#there is also something very :) about it being 2004 like several of these people hadn't yet really written thier most iconic work

[kraniumet]

hello taschen 2004 manga design book. you've put a graphic page from okamas hanafuda as an example of ryoichi ikegamis artwork. please rectify this

[keepthedelta]

okay it's kinda specific but is there any brocedes fact that is often overlooked but you think that is essential (or perhaps gives a new approach) to the lore?

that's such a good question. i have several, i hope you don't mind

the first one is the "he'll always be my best friend in my heart" quote. i've seen a lot of people use it as a very earnest declaration etc. (or if they believe in the nico is obsessed with lewis shit as a sign of that) but it was actually nico making a joke when he was doing commentary (on the italian comms i think). he was asked a question about lewis and jokingly/sarcastically said "in my heart he'll always be my best friend", and then immediately clarified that it was a joke (maybe recognising the narrative that would be spun around it). i know this seems kind of anti-brocedes but i do think it is essential to the lore that people recognise nico is not a weird as fandom likes to make out. he's absolutely weird, and he's definitely not normal about lewis, but he's not obsessive, and he feels comfortable enough making jokes about them. when you contrast that with lewis who either refuses to say nico's name in conversations where he is the most relevant person (the better teammates than max interview) or brings him up unnecessarily and then panics about it (grill the grid), i think it changes the dynamic of who is yearning, who is "over it", who is winning the idgaf war (it's neither of them but the difference is lewis lost by playing and nico is open enough about giving a fuck that he's not pretending to play). i am biased, but i also think that if you look back at them during their careers, lewis was always weirder about nico than nico was about him, although again, neither of them can truly be described as normal about each other.

then there's nico beating lewis in the 2004 f3 series that they shared. the narrative of brocedes describes it as lewis always beating nico, lewis being the one to win and nico always being slightly behind. and largely this is true. but in 2004 they were both competing in the 2004 f3 european series, albeit for different teams. neither of them won, but nico narrowly beat lewis. now they were in different teams and nico himself has said that some teams had better cars and equipment than others and that made a difference in the end result. but, nico still beat lewis. he had nearly double the number of dnfs/dns (6 to lewis's 3) and triple the number of wins (3 to lewis's 1), finishing highest of all the entrants who eventually made it to f1 (nico himself, lewis, adrian sutil and robert kubica). but nico himself barely seems to remember this. the narrative of lewis always being better, always beating him, is something he seems to have internalised, even though it isn't quite true, or at least, not as true as people make out.

my third bit of lore is that mclaren wanted to sign nico for the 2008 season. following the drama of fernando alonso (affectionate) and spygate, mclaren had an open seat and ron dennis wanted to fill it with nico. he even offered to buy out nico's contract from williams, but frank williams viewed nico as their best hope and refused. the driver that eventually ended up replacing fernando was heikki kovaleinen, nico's gp2 rival and 100% finnish to his 50% (yes nico's national identity crisis does come into this). lewis ended up winning the championship that year. heikki took only 1 victory, and while i think lewis would have beaten nico, i think nico wouldn't have been a doormat for him like heikki, and would have won at least a couple of races, which would have allowed felipe massa and ferrari to succeed. in many ways i think an argument can be made that nico not getting that mclaren seat really helped lewis to win his first championship, in the same way that if lewis hadn't gone to mercedes, nico would have won three, or if nico had stayed, there is a very real possibility that sebastian vettel would have won 2017. their presence and their success dooms the other, and it always has.

my final thing is that they are the most successful teammate pairing in f1 history. it kind of links back to the last one, where the fact that they are each as good as they are hurts the other one, unlike a lewis and valtteri line up or a michael and rubens line up where there is a distinct number one driver and the other one is to be sacrificed for him. but, even though both of those pairs were together for longer (nico and lewis aren't even in the top 5 longest teammate pairings), it takes more than a number 1 number 2 driver lineup to be the most successful. it takes nico and lewis, who are both number 1 drivers (don't come for me on this, nico would have flattened the likes of valtteri, rubens, or mark webber and you know it). although they were only teammates for four years (and one of those was a sebastian vettel/red bull dominance year) they achieved more pole positions, front row lockouts, wins, podiums, and 1-2 finishes than any other pairing in f1 history. they were utterly, utterly dominant, and that's why they hurt each other so badly. they were the dream team, the absolute best f1 could come up with, but they weren't just competing as a team, they were competing against each other, and only one of them could win

[senkusphone]

Happy Stone Day, everyone!

On this day, when celebrating the onion man is what most people indulge on, let's also turn our eyes to the fascinating civilization that is Ishigami village, in this mini post (compared to what I usually do anyway).

Starting with the reason I am doing this in the first place, Stone Day. It is a celebration from Ishigami Village that takes place in January 4th, which happens to be Senku's birthday, likely an easter egg left by Byakuya in the hundred tales. Unfortunately we weren't shown anything regarding what this celebration involves.

