they stumble that run fast

I love Jeffrey but honestly, how could you not love Jeffrey? He’s such a softie for Victoria and encouraging to Nonna. And oh, the way he so gently leans into Victoria and caresses her braid…that was some Darcy hand flex, make you weak in the knees stuff right there. I also like how, without even knowing, he’s helping Victoria open up barriers she has around her heart. How it didn’t show her face when he leaned in but her narration told us that normally she would’ve put on a fake “face” yet clearly in that moment she likely didn’t with him. She didn’t even know how she reacted but that just says it was one of her first real reactions with someone. Along with having her first true picnic and hopefully, falling in love. It shows how much of a gentleman he is. That he makes it easy for her to be herself, the person she’s rediscovering now that she’s no longer an agent.

In general though I just like the “courtship” approach with these two where you know he’s interested and he respects Victoria but when she tries to use Nonna as somewhat of an excuse at first, he’s swift in making it clear that including her isn’t a problem. That he wants them both in his life and he’s willing to take his time to make his intentions clear to her. And Nonna really seems to adore and be comfortable around him which is so important too.

I'm actually surprised you came away with the impression Quiffrey manipulates everyone, though! Because my impression was that the narrative *intentionally* misleads you with the goal of making Quiffrey actually, genuinely caring about the kids come as a surprise... and I loved it! I love it when stories get clever about using tropes as tools to play with reader's expectations. (mha does this as well but I DO know THAT particular fandom wouldn't want to hear it lmao)

My read was that Quiffrey's introduction SEEMED like it was leading to a "I'm manipulating everyone to achieve my revenge" character archtype, but THEN it's softly... deconstructed? He worries about Argott pushing too fast and too hard, about Richeh's issues with past teachers, about not letting Coco take her first exam while the Range is at it's highest point... he gets genuinely angry at Euini's teacher being shitty... those things rang as genuine to me 🤔

I think WHA does that deconstruction really well, for all the characters. It puts them in neat little boxes — Argott The Rival, Tatia The Best Friend, Richeh The Quiet One — only for later to unpack them softly, show you that they have more going on for them. For example, I didn't expect Tatia to have the emotional maturity to apologize for blaming Coco when she didn't even say it out loud! But Tatia owned up to it and apologized, which I found super admirable.

Then again, I'm anime-only, so my read might be totally off lol. My impression is that it's too early to tell what WHA's themes are, as every introduced point seems to get a twist later on - e.g. Quiffrey firmly stating that magic is better off hidden, but later delving how The Pact also had bad sides - magic healing is completely forbidden, so it has died off and witches can't cure at all, for example... little conveniences that would make people's lives easier, like humidifiers or clean water whenever, are kept from the public... but we see the horrors of the golden city and get why such drastic action would have been taken, at the same time.

I dunno, I guess I liked what I watched, and I wanted to share :] totally open to talk about your read on quiffrey and the series' themes though, if you want to expound on it!

I appreciate you asking for my thoughts 😄 And thanks for sharing yours. I can totally get the appeal of WHA, for one the animation is beautiful and even with the manga, the line work is stunning. I get saying that as an anime-only we can’t know the themes from the get-go. That being said, I think I may have mentioned in one of my posts that I do a fair amount of research into most of the shows I watch so even when I’m an anime-only, I usually know a good deal about the plot as a whole. Sometimes I like to go in blind and be surprised but with WHA, I decided to look more into what people were thinking the theme was as fans because of Quifrey’s character and the fact that so many fans were saying he and Olruggio were lovers or something and I don’t want to promote anything with a prominent lgbtq theme.

Reading fans posts on Reddit, I picked up on a few things. One, that they did ship Olruggio and Quifrey pretty hard even though there wasn’t any clear indication past friendship but if certain fans pointed that out, they were hated on pretty swiftly. The other thing was, most fans believed the underlying current of the narrative to be about access to knowledge and that the story is teaching sort of universal free knowledge, that restriction in any form is stifling to children (basically a socialist mindset) is what they were taking away from it. That being said, there was also a lot of division even in the fandom because others wanted it to be about the problems with ableism and restricting people who have disabilities. Even without this research though, it was pretty easy to figure out what the narrative was saying from how hard it was trying to get it across through some of the characters.

