noticed that they like to put little parallel moments between current day rafayel and his other lives. i don’t know what to do with this other than rotate it in my brain :3
more under the cut + some spoilers for him in general
left: deepsea riches. he’s teaching mc how to use the fishtail beacon
right: main story, 7-6. he’s helping mc use her evol to resonate with the coral stone
left: deepsea riches. he’s taking mc out of the palace that she’s never supposed to leave
right: nightly stroll. he’s taking mc to investigate a fish pond by akso hospital. this time, he’s the one who’s not supposed to be outside
left: sea of golden sands, part 3. the glowing blue fish appears after he promises to come back for mc one day after she sets him free from enslavement
right: nightly stroll. the glowing blue fish appears after mc chooses to either never make rafayel wait for her again or wish for him to be reunited with the girl who saved him from dying stranded on a beach
left: fragrant dream. he and mc are on a boat. he is gazing at her when he comments on how beautiful the scenery is.
right: blossoms, kindled 3. again, it’s not the scenery he’s looking at when he agrees that the ‘view’ is beautiful.
i’m sure there’s more than i didnt catch or havent seen but these are the ones ive noticed between the cards i have and myth chapters ive unlocked ;w;
"Lee Hyunsung was talking about the scenarios he experienced. I silently listened to the story while examining Lee Hyunsung's body. His pectoral muscles were more developed than before." Kim Dokja
"Conversations should be conducted while looking at the other’s face. I knew that, but my eyes kept going down unconsciously. There was quite a wide gap between the sides of his unbuttoned collar. I knew there were always a few gaps that he couldn’t help because of the size of his clothes, but he was still a public official …Honestly, it was too much in many ways." Han Yoojin
Adding onto the Vasco nightmares thing: it's not uncommon with real losses for the mourner(s) to struggle with dreams where they have to reach an end goal (ex. traveling across the country as fast as they can to reach them) in order to "save" the one they lost, or to be completely taken out of a dream because the lost appears in them (knowing that something isn't real because the mourner KNOWS that this person is dead and can't be alive like they are in the dream).
It could be compelling to explore that side of Vasco's grief more
Every time I encounter a ship war with Sonic and Amy or Shadow, etc, I just smile to myself and believed that I'm the only smart shipper in the fandom because Sonic is bisexual and I'm the only person who knows that. 😎
I've recently been watching these very interesting Star Wars video essays on YouTube (yeah I know, a rare breed) and it brings up these comments Lucas has made about how he views Star Wars as almost like a silent film in terms of how important the visuals are to him in comparison to the dialogue. But this essay also points out how important Lucas finds all of the "rhyming" moments in his trilogies and the way he utilizes them to remind you of something else for emotional or thematic reasons. And there's so many of them, both in visuals and in dialogue, and it's interesting to consider how important this is to him, the repetition for a purpose as well as the storytelling through visuals above everything else and then to look at Star Wars since the Prequels came out and realize how little has really been able to match up to those ideals since then.
The ONLY thing that's come out since the Prequels that I think really hits these two things the same way is, in fact, Andor. One of the things I noticed about the way people discussed Andor as it was airing in a way I haven't really seen for any of the other shows or films was the visual SYMBOLOGY. So many times I saw people noticing the Imperial cog everywhere, from the aerial shot of Narkina 5 as the prisoners escape to the architecture of Mon Mothma's house. There were people picking up on the use of items in Luthen's shop that are familiar from other things to give this idea that Luthen is from another time, he's attempting to preserve this world he lost, that if you're not looking closely enough you won't notice what he's really saying or doing with this shop. The color choices for the different locations and people got analyzed because the people involved spoke about how they intentionally utilized color to SEND A MESSAGE about the characters and the world. We know that the people who made the costumes and sets really worked hard to treat Star Wars almost like a period drama and study the history of the franchise as if it were a real place so that the things they came up with felt like they belonged in this world everyone knows so well even if it's completely new. And of course there were all of the myriad references to things from Rogue One, the constant repetition of "climb", the sunset on the beach, etc.
