tell me about drawtectives. what is this little show.
oooooh my god oh my god. they are my guys. so.
drawtectives itself is a youtube series created by julia lepetit on Drawfee. it's an rpg mystery show– s1 is a murder mystery, s2 is just a mystery– that doubles as an art challenges show. she draws all of the backgrounds and npcs and most of the assets (the 'cutscenes', you could call them) and then the team gets together, knowing absolutely nothing besides what julia's asked them to prepare, and does some funky improv to create a very funky storyline.
there are 3 players and one dm; the pcs are rosé, york, and grendan/grenda/grandma/gma, and the Big NPCs are Jancy True (s1/s2) and Eugene Finch (s2) and they're, in their own words, a found family, so. beloved. their backup plan if all their jobs fail is to move out east and open a bookstore. jancy and eugene have fully accepted their titles as mom/ancestral ghost and son despite meeting each other likely once before the drawtectives dragged them together. overall though if i had to summarize, it's a bunch of friends getting together, making a bunch of puns, appreciating julia's art, and laughing together. the vibes are 10/10 so loving. in writing the transcripts i've written (Karina laughs) (Nathan laughs) (All laugh) So Many Times it's just fun.
so there's three pcs. first one we meet is gyorik 'york' rogdul, who's a half-orc come to the city to learn about his mother's culture. he is the character we have by far the most lore for– if I compiled all the lore I had about the Northern Tribes and Wild Trains, I think the document would be multiple pages. he's also illiterate, which was an interesting decision for the english major of the group to make (in other words, York Will Not Be Illiterate For Season Three bc Y'all Cannot Read) and morally gray if you think about it too hard (he killed his own brother) but yknow he's hot so it's okay. they're all hot any crimes committed are okay. he's also aroace (confirmed by the player, which is!! vibes!! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TELLING ME @axolotllee!)
rosé is the Human Rogue and the youngest of the party; her main trait in s1 was Millennial and she Dealt with that. she, in contrast with York, has so little lore we are scraping the barrel. she was a thief, then left everything about that life behind and changed her name to rosé when she went to work for jancy. she lied on her resumé. she knows how to sew; she's sewn Pockets of Holding on most of her clothing. she bonded with a stray cat that lived outside her last apartment. she's three credits short of graduating college. she's, in addition to being a drawtective, jancy's intern, and cried when jancy got her a cupcake. she won't tell her best friends when her birthday is or where she goes to school or what her last name is. that's all we know about her and i love her and she could probably kill someone as she has multiple knives on her person and does not use them. she's bright and funny and can be pretty dark but really does find the humor in it which is. wonderful.
so grendan highforge starts out as The Snobby Rich Boy which. already love the trope something Always Happens To Them if they're a pc. then through s1 they make an offhand comment about a character (faucon, whose name is pronounced 'falco') and how if her name was pronounced that way it'd be grenda. faucon asks how they feel about it. they are caught very off-guard by that and then ask to be called it for the next hour or so. then the next witness calls him gma, and then grandma, and then. yeah she realizes she's genderfluid. and he uses any pronouns and has a full beard and also wears a romper and loves dogs and the player is the Most Experienced TTRPG-er so through maybe using resources a bittt grandma is the most observant character of all of them. he's also a dog walker and a lightweight and does canonically have druidic magic though that was Not Touched On Much and showed up to their first day on the job slightly stoned (they did stop doing that though.) she carries around a box to make the height difference (york is 7'. grendan is 4'. rosé is 6'. you can see the formatting issue) slightly less difficult. she doesn't know how rhinos reproduce but has had a fascination with them since a police chief said one might've committed a crime. i think they could kill someone by talking too much but they don't actually have the strength or dex to do Jack Shit.
and jancy true is the head pi (a great many of the characters are puns and i love it so much) and is there to make sure things get done and clues don't get missed. she has a cochlear implant and uses a cane and solved s1 just by Reading The Paper and hearsay. she solved about half of s2 before Someone Stopped Her. she says hello children to the drawtectives and it is such a fond thing. eugene is. a guy who i love. julia started the show thinking he would be some mysterious character to join them and then made the wonderful improv decision– avoiding having to do npc-npc conversation– of saying 'yeah eugene is spinning a camera on its stand' and rosé just says so gleefully. 'guys. i think he's stupid.' and he became their son. his character is a lot of The Plot of s2 so i don't want to get into it too much but. jancy and eugene my beloved.
