#such a great dichotomy within this guy

[beauzos]

The marked dissonance between Wess’s public persona and who he really is in the early chapters. How the villagers see him as friendly and affectionate, taking the time to compliment the women in town or to be cheerful even in the most dire of circumstances, then turning around and oftentimes being a miserable, hateful tyrant behind closed doors who can’t think of a single nice thing to say to his own son.

[chaos0pikachu]

Two Flavors of Japanese (BL) Cinema

Recently I came across a post that proposited that Japanese cinema hadn't changed since the 1950's and came in, essentially, two types. 

Let's discuss that. 

I can’t go into the history of all Japanese cinema in a singular blog post like that’s just not possible, there’s literal books and classes you can take on this subject, and I will be linking further reading down at the bottom of the post so you can do just that. 

This fact alone, should already disprove the point that Japanese cinema hasn’t changed since the 1950’s. Other than the fact that like, Japan isn’t a static society that is forever unchanging because human beings do not work like that. 

Which is why I’m writing this essay at all. 

I love cinema, I love storytelling and filmmaking. And, frankly, I may not be an expert but I am annoying. I own that. 

Japanese cinema has held influence over many directors, writers, animators, and so forth. 

Just watch this playlist of Sailor Moon references across various cartoons. Or how Satoshi Kon influenced the work of Darren Aronofsky and Christopher Nolan. Or how James Cameron and the Wachowskis were both influenced by Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 Ghost in the Shell. And then there’s Akira Kurosawa who’s been cited as a major influence for directors like: Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Martin Scorsese and a slew of others.

I want folks to know there’s a slew of amazing films from Japan and that distilling the industry - the blood, sweat and tears of its creators - to a strict dichotomy of this or that, either/or is disrespectful at best and xenophobic at worst. 

It’s also just a shame because, like, guys there’s so many great films from Japan! There’s also probably a lot of great live action shows from Japan but I’m not super knowledgeable about them - I mainly watch anime so that’s not a great metric in terms of Japanese television - so I’m just talking about films in this post. 

Ok so main points I’m gonna address: 

Japanese Cinema hasn’t changed since the 1950s 

Japanese film style falls under an extreme dichotomy of cinematic/sweeping (described as “atmospheric”) or cartoonish/slapstick (described as “live action manga”)

Baby does any of this have to do with BL? (no, but it IS more gay than you think)

With these four films: The Hidden Fortress (1958), Lady Snowblood (1973), Gohatto (1999), and Kubi (2023). 

I picked these four because they’re all “period pieces” taking place feudal Japan - or with the aesthetics of feudal Japan, The Hidden Fortress nor Lady Snowblood aren’t based on actual historical events, like Gohatto and Kubi are, however loosely, but take place in an amorphous 15th to 18th century Japan - and I think they strongly show the development of this singular genre in Japanese cinema. 

Plus the latter two films, Gohatto and Kubi, are gay as fuck and I know my people. 

[you can also read this post on this blog post which includes additional links as tumblr has a limit and for easier readability as this is a long post]

The Hidden Fortress 

Released in 1958, directed by Akira Kurosawa it’s probably the most well-known film on the list. It’s a film that exists within the “Golden Age” of Japanese cinema alongside films like Kurosawa’s own Seven Samurai (1954), Yasujirō Ozu’s Tokyo Story (1953) and Kenji Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu (1953). 

It was also the era where, after the American Occupation post-WWII a boom of movie distribution took place with new film studios such as: Toho (y’all know them from any Godzilla movie ever made), Toei (if you know One Piece you know Toei but they’ve done a ton of films both animated and live action) and others. 

The story is straight forward, two peasants, Matashichi and Tahei who bicker their asses off like an old married couple the entire film, happen upon a Very Hot Man with the Only Thighs Out (Toshiro Mifune was a BABE) named Rokurota and his companion a icy young woman named Yuki. 

Matashichi and Tahei have just escaped like, a ton of ~circumstances that include failing to become samurai, being broke as fuck, getting captured and forced into servitude - don’t worry that lasted like 6 hours tops - and then find gold hidden in a stick on a mountain. 

Turns out Rokurota has all the stick gold they could want! So they team up neither realizing Rokurota and Yuki are actually part of a clan that’s been recently wiped out and they’re on the run from a rival clan who has wiped theirs out. Yuki is the princess of said clan and it’s only survivor, while Rokurota is her samurai general and retainer. 

Tahei and Matashichi, living in ignorance of these facts, try to steal the gold away from them because they live that hustle life until the end when all is revealed and Yuki grants them both with a gold piece to share (this is a really big piece of stick gold). 

There’s other things that happen, like a fight scene between Rokurota and rival clan member, Yuki owning every single scene she in - I fucking love her - but that’s the gist. 

The story is, again, pretty uncomplicated, it balances the comedy of Tahei & Matashichi with the stoicism of Rokurota and Yuki well, and all the acting is strong. In terms of its film style, by modern day standards it’s not especially “cinematic” Kurosawa doesn’t favor fanetic camera movements, his camera is often very still and the movement he employs is often in individual character ticks, and/or background set pieces. This film has a lot of great set pieces. 

Kurosawa didn’t employ camera techniques like panning, he doesn’t really do extreme close ups, there's no swooping shots or fancy tricks, I’d say a majority of the camera shots in The Hidden Fortress are a combination of mid, and wide, with a few mid-close ups. One thing to notice is Kurosawa’s use of scene cuts; instead of a cut he used pan sweeps to change scenes. If you’ve ever watched a Star Wars film you know exactly what I mean. 

The Hidden Fortress, first and foremost, is an action adventure film. It has more in common tonally with Top Gun Maverick or Star Wars A New Hope, in that it's straight forward, sincere, and grand in scale, grounded by a very honest set of characters who are strongly motivated. 

I feel like in modern day discussions we association “action/adventure” films in a sorta of negative way; this is probably due, in part, to the oversaturation of the high budget blockbusters of the last ten years - oh MCU, how you’ve fallen - that are overly bombastic, overly complicated, overly connected, and the root of what audiences connect with - the characters - tends to be lost. 

Scott Lang's motivations in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania are to protect his teenager daughter and the family he's built, which are simple, strong, and relatable character motivations. However, they got lost in the conventions of the plot, the frantic energy of the film, the simple amount going on around Scott that his motivations become less a central focus and thus he becomes small within his own film. We, the audience, become distant and it grows more difficult to connect with what's happening. This can still work on some level, the Fast and Furious franchise isn't successful because it's sophisticated, but the Fast-chise has embraced it's cheesier conventions and spectacle, while blockbusters like the MCU's output, simple juggle to much all at once. It also helps that while the cast keeps growing in the Fast and Furious films, there's still less than ten characters you have to actually know and care about. To fully understand and connect with the characters of The Marvels, you have to watch Ms. Marvel and WandaVision on Disney+ and the task becomes more akin to homework than simply the enjoyment of watching a movie. 

The epic scale grows so large it feels daunting, rather than exhilarating. 

I think this is why a film like Winter Soldier, more so than most MCU films of the last decade, has continued to be a fan favorite of the universe and of blockbuster lovers whether you are a fan of the MCU or not. At its root, Winter Soldier is character driven, with deeply motivated characters,  which is what makes the action and adventure aspects stick. 

The Hidden Fortress is similarly character driven with a simple and straightforward story that is about honor, loyalty, a princess, a loyal samurai/knight, rebuilding a decimated clan, and two “normal” characters to keep everything grounded and relatable. Which in turn, helps make it timeless. While the filmmaking itself isn't grandiose as what modern audiences may be used to, Kurosawa knows how to direct a scene and more than that, direct his actors. Mifune is commanding as always, but for me, it's really actress Misa Uehara as Princess Yuki that steals the movie. 

Lady Snowblood

Released in 1973 and based on a manga of the same name by Kazou Koike and Kazuo Kaminura, directed by Toshiya Fujita, Lady Snowblood and its sequel Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance are considered cult classics. Lady Snowblood, famously, is Quentin Tarantino’s inspiration for his Kill Bill saga (like, a freaking lot). 

Lady Snowblood is a part of the era of “new wave” and “pink films” that were emerging in Japan and elsewhere. Stateside I think a close equivalent to both the style and content of Lady Snowblood and other films like it are exploitation films. In fact while watching Lady Snowblood I couldn’t help but get exploitation film vibes just off the aesthetics and thematics of the film itself. 

To break down Lady Snowblood’s plot it goes like this: Yuki is tasked with getting revenge on four people who had a hand in her father, and older brother’s murder, and her mother’s rape (which is seen on screen so warning for y’all this is def a Does the Dog Die movie). 

Yuki’s mother kills one of her rapists, but is imprisoned before she can kill the others and while in prison she purposely gets pregnant so her child can carry on her revenge after she dies. Yuki is born, and raised by one of the fellow inmates and a priest who trains her in martial arts. She’s raised as a “demon”, whose only purpose is revenge for her mother, father, and brother. And boy does she get revenge the film is violent and graphic (even if by modern day standards the blood looks fake as fuck the emotions are there). 

Like The Hidden Fortress this film is very character driven, with a highly motivated protagonist but it’s also revels far more in it's violence and the spectacle of that violence. Yuki, in comparison to her earlier counterpart Princess Yuki, is the driver of the action in the story. She's an active participant in the plot, and the story centers around her. Princess Yuki is commendable, she's compassionate, and she makes decisions, but the story is more about what she represents - a fallen princess - than what she does. She's symbolic, the embodiment of a leader, a samurai spirit of nobility who becomes a leader worth following. Yuki, on the other hand, needs no protection from others, she's a much more direct and active part of the story since the story is hers - and her mothers - she's more elegant than regal, and there's nothing necessarily 'noble' about her.  She's not seeking to rebuild her clan as a leader, her motivations are singularly about her revenge quest to fulfill her mother's dying wish. 

In some ways, they're very similar - Yuki also feels compassion for another woman who's been used by the men around her as Princess Yuki does - and in others they are very different and speak to the changing expectations and idealizations of women from the 1950s to 1970s. 

