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belle-keys · 1 year

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On this week's episode of E!’s Botched: James Herondale's character (Meta)

We've now reached my meta piece on our Angel-Demon Boy Extraordinaire, James Herondale! (Not to be confused with just Angel Boy Extraordinaire, Jace Herondale).

I adore James’ character so much. He's such a sweet, comfortable, and noble main character that you absolutely can't help respect, admire, and sympathize with him in the main trilogy. James, in Chain of Thorns, is on the Jem-tier of sympathetic and lovable. That being said, I have some criticisms of the way his character arc played out in Chain of Thorns especially that I'd like to pick apart... because I can. Moreover, I have a, uh, wee problem with the way I could literally hear Cassie fiddling around with the levers and gears of the narrative as far as James is concerned in The Last Hours (which starts mainly by the end of Chain of Iron and going into Chain of Thorns but was there from the beginning). If you’re super not-in-the-mood to read any criticisms of James (even one where I’ll be blaming only the narrative and not James in any capacity at all), then feel free to not read this.

Powers Begone

James and Lucie lose their demonic powers at the very end of the story. There is no opportunity for growth in the future regarding James and Lucie's demonic heritage. James will no longer be able to use the runed gun that only he can use. This is boring insomuch as it forces the reader to acknowledge James' and Lucie's powers and their inherited darkness as something that was created for the purpose of existing as an obstacle to overcome, rather than as a portion of themselves to come to coexist with. It's not necessarily bad writing but it's just extremely cookie-cutter writing, especially as it makes the central conflict in the story something that will bear no real power in the future and nor will it have a legacy– it has no weight. If the narrative has created these demonic powers to be something that can be detached from the characters with no caveats, then James and Lucie have only managed to be victims of these powers in the story before they shed them. The Belial powers that they've inherited are like raindrops on a windscreen. Rainfall is an obstacle to driving, it's a nuisance, and it can even make you get into a car accident. But at the end of the day, once your windshield wiper is working, you can brush the raindrops away. The narrative brushes away James and Lucie's powers at the end of the story, which is fine, but it also brushes away any and all of the consequences this power should have. The narrative has wiped away any of the long-term effects of the emotional, psychological, and physical consequences or legacy that their powers could have. This isn't a plea for James and Lucie to be destroyed by their powers, but rather, I feel like this complete loss of power and "moving on", which is part of why I find the Epilogue to be so weak, sanitizes James and Lucie's line from being tinged and stained with their inheritance. And while I reiterate that this is not categorically bad writing, it’s just kinda boring to me. James' arc ends exactly where it started, but without the poetry of a "come full circle" storyline. My issue is that James' character does a complete 360 (and not a 180) in a... lame way. Considering this demonic power is what raised Jesse from the dead (a really good thing!) and was the catalyst for the creation of the gracelet too, the disappearance of it makes for, yeah, a very sweet story. And a sweet story is just never as poignant as a bittersweet story. But this last sentence is just me projecting. Maybe. Moving on.

(N.B. But another reason I didn’t think the Epilogue was good, despite it being so warm and pure amd enjoyable for me, is because we damn well know that Cassie is good at writing bittersweet endings. Your main character living with demonic poison in his veins as a mute monk for 150 years before he can finally be with the love of his life and without having forced her to choose only one of the two men she’s ever loved is peak bittersweet writing. Your other main character sacrificing his literal memory to a Demon Prince to get his close friends out of a literal Hell realm and then slowly becoming empowered after that trauma and regaining his memory is peak bittersweet writing.)

You Can’t Spell Herondale Without Hero

James’ goodness is as good as it is bad in the context of the story, and I attribute this paradox to the fact that he’s a Herondale. There’s a Herondale legacy to protect, after all, with his character, and as a result, the story is simultaneously enriched and hindered by James’ parentage and characterization. I'd even argue that said characterization is the direct result of having said parentage, which isn't a bad thing at all. But, what I have an issue with is the way James' characterization feels, you guessed it, entirely sanitized. No, I'm not saying here that there was an Original Dark James that got lost in the wind or cut from the drafts (I mean, yes, I do absolutely think that, yes, but I'm not gonna try to tear apart his character on that basis, because it'd be mean, but it's also pure speculation, and I have no desire to pick apart the Secret Dark Original Ending anyway).

The narrative spends a lot of time protecting James, his heroism, and his nobility, and its choice method of protecting James has been to strip James of his agency. James spends the whole of The Last Hours experiencing things happen to him, but not really doing things. He gets possessed by Belial, he gets blackmailed by Belial, he gets the gracelet put on him by Grace, he gets stabbed by Cortana, he had his wife run away to Paris before he could stop her… I could go on. He spends the entire series being hurt and manipulated by other people and entities because he’s just so good and loving, and he spends little of his time actually making choices that can permanently affect others, for better or for worse. Because James spends the majority of the trilogy literally not having much free will at all (gracelet followed by possession back to back), the story essentially bulletproofs him from having to be anything but a noble, good hero who simply can’t help but just have Hell and Earth constantly hurtling toward him. This goodness also hinders the story as well because James is simply too good, too noble, too innocent to be anything else but a victim by virtue of his treatment by the narrative. The way his goodness is preyed on constantly and the way he is just mainly reactive to the whole situation is quite… bland. And moreover, the other characters spin around him like he’s the sun, which, as I noted in a previous ask, makes for weak character development as you can’t fricking blow up the sun. He’s fixed in his own orbit as actions in the form of comets bounce off him. Nothing that happens and that has a negative legacy for the other characters actually manages to touch James as he becomes an increasingly passive actor in a story that is fundamentally founded on him. On top of James being, quite obviously, the perfect gentleman and husband and also being obscenely rich, fortunate, and privileged, it feels like he was robbed of the opportunity to be anything less than ideal by the way the narrative puppeteered him.

We know James Herondale always felt like he was “not cursed, but damned” and was “destined to walk among thorns and flowers”. The setup for The Last Hours in the prequel short stories was dark, and we all know Cassie was about to end off this series in a very sinister way. I won’t ramble on about that last point too much, but I do wonder if James was originally supposed to be characterized with way more darkness within him (at least, more than the amount of darkness that I'm expecting), which would lend to a very interesting contrast between his idyllic family and upbringing and whatever “damnation” he felt lived within his soul. I also wonder if simply not characterizing James like this was Cassie’s way of making sure that she didn’t taint Will and Tessa’s legacy directly and didn’t undo Wessa’s Happily Ever After. Regardless, the narrative coddles James (and Lucie, and Cordelia) and strips him of any complexity or dubiousness when, in my opinion, the foundation was laid for something exactly like that.

(N.B. Jem is kind of like this too... ish. It doesn’t really bother me, as Jem was supposed to be a foil for Will but also because Jem simply never got everything his wanted, and definitely not when he wanted it.)

Concluding Thoughts

Now let’s get something straight: As a romantic lead, James Herondale is excellent. I thought his enduring love for Cordelia and the way he exemplified the idea that goodness can literally break apart the forces of Hell was amazing as a core theme in the story, and I am so fond of my annotations for all his scenes with Cordelia, because I can barely think of anyone who deserves that kind of love and joy by the Epilogue of ChoT. But the way Cassie wrote James implies a character that is so pure, innocent, and well loved, that all he can be is the hurt prince, a target because of these very qualities, someone who sometimes does things like shoot a gun… a gun that he literally gives up by the end of the story anyway. James is warm, kind, brilliant, strong and big on loyalty. But… what did James Henry Morgan Herondale really do in The Last Hours besides serve whatever purpose the book absolutely needed him to, be beautiful, and destroy at least one (1) doorknob on a certain warm, passionate night?

#james herondale #jordelia #herondaisy #wessa #tlh #the last hours #chain of thorns #chain of iron #chain of gold #chot #chot spoilers #tsc #the shadowhunter chronicles #tsc meta #tlh meta #character analysis #ya books #ya fantasy #cassandra clare

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faithfromanewperspective · 8 months

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So I am going to be asking about a character I hate right now, but it's a character that I think about frequently because of his proximity to ALL my biggest blorbos. Charles Fairchild. What brand of neurodivergent do you think he is? I have opinions, but want to see what you have to say.

I LOVE THIS QUESTION SO MUCH!!! because I get to talk about a recent interest of mine: and that's how to be properly neurodivergent affirming for all neurodivergences, especially those that are overrepresented in criminal populations and those who are also overrepresented in those who are ostracised for being seen as 'bad people' due to having and expressing non-neuronormative needs that are a result of a combination of trauma and neurobiology. and not just being able to chalk it up to the double empathy problem, either. I will say I am not an expert in this, and if there's anyone in the community reading this who thinks I've not handled it sensitively, please let me know. I like feedback, and I also like it when people say things nicely because i'm human and fragile too.

