#in season 1 we intentionally get a hint of what he Could’ve been

[pinkedify]

How realistic do you think Villain Shouto is?

in a world without class A (+ izuku, who was the catalyst for growth at the sports festival. keyword catalyst. not sole cause, but catalyst) … probably pretty realistic

shouto kind of said it himself yk. how easily he could’ve turned out like touya had he not found his own way with the help of his friends and mentors. this is why in AUs where shouto never gets that support i tend to write him being Not The Best. he has the capacity (and the desire) to be good but he also has the capacity to reach very low lows imo. duality of man

[willthewise7]

Season 1 Episode 1 Analysis

Will Byers’ sexuality hinted from the start:

It’s clear to see from the very beginning that Will was intended to be gay. Very obvious hints in dialogue from Hopper and Joyce whilst speaking about Lonnie and how he use to think he was “queer”. Hopper asks if that was true to see if a potential hate crime was the key cause of Will’s disappearance.

Will Byers has powers:

Right from the very beginning of the episode this is teased. Remember when the writers/producers mentioned how everything is written intentionally? This here is a prime example.

The first hint of this being a potential plot point is through the demogorgon scene. Firstly, it’s clear that Will did not bleed when he fell of his bike. If he did, they would’ve shown it on camera to demonstrate that this is how demogorgons hunt, primarily through smell (specifically blood). This was not shown, due to Will not being hurt from the crash. Therefore, why did the demogorgon still pursue Will? Even when he was in the house and surely not easily detectable by the demogorgon?

Moving on, once the demogorgon reaches the house it moves the latch on the door. Seems normal right? Sure, if the latch was on the other side of the door. It used telekinesis to open the door which we know they can’t do. So it’s probable that Vecna was involved in using the demogorgon to retrieve Will. Why this is remains to be seen, until Season 5. But my bet is it’s due to Will having unknown powers.

The last part of the scene I want to mention is the shed. Firstly, the demogorgon just emerges out of no where at all. How is this possible? Potentially a portal opened up inside the shed which the demogorgon created, which does make sense. It also makes sense for Will to escape through the portal (which is what Hopper examines the remains of). So to me, that plot point is logical and I can rest with that.

This brings me to my final point. During one of the last scenes of the episode we see Joyce and Jonathan looking at photos of Will. Whilst they do so, the phone begins to ring. However, it sounds very ominous and ends with a demogorgon noise. I don’t think a demogorgon thought of doing a prank call out of nowhere. It could’ve been Vecna but again, I don’t see why he’d bother. It was Will trying to communicate with Joyce, but the demogorgon over heard. Hence why Will has to run away and the demogorgon finds the phone, making the noise at the end of the call. Will therefore somehow can manipulate objects and matter through dimensions. Further leading me to believe that he has powers. Read my other theories for why I believe time froze as a result of Will in the Upside Down.

The next part of the episode that hints at Will having powers is the campaign scenes and party scenes. Will could cast protection in the campaign but he decides to, instead, cast fireball and risk his own life for the party. Like Mike said “he could have played it safe”, and he “could’ve cast protection”, but he risked himself “for the party”. It’s very odd how these actions became real after it happens in the campaign. Will gets taken by the demogorgon in real life, and he gets taken out in the game. His actions lead to real consequences in both reality and in the game. What if he’d not cast fireball? Would the whole party have been in real danger?

Again, does he have some sort of powers with dimensions he’s unaware of? Does he have the power to make the game come to life?

Byler is hinted from the start:

Right from the start Byler is hinted at, very subtley. It’s hinted at that Will is gay but also that he cares a lot about Mike. He could easily lie to Mike so that he wouldn’t have been taken by the demogorgon in the game. However, he has to tell Mike the truth because he cares about him a lot. Trust is the main foundation for any healthy relationship. You can’t lie easily to those that you care about deeply.

Mike also cares deeply about Will. I lost count of the amount of times that Mike is concerned about Will and even says “I’m the only one who cares about Will”. You could just say that it’s because they’re best friends, which is true. They are best friends. But the entire party are really good friends. So they’re clearly trying to tell the audience from the start that these two have a unique and special relationship. The camera and directing focuses on Mike when searching for Will the most. The rest of the party are concerned too, but the directing focuses on Mike more. Rememeber, this is intentional. They want us to notice and pay attention to this.

A last note on Byler and Mike is the last scene when they find El. We know in Season 4 that Mike says that day and moment is when he realised he loved El. But the first episode directing and acting says otherwise. It didn’t look to me like love at first sight. They were all shocked to see a random girl in the middle of the woods. It’s not what you’d expect to see. So I do believe that line was a lie. Otherwise the directing would have been different or that line wouldn’t have been included.

[papers4me]

Fruits Basket Manga Review ch (90)- First pages ONLY.

I skimmed thro ch-89 to know the context of ch-90. it was Cinderella’s play. In this chapter, Kyo says early on, that time has passed since the play & that they are NOW starting their third year in high school. cool.

This part will ONLY focus on the 1st few pages of ch 90 abt (kyo & tohru) & stop before kyo’s memories starts, because the early pages contain:

Tons of new unexplored analysis of (kyo & tohru) characters that unfortunately was intentionally cut & worse! “changed” in the anime.

No space to add kyoko’s story in this post.

Kyoko’s story is full psychologically & socially.. I need to take a deeeeeeep breath before I unpack it. very deeeeep breath!

-Glimpses of Tohru (the silent grieving girl) Subtle Writing of Grief:

Right from the beginning, I hate how much insight into tohru’s grief & weakness as a human being is already there in the first few pages of ch-90 than the entire 3 seasons of the anime! From few pages we have:

Tohru’s seemingly delighted watching a video. Subtly, showcasing tohru’s grieve & paving the path for tohru’s trauma exploration later in the story. Grief is not sth you quickly past, that’s the most tragic misunderstanding of grief. Time will pass, so, you’ll be better & healthier. Really?!. Tohru’s inner desire to see her mom alive manifested in her words: “ like a photo comes to life” T_T.

The story/writing/manga is acknowledging tohru’s heartbreaking & NOT cute habit of talking to her mom’s cold dead photo! In the anime, tohru talks to her a lot in se01 & it’s up to you to see as as “ cute” as all the canon characters do or actually feeling it IS wrong. Kyo’s  “ what would she do if there were a video of her mom”! “ drives the point more abt tohru being a sad grieving human~not the “advice-giving, optimistic angel, & rain-stopping sunshine in the anime.

Tohru telling kyo to NOT catch cold connecting it to se01, ep 9 (haru’s ep) when tohru was afraid that yuki might catch cold & kyo noticed that! so now in se03, they’re dropping this plot altogether within the main anime, for what? we dont even know if this part would be included in whatever “ kyoko’s” spinoff content would be. -_-’.

That’s how you write subtle trauma such as (grief) for a main (female) MC. subtlety is the key. Respect the viewers intelligence & do it.

You don’t have to give her the long speeches or the many focused ep that yuki had. he’s the kind who confront himself inwardly constantly.

You don’t have to showcase drama, confrontation & force the emotions out like you did with kyo. he runs from his trauma & punishes himself.

Tohru buries her feelings! she’s different from both kyo & yuki. So, with her subtle & symbolic scenes are enough!!!The viewers will catch it if you show it, but ignoring it, cutting it & hoping the viewers will magically predict what you cut, is weird. But the anime isn’t even into us predicting nor subtly showing her cuz this tohru is NOT the tohru we have in the anime. How?

Simply cuz there is no kyo’s inner thoughts abt small things such as tohru’s photo obsession which subtly shows her grief & trauma. If kyo didn’t monologue abt her, tohru does not exist as she’s meant to be. You loose the subtle insights into tohru if you cut kyo’s inner thoughts. Not everything kyo thinks abt in regards to tohru is romance!!! That’s a very narrow & superficial look into the writing of kyo/’tohru dynamics. Flip the pages, hmm..cut this kyoru scene here & there cuz we dont want the anime to be only their love story.. But the story itself IS NOT only their love story at all. These pages/scenes here are abt tohru as a PERSON. Not tohru the lover...

- Writing Clashes between manga & anime: (Kyo’s Conscious Gradual Psychological Exploration vs Shock Value & Drama)

In ch 90 i really love all the inner self talking that kyo’s doing. It really explains why he ended up rejecting tohru so strongly. Also, going for a trip into kyo’s mind is hella exciting, new, refreshing & full of analysis-worthy exploration! Kyo’s inner psychological argument with himself is a psychologically-informed presentation of a tried guilty mind:

“ Why can’t I stop thinking of (kyoko’s words) lately? Acknowledging that he IS remembering kyoko & never forgot her. This is also supported in the anime itself. When he apologized to a sleeping tohru in se01, ep14 & se02, ep9 , confronting yuki in the stairs & other instances as well. 

“ It’s like a lid been opened & all the memories came pouring”. Acknowledging that kyo DID open his lid since se02, ep9 byt chose to run & not confront it due to his guilt of ruining tohru’s happiness by confessing his connection to her mom. 

“ pretending I didn’t know, pretending I forgot”. Here is a blatant clash in kyo’s writing (1) between the anime & manga (2) between the anime’s episodes themselves!!. In the manga, again kyo chose to ignore & pretended to forget. Death is NOT sth you forgot. Kyo saw kyoko bleeding & dying.  The anime chose to make him totally forget & it could’ve worked if they didn’t included all the canon moments of him actually remembering & pretending to forget. Is that lazy writing? or was the director for se03 different from se 1 &2 &? chose to NOT watch the two previous seasons? Why would you consciously include a contradicting depiction of your character on screen for thousands of confused viewers? Was the scene of kyo’s shocked gave upon seeing kyoko’s photo that artistically appealing that you forgot everything? I really have NO problem of kyo forgetting kyoko if that was written in the anime since se01, but it wasn't. that's why it sucks. 

“Is this payback? maybe I want to blame ME?” augh! i love this line so much! Directly hinting to the viewers that this is kyo’s one-sided guilt before his story with kyoko even started! subtly paving the path for the reason of his rejection of tohru” I dont want forgiveness. I want to blame ME.

-I don’t mind that the anime left kyo’s thoughts of kyoko until the climax in eo8, cuz ep 8 was SO well-done! Se03, ep 8 pacing was very suitable to (1) uncovering dark secrets & death, trauma, & guilt. (2)  for exploring the effects such secrets on kyo’s character, decisions, mentality. Also, the animation of kyo’s face all ep 8 was one of the most expressive facial expressions the anime has ever delivered! The eyebrows, eyes, mouth, tears, body languages, heartache was all 100% perfect. The fact that the following eps didnt have much time to express everything & chapters were cramped is not ep 8′s fault but the decision to have 13 eps. Kyo’s delayed trauma deserved to have its own ep.

-What I DO mind is the added scene of ep 6 where he freaked out upon seeing kyoko’s picture, the concept of shock is perfect & so suitable for an anime but was NEVER properly written into the anime itself from the beginning. On the contrary, the anime itself contradict such usage of such value. Good job ruining an otherwise perfect-depiction of two traumatized characters (kyo & tohru) with ONE scene.. -_-

Side Notes:

I thought tohru is narrating the 1st page in ch-90, turned it out it is kyo!!!! Kyo narrates sth? Kyo monologues? kyo has a POV? Just the setting of kyo doing that feels different! I duno if it cuz when that happens in the anime it’s always clash & drama! lol, or cuz it’s sth original!

Shigure’s “ it’s broadcasted all over the nation” is epic! XD! you know poor stupid kyo would fall for that! XD. kyo, you really are an idiot! XD... man this scene would’ve been epic comedy~ lol.

Tohru not knowing what a “dvd” is is outdated for the anime, but to still keep the sentiment of “her wishing she’d have a video footage of her mom”, they could’ve replaced her words with “ It’d be fun watching this play years from now & remembering all the details”. I know that to some, it feels weird that tohru doesn't have video footage of her mom in this era. but trust me, this is more common than you might think. My late brother, who’s way younger than me, doesn't have much video footage, he always felt awkward & preferred not to be filmed. We got photos for him tho~

Even if you want kyo’s knowledge of kyoko to be in the climax only. You can always include this scene of tohru & kyo in the first pages in the anime somehow. It doesn't even need to be abt the dvd even tho that’s manageable. Cutting this short scene of them talking abt videos, & catching cold is cutting tohru’s trauma from its core. Then, the old grandpa’s narration from se03, ep6 would at least have some backup in the anime’s canon.

Momiji & shigure are perfect as a comedic duo!

