#maybe since there’s less episodes they’ll have more cohesive plot

[gayasslovestory]

2020 a year in a review was really good and funny and i loved seeing them reestablish macdennis and chardee. not sure if they’re ever gonna address any of the shifts in their dynamics (caused by dennis moving to north dakota and time’s up) but oh well. lethal weapon 7 felt a little too on the nose for me plus you know i hate seeing straight dennis but loved seeing artemis pepperjack and donovan mcnabb/don cheadle/tiger woods so all in all it was an okay episode

[fireladybuckley]

911 Verse this or that

Indirectly tagged by @perfectlynervousbeard <3 

Buck or TK. Look I adore TK, Ronen is seriously one of the cutest guys I’ve ever seen and TK is adorable and easily my favourite LS character.  But it’s not even close when comparing him to Buck, Buck is my comfort character, my absolute favourite of just about anything, ever.  I adore Oliver and there’s not a single person you could compare to Buck that I would pick over him, lol.

Eddie or Carlos.

Again, I really do like Carlos.  I firmly believe Carlos (Rafa) doesn’t get enough screen time and his character development suffers because of it and I hate that.   But again, I love Eddie just SO much.  Comparing him and Carlos isn’t fair because they’re very different and Eddie’s storyline and character in general are SO much more developed, I feel like we’ve gotten to know him so much better and that just makes me love him more, I’m more attached.  Plus Eddie’s relationship with Christopher alone is just so precious and I love it so much.

Bobby or Owen.

Easiest question ever.  Bobby is amazing and the best dad and Owen sucks.

Chimney or Judd Not that I hate Chimney or anything (he gets on my nerves sometimes but overall he’s fine) but Judd is just wonderful.  I love his whole southern gentleman vibe while also being a bit of a mischievous little shit which makes me laugh.  And the way he loves and respects his wife is just so refreshing to see. <3

Hen or Marjan I wonder if this is kind of like how I feel about Carlos; I really like both Carlos and Marjan, but I feel like I barely know them.  Marjan is badass and awesome and everything but aside from her arranged marriage stuff, I feel like we barely know anything about her.  Whereas with Hen, I feel like we know her so well she could just be my best friend and it would be amazing.   She’s smart, compassionate, hilarious and just awesome and I adore her.  I also love her relationship with Karen and Denny and now Nia.  If they take Nia away I’m going to riot

Maddie or Grace.  This one was tougher, and REALLY close.  I really love Grace, she’s amazing and badass and I love her and Judd’s relationship.  I just like Maddie slightly more.  I love how much Maddie has overcome and how strong she is, how she took care of Buck their whole lives (which was NOT fair to her), and I love their sibling dynamic.  I love her relationships with the other 9-1-1 operators.

I will say though that they are both BADASS 9-1-1 operators and they are both queens.

Athena or Tommy Tommy’s fine but she’s very new and I feel like I don’t know her at all (though I love Gina Torres).  Not that that matters, however;  Athena is QUEEN and no matter how awesome Tommy could be, she would never surpass Athena.  Athena is just so amazing and I love her so much.  She is compassionate, badass, hard working, hilarious, terrifying when mad but at the same time so gentle and kind.  Her and Bobby are amazing together (especially earlier in their relationship), she’s such a good mom to Harry and May (and by extension Buck, and maybe even Eddie).  She’s just amazing, ok.

Albert or Mateo  I’ll be honest, I was going to choose Albert because I find him adorable and funny and I wish we knew more about him.  But this time it’s the opposite problem of the others... I feel like we barely know Albert, even though he’s been around for a while now.  The 9-1-1 writers have done a terrible job giving him meaningful backstory imo.  Like he’s been in LA for how long now?  Does he even have a job?   Is he still speaking to his parents? We know barely anything about him besides that he’s Buck’s roommate and he has been on some dates.

Mateo on the other hand is much more flushed out.  I loved the story arc where he is just SO dedicated and driven to become a firefighter despite his dyslexia and I’m so glad it was made possible for him to have allowances for the test.  I love that his crew doesn’t mock him for it or treat him like he’s stupid, they ALL help him as much as they can, and I LOVE when Marjan goes and gives the tattoo parlour who intentionally fucked up his tattoo a reaming.  He’s an earnest, eager younger brother who just wants to help and prove himself and I think he’s adorable.

Michael or Paul. I like Michael, but I like Paul a bit more.  I just wish they would give him more screen time and a storyline that doesn’t involve people being transphobic.  I’m sorry (not sorry) but the sister storyline thing still pisses me off

118 or 126.  The 118, no question.  They feel far more cohesive as a team and I love their relationships more, both with each other and with other people.  The 118 feels so much more real than the 126, and I’ve no doubt it’s because of LS’s continued sidelining of its characters that are not Owen (and, I’ll admit, TK.  I love that he gets a lot of screen time, but not if it comes at the expense of Marjan/Paul/Mateo being shunted to the side). 

Maybe the 126 will get better with time.  I’m certainly hoping that with TK in his new role, maybe they’ll bring in another firefighter to replace him (hopefully a woman!  Both shows definitely lack women in the fire-fighting department imo - but the OG is definitely worse; only Hen in 9-1-1, and only Marjan in 9-1-1 LS but at least LS has Tommy and Nancy as medics.  the 118 needs another featured woman firefighter!!)

California or Texas.  I don’t know if it’s the filming choices or if Texas is just like that (having never been there, I have no idea), but Texas doesn’t seem nearly as nice as California.  That could just be my personal preference; I love lush greenery far more than the more desert-y types of things, and I love the ocean so much.  I feel like LA has prettier settings, and LS is more gritty.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that at all, I just prefer pretty haha.

Buddie or Tarlos I feel like this is a bit of an unfair question, since it’s still up in the air whether Buddie even exists in canon, and Tarlos is unquestionably real.

But of course, if I’m forced to choose, it’s Buddie.  And that’s not to say Tarlos isn’t amazing, because it is... I adore BOTH ships so much.  I’m just too drawn into Buddie, and how their personalities compliment each other, and Buck’s special relationship with Chris that places him firmly into the Diaz family unit, Buddie or not.  I really do feel like they’ve set them up 100% as a potential romance and as far as slow burns go, it’s amazing so far.  Plus, even if they don’t become a couple, I am still so invested in them as best friends.

That being said, Tarlos is fucking adorable and I live for their scenes on LS <3

Tsunami episode(s) or Tornado episode.  There was just SO MUCH going on with the tsunami.  Of course the entire plot arc with Buck and Christopher is amazing and easily one of my favourites in the entire series, but I also loved that the tsunami episodes showed EVERYONE in their element, doing everything they could to help people.  I love that it brought Lena into the mix (I know the fandom is divided on her but I love her unashamedly).  The amazing scenes with Athena and May, the scenes with Maddie and that girl with the drone... it was just SUCH A GOOD ARC and I love it.  The fact that I can remember SO much about it and I barely remember what happened with the tornado tells me just how much more I enjoyed it, as well.

911 or 911 Lone Star.  Unquestionably 9-1-1.   I feel like the firefam has become part of my own extended family and I just don’t feel that with LS.  Maybe after a couple more seasons it’ll be more like that, but for now, 9-1-1 is EASILY my favourite.  I do love LS too, though.  I just wish there was less of Owen and more of everyone else.  AND I WANT MORE CROSSOVERS!!!

I have no idea who has been tagged so I’m just going to pick a few random people.  If you’re reading this and want to do it, consider yourself tagged by me!  (And tag me back so I can read yours! <3) @firemedicdiaz @that-firehouse @bicepsie @tulipsfrom-medusa @evaneddie @kittycat-cas @bvckleydiaz @ashavahishta @matan4il And anyone else!!

[bluephoenixdruidicprincess]

Still getting caught up on TeamFourStar's D&D campaign. And I've at last reached the moment I've been dreading, the moment where I have to say goodbye to my favorite character, Ezra Lockwood. I will surely miss Ezra -- the dashing, jovial half-elf rogue just trying to set up a traveling theater company while hoping that one day he'll run into his father and be able to unload years of parental abandonment issues. He stumbled upon becoming a captain of a ship and leading a crew of misfits and basically became the glue that kept this weird and dysfunctional family together.

