#have not rewatched much of classic in a while but i remember her being a lot more cautious generally

[keep-this-all-in-mind]

UAF Gwen should have been paranoid beyond belief. downright Twitchy. i know, i know, they were trying to make her "the responsible one" and succeeded, but like. she should get to be More feral. as a treat.

#ben 10 #(can u tell i am writing gwen pov rn. can you) #have not rewatched much of classic in a while but i remember her being a lot more cautious generally #i think it'd be interesting if 2/3 of the UAF crew were as alert as rabbits and ben just keeps bulldozing them bc he can get out #of most situations he can get himself Into #(instead of Kevin being the only paranoid one)

[hamletshoeratio]

"But no new content 😭!!" that means jack shit. We have several literal decades worth of content we can watch or rewatch. The writers and now the actors too are not only fighting for their livelihoods but for the futures and the soul of their industries.

Fuck new content, fuck the executives and producers and powers that be who make millions upon millions while the people, who create the content that make them rich, can barely make ends meet.

Here's some suggestions to anyone who doesn't know what to watch;

Nostalgia rewatch; watch old favourites, shows and movies you haven't seen in years but that stayed with you, the ones that mattered to you.

Watch the shows your parents didn't let you watch growing up because they thought the show was "too mature" for you.

Watch the shows and movies people have recommended to you that you never found time for before.

Watch indie films!!!

Look at different genres than what you've watched before and give them a go.

Try films and shows from other countries and/or in other languages. There's dubs and subtitles available and these shows and movies can be just as good if not better than their American and/or English speaking counterpart.

And remember when watching shows, that you do not have to binge them all at once, you can have your own personal tv schedule and watch say an episode a week like you would've done when/if they aired before streaming

Look at some older films and shows, why does it matter if it's in black and white or the camera quality is lower than 4k and hd, so long as it's good? And so many of those shows and films, while not perfect, have aged better than shows that have come out in the last decade, like the golden girls for instance has aged so much better than say glee (ok many many many shows aged better than glee but let's be real for a second, music was better when artists were terrified of the Glee cast doing a better version of their song on the show. I do still wish it was a show my mom didn't let me watch tho, lmao glee was fine but no, her twelve year old being obsessed with Les mis and rewatching it religiously was cause for concern 😂😭 I was just as obsessed with glee for seasons 1-4 especially).

It's ok to indulge your inner child and rewatch the classics tm. The shows and movies you grew up with. Rewatch the shows that got you through sick days from school, the tv movies you remember watching premiere, the cartoons that MADE your Saturday mornings, etc.

On the topic of animation, that's literally an unlimited genre you can tap into, which rarely gets the recognition and respect it deserves.

Don't be afraid to watch the one season wonders, the shows that networks and streamers cancelled after one season in spite of strong reviews and good ratings. Or the shows that ended abruptly around the season 3 or 5 mark because networks and streamers cancelled them because they didn't want to negotiate contracts and have to pay the actors and writers more. Get angry, remember what the actors and writers are fighting for.

The privilege of older shows that either concluded naturally or that writers were given a heads up on might be on it's last season is that you get closure, unlike with the above. That might not mean an ending is good but a bad ending is better than a cliffhanger. There's always fix its fics for a bad ending. And if the ending is good, it's typically GOOD in my experience. The fear of a cliffhanger and zero closure has already turned many against watching new content until the show is renewed for another season or is fully wrapped (and fans don't hate the ending).

Watch the shows that were in their day or are popular or critically acclaimed, they usually hold up to the hype.

Watch the old shows and movies your favs were on/in before they were your favs.

Try a soap or a telenovela, they can be entertaining af (holby city my love, Tuesdays have never been the same since the BBC robbed me of you).

If you liked a reboot or a revival of a show, try the original (in certain cases, the og is even better, see boy meets world v girl meets world).

If you like period dramas, try shows and films from other countries based on their history. A lot of times when people are telling their own history it goes far better than when Hollywood tries it (see the many times Hollywood has actors brought in because producers think they're good for box office and they then go on to butcher the accent their character should have, see Cameron Diaz, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep and so many others who have absolutely butchered the Irish accent over the years for instance. There's also many many instances even recently of just blatant whitewashing see Matt Damon as the last samurai...).

Listen to recommendations, watch the shows and movies you know your family and friends loved but you never got around to watching.

#wga strike #sag strong #sag solidarity #sag strike #wga solidarity #wga strong #writers guild of america #writers guild strike #like your ncis law&orders greys er spn etc all have nearly 20+ seasons WE'RE GOOD FOR AWHILE FOLKS #like the amount of content we have for star trek alone like #do you want tos tos films star trek the animated series tng tng films ds9 voy enterprise dsc picard ld the shorts prodigy tas films? #support the strikes #union strong #sag aftra #sag aftra solidarity #sag aftra strike #sag aftra strong

[richonnesbitch]

Any favorite Richonne moments? Rewatching season 6 and forgot about Michonne immediately slamming the woman who punched Rick. I couldn’t help but think how that meme of kevin hart being held is so Richonne coded lmao

Every richonne moment is my favorite moment tbh 😂

I, too, really love when Michonne body slammed that random woman who punched Rick. And it being directly after their first night together makes it sexier. Like that is HER man, she's decided. Like, they're so iconic. Imagine every scene with your ship being their best scene. That's crazy!

But to answer your question I'll name a few of moments I especially love. Some of these are probably underrated, others probably not. It's not gonna be in any type of order because it's too hard to rank lol. But here are five.

1: Taking Judith To Hilltop

Whenever Carl is dying and Alexandria is getting bombed by the saviors, the group decides they need to evacuate to Hilltop. Rick asks Michonne, the person he trusts most in the world, to take Judith to Hilltop. And we all know how much Rick (and Michonne) loves his children so this was definitely a huge thing to ask. I just find it beautiful the amount of trust he has in her. I love that Andy quote where he's like "Rick trusts her with his life and his children's lives." I can't remember the full quote so I'm definitely paraphrasing but it's a great moment. And unfortunately I can't find a picture of the moment either.

2: Mowing Down Walkers with the RDIM

This whole scene is just so crazy to me. It starts off with Michonne annoyed she has to just stand around while everyone else does all the work. Fed up, she decides to ignore Thorne and take charge. She grabs the RDIM and runs and runs and runs pretty far away from everyone else, mowing down walkers along the way. And then all of a sudden who appears next to her? Rick. Do you know how fast he would have to have been running to catch up with her? He's crazy lmao! It's also really sweet in another way too because he knows she might get in trouble for this so he gets himself in trouble with her. Partners in crime! And also im sure he couldn't just let her run into a horde of walkers by herself. Anyway, they mow down the walkers and then Rick sets the RDIM up to explode and grabs Michonne's hand and runs away from the impending explosion with her. And if you notice when they go behind the tree, Rick puts her ahead of himself. He also shields her body with his when the explosion happens. We know what happens next. They start staring into each other's eyes and neither of them are capable of resisting each other so they have a little makeout session complete with tonguing and moaning. Classic richonne. Noticing their connection, Michonne says "come on" referring to how he should leave with her. He warns that "They'll find us, they will." She tells him "we'll make it so they can't." And he's under her spell so of course all his most recent refusal just goes out the window as he tells her "not like this." It ends with a signature forehead touch. I feel like this is a thing richonne generally does when they feel distant from one another. Physical touch is big for them so I feel like the forehead touching is a way to reconnect them I think. It's beautiful. So anyway they head back to the rest of the group to help. Thorne's goofy ass decides that Michonne, or Dana, is more trouble than she's worth and aims her big gun at her. Somehow Michonne's bodyguard Rick notices this immediately. It's crazy how he ALWAYS has eyes on her to protect her. No wonder she said she only feels safe with him. He sticks himself between the gun and Michonne, blocking her from Thorne's view and successfully saving her from being killed. I love seeing how protective Rick is of his lady.

3: Rv Hand Hold

So after their first kiss and first night together, they are tragically robbed of the chance to spend the morning together when Jesus lets himself into their home to speak to Rick. This world moves fast so they don't really get the time to breathe before Jesus and the rest of the group are on their way to Hilltop. Michonne sits bashfully in the passenger seat, wondering if last night meant as much to Rick as it did to her. And Rick notices this (because he always has eyes on her) and eases her mind by grabbing her hand. Of COURSE it meant as much to him as it did to you.

4: Michonne Saving Rick From Winslow

So I've talked about how much I love Rick being protective of Michonne but I also love when Michonne is protective of Rick. Okay so this moment happens when Rick and Michonne are trying to recruit those worthless useless garbage people to fight against the saviors. Their leader (who I'm not naming because fuck that bitch) wants to put Rick to the test like the dumbass she is. To test him, she decides to take him "up, up, up" which is code for "throw you in a hole you can't climb out of with no weapons while a spiked walker comes at you." Michonne, sensing this bullshit, nervously grabs Rick's hand to stop him. She goes to say something but Rick stops her and comforts her. He goes up there anyway and gives Michonne a reassuring nod once up there. The leader says some sort of bullshit to him, I don't know what because I zone out any time she speaks. Anyway she pushes him down the hole. Michonne screams at her "what did you do?!?!" before running to find Rick by looking through a hole. She yells his name and he looks around confusedly for a few seconds before figuring out where her voice is coming from. He lets her know he's okay. And then Winslow comes at him. Again he has no weapon so he frantically tries to climb out but to no avail. Michonne watching this through the hole yells directions to him. "The walls. USE them!" And he does! And it works! Michonne's plan works and she saves his life. It's just a fun example of how Michonne's guidance always helps Rick.

5: Unclenching His Fist

So after a very endearing family fun day for the Grimes family, it sadly gets cut short when Scott (or whatever his name is) delivers the news that some random ex savior (that really no one cares about) got killed by someone. This is bad news and Rick is visibly upset by this. Michonne notices this and reaches a hand out to him.

His hand is closed and she gently opens it.

She not only comforts him but let's him know this burden isn't only his. It's hers too. And that they will get through this together. Michonne has always been able to comfort Rick in a way no one else can and vice versa.

So in conclusion, these are just a few moments I really love and why I love them. Again I wanna say that every moment is my favorite richonne moment so this is definitely not a ranked list. I had to limit myself to just five because I could go on and on and on and on and on and on if you let me 😂 but if you wanna know more of my favorite moments I don't mind sharing them. Thanks for the ask! This was so fun to write.

#michonne grimes #rick grimes #richonne #the walking dead #twd #the ones who live #towl

[littlemisssquiggles]

The Missed Potential of WISH

It’s funny.

Last year, I really wanted to watch the new Wish animated film from Disney.

While everyone else were hating on the art and animation style, I actually kind of liked it and was genuinely looking forward to possibly viewing it on the big screen.

Then the reviews came in. Needless to say, I didn’t watch Wish.

