#it was sweet to see and it showcases his character growth from his arc in s11

[spicyicymeloncat]

Where’s that Ninjago sin post I’ve come to accept that my Ninjago sin is wrath and it’s wrath over the flanderisation of Kai Ninjago seriously I cannot shut up abt him it is an issue

[takaraphoenix]

Good Omens Season 3 Thoughts

To open it up, I have mixed feelings on the season. On the overall did I really enjoy it, the acting and the plot, but there were elements to it that didn't work for me, particularly regarding the ending.

I thought the Gabriel bit was funny (Jon Hamm was great and it looked like he was having a lot of fun with it), the storyline was coherent and I liked how it tied together in the end.

As with s1, the flashback scenes shone in particular. I loved them. I would honestly watch two whole seasons exclusively about their past. Them throughout time and the way their relationship developed is the best bit about this show, hands down.

David and Michael were, as expected, spectacular. Especially David, I'm sorry I love him so much, it was such a delight to see him again. His hair was impeccable too.

I liked Shax, the character was fun. I liked Muriel at first, but found her bit to get... a bit too exhausting the further the season went on. Just an edge too dense and naive and it started really getting on my nerves.

I could have done without the wlw subplot. That's the part that really pains me though, because as a lesbian I was really looking forward to it. But... it didn't work at all for me. They were really... annoying, it... distracted more than it added? And the end was infuriating.

Few tropes I hate more than "characters are oblivious and need to be told by an outsider that they're in love". And it... was worse when it's about a story that spanned 6000 years. After all this time, Crowley needed these two random characters to tell him what to do about his feelings for Aziraphale? Really?

I loved the season, but that ending was... really bad, starting with them having their sit down with Crowley, and it got worse from there.

I'm sorry, but Aziraphale, after two whole seasons of growth and character arc away from heaven going "Heaven are the good guys! Come be an angel with me!" was... OoC? It was incredibly regressive and contrary to his entire arc?

The beauty of the story, to me, had always been the way Crowley grew away from hell and Aziraphale grew away from heaven and they found each other, and they created their own side. That was, already, the entire point of season one? And it had been driven home once more by the arc of season two?

Even more so considering the Beelzebub/Gabriel plotline that mirrored and highlighted that too.

And then Azira just went "You can be an angel again!!! Angels are the good guys!!!", like all of that hadn't just happened in the past two seasons, like he hadn't grown comfortable in his role away from heaven, like the whole show hadn't showcased that heaven wasn't the good guys?

Sure, he pivots then into "We can change it together", but that bit only comes after he already declared that angels are the good guys and pretended like it was something to be desired by Crowley to be an angel again?

The kiss also felt... forced. Again, "character needs other characters to tell him about his feelings", but even beyond that. It... didn't... work. The forced kiss can sometimes work, but here? It was just uncomfortable to watch. Perhaps because their story hadn't been physical so far, their feelings had been so strong without it already, so this sudden "no, all the actions and interactions aren't enough to convey love, Kissing Has To Happen", it... Quite frankly, it felt like it was meant to cater to the whinier parts of the fandom that kept screaming that it's queerbait because they don't kiss on-screen? Like a "see, they kissed, are you satisfied now?" more so than a true and genuine moment that fit their development.

If the season had ended with Gabriel and Beelzebub parting from heaven and hell, it would have been a great ending.

Speaking of, I surprisingly liked that a lot? Didn't think I'd come out of season two liking Gabriel/Beelzebub, but that worked. That was even surprisingly sweet. And I did like how it mirrored the Crowley/Aziraphale dynamic (I just think that the Crowley/Aziraphale part then... failed to stick the landing).

I'm just hoping season 3 gets greenlit because this would not be a satisfying final ending to the show, it's far too much of a set up and cliffhanger.

TL;DR: Wonderful acting, great flashback scenes, good overall story, disappointingly enough didn't vibe with the wlw plotline, loved Gabriel/Beelzebub and how it tied the season together, thought Aziraphale's ending was doing his character development injustice.

[popculturebuffet]

Owl House and Amphibia Weekly Review: Any Sport in A Storm, Sasha’s Angels, and Olm Town Road: HUNTLOW WINS BITCHES

Hello all you happy people! I”m Jake, i review animation and i’ts week 3 of my regular coverage of Amphibia and Owl House. 

Before we get started as usual the news front is pretty quiet. The only piece of it is a sad one. Turns out the Light Novel for the Owl House isn’t happening as they wouldn’t pay them enough and disney clearly didn’t you know.. make sure tokyopop would pay the writers a decent wage or Tokoyopop dosen’t get people want actual money tomake content. Either way it’s consistent with Disney having no fucking idea what their doing publishing wise a lot of the time. I mean granted CN isn’t doing much better as it hasnt made any tie in comics in ages, but still, at least they actually got some out and didn’t have the mini series end half way. And yeah i’m still bitter about the star vs mini series. I”m also bitter abotu the joe books run of darkwing duck, the recent end of their contract with idw and in general disney just.. not carring about their audience’s wants or needs. 

Thankfully the episodes this week were excellent. As usual Owl House outpaced Amphibia as the latter is having a slower build to it’s finale, but Amphibia was still no slouch with two truly excellent episodes. There was huntlow, kidnapping, huntlow, a refrence to an episode I truly hate that ended up working out, huntlow, ultra instinct toadie, and I belivie I said huntlow. So let’s get into it. Also now Tumblr is read moring posts automatically so I don’t have to do the read more anymore! Woo hoo! 

Any Sport in A Storm:

Okay one more time

HUNTER     AND  WILLOW EPISODE

Okay look if you follow this blog or even just these reviews, you’ll know how much I was looking foward to this one. I complained for most of the season 2a reviews that Willow had been sidelined, and rightfully so: even with the show pulling away from Hexside, there was no reason Willow couldn’t show up and even when she did she didn’t get to engage with the story: she dosen’t actively fight her supsension despite the fact she has every reason to resist amity’s parents, and in Gus’ episode despite being his motivating factor in doubting himself after he accidently gets her hurt, she makes all of one apperance and said tragic incident happens OFF SCREEN. It felt like they stopped carring about the character.

Thankfully that’s no longer the case: the season premiere gave us a sneak peak as willow got multiple scenes including an absolutley great one with amity that also gave her her sweet new braids and this episode makes up for a half a season’s neglect by FIRMLY pushing her into the spotlight and giving us an episode showcasing just how far she’s come. 

It’s also the first time it’s really felt like Willows story has stood on it’s own: While Luz and Amity are vital players in it, being the reason she came out of her shell and the reason she was in one respctively, most eps with willow centered around the others just as much and Willows arc was just as much about Amity’s as it was her own. 

Here though the story, while shared with another person, is fueld by her desires: following in her dad’s footsteps (something I didn’t realize till a post pointed it out) Willow is determined to start a flyer derby team, a sport that while not as popular as grudgby is still damn cool: it’s essentially flag football on brooms, with both teams fighting to snatch the flags off the back of the other teams brooms, while being fully within their rights to use their magic as much as they can and as rough as they can. Bodychecks are also not just a part of the sport but vital to it. Turns out her working out last time we saw her was foreshadowing, as when we first see her she’s using her plants as ropes to train from doing strength training to doing jump rope with clover who continues to be the cutest thing alive. She wants to found Hexsides first Flyer Derby team, and that alone shows her growth: she’s gone from a girl doing a tract she hates and filled with insecurity, to a young woman who knows what she wants, goes after it and is ready to lead instead of follow. I’m so proud of her I swear. 

So it’s here Hunter enters.. well he actually started the episode but hey. But to the shows credit the two share equal footing, with Willows desire to have her team run fueling the first half and Hunter’s desire to be seen as a worthy succesor to the golden guard fueling the second, while being his reason to participate in the first. And yes SUCCESOR. Turns out Golden Guard is a legacy title and none of the heads, especially Darius are impressed the current lead is a teenager, to the point they reschedule a meeting he was going to lead... granted I don’t know how any of them think “blowing off the person their boss EXPLICITLY put in charge” is going to go well and Rahne to their credit at least seems sorry about it, you can’t brainwash out his empathy bitch, but this emphasies just how alone Hunter is: he has no one his age there, the people above his age only respect him because they ahve to and his peers all hate him for being a child and in some cases like kiki want him dead becaue he’s in the way. Seriously how is it EVERY TIME we see this poor kid’s life they somehow find a way to make it sadder? So hutner goes to hexside to find recruits, which is really just Darius’ way of getting him out of his gooey hair for a day so he can enjoy his day off, and he’s about what you’d expect

Trying to recuit hamfistedly because he GENINELY dosen’t relaize both how terrible life in the emperor's coven is or how teenagers actually work, going to the same after school club fair as Willow and Luz are. Also as a sidebar one of the summaries said “Luz would put Hunter’s mission in jeapordy” this is a lie. The two don’t interact all episode and the closest we get is both her and amity having an anuresum of pure confusion at the end when they find out he was on Willows team for a day.  Seriously it’s okay to misdirect in solicits but don’t outright lie. 

But yes hunter trying and failing horribly to react with kids his own age is darkly hilaroius, as is Viney, returned from that one episode I never saw with the detention kids, ‘s pet griffin mauling him. Apparently slapstick animal attacks are a thing for me as I also recently enjoyed hank venture getting beaten up by an orangutan, doggie daddy getting attacked by an eagle and i’ve always enjoyed this. 

So yeah add that to the list of “things I enjoy”. Neat. Anyways, Willow soon runs into a problem. of her own: her old abomination professor who, while I obviously did see HIS episode.. I completely forgot existed. I’m sure most of you did too.  This is the only part of the main plot that’s eh to me as it feels like an excuse to put willow in a situation where she needs recurits fast, as after trying to shut down the club entirely, he agrees to approve it if they beat his team in a match.. which is also mostly teenagers

So that’s where our heroes stories collide: hunter needs strong peeps to get the approval of his second dad, and Willow needs to form a team fast to beat dean bitterman.. er abomination man. Who DOES have a cool abomination that’s also a palsiman, complete with unique color. Someone take it from him he does not deserve it. 

So after Hunter shows off his rad moves, and Hunter sees willows own, both decide the other will help their goals. And if I didnt’ ship them before holy shit i would’ve now. Though Willows recuritment tactics need work as her method.. is grabbing him out of the sky and kidnapping him. He intially plans not to join till he find out she wants the best of the best and hey he wants the best. Gus isn’t happy about it because Hunter is doing everything but wearing a sign that says “I’M WITH THE EMPEROR’S COVEN”.. and that’s only because he accidently broke it on the way here, and because Willows happy for once after a rough few years. And look we’ve seen what Gus can do to a person with Bria, Hunter better be careful not to break her heart less he wake up in some freddy kruger shit that’s all i’m asking. 

Anyways once the two are together while the episode has been good thus far it REALLY gets going. While I already shipped them this episode showed just how perfectly compliment one another and how much they have in common: During the ep both claim to be “half a witch” a nickname of willows I honestly forgot since she hasn’t been called that since her debut. But it speaks to both having to overcome similar hudles: Hunter has spent his life trying to prove that despite not having inborn magic, he’s still talented and has to deal with his abusive uncle-dad who has impossibly high standards and gaslights him constantly, co-workers who outright see him as lesser for both his age and lack of inborn magic, and the sheer gauntlet that is getting into the coven, with Hunter so out of it he sees the labyrinths, mountiain stranding and brutal duels as fun rather than the horrible brutal conditoning they are. Hunter seemingly has every advantage except magic.. but all they really have done is left him a miserable, lonely person  throughly loyal to someone clearly intending to sacrifice him for his goals, as he would with anyone. 

In contrast Willow had a loving set of parents (if not perfect given they tried to get her to take a tract she wasn’t capable in).. but while she did have her magic, she simply wasn’t strong and thus Alador and Odalia forced Amity to discard her. Everyone thought she was weak... so she didn’t try becuase she started belivied them. 

It was only when she stopped beliving that that she truly bloomed into who she was always meant to be. It helped though that she slowly gained friends with Gus, Luz and eventualyl once again amity that helped her pick herself back up when her own self doubt threw her down. It’s why it’s utterly fitting to me forming her own team and trying to help others who are understimated gain the same confidence is where she ended up... and why she’s the first to truly break through Hunter’s toxic worldview that’s been drilled into him by Belos. Luz did a bit, but at most got him to back down and Amity tried... but it’s Willow, coming from the perspective of someone who everyone also looked down on and who strives to prove them wrong not for them or because she cares, but for her own sake, that helps him. 

It shows most in Willow picking her team. Though I am bummed NON of the non-human supporting cast joined. Like don’t get me wrong, Viney and Skara are both there for specific reasons and Viney is awesome, so fair enough, but at the same time I would’ve prefered the cresent moon girl or the eye ball or weird mouth kid whose booth was right next to willow. You know spice it up a bit. IT’s one of the few complaints I can make: out of the main cast only king and hooty are non-human. So the one time they coul’dve messed with that they didn’t. Still small complaints. 

Hunter naturally brushes off the rag tag bunch of misfits so Willow has to do another kidnapping.. and show hunter she’s wrong. It again shows her growth: Gus struggles to fly normally but can sky surf at ludcrious speed, Viney is terrible at beast taming but easily the best healer in the school, and Skara is an experinced sports person who while seemingly just glued to her phone, was actually brushing up on strategies. It makes hunter see past his elitiest view. 

The game is also a fucking feast for the eyes: fast paced, full of great magic, some great gags (Seriously Viney give the poor guy ab reak. he didn’t know you’d be facing each other. Jorbo’s life is hard enough as is), and a truly great finish. It also subtly showed that Hunter’s mastered his trademark speed spell, the one he mildly struggled with during his duel with amity, easily using it to win in the clutch. He’s gotten used to Flapjack and it’s a ncie way to show that progressing without telling us. 

So our heroes win and the following scene.. is hilaroius as Hutner fails to get how kidnapping his friends and conscipting them is a good thing, complete with a great

We also get more Steve! See gif above but he’s great, from Hunter complaning skara hit him “It’s okay emotions are running high. Icepack for steve”.. to him being the one to get Hunter to realize what he’s done: while it was fun for hunter, he didn’t know better and was conditined. For Steve being yanked from your home, loosing your palismen (by they way holy shit that’s unsettling), and being put through absolute hell of training without being a shonen anime protagnist.. it sucks. 

So hunter goes to save them, though cleverly we see willow and co do plenty themselves, with Gus cleverly using an illusion on Darius.. and in the end it’s Hutne rhimself standing between them and Darius to save them that turns the tide, proving to the others he is their friend.. he just has a LOT of issues. But Willow warmly still considers him part of the team as they leave and it’s still a powerful scene as for only the second time, Hunter goes against something that woudl supoiisdley strenthen his uncle to do wha’ts right. And while letting Luz go was easy this is something that could easily spill over to his uncle if Darius felt willing and make belos deeply disapointed.. but it dosen’t matter. He’s realized now what his life is.. and dosen’t want his friends to be forced into it. 

And the turn Darius takes here is INSTANTLY engaging. While he’s still a bad person, he’s still complicit in whats going on with rahne and still was going to murder a bunch of teenagers just for pissing him off, it shows complexity he’s not some one note villian and while annoyed with hunter, simply wantd the boy to grow as a person, to grow out of being the obident nephew and try and be a normal kid. So he gifts the kid a scroll and reveals the whole thing.. was just a snipe hunt. His friends weren’t in danger until the last minute, and he’s simply proud Hunter stood up for them and himself. He even fixes the previous GG’s cape. It’s a bold character moment, showing Hunter has a chance to finally break fromhis uncle’s shadow after last time he had the chance he made the wrong , desperate choice, and that maybe not everyone in the covens are irredemibly evil. Darius is still an obstacle to face.. but he may have a place in the isles after belos is overthrown. 

Also yes before we move to the subplot I blatnatly ship hunter and willow but besides the episode itself subtly doing the same, they just work together. They need each other: He needs her confidence, and she needs someone whose willing to back her no matter what. She’s what he always needed.. and hopefully that won’t go terribly for her when he has to make the choice between her and the rest of his friends and big scary colonislt uncle man. Tillt hen we always hav eadorable fanfic so there’s that. 

As for the subplot it’s.. not much. It’s not BAD, the lumity content is great and the bit with Boscha is fucking hilaroius with the most she can muster to them ignoring her is “Your not cute you know> I HAVE MORE FRIENDS THAN YOU!’