I knew this moment was coming, I'd been spoiled for it a few weeks back by someone but it doesn't make it hurt any less. In fact, it makes it hurt even more because his death happened off-screen and there was no real build-up to it. It was really weird how Zito (the DM) executed this. The episode prior ended with a victory, our heroes won the encounter, and we were left off with them gazing in both horror and wonder at the evil henchman they managed to turn into a tree (trust me, it makes more sense in context). And we go from there into the next session and Zito gives us a flashback that basically tells the audience the current party is dead, they were TPK'd offscreen, they failed their mission and now the whole world this campaign takes place in is in disarray and has gone to total shit. Now, it's up to Wake, the party member they left behind, to pick up the pieces and to save the world in their place. I don't hate that this happened, as far as the actual decision of doing it goes, I'm fine with this plot twist. I just think the plot twist happens in a really weird spot. I could understand using this plot twist as our heroes are about to reach the end goal of their mission. You know, the group has faced and conquered every other obstacle in their way and now they're walking off into the sunset to face the final challenge, the main goal of their mission -- end the session there. Then, the next session, we go into this flashback where we're being told everyone is dead and it's now all up to Wake, the guy who initially left the party because he was worried that his presence might get all of them killed if he stayed ironically enough. So, I'm actually really interested in seeing how Wake deals with this. I mean, he was Edge-Lord McEdge-Lord before all this, I can only imagine how much of an edge lord he's going to be knowing that he left his friends in order to protect them and then they subsequently died on their very next mission. So like I said, I don't hate that this plot twist happened, I just feel like it happened in a very weird place and it also just feels really cheap and unsatisfying from a story-telling perspective. I know I know, it's a D&D campaign, story-telling can get a little wonky in campaigns, I really probably shouldn't expect totally cohesive story-telling but I can't help it. I haven't been watching this campaign for the game mechanics, I've been watching for the story so of course I'm going to get a little critical of something that just feels really out of place.

And obviously, I know why this plot twist happened in this moment. Ben's sudden departure from TeamFourStar no doubt was what lead to this plot twist, they had to write out the Eloy character (which is another fantastic character in this campaign) and this was how they decided to do it. I can't really blame them for it, they really were caught between a rock and a hard place and this was probably the best option they had. But still, it's kind of disappointing that we lost Ezra before he had any chance to really complete his own goals. He never truly got his traveling theater company, he never got a chance to find his father. If Ezra truly is dead, I can only hope that Wake's story ends with him finding Ezra's father and getting revenge for Ezra and organizing a traveling theater company to keep Ezra's dream alive. There never was a body though, so I'm holding onto hope that Ezra isn't really dead. Perhaps one day, Ezra will make a reappearance. But in the meantime, we do have some new characters although while they are cooky and fun characters, they're missing the charm and chemistry the original group had. The characters of Wake, Eloy, and Ezra played so well off of each other, they were all funny in their own ways and their personality and humor complimented each other's perfectly and these new characters just really don't have that. This new group just doesn't have that sense of cohesion. I feel like Wake and Brian's character Morgan are too similar for me to enjoy interactions between them (that and I just feel like Brian is always playing the same type of character so Morgan just feels like a character I've seen before), Chromagil is so funny and quirky and I feel like he's really the one that's pulling the weight of this campaign currently but while he's funny and he makes me laugh, I'm just missing an investment in him as a character. It's like what I said before, these characters on their own are fun but as a group, they're just missing that chemistry and charm this campaign used to have. But I still have a ways to go. I've only spent a couple of episodes meeting these new characters so maybe they'll grow on me later. These are just general thoughts I've been having in regards to what I've been seeing lately. But these past couple of episodes have made me kind of nostalgic for the first two chapters, our players' characters and NPCs were so fun and so interesting and it just feels like the charm has been missing ever since we arrived at Plot Device Adventure Town (otherwise known as Wright, or is it Right? Or Rite? I'm not sure on the spelling of the town). I'm still enjoying the campaign just maybe not having as much investment in it as I used to.

[purrincess-chat]

You're absolutely right lol why is it that the main female is always expected to grow and take responsibility for her emotions, even when she’s not at all in the wrong but when the guy is acting up it's cuz of his "man pain" and any bad behavior isn’t his fault and he’s immediately emphasized with. Because, oh, all of his wrong doings are the reflection of the world’s, not him. This “girls are flawed for having emotions and boys are not” trope is annoying and not at all a good message for girls

So, I’ve put off commenting on all of this for a few days because I wanted to see what other things came out of it and take time to stew over my opinions and give Thomas a chance to potentially explain himself further. Gonna include a bulk of this under the cut because I don’t know how long it will be. It’s just gonna be a mixture of me rambling about my thoughts and being a little salty. Not too much I don’t think, I dunno we’ll see when we get there. (spoiler I get kind of salty… and by kind of I mean a lot)

For anyone who doesn’t know what this refers to, a few days ago someone asked Thomas on Twitter what he considered to be Adrien and Marinette’s biggest flaws to which he replied that Marinette has “poor control of her emotions” and that “Adrien is perfect. But his flaw comes from the fact he’s not accustomed to the “ outside” world. His innocence makes him vulnerable. To sum it up: he’ s not flawed. The world is.”

This did not sit very well with fans who are already not too pleased with Thomas and his treatment of certain characters, for good reason. It does come off as misogynistic, and even if he is just trolling and not being serious, why does he want to troll in such a way that he comes off as misogynistic when he’s supposed to be writing a cartoon that empowers girls? Salt under the cut: (seriously, the Dead Sea ain’t got nothing on this salt)

For me, this didn’t surprise me too much because Thomas has always spouted shit and come off as extremely rude and belittling to fans even if they aren’t doing anything wrong or being aggressive, i.e. this fan who just asked him for his opinions, not even asking for spoilers, and who genuinely wanted to chat with him about his show. I could write novels about how un-progressive this show is and all of the unconscious misogyny that’s in it, which Thomas will deny wholeheartedly, and actually did in this same thread. I don’t know whether or not he genuinely doesn’t realize that his episodes are riddled with internalized misogyny or if he just doesn’t care? Because many times throughout both s1 and s2, male characters acting problematically have been glazed over, and not just in Adrien’s case, whereas females, typically Marinette, get a much harsher treatment when shown in similar circumstances. Females (Marinette) are often made out to apologize for other characters wrongs and their actions are blown way out of proportion when they do even the tiniest thing wrong.

Take Glaciator, for example: Ladybug tells Chat straight up that she probably won’t make it because she already has other plans. Chat still gets his hopes up and believes she will come which that in and of itself isn’t necessarily wrong, but when she doesn’t show up, which he knew she might and was even reminded by Plagg that she didn’t say yes, gets angry and throws a temper tantrum at her for not showing up when she told him from the beginning that she probably wouldn’t. And then SHE has to apologize to him sincerely and practically plead with him for forgiveness and in turn all she gets is a *shrug* Sorry. Maybe next time. What is the message you are hoping to convey with this, Thomas? “Women should be more decisive when giving men answers?” We aren’t fucking psychics. She didn’t know how her evening was going to play out and if she’d have time to show up. “She didn’t say no.” Yeah, but not saying no isn’t automatically a yes. That’s how most men get convicted of rape. Didn’t say no =/= yes. “I really wanted you to show up and when you didn’t that hurt my man feelings because you didn’t say no, so I got my little hopes up.” Cry me a river. Really couldn’t care less. Like real talk, if a man ever pulled that shit on me I’d block his ass to hell. If I explicitly state that I probably won’t make it, and then some asshole gets upset when I definitely do not just because I didn’t say no? Bitch, bye??? You are not entitled to my time, and if that’s the attitude you’re going to have then you are not worth my time. But ohhh Chat is such a sad, pouty cinnamon roll whose daddy doesn’t love him enough to eat dinner with him, boo-hoo.

Not to mention at the end when Ladybug tells him they can’t be together for very legit reasons like, um, the safety of everyone they care about, Adrien is just like *sigh* I’ll just keep hoping. Like bitch she rejected you. Move on. That exact mindset of “if I keep trying maybe she’ll eventually love me back” is exactly why women feel unsafe to walk the streets at night because men feel like if they keep pestering women that eventually they’ll see the error of their ways. Which just no. That’s obsessive as fuck and men often get really violent with women when they eventually don’t like them back. (not saying that Adrien would, he’d probably just throw another hissy fit and take off his ring) But this show is aimed at children, and that’s not a good message to teach boys who are not Adrien and won’t necessarily react the way Adrien did. If a girl rejects you, move the fuck on. She doesn’t owe you shit just because you like her, and your continued advances will likely only make her uncomfortable and less inclined to like you back. Reminds me of a post I’ve seen where someone’s teenage nephew talks about how a girl rejected him, and when the aunt asks him what he’s gonna do he says “keep trying” and she’s like bitch, no. Leave her alone, and it blows his fucking mind. Men are constantly reinforced on this “keep trying until she says yes” mindset, and it’s honestly why violence against women is so prevalent. Because manbabies never get told that women don’t owe them affection or sex or whatever the fuck they want. And you know when a good time to teach them how to respect a woman’s boundaries is? When they’re children.

