is what is generally known as relationship development, and it occurs when two characters go from having one kind of relationship to another within the course of the story.

For example, enemies, who become friends, who become lovers.

Now, your mileage may vary on this next part (although I really hope not, cause Y I K E S), but I, personally, think that ‘if a boy kisses you without your consent, but he really really loves you, then you owe it to him to love him back, especially if he just saved the world, and you should never expect an apology because since you suddenly decided you return those feelings, that means the violation of your boundaries was ok since clearly you really liked him all along’ is a much more damaging message to send to young girls--and boys, to be frank, especially since learning about consent is hugely important at young ages--than ‘if a boy who was your enemy goes to great lengths to better himself, to the point where you forgive him for when he hurt you and become close friends with him, then it’s normal for those feelings to grow and change, even to the point of becoming romantic, and it’s ok to explore them’.

And guess which one of those is canon to the AtLA finale?

Next, you say ‘Katara hated Zuko for a valid reason’ as if that was ever in dispute. It wasn’t--certainly not on my blog. I know there are some people who hate Katara because she was ‘too mean’ to Zuko, but I don’t agree with them, nor do I associate with them, since I have no time, energy, or room in my life for Katara slander. However, do you know what the operative word is in that sentence? Hated. As in past tense. As in, ‘Katara used to hate Zuko, but by the end of the show that is no longer the case, and they are extremely close friends with a deep bond and multiple life-debts between them’.

Why are you so insistent on not only denying Zuko’s hard-earned and bitterly fought for redemption, but also Katara’s emotions and feelings, which you end this weirdly disjointed ask by insisting they be taken at face value?

And it’s actually really funny (ironic funny, not so much ‘ha ha’ funny) that you use the word ‘confused’ there, followed by the phrase ‘denying her real feelings’, and then call that ‘sexist and degrading’, as if that isn’t exactly what happened in Katara’s canon endgame in the show.

She said point blank that she was confused, she showed with her words, tone, and body language that she was not open to Aang’s romantic advances, she had completely forgotten about the last time he’d kissed her without her consent, rather than reflecting on her romantic feelings as one would expect of a girl who’d been kissed by someone we’re supposed to believe she’s had feelings for since book 1, and was completely taken aback by Aang’s reaction to the play and his weird believe that they ‘were gonna be together’, when she had never once indicated that she wanted to be with him in any romantic sense. And yet, he kissed her--and while she got angry about it and stormed off in the moment, he never apologized for crossing her boundaries, and they also didn’t have a single significant scene together between that moment and the epilogue.

What happened to taking Katara’s emotions at face value? What happened to how ‘sexist and degrading’ it is to assume that if a girl says she’s confused, that must mean she’s ‘denying her feelings’? What happened to caring about Katara’s agency, even a little bit?

Anyway, I’m gonna wrap this up by saying: I do not believe Zuko and Katara should’ve been making out in the finale instead. I actually hate the fact that the final shot of AtLA was a romantic kiss (particularly for such a poorly written pairing), rather than a shot of the gaang together like it should have been to show what the series was meant to be about. I think that focusing on the romantic relationships in the finale undercut an already weak ending to an otherwise great (not perfect, but certainly good enough that it deserved much better closure) show.

That said, I also think a Zutara kiss would have been more earned, at that point in both of their narratives. Because Katara’s feelings had been the focus of their relationship throughout its entirety. Zuko’s feelings mattered, too, of course, (in stark contrast to how they were treated during his relationship with Mai), but Katara was the one who got to choose when and why and what she felt about him. She got to choose when to forgive him. She got to choose to help him, and to save his life, and her emotions were frequently the focus in a way they never were during her relationship with Aang, so nudging those into a more romantic light not only would have fit better with her character arc, it also would have been far less jarring to see that as the culmination of their respective storylines, rather than a romantic kiss coming out of nowhere when her very last scene with him was being kissed without her consent and storming off about it because it upset her.

My most fervent hope, anon, is that some day you actually watch the show, Avatar: the Last Airbender. Because Katara and Zuko are amazing characters, they have amazing storylines both separately and together, and it’s really a crime whenever someone misunderstands both of them so badly. I hope that when you do watch the show, you pay attention. You may see something amazing.

[makeste]

BnHA 6th Popularity Poll Reaction Post - Risky Spoiler-Dodging Edition

hey guys, so seeing as the results from the 6th popularity poll were leaked today, I figured I would do a separate reaction + analysis post this year, rather than piling it in as an extra on top of the chapter reaction post tomorrow. I figure this makes more sense anyway, since they’re really two completely different things. also this way I can write as much as I want lol.

also, just fyi, I am still completely unspoiled for chapter 293. and probably the smart thing to do to keep it that way would be to log off tumblr and hold off posting this until tomorrow, but I apparently have no impulse control today so oh well. anyway, so I’m hoping you guys will keep this spoiler-free if you don’t mind! as always, I would prefer to just jump right in completely unaware tomorrow like Troy returning to the study room with the pizza boxes lol.

okay so this first part is just going to be my predictions. fyi I am writing this part on Wednesday night, and then I’ll add on the results part on Thursday or Friday (ETA: Thursday, apparently, since I am impatient.)

okay so first of all, just as a refresher, this poll was open to Japanese voters from Aug 3 to Sep 30. meaning chapters 279 through 285. meanwhile last year’s poll took place around the tail end of the MVA arc. so between then and now we had Heroes Rising, the Endeavor Agency arc, and the War arc up to the part where the 1-A kids took on Gigantomachia in Gunga, and started battling Tomura in Jakku. so technically only a couple of arcs, but a LOT of stuff going down in them. oh and season 4 of the anime as well

so! firstly, I predict that my truculent africanized honeybee son will hold on to his crown at #1, coming off a year in which he did some internship-boosted soul searching, borrowed OFA in movie canon, and finished out the voting period as the my-body-moved-on-its-own character development MVP. like CALL ME CRAZY lol, but I’m pretty sure his title is safe. and then after him will be Deku and Shouto as usual

