#its poetic enough to point out either way imo

[ashersbraincell]

I just think the way that Curly's inaction towards both the crash and Anya's situation(which ARE related strongly either way) is so poetically mirrored by the state that he ends up in after the crash. Unable to do anything. Unable to help anyone, even himself.

He didn't do anything then, and now he can't do anything anymore. Forever locked into being a pained observer in watching the consequences of his inaction unfold

And if that isn't poetic justice, I don't know what is

[chiliadicorum]

Glorfindel and the Balrog (Again)

Glorfindel was a badass and I need to talk about this AGAIN.

I thought I was done waxing poetic about Glorfindel's fight with the Balrog after the last post. I mean, what else was there to say? Joke's on me. Because I just had an epiphany recently concerning that duel that I realized is so grossly overlooked because, you know, epic battle and badass awesomeness that takes priority over anything mundane (I'm guilty of that. Refer to: said post).

I'm going to dredge up some popular fanon again and declare that it's canon. Let me ask y'all a question:

DO YOU KNOW HOW HOT FIRE IS?

Hear me out. Yes, simple question and yeah, everyone knows fire is frickin hot. As I said though, it's a mundane detail and as a result, tends to be overlooked. However, my attention was drawn to it when I recently took part in a brushfire.* Do not confuse this with a typical bonfire. This brushfire was to burn dead brush gathered over the course of several years and can only be burned in the middle of winter. It's way hotter, way bigger with way more fuel burning. I'd seen a brushfire before but I'd forgotten what it felt like.

We all had to stand, at minimum, 20ft away (30ft or more was better). The fire itself was impressive, but the intensity of that heat was insane. We maintained a safe distance, but our faces still turned pink from the heat. My actual eyeballs began to burn and I had to either back up further or turn away completely. The heat converted the 1°F air (-17°C) into something comfortable to breathe even that far away. But I have to emphasize that, no matter where you walked, you could not get safely within 20ft of this fire without proper apparatus. It was too hot for your face and eyes to tolerate.

Guys, that Balrog was a beast of living fire and Glorfindel grappled with it. I mean, he was already in proximity close enough to engage in that combat. Let's recap: struck the Balrog's head (impressive btw, considering Balrogs are twice an Elf's height), hewed off its whip-arm, and drove his sword through the Balrog's shoulder, not to mention all the other blows he landed in the combat:

"The ardour of Glorfindel drave that Balrog from point to point, and his mail fended him from its whip and claw.” 

But remember, when he struck the shoulder and the sword caught, the full-on brawling on the mountain pinnacle began:

“Then sprang the Balrog in the torment of his pain and fear full at Glorfindel, who stabbed like a dart of a snake; but he found only a shoulder, and was grappled, and they swayed to a fall upon the crag-top.”

....This is actually blowing my mind a bit. How has this not clicked before? Because this speaks volumes to Glorfindel's determination to see the demon killed, to save his people. Glorfindel wasn't a safe distance away shooting arrows or hurling spears. He wasn't 20ft away. He was fighting with a sword. And he was literally embracing that creature of living flame in a fight to the death. We don't know the literal degree of how hot the Balrogs burned, but by intuition alone, I think we can deduce that they were a lot bigger and hotter than some mere brushfire. Let's recall some details from the book in The Bridge of Khazad-dûm:

"The flame roared up to greet [the Balrog], and wreathed about it; and a black smoke swirled in the air. Its streaming mane kindled, and blazed behind it. [...] The dark figure streaming with fire raced towards them. [...] Fire came from its nostrils."

From The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, #144:

"The Balrogs, of whom the whips were the chief weapons, were primeval spirits of destroying fire [...]"

Balrogs were their own self-regulating and self-sustaining inferno, with "hearts of fire". Peter Jackson may have exaggerated the height of the Balrog in the movie, but he nailed the physiology, imo. Balrogs never laughed, never spoke, but they could control the amount of fire and darkness/shadow they emitted.

Getting back to that fanon I mentioned, it's a popular idea that Glorfindel sustained burns or caught fire in this fight, something like that. It's a notion regularly used in fanfic for years but always something relegated to the fanon category, an "unconfirmed" theory. I've enjoyed those fics, still do, but there's always been the back-and-forth about how accurate it is, if at all. I was on that fence too because Tolkien never explicitly stated it happened.

But guys, it's canon. Glorfindel got burned in that fight. Even if he never came in contact with its living flame (he did), even if he never brawled with the Balrog (he did), the heat alone would've burned him from the proximity of fighting with a sword. That's the whole point of this post.

This is the one time I'm not giddy about declaring a fanon is canon. It's so awful. Of course, it's left to the individual imagination as to the severity of his burns and where they occurred. Elves are not humans and I submit to the idea that there can be a difference in tolerance with such elements (such is the case with cold temperatures), but Tolkien still made it clear they're not immune to fire. I recall wondering if Glorfindel ever got burned, but it was such a passing thought I think because I put too much focus on this text:

"The ardour of Glorfindel drave that Balrog from point to point, and his mail fended him from its whip and claw.” 

Tolkien made it clear that Glorfindel obtained no fatal/serious injuries in that fight, which is significant and should be recognized precisely because it's a testament to Glorfindel's insane skill and speed. But Tolkien says it, or rather omits it, right there: "his mail fended him from its whip and claw". Tolkien doesn't mention the fire. He's talking about the attacks the Balrog is trying to strike Glorfindel with and failing abominably. It's so easy to ignore a mundane factor like temperature when there's so much epic action to fixate on.

Because before Glorfindel even began grappling with the Balrog and came in contact with its fire, he was getting burned.

And it never slowed him down.

Have you ever been even minorly burned by fire before, like a candle flame or heat from a stove? I have and it's the mildest as far as burns go but IT HURTS. It gets your attention like nothing else and makes you yank back on pure instinct. Yet Glorfindel never yanked back. He wasn't fighting any candle flame, yet he never faltered or stepped back at the searing touch of that heat. Let alone the actual fire later.

Glorfindel was plainly hell-bent on saving his people from this threat. No one can argue that, particularly when he was the one to pursue the Balrog. But this new aspect just further drives home that single-mindedness of that determination. That desperation. That's a better word. For as calm and in control of that fight as he was, despite being seared by that heat which would cause a normal person to falter, he never once retreated even for a moment to regain ground (he had room) or wait for aid (Elves were rushing to help him, Tolkien said) or reassess (he had time - that Balrog was terrified of him at that point and was actively trying to run away from him). My conclusion? Glorfindel was desperate to kill it. Frantic in that calm, disciplined way that's terrifying. Grief from Gondolin's destruction, grief from the massacre of his people, anger and uncertainty at their dire state, and now this demon was coming to finish off what remnant was left?

No. Soon as Glorfindel "leapt forward upon him" there was only one objective in his mind, one end: that Balrog was going to die now. And nothing would stop him or slow him down until it did.

*descriptions of the battle on Cristhorn from “The Fall of Gondolin” HoME II.194-5 *(disclaimer to ward off comments: this fire was in the middle of a field of snow, was law-abiding, was city-approved, etc. It was a controlled burn so no worries)

[marley-manson]

good things about Bug Out:

- Hawkeye nervous about performing a delicate proceedure he’s never been trained in and snapping at people, always one of my favourite things

- Hawkeye freely and emphatically telling Margaret he’s terrified when she points out he’s not acting scared

- uhhhhh Hawkeye’s parasol

bad things about Bug Out:

- it’s a bad episode bront

- Potter

- “This is the US army, if we want land, we don’t buy it we take it!” with 0 condemnation from the narrative.

- the military march version of the theme complete with asian stereotype riff

- WHY does Margaret stay with Hawkeye, and why does Hawkeye only offer one token protest????????? she is useless here.

- even more emphatic WHY DOES RADAR STAY???? Hawkeye doesn’t even say a word, he’s just like ‘k cool’ when Radar says he’s staying too, wtf lol. He should be picking him up and throwing him into the nearest truck, not buying him a drink at Rosie’s. it’s so arbitrary and stupid, clearly a nonsensical plot contrivance for the sake of like, padding the 2 parter out with the bar scene

- Potter makes Klinger give up all his dresses, no reimbursement or anything, and then it turns out to be pointless in the next scene anyway

- bad attempted dramatic references to wartime rape esp when we got Rainbow Bridge to compare it to. Rainbow Bridge is good because it’s a brief acknowledgement of harsh reality that’s accepted as a risk. Hawkeye makes a quick joke that I’m fine with bc it serves as an ic expression of nervousness, then we move on. In Bug Out Margaret brings it up in a serious enough way suitable for the tone, but Hawkeye dismisses her concern for some reason, telling her “there’s no reason to be afraid,” before the conversation shifts away onto him. Then the more slapstick-y panic at the end (like this scene features Radar trying to hide behind a pole, c’mon) includes Margaret screaming about being ravaged ft a dismissive Hawkeye joke (”tell them you’re with me”), and later exaggerating the danger they were in to Frank. And it also bugs me that Margaret specifies “female prisoners” when Rainbow Bridge acknowledged male rape. It’s like it’s trying to be a serious moment to draw attention to the danger of the situation, and then falls flat on its face.

- the overall plot doesn’t really make sense? is it just a coincidence that a bug out drill turned into a bug out rumour that was denied and then turned into a real bug out? considering they bug out like twice over the course of the show that seems pretty improbable lol.

- honestly I find the humour in this episode mostly bad. more racist jokes than usual, a few homophobic moments (Potter calling some singer a sissy, BJ’s “I’m staying with you but don’t get me wrong�� no homo, everyone calling Frank Alice), and an offputting tone that doesn’t successfully balance its humour and its drama imo (see that paragraph about rape up there for an example)

- oh also why tf does Klinger immediately tell Frank about the bug out thing, without even mentioning the fact that it’s just a drill? I get that Klinger can’t keep a secret, that’s a fairly consistent thing, but why immediately go to Frank and Margaret of all people? Did he intentionally want the camp in an uproar? Why, if so? If it’s a prank we should’ve had a scene where he laughs about it, but nope.

- Hawkeye parking the car to wax poetic about the MASH good lord. serves you right that it stalled out. I don’t necessarily think it’s that ooc since it wasn’t positive, just ‘we spent a lot of time here, lots of ppl died here, hmm’ but i do think it’s dumb as shit and I don’t think Hawkeye lacks that much self-preservation

- no good gay jokes either :/ literally the best we got is Hawkeye saying, “You finally realized I have a beautiful body” after Margaret says she’s staying, which is the mildest of feminizing jokes.

It’s funny honestly, I remembered disliking this episode for Potter and the pro-military flavour and the lack of decent gay jokes, but upon rewatching there are so many more aspects to hate in addition to that

[vote-gaara]

your by far the best Gaara blog around with the most realistic view imo. Some people take their favorite characters way too serous and think they can do no wrong or they can defeat any opponent or they get really mad about ships they don't like and it's exhausting. its just nice to see you aren't raging every time someone has something bad to say about Gaara and its funny when you agree with them lol. You the true fan

ohhhh anon! Anon! Anon you mentioned the power scalers! Oh no, please forgive me. Anon...I love that you love this blog, but now I gotta rant. I am so sorry.

For real this might be the most malicious opinion I have, but... I can't deal with the power scalers. This is probably because I personally am not super interested in the whole "who is the toughest opponent Gaara could 1v1 without Shukaku, pre Shippuden, post-Naruto, while he stands on one leg and he already has been in 7 other battles in the past 30 minutes and Temari and Kankuro are dead and the moon is full and btw he also doesn't have any sand."

Of course I'm exaggerating, but honestly, power scaling just invites so much room for fighting it's not even funny. It's why sometimes curiosity gets the best of me and I end up on the Naruto subreddit only to slowly back away because there's just....so many power scalers and they're all fighting about the same fights, day in and day out.

And I know. I KNOW this is a Shonen manga...A lot of people are in it for the fights, but I feel like a lot of the nuance and themes of the series are lost on "who can beat who in a fight with just brass knuckles?"

Naruto wouldn't be the series it is without the themes surrounding friendship, love, betrayal, destiny and hard work over natural talent. These are the reasons the characters fight in the first place. Plus, a lot of the canon fights were won because of plot armor or as plot devices. Not to mention Naruto used to be about actual ninjas doing ninja stuff rather than sheer power...Remember when Naruto fooled Kiba in the chunin exams? Blew my freaking mind how brilliant that was!

Anyways... I always see people ranting about the canon fights and it's just so banal to me. For example, "Lee should've beat Gaara in the Chunin Exams."

And that's okay...Fair enough, you could argue that, but like....Where does the rest of the series go, though? HOW DO WE PROGRESS IF LEE WON CAUSE OF POWER SCALING?

You wouldn't get Gaara's hospital scene so you would never really know his motive for why he is the way he is...Then Shukaku would just erupt during the Chunin exams, I guess, and that would be that...No fight between Gaara and Naruto, no redemption. Really there would just be no story at all at that point.

It's like people take character losses as personal slights, which I understand because Deidara will always get two massive thumbs down because of what he did to my boy, but also Gaara's defeat and kidnapping just needed to happen. It demonstrated that the series had high stakes cause Kishimoto could just lampoon my favourite character at any point in time, and I'd be like "that's it, I quit!" only to realize that he's actually ok in the end. Actually, Gaara's defeat made me love him more because I felt more empathy for him that he tried so hard to defend his village only to die in the end, and also because no matter how much he had changed he will always have to deal with the legacy of once being bonded to Shukaku.

It's just feels like a richer experience to have characters fall on their faces and lose sometimes.

