#But they feel so hollow compared to the characters that the champions had | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fanmoose12 · 3 years

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I am not over it. I am SO not over IT. I read the SNK manga YEARS ago when it was only chapter 100 and one day I had the dumb idea to continue that shit. I am not PLEASED and Hanji's death UTTERLY WRECKED ME, someone who wasn't even a Hanji Stan!! reading the manga made me fall in love with her quiet determination, leadership skills, and sense of duty when before I was more of an Armin type of girl? She just. won me over. and her death was NOT OKAY. I CRIED while saying no no nO NOOO OH MY GOD -

and it TORE ME APART and she was the only person in my mind ever since and I couldn't read the manga in the same nonchalant way ever again. i'm sorry i promise im getting somewhere! it legit ruined my moods and made me so sad all the time IT WAS THAT BAD and i started hating eren with absolute passion. Idek where to start? How her death was pointless & nobody gave a fuck?? and Levi thought of FRICKING ERWIN instead of Hans & I wasnt even a Levihan shipper it doesnt make SENSE! He just LOST HANS

-- and all he can think about is FUCKING ERWIN. come on MAN, and she parented the 104th even REINER had more emotions than these mfers. Everyone is alive EXCEPT HER, like onyakapon and even yelena, minor characters, it just feels so UNFAIR, i'm not mad abt death, i breathe angst like it was chocolate it was just so pointless and meaningless and no one even grieves, especially Levi who was closest to her. there was just no room for her in the plot anymore and thats what makes me pissed -

- not bc it was her time, but bc she ran out of uses to the plot and like in GOT where the character is smarter than the author. not only that, she was made so powerless and pathetic and she felt so useless and she died like that. where's the justice? the character arc? right she was there Just to Save Levi :// it's like that quote from gone girl - "the world will know that [man] threw his beloved wife like garbage, and she floated past down all the other abused, unwanted, INCONVENIENT, women"

(sorry for the fem pronouns, i'm all abt anime hange here). and its not like she wasnt a fan favorite, she's top 3 of the last character poll. just bc shes not levi and eren and armin. and cmon. yams had to nerf and minus 100 out of her iq for the INSANE plan of fucking zeke and the yeagerists, can you BELIEVE she trusted and was OUTSMARTED by ZEKE, who legit massacred the survey corps, even though SHE HAD THE SAME LEVEL OF IQ?? but noooo, plot reasons!! shes not eRwIn, what you expect 🙃

im upset, not bc my fav character died but bc it was meaningless (if falco can fly, why tf didnt he do that in the first place) and hollow in logic and in emotion. maybe snk's lesson to us is life is unfair and we should suck it up. it wasn't well earned & yams wrote hanji in a corner, like (again) in GOT where no matter what daenerys chose she was wrong. sorry i dumped all this to you!! if you're still here, thank you for listening to my month long pent up emotions, im still really sad about it

- and idk how to let go? but your writings have definitely made me feel better, it just comforts me like Levi to a bottle of bleach. thank you for still writing!!! about an anime girl in a fictional world and still delivering more emotion than the original author. my heart definitely feels better these days, though it still aches bc she deserves so much better & didnt deserve whatever the fuck she was given, thank you for championing hanji zoe rights! im 99% sure she wont be revived -

but she lives on in your writings and other fanfiction authors and artworks and i'm just so grateful we have a community like this, honestly im just glad you're here :) keep doing what you do and i hope you're safe and warm & healthy!! also to every hanji stans out there one fucking day when we love a character the author wont rip our hearts and throw it to the garbage, im so so sorry for my long long ask but if i could request maybe eren apologizing to hanji inpaths or when she got captured or

or when she died or you choose!! i saw this art by @siroyuki 2015 in twitter where he's hugging her and shit, you should check it out it gave me feels!! i just want her to be loved and appreciated :((( again thank you so much if you made it this far! im sorry if you're annoyed or smthn HHAHAHA i promise this is the last! thank you for your service to humanity we stan 💪😩👌💕💞

ah don’t you let canon frustrate you, it doesn’t matter anyway :D like you saud, we still have fics and fanarts

however, yeah, i do kinda feel you :/ like the way yams keeps glossing over hange's death is actually a bit weird? like i know they're at war and i know that they have no time for grieving etc but the kids were literally bawling their eyes when hange died but no mention of her sacrifice at all after that? like in 136, gabi said that they should stop the rumbling to repay azumabito's kindness and that's ummmmmmm.... a little bit weird. sure, gabi is a little girl with no connection to hange but reiner, jean and connie were there, when gabi said that and they saw hange’s sacrifice, so why not say something like “yeah, we can’t let commander hange’s sacrifice go to waste?” like come on. what did azumabito do? let falco transform on the board of her ship, so now she travels on a boat? i don't think that can compare to hange's acts though. she literally brought these mfs who were ready to jump at each other's throat together and then she sacrificed her own life to give them yet another chance at success. a sacrifice that was proved to be utterly meaningless in the very next chapter? why did falco learn about his ability to fly only after hange died? why didn't he discover it upon first transformation? :/

oh, and speaking of hange's character arc? like i get it, she was depressed, she struggled with her role as a commander (even though she did everything she could and she did a damn good job at it). and i guess that this plotline was kinda resolved when she heard that erwin approved of her actions? and that's cool, if what we've seen was actually an afterlife and not hange's hallucination. because if it was indeed a product of her mind then that's, um, kinda depressing bro. hange was so desperate for someone's approval that she dreamed about it while literally dying. i just don't understand why yams didn't include a scene where kids tell her how much they respect her and what an honor it was to serve under her command or SOMETHING. but as it is, hange died, thinking she was weak and useless and, um, yeah, certainly not the end you want for your favorite character :)

so yeah, hange's death was kinda meaningless and pointless - it didn't serve the plot whatsoever + it could have been very easily avoided

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animatedminds · 4 years

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Splash Mountain, Br’er Rabbit, and the Tragedy of Being Represented By Other People.

So, this is probably going to be the realest post I’ll make for a while - or at least until The Boondocks arrives, but it seemed apropos. Immediately after this I’ve got rants about sci fi and Star Wars and other unrelated things coming up, but for now we have my earnest opinions on a decision I feel should have been better thought out than it was. This is going to read more like an article or an essay than a review, but I think it needs to be said.

It hasn’t come up too often on this blog, but I am African American. It’s my life and my perspective. And as an African American, a lover of animation and - though this definitely doesn’t come up on the blog - a passionate folklorist in what you could call an academic sense (in that I’m a writer and a student, and folklore is the subject of most of my research), people I know in real life have asked me more than once what my opinion on the removal of Splash Mountain in favor of Princess and the Frog, how I must be glad it’s finally being removed, what my take on the history there was, and…

Well…

To really give that opinion, I’ve got to start at the beginning. Not Song of the South - that, if anything, is the very middle. We have to start with Br’er Rabbit and who that character was. Sit back students, info dump incoming.

Br’er Rabbit is an folklore character of African American origin with - like many folkloric figures - a difficult to place date of origin, but he was known to have existed at least since the early 19th Century, He has obvious similarities to the far older figure of Anansi - with several Br’er Rabbit tales even taking elements of Anansi stories verbatim - though with a the notable difference that unlike Anansi, Br’er Rabbit was more often a heroic figure: an underdog and seemingly downtrodden figure who used his wits and his enemies’ hubris rather than physical force to win the day. The meaning of that kind of figure to an enslaved people is obvious, especially when you compare Br’er Rabbit to another, contemporary trickster figure in African American history by the name of John. Br’er Rabbit’s stories could even arguably be seen as a more child-friendly version of the John tales, in which a human trickster pulls the same kind of momentum turning ploys on villains - but those villains tended to be explicitly slave masters or overseers, and John’s payback often came with explicitly deadly results. The existence of John as escapism for the enslaved or just-post-enslaved (IE Reconstruction) populations is clear: a person who with no power who could fight back with nothing but their mind, preying on the fact that their enemies see them as incapable and helpless, and the connection of Br’er Rabbit to that message is difficult to deny. If anything, Br’er Rabbit comes off as a somewhat more child-friendly version of the concept.

But the most important thing to glean from this is who and what Br’er Rabbit is: a product of the African American community and its history, as a means of those people to express themselves and their values in the face of oppression.

Now we fast forward to 1881, and along comes Joel Chandler Harris: a white Georgian. Harris was a folklorist himself, and travelled the country collecting stories - most famously Br’er Rabbit stories. His stated reason was to bridge African American and white communities by sharing stories, but he was tainted by the perspectives of his world and his place in it, infamously creating a framing narrative for those stories in which the character telling them exuded the imagery of subservience and simplicity that was typical of perceptions of African Americans from the post-Civil War Southern environment in which he collected them: Uncle Remus, in other words. Harris is hardly the only white curator who adapted stories of black or brown peoples in a way that played up the people the stories came from as something of a theme park piece, as if noble in unintelligence and simplicity, but he’s one of the most famous ones to do so - and that’s because of the adaptation. To note, when people criticize cultural appropriation, this is the kind of thing that really triggers the outrage. Not any situation in which a white person is inspired by someone who isn’t white and creates something accordingly, but situations where someone else’s creation is taken and used for the fame and profit of others, to the detriment of the people who made it. It’s these situations like the one Joel Chandler Harris created centuries ago, specifically, that people are trying to draw attention to - even if sometimes social media gets a bit trigger happy sometimes, that’s the real, underlying problem. With that in mind, let’s put that aside and move forward.

Fast forward again to 1946. Walt Disney Productions, then less the company of grander, wider scale stories of epic quests and emotional upheaval that make us all cry and more a company more known for folktale adaptations in general, were looking for a but of American folklore to headline a live action, animation mix - a medium that allowed a bit more financial benefit, as straightforward animation was not always particularly profitable those dates. This wouldn’t be the last time they produced an adaptation of an American folktale or short story - their version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow a few years later being actually one of the more faithful adaptations of that short story put to film. Disney, who evidently read Chandler Harris’ stories, put together a project to see if they could adapted. Which they did. Pretty much verbatim. This is actually worth pointing out: the actual Br’er Rabbit stories in the films are very accurately adapted, and the actors involved in the story (including James Baskett, how also played Uncle Remus) did a fine job characterizing them. The issue is that Disney also adapted Chandler Harris’ stereotypical and offensive framing device pretty much verbatim, bringing Uncle Remus. And therein lies the problem.

To put the issue with Song of the South in perspective, the movie - with the framing device - can be categorized as something called Reconstruction Revisionism - which is basically a genre of post-Civil War media meant to present the pre-war South was perfect and idyllic, and that people are racially more natural in that environment’s dynamic and never should have left. One of the most infamous movies in history, Birth of a Nation, is the crowning example of this genre. Obviously, Song of the South is nowhere near as awful and inflammatory a movie as that, but there’s a degree to which it was seen as the straw the broke the camel’s back for black depictions in media, only a couple of years after Disney’s Dumbo also did the same. The end result, an African American creation was used in a film that ultimately demeaned the African American community, a decision that Disney has been ashamed of ever since.

Fast forward to now. Disney is removing Splash Mountain, the sole remnant of Song of the South that focuses exclusively on Br’er Rabbit - a choice we’ve had reason to suspect was coming for about a year now, but which was unveiled conspicuously in the middle of protests and campaigning for better treatment of people of African descent worldwide. The reveal was a rousing success, with people applauding the decision to finally wipe away the rest of that movie - though remember that for later, that the response relies on the perception of Br’er Rabbit as something that starts with Song of the South - and replace it with something else. Surely, as a black person I should be happy that they’re finally getting rid of that racist character for good and replacing him with something more positive? And again, well…

To put short, Br’er Rabbit has finished his journey from African cultural symbol to discarded pariah, all because others used the character in racist ways that they themselves now regret. And for that… let’s be clear, I’m not angry so much as saddened. I’m not railing against the company for making the choice, since I can see how from their point of view it was the wisest and most progressive thing to do. Song of the South is a badly old fashioned movie that they’re right to want to move on from, and it’s their right to downplay characters within their purview if those characters reflect badly on the company. I’m just outlining the tragic waste of it all.

For now, compare Princess and the Frog - the thing they’re replacing it with. I do love the movie, or at least any problems I have with it have little to do with representation, and I definitely don’t have anything against Musker and Clements and their beautiful visions and creations, but it’s difficult to deny that its an adaptation of a European story, adapted by a collection of mostly white creators (with Rob Edwards comprising but one third of the screenwriting team, but not of story conception), that’s ultimately just dolled up with African Americans characters and a very Hollywood-esque depiction of a African diaspora religion (Voodoo, which unfortunately has a long history of such portrayals). If we’re talking about representation specifically - which this move had definitely been presented as a champion for - it’s not the perfect example, more of a story with a surface covering of the black experience than one with an especially strong connection. That wouldn’t necessarily be a problem (Tiana and her story do well depict strong black characterizations, and approach an interesting (if light_ implication about racism and hardship during the 1920s) if Disney had yet created any other franchise that was another actual adaptation of an African or African American tale or story (with involvement from such actual people), but Song of the South is actually it. They legitimately have nothing else to call on.

This is something I feel we should do more to remedy. I am a writer/prospective screenwriter myself, and trying to put more stories out there is one of my primary focuses and goals should I ever truly enter the industry, but at the moment we just don’t have very many options.

This is hardly the only time that people of color have had little control over depictions of their own culture - literary and film history is full of such situations in both minor and terribly major ways - but it’s something that stings especially hard due to being such a current example, and because of sheer irony of the end result. Now we have a situation where African Americans are being told that something their people created to represent themselves is negative and wrong, because years ago other people appropriated that creation and used it to paint a negative picture of the people who actually held claim over it, and now the enterprise that those people created wants to save face: another example of culture being treated like a possession of the ones who are poised to make money of off it. And what’s worse, while the culture is used and abused like trash, the people are now presented with this removal like it was a prize - like they’re finally being given something - when little has really changed.

Ultimately, the Splash Mountain news - though it had been coming for a while - made me rather upset for that reason. As a studier of folklore, I suppose I knew better than most where these things came from, and so the buzz around the move being a belief that Br’er Rabbit was an intrinsically racist character just highlighted the tragedy of how African Americans and their culture tended to be tossed about by American media. So no matter what, I can’t feel particularly happy about it.

Let me iterate, in the film industry, being represented by people who aren’t of your culture group is basically inevitable. That’s essentially how the industry works. I’m not saying we should rail against anyone who would try to represent cultures that aren’t their own. The people who produce and create are few, and eventually the truth is that you have to be represented by other people - at least for the moment. We shouldn’t be railing against representation by others in general, as that wouldn’t be cognizant of the situation and thus self destructive. What I’m saying is that we - both we trying to be represented, and those doing the representing - should be aware of the problem there: that when others choose to represent you in media, you essentially have to trust them to have a real interest in you and your best interests when doing so, and when they don’t that depiction is there forever. So it behooves us to try to be the ones who are representing ourselves as much as possible, and in situations where we can’t, to remind those who want to represent us that they have a responsibility to do so effectively.

This is Animated Minds for Animated Times, and really this blog is ultimately about emphasizing what makes animated media work, what makes it fun, and what makes it worthwhile no matter how old you are. And so in several years of sporadic and infrequent reviews, reactions and fandom posts it’s been rare for me to get this real about a topic, but this is something that is a serious issue feel was overlooked. Representation is complicated. And more often than not solutions that are handed to us are more band-aids that look like cures than necessarily being actually helpful, and that’s what happens when ultimately the decisions about how you’re represented lie in the hands of other people. Representation is one of the biggest things we need to work on in coming years, especially with stories and adaptations - which refer to history and culture that are often not widely known or accepted. Ask someone if they think there should be an African princess, and they’ll tell you they didn’t even have kings and queens in Africa - something that’s bluntly wrong, but is widely believed simply because those elements of culture are never represented.

