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a-couple-of-notes · 1 year

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modernity, music, and jean jackets in willow 2022

I know the anachronistic elements of willow 2022 have been extremely controversial, for both bad-faith and good-faith reasons. I completely get why. this analysis isn’t meant to tell people they’re wrong or even change their minds; I just want to articulate why I liked these choices, so I can better understand my own thoughts on the matter. so: I liked the modern music. I liked the jean jackets. why?

there are a couple of factors here that probably helped: I didn’t know any of the songs beforehand, except “good vibrations” vaguely. I also generally don’t mind anachronistic costuming; it isn’t something that takes me out of the experience. but I also admired how intentional the show was with these elements - and it was intentional, beyond just wanting some banging rock songs in the credits and some fashion for the chosen ones.

let's discuss.

musical intention

alright, I’m going to say some stuff that might sound like stating the obvious, but it’s important to acknowledge: the ending credit songs are all directly responding to, and furthering, the events of the episode/the characters’ emotions/the meta-story. whether it’s successful, unsuccessful, or so blunt it makes you cringe is up to you, but the intention is there.

“guess who’s back” by BEGINNERS and night panda ends the first episode. the gist of the song - “heard you missed me/say hello/been on the run...guess who’s back” - refers directly to elora, who has been revealed after 16 years by willow. it’s also about the return of willow as a story/universe - the franchise is back. finally, it’s the show telling you that there will be firmly modern elements like this, whether you like it or not.

“hurdy-gurdy man” by sir jude (originally by donovan) ends the second episode. the slow build-up in the first verse mirrors the growth of the eckleberry bush, with the chorus hitting as the plant begins to shoot up in earnest. the lyrics of the song reference a traveling minstrel singing love songs - “it was then when a hurdy-gurdy man / came singing songs of love” - much like graydon the bard, whose belief in elora caused her to grow the eckleberry bush in the first place.

“enter sandman” by rina sawayama (originally by metallica) ends the third episode. it’s a driving rock/metal song all about nightmares and something wrong lurking in the dark; obviously, this is nockmaar (but also the darkness and sin lurking within graydon). the tone of the song orients us toward the heart-pounding danger of the castle, the exciting next step of the quest, instead of the sorrow and anxiety of graydon’s wound. this helps give momentum and energy to an otherwise death-and-despair-filled episode, and is also, tacitly, a promise that we don’t have to mourn for graydon (yet). the drums mix with the storm and thunder around the castle and it’s very cool.

“black hole sun” by SWANN (originally by soundgarden) ends the fourth episode, and it’s a pretty direct reference to all the badness happening in the immemorial city - “in disguises no one knows/hides the face/lies the snake,” “boiling heat, summer stench/’neath the black, the sky looks dead.” there’s also a cool foreshadowing here of how kit eventually saves airk, by “call[ing] [his] name through the cream.”

surprise! “time for some mayhem” by arre! arre! opens the fifth episode, and - okay, they’re chaotic, they’re fighting, this is just fun. but also, it’s structural. we ended the fourth episode, the midpoint of the series, with airk wandering the immemorial city: dramatic, sad, ominous. the musical cue helps reset us to our wacky main party and indicates on a macro-level that we’re beginning a new half of the series. on a micro-level, this episode will also be about surprising reversals - mainly the bonereavers turning out to be great partiers, but also how kit and jade’s princess/knight dynamic keeps flipping, how the adventurous brownies end up as satisfied homemakers, and how a tossed willow reveals his fear of mediocrity. so of course the wildwood would turn the musical structure upside-down, too.

“crimson and clover” by the pom-pom squad (originally by tommy james and the shondells) plays during the fifth episode during boorman's kiss with scorpia. it’s a love song meant for all three couples: boorman/scorpia, graydon/elora, and jade/kit. it’s another way the episode messes with the structure of the music, possibly alluding to the desire all the characters have to come back to the wildwood when the journey is over. this is the happy ending they want.

“good vibrations” by the beach boys ends the sixth episode, over airk meeting the crone for the first time. I’d argue that this is the song choice meant intentionally to be dissonant; its bouncy tune and claims of “good vibrations” don’t feel right because, well, it’s the crone. but the lyrics are as direct as ever, setting up airk’s instant attraction to the crone - “I love the colorful clothes she wears/and the way the sunlight plays upon her hair.”

“for the glory” by kin palo plays during the seventh episode, during the training montage. and, okay, it’s probably my favorite musical cue - not for any deep reason as to its placement, it’s just a baller song. I mean, this is just classic 80s montage - you need a rocking song behind it, both for tone and to convey the condensed passage of time! the driving drums and lyrics about going beyond your limits represent how the characters are progressing in magic and swordfighting, pushing themselves to new heights. I also love how the song ends abruptly on the beginning of the sexy swordfight, the sound of kit’s block cutting it off on “all for the glory,” as if to say, “hmm, well, not all for the glory - there’s some flirty ulterior motives, too.”

“I’m a wanted man” by royal deluxe plays at the end of the second episode, cementing airk as an opponent for kit and elora (if the short hair didn’t tip you off). the lyrics are all about an untrustworthy criminal with blood on their hands - “I would kill again to keep from doing time/you should never ever trust my kind” - reflecting how the characters must understand airk at this point, as someone they can’t trust and will try to kill them. the bridge of the song has the speaker contemplating whether they can change if someone asks them - which possibly connects to airk’s recovery at the end - but that’s buried deep in the credits, so I don’t think that counts.

“I’m on fire” by soccer mommy (originally by bruce springsteen) plays during the fake wedding in the eighth episode. what the force already covered this in their podcast episode, but basically, it’s used to denote how the crone wants to regress and infantilize elora - “hey, little girl, is your daddy home?” it’s also a song about desire and how only the person the speaker is singing to can quench it, reflecting the crone’s desire for elora’s power and also, in the case of the line “I’ve got a bad desire” over elora looking at her friends, elora’s desire for graydon.

“money for nothing” by dire straits plays at the end of episode eight, and - alright, so I think this was mostly chosen for the cool buildup and how the chords could come in right on the fire breath. it’s a song about resentment, how the speaker sees musicians on MTV getting “money for nothing” and “chicks for free” while the speaker has to do physical labor, like installing microwave ovens and moving TVs. if it does have lyrical meaning, it’s either referring to graydon or the wyrm. although graydon did make his love confession freely, without expectation of elora loving him back, the song could point to some buried resentment toward airk - or at least the wyrm goading him about whether he does. also, graydon is literally in dire straits.

so the songs are chosen to reflect the characters, story, and meta-story, and often very unsubtly so, which fits with willow’s approach to storytelling - it’s very direct. I also want to mention that five of the eleven songs featured are female covers of originally male songs (hurdy-gurdy man, enter sandman, black hole sun, crimson and clover, and i’m on fire), with - as far as I can tell - eight of the eleven songs featuring female vocalists (those plus guess who’s back, time for some mayhem, and for the glory). this is very much in line with the way the show centers women, and I like it.

finally, I want to talk a little about how the credits songs help dictate the pace. many of the complaints surrounding the music are about how it breaks immersion, and that’s valid; it’s a change in style, even if the lyrics/tone of the songs are meant to drive everything forward. I do think there’s a reason they did it this way, though, and that is: willow is meant to be consumed week-to-week, chapter by chapter. it’s not meant to binged straight through, which means the credits songs actually have three jobs: 1) be a satisfying break point, 2) continue the emotional/character throughlines, and 3) set the tone for the next episode. there is a certain amount of immersion-breaking because...well, we’re taking a break. and while we take a break, we’re going to cement what we just saw and tease what’s coming next.

this is why, for example, we go into “enter the sandman” after episode 3 instead of a musical sting related to graydon: the episode needs to break instead of feeling completely unresolved, and the next episode, while having graydon angst, is really about everyone facing the darkness in the castle. so the ending song properly centers the castle, instead of being sad or coy about graydon's wound and creating untrue expectations.

again, whether this works for you or not is your experience - I personally liked having something that felt integrated with the story I just saw but also allowed the events to resolve a little. it let me know that the creators weren't just dangling cliffhangers at me for no reason, that every chapter was an intentional part. and it helped me watch week-to-week without growing frustrated at the incomplete story.

the jean jackets (or, an overall appreciation for kit’s costuming)

okay, so that’s the music. now about the jean jackets. (again, I want to reiterate that if you didn’t like the costuming, that’s okay! not trying to change your mind, just trying to work out why it worked for me and why the creators may have made these choices). like the music and the dialogue, the costuming is trying to blend the modern with classic high fantasy - and the looseness of cheesy ‘80s fantasy shows gives them a lot of bandwidth. from an accuracy perspective, I completely understand why it doesn’t work for some people, if it’s too immersion-breaking. but from a character perspective - how costumes reflect personality and growth - I like it. for example:

kit starts out in full, dark armor (she’s cynical and emotionally guarded) with a cape (she’s self-important and arrogant).

she sheds the cape in episode 3, when her inflated view of herself has been thoroughly broken. in nockmaar, she’s wearing an open leather jacket (still guarded and abrasive, but opening up).

and she sheds the jacket at the wildwood party for one dark blue layer with an open neck (her true, bare state, ready to be honest, which she is under the truth plum.) kit keeps this costume for the rest of the series as she keeps being open (to elora, messily, in episode 6, and then to jade and elora in episode 7).

she gets the jean jacket in episode 7 as they start riding across the shattered sea, and again when kit and elora go off the cliff. it mirrors elora’s own jean jacket (they’re mirrors of each other, tied together), and, with its cut-off sleeves, also mirrors the outline of the cuirass kit receives in episode 8.

and with the kymerian armor in episode 8, kit comes full-circle back to armor, except this time she’s earned it - it’s shiny and gold instead of dark, reflecting her belief in the person she’s sworn to protect.

okay, but why do I like it?

you can analyze intention all you want, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to liking. for example, I just analyzed the kymerian armor, but I’m actually neutral on how it looks. (I know, I know - I like the modern music and I’m not in love with kit’s armor, what kind of willow fan am I?) the actual reason I like the music and the jean jackets is very simple: I liked seeing how modernity could be integrated with a classic high fantasy tale. for me, it worked.

maybe it’s just that I haven’t been watching the right shows, but it’s always seemed to me that modernity and classic high fantasy were too frequently mutually exclusive. oh, sure, you could have rock music and quippy heroes, but it would be in a story that was endlessly ironic, relentlessly running from its own genre. the modern elements would be there to show how outdated the classic fantasy genre was, how these new heroes were different and wouldn’t be like those old-school dudes. on the other hand, yeah, you could have a wholly classic fantasy tale, but it would be totally divorced from the modern world, scored with western orchestral in medieval times, as if saying that, to have a mythical, classic story like this, it would always have to be set away from us, with older, grander figures. both of these set-ups can and have worked.

but willow is the one of the few shows that, for me, struck a balance. because instead of treating the anachronism of these elements as their only characteristic, they used them as a genuine part of the show. modern music? cool, and we’re going to choose ones that lyrically cement character and help set up the pace/tone of the narrative as a whole. jean jackets? fun, and that’s a costuming choice that we’ll use like all other costumes, to reflect character growth. the modernity isn’t a joke. willow’s modernity just as earnest and honest as the rest of the show, like its centering of women, like its many POC characters, like its queerness. and it made me feel welcome.

#willow 2022 #willow spoilers #willow meta #kit tanthalos #elora danan #graydon hastur #the crone #airk tanthalos

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the-splodge · 2 years

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Okay so I’ve just unlocked the colosseum and beaten the meta knight tournament, and WOW, HAL really did him justice!!

- i wasn’t actually surprised that he was an arena boss, since the trailer showed waddle dees watching you fight him. I guess I was a bit disappointed he wasn’t a story boss, but it’s actually really fitting for his character so I don’t mind it!

- his intro??? flying over waddle dee town and into the colosseum??? and then swooping down into the arena itself??? Legendary gotta love that energy

- also gotta love you being given the sword to fight him. a classic

- his MOVES!!! one thing I disliked about star allies’ meta knight fight was that it was chaotic and. not in the good way. 4 meta knights plus 4 allies made it VERY hard to comprehend what was going on, plus the background was dark enough that meta sorta blended into it. plus his moveset was quite limited, and it didnt feel like you had to put much thought into fighting him (he’d either stab you from the ground, stab you from the air with the crescents or do the rock attack)

- here though? Meta Knight moves EXTREMELY fluidly; actually appearing to dodge attacks, using moves that would push you away then fly over to the other side of the arena (hell, even the fact that he MAKES USE of the whole arena and doesn’t just stab you in one spot is impressive for me), the attacks that you’re forced to dodge and then given a chance to move in, occasionally flying above you so that you’re forced to use air attacks

- still speaking of his moves, I love the variety! most of them are still sword attacks, which is fine, but they’re all different now and you have to dodge them in different ways! Plus I love that they kept the rock attack from star allies. Don’t really know why but I appreciate it

- THE EFFECTS!!! Holy fuck the effects. I didn’t expect the effects. Theyre GORGEOUS, and it might just be me being easily distracted, but I love the chaoticness of them - they stand out from the stage (speaking of the stage I’m very fucking glad MK actually contrasts it this time so I can see where the fuck he is) and draw your eyes to them, making you want to pay attention to them instead of who you’re fighting (which I MUCH more appreciate than the ‘I literally cannot tell what is going on’ from his star allies fight). Also the effects differ from each other, which is extremely fucking cool!!! And the BATS!!! I wasn’t expecting the fucking bats (or any of the more dark effects) but holy fuck they were cool af give me 20 more of those. Also I appreciated after his ’stab his sword into the ground’ attack you could see him trying to pull it out. Didn’t think that one through did ya buddy

- also I think they changed up his theme a bit. I only heard the first 10 seconds because I block out music when I’m focusing but the first 10 seconds I did hear were cool AS

- also I feel like his battle was reasonably balanced? I’ve been playing on wild mode because I’m not going to lie this game is easy. But I actually had to think and dodge and panic a bit rather than stab and run away, which I very much appreciated. (Plus I got mildly frustrated when I couldn’t hit him when he kept flying around, which I genuinely enjoyed since it made actually landing a hit feel so much better). However, he wasn’t hard. He made me think, yes, but he was a fair boss and it didn’t make me feel like the game just pulled out a whole lotta bullshit just to make him difficult.

- overall I can’t rate how I feel about this; numbers Cannot do it justice. I really appreciate how fluid the fight felt, as well as rewarding to beat him, and plus I love how they made use of the fact that it’s a 3D game now

#kirby series #kirby and the forgotten land spoilers #kirby and the forgotten land #kirby spoilers #meta knight #I just love it so much you guys

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lady-literature · 4 years

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Accidental Crime Boss Marinette

Okay so,, I have this AU in my head, right? (not surprised) and I’m lacking any real direction for it (still not surprised) but it basically goes like this:

Marinette moves to Gotham.

She’s drawn there for whatever reason and the kwami are saying something about balance and being a Guardian and her sacred duty and something but Marinette isn’t really listening. She’s too busy trying to find a shop front where she can open a bakery without having to worry about getting mugged every time she steps outside.

Chloé comes with her, obviously, because they’re friends and Chloé has a business degree she puts to good use actually running Mari’s bakery and online boutique while Mari gets to bake and fuck around basically. Adrien, Luka and Kagami are not there, but that’s mostly because they travel too much to settle down and keeping an empty apartment in Gotham is just asking for trouble.

Kagami is a world-renowned fencer and Luka travels the world for his music company. Not touring, but soaking up cultures and ways of life so he can make soundtracks to movies and tv shows. Providing the background and life to a film is more his style than touring the world ala his father, Jagged Stone.

Adrien is having the time of his life being Kagami’s trophy husband. He has no pressing responsibilities he doesn’t take on for himself and he gets to fuck with the world’s elite with little to no consequences. He spends most of his days donating far too much money to charities and orphanages and then causing minor scandals that land him on the cover of magazines.

He has much the same kind of ‘dumbass with a heart of gold’ persona to the media as Bruce Wayne does, only without the playboy bits.

(There is a wall in the back of the bakery, where Chloé and Mari carefully cut out and frame every headline and ridiculous picture Adrien has. He is very much delighted when he learns about his ‘wall of fame’.)

Anyway, Marinette finds herself with a bakery not overly far from crime alley, much to Chloé’s chagrin.

(“What do you mean it ‘just felt right’?! I swear to kwami, DC, you’re going to get us robbed and sold into slavery.”)

They do not get sold into salvery.

In fact, despite their less than stellar choice of locale, they do pretty well for themselves. The only problems they have (according to Chloé) is the army of children Marinette accidentally attracted.

When asked, Marinette tells everyone that it was an accident. Meanwhile, Chloé, standing behind her, will shake her head and insist there was literally never any other option for them the moment that first kid came in looking to nab some cash and a few pastries.

Mari lives by the phrases, ‘kindness breeds more kindness’ and ‘do unto others’ and all that other nice person shit. Chloé just lets Mari pseudo-adopt her strays and makes sure that they don’t steal anything too important in the time it takes her to gain their loyalty.

The kwami stay staunchly out of any arguments involving the kids (and eventually the homeless all along their street and every working girl in a five-block radius). They do so with a special brand of amusement that never means good things for either of them. (After all, the last time the kwami looked that amused, they moved to Gotham.)

The first kid is named Serrure, as Marinette comes to learn over the next month after he returns again and again, getting closer and closer like a feral cat. Other kids come during that time, all of them too small and too thin and too guarded for Mari's tastes. She wants to wrap them all up and tuck them into bed but she can’t. She has to be patient, has to be gentle. These kids are just as likely to bite her hand as they are to accept help.

Serrure becomes an almost permanent fixture at the bakery after that first month. Mari’s not quite sure what she did to get through to him, but she did, she supposes. He can’t be much older than eleven and looks nine, but after getting settled, she and Chloé discover this little slip of a boy is just as mischievous as Trixx and has all the dramatics of their favorite black cat.

The kwami, when talking about him, only refer to Serrure as Loki, even after Marinette scolds them for it. She eventually gives up trying to correct them, it’s not like Serrure talks to them anyway(yet)((that she knows of)).

There’s an apartment above the bakery, which is where Chloé and Mari and all her strays that grow to trust her enough live. It’s three bedrooms, and at first, Mari just buys as many bunk beds as she can fit into the spare room and calls it a day. The kids feel safe in her home, which isn’t too surprising. Everyone thinks the bakery feels safe, feels like home or comfort or whatever else eases their minds.

