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canary3d-obsessed · 3 years

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Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 16, part two

(Masterpost of All the Rewatches) (Previous Post) (Canary’s Pinboard of Stuff)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes

Just A Box of Rain

The brothers find Jiang Yanli and tell her what happened. Pro Tip: a good way to deliver bad news is like this. 1. say "I have bad news" so the person can be prepared for a shock 2. clearly state the bad news.

Standing in front of the person with tears streaming down your face and looking away when they try to meet your eyes is not, actually, a super effective method for delivering bad news.

This episode continues to be punctuated by closeups of characters' hands as they respond to events.

Yanli clutches her broken lotus pendant, cutting her palm and bleeding as she weeps.

Not-at-all symbolic rain drenches the three of them while they cry, standing apart and not comforting each other.

Sometimes a hurt is so deep deep deep You think that you're gonna drown Sometimes all I can do is weep weep weep With all this rain falling down

(more after the cut)

They upgrade their boat with repaired seats and a real oar, and move along toward a hopefully-safer location.

The scenery continues to be gorgeous, and it appears to be actually really raining on this river or lake. We see Wei Wuxian's hand on the boat's oar as he takes his siblings to what he hopes will be safety.

Maybe you're tired and broken Your tongue is twisted with words half spoken

OP is valiantly resisting dropping a chunk of "Don't Pay the Ferryman" lyrics in here, because projecting European symbolism onto Chinese media is not my bag. This scene does carry a lot of weight, though, showing Wei Wuxian’s sadness and isolation, his ever-growing distance from his siblings and reminding us of his servant status. While his siblings sit under shelter with tears falling down their faces, Wei Wuxian stands in the rain, laboring to protect them and not letting his own tears fall.

It's totally reasonable that Wei Wuxian is the one to man the oar, right? I'm sure Jiang Cheng is the more exhausted of the two of them even though Wei Wuxian started off his day yesterday getting whipped FIVE times by the Zidian and ended it by being choked for 45 seconds.

Self-Isolation

They reach an inn, where Yanli has a fever, maybe from being left outside all night while her brothers failed to work out any of their interpersonal shit, followed by getting extremely rained on for hours and hours.

Wei Wuxian carefully puts on a bright, optimistic face for her, practicing for his future fake happiness after the Burial Mounds.

Jiang Cheng sits and has a lot of feelings, totally not helping while Wei Wuxian tends to Yanli. This is not typical of him and just shows how deeply shocked he is by what's happened; usually he is extremely attentive to Yanli and careful with her health.

Wei Wuxian tries to get Jiang Cheng's attention, so that Jiang Cheng can take over caring for Yanli while Wei Wuxian gets medicine. Jiang Cheng is busy staring into the middle distance, and won't respond.

This is Wei Wuxian realizing that absolutely nobody is going to help him.

Wei Wuxian goes out in his distinctive robes with no hood or anything, to buy some fever medicine, and is quickly surrounded by guards. They hear "we caught him" and run off, leaving him be.

What Wei Wuxian doesn't know, that we learn in Episode 50, is that Jiang Cheng and his death wish decided to take a stroll, and seeing the Wen soldiers approach Wei Wuxian finally snapped him out of his reverie. So he let himself be caught in order to draw them away from Wei Wuxian.

Let's talk about this choice. In terms of clan roles, Wei Wuxian is absolutely the expendable one. Jiang Cheng became the clan leader when his father died, and knew it from the moment he saw his father's body.

So far he's 1. Tried to go back to fight and die, against his parents' express instructions 2. left his sister alone in an inn with a fever 3. given himself up to be killed in place of his chief disciple, when it's his disciples' job to die for him, if it comes to that. All but two of Clan Yao's disciples died to protect fucking Captain Blowhard, for goodness sake.

All of these actions are emotionally super understandable; he's young, he's had a terrible shock, and he's an emotional guy who's never heard of Dialectical Behavior Therapy. And I'm not here to defend feudal power structures. But perhaps Jiang Cheng shouldn't ring the "YOU PROMISED" bell quite so loud in the future, considering his own relationship to his obligations.

Wei Wuxian begs Yanli to stay put and stay safe while he goes to find Jiang Cheng, and he promises to take Jiang Cheng back from the Wens. Yanli clutches his hands and asks him to promise again that he will rescue their brother, and that they will all go to Meishan together. But for once Wei Wuxian is completely honest, and disentangles his hands and sets off without another word.

More running ensues, this time in the rain. To quote Adam in Season 7 Episode 1 of Spooks, "all this traumatized running is starting to really annoy me." (Spooks is the shit. Don't watch it if you like characters to have a lifespan longer than a mayfly's)

Camera Operator: Finally, a little appreciation

Wei Wuxian arrives in Lotus Pier, and can we just take a second to appreciate the decor of this place? Look at that tile floor with the cobblestone border, and the bamboo wall panel behind him.

He grabs the first Wen he finds, who turns out to be a much-needed friend.

Rescue Me

The Untamed is the tale of a man’s devotion; devotion so strong it transcends clan allegiance and even death. And that man’s name is Wen Ning.

Initially Wei Wuxian chokes him, like bros do, until he recognizes him and lets him go...

...only to immediately grab him and demand to know if he had a part in the massacre. Wen Ning stays pretty calm, seeing the angry side of Wei Wuxian for the first time, and explains that he heard about what happened, and is there to help.

Wei Wuxian absorbs this and lets him go, giving us a closeup of their hands together, with Wen Ning not so much resisting Wei Wuxian's grip as giving a steadying grip of his own to his best friend.

Wen Ning, who Wei Wuxian saved from one water demon, has already saved Wei Wuxian from one horrifying animatronic dog, and does not actually owe him a life debt at this point. Wen Ning has defied his sister and his entire clan and flown to Lotus Pier with a team of minions, with the specific intent of fucking things up for Wen Chao to the best of his abilities, simply because "Wei Wuxian is a nice person."

Wei Wuxian isn't feeling like a nice person just now, however, thinking that he can use Wen Ning as a hostage to...what, trade for his brother? Wen Chao would probably be happy to kill Wen Ning himself, but his dad needs Wen Ning as a way to control Wen Qing, so maybe that plan would work.

Then Wei Wuxian sees this small pouch hanging from Wen Ning's belt, and it stops him in his tracks.

For once we are not given a flashback to explain his thinking, so I’ll provide one

The talisman he gave Wen Ning to protect him, now protects him from Wei Wuxian himself. He lets Wen Ning's arm go, and tries to think of another plan.

Wen Ning already has another plan, and has come to Lotus Pier prepared to enact it.

Wei Wuxian can't believe he's found someone to help him. In a moment of wrenching vulnerability, he asks Wen Ning to save Jiang Cheng and to retrieve the bodies of Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan. Wen Ning immediately agrees.

Wen Ning then embarks upon the least sneaky sabotage campaign of all time, chatting to the guards while messing with the wine, and generally acting like a person who is up to something.

Nobody respects him enough to worry about it, though, and the party proceeds as planned.

The banquet is set up in the cleaned-up courtyard of Lotus Pier The Yunmeng Supervisory Office, and features dancing girls performing in the center of the beautiful carved paving, and corpses hanging in the doorway.

I bet Jin Guangyao hires this same dance troupe for his future parties.

Wen Chao and Wang Lingjiao sit at the main table, snuggling and being gross, but mercifully not necking on-camera because this is a 100% no-necking show. The drinks are sent around and Wen Chao tells Wen Zhuliu to drink up.

Wen Zhuliu is busy gazing wistfully at Yu Ziyuan's corpse.

Let's face it, Wen Zhuliu is the only dangerous person in this place at the moment, so what he does next is the make-or-break for Wen Ning’s plan.

Wen Zhuliu smells his wine and immediately can tell something is wrong. He takes a long moment to consider the situation, eyes on Yu Ziyuan, and then downs it, letting his emotions--perhaps something in the neighborhood of remorse, perhaps simple disgust at his craven supervisor--get the better of him.

In the morning he will be able to tell Wen Chao with 100% precision exactly what the drug is, probably from smelling it right here. This is the only miscalculation Wen Zhuliu makes in the whole show, and it eventually costs him his life.

Wen Zhuliu has no reason to think this decision will hurt him. It's definitely impossible for Jiang Cheng, whipped and crushed, to avenge himself and his parents. But Jiang Cheng, with Wei Wuxian’s help, is going to achieve the impossible.

We end with Wei Wuxian hiding while he waits for Wen Ning, as strung out as we have seen him so far, although he's got worse mental states ahead of him on his journey. He doesn't know yet if he was right to trust Wen Ning, and the episode ends with him, cold, wet, and miserable, waiting to find out.

Next Episode: Still miserable, but with a cape! Soundtrack: 1. Patty Griffin, Rain 2. Grateful Dead, Box of Rain

#fytheuntamed #the untamed #the untamed gifs #the untamed meta #jiang cheng #wei wuxian #restless rewatch the untamed #canary3d-original #my gifs #rain #moar rain

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rexeipts · 3 years

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Monday morning rewatch thoughts:

I am in my feels, very angry at this episode.

Annie had little to no story so skipping her this time around.

Ruby & Stan:

- Stanimal trying to get the girls to strike was great, and I want to see him (not Beth) run the strip club so bad. I hope that is the storyline they take us down.

- Ruby and Stan once again are king and queen of communication. These two are such an excellent example of healthy and happy marriage.

- Ruby biting a lime at Stan’s replacement gave me life in the montage

Beth & Dean:

That’s who Beth gets paired with this week. Dean. Not Rio. Because that’s how mad I am at her.

- Dean on the bike ride scene was once again far too long and wasted precious screen time. I forced myself not to fast forward through that scene. And you know what I noticed? Dean literally compares being sexually assaulted in prison to being someone’s wife on a honeymoon and being forced to have a baby put inside you. Because that is how Dean sees his fucking wife and marriage. Literal other convicts sexually assaulting someone in prison is like them thinking you’re their wife on a honey moon. Let that fucking sink in. And no, I don’t think that was intentional characterization by the writers. That is just existing as a metaphor these writers chose to use while trying to continue a Dean redemption arc.

- Dean leaving the hot tub when the other guys were shitting on Beth for being a buzz kill was an attempt at showing “growth”. But it’s not. It’s fucking table stakes. See above mention of non consensual sex being like a wife.

- How Beth does not realize this is another of dean’s idiotic schemes and poor money decisions is beyond me.

- I am relieved only in that Beth looked upset after getting Rio arrested this time. Good. Be upset. You had a choice. I’m so mad at Beth right now. I’m honestly starting to think she deserves Dean.

- Beth, honestly you think Rio would hurt your kids? Then why turn him in? You’re so scared of him then why risk it? Choosing him would have meant protecting your kids if you look at it factually, he threatened your family if you turned him in. Like she’s just dumb at this point? The writers have characterized her as dumb. Did she conveniently forget season 1 when he got out? I mean for real? Do these writers even watch previous seasons?

- Beth being with Dean literally undermines all feminism about the show. I have said that before and will say it again. Dean is a cancer on this show’s fun. Pun intended.

- Beth uses her sweet housewife voice on Nick. Literally everyone but Rio. And she literally flirts with Nick. You’re literally married Beth. Divorce Dean before you flirt with yet another person.

Rio & Nick:

- Baby Rio looked like Rio I thought. Him drawing a boxer was heart breaking. Because he literally wanted that his entire life. The last flashback scene made it seem like he wanted it for money. Nick tells him he doesn’t need boxing because they have a way to get money now, but Rio literally wanted boxing from childhood. And Nick ripped that away from him. Nick gave him no choice. Not because he wanted him to learn a lesson, because he wanted to use him. Rio is Nick’s designated fall guy.

- Rio = good egg, Nick bad, better be fucking FORESHADOWING FOR RIO GETTING SOMETHING NICE FINALLY THIS SEASON. At least the writers told us that pretty openly.

- The champ champ champ now all makes sense

- Who is Rio’s coach and can we please have a cheesy storyline where the coach is the only one to ever be on his side

- What is he having them print for? The girls point it out like why does he need all of that?

- Him telling Beth he does need her? No he doesn’t. That was actually a very sweet line. The way he looked at her, he’s in love with her guys. Like his face said yes I need you because I can’t seem to give you up. He doesn’t need her for money. It’s unfortunate they chose to dirty it up with him threatening her family.

- Rio grows from the ashes. He is the designated fall guy who rises from the ashes to be untouchable. Hence Phoenix I guess. Sure.

- I actually like Nick being in the show. First because I’m mad at Beth. But mostly because he is the only character introducing a new dynamic. He is the only thing that’s not repetitive. The only fresh storyline. And he’s already making her talk about Rio. But also, would it fucking kill either of them to say the man’s damn name? But also I like the actor and think he’s pleasant to look at on screen, sue me.

- Oh look, Nick, another man telling Beth Rio is too dangerous for her when she LITERALLY SHOT HIM. Do you all REALIZE SHE IS NOT A DELICATE FUCKING LAMB.

- I am no longer convinced that Rio had a plan all this time, not after rewatching the car scene. It seems like Rio was ready to kill her, mostly because he doesn’t know another choice, and Nick pointed out the obvious. Unless Rio is playing Nick. But truth be told, Rio threatening her family was ooc. And I’m holding on to the fact that he said family, aka Dean Annie Ruby who he has threatened before, and she took it to mean kids. I’m also holding on to the fact that Rio puts on masks. He puts on cold gang banger mask, he tries to manipulate and find new ways to incentivize beth. If you look at it that way, as him trying to get her to choose him rather than a plot of trying to get her to turn him in, it’s heartbreaking. He is so desperate to get her to pick him he literally pulled out his final option. His only remaining incentive that he hasn’t tried on her. EDIT: UNLESS Rio is playing Nick too. Because now? SS trusts Beth. And Nick trusts Rio. Nick thinks Rio and Beth aren’t on the same side. That Beth turned Rio in and Rio’s murderous over it. And Rio can use Beth to take Nick down without Nick seeing them coming. I hope they’re going for that. Because that would be genius. And would really be Rio 100 steps ahead, and would make the whole episode make sense in terms of his characterization.

- The arrest scene was heart breaking. The complete betrayal in his eyes was so sad. As others have stated, choosing to slam him on a table, while yes it is realistic to how he would likely be treated in the real world, was not necessary. He wasn’t resisting and was literally just standing there. Idk why the writers feel the need to be “realistic” in some moments and not in others. Poor choice. But what I did appreciate was him staring at Beth. Like she was forced to face him this time. With his face shoved against a table while she stands there being cuffed gently. She did that. She didn’t see him arrested on tv. She didn’t run away after shooting him. She had to stand there in his gaze looking at the betrayal on his face. Good. I’m sorry but she deserved it. She needs to face the damn consequences of her actions. Sorry I’m upset with her RN.

- At this point I believe Rio is in love with Beth. And it seems the writers are actually pushing metaphors and moments that make us sympathize with Rio and see Nick as the bad guy. I do think Beth will eventually get there/realize her feelings for Rio later this season but it might be too little too late. Time will tell.

Promo/Thoughts going forward:

- I like Phoebe and don’t mind her being around

- Rio and Beth on a bench again is good news to me. On the same bench.

- Idk if it’s a time jump but Rio comes in with a fresh hair cut, new wardrobe, and a tan looking like he just had a hot girl summer and is feeling great, over his ex, and is ready to fuck shit up.

- I want to see Rio remind Beth that she betrayed him personally. I want her to have to face that. It’s not just she betrayed him professionally. I want to see him reject her, I want to see her flirt or bat her lashes at him and him to be like nope sorry. Just for a minute though like just one episode lol. And only because I think it will make her realize her feelings for him.

- Beth and Rio v Nick please. Just give us something fucking new.

- These writers had an amazing path they could have gone down of the housewife partnering with a gang banger. It would have been fun, plenty of comedic gold available, and plenty of options for conflict between them and with external forces. And instead they chose this. I feel sometimes like this show would have been way better if it wasn’t on NBC. This story, this chemistry, belonged with writers who would realize its potential. That’s what I find disappointing.

#sorry i’m angry #gg negativity #I guess yeah it’s negative this time around guys #nbc good girls #beth x rio #gg spoilers #brio #good girls season 4

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shimmershae · 3 years

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The more I think about it, the more “Find Me” feels like an echo of “Ghosts.”

Allow me to explain. In probably the most rambling and incoherent way possible, lol. My earlier post on Twitter about Season 10 being an exercise in grief and longing really got me to thinking. Not just thinking. Ruminating.

Anywho.

Posting the rest of this beneath a cut because nobody asked for this (I swear I haven’t imbibed or ingested any illegal substances).

It doesn’t take long for Carol to be established as an unreliable narrator in “Ghosts.” At first it isn’t completely obvious because there’s just enough fact in the fiction that Carol’s triggered brain stirs up. Daryl’s there and he’s concerned about her. He’s supportive. Both things he’d been before, especially since Henry’s death, but there are just enough elements in those chemically and grief induced hallucinations of hers that make you go--oh wait a minute. Like she’s having a break from reality but she’s desperately grasping for that which grounds her and that’s Daryl.

Am I making any sense here? I feel like I’m not.

Let me approach this from another angle.

Following the airing of “Find Me” various people mentioned that Daryl, similarly to Carol in “Ghosts” wasn’t exactly the most reliable narrator. That things weren’t necessarily as they seemed. The word toxic was bandied about but other than Leah giving Daryl an ultimatum to choose her over his family and Daryl dwelling in deep, longstanding depression? There wasn’t much else overtly deserving of that moniker.

Argh. I’m still not explaining myself well. Let me just jump right in the deep end of probable delusion here. Sometimes it’s fun to splash around, lol.

Wouldn’t it be wild—sad AF but still wild—if Leah was already dead when Daryl met her?

Bear with me here.