And that’s the sum of my thoughts on the subject. I hadn’t updated the blog in months because this whole thing was stewing in me, and I couldn’t really go back to cheerful posts about new things until I got it out. I’ve got great thoughts about the Owl House, Amphibia, the new seasons of BH6 and Ducktales that are totally coming up soon. But for now, just a few sobering thoughts from someone who grew up loving cartoons, and desperately wishes people like me had more to look at in that field beyond apologies and promises.

#splash mountain #disney #song of the south #the princess and the frog #brer rabbit #social commentary #black lives matter #representation #walt disney world #joel chandler harris #uncle remus #cultural appropriation #real talk

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ganymedesclock · 5 years

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there's a post somewhere about how ganondorf's death is often presented almost as a holy death, deeply dignified and with appropriate silence. i think the term the person used was like a kind of anti-martyrdom, like. "a holy death, but not of something good". i'm not sure if i'm using the terminology entirely correctly, but that's something that's always hit me. like. i don't think that comes from just the general seriousness of the plot, but also that there's a quiet acknowledgement that fate

itself was against him - and the inherent tragedy of that. like. they're So Close to digging just a little further and questioning that concept of fate + supposedly inherent character weakness in the first place. this is present in oot - zelda acknowledges him as pitiful, someone who couldn't control the triforce. and in tp, zelda seems to do something like a quiet prayer. this aspect of zelda herself isn't present in wind waker (iirc), but is embodied by the king, who directly compares himself.

That’s a concept that a friend of mine talks about a lot ( @betterbemeta ) in almost those exact words but I asked her and she said she wasn’t sure of the specific post, just that she didn’t get it from someone else.

But, yeah, I feel like... there’s this interesting sort of counter-narrative within the Zelda series, I think? There’s the main narrative, which is the Legend and the Cycle and that it is Correct to perpetuate the Cycle and live out the roles people are given.

But there’s also a lot of counterpoints, of things making it clear that the Cycle is hurting people, that you will not be rewarded or kept safe for perpetuating it- and in Wind Waker this is very interesting, because, a lot of the evidence points to Ganon’s stance- “Your gods abandoned you!” being correct.

Hyrule was destroyed. Most of its people were killed. Two young people who were active servants of the god at the time were murdered and nothing protected them. Ganon comes across as someone who’d know- because he’s acting as the Divine Opponent, here.

And there’s this scene, late in Wind Waker, where he reads Tetra’s dreams with his power.

This scene sticks with me, because it’s Ganon doing something unnecessary. He’s got no reason to treat Tetra hospitably at this point. He’s got no reason to tuck her into a bed, which he does, or acknowledge that she’s a child, or wonder who she is besides Zelda.

And, yet, we have this. unexpectedly introspective soft scene, and while it’s followed by the puppet Ganon fight, the things he says there don’t seem just like villainous trash talk, but, nearly a plea for these kids to realize how messed up their situation is. They’re allegedly agents of the gods who are being chewed up by their Fates, used and cast aside, and while he has an agenda in not wanting this to happen (as their given Fate is to be parties in his execution) there’s a bleak humor Wind Waker Ganon has about the situation that, to me, has never actually been contradicted within the Zelda games. Words to the contrary ring hollow. In practice, we watch Hyrule desolated, we watch its executioners throw him on vulnerable populations (in Twilight Princess, the Sages know enough of the modern Twili to recognize Midna in her cursed form- so they had to have known the people they were leaving at the mercy of a wounded, panicked Ganon who was nonetheless fully capable of killing a person with his bare hands at that point).

In Breath of the Wild, which doesn’t even depict Ganon as a person who can argue his point (though the sequel may shed new light on that), he still nonetheless seems correct about the nature of the cycle; Zelda is unabashedly a survivor of child abuse who was forced to pray in sacred springs starting at age seven.

BotW is basically the series’ most detailed thesis yet that the Cycle broke Link and Zelda and tore pieces from them they’re not getting back. Both of them lost a century. Zelda’s passions and interests were sublimated to force her into a passive role. People they knew and were close to died. Link’s habitual silence is depicted as a product of the anxiety that the hero role pressed on him, and he was also a human shield just to guarantee that of the Champions, Zelda at least could make it, that left him critically injured.

The only real coherent defense raised by the Cycle- which is meta-wise, “justified” by Skyward Sword, which establishes it as an unholy curse- is “this is the only way to save Hyrule” which is never challenged or argued or defended. It’s merely accepted. And we keep watching young, vulnerable kids following the paths laid out by their predecessors and being torn apart by these events.

Link and Zelda don’t look like people who are protected by benevolent gods that shine over them. Repeatedly, the deities of the Zelda setting are depicted as not especially loving. In A Link To The Past, the Triforce itself says it doesn’t care about good or evil, merely that Link has proven his worth and should now make a wish. Other characters in the setting describe it as fickle or a troublemaker. In Skyward Sword, Zelda, regaining Hylia’s memories and thus the clearest potential insight into how Hylia was thinking and feeling, states that Hylia obtained a mortal incarnation basically as bait for Link, who would be driven by compassion to protect his friend, and thus get functionally conned into acting as Hylia’s champion.

I think this is why fanworks that put the chosen three on the same side make sense, because, in this way, Ganon is more a contemporary to the heroes than the King of Hyrule, who, no matter how often he dies, never really has that sense of being a martyred hero who’s lost fragments of himself. Daphnes was able to choose his own death, and the death of his kingdom, on his own terms using the Wind Waker and then the Triforce; Rhoam controls the narrative at the beginning of BotW.

Ganon?

Just from what we know about BotW’s sequel (which is not much at all) Ganon is having a bad time. In a way, his fate seems to combine elements of Link and Zelda’s- he was confined for a long time in a death match with another force (Zelda), and he was heavily and brutally injured and may have lost consciousness (Link) only to awaken in an unfamiliar future where he’s been all but forgotten (both of them).

And part of this is the need that the games seem to have, to have everything be Ganon’s fault, but to never acknowledge or explore the relationships Ganon actually, has with the various entities he ostensibly commands. I love Wind Waker, but, as friends of mine have pointed out- there’s only flimsy excuses at best for Ganon to put the various boss monsters in the environments they’re found in. They’re themed to their environments so that they seem fitting elements, rather than something foreign placed there that’s disrupted an extant order.

It leads to this sense of Ganon more as a pariah than as a true Source Of Evil. Because he’s blamed for everything, including things that don’t actually seem to further any of his stated objectives and in fact, might even work against something he is stated to want (e.g. the withering of the Deku Sprouts in Wind Waker, which are stated to be a potential way to drain the Great Sea and leave the Land Below accessible once again- the big thing Ganon wants- but they’re stated to fail because of Ganon’s magic; or him outright saying he wants the sun to shine on Hyrule when earlier in the game Daphnes accuses him of cursing the entire sea into a state of darkness because he wants everything to be dark)

Ganon’s not blameless and harmless- like. he absolutely did shit and is rarely sorry for it or sorry but not enough to stop- but, it definitely feels like his role as Hyrule’s Enemy is a degree outside of his control, much as the Hero or Princess roles are out of Link and Zelda’s. This is a game series about people being forced into roles that cause them to suffer, and then the end takeaway is I guess It Was Worth It because the Bad Man Died.

It’s this situation where the narrative tells us we are dealing with a demon man who hates everything and the only holiness or justice can come from his death, and then at the same time we’re shown a guy who is a power-hungry jerk with a large list of offscreen and frankly mystifying crimes that don’t seem to add up with anything he seems to want or value or even his sense of humor. And it ends up leaving the whole Cycle... feeling rather bleak.

#Legend of Zelda #Ganondorf #Link #Zelda #like it's this Weird Thing of I guess the cycle has to be ultimately vindicated #so we can keep making more games #but also look at all this lovely drama of how the cycle is awful and hurts everyone #but don't feel bad for Ganon who has seen this murder wheel go around multiple times in his life #faelapis #long post

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h3rmitsunited · 3 years

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Continuing Thoughts on Age of Calamity: I am about 19 hours in at this point and oh man are things going down. Just wanted to record some of my thoughts, theories, reactions, etc... before I get to the last four missions of the story because I’m just thinking about this non-stop and want to share.

Spoilers below the read more, so don’t read if you plan on playing the game. It is a lot more fun to experience in the game than reading it, so just you know, don’t read it.

THE NEW BOTW CHAMPIONS ARE HERE, THE OG CHAMPIONS ARE ALIVE!

-After the siege of the castle mission that ends with the king's death at the hands of the guardians off screen and the menu music changing to the awesome dark theme and the prompt on the screen saying that Mipha, Daruk, Revali, and Urbosa are trapped in the Divine Beasts, I legitimately cried a little bit. Like I was mostly tearing up because of the bit with Zelda and her father and Link dragging her away, but with the context of BOTW and the Divine Beasts and the Champions having been killed in battle with the Calamity Blights, I was like holy crap, they killed them, they're trapped because they died, but then I started the next chapter and decided to do Urbosa and Revali's first and then it starts and they're both still alive and then we see that Teba and Riju come through and like I lost my shit. I was like WHAT!? IS!? HAPPENING?! I thought that it was a really cool way to get more characters to play as (because this is a Warriors game so the vast array of characters to play as is a selling point) and a cool way to keep the OG Champions from being dead which is depressing. So I got Urbosa and Revali back and then realized what this meant for the other mission, that Mipha would be saved by giant grown Sidon and it was just as cute and sweet as I thought it was going to be. And then them working together on the Divine Beast and teaming up and you can see how much Sidon missed his sister and looks up to her, despite the fact that he is literally ginormous and she is a tiny little thing. It made me tear up. The other champion relationships don't really hit that hard because none of them actually met each other before, but it was pretty funny the bit with Teba and Revali when Revali is once again being an asshole to Link and Teba is just like.... WTF? This is the Rito champion, he's like kind of a di- and Urbosa is like yes, we know. Moving on. Because like damn, they really turned Revali's dick factor way up in this game. Like seriously, bird, can you like chill?

-Anyways, another thing that got me going literally insane was the bit in Hyrule field with Astor and Sooga and Kohga when Astor was like...pulling soul power or something from the Yiga soldiers and like turned it into Hollow Link and when I saw that I was like losing my mind. I don't know why it got me so hyped up, but it did and I'm very excited to battle it out with this dark Link character.

-I just finished the battle at Akkala citadel, which was a pretty cool fight, and going to go into the next battle, something about thunder, so obviously another Divine Beast lead in with Divine Beast support trying to fight off Guardians and monsters and stuff. From the placement, it appears like it'll be near Hateno, and will be involving Urbosa and Vah Nahboris. I don't really care for the Divine Beast levels. They are frustrating to control and the camera movements are annoying and the targeting system just is frustrating. The level with Vah Rudania fighting off the guardians was so annoying, just trying to target the guardians and move around and then I just kept getting stuck on the walls and stuff and the movements are so slow, and it was just like, I don't really care for this at all, thanks... I much prefer the on the ground, quick fighting. Obviously, Link is the most intuitive and easiest to use, he's the highest level, and he's the main fighting character, so he's my favorite to use. I really want to unlock the Hyrule Warriors armor set, so I'm going to have to do a ton of quests and stuff which is a lot, but it will make me keep playing the game for a while, which is good since the game cost sixty dollars. It's fun to play though, so I feel like it's worth it. -Regarding the timeline pieces, I'm really conflicted about the backstory elements that we're getting, and I realize that the moment the eggo was introduced, it set this timeline off into a completely different direction, but it brings up questions for me about the original timeline. We don't really know exactly when the Hyrule Warriors timeline starts out and how far from the Calamity attack it was in the past. I would assume that it wasn't too far in the past, most like like less than a year, maybe less than six months? It's difficult to tell because we don't get a whole lot of context. We are given the information that in this game, the Calamity attack on the castle happens at the same time as in the original timeline, on Zelda's 17th birthday, maybe a little sooner, since in the OG, she's coming down from Lanayru with Link and in this one, I think she's leaving the castle to go to Lanayru when the attack happens. But when did everything else happen? How long has Link had the Master sword and been the chosen knight? He's been following Zelda in this timeline since eggo was introduced, but he was still "just a knight" at that point, even if he was a really good and talented one. But wouldn't that mean that he activates his power in Korok forest like barely anytime before the Calamity attack? I mean I guess in the OG timeline, we can kind of get hints that Link hasn't been chosen for a super long time, since Zelda questions him about how confident he is with the Master Sword and can he hear the voice, and is a bit more antagonistic with him, so he probably hadn't been doing that for a super long time either, but it does feel like he's had it longer in the OG timeline memories compared to here when he gets the Master sword and then like two missions later Ganon is popping up at the castle. I mean, it wouldn't make sense really to drag things out a super long time, so I understand that having a bunch of extra cut scenes and missions that aren't super plot relevant would be kind of weird, especially with this Astor dude's involvement, he would want to push things along. But the Ganon attack still happens the same time as the OG timeline, so all of these things happen within the same amount of time. I don't remember in the OG timeline if we ever got any details about how Link awakened his power. I do like how they did it in this version, how it was like a parallel to how Zelda awakened her power protecting Link, which gave me all the Zelink feels, but I just want canon backstory for the OG timeline, you know? We know that this timeline isn't canon for the OG timeline because of eggo being involved, so we can only really pull character elements from this timeline rather than specific plot elements. I also wondered about Impa since she is there kind of escorting Zelda in most of the missions, but was only in BOTW as an old lady, which is fine because they likely hadn't have developed that into the story at that point, but I also think maybe since Link in AOC hasn't become the chosen knight until later, he wasn't seen as capable or trustworthy enough to be her sole escort knight and wanted to keep Impa around for additional protection or something. I don't know, doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but whatever. I'm also trying to remember... when did the Champions get their champion clothes? Does Link have the blue tunic on in all the memories? I'm pretty sure that one of the first memories is that depressing one where Zelda is like knighting Link or something in the gazebo thing in front of the castle, but I can't remember the order... It's just all so confusing and I'm sure I'm deeply overthinking everything and that they're kind of just like retconning elements, but like what does it all mean? I mean maybe... maybe... since Zelda remembers the eggo in her like baby dream memory in that one cut scene, maybe that means eggo was also sent way back in time to the beginning of her life, so this timeline is deeply changed from the beginning of her life, so while the initial difference weren't super evident, just some small things, once they got to later in the timeline and all the Master sword/Champion stuff, it really just like threw everything in the air. I don't know why it bothers me so much, I think it's just me Zelink heart wanting Link and Zelda to have more time together when it's not just crazy monster fighting sad Zelda all the time like in the AOC cutscenes. In BOTW, we get these soft little memories of Zelda and Link researching in the field and riding horses and stuff and like yes the ever present concern about Zelda's power and Ganon is there in the memories still, but it feels more intimate and slow and down to earth. I think it's also because in several of the memories, it's just them two, and in AOC, there hasn't really been any memories with just the two of them together, so it has a different feel to it. I liked in BOTW, the stories in Zelda's diary about talking to Link about his destiny and why he doesn't talk and how he feels the weight of this title and it keeps him silent and it gave Link this interesting depth and emotion that you couldn't really see without that, and then in the AOC, there are some little moments where you see Link having a scrap of emotion, tiny smiles he gives to Zelda, serious face, confused, happy to eat stuff, but most of his moments are the little grunts and blank stares that he gives. Like seriously? Zelda's father just died, she feels like it's all her fault and Link's response is a tiny smile and a "huh". Like yes, there are dynamics with them, she's a princess, he's a knight, he's protective of her and doesn't push her boundaries or whatever, but like just hug please. I loved that memory in the forest in BOTW where she just collapses into his chest and he holds her and we see this pained expression on his face and it's like yes please give me more not lobotomized Link. Like I know this sounds like complaining, because it is, and like I do understand they want Link to kind of be this blank slate, character insert type of character, but give him something please!

