#she looked younger than adult ken. like what

[noroalia]

genuinely i think im going to start ranking movies lower if they have older women with no wrinkles. looking at animated movies. whats up with you guys

[fiddleyoumust]

Let’s talk about queerness and High School Frenemy. There’s a large portion of BL fandom that refuses to engage with the show, and while that rubs me the wrong way, I do understand it. If you only wish to consume queer media, it’s easy to dismiss HSF since it is not explicitly queer. It’s also a show that on a surface level, looks like classic queerbaiting. And before I get a bunch of HSF fans in the tags or comments, I am a huge fan of this show. It is possibly the best thing I’ve watched all year. But on a surface level, it is doing the literal definition of queerbaiting even if I personally do not think it is. 

As a person who is OLD and came of age in the 90s, I do want to talk about this show from a queer perspective. I grew up in a time when queer characters were not abundant. If they did show up in media, it was newsworthy. These characters were always support characters and seldom had love interests or explored what it was like to be queer. None of them looked like me or made me feel seen or represented. Heteronormativity was the standard, as it is today, but back then, a queer kid seldom encountered anything that made them question that heteronormativity. 

HSF, and Shin and Saint specifically, resonate with me more than most queer media I’ve consumed, and I’ve consumed a lot. The intense, obsessive love that Shin and Saint have for each other under the guise of friendship IS my story. For me, it was a wild girl named Jennifer, who I was attached to the hip with from 6th grade until our early twenties. I loved her. I was obsessed with her. I was probably in love with her, but it never occurred to me until years after we’d stopped speaking that what I felt for her was more than friendship. The heteronormative brainworms are real, and they infected me until my late 20s when I suddenly had a revelation about myself. 

Hindsight is 20/20. Suddenly, my obsession with Charlize Theron in Two Days In The Valley, Helen Hunt in Twister (1996), and Kate Winslet in Titanic made so much sense. My relationship with Jennifer was also at the forefront of my mind. Ah, I thought. That’s what that was.

HSF is a show about friendship, a show about community, a show about the ways adults fail their children, a show about class and poverty. It is also a show about unrealized queerness. The director, Fon, told that story purposefully through music, lighting, and dialogue, she told a story about two boys who can’t live without each other, but don’t have the knowledge, the vocabulary, or the self-awareness to understand what they are to each other.

In every choice Fon made, she dangled queerness without explicitly naming it. I would call it queerbaiting in any other media,  but for me, she made one other choice that I believe is purposeful and elevates this show into the queer category for me. She completely stripped the show of heteronormativity. There are no couples. None. We never see Chatjen’s parents. Any parents we do see are single - Ken’s father, Shin’s mother, Saint’s father, Cable’s mother.

In any other media, the male and female homeroom teachers with clashing teaching styles would  be an enemies-to-lovers side plot. Here, they grow into supportive co-workers and friends who become better versions of themselves to help the children in their class. In any other media, there would be talk of crushes among the teenagers. Here, we see them grapple with the pressures of academia, abusive or absentee parents, bullying, drugs, and the hopelessness of poverty. In fact, the only mention of sexuality or romance at all comes from Eve, a girl who befriends Airy, a girl from their rival school, and confesses that she had a crush on her when she was younger. Nothing comes of this revelation, even though we see Airy become curious and seek out Eve’s company prior to this revelation, and we see how pleased Airy is about Eve’s confession. But this is a show about unrealized queerness and even Eve and Airy, two girls who understand what they are feeling for one another, still can’t bring themselves to name it.

The lack of heterosexuality creates a void that is filled by Shin and Saint’s relationship. It’s purposeful, and Director Fon uses other friendships in the show to highlight the ways Shin and Saint are not the same. Knot, Nate, and Ken are extremely close friends. They, too, have a “no one left behind” friendship pact. They fight for each other and get hurt for each other and very obviously love each other. Chatjen and Shin’s friendship is also very deep. Chatjen considers Shin his best friend. He hero worships him a bit and sees him as his protector and savior. Yet, anyone watching can understand the ways the producers use music, lighting, costuming, and dialogue to elevate Shin and Saint’s relationship above all the other ones. 

High School Frenemy is queer. Shin and Saint are purposefully queer coded in a world devoid of heterosexuality. You are seeing what you are supposed to see, and it's a hill I’ll die on. If you were on the fence about this show, I can not recommend it enough. It’s great and will leave you feeling warm and happy and loved. If you only consume explicitly queer media, I still encourage you to watch it. Sometimes, our queerness eludes us. Sometimes it’s hidden under other words like “friendship” because we haven’t learned the right words for it yet. I enjoyed watching a show that reminded me of my youth and gave me a glimpse of the girl I used to be. She was still queer even if she didn't know it yet.

[flightfoot]

So I watched the Barbie movie. It was a lot of fun, very campy, but I'm actually a bit mixed on the messaging. Overall though, I think it's a good movie and I'm betting it'll be a classic.

So something I want to address because I've heard it said before: Barbie is not a kid's movie. It's a movie some kids will enjoy, but it ain't aimed at them, it's aimed at adults in the context of them having been kids in the past. The movie's rated PG-13, it talks about a lot of social issues and has a lot of innuendo which will fly right over children's heads, and the characters you're supposed to relate to are all adults - something which I found very notable, with Gloria in particular.

Gloria's the part of the movie that I enjoyed the most. I'd heard NOTHING about her before watching the movie, despite not really trying to avoid spoilers. The whole patriarchy thing with Ken and its overthrow? Saw a lot about that. But not much about Gloria.

I loved the subversion the movie pulled off, with showing those flashbacks to Barbie of Gloria and her daughter, and making the audience think that it was her DAUGHTER who needed help since well, isn't that normally how these movies go?

Only to have it be Gloria instead, for HER to be the one with anxiety and thoughts of death and whose life wasn't quite working out the way she hoped, who was struggling but still doing her best and felt like, while she was a mom, she was being characterized as MORE than just that.

The campy elements were fun, and I loved how Barbieland functioned like how kids play with the dolls, it was a neat aspect of the worldbuilding.

Just in general the world was really campy and fun, and I think that's what younger children will be able to really enjoy about the movie.

As for the whole patriarchy plotline... eh. That I'm pretty mixed on.

Like, I think it did a nice job laying out the power of representation, how it feels to see people like yourself everywhere in diverse, powerful positions, like seeing Ken's reaction to actually seeing men hold power, be respected, be looked up to. To feel like he was enough, just for who he was.

But the part with the Kens taking over and making everything a patriarchy with all the Barbies being brainwashed and turned into accessories for them... I didn't think that worked as well? Especially with them all just forgetting who they were. It didn't really feel like it was addressing how patriarchy actually worked, it was really shallow.

I did appreciate that the more outcast characters, the ones who never really fit into Barbie Land or Kendom, being immune to the brainwashing, since they were on the outskirts of both.

I also thought the resolution didn't really show how to deal with patriarchy all that well? Like I've seen people on tumblr talking about how the movie showed how patriarchy doesn't even really benefit men, but the Kens honestly appeared to be having a great time until the Barbies purposely pitted them against each other - and even then they ended up coming together. I mean, Ken cries at the end and talks about how he wasn't really interested in Patriarchy that much after finding out that it wasn't about horses and that the fridges were too small and that running things was too much work, but it felt like sour grapes more than anything, there wasn't really lead-up to that. It was very Tell, Don't Show.

That message was ALSO greatly undercut by Barbieland becoming a Matriarchy again with just a little hint of more consideration for the Kens, maybe. So like, is it only supposed to be patriarchy that's harmful to everyone, or is matriarchy just special? Like is matriarchy ALSO something that sucks for the women under it?

I think that while the whole messaging about how patriarchal societies function was muddled, the messaging about being yourself, loving yourself, and you being enough just by virtue of who you are was much stronger. I really liked the whole message about Ken needing to learn who he is without Barbie, that's he's Kenough on his own, that's he doesn't need to be defined by his relationship with her. And Stereotypical Barbie learning that even though she may not be one of the barbies with a particular job, she's still enough, she can still do things, she doesn't need to wait for someone else.

The Ken plotline though is, again, a bit undercut by the ending. Because yeah, the Kens can try to learn who they are, to support each other... but they still just kind of exist in Barbie land. Like, do any of them even have a house? Learning to just be themselves, to support each other, without defining themselves by Barbie is all well and good to say, but when the world is run by Barbies and completely dominated by Barbies' interests and Kens ARE just treated like accessories, it doesn't really help much with the whole "marginalized and disrespected by society" problem.

[jackiequick]

A Lost Boy With An Unfinished Story — Marvel OC

— Kendall G. Brown

Small warning: Mentions about abandonment & living alone, verbal abuse, street life, feeling alone and trying to pick themselves up

Full Name: Kendall Ryan G. Brown Rogers

Nicknames: Ken, Kenny, Kendork, Lost Boy, Hockey head, The Unfortunate, Orphan and etc.

Age: 8-20

Birthday: August 4th

Status: Single

Power: None. But he’s skilled in boxing and great with a weapon like his batons

His biological parents were kind people, a baker and a race car giver. His race car loving father died by a attention seeking accident during a race. His mother grew sick but stayed strong and loving towards him. Always telling him to be brave and kind towards others.

Later on at the age of 8 after his mother died in her sleep, he was tossed in the foster system without a single say. To him and everyone there in that area he was a simple orphan, a unfortunate soul.

Kendall felt abandoned and lost, having to fight and prove himself in that place just to be taken care of. Growing a bit cold and slowly became rougher around the edges. That hurts that most if he get a family until the parents had their own kid, so they sent him back.

And the other kids in the foster home weren’t the nicest either. Always bullying him and just treating him unfairly. However some had worst paths than he had and others were fresh out of the gate being tossed in there. Still it hurts!

———-

Kendall had his moments at Foster houses were he was treated nicely, the adults would treat him with kindness and respect. Being brought to schools, picking up on sports like playing baseball or soccer with the foster parents and get dinners. Sometimes he had to move from one state to another where he would live there for a few months to a year then sent back.

He remembers always trying to break up a fight to be heard at the age of 10. He doesn’t like bullies that much, so he always tried to break up a fight or two when possible. See if they can settle down.

—> Once he was staying a foster with two younger kids, they were watching cartoons when the father came home rather late. Everything seemed fine. Until he went to the bathroom, hearing muffled tears and shouting from the hallway. The two adults for arguing about a topic in the kitchen, clear stupidity from both parents, it was getting louder and more annoying by the minute.

Kendall remembers he ran in yelling, “Hey! She saved your hand from being cut with the knife, you should thank you..”