they're just. such a family. to quote nathan (grenda's Player) from the s2 talkback: "That's one of my favorite things about this show, is we came in with these vague ideas for characters, and just playing them with each other, they became friends and became better people as a result of knowing each other and solving mysteries. ... Like, we all kind of independently made our characters people that either were distant from their families or, you know, just had tenuous connections to other stuff, and so these are, like, the realest connections they have in their lives."
and then karina (rosé) about 10 seconds later: "Yeah, we love a found family where they bond over just being the worst."
god. them. they're chaotic and loud and feel very real to me. they have excitement and are pretty bad at social cues but they love each other and want to die together because they would hate too much to be separated. i could articulate this better but it's one in the morning and they mean a great deal to me.
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Eileen’s Madness and the Bloody Crow (Theory)
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It’s interesting to note that Eileen’s dialogue about Bloody Crow is not as vicious sounding as one could hear it in the English.
She doesn’t actually call him “that thing.” Clearly, the translators must have seen “What lies beyond” or “Beyond here” and thought that the “object” of that sentence was in direct reference to what Crow actually was. Eileen was referring to what lay beyond in a general sense, not “a thing lies ahead” in the manner one would speak of a incomprehensible monster. Bloody Crow is not a “thing” to her, rather he is her prey once again.
Now what’s interesting is that Eileen calling Crow “that thing” in English can make it sound either incredibly impersonal or very personal. She could be calling him that because he’s merely a mindless killer that ruthlessly attacked her, and therefore monstrous, or she could call him so out of pure vitriol. If the latter, we would have to assume that he was special to push Eileen to that level of anger. Her saying that it was her score to settle adds to the personal feeling we get from her fight with him.
But now…knowing that type of speech doesn’t exist in the Japanese, it would be easy to assume it’s not personal. However, I still feel like it is nonetheless, albeit with less anger than we might imagine. For one, Eileen calls Bloody Crow her prey, but absolutely does not bother to explain anything about him. When telling us about Henryk, she explained that he was an old hunter that went mad. She also has no trouble speaking to us about Gascoigne, and her warning about Henryk is very straightforward. “He’s my target. Don’t go over there because he’s dangerous.” She’s warning you to be careful.
Once she realizes you killed Gascoigne, she also just recommends keeping your hands clean even if you’re clearly strong.
But with Bloody Crow, things seem different. She doesn’t explain who he is, she doesn’t say he’s mad, and she only says her wound was a mistake or slip-up. But again…no elaboration on any of this. She just says not to interfere, which seems like it’s because she wants to be the one to kill the Bloody Crow. Now it could easily be because she doesn’t want you to get hurt, or because she wants to suck it up despite her old age, but the problem is…if Bloody Crow were just another blood-drunk hunter, wouldn’t she explain that to you and remind you to keep your hands clean again? There’s just this lack of communication on her part this time around.
Before it was, “Hey, Henryk and Gascoigne lost their heads, but don’t worry about trying to kill people like that anymore. It’s my job.”
This time, we have a strange situation where Eileen’s prey is another Crow apparently, but shows no evident signs of madness. Meanwhile, Eileen tells you to stay away and not interfere, but with no warning or explanation about her prey. Plus, Bloody Crow was obviously powerful enough to actually wound her. This is actually a big deal. Even in her old age, Eileen is shown to still be adept enough to be able to take on your typical blood-drunk hunter, and risks doing so. Bloody Crow broke that trend. He’s different from the rest.
Now, it could be that she just randomly found him and attacked, thinking he was blood-drunk, was beaten, sees you, tells you to stay away, and offers no backstory because she doesn’t know anything about the Crow.
But…to me that doesn’t make sense. Bloody Crow is silent and precise, he shows no signs of blood-drunkenness. Henryk and Gascoigne did. They yelled and growled like animals, and Gascoigne even transformed. Crows stands in place and does not leave his arena. He fights with caution and exercises his skills in combat like a fiend.