Aizawa should hopefully also have a strong showing because the dude had a banner fucking year. reunited with his old dead friend, took on Tomura with his hopelessly inept hero pals, and then chopped his fucking leg off. he had better be in the top 10. his fucking leg died for this, idk what else he has to do

Endeavor also stands a decent chance of doing well given the internship arc and the final episode of season 4. which I’m sure will go down just swimmingly if that does happen lmao. especially if he somehow manages to rank higher than...

Dabi, which I don’t think he will btw, but you never know. anyways though, but I’m thinking Dabi’s going to have a stronger showing than in past years (in the last poll he only got 367 votes and was ranked 19th). mostly because of his fight in the Gunga mansion, and his cheekily censored name reveal to...

Hawks, who is also going to rank pretty high here, I think. might be he loses some points for killing off Twice, but his back was basically to the wall there. and he has always been very popular, and I think season 4 will also give him a boost, along with his heavy involvement in the first half of the War arc

Tomura was already in 6th place last year and I think he cracks the top 5 this year. he’s gotten exponentially more popular since the MVA arc, and got a boost in the last poll even though his flashback had only just barely happened, and he hadn’t finished Awakening yet and all that stuff. anyway, so he’s only gotten cooler and more tragic since then so I think he makes a big play here

Kirishima, Momo, Tokoyami, and Mina should also hopefully do well, since the poll opened right in the middle of all that Gigantomachia action, and Toko had just got done being an absolute badass and protecting his birb dad. I don’t think he’ll quite make it to the top ten, but he should

and last but not least, I’m hoping that Mirko will come out and take the polls by storm, although I have no clue how popular she is in Japan lol. she’s clearly Horikoshi’s favorite though. she SHOULD be everyone’s favorite, but I mean, we’ll see how it goes

anyway that’s it as far as predictions! and so now, through the magic of writing stuff at different times, we will fast-forward to the part where we actually find out the results!

OH MY GOD YES, STEAMPUNK KHLKSLLKL. HERE FOR IT. JOLLY GOOD SHOW. 5 STARS

Kacchan looks SO COCKY and SO HAPPY and SO ADORABLE, YES I SAID IT. he is adorable as FUCK. I don’t quite know what it is about this particular Kacchan that just screams “LOOK HOW FUCKING CUTE MY STUPID, LOUD SON IS WITH HIS BIZARRE WINDOWPANE-LOOKING CONVERTIBLE SUNGLASS GOGGLES and his POORLY TIED CRAVAT”, but I think it’s because he looks like if a Digimon character and a FMA character had a baby

anyway, so it looks like most of the people present here are more or less who we expected to see. except that I can’t tell for sure if that’s Dabi or Shindou, and if it’s Shindou I’m going to punch somebody in the face so you will have to excuse me

Iida wearing a TRENCHCOAT and a TOP HAT with ENGINE EXHAUST GOGGLE ACCENTS is my new favorite Iida of all time. take note how there is no possible way he can wear those goggles with them sitting on top of his hat like that. plus he’s already got glasses on. these are just purely for aesthetic and IF THAT AIN’T JUST THE STEAMPUNK WAY

Deku out here speaking softly and carrying a lead pipe. Kacchan you best look out. seems like he’s done watching you take first place year after year while he languishes in the number two spot. your only hope is that he trips while attacking you because his boots are unbuckled

Shouto’s standing over there with the rest of the non-first-and-second-place characters, but what are the odds his results are actually within spitting distance of Deku’s same as always. anyway he doesn’t mind, though. also his outfit is by far the most sensible one here, but if you look closely he’s got some sort of fire extinguisher/jet pack thing strapped to his back that’s got a control switch on his belt. Shouto are you jetpacking or putting out fires

Kirishima out here all “I’m not sure what steampunk is so I’m just going to take off my shirt and pose”

AIZAWA WITH THE EYEPATCH SKLKSDLKFJLSKJLDFKJSLDFFJLDKSJFL:KS. SIR. SIR. also, lowkey furious that Horikoshi refuses to show us the automail leg that he is clearly sporting here but which we just can’t see, SHOUTO MOVE GODDAMMIT

Endeavor has TWO fire extinguisher-slash-jetpacks. THE BETTER TO... WHATEVER. look at you here in the top ten again. you really live for that controversy

HAWKS OUT HERE WITH HIS STEAMPUNK BEATS BY DRE AND HIS WEARING A RING ON EVERY FINGER. nice to see you’ve still got your wings there, kiddo. then again Deku still has both of his arms too so who even knows what is going on

BUT SERIOUSLY THOUGH, IS THIS DABI OR SHINDOU. as if I don’t know the truth deep down in my heart. y’all I am gonna flip lmao. it’s not that I dislike Shindou, strictly speaking. but just... I can’t explain what it is, but if you put him and AFO next to each other and told me “you can only punch one”, I would be having a serious crisis. just, THIS FUCKING GUY, idek. STOP SMILING

