#people wanted meta about a show from the 90s right

[drowningparty]

Thinking so hard about Gabrielle in Seeds of Faith. I always love the scenes where Gabrielle and Ares are alone and he tries to tempt her with power. Obviously she never falls for it, she's too smart for that, but I like how much Ares respects her abilities & how much she's grown. Ares sees her potential to be a great warrior, even giving her a taste of godhood b/c he knows part of her does want the power to change the world and make it a better, kinder, safer place, and she's already spent all of S4 learning sometimes words aren't enough.

No one else is willing to see that side of her b/c no one else wants to believe sweet Gabrielle would choose violence, even though she's destined to eventually take Xena's place and succeed her as a warrior who fights to defend those who cannot defend themselves. Even Xena refuses to see it, reprimands her for getting too 'dagger-happy' b/c she still wants to think of Gabrielle as the peace-loving bard, even though she's not that woman anymore. Ares sees it, he's been paying attention. He thinks she could be a god. She could be anything.

[ladybracknellssherry]

Good Omens Deep Dive Ahead! **I have edited and added to this several times now, but "ma point" has stayed the same. Probably every single reblog has a different version of this. It has turned into an absolute BEAST. You might be able to watch both seasons faster than read this at this point 😂😭

---------------------- Okay so I am rewatching S2 right now and golly. I've just noticed something. I'm sure it has already been noticed by plenty of other people so feel free to let me know, link me to some metas, please.

A lot of us have painstakingly analyzed every single frame, statue, clock tick, facial expression, and breath of the final 15. Good. Now we're going to look at the scene in S2E4/The Hitchhiker/1941 when Aziraphale and Crowley are in the bookshop doing their little pre-magic show warm-up roleplay foreplay bit. They're being surveilled by a bunch of half-witted nazi zombie spies. Aziraphale is trying to impress Crowley with his * m a g i c * Crowley is trying really hard to support his Angel.

The Blocking!

Keep in mind the camera angles are not quite the same between these scenes, the dimensions look a bit off because the lighting is completely different and therefore camera settings are different, and some of the furniture has moved a little bit in 90 years (but not much because Aziraphale)

1941 Crowley positions himself approximately / very nearly exactly in the same spot in the bookshop where present-day Crowley stops in the final 15 of S2E6 when Aziraphale says "Crowley, come back." The spot where shortly thereafter Crowley says the awful words that make us cry.

gif by stars-bean

gif by yellenabelova

1941 Azirphale with his little coins is standing in or very nearly in his same relative spot as in that scene, when present-day Aziraphale says "I need you," and "I don't think you understand what I'm offering you." And where shortly thereafter he says the awful words that make us cry.

gif by wearecrowley

gif by mabellous

Then Aziraphale gets a touch insecure when Crowley suggests they go to the magic shop because it is "for professional conjurors," and Crowley responds with his "My Nefertiti Fooling Fellow" line of support and encouragement and believing in Aziraphale. And in that moment Crowley stands and walks towards Aziraphale. And they are mere inches away from one another either fully in or very nearly exactly where they stood or rather will stand during the kiss. I'm not gonna post a kiss gif we have all seen it ten bajillion times and I do not need to cry tonight it is a Wednesday.

gif by gigew

gif by ajcrowleys

(I’m getting ahead of myself for a second but seriously, c’mon, just look at this fluff muffin's genuine smile above and tell me if it looks anything like that strained nightmare on his face in the gif below.)

gif by dykefaggotry

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE. And take from this what you will. That happy little 1941 West End Girl with his vanished farthing basking in the glow of what he now knows is his Demon's adoration. Rotate our duo 180° around the bookshop and Az is now primed to move into the position where he gives his frantic The Metatron's not so bad of a dude and Heaven are the Good Guys and Crowley is one of the Bad Guys nonsense ridiculousness that totally walks back on Aziraphale's entire character growth over 2 seasons. Could it possibly visually represent that our favorite little white-winged stim-city cinnamon roll found himself in the final 15 in a situation at a complete 180° from that moment in 1941 when he was so happy and being genuinely sincerely himself and he was about to do something that he really actually genuinely wanted so badly to do and it was GOOD and it was RIGHT. Crowley's confession is obviously such a wildcard. At this point in 1941 Crowley is supporting and encouraging and working with Aziraphale and in the final 15 he is doing exactly not that.

And even more. In both the 1941 scene and the final 15, Crowley has just entered, respectively, a church and Heaven to save Aziraphale in the middle of the blitz/a demon army almost war battle. A massive atmospheric difference is that 1941 happens at night and the final 15 happens in the morning. We'll work on figuring out what that might represent.

And then we have some seriously upsetting parallel Angel/Demon on the shoulder blocking/framing moments.

gif by i-seeaspaceshipinthe-sky

gif by inhonoredglory

and

gif by inhonoredglory

And several more of such occur between the two scenes but I simply cannot.

And here's the part where I ramble and try to make sense of this in terms of the theories and fail miserably.

Get up, stretch your legs, have a glass of water, and take several deep breaths in.....and out..... You good? Let's go.

I've said it many times before and I stand by it that Aziraphale was lying through his teeth to Crowley in the final 15. Not because he wanted to lie to Crowley to convince him to come or to try to push him away - but because he was putting on a show for the Metatron. I think that just like the nazi zombies in 1941, the Metatron in S2E6 was absolutely watching Az's every move in the bookshop. And Az knew it. The first few times I watched it I thought Aziraphale's nervous glances to his left during his weird speech and the divorce were just nervous glances. Then I noticed that after he turned to face the other direction, his nervous glances went in the same direction, to his right side now, all the while to the window. It's alarming the frequency, several times a minute (but you were already acutely aware of the window glances you ineffably clever little shits.) I believe the whole final scene between our babies was an attempt at a sleight of hand by Aziraphale to subversively communicate with Crowley without letting on to the Metatron. How fitting that the parallel scene in 1941 revolved around supporting one another and planning and rehearsing for a performance that required for them to trust each other implicitly. And while I believe the act is for the Metatron, he is acting at Crowley - but expected him to catch on and act with him using coded language, movements, expressions, etc. that he expected/hoped Crowley would be able to read. However, both Crowley and Aziraphale in the final 15 were very clearly genuinely distraught for their own reasons. Crowley is about to finally verbally profess his love - and Aziraphale, I quite think, is terrified about his conversation with the Metatron and what's about to happen and is trying to come up with a tactic on the spot. It seems very likely to me that the intensity of their respective emotions in this moment absolutely doomed their communication.

How this all fits in with the leading theories.

I don't buy into the coffee theory. I think that was a metaphor or an allusion or symbolic of a very real "either accept my offer (which is not something you even want because everyone knows Aziraphale doesn't drink coffee) or suffer some dire consequences." I can't imagine Aziraphale would have ever thought the Metatron's offer was genuine and given out of merit. Surely he knew that he was in trouble. He'd thwarted the apocalypse, quit his job, stopped hiding that his person is a Demon, set off alarm bells in heaven twice in one week, blew up his halo and almost started a war, and hid an archangel on the lam. “You’re honest.” Bbgygrl bold face lied to the archangels for a week and the Metatron knows and Az knows he knows.

I'm not really for the body swap theory. Not really at all.

I’m not really for Angel!Crowley’s memory was wiped. How then would he remember the passwords? Crowley’s personality is very “that bitch” so I think all of his no-idea-who-tf-you-are interactions is just him being catty.

The time stop theory seems the most intriguing, I'm listening, but not yet sold. How prominently the ticking of the clock can be heard at all times in the bookshop feels important. I find myself flummoxed by the "missing minutes" / "continuity error" with that prominent clock in a show where the attention to detail is, “as you might say, a miracle,” that is propelling whole droves of human beings to the brink of discorporation. Here's an excellent breakdown of the timeline/examination of the clock in S2 by thesherrinfordfacility

I am, at this current moment in time, in the camp that believes Az likely attempted to convince Crowley to stop time so that he could explain the situation to him. To explain the threat - either implied, inferred, or direct - from the Metatron. To try to formulate a plan together. Check out this analysis from ineffableigh and take another look at Aziraphale babbling out his Heaven propaganda. Apparently the lip-reading theory that Az was mouthing about "time" has been debunked, but I stand by what looks like Aziraphale making the "time-out" hand gesture. And that damned clock loudly ticking its heart out all season must be important. Mustn't it??

Still, I'm not entirely convinced that any time stopping actually happened, not sure when it would have happened. Crowley was so emotional in a way we have never seen him. I think its highly possible that in the heat of that moment he wasn't catching Aziraphale's signals. I think that Crowley after the talk with Maggie and Nina was so caught up in saying what he was really thinking that it used up any possible bandwidth for LISTENING. But damn those tells seem like they would be/should be giant flashing neon warning signs to Crowley.

I mean, come on, the "C"lues in Aziraphale's ramble that he is spinning a wild-ass tale with coded language that would only make sense to Crowley are pretty obvious to me. If Az was really trying to convince Crowley to do something the last thing he would say is that it would be "nice(r)." And there is no way that at that point Aziraphale could have truly still considered Crowley to be a part of Hell and therefore one of the "bad guys." Seriously? 2 whole seasons and thousands of years spent learning about shades of grey and watching the Demon, who he loves, prove in a million little ways that he loves him back, watching that Demon do the right thing over and over, and TEACHING him, the Angel, the right thing. “Nothing lasts forever.” ?? My son is talking about his BOOKS. He is talking about THEM. They are IMMORTAL. They know what Eternity means. THEY last forever. If Aziraphale wanted to convince Crowley to come back and be an Angel, he would not have used that phrase/reasoning in his argument knowing full well that when Angel!Crowley became aware that his creation would be intentionally shut down, from Aziraphale's own mouth, mind, that was the triggering event that eventually led to Crowley's fall. Further, it would never have occurred to Aziraphale to try to use hurtful language to attempt to push Crowley away at this point because it has already been proven that that doesn’t work. S1E3 “I don’t even like you! “You do!” I think his erraticism in this scene was being totally caught off guard by Crowley's confession and trying to reconcile how to process and handle that while also trying to stick to his tactic of trying to get Crowley to read him. Az is brilliant, but Crowley is the one who usually can problem solve on his feet.

Az is clever enough to discern that he wasn't being offered the position in Heaven by the Metatron - Az was being forced back to Heaven. He wouldn't be happy or excited to make a difference in Heaven because he thought it was "the side of truth, of light, of good." No. There was no longer any freedom from Heaven, no safety for Aziraphale, which meant there was no longer any safety for Crowley. And if there was one motivator for Aziraphale above all other things it would be to keep Crowley safe. He had no choice but to go back to Heaven, so its not a matter of we can make a difference. It is a matter of we have to.

While I believe all of his word horror batshit disaster monologue was a bunch of old tosh, once present-day Aziraphale turns around from that 180° position to follow Crowley, into that final configuration matching that of 1941, he starts losing it. I think he's realizing that he failed in his attempt to get Crowley to understand. He did not expect to have to keep up this act so long. Crowley is walking away. It has all gone so wrong. He is cracking and the honest words start flooding past the lies. "Work with me!" (come on, catch up, please!) "We can be together"...(reluctantly, barely even trying anymore "...angels." And then it just breaks. "I need you!" "You don't understand!" While that would seem to be the case for Az, it really, at least on the surface, does not seem to have applied for Crowley.

The parallels between the final 15 and 1941 suggest to me, at least on the surface, an inverse. In 1941 we saw joy and excitement and wonder and cooperation and communication and trust. Furfur came to take Crowley back to Hell after catching our beloveds working together. And Aziraphale, the world's not best magician, performed a magic trick that may well have saved their existences, and "got it right the time that mattered." The final 15 is, again, on the surface and ostensibly, an abject disharmony. The Metatron came to take Aziraphale back to Heaven, and made a serious effort (no, not that kind, kids) to point out how very much the Ineffables "partnership" is "irregular" and implying, I'm sure, that they would only be permitted to be together as Angels in Heaven (which is a load of steaming celestial garbage.) (We're going to see more of the Az/Metatron conversation in S3, I just know it, there is some seriously important information missing.) But, as far as we were shown, at least on the surface, all of their getting to know one another and trusting one another and being able to read one another - failed to serve them the time that mattered.

And yet. Crowley still lingered in the end and stood so poised and stoic next to the Bentley watching Az step into the Hellevator...It kind of gave a feel that maybe Crowley figured something out. Maybe he had a cool down after storming out and realized something felt very off about that conversation. Maybe he just braced himself and remembered to trust Aziraphale. Maybe as he stormed out he saw the Metatron staring daggers into the bookshop window and it clicked. Maybe in Az's furtive glance back that very last time he once again mouthed "trust me." Some version of Az's message must have finally gotten through to Crowley. Somewhere along the way. It had to have. I can't believe it didn't. All season we were shown Crowley specifically can read Aziraphale. "You have three reasons for calling me" / "tone of voice," the "trust me" lip-reading at the 1941 magic show / Crowley has seen first hand how Az acts when he lies to Heaven in the Job mini-sode. And really. Crowley knows the second coming is on the agenda after his trip to Heaven. These two put the force of their entire existence into thwarting the Apocalypse once. Would he truly believe Aziraphale would want to help bring about the second coming? Sounds unlikely.

