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comradeyurika · 11 months

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Happy 26th anniversary to the release of the Digital Monster ver 1 V-pet, and to the Digimon franchise as a whole. This series has meant so much to me since I was a kid, and it has been there for me through a lot of ups and downs in my life.

To commemorate this anniversary it was only appropriate to make a countdown of some of my favorite Digimon related things:

Top 26 favorite Digimon (at this exact moment in time; this list could look very different next week):

26. Tukaimon:

Yes, a recolor, but I've always thought Tukaimon was cooler than Patamon. I'm a sucker for a nice evil version of a classic Digimon, and Tukaimon just has such a cool color scheme in my opinion. Definitely a Digimon that I wish had more of a prominent place in the franchise.

25. Wizarmon

A classic, iconic Digimon who has the iconic death in the anime's history. Wizarmon has such an amazing design, and his sacrifice in Digimon Adventure is a scene that I rewatch time and time again and always tear up. Even outside of the anime, Wizarmon has always been super cool, and the Witchelny is such a neat setting that I hope to see explored more in the future.

24. Mienumon

Probably my favorite overall design from Appmon, Mienumon was such an iconic villain in that series, and it was such a shame that she didn't stick around longer. I really like the design, and I hope that when we eventually see the Appmon integrated more fully with the rest of the franchise in future games that Mienumon makes her triumphant return.

23. Culumon

The cutest Digimon ever. Culumon was such a delightful presence in Digimon Tamers, and a digimon who I always want to see show up again even if it doesn't always make sense. We can make it work, just have the Digi-Entelechy show up again for some reason.

22. Jellymon

Jellymon-sama was one of the best parts of Digimon Survive, and a really strong new Digimon design. I love pretty much the whole look, and it's such an inspired way to make a jellyfish based Digimon really work.

21. Ogremon

A classic design that I don't think I need to say much more about. Ogremon has been a presence in Digimon since the earliest days of the franchise, and was really cool in the original Digimon Adventure. I'm happy that they're a Digimon that shows up so frequently, because they really are awesome.

20. Ranamon

Without a doubt the best of Digimon Frontier's villains, and just a really cute design. It's a real shame that we have not seen her make much in the way of appearances in recent years, and I hope that eventually changes.

19. Impmon

A nice simple design, and a great role in Digimon Tamers. Impmon really straddles the line between cute and cool a lot, and is a nice representation of mischievous type Digimon, who are one of the kinds that I really like.

18. Craniummon

Craniummon has a super cool design, and I loved how they were portrayed in Digimon Savers. They felt like the most dynamic of the Royal Knights in that series to me, and I'm always happy when they get to play a role in the story of a Digimon thing. I especially love the color scheme, and just look at Claiomh Solais. That thing is so cool.

17. DORUmon

One of the cutest Digimon, and one of the best representatives of the X-Antibody line in general, which is an era of Digimon that I feel is criminally overlooked. DORUmon was an excellent protagonist for the X-Evolution movie, and remains among my favorite Digimon to get in new games.

16. Fairimon

A nice and stylish design, and the best Digimon in Digimon Frontier. It is such a shame that Fairimon, just like everyone aside from Takuya and Kouji, was criminally underused in the second half. Also a special shoutout to Shutumon who also has a really awesome design.

15. Guilmon

Is there anything more I even need to say about Guilmon. He's one of the most popular Digimon of all time for a reason, and when you combine being the protagonist Digimon of the best anime and having such a cool design, it's easy to see why.

14. Imperialdramon Dragon Mode

I have so much nostalgia for downloading the clip of Paildramon first evolving into Imperialdramon around Christmas in 2000, so Imperialdramon has always held a special place in my heart. While the Fighter Mode and Paladin Mode are both cool, there's something just really special about the original Dragon Mode, especially because it's not the type of design we usually see for the main character's partner

13. Gazimon

Probably one of the oddest inclusions on my list, but when I was a kid, Gazimon was my absolute favorite Digimon (perhaps the color purple has always been something I like in Digimon designs looking over a lot of the Digimon on this list). While it no longer occupies that place, it still has a strong place in my heart, and I'm always happy when I see Gazimon.

12. Shoutmon X7

An amazing design, and an amazing insert song that always plays. I quite enjoyed Digimon Xros Wars as a series, and X7 was a great Digimon to build up to as you saw all of the protagonist Digimon coming together to form a champion for them all.

11. Renamon

Cool and elegant. There's not much more to say about Renamon. I feel like if you even remotely know what Digimon is, you know about Renamon.

10. Dark Knightmon

A villain so iconic that he has been brought back multiple times already, which is pretty rare for Digimon of that era. A super cool design, and a big part of why Xros Wars was so good. Please put him in the next Story game so I can play as him.

9. Bancho Lilimon

Criminally underused, and such a cool design. I would love for her to become the default Ultimate for Lilimon instead of Rosemon, not that I don't like Rosemon a lot. Honestly, her whole design is goals.

8. Lopmon

Definitely the cuter of the two siblings. I just love Lopmon's design so much; they're just so precious. I also think the extra horns work really well on their design. I don't want to knock on Terriermon, who is still neat, but Lopmon is just an incredible Digimon design.

7. Lilithmon

Beautiful and stylish. Lilithmon has always been a favorite of mine, so I was really excited when she showed up in Xros Wars and had a big role.

6. Bancho Leomon

One of the coolest Digimon designs of all time. We've had a lot of Leomon variants over the years, but none of them even approach Bancho Leomon's aesthetic. I loved his role in Digimon Savers, and I just love everything about this Digimon.

5. Vamdemon

The iconic Digimon villain. There's a reason almost every Adventure sequel has found some way to cram Vamdemon in in some fashion. He's just such an iconic and menacing villain, and his design is both spooky and stylish. I just love that cape.

4. Alphamon

A super cool member of the Royal Knights with an amazing cape and a great design. Alphamon has a fairly different color scheme for a protagonist Digimon, which is quite refreshing.

3. Dukemon

The best of the Royal Knights without a doubt. The design and weapons are both great, and Masako Nozawa has done such a great job making Dukemon sound cool across multiple different incarnations, although obviously Tamers is the biggest one. The Dukemon vs Beelzebumon fight is one of my favorite moments in any Digimon anime.

2. Beelzebumon Blast Mode

And speaking of Beelzebumon, I have to really shout out Blast Mode. Beelzebumon is super cool on his own, and would have probably made the list if I was okay with having two different modes of the same Digimon both on the list, but Blast Mode takes the design even further. Without a doubt the coolest Digimon in existence.

Lilimon

Lilimon is the cutest Digimon of all time, and my personal favorite Digimon. I love her design so much, and she's been such an inspiration to me over the years. Even though she's cute, she's also a fierce fighter, and my now and forever favorite Digimon.

Top Vocal Digimon songs:

26. Sora Mau Yuusha X5 by Koji Wada (Digimon Xros Wars insert song)

25. Ashita wa atashi no kaze ga fuku by AiM (Digimon Adventure 02 Ending 1)

24. Target ~Akai Shougeki by Koji Wada (Digimon Adventure 02 Opening)

23. Believer by IKUO (Digimon Savers insert song)

22. Innocent ~ Mujaki na Mama de by Koji Wada (Digimon Frontier Ending 1)

21. Accentier by Eir Aoi (Digimon World: Next Order Opening)

20. Never Give Up! by Sonar Pocket (Digimon Xros Wars Opening 1)

19. Hirari by Koji Wada (Digimon Savers Opening 2)

18. Evolution & Digixros ver. Taiki by Koji Wada and Takayoshi Tanimoto (Digimon Xros Wars Insert song)

17. Days ~ Aijou to Nichijou~ by AiM (Digimon Tamers Ending 2)

16. Beat Hit by Ayumi Miyazaki (Digimon Adventure 02 insert song)

15. We Are Xros Heart by Koji Wada (Digimon Xros Wars insert song)

14. Keep On by Ai Maeda (Digimon Adventure Ending 2)

13. X4B The Guardian by Koji Wada (Digimon Xros Wars insert song)

12. an endless tale by Koji Wada and AiM (Digimon Frontier Ending 2)

11. Brave Heart by Ayumi Miyazaki (Digimon Adventure insert song)

10. New World by Twill (Digimon Xros Wars Opening 2)

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9. Itsumo itsudemo by AiM (Digmon Adventure 02 Ending 2)

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8. GOUing! Going! My Soul!! by Dynmaite Shu (Digimon Xros Wars Opening 1)

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7. I wish by Ai Maeda (Digimon Adventure Ending 1)

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6. FIRE!! by Koji Wada (Digimon Frontier Opening)

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5. One Vision by Takayoshi Tanimoto (Digimon Tamers insert song)

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4. My Tomorrow by AiM (Digimon Tamers Ending 1)

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3. Butter-fly by Koji Wada (Digimon Adventure Opening)

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2. We Are Xros Heart ver X7 by Koji Wada, Takayoshi Tanimoto and Ayumi Miyazaki (Digimon Xros Wars Insert song)

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The Biggest Dreamer by Koji Wada (Digimon Tamers Opening)

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Thank you so much to everyone involved in making Digimon what it has been over the past 26 years, including Volcano Ota, Kenji Watanabe, Hiroyuki Kakudou, Yukio Kaizawa, as'maria, Kazumasu Habu, Koji Wada (RIP), Ai Maeda, Takayoshi Tanimoto, Ayumi Miyazaki, and everyone else involved. Here's to 26 more years.

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wizardysseus · 10 months

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thoughts on nimona movie

i feel like it was better than the comics in some ways and worse than others

i love the animation. the stylization is very cool, visually distinct, and dynamic in a way that felt different from the comics but also captured some of its utter fun (the dance party scene!). monster!nimona was more godzilla than dragon but SO fucking good to look at.

voice acting? so good. and it was fun to hear shadow weaver's voice for like 60 seconds jskdfjgh

goldenloin got such a glow up both in looks and in terms of personality omg. i love him. i did cock my head a little at him no longer having Grown Up In the Orphanage with ballister, but making ballister an outlier as a knight was pretty central to the movie in ways i ultimately think justify the change. more on that in a few bullet points.

meanwhile the character of todd felt wholly unnecessary.

most conflicted about changes to ballister. on the one hand he's so sensitively animated and voice acted, i love him as much as ever. on the other hand he doesn't really feel like THEE ballister blackheart until like the 45 minute mark, when he accepts nimona.

on the other hand i feel like this is just a mechanic of comics->film. he has a more dramatic and cinematic arc now, and it's an arc that rings true in a lot of ways as like. a queer person raised evangelical. lol.

on the other hand, in some ways, making the queer messaging more explicit now feels a little weird to me. in that ballister is literally a gay man, but he is figuratively queerphobic to nimona.

this stood out a lot less to me in the comics where both ballister's gayness and the queer messaging were more subtextual, and i understand why one would want it to be more explicit, and i also think that the fact of him learning and bonding with nimona is a function of him also being an outsider who has to unlearn his brainwashing, so it mostly works? i'm gonna watch the movie again and see what i think. maybe a few more times.

but my favorite thing is still the moments where ballister and nimona just kind of hang out and laugh together about stuff.

speaking of narrative changes! nimona's backstory! kind of love it?? more queer, more resistant to neat labeling, & it does a lot of things i like with shapeshifters; you know that post about the idea that there's no 'true form,' this one, it's that.

i wish nimona's hair had changed more but i suppose that would have been unnecessary work for the animators and less fitting for the shorter timeframe in the world of the movie

the other thing i feel weird about: not to be like, everything about shapeshifters should be more like wolfwalkers, but i was really hoping for an ending more like wolfwalkers where goldenloin and ballister would go over the wall, would leave with nimona. like. when ballister says "the institute is not the problem" i thought it was obvious we were supposed to think he was being hopelessly naive, and the narrative proves nimona right, but then at the end... it's unclear how much of the rebuilding of the city is tied to rebuilding the system of knighthood. which i suppose i prefer to ballister explicitly becoming a knight again, but all the same, if you're going to give us a less ambiguous ending re: nimona and ballister reuniting then they don't have to stay there!!

oh the music was fun

umm i kind of thought the voiceover about the kingdom sticking a sword in nimona's heart was overkill, we had all the information we needed visually to make that connection. but that's very nitpicky, it was otherwise a beautiful moment.

#lostariel watches #nimona #i've been waiting for this movie a long time. let me have this.

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thehouseofhouse101 · 1 year

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Everything I Managed to Watch in 2022

I might as well give you my thoughts on...exactly what it says on the tin. I'll try to keep things short and simple since I'm kinda tired and I wanna finish celebrating the year's end, lmao.

First up, the movies!

Top 5 Favorite Movies:

5. The Bad Guys

4. Sonic the Hedgehog 2

3. Rise of the TMNT

2. Pinocchio (Netflix Movie)

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

Honorable Mentions (still love them!!):

Turning Red

Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers

Wendell and Wild

On the television side of things, Smiling Friends, Dead End, The Cuphead Show, and Super Robot Giant Brothers, were pretty good! The Cuphead Show got better after its rather mediocre first season and I grew to love it. Smiling Friends I was happy turned out good as I expected, and I'm excited for season 2. Dead End was a nice surprise, I grew to like the characters and I appreciated how it handled its LGBT and Autism representation. Super Giant Robot Brothers deserves more love, Reel FX did a good job with that one, had some dynamic action and fun character moments.

For decent stuff, the only one was Hamster and Gretel. Will get back to it, but I hope gets a better execution than Milo Murphy's Law, which I liked too but the second season wasn't so great, oof.

On the other hand, shows that didn't wowed me were Oddballs and sadly Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight. The former had some decent jokes and maybe a character that amused me like Max, but the other attempts at jokes fell flat and characters like Echo really annoyed me.

The Dragon Knight was like the biggest disappointment for me. As a huge fan of KFP, I was hoping it would turn out to be a good show, maybe a better outing than the last KFP TV show. But I stopped at I think episode 5 and lost interest all around. The animation was a bit unfinished, and the writing choices were kind of questionable. I am glad they brought back Jack Black as Po, but alas...

There's like other shows that aired this year along with new seasons of other shows I love, but I'll watch them for next year.

