#it's not shared here yet but now Simon has a design :3 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

aquilaofarkham · 4 years

Link

Much like his infamous father, the aesthetic of Alucard has changed tremendously since Castlevania’s start in the 1980s—yet certain things about him never change at all. He began as the mirror image of Dracula; a hark back to the days of masculine Hammer Horror films, Christopher Lee, and Bela Lugosi. Then his image changed dramatically into the androgynous gothic aristocrat most people know him as today. This essay will examine Alucard’s design, the certain artistic and social trends which might have influenced it, and how it has evolved into what it is now.

☽ Read the full piece here or click the read more for the text only version ☽

INTRODUCTION

Published in 2017, Carol Dyhouse’s Heartthrobs: A History of Women and Desire examines how certain cultural trends can influence what women may find attractive or stimulating in a male character. By using popular archetypes such as the Prince Charming, the bad boy, and the tall dark handsome stranger, Dyhouse seeks to explain why these particular men appeal to the largest demographic beyond mere superfluous infatuation. In one chapter titled “Dark Princes, Foreign Powers: Desert Lovers, Outsiders, and Vampires”, she touches upon the fascination most audiences have with moody and darkly seductive vampires. Dyhouse exposits that the reason for this fascination is the inherent dangerous allure of taming someone—or something—so dominating and masculine, perhaps even evil, yet hides their supposed sensitivity behind a Byronic demeanour.

This is simply one example of how the general depiction of vampires in mainstream media has evolved over time. Because the concept itself is as old as the folklore and superstitions it originates from, thus varying from culture to culture, there is no right or wrong way to represent a vampire, desirable or not. The Caribbean Soucouyant is described as a beautiful woman who sheds her skin at night and enters her victims’ bedrooms disguised as an aura of light before consuming their blood. In Ancient Roman mythology there are tales of the Strix, an owl-like creature that comes out at night to drink human blood until it can take no more. Even the Chupacabra, a popular cryptid supposedly first spotted in Puerto Rico, has been referred to as being vampiric because of the way it sucks blood out of goats, leaving behind a dried up corpse.

However, it is a rare thing to find any of these vampires in popular media. Instead, most modern audiences are shown Dyhouse’s vampire: the brooding, masculine alpha male in both appearance and personality. A viewer may wish to be with that character, or they might wish to become just like that character.

This sort of shift in regards to creating the “ideal” vampire is most evident in how the image of Dracula has been adapted, interpreted, and revamped in order to keep up with changing trends. In Bram Stoker’s original 1897 novel of the same name, Dracula is presented as the ultimate evil; an ancient, almost grotesque devil that ensnares the most unsuspecting victims and slowly corrupts their innocence until they are either subservient to him (Renfield, the three brides) or lost to their own bloodlust (Lucy Westenra). In the end, he can only be defeated through the joined actions of a steadfast if not ragtag group of self-proclaimed vampire hunters that includes a professor, a nobleman, a doctor, and a cowboy. His monstrousness in following adaptations remains, but it is often undercut by attempts to give his character far more pathos than the original source material presents him with. Dracula has become everything: a monster, a lover, a warrior, a lonely soul searching for companionship, a conquerer, a comedian, and of course, the final boss of a thirty-year-old video game franchise.

Which brings us to the topic of this essay; not Dracula per say, but his son. Even if someone has never played a single instalment of Castlevania or watched the ongoing animated Netflix series, it is still most likely that they have heard of or seen the character of Alucard through cultural osmosis thanks to social media sites such as Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, and the like. Over the thirty-plus years in which Castlevania has remained within the public’s consciousness, Alucard has become one of the most popular characters of the franchise, if not the most popular. Since his debut as a leading man in the hit game Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, he has taken his place beside other protagonists like Simon Belmont, a character who was arguably the face of Castlevania before 1997, the year in which Symphony of the Night was released. Alucard is an iconic component of the series and thanks in part to the mainstream online streaming service Netflix, he is now more present in the public eye than ever before whether through official marketing strategies or fanworks.

It is easy to see why. Alucard’s backstory and current struggles are quite similar to the defining characteristics of the Byronic hero. Being the son of the human doctor Lisa Țepeș, a symbol of goodness and martyrdom in all adaptations, and the lord of all vampires Dracula, Alucard (also referred to by his birth name Adrian Fahrenheit Țepeș) feels constantly torn between the two halves of himself. He maintains his moralistic values towards protecting humanity, despite being forced to make hard decisions, and despite parts of humanity not being kind to him in turn, yet is always tempted by his more monstrous inheritance. The idea of a hero who carries a dark burden while aspiring towards nobility is something that appeals to many audiences. We relate to their struggles, cheer for them when they triumph, and share their pain when they fail. Alucard (as most casual viewers see him) is the very personification of the Carol Dyhouse vampire: mysterious, melancholic, dominating, yet sensitive and striving for compassion. Perceived as a supposed “bad boy” on the surface by people who take him at face value, yet in reality is anything but.

Then there is Alucard’s appearance, an element that is intrinsically tied to how he has been portrayed over the decades and the focus of this essay. Much like his infamous father, the aesthetic of Alucard has changed tremendously since Castlevania’s start in the 1980s—yet certain things about him never change at all. He began as the mirror image of Dracula; a hark back to the days of masculine Hammer Horror films, Christopher Lee, and Bela Lugosi. Then his image changed dramatically into the androgynous gothic aristocrat most people know him as today. This essay will examine Alucard’s design, the certain artistic and social trends which might have influenced it, and how it has evolved into what it is now. Parts will include theoretical, analytical, and hypothetical stances, but it’s overall purpose is to be merely observational.

What is Castlevania?

We start this examination at the most obvious place, with the most obvious question. Like all franchises, Castlevania has had its peaks, low points, and dry spells. Developed by Konami and directed by Hitoshi Akamatsu, the first instalment was released in 1986 then distributed in North America for the Nintendo Entertainment System the following year. Its pixelated gameplay consists of jumping from platform to platform and fighting enemies across eighteen stages all to reach the final boss, Dracula himself. Much like the gameplay, the story of Castlevania is simple. You play as Simon Belmont; a legendary vampire hunter and the only one who can defeat Dracula. His arsenal includes holy water, axes, and throwing daggers among many others, but his most important weapon is a consecrated whip known as the vampire killer, another iconic staple of the Castlevania image.

Due to positive reception from critics and the public alike, Castlevania joined other titles including Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Mega Man as one of the most defining video games of the 1980s. As for the series itself, Castlevania started the first era known by many fans and aficionados as the “Classicvania” phase, which continued until the late 1990s. It was then followed by the “Metroidvania” era, the “3-D Vania” era during the early to mid 2000s, an reboot phase during the early 2010s, and finally a renaissance or “revival” age where a sudden boom in new or re-released Castlevania content helped boost interest and popularity in the franchise. Each of these eras detail how the games changed in terms of gameplay, design, and storytelling. The following timeline gives a general overview of the different phases along with their corresponding dates and instalments.

Classicvania refers to Castlevania games that maintain the original’s simplicity in gameplay, basic storytelling, and pixelated design. In other words, working within the console limitations of the time. They are usually side-scrolling platformers with an emphasis on finding hidden objects and defeating a variety of smaller enemies until the player faces off against the penultimate boss. Following games like Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest and Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse were more ambitious than their predecessor as they both introduced new story elements that offered multiple endings and branching pathways. In Dracula’s Curse, there are four playable characters each with their own unique gameplay. However, the most basic plot of the first game is present within both of these titles . Namely, find Dracula and kill Dracula. Like with The Legend of Zelda’s Link facing off against Ganon or Mario fighting Bowser, the quest to destroy Dracula is the most fundamental aspect to Castlevania. Nearly every game had to end with his defeat. In terms of gameplay, it was all about the journey to Dracula’s castle.

As video games grew more and more complex leading into the 1990s, Castlevania’s tried and true formula began to mature as well. The series took a drastic turn with the 1997 release of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, a game which started the Metroidvania phase. This not only refers to the stylistic and gameplay changes of the franchise itself, but also refers to an entire subgenre of video games. Combining key components from Castlevania and Nintendo’s popular science fiction action series Metroid, Metroidvania games emphasize non-linear exploration and more traditional RPG elements including a massive array of collectable weapons, power-ups, character statistics, and armor. Symphony of the Night pioneered this trend while later titles like Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance and Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow solidified it. Nowadays, Metroidvanias are common amongst independent developers while garnering critical praise. Hollow Knight, Blasphemous, and Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night are just a few examples of modern Metroidvanias that use the formula to create familiar yet still distinct gaming experiences.

Then came the early to mid 2000s and many video games were perfecting the use of 3-D modelling, free control over the camera, and detailed environments. Similar to what other long-running video game franchises were doing at the time, Castlevania began experimenting with 3-D in 1999 with Castlevania 64 and Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness, both developed for the Nintendo 64 console. 64 received moderately positive reviews while the reception for its companion was far more mixed, though with Nintendo 64’s discontinuation in 2002, both games have unfortunately fallen into obscurity.

A year later, Castlevania returned to 3-D with Castlevania: Lament of Innocence for the Playstation 2. This marked Koji Igarashi’s first foray into 3-D as well as the series’ first ever M-rated instalment. While not the most sophisticated or complex 3-D Vania (or one that manages to hold up over time in terms of graphics), Lament of Innocence was a considerable improvement over 64 and Legacy of Darkness. Other 3-D Vania titles include Castlevania: Curse of Darkness, Castlevania: Judgment, and Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles for the PSP, a remake of the Classicvania game Castlevania: Rondo of Blood which merged 3-D models, environments, and traditional platforming mechanics emblematic of early Castlevania. It is important to note that during this particular era, there were outliers to the changing formula that included Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin and Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, both games which added to the Metroidvania genre.

Despite many of the aforementioned games becoming cult classics and fan favourites, this was an era in which Castlevania struggled to maintain its relevance, confused by its own identity according to most critics. Attempts to try something original usually fell flat or failed to resonate with audiences and certain callbacks to what worked in the past were met with indifference.

By the 2010s, the Castlevania brand changed yet again and stirred even more division amongst critics, fans, and casual players. This was not necessarily a dark age for the franchise but it was a strange age; the black sheep of Castlevania. In 2010, Konami released Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, a complete reboot of the series with new gameplay, new characters, and new lore unrelated to previous instalments. The few elements tying it to classic Castlevania games were recurring enemies, platforming, and the return of the iconic whip used as both a weapon and another means of getting from one area to another. Other gameplay features included puzzle-solving, exploration, and hack-and-slash combat. But what makes Lords of Shadow so divisive amongst fans is its story. The player follows Gabriel Belmont, a holy warrior on a quest to save his deceased wife’s soul from Limbo. From that basic plot point, the storyline diverges immensely from previous Castlevania titles, becoming more and more complicated until Gabriel makes the ultimate sacrifice and turns into the very monster that haunted other Belmont heroes for centuries: Dracula. While a dark plot twist and a far cry from the hopeful endings of past games, the concept of a more tortured and reluctant Dracula who was once the hero had already been introduced in older Dracula adaptations (the Francis Ford Coppola directed Dracula being a major example of this trend in media).

Despite strong opinions on how much the story of Lords of Shadow diverged from the original timeline, it was positively received by critics, garnering an overall score of 85 on Metacritic. This prompted Konami to continue with the release of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow—Mirror of Fate and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2. Mirror of Fate returned to the series’ platforming and side-scrolling roots with stylized 3-D models and cutscenes. It received mixed reviews, as did its successor Lords of Shadow 2. While Mirror of Fate felt more like a classic stand-alone Castlevania with Dracula back as its main antagonist, the return of Simon Belmont, and the inclusion of Alucard, Lords of Shadow 2 carried over plot elements from its two predecessors along with new additions, turning an already complicated story into something more contrived.

Finally, there came a much needed revival phase for the franchise. Netflix’s adaptation of Castlevania animated by Powerhouse Animation Studios based in Austen, Texas and directed by Samuel Deats and co-directed by Adam Deats aired its first season during July 2017 with four episodes. Season two aired in October 2018 with eight episodes followed by a ten episode third season in March 2020. Season four was announced by Netflix three weeks after the release of season three. The show combines traditional western 2-D animation with elements from Japanese anime and is a loose adaptation of Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse combined with plot details from Castlevania: Curse of Darkness, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and original story concepts. But the influx of new Castlevania content did not stop with the show. Before the release of season two, Nintendo announced that classic protagonists Simon Belmont and Richter Belmont would join the ever-growing roster of playable characters in their hit fighting game Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. With their addition also came the inclusion of iconic Castlevania environments, music, weapons, and supporting characters like Dracula and Alucard.

During the year-long gap between seasons two and three of the Netflix show, Konami released Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls, a side-scrolling platformer and gacha game for mobile devices. The appeal of Grimoire of Souls is the combination of popular Castlevania characters each from a different game in the series interacting with one another along with a near endless supply of collectable weapons, outfits, power-ups, and armor accompanied by new art. Another ongoing endeavor by Konami in partnership with Sony to bring collective awareness back to one of their flagship titles is the re-releasing of past Castlevania games. This began with Castlevania: Requiem, in which buyers received both Symphony of the Night and Rondo of Blood for the Playstation 4 in 2018. This was followed the next year with the Castlevania Anniversary Collection, a bundle that included a number of Classicvania titles for the Playstation 4, Xbox One, Steam, and Nintendo Switch.

Like Dracula, the Belmonts, and the vampire killer, one other element tying these five eras together is the presence of Alucard and his various forms in each one.

Masculinity in 1980s Media

When it comes to media and various forms of the liberal arts be it entertainment, fashion, music, etc., we are currently in the middle of a phenomenon known as the thirty year cycle. Patrick Metzgar of The Patterning describes this trend as a pop cultural pattern that is, in his words, “forever obsessed with a nostalgia pendulum that regularly resurfaces things from 30 years ago”. Nowadays, media seems to be fixated with a romanticized view of the 1980s from bold and flashy fashion trends, to current music that relies on the use of synthesizers, to of course visual mass media that capitalizes on pop culture icons of the 80s. This can refer to remakes, reboots, and sequels; the first cinematic chapter of Stephen King’s IT, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, and both Ghostbusters remakes are prime examples—but the thirty year cycle can also include original media that is heavily influenced or oversaturated with nostalgia. Netflix’s blockbuster series Stranger Things is this pattern’s biggest and most overt product.

To further explain how the thirty year cycle works with another example, Star Wars began as a nostalgia trip and emulation of vintage science fiction serials from the 1950s and 60s, the most prominent influence being Flash Gordon. This comparison is partially due to George Lucas’ original attempts to license the Flash Gordon brand before using it as prime inspiration for Star Wars: A New Hope and subsequent sequels. After Lucas sold his production company Lucasfilms to Disney, three more Star Wars films were released, borrowing many aesthetic and story elements from Lucas’ original trilogy while becoming emulations of nostalgia themselves.

The current influx of Castlevania content could be emblematic of this very same pattern in visual media, being an 80s property itself, but what do we actually remember from the 1980s? Thanks to the thirty year cycle, the general public definitely acknowledges and enjoys all the fun things about the decade. Movie theatres were dominated by the teen flicks of John Hughes, the fantasy genre found a comeback due to the resurgence of J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic works along with the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, and people were dancing their worries away to the songs of Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, and Madonna. Then there were the things that most properties taking part in the thirty year cycle choose to ignore or gloss over, with some exceptions. The rise of child disappearances, prompting the term “stranger danger”, the continuation of satanic panic from the 70s which caused the shutdown and incarceration of hundreds of innocent caretakers, and the deaths of thousands due to President Reagan’s homophobia, conservatism, and inability to act upon the AIDS crisis.

The 1980s also saw a shift in masculinity and how it was represented towards the public whether through advertising, television, cinema, or music. In M.D. Kibby’s essay Real Men: Representations of Masculinity in 80s Cinema, he reveals that “television columns in the popular press argued that viewers were tired of liberated heroes and longed for the return of the macho leading man” (Kibby, 21). Yet there seemed to be a certain “splitness” to the masculine traits found within fictional characters and public personas; something that tried to deconstruct hyper-masculinity while also reviling in it, particularly when it came to white, cisgendered men. Wendy Somerson further describes this dichotomy: “The white male subject is split. On one hand, he takes up the feminized personality of the victim, but on the other hand, he enacts fantasies of hypermasculinized heroism” (Somerson, 143). Somerson explains how the media played up this juxtaposition of “soft masculinity”, where men are portrayed as victimized, helpless, and childlike. In other words, “soft men who represent a reaction against the traditional sexist ‘Fifties man’ and lack a strong male role model” (Somerson, 143). A sort of self-flagellation or masochism in response to the toxic and patriarchal gender roles of three decades previous. Yet this softening of male representation was automatically seen as traditionally “feminine” and femininity almost always equated to childlike weakness. Then in western media, there came the advent of male madness and the fetishization of violent men. Films like Scarface, Die Hard, and any of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s filmography helped to solidify the wide appeal of these hyper-masculine and “men out of control” tropes which were preceded by Martin Scorcese’s critical and cult favourite Taxi Driver.

There were exceptions to this rule; or at the very least attempted exceptions that only managed to do more harm to the concept of a feminized man while also doubling down on the standard tropes of the decade. One shallow example of this balancing act between femininity and masculinity in 80s western media was the hit crime show Miami Vice and Sonny, a character who is entirely defined by his image. In Kibby’s words, “he is a beautiful consumer image, a position usually reserved for women; and he is in continual conflict with work, that which fundamentally defines him as a man” (Kibby, 21). Therein lies the problematic elements of this characterization. Sonny’s hyper-masculine traits of violence and emotionlessness serve as a reaffirmation of his manufactured maleness towards the audience.

Returning to the subject of Schwarzenegger, his influence on 80s media that continued well into the 90s ties directly to how fantasy evolved during this decade while also drawing upon inspirations from earlier trends. The most notable example is his portrayal of Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian in the 1982 film directed by John Milius. Already a classic character from 1930s serials and later comic strips, the movie (while polarizing amongst critics who described it as a “psychopathic Star Wars, stupid and stupefying”) brought the iconic image of a muscle-bound warrior wielding a sword as half-naked women fawn at his feet back into the collective consciousness of many fantasy fans. The character and world of Conan romanticizes the use of violence, strength, and pure might in order to achieve victory. This aesthetic of hyper-masculinity, violence, and sexuality in fantasy art was arguably perfected by the works of Frank Frazetta, a frequent artist for Conan properties. The early Castlevania games drew inspiration from this exact aesthetic for its leading hero Simon Belmont and directly appropriated one of Frazetta’s pieces for the cover of the first game.

Hammer Horror & Gender

Conan the Barbarian, Frank Frazetta, and similar fantasy icons were just a few influences on the overall feel of 80s Castlevania. Its other major influence harks back to a much earlier and far more gothic trend in media. Castlevania director Hitoshi Akamatsu stated that while the first game was in development, they were inspired by earlier cinematic horror trends and “wanted players to feel like they were in a classic horror movie”. This specific influence forms the very backbone of the Castlevania image. Namely: gothic castles, an atmosphere of constant uncanny dread, and a range of colourful enemies from Frankenstein’s Monster, the Mummy, to of course Dracula. The massive popularity and recognizability of these three characters can be credited to the classic Universal Pictures’ monster movies of the 1930s, but there was another film studio that put its own spin on Dracula and served as another source of inspiration for future Castlevania properties.

The London-based film company Hammer Film Productions was established in 1934 then quickly filed bankruptcy a mere three years later after their films failed to earn back their budget through ticket sales. What saved them was the horror genre itself as their first official title under the ‘Hammer Horror’ brand The Curse of Frankenstein starring Hammer regular Peter Cushing was released in 1957 to enormous profit in both Britain and overseas. With one successful adaptation of a horror legend under their belt, Hammer’s next venture seemed obvious. Dracula (also known by its retitle Horror of Dracula) followed hot off the heels of Frankenstein and once again starred Peter Cushing as Professor Abraham Van Helsing, a much younger and more dashing version of his literary counterpart. Helsing faces off against the titular fanged villain, played by Christopher Lee, whose portrayal of Dracula became the face of Hammer Horror for decades to come.

Horror of Dracula spawned eight sequels spanning across the 60s and 70s, each dealing with the resurrection or convoluted return of the Prince of Darkness (sound familiar?) Yet these were not the same gothic films pioneered by Universal Studios with fog machines, high melodrama, and disturbingly quiet atmosphere. Christopher Lee’s Dracula and Bela Lugosi’s Dracula are two entirely separate beasts. While nearly identical in design (slicked back hair, long flowing black cape, and a dignified, regal demeanor), Lugosi is subtle, using only his piercing stare as a means of intimidation and power—in the 1930s, smaller details meant bigger scares. For Hammer Horror, when it comes time to show Dracula’s true nature, Lee bares his blood-covered fangs and acts like an animal coveting their prey. Hammer’s overall approach to horror involved bigger production sets, low-cut nightgowns, and bright red blood that contrasted against the muted, desaturated look of each film. And much like the media of 1980, when it came to their characters, the Dracula films fell back on what was expected by society to be ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ while also making slight commentary on those very preconceived traits.

The main theme surrounding each male cast in these films is endangered male authority. Dracula and Van Helsing are without a doubt the most powerful, domineering characters in the story, particularly Helsing. As author Peter Hutchings describes in his book Hammer & Beyond: The British Horror Film, “the figure of the (male) vampire hunter is always one of authority, certainty, and stability (...) he is the only one with enough logical sense to know how to defeat the ultimate evil, thus saving the female characters and weaker male characters from being further victimized” (Hutchings, 124). The key definition here is ‘weaker male characters’. Hammer’s Dracula explores the absolute power of male authority in, yet it also reveals how easily this authority can be weakened. This is shown through the characters of Jonathan Harker and Arthur Holmwood, who differ slightly from how they are portrayed in Stoker’s novel. While Dracula does weaken them both, they manage to join Helsing and defeat the monster through cooperation and teamwork. In fact, it is Harker who lands one of the final killing strikes against Dracula. However, the Jonathan Harker of Hammer’s Dracula is transformed into a vampire against his will and disposed of before the finale. His death, in the words of Hutchings, “underlines the way in which throughout the film masculinity is seen (...) as arrested, in a permanently weakened state” (Hutchings, 117).

This theme of weakened authority extends to Holmwood in a more obvious and unsettling manner. In another deviation from the source material, Lucy Westenra, best friend to Mina Murray and fiancé to Arthur Holmwood, is now Holmwood’s sister and Harker’s fiancé. Lucy’s story still plays out more or less the same way it did in the novel; Dracula routinely drains her of blood until she becomes a vampire, asserting his dominance both physically and mentally. This according to Hutchings is the entirety of Dracula’s plan; a project “to restore male authority over women by taking the latter away from the weak men, establishing himself as the immortal, sole patriarch” (Hutchings, 119). Meanwhile, it is Helsing’s mission to protect men like Arthur Holmwood, yet seems only concerned with establishing his own dominance and does nothing to reestablish Holmwood’s masculinity or authority. Due to the damage done by Dracula and the failings of Helsing, Holmwood never regains this authority, even towards the end when he is forced to murder his own sister. His reaction goes as follows: “as she is staked he clutches his chest, his identification with her at this moment, when she is restored to a passivity which is conventionally feminine, suggesting a femininity within him which the film equates with weakness” (Hutchings, 117).

So Van Helsing succeeds in his mission to defeat his ultimate rival, but Dracula is victorious in his own right. With Jonathan Harker gone, Lucy Holmwood dead, and Arthur Holmwood further emasculated, he succeeds in breaking down previous male power structures while putting himself in their place as the all-powerful, all-dominant male presence. This is the very formula in which early Hammer Dracula films were built upon; “with vampire and vampire hunter mutually defining an endangered male authority, and the woman functioning in part as the site of their struggle (...) forged within and responded to British social reality of the middle and late 1950s” (Hutchings, 123).

Alucard c. 1989

As for Castlevania’s Dracula, his earliest design takes more from Christopher Lee’s portrayal than from Bela Lugosi or Bram Stoker’s original vision. His appearance on the first ever box art bears a striking resemblance to one of the most famous stills from Horror of Dracula. Even in pixelated form, Dracula’s imposing model is more characteristic of Christopher Lee than Bela Lugosi.

Being his son, it would make logical sense for the first appearance of Alucard in Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse to resemble his father. His 1989 design carries over everything from the slick dark hair, sharp claws, and shapeless long cloak but adds a certain juvenile element—or rather, a more human element. This makes sense in the context of the game’s plot. Despite being the third title, Dracula’s Curse acts as the starting point to the Castlevania timeline (before it was replaced by Castlevania: Legends in 1997, which was then retconned and also replaced by Castlevania: Lament of Innocence in 2003 as the definitive prequel of the series). Set nearly two centuries before Simon Belmont’s time, Dracula’s Curse follows Simon’s ancestor Trevor Belmont as he is called to action by the church to defeat Dracula once he begins a reign of terror across Wallachia, now known as modern day Romania. It is a reluctant decision by the church, since the Belmont family has been exiled due to fear and superstition surrounding their supposed inhuman powers.

This is one example of how despite the current technological limitations, later Castlevania games were able to add more in-depth story elements little by little beyond “find Dracula, kill Dracula”. This began as early as Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest by giving Simon a much stronger motivation in his mission and the inclusion of multiple endings. The improvements made throughout the Classicvania era were relatively small while further character and story complexities remained either limited or unexplored, but they were improvements nonetheless.