Like Carol in “Ghosts” Daryl is obviously struggling. He’s grief-stricken. His brother is lost to him and after he betrayed him no less. His close friend is mired in her own grief--she’s just lost her mate, probably recently discovered she was carrying RJ, and it wasn’t too long before that they had all lost Carl. And that’s not even considering Carol, who’s allowed herself to be pulled away, lured by the tantalizing chance of doing things right this time. Of rearing a child capable of surviving in the harsh world they live in. Another thing to remember is Daryl is not that far removed from his torture at Negan’s hands. So he’s more fragile than he’d willingly admit to anyone.

He’s searching the woods for a man that isn’t there. Now he’s no more aware that Rick was taken than the rest of Team Family, but he’s unwilling to give up hope and so he searches and because Rick’s not there and hasn’t been since shortly after that bridge blew up, Daryl’s doomed to always come up empty. To always feel disappointment. To never have his grief assuaged because as long as there’s no body in the form of a Walker, there’s still hope. Or plausible denial. Take your pick.

He’s tireless in his search. He’s methodical. He plots out the places he’s already scoured on a hand-drawn map. A map that just so happens to get ruined by an awful storm and Daryl seems to reach his breaking point, screaming out into the roar of that storm. Walking through the barrage, the harsh rain and the violent lightning, unconcerned for his safety.

Dude has a bit of a mental break. He’s undeniably emotional.

It’s not long after that he stumbles upon Dog. Or, more aptly, Dog stumbles upon him.

That puppy immediately lightens Daryl’s heavy heart and helping it find its way home gives him purpose. He’s a tracker after all. He could have easily traced Dog’s steps back to that cabin.

Funny that Dog was always coming to him. That he was roaming free in woods that were full of hidden dangers.

I don’t know about the rest of ya’ll but that cabin looked abandoned when Daryl first discovered it. Maybe not long abandoned, but it didn’t look inhabited by the living. And that’s the weird thing. How did that Walker get into the cabin? Did Leah just leave the door wide open for it? Did she also leave the door wide open for Dog to escape? Why was he always such an unaccompanied furry minor?

The thoughts swirling around in my brain, lovelies. They’re going to force me to go back and watch that fucking episode again aren’t they?

My point is that Dog essentially leads Daryl to the cabin. The Walker’s inside and then he stumbles upon Leah, who bursts onto the scene like she wants to be Sarah Connor or something. Daryl ends up in restraints and Leah questions him and ultimately lets him go and WTF, lovelies. Who does that in the ZA? As a woman all alone in a cabin miles from anybody else, in the company of a man she doesn’t know from Adam? If ever there’s a time to have stranger danger...

Right from the start, this chick doesn’t really add up.

So Daryl leaves the cabin. He resumes his search for Rick and he seems to give very little thought to this Leah or the cabin. Until Dog finds him again.

Strange isn’t it that he keeps stumbling back in her path around the times that Carol visits, when she draws further and further from his reach and closer to the fairytale he thinks she’s living at the Kingdom?

Did Daryl ever go to that cabin without following Dog? I can’t remember. The episode was beautifully shot but ultimately too painful to rewatch for my Caryl loving heart.

Anywho.

When Daryl and Carol come upon that cabin in the woods, Daryl’s flashbacks begin. They’re hazy around the edges and not as clearly defined as the moments he spends with Carol. Speaking of the moments he spends with Carol, how coincidinky that so many of them echo his moments with Leah? Or do we have it all backwards? Hmm?

Things are so convoluted sometimes on this fucking show it leads one to question their sanity.

Let me ramble out a few wild thoughts for you lovelies again and you tell me if I’ve completely lost it, lol.

What if Dog was simply an orphaned, abandoned Dog that found Daryl in the woods?

What if Daryl followed the trail Dog had traveled in reverse and stumbled upon the cabin?

What if the cabin was abandoned because Leah was already dead? What if she’d taken her own life? What if Daryl saw the cross/grave outside and the picture inside and his grief-stricken brain conjured up a whole tragic story for this woman, this Walker roaming around inside this house, and she became his coping mechanism? You know. Kind of like Rick did Lori when he had his own break with reality. They’ve all suffered so much, lovelies. They’ve all got PTSD. It’s just manifesting in different ways.

I mean, all of this would fit the label of sad that NR and others have given this little tale. It would even fit toxic because Daryl let grief and loneliness swallow him for a while.

As Carol pulls farther away from him, Leah just keeps popping up more and more.

Daryl essentially loses himself in his own fairy tale only it’s a nightmare painted in soft colors and Leah asking him to choose is basically his own psyche saying to him “do you wanna live here in this fantasy land and numb your pain or do you want to relive the awful reality of Rick being lost and Carol slowly fading from your life day by day?” And at first he’s like, you can’t make me make that choice because Daryl doesn’t want to give up hope, no matter how futile it seems. But then Carol makes what she tells him might be her final visit for a while and anger leads Daryl right back to that fucking cabin and oblivion. Back to the solitude of his tortured thoughts.

That note, lovelies. It felt like by choosing Leah he was choosing a lifetime of being alone more than it did him choosing the hope of a new love. That “find me” for all the world felt like he was willing hope to find him again. Hope in the form of love in the form of Carol.

Listen. I never said this would make sense, lol.

When Daryl gets back to that cabin, Leah is gone. Her picture is gone.

Truly it felt like she’d never been there.

Even more so when you consider how run down the cabin looks in present day when Daryl and Carol seek shelter in it.

I can’t help it. Some small part of me? Well, it thinks that Daryl told Carol about Leah (whether she existed or not) as a way to both make her feel better than he wasn’t out there in those woods completely alone and to maybe move the needle a little bit on the nature of their own relationship. Both in the past and present day.

And while he and Carol are struggling through the ever-shifting nature of their feelings for each other, Daryl has climbed out of his own darkness and found hope again in Judith and RJ. In the family he’s embraced again. In the communities. And he’s angry and unsettled because he wants the same for Carol but she doesn’t seem to want that for herself.

He still wants her to find hope.

He still wants her to find him.

He still wants her to find love and peace.

Help me, lovelies. These two have broken me, lol. I promise. I’m stone cold sober. A little, okay a lot, tired.

Wouldn’t it be wild, though? If Leah really wasn’t what she seemed? If she were a figment of a broken, lonely man’s tortured imagination?

Undeniably sad AF but wild all the same.

#The Walking Dead #Shae's thinky thoughts #Caryl speculation #Caryl #Carol x Daryl #Carol Peletier #Daryl Dixon #things that make me smile and cry #and giggle and giggle #for reasons

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nikosomething · 4 years

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Thought it might be fun to share my concepts for my Beautiful Sacrifice Series

My Concepts

The women of The Untamed are so amazing ughhh

This whole series happened thanks to @mdzswomen s event to honour the women of MDZS. When I read about it I noticed I had never tried to draw any of these amazing women and I knew I needed to change something about that.

My idea was to create a tribute to these strong women and their decision to sacrifice everything. My choice of characters was based on the week one prompts: Jiang Yanli, Wen Qing, Mian Mian and A-Qing. There were more prompts and women, but at that time I didn’t even think I’d manage to draw more than two of them let alone a conceptual series.

It all started with Wen Qing, actually, even though she was the prompt for day two. I knew I wanted a really tall format like a banner hanging from a ceiling (as they are often used in an honorary context) and parts of the character to stick out of its boundaries.

As you can see at first I experimented with Wen Qing fiercely staring into the distance. I tried another sketch with her eyes closed and that’s what inspired all other elements, really.

I decided that I wanted to depict one of the saddest, but also most beautiful and strongest aspects of their journey: the end. I’d call it their final moment, but that doesn’t quite cut it. Jiang Yanli saving Wei Wuxian might have been instinctive, but it wasn’t done to her, she chose to push him away, whatever it may cost her. Which is why I want to go for the phrasing of it having been their final decision. It was an action. And a strong one at that. MianMian chose to end her career, unwilling to tolerate those close-minded people. Wen Qing chose to face the Lanling Jin clan, knowing death was a very likely result. A-Qing chose to signal Xue Yang’s position knowing how dangerous he was.

I didn’t want to portray the scene too realistically, but rather in a symbolic way. For the Beautiful Sacrifice Series I wanted to focus on ease/liberation, sadness and beauty. I chose to portray the deceased with closed eyes and a peaceful expression (as they don’t regret their final act), which is why Mian Mian’s eyes are wide open with her determinedly looking ahead. I also included the last sentence we hear each of these women speak in the show before their (old) life ends.

WEN QING

The first character I had a concept for was Wen Qing. I knew immediately that I wanted to include fire as the cause of her death, but I also wanted to simplify it, to turn it more into a symbol than the actual scene of her being burnt alive.

(At least I imagine that that’s what happened, I may be wrong, though. We know they got her ashes. However, she may have been killed first and burnt later. Or they made it a spectacle to watch one of the last Wen die in flames. Very cruel, but perhaps some found it satisfying).

Wen Qing’s hair is floating in the upwind of the fire’s heat. The flames point to the last thing we hear her say. The background is red for the Wen and fades to black to make the fire shine bright.

The colouring process was quite challenging. I spent days on it, it was really giving me a headache hahaha, I just wasn’t satisfied with anything, the colour palette, the shading, the lighting (it’s the first time I tried a more fancy lighting situation). In the end I put some layers on multiply, which actually helped as I now know her robes were coloured too light, which meant there wasn’t enough contrast to the bright flames in the background.

I was really insecure about the whole piece. I am still stunned that Wen Qing is the drawing with the most notes of this entire series. Thank you so much, it gave me a lot of confidence and motivation to keep trying out new stuff!

JIANG YANLI

Immediately after I had scribbled my Wen Qing concept I knew what I wanted Jiang Yanli’s tribute to look like. Soft and tender, like she is. With Wen Qing it’s the powerful flames that make her hair puff up, resembling Wen Qing’s fierce personality. For Jiang Yanli it’s a gentle breeze that lifts a strand of her hair and carries the lotus leaves with it.

Her eyes are closed as she is deceased. A lotus flower is located where she received the lethal wound in her brother's stead. The flower symbolises her sect, family and fond memories (be it playing by the water with her brothers or making lotus root soup).

Jiang Yanli is wearing my favourite outfit of hers and not her mourning robes which she died in, because I think it captures the gentleness of her personality perfectly with the pastel Jiang colour palette (and it’s actually a layer of see-through fabric in the show).

I really enjoyed colouring this piece and while it was the second design it was the first one I did the lineart and colour for.

MIAN MIAN

I wanted to include an element of disillusion since she experiences that moment of humiliation which is followed by the realisation that the Jin clan doesn’t have her back and goes against her morals.

In the caption I wrote: She spoke up, she stood her ground and then she left all these narrow-minded people behind, choosing to walk alone rather than be silenced. She was the true spark amidst plain snow and she had to realise that the white peony she served was rotten. That day she escaped these golden robes, shedding this old skin which had gotten too tight, and stepped into the future that was hers and hers alone.

The white peony is the symbol of the Lanling Jin sect and while it shines brightly on the outside Mian Mian learned to see through the façade, recognising all the rotten parts she didn’t want to tolerate any longer. With her leaving the peony sheds its petals until it vanished from her life.

In my initial sketch Mian Mian is portrayed with the simple robes she wears underneath her Lanling Jin attire. Since I didn’t give Jiang Yanli her mourning robes and didn’t plan on drawing A-Qing in her white robes either it didn’t feel quite right, though.

The phrase “shedding old skin” and the image of a snake came to my mind. First I thought about experimenting with an actual snake or the pattern of its scales. In the end I settled on the Jin robes being that old skin and showed Mian Mian’s personal robes as the shiny new skin underneath. I wanted to show that she may be stepping out of the Jin sect, but that she is starting on a new, meaningful path.

(Drawing the Jin robes was quite bothersome hahaha. I took tons of pictures of me wearing a robe, but it was so slippery that I almost pulled a muscle while trying to make it look right in the photo. I spent an hour or so on it without any satisfying result and ended up drawing it from imagination after all.)

While I loved my sketch the execution was a p-a-i-n. Colouring her personal robes almost drove me mad and the face, the face was such a struggle. I think I redrew it four to five times. I still think I could have done better, but after days of trying to fix it I decided that perhaps I need some more months of practice to get her expression right (so I might re-draw her in the future).

A-QING

I didn’t think I’d enjoy the A-Qing piece as much as I did!! After having drawn three artworks I was worried that I may have exhausted all possibilities / ideas and that it would end up being a repetition of what I had already done.

I rewatched her episodes for inspiration. I watched all significant episodes of all the women I drew for that matter haha. The last thing we hear her say is directed at Song Lan, actually, which in retrospect surprised me. I could have sworn she talked to Xiao Xingchen last. Or Xue Yang (like in the novel). But nope, it’s our poor poor Song Lan.

Given that A-Qing died the youngest (I think?) I wanted to make her look younger than the other women, so I kept her head round and used pastel colours on her face.

I like moths (unless they eat my clothes or settle down in my food). Moths seek the light and in some way Xiao Xingchen was that light in A-Qing’s life. With the glow they symbolise A-Qing’s soul leaving her body through the lethal wound Xue Yang inflicted on her.

I placed one moth on her mouth as she has been muted by Xue Yang. The new moon in the background stands for the eternal darkness Xue Yang cast on her as moonless nights are the darkest.

For A-Qing I wrote in the caption: She couldn’t protect the man who had taken her in and cared for her. But she stayed. She became a lonely guardian, watching out for the remains of her lost brother in the silence and darkness which were forced upon her. Until that fated day when she gave her life so that the culprit who had shattered this tender soul would be brought to justice.

I finished A-Qing’s artwork way quicker than expected. The robes were tricky with all the torn spots and loose thread, but the rest came easy. I had lots of fun with the moths and the moon. And the glow. I love that cool light blue glow.

THANK YOU

All in all I really loved drawing this series and I thank you for your support, for your wonderful tags which make me smile and giggle and for every reblog and like! Whenever I have a hard time I revisit your tags and find strength within them.

#fytheuntamed #mdzsnet #the untamed fanart #mdzs #mdzswomen #cql #my art #my art 2020 #concept art

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wendibird · 3 years

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SPN 15X19 Observations

So, here we are. Second-to-last episode of this show and what has been said will be the Season Finale. (While next week’s is the Series Finale.)

Without further ado...

I don’t even know what to think going into this second-to-last episode. I don’t expect a “happy” ending to this show. But I can’t help hoping for a fitting one. One that makes some kind of sense. That does the characters justice. We’ll see how it goes. (Also, I want some GOOD content for Sam. *LOL*)

(Also, my notes might be sparse because I want to concentrate on the show.)

- Everyone’s gone.

- Except these three.

- Does Sam and Jack know about Cas?

- THEY DON’T KNOW YET!!! *crying* (To be clear, not upset that Dean didn’t tell them sooner. Since obviously there had to be a phone conversation at some point, or at least texting so they’d know where to meet up. THAT kind of news isn’t something to tell over the phone if you can help it.)

- The music is really playing this up well.

- Oh Jack…..

- And he’s still killing plants.

Commercial Thoughts:

I’ve said this again and again but I still don’t like how Chuck is being written. He might as well be rubbing his hands and cackling evilly.

That being said, this really is sadistic. One of the few things that’s kept Sam and Dean going through all of this has been the people they’ve been able to save. (Crowely caught on to that in S8 and used it to good effect. But he was like a sniper, precise with it. Chuck is like a fricking nuke.)

And Sam losing hope always makes me sad. (Have noticed the looks Dean keeps giving him. Still checking on him and how he’s doing and worrying about him.)

- This camera work is weird. Dream-like?

- DOGGY!!!!!

- omg Dean’s happy about a dog!

- WOW. That’s a new low.

- So, no animals? (Guess they’re gonna have to go vegetarian eventually if this doesn’t get fixed.)

- Michadam!!!

- WHAT?! (No Adam?! HOW DARE CHUCK!!!)

Commercial Thoughts:

Okay, Chuck taking Adam is a really REALLY low-blow! (But then, that might be what pushed Michael to decide to help them after all.)

Not surprised that Michael can’t open the book. Wondering if Jack can? Or they could call some reapers and see who wants the job of the next Death. *LOL* Hold interviews. “What will you do for us if we give you this promotion?” (crack thoughts, don’t mind me.)

I’m not sure if Chuck has realized that they have nothing left to lose. And that’s generally when people are at their most dangerous. (I mean yes, they have each other, but in the wake of what’s been lost? Literally the whole world? They can’t let that go. They can’t just sit back and treat it as a vacation. It’s not how they are.)

- CAS?!

- WTF?!?!?!?! (Did NOT want to see Lucifer again tbh. And apparently neither did Dean. *LOL*)

- Okay, so Lucifer promoted the next Death.

- Is he actually dead this time?

- One can only hope.

- YEY! LUCIFER IS DEAD AGAIN!!!

Commercial thoughts:

So…. what was the point of all that again?

Okay, I get that in the end, the book is open and now they can hopefully read it. Seems kind of convoluted. (Also, do NOT get me started on the whole “God and the Darkness have no pull in the Empty”. Unless God just replicated Lucifer, like I theorize he did with Lilith.)

Wondering if they just did all that to have Luci and Mark P. back one more time.

- Sam being his super-smart self! <3

- What is Sam not saying?

- Hey! Isn’t that the lake where Jack was born?

- FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!! Fricking Michael.

- Bloody winchesters

- That’s what Sam wasn’t saying. I don’t think they trusted Michael.

- Sam figured something out.

- Wow. That is some poetic justice!

- I’m actually impressed with that.

- So now what?

Commercial Thoughts:

Wow. Okay, that was a weird twist of a way to get there. But I’ve honestly got to say that I like it. It works. (I’d always hoped Jack would still be the key to Chuck’s downfall.)

I still feel sorry for Amara though. Like, is she just nothingness? Is she an alternate personality deep inside Chuck now?