For the anime stuff, Demon Slayer Season 2 was great, same with Spy X Family and Attack on Titan. Really happy I managed to give it another shot. Chainsaw Man also aired and of course was incredible. I'm already caught up with the manga and I'm eager to see how they'll handle the rest of the story soon. Urusei Yatsura 2022 I also want to shout out. I need to get back into binging the original series, but so far, the reboot is neat!

And also, I made a list of Anime Openings I watched this year and fell in love with. Keep in mind, I haven't seen any of these anime yet based on this list, aside from the ones I just mentioned above and also My Hero Academia, but I lost interest for that series because of story problems lately, yeah...

I'll get the chance to watch the others soon, don’t worry!

So here's the Honorable Mentions first:

Honorable Mentions:

BNHA OP 10: Way better than OP 9 and the visuals were unique, but the song didn't worked for me

Spy X Family OP 2: Visuals and song are neat, but the first op is more stronger to me

Dr. Stone Ryusei: Visuals are decent, but the new version of the first OP song was just incredible

My Top 11 Favorite Anime OPs:

11. Kaguya Sama OP 3 10. Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War OP 1 9. Call of the Night 8. One Piece OP 24 7. Ya Boy Kongming 6. Urusei Yatsura 2022 5. Spy X Family OP 1 4. Mob Psycho III OP 3. Attack on Titan OP 7 2. Chainsaw Man 1. Ranking of Kings OP 2

Boom! That's it! Here's hoping 2023 turns out to be an even greater experience for me, and for the animation community as well!

#house talks shit #2022 retrospective #just mentioning...#the cuphead show #the bad guys #puss in boots the last wish #chainsaw man #rise of the tmnt movie #pretty much the ones i digged the most haha

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cappymightwrite · 3 years

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Jon Snow, Manfred & The Byronic Hero: Part 2

Previous Posts: PART 1

Hopefully Part 1 served as a good introduction on the topic and characteristics of the Byronic Hero, as well as how Jon Snow in particular is likely an iteration of this figure. But now we come to the real meat of this meta series — a closer look at Byron's dramatic poem Manfred (1816–1817), and more importantly, its titular character in comparison to Jon Snow. I was originally going to do an analysis and comparison of two key episodes in Manfred and A Storm of Swords, Jon VI, but have since decided to give that its own post... that's right kids, there will be a part 3!

(Detail from Lord Byron, Thomas Phillips, 1813)

So... why Manfred? Why not Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, or The Corsair, or Don Juan, or any other work by Lord Byron? Well, I'll tell you why, my sweet summer children. It's because of THIS:

Manfred/Manfryds and Byrons in ASOIAF, by order of first appearance and publication:

Ser Manfred Swann (ASOS, Jaime VIII)

Ser Manfred Dondarrion (The Hedge Knight)

Manfred Lothston (The Sworn Sword)

Manfryd o' the Black Hood (AFFC, Brienne I)

Manfryd Yew (AFFC, Jaime V)

Ser Byron the Beautiful (AFFC, Alayne II, TWOW, Alayne I)

Ser Byron Swann (ADWD, Tyrion III)

Manfryd Merlyn of Kite (ADWD, Victarion I)

Manfryd Mooton, Lord of Maidenpool (The Princess and the Queen, TWOIAF)

Manfred Hightower, Lord of the Hightower (TWOIAF)

Manfred Hightower, Lord of the Hightower (Fire and Blood)

Like... what the hell, George?

I find this very interesting, very interesting indeed! *cough* intentional, very intentional *cough* And I have to thank @agentrouka-blog for reminding me of the existence of these Manfreds/Manfryds, and thus pointing me in this particular direction. This evidence is, for me, my smoking gun, it's why I feel justified in exploring this specific work. In my opinion, it really strongly confirms that GRRM is aware of Manfred, he is aware of its author — as a literary name, it is pretty much exclusively connected to Byron, it's like Hamlet to Shakespeare, or Heathcliff to Emily Brontë. In fact, GRRM likes it enough to use this name several times in fact, its frequency of use aided by a slight variation on its spelling.

So, as we can see, there are a striking number of Manfred/Manfryds (9!!) featured in the ASOIAF universe, whereas Byron (2) is used a bit more sparingly — perhaps because the latter, if more liberally used, would become far more recognisable as an overt literary reference? Interestingly, though, we can see a direct link between the two names as both bear the surname Swann: Ser Manfred Swann and Ser Byron Swann (note the exact spelling of Manfred here, as opposed to Manfryd). Ser Byron was alive during the Dance of Dragons and died trying to kill the dragon Syrax, whereas Ser Manfred was alive during Aegon V's reign and had a young Ser Barristan as his squire. So, in terms of ancestry, Byron came before Manfred, which makes sense since Lord Byron created the character of Manfred; he is his authorial/literary progenitor, if you will.

But why Swann, though? Is there any significance to that surname? Well, I did a little bit of digging and turned up something very interesting, at least in my opinion. In Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem Lines written among the Euganean Hills (1818), in its sixth stanza, the poet addresses the city of Venice... the “tempest-cleaving Swan” in the eighth line is clearly meant to be his friend and contemporary, Lord Byron, that city’s most famous expatriate:

That a tempest-cleaving Swan Of the songs of Albion, Driven from his ancestral streams By the might of evil dreams, Found a nest in thee;

(st. 6, l. 8-12)

Ah ha! But let's not forget that the Swanns are also a house from the stormlands — stormlander Swanns vs. "tempest-cleaving Swan." It seems a nice little homage, doesn't it? You could also argue that the battling swans of House Swann's sigil are a possible reference to Byron's fondness for boxing (he apparently received "pugilistic tuition" at a club in Bond Street, London). But to make the references to Byron too overt would ruin the subtly, so it isn't necessary, in my opinion, for the Swanns to be completely steeped in Byronisms.

All in all, it would be very neat of GRRM if the reasoning behind Byron and Manfred Swann is because of this reference to Lord Byron by Shelley. How these names and the characters that bear them might further reference Byron and Manfred is a possible discussion for another day! It's all just very interesting, very noteworthy, and highlights how careful GRRM is at choosing the names of his characters, even very minor, seemingly insignificant ones.

(Illustration of Villa Diodati from Finden's Illustrations of the Life and Works of Lord Byron, Edward Finden, 1833)

Now onto the actual poem, and the ways in which Jon Snow could being referencing/paralleling Manfred. First things first, a bit of biographical context. Take my hand, and let's travel back in time, way back when, to 1816, the year in which Lord Byron left England forever, his reputation in tatters due to the collapse of his marriage and the rumours of an affair with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh (plus he was hugely in debt). No doubt, most of us are familiar with the story, but in 1816 Byron travelled to Switzerland, to a villa on Lake Geneva, where he met the Shelleys and suggested that they all pass the time by writing ghost stories.

The most famous story produced by them was, of course, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) — which may have served as the partial inspiration behind Qyburn and Robert Strong! Byron himself did begin a story but soon gave it up (yesss, we love an unproductive king); it was completed, however, by his personal physician, John William Polidori, and eventually published, under Byron's name, as The Vampyre (1819). But Byron didn't completely abandon the ghost story project, as later that summer, after a visit by the Gothic novelist M. G. Lewis, he wrote his "supernatural" tragedy, Manfred (1817).*

*I've seen it dated as 1816-17, but the crucial thing to rememeber, in terms of Byron's own biography, is that unlike The Bride of Abydos, he wrote it after his departure from England... this theme of exile will come up later.

Manfred is what is called a "closet drama", so is structured much like a play, with acts and scenes, though it wouldn't have actually been intended to be performed on stage. Indeed, Lord Byron first described Manfred to his publisher as "a kind of poem in dialogue... but of a very wild—metaphysical—and inexplicable kind": "Almost all the persons—but two or three—are Spirits... the hero [is] a kind of magician who is tormented by a species of remorse—the cause of which is left half unexplained—he wanders about invoking these spirits—which appear to him—& are of no use—he at last goes to the very abode of the Evil principle in propria persona [i.e. in person]—to evocate a ghost—which appears—& gives him an ambiguous & disagreeable answer..."*

*As in Part 1, more academic references will be listed in a bibliography at the end of this post.

To sum up the narrative for you, Manfred is a nobleman living in the Bernese Alps, "tormented by a species of remorse", which is never fully explained, but is clearly connected to the death of his beloved Astarte. Through his mastery of poetic language and spell-casting, he is able to summon seven "spirits", from whom he seeks the gift of forgetfulness, but this plea cannot be granted — he cannot escape from his past. He is also prevented from escaping his mysterious guilt by taking his own life, but in the end, Manfred does die, thus defying religious temptations of redemption from sin. He therefore stands outside of societal expectations, a Romantic rebel who succeeds in challenging all of the authoritative powers he faces, ultimately choosing death over submission to the powerful spirits.

According to Lara Assaad, the character of Manfred is the "Byronic hero par excellence", as he shares its typical characteristics found in Byron's other work (as discussed in Part 1), "yet pushed to the extreme." As noted above, there is a defiance to Manfred's character, which is arguable also found in Jon. Certainly though, in all of Byron's works, the Byronic Hero appears as "a negative Romantic protagonist" to a certain extent, a being who is "filled with guilt, despair, and cosmic and social alienation," observes James B. Twitchell. I'll come back to those characteristics presently.

As noted by Assaad, "Byron scholars seem to agree on this definition of the Byronic Hero, however they focus mainly, if not exclusively, on the dynamics of guilt and remorse." Indeed, it is only in more recent years that the incest motif, as well as the influence of Byron's own biography, have been more widely discussed. But perhaps the most compelling aspect of the Byronic Hero is his complex psychology. Although trauma theory only really started to flourish during the 1990s, thus providing deeper insight into the symptoms that follow a traumatic experience, it nevertheless seems, at least to Assaad, that "Byron was familiar with it well before it was first discussed by professionals and diagnosed." As we know, GRRM began writing his series, A Song of Ice and Fire, during the 1990s, and character trauma and its effects feature heavily in his work, most notably in the case of Theon Greyjoy, but also in the memory editing of Sansa Stark in terms of the infamous "Unkiss".*

*The editing, or supressing, of memories is not exclusive to Sansa, however. E.g @agentrouka-blog has theorised a possible memory edit with regards to Tyrion and his first wife Tysha.

But if we return back to that original quote, in which GRRM makes the comparison between Jon and the Byronic Hero, his following statement is also very interesting:

The character I’m probably most like in real life is Samwell Tarly. Good old Sam. And the character I’d want to be? Well who wouldn’t want to be Jon Snow — the brooding, Byronic, romantic hero whom all the girls love. Theon [Greyjoy] is the one I’d fear becoming. Theon wants to be Jon Snow, but he can’t do it. He keeps making the wrong decisions. He keeps giving into his own selfish, worst impulses. [source]

As noted by @princess-in-a-tower, there is a close correspondence between Jon and Theon, with each acting as the other's foil in many respects. In fact, Theon does sort of tick off a few of the Byronic qualities I discussed last time, most notably standing apart from society, that "society" being the Starks in Winterfell, due to him essentially being a hostage. Later on, we see him develop a sense of deep misery as well due to his horrific treatment at the hands of Ramsey Snow. Like Theon, his narrative foil, Jon is also a character deeply informed by trauma (being raised a bastard), but the way they ultimately process and express that specific displacement trauma differs profoundly — Theon expresses it outwardly through his sacking of Winterfell, whereas Jon turns his trauma notably inwards.*

*Obviously, I'm not a medical professional — I'm more looking at this from a literary angle, but the articles I've read for this post do include reference to real medical definitions etc.

Previously, I observed how being "deeply jaded" and having "misery in his heart" were key characteristics of the Byronic Hero, as well as Jon Snow — this trauma theory is a continuation of that. Indeed, to bring it back to Manfred, Assaad goes as far as stating that the poem's titular hero "suffers from what is now widely recognised as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)." I am purposely holding off on discussing what the origin of that trauma is, in relation to Manfred specifically, because, well... it needs a bit of forewarning before I get into it fully. Instead, let's look at the emotions it exacerabates or gives rise to, as detailed by Twitchell, and how they might be evident in Jon and his feelings regarding his bastard status.

(Jonny Lee Miller as Byron in the two part BBC series Byron, 2003)

Guilt

Does Jon suffer guilt due to him being a bastard and secretly wanting to "steal" his siblings' birthright? I'd say a strong yes:

When Jon had been Bran's age, he had dreamed of doing great deeds, as boys always did. The details of his feats changed with every dreaming, but quite often he imagined saving his father's life. Afterward Lord Eddard would declare that Jon had proved himself a true Stark, and place Ice in his hand. Even then he had known it was only a child's folly; no bastard could ever hope to wield a father's sword. Even the memory shamed him. What kind of man stole his own brother's birthright? I have no right to this, he thought, no more than to Ice. – AGOT, Jon VIII He wanted it, Jon knew then. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily. May the gods forgive me. – ASOS, Jon XII

But I think Jon's sense of guilt also extends to the high expectations he sets for himself, his "moral superiority" in the face of his bastard status, as discussed in Part 1. He feels guilt pulling him in two different directions, in regards to Ygritte: guilt for loving her, for breaking his vows, and potentially risking a bastard, but also guilt for leaving her, for abandoning her, and potentially leaving her unprotected:

His guilt came back afterward, but weaker than before. If this is so wrong, he wondered, why did the gods make it feel so good? – ASOS, Jon III Ygritte was much in his thoughts as well. He remembered the smell of her hair, the warmth of her body... and the look on her face as she slit the old man's throat. You were wrong to love her, a voice whispered. You were wrong to leave her, a different voice insisted. He wondered if his father had been torn the same way, when he'd left Jon's mother to return to Lady Catelyn. He was pledged to Lady Stark, and I am pledged to the Night's Watch. – ASOS, Jon VI "I broke my vows with her. I never meant to, but..." It was wrong. Wrong to love her, wrong to leave her..."I wasn't strong enough. The Halfhand commanded me, ride with them, watch, I must not balk, I..." His head felt as if it were packed with wet wool. – ASOS, Jon VI

This guilt surrounding leaving the women/girls he cares about unprotected also extends to Arya. Yet it was his need to prove himself as something more than just a bastard, by joining the Watch, which initially prevents him from acting, and which also makes him feel guilt for being a hyprocrite:

Jon felt as stiff as a man of sixty years. Dark dreams, he thought, and guilt. His thoughts kept returning to Arya. There is no way I can help her. I put all kin aside when I said my words. If one of my men told me his sister was in peril, I would tell him that was no concern of his. Once a man had said the words his blood was black. Black as a bastard's heart. – ADWD, Jon VI

I think there is a lack of reconciliation between Jon and his bastard status, between what being a bastard implies in their society: lustful, deceitful, treacherous, more "worldly" etc. Deep down, subconsciously, Jon really rebels against it. You can see that rebellion more clearly in his memories as a younger child, less inhibited:

Every morning they had trained together, since they were big enough to walk; Snow and Stark, spinning and slashing about the wards of Winterfell, shouting and laughing, sometimes crying when there was no one else to see. They were not little boys when they fought, but knights and mighty heroes. "I'm Prince Aemon the Dragonknight," Jon would call out, and Robb would shout back, "Well, I'm Florian the Fool." Or Robb would say, "I'm the Young Dragon," and Jon would reply, "I'm Ser Ryam Redwyne." That morning he called it first. "I'm Lord of Winterfell!" he cried, as he had a hundred times before. Only this time, this time, Robb had answered, "You can't be Lord of Winterfell, you're bastard-born. My lady mother says you can't ever be the Lord of Winterfell." I thought I had forgotten that. Jon could taste blood in his mouth, from the blow he'd taken. – ASOS, Jon XII

But Jon knows this truth about himself, he knows that he has "always wanted it", and that causes him so much guilt because he can't allow himself to be selfish in that regard, because to do so would confirm for him his worst fears... that he truly is a bastard in nature as well as birth — treacherous, covetous, dishonourable.