Lady Snowblood is also way more violent than any Kurosawa film I’ve watched including The Hidden Fortress. While there is action in The Hidden Fortress, it’s all employed with specific purpose. Which is one of Kurosawa’s strengths as a director. It’s calculated and singular. Yes blood spurts up in Yojimbo but it's limited; quick and efficient, with more in common with John Wick or Collateral than the more fantastical and aesthetic Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez fare. 

Lady Snowblood revels in the aesthetic violence, there’s no “purpose” for Yuki to cut an already dead person in half, she does it out of pure frustration and for the glory of showing the audience that internal rage. Of a body hanging, dripping blood and gore onto the clean floor as the curtain draws to a close. 

The film also features on screen rape, sex, and nudity which The Hidden Fortress does not. There’s an implication that characters in the film would assault Princess Yuki if they could, but nothing ever goes beyond brief implication (still gross tho guys come on). Whilst in Lady Snowblood, the rape is brutal, the violence is brutal, and the emotions are far more intense because of it all. 

The allowance - for lack of a better term - of this kind of material showcases a cultural shift overall in the terms of visual storytelling filmmaking began experimenting with in telling, and in what audiences were responding too. Lady Snowblood was a beloved success for its overall low budget. In comparison to the two, The Hidden Fortress is filmed better, with more technique and focus, Lady Snowblood almost seems rustic in comparison, but it's a sort of rustic that speaks to experimentation. 

Low angles from a characters pov staring high above her, extreme zooms on Yuki's burning eyes, the oversaturated colors of red-orange blood or green walls or white clothes, the starless pitch black sky as powdery snow falls. The images are arresting even if at times they're choppy, and while the film opts for non-linear chapter breaks to create a story flow in comparison to Kurosawa's iconic screen swipes and straight forward narrative, yet, both work. 

Gohatto

Behold, the promised gay cinema I promised. 

Gohatto is a 1999 film directed by Nagisa Oshima based on the short story, Shinsengumi Keppuroku by Ryotaro Shiba. 

Gohatto is a pretty late entry in the new wave/pink films of its heyday but those films were Oshima’s bread and butter. Often dubbed as one of Japan’s cinema outlaws for his anti-establishment films, one of his films, Night and Fog in Japan (1960) was pulled from theaters all together. Most people in the west will probably know him even tangentially for his queer film Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence starring David Bowie and Beat Takeshi or for this absolutely banger quote from the New York Times article, A Japanese Film Master Returns to his Cinema: 

(If you’re a BTS fan, the composer Suga and RM like, Ryuichi Sakamoto, both starred and composed the main theme of Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence Forbidden Colors, he plays the guy in love with David Bowie’s character)

Gohatto combines the setting of a Kurosawa film, with the more experimental storytelling of Lady Snowblood, whilst imbuing the film with more surrealistic elements and more complexity. And making it gay like - for real for real. 

Gohatto goes like this: it’s the late 18th century in Japan, everything politically is on shaky ground, and the shinsengumi are looking for newbies to join ranks. Welp, they find two promising newbies and wouldn’t ya know it one newbie, Kano, is like, hella pretty. He’s got bangs. 

He’s so pretty in fact that all these other dudes in the shinsengumi crew wanna smash, I mean down bad like the Taylor Swift song or whatever I don’t listen to Taylor Swift. 

This is all treated with a lackadaisical normality; there’s teasing about “I never considered sleeping with a man before, but damn that Kano kinda…” but there’s never a moment of “omg they’re GAY?”

Beat Takeshi’s - who’s also in this film, he’s been in a lot fo queer films I'm noticing - character Vice-Commander Hijikata Toshizo often asks other characters not if they’re attracted to Kano - the implication being that they are - but rather if they are in love with Kano. Because lust is fleeting, but love is dangerous to your duty. 

Kano also might be a spy, or a murderer, it’s all very ambiguous and the ending isn’t a “happy” one. This isn’t a film about a love story of any sort, it has more in common with erotic thrillers than the action adventure of The Hidden Fortress, or the rape revenge fantasy of Lady Snowblood. Where as the former films have definitive endings, Gohatto ends ambiguously. 

What actually happened? And why did it happen? What did it all mean, in the end? The film offers no strict answers to these questions, asking instead, that its audience to come to their own conclusions. It’s also much more historical than the previous two films, taking real life historical figures like: Hijikata Toshizo, Okita Soji, and Kondo Isami and asking the question, “hm, what if they all maybe fell in love with this super pretty man before being overthrown and what does that mean metaphorically?” 

The Hidden Fortress doesn’t ask its audience to interrogate society in any meaningful way and that’s not a knock against it, it’s just an observation. Lady Snowblood specifically presents the plight of women, and a slight take on classism within the system, through the lens of violence and destruction. Gohatto is much more metaphorical, it’s not providing the audience with a direct message like the former two films, but presenting it’s thematics in a much more abstract way. The Hidden Fortress is an action adventure, with heroes who achieve their goals and overcome their obstacles. Lady Snowblood is a rape revenge with an understandable protagonist who succeeds in her bloody revenge. Gohatto has no heroes, and offers no straightforward catharsis at the end of its story story. 

Its film style is also far more atmospheric compared to the epic scale and straightforwardness of The Hidden Fortress, or the lower budget charming violence of Lady Snowblood. 

There’s lots of mood lighting, overhead shots of characters dimly lit, camera cuts to rain after two characters have sex, extreme close ups of one character observing Kano’s eyes and lips. It’s not a black and white film like The Hidden Fortress, but it’s not nearly as saturated in color and brightness as Lady Snowblood. 

Lady Snowblood drips with color, and light, even at night there always almost seems to be a spotlight on Yuki with an empty starless sky in the background. Gohatto is much more grounded in realism than high visual aesthetics, opting to create more of a lingering dreamlike trance or fog to the cinematography when the story’s final act begins to unfold. 

Yet, one thing Gohatto has in common with both The Hidden Fortress and Lady Snowblood is its violence; operating somewhere between the two. Like The Hidden Fortress the violence is quick, purposely, and specific, and like Lady Snowblood blood spurts, gushes, and heads are displayed proudly and grotesquely.

Kubi

Kubi is a 2023 film directed by Takeshi Kitano aka Beat Takeshi - this is the third time his name has been dropped in relation to a queer film in this post go Beat Takeshi - based on a novel of the same name that Kitano also wrote. 

Kubi is like Beat Takeshi’s sengoku period slash RPF fanfic come to gruesome bloody (literal, not British) life. A period piece epic; Kubi is both about samurai warlords and a historical event known as the honno-ji incident, which took place in 1582. It features various historical figures like Oba Nobunage - if you’ve watched some anime or played some JRPGs you’ve probably at least heard of this name before - and other prominent historical figures of the time. 

The basic gist of the movie is Oba Nobunage is both really good at his job, so he’s super powerful politically, but he’s also a grade-a asshole whom all the other important samurai lords fucking hate. However, they also all fucking hate each other and all want to take Nobunage’s place and get all that sweet, sweet power for themselves. The honno-ji incident involved one of these guys doing a coup for reasons still unknown today and then pretty much almost immediately dying swiftly after leaving another samurai lord to take over. 

Kubi takes these historical events, and is like “okay but what if we added some gay innuendo and gay sex to this drama?” with more beheadings than a French revolution. 

Out of all the films on this list Kubi is, admittedly, the one I enjoyed the least, however, it’s an interesting retrospective on the growth of both the Japanese film industry and this specific genre in and of itself. 

Kubi’s film style is very modern, it’s beautiful, it’s sleek, it’s expensive looking. And yet there’s specific scenes that feel like callbacks to the Kurosawa era, like the black and white flashback between Nobunage and his fellow samurai lords. One of Kurosawa’s top films was Kitano’s Hana-Bi (1997), and Kitano has worked with Kurosawa’s daughter on costume design on four other films as well, so these references feel not only purposely because of general influence but also referential in a way. 

In terms of story and tone, Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress is sincere and straightforward, Lady Snowblood is experimental and fearless, Gohatto is introspective and suspenseful, whilst Kubi is unrelenting and even feels mocking at times. There is no break in Kubi's violence, there's almost no tenderness or softness, characters are selfish, and self-centered. The selfish, but joyful peasants in The Hidden Fortress don't exist here, and are replaced with a peasant character who murders his own friend and then rejoices over being relived of his family once he discovers they were murdered too. At times, Kubi feels like a subversion of the more glamourous depictions of the samurai in film. Which feels as though following similar footsteps established in Gohatto which also explored, subtextually, the faults within the samurai media persona. 

At times the film feels almost like a dark comedy, it doesn’t glamorize these samurai warlords, nor their clans, nor their ideals in the way The Hidden Fortress does, nor does it interrogate them in the way Gahotto does. Instead the story at hand is presented with a brutal realism, objective if a bit mocking with a side order of gay sex. Which isn’t presented in a mocking way so much as just an everyday aspect of life. 

When Mitsuhide and Murashige are caught by spies sleeping together there’s no shock or awe about it, just a calm report and the bigger issue is Mitsuhide hiding a fugitive more so than him sleeping with a man.

Similarly, when Nobunage is literally fucking one of his vassals in front of Mitsuhide, it’s not to disgust the other man, but rather a powerplay of sorts to make the latter jealous - at one point Nobunage promises if Mitsuhide accomplishes a mission for him, he’ll sleep with him - and it seemingly works to some degree. There’s subtext throughout the film that Mitsuhide might be, if not in love with Nobunage, want him in an obsessive way all the same (including being down to bone). 

Like with Gohatto the queerness is inherent, just a part of the culture. It’s not “romance” by any means, but it is simply a part of life and the culture itself. 

In terms of characters, Kubi's characters couldn't be more different from the characters in the previous mentioned films. The Hidden Fortress characters like Princess Yuki and Rokurota are easy to like, honorable, quiet, steadfast; while Matashichi and Tahei are less outright likable they offer a grounding and relatable to the big presence that are the former two. In Lady Snowblood, Yuki is quiet, calculating and menacing in her own right, truly embodying the idea of cold vengeance which makes her intriguing. In Gohatto Kano is elusive, which adds to his sensual allure, Okita is playful yet clearly hiding a more sinister air about him, and you just feel bad for Tashiro who’s pushy but seemingly sincere in his affections for Kano. 