First, hate to be your stereotypical armchair diagnoser but something about Charles absolutely screams NPD. And as much as he's not a great guy I love that we actually do get to know him, we get to know not only our usual TSC boys who are bleeding with emotion and just so loveable and hungry for connection and love, but the trope that we're told exists, we see from the outside in politicians and business (usually) men (doesn't James compare Charles to one of those men with briefcases rushing about at rush hour in chain of gold?) and who never really let us in to the fact that they're human. Through Alastair's description of Charles' motivations in chain of thorns, we do actually get to know him and what drives him: fear, masked by ambition. And at this point I want to say: I don't think he has NPD because he's a dick. He just happens to be one as well, and that happens to be one of the ways it presents. It is not the only way NPD can present. Overall, in terms of NPD awareness and hey-let's-not-call-all-these-people-with-this-diagnosis-or-who-would-get-it-if-they-ever-got-help-abusers, Charles isn't the best representation. He's not the worst either; he does get sort of a redemption arc, and though we can speculate about his relationship with Alastair (and have reason to) there is very little that is canonically confirmed about it. So, at this point (and it's taken me a lot of thinking and one (1) Charles POV oneshot to get to this point) I agree with Ari that he's an interesting guy to have as a penpal, for curiosity if for nothing else.

I also think he may (?) be autistic. I've strung this together from a very obscure bunch of observations, the first being Will and Tessa's wedding where he 'had colic and wanted everyone to know' (don't mind me botching my quotations). Not saying all autistics are fussy but you know. Differing pain feeling thresholds that come with different sensory profiles. On top of that, politics is an intense and long-lasting special interest for him. I think some of it is the power, some of it is him still trying to get his mother's attention and love by imitating her even after all of these years, but also: it's a way to exist with people that gives him a more or less scripted role. He's known for quite a few social faux pas (think his engagement announcement at james and cordelia's engagement party! that can't be completely siren power mindpuppeting), he struggles with the social-emotional reciprocity thing (especially when it comes to the being vulnerable side of things and we see Alastair suffer for that), he seems to get irritable in a way that he doesn't understand nor know how to be honest about, and when he does want to say something, he just interrupts the conversation. Overall he seems to be a shitty presentation of a shitty stereotype, many shitty stereotypes in fact (that he humanises, like I've talked about). But. Before we brush off Cassie for that, it's important to have diverse representation of any kind of neurodivergence (including what we find ugly), and I find he does actually balance out james and thomas and christopher quite well. And yes. The TLH gang, more of them are autistic than not. His parents are also Charlotte and Henry and I do know how genetics works. I'd be surprised if they had a neurotypical kid.

Speaking of my absolute faves Charlotte and Henry who we do have to admit are kind of shitty parents during the time Charlotte is Consul I can kind of see how having two flaming neurodivergent kids who they had none of the resources to know how to support, one parent is disabled and one is facing the incredible pressure of being the one to break the glass ceiling of holding an INCREDIBLY stressful job with all the scrutiny that comes with Being A Woman while also kind of unofficially being her partner's caretaker and having two kids with zero time off her fulltime plus job and also has a fair bit of her own trauma in regards to Parents--I can see how the Trauma of Many Kinds resulted in this incredibly underresourced family and we have to recognise Charles is a victim of this. Especially, as we know, how neurodivergent needs are you know--different to neurotypicals--and you've got to be super attuned as a parent to understand the unique things your kid needs. We also have to recognise that growing up with him being doubtless unpredictable did a number on Matthew, six years younger and incredibly hungry for connection.

Overall, Charles is a really well put together character in my view and the way he exists in the ecosystem of generational and lateral community trauma just is really well done. He's not a great guy. I hope he gets whatever help he needs, whatever that looks like--I am kind of optimistic for him but I also Really Think It'll Take A LONG Time and it's going to be really hard for him to make genuine connections for quite a while. I think at some point Charlotte and Henry will slowly figure things out. And grieve. A lot.

#charles fairchild #neurodivergence #neurodivergent affirming #and i mean really neurodivergent affirming #the last hours #genuinely please let me know how i've gone with this

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overobsessedfanboy23 · 5 months

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Top Ten Arc V Characters (Updated)

I was doing another Yugioh tier list and noticed that my opinions on this changed drastically since I first watched Arc V. So here's an updated top ten Arc V characters. Some of these picks may be partially motivated by spite. Also, I'm definitely gonna go back and forth between sub and dub names. Arc V is about even in dub and sub for me and some of the dub names are easier for me so just bear with me.

10 Dennis Mackfield

Dennis is kind of just funny to me but he does also have a complete character arc that isn't botched or cut off in some way, which is more than I can say for some other Arc V characters. He's a naughty bad guy but an enjoyable one who was kind of just a brainwashed kid with a redemption I can accept.

9 Yuto

The only Yu boy I can comfortably say I still like. He's got a sympathetic backstory that realistically shaped his current personality and while he appears scarcely, I enjoy the times he does. I like his dynamics with Yuya, Ruri, and Shun.

8 Shingo Sawatari

He's a cringe fail boy. I like the cringe fail funny characters that exist to be laughed at. I do wish Sawatari had more of an arc or development but at the end of the day, he's entertaining and that's all a character needs to be sometimes.

7 Sora Shiunin

Rushed as shit redemption arc aside, I find Sora's energetic hyper personality of season 1 entertaining and Sora vs Shun genuinely felt like a huge betrayal. On paper, the reasons for his redemption work and are sympathetic, I just wish more time was dedicated to fleshing it out. Still, wanting more of a character is generally a good thing.

6 Shinji Weber

I like villains/antagonists who have valid reasons for being upset. If anything, they actually made Shinji too valid up until they pulled the "he wants to oppress the rich" thing out of their asses but that's a can of worms on its own. I think Shinji's motivation is understandable, even if, for the writers' intentions' sake he "went too far", and those are the kinds of antagonists I like most. Also, he's canonically good with kids like Crow is and I just really like that. It shows he's got a sweet centre beneath all the gruffness and anger he displays. I like that.

5 Riley Akaba

Talk about wasted potential jesus christ. "This character has known nothing but being a vessel for other people's desires. So let's end the series by forcing her to once again be someone's vessel!"

Horrific treatment aside though, I still enjoyed Riley as a character. I relate to her anxiety, I liked her arc while it lasted, she and Declan have such a great sibling bond, she's still a good character. But yeah... the way the narrative botched her did drag her down a few slots I'll admit.

4 Zarc

One of the only saving graces of the fusion arc as far as I'm concerned. His escalation of wanting more and more violence in his duels as the audience pressured him into harsher duels was interesting and felt narratively cohesive with the better parts of Yuya's arc. And the way he's eventually stopped, not by defeating him but by Yuya understanding him and reminding him why he was duelling in the first place, that's really touching. One of my favourite Arc V moments for sure.

3 Serena

Yeah, I like Serena more than Yuzu. Even putting aside the fact that I loved her Duel Links event and her fusion based deck, Serena stayed a good character. The narrative treated her as badly as it treated Yuzu but her personality, when she was in her right mind, remained the same: headstrong, stubborn, and fierce. Plus she was the first to defect from Duel Academia and she did it best in my opinion.

2 Shun Kurosaki

I like Shun for all the same reasons I like Yuto: his genuinely tragic backstory that damaged him and turned him into the edgelord we know and love him as. He's also just way more badass and has more character development than Yuto. The way he's able to regain some form of happiness and stability over the course of the series despite all the horrors he endured, thanks to his new bonds with characters like Crow and Yuya, was really endearing to me. I'm probably the only person on earth with this opinion but as dumb as the bracelet girls and yu boys fusing together was, I think the one good thing that came out of it was that Shun had to just accept that Yuto and Ruri were gone. I get why people found it unsatisfying, but I think the fact that he was able to move on showed a lot of strength that I have to admire him for.

1 Declan Akaba

Declan is my favourite because I relate to his family situation and I refuse to explain myself further.

....Okay fine. I'll admit, Declan isn't the most well implemented character in terms of Arc V's narrative. I think we can all agree his change in character was out of nowhere and Sawatari made for a better rival to Yuya. But dammit I don't care I like him anyways. I think his moral ambiguity is fascinating. He's fighting on the "right" side and has good intentions and goals but some of the things he does to accomplish that goal range from morally ambiguous to just straight up evil at times and I love that. It's one of the best examples of one of Arc V's core themes: "war corrupts both sides." And while his switch to being a better person is sudden, I can accept it to a degree because in my mind, he always wanted to do the right thing and genuinely cared deep down. It doesn't excuse his early actions but it does help me understand and identify with him.