Despair

As he grows up, learning to curb his emotional outbursts from AGOT, Jon appears more and more stoic upon the surface. But beneath that, buried in his subconscious in the form of dreams, you have this undyling feeling of despair, this trauma connected to his bastard status, his partially unknown heritage:

Not my mother, Jon thought stubbornly. He knew nothing of his mother; Eddard Stark would not talk of her. Yet he dreamed of her at times, so often that he could almost see her face. In his dreams, she was beautiful, and highborn, and her eyes were kind. – AGOT, Jon III

These recurring dreams, sometimes explicitly involving his unknown mother, sometimes not, represent a clear gap, a gaping blank in Jon's personal history and his perception of his identity:

"Sometimes I dream about it," he said. "I'm walking down this long empty hall. My voice echoes all around, but no one answers, so I walk faster, opening doors, shouting names. I don't even know who I'm looking for. Most nights it's my father, but sometimes it's Robb instead, or my little sister Arya, or my uncle." [...]

"Do you ever find anyone in your dream?" Sam asked.

Jon shook his head. "No one. The castle is always empty." He had never told anyone of the dream, and he did not understand why he was telling Sam now, yet somehow it felt good to talk of it. "Even the ravens are gone from the rookery, and the stables are full of bones. That always scares me. I start to run then, throwing open doors, climbing the tower three steps at a time, screaming for someone, for anyone. And then I find myself in front of the door to the crypts. It's black inside, and I can see the steps spiraling down. Somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don't want to. I'm afraid of what might be waiting for me. The old Kings of Winter are down there, sitting on their thrones with stone wolves at their feet and iron swords across their laps, but it's not them I'm afraid of. I scream that I'm not a Stark, that this isn't my place, but it's no good, I have to go anyway, so I start down, feeling the walls as I descend, with no torch to light the way. It gets darker and darker, until I want to scream." He stopped, frowning, embarrassed. "That's when I always wake." His skin cold and clammy, shivering in the darkness of his cell. Ghost would leap up beside him, his warmth as comforting as daybreak. He would go back to sleep with his face pressed into the direwolf's shaggy white fur. – AGOT, Jon IV

"That always scares me", he says quite tellingly. From this key passage, in particular, we can see that Jon feels a deep rooted despair at essentially being unclaimed, unwanted... being without a solid (Stark) identity around which to draw strength and mould himself. He's afraid of being a lone wolf, because as we all know, "the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives," (AGOT, Arya II).

This dream points him in the direction of the crypts — "somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don't want to" — which actually does have the answers he seeks because that is where Lyanna Stark is buried. Yet Jon is "afraid of what might be waiting for [him]", and wants to "scream" with dispair because of the darkness. So, this need for a confirmed identity is a double edged sword, which will no doubt be further complicated when his true parentage is revealed.

Elsewhere, Jon's dreams continue to have this despairing quality to them, often involving Winterfell, the Starks, and especially Ned, which is very interesting on a psychological level:

The grey walls of Winterfell might still haunt his dreams, but Castle Black was his life now, and his brothers were Sam and Grenn and Halder and Pyp and the other cast-outs who wore the black of the Night's Watch. – AGOT, Jon IV

Last night he had dreamt the Winterfell dream again. He was wandering the empty castle, searching for his father, descending into the crypts. Only this time the dream had gone further than before. In the dark he'd heard the scrape of stone on stone. When he turned he saw that the vaults were opening, one after the other. As the dead kings came stumbling from their cold black graves, Jon had woken in pitch-dark, his heart hammering. Even when Ghost leapt up on the bed to nuzzle at his face, he could not shake his deep sense of terror. He dared not go back to sleep. Instead he had climbed the Wall and walked, restless, until he saw the light of the dawn off to the east. It was only a dream. I am a brother of the Night's Watch now, not a frightened boy. – AGOT, Jon VII

But it is never "only a dream", is it?

And when at last he did sleep, he dreamt, and that was even worse. In the dream, the corpse he fought had blue eyes, black hands, and his father's face, but he dared not tell Mormont that. – AGOT, Jon VIII

Even Jon's conscious daydreams in AGOT revolve around his dispairing search for a solid identity:

A lot of these early dreams occur in A Game of Thrones, probably in response to his removal from Winterfell... his self exile. But later on in the series Jon continues to have dreams that tie him to the Starks and to Winterfell, ominous and sometimes despairing too. There's honestly too many instances to list, but if you want to understand the root of Jon's existential despair... it's in his dreams.

Cosmic Alienation

Cosmic alienation, now that's an interesting one in regards to Jon, since he definitely hasn't reached this state... yet. Life and his belief in the divine (the old gods) still hold meaning for him, but then he gets murdered by his black brothers. In the show, the writers hint at some cosmic alienation through Jon stating that he saw "nothing" whilst dead, but then they take it no further and generally do a piss poor job of post-res Jon. This characteristic of Manfred coming to the fore in Jon depends on what happens in The Winds of Winter, but I don't think it is at all that far fetched to assume that Jon will return to his body with a darker, altered perception of things.

Social Alienation

In Part 1, I discussed how Jon, like Byron's heroes, could be read as a "a rebel who stands apart from society and societal expectations." On a more psychological level, we can see how this Otherness, stemming from his bastard status, deeply affects Jon and his perception of himself and the world:

Benjen Stark gave Jon a long look. "Don't you usually eat at table with your brothers?"

"Most times," Jon answered in a flat voice. "But tonight Lady Stark thought it might give insult to the royal family to seat a bastard among them." – AGOT, Jon I

In his very first chapter, we see him quite literally alienated from the rest of his siblings, made to sit apart from them, an apparent necessity he seems fairly resigned to. Also in Part 1, I gave examples of instances in which Jon is mockingly called "Lord Snow," as well as a "rebel", "turncloak", "half-wildling", all of which serve to alienate him from the rest of the brothers of the Night's Watch.

Stannis gave a curt nod. "Your father was a man of honor. He was no friend to me, but I saw his worth. Your brother was a rebel and a traitor who meant to steal half my kingdom, but no man can question his courage. What of you?" – ASOS, Jon XI

The above interaction may seem on the surface to be about one thing — whether or not Jon will be of help to Stannis, offer him loyalty etc. — but tagged onto the end we have quite a poignant question: "what of you?" What are you, essentially. Who are you? The truth of his parentage may, in part, solve these questions... but it may also serve to alienate Jon from his perception of himself further. Ultimately, who exactly he is — what he believes in, who and what he fights for, etc. — will be solely his decision to make going forward.

So, the Byronic Hero, certainly in Manfred's case, but also in later iterations, is arguably traumatised by his own past. But regardless as to whether his trauma is related to a mysterious past, a secret sin, an unnamed crime, or incest, aka "secret knowledge", what is clear in Assaad's interpretation, is that the Byronic Hero is "living with the traumatic consequences of his own past and so suffers from PTSD." But why is Manfred traumatised, what is the specific cause of this trauma, or how might it reveal something deeper about Jon's own trauma? Now, here we come to the unavoidable... I'm going to start talking about Byronic incest and the pre-canon crush/kiss theory, and how it potentially parallels certain aspects of Manfred.

I should preface this by stating that I don't think Jon is suppressing trauma because he committed intentional incest with Sansa, but I do think (or at least somewhat theorise that) Byronic incest does come into play regarding his intense feelings of guilt and existential despair.

But still, stop reading now if are opposed to discussions of the pre-canon crush/kiss theory and the literary incest motif as a whole!

(Detail from The Funeral of Shelley, Louis Édouard Fournier, 1889)

Hey there to the depraved! If you aren't already familiar with the theory, here are some previous discussions/metas on the subject:

Full Blown Meta:

A Hidden and Forbidden Love by @princess-in-a-tower

Ask Answers (Long):

Jonsa as a more positive mirror to Jaime and Cersei? by @princess-in-a-tower, with additional comment by @jonsameta

Discussing the theory by @jonsameta

Evidence for pre-canon Jonsa? by @agentrouka-blog

Kissing in the godswood? by @agentrouka-blog

Why don't we read about Jon's reaction to Sansa and Tyrion? by @agentrouka-blog

More on Jon's supposed non-reaction by @agentrouka-blog, with additional comment made by @sherlokiness

A Jonsa "Unkiss"? by @fedonciadale

A hidden memory? by @fedonciadale

Sansa's misremembering by @fedonciadale

Descriptive parallels between A Song for Lya and Jonsa by @butterflies-dragons

Ask Answers (Short) & Briefer Mentions:

Jealous Jon by @princess-in-a-tower

Your new boyfriend looks like a girl by @butterflies-dragons

Like in Part 1, I've tried to cite as much as I could find, but as always, if anyone feels like I've missed someone important or that they should be included in the above list, please just drop me a line!

Now, it's a controversial theory, and not everyone's cup of tea — I think that's worth acknowledging! I myself am not wholly married to it, I'd be fine if it wasn't the case, but that being said, I can't in good faith ignore it when considering Lord Byron and the Byronic Hero. The incest is, unfortunately, very hard to ignore, both in his work and in his personal life. It's pretty hard to ignore in Manfred, for that matter, which is why I've held off talking about it... until now!

All aboard the Manfred incest train *choo choo* !!

First stop, Act II, scene one. Oh, wait, an annoucement from your conductor... apologies everyone, I purposely neglected to mention quite a key detail. Remember "Astarte! [Manfred's] beloved!", (II, iv, 136)? Yeah... it's heavily implied that Astarte is in fact Manfred's half-sister. *shoots finger guns* Classic Byron! *facepalms*

Oh, and that's not all! Let's consider the context surrounding the writing of this work for a moment, shall we? Unlike The Bride of Abydos (1813),* Manfred was written notably after the fallout of his incestuous affair with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh, composed whilst in a self-imposed exile. *spits out drink* Woah, woah there cowboy... what in tarnation?! EXILE?!

*As referenced in Part 1, @rose-of-red-lake has written an excellent meta on the influence of Lord Byron's work (and personal life) on Jonsa, paying special attention to the half-siblings turned cousins in The Bride of Abydos.

Although, as noted by rose-of-red-lake, The Bride of Abydos bears strong parallels to the potential romance of Jon and Sansa, as well as Byron’s own angst regarding his relationship with Augusta Leigh, the context surrounding Manfred seems... dare I say it, even more autobiographical. Because like Byron himself, Manfred wanders around the Bernese Alps, solitary and guilt ridden, in a state of exile heavily evocative of Byron's own — as I mentioned earlier, the beginnings of Manfred occured whilst Byron was staying at a villa on Lake Geneva, in Switzerland... the Bernese Alps are located in western Switzerland. In light of this, I think it's very understandable that some critics consider Manfred to be autobiographical, or even confessional. The unnamed but forbidden nature of Manfred's relationship to Astarte is believed to represent Byron's relationship with his half-sister Augusta. But what has that got to do with Jon?

Look, I don't know how else to put this:

Byron self-exiles in 1816, first to Switzerland, to Lake Geneva, where it is unseasonably cold and stormy — his departure from England is due to the collaspe of his marriage to Annabella Milbanke, unquestionably as a result of the rumours surrounding his incestuous affair with his half-sister.

Displaced nobleman Manfred wanders the Bernese Alps, in a kind of moral exile, where "the wind / Was faint and gusty, and the mountain snows / Began to glitter with the climbing moon" (III, iii, 46-48), traversing "on snows, where never human foot / Of common mortal trod" (II, iii, 4-5), surrounded by a "glassy ocean of the mountain ice" (II, iii, 7). He feels extreme, but unexplained guilt surrounding the death of his "beloved" Astarte, who is heavily implied to also be his half-sister.

In A Game of Thrones, Jon Snow chooses to join the Night's Watch, with the reminder that "once you have taken the black, there is no turning back" (AGOT, Jon VI). By taking the black, Jon arguably exiles himself from the rest of the Starks, from Winterfell, to a place that "looked like nothing more than a handful of toy blocks scattered on the snow, beneath the vast wall of ice" (AGOT, Jon III). But we aren't given any indication that he does this due to incestuous feelings regarding a "radiant" half-sister, akin to Byron/Manfred, are we? And it's not like we have several Manfreds/Manfryds AND Byrons namedropped within the text, is it? Oh wait... we do. *grabs GRRM in a chokehold*

What the hell, George?!