-I'm hoping we get some good content in these last few mission cut scenes. I'm getting down to the last few missions, only four left, and looking at the chapter titles, which is the only spoilers that I have allowed myself, I'm like, okay, what is going to happen next. And like I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that we win and the bad BOTW timeline ending is subverted and Ganon has to go night night, but like who knows, maybe they'll surprise me, but probably not. This is supposed to be a game that you keep playing after you finish the main story, so like killing off a bunch of playable characters and having it end in destruction would be probably not so smart...

-Okay, that's all my current thoughts. I'll be playing more tonight and we'll see if I finish the story tonight, or maybe I'll have to stop myself and take a breather before blasting through the remaining missions. I finished I think three missions(?) last night, and I had a break for dinner, but like I don't work tomorrow, so like, I could probably blast through the last ones, but I'd also still need to do some additional quest stuff in between for level up purposes since I just go through rupees like crazy. Oh my gosh, that reminds me... it is so dang annoying when you get one of those like quest find item marker things that lights up when you have all the items and you're like sweet I'll complete this and as you're pressing the button, out of habit, without super paying attention, you realize it's going to cost like 2,000 rupees or something and it's like... not again! I can't tell you how many times I have done this and it's so annoying. Like warn me if I have to pay rupees, I don't want to use my brain, game! Lol yes, it's my fault, I'm not really mad.

-Okay, the end. For now. TLDR: This game is fun and unexpected, but it is also not BOTW, so don't go into this expecting BOTW mechanics or gameplay. But hey, smashing through tons of enemies is also kind of satisfying too. Also, like the new enemies are wild. Elemental Moblins, Hinoxs, Lynels, Guardians(!), the use of the Elemental weapons is a cool mechanic, and it's cool having some cinematic fight moments, even if it might get repetitive after playing the game for a while, but you also can use a ton of different characters, so there's variety there, I just have yet to leave my boy because he's the easiest to blast through anything and everything, though Impa is pretty cool too, even if most of my moves with her are random button smashes since I don't really have a good grip on how her moves work. At least with Link it's pretty obvious and I've gotten better about actually having some sort of strategy with how he works, the other characters I haven't played enough to have any sort of knowledge on how they work. Also Zelda's moves are not fun to play at all, sorry, but they're just annoying and useless. Also Daruk is bad at fighting Hinoxes. Okay, now, the end.

#hyrule warriors age of calamity #age of calamity #hwaoc #hwaoc spoilers #loz

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theangrypokemaniac · 4 years

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Your whole Contest rant read almost like a parody. The Contests were the most popular goal for female companions in the anime, and the vast majority of fans of Contests were female fans. Likewise Misty had already gotten stale and dull in Johto, and Contests brought in better battles, storylines and character development. Saying they're all about being girly makes me think you have no idea what they're about, since most are abut battles and combinations. I doubt most will agree with you.

Oh, but Nonny, you don't believe in what you're saying since you won't put your name to it, so why should I listen?

It's a 'rant' because you disagree, not for actual content.

The nature of a rant is crazed disorder, but this comes in numbered sections clearly laid out.

More aptly, the first three words of that post were 'I hate Contests'.

If this view is such an anathema, why did you keep on reading?

Who's the fool here?

Whether anyone agrees with me or not is immaterial. Truth isn't a popularity contest.

It's still my opinion whatever anyone else thinks, no lesser or greater.

If you want to be liked, then lie.

I tried this method, keeping my feelings to myself, never daring to speak my mind, and where did it get me?

• Unfollowed

• Ghosted

• Insulted

• Blocked

• Shunned

Where is the incentive to hold back if that's the reward?

Might as well say what I want. I think I've a right to on my blog.

It is you who misunderstand. I complain Contests are vacuous and girly, and your defence is that they are for girls and most fans were girls.

Well, yeah. That's what I said. A show once having universal appeal downgraded itself to be toddler fantasy pap:

The anime began aimed at everyone, especially children and teenagers, but now, when its concern with fluff and sparkles takes precedent, it's a fantasy for toddler girls.

You tell me I'm wrong by concurring it's for girls, then you insist considering it to be girly means I know nothing about it.

Eh?

Girls got along fine watching Pokémon for years without being pandered to and infantilised by shallow spectacles like this.

Pokémon used to be for everyone, although because game-players were, and still are, mostly boys, what one saw of the fandom was largely their input.

• Letters to magazines were mainly from boys.

• If you knew of any fans at school, they were boys.

• Attendants to downloading Mew were nearly all boys.

The exception were fan sites, shipping and art, which were dominated by girls.

Then along came Contests, and that balance tipped, until we get to the point now that I doubt many viewers of the anime are male, because it no longer holds any appeal.

Why should they put up with a monotonous fashion parade when they watched it entirely for fierce showdowns?

We started with tough girls like Jessie and Misty, then along came the Contest blender, and we ended up with feeble vessels like Mallow and Lillie.

Ultra girliness is all very well on the periphery, or as part of an ensemble, but when it's the only stock feminine character available, it's boring to the point of paralysis.

Why should I be pleased a series with edge devolved into a mess of pink and cuddly cushions?

With whom were Contests the favourite female occupation? Fans?

What were the options?

• Tagged along because she was going that way (Misty/Iris).

• Contests/Showcases (May/Dawn/Serena).

• Lives nearby (Lillie/Mallow/Lana/Chloë).

I'm not really surprised at the result. I still don't see why this invalidates my take.

Amid your ravings, I am told that 'most are about battles and combinations'.

Most? Some aren't then?

What are these few about then? Vietnam?

By your own admission, a few are nothing but vacuous posturing.

Again, you agree with me. What's the complaint if I'm right?

What storylines? New Ribbon or no Ribbon?

And what character development? May and Dawn began wanting to be champion, and finished wanting to be champion.

Since that was the close of their story, any 'lessons' they learn are redundant as we'll never see them put into application.

Better battles? Better than what?

Have have you the nerve to lie that Contests are about combat?

The entire premise is showing off how pretty attacks are, not the strength.

Were it a display of power, as a normal fight is, people would be entering with teams of enormous hulking beasts, leaving the likes of Piplup bloody lost.

Some ugly Pokémon, like Gabite and Ambipom, are included, but because they've got some shiny move up their metaphorical sleeve.

Come on, man! The first round is decided on who's bustin' out the sparkles!

Every subsequent round may pose as battling, but you don't succeed by beating the opponent unconscious as usual.

You win if your 'energy bar' is highly than theirs, bought about by pulling off attention-seeking stunts.

Knocking 'em out is a blessing as it assures a win, but it's not the goal.

How is that battle in any legitimate sense when the very markers of victory and loss are removed?

Since beauty is subjective, the winner doesn't succeed because they are measurably superior to their opponent, or at least capable of thinking on their feet.

They win just on the whim of this set of judges liking their performance more. Another day, another panel, and it'd be different.

A real fight in a proper competition doesn't depend on arbitrary standards like that. You take 'em down here, you'd take 'em down in any stadium, any country. It is thus a quantifiable achievement.

In real life, we don't class a sash from a beauty pageant as of equal value to a black belt.

It's okay, but we know it was a matter of luck, whereas any sporting trophy comes from clearly out matching the rest, with hours of strain, sacrifice and suffering paving the path to that moment.

Contests involve no such effort. You pick what glitters and the rest is rehearsal. No need to enter a single fight to hone your skills.

Why isn't Ash eager to get in on the action then, if it's 'truly' such a test of combatants?

The answer is because it's nothing to do with his career as a Trainer. If it were, we wouldn't need the separate term of 'Co-Ordinator' to describe entrants.

Trainers train Pokémon, Gym Leaders lead Gyms, Co-Ordinators co-ordinate routines to be spectacular.

Why have different descriptions if it's exactly the same?

Martial arts, both in fantasy and reality, have a spiritual element. Those who dedicate their lives to it are regarded as having reached a higher level of being.

Battles share that quality. It's not about brute force, focus is place more on inner strength, in heart, courage, determination and loyalty.

A Pokémon which, on paper, is weaker than its foe, can still come out on top if it's prepared to go the distance and want it at all costs, compared to an apathetic opponent.

Simultaneously, the Trainers have their own battle of minds, picking up on style and mistakes, always ready to pounce.

Contests have no such deeper consequence. They are wholly fixated on what's flashy and external. Ice shards are no more glassy just because you really mean 'em.

Combinations are a couple of attacks put together to look nice. How is this refuting my assertion they are but ephemeral bits off fluff?

Why should I be interested in a career so hollow, and ultimately futile, since neither girl won, and now never existed?

Your also claim the ejection of Misty is warranted since she became 'stale and dull', as if refuting my words.

If you'd bothered to read it properly rather than twisting yer knickers, you might notice I wrote exactly the same thing.

Perhaps it makes no difference. By Hoenn they'd rendered her a leaden blandness sucked dry of all that made her special.

I am not saying a Hoenn Misty would've been a more interesting companion. Her personality had to be erased before being allowed back at all.

I was mocking the excuse given for her exit, that she had no longterm goal, when there was no reason she couldn't participate in Contests.

A. If featuring them is intended as promotion, the audience is more likely to invest in the activity of a familiar face.

B. Just ruin her character if it's an obstacle, as they did everyone else.

C. Contests are a rip off of a competition Misty entered!

The truth still stands that had Misty stayed, we'd have no May, and in turn, no Max, and that's a bad thing?

In conclusion, you disagree with me by agreeing with me, so what exactly is the issue?

Since you fail to object elsewhere, I take it that the remainder is to your taste, and you also think Jessie was shafted, resembles a backwards country cliché and that May and Dawn should have won.

Not a bad dissection then.

#pokémon #contests #misty #hoenn #inbox

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ultraericthered · 5 years

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Last Updated with Pokemon Journeys: Aim To Be A Pokemon Master! mini-series at C Tier in 2023.

My Pokemon anime tier ranking.

Call me a Genwunner if you must, but to me, the Gen 1 portion of the original series, known as The Beginning in the English version, is the only part of the Pokemon anime saga to hold creative writing quality and entertainment value worthy of an S rank. Yes, it gets very notably weaker in the Orange Islands arc compared to the Indigo League arc, but I’ve over time come to see the necessity of that arc as a sort of post-game to Kanto, with Ash facing four elite trainers before defeating their champion and winning a spot in the hall of fame being a very clever means of remedying the Indigo League’s less than ideal outcome. Aside from Team Rocket being at their absolute peak character-wise here, this one also gave us THE most memorable villains in this anime - Sabrina and Mewtwo. Suffice to say, this first is the best.

The A tier is for series I’d call exceptionally good, if not great. That honor goes to the latest series, Sun & Moon, the first since the above to be so imaginative and so consistently entertaining that it totally reinvigorates an anime in desparate need of it, and adds some particularly solid character writing, dynamics, and continuity with even the smallest of arcs.

The B tier has the ones I’d call “Mostly good, but fell short of being fully solid by the end.” Which sounds like the Black & White series to me, particularly the initial Best Wishes! and the following pre-subtitles Best Wishes! Season 2. The quality highs were very high, the best since the anime was in Gen 1. But the lows were also particularly low even for this franchise, especially the actual Unova League at the very end. But overall I just love it, warts and all. To a similar albeit lesser extent, Pokemon Journeys.

The C tier has ones ranging from Moderately Good to Just OK. That describes both the post-League arc of the Advanced series, Battle Frontier, and the post-League arc of Unova in the Black & White series, Best Wishes! Season 2: Episode N. One went a bit longer than it needed, the other regrettably shorter than it should’ve, but both were solid on the whole.

The D tier has the ones I feel range from Below Average to Poor. The Hoenn-based bulk of Pokemon Advanced, Pokemon Chronicles, and Pokemon XY&Z all fit that bill. (That middle one especially - the first at least had some standout episodes, good development for May, Max, and Drew, and an Ash who wasn't entirely boring, while the last had an excellently done central story arc, good development for Bonnie, Clemont and Alain, and an utterly fantastic villain in Lysandre. Unfortunately, the weaknesses still outweigh the strengths in both.)

The E tier means “BAD.” The second part of the original series, known as Gold and Silver in the English version, and the final stretch of the Black & White series, Best Wishes! Season 2: Decolore Adventures (”Adventures In Unova and Beyond” in English). Their lengths are very opposite to each other, and the Johto series did give a handful of great content that the Decolore arc did not and could not, but what they share in common is that they’re the most filler-heavy sections of the anime in it’s entire history to date, and as such are both painful.

The F tier means bottom-of-the-barrel abysmal. Had to give that spot to the Diamond & Pearl series and the pre-Z XY series. I’ve covered why I dislike these ones a lot before, but what it all comes down to is that they’re not only the stalest and most hollow feeling nadirs of the Pokemon anime’s worn out patterns, conventions, and formulaic beats on constant repetition, but they betray the tone and essence of what the anime was envisioned as and began as in favor of self-indulgence and pandering. And that, to me, is just something I cannot forgive.

When taking it all together, my overall series ranking looks like: Original Series Part 1 > Sun & Moon > Best Wishes! = Journeys > Advanced Generation = Hoso Specials > Original Series Part 2 = XY/Z > Diamond & Pearl.

#Pokemon #anime #tier ranking #opinion #criticism #analysis

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harusha · 6 years

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Before I like... dig a hole for myself, USUM is absolutely gr8 (maybe not story wise considering what they did to Lillie but mechanics and all) if it’s your first experience of Alola and first or second of the franchise, but after SuMo, it’s a bit disappointing (esp considering their release gap).

USUM does make changes to the storyline and trimmed some of the fat off but like... it feels like I’m just trudging along at points b/c I ~need~ to finish smtg I spent money on rather than me genuinely being immersed. Kinda like $40 DLC I paid for twice that I could have used to roll for €nkidu for my ENG fg* account.

Like... as a third version, it’s a bit lackluster as I��ve said before. But, it’s also a 2k17 release when Nintendo is fully capable of DLC (unlike previous third versions. You can’t download DLC onto a DS, a GBA, and certainly not a GBC or GB game).

Furthermore, each third version brought along big changes or enough content to justify it. Crystal had the Suicune plotline and added in the first female protagonist, move tutors, and the first end-game battle facility (Battle Tower). That was like... major back then.

Emerald had changes and new locations like Magma Hideout and Artisan Cave, Scott and the first Battle Frontier(+that one Battle Tower I never used), a “best-of-both worlds” plotline meshing Ruby and Sapphire together, Battle Tents, an entirely new champion+ post-game Steven, etc.

Platinum brought changes to the enviorment w/ the snow (ie. aesthetic, lore, and just more “regional identity”), Distortion World, more incorporation of Cynthia, a new Battle Frontier, Charon, etc.

BW2 doesn’t need a big intro since its status as a true sequel speaks for itself but basically they didnt skimp on post-game either. PWT with cameos from almost every major character in the franchise at that point, Pokestar Studios, White Hollow and its counterpart, etc.