And it’s clearly a lighthearted jab at us fans diggin way too deep into everyting.. but given we’re this close to the season finlae, it does feel like a waste of time to spend it on a comedy plot. Even if Tiny Nose (Who just like Luz I was utterly suprised had an actual name.. and wonder how Amity knows that) and Matholomule got great bits. And Tibbles got punched. So it wasn’t TERRIBLE, I just question why this plot was here. Also as for the crew bringing tibbles back again and again

Seriously i’ve seen worse characters but why do you keep using him. No one asked for this. But i’ts harmless good fluff, so it dosen’t really impact anything, I just wish it had more of a point is all. Then again maybe that’s the whole point of it. Still it can’t drag down the a-plot and overall ti’s still a fantastic shiptastic episode. 

Sasha’s Angels:

Look this episode has Maddie not only finally get a cool post-apocalypse look but she has fucking WOLVERINE CLAWS IN HER GLOVES

Seriously just ... maddie having Wolverine claws is something I didn’t know I needed to complete my life till now. Kinda like how I didn’t know I needed a talking panda homonculus till I started reading Jujutsu Kaizen. Sometims life just gives you what you need most when you least expect it. Also now i’m picturing maddie riding on panda’s back so i’m double happy. Not on all fours mind you like on his back diddy kong style. 

Anyways this is a fine episode, though most of the REALLY good stuff is on the fringe of it. To explaint his one has Sasha and Anne go on a mission with Loggle, Croaker, Maddie, and Toadie. Toadie isn’t adapting well to the post apocalypse and while he ends up saving the mission, I HIGHLY question Sasha bringin him along when said save is only because toady fucking snaps. I mean.. i’m happy Toady got a proper focus episode and character development, i’m always down for more Jack McBrayer, but it felt predictable as a result: i knew either his orignization would save htem, he’ dbreka out of his shell, or as happened some comination of the two. It was just a bit predictable though the fact BARRY of all people, you remember him that candy asshole from Maddy’s episode seriously the callbacks this season, being the head of the marauders (sadly not mutant pirates but a neutral party that revels in the chaos andrias has brought), was fucking hilarous. He has a sweet tooth for anarchy! And as always the fight scenes are top notch. 

But the real meat of the episode was with Anne and Sasha, and their clash in how to handle things. When the rest of the group gets captured anne’s first insinct is to naturally go save her friends.... while Sasha tells her to stay put. And this is the kinda thing I was talking about last week: While Anne is on much better terms with Sasha the wounds of who she was and what she did to Anne are still there, as Anne assumes the sit and wait approach means Sasha dosen’t care about them, something she outright says later even as she regrets them. And it’s a great use of this being for both demographics as younger viewers might assume Sasha really is being callous till her faith is proven right.. while most older viewers can sense the dramatic irony. That leaving them to at least try to break out IS the right call: they do quickly, and only get caputred thanks to toady and break out again and succeed. Not barging in there and getting themselves captured too or going for reinforcements was the right call.  And when both talk it over later, Sasha not only understands given her past but explains the hard truth we could see coming: She DOES care about them.. but she’s also their commander. Being the leader means having to make the hard choices sometimes, doing what’s better for everyone instead of yourself and having the utmost faith in your people. It reminds me of Cyclops of the X-Men when written properly: a leader who does truly care about their team and wants them to live.. but does sometimes have to make seemingly cold decsions because it’s what’s needed for all of them to surivive. It’s great character stuff that elevates this episode from pretty good to great. That and maddie getting fucking wolverine claws. 

Olm Town Road:

This one was more of the same as above: a pretty typical plot elivated by character work.. let’s go. 

This time around Sasha’s looking at the bigger picture: the resitance is doing good, having mostly stamped out the Marauders and done many succesful raids.. but the problem is much like the Freedom Fighters, they can’t really make a dent in the larger problem of Robotnik... er Andrias. And unlike with Robotnik and the Freedom Fighters, where as long as they keep fighting it’s good and they eventaully win once they find a way  to, The Wartwood Freedom Fighters are on a timer: the longer they take to actually do something about Andrias, the more troops he gets and the closer he gets to conquering other worlds.. and if he gets another world it’ll just be that much harder to stop him. 

So naturally given the title the whole Mother of Olms things comes back into play, but the problem is no one’s seen an olm in decades as their isolationists... except Sprig and Polly who remember Lsil and Angwin from Quarallers Pass. You remember that one right? The one that was pure

Except for the boyfriend gag and the characters their bringing back for this episode? Yeah I tried to block it out like Nam too. And look I still hate that episode but if your going to bring something back, those two are worth it and this episode gives them a shocking amount of depth: After our heroes head onto joe, whose still around thankfully, and find the siblings (in the most hilarious way possible as she picks a fight with sprig “Yes WHINE MORE”), and Sasha threatens to cut them open from the inside if they try eating her, we find out their exiles: they bickered on watch and thus got banished.. and having made tons of mistakes she regrets herself, Sasha wants them to have another chance. This part works.. it paints these two seemingly monsterous figures as sympathetic, simply having grown desperate to eat. dosen’t make eating kids okay but still, it does make them more complex than two bickering monsters. 

The issue with the ep is more olm town itself, which is your standard isolatonist asshole community, with the leader refusing to acknowledge the drill above them from andrias or the war and shooing them away. Honestly the episode feels like a shorter version of the drill from avatar the last airbender; our heroes are trying to get to a heavily guarded place and have to do a task. Hell they already DID that minus the asshole isolatoinsim with “Marcy at the Gates”. So yeah this one feels tired and the twins and sasha are the only thing that really works about it.  But Sasha telling the leader of the olms, or vice president under mother olm, off was OH SO satisfying, as was her offering the twins a home.. though thankfully they get to come back. So yeah not the series BEST but still had enough good stuff to make it worth it, including the twins sacrifice of nearly getting baked in the sun to save their people. 

Next Week: Amity gets into underground fight clubbing to make this stop with her dad

 And we finally find out just what the pot meant. But i’m more excited abotu SPRIG AND GRIME EPISODE. HELLS YEAH. 

If you enjoyed this review thanks for reading, like and reblog as you may and follow me on patreon! Even 1 dollar backers get a free review and now a free in character chat on signup! Just give me a hook I can work with and i’ll do the rest. Also you get to choose a selectoin for my monthly poll and every person that joins gets me to my stretch goals. And the next one is owl house season 1 reviews so if you wants that, come and gets that. 

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[psychewritesbs]

Chapter 168: Tokyo Colony No. 1, part 8: “What am I doing...” 

Happy JJK-Sunday. 

Our boy Megs won first place in the popularity polls. I totally did not expect it to be honest, but given what’s going down in the Culling Game, I say it’s well deserved (even if he’s indifferent about it or gets knocked down by Gojo once he comes back).

This chapter and what happens in this chapter showcases why Megumi is one of my favorite anime and manga characters of all time. In a nutshell, the way I see it, Megumi has crossed into new territory that will challenge his character to grow. 

More importantly, it goes without saying that Gege is not writing about violence for the sake of violence, but about how his characters are affected by their circumstances and how they grow from them.

All I can say right now, given Megumi’s growth in past arcs, is that whatever Gege has in store for Megumi’s character growth, it’s going to be beautiful. 

After all, as an author, I can’t imagine you would name a character “blessing” (恵) and put him through hell for nothing.

Anyways... be warned that I am going to go ahead and gush on and on about Megumi below the cut.

No, like... for real... this one is a long one and it’s aaaaaaaaaall about Megumi.

Megumi the softie 

Or the Knight that Remi hoped for

First, I love Megumi and Remi’s dynamic, not because I ship them (although if you do, who cares what others say about the ship), but because of what the dynamic says about both characters. 

As a woman, if Megumi talked to me the way he talks to Remi, I would have said “boy, bye!” a long time ago. But I did not always think like this...

And that’s just the thing about Remi--she doesn’t know better. Her standards for men’s behavior are so low that she tolerates not only Megumi’s rather cruel remarks and cold attitude, but also willingly puts herself in danger for Reggie’s sake.

From my perspective, Remi’s character is meant to represent women who are desperate for love because they do not love or value themselves. 

Women like Remi are self-destructive to a fault. As was brought up by many back when Remi was introduced into JJK, she is the kind of person who will back stab Megumi even if she goes down with him.

And that’s perhaps what I love most about their dynamic. Despite Megumi’s cruel attitude towards her, he seems to be deeply compassionate of her lack of self-respect and how that got her into the situation that she is in. 

Interestingly enough, Remi is also a mirror of Megumi’s own self-destructive tendencies. If you think about it, Megumi injured himself while protecting Remi from harm even after she betrayed him.

In other words, he is not only quite the softie, but is also acting like the Knight* that Remi asked him to be. 

However, Megumi is the kind of Knight whose chivalrous actions speak louder than his words. He does not need to make big declarations of love as long as he follows through with his actions.

*To be clear, a Knight does not have to be romantically involved with a woman in order for him to protect her. Rather, a Knight is an archetype of the masculine as protector of honorable causes. 

Despite that, Remi cannot recognize a true Knight even if her life depended on it (quite literally) because she is fixated on empty promises and delusional thinking.

I am assuming Reggie sweet-talked her, told her exactly everything she needed to hear, and took full advantage of how low her standards are for men’s behavior.

And this is how we ended up in this mess...

Megumi says he’s had enough, but given how even towards the end of the chapter he’s still worried about her, I have to wonder how far Remi will continue to push him before he takes drastic action.

For someone who saves people unequally, when will enough be enough?

In the end, even though Megumi is protecting Remi out of compassion, he is still incredibly cold-hearted and cruel towards her.

I am not sure how to put this into words just yet but I get the impression that Megumi looks down on what he perceives as weakness.

This is an interesting thing for Gege to show because this is not the first time we see this behavior from Megumi.

In other words, I see Megumi as someone who rejects his own “weakness” as a way to protect himself from getting hurt.

My best guess is that this is why Megumi is both deeply compassionate and incredibly cruel. He’s got a little bit of a Mr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde thing going on. He is both a softie and a sadist.

Megumi the sadist 

Or “oops I stabbed someone multiple times in the head and earned 5 points. I promise it was self-defense!”

Can I just say I am really enjoying how ruthless and cruel Megumi can be when he does not like someone?

I’ve been saying it for some time, but up until the Culling Game, we had not seen this cruel side of Megumi except for a few instances. 

Now that Megumi is in a life-or-death scenario where it is not just his life that is at stake, but that of Tsumiki’s as well as everyone who got involved in the Culling Game for his sake, Megumi’s true colors are showing--he can be brutal and ruthless when he needs to be.

And when I say brutal and ruthless, I mean... “stabbing someone repeatedly before delivering a final blow to the head” ruthless.

Like... you know... a certain someone...

Like father...

Like son...

The Zenin are truly violent beasts and it looks like Megumi is unconsciously walking down the same path as Toji.

Megumi killing Chizuru was an act of self-defense, yes, but it was also a pre-meditated decision to end a life. 

This very much reminded me of how Megumi summoned Mahoraga against Shigemo. Out of all the things he could have done, he went for the most cruel, sadistic route.

What’s more, Megumi seemed to enjoy the thought that Shigemo was going to die at Mahoraga’s hands.

But what about Megumi’s reaction in this chapter?

“What am I doing...”

The first thing I thought when I saw the leaks with the original Japanese text for the panel above was “he’s dissociated himself from his actions.”

In other words, Megumi seems to be questioning his own actions as if someone else had taken over his body and killed on instinct. This is in itself a defense mechanism. 

In Jungian Psychology the shadow is technically a personality or set of personality traits that have been repressed. The problem with repression is that the shadow, seeking to find expression, oftentimes takes over and acts out that which is repressed, often leaving the offender unable to control their own actions.

Think of it like a pressure cooker.

I believe that what we are seeing is Megumi’s repressed violent, sadistic self seeking expression. This shadow self is, in turn, a self that is at odds with the Megumi who is deeply compassionate and caring.

From my perspective, Megumi killing someone marks the beginning of him walking the fine line delineating the boundaries of his gray morality. A morality driven by selfish, emotional desires, in which the end justifies the means.

A morality that might dictate that he adjust his logic and strategy in service of his emotional desire to save Tsumiki.

More importantly, I have to wonder about Megumi’s kindness. I’ve already mentioned he rejects weakness and kindness in others because he rejects his own vulnerability. 

But, if he plans on continuing to kill others for points, Megumi might have to suppress this kindness and vulnerability that is forcing him to ask himself “what am I doing?” and become a cold-hearted shell of who he used to be.

The perfect Zenin killing machine is cold-hearted and unfeeling. 

But what makes Megumi’s character arc impressive in the grander scheme of JJK-things is that even if Megumi were to become a puppet of carnage and go down a dark hole, I believe Megumi is the kind of character who would take responsibility for his actions in much the same way Higuruma wants to turn himself in to the authorities.

Like I said before, whatever path Gege takes Megumi down, however many people he kills, however cruel and sadistic he might act, Megumi’s character growth as a result will be beautiful to experience.

“Don’t panic, believe in everyone else.”

There is just so much to unpack in this chapter, so if you are still reading, thank you as always for reading!

I did want to mention a couple more things, including the fantastic and most bromantic moment in this chapter.

This is a beautiful nod to Megumi’s growth as someone who has come to trust that he can rely on others. 

A beautiful smile of deep gratitude in knowing that it is ok to believe that he won’t always be let down by others the way he was let down by his father.

Above all, this particular sentence, “don’t panic, believe in everyone” is a cry for hope. Megumi wants to hope it will all work out even with the odds stacked against them.

“Don’t panic, believe in everyone” is an attempt to leave behind his pessimistic view of the world as inherently unfair.

And honestly, writing this, I am worried Gege is going to be like “haha, just kidding. Your turn to suffer. Let’s turn you into that lean, mean, Zenin killing machine.”

I’ve said it before, Dark Megumi is both the most exciting and tragically heartbreaking character arc.

Crack theory: Megumi’s domain expansion is not incomplete

Ok, so, take with a grain of salt. I am probably alone on this one and I could be 300% wrong. But for quite some time now I’ve been wondering whether Megumi’s domain is not incomplete, but rather, it does not have a barrier like Sukuna’s Malevolent Shrine... Megumi just doesn’t know it.

I don’t want to elaborate here and I have little evidence... but maybe I’ll eventually write about my thoughts on why I think this.

Again. Probably wrong. Who cares...

Takaba’s butt

Of course, can’t end my nerd out without mentioning Megumi’s reaction to Takaba showing up. If you think about it, because Megumi is standing behind him, he is straight up looking at one of his butt cheeks--even if it’s a costume.

All I can say about this is that this pairing is going to be absolutely hilarious. Megumi whose personality is dry and quiet, and Takaba the failed comedian.

I am definitively looking forward to it. After a number of angsty and heavy chapters, it is nice to see Gege bringing in some comedic relief.

Merry Saturnalia!

Hey guys, to those of you who read my nerdery, thank you again. 

I am moving from one end of the country to the other (from Minnesota back to Texas) and then traveling East (Mississippi) for Christmas. So I’ll be spending the next two to three weeks on the road and will not have an internet connection until January.

That being said, Merry Saturnalia (or whatever holiday you celebrate)! 

Until we meet again, have a bunch of wonderful JJK-Sundays!

[h4lcyonism]

SO I am most of the way through volume 4 (I believe I’ve seen 9 episodes) and I have *thoughts.*

This may be my favorite volume so far it’s not perfect or anything but I think splitting the main 4 up was a good choice for character development. I also think the writers are getting more used to writing each main girl so their personalities are getting more consistent which is cool.

Weiss and Yang’s arcs are probably my favorites I thought Ruby and Yang’s dad was going to be boring after volume 3 but his relationship with Yang is so sweet and I like that the show is actually showing Yang’s trauma from…you know. I’m not sure they spent quite as much time on it as I would have liked but it’s still great. Weiss’s arc was pretty expected, it didn’t surprise me at all, but it’s super satisfying (like any character who you know is gonna get redeemed when they finally do) and I love watching her grow although I would very much like to punch her dad.

Blake’s arc is interesting…I like her dynamic with Sun when she’s not slapping him (plus he’s hilarious.) Who the heck is Ilya though? (Did I spell that right?) I’m intrigued and Blake’s parents deserve everything. I like this arc my one problem is that I feel like at the moment Blake’s only real character trait is running away and I think she could be fleshed out a *little* more.

OH THAT ONE SCENE WITH JAUNE AND PYRRHA’S VIDEO MADE ME CRY I miss Pyrrha so much she was my favorite character and then she DIED!

