#unpopular opinion but i like this fail more than its success

[disco-archetypes]

YOU - Whistle a tune.

DRAMA - Spit flies from your mouth to your moustache, your chest, the ground before you... No sound though.

KIM KITSURAGI - The lieutenant must think it's rather funny. He smiles and quickly turns away.

YOU - Keep blowing.

KIM KITSURAGI - "That's right. Just keep at it, it will come to you."

DRAMA - He's gloating at you. Oh, it's so easy for Mr. Teacher!

KIM KITSURAGI - With his lips puckered the lieutenant lets out a beautiful melodic trill that puts even the Insulindic thrush to shame.

SUNKEN MOTOR CARRIAGE - You hear the sound echo on the large body of water. Clouds race across the spring sky and suddenly you just feel better. About everything.

CONCEPTUALIZATION - Okay, okay... that's way better than what you did.

[cocoabubbelle]

Unpopular Opinion:

I like Bruce Wayne/Batman and all, but I can’t help but roll my eyes whenever DC does some alternative continuities and of all the heroes that become more antagonistic, he comes out unscathed and is one of the most irrevocably good guys that has to take it upon himself to fight his former friends/associates/family.

(Spoilers under the cut.)

Earth 2? That’s mostly Thomas Wayne junior after the first crisis.

The Batman who Laughs? That’s pretty much The Joker injecting a portion of himself into Bruce’s brain and overriding/mutating his personality.

Justice Lords? I don’t know much about their comic versions if they have one, but in the JSL Animated Series, the Batman of that world was the one who redeemed himself and turned against his team mates.

Injustice? Batman will always be the good one and always do the right thing even if he was the one who killed the Joker in a what if scenario because he is humble enough to accept his punishment and even the good Superman he recruits admits could have done the same thing as his world’s Superman and yadda yadda yadda.

DC vs Vampires? They seriously made Batman the only one of the golden trio that never got turned, the one who is trusted to figure out the solution to combat the vampires, and made Dick Grayson/Nightwing the King of the Vampires??

The CW version if the DCU? That Batman only showed up once for all I know, and was a failed attempt to criticize Zack Snyder’s take on the SC universe.

White Knight? Batman was only seen as the antagonist for barely the first few issues before teaming up with Jack Napier to take down the bigger threat, was the hero again when Joker returned, and is currently still a good guy (I don’t hate it, but I feel the role reversal of Batman and Joker’s usual dynamic could have been explored more.)

The Dark Knights of Steel? This one I will let slide on its thin ice since the “Kal-El” who stabbed Bruce was later revealed to be a white martian scout or something. I don’t want to suspect the writers intending the Els to be the antagonists but backtracking and introducing the White martians when reception to yet another antagonistic Superman was negative — and who knows? Maybe they purposely played into that to make the reveal over the actual antagonists more interesting—, but still.

In my opinion, Zack Snyder’s versions of the Trinity was the most successful of introducing a Bruce Wayne/Batman who could be seen as a well-meaning antagonist who was —and later recognized— that he was wrong. (and redeemed himself later too.)

Wonder Woman also gets some of this special treatment at times (most of her Superwomen counter parts are shifted to Lois Lane or Donna Troy, and even Mary Marvel at some point; in the animated adaptation of Injustice, she has reservations from the start and later turns against Superman despite heavily influencing him in the games and comics.)

Why is Superman usually the go-to for making/twisting a genuinely good, idealistic and upright hero who would never abandon his morals into an easily influenced powerhouse who totally will sacrifice/ditch his moral compass when given the opportunity? Some may excuse some of these iterations as being placed with the wrong setting and people who raised him in story, but that could easily work for Diana of Themyscira and Bruce Wayne too if given the opportunity. With the latter two, usually they still develop into the recognizable heroes we know and love, while at best Clark is manipulated and misguided and at worst he willingly embraces his newfound villainy.

Bruce Wayne/Batman is not better than Clark Kent/Superman. Neither is Wonder Woman.

In my eyes, and from what I can tell from most of the golden/silver/bronze age of the comic book era, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman’s character arcs and story development lead them to be seen as EQUALS. Hence their most popular dynamic as a TRIO.

Is Superman arguably the most powerful one? Yes. Is Wonder Woman arguably the most skilled in combat? Yes. Is Batman arguably the most intelligent one? Yes. Do they all have strong convictions and morals? Yes. Do they ALL have weaknesses and the capacity to have momentary lapses of judgement? Yes. Do they all stand strong as both individuals and united teammates? Yes.

Am I saying that the Beware the Superman trope is an overused one? Yes and no. Yes I am sick of it popping up almost everywhere in most western media. No, I don’t think it is without potential to be used as an actually useful plot device/character arc, especially if it extends beyond the “Superman” character template and applies to all manner of superheroes.

That’s just my opinion though.

[we-are-inevitable]

Katherine for the ask game??

How I feel about this character:

SHE HAD SO MUCH POTENTIAL UGH i still love her an ungodly amount but yeah i think she should have had more characterization. this is entirely a problem with writing and not a dig at her character!!

Any/all the people I ship romantically with this character:

im gonna be real before i realized how much i liked javid, i was 100% a jatherine stan- and i still am! i love jatherine so much. there is just something about jatherine that is just.... ugh its so good to me, ESPECIALLY with the added dynamic of jack being a person of color. idk the brain has absolutely latched onto them.

i also do enjoy newsbians! sometimes it just feels like people stick them in randomly, but i really think it works most of the time. my gals <3

My favorite non-romantic ship for this character:

oddly enough, jatherine again. i love jack and kath being close no matter what the relationship is; i think in platonic relationships, they work best as exes who care so SO deeply about each other, but the romance just isn't there. in any other life, they'd be perfect, but they're definitely close.

speaking of davey: davey and kath are SO besties ugh i love them. they take no shit from anyone, they're so bitchy, and i want to have a brunch with them purely for the gossip. every annoying twink needs their equally annoying bi bestie and that is so them in my heart. let them be a little stereotypical together its ok

My unpopular opinion about this character:

the girlbossification of katherine pulitzer needs to stop. i feel like both canon and fanon kath is treated as the savior of the newsboys, but its a very classist thought to say that they would have failed without a rich heiress there leading the way. she ABSOLUTELY helped, she's instrumental to the story and this is not diminishing her impact- but there is a difference between "katherine is important to the success of the strike" and "katherine saved the strike"

also i know the fandom sees her as a lesbian but this babe is bi. shes so bi. kath and jack are bi4bi they told me themselves

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

all in all she leaves me wanting more. more backstory, more characterization, more interactions with the boys. i want to see her be integrated into the group instead of on the sidelines- and we get that a little in KONY, but i feel like there's not enough leadup. lets be real, we all know she's chasing a story, and i want to SEE her start caring about the boys in more than after falling for jack. i want to see more of her progression as a character and not a love interest!! which is again not her fault it's the writing!! but god !!!!!! i want more of her

My crossover ship:

can i say newsbians for this .. crossover between 92sies and livesies lmao

tysm cam i love kath sm

[blood-darkened-moon]

What is your opinion about Alexander Ashford personality?

PD. I should have added this question to the previous, but I just forgot :(

No problem. This works well as a topic on its own. There isn’t much information available about Alexander, so this is somewhat speculative.

His most notable trait is his craving for recognition. He was desperate to leave a mark on his family’s history, which resulted in the Veronica project. Using his or Edward’s DNA as a base would have been much easier, but “only” creating a hyperintelligent clone wasn’t enough for Alexander. He wanted to “revive” Veronica. I’m not an expert in cloning, but from what I’ve read, this must have been an insanely difficult task. He needed a full set of chromosomes, not just some DNA fragments. Veronica died roughly 100 years ago, and I doubt that a mummified corpse is a good way to preserve DNA. (If anyone more knowledgeable in cloning wants to disagree, feel free to let me know.) You could likely compare it to cloning attempts on extinct animals. To my knowledge, so far, not one of them was truly successful. Also, the DNA they use for these attempts is taken from living animals, frozen tissue, or in ethanol preserve specimens and, therefore, probably in a better state. Alexander must have spent a lot of time with the reconstruction of Veronica’s genome before he could even start with the insertion of the intelligence genes. Keep in mind, he did all this by himself in the 1960s. And while the world of Resident Evil isn’t the same as ours, especially regarding scientific progress, Alfred and Alexia are likely the first or among the first successful (human) clones. So, this man was an outstanding geneticist.

Now comes the downside, Alexander was very ambitious to create a Veronica clone, but he seemed to have little passion for research in general. From what we know, he did not continue his work on genetics after he had achieved his goal and Alexia was born. Also, Alexander was apparently very, very inflexible. He was completely fixated on continuing his father's virus research, and since virology wasn’t his field of interest, Alexia should do it instead. Alexander failed to realize that his results from the Veronica project are, in my opinion, a million times better than whatever came out of the T-virus research. Sure, the virus gives you superpowers, but you either go crazy, suffer severe mutations, or both, while the intelligence genes have no side effects. Alexander’s profits and reputation could have skyrocketed if he had continued to pursue his research and sold it to the right people instead of desperately clinging to his father’s approach.

This covers Alexander as a researcher. Now here’s a bit of him as a person. Alexander seemed to be a rather unsociable and unpleasant man. While Edward contained contacts with many high-ranking researchers for years, Alexander lived secluded at the end of the world. He wasn’t married, nor did he have any notable friends. A lack of input from the outside may also explain why Alexander never realized the scope of his research results.

A hint of his unpopularity is his disappearance. It was never said what kind of story Alexia and Alfred made up to explain it, but since Nosferatu isn’t particularly well hidden, apparently there wasn’t much effort put into investigating this incident. Even Harman, who worked most of his life for Alexander and the Ashfords, seemed more concerned about Alfred’s wellbeing than whatever happened to Alexander. No one really missed him. No one cared if he was still alive or not.

Regarding his treatment of Alfred and Alexia, I wrote about it in detail here. So I will keep this short. Alexander did not treat his children well and completely lacked empathy toward them. While he was neglectful towards Alfred and never gave him a chance for reasons out of the boy’s control, he put immense pressure on Alexia and sacrificed her childhood for his goals. How old was Alexia when her education started? Two or maybe even a bit younger? Genius or not, children that age cannot decide what they want to do in the future. He did not see the twins as human beings. To him, they were the more or less successful result of the Veronica project. Alexander seemed to be unaware of how much he mistreated them, though, as you can see in his video message in Darkside Chronicles.

As a side note, I don’t consider the events of DC to be fully canon for several reasons. First, Alfred and especially Alexia have been changed so much that they are basically different characters. Second, these changes affect the overall story quite a bit. Third, the CV story there is told by Leon, who wasn’t present during the incident, which can be seen as an explanation for the differences. But let’s ignore my reservation for now. While Alexia’s personality differs in both games, her backstory is still the same.

