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virgilsjourney · 2 years

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this is an appreciation post for the moving on episodes

i love them for many reasons, one being that i see them as The Blueprint* for the rest of the series.

(well actually, that’s a title partly shared with the accepting anxiety eps in my opinion—where the concepts in accepting anxiety are the ‘bridge’ in order to reach what’s explored in moving on.)

so accepting anxiety introduces the idea of ‘rooms’ and the effects they can have: virgil’s room accordingly heightens anxiety, and we see that in a visual representation with the increasing black eyeshadow. so, the audience is now on the lookout for what the effects in other rooms might look like.

except crucially the effect in patton’s room is not shown visually. yes, we’ve got the nostalgia haze throughout, but there isn’t a notable increase to clue us in on what’s happening the longer everyone stays in the room. this delays our realisation; we’re figuring it out roughly at the same time as logan does.

and the effect not being immediately obvious says so much! the theme of things being more than what their first appearances or impressions might suggest! and on a related note, these episodes are where we also have strong references to the idea of the characters embodying more than one aspect “So I might not have had Roman create half as many as the stories and worlds as he did without Virgil giving me reason to,” Thomas observes, and then the camera later cuts right to virgil when he says there are “new things to write”, linking both roman and virgil to the creative process.

and of course, speaking of someone being more than what they first appear… patton. oh patton. oh god. this is where we see more of his complex characterisation—i’m still not over the cardigan weighing him down= a heavy heart metaphor—and it’s just so, so gutwrenching to see him trying to keep up the façade after the despondent “can they?” slip up. like there’s just multiple frames of heartbreak, and the way the smile doesn’t reach his eyes… :(

and then! when logan says, “All of this because Patton can’t let go of one person?” and patton returns with, “Logan, can you stop? please?” we see patton briefly holding onto the photo frame that represents thomas’s ex. he literally can’t let go.

and just… the delivery of that line. the pause before please. the raw grief, the vulnerability… and the desperation when he’s muttering ‘oh no no no no’ to himself! god!

and then, as if all of that wasn’t enough—his reaction to the “falsehood” after his insistence that he’s never sad, the way that fake smile just DROPS.

it’s the face of someone who knows they’ve truly been seen for all that they are.

and logan! foreshadowing galore! “but if you would only heed—” he insists before being cut off. that sentiment will later be echoed in ‘learning new things about ourselves’: “there will be times in which I must be heeded.” and look at where we are in the present storyline! not heeding him! and another piece of foreshadowing is Thomas insisting to logan that “it’s fine, it’s fine…”… kinda sounds like denial. kinda sounds like “yes. everything’s just… fine.” :)

on a lighter note, oh wow, that beautiful return to reality after nostalgia nirvana. logan and the cat hoodie. i love the idea of him leaving patton’s room and stewing a bit, but then thinking deeply and resolving to create that cat hoodie. i get so much joy out of imagining an alternative look at the episode where while Everything Else is going on, he’s just calmly making the hoodie, like bless. i love him.

plus him clearing his throat before revealing the gift to patton! he’s nervous! “it’s all purely for practical reasons.”

Logan.

Look me in the eyes. Look me in the eyes and tell me that the decision to gift Patton that hoodie had absolutely nothing to do with HOW MUCH YOU CARE ABOUT HIM—

before i forget, back to my starting point of these episodes being The Blueprint* for the rest of the series. so much is set up here, i adore it: the deeper take on the characters that’ll only continue; the realisations and build-up of tension and conflict before a release. and the ending. this is the first one where, even within the structure of a standard episode, there is no clear resolution, nothing is fully ‘solved.’ because that’s how life works, and it’s bittersweet, and it rings so true.

and finally, possibly one of my favourite things about the episodes is that i can read them both as patton representing the heart and as a representation of how someone could try and cope with heavy emotions by attempting to conceal them. i think that’s why logan’s question in the end card (“patton. how are you today?” asked so gently! so sincerely!) is so emotionally impactful for me: it’s analogous to someone checking in on a loved one suffering with depression and/or grief. patton struggling to leave his metaphorical room could equal someone isolating themselves in their literal bedroom, struggling to reach out for help. so logan reaches out to him! they all do! and the fact that patton says that when he leaves his room, he knows he’ll get to see them all and that is something to look forward to… basically saying that he knows more happy memories will be made by being in their company… :’)

there’s a catherine tate quote that i now forever associate with these episodes, and especially logan helping patton: “please don't ever sit in your room and lock yourself away because you don't think you're good enough.”

in conclusion: moving on has all my love <3

#sanders sides #sanders sides analysis #sanders sides meta #sanders sides theory #moving on part 2 #moving on part 1 #patton sanders #logan sanders #in which i have a lot of feelings :')

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mithrilwren · 3 years

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Fanfic ask game for procrastinating on writing, which as of this week is actually accurate, since I’m finally writing again! (or, more specifically, editing what I wrote two months ago so I can get back to writing.)

Tagged by @essektheylyss! Thank you, this is exactly the kind of activity my brain needed tonight.

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

72! I was hovering at 69 for quite a while, sad to break the streak haha

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

~550K, which is somehow both more and less than what I expected

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Many, lmao. According to my Ao3 (omitting any blanket tags) I’ve got 22 there, plus at least two more over on ff.net from back in the day, and probably a couple more just on Tumblr. Most of them I’ve only written one fic for, though. I think the only fandoms where I’ve written more than one are Critical Role (35), Supernatural (15), Haikyuu!! (3), The Exorcist (2), Dimension 20 (2), and Yu-Gi-Oh! (2)

4) What are your top five fics by kudos?

Pick a Number, Any Number

Surprisingly, my number one is NOT a Critical Role fic, nor is it even one of my longer multi-chapters! It’s actually a one-shot I wrote for Haikyuu!! back in the day that took off far beyond what I expected. I wrote it for DaiSuga week, which was a ship I (to be completely honest) wasn’t even terribly invested in, but I had a fun idea and people seemed to like it! (It’s also much fluffier than what I usually write, which might be part of its broader appeal ;))

A Winter’s Ball

Unsurprisingly, the next four are all CR ;). This one was a M9 x VM crossover that I primarily wrote between the hours of 3-8am over the course of two insomnia-wracked nights and honestly, I think it shows in its uncharacteristically unstructured format (compared to my typical style, which tends to favour shorter scenes with very intentionally-placed breaks between, as opposed to scenes that flow into each other without pause). That’s not to say I think it’s a bad thing! The story, which follows Beau as she drifts through a party in Whitestone and observes the interactions between the various guests, actually flows better without that kind of interruption. This was also my first Beaujester piece. I started writing it right before Beau’s confession aired, and published it the week after, which definitely pushed me to make what had been only subtextual in the first half of my draft into the emotional lynchpin of the story.

Only the Nightingale Sings

I’m really glad this one still ranks as high as it does, because this story is absolutely my pride and joy. At one time (though I’m not sure that’s true anymore) it was the longest gen fic in the fandom, which is pretty cool! Plot-heavy, twist-heavy, angst-heavy, with seven points of view to follow and multiple interwoven storylines, it was a beast of a thing to write, and took almost exactly a year to finish, but the long process was oh-so worth it. Literally nothing makes me happier today than seeing a new comment or kudos on this story.

Closer Still

One of my earliest shadowgast fics, this one asks the question “how can you make the ‘stuck in an elevator trope’ fantasy?” The answer is, as always, demiplanes. This fic, perhaps more than any of my other shadowgast fics, is interesting to revisit, because it was written before the ep 97 reveal, but literally everything Essek does in it would suggest otherwise. It reads like I already knew he was a spy working with Trent, and yet I was firmly in the “Essek is NOT the spy” camp at the time. Gotta chalk that up to Matt telegraphing his growing guilt into the preceding episodes - even if I couldn’t see it, it was clearly there.

your dust from mine

My other novel-length CR multichapter, this fic brought me so much joy in the otherwise bleak summer of 2020. Most of my best memories of those four months come from working on this story. A Fjorclay adaption of The Goose Girl (my favourite fairytale) this story is about healing, growth, and figuring out what happiness means to you. While I know most people don’t read stories for this pairing anymore, for obvious reasons, I still cherish your dust from mine for how much of my heart I poured into it, and I look back on it with a huge amount of fondness.

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I do my absolute best to respond to every comment someone leaves on a story of mine, even if it occasionally takes a month or two. Replying to comments is one of my favourite parts of the fic-writing process - it gives me a chance to revisit peoples’ kind words and (often, incredibly insightful) observations, and I hope it also shows how appreciative I am of each and every one.

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Though I write a lot of angst, I honestly tend more towards bittersweet endings than straight-up sadness. The only one I can really think of is What You Own - mind the tags if you follow the link, this is definitely one of the gnarlier things I’ve written for CR - whose ending is, admittedly, bleak. But this story so far removed from canon that I don’t think it’s the kind of angsty ending that lingers with you, as much as it packs a punch and then lets you go on your way.

7) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I tend to enjoy thinking about crossovers moreso than actually writing them. I’ve brainstormed a few, but none have ever made it much farther than the first page.

8) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

A few times! Not often, thankfully. Only one time in particular really sticks out to me, mostly for how it rocked my confidence in a way that I don’t think any comment could now, since I’ve had a few more years to build up faith in my own writing.

9) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Very, very occasionally.

10) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I hope not!

11) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope!

12) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Oh man, back in the Glee days... yeah. Yeah, I have. Nothing that ever got published, though ;)

13) What’s your all time favourite ship?

Not sure I have one! Ships come and go with the seasons, and sometimes they’re best left in the era you found them.

14) What’s a WIP you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

The Shadowgast figure skating AU. It’s never going to happen, but I wish it had.

15) What are your writing strengths?

I would say probably structure, in terms of constructing narrative arcs and through-lines. I’m organized with my writing in a way that I am in few other areas of my life, haha. I’d also say my sense of place - I think I’m pretty good at constructing living, breathing settings and exploring how my characters interact affect/are affected by them.

16) What are your writing weaknesses?

I have a tendency to be wordy (which you might surmise from the length of this post, lol) and repeat myself, usually by going over emotional beats that don’t need the extra reinforcement. On the other hand, I tend to underexplain certain elements (particularly, important plot details in fic, and character motivation in original writing), which can lead to confusion.

A couple years ago I would have said dialogue, but I’ve put a lot of practice into it and I honestly think I’ve improved a lot, which is pretty cool!

17) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I’ve never done it myself, and it’s not generally my favourite thing to read (like @essektheylyss said, it makes me hyper-aware that I’m reading words on a page, especially if I have to follow a footnote somewhere). That said, I’ve definitely also seen it used effectively, so I think it’s more down to whether it suits the particular story!

18) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Yu-Gi-Oh!

19) What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

As mentioned above, Only the Nightingale Sings.

