#random meta

[random-french-girl]

Pitt report! I'm really enjoying the contrast between Robby, who is increasingly acting rashly and impatiently and not following any kind of protocol as the shift gets more stressful, and Dr Al-Hashimi's very calm and controlled presence. Robby is more and more frazzled, more and more impulsive - kinda like how he acted at the end of season 1, except that was after a whole shift AND a mass casualty event. Season 2's events so far are not nearly as exhausting and stressful. And apart from reaaallly reminding us that he's at the end of his rope and needs an actual break, it also shows how much the inter-personal stuff is affecting him: his conflict with Langdon, his conflict with Al-Hashimi...

And it's interesting because the show can do this without implying that Robby's bad at his job - his instincts remain excellent about all the cases. His impulsive, off the book actions only ever have good consequences so far (telling the lady's boss off from threatening to fire her, cutting her leg so Garcia does the surgery immediately...) But it still makes you feel like he's on the verge of exploding. It still makes you feel like something could go really wrong if he keeps going that way. Which is a fun way to build tension without making him incompetent. We know he's a great doctor! And yet.

Meanwhile all the scenes with Al-Hashimi this episode portray her as someone who's extremely competent, a good teacher, and caring to her patients. She stands up for herself when Robby is being annoying, but in a very professional manner. At the start of the season, she seems cold and rigid, compared to Robby who is lively and cracks jokes and loves improvising. But now we're mid-season: Robby's emotional state and behavior feels erratic, and Al-Hashimi comes off not cold just... calm. And good at her job. The scene where she's mentoring Mel, Whittaker and Samira is almost... relaxing. Even with Santos: her scolding Santos last episode felt, though warranted, a little too harsh, but I think this episode her talking to Santos about charting really emphasizes that she's not trying to be mean, because she's not just issuing a dire warning, she's commiserating and offering a solution (the AI program). Whatever you may think of it, it's a solution she believes in.

Anyway, I think they're doing some really fun, compelling stuff with these two, I'm excited to see where it goes!

[soleminisanction]

I've come to the conclusion that anybody wanting to write Damian Wayne well shouldn't definitely read The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Maybe take some notes.

I had my doubts going in but I'm halfway through at this point and man, teenage Coriolanus is a really brilliant character. Like he's incredibly smart and capable and very clearly traumatized in a way that makes him sympathetic, and he's capable of insights and empathy in a way that only some of his Capitol peers echo in stark contrast to the callow decadence and bigotry of the society and him. His love for Lucy Gray feels genuine and sweet and sincere.

But he's also an arrogant, selfish, snobby, entitled bastard whose affection for the people around him can switch to loathing, dismissal and resentment at the drop of a hat. He's constantly looking down on and insulting people in his internal thoughts and only doesn't voice them because he knows he doesn't have the station to get away with it. He's paranoid and insecure and only interested in Lucy Gray in the first place because he's able to put her on a mental pedestal above the other District folk, seeing her as better than them, a reflection of his own privilege and bigotry. And his love for her, while sincere, is also jealous and possessive -- he needs to own her, needs her to be his girl, and gets violently angry at the very implication that she might have had a lover and a past before him, that there was anything in her life that didn't revolve around him.

It's just a brilliantly rendered example of how to write a kid who's got both good and bad in them, who's been shaped by their trauma without that trauma excusing their entitlement and cruel deeds. The fundamental difference between him and Damian being, Coryo is ultimately shaped by mentors who foster the worst aspects of his personality, while Damian -- when he's written well -- has the influence of people like Bruce and Dick to bring out the kindness and empathy beneath the protective shell of his privileged arrogance.

[littleeyesofpallas]

can you do Bleach Name game for ichigo's friends in Karakura Town?

Ya know it's weird that i haven't done it already... I kinda thought I had, honestly. Yeah, let me resurrect this long dead series of posts...