I like the setup of Ruby’s arc my main problem with it is that Ruby as a character isn’t my favorite. She’s certainly likeable but I feel like her main trait is “protagonist.” The rest of the group is great though, although I would have liked more time dealing with Jaune’s grief (really I just wish this volume were longer because it’s doing so much good stuff!)

I realized that I’m complaining a lot but I really love this volume.

Qrow may be my new favorite character…I just learned about his semblance and ouch that’s sad (kind of reminds me of Eda.) He has SUCH a specific vibe and I can’t describe it but I love it so much also his relationship with Ruby is everything.

BUT NOW HE MIGHT DIE I’M SCARED HE’S GOING TO DIE AND THEN TWO OF MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS WILL BE DEAD AND THAT WOULD SUCK!!!!!!!!!

Okay that’s it those are nine episodes worth of pent up thoughts I’m sorry for making you read all of that!

i’m glad you like volume 4 so far!!

i’m usually not a fan of splitting characters up but the show did this volume really well in that case and in a lot of ways it was necessary for the girls’s growth as individuals. they’ve had three volumes to build up the characters, so volume 4 is definitely when you start to see them get fleshed out.

i’m really glad they took volume 4 to really showcase yang’s struggles with adjusting to only having one arm and dealing with ptsd, and weiss’s arc is predictable but enjoyable to see nonetheless. and the jacques hatred will only grow the more of the show you watch, so that doesn’t change.

ilia amitola is the light of my life and one of my absolute favorite characters in the show. i don’t wanna spoil anything about her, but you’ll love her. and volume 5 fleshes blake’s character out more than volume 4 does imo, so that does get better.

same with ruby, in the later volumes you definitely start to see more of ruby’s struggles and her more pessimistic and hopeless side, so to speak. and again, without spoiling anything… i think we’re gonna come back to jaune’s grief in this year’s upcoming volume, but i’ll wait to discuss that until you’re all caught up lol.

qrow and eda have A LOT in common and his relationship with ruby is a lot like eda’s with luz, that’s all i’ll say on that right now……….

the show does really only go up from here and volume 4/5 are put together like continuous volumes, so a lot of the build-up and character development runs into volume 5 too, and personally, volume 5 has a lot of my favorite moments, so there’s a lot to look forward to!!

(also i feel like i hammer in “soon!!!!” with a lot of stuff, but i promise that it all actually DOES happen. 😭 the next four volumes are way more packed than the four you’ve already seen.)

[river-bottom-nightmare]

Nightwing 79 Review

i said i would and i will. i did like this issue! not as striking and attention grabbing as 78, but i think this issue was meant to be a foundation one, laying out the groundwork for the future. overall, pretty good. also there wasn't enough bitewing. as promised, overly extensive metaphors and me reading too much into things under the cut

i know i've talked about this cover before, but this particular thing is oddly important to me, so i'll talk about it again

this is me, once again screaming about how artists put nightwing in traditionally feminine poses and how every time i see it i just get whiplash. i mean, true, the main reason why is because nightwing is a so often sexualized character, and putting him in these poses just increases the objectification, which is a goal that dc producers have. but there are very few popular male characters that do this. the only one i can think of off the top of my head is deadpool, but that was so obviously a critique and a way to make fun of the media industry. when they draw dick like this, they’re being serious. they’re putting him in appealing poses meant to show him off, and that’s something that’s traditionally only been done to women.

it's a very direct and very loud breaking of traditional gender roles in media, especially for a character as high-profile and historic as dick grayson. colour also plays a factor in this. the entire background is pink. i was absolutely shocked when i first saw it, when the teaser came out, because i cannot think of any comic book covers of male comic heroes this high-profile where pink is even just prevalent in the cover, let alone the majority of the cover. the pink does look beautiful: it offsets and highlights the black and blue of dick's suit gorgeously, but does it with more finesse than orange or red. but the fact that the stylistic choice was made to accent and draw this cover with aesthetic and beauty in mind, completely ignoring traditional hard-set gender rules in art, was a conscious choice and one i wholeheartedly support.

just another example of the sexualization i was talking about. i remember seeing harley quinn in this exact pose in suicide squad.

so far, taylor's been pretty dead-set on bringing alfred to the forefront of importance in this series. he wants people to know how much he loves alfred's character, and how much the butler meant to dick growing up. he was dick's father too. but what i adore is how taylor managed to stress alfred's importance in a way that didn't insult or belittle bruce.

this is one of the best bruce and dick interactions i've seen, and it's done in one simple interaction. in this, bruce is tough and harsh. he knocked dick down hard, but then he reached a hand down and helped pull dick back up. let me analyze their dialogue for a minute

on your feet: this is bruce telling dick to get up. he's trained dick, he knows what the younger boy is capable of, he knows his limits, and he knows what dick can do. this is bruce telling dick i know you're strong enough to get up, so get up and prove me right

are you just going to knock me down again?: surface-level, it looks like dick's complaining. he doesn't like bruce's rough training, and he's tired of bruce knocking him down. but look at his face in this. he's smiling up at bruce, knowledgeable and a little hopeful. he knows that bruce is doing this to help dick better himself, he's completely on board with the rough training, because they both know the rewards are incredible. also, he's teasing. he's bantering with bruce. there's an ease in that joking statement, one that belies affection and intimacy. they've only known each other for a little bit, but they're already slipping into a close familial relationship.

it depends on how fast you learn: this is bruce bantering back. this is bruce not being a stoic, unfeeling asshole. instead, he's shown with the dry humor that a good batman writer knows is a staple of the character. he's teasing dick, telling him he'll basically whoop his ass if dick doesn't learn fast enough. it's incentive for dick to train harder, while also being lighthearted enough to tell dick that believes in dick and doesn't want him to push himself too hard.

gosh i love the titans. also it looks like wally's staring at dick's ass.

this was cute. a prod at dick's silly and playful sense of humor, while not dumbing him down for the sake of a laugh. instead, he's joking about food, which is stuff everyone jokes about. this is the kind of stuff that'll actually make me laugh, instead of just making me vaguely uncomfortable.

bludhaven's almost always portrayed as a cesspool of a city. and to be honest, it really is. but this panel gives the city a meaningful history, while also giving us a reason for why dick moved there.

it talks of a time when people still thought they could beat the monsters. that if they fought hard enough, they could win the fight. it was a tentative hope that you could always overcome hardship.

dick's little "i like that it's still standing" shows how he still believes that, despite what the rest of the world thinks. despite everything that he's been through, dick is still tentatively an optimist, and believes he can fight the monsters of the world and win. it's a beautiful testament to his character, and i'm like that they added his signature element of hope back in. it used to be what he symbolized as robin, and despite his growth and character arc from robin to nightwing, this is one aspect of robin that i'm glad nightwing still has.

remember when i said "things that make me vaguely uncomfortable??" yeahhhh,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Shooketh Dick: A Sequel

(the expressions in this series are just,,,,on point)

this was an incredibly sweet and kindhearted thing for dick to do, but i found it kind of,,,,,,,,desperate? maybe that's just me, but let me explain.

dick's suddenly a billionaire, and he has entirely too much money that he knows what to do with. it's also alfred's money, what the man left to him, so dick forever links it with alfred. in addition to that, he's back and bludhaven and looking at it with "fresh" eyes. (at least, from a different point of view since he got shot in the head. then mind controlled.) he's desperate to do something with the money and he's desperate to help the people around him that so obviously needs up, so he comes up with an on-the-fly solution that's a little impractical and a little crazy, but it still helps and still does some good.

to me, dick seems a little lost. he hasn't completely found his balance yet, and he's trying to do things that will. he tries charity, because that's what bruce did and it's what he knows, even though he admitted that he always thought bruce could have done more as bruce wayne than batman.

they have a family group chat guys yall were right.

also, do i think that dick would ever actually get his wallet stolen?? no way in hell, he’d notice someone getting ready to pickpocket him a mile away. but i suppose it’s important to the Plot. 

okay this is getting interesting. first blockbuster, now maroni (+ the weird heart stealer guy). i can officially say that i am intruiged

this particular artistic quirk is shown a lot in this issue, and from this art team in general, but i feel like this panel is one of the best examples of it. it was stunning enough to take up a full page, and it’s well deserved.

the way they show dick moving is absolutely brilliant. as a reader, i like seeing these smaller versions of dick getting clearer and in more detail as they come closer to the screen. not only do they show depth in the picture beyond what a simple 3 dimensional piece of art does, it also shows the passage of time.

in addition, it showcases dick’s skill. dick spots these mobsters running after a group of petty thieves. he then, and follow me here, leaps off the roof of one building feet first, springboards backwards off the side of the adjacent building with his feet, gracefully continues his backflip, rights himself, shoots a line with perfect timing: just in time to soften his landing but not slow him down, execute said landing on top of a moving bus, keep running on the moving bus without missing a beat, shoot his grapple, use the grapple to swing, use the swing to build up momentum, then use the momentum to deliver a powerful blow to the mobsters. and he did all that fast enough to catch up with the mobsters, even though he was a ROOFTOP OVER. 

d a m n  s o n

this panel, the very first in the issue, is also another example of that art style, but a little more distinctive. i love the way they showed dick’s different costumes through the ages, along with him simply growing up. it’s a little heartbreaking, but a lot uplifting to see how far he’s come. thank god he got rid of the red. now all we need is the fingerstripes, and we’ll be golden

discowing my beloved. also i can’t clearly see discowing’s hair but it definitely looks like it’s pulled back. it looks like he put it in a ponytail. guys. guys. dick had a ponytail omg. 

he’s having a Hero Moment

are you talking about the city, dick, or are you talking about you? the kgbeast, the court, the joker. dick fell to each one of them, no matter how hard he fought. he won in the end, eventually and with his family’s help. but i think he’s feeling a little low, a little defeated right now. it’s almost like he needs a win, he needs to feel victorious, he needs to feel like he helped someone (hence the food and the hotel room), just because he needs to remember what it feels like.

these lines were supposed to resonate with you, and goddamn they did.

i looked at it from two ways. first, it’s the girl asking, begging nightwing not to hurt them. bludhaven doesn’t know dick the way gotham does, they’re still a little frightened of him. this child was brave enough to step in front of all of the other hurt and homeless kids and ask, to a strange man in a mask, if he was going to hurt them like the other men had. it’s heartbreaking, but commendable, and an echo of the city itself that dick’s decided to protect. they’re bloody and broken and terrified, but still gritty and brave enough to stare what they fear in the eye and ask it not to hurt them.

second, it’s dick seeing the question reflected in himself. recently, he got shot in the head and lost all his memories. while i think that the way ric reacted was a perfectly valid and human response to the situation, i think dick still regrets how callously and rudely he treated his family. then, he was manipulated by the court of owls, then he was brainwashed with a magic crystal by the joker. dick does have a guilt complex. it’s not a big as bruce’s, but it’s there. and right now, with this girl begging her not to hurt them, dick is probably thinking about all the times he hurt people, in control of his own actions or not, bc he “didn’t have a heart.” 

little ambitious don’t you think, dick?

also just look at the sunset colours loOK at the they could not make this any more obvious oh my godddddddddddddddddddddddd

in conclusion, i need more of her

[flightfoot]

Miraculous Ladybug Season 4 Episode rankings (As of Optygami’s release)

ML season 4 has knocked it out of the park so far! It’s been absolutely amazing, and I’ve greatly enjoyed every episode.

That being said, some episodes have still been better than others (or have contained elements I find more appealing at least), so what better way to show that than with a ranking?

9. Queen Banana

We got a new hero this episode, and she is awesome! Vesperia and Chat have a nice little interaction, and while Vesperia gets taken out, it’s for a good reason - distracting Queen Banana so Ladybug can put glue in her pocket, disarming her. It was a really nice way of showing Zoe’s humility and ability for teamwork, even when it meant giving up the starring role, in order to complete the group’s overall goal.

The mini-movie felt like foreshadowing, what with the “Superheroine of Creation” being an obvious Ladybug expy, while the “Supervillain of Destruction” was a Chat Noir expy, though with fewer connections. Interestingly, it’s also used to parallel Zoe’s and Chloe’s relationship, with Zoe even quoting from the movie at the end.

And Andre’s character development was top-notch! Bully him around to do material things as much as you like, but hurting Zoe is off-limits. She’s Andre’s daughter too.

So why is it so low down? Simply put, it didn’t feel like it changed things as much as Sole Crusher did, nor did it showcase Marinette’s and Adrien’s relationship as much. It was good, but there was less to talk about concerning it than I thought there’d be.

8. Furious Fu

The first episode of Season 4 aired (even though it was episode 6 in production order), we got some lore drop this episode! Su Han gave us a better idea of what to expect from the Guardians and what their relationship with the kwamis had been like overall. Poor Plagg especially, he’s just treated like a bomb that could go off at any moment.

I especially liked seeing Ladybug and Chat Noir’s relationship this episode, and their differing reactions to Su Han and his proposals. Ladybug was insecure about not having defeated Hawkmoth yet and thought Su Han might have a point about the Miraculous being better in other hands, and for this to be something for the Guardians to handle.

Chat Noir meanwhile didn’t give a crap about Su Han’s authority, about this random guy who just showed up and tried to boss them around; but he DOES respect Ladybug’s, and made that known. That he’d give up his Miraculous, his ticket to freedom and also the vessel for one of his closest friends, Plagg, but only at LADYBUG’S request, not this dude.

But it also showed the limits of that, with him refusing to go along with even that when it’d mean that Ladybug would get amnesia. That he’d not only lose his Miraculous, but his closest, dearest friend as well.

The episode was well done, but just didn’t feel like it either changed things as much or showcased character development as much as the other entries on this list, which is why it’s lower.

7. Sole Crusher

This was our first look at a new character, Zoe, and she did not disappoint! She was absolutely adorable and I really felt for her, with needing to pretend to be nasty in order to not be practically disowned from her family. 

It showcased how much Marinette had grown as well, with having Marinette see through Zoe’s Mean Girl act when they reunite and not jump to hasty negative conclusions, like she did with Adrien, instead considering that there may have been other factors involved with making Zoe act differently while with Chloe.

Also character exploration and growth for Andre, of all characters! Very unexpected. I really wanted him to succeed in his original dream, and I was thrilled at him comforting Zoe, with him empathizing with her, with acting as a parent towards her, even with her being his stepdaughter and presumedly not knowing her very well before this.

Zoe’s ability to anticipate how she’d need to act in order to conform with her family’s expectations while still getting to do what she wanted (for the most part), like with her pretending to be all prissy and stuck up when interacting with Audrey, or pretending that her messaging with Marinette was a setup to betray and humiliate her, showed a great understanding of the people around her as well as some great acting ability. And her realization of how she’d been putting on acts like this for so long before this, of her people-pleasing and afterwards attempting to just be herself, felt like foreshadowing for Adrien’s own arc.

 And we got a few seconds of Marichat. Yay for crumbs!

6. Mr. Pigeon 72

This episode was PACKED. We got to see the followup to Gang of Secrets, with Ladybug freaking out and Alya trying to center her, as well as some followup to Lies, with Marinette trying to “help” Kagami get back together with Adrien. And on top of the stuff that forms the premise of the episode, we got to see Rena Rouge be badass again, Plagg and Ladybug team up, and even Umbrella scene 2, which I don’t think ANYONE saw coming!

Marinette was a lot of fun and we got to see some good stuff from Kagami and Alya here. It felt a little disjointed with how much was crammed into it and I missed Chat Noir, but overall it was really good!

5. Guiltrip

What an amazing episode! Rose is one of the least developed members of the class, mostly being known for being really sweet and being Juleka’s girlfriend, and not much else. Here, we got an inner look at her, at WHY she’s so positive, and how powerful that positivity can be. That she’s not innately positive just because, but that it’s a choice she makes.

Plus the class is AMAZING here. They care about their friends SO MUCH, even if they go about it the wrong way. We got to see Juleka and Rose caring about each other, and even though it went wrong, Rose understands why Juleka ended up spilling her secret and doesn’t blame her for it.

It also really showcased Marinette and Adrien, there different ways of dealing with serious issues, with Marinette jumping ahead and trying to do whatever she thinks will help immediately (help now, ask questions later) while Adrien tried to do the opposite, asking Juleka what she wanted first and trying to stick with that (ask questions first, then help). Both can be useful, depending on the circumstances.

Also got to see a bit more about Adrien’s turmoil, with him being borderline suicidal, and Nino feeling guilty that he wasn’t able to help Adrien with his father, hinting that something bad went down with Gabriel before this. 