The foster father, Shawn, looked down at the kid, “Stay out of this, kid! It’s not your place to be here. The adults are talking.”

“But she was just doing the right thing and your y-yelling at her!”

“Go on! Get out of here!”

Marian, his wife, looked at the boy looking pissed off as well and said, “Kendall leave! He doesn’t care, rather have his finger cut off.”

“WOMEN I SWEAR TO GOD!”

“Well it’s true! You do this every single time, your pissed off about the simple thing.”

“I was fine! I knew what i was doing.”

“Yeah right! Kendall you shouldn’t have gotten into this mess..dumb kid.”

Kendall frowned, “I was just trying to stop the fight…”

The boy walked away, making sure to check on Wendy and Max beforehand, then went to take a shower. To say, he got a mouthful in the morning was a understatement, he was told to his face by Shawn that if he try that shit again he’s sleeping somewhere else. Even saying that the only reason this he was there was cause he was the only kid in the orphanage that looked good to take home, since he seemed nice. But Shawn said, “I guess i was wrong..”

He was dropped back into the system once again, in and out of households. Nothing actual stable for him. Other kids would keep up the bullying and Kendall kept up the act of staying strong. Wanting to live by his mother’s words, always be brave and try to have a kid heart.

It kept him going, keeping his head up. Hoping that he would end up somewhere better. He’s been hit, punched in the face, tossed to the side like crap, annoyed to the brim until he wanted to cry but didn’t. It was a sign of weakness from what he heard.

He has seen kids taken home and lived happily ever after. But not him. And of course you know, everyone wants a kid nice to take home until they reach the certain age of 14 or higher.

So in result Kendall grew up on the run during his teen years, bouncing in and out of foster homes and trying to live a normal lifetime if possible. He went to schools, joined sports center to play hockey and basketball, sneak into gyms for boxing to help with his growing anger and etc.

———

—-> He remembers when he just on the edge of 15, sneaking away from the housing unit he played in to go to the store. Hoping to grab some snacks, thankfully he had some money to get Pop Tarts, water bottles and a bag of chips.

While he was in the Pop Tarts aisle, he spotted a boy with raven hair, his eyes were brown as dark chocolate and wearing some baggy hoodie underneath a jean jacket. They locked eyes, as he stayed with a gentle smirk as he walked away.

Kendall rolled his eyes, grabbing the box of Pop Tarts realizing they raised the prices from the last store he’s been to. But he wanted the sweet treat, so he stuffed it into his jacket walking away until a security guard stopped him.

But before he can say anything, the kids from eariler showed up with a cart smiling, “Hey dude! I’ve been looking all over for you.” The raven hair kid gave him a signal to just go with it.

Kendall handed him with the box smiling, “Sorry i got lost looking at the cereals.”

The security guard questioned, “You two boys are on your own?”

The raven hair one spoke, “My dad’s waiting outside, told us to grab a few things while on a phone call.”

“Okay. Pay for those.”

The guard walked away. Kendall thanked him as the boy rolled his eyes chuckling, “The whole stuff thing never works.”

“I don’t tend to steal.” He replied whispering with a shrug.

The two talked a bit, keeping up the cover until they walked outside. Kendall brought most of the stuff he wanted, expected for the Pop Tarts, trading it for a bag of gummy worms instead. Less pricey in his opinion. The raven hair kid looked over his shoulder and told him to run across the street hiding from the cars.

Once they found themselves in a alley, they panted and huffed loudly knowing they were in the clear.

The blonde let out a light chuckled, “I’m Ken, by the way.”

“Ken? Like the toy?” He joked chuckling.

“Yeah, sure, let’s go with that.”

“I’m Maxwell or Diego depending on who you ask. Thanks for the help.”

“No problem.”

Both boys walked until they found a empty place underneath a bridge. Sitting down Kendall handed him the extra bag of chips he brought earlier and asked, “How long?”

“How long, what?” Diego asked opening the bag of Doritos.

“How long have you at this?”

“A year i guess? You?”

“Less than five.”

“Less than five?! And how did you-? You acted like a rookie back there?”

“Like I said I try not to steal and always have money in my pocket i got from foster parents.”

“Huh? Resourceful. I respect it. You’re not a half bad for a rookie.”

“Thanks? Just trying to make small talk, i get it.”

“Just take a stupid compliment!”

“Uh..um, not my style, sorry.”

“It’s cool.”

The two boys kept meeting up on and off again for a few short weeks, sneaking out to have a quick bite or something. It’s going good, it felt nice having a friend that wasn’t just a teammate during class.

Both kids even had a small hang out space they would go to. It was small old fashioned spring break house, that wasn’t being used since it was Summertime. Kendall felt that he could be a bit open with him, and just hang out with the kid. It was nice until one late night, they were caught red handed.

The two were hanging out together at the house when a car showed up, with the man breaking into the house holding a flashlight. He looked pissed, Kendall didn’t reconcile him at all as he went running around searching a place out.

He found a window that was open, ready to pull Diego out with him until he heard a voice. The man spoken with such a worried and painfully pissed off tone, it made Kendall shiver at the sight.

“Maxwell Diego? God! Son, come on let’s go!” Said the man, holding up the flashlight.

Diego looked between the man and the blonde who looked shocked, letting go of his arms.

“Diego who is he?” Kendall asked, pointing at the man already getting his jacket, knowing the answer to the question. He has a family.

The man spoke up, “I’m his father! Who the hell are you kid?”

“He’s my friend, dad!” Diego yelled out, facing both of them, “I’m sorry dude..”

“No! Don’t worry, we weren’t friends..you have a family? You lied to my face.” Kendall yelled back, feeling betrayed.

“I didn’t mean to! I wanted to stay with you and we are friends, Ken. I don’t want to go home—Dad can he come with us?”

His father looked at the blonde in annoyance and dishonesty, a hint of discomfort on his face. The man simply said, “No. I don’t want a street rat hanging out with my son. He’s probably a criminal.”

“He’s not dad!” Diego tried to protest, but his father wasn’t having it dragged both kids out of the house and calling the cops

Kendall left with betrayal in his heart, stuffed into a cop car and bought back into the system.

————

Over the years, Kendall felt himself growing a bit colder and finding it hard to imagine a good life for himself with a family. Actual friends, because after Diego he kept trying to friends but they never stayed. Drifting away like a leaf in the fall.

At 16, he found himself in a home. A decently nice family that took him with their 3 kids, with him being one of the oldest of the bunch. It was a good situation to say the least, having extra time for school and practice during sports he liked.

He met a girl or two. A good one thing, she became his girlfriend for a while, Lily Diaz.

But Lily’s parents disapprove of the boy after finding out about him, calling him a street rat and orphan. A Lost Boy With An Unfinished Story.

In their eyes, their daughter was dating a unwanted criminal, going as far as to tell it to Kendall’s foster parents when they met.

Lily’s father outright said, “No disrespect but, you brought a criminal into your home. Endangered your children, my daughter shouldn’t be such a boy like him.”

“Our children?” Said his foster mother, Rachel with a questioning tone looking at her child for a moment.

“Yeah. He’s a unwanted child, who know what he has done beforehand! Probably stole from stores, gets into fights behind your back and sells your children stuff online.”

“Sir! I invited you into our home with a kindness and respect. And you have the audacity to speak that way about our children?”

“He’s not your child! He was someone else’s before he was brought into your home. I’m sorry but your son won’t be dating my daughter anymore.”

And they were gone. Not without Lily giving Kendall a small kiss on the cheek, apologizing to the foster parents for her father’s behavior.

————————

It wasn’t supposed to be like that. He was hoping that night would go well but it didn’t. Kendall blamed himself, he always did no matter what happened. Rachel and her husband, David, tried to reassure him that he’s a good kid.

But Kendall couldn’t ever let that guilt trip go, knowing he would be let go at some point.

Lily’s father wasn’t ALL wrong, he did get into fights school every once in a while behind his parents backs. It was mainly fights in the hallways, in parks and the occasional defending a young kid in class from being picked on.

Sometimes dressing up in all black like a noir character in a film.

Challenging up the bullies in the park and returning what doesn’t belong to them or taking it for himself, ending up with a bruise or black eye forming sooner than later.

His foster father jokingly coined, “You sound like a mini young Avenger, kid. Always trying to do the right thing.”

He half smiled sheepishly, he knew of The Avengers from hearing about everything they did during 2012. He heard teens his age, talking about Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America and the rest of them. Some even mentioning SHIELD agents being always on the lookout for people of different kinds of paths.

Kendall didn’t think he deserves to be careful with his actions, the guilt eating him slowly and the boring things he was left to do. He knew the time would come for him to be thrown back into a household or whatever, so he decided to leave. He wasn’t ready for that heartache again, not just yet.

—-

At almost 17, he was still forced to stayed within the first system. He didn’t care about it this time, just staying there just for he didn’t have to get in trouble with the police.

Be kind. Be brave. Those words stayed consistently on his mind, keeping up the act of a kid, honest kid with a shining grin and good moral. Because he believes he is one, but that guilt and temper always making him feel wrong about it.

He would help out the others kids and teens at the house at some point. Being honest with them, reading stories, renting out films for them if possible and stay up late to make sure they slept fine. Some called him Chat Noir, Captain, Peter Pan since he was the a big kid at times and so much more nicknames.

He watched a lot of those kids be giving a lovely home and smiled at them, hoping it goes well. But other times there were kids who didn’t end up that way. Like this one teenager Katherine who he found crying one night in bed stressed and tired, as he hugged her.

She was telling him how she believed that she will never be loved, be able to make mistakes like other girls her age and basically have her own life. Kendall has known Katherine since she was 16 and she’s will be 18 in two years. Just a little older than him. He tried cheering her up.

“It's not exactly what you might think it is..” She replied, chuckling softly once her tears stopped.

He sighed, “It never is. People are going to tell you who you are your whole life. You just gotta punch back and say, "No, this is who I am." You want people to look at you differently? Make them. You want to change things you are going to have to go out there and change them yourself because there are no Fairy Godmothers in this world…”

“Ouch..Ken, those are kinda harsh words..”

“I know. And it’s different between us, because your girl and I’m a boy. But i feel like it’s true..but you will always be loved, Kat.”

“By who..?”

“Me. Your my friend and i love you for too much to see you cry.”

She hugged him tightly mumbling a few words as he hugged her back, staying in that bedroom all night with her. Making a promise to himself to keep in contact with her even if they’re miles away, a weekly text messages or even a month email.

——

Eventually she moved on, leaving for some kind of community college life. It made him smile, seeing her happy from all the pictures and messages she sent him. Meanwhile he was 17 years old, finally decided he was going towards a job and lifestyle outside of the four walls of that building. Taking a small job working after hours at the school and picking up teammates equipment at the skating rink. He found it good.

