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theorangestar · 3 years

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Okay, Skyward Sword first impressions!

My first session was long, and there are spoilers for those who never played it before, so my thoughts are below.

- I like the ink blot opening sequence, but I’m a sucker for backstory and lore being told through illustrations and a different style than the main story.

- But why did the Goddess send all the humans to live up in the sky, but not any of the other surface peoples? Are humans just so weak that getting them out of the way is best for everyone? What about the others? I saw a Goron in that ink blot, are you telling me Gorons aren’t worthy of being saved and have to fight? Fuck you, Gorons are great.

- Also, it said humans were sent to Skyloft. Are... are we the humans? What’s the difference between Hylians and humans?

- Okay, the internet told me about Ghirahim and Demise, but who was going to tell me about the spiky doom monster?!

- The colors are very pretty. Skyloft looks great. The water reminds me of the Spyro games.

- Wow, Zelda’s bird is rude.

- Link’s got wood carving tools on his desk and I love me an artistic boi. He made all those figures in his room!

- Pipit is a little intense with severe eyebrows, but I like him. Karane is less intense, and I like her pigtails. I think she crocheted all the bird plushies in her room. I also think she has a crush on Pipit. Little evidence at this point, but that’s my theory.

- Also, if that’s the school uniform, does that mean boys get the long caps and girls get a beret? Karane doesn’t have a long cap like Pipit does. Why the different caps for different genders?

- Also Pipit doesn’t have his own room at the academy. Why doesn’t he have a room?!

- We were a year too late to have a yellow-clad hero. Bananas.

- Who made Fledge try to move these barrels by himself? Rude! At least give him a cart or something. I will help him. This poor guy!! I want to give him a hug, he seems so down on himself.

- Owlan and Horwell make me think of LOTR elves.

- PARKOUR!

- But seriously, I can see how these climbing features led to Breath of the Wild. Sky can parkour, but Wild just clings onto any surface like a spider and just goes.

- Remlits are Pokemon. And I love that Link just picks it up and just keeps smiling at it. Remlits are so cute!

- Zelda is so excited to see Link, this is such a turn from BOTW. She’s so sweet!

- Gaepora is literally an owl man. He is an owl. I don’t think his eyes can go any wider.

- Also, how come the Zeldas never look like their fathers? Zelda doesn’t look anything like an owl! And don’t get me started on Rhoam.

- Honestly, if I was Zelda, I’d be a little pissed if my dad kept saying how amazing my best friend friend is and pointing out how jealous I am but saying it’s natural because my friend’s bond with his bird is JUST. SO. AMAZING.

- SHE PUSHED ME!! D:<

- Wow, Link’s voice is deeper than I expected.

- Okay, someone stole my birb and I have to find it.

- Does no one name their Loftwings? Everyone just refers to them as “my bird”, “your bird.” If they’re supposed to be our soulmates or something, shouldn’t they have names? The remlit gets a name but not the Loftwing?

- ... Fledge, what do you know?

- These character designs are really weird. Obviously, Link and Zelda are made to be the most attractive characters, but the rest is a weird range of, slightly exaggerated but pretty normal to WTF.

- I don’t like Groose’s mouth. It makes weird shapes.

- Okay, he says I’m bragging about my friendship with Zelda, but so far it seems just her dad brags about it. I haven’t said anything. Sorry dude that I have her dad’s approval. Can’t beat that.

- Stop making that face at Zelda, it’s creepy!!

- FLEDGE!!! My goddess... I may forgive you in time, but right now I’m mad. A heads up would have been nice! And after I helped with that barrel!

- I has sword.

- Okay, I do have a bit of trouble with the motion controls for the sword. Maybe I’ll get better with practice, but the precision I need for some of these cuts may be a problem down the line.

- Okay, does Link have premonition powers or something? First the dream with the monster, then he gets a vision at the blocked cave of his bird, even though he can’t hear or see it from this vantage point, and then later the dream with Fi. Is Link an oracle?

- ... It took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize that I needed to cut the gate with the sword. I’m dumb.

- MY BIRB!! :D I’m calling him Red. Or maybe Big Red.

- FLYING IS HARD OMG. I just keep going in circles over and over and over. This is going to be really difficult, and I had to recalibrate my joy cons a couple times midair.

- Okay, so Link and Zelda are the only ones around for the ceremony. Why is no one around to watch? How do they know we did it? We could’ve just skipped it and no one would have known.

- SHE PUSHED ME AGAIN!! D:<

- Aiming is hard when you’re falling. :’(

- Oh, this is a date. She wants to go on a date. Well okay, but only if she stops pushing me off stuff.

- HOW DID WE NOT NOTICE THE TORNADO?!

- Well shit.

- Also I fell again, but this time Zelda didn’t push me.

- Gaepora is really taking this well. I mean, he’s clearly concerned, but for someone whose daughter just potentially fell to her death, he’s really understanding about it.

- Fi ghost just had to lead me around the longest way possible, didn’t she.

- Also how do you pronounce her name? I’ve heard people pronounce it “Fye,” like “my”, but I keep wanting to say “Fee,” like “Do Re Mi.”

- I take back what I said about remlits.

- Motion controls once again my downfall. I’m trying to point the sword up, but Link will not follow me until my arm is completely arched over my head instead of straight up. I imagine from Fi and Gaepora’s point of view Link is just waving the sword around like a complete idiot.

- Between the sword fighting, the charging of the Goddess Sword, and all the flying, my arms are already sore. I better be ripped by the time this game is over.

- Okay, there was no chance to save any time from when I went to rescue Big Red to when I put on the green uniform. And Fi’s journey blocked all the save statues. I needed another save point in there.

- Fledge gave me a pouch, how sweet! Oh, he’s still talking down about himself. Okay, fine, I forgive him. My two goals for this game are to save Zelda and to find Fledge some self esteem.

Okay, that was my first session with Skyward Sword. I’m liking the story, but some of the controls are frustrating. I’m hoping it’s just a learning curve and I’ll get better as I go on. I know the Wii version had complaints about the controls, but I’m hoping some of it was fixed for the Switch.