There was just a LOT to unpack with this episode, but it all fit together neatly!

4. Lies

All of the “Truth” related episodes were amazing! Lies being no exception. Also our first (and so far only) Adrien-centric episode this season.

Lies catapulted discussion of Adrien’s looming identity crisis, as well as his deflections and near-suicidal behavior, stuff that becomes even more apparent in Guiltrip. The breakup was handled well, with it not being Adrien’s fault (he had to leave and lie for the same reasons Marinette did), but with Kagami’s reaction being totally understandable and valid. She was a very active participant in it, even testing to see whether Adrien had lied. And she was ALLOWED to be pissed afterwards, to not trust him, even though she could tell that he wasn’t just doing this for no reason. 

I wish we’d gotten more time with her as an akuma, but I can see why we didn’t. There just wasn’t that much time in the episode, and the emotional crux of the episode occurred between her and Adrien - there just wasn’t much she could do as an akuma that was gonna add much impact to the episode.

3. Optygami

Oh WOW did this episode make an impact. Major Wham episode in a season chockful of major revelations, status quo changes, and character progression.

 Nathalie and Gabriel actually had a pretty clever plan, spying on the revealed wielders this whole time using the “one sentimonster per wielder, but there can be multiple sentimonsters from different wielders out at the same time” loophole. It meant that Nathalie was actually doing something while she was benched, and I’m willing to bet that she’s the one who came up with the plan in the first place. Say what you will about her morality or her taste in men, but she is an effective supervillain who may be an assistant (and totally fine with that role, which isn’t so common), but one with a lot of agency. And using impostors and try to force a situation where Ladybug would have to give a Miraculous to one of them, and using that opportunity to plant a spy sentimonster in a Miraculous in order to discover Ladybug’s identity and the location of the other Miraculous? Was inspired!

We were baited on there being a Reveal, but that wasn’t exactly a shocker. In any case, we did have a bunch of OTHER cool, impactful stuff. 

Hawkmoth stepped up his game with his sentimonsters, making a couple of impostors to control the situation, with Senti Alec and Senti Nino. Seems like foreshadowing about there potentially being more sentimonsters in disguise...

The major developments everyone’s screaming about though, are:

1. Alya getting her Miraculous permanently, being the first “temporary” wielder to get that honor, and putting her in a greater position to help with any akuma that’s causing more trouble than usual.

2. And the one that’s gotten everyone theorizing, screaming, and writing fics: Chat Noir and Ladybug’s seemingly deteriorating relationship, with a special emphasis on how left out Chat is and just how much he’s being kept in the dark, and how he’s beginning to realize this, feeling unneeded. How much Chat’s hiding his hurt, and how that’s going to lead to some sort of emotional confrontation or breakdown down the line.

My ranking of Optygami may go up or down depending on whether future episodes follow through on what it sets up, especially with the foreshadowed Ladynoir confict.

Looks like we’re gonna have a hiatus after Optygami, considering that we don’t currently have airdates for any more episodes, but what a note to leave off on!

2. Truth

This episode was AMAZING. We got to see Luka and Marinette just hanging out casually, having fun together, like with the little trivia game they played on the way to the theater. Luka even showed a bit of a playful side, with setting up the last question so that the answer would end with “kiss me”. 

Luka was also allowed to feel negative emotions for reasons aside from protecting Marinette, with him feeling down and a little abandoned because of Marinette constantly ditching - something that was given more context, with how we learned that he never knew his father, and how much it bothers him that his mom won’t tell him who it was.

The revelation of Jagged Stone being Luka’s father was one that’d already been leaked way back in January, though few people believed it at the time and it got little attention. It gave Luka a plotline that had nothing to do with Marinette, something that was sorely needed and one that I’m hoping gets expanded on later.

Also had some great Ladynoir, with Chat Noir and Ladybug discussing their relationship during the akuma fight, when they were forced to be truthful to boot! Ladybug really does like Chat’s sense of humor, and Chat doesn’t have a problem with Ladybug’s status as Guardian, so long as it doesn’t interfere with their relationship.

1. Gang Of Secrets

Gang of Secrets was a great followup to Truth, showing Marinette attempting to cope with with breakup, and the subsequent realization that she has to lie to everyone always, and how little time and trust that leaves for her regular relationships.

Meanwhile, the people around Marinette worry and try to help and comfort her as best they can, even when they don’t really know what’s wrong or what to do. From the Girl Squad to Chat Noir to... kind of the kwamis (though with them it’s more lack of understanding of romantic relationships rather than lack of knowledge that holds them back), everyone attempts to help her, but it’s just not feasible under the circumstances for her to be helped the way she needs to be while keeping her secrets.

And in order to keep those secrets, she snaps, forcing all her friends away.

But they don’t take that easily. They want to be there for Marinette, they want to be friends, and become akumatized specifically in order to find out what was wrong, comfort her, fix whatever it was, and become friends again. They really care for her a lot.

And then- AND THEN-!

ALYA DEAKUMATIZES HERSELF

BECOMES RENA ROUGE AGAIN

AND MARINETTE EVEN CONFESSES THAT SHE’S LADYBUG TO HER.

It’s one of the biggest changes to the status quo we’ve had. Like, Master Fu being introduced changed what Marinette was doing, meaning that they could call on new heroes and she had someone to discuss Miraculous stuff with besides Tikki, and Master Fu renouncing his Guardianship and passing it on to Marinette changed what Marinette was doing on a day-to-day basis more, but... well, it didn’t represent as big of a change in themes, of things that had been built up for seasons. Breaking the Secret Identity Rule? DOES.

Also sets up for some potential LadyNoir conflict down the line, with her not having told Chat that she told her identity to someone else yet. I’m sure they’ll be okay in the end, but it could test their relationship and the rules they’ve lived by since they started being superheroes.

------------

So that’s my ranking with the episodes we’ve had released so far. We’re a third of the way through the season and I gotta say, I’m really happy with it so far! Can’t wait to see what the rest of the season has in store for us.

[class1akids]

Do you think 3 Musketeer will be their group title, like how Mirio, Tamaki, and Nejira is the Big 3. I know people call them the Origin Trio or the Wonder Trio (more use Wonder Duo for Izuku and Bakugou), but this is really good fit for them. And maybe Horikoshi had a hand in picking it or suggesting it.

Also I am really hoping Shouto get more of role in this movie. Sometimes I just feel he is underrate and undervalue because he is never in the same situations as Bakugou and Izuku, but he has some amazing moments when he is on screen. Even in the last movie he figured out how to defeat that hybrid and he pushed past his ice limits to do it. I don’t know I just want him to have his shining moment too and not get overshadowed. Even in the Stain fight 75% of it was Shouto. Sorry for rambling.

Well, Origin Trio is sort of fan nickname, but I don’t think Three Musketeers will stick. Apparently when they asked Horikoshi some years ago in an interview if he got the inspiration for All for One - One for All from the Three Musketeers book/movies, he said that he wasn’t familiar with them. 

So I’m not sure whether the plot comes from Horikoshi or rather someone in BONES and they ask Horikoshi for some key designs / double-check the plot to make sure that it doesn’t contradict the manga. 

Yeah, fingers crossed for more screentime for Shouto. I actually really liked his role in the first movie (it was a TDBK field day, and I loved their sassy little team-up), and I think his fight in the second movie was a really good one for him. Chimera was a really strong villain and Shouto together with his team defeated him with just their normal powers and in a way that showcased quite well Shouto’s character growth. But it’s true that it was a bit short. 

My issue was more with how much of an outsider he seemed in relation to Bakugou and Deku, but also his other friends. Like he completely seemed to exist on the margins of the class and not at all integrated with the islanders - he didn’t even show up in the clean-up montage. Considering that forging social bonds is a big part of his arc, that felt like a let-down. 

As for the manga, he’s not bad off - he has Stain, he fought Moonfish, the Soda pop villain, and Ending. And now finally the manga arc was treating him well, going up against Shigaraki. 

In canon, Bakugou didn’t really get treated better in terms of villain fights (he was absent from Stain and didn’t do much during Moonfish, but got the few moments in Kamino against the LoV), and really it was just the second movie that was giving him such a hype moment. 

I’m just mostly super-hyped to see them together - I really enjoy their three-way banter, their dynamic with Bakugou and Deku’s long-time familiarity and mindmeld moments, Deku and Todoroki having their sweet, supportive friendship, with Bakugou and Todoroki bringing the sass. All three together for me is always the top of this manga.  And I would love to see proper combos from them in a big, beautifully animated fight scene. 

That’s all I’m asking from the movie. 

[twentiethcenturymoviesandtv]

The Goonies: The Characters

No matter how good a story is, how great the cinematography, or how subversive the genre-usage, a movie cannot stand without use of characters.

Characters are perhaps the most vital element of any story ever told.  An interesting plot helps a movie greatly, but without a use of compelling characters, it falls flat on an audience who doesn’t care about the well-being of the people pushing the story forward.  Viewers need flawed, interesting people, moving the story and trying to overcome conflict, in order for a movie to feel satisfying.

Or, they can have a bunch of bickering children stumbling and screaming their way through caves, led by Head Goonie: Michael “Mikey” Walsh.

Only Sane Man Mikey is the glue of the group, bringing the Goonies together in an adventure, instead of just a bunch of kids hanging out in someone’s living room.  He’s got the initiative, he’s the Determinator, and the Leader, and also, surprisingly, the Heart, in a rare combination.  He’s the one jumping at the call, the Kid Hero armed with the Rousing Speeches in his desperate attempt to save the Goondocks.  It would have been easy to make Mikey the most boring of the bunch, but he’s not, if anything, he’s the most interesting.  He’s certainly the most inspiring.

Mikey is the driving force of the entire story.  Despite the fact that he was reluctant to let his friends in the attic in the first place, once he’s there, he’s instantly pushing for his end goal.  As much as Data is the inventor of the group, when you get right down to it, Mikey is probably the smartest of the bunch.  It’s Mikey who figures out where they need to go, Mikey who leads the Goonies through the tunnels, Mikey who convinces them to persevere, to not ride up Troy’s bucket, to leave Willy’s private stash alone.

He’s dedicated to the point of almost insanity at times, judging from how Brand has to pull him back from going back after the treasure when the cave collapses.  He’s also very interested in One-Eyed Willy himself, and acts like he knows him, or understands him, anyway.

“One-Eyed Willy. Hello. I’m Mike Walsh, you’ve been expecting me. Haven’t you? Well, I made it. I beat you. I got here in once piece. So far. So, that’s why they call you One-Eyed Willy. One-Eyed Willy. We had a lot in common, huh, Willy? You know something Willy? You were the first Goonie.”

Apparently, Mikey sees a little bit of himself in this pirate, perhaps as a fellow leader or adventurer, or even a fellow outsider.

Like I said, Mikey could have been the blandest character in the bunch: just filling in as ‘the leader’ of the group, but instead, he’s as quirky as they come.

Despite the fact that this is an ensemble film, with every character sharing about the same amount of screentime, Mikey is clearly the protagonist, no questions asked.  He is the character with the goal here, and as much as it benefits everyone else, it’s clearly his mission, his quest.  The others are just along for the ride.  Mikey is the character the audience is meant to identify with the most: he gets the most insightful dialogue and we as viewers identify more strongly with him as a character.  

Although he’s one of the last characters introduced to the audience, it’s very clear right away who the story is about based simply on the Protagonist Problem: basically, do they have one?  And while it’s clear that the other Goonies aren’t happy about moving away, none of them are taking it as hard as Mikey is.  He is, immediately, the character with a Problem, and he’s also the only one to jump at a solution.

He’s the idealist.  He’s cool under pressure (for the most part).  He easily takes charge, despite his tamer personality in comparison with the others, even over the older kids, and he’s nice to boot.  His goals are easily defined, he’s active, going after his goals and overcoming obstacles, he seems to be the perfect protagonist, if it wasn’t for one thing…

Mikey never really changes.

Sure, he throws away his inhaler by the end, which could be interpreted as symbolic of development, but honestly, Mikey is very much the same kid at the end of the film that he was at the beginning.  Same personality, same worldview…even the same goals, which is another big protagonist no-no.

Most great protagonists have goals that change from beginning to end of the film, as a sign of their own developing character, but Mikey never does.  Instead, he ends the film getting exactly what he initially set out to get: enough money to save the Goondocks.  Sure, he has the relatively minor goal along the way of ‘staying alive’, but in the grand scheme of narrative stakes, to Mikey, clearly the treasure is all that matters.

The question is…is this a bad thing?

Well…no.

The thing is, Mikey is only one in a group of seven main characters, and while some of them have more screen time than others, when you come down to it, that’s a lot of characters to balance, meaning a lot of dialogue split up, and a lot of audience focus divided.  In other words: Mikey doesn’t get development because he doesn’t have time.  There’s just too much going on for the audience to stack character growth on top of it.

While there’s not nearly enough time from a script perspective, there’s also just no time from a linear perspective, either.

The story of The Goonies takes place around, give or take, a day, and while there are a few stories where development is done over that time, (Such as 12 Angry Men, actually) the fact is, twenty four hours is a really short period of time to change who you are as a person, or even change your goals.  It’s very difficult to cram in the story, the characters, and everything else in such a short time span, and heap a deep, meaningful character arc on top of it.  There’s just no time.

So, does that damage the film?

Not really.  Like I said in the genre article, The Goonies is a roller-coaster adventure of a film, without much in breaks.  There’s a lot going on all at the same time, and honestly, in order to keep the pace up, it’s for the betterment of the film that they didn’t try to cram Mikey’s character development within.

To be fair, it’s not as though he doesn’t change at all.  But he changes about as much as the rest of the cast do, in very similar ways: kind of like his brother.

Brandon “Brand” Walsh fills out the other side of the sibling dynamic between himself and Mikey, the older brother who gets annoyed with him, but is also supposed to be taking care of him.  As much as he starts out the film looking like he’s at least trying to be an Aloof Big Brother, when the chips are down, his Big Brother Instinct comes out, protecting Mikey from actual danger.  Beginning the film as somewhat of a Butt-Monkey, ending up Hoisted by his Own Petard in the form of his exercise equipment, at first, Brand looks like he’s not really going to be terribly involved in Mikey’s Goonie adventure.

In the end, though, Brand turns out to be One of the Kids.  But for careful viewers, that’s not really a surprise.

Even Brand’s first scene, where he interacts with Mikey, it’s pretty clear that although there’s a bickering dynamic between them, there’s also sympathy and affection.  Brand knows that Mikey doesn’t want to leave, he understands and he tells him so.  He hugs him and brings him inside when Mr. Perkins comes by with the papers to sign over the house.  And sure, Brand bullies him a little and shoves him around and Mikey repays the favor by tying him to a chair with his own exercise equipment and running off, but that’s typical sibling stuff, as anyone with siblings can tell you.

Although Brand does initially try to ‘take charge’ and occasionally gives the marching orders, in the end, he leaves most of the leading to Mikey, which is a little strange.  Once or twice he takes over, and is the most protective of the group, but while he may do most of the ‘planning’ here, he lets Mikey’s goals and priorities take center stage for a while.

Brand’s other chief ‘item of note’ concerning characterization is, of course, his relationship with Andy.

It’s mentioned fairly early on into the film that Brand is supposed to go out with her, and we see her once or twice, but it isn’t until she and Stef show up to check on Brand that we get to see any of that relationship.  It’s sweet enough, aside from them constantly choosing the wrong time and place to attempt a first kiss, with Brand taking a side-role of protector for Andy specifically, again, showcasing that defensive side that comes in handy for the rest of the group from time to time.

But there’s more to the Goonies than the Walsh kids.

Probably the most recognizable of the characters from The Goonies is Lawrence “Chunk” Cohen.

Chunk has most of the most memorable lines and scenes in the film, elevating himself in pop culture beyond simply the ‘Fat Comic Relief’ and klutzy, cowardly character that the movie seems to be pigeonholing him into at first.  See, even though Mikey’s the one with the goal and character arc concerning the treasure, Chunk’s character arc revolves around the Fratellis.

Of all the Goonies, Chunk is the first one to get involved in the story.  He is the first character we see indirectly interact with the villains of the story, when he spots the car chase, and by the end of the film, he is the character that has interacted with them the most, being drug around, interrogated, and locked up by them as a result of being left behind by the rest.  Fittingly, his arc has very little to do with One Eyed Willy, and everything to do with the criminal family that he happens to fall into, to the point where they’re almost his arch-nemeses instead of the rest of the Goonies.