One afternoon he heading to a black and white dressed party at school, he wearing all black suit with a matching mask as he found a few Juniors running around the corner chasing, a kid down the block as he stumbled back onto the street, being trampled.

“HEY!” He yelled groaning loudly and then muttered, “It not my business…it’s not my business..”

Kendall kept on with his night at the party, enjoying himself the best he could, until the same Juniors from outside rushing yards from the gymnasium to the back of the school, near a few buildings. Seeing a Sophomore racing outwards just as fast, looking like he also in the wrong holding a backpack.

He let it out, knowing it wasn’t his business and deciding to not leave the date who he dancing with, knowing it will end up being right either way. He hoped.

However, inside that Sophomore’s back was stole SHIELD scrap metal he was repurposing it into items such as phone cases or wrist watches and selling them behind school grounds. Before they knew the dance was shut down, as students ran. School staff, officers and plenty of others to hold everyone off to be questioned.

He groaned, not wanting to be apart of this even though he saw what might’ve happened. But he really didn’t want to be interrogated or anything for that matter, so he kept quiet hoping he would go unnoticed. 

But little did he know that same night, after returning back to the car he borrowed to possibly head ‘home’, he would be found by caught holding up water bottle in hand dropping it at the sight of car lights hovering behind him…

“Officer, i was just heading out…” He mumbled to himself, fumbling for his car keys he from the removed the door.

“You know when we meant to question the students, we meant everyone, kid..” Said the voice of a man, that made his body shiver.

It didn’t sound like a cop. Kendall looked over his shoulder to see the chest plate.

It was SHIELD…

——-

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you like it. Tell me what you think about it :)

Remember to like, reblog, comment and share!

Tags: @gaminggirlsstuff @mandylove1000 @msrochelleromanofffelton @hanlueluver @superspookyjanelle @topgun-imagines @blackheart-beauty @meiramel @rooster-84 @blueboirick and etc

—-

Clothes reference >>

[nessa007]

ppl who said Ryan was "too old" are about to be proved wrong by that box office $$$$$ he's about to rake in. he's hilarious and perfect for this role. and also gorgeous??? A TRUE BEAUTY KEN. "I saw a ken face down in the mud and texted Greta a pic with I must tell this man's tale" xD also there's never a person (until RECENTLY) saying the female actors aren't cast old enough (I'm not taking about Margo). The viral moment a little while ago was when Emmy Rossum was cast as Tom Holland's mom (and it's only because it's Tom hype it was noticed, I love him but still this has been happening since cinema has existed) she's only ten years older than him. That just happened in a Jessica Chastain movie like two years ago and no one said anything. My neices were watching a utube soap and I kid you not the "mom" was the SAME AGE. It's every movie; every show. I'm so happy Halle was cast as Ariel - appropriate age!!! I understand productions cast older teens/young adults rather than kids because then they can cut corners with union rights/demands like kids needing more breaks and parents on sets and like... basic human decency. also shows like R!verdale have teens sleeping together every weeek and sexy shots yada yada that actual teens WOULD NOT be permitted to do in filming (thank god they have intimacy coordinators now FINALLY). I forget who pointed it out, but you never see a news woman with grey hair. On a man it's distinguished on a woman it's ugly or she's a crone. I'll watch movies where they cast a 30 something woman and make her 50 by graying her hair. Like wtf? Anytime I'm watching a high school scene with a friend I say "none of those people are high schoolers". I'm an actor who's repeatedly told I AM LUCKY MY FACE LOOKS YOUNGER THAN I AM. This is going to last me about what 3 years? 2? I was just basically let go from a gig because FB feedback on photos were I looked "too old" for a character and it was because our boss was casting TEENAGERS illegally so yeah, of course I'm going to look about 80 years old (at 31) next to a 13 year old. She said "we're going to cast you as older roles" yeah we NEVER get requests for those. I wonder why. Okay, sorry for the rant... These reasons are why I'm so happy for Ryan. Prove the haters wrong and hopefully more light is shed on this too old/too young/ageism issue as a whole. Perfect moments and the movie hasn't even come out: THE JUST KEN SONG I DIDN'T KNOW WOULD HAPPEN JUST DROPPED?!

He thought of the KEN underwear!!

he's not afraid to poke fun at himself, wear pink a whole movie and funny outfits and dye his hair - so many "action movie" macho men actors would NEVER. this is the same guy from Blade Runner, Drive, The Gray Man (lol for their shoutout to his Ken)

the tassel shaking, "I'll need clicky pen", the changing scenery and outfits montage, rock paper scissors, crossing his fingers when he asks barbie if he can come over xD EVERY MOMENT IS PERFECT.

yeah, sadly ageism is always gonna be a thing with hollywood and especially for women.

i don’t care how old ryan is, he is PERFECT in this role and that’s just judging from the few clips and trailers released. i love seeing all the early reviews saying this will be the role he is remembered for and he steals every scene he’s in 👏👏👏 i’m so excited to see the movie, especially for ryan !!!

[imagineanime2022]

Please may I have a Tokyo Ghoul headcanons of Ayato Kirishima with a deaf female Ghoul! S/O..he met her during the same time that he met Ken Kaneki..she is Kaneki's younger sister *she is the same age as Ayato* who strongly relied on sign language as a way of communicating and Kaneki was mainly her interpreter when the adults weren't around or she used a notepad or her phone. She is a highly skillful Ghoul but she's deaf? She strongly relied on her other senses when she was clearly in danger in being hunted down like a rabbit by a dove who considered her as a rarity due to her deafness as there wasn't exactly many deaf ghouls. Obviously she didn't like Ayato in the beginning as apparently she said that he was a "Jerkass" and almost killed him when he severely injured her older brother..she ruptured several of his internal organs, broke 6 of his ribs and broke both of his legs..he was beaten half to death by a pissed off sister of Kaneki's. Her Kagune is the same as Ayato's due to the fact that she was human originally before she was nearly murdered by a male Ghoul and had to have a transplant. She wasn't exactly very friendly with Ayato either at the beginning after the crap he pulled when they first met. She is pretty good-looking..she had a fair few admirers who admitted that.

One other thing:

1. Ken Kaneki was 4 when his little sister was born..and it was around the same time that she was diagnosed with permanent hearing loss and he learnt sign language on his own before teaching his younger sister.

2. She learnt to adapt to being half ghoul after the accident that nearly took her life.

3. She felt envy by the fact that Ayato had a nice Dad before what had happened..her mother was pretty abusive (as confirmed in the manga and Ken Kaneki ended up caring for her when he was just a child himself)

4. She strongly relied on her other senses when it came to sensing danger.

5. She can read lip patterns pretty well if none of the resources were there.

6. She only ate people who had committed suicide or didn't deserve to live e.g pedophiles and child abusers and scammers..

Enemies to lovers I guess?

Relationships:

Ken Kaneki's relationship with his younger sister since her birth.

Touka Kirishima's relationship with her *how long would it take for her to realise that the younger sister was deaf*

Ayato Kirishima's relationship with her..enemy to lovers..*it was kinda platonic when they were teenagers but it did turn romantic during the legal age and she was pregnant with his unborn daughter by the time when they were 18..even though she ate more human flesh than usual at the time due to pregnancy hormones and she felt awful for giving the poor man a hard time considering that he was the one who had to deal with a deaf angry pregnant girlfriend (her)*

Hope this is okay!

Here

[canyouheatmeuponafrozennight]

Read: Paradise Lost

Satan, Adam, God, Paradise and Family

Satan

Making Satan too sympathetic got Milton in trouble at the time, which at first indeed might seem like a wild stance to take, especially at the time. Too human for Christians, too pitiful for a satanist. People need their icons to be perfect, even if for that they must be dehumanized or have their darkness hidden (Even Christ is treated that way, as some don't allow him to have feared death or have loved a prostitute and so on). I've seen commentary that says everything Satan speaks is a lie, the sympathy one might feel for him stems from his gaslighting, but I don't think that's what Milton was writing with him.

The reason he is the protagonist for half the book, the reason he is drawn sympathetically, is because Satan is Adam. If we're being technical, Satan, Adam and Christ are all brothers (I'd even argue Man's knowledge of good and evil, the possibility of swinging either way itself works within that metaphor. The neutral path that is man, the evil that is Satan and the good that is Christ, these are the three paths created by God through his direct children) but the biggest parallels are drawn between Satan and Adam, that's why it matters that we meet and know him. (Sin is born from Satan, and from their incestuous union comes Death. Eve is born from Adam, and from their incestuous union comes humankind, for one.)

Second, both are expelled from paradise, both are rejected by their father. Satan, unable to accept his younger brother as superior (was Hokuto no Ken Paradise Lost-inspired?) rebels against his father and falls to a hell of his making. Still, ruling over hell sounds greater than serving God in Heaven, therefore he accepts that punishment pretending it doesn't even hurt. However, still bitter and looking to frustrate God in return nevertheless, he departs to ruin God's new plan. In other words, he must corrupt his youngest brother to piss God off.

One passage that feels very much like a convoluted family drama, is how God feels conflicted on Man's punishment because erasing man would allow Satan to mock him for throwing away his favorite children the moment they cross him once. A father pressured by the judgemental eyes of the eldest son, the only child old and wise enough to be able to call out his wrongdoings.

Satan is bitter and childish, but paradoxically, also the only adult in the story that can talk back to God, that can challenge providence. As the corruptor of Man, our greatest-uncle did leave this gift for us, the power of evil to confront those who might be mightier than ourselves for our own sake. Satan is self-tempted, he chose for himself to go against God, which I do have to say is more admirable behavior than Adam and Eve's being tempted by another (but also the reason why Satan's punishment was more severe; they could be excused as someone else was to blame at least). Jeanne D'arc ending up as she did might not be a surprise, as the strength to stand up by yourself is indeed a satanic trait.

Satan is very much a prototype of Adam, human-like and sinful, angry and rebellious, he can't see his punishment as his fault, he can't see his failures as his failures. Powerful enough to fight against God, but not pure enough to recognize what he's done, what he has broken; he can't see that he lost Paradise.

Adam

Our greatest-father, Satan with a bit less bite. Personally, a character that always existed within me, perhaps one of the first literature character I've met, but to me never a person, just a symbol. Adam and Eve started mankind, that line is all they were to me, until this book.