Kubi has no by-the-by “likable” characters, every character is out for themselves in some way shape or form. So much so that the brief tenderness between Mitsuhide and Murashige is like a balm to a burn. Though I did absolutely enjoy the scene-chewing of Ryo Kase who played Nobunage. While Nobunage isn't a "likable" character by any means, he was so fun and engaging to watch he became a highlight of the film. 

Stylistically, this is a very modern epic film; it’s the type of film in terms of scale I imagine Kurosawa could have made if he had access to the same technology, but also wouldn’t because there’s no stillness or sincerity to it. The violence is also more in line with Lady Snowblood, but with a budget. Heads are lopped off with ease and at times with glee, dead bodies, headless bodies with crabs crawling out of the necks, a literal pile of heads for trophies it’s all here. It’s beautifully and dynamically filmed, it has a similar scale of a Lord of the Rings, or a Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms. 

Big set pieces, big costumes, big landscapes, big battles, and bigger body counts. It also has the largest cast of any film on the list - kinda neat that Kitano and Asano Tadanobu were both in Kubi and Gohatto together - and the best costumes of the bunch. 

It also, in my opinion, has the most complicated plot of all the films because of the heavy political intrigue - though this, admittedly, could be because of the culture gap as I’m not overly familiar with Japanese history. 

Okay so like, where does all this leave us in terms of those original bullet points? 

The Original Bullet Points

Japanese Cinema hasn’t changed since the 1950s 

If there's one thing - well okay many things cause I'm greedy but overall - I hope I've been able to outline here with these four films is that obviously Japanese cinema has changed since the 1950s. And thoroughly at that. Not just in terms of style, but in terms of character presentation, tone, stories technology, experimentation, and a growing reflection of the shifting and developing culture. 

It’s not simply that all four of these films are different stories, but that all four of these films are addressing different aspects of their modern culture via these period pieces, as well as, viewing this time period in ways that reflect the filmmakers own experiences and how they feel or felt about the world. 

Kurosawa was born in 1910 to Kitano’s 1947, Fujita and Oshima’s 1932. Kurosawa’s father was a member of an actual samurai family, his worldview would be thoroughly different from someone like Oshima, or Kitano, or Fujita’s. Some overlap, sure, but also still thoroughly different. 

And I feel that you can see that in their films; Kurosawa’s samurai films are almost referential at times, not always, but his work with Toshiro Mifune often leans that way; in The Hidden Fortress Mifune’s Rokurota is deeply loyal to his lord, the Princess Yuki, to the point that he won’t shed tears over his own sister being executed in her place. He spares the life of a rival because he respects him even though they stand on opposing sides. 

The samurai in Gohatto and Kubi aren’t nearly so idealized nor idolized, there’s very little “honor” in Kubi and even less loyalty. Whilst in Gohatto there’s a deep and subtle interrogation of the strict and oppressive bylaws of the shinsengumi. In one such scene, Kano is having drinks with a man who is interested in him, Yuzawa, who’s passionately talking about how the shensengumi uphold oppressive ideals including classism. 

[And then he jumps Kano’s bones I guess politics got the dude going lmao]

The Hidden Fortress’ Princess Yuki is at first, masculine - in story she was raised as a man rather than a princess - from the way she walks to the way she talks. She’s fierce, and upstanding, while also being compassionate to other members of her clan; even saving a young woman who’s a member of her clan that had been sold. There’s a regal quality to Princess Yuki. 

In comparison, Yuki in Lady Snowblood is elegant, and feminine, before striking out violently. Princess Yuki never has an “action scene” and in fact for a chunk of the film has to pose as a deaf woman to hide her identity. While not a passive participant in the plot, nor does she directly drive the action herself. While Yuki, well the entire movie is driven by her actions and the actions of her mother. The story is first and foremost, hers. 

Meanwhile women just like, they don’t exist in Gohatto or Kubi they’re like, in the ether~~~ they’re drifting, keeping out - or kept out? - of the drama. 

Given the vast differences in both style, tone, story and execution, how can you say wholeheartedly that Japanese cinema hasn’t changed since the 1950s? 

Japanese film style falls under an extreme dichotomy of cinematic/sweeping (described as “atmospheric”) or cartoonish/slapstick (described as “live action manga”)

I’m just…not gonna get into the overall history of Japan's adaptation of manga into live action films cause it would derail this conclusion and I ain’t got the time for that. I would like to note, Lady Snowblood is a live action film based on a manga of the same name - and it is not slapstick. It doesn’t even have comedic elements, it is a violent rape revenge story; I don’t think there’s a single moment where I chuckled. The Hidden Fortress is far lighter in tone, while Gohatto has more in common with Lady Snowblood - deeply and sincerely serious - and Kubi goes for a darker sort of comedy. 

This is just incorrect information. Personally I’m of the mind that “cinematic/sweeping is too broad a spectrum to even quantify as a film genre they are descriptors. 

That said, I don’t think Lady Snowblood is cinematic or sweeping. Gohatto is the only one on the list that’s even close to “atmospheric” though all four films have atmosphere - because atmosphere is a film technique it’s not a genre of film - The Hidden Fortress and Kubi are the only two I could qualify as “cinematic/sweeping” because they’re going for a larger bombastic scale. Though I feel folks watching The Hidden Fortress in the modern day might not find it cinematic because of how static and slow the film can be at times - the first act is long and drags quite a bit. 

To place such a strict dichotomy on an entire industry of filmmaking is simply bad film critique at best and xenophobic at worst given the context here. I’ve only talked about four films in one singular genre, I didn’t mention the countless other new wave films, or the birth of the kaiju genre with Godzilla, the expansion into horror and grindhouse - where does a film like Tag (2015) fit into such a strict dichotomy? -  nor the long, long history of animated works from various insanely highly influential and/or successful directors like Satoshi Kon, Makoto Shinkai, Hideaki Anno, Rintaro, Mamoru Hosoda, Mamoru Oshii, Isao Takahata, I mean the list goes on and on. 

If you expand your horizons you’ll find so many amazing films that do not flatly sit in this one or the other imposed categorization. Think about what queer cinema you may be missing out on by adhering to this imposed binary. 

Baby does any of this have to do with BL? (no, but it IS more gay than you think)

So, in the end, what does this have to do with BL? I would say it has both little and a lot to do with BL/GL which are genres all their own in Japan and other neighboring countries; as such their subject to the same waves, exploration and expansion as the four aforementioned films. 

It’s easy, if intellectually dishonest and academically lazy, to look at The Novelist and What Did You Eat Yesterday and say “BL only comes in two shapes and sizes”. 

There’s chocolate or vanilla and that’s it. When in reality there’s lots of ice cream flavors available, even if chocolate and vanilla are the best sellers it doesn’t mean strawberry or mint chocolate chip don’t exist. 

Where does animated BL fall into this western imposed binary? How does capitalism affect the output of what gets made for the screen and how? How does the political climate affect what’s being financed? Are BL and GL works that are being made somehow unaffected, existing in a stasis state, by the works across the film industry? Even from other queer works of film? What are we, as outsiders, not considering when we engage with this media? 

If we’re only looking at BL/GL for “queer representation” what films and/or television are we missing out on from these countries? What BL/GL are we missing by only engaging with what's put in front of us, and not diving deeper into learning more, expanding our individual knowledge, and experiencing stories that might take some work towards seeing? Stories that might be outside of our direct comfort zones because they don't fall into those strict if seemingly comforting boxes. What exploration into queer identity are we denying or ignoring the existence of because of these imposed binaries? 

I know some folks who are more well versed in BL history that would and do consider Gohatto and Kubi BL or BL adjacent, but I also know most western, especially American, audiences would consider neither of these films BL. 

So where does that leave them?

Further Reading: 

Cinematic History: Defining Moments in Japanese Cinema, 1926-1953

A Brief But Essential Introduction to Japanese Cinema

Filmmaking from Japan: The Golden Age of Japanese Cinema

Nagisa Oshima: Banishing Green

JAPANESE SOFTCORE: THE LAST OF TOKYO'S PINK EIGA THEATERS

The Last Samurai: A Conversation with Takeshi Kitano

The Evolution of the Japanese Anime Industry

Check out other related posts in the series:

Film Making? In My BL? - The Sign ep01 Edition | Aspect Ratio in Love for Love's Sake | Cinematography in My BL - Our Skyy2 vs kinnporsche, 2gether vs semantic error, 1000 Stars vs The Sign | How The Sign Uses CGI | Is BL Being Overly Influenced by Modern Western Romance Tropes? | Trends in BL (Sorta): Genre Trends

[scarlet--wiccan]

Oh God I was really hoping the backstory that was leaked for Billy was fake... just heard about the new episode and it turns out it wasn't. why would they choose this over adoption or reincarnation-

It's bad! I really feel like the M C U goes out of its way to interpret these characters in bad faith and come up with the worst possible versions of their stories. I've said this before, but everything about Wanda's origins and the nature of her power seems designed to make her an objectively worse person who is more directly responsible for causing harm than her comics counterpart, but is also weirdly set on punishing her for existing and having trauma. She's simultaneously more doomed by the narrative, and infinitely less deserving of redemption.

With Billy, they took a situation that, while complex and, at times, difficult to parse, is ultimately miraculous and joyful, and they made it just.... incredibly grim. There is no real distinction between Billy Maximoff and Billy Kaplan in the comics-- they're the same person, given a second chance at life and the great fortune to reconnect with his original family, in a way that doesn't invalidate or erase the second. And, again, I want to emphasize that when YA and CC were written, Wanda had Jewish heritage, so I don't think there needs to be any awkwardness in the transfer between the Maximoff and Kaplan families, and the text never does anything to imply that Billy's cultural upbringing is any less valid, or any less central to his character after his origins are revealed.

Here, they created a false dichotomy between the two characters, killed one them off, and made the other into a body-snatcher. That is so much darker, and so much more tragic for the Kaplans-- and it creates uncomfortable questions about their relationship, and Billy's identity, that I don't think can ever be neatly resolved. I will say that, thus far, I don't think the show explicitly disavows "William's" heritage, or writes off Billy's relationship with the Kaplans, the way some people are reporting. He doesn't actually remember his life before the switch, so it's not a total takeover, and at points, the episode seems to imply that he's somehow both, and neither-- a new gestalt.