Tomura looks like he just wandered onto the set here by mistake and has no idea where he is or what is going on. it’s because you’re wearing a bigass severed hand that’s blocking your entire view, Tomura. just take the hand off your face my sweet murder dumpling

anyway! so I managed to also find a link to the full poll results while somehow managing to avoid spoilers, and then I wanted to compare the results to last year’s poll, and so I made... this

hopefully you can all see this. if you’re on desktop you might be screwed, but on mobile you should be able to click and enlarge it. I mean, assuming you actually give a fuck about boring poll analysis spreadsheets lmao

anyway, so there were actually 13k fewer votes cast this year which is a bit of a surprise. is the series not still growing in popularity? do people apparently have better things to do during their quarantine lol

anyways but despite this, and despite getting 8k fewer votes overall, Kacchan still managed almost twice as many as his closest competitor. well fought, Deku. please put down that pipe

I somehow always underestimate the power of ship popularity to influence these things. but for example, it looks like Present Mic got that Vigilantes Trio bump. ride that wave for all it’s worth my man! hell, you got me on board

Iida fucking Tenya somehow got some sort of POWER BOOST out of NOWHERE which I can’t explain at all lmao, but I’m here for it. NOT BAD FOR AN OLD MAN

Sero managed to get the exact same number of votes in both 2019 and 2020. clearly the most loyal fans in the business

Mirko being all the way down at #20 is, of course, a travesty, and I hereby nominate her to be the one to punch Shindou in the face

ngl though, the lack of a single female character in the top ten hurts just a bit. it’s not overly surprising, but still. the worst part of it is that even if you kicked Shindou to the curb and moved everyone else up one slot, it would still be all dudes since Mic beat out Momo by a margin of a little more than a hundred votes. hard to stay mad at Mic for too long, though. ah well

Tomura actually lost a bunch of votes which is a genuine surprise to me. I know the villain standom isn’t as dominant in Japan as it is in Western fandom, but still. you can go ahead and punch Shindou too I guess

Tokoyami lowkey doubled his vote count over the past year while hiding down there at #18. he is slowly becoming more powerful. biding his time

anyway so I think that’s it! I mean not really, but I’m getting kind of tired lol. so just, you know, insert the usual gripes at Overhaul’s ranking here, although we can be happy about Magne making her way onto the list (r.i.p.), and Mineta and AFO taking a very satisfying slide down (all the way out, in AFO’s case; good riddance you bum). Hadou also got a huge boost which is awesome. Mustard’s persistent ownership of the #36 spot will forever remain a mystery to me, but oh well

anyways, this was fun. and I really do feel like everyone is looking away on purpose so that when Deku brains Kacchan with that pipe in about two seconds from now, there will be no witnesses, oh my fucking god

[im-still-watching-anime]

warning: this post is just me ranting about the writing of the naruto women for far too long

i honestly feel that one of the most frustrating/vaguely hilarious aspects of naruto is how naruto ended up being - and bear with me here - the best example of the extremely specific female archtype that kishimoto seemed to be obsessed with. 

like when you focus on sakura and hinata - arguably the most important female characters in the show as the two male leads’ respective end game love interests - you can break them both down into the same general mold:

- both devoted to the same boy their entire lives

- both are shown chasing after their crush in order to stand on “equal” footing (i.e. sakura’s “i finally caught up to them” and hinata’s “no longer chasing but standing by your side” mentalities)

- both suffer and try to overcome feelings of inferiority in their respective character arcs

and i want to be clear that while female characters who fit this mold aren’t usually my favorite thing it can definitely still work when written carefully and written well -  to be blunt i personally think both hinata and sakura are awesome character concepts and both had SO MUCH potential and i love their fanon interpretations but i feel that canonically they were poorly written, underdeveloped, and flat characters

most of their canonical character motivations revolve around their love interests - which really sucks because i would have KILLED for a deeper look at everything involving hinata and the hyuuga or even more about sakura’s development of her medical ninjustsu so much got skipped when it came to them which definitely didn’t help anything - that aside this is especially true in og naruto though to be fair - sasuke was still in konoha in og naruto and team seven was together for most episodes which made it especially prevalent in sakura’s case

the point is by the time shippuden came around it was extremely obvious that efforts were being made to improve the female characters - sakura now had much higher combat ability from the start of shippuden and, though she gets much less focus hinata is repeatedly shown doing brave acts and pushing herself to become stronger. and while i really loved the effort and it was definitely an improvement from especially sakura’s original character - it still fell flat to me.

sakura’s fight with sasori was perfect and a great way to revive her character but then she was pretty stagnant in a lot of the following arcs - i.e. injured in the reunion arc, not very important during the two saviors arc, her weird fake love confession during the assembly of the five kage arc, etc. - she constantly bounces between “now i’m strong” and “i still don’t measure up” making her character development - especially pre-war - virtually nonexistent because every step forward gets followed by a step back.

hinata is a bit more difficult simply because she’s such a minor character for so much of shippuden which is insane since she’s literally the protagonist’s future wife. regardless, looking at hinata’s big moments: her fight with neji in og naruto, blocking naruto from pain in shippuden, and the Smack during the war (there’s a few i’m missing i’m sure but those are really what constitutes her biggest moments to me during the meat of shippuden’s actual development phase - not the post war resolution phase) two of three of these moments precede her getting very heavily and soundly beaten which personally irks me - even if i don’t particularly like it i can see why and it makes sense to me she didn’t win the fight with neji or her pain confrontation and it definitely shows that she is brave and emphasizes the all-important devotion to her love interest aspect of her character BUT it’s also a little obnoxious that we never get to see her be REALLY victorious in her major moments.

so to sum up so far: sakura and hinata are both meant to be perceived as innovative and strong female characters but this perception doesn’t work in sakura’s case because she immediately repeatedly reverts back to the damsel in distress archtype and it doesn’t work in hinata’s case because the few strong moments she has are highlighted by failure.