I remember a time when people used to complain about Disney making “too many love stories”. Then Disney stopped making love stories leading to films like Moana, Coco, Encanto and even Turning Red, which weren't bad.

Following the failure of Wish, the biggest complaint I’ve heard for that film is that “it probably would’ve been more successful if it were a love story”.

The last romance Disney had we’re the protagonist was a “black girl” was Tiana from The Princess and the Frog which was technically their last 2D animated feature film.

And don’t get me wrong, til this day, The Princess and the Frog still tracks. Second to Tangled, I still very much love TPATF and it's one of Disney's classics that definitely have the rewatchability.

That being said, Wish is the first Disney film I've seen where the missed potential of what its story was originally supposed to be (herego a love story between a human girl and shape-shifting star boy) versus what we actually got is more popular.

Aww Disney, what were you thinking?! How could you think a film where the main character, who is a PoC, the first "black girl" (well technically I think Asha is meant to be mixed) female lead/love interest that you've had since Tiana in The Princess and the Frog in 14 YEARS where she is actually human for all of the movie and gets to share a love story with a handsome "star boy" who can literally make all of her dreams come and think that that's NOT gonna make you money!

I haven't even watched Wish yet I've seen more artwork and fan-made animatics of Asha and Star Boy than anything from the actual film.

At this point, Disney should just take all of the original ideas they left on the chopping block for Wish and revise them into a future title which is an actual love story they could market from.

Or…as an audience, we can just wait for one of their competitors, like Dreamworks to smell the blood in the water like the sharks they are and capitalize on Disney’s latest flop by taking the ideas they didn’t use and coming up with something that could potentially usurp the popularity of Wish’s failure.

In the case of Dreamworks, they don’t even need to make a new star boy since, technically, they already have potential “star boy” they can use.

Remember Rise of the Guardians?

Hahaaaaa OF COURSE you do, since it gave us the original immortal boy internet heart throb (also ironically voiced by Chris Pine who played King Magnifico in Wish) ---Jack Frost.

I find it hilarious that another reason why folks are hating on Wish so much is because Disney could've given us another potential immortal boy heart throb "Star Boy" to finally usurp the chokehold that Jack Frost has had on our generation of weebs and artists for the past 12 years since RoTG first dropped.

We could've had it all.

But as I mentioned Rise of the Guardians, did you know that there is character in the original series it was based off of called Nightlight?

While technically not a “star boy”, Nightlight is the closest thing to one in an already established universe from a Dreamworks property and since this squiggle meister never misses a beat to push for continuation of Rise of Guardians, hear me out:

Imagine a Rise of the Guardian prequel-sequel about the character Nightlight and make it a love story.

(Because apparently there's a girl that Nightlight grows close to in his story called Katherine. It's just a friendship but needless to say, there is potential there).

I know it’s been 12 years since Rise of Guardians first dropped and I know I've be hollering for a sequel since 2012.

But c'mon, if there was ever a time for Dreamworks to capitalize on an RoTG sequel, it's now.

As Wish has proven, the internet is hungry for another handsome immortal boy with magical powers.

Dreamworks set the ball rolling with Jack Frost.

If Dreamworks were to revisit RoTG again, take Nightlight's story. Take his design and give him the "Jack Frost" treatment and make it a love story on top of that.

I'm not saying it will happen. Not even saying it could happen.

But if somehow thought becomes reality and something like this does actually happen, whoever does it will be rolling in dough.

This is just a longwinded way of me to say that somebody needs to bank on the concept of a star falling in love with a human and do it now since as the internet has shown, it's what the people want and what Wish failed to give.

~LMS (2024)

#squiggles talks: wish #wish #disney wish #rise of the guardians #jack frost #rotg #rotg nightlight

[they-them-that]

Light trigger warning: gender roles, misogyny, transphobia

I love Ouran Highschool Host Club and with the Shoujo classic that it is, I adopted the general consensus that the show was "ahead of its time" with how it portrayed gender. Haruhi will always be a non-binary icon but upon rewatching it, especially after my own trans awakening, I remembered something that never sat right with me and that was how Tamaki treated Haruhi. My two cisgender friends didn't seem to pick up on the same problems even though they also consider Haruhi to be non-binary which made me think I was just projecting onto the anime. But another friend of mine later told me how it was much more "heterosexual" than she remembered that helped validate the feeling I had.

Although Haruhi doesn't like to make a fuss about gender, the anime does and it constantly reminds us that no matter what Haruhi feels, she is still a "girl". Tamaki is the worst offender of this mentality where even his entire perspective on Haruhi changes as soon as he finds out she's afab. A huge part of Tamaki's character is that he dotes on Haruhi "like a father" where his actions are actually founded on the authoritative, patriarchal belief that he needs to "protect" her because she is a woman. Not just protect her from actual harm either but from things like kissing someone and wearing a swimsuit...

Although in certain ways, we're supposed to laugh at Tamaki's overbearing nature, he's never actually taught to respect Haruhi's autonomy. In what felt like every episode, Tamaki fixates on Haruhi's assigned sex much to her annoyance. Yet rather than learning to look at Haruhi as a person regardless of gender, we're expected to see his obsession with upholding gender roles as a sign of affection. This felt clearest in episode 8, "The Sun, the Sea, and the Host Club!" where Haruhi confronts two men for harassing her female peers. She gets shoved into the water where Tamaki saves her but the conflict arises when he scolds Haruhi for standing up to men at all. The message emphasizes to us that "Haruhi is a girl" and it's something that she has to accept for her own well being while Tamaki's anger is meant to be perceived as chivalrous rather than patriarchal and heteronormative. The reality is, even if Haruhi was in danger, that isn't actually her fault but the fault of the men who felt entitled to women's bodies (something Tamaki is guilty of, even if not to the same level of aggression).

I still cherish OHSHC but it hasn't fully stood the test of time as I've been led to believe. That's not to rob gender queer people the comfort they feel from the show but that for myself, it's a bit hard to look past the cishet energy that the anime exudes. Although I see Haruhi as non-binary, the show doesn't seem to agree and goes great lengths to invalidate Haruhi's gender indifference. It's tragically common in anime and manga where trans-coded afab characters are reminded that they're still women and it's usually "proven" to them through patriarchal scenarios that put CIS men in a role of dominance. A lot of the time, these women are only gender nonconforming out of happenstance or circumstance rather than by choice, which even includes Haruhi Fujioka (she only cut her hair because there was gum in it). That's not to conflate gender expression with identity but it does feel like we're only being met half way, especially when the anime still romanticizes the gender dichotomy with Haruhi and Tamaki's relationship. I would've loved to see Tamaki be able to toss the notion of gender the same way Haruhi is able to and have that be the groundwork in which their mutual feelings blossom. Instead, it just felt like we got a man who stubbornly wants someone who grew up without gender labels to visualize herself the way he does, as a "woman".

#ouran high school host club #ohshc #haruhi fujioka #tamaki suoh #tw transphobes

[coraniaid]

Top five Fuffy fics (written by authors other than yourself)

Well, I'm not sure the restriction's necessary: I don't think I'm being unduly modest in saying there are a lot more than five Fuffy fics out there that are much better than anything I've ever written (or even come close to writing, frankly).

Uh. Limiting myself to one per author and to completed works only, and not trying to sort the top five in any way, without thinking about it too hard my top five would be:

To Live In The World by IvorySteel92. There are lots of Season 6 Fuffy fics, lots of which are really, really good, but this is the only one that made me cry twice, so it must be the best. Faith comes to Sunnydale after Buffy dies to try to do the right thing and take over as the Slayer, but then Buffy comes back to life. Only this time, unlike in canon, Buffy really does come back wrong...

Je me souviens by zulu. A classic, from all the way back in 2005. Again, there are lots of Season 4 Fuffy fics -- including at least one more that I love and that almost made this list -- but I don't see how I could not include this one. Faith wakes up from her coma, not knowing where she is, struggling to remember the fading details of a dream in which somebody she can't remember is chasing her with a knife. To the extent there is a single Fuffy fic any fan of the ship should be familiar with, I think this must be it.

147 Days by TigerDragon. Another relatively older fic -- this time from 2012 -- but one which doesn't seem to have gotten quite as much recognition as I think it deserves. It's part nine of a fourteen part series (starting all the way back in Season 3 and carrying on well past canon), but you don't really need to know much more than that this is -- technically -- canon-compliant, and that it covers the time Faith spends in prison while Buffy is dead. I think it's amazing and that far more people should read it.

Flowers For A Ghost / The Girl From Away by aliceinwonderbra. I'm cheating a little bit here, as these are technically two separate stories, though you could read them in either order and both have the same starting premise. Buffy wakes up in hospital surrounded by her friends after jumping into Glory's inter-dimensional portal to save Dawn. Only, she isn't waking up surrounded by exactly who she thinks she is. While the main reason I got into Fuffy a few years ago was rewatching Buffy during lockdown and finally having the pieces click, I genuinely think this series runs it a close second. I don't think I would have started writing anything Buffy related myself if -- having finished that rewatch -- I hadn't thought "huh, I wonder if anybody has ever written Faith/Buffy fanfiction?" and eventually stumbled onto these stories.

Body Language by explosionshark. As a rule, and despite my many complaints about Season 7 itself, I think Chosen was pretty close to the perfect way to end the show, which makes me a little wary of post-canon fics. But this one is so good it makes a mockery of any reservations I had: I cannot imagine a happier, more faithful-to-the-characters continuation to Buffy and Faith's story. (Oh, and as the tags make clear -- and as I think Faith would insist my previous description already strongly implies -- Buffy and Faith have a lot of sex in this one.)

#thanks #asks #fanfiction #fic recs #fuffy #btvs

[iosagol]

second time watching OTGW and I might be losing my mind

I'm just rewatching this masterpiece most certainly NOT on internet archive and certainly probably not silently dying because the first time I saw this I only saw the way Wirt's selfishness was being pruned out of him by the Fae world, and I only saw the grief on the Woodsman's side, but there's so

There's so much else to see on the second time through

Like the frog? George Washington? Being able to speak English when all the other frogs can't and yet not being able to speak English when it's just him and the humans? He's sort of a look into Greg's point of view? And he's this point of weird messed up communication because he's something Wirt and Greg were supposed to find together, hunting frogs like bros n stuff

But it was kind of half done; Wirt didn't want to be a part of that adventure and he was focused on Sara for all of the duration of it. Greg did most of the work, so that's why Washington reflects him most (he can communicate to everyone, but those of his own species speak a different language than him and seem to miss his points)

I'm sorry I'm thinking too hard into this but BUT IT WARRANTS THIS

AND THE WAY THAT UH

THE BELL GIRL

SHE'S KIND OF A FORESHADOWING TO THE WAY THE LAMP HANDLES PEOPLE

HOLDING ONTO HER ILLNESS AND TRYING TO DROWN IT WITH WORK ONLY MAKES THINGS WORSE, JUST AS HOLDING ONTO GRIEF AND TRYING TO DROWN IT WITH WORK  MAKES IT WORSE

SHE AND THE WOODSMAN ARE HORRIBLY ALIKE BUT WIRT TRUSTS HER MORE BECAUSE SHE RESEMBLES SOMETHING MORE HUMAN

AND THAT NEEDS TO BE SLAPPED OUT OF HIM, THE FAE CANT OPERATE UNDER THAT

Also I didn't realize how much Wirt actually seems to love Greg

Like yeah he's selfish

But that's very much towards the back half of the episodes, and by then he's genuinely had his trust shattered and he's struggling to carry burdens and Greg doesn't get that because he sees the world completely differently, he's got zero preconceived notions burned into him

Wirt has notions, he's old enough for it

And he's kind of hampered by them

Only looking at this twice did I actually see the fog that he steps into in the eighth episode, the genuine fog, and how he kind of shuts down

It's... depression?