So, perhaps, the final 15 isn't in its entirety opposed to 1941. Maybe it's just a few symbolic nods. 1941 Crowley said the magic act they need to perform together needs to be "bigger" more "dramatic." Is there something bigger and more dramatic happening? Are they performing together? Did Crowley catch on? Did they stop time? Or is there a trick, like the photo swap, so surreptitious that it's almost invisible? Perhaps there is just a metaphor in there. Maybe now Crowley has to be the one to catch the metaphorical bullet and Az has to be the one to figuratively shoot? (That's terrifying.)

And then there's still the matter of that damned clock!

Also, let's face it, Alpha Centauri was never a plan. "They'll be shutting this all down in 6000 years.” “All.” As in "the universe.” As in Alpha Centauri included. They were going to have to take some sort of action eventually. I don't think Crowley ever wanted to go. He just wanted Aziraphale to say yes. Yeah, ouch.

Last point I promise is this video from @sendarya

Here, Nightingale Sang in its entirety is lined up with the 13 seconds in which it played in the Bentley and it ends exactly at the final frames of Crowley and Aziraphale. Some have speculated that Crowley had Nightingale queued up to play on the pair's way to breakfast at the Ritz. But that doesn't make sense. Wouldn't one have a song start at the beginning? AND Crowley had yet to have his chat with Maggie and Nina. I'm not so sure that the Crowley we know would have gotten it into his head/summoned up the confidence on his own to ready THAT song. Maybe the often tone-deaf Bentley was trying to comfort Crowley by playing Nightingale? But what I think is that when Aziraphale glanced back, he made the tiniest of little Angel nudge waves to convince the Bentley to play that song. From this vantage point, Michael Aziraphale's creepy smile in the final frame conveys an entirely different sentiment. It makes him look certain. It makes him look like an Angel with a plan. If I'm right in this part, I think that would have been exactly what was needed to finally get his message, intentions, and feelings across to Crowley in a way he could understand.

Come at me hive mind!

Also still new to tumblr and think I royally fudged it on adding those gifs so I'll work on that.

[lavendermoonlitskies]

Hi.

It’s been a very intense week. I am a little embarrassed by the level at which I publicly freaked out on here about the possibility of losing this fandom, i.e. my happy place, and even more so how disgusted I am by that awful man’s actions, but I’m going to leave those posts up because they are genuinely how I feel and I do not want anyone to think I no longer care about what he has done.

I posted a lot about not wanting to lose this fandom space or the enjoyment out of watching this series, but with my head a little more clear, I want to make it known that victims of sexual assault getting justice for what has happened to them is always the number one priority. At best, NG took advantage of his authority to get what he wanted out of two women with their reluctant consent, traumatizing them in the process. I feel the way I feel about Good Omens, but if this results in season 3 being scrapped, then so be it. I will be upset (not at the victims, obviously), but life goes on and I will be fine.

I’ve done a lot of thinking in terms of fandom engagement, and the truth is, at this point in my life, this is how I get through the day. The fandom is talented, brilliant, funny, and at this point in time it’s too engrained in my daily routine to completely deprive myself of it so suddenly. I mentioned this in another post, but things in my life are really unsure at the moment and the constant anxiety about not being where I should be is terrible for my mental health.

Good Omens came into my life right around the time I needed it, it’s an escape. A fictional world for me to immerse myself in and 1) see myself in a disabled character whose disability is not only represented well, but celebrated in a way that I’ve never seen before on screen, and 2) imagine a happy ending for a couple of characters I’ve grown to love, during a time where I don’t know what my happy ending looks like. If I’m being completely honest, 90% of my engagement with it anyway is with fanfics, art and metas from fans.

As I’ve been kind of quietly lurking around people’s tumblrs and ao3’s, I started to realize that other fans are probably in the same mindset that I am, and I recognized that this fandom may be their happy place too and they don’t deserve to have that taken away over the actions of one man who isn’t even the sole author of the book, and is only one of many, many individuals involved in the production of the show. I had to sit with that and realize that holding myself to an entirely different standard is unfair, so I won’t. Nobody’s a bad person for drawing their favorite characters, or writing stories, or analyzing a relationship between two fictional characters in-depth in a tumblr post for other fans.

I don’t want to hurt anybody, I just want to be happy. That’s all.

[yourfandomfriend]

La Vie en Rouge || IwtV Meta

I've really been getting into the second season of Interview with the Vampire. The first season was great, but there's just something about season two employing one of my favorite devices:

Paranoia!

Not only can fictional characters say one thing and do another, (something that never fails to baffle audiences) but once you establish that the audience is being deceived, they start to question everything...

Well, not everything.

** SPOILERS** for Interview with the Vampire, Season 2 **SPOILERS**

Theater of Lovers

So… extra disclaimer: while I've been a fan of the Vampire Chronicles since I started reading the books in the mid-90s (yes, I'm very old) I'm not what you'd call "down bad" for the shallow idea of godlike killers whose every move is too beautiful for words. Like Daniel, I have issues with abusive, predatory assholes having such good PR.

One of the other things I always found hard to swallow was the way everyone in the books embodied roleplay personas.

I almost always see some of this whenever fiction turns erotic: characters don't just roleplay in the bedroom, or even try to play that role in real life. They are their role. The guy who is dominant in the sack is dominant to the bone, every minute of every day. Not because he wants to be, or even because his partner wants it, but because someone else is watching.

Feels kinda like it's all to get us off. That the characters aren't abstractions of people, they aren't attracted to each other or have itches that need scratching. The story is just an excuse for kinky scenarios, so go ahead and beat off because it's all just porn.

And if that's true, then you don't want to ever scratch the surface and find out the cliches you project onto are more complex than you thought. That would kill your boner.

But I feel like most of us have far more... sophisticated boners. Porn is dandy for being porn and not much else, but a romantic story isn't interesting for me unless the characters feel like people. And you know what? People have their own fantasies, ones that have nothing to do with me. They like to be someone else sometimes. They like to pretend, to play.

So I've really enjoyed this departure from the source material with Louis and Armand's relationship. Not only do they enjoy roleplay, but it also isn't because they are those roles -- a strong, dominant master and a weak, submissive minion -- but because there's something in each's bottle that desperately needs uncorking.

Series!Louis didn't have the luxury of being himself in his mortal life, and so only let himself be completely vulnerable for the first time with his maker, his first love… and got broken for his trouble.

And his brother, Paul, walked off a roof after Louis said "I love you." So it makes sense that part of his fantasy with Armand is, "You can't hurt me."

Meanwhile, Armand's only truly happy memories were of worshipping his maker. Since then, he's been saddled with the insufferable duty of keeping the Paris coven jackals in line, something he feels he can't abandon (for reasons that aren't obvious).

But Armand doesn't have the emotional strength to endure the relentless isolation of tuning up that clown car for eternity so it's only natural that he'd seek to occasionally regress to a happier time, if only in the privacy of an intimate relationship.

The trouble here isn't with roleplay, but with the way Louis and Armand insist that their play is reality. Their costumes are their own clothes, they swear, and their lines are their own words.

But we've seen this version of Louis before. He explains from the jump, right when we begin the new interview, that he plays tough because he knows what happens to the weak. Armand, though, is a bit more of an unfolding mystery.

The Glass Cannon

So... anyone else get the impression that this show wants us to feel, at least subconsciously, that despite everything, Armand is a delicate rose amongst the dickweeds? No matter how many scenes of his treachery and ruthlessness pile up? Because it quietly builds a case across seasons one and two.

From the moment they met, Louis could sense Armand's ancient power. The power to squish him like a bug with a thought. And that could very well have been the way it ended for Louis.

When Armand warned Louis not to anger the coven, Louis assumed he was being threatened and humbly capitulated, calling him "Maître." But was corrected. "It's 'Armand' for you."

Armand's job at this point was to bring Louis into the fold, by force if necessary, or else eliminate him, but still allowed him to refuse, over and over. Even though he had Cladia as leverage, even though he could drive Louis into the ground like a tent peg. Even though the coven grew furious. Armand still followed him around. Courting a fly that it was his job to swat.

Later, as Louis continues to be haunted by the ghost of his maker, he tries to take a picture of Lestat. When he developed it, though, there was just an empty space where Lestat had seemed to stand. An empty space... But not an empty frame.

Later, Louis is showing his photos to a gallerist who singles out the Ghost Lestat portrait, seeing only Armand -- alone, out of focus, pushed to the edge of the frame by a subject who wasn't there -- and sees the secret truth of his soul. His fragility. But Louis insists he knows Armand and he's "anything but."

Against the wishes of the coven, Armand spared Louis' life, asking why "those with the most power are often the weakest?"

When Armand tells his backstory to Louis -- the slavery and abuse he endured as Arun, his maker loving him but whoring him out to his friends as Amadeo, and now the unwanted duty and power of ruling the Paris coven as Armand -- and he asks Louis, "who am I?"

Eventually, Louis answers him: "Arun." Is that the real answer? We don't know, but it's the most convenient answer. For Louis.

So Louis plays the aloof master and Armand plays the affectionate lapdog. All the while, it seems, Armand is scheming and manipulating in the background.

In the present, he insists that's not the case, that his role in "what happened in Paris" was a single act of cowardice, rather than him pulling the strings behind it all, and everything else was done on Louis' behalf.

But the audience has already caught him in three huge lies.

As I write these words, it's the Thursday before season two's penultimate episode. And I wonder, are those the only two choices before us? Trust Armand completely -- trust that he is ultimately good and loving and blameless -- or assume he's evil and lying about everything?

Are Good and Evil our only choices? Or is what is done for love something beyond both?

Under The Burning Sky

Another great change to the source material is Old!Daniel. Allowed to live out his life in the wake of a savage brush with death, "The Boy" from the first interview matures into a journalist in his seventies, wise and cynical, sore at being taken advantage of, embarrassed by the foolishness of his past, and uniquely able to deconstruct Louis' bullshit and call out plot holes, many that only exist due to the massive retcon between books one and two.

Some people assume he's there to mock the source material, and thus the people who love it, rather than to demonstrate character by provoking two (canonically) defensive liars into giving a more truthful interview, and admitting that there's not only trouble in paradise but that it might've become a parking lot in the interim.

The source material takes itself seriously, but that doesn't even last until the second book when Lestat takes the mic away and calls bullshit on everything that came before. So why can't Daniel flip this rock over early for our amusement without it being an insult to the Chronicles and their fans?

PS, I know a lot of people are pining for "Devil's Minion," the story of Armand becoming casually obsessed with young Daniel after Louis let him live, hunting him around the world, and the whole thing working out to them being in a relationship. And they've even made some compelling theories for Old!Daniel's memories of his ex-lover "Alice" actually being an altered memory of Armand.

But I don't know how to feel about that.

I guess it would be cool... A big reveal about Daniel's past, adding to the themes of the season, and a pairing that's true to canon while still being unexpected. But as much as I love Young!Daniel, as endearing as he is, I honestly prefer him as the backstory -- the dlc -- of the far more interesting character that is Old!Daniel.

And if there was going to be a meaningful relationship between them, Young!Daniel would be the status quo. We've been here before.

I would especially prefer to see how aging into a mature, strong-willed, paranoid crank who's seen it all and isn't mystified by the world of vampires would alter his dynamic with the chronically underhanded, theatrical, high-strung, (secretly fragile) Armand.

Thus, the only Daniel/Armand ship reveal I will accept is the "Hello, Again" fight from the end of Saving Silverman…

[flowerbloom-arts]

You know, after watching 2019 Moominvalley's episode "The Trial", I have been thinking about the portrayal of Sniff's character on that series. From a meta perspective, Hobgoblin's appearance at the end of that episode is the embodiment of Gutsy itself noticing the damage done to Sniff and quickly fixing him with a character development spell.

"BOOM! Now he has empathy! That's the episode's message, if there was ever one. Oh yeah, now there is! This annoying, selfish, greedy creature can now feel empathy for his companions. That'll teach the children and the adult viewers a lesson," so Gutsy proudly claims. Except that said lesson does not feel earned. The need for a cosmic being's interference at the episode's climax feels like a cop out in the narrative, as if there was no better way to bring it to a closure.

This reminds me of the same issue I had with "Mrs. Fillyjonk's Last Hurrah". It's a good episode, well, until the climax. To sum it up: Mrs. Fillyjonk is actually not dead, yay! She wants all of her furniture and stuff given to others back at home. Understandable. One of said "stuff" Mrs. Fillyjonk had in possession a plush toy called Cedric, which was given away to Sniff. Moomintroll finds Sniff and asks him to give Cedric back to Mrs. Fillyjonk, to which Sniff says no as he explains why he is not giving it back.