And Marinette should hopes so. She certainly put enough time and effort and magic and energy into the wards around this place for that to happen. To protect her and the children and all her strays that no one else will help.

But, she eventually amasses too many kids to fit into the one room. Chloé throws a fit about having to share with Mari again—“I had enough of that in university thank you very much”—but she relinquishes easily enough.

Mari buys more bunk beds, and Serrure has taken to sneaking into her room to curl up in her bed anyway, and sometimes the smaller kids who have nightmares will come in and pile on as well.

(There are only a few that Chloé will allow to do the same with her. It is considered a high honor and breeds a playful kind of jealousy that Chloé finds amusing. Mari scolds her for pitting the kids against each other.)

That only lasts them another two months.

“This is getting ridiculous,” Chloé tells her one day before the kids wake up. Mari is at the stove, cooking and baking for a small army while Chloé balances the books. “There’s not enough room for us all, DC, and the only reason someone hasn’t come barrelling down on us about the abundance of children is by the grace of your absurd amount of luck.”

“Well I can’t just kick them out, Queenie! What do you want from me?”

“Either we need to buy more real estate in this city—which I’d rather not do—or you open up the grimoire and start building pocket dimensions. I know you can. I’ve read the chapter.”

Marinette looks at her. “That is such a bad idea.”

They do the idea.

And then Mari adds about a thousand more wards to the bakery, carved into the wood and counter and anything that’s a permanent fixture. Doorways become particularly ward heavy, what with them being the entrances and exits to the hidden realms and children’s’ rooms.

The apartment above the bakery isn’t quite infinite but it gets pretty damn close some days.

This also means, of course, that all the kids definitely know about magic now. Some of them—Serrure—have known about it for a while she knows, but it’s different now. The kwami followed her around most of the time and she doesn’t keep them trapped in the Miracle Box like Fu did, but now that the kids know, they don’t bother staying hidden.

The children, at least, love them and the kwami adore them with all the ferocity a god can give. After Chloé gets over her ‘ew children’ phase, she throws herself into their education (on top of actually running the businesses Mari keeps, mind you). She has the help of the kwami, who act as personal tutors to the children, and it’s not long before the kids start to joke about her being the Principal.

(Some tried to call her Warden, but that joke didn’t last long.)

Marinette has also been telling the kids bedtime stories ever since this started. Old stories of the Guardian and Chosens who fought back the darkness, she shares all she knows of the Orders history with these kids and it’s not until Wayzz points it out to her does she realize what she’s doing.

“Ladybugs are known for renewal. It is no surprise that you are rebuilding what was lost.”

Rebuilding the Order using children was certainly not her intention but, well. She supposes there’s no place safer for her kids than what is shaping up to be the new Miracle Temple. It’s the only haven where they can learn to harness their Gifts and powers, it’s the only place where they can be surrounded by others like them without being thrust into superhero-dom.

Context: about a month into this whole circus, Marinette had realized there was a significant—almost all of them really—amount of metas and Gifted in her little hoard of strays. Which is… odd. Especially with how few metas there are in Gotham.

She had asked the kwami about it, and they have that amused look again. “You are their guardian.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re their guardian. True, you are the Guardian of us, of the ancient ways, but you are a guardian at your soul too. You protect what is yours, and they are yours whether you realise it or not. The children can sense that, so they flock to you.”

And, huh. She supposes that makes sense but that’s also really kind of strange and weird and she doesn't want to think about that anymore actually.

So things are… fine, Marinette supposes. The bakery is doing well, and she has about two dozen-plus helpers running around underfoot to help tend to the customers or run to the store or help in the back with the baking. And every kid of hers has new clothes, their street things thrown out for being too ragged and replaced with something fresh made by Marinette’s own hands.

She embroiders little fairy wings into the clothes normally, because that’s what her cloaked wards look like most times and the kids like it and its technically the logo for the bakery and there’s a million reasons she does it.

It is, perhaps, her first mistake.

(“It was certainly not your first,” Chloé will snark one dayin the future.)

Because now Marinette has an army of magical children learning to wield their powers and not fear them and they’re all wearing what can be considered her insignia and uh oh, it looks a lot like Mari is some sort of up and coming mob boss who uses kids and prostitutes and the homeless as runners. People on the street start calling her the Pixie, start referring to Chloé—her second in all things just as Chat had been her equal—as Wasp, as Yellowjacket, as the Unseelie.

(They cannot seem to pick a name for her, but Pixie is all but engraved in stone. Mari is not sure who coined it, and she doesn't think she wants to know.)

The first time the whole situation is brought to her attention, she punches the idiot who dared even imply such a thing so hard she knocks him out.

Because look. The kids are hers right? And she watches out for the people near her, makes sure the working girls are treated as well as they can be and offers the homeless extra food and a dry place to wait out the storm. She offers her hand and gives them all a place to rest, to eat, to exist without expectations or consequences.

She does that because she’s kind, because it hurts her to see people in need, to see them suffer, not because she’s hoping to gain something from it.

The fact that most of them repay her in gossip or information or bend her ear about the newest goings on in the corrupt elite or filthy underworld is strange, yes, but it’s nice to know what’s going on in the city, she supposes. And one time, Kathy, who works on the corner of Brookes and Gilmore, warned her of a drug raid that saved her an unnecessary trip to the police station so it’s not like it doesn't have it’s uses.

But mostly, Mari doesn't really think about all the information that’s unintentionally or otherwise passed onto her. She remembers it all, because it’s rude not to listen when people talk to her, but nothing comes of normally.

Not until Serrure—now twelve and well versed in the magic of illusions and glamors and knows almost as much about this city as her or the Bats—bursts into the bakery one day and grabs Mari away from the front counter right in the middle of a customer ordering. She should, perhaps, be a little angry at that but Tony, one of the older boys and just shy of sixteen, steps into her place almost immediately, so.

And then Serrure speaks and everything is pushed aside in favour of the next words to fall from his lips.

“Someone took Sophie,” he says and she nearly sees red.

After Serrure, Sophie has been here the longest. She is the youngest of them all, only seven, but oh so clever and kind and while she looks nothing like her, everyone calls her Mini-Mari. If Serrure is her beloved first son, Sophie is her treasured daughter.

She’s out the door in the next moment, storming her way to their base. She has Sophie and a handful of extra kids back by sunset, a little frightened, but no worse for wear. She doesn’t make a big deal out of it, besides making sure that the idiots who dared cross her never do so again, but word gets out.

Soon, her kids and teens and adults begin giving her more than just information, they begin giving her problems. Ones she’s meant to fix because she’s Pixie. She’s safety, she’s protection, she’s the one the people start to turn to for help.

And enter stage left, one Jason Todd who’s all snark and charm and smiles wrapped up in a nice leather bow and tall enough that Mari likely could climb him like a tree. If that was something she wanted, she guesses.

(She wants. She just won’t admit.)

He becomes a regular at the bakery and befriends most of her kids.

Mari’s wary when he first takes an interest in them. They’ve been hurt and a lot of them are still adjusting to being safe and it doesn't matter that this man is hot enough to burn, if he steps even a toe out of line with her kids she’ll make him wish he was never even born.

But, she stops worrying eventually. The kwami like him well enough, but seem to think something’s odd about him—but its Gotham, who isn’t strange?—and both Serrure and Sophie take to him like ducks to water and they’re both good judges of character.

There’s a certain intuition they both have that reminds Marinette just a bit too much about herself and pure magic. Not for the first time does she wonder if they got such strong magic from their parents or if it cropped up in them randomly, fostered by fortune and chance and the magic that’s so deeply seeped into the bones of her bakery it’ll be here long after she’s gone.

And, okay, so she was a little right to be wary because Jason was mostly there to investigate her. Far too many people respect her and are loyal to her and she has a veritable orphanage in her pocket and also Harley and Ivy like her and it just- it doesn’t look good right?

But Jason’s a good detective and it doesn't take him long at all to see that Mari is just as sweet and kind and loving as she appears to be. Not long after that, Red Hood declares Pixie and all of hers, under his protection. She, of course, is more than capable of taking care of her and hers, and the underworld knows this, has seen it, but he does it anyway.

The news, of course, gets back to Mari and she is… confused. Why would the Red Hood do something like that? She’s heard talk of him being sweet on kids, but to claim her? They’ve never even met.

Bonus points for Jason being there when she’s told about it. He kind of raises his eyebrow at her because, huh, that was fast, and then spends the next few minutes talking up the Red Hood to her much to her utter bafflement.

He actually keeps doing that too, talking up the Red Hood. Mari thinks he has a crush on the man for the longest time because of it. Until he reveals he is Red Hood, then she just wants to punch his stupidly handsome face for being such an idiot.

Shit happens from there and things go down and the two spend a couple of months dancing around each other and intentionally and unintentionally ruling the criminal underworld and at one point Marinette definitely punches Bruce and Batman in the face—separately, much to Jason’s unending joy—and she also definitely adopts Duke/Signal as well because that poor boy needs to know he’s not alone.

And it’s just them being domestic and badass and lowkey raising an army of children and falling in love while the kwami and the kids and Chloé are all in the background just yelling at them to get together already!

Which, they do. Eventually. After all the secrets come out and Jason knows about the magic and Order and meets Mari’s other friends, ie Kagami, Luka and Adrien who are all intimidating for wildly different reasons. And Mari finds out that Jason died and came back (which earns him the nickname firebird btw) and that he was a Robin once upon a time but is now Red Hood and oh my kwami it all makes sense now.

Jason confesses like three times via classic Victorian romance novel quotes because he’s a fucking literature nerd but it’s not until he basically spells it out for Mari does she really understand. it’s all very sweet and heartwarming and then the pair duck into one of the empty pocket dimensions they have lying around and aren’t seen for three days.

(No one really goes to look for them tbh)

Chloé definitely teases them about early honeymoons and things but besides the two being even more ridiculously lovey-dovey than usual, life goes back to normal. Or as normal as it gets for them.

And they all live happily ever after the end.

#maribat #jasonette #my typewriter #batfam #crime boss mari #miraculous ladybug #dc #mlb x dc #i was possessed by the need to write this all down #i have so many random ass moments from this au #just scenes taht barely fit together #zero coherency #let me know if yall want that ig #?

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spockandawe · 3 years

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Hello! While I know this point must have already been talked about a lot in the fandom but since I have only recently read tgcf, I don't know much. I came across threads on where people talked about Hua Cheng being obsessive and toxic, with his existence being centered around Xie Lian and hence not having a grounding personality and life of his own + the scene of Ten Thousand Gods Cave.

Since I have been reading your metas, I was curious about your thoughts on this? Thank you!

Sure thing! Apologies for the slow response, this whole thing with my back has been really disrupting everything I want to accomplish. Now, I think that Hua Cheng is obsessive in a way that could easily become toxic, but calling him obsessive+toxic relies on only a shallow reading of the character and limiting yourself to the point where he is at the very start of the story, ignoring all the character/relationship development that happens over the course of a very long book.

Now, when it comes to the flashback books? Hua Cheng can have a little obsession, as a treat. I’m not going to say that the way he feels back then is any kind of basis for a healthy adult relationship, but Hua Cheng is approximately ages 10-17 over the course of book 2, and isn’t much “older” after his death as the ghost fire and as Wuming in book 4. He’s not relating to Xie Lian in a way that’s going to lead to a relationship of equals at that point, but he’s also a kid who’s worshiping a god who saved his life at a young age, twice, and who comforted and reassured him when their kingdom’s guoshi told him that he was doomed to bring misfortune to everyone in his life. All of their interactions in book 2 are extremely good reasons for why Hua Cheng would idolize him and obsess over him in that way, and I’m not going to fault him for any of it.

Now, I would say that the end of book 4 illustrates how badly that kind of idolization can go better than anything set in the present day, but it’s telling that this is also the point where Xie Lian abruptly realizes how much he doesn’t want to be Like This, and hauls his life around. Even eight hundred years later, he’s more ashamed to speak of this part of his life than anything else. He’s way more willing to laugh at his own pain and suffering than he is to even mention a time where he was cold and controlling with someone who offered themself to him.

SO. In the present, Xie Lian has a very good reason to know that he does not want to take advantage of someone else’s offered devotion. It’s an old memory, but when we see how much he doesn’t want to talk about it, it’s clear that it made an impression. If the direction of this book was only up to Hua Cheng? He’s already made it abundantly clear that he’s willing to sacrifice his everything, including his sense of self, if Xie Lian asks, but Xie Lian has confirmed very strongly to himself that this is not what Xie Lian wants.

And Xie Lian is walking a very fine emotional line in a lot of ways that he himself isn’t even fully aware of, but the early development in the book has this really interesting balance in the dynamic between him and Hua Cheng. He’s happy to rely on Hua Cheng for advice and help, but he’s also completely willing to worry for him (when he jumps into the sinner’s pit) and to gently scold him (when he jumps into the sinner’s pit). Hua Cheng worries about what will happen if Xie Lian finds out who he really is, but Xie Lian pretty much confirms it to himself, and when Hua Cheng is finally anxious enough to ask about it, Xie Lian’s main reaction is ‘isn’t the important thing that I like you as a person?’

If Hua Cheng was left to his own devices, he’d obsess over Xie Lian in a way that let himself suborn his entire identity to whatever Xie Lian wants from him, but Xie Lian has been so horribly lonely for so long, and even before a relationship enters the picture, what Xie Lian wants is a friend. And Xie Lian, on his own, is determined not to let himself take advantage of a person the way he took advantage of Wuming. And no matter how much Hua Cheng wants to submit himself to Xie Lian, what’s more important to him is what Xie Lian wants. The meta that’s been doing good circulation that I bet you saw was about how Hua Cheng developed his own independent sense of self over the last eight hundred years, no matter what he’d originally wanted, but as he gets to know Xie Lian in the present, Xie Lian makes it clear that Xie Lian likes who he became.

Hua Cheng does still definitely take the position that ‘whatever Xie Lian wants is more important than what I want’, and that could go badly in so many ways, but from the very beginning, Xie Lian is firmly, firmly expressing, ‘I like who you are and I want to be friends.’ Xie Lian doesn’t scold Hua Cheng for being a dick to Fu Yao and Nan Feng, or for breaking heavenly artifacts, even one that used to be one of his own treasured possessions. He scolds Hua Cheng because ‘you jumped down into that pit and I was afraid you would be hurt.’ He doesn’t try to sand off Hua Cheng’s sharp edges or change him, and isn’t willing to sit back and relax as Hua Cheng puts himself in harm’s way. He doesn’t give Hua Cheng room to make himself a less-than, and (probably unintentionally) positively reinforces Hua Cheng when he lets bits of his own true personality show through. One of the reasons I love this book so much is because that relationship could have so easily turned toxic and controlling, but the main pair like each other so much that they manage to pull through into a healthy, balanced relationship.

It’s not a perfect relationship, because perfect relationships are boring and unrealistic, and there’s no tension in a story if two characters are perfectly in step. But by the end of the story, this is a more perfect relationship than I’d ever expected to be invested in, because they’re so in sync, haha.

I think the moments that show the ways it’s not obsessive in a toxic way best come through in the times when Hua Cheng has some sort of grudge against a person that Xie Lian genuinely cares for. It starts with the shitty teens in the Banyue arc, but even near the story end, Mei Nianqing is Xie Lian’s old beloved teacher, and is also the person who told Hua Cheng ‘wow! you’re destined to fuck over everyone who ever gets close to you’ when Hua Cheng was just a little kid. It’s clear that Xie Lian likes and respects him a lot, and Hua Cheng feels not at all compelled to play nice. He’s happy to continue being nasty as hell to Feng Xin and Mu Qing, who are Xie Lian’s next two closest friends. He’s not even willing to be nice to E’Ming even as 1) Xie Lian pampers it, and 2) E’Ming is literally a part of himself.

And he doesn’t hide this at all. He’s willing to act in ways not at all aligned with Xie Lian’s own opinions, especially as time goes on and Xie Lian doesn’t correct him. He’s willing to act against Xie Lian’s wishes in order to protect him (taking back his spiritual energy in the black water arc, overexerting himself to the point of dissipation at the climax), and it becomes more clear as the story progresses that he’s a person who wants only the best for Xie Lian, but who exists independently from Xie Lian, and isn’t willing to completely defer to Xie Lian’s desires or to override Xie Lian’s desires for what he thinks is best. To me, this relationship is primarily defined by how much the two of them like each other, and especially early on, I could see it easily tipping in an unhealthy direction, but it feels like most of the later relationship development specifically exists to undermine that particular flavor of toxic dynamic, and what we end up with is a very sweet, very balanced relationship. Hua Cheng’s willingness to submit himself to what Xie Lian wants is overridden by Xie Lian’s desire that Hua Cheng be himself, because that’s the person who Xie Lian loves.

#spock replies #tgcf #long post/#hualian #hua cheng #xie lian #i hope this is coherent my back is really undermining my words more than it's messing with anything else ;u;#Anonymous

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lokitvsource · 3 years

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You came into the show with the idea of Loki clashing with the TVA already in place. How exactly does this kind of arrangement work at Marvel? Michael Waldron: There was a creative brief that was 20 pages or so that basically said: “We want to do something about Loki running up against the TVA. Here’s some different avenues that might be cool to explore.” It was really serving it up for writers as a jumping off point for us to put together our pitches. Then I went off and really worked on the idea of Loki being brought in to hunt another Loki, and that becoming the heart of the show, and the Loki/Sylvie relationship. The big thing that I did in my pitch — even as early as pitching it to Kevin [Feige] — I really walked through the six episodes, kind of similar to what they were. I knew I wanted Episode 3, for instance, to be a little bit of a Before Sunrise, with Loki and this character walking across this apocalyptic moon. But Marvel had the initial, probably the most important spark of genius, which was just Loki and the TVA.

Where did the idea of the variant being a female Loki come from? That was one of my ideas, that we then confirmed in the writers room. Yeah, we knew from the get-go that it was going to be Loki falling for another version of himself.

Why was that appealing to you? I love writing any romance; it’s fun. Especially, it hasn’t been done a ton in the MCU. There’s an obviously self-reflective quality to it. And a show that’s quite literally about self-love; it is Loki getting to see parts of himself. At the start of the show, he kind of hates himself. He assesses himself to Mobius as a villain. And then he meets Sylvie, and he sees her as someone on a heroic crusade. He sees the good in her, and is able to see the good in himself.