and also the all important point that the majority of their “strong moments” are driven by their love interests - not a bad motivation except for the fact that that is one of their ONLY motivations

to the main point i’m trying to make: lets compare naruto (obviously take this with the understanding that naruto has a MAJOR advantage of having way more screen time and development as the titular character)

in regards to sasuke, naruto:

- is extremely devoted

- repeatedly chases after sasuke to match-up with him and improve

- and, especially in og, struggles with feeling inferior to sasuke

the context is a little different and the motivation behind some of the points changes between the two but it’s the exact same mold as sakura and hinata

the major difference between the two and the main reason that so many more people get frustrated with sakura’s devotion to sasuke and not naruto’s really boils down to development

sakura barely had her own character outside of loving sasuke and when she did, it immediately got downplayed in some way - just look at the war arc and her triumphant “i finally caught up to them” right before both sasuke and naruto essentially gain godlike powers, she then spends the war constantly distracted by sasuke even when fighting “sasuke isn’t worried about me at all” which really downplays her role.

on the flip side, even with his main goal of bringing sasuke back to the village, naruto has tons of motivation and character building outside of sasuke - ex. becoming hokage, gaining everyone’s acceptance, fixing konoha, living up to his parents/jiraiya’s expectations, bringing peace, protecting everyone he can, freeing the tailed beasts, etc. etc. you could go on forever the show is named after him after all.

we are told that sakura always chooses sasuke and nothing else about it but then we are told that naruto chooses sasuke despite everything else.

to sum up: the traditional female love interest that kishimoto wants to invent is the woman who is devoted. she puts the person she loves above everything else because she loves him. she’d do anything for that person even if it puts her at risk, etc. but at the end of the day there’s still the tired trait of still relying on the man in her life for certain things. and he doesn’t bother to expand characters like sakura and hinata beyond that. (great examples of characters who are almost completely separate from this mold are tsunade and temari - though one might argue about the way they were written designed to fit specific tropes for comedic moments - personally i think they manage to dodge that for the most part though)

with naruto and sasuke - naruto manages to fulfill every roll sakura is meant to in a much more elaborated and better way all without the curse of the female love interest that sakura and hinata bear. it’s hard to accept sakura and hinata’s “i’ll love you no matter what” when naruto is already actively outright doing that with sasuke. the roots of sakura’s feelings for sasuke, hinata’s feelings for naruto, and naruto’s feelings for sasuke are all exceptionally similar to one another which is what shoots kishimoto’s main romances in the foot - because it’s hard for them to measure up to the main “platonic brotherly” relationship he built between sasuke and naruto.

this post is obviously disregarding a lot of the Other really deep parts of sasuke and naruto’s relationship and some important points about the other women of naruto. also it’s important to think on the time period naruto and naruto shippuden were written in. we’re in a major incline period for improvement in how women are presented in fiction - just look at the difference of women between og and shippuden. obviously it doesn’t completely excuse anything but it’s a point to consider.

sorry for the rant and sorry if this is all really obvious to you or if it’s worded poorly, kinda just needed to word vomit my thoughts. i really like analyzing how women are represented in fiction and how the representations have developed over the years. i wrote a few essays about it for some of my courses and now i think about it all the time. obviously i’m not claiming this is how everyone should view these characters or anything i just had lots of my own thoughts about the entire situation and dynamics that i had to put SOMEWHERE. if you have any thoughts about it or points you wanna bring up feel free to do so i love fiction analysis a lot so i love hearing other people’s opinions

[chicoriii]

Miraculous World: Shanghai, the Legend of Lady Dragon

Again my random, not well-arranged thoughts about a new Miraculous TV movie. I'm surprised that my posts like these are getting some likes, mostly from people who even don't follow me (by the way, I wonder how you find them if they are reblogged by no more than two persons, through tags like "miraculous ladybug" or what?). I very thank you all for reading them. I'm not a good at analysis like many others, so every single person who likes read about my opinions and thoughts makes me really happy.

Personally I have never been overly excited about the specials in general, I'm more interested in the main show, how its plot is going to progress, besides I'm not a big fan of the New York TV movie, so I feel really astonished by the Shangai one. I really, really love it, more than any of already released S4 episodes (well, no wonder if I found both Furious Fu and Truth rather mediocre) and very well-received by the fandom NY special. I guess my opinion is not popular one, as I know some people have been generally negative biased towards it for some reason.

To begin with, I'm gonna explain why I don't see New York special being an amazing episode of Miraculous. I generally liked it but it, but I have some issues with it. One of them is pacing, the first part in Paris and on the plane is too long in comparison to actual action in New York (so it feels so rushed) and it's too much focused on shipping content (and remember I'm a big Adrienette fan), so American superheroes haven't gotten enough screentime. Every character other than Aeon and Jess were portrayed very shallow. Of course I don't think that every character should have been deep, but Olympia and Barbara were just disappointing. I have expected more from women who are Majestia and Knight Owl. But my the biggest problem is how much overly dramatic it is, to the point in which it's just tiring. I especially dislike the scene in which Marinette is chasing Adrien and screams she loves him after the falling off a bike, it feels like taken from very corny romance.

Shanghai was different, much more enjoyable to me. It has better pacing, no over-the-top melodrama, fewer but more interesting characters, more exciting plot. I even like the music more, because I really enjoy oriental sound.