I actually like the changes the anime is making from the manga. Namely in regards to Kail and Yuri’s relationship. While the desire is still evident between them, they’ve toned down the overt sexual elements which will hopefully make their dynamic more romantic. At least for me it was somewhat a struggle to get the connection between the two when most of their “bond” was purely physical. Only issue I could see with the changes would be someone innocently expecting wholesome romance from seeing this and then being surprised at some of the content in the manga. I like though that they’re keeping Kail’s confident personality and Yuri’s sweetness but making him less, let’s say aggressive, towards her. We’ll see if they change it as it goes on but I’d rather have Kail who’s clearly intrigued and interested than the one who’s just driven only by lust.

I’m also hoping that Yuri will be less two-dimensional in this adaptation than she felt reading the manga. It often came across like she was merely an object to be passed around between the rotating carousel of men who desired her and then the people who worshiped her. While there was a semblance of “empowerment”she was little more than a lucky person and didn’t have much the mind for leadership beyond being from the future. That being said, I’m not for pulling the opposite of the damsel in distress and making her a “girl boss” either or just a bossy girl more like it. Hoping they emphasize how she starts off a foolish young woman who makes mistakes but can learn from them and become a grown, mature lady. Just don’t want it to be a constant string of naivety.

(Red River Spoilers) - One thing that I wish would’ve been slightly different in Red River is having Yuri go back at least once to say goodbye to her family. Nothing wrong with having her decide she wants to stay in the past with Kail, Kagome did the same with Inuyasha but I think giving the family closure is important too. Having her family be left in the dark is tragic cause you wonder if they’re forever believing she was kidnapped or went missing which is so sad.

What’s that saying? Screaming, crying, throwing up 😂 No, seriously though, nothing really compares to Apothecary Diaries right now I feel like. The story is so well written, the characters are captivating and the animation…just look at it. Cannot wait to have Maomao and Jinshi back in the anime and in this movie. The trailer was a welcome surprise 💜💚

It is true that to become an atheist, all you have to do is read the bible, I guess

@postingtime2 I asked you to cite specific scriptures, not just give untrue generalizations which all atheists do when they have no ability to prove what they’re trying to claim. Nice try but until you actually can prove your argument, there’s no discussion here.

What is with these, quite frankly, insane takes about Vax not submitting due to his ego and wanting to “save face?” Did we all watch the same show? You know, the one where there’s a character who has barely any ego and sacrifices himself for his sister and friends over and over? I mean, if people are not able to understand the hero’s journey to this degree, I fear for the ability to grasp much media at all. When heroism is now being spun as selfish and egotistical, that’s not just a bad take, it’s a dangerous one.

Because yeah, we can say this is fictional and regardless of how people perceive Vax’s actions, it’s how he was written so people should bear with it and not be so offended. However, if you view a character’s act of heroism as inherently selfish, what if a person commits such an act in real life? Would you call them an egotistical person just doing it for vanity? If a solider chooses to leap onto on a grenade for comrades, we don’t say “wow, just doing it for his ego, what a loser.” No we honor such people because of the costs of their sacrifice. Are there some people who “play the hero” for attention? Sure, but that isn’t what this is. This isn’t a commentary on narcissistic manipulation. It’s a character journey that leads to one man standing up to a vile, liar of a villain so others can do the same.

Them writing Vax as a character who doesn’t submit is completely in line with his arc. It’s not about ego or pride when he doesn’t bow to Vecna. For one, the idea people seem to have that they would’ve been able to regroup had Vax given in and Vecna would’ve kept his promise is ludicrous. He’s a villain, since when are you supposed to trust anything a villain says? Especially when he had just admitted to spinning an unholy web of lies for so long to convince them to kill him so he could resurrect. But yeah, sure, that guy would just let Vax go so they could regroup.