As the manga itself points out, Stone day is significant in several ways, for one, 1/4 is i-shi in japanese, which also means Stone. It is Senku's birthday (and if you've been following me you'll know that the day Senku was born in, January 4th 2004, was the day that Nasa's Spirit rover landed on Mars).

Another tradition is of course the grand bout, which there isn't much left to say about since it was explained in detail in the series, even down to its specific rules

Rule 6 is the only one that wasn't relevant in the series as far as I can tell.

It's been also vaguely implied that there are other fighting tournaments that take place in the village, which makes sense, since why would you keep an open arena just to use it once very 20 years or so?

(Sideways to save vertical space, Suika will pray for your neck)

However it's never explained how this tradition started to begin with; did it exist in treasure island and disappeared after the Ishigami branched off, or did it start with them in the mainland?

The society structure of contemporary treasure island is substantially different, with a number of small villages that are all (at least in theory) managed by a centralized government composed of the master (or "head" much to our amusement) and the prime minister, where most power is held by the master, who also serves as the main religious figure, being the one who largely keeps the hundred tales, which are passed from generation to generation along his lineage.

In Ishigami village things kinda flipped and thus spawned a system that is at least half matriarchal so to speak. Now political power is split between the chief and the priestess, where the chief holds most executive authority while the priestess holds most of the religious power, and it is the lineage of the priestess that keeps the tales and that power in-family, with the chief being some allegedly suited rando from the village.

Even though it's the obligation of the priestess to marry the chief, she is rarely if ever shown as a subordinate to him and both can be seen directing the village, which I think it's very interesting. The anime went as far as expanding on this, by implying that it was Ruri who told Kokuyo to abdicate his position to Senku.

Sneakily she gets to keep being the priestess without having to be engaged, and we see her taking leading roles from then on.

Now I've talked about religious figures but what is their religion to begin with? Hard to tell, we know that they believe in multiple gods who control the forces of nature such as lightning. Similarly it's also been shown that prior to Senku's arrival, they believed themselves to be the only humans on earth, at least some of them believed the earth was flat, and most bizarrely, they believed the moon was something akin to a floating lake, owning to its small apparent size, however that works.

Perhaps they took note of how water tends to form spheres due to surface tension? This reminds me of how some scientist a few centuries ago (but idr who at this moment) believed the moon to be a solid mass of congealed air.

The last thing I want to bring up is the Ishigami village rope, reportedly made with a special technique that's unique to them.

It is also said that the rope reflects rank and profession somehow, but this is not reflected in any noticeable way on the series itself. Boichi probably hadn't been told about this when he designed all 40 known villagers in the span of one week.

The rope is worn somewhere around the body, and it contains a single red thread spun into it, serving as a symbol of kinship among them.

For now I'll leave it at that, as it's getting pretty late in the day, and pretty much all of this is written on the wiki article to begin with. Hope you enjoyed it, I'll see you all some other day.

[fishylife]

Fishy's books read in 2023

Since I like talking so much, I thought I might as well talk about the books I read this year.

I'll go through each of the books I finished reading this year and what I thought of them. All of the books I've listed below were read in their English versions.

John Ajvide Lindqvist - Let the Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in) (2004)

I'd found out about this book because I'd heard about the movie that was based on this book. This book was about a little boy who befriended a girl, who was revealed to be a vampire. The book was creepy because it leaned towards the more gruesome and violent parts of being a vampire. There was also another character who I felt very creeped out by (if you've read the book, you probably know who I'm talking about). While I think the book was interesting in how it approached the relationship between the boy and girl, I didn't find any of the characters particularly interesting. That being said, I think this book might be of interest to people who want to read a vampire/crime novel with a darker take but be warned of the dark themes.

Elena Ferrante - The Neapolitan Novels (2012-2015)

This was a book about the lifelong friendship between two women in Naples. I will admit that several parts of this novel had my blood boiling. I sometimes hesitated to call the two women friends, but instead two women whose lives were intertwined. Why this novel made me so angry was that there were characters who treated others so poorly and yet our characters still gravitated towards them. As the outsider I was like "No!! Don't believe their lies!" but of course that had no effect. Despite the anger and the precarious nature of many of the relationships in this book, I felt that the author portrayed very unique relationships. I struggle even to describe what kind of relationships the characters in this book have because they are so unique. Just calling characters 'friends' or 'lovers' hardly captures the kinds of feelings that they have for each other. I struggle to say I liked the book because of the parts that made me angry but it definitely was good and rich.

An Oresteia (Translated by Anne Carson) (2009)

This was a collection of Ancient Greek plays surrounding the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, and the subsequent murder of Clytemnestra by her children Elektra and Orestes. I hadn't read any Greek plays prior to this and I found this work very interesting. It was not very long, there wasn't a lot of dialogue, but I could feel that within the space between the words, held the thoughts and feelings of the characters. That makes sense because these are plays, which would have acting to accompany the dialogue. While reading this work, I did some research on the Trojan War to try to understand the experience of the intended audience (an audience who was likely quite familiar with the Trojan War). This was an interesting read for my first Greek play.