While an initial viewing could give viewers a very basic impression of Chunk as just the ‘token fat kid’ of the group, the fact is, he is one of the only characters who gets any real growth.

Chunk is established almost right away as the Boy Who Cried Wolf, a teller of tall-tales that have rendered him completely unbelievable to his friends and the local police force.  By the time he has an actual story to tell, nobody around him is ready to buy it, and honestly, it’s hard to blame them.  Some of his stories do sound ridiculous, and even the one that he’s telling now about the Fratellis would be hard to believe, if the audience didn’t know for certain that he was telling the truth.  Of course, although he is able to feel vindicated when the Goonies discover he’s telling the truth, his tendencies to exaggerate backfire on him spectacularly when the police don’t believe he’s in trouble, and he’s left on his own.

Well, not quite on his own, but more on that in a minute.

Chunk primarily holds up the B-plot of the film on the villain’s side, arriving at the end to play hero and bail the rest of the Goonies out, proving to them, and then the rest of the authorities at the end, that this time, he was right, and proving his bravery after an entire film of attempting to chicken out.  But as impressive as his last-minute heroism is, Chunk isn’t in this alone.

Despite being separated from the group fairly early on, sparing them from his complaints, hunger, and clumsiness, Chunk finds another ally in Sloth, the Fratellis’ brother, and befriends him, forming the ‘Brains’ to Sloth’s brawn, coming in to save the day and even adopting him at the end of the film.

Chunk is the most memorable Goonie, not just for the Hawaiian shirt and plaid-pants combo that he’s rocking, but because he has a lot of very memorable and iconic scenes, possessing a pretty unforgettable (and loud!) personality and an arc: from zero to hero, when nobody, not even his fellow Goonies, expected it, complaining through the entire early adventure, and overall displaying an overwhelming desire to Not Be Here, making it all the more impressive when he goes after them with Sloth to rescue them.

But there’s more to the Goonies than just the leader and the breakout role.

Clark “Mouth” Devereaux is not the easiest kid to get along with.  A Deadpan Snarker Jerk with a Heart of Gold, Mouth is the member of the cast with potentially the most Meaningful Name: he never shuts up.  A classic case of ‘With Friends Like These…’, Mouth comes across like the most antagonistic character in the film other than the actual villains at times, abrasive and loud, bullying the rest of the group and picking fights with Stef.

Unfortunately, Mouth’s…mouth, can get him into trouble.  Quite often, in fact, like when he can’t let well enough alone and ends up getting threatened with having his tongue cut out.

With that said, though, Mouth does have his uses, and they’re not all to do with smuggling treasure in his most distinctive trait.

Fittingly, language is where he comes in handy: he’s the only one who can read (and speak) Spanish, leaving him as the obvious choice to translate the map, and also to translate the Walsh’s housekeeper’s exclamations that the treasure is not entirely lost.  Without him, the treasure hunt is impossible.

Mouth may want the treasure as badly as the rest of them do, but he is far less idealistic than Mikey is about it.  He’s the last of the kids to believe Mikey in the beginning, and while it can be chalked up to his overall personality, there is a dash or two of Hidden Depths implied about him, notably in the wishing-well sequence:

“Yeah, but you know what? This one, this one right here. This was my dream, my wish. And it didn’t come true. So I’m taking it back. I’m taking them all back.”

Armed with a comb and occasionally appearing as though he’s deliberately striking a pose in order to look cool, Mouth is actually one of the first to start falling apart when their lives are in danger, crying and panicking with the best of them.  (Again, he’s only thirteen.)

Despite having the loudest personality, Mouth is content to let Mikey lead the group, hanging back and picking on all of them, but by no means not one of them.

There is, of course, one more thing of note about Mouth as a character, and that is his dynamic with Stef.  The pair carry a belligerent tension, bickering and snapping at each other throughout most of the film before demonstrating genuine affection towards each other (with a deleted scene referenced involving Stef promising to keep Mouth alive when they get pushed off the plank).  It’s a hint at something going on between them for sure, but it’s also a fairly good example of Mouth’s relationships with everybody: he’s a lot more bark than bite, irritating and loud for sure, but a loyal friend who’s more than ready to help you look for treasure, even if he doesn’t 100% believe in it at first.

Like the rest, he doesn’t change a whole lot from beginning to end, with the adventure perhaps simply knocking some of his cockiness away and even leaving him a little nicer, but again, just like Mikey, it’s hard to say: this is all over the course of one, very exciting day.  More on that later, though.

After all, Mouth’s hardly the last Goonie of the bunch.

Richard “Data” Wang is the inventor of all things Awesome but Impractical, falling somewhere between Bungled Inventor and Gadgeteer Genius.  The Smart Guy, Data is good with his Homemade Inventions for sure, but there’s a bit more to him than that.

While the other Goonies (especially Chunk and Mouth) can best be remembered for being annoying or clumsy, or dropping things, or talking too much or too loudly, or setting off booby traps, Data is actually pretty even-keel.  He’s excitable, and he really doesn’t want to move to Detroit, but overall, he’s fairly content to be the least talkative Goonie, letting his Dynamic Entries speak for themselves.

He’s a smart kid, and he actually is the only one who one-ups the Fratellis at any time, using his inventions to trip them up and hurt them, after the same inventions saved his life earlier.  Data certainly does have a flair for the dramatic (best seen when telling Mikey that he won’t be taken alive) and is an energetic kid, proving himself as reckless as the rest, but he has a good head on his shoulders.  He’s the one who discovers the counterfeit machine, and it’s fairly safe to say that without him and his Slick Shoes, the Goonies probably wouldn’t have made it out alive.

Like the others, Data doesn’t change much – in fact, he probably changes the least.  This could be due to the fact that again, this is all over the course of roughly 24 hours, but it’s also possibly just a side-effect of being the most even-keeled of the bunch: he’s quieter, and therefore, we hear less from him, meaning we see less of his flaws.  Still though, Data’s a solid character, hugely entertaining, likeable, and memorable.

Now for the other outliers:

Andrea “Andy” Carmichael begins the story as first The Cheerleader and Dude Magnet, and then The Load.  Clearly not used to this style of Goonie Adventure, Andy kind of becomes a Hysterical Woman throughout a good portion of the journey, needing to be comforted a few times in order to keep her head.  It’s hard to blame her: between the skeletons, the guns, and getting locked in a tunnel is pretty frightening, but Andy doesn’t do a whole lot (especially early on, during her Heroic BSoD) and manages to not retain much of a personality throughout most of the film, chiefly appearing at first to serve as a token female character and to be in love with Brand.

But there is more to her than that.  

Even early on, Andy demonstrates a little more backbone when she elbows Troy in the lip and ditches him to go find Brand, and although she initially just follows the Goonies to hang out with Brand (and then to escape the Fratellis), she ends up becoming one of them when she makes the choice to stay instead of riding up the wishing well, sending up his letterman jacket instead.  It’s a big step for her, a demonstration of her true alliances (a deleted scene was to include her being sworn in as an official Goonie at this point, actually), and sets her up for the rest of the film as being more ready and willing to actively participate in the adventure.

Near the end, Andy has to come through to save everyone, as she’s the only one who can play the piano even a little bit, and it falls on her to play the bone organ in order to get them away from the Fratellis and towards the treasure.

Andy actually has some more growth than a few of the others: she steadies out and truly does change, becoming a true Goonie by the end of the film, proving herself more capable than when she began.  Although she doesn’t seem to have a stake in the treasure, she’s just as determined by the end to get it, and celebrates with the rest of them by the end.

In a way, she shares that with the other Goonie outlier: Stef.

Stephanie “Stef” Steinbrenner doesn’t really seem to serve a whole lot of purpose within the story besides being another girl Goonie so there isn’t just one.  She’s a friend of Andy’s, the Tomboy to her Girly Girl, who splits off to join her to find Brand and then ends up swept along with the rest of the adventure, and there doesn’t seem to be much more to her than that.  She’s a Sarcastic Devotee, who feels Surrounded by Idiots: she trades snark with the best of them and tends to feel (rightfully so) that the people she’s around aren’t exactly geniuses.  She’s loyal though, and sticks by Andy and the other Goonies until the end, proving just as determined to get to the treasure and get out alive as the others.

Stef serves as a reality check, another cynic who’s just as frightened as the rest of them, like Andy, without a stake in the final treasure, and while she’s never officially branded a Goonie, the implication by the end is clear.  She sort of takes on a belligerent ‘big sister’ role throughout most of the film, and although she doesn’t have much of an arc, she is entertaining to watch, which honestly sums up the entire cast pretty well.

The characters of The Goonies do not exactly ‘grow’.  There are small things: Andy’s growing courage, Chunk being finally right, Mikey’s growth as a leader, Data’s inventions being useful, Mouth taking some of his snarky edge off, and Brand being a better big brother, but honestly, these are very minor things in the grand scheme of the story.

The characters in The Goonies are not deep, whether it’s the actual Goonies themselves or the villainous Fratellis, who are mostly characterized by striking a balance between being comedic and being a genuine threat.  There are no huge life-lessons being learned by these people, and they aren’t really doing a lot of growing so much as they are running for their lives.

In a film that is essentially a ‘roller coaster’, The Goonies is not designed to have seven major characters with fulfilling character arcs: like I said before, there’s simply no time.  It’d bog the story down for each character to have a moment of growth, to change significantly from beginning to end.  In this case, the best thing about the characters is actually their consistency from beginning to end: there’s little change, and as a result, the audience never has to recalibrate to something else going on within the story.

In other films, this would be a huge problem.

A feature-length film where there is no discernible character change is typically not a good call, but in this case, it works for multiple reasons.  The story is too fast paced and focused on too much to allow for consistent breaks in plot that allow for character moments, and with the extremely short timespan, a big change would actually come across as forced and unrealistic.  The characters are children forced into a tight spot, where their chief concern is their own lives.  There simply isn’t the option open for development.

However, where the film lacks on ‘growth’ of characters, it makes up for in everything else.

The chief purpose of a character is to be there for the audience to like, to be invested in.  There are actually plenty of films where characters don’t change a lot, classic movies that are well-liked because the characters, although unchanging, are hugely entertaining and interesting.  Films like Back to the Future or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off don’t suffer from characters who don’t do any changing due to the fact that the main characters are fun to watch and have the audience’s attention and interest.

Which is just what The Goonies does.

Everyone can find a Goonie to relate to: the leaders, the loudmouths, the geniuses, the attention-seekers, everyone has a place here, and even adults who have hopefully grown out of some of the more immature kid-like behavior, there’s still the glimmer of familiarity in these kids.  Like I mentioned before, we relate to these kids, and we want to see them win.

The Goonies as a story is designed to have simple, relatable characters for the audience to remember, and if that’s the goal, then it works perfectly.  There are no deep characters with complex motivations here, and that’s a good thing: it fits the tone of the film consistently and coherently.  Every character here is likeable in some way, memorable, for sure, and sticks with an audience enough that the audience wants to stick with them too, and wants them to succeed.

In the end, the characters of The Goonies make you care about them, make you root for them.  They carry the story and do it all in a way that’s plenty of fun to watch, and when it comes down to it: that’s exactly what characters should do.

Whether you like or hate them, a character is there to make you care, and The Goonies certainly do their job.  They leave a strong impact, and as a result, we remember these characters and their quirks long after the movie is over for a reason.

Join me next time where we’ll be looking at the 80s cultural impact on the creation of The Goonies.  Thank you so much for reading, and I hope to see you in the next article.

[katzkinder]

Mikuni Alicein and the Virtue of Kindness

(Scan credit for the majority of the images in this post go to kingmakochan, who seems to have either deactivated or changed their url as I can’t find their blog, and dm5.com for the RAWs used)

For most Eves in the series, how they express their “Virtue” is... Pretty straightforward. We see their Virtues in action rather frequently or it’s tied in with their character arc, with more... Obtuse, shall we say, exceptions being Licht, who is also much more subtle about his Charity, and Niccolo, whom we don’t know very well yet.

But Mikuni... Holy shit, Mikuni outclasses Licht in terms of headscratcher by a country mile-- At first glance.

Mikuni is actually... Deceptively, heartbreakingly kind when you really start breaking him down and picking him apart.

Something he would absolutely LOATHE me doing, which is exactly why I’m doing it! :D

okay, SO

The first time we get a real good look at Mikuni embodying Kindness is actually... One we, as the readers, can only recognize as the kindness it is after reading Lust Arc in Volume 4. This particular situation takes place during Volume 2.

The alley fight.

Specifically, when Envy pair rescue Mahiru from a Kuro who has gone berserk.

Here, it’s implied that Mikuni has actually been watching for a while. He looks comfortable, relaxed. Like it’s just another day at the movie theater. We also learn that he’s also the one who called Doudou to come to everyone’s rescue with the car, something that shocks Doudou because, according to him, Mikuni never contacts him. (this in and of itself can be taken as an act of Kindness since it’s likely Doudou would get in trouble if he kept in frequent contact with Mikuni, given Mikado’s well meaning but ultimately misguided and, honestly, cruel, ban on talking about or acknowledging his eldest)

So why didn’t he step in earlier?

Simple.

Misono.

Mikuni is Misono’s older brother. He loves him more than anything else in the world, and everything he does is with Misono kept in the back of his mind. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Mikuni values Misono’s life over his own, because Mikuni is incredibly selfish and calculating, but... Preserving Misono’s life and having him grow up strong and loved is one of his bigger priorities. He’s willing to risk a lot for his baby brother.

The reason Mikuni didn’t jump in when Sakuya slashed Misono is, in my opinion, because Mikuni more than anyone recognizes how hard Misono is trying. He didn’t want to take away a potential victory from him. Misono actually struggles a lot with his self confidence, despite his blustery nature. Where Lily coddles and protects out of fear and love, Mikuni steps back and lets Misono take risks despite his fear, because he loves him. 

Because he wants him to grow up. This is also his motivation behind his apparent callousness when Lily’s Item was shattered and he saw that gigantic plume of Jin coming from the Alicein Estate. He knew what was going on, and while he didn’t like it, he thought that it was imperative to Misono’s growth as an individual. He’s also the one who collected the letters from Misono’s mother in his old room, as well as the pocket watch. He’s the one who left his journal out for Misono to find.

He was very careful to ensure that once Misono discovered the truth, he found the whole truth. That he was loved, had always been loved, and there was nothing wrong about his being born. What happened to their family wasn’t his fault. 

The burden of blame laid not with him, but with the adults in his life. Misono had never asked to be born, but everyone is so happy that he was.

Mikuni’s character song and his duet with Misono are also all about him expressing his love and willingness to get his hands dirty, to play the villain, for as long as it’s needed of him.

How is that not Kindness? How is that not love? Mikuni is cruel to be kind, hiding his good side behind a selfish, conniving mask, and as an older sibling with a younger half sibling myself, I fucking adore him for how far he’s willing to go to protect and encourage Misono. Even at the expense of... Everything that should have been his.

--I went on a tangent there, sorry. Ahem.

While reading through looking for panels to back up my claims and provide evidence that I am not a stark raving mad person, I also noticed this. As soon as Mahiru starts blaming himself, Mikuni steps in, reassures him, and then immediately sets about trying to distract him. It’s... A surprisingly responsible way of handling things wwww

I also always found it odd that Mahiru’s uncle, Tooru, just so happens to drop by for a surprise visit while Mahiru’s at his lowest. It’s just... Too much of a coincidence.

Except it isn’t a coincidence. At least, I no longer think so.

Given that both Tooru and Mikuni are affiliated with C3, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that Mikuni called him. Like, “Hey! Your nephew’s in over his head. Go check on him!”

I’m actually starting to think he might have a soft spot for kids, which is adorable, laughs. Or, at the least, he has a soft spot for Mahiru. He definitely doesn’t care very much for Tetsu. Who can blame him, though, after poor, sweet Abel was handled so roughly. They’re a very delicate doll!

This is already, like, essay length, so one last example to finish up--

During the extra story for Volume 10, “Once, We Ate Together,” we see another example of Mikuni showcasing his Virtue. (apologies for the dip in quality, I wanted to respect the wishes of the original scanlation uploader so I took photos from my own volumes again)

Here. Right here. This was the moment that stood out the most to me, because Mikuni absolutely did not have to do that. 

He remembered that Tsurugi has someone important to him. Someone that’s his family, who is also very very tall, laughs. He remember how happy Tsurugi was when Mikuni asked if Touma was his big brother. He also remembered... How he himself felt when he was ill and suffering from a high fever. How the people in his household worrying and clamoring over him made him feel.