I feel the need to start with the line that moved me most, that connected me the most to Adam: When I saw [Eve], all that was beautiful until now, no longer was. The rest of his descriptions of Eve, of being with Eve all rung true within my heart to. I know how it was because he was just like me; a man in love with a woman (Hadestown)

It's easy to say "these two lived in Eden but then lost it all," but what lies before, between and after that, isn't something the Bible makes you think about, but Paradise Lost does. The solitude of a man alone in Paradise for God knows how long, meeting with his soulmate and getting to experience life by her side in a place you two know nothing but peace and joy and good. Thinking about experiencing that, and losing that, makes a short line about the original progenitor which has no meaning gain much more weight, gain significance.

When a now sinful Eve approaches him and tempts him into also consuming the fruit, he thinks about how he can't live without her, and would rather betray God than her. Once he obtains evil he lashes out and says it's her fault this happened, but what I see drawn here is the shape of true love. Before he knew evil, he'd rather die than be without her, once he did, he felt like arguing and playing the blame game. When we love someone to the point of doing anything for them, to be with them, that's Adam within us, the purest, God-betraying love that rests within us is also his gift.

Scared and regretful, Adam, unlike Satan, can tell he lost Paradise, that things won't be good anymore, not only for him and Eve, but to their children. They'll know death, they'll know illness, they'll know pain. Is it worth bringing a child into this world, knowing this is what awaits them? Milton a father himself, in an age much less kind than ours, probably could write that feeling with much more personal investment than one might infer from the text. To answer that question, Raphael comes to Adam and shows him the future, sins, war and plague, but also salvation, redemption and forgival.

When a tragedy occurs, it's not the end of the world. You can make good out of evil. Satan's betrayal created man. Man's betrayal brought Jesus and many other heroes. Mankind was born in sin, but doesn't need to live in sin. That is the positive, existentialist meaning of this journey, when Paradise is Lost (the end of the book), the real story (history) begins.

God, Paradise and Family

Seeing God as a father and Paradise as the nest, the story of Genesis is much more familiar than holy. The father/mother provides all they can to give their children happiness while they're immature, but one day they'll grow and develop, until they no longer can sleep on that same nest. The kids one day will leave and become Gods of their own Paradises, maybe create and provide for their Adams until these are ready to also leave and become gods too. When the fruit makes Adam and Eve become like gods, this is what it means, that these children now will fend for themselves, instead of live under their parent's wings.

Adam's sorrow, however, is probably a feeling that can't be done justice. I'll speak of not being in talking terms with your father, and we'll know our feelings, the feelings of our peers who went through that, the portrayal of characters that went through that. Adam, however, was the first person to experience that "loss," that "grief," even. He prayed because he knew his father would listen, but God would never talk to him again. For 900 years, Adam lived regretting and trying to reconnect, trying to obtain forgival. He was at his happiest when God visited, everyday, always at the same time; what is this if not a child who waits for his dad to get home again? His sin innocent, his punishment eternal and heartwrenching, a torture of the soul probably heavier than the shadow of death and the guilt of sin.

My mother often talks about wanting to see her late mother again, wanting to talk about things which happened, happy and sad. Is that sadness one that can be sublimated in 900 years, or one that only grows with time? Do you think it'd be silly to pray for Adam today, and ask God to forgive him? As a timeless being, perhaps something done today can still change the past. Maybe something can still be done about God and Adam. At least I want to believe that, because otherwise the melancholy is just too overwhelming.

[ickymichi]

GETTING CAUGHT MAKING OUT WITH TOKYO REV. CHARACTERS.

including: draken, hakkai, shinichiro

warnings: +16 only, suggestive

things to know: timeskip ofc, under 16, blank and ageless blogs dni or ur blocked x

note: i wanna post more tokyo rev content so here u go x

tagz: @oblxvion

mymattsun 2022. reblogs and feedback are greatly appreciated. pls do not repost or modify on this or any other platform.

DRAKEN had told you he’d be later than usual tonight, something about extra bikes being needed to be tended to. but this is the second time this week he’s been delayed, and what’s wrong with wanting to spend time with your boyfriend? you ask yourself when you see him hunched over a bike in his shop. the noise of the bell must’ve startled him, because when he looked up to see who it was he effectively hit his head on the exhaust.—

“hi baby, scared be a bit there wasn’t expecting you.” he said with a breathless chuckle while rubbing the sore area. “just wanted to pop in is all, missed you kenny,” even with the innocent look you had, he could tell your words with laced with pure want. and with how he looked in his uniform, dark hair tied back in a bun and his towering frame. he was feeding into that want. “came all this way just to say hi?” he questioned. “mmhh.” you took two steps until you were within arms reach and draken moved his to rest on your waist while also sitting back on the seat of the bike he was working on. once seated, your arms went to his neck pulling him close till the gap between you was closed. ken, wasting no time already had his tongue slipping against your own, with the same want he could sense off you 20 seconds ago. pulling you closer into his body you let out a small whimper that made ken slip his own noise of appreciation into your mouth. distracted by the intensity of a single kiss, both of you failed to hear the jingle of the bell on the front door. “draken, i got food for us seeing as we’ll be a while.” without looking up from his phone inui walked through the front room and straight to the back, leaving you and ken in slight shock at his obliviousness, until he joined you again. “oh y/n, when did you get here? am i uh, interrupting something?”

HAKKAI knew bringing you to a shoot would be a bad idea, but that was laters problem. and now it’s later. the crew on set said hakkai could have a short break while they step out, effectively leaving the two of you alone. once they did hakkai was on you like a magnet.—

“you look so good today ‘kai.” he hid his face in your neck like always when you praised him. he loved it more than anything put he couldn’t process that you were telling him he looked good. lifting his face from your neck he didn’t let you get another word in before latching his lips on your own. all he wanted was to kiss you, silently telling you that he loves you and everything about you. and you could definitely get his message, with how his tongue was slipping against yours and his hands gripping your hips there was no way he wasn’t in love with you. “okay hakkai break times up—oh” the voice of his sister/manger/full time babysitter had hakkai pushing you away like you were diseased. “we weren’t doing anything!” he exclaimed with a red sweating face. yuzuha only stood with a nonchalant expression, obviously having other priorities right now. “okay” she drawled out. “i don’t really care what you’re doing just get back to work.”

SHINICHIRO was tired of watching you indulge in his younger siblings presence for the past hour. your in his room, in his hoodie, he’s your boyfriend. not mikey’s or emma’s. seeing as you were still sucked into mikey’s exaggerated story of how him and his friend baji took down a bunch of teens, he flopped against the pillow with a sigh.—

“mikey, emma, don’t you have other things to do?” “nope.” they both said then went back to their storytelling. “ how ‘bout you two go do kids stuff and leave the adult alone” shinichiro sat back up and leaned against your shoulder with a raised brow. “y/n obviously likes us more than you shin’ how about you leave?” the way his jaw fell at mikeys comment was comical. “your annoying anyway, let’s go emma and do cool stuff. bye y/n!” “bye mikey! bye emma!” finally, after an hour shinichiro had him all to yourself. “well hello to you my dear,” you laughed softly at his sarcasm before pushing the hair away from his eyes. shinichiro thinks he could stare at you all day, every little feature on your face makes his own heat up bit by bit. “how bout we get down to some adult business yeah?” he didn’t even let you object before leaning down to connect your lips. humming softly at the feeling of finally getting to indulge in you for the first time since you came over, shinichiro put his weight on one arm while the other stroked the skin of your hip under of his hoodie. “shin,” you whispered against his lips. “yeah? what’s up baby?” not giving him a verbal answer, you decided to just push your tongue past his parted lips instead. stealing a groan from him in the process. just as he was about to flip you over the once closed bedroom door slid open with unnecessary force. “y/n! we’re bore- ewwww what the heck!?” you swear shinichiro had jumped at least three feet off the bed before sitting up with a red face. “we were just wrestling!”

[mdmakki]

getting caught making out with tokyo rev boys.

including: draken, hakkai, shinichiro

warnings: +16 only, suggestive

things to know: timeskip ofc, under 16, blank and ageless blogs dni or ur blocked x

note: repost from old blog x

mdmakki 2022. reblogs and feedback are greatly appreciated.pls do not repost or modify on this or any other platform.

DRAKEN had told you he'd be later than usual tonight, something about extra bikes being needed to be tended to. but this is the second time this week he's been delayed, and what's wrong with wanting to spend time with your boyfriend? you ask yourself this when you see him hunched over a bike in his shop. the noise of the bell must've startled him, because when he looked up to see who it was he effectively hit his head on the exhaust.

"hi baby, scared be a bit there wasn't expecting you." a breathless chuckle while rubbing the sore area. "just wanted to "just wanted to pop in is all, missed you kenny," had, he could tell your words with laced with pure want, and with how he looked in his uniform, dark hair tied back in a bun and his towering frame. he was feeding into that want. "came all this way just to say hi?" he questioned. "mmhh." you took two steps until you were within arms reach and draken moved his to rest on your waist while also sitting back on the seat of the bike he was working on. once seated, your arms went to his neck pulling him close till the gap between you was closed. ken, wasting no time already had his tongue slipping against your own, with the same want he could sense off you 20 seconds ago. pulling you closer into his body you let out a small whimper that made ken slip his own noise of appreciation into your mouth. distracted by the intensity of a single kiss, both of you failed to hear the jingle of the bell on the front door. "draken, i got food for us seeing as we'll be a while." without looking up from his phone inui walked through the front room and straight to the back, leaving you and ken in slight shock at his obliviousness, until he joined you again. "oh y/n, when did you get here? am i uh, interrupting something?"

HAKKAl knew bringing you to a shoot would be a bad idea, but that was laters problem. and now it's later. the crew on set said hakkai could have a short break while they step out, effectively leaving the two of you alone. once they did hakkai was on you like a magnet.-

" you look so good today ‘kai. he hid his face in your neck like always when you praised him. he loved it more than anything put he couldn't process that you were telling him he looked good. lifting his face from your neck he didn't let you get another word in before latching his lips on your own. all he wanted was to kiss you, silently telling you that he loves you and everything about you, and you could definitely get his message, with how his tongue was slipping against yours and his hands gripping your hips there was no way he wasn't in love with you. "okay hakkai break times up." the voice of his sister/manger/full time babysitter had hakkai pushing you away like you were diseased. "We weren't doing anything!” he exclaimed with a red sweating face. yuzuha only stood with a nonchalant expression, obviously having other priorities right now. "okay" she drawled out. "i don't really care what you're doing just get back to work."

SHINICHIRO was tired of watching you indulge in his younger siblings presence for the past hour. your in his room, in his hoodie, he's your boyfriend. not mikey's or emma's. seeing as you were still sucked into mikey's exaggerated story of how him and his friend baji took down a bunch of teens, he flopped against the pillow with a sigh-.