And Yellow stands in a weird spot b/c while it’s a remake, it’s both simultaniously of RGB and the anime.

Like... TLDR SuMo didn’t have enough changes to justify it being both a 3rd version and split if you consider what year it’s released in, competition (super variable but like... Ninty has stuff like Yokai Watch, more 3rd party, etc. now + the advent of mobile game gacha.), and the fact that even near decade old games did more (subjective on pre-GBA ofc), than just re-skinning the same Battle Facility another generation and Battle Agency (good concept on paper and I like that it’s new, but it’s still just one facility and a super luck based one at that; even moreso than the Battle Pike).

Like... there’s a lot for options for variety nowadays with the advent of Steam, more porting, better mobile gaming (that sounds terrible but basically Gr@nblue and F@te for example) etc.

Mantine Surfing, Pikachu Valley, etc. are cute too but how much content is that really compared to what they used to do+what’s on market?

The RR episode could have absolutely been an add-on too. They gave a trailer to it, and there’s barely any relevance in the main campaign outside of Looker’s comment. If one of the main draws in the third version is relegated to 2 hours or so after essentially playing the same game, like... why...

#if you barely change a storyline #or the changes you made hurt one of the main characterizations and draws of the last one #is it worth 40 in 2k17?#i have like mixed feelings on the recon squad #b/c while theyre new #they dont add much imo #and wormholes are reskinned Hoopa rings #and idk i guess i kinda miss when being a legendary meant smtg?#Darkrai had its own island #the Regis made you go outside and learn braille at the library #etc.#nowadays it’s a magic glowy fog room #i know i briefly covered it yesterday #but a longer version of why i dont think USUM is ‘good’ when taken as a third version

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itsyaboykay · 6 years

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Review for The Savior’s Champion (spoiler alert: I gave it a 2/5)

Let me preface this with a disclaimer: I do not hate the author, Jenna Moreci, by any means. I watched a lot of her channel and felt she gave some very valid writing tips and so I was excited to read her book. So everything here I have to say is my own opinion not just as an aspiring writer but as someone who's loved books for much of my life. Also, this is a very spoiler heavy review so if you wish to remain unspoiled, please turn away now. (And a warning for the use of the “C” word.) With that, I have some thoughts to convey....

When I heard the hype surrounding this book and heard the premise of the story itself, I was very excited and ready to save up the cash to buy the book. Since I had a chance to rent it from a library, however, I decided to do that first so that I could at least get to know the story before shelling out the money and honestly... I'm very glad I rented the book before buying it.

This book is honestly such a disappointment compared to the rave reviews I kept seeing people give out on YouTube. First, I'll categorize my thoughts out into the Characters, the Writing, the Plot/World and other miscelaneous issues that I found while reading.

The Characters:

In my opinion, all of the characters felt very two-dimensional 90% of the time. There were just one or two traits given to each character and every single thing they did revolved around that trait. For example: there was a character called the Jester because he was always joking and funny and that's all there was to him. He was constantly cracking jokes. Though, to be fair he did die off pretty early on in the story. Another good example, however, would be Niel who was very fratboy-ish and perverted. That's all there was to him was constantly saying something lewd until it got him shoved down a hole when he grabbed Leila's ass one too many times. There's also just so little given about them or their story or what little personality a lot of the characters have before they're killed off. So a lot of the time their death just had absolutely no impact to me since I only just learned that this dude's wife died giving birth to their son ten pages ago.

Another thing about the characters is that when it came to the competetors in the Sovereign's Tournament, most of them were very difficult to keep track of and I found myself having to watch the videos on the author's channel covering the characters at least three times over the three days it took me to read this book. Without it, I'd have been a lot more lost than I was and I feel that had the competetors have been referred to as either solely their Laurel (a title given to them at the start of the Tournament) or their given name, it would have made things a lot easier.

On to individual characters themselves. Concerning Tobias, I felt him to be very high and mighty a lot of times. He looked down on his own best friend for wanting to enter the Tournament and looked down on people for being open about their sexual exploits not to mention looking down on Flynn for feeling he was in love with Cosima despite having just met her. All there was to him was that he was the Good Guy and he was in love with Leila. A lot of times he was extremely dickish towards Flynn just for the guy being grateful about Tobias saving his life. There were two particular times in the novel that it was very obvious that everyone was just being a dick towards Tobias just so that we, the reader, would feel sorry for him and hate the bad guys. When he lost the gift challenge due to only being able to draw Leila, everyone laughed and berrated and hated him despite just a few moments ago being chummy with him seeing as he's quite literally pulled some of them out of challenges and saved their asses. Then much later on during the Viewing where the foreign rulers bet on who would win the fight to the death, everyone just gangs up on Tobias again and starts smacking him around and laughing at him because we're supposed to hate these characters and wanna save and protect poor widdle Toby. Despite the fact that in that Viewing scene, Tobias very much brought all of that on himself seeing as he blatantly insulted the foreign rulers right to their faces and called them disgusting. Yes, they're vile for betting on human lives, but at the same time, these are very influential and powerful rulers of foreign kingdoms and Tobias is the least-liked comtetetor left out of the Tournament. All in all, Tobias (like all of the male characters in this story) doesn't feel like a real, believable man but as the fantasy perfect man that a teenager would dream up and swoon over.

The Sovereign confused me. A lot. Why was it that he didn't have Leila (the Savior) killed while she was still in infancy? She was premature when she was cut from her mother's womb and this is set in a time where there wasn't the technology necessary in order to ensure Leila survives infancy so it would have been a simple matter of strangling her then lying to the public to say that the circumstances to her birth complicated matters and thus she died. He easily lied about who killed Leila's mother by cutting out the man's tongue and having him publicly executed so why could he not have killed Leila and spun a lie? The same goes for his strange need to have Tobias killed in the arena. He's the Sovereign, after all, it would have been very easy for him to order Tobias executed (especially when there were two assassins still alive by the time they get to the palace) and hide the true nature of his death. The public wasn't around for a lot of the challenges (from what I could tell, at least) so it was very unnecessary for the Sovereign to insist that Tobias be killed in the arena when Tobias proved himself very capable of defending himself out there. Especially when time and time again Tobias was being Blessed by the Savior and thus given an extra edge in each fight. Another thing was his anger about Leila being down in the Labyrinth despite that having been the perfect opportunity for his three assassins to kill her seeing as Tobias wasn't available 24/7 to look over her and protect her.

Leila being the Savior is a very hollow revelation and makes much of the book seem very pointless. The whole premise was that Tobias falls in love with a woman that he's not supposed to seeing as he's entered into the Sovereign's Tournament, but it's all taken away and the impact of him having a forbidden romance with someone who isn't the Savior is taken away when it turns out that the woman he loves is in fact the Savior. It was very annoying to see Leila constantly assuming things of Tobias, first with seeing the blood on his hands and assuming he's the one that murdered the first three competetors in the Labyrinth (despite him being covered in injuries from said Labyrinth) and then going on to the Poem Challenge where he poured his heart out in a love poem ABOUT her and FOR her. Instead of taking this into account, she just assumes that he had sex with Cosima during his reward even though by this time they had confessed to loving each other already. It's very trope-y and something I've seen many a times in other stories and media. Her killing of the Senators is just seen as a "Oh, *shrug* no biggie" type of thing by Tobias which I felt was very strange seeing as he looked down on and actually beat up the other competetors in the Tournament for murdering people. Leila also constantly got upset with Tobias for saying that he hates the Savior when they both know that he thinks Cosima is the Savior. When he was saying he hates the Savior, he was referring to hating Cosima and they were both well aware of this. She was supposed to be this super badass woman who doesn't afraid of everything and yet to me she just felt like a special snowflake Mary Sue most of the time. Finally about Leila I kept wondering is why she smelled so strongly of peaches that Tobias was seemingly able to smell it the moment she walked through a door. Did she constantly eat them? Was she bathing in a scented wash? Did she wear peach perfume? It was never explained to my knowledge.

Sadly in the story, Kaleo was the only character I found myself enjoying at times since he angered Tobias so much and I was already annoyed with Tobias before the end of the first chapter. Despite him at the end of the story turning into a perverted sexual deviant who wanted to literally rape Tobias in order to torture him for the Sovereign and being very two-dimensional like the rest of the characters in his sadistic tendencies during the whole Tournament, he was still the most entertaining of all the characters.

The Writing:

Despite me prefacing this review with that I feel Jenna Moreci gives out sound advice on writing, I found her writing style to really not live up to that advice she preaches one her YouTube channel. For one thing, the dialogue in this story was such a strange hybrid switching back and forth from overly formal and robotic to fratboy/fuckboy speak. And every single character save Enzo and the Queen from Enzo's country spoke in the same exact way. Even the Sovereign, the literal king of Thessen, walked around calling people "little bitches" and "cunts" all the time. Leila was called blunt and her words were made to seem like a joke but instead, her dialogue was just very vulgar when it felt that the author wanted to be funny. Another thing was that overuse of the words "cock", "cunt" and "bitch" throughout the story. They were the ONLY insults thrown at people which made it really seem that the author knew no other insults she could give for the characters to toss at each other. Even Raphael, the Intellect, literally the smartest and most refined man in the Tournament would say "cock" and I believe even called people "cunts". As far as I was able to tell, there was only one instance that Jenna Moreci wrote "dick" instead of "cock" and it was twenty-six chapters deep in the story while Cosima was trying to coerce Tobias into having sex with her.

This whole story just feels like it was a YA book placed under the Adult genre in order to allow the author to have gore and sex and vulgar dialogue. As I mentioned with Tobias, the men in the story just felt so unbelievable as if they were thought up by a teenager who thinks this is what grown men are all like despite this having been written by a 30+ year old woman. A lot of the elements were just so juvenile and immature such as the fuckboy nature to a lot of the dialogue and certain things like Tobias focusing so much on Leila's chest and thinking to himself "tits tits tits tits" at one point. Then there was a whole scene where Tobias describes urinating in someone's washbin for cheating on his sister which, while yes he was sixteen at the time, felt so juvenile for him to be talking about. Another EXTREMELY juvenile and cringey thing was that Ceasar was just randomly jerking off right next to Tobias in his tent every morning. As if in spite of being in the Tournament surrounded by a bunch of death and violence and gore he's just too horny and can't help but masturbate right next to Tobias. Finally a lot of the descriptors given to people in dialogue and even in the narrative itself felt very strange. The servants constantly scuttled and scampered about. People were skidding to a halt despite walking at a regular pace. And a lot of times people "spat" out words when it didn't seem like that's how they were trying to say the sentence? I don't know how to put it other than it was just very strange.

The Plot/World:

I've seen a lot of other one-two star reviews going over the lack of Worldbuilding in this story, so I'll try not to reiterate too much here. I do agree that there's just so little we're given about Thessen other than the general vibe that it's based off of Ancient Greece and it used to be a desert before the first Savior changed it all. I also agree that the lack of an in depth explanation on the magic was just very confusing and left a lot of head scratching and it's sad to realize that Jenna Moreci is more than likely saving any kind of explanation on the magic and how it works for her second and third book in the series. It would have been nice in the final chapter when Leila saved Tobias and was explaining everything about her being the Savior that she give us SOME kind of explanation. Such as why the Blessings ONLY showed up on Tobias when it was most convenient for them within the story. Why didn't it show up when Tobias was in the hedge maze? Why did it take until he made it to the arena and started fighting Flynn and Kaleo? Why is it that despite Leila being a literal god wasn't powerful enough to keep the Sovereign from having too much control or even just from overthrowing him and taking control of the realm back? There was also the whole matter in the final chapter with her suddenly needing to say a chant in order to heal Tobias when before when healing him she just slathered the fake potions on him and touched him.

It was very confusing that the Sovereign, the current ruler of the realm of Thessen, wasn't able to name how many Tournaments there have been but he was able to tell everyone that there were three men who tried to quit the Tournament and know exactly how they were executed for their dessertion. Another thing about the worldbuilding was that it was very sad that characters kept using the phrase "oh my God" or using "God" at all. Despite Thessen being based on Ancient Greece (which was polytheistic) and them worshiping a living god in the Savior, it would have been a lot nicer and fit in better for characters to say something like "oh my Savior" or at least use the plural form of "gods" or give us an explanation that the Savior is supposed to be the child of a singular God and that's why they're constantly praising Him.

There were a lot of just very random things thrown in that despite them serving a purpose to the plot felt out of place in the plot. Such as there just randomly being an apothecary lesson for seemingly no reason only for it to be revealed that the wine was poisoned. Like, why did no one question why they were learning how to brew an antidote to a poison in the first place? How did none of the "smart" characters like Tobias or Raphael piece together that they were being poisoned? As I mentioned before, the deaths for much of the story just felt very random and served no real purpose other than to eliminate that character from the roster and have someone for Tobias to cry about for a few pages until Leila came along and he could stare at her chest to forget all his troubles.

Miscellaneous Issues:

There were also a lot of just very random things that I kept cringing at or questioning in the story. Such as the dialogue at the start with the woman asking Tobias if he prefers "the cock to the cunt" as a roundabout way to ask if Tobias is gay. Cosima's lovely little line about how a man isn't a man until he proves he can have sex with a woman. Like, yes, we're supposed to not like Cosima because she's betraying Leila and going power hungry (and a lot of the time it felt like we were supposed to hate her for being "slutty") but that whole thing just had me cringing.

Tobias seemed to have this instant weapon mastery after having one overnight lesson on how to fight with a sword against the bardiche with Flynn and Leila. He was never taught how to shoot a bow, he was never taught how to fight sword against sword and he CERTAINLY wasn't taught how to dual wield swords and yet he was instantly able to master all of these fighting techniques despite having just One (1) lesson in the whole book.

Garrick did an absolute 180 going from this super badass calling everyone else a coward and jumping into the ravine (which should have killed him given that him jumping from that height and hitting the water's surface tension would have been like jumping onto concrete) turns into a coward throwing a hissy fit and saying "fuck the Savior" just because Drake pointed him out next as the target he wanted to kill.

The fight against the Giant confused me since Tobias was teleporting around the arena and at the start I had assumed the arena was a large area and yet when he would teleport from one side to the other he was able to hear the Giant questioning what was going on with perfect clarity. He was also confusing in killing the Farmer for being "blasphemous" despite he himself wanting only coin and glory and calling the Savior a "pair of glowing tits". (At least I thought it was the Giant that killed the Farmer. I could be wrong because of confusion, again.)

The final two points that were just very random were why Delphi kept telling Tobias all this information about the other contestants. Other than it being because Leila liked Tobias, she was giving him information before Tobias even realized he was in love with Leila so I just kept asking myself "why is she doing this? What's in it for her?" And lastly was that the riddles in their little card game were stupidly simple and felt only there for the need of toting Tobias' intelligence to the reader.

In Conclusion:

I was very disappointed in this story. I had high hopes going in and was excited to read it because I like Jenna Moreci's channel on YouTube but I ended up having to force myself to finish this book when I wanted to just close it and return it to the library after the first three chapters. It's made me very hesitant to find and read her other book Eve: The Awakening or any other book in the Savior's Series despite my morbid curiosity. All in all, I would not recommend this book to anyone and give this a 2/5 simply because I liked Kaleo and his trashy self.

#the savior's champion #tsc #jenna moreci

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torestoreamends · 7 years

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Covers of Cursed Child 2017/18

The thing that makes this cast so outstanding is the way that every single person on the stage is so deeply invested in the story and in the characters. There's an astounding level of care and attention that, when combined with the level of talent, makes for a pretty incredible show.