And then he gave the experience to Tsurugi, who had his own suffering alleviated by the mere illusion that Touma had come to see how he was doing. That Touma was worried about him.

Mikuni gave Tsurugi something so precious that... Might have actually saved his life. Health and recovery from these sorts of dangerous bouts are as much mental as they are physical.

And now if you’ll excuse me... I’m going to go cry :’D

[papers4me]

Fruits Basket, SE02, Ep17 (part1)

Part 1 is romance in the air, while part 2 is the sinister foreshadowing!

Romantic Decision & its emotional effects on character’s behavior: Kyo & Arisa mirror each other a lot this ep with one difference but similar outcome.

The difference: Kyo is the one deciding to not confess to tohru & leaving her without telling her abt his love, while Arisa is the one left behind by Kureno & not told whether he loves her or not.

Both Kyo & Arisa realize they’re in love with their significant other & both decided to quit pursuing it. Both are miserable throughout the trip due to their decisions & their helplessness towards their situation.

Both react logically & realistically given the situations they’re in.

Both restless, sad, annoyed, grumpy & furious at themselves for still wanting romance & wishing for more.

Arisa tries to indulge in other ppl’s business, tease & fight to take her mind off kureno while kyo just wants to be left alone & not talked to at all.

The wrong confession & its outcome:

The nameless girl confessed to kyo ignoring the glaring signs of his rejection. The scene was shown in the middle of their talk, kyo states “I told you already /Idon’t love/don’t even know your name” yet, she still persists & grabs his arm demanding forced attention. It backfires horribly & kyo rejects her physically & verbally. Personally I don’t think kyo is wrong with how he handled the girl, I was thinking he could’ve been nicer until she grabbed his hand. Kyo’s “Why the hell are you dreaming of dating someone like me” is him rejecting himself. This line isn’t for the nameless girl. It’s for Tohru. kyo’s a horrible man in his book. While kyo has accepted tohru’s love, he didn’t allow himself to dream that the basis of her love is romantic. She’s a kind person who loves everybody. She just loves him as a friend. nothing more. it can’t be more.

The hidden depths of tohru’s emotions:

Tohru is so sensitive & perceptive of other ppl’s emotions but ignores & denies herself. Plus, she’s never been romantically in love with anyone, it’s always harder to notice one’s self. As the others gossip abt kyo being dragged for confession, tohru wants to follow up but is reluctant. Yuki’s “Don’t worry, he won’t accept” is epic! basically Yuki’s is frankly telling her I know You love him. I can see through you. be assured, he’ll be back to you. Tohru is exposed. Still, she can’t mask her worry. They’re all back & she can tell by everybody’s reaction that the confession didn’t go well. yet, she WANTS to hear it from kyo. She asks him “ what’s the fuss abt in the first place”. Tohru isn’t deaf nor stupid. She saw them running to spy on kyo, Yuki’s frank words & kyo’s annoyed face. Tohru can read the signs! YET, tohru wants KYO to reassure her nothing happened! That he isn’t swayed by other girls! It has to be KYO saying it. There’s this overwhelming hint of worry that she lost him & jealousy that he might’ve accepted another girl’s love. (It has to be HER. selfish love?!!!) Am I getting my wish for tohru?! or am i seeing too much into nothing?!!!!

Kyo’s “it’s none of your business” is objectively a correct response. He isn’t dating tohru, there’s nothing official love between them. He owes her no explanation as she doesn’t owe him anything.This response in particular hurts tohru cuz it’s true!! it’s not her business & he isn’t hers & that’s why it hurts!!. Just like him wishing her a boyfriend hurts cuz it means it’s not HIM. All these feelings boiling inside tohru faintly surfacing through her mask. Yuki steps in to smack kyo cuz he knows tohru has a right to ask kyo cuz she loves him & he wants kyo to see it. to accept it!

“it’s not the first time someone said this to me,but it made my heart ache” The writer brilliantly tells us that love is illogical. tohru is hurt cuz kyo said the words not cuz the words themselves are hurtful.

Writing excellent visual scenes that speaks volumes: #1 (the red leaves)

(a) Kyoru’s scene: This scene screams parallel between tohru & kyo’s emotions, actions & thoughts in this moment & how much there are equal/mutual exchange between them & compares it to previous moment in SE01. Moreover, it showcased tohru’s ability to read the situation. Kyo’s “it came on its own & left on its own” means that he won’t pursue anyone. “ I can’t be nice to everyone” scared her as it mean he can no longer be kind to her. All these are signs of goodbye. “will he let go of me someday in the same way?”  She senses it. She fears she’s like that the nameless girl to him. she’s nobody to him. He’s leaving her. Tohru’s instinct takes hold of her as she grabs him. Kana style. Two fingers faintly touching his sleeve. Two fingers is all she needs. Their leg movement match up as they slow down to stop. She lets go. he’s grabs her now. But kyo isn’t after a sleeve, he takes her hand in his. gently pulling her closer to him with a kind smile (I’m nice to you exclusively) his “hmm” is melting her “what’s wrong?” telling her my attention is for YOU. Kyo is enveloping her in his presence. We live the moment thro tohru’s feelings, music, slow motion, windy hair, blushes, wide eyes & open mouth. tohru is deeply in love. They hold hands longer as they talk. Kyo once again demonstrates how much he’s paying attention to tohru & guesses what souvenir she’ll buy. This reassures tohru that she’s different to him. “he can make me happy or unsettled by a simple remark, kyo’s strange” It’s love, girl!!! You’re in love~ cuz when you’re in love you’re extra sensitive & easily hurt by anything the significant other does/says.

-Kyo asking her to hang out with him alone throughout the afternoon is a callback to Onsen scene in SE01, ep11 where he gifts her his presence despite hating to go with yuki. The writer brilliantly mirrors their reaction but with growth!. Onsen ep, kyo’s so awkward & reluctant while tohru is shocked by his presence, tearful & grateful. She’s the one who first wanted him to go & he agrees later. Now, He’s the one who wants her to be with him & she agrees. while still shy, he said it easily, his body is chill & relaxed, he smiles for her openly while she is pleasantly assured that he wants to be with her, comfortably & happily being together. Moreover, in the Onsen they’re surrounded by others while here their relationship is in an advanced stage & they spend time together as an unofficial couple. The rain of red leaves fly around them symbolizing their mutual love for each other & the equal give & take in their relationship ever since of SE01. He means to her as much as she means to him. 10 out of 10!

(b)the yuki/machi scene: Since they’ll be in stage 1 of their relationship soon, it is represented by ONE red leaf. Yuki is the one giving the leaf to her since he needs to be the one starting the relationship. Yuki craves the ability to give as much as he takes. He lacks such dynamic with tohru as he was dependent on her for so long now. He’s moving away by himself & growing but he’s fervor indebted & can never repay her unconditional kindness.(as one can never repay a mother). So if machi is his romantic interest, he’ll have to give her support & advice just like kyo gives tohru. The support kyo gives tohru is unique to kyo & his ability to see thro her. It can’t be matched by yuki. Thus Yuki must find his own person whom he’ll give unmatched support & advice. We’ve already seen machi destroy the room in her intro ep, which screams trauma & yuki saw it first!  Off course, they both doesn’t know it now. but the writer tells us through symbols. Is this the first time yuki’s story involved Show-not-tell?!! The first time there was No too much inner talk to hijack the scene?!!!!! & explains every single thing abt him to us?! Did I just get my wish for yuki?!! YES!!! See, how powerful & artistic this scene is? That’s the scene/visuals speaking! 10 out 0f 10.

Writing excellent visual scenes that speaks volumes: #2 (the Zodiac Cat Comes First)

this scenes is simple in its presentation. tohru bought the zodiac souvenir but the set comes without a cat. (the cat is never part of the zodiac). Tohru MAKES the cat. simple? No. powerful! No one says it in the scene. but tohru crafting the cat carefully by her own hands, so eager to finish it that she doesn’t change her uniform tells us tohru places the cat first. She always does since she’s little. But now, it isn't her baby self feeling sorry for the poor kitty in mommy’s story. She’s a woman working hard & genuinely to express her feelings. screw the folk tales, for me, you are number 1. Kyo sees it. He gets it. She’s shy but wants him to see it. He’s overwhelmed “ idiot” is perfection!! that’s tohru for him, so incredibly precious & endearingly idiot! he’s been saying it in response to her weird remarks or when he’s overwhelmed by her endearing gestures. Kinda like a pre-dating endearing term. XD. so cute & sweet! yuki’s voice-over “ add color & it shines” is perfectly done. One small voice-over line that comes to close the scene, doesn’t say anything you don’t already know but sweetly wraps the scene. Even if it isn’t there, it won’t affect the scene. it’s the cherry on top. 10 out of 10 scene!

Side Notes:

The writer brilliantly used the school trip atmosphere & kyoto’s unique natural settings to ignite & guide the romantic direction of the characters.

Dear Director, how is kyoto crowded if only Class 2D & Kakure & Kimi from class 2A, two shop owners, a cat & 3 or 4 deer exist there? the city looks breathtakingly pretty but weirdly empty...

Arisa sees herself in nameless girl, thus, wanted kyo to treat the girl nicer initially cuz, just like her, Arisa wanted to date a man she doesn’t knows much abt & wants him to accept her. yet she gets furious at herself seeing how unlike her this development is. “I’m never gona be her”.

Yuki, Once again pushes kyo/tohru together after the beach arc. He tries not to step in between them but tries to urges them closer. reassuring tohru & hitting kyo. So like him. XD

Yuki & Kakure’s friendship moves fast & yuki’s showing it, not only to kakure but to tohru’s gang. good for yuki!

I hope kyo’s two dumb friends get their wish & become popular. At least in furuba’s land, XD.

Hana & food is the best OTP.

I kept thinking of the choir’s part of Hercules “i won’t say I’m in love” song in tohru’s scenes. XD Try 2keep it hideen, honey we can see thro ya~U keep on denyin who U R & how U’R feelin, face it like a grownup, When U gona own up that you got bad~

[spin-in-time]

who's your favourite character from novelmore? do you think brody's gonna get a redemption arc? also you're really cool and i hope you're having a good day:)

(This took me SO long to reply to and i sincerely apoligize)

First off, I DIDN'T THINK SOMEONE WOULD REACT TO THIS HAHA I LOVE YOU THANK YOU SO MUCH

Thing is I - i can't really - LIKE,, CHOOSE ????

But for sure the main three squad. I love them so much, they are sooo lovely!! They're,, well,, pretty standard for protagonists, but not in a boring way? I like watching them and their dynamic is really wholesome.

I like Arwynn because he partially fits the rich kid archetype but is still a likeable and well-meaning character who struggles to get recognition from his father and find who he really is actually. He is serious too while also liking to have fun. Also, Vincent Tong. Plus, his love for music and his happiness and finding a friend in Brody make him too sweet and lovely to me, this boy deserves the world.

I like Gwynn because while yes, the "being a badass girl who experiences SexismTM" trope is part of her character, it's not too annoying and doesn't even come up super often. She's just very skilled and stands up for herself and for what is right no matter the cost. She also likes fun and SHE'S AN ANIMAL PERSON, which honestly is just so great, she is so compassionate. Usually i don't care THAT much if a character is an animal person (since i'm not), but with gwynn it just really makes me adore her because of her way to handle situations. She's not a person who wants to immediately beat everything up, she has a very kind heart and also posseses great bravery. Just look at her in the s1 final fight. She was trying so hard and was willing to give everything she had. She showed both her compassion and the honor of a warrior fighting for their kingdom.

I love Dario simply because he is Dario and you have to love him. Also, he has anxiety and fear of failure to live up to his family name which Ouch bro nuuuu. He is fun and LIkes fun which just really shows in his inventions and i think that is so lovely and sweet (albeit short, i love the ice cream scene with arwynn haha). I hope we see more of his growth and see him develop more self-confidence in the future.

AS TO BRODY I AM DEAD ABDLYJQIJD HE BETTER DO, OKAY

I have.... ideAs okay. I honest to god love the relationship between him and arwynn and the parallel writing because IT'S GOOD ACTUALLY. Easily one of the most interesting things on the show to me. So i just.... REALLY REALLY HOPE that they continue with this. I am a slut for parallel narratives because you get to showcase different setups/outcomes for them and get to show the audience that thing A works because of X and thing B doesn't work (or works too) because of Y etc. It's just so interesting and you can do SOOOOOOOO much with it.

So in theory, both giving Brody a redemption arc and NOT giving him one could work, but i don't think a show like this has what it takes to write a goddamn tragedy for him and make it actually that good (i'm a sucker for tragedies IF they're well written).

The thing is, this show is good and what we've seen so far has honestly been decent, but i'm not willing to expect too much from future writing. I'm not gonna expect some Zuko redemption arc. BUT. Brody has shown redeeming qualities while being with Arwynn. We as the audience are supposed to like him because of one, the Arwynn parallels and friendship and two, putting him next to Kahboom. In their rivalry, we are obviously supposed to feel sympathy for Brody here which makes sense.

So yup, he obvs not gon be very friendly in whatever next eps we get but honestly, i think if the show is given enough support, i do think we will see a redeemed brody eventually!!

This is longer than i intended for it to be but i am tired let me ramble avdlavkay

[valkerymillenia]

@animecat33​ tagged me for this

Rules: Name 10 characters from 10 different fandoms that you like, then tag 10 people.

I enjoyed this but... At first I thought, do I even have 10 I consider favs? And then I ended up with a list of, like, 25, and couldn’t pick 10 so I chose more or less at random. And I admit I cheated seeing as some kind of fit in the same fandom in some way.

It’s just too hard picking favorites. 

Undercut, cause it’s gonna be a loooong post.

1. Morticia Addams (Addams Family)

My tattoo probably makes this one obvious. 

I love Morticia so much, not only do I love her aesthetic, I just love her personality and attitude, not to mention her marriage is ‘goals’ and as a mother and matriarch she’s incredibly supportive and loving despite the unorthodox life the Addams’ live. I love a character that can be a mother without having it define her completely.

2. Catwoman/Selina Kyle (DC)

Selina was one of my OG crushes back before I even understood what I crush was or that being queer was even a thing (looking at you, Michelle Pfiffer).

I love her style and strength and personality (when she's well written), her grey morals and competence, and cats are just my thing, ok? Plus bisexual icon.

Have you noticed I have a thing for a dark women with grey morals?

3. Raven/Rachel Roth (Teen Titans/DC)

I kinda share a name with Raven but that's not why I like her. I've always loved the emotional complexity of this character, her incredible power (and how it's also her weakness), and style as well. I'm not too thrilled about some more recent incarnations of her but she'll always be an OG fav.

4. Nightwing/Dick Grayson (DC)

Yeah, yeah, DC again, look the other way, please (they have individual comics anyway).

I couldn't leave out my darling Dickie. I grew up with this dude and I love his backstory and relationship with his family. He's a beautiful ray of sunshine with a dark streak, a competent leader without being a broody bossy jerk like some and he's very well rounded and consistent in his characterization (plus that design is top notch). I know the Romani thing was a ret-con on something just vaguely implied in the past but honestly it was a good one and some much needed rep despite the constant whitewashing (though not as bad as others in his family).

Also, he drinks his 'respect woman juice', he's flawed without being edgy, and has been queer-coded and female-troped for decades which makes him much more likeable as a male character. He actually became an LGBT icon despite the cowards at DC constantly trying to shove heteronormativity into his storyline.

5. Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond (Steve Universe)

Is she problematic? Yes and that's part of the appeal.

I already loved Rose when she was this sweet, compassionate and wise old soul, this rebel and leader and mother with many secrets.

I guessed really early on that she was PD so that part didn't surprise me but when the backstory of her as PD finally appeared to give us so more in-depth knowledge I was surprised by the amount of hate the character got. To me, her flaws, pain, mistakes and growth were part of the allure.

Also, gorgeous and much needed plus-size rep. I loved cosplaying her more than anything.

6. Princess Leia (Star Wars)

Did I like her style or design? Nope, I much prefer her mother's but Leia is an immensely competent, wise, strong female character that takes no bullshit from the male-dominated plot around her, she deserved so much better. Honestly, she deserved her own goddamn movie.

Carrie Fisher was a feminist icon and an advocate for mental illness visibility. She's was also fucking hilarious. All this translated into Leia's character very well and she deserved so much better from society than being sexualized in a metal bikini and remembered that way forever.