That scene was meant to be about how Sniff's feelings are not irrelevant, it’s not about his selfishness. He should be heard as well, not ignored, but guess what? Moomintroll ignores him, the message about how people who feel mistreated by others need to be heard, he says some crap about sharing is caring and that's it. That missed the point and the episode could only be brought to a conclusion by Mrs. Fillyjonk giving Cedric back to Sniff after Moominpappa told her so.

Of course Moominpappa is not a cosmic entity, but still, it feels like Sniff is not a character on his own right. He is the embodiment of selfishness, a simplification of a character flaw, and when he stands up to himself, pouring his heart out to Moomintroll, he gets ignored. Like, that's so mean coming from a series about compassion, honesty and other virtues that come from within. Also, the series keep addressing Sniff as this selfish being fueled with greed, but I feel they never explain why he is that way. It's only "Selfish Sniff, selfish Sniff, selfish Sniff" but never "Why is he selfish? Because he wants to be rich so he can live without taking any risks and be accepted by others," but nah, let's forget that interesting bit of character, forget Sniff as a whole, he is not important and does not deserve anything right.

And that's it. I just wanted to share my opinion on 2019 Moominvalley. I have no drawing requests, but maybe... Maybe 70's and 90's Sniff comforting their 2019 counterpart, that would be nice.

I think the writers at Gutsy has some kind of vendetta against him at this point and I could make a list of dozens of reasons why I think that. Maybe if I rewatch the whole show when season 4 comes out.....

I've talked about the Sniff issue so many times and like. Yeah... They just. Either don't like him or don't know what to do with him, and I hope season 4 breaks the pattern atleast once.

[sockpuppethistorian]

Sex and the City, S1E1 Review from the PoV of an AroAce

Welcome to the show! I've done it. I watched Sex and the City's pilot episode, and I have put my thoughts below. ENJOY.

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Okay, so it’s starting with this little vignette about… a woman coming to New York from London and immediately meeting a guy to hook up with and getting very invested while they date for (checks notes)(this is a very meta phrase since these are my notes right now) TWO WEEKS. Why do people go on vacation and just decide that they have to hook up with people? When I go on vacation I want to see the sights and do fun things! It seems exhausting to not even be able to take a break from trying to find The One.

Oh, she MOVED from London to New York.

My point still stands.

So for 2 weeks they were having sex and doing all these romantic dates and planned to MEET PARENTS? I just. This English woman hasn’t even joined a gym or met the neighbors yet.

Alright. Now Carrie is talking and using the phrases “The End of Love in Manhattan” and “The Age of Un-Innocence” to describe New York City and the romance scene in the 90s. Okay, besides being dramatic, these are both hilarious. Clearly it’s not the end of love in Manhattan if this entire show is obsessing about love. But age of un-innocence? Yeah I’ll buy that.

This show being about a sex column is so funny. Because like, being aroace obviously sex makes no sense to me. But clearly it also doesn’t make sense to allos. And that’s beautiful.

Now Voiceover Carrie is explaining how love works and random people around New York are complaining about how essentially their entire lives revolve around dating and how everyone’s standards are too high. Let these people rock climb and eat their salads in peace without involving romance, I tell ya!

We’ve moved to the 4 friends (Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, Miranda) having a birthday dinner for one of them, and they’re just complaining the whole time about all being single). These people are putting way too much emphasis on needing relationships and men. I have such a hard time understanding why they can’t just live their lives and wait to see when a partner comes more naturally as opposed to obsessing over it like this. Maybe I’m not giving them credit, though, because this level of obsession is like me constantly needing good shows to watch on Netflix. Like, calm down and eat your birthday cake and have fun.

The extremely random drag queens that present the birthday cake is a… confusing touch.

They seem to feel so much embarrassment that they're four women in their 30s who aren’t married. Literally my dream would be an entire friend group of unmarried and uninterested-in-marriage people.

Now I’m confused. Do these people just want sex or do they want relationships and marriage? Even in this conversation between the four of them I’m so confused. They don’t want to be single, but they’re like “boo hoo the sex great but then he wanted to read me his poetry.” ????

Carrie is now having lunch with her friend, and he spots “the loathe of your life.” Real. (This was a description that Carrie’s canonical “gay best friend” used to point out someone she used to hook up with— or are Carrie refers to him, “A mistake I made when I was 26. And 29. And 31.”)

So, this is not a judgment on anybody, especially not real people, but I feel so confused and perplexed by the way logic and rationale goes out the door when it comes to people that one is sexually attracted to. Not that it doesn’t happen in other settings but it just seems like a very scary thing to me. Carrie has decided for some reason that to get back at him for the three times she had sex with him and it didn’t turn into a relationship, she is going to make it a fourth time and also not make it a relationship that way this time she’s the one in charge of… whatever the 90s version of ghosting would be??? I just don’t get it.

And I’m sorry, they scheduled a 3 o’clock sex date?? Why?? I could not possibly be bothered. Carrie and her Mistake simply must have something better to do at 3 o’clock, like getting a snack from a vending machine. Or taking a stroll.

Carrie is now having sex with this man, to prove that women can have sex just to have sex without feelings. And does to this guy what he did to her all the other times before that by leaving without any emotional intimacy. Why????

“I left feeling powerful, potent, and incredibly alive.” (Carrie after she abruptly leaves after having sex at 3pm on a workday) Why?? Like I KNOW that I lack the understanding of this because of the asexuality and whatnot but truly what feels good about that?!?!?

Oh my gosh. Guys. I am meeting the famous Mr. Big. And he’s…

Not… attractive…?????

Also who bumps into someone and immediately starts listing off that they notice that they don’t have a ring and that they’re attractive?? And that for some reason Carrie had an entire pack of condoms loose enough to all spill out when this man very lightly bumped into her. I can’t this feels like if humans were not humans with sex drives but just sex drives that were a little bit human.

I did not expect to have this many thoughts at THIRTEEN MINUTES INTO THE EPISODE.

Carrie is now meeting with her friend who looks like he works in IT in 2024, and said he has to tell her a “shocking secret.” Who wants to guess it’s related to sex?

… … … Guys the shocking secret was that he hasn’t had sex in a year. (Carrie’s response: “I don’t understand that, you’re such a nice guy.”) (Skipper’s response back: “I’m too nice. I’m a romantic. I just have so much feeling.”)

I… I’m actually impressed they’re finding this many different ways to talk about the exact same thing. Is this how allo conversations go??

Skipper says he’s sensitive because he doesn’t objectify women.

Skipper: Most guys, when they meet a girl, the first thing that they see is… you know… Carrie: (confidently as if she is proving some sort of weird point) P*ssy? Skipper: (chuckling like a school girl) Oh God! Hehehehe I hate that word. (Pause for a beat) Don’t you have any friends that you can hook me up with?

?? Y’all, can you name one time the first thing a boy sees in a girl is her genitals, unless he has accidentally logged into PornHub and forgotten that’s what he’s watching and thinks it’s Every Woman He Knows?

And then… HM. Man, this guy moves fast. Embarrassed by the word p*ssy and immediately turns around asking for a hook up. ???

So for some context, the immediate next thing that happens after this guy (SKIPPER) says he hasn’t had sex in a year and then is embarrassed by the word p*ssy, is to tell Carrie that he likes older women (literally this is what he says), and then Carrie decides to set him up with her friend Miranda.

Skipper after she says she’ll set him up with Miranda: “Don’t tell her I’m nice.”

Okay, so the goal here is really just unemotional sex.

WHAT. The. HEEECK.

Voiceover Carrie: “Miranda was gonna hate Skipper. She’d think he was mocking her with his sweet nature and decided he was an a**hole.”

?? Why waste everyone’s time?? Like is the point here for Carrie to get no one any sex or relationships? Like maybe it’s the End of Love in Manhattan because you’re setting up two people on a date that you know will fizzle out.

So now she’s on the phone with her friend Charlotte who has a date with someone that Voiceover Carrie describes as an “un-gettable bachelor.” What does it mean to be an “un-gettable bachelor”? Does this mean he has sex but doesn’t date? Does this mean he dates but won’t have sex? Does this mean he doesn’t usually do any second dates? I can’t even tell what these people want.

Carrie said she had an “afternoon of cheap and easy sex.” I want to psychologically explore this with her. Like did she just like the manipulation part? Did she just need to have an orgasm? What is going on here.

Okee doke, so now they’re in a club, where Carrie says it’s like the bar Cheers where everyone knows your name, except “here they forget it five minutes later.” I can’t tell if this is supposed to entice me or show how sinful everyone is being.

And we have Carrie’s friend Miranda, being very mean to Skipper who in the last scene was annoying me but now I feel bad for him because Miranda is literally interrogating him and trying to prove he’s a pig.

Voiceover Carrie says “I was about to rescue Skipper from an increasingly hopeless situation, when suddenly—“ stop right there, Voiceover Carrie. YOU PUT HIM IN THIS SITUATION. She is playing games. My opinion as of right now is her sex column was too boring so she is stirring the pot, which doesn’t seem to be too difficult since literally nobody knows what they want.

So now Carrie has run into the Mistake from when she was 26, 29, and 31 (and 3pm that afternoon). And he’s like “omg hello! I was pissed at you at 3pm but now I’m relieved that you want the exact same kind of relationship that I want!” Which is… 3pm sex??? And nothing else??

Y’all PLZ.

“Now we can have sex without commitment!” -Mistake (26,29,31,3pm). And now Carrie is disappointed. WHAT DID SHE THINK WAS GOING TO HAPPEN? Allos be playing mind games, for real.

Mistake: “I like this new you, call me.” Carrie: Depression, regret, anger, pretty much all the 5 stages of grief while she mourns her confidence from 3pm.

Dude, maybe this was not a good idea?? Like did you WANT the unattached sex or no??? Because it seems like it was only good sex as long as he was upset afterwards and now that he wasn’t she’s sad too? Did you retroactively decide you didn’t enjoy the 3pm sex which you said earlier made you feel “powerful, potent, and alive”?? Carrie, WHICH IS IT?

Voiceover Carrie: “Did all men secretly want their women promiscuous and emotionally detached?” Probably not, but if you purposely go for Mistake 26,29,31 with the intention of having promiscuous and emotionally detached sex because that’s what he’s given you in the past, that’s what you’re going to get???? Like??? You’re picking the wrong people to try to do things with?? (I was going to say the wrong people to have sex with but I feel like anyone willing to immediately have 3pm sex is in the same category anyway).

HUIRDFJKNIURGJFNDK Her friend Samantha just spotted Mr. Big and called him “The Next Donald Trump.” Oh my goodness. Laughing.

Next Donald Trump just did the cringiest little wave. He also waved when he saw Carrie on the street. Big ick.

And Carrie pretends she hasn’t met him. Why <3

Samantha says Next Donald Trump usually dates models. How do people know so much about these random people.

Now we’re back to Charlotte having some sort of date, and the guy asks her to come “back to” his “place.” Voiceover Carrie tells us she had wanted to play hard to get but doesn’t want the evening to end. Why are the only two options Sex on the First Date or Abruptly End the Date??

Charlotte’s date (Capote Duncan, hilarious name) starts kissing her neck and she asks to go home so he gets her a cab….. but then he GETS INTO THE CAB AND ASKS THE CAB DRIVER TO GO TO THE CLUB THE REST ARE AT AFTER HE DROPS OFF CHARLOTTE AT HOME.

WHAAAT.

Charlotte is like “Why are you going to the club?” And Mr. Capote Duncan with no sense of social etiquette for some reason responds “I understand where you’re coming from, and I totally respect it, but I really need to have sex tonight.”

??? HOW DARE HE?? What is this deal. How are these the eligible bachelors. All of these men are as horny as 12 year old boys who just discovered Playboy. None of them can keep it in their pants for 4 minutes and I don’t get anyones motives here. Clearly this dude Capote does not care about a second date with Charlotte after he just pulled that nonsense.

Back to Samantha, who seems to be the very sensual friend. She is propositioning Mr. Big to have a “private tour” of the downstairs of the club they’re in and Mr. Big turns her down.

And instead of being like, “okay he’s not interested,” Samantha takes this as a massive slight.

AAAAAaaand we’re back to Miranda and Skipper, who Miranda is politely(?) turning down, and then they start making out against a building. I do not get this.

AND NOW SAMANTHA IS IN CAPOTE DUNCANS APARTMENT MAKING OUT WITH HIM. Unbelievable. And he says she can’t stay over so the plan is literally thrust and bust.

Is this how normal sex lives work or is everyone in this show particularly amoral.

Ijdfknigfjkgijkthrgf

Carrie is wandering around outside, and Mr. Big drives up and says “well get in for Christ sakes” and she smiles like that’s a very sweet normal thing to say to someone you haven’t had an actual conversation with.