Also Link is so cute!! I have to say, Link being so expressive is such a nice change from BOTW where he only makes expressions in certain situations, like when he’s taking a selfie, but he never makes any kind of expression when he’s talking to someone. It’s hard to read his character that way. But SKSW Link I feel I understand him more, and he has such a pretty smile. No wonder Zelda fell for him. XD

#skyward sword playthrough #sshd loz #thoughts and first impressions #skyward sword spoilers

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pkmnsdarkqueen · 4 years

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Specifics on how the Masked Man Affected Karen

TW: child abuse, TW: violence, TW: sex, TW: alcohol, TW: death mention, TW: grooming-ish? (I don’t know how else to phrase that last one so here’s mini version you decide for yourself: to sum up at one point Karen wanted to learn how to seduce people but didn’t do anything until she was of age. details are limited)

Also it’s long, I’m sorry.

For background: I head cannon it that Will and Karen joined at the same time, and knew each other before joining. Will ran from home because people were scared of his psychic abilities. Karen ran from home because it was overall a bad place with a mom that ignored her unless she wanted something. Karen wanted to be a pokeathlete so she made a base under the bleachers and competed. Will and her ran into each other, and when she saw he was homeless to invited him to stay with her. Things went great until Karen was successful enough that her mom saw her on TV and rushed to get her. Not wanting to be trapped at home again Karen went on the run again with Will in tow. Although now it was harder because they didn’t have hardly any income leading to pick pocketing, and light crime. How they met the Masked Man was because Will tried to pick pocket form him using his powers, failed, and instead of being mad or scared the guy was super kind and even offered to take both he and Karen in. Will was rather sold on this but it took a week to convince Karen cause she didn’t really trust this guy.

Ok everyone caught up? Cool.

So Karen’s crux as far as a weakness is that if she cares about someone she will do next to anything for them. Usually to get into that inner circle it takes time with her, and some deep level of similarity with the person. She also never had really a family except her pokemon, and again was mostly ignored by her mom unless needed. So training started and how she got manipulated was that the Masked man would spend dedicated time with her not always for training, just time with her, which meant alot and contrasted her mother. He set the tone of them being a family, something he knew she wanted. This helped with the similarity function, and during the one on one time would always make it sound like they had alot in common. Plus with how Rocket operated this felt so much bigger and grander than when she was wanting to be a pokeathlete just to have Will tag along. No in her mind they were all together in this.

She wanted to be a part of this bigger grander thing, she wanted to make the Masked Man proud because in her mind he genuinely cared about her more than what she could accomplish, everyone here including him felt like her in one way another thanks to his manipulation, and she actually had a family. Everything seemed right to her.

During the more formal training he managed to convince her killing, stealing, lying, destruction, etc. was all valid as long as she did it for the group. If someone wasn’t part of the group they weren’t part of the family, and they were a possible threat to it, so if she was told to do something bad to someone then it was ok because they were a threat.

He also wore Will out during training with him thus making it hard for Karen and Will to have good quality time with each other to really talk about things.

Again Karen is thematically the light in the darkness from what I summarized here. How this plays in is that Karen like in the beginning always had a lingering doubt about everything, like a candle in a dark room. The Masked Man tried desperately to snuff it out constantly telling her to care less. Her light though was Will. He was the first human she considered a friend, and even family. She watched the Masked Man change him, as time went on she felt a separation between him. Of course this was intentional. The Masked Man while outwardly structured it as a family the connections of loyalty were supposed to only be drawn to him. He wanted connections between each individual person to be weaker than connections to him. Karen though couldn’t make herself put The Masked Man higher in loyalty than Will no matter how he tried to force her. He did alot to try and make this happen such as gradually sending them on missions with others or on solo missions and this started to work slowly.

The double M scar carved onto the back of her neck started when she was 14, had been with him 3 years, and already had committed enough to wrack up a high body count. What she did to earn the scar was something that would seem minor. During training she was beating Will and at point stopped thinking that she’d done enough damage. The Masked Man told her to keep going, she did a bit, and stopped again, he said to keep going, she did a bit and then stopped again. Then he got furious asking why she kept stopping, and she explained that she didn’t want to hurt Will more than was necessary. Then when The Masked Man told her she shouldn’t be worried about that she argued back. Next thing Karen knew she was forced on the ground, and he was carving the letters into the back of her neck. It started with him telling her it was a reminder on who knew best, then that eventually became who she ought to listen to, then who she obeyed, and then finally who owned her. He would recarve it anytime it started to fade, or she put someone else above listening to him.

It was about 15 when Karen wanted to help prove her loyalty, and convince herself this was good. Her attempt to snuff out the light. It started when while training she had a cyst on one of her ovaries burst. Of course she needed an opperation, and it resulted in her loosing an ovary. After that she questioned why she needed them anyway. Periods interrupted missions at times, and she wasn’t planning on ever having children. She had seen her mom bring home guys and simply use them, she heard about other girls being able to do it, and without ovaries she could seduce with no consequences. So she wanted to gain skills in that kind of manipulation. The one good thing The Masked Man did is that he didn’t want her to do anything too far for her age, and also questioned the medical safety of this. He convinced her to keep the other ovary. She could learn but not do until 18, and Karen obeyed this. So she made friends with a stripper, who would later become her bartender Kimiko, and learned how to seduce people. Thus warping the concept of love for her by her own choice. Karen at the end of the day though felt rather proud seeing it as her giving even more, and proving her loyalty even greater. However she still kept seeing that metaphorical flickering candle light as she watched Will change telling her something was wrong.

He grew to be so much more invested in the whimsey of essentially doing as he wanted since they were outside the law. While Karen justified it by, this is for the family, he was sold in on the fact he could do what he wanted when he wanted as long as it was within the reigns of helping or obeying Rocket. He could even use his psychic powers more freely and they were hailed as something to be proud of. He didn’t see he was being used just like Karen didn’t. Also to block out the emotions of guilt Karen carved her emotions out slowly but surely even with Will to some extent putting a strain on their relationship.