“But I was talking about Adrien, not Chat Noir.” Yes. Thomas actually legit separates the two in this instance. I’m not making it up. Mr. Ship Wars are stupid because Adrien and Chat are the same person has separated the two as not the same person. It doesn’t matter if they’re “treated differently”. Chat’s flaws are Adrien’s flaws and vice versa. They’re both petty and jealous. (And, no, Adrien defense squad, I don’t hate him as a character or even think he’s a bad person. Recognizing character flaws isn’t the same as hating. Unclench) 

This isn’t a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde situation where the two halves function separately and have no recollection afterward. Taking off the mask doesn’t suddenly make all of those flaws disappear. It also doesn’t make sense based on his earlier reasoning that “Adrien doesn’t know how the world works” does that mean Chat fucking does? Shouldn’t Chat be excused from his wrongdoings by that logic because he also doesn’t know how the world works and is just as naive as Adrien? You can’t say one identity is perfect while the other is flawed. People don’t work that way. Characterization doesn’t work that way. A character is still inherently the same character regardless of whether or not they’re secretly a superhero. Superman is still Superman regardless of whether or not he’s got his fucking glasses on. Hell, a whole plot point in Antibug was that Marinette is a hero with or without her mask. Don’t pull this bullshit, Thomas. It’s not believable, and you haven’t supported it in canon. In fact, you’ve unsupported it in canon.

“Ladybug and Chat Noir are supposed to represent yin/yang.” Okay, yes, that’s a motif we’ve picked up on like since episode 1. Cool, but still doesn’t make up for shitty characterization. “I have a personal theory” okay, cool motive, but still shittily executed. Your personality doesn’t magically fucking change just because you’re in a new situation. Who you are as a person is constant. Your reaction might change as a result of the circumstances you find yourself in, but who you are does not just change because you put on a mask. Someone who knows fuck all about the world doesn’t suddenly learn how to function just because he gets superpowers. “People are constantly fluctuating” please, do the world a favor, and take a class in personality. That’s not even an insult. Like there are literally classes out there that teach about how personality works. I’ve taken them, so I know they exist. 

I’ve also mentioned before that I’m not a fan of Thomas’s whole “puzzle-piece” plot line because it doesn’t fucking make sense. Like I could be okay with it, if it made sense, but it doesn’t fucking make sense. It’s like he dumped 6 puzzles together and told the audience “here, figure it out” and like that’s exhausting. If I wanted to build a puzzle, I’d go build one (assuming my cat doesn’t absolutely destroy it). And if I as an adult have problems keeping up with your plot and character development (which is only present if you squint) what makes you think a child can keep up with it? My niece who just turned 9 calls your shit out for not adding up. Don’t say kids don’t notice or care. Cause if you give them good media to consume, they notice when something is bad. Seek to raise kid’s standards of what a good show looks like. Don’t use them as a crutch to be lazy. 

“Plot driven kids shows don’t do well.” Um, bitch wanna give some examples? Cause I can give some examples of many beloved childhood shows of mine that have a cohesive plot. ATLA, for example. Everyone fucking loves it. MLP is another one I enjoy which does still have “lesson of the day” set-up but at least those lessons come into play later?? Like I think it was s4 or s5 where they all got some friendship object that ended up being a key later in the finale. So all of those episodes then had a purpose outside of the token friendship lesson of the day. Didn’t particularly matter what order you saw those episodes in for the most part, but you could see a progression of the characters and plot the whole time. You knew things were important to the overall plot of the season, and the development of those characters actually sticks around for more than just that episode. Kids can handle shit. Look at the latest Incredibles movie. I never once had trouble keeping up as a kid when watching plot driven shows. Not once. Saying it’s a kids show is a cop out. It’s an excuse, and a bad one at that. And that’s not even to say that the other things I listed are perfect either. They have their problems, but they dull in comparison.

Thomas also tried to boast some shit about how they show guys and girls being akumatized and emotional equally, and I’m like we’re not talking about background people, Tommy. We’re talking about your leads and how unbalanced they are and how you hold one to a higher condemnation than the other. Because one has daddy issues and conveniently happens to coincidentally be a boy. But he gets a free pass because he’s sheltered. Yes, and who made him so sheltered, Tommy? Who made that executive decision? Who decided to give him all of these excuses for his behavior? Who in turn decided to make everything the girl does her fault even if she’s right? Who also calls himself “Hawkmoth,” (and has always used the nickname Hawkdaddy) a villain established to be a neglectful, emotionally abusive, and controlling father bent on something that isn’t entirely clear and willing to allow his son to be in danger multiple times to achieve that something, meanwhile two teenage girls are the worst things you could think of because they’re bratty and they lie, and anyone who sympathizes with them are just fooled by their good looks? Cool. #female empowerment, am I right? 

Honestly, I could dissect every single thing Thomas said throughout this discourse but truthfully it’s tiring, annoying, and frankly he contradicts himself way too much I could just write a book if I actually cared enough about him. At this point things that he says doesn’t really surprise me anymore because I’ve just accepted that he’s got loads of internalized misogyny, borderline narcissism, and just overall isn’t worth anyone’s time. Bitching at him is never going to change his mind because he doesn’t believe he’s done anything wrong. It’s why I say that Adrien is his self-insert OC. He’s a perfect little golden boy who never does anything wrong, and if he does, it’s the world’s fault, not his. Sounds a lot like how Thomas approaches anyone who tells him what they understood from his writing because it’s fucking there whether he realizes it or not. 

(Tl;dr I guess) My advice to anyone who read this far is this: Ignore the fuck out of Thomas because he’s always gonna be a piece of shit who doesn’t care if you think he’s a piece of shit and actually seems to enjoy people thinking he’s a piece of shit. Lower your expectations for the writing of this show tremendously, basically only subscribe to it for cute interactions every once in a while, and you’ll enjoy it. If you are here for detailed plot or good character development, might I suggest rewatching ATLA? Basically, expect nothing from this show, and you’ll never be disappointed. It’s what I’ve started doing because this ^^^^ is what happens when you pick it apart. And there’s a lot that I left out for time’s sake and because I don’t want to look at this man’s Twitter anymore. I have a migraine.  

[littlemisssquiggles]

RWBY Musings #4: As much as I like Ozpin as a character, why do I get the feeling that at some point in the story as Oscar starts to become stronger, Ozpin’s going to Nanny McPhee the poor kid and...disappear...kind of?

You all remember Nanny McPhee, right? I haven’t watched the movie in years but if there is one thing I can recall from it, it’s that one quote she always used to say.

. ‘...When you don’t want me but need me, then I must stay But when you want me but do not need me, then I must go...’

 Though from another franchise, I find this quote to be very relatable to Oscar and Ozpin’s current relationship in the series. I feel like right now Ozpin has that Nanny McPhee rapport with Oscar. Ozpin suddenly showed up in Oscar’s life out of the blue, nonchalantly informing him of a newfound destiny that he never asked for while not really given him much of a choice but to leave the home, family and life he once new in order to pursue it. It is for that matter, why I think Oscar he doesn’t like Ozpin very much.

He certainly doesn’t hate him. However while they do somewhat get along with each other, I still get the vibe that Oscar doesn’t really like Ozpin that much and is only tolerating him cause of the obvious circumstance.

Things are definitely a little tense between them and while I don’t blame Oscar for his rather disinclined attitude towards Ozpin, it’s not like the latter asked for his current fate either.

Ozpin didn’t ask to be suddenly killed off during the fall of a school he once built and made into a lingering spirit sharing the body of a 14-year-old. Not quite the RIP after death experience he was asking for either.

That being said, I can’t help but feel as if Ozpin’s gonna Nanny McPhee Oscar at some point.

I say this because I don’t think the CRWBY plans on keeping Ozpin around. I get the feeling that at some point, Ozpin is going to truly become one with Oscar.

Sure their auras and souls are combined, like Ozpin mentioned in Volume 4 but they’re still no more than two souls sharing one body. I think there will come a point when Ozpin fully fuses with Oscar; becoming someone who is neither one or the other but is instead a combination of the two (yet still retaining Oscar’s general appearance cause it is his body. DOI).

Oscar doesn’t like having Ozpin around, not really but since he needs him to help him tap into his powers, he’ll be around. However, the moment Oscar fully awakens all of his powers right after he and Ozpin have established a more cohesive and collaborative friendship with one another, at that point, Oscar wouldn’t need Ozpin anymore.

 Of course, he’d want him around because by that time, they would be good friends but he wouldn’t NEED him because he would be strong and would only get stronger. There will just be one last thing that Ozpin would have to do so that Oscar can be at his strongest. It is then the former Headmaster of Beacon would start to pull away and Oscar will notice his voice less present as the two start to feel less like two people in one body fighting for control and more like same person in unison.

One mind. One body. One soul. When the two become one.