Mobius suggests that, of course, Loki fell in love with his own variant, because he’s a narcissist. Do you think he’d be capable of falling in love with someone who is not a version of himself? [Laughs] I don’t know if he didn’t fall in love with himself first. Maybe after that, but the first time he falls, maybe this is what it had to be.

What’s the key to telling a time travel story that takes advantage of the concept without confusing the audience? I think it’s doing a lot of work that the audience never sees. It’s really understanding the logic of this thing, building out the TVA as a real organization that actually exists in our minds. Our writers room, we had a TVA handbook, encyclopedia, what they do and why they do it, a glossary of terms. And then you want to only give the audience the absolute bare minimum to understand the story, and to just get swept up in the emotional stakes of everything. If the sci-fi of it all, if the time travel logic of this show did not hold up week to week, then that would have distracted from the emotional journeys of the characters. So I’m glad that even though everyone had to take their medicine a little bit, along with Loki, in episode one, I’m glad it didn’t distract from the story we were telling. And we had the benefit of Loki being the audience’s eyes in. The audience is learning as he is.

There’s a funny scene in Avengers: Endgame where the Avengers start arguing about exactly how time travel works in the MCU. How much did you have to study what other Marvel movies had done with the idea to make sure your rules were consistent? Fortunately, Endgame was the main one, and that’s how they understand it. The TVA is an organization that understands time travel on a deeper level, probably more comprehensively than the Avengers do in Endgame. We wanted to make sure we were staying true to any rules that they laid out, but sort of establishing our own rules. It’s a time travel show. What was I thinking? A movie’s one thing, but a show is hard.

How many Loki variants did you have on the writers room whiteboard at various points? Hundreds. So many different Lokis. There was one Loki, actually maybe it was a version of Mobius that took off his glasses, and he just had really tiny eagle eyes, like he could see everything. There was stuff like that all over the white board. Tom Kauffman, who wrote that fifth episode, he’s an amazing comedy writer, and was on the first three seasons of Rick and Morty. His first draft of that episode was just bananas.

Was there a variant, or a crazy idea in general, that you really loved but couldn’t ultimately do? There was so much different stuff that we wanted to do in the Void. But the truth is, I don’t want to say any of it, because you never know. The ideas that I want to do the most may pop up elsewhere.

Okay, so let’s stick with a variant we did see. Was Alligator Loki actually a Loki, or just an alligator that happened to be wearing a Loki’s crown? A magician can’t reveal his tricks, man. That’s the great debate. Let it rage.

What was Alligator Loki‘s origin story on your side of things? Who pitched him and how was that initially received? That was maybe my very first meeting with the producers at Marvel, Kevin Wright and Stephen Broussard, talking about the show, and me saying, “When we’re doing this, you can encounter lots of different Lokis. You could have an alligator Loki. Why? Cause he’s green.” And us all laughing about how stupid that was. I think I made the point that it’s that energy of what we can do with the show. We can have something like that, but let’s play it straight. Alligator Loki, you get a laugh out of it, but by and large you try and play it straight. That was the fun tonal balance that we tried to strike in the show.

There’s been some conflicting information out there about whether the big bad was originally just going to be He Who Remains, who’s a different comics character altogether from Kang, and whether the casting of Jonathan Majors changed the plan. From your point of view, what happened? The character was always written as a version of Kang, as early as the first draft of the script, we knew in the writers room, relatively early on. He Who Remains, that’s the guy behind the curtain with the TVA, and we saw an opportunity to fuse that mythology with the Immortus mythology. And that was just really compelling. It was a way to elevate, it just felt right for Loki, because Loki was there in the first Avengers, he’s the one who brought the Avengers together, and here is directly related to the exploding of the multiverse, this event that will drive the events of Phase Four. Certainly, when Jonathan came in, it allowed us to step on the gas of just how eccentric and charismatic this character could be. I was inspired in the writing of He Who Remains by Tom Cruise’s character in Magnolia, trying to give it that Frank TJ Mackey energy a little bit. He captures that and then elevates it to something else that’s different and weird.

You just said how important the multiverse is going to be to Phase Four of the MCU. How challenging is it to have to set up this big thing for the larger Marvel endeavor while also serving the needs of the particular story you’re telling on this show? It’s a challenge in the sense that it’s all a relay race, and you’ve got the baton on this thing, and you want to do a great job. The name of the game over at Marvel is with each movie or TV show, make it the best it can possibly be. And they’re really supportive of that, and trust that it will organically fit into the larger blueprint of everything. We were excited about introducing a version of Kang, because yeah, to introduce this new big bad was cool for our show. I was aware, and cautious, of the thing I read in your review, that it might not be the most sound storytelling to introduce a new character at the very end that we’ve never seen before as the big bad of this thing. Obviously, we had the benefit that people know who Kang is, and there’s a meta thing where a portion of the audience knows Jonathan Majors is going to be playing Kang in Phase Four. But the finale was only ever going to work if He Who Remains, in a compelling way, serviced the Loki and Sylvie emotional story. That was the most important job that that character did in the finale: he laid out a very compelling conflict that ultimately drove the two of them apart.

There has also been some confusion as to exactly when you knew that there would be a second season, as opposed to you just making a limited series. Initially, in the writers room, we were not operating as though there would be a second season. And the whole way through was, this should be a story that should stand on its own. I referenced The Leftovers and Mad Men all the time. I think about those seasons, they pushed the overall stories forward, but you can pull any one of those seasons and look at it on its own as an individual story. I wanted that to be the case here, whether we did a second season or not. I think we always felt that we would want to propel Loki forward into the MCU after the conclusion of our season. The only question was, would that be in an appearance in a movie, or would that be in a second season. And it was only over the course of development that the stars aligned to make a second season.

But that end scene, where Mobius no longer recognizes Loki and the TVA is filled with Kang statues, wouldn’t have been a satisfying conclusion to a limited series. That is an ending that only works if there’s going to be a second season. So there is another conclusion to the story that I wrote that exists out there, that I guess is just for me. My own little play, that I perform with my action figures.

What was Sylvie’s original plan, before Loki hijacked her to that dying moon? It was to empty out the TVA. The entire bombing of the Sacred Timeline was to create a diversion. She’s not going to be able to create a multiverse from doing that. Ultimately, the TVA has the manpower to get out and take care of these events, but they’re going to have to scramble a lot of their minutemen teams, and it leaves the Time-Keepers significantly less guarded than they would have been otherwise. That was her plan.

You didn’t come into this as a big comic book nerd. So was there someone on staff who could tell you, “Well, there’s this giant cloud called Alioth that eats time,” or, “Well, one time Thanos had a helicopter,” or maybe someone assigned to you by Marvel? I’m constantly reading the comics but trying to not be so beholden to the and do our own thing. I charged our writers assistant, Ryan Kohler, with, “You’ve got to become the authority on all things TVA, all things Kang, and all that.” So he and my assistant, Sophie Miller, became a support staff who read a ton of these comics and became a wealth of knowledge for the writers to turn to. And then the Marvel producers, obviously are very well versed in the comics. It was Kevin Wright who came in one day and was like somebody throwing down a blueprint in an asteroid movie, going, “Alioth! Look at this!” And we were like, “Ohmigod, this is perfect!” The best thing about working on these comic book shows is that if it’s from the comics, it doesn’t matter how much of a deus ex machina it is, it’s just cool, like, “I can’t believe you pulled that from the comics.” Alioth, that was a big breakthrough that unlocked the last two episodes for us.

That is not a famous comic book that introduces Alioth. It’s an obscure Nineties miniseries, with really ugly art. But you look at it and see what it could be. You say, “If we do this, and it feels like Twister, it’s going to be really cool.”

Was Mobius’ love of jet skis there simply to illustrate his character, or did you have a grander idea in mind? I will come clean: I’m a jet ski guy. I’ve spent a good amount of time on jet skis in my day. I used to tow a jet ski to a lake and ride it in college. So it probably was me. Loki, I was just becoming a steward of that character. Mobius was a character I really felt I got to create from nothing. There’s not really anything to that character in the comics. So bits and pieces of me found their way in. I just think there’s something so poignant — here Mobius is, a guy who is literally fighting to preserve all of time in the multiverse, and yet his interests are maybe the most humble, human, terrestrial, unremarkable thing you can think of. Just a jet ski. And when you’ve got Owen Wilson playing him and it’s just that much better.

Will you be back in some capacity for Season Two? [long pause] Time will tell.

‘Loki’ Head Writer Michael Waldron — and ‘Rick and Morty’ Alum — on MCU, ‘Heels’ and More

#loki tv #loki series #michael waldron #interview

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bewitching-elizabeth-olsen · 3 years

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Press/Gallery: How Elizabeth Olsen Brought Marvel From Mainstream to Prestige

“The thing I love about being an actor is to fully work with someone and try so hard to be at every level with them, chasing whatever it is you need or want from them.”

GALLERY LINKS

Studio Photoshoots > 2021 > Session 008 Magazine Scans > 2021 > Backstage (August 19)

Backstage: Elizabeth Olsen grins widely over video chat when recalling many such moments on set with her co-stars. Yet, she can’t bring herself to divorce such a lofty vision of film acting from the technical multitasking it requires. The camera sees all.

“But then you move your hair, and you’re in your brain, like: OK, remember that! Because I don’t want to edit myself out of a shot. I know some actors are like, ‘Continuity, shmontinuity!’ But the good thing about continuity is, if you remember it, you’re actually providing yourself with more options for the edit.”

That need to balance being both inside the scene and outside of it, fully living it and yet constantly visualizing it on a screen, feels particularly apt in light of Olsen’s most recent project, “WandaVision.”

The mysteries at the heart of the show grow with every episode, each fast-forwarding to a different decade: Could this 1950s, black-and-white, “filmed in front of a studio audience” newlyweds bit be a grief-stricken dream? Might this ’70s spoof be a powerful spell gone awry? Could this meta take on mockumentary comedies be proof that the multiverse is finally coming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

The series’ structure, which branches out to include government agents intent on finding out why Westview has seemingly disappeared, calls for the entire cast to play with a mix of genres, balancing a shape-shifting tone that culminates in an epic, MCU-style conclusion. What’s key—and why the show struck a chord with audiences during its nine-episode run—is the miniseries’ commitment to grounding its initial kooky setups and its later special effects-driven spectacle in heartbreaking emotional truths. It’s no small feat, though it’s one that can often be taken for granted.

“I was thinking how hard it would have been to have shot the first ‘Lord of the Rings,’ ” Olsen muses. “Like, you’re putting all these actors [into the frame] later and at all these different levels. All the eyelines are completely unnatural. And yet the performances are fantastic! And technically, they are so hard. People forget sometimes that these things are really technically hard to shoot. And if you are moved by their performance, that took a lot of multitasking.”

As someone who has learned plenty about harnesses, wirework, fight choreography, and green screens (she’s starred in four Marvel movies, including the box office megahit “Avengers: Endgame,” after all), Olsen knows how hard it can be to wrap one’s brain around the work needed to pull off those big, splashy scenes.

“If you think about it, it’s, like, the biggest stakes in the entire world—every time. And that feels silly to act over and over again, especially when people are in silly costumes and the love of your life is purple and sparkly, and every time you kiss them, you have to worry about getting it on your hands. Those things are ridiculous. You feel ridiculous. So there is a part of your brain that has to shovel that away and just look into someone’s eyeballs—and sometimes, they don’t even have eyeballs!”

The ability to spend so much time with Wanda, albeit in the guise of sitcom parodies, was a welcome opportunity for Olsen. Not only did it allow the actor to really wrestle with the traumatic backstory that has long defined the character in the MCU, but having the chance to calibrate a performance that functions on so many different levels was a thrilling challenge.

“It was such an amazing work experience,” she says. “Kathryn [Hahn] uses the word ‘profound’—which is so sweet, because it is Marvel, and people, you know, don’t think of those experiences as profound when they watch them. But it really was such a special crew that [director] Matt Shakman and [creator] Jac Schaeffer created. It was a really healthy working environment.”

Related‘WandaVision’ Star Kathryn Hahn’s Secret to Building a Scene-Stealing Performance ‘WandaVision’ Star Kathryn Hahn’s Secret to Building a Scene-Stealing Performance Considering that the miniseries spans several sitcom iterations, various layers of televisual reality, and a number of character reveals that needed to feel truthful and impactful in equal measure, Shakman’s decision to work closely with his actors ahead of shooting was key.

“We truly had a gorgeous amount of time together before we started filming,” Olsen remembers. “Our goal was—which is controversial in TV land—that if you wanted to change [anything], like dialogue in a scene, you had to give those notes a week before we even got there. Because sometimes you get to set, and someone had a brilliant idea while they were sleeping, and you’re like, ‘We don’t have an hour to talk about this. We have seven pages to shoot.’ And so, we were all on the same page with one another, knowing what we were shooting ahead of time.

“Matt just treated us like a troupe of actors who were about to do some regional theater shit,” she adds with a smile.

That spirit of camaraderie was, not coincidentally, at the heart of Olsen’s breakout project, Sean Durkin’s 2011 indie sensation “Martha Marcy May Marlene.” As an introduction to the process of filmmaking to a young stage-trained actor, Durkin’s quietly devastating drama was a dream—and an invaluable learning opportunity.

“It was truly just a bunch of people who loved the script, who just were doing the work. I didn’t understand lenses, so I just did the same thing all the time. I never knew if the camera would be on me or not. There was just so much purity in that experience, and you only have that once.”

The film announced Olsen as a talent to watch: a keen-eyed performer capable of deploying a stilted physicality and clipped delivery, which she used to conjure up a wounded girl learning how to shake off her time spent in a cult in upstate New York. But Olsen admits that it took her a while to figure out how to navigate her career choices afterward. In the years following “Martha,” she felt compelled to try on everything: a horror flick here, a high-profile remake there, a period piece here, an action movie there. It wasn’t until she starred in neo-Western thriller “Wind River” (alongside fellow Marvel regular Jeremy Renner) and the dark comedy “Ingrid Goes West” (opposite a deliciously deranged Aubrey Plaza) that Olsen found her groove.

“It was at that point, when I was five years into working, where I was like, Ah, I know how I want it. I know what I need from these people—from who’s involved, from producers, from directors, from the character, from the script—in order to trust that it’s going to be a fruitful experience.”

As Olsen looks back on her first decade as a working actor, she points out how far removed she is from that young girl who broke out in “Martha Marcy May Marlene.”

“I feel like a totally different person. I don’t know if everyone who’s in their early 30s feels like their early 20s self is a totally different human. But when I think about that version of myself, it feels like a long time ago; there’s a lot learned in a decade.”

Those early years were marked by a self-effacing humility that often led Olsen to defer to others when it came to key decisions about the characters she was playing. But she now feels emboldened to not only stand up for herself and her choices but for others on her sets as well.

“[Facebook Watch series] ‘Sorry for Your Loss’ I got to produce, and I really found my voice in a collaborative leadership way. And with ‘WandaVision,’ Paul [Bettany] and I really took on that feeling, as well—especially since we were introducing new characters to Marvel and wanted [those actors] to feel protected and helped,” she says. “They could ask questions and make sure they felt like they had all the things they needed because sometimes you don’t even know what you need to ask.”

It’s a lesson she learned working with filmmaker Marc Abraham on the Hank Williams biopic “I Saw the Light,” and she’s carried it with her ever since. “I really want it to feel like we’re all in this together, as a team,” Olsen says. “That was part of ‘Sorry for Your Loss’ and it was part of ‘WandaVision,’ and I hope to continue that kind of energy because those have been some of the healthiest work experiences I’ve had.”

If Olsen sounds particularly zealous about the importance of a comfortable, working set, it is because she’s well aware that therein lies an integral part of the work and the process. As an actor, she wants to feel protected and nurtured by those around her, whether she’s reacting to a telling, quiet line of dialogue about grief or donning her iconic Scarlet Witch outfit during a magic-filled mid-air action sequence.

“Sometimes you’re going to be foolish, you know? And [you need to] feel brave to be foolish. Sometimes people feel embarrassed on set and snap. But if you’re in a place where people feel like they’re allowed to be an idiot,” she says, “you’re going to feel better about being an idiot.”

This story originally appeared in the Aug. 19 issue of Backstage Magazine. Subscribe here.