When Blue and Silver entered the scene Karen was so bent on proving to herself this was good she often lashed out at the pair of kids. She was a bit nicer to Silver since she could relate to the awful home life, and absent dad. To Blue she was the most vicious since Blue had everything before coming to the Masked Man. It was around then Karen and Will also surpassed Carl and Sham in favoritism to the Masked Man, and Karen was hell bent on not having Silver and Blue take the spots she and Will had so viciously fought for. Doing so also kept her from asking ‘why do I want this so badly?’ When Blue and Silver managed to get out later she was both disgusted they leave, happy to no longer compete, stressed because she couldn’t let out her anger anymore, but ultimately it aided in her questioning.

Ho-oh and Lugia entered the picture soon after, and Karen felt such an honor to have the pokemon. Pokemon were also her family. She knew they were supposed to just be tools to most of Rocket, but Pryce treated his well so she did as also. The only thing was that the more time she spent with Ho-oh the more she found a reflection of herself. The bird may look majestic, and powerful but at the end of the day it was trapped. It never emoted, just did as it was told. It didn’t seem happy or sad about anything simply existed because it had no other option. In fact it only really emoted when Lugia did something and viece versa. Besides those times the pokemon never really felt as though it was alive, just existing.

Back at her mother’s house she had left because that’s always how she felt. She only existed really when her mother needed something or in school when she caused touble. She wasnt a part of anything either so she couldn’t exist in any other place. She had people that were friendly but not many friends since she was given weird looks when she talked about home life like the other kids. She just didn’t exist really for any reason at all. And looking at Ho-oh now she wondered if she was repeating the process. Did she only exist when she was needed?

She tried to talk to Will about it but by then there was such a gap betwen them it was hard. She couldn’t talk to any of the other kids because they despised her. So she would talk alone to Ho-oh, and even if it wasn’t able to understand she didn’t care because in her own way she sort of existed to someone then.

As these questions piled up and this small candle of doubt grew bigger the reality shattering moment happened. They lost the legendaries. Now she knew that was bad and she knew the Masked Man woukd be upset. He’d hurt them before but this was different. Will took the blame, he shouldn’t of because it was Karen that pushed for them to keep fighting when they shouldn’t of. It confirmed for Karen that even though there was a gap their connection was still there, he still cared. And then Pryce hit Will so hard he went down in record time. Karen saw one of her idols almost kill her only family member and then told her,“Handle this.” Like he was a stray piece of paper to be picked up, as insignificant as a squashed fly. And that’s when Karen knew everything she feared was real. They didn’t matter. They only mattered, they only existed when they were needed, and they were nothing more. They weren’t a family. The only family she had was Will and at the time of it happening she thought he died.

Thankfully he didn’t die, but she never wanted to get that close again. And she ran away with Will who was still fading in and out. She didn’t know where they were going, and she didn’t care all she needed was him, and their pokemon. To her nothing else mattered.

A day later they ran into Koga and Bruno. The best way to describe Karen was a cornered injured animal viciously protecting her companion so nothing about her was friendly or welcoming. She would of denied their help, but she was desperate to help Will and accepted it. Eventually this lead to a very positive outcome too! When Will was better he bonded alot with Bruno since both of them had their heads messed with/adapted to fit Rocket’s wants. They could understand the trauma and invasiveness of it on a very deep level. Plus they proved to be the two goof balls when together. Koga and Karen bonded being the ones who were a bit more serious about the matter, Karen also reminded Koga of his daughter, and well Karen’s father figure record was absent then abusive so an actually healthy one (compared to the others yes he’s healthy)was a nice change of pace. Although it took MUCH longer for her to open up to Koga this time around still traumatized from The Masked Man. While with Pryce it only took three months roughly to trust him. It took about a year and a half to really trust Bruno or Koga. Then it wasn’t until 3 years and they were in the league that Karen accidentally called Koga ‘dad’, and then realized Bruno was like an uncle to her.

For the record. Karen has learned by now her bio dad wasn’t absent by choice but forced to be, and is a great person. Though she sees him as her father Koga is in her mind still her dad.

As for the aftermath of Pryce well she despises the fact that he’s allowed to still be a gym leader. However they can’t do anything about it because if they did it’d put all of the Johto league behind bars as well. She’s contemplated murder multiple times, but anything that happened to him would automatically make her and Will suspects especially since Carl and Sham have seemed to disappear. It irks her to see him anyplace and she tries to simply not acknowledge him. One time he called her daughter at a league event, and Karen shattered the glass in her hand by squeezing it. Thankfully she was with Bruno and Lance so they were the only ones to see it, and helped her bandage it up. She simply refuses to address him. She also can’t bring herself to go to Mahogany town. The memories are run too deep and she will start to have a panic attack. Yes, she’s tried multiple times to go back even with Lance since he loves the lake of rage, but she just can’t do it.

She is doing her best to make amends with Blue and Silver. What really bothers her is Carl and Sham though. She has no idea where they are even with all of her contacts, and she is afraid they might come back to destroy all that she’d built.

To sum up love now for Karen btw. She concluded when she was younger love was only something a couple had as long as everyone in the couple got something out of it. When you couldn’t give anymore you weren’t wanted. Which was why she never wanted to pursue love for anything serious, after all why bother when it was always doomed to fail or trap you. Karen has adapted that but still takes her time in relationships avoiding anything sexual especially because in her mind:”I want to know that even when you don’t need me my I exist to you, and my existence means as much to you as yours will to me.”

#TW: death mention #tw: abuse #tw: death #tw: violence #tw: child abuse #headcannons #long #karen's time in rocket #(this isn't even including the shiz where she told a joke and everyone passed out cause that really opened a can of worms which are her #current character flaws)#(which btw the passing out joke thing is cannon so not my addition it's in the lore)

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zchaotic · 5 years

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Decent story telling deciphering. Episode 3, Lusamine

Finally, the third member of the Aether Family and the one that has the most different adaptations.