I feel there will come a point when Ozpin’s voice will start to fade away and the instant he becomes a full part of Oscar, he won’t be around anymore. As much as I love Ozpin; with the introduction of Oscar and where I believe his character arc is going to go based on how the writers have set it up, I just don’t see the old Ozpin being around for the future of RWBY and the final battle between good and evil. They’ll probably keep him around for a few more seasons as they progress through Oscar’s huntsmen training (wouldn’t even be shocked if there’s another 2 year time skip planned to be chucked in their at some point) but it will be for the eventuality of him being absorbed into his new self...and being born again.

Hence the Nanny McPhee reference. Like Nanny McPhee, I feel that Ozpin is only there in order to guide Oscar towards his full potential. However once Oscar fully realizes his powers, the stronger her gets, the less Oscar will able to hear his influence until one day, the poor kid will just wake up to realize that he’s no longer there. Well he’ll probably feel him there. He’ll be a part of him forever...he just wouldn’t be able to hear him separately anymore because by then, the two minds...the two souls would have officially become one.

And of course, in true Ozpin fashion, he wouldn’t reveal the truth about the nature of their bond and his fate to Oscar until possibly the last instant or something like that. Because where’s the fun in giving away something that’ll probably be a major plot point in the future and a lovely catalyst to stir some deep feels from the characters and the fans, huh?

I know fans have made the connection between Oscar and the character Dorthy from the Wizard of Oz but...y’know what else? He’s also somewhat like Pinocchio too. He’s not made of wood but he’s named after a kind of wood. Just as Pinocchio aspired to become a real boy, while it wasn’t his main ambition (that we know of), Oscar is training to become a real huntsman with Ozpin as basically his Jiminy Cricket; his literal voice of reason.

He’s around cause right now, Oscar needs him the most to understand who he is or who he’s going to become.

However as soon as Oscar doesn’t need him anymore cause he would’ve become strong enough to stand on his own, Ozpin, at least the old Ozpin, will cease no more and Oscar will be the new Ozpin (although I wouldn’t be surprised if he preferred if everyone called him Oscar or maybe it’s a thing where only close friends can call him by his real name while others can just call him Ozpin. I dunno).

Ozpin did say back in Volume 4 that he went through the same thing as Oscar and even suffered the same emotions. So that means, at some point in his youth, Ozpin also had the voice of a previous Oz in his head. This brings me to my question, so did Ozpin always have the voice of another person lingering in his head for the entirety of the series up until his death or...did he used to until he and that person eventually merged into one whole person and this new persona is the Ozpin that we all know of?

It would make sense if it worked like that. I’d love to see another flashback episode dedicated to Ozpin’s backstory. I want to know more of where Ozpin came from. Other RWBY fans have speculated that Ozpin is a descendant of the Old Hermit Wizard who granted the Four Maidens their powers or at least one of his reincarnations (like Doctor Who and Avatar) and I actually agree with that theory. It makes sense.

If one of the Maiden’s powers is to pass it on to a new successor of their choice (which is actually symbolic of how the Old Wizard chose the original Maidens), then wouldn’t it make sense if the Wizard’s power worked the same? The Maiden powers did originate from him so just as how the Maidens had successors, wouldn’t it be plausible that he had also? I mean, that Wizard was so powerful that he was able to empower the sisters with the powers of the Four Seasons and elements. So why wouldn’t he not have other versions of himself descendant through the years.

While we don’t know how or why Ozpin chose Oscar or even how Ozpin was chosen himself, I’m hoping that the series will give us an entire episode dedicated to that soon. Would be even awesome if we got some kind of three part episode arc with it (like how the Legend of Korra told Wan’s story). I’d love to hear more about Ozpin’s roots. It’d be even cool and also heavily ironic if Ozpin also was a young boy who grew up on a farm just like Oscar before he was chosen too.

Heck, what if...Ozpin had chosen Oscar before. Like maybe in his youth, Ozpin had actually met Oscar when he was still just a baby or a toddler too young to even remember their first encounter.

Imagine if ...Ozpin pulled a Terra and Riku in Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep and unknowingly chose him to be his successor because similar to Qui-Gon Jinn with Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars Epsiode I: Revenge of the Sith, he sensed greatness in the young Oscar even at a such a young age and had never forgotten the boy.

IT WOULD MAKE SENSE! I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Ozpin ended up with Oscar. I think he chose him somehow.

I really want to know more about this. I need my Ozpin Origins episode or episodes stat CRWBY! Maybe we’ll get some form of explanation in Episode 3. Fingers crossed.

But yeah, I think Ozpin will eventually disappear...at least, not really. He’ll disappear in the sense that the old him will ultimately fade away to become part of his new self. Only Oscar wouldn’t be Ozpin still. He’ll have all his memories, his powers and will basically assume his identity or...at least the one that’s been passed down to him from previous generations. However at his core...he’ll still always be Oscar Pine.

Sure he’ll be known as Ozpin to the World of Remnant and all his foes but to the important people in his life who care about him the most, he’ll be Oscar. Man, I just realized that Oscar Pine and Steven Universe would make the best of friends. Not only are they the same age but they’ve both been dealt the same shitty deck.

Both have unknowingly inherited the pressures and responsibilities of a person they never knew before and have to deal with the consequences of said person’s past actions along with the friends and foes they made. At least Oscar still retains a close connection with his past self (unlike Steven who has the Crystal Gems but not Rose to tell him the whole truth from her side).

It makes me wonder now if Ozpin is actually a name or just a title passed down to him. For all we know, the ole Ozpin could have a real name like Oswald Pin, maybe. Shoot! I wouldn’t be surprised if Ozpin and Oscar shared the same original first name. Even better, toss in my theory of Ozpin meeting Oscar when he was younger and feeling an instant connection to the boy because they shared the same original name and...that would be just gold! OSCAR GOLD!

But this is just a theory. It will be sad if Oscar grew to ultimately trust and genuinely like Ozpin; maybe going so far as to cherish him as a dear close friend and mentor (I mean they got no choice, they do share the same body after all) only to lose him in the end. It would be sad to see him grow accustomed to always having that articulate voice in his mind only to one day wake up and sense that he’s not there anymore. Well...he will be there, he just wouldn’t be able to hear him anymore because then they would be one whole being. 

Oh Oscar. They’re gonna SO Nanny McPhee this poor gentle avocado. But then again, I’m just a fangirl with a theory. Only time and more episodes will tell if I’m right or wrong. Until then, I’ll see you all in the next episode.

 ~LittleMissSquiggles (2017)

[captainshyguy]

ok so i saw the new su eps and uhhh here’s my thoughts 

under a read more bc whilst i did like some bits i uhhh....didn’t like most of it and i dont rly wanna spam peeps with negativity 

the good 

stevonnie with stubble??? iconic 

for a second i thought yellow diamond had a new colour palette that included brown and it was actually p cool lmao 

pink diamond’s design like?? colour wise is really nice (is she like....small though??? i cant tell??) though i thought she had spiky hair and shoulder pads??? maybe she was poofed in the past idk 

it was nice seeing the off colours again 

that picture of yellow pearl that was kinda a selfie and had yellow in the background FGKASJGNSAKGJSDG 

the jungle planet was pretty 

a lot of people didn’t like lars acting pissy about sadie but uhhh....at least it was somewhat in character like this dude is fucknig stranded in space ofc he’s gonna be a bit unstable and get upset over something small like that and thinknig his friend doesnt miss him 

the bad 

hoo boy where do i start 

i genuinely hated how lars was somehow inexplicably okay with everything that’s currently happening like if he’s repressing then like??? okay but still it’s been what??? a month and he’s suddenly an adept captain and pilot, he’s literally a teenager and yet he’s the captain among a group of gems who are THOUDSANDS OF YEARS OLD 

what we SHOULD have seen was him being like a parallel to steven at the start, the others should have been in control and protecting him, (liek the crystal gems!!!) and he’s there, a lil fragile, not exactly, oaky, but he’s being protected, he’s getting by, and the off colours love him! 

if they wanted to go this route, they should have....idk actually shown us him changing and developing like this, instead of having his character ‘development’ be offscreen bc it was so genuinely jarring to me and i hated it (like i really started identifying with/liking lars during the last homeworld arc when he and steven were captured, i thought that was a great direction for his character to go in like, not quite okay but getting there and maturing??? but having him be weirdly hammy and suddenly super duper okay pissed me off lmao)

listen the pacing for steven universe episodes has been off for a long time but it was super obvious here, like??? we just kept jumping from thing to thing, it felt so clunky, and they also didn’t tell us how long stevonnie was on that jungle planet for???? 

why did stevonnie literally murder that creature instantly, like i get self defense, but it attacked ONCE this is steven and connie??? it would have been more in character for them to try and struggle and get away first, then if they needed to kill it, then idk have them apologise and close their eyes and do it?? 