In the video, Alexander presented himself as a concerned father who begged people to help Alexia by killing her. But there’s not a single word about his deeds, no remorse for what he has done, nothing. Instead, he put all the blame on Alexia, who was still 12 at the time he recorded the video. Constructing the Linear Launcher was apparently a better solution than asking himself what had led to the situation in the first place. I assume he didn’t treat other people much better than his children, after all, no one cared about what happened to him.

In summary, I would say Alexander was a great scientist as long as he had a goal, but he was probably an unpleasant person to deal with and had little consideration for others.

[ykronix]

Using my blog for more unpopular opinions, I’m not a fan of the new mechanic for the Ink Demon.

I’ve seen both sides where people like it or not. For me, personally, it takes out the tension completely on a gameplay perspective. The thing that made the BATIM Ink Demon interesting during the Chapter 3 segment was that he was presented as a tangible threat you can interact with. That means you can see, track, and evade him as necessary whenever he appeared. You can attach your success or failure of escaping to the decision of this one character deciding to appear in this particular place at this particular time, but you always had more than one way of approaching it.

In BATDR, it will always be a fail rate without hiding, and I get storywise its to emphasize that the Demon is much more powerful and won’t be as easily duped (along with other story issues), but the dynamics of the mechanic changes completely from having to get out of line of sight or outrunning him to a locker to just keeping your body within 5 seconds of the next hiding place at all times. Which...kind of sucks, because that means every now and then you’re just camping next to a hiding place if you’re going to a stretch of area that won’t have any hiding places available. You’re not evading anything, you’re just playing what is essentially a musical chairs mechanic.

I guess tl;dr its not as interesting without the interaction. I could imagine him as a real enemy that can stalk and kill other enemies on occasion (although I know that would be open to abuse). If you weren’t hiding when he appears and he spots you, it could become a 100% game over with hiding places no longer protecting you (you can hop in a Miracle Station and Bendy rips the damn door off its hinges...I would shit my pants).

[fandomxo00]

WARNING❗️❗️ talks about drugs, abuse, trauma, mental health and drinking❗️❗️❗️❗️

probably unpopular opinion and I do not condone the shit that this person does or the way they act but I dont know why everyone genuinely hates JoJo Siwa, if you couldn't tell from the dance moms reunion she has some repressed trauma that she doesn't want to talk about.

It is really hard to live with any type of trauma but Abby treated that girl like shit and she said it was what made her better.

All of this crazy, annoying shit is a cry for help. In my opinion (which can be totally wrong i just need to rant after see the jojo c*ke thing)

She's trying so hard to be something she's not and she's drinking, being implusive, doesn't really care but then gets mad when people boo her, plus the new drug thing popping up

I know people in my life with repressed trauma and I know it is incredibly difficult for alot of people with trauma to be oh i do have that, the way i treated was bad, usually because the abuser gives them something or even scares them into the victim wanting to protect the abuser. But this isnt something they do consciously because they dont want to get better but usually because they feel like they have nothing to complain about because someone else has had it 'worse', when trauma and mental health should never ever be I am worse off than you, its hard for everyone who deals with it whether its a little bit anxiety and depression or borderline and ocd

which is usually unhealthly numbed by alcohol or drugs

And to anyone who says Abby Lee Miller didn't abuse those kids has not watched dance moms.

Just stop feeding in to it, stop being a bully so many people have bullied her over the years and you really think that doesn't fuck up someone psyche?

She was a CHILD when she the most successful and if you havent seen the repercussions of child actors or stars then do your research and become more informed before writing something awful about someone.

AGAIN I am not saying the public drinking, the cringey music, etc is okay, because its not. But she is damaging herself so much more than she is harming anyone else (from what i am aware of) But to be aware of all the those children who did look up to her and the damage this might cause BUT it still isnt completely on Jojo bc parents should be aware and proceed with caution. Like i said ik someone with repressed trauma and I am constantly hurt by this person so i created distance and healthy boundaries.

And to the people who are just trolling her to troll her literally fuck off and get a life.

WHAT IS THE POINT IN MAKING SOMEONES LIVE MISERABLE OR TREATING SOMEONE LIKE SHIT?!

But I am also autistic so I really do not understand the social construct of why people actively bully or harrass someone bc unless I am out of control I would never want to hurt someone else bc Ik what it feels like to be treated like shit and no one else should feel that no matter who they are

Can we just hope she gets better? Can we stop thinking ALL of this is for media attention, (Ik alot of it is) or so we take her more seriously but the latter isnt happening but society needs to stop feeding into toxic behavior especially with someone who was a role model for so many young girls

What I am trying to say is I am aware of the factors but at this point its not funny anymore, a rumor going around that you are doing c*o*ine isnt funny or a joke. I know we can't control her or make her do anything but if you dont give something attention most of the time it goes away or the person does something else to get attention (which hopefully will be tad bit healthier) or she might keep popping up like a cockroach- Idk if this is real or not but even if it is all for attention the way she is getting it is concerning and shouldnt be a joke or something you want to know more about.

But I do know that the media is hungry to watch young women fail because it has literally always been that way but why are women that are aware that something is wrong, okay with this?

Ignore this if it's completely wrong again i needed to rant bc i felt bad when i saw a post about the c*ke

Omg i think i had a few mood swings there

[cometomecosette]

Character ask: Grantaire

Tagged by anonymous

Favorite thing about them: Despite his small role, he’s such a rich character who appeals on multiple levels. For starters, he’s funny, witty, lively, and fun-loving, which provides much-needed relief from the story’s heavy drama. But at heart, of course, he’s a “sad clown,” and his cynical worldview is poignant and sometimes all too relatable. And then there’s the key contradiction within his character, which is both fascinating and moving: the fact that despite being a resolute skeptic, he adores his idealistic friends, is only happy in their presence despite mocking their beliefs, and loves Enjolras, idealism personified, to the point that he chooses to die with him. He would be a compelling character even without the gay subtext, but the fact that he’s almost explicitly in love with another man makes him all the more engaging for modern audiences. It’s impressive that Hugo managed to put so much substance into a minor character who only appears in a few scenes.

Least favorite thing about them: Well, he is a loose cannon who fails to make himself useful as a revolutionary. As much as we might like him, it’s understandable that Enjolras dislikes him until the end. In the novel (glossed over in the musical), there’s also his casual sexism, which was probably to be expected from such a wild and worldly young man in the 1830s.

Three things I have in common with them:

*I’m often disappointed with the state of the world and feel tempted to become a total cynic.

*I enjoy physical pleasures and sometimes indulge in them too much. (I’m more prone to overeating than drinking, though.)

*I admire Enjolras’s idealism enormously.

Three things I don’t have in common with them:

*I very rarely drink alcohol.

*I don’t belong to a group of revolutionaries.

*I’m female.

Favorite line: From the novel, it wasn’t easy going through his long speeches to pick out favorite lines, but I finally narrowed it down.

About Christ’s cross: “There is a gibbet which has been a success.” (Or, in another translation, “a gallows that made good.”)

About Enjolras: “What fine marble!”

From his first rambling speech: “Life is a hideous invention of I know not whom.”

From the famous dialogue in “Enjolras and his Lieutenants,” when Enjolras asks him if he’s good for anything: “I have a vague ambition in that direction.”

When Enjolras accuses him of believing in nothing: “I believe in you.”

From “Preliminary Gayeties:

"...I suspect that God is not rich. The appearance exists, it is true, but I feel that he is hard up.”

“Marius and his Marie, or his Marion, or his Maria, or his Mariette. They must make a queer pair of lovers. I know just what it is like. Ecstasies in which they forget to kiss. Pure on earth, but joined in heaven.“

And of course, from his ultimate self-sacrifice:

“Long live the republic, I’m one of them!”

And his final words, to Enjolras:

“Do you permit it?”

From the musical:

“I am agog, I am aghast!

Is Marius in love at last?

I have never heard him ooh and aah!

You talk of battles to be won,

And here he comes like Don Ju-an!

It’s better than an o-per-a!”

and

“Drink with me to days gone by.

Can it be you fear to die?

Will the world remember you when you fall?

Can it be your death means nothing at all?

Is your life just one more lie?”

brOTP: His fellow Amis, and in many productions of the musical, Gavroche.

OTP: Enjolras, though less in the main plot than in the afterlife, and/or in a better time and place where they could have reached an understanding sooner.

nOTP: Any woman.

Random headcanon: His backstory, with everything that made him such a skeptic and yet gave him such a profound need for others’ idealism, would probably be worthy of its own novel.

Unpopular opinion: While I do think he’s in love with Enjolras, I don’t take great offense to seeing his devotion read in a platonic way too, because it does have much more depth than just romantic attraction. And I certainly don’t think Enjolras is in love with him; I ship them in a sense of “what could have been.”

Song I associate with them: “Drink With Me.”

Favorite pictures of them:

This illustration by Gustave Brion.

Anthony Crivello with crazy ‘80s hair, Broadway, 1987.

And with normal hair in the 10th Anniversary Concert, 1995.

Paul Truckey, US 3rd National Tour, 1996.

Tom Zemon with Stephen Buntrock as Enjolras, Broadway, 1997.

Hadley Fraser, 25th Anniversary Concert, 2010.

George Blagden, 2012 film.

[laundryandtaxes]

Ukraine is not only holding Russia off but taking back territory, whilst 'Putin's War' is becoming increasingly unpopular at home as conscripts are given Airsoft scopes and have to buy their own body armour and tents. Russia's logistics have failed. Biden definitely never foresaw this scale of incompetence but why are you phrasing this as a failed American imperial gambit instead of a surprisingly successful Ukrainian self-directed war of liberation?

Any conflict can and frankly usually does have more than one way in which it can be accurately characterized. For instance, I agree that Ukraine has put up a surprisingly effective fight against remarkable odds. But I absolutely don't think this war has been self-directed in any meaningful sense. The reason Ukraine was able to do such remarkable damage to the number of Russian brass alive is because NATO (the US) helped them locate and kill those targets- that doesn't mean use of open communications by Russian troops and the fact that Russian brass was so close to the battlefields weren't major factors, but NATO intervention is the deciding factor in those assassinations. The reason Ukraine has been able to push back Russian offensives is because NATO is pumping weapons into it, and NATO has all but admitted to having its own boots, if not on the ground, very very close to the ground. NATO is absolutely running this show, and without its weapons and intelligence and, frankly, probably more, I think this war goes very differently and is a whole lot shorter. While I don't have a crystal ball I think the conflict is growing rather than shrinking, and while it is unfortunately very likely to end in direct contact between NATO troops and Russian troops what we are currently looking at is, in my opinion, a proxy war in which NATO is feeding Ukrainians into a meat grinder to nip at Russian military capability while Putin tosses young Russian men into his own meat grinder because he clearly does not really care how many conscripts he loses. One fundamental question is who can keep this up for longer. Americans don't like paying for war, even if their leadership does, and the only way these weapons shipments continue to happen is with US taxpayer money for a war many Americans have all but forgotten about, and Europeans are tightening their belts for a cold winter and considering holding their weapons for protection in the event of further Russian advancement West. Zelensky wouldn't spend so much time courting Western military support if he didn't think he needed it, and he wouldn't speak nearly so boldly if he didn't think NATO was backing him up. But at some point the importation of a war effort will either dry up, effectively ending the war (this is what I suspect would happen with more limited media coverage of the war as people decided they just didnt care enough about a war overseas to pay for it, but media and politicians and their respective propagandists lean war hawkish here, even if the people again do not) or it will explode as NATO officially steps into the fray. Either way, the difference is having NATO heavily involved, or not.

