#rin overanalyzes stuff

[rin-the-shadow]

So thinking about how in "Fine Feathered Finks," it's heavily implied if not outright stated that Penguin doesn't know who Bruce Wayne is. Like, obviously by the time the movie happens he seems to know, but in this episode, when he captures Bruce Wayne and one of his henchmen asks who he is, Penguin's response is pretty much, "I don't know. A rival umbrella salesman, I guess."

[dreamii-yume]

Hello yume, I was quite shocked to see an update (cuz I know update quite slow, which is relatable and understandable lol) ʘ⁠‿⁠ʘ

Well, the chapter mostly contains of informations and the aftermath of u know what ◉⁠‿⁠◉

FIRST the teacher was kinda SUS, like low-key (high-key) O⁠_⁠o cuz like wdym

“…Because they would completely stop working after I would hit them a little.”

SO SUSSSSSS, Im starting to think he wasn't talking about computers and machines, cuz like why would you hit a computer?? (if you know what I'm saying) he's lying, I just know it (⁠*⁠_⁠*⁠)

“Honestly…They make technologies a lot more fragile these days.”

ANOTHER SUS LINE !!! (⁠☉⁠｡⁠☉⁠)⁠! What do you mean by that, mister? HMMMM?? Are you sure you're talking about technologies and NOT a person?? ヽ⁠(⁠(⁠◎⁠д⁠◎⁠)⁠)⁠ゝI really feel like the teacher would be terrifying when we get to his part because of all these lines he be spouting (or maybe not, and I'm just overthinking stuff lmao)

And neru???!? He be casually interrogating rei about kaeda then BOOM confessed through Morse code and then stole a kiss (⁠゜⁠o⁠゜⁠; (he did a peck tho, kinda wholesome tbh...) BUT I'm sure confessing through Morse code prob means something LIKE I KNOW THEY'D USE IT IN THE FUTURE... MAYBE (I THINK IM OVERANALYZING THINGS HELP)

So far I'm the most Sus about the teacher, maybe even rin but he pretty much disappear in the beginning (⁠●⁠_⁠_⁠●⁠), Riya... I dunno how to feel about him, he's still the most normal (which makes me think he's even Sus because he hasn't shown anything yet so far... I'm keeping a close eye on him, because the timid ones are the more likely to attack silently ಠ⁠,⁠_⁠｣⁠ಠ I don't trust you Riya)

Kaede seems to be in the clear but I don't trust any of them ಠ⁠ ⁠ل͟⁠ ⁠ಠ

-euphoria anon (ok I accept it)

I try to update the fic at least once a week if that helps (Every tuesday??) 🥹 BUT DAMN DARLING, LET THEM GET UP LMAO ☠️ Your suspicions are valid, but let our boys cook ☠️

I will try not to comment on some things you said even though I’m so giddy and want to fangirl about it so badly 😭 but I need to remember that I’m actually the one writing this, so any complaints I have is on ME ☠️🔫 I’m not good at writing foreshadows and attempting to fool my readers is wayy out of my league, so I try to at least be subtle about the information I lay out lmao

Honestly, if you played the game, you’ll know EXACTLY where this is going—Because I am, once again, borrowing the plot of the game lol The least I could is shut my big mouth up ☠️

Also, I love the fact that you’re even sussing out RIYA because he’s supposed to be the most “normal” character out of everyone 🧎‍♀️ Boi hasn’t even done anything lmaoo Anyway, thanks for reading as always ♥︎

[sundial-bee-scribbles]

Hbvnfyvjv can you tell I watch game theory- I love overanalyzing stuff I'm not surprised it was a little inaccurate- “there’s also just some things i wanna keep secret for now…” I'm very intrigued 👀 also dumb question, how do They eat with no mouths? Do they just absorb the food? Do They need to eat? If you threw a packet of biscuits at them would they eat it plastic and all? I have questions but they're not the right ones probably- -🌟

hehe 😈

hmmm well for now i'll just say that it has no mouths on any of its' faces, and len monitors it in case it needs anything

lmaoooo i mean it would be hard to miss the fact four of your fellow students went missing, everyone starts talking about it after it gets concerning how long they've been gone

she did know them before their disappearances, but obviously wasn't as close to them as len b/c, well, they were len's friends mostly and not hers.

len has a lot of different reasons for not wanting anyone else to know abt his experiment, but you can only hide so much from your sibling lol; rin isn't stupid and knows smthn's going on, yet it's also a matter of how much information can i piece together before he knows that i know

she does eventually go down there though yeah, and you'll see what happens when she does :P

[starlight-time-machine]

Week in Review

03/10/2024 – 03/16/2024

Sunday

Week 5 of missing Cipher Academy.