also su has just been going down in quality ever since the crystal gems got demoted from capable fighters who we get to see do cool fighting stuff and being like...idk actual protectors and guardians towards steven, and idk...actually trying, to just barely there parental figures 

SPEAKING OF WHY DIDN’T THE CGS GO WITH CONNIE AND STEVEN THEY JUST GOT STEVEN BACK FROM SPACE??? THEY WOULDN’T JUST LET HIM GO AGAIN WITH JUST CONNIE IM??

what was the actual point in emerald besides being ridiculous, i miss when gems were kinda threatening lmao like GOD do you remember when we first met jasper and peridot??? that was THRILLING (like the only ones that feel threatening anymore are blue and yellow)

why does steven have like a bajillion powers???? listen i get the ability to go into people’s minds/dreams if they’re ACTUALLY ALIVE and nearby, i have a gem oc of my own that has dream manipulation but how the FUCK did he access one of pink diamonds memories when she’s shattered (or possibly bubbled considering some of the other evidence) is it bc he’s half human?? does that somehow give him more power/versatility??? 

ok this is less about the episode but whilst im on the topic of steven and his powers, why is rose’s shield this all powerful thing??? we’ve seen how many rose quartz’s there are (or were lmao) and idk if a weapon is completely unique to that gem or if among thousands of rose quartz’s a few others will have that same shield but like?? what made rose so powerful??? how could her shield protect the others from corruption, like why is her weapon SO ABOVE that of almost every other gem, like surely if homeworld wanted to corrupt the gems, especially rose quartz for starting all this, they’d....idk actually make a weapon that can bypass her shield lmao 

idk i just????? the show’s been going downhill for me, i really think if they had 22 minute long episodes instead of 11 minute ones, they’d actually be able to answer questions and write consistently/cohesively instead of the rushed clunky, mess we have at the minute that creates more questions than it answers idk man the writing feels inconsistent and bad and im kidna tired of it??? honestly if su doesnt pick up, when it eventually ends, im just gonna rewrite the canon in my head lmao bc at this rate, it doesnt feel like they’ll ever actually??? stop blue and yellow diamond, we haven’t seen white diamond at all yet, they haven’t liberated any of the other gem planets (honestly we dont necessarily need to see that, but like....that’s something we kinda need to have at least mentioned bc like..what even is the goal of this series???? are they gonna take down homeworld or uhh???? bc of not then we’re really just back at square one??) they didn’t even free the people from the human zoo??? they’re not really doing anything to advance the plot 

i get that su is supposed to be quite lighthearted but like, they arent really handling it well, like you can do a lighthearted series/piece of media meant for kids and STILL give it an interesting story/plot that can be kinda serious (see voltron, gravity falls, super paper mario) without making it too dark or doing the opposite and trivializing the plot and making it underwhelming??? and that’s what they’re doing lmao, it feels so underwhelming and stagnant at this point bah 

im still watching to the end but again...i’ll probs end up making my own canon 

[murasaki-murasame]

Yuri on Ice Rewatch: Episode 1

I’ve been planning to do this for a while now, and since the one-year anniversary has come around, I figured now would be a convenient time to start this rewatch. I know I might be a day early on this, but I don’t think I’d have time tomorrow to do this, so I’d rather do it now and get it up a day early than get it up a day late.

We’ll see how this turns out, but I at least want to use this rewatch to discuss my own personal history with this show, how it affected me while it was coming out, what the fandom was like at the time, etc. So this will probably be less of a review or anything like that, and more of a trip down memory lane for me as I revisit this show. Basically this is just my way of getting out all my feelings on this show, so keep that in mind.

I only decided yesterday to start this now as part of the anniversary rather than doing it sometime next year before the movie comes out, so this first post might be a little messy and unorganized, but I should get the hang of it soon enough.

My plan at the moment is to rewatch one episode a week, on each of their respective anniversary dates, for the next few months. If I can manage that. After that, I might try and do a cohesive review of the show as a whole, and I might do a post about my speculation regarding the movie. We’ll see.

I’ll put the rest under a cut since everything after this point ended up being like 3.6k words long and I think I spent like three hours on it.

Before I properly sit down and rewatch episode one, I want to talk for a bit about my history with the show before it aired, what my expectations were, etc.

I’ve more or less been with this show from the very start. I remember seeing the initial teaser image of the logo, and all of the proper trailers as they came out. I didn’t really think much about the teaser image when it came out, since I’m not really a huge fan of sports anime in general, I didn’t really have an interest in figure skating in particular, and I didn’t know much of anything about Sayo Yamamoto as a director. I’m pretty sure that after the teaser image came out, I started hearing vague whispers about how amazing Yamamoto was, and how great her shows were, so I decided pretty early on that I was probably going to watch it, even though I didn’t have much to go on.

Right from the start we all pretty much assumed that the show was going to be about female figure skaters. Partly because I’m pretty sure the logo was pink the first time we sure it, partly because Yamamoto was most well-known for doing shows about women, and partly because it had the word ‘yuri’ in the title. It was pretty obvious that that wasn’t actually what it meant, but damn if it didn’t stop people from making jokes about it. Though I guess it didn’t help that we also had Yuri Kuma Arashi from a few years before that did indeed use that exact meaning of the word in it’s title.

Then a few months or so later the trailers started coming out, and we got a better idea of what the show was actually about. And let me just say that the ‘yaoi on ice’ jokes stopped being funny the exact moment the first one was made. And they were definitely made immediately after the first trailer came out, way before the show even started.

At the time, the idea of it being about male figure skaters made me pretty immediately cautious, since sports anime has a pretty bad track record of shallow queerbaiting, and I didn’t really expect this show to be the one that finally delivered. It didn’t help that some of the scenes used in the trailers, like the lip-touching in episode three, didn’t quite come across well out of context.

I also want to take the time to mention that the season right before Yuri on Ice started, we had Battery: The Animation, which was basically like the polar opposite of YoI in terms of being a sports anime with a gay protagonist. It was just . . . not great. At all. It went a long way toward reaffirming my doubts about if the sports genre could ever do this sort of thing well, which made me even MORE apprehensive about YoI. I still have a bit of a grudge against it to this day, but it at least serves as a very convenient way for me to point out how ludicrous it is for anyone to act like any sports anime with a gay protagonist would be popular and successful, because that show sure as heck wasn’t. I should also point out that in the same season we had the Danganronpa 3 anime, and even though this is kinda sort of a spoiler, it had a pretty . . . depressing and not great depiction of a gay male character, so that was like a one-two punch of me getting pessimistic about the chances of ever getting good and happy gay rep out of the anime industry.

Either way, even in spite of that, the animation quality and the music from the trailers alone were enough to win me over and make me want to give it a try, even if I was bracing myself for disappointment.

Also, even though I don’t think I ended up watching it until way later, I highly recommend that any Yuri on Ice fans check out Endless Night, which was Sayo Yamamoto’s Animator Expo short film from a year or two ago. You can really tell how she was regaining her enthusiasm as a director by going all in on her love for figure skating. In hindsight it’s pretty interesting to consider that she probably did Endless Night when she had already begun working on Yuri on Ice as a concept and shopping it around. For the record, she also went on to do the opening sequence of Persona 5, which is another example of her putting her love of figure skating into her work.

Anyway I should probably actually sit down and watch the episode itself before I spend an hour on this whole beginning section alone. I think I’ll keep making these beginning sections for each post before I sit down and watch the episode itself, but they’ll hopefully be less lengthy than this one.

---

OK let me just say first of all that I spent pretty much the entire episode choking up, and I was basically on the verge of tears during the entire ED sequence. I knew that rewatching this would be an emotional experience for me.

It’s kinda difficult to even put into words how much Yuri on Ice means to me as an individual, especially since I’d like to stick mostly to talking about this first episode alone. But I’ll at least say that it is undeniably the most personally meaningful piece of media I’ve ever encountered. It means the world to me. Before it aired, I had pretty much become resigned to the idea that, at least within the anime industry, the best representation I was going to get was some variation of the Bury Your Gays trope. I’ll probably get more into this later down the line, but I don’t think I even consciously realized exactly how much I needed something like this, since even outside of anime I’d never really experienced a story like this. And even when I started watching it, the full effect and realization of how meaningful it was to me was a gradual process that kept building up and up as the show continued to surpass my expectations, more or less culminating in episode ten.

Which is part of why I like the opening monologue of this episode on multiple levels. It obviously refers specifically to Yuri’s sense of unending surprise toward Viktor as a person [which obviously gains more and more context and weight as the show goes on], but it also matches the way that the show itself was an unending series of surprises for us as the audience. We had no idea what to expect from it, and it kept getting better and better.