Carrie says she’s a “sexual anthropologist” to Mr. Big, who asked about her job. He gives me the creeps. I assume his long stares and slow deep voice are supposed to be sexy but it’s just bizarre and unnerving.

Mr. Big tells Carrie she’s “never been in love.” Voiceover Carrie then responds “suddenly I felt the wind knocked out of me.” Literally for what, Carrie.

She gets out of the cab, stops, then does a dramatic turn around to ask, “have you ever been in love?” It’s very film noir music and vibes right now. Mr. Big responds “Abso-f*cking-lutely” and then the window goes up and he pulls away in the literal most dramatic way and we freeze frame on Carrie.

Okay. That’s in. That’s the episode.

Most “ALLO SAY/DO WHAT?” Moments, in no particular order:

3pm sex with Mistake from 26, 29, and 31

Getting into the cab with your date so that you can go to the club to find someone else to have sex with

Carrie no longer liking the 3pm sex because Mistake liked it too

Skipper liking older women and being upset he hasn’t had sex in a year but giggling at the word p*ssy

Carrie getting into the cab with a strange man she literally barely knows because she thinks he’s “hot”

2.75/5 I think is my ranking. Too much sex.

[oswlld]

oswlld's monthly wrap up: april

note: i am trying something a bit different this year, so bear with me as i figure out how i want to format this. i wanted to spend more time sharing what i consume, beyond what i rb, and put my thoughts in one place. these posts are okay to rb

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This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone [started 04/04, finished 04/09] *drags my hands down my face until the end of time* I want to meet you in every place I ever loved. I want to meet you in every place I ever loved. I want to meet you in every place I ever loved. I want to meet you in every place I ever loved. I want to meet you in every place I ever loved. I WANT TO MEET YOU!!!! IN EVERY PLACE I EVER LOVED!!!!!!!!!!!!! 4.75⭐️ in storygraph. — Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell [started 04/12, in prog] I am about 100 pages in and still not sure if I want to keep going or DNF it. idk what isn’t sticking because the writing is beautiful and the pacing is great. And I do care about the characters, I really do. I love the way the author borrows from future grief, it’s what I am enjoying most about this read so far. Maybe I’ll give it 50 more pages and see if it finally sticks.

23.5 Degrees, GMMTV [started: 03/08, ongoing] As mentioned, I am caught up on eps 3-8. I’ll likely not be able to watch it live in may but I will be keeping up with the series til the end. It’s so lighthearted and charming! Not sure how they managed this, but I am constantly surprised by the character group dynamics. It’s def due to the great chemistry everyone has with literally everyone. I need NEED to discuss the score of this show because it’s IMMACULATE. The celestial themes, from the props all the way down to the music, is so rich. I’m so excited to see how this story unravels. — Devil’s Plan [started: 04/23, ongoing] This is a bestie pick, a show my best friend chose to have us watch on our facetime calls. We are 1.5 eps in and it’s a grower. The first game is hella complex and we’re slowly picking up on what’s happening. The people on this show are incredibly intelligent, so I feel like I have to work extra hard to keep up. It does feel rewarding, I’m hooked.

Oppenheimer, Peacock [watched on 04/05] I am a self-proclaimed Nolan girlie, I’ll admit it. I do enjoy his work and the many ways he translates time into film. When I wrote this, it had been a few days since I watched it and I still think abt the little moments that blew me away. Moments like the accentuated dust particles, how the coloring of the movie can be an unreliable narrator, and the utilization of a crowded hall stomping their feet to create tension. The last eight minutes still haunts me. I find more value in the technical side of film, but I will give credit when credit is due: every award Cillian Murphy got this season was so well earned. He carried all three hours of that film with such powerful quietude. And lastly, my heart now belongs to Jennifer Lame. Upon seeing her accept the award for Best Film Editing for Oppenheimer, I have come to learn that she also edited Tenet. HER MIND!!! She has such a bright future ahead of her, to be up there with the minds of Thelma Schoonmaker and Anne V Coates. — Yellow Door: ’90s Lo-Fi Film Club [watched on 04/14] This film needs to be studied in film school. It’s incredibly meta in some ways, having renown directors be the subjects, talking about their passion for film. The production being so stylized and the editing feels very reminiscent of Our Beloved Summer, with the way the found footage and the aspect ratios are intertwined with current day quality shots. This film will hit everyone right in the millennial. A true surprise for me is discovering that Bong Joon Ho and I are more alike that I had originally thought. The way he speaks in casual conversation and his story of setting strict rules for their film collection had me hollering because SAME. The most jessi thing he recounted was how all the VHS tapes were labelled. Yellow Door is somehow the opposite of the "doesn’t take itself too seriously" mentality; it’s actually so great that they made the film like that. By fully immersing us with gorgeous cinematography, cheeky editing sequences, and lush music to tug at your heartstrings, it bewitches you into loving film as much as they did. And still do.

Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé [relisten] I’ve given this several good cycles to confirm my first impressions: it’s def one of her most cohesive albums to date and still stands as a spectacular album. This passion project of hers takes such great care and attention to the voices she amplifies. I can feel the hunger, the innate need for her to make this album. If you haven’t heard how this album came to be, I insist you take the time to educate yourselves. It makes the listening experience so much more empowering. Good for her… GOOD. FOR. HER!! Current favs: Ameriican Requiem, 16 Carriages, Bodyguard, Jolene, Spaghettii, Ya Ya, Desert Eagle, II Hands II Heaven, and Sweet/Honey/Buckin’. — Older, Lizzy McAlpine [first time listening] Coming off the heels of my Five Seconds Flat hyperfixation last year, I haphazardly went into Older hoping its a natural progression in production value. I was shocked that it turned out to be a completely different sound. I soon learned that she actually didn’t really like how Five Seconds Flat was produced because it didn’t feel true to her as an artist. Tbh I was feeling a little lost after the first listen but after digesting this new info, I went back into it and appreciated it a lot more. In fact, the third listen was when I realized that it gave off the same energy as Laufey. I’m excited to listen to it again soon. — Stick Season: Forever, Noah Kahan [first time listening] Having stumbled on all the collabs on Alexa earlier this year, Forever was the only new song for me from his latest release. I’m OBSESSED with this song!!!! The way his voice carries the entire weight of every hurt inside me and just takes it away. Something healed in me. I play it in the car every time I leave the house. I cry in the car every time I leave the house. — The Tortured Poets Department, Taylor Swift [first time listening, standard vinyl ed.] I am going to get this out of the way and say that this album is great. Just great. I understand more than ever why she felt the need to make this album. Having only listened to the standard version a couple times and the anthology twice through, I sit here in this kind of… discomfort. And I’m kind of okay with that feeling. But… it pains me that I can’t share this album with some people in my life and it’s largely due to how she depicts her struggles with people with mental illness/addiction. It’s one, if not the biggest, strike I have against this album and by extension, her. Songs cycling in my head: Down Bad, So Long London, Guilty as Sin?, Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?, loml, imgonnagetyouback, Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus, How Did It End?, I Look in People’s Windows, The Prophecy, Peter, and The Manuscript.

EXPO Chicago [attended 04/13] Yes, I am doxxing myself a bit if you didn’t already know. During college, I used to attend EXPO yearly and occasionally went back long after I finished school. I haven’t attended in a long time, so I made it my goal to attend this year. And I had a blast! My mother tagged along and she’s not one to attend shows like this or art museums in general. It was a beautiful day trip to the city and it was nice to have her company. She mostly trailed behind and took pics of me as I floated around the exhibition hall. I have 50+ artists I tracked on my phone to actively research in my spare time. I sat in on one of the panel talks (ON COLOR), discussing color theory in today’s bipoc landscape. I took so much away from that conversation, it was very charged. I'm kinda obsessed with Alteronce Gumby, I need to do an artist deepdive on his work. — Coachella [watched from 04/12 to 04/14] I work for a big tech company and one of the biggest events to be on standby for is Coachella. I had to be on call for Friday and was backup support for Sunday lineups. Thus, Saturday was the only day I could sit back and relax while watching. My first time lineups included: Hatsune Miku, Peso Pluma, Late Night Drive Home, Jon Batiste, Ateez, le Sserafim, Purple Disco Machine, Bleachers, No Doubt, 88rising Futures, and Latin Mafia. Of all of the performances, I want to take a full deep dive into Ateez and Peso Pluma’s discography in the near future.

[housewarningparty]

Your turn!

It's halfway through the year! Got any favorite albums/books/tv shows/whatever to recommend?

thanks to you @badwolfwho1 who both asked me!

music:

right off the top i'm gonna recommend 3 pop albums bc i almost never have this many TO recommend. but tei shi's valerie, empress of's for your consideration, and shygirl's club shy EP have all been on constant repeat for me this year.

big year for metal also - in particular crypt sermon, job for a cowboy, darkest hour, gatecreeper, aborted and tzompantli were all incredible. i feel like between seeing them live and the release of cure, this is the first time erra has really clicked for me and i'm loving it.

for post-hardcore i've loved the debut LPs by with sails aheads and your ghost in glass. the EP lonely people by love rarely was on repeat for me for weeks also - really great stuff.

i got heaven by mannequin pussy slaps too. and i also really, really want to recommend you could do it tonight by couch slut - if you love the queasy, depraved noise that chat pile make, you absolutely should be listening to couch slut.

i threw a couple little playlists together to roundup some of my faves:

(extended version here)

honorable mention: as was really apparent from my charts this year, i spent A LOT of time listening to the saosin s/t again. but also got really back into grouper this year - especially her 2021 album shade, which i missed entirely when it came out.

books:

okay for music i focused mostly on 2024 releases but for books i won't be so strict.

shirley jackson: a rather haunted life by ruth franklin was REALLY good and provided a lot of great insight into jackson's work and also just had some really interesting history in it. really enjoyed it.

hit so hard by patty schemel a rock music and addiction memoir by the drummer of Hole. very dark and upsetting at points, but compelling. was very illuminating re: the 90s seattle music scene and the drug culture around it, provided a lot of context and detail to some stuff i thought i already knew about. really great stuff.

penance by eliza clark - this is a fake true crime book that REALLY got under my skin. it's a meta commentary on true crime as a fandom and an industry and the exploitation inherent in it. it's a mirror to make you stare at your own internal biases. it's SO fucking 2014 tumblr. i've gotten like three other people to read it and they all went insane like me. highly recommended.

hex by thomas olde heuvelt - very late to the party on this one but i loved it. translated AND localized from dutch, with very interesting results. almost goofy to start and ends up totally bleak. i adored it.

magic for beginners and white cat, black dog by kelly link - REALLY falling in love with kelly link this year. read these two and currently re-reading stranger things happen and i just adore her style. weird but SO heartfelt, surreal and dreamy, as often horrifying as it is sweet. she's so talented, i'm really excited to read the book of love later this year.

between two fires by christopher buehlman - FINALLY read this and i loved it. absolutely deserves the hype. kinda wild that dark ages horror isn't more of a thing? i re-read buehlman's the blacktongue thief too and really loved it, definitely cemented it as one of my favorite fantasy books. i'm reading the daughters' war now and enjoying it a lot.

i also re-read the golden enclaves by naomi novik and had such a great time with it.

tv shows:

finished my buffy re-watch! been watching a ton of xena with @holdsteady and @nataliving this year too - we just finished s3 and it was insane and i loved it soooo much.

i watched under the bridge and thought it was very good, but i'd recommend people learn a little about the real reena virk case before engaging.

hacks season 3 was INSANE it made me crazy i loved it so much.

haven't watched much tv aside from that!

[waitmyturtles]

Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: Love Sick/Love Sick 2 Edition

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. I’ve covered SOTUS so far, but now I’m correcting for chronology, and present to you today my review of Love Sick.]

Well. I climbed the mountain and saw the view from the top. After 48 episodes -- BL edit cuts, mind you, but still, 48 episodes -- I finished Love Sick and Love Sick 2. 

Before I dive into the review, I want to meditate on something that kept cropping up for me as I was watching the show. I always say this in my writing, but I’m an #old cishet gal, in my early middle-aged years, and when I was in high school in the States, casual homophobia likely looked different than it does now, or maybe even at the time of Love Sick’s airing in 2014 and 2015. 

I’m not sure if young people in high schools do this now... or maybe they do. Maybe I’m clueless and just not watching enough Western and/or cishet content to know. But when I was a teenager in the ‘90s, “gay” was the adjective for everything. "This bagel is gay.” Your handbag was “gay.” Your handwriting was “gay.” The way in which you stapled your papers together could be called “gay” -- I literally heard that in high school, and I still remember it as being one of the dumbest things I had ever heard. And, of course, most doomingly for certain individuals -- many were labeled as “gay,” too. 

As I rejected much of the biases and racism that my Indian family operated by when I was growing up -- so I also rejected the nonsensical usage of the word “gay” as an adjective for anything else but someone’s sexuality.

