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thinkingheron · 2 years

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Heron Writes Master Post

Tags are getting broken, and tumblr search doesn’t. Also I’ve written some prompt fics unrelated to any specific fandom. So here's a master post to keep track of all my writings for my own benefit.

Transformers Fanfic

1. Do You Like Bees? - (TFP) Bumblebee’s bold and stupid attempt at getting Ratchet to rest

2. Spark of Courage - (TFP?) An Autobot’s origin story (take a guess)

3. Our Last Sunset - (TFP?) Jazz and Orion Pax before the war (ongoing... I swear)

4. (2018 movie) Bumblebee and Charlie Watson fluff inspired by fanart (written before the 2018 movie came out)

5. Back to Life - (2018 movie) Bumblebee meets a stranger by the Well (Flash Fic Friday prompt: Touch of Faith)

6. Simulations, Possibilities, and Choices - Prowl goes to Jazz for help. pre-war (FFF prompt: Count the Ways)

7. Just a Little Risk - Yet another Prowl and Jazz pre-war fic. sort of related to above (FFF prompt Leap of Faith)

Star Wars Fanfic

1. Divided We Fall - Obi-Wan and Anakin in that one Deception arc aftermath

2. Stuck With Me - Ahsoka and Anakin fluff because they both need a hug

3. Droid Harassment - Obi-Wan gets harassed by droids

4. Observe, Analyze, Adapt - Snapshots from R2-D2′s memory files

5. Your Princess is in Another Closet - R2-D2 embarks on a quest to find the princess

6. To Save What We Love - Anakin broods at Naboo during the Deception arc

7. Learning Curve - Ahsoka fights Ventress and almost loses

8. Stroke of Luck - How the 104th started their nose art tradition

9. Runaway AU - Anakin runs away during TPM (prompt, short)

10. Obi-Wan and Anakin argue on whose fault it is...sorta (prompt, really short)

Other Random Prompt fics and stuff

1. Letter From an Old Friend - When you want to write a story but all you have are ~vibes~ (Flash Fic Friday prompt: Rise and Fall)

2. Silent Cry For Help (Flash Fic Friday prompt: Sound of Light)

3. Lone Walk in the Dark - First attempt at writing disability because inspiration comes at inconvenient times (Flash Fic Friday prompt: No battery life left)

4. Small Lights in the Dark - A telepath's last thoughts (part of original fic LiD) (Flash Fic Friday prompt: Pride before the fall)

5. Brought to You by the Letter A - For everyone who stalled finding out important news because of anxiety (Flash Fic Friday prompt: The Letter)

6. What’s in your pocket? (prompt, short, silly)

#listing them all like this makes me realize i *have* written more than i thought #heron rambles #masterlist

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saessenach · 5 months

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Obsessed how in Ghibli films, you can never go back to the magical world you've visited - the gate closes, the era ends and we will never be who we once were during the adventure! And that's life, it just goes on

And in this one too, Mahito leaves the tower and it crumbles behind him, but he can still remember? In this one, he carries the memento with him, not unlike Chihiro and her charmed hair-tie, but it's framed in this kind way - 'You're not supposed to remember, and you must forget, but you can carry it with you for a while yet' and this gentleness absolutely fucking ruins me.

#.ioana rambles #ghibli #the boy and the heron #saw it last night and I feel many feelings

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aisforinterval · 5 months

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i would say "The Boy and The Heron is great, everyone should go see it" but to be completely honest, it's not a film for everyone. it IS a fantastic film, please don't misunderstand me! but it requires patience and attention and a second viewing to really grasp what's going on

the majority of the character's relationships and histories are meant to be inferred from character's dialogue to one another. you have to piece a lot of it together with context clues, as there is ZERO unnecessary exposition (which i respect immensely)

i feel there's also some historical context needed, because you have to remember it's a period piece, so you need to remember that to understand why some of the characters behave the way they do (one in particular)

but yes, definitely go see it if you have time to think about it, as it is a really well thought out film, and an interesting exercise in character analysis through environment!

