#i am once again thinking about picture perfect arc
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Mikoto Sena and Hope
So hey it’s 3am and I’m wide awake thinking about Mikoto’s character arc and how it perfectly captures the spirit of the original PMMM story. So have some word rambles on the subject.
Spoilers for Magia Record Arc 2, Sayonara Storage and Memory Drops.
The miserable have no other medicine
But only hope:
I have hope to live, and am prepared to die.
- William Shakespeare (Measure for Measure)
Madoka (as a character and as a story) is a story about despair and a story about finding hope despite that.
Enter Mikoto Sena into this universe, where it seems from day one she’s cursed to be in despair, always. Her family life is miserable at best and abusive at worst. But she puts on a cheery smile and tries to hide that from the world. She spends all of her years up until age 15 playing that part, becoming a shallow copy of herself that looks and acts as if nothing is wrong. Even before she contracts, she’s broken.
Enter Kyubey and what seems at first to be a ray of hope in an otherwise terrible tale. She makes a wish and suddenly her life gets a little better. Her wish makes her father leave the family and for a while, things improve. Then once more, despair kicks in; her mother begins to do the same things her father did and things begin to shatter. Because what little hope she had disappears so easily, Mikoto begins to crack. She decides it’s not enough to just fake it on the surface, now she’ll use her magic to convince people to follow along with her mirrored life. She begins using her suggestion magic on another family, desperate for any kind of affection, and even that plan has its flaws. Because the wife and husband still mistake her at times for their real daughter.
Enter into this, Hanna Sarasa. The very first magical girl Mikoto encounters, and one Mikoto is very determined to impress. She’s never had any real friends, so this chance feels like it’s everything to her. And so she does what she’s learned to do best: she lies. She lies about her family, her home life, her school life. She paints a picture of perfection. She’s so desperate she even invites Hanna over to her fake family’s place.
Unknowingly, Hanna becomes Mikoto’s only hope. She’s the one thing she doesn’t want tarnished, the one thing she most wants to protect, so she keeps using her magic to make all her flaws disappear. Of course, with this much extra use of her magic, her soul gem darkens and she witches out.
Hanna, thanks to her own copying magic, is able to save Mikoto. But just barely. Just as a parasite that only she can see and hear. But by this point, both of them are broken, shattered versions of themselves. Hanna broke on seeing her only friend turn into a witch. And Mikoto, now part-witch and with nothing but a life of misery up until meeting Hanna, becomes a destructive force.
Hanna tries. Like she does so much to try and save Mikoto, but at the end of things, Hanna’s dead. And that’s the only thing Mikoto can come away from it with- that her one single hope is gone.
So of course she begins to plot destruction. Kamihama, the world- let it all burn down. There’s nothing left for her to care about. She strings Alina along for the ride, and almost succeeds destroying things multiple times before someone stops her.
Iroha tries, really truly does, but Iroha is not Hanna. Iroha can stave off Mikoto’s destruction but she cannot save her. She can remind her of hope, but she cannot give that hope back to her.
In the end, fittingly, Mikoto our child of despair decides to give up every semblance of life for one last chance at hope. Her hope, the only singular hope she’s ever had that hasn’t betrayed her: Hanna. Mikoto creates Uwasa of herself and Hanna, and she thinks for once they can be at peace.
But despair rears its ugly head again. The Uwasa begins to chip away at Hanna’s self, and Mikoto, desperate to preserve her only friend, takes the burden of the darkness onto herself. In doing so, she begins to have periods of time where she’s out attacking people and Hanna begins to notice. But just like before, Hanna is willing to go down with this ship.
After all is said and done, they lie together in the snow. Both of them are slowly dying, losing what remains of their self, and Mikoto decides it’s okay. She accepts this end because Hanna is there. She accepts this because she has her one hope left, there, holding her hand. It’s not a happy ending, but a peaceful one. A hopeful one.
Because sometimes hope isn’t something you can see, but someone you can believe in.
Don't forget. Always, somewhere, someone is fighting for you. As long as you remember her, you are not alone. - Madoka Magica (Episode 12)
#magia record#magireco#mikoto sena#sena mikoto#look I have many feelings about this girl#she makes me want to chew glass or something her character is just so good#final draft of memory drops is out and I am in shambles btw
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I don’t buy it either.
Aoi is always telling Nene about spooky rumors, I can’t see her needing so much courage and build up to mention some hands on their pictures. Just compare how she approaches Nene about creepy rumors, and about this “Something important I have to tell you.”
And while she does seems to treat the hands as something more worrisome than ‘silly school rumors’, since they may be small but they are her first real exposure of supernaturals (she does not remember anything about the misaki stairs or the clock keepers arc) I still don’t buy it.
Her fear would be understandable , of course, but if she is under the impression Nene loves scary stories, going out of her way to find creepy rumors just to cheer up her friend, Aoi wouldn’t be this hesitant to share something ‘creepy and uneasy’ with said friend.
So I personally feel like the real question she wanted to ask is “Do you hate me?”
I know the “...I was afraid maybe you started hating me.” is the explanation she offered as to why she haven’t told Nene this ‘thing’ yet, but despite how the dialogue is structured, her demeanor makes me believe this is the question she wanted to ask, she just can’t bring herself to be direct about it, which fits her character.
She tend to be roundabout and scared when talking about personal feelings, things she personally wants or fears or hate.
So let’s take a look at the start of chap 29: Before saying her fears, Aoi traps Nene in a kabedon, which is far more ‘aggressive’ than her usual cutesy bubbly behavior, and her words “Finally! I caught you!” sells the idea she has been trying to talk to her friend for a while, to the point she took matters into her own hands, making it impossible for Nene to run.
Aoi created the perfect opportunity to say what she wants, but she does not bring up the photos or guide Nene there, she drops the exageratted amount of flowers in her bubble and talks about her fears. She becomes extremely vulnerable while doing so, near tears even:
She mentions Nene ‘runs off’ a lot, and Aoi thinks about this ‘important thing’ again after watching Nene run off.
Akane said this:
The fact she tried to bring up it more than once, and thinks about it so much Akane noticed her change in behavior shows this is a recurring worry of her. Something she have dificulty to share, something that is heavy on her mind.
Like the way she overthinks when secrets are being kept from her.
And the way she is very scared of being hated.
Is hard to have a clear answer with how little focus Aidairo gave it, but I personally find it way more in character for the question that plague her mind to be “Did Nene realize I am have an ugly side? Is that why she is avoiding me? Does she hate me??” than “Why is there hands on our book? That’s so creepy, I am scared to talk about it.”
#tbhk#toilet bound hanako kun#akane aoi#aoi akane#yashiro nene#jshk#once more using the op power of screenshots since tumblr does not let me reply to my fucking asks
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And the award for "Worst Mother in Riverdale" goes to...
I've already spoken before on the similarities between Betty and Cheryl. Their murderous fathers. Their superhuman abilities within the narrative. Their dead siblings.
But today I want to talk about their mothers.
Alice Cooper (Smith) & Penelope Blossom
There are quite a few similarities between Alice and Penelope. (Certainly plenty of sexual tension as well.)
They're both controlling and abusive with their daughters. Over and over they torture their daughters with expectations and cruel lies.
In the end though, only one daughter come out on top.
Sure, Penelope Blossom is a homophobic serial killer with a penchant for poison, but Alice is truly the greater monster, I feel.
Penelope is all aggression and thus, Cheryl is able to respond in kind.
Fuck you, mom! Go live in the barn.
By the time we reach the end of the original timeline, Cheryl is independent of her mother. She proves that she is not taking her shit and, because of this, they're able to have a moment of genuine connection before Penelope goes off to the OG Sisters of Quiet Mercy in the Himalayas.
(Though, the veracity of this is in question considering Penelope doesn't do the sign of the cross properly, but that's speculation for another day.)
Alice, on the other hand, is much more insidious. She exerts her control on Betty, but as soon as Betty bites back, Alice plays the victim. She cries. She makes Betty out to be the villain...and Betty falls for it time and time again.
By the time they reach the end of their arc in Season 6, they're still trapped in that endless cycle of lies and tears. At the end of Season 6, Betty is ready to give up on herself and become Archie's little wife. This wouldn't be the worst end for her, but only because Archie is a good guy. The reality of her existence in this timeline would ultimately keep her in Riverdale under the thumb of her mother, settling for a life she actively fought against. Truly, she would become her mother. She would become 'The Mom Next Door'.
I don't see this happening to Cheryl. Sure, she never leaves Thornhill, but she's herself. She possesses her own destiny. Barring the unrelenting obsession with Toni, Cheryl was really starting to move on and grow.
Betty, if anything, was regressing. She is trapped endlessly.
Now, examining their relationships to their mothers in Season 7 is also worth mentioning. What I can say is that Betty and Alice are very much repeating the same cycle. Cheryl and Penelope still have an openly antagonistic relationship, but Penelope is taken off the board before their relationship can really go anywhere.
We can assume things would play out the same way. After all, Riverdale is about cycles, after all.
Alice lied about the body under the table, as revealed in Season 5. This body's existence proves that she at least had reason to suspect Hal as the Black Hood. Yet, she says nothing. We can only assume this was to preserve her "perfect nuclear family" picture as long as possible. Ultimately fruitless, but also deeply selfish.
(Yes, I am well aware that the writers were making things up as they went along and thus, Alice likely had no idea there was a body under her dining room floor back in season 2, but we must examine the facts as we know them now.)
Alice also lied to go under cover for the FBI, never once letting Betty in on the truth to soothe her worries. This pushed her into the arms of her father.
The death of Polly. Ultimately, Alice blamed Betty for this and said it aloud. Even if it was said in a moment of emotion, it was still unbelievably cruel.
So, in the end, I do think that Alice is worse than Penelope and the reason is simple. Penelope's singular aggression allows Cheryl to break away and stand on her own. Alice's cruelty combined with her neediness never allows Betty to breathe long enough to realize that her mother is a monster. She is so deeply selfish.
Cheryl can go toe to toe with Penelope and ultimately grow up. Alice's wounded bird routine breaks Betty's heart and ultimately, keeps her trapped forever.
And thus, the award for "Worst Mom in Riverdale" goes to....ALICE SMITH.
Not really a dissertation, but it is a post. <3
@reclusivedouche @storkmuffin
This one is for you. <3
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I need to infect everyone with my current rarepair hyperfixation brainrot so strap in, here’s why Asclepius and Florence Nightingale FGO should kiss.
Okay so Nightingale and Asclepius are two people that have been stated in multiple places to get along really well and generally work really well together. He described her as a perfect assistant and she’s just thrilled to be around him, and you’ve got moments like here where he admires her as a necessary and valuable part of the medical field that is critical to him being able to exist, but is outside of the field of what he does.