All this is true not just for the main cast, but also for the covers. This show has always had brilliant covers, they have always been excellent actors, but in this cast the covers have a level of understanding of the characters that makes every single one of them a complete joy to watch. There are some characters that matter so much to me, and when I started seeing the covers for this cast there was a sense of fear that someone who wasn't playing them full time might not have had time to fully understand them, but with this cast there is no any danger of this. There isn't a single weak link. Every single cast board seems to be 'the best cast board ever', and I love that.

So here are some quick summaries of all the covers I've seen (at least one actor for all the roles apart from Ron, Dumbledore, Craig, Bane, and the Station Master). I hope this is useful for anyone who hasn't seen them and wants to know what they're like! And I can't wait to see some of these people take over full time next year.

Rayxia

Rayxia's Rose feels a lot older than Albus (and that was especially true in the first show I saw with her), but she clearly loves him a lot. There were times when it feels as though Rose is pining for her cousin's lost friendship. I've never had my heart broken by Rose before, but I did in some of Rayxia's shows, and I've been really enjoying watching her take command of Rose over the course of the performances she's in. She makes Rose sweet and a little vulnerable at times, and it's a beautiful take on the character. Very different from Helen (especially in her reactions after listening outside McGonagall's Office in Act Three), but just as wonderful in her own way.

Leah

I've seen Leah cover both Nicola's track, and play Polly multiple times (she's one of those super swings who seems to be everyone). As 'Nicola' she seemed so young, especially in the library scene where she had to tell the boys off. She was still wearing the student robes, rather than teachers' robes, so she looked like a prefect telling the boys off. I'm sure she's had to put up with all sorts of rubbish from the boys over the years. They deserve a telling off.

And as Polly she's mature, grounded, a tiny touch flirtatious, but not over the top. She seems very confident and sure of herself, and weirdly she feels older as Polly than she did as 'Nicola'. Also, it cannot be understated how beautiful she looked, with long, black, gently curled hair. Polly has never been more gorgeous (she is a notorious beauty after all).

I particularly love what Leah does in the Voldemort timeline actually. She handles the scene on the stairs with Scorpius brilliantly. I guess she's used to Scorpius being overconfident and flirtatious and probably a bit of an asshole, because she seems genuinely confused by him in that scene, especially when he isn't enthusiastic about her advances. She's clearly prepared her speech and is determined to go through with it, so by the end she has to compose herself and make herself strong and assertive for the 'for Voldemort and Valour' because by that point she's understood that she's getting no help from Scorpius. But clearly this is important to her -- being with Scorpius is a way of assuring her position in the world, and she needs to do it. I wonder how long she's been working on asking him out?

Josh

The other super swing (as you all probably already know). I've actually only seen him as Karl in this cast, although I think he's also been on as Craig, and possibly Yann too? I love watching his ensemble antics (especially those involving Mackley) so much, and he's one of a handful of four of five people who I'm pretty sure the show would fall apart without (maybe not anymore, but certainly back in May).

My favourite memory of him in Mackley's track was when he was playing Dudley. Both Mackley and Josh get up to some ridiculous shenanigans when they're hidden away beneath the stairs with the other Dursleys, but Josh's was the best. He was so scared of Hagrid that he actually shoved his whole head under Aunt Petunia's dressing gown to hide.

Josh is basically a hero. He can and does play anyone. I don't really know what else needs to be said about him.

Jordan

I totally love Jordan as Yann. I think he's great. I don't know what it is about him but I really trust him on stage, and he's another where I get really happy when he's on. I especially love him as Krum. He has the perfect look, and the movement he does is really natural.

I have now also seen Jordan as the Jameses/Cedric, and basically I think I just really love Jordan? As with seeing any cover for the first time, I didn't really get used to him being on stage in the first scene, so I definitely need to see him again to give a proper assessment of him as James Jr, but I absolutely adored his Cedric.

Because he's a bit bigger than Rupert and has an older face, he felt a bit more intimidating. He felt like a seventh year Triwizard Champion compared to the boys for sure. The scene in the maze was played a little more similarly to how Milligan used to do it, with outright confusion that got a couple of laughs from the audience, but it was still a very beautiful and moving scene.

In the glasses, with his really dark hair, he made a great James Potter Sr, and the death scene was really amazing.

Sarah

The first time I saw Sarah she stole Part One with her rendition of Myrtle (which is quite a feat when you're following a library scene like the one she had to follow). She was wildly over the top in a perfectly Myrtle way, and there were so many moments when Myrtle was all of us. The way she looked Albus up and down when she mentioned the girls 'and boys' doing love incantations in her bathroom in particular. It was a hysterically funny rendition. I think she's only getting more over the top as she gets more comfortable with the role, which is really fun to see.

Ged

I was actually quite nervous about seeing Ged as the Sorting Hat. I love Mark so much that I was worried about how someone else might compare, but honestly what Ged did with the role was pretty breathtaking. He's a very calm, softly spoken, detached sort of Sorting Hat. You really do get the feeling of him being a thing of magic, and standing apart from the world. His version of the pumpkin transition into Godric's Hollow was so joyous that it took my breath away.

I adored him as Hagrid too. His accent may have been a teeny bit suspect at times, but his skill at walking down the stairs in Hagrid's shoes was genuinely impressive, and more than enough to make up for that. The way he told Harry he was a wizard was gorgeous, and then Hagrid's final scene, especially when he heard Harry crying and went looking for him, was really beautiful.

I have also seen Ged as Snape/Voldemort on multiple occasions while David was off in August. In the costumes (especially as Vernon) he looks so much like David that it's difficult to tell who's on, but by the time you get to Snape you can tell. I definitely warmed to his Snape over the month, and I think that was probably because he was getting more comfortable with it, and my favourite rendition was definitely on the 1st of September, when absolutely everyone was on fire.

I don't remember much about him as Voldemort, except that I thought he was great. Although, in a hilarious contrast to him as Hagrid, he took the stairs into the auditorium very very carefully indeed; in fact there was one point in his first show where I thought he might not walk down them at all!

Morag

Morag as McGonagall has a truly special place in my heart and always will do. I get so excited and happy when I see her name on the cast board. (I think she was part of that legendary first cover show with James Howard back on the 31st of August 2016, and I thought she was a bit too softly spoken then, but my opinion of her has transformed over this year.)

Her scene in the office after the boys come out of the lake is truly beautiful. She gets so emotional about the world and about the sacrifices of the war and about protecting the boys. She's everything McGonagall should be. McGonagall is a character who cares desperately about her students and her school and about the state of the world around it. She's a beautiful, powerful character, and her emotion means so much because it comes out so rarely. Morag might be my perfect McGonagall; she's certainly given me a deeper appreciation for the character, and I really never want to lose her.

Also, I noticed recently that she looks so shocked and concerned when Albus is sorted, not just about the Sorting itself, but by the reactions of the other students. I need to pay more attention to her reactions in that entire scene (and to Sandy's reactions) because I bet they're fantastic.

Nicola

Nicola is my favourite Hermione. It was strange seeing her after a run of Rakie performances, because she's very different. Back in the days when Noma was the main Hermione, Nicola always felt brutal and menacing, and especially in edge in the second and third timelines, but now, compared to Rakie, she almost seems tame, but I mean that in a good way. She's the perfect halfway between the two, beautifully balanced. She brings a supreme calm and clarity and thoughtfulness to Hermione, and her chemistry with Tom is electric. She also works beautifully with Jamie, and I loved her with both Rayxia and Helen. It was wonderful to see her again after so long.

My favourite thing that Nicola does is in the polyjuice scene. When Delphi transforms, she's so fascinated by herself, and by the two boys. Nicola will check out her hair, and then she'll go across and poke Jamie in the back of the head while Scorpius is talking to Albus, or sometimes she'll poke him in the shoulder instead. It's like she's testing how sturdy the new forms are, and it's such a sweet little thing to do.

Also, I continue to be grateful for how good she is at hooking herself up to the Dementors. She's the only person I never have to stress about, because she nails it every single time. I don't know how she does it, but I think it must be a genuine talent.

Lowri

I had never seen Lowri as Ginny before! I had a clean sweep of seeing Poppy, and I'm glad I did, because I feel like as a cover of Poppy, Lowri's Ginny would have been a shock to the system. However, as a cover of Emma she was perfect, because she's on the sharper, stronger side, where her top priority is Albus. She's a touch less oppositional with Harry than Emma is (Emma's Ginny really gets angry at Harry in Act Three), but in the opening scene I almost forgot she wasn't Emma until I looked at her.

She makes a very young Ginny, but she was really sweet with Albus, and I absolutely adored her exploding snap scene with all my heart. I would certainly not be disappointed to see her again, and I'm actually a bit sad it took me so long to finally see her.

Gideon

To start with the appearance – he looks just like Theo, especially in the dorm scene when they're sitting side by side on the suitcase. You truly believe that Theo is his son. He looks slightly younger than Jamie, which is a tiny bit odd with Emma, but that doesn't matter at all when he's so good. I think the best description of him is 'hot dad Harry'.

I was really nervous about seeing another cover Harry, because Harry is such an important part, and he links so much of the show together that when Harry is weak, it leaves half of the scenes feeling empty and detached from the rest of the show. However, that is a not a problem we're going to have this year. His acting was exceptional. He, like so many of this cast's covers, walks the perfect middle line between the original and second cast principals. There were moments where his portrayal was just like Jamie G's, but then there were moments of explosive anger and rebelliousness that were just like Jamie P.

He put his feet on the desk in the scene with Hermione after Harry's found the Time-Turner, he got angry and fired up to the point of shouting at so many points, and he cried in the scene with Dumbledore. It was a painfully nostalgic experience to see him, but it was wonderful. Also, one of my favourite things I've ever seen in the show happened with him.

The final scene was beautiful, but because he was a cover I wasn't sure if he would stick with the Jamie G tradition and hug Albus as the lights went down. I get really nervous about losing my favourite details like that when covers go on. But thankfully he did hug Albus, and then Albus hugged him back, which I don't think had ever happened before, and it was stunning. Harry and Albus hugging each other as the auditorium goes dark. I never thought I'd see that, but it happened and I was overjoyed.

Other things I loved were that in the blanket scene he felt like he was convinced the blanket was the coolest gift ever, and slowly got crushed by Albus's anger. I also adored how whenever he was interacting with Albus his hands would shake. It was like he was so afraid of communicating with his son, and so desperate to get it right, that he would start trembling with anxiety.

I know that some people have already started campaigning for Gideon to take over full time next year, and I can honestly say that I would be really happy if that happened. He's brilliant. I can't wait to see him after he's been on a few times and is taking full ownership of the role.

April

I could watch April as Delphi every single performance and be perfectly happy. She's brilliant.

In Part One she feels young and girlish. It helps that she's so small. The voice she uses isn't vulnerable as such, but it doesn't project power and influence. She's actually sort of adorable. Her Delphi feels a bit lost, someone who's searching for something, which of course she is, she wants her father, and I love that interpretation.

In Part Two she absolutely transforms into a sadistic, evil witch. She pushes Delphi to the boundaries, making her terrifying and downright creepy, and I know for a fact that she'd go further if she could (she told me at stage door that she wishes she could lick Albus, but that she thought that might be going too far since there are kids in the audience).

The biggest impact moment of her performance comes in the torture scene. I've heard that when Annabel was busy with the original cast, she would rehearse with Theo and Sam, and you can really tell because they take this scene to a whole new place.

Delphi is so quick and violent with the torture that at one point Albus ends up throwing himself across the ground to try and block her spell from reaching Scorpius, and he lies there in hell watching his friend's pain. She also crouches down behind Albus at one point and holds him in her lap, one hand grabbing his chin, the other pointing her wand at Scorpius. She makes Albus look at Scorpius as she taunts him about not being able to save his friend, and her wand is in such a position that Albus must feel as though he's the one casting the awful curses at Scorpius. Albus always ends up burying his face in his knees and sobbing uncontrollably when she does this, and it's horrific.

April's Delphi is pure evil, I don't think there's another way of saying it. Pure, magnificent evil. She's another one who I'd love to see take over full time next year.

I have written a full recap of Ed's Draco here and here but I don't want to miss him out of these summaries. I've actually seen him again since I wrote those recaps, and even though it's only been three shows between those recaps and this, I think his Draco has changed a bit.

He seems a little older now and less petty. I've been talking to a lot of people who describe him as an older version of book Draco, and I totally agree with that. There's a spitefulness to him at times, and he seems constantly on the offensive, his thoughts and feelings just spilling out of him. Ed's pacing is fascinating, because his dialogue is so fast but he takes such long pauses that overall the scenes last the same amount of time. Those long pauses don't let his Draco collect his thoughts and feelings together; his feelings and thoughts keep boiling away during them, and he never seems to cool down. Also, he seems constantly on the verge of tears. In the first EGM when he talks about Scorpius and the rumours, he almost breaks.

His reactions to Ron are brilliant. In fact, his reactions to everything are brilliant. He plays things a bit differently to James, and actually makes Draco seem a bit more confident as a character. There's a very Dracoish air of entitlement to him, and he doesn't do things like shy away from Myrtle or look delighted when Ron compliments him. He holds his ground, responds with disgust, and generally seems above the rest of the world.

I think Ed's Draco is wonderful. Silky smooth. A really good, caring father (that hug with him is gorgeous; Scorpius throws himself into it and almost knocks him over). Spiky and defensive. Emotionally vulnerable. And, of course, very handsome. I can't wait to see him again.

Mackley

I saw Mackley twice with Anthony, and only once from a good seat, but that was still in the dress circle. I was desperate to see him from the stalls, and I finally got my wish on Sunday the 17th of September.

With Anthony, I remember loving absolutely everything that Mackley did (apart from one line, which I'll mention later). He really shone opposite Anthony, to the point where during one of the shows I only noticed that Anthony was there about halfway through Act Four. He's always been most compelling in the interactions with Harry, and I still think that's true.

Mackley has changed a lot for the new cast, and it's really interesting to see. At the start of the show, when Albus is 11, he puts on a very young voice, which threw me off a bit as I hadn't been forewarned about it. I think that's the sort of thing that's only weird if you're really familiar with an actor, but it was really weird for me.

I loved his blanket scene with all my heart and soul. It's so fiery and perfectly Albus. There's so much fight in there. His yelling is extraordinary, and I finally felt with Mackley like I'd seen a blanket scene from this cast that I was really really happy with (although I've seen some since that have been incredible).

The balance between Albus and Scorpius with Mackley was probably the biggest change from the original cast. Whereas with Anthony, Mackley outshone him and stole the limelight for the whole show, with Samuel there was a lot more give and take. In Part One Albus definitely overrode Scorpius, but in Part Two, Scorpius was the confident, powerful one, and by the time of Godric's Hollow both Samuel and Mackley had given up on being sensible (it was Mackley's last show as Albus for a while and Samuel's last before his holiday) and were just having a wild amount of fun together. It was genuinely beautiful to watch. There was so much joy in their collaboration; it was everything I'd been wanting from their partnership since the 24th of May when Samuel said his first line as Scorpius.

The one downside to Mackley's Albus was the torture scene. This never used to be the cast with the original cast, but this time I was actually very disappointed. The acting wasn't bad; Mackley is incredible, a genuine star, but the decisions he made were just not Albus and I'd really love to know what he was thinking.