(also please marry me kiriko-san •//u//•)

#aima rambles #how do you live #the boy and the heron #hayao miyazaki

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orbmanson7 · 2 months

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And I'm not watching the Oscars but I did hear that, for technically the first time, a 2D animated film won the best animated feature category.

I hope people understand how big of a deal that genuinely is. Disney fucking shut down their 2D studios because they didn't see merit in it anymore, they didn't think people wanted 2D anymore, and this win for The Boy and The Heron doesn't just say that the film was really good, it says audiences are enthralled and entertained by 2D just as much if not More Than 3D animation or a combination or stop motion, and so on.

It's effectively a slap in the face to these big corporations who say they're trying to pander to a wider audience by only investing in what they think will make them more money (despite the fact that 3D animation often costs way more than 2D, at least the way it's done digitally now, and can often take much longer to complete than 2D at times, too). It shows that they were wrong.

Some might say it's just because it was a big name director that garnered the success, but The Boy and the Heron did extremely well in theaters everywhere, it's not just a matter of winning awards. At the end of the day, people watched it because they liked it. The fact that it was a 2D animated film proves that this is a worthy medium and that studios shouldn't have given up on it, acting like it wasn't interesting anymore.

2D animation is incredible! So many studios, for film, television, music videos, promotional material, just about Anything - are capable of taking 2D animation and making incredible new feats with the technology that they have, or even inventing and mastering new tech to improve 2D animation in ways we've never seen before!! That should celebrated and appreciated!

2D animation is so important and it's far from dead, like these dumb corporate idiots want to think. 2D animation is amazing and thriving and it's here to stay!

#sorry i ended up rambling #i just...have a lot of feelings about 2d animation in particular haha #2d animation #the boy and the heron #oscars #animation #orbs thought bubbles

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sillycathorrors · 5 months

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every now and again i get depressed about the current state of the filmmaking industry and then i see a movie that makes me go ‘wow. im gonna create shit like this even if it kills me’ and i think thats an important sentiment to have in this age of ai and not paying actors/writers enough

#i have genuine passion for filmmaking its just seeing so many filmmakers/directors talk about how much they hate making movies #is really disheartening yk?#this post was brought to you by the boy and the heron btw #thats today’s ‘holy fuck im in love with movies’ film #filmmaking #cinemetography #film industry #the boy and the heron #studio ghibli #animation #my thoughts #sorrens rambles

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furbygoblinxiv · 5 months

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I just saw Boy and the Heron

Did I know what was going on? Somewhat!

Did I understand it? Barely!

Did I cry? Absolutely yes I did!

Me and my friend had the entire theater to ourselves and made jokes at the start about talking over it the entire time, then we ended up just sitting there watching with rapt attention and not talking much

We DID make comments, however, about how great Mahito was. My guy had SO many weapons and he was more than willing to use all of them to fight birds. And that's iconic

#boy and the heron #ghibli #the boy and the heron #studio ghibli #my thoughts and rambles #hayao miyazaki

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robinwinged · 5 months

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escapism in "the boy and the heron"

Interrupting my regularly scheduled programming of Good Omens brainrot for this attempt to process the wonderful, fantastical, and distinctly discombobulating experience of watching Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron.”

Miyazaki’s films, at least to me, have never been straightforward to follow. Spirited Away, for example, is a beautiful masterpiece whose meaning is difficult to decipher on a first watch, and is only fully unveiled when you dive headfirst into research of Japan’s context and the movie’s many symbolic themes. The Boy and the Heron takes this typical Miyazaki complexity and ineffability and turns it up to eleven. There are so many elements that seem random, so many narrative arcs and characters all warring for attention (what is the tower? why are the parakeets so goddamn bloodthirsty? why is the blue heron such a creepy old man?), that combine to create a whimsical but overall also very strange landscape.

I know that art in general does not have to have “meaning” or “a message” to be deserving of our love and attention. Art can be touching, affecting, disturbing, provoking - any number of things that would give it credit - and damn it if The Boy and the Heron isn’t all of these combined. But.

But.

This is also a Miyazaki movie, and he has proven once and time again why he is the master of hidden meaning, and so here, in no particular order, are my half-formed rambles on what I have personally think each movie detail that I struggled to puzzle out initially is about.

