don't mind me. i'm going insane about my ships of olde again
UlOri my love...
I'm losing my mind remembering this moment with Ulquiorra and Orihime bc it's literally ONE OF THE CLASSIC shojo manga tropes where this cool, seemingly unfeeling guy who doesn't take interest in anything finds a seemingly ""ordinary"" woman interesting. Ordinary in quotes because usually the lady isn't all that ordinary and it's only a default perception of her commoner upbringing or how she perceives herself to be "nothing special".
The phenomenon of おもしれ―女 has been documented many times: here is a pixiv encyclopedia entry on it; and here is another one. Apparently the origin of the trope is Hana Yori Dango (Boys Over Flowers), but interestingly, Domyoji doesn't call Tsukushi "an interesting woman" directly: it is implied through the rest of the cast's reactions to her and the narrative that establishes this trope of "cool, unfeeling, villain-leaning guy of some renown/stature takes interest in a commoner girl with good moral character".
And that results in like, an elevation of said girl's status within the story. Similarly, Ulquiorra (and i guess by extension, Aizen, and the rest of the villain squad in the HM arc) is responsible for uplifting Orihime's status in the story from "ordinary lady" to "lady with special powers".
Also it's interesting how Domyoji ended up with Tsukushi in the end but Ulquiorra turned into fine dust after making his first "human" connection ever with Orihime. By "interesting" I mean, kind of a waste of a good character with SICK visuals and excellent development, but alright Kubo...
no one has responded to my inquiry about wanting to speak to someone about Badeni (and by extension, Oczy) in the DMs so I will be speaking to MYSELF
spoilers
I really fuck with how Oczy and Badeni are both missing a big chunk of themselves when they first meet, and by interacting with each other they both become more whole. As it turns out, they both possess something the other needs.
I like how Oczy when we first meet him was ACTUALLY sort of paralleling Nowak the way he said "welp, it's my job, so..." before killing one of the guys he dueled. He didn't like his job, but he didn't know a different way of life existed. He didn't even hope that a different way of life existed. This man gave up on thinking for himself because he perceived it was pointless. It was peak learned helplessness: when Gras asked him to accompany him, Oczy couldn't decide for himself what he should do so he deferred the decision to Gras.
And then we get Badeni, who is the antithesis to all this: he makes decisions based solely on serving himself and reaching his own glory. We learn he wasn't always like this, and it is in fact a result of him being hardened by life experiences (betrayal by a colleague). His experiences taught him that collaboration is detrimental and dangerous.
But then he's forced to team up with both Oczy (and by extension, Rafal -- as he led him to the stone chest in the woods) and Jolenta (and by extension, Count Piast and HIS predecessor) and any unnamed contributors came before him (history! which he turns his nose at first) to complete the heliocentric theory.
Just some random scattered thoughts here but like:
I like how Oczy is first depicted being afraid of the night sky because it reminds him of the higher class looking down upon the lower class, and then by the throes of fate is forced to work with a well-educated guy of a higher class who doesn't hesitate to disparage him at any second of the day -- a guy who is LITERALLY his worst nightmare. <- interestingly, Badeni can't physically see Oczy very well. I wonder if Oczy knows this and unintentionally feels more comfortable being around Badeni.
I like how Badeni is hyper-individualistic while Oczy is too dependent on others, and then later we see Badeni actually trusting others to the point he leaves it up to Grabowski and fate itself to carry on his legacy -- which technically isn't even HIS legacy as it is Oczy's writing he is preserving.
I like how we go from helpless Oczy who can't bring himself to look at the night sky -- who throws decisions onto other people -- who can't imagine anything else other than misery in his life and wants to go to Heaven to be relieved of it all ... to Oczy who "wants" to see a full Venus. who "wants" to learn how to read and write. who puts down the sword (which he never liked in the first place) to pick up the pen. who picks up the sword ON HIS OWN VOLITION as he realizes he must act in order to save heliocentricism (and Badeni).