Inoue Orihime[井上 織姫] read most literally as something like "Well+Top"(as in the top of a well(for water)) and "Weaving+Princess" but of course the name Orihime is just taken directly from the mythological figure behind the tanabata festival. It's possible the name Inoue in that context could be used to reference the Well Mansion, one of 28 categories of constellations in Chinese astronomy. Although in Tanabata Orihime refers to the star Vega, which as far as I can tell is not part of the Well Mansion.

In any case, the myth of Orihime and Hikoboshi was the basis of Kubo's original Bleach one-shot, which itself got reworked into the plot with her brother Sora, the hollow Acidwire. Ichigo lost prettymuch all of his associated hikoboshi themes in the transition from the one-shot to the serial title, so her name is kind of vestigial. The one lingering detail that was never built on was how her rejection powers were said to verge on the territory of god, and in the tanabata myth Orihime is the daughter of Tantei[天帝]:"Heaven Emperor" one of several epithets for the Jade Emperor, a figure hailed as a human ascended to immortal, the First God, and a supreme ruler over other gods. But despite that very slight thematic alignment, she was never given any divine origins.

Her bother, Inoue Sora[井上昊] reads, "Well+Top" and "Sky/Heaven," where Sora[昊] is a synonym with Ten/Ama[天]: "Sky/heaven" and both a synonym and homonym with sora[空]: "sky/heaven/void." (And it's a bit of a tangent, but that last one is the same word Kubo uses in the name Kuukaku[空鶴], Karakura town[空座町], and when Aizen says, Ten no za no kuuhaku[天の座の空白]: "The Throne of Heaven is Empty.") He was a rewritten from what was originally Orihime's late grandfather in the one-shot, which aligned more obviously with the father Heaven King role of myth.

Sado Yasutora[茶渡 泰虎] I think I've mentioned before, reads "Tea+Ferry" and "Peaceful+Tiger" which just seems to literally describe him as an immigrant(traded over on a boat, like tea) and as a gentlegiant type. It's also very possible Kubo just wanted to nickname him "Chad" and found a name he could squeeze into that, rather than worry about the meaning of the name first.

Arisawa Tatsuki[有沢 竜貴] I don't really know how to parse part of her surname here, "Posession/Existence+Swamp" seems to be the literal breakdown? It's also just an actual surname people have, as is Inoue --Sado by comparison however, is not. In any case, her personal name is "Dragon+Noble/<indicator of high rank or status>." This is why she and Orihime get a paired Princess and Dragon motif.

Asano Keigo[浅野 啓吾] reads "Superficial+Rustic/Unsophisiticated" and "Disclose+Me" basically just calling him surface level, simple, and open. He's exactly what it says on the label. Can be read like an open book. Then there's his sister...

Asano Mizuho[浅野 みづ穂] and her name is the phonetic MIDZU+"the ear of a plant/head of a spear/tip of a brush." There are kanji that could go with that but for one, I'm not just gonna take blind stabs, and besides if Kubo had wanted to ascribe obvious meaning to it, he'd have done so. No idea what to make of that one. Considering she's extremely minor and secondary to an already minor character at that, I'm willing to bet he just picked it to be aesthetically pleasing.

Kojima Mizuiro[小島 水色]: "Little+Island" "Water+Color," that is of course as in "Color (of) Water" and not to "water color paints," those have a different name entirely in Japanese. I don't know that his name really says much about him, but considering a lot of weird little details of his fairly minimal appearances across the series, I have my own crackpot theories about Mizuiro, but this isn't the time or place...

Honshou Chizuru[本匠 千鶴]: "Book+Artisan" and "1,000+Crane(s)" the association of paper craft and cranes points pretty obviously to origami, and 1,000 origami cranes (senbazura[千羽鶴]) which evokes a meaning of longevity and recovery from illness. Also the Bookishness vibe seems to be evoked in her general glasses girl design.

Kunieda Ryou[国枝 鈴]: "Country+Branch" and "(Small)Bell." "County" like a "nation/kingdom," not like "rural" as in Asano's name. The small bell evokes a clear but subtle ring, which is kind of reflected in her quiet and intelligent demeanor.