And as for Lee losing in the Chunin exams...Man...was that ever a battle because honestly I loved both characters. I didn't want either of them to lose, and I really felt for Lee. Yet, he was better off losing because we got the rest of the story surrounding Gaara, and we got that amazing poetic justice when Gaara comes and saves him from Kimimaru.

Plus, that fight humbled Gaara which is just great, cause he was a lil' brat in the beginning, which is fine cause I loved him anyways.

Thanks for this message...Sorry it literally turned into a raging rant though LOL

[fanficwritersinterviewed]

Hello! A question for you and all your writers. Who would you say is the author (fanfiction or published) who most influences your writing, and how do you mindfully borrow and learn from them? (i.e. What part of their writing, specifically, do you try to emulate in your own, and is this a conscious or sub-conscious process?)

Hi anon! Great question!

I asked a few writers ( @willowcrowned, @shey-elizabeth, @tessiete) and also took a crack at answering myself. The post got a little long, but I hope you’ll find it as interesting as I did to see how different writers engage with what they are reading.... DarkIsRising:​

I read a LOT of fanfic in a ton of different fandoms that I’d never write in, constantly looking for the very best writing that fandom has to offer. I’m always asking for recs from people, trying to find the writing that makes my brain purr. From there it’s a process of getting lost in a new writer’s way of developing story and character, falling in love with how they did what they did, and then rereading to see if I can find out why those words in that order made my mind melt or my heart speed up or my skin get that sickly dread feeling that comes when the angst is high and hitting just right. What happens next depends on my mood.

Sometimes I’ll tuck away what I think I learned into my back pocket as something that’s interesting but not really what I’m particularly interested in writing. Sometimes I take the deconstructed idea of what I learned and write something where I try out the trick for myself. I wouldn’t say it’s copying so much as “hm, I think this is how it worked, is this how it’s done?” and then apply it to my own writing.

“Werdla” came after several re-readings of an Old Guard kink series by TheIneffableLily, who used this mood of safe and consensually sex where the kink served to make a charged emotional atmosphere, where the really truly dangerous thing wasn’t the pain play or what have you, it was the vulnerability that might be revealed through the sex. So I tried it out for myself in relation to Din and Luke, playing with the idea of Din’s helmet and Luke’s blindfold—which comes up a lot in dinluke fanfic, so much it’s probably its own trope at this point— Din’s vulnerability in removing his helmet to have sex with Luke and the trust that Luke is a good enough man that he won’t look. Later I found out that furiosophie was inspired by the mood I created in “Werdla” and used what she’d felt in it to create elements for her fic “Go and Get Your Hands Dirty.” So that’s kind of a beautiful thing in fanfic, when it’s done right and everyone is being respectful (and not stealing literal words, etc) how much of this work can be a call and response. Someone writes something that stirs a feeling in me, that feeling influences what I write next, only for someone to read my thing and get inspired to create their own thing from it. Sometimes it creates those “works inspired by” links in ao3, but sometimes it’s more subtle than that, and that subtly is where I absolutely live, die, and live again.

Tessiete: 100% ruth baulding. Ruth's stories got me back into SW, and prompted me to enter the fandom (first, intending to seek her out, but then I started writing). She just has this great balance, imo, of slightly overwrought prose that to me felt very original Star Wars-y. Kind of an elevated Lucas! And I love how she used language to convey character subtext (I've talked about this before, but she rarely uses the word "love" bc Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan don't know how to use it for each other, either. They always talk around it, and so the writing skirts it with metaphor.

Then, I'd say treescapes, and outpastthemoat. Moat has this ability to walk a fine line between tragedy and hope, and I find that particularly wrenching for Obi-Wan stories in particular. Often the most gutting parts of her fic are the smallest miscommunications. I strive for that subtlety. And with trees, her imagery just is SO evocative and poetic. She packs so much feeling into a visual moment. I literally change how I think about storytelling every time I read her work. I think about the details. The wrist bones, the lashes over the slate blue eyes, the little turns of phrase that reveal SO much. Just....incredible!!! I do consciously think of them - though it's not as clear cut as trying to copy them. Sometimes, it's just osmosis, or skill acquisition. But I think of them A LOT. Shey: I don't have one particular fic author I take writing inspiration from. Early on, I took a lot of characterization inspiration from the most popular writers in the Steter/Stetopher fandom because their take on the characters is what made me fall in love with the pairing. For example, Bunnywest writes Peter in a way I adore, and that has influenced the way I write him. Twothumbsandnostakeincanon's snarky, sarcastic Stiles is my favorite Stiles. So they, along with many others, have definitely influenced the way I think about the characters. I've spent way more time reading fic than I ever did watching the show, so the way I picture the characters is an amalgamation of the way I've seen them written over time. As far as "mindfully borrowing," that phrasing makes me uncomfortable. I do my best to keep out of other authors fics when I'm writing. (In fact, I don't read in a fandom that I'm actively writing in for this exact reason!) When you're all writing about the same characters it feels way too easy for "borrowing" to turn into copying.I also wouldn’t say I try to emulate any particular writer, either. I read a lot (32 published books so far this year, 150+ last year. Thank god for Kindle Unlimited!) and I really believe that I've learned a ton about writing because of it. I'd say the most useful thing I do to learn from other authors is read and think about the things I'm reading. What did I like? What did I dislike? What worked in the story and what didn't? WHY? On the other hand, there are plenty of authors who's work I absolutely adore and I aspire to write with the kind of skill they do. Definitely the two mentioned above, as well as Twisted_Mind, cywscross, kouriarashi, and ThisDiscontentedWinter (if you want more names, check out my AO3 bookmarks!). On the published author side, I'm obsessed with the writing of Onley James, Cara Dee, Alessandra Hazard, Hailey Turner, Neve Wilder, and Nora Phoenix to name a few. Willowcrowned: Ohhhh that’s such a good question. It’s hard to say what author most influences my writing because I’ve been writing for long enough that my go-to style has become a melange of bits stolen from some formative works. Since I do like to experiment consciously with prose style, if I’m ever trying to nail something specific, I’ll find an author that writes that way and use it as a reference. For “Smoke Raised with the Fume of Sigh,” which I wanted to have rich, luxe prose, I turned to Dark’s (hi Dark!) “The Things That Are Deadly.” For anything where I want economy of language without sacrificing setting, I’ll go back to Tolkien (my first and forever love). *

Ask week

[mazojo]

Winter 2021 Anime Opinions

As always its that time of the year I pretend to be an anime connoisseur and leave my review on this seasons anime so take it with a grain of salt asdfgh from the one I enjoyed the least to the most.

Wave!!: Surfing Yappe!! (TV)

You are seeing currently the only probably best thing about Wave asdfghj Tanaka bby I am SO sorry you got stuck here,,,,, Its bad because I had so many expectations for Wave but it just...... isn’t very good? The characters feel 2 dimensional, animation is veeeery average and the plot is all over the place? Dont even get me started on the Shou situation plot device that they just brushed over and went on with and,,,,,big sigh

Urasekai Picnic

To be honest is not very fair to compare this one to the rest as ive only watched the first 2 eps but ill catch up eventually asdfghj its not bad just that the plot didnt capture me as much as I hoped but the two main characters cutiess the plot just confuses me asdfgh but I don't have much to say about it

Yakusoku no Neverland 2nd Season

So uh anyways Chile I don't wanna talk about it the only reason this is not dead last is because RayEmma cute moments but yeah don't watch this clown show go read the manga for self care ✨

Jaku-Chara Tomozaki-kun

The only reason this is here is because she. The main girl I cant remember the name of sucks and main dude is very normal asdfgh the plot is basically “Want people to like you? change everything about yourself and become a normie robot!!!” ASDFGHJ Like its so over the top and cringe at times it becomes very confusing but hey I am not caught up either so I may change opinions (x doubt tho)

2.43: Seiin Koukou Danshi Volley-bu

From this point onwards I basically like everything. 2.43 Started suuuuper strong for me, definitely thought it would be one of my favs this season but as the eps went by I just.... kinda lost interest asdfgh? Like its not bad, but its a sort of mix between Stars Align and Haikyuu where I would have loved a more character based story with dark subplots like Stars Align but got the parts I always criticize about Haikyuu were there was a point I didn't really knew any of the characters? ASDFGH like the enemy team is super cool and Love their designs but if you ask me to tell you anything about them I already forgot rip. Its still cute and the animation is cool but yeah it kind of disappointed me in the end a bit ;w;

Shingeki no Kyojin: The Final Season

AOT Is so sexci because it keeps on hurting me and I come back every-time for it ASDFGHJ Not much to say that hasn't been said, characters are super interesting, plot is a bit confusing at times for me to follow but amazing and I just :))) could go on about certain characters :))))) but I wont :))))

Wonder Egg Priority

Wonder egg priority is very talked about right now so I wont get too much into it other than definitely give it a watch if you like the more philosophical and “makes you reflect on your life choices” sort of anime ASDFGHJ the visuals are stunning and the characters very well build, although I am very confused at times I am still enjoying it tons ^^ Trigger warning however for some heavy topics I recommend checking the warnings before watching it <3

Kemono Jihen

I LOVE THEM OKaY? asdfghjk Kemono Jihen gives me the found family topes and I eat them all right up, I love the characters , their designs, the plot, everything. To be fair tho, I did enjoy the manga more than the anime but maybe its a pacing thing? idk but I definitely recommend 100% taking on the manga and maybe after watch the anime but I am enjoying it tons!!

Kai Byoui Ramune

This one may come as a surprise lol?? Like I haven't seen a single soul talk about Ramune but like??? I am actually enjoying it a lot?? and look forward every week for the ep? asdfghj Like yes I will be the first to admit the animation isn't really the beeeeest out there but the plot is funny while also being serious, the characters are quirky and interesting to keep the flow going and I am liking the undertone heavy messages? the soundtrack also slaps imo and yeah I would definitely say to watch the first ep and if you like that sort of dynamic take it up on the rest!

I★Chu: Halfway Through the Idol

Okay I will be the first one to admit this is just me being trash for the idol shows but like?? its my list so I get to decide which found family I am screaming about next ASDFGHJ. As an avid A3 stan this gave me serious vibes of my boys (plus they were made form the same company so like not very surprised there loll) and like I think the characters are cute with adorable relationships and cute songs and its just a lighthearted show I sit down every Wednesday and smile through the 25 minutes so yes I Chu deserves a high spot and yes I recommend it even if it has like a 6.3 on myanimelist sksksks

Dr. Stone: Stone Wars

Look at Gen!!!! enough reasons to watch dr stone!!!! ASDFGH but in all seriousness I....... love them okAy? The plot is amazing and the characters are super entertaining (hiiii Ukyo Gen Senku and Chrome muak) and although it may seem a bit slower paced than first season the arc is gonna get better and better and the finale is gonna be great if they stick to the manga. Only sad that I dont get to see my pirate fuckboy but we better be getting a third season

Bungou Stray Dogs Wan!

when I say this is the happiness of all my Tuesdays I ain’t even exaggerating ASDFGHJ Does this have an important plot? no. Is it transcending to animation? not really. Is it BSD content I've been starving for? absolutely!!! Tbh I see my favorite anime characters in chibi version and I go feral, go watch BSD pogg!!

Horimiya

Me?? searching for that one gif of the side ship scene am obsessed over?? more likely than you think ASDFGH Horimiya holds a special place in my heart because it was the first manga I ever read and the nostalgia is stroNG,,,,,, The plot isn't anything really transcending but the way the characters are captured the feelings just,,,,,, stan!! Also Yuki x Tooru supremacy !

Skate-Leading☆Stars

Okaaaaay this is also me being a bitch for sports anime but like, again, are we surprised?? ASDFGHJ It may be my love for Hayato speaking but ive absolutely loves Skate Leading Stars, I love the group, the main characters, the ships, the routines and its so pretty and they are in love and like the competition and asdfgh its gOoD OKaY??? Watch it if anything for Hayato 👉🏻 👈🏻 My bastard bitch I love the gremlin.

Beastars 2nd Season

I think we are all sleeping on Beastars brushing it off as a furry show. I don’t speak enough about it and I am not one to go about poetic cinemaness on main but beastars is a very poetic cinema show and yall sleeping on it. Coming from someone who was uncomfortable at first with the whole animal relationships part at first, just know beastars is so much more than that, it has a complicated plot with critics about the society within the show with amazing characters, great soundtrack and animation plus banger plot. Pina, Jack, Juno and Legoshi best characters and every week I look forward for the next eps so I hope yall go give it some love.

SK8 The Infinity

If it wasnt clear from my spam every Saturday that I am absolutely in love with this show I dont know what to tell you ASDFGHJ. Sk8 has an amazing range of characters I find fascinating, specially Reki, very much so everything Reki asdfgh but yeah!! Its super entertaining with an interesting plot and its definetely becoming one of my favorite animes because the amount of times ive rewatched the episodes to cope is kind of embarrassing lmaooo, definetely give it a try although I understand its not for everyone but like,,,,, do it for Reki? 🤧👉🏻👈🏻

[flowers-of-io]

@eri-223​ you brought it upon yourself, now I won’t shut up c:

OKAY SO

I can’t really draw neat straight lines between the two, but there’s so much aesthetic similarity to me, particularly with Toland and the Hive-Ascendancy thing. Maybe it’s just me dying for the vibes (or loving POTO in general since I was 9), but it struck me today how Eris/Toland--when it’s made a Working ship--is basically everything Christine/Erik is not. There is so much to be said about Christine/Erik alone, but to me it’s an epitome of why gothic-novel-esque dynamics don’t really work in the long run when they don’t move past being just Gothic and Tragic. And hear me out. A goodhearted, elfin woman at her vulnerable point (grief over father) meets a honey-voiced stranger and has this secret thing with him, this music they share in the dead of night, and it’s intoxicating because music *is* her passion (and something she has deep emotions over in itself, the thing that is most hers in the world) and it’s secret, and a whole other world to what she’s facing in the daytime. The mystery is intriguing, and that’s intoxicating too. And there’s an uncomfortable power imbalance but it doesn’t bother you just yet, because there isn’t really any attraction between the two--not in the romantic-as-in-love sense at least, rather this romantic-as-in-romanticism pull all dark beautiful secret things have.

