03/20

megumi's laugh

Teaser visual for Jujutsu Kaisen: Culling Game anime.

I can no longer stay with everyone.

I know satoru had flashbacks all the time

恵 ; "blessing"

12/22: consider this piece my love letter to a character who has become so near and dear to me and who has inspired so much of my artistic growth this past year <3 happy birthday megumi, your name becomes you ⊹ ࣪ ˖

The Rebellion and Infighting

I have so much to scream about in this first set of three episodes, but the one I want to yell about the most is the theme of destructive infighting that grinds everything to a halt.

It was a more background theme last season, because Cassian was still making his way toward Rebellion. But this time it came out front and center in all four storylines.

In the wedding on Chandrila, everyone was at odds with each other. Nobody could agree on what to do or how to support each other (or who should be supporting who). They sniped and sneered and took passive-aggressive swipes at each other, both personal and Rebellion-related. The one that most desperately broke my heart was Mon's conversation with Leida, where she tried to offer her a way out ("what I wish my mother had said.") And Leida slaps the offer away like a toddler slapping away a spoonful of peas, continuing the mini-theme of mothers and daughters not understanding each other.

On Mina Rau, they did a little better, but not much. What seemed like a lovely little agricultural community fell apart for the Ferrix contingent because someone who seemed to be an ally turned on them to save himself. Plus Beela's mom didn't approve of Wilmon ("a toolie") and fueled Beela and Wilmon's little Romeo and Juliet storyline and making him late for getting the hell out of there.

And of course, there was the Empire, coming around and exercising control over where they went and if they were allowed to be here. The wording in this segment was just *chef's kiss* so specific. They worried about visas and getting caught without them. The Imperial called them "illegal" and "undocumented," a speech that could just as easily be heard from the United States White House today. And then heavily implying (in a nauseating scene that just built and built and built) that Bix could save herself by trading her body. (Buy your right to exist by being useful to the overlords.) And then when she refused, made it clear he was going to take it anyway.

It was most obvious in Cassian getting held up in the jungle by the rebel group, who were so busy squabbling with each other and shooting anything that moved that they didn't even notice a) Cassian manipulating them and b) the giant monsters that leapt out and ate them. Blunt? Oh yes. Obvious? Yepper. Meaningless? Not in the least.

Interestingly, the one storyline that took this theme of infighting and flipped it around to show what it means to work together was Dedra's. Not the Ghorman part of it, although that was riveting. (And the tourist film that Krennic showed was hysterically funny in its WTFery.). But shockingly, it's the dinner with Syril's toxic mom, with Dedra watching Eedy gleefully tear her son down. Then when Syril has to leave the room, Dedra wastes no time in laying down the law that unless Eedy falls the fuck in line, Syril will no longer be part of his mother's life. I hated everyone in that scene as a person, but I admit I cheered.

To return to Cassian's storyline, the reveal at the end of the second episode that it was all taking place on Yavin made me hoot and holler and laugh like a loon. But it also points to something this set of episodes has been laying out in giant flashing neon letters.

The Rebellion is a baby. It's a mess. It's a bunch of people all more concerned with fighting amongst themselves about who's more right and morally pure then actually doing anything real against the Empire. Even Cassian's theft of the TIE fighter was a total mess. He got bad intel and bad training and mostly did a hilaribad job of flying that thing.

But one day, the Rebellion is going to destroy the Death Star. And they're going to do it from this rainy, smelly, monster-filled jungle where a bunch of idiots played Rock Paper Scissors to figure out who got to be the boss. That is going to be the scene of the Rebellion's big triumph.

If they can get their fucking act together.

don't go Nanamin don't go

day 3 - one bed only

whatever you do,

do not imagine nina zenik and jesper fahey, two long-lived, powerful grisha, reunite in ketterdam to visit their friends

do not imagine them holding hands as jesper lifts his free one to trace the words, “wylan van eck, beloved friend, son and husband”

do not imagine nina leaning on a crow-tipped cane while she holds a dagger whose engraved blade says “we never stop fighting” and whispers songs of sailors

do not imagine them staying from dusk until dawn because they’ve dwelled in cemeteries together at night before, all of them together

do not imagine nina watching jesper with a silent question in her eyes

do not imagine them finally getting up, sore from so much time staying still, and heading north where there is someone else who awaits their visit

whatever you do,

do not imagine that