Edmondo De Amicis - Heart (Cuore) (1886)

This was a children's novel, written from the point of view of a young boy over the course of a year of school before moving away. Since it was a children's book, I found that it was wholesome. I kept expecting some situations that were too good to be true to turn out to be a trick or trap, but those instances never happened. Instead, it was a journey of a boy learning to be kind, learning the meaning of friendship and such. Read this if you want something happy.

Edogawa Ranpo - Strange Tales of Mystery & Imagination (2000)

This was a compilation of some of Edogawa Ranpo's short stories. Edogawa Ranpo was a pioneer of Japanese literature, particularly in the genres of mystery. I'd classify the stories in this compilation as either being akin to detective mystery, or more peculiar tales bordering into horror. I have read some more contemporary Japanese mystery and thriller novels (translated into English). I could definitely recognize the influences that Edogawa Ranpo had on those modern writers, in the way the stories were paced, in the way the writers would look to the dark side of human minds, and in the ways that information was revealed. I was actually really impressed by the variety in this compilation. The short stories varied in content, in form, in style. I would highly recommend this short story series to fans of mysteries and thrillers and especially if you enjoy Japanese crime novels.

W. Somerset Maugham - The Painted Veil (1925)

Of Maugham's novels, I'd only read Of Human Bondage and I didn't like it too much. On the other hand, I found the Painted Veil a great deal more compelling. This book followed a woman who had married a biologist who was stationed in Hong Kong. Her husband found out about her infidelity and after a sequence of events, they travelled to a town that was hit with a cholera outbreak. I think this was an interesting novel about a woman finding her place in life, though it took a lot of loss to get there. I liked it and would recommend it for people who want a serious but short book.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón - The Shadow of the Wind (La sombra del viento) (2001)

For years, I had seen exceedingly positive reviews for this book, and as a result, I think this book was overhyped for me. This book was about a young man who tried to uncover the mystery behind an author of a book he owned. The mystery itself was decent as our main character uncovered the truth of the past which was resolved in the present. Why I didn't love this novel was because I felt that it was tropey. I understand why people would love this movie, because it has so many moving parts that are all connected. However, I didn't feel any close connections with any of the characters as they all felt like character archetypes. I think I would have enjoyed this if I had read it when I was younger, but I think I have outgrown this kind of writing now.

Keigo Higashino - A Midsummer's Equation (2011)

I've read a few of Keigo Higashino's novels and I have no intention of stopping. This was the third book that was translated to English in the Detective Galileo series focusing on Professor Yukawa. What's interesting about Detective Galileo mysteries is that Professor Yukawa is never the main character of these novels, and yet he is the main character of the series. In this novel, Professor Yukawa was attending a panel discussion in Hari Cove, where a death occurred. While the police conducted their investigation, Professor Yukawa would conduct his own parallel investigation, often more casually.

What set this book apart from the previous two translated novels in the Detective Galileo series was the human aspect. While the previous two novels did contain human dilemmas, I felt that it was more prominent in this novel. I don't want to get into spoiler territory but I felt that this book forced me to confront the facts that the characters were humans who were affected by crime, rather than just hand-waving the human aspect and focusing on the gimmick of the crime. This novel also emphasized that while Professor Yukawa was a very competent investigator, he was not an officer of the law, which I thought was an interesting stance to take. I definitely recommend the Detective Galileo series for people who like crime novels. All of the novels in this series are compact but very cool.

Closing Remarks

I'm actually surprised by the number of books I read this year. I just assumed that other than the Neopolitan Novels (the longest book I read this year), I hadn't read very much. But I fit quite a few short books in this year.

Unfortunately because I am a slow reader, it takes me a long time to get around to reading different kinds of books. But I am always on the lookout for interesting books and I do have a to-read book list. It's just that it might be 10 years before I finally get to a certain book lol.

Anyway, did you read any of the books on this list? What did you think? Also let me know what books y'all read this year :)

[hislittleraincloud]

Thank the gods someone else said it, so I didn't have to. Been thinking about the whole I Can Fix Him/Her thing a lot since it's rife in Wyler 🤢 Maybe even worse with the Wenclairs (love the babies but it's really bad, and then the forced romance shit coming from Wednesday's mouth every time someone tries to write Wenclair is so out of character/OOC that's it's worse than anything I saw in Potter back in the day). But we're talking Wyler/Tyler rn.

I've also been thinking of Xavier and how much he suffered through this hot mess of a storyline. How fucking cruel was it to assign Xavier to do his Outreach Day community service with the motherfucker who assaulted him the previous year? No one seems to have thought about that one enough (except for the writers, who knew what they were doing with that, for once).