I was a seriously protected, hugely nerdy Indian kid growing up. But I kind of inherently knew that this unconscious/conscious/implicit/explicit/simmering hate for a group of people vis à vis this adjective wasn’t for me. At that time of my youth, I didn’t actually know queer communities. I just didn’t want to be associated with biased people who insisted on seeming like utter idiots via their language against a minority group. 

(I’m aware now that “gay” as an adjective is likely being appropriated back by young queer communities, just like the word “queer” itself. I want to clarify that “gay” was NOT being used in a "nice” sense when I was a kid.)

I’m meditating on this because, of course, I watched Love Sick well out of order of my introduction to Thai BLs. I started with KinnPorsche, with The Eclipse, with Bad Buddy, and then began to correct that by watching SOTUS -- all shows that have dealt with homophobia in various ways...or seemingly not at all, in the case of BBS, and to just a touch of an extent in KP between Big and Porsche. 

So. I watched Love Sick to learn about Thai BL history. But my mindset is out of order, right? It’s because I’ve already watched many influential shows that carry the influence of Love Sick within them. (As I did in my SOTUS review, I’ll cite @miscellar‘s tremendous analysis of how Bad Buddy was based on Aof Noppharnach’s meta commentary on existing BL frameworks, and I’ll do a lot of comparisons to BBS in this piece, as I’m aware that P’Aof was influenced himself by Love Sick.)

In rewinding my perspective and my mind to set myself up to watch Love Sick: I wanted to be very aware of how this show would deal with casual homophobia among teenagers, and the ever-present question of how it would deal with the question of if the main coupling of Phun and Noh would fall into the “gay for you” category that I discussed in my SOTUS review, and that @absolutebl discusses in this post. 

If @absolutebl flagged Love Sick as likely problematic of mistakes that are being corrected for now -- of course, they’re right. The casual homophobia was rampant. The “gay” question was easily squelched, loudly and early by Noh, who clarified throughout the show that he was not, and never would, be gay. And Phun clarifies that as well, later in season 2. Our boys “called it love.”

Bad Buddy dealt with this differently, very obviously. There was no homophobia. Pat likes all genders. Pran will consider liking girls at some point, to Ink’s joy and advice that it’d be “gainful” for Pran to do so. 

But. (And I think P’Aof recognized this.) In history, we have to start somewhere. I had to get comfortable in my jibblies to watch this, and be reminded from whence I came, an environment of casual homophobia that very directly led to my deciding to live my life in part as an ally.

It’s unfortunate that I don’t get to read commentary on the regular about these shows from a Thai queer male perspective. (It’s why reviews from the very dear @bengiyo are so important for me to read, from his queer male perspective.) (And I think I need to watch more Soonvijarn.) I want to know, from a Thai queer male perspective, if it was OKAY for Love Sick to depict the casual homophobia that we saw, and if the perspective accepts Noh and Phun’s trajectory as a couple, calling their relationship not gay, but love. And certainly -- maybe that perspective has changed over the course of the airing of BL in Thailand, as expectations and artistic strategies have changed with the progress of time.

Throughout my liveblogging of my watching the show (and I want to take a second here to give a HUGE SHOUT-OUT to the DARLING MUTUALS who commented on my seriously late-night posts: @clairificusrex, @lurkingshan, @nieves-de-sugui, @aliceisathome, and many more, I LOVE YOU ALL, YOU AMAZING STANS!), I expressed a lot of love for Phun and Noh, and for other characters, too, like Yu, Per, and Win. (Yu and Per have a special place in my heart as allies-in-the-making, and Per trying everything to make Win, his BFF, happy -- and recognizing his limits while doing so.)

But now that I’m done with the show...I feel like a line of intimacy wasn’t crossed. Maybe I shouldn’t blame the show for this. The show WASN’T a BL. The show wasn’t SOLELY focused on Phun and Noh. Maybe the line of intimacy that I’m thinking of COULDN’T be achieved in a high school setting in 2014 Thailand.

I really wondered about the length of the show as I was watching it. For the MAJORITY of the second season, I thought the length HELPED the boys grow into their relationship. We really saw shades of gray. We saw shades of emotion, of development, especially from Noh to Phun. We saw Noh grow TREMENDOUSLY, maturely, figuring out his boundaries with lovely Yu. We saw Noh figure out his boundaries with Phun. I thought all of that development was truly lovely, very important to see between two young men, and gorgeous to watch. Captain acted the hell out of it.

At the same time, I think the length of the second second ultimately hurt the endgoal of the revelation of their relationship to their communities and family. To the end of the show, we were hearing that the boys were not gay. I think this was designed as a necessary part of their coming out in their relationship -- because I’m not sure that the airing of Love Sick 2 could have been considered successful at that time if it did NOT include that element, the element of MAKING SURE that the audience was TOLD that the boys were not gay. 

And I think -- because I watched things out of order, I’ve watched brilliant shows already correct for these mistakes -- that deflated me just a touch as I wrapped up the series.

As well, up until the VERY end, we saw that the boys were still in a place to consider heterosexual relationships, as in the case of Phun and his friend, Pam, who Noh confused for being a potential interloper. With Phun *not* communicating and clarifying to Noh immediately that Pam had a boyfriend, it set up a moment of real confusion for Noh, as if their already-committed relationship (which they had committed to multiple times already!) was on the rocks, for an interloper of another gender.

While I was watching it, I was confused -- I was wondering why the show needed THIS to close out Phun and Noh’s storyline. 

I wonder if it’s because, in 2014, the show could not have ended WITHOUT that question. The boys would be in a relationship now... but in the future, would things “straighten” out? (Of course, years later, we had ReminderS, which I haven’t peeped, but did establish that the guys were still together, as BL continued to be filmed and as attitudes slowly have changed.)

I think that if Love Sick 2 had ended after the pharmacy camp -- I would have felt settled and happy about this show. Phun and Noh ARE darlings, after all. Captain as Noh, his AMAZING ability to demonstrate a teenage kid’s overwhelmed reaction to the world around him so comedically -- it was really perfect. Both White and Captain are fantastic actors (especially as compared to Krist in SOTUS). 

But there was something about the ending that gave me the jibbles. As if the show couldn’t just leave the guys alone in their happiness. There HAD to be one more dramatic storyline that wasn’t clear. There HAD to be the clarification that the boys were not gay -- not to their schoolmates, not to Phun’s dad, not to the audience. No way were they gay. Again, I think this was where the length of the second season ultimately hurt this series.

And Ohm’s internalized homophobia as well. The way in which he rejected James, left James in the dust. The way in which things were left not quite clarified between him and Mick, although their relationship was alluded to at the end. (I might have missed some clarifications in the BL edits, but I ain’t going back to the full-length episodes to find out.)

And Earn and Pete. Good LORD, Earn. An “I fucking love you” next to the urinals? Dude. PETE COULD DO SO MUCH BETTER THAN YOU, EARN. (I frankly wanted to see Pete with Yu. Earn was the Thai version of The Situation from Jersey Shore, getting all up in Noh and Phun’s business and trying to break them up. Fucking Earn. SMDH.)

I have complaints. And I can’t help but think... yes, THIS is what Bad Buddy corrected for. THIS is what The Eclipse corrected for. With Kinn being out and out gay, THIS is what KinnPorsche corrected for. 

Phun and Noh found their love, which I am desperately happy for. Captain acted the HELL out of Noh -- I could not help but laugh out loud, night after night, at how Noh wiggled his way in and out of situations. He is, in Asian parental parlance, a good boy.

But, as dear @absolutebl meditated on, there were mistakes in this show that, thank goodness, are being corrected by the filmmakers that I have fallen for now. I see what Bad Buddy was doing. Instead of “I’M NOT GAY” -- P’Aof had Pran be gay, and Pat be bi, and Pran consider girls to Ink. That flow of that conversation among Pat/Pran/Ink/Pa -- that was sophisticated stuff. P’Golf had Akk say to his parents, not that he was in love with Ayan -- but that he likes men. 

I have previously loved these nuances in Bad Buddy and The Eclipse. Love Sick now makes me WANT THEM, HUNGRILY, as admissions of truth and acceptance. 

Do I need characters to be out and out, like Kinn? NO. That’s a person’s business, that’s a character’s business, if they want to define or call themselves gay. I’m not here to tell anyone where to land on the sexuality expression spectrum, that’s not my place. I’m not here to ASK anyone’s preferences. Just live. Pran certainly wasn’t out and out. He loved Pat -- that’s who he loved, he loved Pat, and there was no other nonsense, no other side explanations, no covering up or jibbly clarifying of any other positions. (And Pat’s statement was so simple, too: “I like both genders.” Boom, done, move on, live and LOVE and be happy.)

What was hard for me was the repeated denial of gay throughout Love Sick and Love Sick 2. I just didn’t think the show needed that -- because the love between Phun and Noh could have spoken volumes WITHOUT those statements. But I also get it. I get that the writers of Love Sick likely thought they NEEDED those statements in order to get the dang show aired in the first place, in 2014 Thailand. I get that there wasn’t that paradigm, yet, as leveraged by people like P’Aof, P’Jojo, and P’Golf, that lets love STAND as the STATEMENT ITSELF, à la Bad Buddy and The Eclipse.

I see what Love Sick did to begin setting up a tremendous, TREMENDOUS paradigm of BLs in Thailand. It was simply groundbreaking. And the ads! The advertisers were also making their statements. These boys were drinking and eating the Oishi like there was no tomorrow. That was big for nascent BL and capitalism accepting nascent BL.

But the show wasn’t perfect, not by a long shot. And @absolutebl Sensei -- you nailed it by listing it as one of your three original recommendations for us understanding what GMMTV is doing, NOW, with their progressive and groundbreaking art. I’m glad I watched Love Sick. I’ll get more Phun and Noh when I catch up with ReminderS -- and I’m glad, for me, that Love Sick is over, and that I know that Phun and Noh end up happily together in drama land, hopefully in a place where their cinematic preferences are NOT in control of the fictional communities around them, and the real audiences watching them.

[For those of you who are following, I’m now going to make a purposeful dive into a few shows that cover a number of priorities. I’m going to watch Make It Right, Make It Right 2, and Love By Chance -- all to learn about the works of the very prolific New Siwaj, as recommended to me by @bengiyo. I’ll also be crossing off groundbreaking shows featuring my simpy darlings, Ohm Pawat and Perth Tanapon, who are currently destroying in Double Savage. Finally, with MIR and MIR2, I’ll learning more about the early high school pulps after having watched Love Sick. Here’s the road front and back. I’ll ALWAYS take input if anyone reading thinks that something’s missing on this list! 

AND AS ALWAYS: MANY, MANY THANKS TO THE FAM that always comments on these posts and gives me unbelievable feedback: @bengiyo, @shortpplfedup, @respectthepetty, @lurkingshan, @wen-kexing-apologist, @clairificusrex, @nieves-de-sugui, @manogirl, @miscellar, @dribs-and-drabbles, @solitaryandwandering, and anyone that I may have missed! I so appreciate you all, and I LIVE for the conversations we have about these shows. 1) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) 2) SOTUS (2016) (review here) 3) Make It Right (2016) 4) Make It Right 2 (2017) 5) Love By Chance (2018) 6) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) 7) He’s Coming To Me (2019) 8) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) 9) TharnType (2019) 10) Theory of Love (2019) 11) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) 12) 2gether (2020) 13) Still 2gether (2020) 14) ITSAY (2020) 15) I Promised You the Moon (2021) 16) Not Me (2021-2022) 17) My School President (2022-2023)]

[misrepresentedmorallygrey]

And Round 1 is Done!

PROPAGANDA

"Picture this: the love of your life betrays you and causes your death, then you're brought back to life later against your will and your lover is with your reincarnation. Anyone would feel bitter! She tries her best to keep living her half life and helping people. She's hated just because she's not the main character and gets in the way of the show's OTP."

"Kikyo was such an interesting character. She was murdered by the villain, who tricked both her and her love interest into thinking the other had betrayed them, brought back to life against her will only to find that fifty years had passed, the world had moved on without her, her baby sister was now an old woman, and she'd been condemned to an awful half-life in an unfeeling clay body where she was stuck in her worst moments and basically a vengeful spirit, but she eventually managed to move past it, gave up her one chance at getting revenge on her murderer to save the life of a child, and achieved some measure of inner peace before she died for good. But, she also has the misfortune of being the first love of the male lead, so of course the only thing anyone seems to care about is how she supposedly did him dirty and wasn't good enough for him. The whole fandom is chock full of meta posts about how she didn't trust Inuyasha enough and should have known he'd NEVER betray her like that. Meanwhile, Inuyasha fell for it just as easily when the villain framed HER for attacking HIM, but nobody ever tries to claim that HE didn't trust HER enough. (For further context, when she thought he'd betrayed her, she retaliated by pinning him to a tree and putting him in an enchanted sleep. He retaliated by destroying her village.) In at least 90% of the fanfics that she appears in at all, she's either the Bad Girlfriend or the Evil Ex, who either previously or is currently abusing the hero, or cheating on him, or trying to coerce him into turning human, or dating him for years only to break up with him by telling him he disgusts her because of his demon blood (huh???), none of which she did in the actual canon, solely so the preferred love interest can swoop in and kiss it all better. People will claim they're just making valid criticisms of her actions (which, to be fair, aren't always great), or saying she didn't properly earn her redemption (which is actually pretty standard for a shounen series) because she didn't apologize enough, but them multiple male characters who did far worse than she did somehow miraculously managed to escape the constant criticisms that she's subjected to, this despite having a so-called redemption that's literally just "He stopped eating people because he wanted to get into the heroine's pants", and remain very popular characters both in their own right and as alternate ships for the female lead. The double standards are so glaringly obvious, yet people will bend over backwards and jump through mental hoops that would give a gold-medal Olympics gymnast pause to insist that they're being completely objective and fair and that this isn't just about trying to score points in a ship war or holding female characters to completely different standards from male characters."