In terms of whether the war has been a "failed gambit" I think it is far too soon to tell, but the majority of wars do not see one actor only ever winning and one actor only ever taking losses, and that means it is very easy to create any narrative you want out of wins and losses but very little reason to put much stock on any one of them until all the dust has settled. For instance, the US won a number of military and non military conflicts in Afghanistan, perhaps culminating in the installation of its own government there, but it was only as long as the US was actively propping that government up that it stood any chance of survival and ultimately the war was a failure and destined to be a failure almost from the outset. So perhaps Ukraine can be said to be taking back some territory. It can also be said to be losing some territory. I suspect this means news media will be able to paint Ukraine as "winning" for quite some time, but that doesn't mean I have much reason to believe that's what's actually happening any more than I have reason to read Russian news of their great advancements and think they're definitely "winning" at this exact moment. So talk of conscription, for instance, is like reading tea leaves right now. Conscription is not at all an unusual choice in war, and Russia sent conscripts to war well after Ukraine prevented any of its fighting age men, many of whom absolutely would have preferred to go to Poland and live a full life with their wives and children, from leaving. But the point is I don't think this war last nearly this long and costs nearly so much human life without NATO intervention.

[xiyao-feels]

☕ possibly unpopular opinion, but I don't think lxc survives his seclusion. I think his world view is too badly shattered and he either wastes away slowly or outright kills himself.

I like—one-quarter agree with this, I think?

On the one hand, as I've said before, I do think CQL LXC kills himself. The man is just... really completely broken. And also just tried to die with JGY. I mean, I don't even think he goes into seclusion first, necessarily.

On the other hand, while MDZS LXC is also very much broken, I don't think he does die; even aside from anything else, JGY is still sealed in the coffin, and dying would be leaving him behind in a way it wouldn't in CQL—so in MDZS I don't think he does.

The part where I totally disagree with you is—I don't think it's about his worldview. It's about JGY being dead. I—think people very much want it to be about something other than that (including his grief for JGY /and NMJ/, which, still no) , and I am as ever prepared to look at a textual argument in favour if someone wants to assemble one, but honestly I think the text is pretty clear here. Throughout the temple, he's reacting and processing pretty normally—to borrow from my own previous work, here's an overview of some of his reactions to things and people other than JGY:

Obviously we see [LXC] react when he’s telling LWJ about WWX’s feelings, but even beyond that, even when he’s occupying a more background role in the narrative, we’re given his reaction quite a few times. He sighs when LWJ seals his spiritual powers (ch 100); he tends to NHS, covering with his outer robe (ch 102), comforting him when he’s disturbed at the sight of the coffin (ch 103), protecting him from SMS (after NHS frames him for stabbing him, ch. 107) and from NMJ (ch 107), and comforting him and giving him pain medicine about the wound in his leg (ch 108); along with LWJ, he’s distressed by the sound of JC’s sword-scraping technique against JGY’s music (ch 101); he tries to warn JC a couple of times when JC is fighting JGY (ch 101), cautions JL (ch 101) and later JC (ch 102) about worsening JC’s injuries, and along with JL, WWX, and LWJ freezes when JC slaps JL to the ground (ch 102); he asks Minshan why he’s being rude to LWJ, and a little later, with SMS and JL, pauses in astonishment when LWJ laughs (ch 100); he averts his gaze from and seems perhaps embarassed by the ghosts that WWX summons (ch 104); he calls out to WWX to remind him that his current body is closely related to JGY, and will therefore attract NMJ’s fierce corpse (ch 107). He actually has a couple of entertaining reactions to Wangxian being Wangxian: he coughs and tells WWX it is maybe not the best time and place for this when WWX is about to repeat “I really wanted to sleep with you,” and then later he and Jin Ling inexplicably! move their sitting cushions far away from Wangxian’s and gaze into the distance (ch 100).

And of course he reacts to JGY again and again, and—again!—is engaging and processing. Again pulling from my previous post—

And more than anything else—in what I think is a very instructive contrast—he reacts to JGY, in a way that reflects an ongoing continual emotional investment. He is, quite notably, consistently worried about JGY and unable to stand the sight of him in pain, even when he thinks he shouldn’t be. When the coffin trap goes off, and they overhear Jin cultivators wailing and a pungent smoke emerges, there’s worry in LXC’s eyes; after JGY and Minshan make it out, and JGY takes some medicine against the poison, LXC hesitates for a moment and then asks what happened (ch 103). After LWJ cuts JGY’s hand off—which means /after/ he’s taken JL hostage, note—LXC “seemed as though he wanted to help him for an instant,” though “in the end he dared not” (ch 106). When Minshan asks him for medicine for JGY, seeing how terrible JGY looks, he hesitates slightly before they’re interrupted by NMJ’s success fighting the Jin cultivators (ch 107). After they’ve defeated NMJ, he treats JGY’s wrist; moreover, “Seeing that Jin GuangYao almost passed out from the pain, Lan XiChen, who in the beginning wanted to use this to punish him, still didn’t have the heart to bear it,” and goes for the pain-relief medicine from NHS. And this is all not even accounting for his reactions to JGY either during his questioning of JGY or post-stabbing!

and

For the first, he calls out Sect Leader Jin when JGY starts in on JC after JC calls him the son of a prostitute (ch 104), although notably he does not do the same in their earlier confrontation when JGY is distracting JC in order to defeat him, only warning JC (ch 101); when JGY confesses to having burned down the brothel, he’s distressed when JGY says that it wasn’t entirely to remove the traces (ch 105); he becomes /less/ angry about the second siege and about QS when it turns out that he was operating under constraint in those conditions (ch 106); and of course, the thing he’s angriest about is JGY killing his father, “and even in such a way” (ch 106). In ch 103, looking down at the coffin he is shocked that JGY buried something that caused such horror to its surroundings, but without further information about JGY’s reasons this does not metamorphose into anger.

And there's even more! I don't want to quote all of that section because it's really long, but you get the point: before JGY dies, he's distressed, sure, but he's still processing.

And then after JGY dies, it's—

Lan XiChen staggered a few steps back from the push. He hadn’t realized what happened yet.

Lan XiChen stared at the coffin enveloped in seven guqin strings. He was still lost in thought. Nie HuaiSang extended a hand and waved it before his eyes, terrified, “… B-Brother XiChen, are you alright?”

Lan XiChen, “HuaiSang, just now, was he really trying to catch me off guard with an attack?”

Nie HuaiSang, “I think I saw it…”

Hearing his hesitation, Lan XiChen pressed, “Think it over some more.”

Nie HuaiSang, “If you ask me like that, I can’t be sure either… It really did seem like…”

Lan XiChen, “Cut out the ‘seem like’! Did it happen or not?!”

Nie HuaiSang answered with difficulty, “… I don’t know, I really don’t know!”

This was the only thing Nie HuaiSang knew to say when he was desperate. Lan XiChen buried his forehead in his palm. He seemed as if his head was about to split, unwilling to speak again.

Lan XiChen was startled, “Induce? Induce what?”

Lan WangJi’s voice was low, “Jin GuangYao’s killing intent.”

If it were the usual ZeWu-Jun, he couldn’t have failed to fathom this. But right now, it was likely he had no more space in his mind to think.

(ch 109)

Veins suddenly lined the back of the hand in which Lan XiChen placed on his forehead. His voice sounded muffled, “… Just what does he want to do? I once thought I knew him well, and then I realized I did not. Before tonight, I thought I knew him well once more, but now I do not.” Nobody could give him an answer. Lan XiChen repeated in frustration, “Just what does he want to do?”

Of the people here, some were cleaning up the scene, some were solidifying the seal on the coffin, some were thinking about how to move it safely, and some were feeling angry. Lan QiRen raged, “XiChen, what in the world is wrong with you?!”

As his hand pressed the corner of his forehead, Lan XiChen’s face was full of an unspeakable grief. He seemed tired, “… Uncle, I am begging you. Ask no further. Really. Right now, I really wish to say nothing.”

Lan QiRen had never seen Lan XiChen, a child he single-handedly brought up, look so agitated and discomposed. He looked at him, then looked at Lan WangJi, surrounded by disciples alongside Wei WuXian, and felt more irritated the more he looked. He felt that of these two of his proudest disciples who had been absolutely perfect, neither listened to him anymore and both gave him much worry.

Lan QiRen watched Lan XiChen who followed behind him sluggishly, still absent-minded, and sighed forcefully before he left with a flip of his sleeves.

(ch 110)

And then in the banquet extras, three months later:

Wei WuXian still clung to Lan WangJi’s chest, face buried at his neck as he felt the sandalwood aroma on Lan WangJi’s body grow even richer. He felt lazy all over, eyes closed, “Is your brother alright?”

Lan WangJi embraced his naked back, stroking again and again. After a while of a silence, he answered, “Not really.”

Both of the two were sticky with sweat. Wei WuXian felt an itch crawl from his skin all the way to the bottom of his heart as Lan WangJi stroked him. He twisted somewhat uncomfortably, swallowing Lan WangJi even deeper.

Lan WangJi lowered his voice, “In the years when I was in secluded meditation, Brother had always been the one to comfort me.”

Yet now the situation was the exact opposite.

Likely because Lan QiRen got a heart attack whenever he saw Wei WuXian, he simply decided not to look at him, staring straight forward. Lan XiChen was pleasant as always, holding the hint of a smile at his lips that always seemed like spring wind. Yet, perhaps because of the secluded meditation, Wei WuXian felt that ZeWu-Jun looked a bit frail.

(ch 115)

After the tasteless meal, the servants took away the plates and tables. As usual, Lan XiChen started to summarize the recent plans for the sect. But after listening for just a few sentences, Wei WuXian began to feel that he was a bit absent-minded. He even remembered two night-hunting locations wrong and didn’t realize after he spoke, causing Lan QiRen to throw a couple of sideway looks at him and puff his goatee into the air. A while later, he finally couldn’t help but interrupt him. Fortunately, the sect banquet finally ended, although somewhat hastily.