Another example of this slight progress in storytelling was Castlevania 3’s introduction of multiple playable characters each with a unique backstory of their own. The supporting cast includes Sypha Belnades, a powerful sorceress disguised as a humble monk who meets Trevor after he saves her from being frozen in stone by a cyclops, and Grant Danasty, a pirate who fell under Dracula’s influence before Trevor helped him break free from his curse. Then there is of course Adrian Fahrenheit Țepeș who changed his name to Alucard, the opposite of Dracula, as a symbol of rebellion against his tyrannical father. Yet Castlevania was not the first to conceptualize the very character of Alucard; someone who is the son of Dracula and whose name is quite literally the backwards spelling of his fathers’. That idea started with Universal’s 1943 venture Son of Dracula, a sequel to the 1931 classic that unfortunately failed to match the original’s effective atmosphere, scares, and story. In it, Alucard is undoubtedly the villain whereas in Dracula’s Curse, he is one of the heroes. Moral and noble, able to sway Trevor Belmont’s preconceptions of vampiric creatures, and with an odd sympathy for the monster that is his father. Alucard even goes as far as to force himself into an eternal slumber after the defeat of Dracula in order to “purge the world of his own cursed bloodline” (the reason given by Castlevania: Symphony of the Night’s opening narration).

When it comes to design, Castlevania’s Alucard does the curious job of fitting in with the franchises’ established aesthetic yet at the same time, he manages to stand out the most—in fact, all the main characters do. Everyone from Trevor, Sypha, to Grant all look as though they belong in different stories from different genres. Grant’s design is more typical of the classic pirate image one would find in old illustrated editions of Robinson Crusoe’s Treasure Island or in a classic swashbuckler like 1935’s Captain Blood starring Errol Flynn. Sypha might look more at home in a Dungeons & Dragons campaign or an early Legend of Zelda title with a large hood obscuring her facial features, oversized blue robes, and a magical staff all of which are commonplace for a fantasy mage of the 1980s. Trevor’s design is nearly identical to Simon’s right down to the whip, long hair, and barbarian-esque attire which, as mentioned previously, was taken directly from Conan the Barbarian.

Judging Alucard solely from official character art ranging from posters to other promotional materials, he seems to be the only one who belongs in the gothic horror atmosphere of Dracula’s Curse. As the physically largest and most supernaturally natured of the main cast, he is in almost every way a copy of his father—a young Christopher Lee’s Dracula complete with fangs and cape. Yet his path as a hero within the game’s narrative along with smaller, near missable details in his design (his ingame magenta cape, the styling of his hair in certain official art, and the loose-fitting cravat around his neck) further separates him from the absolute evil and domination that is Dracula. Alucard is a rebel and an outsider, just like Trevor, Sypha, and Grant. In a way, they mirror the same vampire killing troupe from Bram Stoker’s novel; a group of people all from different facets of life who come together to defeat a common foe.

The son of Dracula also shares similar traits with Hammer’s Van Helsing. Same as the Belmonts (who as vampire hunters are exactly like Helsing in everything except name), Alucard is portrayed as one of the few remaining beacons of masculinity with enough strength, skill, and logical sense who can defeat Dracula, another symbol of patriarchal power. With Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse, we begin to see Alucard’s dual nature in aesthetics that is automatically tied to his characterization; a balance that many Byronic heroes try to strike between masculine domination and moralistic sensitivity and goodness that is often misconstrued as weakly feminine. For now though, especially in appearance, Alucard’s persona takes more from the trends that influenced his allies (namely Trevor and Simon Belmont) and his enemy (Dracula). This of course would change drastically alongside the Castlevania franchise itself come the 1990s.

Gender Expression & The 1990s Goth Scene

When a person sees or hears the word “gothic”, it conjures up a very specific mental image—dark and stormy nights spent inside an extravagant castle that is host to either a dashing vampire with a thirst for blood, vengeful ghosts of the past come to haunt some unfortunate living soul, or a mad scientist determined to cheat death and bring life to a corpse sewn from various body parts. In other words, a scenario that would be the focus of some Halloween television special or a daring novel from the mid to late Victorian era. Gothicism has had its place in artistic and cultural circles long before the likes of Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, and even before Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, a late 18th century novel that arguably started the gothic horror subgenre.

The term itself originated in 17th century Sweden as a descriptor of the national romanticism concerning the North Germanic Goths, a tribe which occupied much of Medieval Götaland. It was a period of historical revisionism in which the Goths and other Viking tribes were depicted as heroic and heavily romanticised. Yet more than ever before, gothicism is now associated with a highly specific (and in many ways personal) form of artistic and gender expression. It started with the golden age of gothic Medieval architecture that had its revival multiple centuries later during the Victorian era, then morphed into one of the darkest if not melodramatic literary movements, and finally grew a new identity throughout the 1990s. For this portion, we will focus on the gothic aesthetic as it pertains to fashion and music.

Arguably, the advent of the modern goth subculture as it is known nowadays began with the 1979 song “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” from Northampton’s own rock troupe Bauhaus. The overall aesthetic of the song, accompanying live performances, and the band itself helped shaped the main themes of current gothicism including, but not limited to, “macabre funeral musical tone and tempo, to lyrical references to the undead, to deep voiced eerie vocals, to a dark twisted form of androgyny in the appearance of the band and most of its following” (Hodkinson, 35-64). This emphasis on physical androgyny in a genre that was predominantly focused on depictions of undeniable masculinity was especially important to the 80s and 90s goth scene. Bauhaus opened the gates in which other goth and post-punk bands gained popularity outside of underground venues, including The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Southern Death Cult. Much like Bauhaus’ “twisted form of androgyny”, these other bands pioneered a romantic yet darkly feminine aesthetic which was then embraced by their fans. It wasn’t until the producer of Joy Division Tony Wilson along with members from Southern Death Cult and U.K. Decay mentioned the word “goth” in passing that this growing musical and aesthetic subculture finally had a name for itself.

The goth movement of the 1990s became an interesting mesh of nonconformity and individual expression while also emphasising the need for a mutual connection through shared interests and similar aesthetics. Unique social outsiders looking for a sense of community and belonging—not unlike Stoker’s vampire hunting troupe or the main cast of Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse. Paul Hodkinson author of Goth: Identity, Style and Subculture describes the ways in which goths were able to expand their social networking while making the subculture their own. In order to gain further respect and recognition within the community, “they usually sought to select their own individual concoction from the range of acceptable artefacts and themes and also to make subtle additions and adaptations from beyond the established stylistic boundaries” (Hodkinson, 35-64). This was one of the ways in which the goth subculture was able to grow and evolve while maintaining some typical aesthetics. Those aesthetics that had already become gothic staples as far back as classic Victorian horror included crucifixes, bats, and vampires; all of which were presented by young modern goths, as Hodkinson puts it, “sometimes in a tongue-in-cheek self-conscious manner, sometimes not” (Hodkinson, 35-64).

The vampire, as it appeared in visual mass media of the time, was also instrumental to the 90s gothic scene, reinforcing certain physical identifiers such as long dark hair, pale make-up, and sometimes blackened sunglasses. This was especially popular amongst male goths who embodied traditional gothic traits like dark femininity and androgyny, which had already been long established within the subculture.

As always, television and film did more to reinforce these subcultural trends as recognizable stereotypes, usually in a negative manner, than it did to help people embrace them. In media aimed towards a primarily teenage and young adult demographic, if a character did not possess the traditional traits of a hyper-masculine man, they instead fit into two different molds; either the neurotic geek or the melodramatic, moody goth. However, there were forms of media during the 90s that did manage to embrace and even relish with no sense of irony in the gothic aesthetic.

Two films which helped to build upon the enthusiasm for the vampire were Francis Ford Coppola’s lavish adaptation of Stoker’s novel titled Bram Stoker’s Dracula starring Gary Oldman in the titular role of Dracula and another adaptation of a more recent gothic favourite among goths, Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire with Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. The majority of the male goth scene especially emulated Oldman’s portrayal of Dracula when in the film he transforms into a much younger, more seductive version of himself in order to blend in with society, everything down to the shaded Victorian sunglasses and the long flowing hair; a vision of classic, sleek androgyny combined with an intimidating demeanor without being overly hyper-masculine.

Primarily taking place during the 18th and 19th century, Interview with the Vampire (the film and the original novel) also encouraged this very same trend, helping to establish European aristocratic elements into the gothic aesthetic; elements such as lace frills, finely tailored petticoats, corsets, and a general aura of delicacy.

Going back to Hodkinson’s findings, he states that “without actually rendering such categories insignificant, goth had from its very beginnings been characterized by the predominance, for both males and females, of particular kinds of style which would normally be associated with femininity” (Hodkinson, 35-64). However, it is important to acknowledge that the western goth subculture as described in this section, while a haven for various forms of gender expression, placed heavy emphasis on thin, white bodies. Over the years, diversity within the community has been promoted and encouraged, but rarely do we see it as the forefront face of gothicism.

The Japanese Goth Scene & Ayami Kojima

Modern gothicism was not limited to North America or Europe. In Japan, the subculture had evolved into its own form of self-expression through clothing and music that took inspiration from a variety of 18th and 19th century themes (mostly originating from European countries). Yet despite the numerous western influences, the eastern goth community during the 1990s and early 2000s embraced itself as something unique and wholly Japanese; in other words, different from what was happening within the North American movement at the same time. To refresh the memory, western goth culture focused primarily on the macabre that included completely black, moody wardrobes with an air of dark femininity. Japanese goth culture maintained those feminine traits, but included elements that were far more decadent, frivolous, and played further into the already established aristocratic motifs of gothicism. This created a new fashion subculture known as Gothic Lolita or Goth-Loli (no reference to the Vladimir Nabokov novel Lolita or the themes presented within the text itself).

In Style Deficit Disorder: Harajuku street fashion, a retrospective on the history of modern Japanese street fashion, the Goth-Loli image is described as “an amalgam of Phantom of the Opera, Alice in Wonderland, and Edgar Allan Poe” (Godoy; Hirakawa, 160). It was an aesthetic that took the western notion of “gothic” to higher levels with a heavier emphasis on opulence and an excessive decorative style—think Gothic meets Baroque meets Rococo. Teresa Younker, author of Lolita: Dreaming, Despairing, Defying, suggests that during the early years of the Gothic Lolita movement, it acted as a form of escapism for many young Japanese individuals searching for a way out of conformity. She states that “rather than dealing with the difficult reality of rapid commercialization, destabilization of society, a rigid social system, and an increasingly body-focused fashion norm, a select group of youth chose to find comfort in the over-the-top imaginary world of lace, frills, bows, tulle, and ribbons”. One pioneer that helped to bring the Goth-Loli image at the forefront of Japanese underground and street fashion the likes of Harajuku was the fashion magazine Gothic & Lolita Bible. Launched in 2001 by Index Communication and Mariko Suzuki, each issue acted as a sort of catalogue book for popular gothic and lolita trends that expanded to art, music, manga, and more.

According to Style Deficit Disorder, during this time when Gothic & Lolita Bible had helped bring the subculture into a larger collective awareness, the Goth-Loli image became “inspired by a yearning for something romantic overseas (...) and after taking on the “Harajuku Fashion,” ended up travelling overseas, while remaining a slightly strange fashion indigenous to Japan” (Godoy; Hirakawa, 137). Then came KERA Maniac, another magazine launched in 2003 that had “even darker clothing and international style points and references, such as features on the life and art of Lewis Carroll, Japanese ball-jointed dolls, or interviews with icons like Courtney Love” (Godoy; Hirakawa, 140). The fashion trends that both Gothic & Lolita Bible and KERA Maniac focused on also found popularity amongst visual kei bands which were usually all male performers who began sporting the very same ultra-feminine, ultra-aristocratic Goth-Loli brands that were always featured in these magazines.

Similar to traditional Kabuki theatre, “this visual-kei placed great importance on the gorgeous spectacle created onstage” (Godoy; Hirakawa, 135). One particular visual kei performer of the early 2000s that became Gothic & Lolita Bible’s biggest and most frequent collaborator was Mana. Best known for his musical and fashion career, Mana describes his onstage persona, merging aristocratic goth with elegant gothic lolita, as “either male or female but it is also neither male nor female. It is both devil and angel. The pursuit of a middle ground” (Godoy; Hirakawa, 159).

Opulence, decadence, and femininity with a dark undertone are all apt terms to describe the image of Japanese gothicism during the 90s and early aughts. They are also perfect descriptors of how artist Ayami Kojima changed the face of Castlevania from a franchise inspired by classic horror and fantasy to something more distinct. As a self-taught artist mainly working with acrylics, India ink, and finger smudging among other methods, 1997’s Castlevania: Symphony of the Night was Kojima’s first major title as the lead character designer. Over the years she worked on a number of separate video games including Samurai Warriors and Dynasty Warriors, along with other Castlevania titles. Before then, she made a name for herself as a freelance artist mainly working on novel covers and even collaborated with Vampire Hunter D creator Kikuchi Hideyuki for a prequel to his series. Kojima has been dubbed by fans as “the queen of Castlevania” due to her iconic contributions to the franchise.

Kojima’s influences cover a wide array of themes from the seemingly obvious (classic horror, shounen manga, and East Asian history) to disturbingly eclectic (surgery, body modification, and body horror). It is safe to assume that her resume for Castlevania involves some of her tamer works when compared to what else is featured in her 2010 artbook Santa Lilio Sangre. Yet even when her more personal art pieces rear into the grotesquely unsettling, they always maintain an air of softness and femininity. Kojima is never afraid to show how the surreal, the intense, or the horrifying can also be beautiful. Many of her pieces include details emblematic of gothicism; skulls, bloodied flowers, the abundance of religious motifs, and lavish backgrounds are all commonplace, especially in her Castlevania art. Her models themselves—most often androgynous men with sharp cheekbones, flowing hair, and piercing gazes—look as though they would fit right into a gothic visual kei band or the pages of Gothic & Lolita Bible.

Castlevania: Harmony of Despair was the final Castlevania game Kojima worked on, as well as her last game overall. It wasn’t until 2019 when she reappeared with new pieces including promotional artwork for former Castlevania co-worker Koji Igarashi’s Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night and a collaboration with Japanese musician Kamijo on his newest album. Her work has also appeared in the February 2020 issue of TezuComi, depicting a much lighter and softer side of her aesthetic. Ayami Kojima may have moved onto other projects, but the way in which she forever influenced the Castlevania image is still being drawn upon and emulated to this day.

Alucard c. 1997

There were actually three versions of Alucard during the 1990s, each of which were products of their time for different reasons. The first example is not only the most well known amongst fans and casual onlookers alike, but it is also the one design of Alucard that manages to stand the test of time. Ayami Kojima redesigned a number of classic Castlevania characters, giving them the gothic androgynous demeanour her art was known for. Most fans will say with some degree of jest that once Kojima joined Konami, Castlevania grew to look less like the masculine power fantasy it started as and more like a bishounen manga. No matter the differing opinions on the overall stylistic change of the series, Kojima’s reimagining of Alucard for Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is undoubtedly iconic. His backstory has more or less remained the same, carried over from Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse. After killing his father Dracula, Alucard, unable to fully process his actions or his bloodline, decides to force himself into a centuries long slumber in order to rid the world of his dark powers. Symphony of the Night begins with the Byronic dhampir prince waking up after nearly 300 years have passed once Dracula’s castle mysteriously reappears in close proximity to his resting place. The only difference this time is there seems to be no Belmont to take care of it, unlike previous years when Dracula is resurrected. Determined to finish what was started during the 15th century, the player takes Alucard on a journey throughout the castle, which has now become larger and more challenging than past incarnations.

Despite being somewhat of a direct sequel to Dracula’s Curse, Symphony’s Alucard is not the same dhampir as his 80s counterpart. Gone are any similarities to Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee; now Alucard bears more of a resemblance to Anne Rice’s own literary muse Lestat de Lioncourt from her ongoing Vampire Chronicles. Instead of slicked back dark hair, thick golden locks (which were originally black to match his father) cascade down Alucard’s figure, swaying with his every pixelated movement. Heeled leather boots, a black coat with gold embellishments along with an abnormally large collar underneath a flowing cape, and a high-collared cravat replace the simplistic wardrobe of 80s Alucard—from a traditional, minimalist goth mirroring his father’s masculinity to an extravagant, aristocratic goth with his own intense, almost macabre femininity.

With the early Metroidvanias came the inclusion of detailed character portraits designed by Ayami Kojima which would appear alongside a dialogue box to further establish the illusion of the characters speaking to each other. Symphony of the Night was one of the first titles where players got to see Alucard’s ingame expression and it looked exactly as it did on every piece of promotional poster and artwork. The same piercing glare, furrowed brow, and unshakeable inhuman determination, the sort that is also reflected in his limited mannerisms and character—all of which are displayed upon an immaculate face that rarely if ever smiles. Just by looking at his facial design nearly hidden behind locks of hair that always seems meticulously styled, it is clear that Alucard cannot and will not diverge from his mission. The only moment in the game when his stoic facade breaks completely is when he faces off against the Succubus, who tempts Alucard to give into his vampiric nature by disguising herself as his deceased mother Lisa. Yet even then he sees through her charade and, depending on the player’s ability, quickly disposes of her.

Despite his delicate feminine features, emotional softness is not one of Alucard’s strongest suits in Symphony. Though for someone in his position, someone who must remain steadfast and succeed in his goal or else fail the rest of humanity, where little else matters, Alucard’s occasional coldness (a trait that would return in recent Castlevania instalments) makes sense. There is a scene near at the climax of the game where he exposits to the other main protagonists Richter Belmont and Maria Renard about how painful it felt to destroy his father a second time, but he reframes it as a lesson about the importance of standing up against evil rather than an admission of his own vulnerability. However, he does choose to stay in the world of mortal humans instead of returning to his coffin (depending on which ending the player achieves).

The second 90s version of Alucard is a curious case of emulation, drawing inspiration from both Kojima’s redesign and other Japanese art styles of the 1990s. Castlevania Legends was released for the Game Boy the exact same year as Symphony of the Night and acted as a prequel to Dracula’s Curse, following its protagonist Sonia Belmont as she traverses through Dracula’s castle alongside Alucard and becomes the first Belmont in history to defeat him. It was then retconned after the release of Castlevania: Lament of Innocence in 2003 due to how its story conflicted with the overall timeline of the series. As with most of the earliest Game Boy titles, the ingame graphics of Legends are held back by the technological limitations, but the box art and subsequent character concepts reveal the game’s aesthetic which seems to take the most inspiration from other Japanese franchises of the decade. The biggest example would be Slayers, a popular comedic fantasy series that included light novels, manga, and anime. Legends Alucard is portrayed in this particular animated style, yet his design itself is very similar to how he looks in Symphony of the Night with only minor exceptions.

The third and arguably most obscure 90s Alucard comes from the animated children’s show Captain N: The Game Master, a crossover that brought together popular Nintendo characters like Mega Man, Kid Icarus, and Simon Belmont. The episodes were presented as traditional monsters of the week, meaning each one focused on a brand new story or environment usually taken from Nintendo games. One episode that aired in 1993 centered on Castlevania and featured a comedic and parodied version of Alucard. Although the episode took elements from Dracula’s Curse, Alucard was meant to be a stereotypical representation of rebellious 90s youth, i.e. an overemphasis on skateboarding and “radical” culture. A colorful, kid-friendly version of the character that was never meant to be taken seriously; much like the rest of the show.

Out of the three variations, Ayami Kojima’s Alucard is the one that made the biggest and longest lasting impact on Castlevania. Redesigning an iconic franchise or character always comes with its own risks and gambles. In the case of Symphony of Night, the gamble made by Kojima—and by extension Konami and director Koji Igarashi—paid off. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said regarding Alucard’s next major change as a character and an image.

Lords of Shadow

“What motivates a man to confront the challenges that most of us would run from?” This is a question put forth by Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, the first attempt by Konami to reinvigorate and inject new life into the Castlevania brand name by completing rebooting the universe. Starting from scratch as it were. Originally, Lords of Shadow seemed to have no connection to the Castlevania franchise. Announced by Konami during a games convention in 2008, this was meant to give more attention and not distract from the upcoming Castlevania: Judgment. However, merely a year later at Electronic Entertainment Expo, it was revealed that Lords of Shadow was in fact the next major step that Konami was taking with Castlevania. From its announcement and early trailers, the game was already generating a healthy amount of media buzz due to its updated graphics, design, and gameplay. Having Konami alumni, video game auteur, and creator of the critically acclaimed Metal Gear series Hideo Kojima attached to the project also helped to generate initial hype for this new phase of Castlevania (though it should be noted that Kojima was only credited as a consultant and advisor for the Lords of Shadow development team). After nearly a decade of near hits, substantial misses, and a lack of focus for the franchise, Castlevania had once again become one of the most highly anticipated upcoming games. To quote gaming news and reviews website GamesRadar+ at the time, “this could be a megaton release”.

And it was—so to speak. As mentioned in previous sections, the first Lords of Shadow did relatively well, garnering critical and commercial success. By November of 2010, nearly one million copies had sold in North America and Europe alone. While not a monumental achievement or a record breaker, Lords of Shadow soon became the highest selling Castlevania game of all time. But enough time has passed since its release and nowadays, fans look back upon this reinvented Castlevania timeline pushed by Konami with mixed feelings, some more negative than others.

The main criticism is that when it comes to gameplay, environment, and story, Lords of Shadow changed too much from its original source material. Change is not always a terrible thing especially in regards to long-running franchises and Castlevania had already gone through one massive upheaval with Symphony of the Night. Although the difference is how well that dramatic change was executed and how players reacted to it. For many, Lords of Shadow felt less like the game it was supposed to be emulating and more like other action hack-and-slashers of the time. The gameplay didn’t feel like Castlevania, it felt like Devil May Cry. Elements of the story didn’t feel like Castlevania, they felt like God of War. Each boss fight didn’t feel like Castlevania, they felt like Shadow of the Colossus (a frequent comment made by fans). Despite the familiar elements from past games that made their way into this new instalment, for many, Lords of Shadow was too little of Castlevania and too much of everything else that surrounded its development. Meanwhile, the afformented familiar elements seemed like attempts at fanservice in order to make sure that longtime fans felt more at home.

Does the game and its following sequels still hold any merit in terms of aesthetic and story? They do, especially when it comes to its style. Lords of Shadow, its midquel Mirror of Fate, and the sequel Lords of Shadow 2 are not unappealing games to look at. When examining the concept art of characters, enemies, and environments, one could argue that the Lords of Shadow series has some of the most visually striking Castlevania art in the series. The monster designs in particular take on a much grander, ambitious, and menacing presence that take inspiration from various mythological and biblical sources, the best example being Leviathan from Lords of Shadow 2.

By the 2010s, AAA video games in general were going through a sort of golden age with titles such as Assassin’s Creed 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and Red Dead Redemption among many others. Not only were the stories and gameplay mechanics improving by ten folds, so too were the graphical capacities that each game could uphold. Due to technological advancements, Castlevania had the chance to become more detailed and fleshed out than before. The locations of Lords of Shadow and its sequels, which ranged from gothic castles, to modern decrepit cities, to fantastical forests, grew lusher and more opulent while the monsters evolved past the traditional skeletons of the series into far more imposing nightmarish creatures.

The first game along with Mirror of Fate kept themselves fairly grounded in their respective environments. Nearly every character looks as though they firmly belong in the gothic fantasy world they inhabit. Gabriel Belmont and the rest of the Brotherhood of Light are dressed in robes reminiscent of medieval knights (with a few non-historical embellishments) while the vampiric characters of Carmilla and Laura dress in the same manner that typical vampires would. However, a new location known as Castlevania City was introduced in Lords of Shadow 2, modelled after a 21st century metropolitan cityscape. Characters with designs more suited to God of War or Soul Calibur intermingle with NPCs dressed in modern clothing, further highlighting the clash of aesthetics. While this is not the first time Castlevania has featured environments populated with humans, the constant shifting between a dark urban landscape with more science fiction elements than fantasy and the traditional gothic setting of Dracula’s castle can feel like whiplash.

The Lords of Shadow timeline was an ambitious attempt by Konami to try and give fans a Castlevania experience they had not seen before. New concepts that were previously unexplored or only alluded to in past games were now at the forefront. Yet the liberties that each game took with established Castlevania lore, both in terms of story and design, were perhaps too ambitious. The biggest example is the choice to have the Belmont protagonist turn into Dracula through a combined act of despair and selflessness, but Alucard went through a number of changes as well. Transforming him from the golden-haired aristocrat of the 90s and 2000s into an amalgamation of dark fantasy tropes.

Alucard c. 2014

After the success of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Alucard reappeared in a number of following titles, most of which depicted him in his typical black and gold wardrobe. There were exceptions, including Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and its direct sequel Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow where he adopts the alias of Genya Arikado, an agent for a futuristic Japanese organization dedicated to stopping any probable resurrections of Dracula. Because of this need to appear more human and hide his true heritage, Genya’s appearance is simple and possibly one of Ayami Kojima’s most minimalistic character designs; a black suit, shoulder length black hair, and the job is done. In Dawn of Sorrow, Alucard briefly appears as himself, drawn in a less detailed anime style that softens his once intensely stoic expression first seen in Symphony. The next exception is Castlevania: Judgment, a fighting game where characters from separate games and time periods are brought together to face off against one another. Konami brought on Takeshi Obata (who by then was famously known for his work on Death Note) as the lead character designer and in many regards had a similar aesthetic to Ayami Kojima, creating lavish gothic pieces that were heavily detailed and thematic.

Like Kojima, Obata was given free range to reconceptualize all of the characters appearing in Judgment with little to no remaining motifs from previous designs. This included Alucard, who dons a suit of silver armor and long white hair to match it. Judgment’s Alucard marked a turning point for the character in terms of appearance; a gradual change that was solidified by Lords of Shadow.