Monday

I was pretty excited for today’s episode of Game Changer, because the Sam Says episodes are usually some of the best and I love Lou, Jacob, and Vic…but unfortunately this one fell short of my expectations. The general vibe felt like they pushed slightly too far into the psychological torture range, and the players didn’t really put up a good fight so it was just beat down after beat down, coupled with really hard prompts that cost them tens of points at a time. And what was the purpose of the swear jar if those points didn’t end up going to anyone…just another kind of mean thing to tack onto their other commands… The episode ending with everyone losing a bunch of points and Jacob only winning by chance feels like such a far cry from the mind-boggling triumph that Ally ended the last Sam Says episode on. I don’t know, I think this game might be getting a little stale, and unless they can get players who can match Sam beat for beat, future episodes are just going to keep raising the stakes and making the players miserable, and I don’t really want to watch that.

Manga Monday time…Girl Meets Rock is fun. I genuinely forgot that Tamaki existed, but she works well as a stand-in. My points about the other possible guitar members still stand, though. Also fun to see Rin continuing her weird girl era.

Undead Unluck is great, it’s so gratifying to get these lore drops every chapter. And Top getting his super bombastic literally around the world finishing move is fantastic, and a great cap on this arc.

RuriDragon is okay…someone did a Twitter thread praising its translation, so now I overanalyze the dialogue whenever I read it…and it actually kind of annoys me. The writing strikes me as trying a little too hard to be young and modern, but the translator doesn’t actually know what young people talk like. The mom’s dialogue felt the most egregious to me – I get that she’s supposed to be like a millennial mom, but the way they wrote her dialogue feels so unnatural and stilted…it got to the point where it was actively hampering my enjoyment. But I don’t want to come across like a bad faith “all localization bad” Twitter guy…and I often have this same complaint with the dialogue of adult fiction novels, so it might just be me who’s the fringe weirdo who doesn’t know what normal people sound like. It was cute seeing Ruri and her mom hang out, though, I feel like we don’t get a lot of strong mother daughter relationships in anime or manga. But if I’m being honest…I do want the story to get some sort of direction soon…otherwise I think I might drop it.

I can’t believe they did the “only one bed” trope in Dandadan. I like the frog design sense of this world… Momo and Zuma are a cute duo, and the last scene was super sweet, but I couldn’t bring myself to enjoy it because not only are Momo and Otarun obviously endgame, it’s kind of tiring that all three conventionally attractive guys in this friend group are interested in Momo (I mean the mecha otaku guy is also interested, but it’s played off as a joke because of course it is)… I can accept it with Jiji because the “childhood friend with whom you have a different sort of bond” thing was an interesting dynamic, especially as Jiji and Otarun became friends in their own right, but this is getting a little ridiculous… I need the non-Momo and non-Otarun members of this group to start being interested in each other!!! Give me some unexpected ship fodder!!! It’s ripe for fun teen drama, why are we concentrating all the guys on Momo and half the girls on Otarun when, by default, a bunch of those affections are going to end in failure?? Ugh.

Magilumiere whatever. Shigemoto and Sakura bonding was cute, but the rest of the chapter was just typical basic manga comedy stuff. Oh no this anime girl made some shockingly bad food, who could’ve guessed…

Chainsaw Man okay…I’ve been trying to ignore it, because being a mangaka is such a hazardous career and we’ve lost so many big names in recent years…but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss the more detailed art style of Part 1. Finer linework aside, even the panel layouts of Part 1 felt more memorable and unique…it’s just a bit of a shame. I guess I just wish the whole industry was better, but there’d have to be so many changes for that to happen.

I can’t tell if I’m just having an off day where I find everything annoying, or if everything being slightly disappointing is making me have a bad day…agh.