I read somewhere that Doohan has said that Tyler didn't know who Wednesday was when she came into the Weathervane to get her quad, but that's bullshit. Tyler was already in deep with Laurel, and Laurel's plans were clear by that point. And when Laurel stated at the end that W was never getting to the train because Tyler was sent to intercept her, that actually also applied to the very beginning...there was no way Laurel would have allowed Tyler to take her to the train station the night of the Harvest Festival either. Him giving her her father's file was a means to manipulate her to stay, not a kindness that she thought that it was. (It was also a clue to shove in her face about Gates' hidden motivations -- since Gomez was accused of murdering her brother. Foreshadowing at its finest.)

Don't even get me started on the inexplicable bullshit that was Woe What a Night. (Wednesday dancing her famous dance with the dude she was just told was a bigot and assaulted an outcast...it's inexplicably stupid and ruins the dance sequence for me. It feels like it was edited poorly, since Wednesday stood there staring at him for the last dance like she had just found out about the assault...it's just a jumbling of what should have happened.) Tyler and his stupid fucking entitlement manipulation. "Oh, you asked the kid I beat the fuck out of last year? But I thought we liked each other!" 🤢🤢🤢🤢🤮

Tyler may have been groomed a little (we're led to believe that he's a little older than W, so he's at least 17 or 18) by Laurel, but he was a POS before Laurel. Hell, for all we know, Tyler's Hyde was brought out by the boot camp he was sent to by Donovan and merely brought under control by Laurel. Wednesday's "explanation" in the conservatory was wrong, IMHO, especially since there was no "Galpin Family Secret" when Ansel was alive (Ansel Gates died and orphaned Laurel when she was just a kid...long, long before Donovan ended up with Francie; Tyler was born around 2004, Ansel died close to ~1991 if Laurel was sent overseas as a kid); she had been wrong several times in her conclusions. Prima Mutatio (my own term for the first turning of a Hyde, so I'm just going to use it) is hinted at being something that is not exactly forcefully or purposefully unlocked directly by one person, but by a traumatic event, like childbirth (Francie and her Hyde first coming out). Fester didn't even know what brought out Olga's Hyde when he knew her; that she massacred people during a live performance hints that pressure/nerves/something completely random can bring out a Hyde's Hyde, without them being commanded to kill.

It's pretty clear in the original pilot script and in the nuance of Sheriff Galpin's behavior that he hadn't a clue she was a Hyde until Tyler was born. Tyler's bigotry was picked up somewhere, and (despite the Wenovan moments I've picked out for us in fandom*) Donovan is a (soft) bigot as well, spurred on by the Garrett Gates "murder" and whatever else he experienced in his youth with outcasts. He outwardly groans when he sees the Nevermore outcasts file into the square on Outreach Day...so he is still harboring anti in him. Still, he's bound by his duty as a cop to protect them, and despite her being the daughter of the dude he thought was a murderer, he softened after Episode 5 about Wyler...unknowing(?) that his son was manipulating her all that time. (And already suspecting that he was the Hyde...he knew once the photos came back. Which goes to question: If he knew that Tyler was a Hyde, how could he give them his blessing with Gomez? Seems a bit dangerous and careless to the little thorn in his side, but then again, he also warned Tyler to stay the fuck away from her in Episode 6...not for his sake, but for hers.)

Thank the gods Ortega said that Tyler is off the table for Wednesday as a love interest. I hope she sticks to that, because it would be infinitely worse for the show if she sank into that I Can Fix Him role that fandoms latch onto.

TLDR;

Fuck that monster.

*But Torrrrrrr if you think he's a bigot too, then why Wenov -- SHUSH. Donovan loved an outcast so much that it broke him, and it broke him to fear that Tyler would turn out as violent and fucked up as Francie was. I really hope the new season, if they include Tyler which I think they will, will explore that further. McShane and Ortega had the most chemistry/underlying in their scenes (watch how Ortega speaks with him versus the way she speaks with Weems & other adult authority figures and with her peer characters, or family members...the only other one she speaks to so casually, and the only other one she let her smile out for, is Uncle Fester), they can pull off a backstory on what happened with Francie in a way that might garner Tyler and Donovan some sympathy despite their bigotry, especially if they want to go that "I can fix him" route with Tyler.

The thing about Tyler is the consequence of a general attitude that took over narrative in the last years: the belief that nobody is inherently evil, that there are good reasons why a character does despicable things, and they can be "fixed" making them "good". EG the behavior is the result of something sad that happened to the character, or the character is misguided/lied to/brainwashed, or was traumatized. So if the character is confronted with "the power of love"(TM) and heal their trauma, they will abandon for sure their evil ways.

Also, a lot of people believe that suffering purifies (a very Christian concept, I'm saying it as I was raised Catholic), and that somebody who suffered a lot can't inflict pain to other people; and that if they do horrible things noonetheless then they deserve our compassion because, well, it's not entirely their fault if they are a piece of shit; and sooner or later they will understand their predicament and stop inflicting pain to the others.