On a surface level they’re great coworkers who care a lot about similar things — Asclepius the advancement of medicine to eventually beat death, and Nightingale the elimination of disease. They’d spend a lot of time working together and not minding that the other is intensely single-minded in their focus. It doesn’t matter that Asclepius is a socially awkward mess of a man whose interest in disease means he’s terrifyingly blasé about the emotional well-being and safety of those around him, because Nightingale is so Berserker-addled that she would beat a man to death with a chair if she thought that meant curing him. He would completely accept that she’s a menace and a monstrosity because he doesn’t even think she IS a menace — her methods are different, sure, but intriguing, and he takes her seriously no matter what.
On a much deeper level, Nightingale is a fucked up person who exists in constant agony and her character arc is MISERABLY sad. Her interludes end with her giving up her sanity to be a better servant for her master because it is impossible for her to maintain her reason and also her functionality as a Servant. Her third ascension shows her bandaged and beaten to represent how strengthening her, ascending her, making her a better servant is actually unhealthy for her — it makes the core contradiction in her character worse and further throws her into the nightmare she’s trapped in. Nightingale is traumatized by Crimea — she saw a filthy war, where mites infested all the medical supplies and disease ran rampant among those she cared for. She saw people dying that shouldn’t have had to die but perished purely because of the stubbornness of those in charge and a pervasive apathy towards their subordinates quality of care. War is hell and soldiers die in agony, and no one FUCKING RESPECTED HER because she was a woman so she could allow herself no softness or tenderness in fighting that hell as a soldier against disease.
…now in Chaldea she is a soldier again and she has been forced into a role where she must fight once more. Her class container means she must fight; as much as people like kissing servants their role is fundamentally to wage war and kill things so it is impossible for Nightingale, a nurse obsessed with preserving life, to happily exist in her class container without it destroying her sense of self.
So she does. With her own hands she kills her humanity.
Except…
God fucking damn would Asclepius hate that.
Because destroying one’s humanity is what a god would do and Asclepius fucking hates that so much.
So picture Asclepius, a man who has said that Nightingale is essentially his bedrock — that she is necessary to create a bastion of care — having to confront the idea that this woman he works so flawlessly with, who he communicates so well with completely wordlessly (something I am sure he highly prizes) is about to become something he hates. He’d have to confront her suffering, her agony, and… beyond even just ‘I care about her’, it would be a matter of ‘I need to treat her disease’. So he’d beg her not to do it and further beg her to be his patient.
And that’s something that Nightingale has never had.
Nightingale is the definition of ‘caring for others at the expense of the self’. The lady with the lamp sits at the bedside of others, she isn’t gently cared for herself… and she can’t be, because if she’s seen as Someone to be Cared For, she is then in danger of becoming someone To Be Disrespected because she’d be _weak_ and she can’t have THAT she’s fought so HARD to be taken seriously in a world that’s always dismissed her because she doesn’t have a goddamn dick. But Asclepius has never been like that, has he? Her gender has never been part of the equation for him and, furthermore, there’s never been a moment where Asclepius doesn’t take Nightingale 100% seriously. In fact, he admires how efficiently she can knock a man out and gag him. Also, Asclepius loves his mom and Atalante would have killed him if he didn’t drink respect women juice, so if she’s his patient it’s fine, that won’t do anything to jeopardize her position.
So Asclepius, who’s bad with loss, is caring for Nightingale who has never been cared for before, and I’ll admit that it’d probably verge into the territory of Intimate Healing as he tries to find a way to lessen the pain in her spirit origin and keep her sane. And like, it’d work — Nightingale would have been given another role to fulfill, something else to be other than a Servant and a Solider, which would give her… clarity. And Asclepius and Nightingale wouldn’t be able to talk about the emotional ramifications of him seeing her eyes clear and her not being in pain for once, because they’re both stupid idiots, but emotionally it’d be there. He’d be successfully caring for this woman who is the bedrock of all of his ambitions and everything that he finds important, and she’d be cared for by someone who understands the weight of what she’s trying to do and has never once invalidated it.
Embracing him is fine, it’s alright, because Asclepius is so incredibly clean. There’d never be a bug on him. He’d never be the least bit filthy.
And like, moments of sanity would do things to Nightingale. It’d make her easier to reason with but it’d also give her the space to maybe try to find a way to occupy her class container that doesn’t bring her Constant, Unending Suffering. She might not have the words for her love for Asclepius, and she might be an unromantic idiot who forgets Valentine’s Day and probably has no conception of going on a date, but it’s there and she doesn’t want to become what he hates, so she tries to be a little more like a fully rounded person than a murder nurse. And… she wants better for him too. She wants people to like him and see how wonderfully kind and sweet he is, which she might accomplish by threatening people into being nice to him, but it’d also manifest in her trying to get people to understand him and wanting him to maybe talk to other people about more than just new medical techniques.
In return, Asclepius would look at Nightingale and see a human being, not an Angel or a Devil. A beautiful, wonderful, strong human being whose loss would ruin him on so many levels.
and I wish there was more art of them kissing, dammit.
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Buddy Daddies Episode 9 "No Sweet Without Sweat"
~*~Warning: Spoilers for Buddy Daddies Episode 9 under the cut~*~
Overall this was a very cute episode with almost no angst, which means next week is going to be painful. We're entering the final arc of the season here, and things are going to ramp up.
The first thing I noticed about this episode was the background music during the scene where Kazuki, Rei, and Miri were asking Kyutaro to come to the field day. The music playing in the background was typical classic-esque music that would play in a cafe, but what caught my attention was that it was played in a minor key. (Don't ask me which key, I don't have perfect pitch.) Minor keys are often used in music to signal ominous things. If I have my music theory straight, D-minor is considered the saddest key. It'd be interesting to know exactly which key this piece was played in.
Another thing that caught my eye was the way the shot zoomed in on Kyutaro's face when his eyes narrowed, and then the immediate cut to the opening song. This does not bode well, and combined with the musical implications I am starting to get an inkling that Kyutaro will betray our protagonists.
Rei going overkill to secure a spot was hilarious and also very touching. He went out in the middle of the night to secure the best spot to watch Miri. However, the barbed wire monstrosity was a bit much. Plus the way he just easily vaulted over the brick wall? He missed his calling as an Olympic gymnast smh.
Also Kazuki's camera setup kills me. I grew up with a dad who loves to take pictures and has all the snazzy cameras, but even he never used three at once. Look at that telescoping lens on the middle one! Kazuki is prepared.
The discord helped me identify the brand that the cameras spoof off of. If you look at the marking on the camera, you'll see that it says "Milox", which is a spoof of Nilox. Here's a screencap so you can see it clearly.
I think somebody needs to tell Kazuki that this is not what people usually mean by "fun fact".
Absolutely dying at the fact that the daycare mamas still believe the whole "oil baron and washed-up comedian" story. 😂 What kind of fanfiction-type bullshit has Kazuki been coming up with?
Miss Anna is the MVP of tug-of-war. We stan a queen.
Poor Taiga has managed to make enemies for life out of both Rei and Kazuki. That child isn't going to make it to elementary school.
What really got me about this episode was that the leitmotif I've nicknamed "Miri's Family" started playing the minute Rei unfolded the scavenger hunt card that says "family", and it doesn't stop playing until the field day is officially over. I think that's the longest we've heard it play! I'm almost in tears bc Rei and Kazuki have realized that Miri thinks of them as a family. A big moment for the both of them, and the leitmotif makes it all even more touching.
But the post-credit scene. Ah fuck. It's October now, and Kyutaro has yet to either give the organization information or tell Rei and Kazuki. So his decision so far is not to decide? It looks like the organization is starting to get antsy and press for information. Kyutaro better abide by what he told Rei and Kazuki in episode 5:
One final note: It's absolutely hysterical how wrong my predictions were for this episode:
The daycare mamas' group chat pops up again, probably speculating on Rei and Kazuki's relationship history or how they got Miri
Rei and Kazuki get way over-invested bc they don't understand the idea of "friendly competition". (Almost a given, especially after that promo video 😂)
Kyutaro will show up at least once, likely in the post-credit scene
the post-credit scene will be the the only part of the episode that addresses the request for information.
We will get a hilariously over-the-top training montage where Kazuki and Rei coach Miri. I'm talking like on the order of the dodgeball episode of spy x family where the kiddos were climbing a jungle gym but it looked like mountain climbing 😂
we get at least one new important musical theme, or one becomes important that wasn't earlier.
I'm at 2 for 6 with my predictions.🤣 Maybe I'd better stick to the musical analysis...
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Owl House Reviews: For the Future: The Rise of Terrance
Hello all you happy witches! We're in the middle now, we're in the middle of the ride but every thing everything will be just fine but everything everything will be all right. But for now we're into my look at our middle part which like some middle parts isn't as good as the start or the finish but damn if it still wasn't great. Follow me undre the cut for a review ith full spoilers. And if your feeling jaunty I cooked up a playlist for the episode if you want to put that in your earbox while I go on and on about this episode. Let's begin.
Luz and Camilla: To Be Understood
As I figured, Luz's arc wasn't quite done yet, as while the pep talk helped enough to get her through the portal, she's still fully commited to going home in her guilt. Camilla tries her best to convince her but being on top of a giant corpse where people eat rats (you have to remove the inner heads), fly on brooms and behind every lampost is a new friend is a hard adjustment. It's not helping but you can't blame her: even Luz, as much as she wholly embraced the place, had a lot of adjusting to do. She's trying.
We also see lots of nice momming from Camilla as she tries to help everyone and does try to get Luz's attention it's just dealing with puppetgeddon, unruly teens and kiki
Means there isn't much time for it, but it's nicely there the whole episode: Luz pulls away from Amity's attempts at comfort as she likely feels guilty she's leaving but the rest of her guilt is too strong to stop. It's there. IT's hard to once again see Luz so drained of everything she loved. It makes it that much more cathartic when Camilla, after trying all episode finally DOES get a moment to get Luz to stop and listen.. even if Kiki is right on top of them
The following speech is .. beautiful and hilaroius as Camilla bluntly points out Luz can't keep beating herself up because of one mistkae. She's made mistkaes; having a root canal before her wedding, having road rage at luz's principal, and the one that deserves it's own spinoff selling energy drinks for a pyramid scheme for three years. Which luz is aware of. I.. I need to know everything about this. But the bigger one..was not standing up for Luz, was being so afraid of Luz having the hard time being a nerd she did as a teenager, that she didn't accept her for the werido she was.
The show once again takes Camilla's less than stellar pilot characterization and spins it beautifully, making it Camilla's greatest mistkae and the thing that's apology finally gets Luz to realize what she wanted, somethign I heartbrekaingly understnad having been a neurdivergent awkawrd teenager myself: to be understood.
It's the harest thing in the world to get.. to just have someone… try to understand you, to really get you. It's..frustrating as it can often feel like even the most well meaning person doesn't get you and that feeling of your parent really knowing you.. is one ot treasure.
Thus Luz unlocks her power.. which is both terrifying as it should be for her friends.. and glorious.. and also leads to this lil lady
ALL HAIL. I seriously have to look at that picture at least once a day. Look at her. She's perfect. As is Camilla cuddling with all her babies. Luz is finally herself again.. and just in time for a god's temper tantrum. But first, TERRANCE
Terrance: The Man? The Myth The Legend
Am I really dedicating an entire section to this presumibly one off blob on a light post?