(ch 116)

So to recap—before JGY dies, he's distressed but he's still processing and reacting to things basically normally, he's got his head in the game. And then after JGY dies, he is very much /not/ processing things, he's not reacting normally, the things he's preoccupied with are entirely about JGY, LQR is like 'I've never seen him this way before.' And when we see him three months later, failing at very basic tasks he's long performed perfectly, it's the same kind of symptom—just as it was in ch 109, he seems to have no more space in his mind to think.

There's also the explicitly-drawn parallels between him and LWJ—by LQR, and by LWJ himself, paralleling LXC's current state with his own time in seclusion. And what would LWJ have needed comforting about while he was in seclusion? It's not the shattering of his worldview—it's Wei Ying.

I'm not going to go and rewatch and cap CQL temple, but the same basic pattern shows. Before JGY's death, he's functional and processing: afterwards, he's broken. I do think CQL LXC is more emotionally agitated before JGY's death than MDZS LXC is, but he's also even less functional afterwards so it evens out. If you go to 18:40ish in ep 50 (on YT, might be a different timestamp in Netflix) you can watch LXC stand frozen and stare into space and totally fail to react to anything including the conversation right next to him about his brother and WWX having run off.

I mean, I think it's also about the manner of JGY's death, if JGY had, idk, died heroically saving JL's life or something a year earlier he'd still have broken but probably not as badly? But it really is about JGY.

Tldr: I do think he kills himself in CQL; I don't think he does, even passively, in MDZS; but either way, his state at the end of canon isn't about his shattered worldview, it's about JGY being dead.

[marshmallowgoop]

Magic Kaito vs. Magic Kaito 1412

I’m not sure if I ever finished all twelve episodes, but I first watched at least a handful of the original Magic Kaito specials about a decade ago, and I remember really enjoying them. Superhero stories are among my favorites, and while both Magic Kaito and its sister series Detective Conan overlap with the genre in various ways—after all, Conan’s glasses were literally inspired by Clark Kent—Kaito’s flashy costume alone pushes his adventures more in that direction. So, maybe it’s no wonder that, back in the day, I kind of considered Magic Kaito my preferred series of the two.

Recently, I’ve got a reignited interest in the DCMK world (evidently). And it’s not a bad time to have a reignited interest, because English-language accessibility for this universe is much better now than it was ten years ago. Conan’s getting new movie dubs, and Kaito’s newer, expanded TV series, Magic Kaito 1412, is freely available on Crunchyroll. Obviously, I had to give it a shot.

I wasn’t impressed. Far from it. I chalked up my old fondness to nostalgia goggles. Kid the Phantom Thief is simply more enjoyable in Detective Conan than in his own thing, I figured.

But a few weeks ago, those old specials went up on Crunchyroll Germany. And it took me a while, but I finally decided to figure out the truth, once and for all. Have my tastes totally changed, or has Magic Kaito anime not always been Like That?

I was impressed. I watched all of one episode, and I enjoyed it so much more than 1412.

Which surprised me! Just examining the first episodes of both series, they’re honestly practically identical. They cover the same story beats almost exactly. Kaito’s introduction is even consistently him being disgusting to Aoko—behavior that, nauseatingly, convinced me that Mineta of the My Hero Academia series would actually be adored if he were conventionally attractive.

But as it turns out, that’s relevant to why the original Magic Kaito strikes me as far more palatable. Kaito’s actions towards Aoko are still indefensible in the old special, but he doesn’t repeat them on his teacher, and there are repercussions. Unlike in 1412, Kaito doesn’t get away with his harassment because his teacher finds him charming; in fact, Aoko even later notes that he “should be thankful [he] [wasn’t] expelled,” implying that he was indeed punished harshly for what he did. While Aoko assures Kaito’s mother that he didn’t get in trouble in 1412, in the original special, it’s clear that being cute isn’t enough to give him a free pass for disrupting class and being gross.

Further, in a more general sense, the tone of both series is of course goofy overall, but the characters in the old Magic Kaito feel much more like human beings than the cartoonish caricatures portrayed in 1412. A scene especially missing from the new show is a quiet one where Kaito and Aoko walk together after school. With the sun hanging low in the sky and a sparkling river flowing beside them, Kaito expresses his disappointment in how his magic trick didn’t exactly end as planned. “I guess I need to work on my finale,” he bemoans, but Aoko is more concerned with why he feels the need to pull these ridiculous stunts in the first place.

She quickly gets her answer. One of the exuberant little kids who had run by them earlier falls over and cries, and Kaito doesn’t hesitate to cheer him up with magic. And Aoko watches. She sees the way the little boy’s face lights up. She sees how he runs off again with renewed energy. And she smiles. She doesn’t say it, but the audience gets the message.

Oh. That’s why Kaito’s a magician. That’s why Aoko walks by his side.

I won’t claim to fully comprehend Kaito’s character. I haven’t read the manga, it’s been years since I’ve seen more than the first episode of these old specials, I’ve only watched about 20% of 1412, and for as much as I’ve been posting about Detective Conan lately, I’m (maybe humorously) about the farthest thing from current and would only be able to tell you about Kid’s first appearance in that show. But when Kaito returns to his empty home in the original series, and when he announces that he’s there to nobody at all, and when he welcomes himself back, all with a smile and a cheerfulness to his tone, I deeply feel his loneliness. I feel the weight of his lost father. I feel that, even if some of his tricks are inappropriate and inexcusable, he does them because he wants to make people laugh. He doesn’t want anyone to feel as sad and alone as he’s felt.

Maybe I missed it, but I didn’t get any of that from Magic Kaito 1412.

And they’re small things, they really are. But they make a world of difference. Even Jii, who really only becomes more than just a mysterious figure in the episode’s closing minutes, feels more like a tangible person in the special. He loudly gasps for breath after performing the magical, fantastical feats of his old friend, and it’s such a tiny, minuscule detail, but when watching, I feel it so strongly. I literally understand the strain of Toichi’s loss on Jii, too.

Beyond narrative decisions—and there are others that I much prefer in the old series, such as how Kaito links his failed magic trick to his father’s “poker face” philosophy, and how Kaito uses a successful variation of his earlier trick to escape the police as Kid the Phantom Thief—I also just simply prefer the original art style. Magic Kaito 1412 is slick and shiny and modern, but in being so, it strikes me as much more generic than the older-styled 2010 special. Shot compositions also feel more powerful in the first anime; just consider how differently the two series handle what is arguably the emotional height of the entire episode:

[Image descriptions: A series of four comparison images examining how the 2010 Magic Kaito series and the 2014 Magic Kaito 1412 portray the same sequence of events. In both, Kaito asks Jii, “Dad was murdered?! Was my dad... a thief? Was he Kid the Phantom Thief?” Kaito then says, “I see...” End image descriptions.]

While the dialogue is essentially unchanged, the old show’s use of close-ups expresses the tension of the scene spectacularly. You can see the terror in Kaito’s eyes. You can see how the thought of his father being a thief is so distressing that merely asking the question is painful and heartwrenching. You can see the sweat on Kaito’s face. You can see in great detail how much he struggles to grapple with this new truth.

Magic Kaito 1412 is significantly more distanced. And there’s power in that decision, too. The revelation is overwhelming. It’s hard to take. Kaito may want to get away from it, but he can’t.

However, I resonate more with how the original series handles the moment. Seeing how everything affects Kaito way up close speaks much more to me—and there are still some fantastic long shots, too:

[Image descriptions: Two screenshots from the original Magic Kaito series. Both are distanced long shots. In the first image, Kaito and Jii kneel on the ground. Kaito’s hands are on Jii’s shoulders. In the second image, Kaito stands, facing away from Jii, while Jii remains on the ground in shame. They wear identical outfits in both images, and their capes blow in the wind. End image descriptions.]

Gotta love those capes.

Overall, my feelings on Magic Kaito as a whole could probably be best described as somewhat mixed. And I’m kind of new here, and I don’t even know when it’s appropriate to use the #dcmk tag, so I of course don’t have the slightest clue about how popular or unpopular my opinion that the 2010 Magic Kaito series ranks above 2014′s Magic Kaito 1412 is. 

But skipping down memory lane and revisiting the old show was pleasantly surprising. Maybe my affection for Magic Kaito will never reach the highs it once had all those years ago, but it was almost comforting to find that my tastes haven’t changed all that much—rather, it’s Magic Kaito itself that’s changed.

[elcorhamletlive]

unsure if I want to ask ☕️ succession or ☕️ literature so I'll ask both and you can choose

Anon these are both wonderful and also extremely broad topics lmao but I love them both!

I guess I'll give my minor hot take on literature is that... people should read more of it? And in the space we are right now (tumblr, fandom and such), my unpopular opinion is that fanfic absolutely does not serve as a substitute for literature, at all. I love fanfic, I love writing and reading it, I don't think of it as necessarily lesser than literature as a whole, but I also don't think it tends to challenge you as a reader, and as a consequence I don't think it helps you grow (as a writer, as a person, etc). The beauty of literature, to me, is on its broadness, on its infinite possibilities - I take recs as much as the next person, but one of my favorite things is just picking up a book I know absolutely nothing about and allowing it to blow me away, you know? It's just constantly enriching and I think more people should allow themselves to experience this - not only by not limiting themselves to fanfiction, but also by not limiting themselves to a very specific type of literature.

On Succession... I truly do think it's the best show airing right now, but admitedly I don't keep up with most of its competition. My thing with Succession, though, is that I've found nearly impossible to recommend it to people, because the show's basic premise, on its own, is so unappealing, or at least I can't make it sound appealing at all! lol. Like, in general I find people's minds immediately imagine "Game of Thrones in a corporate setting", or "eat the rich-type satire", and none of these descriptions, to me, encompass what really works with in the show. Succession is a show that deals with the worst of humanity but it is human through and through, and whether it's making you laugh with absolute cringe or repulsing you with the reality of the world it portrays, it never fails to make you care, viscerally, at every moment. The writing is so sharp every character has a voice that could be distinguished even if you didn't know who was saying what, the cinematography is uncomfortable and off putting and absolutely ideal for its plot and setting, and... I don't know, man. It might not be perfect, but I feel like it's as close to perfection as something made by humans can be.

(send me ☕️ + [topic] and i’ll tell you my opinion on it!)

[doakaptan]

i think i finally get mad men and im not happy about it

Two weeks ago I started watching Mad Men for an assignment and accidentally became obsessed with a show that had no premise other than Don Draper bedding various women. 5 seasons in, I bought myself a mechanical keyboard just so that I can live the aesthetic of the show while writing this.