"mikey, emma, don't you have other things to do?" "nope." they both said then went back to their storytelling. " how bout you two go do kids stuff and leave the adult alone" shinichiro sat back up and leaned against your shoulder with a raised brow. "y/n obviously likes us more than you shin' how about you leave?" the way his jaw fell at mikeys comment was comical. "your annoying anyway, let's go emma and do cool stuff. bye y/n!" "bye mikey! bye emma!" finally, after an hour shinichiro had him all to yourself. "well hello to you my dear," you laughed softly at his sarcasm before pushing the hair away from his eyes. shinichiro thinks he could stare at you all day, every little feature on your face makes his own heat up bit by bit. "how bout we get down to some adult business yeah?" he didn't even let you object before leaning down to connect your lips. humming softly at the feeling of finally getting to indulge in you for the first time since you came over, shinichiro put his weight on one arm while the other stroked the skin of your hip under of his hoodie. "shin," you whispered against his lips. "yeah? what's up baby?" not giving him a verbal answer, you decided to just push your tongue past his parted lips instead. stealing a groan from him in the process. just as he was about to flip you over the once closed bedroom door slid open with unnecessary force. *y/n! we're bore- ewwww what the heck!?" you swear shinichiro had jumped at least three feet off the bed before sitting up with a red face. "we were just wrestling!"

[kallikrein]

TOKREV 230 THOUGHTS

i’m gonna put it all down before i go to sleep and hope that i get to dream bd founder waka tonight cause why not?? lmfksk so anyway, excuse my grammar ahahaha

THE BLACK DRAGONS FIRST GENERATION EVERYONE <3 they look so, so glorious pls. uniting the whole kanto region with the ‘god of war’ by your side, two former gang leaders finally befriending each other and making them your own attack unit ugh shinichiro is really the goat!!

THE PARALLELS?? i’m sobbing, both baji and takeomi being the dark haired childhood friend to the sano brothers. ngl tho, takeomi looks like baby hakkai hahah

shinichiro seems like a good kid ever since. and he deserved better, damn it. i think it’s so funny that mikey wonders why shinichiro does what he does. cause his dark impulse can’t understand /j

SHUT UP WAKA. SHUT UP. SHUT UP. WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BE SO PRETTY WITH THAT MESSY HAIR AND BIZARRE EARRING ON?? YOU DIDN’T EVEN HOLD BACK LMAO. AND WDYM HE’S WEAK WHEN IT COMES TO WOMEN? SO YOU AREN’T THEN?? HAHHSHSHS

it’s so heartwarming to see benwaka smiling like this. it’s so genuine and tbh, i wanna see more of their interaction with shin <3

i spy with my little eye a thing that starts with the letter b. yep, it’s their lfmkdjs bikes. i wanna see them…driving it. when will it be ken-sensei? i need to see waka riding his bike ehehe. i wonder how takeomi got his scar tho cause in this panel, he still doesn’t have it.

like i said, shinichiro is such a good man. grandpa sano brought him up well. and here we have takeomi having his scar. i’m really curious as to how he got it. was it from a fight with other gangs? or the famous theory that it was sanzu’s doing? hmm

aha! hearts have been broken tonight because of this. takeomi knows his way around women, while shinichiro can’t relate cause he’s … yeah ;-;

SENJU OMG WHAT A BADDIE?!?!?! she knows her own strength, confident enough to proclaim she wanted to take down the invincible mikey. if that doesn’t speak girl boss, idk what else will. such an inspiration!!

THESE TWO MFERS ISTG I’M shaking crying screaming BECAUSE HELLO, GYM OWNERS BENWAKA?? YES GODDAMN PLEASE.

wakasa being a full blonde with a lil tied up hair atop his head plus his nonchalant posture… sir let me be a member in your gym…damn. i swear i will exercise as fuck lmao.

also them training senju. best stepdads for real.

[ i got way past the 10-image limit and i’m really frustrated ]

i really felt takeomi on a different level tho because of tonight’s chapter. being an adult, steering control of your own life is extremely hard. sometimes it’s actually fun like “oh nvm yolo”, but often times it’s really “where am i going with this” hard ahshshs so that scene where the brahman was initially formed, and takeomi swearing to be a better person really spoke out to me lmgksks

but of course he forgot again when brahman became huge. it’s okay. we all make mistakes. we’re just humans after all.

i liked that he remembered his own purpose now. it’s the best feeling ever, and that the people around him (wakasa and benkei) still accepted his weakness even senju, his sister who is much younger than him, does too. she’s already mature for her age, love that for her.

i just wish that senju could take down the titan that is terano south unharmed. also benwaka please be safe, no one is allowed to follow draken’s fate ;-; </3

[ask-lock-shock-and-barrel]

Since this is a reboot-ish, do you have any separate voice claims for the characters, or are the voices the same as the original movie?

((I want you to know, first and foremost, that as soon as I got a mobile notif for this question, I did a little happy dance and hopped right onto my laptop from the kitchen, because I have been WAITING for the day for someone to ask this. I have very different voice claims for the characters than in the movie with one exception, but I still have so much love for the voice cast of the original movie.

Jack: I've pictured John Hodgman, known for voicing a few different characters in animation, such as Coraline's dad in Coraline, Rockerduck in the Ducktales reboot, and Billions in Kipo and the age of Wonderbeasts. I think his voice is very fitting for Jack, and it's really similar in terms of enunciation and tone to Chris Sarandon.

Sally: the ever so talented Megan Hilty, she's known for playing Glinda in Wicked on broadway, Rosetta in the Tinkerbell series, and more recently Wammawink in Centaurworld. She has a really great voice that has the potential of being sweet and airy like Catherine O'Hara's, but also has an eccentric bubbliness about it that I can see Sally having in a reboot. I think Sally deserves the right to go a little bonkers once in a while, what can I say.

The Mayor: Tom Kenny, I think his vocal range is just so iconic, and that he could really pull off the moodiness and dramatics of the Mayor's personality in such a performance. It's not quite the same vocal style as the late great Glen Shadix but I think he'd be great in the role.

Lock: Ben Schwartz, look, I know such a role as this would break his streak of voicing blue characters (Dewey in Ducktales, Sonic, Leonardo in ROTMNT, etc) but he has such 'smarm-n-charm' in his voice that I think fits Lock really well. Lock is all about showing off, and Ben's got a great voice for such a thing. I really can't see anyone else as him. I've got a lot of love for Paul Reubens, but I think Ben would be a worthy successor for this role.

Shock: Kimiko Glenn, ie Dawn in Waitress, Horse in Centaurworld, Lena in Ducktales, and a few others. I kind of wanted to stray away from something that's constantly shrill like in the movie or the games, but still kept a nasally and sassy quality to it with the ability to get really high pitched or really gruff when the moment calls for it, and I think her voice is a great candidate for that. It also sounds a little more kid-like than Catherine O'Hara's, which for this 'reboot', is more fitting for Shock.

Barrel: So for Barrel, I am still waffling between two avenues of thought. The first being, if all the characters are voiced by adults, and in that sense, I imagine Harvey Guillén, known for playing Guillermo in 'What We Do in the Shadows', and the Funhouse in Mickey Mouse Fun House (I dont watch it, but the clips of his voice are pretty fun). The second idea is that if Barrel is younger than the other two, I think their voice could be a little more youthful, where I could then see them being voiced by Justin Felbinger, aka the voice of Sprig from Amphibia. And in both schools of thought, they have a lisp. They just do.

Oogie Boogie: I know he's more of a memory than an active player in this reboot (for now, we'll see), but I cannot picture him as anyone but Ken Page, his original voice since conception. He's just too iconic, man. But if you had to twist my arm to pick an alternate, probably the closest I can think of is Kevin Michael Richardson or Keith David, the latter bringing a different sort of air to the role.

Dr. Finkelstein: Jim Rash. I'm biased because I saw this man live on stage and blew out a lung from laughing so hard at him, but I think he would be absolutely a riot playing a crabby scientist who just snipes at everything and gets dramatically angry and worked up when things don't go his way.

There are some concepts of original characters I haven't introduced to this blog just yet, but they also have voice claims in mind too, and I'll present them when the time comes))

[sevenkittensinatrenchcoat]

Rambling About 1998 Casting

Having seen a ton old, Broadway-based productions, and a ton of newer, London-based productions, so I now have a general idea of what the differences between the two are, I’ve noticed just how much adding Broadway cast members to a mostly London-based show affected the VHS version.

Three Broadway actors were cast in 1998, one from the original cast, and two who were performing at the time.

Ken Page was the original Broadway Old Deuteronomy. Old Deuteronomy’s role is pretty much the same in London and Broadway versions, so there’s not much to comment on with him. But, Munkustrap and Mistoffelees are characters with tons of little differences between versions, so Michael Gruber and Jacob Brent changed more.

But, Michael Gruber’s casting actually didn’t change much. The biggest difference between London Munkustrap and Broadway Munkustrap is the Macavity Fight. Broadway Munk is taken out of the action much earlier. Someone cast as Munk in London would have to learn more fight choreography than someone cast on Broadway. But, the London version of the Macavity Fight was used in 1998. Michael Gruber learned the new choreography for the filmed version.

Mistoffelees is different. Virtually every time the choreography and staging of the character differs between London and Broadway, 1998 uses the Broadway version. Misto’s opening line is Broadway. A large portion of Jellicle Ball choreography (Fugue, Girls, Mungo Entrance, Boys Jump, Tours) is Broadway. Mistoffelees is absent during Skimble’s number, because Broadway had a longer break for Misto actors to change costumes for Misto’s number than London did. The pacing of Misto’s number comes from the Broadway variant where Misto sings the second verse, even though he doesn’t sing it in this version.

There are a lot more changes between London and Broadway with Misto’s stuff than with Munk’s stuff. Munk’s changes were one fight scene. I’m guessing there was too much London choreography for Jacob Brent to learn during rehearsals, so they switched it to what he was already familiar with. 

When Misto was given his Broadway role, if his London role was still needed, it was given to Tumblebrutus. This put Tumblebrutus in many places where I’ve never seen him appear onstage. In Broadway-based productions, “have you been an alumnus of heaven and hell?” is Plato’s opening line. In Broadway-based productions, Munkustrap holds the light at the front of Skimble’s train. In London-based productions, those are both Mistoffelees. Instead of just imitating Broadway and putting Plato and Munk in those places, which would’ve been very easy to do in Munk’s case, they swapped in Tumblebrutus.

Tumblebrutus was played by Fergus Logan, who played Mistoffelees in London at the time, so he was more familiar with these bits, though it must’ve been weird doing them as a different character. He also had to learn the rest of Tumble’s track, but only parts that didn’t overlap with Misto’s track, or with Pouncival’s track when those were swapped out.