(Lord Byron on His Deathbed, Joseph Denis Odevaere, c. 1826)

But lets get back on track here and take a closer look at that section of Manfred I mentioned at the beginning — Act II, scene one, aka the part where all the incest and supressed trauma really JUMPS out.

So, early in Act II, in the chamois hunter's abode (a chamois is a type of goat?), according Assaad's analysis, Manfred is "hyper-aroused by a cup of wine." The wine is offered in an attempt to calm Manfred; however, to the chamois hunter's great dismay, it instead agitates him and makes him utter words which are "strange" (II, i, 35). Rather than wine, Manfred sees "blood on the brim" (II, i, 25). His sudden agitation and erratic behaviour confound the chamois hunter, who observes that Manfred is losing his mind: "thy senses wander from thee" (II, i, 27). Assaad's analysis of this scene, which she believes "is the most revelatory in the entire play" discloses "a bitter truth: Manfred's traumatic past informs his present life."

We might compare this with Jon, in particular, how his dreams reveal certain bitter truths to do with his past, now subconsciously informing his present. I've already looked a bit at his crypt dream from AGOT, Jon IV, but we see a sort of recurrence of this dream again in ASOS, Jon VIII. The imagery of being in a crypt, somewhere underground, buried, in the dark, a place of ghosts and spirits, is extremely evocative. Indeed, to go back to Byron's own description of Manfred, the setting of a crypt is extremely suggestive of certain bitter truths "left half unexplained", of secrets buried... and we know that's true because the secret of Jon's parentage is hidden down there, in the form of Lyanna Stark.

He dreamt he was back in Winterfell, limping past the stone kings on their thrones. Their grey granite eyes turned to follow him as he passed, and their grey granite fingers tightened on the hilts of the rusted swords upon their laps. You are no Stark, he could hear them mutter, in heavy granite voices. There is no place for you here. Go away. He walked deeper into the darkness. "Father?" he called. "Bran? Rickon?" No one answered. A chill wind was blowing on his neck. "Uncle?" he called. "Uncle Benjen? Father? Please, Father, help me." Up above he heard drums. They are feasting in the Great Hall, but I am not welcome there. I am no Stark, and this is not my place. His crutch slipped and he fell to his knees. The crypts were growing darker. A light has gone out somewhere. "Ygritte?" he whispered. "Forgive me. Please." But it was only a direwolf, grey and ghastly, spotted with blood, his golden eyes shining sadly through the dark... – ASOS, Jon VIII

I don't think it's outlandish to state that, unquestionably, Jon's bastard identity is a source of ongoing pain for him. I talked about the theme of despair in Jon's characterisation and it is very evident in the above, and it stems from this "bitter truth" of not being a trueborn Stark, of not being "welcome", or having a true place. The emotions/mindset this trauma, concerning his birth and identity, evokes in Jon is arguably what brings him, on first glance, so closely in line with the Byronic Hero:

Their grey granite eyes turned to follow him as he passed / The crypts were growing darker = A mysterious past / secret sin(s)

You are no Stark / I am no Stark = Deeply jaded

There is no place for you here / I am not welcome there / This is not my place = standing apart from society and societal expectations / social alienation

He dreamt he was back in Winterfell / He walked deeper into the darkness = Moody / misery in his heart

He fell to his knees / Forgive me = Guilt

He walked deeper into the darkness / Please, Father, help me / He fell to his knees = Despair

These aren't all the Byronic characteristics I've addressed in relation to Jon, but it is a substantial percentage of them, all encapsulated, in one way or another, within this singular dream passage. As far as what is fairly explicit in the text, being a bastard is Jon's "bitter truth", it is the "traumatic past inform[ing] his present life." But what is Manfred's "bitter truth", what past trauma is informing his present? And can it reveal a bit more about another layer to Jon's trauma? Because there is a key distinction — Manfred's trauma, his PTSD, stems from a specific event, notably triggered by the (imagined) "blood on the brim" of his wine, whereas for Jon, we have no singular event, we have no momentus experience, we just have this "truth."

As mentioned previously, Assaad has recognised the character of Manfred as displaying symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In Assaad's article, she remarks that "an experience is denoted as traumatic if it completely overwhelms the individual, rendering him or her helpless," and this is quite evident in the interaction between Manfred and the chamois hunter. Sharon Stanley, an educator and clinical psychotherapist, writes that "the word trauma has been used to describe a variety of aversive, overwhelming experiences with long-term, destructive effects on individuals and communities."

So, if trauma is related to an experience, or experiences, is it still accurate to say that Jon experiences trauma, connected to being a bastard? Because there is seemingly no singular or defining root experience, or event that it stems from, it just is… it is a compellation of several moments, revealed to the reader through Jon’s memories and/or dreams. What is being "left half unexplained” here?

Assaad makes reference to the American Psychiatric Association's definition of PTSD, in which it observes that for an individual to be diagnosed with PTSD, they have to suffer from one or more intrustion symptoms, one or more avoidance symptoms, two or more negative alterations, and two or more hyperarousal symptoms. The dreams Jon has certainly suggest something, but it seems like a stretch to say that, like Manfred, he is suffering from PTSD, right? We and Jon are very much aware that he is "no Stark", at least not in the sense that he is Ned's trueborn son, this isn’t something Jon is actively suppressing. By comparison, it is incontrovertible that Manfred committed something in the past, which he deeply wishes to forget and disassociate from:

Man. I say ’tis blood—my blood! the pure warm stream Which ran in the veins of my fathers, and in ours When we were in our youth, and had one heart, And loved each other as we should not love, And this was shed: but still it rises up, Colouring the clouds, that shut me out from heaven, Where thou art not—and I shall never be. C. Hun. Man of strange words, and some half—maddening sin

(II, i, 28-35)

However, we cannot be sure what this traumatic point of origin is, though we know that it is related to something he has done to his beloved Astarte, which subsequently led to her death. Many critics have suggested that his sin is that of incest, and as I noted earlier, that Manfred as a whole is more than just a bit autobiographical and/or confessional in nature. Manfred's incestuous sin therefore re-enacts Byron's incest with his half-sister Augusta. But regardless of the true cause, Manfred is traumatised by his past and cannot overcome it. Is there something in Jon’s past, that may have subconsciously, or consciously, influenced his departure to the Wall — his self exile — which he cannot overcome, and which is closely tied to the issue of and pain he feels due to being a bastard, not just the illegitimacy, but also the negative characteristics it assigns? Is there an event, or experience, we can pinpoint as the origin of Jon’s trauma and potential PTSD?

To circle back to Jonsa, there is some, not unfounded, debate amongst us concerning the validity of the pre-canon crush/kiss theory. I've always found it an interesting theory, but until now, I haven't really given it too much thought. In light of the Byron connection, however, as well as the textual analysis I have for Part 3, I think this scenario, as detailed by agentrouka-blog, seems more and more likely. And I don't say that lightly, I really don't. It is a somewhat uncomfortable speculation to make, even if the interaction was more innocent rather than explicit (this is the side I firmly fall down on), however, it’s ambiguity does potentially parallel Byron’s Manfred and Astarte. This post would be even longer if I included my side-by-side text comparisons, so you may have to trust me for the moment that there are some very striking similarities between Act II, scene I of Manfred, and Jon's milk of the poppy induced dream in ASOS, Jon VI, as well as the actual buildup to that vision.

But, that sounds frankly terrible doesn't it? And it doesn't bode well for his future relationship with Sansa, does it? And what does it mean if Jon is suffering from PTSD due to an incestuous encounter with Sansa? What does that mean for Sansa, Sansa who is doggedly abused and mistreated by men within the present narrative? This is awful, why would GRRM root their romance in something traumatic? Oh I hear you, and these are questions I needed to ask myself whilst compiling this. But you see... now bear with me here... it isn't the actual encounter itself that was traumatic, for either Jon or Sansa, and that is reflected in both their POVs, because, though they think about each other sparingly (explicitly at least), it is never done so negatively. No, the potential PTSD Jon suffers from this experience isn't connected to Sansa, to whatever occured between them. Rather, I believe, it's connected to either the fear, or the reality, that Ned, his assumed father, saw and/or caught him (either Sansa had left at this point, or didn't fully grasp the issue), and this fear, this guilt, this sense of despair, is made evident in this passage:

When the dreams took him, he found himself back home once more, splashing in the hot pools beneath a huge white weirwood that had his father’s face. Ygritte was with him, laughing at him, shedding her skins till she was naked as her name day, trying to kiss him, but he couldn’t, not with his father watching. He was the blood of Winterfell, a man of the Night’s Watch. I will not father a bastard, he told her. I will not. I will not. “You know nothing, Jon Snow,” she whispered, her skin dissolving in the hot water, the flesh beneath sloughing off her bones until only skull and skeleton remained, and the pool bubbled thick and red. – ASOS, Jon VI

That's the traumatic experience, I believe, not the kiss — yep, I strongly suspect there was a kiss. Moreover, Jon's recurring assertion, throughout the series, that he "will not father a bastard" is tied to this in some way, it’s tied to Ned, it’s tied to some sense of guilt and shame. It’s not tied to Sansa. But we'll look at this passage, what it means, what it parallels, and what directly precedes it, in comparison to Manfred, a lot more closely next time.

I'll leave you with a slight teaser though — the parallel that made me really sit up and take notice:

C. Hun. Well, sir, pardon me the question, And be of better cheer. Come, taste my wine; 'Tis of an ancient vintage; many a day 'T has thaw’d my veins among our glaciers, now Let it do thus for thine. Come, pledge me fairly. Man. Away, away! there’s blood upon the brim! Will it then never—never sink in the earth?

(II, i, 21-26)

Note this imagery!!!

Maester Aemon poured it full. "Drink this."

Jon had bitten his lip in his struggles. He could taste blood mingled with the thick, chalky potion. It was all he could do not to retch it back up. – ASOS, Jon VI

In both instances, a drink is offered, with "blood upon the brim", and "blood mingled". In Manfred's case, this is an explicit trigger for him, whereas for Jon? Well, it bit more hidden, a bit more buried, but this moment is, to my mind, the catalyst, because its imagery strongly evokes the colours of the weirwood tree — "blood" red and "chalky" white — you know, the "huge white weirwood" he later on envisions.

*spits out drink*

Maybe the magnitude of this parallel isn't completely evident as of yet, but it will be... or at least I hope it will be, so stay tuned for Part 3!

(Starting to run out of Byron pics so... I dunno, here's Rupert Everret, from The Scandalous Adventures of Lord Byron, 2009)

In Conclusion

To summarise, why is the Manfred connection so monumental to me? Why do I find the pre-canon kiss theory, specifically the scenario detailed by agentrouka-blog, now very hard to dismiss? Because:

The nine (!) Manfreds/Manfryds included within the text, as well as the two Byrons, one of which, the first mentioned in fact, first appears in Sansa's POV. But crucicially the direct link made by GRRM between Byron Swann and Manfred Swann.

The strength of the similarities that can be observed between Jon and the Byronic Hero, but also notably to Byron's Manfred, the "Byronic hero par excellence", according to Assaad. Especially the recurring emotions of guilt and despair, the latter exemplified perhaps most clearly in Jon's dreams.

The prominent theme of self-exile to escape something, something that perhaps cannot be openly stated, present in Manfred, Byron's own life, and Jon's narrative.

Those pesky half-sisters: Augusta, Astarte, and Sansa.

The PTSD symptoms clearly present in Manfred, but left "half unexplained", and seemingly not explained at all in Jon's POV — I'll dig more into this in Part 3.

The "blood upon the brim", and "blood mingled" — more on that in Part 3, I hope you guys like in depth imagery analysis!

Obviously, this is all still just speculation on my part, and it's speculation in connection to a theory that is understandably controversial. I'd be happy to dismiss it... if it weren't for the above. So, I suppose I'm in two minds about it. On the one hand, however you look at it, it's more trauma in an already traumatic series... which is *sighs* not what you want for the characters you care strongly about. But on the other hand, that literary connection to Manfred (and by extension to actual Lord Byron), the way it's lining up, plus that comparison GRRM himself made between Jon and the Byronic Hero... that's all very compelling and interesting to me as a reader, as a former English literature student. So, I don't want it to be true because... incest hell. But then, I also want it to be true because then it makes me feel smart for guessing correctly.

But anyway, we're going to be descending into incest hell in Part 3, so... we'll just have to grapple with that when we come to it. I hope, if you stuck with it till the incesty end, that you enjoyed this post!

Stay tuned ;)

Bibliography of Academic Sources:

American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edn (Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing, 2013); online edition at www.dsm5.org

Assaad, Lara, "'My slumbers—if I slumber—are not sleep': The Byronic Hero’s Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder", The Byron Journal 47, no. 2 (2019): 153–163.

Byron, George Gordon Noel, Byron’s Letters and Journals. Ed. Leslie A. Marchand. 12 vols. London: Murray, 1973–82.

Holland, Tom, "Undead Byron", in Byromania: Portraits of the Artist in Nineteenth- and Twentieth- Century Culture, ed. by Frances Wilson (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000).

MacDonald, D. L. "Narcissism and Demonality in Byron’s 'Manfred'", Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal 25, no. 2 (1992): 25–38.

Stanley, Sharon, Relational and Body-Centered Practices for Healing Trauma: Lifting the Burdens of the Past (London: Routledge, 2016)

Twitchell, James B., The Living Dead: A Study of the Vampire in Romantic Literature (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1981).

#jonsa #jon x sansa #jonsa meta #jon as the byronic hero #byronic hero #lord byron #tw: incest #cappy's thoughts #grrm and the Romantics #Jonsa and Romanticism #percy bysshe shelley #romantic poets #literary references #damn this was a long one!#glad a split it into another part!#i started to get a bit unhinged by the end not gonna lie

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howaboutalittlehelpneos · 3 years

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What are everyone’s teams in your Pokemon au? Do you have a plot set out or is it a more causal au?