I've seen people complaining about Marinette chasing Adrien instead of just wanting to spend time with her uncle on his birthday and learning more about her roots, that it's "bad writing". It's not new that Marinette is crazy about Adrien and it's not uncommon that people are not interested in learning language and culture of one (or even both) of their parents if they live in a completely different country the whole life. I actually liked that Tom and Sabine haven't been forcing her to that and they have been waiting for the moment in which Marinette would be ready. It also shows how good and understanding her parents are. Of course her motivation to go to Shanghai was bad and shallow, but she was punished for it by getting lost and robbed in a big Chinese city without chance to speak to people. And I find it funny that her future husband wants to learn her Chinese despite of not having Chinese roots (but maybe he has, who knows?).

I never would have thought that I would like Wang Cheng as much as I liked him the special. Especially his scenes with Adrien. I should not have been that much attached to fictional character, but seeing how happy my boy was during his time in Cheng's restaurant melted my heart. I don't remember him laughing out loud that often before (I know only about the umbrella scene). He really fits to the Dupain-Cheng family. It's sad when you think about terrible parenting of Gabriel, but his future with Marinette is going to make him happy, also because of her lovable family. I miss Adrien so much, because we have barely seen him in only one of two released S4 episodes till now, so I really treasured those moments with him we've gotten in this special.

I also loved Bastille, the adorable grey parrot (I'm not sure, but Miraculous Wiki agrees with me) and I want to draw him as well. He reminds me character designs in Dreamworks animations. That's funny than he immediately noticed that Adrien loves Marinette.

I need to say that I love Fei so much. I'm happy that she's the main character of the special (along with Marinette, I think both girl got more or less the same screentime), it made me really care about her, unlike the New York characters. I liked some of them like Jess, but not that much to make me want to see them again so badly. Fei is a cool, but still a flawed character, her story is both sad and thrilling. We've seen her good and bad sides and I think she's well-balanced. I see her a very good protagonist material for a series. Besides, I love her design as well and I'm gonna draw her one day.

Renren and Renlings concept is also interesting and fresh, I like all magical creatures in Miraculous so they are not exceptions.

But my favourite creature design is Mei Shi in his Kwami-like form. I really, really need to draw this thing.

I want to write something about the merchant of pawnshop, because I find him interesting character as well.The bad guy from the New York special was bland as hell, but Cash was really intimidating. The man obsessed with money, but very intelligent and smart. I also like his style of speaking,  I think he was more dangerous as a normal human than as an akuma villain.

I've noticed that Tikki has some sort of pinkish vision, so I wonder if Plagg sees in green. ;)

I also enjoyed the atmosphere in this. Shanghai looks beautiful and the oriental music adds more soul to it. I'm surprised how serious and brutal it was for a kid's show in few moments . I would never have expected that they would show three adults who are chasing two teens with a stick (civilian, not superheroes, there's a difference). We haven't seen of them hitting any of the girls or boys, but still. It has some dramatic moments, but they are better balanced and more subtle than in the New York special.

I'm sure I forget about something I wanted to write about, like always, but I can't see it in that moment, so I'm keeping it the way it is. This post is already way too long. ;)

[btsandvmin]

Vmin - Dead or alive? Are we still asking the same question?

Not to be that person, but in September 2018 I wrote a post about Vmin and how people worried they were "dead" or had fallen part. And with this conversation coming up literally a few times a year I am just so fascinated. I made two throwback posts just to remind people of all the moments we got with Vmin in 2017 and 2018, because people were worried they had changed and weren't as close... and I hoped people would remember how much we do get. And yet we keep ending up in a place where negativity takes over and people get worried. Especially in times when BTS has less content. This is from my post in 2018.

Can we please try to put things into perspective. We haven't really gotten a lot of BTS or ship content in general for a couple of months. (I keep missing them despite new content as we have gone from a intense period to a more quiet one) But also try to remember why we might have fewer Vmin interactions that has little to do with them. How award season was very different this year. How a lot of choreo being planned differently meant fewer moments for Vmin to do their "normal" moments in songs like Dynamite or LGO. How Run episodes having lots of moments or not depends on more than if the members have issues with each other... And most importantly how we have still gotten moments. Some pretty nice ones too. Even Vmin posting on weverse in relation to each other. Just because we compare this period to what we got earlier or what we expect/hope for it doesn't remove the moments we did get.

I would write a proper post on this but frankly I have talked about this subject too many times (though the time of course have different aspects to it as well, so it's not going to be exactly the same). Many other Vminines also already did posts on this recent feeling so no reason to repeat that as well. And I do have a better more detailed take on this problem in my big analysis where I talk about why we might feel like this, so for now this will suffice.

Here is the short summary (that is very sloppy because I haven't proof-read it yet) from that post.

Through the years I have sometimes gotten asks like "I am worried Vmin seem distant lately" and then even just a few days later "What is up with Vmin they are so loud". I think it's a lot about what we focus on most of the time. And repeatedly hearing "Vmin seem distant" will just make us more likely to start believe it.

This is such a rant and chaotic post written from my phone in a hurry. I just really want people to remember how this conversation keeps coming up once in a while and it's nothing new (other shippers have the same type of reactions/worries as well from time to time). It wasn't even new in 2018 as I was already kind of tired of this "flip flop" worry. Vmin called each other soulmates in 2017, people thought they fell apart in 2018 and now in 2020 they sang about being soulmates. That's the perspective we might want to remember. Do I think Vmin fell apart and then suddenly felt like soulmates again? Or do I think fans' misinterpreted them and exaggerated the negative and projected their feelings onto Vmin? Probably more likely the second. Because we do get moments, and we will for sure get more again.