(spoilers below, so proceed with caution!)

The tower, time, and escapism

The tower is the central mystery point of the movie - a literal mystical rock that crashed down from the heavens and later lured Mahito’s grand-grand uncle (let’s call him the Tower Master for convenience’s sake) into its depths. Within the tower is a mirage world filled with magic but no real living beings, controlled by the whims of the Tower Master and nothing else that remotely resembles logic or reality. The tower also contains a series of doors that seem to lead to different points in time, if the ending is to go by and how the 13 blocks are meant to be pieces of worlds the Tower Master has visited. So what is this strange and fantastic realm, and what role does it play in the overarching narrative?

My hypothesis is that the Tower is a pocket free from the influence of time (think like the TVA in Loki) - a separate island running parallel to the fabric of the universe that contains portals to different points of past, present, and future. By itself, the pocket has no life or substance; it must be filled by the imagination - pure imagination, untethered to reality - of its main (human) inhabitant. This is why most of the ships are illusions rather than real objects, why the parakeets are so ridiculously odd and behave nothing like real

birds, why the fish is the size of Kiriko’s damn ship. Anything that is real, has to be brought in from the real world (see: the pelicans, Himi, and Kiriko). This is also why the parakeet king immediately topples the tower: yes, he is not the Tower Master’s descendant, but he is also not inherently a real sentient being, and an imaginary object cannot in itself sustain a further imagination.

So why does the Tower Master choose to sequester himself in this alternate space, where he can only exist alone with his own mysterious creations? I think the Tower Master represents those of us who wish to escape from reality, to inhabit worlds which we can control, where pain doesn’t have to touch us if we don’t wish for it (whether I’m projecting reallyyyyy hard at this point does not matter ok). He is an insanely avid reader, with books literally piled in small mountains throughout his living quarters, and don’t we readers (i.e me, again) always wish for escapism? The Tower Master, then, is an example of those who would rather become entrapped in our own minds rather than deal with the world beyond us - maybe, even in a way, a little like Miyazaki himself, whose imagination is so powerful but is also extremely singular and all-consuming, anchoring him to his creative work without reprieve of retirement until his reserves run dry (not to imply that the man is a hermit or that I want him to retire, quite the opposite in fact, but parallels, no matter how shaky, can still be drawn).

This, too, explains why the Tower Master needs Mahito to control the world for him. It is not because he’s grown old, since he cannot be affected by time in the Tower, but it is because his imagination is stagnating - he is no longer capable of finding new ways to balance the tower, he cannot sustain the fantasy any longer. In itself, this can already serve as a message from Miyazaki - we cannot hope to live only within the confines of our minds if we do not interact at all with the real world, because then at some point we will run out of material, of lived experiences to build on top of, and threaten to crumble the fragile imaginary world we have created.

Himi and her fire powers

Himi is a strange hiccup in the system - a rare occurrence of a living person in this fantasy playland that wasn’t brought into it during Mahito’s own entrance, like Kiriko. This theory is a little bit out there, I can totally appreciate that myself, but remember that one year in which Mahiko disappeared from the real world and then came back completely unchanged? I think she chose to stay there for much longer than a year, knowing that time didn’t work the same in this pocket world and she always had the chance to return to her original timeline through the handy door-portals. I think Himi has stayed there essentially until she met Mahito - so long that she actually grew into a part of the fantasy, developing impossible pyrokinetic powers and becoming a set part of the landscape in exchange for extended youth. But this stay didn’t come without consequences. In the real world, Mahiko passes away in a fire, at a younger age than would be expected. Perhaps this, in itself, is a punishment for cheating time - the universe reclaiming the years that Himi spent in the Tower. It’s also definitely not a coincidence that Himi can control fire in the Tower, and dies by fire in the real world; a form of lethal poetic justice, if you will. Seeing Mahito was the trigger for Himi to leave, to embrace her own destiny, because she could now see and be proud of the outcomes of her life and not have regrets about missing out on the life passing her by. (This interpretation would then necessarily imply a deterministic version of life and time, so it’s probably not everyone’s cup of tea, but I think it makes sense in this version because you see doors way farther down than the present which Mahito steps into.)