#tag meme #this took me about an hour and i dont regret a minute of it #personal

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fromzerotoeuphoria · 4 years

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@waywardfacegarden replied to your post:

Couldn’t agree more with this. Honestly, I agree with every single word on here. I feel like most mh shippers think that us rh shippers just ship it because we hate mako or something but i actually love him so much??? and i, in no way, try to undermine mh’s relationship. i always thought it was so cute and soft and tender, since the first ep. i LOVE, absolutely LOVE their friendship. and i think haru DOES care a ton about mako. he does. and they obviously have a special bond, they’ve known each other since so long. they care about each other and their friendship is so sweet?? i love how haru gives mako the fishes in first season and a lot of other moments of them. and i said this in a post when i first watched the first season, but again, like you say, i GET why people ship them. i get it. they’re cute and their relationship is actually pretty good but it just??? i don’t know, what especially got ME to ship rh instead of mh since the very first ep is how clearly DIFFERENT rh’s dynamic was since the very start. how clearly different haru reacts to rin. he becomes ALIVE when he sees him. his eyes, his whole expression just lights up when he sees rin came back. you don’t see haru act like that towards anyone else. SURE, he cares DEEPLY about mako and, like i said, their relationship is special, he holds him dear and it’s clear, but it’s just different with rin. his reactions are always so visceral when it comes to rin, since they were kids. he pretends like he doesn’t care sometimes but it’s so obvious that he does, kid!haru had a crush and no one can tell me otherwise. it’s all over the place. sure, with haru everything is subtle, but the thing that’s so amazing about rh is that you don’t even have to LOOK for it. even when haru is all subtle about his feelings, he always REACTS visceral with rin, and that’s the thing. idk, when i knew mh was more popular than rh it just… baffled me. i was so surprised, because to me, it was always so obvious how their relationship was a LOT more strong friendship-like than rh. and ngl, it’s frustrating for me, too LOL, but i guess we have to live with that.😂😂 everyone has different opinions, and i guess a lot of people are drawn to them bc of the childhood friend trope… tho you also kinda have it on rh but okay😂🤷‍♀️ it just makes me sad how i’ve seen so much hate around from both sides. and i’ve also come across a LOT of mh shippers that keep telling rh shippers “no, you should ship sousuke and rin and mako and haru, that’s how it should be” and it makes me so sad bc ALL ships are valid???? and it just sounds like they’re always trying to invalidate our ship but oh well. [ALSO. SOUSUKE AND RIN’S RELATIONSHIP IS SO PRECIOUS, NOT TALKING ABOUT IT BC I LITERALLY WOULD NEVER SHUT UP, BUT I LOVE THEM. I LOVE THEM. i fell in love with their friendship since the very first second with their special handshake😂😂😂 i just. have a soft spot for all the samesuka relay team tbh, but maybe that’s bc i’m so in love with rin it’s insane😂😂😂] AND ALSO. FINAL POINT OF ALL MY BABBLING HERE (lol, sorry for invading your post, i just were surprised of how i literally agree with every single word on here) BUT YEAH. KID RIN IS BEST KID/BOY, I LITERALLY WOULD DIE FOR HIM. I LOVE HIM SO SO SO SO SO MUCH, IT’S RIDICULOUS. I WANT TO PROTECT HIM. I WANT HIM TO BE HAPPY. idk, man, i just. could talk about rin and kid!rin for days to no end, oof… literally him and rinharu what got me so hooked with free! tbh… like i didn’t expect to be this invested in free! bc i just watched out of boredom, and 20 minutes later after first ep, i was already hooked bc i was already head-over-heels with rin and rinharu LMAO. what did they do to me, honestly… my love just kept growing… like end of first season was SO SO SO satisfying???? it was so emotional, i cried like the 6 times i watched it in a row, and i felt SO incredibly satisfied???? i’ve rarely felt THAT much and that much satisfaction with an ending before. honestly first season of free is masterpiece. BUT ANYWAYS. SORRY FOR TALKING SO MUCH. I’M SHUTTING UP NOW. HAVE A NICE DAY, FELLOW RINHARU FAN.

The way these comments MADE MY DAY <333

Thank you so much for commenting!! That post was me just rambling out my own thoughts about the two ships, and I originally didn’t plan on sharing it publicly, but since I love reading other people’s posts like that, I figured maybe someone might enjoy mine too 😊 And I’m SO HAPPY you did!! 💜

I said a lot in my previous response to you, so for your sake and for anybody reading I’ll refrain from repeating myself (when it comes to Free! and my thoughts/opinions, I could repeat myself 10000x and not even bat an eye ...but I won’t do that to y’all haha). But YES Makoto is a precious big squish, his friendship with Haru is important, and MakoHaru do care so so much about each other. No sense in trying to undermine that.

BUT THE RINHARU RELATIONSHIP 😩💥🔥🤯😭😭. I LOVE that you used the word visceral, because that’s it EXACTLY. Haru has a visceral reaction to Rin—and vice versa, but the fact that HARU reacts this way is powerfully telling of just how much he feels about Rin. From the very first episode, Haru barely reacted to anything—he was a rather apathetic teen who really only longed to be in the water. But then enter in Rin Matsuoka, and not only does Haru viscerally react whenever Rin is mentioned, but he also has multiple flashbacks of RIn before he even knew Rin was back in the country.

Because Haru doesn’t react this way—so raw and, and you said, viscerally—with anyone else, I just cannot see him not having special feelings for anyone else aside from Rin. It just makes sense, as he never showed these kinds of feelings towards anyone else in his life since the time Rin returned to Australia after their falling out-race. For me, If there really was potential for a reciprocated ship-relationship between Haru and any other character aside from Rin (within the context of Season 1), it would’ve either happened already considering Makoto had been there the entire time and no sparks or flames, or Haru would’ve been so focused on a new character that wasn’t Rin who had newly entered his life (which, as we know, he wasn’t). But no, Haru was so fixated on Rin, it completely baffled Rei, the newcomer to the group, as to why Haruka was so obsessed with Rin. I mean, if that alone doesn’t blatantly confirm that Haru has some pretty strong feelings towards Rin, then idk what to tell folks who are in denial. 🤷🏽‍♀️

KID!RIN IS THE REASON I FELL FOR ADULT RIN. Like, I knew that this bright and dazzling shooting star of a kid was still in Rin somewhere, and since that Rin stole my heart within the first 75 seconds of the anime, by default part of me was stolen by adult Rin, too haha (though ngl, it took like 4 episodes for me to start sympathizing with him, but when I did wooooosh!! XD). AND YES THE WAY I DIED DURING EPISODE 12!!! I literally covered my mouth and was silent-screeching into my hand, waving my other hand wildly in the air, had to pause the video to collect myself multiples times and basically fell apart and lost my mind over the entirety of episode 12 😂 I have my “recap” here if you’re interested in getting a closer look at my subsequent meltdown, haha.

Ugh anyways this got WAY too long (plus by the time I’m actually posting this, we’ve been gushing out essays about this in our dms hahaha, I’m sorry it took so long to post this friggin reply! >_<) so I’ll just cut it here.

#rinharu #harurin #sharkbait #free!#rin matsuoka #haruka nanase #free! iwatobi swim club #long post #free! comment reply #comment reply #i love makoto but not shipped with Haru #anti makoharu #but not anti makoto

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just-honey-dewd · 4 years

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Ok so, just rewatched Violet Evergarden all over again, And got to say, that ending was so vague yet subtle that I completely forgot it.

(This is not gonna be a structurally-sound rant, just a disclaimer for anyone that actually reads this.)

So, ignoring the special and the movie (that came out just last year), the season officially ends with this little scene of Violet walking up to the home of a no-named individual to write as per usual. She does her decade’s version of “Hi I’m Connor the android sent by Cyberlife”

But she pauses. And she looks so stunned... only to smile so warmly. At who we the audience can only assume is the person standing before her. And just by going off reaction alone, on the surface....

...maybe this was her beloved Major? But then... It wouldn’t make so much sense narratively-speaking. This whole show focused on Violet overcoming her past and starting a new life of her own separate from orders and an exploitative environment, plus dealing with the major loss of the one she loved most. That, and it wouldn’t make sense logically. All this time, these characters were so certain that he was dead. Even if he was truly “MIA”, this show had established itself as being grounded in logic. So to even suggest, that somehow, for some inexplicable reason, Major Gilbert survived the explosion against all odds, consciously decided to abandon Violet, basically tricked the world including his friends and family that he’s dead, and chose to wait nearly a year before he made his presence known to only Violet... It just wouldn’t do the show or character any good if that were the case. It’d be “Captain America choosing to be with Peggy yet apparently doing nothing during the majorly bad events that took place in history/MCU” levels of unpleasant. I haven’t watched any theory videos or public analysis discussing this yet, but I think there are multiple possibilities that Violet got abruptly shocked. I’ll look into each of these possibilities in the order as follows:

- the unexpected survival of some other character we’ve met

- a friend that she wouldn’t have expected would request for her/request in general

- an old friend/a rarely-referenced or appeared-in-show friend

- the change in appearance of someone she knows

- two kids in a trenchcoat

_____________________

1) The unexpected survival of some other character we’ve met

If we were to look at all the characters that have appeared in the show and could’ve been presumed as dead, we would have; Aiden (from the Ctrigal war ep). Yep, that’s the only notable and closest thing to realistic option we have.

Only glaring issue here is.... Violet knows for a fact that he’s dead, he died right in front of her... so he is in no way alive. So this theory’s debunked.

2) A friend that she wouldn’t have expected would request for her/request in general

Violet at this point in time only considers her coworkers as friends, her boss, some of her clients; Princess Charlotte, Luculia (technically was her client), Leon (scholar from the observatory episode) and Anne Magnolia (little girl w/ deceased mom).

Quick fire round. None of her coworkers or boss would go through the trouble of requesting her under a pen name just to get her to write for them, Princess Charlotte wouldn’t be living separately from her husband in some unassuming house, Luculia isn’t a friend that would elicit shock from Violet for requesting her (and the likelihood of her moving to a new house wouldn’t make sense narratively and realistically), Leon’s more likely travelling then settling down (he’s not the type to have anyone in particular to write to anyway), and Anne never moved (her episode literally disproved any possibility of her ever changing house). So this theory’s dead too. 3) An old friend/a rarely-referenced or appeared-in-show friend

Violet has no previous relationships other than the Major. No dice, not even gonna humor it. 4) A change in appearance of someone she knows

This wouldn’t make sense since Violet’s a very stoic person. Something as insignificant as someone she knew getting a haircut or dressed up out of character wouldn’t get her shocked silent that she stopped her iconic greeting. This reason alone wouldn’t make sense for her character. 5) Two kids in a trenchcoat

Violet has grown to have a notable soft spot for children. While developing empathy, she’s shown to connect with children; whether it’d be substituting as a temporary mother figure for the lonely Anne Magnolia, encouraging the childlike Princess Charlotte to write her own letter to her love, to teaching the spirited Taylor Bartlett how to read and write. I wouldn’t be surprised if children have a higher likelihood of making Violet smile.