Look I'm a man of many werid taste but I love a creature with a bunch of eyes, I love blobs, so an eye blob just sitting there int he middle of a creeply silent street and only just kind of .. blinking at camilla confused, possibly okay with what she just did, had me spining.
We need 30 seasons of terrance. I think that's his work lampost and at the end of the day he puts on a little fedora, pulls out a briefcase and slithers home to another lampost just across from there. Has he been doing this since the titan first formed him? Probably. Does he have a family? Possibly. I stil lneed to work on my pitch to disney. The point is expect the year of terrance baby and feel free to hit me with yoru ideas.
The Collector and the King: Knowing Me Knowing You
So now we're actually back on the isle we found out what was going on, as my field reporter checked in
It's essentially been the COllector playing mario and luigi with king every day using terra as the boss until she finally snapped today and got puppeted. Everyone's a puppet now, including Willow's dads!
As you can probably guess being the plaything of a mad god hasn't been easy for King, whose job has mostly been "hanging out, down the street, same old thing we did last week".. only same old thing is "Keep the collector from doing far worse the best he can and hope they can find a way out of this". On the bright side Odalia has also been stuck in her own personal hell: having to actually be a parent while having on actual power while the collector apparently reguarlly taunts her with the puppets to remind her what happens if she keeps pushing him.
Not even Belos wants to bodyjack her, she's fallen that low and I love everything about this.
The Collector himself though is as intresting as I found him last time. I also got a real sense of
Yes he's still a fairly terrifying little chlid making living persons into his playthings and he does need to be stopped.. but like me the show sees not just the terrifying power he wields.. but the child wielding them. He's like Anthony Belmont of It's A Good Life if the kid still had a possible chance to be taught empathy. Said vindcation also comes from @jess-the-vampire's biggest sticking point: The genocide. Even I coudln't really defend that but I figured it was more complicated or if he had then he'd be properly punished.
Turns out he likely didn't participate as the Collectors.. .WERE AN ENTIRE SPECIES. They were also deeply terrifying monsters, amazzing and perserving thigns much like this puppets.. and if a world objected well they got burned to the bone for their troubles. So the collector we saw do in the owl beast was likely not the one we know, not that it helped the creature rage against him less.. and the Titans clearly did not take them doing this as well, leading to their extinction but the collectors mostly going out. It also raises the question did King's dad seal the collector we know because they were that dangerous.. or because of that plus he didn't want to murder a child. Did he seal king as a counterballance? to protect him from the genocide? There's a lot of answers we don't have: the only promising one is King's magic CAN cancel out the collectors, so there is hope.
What we do know now is Eda is KINDA safe. The most danger is , as tended to be the case before all this started, herself as she can't resist triggering the security puppets to see Rahne again.
Also the design for the collectorfied puppets is both mildly unsettling and aweosme, especially Rahne who gets a spiffy haircut and new outfit…. proably for obvious plot reasons but still it's clear they put effort into every puppet not just his and it must've taken a LOT of time to design all these. It was entirley worth it and even as we approach the end I marvel at this series care and craft.
Lily is likewise helping and while her potions taste awful, the fact is she can make them from scratch, so their curses aren't an issue. WHat is an issue is both clearly plan to seal or kill the collector… and King.. dosen't want to do that.
And the reason is simple: King empathizes; Both are the last of their kind, both have tremendous power, and King… wasn't so diffrent. He also used to lack empathy, and what he had was thanks to having a strong loving mother to help raise him. Had king had what the collector has, he might never of gotten Eda to raise him the way she has and instead bullied her into submission the way the collector has. All the collector has had for parents is a race of genocidal entitled assholes, and a singular genocidal entitled racist asshole what manipulated him into working with him for centuries. He has no real sense of what's really right or wrong or even how fragile the beings he's abusing are. It dosen't remotely make what he's doing okay, he needs to stop and fix what he's done, but King can empathize with what he is. He needs to be talked down and talked into fixing what he did. It dosen't mean he shouldn't be punished, but it does mean simply locking a child away again wont' solve anything and may just leave it open for another oportnistic asshole to manipulate him.
It's really a message the show has slowly been building to: That kindness and empathy.. are more important than hate. That undrestanding each other is the most important thing at all. We can be better and are better than we think. Though it also has the hard truth to this: Some people can't change, won't change, and can't be reasoned with, and are just consumed by their hatred, bigotry and general stupidity. You all know wher ei'm going with
Belos: All My Sins Be Remembered
Belos thankfully did not have a great time for the first half of the episode for once, having to crawl with his legs giving out, and being haunted by appirtions, real or imagined, of his brother and all the golden guards he murdered. Chillingly and fittingly they dont' speak: they just stare at him, Caleb in paticualr having a bloody knife above him firmly confirming what we knew… and with belos weakly justifying it as "trying to save your soul". But Caleb says nothing, simply judging him silently, knowing that in his heart Belos knows what he did was wrong but can never admit it and thus never be free… as it should be.
Sadly.. Belos dosen't die, though it fits as he's the real big bad here: the collector is the main THREAT.. but as I said he's a stupid star children. The person who manipulated him, the person who caused all of this, the person who required FREEING him in the first place… is the one who should be the last threat our heroes face and being belos he falls back on the one tool he has: manipulating children. Using the Rahne puppet, he simply gaslights the poor kid again , making him think his powers made the puppet alive and then turning him against Luz and King. We do get the cliche only hearing part of it thing with collector listneing in on king but not hearing king wanting to talk.., but it works here: King is the only friend the Collector's ever had and this betryal would hurt deep.. witht he kid not understnading that of course King would want the rest of his family.. but it dosen't mean he dosen't care about the kid. Once again Belos has his finger on the triger and it's going to take a miracle to stop him… but he's loosing. That said WHY DID HE HAVE TO PICK RAHNE WHY WHY. DONT' LET THEM DIE FOR THE LOVE OF TITAN DON'T LET HIM D…
Huntlow (Featuring Gus): We won? We won WE WON!
We got a nice chunk of Willow Focus this episode, and it's nice she got some again before the series ran out. This one focuses on her tendency to be a pillar for her friends, and while it's an admirable trait.. you have to take care of yourself before you can take care of anyone else. It seems kind of obvious but between this, steven universe, encanto and countless other shows it's a common theme if one that bears repeating, and one even I struggle to take to heart at times against my better judgement.
It's well done as we can see the pressure build, and Camilla, TRIES to help.. it's just the focus on you know, canceling the apocalypse means no one really noticies till willow puts everyone in plant jail. She's so focused on fixing Hunter's problems she can't see her own.
Hunter isn't even to blame: It's understandable he's in a bad place emotoinally after belos and while his only drive right now is kick his green ass… he's not actulaly proceesing it. It's understandable she want sto help her sorta boyfriend not melt down but it's sad because you can tell things aren't oging to end well
The actual resolution is also sweet: Hunter finally opens up and admits he needs them both he's just not good with this sort of thing, and Gus gets willow to admit that sure she's a pillar to lean on but she needs people too. As a result.. the episode almost ends with hunter and willow holding hands, blushign adn willow basically confessing in short
Granted the Anti's are still a swarming but like.. shit's cannon now. It clearly was before but ther'es now mor ethan enough evidence. And look i'm not bragging becaus e"my ship's better than yours", ships are ships and unless their incest, pedophila or actively abusive, any ship is fine. But don't be a dick, and for the love of god don't be a biophobic asshole. Hunter being with willow dosen't mean he can't be into men if you want just as Luz being with a woman dosent' mean she's not attracted to men.. it's just who their with. It's what being bisexual means and I shoudln't HAVE to bring this up.. but I do because the biphobia in the fandom is obnoxious. YOu guys shoudl know better. Fucking stop.
A very well done arc. Now for
I Think Kiki Should Leave
So let's get this out of the way: Kiki should not be in this episode. She shoudln't. I get needing an action set piece to appease the mighty overlords who canceled the show in the first place, because Disney rarely makes sense. And I get it being a showcase for Luz's wand.. but my reaction to her coming back was the same as Luz's. It worked in season 2 both due to her constant humilations and her very personal rivlary with hunter, and her sad end, finding out her boss never cared about her and getting even was great. The problem is while she COULD be vital to this episode, as she did unleash the collector.. in practice she's just.. trying ot be belos. She has no ambition and thus there's no real threat. That might've been the intent but like.. when the character resolutions are so much more intresting and never really REQUIRED her to be…
Boshca by contrast.. was an unexpected elight, as finding out she's hung up on amity, and ruled the school was neat. And like.. if you wanted an ambointon for the boss just hav eboscha find one. It's not like Alador didn't make a LOT. I know Kiki's is a special model that's super powerful but like… Boscha is more intresting. Of course she'd put her own selfish desires over things, of course she'd have ptsd and whlie her face turn was suprising it was neat. Kiki by contrast does nothing we haven't seen and thus feels like sh'es just kinda there.
Other stuff:
Matt was amazing, from finding out his and Steve's last names are tholomule, to everyone's reactions to "Mantholmule": Camilla find sit adorably hilarious, Luz, Willow and Hunter are mortified and Amity and Gus are just done with this. I also love the super rad bump statue.
We also have Eldric, who looses every bit last shred of cool he had imitating the bandage guy from spongebob, and cheerfully describing how the well he fell down had rocks in it> I mean I love this new dork version of my newly adopted son.
So that about does it. This was an excellent episode and i'm sorry this review is so fucking late getting out. This week.. was a long mental struggle. Thanks for reading and i'll see you for the finale in apparently april!
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This time, I am looking at a list of anime that has a masterful character in the show. This means that the character is skillful in anything he/she does, be it cooking, cleaning, performing etc.
Also, 🚨SPOILERS🚨 for those who has yet to watch some of the anime below.
1️⃣ Kuroshitsuji
(Picture Source: The Nerdy Shrink thru' Google Image Search)
This anime is also known as Black Butler for those of you who prefer the English-dubbed version. I bet some of you guys were thinking about this anime when I relayed the theme in the intro. To be honest, this anime came to my mind too (hahahaha).
Ahem. Anyway, this anime talks about a young boy called Ciel Phantomhive who was almost used as a sacrifice by a secret cult to summon a demon. The demon thought that Ciel was more worthy to be his master and decided to serve him instead under the guise of his butler. The contract that they made was for the demon to obey Ciel's every order and protect him with all his might until the day Ciel manage to exact his revenge on those who tried to sacrifice him.
This is a shoujo anime, and many many many girls fawn and swoon over the demon butler, Sebastian. Mind you, a new season is going to come out in 2024 so this anime will be all over your anime feed once more.
This anime is quite good. It currently has two seasons, with the second season introducing anime-only characters, another additional season focusing on the Book of Circus, and finally, a movie where they boarded a ship which was infested with zombies (no... it's in the manga... it's an arc).
You will also get to witness the might of the butler, Sebastian, as he takes care of the house chores around the Phantomhive Manor with precision and grace. The rule is that you cannot say he is a masterful butler; you must say that "he is one hell of a butler".