And Greg's response is that of a kid who doesn't understand depression in the least because he just isn't old enough to have run up against it yet

I get the sense that Greg asked the lady of dreams to make him take Wirt's place, or something like that, but he has no idea what he's stepping into

Greg is so much smaller and it's really not his role to be the big brother

The beast (who could represent a whole host of stuff like depression? Fear? Self-flagellation?) demands he do impossible things and reach impossible goals and Greg does them at first but then he gets so worn out because it's so hard to sustain a beast like that

So he ends up completely immobilized by these vines of atrocious levels of fear? And he's so tiny? and he's never been through something like that

While Wirt, for all his faults, is hardened by his failures and fears to the degree that he can look his grief in the face and say "I'm not indulging you; your move."

Faerie changes Greg in a sense because it exposes him to realities that he doesn't fit, but he really doesn't seem to retain the effects of these negative realities. That or they simply don't affect him back in the human world. I mean Greg is a champ at seeing eldritch terrors and going "aw hey there, Barnaby! :D" and moving on with the retention span of a happy cucumber so maybe he just did that again. Maybe he still doesn't necessarily get the line between a bad dream and a deep truth. But I kind of get the sense he wasn't as deeply affected because the trip into Faerie wasn't for him.

Wirt, though, went through the classic Faerie-story process of being taken down to his lowest point in order to find himself, and that experience absolutely stayed with him.

I just remembered that Wirt and Greg jump out of a cemetery as the first step to get into the Unknown and the way it goes is Wirt cries "that's it, this is the end" like the drama queen he is and Greg immediately interprets this and jumps off the wall a moment before Wirt does

Greg knew a moment before Wirt moved that Wirt was going to jump, so he jumped first

He never ever hesitates to follow/lead his brother into deep trouble because he

Greg just

He has no concept of fear

Sssssssssaaaaaaaaa

They enter through water, and when they go back, they're returning through water.

It reeks so hard of baptism/rebirth symbolism and I'm scrambling to grasp all of it

Also the fact that Quincy Endecott has a gravestone in that cemetery

So he really is a ghost, humanly speaking ❤️

Mm

Yeah I just really love this show to my bones and I cannot wait to look into more of it and scrape more thoughts together

#Otgw #over the garden wall #OTGW rant #Over the garden wall theories #Wirt #Greg #Cartoon Network #fae theory #this show and its fae theory give life

[thefirst3chapters]

I love the work you’re doing with your blog, bringing back older posts and spreading the Literati love 🧡 And your meta posts are so insightful! Would love to hear how you got into the ship, if you feel like sharing 😊

Thank you so much, that is so kind!

I'm fairly new to Gilmore Girls in general and started casually watching a few years ago because my sister (also a Literati shipper) recommended it. I think the first episode I saw was "There's the Rub," and I was drawn in by the generational dynamics right away. It is tough for me to precisely remember first impressions in hindsight, but I didn't particularly care for Dean or Jess as love interests for Rory. My sister said maybe I'd like Logan, but I wasn't convinced on him either. Then Jess's Season 6 appearances endeared him to me a lot more, and he became my reluctant favorite of the three boyfriends. It is a huge testament to Rory's character that she didn't know what Jess would accomplish in the future, and she believed in him right away despite most of the people she trusted disliking him!

Last year is when I really got into shipping Literati. In the classic love triangle setup with a nice, dependable character and an adventurous, brooding character, I am typically inclined to sympathize with the former archetype, but the character arcs of Dean and Jess ultimately defy those categories in interesting ways. Rewatching made me notice more details about how much teenage Jess was struggling, and I really grew attached to him and his relationships with Luke and Rory. I lurked around the Gilmore Girls subreddit for a while and saw so much animosity toward Jess. Even though he's of course fictional, it was still frustrating to see all that directed at a kid who was dealing with a lot, and it made me even more protective of him.

Then I came across a few Literati-focused Tumblr blogs and saw the interest in themes/subtext/symbolism/character motivations and the amazing fan art and GIFs (like yours!) on here. Seeing multiple posts about other people not having a penchant for the subreddit discussions was quite validating. It was an "I've found my people!" revelation, and I've really enjoyed looking through blog archives. There's so many great older posts!

What compels me with Literati, far more than the debates over who was the "best" boyfriend (what does that even mean?), is how narratively rich their story is. It starts and ends with Jess looking at Rory through a window (if the frame around her picture on the mantle counts as a window). In the first and last episodes where they interact, they show each other something they've written because they were inspired by the other person. As this video lays out so artfully, they went through parallel challenges in their lives and helped each other find the strength to work through them (including by writing a book). Then there's all of the intriguing visual cues and emotional depth and period drama reminiscent scenes. Two bookish characters being portrayed in such a poetic way is so fascinating.

Ships that don't get a conventional happy ending are often captivating because there's so many questions to ask and alternative scenarios to imagine. There are a lot of tragic romance elements to Literati, and the angst is certainly not lacking, but the neat thing is that at the end of the official narrative, both characters are alive and on good terms with each other, and it's implied that maybe their story isn't over. The last words of dialogue they exchange mark a beginning of sorts (it's what this blog is named after). How many doomed romances end up with something that positive? I do like to think that Rory and Jess end up together for good after AYITL, but after everything that happened when they were younger, just the fact that they are friends as adults and are so encouraging of each other is a beautiful thing in its own right.

Thank you for the ask!

#thefirst3chapters asks

[joelletwo]

wrestling with the 4devas bitchslap again to convince myself its fine if graveyard wins the best ep tourney: it's not the other bloggers who are wrong, it's me

not a complete response to but definitely in conversation with and asking some of the same questions again as @reductionisms's 4devas essay, which tries to square gintoki's "life doesn't need to be fun, i just need you to live" being a series-sanctioned message he's given to villains as an arc-concluding moral continuously up until 4devas with it here being an incorrect worldview that needs to be (physically) corrected by shinpachi, the straightman tonal signpost of gintama

a conflict i have been perplexed by ever since i got to this line on my first watch a year or two ago, since i've seen this line before! all over fandom! as part of the general "dont [bottom text] kill yourself" motivational messaging of gintama that i love!

and, briefly, when i hit 4devas i was also in the middle of being really frustrated by the new arc pattern i was seeing crop up: i loved the villains-turned sympathetic-turned someone worth saving by gintoki tune of the first half of gintama, but it fell massively flat for me in Yoshiwara in Flames, where i was never convinced to be on housen's side but had to watch him get a heartwarming redemptive death at the side of the woman he abused anyways.

then shortly after i had the same exact experience in Red Spider with jiraia, and i thought, if this is what gintama is gonna do with its shitty dudes from now on im gonna quit the fucking show. and then shortly after that i met jirochou and saw him cut down otose the woman he loved (under a raining sky!!! the fucking sky motifs!!! the signpost im about to watch a dude be shittily violent to women and be expected to feel sorry for him about it) and saw too much red to really take in the rest of the arc level-headedly or care about anything in it lol.

so it was written off in my mind as the 'otose almost gets fridged' arc until i rewatched it this week. then i had to remember, oh yeah, there's a ton of political maneuvering fakeouts in this arc that i never actually squared back with how the plot presented itself prior to the reveals, so i'd still been thinking about the "fakeout" plot. then i read the manga version with all the "truths" in mind from the start, and finally i felt like i could understand what this arc is doing a little better.

(way) tldr (4.4k words. sorry): do i love this arc? eh. do i still hate it? eh. but it's doing stuff!

first, i was able to see an echo in all the "actually i was planning to betray you the whole time" "actually i was working to help you the whole time" plot beats of what sorachi does with the larger edo/universe story further into the back half of the manga. if i ever sound like i didnt enjoy or wasnt convinced by the execution of these "reveals," it's because i didnt and wasnt, lol. but it's fun that he had fun with them i guess.

the arc starts with pirako ingratiating herself into yorozuya, then having a classic "bump into you and pretend to be injured to extort you" encounter w her dad's gang. to resolve this without escalating into violence, gintoki... does it back to them, which is really funny. but thus the tone is set for the arc of: DISHONEST APPROACHES TO CONFLICT.

pirako isnt honest about her overall intentions the, like, seven different times that she "admits her real ones." kada plays at peacekeeper in the devas while being the ultimate person scheming to get the upper hand over everyone else in the end. (she's also secretly harusame, evil amanto outsider who acts as a unifying force for the kabukicho fighting itself to band together against and expel: sorachi's favorite move! the problem was never internal, it's the shadowy REAL antagonists who infiltrated us)

jirochou and otose are ultimately doing a pantomime of conflict to try to keep temperatures down and escalations from breaking out, so no one they care about has to get hurt. gintoki doesn't know this until the end, but he follows in their footsteps after his encounter with them in the graveyard: he plays at having given up to the rest of yorozuya so they'll leave and escape the coming kabukicho war, the same thing otose was trying with him. it fails both times. i'm really not sure why gintoki and otose thought it would work, honestly. they should know their kids are stubborn as hell.

but gintoki is in a bind because of the things he needs to protect, and all of his actions are primarily in service of that, to the detriment of how he'd prefer to act if he were less restricted. he is unsurprised and unoffended to hear saigou is only willing to warn them, not help them, because her son is in danger if she acts directly. all four devas are, seemingly, being mutually restrained this way, holding back even when blatantly manipulated to do so. the other constant of this arc: everyone is dishonest, and no one wants to risk losing what they have.

gintoki understands that! of course! he's had to make that calculus before, after all :)

and this arc is just one big cliff scene echo: the entire graveyard scene pushing gintoki to emotional regression because he thinks he's losing another parent figure, one he's just seen the Gintoki Figure of the arc cut down, no less (takasugi stolen valor when he goes berserk against him and only ends up uselessly bleeding out on the ground about it, honestly). otose goes into this willingly so gintoki can live. he accepts this decision because he values protecting her values (her kids living on) and is briefly broken by it (the story says, before giving him shinpachi to "put him back on track"). prior to the bitchslap, after saying he just wants them to live, even if it has to be without him, he says:

i dont have a good understanding of when we start getting reveals of gintoki's backstory versus foreshadowing because i went into gintama already knowing most of it, but definitely by the recent red spider where we get our first real look at (or really, first listen to) shouyou. but here we actually get some of what gintoki felt about it, which he keeps closely guarded even when the whole truth comes out: he's done his best to survive having lost, but it was so unbearable he can't face losing again.