Okay, at least the Undead Unluck episode was pretty good. The constant stops for attack name title cards were a little annoying for the fight’s momentum, but I get that they’re just trying to emulate the pop that those titles have in the manga. I appreciated some of the artsy direction, like Juiz shoving Remember in Victor’s head or the Andy/Fuuko kiss at the end…that panel was what got me to read the manga in the first place, so I have a soft spot for it. It’s also fun that this episode released around when the new manga chapter did, as we have these parallel discussions about soul and what they mean in the context of this world’s rules…it’s impressive that Tozuka really had things planned out to this extent.

Rewatched Succession season 3 episode 3 because I wanted to feel something (and watch something good to make up for the rest of today). This episode holds a special place in my heart for being the one where, when I watched it for the first time, I finally “got” the show. I had enjoyed season 1 and 2 a decent amount, but I kept waiting for bigger and more dramatic moments typical to a corporate drama, only to feel let down by the bathos and subtlety that Succession often likes to employ. But this episode was the one where everything finally clicked for me, and I understood the themes and tone that the show was trying to convey. The shifts of power between Kendall and Shiv are so subtle but gratifying to watch play out as this conflict intersects between the corporate and the personal and the familial – the Rape Me scene and the long Kendall walk down the hallway are both already all-timers, but the FBI raid at the end and Kendall watching it with the most ambiguous expression on his face is really just the cherry on top. As always, everything in Succession is firing on all cylinders at all times, but it’s done so masterfully that you don’t even notice it unless you’re actively thinking about it. It’s such a feast.

Tuesday

Against my better judgement, I’m watching Evilive, another Korean drama. I haven’t had good luck with K-dramas in the past (I’ve only watched two but they both pissed me off), and I’m sure this one is also rife with over the top ridiculous drama that’ll annoy me (oh boy this guy’s the EVILEST GUY and he’s gonna drag this other guy into his OHOHO EVIL SCHEMES for the ULTIMATE EVIL), but…goddammit the gifs of the big evil guy interacting with the older glasses guy were so intensely yaoiful that I had to see what this was about… They may not actually be gay, but I can enjoy the tension nonetheless.

So far it’s been okay. There were some eye-rolly moments, but I also enjoyed some of the more artful direction and shot composition.

Wednesday

Started watching Nisemonogatari because I needed something to pair with my dinner and it’s pretty fun so far. As ever, Monogatari’s set design feels so surreal but familiar, like they’re trying to capture the feeling of a location rather than its actual architecture. I think it’s fair to say that that’s my favourite part of the show so far. I only got through two episodes, and they’re a bit slow in terms of story, but I’m looking forward to learning more about Araragi’s little sisters.

Thursday

粉蒸肉 and DunMesh make a great pair, especially when today’s episode was as fantastic as I was hoping it’d be. It had an equal dose of everything – kinetic action, comedic moments, genuinely harrowing stakes, and a great hook for the ending. It was a given that the group’s well laid plans last episode would immediately go awry, but seeing each member of the group improvise and contribute their skills to the eventual victory is incredibly satisfying (as Laios says, they couldn’t have done it without everyone being there. Shoutout to Chilchuck for the knife throw that made me yell out loud when I read it for the first time). But Laios sacrificing his leg to get the kill is the highlight of the fight, and it really demonstrated his determination and love for Falin. I also love how they had to systematically cut through the dragon’s organs before finally finding Falin’s bones – DunMesh’s down to earth approach to the cycle of life and death and consumption makes their task feel all the more insurmountable and real. I really can’t wait to see this arc conclude next episode. (Also Marcille’s magic runes had sound effects that reminded me of Cardcaptor Sakura, and I liked that.)

Friday

I’m happy to see that Undead Unluck is continuing its strong episode streak, especially when Anno Un is one of my favourite characters and his backstory is so uniquely painful and heartwrenching…his family just being him and his mom drives the tragedy home even more when he seemingly disappears… But Anno finding meaning in his art is so important to me personally, and I feel like Tozuka really poured his heart out through this character. The other highlight of the episode was BUNNY!!!!!!!!!!!!! BABY GIRL AGOO BNUUY!!!!!!!!!!! SHE’S SOOOOOOOOO CUTE AND BABY AHHHHHHHHH She’s reading manga!!!! NOOO SHE’S GETTING SLAPPING AND TOSSED AROUND AND HER LITTLE “WEH” AND THE WAY SHE’S SO SQUISHY AND ROUND AHHHHHHHHHH This was such a good episode. AND THE PREVIEW WITHOUT ANY NARRATION WAS SO CHILLING AND THEMATICALLY APPROPRIATE BECAUSE NOW ANNO DOESN’T KNOW WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Also wow Sean really got sliced in half huh. RIP, you’ll do better next time.