This is where things get complicated. While Castlevania could be considered a horror series solely based on its references, aesthetic, and monsters, nearly every iteration whether it comes down to the games or other forms of media tends to veer more towards the dark fantasy genre. Edward James and Farah Mendleson’s Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature describe the distinction between traditional horror and dark fantasy as a genre “whose protagonists believe themselves to inhabit the world of consensual mundane reality and learn otherwise, not by walking through a portal into some other world, or by being devoured or destroyed irrevocably, but by learning to live with new knowledge and sometimes with new flesh” (James; Mendleson, 218). While horror is a genre of despair, directly confronting audience members with the worst of humanity and the supernatural, “the protagonist of dark fantasy comes through that jeopardy to a kind of chastened wisdom” (James; Mendleson, 217).

Dark fantasy is ultimately a genre of acceptance (i.e. characters accepting a horrible change or embracing the world they have been forcibly thrown into), but it also represents a rejection of traditional tropes implemented by the works of Tolkien or the Brothers Grimm, thus defining itself by that very same act of rejection. An example of this is the theme of failure, which is common in many dark fantasy stories. There are far more unhappy or bittersweet endings than happy ones while the construction of the classic hero’s journey hinges more on all the possible ways in which the protagonist could fail in their quest.

Going off from this definition, the Lords of Shadow timeline fits squarely into the dark fantasy genre, especially concerning its two leading men. We already know that Gabriel Belmont sacrifices his humanity in order to become Dracula, but what happens to his son borders on a Greek tragedy. Before the “deaths” of Gabriel and Maria, they had a son named Trevor who was immediately taken into the care of the Brotherhood of Light and kept away from his father in order to protect him. Years later when Trevor is an adult with a family of his own, he vows to defeat Dracula for bringing shame and dishonor upon the Belmont bloodline. Yet when their eventual confrontation happens, Dracula easily beats Trevor who, on the verge of death, reveals the truth about his connection to the lord of vampires. In a desperate act of regret, Dracula forces Trevor to drink his blood and places him into a coffin labeled “Alucard” where he will seemingly rest for eternity.

Time passes and Trevor Belmont—now transformed into the vampire Alucard—awakens, just as he did at the beginning of Dracula’s Curse and Symphony of the Night. During his disappearance, his wife Sypha Belnades was killed by Dracula’s creatures, orphaning their son Simon Belmont. The two eventually meet and work together to stop Dracula, but Alucard cannot bring himself to tell Simon the truth.

Despite a well-deserved happy ending in Lords of Shadow 2 (he and his father reconcile before going off to presumably live a peaceful life), the character of Trevor/Alucard is built upon the same themes of failure and learning to accept terrible change found within dark fantasy. His design is especially reminiscent of one of the darkest and most tortured protagonists in the genre, Michael Moorcock’s Elric from his Elric of Melniboné series. First appearing in the June 1961 issue of Science Fantasy, he stands out amongst most sword and sorcery heroes, different from the hypermasculinity of Conan the Barbarian for his embittered personality, philosophical motifs, and memorable design. Elric is constantly described as looking deathly pale with skin “the color of a bleached skull; and the long hair which flows below his shoulders is milk-white” (Moorcock, 3) and a body that needs a steady stream of potions in order to function properly or else he will gradually grow weaker, nearer towards the edge of death—more a corpse than a human being.

Lords of Shadow Alucard is very much like a walking corpse as well. His long hair is the same milk-white tone as Elrics’, his skin is deprived of any real color, and his open chest outfit reveals a body that is both robust yet emaciated. Moorcock’s Elric was the prototype for many other white haired, pale faced, otherworldly antiheroes in fantasy that came afterwards and the darkly ethereal aesthetic that reflected his constant state of self-loathing and tragedy was the most ideal fit for this new version of Alucard. Both fail as traditional fantasy heroes, both abhor their physical states, yet both learn to embrace it at the same time.

A Brief History of Modern Animation

Before we move onto the final iteration of Dracula’s son, let us first acquaint ourselves with an artistic medium that has not been fully discussed yet. This essay has gone into detail concerning the aesthetics of video games, fashion, filmmaking, and music, but where does animation fit in? Since 1891’s Pauvre Pierrot, the only surviving short film predating the silent era with 500 individually painted frames, animation has evolved into one of the most expressive, diverse, and groundbreaking art forms of the modern age. There were earlier methods that fit into the animation mold before Pauvre Pierrot including but not limited to shadow play, magic lantern shows, and the phenakistoscope, one of the first devices to use rapid succession in order to make still images look as though they were moving. Throughout the 20th century, with the help of mainstream studios like Warner Bros. and of course Walt Disney, the medium quickly began to encompass a variety of techniques and styles beyond a series of drawings on paper. Some of the more recognizable and unique styles are as followed:

Digital 2-D animation

Digital 3-D animation

Stop-motion

Puppetry

Claymation

Rotoscoping

Motion capture

Cut-out animation

Paint-on-glass

The most common forms used in film and television are traditional hand drawn and digital 3-D, sometimes merged together in the same product. There has been much debate over which animation technique has more artistic merit and is more “authentic” to the medium, but the reality is that there is no singular true form of animation. Each style brings its own advantages, challenges, and all depends on how it is being used to tell a specific story or evoke a feeling within the audience. For example, the 2017 semi-biographical movie Loving Vincent is animated in a nontraditional style with oil paints in order to create the illusion of a Vincent Van Gogh painting that has come to life. As Loving Vincent is about the influential painter himself and his tragic life, this animation technique works to the film’s advantage. If the story had used a more traditional form like 2-D or 3-D, it might not have had the same impact. Another example like the film A Scanner Darkly starring Keanu Reeves uses a somewhat controversial technique known as rotoscoping, which entails tracing over live action scenes in order to give it a realistic yet still animated feel. A Scanner Darkly is a futuristic crime thriller meant to evoke a sense of surrealism and discomfort, making the uncanniness of rotoscoping the perfect fit for its artificial atmosphere.

Throughout its history, animation has gone through a number of phases corresponding to political, artistic, and historical events such as propaganda shorts from Walt Disney during World War II and the rise of adult-oriented animators who rode the wave of countercultural movements during the late 1960s and early 70s. Animation meant for older audiences was especially coming into its own as most audiences had become more comfortable associating the medium with the family friendly formula perfected by the Disney company. The only other western mainstream animation studio that could stand toe to toe with Disney while also dabbling in mature subject matter at the time was Warner Bros. and its juggernaut Looney Tunes, which even then was mostly relegated to smoking, slapstick violence, and mild suggestive material. Meanwhile, the works of Ralph Bakshi, arguably the father of elevated adult animated features, dealt with everything from dark humor, sexuality, profanity, and complex themes most of which delved into pure shock value and were highly offensive in order to make a statement. There were later exceptions to this approach including Bakshi’s own adaptation of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Wizards, and Fire and Ice, a high profile collaboration with Frank Frazetta, in which both films utilized rotoscope animation to create unique, fantasy-based experiences for mature viewers.

With the right amount of funds and creativity, other countries began developing their own animated features with distinct styles that reflected the culture, social norms, and history in which they originated from. The 1960s are referred to as “the rise of Japanese animation”, or as it came to be known worldwide as anime, thanks to iconic characters of the decade like Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion, and Speed Racer. The longest running anime with over 7,700 episodes to date is Sazae-san, based on the popular 1940s comic strip of the same name. Western audiences commonly associate modern anime with over the top scenarios, animation, and facial movements while having little to no basis in reality when it comes to either story or character design.

While the Walt Disney company was steadily losing its monopoly on the animation industry with financial and critical disappointments (making room for other animators like Don Bluth) until it's renaissance during the 1990s, the 1980s turned into a golden age for ambitious, groundbreaking anime projects. Not only were films like Akira, Grave of the Fireflies, Barefoot Gen, and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind among many others, appealing to a wide variety of audiences, they were also bold enough to tackle mature, complex subject matter with a certain degree of nuance that complimented each film’s unique but often times bizarre or surreal styles. Akira watches like a violent cyberpunk splatterfest with extreme body horror and juvenile delinquency, yet its borderline exploitative methods serve a larger purpose. Akira takes place in a bleak, dystopian Japan where Tokyo has been rebuilt after its destruction in 1988, setting up an allegorical story that directly confronts government experimentation and the fallout of nuclear warfare.

Artists of all mediums have always influenced one another and the impact that anime has had on western animation continues to this day whether through passing tongue-in-cheek references, taking inspiration from common anime tropes while also depicting them through a western lens, or shows that feature a heavily emulated anime style like Avatar: The Last Airbender and its successor The Legend of Korra. Then there are shows that completely blur the lines between western animation and anime, with the ultimate distinction usually coming down to where it was originally developed (i.e. North America or Japan).

Alucard c. 2017

The overall aesthetic and image of Netflix’s Castlevania is built upon a number of different influences, the majority of which come from Japanese animation. Executive producer and long time Castlevania fan Adi Shankar has gone on record saying that the show is partially “an homage to those OVAs that I would watch on TV (...) and I was like, “This is beautiful, and it’s an art form”. He has also directly compared the show to those golden age-era ultra violent anime features of the 80s and 90s, including titles such as Akira, Ghost in the Shell, and Ninja Scroll. Director Samuel Deats, another avid Castlevania fan, has mentioned the long-running manga series Berserk along with its 1997 anime adaptation as one of the animation team’s primary inspirations numerous times, explaining in further detail in a 2017 interview with io9: “I pulled out my ‘I love the Berserk manga, Blade the Immortal’ and all that. That dark fantasy style of storytelling, character design, how gorey it gets… I put together a bunch of drawings and sketches, and a few color images that channeled all of that”.

Watching Castlevania, the aesthetic references to Berserk are obvious. Both series merge together medieval fantasy elements with gruesome horror but they are also similar in their particular animation styles. One director from Korean studio MOI Animation who partnered with Powerhouse Animation collaborated on the feature length film Berserk: The Golden Age—The Egg of the King along with its two sequels. But the biggest inspiration for the design of Castlevania, especially when it comes to its characters, is Ayami Kojima herself.

From the pre-production phase, the team at Powerhouse knew they wanted Kojima’s art to be the main basis of how the finished product would look and feel. According to Samuel Deats, “In the back of everyone’s heads, we knew that we wanted to heavily reference the style Ayami Kojima used in the Castlevania games. We wanted to bring the same shade-before-image sort of thing”. However, due to the sheer amount of details and embroidered style of Kojima’s aesthetic, many of her original designs had to be simplified into 2-D animated forms (just as they had to be reduced into pixelated form for Symphony of the Night).

Alucard’s animated design is the best example of this simplification process, but it took some trial and error in order to arrive at the finished product. When Castlevania was originally planned as a movie, his design veered closer to the otherworldliness and corpse-like aesthetic of Lords of Shadow Alucard—something that looked as far from a human being let alone a dhampir as possible. Following the years of stifled development until Netflix picked up the project, Powerhouse opted to fall back on Kojima’s artwork for sheer iconography and recognizability.

On the one hand, animated Alucard’s facial expressions are identical to his game counterpart with the exception of a few liberties taken; same determined scowl, same intensely golden eyes, and same lush eyelashes (there’s even a note from his character sheet specifically stating that they must cast shadows for close-ups). Most of all, the same feminine androgyny of Kojima’s work. But there are just as many omitted details from Alucard’s updated model as there are those that were carried over from the original design. When compared to Symphony of the Night, his wardrobe seems to be severely lacking in excessive ornaments, instead opting for a sleek black coat with simple gold embellishments, knee high boots with a slight heel, and a white shirt with an open v-neckline. Despite these supposedly easy changes and evocation of Kojima’s art style, Alucard is still one of the more difficult characters to animate as stated by Deats: “I mean, Alucard has to be just right. You can’t miss an eyelash on him without it looking weird”.

For the most part, it shows in the final product. There are moments when the animation goes off model (as is the case with most 2-D animated shows for time and budgetary reasons), but rarely is Alucard drawn from an unflattering angle. The other reason for his change in design is the fact that Castlevania takes place three centuries before the events of Symphony of the Night. Because of the story constraints and console limitations, players were not given an in-depth look at Alucard’s character beyond his quest to defeat Dracula and the guilt he felt afterwards. It would make sense that his demeanor differs from the stoic nature of how he reacts to certain situations three hundred years later. As a result, Alucard is given a toned-down design to reflect what he might have been like as a younger, brasher, and more immature version of himself.

This immaturity and juvenile nature of his visual image comes through in his portrayal. While the show is in its third season, we will primarily focus on season two as when compared to the others, it revolves around Alucard’s personal journey towards an important aspect of his long established character the most; namely, the reason for his rebellion against Dracula and his eventual act of patricide. Because Alucard only appears as a silhouette in episode one then makes his full introduction during the last fifteen minutes of the final episode, season one gives the audience a very limited idea of his character. What we do get from Alucard is the same impression that Symphony of the Night left fans with: someone who is determined, intensely fixated on his goal, and is willing to use any means to accomplish it—even if it involves striking a tentative truce between a vampire hunter and a scholar of magic. Season two expands upon this, showing an Alucard who is soft-spoken, careful in his mannerisms, more feminine than masculine, yet always rises to the occasion whenever he needs to match Trevor Belmont’s own crassness. For all of his grace, Alucard’s high emotions coupled with an unchecked immaturity (especially in the presence of Trevor) show how ill-equipped he is when dealing with human interactions.

One other piece of evidence that adds to this chink in Alucard’s carefully crafted metaphorical armor is the goal of stopping his father. Throughout small interactions and moments of dialogue, the truce struck between him, Trevor, and Sypha eventually develops into more of a friendship, yet Alucard continues to suffer from extreme tunnel vision, going as far as to chastise his two companionships whenever they get too distracted or unfocused from their mission. This character flaw is also touched upon in Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls when characters remark upon Alucard’s (otherwise referred in the game as Arikado) overly serious nature. A flaw that does more to unintentionally push others away rather than any attempt to bring them closer to him.

When Alucard finally achieves his goal of killing Dracula, it leaves him feeling hollow. He doesn’t quite know how to fully process this ultimate decision, maintaining a delicate sense of composure on the outside while in the presence of others. It’s only when Alucard is left alone does he allow the emotions of everything that has just happened to overwhelm him in a moment of genuine vulnerability that was only alluded to in previous scenes.

Conclusion

Despite the show being renewed for a fourth season, the future of the Castlevania franchise in general remains uncertain. There’s been no talk of any other past games being set for rerelease, Grimoire of Souls continues to make sporadic updates to its gacha system rather than its story mode, and Konami has since chosen to take a step back from developing video games in favour of manufacturing pachislot machines. Symphony of the Night and Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night creator Koji Igarashi has mentioned in past interviews that should Konami somehow make a return to Castlevania, he would be willing to direct a new instalment. But at the present time, rumors have remained rumors and there are no signs of a new official Castlevania game in the near future whether developed by Konami or an outside company.

No matter what direction Castlevania takes in the years to come, it seems as though Alucard will always follow it, just as Dracula and the Belmonts will as well. This is his franchise as much as it is theirs thanks to continued fan popularity. He’s taken many forms in the past thirty years and become the visual representation of certain trends, yet one thing about him never changes: he is still Dracula’s son, the opposite of his father. He can be cruel, powerful, cold, and everything else a Byronic hero should be yet he can also reject his masculine inheritance in both character and aesthetic.

Above all else, the human side of Alucard is greater than the monstrous side.

References

Bannister, Matthew. White Boys, White Noise: Masculinities and 1980s Indie Guitar Rock. Burlington: Taylor & Francis, 2017.

Castlevania Wiki | Fandom. https://castlevania.fandom.com/wiki/Castlevania_Wiki

Dyhouse, Carol. Heartthrobs: A History of Women and Desire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Godoy, Tiffany; Hirakawa, Takeji. Style Deficit Disorder: Harajuku Street Fashion, Tokyo. San Francisco: Chronicles Books, 2007.

Hodkinson, Paul. Goth: Identity, Style and Subculture. Bloomsbury Fashion Central, 2002.

Hutchings, Peter. Hammer and Beyond: The British Horror Film. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993.

James, Edward; Mendlesohn, Farah. The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Kibby, M.D. Real Men: Representations of Masculinity in the Eighties Cinema. Sydney: Western Sydney University Thesis Collection, 1997.

Kojima, Ayami. Santa Lilio Sangre. ToÌ"kyoÌ" : Asukashinsha, 2010.

Metzger, Patrick. “The Nostalgia Pendulum: A Rolling 30-Year Cycle of Pop Culture Trends.” The Patterning. WordPress.com, 2017. https://thepatterning.com/2017/02/13/the-nostalgia-pendulum-a-rolling-30-year-cycle-of-pop-culture-trends/

Moorcock, Michael. Elric of Melniboné. New York: Ace Fantasy, 1987.

Narcisse, Evan. “The Animation Studio That Made Castlevania Explains Why It Was A Dream Project.” io9. Gizmodo, 2017. https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-animation-studio-that-made-castlevania-explains-why-1797476526

Younker, Terasa. “Japanese Lolita: Dreaming, Despairing, Defying.” Standford Journal of East Asian Affairs, 2012, 97-110.

#castlevania #alucard #alucard castlevania #adrian fahrenheit tepes #castlevania netflix #castlevania symphony of the night #ayami kojima #konami #my writing #i'm sending my baby out into the world...... be gentle

414 notes · View notes

vgdensetsu · 4 years

Text

Gigaleak, preservation, emulation and content dissemination

(la version française de cet article est disponible ici)

On November 21, 1992, the sequel to the most widespread Mega Drive title was released in both Japan and South Korea, then in the rest of the world. In spite of itself, this game made many people want to find out what had happened to all those elements that had been cut during development. A few months earlier, when Sega started to show its future hit to the press, the public got a glimpse of levels such as Hidden Palace, an area absent from the final version. This wasn't the first time such an event had occurred; other sometimes equally popular titles such as Super Mario Bros. 3 have encountered the same fate, either through press coverage or via screenshots featured on the game's box. But Sonic 2 has one point that sets it apart from most other titles, in addition to its popularity: a development version was stolen a few months before the game hit the shelves. According to Yuji Naka, programmer and figurehead of the license at the time, a cartridge was stolen at a trade show in New York. His former colleague Akinori Nishiyama, meanwhile, says Sega had been hacked. In any case, this version was marketed in markets where cartridges produced without an official license were common, before being found in 1999 on a Chinese website as a ROM. Named after the person who found the ROM, the Simon Wai prototype features an unfinished version of a level that was thought to be never playable: Hidden Palace. The popularity of the license helping, amateurs started to collect documents of all types in order to identify all the differences between the versions marketed by Sega and the numerous screenshots and other development versions found over the years.

A preview published in the October 1992 issue of the British magazine Mega. 2 of the 3 levels shown here do not appear in the final version of the game.

Since Sonic 2, a lot of development versions and design documents have found their way on the net with more or less echo and communities of amateur researchers have gathered around sites such as The Cutting Room Floor, Unseen64 or Hidden Palace. On February 23, 2008, the latter put online a thousand development versions of games produced by Sega or released on Sega consoles after buying archives disks containing the games in question, sometimes with several dozen versions per title. However, the data leakage that Nintendo is experiencing in recent months seems unparalleled in terms of volume and variety of content.

In April 2020, development versions of various episodes of Pokémon, as well as source code, development tools and graphics from intermediate versions were released. Before that, in 2018 and 2019, a development version of Pokémon Gold and Silver (the "Spaceworld 1997 demo", named after the show where it was presented), assets of Pokémon Red and Green then Pokémon Diamond and Pearl had leaked on the net. In the days that followed, other types of content appeared on 4chan: official documentation relating to a number of Nintendo consoles including the Wii, the Nintendo 64, the 64DD, the iQue Player, a technical demo produced for the Nintendo 64, source code written for Super Mario 64, Powerpoints and internal correspondence from several companies for a total of about 29,000 documents. A second batch of data began to appear on July 24th and found an echo that goes far beyond technical enthusiasts and console clone producers. A large amount of content relating to some of the most popular titles and licenses in the history of video games (Mario, Zelda, Animal Crossing, StarFox) has been put online, linked on 4chan then distributed on the rest of the Internet. Development versions of Super NES, Nintendo 64, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance games, as well as source codes, graphic assets, 3D animation tests, sound effects and uncompressed music, 2D and 3D illustrations, logos, level editors, conversations between developers, visuals for a website, documents relating to the Wii, etc.

The origins of the leak Nintendo has been the subject of several attacks in recent years. Of those that have come to light, one resulted in the leakage of information about the Switch prior to its release, another involved source codes obtained from dozens of companies, but the one that most closely corresponds to the present case - generally called the Gigaleak - was carried out in 2018 by a man named Zammis Clark, a British security researcher and former Malwarebytes employee, a company specialised in detecting and removing malicious software. In 2015, he hacked VTech's servers, revealing that the company had illegally collected the data of nearly 200,000 children. He also revealed vulnerabilities in apps from manufacturers such as Dell, Lenovo and Toshiba as well as in a tool used in UK schools and developed by Impero. In 2017, he hacked some of the Microsoft servers and stole tens of thousands of files before sharing access to these servers with others. After being arrested and released on bail, he hacked Nintendo's internal network in March 2018. In its official communication, the Japanese company only mentioned the theft of a few thousand IDs and passwords as well as access to data relating to games in development at the time. However, Ganix, the man who released the Pokémon Diamond and Pearl sprites in December 2019, explained in an interview he gave to LavaCutContent a few days later that the various leaked content relating to Pokémon (including the Spaceworld 1997 demo released in May 2018, the month Nintendo realised it had been hacked by Clark) all came from a hack done in March 2018 by a man who goes by the pseudonym "Wack0". We know since the Impero affair that Wack0 is none other than Clark's pseudonym - a letter written by Impero and addressed to Clark in 2015 links the two names. Clark had shared these files with Ganix, who decided on his own initiative to leak them in December 2019, thus betraying Clark's confidence in him. The 4chan thread with which the Gigaleak started in July 2020 seems to refer to this event by its title: "ppg leak time: fuck ganix".

Because of his profile - Clark has a form of autism and suffers from prosopagnosia, the inability to recognize and identify faces - the judge felt that he would be at too great a risk if sent to prison. He was sentenced in 2019 to a 15-month suspended prison sentence and subject to a 5-year judicial review.

The presence of files relating to the iQue Player and the BroadOn company among the leaked documents suggests that the hacker accessed BroadOn’s servers, a company founded by Wei Yen who also co-founded iQue with Nintendo. Due to the legal restrictions in effect in China from 2000 to 2015, Nintendo had to make a joint venture to enter this market and develop a variant of the Nintendo 64 - the iQue Player. BroadOn is one of Nintendo's collaborators and has developed software for the Wii as well as for the iQue Brand (which includes game consoles such as the Game Boy Advance, the DS and the 3DS).

The iQue Player (picture by Evan Amos)

While Nintendo is the main target of this leak, other companies have also been affected by the ripple effect. Among them are Capcom, Konami and M2 (which is the current holder of the rights to the Aleste series). Assets and development versions of some of their games released on Super Famicom are now in the wild. Among them are Megaman X, Super Ghouls'n Ghosts, Super Castlevania IV, Axelay, Parodius Da!, Ganbare Goemon and Super Aleste. Since the release of Collection of Mana, it is public knowledge that Nintendo keep content produced by other companies in its archives. Masaru Oyamada, producer of the Mana series, said that this compilation was made possible by Nintendo, which allowed Square-Enix to recover the various source codes of these games.

In the wake of the Gigaleak, the source code for the Xbox Unreal Championship 2 game has been put online, along with numerous design documents. Epic Games' servers had been hacked in 2011 without the identity of the visitor being revealed; it cannot be excluded that the files in question originated from this attack and that the author of the hack kept them until that day on July 30, 2020. The link between this leak and the Gigaleak is not yet certain. In such a case, it is unlikely that anyone would publicly claim responsibility for the leak.

On the authenticity of the leaked content When a console prototype, a development version of a popular game or from a major license surfaces, it is customary to take it with a pinch of salt, in case someone came up with the idea of pulling a hoax or to replenish his bank account by trying to sell a fake. In the case of the contents leaked in 2020, since Nintendo hasn't officially commented on the case despite the requests made by Vice.com and LeMonde.fr, the doubt persists and the volume of data is such that it will be difficult to authenticate everything file by file. Nevertheless, Dylan Cuthbert, former developer of Argonaut who later joined Nintendo, recognised one of the tools developed for Starfox 2. In addition, in a number of cases, developers at the company have in the past provided clues suggesting that at least some of the content is authentic. This includes some rejected designs for Yoshi from Super Mario World, already unveiled in 2017.

A sprite sheet created by Shigefumi Hino during the development of Super Mario World, one year before the game’s release.

There are also quotes from developers about the presence of Luigi in Super Mario 64 and adult Mario in Yoshi's Island (both of which were set aside during development), characters in overalls in Super Mario Kart before it was decided to set the game in the Mario universe and a circuit from Mario Kart 64 located in a city but deemed too big. The same goes for the Zelda license: Yoshiaki Koizumi said he made a polygonal version of Link as part of a prototype adaptation of Zelda II for the Super Famicom, Eiji Aonuma explained that the cycle of Majora's Mask originally lasted not three days but a week and Link's Awakening was originally thought to be an adaptation of A Link to the Past - the world map of the latter made with the engine of the former has been found. Regarding Dragonfly, one of the very first Super Famicom titles shown to the public in 1988 before being renamed Pilotwings, the different screenshots published in magazines correspond to the version that leaked. While this is not an absolute proof of its authenticity - in 2012, a fan recreated an early version of Sonic 1 using screenshots as references -, the sum of clues previously cited and the large amount of documents posted online make the hoax thesis unlikely.

