#since at the core there are a lot of similar themes? surprisingly?

[omgitslin]

Badsansuary day 5, 6, and 7.

Brief mentions of cannibalism in day 5 along with a bunch of other general horrortale stuff, other than that pretty much everything is wholesome.

Horror x Reader (Platonic)

Badsansuary Day Five - Good Soup

Trying something new today. 😉

Notice: this one will have a few.. Unpleasant topics mentioned, but I already stated this above.

__________

You were sick with a cold. It was unpleasant, but it wasn't bad enough to leave you bedridden. It was mostly just a snotty nose and a fever.

Horror, on the other hand, thought it was terrible. He didn't want you to get out of bed, because “sick humans are weak humans, and weak humans die.”

It's very morbid, but you've grown used to that. After all.. You were in the Underground.

Horror had informed you a long time ago that the Underground used to be.. Well, not as scary. But after a while, the CORE malfunctioned. They all lost power. Food became scarce.

Undyne went on a power trip, and the monsters started eating each other.. And other humans.

You were just glad he decided not to kill you. He never told you why, but.. Well, you were just grateful.

What you weren't grateful for was how sick you were.

You were laying in bed now, trying to rest so that you'd heal faster.

Horror stepped into the room, and placed a bowl in your hands.

It was.. Hot water and.. meat. Soup, maybe? You looked up at him with a curious expression. You hoped that the meat wasn't from what you thought it was.

Horror noticed your expression and chuckled, “it's deer, muffin. fell down a hole. now eat."

You decided not to question it. After all, Horror didn't lie about food.

So you ate the soup.

It was nice.

Horror x Reader (platonic)

Badsansuary Day Six - Pepper

Horror was in the kitchen, making some mac and cheese for dinner. You were helping him, mainly by grabbing everything he needed and giving it to him when he asked.

And eventually he asked for pepper. You handed it to him, and he put a generous helping into the mac and cheese.

He let it boil for a moment, moving on to getting the chicken off the pan and cutting it into small pieces.

He was making something similar to chicken alfredo, but with cheese instead of alfredo since there wasn't any in the pantry and you both didn't feel like going to the store.

Eventually, the meal was finished and Horror put it on two plates.

You both sat down to eat.

You could do this in relative silence, because you had lived together for some time.

In the kind of neighborhood you lived in, it would be unsafe to live alone.

Anyway. You took a bite of the mac and cheese + chicken and frowned.

“Oh my goodness that's way too much pepper-”

You said after swallowing.

Horror laughed, “yeah.. i noticed. i still got some chicken left over, if you wanna eat that instead.”

He didn't seem bothered by the ungodly amount of pepper in the macaroni.

“Yeah.. Sorry, Horror. I don't mean to be—"

He interrupted you, “don't be sorry, muffin. everyone's got somethin’ they don't like.”

You smiled at him, and went to get the chicken instead. He took your plate with the macaroni and ate it himself.

The chicken was a lot better.

Horror x Reader (platonic)

Badsansuary Day 7 - Go All Out

It was Halloween today.

You, Horror, and the rest of the boys were decorating the house to celebrate the holiday.

You kind of procrastinated until it was too late, but you were grateful they were helping you anyway.

And they were, surprisingly, putting a lot of effort into it. Decorative cobwebs, scary statues, a candy bowl that would jumpscare you when you grabbed candy, and a lot of other stuff.

They even dressed up.

It was.. Endearing.

You were helping them, too, with the things that didn't involve going on the roof. They could prevent themselves from getting hurt if they fell. You couldn't.

So, while they strung up a bunch of Halloween themed tinsel.. Or something, you didn't know the name, you decorated the window with silly Halloween window stickers.

It must've been funny for the neighbors to see you decorating so last minute.

“hey muffin, how do ya like it?” Horror called, prompting you to look at how it had turned out so far. You backed up, moving away from the window to take a look.

It was awesome.

It was spooky, but not spooky enough to deter people from knocking on the door. It clearly had a lot of care put into it, and you could tell that they actually put effort into it.

You didn't respond for a while, simply taking in the view.

“I love it,” you finally declared.

When Halloween was over, you didn't take the decorations down for a few weeks.

You were such a procrastinator..

____________________

Horror belongs to Sour Apple Studios!

#badsansuary #general horrortale creepiness #dark topics mentioned in day 5 #my writing #reader x horror sans #horror sans #and the other bad sanses but they aren't mentioned by name #but it's platonic again #3 in 1 #i love procrastinating #i need to stop doing that #anyway

[melissak2802]

Personal favourite Agatha Christie antagonists (SPOILERS)

On my favourite Dame Agatha's antagonists.