I understand if you miss Vmin or even if you wonder if something might be going on. But I really don't think we have anything to worry about. At least not with what we have at the moment. I have been here a million times before, and the only consistant changes I have seen is Vmin getting closer and louder and softer. Like, Friends, 95z is love, sharing beds, holding hands every chance they can... Things that all happened after they were "dead" in 2018. Not to mention Vmin in Malta, the Christmas song Vlive or other big moments that happened during the "peak of dead Vmin". Vmin has known each other and been best friends for 7 years, their relationship is likely stable by now and it would take a lot for me to worry about them.

Sorry for the rant. But I think now would be a good time to actually remember everything we got, small or not, and realize it all still points at Vmin being soulmates.

[silenthillmutual]

Would u ever analyse/write about peter bipolar stuff bc i see so many ppl psychoanalyse daniil but i just want to put the stamatins in a lab and examine them anyway i saw ur peter daniil bingo thing and i think manic depressive peter is so real and we should spread the word and there isnt enough peter content maybe daniil can b there too so yh what do u think about petrs brain ??...... umm im a little weird from many painkillers but i hope this makes sense

bipolar peter ask part 2 -- but also i think p1 petr is so different from p2 peter kind of a bigger different than most other characters   [[like peter1 is still consumed by his vision and a pretty wizard and insane utopian but p2 peter is more tired disillusioned ready to be a dilf]]]  so  like man they might need to be separated if analysed  but anyway hes got problems  ❤️

soooo i am trying to answer this for the second time. tumblr’s new ask formatting kind of fucked up when i tried to insert the few screenshots i thought explained peter’s mental state. so here’s peter thoughts... 2!

i don’t really have the screenshots required to make a lengthy meta post about peter’s mental health issues on the scale of my daniil & autism analysis - though i doubt any analysis i write will quite surpass that - and even less for classic peter, but i do have a few thoughts.

i think a lot about peter’s state of mind because he’s probably my favorite utopian. which isn’t to say that i dislike the others (except georgiy), but peter holds a special place in my heart because i really relate to that depression he’s got going on. i like to think of peter as bipolar type ii, because the depression seems more pronounced. i also think it’s a good balance with andrey, who i hc as having bipolar type i. in contrast to peter’s depression, andrey has the irritability and impulsivity of a manic episode (i mean, he’s walking around without a shirt while there’s a sentient plague outside. shout out to everyone who’s walked around in the freezing cold in tank tops and shorts because they were (hypo)manic)

Peter: We don’t see eye to eye, the Judge and I. He argued taht the Tower was never their family’s crowning achievement... merely mine. And I concur. It was my crown. I’ve hit the ceiling...

i know the tower’s creation and existence is the source of much speculation and i’ve seen and liked a lot of what i read that people have had to say about it, the role it plays in the story, and the role it plays in peter’s depression. but i think it’s also fair to read it as something he may have created and feels he can’t replicate because he was hypo/manic at the time and has since crashed. once while hypomanic i was writing 5k a day like it was nothing, and when i finished the project and the episode i became overwhelmed with grief, like i would never write again. i think this hypothesis is supported by the fact that he and andrey obviously have created many fantastic things - they reference the dancing bridge and i think the other two are the cold hall and the house house? it’s late so lol if i got the names wrong - so clearly those unfinished stairways are not all there is. and he’s inspired again when he temporarily has custody of grace, so clearly he can and will create again, with or without the polyhedron.

Peter: You know, old boy, I was never persecuted for my genius. Nor was I prosecuted for murder. And yet, it turns out all this was my hell after all.

Voice line: Life is a night at the bar. All the wisdom you gain, you pay for in pain.

i think one of my friends w bipolar suggested that the way he interacts with his creations hints at psychosis, but that's something i'd be ill-equipped to discuss as i don't experience psychosis. his paranoia that farkhad and andrey are mad at him, though...

Peter: I wonder how long my tower will hold. I wonder if Farkhad forgave me... if Brother is angry with me... I wonder about many things.

this screenshot isn’t exactly proof of anything, but he definitely seems wrapped up in mistakes that he’s made in the past in a way that feels familiar. at some point in time all the mental illnesses become inextricable, but there’s a lot i’ve felt i’ve lost to the bizarre shit i’ve done while strugging w bipolar disorder and i think the regret is real. not to mention the significant comorbidity of bipolar disorder and anxiety disorders. and the high rate (70%, according to this) of comorbidity between bipolar disorder and substance use disorder

Peter: A lot. I have to quit drinking, but I don’t have any willpower left.

peter clearly has a lot less faith in his potential for recovery and it makes me wonder if he’s tried to get sober before and failed.

also i tend to mash my characterizations together when writing fic because i look at the two games as accompaniments of each other - especially as we only have one route of p2 so far. but i do think p2 peter seems slower and sadder than classic peter. i think they’re different symptoms of the same illness though... maybe when i get around to replaying bachelor route i’ll take more screenshots of peter and formulate more thoughts on his mental illness but boy. he’s got it.

thank u for the ask!! i love talking n thinking about this kinda stuff.

[project-paranoia]

Live Watch: S.C.I. Mystery Episode One

I enjoy camp because I've always enjoyed analysis and examination.  I enjoy looking at something from all sides, testing it with my fingertips. When I was a child I would sit for hours just looking at something until I had it all held in my mind and I felt like I understood it.  Camp necessitates that understanding the way that imitation and - good - parody requires it.  To quote Susan Sontag - who articulated what camp is so well - Camp is "a sensibility that revels in artifice, stylisation, theatricalisation, irony, playfulness, and exaggeration rather than content."  Because of this camp takes on head to head gender, sexuality, expectations, any sort of defined norm and sequins it up then shakes it down until understanding comes out.  When understanding something there are three major ways to work your investigation - what it is, what it's imitation is - the close but not quite, and what it isn't.  Camp handles all three, to quote again: "Camp sees everything in quotation marks. It's not a lamp, but a 'lamp; not a woman, but a 'woman.'"