The starving pelicans

The pelicans are another anomaly because they, too, are not figments of the Tower Master’s imagination, but instead have been brought into this fantasy world, for one reason or another, likely against their will. And this is where the Tower Master’s escape from reality cracks and burns at the foundation - he creates harm rather than good when he brings in the pelicans, because he does not account for the fact that they cannot exist without a source of food, and they then are forced to eat the Warawara to survive. The movie states that the Warawara are like baby souls, who ascend to become new lives, but I think it’s a little more metaphorical than literal rebirth. For me the Warawara are metaphorical ideas or seedlings of inspiration, the only parts of the Tower Master’s creations which aren’t fully formed, but allowed to grow by themselves and escape into the world - like passing the spark of creation to others outside the Tower. And the pelicans, involuntary prisoners of the Tower Master’s fantasy world, must prey on the Warawara before they have the chance to become real. This can be seen (if you squint real hard and do some violent spins so your vision is hella blurry) as the beginning of the end of the Tower Master’s reign - the forceful inclusion of other sentient beings inside his imagination doesn’t help him enrich his internal realm, but rather snuffs out the genuine inspiration that he could be passing onto others, creating pain where the Tower Master hoped to be spared from it.

Mahito’s rejection of the Tower

So with this central “Tower as escapism” theory, what does Mahito’s rejection to take over for the Tower Master mean? There is a moment that was so subtly powerful in that final exchange between the two, when Mahito stops denying the truth by telling everyone that he got his scar from falling, and instead admits that self-harm was the actual cause. At the beginning of the movie, I viewed that moment of very painful self-harm as Mahito’s wish to withdraw from the challenges of life - to live in isolation away from the grief over losing his mother, the challenges of being the rich new kid in town, the overwhelming discomfort of seeing his father shack up with his aunt. His reality is agonizing for him, and the fantasy land is so beautiful in its strange way that it could become a safe haven away from his trauma. But when Mahito says “no”, he is choosing reality; he is choosing to do the hard work, to face all the hardships life can throw at him, because he feels finally strong enough to not need to use imagination as an escapist crutch. In those final moments, Mahito is choosing to live in a world that he cannot control, because no matter how tough things get, he doesn’t have to do it alone - and that’s what I think Miyazaki is telling us too.

Of course, the movie also deals with themes of class conflict and war profiteering; grief and acceptance; continuing your ancestors’ legacies versus paving your own path, which many have already discussed and I don’t particularly have anything new to add to. Regardless, these themes are masterfully woven into the plot, as per usual, and serve to elevate the movie’s emotional impact into something heart-twisting and truly unforgettable.

Alright, ramble over - back to fandom lurking!

#the boy and the heron #studio ghibli #hayao miyazaki #the boy and the heron spoilers #robin rambles #the kind of movie that makes you think #or perhaps overthink??#the boy and the heron meta

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yukipri · 5 months

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HOLY FUCK. What a movie. Just what a movie. Holy fuck

(Or, it was incredible. Absolutely blew my socks off. Please go and see it. You do not need to have watched anything else in the franchise, it's completely standalone (though it very much retains much of the symbolism of the original and other films). Especially go see it if you like kaiju films. But it was such a good film about humanity and hope. Just incredible. Go and see it.)

#YukiPri rambles #Godzilla Minus One #Godzilla #movie #film #movies #do i feel like a broken record of movie reviews recently? sure #but both this and Heron are very worth seeing for entirely different reasons #and it's also so strange and refreshing to see two Japanese films in mainstream US cinemas at the same time??#again they are worth seeing for completely different reasons #Heron left me pondering the messages and symbolism #Godzilla wrenched out my heart and shoved it back in

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awkwardtuatara · 4 months

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The more I think about it the more I like how unstructured The Boy and the Heron feels. It encapsulates the experiences of dealing with grief and being a child growing up so well.