So, why on earth would Eileen attack him? She’s not stupid. She knows exactly what blood-drunk hunters are like. Bloody Crow doesn’t fit in with them. He’s too coherent.
Let’s also not ignore the huge elephant in the room. He’s literally suggested to be a Vileblood, or else a pretty high-standing resident of Cainhurst. But he’s just hanging out in Yharnam’s Grand Cathedral like it’s nothing.
Seriously. Based on his absurd strength, his use of the Chikage, and the rune he drops, it’s very possible that he is a Vileblood via Annalise’s blood or maybe a relative of hers at least. He uses Numbing Mist, which is a recipe kept secret by the Cainhurst nobles in particular, so he had to have been of Cainhurst aristocracy at some point, either by descent or induction.
What’s weirder is his use of the Hunter’s Bone and how his Repeating Pistol suggests a connection with the Healing Church and their hunters. The Hunter’s Bone is the most baffling thing though, because using that tool to recall the art of quickening is something the Dream hunters would have done. Maria and Gehrman’s generation could quicken without the one, but hunters that pass through the Dream use it to recall the skill. This implies that the Crow either had access to the Dream, or still does.
Oh and, one more thing…his rune suggests that he could have also been hunting blood-drunk hunters himself, which means that he could have been a Crow for that reason, or rather, was manipulating the position in order to hide his blood dreg hunting. Either way, his entire aesthetic is bizarre and is connected to three different factions.
My theory is that he definitely was a Crow, but could have been manipulating the role, and along the way, he decided to grow stronger by adopting further methods of combat. He and Eileen both dreamed at one point, so that’s probably when he got the bone…and his pistol could have easily been acquired from some blood-drunk church hunter he killed.
But now back to the dilemma we have with his and Eileen’s quest. So…assuming our theory above is true, and taking into consideration a few of the following things—
He isn’t evidently blood-drunk.
Eileen must know this and therefore probably knows/hunts him for some other reason. (Remember, she calls him her prey).
The odd little detail that he doesn’t chase her down to finish her off (he literally refuses to leave the cathedral, which suggests a hesitance/lack of determination in regards to Eileen).
With all this on the table, then why are they fighting each other?
This is why I think it’s personal and we aren’t meant to know the full story. Eileen’s lack of explanation, Crow’s appearance/connections/identity, Crow’s failure/refusal to finish Eileen off, Eileen fighting him even though he isn’t drunk…it all contributes to the feeling that they had something going on. And I feel like I have an even stronger piece of evidence to seal this off.
It’s Eileen’s madness at the end of her quest if we don’t help her.
Ever wonder why the hell Eileen just suddenly goes insane in the cathedral if we don’t do her quest? Ever wonder why she specifically says that the hunters must die to stop the nightmare/madness? Ever wonder where Bloody Crow is in this scenario?
It raises a LOT of questions, but I think I have an idea of what the answer may be.
Our quest with Eileen is essentially about our persistence to aid an older warrior with a grim task that most hunters likely wouldn’t feel comfortable doing. Eileen tells us to stay away and keep clean, but we don’t listen. We keep pushing and eventually she relents because we prove ourselves to be reliable. We literally save her skin, likely earning her trust and allowing her to let her guard down before giving us the badge. We build trust, we establish an unspoken bond.
But if we don’t help Eileen, who does she have to turn to? Who could she ever pass her badge to? She’s the one that tells us about how most of Yharnam has turned. There aren’t many humans left, and in the midst of it all, Gascoigne and Henryk both go mad. Their whole family dies off. Eileen is essentially alone and without allies. There just aren’t enough sane hunters left, so her mantle is in danger of being lost for good. We can imagine this leads to a strong sense of isolation and dread for Eileen. Her duty, her legacy…it’s all at stake, and she’s alone, aging, and wandering amid an almost apocalyptic city. Add on top of that the endless suffering surrounding her and the insanity that overtakes the remaining survivors when the blood moon descends. It’s horrifyingly grim, and I don’t doubt it could send anyone into despair, no matter how resistant they are.
Now imagine Eileen is dealing with this, and she comes across Bloody Crow, an long-term enemy, though possibly once her apprentice. If she has no one to pass her mantle to, then she has to survive the fight with Crow. Failure isn’t an option.
I think that’s what sends her mad.