Press/Gallery: How Elizabeth Olsen Brought Marvel From Mainstream to Prestige was originally published on Elizabeth Olsen Source • Your source for everything Elizabeth Olsen

#Elizabeth Olsen #WandaVision #Avengers #Scarlet Witch #Wanda Maximoff #Sorry For Your Loss #Avengers Infinity War #Avengers Age of Ultron #Captain America Civil War #Ingrid Goes West #Godzilla #Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness #Marvel #MCU #Candy Montgomery #Love and Death #Avengers Endgame

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makeste · 3 years

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reading your meta, I feel like that's another reason (with protecting them) why Izuku didn't confide in any of his friends (apart from Katsuki, but that's his bf u know, hoes before bros) about OFA. if he feels like he has to save everyone in his faulted (but very human!) view, that makes sense. so, he will probably tell them after Katsuki (who doesn't like the secrecy as seen in the flashback) punches some sense into him. I would love Ochako, Iida and Shouto to also make him see he's not alone

I think that’s definitely part of it -- he didn’t want to burden them. Katsuki, as you said, was an exception, because Kacchan is always an exception for him. but yeah, if and when some sense-knocking does go down, I’m hoping one of the results will be Deku (and All Might) finally letting their guard down enough to let a few of the others in on the secret. actually I’m almost positive this is going to happen no matter what before much longer. there’s a lot building up to this.

first, there’s the practicality aspect of it all. Deku is reaching a tipping point (actually he might have already tipped right on over it lol) where feeble excuses like “oh wow, look at that, it must be a weird secondary aspect of my quirk that I never knew existed till now!” are simply not going to work anymore. no one is going to buy some half-assed “guess what guys, my super strength quirk slash spider-man energy web quirk randomly and spontaneously evolved on the spot to also include a floating quirk and an OH NO, DANGER!! quirk! how about that! fucking quirks, man!! wild!!” no, Deku. THAT LINE CAN ONLY GET YOU SO FAR.

second, there’s his increasingly trippy connection to AFO which is also going to become more and more difficult to hide as events wear on. it would not at all surprise me if he got up to some more AFOFA shenanigans in the OFA Astral Plane as soon as the very next chapter. plus people are going to start wondering why TomurAFO was/is after him.

and lastly, though he might not even realize it yet, with the downfall of first All Might and now Endeavor, and with AFO growing exponentially more powerful in that same span of time, Deku is pretty much on the fast track now to being the World’s Best And Possibly Only Hope. though it’s not just him, really. it’s all of the kids. but the simple fact that he’s the one with the quirk that’s been passed down through the ages for the sole purpose of defeating AFO means that he’s the one who’s going to be at the center of it all.

this last arc was a coming-of-age arc for all of the U.A. students. they found themselves on the front lines of probably the largest-scale battle in quirk-era history, and not only did they survive, they ended up being the ones who made the difference. Tokoyami confronted Dabi and saved Hawks. the Momosquad defeated Gigantofuckingmachia!! Ochako faced one of the strongest villains in the series solo, completely held her own, and still had enough left in the tank to go out and rescue god knows how many more people afterwards. and Shouto, Katsuki, and Deku took on literally the strongest villain of all time, held their own, and came this close to actually defeating him. and not only that, but managed to hold off Dabi as well. with only a year of training under their belts.

and the adults? what is there to say. sure, a handful of them made it out more or less unscathed, but now they’re dealing with a situation that is magnitudes past anything they’re capable of handling. the entire Billboard Top 10 is either dead or in critical condition. the number one hero is facing a political fallout that will probably end in his resignation. top-security inmates from six (or was it seven?? this part was very unclear??) of the most notorious prisons in the country broke free and are on the loose. and presumably there is still a mass-scale rescue and recovery operation underway at Jakku and all of those other cities, and the heroes who aren’t dealing with the prison breaks are probably occupied with that.

basically the short of it is that the torch has been passed on. I don’t know yet how they’re going to deal with that in the story, given the legal and ethical ramifications -- maybe the HPSC will just say “fuck it” and give them temporary full hero licenses, idk. but the inevitable controversy of that aside, this is clearly where the story is leading now. and so what that means, is that without Endeavor or All Might or any of the Old Guard left, it will inevitably fall to the kids to lead the charge for this last stretch of the story. Mirio, Momo, Ochako, Shouto, Katsuki, and all the rest. and Deku.

and that means Deku is going to have to step up. because this is what it’s all been building up to for him. OFA vs. AFO. and so at that point, he basically has to tell the others, because it’s going to be critical for them to understand. at that point it becomes a situation where the danger to them is greater if they don’t know about it, because whatever strategy they end up working out will ultimately need to hinge on OFA as their trump card. they have to know. he has to tell them.

so yeah, basically I’m expecting this to happen pretty soon! it’s past time for his other close friends to be let in on the secret, and it takes some of the pressure off of him and Katsuki as well. and aside from that, it’s basically just all about that trust, baby. Let Deku Have Everyone’s Back And Everyone Have His 2021. manifest that shit, lol.

#bnha 298 #midoriya izuku #bnha meta #deku meta #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #asks #anon asks #long post #I actually didn't realize how long it was until I scrolled back through it lol #ah well

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everythingsinred · 3 years

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Let's Talk About NatsuMikan: The Anime (pt. 1)

I could go on and on about these two and I think I will, just because I don’t often see people talk about the analysis behind them. The meta I have seen about them has included a perspective that equaled the anime and the manga and I don’t think that’s an accurate way of viewing their relationship.

The anime is a different species than the manga, something that frequently happens during the adaptation from page to screen. Since they’re so different, I’ll analyze them separately.

There's going to be many parts to this so I'll keep a table of contents right here so people can more easily navigate (though you can also read through the "let's talk about natsumikan: the anime" tag on my blog):

Anime Analysis

Part 1: Exposition & Episode 7

Part 2: Episodes 8, 9, 10, & 11

Part 3: Episodes 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, & 17

Part 4: Episodes 18 & 19

Part 5: Episodes 20, 21, & 22

Part 6: Episodes 23, 24, 25, & 26 & Conclusion

The anime makes changes, as anime adaptations often do. The most outstanding changes are appearance related, as Natsume now has brown eyes instead of red, in addition to other characters who have hue-shifted eyes and hair. But there are also story changes, and I’ll be focusing on the changes that occur, specifically in regards to Natsume and Mikan and their relationship.

For one, their relationship starts evolving much earlier in the anime. I think it’s pretty undeniable that in the anime, Natsume started liking Mikan at the end of the dodgeball game. That scene never happened in the manga, but in the anime, it’s a crucial step in making sure nothing seems too sudden or forced.

The anime is 26 episodes long. If Natsume only starts liking Mikan after she saves him during the Reo Arc, then we’re already halfway through the show when positive feelings between the two appear. On the other hand, the feelings develop more slowly in the manga because there’s more time to properly develop the relationship in a more drawn out way.

My analysis will start with the anime, because it’s shorter and easier to discuss.

Exposition

It’s impossible to say that the anime was completely loyal to the manga. It very frequently couldn’t be, because it needed to fill in time in episodes or give closure early before the manga even addressed it (Natsume’s backstory in the anime, for instance, is vaguely referred to and implies deviation from the manga).

The most obvious difference between the manga and the anime from the get-go is visual. Not only do they have differing art styles (I don’t dislike the anime style but Higuchi Tachibana’s art style is so distinct and unmistakable while the anime’s isn’t so unique), but the setting is also different.

While the manga started in the depth of winter, the anime starts off in summer/fall. It always struck me as odd that while the first page of the manga has Mikan running after Hotaru in full winter-wear, the anime starts off warm and idyllic. You could almost think of that as a general warning for the difference between the anime and the manga. After all, while the anime has a reputation for being a cutesy and upbeat story about friendship and magical powers, the manga is much darker and discusses many morbid and depressing themes that can and WILL fuck you up. Warm vs. cold seems like an accurate difference, though I don’t think that was intentional.

We see way more of the village life in the anime, including Mikan’s efforts to keep the school from closing. This is a welcome change because Mikan’s passion to keep the school open is nothing compared to her friendship with Hotaru, and even after the school is saved, she runs away to see her friend, even if it means she goes to another school. The manga doesn’t imply that Mikan knew already about the school’s fate, and since she is always so preoccupied with Hotaru anyway, we don’t really get the impression that she cares very much. To Anime!Mikan, Hotaru is more important than saving the school, something she was so passionate about she rallied to get signatures. It’s an extra scene to prove just how much Hotaru matters to Mikan, and to show even more how selfless Hotaru was to go to Alice Academy, since she knew how much the school mattered to Mikan.

“Sign my petition to get a Gakuen Alice anime reboot!!!”

My boy Natsume is only introduced properly in the second episode, when we actually see his face and he speaks. His appearance is different from the manga’s too. I’m not sure if this was to appeal to a younger audience or what, but Natsume’s eyes are changed to brown instead of their iconic red, something that was always my biggest peeve about the anime adaptation. His hair is also somewhat purplish instead of entirely grey/black and, although this does bother me a lot less than the eyes, I wonder why they made this change when other characters have black hair. It might have been to differentiate him from Hotaru, another main character with black hair, though I’ve never had issue in the manga telling them apart.

His first interaction with Mikan is a lot more pleasant in the anime than in the manga, although that’s not really saying anything. Mikan’s skirt simply falls off and Natsume draws attention to it, rather than the unpleasant events that took place in the manga. This different event makes it a lot easier to support a relationship between the two of them right off the bat. They are still antagonistic but it’s not as terrible as it is in the manga. This makes it easier to establish romantic feelings earlier on, and might have been changed in order to achieve just that, or possibly also to appeal to a younger audience. Maybe both? Who knows.

“You can’t sit with us!”

With Natsume presented the way he is in the anime, it’s easier to make the claim that he’s simply a good guy who acts the way he does to protect people. And it’s true! He is! But he is also so much more. In the manga, he’s a more complicated character. Although he is a good person, he still requires character development, which is something he does go through, and something I’ll talk about more in his meta analysis later.

Most of the events at the beginning of the anime parallel the events of the manga. Mikan goes to Alice Academy at the same time of year, Natsume shows up with an explosion, Mikan has to go through the Northern Woods, she discovers her powers in her fight with Natsume, etc. Some of the continuation from episode to episode is different than the transitions between chapter to chapter, there’s extra scenes inserted to fill up time, and some of the exposition seems strangely presented (in the anime, Mikan finds out more about the school when she finds Narumi and Iinchou waiting for her at a tea party, which is…. Super weird…), but all in all the information and events are mainly the same. The big differences start with the dodgeball episode.

“Look how happy she is. Makes me wanna barf.”

Episode 7 vs. Chapter 9

I love the dodgeball episode. I feel like for the most part, the anime does deviation from the manga pretty well. With the last arc as an exception, I generally enjoy their changes and additions to the plot. The anime has to be different, has to progress at a different pace, has to introduce topics at different times. They have an episode to fill, and less time to build relationships. Natsume and Mikan are both different characters in the anime but it’s very subtle and has to happen due to the fact that the anime is shorter and seems more designed for younger audiences, in addition to wrapping up before the manga could explore more of the story.

Anyway, let’s talk about the dodgeball episode. AGAIN THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN IN THE MANGA THE SAME WAY so when discussing NatsuMikan as a concept, the anime events cannot be treated the same as the manga events. A lot of people maybe forget that the manga is very different than the anime when it comes to this episode. I see the two media conflated in plenty of fanfics, where seventeen year old NatsuMikan reflect on the dodgeball game from their youth that changed everything, and I get it because the anime version of the dodgeball game is cute! It's shippy! It's fun! But it doesn't happen in the manga the same way.

There's a similar trope with the sakura tree, which I can only remember from the anime, and yet it's such a fundamental aspect of NM fanfic it might as well have played a vital role in both anime and manga. Nothing wrong with any of this, of course. I'm just making it clear that my analysis will cover the two media as separate for the sake of a cohesive essay. Separating them in fanfic is far less important.

This look could probably kill someone. I’m surprised Mikan is still alive, TBH.

The chapter’s focus is Mikan starting to feel more at home in Class B, making friends with her once-hostile classmates, but the episode is more preoccupied with Natsume and Mikan’s perspectives on each other. While in the manga, the game ends with a tie and Mikan accidentally hits Hotaru in the face with the ball, the anime draws out the game to fill an episode and to introduce an evolution in the way Natsume sees Mikan. The first part of the anime episode is Mikan introducing her friends to her new senpai, Tsubasa. After she invites her friends, we see Natsume glowering at her and promptly ditching the next class, saying to Ruka that he can’t stand being in the same class as her. This addition to the plot already foreshadows that their relationship will change in some way by the end of the episode.

Tsubasa tells a frustrated Mikan that if she wants Natsume to be less unpleasant, he’d need to release some of his toxic energy. Thus, the sporty Mikan introduces the concept of dodgeball to the unwelcoming class. When they finally agree, Natsume gives one condition: that they play with the notorious Alice Ball, which is powered by the thrower’s alice (a detail absent from the manga). This Alice Ball is particularly terrifying with the threat of Natsume’s dangerous fire alice. Mikan also needs to get more people on her team, another aspect absent from the manga. While in the manga, Mikan only had her few friends on her team (including a wandering Ruka) and this ended up playing to her advantage, the anime has a humorous plot of Mikan tracking players down for her team, including a fake mustache she makes with her pigtails (she’s so cute, I love her), paying Hotaru to be on her team, and blackmailing Ruka to participate. This was mainly to fill time, but it makes the dodgeball game more important as well.

In the manga, we don’t see how the game ends, just that the teams tied and that everyone in class is having fun and bonding. In the anime, more emphasis is put on the “Mikan vs. Natsume” aspect, so a tie like the manga’s would be anticlimactic. Thus, the anime concludes the dodgeball game with Mikan and Natsume being the only kids left on the court, and Natsume not using his alice when he throws the Alice Ball. Even Hotaru leaving the game is something she does out of boredom instead of injury, further separating the other characters from the plot. It’s about Natsume and Mikan, and everyone else is mostly a side character. (Though Ruka also plays a vital role to this episode AND chapter, and it’s at this point that I think he started developing real feelings for Mikan as well. So when it comes to the anime, he and Natsume fall for Mikan around the same time, but in the manga, Ruka likes her first and the “he liked her first” argument for Natsume vanishes, though he never had that “advantage” to begin with.)

“Thank you!”

Natsume wins (something that shocked me at twelve years old) and is ready to walk away with his handy “tch” and all but Mikan thanks him for not using his alice and he goes off on her, demanding to know why she’s still smiling despite her loss. She says she’s happy that he had fun and was involved with the rest of class for once, and that in a way that means she wins. For Anime!Natsumikan, this is it. This is the turning point. “I just wanted you to be happy and have fun,” is what Mikan might as well be saying. “Really, this was all for you!” It’s sweet and it’s thoughtful and I don’t think Natsume ever imagined he’d be on the receiving end of her kindness, especially after all their beef. Manga!Mikan would probably not say these things to him, even if she meant them, for the sole reason that Mikan is stubborn and holds onto her pride, especially when it comes to her early relationship with Natsume, but Anime!Mikan is much more forgiving and much more willing to extend an olive branch, like in the dance episode. In any case, Natsume starts falling right then, and it’s obvious too, because he is pissed, and even more angry because he’s not even mad at her. He’s angry with himself for his change of opinion. This is the girl he was fully content to hate forever and yet here he was, starting to like her. Not ideal.

This scene, something so crucial to the development of Anime!Natsumikan, is completely absent from the manga. In the manga, Natsume still dislikes her by the end of the game although he does have fun.

He's not angry, just disappointed. In himself.

I’m not going to say one is better when it comes to starting up NatsuMikan because they’re very different creatures and I actually thoroughly enjoy both.

Anyway, the NatsuMikan after episode 7 is almost the same as in the manga, but the events carry a different weight since we know Natsume likes Mikan now (even if he would never admit it).

Summary

I hope this first part was interesting, and that it introduced the idea of Anime!NatsuMikan as being a little different from the manga's version. Yes, it is more or less the same story, but with so many thematic and plot changes, they take a different form as well, in a perhaps more subtle way, kind of like a slightly canon divergent fanfic. Fanfic where Natsume starts liking Mikan a bit earlier on in the story.

Next Part ->

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phoenixtakaramono · 3 years

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Hi! :) I was reading your post about SQH in TUT and it got me thinking. Since this version also wrote SVSSS, when he transmigrates does he realize his "dream" was real? Also, you hinted that he recognizes SY as the same person who transmigrated into SQQ, so now I'm wondering if he tells SY that, and how SY would react to learning he's the protagonist of SVSSS in another universe. I just love thinking about how meta this could potentially get, haha.

Can't wait to find out more! Keep up the good work!

(Follow-Up Post to: Part I, Part II)

@the-legend-of-chel 👏👏👏 Luv, good to see you in my Asks! I’m glad to hear that you’re looking forward to finding out more in The Untold Tale! And thanks for your support and encouragement. 💖

(TUT ch1 - Excerpt)

You’re right. There is a lot of meta potential with older!Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky being the MXTX equivalent in this AU—or, rather, I like to imagine him growing up to be the Stephen King equivalent of modern day China with a prolific portfolio of written works (novels and short stories, and extras). In canon, he churned out a great number of words per chapter and in a speedy amount of time! Do you guys know how miraculous that is, as a writer? I envy him so much! To be able to churn out that much content in a short amount of time, and in a scheduled regimen, is amazing! That’s basically my angle having written this into the prologue of TUT. That’s partially the reason why I wrote ch1. I liked the idea of paying homage to SVSSS and saying that it’s an actual book series in TUT universe that Airplane wrote (as funny as the idea would be, I wasn’t about to let SY be the one to write it, lol, for intellectual property reasons since the PIDW characters belong to Airplane, which would necessitate SY changing names and character appearances if he published what we know as irl SVSSS, so the best I can give SY is saying he wrote his own PIDW fanfic which basically launched his novelist career because he’d realized, hey, I actually have a knack for writing and the ever so spiteful I feel like practically every writer has had this thought before: fine, if I don’t see what I want to read, then I’ll write it myself!)

(TUT ch1 - Excerpt)

We’re approaching TUT spoiler territory so skip below if you don’t wish to be spoiled.

TUT (Meta) Spoilers

I personally love meta. If I’m to be writing a lovestory to SVSSS, there will be attempts at meta thrown into TUT. And this is one of them:

Airplane did “dream” about canon SVSSS. He basically “dreamt” about his favorite black powder fan, Peerless Cucumber

changing events of Airplane’s biggest regret Proud Immortal Demon Way. (As a writer, it embarrasses me to read my old writing. So I imagine it could be the same for Airplane.) As an author, Airplane recognized what he dreamt had potential to be a commercial success as a danmei transmigration story so basically every time he woke up, he would write pieces of what he remembers in a dream journal when the memory was fresh in his brain. It also allowed Airplane the opportunity to show his readers through the perspective of SY! Shen Qingqiu what Airplane had originally wanted to write, but integrated in a way that blends seamlessly into the reading experience. He would’ve thought it was a bit weird and strange that his brain dreamt about his past critic—whom he’d considered a small celebrity in the PIDW forums back then—aka his anti-fan-turned-accomplished-novelist in the writing industry, so he felt embarrassed that his unconscious brain must have thought very highly of the man.

So Airplane omitted any mention of Peerless Cucumber from the final draft of SVSSS (if he mentioned both “Shen Yuan” and “Peerless Cucumber,” then even SY would be like, Hey, wait one moment....). This detail will be included in a later chapter, but did you know the name “Shen Yuan” has come up in other works? Let’s ignore the variations on the Chinese written characters for the name “Shen Yuan.” There was the evil older brother character Shen Yuan from The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage, a side character named Shen Yuan from a C-drama (I think he was an old minister?), and there’s even an irl visual artist named Shen Yuan. Shen Yuan (Shen Garden) is also a famous romantic garden in Shaoxing, known for the love story between Lu You and Tang Wan.

(Shen Yuan Garden - Trip Advisor Review)

Basically “Shen Yuan” in itself is not a particularly uncommon name in China (imo I would not say it’s super popular either). So when SY saw his name mentioned once or twice in Airplane’s SVSSS—aka rebooted PIDW—during his read-through, he was like, Huh, what a strange coincidence. And then dismissed it as circumstantial and thought nothing of seeing his name come up in a cutsleeve novel as the new protagonist, haha. It’s like a book written by Anne Rice; one of the titles coincidentally has the same name as mine. Now, obviously the book and main character is not based or inspired by me; I just coincidentally share the same name. If I see books which have characters with my same first name, generally I like to read them and sometimes even collect them for my bookshelves. Because there’s something just so fun and interesting about seeing your own name in a fictional piece of work.