And what about Jack? Can he put things back to how they’re supposed to be? Bring everyone back? Did he get Chuck’s knowledge as well as his power? At least of who all he took away?

Guess we’ll have to see.

Also, usually I’m not a fan of the trope of the “Good guys” sparing the villain who’s killed tons of people because “they’re above killing”. But in this case? It really was fitting. And a worse punishment than killing Chuck would have been.

- OH GOD I LOVE THIS SONG!!!!

- Sammy’s cafe!

- (Okay I’m getting a little misty)

- His smile!!!

- OKay, I might cry now.

- They raised God.

- Awwww….. (The names)

- Okay, so, I’m not okay! (But I’m okay with it, so… good thing?)

- So it ends with them doing whatever it is they want?

- I wonder if the Apocalypse World people were brought back? And their other friends. (And Eileen? I’m sorry, I know not everyone ships it, but I do, and now Sam doesn’t have the great Plot of the Universe conspiring against him.)

After-Show Thoughts: (After I’ve had a few hours to ponder things)

Let me just say, the music in this episode? Like, just even the background music? It was amazing! It did such a good job of invoking the emotions that were being felt by the guys. And their choices of songs used were also good. :)

Michael: So, in some ways his character shift in this episode seems odd after the last time we saw him. But then I thought more about it, and I think Adam’s death had a lot to do with it. In the previous episode in which we saw them, of the two of them Adam actually seemed to be more stable, and often had good, grounding advice for Michael. Now with him gone, all Michael had was himself. And at heart, he still wanted his father’s love, despite everything that had happened. And I still think he’s an interesting Parallel/Contrast to Dean, who also had the same father-worship for a long time, but over time he’s come to understand that John was wrong about a lot of things, and he needs to make his own way. I don’t think that’s something that Michael ever REALLY learned. Not deep down.

Lucifer: I found his presence here to be annoying. I get that he moved the plot along. And I get how much at least half of Buckleming love him. I am glad that his part was brief and that he didn’t get a redemption arc. I do wish Sam had been able to kill him. (I know, he couldn’t have because only another archangel with an archangel blade yadda-yadda. STILL though…) Or that there had maybe been SOME meaningful interaction between him and Sam for old time’s sake, since that always gets nice and spicy. (Because Jared and Mark P. always keep in mind everything that’s happened between them and put that into their performances.) But time limits and all that. Also, why were there no wing-shadows on the floor when Lucifer died? There were wing shadows on the floor of the friggen church at the end of S13 and he died like 15 feet up in the air. *LOL* I mean, then whenever Sam looked at the floor in the Library he could remember that Lucifer is Dead for Good.

And I just rewatched the scene again and when he died, he just went poof. Like, in the past, unless a finger-snap thing is involved that’s not what happens when angels die. If they get stabbed, there’s usually been a body left behind. Heck, at the end of S13 there was a full-on light-show. Now it almost looked like a regular angel death just with redder light instead of silvery-blue. Was that because it was just a thrown-together mock-up of Lucifer that Chuck made? (Like with Lilith? Because he’s NOT supposed to have any sway in the Empty! Dammit, how hard is it for the writers to remember the stuff that was already established?!)

(Sorry. Continuity issues bug me. And they’ve bugged me from Season 1 on, so I know that’s not a new thing. But it does feel like they’ve gotten especially worse this season.)

(Also, I’m starting to get tired so I’m going to try to wrap this up here. *LOL*)

I did like how they brought Chuck down. When it comes down to it, they weren’t following a pre-set plan. (Well, what happened probably WAS written in that book, but they didn’t know what it was.) Instead they found their own way with what they had. They figured out what was going on with Jack, and Sam figured out some bullshit spell to make some cool light-effects in order to fool Michael and Chuck into thinking they were setting it up for him. The only aspect of it that fell a little flat for me was the extended exposition on how they’d done it. It’s a trope that crops up a lot. The whole “Haha see what I did there!” But, on the other hand, I also realize that unless they’d shown us each step of the process as it was happening, there was no real way around presenting it that way. And it WAS more dramatic to have the audience in the dark until that moment. Also, I can’t deny the effectiveness of the scene where Chuck keeps beating them down but they keep standing up again. I mean, isn’t that an allegory for their whole lives? And at the end he’s incredulous as to why or even HOW they can still stand. What makes them keep going? True, part of it was that they knew the plan, and they knew this was part of it. (Which I think is why Sam opened it up with punching Chuck. To turn the confrontation more physical and draw it out, or he might have decided after all to just finger-snap them.) But part if it is also them just being them. They’ve both been down this road before. Like their whole lives have been this road. And they’ve both been to hell. Both suffered unimaginable tortures. And they just keep going. When one stumbles the other gets up. Or they get each other up. And they laugh in God’s face. Just… THAT was well-done. And Chuck's ending with them NOT killing him? That was absolutely poetic. Because now he's busted down to "normal" and has to figure out actual life (or just end his, but he'd have to do it himself) and he didn't even get an "ending" of his creations killing him. Because even if he did make them, he clearly still doesn't understand them. And I liked them saying "no" to the revenge game. (After making sure that he couldn't come back again as a problem. Cause they ain't dumb either. Despite what everyone keeps saying about them.)

I also loved the scene where Jack brings everyone back. I would have liked to have seen some shots of some of the individual ones that we’d come to know being back, like Donna, some of those AU people (Eileen!) but I also get this ep was shot during Covid so they probably couldn’t get as many people back. (I hope some of them at least get name-dropped in the next episode so we know for sure that they’re back and alive.) But anyway, I thought the scene was well done, that song was a GOOD choice for it! (But then, I am a bit biased. It’s among some of the music I grew up listening to because my parents had it.) It may not be classic rock, but classic folk is fitting for the new God. :)

Overall, I thought there were some pacing issues with this episode, but in general I was happier with it than the previous one. I’ve just been re-watching it (because I never catch everything the first time through, especially when I’m trying to take notes) and I just noticed something. Near the end when Sam and Dean are in the Library and Dean says “To everyone that we lost along the way.” I first was a bit puzzled about that, because my mind went to the more immediate people that they’d lost recently, and whom I’m assuming Jack brought back too. But on re-watching I thought about it in a grander scale. How many people have they lost in their lives due to Chuck’s story? Because Chuck thought it would make things more dramatic? I think he was reflecting on their whole lives, not just the last 48 or so hours. And that makes sense too with what Sam said following, about them finally being able to write their own story. (And yes, I know that Cas was not one of those brought back. At least, he doesn’t seem to have been. And though I don’t ship him and Dean, I don’t doubt for a minute that Dean cares/cared about him very much. It’s okay to love your friends. But I didn’t get the feeling that he was JUST talking about one person. That held the weight of years of losses.)

I thought the ending montage was brilliant! Honestly, if the show ended here, I would have been okay. Not saying I DON’T want another episode! I’ll take whatever I can get. And I definitely wouldn’t mind seeing where they take their story. So yeah, looking forward to the next (and final *cries*) episode.

Anyway, that’s about all I can really dredge up this late at night. *LOL* This will be the LAST time I do one of these knowing there’s more to come. It’s the last week we’ll all wait in suspense for what’s going to happen next. After next week's episode we'll be into new territory of "That's all there is and ever will be." This has been quite a journey, and I haven’t liked all of it, but overall I still love this weird little show, and even more so the characters that we've met through it. So, to quote Bobby, “Here’s to runnin’ into you guys on the other side.”

#dontspoilthefinalhunt #spn 15x19 spoilers #spn season 15 spoilers #episode review #my thoughts #sam winchester #dean winchester #jack kline #michael spn #lucifer spn #chuck/god

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sometipsygnostalgic · 3 years

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Adventure Time Reviewed - Season 1 Episode 6 to Episode 8

From The Jiggler to Business Time

S1E06 The Jiggler

This one is about the cautions of adopting cute little forest animals. I wonder why Finn and Jake are covered in so many bite marks? Why was that kingdom on fire? What was going on? How much trouble can one watermelon get into? Anyway this is the first episode to feature Finn’s autotune voice. I can’t remember the last episode he said something in autotune - there was the s6 finale, then a few scenes in season 7.

When they take the Jiggler back home, they Get Creative and escalate until they destroy their entire house interior. I think Princessss made an AMV Nightosphere gag about this. I love how chiptune noises play every time the Jiggler moves on day 1.

I always loved this episode. I thought it was very disturbing when the Jiggler gets sick, and then explodes. It reminds me of failed attempts to save birds or insects after my cats have gotten to them. I can relate so much to Finn and Jake here. Poor Jake having to keep himself together and look after his traumatized little bro. I love the OST of this ep. The soundtrack was uploaded to soundcloud once, along with Ricardio the Heart Guy. I love how artistic this ep is with the edible drawings and the painting of the jiggler’s mom. Very bright and colourful. I always found the momma jiggler’s cry to be... weirdly genuine.

S1E07 Ricardio the Heart Guy

This ep starts with Finn saving PB from Ice King, who humorously kisses Jake’s butt. PB gives Finn a kiss on the.... neck? hat? as thanks, and Finn’s crush truly begins. Oooooh boy. I always wondered in hindsight why Pb let the ice king roam free to begin with. That question is raised later in this season. Ice King kidnaps dozens of princesses daily and roams free, but Princess Cookie starts 1 hostage situation and is locked up forever. In the ep What Have You Done, it’s reasoned IK can only be punished for recent crimes, but... ehh, there are a few reasons. Pity? Old ties? Maybe she doesnt want to lock up a pathetic old man forever. There are some really funny statues of Finn and Jake in the castle, they look buff. I wonder who made these? PB commissioning them makes a lot of sense. Hey, it’s Peppermint Butler’s first speaking lines!!! “This style of massage is called Best Friend Massage. Because it can only be done for friends. It is completely consensual.” Well the first line from Ricardio the Rapist Stand-in is already incredibly sus. What’s even more sus is he’s apparently friends with LSP. I find it interesting that Ricardio is so intelligent. This must have been one of the motivators behind making Simon really smart. Ricardio is his heart, at the end of the day. Oh, Simon at the end of the show still has maracas in place of a heart. I wonder if that has health complications?

“I hear you appreciate ancient technology.” This is foreshadowing of MULTIPLE things now. One - Ice King being pre-war. Two - PB building everything out of pre-war technology. Three - The fact there was a war to begin with!!!!

Jake is trying to help Finn deal with his new emotions of jealousy (burning low war flashbacks) and he’s once again trying to make him happy, Jake never once considered the logistics of whether Finn and PB would ever actually go out, because it was far more important to him that Finn grow up and have the courage to listen to his heart. Jake encourages Finn’s crush to a fault, and provides lots of support to him when he’s heartbroken later on.

I love how PB and Ricardio were talking about dangerous micro-organisms and poor Finn has no idea how to approach the topic. I love how Zanoits are actualy dangerous and Ricardio uses them as a poison later. Anyway even PB can tell Finn is jealous. Finn is of the idea that she has no idea of his crush on her. Of course she knows. But from her side it’s exactly the same as Baby-snaps wanting to be a princess, or every other candy person doting on her - she thinks it’s adorable and completely fails to take the other person seriously. At least, until Braco comes along. Then you realise it’s a good thing she didn’t take Finn seriously, because she might have done something ridiculous like make him a robot clone of herself.

Holy shit, the duck from The Vault! I just made a post about it.

Anyway this ep provides a challenge to Finn or a test of his character, ironically through his own test of Ricardio’s character! Finn gets obsessed with proving Ricardio evil to the point that he gets easily baited into punching him, and doesn’t care that the Ice King is basically dying. Poor Ice King. At least Jake is here to approach the situation with a level head.

I was wondering as of late, with all the post-Obsidian sexuality discourse (in no way ignited by that one towel scene), whether PB was interested in Ricardio during this ep. It’s possible, and in the past, I thought “maybe”? But upon rewatch? No. She is only interested for as long as she can have scientific discussions with him, and as soon as his knowledge becomes lacking she has already used him for all hes worth. SAVAGE. But not as savage as him trying to rip out her heart. Ew, creep!!!

I should say that Ice King wanted to cast a spell that would force PB to fall in love with him. He’s NOT safe, he’s dangerous. He’s especially a danger to PB. He does kill her twice at the end of season 2, after all. Once again I don’t know why she hasn’t locked him up LOL. Anyway, even if he did cast a love spell, she wouldn’t change any of her decisisons. It’d just make her sad, like it did at the end of The Suitor. There was that one time PB tried to make a love potion but we don’t talk about that. Ice King does demonstrate some concern for Bubblegum’s welfare when he reveals Ricardio’s plan to literally murder her. Ricardio’s plan here is pretty slapstick violent, and it’s funny watching Finn beat him up, but when he returns in season 4, it’s far more... personal and insidious. As in, here he could be seen as a jokey stand-in for a predator creep, but in that later episode he 100% sexually threatens her and forces her into a non consensual relationship, making it very satisfying when PB beats the shit out of him instead.

Holy fuck I forgot about this joke. Golden.

S1E08 Business Time

For some reason, I don’t feel like there’s a lot to say about this ep. It doesn’t demonstrate any remarkable characteristics of Finn and Jake themselves. Instead, it seems to be more of an inside joke.

When they find the business men, Finn and Jake at first feel like the business men are helping them work more effectively with their assists. However, the boys end up just being lazy, and not realizing that their workers are messing everything up. You can sympathise for the business men because they’re just doing what they were told to do. This all seems to be metaphorical for when Pen and Patrick McHale started work on the show, and they got tons of help from Cartoon Network staff. They wanted to do everything by themselves, but ended up having to delegate. Maybe they feel lazy for it?

What makes this episode EXTRA SPECIAL, however, is its confirmation of the Great Mushroom War. By the time the season had released, the first shot of the intro was already Mushroom War bombs. There was also a reference to the war in the previous episode, where PB and Ricardio shared an interest in��“ancient technology”. However, the only reason those references exist is because of THIS episode - This is the one they were working on when they decided it should be post-apocalyptic. They made the human zombies, and the icebergs filled with human junk, and then every GMW reference we see in the show is down to this decision.

I enjoy the physicality of this ep. Finn and Jake crash through the entire gauntlet. Finn’s still wearing his fire resistant glove as he does it. They get covered in bruises, because they... like pain? I liked when you could see Finn’s sword legit being shinier, and his shoes having bouncing noises. And I want to be hydrated! I loved how smushy Jake was when he became an ice cream monster. I love the colours of the Fluffy People. S1 has this unique art style compared to the rest of the series. They often draw white outlines to white things, it works nice here.

#adventure time #adventure time reviewed

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shirtlesssammy · 4 years

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15x04: Atomic Monsters

Then:

Becky was an obsessed, gross fangirl, and it was not awesome.

Now:

We open to the bunker under attack. Dean is in full beard and kicking ass. Boy, the director of this episode sure knows how to make Dean pretty. He makes it to the bunker’s kitchen to find Benny (!!!!) on the floor dying.

I don’t rewatch Taxi Driver for a reason, Show. I loved Benny and Dean’s friendship, so while this was great just to have him back for old time’s sake, it still makes me sad that he’s still gone. (And spoiler, this is Sam’s dream. I just like to think about how Sam still thinks about this friendship he didn’t want Dean to have and it haunts him to this day.)

Dean’s looking for someone. He walks into the war room and finds him: Sam, all powerful on demon blood. Dean tries reasoning with his brother, but he’s past all that. Sam kills another hunter sneaking up on them, and then he kills Dean.

Sam wakes up from his nightmare, gasping. SAM!

He heads to the kitchen to find Dean looking for cases, drinking coffee, and eating a plate of bacon. Dean says it’s veggie bacon when Sam tries to turn down eat some. Sam also tells Dean that his self-proclaimed nickname “Meat Man” isn’t what he thinks it means. Dean apparently knows exactly what it means and he’s standing by it. Ahem. Dean also calls Sam out on not handling their recent losses. The Just Brothers show is a real bummer.

Anyway, the case Dean found is in Iowa. There’s been a string of cattle mutilations and a young woman’s body found ripped to pieces.

Also, it was real bacon and Dean’s a dick for trying to trick Sam into eating it.

At Beaverdale High School, Sam learns Susie, the vic, was a popular girl and there’s going to be a prayer vigil for her at the school. Two parents show up asking about the game getting canceled --or rescheduled. They’re just can’t have that happen. There was going to be a scout coming to that game for their son, Billy.

Sam is appalled (and I’m sad for him, so close to losing family he cared about.) The vice principal shuts down the pushy parents, and after they leave mutters, “I swear, the parents are worse than the kids.”

Sam meets back up with Dean (eating again). Dean was just at the morgue and found a vamp fang. This one’s a weird one. Vamps don’t usually tear their victims apart. Also, she didn’t even try to fight off her attacker.

Later that night, a fellow student leaves the school only to be attacked by the camera in the bushes!!

Sam and Dean check out where Susie was found. No blood means she was killed elsewhere and her body was dumped in the woods. Sam soliloquies about how taking care of the monsters is their job and they carry the weight of everyone. Dean drinks from his flask. They are coping SO WELL, guys!

Sam gets a call that another girl is missing.

WHOA. Becky, fangirl and Sam kidnapper extraordinaire, is married with kids and is looking forward to having the house to herself for the day. Just as her husband and kids pull away, she sees her old ex, Chuck, across the street. Run, Becky, Run! Chuck wants to talk. UGH.

The VP fills the brothers in on the new missing teen.

Chuck checks out Becky’s maquettes and learns that she’s a successful Etsy seller of Supernatural merchandise. She fesses up to how wrong what she did to Sam was, admitted to counseling. She kept writing. She wrote the good stuff, amirite? Chuck disagrees and thinks that people like the monsters. (Natasha: raises hand.) Becky’s a busy person so Chuck better cut to the chase here. Chuck won’t let the whole monster thing go.