Something happened that you don't really understand, and now everything's changing, and the world is so much bigger than you thought it was. Sometimes you're forced into engaging with how much more there is to life. Sometimes you choose to step forward, even if you don't know what it means yet. Sometimes you are alone, sometimes you will be by people who annoy you but whom you help anyway, oftentimes there will be people to help you through it. You are much more clever than people would expect, and yet you feel impotent when you can't do anything about the things you care for. What do you even care about? The memory of what you've lost hits you at random moments, making you cry just when you managed to distract yourself; you look back even as you walk forward. You don't understand why you do the things you do. It just felt like the right thing to do. It just felt like it would help, even when it hurt you. Maybe you'll find their meaning eventually. There are so many things that are new and beautiful, and yet the things that matter are familiar, even painfully so. There are people who want you to take on their legacies, shoulder new burdens even when they seem ridiculous to you - and yet you cannot turn the possibility of change away. There is a history that calls to you, but you don't know how to express it. There are chances for you to turn back, but you're never quite done yet. You have to carve your own path. You have to see things for yourself. You remember in your own time and learn, even when some say forgetting would be kinder. One fleeting beauty is exchanged for the contentment you have built. How do you live? You stumble, and discover, and embrace the memories, and bring them with you as you keep moving. You don't know how you live, but somehow you do. There is time. And maybe, someday, leaving and going home will feel the same. Maybe you'll build home again.

#I think this is spoiler-free? at any rate it's kinda long-winded so you couldn't tell anyway. I'm rambling but I really like this movie #to be honest when I first watched it I felt a bit ... unfinished???#like "wait that's it? you jump from place to place and then you leave again? but I think it has a lot more unity that I just overlooked #idk I just. it has the right vibes.#it's not describable by plot but only by theme. the themes are the plot and the plot constructs the themes #Mahito is great the weird heron guy is great Kiriko and Himi are great the visuals are *astounding*#and of course the music is super effective #the boy and the heron #studio ghibli #posts with a target audience of one person and that is me

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cadmusfly · 3 months

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Recommended Flight of the Heron to someone just now* and it looks like it was uploaded to Project Gutenberg Three Days Ago

Huh!

* my pitch: “For some very hurt/comfort enemies to friends fiction written in 1925 that honestly reads as very, very homoerotically shippy in the original, I highly suggest The Flight of the Heron which is about a Scottish Jacobite and Englishman who keep saving each other”

#flight of the heron #cadmus rambles

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revelisms · 11 months

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Braindumping about Silco and Vi, because these two are such fantastic narrative foils for each other—and, in the same breath, completely cut from the same cloth.

I keep wishing they had more scenes together, another square-off, something to put them head-to-head—because there's so much potential for them to counteract the layers of each other.

At the root of it all, Vander's looming between them, this monolith of a presence that ties their pasts together. But above that, still, we have Jinx—who not only is their driving tension, but their greatest possibility for reconnection.

Here, we have Vander's daughter—someone who, for all intents and purposes, has become what he wanted, but who has also been someone he saw too much of himself in; who he did his best to reshape, instead of enable, and who put him on a pedestal, and truly saw him as hers, more than perhaps anyone (except, well, Silco).

Vi treasured Vander, fully looked up to him as her father—and losing him shattered her. In between all the layers of it, there's this underlying thread in his actions towards her, a tension that just sits with her through Act 1—Do as I say, not as I do (or, rather, as I did).

Here, we also have Vander's partner—someone who knew him before, knew what he was, what he resented, and what he became, instead; and who bears the scars of what all their fallout grew to be. Someone who holds the memory of him tangibly, in multiple respects, as though it is something he physically cannot sever: Vander's knife, the Drop—and even, in some ways, Jinx.

Silco is still clinging to the idea of Vander, throughout the entire series. To the potential in their reunion at the cannery; to the reassurance of what he knew him to be (I knew you still had it in you; Vander wasn't the man you thought he was); to this need he has to still speak to him, even after everything.

But Vi was raised with the burden of being the eldest; being the one most capable of providing protection—and, as a consequence, with the burden of responsibility.

She's not only a sister to Jinx. She's a guardian to her—and in many respects, a stand-in mother. And Silco, as a surrogate father, is standing right in the middle of that. A roadblock between "Powder," as Vi knows her sister as, and "Jinx," as Silco knows his daughter to be.