There’s also meta joke potential about Airplane dreaming of himself being transmigrated into the cannon fodder Shang Qinghua and seeing the romantic miscommunications between the younger version of himself (his self-insert essentially) and the fictional Mobei jūn character. I can certainly say seeing such dreams would make Airplane question his sexuality and awaken something dormant in him, haha. He’d realize he might not be not as straight as he thought he was, if his brain was capable of dreaming of SY!SQQ being crushed on by LBH, and SQH being crushed on by MBJ and essentially following MBJ around calling him “my king” this and “my king” that. He’ll be sweating bullets when he meets this world’s version of MBJ, because Airplane will definitely remember how the younger Self-Insert version of himself acted toward MBJ in the SVSSS world. (It’s the classic “Just because I dreamed about it happening doesn’t mean it’ll happen here, right? ...Right? Cucumber brother, you’re a fortuneteller! Please check our eight characters for me! I have to know my marriage compatibility with Mobei jūn!”)

In a later chapter, there will be the reveal where Airplane tells Shen Yuan that he “dreamt” of a universe where a younger version of Shen Yuan—having choked on mantou (馒头) (paying homage to the donghua) or just being transmigrated in general after raging at a younger ASTTS’s writing (paying homage to the books)—transmigrated into the Shen Qingqiu we know from SVSSS who married Bing mèi. Because I think it will be hilarious when TUT’s SY finds out about the true source of Airplane’s inspiration, and he’ll naturally freak out over the fact that this is the very same Bing gē from Airplane’s Bing-gē vs Bing-mèi extra and that he’s essentially somehow stumbled on the same path as the alternative younger SY!SQQ “from Airplane’s imagination.” I will leave this open to interpretation if this does show up (it’s just an idea I’m playing with) but I might hint that there might be a higher power at play which allowed Airplane a peek into another universe—which manifested as his dreams.

I very much like this dynamic (we might see this exchange, verbatim, in a future chapter in TUT):

SY/ LBH —> He gave him a disdainful gaze.

Airplane cried inwardly at the oppression and the feeling of being wronged.

Haha, none of this is really Airplane’s fault^ though. It’s a fun parallel and if I’m still motivated when we get to the wedding and consummation chapter, we might see an epilogue where SY and Bing gē from TUT meets SY!SQQ and Bing mèi maybe. Because I think it’ll be funny with the two LBHs getting into a shouting/ fighting match about who has the “superior Shen Yuan” while the two SYs just shake their heads at their silly husbands (and potentially TUT’s SY, as the older party, can impart his fortunetelling wisdom and advice to SY!SQQ).

Personally I can’t wait when we get to those chapters, because I know it’ll be entertaining to write, haha. Personally TUT is a fun project because there’s just so much meta potential that can be incorporated and I have a lot of fun imagining the scenarios.

*Note: like always, keep in mind that these are just my current thoughts. Details are subject to change; things aren’t considered official until they show up in the final draft on AO3. :)

The Novelists’ First Impressions

The first impression SY and Airplane will have of each other will be fun. Because in their perspective, written in my notes it’s essentially like:

(Airplane seeing SY):

His first reaction was shock. Shock because the mere mortal he used to be could not conceive so much charisma being emitted by this guy.

This is definitely a man who had put all of his stats into CHARISMA.

(SY seeing Airplane):

He's suspiciously good looking in ways that normal people are not.

Ah, the Cucumberplane friendship in TUT is going to be so much fun. Not only are these two older souls who transmigrated (both are mid-aged in this universe), they’re both accomplished novelists in their own right in the writing industry. Which means with these two being celestial beings, there’s so many clichés we can playfully poke fun at.

It also makes me laugh because imagine being SY, and seeing a guy (mortal!Airplane) who exudes the same energy as these two imperial princes GIFs:

#svsss #人渣反派自救系统 #shang qinghua #moshang #shen yuan #bingyuan #binggeyuan #the untold tale #phoenixtakaramono #ask #the-legend-of-chel #phoenix talks #reply #replied #answered #I’m almost done photobashing older SY #so there’s gonna be additional visual context #for how he appears in TUT (my headcanon at least)

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furiosity-wills-the-cat · 3 years

Text

Mettaton’s Backstory:

This is part two of my ghost meta. I’d highly recommend reading part one first, which should be right below this post on my blog. It’s titled “Chara, The Fourth Blook Cousin” and it has the background for how I think ghost might work.

I mostly talked about Undertale ghosts in general and how they could explain Chara’s mysterious presence in the game, but now I want to talk about Mettaton, Maddy and Napstablook, and explain my thoughts on their backstories, why they’re different from other ghosts, how they became a family. Because I think about them literally nonstop

METTATON

He is the baby of the cousins (until Chara comes along)

Ghosts dont age (unless they become corporeal) and the cousins (again except Chara who’s like 12) are all basically in their twenties, but MTT is slightly younger than Maddy and Blooky

And also he was formed extremely recently compared to them

I’ll explain them in depth later but they've both got a few centuries and Mettaton is like,, 70

Literally even Chara was formed longer ago than he was, but Chara doesn’t get adopted by the Blook family for a few decades so he joins first

So Mettaton is in this infuriating state where he is old enough to be losing track of years and struggling to keep up with technology and memes

But at the same time he talks to his cousins and they're like “Infant. Baby Boy. Imagine keeping track of what decade it is, you're so small”

He ends up being the self-designated cousin in charge of keeping track of time and pop culture and whatnot out of spite

He’s like “I’ll never forget what's relavent, its not because i’m baby, its just because i am better than you”

Tiny recap from my previous post- I think ghosts are formed when monsters die while completely unsatisfied,

the ghosts have no memory of who they were and they don't have souls unless and until they become corporeal, but they get their personality and some habits from whoever they were

And mettaton starts out being completely obsessed with this

He wants to know who he was and what life mission he left unfinished

He’s like “its gotta be super important because the universe literally made me immortal so i could finish it”

But figuring it out is… hard

It can take ghosts years to form after someones death and theres just so many monsters its impossible to narrow it down

When he does research he makes a lot of friends with monsters who have recently lost loved ones and he actually gets really good at talking to them and listening to their stories and letting them vent

This is a huge part of the reason he never starts to fade or sink into depression like most ghosts do at first, because he has people to talk to who need him

But also while doing research, he realizes that there’s no one he can find who he WANTS to be?

He’s like “yeah these all seem like they were cool monsters when they were alive but none of them seem like me?”

He has little hints of who he was, he knows he hates being alone and needs people near him always, he knows he’s super curious about learning about other people and reading dramatic stories and listenifn to gossip,, and he is for some reason extremely curious about humans, he knows he loves the color pink and the concept of the stars,,, but like,,, none of those are a life mission,,, they're just little quirks

So anyway like a year in to becoming a ghost, he is being emo and crying about this in waterfall when Maddy finds him and is like “shut up, youre scaring the snails” and he’s like “fight me right now… OH MY GOSH ARE YOU HOLDING A SNAIL THATS THE CUTEST THING EVER”

Maddy and Blooky do not invite him to join their family, he literally adopts himself

He is like. Lovely. Pretty farm. I live here now. I am building a house. I work here now. You are both my cousins.

And they just accept it.

He doesn’t ever really introduce himself to them officially?

He’s still convinced he needs to know who he was, so he’s kind of terrified of having his own opinion on his name or gender or anything because what if he’s wrong?

They both try to ask him who is is or anything about him but he’s just like “Nope Nope Nope, you are not allowed to percieve me yet. Give me attention but do Not perceive”

But he is happy to talk about the snails and to listen about how to care for them

Also he wants to learn more about ghosts because most other ghosts are just little lumps of sadness and regret who dont rlly talk so he tries to like,,, just lay on the floor in blooky’s house and see if theyll tell him things,, or he’ll just bother them until they tell him things

Blooky is the one who introduces him to music, and its mostly by accident

Mettaton is like,, actually fascinated by Blooky’s love of music and is like,, “wait IS it fulfilling? Is THIS what you died to do? Is it your greater purpose? Does it make your life worth living and make everything right and the stars align as you realize who you were before??”

And Blooky is like “I like… drum… sticks go click click and it is nice…”

And Mettaton is like “fascinting.. tell me more.”

So thats how Mettaton gets music lessons from Blooky

He also encourages them to play their music for others and start a band

Which Blooky ends up loving so so much

They dont like talking to strangers but they love performing, its a completely different energy

and thats also how mettaton is introduced to performance

And he’s like “oh. Oh ho ho. This is pretty nifty”

So anyway he continues trying to figure out who he was but he’s also kept more busy and realizes that just. Doing stuff is good

He starts a bunch of clubs and activities and stuff because he adores meeting people and being in the center of attention

Until eventually he makes the human appreciation club and meets a certain lizard

And she REFUSES to talk about herself and Mettaton doesnt know what to do with himself because SOMEONE’s gotta be vulnerable

So it takes him all of two minutes to start gushing about how he’ll never know who he was meant to be and it sucks because how can he ever be himself or become corporeal if he doesnt know what he was supposed to do or look like or be

And alphys is like. “Oh. I could try designing something for you. What do you want to look like?”

And mettaton is like. “Wait. I am allowed to want? I thought i was just. Something. And i have to find it.”

And alphys is like… “listen i am not a ghost expert but i feel like if u could be anything, why not be? Do u want pink swooshy hair?”

And he’s like “oh my god yes please”

He doenst tell his cousins because it still feels illegal to him to just. Decide who he WANTS to be instead of being who he was meant to by the universe

Literally neither of them would care, both of them are so confused by his destiny obsession anyway but unfortunately he is stupid

And then he moves in with alphys while she makes his body and he is just so so happy and he gets to choose what kind of character he’s reborn as

And eventually ofc he does tell his family and they are like “you are stupid. I love you”

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thehighfiveproject · 2 years

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Friends, rev your high fives.

Here's the card we'll be using for this month's edition of our bingo! Grab it up and get going. Remember, zero need to sign up, but if you want to share it with us so we can reblog and share the love, make sure you do so by next Wednesday, November 2.

Below the cut: a list of definitions for each of the squares in case you need help or ideas (don't worry, those will be added to the FAQs post for easy reference), and a black & white version of the card, in case you just really don't like yellow.

☆ How do I fill my card? How is each square defined?

Here’s the way we’re defining the activities associated with each card. If any of this is confusing after you read it over, send us a message and we’ll help!

- ‘leave kudos on a fic’

This is the easiest one! Just go out and find a fic you like and leave a kudos on it, if you haven’t already. It’s a small gesture but it makes an author know that someone actually read their story!

- ‘reblog/retweet an art post’

Find any art post you like and share it! Here’s the catch: you need to interact with it a little. When you reblog/retweet, please tell the creator what you thought about the piece – you can add some tags, or reply to the post, or quote-retweet or add a comment, or anything! A simple “I love this!” is nice but some details are even better (“your linework is so good!” or “that shade of blue is perfect”). One thing to think about: a lot of art on Tumblr is reposted (like when a user posts another artist’s work from Pixiv, say), so it’s nice if you make an effort to interact with posts that are actually from the creator if you can. That way the artist will see your comment!

- ‘reblog/retweet a fic post’

Same as the above, but for fic! Again, tags/replies/comments are needed, preferably with a little detail. You don’t need to be super eloquent or leave a detailed review (although if you have time/energy, that would be appreciated!); a tag as simple as “that was really cute” or “great characterization!” will do. Like with the art posts, it’s nice if you reblog directly from the writer (if you can) – some fics are posted by AO3 feed bots and the like, so the author may not even know a reblog has happened.

- ‘reblog/retweet an edit’

Same as the above, but for edits! Edits can include a gif set, or a set of screencaps, or even a fanvid. And, again, some simple tags/replies are needed. “I love that song choice!” for a vid or “great coloring!” on a gifset can let people know their work is being appreciated.

- ‘comment on a fic’

Find a fic, on any fic-hosting site you like, and leave a comment. That’s it! Again, no need to leave a novel-length comment (unless you’re inspired!) – a sentence or two is all we’re asking for this square to be considered complete. This is a great opportunity to let a writer know how their piece made you feel, or what section you particularly liked.

- ‘message a creator’

‘Creator’ here can mean anyone who makes *anything* to do with fandom: art, edits, fic, meta, knitted sweaters with character faces on them – if they’ve made anything, they’re a creator, and now’s your chance to let them know they’re appreciated. Send a message (anonymous or not!) letting them know that you enjoyed their work!

- ‘make a rec post’

This is a chance to tell your fandom friends about something they need to see. You can rec a fic, a blog, a fan event, an artist, an author, that person who knits sweaters with character faces – any kind of fandom thing that you want to make sure people see. This doesn’t have to be long or complicated, but feel free to go into as much detail as you want! Just make your own post, on Tumblr or Twitter or wherever else seems best to you, and give that thing you loved a little fanfare.

- ‘interact with a meta post’

A little love for our analytical friends! Here, you can reblog/retweet any kind of meta post for your fandom, whether it’s a three sentence headcanon or an essay-length dissection of why Character X is the absolute best character in Fandom Y. It’s even better if you respond to the meta, whether that’s agreeing or (respectfully!) adding your own thoughts, but sharing it is the main thing here.

And here's the non-decorated version, in case you feel like making it your own. Get creative, if you want!

#admin #fandom boost bingo #card template

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mrs-nate-humphrey · 3 years

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I am curious: what are your favorite scenes from your main ships (date, dair, derena...)?

scenes involving milo don't count, sorry!

for me, it's really not just scenes, but body language & just in general, how they are with each other, you know? dan and serena grin at each other and hug SO much, you can tell that being around each other in s1 made them both so happy, and even after that glow fades the way they look for comfort in each other... top level stuff. the way blair looks at dan... we never see her as radiant at any other point. she was not looking at anyone else like this. and gosh, dan and nate. they're both so comfortable around each other that there's absolutely nothing weird about like. discussing that one ex girlfriend whom they both share AND both were in love with. there is literally no other duo who trusts/enjoys each other's company so much that they're comfortable in a love triangle. (probably because they're more in love with each other than with the girl, but that is not the point. or is it?)

anyway, more specific answers. under the cut. this is one of the longest answers i've ever written on this blog possibly but you KNEW that would happen when you sent this ask, didn't you? (affectionate)

derena: i tagged one of my ds reblogs as 'the grumpy one is soft for the sunshine one' and like. look at them! this hug from 1x10 kills me in the best way. they are both the literal embodiment of :D when they see each other! i love 1x10 as a whole moment, their entire thing at cotillion is so sweet and they're both so happy. the fact that he is talking about his chemistry teacher during this kiss in 1x07. that bit at the end of 1x05 when they talk about their siblings (being there for their sibling because of fallible parents being a derena parallel makes me simultaneously really sad and really soft, tbh). 1x05 gives me SO MUCH SECONDHAND EMBARRASSMENT but the way they walk off together arms around each other does something to me - these are two people who are still getting to know each other but who really like what they see, and who trust each other and. are just having a good time together! back when derena was my OTP, the 1x11 "your story's about me?" was absolutely a fave, too, and i still adore it, albeit in a different, more nostalgic way. i like a dan who writes cute stories about serena. no empty shell sabrina van skoneker bullshit. she is so much like you, daniel! you'd be shattered if she did this to you. don't do this to her. tbh, most derena moments from s1 are just A+ romance. the bit in 2x02 in the jitney is so funny, they're SO bad at being exes. the bit in... 3x03 i think?? i don't remember... on the contrary. when they're talking about dan's fling w/ georgina and serena's relationship with carter, the ease with which they talk and how happy/supportive they are of each other's new relationships... yeah. love to see it.

i also really like any instance of them having honest/open conversations. 1x13, talking about how serena is concerned about blair. 1x08, serena talking to dan about feeling jealous of vanessa. this bit from the touch of eva or whatever that episode is. 4x04 i think. this is the conversation everyone is trying to get dan to have and he's avoiding EVERYONE else. derena interactions in 3x21 (can't find a gif right now) - the fact that dan is with serena when her dad abandons them, the fact that he goes all the way there with her. 2x07, "i'm really glad you're nate's friend. he really needs someone like you right now" (though i'm cheating, that's technically a d/n moment too klhdflkgf). there's a bit in s4 where he's advising her against having an affair w/ colin, i don't remember the ep number, but the way he takes her side so easily and naturally and puts due blame/responsibility solely on her professor... yeah. 4x10 i think this ep is?? idk. but like my tags say, im sentimental about this moment because while what dan was doing was irresponsible, sneaking her out of the ostroff, he was the only person in this episode who was actually talking to her and listening to her and taking her seriously. nobody else was doing that!!

i probably have more moments i'm not remembering, but we're only 1/3 into this answer and LOOK AT THE WORDS, good lord, i'm sorry.

dair: my favourite dair episode is hands down despicable b (5x21) which i have heard is an uncommon answer. i just love the conflict resolution of it all, okay!!! 1x04 & 2x08 are like. standard answers any dair shipper will give, and i'm no different. i love dan being able to give blair advice and blair actually taking his advice even though they're not friends yet!!! be right back, yelling at the intimacy of it all!! 5x16, with their getting together (this little kiss and dan being so startled by it), blair admitting a flaw she genuinely does have and dan saying it's not awful because it's her, which is just. romance at its finest. those vows, good lord. 5x18.... they're having fun! blair showing up at the loft in lingerie for dan... the delight on her face.... (i know this moment blows up in their face but when she's there she looks so happy and proud of herself and this was like THE moment when i was like. oh. dair is really the heart of this garbage show huh).

i think for me, the thing that really sells dan & blair together is the serena of it all. both of them love serena more fiercely than anyone else, and that is what brings them together. (fwiw i definitely think nate loved serena this much and this deeply, too; the writers just wanted to pop the serenate balloon, which even i think was extremely unnecessary and ooc.) but (& i have so much meta about this) their relationship grows beyond serena. their entire s4 arc is SO good. i love how comfortable around each other they are, in such an adult way, in the sense of like. they both bring so much stability to each other? morgan tagged this edit "the marrieds" and like. yeah. b offers to help him shave. they're having breakfast & reading the paper together.

all the love declarations we got that weren't a simple 'i love you.' be your charming wonderful self (how could she not love you/ tell me what would make you happy, dan) i told chuck he doesn't have my heart anymore (you spent your life earning the keys to set you free when you were free all along!!!!) dan's pep talk to blair in 5x21 (already linked a gifset earlier, here's another one if you want i guess). there's definitely more... but honestly, the way the dair arc was executed was so good - while i do have my complaints, i also think keeping those aside, it was SO close to perfect. i love dan & blair's banter and gradually becoming closer and closer and closer. it felt very organic and real and GOSH. the way penn & leighton looked at each other while playing dan and blair...... it's just SO MUCH.

date: this is the hardest, because it's. *screams*. maybe you saw me losing my mind over those 2 seconds of nate handing dan a waffle? i love almost every scene with these two, even the hellish s6 breakup scene. my favourite episode for d/n (& also favourite gg episode in general) is 2x06 - i love the homoerotic subtext of it all. nate pretending to be dan because dan's name is the first name that came to his head. dan flirting w/ nate while tied to that thing, in his underwear. them becoming friends. and 2x07 as a follow-up to that! dan getting nate to live in the loft with the humphreys for a while. i am so soft.