Chuck admits to having a falling out with the Winchesters. He also tells Becky that his sister won’t help, because “she sucks.” Becky can’t believe that Chuck thinks he can come crawling back to her. She’s got a good life now. She doesn’t need him.

Becky’s nice though (can’t believe I just wrote those words), and asks Chuck, what makes him happy. Writing. She tells him he has to write.

Back at the high school, Dean is interviewing a man in a beaver suit while eating a hot dog.

JESUS CHRIST ON A CRACKER. (I’m conducting an experiment with my GA co-worker about Dean is bi-Dean/Cas. I can’t wait to hear what she says about this. She did call The Breakup a “bro-fight” so I’ll keep you all posted.)

In the school gymnasium, Billy and Veronica bond over losing Susie. Billy’s mom interrupts and he runs away.

The third-in-line-to-the-throne cheerleader practices her eulogy alone in a gym. I obsessed over this scene in this post about stories, because it was such a strange beat in the episode. The Winchesters confront her. They ask her to head off with them alone (GURL never do that with anyone you don’t know) when Sam notices that she wears braces.

Sam and Dean leave the gym in a huff. Vampires don’t wear braces! Foiled by braces yet again! They go back to the drawing board.

We finally get a peek in the happy lacrosse family’s home. Everyone’s argumentative and on edge, and when we get a closeup of the dad he’s washing blood off his hands in the sink.

The camera pans through the house to the garage where the kidnapped cheerleader, Tori, lies bound and gagged. UGH.

Chuck experiences the downside of Becky-in-momland: no booze! Chuck complains that he can no longer see Sam and Dean in his head and subtly touches his hidden bullet wound. Ooooo. Becky lays out some truths for Chuck. “You’re a writer. A writer who’s not writing. And when a writer’s not writing, they feel sad and they get lost. Why do I feel this way? Why am I so sad and lost? And what is all this naval gazing and hair pulling amount to in the end? Procrastination. Distraction. Just one million ways the writer avoids doing the one thing that is guaranteed to make the writer feel better. Which is…”

“Writing,” Chuck finishes the thought. Go Becky! Except…um…now Chuck is inspired to write again. And when Chuck writes? The world ends.

Chuck takes over Becky’s computer (RUDE) and starts his next opus on supernaturalstory-onebillionparallelworlds.com.

Sam and Dean check out the security footage from the night Tori was abducted. They nab a suspicious vehicle and a license plate which lands them at...Billy’s house.

At Billy’s house, strife continues to be the word of the day. The parents argue that they want what’s best for Billy - whatever that is. Sam and Dean head inside, looking as dangerous as panthers.

Sam heads for the garage while Dean cues the dad into a little fun fact: they’re not FBI. No, they’re considerably scarier than the FBI. Dean pulls out a machete which is probably NOT FIELD ISSUE OKAY.

Sam discovers that the girl has been hooked up to an IV - she’s become a slow-release food source. The mom interrupts them with a GUN.

Danger mom escorts Sam and the cheerleader back to the living room where they have a gun vs. machete stand-off. Obviously Dean would win this matchup, okay? He’d probably, idk, stop the bullets in his teeth or something.

Becky reads over Chuck’s work. She adores it! Chuck pushes for some notes. She asks for higher stakes and while we get distracted by her rambling about the lack of classic rock and Cas, Chuck’s expression grows GRIM and DARK and VERY SCARY. (Good job Rob, you talented cinnamon roll!)

“You want jeopardy? You want danger? I’ll give you danger.” Thanks for the trip to CREEPY TOWN, Chuck.

Billy heads downstairs and witnesses the confrontation between the Winchesters and his parents. Dean does his usual monologue, explaining how the dad got turned into a vamp, tried to eat cows, and started eating teen girls instead. But Sam observes Billy and points out something very different. “It’s not the dad, it’s the son.” Billy confesses: he was kissing his girlfriend when he lost control and ate her instead. Man, I HATE it when that happens.

Billy told his parents, who covered it up. They kidnapped Tori as a longer term feed option. But now their son lays it all out. He’ll take the fall for everything, including Tori’s kidnapping and assault. And he’ll take a one-way ride with the Winchesters.

UGH now everything is terrible. Dean executes the son in a dark wooded area as the rest of the world washes any trace of the supernatural away.

Back with Chuck, Becky finishes reading his higher-stakes take. She’s disturbed. “You can’t,” she pleads. “This is just an ending.”

“Yeah,” Chuck says, pleased. “I don’t know how I’m getting there, but I know where I’m going.” That destination, to be specific, is just a tombstone with the word WINCHESTER on it. (Can I get a hell yeah for this meta-awareness and roundabout promise that we WON’T get this ending?)

“You can’t do this to the fans!” Becky insists. But she’s prevented from saying more by her husband’s sudden return. She starts to explain the presence of Chuck, when Chuck just ZAPS her husband out of existence. Her kids call out and BOOM they’re gone too. I start to get worried that we’re gonna have some sort of icky reverse-Misery situation here when Chuck decides to zap Becky away as well. (Can’t wait until Becky kills God at the end of the series, guys!)

In the car, Sam directly parallels Billy to Jack. Dean admits that he wanted to “cash out” in the crypt, but that Sam’s insistence that they matter pulled him back. (Me: RLY?) Sam’s bitter. Dean’s tense. “We still do the job,” Dean says. “We do it for Jack. For mom. For Rowena. We owe it to anybody who has ever given a damn about us to keep putting one foot in front of the other. No matter what.”

Dean goes on to say that with Chuck gone, they’re finally free to “move on” and EXCUSE ME while I go throw myself into a Destiel trash bin at that phrasing. Sam’s not in the Destiel trash bin with me, because he tells us he still mourns Jessica and now we’re HURTING for other reasons. SAM BBY!

Back at Becky’s house Chuck continues to write...INSIDIOUSLY. I can’t wait for Chuck’s next book: Sad Boys in the Impala.

______________________________

Read These Quotes Backward for a Demonic Spell:

The end of the world is the end of the world

They have no idea what’s out there

But people LIKE monsters

I need wine

Why am I so sad and lost? And what is all this naval gazing and hair pulling amount to in the end? Procrastination. Distraction. Just one a million ways the writer avoids doing the one thing that is guaranteed to make the writer feel better.

Nobody even mentions Cas

To see your child in pain rips your heart out

We can bury them out back. Under the peonies. Everything is going to be FINE

Fans are gonna love it

Oh, Becky. I can do anything. I’m a writer

We do the ugly things so that people can live happy

Monsters are cool. What? They’re all teeth!

______________________________

#spn recap #spn 15x04 #atomic monsters #dean winchester #sam winchester #chuck shurley #becky rosen #benny lafitte #supernatural season 15

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millennialzadr · 5 years

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WHY I LOVE ZADR!!!

HEY GUYS WHASSUP? LMAO

So this is a whole ass giant long post of me absolutely spewing my feelings of love for ZADR, it was the very first thing I wrote when I made this blog and I think it’s a nice, positive thing for my fellow shippers to inhale and enjoy 👌👌

it was originally a reply to mitarashiart’s post about why HE loves ZADR (link in replies) but I decided to delete that and make my own post since MY WHOLE ENTIRE TEXT WALL WAS SHOWN IN THE REPLIES and drowned out anyone else who was trying to talk (thanks tumblr mobile u fuckin idiot)

I had also posted a summary of an AU that I’m working on in the original post, but decided to remove it since it just about doubled the length (I’m thinking about posting it separately along with the wips I’ve been putting together, we’ll see 👀)

But ANYWAY, here is about a million reasons why I think ZADR is the fucking best, so if you like reading gushy gay ship feelings, please enjoy ❤️❤️❤️

[Posted June 2019][WARNING, LONG ASS THOUGHT BARF]

SOOO, holy hell y’all my journey back into this fandom has been a wild and unique experience for me, i went from adding invader zim to my bookmarks on kisscartoon, rewatching the series, finding out theres a movie coming out, finding out there was a shitload of content i’d never seen before (commentaries, lost episode scripts and audios, panels, the COMIC, episodes i’d never seen because the dvd i used to watch was scratched!! and a FUCKLOAD of quality modern fan art like oh my GOD) and finally curiously googling ‘zadr’ (which i was way into when i was maybeee 13/14) to see if there was any interesting new art, and holy hell, mita (the artist above) singlehandedly THREW me down the hole into modern zadr hell, first with his absolutely stunning IZ art (all his art is dope tho check him out yo), then reading the above explanation put the final nail in the coffin like, 100%

so i wanted to add onto his post here on why this ship got me so fucked up, both for anyone who might be wondering why on earth i’m shipping two characters from a kid’s show (i’m very aware how weird that is at first glance trust me) and also so i can get some ideas down for possible future reference (will i ever draw them? maybe)

(first of all, a disclaimer, and this is not pleasant to write but it’s important to address for clarity’s sake: I have no interest in romantic or sexual relationships between minors, and do not ship zim and dib as they are presented canonically in the show (as children). what i’m interested in is the conceptualized relationship they may have as modern adults, and i view zadr more as taking the concepts of existing characters and experimenting with them with different interpretations, which i personally think is a constructive and fun creative outlet, especially if these characters hold personal significance for you (childhood faves of course). growing up together is an important facet of their relationship, and certainly they were important to each other even as children (see: mopiness of doom) but as an adult i’m personally curious about what kind of adults they might’ve become, and that’s the focus of my interest. i’ll still be reblogging regular IZ art because it’s dope but if you see shippy looking art of them as tiny lil beans its either friendship or chibis (and i personally headcanon zim as getting taller with dib but some people stick with his canonical height when drawing them as adults, which is super short. it still doesn’t mean he’s a kid). aaand i wish i didnt have to write this and it would just be obvious but we live in a sick sad world and it is sourced from a children’s cartoon so i feel its necessary. end of disclaimer)

NOW THAT THAT’S OUT OF THE WAY

- ok, first reason’s a bit obvious - the nostalgia. holy hell, the feeling of rediscovering a ship that was popular when i was a preteen during the mid 2000s and discovering a totally new perspective on it as an adult comes with an almost totally overwhelming sense of nostalgia and comfort, as well as inspiration!! the kind of art that seems so common for zadr, these sketch pages of scenes and expressions and visual gags where artists would just scribble every idea they had and LOVE doing it, this was exactly the kind of art that made me so passionate about drawing as a kid, and it still sparks such a powerful feeling of love and admiration for me to this day. fan content of iz and zadr is simultaneously achingly familiar and totally new and fascinating, and it just makes me SO damn happy to consume, it is most definitely my new comfort content. and just, GOD. THE ART!! SO GOOD. FUCK

- now for the characters themselves: for some reason i just really love the thought of a mid twenties, modern Dib?? lanky goth dork, disaster bi, depressed as shit, uses bad sweaters and memes to cope?? when i was a kid i didn’t even LIKE Dib, but now i totally sympathize with him! he’s just a hyper obsessive nerd wishing there was more to life than the situation he got stuck with, how wildly relatable. he was a pretty big asshole as a kid (even to people besides zim) but he was also totally isolated and constantly bullied, so there’s a lot of room for growth. i feel there’s a lot of juicy character development potential for that boy, and there’s always been a special place in my heart for characters who are totally sad and screwed and hopeless, but there’s one thing, or person, that means the world to them and could possibly save them…

- aliens. Zim. i love nonhuman characters, i love monsters, i love aliens, i love characters that don’t understand human shit (and thus have much less room for shame or fear bc theyre just totally oblivious the negatives of modern society) and need guidance (bonding!!) from their human. i also love morally grey characters and characters with skewed logic, they’re always really interesting, and Zim himself just has such a unique personality and set of mannerisms, he contradicts himself a lot and you can never quite expect how he’ll behave, and i love that in a character, it makes them super versatile and fun, especially since there’s so many different possibilities for their development. Also, Zim is a gremlin, a little shit, and a disaster. I also love those traits in a character. And don’t even get me started on his character design?? big sparkly eyes? expressive antennae? monster teeth? complimenting colors? he’s adorable.

- mutual obsession. for someone like Dib, who seems almost repulsed by how boring and slow the people around him are, Zim quite literally personifies Dib’s escapist fantasies, both as an inhuman entity from beyond the stars, and as a person who’s knowledge, charisma and mystery far exceeds that of anyone Dib has met in his entire life. (so basically what i’m saying is that for a shunned, jaded misanthropist, an actual alien is terribly alluring, even if said alien is dangerous, stupid, and possibly insane). not to mention Zim vindicates Dib’s entire life passion, the supernatural! Even when their relationship is totally negative, there is not a single inch of room for Dib to get tired of Zim. as mita explained, they validate each other. for Zim, WHO AGAIN, IS TOTALLY SHUNNED, ISOLATED, AND HATED BY EVERYONE HE KNOWS, Dib is the only person in the universe who gives a single shit about him!! he gives Zim credit as a threat, a capable invader, which if you ask me is the sole thing Zim is after (he’s hellbent on his mission because it would win him the approval of the tallest, all he’s ever wanted is recognition from the people he thinks so highly of). He literally gets depressed when Dib isn’t around to pay attention to him, not even the tallest were enough to motivate him before Dib came back. these two have no one and nothing without each other, and while lifelong nemeses is fine and dandy, i personally prefer friendship, affection and love, cause i’m a softie like that. how could they possibly get there after years of actively trying to kill each other?? well, i think under just the right circumstances it could become a possibility after a long, long time.

- growth. i. love. me. some. good. character growth. especially for characters with trauma/mental illness, bc again, relatable. these boys have issues, and as mita mentioned, their canon stories are actually INCREDIBLY sad! but the happy thought is, they could recover! they could help each other recover, for little reason other than the two are the only source of happiness for each other. now of course this also opens the gate for angst lovers, but at the same time offers potential for comforting, uplifting content of the boys supporting and inspiring each other, maybe even to the point of becoming happy and healthy enough to create the lives they want for themselves (as in appreciating life and doing things that make them actually happy instead of the delusions of grandeur they both sought when they were younger). gimme that positive shit and let the poor beans be happy щ(ಠ益ಠщ)

- LITTLE THINGS. LITTLE THINGS THAT ONLY COME WITH CHILDHOOD FRIENDS. WITH HUMAN/NONHUMAN. WITH THE SHOW’S WEIRD LOGIC. Zim being the person Dib knows best and vice versa. Zim having an involuntary respect/admiration for Dib because he’s tall. Learning each other’s needs, limits, and communication methods, both emotionally and biologically. Sensitive antennae. Affectionate bickering. Being less insecure bc your partner literally has no idea why you see your flaws as flaws. Laughing at the flaws they do notice because they make no sense. Zim only wanting to eat waffles and chow mein. Dib being forced to overcome his depression lethargy and stay hygienic/keep the apartment clean because Zim has a sharper sense of smell and is afraid of germs. Endless conversation about anything and everything because they’re from literally different worlds, and endless intrigue. TOUCHING. TALKING. DOING EVERYTHING LIKE ITS THE VERY FIRST TIME AND ALWAYS NEEDING THE OTHER TO GUIDE THEM. HOLY HELL THERE IS SO MUCH POSSIBILITY FOR TINY LITTLE MOMENTS THAT MEAN THE WORLD. FUCK. GOT ME FUCKED UP.

so that wraps up the why. fuck man. its just such a good ship. if you read this big ass text post, thank you for indulging me, i hope you enjoyed it! because i enjoy it very much 👀 so stick around if you’d like to for a shit load of IZ and zadr content on this blog, possibly (MAYBE) even from me!! come roll around in alien hell with me why dontcha ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ its a fun time! thanks for reading!!!

SO THAT’S MY MANIFESTO Y’ALL, FEEL FREE TO REPLY WITH YOUR OWN REASONS!! I WOULD LOVE FOR THIS POST TO JUST BECOME A BIG GIANT PILE OF LOVE AND YELLING!! GO NUTS! SCREAM ABOUT IT! INFODUMP! DO WHATEVER YOU WANT! I’LL READ EVERY LAST REPLY! Y’ALL DESERVE TO ENJOY YOUR SHIP BC IT’S LITERALLY THE FUCKING BEST!!! LOVE Y’ALL!!!!!!

#in this trying time of shippers being stressed over discourse #i offer a gift<3 because i love you guys #and we should spread the love #i want yall to go OFF #tell me every little fuckin thing about zadr that makes ur heart doki OK #LETS GO 👏👏👏#invader zim #zadr #text post #my post #long post

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goldenkamuyhunting · 4 years

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Manga vs Anime: Episode 1 "WenKamuy”

So since it seems we will get a Golden Kamuy 3rd anime series, I thought it wouldn’t hurt (at least not too much) to rewatch the 1st and 2nd series plus OADs and compare it with the manga version because there are quite a lot of differences between the two and it would be interesting to point them out…

Okay, okay, I’m not sure I’ll manage to go through it all but well, we’ll see.

Now, for this I’ll use the Blu Ray version of the anime and the volume version of the manga. Keep in mind it’s a ‘manga versus anime’ rambling, so I’m not going to compare the TV version and the Blu Ray version unless something REALLY different happened.

We already know the Blu Ray version is drawn better than the TV version and people way better than me has already made comparisons between the two so I’m not going to try to make another. Sorry about it.

It’s also worth to mention that, as manga and anime are two different medium, differences between the two are meant to exist and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Anime have the potential to improve thinks… or worsen them. I’ll consider differences case by case.

So let’s start.

Some data first.

This episode last 23:42 minutes and doesn’t have an opening, just the ending. It covers 2 chapters of the manga, the 1 & 2 for a total of 90 pages as those are pretty long chapters (I’m discounting the covers).

And now into the anime.

When the narration for both manga and anime is the same, I’ll tell what’s going on only once and later I’ll dig into the minor differences if there are some, when the scene differs in a relevant manner I’ll tell what’s going on for the anime and what’s going on for the manga.