Oooooh this is a fun one

You'd better fucking BELIEVE we have a plot set up, I have poured so much effort into the Pokemon au

Okay, so: when it comes to teams, I decided that everyone should have at least one legendary Pokemon in their party as a way to be faithful to the ace monster concept, but it wasn’t until much later into the au that I realized I’d failed to do that with Sora’s team, which led to a very fun plot point involving his secret 7th Pokemon he keeps in his box

Teams under the cut because it’s gonna be a long one, boys

Yuya has: Groudon, Sandshrew, Popplio, Hippopotas, Aipom, and Ekans

In his box, he’s got Phanphy, Charmander, Politoad, Ducklett, Liepard, Skorupi, and Lycanroc (Midnight form)

I wanted him to have as many Pokemon as he could that reminded me of the monsters in his deck, and since Yuya is a coordinator in this au instead of a regular trainer, it just felt right that he’d have a lot of different partners he could swap out for various contests

Also I’m mad that there isn’t a legendary dragon that looks like Odd Eyes, so I had to give Yuya Groudon instead, making him the only Yu boy in this au to not have a legendary dragon type Pokemon

Yuto has: Eternatus, Bisharp, Aegislash, Aggron, Lucario, and Shadow Rider Calyrex

Okay listen, I know I was supposed to only give everyone One legendary Pokemon, but with Calyrex I feel justified because it looks So Much like it could be one of Yuto’s Phantom Knights, I mean

Just look at it

Yuto gets to have two legendaries to make up for Arc-V killing him off so early into the show

Aside from this guy, the rest of Yuto’s team just felt like it should be comprised of steel types ow the edge so that’s what I gave him. His Pokemon are as edgy as he tries to appear to be and that is enough to amuse me.

There also weren’t exactly many good Pokemon equivalents of his archetype, so I made do with what I had.

Yugo has: Latios, Scizor, Claydol, Porygon 2, Ponyta (Shiny), and Sudowoodo

Yugo was honestly so hard to come up with a team for because all his Speedroid cards are just like... toys and stuff for the most part, so I agonized over what I should pick for him for a Long time. In the end, I feel like I got close enough to his general aesthetic with the Pokemon I picked.

(His Ponyta is there because of Speedroid Horse Stilts, and while it is a shiny, the dumbass has no idea about it, and thinks he just happened to get a special blue horse that was born a little differently- he never claimed to be smart.)

He also deadass thought Sudowoodo was a grass type for the longest time. Rin had to be the one to tell him it wasn’t.

“Yugo. Sudowoodo? It sounds like pseudo? As in fake wood?”

“Ohhhhh is that what its name means? Wow Rin you’re so smart.”

No Yugo you’re just exceptionally stupid.

Yuri has: Naganadel, Seviper, Victreebel, Toxicroak, Vileplume, and Roserade

For the most toxic of battlers, I felt it only necessary to give Yuri an all poison type team. I included an even mix of plants in there to tie into his Predaplant deck, Seviper for the snake eye vibes, and Toxicroak... just feels right, you know. I couldn’t find any other poison plant themed Pokemon that seemed like they’d fit his vibe, so he gets a poison frog instead.

Yuzu has: Meloetta, Sylveon, Meowstic (Female), Gardevoir, Florges, and Jigglypuff

I tried to stick with Pokemon that had very feminine vibes for Yuzu, since her deck is comprised of pretty singing ladies, so Meloetta and Jigglypuff in particular feel very fitting in that regard.

Serena has: Cresselia, Delcatty, Glameow, Lopunny, Persian, and Pyroar (Female)

The moon vibes with Cresselia felt perfect for Serena, and as for the rest of her team, all cats and a bunny to pay homage to her Lunalight deck ^^

Rin has: Celesteela, Mismagius, Hatterene, Glaceon, Froslass, and Chimecho

Her team vibes with the witch part of her Wind Witch deck, at least for Mismagius and Hatterene. Glaceon, Froslass, and Chimecho are there due to the etymology of her name, where possible meanings of it include “cold” and “bell”, which I thought was pretty cool, no pun intended.

Ruri has: Galarian Articuno, Pidgeot, Noctowl, Chatot, Altaria, and Unfezant (Male)

Some softer birds for the soft bird girl, for the most part. I liked the thought of her team being all birds like her Lyriluscs, and just... yeah. They’re all very friendly birds that Ruri’s bonded pretty closely with. Also I made sure she had Galarian Articuno for no reason other than it is purple like her, and I think that’s all the reason I need.

Gong has: Kartana, Machoke, Samurott, Golisopod, Hariyama, and Conkeldurr

Gong was really easy to assign a team to- just had to find as many samurai themed Pokemon as possible, and fill in the rest with really strong fighting types, like Machoke, Hariyama, and Conkeldurr.

Shingo has: Type: Null, Dusclops, Misdreavus, Spiritomb, Decidueye, and Cramorant

With Shingo, I tried to go for Pokemon that had the same vibes as some of his Abyss Actors, and I think Dusclops is the best example of this. Tbh I am very proud of giving him a Type: Null because Type: Null is an amalgamation of other Pokemon, something that was created in a lab to be a fighting machine. There’s nothing natural about Type: Null, and it’s kind of terrifying to Yuya specifically, who’s always viewed Pokemon as creatures to befriend. This experiment created purely to kill... unnerves him, and serves as a very good foil to his beliefs when it comes to Pokemon.

And they were narrative foils

Oh my god they were narrative foils

On a sillier note, I chose Cramorant purely because of this quote from its bulbapedia page: “Cramorant are also rather unintelligent as they can't remember which Pokémon they fight in mid battle, but never forget Trainers that they trust. However, they try to attack their Trainers if they steal food from them.”

I just thought the idea of Shingo having this dumb bird that occasionally pecks at him over food would be funny tbh, gotta dunk on the rival at least a little bit.

Sora has: Banette, Vanillish, Swirlix, Stufful, Litleo, and Buneary

In his box, he has a Guzzlord

I feel like Sora’s team is very straightforward, as it’s a mix of sweets themed Pokemon, and Pokemon that represent monsters in his deck- Stufful for Flufflal Bear, Litleo for Fluffal Leo, and Buneary for Fluffal Rabbit. Guzzlord... is relevant later on in the plot after shit goes down, that’s all I’ll say for now.

Masumi has: Diancie, Sableye, Corsola, Aurorus, Tyranitar, and Lycanroc (Dusk form)

Gem Knight girl deserved to have a bunch of good rock type Pokemon, and Diancie is like. The best possible legendary I could have given someone like her lol, the crystal aesthetic is just perfect for her. Not much to say here honestly, I just really vibed with these specific rock types and thought they’d make a good team for her.

Yaiba has: Zeraora, Kecleon, Pangoro, Scyther, Purugly, and Stantler

So I actually threw this list together just now because I realized Masumi was the only member of her trio to have a full team, and that just wasn’t right. I tried to base this team off the XX-Sabers as well I could, but it was a little hard with how many humanoid cards Yaiba has. With his legendary, I actually chose it based off this monster right here!

I think they’ve got similar enough vibes aesthetically for Zeraora to fit him. Scyther is based on Emmersblade, Kecleon on Ragigura, Stantler on Garsem, Purugly on Gardestrike, and Pangoro... Honestly, it just makes me think of Yaiba himself when I look at him. I think they’d get along well.

Hokuto has: Deoxys, Espeon, Grumpig, Starmie, Lunatone, and Malamar

Psychic type Pokemon just sort of felt right for him to have, considering that his deck is based on constellations and has an overall space theme to it. Not sure why that translates over to psychic in my brain, but you know what, it looks right, I love this team for him, and I’m not gonna question it.

I especially think Deoxys makes a good legendary for him considering it is literally a space alien, and Hokuto’s whole thing is space, so yeah, he gets to have the space alien.

Shun has: Galarian Moltres, Skarmory, Fearow, Dodrio, Staraptor, and Talonflame

Pretty straightforward team I feel- it’s all birds of prey for the Raid Raptor boy, and I just thought the Galarian version of Moltres was neat. Makes me think of his Blaze Falcon since they’re both black and red.

Dennis has: Hoopa, Mr. Mime, Delphox, Zoroark, Alakazam, and Hawlucha

Hoopa seemed like a very good legendary for Dennis to have, given his deck archetype and all, he just kind of looks like a little circus dude. Its unbound form makes me think about the swap Dennis has when it gets revealed that he’s actually been a double agent the whole time, and the play gloves finally come off.

The rest of his team... I feel like they speak for themselves. I tried to give him Pokemon that matched up with his deck archetype, so there’s Delphox to rep the fire themed monsters, Mr. Mime because it just fits Dennis’ general personality- and I love the thought of those two being friends and just copying each other’s theatric poses. Chaotic dynamic duo.

(Also: Zoroark's ability letting it disguise itself as another Pokemon is just another parallel to Dennis pretending to be one of the good guys at first, and I love it)

Shinji has: Buzzwole, Beedrill, Vespiquen, Ribombee, Kricketune, and Leavanny

I tried to give the bee man all the bees I could, but there are only so many bee Pokemon out there 😔 I knew the rest of his team had to be insect types to make up for it, so I picked Kricketune because he is just... a friend... a musical buddy who definitely gets along well with the kids. Leavanny is just a bug mom who also helps patch up the kids’ clothing when they get tears in them, which I just love the idea of. Sweet bug mom whose dex entry talks about how they sew for other Pokemon looks after her trainer’s kids when she’s not battling.

Buzzwole: witness the fitness

Throwback to the Smash Bros mains lmao

Crow has: Murkrow, Braviary, Starly, Swellow, Pikipek, and Corviknight

Bunch of birds for my Blackwing user... This team was partially picked out by June, and it was mostly meant for the Other Pokemon au, but I don’t really see a reason to change his team here. Crow is the one person without a legendary on his team, which makes me sad, but there really isn’t a legendary bird out there that fits his vibes, so as much as I wanna give him a legendary, he will have to make do without one. Sorry Crow.

Hoo... that’s finally all the teams down. Now I can talk about the plot! So, as I briefly mentioned in a previous post (I think), this particular au is inspired by Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum! It’s the era where contests really became a big thing, which is perfect for a lot of these characters because it’s easy to translate dueltaining over to coordinating in this world. Much like in canon, Yuya aspires to be as great a coordinator as his dad was, and strives to entertain people the way Yusho could. He’s not much for battling, and far prefers getting to show off his Pokemon’s talents in contests than anything.

Academia is going to play the role of Team Galactic in this au, which is incredibly fitting with their mission in canon: to remake the universe in their leader’s image. In this case, with Leo Akaba taking on the role of Cyrus, his intent is, presumably, to either destroy the universe that took his daughter from him, or create a new one where she can live once again, no matter the cost.

Sora being a key member in Team Galactic is a very big part of the plot in this au: his mission was to capture one of the lake legendaries, Uxie, since Leo needed all three of them for his plan to remake the universe, but things don’t exactly go well for him, and he ends up losing his battle against Uxie, resulting in all of his memories being locked away, and essentially making him a blank slate.

Side note: the Galactic grunt haircut reminds me a lot of Sora, I mean just look at it

Practically same bangs as him, just add an upturned ponytail and you’ve got my son.

This post is getting very long... but I will add one last plot related thing to it before I go: Uxie can erase memories, Mesprit can erase emotions, and Azelf can erase willpower. All three of these lake legendaries play a very important role in the plot, due to being the keys to Leo Akaba’s plans to remake the universe. Sora was touched by Uxie, effectively doing away with all memory he has of being in Team Galactic. Yuya ends up touched by Mesprit in an attempt to save them, and subsequently loses his emotions as a result. Riley?

Riley had been affected by all three of them before the plot began, which is why she is the way she’d been in Arc-V: Emotionless, unable to remember anything about her past except for those brief, fleeting flashes of memory when put into certain situations she’d experienced before, and without any will of her own. She’s so dependent on her older brother because she quite literally has no clue what to do with herself without being told to, and needs orders to function.

Hoo, if you’ve made it all the way to the end of the post, congratulations! I think this is the longest one I’ve made... ever lmao. I hope you guys found it enjoyable! If anyone wants to know more about certain aspects of this au, feel free to ask! I look forward to talking about it more c:

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scrappedtogether · 3 years

Text

Thoughts on Sword and the Scoob:

***Spoilers under the cut***

The Positives:

I thought this movie was better than Happy Halloween

Daphne dancing was cute. I also loved that Fred pretty much immediately joined in and then Shaggy and Scooby did too.

Liked the “I love your hair” joke

Daphne&Fred + “Knight in Shining Armor” moment = adorable

Fred’s knight outfit was easily my fav

I loved the montage of them all taking selfies. Super cute!

I actually really enjoyed King Arthur. I love the Gang, of course, but I’m also a sucker for a good ole sixth addition. His camaraderie with Shaggy was sweet. I also like the change-up that comes with the dynamics whenever the Gang befriends someone who isn’t as nice as they are.

Daphne’s A+ fighting, jousting, and archery was a pleasure to watch

Scooby saying that Fred was also his knight in shining armor 👌

Fred saying that he’s an artist when talking about how good he is at making traps

“Velma’s usually right about these things” 👏 Fred

Shaggy drinking respect women juice and saying women can do whatever they want and also that some are scary 😤👍 my boy

Velma letting Daphne be Ariel and sit where she wanted on the Dragon 🥺

Scooby refusing to eat while Shaggy was in danger

Shaggy and Scooby dancing and celebrating together when they think Morgan’s been defeated

Fred touching Shaggy’s face a bunch when he first sees the Castle

^Also Scooby licking Shaggy’s face after they found him

Shaggy being asked if he’s alright by the Gang and responding “I am now that you guys are here.” 😭

Daphne calling the Gang “Dudes”

Norville being a family name

Shaggy not wanting to own land because people invested in real estate tend to be kinda evil 😂

King Arthur’s cute little reflection about whether Shaggy was his mate or not and then saying he was at least the closest thing he ever had to one. I KNOW IT WASNT REAL GUYS BUT IT WAS IN MY HEAAART

I enjoyed the callbacks to all the previous media with the sleep gas fog

The Gang holding hands in a circle while falling toward the ground (though, I don’t understand how they went from being in the air to then landing safely on the ground — was the flying through the air thing a dream? they would have still been moved though, right?)