(I will write this post assuming you have read my first blog post about this show but you don’t have to worry about missing any info because the first blog post was me predicting an unpredictable show and cursing at characters)

So turns out, I did not really figure out anything by only watching the first seven episodes. No surprise there. But by diving deep into the first 2 seasons I realized that Mad Men is actually deeper than it lets on and the cheapening effect of its over-sexualized characters don’t really do a great job at hiding it. Actually after a while sex in the show is more symbolism than actual sex. It especially signifies a mental state that is special to Don and you actually start feeling sorry for him whenever a sex scene comes up. 

Well, Don Draper is a villain as well as the hero or to put it more accurately, a tragic hero and as the seasons progress you develop a love hate relationship with him. And if you binge watch 5 seasons and use all your spare time to think about it, you start relating to Don. Surprisingly Don had all the odds against him and lived an awful life without ever doing anything to prompt it. As I learned more about his life I actually started getting mad at the alternative reality of Mad Men because goddamn let the man breathe and be happy for once. 

At the start I was mad about him cheating on Betty with every single powerful women that looked his way and I am still mad, you can’t really excuse that, but as their relationship was revealed more and more I kind of started to understand why he preferred spending the nights somewhere else. Betty is incredibly hard to put up with and no offense but even I’m not sticking around for her character development. She is overbearing, childish, overall a pain in the ass. If I knew her in real life I would have thought that she was pampered too much and was unable to grow up and get a grip as a result. She has mommy issues though and I respect that. There are also moments that she shines and she especially prefers shining only after they get a divorce and when she knows she will get Don’s approval. Before I lose track and continue talk about Betty know that Don is always worse and let me wrap up his analysis. 

Don is, in my opinion, someone who experiences love by avoiding it. (A love avoidant may be the term but I am not really sure). He marries Betty because he falls in love too hard and starts avoiding her right after their marriage, he likes the artist woman too much so he leaves her to be with someone she is more compatible with, same thing with the most of the women he chases. I only realized how hard he avoids the people he likes during season 4 when he decides to marry his secretary (who mind you spend like 4 days with him in Los Angeles to take care of his children) rather than building a healthy relationship with Faye who was probably the best person he could have ended up with. This also relates back to his self-destructive tendencies. He never truly believes that he deserved anything so he makes sure that he ruins it.

He excessively drinks and smokes, cuts ties on a whim, cheats and only ever feels truly like himself while he’s with Anna (who dies later in the series). Anna is and was the friend he needed all along. Even in his stolen identity Anna was the only person who accepted him as who he is and didn’t leave his side even in his darkest times. The man literally went to Korea by himself to defend an area and came back with a stolen id and lots of trauma and adopted himself into the life of her (the wife of the person he stole his identity from) and made sure she lived a life full of love. He shines the most when he can be himself but his old identity is and probably will always be an enigma to him. 

I think he’s slowly starting to find his way and make up for his mistakes but since he is used to self-destructing his set backs get more and more brutal each time. I start relating to him at this point the most. Relapsing in situations like these is brutal and it always feels like it is the last time and for once, for Don, it is the last time. He starts writing to understand himself and starts doing things like, regularly going to swimming or getting into a healthy relationship with someone who will be with him and help him through his ups and downs. He relapses when he decides to marry his secretary and from then on his relapse will only get worse but I believe that he is getting somewhere…

I will update this post once and for all, when I finish the entire series but for now I weirdly have hope that everything will end well for Don. 

And since I overstayed my welcome by going way over the word-limit I will speed run the thoughts I have about the other characters.

Betty, despite my comments earlier is actually misunderstood and deserves more than she gets. She truly loved Don and did everything in her power to make him happy. She even left her very successful modeling career to get married with him while SHE DESERVED BETTER THAN HIM. Her parenting is questionable but it can be overlooked because right now (in the middle of a global pandemic) we can all agree that being stuck with our family 24/7 is not ideal and we have been doing it for only a year while she has been doing it for more than a decade with more children adding up. LEAVE BETTY DRAPER/FRANCIS ALONE. 

(Also, watch the scene where she shoots at her neighbor’s pigeons because he threatened little Sally with killing her dog then talk to me about good parenting…)

Pete Campbell, turns out I really like him and his work ethic. I wish he ended up with Peggy but he is doing just fine with Trudy good for him. good. for. him. Thank god they didn’t follow up Trudy’s ‘old lover’, ‘the one that got away' plot line because it would probably be the thing I hated the most about watching this show. She is not an interesting character and she’ll never be. Good for Pete though, good for Pete. He never gets anything and I don’t know if he deserves getting it because we are not that exposed to him. But he is loyal to the ones he loves and even though his morals can get a bit questionable at times he is hardworking and will build up a great life as far as I’m concerned. (And if he doesn’t you can find me on ao3 re-writing his plot because I am no longer appreciating Pete-slander in this house).

Peggy. GOOD FOR HER GOOD FOR HER. LEAVE THAT DAMN CATHOLIC CHURCH AND HANG OUT WITH WANNABE REALEST OF THE REALEST ARTISTS. Also love the gay girl she should have ended up with her instead of the wannabe artist who only talks about capitalism. Peggy’s job is capitalism their relationship don’t really make sense.

Joan… Joan deserved someone who treated her right but fell into the lap of a charming locker-room-mouthed jock, who tried to be a surgeon and failed then tried to be a psychiatrist and failed and finally got drafted for Vietnam (ngl I hope he dies there). Unpopular opinion she should have ended up with Roger because while I hate ‘the perfect girl fixes boy with problems’ trope I would have eat it up. I like them together and surprisingly they are good together. I think she is the only one smart enough to actually lead cis-het white men who think they own everything because they are men, within their company and she deserves more than she gets with the shit she deals with. 

On a last note, the topics Mad Men deals with sometimes can get a bit triggering or upsetting but I think it is worth a watch.

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

Damn i have lost all my respect for you now. Its quite astounding how you and so many blogs turn the fact that ‘army’ support bts into something derogatory and vilify them by painting them as stupid and uneducated. Agreeing to some ‘unpopular’ opinions doesn’t make you an intellectual.

About that Billboard interview, many publications DID feel that it was micro- aggressive and rude not just army- who you already think are stupid. Secondly, there were no counterfactuals on the side of Western artist’s purpose. If BTS is being blamed for chart manipulation then why is Dua Lipa’s VPN scandal or Shawn Mendes’s payola scandaled not added too? Now, dont tell me that its a cover story for bts so they cant bring that out. Other artists CAN be talked about and given requisite stance when it comes to arguments. If the interviewer could include tweets from stan twitter tweeted by a troll account, then he could do more research too. Also, its a Cover Story of an official music publication. There were no quotes from the artists themselves, the flow of the interview differed on how the words of bts were portrayed, there were no add ons to what their musicality was etc.

I understand the point of disbandment, obviously. Many people are waiting to see bts fail- including you- so it may be termed as some interesting ‘spill’. What i do not understand was politicising bts as a band and then next delegitimising all their success in the very next paragraph and THEN saying that fans are rabid and its all part of kpop- not true artistry.

Now of course, i cant tell you to adhere to my views because i’ll be the ‘bad’ army who is ‘rabid’ and ‘dumb’ because I do not see eye to eye with you and that other blog that uses flowery language. Seems like you just want to have a different opinion because you wouldn’t want to be pooled into that part of a rabid fanbase, yes? I mean, obviously, using big words and giving disclaimers must do you some good. This is not a hate message by any means, i am just stating my opinions - as i do have a right to- as one your previous avid followers.

Anon, I don't believe that using threats should count as Army support, which is one of the main aspects I had a problem with. I did not make that post in order to set myself apart, or agreeing to it just because it's unpopular and I want to go against the norm. I have read that article and had my own opinion before even going online to see what's happening. Popular, unpopular, it doesn't matter to me because I don't feel the need to be part of any group, regardless of its nature. And about me using big words and wanting to be an intellectual in order to set myself apart, please...I have to laugh. I'm not a 20 year old in need of attention or trying to distinguish myself among a group, I don't care about that, I don't have time for that and I'm certainly not trying to appear something I'm not. And you're right, I'm not some intellectual, I am just a random person on the internet who wants to share my opinion, just like everyone else and I chose this platform because it gives me the opportunity to exercise my writing and also have readers sharing their thoughts. That's all.

If I have lost your respect, so be it. You said you were an avid follower, which means you were interested in what I had to say until now and you probably figured out what is my position towards BTS and what my approaches are. So my question is how did you conclude that I want BTS to fail? This is ridiculous for a number of reasons. First of all, I am at an age where I have 0 interest in going online to hate post or to do that in order to make some waves. Actually I never had, because that's not how I've learned to talk about things. Second of all, it's pointless to talk about failure when it comes to BTS because they have already succeeded. With or without getting nr 1 on charts and despite consequences of military enlistment. The longevity and impact of a band does not consist solely of chart positions. First and foremost it's about artistry, their music, and even them as a group and individuals. Taking these into consideration and looking back at their career, they have already made their mark and nothing can change that. To me, this is more important than the number of records they sale. They might be a window into the popularity of a band, but I don't think that should be the main focus because in the process, we could possibly forget the exact things that made people get an interest in BTS and why they were able to stand out from a crowd.

I believe in having conversations, even contradictory, which is one of the reasons why I chose to answer this message. I could have deleted it, but this is an adult space and I'm not planning on curating it in a way in which I would only display opinions that I agree with. I've probably said several times how important it is to be able to listen to different sides. I do not put a label on those that disagree with me because I'm perfectly aware of how such thing is impossible.

[hamliet]

I think your blog is one of the best out there. Maybe becuase of this , maybe because of your awesome takes... I find it hard being in the fandom. And I wanted to share this very unpopular opinion. The more it goes on the more I wonder : how did Enji turned into this? Most of all in fandom tends to justify touya because he’s the result of Enji’s abuse. However Enji isn’t a natural born abuser. I’ve read and saw plenty: he has not manias of control. He accept easily his wife to leave him (he wanted to build an house for her and since Shoto’s accident he hadn’t forced himself on her). He wanted an heir, true and he was more neglecting (which is a form of abuse). But many time were found evidences in studies neglecting parents have issues of their own. Which can be found in their original family and / or society (if no mental illnesses are implied).

This made me wonder. I love Japanese culture , novels and society. And one of the most recurrent theme , especially some decades ago, is the high pressure people are exposed. It was and sometimes still is a nichilist model in which you die or fly and sometime you can’t hope to Rise once again when you fail. For example the concept of “you need to go at a go prek to get in a good university and find a good job” is often depict and put to extreme in many media. This inspire even books in which families are up for anything to push their children and they are under great pressure. Since Enji seems a not so bad man per se, has no mental illnesses , the only thing left is his immense obsession that must come from something. And the fact that in society a man must be successful... I think here it is.