It’s probably not even worth noting at this point that this rewatch series is going to mostly be focused on the romantic sub-plot in the show, because that’s the part I love the most. Obviously I love the entire show and all of it’s facets, but still. I guess my main point here is more that I won’t be talking that much about the sports aspect specifically, for the most part, since I have less of an interest in sports in general, and I’m not particularly well-versed in how figure skating works so I’d feel hesitant to talk about it much. I have immense respect and love for all of the people in the fandom who ARE actually into figure skating, though, either as fans or as athletes. Their insight into the show has been an invaluable resource for me. I might not be much of a sports fan in general, but having a greater understanding of how it works, by listening to what other people have been saying since the show started, has definitely added to my overall appreciation for the show as a whole.

Also, somewhat ironically, this is one of the episodes with the least to talk about romance-wise since Yuri and Viktor have like thirty seconds of shared screen-time in it, so I’m probably going to spend most of this post talking about other stuff. Mostly.

To start with, I love the animation and art across the show as a whole, but I think we can all agree that episode one is the peak in terms of animation quality. Not that the other episodes are badly animated in any real way, just that this episode really hits it out the park with some stunning sequences. There’s some wonderful bits of character animation in this episode, like Minako’s ballet move when she meets Yuri at the airport, or the cut of Hiroko running up to meet Yuri at the inn’s entrance, or Yuko being all bouncy and energetic. Not to mention really well-done close-up shots like the bathroom scene with Yuri and Yurio. I really like the heavily shaded and sharp style used in that scene. 

But of course, the real stand-out piece of animation in this episode was definitely the joint Stammi Vicino performance, which is still one of my favourite scenes in the show. It’s incredibly well done. It’s a bit sad that none of the skating animation after this episode quite matches it, aside from maybe Welcome to the Madness, but I’m pretty sure that this sequence in this episode took several months to animate on it’s own, so I can’t exactly blame them for not keeping this level of quality once we started getting like five or six performances an episode.

One of the things that I remember surprising me the most about the show at first was how dynamic, energetic, fast-paced, and feel-good it was. With how relatively somber and slow the trailers were, and with the vague whispers I’d heard of Sayo Yamamoto being a cult classic director, I kinda got it into my head that the show would have a more . . . low-key atmosphere and sense of pacing than it actually did. I’m not sure how to describe it. In general I tend to think of obscure cult classic directors as the kinds of people who make things that are slow, psychological, moody, probably depressing, etc etc. So I was not at all expecting something as vibrant and fun and full of personality as what we got in this. I still think that the relentlessly feel-good vibe of the show is a huge reason why it struck so well with people. It doesn’t really get mentioned a lot, but it can be a surprisingly difficult concept to describe, at least in a way more detailed than just saying ‘fun things are fun’.

I also want to give a shout-out to the background art of the show, which is fantastic across the board for the entire show. I’m never really good at articulating my praise for stuff like this, but still. I think the show would have looked a lot different, and a lot worse, if it had more generic background art. Especially in terms of colour palette and shading and whatnot.

To this day, I still deeply appreciate the fact that this is a story about adult athletes who are high up in their respective field, and are struggling with adult problems. It helps to set it apart so much from most sports anime out there. Of course, even this sort of concept could be handled badly by a lesser production team, but you get what I mean. It’s a breath of fresh air. And, along the same lines, I also love that it’s clearly aimed at a more adult audience than a lot of other anime in general. It’s easy to not really think about it, because we kinda associate things ‘aimed at an adult audience’ with things that have lots of nudity or violence, but I think the idea still applies here. And even if it’s not handled quite the same as what we’d think of as ‘depictions of adult sexuality in television’, there’s still a whole lot of sexiness going on in this show.

Just to lay it out there, I honestly think that Yuri is one of my favourite fictional characters of all time, if not my absolute favourite. I have so many strong feelings about him. He’s absolutely wonderful. His entire character arc and personal journey is one of the most inspirational things I’ve seen in my life. And for a lot of reasons I just see a lot of myself in him, even though we’re very different people.

I don’t know where else to say this, so I guess I’ll just say here that it was his development and journey that inspired me to get into drawing, which I’d been putting off for years because I didn’t think I’d be good at it or enjoy it enough. I haven’t exactly done the best job at keeping up with it as a hobby, but over the last ten months or so I’ve nearly completed one sketchbook, so that’s something! I’ve only posted one drawing of mine thus far, but I plan to post more as time goes on. Probably mostly stuff to do with my OCs. I definitely want to do some proper Yuri on Ice fan art though in the future and post it here, and I’m still kinda sad I didn’t get any done by today, but I’ve been too busy lately to work on it, and I didn’t want to rush something out just to meet a certain important date. I’ll try and post some by the time I’ve done this rewatch, though.

Of course, that’s not the only thing this show has helped me with, on a personal level. I’ll probably get more into this over the rest of the rewatch, especially at the end, but this show really has become an emotional support for me. It’s helped me through a lot of dark places. I don’t know where I’d be without it.

One thing I want to get into is how incredibly different this episode feels in hindsight, now that I know what happens later. I’ve already rewatched it once, so it’s not a big surprise or anything, but still. The scenes with Viktor in particular feel very different when you know who he is as a person. When you know that he’s just a lonely, dissatisfied dude who wants to feel love and passion. The Stammi Vicino scene in particular is even more depressing and emotional when you understand that it’s basically a cry for help.

The fandom hypes up the episode ten twist and how it recontextualizes the entire show, and it really, REALLY does. It makes everything feel way different when you understand that Yuri was the one who asked Viktor to be his coach, and that he was the one who first enthralled Viktor by giving him a glimpse at a possible path to revitalizing his love of skating, and finding true, genuine love along the way. Of course Yuri was already enthralled by Viktor as an idolized god figure of sorts before that, but you get what I mean. The banquet was basically the first time they properly met as individuals. But I won’t go too deeply into the banquet scene just yet. I’ll save that for the episode ten post.

[Also I should probably admit that I still can’t quite remember if the banquet happens before or after the ‘commemorative photo’ scene. I know I should have the exact timeline of events there memorized, but it’s kinda foggy]

It’s also sorta interesting to look at Yurio’s whole attitude in hindsight, knowing that he always secretly admired Yuri and was angry at him because he knew he had so much potential and strength within him. But honestly, just to be blunt, I still don’t really care that much about Yurio’s character in general so this part is kinda vastly overshadowed by, uh, everything else, lol. I don’t really dislike Yurio or anything, I just think that he’s the least compelling or interesting of the major characters.

Before I get into shifting focus toward what the general audience reaction to this episode was, I should probably comment on the OP and ED a bit, since I haven’t yet. Personally I adore both of them. They’re wonderful. I still think that History Maker is one of the more iconic and memorable anime OP songs out there, and it never ceases to make me emotional. I still wish that the actual art and animation for the OP was more . . . interesting, though. The animation style is really good, but it suffers from a lot of noticeable recycling of animation, and the backgrounds are pretty flat and empty, although I still like the splashes of colour done at the start. I’m not entirely sure how I’d suggest improving the OP visually aside from doing it completely differently, though. But there are other Sayo Yamamoto OPs I prefer visually to this one. Like the more recent Kakegurui OP. I don’t really know if that OP’s style would have fit Yuri on Ice, but still. Even with my slight gripes about the visuals, I really can’t overstate how much I adore the song itself.

The ED is also really nice. It gets kinda overshadowed by the OP, but it’s still good on it’s own. The Instagram style is really effective and feels fresh and modern. The song itself is rather good, but not quite as memorable as History Maker. The real strong point of the ED is definitely the visual side of things. Other than the aforementioned Instagram style, I really love the images used. The assorted pictures of all the various skaters are nice, and help set up their characters pretty well, but the best part is definitely the fun, domestic scenes between Yuri and Viktor that are interspersed throughout the ED. They’re absolutely fantastic, and they’re the main reason why I have a desperate need for an entire OVA purely consisting of those sorts of scenes. I’m still internally screaming over how the scenes of them playing at the beach and them playing under the fountain were meant to be actual scenes, but were cut for time. I’d love to see what those scenes would have been like. Even the glimpses we got are wonderful, especially with how they help paint a broad picture of how happy and fun their daily lives were together, and how close they got over the course of the show. Especially after episode four or so. It just kills me in the best way possible, to think that stuff like them playing at the beach and being casually touchy-feely and just being happy and joyful was probably a completely normal daily thing for them. Not to mention the other little moments we see, like that one shot of Yuri smiling with his eyes closed while Viktor’s sitting behind him, combing his hair. It’s such a perfectly domestic and casually intimate little moment. It melts my heart every time I look at it. The more I think back on the entire show in hindsight, the more it rings true that Yuri really is the only one who gets to see Viktor’s hidden cute side. Considering that we see basically the entire show from Yuri’s POV, it’s easy to forget that basically everything about how Viktor acts around him is very different to how he is with other people.