I thought the picture disappearing thing was actually cool and a neat way to raise the stakes. It’s nothing that hasn’t been done before but I wasn’t expecting them to implement it and I liked how it worked to move the plot forward in a way that felt natural. (Also Daph had it as her lockscreen, I’m 🥺)

Mystery machine wagon was cool

I thought the gag with Arthur being happy Lancelot got beaten up was pretty good

Sidenote: Jason Isaacs killed it

Fred giving Daphne his ascot

SIR FRED SIR DAPHNE

Fred slapping the plate of food out of Shaggy’s hands was probably the best joke of the whole movie

A Few Negatives:

This movie along with the last few has been a bit over saturated I think??? I can’t tell if it’s me or my monitor or what but I feel like the colors have been turned up a bit lately. I thought this film wasn’t as bad as Happy Halloween (which had really bright greens, pinks, and oranges that were too much for my eyes) but still a little intense

Budget constraints in general mean the animation’s a little lower in quality but nothing that detracts from the viewing experience

Gaslight was not something I ever expected to hear in a Scooby movie. Writers were clearly not using the word in the same context as it’s most used nowadays but it still threw me for a sec

Really didn’t like Velma saying she only watched Thundarr for the abs. Seemed very un-Velma 😬 Also initially thought she was going to have cute bonding over books with the librarian lady but nope, definitely not where that went

Some of the dialogue was hard to follow, just a couple scene where the exchanges were a bit quick/oddly-paced. Also some of the jokes didn’t land for me but that’s nothing unusual, especially since this movie is FULL of humor so a few not doing it for me is expected, and mostly to taste. I have no doubt the film will make you laugh at least once if not multiple times (like it did for me) so 😉

Wish they’d handled the joke about Fred’s susceptibility just a little differently.

(Not a negative just a related note) But everything he said about his Dad. 😧 Very Concerned for my son

Forgetting to charge the phone was a little contrived but ultimately necessary and forgivable

I guess airline ticket prices were the real monster are along....

#Fred Jones #Daphne Blake #Sword and the Scoob #sword and the scoob spoilers #I’m going to wait a few more days before reblogging any Sword and the Scoob posts to give everyone the best possible chance of avoiding #spoilers and when I do start to reblog SatS posts I’ll be tagging them ‘sword and the scoob spoilers’ so please blacklist if you’ll #be avoiding spoilers past Fri because that’s when I’ll start reblogging spoilery posts #overall happy with this film. excited for the next. :)#Scooby Doo #Shaggy Rogers #Velma Dinkley

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sagasofazeria · 3 years

Text

Since my story is a D&D campaign, if people want to know, I will happily share some of the more game-y stuff behind the characters! (@talesfromaurea & @hellishhin i know you guys were interested! Here you go :D)

As of right now in the story, they’re about level 4! By the end of the campaign though they get to level 15.

Faulkron:

- Dark Elf/Drow Fighter (Champion)

- In a little bit (story-wise), my friend hit a lucky streak and the power of the protagonist™ kicks in. Faulkron gets... terrifying. He’s technically still “just a fighter” but he’s really really good at fighting. Like, scary hyper competent. I mean, he started with almost maxed strength, and it only got better.

- He did a lot of damage, consistently rolled high. Sadly, he doesn’t get better armor than leather for a while, but once he does he really wrecks the enemies’ shit, goes full Stronk™ and really starts just soaking attacks.

- He was a fun character for me to see my friend play because he had no clue about any of the “fighters are boring” things that people say, and so he felt free to just play without worry. He just had fun with him and went for it. He wasn’t the most complicated mechanics-wise, but he still was interesting and had personality, so it worked fine.

- Also, although he is a dark elf, and his parents were from the caverns beneath the earth like usual, he was raised on a small farm on the surface by a human, and so he is very different than many other dark elves, especially if they were raised in the Underdark. His darkvision is a little different due to his eyes having to deal with more light than most dark elves, and though he could do the elvish trance instead of sleeping he usually chooses to sleep instead, because of being raised by a human. (In my world, elves can choose to sleep if they want.)

Fuego:

Halfling Sorcerer/Rogue

- Being from Zul’Zagan, he is equivalent to a Lightfoot halfling

- His subclasses are a bit wonky: Draconic origins for sorcerer (although he doesn’t know it yet), assassin for rogue (eventually. We’re also not quite there in the story yet.)

- Despite what you may expect, does not only have fire spells. It is a near thing, but not quite. The variety increases as he gets higher up.

- He also wanted to do some cool flavor things (which I’m always game for) so his abilities look a little different than standard.

- An example, his sneak attack damage is reflavored to be him heating his weapon. He also wanted his draconic bloodline to be more dormant, so he doesn’t have any of the bodily alterations or know draconic, he’s just very good at fire (as far as he knows). That’s also why he doesn’t know what type of dragon he related to.

- Fuego was big on DPS but low on defense (of course) so he was usually having to be protected by/hidden behind somebody else (Shakari or Jetra most often)

Jetra:

- Human Bard (Valor)

- I would’ve done Lore bard because of her love for finding secrets, save the fact that I wanted her to have learned from both her parents. Her mother was a singer/performer and taught her to sing, and then her father, the Paladin, taught her how to create magic and how to fight. So she mixed that all up and boom, Valor bard.

- Jetra was definitely the most “utility caster” of the group. She had healing, buffs, pretty much something for everything. And a sword, if it came to that. She was easily the most adaptable of the group in and out of combat.

- She also spoke a bunch of languages, including Leinai (the one spoken in Leinos, since she was born there), Common, Celestial, Draconic, and was learning Azerian at the beginning of the campaign.

Shakari:

- Blue Dragonborn Fighter (Eldritch Knight)

- She was yet another Fighter, but she was designed to be more of a mid-range fighter so as not to get steal Faulkron’s spotlight. Since the khopesh could be thrown and summoned back b/c of Eldritch Knight stuff, it worked fine.

- They were very high DPS, especially with their spells/lightning breath, and then they’d finish the enemies off with a good ol’ sword attack (or just to help teammates out).

- At the later levels she takes some more utility spells (since she couldn’t those first few levels because of Eldritch Knight rules), but she’s still mostly damage.

- Also a neat lore note, Eldritch Knight is not called the same thing among her people, but it is a traditional position in the deserts she came from, and some of the other Azerian tribes.

Alejandro:

- Human Fighter (Gladiator*)

- *Gladiator is just a slightly modified version of the Samurai

- Unfortunately, I never had planned on Alejandro being a key NPC, so I had to come up with him over the course of the campaign. Thankfully, he ended up complementing Faulkron’s fighting style well (DEX based as opposed to Faulkron’s STR based build), and they made a really good tag team playing off of each other (once they trusted each other more, of course.)

- He ended up being a pretty formidable fighter in his own right, so he and Faulkron together was truly an intimidating duo. While Faulkron was tanking massive hits and dealing some of his own, Alejandro would run around with his bazillion attacks and chip away at the enemy with his swords.

- I also gave him a high charisma, being the gladiator that he was. But also just. Hot.

•••

Anyways, having three fighters in the group was probably not a great idea in retrospect, but that’s how it ended up. Everyone in the current party has swords and that’s sexy of them, honestly. Another funny note is that they all have decent charisma too, everyone but the main character. Shakari had 13 CHA as a dragonborn, Alejandro had a CHA 14 just as a stat investment (again because Hot), Jetra had 16 because she was a bard obviously, Fuego had a 17 because he was a sorcerer. Faulkron had the lowest at 9. He does end up increasing it over the campaign, it ends up at 16 or something so he’s fine, but for the first part of the story he’s not so good with people.

All in all, they had a good dynamic with lots of potential for ass kicking which they definitely utilized, so who cares? Anyways, just neat stuff.

#not story #d&d things #character stuff #Faulkron Rhodes #Alejandro de la Espada #Jetra Avaki #Shakari #Fuego Tamir

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solisfated · 3 years

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⎡ @celestibound asked: Ship Bias >> | ‘ ship bias ‘ | accepting! ✹

you didn’t specify so i went a little crazy with this one and just did..........all three genshin muses...under the cut bc it got really long........heheh the brainrot is r e a l ft. zhongli, childe and diluc lets gooo

first up, mr dragon granda, in no particular order we have:

▷ childe/tartaglia! listen,,,, i love enemies to lovers so much, i drink it like it’s water that is no secret. i want childe redemption, zhongli apologizing for his deception, slowly repairing their friendship before zhongli being hit in the face with love and adoration for childe. i feel like they have a lot of chemistry, they are pretty similar in terms of pain and depth. they could learn a lot from each other; how to be vulnerable, how to trust, how to open up, how to communicate. ▷ guizhong! the soulmate he had before he knew what it meant... there is so much angst in this ship, zhongli realizing too late how he felt and not being able to protect guizhong in the archon war absolutely devastated him. i dont think he’s loved anyone like her, since her death. he treasures her always, even when he does move on, a part of him is always with her ▷ zhongli x apologizing to all of the adepti he lied to about his death. mans really needs to make amends, and make them well. ▷ xiao! mostly post-1.2, when zhongli is no longer rex lapis but just a mortal man. his respect for xiao is immense and he would trust the adeptus with his life, and zhongli needs to learn how to bridge the gap between them after being the geo archon for thousands of years. also him caring for xiao and his pain,,,, he just wants xiao to live a good life, and to be happy. he hopes he lives long enough as a mortal to see it for him ▷ qiqi! she is his daughter now sorry baizhu. er, granddaughter lol. dragon grandpa caring for the jiangshi child is so precious. he would tell her lots of stories and wouldn’t mind repeating them after she forgets them. i really hope to have them interact one day, qiqi was a favorite of mine in the story

next, chaotic ginger harbinger, in no particular order we have:

▷ zhongli! for the same reasons as above : > i just think they’re neat uwu ▷ lumine! listen,,,, friends, to enemies, to friends again to lovers is just top TIER i don’t make the rules. childe hesitating in liyue, ultimately staying for duty but secretly relieved his post will remain there. he has a chance to make amends with lumine and he takes it. lumine didn’t take any of his shit, wouldn’t let him wreck havoc on a whim. she’s very grounding, and he felt for the first time he had a real friend before he followed through on his duties. it wasn’t personal, and he really would want to join her adventures if he could. and seeing her with teucer!! melted him! ▷ kaeya! listen. their dynamic is very much ‘ i will kill you ‘ and ‘ like, how would you kill me? ‘ and i live for it. i really want them to meet in game. i wanna see them clash and then drink about it together later ▷ teucer!! absolute precious baby childe would die for. i love their canon bond so much, teucer looks up to him and childe would do anything for his family. im stuck on the fighting fatui recruits part of the quest, so i dont know if he does it, but i really want childe to come clean to teucer about what he does. lying to him won’t help the kid, and deceiving him might strain their relationship. i hope teucer can forgive childe in the end, bc he only wants to make the boy happy ;-; tonia should go here too, bc he writes letters with his kid sister and its so sweet and adorable. childe doting on his siblings warms my heart. he’s such a good brother, even if it hurts him to be so sometimes ▷ honestly? childe x shutting the fuck up lmao

next, idealistic wine batman, in no particular order we have:

▷ aether/lumine! it seemed like diluc had gone a really long time without collaborating with another person until that one story quest. even kaeya was surprised. i felt like diluc let his guard down a little, and perhaps it will lead him to making new friends and strengthening the bonds he already has in the future. fuck knows he is shit at keeping bonds well. he needs more friends and confidents ;-; people he can trust and lean on ▷ kaeya! i really want them to reconcile....their story made me so incredibly sad, diluc felt so betrayed. i think kaeya is already willing to mend their bond, but diluc is too bitter and stubborn. he also just doesnt know how to ask for help, hence why aether/lumine was so important. i hope they can be close again one day, because diluc...doesn’t have any family left alive. he just has the dawn winery and a name to live up to. it must be lonely ▷ jean! they had an interesting dynamic in one of the quests, i think she could be a friend of his if he wasn’t so stubborn. i wanna know about that ‘ sir ‘ thing lmao...a remnant of his days as a knight? i want jean to tease him and call him out for distancing himself from everyone around him that’s for sure ▷ klee!! i adore klee so much and i want diluc to be the designated pyro child babysitter. like diluc have a pyro daughter. i like klee’s optimism and shenanigans would be good for him honestly, and klee could use a little more....structure.....and less,,,bombs,,, ▷ diluc x therapy for his grief and trauma. guy really needs to talk to someone.

#;;queue ⏤ the garden calls ☽#⎾ 𝙷 𝙲. ⏤ 𝚣𝚑𝚘𝚗𝚐𝚕𝚒 ✹#⎾ 𝙷 𝙲. ⏤ 𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚊𝚐𝚕𝚒𝚊 ✹#⎾ 𝙷 𝙲. ⏤ 𝚍𝚒𝚕𝚞𝚌 ✹#// hello yes i am weak for found family #// i would say childe needs a kid to match the other two but #// he got two little siblings he's good lmao #// harbingers should Not be parents

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ty-talks-comics · 4 years

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Best of Marvel: Week of January 29th, 2020

Best of this Week: Conan the Barbarian #12 - Jason Aaron, Mahmud Asrar, Matthew Wilson and Travis Lanham

“He will tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet.” - The Nemedian Chronicles.

It’s been quite some time since we’ve done a Conan review and this one took a long time to come out, but it was well worth the wait. After eleven absolutely fantastic issues of sword and sorcery, blood and sex, monsters and men, we’ve reached the end of the “Death of Conan” arc and BOY was it satisfying. Jason Aaron, Mahmud Asrar, Matthew Wilson and Travis Lanham absolutely pay off this amazing story, wrap it up in a nice neat bow for the next creative team and even prepare for the next great story.

Razza and Zazella, the children of the Crimson Witch, have been following Conan since the day he killed their mother, waiting for the perfect time to kill him to resurrect their God, Razazel. Throughout his many years of adventuring, Conan has killed and slaughtered and escaped death more times than any man in the history of the Hyborian Age could ever claim and this has strengthened the potency of his blood for his sacrifice. The tenth issue saw the kids bring Conan back to the Temple of Razazel after near fatal injuries and offering his blood to the Old God.