I can’t get over tohru’s art~ <3

Pinning kyo at the beginning is epic~ kyo always gets the BEST romantic lines when he talks to himself. “ burning (tohru’s ) memories into my head or forgetting everything”. The torturing fire inside him is only distinguished by loving her but is also ignited by loving her~ what’s the solution~

[buckleysbegins]

My thought on Buddie and on Queer people (but especially men) in 9-1-1:

I go back and forth on whether or not I think Buddie will actually become cannon. If we look back on Buck’s actions in the first season (Buck 1.0) we see a "hyper-sexual", young, millenial character who is characterized as ‘bad’ and as needing to change. If the show was targeted to younger millenials and older gen z, then Buck’s actions would not have been seen as a bad thing becasue these generations of people have reclaimed the idea of sexuality and of having as much concensual sex as they want, as long as its being done safely. But, becasue the show was watched and targeted to older people (older Gen X and Boomers) who are definetley more sexually repressed and not as open with themselves, Buck’s character was seen as young and dumb. Yes, he was naive and young and it was not a good idea to steal the firetruck to have sex in the middle of the work day. But, I would argue that he was not, in fact, dumb. Having Bobby be a savior/father character to Buck’s ‘bad’ decisions just pushed, and continues to push, the idea that Buck is a hyper-emotional character who cannot make good decisions (pushing himself to get back to work, hook-up culture, the lawsuit- which I do not think was a bad idea, to be honest. Bobby was in the wrong, he couldn't let his personal feelings go).

Saying all that, how are bisexual characters ALWAYS characterized? As being hyper-sexual (Buck). As not being able to hold down a relationship (Buck). As being straight until, hey, you know what? I think I might be gay (possibly Buck’s future??) And look, Ryan Murphy has never written a bisexual character who remained bisexual. His characters are always straight until they’re gay or say they are bisexual once and then decided that they are ‘fully’ gay later on. Ryan Murphy is another problem all together, though. I really dislike that man. Back to Buck, he fits the characterization of a bisexual character without coming out as bisexual. Is this on purpose? Do the writers/producers whant queer people to be able to tell that Buck is bisexual? IS this just another instance of the sad bi boy who won’t come out until he is in a relationship?

We know that if the show was for younger people, Buck would have had a relationship with a man by now. Maddie hinted at it when she mentioned Buck’s crush on Eddie and again when she was stealthily setting Josh and Buck. Queer people and ally’s can see it but are basically being gaslighted and queerbaited along the way. And lets not even get started on Hen’s decisions in season 1 (another queer person who makes bad decisions and who is too emotional as the only woman on the team??)

I personally do not see Eddie and Buck getting together (hopefully I’m wrong). I don’t think Ryan Murphy is brave enough. (I’m just going to say it) Lone star isnt nearly as good of a show as 9-1-1. The acting isnt as good (both the main cast and the extras), the inter-personal relationships of the main cast isnt as strong. We were given that show as a cop out. "Oh, you want queer people? You want queer men? OK! Here’s a new show!”

i’m gonna preface this by saying that i’m by no means an expert in queer representation in media and my experience with bisexual representation in media in particular is limited (just because most shows i’ve watched don’t feature bisexuality in either a positive or negative light). i’m also not a buddie shipper so that isn’t something that i’m actively hoping to happen, so i probably don’t feel as strongly about this as you, as well as a lot of the fandom, apparently do.

i personally feel like at this point in the show it would be fairly easy to create a positive bisexual representation on the show. like yes, buck made stupid decisions in season 1 (as did literally all of the characters) and the representation of his more open sexuality could’ve been better (cause on one hand while stealing a firetruck to get laid is objectively stupid and reckless, but they could’ve also worked in open sexuality that wasn’t stupid sexuality), but he’s grown a lot since then and i think the understanding of his character has changed a lot and those tendencies don’t feel as relevant to his character anymore (i also don’t necessarily agree with any of the overall characteristics that you’ve pointed out, since part of the show is that a lot of those no longer really apply). it would be one thing if they regressed buck into that sort of culture, but also given that him looking for something serious is a main storyline for him now, i don’t think him considering dating a man/men in general would automatically be a stereotyped representation. i know it can be difficult because some people will automatically apply a character’s tendencies to the character’s sexuality, but i also really do think that there are a lot of ways to do it without playing into stereotypes.

i also personally strongly disagree with the idea that the show is queerbaiting/gaslighting viewers by “teasing” buddie and that lone star is the “gay version” of the original 911 or something. firstly, i do note that you barely mentioned any of the canonically queer characters, with one of them being to show how a gay man was being used to “tease” a bisexual buck and the other to cite hen as a negative example of queer representation (though i also did really dislike that storyline), and made no mention of michael (whose own coming out was a starting point of the show), nor of hen and michael’s ongoing steady relationships, nor of josh existing beyond that one line regarding buck, and whenever i see stuff like this i feel like people are glossing over (either intentionally or unintentionally) those characters and relationships to fit their narrative. i also don’t think that they’re dangling buddie as a means to get viewers, as i personally don’t see as much there (either explicitly or subtextually) as a lot of other people on here do (plus the show did as well in season 1 when eddie didn’t exist as it’s done since he was introduced, so they’re not really getting some boost from it). as for lone star, since i don’t actually watch the show so i don’t know how they actually treat their queer characters and relationships and what representation is featured by side characters, but from what i’ve heard it’s not like it’s “more,” it’s just different. i know that the show features a trans character and that one of the main romantic relationships is between two gay main characters (and both of those are great!) but the only real difference i can see between the original show and lone star is that the gay characters are both the “hot shippable” type that a lot of fandom tends to go for (because like with the original it looks like most of the content is for that relationship and not the trans character/other representation).

i don’t know if buck’s (or eddie’s) sexualities will ever be explored and if that’s a route they’ll decide to go down, and that they’ll actually handle it in a kind way if they do, but i think there’s definitely more than enough opportunity for them to do so if they do. i don’t want to give the showrunners credit for something they haven’t done, but i’m also not going to knock them for it yet.

[travllingbunny]

The 100 rewatch: 5x03 Sleeping Giants

Continuing my joint rewatch of season 5 with @jeanie205. After two great episodes where we caught up with our main characters and saw (or did not see, in the case of Spacekru) their experiences during the 6-year time jump, Sleeping Giants is another excellent episode, this time fully about the present day action with the Eligius prisoners moving into Eden, their conflict with and capture and torture of Clarke, and most of all about the Spacekru trying to find a way to deal with the Eligius crew, get to the ground and save their people.

It’s also a great Bellamy episode, just as 5x01 was a great Clarke-centric episode and 5x02 a great Octavia episode. Raven also gets still getting pretty good character moments here (and has maybe more lines than in any other episode, but to be fair, most of it is exposition).

What particularly struck me - especially after quite a few slower episodes in season 7 - is just how fast, intense and full of both action and loads of new information (about Eligius 4 and Diyoza, but also a lot of setup for season 6, and even for the possible prequel). There are also lots and lots of parallels and contrasts to season 1, and callbacks to previous seasons in general; morality debates, fights, and one very epic (and romantic-looking) reunion of the show’s two main characters in the closing scene.

Timeline:  2 days have passed since the present day events of 5x01 - it is 2201 days since Praimfaya.

This episode is full of action and new information - if you don’t pay attention to every second, you may miss some of it:

First mention of Eligius 3: their mission may have been top secret. but the crew of Eligius 4 obviously knew that the corporation was sending Nightbloods and that one of the planet was a binary star system (Shaw males a comment "Two suns, no sunscreen”).

Eligius 4 was a mining ship; one of its engines got busted in the rebellion of the prisoners, which is why the ship needed a hundred years to get back to Earth (as opposed to Eligius 3 - which we later see took just a few years to reach Sanctum from Earth)

Possible prequel info: Raven mentions great-great grandpappy Blake who was an astronaut with multiple PhDs (but it’s unclear if he was an ancestor of both Bellamy and Octavia, in which case he has to be Aurora’s ancestor).

We start getting some of Diyoza backstory here (there’s more in the following episodes), when she mentions to Clarke that she fought when the “fascist government” tried to take her home. (This could’ve been seen as just Diyoza’s bias, but now that we have an idea - from 7x08 - what USA - under a President Wallace - was like just before the apocalypse, her description seems fitting. Callie also considered the government fascist.)

Instead of more exposition, the show follows the Show, Don’t Tell rule and gives the backstory about the rebellion in a more exciting way, by having Spacekru find and watch a video message that the late captain of the ship filmed  and was about to send when he was killed. But the show also still intentionally withholds some info: the captain mentions that the prisoners have learned about Order 11 but we don't find out what that was until a few episodes later - that it was an order to kill all the prisoners. This would change our perception of Diyoza and the entire situation to quite an extent, but so far, all you get from this is that the prisoners, and Diyoza in particular, are very dangerous. The captain was about to send the message that Eligius be blown out of the sky, saying that “Diyoza can't be allowed to weaponize the cargo", which first hints at her terrifying reputation. But considering he was just going to do that, I’m not sure you can’t blame Diyoza for letting McCreary kill him. (Even though Shaw just does that, reminding Diyoza that she promised she wouldn’t kill any of the crew - to which she laconically replies she didn’t promise the others wouldn’t.)

There is, however, already some moral ambiguity there because Spacekru learn that prisoners were seen as “expendable” by the people in power - and Murphy says this sounds familiar, pointing out a parallel between the Eligius prisoners and the Delinquents. In general, season 5 plays a lot with the (imperfect) parallels (and contrasts) between season 5 and season 1. Some of the not-so-subtle callbacks include Diyoza saying “We’re not alone” in 5x01, Clarke making notes and drawings of the weaponry that the newcomers have, which is kind of a "parallel" to how Lincoln made notes in his notebook (except Lincoln was mostly making notes of how many people were there, not their weapons - since they didn’t have any), Clarke being captured and refusing to give any info by staying silent, and Clarke getting tortured, like Lincoln was. And just like Octavia argued that Lincoln didn’t speak English, but Bellamy was sure he did, now Shaw tries to argue that Clarke can’t speak English but Diyoza is smart enough to know she does. (It was really obvious in both cases - someone who doesn't speak your language but wants to communicate would say something in another language and make gestures, a mute person would make gestures, but when someone is looking at you silently and with a stone face, they obviously don't WANT to talk. Octavia seems to have actually believed that Lincoln didn’t speak English, since she was later surprised that he did - but she was still naive at the time. I find it hard to believe Shaw really believed that - he was probably just trying to dissuade Diyoza from letting McCreary torture someone.)

But here’s the thing: a parallel doesn’t have to mean two things are really the same - sometimes, as in this case, it’s more like “this is kind of reminiscent of that other thing, but when you compare them, you see that they’re drastically different”, which is pretty obvious, as in one case, we had a hundred kids with no weapons (aside from one gun and one knife), just going around without a plan and trying to have a good time in a rather small area, vs thousands of organized people with at least hundreds of armed warriors in a much wider territory. In this case, we have a bunch of heavily armed (and that’s an understatement, they really have all sorts of incredibly powerful weapons) adult murderers who came in with the express plan to take over the Valley - which was the only habitable area on Earth, vs a sole woman and a child. In other words, the Eligius prisoners are exactly what the Grounders claimed in season 1 that the 100 were, but what the 100 most definitely were not - a real and massive threat.  But on the other hand, there is a reason why this parallel exists - and that’s to point out that the prisoners, no matter how scary they are, no matter how good the reasons to be afraid of them, no matter how bad they may be... are still people who were sent as forced labor, deemed expendable, and now are trying to get back home, to Earth. What else could they do - float forever in space, in cryo? 

Another callback in this episode was to season 3 - and it’s a particularly important one for Bellamy’s character arc: the dilemma of what to do with the 283 Eligius prisoners in cryo. Murphy is the voice of ruthless pragmatism and suggests that they simply pull the plug and kill them all, before Diyoza could wake them up from the ground and use them as her army. Echo, though she says she understands why this is hard for Bellamy, backs up Murphy’s suggestion, but Bellamy refuses. You can see how awful even the idea is to him, reminding him of one of the things he has been regretting and feeling guilty for years - helping Pike kill Lexa’s army while they were sleeping. There are differences in circumstance, but it is basically the same thing, kill people in their sleep pre-emptively, before they could be potentially used against you, because if they are, they would be a huge threat to your people. (Well, it is the same thing for the purposes of the show - if we believe that experienced Trikru warriors could all sleep at the same time and not wake up and start fighting - which the show really wants us to believe, though it never made any sense. The Eligius prisoners, however, are really helpless here because they are cryo frozen, so this would really be the massacre that season 3 pretended Hakeldama was.) Murphy brings up Clarke, in what is one of the weirder lines in this episode - “If Clarke was here, this wouldn’t even...” I’m not sure what exactly he was trying to say - did he mean to imply Clarke would be in favor of killing them all (which doesn’t make much sense - it’s not like Clarke was the one more in favor of violent solutions than the peaceful and diplomatic ones compared to Bellamy, in fact, it was typically the opposite in seasons 1-4, especially whenever Murphy was around to witness their actions and decisions, On the other hand, the show went on to give Murphy some weird opinions about Clarke in season 6. Or did he mean that Bellamy himself would opt for drastic measures to protect Clarke? 