It's like the audience (and sometimes also writers and narrators) completely forgot that sometimes people are just rotten and are willing to step on the others for their personal advantage, ot just because it amuses them. Just like in Tyler's case.

I personally think that people can change, but I think you’re correct to an extent. Other than giving them the chance to change, sometimes people are just bad. And yes, sometimes it can be explained with nurture vs nature, but sometimes it can’t be. Two kids can come from the same type of household and come out completely different, yknow? And we have it confirmed that Tyler was a bully. The kids that bully Eugene said he went “soft”. He assaulted Xavier bad enough to get court ordered therapy. He was already a jerk to outcasts before Thornhill came along. She made him worse, that’s for sure, but he was already a bully.

I’m also a believer that people don’t just get a pass because something bad happened to them, except in very nuanced cases. And Tyler very clearly enjoyed what he was doing. He said as much in the police station. He should be held accountable. And until we get more information on Hydes and how they actually work, that’ll be my take.

I mean, in my eyes it was clear that he didn’t care about Wednesday past the attraction that he may have felt when they first met. But he very clearly had fun taking advantage of her. I mean, the dude kissed her, probably knowing that she’d die in a few days. That’s just despicable to me.

[absolutepowerabsolutley]

Lemony Snicket (2004) - Unreleased Deleted Scenes Collection [Part 5]

After a lot of research, I have finally completed this masterpost of all the deleted and alternate scenes from the 2004 film that I could find solid evidence of. Many of which can't be found in the DVD's deleted scenes section. I'm uploading it in multiple parts because there are a lot of HQ pictures and gifs.

Originally, Olaf's tour of his house was longer and focused much more on the children's reactions than Carrey's improv comedy.

This part of the sequence would have featured Count Olaf showing the children his backyard and the run-down stage area in much more detail, setting it up for its appearance in the third act.

A deleted shot from a tv spot showing Olaf scaring Klaus after he asks about the tower.

One of the few examples, along with him asking about Monty's spyglass and Aunt Josephine's photo of their parents, of the inquisitive and suspicious Klaus from the first cut that actually survived into the final edit.

Though this particular shot did not.

Originally, Lemony Snicket's narration about first impressions often being wrong did not occur directly after the children are locked in their room by Count Olaf. Instead, a deleted scene featured Violet and Klaus arguing about what to do. Yet again this would have shown off more of the Baudelaire's distinct personalities and approaches towards problem-solving. It can be found in full in the DVD's deleted scenes section.

However, these HD bits were found in the film's second trailer. Violet tells Klaus not to worry about Count Olaf since he just might not be able to make a very good first impression. This scene would then cut to Lemony's narration about first impressions and the Sunny/Klaus flashback.

Much like the sequence where Olaf gives a tour of his house, the montage of the children cleaning also got massively cut down to just a few shots. Originally it would have followed the children fixing every single part of the house, matching up the exact order of Olaf's tour.

Another cut part of the montage featured Klaus cleaning up the broken-down stage area at the back of Count Olaf's garden until he's distracted by the daylight reflecting off the magnification lens in the tower room, leading him to wonder what could be up there. This tiny clip of it can be found in the film's second US trailer.

One of the promotional wallpapers released with the movie also shows a moment after this, where Klaus has taken off the gas mask he was wearing and is looking at the tower with great interest. Yet another example of his inquisitive and suspicion-prone character trait/arc that ended up being cut out of the film. This would have followed up his asking questions about the tower earlier on the film, and would have subsequently paid off when he found the lens design in Aunt Josephine's house and then eventually the lens itself, in the climax.

The trailer for the movie's video game tie in features this deleted shot of Sunny biting one of Olaf's plates as she cleans it.

The same commercial also contains this deleted shot of Olaf approaching the children.

This scene, where the Hook Handed man tears off his fake hands and threatens the children with his hook was likely cut for being too scary. However, it's deletion ultimately caused massive problems for people like me, who hadn't read the books and thus had no idea he had hook-hands until the scene at the very end. The movie massively edits the troupe's already small roles into basically being just background characters which is something of a problem since several scenes in the movie revolve around recognizing them instantly, even while in disguise, like the end of the TRR sequence. However, the scene itself can be found in the DVD's deleted scenes section.

[bleachbleachbleach]

HELLO.

I just wanted to say that I love, love, love your tags on that character/tool post a lot! Some of my favorite shows/books involve characters that can't keep it together and just barely make it to the end of the story or make it there in an "inconvenient way" and tbh I find that usually the narratives that follow these characters don't really work away from them either--the narrative is just usually more questioning instead of fully formed.

Like, 'what if/how would', y'know? There's less of a clear meaning and more just 'what if they hadn't done that. what if they had done that. what if all that meant nothing. what if that struggle was all there was'.