Albus completely collapsed in the torture scene, to the point where when Delphi said 'you will do as you're told' he started nodding desperately. It was that nodding that turned me off entirely. Albus in that scene would never give in. He knows he has to save Scorpius, but he also knows he has to stop Delphi, and because he's Albus Severus Potter he's going to find a different way, because that's what he does. I think that's essential to having a believable Albus. (Honestly, the portrayal in that scene was everything I was afraid Theo's Albus might be before I saw him do that scene.)

Having said all that, I'm a huge Mackley fan and I will be more than happy to see him again, but I'd love to see him rethink some of the character choices. I think he could be one of my favourite Albus's ever if he tweaked the torture scene and rethought Albus's trajectory through the story. It might be a lot to ask, but a girl can dream.

Henry

Henry plays a very sweet Scorpius. There was nothing about him that I didn't like. He had great chemistry with Theo and, most importantly for me, with James. The blond wig really suits him, and he has such a similar profile to Samuel that I actually thought for a second in the opening scene that the cast board was wrong and that Samuel was back from his holiday early.

There were a lot of things I love from Samuel's performance that I was expecting to see Henry not do, but I was pleasantly surprised when Henry did those things but even more over the top. The goo-oo-oo-oo-ood that Samuel does at the end of Act One was preserved in all its glory, but Henry varied the pitch, making it even more over the top and adorable. He sang the line 'palace of love' opera style. When Ron drew his wand the wrong way round, he wiggled his fingers to tell Ron to turn it round. He was essentially an adorable nerd, and it was so lovely.

The sweetness and comedy of his performance was probably my favourite thing about it, but he still delivered on the emotional parts of the story, and his library scene was great. The only thing I missed with him was the dynamic range of Samuel's performance. He never got really really quiet or left long gaps of silence, but other than that he was perfect.

My absolute favourite part of his performance was probably the scene with Snape at the edge of the lake. There was something so emotional and beautiful about it, especially his delivery of the line "thank you for being my light in the darkness". He seemed to say it so slowly and it was almost broken-sounding, but there was so much strength and resolve and clarity in it. He paused after the word thank you, like he was trying to find the right words, and when he found them it was stunning.

There were a lot of lines in his performance that were approximated, and Elizabeth did a fabulous prompt in the scene at the end of Act Two (he forgot 'I'm looking for my friend, miss' and just knelt on the ground, hyperventilating with what was probably genuine fear, until she asked if he was looking for someone), but that didn't really impact on anything, and you'd only know if you knew the script off by heart.

In general he was just really lovely, fun to watch, and a great performance. I think Henry is a great actor, and I'm excited to see him again in a few months when he's played Scorpius more. It'll certainly be a hilarious, exuberant performance, no matter what happens.

#Harry Potter and the Cursed Child #Cursed Child #Notes from the show #cursed child cast #cursed child recap #Keep The Secrets #idk how to tag anymore #and there are soooo many people in here I can't tag them all #But anyway I basically love all these people with my heart and soul #there's no a weak link in the cast and that is an incredible thing #they're sensational #this show is sensational #and I'm constantly proud to be a fan of this show and this cast

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obsidianmichi · 7 years

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I was reading @feynites fun fic Looking Glass. I was struck to play with young Solas on a lark and to help with character development, though my Solas is nothing like her Pride. He came out much more... knightly. Plus, our Falon’dins have little in common. Still, thanks Feynites for this fun bit of play! I enjoy your writing quite a bit. ^_^

Fen’Harel growled in frustration, kicking his legs up on his desk and balled another memory fragment in his hands. Mythal’s lush gardens spread below his tower window and he knew the girl was somewhere in the rock building nearest the octangle compound’s far corner, potentially looking out on the same wilds. Whatever Falon’din had done widened the girl up to more and released more too, realized the ever present sadness lurking at the edges of her sorrowful eyes. Uncontained, her pent up pain was enough to wrench at his heart. The images came quickly, inundated him with fits and starts. The strange wooden boats moving across the ground and drawn by Ghilnan’nain’s halla, strange feral elves in strange, simple leather clothes about campfires and wearing the vallaslin of the People. The same dead vallaslin she had worn when she arrived. If they enslaved the halla, there would be swift vengeance delivered on them. Yet, he did not think so. Instead, his memory fell to the moment before when he’d escorted her back to her room. Her back stiff and unyielding, and she never leaned on him regardless of the pain.

“Thank you,” she’d said in the same quiet way she did every day before closing the door.

His heart thundered then, and he’d almost caught the rough, wooden slab with his hand. Demand to know what he might do, know why she looked at him with such sad eyes. Those sky blue irises, unlike those of his fellow elvhen. Whenever they found him, he felt as if joy fled from the world. His world of bright colors turned to dark and gray nightmare.

He understood why Sorrow and Misery lingered close to her, as did Compassion, though he’d seen no immediate signs of its presence. The other spirits wandered near her on occasion, but he suspected they were waiting until she was ready to speak with them. Of them all, it was Solace, Wisdom, and Regret who never left. Wisdom’s presence surprised him most.

“Young in body, old in pain, and kindred in ken,” was what Wisdom said.

That answer proved unsettling as the others.

He turned as the door creaked behind him.

“Still at it, eh?” Asharael said. The older elf strode into Fen’Harel’s private room at the top of his glass tower, eyes surveying the scattered red shards littering the floor. He rubbed his mouth, all amusement.

Fen’Harel cast him a dirty look.

“Your powers of poetry fail you?”

He sighed. “Try as I might, nothing comes right.”

“Yet you managed a rhyme scheme this time,” Asharael chuckled. Without invitation, he swiped one of the shards up off the floor and held it up in the light. “To whom is this pretty ditty of yours meant? A lucky elven lass, I’m sure. Perhaps Tana in the markets or the sorceress apprentice Lyvaea whose been eyeing you, the one transferred to Mythal’s service out of Dirthamen’s schools.”

“Neither,” he said stiffly.

“Neither?” Asharael spun the inert shard between his fingers. “Tell me you’re not hung up chasing some noble lady in the high casts? Or a raven wench with Falon’din’s delegation?” His upper lip wrinkled. “They’re hardly fun in a tumble.”

Fen’Harel studied him, remembering the girl… Eirwen pale in his arms. Her cold fingers extending, eyes full of strange relief and wonder as she reached out to touch his face. Solas. She’d whispered his name. His first name from when he’d been a spirit of Pride, when he’d had no other. A name he barely remembered. The air around her dead and unfeeling, but her soft eyes filled with an emotion he could only call love. He... whomever she’d seen in his place was someone beloved. Her beloved, he reminded himself. He’d seen the same expression in the eyes of enough young maids enough to know, yet nothing like hers. Their loves were not so precious. Even now, months later, he’d barely the words to describe it. Those eyes were a candle’s flame in the forest, burning brightly and gone again in the wind’s sputtered gasp. They knew nothing of timelessness, only endings. Yet, the swiftness of the coming end left her love all the sweeter, all the more fierce. Like a brilliant star in the overhead sky, he wished it would burn on forever.

In the moment, he’d been struck with envy. Envy, of all emotions the most selfish he might feel. Envy for the unknown male who bore his name, gifted with a love born in the shadow of death. Wherein the end would come, but each moment clung to as precious. Brief, brilliant, wildly passionate. A momentary love, come and gone again before one might blink. Yet in her love’s shadow all his turned to pale. Her love echoed in him even now, rattling bars of a cage he never knew contained him.

Envy.

Ridiculous, he thought.

“Ah,” Asharael’s tone darkened. “That one.”

“I’ve no intention to pursue her,” Fen’Harel said and heard it for a lie as the words left his lips. “She is… fascinating.”

“Severed from the Dreaming, almost in entirety,” Asharael replied. “To hear the Sorceresses tell it, she will never truly be restored though she may find some semblance of elvhen life as a construct.” The older elf studied the shard in his palm. “Falon’din has laid his claim, wolf brother. You would do well to avoid that storm.”

“Her vallaslin was inert,” Fen’Harel offered. He knew Falon’din’s intentions all too well, knew too Mythal humored her eldest. She had not given the girl up in part because the child proved an easy means to vex him.

“His mark is on her,” Asharael said. “Whatever that means, Linali won’t tell me.”

Fen’Harel nodded, remembering Asharael’s latest conquest among Mythal’s Sisterhood. “Mythal has promised not to give her up easily.”

“But never promised she would not,” Asharael countered. “I feel for the little lass, much as anyone can. Poor thing cannot feel as we do, she is half a creation. Flesh with but a whisper of spirit.”

Fen’Harel shrugged. “I have been seeking to understand.”

“You know the spirits better than I, Dreamborn,” Asharael chuckled. “Mayhap you will.”

Irked, Fen’Harel traced the lengths of his fingers. Eyes moving to the collection of research piled on the far table on the opposite side of his quarters. Even with Wisdom’s help, researching her condition proved a daunting task. He was younger than Falon’din, and the other legendary. He knew spirits, yes. He had been drawn from the Fade by Mythal herself to serve at her court, but so had Falon’din and Dirthamen. They were First among the Children. Falon’din’s knowledge of a spirit’s transition into a mortal body was second to none. Mythal was correct in calling to him for aid. Yet, Fen’Harel frowned, Falon’din offered no favors for free.

His eyes returned to the gardens below. Swinging to the verdant jungle in the east, twining vines and the ancient trees with their wide fronds. Spirits swanned down the paths, conversing freely and eagerly with their embodied counterparts. His gaze fell to a couple, far below, in a secluded grove beside Gardenmeister Karina’s favorite babbling brook. They curled together lazily in the fading light, looking up or down every so often to plant a gentle kiss on the other’s lips.

Coolly, Fen’Harel reached for another memory shard. He’d enough work to do overlooking Mythal’s forces, and reviewing training for his contingent of Wolf Brothers. He was not a general, not truly. He was Champion, overseeing the training of the elite and serving under the more seasoned Hamilin. A glorified bodyguard as the elder commanders so often reminded him. Still, his warriors would be on the training floor tomorrow. The girl had intimated she’d some sort of combat training, though he privately doubted its efficacy.

With a flick of his thumb, he called up her image. Her bare face, stripped of Falon’din’s offensive markings, stare back. She was tiny, especially when compared to the elvhen. A smaller frame with thinner bones, a round if hollow face compounded by massive doe-like eyes. She’d been half starved as a child. That much was obvious to anyone with eyes. Her visage remained ridiculously childlike, though her expressions showed an aged maturity. Yet she’d lived no longer than twenty-six short years. Impossible! Fleshborn at twenty were cradlebound. He turned the image over in his hand.. Her magic came and went in whispers. A teasing breeze taunting him with wisdom born from pain, and some unspoken knowledge half-remembered in dreams.

Fen’Harel banished it again, his mouth set in a firm line. Such a child could not have combat training, much less experience. It is my duty to test out all potential threats to Mythal, therefore I must test her. If he knew how well she defended herself perhaps he would stop worrying, and if she could not then he’d have a beginning.

Asharael’s hand settled on his shoulder, and gave him a warm squeeze.

Fen’Harel glanced at him.

“You will get past this,” Asharael said. “All comes to its end, brother.”

“Except us,” Fen’Harel replied.

Asharael smiled. “Even us.”

Fen’Harel sighed. “I must wait these emotions out then.”

Asharael gave him a knowing pat. “The feelings will leave in their own time, and you will be yourself again. You are young yet, Fen’Harel. You shall see.”

“Too young to be Champion?” he asked, voice wry.

“You earned the honor accorded,” Asharael answered. “Only Mythal in her mightiness may take it from you.”

Fen’Harel sighed. “What brought you to me, Squad Leader?”

Asharael chuckled. “Back to business, then? Well, the soldiers are requesting their leader’s presence at the drinking hall. They wish to celebrate, as such they could not begin without you.”

Laying the memory shard back on his desk, Fen’Harel stood with a sigh. “Then we’d best not keep them waiting.”

“They prefer you cheerful to melancholy,” Asharael said, waggling his bushy black brows as they walked together toward the door. “When you’re happy, you ease off drilling on the practice field.”

“I promise nothing,” Fen’Harel replied, hands tucking behind his back. “They ought to know by now a night of summer spirits gains them only a morning grouch.”

“Ah, but there is always the chance you’ll stumble off to find a nice bar lass who’ll work the tension out,” Asharael said. “If not, an embarrassing moment for blackmail.”

Fen’Harel laughed. “I do not believe I have ever been quite so drunk.”

“Well,” Asharael grinned, “there’s always a first time.”

Following Asharael out the door, Fen’Harel descended from his tower. He intended to spend time with his warriors, or perhaps only watch their revelries. His mind turning to the morrow, and a plan regarding the girl formulating in his head. He realized, long after the sun had set and his mind drowsy with spirits that he should get used to calling her by name.

#solavellan #arlathan #solas x lavellan #solas x eirwen #young solas #fen'harel #this is not a new AU #I swear #it was just a bit of... heart wrenching fun

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featherwriter · 7 years

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Fandom: Destiny Point of View: 3rd Person Past Tense, Female Warlock Characters: Sylvanni Duv (Female Awoken Warlock Guardian), Brother Vance, Osiris Rating: SFW Chapters: 1 - Complete Words: 4,426 Warnings: Spoilers for Destiny 2 story campaign

Read On AO3 // Read on FF.net

Life begins to return to normalcy in the Last City after Ghaul’s invasion. When a fellow Warlock offers to purchase a bowl of noodles as a gesture of thanks for the City’s savior, what begins as a simple meal quickly becomes far more complicated, as tangled acquaintances from the distant past emerge and a Guardian’s will is forced to face the truth of her heart.

“Lady Restorer, please, may I buy you a meal?”

Sylvanni had to force herself not to grimace at the title as she looked up from the menu the waitress had just handed her over the counter. Ever since the City had been retaken, she’d started becoming a bit of a celebrity as Guardians and citizens alike heard the story of what she’d done. There were many impressive achievements over the course of her long second life, but none had netted her the same level of notoriety as defeating Ghaul.

They called her things in the streets now. Restorer. Light-bringer. Champion of the Traveler. Some of the more passionate had started using the epithet Red Breaker.

She still found the notoriety uncomfortable.

Still the man who’d walked up to the counter beside her had a kind air about him, someone grateful for her service to the City who wished to give a small token of his gratitude. He was a Warlock, like herself, if his robes were any indication. They were well-made, of a solid black with gold trim, hung with draping fabric and tied with cords.

He waved for her to enter the little shop before him, which she hesitated to do, as she’d originally planned to sit outside at the window counter. Still, he was buying her meal, and perhaps it would be nice to sit in an actual padded seat indoors rather than on a tall stool. He held the beads covering the doorway aside and she ducked into the depths of the little steam-shrouded shop, making for one of the booths.

“It’s very kind of you to do this,” she said as she slid into the booth.

He sat down across from her, having acquired a menu of his own along the way. “Please. It’s an honor after everything you’ve done for us.”

Sylvanni offered an empty smile at the compliment, placid and polite, because that was what one was supposed to do when a stranger said something nice. After weeks of attention, however, she was truly beginning to miss her anonymity. She could play the part of the heroic yet humble champion if that was what people needed her to be, but the mantle was too heavy and the mask of it chafed in its insincerity.

A part of her wished she could just go back to being herself, just Sylvanni Duv. Another part of her cruelly reminded her that she hadn’t really known who that was anyway.

The waitress stopped by to take their order, an Exo with forest green plating in a short sundress. Conscious of the fact that she wouldn’t be paying, Sylvanni ordered one of the less expensive noodle bowls, beef with scallions and spicy broth. Guardian hot, the kind that required Light-based healing to not damage one’s mouth. A good dose of spice always helped clear her head.