Rating: 8.5⭐/10
2️⃣ The Masterful Cat is Depressed Again Today
(Picture Source: IMDb thru' Google Image Search)
This is a more recent anime and Netflix released it some time ago and I managed to finish watching it.
First off, yes, that is a real cat. He just evolved to act more like a human to take care of his sloppy master. You could say that he learned to take care of his master and maintain the house chores to the point people believe it was done by Saku. I mean... would you believe her if she tells you that it was done by her cat?
The story revolves around Saku trying to skirt around the praises and compliments she received for her house skills because in truth, it was all done by her masterful cat, Yukichi.
Despite Yukichi being the size of a bear, as according to the description in the Wiki, the anime is mostly a slice-of-life genre. If you like that genre, and love cats, then this anime is one for you.
Rating: 8⭐/10
3️⃣ Spy x Family Season 2
(Picture Source: Yahoo thru' Google Image Search)
The latest season of Spy x Family was out on Netflix and this time, it is much better than the previous season.
In the new season, the anime focuses on the vacation time for the students. Hence, the Forger family went on a cruise. There was quite a lot of adventures to be held in the large ship and it has given Anya the adventure of a life time.
As usual, Loid Forger, the masterful spy in the show, has shown his endless feats of skills, from flawlessly disguising himself to help save the cruise to surfing the ocean waves with ease. This new season has proven to be more exciting than the previous one.
Rating: 8⭐/10
4️⃣ Sakamoto desu ga?
(Picture Source: Dailymotion thru' Google Image Search)
I think this anime may speak some familiarity to you guys as it was probably about a year or so ago that this anime came out.
Just like the theme for this cluster review, it talks about this young man called Sakamoto who is literally ✨perfect✨ in everything (I feel like I have to give him the sparkles). His grades, his physical fitness, and the things that he does is the peak of ✨perfection✨.
But don't get him wrong, while he may seem to be following the school rules based on his attire, he also knows how to bend the rules at times to suit the needs for himself and others. And he does it ✨flawlessly✨. This has earned him respect from both his classmates and schoolmates who once hated him with a passion.
I hope the sparkles has enough emphasize-ness on his masterfulness.
... That was quite a mouthful...
Anyway, not a really bad anime. Most of the men drawn in this anime were drawn to be moderate or ugly to emphasize on his good looks. It could be like the Komi Can't Communicate anime but the male version of it.
Rating: 7.5 ⭐/10
#yukihime's anime review#sakamoto desu ga#spy x family#kuroshitsuji#black butler#the masterful cat is depressed again
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objectively correct spring awakening song ranking
19. the word of your body reprise. i just don't like her she's boring she's such a diversion from the main plot and like hanschen and ernst are cute but this is just such a random ass song.
18. the word of your body. look i get it i get u had to establish melchior and wendla's romance somehow but this song just doesn't hit. sorry steven i know this is like the thesis of the musical to u but i fell asleep
17. whispering. i like this song. that's about all i have to say about it. it has good lyrics and is an ok conclusion to wendla's arc but it's just not melodically interesting enough 4 me
16. i believe. this song is insane and i love it so much and yet still it is at 16 which should show u how much all of this music means to me. it's a perfect underscore 2 the hayloft scene and vocally stunning but it doesnt really warrant listening to it on its own.
15. the dark i know well. I'M SORRY IT'S SO LOW this song has just never really stuck out to me. i think it's a beautifully haunting song and i adore lilli and lauren but it's just not a favorite of mine.
14. all that's known. hello melchior gabor hello jonathan groff i am obsessed with this song establishing motifs and establishing MELCHIOR! but again. it's just not up there.
13. song of purple summer. it's a beautiful epilogue and it's very dear to my heart. but the lyrics are just too steven sater for it to be higher. why r we talking about horses in the song about learning from our loss and experiencing a beautiful summer despite the hardships of spring
12. mirror blue night. i just love how deep this song cuts into melchior's internal conflict. it's musically interesting and is a perfect transition into the hayloft scene imo
11. mama who bore me. i cannot imagine spring awakening starting any other way. it's quiet and understated and paints a perfect picture of longing and uncertainty. i love you wendla bergman
10. and then there were none. this song didn't ever hit as hard for me until i lived through it. it's just such an accurate depiction of the desperation for connection you feel when you fall that low. it is the kind of song that burrows into your soul and aches and i love it for that.
9. don't do sadness/blue wind. it's just so heartbreaking and there are about a billion different ways i could put into words what this song means to me. but i will spare you. you all know what i mean.
8. touch me. yes it's this low but that doesn't mean i don't adore it! it's one of the most beautiful songs on the tracklist imo and i love the imagery it uses to create a sort of universal desire that the entire ensemble shares.
7. my junk. this song is FUN! it's really the only song in spring awakening that is lighthearted and upbeat and it's just so refreshing. it's silly and it's cute and i love it.
6. left behind. this is the first song i heard from spring awakening so that connection will ALWAYS be there, but that aside, i really just love the way it puts grief into words- it explores what could have been and what never was and it is just so heartbreaking.
5. mama who bore me reprise. i just love the vocals in this song and that is genuinely it. this was my most listened to song of 2021 if you even care
4. the guilty ones. THE GUILTY ONES!!!! i am so thankful for this song (i am a there once was a pirate/pirate night hater btw). i think it does a great job exploring wendla and melchior's inner worlds and i'm glad that this song is what stuck.
3. the bitch of living. it is impossible to hear that guitar riff and not feel something. there is (almost.) nothing more Spring Awakening than moritz pulling out the mic and transforming into a rockstar and bringing us with him into his inner world. i love love love this song endlessly
2. those you've known. what a perfect ending to the story. i love moritz and wendla in this song and the way they are able to show melchior that death is not the way out. melchior's decision to keep living for the friends he's lost is so deeply moving and i love the way this song closes his arc with the same motif that opens it: i'm calling, and one day all will know. those you've known is just an absolutely perfect song.
1. totally fucked. totally fucked is spring awakening. experiencing this song live was just entirely unreal. this song becomes an outlet for all the anger you've ever felt and it just has a way of making you feel powerful even in situations when you are powerless. it is the anthem of the kids who the system has let down and i just think that's what spring awakening is all about.
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Can you analyze Kou too plz? I loved the one you did for Teru!
aaah thanks anon!
I won’t really call it an analysis since this is mostly how I perceive the character (and I may be wrong ahah you know it’s easy to project stuff you believe on a fiction x’))
ANYWAYS
I really really like Kou too :D
Kou is the perfect type of hero (I am talking about archetype). The loser who is not really strong at the beginning of the manga and wants to get better (big rip but that’s true, he is litteraly the hero of a shonen manga at first x’))). He is an exorcist and a bad one. He wants to be better at it, but he will probably realize it one day. Kou’s greatest strength won’t be being a good exorcist, because he just can’t, it doesn’t go with his personality and his goal. He has a mentor to surpass (Teru), things to prove to his big brother (and once again I do feel like Minamoto dad didn’t help I am gonna fight him) because he was always told that he was good at taking care of things alone at home and that’s all.
His main goal is ‘I want everyone I care about to be happy’ and that means some supernaturals too. He will never be able to exorcist people he cares for.
Kou’s strength comes from his optimism and his wish to make everyone happy. He tries so hard, he fails, but he stands up again and again and again. We see some scenes through his eyes. He is definitely not the brightest but one of the most nice and caring characters of the whole cast. He is genuinely kind and we know that a lot of people love him, even if he doesn’t make much sense Yokoo and Satou stay with him because that’s the kind of person you want to stay with. Kou is not an idiot either. He knows how to talk to people, what to say to cheer them up and he also knows what can be bad for them. He is the one calling out Number 3 in the picture perfect arc. He knows nothing good can come from a fake world and that fantasy is nice but will never be reality. And that reality can hurt.
Kou is one of the character who thinks the most of others before himself. Even with his crush on Nene it was proven several times he doesn’t even try because he knows and understands that she either prefers Teru (bonus chapter with the king game) or Hanako (latest chapters) over him and because he doesn’t even see himself as someone Nene could fall in love with (Kou i love you plz love yourself) Kou cares about others A LOT and does everything for them,to the point of forgetting about himself way too much. He has so little regard for himself. He knows near to nothing about supernaturals. He learns so many things at the same time as Nene. And coming from an exorcist family, this is not normal. Especially when you put him next to Teru. He doesn’t even seem to know his teacher (Tsuchigomori) is supernatural. If Kako rewinds time he is affected by it if Akane didn’t help him etc… He has a very low spiritual energy at the start of the manga. He is sometimes so simple minded that he forgets about the consequences of his act and is reckless, especially about himself. Jumping from the top of a building because he thinks that’s what number 3 wanted was a good example of this ahah. Even if he knows how to read people when it is about him he will always come to the most insane conclusion because he doesn’t think people would be hurt if he disappeared Or he doesn’t think when it’s about him it’s because they genuinely love him and not because they want to use him for something (give him a little bit of self love plz). Number 3 had to call him out on this, and someone will have to do it again. Even Natsuhiko who knew him for like 2 hours noticed this and definitely used this as an advantage for his plan . Kou just doesn’t care what will happen to him if he can do something for someone else.
One of my fav page about Kou and which explains a lot of things about him is this one
As Nene, he thinks it is better to live in a real world and thinks that giving it his all will be enough to answer Mitsuba’s wish and keep Nene alive. Even if you give your best sometimes it just doesn’t work, and supernaturals tend to know it, and mostly go by this idea. Contrary to humans they give up easily and always come to the ‘easiest’ solution, and that’s what Hanako does. In the end, once again Kou didn’t do anything about Nene’s lifespan, because Hanako didn’t believe in him at all (even if Hanako believes him for other things but that’s for another day, this is the same as Teru in a way ahah)
Let’s come back to Kou ahah,
Chapter 77 is one of my fav of the whole manga because we can clearly see how much Kou wants and how he finally says it in a way. AND HOW THIS IS FCKED UP HELP THIS KID
Number 3 NEVER said that. It’s what Kou thinks he wants, and the only thing he found to answer is ‘Mitsuba doesn’t believe in me’ (I am concerned for him).
He wants Teru to stop hating supernaturals, he thinks it would be easier if Hanako was an evil spirit he wouldn‘t have so much question about it he could just exorcize him, he wishes he wasn’t alone knowing all of this …
But at the end of this chapter he comes to the conclusion that his wishes just can’t come true (like most wishes in this manga). And he just learns so much in this arc, the red house arc was for the Yugi twins yep but the other main character was Kou and not Nene who wasn’t that pro active in it.
(I am going crazy over this panel)
Kou also keeps a lot to himself. A plot which was brought up at the beginning of the red house arc is the hint Natsuhiko gave him, but that Kou didn’t have time to explain to Nene (thanks to Akane, and I want you to note how perfect the timing is that when they are talking about becoming supernaturals the person who comes into the room is a supernatural himself lol). The fact he seems to really want to become supernatural. Keeping stuff to himself, is posing a problem. He went against Teru which ended up in Akane, Teru and him being injured (or dead for the first two idk rip). Keeping the fact he talked to Natsuhiko before the severance is a problem too.