INTRODUCTION

Manga: In just an info box we’re told we’re in Meiji 37 at 203 hill. Below it there’s supposedly 203 hill, drawn in a not really noteworthy way.

Anime: On a black background appears the writing of the year we’re with, Meiji 37 (1904) then a much better than the manga view of 203 hill with the additional writing we’re in the Liaodong Peninsula, Lushhun.

My two cents: The anime was much more informative and with a better visual and took advantage of how it could introduce the scene with much more atmosphere than what the manga did.

PREPARATION OF THE BATTLE

Manga: We’ve a panel of the soldiers in the trenches in which all the soldiers are in green EXCEPT for Sugimoto, who’s in red immediately drawing the attention on him and on how he’s placing his bayonet on his rifle, a hint something violent is about to happen.

Anime: We’ve a long shoot panning on the Japanese soldiers in the trenches, from two different positions, without drawing the focus on one of them.

My two cents: Personally I like a lot the manga choice but I understand the anime can take advantage of longer times and its choice isn’t bad either. It gets you into an atmosphere of historical anime and calm before the storm. Also, for a Japanese viewer, it could be interesting to see how the Japanese troops were positioned.

SUGIMOTO EATING THE ANT

Manga: We first see the ant on Sugimoto’s finger, then Sugimoto’s face, then him eating the ant. Although he spits it claiming it’s sour in the manga this isn’t really visible as the panel in which this happen is small.

Anime: It starts the same, by showing us the ant but then it doesn’t show us Sugimoto’s full face, just his mouth as he eats it and then spit it claiming it’s sour. Only after this we’ll finally see his face, even if it’s only a profile and not a close up as the manga. The visual the anime chooses is interesting as the camera shows us Sugimoto as if it was peeking at him from under the arm of another soldier, the arm ending up on framing Sugimoto’s figure and giving him a certain relevance. Basically the visual of the scene reminds me of the first panel in which Sugimoto was shown in the manga, the one in which he was drawn all in red to better identify him.

My two cents: The manga takes advantage of the close up to show us Sugimoto isn’t in his best state as there are many stress lines under his eyes and his lips are chapped but it’s overall not noteworthy, it’s just a way to make us see well his face. The anime choice is more artistically interesting. We see Sugimoto’s lips are chapped but overall we get the impression of a tougher guy and drawing mystery on him by not immediately showing his face causes viewers to notice him more. I’ll say the anime did a good job here even though it seems more focused on showing us Sugimoto’s toughness than the misery of his condition as a soldier (by the way seeing Sugimoto eating the ant without hesitation ended up reminding me of Upashy-chan’s sad end… really, I should have expected Sugimoto would have eaten him but…).

SUGIMOTO SAYS HE’LL EAT RUSSIANS IF HE DOESN’T GET FOOD

Manga: The scene is merely a panel, Sugimoto looks firm in his statement he won’t die here but nothing exceptional. Of course, coped with the previous scene in the page in which he ate the ant we get the message even more.

Anime: Sugimoto looks much angrier in the anime compared to his manga version as he says he’ll eat Russians and FINALLY gets a close up. It makes him look more dangerous but also it makes harder for us to know if he’s a bad guy or a good guy (unless you’re really against Russia or pro Japan and therefore you’ll judge whoever is fighting Russia automatically as a good guy).

My two cents: We’re just at the beginning but the anime subtly start giving us a different view on Sugimoto. If in the manga he’s someone worn out and desperate to survive, in the anime he seems rather angry for the situation he’s in, even his eating of the ant seems more dictated by anger mixed to hunger than just by hunger.

THE CHARGE

Manga: The charge… is really short here, it almost seems that as soon as the Japanese got out of the trenches (we can’t even recognize Sugimoto among them, they just jump out at the same time as a single body) they were immediately brutally murdered by the Russians. It’s desperate and gruesome (the holes in their bodies are giant sized and they all seem to be hit) and gives a sense of futility as if they were just sent to death.

Anime: The charge is much more detailed compared to the manga, the anime taking full advantage of how it can animate it. Although there’s a huge focus of Sugimoto charging while screaming angrily, we also see the other soldiers jumping out of the trenches and various other details like the cannon shooting and the soldiers advancing running and then cutting the barbed wire, the explosions hitting the ground and the Russians using the machine guns. The scene is a lot less gruesome overall, sure we see some dead soldiers and we see some soldiers being hit but this translates in us seeing some small spray of blood coming out of them.

My two cents: The anime gives out a more detailed feeling, which is good, but also makes it look more heroic and less gruesome than the manga so we don’t really get an immediate feeling that ‘war is terrible’ but just that we’re at war. Of course this probably couldn’t be helped as anime tends to be less gruesome than manga due to the different target at which they’re aimed… but it’s a pity the idea that ‘war is terrible’ gets toned down as the damage war caused to Sugimoto and Co was an integral part of the story.

SUGIMOTO GETS HIT IN THE NECK, CHARGES ANYWAY AND REACHES THE RUSSIAN TRENCH

Manga: This basically takes the third and last panel in the spread pages that showed the charge. We get a close up of Sugimoto’s face and the hole made by the bullet, although not as big as the ones on the other soldiers, is clearly noticeable. Considering how all the other soldiers died in a gruesome way if we forget how Sugimoto was in the spread colour page with the title, we might even think that Sugimoto, the guy we’ve just met and who expressed his wish to survive no matter what, is going to die there and his death will become a tragedy relevant to the plot. War is just gruesome as, as soon as men charged, they’re shoot brutally. However, as we turn the page we see that although Sugimoto faltered for a moment and seemed to faint, his pupils and irises disappearing, they came back a panel later, his irises going white and he resumed charging screaming and with a ferocious look, as if that wound had been nothing to worry about, before immediately jumping in the enemy trenches.

Anime: We don’t see any hole, we just hear the sound of a shoot and then Sugimoto seems to fall backward, blood spraying out of his neck. Honestly I’ll question how the anime portrayed the almost fall of Sugimoto. They basically stretched it for too long, making it look as if he has reached an angle from which it would be impossible for him to recover and return standing straight.

The anime focuses on his eyes, depicting them impossibly open then Sugimoto gains pack his footing (how, I don’t know) and, screaming, Sugimoto charges the Russian. His cap shadows his face, making it creepy and his open wide eyes with the irises reduced to tiny dots give him a crazy look. Sugimoto resumes running and although the Russians resume shooting at him they can’t hit him so that Sugimoto have no problems jumping in their trench.

My two cents: Honestly my only qualm is against Sugimoto’s almost fall in the anime. They pushed him too backward for him to recover balance. At this point they should have just let him fall. Also the major time spent on Sugimoto’s run toward the trench play against the anime because here we see how Sugimoto runs STRAIGHT toward a trench but the machine guns right in front of him don’t hit him again not even once, which makes him look as if he has a convenient plot armour that causes the bullets to avoid him or implies the Russians have a pathetic aiming skill as Sugimoto is just too close to miss. The manga’s choice to have Sugimoto IMMEDIATELY leap in the trench has if he’d been really close to them might be a little unrealistic as well (as it’s unlikely he was already that close) but you just don’t notice as the action is so fast you don’t get the time to think this charge had simply been TOO FAST as if the Japanese and Russian trenches had been really close by. In the anime instead the oddness of Sugimoto not getting hit when he’s SO EXPOSED and PROGRESSIVELY CLOSER is easy to immediately notice.

In the manga the scene of Sugimoto getting hit also seems to mark the switching for poor hungry soldier to berserk for Sugimoto, where in the anime he seemed already aggressive enough remarking how Sugimoto wasn’t an inborn aggressive person but it was just his survival instinct who drew out his aggressiveness.

SUGIMOTO GOES BERSERK IN THE TRENCH

Manga: Sugimoto’s slaughtering of the Russians is brutal but well done and it seems to make perfect sense he takes them one after the other, the manga showing us a Russian after the other, almost as if they got not time to defend themselves as if they were caught on surprise. Sugimoto’s expression as he challenges them to kill him and tells them to die (not to go to hell) is clearly crazed, no light in his eyes and his irises clear. As he does so we see a balloon calling his name, ‘Sugimoto Saichi-san’, preparing us for the transition from this scene to another in a smooth way.

Anime: The anime expands the scene, showing that Sugimoto is surrounded but evidently Russians commanders never read the ‘The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord’ list which is also an useful reading if you’re just going to become a commander of men and especially never read point 75 ‘I will instruct my Legions of Terror to attack the hero en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time.’ As a result although Sugimoto is surrounded they don’t attack him en masse but one at time, watching him as he murders their companions, so that he can finish them off one after the other easily enough.

Although the anime was faithful enough to the manga, they also did their best to tame everything down so that it only look gruesome in insight. The scene ended differently from the manga as Sugimoto, after blinding the Russian, screams like a madman ‘he’s Sugimoto the immortal’ before the scene switches abruptly.

My two cents: Boys, the Russians watching Sugimoto as he fight their mates one after the other and not trying to stab him with their bayonets in the anime didn’t add to the drama of Sugimoto being surrounded, it made only look the Russians dumb. Had at least the anime depicted them as frozen on the spot because scared by Sugimoto it would have worked a little better but like this it felt just stupid. Overall though the anime makes things easier for the viewers, as it placed a lot of focus on Sugimoto and the fact he’s ‘Sugimoto the immortal’ so the anime viewers will remember this better and will also understand HE’s the main character… although this Sugimoto seemed much more aggressive than his manga counterpart as we weren’t shown him having a not angry mode. The transition is abrupt and in a way the fact we learn in the anime that this guy is ‘Sugimoto the immortal’ where in the manga we first learnt he’s ‘Sugimoto Saichi’ and only afterward we learn he’s Sugimoto the immortal, remarks how the anime finds more interesting ‘Sugimoto the immortal’, the awesome and ferocious fighter who never dies versus ‘Sugimoto Saichi’, the person who ended up tossed in the war. In short the anime is more interested to what it presents as Sugimoto’s heroic side than to Sugimoto’s human side.

SUGIMOTO AND GOTOU

Manga: The transition that started when Sugimoto told the Russian to go to hell and was called by name by someone continues here. Sugimoto’s eyes are still wide open but they seem more normal and his image is actually reflected in water. In the following panels we realize even though he has his army cap he’s not in the army anymore, he’s dressed like a commoner, his hair is longer and he is panning for gold with a rocking board. He turns and we see a man with a bottle is the one who was calling him with the implication if Sugi hadn’t answered him immediately was because he was either lost in war memories or in his task. The man asks him how’s going and Sugimoto recognizes him, asking him if he’s drinking again before complaining he can’t find gold and giving us some historical info in the process as well as letting us know the gold is the reason why he came in Hokkaido and how he wants money, he NEEDS it. From Gotou’s dialogues we get although he’s just warming himself at the fire and drinking he’s also a gold panner but acknowledge he, like Sugimoto, is an amateur and many other like them never found a thing. Gotou also suggests Sugimoto to use the rifle he has to hunt, to which Sugimoto replies he would have even more problems to gain something as a hunter hinting at how his aim is poor and remarking again how he needs a ton of money fast.

Anime: The anime switchs from the previous scene to an image of another mountain, the writing telling us now we’re in Hokkaido, near Otaru.

We’ve then a couple of images of the place,

They images of Hokkaido aren’t ugly but not noteworthy enough you’ll remember them. We switch to Sugimoto searching for gold in a river. This point is also where we see the title of the episode ‘WenKamuy’ which in the manga is the title of the second chapter, the first being titled ‘Sugimoto the immortal’. The method used by Sugimoto to search for the gold is expanded in the anime compared to the manga as first Sugimoto uses a catcher to move the rocks on the rocking board and then uses it to pan. Gotou calls Sugimoto twice, first just ‘Sugimoto-san’ then ‘Sugimoto Saichi-san’ but Sugimoto won’t reply to him. All the dialogue I mentioned before which was in the manga is cut.

My two cents: The anime transition is less clever and much more abrupt than in the manga but it’s a transition that’s much simpler to follow as it cut the scenes and then tells us exactly where we are. All this hints to how how the anime isn’t trying to be artistically clever in its choices, just as simple and immediate as possible. The fact that the views of Hokkaido aren’t something that you’ll remember for their beauty isn’t really a good thing. Most of Golden Kamuy is focused on reconstructing Hokkaido, Noda’s homeplace, as it was back then and giving us info about it. The anime had the chance to make it also much more visually interesting than the manga but it didn’t really focus much on it (the basically cured more how they depicted the battle scene). Golden Kamuy anime scenery are often hardly remarkable and people won’t really go around showing screenshoots of them. Titling the episode ‘WenKamuy’ an Ainu word Japanese viewers might not know, instead than ‘Sugimoto the immortal’, can make viewers curious and, since Sugimoto has already introduced himself and the episode isn’t just about him, it works well and in itself is a good commercial choice. I also like how the anime paid more care in showing how Sugimoto searched for the gold. What’s not so good is the lacking of characterization in Gotou but in Sugimoto as well. In both versions Gotou calls Sugimoto twice but, while in the manga we could assume Sugimoto didn’t immediately answered because he was lost in war memories and therefore he didn’t immediately registered Gotou calling him (he seems startled by his voice), to then turn toward him when he finally does, hinting to how Sugimoto is still plagued by the war while in the anime it seems Sugimoto is ignoring Gotou, especially if you consider how he never turn toward him, making him look less social than what Sugimoto actually is. Cutting the dialogue between the two means cutting Gotou’s characterization almost totally but also Sugimoto’s as well. In the anime we don’t know Sugi clearly knows Gotou by a while and is in an amicable relation with him (showing Sugi isn’t really good at recognizing murders first glance) and his hurry and need to find the gold are skipped as well as the reference to his poor aim which will become relevant when he’ll miss the bear later. In short cutting all this is bad and personally I would have found a better idea to keep it than to expand the Russo-Japanese war scenes.

GOTOU POINTS OUT TO HOW SUGIMOTO IS A WAR VETERAN WHO WAS NICKNAMED SUGIMOTO THE IMMORTAL

Manga: At this point Gotou questions Sugimoto on his past as a war veteran, on how he was called ‘Sugimoto the immortal’ because he fought like a Kishin (a Japanese wrathful deity, for more info look here), the visual showing us Sugimoto murdering a soldier in a brutal way, and that he survived and healed fast from any sort of wound. Sugimoto confirms the stories are true as he can’t seem to die and Gotou remarks how it’s unbelievable a war hero like Sugimoto should supposedly be is living as a pauper, panning gold. Sugimoto says he got no rewards because he almost killed an official. Gotou laughs and implies he doesn’t believe in anything of all they said but still he likes Sugimoto, his face red as he’s clearly drunk.

Anime: The scene is overall similar in dialogues. The visual of Sugimoto killing the soldiers is creepy but less gory as Sugimoto is now standing on a pile of corpses with a creepy look. Although it’s possible to speculate he’s murdering the soldier he’s holding, despite this being animation the scene seems much more still than in the manga and the focus is on Sugimoto’s creepy expression and not in what his body is doing. The result is if you aren’t a manga reader you might miss Sugimoto is slaughter him. Sugimoto won’t confirm he can’t die and will FINALLY talk to Gotou only to tell him he didn’t get a reward for his actions because he almost killed an officer and now he needs money. Gotou will laugh but won’t question Sugimoto’s works as if he believes them.

My two cents: Again the characterization, although in a smaller measure, is changed. Sugimoto not replying to Gotou at first paints him as less social than in the manga. His only reply can be read two ways, either he’s trying to scare Gotou into leaving him be (he almost killed an officer he didn’t like and so far he acted like he didn’t like Gotou) but, considering he didn’t say it in a creepy tone, it can also make him look a bit pathetic (he’s just there because he needs money, he doesn’t want to brag about his past and wants to be left quiet). However is desperate need to find money doesn’t really come out from all that (we get he’s poor but doesn’t sound desperate as he did in the manga where he kept on remarking he needed a lot of money fast) which will influence how we’ll perceive his participation to the gold hunt and his worry for Umeko. Gotou really seems a random bystander who just stumbled on Sugimoto for the first time and questioned him, making me wonder if the anime decided they didn’t want Sugimoto to be friendly with him because they didn’t want Sugi to be friend with a murderer. Gotou’s lack of questioning of Sugimoto’s words enforces the idea the story is absolutely true.

THE CHAT ABOUT THE GOLD

Manga and anime: At this point Gotou decides that he’ll tell Sugimoto an interesting story because he likes him and he’ll basically explain him about the gold rush, the Ainu collecting gold, the gold getting stolen, the thief getting captured and tattooing the prisoners telling them to escape as well as the escape of the prisoners, how they’re still uncaught and no one knows about the gold. Sugimoto tries to question him as he seems to know a lot about it, wondering if it’s another tall tale as in the past Gotou told him he saw an Ezo wolf which Sugimoto claims should be extinct. Gotou however has fallen asleep and Sugimoto, who has stopped searching for gold, dresses up and comes near the fire as well.

Minor differences between the two:

- In the manga Sugi turned toward Gotou when the man told him he would tell him an interesting story. In the anime he does so when Gotou says his story deals with gold, stopping in his track and remaining in an hunched position for a while listening to Gotou.

- where the manga shows us gold panners, the anime shows us a map of Hokkaido, just in case viewers don’t know where Hokkaido is and how it looks like, gold falling on it.

- When we see the corpses of the Ainu we can see that the head of one of them is cut, a hint they were chopped into pieces. In the anime that’s not the case.

- When Gotou says how much gold was stolen in the manga Sugimoto seems surprised, in the anime sceptical.

- In the anime we see that when Gotou says one of the guards was an horrible man in the anime Sugimoto finally stops trying to pan for gold and fully turns toward him while Gotou makes a gesture that implies cutting something.