But I don't trust these writers to execute that concept with integrity, or even consistency. In WV and MoM, Wanda's motives, sense of self, and relationship to her powers repeatedly change at the drop of a dime, and we're seeing the same thing, here, with the abrupt change that takes place when Billy reveals his identity. The shift in personality, escalation of power, and the vague implication that he's been masterminding this whole excursion makes no sense with the established timeline-- this is all happening within 24 hours of him even learning that Wanda had kids, let alone that he might be one of them, not to mention hearing about both Agatha the Witches Road for the first time. And up until that point, he really was just an earnest kid. The heel-turn feels silly and juvenile, and the needle drop at the end of episode #5 underscores that a little too perfectly-- his "bad guy" act is just as ill-fitting and unsubstantiated as the Eilish's edgy, wannabe-thug aesthetics.

Obviously, the most important issue here is not the quality of writing, but where this character falls into the spectrum of whitewashing and erasure. The fact that Locke is not Jewish but, before the switch, is playing a Jewish character-- and, specifically trespassing on prayer and religious ceremonies-- is a problem. I've seen a lot of different opinions expressed by a lot of different people within the community about who can or can't play Jewish characters, but I think we can all agree that this is worth criticizing, especially given the larger context of repeated erasure and historical distortion against Jewish and Roma people in this franchise.

But I also want to emphasize that, because of what was done to Wanda, and the franchise's insistence on conducting blatant anti-Romani racism, there was never going to be a truly authentic or acceptable version of this character. Now matter how they cast the role, a significant part of his background had already been erased, and he was already saddled with significant racist baggage. I am very, very tired of white people and Young Avengers fans overlooking that fact.

[lemonhemlock]

S02E03 First Impressions

- this episode annoyed me a lot less than the last one. i really liked the harrenhal sequence. my gosh, what a great actor simon russell beale is! i mean, i knew already, but goodness. matt smith plays really well off of him. great, moody vibes, great decor and a terrific introduction to alys as a character. daemon conceptualizing rhaenyra as her teenage self.......delicious! this whole section looked lifted off of an A24 movie. loved it!

- i like that they at least attempted to create some tension within the black faction with 1. rhaenys insisting to corlys that he name rhaena his heir and him being meh about it and 2. rhaena feeling resentful at rhaenyra for sending her away to care for children. it's still quite tepid for my tastes and i remain unimpressed because it took them this long to depict even the seeds of disagreement

- you know, i don't even dislike this version of rhaenyra. i don't even dislike this version of mysaria. but they're totally different characters from the book. i've spoken about this before but someone with rhaenyra's current assigned personality would not have done the things rhaenyra has done. i like how anxious she is during council meetings, for example, and i appreciate how she tries to avoid bloodshed, but they want to make her into this reasonable leader because they don't know how to write a story that has two >problematic< sides. they need the dichotomy of good v bad, because the only deconstruction they know how to do is to make the "good guys" just a tad questionable and not perfect and to make the "bad guys" at most a little humanized. they just don't have the guts to go all out from the beginning. i know we will get to mad queen rhaenyra because the story beats demand it (hopefully), but they have to start rhaenyra off as wise and temperate. they don't know how to write book!rhaenyra, who was awful but raw and real in her grievances and could have been sympathetic as such.

- not even going into mysaria the unicef goodwill ambassador. they defanged her so much but without even redistributing her involvement in b&c to daemon. instead, it's all just a harmless fuck up. the diminishing of b&c is such that helaena seems over it this episode. ?? way to gloss over one of the most horrifying scenes grrm has ever thought up. i swear to god, rhaenyra was depicted as feeling more sorry for jaehaerys than helaena. 😵

- my main gripe with this episode, though, is the glorification of viserys. please, i am so tired. i get why otto would be ultimately fawning over him, i get why rhaenyra would hold on to a rose-coloured glass view of her father. i even get why alicent would inhale so much copium as a survival mechanism. but why are we, so often, throwing around so many uncritical statements about viserys being a great king and person? he forced pregnancies on his ailing first wife, killed her to get a son out of her, engineered a succession crisis and maritally raped his teenage wife, impregnating her against her will, too. why is there nothing, not one statement by anyone inviting the reader to contest that? it's one of the grossest things they're doing. is this a joke?

-as such, i don't careeeeeeee about viserys' death bed wish!!!!! i understand why it may be important to alicent and rhaenyra personally. FINE. have them quibble over it in the sept. but no one is making the legal argument that aegon is viserys' heir by andal law! no one! the show wants you to believe that it allllllll hinges on viserys' death murmurings. oh ffs. it can be a good propaganda tool to use, but the king's word is not law as this fantasy setting was imagined with its political structures in place, political structures that the author didn't bother to change from the european medieval history he took inspiration from. he left them as is, so they function as is!!! there are no explanations given as to how or why the westerosi power structure would function differently! the only MARGINAL argument we have heard is that the lords would never accept a woman for a monarch, but never the law itself: a son comes before a daughter and a daughter comes before an uncle. watch the greens in the next episode claim aemond is aegon's heir over jaehaera because the writers won't allow them to remember their own laws. ☠

-as it is, alicent's actions don't make any goddamn sense. if she always thought that somehow viserys' has the last say in naming his successor, then why is she yelling at teenage aegon that he is rhaenyra's challenge simply by living and breathing? why is otto telling her that she has to prepare aegon to rule or else cleave to rhaenyra's mercy? why is little aemond telling teenage aegon that helaena will be his queen? where did he hear that from? if alicent always intended for rhaenyra to take the throne? why is she telling her children since they were small that aegon will be king? it obviously didn't matter to her that viserys failed to actually nominate aegon. it's obvious that she was planning this for a very long time. also, the fact that they wrote that the council "went behind her back" to crown aegon doesn't make any goddamn sense either. it's just a plot hole. they are so inconsistently writing this schroedinger's alicent - she meticulously prepares for years so that aegon could be a legitimate king - gives him the conqueror's name, makes him marry his sister, make him have heirs of his own, tells her children this is what is going to happen, but somehow isn't aware that the council she headed for years was planning the same thing. somehow she was waiting for viserys' say-so. i don't have a problem with highlighting hypocrisy, but this is just a straight-up plothole.

- gwayne. listen, i love freddie fox as much as any man. i knew i was going to stan gwayne since he was cast, no doubt about it. i love how sassy he is. i'm intrigued by the buddy-cop comedy they seem to be building for him and criston. but did they really have to make him sneer at criston specifically because he is dornish and lowborn? and no one is batting an eye? this is so unserious. dorne is not even part of targaryen rule at this point and it hasn't even been mentioned once. no one has said anything about the status of dorne, about how the dornish are viewed throughout the rest of westeros and why. i bet the general public didn't even catch on that being dornish is viewed through a racist lens and that criston is not considered white. 🤦‍♀️ not to mention that ofc they gave the racist line to a green character, whereas rhaenyra gets to collect POC characters like pokemons to prop herself up as a diversity champion

[scraftyisthebest]

Thinking about the Explorers and the relationships between different members in the group, and the characters of the individuals ones we've met so far.

There's clearly a dichotomy between them and the Rising Volt Tacklers about how the Rising Volt Tacklers are a close knit and supportive group of people who take good care of each other and that is their strength, while the Explorers...really don't.

The above image is a very basic showcase of what the closest connections seem to be, but to elaborate a bit.

I think there are a select few characters among this group who are probably the most redeemable and present the clearest foils to the kids of the RVT, namely Liko. Those being Amethio, Coral/Sango, and Sidian/Onyx.

Amethio and Coral in particular don't seem to be inherently evil per se, but in different ways they seem to have underlying insecurities and problems that show themselves a lot, especially in contrast to Liko. Especially in the recent episode where Liko and Coral had a baking showdown. Liko won because she had experience, and notably she had her friends Roy, Dot, and Murdock cheering her on. Meanwhile Coral was alone and had no support, and yet it's clear she was genuinely trying and seemed to want to be recognized as someone who can do something. Sidian doesn't seem to be a particularly bad guy either.

Within the groups Amethio is pretty close with his two grunt subordinates Zirc and Onia while Coral and Sidian are close with each other specifically. Those are the closest they have to friends in their own groups.

Hamber and Chalce (Agate) are probably the closest to being adult figures for certain members of the group. Hamber takes very special care of Amethio, while Chalce is specifically close with Sidian and Coral where she's the one giving them orders and now is posing as a teacher and working with them specifically.

That said, for whatever reason that we don't fully understand, it seems Hamber and Chalce aren't particularly good at being the proper parental figures Amethio, Coral, and Sidian seem to need. Liko, Roy, and Dot are with the RVT and have so far been looked after by a very supportive group of adults in Friede alongside his buddies Orla, Mollie, Murdock, and Ludlow, all of who care about each other and have been great parental figures to the kids throughout their time with them. Diana, Liko's grandmother, also has a good relationship with Liko, which is also a contrast since Diana and Hamber were once friends. Meanwhile Hamber and Chalce are also pretty detached from each other as are the members they care for, the Hamber+Amethio+his goons and Chalce+Coral+Sidian sub-groups don't really like each other very much for whatever reason.

Which definitely raises some interesting questions about the dichotomy and contrast that seems to be presenting itself. Hamber and Chalce are admittedly interesting in different ways as they're the closest to being like the RVT adults in that they are serving a guardian role for certain other members but evidently aren't the adult figures Amethio and Coral truly need, or the support network they seem to need.

---

And yeah, Spinel is there on the right all by himself. I think it's quite obvious what his deal is. He does not care about anyone else in the group. He openly dislikes Amethio and admits to using Coral, Sidian, and Chalce for his own self-gain. He only cares about himself, and he's setting up to be the traitor and a big bad himself who's sucking up to Gibeon for the time being, but fully intends to backstab the group and try to overthrow Gibeon once they all stop being useful to him. He's the most straightforward purely evil villain character like Hunter J from DP.

A long ass ramble but some interesting notes I felt were fun to speculate about.