(also, honorable mention backstory echo, the person calling him a brother sets his home on fire to drive him and his parent figure out of town. as i liveblogged: this one would really hurt gintoki if gintoki cared about anything oboro ever did!)

but with the shinpachi story-rerouting, they get the good end, keep everyone (otose, yorozuya, all of kabukicho, even pirako and her dad - everyone but kada) safe without having to sacrifice a single thing, even keep gintoki hopeful for this outcome. so, as goose points out, we are left to understand that there could have been a good end on the cliff, that something is different here than there, and, skipping a lot of math, that that is the people around gintoki.

which i do find really funny to imagine as a slam on takasugi and katsura. sorry you kids suck too much, your teacher dies bc u were cringefail. but lets look at it.

everyone is dishonest, no one wants to risk what they have: gintoki rallies himself to keep fighting but is determined to do it alone. kagura and shinpachi fight him on this; they can't leave because they don't want to lose their home, they can't let him fight alone because they don't want to lose him. they're just as restricted by what they have to keep safe, but their only option is to act where everyone else's is inaction. shinpachi says:

if i may skip over the bitchslap itself for now, gintoki does consent to let his allies fight with him after it. yorozuya stands alone against saigou, who's heavily demoralized but resigned, strongarmed into fighting them by the threat to her son. but on seeing their resolve to keep protecting their own precious home and family she says:

and, to skip straight to my thought, i think this is what turns the tides back in their favor. there are more twists and turns to the fight. pirako equates what binds saigou, which she herself equates to what binds the yorozuya, to what binds her:

(with an intentional distinction that she's willing to actively destroy the others', as opposed to their purely self defensive fighting, which is echoed at some point in her distinguishing gintoki from jirochou in the same way, that jirochou not only lives to protect like gintoki but is willing to destroy in the process. i don't find that part as interesting, but it's more fuel to the power of having something to protect as a driving force as an arc theme.)

so now all three stand on the same ground, absolutely unwilling to give up what they hold dear, but all their cards are on the table. they aren't dealing in 12 dimensions of tricksy defensive pre-emptive moves anymore. they know it wouldnt work, anyways, since they all know their drives to protect are the same and no one will be talked into backing down. now they can directly duke it out and let the winner be determined that way, on strength of will. even before the actual circumstances change, the fight somehow feels freer seeing how inevitable it is. and with everything out in the open, yorozuya can now protect each other and saigou's son, taking out one side of the conflict.

(and with everything out in the open, the ultimate 4devas villain can become the single person who continues to betray the others, kada, whose further machinations - with everything out in the open! - saigou (and later yorozuya) can choose to protect pirako from. everyone wins! because everything was out in the open! do you see where i'm going)

and so we come back to the question: gintoki is corrected, the arc is rerailed to the better outcome. so is the correction justified?

what does the correction accomplish outside of its moment? most convincingly to me of goose's presented options, i also think it's done as a thematic shift, a, okay, just live was a strategy that worked before but now doesn't suffice, so we need something more.

as to why this is needed now and not earlier or later...tldr bad planning <3 but like.

we have, prior to this, a consistent thrust of arcs where gintoki teaches people to lose. as well, while we meet the harusame and we visit space and we get the barest glimpses of takasugi's weird shadowy background moves there, largely we're dealing with kabukicho characters and kabukicho stories. we see or only hear about the shogun for short comedic moments only. we've largely dropped the series intro focus on things like the shinsengumi or hasegawa acting as foreign diplomats. it's a local series, a hometown series, a kabukicho and not even an edo at large series, a personal story about gintoki making personal connections with his personal experience as a flawed person with a flawed approach to life that has let him, chronic slacker, get by on the bare minimum.

at this moment, chapter 300, we have a slow trickle of gintoki backstory starting to come out to us. we've recently expanded the story focus to include yoshiwara, which gets a callout in this arc by kada to keep it relevant. we have an arc of sorachi testing out plot beats that he'll use again for the endgame, in all the political maneuvering and alliancing and betraying and shadowy outsider space governmenting, where he's also doing a lot of echoing of that backstory that only becomes clear later. so it's possible he's thinking about shifting gears and setting up for the eventual endgame, which means getting out of the episodic cycle so things can stick.

and after this arc, to my opinion and memory, we stop getting the classic gintama flavor sympathizable'd antagonists. a lot of the bigger arcs don't even have clear Big Shot antagonists anymore, being more about the shouyoucore theme of characters fighting against themselves, or if there is one they're always explicitly part of the Shadow Government now, a unified and more daunting force than someone they can win over with an inspiring gintoki interaction.

so 4devas does act as a turning point at least in some way. and it's not possible to say this definitively, since all gintama arcs are ultimately never going to be about gintoki or his friends Actually losing something instead of beating the odds, but it does feel like theres a different flavor to, say, dekobokko with its direct look at how chars lives could be different and better and they will still choose to keep struggling as themselves. and Kintama arc definitely doesn't feel like an early days arc, like it can only resolve the way it does with a gintoki who is now able to face his past and the possibility of losing again and again and again (now with, natch, his faith that yorozuya will by his side when he does).

why now, after 300 chapters of letting it sit ignored in the back of his brain working out perfectly fine except when it doesn't (the very reminder of shouyou in a fight making him go Demon Mode, which is like regular gintoki but worse at fighting, bc he is so unprepared to think about shouyou)? well i personally am in big favor of the "take a decade off" strategy for facing problems. it worked for me too. realistically watsonianly its nice to let things percolate in the brain and do some of the processing behind the scenes until its less immediately painful. and he's made many bonds over these 300 chapters, shown in this arc when the whole town rallies behind him, that are there to support him when he needs it now and weren't there before.

realistically doylistly eh. bad planning.

and so we come back to the question: gintoki is corrected, the series as a result is rerailed to a writing space where things can start changing (leave the episodic, as you guys say, sazae-san format). it's useful in the future. so is the correction justified in terms of what comes before it? was the correction needed?

thinking about the bitchslap leads to thinking about the cliff scene leads to (sorry kagura and katsura, you guys arent really relevant here) pitting shinpachi and takasugi against each other in how they act with something on the line they can't bear to give up.

i don’t need the lesson of 4devas to apply logistically to the cliff scene. once they were set up on that chessboard, frozen in their assigned places as a backstory, it’s not like takasugi could’ve power of friendship’d his way out of being physically retrained if he decided he wanted to. it’s set up as a forced choice, it has to play out as a forced choice.

but we see that even before it’s asked of him, takasugi is willing, prepared, unbothered to give up his own life for shouyou’s. this is, goose lays out in the sequel, the cardinal sin in gintama - a teacher shouldn’t outlive their student. it would have been especially egregious to shouyou, whose whole desired life’s purpose is to raise students who can outlive him and outgrow him, take his lessons and go out into the world and do their own thing with them. takasugi doesn’t expect to do this and doesn’t seem to see a point in the possibility if shouyou isn’t back with them.

though we can also think of shouyou as a little too quickly willing to give up on the cliff - sorry, gintoki, the suicidal guy has thought about it for .02 seconds and decided the best outcome is for you to kill him even though he could get out of this no problem. maybe its no wonder gintoki gave up too. can we ask katsura what he would’ve done?

and is takasugi different from shinpachi there? he rejects the mentor’s attempt to exchange his own life for his. he’s not willing to consider a life without him.

but shinpachi is convinced no one is going to die. because they’ll be there together. incredibly naive - shinpachi and kagura, restricted to one option by what they need to protect like everyone is in 4devas, have acting as that one option because they are still free in a way gintoki and the other adults aren't. they’ve never actually experienced the impossible choice that forces you to give up, so they can act as if there isn’t one - what else would they do? why would they think to give up?

but gintoki is defined by having lived the impossible choice. its built into the foundation of him as a character and leaks out everywhere. he couldn’t have relied on his friends on the cliff because they were quite forcibly removed from the picture as an option, not by his or their choice. its written as an inevitability, logistics we find out later be damned.

if we refocus to 4devas, we can look at the Gintoki Figure for a different angle. jirochou, after he and gintoki resolve the arc conflict by being able to team up because they - say it with me - put everything out in the open, tells gintoki about his impetus for abandoning his family and coming back to his wayward life in kabukicho, the death of otose's husband.

it's, um, another now really obvious parallel to gintoki, lol. characters talk about how jirochou does everything he does in this arc to try to atone for his failure to both otose and tatsugorou, and i guess thats true bc he was written that way but he has an odd way of showing it, but anyways he resolves that, despite his guilt over this, all he can do now is keep living and keep protecting what they loved together. he's come to the usual gintama message all on his own, reinforcing that this is the correct way to live in this series. he had his own unavoidably shitty situation, and he came to terms with it.

so then where did jirochou go wrong, in the narrative's eyes (other than abandoning one woman and their child to deal drugs in the town of his other woman while ignoring her)? was there a point he could've changed how their trio's story played out? but he loved and trusted tatsugorou, and he was happy to step aside and let him be the one by their otose's side. i doubt he would have been happy stealing her away even if it were possible.

but if we look at the resolution tool of 4devas... he never put everything out in the open!!! everyone knows he loved otose, but in more of an open secret way. in classic romance plot, he never confessed for second male lead rejection closure. indeed, in the closest we ever get to a main character having a romantic plot in gintama, the very ending of the arc flirts with him doing just that now that he's made a little progress with the arc message, with the entire cast of the arc expecting him to (and interrupting before he can).

but if he had when they were young. if he had been honest with his friends. could it have opened up other options that weren't available on his own, that they didnt know to offer? i have a preferred one lol. but u can get creative with all sorts of life paths that avoid tatsugorou dying that way or, at the least, jirochou feeling chained to a shameful life (living in a town he doesn't go out in to protect a woman he doesnt talk to and feeling like he doesnt deserve the family he abandoned for this) because of it.

and then if we take this and rewind back to the cliff... we get to grind my favorite ax, "shouyou shouldve told literally anyone literally anything about his deal." if gintoki knew more about shouyou, they could've faced his horrors together, the whole time. he couldve known that shouyou was being literal calling himself a demon and not internalized his own identity as one for life just because shouyou bonded with him over it. i truly genuinely think the logical conclusion of all of gintama's big messages are that shouyou and gintoki should have been more open with each other.