I wanna talk a little bit more about his view on death and what he learned in the red house arc, because I hope, it will mean something. I do think Kou learned a bit that he mattered, or at least that people would be sad if he was gone (that’s a least what he tells everyone else I hope it implies a little bit to him too)
First, he meets Sousuke’s mother, and he realizes that Sousuke is dead. He will never see him again, and he needs to hear Mitsumom say it to him to finally understand. He learned a real lesson of grief in this arc, and even more when he met his mom because he remembered what he felt when he lost her.
The more he wanders into the red house the deeper his wishes are, the fact that the thing he wants the most is to meet his mom again makes him realize a lot of things.
And he understands what others feel when someone dies. And that’s a big step in Kou’s mind I think. Because dying is not a solution, because if you die, you will leave people behind.
He didn’t even think about it in the perfect picture arc, he just jumped. Didn’t even give a thought to his family when we know how much they mean to him and how close the Minamoto siblings are.
The thing he said to little Tsukasa just proves to us how much he grew in this arc for me. He understands now what could happen if he decided to disappear. So I hope he will think about it a little bit more.
Now let’s talk about chapter 90 because this is a fkcing nightmare (don’t get me wrong I really love this chapter)
Everything we ever knew about what Kou thinks about himself is said orally. He doesn’t care about himself, he thinks no one depends on him at all.. Dying is not a problem for him if he can realize his dream of making everyone happy. People baby him a lot too (and Number 6 does in this chapter). And wow he manages to deafet number 6 at the end :D And nope we can see that if Natsuhiko didn’t intervene he would probably have died.
Kou just makes me kinda sad. I really really want him to succeed, characters who try their best to save people/make them happy, deserve to succeed.
This manga is just out here showing us that ‘no, life isn’t always a dream or a fantasy and that people who are too optimistic will probably not succeed (big rip)’ (that’s what we can guess from now but we are close to the ‘all is lost part of the manga I think so it’s understandable). And also that you aren't made for everything and that he shouldn't take things he knows he can't do. Unfortunately for Kou, He is really good at giving is all in everything, to the point of not keeping anything for him. But even if he tries tries tries most of the time he fcks up. And like, really fcks up.
Telling little Tsukasa that Amane was going to kill him to protect him ended up as Tsukasa going back to be killed. Getting rid of Number 6 ends up as the broadcasting club using this to put an end to the barrier between supernaturals and humans. That makes me wonder if one day he will just really break because no matter how hard he tries in those big moments, he fails most of the time. (even if he doesn’t completely fail. He could show that he is capable of defending himself to Teru, and telling baby Tsukasa was really coming from a nice thought. Nene and Kou just didn’t take the time paradox and the butterfly effect into consideration but welp it is understandable.)
I kinda think Nene and Kou will manage to do things and succeed at this whole thing, because they are the main characters and the only two who are like this (and oh nevermind Akane is a little bit like this too but that’s for another day, when I will be done with everything I wrote about him ahah help). It really depends on how AidaIro wanna finish their manga and what kind of messages they wanna show us
I hope this text makes a little bit sense x’) This is what I think about him and why I think he is great ^^ I really really hope he will understand how important he is to others because this boy needs therapy oh boy.
I will stop here for now, I didn’t go in that much details for the beginning of the manga but I really like Kou as a character he is just.. so genuine. I like him very much, he is one of the best written character in my opinion ^^
Thank you so much for the ask anon and really sorry again for the long answer dshkjdhsjk
#asks#this is so long and I didn'rt mention everything ahahah#minamoto kou#minamoto teru#yugi tsukasa#the red house arc#toilet bound hanako kun#tbhk#jshk#long text#I have so much feelings for him#help him dhsjdhs#I really wanna see him again with the others 3 who are chilling/dying in the bg#jibaku shonen hanako kun#tbhk analysis
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Thoughts on Teru's none exsistint childhood?- XD
*evil laughs*
SCREAMS. SOBS. BANGS FIST AGAINST FLOOR. IT’S SO FREAKING SAD DEAR LIRD OMG. i swear, if/when we get to see the minamoto dad i will literally make so many hate posts about him. it’s just so unfair. he’s been proficient at exorcising since he was at least 8, which means he likely started at the age of five or six. FIVE OR SIX. have you seen the average five or six year old? i have a few cousins around that age and i can’t even imagine them handling a kitchen knife. as well as this, it’s a known fact that he doesn’t get enough sleep, so if he also didn’t back then while he’s still growing, then that… wouldn’t be very good. also, imagine the pressure. he’s not only a part of the esteemed minamoto family, but the firstborn child as well. to have such expectations put on one’s shoulders at such a young age surely must have made him feel at least a little inadequate back when he was still learning. now, can we PLEASE talk about this art?
oh my god… this art… i am sooo normal about teru i swear. the blank expression on his face as he looks away from the game park, like he knows there’s no use in longing to go to such a place because his duties as an exorcist prevents him from doing so… and don’t get me started on the bandages on his hand. he’s been injured, on his dominant hand at that, yet he’s still being forced to work. i’d also like to bring up his sword. it’s clearly too heavy for kou to carry, even with two hands. even though kou’s physically weak, he’s definitely able to lift than the average eight year old. and yet, in the flashback during chapter 9, teru wields it easily. just think about the physical toll that would have on him, once again, especially considering that he’s still growing. as well as this, becoming an exorcist at such a young age surely had a psychological effect on him. i mean, even though supernaturals usually aren’t humanoid, they still bleed. they still move and act generally ‘alive’, in a loose sense of the word. as well as this, there are definitely humanoid supernaturals. all of the seven mysteries are somewhat humanoid, even the ones that aren’t ghosts. teru’s likely encountered supernaturals like this before. just think about how you would feel if you had to see someone beg for their life as you killed them, even while knowing that it’s your duty and they’re not even human. i think that all of this definitely has an impact on how teru acts now. first of all, he wears the winter uniform. now, i know, it seems perfectly normal, right? well, IT’S THE MIDDLE OF SUMMER. even when he’s not in school, we literally never see him wearing short sleeves— oh, right, except for in one place. the picture perfect arc. you know, the fake universe where he isn’t an exorcist. it’s definitely not just a coincidence. he’s likely gotten injured so many times that it’d be suspicious if he wore short sleeves. as well as this, the childishness that he wasn’t allowed to display as a child came back after the severance. take chapter 72 for example. here, we see that teru’s clearly never been to an arcade or done karaoke or any other things that teenagers his age do. he seems really excited throughout the whole chapter, acting hyperactive and generally like a child. on top of this, he explicitly states that this is his first day off. he’s been working as an exorcist literally every single day for nine years AT THE VERY MINIMUM, no matter the circumstances. i literally cried during chapter 72 because it hit me just how much he’s missed out on. while all the other kids his age were out playing, he was learning how to fight to protect them. he’s had so much responsibility put on him, it’s absurd how the other exorcists applaud it and act like it’s a good thing instead of a tragic thing. to add onto this, he had to deal with his mother’s death at the age of twelve. he didn’t even get any time to properly mourn her because he was too busy exorcising. i think that teru deserved a proper childhood, and it’s unfair that he spent it all seeing things that no kid should see.
once again, thank you for asking. i have so many thoughts about this boy’s childhood, it makes me so sad… i’m normal guys i swear. also he had mo business being so relatable (i’m not elaborating on that because if i do i’m gonna get dragged to therapy lol)
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I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again. I am not ignorant to the problems this franchise has. I can hate the bad parts while still loving the good parts. I can say “this isn’t right” and “here’s how it could’ve been better” at the same time. I can love Uma and Mal, honestly. I’m a grown fucking woman, I contain multitudes :P
I know this series has a horrible double standard when it comes to race. Colorblind casting, female driven stories - great! Casting nearly every antagonist as a black girl, obviously not great. They really didn’t think about the optics of what they were doing and it came off in a terrible way.
I wish Uma and Audrey were treated better. And believe it or not, I have lots of problems with the way Mal was written. The movies kind of fell apart and failed to deliver on a satisfying story over all. Each movie has its high points, and they obviously all have their low points too. I mostly wish the movies were written with a lot more (read: ANY) thought and care. That any character felt like they had a satisfying arc in the end. But, that’s something we’ll never get!
You wouldn’t know it these days but fandom is not politics. Liking a “bad” character does not make you a bad person. Liking a movie or a show with shitty writing doesn’t make you a shitty person. You can say “Yes I recognize the issues with [character/movie/show] but I still choose to engage with it bcoz...” whatever! It has bad writing but you like the songs, the characters, one particular relationship, etc.
Liking something with faults doesn’t magically make you ignorant to said thing’s faults!!
If you get an inkling of things like, in this case, the racist optics and double standards, pay attention to that! You need to be able to spot these things. Bcoz there is absolutely no such thing as pure, perfect, unproblematic media. Any and everything you can consume has SOME issue with it. Just be smart, listen to what people (especially POC, especially here) say about it. You can learn, be aware, be critical, be smart, consume, enjoy, have fun, praise the good parts, scorn the bad parts. You can do it all at once!
And I mean it’s easy to see the issues in Descendants. And it’s also easy to not want to engage in the constant negativity surrounding it. Especially in this case, and I’m sorry, when a lot of the times the argument seems to just be “If you like this character then you’re racist” end of story. It’s not accurate, and it doesn’t paint a good picture of the whole fandom when there’s no room for nuance.
Yet again the only reason I started the whole “poor little meow meow Mal did nothing wrong” in the first place is bcoz I was fed up of all the negative takes on her. Calling her a killer ?? pretending that she’d done all sorts of evil and fucked up stuff like it was canon when there was NO evidence to suggest it. And I’m tired of that. Sure the story was unfair and she got off easy, but people are basically just writing fanfic about all her made up misdeeds so they can have MORE reasons to hate her and MORE reasons to get angry at this fictional little Disney child that doesn’t really exist! CHILL
And I’m sorry but choosing ONLY to focus your anger on Mal and saying it’s because of double standards in the story, and then turning around and excusing other characters for the same shit that Mal does... That’s funny.
Anyway long story short to answer your question Nonny. I don’t think H is singling me out but I’m sure I’m lumped in there with everyone else. Like it’s not even funny anymore. But nothing anyone says is going to change anyone’s minds so. Everyone feels how they feel and we’re all just screaming into the blue void of tumblr
#descendants#disney descendants#mal#mal bertha#mal descendants#dizzy speaks#qna#anonymous#i screenshot this bcoz i dont want anyone finding it when they look up H haha#also obviously but no shade to H#she seems like a cool person and is obviously a great content creator#its just the fandom in general
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Dear Mrs. Dattebae, how are you? I hope you're always in great health!