[courtofowlsbutpoor]

The problem with (most) well-intentioned extremists

We all know what well-intentioned extremist is. A civil rights leader that’s fighting the system! That sounds great! But uh oh, they running around killing civilians! Well shucks, I guess I’ll just have to go over to this bald loser who hasn’t made any changes and probably never will. And this is the problem with most well-intentioned extremists in media: They set up this false dichotomy where the only two types of social change is complete worship of the system that led to social injustice in the first place, or complete destruction of the system that will lead to thousands of deaths and millions left in poverty. Now obviously both of these types of people exist in real life, the problem is that media often portrays the sycophant as the definitely correct one guys trust me, and the extremist as a psychopath with no regard for life. Zenyatta, pre-2000’s Xavier, pacifist Marcus in Detroit:Become Human, these characters are morally correct according to the writers. In reality, both the sycophant and the extremist have good and bad points.

Yes, destroying the system outright hurts innocent people and just doesn’t work because the system is designed to survive. Yes, the system doesn’t just give away power because you ask for it, it’s created to keep the elites in power. The reality is that a combination of these two ideas is what most revolutionaries actually follow. In the words of Spire:The City Must Fall, “Subvert, don’t destroy.” Work within the system if you have to, destroy what can’t be replaced if you must, but the ultimate goal is to transform the system, not destroy it or worship it. Anyway that why cyclops is bestest X-men because he eyepunch sometime and talk other.

[britcision]

On today’s episode of “Ryoko Kui should totally come play dnd with me she’d fit right in at our table” lemme tell you about the bard

Our bard’s a tiefling, with a little fey heritage from his mom’s side and a little aasimar heritage on his mama’s side

All this mechanically means for him is that he’s resistant to radiant rather than fire damage and his Primal Savagery does radiant damage rather than acid damage

Storywise, it’s a little more of a problem because it physically makes him shiny… and per consultation with the rest of the party after 4 years of playing, he now has a mild compulsion effect from the fey side

Cuz when people see him, they want him

How they want him depends on the person, but the party pretty much unanimously looked at this sweet little sunshine child with a DEX modifier of -4 and decided they’d die for him within a couple sessions, which was funny enough it became the effect

(Not only were our edgelords who decided they were gonna be standoffish lone wolves who didn’t bond with anyone not immune, he fucking got them both first before moving on to the others)

He has no control over this effect nor any say on how it affects people, because that wouldn’t be as much fun

It also led to him being kidnapped and kept as a pet for 11 years by Evil Art Forger Tony Stark, because wanting to keep someone does not mean you see them as a person in any way shape or form

(Coincidentally, he was 11 at time of kidnapping)

(No One was pleased to learn that the sweet happy bard also actually does have a tragic backstory)

(They were less pleased to discover that he himself does not believe he has a tragic backstory, he still likes Evil Art Forger Tony Stark and thinks he’s great)

(Wait until they find out it even includes more annihilated towns than theirs we’re at 5/7 party members - almost better numbers than the Dad Box)

So our bard is a bit of a dichotomy; on the one hand, he has Party Mode, which is when Evil Art Forger Tony Stark wanted to show off his pretty shiny little tiefling pet to his evil crime friends

The bard was also promptly adopted by the escort’s guild in-game, so unbeknownst to him until about a week ago he had official membership and status in the most prominent entertainer’s union in the land; this will be functionally useless for everything except border checks and Lying To Authority

(He’s a bard his persuasion was already there)

He’s a well known little escort, all perfect grace and poise and refined manners

On the other hand, he has All Of The Rest Of The Time, when he’s a feral little bastard gremlin who WILL bite anyone he can get his teeth into and will jump off a moving horse with a -4 DEX penalty if he thinks he saw a snake

(His passive perception is 26 and he’s planning to bump it because he doesn’t think I deserve nice things like surprising the party)

Oh, and he doesn’t believe yuan-ti are real snake people because his tiny autistic ass is 10000% hyper-fixated on snakes for not having legs, and there’s a yuan-ti pureblood in the escort union who only pulls the tail out for stabbing purposes

(She’s aware he believes this and has been deliberately not showing him because she thinks it’s funny. She’s right)

All of this brought to you by tonight’s revelation that he’d get along like a fucking house on fire with the Canaries

Mithrun may well be the only person not blood-related to him that’d be immune to his compulsion effect, but far more importantly, Mithrun and Fleki both deserve to just haul off and bite people more and he’d encourage them wholeheartedly

But far more importantly, their interactions would probably go something like this:

Everyone else: oh man I bet that shiny little guy’s not gonna get along with the captain, he’s all bright and cheery and the captain’s gonna ignore him cuz he doesn’t care about anything but dungeons

Virtue and Mithrun in the corner:

Virtue: hey wanna sit for six hours and I can tell you about snakes

Mithrun: sure. I fucked a snake once

Virtue: ………. Okay I lied you’re going first but if they had legs it doesn’t count

Mithrun: nah there were no legs my lover in my dungeon was snake from the waist down. Probably a naga

*detailed monsterfucking explanation likely follows*

[prof-ramses]

A Golden Goose idea I had:

When courting Stella, Mammon made it a point not to take her to Ozzie’s. This isn’t out of spite for Asmodeus either, rather, Mammon naturally recognizes the club for what it is: a place for people to have meaningless hook ups in the name of lust and lust alone. Since Mammon well and truly loves Stella, he wants to make sure she knows that in every little thing he does, and he is certain taking her to Ozzie’s, no matter how high end and classy it may be, would send the wrong message.

Unrelated to the above, but I like the idea of Mammon and Stella, pretty far into their relationship, having a date at some sort of fast food dive, for little reason other then the dichotomy of Mammon being himself and having a ball there, while Stella is sitting across from him eating fast food with all the grace and poise her upbringing has instilled within her (and maybe enjoying the date more than she lets on).

Just some random thoughts I thought I’d share.

Guy, I swear, if I ever meet you in person, we're getting pizza, my treat. I LOVE THESE!

Mam going the extra mile to show Stella just how much she means to him in really subtly sappy ways actually works really well with my idea of Mammon actually being smarter and more attentive than people (in and out of universe) give him credit for.

Also, YES! I ADORE hcs about Stella broadening her comfort zone and exploring interests she couldn't/wouldn't before due to Goetic culture.

Great showing all around

[themattress]

The Infinity Saga (No, not THAT one)

It really do be like:

I love the Infinity arc of the manga, and even moreso its Crystal adaptation. In some ways it's darker and more intense than the preceding Black Moon arc, but in other ways it's the most shining case of hope and idealism in the series. Whereas in the Black Moon arc the darkness of the setting and within the characters was a major focus, this one is about the light within the darkness. It's shown through the conflict between the Inner Senshi and the Outer Senshi, the Inner Senshi's trip through the Infinity Labyrinth, Hotaru's relationship with Chibusa and the dichotomy between her, Sailor Saturn and Mistress 9, and of course the resolution to the final battle. The expanded lore around things such as the Three Talismans and the Holy Grail is great, I love all the merging of science and magic, and while Pharaoh 90 is a pretty boring Big Bad, the rest of the Death Busters are standouts who are almost on par with the Black Moon Clan in terms of villainous excellence. It's some of Naoko Takeuchi's best work.

The 90s anime's Infinity arc is a different beast altogether. I first must say that I feel it started on the wrong foot and should have had a much different framing for the anime formula than it did: one which had Infinity Academy as a location from the start, had the Witches 5 as rotating episodic villains selected for missions by Kaolinite and equipped with Daimons by Professor Tomoe, and more gradually paced out Hotaru and her story. But judging it on its own merits rather than what I wanted it to be, it's good....for 22 out of 38 episodes; the ones Sukehiro Tomita was head writer for. Once Yoji Enokido took over, things went south quickly, with Hotaru and all connected to her, a resurrected Kaolinite, the other Witches 5, Infinity Academy, Mistress 9, Pharaoh 90, and Sailor Pluto's belated time freeze-induced death crammed in and rushed without the breathing room to leave the impression that they should.

Among the arc's biggest draws, its depiction of Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune that put a far greater emphasis on their personalities and romance with each other, abruptly turned into one of its biggest flaws once Sailor Pluto rather nonsensically comes in to join them. Whereas before they had been morally gray and antagonistic but still likable and nobly motivated like in the manga, they suddenly turn into nigh sociopathic jerks who dislike the Inner Senshi and refuse to work with them because they hate their idealism and arrogantly consider themselves and their cynical edgelord methods of saving the world to be superior, turning what was a great story with a great message and resolution into a fight against a group of strawman Magical Girl genre haters. Until Stars, this was the anime at its worst.

....But I can't hate this series even with its bad second half, because God damn it, it has Professor Tomoe! The best Goddamn villain the anime ever had, who actually only got better in said second half! He's a radically different interpretation of the character from the source material, arguably going opposed to what said character's original purpose was. But not only did the series at least run with this opposing take from the beginning rather than adapt him faithfully only to swerve at the last minute, that take is just that good at being as funny, hammy and morally nuanced in addition to being creepy, competent and maniacal. Just...look at this guy! He steals every scene he's in and single-handedly picks up the slack of the other anime Death Busters. So if not for him alone, the anime's Infinity arc is recommended.

[stranger-rants]

What you said about Steve is so true. I like him, but I do agree after season 1, his character did kind of lose what had made him more interesting there. Some people in the fandom refer to him as a "redeemed mean girl," when we don't really see him as such, you know. Like, I know it's been a year in season 2 since 1, but some part of me definitely think it would've been more interesting to see him have some relapses, where he lashes out and goes back to "King Steve" for just a minute, and goes for where he knows hurts most, only for him to realize and try to backtrack or try to fix it and feeling awful for all that progress down the drain, y'know

He does “relapse” sometimes into being mean, but it’s less relapse and more being given the room to have human emotions. He can be King Steve and an interesting character at the same time - even “a good guy,” but the narrative (and fans) have to let him be that person. The Good and Bad false dichotomy is truly killing creativity. People have complex emotions. The “good” guys do bad things sometimes. The “bad” guys can make “good” choices. Furthermore, just because a character has changed from “bad” to “good,” doesn’t mean they have had significant character growth.

Character growth is not a bad to good progression. It’s the development the character is allowed to go through within the narrative which doesn’t require any moral or ethical changes. Steve had an interesting development in season two, I think, because he had to figure out what kind of person he wanted to be without his popularity, his posse, and… Nancy, but before he could really reach his potential, they made him The Ultimate Babysitter aka the only teenager on duty to protect the party which would have been okay if it was character growth for Steve, but it wasn’t. Steve as The Ultimate Babysitter became a plot device.