Lusamine; President of the Aether Foundation and the mother of Gladion and Lillie.

Contrary to how the adaptations seem, they kept one big thing about her intact. Being a lousy mother with some messed up priorities.

From Vanilla SM, we have the one most of the fanbase is familiar with... as a terrifying villain and an example of how NOT to write a tragic villain that we want to see have a turnaround.

Let us start with her backstory, that gets better explained in USUM in comparison. She was someone who inherited the Aether Foundation from her father, met a man named Mohn, found love and had two kids.

Lusamine, is someone who is all about giving love to others and being loved back. According to the backstory, she was someone who loved her family that much, but has a fixation on it.

The desire to love and be loved becomes a key component into her downward spiral when her husband, Mohn, had an accident involving researching an Ultra Wormhole. The man was sucked into a wormhole, never to be seen again and left Lusamine with a member of the family gone, the only things that were left was a Cosmog and notes on Nihilego, the only clue she has in regarding to where Mohn is.

This... as Lillie said to us on Exeggutor Island, was around the point Lusamine changed... for the worse.

Lusamine became fixated on wanting to get Mohn back, to the point of trauma induced madness, where she blindly searched for ways to open the wormhole and look for him.

This resulted in Type:Null being created, a weapon made from several pokemon, to fight against the Beast beyond the wormhole, it came off as a failure and was frozen away. In addition, she started becoming more controlling of her kids due to what happened with Mohn, where she decided everything for them and never let them make their own choices.

She either continued to mess with the wormhole so much that eventually she encountered Nihilego in some way and got high on neurotoxins that turn her into her most warped, extreme self that only cared about Nihilego OR became so focused on researching wormholes to the point of obsession of where only the beasts matter... which makes things very confusing in the games since neither are explained very well.

What we gotten by the time the games plot started, was a woman that was putting on a friendly facade and only had one goal, get the Ultra Beasts. She was willing to manipulate, control and use everyone around her for her schemes, just to reach Nihilego. With no regard to the safety of others and her obsession with the beasts and beauty, lead to really disturbing implications that many... myself included, believed. Like dressing Lillie up as Nihilego, so she would resemble the only thing she cares about, the only thing worth of her “love”.

It gets worse when Lillie got taken to Aether Paradise, when Lusamine verbally tore at Lillie, saying she wasn’t pretty, that Lillie isn’t able to do anything on her own, among other horrid things. We see her with many pokemon that she froze as part of her collection, her screaming at Gladion and Lillie, saying that they stole from her and betrayed her.

Was callous in her treatment of Nebby when she used its power to open many wormholes to bring the Ultra Beasts over, while taunting Lillie over the fact that it might die. Had Guzma... a gang leader, under her thumb and willing to do what ever she says, because she gave praise to him and possible was only taking advantage of him, follow her into Ultra Space, to be with Nihilego.

To be blunt, Lusamine was a grade A cunt!

During you and Lillie’s journey, we were giving some dialogue from the girl that things were not always like this. That Lusamine wasn’t the big uncaring cunt we saw... and that was the only hint as to why we were going into Ultra Space to rescue Lusamine and Guzma.

The Beasts that were let out of Alola were a problem that was swept under the rug and apparently, the big reason Lillie wanted to go into Ultra Space was to tell Lusamine off.

Seemed to make sense after learning that Lusamine ditched Guzma to do her own thing... which resulted in the gang leader latched on by those things for a moment.

Lillie calling Lusamine out only set that crazy woman off into flinging more abusive language at Lillie and letting Nihilego latch onto her. Becoming the Mother Beast and try to kill you and Lillie, Nebby shot at Lusamine in the end, separated the two and all of a sudden Lusamine became nicer and gave Lillie some sweet words before falling into a coma. Lillie instantly forgave her mother for all that, dragged her and Guzma out of Ultra Space and later on, Lillie felt obligated to help Lusamine recover by going to Kanto. With hints that Lusamine still doesn’t know what she did wrong.

In the post game, we learn that Nihilego wasn’t much of a mind control venom, we have no good hints into when, if and how she got infected and then Gladion mentioned the backstory with Mohn. It was the wrong place and the wrong time in the story FOR this information.

Leaving many players to care little about wanting to see this woman recover/ rebuild her relationship with her kids and either A. Want her dead or B. are more concern of the many messed up things she did to her kids. In addition, it is pokemon, Lillie and Bill, WILL find a way to pull that recovery off and Lusamine would have gotten off way too easy despite her crap.

Very sloppy way to end a story and left no closure... despite being an effective villain and an accurate portrayal of an abusive parent.

Gamefreak end up becoming aware of this and in came USUM with its rewrite of her.

A similar if identical backstory came around and it brought more light into Lusamine as a character... and actual character instead of a villain.

Instead of being allowed to pursue Nihilego to the levels it did in SM, she encountered people from another world (The Ultra Recon Squad.) that told her about a pokemon called Necrozma, that would steal the light of Alola and bring about the apocalypse.

We have Lusamine delve into a messiah complex, believing that she is the one to go after Necrozma and protect everyone, despite still being a bitch to her kids.

For many fans, this created a backlash and to them... think it was butchery of her character... when really it isn’t.

This when you bring everything into context, reveals the real reason she was obsessed with the Ultra Wormhole and expand on the Lusamine we knew from the first game.

Lusamine was obsessed with revenge, revenge against Ultra Space and the Ultra Beasts for stealing Mohn away from her. This is the reason why she allowed Type:Full to happen, Faba created it as a way to appease to her, without her knowing and the woman caught wind of it.

So she allowed it to happen/ oversaw it as a way to have a tool of vengeance. But, Type:Full didn’t go accordingly and she had it frozen. This fits perfectly in the woman’s descent into madness, for vengeance is a very strong motivator to terrible things.