Also, no, I wasn't joking or exaggerating about relating to Declan's family situation. Without giving away too much, I have an intimidating father who's not around much, a manipulative mother who's around but in all the wrong ways, and a younger sibling who I've had to watch be treated poorly by my mother for years. Declan's situation is more extreme but the similarities are... they're hard not to notice. Declan is number 1 on this list because of how much I relate to and look up to who he is by the end of the series. He'd probably still be on this list either way but he's at number 1 because of how much he personally means to me.

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momtaku · 1 year

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Hi, if you don't mind could you elaborate on this from your last ask? I'd love to read your thoughts on it

"issues that have plagued the series as a whole - terrible pacing, inconsistent tone, and too much emphasis on the mystery instead of the resolution."

I started this yesterday and it quickly turned into to an unwieldy mass of words because there is so much that I could say here. And tbh everything comes off much more negative than I’d like. Isayama is a talented writer. He can pace things. He can set the tone. He can write a compelling mystery. His work wouldn’t be so popular if those things weren’t true. But his primary flaws as a writer imo are: his over-reliance on the mystery box approach to story telling, his desire to surprise the reader went to an extreme and resulted in frustration, he let the story get far too big and as a result had to blaze through important development to reach any sort of conclusion. In other words, pacing.

Properly pacing a decade long monthly manga series (which is required by its nature to hit specific beats every chapter and more specific beats every volume) is likely impossible, so while I found the early pacing issues annoying, I also found them mostly forgivable.

But minor pacing annoyances became major problems in the final arc when Isayama had far too much story to tell and not enough pages to tell it. It all led to inconsistent tone, rushed answers and unsatisfying reveals.

I’m going to boil this answer down to try to explain what I mean with a few examples.

“Inconsistent tone”

Just prior to encasing herself in a crystal, Annie slaughtered Levi's entire crew and smashed up a city. Amin had visited her in the crystal over the years and agonized over her potential reappearance. When she’s brought back into the story all that buildup was brushed off with a joke.

Enemies seamlessly agreed to work together. Magath made an instant idealogical reversal. Yelena rapid-fire went from being wiling to die at Flocks hand, to unconscious, to a meddler and a menace, to who knows what because she disappeared.

All of the botched character development was due to a cascade of poor pacing. Isayama had too much story and too little time, so character development had to be rushed or brushed aside. Character development and character interactions that might have been meaningful and poignant didn't have time to land and resonate. Important plot points felt like check boxes being ticked off.

“Too much emphasis on the mystery and not the resolution”

This is also best summed up in the final arc. In the end all we as readers wanted to know was what was going on with Eren and the Rumbling. Instead we were denied that until the final chapter and instead fed a diet of rehashed moral dilemmas and plot points that didn't feel like they were progressing the story. Connie’s side quest to feed Falco to his mom is the most egregious example of that.

For too many chapters we knew that the rumbling was happening offscreen, that the world was being destroyed, and that Eren was... well, really who even knew because we were not given his viewpoint until the final chapter. Instead the story stayed in Paradis where the Jaegerists were building their bullet happy government and the Alliance was panic-wringing their hands instead of focusing on things that felt unimportant in the face of world genocide.

The problem with Isayama’s mystery box approach is that holding onto important details for too long is frustrating for readers. I heard a talented mystery writer say that having your readers correctly guess a mystery or predict an ending isn’t a sign of bad writing. It’s the opposite. It means you did your job well.

Historia’s pregnancy was a mystery with no purpose. After 86 chapters, the basement reveal fell flat for many. The anime team inserted hints about Marley and Ymir an entire arc earlier than the manga did because they knew that rather than ruining the surprise it would build excitement and make for a more satisfying story.

I could write another post about how the anime fixed pacing and tone, but I’ll link to one of my favorite examples instead.

One more grievance before I end this....

The Marley Arc

The Marley Arc tops my list of "good story poorly executed". It was a mystery held too long that frustrated readers. Not sharing Reiner, Bert and Annies belief system sooner led many readers to not care about them at all.

The Marley Arc wasn’t just a minor pacing issue. Instead it screeched the existing action to a halt. By abandoning the characters the readers cared about it drove fans from the series.

For people who did care about Marley, doubling the cast resulted in frustration because story focus had to be shared by too many characters, resulting in readers feeling like their favorite was languishing or else being ignored. And example here is that many were led to believe Reiner would have a more significant role in the end. He didn’t.

I'm not saying the Marley Arc wasn't important because it was. I love the Marley characters and I loved learning their world but it should've been handled differently. Don’t ask me how because I don’t know, but plopping a whole new story in the middle of an established story is a killer.

More thoughts on the writing of the Marley arc is in this post if you’d like to read it. I think it captures my frustration and joy.

In summary, I don’t want to change the manga. I just want to chop it up and rearrange it. Maybe turn it into two mangas. I’m grateful that the anime fixed a lot of what’s wrong. The anime shows just how much more effective a story can be when histories are introduced sooner and mysteries are revealed when they are relevant and not years after the fact.

Thanks for the ask! If you made it to end of this, wow :D

#chatting with friend #snk ending #snk pacing #snk story issues #I swear I love the story #I hate negative posts like this because I'd rather speak of things I love and not things I dont

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semper-legens · 28 days

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25. Destined, by PC and Kristin Cast

Owned: No, library Page count: 325 My summary: Neferet's plans have ramped up. Killing Zoey's mother to make her perfect vessel, Aurox, wasn't enough. She wants to destroy Zoey and her friends, and she's going to need power to do it. The Darkness is calling...meanwhile, Zoey's friends face trouble amongst themselves. Rephaim is still settling in, and Erin and Shaunee have started to separate themselves. And Zoey is grieving her mother's death. Can they get it together long enough to find out what really happened? My rating: 1/5 My commentary:

Back at it again with the House of Night and hoo boy folks, this one's a doozy. I'm so close to the endgame now - only three more to go after this! And as soon as they come into the library, I swear, I'm speedrunning this shit. But this post is going to be the opposite of speedrunning. Turns out I have a lot to say about this continued train wreck, and I'm gonna spill a lot of digital ink in so doing! So without further ado, let's get down to it.

Right off the bat, we have a healthy dose of ableism! Yep, this book introduces Shaylin, who became blind as a child and is Marked by Erik. But she's Marked as a red vampire, and immediately regains her sight - and is gifted an aura-sensing True Sight. And of course, she goes on and on and on about how great it is that she's not blind anymore, and how bad being blind was, and it's just enough to make me cringe. Because all blind people need is to magically get their sight back! Not, like, better accommodations to help them live in a world that hasn't been built for them, or to be treated like actual adults or something. Nope. Magical sight, that's the best thing. It carries forward that unhealthy idea that vampires in this world are physically 'perfect' - before, we've seen the kids whose bodies reject the Change being portrayed as fat, greasy, and unfit. Now, it seems that disabled kids aren't allowed to be vampires while retaining their disability. Gross!

Nefert has a new boytoy, and his name is Aurox. Get it, because he's a werebull. Sort of - he was gifted by the white bull of Darkness, and he can turn into a bull involuntarily. But because Neferet botched the summoning, Aurox has a soul and stuff. Specifically, Heath's. Remember Heath? Zoey's human boyfriend, got necksnapped by Kalona? Yeah, the book treats it like it's a big mystery, but it's so obvious that it's Heath. Aurox knows things about Zoey he shouldn't, calls Zoey by Heath's pet name for her, has his mannerisms…it's one thing for a book for teenagers to be simpler than I, an adult, expect, it's another for it to be so obvious that a toddler could realise what's going on. And yet again, we've got another topless teen badboy who angsts about being evil and is gonna get a redemption arc. Christ alive, how many of those are there? Stark, Kalona, Rephaim, now Aurox…we get it, Casts, you got a kink. Can you please come up with another male character?

Speaking of male characters, in order to sew some chaos, Neferet's invited humans to come work at the House of Night, which means we're introduced to Lenobia's cowboy, Travis. He's a cowboy. Who works at the stables. And Lenobia, running minor character and horsemaster at the House of Night, is falling hard for him. What does this relationship do, plotwise, other than add a sexy cowboy to the cast? Even though I've criticised things like Stevie Rae and Rephaim or Zoey and…most male characters…I can at least acknowledge that they serve a function. Introducing or adding to the theme of redemption, giving those characters conflicts and secrets, furthering the plot somehow. But this? I guess it's giving us an insight into Lenobia, but so far all I've gathered is that she has a thing for cowboys and doesn't want to be romantically involved with anyone but oh no this guy's too sexy. It drags the book down and takes up valuable page time - not to mention that Travis himself has less depth than a Mills and Boon cowboy. He's just…charming and folksy and respectful to Lenobia and loves horses. Exactly the sexy cowboy archetype. Bleh. Lenobia seems like she might have been an interesting character, but the new context we learn about her is entirely about her love life, or lack thereof, and nothing to do with who she is as a person. It's lacklustre, is what I'm getting at here.