Steve’s role has literally involved moving the plot forward by getting the characters where they need to be and preventing those characters from injury and/or dying. Steve doesn’t exist for Steve. He exists for everyone else, and that’s kind of the problem. As such, they don’t really know what to do with Steve. The Duffers wanted him to be The Bully but when that fell through because they “fell in love” with Joe, they didn’t really have a backup plan. To me, that becomes more obvious in the third season when his rivalry with Billy - which had the most potential narratively for Steve - was dropped in order for Steve to be The Comedic Relief.

…and when I say this, I am not saying this with a shipping lens. Steve had his own antagonist. He had the makings of a character foil in Billy, who was another up and coming “king” of Hawkins. It would have been more interesting and helpful for his character development, to see Steve really having to come to terms with the kind of person he was before through his interactions with Billy rather than Steve just existing to “make up for” the kind of person he was before by being The Nice Guy Who Does Stuff for People now. The sailor suit. The ha ha Steve is a dumb loser version we get in season three did nothing for him.

Even within the story line that they chose for him, they dropped the ball on opportunities for him to wrestle with his feelings and emotions in any way that matters. Befriending Robin could have been a great opportunity for him to reflect on his queerphobic attitude towards other people before her, but no. We skip right to Steve is The Best Ally who reacts to situations like these in a socially acceptable manner despite not really showing the steps he would need to take to unlearn his past beliefs, and to me things like that aren’t fair because Steve gets a “tell, don’t show” kind of characterization that benefits his image to fans but does nothing for his actual character growth.

Compare that with Billy who does have quite an intense trajectory in his character development which ends in a pretty significant self sacrifice, but people don’t give him the same benefit of the doubt in personal, moral, and ethical growth from season two despite there being no evidence of him going around saying and doing the same harmful things he was doing before. It feels like Billy is at least awarded with a narratively satisfying arc in terms of development, but denied humanity by The Duffers and their fan base for really callous reasons while Steve is denied narratively satisfying character development while praised for basically nothing other than being a plot device.

[dailybbq]

You think Qtaro’s orphanage ACTUALLY raised him well, in a comfortable healthy household or was he just manipulated into thinking that? Bc I remember him saying in the Mishima Fondness events that he had a ‘great’ childhood due to the support from the people of his orphanage.. but.. I really doubt that since his orphanage was owned by asunaro.

FONDNESS EVENT:

KAZUMI: Then... you had a difficult childhood...? Q-TARO: S'not that at all! I was burnin' bright! KAZUMI: Because you had the support of everyone at the orphanage, I take it.

Q-TARO'S AI:

I was raised up in an orphanage that’s just a mite bit weird. Had people from all sortsa countries. I got a lotta dialects and stuff mixed in me… 'Course, they sent me to compulsory education up 'til high school. Can’t thank the place enough.

ON KAI:

From Kai… I sensed the scent of a lonely person. Dunno nothin' about the guy, but… As somebody of the same kind, I wanna see his dying wish through.

(placing relevant quotes here for easy reference!)

Personally, I read Q-taro to genuinely believe that the orphanage was making the best of an all-around awful situation. On an individual level, this is very true! On a management level? ...buddy, Asunaro's not even paying for your high school because it's not compulsory.

Due to what little information Q-taro's given on the orphanage he was raised, I'm inclined to believe that it was an organization specifically centered around aiding native-born stateless orphans. Now, it already creates difficulty finding basic (legal) healthcare and education; but this same situation is what works best for (what we now know of) Asunaro. Within the orphanage, it's much easier to scout out possible future agents (for their resilience in spite of the situation they were granted; or possibly to take in young children to raise as agents; or... worse, experimentation), as well as... hide their own. As Asunaro's essentially functioning as a yakuza group, they are involved in the 'underground' of society and there are many who may give up their children for safety—whether it is temporary, to fully disconnect them from the yakuza (in being given another name), it's easier to feign being another person within an organization like that.

Additionally, as Asunaro is not simply funding the orphanage, but has their name attached to it—I believe they're also taking advantage of this to idly test everyone there. Despite their yakuza origins and various other connections to separate organizations, they are first and foremost a research agency on humanity. As Q-taro agrees to... he didn't consider himself to have a difficult childhood because he was given support from everyone at the orphanage. Asunaro in their experiments are proved again, and again, that emotional bonds are what uplifts humans and (typically) makes them stronger/more successful.

This is partially what interests me in Q-taro and Kai's 'similar' dichotomy.

Q-taro's orphanage had little resources to work with, yet held such loving people he wanted to do right by. Despite his hardship, and the anger Q-taro carried when he was younger toward his parents, he eventually realized it doesn't... matter if his biological parents thought he was trash to be discarded; he still has family in the orphanage. He was never as lonely as he thought he was, and this is what eventually opened him up. From this, he considers them to be his 'family' and the 'light' of his life; even after he left to pursue baseball, he consistently returns to the orphanage to provide the kids there hope. The very same hope that he (wishes he) had at that age. He's a pillar of unconditional support for them, as one of the few adults who stays.

By contrast, as confirmed in the ministories (though this was my belief before simply on the basis of. how his father acted + Gin's one line lol), Kai was granted a 'richer' life when he hadn't yet stained his record as an assassin. Whereas Asunaro must keep a relatively low-profile with the orphanage, they could indulge within their own faculties. However, most of these funds come down to what was used to train Kai; meaning food and the like were all negotiable variables dependent on his progress and must be permitted by his guardian (Gashu). There was standard neglect in place for those who fell too far—unlike the orphanage, everything within the facility is conditional. The only moment when Kai finds 'light' (or, as he says: 'a reason to live' - one Asunaro failed to provide) is when he meets the Chidouins and is finally granted a chance to love and be loved in turn, but even that hangs in the balance and... inevitably falls through, due to his own failure to protect them.

In a sense, due to neglect, they both struggle with staying close to those they love, for fear of emburdening them. Which they recognize causes more harm, but this isolation is what they are accustomed to coping with.

Q-taro doesn't wish to hoard resources or make conversation 'heavy' when the situation is already dire. This is why he refused to see those who cared for him when he was hospitalized; he feels that proving "orphans can realize their dreams" is his responsibility alone and seeing him in such a state would put a stake in that dream. Meanwhile, Kai doesn't wish to impose himself on the Chidouins because he's been conditioned to believe he isn't worthy of civilian life, though he still dearly wishes to uplift them where he can. As another agent, he's been used enough, and doesn't wish to be an extension of Asunaro any more than he must—he doesn't wish to damn those he cares for simply because he's been raised in 'darkness' (...as Sara doesn't want to drag people she loves into 'darkness' - or 'danger'). As it is, the Chidouins have caught Asunaro's eye. Only Kai, of darkness, can only serve as a barrier because he's well-accustomed to its ruthless cruelty. This is his sole duty.

Their isolation, this loneliness, is born of their intense love and desire to have someone else they can freely connect with but are unable to due to their perceived responsibilities so no one else may suffer hopelessness as they once did.

...but I digress!

All that said, this is my long-winded way of saying: I don't believe Q-taro's living conditions were the best, but I think he tends to focus more on the people rather than the situation. Friends within the orphanage could help him gather money, would encourage him when he struggles academically, so on, so forth! Ultimately, he feels he's better off for his strife, so he doesn't blame the orphanage.

[box-dwelling]

As someone who watched a LOT of murder mystery shows growing up (it was my mother's favourite genre and it rubbed off on me a lot) there's always two catagorises of serialised mystery. Ones where the detective is like actually in the law profession and comes to crime scenes because it's their job and the ones where the detective is just some random guy (gender neutral) who happens to always turn up in the right place at the right time to investigate a murder. And as much as I like the former, the latter has always been a favourite of mine because of how inherently goofy it gets as the series goes on.

In my head it's the dichotomy between Midsummer Murders and Rosemary and Thyme (my apologies for being British), because they both tend to have very similar settings for cases. Except one of our detectives is an actual detective where as the other one are just two fucking gardeners who always seem to take jobs at houses where a murder happens.

Anyway the reason I'm saying this is that it's very funny that AAI has every excuse to be the former and not fuck with peoples suspension of disbelief but insists on being the latter (at least where I am in the game). Miles Edgeworth is a famous Prosecutor well renoun for his investigating abilities so of course he'd be involved in murder cases by being called in. He isn't though, he just keeps having murders happen no matter where he goes and has to deal with it. Great, incredible, I love it.

For the record the trilogy is definitely the former kind. Like 1-2, 2-2, 2-4, 3-5 are the only ones you're present for the murder. 2 of them are directly because Morgan was involved, 1-2 is because Mia was the victim which makes sense because she is wound up in that world and 2-4 was a fluke. None of which stop it being in that genre. Yes sometimes Phoenix has visited the crime scene just before but that's all well within the genre.

[yuujoh]

Kaiba 13, mokuba 20, 23, 26 >)

Kaiba:

13- favorite friendship they have:

Oooh this is a good one! I think… his friendship with Isis. They have such an interesting dichotomy going on with her being focused on what she feels is set in stone and him being confident that whatever happens in the future is entirely within his control. I think it’s great that they have each other to challenge their beliefs. It’s a different challenge than the one that Atem gives him, but still one I think is really fun to explore!

Mokuba:

20- A weird headcanon:

Hehe!! I have so many, but the one I’ll share here is that he wants to looks mature so he’ll drink coffee, but he’s still a kid and he likes sweets so he’ll make espresso con panna with his breakfast and if he can sneak into the break room and get creamer and sugar with his coffee he will, but if there’s an audience he’ll sip his little black coffee and grimace the whole time like he’s knocking back shots.

23- Future headcanon:

I think Mokuba would be an art scene nepo baby and spend a bunch of time making incredibly esoteric, incomprehensible art in his free time, but I don’t think he’s getting out of the Kaiba Corp shadow any time soon, especially not if his brother his still devoting time and energy to the company (and he will be so…) I’d like to say that he’d be popular and make lots of friends, but I think the forgotten point about Mokuba is that he’s had less normal socialization than Kaiba has. Maybe he has a couple of chums but not many major friendships. He’s got his brother so he’s good!