HEAVY SPOILERS BELOW, AKA ANTAGONIST NAMES AND IMPORTANT PLOT POINTS

Dr. Sheppard. Very good narrator, clever and patient man with a good sense of soft irony (unlike the very messed portrayal in the Suchet episode where he's made to be an arrogant bitch), loving brother (the genuine fluff and humour of their moments together), wide interests (doctor+mechanic+writer), very graceful at losing in the final. Powerful tragedy of his fall. And of course from the point of mystery, not only he is a good narrator, he is very good at being UNRELIABLE narrator while providing enough fair clues and never lying to the reader.

Charlotte Blacklock. I already said in my posts on themes in novels that she has similarities to Dr. Sheppard - a soft person who starts their descent with grabbing some good share of illegal money under too convenient circumstances, then gets attached to it, then ends up a murderer. Except she falls deeper down and almost loses humanity eventually (while afraid of her fall herself simultaneously). I like the potential of her backstory. I also like a lot how the intrigue is done with her.

Josephine Leonidis. Her story provokes a lot of thought, with the multiple toxicities and psychological deformities of her family intertwining into a ball messed enough to create her this way.

The Redferns for being magnificent villains as well as a vivid and balanced opposites duo.

Justice Wargrave. He's interesting and unusual for complicated motive: ambition in "creating a perfect crime" + arrogant belief in his sense of justice and that he can't be wrong + voluntarily giving into his sadistic tendencies. His calculating skills and how easily he becomes the de facto leader of his victims too.

Lance Fortescue as a charming jackass with quite creative thinking.

Jimmy Thesiger as another charming jackass with lots of wit (and screentime), plus his pairing with Loraine is another surprisingly balanced villain couple.

The antagonist of The Mousetrap (I am aware I shouldn't name them in a public space). I feel very sorry for them and hope they recover, especially since they are one of the VERY few Dame Agatha's antagonists who is offered a second chance and new beginning at the story's end (and they do need it). They are a new favourite I'm still exploring but I am interested in the complexity of their personality (including their insanity), touched by their vulnerable and caring core. And yes, their tactics/the twist is a gem, the audacity.

Honourable mentions:

The Orient Express vengeance group. Not only their motive is pretty valid (many criminals had a "good motive" or thought so), I like especially that they took care about not harming or throwing any suspicion to an innocent party. They are also interesting as a very diverse group with the shared past and goal, diverse socially, ethnically and in personality.

Jackie de Bellefort for the warning of her story. Not every kind of "your star" should be followed, especially not this blindly.

Miss Gilchrist. The shocking "plainness" of her, her drama and motive to the degree when it's scary. The disguise trick fits her in a strange way.

Mrs. Lorrimer (not a central antagonist of her novel but AN antagonist). A very noble and strong as well as remorseful and tired person. The theme of compassion to a younger person who seemed to commit a similar crime she can relate to.

Bess Sedgwick. The charm of this adventurous eagless, the surprisingly noble moral code for an accomplished robber, the protectiveness of her child she couldn't raise.

#agatha christie

[idkaguyorsomething]

Five Nights at Freddy's Fic Recs

In honor of the movie coming out, here's some rapid-fire fic recs for a fandom that definitely has a lot of high-quality stuff! (It'll mostly be retellings of the first game, with a couple of exceptions. And, since a lot of them were written as the main games were coming out, none of these are 100% lore accurate, whatever that's worth to you)

Starting with a classic, this one begins as some surprisingly sweet "Mike befriends the animatronics" stories before digging into the lore and giving us a really sweet resolution to a dark story. If you just wanna spend some time with some characters from your childhood, I'd highly recommend it. Definitely not as focused on the plot as some other fics on here, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing!

This one leans a lot more into the horror aspects of FNaF, and it has more of a focus on plot than After Hours, but it takes time to develop the bonds between its characters that make for a powerful emotional core with some surprisingly sweet moments. In regards to Mike's family in particular, let's just say that a lot of it is especially heartwarming (and funny) in hindsight. It's got some really cool and unique ideas in regards to how it tells its story, and Foxy is super important too!

This one probably has the most going on by way of themes, and the messages about family it has going on are very similar to a lot of the generational trauma stuff Disney's been putting out recently, so if that floats your boat, or if you wanted that but with more ghosts and child murder, this one might be for you. It's definitely the most deliberately AU, if that makes any sense, but it's a really really good AU.

This one's my personal favorite retelling of the events of FNaF 1. It's got more in the way of action than the others and falls between After Hours and Poor Little Souls in terms of plot-to-vibing ratio, but in my opinion it's one of those stories that just gets better and better as it goes. Mike gets a nice friendship with Jeremy Fitzgerald, and it feels very earned at the climax when he's able *SPOILERS*. It's super good and has a bunch of sequels, go check it out.