Which is why is see this theory actually being possible, seeing as the client(s) that meets Violet stands to eye level with her directly looking at the camera [equivalent of mystery client(s)’s eyes]. Only thing that contradicts is that trenchcoats haven’t been invented yet, presuming that this world vaguely ties to real life history.

In the VE movie, the increased presence of automobiles and the notable construction of the Eiffel Tower would indicate that the time the events of this movie take place in is around 1888 (where the first floor of the Eiffel Tower has been constructed). However, trenchcoats were invented around the time of WWI (1920s). Luckily, a man by the name of Thomas Burberry, invented “gabardine” in 1879.

This might as well have been the 1800s equivalent of trenchcoats.

So, surprise surprise. The two kids in a trenchcoat theory was a no-go. However, I think we’ve reached a sound verdict. _____________________

Conclusion

The mysterious client in the last scene of Violet Evergarden, are two kids in a gabardine. Case closed. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

#my posts #midnight impulse #violet ever grande #violet evergrande #violet evergreen #violet everdeen #violet evergarden #these are clown hours #fr tho what's with yt and search engines in general always coming up with 'violet evergrande'#or violet everdeen #it's always been like that but idek why or how it happened #midnight rantings #midnight thoughts #most productive hours #happy late april fools

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violethowler · 5 years

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The Winding Detour: An analysis of Shiro’s Character Arc in Seasons 1-7

A common accusation I’ve been hearing ever since Season 6 came out is that the EPs didn’t know what they were doing with Shiro. That they never wanted to bring him back in the first place and just kept shuffling him around to give him something to do.

Not only is this contradicted by several interviews with the EPs, but when you actually look at Shiro’s story over the course of the series, particularly with the added context of his backstory that we get in S7E1 A Little Adventure, there was a clear arc in Shiro’s character from Point A to Point B. It’s not immediately obvious because there were a few unplanned zigzags in the middle.

In a Den of Geek interview in August 2017, LM and JDS say “We weren’t allowed to from the executives. That’s it. He had to come back. That’s pretty much it. We wanted him to be gone for a much longer period of time and we weren’t allowed to.” He was going to be gone longer. Not that hey never wanted to bring him back. JDS also later in the interview adds “Concessions have to be made and we’re still happy with where the story has gone, it just wasn’t our original idea.”

Leaving aside the fact that they’ve said they’re happy with where the story has gone even if it wasn’t their original idea, the biggest indicator that they knew what they were doing with Shiro was the fact that when you look back at Seasons 3 – 7 and connect all the dots not just in the show itself but in the similarities and references to the original 80s cartoon, there is a clear trajectory in Shiro’s arc that led to him serving as the captain of the Atlas.

Debates on the ethics of the clone merger aside, the end result of the Clone Shiro storyline, when combined with the revelations about Shiro’s illness in Season 7, presents his story from Seasons 3 – 6 as meta commentary on how DOTU adapted two similar-looking GoLion characters into a single person via the character of Sven Holgorsen. (Credit to radioactivesupersonic for that analysis, I did not come up with that): The GoLion version, Takashi Shirogane, died and was replaced by his previously-unknown to the audience identical brother Ryou Shirogane. The DOTU version, Sven, survives and returns to the team after a long absence. Voltron: Legendary Defender manages to combine both versions of the story into a single character with all the relevant memories.

And I want to expand on the DOTU/GoLion connections some more. In Beast King GoLion, Takashi Shirogane serves as the mentor for Akira Kogane, Keith’s original GoLion counterpart, and pilots the blue lion before his untimely death. Following his introduction later in the series, Ryou Shirogane serves as a key leader in the resistance against the Galra. In DOTU, both Shirogane siblings are adapted into the character of Sven Holgersson, who instead of dying as Takashi did, was sent to a hospital planet to recover, before being recaptured by the Drule (Galra). He escapes with the help of Romelle, and together they lead a significant rebel cell in the fight against the Drule Empire.

And in Voltron: Legendary Defender, Shiro starts off piloting a Voltron lion, before outside circumstances force him to step down from the role. Clone Shiro cannot initially pilot the Black Lion, and so becomes a leader of the Coalition, helping to coordinate between multiple rebel factions. Then Keith leaves the team, Clone Shiro pilots the Black Lion for a while, and then everything in Season 6 happens, and Shiro and his clone are fused into a single consciousness. After returning to Earth, Shiro quickly rises to become one of the highest-ranking people (if not the highest) at the Galaxy Garrison and serves as one of the leaders of the Coalition following the liberation of Earth in Season 7.

Whether other possible storylines for Shiro would have been better, or how well this storyline was pulled off, is a matter of individual opinion. But it is inaccurate to say that the writers had no plan for Shiro when his arc so closely mirrors that of his DOTU counterpart.

Popular interpretations of the line “I don’t see what’s more fulfilling than being a Paladin” assumed that this meant either Shiro was supposed to be the Black Paladin permanently, or that Clone Shiro would find something that would help him form his own identity. But there are multiple different ways that line can be interpreted, and a lot of fans have interpreted it based on what they wanted to happen, rather than what did happen.

In the context of the finished show – not in hypothetical early season 7 drafts with Black Paladin Shiro that the showrunners alluded to in a post-S7 interview, but the show we have on screen – this line is a type of foreshadowing known as Tempting Fate: where a character makes a hypothetical or rhetorical comment or question and is soon proven wrong.

Lines that typically tempt fate include:

“__ is just a myth” and variations thereof. The myth soon turns out to be completely real.

“Nothing could stop us now”. Something comes along to stop them.

“That sounds easy”. It turns out to be a lot harder.

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Do I even need to say it?

“What could be worse then __?” Something turns out to be worse than __.

“Can this day get any worse?” Yes, it can.

To break down a specific example, let’s take a look at The Incredibles:

On their wedding night, Elastigirl tells her husband that if their marriage is going to work, they need to be ready to support each other through thick and thin, the good times and the bad. To which Mr. Incredible responds:

“We’re superheroes. What could happen?”

We then immediately cut to a newsreel announcement detailing how the lawsuits levied against Mr. Incredible for injuries inflicted in the process of saving people’s lives resulted in the government legislating all superheroes into retirement and forcing Mr. Incredible and his wife to give up crime fighting.

While the line is typically used for negative consequences, there are examples where the character being proven wrong is a good thing. A common example would be someone saying, “it can’t get any better than this” and then quickly find out that it actually can get even better.

So, when Shiro says “I don’t see what’s more fulfilling than being a Paladin,” narrative convention dictates that by the time the series is over, he will have found something that is more fulfilling to him than being a Paladin.

And in Season 7, he does.

S7E1 A Little Adventure reveals that despite his fame as the youngest pilot to fly a solo mission to space, the Garrison staff had repeatedly doubted him because of his illness. He was seen as a liability, as not being capable of flying the Kerberos mission despite the records he’s broken and the things he’s achieved. Sam Holt had to argue with Sanda on his behalf just for him to be allowed to fly the mission, and even his then boyfriend was telling him, “you can’t do this. You’re too weak. You’re not capable enough for this.” Though Adam didn’t put it in as many words as Sanda did, the message Shiro received was the same.

But S7E11 Trial by Fire is where things come full circle. He’s back on Earth, his illness healed, and he’s literally come back from the dead. With Sanda’s betrayal and Sendak going on the offensive, everyone around him is scrambling and panicked, but when Shiro starts giving orders everyone immediately follows them. No one makes any comment about his rank or his age or his health or his fitness for the job. The man who left home sick and doubted is now the person they all look to for leadership.

At New York Comic Con 2017 a few weeks before the release of Season 4, the showrunners spoke of Shiro’s role in the coming season, saying that with Keith now flying the Black Lion, Shiro needed to adjust to a support role where he isn’t always fighting on the front lines in the thick of the action himself.

Unfortunately, Keith’s VA had schedule conflicts that forced the writers to pause Keith’s leadership development and write him off the team until Season 6 to accommodate the limited time Steven Yeun could make it to the recording studio. As a consequence of Keith’s arc being put on hold, so was Shiro’s, as Keith’s absence forced the writers to put Shiro back in the Black Lion until Keith came back in Season 6.

But what we see of his tenure as the captain of the Atlas in Seasons 7 and 8 lines up as an organic culmination of that arc. And in addition to that particular arc, a recurring theme we’ve seen throughout Shiro’s character development is learning that like Sam Holt told Admiral Sanda in The Last Stand: Part 1, you can’t control every situation. There is repeated pattern across the first seven seasons that because of his illness and his trauma, Shiro has difficulty accepting help from other people and allowing himself to be vulnerable:

S7E1 A Little Adventure: In a flashback to before the Kerberos mission, he tells Adam, “You don’t need to protect me. This is something I need to do for myself.”

S1E9 Crystal Venom: Shiro only starts to grow agitated and directly question Sendak during the memory transfer once Coran and the other Paladins have left. One of the taunts he hears from Sendak is “The others don’t know what you know. They haven’t seen what you’ve seen.”

S2E1 Across the Universe: Compared to his optimism when leading the rest of the team and the way he constantly encourages everyone, Shiro is more flippant and vulnerable with Keith in this episode, particularly in how casually he treats having a glowing wound from Haggar in his side.

S2E3 Shiro’s Escape: When the team questions his decision to look for the mysterious Galra who helped him escape, he overrules their objections and insists that his memory of the event is real despite the Paladins’ valid concerns.

S2E7 Space Mall: Tries to work with the Black Lion to strengthen their bond and drive Zarkon out. When the Lion apparently takes off on its own, he panics at the lack of control and starts demanding the lion turn around. When Zarkon attacks him on the astral plane, Shiro wins by realizing that he needs to trust the Black Lion as a partner instead of using it as a tool.

S3E6 Tailing a Comet: After the trauma of escaping from a Galra laboratory a second time, Shiro is more closed off with Keith compared to their solo interactions in S2E1. He asks Keith “How many times will you have to save me before this is over?” His tone sounds exhausted and resigned, as if he feels he shouldn’t need someone to save him.

S4E1 Code of Honor: Despite saying S1E4 that “People have to want to be part of a team. They can’t be forced,” Shiro continues trying to force Keith to continue as the Black Paladin despite Keith’s clear reluctance.

S5E3 Postmortem: Shiro argues with the team and leverages his authority as the Black Paladin when they question him about the risks of taking Lotor to the Kral Zera.

S5E4 Kral Zera: When the rest of the team won’t support his decision, Shiro flies Lotor to Fayiv by himself.

S5E6 White Lion: Shiro attempts to open up to Lance and admits that he hasn’t been feeling like himself lately.

S6E1 Omega Shield: When the mental link between him and Haggar causes him headaches during the missing, Shiro brushes aside the team’s concern, repeatedly telling them “I’m fine”. Later, he pretty much has a panic attack when Honerva forces her way into Oriande and the backlash reverberates through the link, distracting the paladins at a crucial moment when lives were on the line and their plan required Shiro’s prosthetic hand in order to succeed.