This leak also contains a lot of files that are difficult to identify, mainly because the names used for the files and directories are not always very explicit and some titles had never been publicly shown before or in another form. Examples include Sleep, an unfinished mouse-playable Super Famicom game (which may have been announced under the title "Black Out" in 1992), Super Donkey, another unfinished title with a number of visual similarities to Yoshi's Island, or Link's profile sprites for which we can only make guesses. Plunging into this maze of repertories requires patience as well as certain skills. Let's take the case of a game: each game has its own CVS file (named after the software used by Nintendo). A CVS file may contain several versions of a game, like a log of its evolution: an early version, a more advanced version with some elements that differ from the final version, the final version, etc. These files are not ROMs that could be launched in an emulator in 3 clicks. You have to compile the source code of the game you want to launch first, if there is source code.

Private conversations There is one point on which the leak doesn't seem to have been publicly praised: the posting of private conversations. Since April 2020, conversations between employees from various companies (Nintendo, BroadOn, then Argonaut in July) have been circulating on the net, in particular exchanges between Argonaut employees that took place in the early 90s, when some of them came to work at Nintendo in Japan. In addition to the fact that these are private correspondence - which already poses legal and moral issues - some of the excerpts shared online highlight issues that echo recent cases involving other companies, particularly on the subject of sexism and sexual harassment. In this case, the problem is twofold: there is, of course, the harassment itself (unsolicited pornographic images), but also the fact that the subject has come up without the victims having chosen to deal with it themselves.

This case illustrates the fact that video game preservation requires a minimum of methodology and should not necessarily result in the unregulated dissemination of any content relating to the development of a game or the history of a society. On the rest of the leak, opinions are very divided. Some people welcome it unreservedly; others have a mixed or even negative opinion, with the question of preservation and its modalities itself being debated.

Preservation Video game preservation is a race against time that began years ago, but the rules to be applied are still being discussed. A part of the public considers that everything that is not yet available as a ROM or ISO on the net should be dumped and shared. In 2019, a notorious collector, owner of one of the 3 knonw copies of the arcade game Akka Arrh, claimed that someone came to his home to unknowingly dump the ROM of the game in question and put it online. This is one of the most extreme cases known (if true), but it raises another issue: does preservation necessarily have to be illegal? The ROMs of commercial games you can find on the net (excluding the official websites such as the Nintendo eShop) are copies that contravene intellectual property law, whether they are final or intermediate versions, marketed or not. As early as 1993-94, consoles such as the NES, Super NES and Mega Drive had their dedicated emulator and with them ROMs that could be found via BBS. Already at that time, there were ROMs of development versions, some of which seem to have disappeared from the net because of their low distribution. These generally come either from developers who kept cartridges, CDs or files on hard disk, or from journalists who did the same with preview versions. In both cases, it is likely that they were not supposed to keep possession of them, let alone resell them years later to individuals. The amount of money exchanged for these copies has skyrocketed over the last 20 years. What might have been worth a hundred dollars in the early 2000s is now steadily rising to over a thousand. The illegal nature of the Gigaleak is nothing new in this field, but it may have been shocking in terms of its scale and the fact that the content was not obtained through a transaction (even if what made it possible is of questionable legality).

In 1979, while Namco was conducting a location test of Galaxian in a coffee shop, the game's PCB was swapped and duplicated, making it one of the first commercial titles with a beta version that ended up in the wild even before the final (and official) version was released.

Legislation in countries such as Japan, France or the United States is not so much a hindrance to the preservation as it is to the dissemination of ROMs and ISOs. We can certainly deplore the inadequacy of state initiatives as well as the meagre budgets allocated to the preservation of video games - in 2017, during a symposium on the preservation of video game preservation held at the BNF (National Library of France), its audiovisual department confessed that the budget allocated for video games was much lower than that obtained by the film sector with an average of 5,000 to 6,000 euros per year, going up to 8,000 euros in good years. It covers the acquisition of missing games (those who fell through the cracks of legal deposit), storage costs (the room where the games and machines are kept must remain at a constant temperature), etc. But the current legislation is an obstacle to preservation mainly in special cases such as video games with child pornographic content, games that companies such as Enix sometimes published in the early 1980s in Japan.

The Game Preservation Society, an entity based in Japan, does not have the task of putting online copies of the (sometimes very rare) games that it keeps in its archives, but of preserving them. Private individuals can also call on it to make backups of titles from their collection, the purpose of a private backup being to prevent damage to the programme's storage medium (cassettes, floppy disks, CDs, etc.). This policy is sometimes met with incomprehension or even disapproval from a certain fringe of the public who tirelessly demand the games' ROMs. OK, but which games? Websites that share ROMs without the agreement of their rights holders have a definite advantage over game publishers: almost all the games released on some of the most popular consoles can be found on the net. Few publishers are able to exploit their entire catalogue on a continuous basis for reasons as diverse as lack of resources, rights problems in the event of third-party licenses, or lack of commercial interest. If you want to try out the entire Mega Drive library, either you buy the 900 or so cartridges published in the past, or you download an emulator and the corresponding ROMset, thus breaking the law. It gets even more complicated with games that were playable online or available for sale in digital form only if the relevant service has closed. Abandonware-France, a website created in 2000 where you can find thousands of PC games and video game-related magazines, has adopted a clear line excluding games that are still commercially exploited as well as those released after 2000. It's less an ideal solution than a default solution - it doesn't solve the legality issue, since the games haven't yet fallen into the public domain - but it has no impact on publishers' sales, which is still one of the surest ways to get through the bullets. Other websites have been less cautious on this point by making available content that is still commercially exploited. Due to its special status, Internet Archives makes it possible to play (but not download) thousands of old games online, including titles that are still commercially exploited (Sonic 1 for example) but with the notable exception of Nintendo games or games released on Nintendo systems. In 2016, the Japanese company took down the Nintendo Power issues that were available for download at the digital library, stating that "The unapproved use of Nintendo's intellectual property can weaken our ability to protect and preserve it, or to possibly use it for new projects”. On June 1, 2020, four book publishers sued the Internet Archive after its National Emergency Library project went online, a project with which the library lent out digitized versions of books that are still commercially available. The outcome of this lawsuit could have an impact on the fate of the site and the different types of content that can be found there.

If you're interested in development versions, having a well-stocked wallet won't be of much help as legally accessible versions are rare. Sega provided us with a few exceptions by including both the final and an intermediate version of Gunstar Heroes in "Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol. 25: Gunstar Heroes Treasure Box". Probably unintentionally, the version of Revenge of Shinobi featured in "Sega Smash Pack Volume 1" on PC is a development version. As for “Silent Hill HD Collection”, the choice to base these adaptations of Silent Hill 2 and 3 on intermediate versions (retouched for the occasion) was made by default.

Finally, there is the question of making the design documents available, which again relies largely on the good will of the publishers. In addition to the interviews and documents published on specialized sites and magazines, many artbooks including illustrations, concept art and/or excerpts from design documents have been released in Japan since the end of the 1980s, followed by the US market in the early 2000s and more recently by France. Although it is not the first representative of its category, Sonic Jam has long been a reference in terms of compilation by offering galleries of documents, information and sometimes previously unseen videos in addition to the first Mega Drive episodes. In 2002, Final Fantasy X came bundled with a making of, following in the footsteps of the movie industry Square was looking towards at the time. For the past few years, some of the games produced by Sony have been the subject of making of accompanying their release and many independent developers regularly communicate on the progress of their games, both on social networks and through their blogs. However, not all games have their own journal or post-mortem. This is where initiatives such as the one launched by the Conservatoire National du Jeu Vidéo in France take over. The latter meets with developers and development companies and requests that part of their archives be made available to the public, with varying degrees of success. Other organizations such as the Musée Bolo in Switzerland (which was given archives by former Infogrames CEO Bruno Bonnell) and Internet Archive have hosted documents of this type.

The issue of preservation is not only a public issue, as companies are (or should be) concerned as well. Apart from exceptional cases such as the Great Hanshin earthquake that destroyed part of the Konami Archives in 1995, development companies rarely communicate about the loss of documents. One of the reasons for this is that in many cases they have disposed of all or part of their archives themselves. In 2016, 2 Namco employees started the Archive Project to save 350 boxes of documents from the dumpster. The two men had to convince their company to release a budget for this project even though the latter was planning to dispose of the boxes to avoid incurring new storage costs. At Square Enix, on the other hand, some files could not be saved in time and some games' source codes were lost. In addition to the Mana series previously mentioned, we know that the source code of the PlayStation version of Final Fantasy VIII has disappeared, forcing the developers of the HD version to fall back on the code of the PC version whose music is slightly different. Same with the first episode of Kingdom Hearts; the developers of the 1.5 HD Remix version had to analyze in depth a commercial copy and recreate many assets. An example that echoes the story a developer posted in 2010 in which he explained that, as part of a port of various Midway arcade games, the editor in charge of the project was unable to get his hands on the source code of Spy Hunter, so he had to download the game's ROM in order to extract the graphics via MAME and retrieve the sound files from a fan site, among other things.

---- Interlude: source code----- Having the ROM of a game does not mean you have the source code of that game. While there are thousands of ROMs of commercial games on the net, source codes are much rarer. In 2012, Jordan Mechner released the source code for the Apple II version of Prince of Persia, which he wrote alone and for which he is the owner, even though the licensing rights now belong to Ubisoft. More unexpectedly, it was discovered in 2014 that a large part of the source code for the NeoGeo version of Art of Fighting was in a file from its adaptation on PC Engine CD. In all likelihood, the developers of this version had access to the source code of the original version, which was mistakenly included in all copies of the game. In theory, having the source code of a game facilitates its adaptation on another support since, from one version to another, one can reuse a more or less important part of it, thus reducing the workload and the development costs. The loss of a game's source code therefore greatly reduces the chances of seeing a remastered version of the game. The fallback solution when it is an old game originally released on console or arcade is to use a ROM and an emulator, as it has been done on many compilations or re-releases of arcade games since the early 2000s.

The Nintendo case The source code for several Nintendo games and systems is now available on the net. Some might see this as a public backup, but the various leaks that happened since 2018 tend to prove that Nintendo knows how to preserve its data (at least for some time) and doesn't necessarily need outside help. There are several rumours about Nintendo that have not yet been confirmed. One of them is that the source code for The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening has been lost, a hypothesis that arose after studying the source code for the DX version of the game, released five years later for Game Boy Color. Another rumour claims that Nintendo is downloading the ROMs for its own NES games, a rumour that found an echo in 2016 after a lecture on emulation was given at the Game Developer Conference. However, if the NES game ROMs used by Nintendo for its Virtual Console look like the ones circulating on the rest of the net, maybe it's because at least one of the persons hired by the Japanese manufacturer to dump the ROMs of its games - Tomohiro Kawase - contributed to the group (iNES) that was dumping ROMs of those same games before joining the company.

The argument that Nintendo is a temple from which nothing comes out seems somewhat exaggerated. The company's games may not have been the subject of as many artbooks as Square Enix's, which, when it doesn't lose its source codes, knows how to showcase its heritage, but it has published many documents in the past relating to series such as Mario and Zelda (which was recently the subject of a series of artbooks), has released new games or versions of new games (Starfox 2 on the Super NES Mini, the European version of Drill Dozer on the Wii U Virtual Console), not to mention the "Iwata Asks" series, which we'd like to see an equivalent in all other development companies. The sense of secrecy that some people might see in Nintendo is probably due in part to the fact that the public is more interested in it than in most of its competitors. The popularity of some of its licenses has few equivalents in the world of video games and pop culture in general. The fact that we still discover old, unreleased Nintendo games nowadays is nothing unusual; tons of games are cancelled without having had a chance to be officially announced.

On the age of the content put online Two arguments are regularly put forward to minimize the significance of the Gigaleak. According to the first one, the content in question is old and therefore less sensitive or of lesser value than if it were recent documents. This is forgetting that Nintendo has more than once taken ideas or concepts that are sometimes decades old out of its boxes. During the 2007 Game Developers Conference, Shigeru Miyamoto went back over the concept of Miis and explained that it had undergone several changes over the years, starting as a demo on the Famicom Disk System, then reappearing on Super Famicom and 64DD before finally finding its way to the Wii in 2006. The Mario series has also had its share of ideas that have been put aside then used in later episodes. The idea of straddling a mount, for example, was first suggested during the development of Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988) before being adopted in Super Mario World (1990) with Yoshi. Miyamoto had originally envisioned a horse, but he kept the idea for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998). A simultaneous multiplayer mode was experimented with at the time of Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988) and will only be included in the series starting with New Super Mario Bros. Wii (2009). Finally, one of the sprites from Super Donkey bears some resemblance with one of those appearing in Super Mario Maker, by its concept.

Top: Super Donkey. Bottom: Super Mario Maker.

The second argument concerns the damage suffered by Nintendo and reveals a difference in treatment with what happened in April 2020 when a development version of The Last of Us 2 leaked a few weeks before the game's release. Messages of disapproval and support for the developers seem to have been more popular than those welcoming the leak. In the case of the Gigaleak, Nintendo has often been perceived as a big company, an abstract entity, thus obscuring the fact that its games are also the sum of the work of a group of individuals. In legal terms, unless otherwise stated, the fruit of the work produced within a company is the property of the company. On a personal level, it often happens that a developer has a particular attachment to what he produces.

Dylan Cuthbert, in response to a person asking him how he felt, a few hours after the July 24th leak.

While some developers may have been in favour of releasing development versions - Yuji Naka tried to find the prototype of the first Sonic publicly shown in June 1990 to include it in Sonic Mega Collection - or even production documents - Jordan Mechner published the journals he kept during the development of Karateka and Prince of Persia - others are less enthusiastic about making such files available. By definition, a development version is not a finished product, and while it is natural for a finished product to be made public, this is not necessarily the case with everything relating to the development process. This is not exclusive to video games: many illustrators are reluctant to show their sketches, works in progress or unfinished drawings, no matter how old theirs works are, and the same is true of writers and musicians. As with private conversations, there is the question of respect for developers and their consent. This is obviously not a small obstacle for anyone who wants to preserve and share all the documents relating to the history of video games, but it seems difficult to me to do the work of an archivist or historian (who relies on the work of developers) if it means harming some of these developers even slightly. Of course, you have to hope that as much information as possible will come out and you can work on it in different ways, but you also have to set limits on the methods you can use and not just reason in legal and/or material terms.

Consequences It is difficult to measure how much will come out of this case, as other elements may be added in the coming days or weeks. Now that the leaked content is circulating, Nintendo will have a hard time getting it off the net and can expect clones of consoles using its own source codes to be produced and marketed in certain countries.

Regarding the emulation scene, it's a bit more complicated. In 1999, source code and documents relating to the Nintendo 64 leaked from Silicon Graphic Inc, a company that produced processors for the Nintendo 64. Known as the Oman Archive, this content was used in the early days of Nintendo's system emulation, which led to quick results. But this use of an illegally obtained code subject to intellectual property law was also a liability for the emulation scene of this machine, which took years to get rid of. Most of the other emulators available online are legal since they were developed with their own code. It's to avoid breaking the law that console BIOSes often have to be downloaded separately (like the source code, BIOS are copyrighted). The appearance of the Wii source code is therefore a poisoned gift for developers of amateur emulators. It may allow them to understand how Nintendo has done this or that, but they can't reuse it even partially without breaking the law.

Nintendo has probably already apologised to Capcom, Konami and M2 whose files have also ended up on the web. As for the rest, we can only speculate. Will publishers become aware of the interest of a part of their audience in the making of their games and offer more content to satisfy this curiosity (videos from their archives, books, making of, etc.) or, on the contrary, will they lock the doors of their archives by throwing the key into a well? Will security and control on the net increase, further restricting the distribution of certain types of content, be it fan games, ROMs - two categories that Nintendo has been fighting hard against in recent years - or Youtube videos showing things that publishers would prefer not to see on the net (like, say, glitches from Animal Crossing: New Horizons)? Or maybe nothing will change.

Sources : Sonic 2 https://web.archive.org/web/20051104100754/http://xbox.gamespy.com/articles/654/654750p4.html https://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_Team_interview_by_Kikizo_(November_30,_2005) Hidden Palace http://info.sonicretro.org/February_23,_2008_Proto_Release Pokémon Gold 1997 prototype (2018) https://twitter.com/sanquii/status/1002107775651057664 Pokémon 2019 leak https://lavacutcontent.com/pokemon-beta-leaker-statement/ https://helixchamber.com/2019/02/16/what-dreams-may-come/ April-May 2020 leak https://resetera.com/threads/the-nintendo-leak-saga-continues-biggest-nintendo-leak-in-history-full-source-code-design-files-for-wii-released-online.196683/ https://www.resetera.com/threads/the-nintendo-leak-saga-continues-biggest-nintendo-leak-in-history-full-source-code-design-files-for-wii-released-online.196683/post-32917584 https://nintendoeverything.com/nintendo-suffers-huge-leak-source-code-and-design-files-for-wii-appearing-online/ https://twitter.com/Zetsuboushitta/status/1256320740527239168 https://twitter.com/LuigiBlood/status/1256543745794879488 recent leaks: 1 Ryan Hernandez https://www.thegamer.com/man-leaked-nintendo-switch-prison-charges/ https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdwa/pr/california-man-who-hacked-nintendo-servers-steal-video-games-and-other-proprietary 2 Tillie Kottmann https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/source-code-from-dozens-of-companies-leaked-online/ 3 Zammis Clark https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/28/18286027/microsoft-nintendo-vtech-security-hack-breach-researcher-guilty https://lavacutcontent.com/pokemon-beta-leaker-statement/ Mail sent by Impero to Zammis Clark - Wack0 https://archive.org/stream/pdfy-fRcZ1TWHaDkwz-Ea/Letter%20to%20Mr%20Zammis%20A%20Clark%20dated%2013%20July%202015_djvu.txt BroadOn + iQue https://wiki.mariocube.com/index.php/IQue#BroadOn July 2020 leak https://boards.4channel.org/vp/thread/44305551/ppg-leak-time-fuck-ganix https://www.resetera.com/threads/update-super-mario-64-and-oot-source-leaked-massive-nintendo-data-leak-source-code-to-yoshis-island-a-link-to-the-past-f-zero-and-more.254724/page-62 Aleste and M2 https://twitter.com/M2_STG/status/1014031712672571393 Collection of Mana https://gameinformer.com/preview/2019/06/11/decades-in-the-making Vice, Lemonde.fr and Nintendo https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7kp7bx/a-massive-leak-of-nintendo-source-code-is-causing-chaos-in-video-games https://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2020/07/31/nintendo-ce-que-l-on-sait-de-la-fuite-supposee-de-documents-lies-aux-jeux-video_6047809_4408996.html Cuthbert and Starfox 2 https://twitter.com/dylancuthbert/status/1286789583061934080 Mario World sprite sheet https://topics.nintendo.co.jp/article/cb34ab17-9135-11e7-8cda-063b7ac45a6d Luigi in Super Mario 64 https://shmuplations.com/mario64/ Adult Mario in Yoshi's island http://shmuplations.com/yoshi/ Super Mario Kart before Mario https://twitter.com/toruzz/status/1287400639165861888 http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/wii/mariokart/0/0 Mario Kart 64 circuit http://shmuplations.com/mariokart64/ https://twitter.com/AeroArtwork/status/1288299965954088966?s=19 Zelda II SFC in 3D http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/zelda-ocarina-of-time/1/1 Zelda OOT in Ganondorf's Castle https://twitter.com/AeroArtwork/status/1287524648222105607 7 day cycle in Zelda: Majora's Mask https://twitter.com/Zen64_/status/1287582698085777408 http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/majoras-mask-3d/0/0 https://www.polygon.com/2015/2/18/8064257/majoras-mask-three-day-timer-week DragonFly https://www.unseen64.net/2008/04/14/pilotwings-snes-proto/ Sonic 1 fan recreation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHtzXzu2BDA Argonaut https://twitter.com/corentin_lamy/status/1286932458173276161 https://www.resetera.com/threads/update-super-mario-64-and-oot-source-leaked-massive-nintendo-data-leak-source-code-to-yoshis-island-a-link-to-the-past-f-zero-and-more.254724/post-40826655 Unreal Championship 2 https://twitter.com/Sinoc229/status/1288680503801860096 https://www.ign.com/articles/2011/06/11/epic-games-website-forums-hacked Akka Arrh https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/04/after-a-lost-atari-rom-leaks-retro-fans-ask-was-it-stolen/ Galaxian https://www.4gamer.net/games/999/G999905/20180313040/ Firsts emulators https://emulation.miraheze.org/wiki/History_of_emulation Namco's Archive Project https://game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/1205387.html Spy Hunter http://web.archive.org/web/20110925185703/http://www.ppl-pilot.com.nyud.net/mame.aspx Prince of Persia https://github.com/jmechner/Prince-of-Persia-Apple-II On the CNJV, Musée Bolo and BNF : "colloque: la conservation du patrimoine vidéoludique" (2017). Nintendo Power, Internet Archive https://www.polygon.com/2016/8/8/12405278/nintendo-power-issues-disappear-from-free-online-archive http://blog.archive.org/2020/06/01/four-commercial-publishers-filed-a-complaint-about-the-internet-archives-lending-of-digitized-books/ Nintendo ROMs https://www.resetera.com/threads/tomohiro-kawase-mightve-been-hired-by-nintendo-to-put-rom-headers-into-vc-updated-dec-1-2018.64755/ https://twitter.com/LuigiBlood/status/1045348387174977536?s=19 https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/9msl9j/update_did_nintendo_actually_download_roms_for/e7iemhb/ GDC 2016 https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1023470/-It-s-Just-Emulation The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening source code https://www.neogaf.com/threads/it-bothers-me-that-nintendo-keeps-ignoring-links-awakening.931702/page-2 Mii https://unseen64.net/2008/04/14/mii-nes-prototype/ https://www.nintendo.fr/Iwata-demande/Iwata-Demande-Nintendo-3DS/Vol-5-Interview-de-Miyamoto-san-a-la-veille-de-la-sortie-de-la-console/2-Faire-des-personnages-Mii-un-standard-international/2-Faire-des-personnages-Mii-un-standard-international-210297.html Yoshi and a horse https://www.nintendo.co.uk/News/2017/October/Nintendo-Classic-Mini-SNES-developer-interview-Volume-5-Super-Mario-World-and-Super-Mario-World-2-Yoshi-s-Island-1290850.html Multiplayer mode in SMB3 http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/wii/mario25th/2/3 Super Donkey - Mario Maker https://twitter.com/dbMisadventure/status/1286751468293414912 Dylan Cuthbert https://twitter.com/dylancuthbert/status/1286822093703622656 Sonic 1 prototype https://www.gamesradar.com/super-rare-1990-sonic-the-hedgehog-prototype-is-missing/ Oman Archive https://sm64-conspiracies.fandom.com/wiki/Oman_Archive Animal Crossing: New Horizons vidéo https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/m7j7yb/nintendo-takes-down-youtube-video-of-fan-showing-animal-crossing-glitches

#Gigaleak preservation emulation and content dissemination

89 notes · View notes

rubykgrant · 4 years

Text

Ah, to heck with it; have some “Simon Survives Scenarios”. Various ideas that have been rolling around in my head, I can’t be bothered to actually DO anything with them myself, but perhaps others will have fun! Or angst. Or both. You can use these in a “and then everything was OK, the end” kinda way... OR “and then he felt BAD, because he made US feel bad, you get what you give dude” kinda way. Either way, enjoy~

Scenario 1- starting from the point of Grace still being trapped in her video memories, what finally snaps her out of the trance is somebody knocking the projector out of the way... it is Samantha. She started feeling anxious (and perhaps a bit guilty) about giving this to Simon, and worried about what he’d do with it. Samantha and Grace talk for a moment, concluding with Samantha lamenting that she should have taken better care of the boy when he was younger, and Grace pointing out that he’s a big boy now, his actions are his own choice. Grace continues on while Samantha stays behind. Things proceed basically the same as they did originally, until the Ghom attacks Simon. It seems that he’s really going to die, the thing that he’d been running from since he was a child finally caught him, he wasn’t able to stop himself from becoming somebody terrible and now he was going to be stopped forever... and suddenly, something lunges at the Ghom. It is Samantha, still dressed in her very classy vest, but now she’s got her fur raised, claws out, hissing and ready to bite. She lunges again, grabbing the Ghom and rolling, swiping and swatting at it the shole time. Simon is still out of sorts... he just tried to kill his best friend, then she was OK, and then the Ghom was on him, and he could feel himself dying, and then Samantha was there, and he feels tiny and afraid again. Grace takes a step forward, not sure if she can do anything, but wanting to try. Samantha is pinned down by the Ghom, looks up at the children, and manages to shout “GET BACK IN THE CAR!” before she pulls herself free, rounding on the Ghom. Grace grabs Simon by the arm and pulls him back toward the doors of the Mall Car, the kids rushing in ahead of them. Grace pulls the doors shut, and Simon finally reacts. Sitting on his knees in front of the door, he slams his hands against it. For a few seconds, everybody is just trying to ceatch their breath and process what just happened. Simon looks down at his arms, both covered with numbers. He turns around, sitting against the door, and off to the side he turns and looks into a reflective surface of some window the kids broke years ago. He sees his face, and then quickly looks away. Grace speaks to the kids as she did in the original, her number going down, her new little origami companions with her. Simon is silent for now, he doesn’t even want to hear his own voice (you can take that wherever you want from there. maybe he still keeps being a jerk and eventually bites it in a whole other way, maybe they find Samantha again later, maybe whatever)