Kairi Propaganda

"The Kingdom Hearts game series is about Mickey Mouse battling the forces of Darkness with an alliance of fashionable anime boys. Kairi is a major character, and one of the few female characters. She is part of a trio of childhood best friends, with the protagonist Sora and their other friend Riku (who had a villain arc and then a redemption arc). Though Kairi is constantly and clumsily sidelined by the canon narrative, she arguably has more backstory going on than any other major characters. She is a refugee from another planet. She implicitly lost her beloved grandma at five years old in the traumatic destruction of their hometown. She was kidnapped and experimented on by an evil wizard-scientist—she escaped thanks to having a magic charm that basically teleported her to her soulmate(s). Then she had to adjust to living on a new planet and being adopted by a new family. In the very first game, when she's 14, she turns out her pure heart is one of 7 in the entire universe to be free of Darkness—she shows a full emotional spectrum of fear, sadness, frustration, defeat, but she isn't vulnerable to corruption. In KH2, she becomes one of the Chosen Ones who wield a magical weapon called a Keyblade. She loves her friends very much, and she has the unique talent to instantly recognize them even when they've been transformed into monsters. She has saved them several times with nothing but the Power Of Love in her heart randomly manifesting in, like, telepathy and teleportation and resurrection—she doesn't even consciously know that she has powers, her love is just so great that it's accepted as a tangible force of nature. She is frustrated and ashamed by her role as a damsel in distress, and she wishes to be stronger and combat-capable so that she join her male friends on their adventures instead of waiting around where it's safe. Also she was kidnapped by an evil assassin clown who's ten years older than her, and then they became friends. NOT ONLY does the fandom plug its ears and claim there is nothing interesting about this character and no potential in her story—Kairi has been demonized by the fandom for about 20 years. Somehow Kairi is useless and boring while also being a Mary Sue at the same time. She was called a bitch and a slut and a whore. She was hated for wearing too much pink and wielding a girly weapon with a floral design. She was criticized as a slut for wearing a short skirt, and for THE PLAYER being able to manipulate the camera into a contrived angle to look up her skirt to see her panties in the first edition of KH2. You can find nearly 20-year-old fanfiction and fanart of her being twisted into an evil schemer driving her friends apart, and of her being gleefully brutalized and insulted. Haters STILL comb for every crumb to make elaborate anti-canon theories about why she's an agent of evil, even though canon has FIRMLY ESTABLISHED for TWENTY YEARS since the very beginning that she's THE ONE CHARACTER incapable of growing Darkness in her heart. The theory is that she exists only as a puppet sent by the main villain to sabotage her friends (the plot for two out of the four main female characters) for all ten years of their friendship. The theory is that she's been using her powers to force her friends to love her—and their Power Of Friendship that is the EMOTIONAL BACKBONE OF THE STORY, and THE MAJOR FORCE OF GOOD IN THEIR UNIVERSE, and THE MOST CONSISTENT MOTIVATION FOR THE HEROES is all Just Misdirection LOL building up to a shitty Plot Twist. The theory is that she's secretly a custom-manufactured Chirithy (a cute talking animal companion that serves and guides humans)—and not a human girl with her own natural feelings and aspirations. AND THEN after stripping her of every important trait and role, these fans claim they're making Kairi more important and interesting than she is in canon. I don't know what causes the fandom to so desperately hate a sweet 14-year-old girl who literally canonically never did anything wrong."

[misty-caligula]

Okay, so I’m not used to really getting... noticed... in the way that I have been recently. And I’ve been kind of just vibing quietly before I actually respond to anything. But I got some responses to my big thesis post which I think warrant extra attention, because I think perhaps I wasn’t as clear as I wanted to be.

It’s worth mentioning that I have almost 500 posts up at this point, and have been very much immersed in yj theory for a fair while, so it’s hard to necessarily know how clear I am in any given context, and if I’m making assumptions of a reader. So I’m going to respond to a couple of things and see if I can redo a bit of Jackie/Coach stuff. My intention isn’t to say “Ah you’re wrong!” but to reframe my own position. If you don’t like what I’ve got to say that’s fine, I’m just a random on the internet. I’m not Right, I’m just thinking thoughts.

(Long post ahead about meta analysis of jackie and coach and society)

@inthegloomglow

Really good post but… coach and Jackie didn’t deserve to die for not being calm about all of this. They murdered his brother. I’m not sure that’s the point I’m supposed to get? But it’s weird to condemn them for that.

@areyoushuri

!!!! Criticizing Jackie and Coach for not being well adapted to the willingness and struggling to accept the rituals and cannibalism created is odd considering that the vast majority of viewers probably wouldn't survive/accept something like that. Yes, they're stubborn, not built for the wilderness, etc. but so many of the traits we criticize now served them well before the crash.

Okay! So first thing’s first. I do not hate Jackie or Coach. I think they’re both really interesting characters, with interesting through-lines. I think that they’re well acted, well written, and bring a lot of value to the plot. I’ve completely fallen in love with Jackie and Shauna’s really messy ... mess, and will absolutely go on giant tangents about it if you don’t stop me. I find Coach to be a really intricate and tragic portrayal of being queer in the 90s, one that speaks to me as someone who was struggling with being queer in the 90s, and whose dad was queer in the decades prior. I love these disasters, as I love all the disasters on this show.

I’m not critiquing them as people, I’m digging into the metatext of their actions as thematic devices. I also don’t know if this actually needs to be said but I’ll be very clear: If these were actual human beings then I wouldn’t want any of them to die, the point is that they are not humans, they are commentaries on society and culture and trauma and the way that people adapt or fail to adapt to changing situations. I don’t think people deserve to die for being wrong, or making mistakes... I just accept the theme of characters either surviving or dying based on their values within the show. I hope that’s clear, but just in case... there you go.

So my big concept of the show is that there’s this one giant question that the yellowjackets keep getting asked: “What really happened out there?” And that what DID really happen out there, fundamentally, is that there was a fracturing of social realities. Think of it like... the ‘jackets used to be part of “Society,” a huge world-wide group of all connected human cultures as a whole. And then they went off to the wilderness and they lost contact with Society, and they had to build a whole new culture all of their own from the ground up. We’ll call that the Team. Then they were suddenly rescued, after they’d fully given up on ever seeing Society again, and were forcibly thrown back in, and now are expected to just... reassimilate. And they’re struggling to do so.

So if you think about the show as a collection of big chunks, you can think of it like this:

> The ‘jackets are normal kids, living in and learning from, and protected by Society

> Their connection to Society is severed, but they expect rescue, and so they build a micro outpost of Society in the wilderness

> They slowly realise they’re never going to be saved

> They begin to recognise that the values and lessons that Society gave them are not all helpful in the wilderness and will get them killed. They start to develop the Team to replace what’s not working

> The Team grows in power, and the individual survivors have to make a decision about whether they’re going to remain loyal to Society or join the Team. Those who don’t join the Team die, not because they’re bad but because Society cannot protect them in the wilderness. To be very clear, neither Society, nor the Team, are inherently good or bad, they’re simply cultures that exist and offer each individual a place within them to provide and be provided for. But Society is NOT here, it’s a memory of a culture that’s been severed, and cannot provide anything anymore, only the Team is capable of doing so. THAT’S why only Team members can survive.

> The only survivors left are Team members, the Team stabilizes into a functioning self-perpetuating system

> They’re rescued and forcibly reintegrated into Society

> The remaining Team members now find themselves in the opposite situation, the Team is now toxic and can’t help them anymore, just like Society couldn’t help them in the wilderness, and they need to shed it to adapt back to Society just like they shed Society the first time. Those who can do so will eventually live long and happy lives. Those who can’t will die.

Coach and Jackie’s big thing in common isn’t that they suck, or that they’re unpleasant to be around. It’s that they’re Society loyalists. They just can’t let go. And what I think is most interesting about that is that both of them are being MISTREATED by Society. They’ve both been assigned roles that they cannot fill, and have held onto those roles SO tightly that it’s getting them killed.

Jackie’s absolutely plastered with unearned privilege. She’s constantly being told how perfect and brilliant and incredible she is. But she knows it’s a lie. And in order to defend her place, to justify her situation, and protect herself from anyone finding out, she holds Shauna SO close to her, so that she can have someone to feel constantly superior to. To make her look good by comparison. Except that Shauna is so many of the things that she secretly knows she isn’t and feels she NEEDS to be. So she spends a lot of effort beating Shauna down and focusing on convincing her that she has all these flaws and things so that she doesn’t realise that Jackie’s not actually this perfect person that people tell her she has to be.

Once she’s in the wilderness and Shauna starts to shine on her own - because the Team simply needs a different set of skills than Society did and Shauna’s willing to engage with it - Jackie’s control slips and she resents it, she fears it so much. And she can’t accept losing that level of authority that she got given by Society, to take a lower role with the Team. And so she stays loyal to Society even when it’s nonsensical. She sits in the snow and simply waits to be rescued, because that’s what Society has taught her to do.

But the Team doesn’t work like that. It requires Team members to be self-sufficient, and to work together. Jackie won’t go inside because Society has taught her to wait for Shauna to submit to her authority and apologise and invite her in, to give her the position that she Deserves. Shauna won’t do that because the Team has taught her that each Team member needs to be a part of the whole, that Jackie must eventually request permission to join the Team as a regular member. It’s a conflict that doesn’t get resolved, because neither will budge, but in the wilderness the Team can protect you and Society cannot, so Jackie’s faith in Society is punished with death.

That’s why Jackie can’t make a basic campfire to literally save her life. Because the Team would’ve taught her how, would’ve required her to learn. Society would provide her with someone to do it for her. So she just never bothered to learn. It’s why she’s unable to recognise just how dangerously cold it’s getting and be REASONABLE and knock on the door. Because Society has taught her that she’s protected from danger, that if it ever got Dangerous someone would come and help her. She doesn’t know the difference between damn cold and dying cold. Society works because of hundreds, thousands, millions, billions of people working together in intricate systems of mutual support and deep heirarchy. You don’t need to know how to put out a fire because when your house catches fire you call 911. You don’t need to know how to escape the wilderness because when you get lost they send a rescue helicopter. But without the connection to Society its lessons are literally destructive - Sit and wait until you die. Rescue isn’t coming.

Sidenote: If you want to go REALLY deep into the meta of it, the Team then gets rewarded with food by predating on Jackie as a vestige of Society, much the same way as they get little bits of technology by picking apart the wreckage of the plane. The plane is useful to Society as a transport, it’s useful to the Team as a source of supplies. Jackie is useful to Society as a member, is useful to the Team as a source of food. But I digress.

Now Society isn’t always a nice place to be, and Jackie’s not treated all that well within it either. People find her frustrating and comment on how undeserving she is of her position. They actively go behind her back when they can, Jeff cheats on her with her supposedly lesser best friend, Coach Martinez tells her to her face that she’s kinda mid, and people are generally mildly annoyed at her most of the time. But Society has her back, and as long as she plays by the rules, and follows the lessons, her life is pretty much made. It won’t necessarily be everything she ever dreamed of, but she’s solid, pragmatically. But the stress it puts on her, to conform and try to fit the role she’s arbitrarily placed into by Society is going to slowly ruin her and she’ll end up a bitter and unhappy person if she remains completely committed to it (assuming they never crashed, obviously). And what she doesn’t seem to realise is that the Team offers her community, and acceptance, and respect on the terms of her actual reality, on what she’s able to genuinely provide, whatever that is. But she’s so caught up in holding onto Society that it literally gets her killed.

That’s not to say that she doesn’t have a potential place in Society where she could be genuinely happy. Just that the one that she’s assigned isn’t right for her. If she was able to be let go of her fear, if she was able to be honest and stop trying to conform to the expectations put on her by those around her, and take a position in Society that more suited her she COULD have a perfectly comfortable life, happy and healthy. But the fact that she’s been assigned this life path that she knows doesn’t fit, that she’s so insecure about, is what MAKES  her such an unwavering loyalist for Society, because she has so much to lose.