S6E3 Monsters and Mana: Shiro admits at the beginning that he’s “trying to take a mental break”, and says at the end that after playing the game with the team his head “feels so much better.”

S7E6 The Journey Within: When Lance comments on Shiro just now bringing up a way to recharge the lions, Shiro sarcastically comments that “I guess having my consciousness transplanted from the infinity of Voltron’s inner Quintessence into the dead body of an evil clone of myself has left me a little out of sorts these last few weeks.” This is the most open he’s been about anything bothering him since the end of Season 5, and he’s saying it to the entire team at once and not just Keith or Lance.

There is a noticeable pattern here: Shiro started the series suffering from PTSD, but kept it hidden from the team, only attempting to deal with his trauma when he was alone. Because of his disease, he had already developed a mentality of “I have to be strong. I need to do this by myself,”by just bottling up his problems so that others don’t see his pain. And once he’s the Black Paladin, expected to be “in control at all times”, he simply continues with that pattern of behavior. The only person he ever allows to see past the level-headed mask he presents to the rest of the team is Keith.

But the events of S3E5 bring further trauma, tearing him from a place of safety and security back into the hands of the people who violated him. After his escape not even Keith is allowed to see past the walls he puts up. From there, his behavior in Seasons 3 – 5 is driven by his need to re-establish that feeling of safety and security that he had back in Seasons 1 – 2.

It’s fitting that the ship Shiro now commands is called the Atlas. In Greek Mythology, Atlas was the titan who held up the sky on his shoulder. Nowadays, it’s used to refer to anyone who carries a heavy burden of any kind. Shiro has been carrying the weight of his trauma since the first episode, channeling his need for control into his work as the Black Paladin. But as S6E1 demonstrated, bottling up his pain and dealing with it alone only created more problems. In order for Shiro to truly heal, he needed to learn to share the burden instead of stoically going it alone.

It reminds me of the stigma that still surrounds mental illness today, but in particular, it reminds me of the damaging idea that someone who has mental health problems is somehow weak for seeking help and not dealing with it on their own. And that is the underlying principle of Shiro’s character arc: that you don’t have to deal with your personal demons alone. That it is not weak to seek help and rely on support from the people around you. I believe a verbal acknowledgement of this was cut from Season 8 amidst all the other edits, but the arc is still there even though it unfortunately wasn’t addressed out loud.

So, despite a clear – albeit tangled in the middle due to circumstances beyond the writers’ control – line for Shiro’s arc leading to where he is in Season 7, why do fans continue to insist that LM and JDS didn’t know what they were doing with him after they brought him back early?

Part of it comes down to the fact that, as I mentioned once in a brief post, the main flaw of the show’s writing is that is sometimes relies on the “show don’t tell” maxim a little too much: all of the details are there, but you don’t always notice them because the narrative doesn’t call attention to them.

The other part is that this fandom has an unfortunate habit of making quick judgements about characters and storylines based on first impressions, building theories and head canons around those impressions, and then dismissing anything that contradicted those theories and headcanons as bad writing or a character being OOC. (Remember all the Lance-obsessed antis who acted like he was so fragile and underappreciated he’d drop dead if he wasn’t constantly being praised? Because I do). And the gaps between season drops didn’t help matters.

Due to the way Seasons 3 – 6 were structured and released, we had almost a full year to get attached to our own headcanons and theories as to what was happening with Shiro and Operation Kuron. Fans who believed that S3-6 Shiro was a clone wrote theory after theory where the current Shiro’s status as a clone was discovered and the clone was deprogrammed and allowed to live his own life and develop into his own person separate from Shiro. While fans who didn’t believe the clone theory dug in their heels and continued to argue against Shiro being a clone.

In the end, both sides were wrong, but everyone came together to cry foul because they thought their respective interpretations were better than what the writers ended up going with. While I guarantee that with this fandom’s history there would almost certainly have been backlash no matter what (and I’ll grant you that the ethics of the clone merger are a little iffy), I think that if Seasons 3 – 6 were released as two full 13 episode seasons in 7 months instead of 4 half-seasons over the course of 10 months, it would have been a lot less severe because both sides of the Clone or Not Clone argument wouldn’t have had as much time to become entrenched.

TL;DR: Contrary to popular belief, the writers and EPs knew what they were doing with Shiro. They managed to combine three different characters across two different versions of the IP into a single character with an arc that mirrored the story of the DOTU character that he was based on. His character development in relation to his PTSD was meant to reject the stigma that people with mental illnesses are somehow weak for needing help and support from the people around them. I don’t speak for all Shiro fans, and we can debate about how well the arc was handled and the quality of it until the end of time. But it’s inaccurate to say that the showrunners were just making stuff up as they went along where Shiro was concerned when there is a clear, if tangled, trajectory from Point A to Point B for his character arc.

#voltron legendary defender #voltron meta #character analysis #vld shiro #writing analysis

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firebirdsdaughter · 5 years

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Woooo…

… And other aimless noises!

Time for Ryusoulger episode 5! Subbed! Bc I didn’t have time to watch a raw. ^^;

In no order:

Life is hard when you have to pause every few moments to think about how beautiful Banba is. DX

Aw, Ui’s so anxious. I’d give you a hug if I could, honey!

I am never gonna get used to this goo in the mouth thing. They literally couldn’t have done that any other way?

How long has Touwa known this girl? Like… How did they meet? Banba seemed at least passingly acquainted w/ her, so… Hm.

I know it’s not important that they the specify that the animals being abandoned are black ones, but I’m gonna pretend it’s more foreshadowing bc I’m unstoppable.

Actually, that’s only true in certain capacities.

But seriously, the camera cuts to Banba when she says that. I have these straws and I’m clinging to them. XD

Like, I do understand ‘needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one’ thing, I do. I do also think we’re jumping to it a little quick, which makes me suspect we had a bad experience where a lot of people died bc of something, or something along those lines, and now we’re a little traumatised. And I think we blame ourselves for whatever it was that happened.

Still don’t think they’ve killed anyone. At least, not directly. I’m thinking there might be deaths Banba blames himself for, but that’s a whole other thing.

Crayon just running around downtown is just so hilarious. XD I don’t know why this scene is so funny to me, but it is. ^^

Banba is like ‘no friends! We have dark and troubled pasts!’ Or something or other. That joke kinda fell through.

God, he’s pretty, though. DX

Touwa, using his bratty little sibling powers for good. XD

Oh, yeah. This direct, ‘deal w/ what creates the monsters’ thing hasn’t happened in Sentai in a while, I think?

Touwa joins in the posing, but Banba just stands there like ‘oh, great, dork patrol is here’ for a moment. ^^

Banba wins for least effected by the earthquake, Melto is a close second, w/ Asuna an even closer third.

I really do like how Crayon acts like a bloody cheerleader there. XD

They all get sent flying, and Banba rolls an extra time, just bc he’s so beautiful he can do that.

Oh, Kou. Honey. Honey.

I do note, Banba didn’t argue w/ Touwa phrasing it as ‘help him.’ Though… He may have been thinking of other things at the time.

Well, it cuts away from Banba too quick to see his reaction, but I’m willing to bet he was reaching for Touwa.

Also, Touwa! No, my baby gremlin boy! DX

Banba doesn’t even take the time to finish his transformation, just goes right into ‘get the fuck away from my brother’ mode.

Crayon does the one thing he can do. Gets scolded. Such is life. ^^;

I’m never gonna get over this moment, though. Banba is clearly absolutely frantic, to the degree that we can actually see it on his face, even a bit. For him, that’s gotta be practically a full-fledged panic attack. He puts a lot into hiding his emotions. The fact that this fear is showing means he’s thoroughly terrified.

Also, Touwa giving him an awkward, reassuring little smile there. There might be slight dissension between them in this ep, but he definitely knows Banba cares for and is worried about him, and he’s actively trying to reassure him.

Does kind of make me wonder if there was a moment where Touwa was hurt and Banba freaked out or something…

Okay. Banba’s reaction to Kou saying Tankjoh killed his Master––esp the way it focuses on him off of Kou’s clenched fist… I wanna know my boys’ lore so badly. Touwa seems to be rather regularly shocked (like, the way most people might react to that sort of revelation). But Banba… I dunno, it feels like there’s something more to Banba’s reaction. Like… He looks sad. And even… Sympathetic? Like he’s… Remembering something and/or identifying? Bc Kou goes on a little on how Master Red died protecting him bc he was ‘too weak.’ And his whole break down seemed to be resonating w/ Banba. I’m really curious about the brothers and specifically Banba’s backstory. Bc it’s seeming more and more like something happened that Touwa may not know about that explicitly made Banba see things the way he does. But I’ll ramble more about that later. XD

And when Kou specifically says Red died protecting him, he looks away like that meant something… AUGH. I WANNA KNOW SO BAD! DX

I should also note that he looks absolutely beautiful the whole time, too. <3

How did you see, Tankjoh, he just giggled? I mean, I know what he’s saying, but that’s just bc I have the power of SPOILERS. And also other people doing translations. But mainly, SPOILERS. XD

I appreciate seeing some of what the villains are doing when not fighting the team, and I find it utterly hilarious that they are just chilling in this one random clearing. Is this a special forest/clearing? Are we even gonna have a base? Or is everyone gonna just chill in the clearing?

Maybe they’ll move into a cave at some point.

Yes, I’m very concerned about the nice animal lady being a Minusaur host, but can someone please take that puppy before she drops it?

Banba’s extra intense bc the Minusaur bit Touwa and they don’t know if the bite is gonna do something (it will). Touwa’s safety is one thing he’s not even willing to slightly risk.

So of course Touwa is the only one who can stop him. Definitely at least shades of living emotional crutch, here.

Soon it will start expanding to the rest of the team to and I will LOVE IT.

THE PUPPY!

No, seriously. What did they do w/ the puppy?

I was under the impression that there were multiple animals? Definitely seems like Banba has at least a passing knowledge of her, so they’ve known her for a bit, at least.

Everyone looks very pretty here. ^^

Speaking of pretty… There are still some shots of the brothers from the trailer that are missing… Were they cut? No! Show me smiley Banba in the Tatsui house! DX And also that one where he was sexily leaning on a wall! :(

If you watch Banba, you can totally see the panic steadily rising over the course of the ep. Like he’s managed to get a lid back on it, but he looks concerned when the bite starts glowing, and when Melto remarks about poison, his head snaps around sharply.

