@carnelianwings / carnelianwings.tumblr.com
There are some things you can disagree on and still be friends. Pineapple on pizza. DC v Marvel movie franchises. Dogs v cats.
But fascism and trying to dictate how others define themselves or live their lives? Yeah, no, that's not on the list.
I love telling coworkers “I voted the way you’d expect me to”. It’s a total non-answer that validates their beliefs/perception of me without needing me to put in more effort than I’m willing to give while at work and needing to be Not Offensive to coworkers.
The ones who barely know me outside of work could conceivably think I’d vote red, because “taxes and she gets paid well”.
But the ones who actually know me outside of work, the ones who know my favorite Gundam series is Seed and my favorite character is Cagalli and my favorite superhero is Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel, the ones who’ve seen me at locals early on making sure the one flamboyantly gay new guy (who joined the same time I did) didn’t get picked on, the ones who know I’m bi/pan - those are the ones who know I voted blue.
And the ones who’ve spent even 5 minutes getting me to talk about politics will realize I voted blue only because I’m compromising and settling for no progress (with the hope of a tiny incremental step forward) because backsliding is the worse option of all.
But what do I know? I’m just a(n overeducated, single, career minded) Asian woman who doesn’t know her place.
Late night (nsfw) AsuCaga thoughts …
Chatting with some friends and I couldn't help but make this
tag your blorbos with onion headlines!
i guess it's part 1 because i found more but can't post more than 30 of them at once so stay tuned part 2
“First… decide. And then do it. It’s the only way to achieve anything.”
Do you want to read ~8.000 words of Lacus Clyne character analysis? I hope so, because that’s what I got for you today.
When I watched SEED, I was wholly convinced I would dislike Lacus and everything she stands for. I have never been more wrong. Lacus is a tricky character to grasp - the show narrates her story largely through themes, blank spaces and parallel storytelling. As a result, I understand how she can seem quite flat on a casual viewing. I promise you right now, there is more to her role in the story than meets the eye.
In a 2020 interview, Director Fukuda said: “I do remember [Writer Morosawa] saying that the idea of Lacus Clyne was that she would be a mirror of other people, and that was why she was necessary to reflect other people’s hearts.”
The primary mirrors for Lacus are Flay in SEED and the Durandal/Meer combo in Destiny, so these will be our focal angle for unraveling her character - because the question is not just “what does the mirror say about other people?” it is also “what is inherent to Lacus that is able to reflect these (often negative) characters so well?”
Lacus’ story includes a lot of interesting ideas about power, agency, and gender performativity. I am here today to make my case to all of you, to present to you the Lacus I came to love - a girl who would love to be ordinary, but who cannot ignore the ideological power her image has become entrenched with.
(Because tumblr is a functional website and won't show posts with links in tags, I will add my source links in a reblog.)
Went to BCS Sacramento, did well on Day 1 (by my standards), and shockingly well on Day 2.
Tucking the rest behind the cut, I’m going to assume my opponents (especially from Day 2) aren’t here (because whoooooo boy I was seeing salt on Twitter due to how I got the wins - totally legal by the rules, it was just 95% luck 😅)
Since @orchids-skyflame asked me over on Twitter which version of the AsuCaga kiss in Seed I prefer more, I figured I'd just write the Massive Wall of Text here, because the post I was writing in Notes on my phone was getting crazy long, to the point where I'm pretty sure it's more than 4 screen shots.
As a refresher, this is a(n unsubbed) clip someone posted of the original version off of the original DVD release of Seed, and this is the same scene, but from the remaster. The dialogue for both versions is the same, but it's the animation that's different, and I think it leads to some changes in how the scene comes across, and I think it's worth discussing.
But if you're not here for a Massive Wall of Text (that will include discussion of AsuCaga into Seed Destiny and Seed Freedom) and just want the short version, the answer is the original, even if AsuCaga kissing with the Earth in the background makes for a very pretty and romantic picture.
(Long answer behind the cut, in writing about this scene I kind of just ran off on an entire tangent about them so, uhhh, take it as you will? XD)
Just some personal ramblings … (it’s good things this time)
saw your talk of kira getting more shit than he deserves from people. come to the jp twitter side. the jp fandom understands him. the jp fandom has receipts. (i snuck into their walls through liberal use of google translate)
if you go to kazumasa specifically and search up katakana keywords like sai (サイ) and so on, you'll get some very interesting discussion about the infamous ntr and about kira's efforts to keep his friends alive not necessarily being acknowledged, and even trampled on at certain points (i.e when his friends joined the earth army who were explicitly against coordinators, not really understanding the danger in full by that point) and psychological warfare in general, basically
it's interesting stuff if you're willing to brave the google translate journey!
I’m well aware Japanese side of the fandom gets him - it’s just that the English side is incredibly hung up on his “I survived that when I shouldn’t have” situations and a lot of the opinions surrounding Kira are very surface-level criticisms that are made without taking the setting or his (changing) motivations into account. It’s like none of them paid an ounce of attention in English lit class and can’t be bothered to use anything they did learn to engage with the story, setting, and characters of Seed beyond making memes.