It’s unclear, and it feels like this line just exists to set up Bellamy’s response and show how much the loss and memory of Clarke is still weighing heavy on Bellamy and motivating him. Bellamy has been trying to be better and redeem himself for mistakes of his past that he made when he was more inclined to react violently against enemies - and, since Praimfaya, he has been trying to honor Clarke’s memory, and be the kind of leader she wanted him to be, and the kind of leader she was. "Clarke didn't die for us to go back and make the same mistakes".  

Ironically, Clarke has in the meantime become a lot more like season 1a Bellamy: her focus has narrowed to trying to protect a single person, a child she loves and feels responsible for, and in her present situation, she’s a lot more inclined to opt for violent solutions. We’ve already seen that in 5x01 with the “There are no good guys” scene, and in 5x03 she is quite ruthless when she doesn’t want to mercy kill a prisoner stabbed by one of her and Madi’s traps, even when Madi is asking her to do it. Season 5 Clarke characterization is pretty controversial - and I’m not 100% sure how I feel about it. It was clearly meant to show Clarke changed and not like herself after 6 years isolation with just Madi as a companion - but I don’t like the way it seemed to almost reduce Clarke to the “Mama Bear” trope. On the other hand, this is not entirely new - Clarke was always kind of mother to the Delinquents, even though they were her age, and driven by the desire to protect those she loves and/or felt responsible for -  especially in season 2, we saw how far she can go when she is cornered and desperate to save her people. And she is certainly cornered here. We could argue  whether some of her decisions here - such as to start attacking the prisoners - were smart, but with Eden as the only livable place, there wasn’t much else she could do other than hide, which she and Madi couldn’t do indefinitely.

Bellamy’s. Echo’s and Raven’s fight with Kodiak - a particularly large and dangerous prisoner that Diyoza had woken up because of the alarm Spacekru had set off - is IMO one of the best in the show, very raw and brutal and desperate. It reminds me of the 2x11 fight where Bellamy also ended up strangling a man after a desperate fight, with the help of Echo and someone else who’s mostly a non-combatant - in S2 it was Maya, here it’s Raven. (For someone who isn’t a fighter  and in spite of her disability, Raven has the right moves - going straight for the eyes.) Bellamy and Echo work well as a part of the team, the leader and his right hand, but if you just saw this episode, you’d have no idea that they’re a couple. They don’t get the little everyday moments of chemistry and coupley behavior that we see here with Marper (when Raven teases “lovebirds” about Zero G sex, we immediately see that Marper is who she meant) or that we see with Memori in other seasons, whenever they are together. Here, they are on a break, and it’s so weird after seeing them in S7, watching Emori and Murphy snapping at each other with animosity - but there’s a thin line between love and hate.

Sleeping Giants is generally a great showcase for Bellamy: this is arguably him at his best as a leader, not only negotiating and saving his people while also refusing to commit mass murder, but we also see how good he is at instilling confidence in other team members - be it asking Murphy for his opinion, or building up Emori’s confidence as a pilot. The moment where they smile each other after she lands successfully is one of the best scenes in terms of the Spacekru dynamic - and in terms of genuinely platonic m/f friendships in the show (which should get more screentime).

It’s also a good episode for Raven, who insists she stays behind even though she knows there is a huge chance of dying, and lies to Bellamy that there is an escape pod for two, to stop him from insisting on staying instead, with his own self-sacrificial tendencies. In season 7, Raven felt guilty for not putting her life on the line in 7x03, but she did it here. Murphy ends up unintentionally kind of doing the same - fooled by her lie about the escape pod. Would he have stayed behind if he knew there was no escape pod? At this point in his development, probably not, but he is still showing the desire to contribute and do something heroic. He isn’t even sure himself what his motives are - was it just to impress Emori and show he’s not selfish, or if he really wants to be a hero who is ready to sacrifice and/or risk his life, the way the others do?

There are so many callbacks in this episode! Murphy even says the line "See you on the other side" and Raven tells Murphy: “You're right, dying alone would have sucked", referencing their scene in 2x01, back when they were just starting to not be enemies.

But of course, what this episode is mostly remembered by is Bellamy learning that Clarke is alive, and their first meeting in 6 years, in the epic last scene. The show made Bellamy and the rest of the Spacekru a bit incompetent for a moment when they get themselves captured by two prisoners, so Madi would rescue them and deliver the news that Clarke is alive. Clarke has obviously told Madi stories about Bellamy and described him, since Madi immediately recognizes him. We get Bellamy’s Harper and Monty’s reactions (as they are the Delinquents and much closer to Clarke than Echo and Emori). So Madi rescues Bellamy and then Bellamy rescues Clarke, and it feels like a lot of the plot was written in order to set up that last scene.  (Incidentally, Bellamy and Clarke are paralleled with the way they both say the same line: “No, Madi”.)

Let’s be honest here - there was no plot reason whatsoever to put this kind of emphasis on Bellamy rescuing Clarke in this scene, other than to emphasize the importance of Bellamy’s and Clarke’s relationship. He was already planning to use the prisoners in cryo as leverage to rescue Octavia and the rest of the people in the bunker - which he will also do. He could have rescued Clarke in a brief scene and then continued negotiating with Diyoza. In plot terms, this is not a cliffhanger or last scene material. But in relationship terms? That’s another story. And there was no reason to make it look so goddamn romantic - other than to portray their relationship as a romantic one, regardless of their actual relationship status. 

The entire scene is filmed to look like a dream. We see Clarke looking at him, with a dreamy look in her eyes. From Clarke’s POV, it looks like Bellamy is appearing out of the darkness, bathed in light (and holding the “Best dad in the universe” cup from Eligius 4).  

 If this was just your run-of-the-mill rescue of some of our protagonists by other ones, there was also no reason for Diyoza to say the line: “283 lives for one. She must be pretty important to you.”  In fact, this line used to bug me - because I thought it didn’t make sense for her to ask that. Come on, Diyoza, you know how hostage negotiations and leverage works! You know he is making a smart play here. Release my people and I don’t kill your people - there’s nothing strange about that. But on second thoughts - I can see Diyoza bulls*itting like that in order to try to suss out what exactly Bellamy’s relationship to Clarke is, so she could potentially use it later in dealing with them. In any case, this line clearly exists to set up Bellamy’s answer: “She is”. Set o dramatic music, as the ending line of the episode.

Rating: 8.5/10

[danwhobrowses]

Tinfoil Discussions: My Hero Academia - The UA Traitor

I guess I’m late for the height of this debate, but I might as well throw my hat in. I will begin with this though; I’m not caught up with the anime or manga. I am waiting for Season 4 to finish up so I can binge it, so everything I say below is from memory of seasons 1-3 (which I had really enjoyed having binged for 3 days, they really do the ‘punch the air in victory’ moments well), so some of it might be wrong through hindsight I don’t currently have (and please don’t let me know, I’ve done my best to limit the spoiler content as much as youtube keeps suggesting me thumbnails of s4 moments and manga chapters)

So for anyone farther back than I am, spoilers for Seasons 1-3 and general speculation below

There is a Traitor Among Us Said by Present Mic after Bakugo was taken in the Forest of Beasts, it became all to apparent that someone had been leaking information to the League of Villains. The idea of a traitor is an uncomfortable one, since it means that someone in the loveable cast is not genuine and what’s more is perfectly willing to allow heroes and students alike to die in order to simply get at All-Might. Now, I don’t think I know who the traitor is, but I do have theories and options. Suspecting the Students The students are the first to be suspected because they’re the new blood, all this has happened from the start of the semester and the young are influenced easier. With kids having constant access to their phones there is an easier possibility for a leak, and the traitor could be the following people Hagakure - Perhaps the one everyone seems to be looking to, it is quite easy to point the finger at the Invisible Girl. Hagakure is an expert in stealth and her personality is bubbly enough to be seen as a facade, being unable to keep track of her is the main reason people could suspect her. However, I really don’t like this option; it’s too easy you know? And you’d have to pull out a hell of a lot to explain multiple things. For instance, Hagakure can’t make objects invisible as shown by her clothes, where would she keep a phone? At USJ they were in their Hero outfits and if I remember rightly the Forest of Beasts had no phone signal, it’s possible that there’s like a tracker under her skin (a decent way to have the league bug the class but also have her be a victim) but even then that’s just location. Another qualm would be bastardizing her friendship with Ojiro and the people who actually see her (despite being invisible), if she wanted intel surely she’d get closer to the people of interest to the league, there’s also her desire to stand out, a spy would not be so flagrant about standing out. It could just be that I don’t want to suspect any of the Class 1-A students, but it does seem too obvious to make Hagakure the traitor. Monoma - on the other side of the coin there’s Monoma, who I really dislike. Mr ‘Ohmygoshclass1Ahasflawstoo’ is someone very obsessive over hierarchy, the line of superior and inferior. You also can’t deny that he has been trying to sow seeds of disarray by putting 1-A and 1-B against one another. Like Tobi in Naruto, it serves well to be wary of joke characters, and let’s not forget that Monoma has a dangerous quirk. His copying may not switch by touch, or deplete over 5 minutes without use, it could be that the ability disappears after 5 minutes of full use (or it’s just a flat out lie). His quirk is the worrisome thing, remember how he first met Midoriya? He intentionally bumped into him, if he’s able to copy One for All that could be extremely dangerous for the villain’s side right? Monoma being the traitor does require a bit of stretching though. it rides a lot on 1-B having been to USJ before 1-A (which is possible since Midoriya would have to recover from his broken arm on the combat training) and someone letting slip where the Forest was (since 1-B got there after 1-A, giving him opportunity to contact the league), he also got the information that 1-A would be at a different stadium for the license exams, allowing Toga to get some blood and pose as Camie for 3 days. He’s also someone who has had direct interaction with Bakugo and seen firsthand his potential, but he was also safe and sound in the Forest’s extra-curricular base (where Dabi just happened to know where Aizawa, Vlad and other students were). Monoma may be overboard, but it could just be his villainy seeping out, we cannot forget that Monoma is a formidable strategist as shown in the Calvary Battle. Mirio Togota - put down those pitchforks! I will immediately say that this is highly unlikely. But Buff Tintin just seems off to me, nobody can deny his strength or the refinement of his quirk but again it’s silliness as a front. He uses nudity as a distraction tool but we’ve seen him effortlessly use his quirk to stick his face out to Midoriya. Togota knows little about 1-A so that adds to his unlikelihood, but being closest to Number 1 and then to see All Might take on the first years? That could sting, and his quirk does allow him a strong capability for infiltration, all he has to do is poke an ear out somewhere hidden or phase through a locked room to look at documents. I heavily doubt this is where we’re going with him, but he is an option nonetheless. Suspecting the teachers While it’s difficult to accuse the students, the teachers are easier to accuse but harder to prove. Every teacher knows that All Might is weakening, but every teacher also knows about USJ and the Beast Forest’s location, so they have access to betray, it all then comes down to motive. Nezu - the principal is the heavy long shot, we know he has his manic times but it’s a matter of whether he would subject his fellow heroes and students to death. It’s a shallow motive that I don’t see, but you have to suspect the guy with all the information, especially now that he managed to put the students immediately under the eye of Big Brother. Ectoplasm - The man who can clone himself is definitely someone who can wander off. I remember them saying that he was able to clone himself more while drunk at karaoke, but is that simply a hint that Ectoplasm has at least 2 clones he never accounts for hero work? Judging by the peg leg he is certainly experienced, and I’m sure he ranks high on the ‘Heroes that look most like Villains’ list that Gang Orca is on (Endeavor’s Number 1 right? Has to be, only thing he would earn the Number 1 spot for besides World’s Worst Dad XD). Ectoplasm’s clones allow him to easily spy, steal and have an alibi all at once, his interaction with the students and knowledge of the class protocol do mean that he has the sufficient knowledge to leak to the league. Snipe - Snipe out of the teachers would be my likely pick, Gas Mask McCree here could’ve easily tapped Shigaraki with his quirk, but he went for the arm and leg even though he was going straight for Midoriya and All Might. The fact that he always wears a mask does open the door for him being a replacement as well, All for One having stolen his quirk and bestowed it unto a spy or simply that Snipe isn’t all that good. He was the first to quickly turn the finger pointing to Present Mic when he brought up traitor talk. Like the other two teachers, he’s able to access information without getting involved in the league’s matters, but it has to be really suspicious that he could headshot grunts at USJ but shot Shigaraki in spots he could survive in. Suspecting an outsider Just because there is a traitor leaking UA info, doesn’t mean that they have to be in UA, parents must have forms to permit their kids to go out in these things, and people can sneak into the premises in different ways. Currently though there is only one outsider I can suspect Endeavor - I can’t have been alone when the moment I saw Endeavor I thought ‘that guy’s a villain’. Since Season 3 I don’t believe he’s in league with the villains so much, his reaction to being Number 1 does slightly protect him from accusation, but not entirely. While he may be the Number 2 Hero, Endeavor is a horrible person, using money and influence to get what he wants and what he wants is to be treated as better than All Might, this coincides with the league’s goal to remove All Might as the Number 1 Hero and Symbol of Peace. Motivation for treachery would obviously be jealousy, and he’s only angry about the One for All incident because All Might still triumphed, so his ultimate victory is actually tainted, he didn’t want to win ‘this way’. The matter of him getting the info could require more traitors within UA, but someone of Endeavor’s status definitely has the funds to bribe or the influence to have access to security cameras, under the guise of a ‘parent keeping an eye on his child experiment’ (after all, wouldn’t want him to go like that other child with fire powers, Endeavor’s blue eyes and who’s obviously one of his previous failed experiments). Power and Influence allows people to get more things and being a UA alumnus also has small benefits to elbow in some spying. We were never told that Todoroki was on the list, but Endeavor would surely want to write Bakugo - the guy who beat his son at the Sports Festival - out of the way, even at USJ putting him in an area where his son could easily handle himself while Nomu ‘dealt’ with All Might. Suspecting someone new While the idea of a traitor means that you have to look at the characters you know, this could also be a red herring. One of UA’s current strengths has been the ability to trust one another in their ability, be it between classes or schools in the license exams. So to sow distrust means they break the foundations of the future. I believe that the endgame of the manga isn’t just having a ‘Number One Hero’ but a group of heroes who can all dispatch and work well together, it does look like that’s how we’re building with Midoriya, Todoroki and Bakugo getting some diverse team ups with the rest of their class. If that is the case, then this is the moment where the unity has to be reinforced, which’d mean identifying that a villain is causing this traitor talk. Besides, 3 people calling themselves a ‘league’ is rather underwhelming, most of their influence came post-Stain so maybe there have been people we’ve yet to see. A Mind Reader - We’ve had telepathy in Mandalay (low suspicion on her, since she knows nothing about USJ) going outwards but she was unable to actually read minds, we also have a brainwasher in Shinso. So right in the middle would be someone who can read people’s thoughts, a mind reader easily has access to read the thoughts of teachers to relay back to the league. A Bug - we know that there are animal-kind quirks (oh yeah Koda’s quirk could be treacherous, but he’s too wimpy for me to suspect him) in Tsu, Pony, that OVA Lizard girl, Tokoyami, Spinner, Selkie and Gang Orca, so what if there was a villain with a quirk of an insect. We had a small nod to insects in the exam Kyoka and Koda had, showing how they could sneak into other places - or people in Present Mic’s case. If there was someone with an insect quirk they could literally be a Fly on the Wall. A Body Swapper - I mentioned earlier that Snipe could have his body swapped because he’s hidden under the mask, but we could go deeper. Citing Naruto’s Yamanaka Clan jutsu, DBZ’s Ginyu or DC Comics’ Jericho, there could be someone with the quirk to basically take over someone’s body for a short while. This could be a way to have characters be unknowing leaks. Like how a mind reader goes between Mandalay and Shinso’s quirks, a body swapper would sit between Shinso and Toga’s quirks so it’s not entirely out there for a quirk like that to exist, let alone for nobody to notice that quirk exists because they don’t ever recall their body being taken over. Conclusion So yeah, those are my list of suspects. As stated before I’d rather it not be a 1-A student, the art of these things is to use it as a twist and if you can immediately guess the twist then it’s not a good twist. Granted I’m sure delivery can better a obvious twist, such as when we finally get told that Dabi is related to the Todoroki family or when Stain gets released and fights alongside Midoriya but in terms of the UA Traitor - a lingering plot line that has spread through half the series - you need a big drop to validate the wait. Personally I would like the traitor to either be a teacher, Endeavor or someone we’ve not seen before that builds to a big bad. Regardless it’ll probably be years before I find out, much shorter for Manga readers, but when it does happen I hope the reveal is satisfying.