Scenario 2- The well-being of the passengers was the most important thing... and that was why One-One jsut couldn’t leave this alone. Before... before Amelia, before a lot of things, there had been very specific safety measures that made sure, no matter WHAT, a passenger wouldn’t die. It hadn’t been all Amelia’s fault, not entirely, but when she took the train, she removed several safety measures, and others fell into dis-repair as she was only concerned with her personal project. There was also other problems, things that had nothing to do with Amelia, things One-One should have anitcipated and fixed before anything bad happened... but he hadn’t, and then he’d been so invested in getting things “back on track” (so to speak) after becoming the Conductor once again, he missed this. Now a passenger was dead, and that was simply not acceptable. Even Sad-One couldn’t find the right words to describe how devastating this fact was. Amelia was a little reluctant to mention that One-One was so concerned with the whole Simon Incident, that he was ignoring other issues. After all, passengers weren’t in danger before she started taking over the train, and she’d been RIGHT THERE, right in front of the boy, she could clearly see how troubled he had been, how narrow-minded and head-strong, how very much like herself when she’d been at her worst... and she had only antagonized him, then left. Finaly, Amelia forced herself to speak with One (being more honest and direct was something she needed to work on. her number spun down as she took a deep breath and walked up to the little robot). She talked about how this was unfortunate, and very sad indeed, but warned One not get so obsessed. That was what had hurt the boy. It was also what had hurt her. She’d been so obsessed with bringing back Alrick, she’d tried all kinds of things, now obviously nonsensical; cloning him, holograms, once she’d even tried using her memory tape and a particular car to create some sort of time travel. “Oh? Which car was that?” One asked, in an off-handed way. Amelia explained it had been a car that was now currently glitching, but the original purpose was to go into “history books”, like some after-school special where children time travel and learn a history lesson. The car couldn’t let you change or alter the past, just re-visit and re-live it. Until Amelia started adjusting it... oh, she’d gotten CLOSE with that thing. However, after some experiments, she decided it was a bad option. Pulling something out through the machine from the past almost never lasted. Most of the time, whatever she brought back deteriorated. She had only chosen random objects, things like house plants or fruit, too afraid to actually put Alrick through all that. Going through the machine yourself also wasn’t practical, you also got pulled back to where you had been after a certain period of time had passed. You could bring things with you (she’d been able to grab a chair), but that still held the same problem of the past object possibly falling apart. She also found that you couldn’t be very accurate with where and when. She often was a few minutes and several feet off where she was “aiming”. Finally, she noticed that she also became more unstable after trying to go back. Not only had she not even been able to see Alrick (what with being an hour later than she wanted and also two hole miles away), she had nearly destoyed herself. Amelia had intended to share this story to hopefully help One understand that he couldn’t keep dwelling on Simon. Instead, she had given him an idea

Scenario 3- The Ghom doesn’t suck out Simon’s soul... it turns him into ANOTHER Ghom. Grace quickly rushes the kids back into the Mall Car as the thing that used to be her best friend tries to attack her. Again. Any hope she had of reasoning with him, helping him, sotpping him... all that is gone. Inside the car, Grace tries to comfort the kids and explain to them that they need to change. In the days that follow, instead of going out on raids, Grace goes out on little trips with the kids. Now that they know what they are supposed to do, learn lessons and get their numbers DOWN, they really seem to be making progess. Sometimes she head out with a group of 7 kids, and come back with 3. At first they were afraid of getting to 0 and suddenly facing an exit door, but Grace helps them understand that it will be OK. They’re going home. The kids still don’t want to be alone, and that’s why Grace still uses the Mall Car as a base. If nothing else, they can still come back here to rest. Some kids find their true companions, and Grace says good-bye. She knows she should try to get her own number down (although, it seems to do it just fine without much effort), but she doesn’t want to leave just yet... for one thing, she’s been on this train for... what? 10 years? 11? She wasn’t totally sure, but she did know this had been her life for a long time, and she wasn’t ready for “the real world” yet. She also still wanted to find Hazel. If nothing else, to apologize and make sure the little girl was alright. Why lie, she also kept thinking about Simon. She knew it was impossible to even think she could find him, or tell him apart from the other Ghoms, or help him if she DID find him. She kept thinking about him though. One day, while exploring some cars with her little origami companions, Grace hears somebody yelling; she can’t believe it, but it is Hazel! A group of Ghoms have gotten into the car, and they’re chasing her. Grace runs as fast ashe she can, but the car is designed to be like a giant jungle-gym in a fast-food place. Everything is all twisted together, an obstacle course in bright colors. Grace gets stuck, and calls out to her friend. Hazel tries to get to her, but 3 Ghoms advance on her. Hazel crouches down, her turtle shell appearing as a last line of defense... and suddenly a fourth Ghom slams into the others. It chases them off, then turns and walks toward Hazel. Grace finally finds a way through, runs over, and wraps her arms around the tiny girl to protect her. The Ghom stops. It seems distressed, which isn’t unusual for Ghoms, but it also isn’t attacking. It keeps pacing around them, growling and crying. Hazel slowly relaxes in Graces arms, and Grace finally asks “Simon? Is that you?”

Potential Follow-Up to Scenario 3 and 4- Simon is returned to his normal form, still covered with numbers and still not in his right mind. After first panicking when he sees who he still considers to be the “false conductor”, he then starts to remember what he did, and asks “Wait, what happened to Grace? Did I hurt her? I... I thought I did, but I didn’t really WANT to, but I still DID... no, did I kill her? I didn’t, right? Something saved her... Din’t it?”. Finally Amelia comes in, and taking a softer tone than the one she used when they first met, she explains that yes, he did indeed try to kill Grace, and yes, she was saved by denizens of the train. Now, he has been saved as well. Still trying not to be too harsh with him, Amelia explains that he has been wrong about the numbers and how the train works. Simon still doesn’t want to listen to that... because if he was wrong about that, then EVERYTHING he did was wrong. After some time passes, Amelia manages to locate his former friends, as they’ve been concerned about him (he has trouble understanding why they even still care). Samantha comes to see him, and after looking at his face she says “Oh, Simon... what have you done to yourself? What did you do to everybody else?”. Grace comes to see him as well, and she’s a mess “I should be HAPPY to see you alive, we should both be happy, but we can’t be, I don’t know HOW to feel about this, we saved each other so many times Simon, until the very end I was still trying to save you, and you... YOU...” she can’t finish. He knows. He tried to kill her. Shame doesn’t seem like a strong enough word for what he feels. Hazel is somewhere nearby, but she refuses to come near him. He can’t blame her. On his own, Simon looks at himself in a mirror, seeing all the numbers on his face. Like brands of his mistakes and bad choices. When Amelia finds him, he’s crying and scratching at his face “I don’t want them anymore, I don’t want these numbers, get them off, GET THEM OFF!”. She runs toward him, grabbing his arms “Simon, stop! Stop it! Hurting yourself is just making your number go UP!”. He colapses against her, crying, and Amelia has to do something she’s not very good at; comfort him. She also tells him “Sometimes... the hardest thing we can do is live with the consequences of our actions”. In the days that pass, Simon finds himself constantly thinking about how this isn’t fair, why should HE get to be here? He doesn’t deserve this. If he could come back, why couldn’t... Simon starts asking about how the denizens of the train work, how they are “alive”. He learns about the “cores”, how they can be repaired and thus possibly heal a denizen that has been hurt or destroyed. If the core itself is broken, then nothing can be done. If Simon could just find Tuba, then he could fix this (this could be wither him traveling way back to the spot where he cause her to tall, searching the wasteland in the area. or, him using the time machine, which is potentially dangerous to him as going back and forth might cause him to fall apart)

#long post #text #infinity train #infinity train book 3 #my thoughts #simon laurent

6 notes · View notes

ducktracy · 4 years

Text

164. uncle tom’s bungalow (1937)

disclaimer: this is the fourth entry in the censored 11. there are dozens of cartoons not on the list that are just as vile and tasteless, if not moreso, yet this provides good insight into what we’re dealing with. with that said, this review entails racist content, imagery, stereotypes, and ideals. i do not in any way endorse these. i find them dehumanizing, gross, and wrong. and to act like they never existed in the first place would be just as insensitive. this needs to be talked about. PLEASE let me know if i say anything wrong. it’s never my intention to harm anyone, and i want my mistakes to be identified so i can own up to them. thank you for your patience and understanding.

release date: june 5th, 1937

series: merrie melodies

director: tex avery

starring: tedd pierce (narrator), billy bletcher (simon simon legree, excited little eva), lillian randolph (topsy, eliza), berneice hansell (little eva), mel blanc (dog)

this is a rather momentous occasion in tex avery’s career, a cartoon that would dictate the direction that the majority of his remaining cartoons at warner bros would take. uncle tom’s bungalow could be considered the first “travelogue” of avery’s. especially prevalent throughout 1939 and 1940, avery did a number of travelogue parodies—a narrator examines a setting as we interact with the characters, narrating what they’re up to, and learning about the area we’re exploring. this has more of a concrete storyline than many of the other travelogues, thus contributing to its quality, so to speak. tex would take another spin on uncle tom’s cabin with uncle tom’s cabana in 1947 over at MGM.

and, of course, the elephant in the room—this is tex’s first entry out of 3 in the censored 11, the other two being the isle of pingo pongo (1938) and all this and rabbit stew (1941). i don’t mean to sound like i’m making light of the impact these cartoons cast—that’s not at all my intention, but there are, undeniably, entries that are better than others. this cartoon is probably the best out of the remaining avery censored 11 entries, as well as one of the better entries in the censored 11 as a whole. that’s not in my power to decide, of course, but in terms of quality, technicalities, and polishing, this is one of the “better” ones.

a parody on the infamous novel by harriet beecher stowe, uncle tom’s bungalow illustrates the story of how little eva and topsy save uncle tom, but his refuge is threatened once the girls fall behind on their payments to the treacherous simon simon legree.

the cartoon opens with a long, beautiful pan of the rural countryside, complete with a beautiful, jaunty chorus of “swanee river/the old folks at home”. we truck in on a grandiose property, where we meet our narrator courtesy of tedd pierce as he asserts “that’s real swing, boys.”

next starts the first introduction of many, a highlight in the cartoon, if not THE highlight. we’re met with the stereotypical cute little avery blonde, vocals by the great berneice hansell as always. the narrator asks for her name, and, in a moment of greatness, she rambles on in that terminally amusing cutesy voice, giving everything BUT her name. she provides her age, her address, shows off how she can spell “cat” (”i can spell cat! uh, c-a... uh, cat. uh...c-a... uh, cat! c-a... well, anyway, i can spell dog! d-o-g, dog...”) and so forth. as both she and avery test our patience, she suddenly shows off the lace underneath her dress, getting both the narrator and audience in trouble as the narrator protests, insisting she cover herself back up. “now, all we want to know is your name!” a looney tunes staple, the girl’s outburst is surprisingly provided by billy bletcher as opposed to mel blanc when she barks “LITTLE EVA, YA DOPE!”

the narrator moves on to patronize his next subject, topsy. her introductory gag is seldom spared from being cringeworthy, but is undeniably clever. "hey, girly. step out of that shadow and introduce yourself to the folks here.” topsy makes her way out of the shadows and introduces herself, the narrator once more providing a patronizing chuckle and a “that’s cute.”

next is uncle tom himself, who, surprisingly, isn’t featured very much in this cartoon at all. the narrator comments on how feeble uncle tom is getting, remarking on the way his knees shake. uncle tom retorts how his knees aren’t shaking--he’s trucking. narrator has no response.

eliza is the next one to be introduced (obligatory comment about how we share the same name and how totally WEIRD it is to hear your name over and over and over again. how do you folks with common names survive??). as grotesque as these caricatures and stereotypes are, eliza’s banter with the narrator is very amusing. they’re both from the south, and go back and forth in jovial banter about the other being from the south. eliza’s animation is very loose, rubbery, and fun, all things considered. i know it seems i always pin him as the perpetrator for certain scenes, but i wonder if this is bob clampett animation? it seems very unlikely--he would have been working on porky’s badtime story at this time as a director. yet, chuck jones, who also moved to iwerks’ unit with clampett before clampett took over, also does animation in this cartoon, so it’s not completely out of the question. it is unlikely that this is clampett, though. just a guess. her movements are very reminiscent of daffy’s exit provided by clampett in porky’s duck hunt.

and, of course, every cartoon must have a villain. chuck jones animates simon simon legree, who you’ll recognize as the villain from milk and money. the name simon simon is a take on popular french actress at the time simone simone. very clever indeed. chuck jones’ animation is top notch as always--in fact, the introductory pieces for every character, gross and cringeworthy as some of the designs are, are very well animated and full of great character acting.

even the narrator is not immune from puns: “and last but not leashed is the hounds.” a skillful ear will note that the underscore is “my little buckaroo”, the name of a 1938 friz freleng merrie melody. daffy also sings it in the opening of the daffy duckaroo in 1942 (not to be confused with the 1954 chuck jones cartoon my little duckaroo). the dogs hardly display any signs of enthusiasm as they snooze on the porch--the gray dog troubles himself enough to lift his head up and give a gravelly “hello.” courtesy of mel blanc. that’s that.

the introductory portion, taking up half the cartoon, comes to a close as the narrator asks if all of the characters are ready. they all give the affirmative (perhaps most notably little eva responding “you said it, dark, tall, and bow-legged!”, as well as the apathetic dog grunting that there ain’t nothin’ else ta do). this whole entire scene is far from perfect--stereotypes are abound and caricatures are grotesque, yet this serves as a landmark in tex’s warner bros career. there isn’t even a fourth wall to break--there is no fourth wall. we are completely immersed with the characters, and the characters are completely immersed with us. they feel real, alive, and with us, all the while holding onto the notion that there is an underlying sense of performance. the most immersive of characters act like they’re putting on a show, coming from an actress herself (i use that loosely and coyly, i was the lead in my senior musical and was in quite a handful of other plays). broad movements, exaggerated dialogue. the more unbelievable, the more believable. cartoon acting is a strange world!

“here we go, camera!” the narrator announces as a warning. and a warning is right. it’s important to remember that this is a parody of the stage adaptations from harriet beecher stowe’s book, not the book itself. not that a parody makes it okay--it doesn’t. and that’s what we need to remember.

we are greeted with simon simon legree’s slave company, as well as billy bletcher’s haunting laugh and avery’s favorite theme for the villain. legree cracks his whip, and we are reminded just how treacherous and despicable this man is as we see the whip physically snapping its “fingers”. the next scene is a grotesque and racist (well, that’s a given) display of social commentary as we see slaves lined up against the fence, advertised with signs that liken them to a used car sale. absolutely brutal, commentary or not. but, again, it must be noted.

uncle tom is one of the slaves for sale, who the narrator desperately attempts to warn to escape. terrible as this sequence is, uncle tom provides a great one-liner as legree threatens him with his whip. “my body might belong to you, but my soul belongs to warner brothers!”

meanwhile, little eva and topsy hold hands, frolicking and skipping with deliberately annoying singing as they stumble across legree’s site (as the satirical signs help us remember). they hear the whip cracks, and both girls dart in front of uncle tom in an attempt to stop legree’s abuse. eva protests “stop! stop! we’ll buy the nice old man!”

very amusing is the next scene as we watch legree negotiate business deals with two 6 year old children. more wonderful chuck jones animation, of course. “here’s your contract! but remember, if you fall behind in your payments, i take him back!”

thus, the girls take uncle tom home, and all is well. for now, anyway. time marches on as we watch snowdrifts pile on the grandiose property from the beginning, even prompting the narrator to remark “my, my, how time does fly.”

“looks like bad news, folks,” the narrator ever so helpfully quips as we spot legree’s business. a wonderfully grotesque hand helps to further the entire sickening feeling that is inherent with legree as he peruses topsy and eva’s checking account: they’re three months behind on their payments. legree saunters through the snow with that delightfully absurd villain walk as the narrator frets, wishing to warn the kids.

“jiggers, kids! ditch uncle tom--here comes legree!” with some quick thinking, the girls throw uncle tom through the portrait displayed so ornately on the wall.uncle tom places his face in the position of the face that was there just seconds before.

i didn’t mention this, but this is irv spence’s first scene in a tex avery cartoon. spence is a WONDERFUL animator and one of my favorites. the way his characters move is nothing less than tantalizing. legree bursts in and berates the kids on uncle tom’s whereabouts. eva protests “we don’t know, so THERE!” followed by a “so there!” from topsy. the way the girls push their bodies, how strong the line of action is, how defined the silhouettes are... absolutely beautiful animation, all things considered. they even make chuck jones’ next scene seem inferior, and that’s quite a feat. legree spits that he’ll find uncle tom, no matter what, as we see animation of him slithering across the ground, reused from milk and money.

he slithers across the floor to where the couch is, per the narrator’s guidance. “getting warm... warmer... warmer... warmer...” he’s getting warmer, alright--thanks to the narrator’s quick thinking, legree feels around underneath the couch, his fingers dangerously close to an electrical socket. all according to plan as legree is electrocuted, spasming and flailing around in a bright array of colors. as legree recovers, he does not at all fancy the narrator’s joke of “boy, you’re burning up!”

more irv spence animation as legree threatens to whip the girls within an inch of their lives, until another animator takes over and gives us this take that... speaks for itself how tasteless it is.

nevertheless, irv spence provides animation once more as the narrator recruits eliza into action. eliza scoops up the girls and runs out of the mansion, the narrator commentating on the chase like it’s a horse race. legree whistles, and we are reminded of the lazy dogs from the beginning, who are still snoozing on the porch, covered in snowdrifts. legree resorts to sniffing out eliza’s tracks like a dog himself, and in a twist of tex avery greatness, one of the footprints kicks legree right in the ass.

the chase persists as legree now has his hounds, the hounds chasing after eliza. eliza halts when she approaches a lake: it hasn’t frozen over, no way to cross. another frequent favorite used by tashlin, iwerks, and now avery as eliza panics, trying to think of a way to cross. the narrator croons “relax, eliza, now don’t get excited, don’t get excited...” eliza retaliates with the famous “EXCITED?? WHO’S EXCITED?? I’M NOT EXCITED!!!”

as legree gets closer, the narrator indicates a slot machine--an avery favorite used since his debut with gold diggers of ‘49--where eliza can get some ice. eliza slips a coin in, and hits the jackpot. giant bricks of ice tumble out of the machine, forming stepping stones across the lake. a long shot of eliza and the girls trying to escape from legree, who has also approached the ice blocks.

eliza lands on the shore, as does legree and the hounds. as the hounds bark at the victims, legree readying his whip, the narrator giving a dramatic “and the winner...!”, the suspense is broken by the sound of a car horn.

“...is uncle tom. looks like the old boy has collected on his social security!” an avery staple as we see the victorious old man triumphantly holding up his winnings in his grandiose car. a cut gag from daffy duck and egghead also has daffy crying about how he shouldn’t be killed, he still has to collect on his social security. definitely a trend in the avery-verse!

uncle tom forks over a bundle of cash to legree, who accepts it begrudgingly and stalks off. the girls are thrilled. eva asks “why, uncle tom! where did you get all that money?”

what better way to end a racist cartoon by perpetuating more stereotypes? uncle tom throws two dice on the ground, who land snake eyes. yet, lo and behold, the dice roll over to reveal a 7. another avery iris out gag as the iris closes, leaving the dice on the black screen. the iris opens to allow uncle tom to fish the dice back into the cartoon, ending the cartoon as the narrator sardonically croons “and there you have the story of uncle tom’s bungalow! ...or have you?”

i will give this cartoon credit: this is the best entry from the censored 11 we’ve seen yet. i don’t like to put it like that, because it’s not, and should not be a popularity contest, but the quality of work in this cartoon is undeniably superior in comparison to the other works we’ve seen. i will say that i personally like this better than the previous entry, clean pastures, despite its jolly music score. this cartoon has some wonderful animation by irv spence and chuck jones, and the entire first introductory half is pretty extraordinary, all things considered. in fact, the rest of the cartoon, in my opinion, doesn’t quite match the momentum brought on by the first half. the first half is slow, yes, but it’s filled with wonderful character acting and animation. the chase scene between eliza and legree doesn’t quite have the same avery snappiness as other previous chase scenes. it becomes rather droll, despite the narrator’s amusing, if not redundant at times commentary. frank tashlin would rival tex avery in terms of speed and quality, and that would serve as a great thing--those two would always play off each other as a result, and cartoons got better.

but, with all that said, this is still an abhorrent cartoon in many ways. stereotypes and caricatures are abound, and scenes are uncomfortable, if not plain cruel at times. of course historical context is important--one must always keep that in mind--but this still remains as an inexcusable display of racism, even if this is a parody. racism is racism. and, because of that, i still can’t recommend this cartoon, or really any of the cartoons on this list. this cartoon is more lighthearted than the previous entries, and i would never call it entirely innocent, but it doesn’t feel as nasty as previous entries like, say, sunday go to meetin’ time. this cartoon has quality, but it has many, many problems.

so, as always, i will provide a link--obviously view at your own discretion.

#lt #uncle tom’s bungalow #looney tunes #reviews #avery #long post #racism tw #blackface tw

13 notes · View notes

crispyimagines17 · 5 years

Photo

“GOSSIP GIRL: Summertime Madness“ (Chapter 2).

Summary: Gossip Girl, your one and only social media source into the scandalous lives of Manhattan’s Elite. Things begin to stagger at the Upper East Side with the return of Alana Howarth and the unexpected arrival of Timothée Chalamet, a European handsome boy and rising ruler who has come for Alana; ignoring that NYC already has an heir and prince in its realm, Tom Holland. Secrets, romance, drama and lots of champagne are our daily bread. You know you love me, XOXO.

Originally based on: R’s & CrispyImagines writers’ idea.

Written by: @crispyimagines17

CAST:

Tom Holland

Timothée Chalamet

Noah Centineo as Noah Humphrey

Kiernan Shipka as Kiernan Archibald

Disclaimer: This fiction is set on our days (2019). Gossip Girl is now all over social media, Twitter and Instagram being the best sites to find hot tea. Also, for those who may ask what happens with Serena, Blair, Chuck, Dan, Nate and the original cast, they’re now grownups who set the reign and have left it for new generations.

Author’s Note: Just enjoy it while it lasts, guys. Thank you to all those supportive souls who sent their good vibes via ask or DM <3 especially to Napofthesoul, your words really meant a lot, sweetie.

Previous Chapters: 1: “New York, New York”

Masterpost

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Morning, Upper East Siders. Time to wake up from bad dreams and face a new day. Though, if you’re a queen just arriving at your realm after time abroad and with two royals fighting for you, looks like things could get uglier in the morning.

Her eyelids hesitated to open at the touch of sunrays coming from a window. Her body was paying off yesterday’s red wine glasses. But she didn’t regret it after thinking about the dramatic performance at the terrace. If anything could’ve calmed her late nerves to see the two men in the same city, and much worse in the same place, that was wine.

“Oh shit”

Alana exhaled loudly as she sat up on the bed at a slow pace for not worsen her nausea. Her hand stretched out to reach her phone. The clock read 10 a.m. It was a miracle her mother hadn’t sent Mishka, her maid and Dorota’s nephew, to her bedroom yet.

But as if thinking of her called her up, Mrs. Howarth and Mishka opened the door seconds later.

“Oh Alana, I almost forgot you were here.”

“Thank you for that, mother.” She rolled her eyes.

Margot eyed from head to toe at her messy daughter for a second before taking her attention back to her smartphone.

“Dress up. We’re running late for the Holland’s annual golf match”

“Mother. I am not going.”

In a single move, Alana stood up from bed to face her mother with a frown. But the cold woman cut her off.

“You are. End of discussion.”

“I agreed to attend your last night’s party. But this is much more”

Her vibrant blue eyes stared straight into her daughter’s as she kept her phone inside her purse.

“You wanted to be back, don’t you? And your grandma’s Charity Foundation would not rise again if you refuse to attend events and show your deep interest on getting more investors.” Margot made a brief pause, but nothing came out of Alana’s mouth. She smirked at her silence. “I’ll be on the limo. Hurry up”

The Howarth girl did as told unwillingly, not before unlocking her phonescreen; one lost call and 4 messages from Timothée. Nothing from Tom. Alana pursed her lips. Maybe her long-time friend understood the message and made peace.

Or at least that’s what she hoped.

* * * * * *

The sun shined bright and clear. A perfect Saturday morning for those lucky souls with no strings and ready to live. Veuve Clicquot Garden looked just as she remembered. It felt so Upper East Side. It smelt like money.

As soon as a waiter approached her, she asked him for a glass of wine. It might be 11:00 a.m., but Breakfast at Tiffany’s with orange juice wasn’t a possibility.

“Oh Alana, my dear.”

“Mrs. O’Brien!”

An elegant grandmother with certainly more class than the British Queen herself stared at her and pulled her into an embrace. The woman who, as her godmother Blair Waldorf, had thought her everything she needed to know about life and this sick elite society.

“My darling, you look wonderful!”

“And you look younger, if I may say so.” Alana exclaimed with a joyful smile over her face.

“Oh, enough” She giggled. “So, what have you been up to, Lana?”

“Europe, recently. But I’m back now. What about you?”

“South Sudan. There’s a terrible situation happening for children there.” The old woman briefly fixed her eyes in the ground with a sad expression. “But of course, the Holland’s believe things can get managed with Golf Match so, shall we?”

Both approached the lunch table to pick some fruit and Alana stayed in silence for a couple seconds until Lilian O’Brien spoke again.

“Christ, I used to enjoy these events very much.”

“Now you don’t?”, Alana frowned as she followed her inside the white tent.

“I still do, dear. What changed was that I don’t only care for my social status anymore, I care about others too.”

Alana seemed to be deeply digesting her words as she nodded. But her analysis was interrupted by a curly mass of hair stepping into the garden followed by the Bass family; Chuck and Blair.