I just wanna say that I really really love your TMG fanfiction and your writing is just.. chef kiss. The way you write the dialogue or interaction between characters flows really well I can pictured it clearly in my head, the interactions and Sixty's internal monologue feels like I can really 'see' two or more people interacting and imagined how Sixty felt throughout the story (My boy be needing a LOT of hugs and therapy :") )
I also love how you write Sixty's character arc and how he struggled with grief of losing Hank and how he copes with…well, drugs :') the part that really gets me about this was every time Sixty's really out of it, what he remembered was his past like Hank, Sumo, etc (His body was burning and his pulse was through the roof, and suddenly he could hear those familiar tunes again: Sumo’s happy barks, and the morning sun.), once again highlighting the part where he struggled with his grief imho..
Another thing that I absolutely love from Sixty in your work was that despite his addiction and struggle he still genuinely cares about his partner, owning his stuff (admits his mistakes) and put a whole damn effort to be better, grow, and make up for it in the end (even though it almost, almost cost him his life and the relationship he has with his loved ones..but hey, gotta give credit for his efforts regardless, you know? :"D).
And the part where he was finally let himself be open and vulnerable and re-connect with his family…. man it was so so good I teared up TvT
I mean these parts right here:
"For the longest time I wanted you, I wanted this"
A wife, a family.
And:
“There is no drug or substance in this world that will stop me from looking after you or that baby, and I’d rather die ten times over than to lose you again, do you understand?”
Aand finally the ending:
“I think we finally did it, dad.” Sixty finally said, looking down at his father’s grave with a crooked smile.
“I think we found the middle ground.”
Excuse me for a moment to sit in a corner bawling my eyes out because MY MAN FINALLY GOT WHAT HE WANTED YESS
Also.. Cain, Nines, Richard (Idk what to actually call him at this point :'D)…He absolutely need some vacation after the event, man's been tired inside and out and in desperate need of many hugs
Lastly, as a fellow reader, I find that your first fic really incredible and I hope I can read more of your work in the future! <3
Okay, whew, I didn't think it would be this long and I hope I don't disturb you :"D Anyway, thank you once again for writing TMG and have a lovely day!!
I seriously spent so much time just recovering from this ask because OH MY GOD!!!! 🧎🏻♀️🧎🏻♀️🧎🏻♀️😭😭😭 I’ve always said it and I’ll say it again: TMG was a raw, gritty movie inside my head and I was just dying to share it because I seriously fell in love with it? I’m not the writer type, but I am definitely a director type so reading your thoughts on certain scenes being so CLEAR in your head is giving me an overbearing amount of joy and I WISH I had better words to express them but AH H H 😭😭😭
The finale was about healing. I didn’t want a story where the reader is the reason he’s good because?? That’s so unrealistic and also kinda overdone in my opinion. People need to learn how to heal for themselves before they can be good for anyone else, and that’s exactly what I wanted for Sixty. I just love the elements of reminding people that life will never be perfect, and I think Sixty realized in the end that he can’t be perfect either: and he accepted that. Him having this black and white view of the world was one of the biggest reasons he spiraled so badly, but after realizing that even Connor (the perfect, golden child) had his struggles and flaws, it sort of cracked his reality…..gosh I could go on forever, but the point is this: Life isn’t about reaching perfection. It’s about finding a middle ground, and Sixty found it with himself, with his life and with his family. Love that for him ❤️
Nines definitely needs some longggggg vacation somewhere hot and far away from everyone 🤣🤣 I won’t be giving him that too soon, but stay tuned for chapter 2 of his little fic😏 He will always be Cain or Nines to me!!! I actually despise the name Richard for Nines 🤣🤣
Lastly, THANK YOU SO MUCH! You have not disturbed me the slightest: this made my day!!!
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If you want to keep living in this world, you must never let them find out
(Black and white because I still don't know how to color lmaoo)
#i am once again thinking about picture perfect arc#i really did try to colour this but ot just wouldn't work out ༎ຶ‿༎ຶ#toilet bound hanako kun#jibaku shonen hanako kun#tbhk#jshk#tbhk fanart#jshk fanart#my art#tbhk manga#jshk manga#mitsukou#minamoto kou#mitsuba sousuke#danelloevee draws
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Izuku’s Emotional Neglect
Hi so I’m not okay because I keep thinking about Izuku
This kid has been emotionally neglected since he was little. Izuku has had NOBODY to rely on emotionally
He didn’t have Inko, or his classmates, or All Might. Actually, All Might is borderline the only one he’s confided in [since they talk briefly about their connection of being quirkless], but he still holds back
Inko is trying her best and no parent is perfect, I see that, but what she said to Izuku that fateful night damaged that boy and the way he saw himself.
He asks her if he can be a hero, and she cries and says she’s sorry. Not only does this imply that Izuku’s quirklessness is bad, it also implies that she was lying.
And by the way, I don’t mean that Inko ACTUALLY lied that Izuku could be a hero, nor do I think that she meant to mean his quirklessness was bad.
But I need, NEED, to stress that this is how Izuku sees it. This is how he would perceive it, subconciously.
If you’re a child and you think that you can be a hero, your parent encourages it because it makes you happy. But then suddenly you can’t be a hero, and you ask them one more time if it’s possible, hoping that those little wishes you made weren’t fruitless, that maybe somehow this is some kind of dream and she’ll wake you up from it with her smile and her warmth, promising that even with this newfound “disability” you can still be a hero, but instead she cries and apologises to you? That’s going to make you think. It’s going to make you think “Was she lying? if she truly believed in me, why would she cry and say she’s sorry? why isn’t she encouraging me, like she always does? what is happening?”
It’s not the truth, and Inko DIDN’T lie, but subconsciously I feel like it’s something that betrayed Izuku a great deal.
And with the quirklessness. He hates it, he hates feeling useless, and he saw himself as useless when he was quirkless, therefore -> quirkless is something weak and awful.
Time and time again, we see this evidence of the emotional neglect he was subjected to. It’s like actively ongoing and the effects of it are seen even now
We’ll start with the Inko one. I just mentioned it, but here are the panels. It’s really just the language that she uses
“You mean there’s something wrong?”
Apologizing over and over again, like not being normal was a bad thing. Moreso, I think this just meant that she knew how hard Izuku’s life was going to be as a quirkless person, but the way she says it makes it sound like what happened to Izuku was wrong and bad and incredibly awful
Then we have All Might disregarding his feelings and telling him straight up that he couldn’t be a hero
Which then leads to this commentary
“Don’t cry! Let it sink in!!” “Just block it out, just block it all out, just-”
*pats Izuku on head* You Can Fit So Much Denial And Repression Into This Kid!
Then further along, Izuku is seen, and he gets the quirk. He is then surrounded by people that love him, that want to help him, but it’s almost like even the narrative won’t let him have emotional closure.
In most emotional closure scenes (Tsuyu crying, Kirishima vs Rappa, Iieda in the hospital with Shouto and Izuku, Kacchan vs Deku 2), there is an end to it. The character is emotional, crying or upset, and thinking back on their regrets, spilling their guts as they scream, sob, or give solemn expressions. The other characters then cheer/hype them up, reaching some sort of conclusion to the character’s pain, and the situation is more or less resolved.
But that’s not the case with Izuku. He’s always left sorta hanging there, or his hurt and anger get sidetracked by something else. One example of this is the Running With All Might scene in the UA grounds
Izuku is incredibly upset that All Might chose to withhold information on Sir Nighteye and Mirio, and he speaks about how he can’t make sense of it. He’s voicing all his worries to All Might as they run, because he can’t stand the thought of All Might keeping something like this a secret from him.
And then All Might tells him why he kept it a secret, that he didn’t feel it was necessary to let Izuku know about Nighteye’s bias, and then it divulges into him telling Izuku he’s gonna die, and Izuku focuses on that instead.
I am NOT saying that All Might did this purposefully. He didn’t try and steer Izuku’s anger away from him, it was just that it all got revealed so suddenly, so the subject changed.
The narrative tosses Izuku’s feelings of anger aside, and instead Izuku gets emotional over All Might’s potential death. Idk man, to go from angry and upset about withheld information and then immediately shoved into the knowledge that your mentor-father figure is gonna die? That’s the narrative playing with Izuku’s feelings.
Obviously, All Might’s communication skills are awful and he just kinda unloaded all this stuff on Izuku cuz he didn’t think to tell him in the first place, but I still think Izuku’s feelings got pushed around here. He had no time to process any of it
Another example is the cafeteria scene with Shouto and Iieda
The scene goes that Izuku is visibly depressed by the Eri situation and Iieda and Shouto notice. They tell him that he can talk to them when everything gets too much [a parallel to the Stain fight], and Izuku cries. Izuku insists he shouldn’t cry, and Shouto tells him that, actually, Heroes cry too sometimes, and they offer him their food in an attempt to comfort him.
But the thing is, this scene doesn’t offer closure. Closure would be Izuku seeing that he could rely on his friends and telling them how he feels [he wouldn’t have to necessarily tell them about Eri - maybe just phrase it in another way that doesn’t reveal the mission]. Closure would be Izuku accepting that Heroes can cry too, and admitting he’s not okay. Instead, we have this
The scene feels... incomplete? Like there’s no knot at the end of the rope. Izuku is being comforted, but he’s not acknowledging his own feelings of sadness.
In fact, he’s shoveling food into his mouth to stop himself from crying, to shut himself up, to try and move forward and get past his little outburst.
I would go as far as to say this is self hatred eating, trying to quell that vulnerable part inside
I wouldn’t say Izuku HATES himself now. Rather, he just makes connections to his past quirkless self in his mind. It’s the negative emotion connection
Feeling weak? Well, you’re still like your quirkless self before! You’re still not good enough and useless!
Not strong enough? Sounds like back when you were quirkless! All weak and helpless! You can’t help anyone, which is why you need to get stronger, so you can move on from your past self!
Crying? Just like when you were quirkless! You always cried back then, like a helpless kid! You can’t be like that anymore, since you are now All Might’s Successor and A Hero, so stop crying! You’re not allowed to cry anymore!
Do you see what I’m getting at here? Izuku continuously represses these emotions as he gets stronger because he connects them to when he was quirkless. If you associate certain behaviors and emotions with how you were during a vulnerable and traumatic time in your life, you’re going to want to shove those emotions down so you don’t repeat what happened back then [in this case, Izuku sees himself being vulnerable as weak, and he saw himself as weak when he was quirkless, so he’s trying not to be vulnerable anymore].
And the scary thing is, now, we can even see the hatred in real time. I’m sure there are other examples in the manga, but one scene is very prominent in my mind, and it’s this one
Izuku is so incredibly strong now, he has saved many people, but he still can’t view himself as anything other than “useless” or “helpless” unless he powers through death itself just to break himself more. He almost feels like he HAS to do that in order to be seen as worthy, for himself and others. When he’s struggling, bleeding and heavily injured, he yells at himself as if it’s all his fault.
It’s not about whether he’s aware he’s actively dying or not. To him, being worthless and useless is infinitely worse than dying.