I like how Badeni goes from disparaging Oczy at every opportunity to recognizing his game and pausing to hear his opinions, and telling him he'd like to debate him at a later time.
I like how when Oczy wakes up from his coma, Nowak tells him "there are some weird guys who endure the pain" "in these cases, we have to use something more valuable to barter with: like family, friends, collaborators..." and then he brings Badeni into the room. Seeing as Oczy's been out for a week, it implies Badeni did get tortured off-camera and turned out to be "one of those weirdoes who don't crack".
...But then the ONE thing that DOES make him crack is threatening Oczy's eyeballs.
When Oczy questions Badeni "why'd you save my eyeballs if we're gonna die anyway" Badeni responds with "you have no idea how painful that is".
"That" is vague here for a reason. It could be Badeni referring to the physical pain of getting your eyeballs gouged out. It could be Badeni referring to the emotional torture of losing the ability to look up at the stars and witness God's glory -- the emotional torture of having your love (in his case, learning) ripped from you by some arbitrary power. Also I don't know much about the Christian version of Heaven but maybe he also wanted Oczy to retain his sight in the afterlife. And his actions allowed Oczy to be able to see the stars for one last time.
I sent my "Jayvik care package" to a friend and she finally received it today!! The plushies are not mine btw ... ohhhugh they are so round and cute...
The stickers I made looks so janky with that Avery label still attached fjdsjhfjdsfh (in hindsight I should've cut it off...)
About "Harold"... Here is the context:
Here's the rest of the stickerpack and what Biktor originally looked like... he looked like he was wearing a toupee so I fixed it in the final but LMAO there is something endearing about the wig version.
Also I originally drew him SO HUGE. He almost took up the FULL CANVAS of my comic manuscript (A5 at 600 dpi). Thanks Biktor for keeping me company during the roughest of my inking sessions.
epiphany about Rukia's name I had in the shower that people are probably aware of but blew my mind anyway
I've been trying to come up with names for my OCs which means I've been spending a lot of time on behindthename.com and I was just thinking about how Rukia's name came to be, and I'm like wait, oh my gosh, you know how the name Lucia (pronounced lu-ki-a in the original Latin) is the feminine form of Lucius (lu-ki-us) which is derived from the word: lux, as in
LIGHT
and you know how there isn't a distinction in the L and R sounds in Japanese... omg she's literally the LIGHT... a white, purifying, snowblinding counter to the shadowy motifs cast by the protagonist...
Don't mind me I'm just yapping about Kaiba and Ishizu again
i'm just thinking about how Ishizu's calling Seto Kaiba "Seto" (Kanji) inadvertently appeals to the person he has always been from the moment he was born. Inadvertently because her calling him Seto (Kanji) allows Takahashi to more subtly switch to Seto (Katakana) for some Ancient Egyptian Foreshadowing. And I, in the good year of our lord 2025 reading the Yugioh manga for the first time with my rose-tinted shipper googles, am making a mountain out of a mole hill. REGARDLESS--
It's similar to how Mokuba calls him Big Brother: Kaiba has always been "big brother" since the moment Mokuba was born. He became "Kaiba" through the process of fighting his way up to the top. Kaiba is the name that he won. Seto is the name he was given.
And his subordinates do call him Seto-sama to differentiate between him and Mokuba. Of course. But ME over here with my shipper goggles wonders if he got a bit of a shock when this random woman he's meeting for the first time goes from "Mister Kaiba" to straight up "Seto". No honorifics. Overly familiar and out of place. The only other person I've seen up to this point in the manga call him Seto was "the hair guy" in Duelist Kingdom who was actively trying to kill him, so it was like, Seto (disrespectful) whereas with Ishizu it's Seto (neutral). I wonder when was the last time he heard Seto (neutral) or Seto (positive): was it before his dad died in a car accident when he was 8 years old?