Her companion’s generosity continued, as he ordered not only noodles with chicken in a sweet peanut and kiwicumber sauce, but also a plate of steamed buns, no coriander leaves, presumably for them to share. As the waitress left, Sylvanni frowned as the order pulled up old memories.

He noticed. “I’m sorry, is that okay? I should have asked.”

“It’s fine,” she said, waving off his concern. “I just used to know someone who ordered buns the same way. Made me think of them.”

He folded his arms across the table in a relaxed posture. “I appreciate the chance to speak with you. I have heard stories of how you brought the Light back, each one more stunning than the last.”

“To be honest,” she said, nodding in thanks as the waitress brought glasses of water for the table, “I just held the gun. The Traveler brought itself back. Or perhaps something Ghaul did restored it.”

He chuckled. “Forgive me if I don't thank him with a bowl of ramen.”

That pulled a smile from her. “Were you in the City during the fall?”

“No, though we felt it all the same. I thought it was the end of everything, losing the Light like that.”

“I know the feeling.” Sylvanni looked out through the curtain of beads, watching people pass outside. “He was right there when mine was taken. Ghaul, I mean. Zavala sent me to disable the flagship's shields from the inside and I was standing on the top deck as the cage constricted around the Traveler for the first time. Ghaul and his retinue just watched as I crumpled in pain, as my Ghost fell to the ground with a hollow clink.”

Her dining companion seemed content to let her continue, and so she let her mind drift back to the terror and pain of those moments, putting herself back in the thick of remembrance. There was something meditative about it, experiencing the emotions from a distance.

“He seemed so dismissive, so utterly unthreatened by me as he walked up and kicked me across the deck. I barely felt it, even though I'm sure he broke bones. The pain of that just seemed so insignificant compared to the agony of having my Light ripped away from me.

“He said I needed to be reacquainted with the fear of death, then planted a massive foot against my helmet and shoved me over the side. I assume the last bits of Light I had saved me from the fall, because I woke up broken and beaten in the ground.”

The other Warlock nodded along. “It’s brave of you to have gone back to face him again after something like that.”

Sylvanni pursed her lips. “I’m not certain I would call it brave, exactly. It was simply something that needed to be done, and I had Light, so I was the one to do it.”

“Very humble of you,” he said, shaking his head. “He mentioned that and yet…”

“Wait,” Sylvanni said, frowning. “Who mentioned something?”

He was spared from answering her by the return of the waitress with their food, two steaming bowls and the plate of soft buns. Sylvanni eyed him, her intuition starting to make her suspicious, something familiar pricking her instincts.

Before she could say something, he nodded his head toward her slowly, an approximation of a bow. “It’s been an honor speaking with you, Lady Restorer. I’m grateful for the opportunity.”

“You sound like you’re leaving,” she said, narrowing her eyes. Something golden flashed on his finger, a signet ring of a sun inside an eye that she hadn’t noticed before. “Hold up, I do know you! I’ve seen you in the Reef. You–”

“Thank you, Brother Vance,” a smooth voice said behind her, “I can take over from here. Would you watch the street for us? I’d hate unexpected company.”

Sylvanni’s blood ran cold.

She wanted to scream, to run, to fight, to do something, but she was so stunned she found she couldn’t move. Once Vanguard, now exiled pariah, Osiris himself patted Vance on the shoulder as the cultist stood and slid into the booth seat across from her. He had picked up the chopsticks and was lifting the first bite of noodles to his mouth, watching her all the while, before she managed to find her voice.

The hissed snarl of words that finally escaped her would have impressed the Fallen. “What the hell are you doing here?”

His mouth quirked slightly, trying not to smile. “Hello, Sylvanni.”

He seemed utterly unperturbed, sitting in the middle of the City he had been explicitly forbidden to return to. Then again, he’d always had a way of seeming in control in any situation. It had made him a good leader during his time in the Tower, a handsome charismatic who drew followers like moths to a flame.

The problem had been, of course, where he’d chosen to lead them.

She was surprised—though she shouldn’t have been—how unchanged he seemed from his years of exile. For a moment, it was like no time had passed. They could have been back more than a century ago, with him, still the Vanguard, meeting up to talk about her research into the Ahamkara, or telling her about latest project he’d been working on. His smile was still kind, his sun-dark skin smooth, eyes as black and fathomless as the void. A dangerous kind of beauty.

“How did you get into the City?” she demanded.

He shook his head, tsking softly. “Such an uninteresting question. There are many Guardians returning to see the Traveler reborn. It’s a simple thing to stow away.”

He, like Vance, did not wear the customary bright yellow robes of his order, but was instead clad in similar nondescript black with golden trim. Perhaps it would have made him noticeable to wear his own colors, but there were many among the Guardians who flaunted the gifts they’d won in his Trials, those who carried gifts from Osiris’ followers as a trophy without truly understanding what they meant.

“The Traveler’s rebirth didn’t lift your exile,” she said coldly. “The Vanguard will come down on you if they discover you here.”

“Ah, the Vanguard are so fond of ignorance,” he said, twirling another tangle of noodles around his sticks. “It would be cruel of me to disabuse them of it. They cast me out because I wished for knowledge. I must assume then, that they prefer things left unknown.”

Sylvanni’s brow drew to a hard line. “You were exiled because you threw away lives and resources at a time when they could not be spared and you know that. You let your selfish curiosity get in the way of doing what needed to be done.”

“‘Selfish curiosity?’ What an interesting oxymoron.” He watched her with that gaze that seemed to understand too much, to be able to see things better left hidden. Beneath it however, his smile was fond. “Dear Sylvanni. Ever dutiful. You have not changed.”

“Unfortunately,” she said flatly, “I must say the same of you.”

He picked up one of the buns, holding it towards her before taking a bite. “You should have some. They're very good.”

She ignored him. “What are you doing, Osiris? Sneaking into the City? Sending messages through the Vex networks?”

“I might point out that you were also in that Vex network.”

She grimaced, feeling her confusion over this whole situation turn her stomach. “No, no, this is wrong. I shouldn’t be sitting here talking to you. You shouldn’t be here at all. I should call the Tower Garrison and have you arrested for breaking exile.”

“Over a bowl of noodles? I wasn’t aware a meal was such a threat to City security.” He gestured toward her bowl again more insistently. “Please, it’s just dinner. I promise I won’t topple the infrastructure of the Tower or stage any violent revolutions from this noodle shop.”

With a terse sigh, she relented, picking up her own chopsticks while glaring at him. “You're mad. But fine. One meal. Then you leave again.”

“Very well.” He seemed saddened by her hostility towards him, as if somehow he’d expected she’d be pleased to see him. “You’re quick to quote the Vanguard’s rhetoric against me, but I cannot believe these things you say. We worked together for decades. Look me in the eye and tell me you think I’m the madman they claim.”

She did meet his eyes, but she couldn’t quite say it. There had always been something powerfully manic to Osiris, but never unhinged. He believed everything he did deeply and ignored logic and common sense in pursuit of his goals, but the true threat that Osiris posed was not insanity, but rather a dangerous level of sanity.

It wasn’t that he was manipulative, per se. It was simply that he understood people in a way that gave him the ability to make them listen. He connected with others in a way that made them feel important, that validated their thoughts and insecurities. He could speak with such passion that one couldn’t help but start to see things his way.

That was something far more perilous than a lunatic.

“Fine,” she admitted. “I don’t believe you’ve lost your mind, no. But you insult me if you believe I’m simply parroting the Vanguard. My words and thoughts are my own, no one else’s. You are many of the things that they say.”

The bun grasped in his chopsticks threatened to fly free as he gestured with that hand. “What threat do I pose to the Vanguard? I’ve attacked no one. I make no actions against the Tower. Guardians who choose to follow me do so freely, because they’re tired of getting missions and targets instead of answers and truth. They understand that there is knowledge worth seeking beyond what you find at behind the trigger of a gun. They’re tired of feeling more like a weapon than a person.”

“No one’s saying that knowledge is bad,” she said, after finishing a bite of her own meal. The burning in her mouth was a mild counterpart to the burning frustration within. “There are things that are more important than answers! There are duties you failed to fulfill as Vanguard because you put your questions above everything else. And there are things out there, like your precious Vex, that are too dangerous to be used! The damage you’ll cause far outweighs any meager benefit you might glean from it!”

A thought began to coalesce, like a matrix of data lattice branching from thin air. The more she spoke the more she realized what this was reminding her of. Osiris opened his mouth to respond, but she continued on, not letting him have a word in edgewise.

“You’re… Osiris, you are an Ahamkara to the Tower. You and your cult are that mysterious, distant thing that lures in the unwary with the promise of granting wishes and giving the answers everyone’s always wanted. You are a temptation, a seduction–” His eyebrow raised at her word choice and she instantly regretted it. “–a siren call that steals away needed fighters from the front lines. That is why you’re a threat. Because of that, you must be stopped, just like the Ahamkara were.”

He mulled that over for a long pause, not denying her accusations, but neither did he concede to them. Finally, he gave her a long, steady look. “Do you still question? Wonder? I remember a newly-raised scholar, desperate to learn, fascinated by the world and its secrets. What happened to the woman I knew, that relentless seeker? What have they done to her?”

“She grew up, Osiris. She realized there were things more important than secrets. She stopped questioning and started doing because there were things that needed to be done.”

He shook his head slowly. “You may have convinced others here that you are this hollow creature of orders and laws that you pretend to be, but I don’t believe you. You and I are birds of a feather, cut of the same cloth. You think like I do. You question, and the questions haunt you, demanding satisfaction. You always have always been as I am, and you always will be. You cannot deny your nature, Sylvanni.”

The words stung with a truth she’d long tried to deny about herself. That was the problem with Osiris: he’d always known her far too well.

“Perhaps you’re right and I am like you, deep down,” she quietly admitted, looking down at her bowl because it was easier to face than his eyes. “The difference between us, Osiris, is that I’ve learned that wandering curiosity is a weakness, something I shouldn’t indulge.”

His voice dropped quietly, as he slid a knife of words through her armor and plunged it deep into insecurity. “Don’t you still wonder if we’re real? Don’t you still question if we are people chosen or things created? Aren’t you worried that your obedience is because It created you to obey?”

She stiffened, every existential doubt she’d suffered clawing at her, begging for acknowledgement, seeking to tear her apart. Her thoughts attacked her in the dark, empty hours of the night when there was nothing to distract her from them. And he knew, because he was right, of course. She was the same, deep down.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, gritting her teeth, as though doubt were something she could kill with force of will alone. “It doesn’t matter if I’m a real person or a clever weapon. It doesn’t matter if my obedience isn’t a choice when the orders given are to protect people.”

She swept a hand toward that beaded curtain and the City beyond, still looking anywhere but at him. “That, out there, is what matters. Saving lives, stopping our enemies, keeping the City safe. Nothing else. Not what I want, or what I feel. Not who I am or the things I still wonder. I will be whatever the City needs me to be. If all the Traveler needs is a weapon, then a weapon I shall be. Caring about anything else is indulgent selfishness. If my heart seeks to pull me astray with questions, doubts, wishes or dreams, I will smother it until its insubordination is silenced.”

He understood what she meant, and that was the worst part. He knew that when she spoke of her traitorous heart that the halcyon past between was the thing it longed for most. He knew that his allure was so much more than simply his ideals. He knew and he sat there and looked at her with that sad gaze that she couldn’t meet, lest his eyes convince her of what her heart could not.

He leaned forward—the table narrow enough between them to allow closeness—and it was a motion that she felt, more than saw, with her head still down.

“Sylvanni Duv, I believe you may be the greatest tragedy of my exile. To see a mind such as yours, locked away in blank, unquestioning service to them, to It, is a failure for which I must blame myself. You deserve to think, to feel, to question, and to dream, and no one should have taken that from you. Not the Vanguard, not the Traveler, not even you yourself.”

Before she’d sat down at this table she would have sworn that she was stone from her skin to her core, her insecurities locked away deep where they couldn’t sabotage her. But now Osiris was shattering her walls, her prohibitions, her self. He’d done it centuries ago and he was doing it now. Never malicious, never manipulative, but so intensely earnest the words couldn’t help but be compelling. He won souls because he made you see things his way.

It was why she’d been both heartbroken and relieved to see him leave the Tower in exile, hundreds of years ago: He was the most dangerous temptation she had, the thing she desired most to have and be and trust, and the thing which she could never allow herself to have. His pursuit of his own ideas had nearly broken the Tower. She had sworn to herself that she would be stronger, that she would never become what he was.

Never let him turn her into the thing he’d longed for her to be.

And she knew, if she gave him an inch now, she’d give him everything.

Her confused nausea became a tangible weight in her stomach, and though she’d never had claustrophobia, she suddenly felt as though the walls of the shop were closing in on all sides. She needed to be away. It didn’t matter where, so long as it wasn’t here.

She stood, suddenly, banging her hip on the table in her haste to free herself from the booth, speaking with an almost frantic desperation. “I can’t… Osiris, I can’t do this. I can’t just pretend everything hasn’t happened. I have to… You shouldn’t have come. This was a mistake, and I’m leaving. I should have left the moment you appeared.”

She took only two steps before his hand wrapped around her left arm like a second bond, holding her in place.

“Sylvanni, wait. Please.”

She could have pulled free, kept going, run to the side of the railing and flung herself over just to feel the wind in her face and hope she would wake up from the resurrection and find that none of this had been real. But she hesitated, and damned herself instead.

“I didn’t tell you why I came,” he said softly. “You asked why I was here, and I didn’t answer. Allow me that much at least.”

His fingers might have been tongues of fire, flames eating through her sleeve, for the heat they brought to her skin. She could feel each finger individually. The whorls of his fingerprints would be burned into her skin, she was certain of it. And yet, she couldn’t bring herself to break away.

She looked back, hating herself for it.

He was so beautiful in sincerity. “The Light. When it was suddenly ripped from us, I feared it could be the end. Yet you returned it. Every Guardian is indebted to you for it.”

She shook her head, confused that he would come so far for something so simple. “What?”

“I came to thank you, Sylvanni Duv, for saving us all.”

Their eyes met and she felt the moment upon her, her chance to pull away, to run and flee back to safety.

That moment passed.

Osiris pulled her gently forward and pressed his lips to hers. And she let him. She stood in that moment and kissed him, hearing the person she’d tried to be screaming in her head. He tasted of sunlight and salt, and as his grip on her arm relaxed, his other hand moved to cup the back of her head, keeping her close.

It was horrible, and it was bliss. The former Sylvanni, a silly girl from centuries ago with silly ideas about her handsome Vanguard, was resurrected within her again, just briefly, when that naive optimist should have been long dead. The current Sylvanni, the the logical pragmatist she’d built herself to become, wailed in silent agony that she was tearing down everything she’d worked so hard to achieve. Decades of discipline, destroyed in one moment of emotional weakness.

But Traveler’s scars, how long had it been since anyone held her?

For a few precious heartbeats, right and wrong fell away and she simply let herself feel something, let her breath mingle with his, let her thoughts twirl aimlessly around nothing but the pleasure of the moment itself and nothing further than that. Duty, consequences, within that embrace, those foundational pillars of her life had no purchase on her and she floated on the ecstasy of it all.

Reality though, was far too weighty to be held at bay by something so fragile as a kiss.

The pragmatist won the fight in her mind, the idealist struck down and locked away once more where she could cause no further damage. Just as quickly as the wonder of the moment had consumed her, crippling guilt washed over it, drowning everything. The nausea returned once more, now arm in arm with a new companion: disappointment in herself, that she’d succumbed so easily.