Neferet continues to be the big bad, evilly doing evil things because she's evil. She's escalated to human sacrifice and gives blood to the Darkness to drink whenever she needs something. As if she wasn't enough of a cackling supervillain already. My biggest problem with Neferet is that there's no depth to her. Why is she doing what she's doing? Sure, she wants power, she wants to rule the world and become a goddess, but why? I don't need a Disney-live-action-movie backstory for her, just something other than her hatred for Zoey and lust for power! Has this always been a facet of her from before Zoey? Was she striving towards this goal before Zoey? And, of course, for all that the Casts seem to think they're clever for making the evil bull the white one, we have the Darkness demanding blood in order to do Neferet's bidding. Not at all an overdone trope. And the way they take it from her is uncomfortably sexual - almost like the Casts haven't gotten over their whole 'slutshame the villainous female character' thing. Above all, though, Neferet falls into the biggest trap for her character archetype - she's not camp enough. If you want to have a cackling balls-to-the-wall Evil Bitch as a main villain, she needs to own it. Think Maleficent! Think Ursula! Neferet just isn't interesting enough or ridiculous enough, that's my problem.

Meanwhile, there's trouble in Zoey's inner circle. Erin and Shaunee, the Twins, have started to un-twin themselves, separating from each other to become their own people. This would be a perfectly fine plot point, but for three things. One, Erin and Shaunee aren't well-developed in general - literally, their only character trait is that they are Twins. This would be a good time to give them more character, except that this mostly unfolds with people standing around and telling Shaunee how much nicer she is now, rather than us being shown it really. Two, it seems to come right out of nowhere? There's no particular reason it happens. And three, none of the other characters seem to care about Erin after it happens. They're obviously setting up for Erin to become more of an antagonistic character later, but as soon as the split occurs, all Zoey and her friends seem to care about and check in on is Shaunee - nobody ever checks in on Erin or seems to give much of a shit about her as a person. Which is…really fucking weird? Like, if Zoey et al had checked in on Erin and been yelled at or something, that'd make sense. But it's like this girl wasn't their friend at all, so quickly is she dumped. And that's just lazy writing. It's a clear signal to the reader that Shaunee is the 'good one' and Erin is the 'bad one', despite it being a particularly cold and uncaring thing for the characters to do in-universe. There's no reason why Zoey can't be like 'hey are you okay' to Erin at least once. It'd give a chance to show how Erin is changing! But nope. Subtext is for cowards. Let's just spell it all out to the audience. Wouldn't want them to start thinking.

And yet, for all that seems to be going on here, that's actually a negative. Because it makes the book so unfocused. You can hardly concentrate on one plot thread, so much is being brought up and juggled and dropped. And a lot of it isn't resolved - sure, this is a series and there's three more books after this, but it just feels like the Casts are throwing a lot of spaghetti at the wall to see what will stick. It strikes me as a series that hasn't been tightly planned, that was loosely improvisational, and it really shows. New conflicts come out of nowhere and aren't properly foreshadowed in anyone's behaviour. New twists are set up that are predictable from the moment they are introduced. Characters are sort of fleshed out, but only in very limited ways. Characters stick to one-dimensional archetypes. There's a lot going on, but it's all as thin as paper. And it's just as bad as all the books that came before it.

Next up, time travelling meets a pirate tale.

#Destined #PC Cast #Kristin Cast #bookblr #book blog #1

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retconsatlightspeed · 4 months

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Siege of the Raddus

Moving mental pieces around in regards to Poe's plotline in TLJ after watching this really great video by youtuber Orowen in preparation for a full writeup.

Poe's arc of "hotshot pilot makes too many risky mistakes and has to learn to cool down to become the great leader that his mentor sees in him" is a great one for the character. However, it doesn't get quite the right time in the sun.

The setup of " we're being perused by a ship killer that can't quite catch us but it can slowly bombard us until we break" is delicious.

While Poe seems to fly off the deepend with his suspicion towards Holdo, his actions would absolutely make sense (for a hothead character) if there was a single line of diologe floating the idea that there was a first-order spy onboard. This would be especially worthwhile if Leia was the one to float it before she was knocked out. Likewise, it would give Holdo a point in not telling Poe about her plan because she's ALSO worried about there being a spy onboard, say the guy who just got a huge amount of their fleet killed and got them into this situation.

As much as I love the aesthetics of it, I'd nix Canto Bight (in this movie atleast) and have Finn and Rose caught up in Poe's hunt for the spy on the resistance flagship, which we'd see a lot more of as tensions among the resistance boiled over.

Rose's background as a mechanic would come into play ( and we'd get to have her spend time with Poe, who's bravado got her sister killed). The dynamic is great, as she/people like her are the ones who keep the resistance running where he gets all the glory. This can be physically represented when we her perspective we get to see the greasy underbelly of these big ships that we usually only see the bridge/docking hanger of.

Finn is likewise better used because people think HE'S the spy as he's someone with obvious first order ties (and he tried to jump in an escape pod RIGHT as things got bad). He's missing Rey and suddenly having second thoughts about signing on with the goodguys. Poe gets to feel vindicated when he uses his rep/charisma to redirect the anger away from his best friend and towards his antagonist Holdo, laying the groundwork for his botched coup. He takes leadership like Leia wanted him to, but he does so in the exact wrong way, which sets him up to learn the lesson by the end of the movie.

Borrowing from my earlier post about how I think Rose was going to end up with Poe in an earlier draft of TLJ:

It makes so much more sense for POE to be the one to try and fly his ground-speeder into the portable deathstar cannon in an act of fruitless heroism, because his character arc in TLJ is about learning that big showy displays of action DON'T solve everything.

This would also make Rose's final lines about "Fighting to save what we love" make a LOT more sense if she were targeting them at Poe, who she saved because she couldn't bear losing someone else she cared about to being a "hero". It gives her catharsis over not being able to save her sister and it gives Poe the realignment he needs to be the leader he always could be: prioritizing his people's safety rather than considering them expendable if it means hurting the first order.

#poe #rose #ep8

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popculturebuffet · 11 months

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So how we feeling about another Ms. Marvel getting shoved into a fridge? Like I know Kamala will probably be back by the end of the year just as a mutant with her MCU power set but this felt incredibly tasteless at least to me.

Seconded. I may have to read this run only because it keeps botching things too terribly at this point it's hard to ignore. Most of it's the paul and mj stuff, which is just pure conentrated uggghhh and a shining example of proving the point across the spider-verse is trying to make (no spoilers for those seeing this who haven't seen it but i'd be more than willing to elaborate if asked). But this is just.. gross. Kamala dosen't have a solo or even a mini currently, and from what i heard while she was in the book didn't get to do much. The IDEA of Ms Marvel working with Spider-Man.. is kinda brilliant, as she was a relatable teenage breakout like him, is close friends with Miles, and is a huge fan of peter's. It'd be an intresting dynamic. I wasn't opposed to adding her to the book when I heard about it as , if their not going to give her an ongoing, this isn't a terrible plcae But in hindsight.. she was just put in the book to die. Wells apparently hinted to hell and back MJ would die and either he backed out as he realized even that was too far , or simply did it ON PURPOSE to do a vince russo style swerve (bro). He put a character whose breakout status is in PART due to being the first big name, a-list pakastani heroine out there, one whose culture was a part of her while still having a lot to her, in his book TO KILL HER so a WHITE GUY could feel bad. How Wells coudln't remotely see how fucking awful this comes off is beyond me, but not suprising given the MJ Debacle. I haven't even read a lot of her books. I read her solo for a bit during and post civil war II and the first two arcs of it before that, and tried the saldin amed run (then gave it up due to a stupid amnesia thing I don't want to get into. But what I read was fresh and had one of the best supporting casts in a hero book in a while, all of whom took some very intresting and suprising turns. But i've read just enough of the character to both know her well and see this as bullshit. Marvel let her be killed off.. because they can't grasp that maybe low sales aren't always a characters fault.. but because the run just didn't grab people and maybe they need to do something new. I do think she'll be back as a mutant, which granted is during their darkest hour.. but as an x-men fan and with marvel kinda not giving a shit about inhumans anymore, i'd be delighted to see her join the krakoan side of things. But the way getting there is so so dumb it hurts. Also yeah, while its a common crticisim it is VERY weird no one she actually teamed up with reguarlly, especially miles who again is the OTHER SPIDER-MAN AND WOUL DHAVE EVERY REASON TO GET INVOLVED IN PETER'S SHIT.