I really like the way Touwa sort of… For lack of a better word ‘argues’ w/ Banba here? Bc he notably leads w/ repeated reassurances that he’s fine, so there’s no need to rush things. Like he clearly knows that’s the driving motivation behind his brother’s behaviour right now. He knows his brother cares about him, and that his safety is important to him, so it’s more likely he’ll have better luck dissuading him if he can convince him he’ll be okay. Also, he plays the family angle, bc he presumably knows how much that means to Banba, too. It’s a little low, maybe, but it gets the point across, I think. For whatever reason, Banba’s put on blinders and tunnel visioned himself to the mission. Touwa adores him and follows him, but he doesn’t have the same level of… Well, what I assume is trauma, to have that level of obsessive focus. The best way to pull him out of that is using someone/something else he can focus on––in this case, Touwa, who uses things he knows are important to Banba (himself, aka, family) to try and, basically, again for lack of a better word, empathise again.

I’m very tired, I’m not sure that made sense.

I know I keep saying it, but it definitely seems to be that Banba just had the opposite reaction to trauma than the trio did. They stayed optimistic and sought happiness and new friendships to help deal w/ the pain. He just closed himself off from the world to avoid getting hurt again, and lost faith in others. Touwa was the only person he couldn’t let go off. Literally, living emotional crutch. Touwa is probably the reason Banba never went completely stone cold as a result of whatever happened––he was trying to emulate Banba’s more serious nature, but he’s more social and cheerful.

Might be cool/sweet if there’s an arc/ep where they meet someone (whether related to someone’s past or not) that is a completely stone cold, ruthless monster, and Banba has a ‘I could have turned into that if it hadn’t been for Touwa and you guys’ sort of thing.

In other news, Banba is still so beautiful I still have to pause every few moments just to stare at him. <3

Literally, if I were in this world, and something happened, and Banba––or even just Kishida Tatsuya himself were standing near me? I’d just be throwing myself into his arms. No questions.

Banba is allergic to emotions and proper communication, so he just runs out of the room to obsessively hunt the Minusaur.

But… Even though he’s not very communicative, he takes the time to akd Kou about Master Red. What is the lore here, Toei? GIVE ME THE LORE.

I don’t think he’s really trying to be mean to Kou? Actually, in a weird way, I think this is kind of a sign he respects him a little? I wouldn’t go as far to say ‘fond of’ and maybe ‘respect’ isn’t the right word, either? But it kinda seemed like he was trying to… I dunno, share what he perceives as a hard truth he learned the hard way? And being like, ‘this sucks, but you need to understand it?’ Only he’s Banba and emotions and gentleness are a little hard for him so it comes out really blunt and cruel? But he seems like he’s speaking from some sort of experience?

Also, this is the scene that makes me think that he blames himself for something that happened. Most likely, in the past, he perceives his own (maybe someone else’s, but most likely his) kindness to have caused some sort of traumatising event, which may have involved the deaths of people he cared about (possibly for similar reasons to why the others’ Master’s died––protecting something, be it him and his brother, or something else). Additionally, maybe someone somehow reenforced to him it was his fault, and specifically put it in his head that kindness had caused it?

On another hand, Kou doesn’t seem to be particularly hurt by the words, exactly? Or insulted? Like I feel like in some situations, a character in his place would be loudly arguing that it’s not weakness––something that wouldn’t have been out of place for Kou’s characterisation. Like, he’s upset a bit, you can see that, but… But if anything, to me, at least, he looks actually kind of… Concerned about Banba instead? Maybe he’s squinting in the light/the wind, but… I dunno, I somehow ended up w/ the interpretation that he was worried about why Banba thought that way or something.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled rambling to inform you that Banba is still gorgeous. Please carry on.

Tankjoh be firing his lasers!

Aw, the RyuSouls just want hugs!

I doubt there’s only one of those in the whole city…

I love how Banba just freaking trips the thing. Like, it’s so simple. XD

Melto the mom friend clinches it w/ the important flashback line!

Also, hi AU Hongo! Figured we’d see you again in some way!

PROTECTING IS MY JAM. Please tell me this is gonna be a theme. Bc I need Banba being protective of all his younger sibs in my life. I NEED IT.

I think Banba is the second one to use a personal finishing move? I seem to recall Kou doing it first ep, but none of the others have do it since––yet, at least.

‘You can’t beat me! I can juggle!’

No, wait, that’s not how you juggle.

I LOVE MIRNEEDLE AND HIS HONK.

Also, I see you, cgi car! And tree. And building. And… Oh, forget it. XD

Congrats Kou! You’ve promoted to actually being directly addressed! I’m so proud. ^^

Seriously, though, Banba hasn’t used nary a name nor a colour, nor any label for any of them. Wonder if he’ll give them grumpy nicknames like ‘fool’ or something after this, or if he’ll stick w/ names?

Was… Not expecting sumo.

Does one ever expect sumo, though? … I guess when you go to see sumo.

Banba just one hundred percent takes over the whole fight. XD Boy still needs to figure out how to be a team player.

I find it hilarious how none of the others even tried to join in on announcing the final attack…

Were Tankjoh’s eyes furrowed like that before, or did they make the suit character look angry?

The poison in presumably in his bloodstream why do you need… Never mind. I guess that answers whether we’re taking people to the hospital. Well, taking Rangers.

Naohisa’s doctor friend is now suspicious to me simply by being a mysterious, anonymous ‘doctor friend.’

Apparently, Naohisa has connections, too, which––I don’t know why––is somehow funny to me.

I’m gonna finish this post and realise I’m spelling his name wrong, aren’t I?

Have nay of you ever considered standing in a different spot in the room?

So it sure looked like the Minusaur exploded? Either is just plain jumped into the water, or the poison itself is the Minusaur? *insert shrug emoji*

Banba is just so worried about Touwa here… Like I feel normally he might be a little annoyed at someone apparently questioning his ability (that’s not at all what she was doing, of course, and he did know that, but I feel like he might, under normal circumstances, have been a little ruffled and maybe glared), but here he’s staring down at his brother w/ a little worried frown. Merely affirms that he did destroy it w/out even looking away.

And the fact that a) Touwa’s now showing visible signs of pain and distress, and b) this shouldn’t be happening bc he should have beaten the Minusaur already is what really starts cracking Banba. Right now, Touwa is the most important person to him in the entire world. The possibility of being unable to save him is probably the single most terrifying concept in the whole universe to Banba.

Well, Touwa’s dead. But let’s dance!

Okay, so we know he’s fine.

THERE WILL BE TEARS NEXT WEEKEND. THEY’RE GONNA DO IT.

So, looks like Tankjoh will be exiting, possibly temporarily? And we have the debut of 5 Knights! But before that, everyone gets poisoned and Banba has to learn to play w/ others. Seems Banba and Asuna get effected by the contagious poison first, as they’re listed first in the summary, and a lot of the preview images show Melto and Kou running around together. Looks like Touwa and Banba are having a heart to heart, while dying of poison, probably during the scene the ‘I won’t let you die’ line is from. Bc Banba would possibly be willing to sacrifice himself, but he’d have to die, be incinerated, and then exorcised multiple times before he stopped trying to save Touwa by any means possible. There’s also a preview image that’s either Banba being dumb and trying to fight despite dying of poison, or have been fighting and then just starting to die of poison. I kinda prefer the first, but both are good. And Kou seems to be filling in as concerned little brother. Very excited, and I have a countdown timer on my phone again. XD

That’s all folks! Virtual mango sorbet for anyone who read all that! Or, just, any kind of flavour you want. I might have some digital gelato around here somewhere…

I’m enjoying this series very much. I love the brothers and I really want more lore on them, but I think everyone already knew that. I still hope that it turns out the person who betrayed Banba is now Gaisorg’s user. That would be great drama. ^^ It’s not completely out the window that it was his Master or one of their parents (or maybe those were one and the same), either.

Now I just have to get through the week…

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feministdisney · 6 years

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Consent in Animated Shows & Movies

Since the issue of consent has been at the top of conversations lately, I thought it might be interesting to link this back to kids’ media. I think in some scenes (like the Gaston one below) it’s really easy to see how responses like “but she never said no, so it’s on her if something happens!!” are just not cutting it. This is not meant to be an exhaustive review, since there are hundreds of movies and shows to consider, so feel free to chime in.

(note: since this is discussing movies, there may obviously be spoilers.)

May We? Asking is a Great Start:

Frozen’s kiss scene at the end was a good example of consent. He makes a verbal request to make sure it would be desired on her end, and I’d guess he would have stopped if she hadn’t said “no” but also looked disgusted by the request. Because: consent is a multi-step, dimensional, ongoing process, not a piece of paper swapped across desks in class that says “will you consent? please circle yes or no.” and then you never think about it again.

As far as other Disney movies go, I was fairly pleased that most of the kissing scenes I reviewed (with the obvious exceptions below) seemed to show the idea of enthusiastic consent. It would be great to see both verbal and non-verbal consent shown together more frequently so that people stop seeing it as some dramatic, silly thing that only takes place on comedy skits about over-the-top feminism, but rather, a great tool to have, especially if you don’t know a person that well and may misread one or the other.

(if I missed any obvious bad moments in movies, though, let me know, since there’s a lot of them!)

Saying No Without Saying “No”:

youtube

The Gaston Proposal scene in Beauty in the Beast (Youtube link) is a great example of what consent DOESN’T look like, the sort of behaviors women do to “softly” say they’re not interested, and what qualifies as a coercive tactic. It’s worth stating that Beauty never says “no” to Gaston - she doesn’t even really say a variation of it. In fact, she says things that could be interpreted positively, on the surface; “Gaston; what a pleasant surprise.”

Would any person really watch this scene and believe she’s “leading him on” or that she’s “into it” though? That her not immediately running upstairs should be taken as a sign that she wants to be in the room with him? Every time he proposes something, she attempts to de-escalate the situation with her joking comments and by taking a few steps away from him. Gaston, meanwhile, continues to follow her around the room (even though she’s obviously moving away from him) and when he doesn’t get the response he wants, instead of leaving, he continues to escalate his body language and get closer to her until he’s got her pinned against the door.

Trust Can Be Used to Manipulate; This is Not Enthusiastic Consent:

Several people referred me to Steven Universe Season 2 Ep 11 and I could see why - it really does hit on the concept of consent and manipulating people into giving a “yes.” Pearl tricks Garnet into being Sardonyx with her (they combine powers... I haven’t watched much of this show so sorry if I get the terminology wrong haha). I think the show does a good job of conveying how Garnet feels and had lines like “I just wanted to share a few more victories with you.” (to justify the trickery)

“Those weren’t victories!”

“We’re so much weaker than you...fusing with you is our one chance to feel stronger!” (justification given by Amethyst for trickery)

The point is clear that even if your goal is something that would normally feel good for both parties, manipulating people in order to get it does not result in a nice, “shared” moment. Whether you intentionally get someone drunk to lower their guard and make them more likely to say “yes” when they’re originally saying “no,” and/or ignore multiple verbal/non-verbal cues that they’re not ready or interested in moving forward because you think more pushing will eventually result in a yes, you are responsible for creating a situation where consent has not been enthusiastically given.

And since Pearl and Garnet have an ongoing friendship, the point is also clear: in this type of situation, you are using someone’s trust in you as a tool to manipulate them.