She wins. She summons up the rage and energy she needs to defeat him, because she has no other choice. But it leaves her completely alone, grieved, and in utter despair. It gets worse if you consider the possibility that they had once been close. That would break someone.
So, then we find her in the Cathedral, Bloody Crow dead and gone…and her duty twisted into insanity.
These words are specifically targeted towards hunters. The blame is on hunters.
“Hunters must die! They’re all drunk! End the nightmare! That’s my task.”
It’s her Crow’s mission, but deranged and almost vengeful sounding, as if she’s blaming hunters for the nightmare. She demands their blood. They’re all drunk.
And you know what? I’m betting money that these words were the exact type of rhetoric that Bloody Crow was spewing out before Eileen killed him. I think Eileen takes his place and his goal after killing him. He probably was meant to be her successor, but something happened and he despaired, blaming hunters for the nightmare. He wanted their blood, the blood of echo fiends…that was his task. His cold, calculated excuse was given through his Rapture rune. As a servant of the queen, the blood of drunken hunters was exactly what he needed.
I think it all ties together, that Eileen’s words and behavior in the cathedral reveal the answers about Bloody Crow’s motivation. I still don’t think he was blood-drunk, but rather mad in a different way. It was a cold fury that had possessed him and drove him into becoming a vengeful monster that slew hunters wherever he could. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had been a big part of the reason why there were so few hunters in Yharnam by the time we arrived. Crows are trained to kill hunters. They’re extremely dangerous, and a rogue one? That’s terrifying. Eileen probably was obliged to hunt him for a long time. They had a score to settle, rooted in betrayal and anger. A battle between the young student and his master. (Keep in mind, Bloody Crow’s vocal data is the “youthful male” set. He sounds young, and I must wonder if that was intentional).
But I’m also wondering if perhaps they still held back due to a previous bond, and that’s why Eileen loses if we follow her quest. I think she had hope that not all was lost, and that she still could pass her mantle to someone else. So, she didn’t give into bloodlust and madness, then she lost and escaped, basically sparing Bloody Crow. Then we appeared and slew Bloody Crow for her, healing the rift for good. That’s when Eileen gave us the responsibility of her league of hunter hunters.
And who knows, maybe Bloody Crow even held back by not ensuring her death, and that’s why he isn’t still attacking Eileen by the time we arrive. Maybe his anger was directed towards us simply for being another “drunken” hunter that he needed to kill.
This is of course, speculation, but Eileen’s dialogue when she loses her mind seems so telling. It feels like we’re meant to see what the despair of a HOH looks like, and perhaps receive a glimpse into Bloody Crow as a character. Why else would Eileen suddenly lose her head and take BC’s place if we never aided her? I just think it makes sense that her isolation, her lack of a successor, her survival of the blood moon, and her killing of the person that may very well have been her old apprentice would all be contributing factors to the state we find her in. It makes so much sense story-wise as well.
It also would reveal a really interesting key point in the overall lore of the Crows as well. There’s something elusive and elite about this faction. They seem almost immune to the beast plague because of their strength and skill. They don’t need to worry about the beasts because they’re too busy worrying about the warriors that hunt the beasts regularly. They’re on another level.
So, I think exploring the idea of, “Okay, but what drives them mad? What does that look like?” is really fascinating. The answer seems to be “hunters.” Hunters become the problem and source of a Crow’s madness. This is just so unique because of how many other characters in the story go insane because of the beast plague, or the gods. It’s the eldritch horror that drives others mad, but for a Crow, their weakness is other humans. It ties directly into their mission.
Anyway, I’m definitely starting to ramble here so I’ll just conclude this by saying: I think there’s more to Eileen and Bloody Crow’s quest line than meets the eye. We just gotta follow the subtle clues laid out along the way. We are experiencing the story from an outsider’s perspective after all, so we don’t get many answers, but I think the end results of our choices drop hints about what happened. Eileen’s madness and Bloody Crow’s absence being the result of our lack of involvement doesn’t seem like a coincidence. We change the story by choosing to fight for Eileen.