And here we can shout a fucking thank you at Erik for completely ruining that beauty by being an absolute creep. But Chrissie doesn’t know that yet. And so he leads her deep down into the dark, into his world of darkness and secrecy and yet twisted beauty, and she is living the mystery now, she’s in this nighttime world they would share in secret. And she’s close enough to take a peek behind the mask, something she was so violently curious about and attracted to, a glance into the dark abyss of his soul that is so intriguing. And so she does peek, and what she finds is terrifying rot.

And this, THIS is the best moment of the entire thing to me. This story could be well off without Raoul (whom I deeply love and cherish but he ruins the gothic) because he adds this romantic tension of a love triangle (which I absolutely loathe because ugh. love triangles.) to what could have been a tale of a girl torn between the world of day and night rather than two men who each love her in a different way. There’s so much of Persephone-sque struggle in Christine’s soul that has been shunned by the story imo, and would have made the whole thing better in the long run (and maybe less grossly-abusive on Erik’s part).

So let’s circle back to Toland, another pale, bony, possibly disfigured brunet in a dark coat with a living room full of skulls and candles (the vibes, huh. he probably owned a boat and a horse too). If we take Eris/Toland as starting off before the Hellmouth (I’m really starting to tentatively test my ground on this hhhng), it feels like the same story slightly to the left. Granted, Eris has more agency, but there’s still a huge power imbalance in her and Eriana coming to Toland--an exiled genius|madman with an evil black crow (Guren) perching on his shoulder--and asking him for help, laying their and their team’s lives at his feet - him, who could probably kill them in seventeen different yet equally fancy ways were he more invested! And there is so much darkness here already because how dark it must have been in Eris’ soul to agree on this revenge fantasy, what an abyss Eriana’s eyes must have been hiding; how desperate they must have been to come to him, to even consider this, to choose a possibility of painful, screaming agony in the Hellmouth over the ache they were feeling now. And so there’s vulnerability, too, in a way - because they’re desperate, because they’re hurting, because everything has been taken from them and they have nothing else to do but this ridiculous, mad plan. And oh he can abuse this void, he can make them do whatever he wants and they’d do it gladly, and I have a feeling both Eris and Eriana are aware of that.

And so they work, in secret, cracking secrets of the Hive, tasting the rot of the forbidden fruit, hiding from the daylight with their dark, heretic, nighttime folly. I think there is a threshold at wherever it is they are meeting--be it a room or a house, Eriana’s kitchen or Toland’s disturbing “lab”--in the doorway, between the bright but empty world of patrols and strikes and dead friends and this horrid, twisted, yet fascinating realm of promised vengeance. And I think Eris learns, hungry for secrets, hungry perhaps for Toland’s eyes on her because all dark beautiful secret things have a pull, and she can’t tell if she’s more drunk on the adventure, or the heresy they’re so blatantly committing, or him. And maybe he reciprocates in his own twisted way, maybe they talk or kiss over the parchment pages, and she cannot tell--she cannot tell if his eyes are truly for her or the Hive, the mystery, the thing they’re doing. I’m thinking of what you wrote, how “he wanted Ascendance as badly as she wanted him”. But despite that--or maybe because of it--she allows herself to be led deep down into the dark, into his world of darkness and secrecy and yet twisted beauty, and she is living the mystery now, she’s in this nighttime world they would share in secret. Is it the Hellmouth? Maybe, though I think it’s a process that spans between their secret studies of the Hive and the midst of their descent, when Vell is dead and maybe they’re all doomed, and Toland’s eyes twinkle in the dark and it’s such beautiful madness she cannot help staring. And the checkpoint has come, time to show cards--and she’s close enough to take a peek behind the mask, something she was so violently curious about and attracted to, a glance into the dark abyss of his soul that was so intriguing. And so she does peek, and what she finds is terrifying rot.

I think this is Ir Yut, or maybe a little bit earlier, but nevertheless the bubble bursts and Eris is left in the dark alone and betrayed. That’s of little concern, of course, when the Hive is hunting you down and all you hear is your friends’ dying screams, but it still hurts, it’s still bitter, it’s still so, so wrong. I like to think he comes to teach her then, maybe give her the journals, and it’s a whirlwind of madness and horror and fury and gore, but he’s whatever comfort she can hope for at this point. It’s twisted, it’s awful, it’s dark-gothic rotten, it’s as wrong and horrid as Erik/Christine is as a whole.

But then they’re given the chance Erik/Christine never got. They’re allowed to outgrow the rot. There’s so much dysfunctionality and disturb going on in most gothic-esque “love” stories because it’s not love, it’s attraction taken for a spin and often grossly abused. Love is growth. I like to think of what must have been going on in Eris’ head (and Toland’s too, perhaps, though I doubt he had one at that point) when they were exchanging the letters, the dearest Eris right next to did you watch me carve out each eye; now that she’s wiser, and scarred, and not so stupid anymore--but there’s still that dark pull she can’t help, now even scarier than before that she knows him for what he really is, now that she’s seen the rot. There’s so much hurt to be outgrown, so much betrayal, but she finds he’s yet again whatever comfort she can hope for (that entry *is* called A Light In The Darkness, huh). I could wax poetic about this whole process but I think you captured it so well in STM I don’t have much else to add.

I wanted to throw quotes into it but couldn’t quite fit them into this, uh, essay (which I didn’t absolutely re-read), and I guess Music of the Night would apply here but it’s ripe with uncomfortable sexual tension?? And aside from that (which is in its entirety a trip) just consider these ah

this whole moment

also this

He'll always be there singing songs in my head  Is this Eris in the letters phase? maybe. I performed a vibe check and it showed positive

Wandering Child for how unhealthy-twisted and beautiful it is (ignore Raoul, I have no metaphor for him in this au)

For either way you choose, you cannot win  It’s just a good quote y’all

Farewell my fallen idol and false friend / We had such hopes, and now those hopes are shattered 

Angel of Music, you deceived me / I gave you my mind blindly  (HOW SHE WHISPERS THAT LAST PART IN THE MOVIE OK)

Stranger than you dreamt it  now you’re stranded in the Hellmouth good job

What warm, unspoken secrets will we learn / Beyond the point of no return

The bridge is crossed, so stand and watch it burn

Down that path into darkness deep as hell  but Toland smiles while he sings this

And of course the classic,  And in this labyrinth where night is blind / The Phantom of the Opera is here inside my mind

Wow! I didn’t even get to the Dreaming City! It’s way more vague than the whole Eris/Toland thing because of course ships take up 80% of my brainspace but idk I just find it so incredibly fitting when it comes to paralleling Savathun/Dul Incaru terrorising the Dreaming City with what Erik does to the opera. Like, everybody knows he’s There but no one can do anything about it, he sends vague threats and kills people but nobody can catch him, and the place is just a giant playground for him to have fun and achieve his personal goals in. And whatever the hell is going on in Masquerade, like

Masquerade! Seething shadows breathing lies Masquerade! You can fool any friend who ever knew you Masquerade! Leering satyrs, peering eyes Masquerade! Run and hide, but a face will still pursue you

wow that sure is subtle. Seething shadows breathing lies, huh. Run and hide, but a face will still pursue you :) And then he crashes the party in a fucking Red Death costume. If this doesn’t have huge Dul Incaru/Siren of Riven energy I don’t know what has.

And of course the shitshow only starts when we kill Riven but the seeds have been planted long, long ago. If you listen closely, you can hear Petra screaming in confusion somewhere under box five.

I know most of this second part is a stretch, BUT! this is my au. And for the record, I know there are very mixed feeling about the 2004 POTO movie but to me personally it was a formative experience, first watched on a very crappy TV in music class at the age of 9 and not even in its entirety, but I was already captivated and shaken to the core, and there’s still, after all those years, something that screams at my soul when I hear the first notes.

And, as a treat for those who suffered with me until the end of this essay,

[lesbeet]

how have you learned more about prose? i’ve mostly written poetry but i’m falling into prose poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction a lot more now

another anon sent this:

“hey! i know this is a pretty big question so no pressure to respond ofc but ive been trying to get better at editing, especially with nanowrimo this year, and seeing you talk about it with LE's book, i was just wondering if you had any tips for strengthening your editing? thanks either way”

so i’m just gonna answer them together if that’s cool!

-

i have several books i’m gonna recommend first, and if you can access them i would absolutely suggest starting there:

first is the anatomy of story by john truby (here’s a pdf copy, but i would recommend a hard copy if possible, mostly for formatting reasons). this is much less about writing prose and much more about....well, the anatomy of a story. i’m not exaggerating when i say this book completely revolutionized the way i look at storytelling and macro-level story organization. i’ve always been able to hold my own when it came to making a sentence sound nice, but for a long time i had very little concept of story mechanics from a writer’s perspective, rather than from a reader’s perspective—you need both to write a good story. i could honestly wax poetic about this book all day so i’ll move on for now, but for real if you want more info just ask bc i’d love to discuss it further

next is the first five pages: a writer’s guide to staying out of the rejection pile by noah lukeman. unfortunately i don’t have a digital copy to link, but i’m pretty sure i found this one at half-price books for a very reasonable price. i would say i knew about half of what this book had to offer prior to reading, but what i learned from the rest has been incredibly helpful with my prose writing ever since. some of it was just that it was my first exposure to seeing someone explicitly write out certain concepts (for example, there’s a whole bit on adverbs that goes far beyond stephen king’s useless “i believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs” quote that doesn’t actually explain WHY they’re largely ineffective, and i’ve cut down my use of them dramatically since then. not here obviously slkfjksjsd but in my actual writing that i go back and edit), but i read through it again sometime early on during quarantine and i still highly recommend it. there are some fantastic examples he uses to demonstrate his points, and there are also writing/editing exercises at the end of each chapter that are pretty great

the last book i’ll recommend is self-editing for fiction writers: how to edit yourself into print by renni brown and dave king (again i don’t have a digital copy but i either read it through my library or through scribd, bc i remember reading it on my phone and screenshotting a whole bunch of stuff). i think i actually wrote some posts a while back when i was reading this one; i’ve only read it once so i don’t know it as well as the first two books i recommended, but i remember being impressed with it because it touched on concepts that i really hadn’t seen elsewhere, even after spending hours upon hours combing through writing advice blogs/websites that mostly recycled the same handful of truisms. if i’m remembering correctly, this one also has some great exercises to try out

-

as far as prose writing, i think the most helpful tip i can give you (aside from “use every word you read as a learning experience”) is to remember that above all, writing is communication. every single word you use or omit carries its own denotations and connotations, and context is everything. analyze and over-analyze both your own work and the work of others until you find that you're able to recognize and understand why certain things were written the way they were written (particularly for something like a novel or even an advertisement, where the words have been heavily edited, rather than like. an email or something). what was the writer attempting to communicate or achieve? were they successful? what worked effectively? what didn't, and how might it have been changed to make it more effective? most importantly, how do you know these things? (in other words, it's not enough to be able to identify what needs changing, or even what the/a solution would be. you need to know WHY it needs changing, and why those possible changes make it more effective. i try to do this for my clients when editing; i've found that explaining my suggestions/changes results in far less pushback than when they think i just changed it bc i didn't like how it sounded originally or something lol). knowing the intention of a piece of writing is also crucial--sometimes a sentence that works perfectly in one context would be nonsensical in another.

but in addition to analyzing for effectiveness, analyze for taste! make note of certain writers or books or sentences or lines of poetry that stand out to you, either because you hate them or because you love them (the latter is more useful imo). you'll probably start to see patterns. try to figure out what it is about that prose that you find so compelling. is it vivid imagery? unique uses of figurative language? starkness and clarity? (those are some of mine; your own preferences may vary.) chances are that once you've begun to develop your own unique voice as a writer, these qualities that you admire will show up, with your own personal flavor, in your writing. likewise, once you can identify exactly what it is in someone else's writing that doesn't work for you, the better you'll be able to avoid it in your own writing.

above all, practice. practice active reading, practice analyzing, practice writing, practice analyzing your own writing.