#ms marvel #kamala kahn

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fedonciadale · 2 years

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Hi there! Randomly sliding in your ask box, but do you think GRRM overglorifies D and the Targsa bit too much? Right now, the son of an ousted dictator is dangerously coming close to being the next president of the country. I've noticed that some relatives of mine who blindly support him were also D stans, and while I understand GRRM's intention was too study how tyrants are made, some people just don't seem to get that and think that this type of character is what we should look for in a leader. Do you think the show or GRRM himself failed to get that point across to viewers and readers by glorifying the Targs for popularity and profit?

Hi there!

And the son of a dictator even made it. Yikes... 😑

I don't think GRRM failed to be honest. He hasn't finished the books and it remains to be seen how he'll bring Dany's arc to an end. I think people actually see the red flags and there is the famous Meereenese essay whose author was praised by GRRM for "getting it right". And it's not as if "Fire and Blood" glorifies the Targs. Even Targs we might have thought beforehand were pretty decent (like Jaeherys the Old), we now know to be almost as bad as the others. I don't think anybody can read Fire and Blood and stick to the believe that the Targs are good.

I think it is a bit different for the show. D&D prioritized the hiding of the DarkDany twist over everything else and then they managed to even botch that. They did such a bad job that people just refused to believe that Dany burning King's Landing will be canon and accused D&D of doing "fanfiction".

They postponed Dany's fall to the very last moment, by alternating her "red flag" moments with triumphant moments. They wanted to milk their cash cow to the last moment and that is why they failed. They should have committed to really depicting Dany's fall.

So, I would say that D&D failed to unmask Dany as a tyrant in a convincing and compelling way. But that does not alter the fact that the character is a tyrant and that people just refuse to see it. And sadly enough this is what happens sometimes as well.

One of the most haunting experiences I ever had was reading the diaries of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Propaganda minister. These are not personal diaries but were meant to describe Hitler's ascent to power. And despite knowing that he was an evil man, that he supported an evil dictator, I could still feel the pull of his words and was always on the edge of catching myself to nod at the easy explanations, the black- and white painting of political problems, the disdain for the slow procedure of democratic politics. To this day I shudder how easy it would have been to be lured in, if I had not known who wrote these books.

This is imho exactly the reason why we need to unmask dictators - fictional and real ones. We shouldn't fall for their "everything will be solved once I'm in charge" or their "I'll do this a lot more efficiently". They spoonfeed us easy explanations. We should reject them and talk about the complexity of the world that doesn't have easy solutions.

Thanks!

#anon ask #DarkDany #Sorry it took me so long #haven't been at my best lately #tyranny #How to see it #How to unmask it

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therese-lokidottir · 5 months

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Btw I am trying justify tva worker action but I think besides they all have cruel and evil and hypocrite inside. I think kang/hwr accident erasing they intelligence and common sense. I meant in season 1 it's very clearly they are so stupid, they can't thinking that they are probably are a bad guy while the proofs are infront of their face (either they just no want or hwr erasing they common sense)

I meant, while I belive some people can to much blind by truth, tva workers are too blind be normal so beside factor internal, I belive there external too. I think that is why the showrunner keep saying they are innocent

Just record even half of it hwr fault tva workers are not innocent at all. Victims? Maybe, innocent that can get away from consequences? No

You can't justify them, because they are fascists. Season 1 face planted so hard in trying to make this character anything but the most selfish contemptable villains.

The reason why Winston works in 1984 is because he starts off knowing the system is bad and actually hates being a part of it. He is compliant because the system is so powerful but he is in no way happy.

Season 1 botched it. They had Mobius be happy in the system, say with a smile on his face that he felt lucky and then when he finds out the truth does not lament the atrocities he committed but instead jet skis. I don't care what sob story they retroactively put in or claims that he felt bad, because it does not change the fact the series started with him happily complicit in fascism with objection.

That's season 2 does with the "regular people" backstory. They are retroactively trying to paint them as sympatric and treat them as the victims. So, they are not inherently evil people, but they most certainly are not inherently good people. The fact stands the aren't just capable of cruelty the actually were cruel and they can't just blame HWR or point to Loki's or anyone else's mistakes and try to act like they aren't really bad. They have a darkness they have to face.

People in extremist groups can be victims but people who have managed to break free of those groups or even grew up learning bigotry will tell you that it's still on them to unlearn that hate. That's it's going to be a process to learn and be better. People can't just walk away and say "well, it's not my fault.". It might not be the "fault" but they still have to take responsibly for the path of redemption.

As I've said before, the Framework arc on AoS did this so much better.

#asks

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cutemeat · 1 year

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i have small hope for macden because i feel like sunny writers room brains would go Wouldn’t it be funny if two of the characters who sucked absolute ass and have had terrible times of strain were actually healthier in a romantic relationship than the other people they hang out with… but i also believe they think it’s not as funny as fucking it up sooo bad, if they ever made it canon. this is the plight of A Sunny Loser

yeah i mean again i still think that since they went thru the trouble of bringing back the Cat In The Wall metaphor from Break Up in s15 and having Dennis' arc echo a lot of the same beats as Mac's storylines in HOHC, MFHP, Mac Day, etc. makes me think there's something being set up here... Which isn't even mentioning the more obvious Brokeback refs including Den breaking his fuckin back on a mountain at the very end and caring a little too much about a tattoo on Mac's body that he wouldn't be seein unless he's already seeing/planning on seeing Mac's upper thigh on a regular basis it's.. just... if they don't do shit in s16 i'll be fuckin confused. but i feel like the girls have said that since Foreverrrr so idk! I do agree i think rcg are def scared of botching the storyline cuz again if they didn't care about botching it they would've done something with it already, and they nearly did botch it with DDL.. and I remember while they were writing s15 last year Rob mentioned his desire but how difficult it was to specifically bring a gay man into the writer's room so I feel like part of the feet dragging is coming from a place of good intention since Rob has a whole 'i gotta do right by the gays' thing lmao. but that being said I feel like they have written Mac/Den well already, so they just need to have a little faith in themselves LOL. If they're just afraid of failure the whole time it'll come thru in the writing n it won't be good. They gotta have some confidence in what they're writing and that itself has a lot of pull.

I personally think that they should just go for it because it'd be a way to freshen up the dynamics (esp if they are really gonna keep going for a few more seasons or possibly indefinitely) while still keeping it consistent. A lot of people seem to think that Mac/Den getting together would 'ruin the show' or forsake the formula... But I feel like both the s14/s15 finales had a very 'fuck our original formula' subtext to 'em anyway. And also I personally miss Macden's dynamic being like it was in Manhunters/Frank's Pretty Woman/Dines Out... Eps like that show that just bc MacDen are happy together doesn't make them better people so it'd still fit with Sunny's overall 'this is a show about bad people' motto. And I think it wouldn't be THAT different if they were overtly out and in a relationship cuz they have been written to have romantic subtext n sexual tension right along anyway. It's just been a matter of rcg going back and forth on whether to have the characters themselves realize that and embrace it or not. Cuz we see even in eps like 'Jumper' and 'Big Mo' that rcg have concluded that always just playing it safe and sticking to the formula or "the algorithm" is less satisfying than writing to what feels more satisfying in a story. I believe MFHP was kinda a major turning point for them and also worked as a sorta "dry run" for how a MacDen storyline might play with audiences.

But again, who knows! It seems like they're having fun in the writer's room so far at least, and so we'll have to wait n see what that means for MacDen's stryline if anything when we get there LOLLLL.

#i rlly love this show as a whole so I'm not basing my desire to watch off of this one storyline #but it IS a storyline ive come to rlly care abt cuz it resonates w me #again i didnt come to Sunny for macden like that wasn't even one of my expectations for watching the show #but once i saw it i rlly cared n so i do want em to handle it carefully n do it right #and macden has a strong foundation so i believe they can do the storyline well #im not even talking abt like rcg have to do it well 'for gay rights' or whatever the fuck thats not what im worried abt tbh LOL #im just ... i want em to do right by the characters n their relationship cuz i just CARE abt the bastards #again we'll just hav to wait n seeeeee #macden

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cinemabuffoon · 6 months

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rant incoming!

I fully believe that the expendables series is one of the biggest wasted potentials of a movie series in recent cinema history. This series could have (and should have) leaned heavily into the energy of the expendables 2, which is the best one imo so I might be biased, where it leaned into the fact that it was a bunch of action stars from various eras and embraced it instead of constantly trying to hand things over to younger cast members or botching what could have been one of the most entertaining franchises to exist. I mean for goodness sake Jean Claude Van Damme is literally named Vilain and is generic villain™️!!