4x09 is a terrible episode in general, especially for serena my beloved, but the d/n moments in that one? off the CHARTS. this weird overly macho flirting, in some ways THE most iconic d/n line. this entire finish each other's sentences nonsense. someone (i think it was ana but im not sure?) compared the energy of those scenes i just linked to the book blairenate love triangle resolution, blairena choosing each other over nate in the books, date choosing each other over serena in the show (if only! RIP.) after the saints & sinners ball, this cute little moment of 'youre the only one who understands me. please tell me they went home together. i mean. how could they not have.

3x07, them watching vampire porn together. a tag i used on ao3 (& also on here, once) is 'nate brings out the himbo in dan'. here is a prime example. 'is she levitating?' i don't fucking know, dan, what do you think?? (i was telling my partner that that's what i love abt dair vs date. around blair dan is an intellectual, a librarian, an art historian, a museum curator. around nate it's like dan is competing to be #1 himbo on the show. can my girlfriend actually fly? i don't know, dan. i can't believe you're seriously asking such a question.)

3x12 pep talk. (sorry about the shitty quality!) essentially nate telling dan that he (dan) is hot and that he shouldn't talk himself down so much.

dan making nate gay in his book. you know. his book from which blair found out he was in love with her. nads (who i will not tag in this billion word long gushy meta, because i value her sanity) once called inside "wish fulfilment' and. i mean. yeah

nate checking dan out at the derena wedding continues to be hilarious. hilarious in the same way as dan sexually fantasising about nate. canon really went 'let's give ivy some special easter eggs' and i appreciate them a lot!

i love the way they are around each other - so quietly attuned to each other. i showed my sister my date!husbands gifset, and she was like. yeah they're so married. and it's just stuff like how dan looks for nate over his shoulder, it's not even an active action, it's as easy and natural and intuitive as breathing, checking to see if nate is still there.

oh, that wasn't as hard as it could've been! okay. cool. im SURE there's more things i could scream about, because it's DN, the fact that they're non-canon makes me THAT much fiercer about them than dair/derena, to be honest. so many dots to connect!! anyway.

#meta #derena #dair #date #anon #this is SUCH a gushy essay but like. what did you expect #how else could i have answered this #this took. an embarrassingly long amount of time #but i had SO much fun so #citations for my ships #don't mind me *whistles under my breath*

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Fault”

Hello, everyone! We’re not even bothering with an introduction today, let’s just get straight to the only thing that matters.

HERE HE IS, THE MVP OF THIS EPISODE, OF THE WHOLE VOLUME, THE SERIES, THE ONLY ONE I CARE ABOUT RIGHT NOW

I’m joking… but only a little. In all seriousness we will get to Ren, but you all want to hear a funny story first? I somehow got it into my head that there was no RWBY episode this week—the holiday and all—so I poured all my meta time and energy into a ridiculous Ironwood analysis as a placeholder, only to wake up this morning and find the strongest (and most complicated!) episode this year waiting for a recap. Like some sort of grimm nosing into my inbox.

Okay, so it’s not a funny story, but if RT would just do a better job with their website my life would be a whole lot easier.

So here we are, taking a look at the episode “Fault.” Quick question, is every episode this volume going to have a one-word title? It’s not a criticism, I’ve got nothing against a punchy name, I’m just curious since RWBY has never done that before. If anything, they’ve gone more for symbolically significant phrases like “A Brawl in the Family,” “Players and Pieces,” and “The Lady in the Shoe.” I wonder what sparked the change.

Anyway, we open on Robyn laughing about some story she’s told, something about Joanna losing a fair fight for the first time, presumably to her. This is what we’ve learned about Robyn since this volume started: she refuses to acknowledge that she had a hand in Clover’s death; she was asked by Blake and Yang to keep the Amity secret but, according to May, couldn’t keep her mouth shut about it; and she tries to cheer Qrow up by bragging about her own skill.

Alrighty then.

Obviously, this little story fails to land. “Tough crowd tonight.” Robyn looks to Jacques as well as Qrow when she says this and since she clearly doesn’t care about cheering him up, she must want to get a rise out of him. Create something, as she says at the end of the scene, that’s exciting. Robyn just really loves to start fights. Against Ironwood, Clover, bickering matches with Jacques—stories told about winning them! If she’s not fighting someone she’s not interested.

Qrow does eventually give the smallest smile though and Robyn cheers. “Did I win?” They both quickly grow serious again though and Robyn says she’s “sorry for what happened. It wasn’t your fault.” Her apology would mean more if she was apologizing for her actions, not providing a generic ‘Sorry for your loss’ like she had no hand in this.

Qrow then insists it was his fault… but, of course, not for the reasons why he’s actually responsible (also, didn’t we do this two weeks ago?). For starters, Qrow blames his semblance for everything that went down, despite the fact that his semblance is not responsible for him breaking Clover’s aura, or Tyrian stabbing him. The most we’ve seen his semblance do is cause minor mischief, which in and of itself is absurd considering we’re meant to believe that it has kept him from his family most of his life, and informs choices like whether he’ll travel with the group in Volume 4. Still, it’s not unexpected that he would blame his semblance and think that having friends is a “childish dream”—depression is one hell of a liar—but rather, it’s frustrating that no one is helping Qrow see the truth of the situation, both the good and the bad. He certainly doesn’t need Robyn providing generic platitudes that absolve them both of their choices.

You know what the worst part is? The two kind, level-headed adults with enough distance to help Qrow acknowledge his mistakes while also correcting him about his misconceptions… are Ozpin and Clover. The former is still ignored by the cast, the latter barely got to be a character before he was killed.

Qrow goes on to say that he “made a deal with the darkness and [Clover] paid the price.” I’m sorry, what does that mean?? Outside of referencing his team-up with Tyrian, that’s the most dramatic, nonsensical thing he could have said. Qrow doesn’t admit to the team-up though, rather he starts blaming Clover for his own death.

Precisely like a good chunk of the fandom has done 🙃

He says that Clover just “wouldn’t let up” (translation: he wouldn’t agree to let me go when I was under arrest) and that they could have “worked together against Tyrian if Clover had just—”

There’s a lot to cover this episode, so I’m not going to dive into another explanation of all the justified reasons why Clover didn’t trust Qrow in that moment and why Qrow was the one who “wouldn’t let up.” If you’re interested in that rundown, head here.

Side note: can RWBY please stop with the weird mouth closeups? I’m begging the animators. Especially when so much else in this episode is gorgeous.

Yes:

No:

Robyn’s response is to make it all about her. I say, as a hypocrite, because my instinctual response in comforting someone is to also bring up a way that I might, sort of, know what they’re going through. It’s something to work on and, as always, I’d be more receptive to Robyn’s attempts if she weren’t failing so spectacularly in every other aspect of her characterization. Case in point: she says that having a truth semblance tends to make people push her away, but we’ve never once seen that. We’re introduced to Robyn as she’s adored by Fiona. The people celebrate her. Yang and Blake trust her immediately, for no reason, and comment on how useful her semblance is—they’re not concerned with it. Ironwood likewise works with her and allows her to use her semblance on him in public, at least for a time. May spoke fondly of Robyn last episode. She just finished a story about Joanna… where is this pushing away you speak of, Robyn? I really wish RWBY would consider things ahead of time and actually show them to us, rather than just having characters announce that they’re (supposedly) there.

Nice symbolism though with Robyn touching the electric bars and pulling her hand back. You reach out, you get hurt, curl in on yourself, blah, blah, blah. Too bad it’s not a moment attached to an actual struggle of hers.

Qrow buys it though, saying he’s never thought about it that way before.

You know, I get why a lot of people in the fandom hate Clover. I can’t even claim I’m much interested in him as an individual. I’m sick of straight, white, able-bodied men getting the spotlight, which is one of the things that drew me to RWBY in the first place… so theoretically Robyn should be the better choice for Qrow’s BFF, right? Especially in a world where FairGame only existed in RT’s social media queerbaiting. Give us the badass gender-bent Robin Hood instead of the boring military man!

On paper it sounds great… which is why it’s astounding that RT bungled that so badly.

Qrow never finishes his thought about Clover because the Ace Ops come in to return Watts to his cell. Interesting. The writing has definitely made Ironwood stupid, but perhaps not as stupid as he could have been? If he got Watts to hack Penny (we don’t yet know what’s going on with her during all this) and then promptly shut him away again, that’s just about the best way you can follow up on your worst decision.

Harriet spots Clover’s pin and tells Qrow “You don’t get to keep that,” but then doesn’t take it from him. See, that right there is a better motivation for potentially opening the cell. Qrow says he didn’t kill Clover, Harriet shoots back that his blood was on Qrow’s blade (again, focusing on the wrong way that he’s guilty), Robyn challenges her to get the truth via her semblance… and Harriet considers it? Why? She’s not the one struggling with her loyalty here, that’s Marrow, yet he’s the one who has to pull Harriet back with “What are you doing?” when she looks at the keypad. Have Marrow almost be swayed by Robyn’s taunting, or have Harriet almost open the door because she’s furious and desperate to get Clover’s pin back. Either one of those would make more sense than this.

Also, no one checked Qrow during his arrest/before he was thrown into his cell?

Also, note that Marrow uses a nickname here—“Hare”—so I’m continually unpersuaded by the ‘They’re not friends’ claim. Yes, Harriet hits his shoulder on her way out… and Ren will later scream at Jaune about cheating. Harriet being in a bad mood because their leader was just murdered isn’t evidence that they’re not close, no more than Ren responding to Everything Traumatic Ever is evidence that he doesn’t care for his friends.

Also (x3), Robyn calls Harriet “mohawk”?? Can’t this woman come up with a single good insult?

As the Ace Ops leave Robyn lays back down on her bunk, exactly as she was before, and says, “Well, that was almost exciting.” Kind of like this scene! Luckily, the episode is about to get a whole lot better.

The music immediately picks up as we segue to Ren, Jaune, and Yang chasing after Oscar. On the whole I really enjoyed this scene, largely because it shows the group doing their best—in a way that feels persuasive. I’ll admit that others have a point about them just standing around while the Hound changes form—yet still failing because, you know, our villain is actually powerful! However, there are, as always, some nitpicks.

One of the first bits of dialogue we get is Ren noticing that the bikes can’t stand being in the cold for very long. It bugs me that bikes suffer more from the cold than the civilians do. To say nothing of the fact that it once again doesn’t amount to anything. Their bikes carry them through the whole battle and Jaune looses his because of a grimm. Then Yang manages to fix the totaled bike with a single part, despite the continued cold. Why bother introducing this as a problem when it’s meaningless each and every time?

The three do demonstrate some great teamwork though. When Yang yells that she wishes one of them could fly, Jaune uses his shield to launch Ren at the Hound… so that he can get dragged through the air, hitting rocks. This poor guy. I like that though because no, these teens shouldn’t be perfect, strategic masterminds and yes, they’re in the kind of situation where they just have to try something and see if it works. Jaune can’t think ahead to what Ren will do once he grabs the Hound, they just have to get him to that point and go from there. Which they do. Ren snags a boulder to slow them down further (that’s smart) and Yang goes higher to fire at the Hound’s face (don’t hit Oscar he doesn’t have aura!!). They’re at a crazy disadvantage here and still trying their best to get our boy back.

The overall tone is… fine? Again, love supportive Yang—that high five with Jaune was wholesome—but it continually feels weird to get that when Oscar is in the literal jaws of death here. On the whole though the scene keeps to the action and seriousness of the situation, which I appreciate. We’ll talk more about tone during the outpost scene.

It's looking like they might be making some sort of headway when the Hound lets out a roar that, as Yang puts it, calls for backup. 1. Yay giving this grimm even more power to mess with the cast, 2. Holy shit there are so many grimm around. See, scenes like this is why I’m side-eyeing the anti-army rhetoric in the show (a stance I’d otherwise agree with 100%). Because do you see how many there are? That’s not Salem’s army, that’s just the normal grimm hanging out around Atlas. The cast is screwed if anyone were to, say, order them to attack the kingdom…

Kudos to RT for bringing back the centipede grimm though. I honestly thought they’d just be a one-off action sequence in Volume 7.

While everything is falling apart Ren catches a glimpse of Oscar, complete with rosy cheeks to make him look super young, and the sight fills him with

He starts climbing towards the Hound and we cut away.

Meanwhile, Jaune’s bike is hit with some of the centinel’s acid (again, not the cold causing problems) and he takes a tumble, managing to keep his feet before Yang snags him. Moments like that really do show how far he’s come and I’m glad we got to see such a moment in an episode where his cheating was brought up. Jaune then uses his shield to fly over one of the dragon-y grim, but... wait. The shield is flexible?

Literally what is the point of that? As a shield, I mean (it clearly works fine as a ramp). If you can just tip it over like that then so can the grimm or another fighter. Forget how tiny the shield is, all a monster would have to do is boop it and it would fall over. In fact, it probably should have with the grimm scratching at it before. Seems rather useless, unless you’ve got writers crafting convenient situations. Also, does Jaune have multiples of this thing? He picked it up before, but there’s no way he found that one again. Idk, I’m really not feeling this addition to Jaune’s arsenal. Better to give him a range option so he’s more versatile.

Still, they fly over the grimm and the two let out a sigh in synch. Whatever else we might have to say about this volume, RT is definitely giving us different interactions and team-ups. Well done there. Why, Jaune and Yang have managed to survive all that together!

Oh wait, never mind. They’ve gone off a cliff.

Honestly, I’m shocked they actually went over. I thought Yang would stop in time, or we’d have a classic moment of them tumbling off the bike and ending an inch from the edge, maybe going off slow with time for one to hang on. But nope, they plummet and it was done with such confidence by the camera that for a split second (the illogic of killing them both off aside) I thought that was it. They’re done for. Lucky for them, Ren catches them at the last second, managing to snag Jaune’s sword and them and immediately use his semblance so the grimm doesn’t eat them. That’s skill, baby!!

But you can see why he’s pissed, beyond just the fact that his semblance is holding this group together. It’s not Jaune and Yang’s fault that there was suddenly a cliff, but last we saw Ren he was heading towards Oscar. He had a plan. Granted, not one that was likely to lead anywhere given the Hound’s power (and the plot needing Oscar to reach Salem), but that’s not the point. He was pulling himself towards their kidnapped friend and then at the last second had to cut himself loose to save two others. This moment wasn’t anyone’s fault, but it would take someone with no emotions at all not to be frustrated by it.

So we leave the trio literally hanging out and return to Ruby’s group who is threatening kids!

Seriously though WTF, Weiss? Look, I haven’t always been kind to Whitley. In fact, I think there’s a Volume 7 recap where I really laid into him for his attitude and for supporting Jacques. But then—with the help of some friends and other anon perspectives—I thought about it for a hot second and considered how little power this child has. I was wrong to blame him for so much given the various circumstances here. It took, like… five minutes of thinking, and that’s for a fictional character, not a real life brother. Weiss clearly hasn’t given her brother five seconds of thought. He’s in the same abusive household that she was. He wasn’t blessed with combat abilities and a semblance to easily escape. He didn’t have Weiss there to guide him like Winter guided her. He had to watch BOTH his sisters abandon him to Jacques… so when exactly was he supposed to learn to be better? Why would he be inclined to? Weiss was an entitled racist when she got to school and needed new friends to show her a new path. She admitted as much last volume! Yet the fact that Whitley is completely alone in this house while their mom locks herself in her room to drink doesn’t register at all? This woman, an adult out to save the world as we’re frequently told, never once considered what it took to get her here and realize that Whitley has had none of the resources she did?

I want to emphasize that Weiss threatens him with her weapon. It’s not just that she’s dismissive of him and his plight, she’s also happy to use violence if Whitley doesn’t do exactly as he’s told. Violence… against her brother… who is a child… without any training. Again: WTF, Weiss? You know how I was praising RWBY last episode for not having the group beat up the Atlas personnel? Yeah, we get this instead.

Then she tells him to go to his room??

Speculation is that Whitley is about 2-3 years younger than Weiss. Or, to put it another way, roughly the same age as Weiss’ leader, Ruby. She’ll follow Ruby unquestioningly into world-changing decisions, but sends her brother to his room like a toddler? Which is it, RWBY? Are 17 year-olds leaders you should listen to, or babies who must leave the room while the grownups talk? He certainly can’t be any younger than Oscar, so again, she’ll fight beside him, but treat Whitley like this? Whitley isn’t exactly going to offer help in a respectful, eager manner, but that “Fine. What do you expect me to do?” was incredibly open given his situation. He was willing to help and that was the perfect opportunity to have him, you know, do something. Something small and innocuous that wouldn’t threaten the team if he betrayed them, but kept him around so he could talk to someone. But nope. Weiss just sends him to his room after criticizing him for not understanding that they’re “busy trying to save Atlas.” Weiss, what does Whitley know about all that? He’s locked up in this manor after your father was arrested and the one news clip we’ve seen said that no one knows why Ironwood recalled his forces, or what’s up with those grimm overhead. She’s acting like he should have any idea what’s happening right now.

Also, all of this is coming on the heels of Willow begging Weiss not to forget her brother, so that’s just great. RWBY has the rest of their time in the manor to fix this, because if Weiss comes out of that scene having only been handed the means of arresting Jacques… that’s just bad all around.