Ogawa Michiru[小川みちる] "MICHIRU" is phonetic so no attributed meaning, but her surname just means "brook/stream" (lit."Small+River") a very on the nose nod to her diminutive size. I never noticed until now but she always has different sheet music notation hairpins.

Natsui Mahana[夏井 真花]: "Summer+Well" (again, like with Inou, the structure you fish water out of, not the adverb) and "Pure/Genuine+Flower." She's an extremely minor character so I don't see there really being much overt meaning to this. Summer seems to evoke her tan*, and Flower beauty, and she's a busty tan girl. (*you know I said that on reflex, but now that i think about it, I don't know that Kubo himself ever actually drew her in color... that may have been an anime thing.)

Ochi Misato[越智美諭]: "Surpass+Wisdom" and "Beauty+Admonish" which I guess I've never looked at before now. It's not that she isn't a cute character design(and I've got a thing for kind of homely teacher characters anyway...) but I didn't realize Kubo was trying for, like, a "hot teacher" thing with her?

And those are basically all the important ones, and frankly a couple not so important ones... I'm not getting into any of Kubo's little inbetween doodles, or god forbid that ridiculous number of random Karakura High students he dumped into Burn the Witch.

(sorry i got lazy and didn't finish digging up pics for everyone, but I at least made sure to have reference for the obscure characters that some people might not remember)

[captain-grammar]

i just find the idea that each of the immortals have, at some point, been attracted to/emotionally involved/physical with a compelling prospect.

think about it. these are the only people in the world that you can ever truly connect and be yourself with. you're spending decades, centuries, millenia with them. lines will get blurry sometimes. you'll be friends, lovers, and friends once more, lines crossing and uncrossing through the years as your wants and needs evolve. quynh loved lykon. quynh loved andy. andy loved quynh. andy loved booker. booker loved joe. joe loved booker. joe loved nicky.

then nile comes along and all the love and hate and conflicting feelings mixed with this dependency they have with each other must look so strange to an outsider. how do you even begin to explain it? how can you prepare someone for that?

you don't. you just have to wait for it to happen to them and help them reason with themselves.

[robininthelabyrinth]

For headcanons. Can you list the people that bitey Lan Zhan has bitten? Who has that honour of being able to say "Hangungjun? He bite me once."

Mostly Lan sect people, since kids weren't allowed to go to discussion conferences and the Lan sect is pretty leery of letting their babies interact with gremlin children from other sects anyway, much less their precious sect heirs. after all, assassinations are rare in the cultivation world, but not unknown; if you're going to take them out and about, it's safer to let them interact with non-cultivator children or what you assume are non-cultivator children

Nie Huaisang has the dubious distinction of being the non-Lan with the most bites. Lan Xichen swears it was meant affectionately, but NHS has seen into baby LWJ's hateful little eyes and knows it was an act of war (they were fighting over NMJ and LXC's attention).

[psalacanthea]

Fond of the idea of a system where wandering Gray Wardens keep in touch with one another by writing letters.  Every time they meet another Warden, they make copies of each other’s letters if there’s a chance they might run into the person it’s meant to go to.  Letters get dropped off with garrisons, end up in Weisshaupt, stacks and stacks of them that get kept in the hopes of one day being read.

A Warden hears the Calling after 15 years alone, goes to meet his fellows one last time, and finds a stack of letters waiting for him.  Years and years of letters from an old friend that never found him, the last one detailing her trip down to the Deep Roads to serve her own Calling.

Reading the letters helps drown out the Call as he heads down, retracing his friend’s path, battling through Darkspawn one last time.  Down deep below he finally finds his friend’s body.  He puts her sword back in her decaying hand and a letter in her pocket.  

He makes his last stand.

At least he gets to die side by side with a friend.

[sunlitroom]

Looking over the screenshots for the pretty images I shared in that last post I did reminded me how much really strong character stuff was in the episode.  Random rambling follows.