7. Hela (Thor Ragnarok/Marvel)

I already loved Hela's character in the comics (except the arc where she sexually abuses Thor, that was shitty edgelord writing and I refuse to acknowledge it's existence) but Ragnarok gave her a whole new meaning.

Firstly, my God is she hot! Just.... Umpf! Step on me, queen.

Secondly, she's dark and evil but she has a goddamn point (people are hypocrites). And in the comics she's not even evil, she's neutral and only a villain because she opposes Thor on a personal level. She's also incredibly competent at what she does and if that isn't a turn-on idk what is.

8. Korra (Legend of Korra)

Korra will always be bae. There's a reason my behemoth of a fic revolved around her.

Not only is she incredibly well-rounded and fun, she's also very competent, has a fascinating backstory and is immensely powerful, plus she grows beautifully through her show. Not to mention she's GORGEOUS.

POC and LGBT rep, plus she showcased one of the most incredible arcs on disability and recovery that I've ever seen in a family show.

9. Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff (Marvel)

You can pry Wanda from my cold dead hands.

I'm not even the biggest fan of her movie version, I'm all about comic Wanda.

POC rep and an incredibly visceral portrayal of mental illness and trauma. And she's beautiful beyond reason, morally grey, and powerful as hell.

Most of all what I like about Wanda is how loyal and family-oriented she is without letting it diminish her as an individual or as a powerhouse character, so many female characters loose all agency and individuality when they have kids, they get delegated to role of mother and lose their heroics or become extensions of their husbands and children, Wanda was nothing like that. Her relationship with her brother is fascinating too (let's pretend the incesty vibes in certain alt universes don't exist).

I only hate that she and Pietro always get the short stick in adaptations and their origins keep getting needlessly retconned (Magneto's kids with his Romani wife, raised by someone else- that's it, stop trying to change it and then change it back over and over). That and how she's not allowed to have her well deserved relationship with her babies because of stupid old-fashioned comic rules that led to a needlessly convuloted and far-fetch story arc (the erasure, reencarnation and hyper-aging of her sons).

10. Jessica Rabbit (WFRR)

For most people, Jessica's appeal is "she's hot" and yes, this "pinup femme fatale" look really does things to me, I won't lie about that, but that's not why she's my favorite.

Jessica is fav because she's loyal and loving to her goofy husband, she completely turns the femme fatale trope upside down for love and doesn't give a damn about looks, she uses her appearance as a weapon and she's confident but she's clearly not vain ("I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way" and "He makes me laugh"). She's also hilarious in her own deadpan way.

.

Other worthy mentions to this list are:

Wednesday Addams

Mystique (Marvel)

Shuri (Marvel)

Maleficent (Disney)

Vanya Hargreeves (TUA)

Blind Mag (Repo!)

Venom (Marvel)

Lust (FMA)

Evelyn O'Connell (The Mummy)

Alice Lidell (Alice Madness)

Jessica Jones (Marvel)

The Kagamine twins (vocaloid)

Amon (LoK)

Sesshoumaru (Inuyasha)

Loki (Marvel comics)

Liadan (Sevenwaters)

Furiosa (Mad Max: Fury Road)

Crowley (Good Omens)

Jericho (Titans/DC)

Sadako Yamamura (from the Ring BOOKS)

Susan Sto-Helit (Discworld)

.

I tag... @dymosara @abnaxus @polyx @bluetalesoftheheart @adka2333 @shinladyanarki @i-have-all-these-freaking-uwus @frank-a-lank @fluffynexu @teddy-fluffnhugs

[lemoncakepanda]

Top 50 NaLu Anime Moments {Pt 3}

I am so sorry it took me so long to write this! This week has been a roller-coaster to me, especially since Tuesday. I got so busy, and every time I would log into tumblr, I would only look at my dashboard and have absolutely no energy left to write. Without any further delay, let me show you guys the rest of my top 50, and today we’re covering moments 30 through 21.

Part 2 can be found here.

30. “I’ll be lonely, you idiot!” (Ep 265).

This moment still makes me so emotional. Like... i’ve said this before on my previous top 25 moments, so there’s nothing much to add, but I love this moment because it shows how much Lucy began to rely on Natsu. How much she needed his presence around her, despite always kicking him out and scolding him. And then to lose all that? Just like that? To be filled with such a huge sense of security, the certainty that someone will always be there for you, and to have that ensurance taken away from you? That must’ve hurt. That must’ve broken her heart and it’s no wonder she’s so upset with Natsu when he comes back (again, I get why Natsu had to leave and I’ve already given my thoughts on it, but I also get Lucy’s side) and must’ve stung extra harder bc she’d just lost Aquarius, something she also never thought would happen. But yeah, this is why I like this scene, despite it being sad. It was great character development for Lucy, showed the development in NaLu, and it also pushed the ship forward by giving if conflict and separation, which only resulted in bringing them closer in the future. Also, I also like how Natsu only left a note to Lucy and no one else. She really is his most precious person, along with Happy.

29. “Let’s save the tears for when we win.” (Ep 159).

As a big sucker for moments where Natsu comforts Lucy, this one’s gotta be in the list. Despite being in a team of 5, despite her whole guild being there, only one person came to pick up Lucy and lift up her spirits and that was Natsu. It could’ve been anyone, really. Erza or Gray. But Mashima thought (and I agree) Natsu would make the most sense, because of how deep the NaLu relationship runs, to showcase how they’d grown even stronger since Tenrou Island, and it worked! Natsu, who’d once called Lucy useless to her face, coming up to her and telling her she was amazing, even though she lost? Lucy, who was always so annoyed with Natsu and his fighting, looking up to him with tears in her says saying “i’m all fired up”? That’s the kinda development we strive for.

28. “You’re Lucy of Fairy Tail, aren’t you?” (Ep 23).

I swear, this ship makes me want to scream. And here we come back to a time when Natsu and Lucy were still growing as a team, and still didn’t know each other that well, but already had so much faith on one another. This, I feel, is the first time (after, you know, the tower jump) where it showed that they actually cared and understood each other, mostly Natsu, in this case. Everyone else told Lucy not to cry, not to blame herself because of what her father did, meanwhile, Natsu merely reminded her of who she was. Where she belonged to. And like Lucy said later in the arc, she believed her mother would want her to follow her heart and do what she wanted, and this was probably the first time someone other than Layla showed Lucy that her choice was hers to make, and hers only. Like i’ve said before, what Natsu said, what he did for her here, helped shape Lucy into the person she is today, as well as it’s what also helped Lucy to start relying more on Natsu emotionally, whereas she relied mostly on him physically, to protect her.

27. “Lucy!” (Ep 303).

This moment... is much lower on my list here, whereas it was so high on the first one, but that’s mostly because my opinion has changed, as well as new moments have arrived that I loved much more, and some other moments too I now realize I took for granted, and took a high spot in my list. But nevertheless, it’s still a very special moment. And despite my problems with the animation, I have to admit that I like the desperation in Natsu’s eyes as he holds onto Lucy for dear life, after almost losing her (big sigh bc we know what happens a few eps later); and he even forgets about the other people around them: Mest, Brandish, even Happy! I like how she came first here to him, how he didn’t even hesitate before grabbing her. Now, how he came from that position to groping her boobs with all his might later, I can’t even explain, just... you know... Mashima.

26. Natsu and Lucy versus Jacob. (Ep 299).

Listen, this... this is one of the funniest fights I’ve ever watched on anime. While I like the pacing better on the manga, I really liked the execution of it in the anime, and hearing Natsu and Lucy’s “dirty talk” was one of my dreams coming to life, lmao. Natsu and Lucy once again showing how great they are at teamwork, and why they work so damn well together, how their thoughts align and how their trust on each other plays a huge deal on their victory. Plus, hello, it’s this moment which gives Mavis the inspiration to defeat Zeref, so it’s an extra big moment, i’d say, despite being severely underrated. Still on topic, I liked how when Lucy was undressed in front of him, Natsu was like “how is this supposed to be hell?” and say what you want, but just because he didn’t blush didn’t mean he wasn’t enjoying that view.

25. “Thank you for protecting our future.” (Ep 187).

Not really a NaLu NaLu moment, but still a very sweet NaLu moment. In case you don’t know (and for that reason, you should not be reading this list), the one in the picture is Future Lucy, and what makes this moment so special is that, even though that’s not present Lucy, it’s still his Lucy. He trusts her word completely and understand she effort she’s made, and all the horrors she’s been through, and he kneels down to the ground, craddles her head and presses his forehead to her, to express how grateful he is for what she’s done, and to show that he appreciates her, even if she’s not from his time. And this must’ve meant so much to this Lucy, because she lost her Natsu; she watched him die (the anime even does a little flashback), and she is back at the warmth and the softness only one person could give her, and she thought she’d never have that again. And then there he was, right in front of her, still the same man she’d always known. Still believing in her. Also, a small bonus: present Lucy is watching all this with a sweet smile and a soft blush on her cheeks.

24. “Don’t worry me like that.” (Ep 310).

And now we’re back to me wanting to scream because of these, bc hey... look at this! How come these two f*ckers started a goddamn a relationship and not even realize it? Like, it’s not even possibly platonic at this point in the story! There’s no friendship that can explain this, especially when it’s purposely being parallel with Gruvia, a canon romantic ship, and especially because we know what led up to this moment. And then you have Lucy holding onto Natsu, so relieved that she found him and squeezing him closer to her, despite not knowing what happened to him or what he’d just done, and Natsu whispering her name, listening to her voice once again when he thought he’d never listen to it again, having her so close to him when he thought he’d lost her... and you want me to not ship that? You want to tell me that’s platonic? I can’t even. I literally can’t even. That’s all I have to say about this.

23. “I want a piggyback ride.” Drunk Lucy round 1. (OVA 4).

While I love Lucy jumping on Natsu and wiggling her body onto his during the christmas ova, I have to admit this moment here has a special place in my heart, which makes it higher on the list. Maybe it’s because it was the first time we saw Lucy drunk, and was still a time when we started to really get NaLu moments, and Lucy’s feelings were still 50/50 to us, and then you get this, and Drunk Lucy is all f*cking over Natsu; she has hearts around her when she’s happy because she saw two Natsus, she makes him omelet (how? idk) and wants to feed it to him, is upset when she thinks he rejects it, wants him to make her purr... this alone should tell you a lot, is all touchy-feely with him, and basks in how warm he is, with her eyes closed. And Natsu, my boy... you coulda just run. You didn’t have to stay there and you didn’t have to obey her, lol. I bet he was freaked out because Lucy had never given him this much attention before, so he didn’t know how to deal with it. Always nice to see some Lucy > Natsu action, so let us all thank Mashima for the existence of Drunk Lucy, who makes this more possible than regular Lucy bc she lives in denial, lol.

22. “Beautiful”. (Ep 73).

A classic moment, and one that is immensely loved within the NaLu fandom, and rightfully so! Not only is this the most beautiful tree i’ve seen in anime, but also gave so much more depth to Natsu and Lucy’s relationship, despite being a simple omake. I’ve mentioned this before, but after Phantom Lord arc, there was very little development on NaLu, and most of their scenes together were reapeats of things we’d seen before: them reuniting after the team is separated, working together to solve it, reuniting again, trusting each other, yada yada. Very nice, but still, mostly just friendship and nothing that really stood out. This moment here, where Natsu uproots a tree for Lucy just because she was sick and couldn’t come to see it, then putting it into a boat so it could float all the way over to the front of her house... can be seen as a platonic gesture, and probably was made with that intention on Natsu’s part, but the thing is, these kinda things only happen with them. Yes, Mashima could have given this moment for someone else like Erza or Mirajane, or even Wendy, who was new to the series and probably didn’t even know about this: so why didn’t he? The answer is quite easy, and y’all know it. Development. Growth. Natsu was upset Lucy couldn’t come and join them, didn’t even crack a smile during the whole festival, but he wanted Lucy to be able to, even if he didn’t get to see it. He wanted to make her happy. That’s very special of him, and I think there was already a little of romance there, he just didn’t know what it was, so he just followed his feelings and went for it. Okay, enough gushing and analysing, time to end this list.

21. “What do I look like to you?” round 1. (Fairy Tail: Dragon Cry).

Please, don’t kill me for not having this on top 10, I wanted to put it there, because HELLO, LOOK AT THIS PICTURE, I NEED 911, I- HOW CAN THEY STAND SO CLOSE TO EACH OTHER! MY BOYFRIEND SAW ME GIFFING THIS AND ASKED “IS HE TRYING TO KISS HER” AND I JUST FREAKED OUT, SOMEBODY SEDATE ME! Mashima, what were you trying to do with this? Were you trying to kill us? Like, why does Natsu want to know what he looks like to Lucy? And why he’s gotta stand so close to her that their noses are brushing, just to ask her this? AHSIAHSJJAOSJAAKA, I KNOW THE ANSWER, BUT I STILL NEED ANSWERS! Okay, I was able to calm down a little. I really truly love this moment (love dragon cry in general), and I love how Wendy interrupted them and knew immediately she’d walked into something intimate, the poor thing, lmao, I wish that was me. But really, this is just Natsu taking any excuses he can to stand super close to Lucy even when it doesn’t make sense, because we all know he’s just got it real bad for her.

Will try to post part 4 tomorrow, but no promises. My baby niece is staying over and she takes up all of my free time, lol.

[sicklyscribe]

hey so if you wanna hit me with that sweet sweet elijah’s characterization meta anytime please feel free. or direct me to any previous posts because my dumb ass is using this time to re-obsess over vampire melodrama.....

It appears that most of my non-tag and non-petty-casual commentary is still in drafts... so instead of finishing the ‘What the hell is wrong with season 4: an itemized list’ meta and finishing answering the ‘What would you change if you could rewrite any of the show?’ ask from a while ago, I’ll just pick out the Elijah bits and add on to them for garnish. (Those posts might exist at some point. But honestly not soon enough for me to worry about people getting annoyed with copy/paste so PREVIEW TIME: ELIJAH FLAVOR)

This is way sloppier and un-cited than I usually meta, by the way, but what the hell, The Fandom is Dead and I Only Have Friends to Entertain Now, so if anyone gets angry and tries to step into my asks then it’ll just be nostalgic rather than annoying.  Here’s the starter, which is from the F*CK YOU SEASON 4 meta and quite a few of these points will be repeated later because you asked for it technically so.

The cracks in the narrative began to show as early as season two, and believe me when I say I’m not saying this because I love him - it began with Elijah. I can make a lot of arguments to this effect, but the only one that I am certain is not propelled by my very strong bias concerns the presentation of the Red Door.

Initially, I was ecstatic at the opportunity to explore Elijah’s past, his perspective, his darkest moments. I was a bit wary in that it seemed as though the narrative wanted to Explain Everything about Elijah through this device, but he was finally getting some attention so I tried to hold back judgement.The result was pretty promising. One of the most gorgeous moments on the show occurs when Klaus enters Elijah’s mind and tells him how much he needs him. It showcases the main pillar of the show - the structural trifecta of Hope, Klaus, and Elijah. And afterwards, as usual, Elijah pushes the experience away.Until it’s convenient. 

Elijah begins to be erratically vicious. At first, I felt as though it wasn’t handled poorly, I could explain away my worries easily, and that was all I needed. But it happens over, and over, and over again, with the same excuse - protecting the family, protecting Hope. Elijah’s triggers, once so crucial, begin to break down, but we don’t see why or how that process occurs. He begins to be the character that is level-headed when it is convenient, and a violent one-track-mind when it’s convenient. Eventually, in order to maintain balanced tension with a softening Klaus, Elijah became violent without nuance in every situation. His continued development is no longer possible, since his character no longer displays depth.

Which is annoying, as a fan. But as a person who loves to analyze narrative, it’s a huge red flag. Elijah is necessary for this story. His love for Klaus, and Klaus’ relationship with him, is one of the things that holds the narrative together as it goes forward. The two of them need each other in order to experience growth, but cannot grow from each other any longer - and that friction is what provides energy and substance that can help drive a multi-year melodrama. This is why I mentioned above that Elijah’s violence was likely intended to balance with Klaus’ changing heart - but there is no balance in the level of development the two brothers experience. It has been shoddy in many places, but attention has been given to Klaus’ journey towards peace and kindness, while Elijah has been given a single metaphor, a single psychosis, and is expected to carry half of the narrative weight. The story has no choice but to make a plot device out of him - he simply does not have the required depth to be anything else, which is made obvious by the attempt to do so in the ritual to bring Inadu to the material plane, which I will discuss later.

When his development is ignored, when he is used as a tool to get from point A to point B time and time again - that’s when the pillar starts to crumble.