Nearly EVERY SHOT in this show was created with so much intention behind it in order to say something meaningful about the characters, the world, this specific story they're in, and the overall saga of Star Wars itself. It's insane how much greater impact this show was able to achieve through the incredibly careful usage of visual symbols and thematic repetitions, much like Lucas did before them. It feels like they didn't just study the history of the galaxy far far away, but they studied the history of STAR WARS and what Lucas was trying to do and say with this story. They peeled back his onion a bit more and were able to create something that really has that same visual feel even when it's not created for a child audience. It also is experimenting with its narrative style through its structure and through Cassian's character being allowed to be somewhat more reactive than proactive, and while that didn't work for everyone, it does feel like it's following in Lucas's footsteps of experimentation through Star Wars. Push the boundaries of what Star Wars is and can be and what you can say with it.
But this only works because they peeled the onion back enough to TRULY understand all of the messages Lucas was sending with it. They got the heart of Star Wars and despite its lack of space wizards, despite the lack of most major characters in the Saga, this was a show that honestly got the message more than just about anything else Star Wars has put out since the Prequels. The choices between selflessness and selfishness, the themes about how you always HAVE to make a choice even when it feels like you don't have any (sometimes ESPECIALLY when it feels like you don't have any), and how important it is to make sure to choose the path of compassion above everything else. The themes of connection to others, the symbiotic circle and the impact even the smallest person can have on world around them, it's RIGHT THERE and it's CENTRAL to Andor's storyline.
So yes, it experiments a little with narrative structure, but it's possibly the most Star Wars thing to exist Revenge of the Sith because it honestly truly GETS what Star Wars was about, both in its themes and in its filmmaking. A lot of people said that Andor didn't feel like Star Wars to them, usually because of the lack of space wizards and the fact that it's not a story aimed at children. But to me, Andor is EXACTLY what Star Wars is and has always been. They're stretching the boundaries of what Star Wars can be, but it's saying the exact same things Star Wars has always said, it's just saying it slightly differently. This doesn't feel like fanfiction to me, not really. Unlike things like the Mandoverse or the books, Andor isn't just taking some of the toys out of the sandbox and going to play with them somewhere else. Andor is IN that sandbox. It's building a slightly different sandcastle, but it's still within the sandbox, using the same sand that Lucas did.
I have a theory that Yor's poison tolerance is so high not just because of the assassin training, but also from all the trial and error she likely went through while foraging for food as a kid.
(I mean, her cooking is a given as a source of poison training but I personally think that she probably ordered out most of her meals once she started living on her own. But considering a lot of adults sometimes have difficulty determining which berries and mushrooms are safe to eat, I fully expect a child with limited resources wouldn’t know right away. And rather than chance anything with Yuri, she likely was the poison checker herself until she became more familiar with what plants are safe to eat.)
not to over-indulge in my own tags and this extremely hyperspecific au but walk with me for a minute. it's this scene from the series finale of LOST except make it rick and michonne. and instead of it being them reuniting in the afterlife it's them reuniting after the poof! no apocalypse timeline reset and they're getting flashbacks of the original zombie apocalypse timeline. do you see my vision.
vomits. hang on let me try to get all my repeated thoughts out at once. first time actually speaking to each other in the present day in the entirety of the series and it took 92 chapters. i used to say this was matoba with a look of instinctual hatred which i no longer think but i do love that its an instinctual Reaction that he has to tamp down and that is given beautiful large-real-estate-on-the-page focus and a mirror in natori's.
natori terrified bc he hasnt been around for any of the matoba-natsume interactions that have mostly defanged matoba. but he is the trespasser in this arc so he has to play nice around his ex down the street from their emotionally significant loquat memory he was already thinking about while he panics about his ex trying to kill his teen best friend. and then he [horny redacted] well we'll get to that liveblogging later.
um um what else. they look beautiful here. im gonna throw up.
fun youngblood chronicle idea: patrick dies of his injuries in the phoenix music video and the only thing keeping him alive is the drugs from young volcanos/demon possessing him