26- When do you think they were being “themselves” the most?

In Battle City when he whistle blew the guy making the unfair ante trade and he was being sooo smug and soooo bratty and when Kaiba showed up and he was like “oooh! I gave you a chance to do better! My brother is gonna get you!! >:-)” total brat behavior! He was having so much fun!

[msmargaretmurry]

techncially i think all of tnno has haunted me since the first time i read it but if i am forced to pick favorite lines/scenes:

-the first interview dylan does for the documentary. there’s a part in there that talks about the version of connor they ask about vs the version dylan wants to talk about and i think it just so perfectly conveys that there’s public vs private parts to a person, and how connor always felt comfortable being that version of himself with dylan. i feel like the who they are with each other comes up a lot in the fic overall but right then it really just *chefs kiss* you know?

-the scene where connor comes to dylan’s apartment when he gets back and kev and tanner are there. it’s a killer contrast of the different types of close (the “we weren’t that ridiculous, we’re we?” “i think we were worse” exchange!!) works so well. also within that scene the “An empty apartment can be lonelier than an empty hotel room, because the hotel room, at least, is always temporary” just is a direct hit. like every time i read it my heart just aches

-not really a scene or a line but the alex and dylan friendship is so real in how it is too live far away from a friend who you used to be lucky enough to see all the time but you still remain close

-this line “Dylan has never had another team as close as the Otters were. In Chicago, they came close for a while, but it’s different in the NHL, where guys have wives and children, real families of their own. It’s not a place for staying up all night talking about the future; it’s a place for living it.” something about this last line just makes my brain buzz every time i read it and it always makes me think about how it must feel to be connor and dylan and remember all the plans and hopes and dreams they had about the future and wonder if they’re feeling left behind as their peers settle down and start families and maybe make the dreams they had at that age a reality, if that makes sense?

anyway that’s all

man, sometimes i really miss when i was writing tnno, because it was so satisfying to dig into the dichotomies in it -- public and private, past and future, closeness and distance. dylan's extremely fraught relationship with all these things in relation to connor was just SO good for narrative tension and made it so easy and fun to write. that first interview scene i'm really fond of because it was my first chance to give a look at connor in what is now more or less his element -- no longer the rink, but the studio where he is stubbornly attempting to take charge of his own legacy, with all these people who are super comfortable with this version of him, which is SO weird to dylan and puts him in such a weird mood, which obviously goes great for everyone 😂

the scene in the apartment with the rookies i'm also really fond of because i always think about my first draft of it i had a huge note to the side that just said MAKE THIS HORNIER!!! and obviously it's more of a feelings fic than a horny fic but i did make the scene more EMOTIONALLY horny. which is the most important part i think.

your last point -- that definitely makes sense and for me there is absolutely and undercurrent for both of them of just like. seeing friends and siblings build homes and families, and feeling a little left behind, quietly longing to do that themselves but feeling too unsettled/undeserving/lost/etc to know where to start. but then, you know [ao3 user yourblues voice] sometimes home is a person!! so now that they've found each other again they're gonna start building, too.

this got so long, i'm sorry 😂 but thank you so much!!! ❤️❤️❤️

[xcookedxchroniclesx]

I have something that I would like to discuss. That being is who I am as a person.

I was looking back at photos of me as a kid and I'm wearing clothes that boys do not wear. It caused a lot of bullying as a child. I wore girls clothing but I didn't realize that it was girls clothing until it was pointed out to me in my 30's.

I have always been more feminine natured as I have found out. I was always in tune with my emotions and I have felt great emotions for my girlfriends. I am not flamboyant like the gays are usually portrayed as, but I am girlish in nature. The more I hang around girls the girlier I get. I love the girls clothes because they have better colour and I like feminine colours. With Fuschia as my favorite colour.

I have come to understand myself as the opposite of a "Tom Boy". You kno, the girl who acts and dresses like a boy. Well I am a boy who dresses and acts like a girl. I call it being a "Jenn Girl" if Tom boys were named because Tom's were really boyish then I find that Jenn's are really girlish and I really like the name. I named it after my childhood friend Jennifer who was just as girly as they came but fit in well within our group of mainly boys.

I am not gay or homosexual in any way. I am straight as an arrow. I am into women and always have been. I didn't kno that I was wearing women's clothing. But now that I do I want to shop in the women's section at clothing stores but I need a woman or women to escort me. Maybe. We'll see how long this shyness lasts.

I find masculinity in my femininity. I feel like a man acting like a woman and i find it greatly offensive when a dude trys to call me down for "acting like a girl", like when did being a girl become the worst thing that a guy could do? I thought that guys liked girls. At least the straight ones, anyway. I love acting like a girl, it feels right. And I can't even help it anyway.

I hope to pave a path of other Jenn Girls to come out as themselves free of feeling like less of a man because we're "not manly enough". Like we want to impress men anyway! Fuck that noise! I'd rather be where the woman be. Not the dudes.

I am feminine in nature and everyone just has to handle that. I'm proud of my femininity. I won't stop being who I am because it causes the dichotomy of men and women that they have built in their minds to collapse.

I am a free man and I will be who I am regardless of other men's approval. Real ones won't care because I am not attacking their sexuality or masculinity or trying to undermine them in any way. It's just who I am.

[likealittleheartbeat]

Ooph, unfortunately can’t say I agree with much of your analysis here, boo.

I’m not gonna deny literary and artistic merit for a show because of its genre, age-group, and production company. I spend time with it and keep my eyes and ears open to literary and cinematic strategies and references—doesn’t matter where it comes from, except how that might limit or influence how it approaches its storytelling.

I also don’t share the bad faith perspective on (or perhaps it’s the lack of familiarity with) the writing process and team for the show, which involved many more people’s writing and input than the two guys you disparage. Critiquing the writing or the writers doesn’t assist my goals of analyzing the work as it stands, which is not to kill the authors off, but to give the work the authority of its present existence and influence within the contextual contingencies of its production and historical situation. In the limited dichotomy of Watsonian vs. Doylist approaches you reference, it’s both but certainly leans towards the Watsonian.

And, again, you are looking at my analysis of a single-shot requested by a follower. I would say it’s an analysis that stretches and makes leaps that were more fun to attempt than felicitous—I’d stand much more firmly behind my long form analysis of Zuko and Aang’s capital-P Platonic relationship development throughout the series. But, writing like the one above still provides opportunities to make meaningful discoveries, even though the foundation they stand on is shaky. The orange and blue motif in the series, for example, and its relationship to yin and yang, which I defined in my response will be something to which I’ll refer plenty in the future.

Glad you’re excited about the show enough to seek out conversations and analysis online, but your perspective isn’t a great starting place to engage in conversation about the show, especially on my blog and with me, which are specifically interested in approaching the show as an intentional and complex work of art, made by many hands and minds, that provides a thorough evocation of American Zen Buddhism in conversation with other Buddhist and East Asian philosophical approaches (and the zen of it clearly complicates the beliefs about romantic and sexual attachment).

If you want to discuss atla headcanons, fanons, and/or the the failures of the writing, there are lots of other blogs and posts who share your passion! My blog and posts are def not gonna be for you, and that’s fine. Flameo, hotman!

hey! i really enjoy your analysis of aang and zuko's relationship, and i was just wondering if you have any thoughts on this:

when aang considers what he's afraid of the most, he doesn't just see zuko - he sees the blue spirit. why do you think his fear is linked to that mask? zuko was the most amicable towards him when he put that mask on, and was hostile every other time.

Ooooh!! This is such a rich and meaty question!! And it's something I've wondered about but never dove into before.

I guess there are a couple of questions we need to explore. One, do we want to begin to analyze this from Aang's perspective or the series' themes, which, when put together, should offer us the fullest idea of what the intent might be? If we begin with Aang's perspective, then the next question we need to next ask what is Aang's view of Zuko and/or the Blue Spirit at this point in the narrative? My worry about beginning at that intimate level is that we might miss possible connections that a thematic understanding might facilitate and may, like many fandom analyses, leave it at a character level when, in fact, the characters exist to serve larger philosophical purposes, especially in a show like ATLA.

So, we'll return to those questions about Aang after we visit some questions about the broader themes here. We know for a fact that the team did a lot of research into Eastern philosophies that they had to then pack down into 24 minute episodes, preserving a surprising amount of complexity not in the words but in the actions and visuals. The 2 part Crossroads of Destiny episode is probably the most evocative of this practice. The four-way fight scene is celebrated for the way it masterfully shows character development through fight choreography. Then, Aang's crystal chamber he forms to master the Avatar State is a direct reference to a statement about pre-enlightenment in one of the foundational texts about Japanese Zen for American Buddhists, "The Three Pillars of Zen." The rapid explanations of the seven chakras with Guru Pathik might seem like a a skimming of Tantric beliefs based on the brief statements and processing, but it's another prime example the way ATLA suffuses meaning beyond the script.

What more can be said about the Earth (also called the Root or Muladhara) Chakra, then, that the show might reflect without stating it explicitly. Guru Pathik explains that the Earth Chakra "deals with survival." Is there any subject more prescient than that for our protagonist, the single survivor of an otherwise all-encompassing genocide? Other accounts of this chakra that I can find explain that it's at this chakra that one can observe that their base needs are being met--enough food, enough water, etc. There seems to be a subtle witnessing to the effects of PTSD here then. With this chakra untouched, unopened, and out of balance, Aang within his mind has been living in a state of emergency without knowing it, believing himself at a core level beyond his consciousness to still be under immediate threat even in moments of peace like his meditations throughout the opening of his chakras. "Your vision is not real," Guru Pathik points out, not to say that no danger exists for him in the world but to illuminate the immediate reality surrounding his person.