-

ik some of that is vague advice, but it seemed like you were asking how to learn, rather than for specific tips. i can share some of those too if you'd like, just shoot me another ask :)

most of what's here is applicable to both asks, about editing and about prose writing in particular. structure is a whole separate beast (but is definitely relevant to learning how to be a better editor) but i'd be happy to discuss that further as well.

i really hope this is helpful! i'm always always open to answer more questions :)

[calangkoh]

and im done. up next conqueror of shamballa!

okay honest opinions about this ending. i like that its imperfect. but i still wish it were happier. i get the feeling if they didnt have cos they would have ended this differently, because this ending seems to specifically set up the movie. but the movie is another work, even if its the real ending, and im here to talk about the series. so on its own, disregarding the movie, i think this ending is. ok. i dont think its BAD, but a deeply unsatisfying one that works for its themes and tone. its imperfect and bittersweet. i like that. id keep that. it implies theyll find a way back to each other one day, even if we have no idea how. but id still change it if i could because even if an unsatisfying ending is poetic (because Tragedies exist, where unhappy endings are poignant and meaningful) in relation to the series’ core themes, its still unsatisfying. the ending of cos is satisfying enough, because the brothers are together, but still rather sad.

but heres the thing. mangahood exists. metatextually, this ending is great (and that way i wouldnt say is a definitive way to judge a series, just a way to enhance what already exists within the worlds own universe). because theres a certain level of poetic justice and karma to have an AU that has a tragic ending with characters who suffered so much and didn’t get what they deserved in the end, and then the other work that was released after give you the same characters and give them everything the deserved. 

contrary to how much i try to judge the two series based on their own merits and not in comparison to one another, both fma 03 and fmab feel like two incomplete works that need each other to exist. an example i can think of to explain what i mean is how the two legend of zelda games, phantom hourglass and spirit tracks, are two similar games that seem to both be a half of a whole game, as youtuber King K describes. he says he cant judge them individually because it does them a disservice, as they both feel like incomplete works without the other. this applies even more appropriately to the fma series, because they are both adaptations of the same story and same world and characters. they both do something differently and they do that thing very well on their own. but to fully appreciate either, you need to watch both. because one will deliver something the other didnt. im sure there are people who will disagree with me, because a lot of people have said 03 isnt worth watching and fmab is definitive and all you need. i strongly disagree, of course. but my point is that the ending of 03 is infinitely better when you consider that the writers (which included arakawa’s own input) intended a totally different ending than the one arakawa had told them of in her manga, to specifically make their own story that felt different from fmab when they ultimately go on to make it. they did it on purpose with the manga and brotherhood’s ending in mind. so that people will be hungry for more and be satisfied and surprised by mangahood’s ending. so that brotherhood feels like a do over, a second life where everything works out better, where the universe is kinder and more ordered, for the characters we fell in love with in 03. 

anyway, the ending of 03 is not my ideal. but it works in its story, and i appreciate a special kind of beauty in it. and the ending of 03 could definitely be more structured. i wont deny the common criticisms that 03′s ending feels jumbled. even if it makes sense and has a powerful message after you take the time unjumbling it, it doesnt mean its not jumbled. and i really only feel its in the last couple episodes. i think everything the series set out to do was done great, and they just were so ambitious that the ending was TOO ambitious for them to tell cohesively. and thats okay, ultimately. the series is still good. its still amazing! if most people say “that series was so good, i just didnt like the ending (and likely prefer fmab as a result)” which from what ive seen and heard, is the most common opinion. and if the ending really is the only major complaint, i dont think that makes the whole work bad. tons of works have bad endings, and sometimes they break the series (like game of thrones, from what ive heard). but a “bad ending” doesnt define the whole series imo unless it truly retroactively destroys all it built up and stood for (like how i met your mother, in some sense to me). but 03 doest do that. its ending still adheres to its core themes and goals from the start. therefore, just because the ending isnt a crowd pleaser, even just because its a tad confusing, doesnt mean its bad.

that all being said. fma 03 is fantastic. i love this show. i think its one of the best and deserves to be praised as much as brotherhood. i give this show a 9.5/10 (-.5 points for the jumbled ending and some strange fillers cough episode 4 cough and other weird episodes) and my ratings dont really have any real rhyme or reason, so that doesnt REALLY mean anything other than “this show is good”

so yeah. this has been fun. thank you all who interacted with my liveblog! ill liveblog cos but idk if ill have a lot to say about it. and then ill liveblog brotherhood (in small doses, since i dont wanna take away from this being an 03 appreciation blog)!

[makeste]

not a cavalcade of Katsuki panels

damn, anon. you stone cold came for me with that last part. and just fyi to all onlookers, this was before I had posted the headcanons ask proving this exact point lmao.

but a challenge has been issued now! so I will do my best to pick a variety of impartial panels featuring a veritable medley of characters. not sure I can really provide much in the way of insightful analysis of symbolism and metaphors and stuff, but I can certainly type a lot of words about the pretty pictures, and about how cool people look when they’re standing around all serious surrounded by clouds of billowing smoke.

why I like it: I figured we’d start off strong. no point in holding back. can the other panels possibly even hope to compete. maybe. we’ll see.

why I like it: because, you see, he punched a giant robot, and it exploded. you see that, there? and the text was all “SMAASH” in humongous comic book letters, and it was pretty cool. also Deku is very tiny and the robot is very big. and just to clarify, most of the time if a tiny fifteen-year-old child tries to punch an 80-foot robot, it’s not actually going to go all that well, and the robot probably will not explode. but in this case it did! and so this is a very novel and unexpected outcome, which makes it all the more visually striking, which is a very good thing to be when you are trying to show off the brand new superpower which your protagonist just inherited, and letting people see it in action for the very first time.

why I like it: so you may have noticed we just skipped a whoooole bunch of chapters lol. this is because there are almost 300 of them, and so I’m going to have to use a bit of discretion. anyway so this is a gorgeous panel. just, everything about it. the lighting; the expressions; Shouto’s hesitation; and his mom facing away, not looking back yet, and us not yet knowing how she’ll react. and the fact that they’re visually separated by as much distance as possible -- at opposite ends of a two-page spread -- and yet they’re so close, closer than they’ve been in years. mm. anyway it’s pretty.

why I like it: first of all because there’s nothing like seeing a deserving character get punched in the fucking face, and few characters IMO have been as deserving as Stain. and second because this is Deku, showing up to save the day out of nowhere at the last minute, because excuse you, but he’s a motherfuckin’ hero. sorry to interrupt your evening plans of stabbing a kid while lecturing him about why, philosophically, he deserves to die. but I’ve got a package here for a Mister Stain. it’s from Mister Smaassh, with two A’s and three S’s.

why I like it: fyi, anon said nothing about a cavalcade of BakuDeku panels. you didn’t think I’d let that loophole go to waste, did you? but nonetheless I will try to restrain myself until we get to the second ground beta fight. anyway, I like this panel because All Might’s canonically 7′2″ self looks about twelve feet tall here, and he is just TOWERING over these two boys, who’ve been tasked with somehow outwitting him during this curiously sadistic final exam. and it’s just an interesting perspective, because we know they both look up to him, and here they are physically looking way, way up, up, up at him.

why I like it: now this is how you do a villain entrance. I love absolutely everything about this. the sheer scale of destruction, and the way he’s just sort of casually hanging out there in the middle of the panel almost dwarfed by all this dust and smoke and carnage, and yet is unquestionably the focus of the page. the way that you can’t actually see his face, not yet. not until the end of the chapter. the way the clouds are drifting so calmly and peacefully in the night sky in stark contrast to the horrific events that are about to take place on the ground. this panel gives me literal chills, especially when I think about All for One’s creepy theme music playing in the background.

why I like it: this panel is so iconic to me that it’s one of the first ones I immediately knew I had to go and find when I got this ask. this entire fight is perfection from start to finish, and there are other panels that are more artistically striking if I’m being honest (in particular, the ones where he’s half-transformed with his face perfectly split down the middle between Muscle Might and Skinny Steve). but there’s just something about his determination in this panel, though. something about the fire in his eyes, and the way he clenches his fist. “my heart is still the heart of the Symbol of Peace.” I remember being sooooo fucking anxious when his true form was revealed, wondering if this was it, if the people watching were going to turn on him, if he was going to lose both the fight and their faith. turns out I was wrong on both accounts. basically what I am trying to tell you guys is that this panel was and is still the most badass thing I’ve ever seen.

why I like it: because he’s just a frail old man doing what he can to protect the last flickering embers of the thing that enables him to fight on. there’s something so fucking desperate and yet so determined about this image. he knows it’s futile, but still he persists.

why I like it: damn it was hard to find a “you’re next” panel with just the right angle I like best. this is probably as close as it gets, but I kind of wish Deku was somehow visible in this image as well. but at any rate this is an amazing moment, and All Might is dramatic af for basically no reason but IT’S BADASS. “no I’m not going to actually look where I’m pointing. it’s cooler this way.” or was it because he wasn’t sure if he could keep the emotion off of his face if he actually turned and looked? in this moment of knowing that it was finally over for him, that he would never be the Symbol again, and knowing that he had no choice but to move on and entrust that burden to the next generation? damn.

why I like it: I... fucking... okay, here’s a fun fact. did you know that I still get emotional over this panel almost a full two years after reading it?? obviously a good 84% of it is the context -- All Might losing his power; Deku being forced to take up the mantle before he feels ready; All Might feeling responsible for him; and both of them being so desperately grateful to have each other in that moment. but don’t underestimate that remaining 16% either though! this is just an extremely well-drawn hug, on top of everything else. All Might pressing Deku’s head to his shoulder with his fingers laced in his hair is some mighty fine fiercely protective hug tropes there, you guys. and the way Deku is clinging to his shirt so tightly his knuckles have probably gone white?? while he cries?? while both of them cry? ON THE BEACH? WITH THE WAVES LAPPING SOFTLY AT THE SHORE IN THE PEACEFUL NIGHT AIR?? jesus fucking christ. this hug contains more emotions than I am capable of carrying inside me at once. I just sort of have to let them flow in and out little by little until they finally subside.

why I like it: you bet I skipped right from Kamino straight to Deku VS Kacchan Part 2. no regrets. anyway, so these two panels are an absolutely gorgeous one-two punch. so much has changed from the days when they were innocent little kids marching off into the woods to have adventures. they’ve changed. their relationship has changed. and yet, at the end of the day, Izuku is still willing to follow Katsuki even without being given any kind of explanation. and Katsuki still seeks out Izuku when he’s on the verge of having a spectacular emotional breakdown. because he doesn’t know who else to turn to. and because despite everything, there is trust there still, on some deep, fundamental level neither of them fully understands or knows how to acknowledge. anyway, so these two panels just give me a ton of feels all about the passage of time and how everything changes and how you can’t get back what’s lost, but also sometimes if you look deep enough you find that parts of it were never fully gone.

why I like it: because in a striking display of dramatic main character energy, these boys decided to stage their life-changing destiny-affirming rival fight on the coolest possible stage in the middle of the goddamn night. and then Katsuki made it even better by producing WAY MORE SMOKE than his attack by all rights should have produced! and then they went and crouched down all symmetrically so as to more poetically make intense eye contact at each other. I really like panels with smoke and/or dust clearing dramatically. there are like four more of them coming up on this list. what can I say. it’s cinematic.

why I like it: I actually had this one as my icon for a while. it’s rare imo to see an action panel that’s so balanced and has so much going on and is so clean and easy to read. both of their poses are so dynamic. I like the way the arc of Izuku’s kick is drawn, and I love the way you can clearly see that Katsuki propelled himself backwards with his quirk in order to dodge it. it’s just a really cool little panel that for me perfectly sums up the general feel of this fight, and its awesome choreography.

why I like it: actually you know what, before I go any further, let me skip ahead a bit and add three more panels with this same energy.

I just really, really love these rare moments when all differences between them are momentarily forgotten and they’re just two teenage boys caught up in the intense pressure of an awkward social situation. the one enemy neither of them is the least bit equipped to handle. anyways Horikoshi clearly enjoys it too because he seems to delight in drawing it over and over and over.

why I like it: because it’s more billowing smoke and dust. because it’s Endeavor, the guy we all swore we would never ever root for, and then 160 chapters later Horikoshi pulls this shit without an ounce of shame. because it’s All Might’s pose, but tweaked juuuuuust enough so that Enji can avoid copyright claims. because he knew that pose well enough to know which arm not to use. because Endeavor is a profoundly flawed human being, wholly incapable of filling the void All Might left behind. and yet he still tries. because it’s better than nothing, and because it’s all he can do. it’s the one thing he can do, his sole redeeming virtue. he tries. he doesn’t give up. anyway so yeah, Horikoshi didn’t have to take the single most unlikable person in the entire manga and give him the world’s most controversial and openly scorned redemption arc. but he did! and I think it’s one of the best things about this entire manga.

why I like it: because nothing in BnHA is just black and white!! it’s messy and layered and complex, just like in the real world. Shouto despised his dad for almost his entire life. with good reason! Enji was abusive and selfish and treated his son more like a prized possession than a person. we as readers are fully aware of all of this, and we sympathize with Shouto 100%, and that’s completely by design. Horikoshi is well aware of this. so for him to still give us this little moment, where Shouto is so relieved that Enji survived that he drops to the floor and presses his face against his hands in this little prayer gesture -- whatever you think it might mean -- is just so fucking powerful, and again speaks to his commitment to refusing to let anything in this series be completely clear-cut and unambiguous. I love that the characterization of Shouto and Natsu hating their dad exists side by side with the equally authentic characterization of them being terrified that they’re about to watch him die. because those two things aren’t contradictory! sometimes that’s just how it is. anyway so this is a beautiful moment of nuance that instantly adds so much to this relationship with just a single panel.

why I like it: for once the symbolism is so obvious that even I can’t fail to miss it! Izuku’s face half in light and half in shadow as he thinks about the power bestowed on him. “All for One’s power.” anyway so in my mind Izuku having AFO could not be any more fucking foreshadowed if he was wearing a freaking t-shirt with the Musketeers saying on it and the background was peppered with little Sistine Chapel-esque images of AFO giving his quirk to his brother lmao. but regardless of how it does end up playing out, this is nicely done.