Why are we talking about camp?  Because SCI Mystery is some of the best kind of camp outside of drag or screaming about wire hangers.  It deals a lot with mental illness in a way that would destroy a serious show, but in this one "mental illness" is a metaphor for being marginalised and a way to talk about the mouse and cat in the room.  This show is about being queer.  About being gay loudly and quietly, about resisting specific labels and needing them, about the threat of a cure and the blessing of acceptance.  All the messy realities of queer life as varied as queer people. Like Lil Nas X's Montero, you can appreciate the effort without being comfortable with it. While the show's allegory of mental illness when many queer people are still told they are ill is done well and there is reason to the choices and tone, things are said which can be hard to hear.  Knowing they're there because they're hard to hear and have been heard doesn't help everyone.

With all that said, it's also a fun, silly bl drama.  Don't let the analysis scare you off.  While the information about camp can be something to be aware of, all this show requires to be enjoyed is a willingness to be amused and spooked in turns.

You know the drill, spoilers below!

* I have memorised the youku sound, I have a triggered response with it. Not all triggers are bad, this one reminds me of Guardian

* Welcome to episode one where we just leap in!  But don't worry, one of them has a cute earring and they are colour coordinated.

* Watching from youtube the episode is 38 minutes long while most of the others are 45.  Attach whatever emotion you want to that fact.

* The exposition is handily delivered by asking a question which tells us some things, thank you show, I appreciate it

* First episode and he's already giving his partner an in case I don't come back letter to be opened if he dies

*  Wait for me!~  Go!~~

* Slow walk with dramatic music: 1 (don't make this a drinking game You Will Expire) this time with bonus almost looking back

* I've seen a similar shot on Hawaii Five O

* Don't explain what's happening, just knock everything over with a jump kick in some absolutely spotless white tennies

* Running with dramatic music with bonus looking back: Does it count?  We have yet to hear back from the judges

* They leap into the water with an explosion behind them, we are less than 2 minutes in and I love that for them

* At first I thought the boats were making a big heart before I remembered that I am very silly and they are not doing that

* This one is going to be long

* I can see his pockets through his trousers, why are his trousers so thin?

* It's not kissing to dramatic music in the surf if it's CPR

* Each story line has its own intro and that's very sexy of them

* Slow walk/dramatic music: 2-6

* These people are totally goofy and and yet the Seriousness

* Two Weeks Ago!

* The police school bus has arrived to shoo away the crows circling around Dr. Zhan staring (dramatically) at the body

* Sport scar policeman dresses even more unprofessionally than Zhao Yunlan who at least looks like a detective who was jumped by so many criminals he just gave up wearing a suit and went for jeans. Chief Bai's clothes are so thin, I'm under constant anxiety someone is going to tear them off.

* Also several of the cast pictures on MyDramaList look like the pictures your auntie insists taking to send to your other aunties and I love that for them

* Triple axil spin from the victim, the judges are loving it - this is the camp I'm here for

* The dramatic slo mo and music budget for this show was so big, just as it should be

* He's mad because he's angy

*  Master Psychiatrist can tell all about the killer from crouching by the body, it's a trope and this is one of the few places I like it because it serves the show instead of the show serving it

* When you're almost boyfriend is going away for reasons and it's not your decision but you can't go with him because of your job so you're just low key bitter about it

*  "You can't control me"

* The pettiness between these two

* Professional women who worked hard to get where they are still are constantly obsessed with boys according to most cdramas

*The male posturing in those three second has accidentally circled back around to being gay in the way those bro shows accidentally do and I love that

* I live for this 80s-90s police chief perm

* The Pettiness

* I always tend to like doctor characters, I don't know why.  Even when they aren't my favourites I like them.

* She's kind of adorable, I like her (I've seen a lot of this show and every time I say I like someone it ends badly ;-; )

* "the victems"

* If you love Creative English, this is the show for you!

* Chief Bai's crew is trying so hard to get them back together

* Dr. Zhan is so good at psychology he can tell what someone looks like from some tire tracks - this trope is used all the time in crime shows, but they push it a little farther in SCI and it really helps the viewer know what the rules for the show are

* The scene in the psychiatrist's office hearkens back to queer coded villains and the way they're treated in old black and white horror cinema - but done so artfully it's almost invisible.  It's incredibly well done, and the awareness of tropes and types all throughout the series is tremendously successful as much as it's campy fun.

* There's also the trope of someone who manipulates someone into feeling like they've been "purified" and then weaponises them against the "filthy". And of course the fact that the killer's blade is a mirror - that he's killing in others what he sees in himself. This trope hasn't just been queer-coded but has been applied to any sort of physical or mental disorder. Thesis have been written about this trope and the anxiety attached to it. I can't write them better and this is long enough, it's just a small part of the excellent handling of the themes showing up in this genre and I wanted to point it out because it deserves appreciation for the skill and knowledge in the writing.  

* The whole you need evidence vs you're saying psychoanalysis isn't trustworthy feels very much like a coded angry exes discussion

* I love the establishing shots, so good

* He kind of deserved that door to the face, what was he even doing

* Police violence in crime shows is supposed to be a release for the viewer, but many countries have issues with police violence so it hits wrong.  Here it's far more performative in a way that at least has some awareness

* The weirdest phone call, you call someone to tell them something important and they say two things to you and hang up

* The tongue thing, why always the tongue thing?