but i don't think sorachi thinks that. and, you know, by 4devas rules, the unriskable precious things he was protecting by staying silent were his students' humanity, and secondarily his own fragilely newly hopeful heart that literally couldnt stand another 10 millionth round of rejection (killed himself and then went on a 12 year rampage over it. girl i would too).

and takasugi really isn't dishonest about what's going on in his head when he tells us he expects to die for shouyou. that's as cards on the table as i could ask. gintoki is, a little bit, by omission. he does what i'd want him to here - tells takasugi try just not dying - but doesn't give him a reason to, and doesn't tell him he has no plans of letting anyone die for shouyou.

so what goes wrong on the cliff - shouyou is happy, gintoki is happy, oboro's even kind of happy, katsura is irrelevant - is that takasugi is blindsided (whoops) by their silent agreement that betrays the one he thought he and gintoki had. and then ruins everyone's party about it and spends the next ten years doing so for good measure.

which is also, basically, what shinpachi is going through that prompts the bitchslap, too. he thought they were a team, that they had each others backs, not that gintoki is a one-way protector of them. he is blindsided by gintoki lying to and tricking them and hiding things from them. he is hurt by gintoki feeling hopeless all by himself when he could share that with them and be encouraged by their endless child optimism.

and would it need to have changed anything on the cliff? in the moment after the bitchslap, what contributes to gintoki changing his mindset is tama telling him, we trust that you're capable bc youve always shown us that, can you trust us this time? when, later in the arc, gintoki seems to regress by sending kagura and shinpachi away, he asks them to trust that he's still trusting them, relying on them to help shoulder his burden, and in return they know he's staying alive, not self sacrificing. maybe it would've helped just to feel on the same team and not shut out, to be able to trust gintoki like gintoki was trusting shouyou?

so. two paralleled instances of gintoki making a bad situation worse by keeping to himself and being too self sufficient. that feels clear cut that feels fine im okay with that as a takeaway. do i think its exactly what sorachi had in mind while writing this, as opposed to just a good series 'hey lean on your friends' moment to read cool and tug at the heartstrings? eh lol. i think theres definitely room to read takasugi into this arc (i still need to refind the takagin 4devas post...) but its not so baked in that i think he was a PRIORITY in the plotting.

but is the shinpachi SCOLDING necessary is the scolding justified... and yes its in response to life doesnt need to be fun i just want you to live. still a confusing framing i can't immediately square. but/and more immediately its directly responding. to gintoki opening up to them about his insecurities!!

which, as said, he doesnt do!! he doesnt talk about his failures! its basically like, here and to hijikata that one time and otherwise even when we know all the facts about what happened we still never hear gintoki himself talk about it. (so he really DOESNT learn the lesson here either. he stays dissociated and triggered every time utsuro comes up. he tries to solve the altana baby problem on his own. he doesnt talk to his new friends OR his old friends. bwah. gintoki. silver soul.)

so this is like. its just in the wrong order!! its just in a baffling order lol. if you want gintoki to share his burden do you need to punch him when he shares it. does it also need to sound like you're blaming him for not being capable of upholding his promise to protect anyone when thats the insecurity thats got him all discombobulated this arc in the first place (a whole set of notes i took on this that i didnt find a place for in this post)?? its so weeeeiiiiiirddd lol i dont liiikeee itttttt. theres plenty of things shinpachi can validly punch gintoki for but this is such a weird one.

so i guess. having a clearer understanding of this arc do i hate it less? YES honestly. i hate fakeout plots generally they irritate me but everything... more or less makes sense by gintama standards now that i have the whole plot in mind.

do i hate jirochou less SORT OF? i enjoy him. in his individual relationships. i like his shitty dad deal i love shitty dads. i like him pining for otose who genuinely likes him but also brings up her husband every sentence she says to him just to keep him down. i like his parallels with gintoki that they both explicitly acknowledge and find macho comfort in. hes still not theeeeeeeee most well-developed gintama antagonist but you know? i at least think otose and pirako would want to be around him after this.

do i feel like i have a clearer understanding of the bitchslap moment. NOT CONVINCED I DO. i feel like its going to be one of those things that slips in and out of my understanding like sand in cupped hands. i have a tentative understanding of it that i dont think sorachi actually had in mind. so i dont think ive solved it lol.

will i be cursed to think about 4devas forever? god i hope not. am i okay with it beating farewell shins in the polls. god i fucking hope it does. in the horrible timeline where i have to see 305 make it all the way and then lose i guess id rather it be to this one than to hijigin. consider this poll propaganda?

#sopping wet gintoki posting

[isfjmel-phleg]

March 2024 Books

Norby, the Mixed-Up Robot by Janet and Isaac Asimov

This one was a lot of fun! I should track down the rest of the series.

The World's Greatest Detective by Caroline Carlson

I was very confused about what era this world was mimicking (are they Victorian? 1920s/30s?), but it was a fun story and I enjoyed the dynamic between the protagonists.

A Dig in Time by Peni R. Griffin

I remember liking this one, but it feels like I read it years ago and I can't remember everything. Time travel with a family emphasis.

The Promise by Monica Hughes

Like Sandwriter, which this is a sequel to, I initially wasn't so sure that I liked this one, and then it went in an unexpected direction that took the themes in a more complex place, and I appreciated that.

The Yellow Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

I generally like fairy tales well enough, but this one was rather a slog to get through, and I ended up skimming a lot of it. There were some familiar favorites, but a lot of the tales were of the variety that consist of an interesting set-up followed by a seemingly incoherent series of events, and I regret I don't have enough interest in folklore to get much out of that.

The Romance of a Shop by Amy Levy

Interesting from a historic perspective mostly, but I didn't connect much with the story.

The Secret Garden of Yanagi Inn by Amber A. Logan (reread)

Reread so it would be fresh in my mind before the presentation. You already know how I feel about this one.

The Humming Room by Ellen Potter (reread)

Same as above. I have a post in drafts with some thoughts on this one that may eventually see daylight.

The Making of May by Gwyneth Rees (reread)

Already discussed this one.

A Bit of Earth by Karuna Riazi (reread)

Beautifully written and very readable and develops its themes well. Does fall into the trap of making the story about grief (Maria's late parents were frequently absent from her life, and she resents this, but she did have relationships with them in ways that her counterpart in the original book never did with her parents, so it's a completely different dynamic). I found this Colin to be somewhat underdeveloped, but I did appreciate the concept of his being fearful about failing to live up to family expectation, which is a reasonable translation of the original character's source of shame.

Charley by Joan G. Robinson

I don't remember much of this one. Didn't have any problems, just didn't have as much impact as other books by this author have for me.

Greenwild by Pari Thomson

A very derivative example of the Child Learns That They Are Magical And Special And Enters A Fantastical World Where They Must Take On The Villain sort of story. I wanted to enjoy it, but everything felt trite.

Doctor Who: A Brief History of Time Lords by Steve Tribe

This was a gift from my brother. I am a very casual DW fan and haven't really engaged with the show in quite a while (really should rewatch and catch up on new stuff but that's a pretty big time commitment right now). I think I would have got a lot more out of this if I were more than passingly familiar with Classic Who and all the lore in general.

Not Quite a Ghost by Anne Ursu

I was interested in this one because it's a retelling of "The Yellow Wallpaper," and the concept of comparing the difficulties of getting difficult-to-trace chronic illnesses taken seriously and diagnosed in today's world to the mishandling of women's medical and psychological conditions in the late nineteenth century intrigued me. However, this book didn't really know what it wanted to be. The young protagonist's struggles with her mystery chronic illness took up most of the book, but there was also a plot about a literal ghost in the wallpaper of her new attic bedroom that needs to be defeated in the end, and neither of these things fitted well together. One or the other of them would have been fine, but the combination left me confused about the nature of this fictional world and the themes of the book in general.

Comics/Graphic Novels

Benevolent Sisters of Charity (Over the Garden Wall)

This is the only one of the OTGW comics that I wasn't able to buy before it went out of print, so I ILLed it and realized that it was for the better that I hadn't. The story was incoherent and pointless and the characters were OOC. The art was much better than the story deserved.

Wayne Family Adventures Vol. 3

I've read these as a webcomic already but wanted it in book form too. These are entertaining; you just have to go into it aware that this is The Fluffy World version of everybody and they are characterized accordingly.

The Flash by Grant Morrison & Mark Millar

Not on a level with Waid's work, of course, but the highlight of this one was the storyline in which Linda dies and Wally manages to bring her back (some good Bart content here) and a delightfully meta short story in which Mark Millar meets up with Wally to figure out what story about him to tell next...and Wally is given a co-writing credit in the end.

The Flash by Mark Waid Books Seven and Eight

An effective end to this run. Waid points out in his Afterword that he's still got another story on reserve, so...anytime he wants to give that to us, that would be great. I'll be waiting.

The Secret Garden on 81st Street: A Modern Retelling of the Secret Garden by Ivy Noelle Weir (reread)

You know how I feel about this one. (I whipped it out at the convention to show somebody who was talking to me about CEN in the present day through leaving one's child to technology that that concept was used in this retelling, and somebody nearby oohed about what a diverse retelling it was as I flipped through pages. Which is, you know, more important than effective storytelling. It should have done both! We could have had both!)

Stephen McCranie's Space Boy Omnibus Volume 5

I've read this in webcomic form already, but it's a pleasure to have a physical copy of the latest omnibus.

Sinister Sons #1-2 plus additional material establishing the backgrounds of Lor-Zod and Sinson

A sort of response to the series Super Sons (which featured Jon Kent at his proper age and Damian Wayne), by the same author. This is going to be about a teamup of Lor-Zod (son of General Zod, was Chris Kent in another continuity, has apparently been Zukoed in this incarnation) and Sinson (a young, apparently orphaned thief who believes that his father must be Sinestro, the Green Lantern's arch-nemesis). So far the boys haven't done much more than fight, but I'm interested to see where this is going. (#3 is in the mail now!)

Lor is a horrid little piece of work, but his parents' recent treatment of him puts him in a more sympathetic situation, and I am hoping he'll get a redemption arc that would move him closer to his original version. Sinson is no angel either, but he's just a child who really, really wants a family and is clinging to the only hope for one that he has--and if that means he's a supervillain's son, then he's ready to follow in those footsteps to gain acceptance.

(Also he drew a mustache on himself with a black marker to look more like his alleged father, and that's so ridiculous and kind of endearing.)