The Best Plots Don’t Ignore Consent:

People often get very upset over the idea that the scene presented in Sleeping Beauty is completely non-consensual. They forget this is a fictional storyline, in which “he HAS to kiss her to save her” is not an excuse, if that requirement itself has been made up.

From a prior consent-related note I have posted, about Sleeping Beauty:

Sleeping Beauty only works as a positive romance because we know how it’s supposed to end. Handsome nice prince rescues the lovely sleeping princess. He kisses her to wake her even though this is an action she can’t consent to.

This doesn’t mean the prince is a bad person- it means consent wasn’t considered important enough when they made this movie, that it would alter that scene more from the original.

Consent wasn’t considered a “big deal” because we KNOW she likes him from that one scene where she did, and we presume she wouldn’t disagree with him (which is often used to excuse actual crimes, rather than happy-ending story plots)… because kissing is romantic and that trumps making sure a movie’s plot is fully consensual.

Worth noting, the actual story of Sleeping Beauty (though it exists in several forms and variants, as many fairytales do) is really disturbing:

The version of Sleeping Beauty with its chaste, true-love kiss that most of us remember from Disney or the Brothers Grimm derives from a 17th-century Italian tale called Sun, Moon, and Talia by Giambattista Basile, based on folk legends dating from the 14th century. In these early versions, the sleeping princess is raped and impregnated by a passing king – but it all ends well because after she wakes and recovers from the initial shock of finding she has twins, he returns and marries her.

Via The Guardian. You might find this article enlightening

Snow White experiences a similar tale.

The Loss of Consent - Betrayal:

Maleficent goes back into examining consent with the loss of Maleficent’s wings. Stefan drugs her and rips her wings off her body. While this scene is brutal, it is successful in conveying, through metaphor, what sexual assault can be like as an experience. Her pain isn’t just the literal pain of having this done; it’s the betrayal of a friend that causes much of the long-lasting sorrow that follows her through the rest of the film.

To quote my review linked above:

Later in the movie, Maleficent brings Phillip to Aurora for the sake of kissing her, because none of them watched Frozen and realized it could be Maleficent. His lines are pretty much everything anyone’s pointed out about that film from a critical feminist perspective.

“It wouldn’t feel right,” he says as the fairies urge him, chanting KISS HER! in unison.

“But I’ve only met her once,” he hesitates again. And finally, another pause, “What was that about the curse?” (dialogue should be pretty close but might have errors since I accidentally wrote it on top of other notes I took)

Finally, he does kiss her, but I think his hesitation was important for what it established about the questionable nature of the scene. His hesitation, and the way the scene is set up, makes the kiss and the premise behind it seem questionable to us – a call-to-awareness that is missing from the first film.

And it’s also important to note that, in this retelling, his kiss isn’t rewarded with her waking up. (Note: though Maleficent also kisses her, it’s on the forehead, which I think has a somewhat different connotation esp. when the prince had previously expressed a desire to get to know her better, and Maleficent’s kiss is performed without expectation).

But anyway, please let me know your thoughts! This is not meant to be the end-all, just a jumping point.

#disney #consent #feminism

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rigelmejo · 3 years

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I notice I read faster when I read along to audio. At least, this is true when I’m otherwise looking up words to learn new words as I read - the audio keeps me going at a certain pace. I experimented with following along to the Xiao Mao story with pleco dictation tool and I definitely read faster. I don’t know how much of that is just me not having to subvocalize/me being surer of sounds (apparently I really do learn more solidly with sound). I didn’t have to look at any more word definitions than usual, and still paused to breakdown some hanzi. But just going at audio speed helped me look at the text in a more flowing way. idk if this info can help me later?

as usual, still seeing benefits this month from Listening Reading Method and associated exercises: biggest benefits being improved listening comprehension. Every time I listen to the guardian audiobook on its own now I understand more details each time, and the last time I listened to the condensed guardian ep 1 I literally followed nearly all lines word for word - which is really good improvement to me. I started watching Secret of the Three Kingdoms (just for fun so with eng subs, the hard chinese subs) and tried to focus on the opening scenes audio as I watched. I could match all the chinese specific words I heard to their english translation/hanzi I saw except a few war-terms in the opening monologue. But that’s still such an improvement to me, it means I might have a better comprehension rate next time I watch a show with no subs. And it means I might have a better comprehension rate next time I watch a show just with chinese subs (at least matching text to audio which I think I’ve read studies has helped learners with listening comprehension). So just like. Overall I’m noticing my listening skills are getting more reliable. The fact they helped me read the Xiao Mao book yesterday show on some level those skills are starting to be more dependable. So right now its an odd mix of my listening catching up to my reading, and my reading sometimes being weak and forgetting the sounds of some things lol.

The other benefit of L R Method lately being of course: making harder stuff easier to read. I’ve been noticing in general much better just overall ability to pick up materials and read for main idea/details. While yeah, it depends on my familiarity and their difficulty how much I can follow fully versus only vague main idea, its still cool to just know its getting closer to a point where less stuff is fully opaque. I’m running into less stuff I can’t follow at all without a dictionary. Whereas before doing L R Method more (and this extensive reading more), I definitely had novels I just could not even wade through for the vague main idea sometimes. My chinese is starting to get much closer to my french reading comprehension.

And for context since I’ll probably be curious later, time spent L R Method this month:

Guardian: 12 chapters*40 minutes each (roughly)=480 minutes= 8 hours Alice in Wonderland, other L R Method random chapters: 2 chapters (one 30 minutes, the other 80 minutes) =110 minutes= ~1.8 hours Silent Reading: 6 chapters, approximately 1.5 hours.

So probably around 10 hours total spent L R: 11.3 hours so far this month. And if I add random time spent simply re-listening to the audiobook chapters in the background multiple times, lets say at least 4 times each for each material (it may have been more). That would be half the time L R took (so 5.65 hrs for one audio playtime of each)*4 times = 22.6 hours just listening to stuff I’ve already studied in L R Method. This is not counting random audiobooks I listened to in order to test listening improvements - I also listened to guardian condensed eps a little, some stuff more than 4 times, some Chinese Spoonfed audio files, sherlock holmes audiobooks, the little prince audio, some audio drama. So lets guess maybe 5 more hours listening in the background (maybe more like 10 but I want to be on the lower end of guessing). So I’ve had 27.6 hours additional listening (or more) this month outside L R Method sessions, if I had to guess.

I’m going to guess a majority of my listening improvements lately are mainly due to the sheer number of listening hours this month - the suggestion to ‘play audio in the bg even if I’m not always focusing’ was overall a good idea for me. I personally think all the listening to stuff I at one point comprehended (stuff I’d L R Method previously, show audio of a show I know well) further helped the listening practice be useful to me. Since I saw much more improvement for example re-listening to Guardian audiobook chapters I’ve already done L R Method with, compared to sherlock holmes audiobooks since I’ve never read/seen the books in chinese or english.

I’m going to guess the L R Method primarily helped with making audio more comprehensible, picking up vocabulary, and by picking up vocab making listening and reading easier overall. I think the L R Method sessions helped make extensively reading my print copy of guardian possible (I’ve read 5 chapters, took a little over 4 hours to read those 50 pages extensively so far), I’ve extensively read a few one off chapters of various novels this month. I’ve read some other stuff, and probably read about 6-8 hours this month (not counting L R Method time). However... I was super sloppy about tracking listening hours or reading hours this month... once I learned I could pick up stuff and read I kinda just browsed a few things without bothering to track them lol. I do think reading as an activity I did overall less than L R Method in terms of hours. Since one L R Method session takes 30 minutes for easier novels, 80 minutes for harder, and 40 minutes for Guardian/average. So once I’ve done that I don’t feel like doing much else so I’ve been reading just 15-30 minutes a chapter here and there or manhua chapter, or watching part of an episode etc.

Some funny differences actually? My french I actually think I know less words ‘firmly’ but because of the near-cognates and familiar word ‘pieces’ I can get a lot of meaning from many ‘vaguely’ understood words, so I rarely run into things I can’t partly follow. Whereas my chinese I think a majority of the words I can read, I can read pretty reliably ‘clearly’ and they do help with ‘vaguely’ understanding words with familiar hanzi but new meanings, BUT chinese’s use of hanzi means once I run into totally unknown hanzi words I have much less to grasp to ‘vaguely guess’ the meaning of than with french. So what I don’t know in chinese is a lot more opaque, I have less chance of guessing its meaning reliably - although if I know a hanzi/radical/surrounding words I have some chance of guessing. So like? What I do understand in chinese I find much more transparent than with french, but what I don’t understand I cannot ‘deal with’ as much. But the gap is getting closer. Just like - I could read a french economic paper, psychology paper, but chinese I have not learned enough economics specific words or psychology specific words to push through something like that lol. I don’t have the near-cognates to help figure things out. It gets less bad the more hanzi I know, but still its not the kind of guess I’d want to rely on the way I’d imagine native speakers have a better idea of what’s probably most likely the meanings of unknown stuff. I’m running into similar issues as with reading with output too, though they present a bit different in output. Still, I find it a good sign if I can start thinking more about my chinese output - it means my passive vocabulary’s getting big enough I can follow another person’s speaking/writing and start wanting to respond as fully as they do. Which is much more like my french. And the working on chinese listening over time has taught me a lot about what I need to apply more to french..

#rant #may #may progress #all this to say tldr: what i want to do is L R Method more lol #i would LOVE to finish the first arc the sundial arc this month #idk if i'll achieve it #but i'd Love to do it