Finally, should we talk about how strange this choice is? Last episode we saw the group flying away and I assumed it was them leaving Atlas to go back to Mantle. It certainly looked that way, but now they’ve decided to stay until Nora is awake. Why? Isn’t it more dangerous here? I mean, they didn’t know the staff was gone and there are still arrest warrants out. Was Weiss just going to threaten anyone who dared report her? Where are these shields Ironwood spoke of? Have they gotten through them somehow, or are they currently trapped in Atlas?

This is “Oscar is in the slums, leaves the slums, learns they’re going to the crater, but the slums are actually the crater, so we’re heading back now” all over again.

The one good thing about this scene is that Blake and Ruby talk! …for about two seconds lol. Eh, better than nothing. Blake says that if Ruby is worried about Yang she could try calling her. Ruby has, and Yang isn’t picking up.

Does Ruby think she’s in danger or ignoring her? Unclear. We, however, know that Yang is now lost in the middle of nowhere with no reception and no transportation back to Mantle. The three of them start trudging towards an outpost Ren spotted, needing to find shelter “before this weather drops our aura levels completely.” So what about everyone without aura?? I wish that I could check off the bingo space again because this is ridiculous.

Ren, once again, isn’t in the mood to talk, but unlike Jaune, Yang can’t leave something alone. So she coaxes him to tell him what’s wrong and you know what? She does a real good job at first. She’s encouraging, but her voice is level and she doesn’t come across as accusing. Well done, Yang.

Things quickly fall apart though as Ren says EVERYTHING I’VE EVER WANTED TO SAY TO THIS GROUP. Holy shit, everyone, let’s count ‘em up:

Nothing is going smoothly so let’s stop pretending it’s all fine

Oscar has been horrifically kidnapped that’s #bad

This is not a normal part of being a huntsmen

We don’t know the first thing about being huntsmen!

Every time we’ve had to make real decisions we got them all wrong, yay us

We’re trapping a city here for Salem to destroy whenever she feels like it, yay us x2

Our leader is barely more than a kid and one of us cheated our way here

People are going to die because of us

“I’m just saying what nobody else wants to”

Yang’s response? Incredibly weak imo. Just as weak as the fandom’s has been since this conflict started in Volume 7. Her argument against letting Atlas go is that Salem won’t just let it fly away with her whale… but no one knows that. She’s certainly just letting it sit right now! Assuming that something won’t work because you expect the worst is not a compelling reason not to try.

Her argument against their ineptitude? They saved Haven, took down a leviathan, and got the lamp to Atlas. Let’s break that down a little more.

Did they fight well at Haven? Yes… overlooking that Weiss would have died if not for a timely semblance reveal. But the real point here is that they “saved” the school by getting the Relic. Problem is, they never won the relic, it was handed to them. Literally. They retrieved it not because they were capable of overpowering Salem’s forces and a Maiden, but because Raven decided she’d rather her daughter be a target than her. That doesn’t tell us anything about the group’s skill, only about Raven’s flaws.

They took down a leviathan… after drawing it to Argus in the first place. That’s kind of an important detail when Ren is trying to make the point that their decisions suck. Also, how did they take it down? Using Ruby’s silver eyes, which only worked because Jinn randomly decided to let her stop time. Oh, and also using the rest of Cordovin’s mech that they hadn’t yet destroyed. Again, nothing about that fight demonstrates their skill, only others’ abilities, resources, and the strange favoritism they benefit from.

Getting the lamp to Atlas. Well, you drove Ozpin away who was your ticket across the border. Then Maria told Ruby how to save you all from the Apathy (and Ruby herself was the only one able to resist long enough to demand you get the Relic back in the first place). You started that leviathan fight and ended it surrounded by Cordovin’s fleet. So how did you get to Atlas? Because she let you cross. How did you reach Ironwood? Because he dropped your arrest. Yang stopped Adam, yes, but that was its own, separate fight. Regarding the “getting to Atlas” point they botched that up completely.

Basically, this resume of victories is unpersuasive, to say the least. Yang highlights the end goal rather than acknowledging Ren’s point: have we, as individuals, actually made things better lately?

They absolutely have not.

Note how, in contrast, Ren includes himself in this criticism. He doesn’t just lay responsibility at Ruby and Jaune’s feet, he’s second on the list for being underprepared. For messing up. He’s just an “orphan from nowhere” and this tells us that, unlike Qrow, Ren is actually concerned with this problem and his own place in it. He’s not just blowing off steam and running from his responsibility. Rather, he’s making important points here yet, as he says, no one else wants to listen.

And that’s why the scene ultimately sucks. “But, Clyde! It’s a speech straight out of your metas!” Yes it was and it was beautiful to witness, but the problem is that Ren’s supposed to be wrong. Jaune glares at him before leaving. Yang clenches her fists and asks if he just wants to push everyone away. He’s left hanging his head. Then later they talk about how “broody” he is and provide advice about how to stop doing that. The takeaway here is not, ‘Holy shit, Ren is right and we should rethink our choices,’ but rather that Ren is wrong and needs to come over to their ‘correct’ perspective.

I love that this was laid out. I love that the group is actually fighting for once (way better than Ruby and Yang’s ‘fight’). I also love that we finally see what’s bothering Ren… but we all know this isn’t leading anywhere. The scene ends with Jaune dismissing everything by stating that if Ren doesn’t want to be a huntsmen, fine, but he has a job to do. Ren is supposed to feel guilty here for… telling the truth? Jaune is supposed to look like the hero for soldiering on with his responsibility while moody Ren drags behind. The scene is great, but the purpose of the scene sucks.

Actually, I’d like to talk about a portion of the outpost scene real quick. Skipping ahead, because we really see here how little RT believes the words that they’ve put in Ren’s mouth. Jaune admits that he’s right about cheating into Beacon… but nothing else. Indeed, that “mistake” is swept away because he’s earned his right to be here now. You shouldn’t care about that anymore! Ignoring the point Ren was making about how much they’re in over their heads. Yang apologizes to Jaune on Ren’s behalf, making it clear that she cares more about his potentially hurt feelings than any of the points Ren made. Remind you of anything? Like oh, say, that time Yang cared more about Jaune’s feelings than whether he’d hurt Oscar after slamming him against a wall? All of this despite the fact that Yang JUST accused Ruby of the horrible situation they’re in. Now Ren acknowledges that they’re in a horrible situation and Yang… doesn’t care?? Again, RT is good at giving us the pieces we want, the surface level stuff, but is rarely able to combine it into something fulfilling. If anyone actually takes Ren’s stance seriously, changing their ways rather than talking him out of it, I’ll be shocked.

Especially since the real nail in the coffin of this scene is Jaune telling him that “The more you hide from what you’re feeling, the more alone you’re going to feel.”

Jaune………..buddy……….pal…………were you asleep during that scene? Ren DID tell you what he was feeling. For the first time he did come clean about everything he was experiencing and you both rejected him for it! He’s not pulling away because he’s hiding from what he’s feeling, he’s pulling away because he did show it and both his friends reduced it to “pushing [them] away.” Which is it, Jaune? Should Ren be more open, or should he stop saying things you don’t want to hear? It’s a more complicated version of telling your parents about your interests, them mocking those interests, and then they’re surprised when you don’t share things with them again. I mean, the gall of Jaune to reject everything Ren said in the moment, ignore it after he’s calmed down, and then lecture him about being hiding his emotions.

Jaune and Yang (and the story) don’t want Ren to say what he really thinks, they want him to say what they think. Ren should speak up, but only if he’s going to agree with them.

So Ren sits out in the snow because potentially dying from cold is better than staying in a room with Yang and Jaune. I can’t really blame him lol.

One last thing about the fight scene. Remember how May was put in her place last episode for not using Penny’s name? Well, Yang doesn’t either. Granted, “the Maiden” isn’t as overtly insulting as “tin can” (or whatever it is May said), but it amounts to the same thing: both are replacing Penny’s individual identity with her status as a tool they can use. May sees Penny as the cool tech girl who can get them into the military base. Yang sees Penny as the cool magic girl who is the answer to all their ‘How do we win this?’ problems. Everyone is using Penny. Ruby to launch Amity, Ironwood to open the vault, but you know RWBY will never have a scene where Penny corrects Yang about her name and Ruby looks on, smug. Because the group can continually make the same mistakes as the adults/antagonists around them, but aren’t called out on it in the same way. Ren calls them out and he’s told he’s wrong.

Anyway, the tl;dr of this scene is that Ren is the best. Too bad the story doesn’t realize that.

We then move to my poor Oscar who wakes up looking at his own feet, Ozpin’s voice is as reassuring as it can be under the circumstances. “Oscar? Don’t panic. We’re going to be okay.” I mentioned two weeks back that I hoped the show would explain why we didn’t see Ozpin try to take control during the Hound fight and we still don’t have an explanation, so that’s disappointing. This line is all we get from Ozpin because that’s the norm now. We moved from him being written out of the story entirely to having one or two lines an episode (excluding a speech meant more for the audience than the characters). So, improvement? But a lackluster one, I think. Especially given that he is the focal point of this entire situation with Salem.

I’m avoiding the elephant in the room though. Oscar’s torture is horrifying. In the sense that it should be horrifying. Salem might still inexplicably not be attacking Atlas—and what she’s after at any given time might be getting more and more muddled—but she’s absolutely terrifying here, which is what we needed. The mix of assault with that nurturing tone is just skin crawling. “My long lost Ozma. Found at last” while she (I think?) shows images of their daughters. Honestly, I only heard that from friends, didn’t catch it myself, but then my eyes are shit to begin with. I couldn’t see a thing in this shadowed shot.

(It’s like watching Game of Thrones all over again.)

Oscar tries to pretend to be Ozpin and he does a damn good job with “I’m sorry the reunion isn’t living up to your expectations.” It’s not enough to fool Salem though. She says he’s “not him” yet and I’m again reminded that the show continually references this merge without showing us any change. They’re apparently closer to one person now, but they still speak as individuals. Oscar has Ozpin’s magic, but hasn’t used it, even when his life was on the line. The closest we get to evidence that the merge is underway is that Oscar attempts to lie about knowing Jinn’s name… but what the hell else is he supposed to do here? I suppose he could go the action hero route and shout that she’ll never get the answer out of him, but trying to lie is by far the safer option. That doesn’t tell us that he’s becoming like Ozpin, or even that they’re truly “like-minded souls” as Salem claims. It just tells us that Oscar has two braincells to rub together and can say a short sentence without totally giving himself away. Maybe the kid played a few rounds of Remnant’s Among Us.

This moment highlights another justification for Ozpin’s secrets though. He lives an existence where he is not in control of his own (“own”) body. At any point the host he’s with could falter, fail, turn on him, and in doing so give crucial, world ending information to the enemy. It’s already happened on a small scale, with Oscar successfully taking control, stealing the Jinn information, and giving it to the group. Now here he’s being tortured. How long can he last? Will Oscar give up Jinn’s name? If Ozpin didn’t have the location of the Relic locked up tight in his own consciousness, would that information be lost too? I’m not looking to blame Oscar for anything here—I don’t want to imply that this situation is karma for him taking Jinn’s name, or some such nonsense—I just want to acknowledge that this is the sort of stuff Ozpin has to worry about. If he shares these secrets then that’s more fallible people who are capable of giving that information to Salem. If he keeps them…well, he’s the only one who has to keep his mouth shut during a torture session. His host might want information about the Relics, there’s an argument to be made that they’re entitled to them, but if I were Ozpin I wouldn’t want to take that risk either. The question has essentially become, “Would I trust a 14 year old to keep quiet while tortured by a witch?” Maybe Oscar will! He’s enough of a BAMF to manage it… but that’s still not something I’d want to bet on. Better that Oscar simply doesn’t have that information to give Salem, period.

So obviously this “working relationship” that Salem wants isn’t going well. When Oscar lies she jumps straight to torturing him.

This was legitimately hard to watch and I’m torn about that. On the one hand it’s what I wanted: a scary, powerful Salem who uses the tools at her disposal to get what she’s after. That’s great! Yet I’m still reminded of how far this show has gone to literally beat up the child of the group. Oscar is the one punched into a tree, attacked by a friend, shot by an ally, the star of the show’s most horrifying kidnapping, now the first to be outright tortured by Salem. I don’t really have a point here, I’m not looking to level any specific accusations at RT, I’m just commenting on the pattern and acknowledging that it makes me uncomfortable. There are parts of a story where you’re supposed to be uncomfortable—like the villain torturing a hero—and then there are parts where you’re uncomfortable because the writers seem overly focused on showing images of a specific kid suffering and that’s… weird.

I’m not sure what to make of that just yet.

Anyway, Salem’s magic here is surprisingly pretty. Pretty and painful, but I expected more red and blacks, perhaps some spikey imagery, so the rainbow was an interesting surprise. Given the amount of pain Oscar is in, I suspect too much of that would kill him, so Salem calls in Hazel to continue the interrogation. The first few hits he deals are for Haven, the others for his sister.

See, this is why RWBY needs to actually embrace its “life isn’t a fairy tale” theme. You cannot show me child torture in one week and then move to Ruby “We’ll win because we’re the good guys ^_^” Rose the next. The whole reason why Ironwood (and Ren now) was right is because this is the shit reality they’re dealing with. You didn’t run when you had the chance and now Oscar (and Ozpin) is being tortured. You keep talking about saving Mantle, but the only reason why they’re not already dead is because the writing randomly turns the cold danger on and off. This mix of horrific, real world danger and unjustified confidence doesn’t work.

…also, I officially don’t want any redemption arc for Hazel. This guy is beating on a child because he’s convinced that he’s Ozpin, blaming Ozpin for his sister’s decision, all while forwarding a genocidal maniac’s plans. Hazel and his ridiculous shirts can just get on out of here, thanks.

Finally, I just want to say... this is the woman a lot of the fandom defended. This is the woman you wanted raising those girls and blamed Ozpin for trying to escape with them.

This is how Salem treats children.

Oh, and all of this is without his aura because it just broke. So Oscar is in serious, non-fantasy trouble here.

Someone please rescue him soon 😭

We finish up with some frankly boring stuff with the rest of the villain cast. We learn that the Hound is an “experiment” and a new one given that Cinder has never seen it before. Salem’s dialogue is admittedly great—“Do you hear that, my pet? She thinks. She wants.”—but Cinder just rehashes everything we’ve heard from her before. She wants the Winter Maiden power. She has trouble remembering that she’s playing at Salem’s slave. She even rehashes the exact same line, “Without you, I am nothing.” Why are we wasting time on this when we had that tantalizing backstory before?

Bleh.

Salem tells her in no uncertain terms to stay put.

So Cinder immediately leaves LOL.

She just wants to “check on” Amity tower because she “knows those kids” in ways Salem doesn’t. I’m admittedly slightly confused as to how Cinder knows to go there? Did she believe Ironwood’s lie that it was finished even though it apparently IS finished now? Has she overheard something? I’m not sure. Frankly, keeping track of that stuff in RWBY is headache inducing, so let’s just roll with it.

Neo, the only one with a brain around here, makes it clear she thinks Cinder is an idiot for going. Emerald, always the Cinder fan, offers to go in her stead. She’s been working on her semblance, so I expect we’ll see something cool with that soon. They head off, apparently not worried about what Salem will do to them when they get back.

Which is when we move to the outpost for our final scene, most of which I’ve covered. I only have two more things I want to bring up here.

The first is the tone. As said earlier, the tone of the Hound chase wasn’t horrible, but I find myself disappointed in the overall attitude of Jaune and Yang. Yang is making jokes about how they can’t fly, high-fiving Jaune, and they’re both shrugging off Ren’s concerns. Jaune says he won’t be able to sleep due to worrying about Oscar, but neither of them act particularly worried. Which isn’t to say they need to be sobbing the whole time or whatever, just that Ren is the only one who feels real here. They may not agree with his stance about everything else, but they’ve all experienced the same event: watching a grimm that can morph, talk, and think horrifically kidnap a teammate. Shouldn’t there be more emotion attached to that? Things have gotten better with Oscar than they’ve been in the past, largely due to details like Nora’s hug at the beginning of the volume, but let’s be real, they’re still not perfect. Do we think Jaune and Yang would be this nonchalant if Ruby were kidnapped that way? Say all you want about Ruby being her sister, or others being teammates for longer, but the fact remains that Oscar has been taken to Salem herself and the only one reacting to that in any meaningful way is Ren.

Who they say will “brood himself to death.” That right there. The one guy freaking out about your kidnapped friend should not be described as “brooding.”

All of which segues into my second point, namely that Yang doesn’t seem to care about Ruby anymore either! She asks Jaune, “Do you think she thinks less of me?” for not going to Amity and when Jaune reassures her that Ruby will always love her, Yang’s response is, “Yeah… Ruby.”

She was thinking about Blake.

The kicker? I thought she was talking about Ruby too. Because Ruby is her sister. Because she and Ruby had the fight (“fight”). Because Ruby was trying to call her to check in. Because Blake and Yang didn’t even acknowledge that they went on different missions here. I thought Blake was like Jaune, not really taking a side and just heading with Ruby because the team is splitting down the middle. Where did this worry come from?

And I want to praise RT here (I really do) because I can see the effort. I said Blake and Yang needed to spend time apart, they have. I said they needed to work through their co-dependent identities, now Blake is reminding Nora (and theoretically herself too) that someone you love is just a part of you. I said that the group couldn’t be a hive-mind, now there’s disagreement. I said the show needs to make Blake/Yang canon at some point and you can’t do that if they don’t talk about and to each other. So I fully admit that this is everything I asked for… so why does it feel so badly done? No matter how many boxes it checks off, it’s still a moment where we thought Yang was finally worrying about her sister again—like she used—and then it’s ‘Sike! It was really just about Blake! Again. Yang is worried about a problem that was never even introduced.’

I suppose that’s why it doesn’t work for me. Yang and Ruby had the falling out, but Yang and Blake, somehow, become the focus. Is it really so hard to write Yang as a sister and a potential love interest? Yang apparently can’t care for Ruby and Blake, Weiss can’t care for her team and her brother, Ruby can’t care for Mantle and Ironwood… it’s like each character gets one (1) thing to put their emotional energy towards at any given time and that’s it. That’s all they get.