Then there’s that reworking of the Jellicle Ball. In every version of the ball, we start out with the entire cast together, but eventually the crowd disperses. 

In London-based productions, Carbucketty/Pouncival has a ballet solo. He crosses the stage and one of the girls, usually Jemima/Sillabub, runs past him. They briefly acknowledge each other. Carbucketty/Pouncival reaches the other side of the stage and Mistoffelees runs out. Weirdly, this step is called “Mungo’s Entrance”, even though I’ve never seen Mungojerrie be the one who enters here. Anyway, Carbucketty/Pouncival and Misto jump around a bit and the Jerrie tumbles out (maybe this should’ve been called Mungo’s entrance), followed by Cassandra. Jerrie tries to hit on Cassandra and gets rejected. This is when Bomba’s section starts up.

In Broadway-based productions, the bit where Jemima/Sillabub runs by (literally named Girls) is cut and replaced with Alonzo. Mistoffelees gets the ballet solo, crosses the stage towards Alonzo, and they seem to dance the idea of making polite conversation. Pouncival runs out for the Mungo Entrance and the Boys Jump features three cats, instead of two. Tumblebrutus tumbles out and we have a bit that I’ve dubbed the Antagonistic Waggle, where Tumble gets in a bit of a fit with the other boys. The fight breaks up when Cassandra comes out and then Bomba starts up her section.

If you took a Carbucketty, cast them as Pouncival and gave them the Broadway choreography, it’d be easy. They don’t get their ballet solo, but once they get onstage for the Boys Jump, it’d all be pretty familiar. However, London Alonzo isn’t in this section at all, so this would be new stuff to learn. The 1998 version added a moment where Alonzo hits on Bomba and gets rejected, possibly to match the Jerrie/Cassandra bit that would have in London, and when Cassandra comes out, Alonzo is far more successful with her than Jerrie is, because Casslonzo is basically canon in London-based productions.

So, there was a lot of rearranging to mix some Broadway into the 1998 film, even though the Broadway cast members were outnumbered. 

This is all interesting, but I sometimes wonder why they made this decision. I’m not at all complaining, because it turned out great, but it wasn’t the most convenient decision. Since the filming was based out of London, you’d think they would’ve just gathered the London cast, reworked some of the choreography for film, and left it at that. Most filmed recordings of plays don’t mix and match their casts. I think they wanted the show they filmed to sort of represent all shows up to that point. But how did they pick which characters to use the current London cast for vs. the ones to get someone else for? And why cast several roles with actors who’d never played them before?

I honestly don’t know, but I have a few observations.

So, if they went to represent all of Cats, getting someone from the original London cast was vital. Since Grizabella is the character with the iconic song, the song that made the show a hit outside of theatre circles, casting the first person to sing that song in an official production makes perfect sense. Thus, Elaine Paige as Grizabella. Also, Grizabella is an older character, so casting someone in 1997 who first played the role in 1981 would mean casting an older actress. That works perfectly here.

In fact, most of the older characters were cast with older actors. Ken Page first played Old D in 1982. For Gus, instead of a casting an actor who’d played him before, they actually cast an old actor, someone who could represent a human version of Gus. This completely changed the tone of the number, but in a way that people liked. When watching bootlegs, I tend to skip over Gus, but it’s one of my favorite numbers in 1998.

The other characters on the older side of the cast are Bustopher, Asparagus, Skimble, Jellylorum, and Jennyanydots. James Barron (Bustopher) and Susie McKenna (Jenny) were playing the roles in London at the time. Tony Timberlake (Asparagus), played the Gustopher (Gus/Asparagus/Bustopher) role in London directly before Barron did. Geoffrey Garratt (Skimble) first played his role in the 1989 UK tour. Susan Jane Tanner (Jelly) was from the original London cast. So, there’s a mix of old and new.

I don’t actually know the ages of most of these actors, so I can’t give exact numbers of how old they were when they first played their roles vs. when recording for the VHS. Also, Garratt is not the only actor who came from the 1989 tour. Rosemarie Ford (Bombalurina) spent most of her Cats career playing Grizabella, but she began as Bomba in 1989. Aeva May (Demeter) started even earlier, being cast as Demeter in London in 1986. Both played adult, but younger adult characters for the VHS at 35. 1989 was still less than a decade before the VHS and 1986 only slightly before.

So, Grizabella, Old Deuteronomy, and Jellylorum were the three older characters cast with actors who’d played their roles a long time before the VHS, meaning that their actors were a bit closer to the age of their characters. I’m not sure why Jellylorum in particular got this emphasis, other than that it just works. It just does. But, this does cause this weird effect with my brain when actors played Jelly too young. I also get annoyed when Jenny’s played too young because she’s the OLD Gumbie Cat. It’s the title of the song. How could you miss that? But, neither Skimble nor Jelly have their ages made nearly as clear, so it should be understandable when 30 year-old actors don’t know how old they’re supposed to be and just play them at 30. This is easy to accept with Skimble, but not with Jelly, entirely because I can recognize from 1998 that she both aligns herself with older characters and is played by an older actress. She doesn’t look 30. If a 30 year-old is cast as Jelly, and has seen the 1998 version, they should probably know that. If Jellylorum was meant to be younger, they wouldn’t have cast the role the way they did.

Now, back to Misto. I called this “rambling” for a reason. I’m writing off the top of my head here.

Mistoffelees is a really weird case. They cast the Broadway actor, but still brought in the London actor to play a different character, one he’d never played before. Fergus Logan wasn’t the only actor playing a role he hadn’t played before. Rebecca Parker (Cassandra) began as a swing and then played Bomba. Frank Thompson (George) started off as Admetus/Macavity and then became a swing. As swings, they could’ve played their filmed roles before, but I have no proof of that. (As a side note, I wonder if Thompson being an Admetus has something to do with his George being credited as Admetus).

But, Parker and Thompson seemed pretty comfortable as Cassandra and George, while Logan struggled a bit with Tumblebrutus. I think this is because, half the time, 1998 Tumblebrutus isn’t even Tumblebrutus. He’s a stand-in for London Mistoffelees. Having to be a stand-in, and having more experience in his stand-in role, I don’t think Logan was given a whole lot of room to develop his Tumblebrutus, so the role felt reduced and inconsistent. Parker just had to play Cassandra, so she developed her Cassandra. Thompson just had to play George, so he developed his George. 1998 basically tried to have a Broadway and a London Misto at the same time and sort of lost Tumblebrutus as a character along the way.

Tumblebrutus isn’t a major character, especially in London-based productions, so this isn’t a major problem. Some tours and smaller productions actually cut Tumblebrutus in favor of Electra. Pouncival is never cut. He seems to be the preferred tom kitten in general. But, the reduced role of Tumblebrutus is the result of casting a Broadway Mistoffelees when it seems like they wanted a London one. But, they cast a Broadway Munkustrap and had him play a London Munkustrap with no one cast as a stand-in, while they made changes to Misto’s role to match the Broadway version. They wanted both versions so badly that they basically refused to choose just one.

With the casting of Michael Gruber, from what I can tell, Gillian Lynne just really liked him in the role.

(Interview tidbit is from Michael Gruber’s page on the Cats Wiki)

This might’ve been the case with Jacob Brent as Mistoffelees as well, but I think there was more to it than that. Technically, Brent and Logan were both great in the role. Seeing Misto and Tumble in the Boys Ballet, which Brent said Logan had the timing for better than he did, Logan might’ve actually been better at dancing the role. 

But, I think what decided Brent’s casting was his acting of the role.

The role of Mistoffelees evolved a lot over time and London and Broadway evolved in different directions. By the time Brent was cast, Broadway Mistoffelees was a mix of the very dramatic, theatrical character Broadway started with and the younger, more awkward version that Lindsay Chambers brought to Broadway from Zurich. Brent was Chambers’ understudy and their versions of the character are similar. There are no full recordings of Chambers as Misto on Broadway, but there is a bootleg from Zurich, so the two portrayals can be compared.

Zurich was Vienna-based. The 1983 Vienna production was mostly based off of Broadway, but with a few changes. One of these changes is that Mistoffelees, who had a large singing role on Broadway, became completely mute. Mute Misto soon spread to Amsterdam and Paris. In Paris, the character was aged down and given more of a character arc where magically recovering Old Deuteronomy becomes a coming-of-age moment. Zurich took this characterization and ran with it. Both Paris and Zurich opened with Tibor Kovats as Misto, but the bootleg was filmed after Lindsay Chambers took over. The younger, coming-of-age aspects of the character were doubled down on. On top of that, Chambers’ Misto is an outcast, often scolded by the older cats in the tribe for what appear to be misunderstandings. Munkustrap is particularly harsh with him, and after he brings Old D back, Munkustrap dances with him and leads him to the tire for Tugger’s “ladies and gentlemen” finale. Munkustrap took the lead in honoring Misto at the end. Gaining Munk’s respect in particular is Zurich Misto’s arc.

Jacob Brent also plays Misto as younger and prone to awkward mistakes, but the tone is different. His Misto is more Broadway theatrical, with a small singing role. This makes him seem a bit more confident, and he at times appears to have a bit of an ego. Most of the older cats seem to like him. Munkustrap, the complete opposite to his Zurich counterpart, is very patient with Misto and seems to understand him a bit better than some of the other cats. Instead, Misto doesn’t really seem to fit in with cats closer to his own age and it’s the entire tribe he has to impress, without focus on a specific character.

All in all, the storyline with Zurich Misto is a bit more obvious. But, Brent’s Misto is more energetic, more dynamic. He makes facial expressions that make for great close ups. The combination of the clear story arc, which can be made even clearer on film, and that energy and expressiveness, make for a character that works really well on film. He’s the ideal Misto for a recorded production.

So, it was less Jacob Brent as a dancer, and more Mistoffelees, the character as played by Jacob Brent, that they were looking for.

I’ve run out of things to ramble about for now. I’ll just add on at the end that all of these people are awesome.

[brian-in-finance]

(photo from Branagh Compendium)

Relative Values: Bill and Kenneth Branagh

by Ann McFerran, Sunday Times (London), 1 August 1999

Bill and Kenneth Branagh were born in Belfast and moved to Reading in 1970 when Bill was 14 and Ken 9. Bill left school at 16, and after college had a successful career in the IT and telecom industry. Now 43, he is managing director of Case Technology, an independent manufacturer of voice and data conversion technology. He and his wife, Sally, have two daughters, Kim, 18, and Nicky, 13, and live near Reading. Kenneth, 38, won the Most Promising Newcomer award for his role in Another Country in 1982. He has directed and starred in the films Henry V and Much Ado About Nothing, directed the films Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and In the Bleak Midwinter, and starred in several Shakespeare plays. He is starring in Paul Greengrass's Theory of Flight and Barry Sonnenfeld's Wild Wild West, and has directed and stars in his own film of Love's Labour's Lost, due out later this year. His six-year marriage to the actress Emma Thompson ended in divorce in 1995. He lives in London. Their sister, Joyce, 29, will direct Hamlet at the Tivoli Theatre, Dublin, in November.