Oswald has just heard Victor and Martyn arrive.  Oswald can be a intensely greedy and selfish man.  Oswald can also be a generous and loving man.  He knows here that as much as he loves Martyn, and as close as he is to the kind of loving relationship that he hungers for - he is going to send him away. He’s staring the reality of it in the face, in this moment, quiet and resolved, knowing what has to be done, and preparing himself to do it.  

Ed has done terrible things.  In many ways - he’s one of the more frightening rogues.  Others will act out of rage, or some weird world philosophy - but Ed will sometimes be cruel for cruelty’s sake, and shows little to no remorse for his actions.

That being said, Ed is also lost and defeated and tired. Part of him doesn’t want to do the things he does, and knows that he’s unwell.  We see him later this season, desperately popping pill after pill in an attempt to gain some kind of stability - and contemplating suicide, at one point.

These two shots just seem to tell that whole story.  There’s a terrible lost sadness in that first image.  Ed has tried and tried and tried again for years to be ‘normal’ - but he can’t fix himself, and just seems to wander further and further from any sense of self. 

The second image is after his Riddler persona has appeared again - and now his expression isn’t just sad and lost, but bleak and grim.  The man part of him wants to be, but who also taunts and torments him is back, and you see his real face, with so much misery etched on it.

There’s this shot of Ed.  He’s been spending a lot of time with Lee at this point. He knew her at GCPD, when things were good for her - in the fist stages oh her relationship with Jim, and in a new job - back when Ed was all starry-eyed over her letting him use the lab, and looking beautiful and smelling nice.  He knew her later on, when things became difficult, and he played a large role in her unhappiness.  Now he sees her here - and even though she’s at one of the lowest points in her life, with her darker nature more exposed - she’s still trying to care for others.  He’s looking at her the way you look at someone you know well, but there’s also this calmness to it -  a contentment.  He knows this person, all the good stuff and the bad stuff and the stuff that’s inexplicable to him, and he simply accepts it.  Somewhere, Ed knows right then that he loves her.  Not in an infatuated, heart-fluttering way, but in a way that it’s just part of him.

I wish so much that that they had decided to give Harper way more time this season, and had her and Sofia face off.  You can still have her wanting revenge on Jim for Mario - but that daft bit where she decides they’re meant to be because dark soulmates (that we’ve already seen with Barbara and Lee anyway) should have been dropped.  She manipulates Jim and Oswald with sex and motherly affection respectively - let’s see how she fares with someone who might be less easily fooled - not flattered or distracted by her name or face.  Harper realising something was rotten and working quietly in the background, tracking her activities, probably flying underneath her radar?  Could have been so good.

[f-117-nighthawk]

while I’m 11k words deep into Keith’s slightly fucked up relation with his Black Paladin status (...again) (don’t worry this is the part where it gets better) here’s some random meta about armor:

While Shiro is still a Paladin, Keith doesn’t wear black armor, even after Iron when they all end up with new armor bc they’ve collectively managed to destroy every single backup set and Allura decides she might as well get them some upgrades like she remembers the second gen having.

However, one of those upgrades is the ability to control the color of their armor essentially at will (after everything, they go to a pride parade and Allura makes herself into a walking rainbow while the others are waving flag-capes around). This was put in specifically because Keith had been bugging everyone for some sort of stealth suit since TRIALS/String Theory.  He quite enjoys the ability to make his armor closer to the colors of the Blade’s stealth suits. 

When Shiro decides he’d rather stay on Earth, be with Adam, raise Zoé, he formally hands Black Paladin status over to Keith. Keith initially doesn’t change the red on his armor, but eventually Adam, of all people, talks him into it. 

Lance walks into a wall the first time he sees Keith fully decked out in the Black Paladin’s colors. No one ever lets him forget it. 

Lance does, eventually, switch his colors over to red, and Allura to blue, but all three of them keep some of their original color on their armor. Keith has the symbol of the Blade stitched in red along with a few other symbols, Lance some blue accents, and Allura keeps her Voltron symbol pink.