Actually, the way Izuku practically yells at himself in this panel reminds me of when he was walking home in chapter 1 after his chat with All Might [shown above when talking about All Might’s impact]
There are two translated versions of this actually that ring alarm bells in my head. There is the panel already pictured above, but I chose this panel too because I simply think it hits harder
��Don’t cry! You knew already, right?! This is reality...”
In either translation, he’s chiding himself. For crying. For being emotional.
And once again, I totally think this stems from emotional neglect. Trying not to get too personal here, but I know what this feels like, and I know the effect it has had on me. I can’t be vulnerable or spill my feelings in front of people, it just feels illegal or smthg. Like it shouldn’t be done. And like... if you’re taught from an early age that, one way or another, your feelings don’t matter and that nobody is going to pay attention to you, why try, right?
Then you just begin to Not Feel Properly, and you become incapable of expressing your feelings in a healthy manner
Current examples of this?
Izuku literally not giving himself time to process anything, like worry, grief, sadness. If anything, the only emotion he gives time for is anger. And he specifically directs it at All For One, cause that’s his target. [we saw little bits of this in War Arc but it also applies to the current arc]
He can’t cry. He feels emotional, sure. But he never lets his tears shed.
And one last bit of evidence
I’d say most if not all of these sound about right
In conclusion I wanna hug Izuku
#istg i really don't mean to make long posts#i just have many thoughts#all the time#and once i get going on a post there's no stopping me#ahhhhh i wish i could not go on rants#but alas i have the power to and so i must#uhhhhh lmao i didn't mean to get personal in this post but here we are#bnha#bnha 321#bnha spoilers#bnha manga spoilers#boku no hero academia#mha#my hero academia#izuku midoriya#tw eating disorder mention#tw eating disorder#idk if it actually is#but i looked it up and it seems connected#please i IMPLORE you if any of the info i gave seems a bit off#like the psychology stuff and eating mention#don't hesitate to message me so i can fix it#i encourage corrections#after all i'm not an expert in the field but i know what i've gone through#and it feels the same as what izuku has been through too#so yh#rambling#ramblings#the way this post jumps from ranting to analysis#PARKOUR!
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Now that both Courtney books are out and I’ve read and processed them both, I do want to say that I think they’re the least well-written of any of the AG books, but not through any fault of their own- let me explain.
(Note that for this discussion I’m ignoring the Doylist criticisms- Courtney and 3/4 of her friend group being white again, the lack of gay discussion in-text in regards to the HIV crisis, etc. These are valid complaints and concerns, but not what we’re talking about right now.)
The Problem with the Current Book Length
I think the main problem with Courtney stems from the fact her books are so short. American Girl has literally been doing the stupidest things in regards to their books lately, almost as if they’re trying to sabotage them on purpose. First they remove illustrations in 2015- when their target audience is about nine years old. I don’t know about you, but when I was six and getting into American Girl, the illustrations were the highlight for me. Not because I had no attention span and loved pretty pictures, but because it showed me firstly what the girl’s life was like, whether it be 1760s wilderness or 2001 Chicago. It was like stepping into their world, really helping you get into their heads, which was basically what the dolls were supposed to do, to let you know that girls like you exist throughout time and space.
As well as that, the illustrations were free advertisement. I can’t tell you how excited me and my sisters were as children to go to the American Girl place and look at the doll displays, shouting that that’s the dress Felicity wears to the ball! or look, Josefina’s goat looks exactly like the book! AG cut that from 2015 to 2020, as if they were trying to appeal to an older audience- while at the same time changing all the doll outfits, accessories and marketing to appeal to a younger demographic.
Now, this isn’t about the illustrations, as Courtney got those- it’s about what they did to the historical characters after the Illustration Outrage™ happened. See, they’d condensed the historical six-book format into two books- not necessarily a bad idea, parents would be more likely to buy two books for their kid than consider buying six. However, they then claimed that if they put illustrations back, they would have to abridge the books- literally my nightmare.
First of all, American Girl, we know for a fact you can fit all six books plus illustrations into ONE VOLUME, let alone two. You’re just being cowards here and trying to nerf your own stories for... some reason.
So that meant a lot of important things got cut- Rebecca’s Chanukah story, Melody’s cousin’s house search, Maryellen’s Christmas adventure... all things important to the girls’ histories and character.
The Problem with Courtney’s Writing
Now, Courtney was the first doll to be released after the abridging began, meaning her books were released, in their entirety, just as short as the abridged stories. So it basically means she gets four books while the others get six- and unlike the others, Courtney doesn’t even have mysteries or short stories to pad out. (And honestly, looking at her book’s amount of content, I’d even argue that she basically got two while everyone else got six, but I digress.)
The problem with her books isn’t that they have an author writing them poorly (I really feel like her author was doing the best with what limited time she had), but in how cramped American Girl made them. Because, well, Courtney has to deal with a lot in such a short amount of words.
Let’s compare her to Julie, for instance- Julie pretty much has a new 70s thing every book. In order: feminism, rising divorce rates, San Francisco’s Chinese culture, environmentalism, the country’s bicentennial, anti-bullying and deaf acceptance. And adding to this, we also have her own personal journies through her parents’ divorce and move, her basketball team, her friendship with Ivy (and later Joy), overcoming her fear of horses, student council, detention... It’s a lot, and yet her books don’t feel rushed or forced at all. It’s just a year in the life of a girl going through a lot of new and sudden events, and how she grows and changes throughout them. She may not be as deep a character as Addy or Kirsten, but not every girl goes through the trials and tribulations they do, and it’s a good series overall.
Courtney, meanwhile, does feel rushed and forced, because of the short timespan. Instead of fitting everything into a six-book format- or even at two-book format that is the same length and content as the six-book- everything has to be fit into two short books. Everything Courtney has to cover includes the topics of divorce and stepfamilies, feminist and technological advancement, the Challenger explosion, the HIV crisis, Hands Across America, and the founding of Pleasant Company. And in Courtney’s own journey, she has to cover her learning to stand up for herself, her relationship with her stepsister and Tina’s own character development, her mother running for mayor and how that affects her, how much she misses her Dad after he moves, her friendship with Sarah (note on that later), her basically getting hate-crimed after standing up for her friend... that’s a LOT of stuff, and I didn’t even include the non-AG 80s product placement they shove into her collection.
But without the longer format, everything is pushed together to its detriment. Tina’s development and Maureen’s mayoral candidacy are two plotlines that are literally dropped and almost completely ignored in the second book. The Challenger and HIV issues were handled decently, but the Challenger only lasted a few short chapters, and the HIV topic was not as informative as it could be, leaving out several things like Reagan’s refusal to treat it for so long, and its effect on the gay community. Honestly, the HIV scare was more shifted to focus on the mob mentality of a new and scary disease- which, while needed right now, also ignores many of the bigotry-related reasons it became an epidemic. Pleasant Company’s inclusion feels forced in, and I think was the only resolution she had to her Dad plotline?
And don’t get me started on the Sarah plotline- every Girl of the Year since Kanani- sans Isabelle and Luci- has had the story of “oh no I’ve been ignoring my friend and now they’re mad at me :(” and it’s SO old. Seriously, I counted the contemporary dolls that have had that storyline, and it’s thirteen*. Thirteen times we’ve covered this issue- almost all of it in quick succession- and now we have to deal with it in a historical character book while much more important things are going on! Yes, it sucks when a friend ditches you while you’re being attacked and bullied for something you’re standing up for, but once again, with how much is happening in such a short book, it just feels like a forced-in plotline that we’ve seen a billion times, and with their falling-out happening mainly due to the attention Courtney was given Isaac, it serves to make Sarah seem closed-minded at best and bigoted at worst- it’s clarified that she’s not, she’s just scared and upset with Courtney, but when you put those events so close together, it leads the reader to lump them together and get the impression that, you know, Sarah is a worse person than she is.
*Full count: Nicki (book 2), Chrissa (book 2), Kanani (2), McKenna (1 iirc?), Saige (both books), Grace (2), Lea (3), Gabriela (1 and 3), Tenney (2), Z (1), Blaire (1), Joss (1) and Kira (1).
It’s a bit weird, too, that Courtney’s... what’s the word? Vibe? with her how her story is written and marketed Is closer to the Contemporaries than the Historicals. Am I the only one feeling this? My best explanation for it is that the author, Kellen Hertz, had only written contemporary books for American Girl before- the third Lea Clark book and all four Tenney Grant books, both of which contained the Friendship Issues™ plot. I’m not at all saying she’s a bad author- I honestly love the way the Tenney books are written- and I’m not saying she couldn’t write a historical book, but it’s clear American Girl didn’t ask her to change up her style or content from what she’d done for them before, as well as giving her way too much to cover in such short books.
Conclusion
Honestly, this conclusion should be obvious- American Girl needs to expand their books again. Whether they simply allow the books to be unabridged, or go back to the six-book format, Courtney's books are too cramped to tell an effective story, let alone the poor abridged girls.
The other girls were given six-book length, so if they went back to that length or format, Courtney would have to be rewritten, at least a little- and that’s okay! There’s a lot of things that could use expansion or connection, such as her Summer trip with her Dad that was given basically one sentence in the text. Her growth with her stepfamily could be acknowledged- and honestly? I think that if these books were expanded, her mother’s mayoral arc should either continue through the books, or Maureen should become mayor before the book 2 arc. I’ve mentioned this before, but having Maureen as mayor (or even still a candidate) would put a lot of pressure on Courtney to be perfect so that nobody can say “look at how awful this woman is for doing politics instead of raising her family right”- which means that when the Isaac stuff happens, it has even more stakes for Courtney and her family. Does her Mom still support her with her own reputation on the line, and what does that say about Maureen’s character, how does it affect Courtney and the D’Amicos... that’s all fascinating stuff that was completely missed out on.
And if she was turned into a six-book format- honestly, here’s how I’d do it, just off the top of my head. It would involve a bit of event shuffling, but honestly I think it would work!
Meet Courtney - pretty much the setup for everything happening, her starting to get her Crystal Starshooter plans and her mom’s campaign beginning.
Courtney Learns a Lesson - her relationship to Tina, culminating in the Challenger incident.
Courtney’s Surprise - we move the founding of Pleasant Company over here, since Molly’s basically her Christmas Present. We’ll probably need an additional plotline- maybe similar to Julie, she can have a story on spending the holidays in different places.
Happy Birthday Courtney - end of summer, aka meeting Isaac and her trip with her Dad.
Courtney Saves the Day - Beginning of the HIV arc, ending at her presentation to her class.
Changes for Courtney - Continuation of the HIV arc as things get worse for her and Isaac, ending where Friendship Superhero ends.
Is that a perfect sorting? Probably not, I came up with it in ten minutes. But would it give Courtney space to breathe and more time to explore everything happening to her? Probably!
The tl;dr of this is honestly that American Girl are absolute cowards right now, and need to expand their books back. Their abridging is only harming their stories- which, as Courtney herself points out, are the reason girls got into their company in the first place.
#courtney moore#american girl#american girl dolls#american girls#1986#negativity#mine#americangirlstar
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Hobbies
Phic phight! @idiot-cheesehead-archenemy
A series of vignettes about Danny having various hobbies.