Right at the forefront, we have so much conflict here. Vi is so similar to Vander, to the point that she is nearly his spirit incarnate—so much so that having her resurface from a presumed grave just sets fuel to fire for a vendetta Silco has never been able to snuff out.

But beneath that—far beneath that—they have so much in common. Vi's headstrong rebuttals in Act 1 about going against Piltover and striking them down, about being made to feel lesser her whole life and needing to fight against it, just sings with Silco's anger in the cannery (You'd die for the cause, but you won't fight for one?).

These are two kindred spirits, two revolutionaries willing to do anything for their city and those they love, and who aren't afraid to fight for it. Who want to fight for it.

But trapped between it all, we have Jinx. Someone Vi is not willing to sacrifice (i.e., her memory of Powder), and who Silco, by the end of the series, isn't willing to sacrifice, either (i.e., his loyalty to Jinx).

Vi, of course, could never fathom Silco being a father to Powder (how could she, after he is the reason Vander was taken from her?)—and looks for justifications for her hatred, in everything he does.

But the unfortunate truth of the matter is that for all Vander cherished and nurtured Vi as a vision of himself—so has Silco, to Jinx. He sees himself in her. He has empowered her, cherished her. He is so incredibly tender with her, in his own ways. And—for all his absolute faults, his skewed morals, his tunnel-visioned zealousy to achieve Zaun—he is a good father to Jinx, just as Vander was a good father to Vi.

The question I keep finding myself mulling over, though, is whether these two could find elements of that, once again, in each other.

There are so many things Silco isn't—not only in Vander's shadow, but simply in the character that he is. He doesn't come in swinging; he plots, he strategizes, he fights with words. He isn't a warm presence, or a jovial one; he's chilling, he's dry, he's distanced. There are countless contradictions one can draw between the two of them—and so many layers one can tease apart, on how their opposites attracted each other, how they worked (a balance that will no longer ever be).

But there are so many things Silco is. He's critical, he's fiercely rational, he knows how to weave a crowd around his finger with a single intonation. He admires the outcasts, the scrappers, those that have dredged through society to claw for what they can. He surrounds himself with them—and he operates alongside them, as an equal as much as an usurper.

He's a flavor of parenthood Vi didn't receive, but could have—the one that would have validated her need to fight; who would have taught her that strength comes in numbers, not in one's single ability to protect; who would have seen her snarkiness, her quick wit on her feet, and taught her to use it to her leverage.

The tragedy of the whole series is that Jinx needs them both to have balance in her life—to keep the tether of her child self and her trauma from splitting her apart at the seams—yet for Silco and Vi, as the narrative destines them for (and as it destined Silco and Vander for), any semblance of a connection between them is doomed for destruction.

There's too much they hold fiercely to themselves, in their own traumas, that they cannot set down—even for the sake of Jinx's needs. They are equally selfish, in that way. They want the version of Vander that they are not willing to let go of; and they want the version of Jinx that they know her to be.

But they could change. They could.

Silco did, by the end. Chose his daughter, his legacy, over the cause, over his vision of progress. And Vi did, too. Chose "peace," chose to set down the gauntlets, chose politics (and—arguably—complacency, in the same way Vander did) as the path forward.

But what if they set it all down, for Jinx? What if they became what she needed, on both sides? A father who sees her, nurtures her, like Vander saw and nurtured Vi—and a sister who loves and protects her, like Vi loved and protected Powder; who could learn, maybe, to love and protect "Jinx," too?

And maybe—just maybe—Silco and Vi could learn to appreciate each other, for all their surface hatreds. Find mentorship, find balance again, in each other. And through it, Vi could learn that protection, responsibility, isn't the only quality to strive for. That even she can be nurtured again, too.