I personally enjoy these movies because I'm there to watch some of my favorite action stars be cool and shoot up crap and pal around, and thats what it always should have been. Now, it can be as serious or unserious as it wants to be (like I've stated before I lean towards 2 so that's my preference of the ratio) but it should have been focused on this cast of characters. I understand that Stallone had stated with the third movie that he wanted it to open to a wider/younger audience but I really think that was the wrong choice. As far as I've seen from various fan response, we are all here to watch this cast! these guys! Not some younger actors we don't really care about. They should have ham'd it up! Maybe they kill off some mebers every once in a while if they want to keep it interesting. They are the expendables after all! They could bring on so many cool actors too. Imagine if in the expendables 3, instead of being what it is, they brought in some of the female action stars from the 80s / 90s! They could be new additions to the team, a mercenary squad that has a cool, friendly yet competitive rivalship with them, or even as villains! Sigourney Weaver, Linda Hamilton, Uma Thurman, Michelle Yeoh, etc!! So many cool ladies that would have been a fantastic and fun way to keep the movies fresh while staying on brand. Now if they wanted to bring on younger crowds then maybe bring on some more established "modern" action stars then. Ronda Rousey kinda makes sense to me because to my understanding she's fighter in real life. I do think you can bring on newcomers and I'm welcome to it! But I wish they didn't want to hand it over to them. I understand many of these actors are aging and may not want to do this forever and thats completely fine, but i feel that there is a better way then how they went. Also! longer standing villains would be so great! Not necessarily like Thanos but maybe keep them on for more then one movie. Allow establishing time or allow more time to have the battle of good v evil! I.e Vilain was two movies and not one, Stonebanks (who was wasted in 3 smh) given 2 or 3 movies due to his connection with barney or 4 if they had a really good concept/reasoning/writing, etc. There's so much I could probably add and maybe I will later if i think of it but it saddens me to see the state of where this franchise is heading. I hate that Tool hasn't been back once, his arc will never be finished. I hate that so many actors that should be in this arent any more or never will get to be due to its decrease in quality. I hate that the latest movie feels like the lacroix equivalent of a tangerine. I hate that these movies have had more bad than good recently. I know they were never masterpieces, but as someone who loves action films and enjoys many of these actors movies, it was such a fun franchise and one that's potential has been squandered. It's just sad. This is also coming from someone who is relatively new to this series. I didn't grow up with this so I have no nostalgia or anything, I'm not blinded by rose tinted glasses. I'm just a fan who wishes better for this series. I hope we get a movie that absolutely revives and revitalizes this franchise but after 4, I'm not betting anything on it.

feeling like we should have gotten sequels to the A-Team (2010) instead right now

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spaceorphan18 · 1 year

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You mentioned you skip things you dislike, same, but I'm curious what plots you dislike the most?

Ha okay

To clarify from last night, though, I don't actually mind Comeback all that much (except Sue's story line is not in great taste at points) but it was getting late and I really wanted to watch BIOTA. Lol

Really, at this point - a lot of the things I dislike are a lot of trends -- such as the racism or fatphobia or just meanness that a lot of times permeated the show. There are also moments that just infuriate me -- such as Emma giving up her 'virginity' as a prize to Will for winning Nationals. Or the continued 'how to be a real man' rhetoric the show kept trying to shove down our throats. That stuff makes me want to throw things at the wall.

Here's a list of my least favorite story arcs in no order except, perhaps, chronological:

The Fake Baby - Season 1: I think over the years, I've gone a lot softer on Terri, and can recognize the satire the show was going for. But I still think the idea that Terri could fake a pregnancy for that long without Will noticing feels like a stretch and I've always found it a bit dumb.

Will/Emma/Ken/Terri Love Triangle - Season 1: It's not that it's bad -- Season 1 might have the tightest comedy in the show, I'm just bored by it because I really do not care about these characters. And Ken might be one of my least favorite characters during the entire run.

Will's Mid-Life Crisis - Season 2: It was clear that the show wasn't sure what to do with Will, especially after the pivot to focusing on the kids, and a majority of his stories in Season 2 weren't all that great.

All of it - Early Season 3: There's not much going on in eps 1-8 that I like - The First Time is an exception, and even within that episode there are things that I'm just like, ew, no. In case you're wondering - a run down of bad storylines in Early Season 3

Rachel v Mercedes which seemed like a cop out so they could feature Rachel still while trying to give Mercedes /something/ but while the concept of the Trouble Tones was fine, it's marred by the fact that Brittany and Santana are so mean during this time period

The Student Election - which I find frustrating, partially because it ties into the weird - Kurt is too gay to accomplish things stuff - but also partially I'm not a fan of how they showcased Brittany either. (I do like the unicorn concept, fwiw though)

Sue v Beiste for Cooter. Why was this a thing? Also - it's soured due to the fact that Cooter because a domestic abuser.

Finn disliking Blaine - because why not

Rory. Look, no shade at Damian McGinty. But Rory is easily the most boring and useless character on the show.

Santana's coming out - I think her development in Season 2 was great! The fact that this was botched so horribly is just frustrating. Santana is probably at her worst during this period - and her cruelty swept under the rug. Brittany is barely a part of the story line. And the whole thing becomes about Finn and how he's handling it more than what Santana's going through.

Puck/Quinn/Shelby - I hate it. I hate all of it. This is by far my least favorite story line in the show. I could make an entire separate post about how much I hate this story line.

Will and Emma - Season 3: It's not the worst, but Will's continued terrible decisions in relation to Emma are just frustratingly annoying -- such as his treatment of her about getting tenure and how he deals with her mental illness.

Sue's Pregnancy - Season 3: Why? Why was this a thing? It ultimately served no purpose and was mostly erased and not talked about after Robin was born.

Princess Rachel - late Season 3: Rachel was, annoyingly, handed everything on a silver platter because the writers felt like she deserved it after all of her 'suffering'. Props might be the worst - when Tina is brainwashed to say how wonderful and magical Rachel is and then they go stalk Carmen Tibideaux. (The Prom episode stuff is bad, too). But the worst part about all of it is that it came at the expense of Kurt - who got to fail so that Rachel could be lifted up.

Marley's Easting Disorder - Season 4: It was just poorly handled in general and 'resolved' by a Ryder making her feel better about herself. I just can't with it.

Marley/Ryder/Jake Triangle - Season 4 (and 5): It's just boring. And after all the love triangles and not great romances on the show it just wasn't that interesting.

Previously Unaired Christmas - bleh

Anything Vocal Adrenaline - Season 6: While I think I understand why there was so much VA -- it was a way to fill out the episodes. It was just too much.

Looking at the episode list, those are the big ones. There are minor things here and there, and definitely moments that make me want to throw things, too.

#that's how s.o. sees it

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duhragonball · 1 year

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Dragon Ball Super 005

...

Yeah.

So by this point in the arc, we’ve reached roughly the 20-30 minute mark in the Battle of Gods film. This is the part where Beerus meets Goku for the first time, then Goku asks to spar with Beerus, who demolishes him in two blows. It’s my favorite part of the movie, and Dragon Ball Super Episode 5 tries to re-enact it and botches the whole thing.

This episode started a whole discourse in 2015 because the animation was awful, and fans argued over who to blame. The artists who worked on the series seemed like the obvious pick, but then people started to point out that Toei had been running a sloppy shop for a while at this point. There was a Sailor Moon series that had been running around the same time, and fans of that show noticed the same quality problems. In a nutshell, Toei was trying to cash in on as many of its popular franchises as possible by churning out lots and lots of new content, without the manpower needed to actually produce it properly. So they were hiring anyone who could hold a pen to work on shows like Dragon Ball Super, just to keep it ahead of deadlines.

I don’t claim to understand all the details, but the result seemed to be that you had a lot of overworked, underqualified artists animating this series, and the only thing working in their favor was that the first four episodes were so slow and dull that they didn’t have to animate too much. But Episode 5 is basically a big fight, and even though it’s a total mismatch, you still have all these shots of Goku flaling around trying to hit Beerus, while Beerus plays the artful dodger. So the standard shortcuts don’t work here. You’re going to have to animate Goku and Beerus leaping around, twirling and moving in every direction. And the animators gave it a try, but wound up exposing their limitations.