why I like it: I wasn’t sure whether I should include this image, given that I just made a whole separate post about it a few days ago. but I just really like it, okay. this is one of the all-time great entrances in the series. Bakugou being perched on that pole for absolutely no reason other than to add visual interest. Todoroki’s hair blowing dramatically in the wind. Katsuki’s frayed pant hems and characteristically asymmetrical facial expression. the fact that you just know both of them spent the ride home with their faces pressed to the windows of their taxi cab hoping desperately for an opportunity to break in their brand new licenses, and then lo and behold. that’s amazing you guys. it’s almost like you’re main characters or something.

why I like it: they did great.

why I like it: because I lost my fucking shit at this fucking reveal and can you even blame me?? we knew coming in how much trouble Endeavor and Hawks had dealing with just one of these Noumus, and then Horikoshi goes and divulges that the villains have at least A DOZEN MORE waiting on standby. including Hood right there in the foreground, which is a fantastic touch! this panel, for me, almost instantaneously established the League as a legitimate threat once again, and gave me the kind of spine-tingly evil vibes I hadn’t felt since the Kamino arc. and while the payoff might not quite have lived up to my expectations, the Mirko fight at least was more than worth it.

why I like it: BILLOWING SMOKE AND DUST CLOUDS. you just see this vast landscape of destruction that Tomura has oh-so-casually wrought, and this once-powerful enemy utterly defeated on his hands and knees bowing before him. and it’s just like, oh. Tomura just became a fucking king, didn’t he. he finally stepped up and became the main villain. really the main villain, not just an awkward fumbling NEET whose adopted dad is not-so-secretly pulling all the strings. he did this himself. he went out and conquered and Awakened and won himself a fucking army. and he’s just standing there so cool and casual in the aftermath of it all. and then he goes “oh wait, you guys have money right, that means you can buy us the good sushi.” yes, Tomura. yes.

why I like it: um because this panel is fucking amazing?? hello?? do I really need to explain this one. the detail is jaw-dropping. he’s got the little scars which are either from the head wound that caused his death, or from his Noumufication. his expression is fucking heartbreaking, and the transition from Kumo to Kuro is so subtle and seamless, and yet it distinctly is both of them. this panel is gorgeous and fucking haunting and almost made me gasp when I first saw it.

why I like it: the decision to have the night sky take up so much of the space in the panel was [chef kiss]. nothing says existential like the night sky on a cold winter’s night.

why I like it: this is the best panel in the entire fucking series.

why I like it: dude. showing his actual family holding onto him with their hands in the same spot as the severed fashion!hands was a stroke of genius in and of itself. but combining that with the emotional tension of them desperately trying to hold him back and protect him from AFO?? that’s just so fucking smooth it’s almost inhuman. just how much meaning can you cram into a single image?? sometimes I wonder just how far in advance Horikoshi plans these things.

why I like it: guess I’m just a big fat sucker for panels of Tomura calmly standing around in the ruins of his own senseless destruction. the sense of scale on this one is really great, too. and yet again, those dust clouds. gotta love it.

why I like it: because Tomura literally appears out of nowhere, like he’s ripping a hole through the fabric of time and space. it’s so fucking sudden and he looks evil as FUCK, and Deku and Kacchan are totally caught off-guard, and it is scary. this is one of those panels that made me say “holy shit” out loud. in fact I practically screamed it. and the angles are all funky and weird, and the sky is all BLACK FOR NO REASON, and it really just feels like Tomura could reach right over and just MURDER THEM like it was nothing. just like that. this panel is so incredibly effective at conveying how hopelessly outclassed the boys are. they’re not even in his league, and it’s honestly terrifying.

and on that happy note, we have come to the end of my list of favorite panels! and I gotta say, it’s really gratifying that a good deal of them are from this year alone. I said it in another post a few days ago, but imo the overall quality of the series has been insanely high as of late, and it honestly just blows my mind whenever I stop to think about it. the art is still this good six years into the game. the story is still this good. we are spoiled goddammit.

[manuscripts-dontburn]

Children of Virtue and Vengeance

Author: Tomi Adeyemi

First published: 2019

Pages: 404

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

How long did it take: 7 days

The first book was a solid beginning (if full of tropes) of an interesting adventure, which had especially its setting and cultural background as the main attraction. The second book, at first, seemed more interesting to me, with the characters aiming for the same goal but having vastly differing opinions of how to achieve it. And then, little by little, it somehow fell all apart. The plot did not advance beyond never-ending planning and the characters all either disappointed or became downright abhorrent. I sincerely hope the author will manage to pull it all together for the next instalment in the series, but she had some major job ahead of her.

The Mistresses of Cliveden: Three Centuries of Scandal, Power and Intrigue in an English Stately Home

Author: Natalie Livingstone

First published: 2001

Pages: 512

Rating: ★★★★☆

How long did it take: 16 days

This is a beautifully executed book, written in a very accessible, yet sophisticated manner, and introducing characters of five very interesting women. It is rather a "bummer" that none of those women actually comes across as likeable, in case of Nancy Astor the "unlikeable" became even "terrible" at times. Still, if, like me, you were previously not acquainted with these women, the book provides a solid introduction covering all the important moments of their lives. One thing that the book failed to do though was to actually explore the house of Cliveden. Given that the house was really the only major thing the five ladies had in common, it is used as a link, but never feels strong enough and the house appears as an afterthought rather than the focal point. I suppose the enjoyment of reading this book depends on what expectations you bring into it.

Opal

Author: Maggie Stiefvater

First published: 2018

Pages: 38

Rating: ★★★☆☆

How long did it take: 1 day

Gorgeous writing and atmosphere, but not much to hold on to in ways of a story. A sweet glimpse of three of the characters I enjoyed a lot in the previous books

Beneath the Sugar Sky

Author: Seanan McGuire

First published: 2018

Pages: 174

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

How long did it take: 1 day

Unfortunately, I was mightily bored with this one. Even though this story is about a quest, it felt rather ... plotless.

The King of Crows

Author: Libba Bray

First published: 2020

Pages: 547

Rating: ★★★★☆

How long did it take: 12 days

Review HERE

How to Be a Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals

Author: Sy Montgomery

First published: 2018

Pages: 208

Rating: ★★★★★

How long did it take: 3 days

I give this book five stars for the sheer, pure, overwhelming love for our animal companions that pours out of every single page. This is a very simple book that does not preach or deals in clichés, it is simply a love letter to the goodness of animals and everything we can learn from them.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

Author: Suzanne Collins

First published: 2020

Pages: 517

Rating: ★★★★☆

How long did it take: 5 days

I am going to go against the general consensus this time and say: I enjoyed this book. Perhaps my expectations were already low, and to be frank I was not bothered, like many other people, that the main protagonist is actually President Snow. Oh, the book has its problems for sure! For example, I can imagine the same story being more engaging if it was not told in a strictly chronological way and it did get somewhat slow and lengthy at times. The biggest issue is undeniably that this book was NOT NECESSARY. We know how this whole story ends after all. But if you want more from the Hunger Games world, this is not bad. I did find it very interesting to see the world from the point of view of someone as cunning and ambitious as Snow. I think the author capture very well his self-serving attitude and how his inherent selfishness coloured his decisions, while all along he could always justify everything to himself and actually believe he was in the right, he was a good person. The ending was actually brilliant, even though I would have liked a teensy little bit more clarity on the fate of a certain person. So... yeah.... subjectively speaking.... I liked this. More like 3,5 than a 4 stars, but you know Goodreads.....

Clap When You Land

Author: Elizabeth Acevedo

First published: 2020

Pages: 432

Rating: ★★★★★

How long did it take: 2 days

Elizabeth Acevedo has incredible power as a writer. In snippets of thoughts rather than whole sentences, she manages to express and stir so many emotions. In this book, she once again makes you feel and makes you care. Beautiful.

Take Courage: Anne Bronte and the Art of Life

Author: Samantha Ellis

First published: 2017

Pages: 352

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

How long did it take: 4 days

Review full of hurt to be found HERE.

Station 11

Author: Emily St. John Mandel

First published: 2014

Pages: 328

Rating: ★★★☆☆

How long did it take: 4 days

I am sorry to say I found this a fascinating concept but the book did not live up to its potential. The parts dealing with The End itself and the Symphony were great. Anything Arthur bored me and, IMO, did not provide the story with anything profound.

Young and Damned and Fair: The Life and Tragedy of Catherine Howard at the Court of Henry VIII

Author: Gareth Russell

First published: 2017

Pages: 512

Rating: ★★★★★

How long did it take: 5 days

Given how little is actually known about Catherine Howard, I am walking away from this book with a feeling that I got to know her. Where facts are shaky or missing, Gareth Russell offers information from various sources and draws possible conclusions, which he never fails to support with logic and knowledge. What I appreciate was how unbiased he is in his approach toward the people in this story. Way too often historians let their personal perceptions colour their research and make them highlight the theories and facts which best suit their chosen narratives, but that is not the case of this book. The result is a very readable book which presents both Catherine herself and the world she knew and that shaped her in vivid colours and complexity.

The Underground Railroad

Author: Colson Whitehead

First published: 2016

Pages: 306

Rating: ★★★★★

How long did it take: 4 days

A brutal story magnificently told. The author struck the perfect balance between the terror and respite, the hopeless and hopeful, the reality and make-belief. Extremely powerful as both a literary and educational experience.

Come Tumbling Down

Author: Seanan McGuire

First published: 2020

Pages: 206

Rating: ★★★☆☆

How long did it take: 2 days

Yeah... well.... aside from the second volume in this series, it has been pretty underwhelming. The book cannot decide whether it is poetic and passionate or whether it wants to see everything through a bunch of snarky (and not really funny at any point) teenagers. It tries to do both and the result is just not very good. It´s.... fine. (Also yeah... I am stupid so I skipped the fourth book by accident).

[majicmarker]

why did you dislike 'the hating game?' (haven't read it; i'm just curious)

AAAUURGGHH okay. OKAY. it’s been a hot minute since i read it, so i’m going off strictly memory here — i am thinking of doing a reread, for the record, but chances are high that’s just going to remind me of/reinforce my initial bad impressions — BUT — 

(oh god, this became an essay so fast, but to be fair to myself i’m coming off a depressive episode and almost everything in this world pisses me off, so this is just where we’re at. and, yeah, i’m really picking this shit apart, no doubt, but I've always owned up to being an enormously picky reader, so we’re off to the races here, i said what i said, etc., etc, ad nauseam) 

you know what, i’m gonna preface this with the One Thing I remember above all else about this book. i am 100% sure this wasn’t the intention but, oh my god, the one thing i will always remember is how lucy (the heroine) refers to one of her superiors as “Fat Little Dick.” dude’s actual name is richard, he’s short and annoying, blah blah. this is supposed to be funny, and i — much as i’m a fan of vulgar humor, lord, i’ll tell you about my favorite shows and movies sometime — find it so incredibly off-putting, that it’s the first thing I think of whenever i see this book mentioned. the immaturity of the nickname doesn’t bother me so much but it’s like, the fact that it’s meant to be clever that irks me. it’s just... gross, to me. this is really individualistic, but i can’t talk about this book without bringing this up because, for me, it set the whole tone for what i was about to read. this is the humor of the whole book, it falls cringingly flat to me, and that means a lot when it comes to a romantic comedy. 

in that vein... look, there is seldom an occasion in which i enjoy first person. this is completely a personal preference, so it’s not a point i hold against this book in particular, but i just... i really gave this book a shot, despite being immediately turned off by the style. first person runs rampant in romance and like, that’s fine, i do have a couple i enjoy and, anyway, it’s not a dealbreaker for me and overall it doesn’t actually speak to the quality of the work. like i said, total personal preference — but. but. it depends on how you write it, and i just didn’t see the merit of it here. I think we would have benefitted from dual pov, even if both sides were written in first person. 

a nitpick, perhaps! and tbh this particular detail might be suited to a larger discussion of narrative structure dependent on genre, but! in this case i just don’t like it and we can go from there. 

MOVING ON. 

lucy has no friends. what the fuck is that? she’s twenty-something and, as far as her character reads, quite sociable. even if she was some awkward mess (like, hey, me too, y’all should’ve seen me in my twenties), she’d probably still have, like, one person she could confide in, and yet... nada. (this is what i recall, anyway. as i said, it’s been at least a year since i tried this book out, so maybe i’m forgetting someone, but from what i remember, this fact stood out to me almost as plainly, painfully, as the “Fat Little Dick” gag.) i’m pretty sure all she has in this world is her job, her weird crush on josh, and her smurfs collection. also, she’s short. that’s cool, but it’s not a personality, and any which way i don’t need to be reminded of it every page. 

on a broader scale, i, personally, find lucy and josh both profoundly unlikeable. lucy is irritating and, if she were a friend of mine, i’d tell her to her face that she needs to get her shit together because this is ridiculous. and josh is just, an asshole? imo. he’s every other guy i’ve met at a bar who pretends he’s really into his personal development but at the same time he won’t go to a therapist. so, like, what’s the point? he’s dull at best, and i’m not surprised robbie amell’s been cast for the film adaptation (last i knew of, that is). and the thing is, like, in romance, the characters need to be likeable. you’re rooting for their personal lives; there is no “greater good” or whatever else at play here. all i care about are these people and, in this case… i can’t deal with them. if this was YA, absolutely, yes, i’m here for it. but, again, these characters are whole-ass adults. i don’t necessarily expect your life to be together at this point — mine certainly isn’t — but have some self-awareness, for the love of god. 