#yes this is rapidly becoming the entire basis of heron blue and yes this is the central premise of the WIP i'm working on #shhh #listen these two are just #hhGHGHGH #silco and jinx have that special dysfunctional flavor of daddy issues out the roof #but let's just talk about vi with all that for a second #like????#yes she will loathe silco until her deathbed for taking vander from her but like...vander gave this girl parentification issues for DAYS #there's some complications big time on both sides #arcane #rambles #arcane meta #arcane vi #arcane silco #arcane vander #i know i have completely left caitlyn out of the equation here #honestly - i could see their relationship developing more...genuinely's not the right word but?#separate from the context of vi being freed from prison?#something that comes more naturally from them seeing each other in their own contexts/working environments #and admiring/appreciating each others' opposites all the more for it #also just like #this is what jinx NEEDS it is the whole shakespearian tragedy of the entire conflict with these three #and the total angst ball of what that *could* be is just divine

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thinkingheron · 4 months

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I'm starting to think listening to sad piano songs nonstop for hours to get inspiration and focus may not have been very healthy for my mental wellbeing.

...

*contnues to listen to sad piano songs*

#i mean who doesn't want to feel like they're alone in the wide wide world at 2 am in the morning #why am i like this #writer problems #writing woes #heron rambles #2am thoughts

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cafeleningrad · 4 months

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notes on the magical realm in the Boy and the Heron. For all intents and purposes the Wizard had in creating a world free of conflict and harm, his project was doomed from the start. Already the construction of his tower injured and killed many construction workers. He had not forseen the needs of the Pelicans, not created a real sustainable ecosystem. The usually small parakeets turn large and menacing, obsessed with consumption all time when their revered past is actually just being a simple bird flying around. The realm turned the birds towards actions and to creatures they're not supposed to be. The housekeepers know that they can't hear the calls from the magic in the tower (as states by Kiriko), no invitation for them although Kiriko maintains the Warawara ecosystem. If the housekeepers talk about the magic tower, they only have spooky stories to tell.

There is so much violence in sustaining it. Himi saves the Warawara yet the fire to shoo away the pelicans burns Warawaras as casualty too. Himi's fire doesn't solve the initial problem to actually feed the pelicans or to deradicalize the parakeets, it only burns away the worst symptoms. Mahito doesn't want to be in that realm, either. As much as he misses his mother, he's very much aware that the heron taunts him with false promises. It takes Natsuko dissapearing for him to follow the wizard's request. As beautiful as well as fantastical the magical realm is, Mahito and the viewer spend a lot of time in the real world. A lot of things are awful for Mahito. His dad waiting barely a year and a half before getting the little sister of his late wife's pregnant, his father not taking care of Mahito's grief and anger but throwing money at the school, Mahito having trouble fitting in at school, his classmates bullying him. The war is ever present with Mahito's own father building air planes for war fare, the domestic workers bemoaning food and supply shortage, state officials carry around nationalist symbols. Mahito's mundane world is not in a good state, he isn't happy there. However him building a bow, the meticulous process to build it comes with an animated attention of crafting, all for the purpose of Mahito getting rid of the animal mocking his mother. Mahito does slowly continue to live on: Mustering up slowly a connection to Natsuko, eating with the housekeepers, the funny exchange with Kiriko, crafting his bow. And interestingly, he has a cathatic moment before he enters the magic realm. Mahito suppreses a lot of anger and rather self harms himself before bursting out at someone. None really talks about his loss. However, when reading "how do you live" which his mother chose for him with a personal message, that makes him able to cry and grief for her when he's awake. Maybe the mundane world isn't filled with Warawas but it has to be said that the animation isn't any less expressive with movements or facial expressions, the landscapes are lush, the meals peaceful, the housekeepers lively, funny, and friendly, Natusko's residence is already a bit fantastical in it's size, annexes of different achitecture. Even in the world in it's worst periods, the life and environment around Mahito is still very beautiful. Not fantastically magical. Nonetheless captivatingly depcited by the animators. By looks it's visually as inviting as the magic realm. And the magic realm is dangerous and unsettling enough for Mahito has no further desire to remain it.

That's not to say that the magic realm is a failed attempt at good creation and only evil, but it's magic came at a high cost. It's fantastical, gorgeous, full of great scenery, pretty architecture but it's not sustainable for an actual, fulfilled life for thhose put in it. It's only sustainable for it's creator.

#Lewis rambling #the boy and the Heron #tbath spoilers

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