On the flip side, this is why Ren feels like a person this episode. He cares about Mantle, and the future fight, and their past mistakes, and his place here, and the problems within the team, and Nora… He feels like a well-rounded person! vs. Yang and Jaune who don’t even consider his perspective, vs. Yang having a fight with her sister but only cares about Blake. They’re one-dimensional in comparison.

It is, as always, disappointing.

As the group “broods” then the camera shows us a piece of the ice nearby, slowly cracking as Jaune says that “Things always seem to get worse before they get better.” Well, that’s unexpected. I didn’t think our opening would be literal. I’ve been worried about Atlas falling on everyone, not everyone falling… to whatever is underneath the kingdom as a whole. Is the kingdom falling apart? Or is something waking up and moving towards the surface? If RWBY can reproduce the characterization we got with the Hound, I wouldn’t be opposed to another leviathan grimm rising from the snowy deep to assist Salem…

Though how the fuck group will survive everything and that, who knows lol.

And that’s our episode! Issues aside—most of which have been ongoing issues. We knew they were there—I think this was our strongest episode so far this volume. Well done! There are still problems, no doubt, but at least I was only bored for a small portion of that 20 minutes. Let’s just keep heading in that direction.

Exciting Saturday, huh?

Regarding bingo updates:

RWBY actually re-used a grimm I thought they’d abandoned, so well done there.

No civilians around for the giant grimm army to attack, so that was fine. Kind of strange though that they completely disappeared after the Hound left.

The timeline is starting to get wonky. For example, what kind of stakes am I supposed to expect when Cinder decides to head to Amity? Is it currently empty? Is Pietro there? Has Penny made it yet? I said weeks ago that RWBY would need to follow multiple groups to fill out fourteen episodes in just two days—and they’re definitely doing that—but that means we don’t have a clear sense of what events are happening simultaneously and what are meant to be linear.

No Winter or Ironwood this episode.

Watts is back with Jacques! Potential for team-up 2.0? That will admittedly be hard with Qrow and Robyn there, unless those two escape.

(Oh yeah, I thought Qrow and the others would be held in the military base and Ruby would find him during her heist… but she doesn’t even care that Qrow is in jail.)

Maria is still a ghost. If we hit the halfway mark with her not doing anything I’m calling the space.

I definitely wouldn’t call this cliffhanger needless. That’s actually a cool way to end things, even if Jaune’s line was pretty on the nose.

Neo may be getting closer to backstabbing Cinder if those expressions are anything to go by.

Still waiting to see if Amity works.

And finally, drumroll please! …

“More obvious Blake/Yang implications without confirming a relationship.” Yup, I’m marking that this week. After Blake’s ‘just a part of you’ comment and now Yang only being worried about her reaction? Definitely calling it. If RWBY confirms a relationship this volume I’ll eat my words—and some celebratory cake — but until then salt prevails. Especially after the fiasco that was Supernatural.

Still no bingo. Ah well, maybe next week lol.

Until then! 💜

[Ko-fi]

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #rwby fault #rwby recaps #mymetas

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life-rewritten · 3 years

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Tharn Type 7 Years of Love; The problem with Mame

At the beginning of when TharnType the series announced it was going to get a sequel, my thought went urgh sequels. I don't do sequels; because sequels are horrible, they're not just terrible in this genre, they're awful everywhere, in western dramas, in heterosexual shows etc. This is because sequels are always made with sluggish energy like people just don't respect sequels; they're made to make more money and hound in on the fans love and loyalty and excitement. They're made because of hubris. With Bls, sequels are even worse because Bls already struggle with writing and following up and showing how couples are when they're established. So when it comes to announcements of sequels I always end up shaking my head and being afraid, I ask the question but do we need this really? Why not just create something new and original? And this is the same thought process I had with TharnType, I wanted to see them again, and revel in their love story, chemistry and plot, but I was nervous because of my past experiences with sequels.

Now, my mindset changed as I trusted my past experience with this show. I liked the writing, and I liked the structured plot, and the three-dimensional storyline and character developments. I think with Mame; her outlines are fantastic when you look at the overall picture of the plot, her themes and her ideas. But unfortunately with this sequel, I think it falls apart;

The problem with Sequels

Now there are already three reasons why this was always going to happen:

1. It has a different director. With the previous season, Tee the director helped portray the themes and the story Mame wanted to tell. He brought out the right energy, paced the storyline well, and used the right sound, edits, etc. to show us TT's story.

2. The book of TT 7 years is actually tiny in detail and plot. Basically, a tv show based on it is not going to be fully in depth because it requires fillers to make it long.

3. It had many new side couples and a lot of side couples in this genre are basically always miswritten and given no screen time, no storytelling or plot with the same energy as the main couple. So with this sequel, unfortunately, it actually ended being the opposite; it's actually the main couple who's screen time was sacrificed for the side couples.

But even with these worries, I still came into the show knowing there were things I loved about it; I loved the overall themes, the comprehensive real-life representation of long term relationship, the meta I could analyse and the characters and their mindsets as broken and flawed people which they are. From episode 1 and episode I think everyone noticed that the show wasn't going to great because of the new director. We also saw that the show's strength was put on the actors' ability to hone their characters and Mame's writing. However, by episode 3, I had fallen in love with the show again because the one thing Mame is good at is showing a love story even if other people don't agree. Her basis for what love is is what makes me hooked onto her shows. Her love stories are always more in-depth and dimensional every single time; they have more to them than just a typical generic plot.

The problem with Tharn Type 7 Years

Now one of the reasons I fell in love with this is because of the introduction to Leo and Fiat. Shocking right? But I knew that she had given the same depth, flaws and effort as she did with TT in Season 1. They were meant to mirror a version of TT, and their journey to be together was meant to be just as problematic and dramatic. As I'm going to be writing about the flaws of this show, I still want people to know; I believe in everything the subtext was showing, she has been building up scenes and clues to letting us know what the overall story was meant to be, and as much as I don't want to because it's also her fault, I think her director failed at helping her show her message as well.

So when looking at one of the overarching problems with the show, we have the story of Leo and Fiat; they have this deep, dimensional and interesting love story. They're both so in love and devoted to each other, but for some reason, they can't communicate and tell each other how they feel. And this is so important to TT 7 Years because Fiat is the villain of the show. The plot with Leo refusing to tell him how he feels is a big plotline to unveil because it's the real reason why he ends up breaking up Tharn and Type. Now Tharn and Type already needed to separate and break up because their relationship no matter how strong their love is was always going to reach a pause because they still had to deal with past internal scars. Type wasn't at the beginning fully healed from his past and his trauma, (by dealing with his boss drama, he actually ended up reaching his healing and overcoming his conflict). Because of this, he wasn't ready to cross the line and marry Tharn. However, episode 8, he has now grown and overcome his issues and so is now ready to be onboard with Tharn.

The problem with Tharn

But the thing is Tharn also had his own internal scars to heal from; he also has his own traumatic mindset that shapes his actions and his views because of season 1's villain Lhong. Now, this is where the issue with TT 7 Years starts;

It's fantastic writing, because not every BL has dimensional characters that go through character healing and development this way. The problem is this storyline is told in subtext. If you were me, then subtext is a fun way to watch a show, because it leads to the need to find clues and bring them to the surface and fit that with what the show is telling you. But if you can't see or have the patience to understand subtext, then you won't understand certain choices the writer makes. You'll end up feeling betrayed, annoyed and cheated by the story. Especially if the show is different from what you expected it to be because of watching and loving season 1.

One of the biggest problems people complain about in TT 7 Years is that the TT is not in the show. Tharn especially does not have a lot of screen time in the show at times, the show really revolved around Type's regression to season 1's mindset because of his boss, and there's a reason for why that happened. It was so he dealt with his past and came out knowing why he needed to stay with Tharn forever as we see him in episode 8 and 9 realise. He found out; he couldn't be without Tharn so we'd reached a stage where marriage would have been possible for him in episode 10. Now the problem with this, is now he's grown, and everything is starting to be sorted out, Type has gone through his issues and dealt with them, and so we're all happy and excited, everything is meant to be perfect. But there was one thing Mame forgot and messed up in her writing. Tharn.

And the sad thing is she started building this up in episode 1 to 3, but it got pushed to the side. She made Tharn stagnant, he was perfection and a supportive system to Type, but he hadn't dealt with his own issues and flaws. He hadn't grown. As much as she was showing with vigour the regression and healing of Type, we were also meant to be seeing the deterioration of Tharn into his season 1 mindset. (this is why they break up in episode 10, the reason he thinks Type would cheat with Fiat). There are still psychologically embedded scars with Tharn and whilst Type dealt with his biggest fears; coming out to the public, trusting people with his sexuality etc. Tharn did not develop the same, and it breaks my heart because I get why TharnType had lower screen time at times in this season; it's to showcase the distance between them and their desperate need to be together. It's meant to show us how separated they are. It's fine that that's why you're doing this (the whole storyline is about this separation).

Still, the thing is even if they're not together in the screen, what failed the show is that we saw Type regress and show his growth, but we didn't see Tharn have his own storyline and regression to the point in episode 10. We've been getting so much foreshadowing, so much subtext, so much build-up below the surface showing that this will happen, but we only see that outcome in episode 10. Do you get the issue? Now the reason for why Tharn is going to regress isn't going to make sense.

The problem with break ups

Let's think about the problem with Tharn thinking Type would cheat on him. One they've been together for seven years, it's frustrating because it makes sense why he would think this way if you understood the subtext and you understand his mindset that has never healed from season 1, but if you don't know the subtext it falls apart. A writer is meant to give the audience enough clues properly on the surface as well as subtext, so they understand what's going on in your story. The reason why season 1 of TT went well is because of the chemistry, intense storyline that was on the surface even then people didn't fully understand the subtext that was going on between the two, they didn't get the deep meanings of the psychological scars that they held, and how it affected their actions. All some focused on is that it was a love story of two people who were incredibly flawed but were meant to be together, but in TT 7 Years they're not given the same screen time to be together, so everyone feels cheated and frustrated when Tharn goes all of a sudden to; Type is cheating on me. When really there's no clues or evidence for you to be thinking this way.

Now the reason why this is insulting and upsetting is because when it's time to look at why they're breaking up after everything, the only reason you can say they're breaking up is because Tharn thinks Type would cheat so willingly without listening to an explanation... Really? So you're telling me that the disagreement about marriage, the conversation they've been building up about it, is not even going to be the reason for why they break up, the whole crux of the show since episode 1 -4. This has been built up this marriage dilemma, and we know that Type is finally now ready to get married and give everything to Tharn since he's realised he can't function without him, you're telling us that now that he's prepared for all that, that marriage disagreement theme isn't even the reason for why we get our most significant conflict, but Fiat is who's going to be a problem.

The marriage disagreement is pushed on the down low, and when we're finally needing it to be the reason for why these two need to separate since that's what you've been hinting at above all things, it wouldn't make any sense to the audience why you've been building this up for so long. The two reasons for why TT was always going to break up since episode 1 with foreshadowings, subtext and hints is Fiat being a villain and coming to the storyline to make Tharn think Type is cheating and because of the marriage disagreement, Tharn is going through regression of his mindset to season 1. But we didn't get to see it. We didn't get to see Tharn show emotions struggling about thinking Type could be unfaithful or that he's really struggling with some psychological breakdown about fear of being left again.

Instead, Tharn shows up out of nowhere, wants to propose to Type and sees Fiat do something to Type and thinks Type would be unfaithful. It's ridiculous to me from what I'm seeing in the trailer that he just doesn't hear Type out. And the second thing that's even more annoying about it is that it's Type who says they should separate. It makes no sense because we know from season 1 that it's a big thing for Type to say let's take a break or break up. He knows he shouldn't say that to Tharn. They made a promise to each other. It shouldn't have been Type who suggests again the break up it should have been Tharn. The emphasis of the relationship ending should have been Tharn saying I'm giving up on us. I don't feel like we're meant to be together anymore, not only is this painfully ironic because he's the one who's spent the whole season trying so hard to prevent their relationship from ending but we've just seen Type come to the realisation he can't be without Tharn so it'll hurt even more because his regression although irrational is understandable. So again the writing is messed up, and the storyline is cheap because you didn't even remember the immense impact of what breaking up means to TT and the huge meaning and clues in season 1. The audience feels cheated; it feels cheap like as if the story we've just watched was for no reason.

The problem with subtext

Now I love TharnType with my whole heart. I've been defending and still believe this is written at times amazingly, but the cheating thing doesn't sit well with me when it comes to directors choices and writing. I think we've had three episodes dealing with TT being away from each other in these two to three episodes Mame should have been putting little doubts in Tharns mind building up, so we get the final breakdown of it. We should have seen him see clues or hints that doesn't sit well with him, for example, Fiat liking all of Type's post, seeing a message on Type's phone, hearing someone mention they saw Type with Fiat etc. He questions himself. He shakes his head, but it still lingers. We should have seen Fiat bump into him alone, (since he's manipulative and meant to be a better villain) when he was around and mention something about Type that piques his interest he pushes that down with worry. Then he runs to Type, and he says something like you're never going to leave me, are you?

For foreshadowing purposes. What this does, is that it doesn't blindside the audience into thinking one kiss or interaction would make him immediately regress and think his boyfriend of 7 years would cheat on him. What this does, is that it portrays his mental breakdown and regression as he keeps seeing hints or clues that make him regress back to his season 1 self with Lhong and Tar and we see just as we watched Type break down with the boss, his own decline. In fact other than the marriage proposal, the thing we should have seen him struggle with is doubt after doubt despite fighting it that he's not good enough to keep Types attention. Not that Type would hurt him on purpose, but he's not perfect for Type.

This way, the conflict is more painful and more understandable when he shouts and accuses Type who is oblivious that he's been having doubts and that they should separate for a while. It should be Tharn that's saying let's end this irrationally. It should be him breaking down and regressing into his petty, stubborn self. That would have been hurtful and made more sense. He has many scars and trauma with people leaving him. It would have been nice that these three episodes when he was away, and Type didn't know he became vulnerable again into that mindset, it would have mirrored Types on regression into his season 1 mindset because of his boss. The two of them would be broken, need to separate for a bit, and we know and understand why and then fix their issues, miss each other, and return strong and confident in love.

All we're getting is Tharn seeing clues immediately he arrives and making up some story in his head which makes no sense because Type may not be fully always romantic and wanting to marry but Type lets him know he needs him and isn't going anywhere. That being said, we don't know the whole situation, and it could be better explained in subtext next episode, but I am disappointed at how the Fiat villainy turned out.

The problem with Leo and Fiat

After all the build-up, we should have had in episode 6 in my opinion as Fiat cried, the truth about him and Leo; a flashback to show why he's suffering and making the choices he's making. That way the audience wouldn't be so pulled away from him even in his despicable acts we'd still understand he's broken and thinking he has no other way but this.

Instead, we've gotten the same narrative repeated, and Leo says the same stuff, does the same stuff and Fiat and Leo speak about their feelings in riddles with each other. Fiat makes no sense when he cries and cries over Leo and rejects his pleas to come to him when all we see is Leo in a sad, positive light as the only person who's genuinely suffering from this unrequited love when it isn't so; it's his undoing for judging Fiat for sleeping around. Fiat sleeps around because that's all people ask of him. He says it to Type that he tried the dating thing but all people wanted from him was his body, and we even see it actually in episode 3 on his date with that randomer why he sleeps around, it's because Leo isn't there or he feels he can't have Leo.

So yes, you can slut-shame him for constantly wanting love and affection, looking for the right person for him to avoid Leo's rejections that he isn't that person. But he's just looking for a long-lasting relationship with someone who can make him feel better than Leo. Because Leo has adamantly been friend-zoning Fiat even before he started to sleep around, so that's why he doesn't believe in anything Leo says now because he's had to deal with this rejection for so long, I'm upset because Mame should have shown us on the surface not on subtext by now Fiats plight and his mindset.

Because if I didn't know what was happening in subtext and I just thought Fiat was manipulative and evil and selfish then yeah I'd also be angry that Leo and Fiat keep going round and round in circles with 80% of the screen time. A lot of the reasons why Tharn and Type the show is being so negatively viewed is because of lack of energy from the director in fully helping us see the clues that Mame has left in the show. Because she's not a bad writer she structures plots and she has a bigger picture of why certain things happen but if they're not appropriately shown to the audience then yeah the show will flop and be seen in a negative light.

So yes I feel by episode 6 we should have had Fiats backstory when he was breaking down crying over Leo the first time when he said something like "all I do is for you. I need to do this for you." Then watching his fight with Leo won't just hurt but it'll make more sense and when you see both of them crying it'd hurt just the same. Leo is an idiot, but I get his own mindset about the sleeping around because he doesn't want to be a fling to Fiat so he'll never confess. But he's just as bad as Fiat. And I wish people understood that.

The problem with character development

Tharn needed more screen time even if he's not with Type. Him being seen as this perfect boyfriend every single episode only being irrational when it comes to the marriage disagreement should not have been this way. We should have been building up to his spiralling down his regression, his flaws that way when he and Type break up we really have understood why everything fell apart. The issue that I loved about this show at first is that everything is in subtext. Every clue to the plot, the character dynamics and the character mindsets; all of it is hidden in subtext and not fully fleshed out. This worked well in TT season 1 because the other plotlines joined together to form a narrative that was building up and leading us to the plot twist that Lhong was evil all along. But here it feels like every scene on the surface is a waste of screen time and writing when really the clues are just hidden. It's fun to analyse subtext, but when your storyline on the surface is filled with repetition and is going nowhere. The audience would feel cheated and unsure about what your message is. That's how I think many people are feeling seeing Tharn conclude with one clue or one day that Type cheated on him. It feels ridiculous and cheap as plotline because the build-up wasn't there.

So yeh I love TharnType, but I also am getting your frustrations with the plot. I'm also disappointed at some choices made in the show. Could it be better, yes? Is it the worst? No far from it!! But is it TT season 1? No. And so yeah we have another sequel that isn't the perfect follow up. I still think if you watch this show with season 1 together like a binge-watch, it'll be easier to see the subtext and understand the characters' actions. The way the story is being told would make more sense. And it'd be a great show still. Yeah, that's all I have to say. This is really my analysis for this week's episode. I'll just keep repeating the same things over and over again if I write another essay about the subtext. If you want to understand more about the show, you can check my previous analysis.

#tharntype #tharntype 2: 7 years of love #thai bl #bl series #bl drama #tharn and type #january #cwg #fvete

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