BILL: Ken was a regular little boy growing up in Belfast, who played football in the street. When my father went away he'd bring us back a little matchbox car. I used to keep mine pristine clean, but Ken used to take the tyres off his.

Coming to England was very difficult for both of us. No one understood what I said, including the English teacher. I think Ken adapted more quickly than I did - he's great at accents. He was always a massive reader. At 12 he wrote to the editor of the local paper saying wouldn't it be a good idea if a child reviewed books, to give a child's perspective. His bedroom became like an Aladdin's cave. We kept the press cuttings - Branagh's Junior Book Shelf. A while back, my younger daughter said: "Do you think I could do that, Dad?" She wrote to the same paper and asked. The paper did a piece: "Branagh's niece is keeping up the family tradition."

I think Belfast made us driven individuals. We're both extremely competitive - I don't like to be second best. Nor does Ken. He hates it. When we came to England, Ken and I were determined to be responsible for our own destiny. In Belfast, no matter how talented you are, there's this underlying current of bigotry which is indoctrinated into kids. Ken single-mindedly set out to achieve what he wanted. There was no way my parents could afford drama school - he had to get a grant from Berkshire, the first they'd given for drama for years.

Ken looks like my mother, but in character he's more like my father - he doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve. My mother's incredibly emotional, as am I. We have big arguments, and as a child I could make her cry, and she could make me cry. Ken and my father hide their feelings.

As the eldest I was the trailblazer. I started living with the lady who's now my wife when I was 18. To my parents, I was living in sin. But when my brother did it at a similar age, it was just: "Oh, Ken's moving in with his girlfriend."

After Ken did Fortunes of War with Emma Thompson, his life became quite public. He hated stories about him in the press. I was offered money to talk about him; my folks had journalists camped outside their front door. It was awful. There were rumours and all sorts of nonsense. I think the press scared him witless. When he and Emma did get married it was on the front page of several newspapers. Ken just said to us: "Don't get involved. Once you do, the press won't leave you alone." Since then we've never spoken publicly. Sometimes I've denied that I'm anything to do with Ken. "Any relation?" people will say. If I say, "He's my little brother," they say, "Lovely," and don't know what to say next.

Emma's a smashing girl and as down-to-earth a person as you will ever meet. She was very close to my family and treated my girls like adults. She and Ken weren't luvvies, like the Spitting Image crap. When the marriage broke down I felt extremely protective. I was just Ken's big brother. The press were camped outside Emma's door and giving Ken grief. Awful.

I get asked about sibling rivalry, what do I feel about Ken's success and am I jealous? No. We do such different things. I get a huge vicarious pleasure from his success. I get to go to the first nights, the Oscars, the premieres; I've been on the set of every film he's done and I've met fantastically famous people, including royalty.

Ken has very little time when he can just chill and kick back. He built a house about a year ago, but last year he only spent six weeks in it. I wish he could spend more time there, rather than hotel rooms. He needs to be able to relax and smell the flowers. It would help his peace of mind. Luckily, he's someone who can snatch sleep at any time. He has a photo frame that has a dozen pictures of him sleeping, in any and every position. the caption says: "The Director at Work." For Henry V he had a van with a bed in it so he could sleep on his way to the studio.

Ken leads as ordinary a life as he can. He watches TV, goes to football matches, phones his mum once a week. Ken and I go down to his local and nobody hassles us. He and Tom Cruise, who's a mate, went out one night. When they drew up to the traffic lights, some girls pulled up, did a classic double take and stalled. That's fame! When my wife and I went to the Oscars as Ken's guest, we realised how bloody famous he was in the US. There he's known as Mr Shakespeare, and people like Glenn Close come up to shake his hand.

I've been asked many, many times to be interviewed with Ken. This is the first time I've ever talked about him. I'm fiercely proud - I'm going to make it because of me and not because I have a brother who happens to be famous. Now I'm in a very senior position and I don't need a step up the ladder. So I can speak about him just as my kid brother. And I love him to death.

The 2021 film version of Kenneth, Bill, and their parents

KENNETH: Bill and I were working-class Belfast boys, living in a street where everybody knew everybody else. The area was predominantly Protestant, but there was a smattering of Catholics. Everybody got on. It sounds cliched, but there was a real sense of community. We had a large extended family - my mother was one of nine, my father one of five. Life in Belfast was very grounded and family-orientated, and Bill and I were thrown together - we shared a bed when I was six, seven, eight. I remember being in bed next to him, and whichever book he wasn't reading for school I'd pick up. So I was introduced to Shakespeare through him. We were both very taken by the story of Animal Farm, although we couldn't quite work it out. I remember being struck by the phrase "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." You could see that was true for some people in Belfast.

There, the cardinal sin was to show off or make a fuss. "Don't start getting worked up about money. And don't have any ideas above your station." That was my parents' philosophy. To them, money was only important for putting a roof over your head; it wasn't an end in itself. And a person's religion made no difference to my parents, though not everyone in Belfast shared that view. My dad was a Protestant, but he was never in the Orange Order; he disliked all that marching lark.

My mum and dad always said that when you grew up you should do whatever makes you happy - though of course they were nervous of me going into the theatre, entering a world they knew nothing about. The first play I ever saw was A Christmas Carol, starring Jospeh Tomlety, a famous old Irish actor, at the Grove theatre in Belfast. I went with Bill and I was struck by how magical it was.

Bill's a much more emotionally fiery individual than me. He's very like my mother. They've always had a frisky relationship. They have a spat, get it out, then it's all hugs. It's like it's therapeutic for the pair of them. My father and I are more contained and find it quite hard to show our feelings. I can lose my rag, but in the end I'd rather have a quiet life.

Bill's much more gregarious than me. I think that social side of me goes into my work. And both he and my mum would definitely take the bullet for you. If anything remotely endangers the family, they're just blind allegiance.

My mother had just got pregnant with my sister when things became quite intense in Belfast, especially around our era - the Troubles. One night Bill came running up our street saying: "Get in the house, get in the house!" We heard a terrible buzzing noise. Just as he was dragging me in, I saw a sort of cloud at the bottom of the street, which turned out to be a huge bomb. Bill pushed Mum and me under a table in the back room. We didn't know it then, but the terrible noise we'd heard was the mob outside, who were picking up the iron gratings from the drains at the side of the roads and throwing them through the windows of the Catholic houses. I was hysterical, Bill was peeping out the curtain and Mum was saying: "Get down, get down!" A couple of hours later, there were barricades at the top and bottom of the street, while the men divided themselves into vigilante groups. Our street had turned into a war zone overnight.

In the wake of that, my parents felt uneasy about Belfast. My father, who was a joiner, had been offered a job in England, which was more at a management level, and they decided to take the opportunity. But none of us was very happy. Being from Belfast made you quite unpopular in England, so it was a pretty difficult time.

I was miserable. I did a lot of weeping and wailing. Bill was a bit more stiff-upper-lip. He got stuck in and lost his accent almost immediately. He was 14, and I think it was tougher for him when people took the mickey. At that age, with your hormones swirling round, you just want to be like everybody else. I found it quite difficult to be understood for a while, but I was a bit more sneaky. I began to use an English accent at school and an Irish one at home. I found myself very conflicted over that, and slightly ashamed.

Bill and I were lucky in being reasonably good at games, so we began to fit in. My mother, taken away from her family in belfast, felt quite isolated. We'd also stepped up in terms of class. Our house was bigger, and we'd become lower middle class, with all of those material, educational and cultural expectations.

In comparison with Bill, I was a relatively solitary adolescent. I spent time in the house reading while he was being social and breaking all the rules.

The move to England felt at times like some kind of betrayal. The transformation from that very grounded Belfast life, with its comfortable and simple expectations, had a profound effect on me. But I didn't fight to get it out of my system the way Bill did. And subsequently I carried much more baggage. Maybe the whole acting game was a way of hiding or escaping from it. When I try and do my psychobabble analysis of it, I feel that only now do I have a strong sense of who I am in the way that I did in Belfast.

Maybe the world of acting has shaped itself for me partly as a search for a sort of extended family that I felt absolutely secure and at home in. Over the years, I've developed a loose but large repertory company of people in films and theatre who have become like family - people like Richard Briers, Brian Blessed, etc.

I developed good performance skills, playing at being something I thought was expected of me. As an actor, you lose a bit of yourself on the way; you're not really sure what reality is because you've been tricking yourself for so long. Finally, the sand settles on some hybrid version of who you are - whatever that is!

Today I'm less conflicted and guilt-ridden. And, believe me, Jews and Catholics don't have a monopoly on guilt. The Protestant work ethic was branded on my forehead: if you are fit and talented it is your duty to use it. At times I've dealt with my good fortune by thinking: "At least I'm putting myself under pressure and giving myself less time to enjoy my good fortune!"

In England, my and Bill's lives began to be even more different. He went into computer networking and got married quite young. His marriage and family have been a real education for me. The kids are great. My nieces are healthily disrespectful of me, and they're tickled by curious little bits of my celebrity, like when I've worked with someone like Leonardo DiCaprio. It's interesting to see Bill deal with things with his kids that my parents never did, like sex, drugs, the Internet. Bill's changed a lot, but he's still very driven. He's a terrific salesman and businessman, and sometimes I think he'd be a rather good actor.

For Bill - and maybe this is an Irish thing - the family is immensely important, and he has an unquestioning loyalty to it. I know he's always there for me and I'd happily talk to him about anything. If it was a terrible crisis in the middle of the night, there'd be no "How could you possibly have this, you idiot?" Our relationship has become very simple, like having a really good mate. We meet up, have a pint and a game of snooker, but we know we'd walk over glass for each other.

https://www.branaghcompendium.com/artic-billken99.htm

(photo from The Reading Chronicle, 1 August 2017 https://www.readingchronicle.co.uk/news/15444806.sir-kenneth-branagh-took-time-out-of-his-busy-schedule-to-visit-his-brother-bill-for-sonning-golf-clubs-charity-fundraiser/)

Remember… I can speak about him just as my kid brother. And I love him to death. — Bill Branagh

[nodutra19]

Speculating On Deltarune A Bit

I just watched Keyan Carlile's video on old Gravity Falls theories, and it got me to make this post which I've been meaning to do for a hot minute. This is just gonna be an obsessive's ramblings based off other stories he likes.