She broke away, the taste of him souring already, and pushed herself back, suddenly desperate for space between them. “Osiris, I can’t… This was…” The steel mask began to slide back into place, the walls repairing, traitorous emotions executed for their treason. “This was a mistake. You coming here. Me not leaving the moment I saw you.” Her heartbeat still pounded in her ears. “Nothing but a string of mistakes.”

He didn’t seem hurt by the words, though there was that twinge of sadness in his eyes again. He’d expected this, though he’d hoped for something different. She turned away, intending to leave before she could fall any further—before he could drag her further down—but this time he caught her hand instead.

“Wait, before you go,” he said calmly, pressing something small and metalic against her palm. “Take this. A symbol of my favor. That any of my order who see it will know you are to given every courtesy.”

She gritted her teeth, not trusting herself to look back at him again. “I don’t want your favor. Keep it.”

“Please,” he said, stepping close to her again. “For my peace of mind if nothing else.” With his hand wrapped around hers, he folded her fingers around the little object. “It’s a gift.”

She snatched her hand from his, clenching it to a fist around the coin as she kept her back to him. “Leave the City, Osiris. Within the hour. Do not return.”

A sad puff of a laugh escaped him, an amused resignation. “As you command, Lady Restorer. The journey begins with doubt, but ends with solace.”

“Leave.”

“It was good to see you again. Our paths will cross again soon,” he said, still so casual about it all. “I’m looking forward to it. I think I’m going to need your help, though it’s always hard to tell with things like this. Vex minds are, ah, how was it put? ‘Not quite as intuitive as you might think.’ But, then again, that’s what makes these things interesting, isn’t it?”

Sylvanni froze as she recognized the phrase—Cayde’s words—from a conversation Osiris shouldn’t have known about. Meeting again? She spun, a demand for an answer already on her lips.

There was nothing there but empty air.

The table looked lonesome. Two bowls, still slightly steaming, a plate of buns, half eaten, and a glimmer credit in the middle as payment. She stood, stunned. There hadn’t even been a sound as he vanished, no telltale shimmer of a transmat field. A thought occurred to her, and she pushed her way to the front of the shop, emerging into the street. Vance, too, was nowhere to be found.

Guardians and civilians parted around her as Sylvanni stood in the midst of it, a stone around which the currents broke. The world continued on but she stood still, trying to make sense of what had happened, what it had meant. What it had revealed about who she really was.

No answers came, only further questions. The endless, dangerous questions, distractions that she couldn’t ever fully banish. She’d gotten so good at keeping those in check, ignoring their call over the years.

Now she felt lost within them once more. Of course, she thought, that was what he wanted, wasnt’ it? Osiris always gets what he wants.

Always.

#Destiny #Destiny fanfiction #Osiris #Destiny 2 #Destiny the Game #Destiny 2 spoilers #Sylvanni Duv #My Fanfic #Sorry that this is not a Recompense update #but apparently it's Shiptember #and that means I'm going to write relationship drama over ramen #The DLC is going to come in here and wreck my headcanons #but I don't care #I'm having self-indulgent fun

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thievinimp · 7 years

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This question’s been sitting in my askbox for WEEKS now, apologies for taking so long to respond to this!

To preface this post it’s important to note: I’m not a professional, and don’t have professional experience. All thoughts are based on personal opinion, preference, and prior experience designing characters for personal projects!

Click the jump for a big post with me rambling about character designs I do and don’t like, and why I do/don’t like them!

So several months ago I went on a tirade about character designs in all these big multiplayer games coming out. You know the ones! Overwatch, Battleborn, Battlerite, Gigantic, Splatoon, etc. etc., there’s a thousand of these released every few months it feels like. At any rate, one of the big draws for all of these titles are the characters you control in them obviously. Partially thanks to the success of MOBAs like League of Legends and DOTA 2 we’ve seen more and more focus on games with these characters referred to as “heroes” and “champions”. While this should be really exciting for a lot of those who are interested in the character design aspect of titles such as these (like me!), I feel as though a lot of them miss the mark for one reason or another.

There’s several important aspects to designing a character, I believe the most important are all tied to their shape/silhouette. Ornate details and color are important, but in terms of character design hierarchy, a good shape will trump all other details. A silhouette is what you’re gonna see first always, you might acknowledge decorations or color choice first, but your brain is focused on the outline they’ve got. This is where my problem lies with a lot of these games (which stems from my love of diverse shapes and sizes in these rosters.). Most of these games feature characters with proportions that don’t stray too far from reality as to not scare people away with stuff that’s too unfamiliar, or in some cases “too cartoony”.

For example, let’s take a look at some Overwatch’s characters for a moment.

Here we’ve got a small sampling of characters from 2016′s GAME OF THE YEARRRRR: Overwatch. Notice something with these 5? They’re a bunch of people in fancy costumes, coupled with some stock personalities. This isn’t a diss at the art itself (courtesy of Blizzard artist Arnold Tsang), the art itself is great. These characters are the result of focus testing to reach as broad of an audience as possible. They are played as safely as possible as to not offend with their depictions of race, and are shaped in ways that are very safe to people who don’t typically play video games too much, let alone first person shooters. I think this is boring. They didn’t play around with the different characters shapes to identify them better, instead we’ve got a few very similar body types dressed and animated differently (the in-game animations are actually really good, and I don’t want to discredit Blizzards work on a lot of the character animations).

Now, that’s not to say Overwatch is riddled with designs I perceive as boring, I think there’s a couple strong, unique designs in the game that actually look good, one of which stands above the rest. Look at this big asshole:

This is Roadhog. This is a character with a clear, concise concept and idea that’s executed as perfectly as they could within the constraints they have with the characters. He has an immediately recognizable shape, he’s decorated appropriately, every aspect of him visually conveys what he is and who he is. He’s big, he’s bad, and he’s ugly (in the best possible way). They really went all out with this particular design, and it saddens me a lot of the other characters feel under-cooked compared to him thanks to how safe they played it with most of the cast. SHOUTOUTS TO Reinhardt, Reaper, Torbjorn and Zenyatta for doing their best to break the mold as well.

With Overwatch out of the way let me gush for a minute about Gigantic.

This is a game that gets it, the people at Motiga have created a colorful, diverse cast of characters in terms of shape and size and they’re each immediately recognizable from just their silhouettes. They’ve gone with more stylized and unconventional shapes not typically seen in MOBAs (LoL, DOTA, etc) or games like Overwatch, Paladins or Battleborn. Let’s get a sample of Gigantic’s characters.

Look at this! Look at how much they’ve stylized the proportions, how unafraid they are to make characters with these shapes. The little round man, the hulking armored juggernaut, the top-heavy bull, the short and squat witch, and the elegant and mysterious masked warrior: all with completely unique bodies. Not only are they shapes unique, the colors used throughout either support aspects of the character, or are used masterfully to break up the color in ways ideal for 3D character animations. The animations in-game are incredible as well, every single character oozes personality through just their movements and designs!

Unfortunately, characters like these don’t appeal to everyone. They aren’t as immediately appealing as the Overwatch cast due to their unorthodox shapes and stylized bodies. Some will deem them “too cartoony”, others will insist the characters are “ugly” because they aren’t familiar with characters stylized like this.

Overwatch and Gigantic are going for two completely different looks overall, and especially with their characters. But there’s one comparison I want to make that demonstrates the philosophies behind both, but more importantly shows why Gigantic’s direction is so strong.

These are Zarya, and Zandora, respectively

Zarya is the absolute weakest design in Overwatch. She’s an awkward mashup of shapes that convey absolutely nothing. She’s got big arms and a short haircut to clue players in on how powerful she is. She totes around a big gun too, ain’t that somethin’?

Zandora is what Zarya’s design should have been in several ways. Her power isn’t overstated with a bevy of cheap visual cues slapped onto something that’s just “large”. Her power is communicated through the strong shapes that make up Zandora: the top heavy armor, the overall wider build, big in-your-face hair, and a sword that was crafted to compliment her. What might be most notable is her star-shaped silhouette. It’s handled so tastefully and executed perfectly. I want to say that her design is by Devon Cady-Lee, who also did these illustrations below that show how good that idea looks on paper as well:

Gigantic is paragon of quality among a sea of games full of safe, boring marketable designs made to attract the largest possible crowds. It pains me knowing this game won’t reach the same success Overwatch will partly because of how visually distinct this title is.

While I clearly have a bias towards Gigantic, I will admit Overwatch as a whole is mostly competent. The character designs serve their purposes, even if I happen to think they’re boring.

What about those other games? Here’s a game that I’ve enjoyed playing recently: Battlerite.

Battlerite is a top-down arena brawler. One might call it a MOBA, but it’s a team deathmatch game sort of. Your goal is to defeat the enemy team in a first to 3, 2v2/3v3 match. You moved with WASD and you’ve got keys for abilities, vaguely similar to games like LoL or DOTA 2 in a way.

Battlerites case is very much “we want the MOBA crowd”. This sounds like a really lazy descriptor that lacks any value, but hear me out: Battlerite is the spiritual success to a game just like it called Bloodline Champions that came out a few years ago. Here’s a sampling of characters from Bloodline Champions:

Bloodline Champions is a game with a unique, clear visual identity. Whether or not you like it, it’s clearly something wholly unique in terms of color and how they’ve decorated their characters. Weird shapes (top left, top right) as well as familiar ones with distinct ornate details (bottom two). They all adhere to colors that the games overall aesthetics thrive from, it’s very gritty and twisted.

SO WHAT DO YOU MEAN “WE WANT THE MOBA CROWD”??? JERK

This is what I mean. The first character showed off that wasn’t a direct adaptation of a bloodline champions character was Pearl. Here’s Pearl:

Pearl is the epitome of the differences between Bloodline Champions and Battlerite’s character designs. Half-baked ornate details because without them, the characters would end up more generic than they already are. Battlerite’s cast is comprised of archetypal MOBA character stand-ins. They’re boring, and hollow uninspired renditions of characters that had a lot more style in a previous life. Here’s some really boring Battlerite characters:

BLAH. They’ve got the Overwatch “problem” but even worse. These guys really just look like cosplayers doing characters that don’t exist. Staff man. Sickle man. Gun woman. These designs convey nothing beyond what you see. I don’t mind cool characters for the sake of cool characters, I’m the last person to complain about it, but Battlerite really tests that for me. The in-game camera doesn’t do these designs or models any favors too, unfortunately. There’s a single very standout design among the roster.

This is Pestilus.

He’s shaped strange. He’s round, he’s got really stubby limbs, and he’s got these big bug legs on his back. Pestilus is cool! Lookit’ his gnarly teeth, wowie. Unfortunately the in-game model doesn’t do him justice:

He’s paler, his teeth are simplified and lack the character his chompers had in the above illustration. I still like this one, he’s in a league of his own compared to most of the rest of the cast. HONORABLE MENTIONS GO TO RUH KAAN AND ASHKA:

I’ve said that the worst thing a character design can be is mediocre. Not good enough, not bad enough. Battlerite rides slightly above that line. There’s a few interesting characters here and there. Some have unique silhouettes (Ashka, Ruh Kaan, Pestilus and Rook) and most server their purpose. They’re boring, but they’re not aggressively boring/mediocre. That line of design goes to a little game called. . .

Paladins: Wizards of the Coast or whatever the fuck the subtitle is

Chinese bootleg overwatch. A game that was trying to be a bit unique before a lot of changes were made to match a similar, “hero”-based shooter game where you push payloads and capture points. This is a game with aggressively boring characters. The characters are in this game because if you had none, you wouldn’t have anything to play as. They’re crude facsimiles of better looking, more thought-out characters and designs. Here’s a sampling of these lot of losers.

These characters are nothing. Their silhouettes are bland. You’re either big, small or medium with no rhyme or reason. You have a gimmick. Your colors don’t serve much purpose beyond “we needs color-keys to recolor for skins”. Very rarely are they in service of the shapes in question, or to break up monotony in big stretches of solid color. The knight on the left is dull as dull can be. Sure, knights are done to death but good lord they’ve really found a way to try and make him exciting but failed miserably thanks to:

A silhouette that is nothing beyond “TALL MAN”

Colors that are gray all over, his armor is supposed to be metallic but the textures and shading do it no favors. The yellow in there doesn’t do enough in breaking it up because they’re only along the trim of each armor piece.

His shield doesn’t compliment him, it’s an obligation. He has a lance, he needs a shield, and not one that works in conjunction with anything solid.

There’s a single design in Paladins that I don’t think is the absolute most mediocre thing in the industry: Bomb King.

He’s big and loud both visually and personality wise. He’s got a standout silhouette, and colors used mostly tastefully to break up his main blue coat. Bomb King doesn’t look like he belongs in this game, and is strangely. . . Toyetic. I kind of like Bomb King.

Paladins is mediocre. Paladins is very unimaginative and dull, the most recent characters are some of the most unmemorable I’ve seen in recent times, when it comes to these games. While Paladins is mediocre, at the very least it isn’t. . .

COMPLETE, IRREDEEMABLE SHIT.

ENTER: BATTLEBORN-

Battleborn is a game that isn’t aggressively boring, it’s aggressively ugly. It’s annoying. It’s messy, it’s loud, it’s busy. Battleborn is garbage. This game is rife with characters that convey nothing, silhouettes that are awkward and make no sense who are modeled in one of the most unappealing looking games of the past 5 years. This one is so bad I really don’t want to post a sample of characters because I hate looking at 99% of the roster, but I have to. . . I have to. . . Here’s a sampling of Battleborns characters. . . eugh. . .

Do you like any of these designs? Legitimately curious. Unnappealing shapes, ugly facial features, completely mangled details that are hard to make out, poorly balanced silhouettes. . . There’s so much wrong with all of these designs. Some of the ones in the game wildly stylize proportions, mostly very poorly, some are very restrained and more realistic, some are complete abominations like the monster in the upper left: Attikus.

It’s worth singling out Attikus because his concept art has something very interesting behind it: He didn’t look like complete fucking shit, his shapes were solid and his silhouette would’ve worked perfectly, but they seemingly went out of their way to get the ugliest possible outcome they could achieve. See below, Attikus thumbnails:

These are all so much more sound than the final product. Why didn’t they go with any of these four beyond “We gotta make it uglier to fit in with everything else!”. While still asymmetrical, the shapes here tell you he’s powerful and ready to rip and tear through every living thing in his path to victory. That final Attikus looks like it tried to go with something weirdly proportioned like some of the Gigantic characters, but with a fresh coat of grime.

At no point has this stream-of-conscious post has been about nitty gritty things like facial features but Thorn looks vile:

There are no honorable mentions for Battleborn. The very best of the bunch is still very boring and half baked. They’re plain, and that’s really it. They don’t assault your eyeballs with how putrid and gaudy they are, which, by default, makes them the best.

One thing worth nothing is that there are piece of concept art here and there that actually look great, but are put through Battleborns poor “World of Warcraft” + “Disney Infinity” + GREASE filter don’t look nearly as good. The one I like most is this rendition of one of the first DLC characters, Pendles. Here’s the piece in question:

Very lovingly rendered. I don’t want to talk about Battleborn any more. I’m sick of looking at it.

Anyways, there’s some insight on what I think does and doesn’t work in the form of this weird stream-of-consciousness, giant post. Feel free to ask more and I’ll weigh in on it as poorly as I did here! I’d love to hear what everyone has to say about these games and their character designs, and what you like most about the, as well as what you like least about them!

#not art #character design #overwatch #battleborn #gigantic #gogigantic #Paladins #Battlerite

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