The fact he can’t express his feeling correctly for the most of MHA , neither he can’t read them at the point of being perceived “with no compassion at all” comply the stereotype of the father with way too high standard , this can’t come from nothing. It’s not hard unreasonable thinking he was most likely pressured as much when younger , and that broke him at some point (which is a recursive theme in many others novels). This doesn’t justify him, but it might explain why he ended up like this.

But while everyone seems to be able to... forgive dabi , justifying his doings becuase of how he was raised while condamning 100% Enji. However the lingering theme of my hero’s villains is that they aren’t a monster , they’re turned into one; and society played a huge role. I don’t stand for Enji’s actions (who would) but ultimately? If all villains were broken by society at some point (being AFO the only exception for now) why can’t be him too? Broken by a society that demands from heroes to be perfect , to never be weak, even through total desperation? Society even made a joke of all might who gave his life entirely and part of his organs for Japan. Rather than only condemning Enji for his doings , much like is doing with Dabi, the spotlight should be society again.

He did wrong. Terribly wrong. and now everyone is ready to crucify him. But how society taught him better ? How society perceive heroes as humans , how far they can be weak and fails and not be blamed? Like father , like son. Touya is the result of his family , I think it should be considerated Enji was the product of a corrupted society. Which never correct itself , never tries to change... they just discard heroes and villains alike just for not being “perfect”.

Hi! Aw, thank you for your kind words <3

So, I’ll break this down a bit, because I think this discussion needs a lot of nuance. I agree society affected Enji, but I don’t quite think that a victim of society is remotely comparable to being a victim of parental abuse.

To start with, I fundamentally disagree with the notion that abusers are born, and hence don’t buy that Enji is somehow different (or better) because he wasn’t born that way.

To note, I talking specifically about physical/emotional/spiritual domestic abuse, not about sexual abuse (and I don’t wanna talk about that because it’s not relevant here, so no one send me asks about it, thanks).

Abuse is a description of an action and its affects. I’ll quote @linkspooky’s meta on Hawks last week: abuser is not a bad word, it’s not just something that bad people do. It’s an unhealthy relationship dynamic that even good people, even sympathetic people can participate in. It’d be great if we could just do a genetic test and determine if someone is an abuser (actually it wouldn’t be great; it’d be dystopian and terrifying), but that’s not how people work.

However, “abuser” is seen as a bad word, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing (nuance/abuse is horrific and takes such a toll on people that I’m glad it is given serious weight in some respects, although imo it’s overemphasized in fandom places and underemphasized in real life) and I’m not getting into good/bad/pluses/minuses of linguistic connotations here.

Hence, I would actually categorize what Rei did to Shouto as abuse, and I do think the story indicates she was neglectful towards her other children. However, I have never labeled her an “abuser” because of the negative connotation as is clear she is not a repeat offender and Shouto doesn’t even blame her--he blames Enji, and I don’t think that’s an incorrect assessment either. It’s complicated. Abuse victims can be abusers at the same time as they are victims (ask many a kid of an abusive dad what their mom was like; at best if they didn’t intervene it’s usually neglectful and often people go no contact with both parents). People we love and care for can participate in abuse.

Mental illness is also complex in its relationship to abuse. Mentally ill people are far more likely to be victims of abuse than perpetrators, and  mental illness doesn’t make someone predisposed to being a bad person. Mental illness does affect how I see Rei’s actions, because she was clearly out of her mind at the moment she burned Shouto’s face; at the same time, mental illness doesn’t erase harm done even if the person can’t be held super culpable. Enji on the other hand was not mentally ill in the same way; he was able to think logically and separate right from wrong even within society (because society clearly still views beating your kids as bad).

It’s actually not really accurate to say that Endeavor didn’t try to control Rei and just let her go--he put her in the institution to keep her away from Shouto, which may have been motivated of course by trying to protect Shouto, but was more likely “trying to protect his masterpiece.” Rei instantly regretted what she had done; Enji didn’t show regret until after Kamino. Also, Shouto himself views it as taking their mother away, not as protecting him. In fact, he sees it as removing his protector and leaving him with just the abusive dad. Plus, Rei’s doctors probably wouldn’t have let him see her. So I absolutely do think Enji is a control freak.

For Enjii, there’s no indication of prior trauma besides just not getting what he wanted. But, as you say, I do think Enji was absolutely a product of society--culturally, though I’m not qualified to comment on that, and within the manga’s own framing of that culture. However, while Enji is a product of society, he is not framed with the child framing that is present around Touya; hence, why he’s not a victim in the same sense. He was an adult when he started doing bad things, capable of reason, as far as we know and there’s no indication this isn’t the case. He was ~20 when Dabi was born, so that means he was looking for a quirk marriage at the very latest by 19. That’s like starting your career as an administrative assistant and being pissed you’re not CEO like, a year after starting! That implies that he had a sense of entitlement at a very young age, entitled to the point of believing kids were not full people but instead extensions of himself to ignore, beat up, and cast aside as he pleased. Every aspect of Enji’s personality screams of toxic masculinity as well.

Also, almost every person who has ever done something wrong (and those who haven’t!) is a product of their environment as well as of their genetics, but I wouldn’t classify everyone as a victim--even though technically I suppose they would be, but the connotations are just not particularly fitting--and I wouldn’t call Enji one. Enji might be a product of society, but his kids are victims of a deliberate choice he had to be a terrible parent. Society sucks, but we don’t choose it and it doesn’t choose us in the same sense a parent chooses to treat their kids a particular way.  So, rather than saying Enji’s a victim of society, I think it’s more of society reaping what they’ve sown in terms of their #1 being revealed as a mass abuser; it’s karmic.

So to return to his character and Enji is also a representation of toxic masculinity--that is why for me personally, his crying this chapter  actually resonated. Like, I think it was well-framed in that his victims didn’t feel sorry for him and he cried before he knew they were coming, and while I get that people think he has no right to cry (as Rei and Natsuo said!). I see why people interpret that as manipulative, and while I absolutely think it was self-pitying, I also personally see it as human and realistic, and perhaps as a slight chipping away of the toxic masculinity that he embodies. We’ll see. I’m still no fan but that was the first moment in his redemption arc that struck me as sincere.

[connan-l]

All right, so now that I finally digested the final a little I have some random messy thoughts about Fruits Basket 2019. It got really long lol, but this has been stuck in my head for a while so I needed to get it out!

Honestly, it was a very good adaptation and I’m still in awe I was able able to see the whole manga animated. Fruits Basket is pretty important to me, as I read it for the first time when I was around twelve and it was definitely one of the series that impacted me the most — the way it tackles themes of cycle of abuse, loneliness, grief and moving forward still feel very special to me even now (I briefly wrote a post about it months ago after rereading the manga), so of course I was delighted upon hearing the reboot announced and for the most part, it didn’t disappoint. I’d never truly thought I’d be able to see characters like Rin or Machi actually move on screen in my lifetime so in a way it still feel surreal lmao (RIP to Komaki though). It was really refreshing to revisit the story in that way, especially given amusingly enough I am myself in the middle of some big changes in my life where I have to leave things behind so it felt sort of... well, I won’t say empowering per se, but quite encouraging and satisfying to watch Furuba, and especially its final, at this timing, in a way. It wasn’t perfect, there are certainly a lot of flawed directive choices that I question and unfortunately quite some important cut contents — but even at its lowest it stayed all in all good. I’m genuinely a bit stunned there are people who thinks the entire thing is worthless or a failure, because man, I have seen what a bad anime adaptation looks like, and Fruits Basket 2019 definitely isn’t one. Natsuki Takaya herself was clearly very invested and satisfied in that adaptation — I mean, just the fact she drew arts for every single episodes or for the season 3 ending really shows that I think. And while there’s a part of me who will always have a soft spot for the 2001 anime, there’s no contest that the 2019 one is the superior one and more representative of the original manga as a whole.

I believe some people really don’t realize how... uncommon it is to get such a consistently good-looking and complete anime adaptation for a shojo manga? Shojo really aren’t lucky in that prospect usually; they rarely get animated, and when they do they’re usually very bland or outright bad, or they get one short season of like 13 episodes that never receive any follow-ups — even shojo considered like classics tend to get poor treatment, unless they’re Sailor Moon of course or a long-running magical girls franchise like Precure (and even then we could have a discussion about the way Sailor Moon’s treated compared to say Dragon Ball for example, but that’s another topic entirely). So yeah it is quite awesome we were able to get this kind of anime adaptation that covers the full manga with good quality from start to finish, and I am so, so glad it exists and that it managed to revive and makes the series so popular again. (Hopefully its success means we’ll be able to get more good anime adaptation of shojo manga from now on!)

But yeah, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t problems with it and I also understand why some of the manga fans had issues. We were kind of hyped with the fact this would be a complete adaptation and in the end we only got a... sort-of-complete one lol. The art and animation stayed fine during the run (there certainly were some episodes that were uhhh, lacking in that sense, but that’s just how it is sometimes with productions and budget), but I admit I was a bit letdown regarding the direction, where it often seemed… a bit uncreative or heavy-handed. There was some very beautiful and smart shots here and there, but on the whole I really had an issue with the adaptation failing to actually take more ambitious decisions on its visual aspect, especially compared to the pretty pannelling of the manga — and when it did take these decisions it just was… kind of obnoxious and in-your-face, like the show is trying to hold the watcher’s hand (with unnecessary things like Kyo’s father record player derailing or the whole big ropes symbolizing the curse that often slapped you all over the screen, which usually just made me want to roll my eyes because of how annoying it felt.) Multiple people also pointed out the overdramatization of some scenes like the Kyo and Tohru’s confrontation at the end of season 1 or Akito and Ren’s fight which was, indeed, not very good and a weird choice. Fruits Basket is already a pretty dramatic show and these scenes are already intense, there was no need for such over-the-top theatrical display of emotions that only made them comes off as comedic. I’m probably nitpicking here but it also bothered me some characters’ expressions didn’t feel properly retranscribed (Shigure especially, whose characterization depends a lot on that, really suffered from this), or that odd habit of making some big panorama plans instead of focusing on the faces and bodies, which particularly sucks during emotional scenes (like the backgrounds were pretty I guess, but that’s not what was important here lmao).