“May you excuse me?”

“Go, Lana. Go”, the old woman nodded gently in a soft attempt to encourage the young girl.

“Was truly a pleasure, Mrs. O’Brien”

Until that very instance, Alana hadn’t paid attention to the music playing in the background because her ears were used to Frank Sinatra’s voice. But when Timothée’s eyes met hers, Etta James’ voice invaded her and suddenly, the scene looked taken from a romantic comedy film.

‘This gotta be a fucking joke’, Alana whispered to herself.

Meanwhile, the European man wearing the latest Berluti’s white design walked towards her. Perhaps aware of the song’s effect, because his steps seemed to be perfectly synchronized with the tune.

“Morning, sunshine.” Timothée said with the same charming smile that made her knees weak.

As soon as he stood before her, Alana thought they’d be dancing or passionately kissing as in an Audrey Hepburn’s films. But they didn’t. A helicopter landing sound interrupted the magic moment, bringing both souls back to reality. Etta James’ voice had faded giving way to Nina Simone’s strong classy style.

‘Am I in Broadway?’

The It-girl frowned sarcastically at the coincidence. The helicopter’s door opened, and Dominic Holland greeted with one hand before helping his wife to step on ground.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Hollands.”

Claps showered the iconic family. Tom was the last to step down. And for Alana’s surprise, his eyes fixed on hers for a millisecond until he turned his head at the crowd welcoming him. Although she tried not to, a part inside her kind of broke when he looked away this time.

But Timothée noticed it; she had blinked twice and finished the glass of wine in one gulp right after Tom joined his family for the magazine picture.

And Chalamet only scowled at his adversary with pursed lips as he posed for the cameras.

* * * * *

The golf match had begun with the Holland boys playing the first holes. Tom won every single one of them. He was good at this; polo and golf were his favorite sports.

Alana and Timothée were sitting along the Bass. At first, they sat there because of Blair, but then she learned that Timothée had followed her because of Chuck. Although Chuck Bass wasn’t anything else than just her godmother’s husband, it shocked her the fact that Timothée had never told her he was related to him.

And she wondered why he’d hide it.

“Well, it’s Chuck’s turn to smack golf’s yard”

Blair Waldorf said with that elegant smile of hers as Bass moved the chair to let his wife stood up. She picked her purse and looked at her goddaughter.

“Your godfather Nate is coming, dear. Tell him to wait for us.”

“Sure, Aunt Blair.” Alana nodded forcing a smile.

Alone in the table, the two millionaire youngsters shared a brief moment of awkward silence filled only by the crowd sound and murmurs of polite laughs in near tables.

Timothée doubted on say something but his heart couldn’t bear her strange behavior, making him sip his drink and swallow hard.

“Are you okay, Alana?”, he inquired in a more worried tone than he’d liked.

The Howarth girl frowned nonchalantly as she brought a vegetarian pressed Italian little sandwich into her mouth and chewed on it carefree before answering.

“I am. Perfectly. Just wondering when were you going to tell me you’re a Chalamet-Bass?” She asked still in a nonchalant mode as if talking about the weather, without facing him. “He’s the real reason you’re here, isn’t it?”

He turned his torso and laid his arm over his chair’s back to completely look at her.

“He’s not, they invited me. And I knew you’d be here.”

His voice was softer this time. Alana kept sitting straight as she glanced the garden, whatever but his eyes.

“When you messaged me last night asking to see me and talk, I never expected you’d go for my godmother’s help.”

“Even she can tell why I am in New York.”

“Bass Industries is a good reason.”

Timothée leaned just a few inches closer to her.

“I didn’t mention him because we said ‘the past is in the past’”

Alana shut her eyes in contained frustration for a second before turning her head to meet his eyes.

“But he’s not past. He’s present!”

“So is Tom Holland.” He said in the same calmed velvety tone as before.

Her whole face went pale with the mere mention of his name and her lips parted yet speechless.

“He told me everything at yesterday’s party”, Timothée continued.

Neither of them uttered a word for a few seconds. The sound of applauses and shouts of celebration for the winner echoed from behind.

Alana’s weak expression was replaced by a serious one. She looked away and grabbed her purse.

“Then we’re even.”

“It’s not that”, Chalamet began to elaborate but she cut him off right after standing up from her seat.

“You know? I really wanted this thing between us worked out”

And she walked away of the white tent in that elegant way of hers, praying that he wouldn’t follow her.

But he did, meeting her just halfway to the lavatories. Again, they were face to face. His eyes were almost watery, and the desperation now reflected over his persona.

“What you wanted me to do if not come here? Can you imagine how I felt? You left 2 days after graduation!”

Her eyes almost went watery too at the sound of his broken voice seeking for answers. Though, she swallowed the lump in her throat and crossed her arms over her chest with pursed lips.

“And so, what?”

“Never really got a chance to talk things out”

“We’ve got nothing to say, Timothée.” She responded forcing a smile with pain in her tone as a tear fell down her cheek. “You were always out in parties to ‘find producers’ for your director’s debut in film business”

“When you learned about my crazy past and reputation, I told you I was about to leave it for my Art… And for you”

“And you did?”

“I tried.” Timothée looked away, smoothing his hair back with one hand in an attempt to hold tears inside before locking eyes with Alana again. “But…”

Though, as soon as she heard the same word that had begun past fights between them, Alana exhaled loudly and showed a tired expression.

“Sure, Chalamet. Now please, stop. Let’s be friends and that’s it. Carpe Diem.”

“Don’t come me with the Carpe Diem thing. I’m here because…”

“Timothée, please. We tried a couple of times, and all went to trash. Just…”

But she added no more. Instead, her body turned to follow her heels somewhere far from there.

Timothée sighed as he let her go this time, not being aware that a pair of brown eyes were glued on him with rage injected on them.

****

Tom had won against Chuck Bass. Everyone cheered and congratulated his victory, even some old men in their 60s patted his shoulder after uttering “great match” with a satisfied smile.

In his way to join his family at the white tent, he recognized Alana’s figure walking in the middle of the garden and then being stopped by a man in white suit. Tom had to narrow his eyes to confirm the identity of who his mind already knew; Timothée Chalamet.

He tightened his jaw when he saw Alana leaving the scene with a shadow of pain on her very feature and got to restrain his desire to hit that black wavy head.

****

Spotted at Veuve Clicquot Garden: Tom Holland lifting a golf club to hit not a ball but a curly head. Current Match Play; Timothée 1 - Tom 0

****

Alana touched-up her eyeliner with a powder shadow and used the corner of the makeup sponge to remove any evidence of the smeared eyeliner made by her late watery eyes. She stared at herself in the mirror as she took a deep encouraging breath. She hated the fact she got to ran into the toilettes and hide there from Timothée. ‘What a child I am’.

The Howarth girl took one last glance at the mirror before opening the door back to the garden.

She hadn’t walked three steps when her chest crashed against someone’s back.

“Sorry, am…”, Alana began to apology.

The young man turned around to face her and a genuine smile crossed his face when he recognized her.

“Lana?”

“Harry?”, she smiled too.

Harry Holland, one of the Tom’s brother twins she used to babysit in the building when their parents were away.

They immediately pulled each other into an embrace.

“God! Good to see you”

“Me too. Look how handsome you look”, she eyed him from head to toe.

“And you, pretty as always”, Harry imitated her.

“Where’s Sam?”, Alana’s eyes looked for the other twin behind Harry’s back.

“Probably eating every dessert available”, he giggled. “Come join us”

****

The table Harry leaded her to was filled with the Holland family and her parents, the Howarth.

Just seconds before Alana took a seat, Chuck and Blair appeared. And while he was excusing for leaving early, Blair approached to Alana close enough for her to hear her warning;

“Drama’s not over, A. Just don’t explode here, darling. For your own sake.”

The elegant couple left. Alana showed a polite smile and nodded, not sure what her godmother referred with ‘drama’. Though, she found out a second later when Margot Howarth, her mother, placed her hand on top of Alana’s over the table.

“Alana, here you’re. We were just talking about you”

Indeed, everyone’s eyes were glued on her with big smiles drawn across their faces. Even the twins and little Patrick were happy.

“Europe must’ve been exciting”, Elizabeth Holland, Tom’s mother, said interlacing her fingers over the table as she genuinely smiled.

“It was great, of course.” Alana answered as she grabbed the glass of wine the waiter offered her.

“We’re glad you’re back, dear.” Elizabeth looked at her husband, Dominic, who nodded graciously.

Mrs. Holland was truly happy for her return because she couldn’t stop smiling. She had always appreciated her.

Margot sighed, imitating everyone’s smiles but with a hint of pride in it because was her daughter the main subject, just as she always loved her to be.

“Can you believe? Harry and Sam’s Cotillion is this Friday as your cousin Cass’”, she said raising her eyebrows as if surprised.

Tom arrived, being welcomed with more cheering from his brothers. He took a seat as far from Alana as possible, which was just two seats difference; Patrick and Sam were in between.

“Remember when Alana and Tom went together to Cotillion?”, Elizabeth added with a nostalgic sigh.

“Time flies isn’t it?”, Margot did the same.

“I know… Just think about it. In a blink of an eye, our sons will be getting married”, Mrs. Howarth gathered her hands as in an applause while raising her eyebrows thus drawing a ‘cannot wait’ expression in her feature.

Dominic Holland, who had been chatting along Marcus Howarth about today’s golf match, joined the conversation.

“Alana would be perfect to wear the family ring”

He patted her wife’s hand joyfully. Margot, Elizabeth and Dominic glanced at them with a satisfied smile given, perhaps, by the picture created in their imagination of a perfect wedding.

“Oh she will.” Margot stated. “They’ve been friends since childhood”

This was what Blair warned her about. Tom and Alana uncomfortably sipped two or maybe three times their drinks as if a mirror stood between them. She wished her wine was scotch, while he wished his brandy was vodka.

A heavy environment settled between Tom and Alana’s bodies right after their parents celebrated their fantasy. Even Patrick felt a little weird being‘third wheels’ in this situation.

Harry noticed it too. And the twins made everything in their hands to change the subject back into the next season’s event, suggesting a polo match.

Alana only recognized gross sounds of what was discussed next. Her eyes were blank, realizing that her return wouldn’t be as easy as she thought it’d be. The Holland’s comment made her think of her latest nightmare; her life could change so fast if she married Tom. She’d basically sign herself up for the same traditional life she ran away from; she’d become a socialite woman caught up in the system.

So, the It-girl fumbled her phone out of her Cartier purse and dialed a number she knew by heart. Her thumbs moved fast over the keyboard and clicked the ‘send’ icon.

*****

Start buying those dancing shoes, kids. Looks like we’ll be going to the chapel soon.

****

Hours later, New York City lights announced the beginning of nocturnal life affairs. The city that never sleeps. And less if you’re in the Upper East Side.

After Timothée received Alana’s text, he arranged a reservation for what he saw as a special occasion at Le Bernadin, one of the top six most exclusive restaurants in New York.

Alana arrived there on time in an elegant blue dress. He was already waiting for her at the table and helped her seat by holding back the chair like a true gentleman.

“Thought we’d go somewhere more… private”, her eyes traveled around the place.

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. Le Bernadin is excellent”, she slightly frowned.

“Not that. I mean, sorry for today’s”, he cleared his throat and showed her an apological smile.

“I’m sorry too. I was maybe a little too harsh with you about the… Chuck thing”

“But you were right about the hiding thing.” He started in such an honest tone that it sent chills down Alana’s back, freezing her on her seat. “I don’t wanna hide anything from you, Lana. That day before our graduation when we broke up and you told me I never committed to our relationship; I couldn’t sleep trying to see it from your perspective. And you were right. After our lovely summer when road tripping all around Western Europe, I pretended to forget my reputation and begin from scratch when it was clear that could never happen. Then parties came and we split for a month because you weren’t used to that part of me. Art class joined us again, you were my date for several parties more and it seemed to work out this time. I just don’t know where it went wrong…”

Timothée stopped to take a deep breath and calm himself, cause up to this moment his tone had changed revealing the true desperation behind his words.

“That’s why I’m here.”

Alana was perplexed. She never imagined herself in that situation with him; at least not outside her dreams. On the contrary, she prayed not to see him ever again, convincing herself that her decision to leave Europe would make things easier for both. Yet he had found his way back to her quite earlier than expected.

Now she sipped her drink to brush away the lump in her throat when the sudden memory of their fights, the nights alone, and their breakup flooded her mind.

“You left me no choice.” She looked away and sighed as she tried to hold the tears inside. “Remember one of our first talks when I told you about how it made me sick all the socialite stuff and its hypocrisy? Well, I was so happy you weren’t so involved in that sick game… New York seemed just a far bad dream.”

The mere memory of a hopeful time made her so nostalgic, that her brain got to remind her to take a deep breath. She turned to face him.

“But when your parties began, I said ‘let’s give it a chance’, though something inside didn’t feel good. Even when that wasn’t the socialite, yet there was a similar sensation with my past. And when our Netflix and cuddle nights became YOUR party nights as soon as some old buddies of yours arrived at your flat, leaving me there ALONE… I just couldn’t handle it no more. I wasn’t ready to deal this new thing.”

Tears flooded her eyes inevitably. And she couldn’t help herself on a few tears from sliding down her cheek. Timothée’s heart ached by watching her in that state. A state he promised he’d never be the cause of, yet he was.

He approached her slowly, sitting at the chair right next to her.

“We could’ve sorted it out together”, Timothée whispered as he cupped her face in his hands and wiped away the tears running down her cheek with his thumb.

“You weren’t there. Your friends needed you.” She avoided any eye contact for her own sake.

“Nothing, listen to me, nothing is more important for me than you.”

Their watery eyes finally met.

“I’m scared. I just don’t…”

But before she could finish her sentence, Timothée passed his hand around her neck and pulled her into a kiss. Her blood ran cold at first but then she succumbed to the moment.

Once they pulled away, both stared deep at each other for an instance before he showed a glint of mixed hope and shyness.

“I’m scared too. I’ve never felt this way for anybody. Didn’t even believe it was possible but seems like Hollywood doesn’t exaggerate.”

“Timothée…”

“I want to try again, please”

“There are no third chances”

“For me, Alana. Do it for me, for us. If you still have feelings for me, even the weakest one, give me a chance, and I’ll prove to you that we aren’t supposed to be apart.”

“I don’t know… How”

“Me neither but we can take a leap of faith, together.”

“A little faith, trust and pixie dust”

Alana giggled and Timothée joined her. The atmosphere between them slightly changed and both hearts felt less heavy. She bit her lip and gave him a slight nod.

“Okay”, she nodded.

“Okay?”

Relief washed over Timothée’s aura, drawing a big smile across his face. One of true happiness.

“We’ll take it slow”, Alana continued as she got contagious with the hopeful ambience between them.

“At our own pace.” Timothée added.

“And won’t let our past get in the way.”

“Promise. I’ve left all behind.”

He stated. And everything seemed as if taken away from a fairy tale the couple had written themselves, making her forget that such a thing cannot be at the Upper East Side.

****

The moment Nate Archibald’s daughter stepped into the Howarth’s penthouse as she had done countless times back in the days, Mishka knew something was going on.

Kiernan Archibald was Alana’s best friend ever since kindergarten, and she never arrived without a reason.

It took no time before the girls gathered at Alana’s room, and ate macarons with champagne.

“You know? When I saw you the day you came back, I almost faint.”

Kiernan had her legs crossed in the air and her abdomen over the bed as she ate another macaron with a smirk.

“Yeah, if it weren’t for Mishka you would’ve hit your head very bad”, Alana giggled while resting her head over her pillow, also on bed.

“Thank heaven I didn’t”, Kiernan joined her giggles and incorporated herself to see her friend better. “Now, tell me about your dinner with that European king.”

“Well, you’re updated with the whole situation”, Alana exhaled loudly as the yesterday scenes came to her mind. “Tom and Timothée already met and my mother is dreaming of her daughter being a Howarth-Holland”

Her friend made an “upps” face as she sipped her champagne glass and bit a strawberry.

“The thing is we decided to give us a new chance.” Alana continued with a hopeful grin drawn across her face.

“Timothée and you?”, Kiernan raised her eyebrows.

“We said we’ll take it slow but-”

Before the Howarth girl could explain, the Archibald heiress cut her off while locking eyes into her friend’s.

“Hey, you like him. If you feel good with him and your gut’s telling you to go for it then go for it”, her hands emphasized her words by opening both as if showing her the answer to her question.

“That’s the matter, Kiki. My gut is out of service or something”

“Wait what?”

Alana took a deep breath, though she knew it was almost impossible to avoid Kiernan’s inquisitive look.

“Listen, what I feel about Timothée is very special. He’s so damn charming and smart and funny. He’s very observant and caring.”

“But?”

“But… That night at my welcoming party when I saw Tom, something inside me kind of winced. And when he spoke to me… Uggh, it sent shivers down my spine”

Kiernan was open-mouthed, processing the situation.

“Oh Lana, you’re in such a trouble.”

Seconds later, she raised her glass at Alana for an impromptu toast in honor of whatever thing came. After both finished the last champagne drop, Kiki added;

“Just give it time. The answer will come to you, A.”

****

Have you been so busy that you’ve forgotten what time of year it is? Couture, quadrilles and cutthroat competition. That’s right. It’s time for Cotillion.

****

Cotillion was a just as Alana remembered. If not better, but she doubted that. She got to admit, when she was Queen the rules were fancier.

Harry and Sam Holland walked towards her as soon as they saw her coming inside.

“Hey, Lana”, the twins said at the same time.

“Guys, look how handsome you’re!”, she smiled as her eyebrows raised in surprise.

“Hugo Boss himself said that too”, Harry added and chuckled.

“So, you’re escoting my cousin Cassandra huh?”

“Yeah”, Harry blushed at the sound of her name.

“Take care of her, Harry. And yourself! The Howarths are not easy girls.”

She patted his shoulder, wishing him good luck.

“That’s a fact”, Harry nodded but went pale as soon as he realized she was a Howarth too.

Sam opened his eyes and glanced at his brother with a “bro, wtf” look. He just screwed it up.

“Well, enjoy your night guys”, Alana blinked and forced a smile before walking somewhere else.

Despite her efforts, she couldn’t help the nostalgia vibe that surrounded her; looking at the prep-school girls excited and nervous for their presentation, the boys wearing tuxedos and trying their best against the current king. Everything reminded her the Cotillion she and Tom attended to; they had been the best couple ever since the legendary Blair and Nate or even the unexpected Jenny and Nate one.

At first, she expected the nostalgia would fade away when her brain noticed this wasn’t her Cotillion. But the more she walked around the place, the more it seemed like time had never passed. Every face around her was a face she was familiar with. And she got a weird feeling that they weren’t because of Cotillion but for her; to see with their own eyeballs she was back in New York.

Kiernan was the bell that saved her from getting an anxiety attack.

“Ugh, people always sticking their noses where don’t belong”, the Archibald heiress said as if she had read Alana’s mind.

“Did it say on Gossip Girl that I’d be here?”, Alana inquired with a tired expression.

“Uhm, nope. But it did say about Cotillion and cutthroat competition. You know she likes pun, A.”

“What about that clean slate? She should leave me alone”

“New York missed you”, Kiernan shrugged. “No sign of T.H?”

“Not yet and praying to keep that way.” Alana said in a serious and a hint of worried tone.

Both friends were about to sit when something in the crowd caught their attention. Every young soul there began muttering and pulling their phones out.

“What’s going on?”, Kiernan wondered.

The answer appeared just after her words. There were they; Tom Holland accompanied with Serena van der Woodsen and Dan Humphrey’s son, Noah Humphrey.

Every single phone camera pointed at them.

*******

Spotted: An elite family reunion. Don’t you love Cotillion surprises?

******

Noah Humphrey immediately recognized his friends and walked towards them.

“Look who’s in town!”, he shouted opening his arms.

“Gosh, Noah!”, Alana smiled as both pulled each other into a tight embrace.

Meanwhile, Kiernan and Tom saluted each other by their last names. “Archibald”, “Holland”. She didn’t like him after what happened with her friend, and he just imitated her attitude. Though, Alana’s best friend sacrificed herself and put her dislike apart to take him as far as possible from the Howarth girl.

“Holland, why don’t you tell me where’s Sam? He’ll be escorting my sister Nicole”, Kiernan hold him from his arm forcing him to follow her.

“Sure, he is. Noah?”, Tom locked eyes briefly with Alana and looked at his best friend.

“I’ll stay here.” Noah nodded.

When their bodies disappeared in the crowd, Noah turned back to face her.

“So… Europe, huh?”, Noah giggled. “Was quite a bomb when you left.”

“I know! Everyone keeps telling me about it”, Alana responded aiming to be sarcastic but instead sounding irritated. “Sorry. It’s just so… overwhelming”

“That’s the UEA… And that guy at the airport didn’t help you with the gossip either”

“What do you mean?”, she narrowed her eyes.

“Well, his presence made your return the big hit wondering who he is? Or what is he doing here?”, he looked at her with inquisitive eyes, almost as powerful as Kiernan’s.

“None of their business.” Alana pursed her lips.

“Seriously, Lana. Do we have to care about him?”

“Wha- No! Clean slate, remember? It’s not like the old times.”

“The good old times”, Noah chuckled by the memory of countless party nights. “So, he won’t be here long?”

“Noah, where’s this coming from?”, Alana frowned and crossed her arms over her chest.

“From a caring friend.”

He said that truly, but she didn’t see it the same way.

“Oh tell that to someone who knows you less than I do, Humphrey.” She scoffed. “If this is one of Tom’s strategy then I don’t care”

No answer came out of Noah’s mouth. Alana rolled her eyes.

“I’ll go for a drink”, she stated walking away from a friend for the second time in that night.

*****

Once at the bar table with a drink in hand, Alana smoothed her hair back with one hand while letting out a frustrated sigh.

“What does a beautiful woman like you alone?”, a voice asked her seductively from her back.

“Timothée, you came”, she turned to see him standing in an elegant black suite.

“Of course, sweetie. As soon as I read your text, I rushed here.”

“Thanks, wanna join me on preparing my cousin?”

“Sure.” He followed her through an aisle. “What’s this Cotillion stuff?”

“Oh, well is like a social presentation party. It was supposed to be symbolic, but girls take it very very seriously. A battle for power.” She raised her eyebrows ironically. “Cass is not quite the Queen, but my mother forced me to be her mentor”

At the end of the aisle, a door leaded to an elegant room with teen girls in expensive dresses and makeup covering every inch of their bodies waited for the moment.

When Alana entered, every teenager gasped and made way for her to walk comfortably. She frowned at their reaction that back in the days would’ve been completely normal for her. Two seconds later, she found her cousin.

“Cass, you’re perfect!”, Alana complimented her.

Cassandra Howarth was three years younger; therefore, three years less experienced and more pretentious.

“C’mon you don’t believe it”, she got her arms over her hips and not noticed the young man standing behind Alana.

“Harry Holland is your escort, and you’re a Howarth. It’ll be enough for these people.”

Cass stared at her outfit in the mirror and took a deep breath.

“You’re right. The odds are on my favor, you’re my mentee, Blair Waldorf was your mentee… I’ll be fine”, saying this more to herself than for Alana.

A bell announced the Elite Women presentation ceremony was about to begin. The teenagers rushed to the door.

“Good luck”, Alana waved a goodbye.

Timothée and her stood near the stage as a good mentor would do.

The rest of the iconic elite group were seated near the bar, waiting for the show to end. Tom was quite edgy, like a caged tiger deciding whether to eat the iron bars and scape or stay in captivity. Kiernan sipped her mojito, and while she did, she saw through the glass how he made up his mind as he clicked once something on his phone and then kept it in his jacket pocket.

Alana saw that too, though turned her gaze at the stage and swallowed hard.

The Archibald heiress narrowed her eyes suspiciously; she didn't like his attitude one bit. But before she’d approach him, another event caught her attention.

Different ringtones echoed at the same time and every young witness grabbed their phones out to check the notification.

It was Gossip Girl.

Did anyone notice something strange when Alana returned? No paparazzi. Apparently, Europe wasn’t aware of who you are, A. But don’t worry, an anonymous soul has proper manners and sent some details about her big little adventures. Please, shall we enjoy the reading? Cause Gossip Girl goes Europe.

First things first. It was true she ran away from that indecent kiss with our King Tom… But our Queen found a new King in those tiding European lands.

Timothée Chalamet, ladies and gentlemen. If Carlo Magno had a successor, that’s definitely Timothée.

He showed her his Empire, and found love while they did. Just look at these wonderful FRANCE and CARIBBEAN magazine covers.

But then, uh oh. Is that Matty Healy and Alana on MUSIC ICON cover?

Looks like our Queen just expanded her horizons with flying colours. Monte Carlo and Mallorca are her new capitols.

And the party won’t start ‘till New York walks in.

“Fuck…”, Kiernan muttered under her breath as she looked for Alana’s whereabouts.

But, it took no effort to find her; cause people around her had moved aside, forming a circle with Timothée and her as the center.

Alana was puzzled. It was until Timothée handed her his phone with the Gossip Girl’s latest tweet that she understood what was going on.

For an instance, the whole world fell over her chest impeding her to breath. She stared at Timothée with eyes wide open and a shadow of confusion casted on her very feature as Gossip Girl’s last words resonated in the back of her head.

And that’s when her inner voice reawakened. She clenched her jaw, swallowed the venom she just received and holded Timothée’s hand, walking away from that circle.

Perhaps Alana Howarth returned days ago, but the Queen had just woken up. The bitch Queen was back.

Kiernan recognized that glint in her eyes when she reached her friend halfway from the door. And Noah knew it too. Even Tom knew it.