- When Gotou asks Sugimoto what would he do to escape from Abashiri, in the manga Sugimoto is smiling and apparently enjoying the story as he claims he has no idea how he would do and asks Gotou to hurry and tell him. In the anime he just stands there, looking serious as he asks the same.

- The anime shows Nopperabou’s eyes and how they’re big and blue something the manga kept hidden.

The visual also seems to imply all the tattooed prisoners were around Nopperabou when he told them to escape so they could have half of his gold.

This is not in the manga. The line to how the bodies spent so much time suffering together is also gone.

- In the manga when Sugimoto question Gotou’s story he’s again smiling. Sugimoto clearly seems to take this as some sort of tale, not a real story but he’s intrigued. In the anime Sugimoto is serious as he questions Gotou’s story. He will remain serious until Gotou will explain one needs all the tattoos to decrypt the code. At this point he’ll smile as if approving the idea.

- In the anime the prisoners’ had and feet are unharmed but the same isn’t true for the anime where they sport cuts and scars and are overall pretty dirty.

We also clearly see a glimpse of Hijikata’s grinning mouth, a scene absent in the manga.

- In the manga for once we aren’t shown in details the corpses of the soldiers killed, although one seems to be without pants. In the anime we get a good view of them and they all wear their pants.

- In the manga when Sugimoto asks ‘then what?’ he seems curious, but he’s not smiling, in the anime he’s grinning. In the manga Sugimoto will grin only when he’ll ask where Gotou heard that story while in the anime his face will be kept hidden at this point.

- the anime shows Sugimoto dressing up and noticing Gotou has fallen asleep. He then finishes dressing up but before he can wear his scarf we get a glimpse of the scar of the wound he got in the neck… which the manga showed us when Gotou turned toward Sugimoto.

My two cents: As in the anime so far Sugimoto has been extremely unsociable, it feels weird how Gotou opens up with him. One might wonder if Gotou wants to show off BADLY or if he’s just a VERY talkative guy, much more than in the manga where the two had a good relation. It’s very good how the anime had the good sense to keep the whole story as it was told. Regarding the visual differences, Sugimoto turning toward Gotou when he heards the word ‘gold’ makes him look like he’s much more interested than in the manga since so far he had been ignoring Gotou, but only because the story Gotou is sharing talks about gold. In the manga Sugimoto paused and turned when Gotou just told him he would tell him an interesting story, hinting how Sugimoto was okay with making a break just to hear Gotou talking. The scene of the gold falling on Hokkaido is a nice touch. Nopperabou’s apparition with hands dripping blood is dramatic and well done. I’m not really sure why the anime felt the need to change Sugimoto’s expression, making him all serious and making him grin at a different time. It gives me the feeling Sugimoto is taking the story more seriously in the anime than in the manga. The anime glossed over the poor treatment of the prisoners but it was nice it referred to it visually, by showing the poor conditions of their hands and feet. The spoilers about Nopperabo’s having clear eyes and the glimps of Hijikata’s face are actually a nice touch if you ask me. On the other side showing the convicts being all around Nopperabou is wrong as such thing couldn’t happen or the convicts would know each other and this is not the case. The anime should have kept this in mind. The anime choice to keep the part in which Sugimoto claims Gotou told him other stories makes Sugimoto’s initial coldness toward Gotou even more marked. It basically seems as if Gotou isn’t someone he’s friendly with but someone who comes to bug him with lies.

THE DREAM/FLASHBACK

Manga and anime: During the war Toraji invites Sugimoto to go with him in Hokkaido, once the war is ended, to pan for gold as he wants to find money for his family. Toraji claims he has to hurry then entrusts Umeko to Sugimoto as he cries. When Sugimoto turns toward him, Toraji’s limbs are missing and he claims he can’t go back to Japan as he starts sinking in a red sea, Sugimoto crying as he is unable to stop him.

Minor differences between the two:

- In the manga Toraji first said he wanted the money to allow his kid to study, so he would grow up smarter than him and then in order to have a good doctor look at Umeko’s eyes as her eyesight is getting worse. In the anime though, Toraji doesn’t mention his kid.

- In the manga, when Toraji says relationships between America and Japan will go downhill at the end of the war Sugimoto questions this, saying they’re in good terms with the Americans, a line cut in the anime.

- In the manga the scene of Toraji being limbless is gruesome, intestines and bones coming out of him and we also see other people in the sea in which Toraji is sinking, in the anime is less so. Toraji misses his limbs but there are no intestines or bones in the view, nor corpses in the sea of blood (although there’s something but they seem to be scraps of clothes and nothing more).

My two cents: Overall this is transposed well although I don’t get why the mention to Toraji’s son was cut (they shows Umeko has a kid on his back so it’s not like anime viewers didn’t know about him). Even if tamer than the manga the sinking scene is pretty well done.

GOTOU’S MURDER ATTEMPT AND SUGIMOTO’S WAY TO DEAL WITH IT

Manga and anime: Sugimoto wakes up from his nightmare to discover that Gotou is pointing his rifle at him, claiming he had told him too much. Sugimoto grabs the rifle and points it at himself, asking him if he wants to see if he’s really immortal before hitting him with a rock, getting back the rifle, removing the safe and charging it. At this point Gotou escaped.

Minor differences between the two:

- In the manga Sugimoto has tears in his eyes when he wakes up, the same isn’t true for the anime

- In the manga when Gotou point his rifle at Sugi he’s pretty creepy (his attempt to charge him where not visible, we only hear the sound of it) while in the anime it’s clear he doesn’t know how to use it well as we’re shown how he’s not good at charging it so his attempt at creepiness fails flat.

- In the manga Sugi is attentive when Gotou says he said too much, before grabbing the rifle and pointing it at himself, in the anime he seems emotionless.

- In the manga Sugimoto is really excited when he realized Gotou’s tale might be true, he’s all sweaty and his eyes are open wide, while in the anime he’s grinning but he looks a lot calmer.

My two cents: I really, really, really mourn how the anime decided not to show the tears in Sugi’s eyes as they well delivered how much the matter hurt him to the point he won’t just dream he cried but he’ll cry in his sleep. Gotou being more clumsy than creepy and Sugi being more emotionless/calm aren’t really good choices either, the first because it lowers the tension, the second because it makes Sugimoto less emotional (Sugimoto is a very passionate person) in an attempt to make him look cooler but okay, they aren’t that big.

SUGIMOTO, GOTOU AND THE BEAR BEING KILLED BY ASIRPA

Manga and anime: Sugimoto tries to track Gotou down claiming if he let him go Gotou might come to kill him. He ends up finding his body buried in the snow. When he pulls him out he discovers a bear killed him and ate his guts and that Gotou has a tattoo on his body which tells Sugimoto Gotou was one of the prisoners. Sugimoto tries to take Gotou away and sees a cub bear before being attacked by the cub’s mother. He’d like to use his rifle but the sling got tangled in Gotou’s leg. He falls off a slope but the bear chases him and when he’s about to rip him apart the bear is hit by an arrow. Sugimoto turns to see an Ainu girl is the one who hit the bear.

Minor differences between the two:

- In the manga the scene of discovering Gotou was eaten is pretty gruesome as we see a huge hole where his stomach used to be and his spinal cord, while in the anime it’s pretty tame as there’s just some blackness and blood.

- In the manga Sugimoto is simply more expressive than in the anime, which yes, sometimes makes him more comical but also more lively and relatable.

- In the manga Sugimoto’s fear for the bear is clearly visible thanks to the use of close up, increasing the drama. In the anime not so much as they don’t really close on Sugimoto’s face and have him merely look around.

- In the manga Sugimoto tries to escape climbing the trunk against which he had fallen, in the anime he has fallen already on the other side of it and the bear is immediately after him.

- In the manga Asirpa is just calm and serious where in the anime she seems much more tense and ready to throw another arrow.

My two cents: This part is pretty faithful to the manga, scenes often drawn as they were. Yes, it’s less gruesome but it’s okay, I’m not in Golden Kamuy for the gorey. Sugimoto keeps on seeming less emotional than in the manga, the anime trying to make him look as if he’s less scared while, ironically, the apparently emotionless Asirpa looks more emotional in the anime. I can’t really say I approve of this as Asirpa being emotional in the beginning and then slowly warming up to Sugimoto and becoming more emotional was part of her growth and of her improvement in Sugi’s company. It’s again no big but it’s still detrimental to the characterization.

THE ANIME PLACES HERE AN EYECATCH

THE AFTERMATH OF THE BEAR’S DEATH, SUGIMOTO’S ATTEMPTING TO ALLY WITH ASIRPA AND THE CUB’S DEATH

Manga and anime: Asirpa deals with the corpse of the bear and finds out the bear isn’t the one who killed Gotou and tells him he has to leave Gotou where he is or the bear will chase them. As Sugimoto refuses she tells him he’ll have to kill the bear but she’ll point out how this will be dangerous and how the weak will get eaten. Sugimoto then decides to involve her by showing her Gotou’s tattoo and telling her he has an interesting story to tell her. We’re then shown how the bear who killed Gotou now has killed and eaten the bear cub and is searching for him.

Minor differences between the two:

- In the manga Sugimoto helped holding the bear paw out of the way for Asirpa to open the bear up. In the anime he didn’t.

- In the manga when Asirpa says the situation is bad for you her expression is almost mocking and Sugimoto worries a lot. In the anime she’s just serious nor she specify it’s bad ‘for Sugimoto’ and Sugimoto is not worried, just serious.

- In the manga Sugimoto’s uncomfortable yet funny expression as he says he wanted to carry Gotou to a village is clearly visible, in the anime not so much as the camera is not closing up on him.

- In the manga Asirpa’s calmness and lack of emotional reaction make her look more adult, in the anime she frowns when Sugimoto says he can’t do as he says, looking like an upset child, the camera high above her, making her look even smaller, her voice being more emotional as she asks if Gotou is part of Sugimoto’s family and that important to him.

- Again in the manga Sugimoto seems more afraid of facing the bear (we can see he’s sweating, making his smile a nervous smile) than in the anime where he just grins in a cool manner.

- In the manga Asirpa is outright scary as she says the weak gets eaten and even if she’s much shorter than Sugi the angle of the image makes her look as if she’s towering over him. In the anime the camera is still above her, although not as much as before and she doesn’t look scary at all.

- In the manga Sugimoto seems more hesitant to involve her, he’s sweating as he thinks at what to do and he’s still sweating when he starts telling Gotou’s story to her, in the anime he just lowers his head a bit frowning determinately, no sweat involved which implies less nervousness in involving a kid in this.

- In the manga the scene of the bear eating the cub is gruesome, in the anime not so much as the bear doesn’t eat the cub, it only steps above him after he had killed him.

My two cents: While the overall plot hadn’t been changed I don’t really like how the anime tends to have the camera above Asirpa, subtly remarking she’s a child because it takes away authority from her. In that moment Asirpa wasn’t a cute child, she was an Ainu hunter and Sugimoto should defer to her and that’s why he involves her, because he realizes he needs her. It’s a subtle matter of characterization, it seems minor but it affects how we see Asirpa.

SUGIMOTO AND ASIRPA’S ALLEGIANCE

Manga and anime: Sugimoto tells Asirpa the story Gotou’s told him, thinking to how he’s doing this for Toraji and Umeko and remarking how he’s desperate for money and she agrees to help as one of the men killed was her father. Then she instruct him on what to do. They prepare by lighting a fire and Sugimoto moves the corpse near to hit when Asirpa notices that due to the way the tattoo is done the man doing it intended for the prisoners to be skinned. The two then prepare to fight the bear.

Minor differences between the two:

- In the manga after thinking he’s doing this due to his friend’s request Sugmoto thinks at Umeko calling him ‘Saichi-chan’ and at himself calling her ‘Ume-chan’. In the anime this isn’t present as the camera merely focuses on the image of Umeko in the photo and on her apparently empty eyes.

- In the manga Sugimoto is desperate as he loudly says he needs money more than anything, in the anime just sad yet determinate.

- In the manga Asirpa is first surprised then shocked as he realizes the truth behind the tattoo, in the anime just serious.

- In the manga when Sugimoto says their only option is to kill the bear he holds his rifle, in the anime that’s not the case.

My two cents: While normally in the manga Asirpa was more emotionless, when she expressed emotions those stood out well, and it was important they would stand out well when she realized the truth behind the tattoos. In the anime this doesn’t happen so the scene ends up seeming more tame when instead what Wilk did was pretty terrible. On the other side it’s okay for the anime not to have Sugi get the rifle as the manga did so only to end the episode in a cool note and Sugi won’t hold it in the next chapter but in the anime the scene continues without interruption so it would have been pointless to have him getting it only to place it away.

CHAPTER 1 OF THE MANGA ENDS HERE

PREPARATIONS CONTINUE, THE BEAR ARRIVES AND A BATTLE ENSUES

Manga and anime: Asirpa explains to Sugimoto what a WenKamuy is, how they need light to fight and what to do to keep the fire on. The bear appears and destroys their bonfire. Sugimoto punches the bear to no result. Asirpa tells him to grab onto the bear’s belly as she tries to aim at the bear. Asirpa throws her arrow at it but Sugimoto stabbing it causes her to hit the head and therefore be ineffective. The bear then runs after her stopping her from throwing another arrow. Sugimoto ends on the ground and Asirpa pulls out her knife but Retar appears and attack the bear. Asirpa instruct Sugimoto on where to shoot the bear but Sugimoto misses but the bear charges him and jumps on him ending up on stabbing himself on Sugimoto’s bayonet. Sugimoto though shows he survived and when Asirpa comments on how he used an Ainu method to kill the bear Sugimoto explains it was a coincidence as his body just moved on his own and asks her to help him getting out from under the bear. They also exchange names.

Minor differences between the two:

- In the manga Asirpa’s explanation is a bit more detailed while in the anime they cut it short.

- In the manga we see Sugimoto’s expression as he says humans are weak but that’s not the case in the anime.

- In the manga Sugimoto and Asirpa carry a big amount of long wood, in the anime it’s just Sugimoto, Asirpa wandering around with her torch doing nothing, and the amount Sugimoto carries is a lot less and smaller.

- In the manga Sugimoto and Asirpa are more worried that the bear is there compared to the anime both of them sweating profusely.

- In the manga Sugimoto’s expression as he tries to hit the bear is scared while in the anime he seems confident.

- In the manga Asirpa is worried as she tries to aim a second time. In the anime she’s calm.

- In the manga Asirpa is clearly pushed down by the bear. In the anime well, it seems almost as if she had jumped back on her own.

- In the manga Retar seems scarier than the anime.

- In the manga Asirpa goes back to looking emotionless as she tells Sugimoto where he should shoot. That’s not the case in the anime.

- In the manga Sugimoto seems much closer to the bear than in the anime when he shoots it.

- In the manga Asirpa smiles when she comments on how Ainu use that same technique and she’s surprised Sugimoto knows it. In the anime she’s serious.

- In the manga when Asirpa helps Sugimoto get out from under the bear they grab each other wrists, which is much more functional, in the anime they grab each other hands.

- In the anime it’s when Asirpa helps Sugimoto to get out from under the bear she explains to him what a Sisam is. In the manga it was explained by a note when Asirpa realized Sugimoto managed to grab to the bear’s belly.

My two cents: Again the anime tampered with the characters’ expressions to no good end. The worst part though is when it placed Sugimoto farther from the bear so as to excuse his failure at hitting it in the right spot. They also changed the way Asirpa helps Sugimoto to get out from under the bear, likely to turn the gesture into a symbol of allegiance as if they were shaking hands. It’s less functional and in the manga it could still represent helping each other instead than just joining forces.

RETAR, ASIRPA’S STORY AND THE FORMING OF THE ALLIANCE

Manga and anime: Sugimoto asks where ‘that dog’ went. Asirpa shows him where it is and explains it’s a wolf not a dog. Later Asirpa explains Sugimoto what she knows about the incident with the gold while taking care of the corpse of the bear. Sugimoto suggests they’ll join forces to find the convicts but Asirpa points out this would mean to kill and skin them. She then gives him part of the bear and explains him how to sell the various pieces of the bear. Sugimoto claims half of the bear should go to her but she claims she wants nothing of it and wants just the first bear she killed as that other bear killed a human and Ainu do nothing with such bears as it did evil and will end in hell. Asirpa concludes she doesn’t want to kill anyone. Sugimoto comments if killing people sends you to hell he’ll clearly go there, thinking back at how he did so in the war. Sugimoto explains, as he skins Gotou that the gold wasn’t found yet but that if it were to be found the guy who killed her father would be murdered as it would become useless and remarks that’s what Asirpa wants. He promises her he’ll be the one getting his hands dirty asking in exchange for her wisdom as he wants the money and she wants revenge so their destinations are different but the path is the same and together they’ll be unstoppable.

Minor differences between the two:

- In the manga Sugimoto is worried about the white dog in the anime he isn’t.

- The anime adds the image of Asirpa looking at the howling Retar lovingly.

- In the manga Sugimoto comments on how Asirpa’s village wasn’t informed about Nopperabou being captured or about the tattoos because likely the ones involved in the case are trying to find the gold themselves. The anime cuts this bit.

- In the manga when Sugimoto says to find the gold Asirpa asks him what’s his plan if he plans to track down and the convicts and what he would do with them, pointing out the one tattooing them wanted them to be killed and skinned. In the anime when Asirpa asks about his plan Sugimoto replies they’ll track the convicts and then she asks him what he plans to do with them, asking him if he would kill and skin them.

- In the manga Asirpa says she’ll ask the villagers to help her take it home, in the anime this is cut.

- In the manga the memory of Sugimoto killing people is pretty gruesome. In the anime it’s just a close up of Sugimoto pointing his rifle around.

- In the manga when Sugimoto smiles thinking he’ll go to hell his lips are unheven, hinting he might be not so content with the idea but smiling to hid his nervousness. In the anime he looks perfectly calm, his lips a straight grinning line.