Zooming back in on s1, this was actually my only major structural gripe with season 1, so it comprises the entirety of the ‘what would you change’ for that season:

The poison that rotted the whole dang show started very small — casting Elijah too strongly as a white hat, to offset the darkness of the rest of the main family. This was the right move, of course, but it was pushed a twinge too far and it was the tiny weight that set everything wobbling. As an offshoot of that, this was also done with Hayley to a degree. I would have had them bond very similarly to the way they do in the show, but I would have had them connect at least once over the skeletons in their closets. (Only once or twice, again, since their ship relied in this season on the fallacy of each other being saviors). In fact, this was one I felt so strongly about that I actually did rewrite their scene in 1x07 ‘Bloodletting’.

Then season two when it gets more pronounced: 

The rift in the show widened with the swing-and-miss that was The Red Door arc. Elijah became a Problem when it was convenient for the plot and A Fixer/Sounding Board when it was not. They used probably the most INTERESTING and INTEGRAL part of his characterization -- which had been a mystery for YEARS counting The Vampire Diaries appearances -- and Elijah discovering that either from trauma or his mother’s magic, he has repressed the moments which forged him. This lack of knowledge, this lack of control, should have been something much more cataclysmic and its effects should be clear when comparing ‘Elijah Before’ to ‘Elijah After’. Instead, it kind of served to take off Elijah’s ‘White Hat’ that he’d been illy-fitted with in S1, and allow him to accessorize with it or whatever version of Elijah fits the episode at hand.

This tension, and this chaos should have been much stronger and much more messy than simply putting the Suit back on and being Pretty Much Okay (barring one plot-insignificant diner massacre) only a few episodes later. It would make the therapy scene later with Camille even more gorgeous than it already is and it would then place Elijah’s moment of catharsis, and the beginning of his attempts to move on, with Klaus’ monumental forgiveness in 2x11. I think this is what was intended, but it was not at all achieved, because Elijah is such a tricky character to write, and it is so very easy to use him for whatever the scene requires. Because of this, Elijah’s struggles got dropped just long enough for Klaus’ forgiveness to hit powerfully in viewers for Klaus, but not for Elijah. The writing began to lean on Elijah as a Drama Everyman more and more throughout the show, and it’s just tragic to me that The Red Door wasn’t utilized to its potential. (And that we didn’t have a Klaus/Tatia conversation, but hey, I have an unfinished fixit for that whole saga on Ao3, you’re welcome and I’m sorry).

In season three, we got a few good glimpses of the kind of complexity that Elijah should live in -- the way he kills Arianne, for example, I’ve linked what I called a ‘headcanon’ but in retrospect it was pretty explicitly canon -- and we see the youth and terror and involuntary power in him in the flashback where he discovers that Klaus killed their mother. But the relationship between Tristan and Elijah? The man that he made, and that made him? That was far too pedestrian to have produced either of them. If Elijah learned ‘nobility’ from Tristan, learned what ‘superiority’ looked like, and this was the time that he began to change... we should have had words between them, or a scene highlighting just them, at least once in the flashbacks. 

If this season was supposed to be about the creation of the Trinity, the First Children (because Finn didn’t tell no one that Sage is actually the oldest ‘cuz he’s an ashamed little bitch) why did we see only TWO of the THREE transformations? Klaus turned Lucien accidentally, trying to heal him. Rebekah’s sympathy and love were used as Aurora’s tool to turn herself. When and how did Elijah turn Tristan? It is explained that Elijah turned him in order to create a third vampire for his plot to trick Mikael into chasing them instead -- it is explained that Tristan, Aurora, and Lucien were compelled to believe that they were in fact Elijah, Rebekah, and Klaus in order to make their decoy impeccable. But when this compulsion was shattered -- when Lucien learned that he had been used and made monstrous as a tool for a monster who wasn’t even noble -- did he confront Elijah? Did they ever speak, or was their next meeting the day Elijah learned that Tristan had taken over Elijah’s coven? I would argue that Elijah needed equal weight in the France flashbacks even though he didn’t have a flashy romance (though if early press release rumors were true, he and Tristan could have had one and that would have been perfect) 

Season four is really where you can pick an episode and Elijah will put on the stage makeup and play any part. It’s also -- BIG COINCIDENCE -- where the plot deteriorates completely. Here’s just one example from my Excuse You What the Hell? Season Four meta: 

On to the next moment that showed major neglect (I know this has been Elijah-heavy so far, but again, this is where the problem started so I want to carry this thread through for a while before addressing other issues) - the ritual to bring Inadu to the mortal realm. The purpose of this ritual was to scare viewers with the risk of Hope’s safety and hype the Hollow’s “bad”ness, but also to make the first move in the ‘Letting Go’ thread between Hayley and Elijah. Elijah was supposed to be forced to choose between children's lives and letting the Hollow loose upon the world, and decide to kill the children. That was the dramatic point of placing this ritual in the narrative, but it isn’t mechanically sound.

It is stated outright that the ritual has to end with the death of the children linked to the spell. The children were linked via their totems found in 4x03 - placing Hope definitively in this group.

But we only ever see four of the five in one place. Maybe it was worth it to the Hollow to reach as far out as Hope was to bind her via her hairbrush, maybe it was worth it to the Hollow to drain her from afar, I’d buy that easily. But they made no attempt to kidnap her and place her with the other four children during the ritual. The ritual that required the deaths of five children. Unless it required Hope to be there only on standby, which is absolutely ridiculous. They had the kids on an alter, even if it was just for show. But why not all of them? If the real goal of the ritual was to lure Klaus and/or Marcel, wouldn’t kidnapping Klaus’ child be a more surefire way to accomplish that rather than just hoping the Mikaelsons would come to the right mystical diagnosis in time?

The reason why Hope wasn’t there was because the ritual was never thought through. The reason she wasn’t there is because it didn’t make sense for Elijah to want to kill Hope to stop the Hollow, which is what this ritual actually demanded if it actually worked the way Vincent claimed. In actuality, all that was desired was for Elijah to display a willingness to kill innocents in front of Hayley, and in doing so it demanded that Hope’s life both be at stake and not at stake at all. This failure to coherently execute a single-episode arc is plainly poor storytelling. It displays not only disrespect to the narrative structure, but a blatant flippancy towards one of their main characters and arguably the most complex one on the series. The sloppily contrived tension here between Hayley and Elijah does eventually contribute to the supposed theme, yes, but at what cost?

Elijah was neglected because he was hard to write, and even harder to write well as a ‘light’ foil to Klaus. Marcel should have fully owned that role, and not been similarly jerked around as a plot-serving every-man once the mystery of season 1 and the reasons behind Marcel’s ‘senseless’ cruelty were revealed. 

Elijah was always the cornerstone of the family’s narrative, because he was complex enough to carry it. Camille provided an additional column of support to Klaus’ individual journey as a person/father, but she was bulldozed for Allmighty Plot as well. By the end of season three, both she and Elijah had effectively been thrown in the garbage one way or another, and the show tried to go on without them. It couldn’t. 

I will say that Elijah’s conversation with Hope in that ludicrous backdoor pilot did make me feel things. I did also see the clip where Elijah and Klaus have a heart-to-heart in some sort of european flashback, which was touching, but felt incongruous for their relationship/dev at the time. Hope asking Elijah how old he was when he made his promises to Klaus, though? Elijah offering carte blanche to Hope for how to punish her friend’s bullies? TWO OF THE THREE SCENES INVOLVING ICE CREAM? 

SOME of season 5 is valid but ONLY because it stole scripts from my headcanons.

[sagemoderocklee]

Ooh, directors commentary on TAOL?? I know it's an epic so maybe just on the chapter where Lee and Gaara are traveling in Jade Country :3

sorry for letting this sit in my ask box for a couple days. i got kinda sidetracked and then had to go back to work today, which is not a fun time tbh but the evils of capitalism and so on....

anyways, im thrilled you asked for this particular part of TAoL because I absolutely loved that chapter (x) and put a lot of work into it between building up the culture of Gyokukakushin and making sure all the Arabic and Chinese I used was legit (which is partly why it took like 4 months to write). plus the chapter has a lot of great GaaLee moments that make me really happy.

one of my biggest downfalls as a writer is how long it takes me to actually finish anything. as i think most people who follow my writing know, i tend to prefer lengthier stories with lots of heavy politics, and that tends to mean that the build up of romance takes a while... which is again how i like it. i prefer a slow burn--a proper slow burn, not these 2k fics tagged slow burn. i mean, 100k into the story and the most you’ve got is an accidental hand brushing another and some intense eye contact... which admittedly TAoL has given more than just a little bit of physical contact and intense staring, but my point is that when i say slow burn i mean S L O W

anyways, onto the actual director’s commentary

So, Jade Province--as it’s not a country in itself, but a province within Wind Country--is a sprawling section of the south-east portion of Wind. I started building Jade Province and its capitol, Gyokukakushin sometime before I started on Ch10 of TAoL, but it was all a very loose idea. I’d initially conceptualized some things about it for the one shot I wrote, Keepsakes, because I’d been doing some background work on the Kazekage lineage and the culture surrounding the Kazekage family--such as arranged marriages, treaties, etc.

My idea is that Karura and Yashamaru are actually from Gyokukakushin. They would have been the children of a person in the political sphere within the capitol, and the marriage between Karura and Rasa would have been arranged early on and she would have been sent to Suna as a pre-teen or teen so that she would feel that Suna was home. I imagine she and Rasa would have married sometime when she was between 18-20. This was the main reason Rasa was able to take on the roll of Kazekage, based on the family tree I built up for the Kazekage line--he was the only one who was married and could produce heirs.

Not that any of this ever comes up during TAoL. In fact, Gaara doesn’t even realize that in going to Gyokukakushin he’s actually visiting half of his ancestral home. However, there’s a lot of fun hints about his connection to Gyokukakushin if you recall the many mentions of the color the same shade as Gaara’s eyes in that chapter. This was a specific nod to his heritage, and something that the locals definitely would have been fascinated by because there’s lots of significance surrounding that particular color in the region. I also wanted to use the reference to his eyes to highlight Lee’s particular fascination with Gaara’s appearance, and especially the element of Gaara’s eyes and the many ways he looks at Lee.

The biggest challenge within this chapter, of course, was the fact that I was using languages I’m not familiar with and had to find a good place to gather resources. Thanks to @ghoste-catte I discovered that reddit (of all places) has a translation subreddit which I was able to use to help bring that aspect of the story to life in an organic and respectful way. My Japanese is rusty, but I have a much better grasp on it than I do Chinese or Arabic, and so I spent many, many, many, many, many..... many hours searching for resources, watching YT vidoes, at the bookstore--I even bought a small book on Arabic. In the end, the subreddit was way more helpful than anything else because it allowed me the chance to get more concrete explanations from native speakers, so I could understand exactly why something was said the way it was. Most of the phrases used in that chapter aren’t really Gaara saying anything special--things like “be quiet” or “stop”--which I usually alluded to with Lee racking his brain trying to drudge up the vocabulary Gaara has taught him.

However, there’s one line--which I hope people did not turn to google translate for--that makes me especially happy, and that line really would not have been possible without that subreddit. I think the best part about being able to successfully navigate the challenge of using other languages is creating the same confusion Lee feels for those readers who doesn’t know those languages, and for those who do, offering them a nice glimpse at what’s going on that Lee cannot grasp. It’s fun and really changes the experience for each reader.

Language is such a beautiful and intricate aspect of people and culture, and my biggest fear with approaching the use of Arabic and Chinese was not only saying the wrong thing, but being disrespectful. So it was an incredibly good experience, and I was incredibly lucky to receive the help I did!

Building up the tension between Gaara and Lee was something I’d really wanted to execute well, too. It’s not often I write stories where the romance doesn’t start from scratch. With TAoL, Lee needed to already be in love with Gaara, and that was a big stress for me because I’m constantly asking myself: is this earned? I think one of the biggest failings of fanfiction is that people don’t ask that question. You really have to ask if your romance is earned. If your character growth is earned. If a redemption arc is earned. And I constantly worry that I’m moving too quickly with romance in particular, especially for Gaara and Lee. I’m not big on putting them together without a lot of development, and I’m not big on established relationship fics (that aren’t sequels) for them either. I like the work it takes to get them together, I like the journey of getting them together. And I don’t like it to be easy.

But for me, TAoL is one of my best actualized works. I think Alliance really helped me build the skills I needed to execute a story like TAoL on so many levels--from the complicated political landscapes, to the cultures, to the relationships between each character. And so I do feel like Lee being in love with Gaara at this point in their lives makes sense, and does work despite the fact that we didn’t see him fall in love with Gaara during the course of this fic. There are subtle nods to his feelings for Gaara in the early chapters, but I didn’t go too hard at indicating those feelings until really the second Lee chapter, this chapter I’m talking about now. I think there were some hints in the first Lee chapter--the chapter where he broke Gaara out of prison and whisked him away from Suna--but I tried to keep those things to a minimum, partly to not over do it and ease people in to that, and partly because I wanted to keep the suspense alive surrounding the real purpose for Lee being in Suna.

So when they get to Gyokukakushin, it really gave me a much better chance at showcasing his feelings. There were moments prior to Gyokukakushin, but those were from Gaara’s PoV--like the moment within the destroyed village, Myoujou, where they’re hiding from the group of shinobi and Gaara’s trying desperately to get Lee to focus his chakra enough to mask it.

But the success of that particular moment is lost on Gaara because he doesn’t really know how Lee feels about him at that point in time, so his impact on Lee is entirely lost to him....not to mention he’s dealing with a lot of grief and trauma, so he hardly has the wherewithal to be paying attention to whether or not his rescuer is secretly in love with him.

One of my favorite tender moments is this one:

“Do you have a favorite word?” Lee asked, before a yawn interrupted him.

“In Indigosi? Or in general?”

“Both.”

Gaara glanced at Lee from the corner of his eye. “Affection,” he murmured, almost as though he were afraid to admit it. “In Indigosi...” Gaara was silent, his gaze shifting away from Lee to the window. A warmth spread across his brown skin, a blush rising on his high cheekbones. “Rohi.”

He looked down at Lee, something bright behind his eyes.

Heat burned Lee's face like an inferno. “What does that mean?”

Gaara looked away again, hiding from Lee in plain sight. “My soul." The words hung in the air with some other meaning, one that Lee could not decipher. Gaara would forever be a paradox, an ever expanding puzzle for Lee to piece together. He didn't ever want to figure him out completely, but he would never stop trying to get as close to epiphany as he could.

“That is beautiful,” Lee told him as another yawn overtook him.

“I should let you sleep,” Gaara said, moving to get up.

Lee stopped him with an imploring hand against Gaara's forearm. “Stay? You did not finish telling me about your trip to Dusk Country.”

“You kept interrupting,” Gaara teased lightly, settling back into place.

Lee smiled up at him, ever so slightly cheeky. “I promise I will be quiet.”

“You're going to fall asleep,” Gaara corrected.

“Probably. It is very late.”

I love so many of the emotional scenes from this particular chapter, but I love how simple and sweet this moment is. There’s such a wealth of affection in small actions, and I really wanted to highlight that Lee and Gaara have grown closer during their time traveling from Myoujou to Gyokukakushin, and things that were born of necessity (like sleeping close together for warmth) are now things done because they want to. There’s comfort in the closeness of sitting next to one another, there’s something peaceful about Lee falling asleep while Gaara talks to him. It’s a nice moment, less high emotion and more quiet contentment, which I think is much needed after everything they’ve been through.

I think that my other favorite scene would be the scene on the beach, right after they’ve watched the sand artist and Gaara makes his model of Suna. That scene is a complicated affair for Lee because he’s both enjoying his time with Gaara and feeling guilty for enjoying that time together. And of course Gaara’s got a lot going on too, which Lee can only guess at.

One of the other things I really enjoyed about this chapter is the fact of Lee and Gaara being in disguise, and really the use of their aliases. I particularly like any excuse to get Gaara to call Lee “Ren”. I’m particularly in love with that stroke of genius regarding Lee’s alias, and there’s a certain emotion, a certain connection that I really hope I could convey with how they use each other’s aliases.

I could probably talk about this chapter forever, but unfortunately there’s also thins I don’t want to say at the risk of spoiling future chapters since this is still a WIP (and probably will be for a while longer, though we’re almost halfway there! Two more chapters to the halfway mark!) Thank you so much for sending this particular ask anon! I had fun chatting about it and I hope you enjoyed reading my comments!