Saturday

Went outside for once, so there’s nothing for today.

[issafterglow]

a letter to my first.

hi, my. hehe. i know. i wasn't expecting to see posts about you in this account to be honest. pero when i did i kinda find it funny how i'm back here again without you.

madami akong salitang hindi nabitawan nung kausap pa kita. i hid parts of myself just so i won't scare u off. i admit, nung magkausap tayo i wasn't being true to myself. i really liked you, and i wanted so hard for you to like me too na i tried concealing what i truly feel for quiet some time. i don't know how you perceive me right now. i don't know what you tell people when you talk about me. or, do you even talk about me at all?

was it also hard to hear my name as much as yours did to me?

i'll probably never know. but, here's the truth: i'm insecure, i'm not smart, i'm untalented, and i probably have the biggest inferiority complex in the history of mankind which is why i never believed in the assurances and affirmations you kept sending my way kasi i wasn't every sure of myself. i was just... lost. and i wonder always, what could've been if only i met you when i was healed. but instead, i met you when i was a mess, when i wasn't in the right situation to take risks, and when i didn't have it in me to confide to people.

truth be told, you fueled something in me i didn't know i was capable of feeling, my. i loved being someone's someone, i was fond of our conversations even when it was making no sense at all, but despite that i wasn't able to let you in fully. because i had massive issues. i was scared that if i showed you this ugly part of me, this insecure and jealous side of me, you would get tired of me and see me exactly for how i see myself which is this: a loser.

and i wanted so bad to be better for you, but also i wanted to be better for myself too. i guess that's what really held me back. tama siguro talaga sila, you should never enter a relationship or something of some sort kapag hindi mo pa mahal yung sarili mo.

all i did tuloy was mess us up, especially when your ex came up that one time. hina ko lods, i'm very much aware. i'm sorry, for overanalyzing stuff. for overcomplicating stuff. akala ko kasi, when you told me you wanted an iska, nung akala mong sumasayaw ako, nung sinabi mong gusto mo ng kinakakantahan ka, akala ko hinahanap mo lang 'yung nakaraan mo sa iba. and in my head it made so much sense kasi your ex can dance, your ex is an iska, she can also sing, former candidate din ata ng MNL 48, and she's a gamer. so, i thought you were looking for parts of her in me so you could project the love you had for her to someone new.

but even if you did or not, i still probably won't ever know.

gusto ko rin itanong, when you got mad at me the 1st time i got drunk, was it because of the photo i sent beforehand? were you disappointed na i didn't look exactly like how you thought i would be kaya you had to reconsider for the night?

i'm sorry. i just had to put it out there. there goes my insecurities about us. hahahaha. pasensya, kung wala akong tiwala. i really am sorry my. i'm sorry for tossing you aside when things get rough on my side. i'm sorry i wasn't capable of staying. and i'm sorry i told you i loved you just to raise my chances of taking you back.

yes, i was falling for you, however i haven't fallen yet. because if i was i'm pretty sure i never would've let you go.

up until our last conversation, i wasn't true to you.

i'm sorry.

but i really did like you, trust me.

you're probably the first girl who made me feel this way. and the first girl to reciprocate the admiration i had. or did you? charot sobra na talaga sa trust issues HAHAHAHA

i guess i didn't really trust you enough and i probably never will.

so, i'm glad that i lost you. because despite that, i found new parts of myself. thank you, sa lahat.

hindi ko alam kung dati mo nang kilala yung any name's okay, pero putting them in your playlist really gave me so much hope. but i realized, maybe i really wasn't that special as i thought i was.

madali lang siguro talaga akong kalimutan.

maybe it's really that easy to detach from me.

di ko na alam, basta ako, nahirapan akong limutin lahat ng pinaramdam mo sakin.

please live a good life. sana, balang araw, matupad mo yung pangarap mo na maging doktor. i hope you find someone who can give back the energy you have. i hope you find someone who's mentally and emotionally stable.

hanggang dito nalang ako my. i will stop keeping tabs on you na. ganoon talaga eh, it wasn't meant to be. and besides, you probably talk bad about me to your friends na din just like how you did with your ex? to tell you, i really didn't like that as well. ironic noh? selos ako sa ex mo pero ayaw kong binabad mouth mo siya. idk i guess for me lang, since you're still mad about her actions, it made me believe na you still had feelings for her somehow. na you still cared. maybe i'm wrong. di naman ako psych major after all, unlike you hehe

and about what i said, na yayayain kita mag valo kapag okay na ako, hindi ko na rin yon matutupad pa. kasi wala na akong makitang rason para panatilihin ka pa sa buhay ko.

be happy, myla.

these are my last words to you.

let's not see each other again someday :)

farewell, my first.