#random personal stuff #it's been a weird month for reading but I'm hoping for both more time and more motivation this month #I'm at a point where I have plenty of unread books but don't feel particularly inclined to pick up any of them #and I need to get out of that

[tangledbea]

I was just thinking about Wish and all the blatant references in it. I remember watching it in theaters and at first I thought "Okay cute, the friends are the dwarves, that citizen wants long hair, funny homage, Asha's looking at the stars like Tiana, that's nice..." then it all went downhill to "Just. Stop." by the climax. Especially the Asha/Fairy Godmother theory: as a POC I find that very offensive. Then I realized... Tangled was the 50th DAC movie, and it also had lots of references. (1)

There were all the hidden items in the tower, Pinocchio in the Snuggly Duckling, and the books in the library referencing other Disney movie covers. Not to mention the New Dream scenes that were similar to other DP couples, like the boat (Ariel/Eric), the dying love confession (Belle/Adam) and the whole princess + thief premise (Aladdin/Jasmine). And yet, those easter eggs didn't stop Tangled from being its own unique film. Same goes for Encanto, the 60th movie, and it referenced others, too (2) I think both Encanto and Tangled can still hold up as classic, rewatchable movies despite the anniversary celebrationz because the writers/directors/general crew put the references in the background. They were fun to find out about, but you don't need to know about them to still enjoy it. Wish, on the other hand... I feel like you would have to literally watch all the DAC movies and then some (Mary Poppins) before it even begins to hold up to the standards of the previous 'celebration' films (3) And even then, the story relies on the callbacks to get you to enjoy it. If I stripped Wish of every single Easter egg it had, I'd be left with barely a shell. Meanwhile, if I did the same to Tangled, the result would be pretty much the exact same movie. TLDR: Tangled is a much better anniversary movie than Wish, and that's a fact. So those are my thoughts, thanks so much for reading all this, I appreciate it! :D (4)

The thing is, the other movies you mentioned (Tangled and Encanto) were markers of "how many animated movies they've released" milestones, while Wish was 100 years of the Disney company. It's not the same kind of milestone at all, because it was marking time rather than progress. Not that this is excusing Wish of its disappointing story, but expressing the difference between the movies and the studio's approach to them. Tangled and Encanto (which, by the way, is my second favorite Disney movie from recent years) weren't written to be the 50th movie and the 60th movie. They were written to be their own things and happened to fall in line with the 50th and 60th release. In fact, some numbers had to be fudged a little in order to make Tangled line up with the 50th release, and Encanto was the tenth one after Tangled. Disney didn't even expect Encanto to do well, and were blown out of the water with surprise when it became a smash hit. Where as Wish was "crafted" (I use the word loosely) to be the 100 year celebration of the company.

Every time I find out more about earlier concepts of the film that they opted not to use (the Star being a prince, the king and queen being a power couple villain duo) I get very frustrated and angry about what we could have had. They had some really solid, interesting concepts in there, and they threw it all out the window in order to cram as many references as they could into it. Asha has seven friends (for example), to be the seven dwarfs, but their characters aren't developed at all. They had to tell us what the deal was with color coordination, alliterative names and gimmicks that lined them up with the dwarfs instead of focusing on them at all and making it clear through that who they were supposed to be. Just, "Get it? There's seven of them and this one wears glasses and Asha calls her 'doc' and this one's always sleepy and this one's always sneezing and this one's kind of dopey and this one's grumpy, get it?!?!?!"

I like Alan "I went to Julliard" Tudyk, but not only does he not need to be in every single Disney movie these days, they really didn't have to make Valentino, you know, a thing. "Get it? This is the origin of talking Disney animals, get it?!?!?!?!?!" And they really gave him way too much screen time. I'm often not a fan of the comedy relief animal sidekick as it is (there are some exceptions - some I really like and some I'm neutral to), but boy howdy did they overplay Valentino and make me actively dislike him.

The interesting thing is, I'm not a fan of Raya and the Last Dragon. I don't hate it, but I'm not a fan. I gave it a shot, I watched it, but it left no impression on me. It felt very... Millennial check-listed. POCs, found family, no overt romance but if it's there it's LGBTQ, dragons (cause who doesn't like dragons?), etc. Raya is fine. But for me, it's forgettable. I've only watched it the one time, I barely remember what happens in it, and I have a lot of trouble remembering the characters' names.

But Wish? Wish, I think about often. I have never been so disappointed in a Disney movie as I am with Wish, because Wish has the bare bones potential to be something great. And instead, it's that. What Disney should have done for its 100 year anniversary was make a movie that was finely crafted to show everything they've learned about animation in the past 100 years. I made an observation on a different blog that, when to you take a step back, King Magnifico is a stand-in for corporate Disney, and the whole movie is the crew railing against the corporation stripping the creativity from its workers and not valuing art, even though it’s in the art business. They just want everyone to love them, because everyone always has. Magnifico wants to hoard the wishes the way that corporate Disney wants to hoard talent, and the citizens willingly give up their talent and work because they believe something good will eventually be done with it. It feels to me like the climax of the movie is the artists and animators fighting the good fight against their corporate overlords the same way that actors and writers were striking for so much of 2023. It felt like a battle for the soul of the movie. But although the heroes of the movie win in the end, it was actually corporate who won, because the movie was stripped of all of its heart and soul in order to cram in more references. The artists did what they could, but they still had to follow orders if they wanted the movie to get made.

Oh, and as a side note, you can't just make a mortal human be a literal fairy by giving her a magic stick. That's not how that works.

Anyway, for my money, Once Upon a Studio is a much better homage to 100 years of Disney than Wish ever will be. Anyway, sorry for this incredibly long-winded rant.

#Tangled #Answered

[inconsistentlywrittensoul]

Buffy Season One Review

I’m on my first Buffy rewatch in a long time - I think over a decade? I have watched the entire series enough times that the episodes are all still kind of burned into my brain, but I’m curious what my reaction will be now I’m a bit older.

Anyway, I’ve finished Season One, and I thought I might do a quick review of each season as I go. Can’t promise I’ll be able to keep it up, but I’ll give it a go. So…

Season One Review

S1 is… fine. It’s okay. It’s not as good as later seasons, but it’s not bad; it’s shallower than later seasons, but having expected that I found there’s a surprising amount of depth here. (Partly because I’m watching after reading @herinsectreflection’s excellent analyses, which inspired this most recent rewatch.)

I actually don’t think there are many bad episodes in S1 - the problem is, there’s hardly any good episodes either, and none that rise beyond just being ‘good’. They’re mostly just perfectly serviceable - the metaphors are a bit blunt, the humour’s a bit broad, the MIDI soundtrack kind of sucks, the vibes are kind of cheesy and immature, and overall, it’s just…

It’s Power Rangers. It’s a bit deeper and scarier, and the action scenes are worse, but basically, Season One is Power Rangers. And that’s not bad - I kind of like Power Rangers, and it’s not a bad season by those standards - but it’s not what Buffy is trying to be, or what it will become.

Season Score: 5/10 - It’s fine.

Big Bad - The Master:

In some ways, the Master is perfect. It makes sense that Buffy’s first villain is this kind of ancient and powerful vampire - he’s not as interesting as later villains, but it feels appropriate that Buffy has to beat this more generic Big Bad to move on to them. And he has a strong enough presence that he can actually bear the mythic weight that is placed upon him - it makes sense that he’s the one that killed Buffy, that he sired the Bisexual Vampire Squad; it never feels inappropriate that he has this important place in the mythology of the series, and he can carry that weight in his rare later appearances.

Unfortunately, in this season, he’s a Power Rangers villain. He sits in his lair, sending out minions and screaming in frustration when they fail. (Even finally facing the hero directly in the finale, beating them easily before they get a power up and return the favour - classic Power Rangers villain stuff.) He spends most of the season both trapped and sickly - while at full power he’s a compelling, intimidating presence, for most of the season he seems weak and kind of effete, like a homophobic Bond villain. At his best, he's montrous yet civilised, brutal but witty; in his weakened state, he lacks the contrasts that make him compelling.

Still, he is charming, he does work well in the finale, and he’s always a delight in his rare later appearances. So…

Big Bad Score: 5/10 - He’s fine. (... and not in that sense.)

Rewatch Reevaluations

The biggest change in my perspective since my last rewatch is around Angel. When I was younger, I didn’t really think much about the age difference between him and Buffy; now I’m older, I’m extremely aware of it, but also, it seems like the show is too. The episode where he shifts from ‘random mysterious stranger’ to ‘potential love interest’ is Teacher’s Pet - an episode about an older sexual predator preying on teenagers. Then in ‘Angel’, we don’t just see him creepily staring at Buffy, we see him lie to her about it afterwards, in an episode where the age difference is a major topic of discussion.

In general, his obsession with her comes across as way more creepy and pathetic than I remember, and while part of that is just my interpretation, I do think think the series is aware of it; I think him following her around and staring at her from afar is meant to be kind of offputting. I’m curious how I’ll feel about their romance going forward - I remember on previous watches I thought their breakup in Season 3 was unmotivated, and I suspect I’ll feel very differently about it this time around.

I’m also generally more aware of some things after reading @herinsectreflection’s essays. In particular, I’m noticing Buffy’s relationship to death - from her ‘seize the day, because tomorrow you might be dead’ philosophy in the first episode, to her rebelling against and accepting it in the last… and her Faith-like smile as she enjoys mortal combat with vampires at the beginning of ‘Prophecy Girl’. I’m also much more aware of Giles as a very flawed figure torn between paternal affection for Buffy and sending her to her death - which is explicit in a few episodes, but I’m more aware of it as an ongoing arc, rather than just some isolated emotional beats.

Other than that, one thing I’m noticing is how much weight the show gives to the death of minor characters. It’s easy for an action/horror show to start treating death casually or flippantly, but so far the show is careful to give each death an emotional impact, to make every death matter… at least ‘til the end of the episode, at which point they’ll be promptly forgotten about. Sorry Jesse.

And unsurprisingly for a 90s show, I am finding the sense of humour a little mean and kind of misogynistic, especially towards Cordelia. That said, though Xander is often the face of this meanness, I honestly don’t dislike him, even in S1. The thing is, either the show is aware that he’s being an asshole, in which case it’s an intentional character flaw, which is good; or it isn’t, in which case I tend to blame the show itself rather than the character. Maybe that’s a little generous, but it lets me enjoy the character, so I’m willing extend that generosity. I am curious how I’ll feel about him going forward. I'm glad at least Cordelia gets to be more of a character towards the end of the season - it does make the jokes around her feel a lot less mean.

Honourable Mention Award for Underrated or Forgotten Characters Who Deserve to be Mentioned Honourably

3. Zookeeper Furry from ‘The Pack’. Just a really solid one-off villain performance, in an era where performances tend towards the broad and cheesy side of the spectrum.

2. The Black Cat from ‘The Witch’. Looks like stock footage, never shares a shot or even a set with another character, and achieves nothing except slightly startling Giles, after which he just continues as if nothing happened. Yet despite doing basically nothing, it achieves greatness by earning a place in the opening credits. Truly an inspiration.