Now, to be sure, there were plenty of badly animated scenes in classic Dragon Ball. Yukio Ebisawa supervised the animation for every sixth episode, from Emperor Pilaf all the way to Uub, and every one of his entries in the series featured comically off-model characters. You can see a lot of animation shortcuts too, especially in filler episodes, or in spots where it just didn’t matter all that much in the long run. Nobody gets into Dragon Ball because of the high-quality animation. There’s some real classic episodes, and a murderer’s row of talent, and frankly I maintain that Yukio Ebisawa is highly underrated, but the point is that they were making a weekly cartoon show, and sometimes quality had to take a back seat to logistics.

However, Dragon Ball Super Episode 5 was notoriously bad. So bad that fans were swapping screenshots of the off-model characters and openly mocking Toei for putting out such a poor work. So bad that GT-likers were coming out of the woodwork to gloat about how their fave was no longer the worst Dragon Ball series. And it was so bad that Toei actually went back and had some of the scenes redrawn for the home video release.

Well, I’m here to tell you they missed a spot.

Here’s the thing. This episode was always going to suck. They can go back and redo it as many times as they like. They can re-animate the whole thing from scratch, but in the end, it won’t make a bit of difference. And that’s because they already had a good version of this Goku/Beerus fight in the movie. Episode 5 was never going to be able to measure up to that standard, and even if it could, it would never be seen as anything more than a rerun.

There’s three things working against this episode that have nothing to do with the production values.

1) We’ve seen this before. I know I keep harping on it, but it’s true. By this point, the DBS manga had published its own adaptation of this fight, so how many different ways can Toei keep repeating the same scene?

2) It’s slower. The whole point of this scene in the movie was that Goku wanted to experience Beerus’ power, and he came at him with everything he had, immediately powering up to Super Saiyan 3, and getting jobbed out almost immediately. It establishes that Beerus isn’t just a paper tiger. Goku needs to solve the mystery of the Super Saiyan God, because nothing less will do. And Vegeta needs to watch his ass, because he can’t even go SSJ3, and Beerus would wipe him out in an instant either way.

But DBS #5 pumps the brakes by having Goku fight Beerus in all three of his Super Saiyan forms. This is probably meant to introduce them all to new viewers, or to just make the fight last longer, but it’s stupid. Goku even starts out by saying that it would be an insult to Beerus to fight him in base form, then he proceeds to fight in Super Saiyan 1, even as he tells Beerus to hold nothing back. It makes Goku look like a hypocrite.

Then Beerus reveals that he can perceive Goku’s power level, and he knows Goku is holding out on him, but Goku is still reluctant to bring out Super Saiyan 3. Well does he want to go all out with Beerus or not? The studio and the character are working at cross-purposes here. We know what Goku ought to do in this situation, because we saw him do it the right way in the movie. But the studio wants him to sandbag a while, so he does. Beerus ought to be offended by this-- or at least irritated with Goku for wasting his time-- but Toei wants to drag this out, so Beerus indulges him for no good reason.

3) This whole scene is one guy dodging the other. Even if you had enough story here to fill an entire episode, even if you had an unlimited budget and a staff of highly skilled artists to animated it, how much can you really get out of this? The highlight of the fight is the one new wrinkle Toei added, where Goku’s about to attack and then he suddenly stops short and backs off.

Beerus congratulates him for somehow intuiting that he was about to strike. Even though Goku wasn’t consciously aware of it, his body somehow reacted on its own. Like some sort of ultra-instinctive thing. This will become an important plot point 100 episodes later. But right now, it’s just another minute or so of Goku and Beerus not touching each other.

So Episode 5 was a failure from conception, even without the quality issues. With the quality issues, it became a laughing stock. It didn’t matter if the artists were the problem or the studio failing to use their talent more realistically. Once Episode 5 aired, the fans could tell there was something... off about this show. Even quiet, static scenes like this one could fall under scrutiny from the viewer. I’ve been staring at these deck chairs for a while now, because something doesn’t look quite right about them, and I can’t put my finger on it. From here on, the damage had been done, and every episode of DBS was basically an open challenge to the viewer to find something wrong with it.

#dragon ball #dragon ball super #2023dbapocryphaliveblog #goku #beerus #whis #vegeta #bulma #king kai #bubbles #gregory

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pepperochau · 1 year

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why netflix bebop is bad: a loose agglomeration of thoughts

André Nemec, showrunner of the live-action adaptation, stated in an interview with entertainment weekly that the adaptation had 3 main goals: to not deliver a repeat of the anime; to answer questions the original series had; to dig out deeper histories of the characters. I’m going to give a slew of short thoughts onto how the adaptation largely fails these goals.

Very important to this however is you should still watch the show. It’s been cancelled for one, for two you’re never going to know how bad something is unless you watch it. I have a massive appreciation for the original series only strengthened by watching and attempting to learn from this bad adaptation. Alan Moore once said that, just as important as reading good books is for a writer, you should also read bottom-barrel bad shit as well so you can understand why otherwise good ideas become mired by poor decisions.

-Serving the same meal

It is difficult for a visual adaptation to call itself “not the same meal” when so much of its core components are the same.

In the live-action adaptation, there are a sum total of 3 wholly original stories: Episodes 2, 7, & 9. Every other plotline following the Bebop crew is best considered to be a remix of an existing anime episode, with some slight alterations to cast and story but otherwise largely the same. The Teddy Bomber, as an example, becomes a central character in his episode as opposed to the joke-threat he was in the anime. The Callisto Liberation Front, rather than be undone by Spike’s sabotage, is instead toppled from within by a mother-daughter murder-suicide. Faye’s induction into a mind-control cult in the anime instead becomes Spike’s.

Episode 1, near fully identical to the original, has changes which exemplify the issues in remixing the episodes to tell a “different” story. In the ending to the anime’s first episode, after a botched drug deal that leads to Asimov overdosing, Katerina drags him into their spaceship and flies off with Spike in tow. Spike attempts to convince her to turn herself in, but instead Katerina shoots her overdosing husband before flying into a police firing line; a tragic encapsulation of how the series explores wounded people who view themselves as too tainted to ever see the light again. The adaptation changes this in a number of ways. Asimov and Katerina have eloped rather recently. Asimov, rather than overdosing, is fatally shot in the final botched drug deal. He succumbs to his wounds as Spike chases after the couple, but Katerina is so overcome by grief over the loss of her lover and fear of being forced to return home that she chooses to kill herself rather than be brought in by either Spike or Faye. We go from people denying themselves freedom, to the abandonment of hope. In a much broader stroke, this also changes the very thesis of the series itself, by starting on a downer, rather than tragic, note.

The Vicious/Julia B-plots could be considered enough of a change to make even the remixes into their own original stories, but I think they are best considered to be separate entities in the same vein as Bowser’s Minion’s relationship to Superstar Saga.

-Mining Deeper Histories

As viewers we tend to conflate the portrayer with the portrayal, but rather unfortunately for some, the actors actually do amazing jobs in their roles. The issue here comes with how changing the characters ultimately changes the arcs the go on, the themes they convey, and the the stories that must be used to tell them. In other words: coal is coal, but the mine is important.

Faye Valentine. In the anime, Faye wedges herself onto the Bebop of her own accord after an encounter with Spike and Jet. She has her own small ship like Spike’s which she uses to go off on her own, separate from the rest of the crew, and while Spike and Jet are unsure of her presence at first, they slowly begin to warm up to her and she to them over the course of 10 episodes. In the adaptation, Faye first meets the Bebop crew in Episode 1, as a rival bounty hunter. They do not cross paths again until Episode 4; after her ship is destroyed in a gambit to prevent a bioweapon from landing on Callisto, she is more or less confined to the Bebop if she wants to continue her bounty hunter career. The agency which defined her character in the anime is stripped away in order to facilitate growth. This can be a negative or a positive depending on perspective, but we don’t get the same impact as the anime’s free spirit with a fear of settling down.

Ein is a dog. In many ways, Ein is simply a mascot for the Bebop and the anime as a whole. But Ein is not without his own character, his own intelligence. Ein in the anime is a datadog, effectively a bio-engineered living computer bound in dog form, but is an active participant in the plot of his introductory episode, and similarly participates in the plots of many other episodes. In the adaptation, Ein is made to feel like a regular dog, with accidental flashes of intelligence. In a later episode, his status as a datadog is made to mean that he is a backup for the memories of Mad Pierrot, and can be remotely controlled and used as a projector, all seemingly without protest. Ein has always been a dog, but the adaptation seems to go out of its way to make him into Just A Dog.

There is also a deeper issue here in that, in pursuit of the goal of “mining for deeper histories” of characters, the writing staff seemed keen on neutering the agency of characters, something I briefly touched on with Faye. Ein’s intelligence is downplayed to turn him into a plot device, Faye is effectively trapped on the Bebop and only chooses to stay once she regains her freedom, Julia is turned into a damsel in distress, and Vicious’s uncompromisingly self-serving nature has its core in his daddy issues. Contrast this with the anime, where Ein has his own intelligence, Faye develops a genuine emotional bond with the crew after initially trying to use them, Julia went into hiding in the hope of protecting Spike, and Vicious is a greedy unrepentant to his core. These changes again can be seen as good or bad, but to me, they did not mesh well with a largely similar story.