But oh boy, when they DO work away from the narrative. *chefs kiss*

I mean, most of my favorite Bleach characters are narrative nightmares who either hinder or cut off lines of theme in the story entirely. And, in general, I think there are A LOT of characters in shonen--a genre known for very long narratives that can't possibly complete every thought but also can't just abandon all those characters introduced ESPECIALLY the fan favorites or personal favorites--work in the way you described.

Tbh i think your tags really highlight why so many ppl get drawn to these characters/why they're so fun to play with in fanfiction.

If you have more to add or more thoughts about this you want to lay down I am here, eagerly awaiting and ready to pick them up.

Also, who do you think in Bleach is the most fun characters who sort of drop kicked the story, in your opinion? Who's the one you like the most? And who's the one you dislike the most?

[For posterity the referenced post is this one.]

Aww, thank you! That’s really lovely to hear. I was anxious about even putting it in tags because I don’t think I presently have the capacity to explain it well—and even if I did might still sound bananas to many. Or at least the bit about negotiating with characters and how *they* feel about being subjects in stories. Because as much as that really is my practice saying it out loud takes me back to like… FFN in 2003 where every store was prefaced by extensive chat-form back-and-forths between the fic author and their character "musies" and that is not something I think fandom would benefit from bringing back in force, hahaha. But anyway.

Here’s the part where I disappoint because I don’t think I actually know Bleach well enough to speak to it in this context. WHICH SOUNDS DUMB EVEN AS I TYPE IT BECAUSE LOL WTF IS THE NAME OF THIS BLOG WE ARE CHARLATANS AND POSERS FOR CLAIMING AS OUR NAMESAKE NOT ONE BLEACH BUT THREE BLEACHES but truly, my experience of Bleach has a shallow depth of field. I feel like I have weirdly intimate knowledge of some severe rabbit holes but a non-existent to uneasy sense of the gestalt.

Like idek man, in my "slow re-read where I am actually paying attention" Ichigo hasn’t even met Byakuya and Renji yet. ToT

I'm gonna put this behind a cut because it spidered all over the place, but in summary:

characters and their capacity to produce narrative failure

the charm of longform serialized series and their invitations to imagine stuff

me attempting to talk about Hitsugaya and feeling a fool, as usual

I guess in general terms, I’m really interested in characters and their capacity to produce narrative failure. Not failure as in 'bad' but failure as in things that break form or are circuitous or are actively detrimental to a narrative arc. All my strongest examples of what I’m thinking of are from a different fandom and therefore not relevant to this blog, alas. By comparison I think anyone in Bleach can keep it together better than the characters that are immediately coming to mind, lol. But I think this idea dovetails often with trauma narratives, or depression narratives, because these things are often… non-narrative? Like, there’s no fourth or fifth for minor fall or major lift. Sometimes it’s the same thing over and over again, or maybe nothing. Maybe it’s the exact same self-sabotage narrative dictates could have been avoided. Maybe it’s some act that emanates forth but cannot be explained because it cannot be explained and will never be explained. That’s a version of what I’m talking about, in any case, though not the only version.

Your note about longform shounen definitely resonates with me, too. In my mind I don’t like long things and I prefer series that are more self-contained but whenever I have ever landed in a long-term fandom, with a piece of media I felt obliged to carve out chunks of my life for, and to interact with at that level of creative fannishness, it’s always been something stupid long and serialized by the seat of its pants. I know plot holes or dropped threads bother a lot of people (makes total sense, don’t get me wrong) but I find these things incredibly attractive. I see them as invitations to join in the fun. Especially when it’s so much a part of the form and genre to have this, as you said, lack of real expectation that every thread will be followed to its conclusion (or that it would be worthwhile to do so) and every thought completed.

There’s this piece by David Grann that was published in The New Yorker in 2004 that I really love that speaks to part of this idea, albeit in terms of fictional universes versus fictional characters. But Grann is talking about Sherlock Holmes (Doyle original) and the ways that Sherlockians would like, approach apparent lapses in narrative and then solve them according to the established rules of the universe. I just love that. There’s also the line, "Never had so much been written by so many for so few," which LOL if that ain’t fandom I don’t know what is!!

I feel like I’m actually talking about three distinct but related facets of these thoughts in this post, except all at once and without clear transition, uhhhhh.

Gah, I am broken and now can ONLY think of examples from my not-Bleach fandom, but to try a different tack and add yet another facet to this already funhouse-mirror post, my various attempts to write Hitsugaya often feel like they come up against a version of this. I think Hitsugaya has aggressive side character energy, and I find it difficult to make him the center of a story and have it feel right to me. He feels different to me than writing other minor characters, where they can be the center of their own stories even if their story is not the main story. Like, two of my fave characters in my other fandom have literally like… three lines in 350+ episodes and it feels easier to imagine THEM at the center of their story and I think what it comes down to is that Hitsugaya probably prefers what he not be written. And when he does become more narrative I think he’d prefer that none of it was happening in the fist place. But at the same time he always seems to be…around??? whether there is really a good reason for him to be present or not. XD So while, say, he and Bartleby "would prefer not to" (because THAT'S what this post needs, a Melville reference), Bartleby actually opts out and Hitsugaya out here volunteering.