ON THAT NOTE, the book’s focus is on these twenty-something romantic leads, but it reads so juvenile. meg cabot’s high school romances have more self-awareness and depth than these career-oriented Adults. don’t get me wrong — i’m all for relatable, for insecure, for the identity struggles that really shape your twenties, because oh my god, do I Get That, but this was just all so… god, it reminds me of the stuff i’d write in junior high. it’s like what i imagined it was gonna be like to be a grown-up. this is probably personal preference all over again, but it doesn’t read authentic to me. it’s shallow, and sexual without being really, actually emotional. i’m seeing the lust, but i’m being force-fed the love. 

and, before i drop without precedent the whole “career-oriented” thing that the plot itself seems to have done — the professional, essential, conflict is never resolved. spoiler alert, i guess, but the conflict hinges on the love interests being up for the same promotion, but we end the book with the male lead quitting and taking a job elsewhere — so his career is stable, right, but the job that’s been waiting in the wings this whole time? your guess is as good as mine as to who gets it. much as i disliked this whole Thing, by the end i still hoped lucy would be offered some professional satisfaction, but we never actually find out.

and, listen, i don’t remember any of the sex scenes. i know they’re in there, but i have zero recollection because they’re boring. gratuitous, maybe, but that’s only if you believe some of the book’s naysayers. i guess i’m a naysayer, too, but it’s not because the sex stuff made me take up a confessional booth for ten minutes (no shame, i’m just saying, from experience, most priests don’t care if you read erotica, okay, they’ve heard it before and frankly they just wanna go home because it’s ten A.M. on a saturday and already they could use a shot of jack in their coffee), 

but if y’all know me, you know i love a good sex scene. what i’m getting at here is that, like, these ones just slid off my radar like melted butter. not good melted butter, either. (this is a bad metaphor, maybe. but the point is that i don’t remember them and i don’t even care.)

i guess, on the whole, the tone here doesn’t land for me. it’s just not real, it feels so forced, so wannabe funny and edgy and relatable, but none of those hit quite right. when i first read it, i recall thinking sometimes that “alright, this isn’t bad,” but then i had to deal with “Fat Little Dick” again, or i was constantly reminded of other things — lucy is short, josh is hot, they hate each other, no scenery is described in a way that i can actually picture it, yadda yadda — or else i was subject to quite a bit of body-shaming. that shit was casually sprinkled all over the place, which was both irrelevant to the story, to the characters, and it was just obnoxious. this sort of casual bigotry happens in romance all the time and, like, i’m over it, so i’m gonna point it out every time i try something new and it crops up. 

when this book was rec’d to me, when i saw all the accolades, i thought i was in for some new, fresh, revolutionary read — but then it wasn’t actually… anything. “sometimes it was sort of funny” is the best thing i can say about it, and that’s the best thing i can usually say about most other romances i’ve tried in the last couple years, so i’m not seeing the distinction here, i don't see anything special. i legitimately do not know why this book in particular is so popular. like, there are romances out there that i Hate, poetically, with the fire of a thousand suns, but at the same time i understand why they hit the bestseller list (yet another Discussion all on its own). but this one? i’ve got nothing. 

i’m tentatively considering doing a reread. as i mentioned earlier, but this is probably only going to reinforce everything i don’t like about it, which means eventually i could perhaps give you a more comprehensive answer as to why i so thoroughly Did Not enjoy this book. but, like, who even wants to read that shit? ireally don’t mean to be an asshole about this, but I Don’t Get It, and some of it legitimately pissed me off (the body-shaming, lucy having no friends, both of which are entire Essays onto themselves) — and it’s that second thing i’m not gonna apologize for. in case anyone wanted an apology, but… too bad. 

anyway, in the meantime, i hope this answers your question well enough. it’s actually probably Too Much. but i’m bored and lonely, so i’m gonna go off like a firework best i can, whoops. 

[orionsangel86]

im scared with where deancas is going and im actually really glad im not the only one, it was great to read your post on endgame destiel because i feel very strongly that way too. I want something to happen in the next couple of episodes. I hoped with the build up we saw in s12/13 was only back peddled because they want to leave destiel for the very endgame, but now they know s15 is the last and they knew that writing these episodes... i want to be optimistic, but have to be realistic too

The thing is, during the S12/13 escalation I was convinced Destiel was on the cards. The whole thing played out like a Victorian gothic romance novel. That ain’t subtext. That’s text. I maintain my stance that the mixtape was the point of no return on Destiel. They can’t come back from that. 

They HAVE hit the breaks since then, and it has constantly been a source of annoyance for me. Leaving me frustrated and confused that they would just stop like that. So yeah, we can float our theories and spec on the topic, but at the end of the day we have two directions left, either they pick up the pace and start making serious call backs to the S12/13 escalation right now and bringing that story to the front line again, or they keep it completely out of the main story, put all the focus on family instead of romance and leave the Destiel stuff out of the minds of the general audience. The second route could still give us something ambiguous at the very end, but it isn’t the grand love story I have always hoped for. I would still feel cheated if that happens. I just happen to think this is the more likely route. 

The next two episodes should give us an indication of which direction season 15 will follow. It all relies on several possible outcomes all related to Cas’s Empty Deal:

Option 1. The deal gets either no mention or only a very small mention and nothing happens in relation to it. Season 14 ends darkly, but not in a way that relates to Cas specifically. There is no obvious Destiel subtext, but Cas’s empty deal still looms over season 15.

This option means its all still up in the air but will leave me still feeling pretty negative over summer hiatus. By delaying the Empty deal completely until Season 15, there is still a potential for it to be triggered by romantic Destiel. The course could still change EVEN if Season 14 gives us nothing. I wouldn’t hold my breath, but I would still have a smidgen of hope that things could turn around.

Option 2. Cas goes to the Empty due to the deal triggering in the finale (as a Mary mirror this seems likely to me). It is NOT triggered by Destiel. It is triggered by Chuck’s return giving Jack a soul, fixing the current issues, and giving Cas the catharsis he has needed all series from his father that the boys got from John in 14x13. Cas finally being rid of his guilt over heaven and being able to finally free himself from heavens bonds could be enough to trigger the Empty deal if it is played alongside a happy Winchester family reunion.

In this option, Cas’s “permission to be happy” comes from Chuck, and him being accepted as a true Winchester brother. I think this option was foreshadowed in 14x18 especially with the MW carving on the table and the empty space still left under the SW:

If Cas’s deal is triggered this way, then I can’t see Destiel being a factor at all in Season 15 outside of the usual subtext. Simply because it takes away the one thing we all otherwise know to be as good as fact: that Cas is in love with Dean. For Cas to be truly happy, this option does imply that there is no unrequited (at least in his mind) love between him and Dean, and that he is completely at peace just being Dean’s brother. I feel this would be a huge disservice to Castiel as a character who has clearly IMO been written as in romantic love with Dean since at least season 6.

This option does however still give us something exciting - in terms of the poetic cyclic story telling currently being used in the show, having Season 15 start with Dean going to the Empty to rescue Cas in a reverse of Cas’s rescue of Dean in Season 4 is a beautiful potential plot that I would thoroughly enjoy. It doesn’t however mean Destiel - though I suppose there is a potential for them to explore even though it puts Cas’s feelings into question.

Option 3. Cas breaks or changes the terms of the Empty deal in some way - goes to the Empty of his own volition in order to save someone else or stop something.

This option is another potential cop out of the otherwise extremely tropey current deal. But writing it this way still does give us potential Destiel depending on Dean’s reaction and what happens next, because it once again leaves it open. It doesn’t confirm or deny Cas’s feelings for Dean. However it certainly wouldn’t rekindle my faith in endgame Destiel, but leave me even more curious as to what happens next.

Option 4. Cas goes to the Empty due to the elements in option 2 PLUS a confession or something from Dean giving us canon Destiel. 

Obviously this is the preferred option. In my opinion, the ONLY way that Cas would give himself permission to be TRULY happy and have the deal triggered in its current state would require the following things:

Jack’s soul is restored and he is back to normal

The Winchesters reunite as a strong family

Cas is TOLD that he is a part of that family unconditionally

Chuck returns and gives Cas the catharsis he needs to forgive himself for his actions in heaven

Dean confesses his love

(The final point being the trigger following all the previous elements taking place)

Do I think option 4 is likely? Not really. I just haven’t seen enough build up even in subtext for this to happen in the Season 14 finale. Do I think option 2 could happen without that final key point though? Yes.

At this stage I would honestly prefer options 1 or 3 taking place so I can at least still have hope in the ambiguity, but in my mind Cas is set up to go to the Empty at the end of the season. Mary’s death confirmed that to me, and the current treatment of Cas as well in the latest episode also seems to be setting up for his loss having a huge impact on the Winchesters. The story is being reset. Season 15 should start with Sam and Dean alone having lost everything, and then the course of the season leads them to fight for everything they desire. 

The reason I say this is that this season is all about asking the question “What do you want?” I want Season 15 to start with the Winchesters answering that question themselves, and then fighting to get it. 

Perhaps, if this does happen without the Destiel element at the end of season 14, there is STILL a small potential for Destiel to happen based on DEAN’S actions in Season 15, as Castiel’s return would be the answer to the question “what do you want?” when posed to Dean. I would still see it as a disservice to Castiel, but this would depend on how the show takes that potential story forward.

This is my spec anyway. Lets hope I’m wrong.

[janiedean]

“I like age gaps in ships” please fuck off

Bruce Springsteen’s Youngstown is a song originally written for his 1995 record The Ghost of Tom Joad, which won a grammy award for best new folk album and, going back to 1982′s Nebraska, picks up again on the subject of discussing social matters in the modern era United States.

Originally written as an acoustic piece, Youngstown was inspired by reading Dale Maharidge’s frankly great book (that all of tumblr should read) Journey to Nowhere: The Saga of the New Underclass, whose first four chapters are indeed focused on the saga of the town of Youngstown, Ohio, once famous for having been the most important steel producer in the United States before the mills got shut down in the late seventies/early eighties therefore bringing the city’s economy to a collapse and the unemployment rate/poverty rate to skyrocket, and therefore creating a whole new bunch of newly poor people who, in lack of skills other than manual work (in the book one of the workers says that 20% of his colleagues in the mills couldn’t even read or write, and tbqh I’d like to know if most of tumblr dot com wouldn’t help the world by getting angry that there’s such a high illiteracy degree in the US rather than at most stuff ppl on tumblr get angry about), hopped on a car with their family (or on a train on their own) and left for either Texas (where they’d be discriminated based on the Ohio license plates) or California to pick fruit (in pure Steinbeck fashion).

In this essay, I will explain you why Youngstown has some of the best lyrics ever written at least by Springsteen and how it’s a gem of a song that would eat for breakfast 99% of what people like on this godforsaken website like, while at the same time managing to join great storytelling with actual activism as it was about an issue that people feel so strongly about that they ignored it for years before then getting surprised when blue-collar workers went for Trump because he promised change.

Now, on to the lyrics!

The song opens with:

Here in northeast Ohio, back in eighteen-o-threeJames and Danny Heaton found the ore that was lining Yellow CreekThey built a blast furnace here along the shoreAnd they made the cannon balls that helped the Union win the war

This opening already shows why Springsteen is an extremely good lyricist, as in four simple lines we already learn all the backstory we need to know to have an idea of what’s up with Youngstown even if we aren’t from the US or know nothing about it anyway: we know where it is, we know when the steel producing started (1803) and who started it (James and Danny Heaton) and why (because there was ore in the area). Then we establish that everyone works with blast furnaces, the key to the entire song, and then we immediately link the steel factoring with their role in the wars the US fought, starting from Civil War cannonballs which helped the Union win the war therefore uniting the country.

Here in Youngstown, here in YoungstownMy sweet Jenny I’m sinking downHere darling in Youngstown

Except that from the refrain we know that things aren’t going well, since the narrator is sinking, and if we know (from the book but also from other sources) that Jenny was the nickname for one of the largest furnaces in the city, we immediately know what to expect from the rest of the song.

Going ahead:

Well my daddy worked the furnaces, kept ‘em hotter than hellI come home from ‘Nam worked my way to scarfer, a job that’d suit the devil as wellWell taconite coke and limestone fed my children and made my payThem smokestacks reaching like the arms of God into a beautiful sky of soot and clay

In the second stanza, we move on to the personal part of the song: the narrator talks about his daddy, suggesting that working in the furnaces was an hereditary job, and kept them hotter than hell, which introduces the second main theme in the song as in, the Heaven/Hell contrast which comes to fruition at the end. The narrator is a Vietnam veteran, so he’s supposedly a young man or young-ish, so the entire tradition of working in furnaces dates back a long time, and then he informs us that his job would suit the devil as well, connecting again with the fire/hell/hot imagery, which of course is not original but it’s immediately effective in this context, especially linked to blast furnaces.

The narrator then goes on to the economical discussion, as in, he fed his children and made his pay with the materials that go into making steel, taconite, coke and limestone, which is a rather poetic way of putting it, which keeps on in the hauntingly beautiful next line which is honestly a work of art: them smokestacks reaching like the arms of God (biblical image where God is again brought up in contrast to the previous Hell-ish immagery) into a beautiful sky of soot and clay (where we have a in-built contrast because soot and clay are not words associated with beautiful and actually soot = dirt = ugliness) suggests in a simple but haunting line how such a less than gratifying job is seen by these people as something to be proud of which creates beauty as he feeds their family and allows them to pay the bills.