“We’re leaving, see you K”, Alana brushed past her as the valet boy opened the door for the couple.

Timothée followed her from behind, still holding her hand. He was shocked by her brusque change.

Kiernan just nodded.

And, although Cotillion representatives tried to dissipate the atmosphere, Alana left more open-mouthed witnesses than those in Valentine’s Day.

****

Outside, the show continued.

“That’s fucking it”, Alana shouted with anger cracking her voice. She fumbled her phone out her purse and dialed a number. “Geof, meet me at the front door in 2 minutes please”

“I brought my car”, Timothée interrupted.

“Forget it, go home.” She added before hung up.

The valet boy drove Timothée’s Jaguar and the couple got inside. As soon as they were there, he exhaled loudly and fixed his eyes on her.

“So…”, he started. But received no answer.

Silence reigned in the car for a couple of blocks, when a semaphore made them stop. Alana stared at him with a playful grin across her face.

“You know baby? There’s no need to take it slow. Just…”

But before she added something else, she wrapped her hands around his neck and crashed her lips against his; pulling him closer to deepen the kiss.

“Are you sure?”, Timothée asked in a soft voice.

Both lovers wrapped their hands and stared straight into each other’s eyes.

“More than ever”, she smirked.

Timothée pulled her in for a second kiss but it was brief this time.

A satisfied smile spread across his face and Alana raised her head as only Queens know when a solemn phrase is about to be said.

“If you can't beat them… Join them”

*****

A, you left America a star. But after your exploits in Europe you’ve come back a supernova. And yet nothing explodes without a fuse. I wonder what —or who— lit yours. Perhaps we all know the handsome answer to that. Just careful with the fire, kids. You might get burned.

You know you love me, XOXO

Gossip Girl.

---------------------

TAG LIST: (tagged those who asked but feel free to let us know if you want to be removed or added)

@clairesrainbow; @noobmaster63; @claryaki; @silverscreenkid; @vogueworthy-barnes; @persefoneaurispa ; @izdevett ; @mae-petite-etoile ; @tpwkalwayshs; @meliketozier; @aliceinwhateverland; @justcallmenameless; @kathrynisadogperson; @loricwizardbluetoastedcake; @vintageroses1014516; @im-not-edgy-im-just-pretentious; @xlilmultiimaginesworld; @sunnygubler; @agentcvrters; @adorablehumanbeing; @goingwiththewind; @rachel-mc11; @candycxorn; @bruvberta; @justficsandstuff; @wonderwoman292; @ncrediblelove; @napoftheesoul

76 notes · View notes

sometimesrosy · 5 years

Note

I have a feeling that Jason is going to wait until the very last episode of the series to let bellarke kiss. He’s such a troll lol

I don’t have that feeling. Your feeling comes, I think, from social media and interviews. I have always been more focused on story than on getting clues from the creators. I depend on my own ability to break down a story. I think that a lot of JR’s social media and even interviews are designed to keep the “will they/won’t they” of Bellarke going. He doesn’t want people to be sure. Because the will they/won’t they builds romantic tension. HOWEVER.

That’s not how the story is going. He’s writing an epic romance that has mythic weight behind it, which is the OPPOSITE of a will they/won’t they story. An EPIC story, where they always come together, where they are soulmates, where their love persists past space (literal) time (literal) and death (literal) is ANYTHING but uncertain. Also, JR’s social media presence is not really as anti-bellarke as fandom makes it out to be. He says one questionable thing per season, it seems, and the fandom blows it all out of proportion to erase all the narrative development on screen, and I just don’t have the patience for that. Fandom wants 100% bellarke certainty, and JR does not want to give that. All he has to do is say “misinterpreted” and he doesn’t even have to say WHAT he thinks is misinterpreted or who is doing the misinterpretation, all of a sudden the ENTIRE fandom thinks he’s saying Bellarke isn’t romantic.... which he didn’t. He can just HINT at a thing, and the fandom FLIPS THE FUCK OUT. It’s exhausting, frankly.

And it doesn’t fit the story on screen. I don’t know why fandom thinks one line in an interview takes precedence over one SERIOUSLY bellarke centered season. Do we forget that he designed the season?

He developed a romance story in seasons 5 and 6 that made the ENTIRE show about Bellarke. Not just them getting together to save their people, but season 5 had Bellamy needing to save Clarke, to get her back in order to save HIMSELF. And Clarke needed to save Bellamy, even if it meant “letting him go” to save HERSELF. They were necessary TO EACH OTHER, not just the team, not just the battle. Self.

Now in season 5, this is part of the main plot, but the conflict was still external. Still Diyoza, Octavia, Worms,

In season 6, he got even closer to it. Clarke and Bellamy were back together, as soul mates and partners, alas there was a romance between them, keeping them apart, canon girlfriend and then who is this asshole with Clarke?? Jealousy, ah. And yet, they both let each other go as romantic figures in order to be with each other as partners and soulmates... until... until....until Clarke is killed. Then the rest of the story just fades away. Clarke feels like giving everything up, Bellamy is happy, he has a family and a home now and he’ll take care of Madi. She did her job she can let go until Monty snaps her out of it, and then she reaches out to... BELLAMY! Who until he found out she was alive wa ready to give up, too. They’re safe, he won’t fight anymore. He would keep going for his family. But once he finds out Clarke is alive.

Boom. The story THE STORY the main story is now about Bellamy saving Clarke. The CONFLICT was Josephine wanting Clarke’s body. While the rest of Earthkru struggled with the moral complications of these body snatchers and what it meant to be complicit with that system, Bellamy was focused on one thing. Clarke’s BODY. And putting Clarke’s mind back in it. He left his people behind to save who he could save, who he NEEDED to save.

This is not a misinterpretation, it’s canon. He trusted them to take care of themselves and Echo to protect them, and he would save Clarke. A choice was made. Bellamy chose Clarke.

I get why JR would want to put confusion there. Because Bellamy made the canon choice, and Echo supported it. “Go save Clarke” she said. That also was controversial, because JR said it made Echo a hero. And we were all like, huh? How? Or how more so than anyone else? (and if that choice made her a hero in the narrative, then why were all her heroic plans utter failures. she was supposed to save Murphy from being killed and instead, murphy and raven and abby saved themselves and Echo was captured, and given nightblood and nearly turned into Simone. She escaped that with Gaia and Miller, but even so, was just in hiding until she could get back with the ACTUAL heroes of the show. Clarke (suddenly they could get he barrier down) and Bellamy (suddenly they could defeat the sanctumites.) Saying she’s a hero outside of the story doesn’t change that, while she is a warrior and even sometimes a leader, she doesn’t do a very good job of protecting, saving, or winning.

If you follow only Echo’s narrative arc, she’s a dangerous warrior with a dark past that she struggles with and a yearning to be free, but a desire to belong and be valued. She wants to be independent and strong, but is held back by the kings and queens who have claimed her for their subject. I think it’s a feminist story of identity and empowerment, and she might be the hero in her own story, but she’s not in this one, and if letting Bellamy go save Clarke makes her a hero... then that’s because she’s letting go of the man she loves, the way Clarke let him go in season 5, so that he may be with the one he loves. It would make the heroic arc of her personal story letting go of the belonging that she found with spacekru to face herself, to be independent and to BE herself. BUT that’s not total canon yet, just me defining her personal narrative arc that I see developing, so saying Echo is a hero is EXTREMELY ambiguous.

Does it mean she’s the new romantic lead? No. She’s not that kind of a hero. In fact, her story isnt a romance story at all. It’s an individuation story, a woman finding her identity and breaking free. If she were the hero of a romance story with Bellay then Bellamy should have been more concerned with her while he was off saving Clarke, and their reunion should have been more romantic and less relieved family. Sorry. That’s just how it is, because that’s how romantic stories are told.

In fact, if B/E was the romantic story, when they reunited they should have run into each other’s arms with light flares representing the emotional intensity, and shared their deepest fears and sorrows about what happened while they were separated, and the camera should have focused on their faces so we the audience could see their emotional connection. THAT would be how we would be shown a romantic story between Bellamy and Clarke oops Bellamy and Echo. But we weren’t. Bellamy hugged Echo and then looked at Clarke and the close up reaction we saw was CLARKE’S. Remember, close ups are how the filmmakers tell us to pay attention to a character’s emotions.

B/E was a canon relationship in seasons 5 and 6 but it was NOT a story. It put obstacles in the way of Bellarke and the Blakes in s5 but really, season 5 was about Bellamy getting Clarke (and Octavia back) and about becoming the hero that he is meant to be, the leader. It was about Clarke rejoining Bellamy and her people and still feeling on the outside, which, to be honest, is not just from 6 years alone but ALSO from everything that happened on the ground. Season 2 on had her isolated from her people again and again.

The only person she felt close to was Bellamy, and her 2199 calls proved that. She couldn’t reach him but she kept calling. She didn’t call her mother. Who she also couldn’t reach. She didn’t call all of spacekru. She didn’t call Lxa... who she ALSO couldn’t reach. They were all equally unreachable. But she called Bellamy and kept calling him. Because whether she could reach him or not, he was there with her. His heart was carried with her, inside of her heart.

So season 5 was about the Bellarke reunion and how they were separated by circumstances and the new world, Echo, Madi, Octavia, Eligius, Loyalty. But in the end, they chose each other. The most essential union for them was each other and only when they were together did it make sense, could they reach victory.

So that leaves s6 with Clarke and Bellamy TOGETHER, as soulmates and partners, however the things that got in their way were, 1. B/E 2. Buried feelings of guilt and rejection. 3. Josephine.

1 B/E as obstacle would not be an obstacle if Bellarke were romantic. But Clarke, jealous, has chosen to let Bellamy go to be with Echo because they love each other and if she can’t have Bellamy romantically, then she’ll have him as family. Bellamy is constantly drawn to Clarke, even though he is wit Echo, and this raises the tension between B/E because he is actually comparing the two and Echo comes out on the losing end. But when he sees Clarke moving on (wisely) to someone else, he turns back to Echo. That’s not really as wise, because the problem is he has bigger feelings for Clarke. Even if Clarke didn’t care for him, as he always fears, it’s not so good to be in love with someone else and stay with your girlfriend. There is an ACTUAL romantic tangle happening here, as much a some people want to pretend that the existence of B/E means that Bellarke CAN’T be romantic. I’m actually arguing that with the way the two relationships are framed, one as romantic but minor and troubled, and the other as non-romantic soulmates beyond death and the center of the story, that B/E as an obstacle is proof of romantic endgame Bellarke.

2. Buried feelings has Clarke making choices that keep Bellarke apart. If Clarke were honest about her feelings, Bellamy would be forced to face his own love for Clarke and let go of Echo. But she’s not. She’s being noble and self sacrificing again and probably doesn’t believe he loves her that way. On top of that is the guilt from leaving him to die. She needs him to know she is sorry for that, but she also runs away from the deep meaning of the 2199 calls. That she runs away from those means that Bellamy is STILL resonating with the concept that she doesn’t love him THAT WAY, that risking him is worth it. She’s reiterating the part about him being her “family,” and then flirting with Cillian. So he, being noble and self sacrificing himself (but maybe not as noble as her because he picks a fight with echo over her not benig like Clarke yikes,) and recommits to Echo. UNTIL. Clarke is discovered bodysnatched and thought dead and he’s lost her and he pulls away from everyone and buries all those feelings and hides them from Echo too, despite the commitment to be emotional with each other. WHY? Because buried feelings. So when she’s found alive, those feelings can no longer be buried. Because NOW saving Clarke, getting Clarke back, not letting Clarke die, NEEDING Clarke and, still unspoken, LOVING Clarke are no longer subtextual but textual and THE MAIN PLOT. NOT the obstacle. The motivation. HOW he will save Clarke and how, in fact, he does save her.

3. The MAIN OBSTACLE OF SEASON 6 was HOW WILL BELLAMY SAVE CLARKE. Not how will they save their people. Not how will their people save Clarke. Not the morality of saving Clarke. Not how does Bellamy/Clarke become a hero. Not oh no the hard choices. Just simply. BELLAMY MUST SAVE CLARKE and he must confront his feelings to do so. And face a villain in her body who is trying to manipulate him. Meanwhile the villain’s love story is paralleled to Bellarke’s love story. AND BELLAMY SAVED HER WITH HIS LOVE WHEN ALL HOPE WAS LOST AND GAVE HER MOUTH TO MOUTH/TRUE LOVE’S KISS. And she was brought back to life and to him. The following episodes were them wrapping up the battle against these villains, whose worst crime was murdering Clarke. And whose biggest mistake was giving Bellamy hope that he could get his love back. CLARKE.

Troll.

There’s no troll here.

This is a fucking brilliant, heart stoppingly romantic story.

We’ve got a whole season where the truths of season 6, that Bellamy loves Clarke and that love is bigger than anything, and Clarke loves Bellamy so much that she can reach out past death to him, and that Echo is made of Ash and does not want to be a slave anymore, are going to resonate with Monty’s desire that they all live a good life where they can find happiness and love. Clarke won’t lose the people she loves anymore. Bellamy has faced that he needs Clarke and can’t lose her and she is central to his needs. And Echo has confessed her identity and begun to break free of being the good spy to her master (the master is Bellamy.) All this is part of canon. And it came out in season 6.

To be honest, I don’t know when he’ll make them kiss.

It doesn’t matter. I doubt he’ll leave it to the end, because he is BUILDING to a conclusion where their union is an emotional payoff. This show DOES emotional payoffs. AND it does sex. In order to work that emotional payoff and give us the punch of Bellarke getting together means they have to do it before the very last episode, i think. I mean, maybe episode 13, like Bellamy saved Clarke three eps before the end. IDK.

But.

That’s not trolling. That’s a bonafide epic love story. No trolling included. That’s GIVING. That’s being so committed to the story you’re telling that you ignore all the bad fandom takes from people who think they can do better. And from the bitter people who didn’t get what they want. Sour grapes we call that.

And as long as we’re sitting here, going, “Oh that JR he’s a villain he’s trolling us he hates us he’s never gong to give us what we want,” then we’re going to miss the fantastic story he IS giving us.

And I’m not going to ruin Bellarke or The 100 because I’m narrow minded, spoiled and stubborn. You want to ruin your enjoyment because you think some man you’ve never met is a troll out to get you? When he’s the one who invented this story and committed 7+ years of his life to bringing it to life? That’s on you.

I’m in it for the epic love story. Not a kiss. A kiss is a kiss. Not love. A sex scene might be hot, but it doesn’t make true love.

Bellarke is told over the course of 7 YEARS. I’m not actually interested in reducing it to them hooking up.

People who treat us like we’re stupid for being satisfied with this story we’re getting while THEY get kiss/confess/sex with no endgame, or kiss/sex with no story? Like, yeah, I will actually take my scene where Bellamy brings Clarke back from death over your half-a-sex scene and then no interaction, or your post goodbye-sex “let’s not talk” cuddle-scene. YEAH MAN. I NEED YOU MY LIPS TOUCH YOURS AND MY LOVE ALONE DRAWS YOU BACK FROM DEATH. There is actually no interpretation in that. They said she was dead. He said no my heart will save her head, told her her loved her, and gave her the kiss of life and she heard him and came back, fighting. When Josephine had already killed her. She woke up in his arms and had eyes only for him. And the next episode was full of them caring for each other and touching. TOUCHING. Intimate.

Troll? what troll?

Maybe people consider me delusional because I ignore bad fandom interpretations and JR’s not so great social media presence. It’s because I’m paying attention to the show, pretty much only the show, and I LIKE IT.

28 notes · View notes

trading-strategies-news · 4 years

Text

Seeking Alpha: 3 Fortress REITs To Own During The New Era Of Physical Distancing.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4339929-3-fortress-reits-to-own-during-new-era-of-physical-distancing?utm_source=news.google.com&utm_medium=referral

Consider investing in only the highest-quality companies with the best balance sheets and great management teams.

It’s a strategy that has worked very well for Warren Buffett and his followers over the years.

We believe that our three A-rated picks will eventually generate sound price appreciation as their underlying business models are all built to last.

There’s a line from the classic film Princess Bride that goes, “Goodbye, boys! Have fun storming the castle!”

It’s a satirical line from a satirical movie, with one character turning to another to ask, “Think it’ll work?”

The response is, “It would take a miracle.”

If you’ve seen the movie even just once, you can probably easily envision the whole scene, including the joviality at the start of the very brief conversation and the sardonic certainty at the end. (If you haven’t, you’ll just have to take my word for it.)

But the truth is that castle storming back in the day was supposed to be a long shot. Only extreme levels of planning, plotting, and resources could pull them down.

They were built to be fortresses, strategically designed with features such as:

Arrowslits – Holes up high in the structures from which archers could let their weapons loose while remaining largely protected.

Keeps – Towers that rose as high up as possible to give great views of whatever might be coming.

Moats – Water-filled trenches that armies couldn’t easily cross unless a bridge was procured.

Portcullises – Heavy metal gates to protect main entrances.

Barbicans – Fortresses outside of the fortress designed to be the first line of defense.

Really, that last word, “defense,” sums up their strategy. The lords who commissioned them took every precaution possible to protected what was theirs.

Source

A Model Worth Following

Dr. Dan Spencer, author of The Castle at War in Medieval England and Wales, writes on Military History Now:

“In their day, medieval castles represented the state-of-art in military engineering.

“Erected by kinds and feudal lords during what we now commonly call the Middle Ages, these foreboding strongholds… were defensive in nature, being skillfully designed to resist attacks by armies many times larger than those manning its parapets.

“But of course, a castle was only ever as strong as its weakest point. As such, great efforts were made by builders to ensure that their castles could withstand an enemy onslaught.”

Some of them did a phenomenal job of it too, as evidenced by their still-standing structures today. Google “castles to visit today” or some such thing, and you’ll no doubt find plenty of places around the world.

Of course, considering how land invasions aren’t nearly as popular as they used to be, castles are admittedly a little passé. They’re great to bring in tourist revenue, it’s true. But they don’t present the same awe-inspiring military deterrent now that planes and bombs and battleships exist.

Even so, that doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate the concept they were built on. Warren Buffett certainly does, has, and no doubt will. He’s long-since been promising a “financial fortress” for investors in his Berkshire Hathaway(NYSE:BRK.A) (NYSE:BRK.B) fund.

By that, he means he invests in only the highest-quality companies with the best balance sheets and great management teams.

It’s a strategy that’s worked very well for him and his followers over the years. And it’s one I’ve seen significant success in as well.

Source

The Value of a Properly Fortified Fortress

For the record, I know about the news story currently circulating on most major financial sites: “Warren Buffett’s ‘Fortress’ Is Breached by Coronavirus-Related Shutdowns.” It starts out:

“Even as market watchers await Warren Buffett’s splashy move to seize on fallout from the current crisis, his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. hasn’t been spared by the pandemic.

“Coronavirus-related shutdowns across the U.S. have hit Berkshire units from See’s Candies and a shoemaker to industrial behemoth Precision Castparts. That could leave a few scars on the conglomerate…

“Buffett’s business partner, Charlie Munger, put it bluntly. ‘We’ve got a few businesses, small ones, we won’t reopen when this is over,’ he told The Wall Street Journal without naming the units.”

But here’s the thing. Fortresses don’t promise they’ll never get cracked by a battering ram or chipped by flying projectiles. As the article above – and every single castle throughout history – indicates, damage can be done.

For that matter, they don’t even promise they can withstand absolutely everything that comes their way. Nothing can, as proven by Krak des Chevaliers, an epic, all-but-invincible Crusader castle in Syria, that was surrendered, not by force, but by siege and, perhaps, a forged letter.

They only have the best chances around, which is why Bloomberg acknowledged:

“To be sure, Buffett’s promise that Berkshire will ‘forever remain a financial fortress’ hasn’t been broken yet. The company reported a $128 billion cash pile at the end of last year, as well as a stock portfolio valued at more than $248 billion.

Besides, “Some of its biggest revenue generators remain on solid footing.” And its similarly solid footing we’re looking for today through our own “revenue generators” in the REIT sector.

The companies below have plenty of cash on hand with significant chances of making plenty more cash in the future.

Here’s what they have to say for themselves.

Source: iREIT

3 A-Rated REITs We’re Buying Today

One of the good things about being a financial writer in the REIT sector is that we have tons or research at our disposal. This includes data from Seeking Alpha, Sentieo, FAST Graphs, and the wide world of Google. It’s very useful to have all of this information because it provides us with the most actionable intelligence to support our buy-hold-sell recommendations.

Given the latest COVID-19 risks we have carefully evaluated our entire REIT spectrum in order to model the impacts related to rent collection and future earnings. Accordingly, there are a number of REITs that we have downgraded to either Speculative, Hold, or Sell as we anticipate future dividend cuts and or suspensions.

We’re all living in unprecedented times and while strong balance sheets are essential to any business operation, we consider cash flow the primary test as it relates to dividend sustainability. That being said, we decided to focus the content today on three A-rated REITs that support our Buy or Strong Buy recommendation.

These three REITs appear on our list because we believe their dividend is safe and that the shares can be purchased at a reasonable margin of safety. We recently downgraded Simon Property (SPG) to a Spec Buy, and we plan to address this name in a detailed article later this week.

Our first pick on the list is Public Storage (PSA), a self-storage REIT whose capital structure is nearly bulletproof because it utilizes perpetual preferreds instead of debt (no refinancing risk). Its business model is one that is consistent through business cycles and its management has shown themselves to be immensely talented.

PSA is unique in the REIT industry (actually, virtually unique compared to any company) in that its capital structure is overwhelmingly comprised of common and preferred stock - debt is a measly 3%. PSA is the largest REIT issuer of preferred stock and has mastered its use in the capital structure. It’s this use that has created the fortress known as their balance sheet.

Income investors often recognize the security and performance available with the purchase of PSA, but are often turned away by the low dividend yield. However, thanks to the Covid-19 inspired pullback, PSA’s dividend yield is now 4.3% with a P/FFO handle of 17.4x.

To be clear, we don’t view PSA as a Strong Buy today, but we’re glad we included shares in the Cash Is King portfolio (just a Buy). We like the business model, and while the summer months could be challenging with lease-up (due to stay at home rules) we have a high degree of certainty that customers will continue to use storage in the weeks and months ahead.

Source: FAST Graphs

Our next fortress pick is Realty Income (O), the monthly paying bellwether that has become the staple for many retirees and income-oriented investors.

The primary reason that O has sold off (-31.9% total return year-to-date) is because of the company’s exposure to theaters (6.7%) and gyms (7%). Given the elevated risk of tenant defaults, specifically bankruptcies, it’s likely that certain stores may close, and Realty Income’s payout ratio could narrow.

We believe that Realty Income’s payout ratio – which is in the low 80s now – is adequate to handle the short-term shock to earnings. Essentially, we’d agree with the CEO’s optimism when he said that, “We feel very good about our liquidity situation: our ability to continue to pay the dividend and grow the dividend.”

Importantly, we also feel comfortable that Realty Income has an impressive A-rated balance sheet. The company is the only net lease REIT with an A-rated balance sheet and has protected its fortress balance sheet by strengthening its liquidity position by drawing down $1.2 billion (bringing the cash balance to $1.25 billion). There’s around $1.2 billion of capacity remaining on the $3 billion revolver (with an accordion of another $1 billion).

It’s important to recognize that Realty Income has around 50% of investment-grade rated tenants and we believe this investment policy (focusing on quality) will pay dividends during the next few months. Realty Income also has the least exposure to private equity-backed tenants and this provides us with a higher degree of confidence that Realty Income’s tenant base will keep paying rent.

Furthermore, and I cannot emphasize this enough, Realty Income is the most diversified net lease REIT and while certain sectors (like theaters and gyms) could put temporary pressure on the payout ratio, Realty Income is in the best position (of all net lease REITs) to weather the storms.

Shares are now yielding 5.7% with a P/FFO multiple of 14.8x (-30% below normal range). We are maintaining a Strong Buy at this time.

Source: FAST Graphs

Our final fortress pick is Federal Realty (FRT), one of just two shopping center REITs on our buy list.

FRT’s balance sheet is by far one of the strongest in its industry, as illustrated by its (1) net debt to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) of 5.5x, its fixed-charge coverage ratio of 4.2x, its weighted-average debt maturity of ~10 years (near the top of the sector) and its weighted average interest rate of 3.8%.

FRT ended 2019 with over $127 million in cash on its balance sheet – up from just $64 million a year ago and management said it has no outstanding balance on a recently expanded $1 billion credit facility.

While FRT is known for its retail exposure, it's important to remind readers that the company has diversified its business model to include a variety of profit centers including:

Residential – 11%

Office – 9%

Fitness, health, beauty – 9%

Discount Apparel – 9%

Full-service restaurant – 9%

Full-service apparel – 8%

Grocery – 7%

1 note · View note

gokinjeespot · 4 years

Text

off the rack #1301

Monday, February 17, 2020

Happy Family Day. I'm grateful for my extended family of fellow comic book aficionados. Sharing the love of our hobby keeps me young and brightens my life. I miss seeing many of you but you are in my thoughts.

Catwoman #20 - Joelle Jones (writer) Fernando Blanco (art) FCO Plascencia (colours) Saida Temofonte (letters). Mrs. Creel poisons her party guests showing us what a nasty woman she is. Catwoman fights through a bunch of zombies to get some Lazarus Water to save a friend. Selina's final obstacle will be Mrs. Creel. I can't wait for this story to end. It's been kind of blasé.