This issue begins with a short flashback to Conan actually saving the twins years before they meet again. Shortly before bandits try to press gang them onto a ship, Conan swoops in and makes short work of the brigands, gaining the ire of Razza in the process. The Kids are “grateful” for his intervention before walking away, but this is a grave insult to them considering their hatred towards the Cimmerian and the fact that he murdered their mother. This is made even worse by the fact that the kids made a vow to not gloat or talk at the altar when they kill him, but they do just that without confirming his death later on.

When we finally get into the swing of things Asrar, Wilson and Lanham spare no expense when giving readers the action they’ve been waiting for. Asrar shows Conan’s speed and strength as he uses a small boulder to knock Zazella’s sharp, jagged teeth out of her mouth with the rock blurring as he swings it down and Razza looks on in shock. Wilson gives the background and Razazel’s blood roots life through vibrant reds, almost as if to make the reader feel them pumping with evil. Lanham sells Conan’s yell of anger as he strikes with a hearty “RRRRGGH!” word bubble and emphasizing Zazella’s words of fear and disbelief.

After that amazing splash page, Conan rips the daggers out of his chest and faces off against the now monstrous children and the mostly revived Razazel. The fight is dynamic with Conan doing his best to avoid the many mouthed horror that is Razazel. The otherworldly demon could be absolutely horrifying for those with trypophobia as his many mouths look like a cluster of holes, but Wilson gives him a deadlier, darker red to make him amongst the background. Conan, as always, isn’t afraid of the monster and gives him hell throughout the fight.

Conan isn’t just a man, he is an extraordinary man. As stated in a previous review, Conan has fought lesser demons from the depths of hell, beasts of all kinds and monsters that dwarfed him by GREAT margins. He has slain them all and even spat in the face of his own God, Crom at the precipice of death. So Razazel is just another walk in the park for the King of Aquilonia. He thinks nothing of slicing at the fingers of the Old God and even when he’s grabbed and the many mouths are biting and gnawing at him, he just slices at the veins on the walls.

Of course, even Conan still falls prey to the numbers game and with grievous injuries, the Twins begin to overpower him after a good fight. Asrar frames their fight with a fleeting sense of hope as the shot pulls away with each successive panel and more blood is ripped from Conan. Wilson emphasizes this with the backgrounds seemingly getting more red as Conan’s death nears and Lanham excellently places Aaron’s narration of the importance of Conan’s blood out of the way of the action, but still easily readable as you navigate the panels.

And the importance of Conan’s blood cannot be understated as it plays a vital role in the outcome of this battle. One of the better aspects of Aaron’s run thus far is that it has built on Robert E. Howard’s mythos of the character and his amazing feats, but he’s also added something more unexpected in the form of...a legacy, a son: Conn or Conan II. In one splash page, Aaron and Asrar turn the tables as we’re greeted with this child/teenager that’s the spitting image of his father, sword in hand and highlighted amongst his flanking soldiers as they all stare down the monstrous children and their King wounded on the ground.

Now, of course there may be some complaints that Conan having a child ruins his nomadic and loner image, but I argue that this adds a new depth to the character. We’ve seen how fatherhood adds a new layer in characters like Superman and Kratos, improving their stories for the better, so I’m fully on board with it. We’ve already had hundreds of stories of Conan being alone with his throne so exploring a newfound relationship with his boy, teaching him how to be a strong Cimmerian, is something that I didn’t know I wanted until I’d gotten a taste.

Asrar and Wilson continue to sell the horror of things as Conan’s Black Dragon Knights take the fight to the Twins and Razazel. Razza and Zazella make pretty short work of a few of them; Ripping them apart, crushing their heads and even tossing one of them into one of the mouths of Razazel’s forearm in a gruesome display. As they viciously kill and maim Conan’s men, Razza takes pride in his sister and their “soon to come” victory until Conan brutally decapitates him in the middle of his speech. Much like their mother, he survives this and hilarious asks Zazella to throw his head at Conan.

The great Warrior King wastes no time and dispatches Zazella as well, tossing them both into the hole. Conn instructs the soldiers to cut the veins, but Razazel is still hanging on. So Conan does what he does best and leaps into danger. Asrar makes him look like a madman with anger in his eyes, two gaping chest wounds where the kids stabbed him, and his sword in hand about to cut the vein that Razazel is hanging from. Victory is finally at hand when we see Razza, Zazella and Razazel falling into the abyss, defeated by the blood of Conan.

I have to say that there was not a single bad issue in this entire run and this one itself as beyond spectacular. One of the main things that I love about Conan is the simplicity of the character and how anyone can write him, but it takes a REALLY GOOD writer to make you care about him. Throughout the entirety of this series, Jason Aaron held the swinging axe over Conan’s head, dangling it closer and closer with each subsequent issue and victory. At points, I actually thought Aaron might actually do it and end the life of Conan, but deep down we all knew that Conan would emerge victorious.

Mahmud Asrar and Matthew Wilson worked amazingly together on the many issues that they had, capturing the feel of the Hyborian Age with intensity in fights, strong colors and solid inks throughout. I thought Marvel would tone down the violence of the character, but their art and the other artists throughout this book never shied away from the sheer brutality that Conan was capable of. They made sure that this felt like a genuine Conan experience like Dark Horse did during their tenure with the character and much like Marvel did in the 80s. Conan never looked weak and even in defeat he was still a terrifyingly powerful sight to behold.

All in all, I’m excited for more Conan stuff after this. Jim Zub and Roge Antonio take ver the main Conan series after this issue and both of them are very good with writing and art, but Aaron is continuing his story with a King Conan book later this year. Not only that, we’ve got Battle for the Serpent Crown to look forward to, more Savage Avengers and a Dark Agnes miniseries on the way… 2020 is looking like a good year for Conan.

#marvel comics #marvel #king conan #conan the barbarian #jason aaron #mahmud asrar #matthew wilson #age of conan #the hyborian age #sword and sorcery

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weirdmarioenemies · 5 years

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It’s another Wario’s Woods masterpost!

Yeah! The one I kinda sorta hinted at an entire year ago! So we’ve already gone over the wonderful little basic monsters that Toad can pick up and toss around and tragically blow up with bombs. And the bosses in the NES version are, for the most part... generic. Disappointing. Not worth mentioning.

But then we have the SNES version! There is a whole cast of wacky opponents for Toad to face in his quest to defeat Wario. Let’s waste no time looking at each and every one!

Katsini

Starting off strong! Katsini is a very well-dressed purple fellow who looks a lot like Tatanga, the villain of Super Mario Land, who we have really not covered yet for some reason, wow. He is full of charm, but also kindness! Unlike most of the bosses, he encourages Toad. How nice!

Galrog

Galrog’s mouth doesn’t always hang open like this, but I’m glad it’s the image the Wiki uses. As you can see, he is some sort of cyclops/ogre type thing, but this shocked face is really the main attraction. He’s still in training, and asks Toad to go easy on him. I bet you were judging him based on his appearance until you read that! Shame on you.

Harley Q

Wowee! This is a fun one! Harley Q is certainly designed with a jester or harlequin in mind, but clearly not just someone in a suit. Could this be... a wild, natural jester? Not the domesticated kind we’re so used to seeing? Her dress thingy is constantly spinning, too! Fun! And sort of reminds me of Dimentio... another important villain we haven’t covered yet for some reason! Because we have our priorities in order covering silly stuff like this!

SamSpook

A very bold decision to give ol’ Sam a green pumpkin head instead of orange, and I’ll give them bonus points for that! His body is suspiciously similar to that of the plumbers... but the combination of overalls and pumpkin immediately makes me think “farmer”! But not just any farmer, of course. If he were to grow pumpkins, they would be his children! I don’t know how that would work! So it’s time for the next one.

Sven

The thing that immediately strikes me about Sven is his art style! A bit different from the others, don’t you think? More dynamic and Looney Tunes-like! A scrappy little furball. Like Wild Mike from Barnyard. Remember that? I do. I remember them claiming that the official website revealed Mike’s species. It didn’t. Don’t believe the media. Wait, this is supposed to be about Sven, isn’t it? Well, he’s got a viking helmet and boxing gloves! That’s a neat combination I’ve never seen before!

Parrotor

Parrotor is apparently a mix between a parrot and a monitor lizard, but is really basically a parrot with a lizard tail. But there’s nothing wrong with that! This is a very Funny Bird we see before us.

Mssr Boo

This is the good stuff right here! A slightly French ghost! A very simple ghost, but I love simple ghosts! And I love simple things wearing hats! It’s the best thing for them to wear!

Aqualea

Aqualea is a mermaid. An angry mermaid. That just so happens to be exactly like one of the bosses in the NES version! That mermaid’s name is Mad, and I don’t know if she’s actually angry, but we can assume so. Since her name is Mad.

Razor

And we go right from one kind of fish person to the other kind! As recent film has shown us, Razor is the sexy kind of fish person. Has anyone ever found mermaids sexy? Probably not. That would be weird! Despite Razor’s appearance, he is very philosophical. I guess unexpected personality traits is a theme here!

Tad Rock

OH YEAH!!!!! Tad Rock calls himself the coolest player around, and while something like that is usually a very pompous thing to say, you can tell by Tad’s name and fashion sense that he is telling the truth!

Thak

Hm. Sorry, Thak, Galrog already fills the niche of “ogre thing”, and does a better job if you ask me... but your teeth are cool! Very sharp! I’m sure you’re great at eating meat!

Lizardon

In case you didn’t know, Lizardon is the Japanese name of Charizard! This is likely no surprise at all, but I’ll take this pudgy purple goof over a Cool Dragon any day. Lizardon is also hilariously full of himself, claiming that he’ll crush Toad’s dreams of fame and be the star of the next game! I’d play it, honestly.

Sarissa

Sarissa really nails that “cute girl” type of design that’s so popular, I think. If this game was more well known, she’d probably be the most popular opponent! Along with Harley Q, because people REALLY love wacky jesters, and... I want to say Tad Rock. People love things that are radical! Anyway, I never got all the cute girl hype, but I am digging Sarissa’s fashion choices.

Mangylox

Now this is a real classic “monster”! A big ol’ hulking figure completely covered in hair, wearing shoes... wow! Even more Looney Tunes vibes! I think this is a good time to talk about what the character dialogue is like in this game. Behold Mangylox’s mighty lexicon!

“I've been waiting for you. You have been impressive, but now it begins. Instantaneous decisions will be necessary. Know this--my abilities are unmatched!”

Dedar

Goblin time! We got a goblin! Or maybe more? Dedar is like a combination of goblin, imp, elf, all that good stuff, and I think the result is pretty great! She doesn’t even have a nose or a mouth, and we all know that the fewer facial features, the cuter a design is!

Carlton

Carlton sure is a knight, I guess. Or maybe a sentient suit of armor. That would be more interesting. Either way, he may be the least interesting character here. But that’s okay! Because next up is the penultimate opponent! What could possibly be even more imposing than an iron-clad warrior? Tremble in fear before...

Harry H

Harry the Hare! Yup, the final opponent before Wario himself is a smartly-dressed hare named Harry. You might expect that he’s well-mannered, too, and he even refers to Toad as a “woodlands hero”! I think he’s probably quite a nice fellow who’s really here to make sure Toad is ready for the final battle. Don’t you just love Harry Hare? I do!

...and then there’s Wario! We’ve talked about him in depth, though, so there’s not much to say here.

With that... I guess we’re done with Wario’s Woods... I don’t want it to end! I want more funny creatures running around and stacking smaller funny creatures! Please, Nintendo... acknowledge this game... make weird Wario games again...

But let’s not end on a sad note. Which one is your favorite, besides Wario, of course? Vote now!

https://strawpoll.com/3re4411p

#wario's woods #mario #mario enemies #mod chikako

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vedj-f-bekuesu · 5 years

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I Review Lego Characters

I decided, for fun, I would review characters from various features and other bits I’ve seen in my research to more Lego brands. The brands in question have a heavier focus on non-toy media in this case, to narrow it down a bit. Because why not do that. This selection is grouped as the City folk aka any brand which is either focused explicitly around Lego City or could be argued to be heavily stemmed from it. For these characters, the following media pieces were looked at; Jack Stone, The Adventures of Clutch Powers, Lego CIty Undercover, Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins, The Lego Movie and The Lego Movie 2.

I don’t have a specific way of giving characters ranks, I just go with what my instincts say. They give a gist of where they stand in my fondness for characters anyway.