[rin-the-shadow]

For me, type 2 is: “I didn’t say it was good, I said I liked it” and then proceeds to make an hours long ramble about stuff that was good, stuff that could have been better, and whatever character I’ve latched onto from that work.

the types of media i like can be placed in one of two categories:

type 1: oh my god this thing is amazing, i love it, i could go on hours long rants about how well executed it was. it has its faults but overall it's excellent.

type 2: i didn't say it was good, i said i liked it

[rin-the-shadow]

Sometimes I think about how in the original Nightmare on Elm Street, a big part of Nancy's survival could arguably be attributed to the fact that she is the only one of the main group with a genuinely supportive parent. We never see Rod's family, Glenn's family is too stuck on the idea that everything is fine and it's just Rod and Nancy who are the problem, and Tina's mom is pretty dismissive when she wakes up screaming. Even Nancy's father seems pretty content to just shove Nancy and her concerns aside whenever it conflicts with his vision of things and his family image.

But even when Nancy's mom doesn't believe she's being stalked by a dream demon, she's still constantly shown looking out for her, forcing her way into the bathroom when Nancy's pulled under the water and screams for help, repeatedly checking on her every time she has a nightmare, taking her to a clinic to try to find something to help her, trusting her with the truth about Fred Krueger, and even arguably giving her the encouragement that fortifies her for their final confrontation.

She does screw up by locking Nancy in the house and drinking herself into unconsciousness, don't get me wrong. But her barring up the house and locking them in was probably because she assumed the threat would come from outside the house, not inside. She probably assumed that her efforts to kill Krueger didn't work, that he somehow survived and was trying to break in. To be honest, that's probably why she gets herself so drunk, too. Because she's reeling with the revelation that her efforts to protect her kid not only didn't work, but may have painted a target on Nancy's back.

[rin-the-shadow]

The more I think about it, the more I think the “Towel Man” (although it’s probably a shroud now that I think about it) isn’t necessarily one specific person, particularly since he’s in the video before Ryuji’s death, but also before Ring 0 was made, which also makes me think it’s unlikely that he’s intended to be Toyama. Not to mention, Asakawa doesn’t seem to believe he resembles Ryuji except for the end of the movie, when he points out the copy of the tape. which makes me more inclined to think he was not Ryuji for the majority of the movie, but at least resembled him near the end.

Lately, I find myself wondering if he represents Sadako’s biological father, since in the tape, he appears to be pointing at the sea, but at times I think he could just as easily represent any and everyone who failed to copy and pass the tape.

[rin-the-shadow]

In some ways, I think the way that Belle is marketed is also reflective of this odd tendency I’ve seen to conflate being willing to explore and learn more with having some kind of innate special skill to understand it automatically. Belle doesn’t have “super special autosmarts,” it’s just that her preferred form of escapism introduces her to a lot of perspectives outside of her own and so she’s had a lot of time to explore them. (And given she definitely feels out of place, why wouldn’t she want to?)

I always find it kind of funny but also ridiculous that the only thing D*sney themselves can say about Belle is that she's "smart" just because she reads books. Like...that wasn't the point of her character at all. She wasn't a bookworm because she was intelligent, it was because books were her escape. Everyone in town thought she was weird because she was beautiful but didn't fit into the role they thought she should (a devoted wife, ideally to Gaston, the town hero) and that she must be odd anyway because her dad was "Crazy Old Maurice". The only person genuinely nice to Belle was the bookseller. It was through borrowing and reading his books that she was able to live out her fantasies of seeing new places, meeting fascinating people, having adventures, and even finding someone who understood her. I don't even think we see her applying things she's read about throughout her adventures like Mariposa did. That would lead me more to believe the whole "booksmart" label. It was more like she lived out an adventure similar to her stories like the sisters in 12 Dancing Princesses.