- In the manga Sugimoto pants a lot as he skins Gotou, his hands sweaty, in the anime that’s not the case and we later even see him grinning as he skins Gotou.

- In the manga Asirpa is uncomfortable as she hear Sugimoto speaking of how her father’s murderer is still alive, in the anime she’s just serious.

- In the manga Sugimoto looks highly uncomfortable as he holds the skin while in the anime he’s okay with it.

- In the manga Sugimoto turns toward the viewer with a smile as he says he and Asirpa have the same path. Asirpa also is looking in that same direction albeit she looks again expressionless. In the panel below them the manga shows a pile of tattooed corpses. In the anime the scene ends with Sugimoto and Asirpa looking at each other, both serious the anime never showing the tattooed corpses.

- In the anime, after the theme (it’s actually the opening theme but this time is used as ending theme on a black background) we see a man with a white cape finding tracks of the fire Gotou and Sugimoto light. This scene is absent in the manga.

My two cents: While the anime tried to tame down things by not showing how gruesomely Sugimoto killed people, ironically made the skinning worse. Sugimoto panting and sweating hinted how he wasn’t okay with it in the manga, in the anime he grins and doesn’t pant or sweat, which makes him look perfectly comfortable with skinning a man. The anime has a weird way to go with Asirpa. When she’s emotionless in the manga it gives her emotions, when she has emotions in the manga it draws her just serious. Personally I also think the ending of the manga is more powerful compared to the one of the anime and hints at how this supposedly cool allegiance stands on the idea of a pile of tattooed corpses (and therefore is not a good thing). On another side the idea of showing a glimpse of Ogata already hunting for tattooed prisoners generate expectation for the next episode. We can’t know if he’s a soldier, another prisoner or a mere bystander casually passing by after all but the fact he’s holding a rifle makes him look dangerous.

TO SUM IT ALL

The first episode is by no means bad as a transposition although it made some questionable choices.

It was okay to remove the gore to make it more appealing to viewers but here and there they changed the characterization and, while the changes seemed minor, ultimately they impact with how a viewer, who’s not aware of the manga, will perceive the characters.

This is detrimental to both Sugimoto and Asirpa as in the attempt to make Sugimoto look cool, he looks cold and less human while Asirpa looks more like a child and less like an authority in hunting as well as ‘more boring’ since he’s constantly serious while in the manga alternated moments of emotionless to moments of emotions.

Also in the anime it’s a lot less noticeable how Noda subtly criticizes war as a source of trauma in men and the killing of people to get the gold.

The quality of the animation and the care of the backgrounds and visuals is nothing special (and okay, I know you want to hear me saying so, therefore yes, the bear is poorly animated, had they simply drawn him it would have looked better) and so is the direction of the story.

Personal impression here, I’ll have to say the musical background is not ugly but nothing impressive and wasn’t always present. Honestly no song remained within me. Think just at when Sugimoto has his nightmare. At first there’s a tame, gentle music but then the music disappear as Toraji shows himself limbless. There’s no music to underline the trauma of that moment, same as there was no music during the attack in the war or when Gotou pointed the gun to Sugi. The music we hear when Sugimoto begs for Asirpa’s help just doesn’t seem to work to me.

Still this episode can be good enough you’ll watch the second episode but it’s definitely not something that’ll make you want to sing praises for it’s animation.

An anime based on a manga has it ‘easier’ as the plot is already created and all it should worry to do is to improve or at least well represent it. It’s okay to change or cut things, as long as they improve the story or better transpose it into animation.

“Golden Kamuy” in this episode doesn’t really makes anything noticeable except maybe adding details to the Russo-Japanese war and to the method to pan gold, it can work to promote the manga but nothing more. Compared to an anime like “Boku Dake ga Inai Machi” which beautifully transposed the manga on which it was based it definitely shows itself to be inferior.

Well, this was all for the first episode. We’ll see if I’ll manage to talk about the second.

#Golden Kamuy #Sugimoto Saichi #Asirpa #Wilk #Hijikata Toshizou #Golden Kamuy Episode #Golden Kamuy Manga vs Anime

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venus-says · 4 years

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Star Twinkle Precure Episode 47

The funniest thing about this entire situation is that the characters that are snakes aren't the one that has a snake motif.

I think no episode of precure has ever got me so thorn and confused as this one. I've rewatched the episode, I've thought about it over and over, and I still don't know how I feel about this episode.

The first part is not the problem, I liked it a lot that was a sealed deal already on my first watch. Seeing the aftermath of last week's battle was interesting, I appreciate that they didn't forget about the seed they planted in that episode on Tenjo's planet, and I liked seeing the interactions with the villains. Aside from the Hikaru, Lala, and Kappard interaction that I didn't care that much, all the other moments were pretty good. Yuni and Eyewon are always a joy to watch, Tenjo and Elena had a very beautiful moment where they shared an emotional "I'm sorry" and "thank you", but by far my favorite interaction was seeing Madoka being sincere with Galogre and saying she doesn't know if she completely forgives them all but she's ready to move on and she doesn't want to hold that grudge, which to me sounds like an amazing lesson.

The raid to the previous Nottraiders' layer was also pretty good, even though we didn't have the best drawings and animation this week. It's always good to see reformed villains fighting evil alongside our heroes and in this case, it wasn't different. It was a short moment but it made me happy.

What came after it though... that's where lies my problem with this episode.

I say problem, but it's not a problem that much, I do have a problem near the end but it's a different issue from this one.

After the first portion of this fight, that was basically just stock footage spam, we get a very long exposition that expands the mythology of this world, it also serves as the backstory for our villain, and ON TOP OF THAT it acts as a twist, and... I don't know, the fact that it was way too much new information being dumped at us made it kinda difficult for me to process everything new I was learning and I also couldn't process my feelings very well which caused me a lot of confusion.

And it's not that those revelations were bad, I think it's very interesting that the princess shared half of their power with the entire universe to give all sentient creatures imagination, it also can be used as an explanation of why they were so weak in the last episode, I mean after sharing half of it with the universe and having probably 90% of the remaining power being on the star pens and inside Fuwa it's not a surprise they couldn't even hold a simple barrier. There was also something very cool in seeing how shady the princesses were by holding all this information. Though... let's be honest, it was a very jerk move to make the vessel of your powers a sentient creature, and how inconsiderate they were by then giving said creature to be under the care of other beings knowing that said vessel would disappear once their ritual was completed and let whoever was in charge of the vessel emotionally destroyed. Now that I think about it Greek and Nordic gods are all ruthless like that so, I guess they're in character.

And you know, I had fun slowly processing each information and developing my thoughts and opinions on them, but when I was watching the episode my mind was going to all different places trying to put this picture together and it was very hard to have a clear image of the situation because every new sentence we had more new things being added to the mix and I was completely lost at that moment. And it's a scene that lasts for quite some time so you can guess that it wasn't as fun to be this lost for such a long time which affected my opinion on this episode. But of course, this is just my experience, maybe my brain is too slow, so I don't hold this grudge against this episode.

HOWEVER, as I mentioned before, I do have a problem here that to me is a fundamental error that makes me think low of our main character (and our supporting cast too to some level) and also puts my hopes down that the ending won't be something that's gonna make me salty. This is a thing I commented in the last episode as well and it is how the priorities of this team are all messed up. Like, I get it, Fuwa is your friend and you care deeply for it, and if the stakes in this situation were a bit lower I feel like I would be more empathetic towards Hikaru's hesitation, but we're talking about THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE being in danger of being wiped out, this isn't a matter of saving/protecting Fuwa. Yes, it's cruel, it's sad, but even Fuwa knew what was the right thing that should've been done there, like what's the point of saving Fuwa if there's no universe after it? Maybe I'm rushing and already disliking this because it's set in my mind that they'll bring Fuwa back from the dead somehow in the next episode and they'll banalize her sacrifice with some dumb Deus Ex Machina, maybe I'm being dumb for disliking that a show aimed at kids is taking a lighter route to reach its ending, but if I came here and said that I like it and that this feels right I would be lying.

I don't know, I thought that making this post and writing down my thoughts would clear things up and I'd feel better about this episode but this somehow this just made me even more confused, I NEED HELP. What did you guys think about it? Please enlighten me with your knowledge, higher beings that read my words, I'm desperate here. I'll try to rewatch the episode a couple of times more and see if I have other thoughts and if I do I'll come back here to say what changed or what didn't so, I'll see you guys sometime soon.

#Star Twinkle Precure #precure

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tamersa · 5 years

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I’m thinking about W and OOO a lot lately (writing fics rewatching some parts etc) and I like OOO as a series more. Still I wanted to know why so I made this VS battle for my own amusement:

MAIN RIDER: Battle between Eiji And Shotaro: Its hard one, both are interesting, have good plot twists, their characterization so nicely made and they both likable. Yet it is Shotaro win here: so relatable, and his range of emotions is great to! The Thing is Eiji was made to be”dried up” and thats the reason why his mental and emotional behave is like it is. First round winner : W THE ONE NEAR MAIN RIDER (LOL): So now it is Ankh and Philip: This one is bit easier. Ankh has way more screen time and is it written so much better. They do have some similarities: both are mind power of the dynamic duo, have some issues with the previous families, crazy hair style and have doubts about their Rider ( or other half) intelligence. The thing is Eiji takes almost no shit form Ankh when he cross the line too much. The Birb man has to pay for his mistakes and sometime the price is huge. Philip on the other hand has his tragic background but his mistakes are sugarcoated by his partner and not addressed at all. Because of that with more modest screen time his character is not as fleshed out as it could be. Mor rant on Ankh below hehehe Second round winner: OOO FEMALE CAST: In OOO we have: Hina, Chiyako and Satonaka, while W give us: Akiko, Wakana and Saeko. I like Hina I really do, but they didn't use her gimmick as good as they could. She should have throw more barrels or something! Also bit too passive sometimes? Chiyako is spot of supporting chara, funny warm energetic. Yes, good. Satonaka has her good points too: taking no shit from anyone and treating her work as well, work and not some life mission. But then we go to W side and oh boy, Akiko, my love! She is just the best Rider lady I even saw! Funny, dorky, has more to do, has the slipper, is actually useful even if not have special powers. Well thats debatable too, that wand made from slippers did work lool. But yes even if she is mostly comic relief, because of her Xtreeme was possible! Also She found that devil's tail. And got that name in her dream. She has guts has flaws also but really. I love her to bits. Wakana is interesting too: spoiled princess who suddenly has responsibilities. And Saeko: the dark lady with twisted desires, helping her hated sister in the end. Undoubtedly this round has one Queen:

Third round winner: W SECONDARY RIDER Terui Ryu vs Date Akira and Gotou Shintaro. Well its two vs one and it shows. Terui has that tragic background, and his bitterness fades away so he could be true city defender. Yet for me it was done bit clunky. There could be put more emotions and struggle into it. He looks cool in the red leather tho. Also he and Akiko are cute together. On the other hand Date and Gotou dynamic is so pure. Also Date is hilarious as hell! Both him and Ryu use Rider suit for other purpose than defend others at the beginning ( well money and revenge), but Date is somehow nicer since the beginning. And Gotous is cute guy who has his own little expansion ark. So yes, sorry red boy, those housbandos win this one. Fourth round winner: OOO VILLAINS On one side we have Sonozaki's and X foundation, On the other well Greeeds. It looks like one side have more villain types so it would win but... Sonozaki family makes Gaia Memories to make super humans and then let only them to live on this planet because some Earth tears or something. Experiments, no one knows who will live. Ryubee is just laughing old man wit terror, his older daughter is psycho maniac with bad taste for men, younger one is spoiled and doesn't know whats going on at all. It works somehow but not as smooth at it should. Some things are not explained enough some are over explained. And then suddenly some X foundation. Bit messy. For OOO we have Greeeds : incomplete beings who want to be complete but it is impossible so they will destroy everything to try it anyway lool. They have different approach to it and later have Dr Maki as weird hybridish psycho who wanted to end the world while is still beautiful. Sounds as messy as W but it is so much better. It is more consistent, we see the twists and dynamics between Greeeds, and the m Maki. I don't like him as a chara but he is made that way to don't like him: sociopath who killed his sister while still a kid, but have issues with her, creep who talks to a doll on his shoulder. He is both comic relief and terrifying at the same time! What a wonderful blend! Also his and Date dynamics are so hilarious I just couldn't stop laughing. Psychodelic af XDXD So because he is consistent in his doing, is a creep is funny dangerous and interesting even if you want to kick him in the balls. Fifth round winner: OOO PLOT Both have interesting stories, not too complicated on the surface, with some twists, with some plot holes and mistakes. OOO has however less of the plot holes ( most of them are from the past stuff like from 800 years ago), the story is more fluent, so fluent that it is hard to see chara development without going 10 episodes behind for a moment and the realization hits you), also there are none “new villain at the end!” no, we know who will be the ultimate baddie and want to know how it goes. One of the main twists was Lost Ankh. It was interesting and heart breaking. In W main plot is Philip past, his connection to the Gaia Memories and Sonosakis. Plot twist can be predicted quite early but it is still fun. But because of little screen time for Philip and his actual development some moments feel weaker or bit rushed. Yet Shotaro reaction to those are top notch!Still, Eiji and Ankh dynamic story flow etc is just better in OOO for me. Sixth round winner: OOO OPENING Music is important too and opening is the most characteristic piece of audio for most series. Here you can be biased and I will be. W is more pleasant to the ear, I like the video for it more too. And I mean both what you see in the series and official one. The vocal is more clean in W opening for me too. What to say more? Seventh round winner: W FAVORITE CHARACTER A war between half-boiled and angry birb. I love them both character wise. Are complicated have their flaws as good sides fleshed out, are interesting... but the birb... ah the birb! His story ark! His struggle, his ambiguous state towards other up until the end. His mannerism (his bird like movements and way he eats lool, he drinks tea with soup spoon! XD), way of thinking and all the changes. They way he goes from treating Eiji as and accessory to fight to having him precious enough to help him fight Maki at costs own existence/life. And he is so relatable. Not for literal stuff ( I don't think any of you is greeed) but in general: the feeling of not fitting into a group etc. Shotaro is very relatable to don't get me wrong, but his character development is not as deep as Ankh. Both have great clothes yes! Eight round winner: OOO

SUIT AND MERCH ASCETICS As for looks of suits of the Riders and gimmicks it will be short: I like standard double more over TaToBa OOO, but I don't like Extreeme much but I love TaJaDor. Bike looks better in the W animal robots are cute here and here too. Second rider suit is good enough, but henshin gimmick is more interesting in OOO (the medals and mixing them) So a draw! ENDING

OOO doesn't have that 49th episode and it shows. But with that we have 2 very different vibes endings and both are so good. OOO is bittersweet but gives hope, W I just... god I'm so happy for Shotaro, this soft man deserved the ending. And somehow Eiji deserved his too: you should talk to your birb more Eiji! And shipping aside W should have proper hug and not that weird thing at the end. Both give satisfaction both are great and not disappoint! Another draw!! BONUS ROUND: BACKGROUND STORIES I could write about all support cast etc but those are equals and we don't need another draw. So I'll will do one more thing as a bonus: background of the charas. Especially our main Riders. In W we know a lot about Philip and what he did in the past yet some thing are presented in chaotic way, we are not sure about important things ( like if his family was dysfunctional before or after Philip's accident), but about Shotaro? Almost nothing. Just that he was bit deliquentish in high school (we are not even sure if it wasn't middle school lool) and that he was with boss some time before Begins Night. And thats sad because Shotaro is developed in interesting way and his past should be show more to understand better why he was like that. On the other hand we know what we should about Eiji, what made him as he was, why he is living this way. It wasn't long exposition but good enough to understand his ways. For Ankh its bit more messy (because what we hear and what we see on the screen doesn't add up well) but still it is all understandable. Winner of eleventh round : OOO So in all OOO won but not by that much. W is still very good series and both deserve to be watched (and then cried over, and made 1245643 chapters and one shots and drawings to them GAH)

#kamen rider ooo #kamen rider w #kamen rider double #my vs #my opinions #had to do this for my own pleasure

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general-du-vallon · 6 years

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I can’t remember who the episode is or what the theme for the rewatch but man poor Constance. What a shitty day, huh? And Porthos also ended sad! Oh no! I will make them a nice fic.

Constance is not at all surprised at the smug pleasure on Jacques’s face when he comes home and finds d’Artagnan gone. He’s been making it harder and harder for her to think of him as a good man, recently. She still has his gift, the expensive jewels hidden away, kept guiltily safe for if she ever needs money even if they are technically his. Constance has left him dinner, she sits at the table and he eats happily as if all is back to normal. She can’t stand it. When she gets up and gets her shawl he looks surprised, then grunts in exasperation and tells her to go buy him bread and ale. She goes, her thirty livres still in her skirt unknown to him, his two livres in her hand. She doesn’t buy anything, just walks, lucky not to be robbed out at night. She drops by a certain house to give one of the livres to the working women of the Parisian streets, they always need a few coins in there. She walks until she thinks Bonacieux will have given up on her then heads back to the house.

She lets out a sigh that’s almost a sob when she sees him sitting in the dim kitchen, no candles just the stove lit. He turns, though, and it’s Porthos not Bonacieux. Constance’s grief is displaced by surprised. She goes to stand by the stove to warm up and finds a plate of food on there kept warm, a mug of wine also warm. She turns to Porthos and he shrugs. Constance brings it to the table and eats in silence. It’s companionable, with Porthos, not stiff like with Bonacieux.

“What are you doing here?” Constance asks, when she’s nursing the wine, shoes kicked off under the table.

“Came looking for the pup,” Porthos says, leaning back in the chair. He looks weary. “Wasn’t here, your husband was storming about. I sent him off to the taverns, he’s not a violent drunk is he? Gave him coin.”