The memories and visions that flash during the sequence hint at how fear conceals deeper realities and thus possibilities. I'll start with the clip of Katara sinking away from the first episode of Book 2, "The Avatar State." The Earth Kingdom General performed this cruelty after many other attempts to force Aang into suffering to gain the Avatar State. Believing he lost another person he loved, the state was triggered despite the actuality that Katara was unharmed. The fear of her loss overwhelmed Aang, and even her safe return could not assuage his traumatic response. The Blue Spirit incident forms a striking parallel to this event, in that case. Aang felt himself helpless and in danger only to discover the opposite: the seemingly malevolent force freed him from danger. Further, that Blue Spirit Mask concealed Zuko who, by the end of the series, will be revealed (to himself and) Aang as an ally and a friend. The shadowy image of Ozai, then, connected with these two fear-inducing semblances, can be seen then as perhaps the ultimate foreshadowing of Aang's ultimate success in pacifying Ozai. Put in the context of this chakra and the other two visions, it frames the Firelord as a facade meant to induce terror and distance, when in reality, life and humanity still lay behind the horrifying megalomania.

Concerning the Blue Spirit element specifically in the series, I want to explore one more factor within the series before getting back to Aang's character relationship in this moment. Blue has a running symbolic theme within the series that seems especially relevant here since it played a huge role in a highly symbolic part of the directly previous episode, "The Earth King." As Zuko rides out his psychogenic fever induced by releasing Aang's bison and abandoning his Blue Spirit mask, he is confronted in his dreams by a blue dragon voiced by Azula and a red dragon voiced by Iroh. I felt really confused by these two would-be shoulder angels for the longest time (literally until I was sorting my thoughts out to write this) because Azula's blue dragon is the one who entreats Zuko to rest, which even in Grey Delisle/Azula's clearly threatening tone--she even ends the temptation by saying "sleep just like mother!"--seemed to be what Zuko needed to do as opposed to the red dragon's exhortations to get out. I could see how sleeping might also refer to accepting his upbringing without thought, but why blue? The layers upon layers of possible meaning overwhelmed me.

I posit that blue in the series, especially when put in relationship to red/orange, as it is in the dream sequence, the dynamic between the water tribe and the fire nation, the fire of zuko and azula (especially the final agni kai), and the energy-bending of Aang over Ozai in the finale, ought to be read as Yin (making red/orange yang). Yin is passive, retractive, and receptive, which makes the invitation to rest by a blue dragon make perfect sense. Yin is also feminine in nature, hence the association with both Azula (whose blue fire and lightning becomes especially interesting to explore under this understanding) and Zuko's mother in the dualistic dragon dream. If you know anything about yin and yang, you know that it's key tenet is ever-changing coordination of yin and yang within one entity and with relationships between entities rather than the privileging of one above another. The two dragons in Zuko's dream, while seemingly in opposition to one another, are actually seeking, like the bumper stickers say, "coexistence" of their dispositions.

Now, back to Aang's vision of fear over the Blue Spirit. The red that overlays everything is specifically a reference to the Earth Chakra, which is symbolized by the color red. But the fact that he has one fear of Katara, the pinnacle of blueness/yin in the series, dying, and another fear of the Blue Spirit, a de-flamed (read: emasculated) Zuko attacking him that are then overlayed by this Earth Chakra red, a color otherwise used to portray yang (masculinity, activeness, expansion, and repulsion) and the fire nation in the series, suggests that his fears are specifically about within holding onto yin nature (symbolized by his grasping for a disappearing Katara) without being entirely overwhelmed by it (in the image of the fear he felt as the Blue Spirit approached his imprisoned body). And all those fears are intensified when living in such a patriarchal, or yang-skewed age and society, which gets depicted through both the final image of Ozai, the ultimate patriarch within this world, and the red coloring.

I promised I would get back to the characters, and after that hopefully illuminating thematic expansion, we can hopefully get at the core of what's going on here for Aang personally and what it might mean for him to be picturing Zuko with the Blue Spirit mask as a fear. I want to put this moment into context with Aang and Zuko's relationship at this specific moment. Aang hasn't seen Zuko since he watched him cry over his uncle in the ghost town after Azula struck him with lightning as a diversion. That was ten episodes prior (and more than 6 months time if you were watching the show in real time as it premiered; May 26th-Dec. 1st). The next time Aang sees Zuko, two episodes later, they are glowering across a crystal prison cell at one another with antipathy as they're embraced (a gesture I can only remember from the fantastic black romance film Love & Basketball, and in a gay context that is clearly referencing that moment in L&B, in the Norwegian teen romance series Skam). Right before this scene, Aang readily agrees to co-rescue Zuko and Katara with Uncle Iroh despite Sokka's protestations. Nothing seems amiss with Aang, no obvious belligerence toward Zuko until he sees him. Zuko has barely seen the airbender this whole season, and the one moment they encountered one another, Zuko was attacking Aang's attacker rather than him. Why is Aang expressing anger toward Zuko in the crystal chamber then? It's a rare expression from Aang even when we look at their more antagonistic interactions from the first season.

Here's where this vision of the blue spirit Aang envisions as he opens his earth chakra might enliven his characterization and his relationship to Zuko. We get two pieces here. His attachment to Katara and the queer implications of his partnership with the Blue Spirit/Zuko. And they are inseparable.

I don't feel that I need to especially dive into the attachment to Katara since it's been a pretty big component of discourse within the fandom, both in general analysis and more specifically relating to the (literally historic) shipping wars between zutara and kataang that emerged after the series came out originally. What I'll say here is that the first vision that Aang has as he addresses his root chakra points to his fear of losing her and what she represents pretty explicitly and, as I suggested earlier, also provides its antidote in the realization that accepting/surrendering the fear of impermanence reveals its simultaneous illusion. Katara wasn't actually harmed and wasn't truly lost when the general subsumed her into the ground. Aang has to let go of her as a permanent fixture that he'll always be able to see and know entirely (not, as many have interpreted it, let go of loving her). He'll also have to let go of saving her and the world of so many others she represents, which is as much a pressure and role Katara and others put on him as Aang yolks himself to.

Part of this acknowledgement of Katara's impermanence as a living being and a romantic possibility is addressing the others in her life who pose both danger and attraction for her. Zuko embodies both of these things simultaneously. The aggressive stare Aang launches at Zuko in "The Crossroads of Destiny" can be understood through this lens. The Eve Sedgwick's concept of the triangulation of male homosocial desire between romantic rivals was one of the foundational ideas of queer theory. It's so well-established as to be a meme among the tumblr crowd. The show even references the history of these literary homosocial tropes in "The Avatar and the Firelord" as Sozin and Roku's tight-knit youthful friendship is slowly rent apart at the event of Roku's heterosexual marriage, which thus begins the imperialism of the Fire nation.

Except that Roku and Sozin aren't romantic rivals. And Zuko's obsession with Aang begins sans Katara. And, as you pointed out, if the romantic threat is Zuko, it ought to be Zuko in the Earth Chakra vision instead of the Blue Spirit? Well, those all exist because ATLA is not a tragedy for homosocial relationships, and it's hard for me to explain how groundbreaking that was.

You see, the show theorizes homosociality differently. If Aang is required to let go of Katara, he has no pivot point, no object (because women shouldn't be objects for male fodder!) to connect with and compete with a rival male, so he has to look directly at the desire of another male for him and, therefore, face the fears that he might have similar desires. I said above that the Blue Spirit is an entirely de-flamed Zuko, which I then paralleled to emasculation. One could even go farther to call it a kind of symbolic castration (Firelord Ozai losing his firebending at the end of the series certainly demands this kind of reading). These aspects ignite fears about lacking masculinity which then cause reactions, which make men avoid accepting any thoughts and behaviors associated with vulnerability and homosexuality invoked within themselves or by others.

I think Aang, in his way, is confronting these fears but not from the angle of someone raised within a homophobic or misogynistic culture. His openness to Zuko and the potential of connection to him is ripe from the first time they meet--"you're just a teenager" connects them without any intermediary. He comes to understand the rigidness of the environment he's in, though. He feels like he's being forced to choose between a yang/masculine role he plays with Katara, who at this point in the series though growing out of it and certainly not a fault of her own making still sees him as her savior and depends on him to save her and the world through metaphysical mastery and the repulsion of evil, and yin/feminine role he plays with Zuko, who finds Aang in and forces him into positions of elusion, surrender, and passivity, while requiring his compassion and forgiveness. When the Blue Spirit comes swinging his swords (read that with all the innuendos you want lol) at a shackled Aang, it's the ultimate expression of Aang's potential for submissiveness because, not only is he entirely helpless but the one who could harm or save him in that scenario is another who is not participating in the expected power of fire/yang/masculinity.

I think everything in the show says this is attractive to Aang--that he remains with Zuko immediately after their escape from the fort, that he reflects on the Blue Spirit as he opens his chakras, that a reference to the conversation that followed their escape that Zuko makes halts him in his tracks when Zuko asks to join the team. Zuko's Blue Spirit persona means a lot to Aang, a scary amount, and my point is that it's this fear of the meaningfulness of their encounter as two men who are not the masculine paragons they are supposed to be which Aang faces as he opens his chakra. As much as he wants Katara, he wants Zuko. He fears he'll lose Katara and he fears he'll lose his life to Zuko. These are the dichotomies he's tackling as he processes the Earth chakra.

Aang eventually opens the chakra, but that's only to say he acknowledges and surrenders his fears to a destiny and understanding beyond his control, not that he necessarily learns how to address and solve all the conundrums contained therein. We know he chooses his attachment to Katara at the end of the episode to obtain power over the Avatar state but perhaps we could've been clued into this choice by noticing he has not chosen Zuko with that initial glare Aang gives him. Aang hasn't found a way in his chakras or his heart to hold both Katara and Zuko at once, so he chooses Katara and expresses a newfound jealousy and rivalry toward Zuko (not that Zuko's at his best behavior at this point, but it's Aang who initiates the exchange).

By the end of this season, Zuko abandons the Blue Spirit mask and Aang loses his life for prioritizing Katara and a yang-centric mastery of the Avatar state. The next season involves all three of the protagonists finding more internal balance between yin and yang for themselves and accepting mutually reciprocal feelings for one another that allow them to escape the kinds of patriarchal tropes that have dominated Anglo- literature for centuries. The ability of this brief sequence to highlight so many of the series' central revolutionary themes speaks to the depth of the show and the way it invites the audience to think about rich subtext rather than pedantically hammer us with morals will just continue to be the gift that keeps giving from this show.

Thanks so much for asking! Didn't know how much I missed doing a deep dive into this kind of stuff.