And also, she had other qualities about her. She was perceptive, curious, a bit reckless, firm in her beliefs, willing to do whatever it takes to protect those she loves. And of course her kindness and empathy are what saved both herself and the Beast.

Maybe I'm thinking too much about it but it does bother me that all the marketing is basically about her being The Smart Princess™ as if there was nothing else to her. But I guess that also tends to happen with the other princesses too.

[rin-the-shadow]

So I’ve been thinking about the song “To Be a Princess” quite a bit lately. Something I definitely didn’t appreciate as much when I was younger is just the sheer amount of stuff going on in that number. Like, yes, there’s Julian teaching Erika how to imitate Anneliese and giving Alessandro Juliani a chance to show off his pipes but the song also communicates Julian’s attraction to Annalise, particularly in that moment where he is briefly distracted waxing lyrical about the way her presence makes him feel. On top of that, by pairing the “easy” parts about being a princess with strict rules about how you are allowed to present and behave, the song effectively communicates Annalise’s position of immense privilege, but also the exceedingly narrow guidelines in which she must exist. 

It’s especially interesting to go back and listen to Anneliese’s lines in “Free” after this, since it adds a new understanding to just what it is she would like to be free from, since not only is she not able to choose her own spouse, but she is also regulated in her presentation right down to the emotions she is allowed to express and, in some cases, which ones she is allowed to feel, since “to be a princess is to never be confused.” It’s pretty telling that while Erika explicitly wants to be free from her debt and the endless work hours, and she wants to be free to sing, and to travel the world to do so, (“People will gather around the world to hear my song”) Anneliese is only able to sing about what she wants to do in abstract terms, “Free to try crazy things” and “Free to fly.” She’s effectively so regulated she doesn’t necessarily know what, beyond choosing her own spouse, she would do if those guidelines were relaxed. It’s just a nebulous concept to her. Which, now that I think about it, is also quite fitting to the arc she has in the film, since we see her learning to do things about the situations she’s in (the bedsheet ghost, having Serafina deliver the ring and tag, flooding the mine and floating up in a barrel, etc.) instead of simply dreaming about what she might like to do.

The song also becomes an example of how the characters’ arcs tie into each other’s. We have Julian and Erika’s arcs being tied together as people who came from outside the palace and courts and having to learn more or less how to fit. It’s not really stated in Julian’s case, but we know he didn’t grow up in the courts because of an earlier conversation with Anneliese in which we learn that his family could only afford a room in the village, and so we can assume that at some point, he also had to learn to adapt. His arc is also being tied to Anneliese’s, since his song is used to communicate things about her and also about his feelings for her. And of course, it further ties Erika’s arc to Anneliese’s, showcasing their differences despite their similar appearances, and showing Erika learning to adapt as Anneliese will later do in Madame Carp’s Dress Emporium, as well as the situations where she has to act as a bit of a trickster to escape, since we had already seen Erika disguise herself to sneak out and sing in the square. And in “Free,” her line, “She can never stop my schemes” as well as Madame Carp’s exclamation of “Here again?” when she spots her singing implies this isn’t the first time she’s done something like this. And of course, that’s only the examples that directly connect with “To be a Princess,” since outside of that, there are also ways in which Julian’s character is tied to Preminger’s, with their effectively being opponents in the Princess Anneliese situation, as well as being foils due to having both grown up in poor families and working their way up, but where Julian is perfectly happy being the tutor, Preminger’s ambition leads him to desire kingship, something which Julian, based on his reaction when he learns of Preminger’s ambitions, cannot understand. 

And now of course I’m thinking of the other ways in which characters are tied together in this movie, but I feel like that’s probably best left as a second post.

[rin-the-shadow]

One of these days I’m going to write a detailed analysis on how Michael Myers being portrayed by so many different people lends itself to the idea that he could be anyone and then I’m going to contrast it with Freddy Krueger’s position as a sort of “celebrity slasher,” and maybe throw in some discussion of Jason Voorhees and how he fits into that. But today is not that day because I really need to beef up my study of Jason and probably Freddy as well before I could do something like that.