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misterbitches · 3 years

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@flootweed

ATOTS

That's super fucking romantic? Like tragic but in a nice way. i love that shit. i'm a monogamous slut for romance pghiosuag even tho we have to learn to live alone too but it's just like the NOTION is nice?!??! awwww i told my mom that SOPHIE's gf was like "she died taking a picture of the moon" and how it was like idk. the gf was just processing it and she thought it was romantic and my mom was like "wow.....depressing" bc think she thought it was stupid millenial shit i was like no mother doent u see she died in the BEAUTY LMAO but then i told her jessica walter's husband died the year before and then she died and she was like "aw...kind of romantic" LMAOOOO i guess two people have to die. why did i tell this story? i am so sorry. the show ended today right (ep 10?) i didn't realize it was that short. so i hope it was a happy ending? (tell me) i understand why you love the atmos! it's like, not really been done. there's this BL that i hear isn't too great but it does take place in a rural part of thailand and there's way less budget. a lot of ppl seem to like it. ep 6 LW / LW in gen gotta be honest, rushed through it. i knew spoilers from jump cause BL spoilers are just absolutely nothing and sometimes ur just like i need to know. i do not understand the ~silently lookin 4 u~ trope it always backfires and is also DUMB. so happy about tiffy. a girl who likes girls but ends up with a man bc of mommy and also the man is ok....it's me. she's gorgeous and actually [h*lf] gay so it's great. god ok i feel so old again. lmaooo but i was like obsessed with lady gaga for that reason (dont ask...also how i got kinda popular on tumblr way back in the day) and shes just absolutely fucking beautiful and bad ass. (which kind of doesnt helpcos they r all skinnty but that's FINEEEE) right? i mean like i guess cos we knew abt it? i can see why he was so pissed off, too? i mean i'm so fucking like...sensitive to being told what to do so i was angry for him from jump. i guess i was also looking at it different wholetime cos i knew the spoilers? i'm assuming u did too lmao. so we knew hed be pissed and leave. and frankly that's what sib gets. just for you my friend i will watch it and update. i think MANY times in shows in gen but it is something you notice a lot in BL bc they are just absolute novices most times. in this case, gene's actor mostly well (and i like him as a person just cos he was on that thai 3 girls in a car show and used to date on eof them lmao) can act so i will look over that scene to see how sib's actor plays off him. but the pausing in between sentences or for so long even decent actors or actors doing better. kao is not bad, not great so they will talk slowly because dramatic acting but the problem is most times it's too long. even if the person is an adept actor it won't always work and YES THEN THAT MEANS THE EDITOR COMES IN AND SNIP SNIP SNIP! it's too long. and sometimes it just does not work even if you can act. but it is GLARING when they cant or are average (someoe said this about tharntype and my god lmao tharn..is...so...slow...in...talking...the actor idk his name it's one of em, the other one with the nose (type) is....different not better but he certainly does not talk as slow. they arent bad but they are not good so.) also sometimes they are forgetting their lines. some ppl find this charming. clearly we do not lmao. what is their relation? what is going on there? i don't have a problem with stepbrothers as long as they didn't grow up with that sibling bond. many times blended families really have to watch out for that kind of fraternizing but it's always when theyre older and teenagers bc they didnt grow up w/ each other....i mean they have chemistry so i'm whatever. but. hennYYWAYYYS.actually it's bc im an idiot i didn't read it as Mhok (singular) and aey's father. Yes and his sister who i think i may hate? im like bitch okkkkkk but. his name is lhong. and he is a psycho. i mean so is type. so. oooh it could be that he stole! but also i'm pretty sure cos hes gay lol or did they

not make that explicit? the thing is i had to skip through most of that scene too because the drama was WAY too much for me. too much. lmao. the sister thing i got and it made sense and iliked that. oh yea he is gay and they know. that's a big one.

WBL

haven’t watched color rush! did you like it? i have seen wyel, parts of mr heart, and ofc to my star :)

ohhhhhh ok. i get you. yea he definitely wasn’t being ooc cos i think that....what u said. and also like....ugh i cant even think rn. i like sam lin a lot so i like gao shi de but i gotta say. lmao. hm. first of all. yes it is creepy what he did. it’s fucking weird. and sad that his whole life revolves around him. it’s not as fucking weird as LW but still like when he did the door thing. i was like UMMMMMMMMM cos i really didnt want it to be constructed. and when it was i was like imma suspend my disbelief. but if anyone dared...

and so what he did in s2 i think he just couldnt realize that he was loved back which is why it’s good he WAS ALONE for 5 yrs imo. but he gave shu yi 0 choice and for that i am pretty sure i would be even angrier. i do think though that the father’s role is pretty important but i can see how the show is like....letting that go? bc as fucking weird as GSD is, he was still like...20? i guess and shu yi’s dad is like. crazy? i am also like he really had to fucking start a company to get noticed like are u joking? is it also that easy? and also why? lmao i just. ugh. i think that probs bothered me the most...priorities.

i like the show! well idk if i love it but sure. i think it’s decent lmao. i understand what you’re saying. for here it bothers me less but i certainly don’t think it was OOC. immature and stupid but like...that’s.....what they are. i also don’t have a problm with the timing from a technical point.

however, when i started the show? i had NO clue what concept of time it was. and that was very annoying. tehy redeemed it bc of the comedy aspects (the first time shu yi sees shi de is so fucking good, i really loved the shot and editing; it’s hilarious and silly) and i started to go with the flow of the show through that. but the fucking concept of time in the show in general esp with repetitive outfits (i understand that they are more likely to wear multiple outfits as well, it’s just that you have to split it up or it i sconfusing visually and looks like the same scene twice or just a full day of shooting which it could be but then something should change in the clothes. this is just an ex~~*~*) and partof that is they have this already controlled narrative i guess.

i have to admit as well...i skipped episode 1. and most of 2. i was like i rly dont want to see someone slap a pereson even if they were like. not together. it’s just not cute also not in front of ppl. and then when they were yelling and bla bla i was like listen ladies lets calm down. too much angst in a boring way. what they have now is good. also they should probably like estrange the father but i doubt they will.

i cannot make up my mind totally now bc i see what ur saying i guess i just don’t feel that way as much but i guess i have to think about it more, too. i do think he was contorlling in getting him or like when he didnt want shu yi to find out whwatshisface liked him. i guess for me it would be if he is still that way in the rship. but even tho he’s at fault for what happened, i’m also like but his dad? but also like...did he try? why did he just stop contacting? but then i guess he emailed everyday? DO U C MY QUANDARY.

alsoi have to say i do not care abt their backdoor being opened lmao like wow business? no thanks

LMAO. did they cry a lot in UWMA? i only know the teamwin parts. which one is fluke the really pale one who died? idk what it is about that kid but i just cant watch him. it’s not his fault it’s mine.

DUDE i still dont understand the husband and wife thing and ive looked into it multiple times. ive kinda just classified it as one of those things that make me uncomfortable but arent problematic lol. it you have any insight about it id love to hear it tho !!

it’s stupid. that’s what it is (husband and wife.) it’s just something they say like many gay couples may use pejoratives in conjunction with them, the f word etc. or even imply something about being a top and a bottom. whatever. but these arent gay spaces or gay storylines. sure gay men may direct them but since BL operates and relies on patriarchy without a doubt and also stereotypes poorly kathoeys or won’t cast trans women in anything substantial and use them as jokes (and see this is one of those things where it’s like...ud never see this in the US tho like our concept of third gender or kathoeys but life stillBOOOOO.) so it’s just useless when they put it into the scripts because it’s for people to consume and lots of girls are. obviously. so the idea that if you are being penetrated and u r the wife and this is used like literally anywhere but not from gay or whatever men is gross. are cis women’s vaginas sieves to them? are trans women not women? do we have to categorize people by PHALLIC OBJECTS IN OUR BODIES SPECIFICALLY A WOMAN? it dont make no sense. plus really most ppl just experiment, there’s more ways than one to have sex, we have lives so most times it’s not just full penetration for hours anyway. it’s just so gross. like oh that’s really funny lol ur the wife cos his dick goes in ur butt XD i get it, same. i say “i’m wife’ whenever there’s a penis in me. fucking kill me. it’s not a big deal but it’s just dumb and gross. if they use it they could try and subvert it too like i like how my engineer has a whole absurdly stupid episode about it. but in TT the dad says “if ur the wife i wont accept it” and i was like u know what gals? im good. goodbye.

pgojaihousgajigko THAT’S SOOOOOOO OOWIEOFUGHOIJ WEIRD. FANDOM IS REALLY WEIRD. i have read rpf and written it once upon a time but dont do it anymore uch. i mean it’s weird. no doubt about that. invasive, weird, strange. but very unreal anyway. it is. plus i dont like celebs or fame and think of it as a gross capitalist scheme so i had to stop (also so weird?) but i know very many people like lean in. lean in. LEAN IN. this youtuber i watch did a video on like insanely popular ships (like that 1d one) and their insane fandoms and i just couldnt. it’s so embarrassing? and then they’re so bold????? about it?

yea it would be cool (more queer men or visibly we should say or like out whatever.) but it doesnt necessarily mean that will be good or beneficial i guess? i mean like. i dont know. so much about the genre is about wish fulfilment for young girls. its literally selling some fantasies because the other thing is for BL (i read a paper on this...) esp for girls in more conservative societies they cna maybe replace themselves in the character? but they may not feel a threat as a woman or like their life will fall apart if they engage in sexual things with anyone really. and that’s where i’m like....for a lot of these are they just writing a story and just replacing two men? bc they also seem to think it owrks like that. and in a way that’s what it is bc of the writing and how they use certain terms. you can tell the piece is about pushing a product and less about the real affects of a story. i think ITSAY is a great example of a really intelligent great piece of work that contains multitudes. and the girl was amazing. it just depends on the goal. and for most of the ppl the goal isnt...to do anything. so i dont know. idk how to talk abt representation anymore. it both is and isnt.

i really liked tingting from my engineer a lot (idk if u have seen) she’s so fun and unapologetic. i love how much she drinks and if someone tells her to be ladylike she says no. and i appreciate that in the show when girls were rude to her she said nothing about the girls but said “NO IM NOT LUCKY TO HAVE ALL MALE FRIENDS?” i really want to see her more in the next season. obviously tiffy is goat. super excited to see how their rship develops.

#we best love #lovely writer #we best love fighting mr 2nd

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castawxayaway · 7 years

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in the middle

why is it that since I got requests I have just gone a bit AWOL? i’m sorry, it has been a few days since I posted and it’s been me and my headspace right now- i’m spacey. i hope you like this though, and of course it had to be the artist that it is, if you know anything about me this is who I personally am in love with right now (music and person wise).

if you requested something from me it is coming! i promise I haven’t forgotten about it (entirely) and they will all be done before wednesday as that is when i’m at reading festival for almost a week.

also I wanna do a q+a for my youtube, so if you have any questions about anything (literally anything) send them in! if you want to be anon be anon I don’t mind. just something I want to do and tumblr is a good platform to ask for mixed questions :)

love you guys 🖤

prompt list / collection of my writing / requests open *nudge nudge*

Unable to get the lyrics out of my head I find myself tapping on the keyboard, my foot bouncing to the rhythm and soon enough I am singing the words under my breath. I can’t stop myself from going online and straight to Twitter where many of my bizarre thoughts lie filled with numbers from others in agreement or sheer curiosity.

cannot get the song ‘In the Middle’ by dodie out of my head! the lyrics to ‘intertwined’ are something else #obsessed

Immediately I see lots of responses in agreement, some from pages dedicated to the singer and others recommending me other songs. The known smile forms on my face as my screen goes dark, giving me the chance to see my reflection before it turns itself back on and becomes flooded with life. Twitter is one of those platforms where you can just talk to anyone, I’ve been lucky enough to connect with various artists through Twitter, have them praise my lyrics and even ask for my help with producing a song or two for their albums or EPs.

My job isn’t the easiest, it can be challenging at times, but it pays off when you can hear it on the radio, or talked about online; just like dodie’s is. I sit for a while and scroll through the tweets change in my mentions and focus around someone besides dodie, instead they focus around Bastille.

Leaning in closer to my laptop I analyse their comments; ‘omg dan loves her work!’ ‘shit you know her too? dan was tweeting about her the other day’ ‘@bastilledan another reason why you two could be super cute together’ they all differed in opinions, but they all kept mentioning him and me along with dodie. Seems like I am the one in the middle this time.