And I’m already there, I just lurk because I have fairly low-level Japanese language skills - I have enough to get by for playing games, understanding trading card game skills and effects, and can understand maybe 50-70% of an anime episode sans English subs (comprehension goes up if I can have Japanese subs on). I don’t really engage much with the Japanese side of the fandom aside from retweeting art and the occasional short fancomics I can understand and find cute/funny, but it’s a much nicer space to be than seeing all the bad takes/ship wars on the English side 😅
Surprise, surprise, looks like there’s going to be a new cut of Seed Freedom releasing in Japan ahead of the BD release this Christmas. The new trailer looks good for the redrawn scenes and it’s already said there’s going to be a new/updated epilogue (or maybe even multiple ones?)
Either way I’m glad they fixed some of the wonky parts in the movie (some more obvious than others) and I am so not surprised at Seed Freedom getting the “Final Plus” treatment - while I was okay with the “and Kira and Lacus flew off into the (metaphorical) sunset to have sex on the beach, Athrun returned to Orb to meet up with Cagalli, and Shinn and Luna (presumably) returned to the Millennium with Agnes” ending, I still have a lot of questions for how things ended up politically speaking. Foundation essentially ceased to exist in the space of a week so there’s got to be fall out from that. Plus the part where Orb was Very Obviously breaking the Junius Treaty with all the Mirage Colloid use on both the main space fleet and the Amazing Z’Gok, and also just having the Infinite Justice Type II 😅 Oh and also as part of that “flying off into the sunset” Kira and Lacus pretty much ran off with a Gundam even more powerful than the Destroy so that’s gotta raise even more questions across the board 😅😅😅
Either way, I look forward to seeing it, whether it’s another showing in the theatre or on the BD (I sure hope this is the cut we’re getting on the BD).
Ha. I was being overly optimistic when I said I hope it’s the cut that’s going to be on the BD, because joke’s on me, they added another 2 epilogues that won’t be included on there, and will only be in theatre in Japan. 🙃
I swear people need to let the old AsuCaga vs AsuMey ship war die already. Between the canonical ring-Haumea stone scene and the (canonical) epilogue card art, plus Athrun's internal monologue during the "obscene delusions" scene in the novelization, and the Escape for Two prequel novella - as an AsuCaga fan, I feel like we won. And it's pretty obvious (to me, at least) that Meyrin's just Athrun's (work) partner for all the spy/covert ops stuff that they do - he's the field agent, she's the voice in his ear piece (and occasional hacker extraordinaire) - and shipper on deck for AsuCaga.
And those extra bonuses for the screening? Those are literally just storyboard line art for a scene from right before the final battle in the movie, because, guess what? Cagalli's still head of state for Orb and she can't exactly just go charging into battle like she did at the Second Battle of Jachin Due (especially since that would kind of ruin the plan Athrun had to get around the whole "Accords can read minds" thing).
So just ... let it go. I'm just going to leave Athrun's internal monologue during the "obscene delusions" scene from volume 2 of the novelization (translation courtesy of ZeonicScanslations) as proof AsuCaga is the intended canonical ship for Athrun:
"Cagalli…" Athrun focused intently on picturing Cagalli. As if clinging to that image. Her spirited golden eyes, her innocent smile that she showed from time to time, the scent of her hair… The supple curves beneath her wet, translucent clothes… The soft sensation of her skin when he embraced her, and the physique beneath… Her strong voice, resolute and clear, urged him to live, to fight with all his might. As he recalled every cherished moment with her, Athrun made a heartfelt vow. To live, to endure—whatever the means, no matter how desperate or unseemly the measures might be. Just as she had once told him.
Because that, right there? That reads like he's deeply in love with Cagalli and has eyes for no one else, not Lacus, not Meer, not Lunamaria, and most definitely not Meyrin. Or Kira for that matter. XD
All of these used to be so common for people to show their appreciation of different fics and authors, and I think it’s a shame people don’t do it anymore. I love seeing fan work for my fics!!
Surprise, surprise, looks like there’s going to be a new cut of Seed Freedom releasing in Japan ahead of the BD release this Christmas. The new trailer looks good for the redrawn scenes and it’s already said there’s going to be a new/updated epilogue (or maybe even multiple ones?)
Either way I’m glad they fixed some of the wonky parts in the movie (some more obvious than others) and I am so not surprised at Seed Freedom getting the “Final Plus” treatment - while I was okay with the “and Kira and Lacus flew off into the (metaphorical) sunset to have sex on the beach, Athrun returned to Orb to meet up with Cagalli, and Shinn and Luna (presumably) returned to the Millennium with Agnes” ending, I still have a lot of questions for how things ended up politically speaking. Foundation essentially ceased to exist in the space of a week so there’s got to be fall out from that. Plus the part where Orb was Very Obviously breaking the Junius Treaty with all the Mirage Colloid use on both the main space fleet and the Amazing Z’Gok, and also just having the Infinite Justice Type II 😅 Oh and also as part of that “flying off into the sunset” Kira and Lacus pretty much ran off with a Gundam even more powerful than the Destroy so that’s gotta raise even more questions across the board 😅😅😅
Either way, I look forward to seeing it, whether it’s another showing in the theatre or on the BD (I sure hope this is the cut we’re getting on the BD).