KRIS AND RALSEI

Noelle already speculates that Ralsei looks somewhat like Asriel, although chances are Toby is gonna twist our balls on this one since she never outright says who Ralsei resembles which would make this a great red herring. Now that I think about it, if Susie has been in Hometown for a while and didn't move in recently, the fact she says nothing about Ralsei's appearance might mean Asriel looks different. Or maybe she is a recent resident and simply didn't know Asriel when he was younger since she still hints that Ralsei bares a resemblance to Toriel. Could go either way.

That aside, let's get to what I wanted to say: Since Kris and Asriel are siblings and were more than likely raised together, and if Ralsei does resemble Asriel, maybe the reason why Kris is so averse to the Ralsei tea and in general seems to get uncomfortable around Ralsei is because he resembles their sibling. I mean seriously, imagine if you found a fucking spitting image of your sibling in a different world when your actual brother is off somewhere else, and this doppleganger looks younger (let's presume Asriel appears older just like Kris does than Frisk and Chara), and some entity you can't comprehend keeps putting you two together like a child does their Ken and Barbie dolls. Of course you'd be repulsed! I don't think I've seen a lot of people reflect on that. JaruJaru somewhat does it with his befuddling (if intriguing) theory of how Ralsei came to be, but he does it on a "What if Kris accidentally killed Asriel and his dust was left in a spot for the Dark World?," but really think about it: some force beyond you seems adamant in putting you in fluffily romantic situations with someone who heavily resembles your brother, don't matter if y'all're related by blood or not. This idea came to me as a joke tweet but then I actually thought about it and I suddenly got new dimensions. I doubt this is wjat Toby Fox is playing at but still. After all, Kris seems very attached to Asriel. On that note...

2. KRIS AND ASRIEL

This is way more on the fanfic/what if scale of things, but what if Asriel isn't the best brother? I revisited an old manga I shall not name, but essentially the protagonist loved his big brother and saw him as an angel, almost a God. But once he looks into his brother, he finds out over time that he wasn't the best person. Unlike Asriel, this big brother was unkind and aloof, often antagonistic to others and repulsed by them, "loving" only his little brother. Maybe Asriel didn't mistreat Kris, but I doubt Toby Fox will give us an angel, and more than likely I feel Asriel might know more than the average person.

There's a lot of mystery surrounding his bond with Kris, so it can go in any direction. We got the pure Asriel in Undertale through flashbacks of him as a child, but we all saw how co-dependent he was as an adult(?), and how corrupt he became as Flowey.

I originally had way more to say but this is all that actually came out as words. Everything else whittled away to nothingness. I got no damn idea how the Command Route is gonna play with all these either.

[descendent-of-the-sixth-heaven]

*Once she finished preparing the bre, she went to the bedroom to wake up the twins. Takeru was already awake but Ken was sleeping deeply, as usual. She smiles at them*

Morning, boys~

Takeru: Monin, mama! 😃 Ish papa back?

No... he is still working. Don't worry, he will be back soon.

*Takeru immediately looks down with a sad face. Cherry leans down and kisses his cheek*

Let's wake up your brother and sister too. Will you help me?

*The toddler nods, he loves helping his mother. Takeru tries to wake up Ken by climbing on his bed while Cherry checks Sakura in her crib*

..................

Shingen: Young? Cherry is a year younger than you and she already bore 3 children. You should at least get a girlfriend. Once we return, I'll have Sasuke teach you those dating apps... what's it call again? Tinder?

*The room felt empty without having Kenshin to help, he always wanted to help cherry whenever she was busy. Back in the past, he was wondering how his family was*

————

Yukimura: that’s different… she got pregnant too young! Besides, I don’t like that tinder thing… it’s filled with strange people.

Yoshimoto: she was already an adult.

[shihalyfie]

Daisuke and Miyako

Daisuke and Miyako have a very interesting relationship, given that it’s never given anything you could call front-and-center in 02, and yet is actually one of the more prominent dynamics among the 02 cast in practice. How? Well, let’s talk about it.

It’s rather common for 02 fans to endearingly call the kids “idiots” (and especially after Kizuna, where they’re not only idiots but also idiots with the terrifying power of being recognized by society as adults). They are an incredibly chaotic group, and while all six of them are guilty in some way or another, Daisuke and Miyako are probably the ringleaders of that chaos, since the other four tend to facilitate it by being enablers.

Both Daisuke and Miyako have a similar surface temperament -- they’re messy, all over the place, and not exactly the epitome of dignified, but they’re also just slightly off from each other that it does lead to some degree of friction. Daisuke, despite ostensibly seeming abrasive on the surface, is actually quite deferential and will often “deflate” when people criticize him, or at least, even if he does lash out, it’ll be more in a defensive sense that comes from him thinking he’s being made fun of or attacked. Miyako, on the other hand, is absolutely someone who will go on the aggressive, make her opinions clear and continue to aggressively put her foot down at anything she hates, is more fond of physical contact (both in an aggressive fighting manner and in an affectionate hugging manner), and will easily get much more impatient and demanding about what she wants. You can see them both in action when they bicker over a dumpling in 02 episode 37; Miyako’s the first one to jump on Daisuke for taking “her” dumpling, Daisuke lashes back at her defensively, and then Miyako starts physically manhandling him. They’re both brash, so of course it naturally leads to some friction, because they don’t really give off the appearance of being happy-happy-joy-joy with each other.

But just because they’re prone to bickering doesn’t mean they dislike each other! In fact, 02 was quite big on the concept of friends being able to do more aggressive things with each other because they trust each other so much, most infamously Yamato punching Taichi in episode 10 with full awareness that Taichi wouldn’t take it badly.

Daisuke and Miyako, in particular, come off as the type to be specifically comfortable with their exact level of bickering-and-yet-closeness. As I’ve pointed out a few times, they never used any honorifics for each other, even though Daisuke normally treats his elders with respect and Miyako uses the proper -kun for most younger boys. Miyako will even go as far as sometimes calling Daisuke with second-person anta (Japanese generally discourages second-person when it’s avoidable, and especially clipped/slang versions like this, so Miyako is effectively handling Daisuke roughly). But whenever circumstances cause one of them to start acting weirdly polite or endearing to the other, it’s made clear that the other finds it really weird.

So in other words, it seems like once the two met and started hanging out together as part of their group of Chosen Children, they unconsciously identified each other as fellow disaster children (or, at least, not worth keeping a sense of polite distance with). And really, they don’t actually “bicker” all that much as much as it’s more like bantering -- Daisuke’s an easy target for teasing but can easily deal with Miyako being so in-your-face, and conversely Miyako can take a lot of Daisuke’s lashing out without taking it too personally.

This is especially interesting when you take into account the fact that they don’t actually even pretend to dislike each other! Certainly, the way they’re prone to bantering and not necessarily even that self-aware means they probably wouldn’t be able to easily say upfront that they’re close with each other, but they also don’t really put on the air of disliking each other at all, and are perfectly happy to work together like they’re partners in crime at times. Miyako is very straightforward about recruiting Daisuke into her little scheme to force Iori and Ken to get along in episode 30, and they’re happy to cheerfully play with each other and act generally in-sync like in episode 38.

(The incident in episode 30 is also of interest because it’s also subtly reminiscent of their overall dynamic -- Miyako’s the one who actively hatches the plan that ultimately ends up in disaster, with Daisuke simply agreeing and playing along.)

In fact, I would even dare to venture saying that prior to Ken’s bonding with the group, Miyako was probably Daisuke’s closest friend (even if it’s unlikely he’d have admitted it). With Daisuke putting Hikari on a pedestal due to his crush on her, having difficulty with Takeru not really being straightforward and constantly on the defensive around him, and Iori requiring polite and distant handling in general, Miyako was the right combination of someone he could bounce off of without necessarily offending her deeply (especially because she’s a rather affectionate person and isn’t the type to really hold grudges). Daisuke, being a painfully transparent and straightforward person, plays best with other people who are clear and transparent, so even if Miyako may be a bit difficult to deal with, the fact she’s very honest and straightforward made her someone Daisuke could be comfortable around. Within the series, they never quite got to the more thoughtful and intimate level that Daisuke and Ken or Miyako and Hikari got, but they developed a very comfortable rapport around each other.

Miyako, for her part, cares a lot about Daisuke’s welfare, and is in fact quite willing to be open about it whenever she’s not bantering with him -- a good example is episode 24, when she notices Daisuke is feeling down from V-mon being unable to evolve and himself being left out of Takeru and Hikari going off together, and goes forward, affectionately grabs him, and gives him a job to do in babysitting the Punimon. At first this looks like simply a way to distract him so that Takeru and Hikari can have some space, but we’re later treated to some shots of Miyako looking at him fondly, making it clear that she was very much invested in making sure he was happy with something to do -- and she even muses that she felt he’d be perfect for the job. (And she gets bonus points for correctly catching on that Daisuke is happiest when he has some kind of purpose.)

And there are some times where Daisuke has some, well, interesting reactions when it comes to Miyako -- in regards to expressing preferences with boys, given that he has a sudden taken-aback reaction to Miyako declaring openly that she likes cute boys like Michael in episode 14 (something that really shouldn’t be surprising to everyone...), or suddenly getting invested in making a case for himself when Miyako calls Ken’s laugh cute in episode 38. Of course, the easiest explanation to beeline to is reading this as ship bait or hinting that Daisuke has a crush on Miyako, but regardless of whether you want to read it as shippy or not, I think it’s boring to just end the analysis at merely that and call it a day -- so, either way, Daisuke really does care about Miyako’s opinion of him and her approval, not entirely unlike the way he does with most elders. And given that, in Hurricane Touchdown, he lashes out at Wallace for attempting to flirt with her (to the point of it metaphorically breaking his goggles), he can get surprisingly protective of her, too!

Bring it around a whole eight years later in Kizuna, and the first time you see both of them on screen together, Daisuke of course picks up the banter with her -- cheerfully, of course.

This is later followed up by another amusing interaction in which Miyako, rather impatient with Daisuke being wishy-washy and beating around the bush talking with Yamato about what they found out about Menoa, physically grabs the phone from him (again: much more prone to intervening physically) and gets more directly to the point than he did -- leaving Daisuke to not really argue back, but pout at her irritably.

But of course, they’re still willing to be perfectly in sync at times -- during the drama CD, which takes place right before the movie, Daisuke has no qualms jumping in once she and Hikari go on a dramatic spiel about Spain misadventures.

So in other words -- they’re the same as ever.