1. Principal Flutey. With how much he gets overshadowed by Principal Snyder, it’s easy to forget how great Flutey is as a character. From tearing up Buffy’s permanent record and taping it back together again in front of her, to being eaten by Hyena-possessed students, Flutey is a delight whenever he’s on screen - he’s genuinely a highlight of Season 1 for me. Principal Flutey, I salute you, and hearby mention you as honourably as I can.

Episode Rankings

Might not do this for every season, but hey, it’s a short season, so why not. Starting from the top:

'Prophecy Girl' - Obvious choice, needs no explanation.

'Angel' - Strong character work, introduces a bunch of ideas that’ll be important for the rest of the series, and solves the problem of making a single vampire a threat by giving her guns, which I respect.

'Welcome to the Hellmouth'/'The Harvest' - A solid introduction to the series; I wouldn’t call it great by most standards, but it competently introduces everything the setting, characters and the premise of the series, which is impressive in its own way. Luke is perfect in his role - he’s a compelling presence that feels like a genuine threat, but he’s not so interesting that he distracts from the important things.

'The Pack' - A solid guest performance from the zookeeper, Principal Flutey’s last stand, and some juicy thematic and character goodness makes leaves this Monster of the Week episode at the head of the pack. (… I am so terribly sorry.)

'Nightmares' - Character! Themes! Imagery! This episode has it all, at least by the standards of Season One.

'Out of Mind, Out of Sight' - The first episode that treats Cordelia like an actual character. Also, invisible assassin school! Everybody loves invisible assassin school.

'The Witch' - A perfectly competent MOTW episode, this gets a boost for featuring the cat that accomplishes nothing.

'I Robot, You Jane' - Yeah, the 90s hacker schtick is goofy, but this ep’s not bad - I like the goofy robot demon and the surprisingly good demon prosthetics for its non-robot body that barely appears in the episode. I like the idea that scanning a magic book can summon a demon into the internet itself. Also, Jenny’s here.

'Teacher’s Pet' - Another MOTW episode that does its job adequately. I’m inclined to think of this as the Most Typical Season 1 Episode - it perfectly represents the season at its baseline.

'Puppet Show' - I kind of like some of the ideas in this episode, but the puppet’s a creep and parts of the plot feel contrived. (Why are they sure the demon will leave as soon as it has the organs? Why would Giles get into a guillotine under any circumstances?) Overall… Eh, it’s fine.

'Never Kill A Boy on the First Date' - There’s some good stuff in here, especially around Buffy’s relationship to Giles and to her own Slayerhood. Unfortunately, the plot just doesn’t work - even this early on, one vampire just doesn’t feel like enough of a threat to build an episode around, and generic serial killer vamp is no exception - he's certainly no Luke. It’s a plot entirely concerned with setting up the larger arc around the Anointed One, and that would leave this episode feeling empty and boring even if it was for an arc that was actually, you know, good.

So that's Season One. I enjoyed it fine, but... I'm definitely looking forward to the series really getting good. If somehow you've actually read this far: Thank you for putting my words into your brain. I take it as a great compliment, and hope you liked them - or, failing that, that they invoked in you a great fury, such as only the worst opinions may conjure.

In any case - and regardless of whether I can be bothered to write any more of these - I will continue my rewatch into the Actually Good seasons of Buffy.

#i'm actually a couple of episodes into s2 #and honestly #even Some Assembly Required is a significant improvement #it's not great Buffy #but it IS Buffy #the show has arrived #it's become itself #btvs #btvs rewatch #review #meta #btvs S1 #long post #really long post #maybe went a little overboard on this one

[allamericansbitch]

Hi again Sarah! My Indian films rec list just got super long cos of all the tropes and summaries so I'm making it into a proper post I can tag you in!

While I do that, here are my top five faves from both Bollywood and Kollywood (Tamil films) respectively:

Bollywood:

- Dhoom 2 (2006); I'm actually rewatching this right now and it's a SUPER fun, campy heist movie with a great soundtrack! The whole trilogy of movies are great but this one is my fave and they can all be watched as standalones

- 3 Idiots (2009); a modern classic that most people have heard of if they are casual fans of Bollywood. It takes place in an engineering college and has a super compelling plot I can't give away too much of

- Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (2008); It's a love story of an arranged marriage between a shy guy and this outgoing girl who kind of hates how quiet and introverted he is. And she thinks he expects her to be a traditional Indian wife so she kind of is sad abt being married. Then she goes to take dance lessons and in an attempt to connect with his wife, he goes to the lessons in disguise as a confident guy and they fall in love!

- A Bonus Rec: If you liked Aamir Khan (the lead actor in 3 Idiots) and Anushka Sharma (the lead actress of Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi), they did a really adorable sci-fi movie called PK (2014) about an alien called PK who crashes into India and befriends a human lady. It's just such love letter to humanity and I LOVED Anushka's character back storyline in that movie, it changed my life ahahha

- Teri Meri Kahaani (2012); Heads up this does star Priyanka Chopra but before she became a Hollywood weirdo 😭 and back when she was super talented!! It also stars this really cute actor called Shahid Kapoor. These two play different characters in three different timelines and it explores the concept of soulmates and Hindu reincarnation!! Again CHANGED MY LIFE!

- Ram Leela (2013) or the longer title is Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela. It's basically a hotter and older M18 version of Romeo and Juliet with a happy ending if I remember correctly! It starts Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh who fell in love on set (they were friends before that) and started dating just before the movie came out! They are now happily married 🥰

This got so long already hahaha I'll send you another ask with Tamil titles once you're ready for it! But these are all the fun titles I have loved, if you want more tragic ones (I love a good tragedy and having a good cry over movies), do let me know and I'll give you that list!

amazing thank you! i'm about to head to bed but i wanted to respond and let you know i got this, you can send me that list whenever you want no pressure, but these all sound really interesting! so i'll put them on my list of movies to watch!

#answered #viscountessevie

[in-deep]

If you could only pick one piece of Byler evidence to convince someone that Byler is endgame, what would you pick?

First off - I wrote this stream of consciousness style so please be kind aha.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this question and I think it’s simply the fact that if Mike is in fact straight, then what is his character arc?

Let me explain.

A lot of the GA view Mike as a glorified side character - sidelined after S2 to fulfil the role of El’s incompetent boyfriend whilst simultaneously leaving Will (his best friend) behind and treating him like a dick. The GA also view Mike as straight. For many GA viewers, the idea that Mike is gay/bi, let alone in love with Will, seems implausible and were it to happen, it would come out of nowhere.

Which leaves the question of: what is Mike’s character arc?

From this GA perspective, he doesn’t have one. He’s destined to make up with El in S5 and support her independence, and kindly turn Will down and go on with being besties like the supportive guy they remember him being in S1/S2. If anything, his character has regressed from the early seasons into a douchebag - a mouth breather. 

Not to mention that from this perspective, he has no real internal or external trauma to be unpacked. While this is obviously untrue as it has been made clear by the Duffer brothers and even within the show (Mike’s suicide attempt, Wheeler family discussion around his behaviour at school) that he is struggling with depression, that doesn’t seem to play into their predictions on his ending. If anything, many GA viewers don’t really view his character’s conclusion in S5 as something important because to them, (just to repeat my earlier point) he’s just a glorified side character.

Of course, if you watch the show carefully and focus on Mike, you’ll quickly realise that his character is dealing with a lot of the direct pressures of heteronormativity and internalised homophobia:

His family is your classic nuclear family, Nancy talks about the Wheeler family dynamic extensively in a heart-to-heart with Jonathan 

S1 has a lot of homophobia - all of it is about Will, but a lot of it is targeted and directed toward Mike

There are multiple times he is visually shown to come to realisations about his feelings toward El and Will, respectively. Now I won’t analyse those in this post because technically, none of the contents of those realisations have been made clear to the audience, it’s just my own interpretations. I’m sure this will come back in S5, though.

To show Mike’s queerness in S5 is not changing his sexuality, simply just revealing what has been shown to the audience the entire time. Stranger Things is brilliant at show vs. tell. They tell us something, and then show us something entirely different or even something that directly contradicts what we were told. Much of the GA don’t pick up on this (and tbf I don’t really expect them to, it’s intended to be subtle!).

To reveal concretely that Mike is queer and in love with Will would change everything. It would be shocking! The GA would lose their minds - and many people would, at first, struggle to believe it. But upon rewatching the show, it would all make sense. It would turn what many view as an unimportant character into one of the most well thought-out and planned queer stories in media history (definitely an exaggeration but bear with me aha, I’m not normal about these boys).

What people thought to be an incompetent boyfriend and an absolute dick to his best friend for two seasons in a row would turn out to actually be a deeply traumatised boy struggling to remain on the “normal” path (quote from Finn Wolfhard on Mike), within the bounds of heteronormativity. A boy who desperately wants to play DnD and Nintendo with his best friend, but realises that what he feels for him isn’t “normal”. It would reveal so much about Mike and all the things we never got to see from his perspective.

And in terms of my predictions, I’m absolutely a believer in Mike being Vecna’d, and we’ll finally see Mike’s point of view on all of this. Just imagine Vecna taunting him about how he failed to be normal. He failed to do the “right” thing. He’s been in love with Will since before he even realised it.

So yeah. Byler is real. Byler is endgame. And I’m 10000% certain that Mike is going to become an extremely popular character once we get his insight. He’ll also absolutely need a hug once all is said and done. I will be hysterical. 

But at least he’ll have his cleric <3.

A really good video on Mike's internalised homophobia that essentially sparked me to write this post in the first place, and I highly recommend if you haven't seen it yet, was this one (@lesbianmindflayer) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6IOlmBEEgE&t=80s&ab_channel=LesbianMindflayer

But yeah! What would you pick as your one piece of evidence?

#byler #byler analysis #mike wheeler is gay #mike wheeler is bi #mike wheeler is queer #mike wheeler #byler is endgame #byler is real #stranger things 5 #st5 predictions #mike wheeler needs a hug #i will defend mike wheeler as long as i breathe #i love him so much #let him play dnd and nintendo with will pls #just one scene in s5 of them getting to hang out pls #duffer brothers ill do anything

[diableasura]

Now that i've watched every one piece movie that isn't a retelling of an anime arc or straw hat chase i'm gonna go ahead and indulge in the very human tendency of ranking them in order from best to worst (SPOILERS!!!!):

One Piece: Strong World. Maybe it's because this was the first movie i watched and my first experience with one piece in animation but strong world has remained my favorite since day one (though the second place is very very close i must say). The straw hats are all great and have their little moment to shine the plot is solid and they do a great job with nami, out of the four straw hats with a movie more focused on them she's by far the one that gets the best treatment. Strong world is in the perfect position of being a pre time skip movie, so it's not dragged down by the expanding cast of post time skip, but also since it was the tenth anniversary movie they put in more effort than with the previous movies and it shows. Also sanjis cowboy outfit instantly makes it top tier.