[thefantheorist]

Marco’s Destiny (Monster Arm Part 2)

Hello all my fellow Fan Theorists. Welcome back to part 2 of my Monster Arm theory! Last time, we touched on the basics of Monster Arm (the purple tentacle that Star accidentally gives Marco in season 1) and how it wasn’t so much corrupting Marco, but instead it was just the embodiment of Marco’s worst traits and feelings. The Monster Arm beat up Jeremy and wanted to kill him because, deep down in Marco’s darkness, he wanted to kill Jeremy. He lashes out at Star and blames her, not because Monster Arm is “a bad influence” but because that is how he truly feels, and Monster Arm is bringing that out. And Marco only rejects Monster Arm’s control over him when he realizes how evil Monster Arm truly is, cause Monster Arm isn’t the be-all end-all of who Marco is... That said, let’s talk about the future now.

In case you missed it: Monster Arm Part 1

Last time, I teased this poster saying that “it all starts with this”.

This poster is seen hanging in Marco’s room at any given period of time in the show. However, just look a little bit closer at this poster for a second. Monster arm. It is literally a poster for Monster Arm. Before you get skeptical, I know this is sort of a stretch, but we still got a lot more to talk about so hang in there. Originally, I thought that this poster had less to do with Marco and more to do with Toffee, mostly because of this practically unnoticeable frame.

Let’s zoom in a bit.

I essentially thought (and this was pre-season 3 by the way) that Toffee’s goal was to steal Star’s crown, which, didn’t pan out. But what I missed about this frame was the fact that this poster has nothing to do with Toffee, or Ludo, or Buffrog, or Eclipsa or her man, or Heinous, or anyone else. This poster is in Marco’s room. Make no mistake, this was an intentional choice. The openings for a show are perfect places to hide easter eggs and allude to mysteries and plot twists. The animators and show runners intentionally put a poster, highlighting Monster Arm and had Star’s crown completely cover up and take the place of the car that was originally there, as if Monster Arm was out to take the crown. This is not a coincidence, but even if you don’t agree and you think that’s circumstantial, I’ve got plenty more evidence to dig through and dissect, don’t you worry.

The next thing I’d like to talk about is the book of spells. Now that the book is burned and it, presumably, isn’t coming back, we haven’t really talked much about it. Yes, and by it, I mean Eclipsa’s dark chapter. The whole point of the episode Page Turner was simply to set up the reveal of Eclipsa, but we also get to see in that episode the most important Marco we’ve seen to date. Dark Marco. Darco?

This is the Marco that we are exposed to who has been corrupted by Eclipsa’s chapter in that book. This is the Marco who still has remnants of Monster Arm in him. This is the Marco that Toffee thinks isn’t a disappointment. This. Is. Evil. Marco. We don’t get a lot of hints as to his true nature, but this is probably the biggest hint that we could’ve gotten. Compare this image of Marco to this image of Ludo when he was possessed by Toffee.

Or this one.

Look at the similarities. Both encircled in a purple swirl of darkness, both have the weird jagged teeth (and I know Ludo has always had those, but Marco hasn’t), and both have something weird going on with their eyes. Both scenes also have the important person looking up at their friend, or whatever Glossarick is to Toffee. Either way, you cannot deny that these scenes are connected. We can also compare both of these scenes to the scene in the recent episode of the now released season 4, where Eclipsa does this to Rhombulus.

With all that said, Monster Arm is still obviously an important factor in this show since they keep making references to it.

Tom, how do you even know about that? Anyways, that last reference was in season 3 in the second to last episode, so you know that they are just priming us for the return of Monster Arm Marco. And even with all of this evidence, I still haven’t even talked about color schemes. Each color in this show has its own distinct meaning, yellow is love, pink is happiness, blue is indifference or neutrality, and purple is evil.

Oh, what did you think I was gonna say that green is evil? Pbfff... No, green is like, anger or annoyance, not true evil. We can tell this because the green rays of the wand that we all associated with being the evil side, was only really activated under emotional duress, like when Ludo could only activate the wand by getting really angry, or when Star being annoyed made Cloudy turn mean. But all of the truly evil characters in this show are highlighted in purple. For Toffee, I could reference the scene where he possesses Ludo, but also this scene in Storm the Castle:

And this scene when he’s with his monster gang:

With Heinous, we don’t get as much purple color, but both her dress and her tail are purple, as well as her mewman marks and her beast form. And while both Toffee and Meteora use green blasts with their magic, that’s probably just cause they don’t use actual spells, they just blast to blast things. On the other hand, we see purple used for the darkest spells, the ones kept in Eclipsa’s chapter of the book, the ones that Eclipsa uses during her battle against Rhombulus, the ones that only Eclipsa herself knows how to use, and whether or not she has turned over a new leaf and really is a good person, you can’t deny that those spells come from the darkest part of one’s being and they corrupt one’s soul. Which leads me back to Marco.

I don’t think that Marco is evil, but he has been corrupted. Monster Arm has been released, he has looked into the darkness and come out a different person, he is the shows next antagonist. I don’t know if he will be the last, maybe Eclipsa will come back as evil or Globgore will start terrorizing Mewni, but they are setting up evil Marco and have been since the very beginning. The darkness inside of Marco that Monster Arm symbolizes is still inside of him and is still very much a threat in this series and he cannot turn back now.

Hello all! Thanks for checking this post out, I know that it is a super long one. When I had finished writing up my last theory, it was before the first episode of season four had come out, but now that it is here, I am super happy to report that I love what we’ve gotten so far! Oh, and every episode has been plot related so that’s a plus. Anyways, what did you guys think of this theory? I’m thinking of doing a part 3 of this some time in the future to talk about whether Eclipsa is gonna be evil or not, but I also wanted to wait and see if anyone wanted that or not, so if you’d like me to do a theory on that for you, just let me know! Anyways, thank you all again for reading this and as always, have a wonderful week!

Monster Arm Part 1

Monster Arm Part 3

[stevenuniversallyreviews]

Episode 93: Alone at Sea

“But why would a fish ever bite a hook?”

Something I don’t believe I’ve mentioned here before is that both of my parents are ministers. I myself am not religious (not because of trauma or anything, my folks are great), but I was raised in the Presbyterian Church by a mom and dad who often saw things through a “hey, that could be in a sermon!” lens, and that tends to rub off on a kid. Not to oversell the value of these posts, but it’s not lost on me that I ended up writing something to share with people every Sunday. I can think of worse people to emulate.

So it’s hard for someone like me not to notice that Gems take crucial steps towards becoming Crystal Gems through some pretty baptismal circumstances. I’m not saying the symbolism is intentional, because neither aquatic rituals nor the show’s crew are uniquely Christian—Rebecca Sugar, for instance, comes from a Jewish background—but we’ve yet to see a Gem fall in love with Earth without being reborn through water. Peridot first bonds with Steven in the rain. Ruby and Sapphire land on solid ground together in the rain. Pink Diamond and Pearl first realize they need to rebel as a storm brews.

And then there’s Lapis Lazuli. 

Lapis literally entered the series because Steven broke a mirror, so it’s no wonder she’s misfortune personified. Bad things happen to Lapis. Bad things happen because of Lapis. And sure enough, she might control the same waters that herald rebirth for other Gems, but she’s also consumed by them. Her old life can’t get washed away because she’s still submerged. So an episode about Steven trying to reconnect her with water is bound to be a bit more complex than a joyous scene in the rain.

Alone at Sea takes us to a dark place for Steven Universe, even compared to its preceding episode, the harrowing Monster Reunion. Plenty of bad things have happened to our characters, but for the first time since the Week of Sardonyx we must confront that one of our characters has herself intentionally done a bad thing. Not day-to-day meanness or misguided acts of loyalty to Homeworld, but something truly awful. Almost as if we’re priming for some big reveal about a core character’s moral ambiguity at the end of the season. 

This isn’t to say that Lapis, who also entered the series by stealing the ocean and battling the Crystal Gems, is a stranger to doing bad things. But there’s a gulf of difference between seeing magic antagonist stuff and the learning that she was abusive to her ex. Not many kids are gonna cause marine catastrophes, but way too many kids are gonna have to deal with abusive relationships one day, so Alone at Sea can’t help but feel more raw.

The first moments of the episode show that Lapis is more than her suffering; she’s capable of having genuine fun, especially with Steven. She hints at her deeper issues by insisting she doesn’t deserve to be treated nicely, but she’s just as quick to snort with laughter. And even after boarding the rechristened Li’l Lappy, she’s willing to give happiness a shot. While she’s uncomfortable about dipping her toe in the water, she still finds moments of joy (particularly when it comes to horns). But more often than not, this positive outlook is hindered by her crewmates.