And that’s what makes her and Coach so similar. Coach is born in the ‘60s, is brought up in the ‘70s and ‘80s. We don’t know when he realised he’s gay, but it has to have been a very scary thing for him. He has been living in a world of deep and abiding homophobia his whole life (I remember the 90s, I can only imagine the 70s...) and then came AIDS. For his whole life Society has convinced him that living in the closet is a life-preserving choice. That he can get all kinds of value from Society, all sorts of good things, as long as he plays by the rules, fits his assigned role. And being gay simply doesn’t fit his role.

So he hides it. He hides it despite the fear it causes, the pain it causes, the fact that it keeps him away from Paul whom he loves. He takes on a job that he hates, surrounding himself with a bunch of girls who he despises. Because, as Natalie said, if he actually threw in his lot with Paul, if he went against Society, then he’d be reliant on Paul (and by extension the Gay microculture) in a really intense way and if he lost him then he’d have nothing left. He’d have blown his entire life up, and been stuck. Coach, like Jackie, is ruled by his fear that without Society’s handouts of privilege and gifts and authority that he’d simply have nothing left on his own. It’s a painfully real portrayal of the fear and self-hatred that perpetuates the ongoing trauma of the closet in the real world.

He’s spent his entire life giving up real parts of himself for the sake of Society, he’s all-in. And he, like Jackie, is just too invested to let go. He can’t appreciate that Society has nothing to offer him in the wilderness, that the Team can and will protect him if he lets it. A lot of people make jokes about the idea that Coach might be eaten if he sticks around too long, because he only has one leg. But that kind of ablest absolutism is Society thinking. Because the Team still hasn’t turned on him. When they decided they needed to sacrifice someone for Lottie they didn’t say “Okay, where’s Coach gone? Let’s go hunt him.”

The Team just doesn’t have the room to see him that way. NOBODY is expendable in the wilderness, every sacrifice is an agony they struggle to cope with. And... I guess if you wanted to get very dark with it, Coach’s missing leg means that his food value ratio to his potential value as a Team member is lower.

And Coach has shown plenty of value to the team in the wilderness. He’s actually capable of providing real advice as an adult with life experience. He taught them to shoot and hunt, he made sure that Nat wouldn’t get pregnant (thank GOD after the nightmare that Shauna went through), he’s perfectly capable of holding down the fort, and once he’s adapted he’s remarkably capable of getting around. To the Team he’s a pair of hands, a thinking mind, company, experience, and just... a human being. To Society he’s lost a lot of value, but the Team simply doesn’t conceptualise him like that.

And when he WANTS to, he proves how capable he really is. He got to the cliff on his own without too much struggle. He got into and out of the cave all on his own. Not saying it’s easy to be an amputee, but it’s not AS disabling as a lot of people would assume. And he’s still got a perfectly functioning mind, hands, etc. What he doesn’t have is a will to join the Team. To genuinely engage with the reality they’re in.

Again, this is reiterated with a second camp fire disaster, making the point that he’s been in the wilderness for most of a year now and he still can’t do something as simple, as fundamental to Team survival (but not Society survival) as lighting a tiny fire. Because in Society he’d never have to, Society simply provides. And in the wilderness he’s been relying on the Team to provide and not recognised that he’s been doing that. Not recognised the fact that he’s not been pitching in. That every fire he didn’t light someone else did. Every scrap of warmth he’s enjoyed all winter has been provided by the Team, not Society.

In S1E10 when Shauna gives up on Society and finally commits to the Team she does so with a fight with Jackie. And the only person on Jackie’s side is Coach, the other Society loyalist, who - like Jackie - assumes a position of authority based on his status within Society. And Lottie - the Team authority - says “Stay out of it, Coach.” She asserts that this is Team business, that Society has no say here. And, without Society providing the backup behind his words, and without actually contributing anything to the Team (not because he Can’t but because he Won’t) Coach has absolutely no power and no say, and he disengages from this point. And because he simply won’t join the Team his fate is sealed.

Coach also provides a viewpoint on the Team from Society’s perspective. Because the audience perspective is so deeply rooted in the Team, Coach’s viewpoint is the alternative. He’s the last tiny vestige of what they left behind. Like a tourist, watching a culture he doesn’t understand, assuming that he’s better than them, that they’re evil, that he knows what’s Really Going On. That his loyalty to Society will someday gain him some sort of advantage or reward, even as he stands on the edge of the cliff. Because his attachment to Society is so strong that he’d rather die than join the Team, an unthinkable option.

So when Coach sees the ‘jackets eating Jackie, his response of horror is not just that of Coach Ben Scott reacting to cannibalism in his face. It’s also the response of Society to the unforgivable breach of social laws by the Team. The fact that they’re able to do it, that they seem to be enjoying it, completely giving into the deepest taboo... he can’t handle it and neither, by extension, can Society. And as he’s powerless to stop it he simply closes the door, trying to separate himself from them. When he finds Shauna carving up Javi he tries to rescue Nat, the only Team member he sees as somehow redeemable, as a potential Society ally. And when she rejects him, when she shows him that she, who was on the fence, has now willingly and knowingly joined the Team he sees in her his faith in Society collapsing. Because here’s the girl who he put up on a pedestal, as “the good one” and she’s rejected Society. So either a) he’s wrong about Society, and Nat’s right. Or b) he’s wrong about Nat and right about Society.

Or a secret, third option, he could lose himself in a tantrum of repressed rage, burn down the cabin and also throw himself off the cliff, giving up on EVERYTHING in the process. (That’s my personal theory, but we’ll have to wait to find out)

Now he COULD respond at this point by going “Fuck it, fine, I can be a Team member too, if it saves my life.” And he might find in it the kind of value the rest have found. But doing that would require him to accept that they’re never ever going to be rescued. That Society truly is gone. That it was all for nothing. That he gave up his life, gave up Paul, gave up happiness and love and everything ... and never got his reward. No, he HAS to keep holding on, has to keep believing that there is a point, is a purpose to it. For his own sanity.

Again, we can read really deep into the meta of this and say... that’s what coming out of the closet really is. It’s saying “I’m SICK of giving up so much for Society, and I don’t believe that the reward is there, or if it is that it’s worth it. If the alternative is to be a monster, as Society tells me I am if I’m queer, then fuck it I’ll be the monster you say I am. Because that’s what’s going to keep me happy, to give me love, to feed me, and give me a life I want to live.” I’m not saying that it’s a completely 1 to 1 exact match, but you get the idea.

And so Coach tries to destroy the Team, tries to reassert the dominance of Society, because the Team is a bunch of inhuman monsters as far as Society is concerned. They’re deviant, corrupted, feral. But they’re not. They’re just trying to create a new culture that will get them from monday to sunday without dying on tuesday. They’re just trying to face a harsh reality with a perspective that makes sense, to them. They’re neither bad, nor good, neither moral or immoral. They’re surviving, or dying, and that’s what matters in the wilderness.

*Intermission, go grab some snacks*

Okay so this is already really really long, but you can flip the script and watch the exact same story happening in reverse in the adult timeline too. In Season 1 the whole big question is why is Travis dead? Who killed him?

And the answer is... the Team did. Like, in a LITERAL sense, he put the noose on his own neck. And Lottie pressed the button, at his command. He literally did kill himself. But he never intended to die, and what got him there was the Team. He genuinely believed that he needed to do the ritual in order to connect with It for all their sakes. And he - like Coach and Jackie in the wilderness - was wrong. The rituals they’d developed, the beliefs they’d formed to cope in the Team simply were of no use now they were back in Society.

But he couldn’t let go. He couldn’t accept that they were truly out of the danger, that the trauma was really over. That Society could protect them, when he’d had it proven so powerfully to him that it couldn’t help them in the wilderness. And his unending and irrational faith in the Team is literally what killed him. And Lottie, who MIGHT’VE been able to somehow rescue him from the situation - she was standing RIGHT THERE - was herself so absorbed in Team thinking that she instead just stood by as he died.

(Again, I really really need to be clear, I do not hate any of these characters, I love them all dearly and I’m reading into the meta rather than their literal actions, I don’t blame Lott for her actions as I don’t blame Travis for his, this is just how the story is written and WHY)

I could make a similar argument about Nat, and almost did, but she’s SO complex (she and Shauna have such intricate relationships to the Team and Society) it would honestly take up as much space as I’ve already written now and my brain’s getting tired. But I will end with a little thing I thought of as I was writing this.

There’s a third Society loyalist I forgot to mention: Laura Lee.

Laura’s faith in God is mirrored with her faith in Society. Neither are based on anything solid in the wilderness, she never gets any form of external validation of any of her beliefs. She just interprets what happens through her own lens and assumes she’s right. She’s been provided with a role of spiritual authority by Society, in an acceptable religion, and she assumes that she’s competent to hold it. When Lottie comes to her for advice, she provides it and assumes she’s correct. When Lottie sees things she interprets them as though her opinions were fact. When she sees the plane she decides that she should use it to save everyone, and because she decided that, she assumes that it’s God’s will, and so she assumes she cannot fail. That God has her back. Just as she, and Jackie, and Coach, assume that Society has their backs.

In the plane, Laura Lee sees her opportunity to reconnect with Society. And her unwavering faith in the capacity of God to provide protection from harm and Society to provide functional and reliable transportation without needing to work for it ... gets her killed. The lack of connection to Society, and the incapability of Society, and its’ God, to provide for the Team is displayed as a giant fireball in the sky for all to see, proof that they are truly, deeply alone. That Society cannot help them here. But it still takes a while for the lesson to really sink in. And for some of them, it just never does.

[chibivesicle]

Gokinjo Monogatari got an English release. I am just - feeling like I got my wish from 1998.

That's right, I'm alive but not very active on the meta for the time being. 2023 sped up for the second half; work got crazy busy for Q4. I worked up to Dec 18th through several weekends so yeah, needed some recharge time.

I don't know how I missed this, but thanks to watching Coleen's Manga Recs, I discovered that the one shoujo manga title that I had been wanting an English release for has finally arrived. Gokinjo Monogatari by Ai Yazawa!

I discovered Gokinjo Monogatari in '98. One of the local comic stores had the first three tankobons and I bought them based on the cover artwork alone.

It wasn't until undergrad I was able to meet a few more people and figure out more than just the name and artist. I tried to find the translation of the manga online, but was unsuccessful. I have to remind people that before scanlations, you had to buy a tankobon and hope you found the text based translation which would have the text according to page number and what panel location. I read a fair bit of Kenshin that way, but sadly, this series was not that popular with readers in the States. I've been moving my entire adult life hauling my three precious volumes of the manga hoping that someday I would first, collect volume 4-7 to complete the picture and that I'd have my matching English version. Granted, I haven't done a good job of looking for volumes 4-7 when I've been in Japan . . . or using the internet either.

As if to spite me, the follow up manga, Paradise Kiss, did get a translation in 2002 from Tokyo Pop which exists in the same universe as Gokinjo Monogatari. Note that a previous manga's characters show up at the Flea Market in Monogatari as well and Yazawa likes to keep a lot of her series tied together. Eventually, the scanlation of the series appeared and I read it around 2011. I'd only found an episode or two of the anime during the golden age of file sharing, but didn't follow through on it. I wanted to read the manga before watching the anime. In 2017, I visited the Manga Museum in Kyoto, got to see a cool display about Ribon magazine and of course they had Gokinjo Monogatari merch! I bought the file folder set and stickers! I bought the Gokinjo Monogatari UT shirt from Uniqlo featuring Ribon series. Yet each time I found more stuff, the universe got the last laugh. Japan released the collectors set with four volumes, there was a French translation, German etc and never one for English. So, you have to realize how I absolutely lost my mind when the thing I'd figured would never happen, happened! Not only was it a thing, I'd even missed the December 2023 release date -at least I didn't have to wait for a pre-order to get volume 1.

I'm happy to see that this version included some of the original color pages!

It has a few more at the end with a photo wall of Mikako's outfits. Everything about the style of this manga, I absolutely love. The fashion goes so hard even now. I get nostalgic with all of the mid-90s Japanese street fashion which has a mix of 60s mod and 70s flare. I think the series also does a good job of capturing that awkward time in your teenage life when you are trying to figure out how to act with people you are interested in. But failing to sort things out. Unlike a lot of other high school manga series, this one stands out with the much more "normal" appearance of the students. I remember picking it up and thinking that the characters looked like they could be my peers; though there is no way Mikako's outfits would pass my high school's own liberal dress code where dyed hair and piercings were permitted. Her bare midriff would get her in trouble . . . Funny how now when I look at it, this is a very unusual high school set up for a Japanese reader likely coming from a more regimented school environment with a uniform and strict dress code. I never thought about it at the time. More that I was plotting my own hair dying plans for when I moved out of the house for undergrad just like the characters had - while still in high school. I did read Parakiss back when it came out from 2002-2005; however, it never really resonated with me the same way a series that I couldn't even find a decent translation for. I started to watch Nana but couldn't get into it at all. Maybe it was my mindset or the fact that I wasn't the mood for young twenty-somethings figuring their shit out.