Because Lusamine lost Mohn from things that became beyond her control, she vowed to make sure she doesn’t lose anyone else, due to things beyond her control. Which is why she became a control freak to Gladion and Lillie, why she still has all those frozen pokemon, it wasn’t about keeping things beautiful/ because they were play things to her, it was about not wanting to lose those close to her.

Lusamine... still....went.... nuts!

This brings a different light to Lillie’s old look as I mentioned, it’s resemblance to Nihilego was nothing more than a coincidence... Nihilego has nothing to do the metaphor. Instead, the clothes are a metaphor to how overbearing Lusamine is to her kids. “Children would be all much happier if they’d only listen to the adults around them.” A quote from the bitch herself.

She actually thinks that she knows best and everyone who said otherwise are to shut up/ get out of her way. Which helps make things like Nihlego showing up at Aether Paradise through an Ultra Wormhole, make all the more sense despite her goals having nothing to do with Nihilego... why she needed the Cosmog despite the Ultra Recon Squad having another way into Ultra Space. Why did any of that needed to happen despite that.

She wanted to use HER Cosmog, to open a wormhole to Necrozma and go after it, despite the URS planning a more controllable approach. She wanted to channel her frustration out on it, look for Mohn and keep her self appointed image as a protector of all. This is very selfish, all her talk of protecting others was just that... talk to hide her truer.. darker motives. All of it is displayed in the main story this time when Gladion brought up Mohn.

Thankfully, due to Nihilego not being Lusamine’s central focus this time, we got to see what would have been if that was never the case. In USUM espite how messed up of a person Lusamine became and how messed up as a parent she became, she DOES care about her kids and the pokemon under her care. Which makes her bitterness towards her kids understandable... despite it still being her own damn fault they ran and how Lillie and Gladion had every right to run. She really was hurt by how they left her, she lost those she held dear and her reasons for battling you and going after Necrozma becomes even more fueled... she wanted to prove to those around her that she was right and they were wrong.

This makes her, even in her grief fueled insanity, much more human compared to the monster she was in SM. While she isn’t the caricature of an abusive parent she was in SM, she is more effective as a character in USUM because we see the bigger picture with what has happened to her.

Despite how Hau said “I know she was a good person” Gladion’s reaction should have been enough to tell us that he doesn’t believe that to be the case, he knows Lusamine became horrible BUT he does get why she is doing the things she is doing.

Why she became the bitch she was and why should we care for her having a turn around and making repairs with her kids.

She is someone we still want to slap hard in the face, for all the mega bitch things she pulled and is someone that would turn around for the better.

Her relationship with Guzma... still hasn’t changed much, but brings more into light that YES the things she said to give praise to Guzma were genuine... though she still took advantage of him. The URS and their request for help against Necrozma, an excuse to try and look for Mohn while hiding that selfish reason.

Then Lusamine and Guzma got their asses KICKED by Necrozma. Who followed them straight to an evolved Nebby, these two... agroo’d Necrozma to the last thing ANYONE wanted that thing to be near.

It created a chain of events that lead to things from the first game happening, Ultra Beasts being let loose and calamity nearing. Unlike in SM, there was a reason why the Beasts were ignored this time, Necrozma was the bigger issue for you the player, it took Nebby as its fused form and escaped into Ultra Megapololis.

While this was happening, Lusamine was at the mercy of a pissed of Recon Squad and to Lillie who had a few things to say to her. Lillie told us what it was at Vast Poni Canyon’s entrance and with Lusamine in a better position to listen to Lillie.

During the time between you going after and beating Necrozma... Lusamine listened to Lillie and have a realization into how messed up she was as a person. That is why she apologized to Lillie, admitting that her kids were right to take the two pokemon (Nebby and Null) and run away from her. As her first act of repentance... she tended to what was the Cosmog she hurt for her goals.

Her second act.... letting her kids go. She let Lillie go back to a healthier family environment... away from the toxicity she wrought, she let Gladion go off to Kanto... waving goodbye to him all the more. (I still find that scene heartwarming and... arguable better than when Lillie went on that boat due to all the implications fueling it.)

In between your initial league victory and Rainbow Rocket, Lusamine had a small identity crisis. She knows she isn’t in any position to face her kids after the crap she done to them and she knows she lost the right to claim she was protecting anyone, after all she had hurt... she realized how low she sunk.

Then RR came, she tried to fight Giovanni and got held hostage, with the Don intending on making her into his servant. She may have turned into a Damsel and not do much on screen... but this is generally how things go in Pokemon Games, where a former villain says they are going to change for the better and that is the end of it. (Looking at Archie and Maxie.)

Once RR came... she found a resolve of what to do, made a vow to protect pokemon and love her kids from a distance. That she knows her kids are not her possessions and that she would only be involved with them again if they need her. If you go back down to the Aether Labs after RR... you have an employee tell you that the frozen pokemon are scheduled to be thawed. I didn’t mind the frozen pokemon still being there after that bit of digging, because reality ensues, a mess like that is going to take a while to clean up.

Then a month later, Gladion visits you for title defense and then visits Lusamine for unknown reasons. (Signs that the relationship is being mended.) Mohn appears, the reason for Lusamine’s downward spiral and what she done everything for... he has amnesia due to being a faller and doesn’t recognize his own wife. Lusamine... despite the torrent that was going on in her mind, made it into a casual conversation and let him go back to his new life. Very likely because if Mohn knew what she done... it would have just made him miserable in the end. With Mohn himself making a possibility that he will meet her again.

Very bittersweet, very effective closure to the Aether Families drama. Anyone who says USUM butchered their story, botched Lusamine’s character or retconned her into a “good person” or “a selfless angel” disappoints me to a great degree since SM only focused on her as a villain never bothered with that closure. The only thing that was done in USUM that would be a concern is that the family lost focus for Necrozma’s story, thus we don’t get the same emotional weight compared to SM.

SM’s Lusamine was a beta... and effective villain, but not what Gamefreak wanted from her. USUM made her into a more fleshed out character at some exchange for her villainy and gave her closure that she needed!