I wonder if her over-familiar-ness is also a result of the Ancient Egyptian Foreshadowing. After all, they were colleagues and on a first-name basis in the B.C. era, which I am sure Ishizu has seen visions of.
Anyway I don't know where i'm going with this. I was just thinking hmm, something something symbolic about how "Kaiba" is a culmination of his competitive spirit and "Seto" encompasses everything about him since birth, including his competitive nature, of course, but also all of the softness to which Mokuba and their deceased parents bore witness.
I hope Garcia stays the way she is. Detached and locked in.
IDK, as much as I perk up everytime a surgeon graces us with their presence (Emery Walsh MD aurafarming episode WHENNN??) I feel like the surgery team is cool BECAUSE they're static characters for the dynamic characters (most of the trainees + Robby) to bounce off of. It's the reaction to the static characters that allow for the dynamic characters of the cast to stand out and show growth. Ykwim?
I wonder if Santos is supposed to be an unreliable narrator here the way she mentioned she was a "social pariah" -- but is she actually being treated that way? To me it seems like their coworkers are glad Langdon's got the help he needed and people appear to be treating Santos normally -- maybe this is something that did happen off camera, but I find TEN months of continuous catty behavior to be OOC for The Pitt. They're too busy being locked in trying to save people. My spidey senses are telling me that this is Santos' being hypervigilant due to the stress and guilt she felt about doing the right thing -- and that it's not a real thing.
She's also having Not The Greatest Of Days -- like, Garcia, her "casual hookup" (apparently not casual in Santos' POV...!) is rainchecking on their date and is super happy to have Langdon back. In fact, everybody (except Robby) is SOOOO happy to have Langdon back. Meanwhile, the new attending has been on her ass all day about medical charting, and she doesn't even get thirty seconds to sit down and get caught up before she gets interrupted. I think Langdon's presence bothers her not only because of their rocky past, but because they have a lot of the same strengths. I wonder if her feeling like a social pariah is more akin to her feeling like she's being replaced by someone people have known longer and is more experienced than her.
Going back to the unreliable narrator thing: when she said to Garcia "he should have been fired" -- does she actually want him to be fired as a punishment, or is she just dreading speaking to the guy and being vulnerable? Hmm. I'm doubting her because she seems like the type to believe people can change. Like she's got a traumatic past and demons of her own -- she's her own reminder that people can overcome tremendous obstacles in life and she's written too empathetically to genuinely want Langdon to lose his job and be 100% cool with it. I think she just wants to avoid him, and if he had gotten fired, well, it would have been much more convenient than having to work with him again!
Also, I'm looking at all this being given the interaction from earlier on in the season when she recited Langdon's quip about guessing the patient's BAC verbatim. I thought that was her extending an olive branch. Or maybe that's something that Langdon misinterpreted as an olive branch, which made him to go pedal to the metal teacher mode when Santos wasn't exactly ready. My guy, you can't jump into it: you have to Speak Words to the coworker you yelled at 10 months ago. Anyway I hope some Speaking of Words will occur before the season is over. I don't want them to be completely buddy-buddy, but I feel like Santos and Langdon is being set up as a contrast to Robby and Langdon. I feel like Garcia is going to be narratively right about Santos needing to put on her big girl pants at work and I feel like Santos would be much quicker to move past Langdon's transgressions than Robby -- because she's known him for LITERALLY ONE DAY -- and Robby lost YEARS of trust. I wonder if we're going to get some Robby-Santos private convo at some point this season.
ok i caught up on The Pitt and my thoughts are below
-Garcia's quips make me laugh like no one else on the show i swear to god. this woman comes down to aura farm for 20 seconds and then dips with no explanation. she's highly employed is what she is -- no need for an explanation.