He also often feels non-narrative to me because he feels very declarative, if that makes sense? Like, the coming-to-decisions or coming-to-realizations parts of existence happen pretty quick, or are approached perfunctorily. I feel like I find narrative in the "coming" part of that equation and instead Hitsugaya will be like, well, I’ve already done that part without you, and/or plan to do that part in the future and it will still be without you, the audience. Anyway, here’s the determination I’ve made, here’s what I’m going to do, and here begins the long and probably tedious process of my doing that thing (off 2 go train in a cave for a bit). I don’t think he actually believes the world is that simple, Tab A into Slot B, but I do think he’s already made that assessment and can see coming to terms with that as a horizon, if that makes sense. So even if he doesn’t know the answer to something, or is completely at a loss of what to do (what to say to Hinamori? how to productively address the number Aizen’s done on him) there’s still not necessarily a story there. Maybe the answer is you grind, and it is repetitive and boring. Maybe you just hold things. There’s not even the act of learning how to hold things, necessarily, just the practice of doing so.

Wow, that probably doesn’t sound good! I feel like I need to suffix this with the assurance that Hitsugaya is my absolute runaway character in the whole series and this was true 15 years ago and it is still true now (truer, even) and everything I just said are reasons why I love him.

[morbid-n-macabre]

This is Cody Posey. Cody murdered his entire family when he was 14 years old; a few years later, at age 21, he was released back into society.

Cody had been living on a ranch in Hondo, New Mexico with his father, Delbert "Paul" Posey, his step-mother, Tryone, and his step-sister, 13 year old Marilea Schmid. From day one Cody's life had been troubled; two electricians would later recall doing some work for Paul when Cody was approximately 18 months old; apparently baby Cody did something which his father didn't appreciate, and Paul took his belt off. The electricians claim they had to physically pull the man off of this baby. Cody's biological mother, Carla Burst, couldn't deal with the abuse, she left Paul pretty early on. A bitter custody battle which stretched out over the years ensued; Carla finally gained full custody after Cody was beaten black and blue with a board by his father. The boy was thrilled to be with his Mama, but tragically Cody's happiness would only last a few months; there was a roll over car wreck which took the life of Carla Burst. Cody begged and pleaded not to be placed with his father, but that's precisely where he was sent.

From here on out Cody was abused each and every single day. The boy was beaten and forced to work 7 days a week on the ranch, from dawn to dusk, often without any food at all. But simple beatings and work wasn't the worst of it, Paul was sadistic bastard; he used an electric cattle prod on his son, beat the child with a lasso, dragged him behind a horse, and this is only some of the physical abuse in which this child withstood! Sadly Paul's wife, Tryone, was no better, and even Cody's stepsister was recruited to join in on the abuse; Marilea was rewarded for telling her parents whenever Cody did something his father wouldn't approve of. Even at school Cody could find no solace; he was watched like a hawk by his perfect stepsister who was just slightly younger than him, and beaten for every and any little thing. For Cody there were no buddies to hang out with, no football teams to cheer for, no days spent riding around on his bicycle, no little girlfriends to crush on. Cody was nothing more than an unpaid ranch hand and his father's whipping boy, and that's it. Well, I say unpaid, but that's not completely true: Cody was allowed ten dollars per month. Paul cashed the monthly SSI checks which Cody received from his mother's death, yet the boy reportedly worked every single day for months with holes in his boots until he could save enough allowance to purchase a new pair of work boots! Yes, child protective services was called several times throughout the years (I read somewhere that the abuse was reported 7 times!) but nothing was ever done; it's just one of those cases where everyone dropped the ball.

All of this went on for years, and maybe the teen never would've retaliated but Tryone and Paul finally pushed the boy too damn far. You know that old saying: There's only so many times you can kick a dog before he bites back? Cody finally bit back. On the evening before of the murders, 4th of July in 2004, Cody claims he was called to his parent's bedroom; when he walked in to see what was required of him, Cody found his stepmother, Tyrone, laying completely naked in her bed. Paul ordered that Cody be intimate with Tryone while he watched, and his nude stepmother attempted to pull the teen to her chest. When Cody refused, his father burnt him on the shoulder with a scrap of metal and a torch! The teen bit Tryone, an act for which Cody was burnt by his father once again. He somehow managed to get away from the situation, the teenager ran to his bedroom where he claims to have cowered in fear the rest of the night. Paul and Tryone had been abusing this young man for years; they'd beaten, tortured, isolated, starved, and humiliated him, but they would not sexually abuse him. In the morning Cody went out to perform his usual duties which included cleaning out the horse stalls. He wasn't performing this "chore" quickly enough, and his father slapped him; Cody later testified that this was when "I more or less lost my mind", it's thought that the teen likely dissociated. Cody grabbed a .38 Special out of his sister's saddlebag, went into the house, and walked up behind his step mother who was nestled up on the couch with a book; the teenager blew a couple of holes through his female abuser's skull. When his father and step sister heard the gun blasts they immediately ran to see what was the matter; the teen shot Paul, then he turned the gun on his sister. How could he leave Marilea alive when it had been her job in life to tattle on him for everything? When his family was dead, the teen loaded the bodies up in a backhoe, dumped them in a ravine, then covered them up with piles of manure. That right there says a whole heck of a lot about the way Cody felt, doesn't it? He physically buried his family in actual crap! Afterwords the teen discarded the murder weapon in a local body of water, drove his murdered father's vehicle to the store for a bottle of Sprite, then he went off to stay with a buddy until his arrest.