Greg, bless him, hurts more than he helps. He introduces himself as the guy whose leg Lapis broke, his discomfort around her water powers stifles her floundering self-confidence, and he bores her to death with regular fishing. Likewise, while Steven means well, he’s overbearing in his attempts to make Lapis happy. As awkward as it is, I’m glad the show acknowledges how easy it can be to mess up when trying to cheer up a friend in the dumps. Despite Steven’s apology about pushing too hard, we don’t get an explicit lesson about paying attention to how your friends are feeling instead of steamrolling them with fun. This isn’t a criticism: it’s okay to not get explicit lessons all the time, and it’s a nice change of pace from the show’s recent string of episodes that outright tell us the moral, even though these morals are sound.

Everything comes to a head when the rudder is thrown off, veering Li’l Lappy and her namesake off course. Steven gives that apology, but Lapis reiterates that she doesn’t deserve his help, and this time we learn why: as brutal and bullying as Jasper is, in some twisted sense Lapis learned to love their toxic relationship, using it to take all her grief and rage out on Jasper. We saw a hint of her aggression in Chille Tid, but in Jennifer Paz’s best delivery of the episode, Lapis reveals that she misses Malachite. And right on cue, the opportunity to fuse with Jasper again reveals itself.

Jasper’s last lines that weren’t just shouting “YOU!” at Steven were all the way back in Jailbreak, but Kimberly Brooks is worth the wait. Her hungry correction that she was “looking for you” instead of the crew as a whole is perfect (the woman knows her way around second person pronouns), and she manages to become even scarier when she transitions from menacing to begging. All at once we see that Jasper is still monstrous, but has been changed by Lapis. Not in the way she’s saying when trying to convince Lapis to fuse again—there’s little indication that Malachite would be any healthier if she came back—but in the way this massive warrior is on her knees pleading to essentially be made a prisoner again.

From her debut, Lapis has been the most powerful being on Earth by a country mile thanks to her mastery of its most abundant resource. She effortlessly bested the Crystal Gems in Ocean Gem, and had the mental fortitude to overcome Jasper’s iron will and wrest control of Malachite. But only now, in Jasper’s pleas, does a character finally acknowledge Lapis’s power. It speaks volumes to their relationship, because it’s not just about control and manipulation: at some level, beneath all the toxicity, Jasper understands Lapis in a way others don’t. It’s not enough to make them a functional couple, but it shows that there’s an uncomfortable level of nuance even in relationships that are obviously bad. It would be much easier to write either Jasper or Lapis off as totally rotten, but Malachite wouldn’t work without a hint, however small, of real affection. 

Malachite made both Jasper and Lapis feel stronger, but they weren’t strong in the real way: they were suffering, and instead of trying to fix this problem, they each learned to like the suffering. And it might be easy to place more blame on Jasper than Lapis, because even here we see how manipulative and violent she can be, but Alone at Sea doesn’t shy away from Lapis’s complicity even when presenting her in a more heroic light. Steven doesn’t call her out on her behavior, but he doesn’t exactly correct her when she reveals how terrible she’s been.

Back in It Could’ve Been Great and Message Received, we got a taste of uncertainty in terms of Peridot’s future. Sure, a promo spoiled that she was staying with the Crystal Gems, but otherwise there was no telling whether she was a temporary addition. Lapis has the same quality, but amplified to a thrilling degree due to her rockier stance with the Crystal Gems. When I first watched Alone at Sea, I legitimately didn’t know what would happen next. Lapis was such a new and tenuous ally and had so much baggage with Jasper that it wouldn’t have shocked me if she had gone back to being Malachite, especially considering how underused Malachite ended up being. It gives the episode way higher stakes than, say, the Week of Sardonyx, where despite the turmoil you could pretty much guarantee that the Crystal Gems would come out of it okay. Lapis is fundamentally not okay, so anything could happen.

And that actual chance of returning to Jasper makes Lapis’s rejection so much more triumphant. She seems to sincerely consider Jasper’s offer, even when she sounds sickened by the prospect, but when given a true choice she’s able to see past her longing for that life. Malachite began with Jasper’s forceful “Just say yes,” and she can’t come back if Lapis says no. It might be alluring, but unlike Jasper, Lapis refuses to take the bait. 

I haven’t gushed about Aivi and Surasshu for a while, have I? I’ll be honest, a big part of that is that with the release of Steven Universe’s first soundtrack, the composers stopped releasing background tracks on the internet, and only several years later have these tracks finally popped up again. Access to their music got scarcer and scarcer, but I’m so glad that before it dried up, we got the instrumentation of this final sequence, because it’s really something.

As the clouds gather and she talks about her time fused with Jasper, we hear the buildup of Lapis’s darker theme, and the moment she reveals that she misses being Malachite, the fusion’s ominous two-note motif clangs just once. The track is soon overtaken by Jasper’s synth drum war march, with only hints of Lapis’s celesta leaking in (just like in The Return), but as Jasper begs to fuse again we get the very first quiet version Malachite’s motif (at 1:49, it’s so easy to miss); the fusion’s theme is no longer a force of nature, but a desperate plea. 

A piano rendition of Lapis’s theme drowns out Jasper as she considers her options. Strings build to the same fever pitch that we got when Lapis first agreed to dance, but they fade to a quiet conclusion as she refuses to go back to Malachite. Jasper’s drums make one last appearance as she lashes out at Steven, but Lapis’s counterattack is as musically calm as her rejection. Lapis could have gotten loud, dramatic variants of her theme for her one-two punch defending herself and then Steven, and it would have sounded awesome, but instead both big moments show that she’s shunning loudness for peace. Tying all these musical themes together is impressive enough, but that restraint ties the whole scene together.

Jasper is about to dominate the final arc of the season in a story that has nothing to do with Lapis, but everything to do with Lapis. It’s safe to say Jasper doesn’t handle their breakup well, and her collection of Corrupted Gems is less a matter of a soldier raising an army and more a jilted lover looking for acceptance after being abandoned for what’s likely the first time in her very long life. This is the first in a string of blows that knock Jasper down more than her fight with Garnet ever did: it’s one thing to lose, but it’s another to be rejected, and until Jasper learns to make a change, rejection is the only future she’s got.

Lapis goes right back to being an angsty teen after this, despite getting more comfortable around Peridot. But Alone at Sea makes me appreciate her eventual abandonment of Earth when the going gets tough again, because while it’s not the right thing to do, it makes sense that a character with massive unresolved trauma would follow the most defensive instincts possible to avoid further pain. I’m not huge on the show just saying Lapis did something awful and not following it up with much soul-searching, but she does plenty of work outside of Jasper and perhaps it’s for the best that she focused on less toxic parts of her life for self-improvement.

The big bummer of Lapis and Jasper’s story is that it never really resolves: even when Jasper halfway reforms, she and Lapis will never share a screen again, let alone have a conversation. I’m not saying I want a reconciliation, but apology is good for the soul, so I hope that someday Little Homeworld sees a moment where Lapis says she’s sorry for her part in Malachite’s agony, even if Jasper was worse.

Still, seeing Lapis refuse to re-fuse still works as a resolution to the episode, if not the arc. And she does work on her issues in other ways, even if Jasper doesn’t. But even though this is their last interaction in the series, admitting your mistakes and choosing not to repeat them is itself a noble step.

I’ve never been to this…how do you say…school?

She’s not even in the episode, but Pearl and her swim cap are the winner of this entry. Does nobody else care about their hair?

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

This is our second excellent feel-bad episode in a row. We may not ever get an acknowledgement about the abusive nature of Lars and Sadie’s relationship in Island Adventure, but at least we have this episode addressing the issue.

(Bear in mind I’m not champing at the bit for more abusive relationships in children’s media, but if you’re going to have them, I just think it’s irresponsible not to use them as an educational tool, is all.)

Top Fifteen

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Chille Tid

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Catch and Release

When It Rains

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Alone at Sea

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

No Thanks!

     5. Horror Club      4. Fusion Cuisine      3. House Guest      2. Sadie’s Song      1. Island Adventure

[pointykeef]

Correct me if im wrong but- werent the vlogs made before S3/4? Which is essentially one season as it was supposed to be? If that were the case and had S3/4 came out at the same time than it would make sense why Lance's vlog was what it was. Lance has always respected Allura but it wasn't until recently did Lance start to mature (somewhat) out of his flirty habit. Sure the vlog could've been about his family but again, these are vlogs not episodes- it'd be bad writing to show character development via 3 minute youtube clips. These vlogs just recapped on what we already know, or should've known, about the characters including Keith.

(skip this Keith rant if you want)

It makes no sense to me why people think the vld crew favors Keith. That he got character development in his blog of all things. If you had paid attention to season 2 and stopped whining about how Keith had so much screen time (which? blows my mind even more that ya'll missed so much important information about him) that it was obvious Keith had lots of emotional baggage. Hell, we had hints of that even beforehand when it was revealed he was an orphan. Ofc I won't push orphan stigmas onto anyone but fact is, thats how media portrays it and there are certainly horror stories flying around them as well. But besides the point, The Blade of Marmora episode hinted and foreshadowed many points about Keith's vlog and season 4.

"The suit shows his greatest hopes and fears" - Kolivan about Keith witnessing Fake!Shiro potentially leave Keith behind

"Then you've chosen to be alone" - Fake!Shiro abandoning Keith ie. his fear of rejection

"Your mother will be here soon" - Keith's dad, hinting Keith's moms disappearance

So Keith's character development/backstory? It was there the whole time. If you complain that it wasn't clear enough to you than my advice is to probably pay attention to the show instead of whining about it. The only reason why Keith's vlog might've seemed 'better' than everyone elses, other than you mischaracterizing him the whole time, is that it was slightly emotional. Something people can relate to. Which I don't know if I should be offended that ya'll wouldn't talk about Allura for 3 minutes straight if not longer.

(Back to Lance)

See, I've been in this fandom for only 5 months now but I've already picked up the behaviorisms of this fandom especially with Lancestans. And it all roots back to Lance saying the infamous "7th wheel" line or his homesickness. And I won't forget that Klance™ bedroom scene either. But here's the thing, and you can disagree with me on this, but I dont think Lance was ever planned to be a deep character. If you didn't know already, we are half way finished with Voltron. And there are just too many plot points that need to be animated for the 37 rest episodes. These points include: Keith's family, Lotor's mission, Zarkon's revival, Galaxy Garrison's secrets, Project Kuron, Lotor's ex-Generals, Samuel Holt, Formation of the rebels/BoM, etc. Not to mention hinted Pre-Kerberos as well. With those plot points in mind, I DO believe we will get information on Lance's family as well. Along with Hunk and Shiro. Next to Lance, we know absolutely nothing about Shiro's family and as far as we know, Hunk is an uncle based on the comics. Do you see where I'm getting at here? Yes the creators have said that Lance and the others will get their character development; but I do not believe it will be extensive as Keith, Allura or Shiro's. Writing wise, Lance is an average guy. He doesn't HAVE a deep backstory to revolve around as far as we know. And I theorize, and this is based on Lauren Montgomery's words in a previous con, that he is insecure or feels like the 7th wheel because he was his own main character before Voltron. As in he was already the center of attention save for his time in the GG. Which btw I doubt he was neck to neck with Keith, some of the students in Ep 1 clearly had better experiance than Lance and this was just him ego-boosting. What we know is that he is in a big family. What we heard is that he is the youngest sibling who takes care of his nephews and neices. And while being the youngest does not automatically make you the center of attention, it is a very large trope both on screen and real life. Trust me, I'm the oldest. My parents were middle childs and two of my bestfriends are also the youngest. More often than not the youngest child is favored albeit not always intentionally.

So to conclude, do I believe Lance will get character development? Yes. Just not as much as so many want him to have. And out of all the people in the series, Allura is the most likely candidate to help Lance in his development which is why his vlog AND S3/4 focused on their interactions a lot. Whether their relationship remains platonic or ends in romance is still up to date but you can't argue that Allura is an important person to Lance's character arc.

[sepiadice]

SepiaDice GMs D&D5e (7/20/17): After School Excursion

After much time, I finally return to the GM’s seat, watching and plotting behind my screen!

So, after many months of scheduling conflicts, and playing other games, I got a small band from my Improv Group (mostly different from the cast of the last campaign) to subject themselves to me. Which is charitable on their part, especially since I’ve still haven’t really read the fifth edition rules…[1]

I went in with my favorite amount of preparation: an opening spiel, a vague idea of what I’d like to have happen, and a large swathe of empty, terrifying space to just let the players run rampant with.

I don’t plan sandboxes, just to be clear. Because that would imply I prepare NPCs and locations. I entered with five paragraphs of introduction and a puzzle.

Of course, my players are seasoned comedy improvisers, so I could’ve also come in with nothing, and they would’ve entertained themselves, even if most of them were new to Dungeons and Dragons.

I told them to make characters, stressing that they should have no backstory before we start. Not even a name or alignment. Because I had an opening twist.

The story began with a spooky dream. Disused lighthouse, shadowy figure, and glowing runes.

Then they had a school day. Because, as it turns out, they’re normal High School Juniors. I followed this reveal by letting them dictate what their school is like.