-Also same with Emery Walsh LMAO... the moment Garcia didn't immediately take the opportunity to be Primary Surgery during the mass casualty event and was at least peripherally looking at Walsh, I was like "who is THIS bad bitch??" And then she accepts, with "heavy is the head that wears the crown". okaaay???! She also aura farmed for two episodes, quipped with Jack Abbot, and dipped. I need her back.
-Joy Kwon is very spicy and I like her... I want Abbot and her to interact more. In the meantime I'll be in the AO3 tags looking these two up (sorry, I like my ships to be an HR nightmare).
-I miss Santos' and McKay's S1 hairstyles... Santos with her shrimp antennae coming out of her ponytail was a Look and McKay's blunt bangs were really cute...!!!
-I can't get over Langdon and Santos looking at each other awkwardly in S2. Her extending an olive branch by repeating their interaction about guessing the BAC from S1 verbatim... okayyy ... Joy Kwon in the background being confused bc she's good but she's not fluent in whatever language they are speaking. Sorry girl, you have to find you own narrative parallel. I've been in the AO3 tags for Langtos before I even watched the show and ya know what, I'm still in there slurping shit up. I love it. I love it when capable women and capable men have beef with each other and yet respect each other for their talents. It's lovely and hot and honestly I kinda don't want the tension resolved TOO quickly.
-Langdon looking at Robby in both S1 and S2 kills me. The sad, desperate puppy eyes emanating off of him... I would crack immediately ngl
-I do want Mel's sister to bring back the "You have to find someone to kiss!" from S1 full circle. You know what I mean...? idk fanfics have probably already been written. Yeahhhh Mel might have found someone to kiss, but she doesn't realize yet and he might still be married oohh!!!
-Al-Hashimi is kind of a slay and yes I did raise my eyebrows over her promotion of AI tools but it seems this part of her character is being narratively challenged by the tech shutdown, and she's still proving herself to be very capable and empathetic.
-The way Santos was annoyed at her but immediately perked up when Al-Hashimi complimented her was SO funny-- she acts tough but she loves it when more experienced people compliment her work :'( she's so cute... also she's not good at hiding emotions so everything shows up on her face... cute...
-It took me a while to figure out who "evil Whittaker" was -- IDK I don't think Ogilvie and Whittaker look alike or act alike -- other than being white boys... is it the treatment of his character by other characters that make people draw a comparison? Is it his fuckups? Honestly I'm thinking Ogilvie is more "S1 Santos in boldface font". He's grating but I'm sure he'll come around. This is literally his first shift at the ER... gotta give it some time.
-Also shout out to the characters who play the patients and their families... their performances are so good and realistic...! especially the Bradley family (parents of boy who overdosed and became brain dead)... samantha sloyan absolutely KILLED in Midnight Mass and I recognized her right away. Her performance made me cry at least 3 times.
no like i literally screamed into my fists "what the FUCK?????????" when Badeni started praying for Oczy and I thought that was going to be this big shonen manga moment where Oczy maims Nowak and they both get to ride off into the night and they reunite years later MY MIND was already thinking up of good end scenarios and i didn't know he'd get CAUGHT and they'd both HANG TOGETHER WHILE EXPERIENCING GOD THROUGH THE BEAUTIFUL NIGHT SKY?!???!? ARE YOU SHITTING ME??? I MEAN IT WAS POETIC BUT IT ALSO DEVASTATED ME *downloading the soundtrack so I can devastate myself during business hours*
I was waiting for Badeni to pull out the "hey by the way your daughter is a heretic too" trap card on Nowak but he's had too much character development for that ...HEY remember when he was saying shit like "if anyone finds out about our research, we'll just blame it on the girl and say she's a witch lmao" which turned into him protectively saying to Jolanta "pretend you have no association with us if asked" WHICH TURNED INTO HIM PROTECTING HER FROM ASSOCIATION WHILE OCZY GOT HIS MOUTH SPLIT OPEN -- i"m unwell. anyway if any of you are unwell about Brofist Bad Bitch Badeni I need you to contact me so we can form a little circle and chant his name.