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why i actually really like russell crowe as javert
naturally i will preface this by acknowledging that yes, i am heavily biased. however, i will try to make some points as neutral as possible, especially considering i love most of the various adaptions of les mis!
let me start by asking you to take into account the widely different versions of les miserables and especially the character of javert. i have seen most adaptions of les mis and i was fortunate enough to be able to see the show at west end once, and one thing i have a lot of love and admiration for is how different all of them are - especially in the pre-musical, brick inspired works. some adaptions focus more on his air of authority and faith in the law, others put emphasis on his relationship with valjean (which narratively makes sense in film adaptions that make valjean the clear main character) and some beautifully craft javert’s derailment.
focussing on the 2012 adaption, i think a lot of the ick of people comes from it being neither a perfect musical adaption, nor a perfect live action - both of which have had their runs with successful versions in the past. i personally like how hooper has blended both adaptions, but i can understand that the adaption takes liberties in both ways that will not satisfy people who particularly are fond of the musical or brick-inspired live action films. i personally really admire the 2012 adaption for managing to add an authenticity to musical films by ambitiously going for live recordings rather than studio, but that is a different story.
anyway, that brings me to russell crowes version of javert and a polite read more for people who follow me.
let’s get to the obvious first - no, russell crowe is not a professionally trained singer and at the time, his only singing experience was with his rock band. and yes, russell crowe has released one of the worst selling singles in new zealands history. however, there are a couple elements i like about his voice. first of all, i find that the version of ‘the confrontation’ of the 2012 adaption easily rests among my favourites, partially because the contrast between hugh jackman’s voice and russell crowe’s voice greatly adds to the clash of the song. hugh’s voice is bright and musically trained, while russell’s voice covers the lower ranges and a more straight forward path. i like their version because it is easy to understand both their melodies, and i feel like it is cleaner than a lot of other adaptions.
second of all, especially in ‘stars’, i find that there is a beauty in it that is largely caused by a lack of professional training for crowe. his version of ‘stars’, as well as other songs, are carefully constructed. there is something suiting about taking an intense strong-willed outlier and trying to fit him in a musical theatre mold that imho compliments javerts storyline. and while i love the intenseness of quasts ‘stars’, to name one famous example, i also like the quiet prayer-like version of russell.
voice aside for one moment and focusing more on the live action approach, i like that russell was chosen for the role. he is famous for diving into roles and going back to the roots, rather than finding his inspiration in other, newer adaptions. while there is a great cause to be made regarding standing of the shoulders of giants in the musical world, i appreciate a take on javert that draws from crowe’s interpretation of the version that he read in the brick, rather than one that is inspired by the many javert that have been there before him.
then regarding his general acting, i appreciate his body language and above all the humanity he adds to javert. i think the character of javert is often wrongfully seen as a villain, but crowe’s javert makes it... easy for a general audience to sympathize for him. there’s pride in him, a clear respect of authority and justice and slowly, towards the end, the unraveling that ends up destroying him.
now there are some things i believe russell’s javert falls short, whether it be on him or other members of the crew. his version of ‘javert’s suicide’ feels a bit too flat and i would love if he leaned in just a bit more into the beauty of musical theatre here. having the derailment both happen in music as well as in his acting, would have added a great deal to this version. (and the spine snapping sound was also so unnecessary).
i also believe that he would have been more loved if they presented him with a look that better matched people’s common idea of javert. if he had more whiskers or longer hair (such as master & commander, maybe even), a whole lot of his adaption would already feel different. he has the canine like features (though he’s a bit more rounded and bear-like, than wolf-like), he’s not conventionally attractive, he can be an intense presence as well as be more stealthy - he has all the possibilities, but a lot of them just... went slightly unused. (they did feature the typical crowe ‘this character gets pegged’) energy tho
but yes - i love how this javert compliments hughs valjean. they are not my favourite javert and valjean (though, actually, hugh’s valjean is probably my second favourite), but they are a combination that works well. and i also just... love imperfections? i love having a javert that is a little odd and a javert who doesn’t quite fit in. I love a javert who can be stern and cold, but have humanity too.
sorry for the lack of coherency - perhaps when i get round to finishing my reread of the brick i might change my mind on some things or specify certain elements i can see in crowes adaption, but i felt the need to just... add my two cents to 11 year old discourse as some people were entering the russell crowe tag and sharing their dislike for his javert. <3
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