Also that might be just a personal thing, but can I point out that the openings were pretty disappointing to me... They're not bad, but they all looked so... bland. The songs are fine but the rest feel so uninspired and it's kind of sad... I dunno, I wasn't asking for much but I just think they could've done more than just scrolling each character looking vaguely melancholic or making them walk randomly one after another :/ The endings have at least pretty illustrations and I'm okay with them (I liked what they did with Kyoko’s photo in season 3 too), but the OPs kind of feel as if they ran out of budget and ideas for them or something. I kind of feel the same with the OST as well, where they’re generally fine but were a bit lackluster, and sometimes… they were kind of played at bad times? I remember the Rin episode in season 2 were the music felt a bit out of place and took me out of the immersion, which is a shame cause it was otherwise a pretty good episode. But that might just be a me-thing here lol. The voice actors were awesome though! (The Japanese ones, at least, I didn’t watch any other dubs). I’ve said it before but special kudos to Maaya Sakamoto cause damn she’s so perfect as Akito, and Shimazaki as Yuki and Toyosaki as Rin truly delivered too. I didn’t know Manaka Iwami at all but I was really impressed by her Tohru, especially in season 3 — she really was good at capturing her character’s subtle emotional turmoils (I think she makes a better Tohru than Yui Horie too, although I admit I missed Horie a little lol.)

Anyway, on the topic of lack of ambition, that might be an unpopular opinion but there’s also the fact that I’m sad they didn’t actually... try to change or add more original scenes. By which I mean, obviously we had some changes, but not ones that were really interesting (when they’re not actively detrimental to the story). For example, I was really hoping that we’d be able to get at least one original episode focused on Ritsu (and Mitsuru too why not) in season 2 or 3, or on Kagura or Kisa; I dunno, it would’ve been a good occasion to give something more to the characters that got sidelined in the original manga, or add some moments that would’ve been nice to develop like about Akito post-cliff confrontation, but we never got that. And well, that makes sense now that we know they seemingly had an episode restriction (at least on season 3), but, yeah, that’s still a shame. Honestly in the end Ritsu’s character made even less sense in the anime, because like, it was nice they tried to adapt his introduction episode so that it feels less “you have to adapt to gender norms to feel better about yourself,” (the gender non-confirmity is definitely one of the bits that aged the less well in FB) but then they still made him cut off his hair and give his feminine clothes to Kagura at the end so why lol. (And speaking of his episode introduction, I dislike that they cut off his conversation with Tohru after the suicide attempt, not only for Ritsu but also for Tohru cause it is one of the small instances bringing up her issues that is set up early on and that is crucial to her, but I’ll come back to this later.)

And now about the biggest problem to me being, the cut content and episodes rearangement. So, just so we’re clear, I definitely don’t think an anime adaptation needs to be a page-by-page adaptation of the manga to be good. Every decent adaptation needs to have changes, and the ones that tries to just follow the source material without any heart often tend to get pretty bad. So changes are good! Cut content are needed sometimes. But in Furuba 19, it really... wasn’t the case.

And the most unfortunate thing being that the one suffering the most from this is the show’s main character herself, Tohru.

So, obviously other characters also got done dirty by this; Yuki and Machi’s relationship was so incredibly shifted in the background and rushed it’s almost funny. I’m one of the people who thinks that, while I do think they’re cute, I definitely agree on the fact their relationship was a bit underdeveloped in the manga — and that Machi’s character especially suffered as a result by being a bit reduced to just "Yuki’s love interest" when she was a character with so much more to offer (and as a whole I also tend to agree with the fact that Yuki probably didn’t need a romance at all and that his arc is more meaningful while focusing on his platonic relationships, but that’s another topic entirely) — but man, if the manga already underdevelopped them, then ohhh boy, the anime just completely dropped the ball. It feels very odd because to me it seemed like season 2 was taking their time with setting them up, so if they knew they had only 13 episodes for season 3 then they should’ve started the changes there; instead we got 1 nice Yuki/Machi/Kakeru episode, and then it’s like "Yep, they’re in love, just trust me." (It does makes me wonder if season 3 wasn’t originally supposed to be longer but then got restrained because of budget or covid or something…) Kakeru also very much suffered because of them cutting off his girlfriend and his complicated relationship with Tohru… Now, to be honest, I’ve always found the Kakeru/Komaki/Tohru subplot pretty... contrived and useless, and Komaki’s not so much a character more than a device for Kakeru’s development, but it does have some good moments relevant to the story’s themes (I like the ‘‘you can’t play suffering olympics with people’s pain’’morale) and it is important to his character (and Komaki is cute, I admit), so it was still sad they shafted it entirely. (Also I kind of like the tense relationship between Tohru and Kakeru. The fact they both seem to not appreciate each other even afterwards feel sort of refreshing even if it’s never explored unfortunately orz.) I was still surprised they didn’t actually try to make a Komaki cameo at the end? Cause I think it would’ve fitted and Kakeru’s girlfriend had already been mentioned in season 2 but... for some reason they... didn’t. (Mayyybe we’ll get an OAV like with Kyoko and Katsuya? Who knows.)

One scene that was skipped/rearranged that I’m very bitter over is the whole Tohru/Kagura confrontation and Kagura/Rin scene — it might not seem like much, but the moment of Tohru refusing to forgive Kagura is very important, and I was pretty annoyed they turned Rin’s trauma response to Kagura’s violence and her subsequent apology/hug to a gag, it legit felt tasteless. The Tohrin scene they removed at the very end too was frustating; it was great they managed to fit in the "Rin doesn’t want to forgive Akito" bit at least (I was afraid they’d cut it off entirely), but it was so essential for her to say to Tohru, not to Haru and Momiji (plus the way they put it in felt very random and awkwardly placed there, when they were initially talking about Tohru before orz). OH AND the Akito/Hana friendship too! Yeah I know it’s not a Big deal but I absolutely love the little glimpses of their friendship and it’s very important to me so I’m disappointed over them not including the ‘Ah-chan’ scene… (It was kind of weird that the show sort-of implied Hana and Kazuma got together too cause that’s… not the vibe at all from the manga… oh well.)

Most people I’ve seen generally only bring up season 3 regarding the cuts/rearangement because it’s the most obvious and the biggest offender, but I personally think there were already problems with season 2 and 1. At first glance I didn’t have much issue with some of the rearrangement, because early Furuba can indeed be pretty episodic, but thinking back on it as a whole I think it might’ve been better to leave some stuff, like Hana and Uo’s episodes for example, to season 2 (I do wonder if they did this specifically so the reboot would offer original content and differ from 2001 early on...) and cut off other not-so-important things from S1 & S2 — because as a result season 2 kind of suffer a bit by being The Yuki Season, which, for as much as I love Yuki, did end up being a bit annoying and made his development feel less natural and gradual, as well as the fact it sidelined the other characters a little and left them with not much conclusion in its final. So this added to how much they ended up cutting in season 3, it makes the show as a whole feels really unequal. I think they did overall a good job in season 3 with what they had, and they really nailed some of the dramatic and Kyoru moments (the sheets scene, cliff confrontation and post-hospital confession were practically perfect), but it is a shame that it ended up as an extremely marathoned emotional roller-caster rather than a more well-paced watch that we would’ve had if it had been 20 or so episodes. (I know others argued that season 3 was what it was because there wasn’t enough content left to cover for 22 or 24 episodes, but I disagree and even if there weren’t, it would’ve been the perfect occasion to add original episodes then. But I think it was more of a budget and Covid issue personally.)

But anyway, all of this isn’t actually what I’m the most annoyed with (and YES that’s a already a lot lmao), those are stuff I can live with, but like I said earlier the most problematic is what they cut off from Tohru’s character. And that indeed includes her parents’ backstory.

So, just so I get this out of the way; yes, I do understand why people were relieved to not see Kyoko and Katsuya’s relationship play out on screen, and yes the age gap and teacher-student thing is creepy and I do kind of wish it hadn’t been written that way. (Though I was a bit amused by people who thought we didn’t get the backstory because of the questionable age gap when, uh... you know I very much doubt the anime industry has an issue with that. Like, to start with, we wouldn’t have had Uo and Kureno’s romance if that was the case (even if Uo and Kureno is less problematic, it’s still the same basis of a underage high school girl/20+ adult man relationship), and second there was a literal romcom anime about a high school girl and an adult man that was broadcasted at the same time as Furuba season 3 lmao. So nah, it wasn’t there the problem to them, it was just time and episode restriction, which was pretty much confirmed with the announcement of the OAV focused on them.)

So, Kyoko and Katsuya is definitely Problematic and I agree on their relationship being uncomfortable; however, I’m a bit baffled that people were literally cheering on not having that part in the show, because it is... it is not just like a small bit of family trivia, it is Extremely important and actively essential to Tohru’s character and Fruits Basket’s themes and narrative as a whole. It’s very important to understand Kyoko’s character, of course; to humanize her and finally present her as a very flawed person and not just the idealized mother that Tohru project upon her, and it is extremely important simply to understand Tohru herself as well; to understand where her way of thinking, her trauma and attitude stems from, and this in a way that just isn’t possible to see with the little fragments of that flashback we got or the bits of Kyo and Kyoko’s interactions.

See, Tohru’s character is principally constructed around two things; her grief over her mother and her almost-pathological selflesness and people-pleaser needs that comes from her abandonment issues and loneliness, and her arc is very much about letting go of both of these things and finally moving forward and letting her life change. There’s this perception of Tohru I see sometimes that she’s not a very interesting character especially compared to others like Yuki or Kyo, or that she ‘‘stays the same kindhearted, naive girl from start to finish,’’ and while I deeply disagree with this I know where it comes from. The thing with Tohru is that she is firstly an extremely emotionally repressed character, and so a lot of her depth and development is made through small, gradual details scattered throughout the manga. It’s done in such a way that except for some obvious scenes those small, apparently insignificant moments are easy to miss or disregarded, and unfortunately it is a lot of these details that the 2019 anime cut, or rearanged in a way that feel less impactful or makes less sense; such as, like I pointed out earlier, her conversation with Ritsu after his suicide attempt. As I’ve seen others point out, this result in altering Tohru’s portrayal and rendering her character mostly about her romance, undercutting and downplaying all of her small, subtle character moments and developments, and miss a bit the second part of the story where the narrative actively challenge the ‘savior/therapist/mom’ that other characters and Tohru herself projected upon her.

And as a result it also means undermining things like her parallel and relationship to Akito, which idealistically should’ve been slowly built up throughout the last season but because of how rushed season 3 was in the end felt a little flat. (Akito’s character in general had some issues also because of the unequal pacing and rearranged scenes, though admittedly I think this was also an issue present in the original manga.) Kyo’s character and his romance with Tohru is the one element that managed to get out of this mostly unscathed (although Kyo also does suffer a bit from it), but because of what was removed from Tohru’s character it still inevitably impacted them by making their characters as individuals lacking. It’s not like it is a complete failure, mind you; I think the anime at least did a decent job at showing Tohru is Not Okay even at the beginning in season 1 (they certainly did a better job at it than the 2001 one lol) and managed to roughly portray her issues well enough overall, but it is just… lacking in the subtlety and nuances that, to me, makes her character and writing really special and unique.