I admit, if my goal was a normal high school with maybe a couple anime-esques tropes, I shouldn’t have allowed greenhorn players with backgrounds in comedy dictate the terms. However, it does accomplish the more important task of getting the players to make the world their own.[2]

So what I got was a giant, wall-less warehouse named after the setting of High School musical.

Sure, at first I thought “I can interpret wall-less as just being a California High School”, but the players then insisted on specifying that, no, it’s literally a building with no classrooms, instead operating off a grid system.

Also, it’s super-cliquey, poorly funded, and originally a mansion that was part of the underground railroad and bootlegging, so there might be secret tunnels.

After establishing there’s been gossip of the shared dream going on in the (nonexistent) hallways, it’s now lunch, and they’re probably just vaguely themselves,[4] I just let my players go.

(Luckily, unlike me, my players have common names, so I’m going to go ahead and just use them.)

The party reveled momentarily at the chance to go back and do it right, before quickly conceding that, no, they’re totally nerds.

Chris, for whatever bloody reason, decided he wanted to be class president. And also a super Christian, but he’s playing a Paladin, so that’s just foreshadowing.[5]

The others then quickly established his crush on a girl named Tiffany, which they built upon for a bit. Then I brought Tiffany over, only to have three of them immediately give her grief and make her leave.

Which was a nice, subtle method of telling me they didn’t need too much NPC work from me. Again, I prepared very little, and they introduced Tiffany, so I’ve got nothing against that. Let the players define the terms of their entertainment, and fill in what needs be filled in while having fun yourself.

So, after I clarified what is known about the lighthouse (it’s always been there, but they’ve never seen it lit, and it’s on an island), they decide to skip class and go to the docks.

I had hoped to dedicate the opening portion of the game with them investigating and trying to figure out how to get to the lighthouse.

Jason,[6] wanting to be helpful, decided to get into an argument over the fact that I gave everyone a different rune in their dream, and used that as inspiration to go to the lighthouse to prove the rune he saw was the correct one. Also, there was optimism that they’d end up as Power Rangers. Which is… fine as a motivation…

It was as they searched for a ride that I realized an easy way to differentiate their high school forms from their future form: use the Adventurer stats, but with disadvantage on everything![7]

Brook wanted to try and skip the dock sequence by establishing her father has a boat. Not wanting them to brush over things too quickly, I subtly killed that and tried to get them to convince a fisherman to take them.

They started with Tim, who, as a compromise, had his shirt both tied off and also just off and draped over his shoulder. Brook tried to flirt with him to get a ride. I decided to play the ‘Ah, no, you’re fifteen, and I’m an adult angle.’

So Jason improvised inexplicable blackmail, because apparently when given enough agency, my friends default to Loony Toons. He also established that Tim’s a furry.

Jason failed the persuasion check, however, so Tim gets to be a proud furry. Little more discussion, and Tim offers to take them to the lighthouse if they could get some dirt on a rival.

Who I named Dave.

So they go to Dave, who casually admits to criminal activity, but also belief in a giant squid cryptid, which the party then spun to get a ride at midnight, forsaking Tim.

They then went to Tiffany’s party, which was made up to handwave time. I made it midnight in case they wanted to do a youth adventure, gearing up sequence, but instead they went to a house party.

Midnight comes, and Dave sails for the lighthouse, since the party told him light attracts the giant squid. The party then enters the lighthouse, where I finally sprung a puzzle on them!

I bought some wood blocks, drew runes on them, and they had to figure out the sequence to open a magic portal.

I colored the runes differently on each of their handouts, and I expected them to share the notes at some point. Once they identified the correct side, it was a simple matter of following the rainbow.

I apparently underestimated the paranoia the last campaign left with Jason, because no one looked at anyone else’s notes. They successfully communicated what the runes look like, but they never picked up on the different colors, even though that was a passing mention in the argument that got them there.

Basically, it was exactly the subtle time killer I hoped the puzzle would be. Even had pull out the ‘roll INT for hints’ trick once or twice.[8]

Like a good pun, a puzzle should be obvious afterwards, but engaging during the set up.

Anyways, go ahead and steal that one for your games, GMs!

Once they solved the puzzle, the portal opened. I described it and gave a little space to let them decide if they’re going in by their own power or if I need to Digimon them.

They walked in. Because who needs self preservation instincts?

Once in, they obviously turned into their Adventurer selves, waking up at the dead end of a dungeon.

‘Do we still have our own minds?’ “No, all this high schooler stuff was just a Shaggy Dog story.”

I had the players introduce what they looked like at this point. By pure coincidence, the one player who made a human went last, describing himself as just looking aged up.

The others were a dragonborn (the Furry Christian), a Tiefling (Jason played this up for the ‘which afterlife did we go to!?’ angle) and a half-elf dressed in leaves (Brook’s playing a druid.)

So, again, sit back and just let the players enjoy themselves. Then, when I got bored, have Kobolds show up and pick a fight.

I surprisingly wasn’t bored. Probably helped that it was an intentionally easy fight just to introduce the mechanics to the players, who mostly one shotted the Kobolds.

After killing six tiny lizard men, and with no clear way out, the players went deeper into the dungeon.

Jason fell into a trap, and they were ambushed by Gnolls, knocking them out.[9]

End of session.

So, lesson? Low expectations and little planning is a good method if you feel your players are fine building off themselves. I probably would never attempt this structure with less improvisational players, but I knew they could take it.

Still, I probably should’ve had a more clear plan for the dock sequence, and maybe a firmer hand on the school environment. However, I had fun, the players tell me they had fun, so it was a success. Hopefully I can manage to get them back for a session 2. Because I have intentions.

Until next time, may your dice make things interesting!

[1] However, I have years of experience in other systems, have played in a couple 5e games, and I principally learn by doing over reading. [2] Besides, if I actually wanted to anime it up, I already have a setting for that.[3] [3] Maybe I’ll let them play in it someday. Maybe. [4] I could’ve pushed them to establish High School Personas, but, again, Improv Club. Just let them do what they want and hope. [5] I can concede that it’s painfully obvious where my set-up was going, but it’s okay to telegraph things to players so they can subtly help the story. [6] Previous roles include Windy Jerk and… other people? [7] I love the Advantage/Disadvantage system. I’m going to houserule it into everything. [8] Well, I gave a freebie by clarifying all the runes are meant to be hexagons. [9] I love gnolls, which is why it’s surprising this is the first time I’ve ever used gnolls.

[briangroth27]

Marvel’s Inhumans Season 1 Review

I didn’t find much to love in Marvel’s latest TV series: I’ve never been a huge Inhumans fan and this did little to change my mind. The show felt prohibitively small-scale, the character arcs were messy even in an eight-episode season, and they took the bizarre position of making the supposed heroes the heads of an oppressive caste system. It seems like budgetary restraints put a cap on power usage, but I feel like we see more action on episodes of Agents of SHIELD than we did on this show. There were many opportunities to go bigger, weirder, and much more interesting in all areas of the series, from design to superpowers to character arcs, but more often than not they chose to play it safe and conventional.

From costumes to sets, the production values for the Inhumans’ hidden moon base Attilan looked far too mundane and ordinary, like you could find them in any location on Earth. Their design choices and way of life didn’t reflect a people that had been separated from humanity for such a long time. Shouldn’t they have wholly disparate customs and outlooks; shouldn’t they essentially be aliens to us at this point? The terrigenesis ceremony, which gives the Inhumans their powers, was the one cultural touchstone that felt like it separated them from any other Earth culture. Attilan should’ve been home to as many strange and wondrous Marvel Easter Eggs as possible—this was their first chance to truly dig into the weirdness of the MCU on TV—but we got none. While Hawai’i was shot well, the rest of the Earth locations didn't really pop either. The set for what was supposed to be a high-tech space agency was an empty warehouse with a big-screen monitor and some desks arranged in front of it. 

The characters didn’t fare much better and for the most part, their sojourns in Hawai’i did little to endear them to me. While it was great to have a lead who couldn’t speak and instead used sign language (or a version of it, anyway; like I saw in reviews at the AV Club, there’s no reason for them to speak English but not use ASL), Black Bolt (Anson Mount) wasn’t given many opportunities to do more than glower. When he did get to briefly explore other emotions, like comedic reactions to humans or romance with Medusa (Serinda Swan), Mount was believable, but overall Blackagar Boltagon felt pretty grim the whole time. I didn’t buy the angst of his character: a scene where he accidentally vaporized his parents with his super-destructive voice was so nonchalant it appeared comedic, not tragic. Additionally, Black Bolt did not appear to be a ruler charismatic enough to uphold the oppression the royal family continued forcing on the people of Attilan. His leadership choices didn’t make much sense either: learning of the spread of Inhumans on Earth (as seen on Agents of SHIELD), he secretly sends Triton (Mike Moh) to recover them, complete with a secret rendezvous location in case things go bad. Why wouldn’t he tell Medusa and his master strategist Karnak (Ken Leung)? We’re never given a hint that he distrusts them and it’s clear neither would betray him. How did he send Triton, when the show makes no effort to give Black Bolt the means to communicate without Medusa interpreting for him (the Inhumans have wrist communicators, but the devices don’t have video screens or text readouts) and only Medusa and Maximus (Iwan Rheon) know how to understand his sign language? We’re also told he has a secret bunker that no one else knows about, fully stocked for several lifetimes. What if Black Bolt had been killed in a sneak attack from their “greatest enemy?” Medusa and the rest of his family would’ve never known where they could seek shelter. Keeping secrets like these made no sense and only served to manufacture cheap drama when the other characters found out and (rightly) called him on his bizarre choices. I did like that Black Bolt always maintained his self-control about using his powers, making him a clever foil to Maximus’ obsession with getting abilities, but that wasn’t played with as much as it could’ve been. Finally unleashing his voice to give Maximus the other thing he wanted—to be king of Attilan—was fitting, but I didn’t feel anything from their struggle since they spent so much screentime apart.

Karnak was introduced as an abusive and borderline psychotic womanizer—telling a servant (Jenna Bleu Forti, I believe) that within two days of dating he’d hate her so much he’d want to kill her because he could see her flaws—and his brief fling with a human (Jen, Jamie Grey Hyder) while his powers were on the fritz did nothing to convince me he’d changed. I’ve liked Leung in other roles, but making Karnak likable was a truly uphill battle. That he hit his head and messed up his powers of seeing the flaw in everything because he calmly stepped on a loose rock and fell off a cliff was absurd. Immediately abandoning his quest to find Black Bolt once his powers glitched—not to find out how to fix them, but because he felt useless—made me wonder why he was ever seen as reliable among the royal family. His truly random time on a pot farm was extraneous to the plot (especially once violence was involved), and his self-doubt momentarily changed into completely embracing a carefree lifestyle far too fast, but at least his fling attempted to provoke some character growth by getting him to not look for flaws so much. However, his inability to see them at that point deflates that growth a bit for me. Once he reunited with his family, their biggest reaction to the changes he’d supposedly gone through is that he acts without being absolutely sure now, not that he’s grown as a person or anything. He does defy royal decrees and tradition by putting Gorgon (Eme Ikwuakor) through terrigenesis a second time to resurrect him, but Black Bolt and Medusa scolding him felt half-hearted, so it didn’t seem like that big a breach in protocol. While his dedication to his friend was admirable, he was so abrasive in the beginning that I still didn’t find him likable at the end of his arc.

Questions of competency further arose around Gorgon, who seemed to be the worst head of a royal guard ever. This is a guy who, knowing they have to remain hidden, intentionally crushed exploratory rovers, stole the flag Neil Armstrong planted on the moon for fun, and told a bunch of Earth strangers about their secret moon city right after meeting them. I don’t know if it’s because he never had to actually police anything in Attilan, but he wasn’t written like someone who’d be in charge of security; he was written like a bumbling fool Karnak had to put up with. I get the buddy cop pairing they were going for—Gorgon was the fun impulsive contrast to Karnak’s obsessive planner—but too often Gorgon came off as dumb and Karnak as cruel for me to buy into their friendship very much. Don’t get me wrong; a fun-loving, jovial head of security would be a refreshing change from the standard gruff characterization—Ikwualkor seemed more than up to that task—and it would’ve been fine if Gorgon hadn’t seemed so irresponsible as well. His only response to Karnak telling the servant he’d want to kill her was “You’re your own worst enemy,” which either implies these kinds of comments are so common that he’s decided they can be laughed off or that Gorgon sees Karnak’s sex life as more important than the actual lives of the servants (“say nothing about wanting to kill them—even if you’re thinking it—and they’d sleep with you” was my interpretation of his reaction), or both. Resurrecting him as a somewhat confused “zombie” after a heroic sacrifice (possibly the only truly guard-like thing he did beyond training people to fight in flashbacks) in the later episodes didn’t help matters either. They had a chance to make him see that the royal family’s way of doing things was wrong when a group of Hawai’ian freedom fighters told him about Hawai’i’s history, wherein America forced Hawai’i to give up its monarchy—as if all monarchs are good regardless of who they are—but the writing didn’t let Gorgon realize that Maximus didn’t parallel the imperialistic Americans, Black Bolt and co. did. I found it odd that Gorgon would take these random humans’ advice about strategy for fighting Maximus (staying on Earth to make himself bait so Maximus would bring the fight to him) instead of coming up with one himself. He did have a good idea when he suggested Karnak bluff about still having his power, though, and he did show a little responsibility in eventually telling his freedom fighter pals to back off for their safety; I just wish he’d shown more of this kind of behavior. It seemed like they were afraid to extensively show his hooves, as he wore special boots that made his feet look normal in every action sequence. Triton (Mike Moh) was wasted—maybe the heavy makeup required to bring the character to life prevented them from using him much—and there was no reason for Black Bolt to keep his mission a secret except to create a later moment of internal drama. He did have pretty cool fight scenes at the end of the season, though.