* When a serial killer tries to compliment you by calling you a carnivore and you shut down the whole alpha male supposition by calling yourself a vegetarian

* At this point I've written almost fifteen hundred words and taken almost two hours to watch 23 minutes

* This is my life, these are my choices

* Dutch Angles

* You could make this conversation about being gay, I have had this conversation about homosexuality before

* Unfortunately while I had it I was on the bus trapped in a window seat

* The conversation didn't end with me saying something cool and everyone clapping

* They just got off the bus to go to work

* The banality of evil, yo

* Her shorts are Incredibly Short, good for her

* "arrest the perp behind my back" that's his job, broheim

* He doesn't ask why she checked behind their ears

* DUN dun dun!

* Slo mo file drop, and of course the file is blood stained and aged

* Chalk Art of Doom

* Chinese word play!

* Caught almost putting his coat over his crush, embarrassing XD

* Backstory!

*  I love all the little character details, I could quote lines I think are funny all day but that would start getting silly

* Bai Yu Tong is marked as clean and having OCD but we don't see what's apparently a huge character trait at all other than the all white, do love that he's good at cooking

* Dr. Zhan: Brilliant!  Genius!  Cannot feed himself.

* Dr. Gong has indifference level 100% which is true and also I love that for him

* I love that Wang Shao part of the team because he's good at making friends, I love that for him

* Poor Zhao Fu: scared of ghosts and dumb and sweet?  At least he has an 8 pack

* Jiang Lin is very tropey except the mention of her nearsightedness

* Ma Han's height 1.7m and legs 1.8m is hilarious and I love it

* I stopped recording the slo mo walks, but if you were drinking along with them you might be dead so I really appreciate you taking time out of your afterlife to continue reading.  We appreciate all our ghost readers

* And that's the first episode!  Thanks for making it to the end!

[watchinglikeafangirl]

Lovely Writer Episode 4 - short analysis

Yesterday, I was too tired to write this because I took an English exam today. I'm a bit exhausted, so it's gonna be short.

Now I'm ready to rant about the new episode of Lovely Writer because Gene and Nubsib took a big step and were both real for a moment which seemed very intimate. It felt a bit weird and I felt like I was invading someone's personal space, I don't know why, maybe because they were so serious which I am not used to.

Talking about getting used to something, the show portays these new turn of dynamic and their interactions as something private. It feels private and we know they don't act like this around others. It's a bond they share and talks they have only when they are alone with each other. The more we know them the less sound effects are being used. They found a flow they can both go with and share deep emotions. Nubsib knows how he has to talk to Gene and the other way around because they both are shy. I fully understood this very important fact this episode. Gene is out with his friends and they ask personal questions plus are interested in his life and he stops having fun. He is very shy but hates it about himself at the same time. He always acts like this, always pulls away, always overthinks but he regrets it the next moment. Nubsib is aware of that and tries to create spontaneous events Gene can't walk away from.

I'm not sticking to my point...

Another thing that feels very private and unusual to the audience is Gene's bedroom. It was never entirely shown before. They always spend time in the living room/kitchen and I have to admit, it took me a while to realize that it was Gene's room and Nubsib is not breaking into someone else's home. I don't know why I thought that... Nubsib simply lives there too. Probably because of the creepy picture they painted of Nubsib who is not as shady as I thought. Anyway, knowing and being in Gene's room feels kinda weird because it is something new about him. But the more time passes, the more we get used to it and the more we know about Gene's feelings and thoughts. First, his room looks very white and sterile. The colors aren't very intense and the light is very bright. Then the next time we see his room, it is filled with warm light, making it romantic because the following scene is romantic. The next morning, it is again flooded with daylight but doesn't look as clean and tidy any more. More like there's actually someone living there. And then, Gene hides under his blanket because he wants to be alone and his room looks messy again. He is a messy person and in this moment very confused. Him hiding under his blanket shows he doesn't know what to do with himself. He doesn't know what to think. And Nubsib, the source of his confusion, even slept in his room, his private zone, so it doesn't feel as private any more. To think, he shuts out the world but his room reminds him of Nubsib now, so he hides under his blanket.

Four scenes are taking place in Gene's room because we and Nubsib get to know him better and better. There are barely sound effects used in this episode, showing they are real. And the scene in the car is just... I was dying because of all the cuteness. Drunk Gene is very clingy and brave. He doesn't keep the wall up between the world and himself. He just says what he thinks. He even wants to kiss Nubsib in the bedroom.

Mentioning the bedroom, there is a big plusponit for me and it is consent. Nubsib doesn't take advantage of Gene. He knows Gene is drunk and even stops him because he knows Gene would be extremely embarressed the next day and he is not in his right mind. Alcohol simply has a big influence on your way of thinking and Nubsib doesn't use that to have some "action" with Gene. In other BLs this would've been at least a kissing scene if not more but not here and I love it. Consent is very important here, this and last episodes.

Also, Gene sort of agrees with him that they need more time. They just cuddle and sleep together, nothing else and this was very sweet and shows that physical attraction isn't everything. Both know they have feelings and Gene didn't drink enough to forget it all. So, I'm excited to see how things will turn out and if we get a kiss or not...

I guess I'm not the only one with this theory but I think the burning hand was a metaphor aka foreshadowing and I have to say, I'm a bit concerned. Gene only burns his hand because Nubsib walks in the kitchen. If that isn't supposed to mean something... Nubsib will hurt Gene in the following story and I hope it's not bad. He is the reason Gene got burned but took care of it which could also mean he will hurt Gene but will make up for it and make the pain go away after Gene rejects him a bit.

This episode, three things got very clear:

They are both shy

Gene is very lonely

Nubsib cares a lot