-Answering the Unanswered

Sometimes, things don’t need to be answered. Sometimes, the unanswered was already answered.

Race. There could be an argument made that, since Jet Black was seen by many viewers to be either coded as black or light-skinned, that race is a largely forgone conclusion in the later stage capitalism of cowboy bebop’s future. The adaptation, however, makes a choice to bring the question of racism back into the far-future. To be clear: is not a jab at Mustafa Shakir. If anything, it is a shame that we will likely never get more of his portrayal as Jet, easily the best casting and best portrayal of the bunch. However, the writing staff seems to want to make a statement on the issue of police violence directed at black men but doesn’t want to commit to the bit. Abdul Hakim, described as a “negloid” in the anime on his mugshot, steals Ein from a research facility prior to receiving a kind of extreme plastic surgery which causes him to resemble Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. In the live-action adaptation, this is reversed: Abdul Hakim’s true appearance, the one on his mugshot, resembles that of Kareem, while the disguise he obtains is a hologram of a smaller white man. “True” Abdul only appears in the flesh in order to fight off Spike’s pursuit, while “Fake” Abdul is the one who navigates the episode and gets shot by Jet’s former station-mate Chalmers. Any kind of impact that kind of statement kind have is lost in the disguise. Speaking of the police, Chalmers, the one who killed Abdul, is also implied to be the one who got Jet kicked off the force on top of starting a relationship with Jet’s ex-wife. We later find out that, actually, Chalmers isn’t racist and is actually something of a good dude underneath the animosity he has towards Jet. Maybe it’s because Chalmers is Irish, I don’t know. One of Jet’s contacts, an older white woman, is also aggressively sexual and flirtatious with Jet in a very racialized manner. Now, sexualizing men v. women for the sake of a joke are two very different things given the long exploitative history of the latter, but to sexualize him for his race puts a very strange taste in my mouth, especially given the kind of racial awareness the show seemed to want to cultivate through its casting choices.

Also on race, there’s the issue of the Red Dragon Syndicate. In the anime, The Syndicate is more or less The Chinese Triad In Space. I’m not going to attempt to dance around that, as it just is what it is. It’s a Chinese organization with Chinese leaders. But there’s also no aliens in space. Why is this important? Well, the adaptation changes the organization from a Space Chinese one into a Space Chinese-LARPing one. The Van, leaders of The Syndicate in both shows, are elderly human beings—in the adaptation, however, The Van wear incredibly racist-looking wooden masks based on the anime designs. I can only assume this was done accidentally, assuming that the anime version of The Van were aliens. But it exists, and it needs to be brought up as part of the weird relationship the adaptation has with race.

This is the part of the ramble where I bring up Julia and Vicious. This would have been in the prior section, but really it deserves to be down here given the stark differences between the anime and adaptation.

Julia is interesting. I mean this both as a plus and a minus. On the one hand Julia didn’t have a great deal of depth in the anime, bailing out on Spike when he faked his death to escape The Syndicate. On the other hand, not every character needs to have a lot of depth to be good. Some characters are just there to serve a role, and while unfortunate that Anime Julia was that kind of a character, an idealized goal for Spike to aspire to, it’s a role she did well. Adaptation Julia, in contrast, is a fairly fleshed out character with her own goals separate from Spike. She still shares the same fear of Vicious that the Anime has, but she slowly morphs into a kind of power fantasy by seizing The Syndicate instead of just cutting and running from the men who have been such destructive influences in her life. Is a power fantasy bad? No, not at all. But it clashes against the reality of Spike’s mostsly clean getaways from The Syndicate in both anime and adaptation. She could have marooned a dying Vicious on a foreign planet, or left him for dead in the church. It’s a confusing writing choice to me which maybe someone else could explain to me, but as I see it, was a weird move to make given that she clearly wants out of life as a Syndicate member’s woman.

Vicious is….hoo boy. I think it’s best to start with the anime Vicious here. Anime Vicious is a greedy, power-hungry bastard. He was willing to subvert and sell-out his fellow soldiers to ensure his own survival, he grated against The Van during his power plays to seize the distribution of the drug Red Eye, and violently pursues Spike to achieve revenge stealing Julia from him. Vicious is amoral, and abuses the honor systems of others for his own gain.

Adaptation Vicious is a Woobie. He is my poor little meow meow wet dishrag man who I want to throw in a dryer on high until he shrinks and burns. He is a child. He sucks at his job in The Syndicate. He doesn’t even want to be in The Syndicate, he is forced to be in this medium-high ranking position because his yellowface-cosplaying abusive father is a member of The Van. He is a pathetic wet slug of a human being that the writers tried DESPERATELY to write as an incel-type character, but instead succeeded in making a strangely sympathetic character whom I want to see succeed in spite of his own severe character failings. Vicious is abusive towards Julia. This is a fact. The bizarre woobification of Vicious’s character does not negate this abuse. But the difference is that where Anime Vicious was an irredeemable force of malice and greed, Adaptation Vicious is a pitiable and stringy weeb.

Gren is—oh, did you think I wouldn’t bring up Gren? See this is why I hid this part at the very end, because I knew some people would immediately roll their eyes and look away the moment I brought up Gren out of an assumption for what I might say, but I implore you keep reading. See, I don’t mind Gren being non-binary in the adaptation. I don’t think it adds to the character per-se, but I don’t think it’s a negative either given how they were in the anime. My issue is more that Gren just kind of...does nothing. Gren exists for the sake of existing. In the anime, Gren serves almost as a final damnation of Vicious’s character: if he’s willing to violate the sacred bond of brotherhood between soldiers, what won’t he sell out for his own gain? In the adaptation, Gren has such little personality that they sort of blend into the set. Like, yes, I’m aware of Bury Your Gays as a trope. I’m also aware that queer characters shouldn’t have to have big important parts to justify their existence, but that’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is, why take Gren from being a brief but impactful character, and turn them into a shallow and inconsequential recurring character?

These are just the core problems which I noticed in my own watch.

Any thoughts?

#cowboy bebop #netflix #netflix cowboy bebop #anime v adaptation #just thoughts i guess #does this count as film analysis #review #criticism

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hello-nichya-here · 2 years

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You know, I didn’t really take to the version of Faith that exists in canon, although I know a lot of people who love her. The version of her that could have existed, however? Now that’s a character I could get behind. I think Faith had a lot of potential that was ultimately wasted, and she possesses a lot of traits that rub me the wrong way but were never really addressed, and her redemption felt very rushed. The vibe surrounding her character seems to be that everything bad she does is always someone else’s fault, even when it really is her fault, which I dislike. I like it when characters hold themselves fully accountable/are held accountable by the narrative.

It’s kind of like me with Anya. The version we got in canon? Meh, tons of wasted potential but ultimately underwhelming. But the version of her that could have existed? Fascinating.

As much as I love the show, there is a serious, frequent problem of characters being done so dirty: not getting proper development, arcs being rushed, botched, or dropped, mistakes that are never acknowledged, good deeds that are ignored or demonized, the writers playing favorites... it can really ruin characters, or at least make them feel underwhelming. All that changes is that every audience member inevitably has their own personal feelings on who deserved better, who got away with just a slap on the wrist, and who simply didn't fit in.

Now, MY thoughts on both Faith and Anya are... complicated. I love both characters, even with all the mistakes the writers made... but the mistakes still bother me. A lot. A LOT. It's kind of how I feel about Xander too, honestly.

Though I will admit that I relate a bit to Anya because I'm autistic and sometimes I just... don't get things. At all. And seeing her struggling to just get by in a world she doesn't understand and sometimes feels she isn't really part of can kind of feel similar to my own life.

As for Faith, I can empathize with her main problem, and honestly the problem of many of the characters, that is "Motherfucker desperately needs help, but can't admit it and doesn't trust others enough to ever ask for it or accept it when said help is offered." I also can't help but feel bad, and angry, that right after her first big mistake, that although serious did not doom her, Angel was meant to help her out but instead just projected his own trauma and guilt onto her and said "The fact that you accidentally killed that guy and are terrified of the consequences mean you're just as bad as me! A serial killer! Who murdered his entire family for no fucking reason! Doesn't that make you feel better?"

And, I must admit: Faith is hot and that makes me VERY biased in her favor.

#asks #buffy the vampire slayer #anya #faith #personal #about me

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