One Piece: Film Gold. I'm... kind of obsessed with this movie?? Seeing the straw hats in a heist really scratched an itch i didn't know i had but my god does it feel good. The designs really excelled here the crew looks gorgeous throughout the entire movie and tesoro's island is so interesting and fits very well in the one piece world. Tesoro is also my favorite villain of any movie, i've seen people say he's the perfect blend between crocodile and doffy and that's so true lmao. Loved having zoro as the damsell in distress, inject that shit straight into my veins i love it when the strong character is the one in need of rescue. Everyone was very cool during the heist but i remember really enjoying franky and luffy's dynamic cause lbr we're kinda starved of it in the manga so it was nice to see them interact so much here. Overall amazing movie and the only one i've rewatched out of all of them.

Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island. This movie has become a cult classic amongst the fandom and with good reason. It breaks away from the loud spectacle of the other movies and is quieter and more unsettling and so far the only example of actual psychological horror in the lore. I've talked about this before but that final scene with the straw hats cheering luffy on even while they're being consumed by the baron and luffy struggling to the brink of death to save them changed me... I love seeing this family love each other so much!!

Clockwork Island Adventure. I know, I know what's the second movie doing so high up... but it was just so good!! It's very short but that's just a benefit to the plot and i love the gimmick of each straw hat being captured one by one till it's just luffy remaining and the one who has to free them (can you tell i love the movies where the straw hats are kidnapped and the others have to rescue them?? that's my drug). Sanji's fight in this movie kicks ass too, the animation is gorgeous.

One Piece: Film Red. This might seem like a sin, to have this movie so far down the list cause i've seen its pretty unanimously tied up with baron omatsuri as the best movie but to be honest i feel like that's just recency bias. The movie is still a spectacle and the songs slap and yes one of them was in the top 5 of my spotify wrapped this year lol. Uta is a good antagonist but i was never that hooked by her shared past with shanks and luffy, mainly because it's so aggressively impossible for it to be canon, it almost broke my suspension of disbelief. Zosan sleeping side by side was pleasing to my monkey brain and it almost made up for including st charlos in the movie seriously what the fuck was he doing there-

One piece: Stampede. The start of this movie is amazing cause they come up with the perfect competition to have all of these pirate crews on the same place but it quickly devolves into a "how many characters can we fit in" contest and the plot quickly turns into "lets all beat up the villain", which is fine! I did like seeing so many characters, at one point half way through the movie crocodile just appears out of nowhere lmao but hey i'm not complaining i love crocodile. Usopp is the straw hat who's focused on the most in the movie and i feel conflicted with what they did with him cause it just felt like they were making him go through his water 7 arc all over again by having his inferiority complex flaring up. And usopps arc was amazing in water 7 but reviving it for this movie felt a bit weird and repetitive. Despite this though i was very happy seeing him getting the focus, usopp is a painfully underrated character so having him on the spotlight is always welcome.

Dead End Adventure. This movie is a lot of fun. There's a bar fight, a secret pirate race and sanji being his sneaky self and helping out luffy during the final fight. Whats not to love?

One Piece: Film Z. Much like Stampede, i really enjoyed the start of this movie cause the monster trio get to briefly fight the big baddie together, but the plot kinda loses some steam for me after that. Also they tried to make the admirals sympathetic cause the villain is a retired admiral who was once their mentor but i really really really dont care about the marines at all so that was a bit awkward. The straw hats look stunning in this movie, i love that in the movies they give them a million different outfits and the ones from this one absolutely slayed.

Choppers Kingdom on the Island of Strange Animals. Another fun movie where all the straw hats get a moment be cool. There's a kid on this island who i found completely insufferable but i can forgive this movie cause this is also where zosan have that famous scene where they praise the other to their defeated oponent, which made my monkey brain happy.

One Piece: The Movie. This movie's biggest misstep is that sanji isn't in it, but even with this critical flaw it was still quite enjoyable. Zoro is very funny on his own but add luffy into the mix and their dynamic was hilarious. Usopp as always was great. The villain is small potatoes tbh but not really the important part of the movie, which focuses more on the relationship between the kid they meet and his gramps. The final message was surprisingly very sweet. Also sanji appears briefly in the end credits to appease me.

Giant Mechanical Soldier of Karakuri Castle. This movie is a-okay. The villains are a complete joke and it takes the crew less than five minutes to deal with them. The crew dynamics carry all of my enjoyment with this one.

The Cursed Holy Sword. Yeah... this movie commited the unforgivable sin of having zoro as the main focus and yet managing to do absolutely nothing interesting with him. Even if they did shamelessly create kuina 2.0 with saga, they could've delved into how zoro would react when two different duties (his promise to saga and his position as the crew swordsman) clash against each other... but instead we see no conflict with zoro, even though we all know this situation would be conflicting for him. They just make him scowl throughout the whole runtime and thats just not who Zoro is... Luffy and usopp are a lot of fun though.

TL; DR my ranking is:

Strong World

Gold

Baron Omatsuri

Clockword Island

Red

Stampede

Dead End

Z

Choppers Kingdom

One Piece: The Movie

Karakuri Castle

Cursed Holy Sword

Conclusion: the one piece brainrot is no joke.

#one piece strong world #one piece film gold #baron omatsuri #baron omatsuri and the secret island #clockwork island adventure #one piece film red #one piece #one piece film z #the cursed holy sword #chopper's kingdom #one piece stampede #one piece karakuri castle #the giant mechanical soldier of karakuri castle #one piece movie 1 #clockwork island

[hollow-keys]

This is kinda random. But as a fellow Jason enjoyer and classic Doctor Who enjoyer. What do you think about the difference in narrative treatment and framing of Adric and Jason? They both got blown up (in the 80s) trying to do something noble that didn't really mean anything (the ship wasn't going to wipe out humanity/Sheila betrayed Jason to the Joker for trying to save her). Adric is characterized as not well liked by his peers and Jason is but post-mortem the treatment of Adric is very much a tragedy. They didn't feel a need to aggressively (pretty much every time mentioned) victim blame Adric (as far as I remember I haven't done a proper rewatch, outside of that one bad audio drama that I refuse to engage with) to justify future companions. Not even future teen companions. Meanwhile Jason was seemingly loved but post-mortem was incredibly disrespected and victim blamed by the people who allegedly cared for him. Most mentions of Jason were accompanied with an element of victim blaming.

Also interesting that in Doctor Who the Fifth Doctor thinks that Adric's 'deprived, delinquent upbringing' makes him naive. (There is logic to it. He would likely to be more used to desperate people than malevolent in his difficult situation. Also in this specific case, his trauma seemingly involving a lack of food the robot body no food requirement would make sense.) While Batman says Jason is destined to be a criminal and then characterizes his death as recklessness when there is actually a stronger argument for Jason's death as being the result of naivete. Him trusting in Sheila.

I have thought about Jason and Adric parallels! I'm not familiar with EU Adric content so I can't (yet) comment on it, but I will talk about how the show deals with it.

Adric's death isn't really dwelt upon as much as you'd expect. There's no "Lonely Place of Dying" arc for the Doctor, there's no spiral, he even directly says that Adric wouldn't want them to mourn unnecessarily (which I assume means get lost in grieving rather than meaning any mourning is unnecessary). This is partly because the show, at the time, wasn't really concerned with pulling at your heartstrings too much and following through emotional development plots. Sure, you'd get sad moments, but they wouldn't really deal with them properly after it happened (Katarina's death, Jamie and Zoe getting their memories erased, Turlough's suicide attempt, etc). It's also because the Doctor is a very different, and tbh more emotionally stable character. He's not preoccupied with his own grief or (at least in the Classic series) at risk of going off the deep end without people around to ground him.

Batman, by contrast, was originally more stable but as comics got darker when the Comics Code Authority's censorship got less stringent and writers also actively wanted to fight against the perceptions of comics as childish, he became darker and more brooding, so the writers actively wanted to dwell on traumatic moments where Fifth Doctor era Doctor Who didn't. So part of the reason we didn't get a victim blaming arc for Adric was because they just didn't talk about it.

And Adric didn't have a replacement character to take his role in the narrative. Sure, the Doctor got new companions but none of them took Adric's role. They weren't trying to tear him down to lift someone else up like "See, aren't they so much better at being Adric?"

So yeah, outside a few scenes, Adric doesn't get dwelt so there's no real opportunity for the writers to victim blame him post death, but Jason became a ghost in the narrative that haunted Batman, and a character for Tim to supercede, which gave them a lot of chances to shit talk him, which they did take.

Additionally, Jason got resurrected (which was a decision that wasn't made for his character but rather to create a new villain for Batman) so to justify this darker turn, they made a point of going "See, he was destined to be criminal. Here's all this foreshadowing." Well, it's less foreshadowing and more backshadowing since it was inserted after the fact. Adric doesn't have that.

There's really nothing to motivate them going "See, Adric was always bad and he's worse now." He's just a character that a lot of people didn't really like who's only really remembered positively in the context of his death. Which is apparent in Tales of the TARDIS where Five and Tegan can't seem to say anything nice about him.

FIVE: "He was so..."

TEGAN: "Oh he was a nightmare."

FIVE: "He was daft and silly and sulky and... He was just a kid."

I've talked before about how I don't like how certain DW writers will make the Doctor straight up unreasonable to his companions or overly mean, and how Adric was treated def falls into that sometimes. Like yeah, him and Five arguing over going through the CVE to get home in Earthshock is in character tetchiness from the Doctor, but Five calling him a naive idiot in Four to Doomsday without giving him a chance to explain himself (which you brought up, and I thought the writers had him side with the villain for no reason but you do bring up a good point about hunger, I wish his motives were more focused on in narrative and he was given more sympathetic characterisation) and Five berating him for losing control of the Total Survival Suit in Kinda was just unnecessarily mean to me and I think part of it was because the writers just didn't like Adric so the Doctor didn't either I guess.

This moment is another case of that because that's not how you talk about a teenager who died violently in an attempt to save people, one who was also smart and determined (along with his negative traits). The writers just don't seem to notice it as mean because they don't like him.

Which is more in line with how Jason is talked about post death. "Yeah, we don't like him but his death was sad." Noteworthy that this is written in retrospect in an era where DW is much more concerned with ~emotional moments~ and it was written by RTD, who is A Fan of a Certain Generation who probably never liked Adric and can't bring himself to describe him nicely in any way (but still wants to use his death to pull at people's heartstrings), so of course Adric gets more of the Jason treatment.

And that, fundamentally, is the fate of Jason and Adric. To be disrespected as characters but have their deaths used as Emotional Moments (please get out the violins) by writers who don't see them very sympathetically outside of that.

I hope that wasn't overly long or meandering, thanks for asking!

#rambling #asks #doctor who #classic who #adric of alzarius #jason todd #dc comics #📨