Now begins the third... and arguable the one to surpass the other adaptations despite being the most different out of all the others.

The Sun and Moon anime.

In this adaptation, despite having similar things happen in the background.

Her obsession with the Beasts is more of a scientific curiosity, wanting to see one than the things we saw in the SM games.

She didn’t become an abusive parent and would sooner smoother her kids with affection (unwanted affection.) then any of the things we know of from either sets of games.

The incident with Mohn... resulted in her being so depressed that she uses work as a way to null the pain, rather than an obsession with wanting to open the wormhole and look for him.

Is an adorable goofball and is actually a good person.

Despite those changes to her character, she still has quite a few things wrong with her.

She does things the way she wants to do it, her affection towards Lillie was unwanted and she doesn’t get that. In addition, she never really socializes with her kids before making those big decisions in changes. (Like with Clefairy, despite it being her’s and despite Clefairy touching the moon stone willing, Lusamine should have asked Lillie if it was okay to do so.)

Her neglect towards her kids... regardless of work or otherwise is disturbing due to what she allowed to happen. The event that lead to Lillie’s trauma, to Gladion’s distrust AND to all of it festering for a while, in addition to Faba being able to do all sorts of things under her nose.

Her unwanted affection comes off as shallow because work ended up coming before her kids.

They took out the evil aspects of Lusamine’s character... but kept in everything else that was wrong with her, contrary to what many think.

This resulted in the Aether Family having such a strained relationship, why Lillie is so hostile towards her. It took until Gladion chewed Lusamine out, to get it through this woman’s head just how poor of a parent she was. She wasn’t really there for Lillie when she needed her and Gladion thought Lusamine was in on the things Faba has done.

It took Lusamine having to do much to repair that relationship and part of the thing that showed her development was at the episode where Faba used Nebby to open a wormhole and bring in Nihilego. The beast was about to attack Gladion and Lusamine pushed him out of the way to protect him.

For me, I smiled for two reasons and was horrified by another. Lusamine showed her development and showed that she cared that much for her kids... and that I was going to have my sadistic wish of having Nihilego turn her into something close to the nut job we had from the SM games.

And I wasn’t disappointed when we next see her, we the audience may have a reason to care that our heroes are trying to rescue Lusamine... but she was screaming at her kids and in her temper tantrum nearly killed them.

As the Mother Beast... Lusamine was reduced to something like a child that was having her toy taken away from her and made it easier for Nihilego to have her under its control. This is what Lillie verbally struck at the Mother Beast, giving Lusamine a sign that she really need to make improvements as a mother... that realization struck past Nihilego and caused the woman to reach out to Lillie... only for Nihilego to cover her up with her own hair and tried to swat Lillie.

Then Ash uses the Z move and zaps the jellyfish off of Lusamine.

She was rescued, brought back home and had a short recovery. Then she thought of the idea to form and be the mission control of the Ultra Guardians... a group of kids that had experience with dealing with UB’s that are to deal with them.

For the rest of the series... we see the Aether Family slowly make repairs to where it resembles and behaves like normal family. From the Necrozma Arc, to the school play episode and lately, the Mohn episode.

That one, we actually see Lusamine watching in despair at Mohn being dragged into an ultra wormhole. Where is this family going to go in the end?

This answer, might make the SM anime the best adaptation of this drama, in its focus, closure and how it made it relatable to us... despite also being the most different.

I honestly hope Gamefreak does better with their next antagonist and make them easy to understand. Lusamine was a complete mess initially and that caused a ripple in the adaptations we saw.

#Analysis #Lusamine #I'll talk about the Manga later

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nautilusopus · 6 years

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Now we've been through this 6 months ago, but now, the more I think about your opinion about how Lusamine from Sun/Moon is Pokemon's first “true” villain, the less sense it makes to me. The fact that a woman that did something really bad and then chose to do better in the end just doesn't make for a genuinely evil villain in my opinion. Lusamine is a tragic villain who was manipulated by Nihilego's toxin after she discovered it. She's not even pure evil, she's just being selfishly insane, right?

I think you misunderstand what I mean when I say she’s the first true villain who ever did anything actually wrong. Up until her, every other Pokemon villain we’ve had was pretty much a Captain Planet CEO – Giovanni is going to be rich and rule the world! He wants this because… rich! Rule the world! We don’t really know honestly. Generations kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiind of tried to flesh him out in any way but not really. Archie and Maxie were sort of flat and misguided and wanted to make a utopia, you as a protagonist have to stop them because you can’t let the world get destroyed, and in the end they learn the error of their ways because everyone almost dies yadda yadda balance Pokemon. Cyrus wanted to actually destroy the world because emotions are illogical. You have to stop him because presumably you keep all your stuff in the universe. Ghetsis made Poke-PETA to rule the world because rule the world, and you stop him because oh no the Pokemons. Lysandre tries to kill everyone and also Pokemon because he’s on some dumb T Hanos bullshit, and you stop him because oh no, the world, and also sharing is caring or whatever (even though, as discussed in many many posts, resources aren’t the problem and allocation and wealth hoarding is but shhhhh this is a kids’ game).

There’s a bit of a trend here – they want something very generic for nonspecific reasons (excepting Lysandre at the very least), and as a result it’s also very hard to care when not only is the audience so disconnected from the villain’s motivations, so are the characters. Gen 5 has N at least, but you don’t even really become friends with him until after everything’s over so nothing comes of it.

Lusamine is the first Pokemon villain with any sort of arc that the player actually engages with in any way at all besides kicking the shit out of her because world/Pokemon/money – her motivations are specifically connected to characters that you’ve had time to know and get attached to. Lusamine doesn’t want to rule the world, she’s just a terrible shitty mother. That’s A) a lot more relatable to our monkey brains than just blowing up the planet for shiggles, in part because it’s something that actually happens, and B) it allows the player to directly engage with her within the narrative. We see how she acts to Lillie, another character we know and who has motivations framed specifically around the consequences of this shitty mothering, and how Gladion’s straight up bailed because of it. We see how that in turn has impacted her treatment of both children and what she thinks about it (and how it still didn’t make her want to rule the world -- or even get Gladion back). We see how she justifies her decisions to herself using something that isn’t POKEMON ARE TOOLS! I SHOULD RULE THE WORLD BECAUSE I WANT POWER! And in the end, we care about her plight more because this could have been all avoided, not if only someone had told her Legendary Pokemon tend to blow things up or People Can Friendship After All! but because she consciously made terrible decisions that were in line with her character and the logic she was following.