Medusa fared the best by far on the show, and was the one character I was invested in. Even though they cut off her prehensile hair in the first episode—for budgetary/effects reasons, I suppose; for the record, I didn’t think the CGI hair looked bad—robbing her of her trademark powers, her arc was the best-written and acted. At first I thought she was a little too stoic, but Swan did great once Medusa was banished to Hawai’i; her reactions to the loss of her hair—effectively several limbs—were haunting and powerful. I wish we’d gotten more time to see just how intrinsic Medusa’s hair was to her everyday life so we could see how big an impact losing it had on everyday actions (how often does she use her hair when the rest of us would use our hands, for example?) or her fighting style (I did like what little we got to see of her using her hair offensively), but Swan absolutely sold her loss. I liked that her displacement revealed her as a tough fighter (and clever strategist, correctly guessing that Crystal (Isabelle Cornish) was being used to track the royals’ locations) rather than crushing her, though as I’ve seen pointed out elsewhere, a bigger reaction to seeing Maximus again in the end would’ve been appropriate. They could’ve even included the twist the comics did, where she could still control her hair to attack him even after having it cut off. I did like that she destroyed his last chance to get powers by smashing the terrigen crystal just like he stole hers, though. And she got to deliver perhaps the series’ coolest line to Maximus, “Black Bolt wants to have words with you.” Her drive to save her husband—her second call to Black Bolt on their communication devices after arriving on Earth was a great expression of their love—and reunite her family provided the urgency and stakes to the show. While Black Bolt got arrested or captured a lot early on (elaborating on Maximus’ connections on Earth) and everyone else was stuck in subplots that went nowhere and added very little to their character development (mostly they just gained an appreciation for humans, though Karnak and Gorgon once tried thinking like each other to solve problems), Medusa’s arc fit squarely into the narrative and drove most of the action. While she was abrasive when she got to Earth, her burgeoning friendship with Louise (Ellen Woglom) was well-constructed to spark her character development and it’s the one human relationship that felt real and natural. While I would've liked Medusa to spend a little more time dealing with how her rule affected her citizens, taking responsibility for the royal family’s misdeeds and acknowledging that Maximus had the right idea (just like her parents) was a good start, though we probably should’ve seen more of a reckoning for the royals in terms of public reaction to them. I also liked her getting fed up with just being Black Bolt’s interpreter and his lies in general, so I’d be very interested to see what she does with an equal share of the responsibility of ruling. Will she balance her parents’ teachings with the way Black Bolt has been leading, or will she do something entirely different? I would also watch a second season of Medusa and Lockjaw travelling the world to rescue scared and persecuted Inhumans. Medusa and Lockjaw recurring on a Ms. Marvel series, with Medusa teaching Kamala how to be an Inhuman and Kamala teaching her how to respect non-royals and humans, would be welcome too.

Medusa’s sister Crystal had the potential to go in an interesting direction, but they settled for a flimsy romance instead. Maximus seemed to nearly convince her that he was right about the horrible conditions of Inhuman society in Attilan—particularly since her parents had fought against the royalty—and it almost seemed like she might agree. Instead, she escaped Attilan the first chance she got and fell in love with the first human (Chad James Buchanan) she met, who also rammed Lockjaw with his four-wheeler. True it was an accident and he got her dog help, but he also convinced Crystal to go swimming instead of looking for her family in the middle of a coup. From what we saw of Crystal in Attilan, at no point did she need to relax more; even after the coup, Maximus let her hang out in her room. I’m not against romance in superhero stories at all—the soap opera aspect is a core component, dating all the way back to Superman and Lois’ triangle for two—but this wasn’t the time and it paled in comparison to the promise of Crystal more directly interacting with Maximus’ plot. I would have absolutely been on board with her siding with Maximus for the right reasons (minus the overtones of a forced marriage); that would’ve been far more complex and engaging than continuing to draw her as the sheltered princess they did. It also would’ve put her at odds with the rest of her family and built on the backstory of Black Bolt’s parents (Michael Buie, Tanya Clarke) putting hers to death for dissenting against the monarchy. Instead, she got a bland flirtation and her entire role in the final battle against Maximus was to ask a wall (Moses Goods) to teleport everyone to Earth, and she didn’t even have to convince Eldrac to help. Lockjaw was a delight, but he didn’t get to do anything but act as a transporter for everyone else. As I’ve seen pointed out elsewhere, I really wish we’d seen them build their relationship more.

Maximus had all the right motivations—he legitimately had a good argument about the Inhuman caste system throwing people with undesirable or no powers into literal mines (despite the fact that surely powers like Gorgon, Crystal, Karnak, Black Bolt and even Medusa had would make mining easier…no argument that limited resources necessitated the caste system holds up when all the powers useful for labor are wasted on an upper class that does nothing) while those with admirable or beautiful powers were prized—but he was trapped in Attilan without anyone to spar with beyond underlings (another reason Crystal agreeing with him but truly fighting for the greater good would’ve been the better arc). If he wanted an exodus to Earth to ease overpopulation on the moon so badly, why didn’t he just start moving people there as soon as he was in control? Using Eldrac would’ve allowed him to take his people anywhere and the royal family wouldn’t have known or been able to do anything about it. They should’ve been able to hold whatever territory they took or, more intelligently, couldn’t they replicate their camouflaging tech on Earth? Establishing a temporary, invisible home base on Earth where they could collect the newly emerging Inhumans would’ve been better than staying on the moon. Surely fulfilling his promises and leading his people into the future would’ve gone over much better than murdering anyone who opposed him, even with spinning the Genetic Council as the keepers of oppression. It would’ve been a great and complex twist if, in addition to wanting powers, he actually was a good king. When it came to his selfish impulses, he came off as another Loki scheming for power, and while I’ve seen the suggestion that an Inhumans show with multiple “houses” could’ve been the superhero Game of Thrones, that’s much harder to do when there’s only one house. The reveal that Maximus had been communicating with people on Earth and was in command of the soldiers who “killed” Triton was a genuine surprise to me, and I wish there had been more examples of his Machiavellian schemes. On the other hand, forging his parents’ signature on a decree to have Black Bolt lobotomized—inadvertently leading to Black Bolt killing them—had no effect on me; it just seemed so haphazard and random, like it was tacked on to give Black Bolt additional reason to hate Maximus. Having Maximus send out soldiers to attack the royal family got old (though at least they used super powers), and perhaps it wouldn’t have seemed so perfunctory if the royals hadn’t all had their powers undermined right off the bat. Maximus and his loyalists would’ve had to be that much more cunning and powerful if they were dealing with a royal family that had functioning superpowers instead of a scattered array of lost souls, which would’ve made for a more exciting series instead of watching drug dealers try to kill Karnak and random freedom fighters team up with Gorgon. I wish they could’ve given him his second terrigenesis to push him further into madness. I also wish we’d seen his friendship with Medusa—in flashbacks or in the present—since it was apparently so important to him; that would’ve added an understanding of how much he was either hurt by her cutting him off or how much he was willing to sacrifice to be someone important.

The series’ biggest problem was crafting the royal family as willing perpetrators of the caste system in Attilan. I’ll give the show credit for taking the hard path and making them knowingly complicit instead of just having Maximus convince the populace that truly benevolent and fair rulers were corrupt simply because it was a monarchy, but the writing didn’t do the best job of having any of the royals deal with what they were doing to their people. With Black Bolt and Co. willfully throwing Inhumans with powers that aren’t desirable or useful into slums and mines, how are they anything but the villains? Why should we root for them? Then you have Kitang (Marco Rodriguez) celebrating terrigenesis as a process which elevates the Inhumans above everyone else; however well the “Inhumans-as-mutants” parallel was going on Agents of SHIELD, comments like these destroy the idea that Inhumans can reliably stand in for mutants as metaphors for the disenfranchised and oppressed in society. Going even further, I didn’t need to see the royal family learn to appreciate humans at all. That was extraneous to their arc this season and not at all relevant to Maximus’ struggle. Though he vaguely wanted to conquer Earth to take back their “rightful home,” the royals didn’t need to know people to disagree with that impulse, as they already did before meeting anyone and Maximus’ immediate plans never involved attacking humans (except holding a few hostages once). They should’ve been learning to appreciate the lower classes of Attilan and the newly-powered Earth-born Inhumans instead; especially given that’s what brought Triton to Earth in the first place (perhaps the Earth-born Inhumans have created their own underground subculture that would contrast with Attilan’s). Accepting and protecting humans should’ve been saved for a potential Season 2, when they would’ve known they were stuck among us but still felt somewhat xenophobic, especially faced with a government that hates and fears Inhumans.

Despite a nice moment in the fourth episode of Black Bolt taking the time to move injured enemy Inhuman soldiers away from a fire, I didn’t buy that one dying soldier (Locus, Sumire Matsubara) was all it took to convince Black Bolt that their caste system was wrong from what we saw. Medusa maybe, because her parents fought it (and Black Bolt’s parents had hers executed), but I still think we needed to see more of her secretly suspecting her parents weren’t wrong all along to really sell that shift. The dots of her emotional arc were there, but they needed to be connected more clearly. Her comment to Black Bolt about killing Maximus, “Think about what kind of ruler you want to be,” was probably prompted by her dissident parents’ deaths, and mercy for Maximus also probably reflects both their childhood friendship and her friendship with Black Bolt, which started when she went to gloat about his parents’ deaths but took pity on him instead. They could’ve even introduced and justified her lack of success in effecting social change by showing her trying to push it once she became queen, but accidentally finding herself taken in by the comfort of royal life and the ease of cold practicalities (such as forcing Locus into her scout position instead of allowing her to be a healer like she wanted) without realizing it. A wrinkle like that would’ve sold the wakeup call Locus’ death was supposed to be while also bringing Medusa into conflict not only with Black Bolt, but the social awakening Crystal should’ve undertaken. These are the sources of internal dissention they should’ve gone for among the royals, not brief spats over Triton’s mission or Karnak being annoyed at Gorgon’s foolishness. Had something like this been included, I would’ve believed the pivot to a more democratic society more (if that’s even what’s happening; we aren’t really told how the royals are going to continue Maximus’ goal). 

The pacing on the whole could’ve been faster. After a quarter of the show had aired, it felt like it had gone nowhere. If this had been a super-powered Mad Max: Fury Road, with the royal family chased out, seen what it was like to be the nobodies in society—maybe in addition to Maximus’ forces hunting them, whatever is left of SHIELD should’ve been on-site to deal with the new Inhuman menaces—and then sieged Maximus’ new Earth-bound city (as the only ones equipped to do it in the wake of Civil War), it would’ve been much better and tighter. I suppose that’s essentially what it was, but the subplots on Earth didn’t really contribute to a greater understanding of the system the royals were perpetuating for the characters. I also don’t understand the intentional vagueness of the finale. Where on Earth is their new home? Who is “the Boss” that secured them this location? Who is their “greatest enemy?” There’s no reason not to answer those questions and they’re not interesting enough to be hooks for a second season. It’s also weird that, just like when Agents of SHIELD started, the people in Inhumans are right back to doubting paranormal things despite living in a world full of them. Callisto Aerospace Control Center scientist Louise gets suspended for suggesting aliens destroyed the moon rover? Aliens demolished New York! Why wouldn’t that be a priority-one, “Call SHIELD right now!” moment?

I don’t know if Inhumans will get a second season and I’m not sure I’d watch if it does. They introduced some interesting ideas, but never expanded on them as much as they could have and the budget was not there to accommodate this world or these characters, spoiling their potential and drastically decreasing the stakes. The show did make me a fan of Medusa and it was great to see another strong female character join the MCU, but I don’t know how much longer her character can carry Inhumans. However, everything can be improved, so the question is, will ABC give it the chance?

[canvaswolfdoll]

CanvasWatches: The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya

The time has come to finish a review series.