And now for the big block of paragraphs;

Jack Stone - OG, he doesn’t have any daddy issues or love issues he’s just a good man who wants to use his creativity to help, boy scout probs, would protect. 7/10

Clutch Powers - Miner explorer dork who varies between stepping up as a respectable leader and being an excitable jokey buttmonkey, major daddy issues, gave us the perfect reaction shot to witnessing an unfortunate fetish victim. 8/10

Peg Mooring - Started out like the typical stereotyped action girl, got better as the film went on, takes attacks from dragons like a boss. 5/10

Brick Masterson - HAAAAAAAAAAATE. 1/10

Bernie Von Beam - People think he’s just comic relief when he’s the closest to a normal man who just wants to do his job, takes dismemberment pretty well, just want to give him a hug. 8/10

Skelly and Bones - Goddamn they’re funny. 9/10

Mallock - Non-entity of a villain. 2/10

Chase McCain - Spends quite a bit of time being a cocky shitheel who also happens to be quite fun, would probably do crime if pushed, still somehow a dork who whines and gets trashed a lot, a bit on the dumb side, love not his strong suit. 8/10

Frank Honey - Precious baby, perfect comic relief. 10/10

Natalia Kowalski - Favourite of the love interests, she’s bitchy to the protagonist but it’s 100% warranted so it’s cool, neat character even outside of that dynamic. 7/10

Ellie Phillips - Pretty sweet even if she is mostly exposition and the tutorial person, southern drawl on point. 6/10

Chief Dunby - Basically just a typical angry police chief, he’s more plot key than character so this is forgivable. Gets pretty evil in Chase Begins though. 4/10

Rex Fury - Surprisingly pretty badass, could be in the running for most competent Rex even without raptors, still pretty fun, lacked a lot of screentime in LCU, devs realised this and made Chase Begins in response (which came out one month after the origin--wait, what kind of business decision is that???). 7/10

Emmet Brickowski - First film has him more balanced between typical “masculine” traits and cuter aspects, but generally came off as a more generic protagonist, second film pushes him as being more like Frank, and that is not a wrong choice, would hug. 7/10

Lucy aka Wyldstyle - Really generic in the first film, even bordering on dislike to be honest, the sequel allowing her more expressions and deconstructing her character as a whole did good stuff for her. 6/10

Unikitty - Two moods; “Is it working? Yay!” or “IT WAS PERFECTLY FINE WITHOUT RAISINS”, TV show version looks and sounds weird but doesn’t count for this ranking. 9/10

Benny the Spaceman - Is most interesting outside of spaceships, first demonstration of master breaking so must be a badass, SPACESHIP. 8/10

Metalbeard - Badass pirate man, the Lego version of the energizer bunny, having so many facets elevates him up despite being relatively downplayed, will one day make the pirate spaceship that should exist. 8/10

Batman - Ehhhh, not a superhero fan (MCU can get fucked), generally comes off pretty much just there, does get some of the best moments though. 5/10

Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi - Can slay me whenever, can’t say no to such a fun and bombastic character. 7/10

General Sweet Mayhem - Ends up being thrown to the side despite the prominence in marketing, she’s mostly just there, great dance moves. 5/10

Good Cop/Bad Cop - Don’t particularly like them that much to be honest, way overhyped for what was presented, Liam Neeson probably a boost at the time. 4/10

President Business - Most of his persona leaned hard into a stereotype but had fun with it, interesting implications both in-universe and on meta level pushes his character up. 7/10

Rex Dangervest - Cute man is broken into a nasty shitheel with dudebro arrogance out the wazoo, reptile themed. 10/10.

And that’s it for all the major city stuff (even if it does stretch the definition of city when you have aliens from another galaxy in there). Not sure if I might do a separate thing for the more fantasy-related brands (eg Ninjago, Nexo Knights, Legends of Chima etc).

Also if I do Ninjago any analysis would be movie only. I was exposed to that first and I’m not sitting through ten seasons of show just for like three sentences per character.

#VEDJ-F talks #a lot #jack stone #clutch powers #lego city undercover #lego city undercover: chase begins #tlm #TLM2 #tlm2 spoilers #today I learned that lego has some weird stuff buried beneath its surface

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xenosaurus · 5 years

Note

I haven’t heard of granblue fantasy, but honestly, I admire you for blogging about something with little fandom just bc you like it. This is your blog, and you can post about the stuff that makes you happy, even if not a lot of people not it. What’s granblue fantasy about? Who are Lance and Kane? Why do you ship them? What are their characters like?

Anon, I love you??? so much???? this is such a sweet ask and you are the best

Granblue Fantasy is a gacha/strategy game about islands in the sky, particularly about a crew of “skyfarers”, traveling adventurers on a flying ship who take jobs like a DnD party might. Their overall goal is to reach the edge of the sky and find the protagonist’s father, but the cast is WILDLY meddlesome and the crew never leaves any situation they stumble across alone.

The storylines are WILDLY varied, from “motorcycle gang at hogwarts” to “samurai hobbits possessed by evil swords” to “king arthur lore put in a blender”, and Vane and Lancelot are from the last one! They’re 2 of 4 dragon knights characters, who are from an overarching story that gets updated every year about an order of knights who are caught up in political drama in their kingdom.

Lancelot and Vane are the current captain and vice-captain, and they’re childhood friends and basically you’re kinda. intended to ship them. they’re as close to canon as you can get away with in a game like this. Vane’s fate episodes (basically his personal side quest) are all about them going to see the sakura blossoms and getting trapped in the mountains and it’s every romantic trope there is all wrapped up in a neat little bow.

But honestly, the romantic gestures aren’t why I ship them so much! Their dynamic is really heartbreakingly sweet. Their combat dialogue is basically them shouting back and forth to each other, checking on each other when they’re at low health and cheering each other on when they do charge attacks. Vane teases Lancelot and Lancelot gets flustered. The big one, though, is that Lancelot is a pretty serious character when he’s introduced, and is generally a semi-tragic knight characters right up until Vane walks into the room, at which point he’s laughing and joking and having fun. He does this with ZERO other characters. They aren’t shy about leaning on each other for support and they genuinely come off more like a married couple than anything else. Open compliments and admiration and eating dinner together. Just. so sweet.

Vane is also my favorite character in the whole game! He’s a goofball who cares so deeply about people and Lancelot in particular. He virtually adopted some junior knights who are like 12 (Lance and Vane are in their late 20s) and cried when they got accepted in the order. I LOVE Vane and I’m here for his wonderful marriage.

also as a bonus, here’s Vane making dinner for his two adorable sons

#granblue fantasy #long post #Anonymous

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doshmanziari · 6 years

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Crown of the Ivory King is the Dark Souls Series’ Low-point

Ever since the release of Dark Souls 2′s final installment, the Crown of the Ivory King, it’s been attended by a very vocally supportive playerbase. I’ve found it baffling and, despite lurking forums and attempting to coax out explications about why the heck people think it’s so great, I’ve hardly come any closer to understanding the reception. It’s fine, I think, to shrug and say you just have a thing for snowy levels. When that’s made into more than a hyper-subjective admittance, and becomes statements which denigrate Dark Souls 2′s main material (see: comments everywhere that the DLC is supposedly a significant step up from the “B-team”’s work (note that this supposed “B-team” is an imaginary group gamers have conveniently heaped their scorn upon when they’ve found Souls-stuff to be lacking)) . . . then I get kind of annoyed.

With the Boletarian Palace, Demon’s Souls set the standard for me where fortressed layouts in the series are concerned. At the risk of seeming to treat the Boletarian Palace as a case of insuperable level design, I’m going to quote a few bits here from prior essays concerning it, and hope that it instead demonstrates that its better qualities come from reproducible design decisions:

An uncommon attention was paid to the worlds’ furnishings. One noticed, making their way through [the Boletarian Palace], that rickety palisades were erected on the grand introductory staircase, here and there a discarded carriage with maybe a horse corpse; in small, pocket-like refectories were rows of beds, and tables bearing cups, candelabras, and bowled edibles; outside of these cells were carts harboring casks of wine and buckets; or that on a long wall-walk was a somber parade of trebuchets, and adjacent to this was an attic for carts loaded with to-be-launched boulders. There was a sense that everything was in its right place, and to weave through these environments was to experience a world that innately lent itself to textured terms of engagement. Running up a series of staircases peppered by barrels full of explosive powder, and haunted by torch-wielding madmen, meant grappling with an incendiary challenge, yet the challenge was holistically ingrained in the objecthood of that world. In that way, spatial dealings, navigational or combative, acquired a flavor of believability.

Additionally, Demon’s Souls ran counter to an extant strain of design in action-adventure games that draws a distinguishing line between “combative spaces” and “non-combative spaces.” The least gratifying cases of this strain induce a monotonous awareness of compartmentalization, of there being a manner of space for fights — most often resembling an arena accommodating the spectacle of performance (God of War and its progeny come to mind) — and a manner of space for sites between fights. What made Demon’s Souls a categorical outlier was that conflict could happen anywhere; and that, when conflict did happen, the architecture supplemented it.

. . . the Boletarian Palace’s magic was that its architecture discretely realized and blended the inherent themes of defense, housing, and storage. It both came across as a convincing place (again, “convincing” or “realistic” does not mean that the subject has a 1:1 ratio with reality) and engaged the player with design permutations that took hold of the surroundings, like groups of crossbow-firing soldiers blocking the way on a bridge, or darkly spear-throwing creatures in a dim room meant for storing carriages.

Rather than a stony maze with apposite ornaments thrown in, the Boletarian Palace felt like a castle first and foremost, with encounter design that naturally tapped into its abundance of nooks, sharp angles, and verticalities.

If we’re looking at Eleum Loyce -- which can be more or less separated into a fortified area, a residential zone, and a subterranean network -- I think the pervasive problem is that practically none of it has any suggestive power. Suggestive power is a consequence of the level design per se and the clothing it wears. So when nearly all there is to see is the most spartan of stonework (and not even skillfully texture-mapped stonework) and white mounds, engaging level design is vital. Most of the interiors have been reduced to bare, non-functional cubes, and exteriors largely are bluntly laid out paths where you pick off a line of enemies one by one, sometimes including peripheral retainers. It all has the flavor of a beta zone for developmental testing, and it feels terribly wrong that perhaps the sole memorable detail is a frozen fountain early on.

Since this doesn’t really lend itself to interesting encounter design -- there is no ambiguity or mystery to the space, no way to treat it as anything other than a sequence of immediately explicable containers -- and the majority of enemies are super-sturdy soldiers coming in a few flavors, many combative interactions play out as the melee-oriented player leading an alerted bunch of foes to a chokepoint and picking them off with strong attacks. For as much as I could criticize the aesthetic fumbles of the prior two DLC installments, their layouts had definite dynamics: Shulva’s staggered array of towers (some manipulatable), and Brume Tower’s tiered floors skirting circular shafts.

They also featured neat miniature gimmicks that could be engaged to lessen the danger of a given area: destroying sarcophagi in the Dragon Sanctum to make the ghostly sanctum knights assume a corporeal, and practically pregnable, form, and collapsing Ashen Idols speckling the Tower to halt the healing and reappearance of adjacent enemies. It’s hard to really say what Loyce’s comparable gimmicks are. There are, for a while, snowy winds blasting around the fort’s exteriors, but these winds only have a remarkable effect on your range of sight in the optional (and much-hated) Frozen Outskirts (this is, in fact, one of the Outskirts’ few virtues). There are also coats of ice making certain chests inaccessible, but once they’re shattered upon talking to a Lore-Dispensing Character it simply is a matter of backtracking and opening them up in a classically obsessive-compulsive manner (more interesting would’ve been the option to melt the ice by using pyromanic spells).

What little conspicuous level design exists in Eleum Loyce does stand out on its own terms. When you come upon the abandoned residential zone, you must navigate several columned arcades, being careful about the obscured, spine-backed ice rats and, a level above, a spell-casting witchtree spirit or two. Between this triangulation of elements you’ll find yourself using the arcades for cover while also trying to not let their dense arrangement hinder your movements or attacks. It’s basic stuff, and brief, and it’s good (it gets even better when you’re invaded by a black phantom NPC) -- it works on a level beyond shoveling baddies into crates and along straight paths. You’re conscious of an architecture. Disappointing, then, to find that the knotty little complex of residences is really a paltry couple of empty boxes with a useable staircase in one. So much for expanding on that aspect of the city.

Another similarly brief moment happens later on inside a dim, high-ceilinged hall separated by three floors built of wooden planks. The first of these floors is the most interesting. On it, you’ll juggle seeking shelter from two spell-casters by emerging onto nearby balconies, and taking care of a soldier on each balcony itself before you’re ganged up on by pursuers from the hall; and once you’re back in the hall to take of whoever remains, you’ll have to mind the several holes which break up the wooden flooring and lead to deadly drops. As with many cases of fine level design in the series, it demonstrates how an engaging sense of pressure can be exerted on players by aligning simple, but not overly simple, architecture with complementary enemy positions.

Eleum Loyce has been commended for having several loop-around shortcuts that lead you back to prior locations. These commendations haven’t taken into account why this series-trope has excelled when it has excelled, though. To be sure, Eleum Loyce’s shortcuts function as any shortcut should: they expedite the process of repeat attempts at navigation and impart a sense of incremental progress. But beyond this there’s not really any epiphanic or retrospective spark to the loop-arounds. Eleum Loyce’s overall layout is so diffuse and architecturally generalized -- if you compare the two screenshots below you’ll see how visually similar the city’s explorable portions are to its unexplorable portions -- that you’re never learning about its organizational character or seeing charismatic structures reappear. You’re just opening a door or taking an elevator. And, you know, that’s fine. But it doesn’t warrant special praise.

And then there’s the unpleasant friction of the Frozen Outskirt’s conceptual strength versus its actual strength. As each DLC installment has had mechanical gimmicks (some, uh, ostensible), each has also had an optional gauntlet catering to multiplayer efforts. These have been pretty uniformly terrible -- I called Shulva’s an “utterly reduced ‘path with enemies’” -- and are solely concerned with throwing as much densely packed shit at the player(s) in the tightest possible, and least imaginatively suggestive, spaces. As I wrote in the same essay, “There is no design goal here except, ‘Swamp the player who should have assistance to divide the streams of projectiles and the soldiers' advances.’” A slight exception, the Frozen Outskirts offer the novel idea of dislocating players by having the snowdrifts oscillate between visibility and near-invisibility by way of periodic snowstorms. If this were left on its own, if the challenge were one of pure navigation -- having to find one’s bearings and using several ruinous sites as guideposts, and fighting or running away from a few hostile adventurers -- I really think the Frozen Outskirts would be great. All of this potential is squandered by tossing what essentially amount to mini-bosses at players, with no options for even the tiniest bit of cover among the stretches separating the ruins (recalling Elana’s chief design failure), and so the overall experience is demoted to that of a frustrating slog.

I think what makes Eleum Loyce the series’ low-point for me is its formal vapidness + its very positive reception. I feel bored and alienated. It’s hard to not think that people have been poisoned to believe that what is most remarkable about these games is the element of challenge. Eleum Loyce is, to me, a snubbing of everything I’ve enjoyed about exploring these games’ places. All curious details have been scrubbed out and what remains is a base obstacle course of cartoonishly themed enemies -- ice-coated soldiers, some with crystals bursting from their backs -- with the ultimate signifier of Prepare to Die challenge at the end: a bunch of knights in a huge arena protecting an even bigger knight, who epically emerges from Barad-dûr’s peak to a tritone and can make his sword be the biggest sword.

Anyway. That’s what I think. What do you think?

#dark souls 2 #eleum loyce #videogame criticism #level design

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