Yet, here I am in the winter of 2024, and I have volume 1 of the collectors edition format of Gokinjo Monogatari and I'm still loving every little bit of the story as I read it. Perhaps, Parakiss and Nana were more edgier/grittier than something like this which is why they never quite clicked with me. I wanted my fashionable shoujo drama but not over the top. I'm not sure what I'll write about it. It isn't a well known series both due to the fact it is from the 90s and that it is shoujo but perhaps I can reflect on what I was drawn to it all those years ago and what I think about it now.

[centrally-unplanned]

Anyway, I have been way off the wagon on anime recently - I blame Buffy - so I am catching up! First one was The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You. In this harem comedy our protagonist has accidentally been given 100 soulmates by god, who was distracted watching Laputa: Castle in the Sky while filling out his destiny sheet, and now he has to date all of them or they will die. So he just...does that, and tells them all, and one by one he adds girls to his polycule. Episodes generally alternate between "courtship" episodes where its one-on-one with the new girl, then group bonding episodes where they all hang out together. Its honestly somehow pretty good? The list:

Its very zany, meta, & irreverent. Obviously each girl is a "trope", but they have a lot of fun with them due to the premise. Because everyone instantly falls in love and gets together in one episode, the "will they won't they" tropes don't function, right? They will they'd already! So instead it pits those tropes against the intergroup polycule dynamic for silly shenanigans. Its cute!

My favourite line is when the tsundere chick start's tsun'ing over a homework assignment and one of the girls turns to her and goes "what are you even fighting against in life?" Wrecked.

It has a lot of fun "conceptual" animation bits to express ideas, breaking well outside the box to get those ideas across. If you want to communicate the awkwardness of breaking the ice with a new friend, might as well showcase it with two salarymen descending into a shonen brawl over trying to give the other their business card first, way better than shot/reverse-shot.

It does overstay its welcome on its "bits", hoping to pad length with added jokes that don't have enough to work with since nothing is happening. Like many shows, I could reduce its duration by 25% and lose little, it be that way.

Its "focus on one girl" episodes are inherently less creative, because they have essentially ditched the premise? It does a good job at the trad romantic elements, but I think it would be way more interesting to have the courtships be done by the entire group, and play off that more.

Fanservice is sometimes annoying but its almost always comedic with some payoff. You know the genre, you won't love it, but it won't bother you if you clicked on a show with this title.

For the love of the Oedipal god can the people who make modern anime learn how to draw breasts please? I swear on side profile shots it looks like gravity has been rotated 90 degrees horizontal and pulled their chests into launch position, who wants this?

A lot of the gender & sexuality in anime has been changing recently - I mark it personally to like 2015 or so. Things that were implicit are being made explicit - a lot more characters are canonically queer, increasingly you have characters who are explicitly trans, and relationships have more openly stated consummations & sexual components. All of this is good news, and as a part of that I have slowly noticed explicit polyamory creeping into shows. Harem dynamics always had this handwavy denial of their premises going on, "oh its all tension, the expectation is I will choose a girl from the menu at the end". This tee-hee plausible deniability is just extraneous in the modern era, so you see it falling off slowly. Unlike queer rep I don't think this is too much of a sign of like...growing discontent with obligate monogamy in subculture Japan? But still, its fun to see for what it is, and I do think it reflects a little bit growing openness about how alternative sexualities go beyond niche media consumption in life.

[rex101111]

Finally gotten around to watching the three so far released episodes of My Adventures with Superman (in a way that is Totally Legal(TM) I Swear), and I love it! Its very sweet, very cute, just a really sunshine show with a lot of room to grow and some nice intrigue thrown in right away to let quietly simmer throughout it, very good.

A few noteable things i liked:

* Superman. Supes is...so good here. Just the perfect blend of modern Good Boy Shonen Protag and classic Farm Boy Clark he’s been since the 90′s. He’s a delight. Specifically I really liked how they established how central his “I’m here to help” thing to his character right off. He had a kite stuck on a tree, and his powers didn’t awaken when he wanted to this (very very slightly) selfish thing. A person is in danger? His powers roar to life right away. Pitch Perfect Superman.

* Lois!! She’s such a delight, honestly. Its a bit jarring since I just finished binging the old Superman cartoon from the 90′s, in which Lois is the hardass experienced reporter she’s been in just about everything since the late 90′s, but new Lois here is still very recognizably Lois Lane, the reporter that doesn’t think twice about putting herself in danger for a story, she’s just more puppy dog about because we get Intern Lane for the first time in a while. A thing I really liked about her is that, yeah, she wants to interview Superman for the big scoop...but her initial and main driving motivation for that is that she wants to say thank you to the person who saved her life. That’s just great.

Also also these two are totally a Gohan X Videl Au fanfic with the names changed and I am all for it lets fucking GO.

 A couple things I’m undecided on:

* Fuckboi Deathstroke is...a choice. That’s for sure. I’m really torn because im so used to Slade being this totally in control, always scheming older dude with a rancid vibe you can only get from dating a 15 year old. (YEAH THAT’S A THING, YOU THINK HIS DYNAMIC WITH TERRA WAS FUCKED IN THE CARTOON??? HOW LITTLE YOU KNOW). So him being this young is throwing me. Granted, he’s still a douche, and a slimeball, and he introduces Amanda Waller into the narrative right away and I am always game for The Wall to show up and make things difficult, so I’m in the middle here. Lets see what they do.

* I want to like Jimmy, I do, but there’s just something about his energy that seems too...desperate. I dunno I think he needs a bit more fine tuning with his writing because he’s just a bit...too much for me. Which is not that bad honestly, he has his good moments, specifically when he teases Lois about Clark, but unlike those two he’s too surface level. Sure he and Lois stick around to help people but that’s...basic. Lois is driven to be a real reporter and is willing to stick her head into any bear trap that looks interesting enough. Jimmy is a...conspiracy theorist...lovely.

Okay, real talk, can we stop making conspiracy theorists main characters? Or treat it as some cute quirk? Because I swear these guys are never likeable enough to hold major screen time every episode. I swear if Jimmy says some bullshit about Lizard People I am going to McFreakin lose it.

And just because he’s right about the aliens and meta-humans and all the other shit doesn’t make that gimmick any less annoying! Give the guy something else! If he isn’t Superman’s Pal anymore, okay sure fine shifting dynamics is fine, but maybe give more weight to him and Clark knowing each other since college? Maybe have him visit his folks and show off how much he cares for Clark as a friend more specifically without the tinfoil hat bullshit? Please?

Anyway major nitpick above besides, good show! Go watch it! In a way that is totally legal but is sure to not give anyone in WB any money. 

[plumsaffron]

Miracusalters roast pt. 14!

TVTropes has the potential to be an infotainment site for existing media cuz I only go for a few anime fics there but not the western toons. But the non-bashing fics have been overshadowed by miracucunts’ “character critique” fics, not just their friends and associates’ fics or smth.

Oh wait, I bet some of you either use your sad past to gain sympathy and/or deflect criticism despite the canon evidence contradicting your shit!

Every day we stray further from whatever god ppl believe in…

Most ppl in other fandoms when they see canon evidence and rational folk debunking things: “Oh, guess I was wrong about X, my bad. Maybe that character ain’t so awful?” “Um, this fic was made long ago so I rly don’t hv the time to remake the whole thing…”

Miracucunts and similar people when rational folk debunk things and canon evidence is shown right in their faces: “You’re wrong!!!” “But he/she/they are the evil ones not Y!”

Some anime fans these days: *just chilling and watching their shows* “Ok so here’s my interpretation of the meta lore.” “Aww, they crossed my favorites with each other!” “I know the official merch is a bit expensive these days but they rly did a great job in making them!” “Love the fan merch on EBay and Etsy too! Those prices are actually affordable!”

Some western cartoon fans and old fashioned gamers these days: “bring back the 90s! The 2000s! Shows rn are shit since the 2010s!” *somehow hate content gets way more views/likes than non-hate content regardless of art or writing site* “I hate their officially released crossovers! My fav edgy show(s) don’t match the little kids’ shows!” “They’ve released a fighting game but my fav character isn’t in it! Fuck you!” *half assed official merch that’s hardly cute or pretty yet teens and adults still buy them* *but whenever there’s a good one, it’s too damn expensive and the fair priced ones are already outta stock even from online shops.*

Sad story for sympathy points, even when canon contradicts them. Haze Clarke saying Kagami bullied Marinette and it reminds her of her childhood despite canon literally proving otherwise (showing Marinette is actually the perpetrator/attempter/trash talker). A lot really be using their childhood and warping what actually happened just to fit into their delusions that others, next to permanently, chomp.

Miracucunts and their similars be wilding. They refuse to take an L. So much that they will make another proposition or keep running to find or make up more dirt upon the character(s). Chasing to any degree, wishing even worse to be true. All for the sake of wanting to be inherently right the whole time. It’s crazy how any can just prove em wrong and yet it does nothing, or they may just worsen, and others spawn and relate/support the delusion as if it were the real truth.

[radioactive-earthshine]

While I'm talking about Klarion and his incarnations I just want to gush very messily about a little known else world's story that I feel very strongly about being animated that has one of my favorite versions of him.

It's title is Zatanna and the House of Secrets and is stars Zatanna, of course, Zatara, Pocus, and Klarion written by Matthew Cody and drawn by Yoshi Yoshitani.

The following isn't any sort of meta or analysis really this is just me squawking about this book and some favorite scenes while trying to make the core point make sense to hopefully convince you to read it.

The art alone is breathtaking.

It's an absolutely fun and delightful origin story for Zatanna full of whimsy, soft moments, some peril and of course great character interactions. If you're a fan of 80s/90s media you might get a lot of vibes from some popular fantasy movies of the time visually and thematically.

In this version we also get to see Klarion's mother (unnamed in this) as the primary antagonist and I am in love with her character and her design. In this version she is the Witch Queen with Klarion as her direct heir. Naturally, Klarion wants nothing to do with it.

Even so, when Klarion first shows up he doesn't make the best impression on Zatanna but we find out quickly that he's more or less pretty unwilling in his mother's ploys.

(Also I really want to see Zatanna smacking Klarion animated).

The story is also about Zatanna's growth and coming into her powers while uncovering secrets tied to her father and mother.

They each share the braincell here.

Though the be fair Klarion is not as powerful here as he is in other versions of himself so he relies on Zatanna multiple times to save the day.

Pocus is such a delight in this, he reminds me a lot of Binx in Hocus Pocus.

These panels... You can feel the love. I wish my cat would let me hold her like that.

Klarion throughout this adventure with Zatanna really does grow to care about her...

It has soft and cute moments from two parallel people, without giving too much away Zatanna feels alienated by being kept secrets about herself, and her dead mother that Zatara was complicit in. He had his reasons, but being a 13 year old girl those reasons do not feel valid for her right now.

Klarion meanwhile was a child under a stern and strict ruler who does not radiate warmth or love and he is told what to do, and what to be, so much that he does not feel like he has control over his own life. All while maintaining that Klarion whimsy in that he just wants to have F U N.

Klarion begs Zatanna to run away with him and forget about her father who had lied to her all her life, so they both can be free and revel in that childish fantasy of being unbridled by rules like Peter Pan's Lost Boys.

Another scene I desperately want animated.

Sadly, Klarion made a misjudgment and fell back on some habits that the characters is known to do and he loses Zatanna's trust for a while.

Even though they have a sudden bridge between them Klarion still has no desire to really help his mother, and by the end of the book he's not afraid to snipe at her and defy her openly. He's made up his mind about what he wants.

Witch Queen turned both Teekl and Pocus into stuffed effigies and Klarion guards them both, angrily. If you know anything about Klarion there is one thing you do not do... fuck with his cat.

Eventually, Zatanna comes to learn some more truths and fully embraces her magic, which gives her an edge over Witch Queen.

The hopeful look Klarion gives his mother kills me. Naturally, Witch Queen doesn't really answer her. She's hot but there's no warmth in her heart.

And so Zatanna saves the day, Witch Queen is defeated, the house is put back in its natural state and her father, Pocus and Teekl are all restored.

The only thing that wasn't quite fully restored was her budding friendship with Klarion.

It doesn't end entirely on bad terms between them, but it is a note of bittersweet.

I really love this story, it captures fun whimsy while showing a realistic story about a 13 year old extraordinary girl dealing with unnatural problems, and normal mundane problems as well.

Klarion here is very divergent from almost all of his incarnations but he is still recognizable as himself being that fun and free person unbridled by rules. Also his design here is delightful as he has more beast-like traits with fangs and pointed ears. I wonder sometimes if this Klarion will ever get antlers.

10/10 recommend and I really, really feel strongly that this story should be adapted into animation.