That’s right, I’ve gotten my hands on The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya![1] So, short of sitting down and reviewing the actual light novels,[2] we have reached completion of the Haruhi Suzumiya series.

This was my second viewing of the film. As mentioned previously, I’d watched the first season of Haruhi, tried, in vain, to wait to see the second season legally, before reading the intervening books and watching the film when the Library got it.

I recalled liking it, but that was so many years ago now I can’t remember anything concrete about the experience, just vagaries of the plot. So, how does it fare to my modern eyes and sensibilities?

The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya is a strong conclusion for the animated arm of the Haruhi Suzumiya franchise, with an accidental second job of setting up the Yuki-chan spin-off, also handled quite nicely.

And, yes, Disappearance is a conclusion. It’s been seven years since the film’s release, and eight after the second half of the anime series being released. Even the light novel series ground to a halt a year after this movie premiered.

Apparently Endless Eight was just that poorly received? I liked it.

Point is, it seems unlikely we’ll be getting any more stories from the main universe. Besides, not many franchises go back to television after getting a theatrical release.

It’s also clear to me, having finally watched all the pieces, that the second season of Melancholy existed to set up the movie, as all its episodes (Bamboo Rhapsody, Endless Eight, and Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya) were stories that set up important elements of the film’s plot (the fixed point of Tanabata three years ago, the quiet horror of Yuki Nagato’s existence, and… how Kyon got his cat, I guess?). As such, the film is written assuming the audience is up to date with the series, leaving no space to really explain such elements. There are a few cursory bits of catch-up exposition, but nothing to fully express the full weight of the supernatural elements on our cast.

The parents getting dragged to theaters by their kids would be confused, is what I’m saying.

The film is also a very interesting thing to watch after Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan, if only to compare and contrast how the universe changes when Yuki-chan Kyon gets swapped with Haruhi Kyon. Although it’s only passively mentioned, the backstory of Yuki-chan is in effect, and it seems Asakura was the only element that required bit of modification to keep her�� stable for the spinoff.

Actually, let’s not brush that off. For a character that has a relatively limited existence in the original material, she gets a lot more analysis by the Anime and spinoff than, say, Koizumi. It’s noted she exists as a shadow for Yuki, and the fact that this knife-wielding Human Interface psycho was given more of a personality and life than Yuki is cited as part of why Yuki’s role as team Deus ex Machina is so tragic.

It also makes you wonder if the Yuki-chan’s Asakura, given the proper incentive, would be willing to kill for her Yuki. Unlikely, as the uninfluenced rendition of that universe seems to have a much nicer blue-haired girl.[3] But maybe she would cut a dude? Who knows.

Stepping back to the film, one of the subtle things that makes the Haruhi Suzumiya setting so compelling is its meta narratives. Stories that are as much about them being a story and its tropes as the story itself, without, y’know, someone on screen telling you directly it’s about stories.

Haruhi desires the excitement found in stories, and tries to surround herself with tropes: mysterious transfer student, cute fanservice girl, quiet bookworm. Since these three have their own motivations to observe Haruhi, they’re all intentionally courting these images to remain compelling to her.

Heck, the metanarrative is what compels Haruhi to grab Kyon, the one character who doesn’t fully realize, even to the end of this same movie where he reaffirms that he’s now as much a protector of reality as the other three, what he actually is.

And, no, I’m not referring to the fact that he’s arguably the person cut from Haruhi’s introductory monologue between the book and the anime.[4]

Kyon is the everyman narrator, because that’s a job that Haruhi, for all her bluster (and actually because of all her bluster), cannot be. Haruhi’s an antagonistic force and inciting incident. She’s so proactive in her desire for excitement that she ends up locking herself out from it and thus is required to get someone else for the job.

Everyone has their narrative role. Mikuru moves Kyon into vital scenes and motivates him to action, Koizumi gives exposition and facilitates Haruhi’s plots, and Yuki Nagato solves problems.

So Disappearance ends the series with a strong question: what about the flat character that’s present just to fix things? What weight does Yuki Nagato, who exists as a tool both in world and out, carry emotionally?

And how much damage can she choose to cause?

It’s Yuki’s job to fix things, to get everyone home safe whenever Haruhi breaks things. And, sure, Yuki could keep patching the holes and dousing the fires, which she does for 26 episodes (more or less).

But then there’s Endless Eight.

Yuki is a super-being able to synch herself with any version of herself, regardless of time plane, so while the others got their memories reset, Yuki not only recalls more than the final cycle of Endless Eight, Yuki remembers all 15,498 to 15,532[6] loops.

Or about 595 years.

And Yuki remembers every agonizing moment.

Which is why I applaud the execution of Endless Eight. Because people were angry to get the experience, in half an hour, once a week for eight weeks.

Which is a mere fraction of what Yuki dealt with.

And, despite how well designed of a… vaguely defined interface she is, even the best machines break down and gain errors. Especially the more complicated you make the machine.

So, after all the Endless Eight loops and other adventures, the question is raised: at what point do you stop fixing the holes and putting out fires, and depower the flaming horizontal piston?[7]

Yuki exists as a Deus ex Machina. Clarke’s Third Law personified. So it’s time to take it to the logical extreme. Because Yuki has never been given defined limits, and because in the absence of limits, you are not merely a god; you can dethrone a god.

So Yuki removes Haruhi’s powers and restructures all of reality.[8]

And yet, Yuki can not allow herself full autonomy. So she’s compelled to leave an out, and leave the ultimate choice in the hands of our protagonist.

Because, like Haruhi, Yuki cannot be the hero of this story. The narrative does not allow it.[10]

So Kyon’s left with his memories intact, and an escape hatch. Yuki hides the escape well, of course, because she’s just… so tired. But she’s still compelled to offer it.

And even in this world, there’s clear hints that Yuki does carry some sentimentality, because she doesn’t delete Haruhi. Yuki so easily could’ve highlighted Haruhi Suzumiya and tapped delete, but instead Yuki drags and drops the tsundere from the top of the hill to its base.

She also gave Haruhi Koizumi, a toy to keep the girl amused. Koizumi is probably the most expendable member, anyways.

And it’s clear Yuki does strive to make it more than the world shifted into normality. She tries to make everyone satisfied.

Koizumi gets to keep facilitating Haruhi. Mikuru is no longer regularly harassed. Kyon gets peace. Haruhi can keep being herself regardless of North High.

And Yuki gets a life. She’s meek, lonely, and socially awkward. But that’s a clearly defined and non-stoic personality. And her apartment has a television and other signs of a life outside of being a magic alien wrench.

Then she asks Kyon ‘Is this satisfactory?’

Which… I mean, obviously it’s not. Who possibly would reject a life fantastic for normalcy?

Who, that is, besides the girl who was left without emotions to enjoy the ride, yet finds herself relied upon exclusively to solve problems?

In this new world, Kyon still tries to turn to Yuki to fix things, and while at first he finds this Yuki to be a totally different being than he knew before, the old Yuki is still there, in the form of a computer and a hinting bookmark[11] to offer solutions.

Because, no matter what happens, the narrative dictates Yuki fixes things.

The movie closes out the tragedy of Yuki Nagato, who had the most compelling arc in the series. Kyon’s finally shaken to realize that, now that he’s chosen this life, he can no longer pretend to be above it all and inconvenienced by the supernatural aspects. From this point on, Kyon is an active SOS Brigade member. The first sign (and also later sign, because time travel) is showing up after Asakura stabs Kyon to tie up loose ends and close the time loop.

Then he’s forced to finally confront his own role in Yuki’s breakdown, and make repentance. Yuki’s feeling bummed[12] about her imminent punishment by the Data Overmind for going rogue.

However, unlike Asakura, Yuki has friends who like her. And Kyon makes the difference clear: the SOS Brigade is a band of wackiness, and Kyon will bring the full force of Haruhi down upon it to see Yuki returned safely.[13]

And Kyon knows he can do it now, because the adventure provided the opportunity to test if Kyon could convince Haruhi of the truth. Because of Mikuru's tampering, Kyon is an instrumental piece of Haruhi’s backstory, and just needs to inform her that he’s ‘John Smith’.

So the Data Overmind’s apparently all ‘Ah. Okay. Carry on then.’

Thus Kyon becomes the defender of the SOS Brigade.

All because we did an It’s a Wonderful Life plot.

Well, a side-viewed one. Because, unlike It’s a Wonderful Life, it’s not the forces of heaven coming down to prevent a dude from killing himself by showing him that life would be worse if he never lived,[14] but instead a single rogue force showing us what would happen if we moved a key piece down the hill some.

The “Wonderful Life” plot is a popular way to tell alternate reality stories for a reason. Showing the audience how different things could’ve been if only one small change were made, or one character removed. It’s a good chance for creators to stretch their writing chops, analyze their world and characters, and it’s a fun romp for the audience.

Since they already did a Groundhog Day loop, a sports episode, a ‘overly fancy representation of a video game’ episode, a murder mystery, and a slice of life episode, they were overripe for It’s a Wonderful Plot.

Of course, in proper Haruhi Suzumiya style, they take it to a logical subverted extreme and make the premise as complicated as possible without making it inaccessible. Because it’s not a morality tale, where George drags a man about Potterville until he gets appropriately bummed out before putting him back home.

Oh no, first of all, history’s the same[15] until one year before the start of the movie. Then Kyon has to actively get home. And it’s not to show how miserable everyone in town would be, because, outside of a cold going around, the peripheral cast is unaffected by the removal of Haruhi, mostly having modestly enjoyable lives. And the main cast get their weighty duties removed and allowed to live normal, happy lives.

Which means, when Yuki gives Kyon a binary choice (Disappearance ‘verse or Haruhi ‘verse), and Kyon chooses his home reality, he’s making an entirely selfish choice. No one’s in a better place for it, and while most people would be mostly unaffected (besides gaining some silly Haruhi shenanigan stories to share), Kyon’s choice actively hurts Mikuru, Koizumi, and definitely Yuki by taking away a large swath of their agency, and a significant portion of Yuki’s personality.

And, as it is later outlined, Kyon made the choice with very little consideration.

And even after Kyon activates the escape program, the job’s not done. Kyon still has to personally change reality. Yuki even tells him the attempt could fail. Sure, she gives him the tools to do so, but Kyon has to take full responsibility for his actions.

Kyon has to plan and essentially shoot new, more fulfilled Yuki with a gun.

So, you know, that’s probably some amount of symbolism.

It’s also while facing down Yuki, fancy syringe needle gun in hand, that he finally considers what he’s doing. We get a very nice visual sequence of Kyon beating himself up over what’s happening.

But even in that framework, his hesitation is still very self-focused, about how, until now, Kyon’s just been complaining about having to deal with fantastical elements, yet still chose to return. Because it’s more fun.

In no part of the sequence does Kyon address the effects the choice has on his friends.

So Kyon points the gun at Yuki.

And gets stabbed by Asakura for his troubles. Which is a pretty vicious defense mechanism for new Yuki.

Yet he’s still saved, presumably by a future version of himself time travelling to finish the job to close the time loop.

Kyon wakes up in the hospital, Koizumi does his exposition thing while peeling apples.[16] Haruhi is given a cursory ‘D’aw, she does care’ moment when it's revealed she never left Kyon’s side during his coma, then she goes back to being uninvolved as Kyon finally confronts Yuki and lends her sympathy and protection.

Because, ultimately, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya isn’t, and never has been, about Haruhi. It’s about life as a fictional character from the perspective of the viewpoint character and the Deus ex Machina. Yuki Nagato has always been the female lead, she’s just been forced to act as something else.

Well… that’s one anime franchised finished. Very influential and fun. Still, probably should find something to take its place… something I deeply loved when I was younger, with much material and new, modern relevance…

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Kataal kataal.

[1] I mean, the title spoiled that… [2] Which, while I’m not ruling it out, is unlikely. [3] By the way, hair color aside, Asakura looks a little out of place, designwise. For some reason, her appearance makes me think CLANNAD more than Haruhi. [4] Book Haruhi lists time-travellers, aliens, sliders, and ESPers.[5] A slider is a hopper between alternate realities. [5] This cut may be a concession to Rule of Threes. [6] Varies whether we’re going by anime canon or book. [7] I refuse to justify this to you. [8] We are told that she takes Haruhi’s powers herself, but I’m not sure to what extent that’s true.[9] [9] However, that could imply that Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan had Haruhi’s powers the whole time, but her more modest ambitions meant a less fantastic story. [10] Heck, even when she can be, it’s only for the first third, with a confused hand teeter for the second third. [11] Both tools Yuki has used to communicate in Melancholy. Specifically the story entitled Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. [12] But in a subdued way. [13] Presumably the same applies to any of his friends, but none of them have yet gotten arcs as intense as Yuki, so I can only speculate. [14] Nevermind the removal of his past having no implications on him choosing to sever his future. [15] Well, with a few tweaks, as Yuki-chan showcases. [16] I don’t know why.