(This post explains what I’ve tried to say here in a much more eloquent and better way that I ever could, and this all put into perspective what I basically love so much about Tohru and Fruits Basket in general.)

And, you know, it would’ve been sad but comprehensible with any other character, but here we’re talking about the story’s literal protagonist, which is why it is the part of the adaptation that makes me feel the most bitter. Tohru and her story is truly amazing and well-written, the thing I was looking forward to the most with this reboot — and while I do understand the episode restriction and I do believe they still did their best with what they had — her arc still deserved to receive a full proper adaptation, not a kind-of-half one.

So, yes, I am at least glad they’ll adapt Kyoko and Katsuya’s story in OAV, but the fact that it will never be included in the actual main narrative is still actively detrimental to it, and it will never have the same effect that if it had been played out before the Kyoru sheets scene where it should’ve been. (I hope they also won’t cut the fact that their story is narrated by Kyo, because that is also a very important detail for both Kyo and the story, but I have the feeling they will…)

Welp, that was quite a long, messy rambling. Not sure if anyone will actually read all of it but if you did then congrats lol. I feel in the end I’ve been really harsh and negative with the reboot… I do love it a lot! If someone asked me I would wholeheartedly recommend it (though I guess I would still argue to read the manga first if you really want to experience the story in all its nuances). I think they truly did an impressive job — even with season 3, which a lot of its episodes were beautifully done and did make me tear up a few times lol. I’m just sad it couldn’t actually offer a better, more nuanced delivery of the story’s depths and of one of my favorite manga protagonists that means a lot to me. But that’s an adaptation that so many fans wanted for years and I’m happy and grateful it’s here cause Fruits Basket deserved at least that much!

[szivtalan]

character ask: kagami, momoi, alex and himuro 👀👀👀

!!! omg thank u Ceru! u might be one of my favorite mutuals <33 (putting this under a read more just so I can speak at lengths about each individual character)

Why I like Kagami: this is where I sarcastically ask “why DON’T i like him” but that’s literally the next question so; he’s everything i want to be and more. He has the determination and the willpower to make his own dreams come true, he’s gay as shit, he’s tall and buff and well-adjusted, mature enough to live on his own at an annoyingly young age, he’s funny and dumb and a total himbo as well as an excellent advisor bc of how grounded he is.

Why I don’t: I’m... not really good with explosive people. Violent men with loud voices especially scare me, and I’d think I’d flinch around him a lot and that would make me rlly anxious.

Favorite episode: it’s a toss-up between the Seirin fam visiting his place for the first time (is it where Kuroko confesses his love to him and then passes out in his arms? idk), and the onsen episode. I also loved all his plays against Kise and Aomine. AND the training camp w him running a lot in the sand.

Favorite season/movie: season 2 probably because he’s not a jerk anymore, but he’s still on his way to shed off any asshole behavior stuck to him. And I actually liked Last Game?

Favorite line: “There’s no such thing as useless effort.” and “This is our drama and we write the plot.” because he’s so ridiculous.

Favorite outfit: all of his casual fits... comfy but manly is my Jam

OTP: AoKaga....they’re truly soulmates, star-crossed lovers, canonically brought together by fate.

Brotp/otp no. 2: KagaKuro, I love them

Head Canon: I have several collections because I think too much about this boy, but here’s something I think about his family: he doesn’t know what happened to his mom. He never asked, because it wasn’t relevant, and he didn’t want to inconvenience his dad by questioning him. Occasionally, as a kid he felt like he was missing out on something (seeing other kids with their moms, feeling like they’re being treated with much more gentle care because they have moms), but as he grew older he realized that nurturing behavior shouldn’t have been limited to only a mother, and that he was just straight up neglected without any regards to missing a parent in his life.

Unpopular opinion: I never realized this was an unpopular opinion but I’m glad he went back to America at the end of Last Game. Obviously, it’s sad that he had to separate from the others, but I felt like Japanese basketball has always been just a stepping point to him, and now that he’d beat the best of them, it was time to move on. And it also warms my heart that him getting scouted in the US gave Aomine hope to aim big, too. I felt like both of them would’ve felt trapped in Japan with their skill sets.

A wish: I want him to be happy and gay and to confront Himuro and tell him how hurt he was by how he treated him and probably do the same to his dad too

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: ....whatever I’d say Shinsun has probably written it/will write it, but I don’t want him to forget about the GoM just because he becomes a world-famous athlete.

5 words to best describe them: sweet child with anger issues

My nickname for them: not mine (it’s Sypha’s) but “Kags”, Kagami, Tigerboy, Kagababe, Baby

Why I like Momoi: she is SO nurturing and sweet and she cares so much about her boys!! I’m sorry it always turns into “how they remind me of myself” but actually I get feeling like a background character and being the moral/emotional/physical support of those who are more talented or in any way better than you. I feel a strange kind of kinship with her and also,,, feminine girls make my heart stop, and it doesn’t get more feminine than Momoi. Added: Aomine aside, the Touou team wouldn’t worth shit without her skills tbh, and she’s not in any way less than the GoM. Also, I appreciate her being the one person to try to keep their friend group together.

Why I don’t: Analytical People Scare me like!! how do u know stuff people are Unknowable!! I usually am also irked by her pointing out Riko’s breast size but I can just pretend that’s in a gay way (maybe Momoi likes girls with small boobs and she’s just bad at flirting) (also I don’t exactly liked her calling Aomine a “ganguro” but I have too little knowledge on the use of this word to say exactly why)

Favorite episode (scene if movie): uh the one where Aomine made her cry? It really came through how much love she actually has for her friends at that one.

Favorite season/movie: she was great in all of them!!

Favorite line: I can’t remember the exact quote and Google isn’t really helpful either but the one where she made Kuroko promise they’ll always play together or something? Or that they’re gonna beat Aomine?? idk?

Favorite outfit: I like all of them but mostly I just appreciate her wearing so many hoodies, she looks so cute in them

OTP / Brotp: it’s both AoMomo. I feel like the have the most special and strongest bond in the entire series.

Head Canon: She’s never been shown to do, but I feel like she wears Aomine’s clothes a Lot. Also, they definitely have sleepovers To This Day.

Unpopular opinion: Momoi is good at basketball and she loves playing!!! But try being successful in it when ur opponents are Giants and Way More Buff than you are

A wish: I wish people appreciated her more!! Both in fandom and in canon. She’s an amazing person and she has her own skills and strengths that are rarely explored or even mentioned anywhere.

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: her falling out with her boys ;-; I do not want that

5 words to best describe them: strawberry sweetheart to steal ur heart

My nickname for them: Satsuki :> I feel like it’s a little too much to call characters on their first names sometimes but hers is so cute I can’t

Why I like Alex: yet again another woman with an extensive skill set. I love her persistence and again I appreciate getting disillusioned and finding your way back to the thing you love. Also it’s just sweet that she did that by teaching (again, something I can relate to)

Why I don’t: the whole “kissing children” thing rubbed me the wrong way but again, just like Momoi’s obsession with comparing breast sizes, it’s just bad/sexist writing from Fujimaki probably

Favorite episode (scene if movie): adshg any and all where she expressed that Himuro and Kagami are equally important to her <33 that shit makes my heart burst

Favorite season/movie: she only appears towards the end of s2 and in s3 so... I guess s3?

Favorite line: its so Bad that u literally can’t find the iconic quotes of these iconic ladies anywhere but... her story on finding her passion again through teaching kids, and anytime she mentions her fondness of Kagami and Himuro.

Favorite outfit: her iconic olive green coat with the short red shorts... wtf was that I loved it.

OTP: she doesn’t really interact with people her age but I’ve heard she’s shipped with Masako Araki and I’ve seen some seriously good fanarts and like... Yes Good I’d Love To See It

Brotp: I feel like her and Himuro would be that sassy pair that Kagami tries and fails to contain and they get into all sorts of weird, absurd situations asdjs what I’m trying to say is Kagami has to bail them out of jail from time to time

Head Canon: fck me if I’m wrong but she’s the lesbian single mom of the two gay kids she reluctantly adopted from the streets

Unpopular opinion: it’s more like another headcanon, but she can dunk and she taught Kagami how to do it.

A wish: I’d love her to coach the Seirin fam more!! Pls let her be part of her children’s lives (she could also judge streetball games between the goms it would be fun)

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: anything about her being romantically involved with her pupils makes me.................no

5 words to best describe them: Beautiful Beach Blonde Basketball....goddess

My nickname for them: Alex!! sometimes An Icon

Why I like Himuro: em dash Asdgsdj I’m joking, I’m becoming more and more fond of the boy. Once I realized that he shouldn’t have been the “bigger person” in that situation and one year doesn’t really mean much when you’re that young and that hurt, I realized he’s actually a good and hard-working kid and I’m sorry for giving him so much shade. Also I really like his snark and sass, but that might not even be canon at this point tbh

Why I don’t: I’m still sort of irked by him beating down on Kagami because he was envious/mad, but I realized the aspect of that situation that Really got to me was how devoted Kagami still was to him after all that. That devotion was what felt toxic, nothing that Himuro actually did to him.

Favorite episode (scene if movie): the time they met up w Kagami just to exchange a dramatic socially distancing bro fist and a few encouraging words.... gays be Like That

Favorite season/movie: I really didn’t mind s3 Himuro

Favorite line: apparently he’s said some iconic stuff that I don’t remember (and my sources don’t seem really legit) but I’m gonna say “let’s see you become number 1, bro” because again, that’s just so ridiculous and endearing. On one hand he really went from loathing Kagami to rooting for him and wanting him to reach his full potential and on the other, honey ur  like 17 stop speaking like That

Favorite outfit: his knitted V-neck sweaters and the black coat with the white fur.... boy’s got all the fashion sense that’s missing from Kagami

OTP: can I say.....AoHimu asdfh I ship 3/4 of these characters with Aomine what does that say about me

Brotp: KagaHimu. They can be sweet, but I’ve only ever seen Jake write them really well

Head Canon: I’ve been entertaining the idea of....trans Himuro.....

Unpopular opinion: everyone thinks that Kagami is the violent kid and Himuro is the chill, sweet child who’s somehow wound up with this mess of a fiery tiger, but it’s actually Himuro who taught Kagami how to fight and Kagami learned quite a lot of aggression from him

A wish: I feel like Himuro should’ve gotten a separate episode to explore his thoughts, feelings and past. He had so much potential as a character Is2g

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: him quitting basketball would fucking destroy me. I’d be devastated for others too, but it would really pull on my heartstrings if he just dropped the only thing he’s been so passionate about.

5 words to best describe them: gender-non-conforming emo child

My nickname for them: Himu, Tatsuya, Tatsu