That’s why she feels so much more malevolent than any other villain thus far. She has the smallest body count out of all of them (her actions really only negatively impact like.. five people, tops), but what she does is more relatable, more personal, and most importantly, has no “but the greater good” excuse or utter non-motivation like “the world should be mine” does.

She’s awful and I love her.

I’m not mad that she chose to do better in the end, I think that would have been really interesting to see… in Sun/Moon. I’m mad at USUM because the thing she’s apologising for is fundamentally different. In USUM she’s just another well-meaning extremist that was only trying to save the world, guys! And what she apologises for is trying so hard to save the world she forgot about family Pokemon friendship what the fuck ever. In Sun/Moon, she wouldn’t have been attempting to make up for “helping the wrong way”, she would have been making up for the fact that she actively abandoned her daughter for purely selfish reasons after disowning her and telling her she was too ugly to be loved. That’s waaaaay different. The fact that they softened that and she just kinda turned into Archiesandre bothers me immensely, because that’s not the villain that was so compelling in the first game at all. I don’t know, maybe they felt the child abuse and having that be the thing you’re directly combating hit a bit too close to home and dialed that back a bit. It’s still very disappointing either way.

#asks #pokemon #Anonymous

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kuriboo · 4 years

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Yusaku Fujiki + Dueling

When it comes to the protagonist of Vrains, Yusaku Fujiki, there’s a lot of interesting topics surrounding him. His relationships with other characters in the series and his past are two obvious examples, but I’ve got something different on my mind: Yusaku’s relationship with dueling itself. The way this relationship is showcased is very interesting to me, because it’s something that really sets Yusaku apart from other Yugioh characters and past protagonists. It’s certainly not the only thing, but it is one of the main things.

As a disclaimer, this post is not delving into Yusaku’s trauma related to dueling. This is another very important topic related to the show, but I don’t want to go into analyzing it here. It is a related topic, and it’ll certainly be referenced as it partly shapes the topic of this post itself, but it’s not the specific topic we’re analyzing here. This post also isn’t going into analyze any deck Yusaku or any other character in the show uses at any point. Decks might get referenced, but I’m not going to sit here and reference the decks themselves. This post is something else.

With that in mind, here we go.

At the beginning of the series, Yusaku does not like dueling.

You might remember this fairly viral scene from one of the first episodes of the show: Playmaker is logged into Vrains, popular Vrains duelists Go Onizuka and Blue Angel walk up to Playmaker and challenge him to a duel, and Playmaker responds by saying:

before logging out.

This scene was fairly widespread in yugioh circles, and for good reason, I think. It really helped set the stage for a lot of the series and especially Yusaku himself; coincidentally, it will help set the stage for this post as well.

At the beginning of the series, Yusaku does not like dueling. And at the end of the series, Yusaku still does not like dueling. And in a nutshell, this is why the topic of dueling related to Yusaku is so intriguing to me. And within this topic, there’s multiple things I want to bring up about more specifically why it’s so intriguing to me specifically.

The thing about Yusaku is, he never duels unless he has a reason to, unless it furthers his goals. This is pretty radical in Yugioh, honestly. Yugioh has had a tendency to treat dueling like battling in Pokemon: characters never back down from a challenge. Yusaku isn’t like that. From the start, he only duels with a set goal in mind (get revenge against the Knights of Hanoi), and he only duels if it furthers his goals. Go Onizuka and Blue Angel challenge him in early episodes the same way characters in any other Yugioh series might challenge each other, especially in the first season in those series: they recognize Playmaker’s skill, they want to measure their own skill against his, and they duel in large part because they enjoy dueling. But Yusaku turns them down. He has to be tricked into dueling them in later episodes of season one. Yusaku never duels Shima, never duels anyone in his school’s duel club despite joining it, he never duels Takeru, and none of his duels are ever for fun. This does not change in season two. This does not change in season three. Even when Yusaku changes, even when he starts to let people into his life and he softens his walls a little bit, he is never shown dueling for fun.

What’s really unique about this is that the narrative never frames him as being in the wrong.

Arc V had characters who were traumatized by dueling, too. The XYZ dimension in particular. But Arc V had a different take on things; one of the recurring things about Arc V was that while dueling was a tool used for harm by some, it was also used as a vehicle for good by others, and the bad shouldn’t negate the good. People who were hurt by duels in the past grew to recognize that and gave dueling a second chance as at least something they could enjoy from the audience.

Vrains, however, never tries to change Yusaku’s view of dueling. The story never pushes him to turn around and start liking it again. The number of duels we see him watch is small, and even those aren’t from him just enjoying watching people duel, it’s in support of duelists he personally knows and respects. We only ever watch him go to a single duel club meeting, and he attended the meeting by accident. Yusaku just doesn’t love dueling the way he used to.

There’s another protagonist who runs into this problem that we can compare Yusaku to...

Jaden tries to give up dueling multiple times in GX, but here we’ll be specifically thinking about season four. Season four largely focuses on Jaden’s depression following the events of season three, and one of the main plot points is that he’s lost his love of dueling. He spends most of his time in his room, blaming himself for current circumstances, and he only duels when he really has to for the most part. For someone who in season one played for love of the game more than for victory more than most other characters in the series, this is a big change in Jaden. Characters who were inspired by Jaden’s love for the game in season one get mad at him for losing his perspective completely in season four.

In fact, for most of season four, he only duels specifically to win. Having fun while dueling is the furthest thing from his mind.