Part of me wanted to see if he’d respond too, if he even knew who I was. I’ve worked with bands like his, but none of them have ever been as unique as Bastille is. Their lyrics hit you somewhere unknown inside, they delve through all the hidden and buried emotions, bringing them to the surface for four minutes at a time. They are a reminder at times of what we should value, what can easily be lost when we least expect it. Eventually I give up on waiting, I leave my phone at my desk and go to my music room and work on some lyrics knowing that I have a meeting with a new musician in a few days.

A few hours had passed and I had barely been able to get anything done, the jitters over Dan were settling as curiosity was consuming me and ruining my creative abilities. I kept telling myself to just test these lyrics with these notes, but it was no use. Sitting I stare at the blank notebook, nothing achieved due to my phone calling my name, whispering possibilities in the other room. “Oh fuck it.” I mumble to myself as I rush to my phone as if my life depends on it.

Scrolling through the masses of notifications to do with the three of us I see one that catches my eye and makes me smile. ‘EeeeeEkkkk it’s you! you like my music??? I listened to your work for YEARS l o l <3′ dodie, a true sweetheart. Shifting my focus from dodie I can feel my heart pause until I see it, until my eyes can find it fast enough for everything to resume.

‘I wasn’t sure if anyone else really knew of her for the music she does? good to know you love her too!’ ‘as much as I admire her talent, instrumental is a great piece of music, don’t you agree?’

I glanced over his words, the words he had aimed at me to read and respond to. Fans immediately got on board, responding, freaking out and fanning their hearts out; which is exactly what I wanted to do, but no I am going to keep my cool. It’s only Dan Smith, an incredibly talented musician and lyricist. Only.

We talked back and forth via tweets, dodie along with others unable to keep up with the excitement of fellow people within the music realm discussing her work, but it was getting to that point where fans were suffocating. Suffocating is that point where the meaning of the conversation is lost in the feed of fans losing their shit, those who love bastille favouring or protecting them/Dan from wanting to speak to me.

Rolling my eyes I just went to DM him instead, knowing it would be easier in some aspects, but more difficult to not mess it up. After a few messages were exchanged I eased into it more, we both did. Our conversation slowly moved away from dodies music, towards the direction of my own- specifically my writing process and how it is to write for others and not so much myself.

‘Writing for myself is always a personal thing, some songs I write and I know I can’t share it or give it to someone else to release. Most things I write I tailor for them specifically, I work with them to get the best result rather than put myself in them, I put them in me- not literally obviously!’

Why did I send that, it sounded so rare and professional, but like always I cocked it up.

‘No no, I see where you’re coming from. There are so many songs I wrote and published, but I never perform them, really talk about them. Sometimes I wonder what if I did? What if I were willing to perform them again? But it was before Bastille, that was when I was just ‘Dan Smith’ and it doesn’t seem like the right thing to do.’

‘As if it is outdated?’

‘I think it is and isn’t. Some music can be timeless.’

‘Like The Beatles?’

‘Yes, but also the likes of Kendrick Lamar.’

‘So you’re an in between then? Somewhere along the scale of being too caught up recent affairs and stuck in the past?’

‘Unfortunately so. But how come you’ve never published under you, as in become an artist and not just lyricist?’

I lean back in my chair as I read over the message. It’s not something I’ve been asked for years, my parents enquired why I wouldn’t do it myself, but I felt too vulnerable in my young adulthood. Now it is a different story, but I just don’t think I could do it.

‘Conformity, pressure, the stress. When I write a band or an artist a song that is my role done, I get the contract, I write the songs and I get paid. I hear it and my name is written legally as the lyricist, but I have no other ties that are so severe. It prevents me from getting overly exposed, risk of being watched 24/7. I’m just afraid to try really.’

He doesn’t respond for a while unlike before. Maybe that was too much, a bit too honest for someone he doesn’t really know besides the work I produce for others. I resume my work as I listen to the rain beating down against my window, trying its hardest to fight through the glass with little success. Now I find myself humming his songs, not dodies. I tap my pen and play a few notes that I can remember off of the top of my head. Interrupting my moment of distraction my phone goes off, he’s back.

‘Would you like to meet up with me sometime? It may seem a little forward, but I would love to discuss music, possibly working on something together. Only if you’re comfortable doing so. I’ve heard your work, as in your work when you did a few videos prior to writing for others. I didn’t know how to tell you that without sounding like a creep, but I would love to see that person, only if you’ll let me?’

My mind wanders back to those years when I would set up my brothers camera on a stack of books as I played on my piano with a small microphone by me to hear my voice above the piano. I forgot I had those uploaded, now no one really knows about it as it remains hidden in the depths of the internet, yet somehow he found it. He actually watched my 19 year old self nervously introduced myself and the song before that part of me melted away into the song. It was an offer to get back into that, to reopen that side of my music that has not been truly revisited for years.

Glancing over to my notebook, to the second one that is filled messily with tea stains, small doodles and hundreds upon hundreds of lyrics I compare it to the neat, carefully colour coded organised one that I use for other artists and not myself. I used to have fun writing songs, but of late I’ve lost the heart to it.

Licking my lips I sit behind my piano and envision myself again, that part of me I loved. I close my eyes and my fingers naturally find the keys that I memorised, my mouth opens and the lyrics are still there, despite being shrouded in multiple songs since. It was the first song I truly wrote, the one that I was actually proud to call my own that only few have seen online; Dan being one of those few.

I reach over for my phone, wanting to thank him for a reminder of why I write music. That sometimes you need to just re-evaluate what is happening around you, to go back to what you know in order to keep creating music.

‘That sounds like a plan, thank you Dan. It may seem odd, but having a small conversation with you I feel as if I have rediscovered my music. It’s something that is easier to explain in person. How is next week?’

As I send the message I can’t wipe the smile, it differs from the smile for the fans on Twitter. It is one of giddiness, of excitement for what is to come with my music, with meeting the musician and lyricist who has lived in the same boat I have for possibly longer. Fans still conspire amongst themselves about our absences, so I leave them wondering with a tweet to an old song of mine.

‘For the person who made me realise why I do what I do’

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marsixm · 7 years

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nvm this is my essay length review this is just happening now i guess (read more with apologies to mobile users)

he was rattling off facts about 70s music...i just....like....are you shitting me???? why....ok....im

opening shots of him are just multiple close ups on ben c’s hands like.....im really gay ok

this man really said “try me, beyonce” and they want me to not think hes gay

hes gay

did i fucking mention the score had HARPSICHORD??? HARPSI FUCKING CHORD

ALL the visuals were stunning, the scenery was STUNNING, the sets were STUNNING, the locations were STUNNING, the effects especially were STUNNING- not just pretty or well shot but they ACTUALLY made things look COOL which is fucking AMAZING and more films need to do STAT???? i cant get over how cool the new york sanctum was, OR the scene where they make the fucking cathedral fold in on itself- A CATHEDRAL??? LITERALLY JUST FOR THE STYLE OF IT!!! AMAZING

ben was amazing did i mention? hes just so good like. he tried his best with the accent and it came out better at times than others but he was great and cute...i love him kdjfgsd god. im so glad this is the marvel movie he was in....all his outfits were cute too thanks

idk if this was just me paying extra attention because Ben but honestly i usually struggle to be able to follow plots in films, especially superhero ones with complicated stuff like this but i never once struggled to understand what was happening or why or what the plot was or the motivations etc etc etc??? which is frankly a miracle

in fact i definitely feel like i understood everyones motivations fairly well, even christine’s like of course her character arc was pitiful and women in films need to be treated better but at least it was cool how for most of the movie she was actually just chilling and ignoring stephen jksdghjdlfs good for her

did i mention it was fucking beautiful and ben was great???

soooo many shots specifically were amazing especially around that big window in the sanctum but ESPECIALLY stephen’s superhero reveal moment.....wow

i gotta watch it again shaking off the “its BEN its ben its ben it looks like sherlock?? its ben” glasses but like i feel like they did a job turning stephen from an asshole to a man with a greater purpose...like if i rewatched and focused in on that specifically i think they built it up really well idk

idk if i can speak to the pacing because i paused a lot but like it was almost 2 hours long and it felt Good and didnt feel like idk dragging at all? it felt like it had good punctuations of really cool big effects/fast loud scenes, good story carrying it, etc

the humor actually felt really good and not super forced like i really genuinely laughed and the timing/joviality of the characters was good omg

also the whitewashing thing was def an issue though there was a decent amt of diversity on screen- could have been more though as always

the fact that the main mechanism in this movie and this section of the universe is like magic is sooooo good because theres no over explanation of like, nonsense science or whatever? and they dont try too hard to explain it and ruin it and/or make it annoying they just Let It Be magic.....which is really nice? and also the glowing effects look really cool

THERE WAS A FUCKING GHOST FIGHT? A FIGHT ON THE ASTRAL PLANE??? THEIR SOULS BATTLED...GHSDJAKFGSHDG ><FL:?~?

i said this already but again, i fucking hate most action sequences in super hero movies and in marvel especially and these actually were INTERESTING and good and not just bash smash x100 like they usually are like these had drama and suspense and were dynamic and, again, interesting which is amazing

[spoiler] and again, i always hate the senseless destruction and destroyed buildings, THEY LITERALLY UN DESTROYED A CITY? THEY TURNED BACK TIME TO UN DESTROY IT......thats ALL ive ever wanted from a superhero movie !??!?!? im like crying

[spoilers] the het romance was like bad ofc for a lot of reasons but i liked that the big scenes it had didnt feel forced and didnt end with stephen and christine actually together at all like.....it didnt even show them kiss ever? thanks also let them both be gay now

[spoiler] the scenario by which he annoys the villain into submission (which is by far the best fucking thing) is basically the plot of the best and most amazing doctor who ep ive ever seen and which i think about constantly so uh thanks

[spoiler] i already said this but when he goes into the dark dimension and its like spocks journey into vger!!!!!!! WITH BLACKLIGHT COLORS??

[spoiler] okay so mads’ characters speech to stephen is truly amazing because theres actually some doubt sowed that feels genuine, like it really does sound nice and you really are left wondering about a lot of things especially about the ancient one- admittedly like when you look at the plot as a whole of course theres loads of questions like...why should we trust the ancient one? i wanna say also why did dormammu give in so easily but actually i really enjoyed the lighthearteness of that scene- but the point is when actually watching that scene it was really fucking engaging and didnt feel like it went to waste

[spoiler] ben doing the villains voice too- which i TOTALLY recognized immediately- was also amazing just as like... the hero playing the villain....the levels...

[spoiler] i really want mordo to like. not be evil and FRANKTLY they fucking set up a great line to call back to wrt stephen and mordo becoming a dynamic duo. please let that happen and also let them be gay together you monsters

#this just sort of happened #mclb: ds #doctor strange #i have some Thoughts

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