[rin-the-shadow]

Something I find interesting as I’m rewatching Revolutionary Girl Utena is that there are so many places where the arc could skew just a little to the left if the characters weren’t so stuck in their ways. Which I think is also part of the point, the idea that you can’t move on if you’re too stuck in an idea about the way things are or “should” be to allow yourself to grow. Right now, I’m thinking about the interactions between Utena and Saionji in episode 9, and how there seemed to be a point where he almost recognized his error before doubling down in his ideas of how things were “supposed” to work. In another story, he might have begun to realize something in that moment and begrudgingly come to terms with the situation, potentially even becoming Utena’s ally in future episodes. But the Saionji that exists in the context of Revolutionary Girl Utena’s story isn’t capable of that at the moment, and so he doesn’t do that.

I don’t really have any ideas for how I would explore all those split-second shift moments for each character, but it would be something I could potentially be interested in looking at in the future.

[rin-the-shadow]

I operate under a range of these with a preference for Chaotic Canon and Neutral Fusion. I have noticed a recent taste for Neutral Canon, though.

tag yourself i’m chaotic au

[rin-the-shadow]

According to the Barbie movie wikia, Princess Anneliese is 16 years old during the events of the movie. If we take Preminger’s claim that “For ten long years I’ve had to pay my dues” as being literal and in reference to his work as the Queen’s advisor, this means he would have come into the role when she was around 6.

I dunno, I feel like that could be good material for some kind of first impression thing, especially since during the events of the movie proper, he doesn’t seem to think highly of her except for the potential role she could serve in furthering his plan, and while Julian seems quick to distrust him (though this is not unfounded), I’m not entirely sure about Anneliese’s impression prior to her discovery that he was behind the plot. If I had to guess, I’d say she sees him as someone trustworthy, but that he likely isn’t someone who occupies much of her brainspace most of the time.

Oh! And of course, there’s also the question of whether her father would still be in the picture when this happens. The opening narration makes sure to refer to Queen Genevieve as “the widowed queen,” which of course lets the audience know the king has died sometime between Anneliese’s birth and the news that the mine is empty. Now of course, if he had died recently, we would probably expect the line to be “The recently widowed queen was shocked,” but at the same time, we can guess that Erika’s parents are probably dead based on her dialogue with Madame Carp and the fact that she is without them in her servitude, and there is no explicit mention of that anywhere in the narration. I mean, you could probably infer that it’s likely been at least a couple of years, but at the same time, the fact that it is explicitly mentioned would seem to indicate it’s at least close enough to the events of the movie that it’s informing a lot of Queen Genevieve’s thought process.

And now I’m also wondering when Preminger’s arrival to the palace would line up compared to Julian’s, since Julian clearly seems to remember his family’s room in the village, so we know he was definitely old enough to remember things before arriving, but that also doesn’t narrow it down much, though at the same time, he has definitely been there long enough to form a close friendship with and affection for Anneliese.

[rin-the-shadow]

I’m not 100% sure what I expected this spinoff to be about going in, but after having watched it, I think it is ultimately a movie about existing on borrowed time and what you do when that’s about to expire, but it’s also about trying to fill the legacy of a person who was important to you and the ramifications of throwing your own life away as a bargaining chip.

It’s definitely tonally different to its predecessors, but I think that’s because, in addition to it having a different director than its predecessors, that’s also because it is about something different than they were. Its predecessors were about justice and how far a person would be willing to go to achieve their idea of it, as well as of course being about the Kira conflict in general, whereas the spinoff is really more about life and learning to value that.  I suppose it’s almost inevitable that a series which deals so heavily in death would eventually spawn at least some works about life.

At some point, I will have to dig into it for further analysis, but since this is the first time I have seen it all the way through, I will need to watch it a few more times both on its own and compared to its predecessors in order to determine just what I would want to say.

[rin-the-shadow]

So there was a video I watched awhile back about the live action Avatar: The Last Airbender adaptation in which the speaker posed the question of what makes a good adaptation. He’d started by saying he would originally have said that it sticks closely to the source material, but that there were certain scenes in this movie that challenged that assumption because, choreographically, they were close to the original but something still felt off. 

I don’t remember what his final conclusion was because it got me wondering what I would consider to make something a good adaptation or a bad one, especially since my emphasis on fidelity to the source material is loose enough that all I need is to know that they’re the same characters. For me, I’d argue that a good adaptation can be one that is faithful to its source, but it can also be one that encourages you to look at or think about the story in a new way.