Also I just wanna quickly say that the show’s soundtrack is fantastic. Both the background music and the skating songs. Though the skating songs are a bit more punchy and memorable. Just hearing Stammi Vicino still makes me tear up a bit.

Anyway, now I should probably touch a bit on the wider audience reaction to this episode. I won’t really have a lot to say on this end of things for this entire rewatch, since it’s kinda difficult to dig up the stuff people were saying a year ago, but still.

The most convenient links I can find to reactions are the Anime News Network Preview Guide post about the first episode, and the Reddit discussion thread for episode one.

The main point I want to make with this is that everyone pretty much immediately loved the show, and most people pretty much agreed that it was the best premiere of the Fall 2016 season. Which I agree with. It’s probably one of the best first episodes I’ve seen out of all the anime I’ve watched.

Though it’s also sorta amusing in hindsight to see people’s reactions to the homoeroticism and whatnot, and everyone’s apprehensions about how it’ll go in the long run. That is, just ‘cause at this point we know where it goes, and that it fully commits to itself. I don’t think anyone watching episode one expected that we’d end the show referring to Yuri and Viktor as fiances/husbands with no trace of irony or wishful thinking.

Anyway I should cut this short because it’s like 2am and my brain is gonna melt soon if I keep writing so yeah let’s just stop for now.

As I said before, I’m gonna try and get one episode/post done per week, so I’ll try and get my Episode 2 post out around this same time next week. I expect that most of the rest of these posts will be a whole lot shorter than this one, though, since there’s so much stuff I wanted to say right off the bat that I probably won’t need to go over again later. Some of these posts might actually be pretty short, depending on how much I can find to say about some of the more skating-dense episodes. We’ll see. I’ll try and at least stick to this schedule.

[ladyeternal178]

There is no Song In My Heart

Dear Adam & Eddie:

If you’re going to try and rip off Joss Whedon this blatantly, you need to not be so phenomenally bad at it.

Seriously:  the infant son of a hero and a villain is kidnapped away from someone that was taking him to be hidden from one of his parents for his own safety.  He is taken to a demon dimension by his kidnapper, where they raise him like their own child and train him to serve their agenda. When he gets back to his parents’ dimension, barely any time has passed for them but he’s a fully-grown adult because time flows differently where he was raised, and he starts going after the good guys and his family because of the machinations of the bad guy that raised them.

Am I talking about Gideon from Once, or Connor from Angel?  The only way to tell them apart is the fact that Connor actually managed to beat Angel a couple of times, whereas Gideon has never gotten the better of Rumple.  Even when Gideon was using the Dark One dagger, Rumple outmaneuvered Gideon at every turn.  Somehow, A&E managed to make the son of the Dark One, a character that could’ve been a huge wild card that completely realigned the balance of power in Storybrooke, totally fucking useless and only slightly less relevant to the story than the dwarves are.

But now they’ve also completely wasted the potential of a musical episode at the same time they were trying desperately to pull it off by using a similar set-up to BtVS’ Once More With Feeling.

See:  Once More With Feeling used magic to make everyone burst into song, too.  And it played with the idea that music, when combined with magic, can be used as a weapon.  But where The Song In Your Heart utterly and completely failed to live up to its spiritual predecessor is that, rather than having the musical curse woven into the modern setting and illuminating something about the characters’ current emotional states, or revealing something critical that had been kept hidden from the others before now, they decided to cram yet another flashback confrontation between Snowing and the Evil Queen into an already overfull backstory.

All in the name of giving Emma’s massive inferiority and martyr complexes an opportunity to rear their ugly heads again and then allowing for a deus ex machina, a/k/a Henry, to come in and rescue her from them.

It makes no sense that Fiona and/or Rumple didn’t go after Henry when they were rounding up everyone in Emma’s immediate family to use as hostages.  Henry might not be able to use his author powers to affect the Final Battle, but he’s still the Truest Believer.  He above anyone would be the person most likely to keep Emma from being mired in self-doubt, since he has absolute faith.  And maybe Fiona doesn’t know about that part, but Rumple does, having been privy to the events in Neverland and therefore knowing the reason why his father wanted Henry’s heart.

Not to mention that Henry is Emma’s son.  You’re trying to tell me that the woman who turned herself into a fairy and very nearly used the Dark Curse’s precursor to banish all children in the Enchanted Forest to another realm in order to protect her own son didn’t think that holding the Savior’s son as a hostage wouldn’t get Emma to do anything she wanted?  I doubt it, considering she didn’t even have compunctions about harming children to achieve her own ends before she became a fairy.  And it’s not like his adoptive mother/step-great-grandmother, step-great-great-aunt, grandparents or step-father-to-be were in any position to stop her from hurting Henry, considering they were all her hostages, too.  So why have she and Rumple leave Henry out there free to act instead of using him to leverage Emma?

Answer:  A&E decided that the plot device they wanted to use was cool enough that the audience would ignore the plot hole and forgive the deus ex machina needed to pull it off.  And they were wrong on all three counts.

The hard-won admission by Buffy to most of her loved ones that she’d been in Heaven when the Scoobies had resurrected her at the climax of Once More With Feeling was a cathartic paradigm shift for the characters and a gut-wrenching emotional pay-off for the viewer at the same time.  We’d been hanging on the edges of our seats waiting for that reveal to happen, and the way we got it was pitched perfectly.  Emma’s emotional epiphany in The Song In Your Heart didn’t have the same impact because we’ve been here before.  We’ve been watching Emma re-learning this lesson in various ways since the Neverland arc in Season 3, and A&E are clearly running out of ways to keep convincingly putting her through this particular emotional journey.

But I think perhaps the biggest sin this episode commits is the aforementioned shoe-horning in of the musical confrontation between the Charmings and Regina.  The Song In Your Heart isn’t even the first episode this season to be guilty of throwing something into the characters’ pre-Curse lives to set up a Chekov’s gun that will be used in the very same episode.  But even with the pre-first-Curse timeline being a bit murky, A&E are running the raggedy edge of feasible when it comes to how much they’re trying to claim happened between the Charmings’ wedding and Regina’s first casting of the Dark Curse.

Magical settings don’t give you carte blanche when it comes to how much can reasonably fit into your backstory or timeline, and the advent of online fandoms with on demand access to re-watch, scrutinize, analyze and categorize every event in every episode has largely eliminated showrunners’ ability to rely on Bellisario’s Maxim when it comes to them prioritizing the cool factor of a plot device, twist or arc over the cohesiveness of their world-building.  Flashbacks to the time before the first Curse are this show’s stock-in-trade, but even in the context of a musical episode, this vehicle could’ve been used in far better ways than it was here.

For example:  in the modern Storybrooke era, the Black Fairy has cast a spell compelling the characters to sing what’s in their hearts because there’s something she needs to know from one of them that will give her an advantage in the final battle.  They’re singing because truth potions/spells don’t necessarily get people to speak the truth of their hearts, but music always gets at the emotions we think we’re keeping hidden even from ourselves.

You could’ve had Snow & Charming waxing rhapsodic about their own wedding which dovetailed into a flashback about the ramp-up to the ceremony we saw in the pilot.  You could’ve had Regina singing about how her mother’s pursuit of revenge, and her own, have robbed her of getting to have a wedding day like Emma’s, paired with a flashback of the Evil Queen observing the preparations for the royal wedding and finally snapping over Snow getting to have the happy wedding that she and Daniel nwere permanently denied.  You could’ve had Zelena singing about how everyone’s making such a huge deal out of the wedding and it’s not as important as they’re all building it up to be before slowly revealing that, unlike Emma, she has no one that cares enough about her to want to give her a special wedding day and she is still mourning the one person that would’ve possibly ever wanted to marry her to begin with.

And then at long last, you have Emma singing about how she’s happier than she’s ever been and looking forward to marrying Hook, but the part she's not letting anyone see is that she’s frightened of losing the family that it’s taken so long for her to find and build and accept:  if not to the Final Battle then to some other evil because there will always be darkness for the Savior to fight.  That she knows they’ll carry on if she dies because that’s what they do, but she doesn’t know how she’ll go back to being alone again if something happens to them because she needs them to remind her that she’s no longer a lonely, unwanted orphan girl.

Cue the Black Fairy now knowing what she needs to know and cursing the town so that when Emma wakes up the morning after her wedding, she’s alone, isolated from everyone she loves, and she has to face the Final Battle without the support system she’s come to rely on to remind her of her own self-worth.