“He just sleeps,” Constance says. “It’s... a nice break. You shouldn’t have given him your money.”

“Didn’t,” Porthos says, a momentary brightness flashing over his features. “I’ve light fingers, I took it from his purse.”

Constance laughs, delighted. Jacques probably won’t even notice or if he does he’ll put it down to drunkenness or someone at the taverns taking it off him, not the honourable musketeer. He might not like the soldiers but they’re the king’s musketeers and he likes the king; he can’t dislike them with the king’s shine on them.

“He doesn’t hurt me,” Constance says.

“More ways to hurt someone than hitting them,” Porthos says, voice soft and sad from experience. He shakes his head and smiles at her.

“What happened?” Constance asks, wanting someone else’s sadness to distract from her own, even if it is from d’Artagnan’s friend, reminding her of d’Artagnan.

“Did the pup behave badly?” Porthos asks.

“That is not your business. What happened?”

“I thought maybe... but no. I guess I wouldn’t give it up?” Porthos says, looking at her with a tired desperation, like he wants her assurance.

“I don’t know what you’re on about,” Constance says, finishing her wine and going to open up the stove, sitting by it. Porthos joins her, side by side legs stretched out to the heat.

“Fighting,” Porthos says, rubbing his face. “I don’t want to be a violent man, or dangerous. I said to Aramis there’s a life beyond the musketeers. Wish I believed that.”

“Someone offered it you?” Constance asks tugging on bits of what Porthos is saying, what she knows of him, trying to knit it together into a better picture.

“Mm,” Porthos says, and his face lights up, softens, goes beautifully open and hopeful. oh. That sort of someone. It makes Constance think of d’Artagnan and she covers her face. “Yeah.”

“I never asked for much,” Constance whispers. “Whatever I feel for... anyone, it’s not like I ever expected or asked for anything more than this marriage. I’m practical, realistic, I don’t dream.”

“Dreaming is something people do when they have options,” Porthos says, his hand reaching out and taking hers.

They sit together like that, hand in hand and side by side but each nursing their own hurts. It grows darker and colder and the stove starts to go out, the wood running low. Constance hasn’t any more for today. She remembers the thirty livres and laughs, thrusting wood into the stove without much care; she can afford it. She’s not the one paying d’Artagnan’s bills anymore.

“I got a glimpse,” Porthos says. “She was something else.”

“Who?”

“Alice Clerbeaux,” Porthos says.

“I know of her,” Constance says. "She’s bought cloth from my husband. She’s very beautiful.”

“Yeah, kind too,” Porthos says. “Offered me a lot. I nearly took it, too.”

Constance thins about the way the woman had smiled at her when Bonacieux was dismissive, the way her hair was twisted and plaited, her bright eyes. She nods. They settle into quiet again. She doesn’t want to tell him about d’Artagnan, he’ll hear d’Artagnan’s side soon enough she’s sure. She doesn’t want him to know that she was dissembling. None of them can know. She stares into the fire and her eyes sting, losing herself.

“More wine,” Porthos says, getting up and going to find a bottle, coming back quickly with one he must have brought; she didn’t have it. He tops her mug up and gets one for himself, making himself at home. He toasts her before taking a deep sip and resting back in his chair again. “I’m glad of your friendship, Constance. It’s hard to always be the realistic, practical one, to always be down to earth while Athos is off in his melancholy, Aramis is busy being romantic and flighty.”

“Oh,” Constance says, not sure she wants to be the practical realistic person.

“There’s more to us than that, eh? We’ve got plenty of melancholy and romanticism,” Porthos grumbles, a proper rumbling grumble. He tips her a wink and she laughs, letting her head fall back with it, hair coming out of it’s ties. “You’re beautiful too you know. In case them boys in your life have forgot to tell you recently.”

You shine so brightly in my eyes, it puts every other woman in the shade

Constance’s eyes fill with tears and she covers her face again drying them away. It was a very charming complement, she’d loved it. It had felt like being young, the giddiness and rush of it, of being the focus of such intent. She glances up at finds Porthos watching her, face troubled.

“What is it?” she asks.

“I wouldn’t want to lose your friendship,” Porthos says. “Now that... I wouldn’t want to lose this is all.”

“No,” Constance says, believing it as she says it. “You bring good wine.”

Porthos roars with joyful laughter and Constance can’t help joining in. She pours her another measure and toasts her properly, clanging their mugs together with too much enthusiasm setting them both laughing again.

“Ah, what a week,” she sighs, leaning back and sipping the wine.

“That I will drink to,” Porthos says. “You know, I might give up soldiering, but not my family. Where she saw violence, I just saw them protecting each other, and me. I saw them fighting beautifully. I saw courage and brotherhood. If she can’t see the beauty in my family then...”

“You see beauty in people where others don’t find so much,” Constance says, looking down at her knees.

“Courage, too,” Porthos says, stubbornly, clearly getting her meaning. “You never gave in, Constance, don’t let people make you feel otherwise. Call it regrouping, eh? You fight hard for people, d’Artagnan told me about what you did for Fleur, I’ve seen what you do for him, seen what you do for the women of Paris. You fight that hard sometimes you gotta take a rest, sometimes you make enemies and lie low for safety. Whatever’s going on don’t... you’re full of fire, yeah?”

“Sure,” Constance says.

“Bravery, it’s not what people think. Not doing great things and finding glory and honour. Bravery is in the little things,” Porthos says. “Like walking to church despite what other people might think, or offering a soldier another life, or letting go of vengeful anger so you can win and get justice for someone else. Or standing in for your men cus you hope the best for them, even if they censure you for it, taking their disrespect even when it’s not deserved.”

“You’re not talking about me anymore,” Constance says.

“Got the feeling you’d prefer we didn’t,” Porthos says.

“We should be cheerful.”

“Ok.”

“But grief isn’t shameful, so maybe we should weep,” Constance says.

Porthos looks a little taken aback but game. He wrinkles up his face as if trying for tears and it makes Constance laugh, finding that she’s fond of his face. He snorts and shakes his head, chuckling. So they don’t weep together, but they don’t force cheer either. They share wine and burn too much wood and laugh too hard and sit in silence. He bolsters her and makes sure, absolutely sure, that when he goes he will be welcome back. That when he leaves, she’s safe and warm and knows she’s not alone. He slips into the streets, silent and barely visible, not drawing any attention to her having a man in the house alone. She puts the stove out and retreats to her little bed under the window, away from Bonacieux, away from d’Artagnan, alone. She feels warm, though, holding his friendship tight to her as she falls asleep.

#porthos and constance friendship #the challenge #MuskiesReWatch #i know it's not high art of nothing and eh but I dunno it's late im tired i hate fic #it'll fill a gap for me when I reread :)

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shimmershae · 3 years

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Just watched the episode and I’m going to have a lot of thoughts for you, most of them probably bordering on incoherence (LOL) so this is your last chance to nope on out of this post because I’m going to go ahead and put everything else behind a cut to save the eyes that do not want to see any spoilers at all. Unlike mine, that very much wanted to see but in a lot of cases? Could not see shit, but I digress.

Shae’s stream of consciousness coming at you in 3-2-1.

First of all, can I saw how good it is to have my show back again? Like, no. I don’t quite have Season 5 levels of excitement about the new/last season, but it is definitely nice to have all these characters back.

So all these thoughts of mine. Okay. Bear with me because there be a whole lot of them, lol.

My immediate impression as the episode opened was WHOA. Such a cool shot of Daryl with one light wing, one dark wing (representing the two sides to Daryl maybe--the man of honor versus the man he was raised to be, hmm?) looking out over some dark vista of something. Seriously. It’s dark. My room is also dark at the moment and still I was squinting to see. To make out what I’m “looking” at. I really, really hope the rest of this season isn’t this hard to make out.

Is that a tank? Kinda sorta a callback to Rick’s first episode? If so, cool. If not, well. Us fans have always put way more thought into things. For real. Change my mind.

Holy intense eye contact, Batman! Daryl Dixon has literally never looked at anyone--not BethusConLeah--in quite the same smoldering way as he looks at Carol. It’s next level. I don’t know why people be fooling themselves into thinking different.

Let’s see. I can make out--besides Daryl, Maggie, and that face mask dude I already forgot the name of--Kelly, Magna, Jerry (who’s that with him?), and Carol. Sorry. My world, like Daryl’s, inevitably narrows to Carol. She’s loking fierce and fine AF per usual.

Was that Rosita I noticed rewinding to relive Daryl eye-fucking Carol?

I’m guessing this is the army base they talked about in 10C.

That Walker perking up like “I smell food--pancakes and bacon and oohhhh” has me giggling inappropriately right off the bat. WTF.

Look at all my fabulous ladies tiptoeing through that Walker minefield. And Carol spotting that gun that might be useful right away. Listen, if you don’t think her mind ain’t always ten steps ahead of everybody else’s, you’d be wrong.

So. Are these Walkers just so old and feeble not even the call of fresh meat attracts them? Because just tiptoeing through their midst without the knockoff Lady Gaga meatsuits or skin masks has never really worked before that I can remember.

I just want to see most of this season. Is that really too much to ask? Don’t X-Files and Game of Thrones us, Angela. Please and thank you very fucking much.

Okay. Is the one drop of blood thing making anybody else have 28 Days Later vibes? Kinda? Sorta? No? Just me? Okay then. Carry on.

Wait a minute, though. How they be explaining how Daryl keeeps acquiring all these new tats all the time? Hmm? It’s like they just quit giving a shit about continuity in these latter seasons.

I mean. Do Walkers sleep now? LMAO. What is this? I guess they’re constantly evolving?

There’s my baby Lydia. Love my smol bean.

Alright though. I love to see the ladies of TWD kick some ass. It’s very gratifying. Gimps would never. Thank you, Angela.

Clever, resourceful, calm and collected, quick thinking Carol to the rescue! Seriously. Her haters must be withering away inside with absolute envy.

Hey, ya’ll. Remember when Carol was still mastering her sharpshooting skills at the Prison yard and shot at Rick’s feet? Her little “sorry, sorry”? LOL. If Rick could only see her now. Wait. He already knew what so many of his stans refuse to acknowledge--Carol=ultimate survivor and true savior to the group many times over.

Maggie’s got herself a gun, too. Go my badass girls.

Of course, Carol’s got everybody’s back. Of fucking course, Daryl’s got hers even when everybody else seem frozen in some kind of awe or stupification or something. Microcosm of the whole damn show right there.

Carol’s like “here’s your knives, love of my life.”

Eh. Maybe that’s just me.

Nah. She’s totally thinking it, too.

YAS! YAS! Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride with the top billing. How very far my babies have come.

Listen. I miss all the characters we’ve lost. Absolutely. But I love the ones that are still with us, that have been with us for so very long so hard. Whether I love their stories or decisions or not.

Is that THE Alexandria sign? That sign’s been through some shit.

DOG! Daryl kneeling to embrace our Grimes babies has me all up in my feels. And how cute is Dog getting all excited and making sure he’s the first one there to welcome back, Daddy?

Hershel is literally just as puppy dog cute as Glenn ever was. Really some Grade A casting.

What did Maggie call Mr. T? Ducky? Dougie? Sometimes with Maggie? I really cannot tell. Anyway. He’s Mr. T. for me until I find out differently, probably through rewatching with close captioning, lol.

Maggie’s got more people. So. Some new redshirts to sacrifice for plot purposes. I don’t know if I should bother learning their names or not.

I seem to remember Meridian being mentioned in one of the episode synopses.

Sophia’s hair tie around Carol’s neck will never fail to be an emotional throat punch. My heart.

“They come at night and by the time you see them, you’re already dead.” Welp. Guess that means we ain’t seeing shit for at least this first third of the season, lol. Very horror-eque though.

“You’re leaving to fight ghosts.” Aaron, to Maggie. So I see Aaron’s the type to get the hell outta Dodge when the Boogeyman comes calling, hahaha. Least he was. In the old world.

Rosita’s pissed off expression at Gabe’s decision to volunteer for the so-called suicide mission gives me life.

My baby Carol is tired AF of suicide missions. You can tell. Also? Methinks she has something to prove to Daryl here. Or at least feels like she does.

Dog with his little tactical vest. I love it.

I guess I get why they had Carol and Rosita stay behind. They had to more evenly split up the badassery to make things more fair and balanced, lol.

Okay. So Negan’s definitely earned everybody’s disdain. But they’re being woefully short-sighted by not at least hearing the dude out. Isn’t he at least native to the area?

“That is God telling us to turn around.” I’m actually on Negan’s side with this one, but Gabe answering him with “I’m pretty sure he would have run that past me first” has me howling with laughter. Father Gabe has gone straight up savage in these last couple of seasons. Rosita’s influence, perhaps?

I see what Angela is doing. Trying to make Negan the voice of reason. In this particular case? It’s kind of working. I’m still ultimately on Maggie’s side with this though BECAUSE GLENN.

Imagine showing up to work and unironically dressing like a storm trooper every day. Excuse me while I LOL.

Even in the ZA, there’s bullshit paperwork.

“Pumpkin colored spacesuit.” Good one, Ezekiel.

LOL forever. I love Princess.

“Michonne. Our Michonne shut people out of Alexandria for years.” Timely reminder that choices aren’t always perfect. Neither are people.

WTF is reprocessing? Sounds ominous. LMAO at Eugene’s “Okay. We gotta go.”

What in the actual hell with all those bagged, squirming undead? Creepy AF in that subway tunnel.

Should I just go ahead and call that the Easter bunny? We’ve had some version of it pop up since Season 1.

Is it stubborn pride with Maggie or what? Why go through with something when all signs point toward the wisdom of stopping? You can argue that she’s acting similarly to Carol last season, but there’s a huge difference here folks. Carol did her damndest to Lone Wolf that shit and minimize the danger to those she loved. Maggie’s straight up enlisting those she “cares about” to carry out her mission of revenge or vengeance, what have you. Let’s see if she gets near the amount of hate for it. Personally, I don’t blame her for her feelings one bit. They are valid. But her knowingly drawing the others into the game? That’s my sticking point. That’s how she and Carol differ, even if some people refuse to see or accept it. Anyway. Hopping right on off my soapbox.

“Why don’t you get up on your little tippy toes and try?” Omigosh, I’d dying. When I tell you I about passed out with laughter, I do not exaggerate. I should hate Negan forever and I do. Really. But I adore JDM and he frequently makes me LOL. He’s made Negan entertaining if not completely redeemable since Angela took over and more layered so I say kudos.

He has a point about Maggie playing dictator. Damn you, show, for slanting the writing just that smidgen that makes Negan make sense over his victim. I guess, though, it’s better this way. Gives both characters more shades of gray.

“He’s a dick but he makes sense.” I feel like this is Angela calling us all out when we dare to harbor any lasting resentment toward Negan for what he did to Glenn.

Speaking of--Negan. You deserved Daryl’s punch to the mouth. You just went a bridge too damn far.

“Keep pushing me, Negan. Please.” Warning shots fired, Asshole. You better watch yourself around the Widow Rhee.

Have I mentioned how much I love Princess? Her shipping the Commonwealth guards is killing me, lol. I can’t wait ‘til she meets Carol and Daryl. She’s going to have their number in two seconds flat.

I like Ezekiel and Princess as a duo. I’m not saying romantically necessarily. I just like them in scenes together because they’re fun. There’s sort of a protective indulgence Ezekiel seems to telegraph whenever they’re in scenes together. Like he’s like don’t hurt this one. I don’t know. For all these words I’ve written, I can’t quite find the ones to adequately describe what I mean.

The wall of the lost gives me such Battlestar Galactica feels. What sad thoughts it inspires.

Eugene in that Commonwealth gear. Omigosh, lol. So did they just sneak up and take Princess’s little Commonwealth ship’s gear when they were sneaking off on their own to have a quickie?

Princess finding that note for Yumiko on the wall actually gave me chills. Yeah. I’m easy. Just the suggestion of someone getting reunited with lost family gets me all up in my feels. Yumiko saying “I have to stay”? I felt that.

Oh no. Dog ran off! Somebody protect my favorite fictional puppy. Of course, Daryl goes after him. He’s always been the sweet one. Merle said it.

Eh. Negan taking Maggie’s hand at the end there would have smacked too much of Negan Sue and Maggie’s biggest plot of the season would have been prematurely dealt with so I get why they did what they did. But c’mon. It’s not really that big of a cliffhanger, is it?

Okay, so Angela calls those sleeping beauty Walkers “Lurkers” and I get it. Apparently they’re a bigger deal in the comics, but I really don’t remember seeing them all that much on the actual show. Somebody jog my memory.

Of fucking course, you can actually see what’s happening in the inside the episode clips. I wish we could choose to view the episode with that lighting because some of us be blind. And this time I mean in the more literal sense. Not the figurative one.

Anyway. I’m going to stop trying to write a novel for ya’ll and move on to better things. Like maybe a nap. Maybe some early dinner. I don’t know. I’m tired AF and need a little recharge.

Before I go, though? Overall impression of the episode? I liked it. There were parts that I loved (all the ladies being badass, every second of Carol, Daryl reuniting with the Grimes babies and Dog, all things Princess, some of Negan’s one-liners about had me busting a gut, Rosita serving looks, Kelly and Lydia getting to be badass too) and parts I didn’t love (not being able to see a damn thing, Angela trying to tip the scales in Negan’s favor, not enough Carol or Aaron or Rosita, no reunion between Aunt Carol and the Grimes babies even though that picture floating around suggests it was at least shot, not being able to see a damn thing, all the Alexandria people playing follow the leader for Maggie when she’s been gone 6 years and Daryl’s right there--hell, even Father G deserves the honor over her because it’s obvious they’re not exactly on the same wavelength anymore).

I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m just glad to have our show back.

Later, lovelies.

#The Walking Dead #Season 11 #spoilers #TWD spoilers #things that make me smile and cry #and giggle and giggle

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