Again, we have the refrain which suggests us that in Youngstown things aren’t going well, until the bridge goes into:

Well my daddy come on the Ohio works when he come home from World War TwoNow the yard’s just scrap and rubble, he said “Them big boys did what Hitler couldn’t do.”Yeah these mills they built the tanks and bombs that won this country’s warsWe sent our sons to Korea and Vietnam, now we’re wondering what they were dying for

This stanza is another proof of how Springsteen can manage to pack a lot of information into a rather short stanza without renouncing lines that drop on you like bombs ready to explode.

First, we learn that the narrator’s daddy was a WWII veteran, so there’s a direct connection in between how these people who build weapons for the US wars also fight in them (and if you read the book and know that a quarter of them couldn’t even read it’s… honestly unsettling), and then that the yard’s just scrap and rubble. “Them big boys did what Hitler couldn’t do” is lifted from a line in the book from an ex steel mill worker whose son was laid off from that exact same job and who also had fought in WWII, and proceeds to point out the severity of the situation in its haunting simplicity.

Then, we go back to the cannon balls that helped the Union win the war: since then Youngstown has built tanks and bombs that won this country’s wars along with its inhabitants but now they all closed, people are without job, the sons of the men who went to Korea and Vietnam died in there and came back to their only source of income gone, and now we’re wondering what they were dying for. Which, without saying, is implicitly but not-so-much a heavy critique of how the US government has no scruples sending men to war and then leave them to die and how the ones who survive feel betrayed when finding out they don’t even have a job anymore, or they can’t have the one job they trained for.

But it’s not over here: before the last refrain, we have:

From the Monongahela valley to the Mesabi iron rangeTo the coal mines of Appalachia, the story’s always the sameSeven hundred tons of metal a day, now sir you tell me the world’s changedOnce I made you rich enough, rich enough to forget my name

Here we went back at the beginning: the same way the first stanza told us everything we needed to know about Youngstown historically, this one tells us that Youngstown is not alone and the same economical waste and depression is to be found in all the places in the US above mentioned (Monongahela, Mesabi, Appalachia) where entire towns/counties are facing poverty because they lost their only source of income as the world changes but they’re not given the chance to change with them, because they only were trained for seven hundred tons of metal a day and now they know nothing else and so they’re told the world has moved on when they can’t move on with him.

And now we have what’s thematically the most important line of the song imo even if the next stanza is its symbolical perfect conclusion: you tell me the world’s changed once I made you rich enough, rich enough to forget my name. Here we have some vitriolic, angry criticism at the rich people who only care about their workers as long as they provide profit for them and then are ready to drop them like wasted junk the moment they’re not needed anymore and they’re rich enough to forget their name why they can’t feed their children and make their pay anymore, because of course a steel mill worker will make less than the CEO of the company selling the metal he makes or the bank taking away his house if he cannot pay for it anywhere.

Anyhow, for anyone else this would have been the climax, but since Springsteen is not the first idiot that walks by and can write a song, where anyone else would have left it there and concluded with a last refrain (same as above), he has a post-script after the refrain that ends the song without giving it the bridge-last stanza-refrain usual rock song closure:

When I die I don’t want no part of heaven, I would not do heaven’s work wellI pray the devil comes and takes me to stand in the fiery furnaces of hell

These two lines are a pure work of art in how they manage to wrap up the song by re-using thematically all the heaven/hell imagery previously established and leave the listener with an acute sense of dread.

The narrator, which before compared the smoke to the arms of God, doesn’t want to go Heaven because he wouldn’t do Heaven’s work well (let’s remember he built weapons and has fought a war, so we can assume he also is working through war-related trauma in that sense). He also prays that the devil comes and takes him which is technically an oxymoron as people don’t pray the devil (they pray to God or the angels or good entities, not to bad entities - the devil is summoned or evoked or you sell your soul to him, you don’t pray for him to come and take you), to stand in the fiery furnaces of Hell, which is the final connecting link to the before-laid-down Hell imagery and goes back to the initial furnace/hot/hell/devil imagery by giving it almost a positive spin. Indeed:

is a word that has positive connotation - strong, bright, blazing, brilliant, vivid, rich, strong, bold, passionate: same way as the workers felt about their steel mill jobs that were taken away from them and left them with a handful of nothing and struggling to make ends meet. So the ideal end is not to ascend to Heaven but to go to Hell where furnaces would be going for all eternity (furnaces only can work until they’re on and they have to be lighted up all day otherwise it takes an inane amount of money to start them again), fiery and proud, and patience if it’s Hell that’d take the narrator, because Heaven had nothing for him. And that’s why us listeners, even if not familiar with either Youngstown or its plight nor know shit about steel mills or how a blast furnaces work, at the end of the song feel upset and creeped out, because we’re put in front of a situation that’s gone to shit and where people have died and bled and worked all their life for nothing and gave themselves to wars that ultimately made the US what it is and gave it economic prosperity hoping to have their piece of the American dream and then get royally fucked and would rather go to Hell where their trade would be appreciated than ascend to Heaven like technically anyone Christian should want.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you write a damned great song that a) teaches the listeners something, b) discusses social issues within it, c) does its job of activism work as an extremely famous singer brings awareness to an issue that no politician gives a fuck about at least from what my poor Italians self can understand, d) is also not at all boring in either of its version. Actually, the original packs a punch in its quiet deliver while the electrical is just devastatingly angry and raging with that same fiery fervor described in the ending stanza, and both make an excellent job of delivering their message. Here is the original acoustic take played in Youngstown itself during the Ghost of Tom Joad tour:

Too bad that not many people on tumblr who like to pretend they’re doing activism listen to Bruce Springsteen.

Sad.

[gurguliare]

@vardasvapors was making vague noises about reading Dream of the Red Chamber so I decided to post another of my favorite scenes... this one is long and not as funny as I think it is, it’s just “two teenagers decide to cheer themselves up by being REALLY SCATHING abt one another’s poetry. then they are gatecrashed by a nun”

Imo the jankiness of the translation adds to the experience here because it makes the whole thing more reminiscent of. 2009 “writers’ society” forums where you got forum ranking points for the length, if not the fairness, of your reviews

*

Daiyu and Xiangyun had not gone to bed. This big family reunion in the Jia mansion, which the Lady Dowager still complained was less lively than in the old days, as well as her reference to Baochai and Baoqin celebrating at home with their own family, had made Daiyu feel so disconsolate that she had slipped out to the corridor to shed tears. As Baoyu was listless and distraught these days because Qingwen’s illness had taken a turn for the worse, when his mother urged him to go to bed off he went. Tanchun was in no mood for enjoyment either, with family troubles weighing on her mind. And as neither Yingchun nor Xichun was too intimate with Daiyu, that left only Xiangyun to comfort her.

“You should have more sense,” Xiangyun told her, “than to let this scene upset you. I have no family either, but I don’t take it to heart the way you do. With your poor health you ought to look after yourself. It’s too bad of Baochai and Baoqin. They kept saying our club must meet to celebrate the Moon Festival this year by writing a poem together, but now they’ve abandoned us and gone off to celebrate it on their own. Instead of our meeting to write a poem, the men and boys of the house have had things all their own way. As the old saying goes: ‘How can an outsider be allowed to sleep beside one’s bed?’ Well, if they won’t join in, why don’t the two of us write a poem together? Tomorrow we can shame them with it.”

As Xiangyun was trying to cheer her up, not wanting to spoil her fun Daiyu replied, “All right. But it’s too noisy here to have any poetic inspiration.”

“Enjoying the moonlight on this hill is good, but it’s better still by the water. You know that lake at the foot of this hill and Concave Crystal Lodge by the inlet there? A lot of thought went into designing this Garden. The crest of the hill is called Convex Emerald, and the creek in the lake below Concave Crystal. ‘Convex’ and ‘concave,’ so seldom used before, make fresh, original names. And these two places— one above, one below; one bright, one dark; one hill, one water—seem specially designed for enjoying the moonlight. Those who like to look at the moon from a height can come here; those who prefer to see its reflection in water can go there. But as these two words are usually pronounced wa and tu they’re considered rather uncouth. That’s why Lu You’s line ‘The old inkstone, slightly concave, brims with ink’ was scoffed at as vulgar. Ridiculous, isn’t it?”

“Lu You wasn’t the only one to use this word, so did many other writers of old—Jiang Yan in his poetic essay On Green Moss, Dongfang Shuo in his Miraculous and Strange Records, and Zhang Yanyuan in his Anecdotes on Painting when he described the frescoes Zhang Sengyou painted in a monastery. Why, there are too many instances to quote. But nowadays people not knowing this think these vulgar words.

“To tell you the truth,” Daiyu continued, “I’m the one who suggested both names. It was when we proposed names for places which hadn’t yet been given any and marked their localities. They were taken to the Palace and shown to Elder Sister who sent them to uncle, and he was delighted. He said if only he’d known he’d have asked us girls to help with the names, and he accepted them all without changing a word. Well, let’s go to concave Crystal Lodge.”

They walked down the hill, round a bend, and reached the lake. A path by the bamboo railings along its bank led to Lotus Fragrance Pavilion. The little building here, nestling at the foot of the hill on which stood Convex Emerald Hall, had been given the name Concave Crystal because it was on low ground close to the water. As it was so small, with few rooms, there were only two serving-women on night duty; and knowing that the ladies at Convex Emerald Hall would not be requiring their services, after enjoying their share of mooncakes, sweetmeats, wine and dishes, they had put out the lights and gone to bed.

“So they’re asleep—good,” said Xiangyun when they saw that the place was dark. “Let’s enjoy the water and moonlight under this awning.”

Sitting on two bamboo stools they gazed at the bright moon in the sky and then at its reflection in the lake, the moon above and its reflection below rivalling each other in magnificence. It was like being in some mermaids’ crystal palace. As a breeze ruffled the green water of the lake they felt thoroughly refreshed.

“What fun it would be to drink now in a boat on the lake!” exclaimed Xiangyun. “If we were at my home I’d take a boat out.”

“As the ancients often said: ‘What enjoyment can there be if everything is perfect?’“ remarked Daiyu. “To my mind this is quite good enough.”

“It’s only natural for men to hanker for more. Didn’t the old people often say: ‘The poor think the rich have all their hearts’ desire. Try to disabuse them and they won’t believe you—not unless they grow rich themselves.’ Take the two of us, for instance. Although we’ve lost our parents, we’re living in luxury, yet we have a lot to upset us.”

“We aren’t the only ones. Even their Ladyships, Baoyu, Tanchun and the others can’t have their way in everything big and small, even if they have good reason for wanting something. That applies to everyone. Especially girls like us who are living with other families, not our own....”

Afraid Daiyu would start grieving again, Xiangyun interposed, “Well, enough of this idle talk. Let’s get on with our poem.”

As she was talking they heard melodious fluting.

“Their Ladyships are in high spirits today,” Daiyu remarked. “This fluting is pleasant and should give us inspiration. As we both like five-character lines, let’s make regulated couplets in that metre.”

“What rhymes shall we use?”

“Suppose we count the bars from this end of the railing to the other to decide which category of rhymes to choose. For example, if it’s sixteen we’ll use the Xian rhymes. Wouldn’t that make a change?”

“That’s certainly original.”

So they got up to count the bars and found there were thirteen in all.

Xiangyun chuckled, “It would be thirteen! That means the yuan group of rhymes. There aren’t too many for a long poem of couplets, so it may be awkward. Still, you must make a start.”

“We’ll see which of us does better. But we ought to have paper and a brush to write it down.”

“We can copy it out tomorrow. There’s no danger of forgetting it before then.”

“All right then. I’ll start with a pat phrase.” Daiyu declaimed: “Mid-autumn’s fifteenth night is here again....”

Xiangyun reflected, then said: “As on the Feast of Lanterns we stroll round. The sky above is sprinkled with bright stars....”

Daiyu continued: “And everywhere sweet strings and pipes resound. Goblets fly here and there as men carouse....”

“I like that last line,” Xiangyun approved. “I must find something good to match it.” After a moment’s thought she said: “No house but has its windows opened wide. The breeze that softly fans the air is chill...”

“You’ve capped my attempt,” admitted Daiyu. “But your second line is trite. You should go from strength to strength.”

“A long poem with tricky rhymes had to be padded out a bit. We can use some good lines later.”

“If you don’t, you should be ashamed!” Daiyu went on: “But bright as day the fine night scene outside. The greybeard grabbing for a cake is mocked....”

“That’s no good,” laughed Xiangyun. “It’s not classical. You’re putting me on the spot by using an everyday incident like that.”

“I’d say you hadn’t read many books. This reference to cakes is a classical allusion. You should read the Tang dynasty records before you talk.”

“Well, you haven’t foxed me. I’ve got it.” Xiangyun capped the verse: “Green girls share melons, laughing themselves silly. How fresh the scent of jade osmanthus bloom....”

“That really had no classical source,” protested Daiyu.

“Tomorrow we’ll look it up for everyone to see. Let’s not waste time now.”

“Anyway your second line is no good, padded out with expressions like ‘jade osmanthus.’” She continued: “How bright the regal gold of the day-lily. Wax candles set the sumptuous feast aglow....”

“You got off cheap with ‘day-lily,’“ observed Xiangyun. “That ready-made rhyme saved you a lot of trouble. But there was no need to drag in praise of the sovereign on their behalf. Besides, the line after that is mediocre.”

“If you hadn’t used jade osmanthus. I wouldn’t have had to match it with day-lily, would I? And we have to bring in some opulent images to make it true to life.”

Then Xiangyun continued: “Wild drinking games the splendid park confuse. Opposing sides obey the self-same rule....”