Was this episode fun for the OUaT cast & crew to make?  Probably.  The actors certainly seemed to be having a ball with the musical numbers, and some of the vocal performances were unexpectedly good.  But it didn’t really serve the overall narrative, it didn’t give us any insight into the characters that we didn’t have already, and the emotional pay-off didn’t have anything to do with the musical device.  The emotional pay-off was the wedding, and while I’m glad they didn’t fuck around with the actual ceremony (ruined weddings are one of my top five most-hated plot devices ever), there was no dramatic tension at all in the 50 minutes leading up to that moment and no interesting character development to make the time feel like it was spent wisely.

A&E should’ve called Papa Joss to consult.  We would’ve gotten an episode with some heart for the songs to be in.

[littlemisssquiggles]

RWBY Musings #9: Unpopular Opinion: I want Team RWBY to reunite but I don’t necessarily want them to get back together and reform the original group.

I know everyone’s waiting for that carded reunion moment between Team RWBY where the gang is finally back together at long last. However, my opinion is different. Don’t get me wrong, I want the group to meet up and see that everyone is ok (as well as work out any issues. Such as Blake and Yang) but I don’t want them to reform the old group.

I don’t mind if everyone meets up in Haven and fight together to defend the citadel, because we can all tell that that’s probably going to be the objective of Volumes 5 til probably 6: Preventing the Fall of Haven and essentially Mistrel. So I don’t mind if we get a union for that particular purpose. However afterwards I want them to go their separate ways again and continue their separate stories; only this time, they’ll be in touch and assured knowing that everyone are ok.

 This is why I was slightly disappointed that they made Weiss and Yang meet up already. I know everyone was cheering for Freezerburn during that scene where they hugged. And while it was admittedly a very touching moment, yes. On one end, I was just as happy as everyone to see them come together however on the other end, I was disappointed. I was hoping that Weiss was going to have her own journey, y’know. I thought the whole motivation behind her arc was her learning to do things on her own and believing in her own strengths rather than depending too heavily on others since not all the time will she luck out and be saved by someone stronger (like her sister Winter) or have someone there to whisk her away from harm (like her father).

They were going in the right direction before with her working towards breaking out stealthily. Why did they have to make it so that Weiss’s escape was sped up by Yang’s arrival?

How much individual character growth is Weiss going to get now with Yang around and vice versa? Unless it’s a thing where Weiss leaves Yang to find Winter while she leaves with Raven to find Qrow with the two promising to meet up with again in Mistral somehow, then I dunno.

Yang went to Raven to find Qrow who will take her to Ruby, right? Funny thing, even if Raven does end up taking Yang to Qrow, they still wouldn’t meet up with Ruby since Qrow has gone to recruit huntsmen in Mistrel.

Why do I get the feeling that when Raven and Yang do find Qrow, he’s been captured and is being held hostage?

Wouldn’t be surprised if Lionheart got wind of what Qrow is doing and has him detained along with the ‘renegade Mistrel huntsmen’, forcing Raven and Yang to surprisingly work together to save him (possibly bonding in the heat of the moment finally)?

I feel as if the most character development we’ve been able to see from each of these characters is when they were separated. That way the story can focus on each girl individually; more or less.

Before, everyone had pretty much one goal. The same goal. Survive the school year together. Basically.

Now with the Fall of Beacon, I feel everyone’s goal and desires have shifted.

Yang will probably want to learn more about herself and her family line and might consider sticking with her mother, Raven in the Branwen Tribe. We never got a continuation or an explanation for that ending credit scene from Volume 2 when Yang met Raven...in a dream of some sort.

However in rewatching that scene, Raven told Yang that they have a lot to talk about. Whether this was foreshadowing for events that will now take place in Volume 5 or possibly 6, who knows? And yes, while I am aware that Volume 2 was technically the last season with the series creator, Monty Oum at the helm. Still...Miles and Kerry are the main writers and directors so a lot of what was done already must’ve been planned to further grow into some huge plot development to come soon in the series; who knows.

While I’m aware that Yang doesn’t seem quite interesting in getting to know her mother, as shown in Episode 4. Nonetheless, I’d like to believe that as the season progresses, that initial thought would change and force Yang no choice but to desire to uncover the same mysteries about her mother and herself that she’s been searching for so long for.

 Weiss will probably aspire to resume her training with her sister Winter and might even take up Ironwood’s offer. He did say that there was a space for her at Atlas so...maybe she might consider doing this. Maybe the next chapter in Weiss’ story is to join her sister working together with Ironwood. Who knows?

 Blake will most definitely want to continue pursuing the White Fang. In the event that Adam isn’t taken down during the Battle for Haven, I’d like to believe that the next chapter in Blake’s story would be working with Sun, her family and as many faunus as they can gather in order to thwart Adam and his followers’ evil schemes. Cause even if Haven is saved, I doubt Adam’s vengeance will stop there, right?

 As for Ruby.  Well...she did initially want to go to Mistrel to train at Haven Academy. I sincerely forgot her reasons for going to Haven but I figured even that might change once the team learns the truth that Lionheart is working with Salam and Team WTCH.

To be honest, I’m not quite sure what Ruby’s motives truly are. Nor can I see where the series is taking her character.

I guess you can count the whole Legend of the Silver-Eyed Warrior thing. Maybe...depending on how Volume 5 (or maybe 6) concludes, perhaps the next chapter in Ruby’s character journey would involve her learning more about her unique family trait and history. Maybe she’d have to go on her own new hero’s journey of self discovery in order to fully awaken and master her powers.

 I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more silver-eyed warriors somewhere in Remnant. Heck I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a thing where the silver-eyed warriors are this secret society of people who have lived for thousands of years but remain hidden from the world since they themselves have been hunted because of their powers.

I mean, where else and how else are they going to elaborate on that.

 Unless it’s a HUGE plot twist where Ruby’s mom faked her death and has been alive this entire time, who else is going to show Ruby how to harness her newfound powers.

I seriously have no clue which direction Ruby’s path is going to go but I know it’s going to go somewhere. She is going to need to have her own character arc again and I just can’t see Ruby having it with her old team because of that fact that everyone’s goals aren’t the same anymore.

 No, I’m wrong. Everyone’s primary goals are the same. It is to ultimately stop Salem and her Forces of Evil. But the path to achieving it will be different for each of them.

 What I also enjoyed about the split arcs between Team RWBY is that during Ruby’s journey, we got to learn more about Ren and Nora’s past which was really nice. I don’t want the team to reunite because then what becomes of Team JNR? I’m worried if they do decide to reunite Team RWBY then Team JNR will just be pushed back into the background and become side characters again who we won’t get to learn more about. I always pegged Team JNPR as the deuteroganist team, secondary to Team RWBY. That being said, I don’t want them to fade into obscurity ever. We JUST got to know more about them through Volume 4. Let’s keep the ball rolling with that please.

 With Ruby (and not RWBY), we got more Team JNR screen time and development and; I don’t know about anyone else but I’d like to see that continued. We still have to learn more about Jaune’s past and meet his family (all we know is that he came from a long line of strong huntsmen and is the only boy child with I think seven older sisters) and we’ve barely scratched the surface with Oscar and his part in all of this cause we can all sense that there will more to Oscar’s role than just him being a vessel for Ozpin, right?

If Ruby get’s her own story arc again, it would be great if she’s joined by Jaune, Nora and Ren again for this journey. It’d be even more awesome if Oscar tags along too. Then they’d officially be Team JNORR (or Team ORRNJ---since it’s a colour). It was hinted since Volume 1 and even a little bit in Volume 3 that Ozpin knows something about the silver-eyed warriors.

Maybe he met them during one of his past lives, perhaps?

Whether he knows where Ruby will need to go in order to uncover more knowledge of that part of herself is unknown. However I do believe Ozpin could play a part in that and if Ozpin will be there to help Ruby learn more about the silver eyed warriors then...of course Oscar has to be there too.

I dunno. Overall, while I don’t mind everyone coming back together for the final brawl...I really don’t want them to get back together immediately; for all the reasons I listed above. Yes I want them to have their team reunion moment especially between Ruby and Yang...y’know...Ruby...Yang..

(Cause you know they have to bring back that joke. They have to! If they brought back ‘You have silver eyes’ then they gotta do this bit too. It would be a wasted opportunity for a parallel in comedy if they didn’t.)

And YES, of course, I do want good old Team RWBY to kickass together like they did so long ago as they teased in the Volume 5 opening; showing that despite being apart for so long, they still maintained that cohesiveness and team work that transcended from their days of strong comradery.

I want all of that to happen during the epic fight for Haven. However, once the battle is over, and Haven is saved (cause I’d like them to have one loss and one victory under their belts. I’d like to believe Haven will be saved just cause the theme song suggests it. The last lyric of the opening is ‘Triumph will be ours!’), let everyone go their separate ways again.

Let the separate story arcs continue, only this time, everyone will still be connected despite being apart.

Like I said, this is probably an unpopular opinion but it’s how I feel. What about you guys?

~LittleMissSquiggles (2017)