So the ranch was owned by a well known local reporter named Sam Donaldson, and by the 6th of July Sam had grown concerned. Paul had been strangely silent, so Sam and his wife decided to drive out to the property and see what was going on. Though Cody had buried the bodies in a crappy shallow grave, he hadn't even attempted to clean up any of the blood or gore; after walking into the home Sam called police. Cody was promptly arrested and charged with triple homicide, crimes to which he quickly confessed; the three corpses were soon recovered.

Much of the abuse in which Cody had survived came out during trial; literally dozens of witnesses testified on the teenagers behalf. A ranch hand named Isabel Vasquez testified to having seen Paul hit Cody in the stomach and shoulder with a pipe for no reason whatsoever, he had watched Paul strike the teen with rocks the size of golf balls, and in the photo I'm enclosing Isabel is demonstrating how Paul used a large metal hook to punish Cody for not moving bales of hay quickly enough.

The physical and emotional abuse was backed up by many witnesses, but of course nobody had been around during the attempted sexual abuse. That said, there's evidence which points towards it being the truth: during the investigation police discovered incestuous pornography on Paul's personal computer. This type of porn, much of it parent/child incest, had often been frequented while Cody and his sister were at school.

Sandy Schmid was Paul's second wife; the two had been married for 5 years while Cody was little. Sandy testified that Paul had always been abusive, and while she was living in the home she had done her very best to protect her stepson from his father's wrath. Sandy also stated that Paul had always had a strange obsession with incest porn. Nearly everyone begged the judge to have mercy on this young man, including the biological father of Cody's murdered stepsister; Marilea's dad, Jake Schmid testified on his daughter's killers behalf! It's a strange situation though, because Jake knew Cody pretty well; Jake had married Paul's second wife, Sandy, so when Jake would pick up Marilea for weekend visits, Cody would come with and spend time with the stepmother. Jake stated on the stand that he had always believed Paul to be abusive towards Cody, that he'd seen fear in the boy's eyes more than once when it was time to go home; Marilea's father also said that he did not hold any ill will towards the young man for what he had done, he felt nothing but empathy for his daughter's killer.

Now not everyone felt sorry for the teenager; the state claimed that Cody's abuse was widely over exaggerated. Their case was that Cody had become angry after his father smacked him as punishment for not cleaning out the horse stalls quickly enough, and they submitted seemingly happy family photos as proof that there had been no ongoing abuse. One of the few witnesses for the prosecution was Verlin Posey, Paul's brother. Verlin claimed that he had never noticed any abuse, nor did he ever see any bruises on Cody. Verlin was seemingly pleased with the idea that his nephew would be spending his life in prison: "One lifetime in prison is a pretty small debt for three.".

Cody was convicted of 1st degree murder in the case of his stepsister, Marilea, 2nd degree murder for killing stepmother Tryone, and manslaughter in the case of his father, Paul. There were also 4 charges of evidence tampering; Cody was looking at life imprisonment. Apparently it was left up to the judge to decide whether the teen was sentenced as an adult or a youthful offender. After hearing all of the evidence in this case, the judge had mercy; Cody was sentenced to psychiatric treatment, and to remain in a juvenile facility until he turned 21 years of age.

In September of '06 a couple of Paul's relatives (I'm willing to bet it was his brother, Verlin) filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the creators of the video game Grand Theft Auto and Sony, among others. In a nutshell, they claimed that the teen had been trained to kill by the video game GTA.

While incarcerated the teen finished highschool and continued his education with college. On October 9th of 2010, which was Cody's 21st birthday, he was released; today he is free, and that's pretty much all we know. He's blending in somewhere, presumably living amongst us.

*I usually *try* to leave my opinion at the door, so to speak, but it's not really possible in this case; this is one killer who I would not mind living next door to me. There is so much abuse which was witnessed by people, so much was left out of this article. They isolated and abused this kid in every way possible. Anyways, I hope Cody is faring well out there, and that adult life is kinder to him than childhood was. Everyone has their breaking point, right? Have you ever thought about it? What could drive you to murder?