“That last line’s good but rather hard to match.” Daiyu thought for a little then said: “Those guessing riddles hear three different clues. The dice is thrown and wins—the dots are red....”

Xiangyun said, “I like your ‘three clues,’ making something colloquial poetic. But you shouldn’t have brought in dice again in the next line.” She continued: “Drums speed the blossom passed from hand to hand. The courtyard scintillates with limpid light....”

Daiyu commented, “You capped my line all right but fell down again on the next. Why keep padding it out with the ‘breeze’ and the ‘moon’ all the time?”

“I haven’t brought in the moon yet. And anyway a subject like this can do with some purple patches.”

“Well, we’ll let it go for the time being. We can consider it again tomorrow.” Daiyu went on: “A silver splendour merges sky and land. For hosts and guests alike the same requital....”

“Why go on referring to others? Why not speak about us?” Xiangyun resumed: “Verses are written turn and turn about. One leaning on the barricade to think....”

“Yes, this is where we come in,” Daiyu remarked, then continued: “One ‘tapping the door’ to make the scene stand out. Engrossed as ever, though the wine is drunk....”

“Now we’re getting somewhere!” Xiangyun went on: “They savour the last watches of the night. Then comes a gradual end to talk and laughter....”

“Here’s where each line gets more difficult,” observed Daiyu, continuing: “Nought’s left now but the waning frosty light. By the steps, dew-drenched hibiscus blooms at dawn....”

Xiangyun exclaimed, “Now what parallel shall I choose? Let me see.” She stood up to think, her hands clasped behind her back, then said with a smile, “All right. Luckily I’ve hit on a word. I was nearly floored.” She resumed: “In the courtyard, mist the albizzia shrouds. Autumn rapids pour forth through the core of rocks....”

Daiyu sprang up with a cry of admiration. “This clever imp had really kept some good lines up her sleeve. Fancy coming out with ‘albizzia’—how did you think of that?”

“Luckily for me, yesterday I dipped into the Selected Writings of Different Dynasties and found this name. I didn’t know what tree it was and wanted to look it up, but Cousin Baochai said, “There’s no need for that. This is the tree whose leaves open out in the daytime and fold up at night.’ Not trusting her, I checked up and found she was right. So it seems Cousin Baochai really knows a lot.”

“It’s just the word to use here, and your line about ‘autumn rapids’ is even more felicitous, better than all the other lines. I shall have to cudgel my brains to match it, but I can’t possibly think of anything as good.” After a little reflection she went on: “Wind-swept leaves gather at the root of clouds. Lonely and pure the Lady of the Star....”

“The parallel will pass but the second line is a comedown,” was Xiangyun’s verdict. “Still, at least the sentiment suits the scene. You haven’t just used an allusion for padding.” She continued: “The Silver Toad puffs and deflates the moon. Elixirs are prepared by the Jade Hare....”

Daiyu simply nodded, then capped this: “The goddess flies towards the Palace of Cold Void. One soars on high to greet Weaving Maid and Cowherd....”

Xiangyun looking up at the moon nodded and continued: “One sails a barque to the heavenly maiden fair. The orb, for ever changing, wanes and waxes....”

“You’re using the same image again,” objected Daiyu, but went on: “At each month’s start and end, but its ghost is there. Clepsydra’s water had well-nigh run dry....”

Before Xiangyun could continue, Daiyu pointed at a dark shadow in the pool and exclaimed, “Look there! That looks like a man in the dark. Could it be a ghost?”

“You’re imagining things again. I’m not afraid of ghosts. I’ll hit it.” Xiangyun bent to pick up a stone and threw it into the pool. Splash! Ripples radiated out to shatter the moon’s reflection, which then rounded out again. When this had happened several times, they heard a cry in the dark shadows and a white stork took wing straight towards Lotus Fragrance Pavilion.

“So that’s all it was,” chuckled Daiyu. “I didn’t think it could be a stork. It gave me quite a fright.”

“How amusing—it’s given me an idea.” And Xiangyun declaimed: “The lamp by the window is no longer bright. A stork’s shadow flits across the chilly pool....”

Daiyu exclaimed in admiration again, stamping her foot. “This confounded stork had helped her! This line is even more original than the one about ‘autumn rapids.’ How am I going to match it? The only parallel for ‘shadow’ is ‘spirit.’ A stork flitting across the chilly pool sounds so natural, apt, vivid and original too! I shall have to give up.”

“We can find something if we both think hard, or else leave it till tomorrow.”

Daiyu still looking up at the sky ignored her. After a while she suddenly laughed and said, “You needn’t gloat. I’ve got it. Listen.

“The poet’s spirit is buried in cold moonlight.”

Xiangyun clapped her hands. “Very good indeed! The only possible parallel. Burying the poet’s spirit—wonderful.” She added with a sigh, “Of course that line’s distinctive, but it’s rather too melancholy. Now that you’re unwell you shouldn’t make such strangely sad and depressing lines which sound ill-omened.”

Daiyu chuckled, “If I hadn’t, how was I to beat you? But I worked so hard on it, I haven’t got the next line yet....”

Just then someone stepped out from behind the rocks on the other side of the balustrade and laughed.

“A fine poem, a fine poem!” she cried. “But it is too melancholy. You’d better not go on. If you continue in this way, these two lines won’t stand out so well and the poem may seem padded and forced.”

Daiyu and Xiangyun, caught unawares, were startled to see Miaoyu. “Where did you spring from?” they asked.

“Knowing you were all enjoying the moon and listening to fine fluting, I came out to admire this clear lake and bright moonlight too and on my way here suddenly heard the two of you poeticizing, which seemed the height of refinement. So I stopped to listen. You’ve made some good lines but as a whole it’s too mournful—or was that fated? That’s why I stepped out to stop you.

“The party broke up long ago and the old lady’s left the Garden. Most of the others here must be asleep, and your maids will be wondering what’s become of you. Aren’t you afraid of catching cold? Come back to my place now for a cup of tea. The day will break any minute.”

“I’d no idea it was so late,” said Daiyu.

The three girls went to Green Lattice Nunnery. They found the lamp before the shrine still lit and the incense in the censer not yet burnt out, but the few old nuns there had gone to bed leaving only one young maid dozing on a hassock. Miaoyu roused her to brew tea. Then came a sudden knocking on the gate, and the maid opened it to admit Zijuan and Cuilu with some old nurses come to look for Daiyu and Xiangyun.

Seeing them drinking tea they said laughingly, “You had us searching the whole Garden—even Madam Xue’s place—for you. We were looking just now in that small pavilion at the foot of the hill, and luckily the night-watchers were awake. They told us two people had been talking under the awning outside. Someone else joined them and they spoke of going to the nunnery. That’s how we’ve tracked you down.”

Miaoyu told the maid to take them to another room to have a rest and some tea. She herself brought out a brush, inkstone, paper and ink and asked the girls to recite their composition, which she wrote down from start to finish.

Finding her in such a good mood Daiyu said, “I’ve never seen you before in such high spirits. If not for that I wouldn’t presume to ask for your opinion. Is this poem worth polishing? If you think not, we’ll burn it; but if it is, will you please make some corrections?”

“I won’t venture to make rash comments, but as you’ve already used twenty-two rhymes I expect you’ve produced your most striking images and if you go on you may tire yourselves out. I’d like to round it off, only I’m afraid I may spoil it.”

Daiyu had never read any poems by Miaoyu, and as the young nun was so eager she urged her, “Please do! That may make out feeble attempts seem passable.”

“We must wind up the poem by reverting to the present situation. If we pass over true feelings and incidents and simply search for striking images and expressions, we’ll be losing our identity and departing from the main theme.”

“Quite right,” they concurred.

Miaoyu picked up her brush and wrote her addition straight off, then showed it to the other two, saying: “Don’t laugh at me! I feel this is the only way to get back to the theme. Then a few sad lines earlier on won’t matter.”

They took what she had written and read:

The incense in gold tripods has burnt out, And ice-white oil in the jade basin forms; Fluting recalls a widow’s lamentations As a small serving-maid the silk quilt warms. On empty curtains a bright phoenix hangs. The idle screens gay ducks and drakes enfold; Thick dew has made the moss more slippery, And heavy frost makes bamboo hard to hold. Strolling again beside the winding lake, Climbing once more the solitary hill, The rugged boulders seem contending ghosts; The gnarled trees, wolves and tigers crouching still. Dawn lights the tortoise pedestal of stone, On outer trellis now the thick dew falls. A thousand woodland birds begin to stir, In vales below a single gibbon calls. How can we stray on a familiar road? Why ask the way to fountain-heads we know? The bells chime in Green Lattice Nunnery, The cocks in Paddy-Sweet Cottage start to crow. With cause for joy, why grieve excessively, Or needlessly display anxiety? A maiden’s feelings none but she can vent— To whom can she confide her nicety? Speak not of weariness, though night is done, Over fresh tea let us talk on and on.

She then appended the title “A Poem Written Collectively with Thirty-five Rhymes While Celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival in Grand View Garden.”

Daiyu and Xiangyun heaped praise on this ending. “We’ve been ignoring a talent right under our eyes, yet trying to seek what is far away!” they exclaimed. “We have such a superior poetess here, yet every day we pretend to be able to write.”

[cassatine]

some thoughts on Valerian

(I wanted to do this earlier but I came back from the movie in the middle of the night, scribbled a few notes, promptly fell asleep, and then the last two days were pretty busy)

There’s good news and bad news, as expected - the good news being that I loved it, the bad news that it’s nonetheless full of flaws. In all fairness, I’m very attached to the comics, so i’m shamelessly putting “adaptation/characterization choices I disagree with” among the flaws, becAUSE. 

It was faithful enough to the spirit of the comics, I’m just a nitpicker

I mean MY BABIES ON THE BIG SCREEN let’s be real I’m just happy this movie exists and i’m faking objectivity

The acting was pretty uneven; overall I think there was more good than bad, but the bad was... really not good. There’s the blue screen effect, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if some scenes come out better on mute tbh because

Dialogue gets pretty clunky in places - there’s more talking than Besson usually goes for, but it’s his usual style of one-liner after one-liner. It’s not that bad when it comes to action scenes but it doesn’t do any good to the romance ones

Sadly the romance subplot wasn’t very well handled - there’s the clunky dialogue, but also it’s basically trying to cram nearly a dozen albums worth of subtle, background character development in a few scenes, all the while flipping the bird to “show don’t tell”. 

I have so much ranting to do on that

Related: I really, really love Laureline’s backstory in the comics; it’s barely ever mentioned that she comes from the Middle Ages, but she does, adapts to The Future beautifully, isn’t wowed by it enough that she doesn’t criticize or points to injustice when she sees it, and literally no one ever makes a joke about her being a primitive because of when she comes from and I’m not even getting into her relationship with Valerian 

At least Dane DeHaan has the puppy crush look down pat. 

The end of the Kyrian sequence felt like the wrongest, characterization-wise - Valerian and Laureline smiling and joking less than five minutes after the rest of their (however temporary) team is decimated is... basically the kind of things the comics aim not to do.

I’m split on Bubble - I really like the amorphous blobs of the comics and their finding humans unattractive tbh (the joke doesn’t get old, ever) ; but the dance scenes was wild and the backstory opens a window into a side of Point Central Alpha the movie doesn’t otherwise dwell much on - it’s a cesspool of corruption, a place of controlled chaos as much as much as it’s a (mostly symbolic) beacon of civilization ; but why does she have to die damnit ; I need a rewatch.

The Pearls come straight out of the uncanny valley - the proportions are just off enough that it feels wrong

They must have some really light bones or Mül had a lighter gravity than Earth. 

Also that’s got nothing to do with how they look, but wow, Noble Savages much 

It’s eye-poppingly gorgeous, a colorful explosion of wow in your retina in the most bonkers way and i’m there for it

The opening sequence was amazeballs. It was beautiful and poetic and an unabashedly optimistic view of the future, a manifesto in itself and I loved it to death

I mean, love science fiction under all its forms, from the hardest of hard sf to the space!wizards, but currently the grimdark kind of reigns supreme and it’s not that I don’t like it, it’s that I also like the crazily colorful optimist stuff and there’s not enough of it

First contact that’s not an alien invasions! 

No ‘humanity bands together in the face of alien threat” narrative (because clearly only common hate and fear of the Other can brings humans together, it is known)

No but really, that sequence was so good that I can even forgive changing Alpha’s backstory. Called Point Central in the comics, its origin is lost in time, long predating humanity’s descent from the trees - because we’re not that special. Humans are only one species among many on Point Central, and not to get into details but it’s wanting to be more that gets them thrown out of Point Central. The trope deconstruction is much more thorough in the comics - there’s no Commander trying to hide his war crimes, but an Ambassador who wants humans to be the first among equals kinda (to make a long, trippy story short).

Commander or Ambassador, it’s still a human that’s the aggressor, so to say; with humanity as the early founders of Alpha, we get a great slice of optimism, one that needs to be tempered by a reminder that humanity can also be pretty awful. In the context of the movie, the Ambassador wouldn’t work as well - he’s not really a villain, and fundamentally steeped in idealism, whereas the Commander is most definitely not; he’s the worst of us, ready to go to any length to cover-up his war crime. He’s a very banal kind of evil - it’s the point, and imo, so’s the fact that he rose to be Commander 

Alpha’s not perfect, and neither’s the human government; that line from Laureline about disliking the usual procedures (or smthg, i don’t remember exactly what she says) isn’t random either

That “United Humans Federations” marking on the floor of the meeting room, interesting choice

There’s more but second viewing first. Definitely need one. Or two. Or -