Thor #3 - Donny Cates (writer) Nic Klein (art) Matthew Wilson (colours) VC's Joe Sabino (letters). Lots of KRAKKABOOMS this issue as Thor fights Beta Ray Bill. Horseface doesn't have a chance with All-Father Thor boosted with Galactus given power cosmic. Don't build a funeral pyre for Bill yet. Someone comes to his rescue and that person is a surprise.

The Dollhouse Family #4 - M. R. Carey (writer) Peter Gross (layouts) Vince Locke (finishes) Cris Peter (colours) Todd Klein (letters). Alice and her daughter recover from the horrible explosion from last issue but their survival cost them an arm and a leg. When Alice gets back to the dollhouse, she finds there's a new tenant and she's not nice at all. This horror title isn't horrible. You should come visit.

Hawkeye: Freefall #3 - Matthew Rosenberg (writer) Otto Schmidt (art) VC's Joe Sabino (letters). This issue explains how Clint can be in two places at one time. It's dumb but I don't mind because this story is kind of dumb. I like it for the guest stars. The Black Widow shows up and the hero on the last page is a favourite of mine. If the new Ant-Man mini had been this much fun I'd still be reading it.

The Batman's Grave #5 - Warren Ellis (writer) Bryan Hitch (pencils) Kevin Nowlan & Bryan Hitch (inks) Alex Sinclair (colours) Richard Starkings (letters). I don't know if it's just me, but I find that I lose interest in a Warren Ellis story somewhere and this issue might be it. I've forgotten what the mystery is that put Batman in detective mode even though he's following a lead in Arkham Asylum this issue. I like seeing Batman kick bad guy butt as much as the next fan, but 8 pages of it here seems to be padding the story. Methinks this 12-issue story could've been told in 6.

Savage Avengers #10 - Gerry Duggan (writer) Patch Zircher (art) Java Tartaglia (colours) VC's Travis Lanham (letters). Conan and the two Doctors, Doom and Strange, battle Kulan Gath. Guess who wins? This issue made me laugh out loud.

Jessica Jones: Blind Spot #3 - Kelly Thompson (writer) Mattia De Iulis (art) VC's Cory Petit (letters). Now this is a much more enjoyable murder mystery than Batman's Grave. I know exactly what's happening because Kelly Thompson recaps as the investigation continues. There's even an extended 5-page fight scene where Jessica and Elsa Bloodstone fight creatures from the Black Lagoon but it isn't boring because they're bantering about the case all the while. The rest of this 6-issue mini can't come out fast enough for me.

Harley Quinn & Poison Ivy #6 - Jody Houser (writer) Adriana Melo (pencils) Mark Morales (inks) Hi-Fi (colours) Gabriela Downie (letters). Harley and Ivy's adventure comes to an end with a battle between good and evil Ivy. I liked how they left the fate of Poison Ivy a mystery. Who knows how she'll act the next time she sees Harley?

X-Force #7 - Benjamin Percy (writer) Oscar Bazaldua (art) Guru-eFX (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). This issue features Domino who was rescued from the bad guys recently. The bad guys managed to steal her good luck powers and have transferred them to someone else. This newly empowered individual is an assassin going around killing mutant supporters. Neena's not too happy about that. I wasn't too surprised by the reveal of the assassin's identity on the last page but I'm sure some new fans will be.

X-Men #6 - Jonathan Hickman (writer) Matteo Buffagni (art) Sunny Gho (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). This issue features Mystique. She's my favourite shape-shifter. She's sent on a mission to infiltrate the space station designed to fight against the mutants. I liked how the flashbacks merged with this story to culminate at the ominous last page.

The Immortal Hulk #31 - Al Ewing (writer) Joe Bennett (main story pencils) Ruy Jose, Belardino Brabo & Cam Smith (main story inks) Paul Mounts (main story colours) Javier Rodriguez (McGowan sequence pencils & colours) Alvaro Lopez (McGowan sequence inks) VC's Cory Petit (letters). We get into the heads of Scientist McGowan and the Hulk this issue. Matters of the mind shouldn't surprise fans what with Xemnu being in this story.

The Amazing Spider-Man #39 - Nick Spencer (writer) Iban Coello (art) Brian Reber (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). This issue reminded me of the Odd Couple, Oscar and Felix. Spider-Man agrees to be a guest on Jonah's podcast and sparks fly as the two antagonists butt heads. It's all talk radio until the super villain crashes the party. Next issue should be less talk and more action.

Superman: Heroes #1 - Brian Michael Bendis, Matt Fraction & Greg Rucka (writers) Kevin Maguire, Mike Perkins, Steve Lieber, Mike Norton & Scott Godlewski (art) Paul Mounts, Gabe Eltaeb, Andy Troy & Nathan Fairbairn (colours) Troy Peteri, Clayton Cowles & Simon Bowland (letters). This $5.99 US one-shot is tied-in quite closely with what's been going on in Action Comics & Superman. It looks at the consequences of Superman revealing his secret identity and it's well worth reading.

Doctor Strange #3 - Mark Waid (writer) Kev Walker (art) Java Tartaglia (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). This is a great one issue story if you want to check this new run out. Doctor Strange fights an artistic demon to save lives.

Gwen Stacy #1 - Christos Gage (writer) Todd Nauck (art) Rachelle Rosenberg (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). I liked this better than The Amazing Mary Jane maybe because it deals with a younger high school aged Gwen. This story takes place before Gwen and Peter become friends and lovers and involves her father Captain Stacy and his investigation of New York's mob. There are a trio of bad guys that you'll recognise but the big deal super villains don't show up until the last page. If they don't get you to pick up the next issue, nothing will.

Batman: Pennyworth R.I.P. #1 - James Tynion IV & Peter J. Tomasi (writers) Eddy Barrows & Eber Ferreira, Chris Burnham, Marcio Takara, Diogenes Neves, David Lafuente and Sumit Kumar (art) Adriano Lucas, Rex Lokus & Nathan Fairbairn (colours) Travis Lanham & Thomas Napolitano (letters). This one-shot tribute to Alfred shows us what a dysfunctional family Bruce has created. I would have preferred a more touching send off to this beloved character like the one Brian Michael Bendis wrote for Ultimate Spider-Man/Peter Parker. Damian, Tim, Jason and Barbara reminisce about the butler and then Ric Grayson chimes in with a story about Nightwing. Who the heck is Ric Grayson? I thought Alfred deserved better than this.

Nebula #1 - Vita Ayala (writer) Claire Roe (art) Mike Spicer (colours) VC's Travis Lanham (letters). I'm ambivalent when it comes to this cyborg killer but I wanted to see if that might change by reading this 5-issue mini. She finds a scientist who has built a device that can predict the future and has him implant it so it's integrated into her cybernetic system. The untested tech winds up screwing with her head. I didn't change my opinion of Nebula with this first issue and I can see where the rest of the story is going so I'll leave the rest on the racks.

Superman #20 - Brian Michael Bendis (writer) Ivan Reis, Joe Prado & Oclair Albert (art) Alex Sinclair & Jeremiah Skipper (colours) Dave Sharpe (letters). There's action: Superman dukes it out with Mongul. There's drama: The Daily Star is trying to discredit Clark, Lois and the Daily Planet. And there's a surprise appearance of an old friend. There's everything a good comic book needs to grab my attention and want to keep reading.

Marvels X #2 - Alex Ross & Jim Krueger (writers) Well-Bee (art) VC's Cory Petit (letters). I was fooled by the truck driver who picked up the kid because of the red beard, sunglasses and No Fear baseball cap. I thought it was Matt Murdock in disguise but I was surprised by who it actually was. Daredevil does turn up later in this issue as he and Spider-Man help to keep David safe. The kid's important because he could help find a cure for what's infecting humanity.

1 note · View note

ralfstrashcan · 5 years

Text

3x19 Reaction / Commentary

I didn't even skip breakfast today, it's almost as if I'm a real functioning adult ahahaha.

SDFALFJSKLDFJASDF I'M ALREADY A MESS

Ngl those first few shots made me think I had fallen headfirst into a zombie apocalypse movie. Wind swooshing through the speakers, no living soul in sight, no cars driving, just Magnus walking along the street, on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams hahahahaha sorry I'll stop.

Wow what a jerk.

There's been so many hilarious jokes about the “What fool summoned you” line, and my favorite one will forever remain this.

So, points to Magnus for asking, minus points for buying this shit not-sound-at-all story. Even “fatherly love” can't just screw the laws of nature, okay, Magnus shouldn't just skim over this. Then again I can definitely cut him slack on this because he is a little preoccupied with other problems at the moment.

Listen, Magnus's body language throughout this whole scene (and also throughout the sneak peek we saw for 3x20) is so expressive. Imma skim over it because I plan to do a thorough Relationship / Scene Analysis for Magnus and Asmodeus, so let me just leave this picture here uncommented.

No wait, I have a question. Isn't Magnus's magic occupied with guarding Lilith's home? Did Asmodeus pick it up before summoning himself or did he call it just now? Also, does Asmodeus know that Lilith is on the loose? Then again, is she even? Because no Shadowhunter can be bothered to look for her and she did say that she wanted to go back to Edom... but that was probably a lie to get Cain to cooperate. And how could she even send herself back to Edom? So many questions. Anyway moving on because who cares about Lilith.

Magnus's face when he gets his magic back. ....................yes I have no witty words here, sorry.

Lol okay I have. I love this scene, I absolutely LOVE Magnus's face and how expressive it is, but I've also been dreaming of an epic eye-sparkling, energy-crackling mid-battle-scene where Magnus regains his magic for uhhhh almost a year now, and in terms of dramatic-ness this was pretty anti-climactic. And I think we can agree he won't lose his magic again and then get it back in a more dramatic fashion. Also where are his cat eyes I feel cheated.

I mean, come on, even he gets to show them!! Btw what a dick cunning move to use them to manipulate Magnus. Since they made a compelling argument the first time around.

Also LOL Asmodeus playing nice for one second and when Magnus denies him he immediately shows his hand with “I won't take no for an answer.” Man has no patience XD

Finally I wanna give a huge HUGE shout out to Magnus for resisting Asmodeus becuase can you even imagine how low he must be feeling and yet he has enough presence of mind left to realize that whatever comfort Asmodeus offers can't be true, there must be a hook and it's best to stay away. Dude what strength.

“I only lost sight of her for a minute.” “Enough time for the Evil Rune to have taken hold.”

Uuuhhhh since when?? Did they also go to the bathroom together before?? Did I miss that?? I mean, sure, Clary was drifting sometimes, but she spent a whole half episode in the same cell as Jonathan with Jace “away” behind the glass wall and out of her sight, so...... yeah. This is a little sudden.

She keeps saying that but we have yet to see her actually filter anything. #nofilter

“No one can hurt us if we get to Morning Star first. And once we have that sword the entire world will be terrified of us....”

So he wants that evil sword not to open a rift but to keep the NY Shadowhunters off his back so he can live his life in peace. I-n-t-e-r-e-s-t-i-n-g.

Yes, good. Finally learned your lesson.

.............Or not??? I mean it's not like Clary pretended to be on his side before, to lull him into a false security and gain the upper hand. Why would he fall for it now? Because he acts like Jace is the only risk factor here, and Clary is of course truly and wholly on his side. I mean, true, the circumstances are different since she freed him and all, but like. Guy must have trust issues by now. Where are they.

Also

he should start a self help group with Alec hahahahahaha *weeping*

Me, waiting for the next episode of Shadowhunters. (Also I just noticed Simon says “me neither” not “mine neither” so it sounds as if he's not Izzy's thing, either and LOL I couldn't agree more ahahaha.)

Uh-huh, I agree. Perfect timing. I mean, it's not like there was a glaring 98% there earlier, and as if he didn't have plenty of time before to bring this unfortunate line of conversation up. This is on you, Simon. Don't blame the filtering.

HAHAHA ASK ALEC, HE'S GOING TO THROW IT AT HIM HAHAHAHAHAHA

Seriously though. Just, uh, crush it into powder, add some saline solution, done. And I'm not even a scientist. This is intuitive. The heck.

I'm 1000000% on board with all of this, okay. Over excited Alec is the best Alec. Handholding is the best. Magnus's weariness of surprises is headcanon confirmed. Yes to all of it.

So there were a few lines that were widely interpreted as allusions to their kinky sex life and tbh I never bought any of it because I thought it was seeing too much where there was nothing, but this is so very obviously meant in a kinky way that I'll accept it. Another headcanon confirmed ahahaha this episode is so generous to me.

Ugh I'm so gonna have to write something about that. And knowing myself, it'll be sad closeted Alec daydreaming of all the things he can never have.

Question time, what are those weird rivets thingies? Do they hold any meaning? Is their placement of importance? Because they look very deliberate and very there. I'm confused.

Also, this scene was designed to drive me crazy. There's 7 different shots where we see the lock's placement and there are no less than 3 (!!!!!) different placements. Placement #1, #3 and #5 are consistent (though really, #1 and #5 shouldn't even count because they are clearly the same shot, just with Magnus's hand reaching for the lock) on the left side of the yellow lock, to the bottom left of the Dips lock.

Then we see Alec placing it in an empty compartment at the very edge of the construction (placement #2), only for it to be on the compartment below that in the next shot (placement #4), sharing space with a little gray-blueish lock. This is the same place from where Magnus removes it then (placement #6).

I hate inconsistencies, okay, and I really did notice all this the first time watching. I can't not-see stuff like this. The only fun that comes out this detail obsessiveness is the lock that clearly ships Captain America and Captain Marvel (left) and the lock that was placed from two years in the future (right) because ahahahaha did the show forget it takes place in 2016?? It would seem so.

And yes, I chose to focus on this instead of the fact that Magnus incinerates their lock because that hurts my heart too much to think about, okay. That scene was perfect, the music swelling in all the right places and just. So heart-wrenching. I might've teared up a little. You can't prove anything.

Why she not removing those paper thingies? Seems impractical.

Paint on face trope? Check.

Yeah Raphael, lemme pay you some respect for facing your mistakes like that. I like it a lot.

Istg if they don't give him GPS this time and just rely on the tracking rune again, which Jonathan and Clary will insist he blocks, then imma flip my shit.

.......................so many fanfics want to be written here, okay. So many.

Also is no one gonna talk about the fact that they all put the ring on the pointer when that's not the intuitive position to place a ring? For security reasons alone you should put it on your middle finger so it doesn't accidentally slip off. Oh right, I forgot. Magic ring.

I love how Alec's voice wavers and you just know he sends Jace away because he'll start crying if he doesn't (even if in this screen cap Alec looks weirdly happy). Btw headcanon that Jace didn't realize something was up at first and was only tipped off when Izzy asked earlier if Alec was okay, and then he prodded at the parabatai connection and realized... there was nothing. Just a solid wall of nothing, because Alec's been sealing off his feelings completely.

1) Wow, Simon, your condolences are amazing. 2) Please, explain? Is she in a coma? Walking around as if she'd had a lobotomy?? But whatever, just skim over this, she's a minor character anyway and nobody cares about her *shrug*

This is the LAZIEST plot convenience I ever had to see with my own two eyes. I really can't work up the energy to rage about this. Just, wtf. Then again, not calling ahead with vital information seems to be Luke's Thing, just remember the 3x15 disaster. At this point it might as well be considered a character trait of him and no longer plot convenience. *sigh* Also, Shadowhunters are major creeps, am I supposed to believe they don't have a few liters of all of their soldiers' blood stored away somewhere, for reasons?

Uh-huh, Izzy. And if you care to remember, that was about 20 episodes ago. And since vampires have a constant craving for blood they seem to have some kind of metabolic. If you want to tell me that Jace's blood is still IN Simon, then either a) he's been chipping away at the Jace-blood-stash he has hidden in his second gastric and if that runs out he'll no longer be a daylighter or b) Jace's blood went into Simon's cells and changed him on a molecular level..... in which case, to extract it they'd have to remove it, un-daylighter-ing Simon in the process. Or maybe just parts of him? Imagine if he was a daylighter except for his left arm or something. In any case, this is majorly ridiculous and I can't believe I have to suffer through this.

????????????? Who opened that portal? I mean, if he had to call on a warlock to get away, wouldn't it have been easiser for Izzy and Co. to stop him from running through that portal and make him donate some blood first? Instead of forcing this bullshit logic on me? Ugh. But I get it, this is necessary to justify a Sizzy scene. Whatever.

Hahahhahha.

Which means nothing, since Jace can activate his runes without his stele. Or did they forget that part again?? I mean, it's been half a season since he last did that.

“And if it wasn't for our connection I suspect you'd do it again.”

lolololol hilarious.

HAHHAHA WILL YOU STOP WITH THE HILARITY

Honestly, the way they all act I get the distinct feeling I'm watching an exasperated kindergartener and two particularly clingy toddlers vying for her attention XD

Uuuuhhhh yeah hit me with more Malec Flashbacks to make me feel shitty, why don't you.

Okay, consoled. Btw thanks for confirming another headcanon that between the two of them Magnus is the one easier swayed by puppy eyes.

HAHAHAHA of course my mind immediately interpreted that as a misguided pun about Magnus being a Prince of Edom hahahaa wtf Alec

Dammit, his eyes. You can really see how he's allowing himself to start dreaming about it.

Also, can't believe they had a kiddie talk with at least some seriousness, what, two months into their relationship?? Haha. And internally Madzie was like “Uh boring grown up talk, at least I got my sprinkles.”

See, this is what I have problems with. On the one hand, even with all his emotional turmoil going on, Magnus is still enough in his right mind not to fall for Asmodeus's sweet talking, but on the other hand he revisits all of those memories and doesn't realize Alec breaking up with him can't have been real? This doesn't really add up. Either he is out of his mind with emotions that he can't see this very very strange happening for being something fishy (then he shouldn’t have been able to so easily resist Asmodeus), or he's still level-headed enough not to be driven by emotions entirely (then he should have realized the breakup was fake).

toddler fight intensifies

I'M WHEEZING HAHAHAHAHAHAH R U FOR REAL. Also remember my statement from last week? Where I said “I mean, in a way it's nice to know that Demonic Clary isn't smarter than Regular Clary.” Turns out she's so much worse than Regular Clary XD

Lol Raphael is that still you talking or the Plot Point? Because ngl, when I saw that sneak peek promo thingy where Jordan eyes the dramatically last vial of serum in the Institute I immediately thought they want to cook up a conflict there, where he steals the last vial needed to help save Clary and bla bla bla. I really hope they don't go down that road because I feel he should be better than this by now. *sigh* In any case, while I enjoyed the first part of this plot line with Raphael coming here to make reparations, this feels really forced and convenient.

OH MY GOD THANK YOU SIMON FOR ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS WTF I NEED ANSWERS

Wow can't believe they pulled this obvious and clearly unfitting parallel to Sizzy. I mean, Simon lost his glasses back in S1 and even before that Izzy noticed he was hot in like ep 2. She's been appreciating him as a friend since at least 2B if not sooner. So please don't pretend that she just didn't notice what a great guy he is, because she did. She knows he's someone you can count on, who's there when you need him, with advice or a joke or just to listen to you. She knows all this, and has for seasons. But, surprise surprise, you don't fall in love with everyone who's a great guy and a good friend. That is a thing. Friendships are a thing. Anyway, at least I can wholeheartedly agree that in any possible scenario Izzy is the hot girl XD

HAHAHA JACE THAT'S PAYBACK FOR ALL THOSE TIMES YOU INTERRUPTED MALEC HAHA KARMA IS A BITCH RIGHT

.......or just use glamors to look like Downworlders. Just saying.

Jonathan using the cuts to get a secretive chest grab in on Jace, but I know all those sleazy tricks and you can't slip that feel-up past me #busted

*weeping tears* yeah, and he'll never get the real deal. what a tragedy.

“...the Downworlder club. I think the runes front and center on my neck make a compelling argument, don't you agree?” Also the foreboding background music totally spoiled this 'twist.' (I'm using ''s because it was totally obvious this wouldn't work.)

Look I just love Alec, okay. I LOVE ALEC.

*waves hand* elite guard *waves hand some more* blue mark on his neck *smacks self in the face with waving hand* look i'm pretty sure Meliorn doesn't have a mark like this and he's like, the only Seelie that gets regular screen and talking time with the queen. But I'm way too behind schedule to start looking into it, I might edit something in here later (or never ahahaha).

OH DEAR THE MOMENT OF TRUTH

YES YES YES PLEASE

DUUUUDE WHY ARE YOU GIVING HIM IDEAS WHAT THE HELL

Also, remembering that short sequence of Magnus shooting red magic at his temples from the promo doesn't bode too well for the rest of the episode. Dammit.

You had one job, Lindsay. One. Job. (Yes, please imagine the Loki Gif here. I just love him a lot, okay. Loki <3<3<3)

(^pls imagine her little disenchanted headshake because any screen caps I tried to take made her look drugged out of her mind lol.)

Yep, this is it. This is it.

Sooooo.... how exactly did they persuade the bouncer? Just curious.

HAHAHAAHAH duuuuuude hahahhaa.

........when exactly did Jonathan spy all that? I mean, I've been having questions about the pacing since that ep with the Baby Jonathan Flashbacks, because that manibus whatever demon? Referring to 2x05. So Jonathan only got to earth after that? Howwww? Not thanks to Valentine, right, since he didn't even know Jonathan existed until 2x15 where Jonathan intercepted him from his portal to Idris? And didn't they say Sebastian Verlac disappeared half a year ago?? How does that all match up?

In any case, I feel like the seelie queen suddenly having a warlock boy toy who she can't order into her realm and who she has monthly scheduled appointments with that the whole shadow world knows about is a) totally absurd b) pretty ooc for her and c) reeking of plot convenience. They just couldn't find a better excuse for her to be at a certain place at a certain time. They should have made her attend a fashion show, or hell, a gardening contest. Would have been more credible than whatever this is.

“I grab the queen. Clary portals the three of us away.” “The four of us, including the queen.”

HAHAHHAHAHHA I CAN'T XD XD XD #slightly consoled

WHEN THE HELL DID JONATHAN READ / WATCH THE SHINING ARE YOU SERIOUS RIGHT NOW WTF!!!!!

1) This doesn't work in real life. Do you have any idea how much time it takes to catch a snow flake or a raindrop this way? I know because I've tried, and the anwer is ages. 2) Seems a very uneconomical way to distrubute drugs. Whoever invented that business model must be in deep depts by now. 3) What kind of shitty plan was that on Jonathan's part? Get Jace on drugs, he'll surely expose himself to be a traitor? I hate the fact that it works. I hate that everyone's shitty plans always work (re: Sizzy's dilettantish prison infiltration) because that's why they all keep making shitty plans. Positive reinforcement and all that. The only one who always gets punched in the face for making okay-to-good plans is Alec, and that's why he's the overthinker. So unfair.

“Well this is awkward because I just stole it for you.”

So frakkin predictable. Also, how did he steal it from the table when Izzy and Simon where guarding it?? It clearly was still there when Maia left and like

Did Jordan just grab it and run? So many questions.

Don't get me wrong, that whole forging the sword sequence was super badass, but like, if you're wielding scorching hot metal it seems a little impractical to just wear security goggles and a leather apron. There were freaking sparks flying and Izzy ducked. What the hell. What about, idk, unconventional but, a protective suit?? And Simon isn't any better. “Oh, I could die from this sword? Just lemme hide behind this doorway real quick.” *sigh* One of these days a character should die because of dumbass behavior, maybe that'd teach them all a lesson.

Also, this is totally logic. They had a splinter from the original sword that they then made tons of serum from, which they saved 3 vials of..... and somehow this was still enough to forge a whole new frikking sword that's apparently just as powerful as the original one. I don't even know where to start with this bullshit.

.................dude, if you wanted to persuade her you should have pointed out the ring to her. But maybe this isn't about logic at all, this is about wanting to know if he is Clary's first choice without logic or reason, and that would make sense for his character, even if it's not the most sensible or productive course of action.

Me, during the fight scene: “Wow, I believe all that Seelie guard slaughtering is not going to end up in a Downworlder vs Shadowhunter war again..... ha..... hahahaha.”

Arguing with a possessed person. Again. Honestly this is the, uhhh, fifth time this happens on this show? And people just seem to never learn. SIGH

Yeah, by not following the plan and acting stupid, so my sympathy is pretty limited aka non-existent. Btw his slide across the Institute floor was hilarious. And also, pretty nice of Clary not to just kill him. This is the second time she's spared him. Interesting.

ISTG IF THIS SCENE ENDS WITH A CLIFFHANGER IF HE GOES THROUGH WITH IT OR NOT IMMA FLIP MY SHIT

*manic laughter* I love that this makes so much sense. Asmodeus needs Magnus's heartbreak so he'll be susceptible to Asmodeus's influence. So his motives are shitty. On the other hand it's not as if what Asmodeus says to Magnus isn't the truth. Fighting through this will make Magnus stronger, no doubt. Knowing he can be this low and still get back on his feet without running away and succumbing to the pain. And I'm glad, for obvious reasons, that Magnus didn't go through with the memory removal because ain't nobody got time for those issues. Mending the breakup in a satisfying was will be hard enough as is. Back to the scene at hand, I gotta say I love this about Asmodeus: He doesn't lie outright, he mostly lies by omission, and he speaks enough truth to really screw with everyone's perception. It's awesome. He is such a great antagonist and his dynamic with Magnus is highly fascinating.

Conclusion: Not enough Malec (seriously, their only scenes together are flashbacks? the frakkin audacity) but tbh I'm still too high on endorphines since the memory removal didn't happen that I'm mostly okay with it. And the Jonathan-Jace comedy was nice.

#shadowhunters #3x19 #magnus bane #alec lightwood #isabelle lightwood #clary fray #jace wayland #asmodeus #simon lewis #jonathan morgenstern #maia roberts #kyle #luke garroway #raphael santiago #reaction

23 notes · View notes