Does this sound familiar?

I only bring up Jaden and compare him to Yusaku here to really contrast something big between the two, though.

One of the major plot points of season four is Jaden regaining his love for dueling. His friends are upset about how he’s changed, and this change surfaces itself as one of the symptoms of Jaden’s depression. This isn’t really surprising. Depression often involves a loss of interest in hobbies and activities that were once loved and enjoyed. But the very last duel of the season is Jaden’s duel against Yugi, where throughout the duel Jaden finds himself learning how to have fun dueling again. Yugi, the King of Games, is a very difficult opponent who also enjoys playing the game, and his combination of skill and energy bring out the same in Jaden as he rises to meet Yugi’s level. We never see who wins the duel because that was never the point. That was never the purpose. Jaden didn’t duel Yugi specifically to win, he dueled Yugi as a step in healthily coping with his depression, and in that aspect, Jaden certainly won.

Yusaku’s loss of enjoyment in dueling is a result of his traumatic experiences related to dueling when he was six. It’s likely part of his own depression, too. Yusaku has a habit of closing himself off and isolating himself. But even as Yusaku deals with his trauma, even as he deals with his depression, the narrative never tries to push him too hard and force him to enjoy it again. Yusaku just doesn’t want to duel anymore, and his is completely accepted. Yusaku was changed by his traumatic experiences. And no one who really knows what happened to him is upset by how he changed, or tries to force him to change back to who he was before.

This isn’t to say that one is superior over the other. I think Jaden regaining his love of dueling and Yusaku being allowed to leave dueling behind him are both pretty powerful. Jaden being allowed to reclaim dueling is an important story. Yusaku leaving behind the thing that hurt him is also important. I’m not here to rank one story over the other. The point is just that... Yusaku is really unique within Vrains, and I appreciate that.

But Yusaku still not loving to duel by the end of the series isn’t just showcased by his attitude, his lack of enthusiasm towards dueling itself which stays constant throughout all of Vrains. It’s not just shown by what he says.

You can see it in his dueling record.

Looking at the Yugioh wiki, Yusaku has about 35 duels throughout Vrains. If we ignore flashbacks, he duels about 30 times. All these duels result in either a draw or a win for Yusaku. This isn’t a surprise. Yusaku is literally crafted to be a dueling machine that cranks out wins the way a pencil sharpener sharpens pencils. There’s almost never doubt that Yusaku will lose, because he literally can’t lose. This doesn’t make for an unenjoyable series, though, at least not for me. There may not have been much tension in who would win this week’s duel a lot of the time, but for me it was more about how each duel happened, how Yusaku won, and what happened along the way as he fought the fights he couldn’t ignore. The way that each duel showed that Yusau becoming a winning machine wasn’t just about him learning combos that would always win, but how his his experiences taught him to always be flexible and to always learn as he dueled, how each duel he still became a better duelist.

Let’s break down Yusaku’s 30 duels in the series.

Of his 30 duels, about 19 took place in season one. About 11 took place in season two. About 2 took place in season three. Of his season three duels, one duel was literally just meant to stall him; Yusaku’s opponent only dueled with the intention of wasting time, not trying to beat him. Yusaku only had about 1 serious duel in season three.

Takeru’s introduction in season two is part of the reason Yusaku dueled less, of course. As Takeru proved himself not only competent but trustworthy, Yusaku trusted him to win more and more duels. And a lot of the time, Takeru did win, because Takeru is a lot like Yusaku, and Takeru is extremely skilled in his own right of course. But there’s one big difference between the two in that Takeru let himself enjoy dueling again while Yusaku didn’t. And so Takeru volunteered himself for a lot of duels, willingly throwing himself into battle in Yusaku’s place. Takeru never minded this, and Yusaku only minded it when it put Takeru in danger, never because Yusaku wanted to duel instead.

Takeru has about 8 duels in season two and 3 duels in season three, 11 in all not including flashbacks. Of Takeru’s season three duels, one duel was literally just meant to stall him; Takeru’s opponent only dueled with the intention of wasting time, not trying to beat him. Takeru only had about 2 serious duels in season three. Takeru only ever lost one duel, his last season two duel against Bohman, and the rest either had no result or were wins for Takeru.

Season three is of course very short compared to the other two seasons of Vrains, and there are a lot less duels in general. But looking at ratios of season duels... Yusaku’s ratio would be 19:11:2, and Takeru’s would be about 0:8:3. Takeru duels almost half as much in season three as season two. Yusaku duels almost half as much in season two as in season one, but almost a fifth as much in season three as season two. Yusaku’s dueling curve is a lot steeper than Takeru’s.

No one’s ever upset about Yusaku dueling less as the series goes on, though. He’s allowed to just duel less as the series goes on and I think that’s cool. His friends never really try to encourage him to duel more. In fact, in season three, he’s encouraged to abandon the fight altogether, and he only duels at all because it’s Ai, and he wants to help him. Yusaku doesn’t really enjoy his duels either, and the show doesn’t really cast a negative light on this.

You know, as opposed to Jaden from GX, and characters from the XYZ dimension from Arc V, who are encouraged and pushed to like dueling again.

I think the big thing here is... Recovery is different for everyone, and everyone deals with trauma and depression differently, you know? For some people, it’s about re-exposing themselves, re-associating the thing, and for some people it’s about avoiding the thing altogether, and different approaches are good for different people. And I think that it’s really cool that Yugioh has approached this same topic multiple times in different ways over the years, and none of these approaches are ever really ranked over each other, and none of these approaches are ever invalidated. It shows that healthy looks different in different people and I think that’s important for people to see.

And for a show that largely exists to sell a card game, it’s pretty radical that Yusaku’s allowed to not like the card game and I think that’s cool.

#yugioh vrains #vrains liveblog #this isn't the only analysis i really wanted to do post-vrains but i think it'll do for now #i spent multiple hours on this and did more research for this than i did for some papers in college so take it #tater.txt #sworn my allegiance to magic queue

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