(Master the Orb)
Danny exhaled slowly as the ice built up between his hands. Each new layer glittered in the ghostlight cast by the overhead ambient ectoplasm, embedding complex patterns in the overall piece as new layers built up over it.
“Very good, Great One,” rumbled Frostbite behind his shoulder. “Your control has improved immensely.”
Danny inhaled equally slowly, examining his work so far but not adding to it quite yet. “I don’t know. It looks a little lopsided.”
“Mmm, it looks fine to me. Especially for such an early attempt.”
Danny sighed, exhaling the ice he had built up with his breath. “So, it is lopsided.”
“Consider it practice,” said Frostbite, encouragingly. “It takes time to master art of any kind.”
“Humans do ice sculpture, too,” mumbled Danny. “They get really good, too. I’ve seen pictures. And videos. They don’t even have ice powers.” He rubbed his thumb over the surface, smoothing over a slightly rougher patch.
“That may be true,” said Frostbite, “but, again, you just started, Great One. You have only had your powers for a little while. Give yourself some support.”
Danny shrugged. “I guess it isn’t something my life depends on, so I can relax about it.” He built up another layer of ice. “This is oddly therapeutic, and I don’t say therapeutic lightly. You know Jazz.”
“I do indeed,” said Frostbite, somewhat ruefully, head half-bowed.
Jazz could be a force of nature, even more so than ice powers.
He held the ice orb up to the light. It caught on the patterns he had placed there. Fractals were the easiest. He was hoping that if he got better, he’d be able to make real sculptures with patterns in them, instead of just orbs.
But, first, he had to master the orb. Just like how when drawing you had to do circles first. Circle. Orb.
Ooorb. Yep.
The controlled application of ice. The evenness of the internal patterns. The solidity, density, and durability.
His orb was… not very orblike, despite what Frostbite said. Frostbite probably thought he was making so flat on purpose.
Yeah. He was terrible at this.
He was having fun, though.
.
.
(Furnace)
“You’re taking up glass blowing?” asked Tucker, surprised.
“Yeah? Is there a problem?” asked Danny, reaching over to stop his friend from accidentally drawing a line of orange sharpie across his poster on the themes in Macbeth.
“No!” said Tucker, quickly. “But, like, why? It just seems… unlike you.”
“Exactly,” said Danny, nodding sharply. “It has absolutely nothing to do with my powers and nothing to do with my family. Plus, I had a coupon.”
“For glass blowing?”
“It was a groupon,” said Danny. “For making Christmas tree ornaments. I’m going to do it with Jazz.”
“But, Danny,” said Sam, looking over from where she was working on her own poster about Twelfth Night, “glass blowing, uh, involves a lot of heat.”
“Sure?”
“Danny, you have an ice core.”
“Ah,” said Danny. “Well. I’ve got to use that groupon. If it doesn’t work out, it’s only the once, right?”
.
“Oh my gosh,” said Danny, wringing sweat out of his t-shirt. “That was awesome!” He giggled to himself and peaked into the annealer again. “So awesome!”
“Uh huh,” said Jazz. Her attempts had been… rather less successful than Danny’s, partially because she was trying so hard to make them perfect. But she had managed a few little baubles, nonetheless. “I think these’ll all be good for the tree. Assuming we get one.”
“And it isn’t set on fire.”
“Oh, yeah, that was a bad year.”
He squeaked open the annealer again, only closing it when the instructor lightly scolded him. “They’re so terrible and lopsided,” said Danny.
“Hey,” said Jazz. “Mine are fine.”
“I know! I was talking about mine.”
“Ah, okay then. I agree.”
“You aren’t supposed to agree.”
“What, you want me to lie? And after you said it first?”
“No,” said Danny. “But you could be nicer about it.”
“I’m your sister, what do you expect?”
.
.
(Lung Capacity)
Danny let the last note trail off to complete silence. He stared apprehensively at the assembled student body. Curse Mr. Lancer’s extra credit talent show assignment. Any minute now, they’d start laughing at him.
What was he thinking? He’d just watched a few YouTube tutorials on breath control, and he thought he could come up here and sing in front of people? He was a moron, and—
Sam and Tucker started cheering wildly, followed rapidly by everyone else in the gym.
Okay. What?
Sam and Tucker, following impulses known only to overexcited teenagers, swarmed up the stage and attacking Danny.
“Why didn’t you tell us you could sing like that?” demanded Sam.
“When did you learn?” asked Tucker, doing his level best to noogie Danny. “Why did you learn?”
“I wanted to improve my, you know, wail,” muttered Danny, “and all the breath control YouTube videos either had to do with diving or singing, so…” He did a little head wiggle to illustrate his point and also dislodge Tucker.
“I just can’t believe you kept this a secret from us,” said Sam.
Danny snorted and took a sort of half bow before attempting to leave the stage. “My dudes, I am basically made of secrets.”
“Encore!” screamed someone who clearly hated him.
“Oh, no,” said Danny, bracing himself against Sam and Tucker who were pushing him back into the middle of the stage. “No encore. I don’t do encores.”
But now people were chanting. Chanting.
“Come on, Danny,” said Tucker. “Just once!”
“Yeah, these are your fifteen minutes of fame!”
“I had those already! Multiple times!”
“That was Poindexter.”
“And now it can be you.”
Danny reluctantly took the microphone back off the stand.
.
.
(Letterhead)
The ink was thick, almost creamy, and paint-like. It was the ectoplasm mix, which also gave it a rich, rosy glow.
Danny was practicing ghost calligraphy. Well, one particular subset of ghost calligraphy, one which put special emphasis on the color of the letters as well as how they fit together.
It was a totally useless hobby. But it was… not exactly calming. No. He’d gotten way too angry about poorly formed arcs and crooked lines a couple of times. So. Yeah. Not calming. But… meditative. Meditative. And there was something satisfying about seeing the finished product.
Plus, if he framed his better finished work, they made for good presents for weirdo ghosts.
“You misspelled this,” drawled Ghost Writer.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Keuwii only has one kei.”
“This is only one kei.”
“What’s this, then?”
“It’s a flourish.”
“A flourish.”
Danny rolled his eyes. “Everyone’s a critic. If you don’t want it—”
“I didn’t say that.”
Danny raised an eyebrow.
Ghost Writer made a show of rolling his eyes. “Very well. Do you have one for my half-brother Randy. Perhaps one that says something along the lines of ‘idiot?’”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
.
.
(Babies on Fire)
“Danny,” said Jazz. “What are you doing up at three in the morning with a lighter? And… yarn? Is that yarn?”
“Dad wanted me to learn how to sew,” said Danny, “but I don’t like needles, not the sharp ones, anyway.”
“You get stitches every other week,” pointed out Jazz.
“Exactly,” said Danny, gesturing with the lighter. “So, I decided to look into, you know, knitting. And I was on knitting websites, and having, you know, a pretty good time with that, but then I found out about the babies.”
“The babies.”
“The babies,” said Danny, seriously. “And the blankets that are on fire. It depends on the yarn, you see. If the yarn is the wrong kind of yarn, if it catches on fire, the blanket can melt onto the baby. It’s terrible. Just terrible.”
“I kind of think that if the blanket is on fire you have bigger problems,” said Jazz. She took a step closer to her obviously insane younger brother. “Are you… testing the yarn?”
“I have to, Jazz. It’s for the babies.”
“Alright,” said Jazz. “You are going to limit it to just the yarn in our house, right?”
“But we don’t have any babies.”
“Okay, that didn’t answer my question, but, like…” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Since we don’t have any babies here, why are you testing the yarn?”
“Because we might have babies here in the future,” said Danny. “Or I might knit something and give it to someone as a gift and then they give it to their baby. Oh my gosh, I’d feel so guilty.”
“I’d be more worried about the toxic waste in our basement,” said Jazz, which was exactly the wrong thing to say to a sleep-deprived half-ghost on the edge of an Obsession-fueled breakdown. Danny vanished in a blur, trailing yarn behind him. Jazz, who had only gotten up for a glass of water, cursed under her breath.
.
.
(Before the Ball)
“I’m so, so sorry, Dora,” said Danny, holding back something adjacent to laughter.
Dora laughed, more openly. “It is fine, Sir Phantom. Even now, you are better than my brother.”
“Am I really? Your brother? Who was raised to do this?”
“Well,” said Dora, letting go and stepping back out of the range of Danny’s feet. Which were, evidently, both left feet. “No, I’m afraid, but it is amusing to say, isn’t it?” She pressed her fingers to her lips, suppressing more laughter.
“Yeah, it is,” admitted Danny.
“In any case, you are far more graceful concerning your mistakes than he ever was. More gallant. A better representative of chivalry altogether.” She patted the shoulders of his shirt.
“Thanks,” said Danny. “Do you think that I’ll be, uh, ready in time for the party?”
“It’s more than a party,” said Dora. “You’re being officially knighted. You’ll be a peer of the realm.”
“Aha,” said Danny. “Yeah. I don’t… what? Really? That’s a thing?”
“You thought I was joking?”
“No,” said Danny, drawing out the word. He had, in fact, thought she was joking and only accepted her offer to teach him how to dance because he thought it sounded like fun and like it might take his mind off his problems. “Of course not. So. Dancing. Important. For first impressions?”
“Everyone already knows you, Phantom,” said the knight assigned as Dora’s bodyguard. “But dancing is surprisingly useful for swordplay. Which you need all the help you can get at.”
“You said I was getting better.”
“That doesn’t mean you’re good.”
“Ouch.”
.
.
(Time)
“I don’t have time for a hobby,” complained Danny through the Fenton Phones. “Maybe if the ghosts let up a bit—” He zapped one of said ghosts.
“Danny, are you fighting ghosts right now?”
“Yeah. That’s my point.”
“Oh my god, get off the phone.”
“No way! This is the only time I can call you, what with all of your classes.”
“Danny…” said Jazz, clearly exasperated. He took advantage of the lull in the conversation to blast a few more ghosts.
“I’m fine Jazz.”
“You are not fine. You are, like, ten thousand miles away from fine. When was the last time you even slept through the night?”
“Eh,” said Danny. “Recently?”
“You need to take more time for yourself.”
Danny sighed and captured the last ghost. “Maybe catching ghosts is my hobby.”
“Catching ghosts is your self-imposed penance for doing something that isn’t even your fault. Not a hobby.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll talk to you on Wednesday, same time.”
“Danny, don’t—”
He hung up.
“Ugh,” said Danny. “I guess I need to find a hobby. Have to find time to find a hobby.”
“Perhaps I could be of help.”
“Ah!” Danny jolted forward, dropping his phone.
Clockwork gestured with one hand, and the phone dropped back into Danny’s hands from above.
“Ohhh my ghost, why are you here?”
“You were just talking about finding time. And now I’m here.”
“Good timing, I guess?”
“Only the best,” said Clockwork, evenly. “But we were speaking of hobbies. Might I suggest ice sculpture? Your friends in the Far Frozen would be more than happy to teach you...”
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