Aaaaaaand, this one probably has the least to do with the actual FNaF games themselves, but I couldn't leave it out. This one is actually post-games (mostly) and centers around Mike adopting the ghosts of the kids haunting the animatronics. Like After Hours, there's a lot of just spending time with the characters and getting to watch them have fun with each other, though this one is way, way, waaaaaaay longer. If you're interested in Dad!Mike, the ghost kids getting to live the lives they never got, and some great use of a very overlooked antagonist in the franchise that I'm not going to spoil, give it a read!

(Also whoa, I wrote a FNaF fic too! And it's a crossover with Disney's Cinderella, of all things! Sorry for the shameless self-promo)

#fnaf #five nights at freddy's #fnaf fic #fic rec #go check them out

[duodusk]

i was talking to a friend about c!Sam and we realized that "Hero" from RW/BY is like the perfect song for his character

i could probably post all of the lyrics and they'd all work but it just feels like such a fitting song for him as the Warden

Take my hand I'm here to protect you Nothing will stop me Understand There's no sacrifice that I won't make I'll risk it all to keep you safe Trust me to be strong I'll be your hero, just hold on

I will fight For you no matter how I am despised Portrayed as cruel and heartless, I am might I am power, I'm due process, I will smite

Hearts and minds may not agree Emotions topple strategy You can't believe in honesty That your children can win a war

#dream smp #mcyt #dsmp #awesamdude #song rec #this is maybe gonna be the first of these I'm posting and its just me going through my dsmp inspired playlist and talking about it #but seriously like this feels so perfect for c!sam's decision to let c!tommy die rather than risk letting c!dream out #chefs kiss #we actually talked about this ages ago but i finally have somewhere to post it #ok also and Nevermore works really well for c!tommy and c!tubbo but i dont want to make like 20 rw/by music posts haha #i really dont want one to end up in that shows tag on accident #so ill just list some more #Fear ; Rising ; The Path to Isolation ; This Life Is Mine ; This Will Be The Day ; Time To Say Goodbye #my friend i talked to about this is a big fan of that show (im trying to avoid using the name just in case lol) so #we kinda went through one night listening to a bunch of songs and seeing which ones kinda had the same feeling as dsmp #since at the core there are a lot of similar themes? surprisingly? #ok anyway :)

[please-help-this-little-lesbian]

"Capitalism Breeds Innovation"

An essay by L

I, like a bunch of young, aspiring writers and other creatives, all dream of making it in their respective industries. I dream of winning an Oscar/Emmy for Best Screenplay. However, when I see media that I care about, have been inspired by, dedicate myself to, go down a path that is just so ridiculous and outlandish that I don't even recognize it, well, it's hard for me to want to push myself towards those levels of creativity. It is said that capitalism breeds innovation. Merriam-Webster defines innovation as "a new idea, method, or device," and "the introduction of something new." When I look at the entertainment industry, I don't see innovation, I see the same material being reused over and over again to the point it's in tatters, and a long-dead cow still being milked.

As most who follow me know, I am a huge fan of The Walking Dead. I've been a fan since 2020, and am forever grateful for what it's brought me. I've developed a community, improved my writing, and truly solidified it as my passion. Yet, when I look at the show today, I don't see what I fell in love with. I see a corpse of a once-great show being needlessly leeched by a corporation that puts profit above all else.

The Walking Dead got its start as a small, indie-comic written by a man named Robert Kirkman. While by no means perfect, it had heart, good story-telling, and was well, innovative. In a genre ripe with stories of super-powered beings defeating evil monsters, The Walking Dead was a story about a group of non-super-powered beings coming together and building a new, better world while fighting both the dead and the still-human living. It was a tale at its core about the power of humanity, which is why I, and many others, enjoyed it. (The surprisingly leftist themes towards the end were nice too).

Frank Darabont discovered the comics in a shop in Burbank and immediately thought the show would be great for TV, and I completely agree! The Walking Dead did make a great show! Season 5, which premiered in 2014, had 17.3 million viewers! I do not blame Frank at all. He made a very smart and successful decision in developing the show, and AMC was right to pick it up. However, AMC is where my problems start.

To put it plainly, AMC, and every other network that is guilty of the same crimes, is responsible for destroying the heart, integrity, and innovation of The Walking Dead and every other show that has either had ratings tank and/or been canceled. When they see the integrity, the storytelling, the elements that make these shows popular, they don't see them. All they see is money. I am not going to pretend I know how the entertainment hierarchy works, but I will say that I know that the producers, executives, showrunners, and the AMC CEOS are all above the writers. Therefore, I don't blame them for the downhill writing and creative decisions. If I was in their shoes, I'd write whatever I was told. I also don't blame Robert Kirkman. He got paid a lot of money to hand over his rights, and honestly, I'd do the same in his shoes. I'd live to regret it, though, and I can't help but wonder if he does, too.

According to this piece by Dr. George Vinovich, the hierarchy of TV personnel goes like this: At the top is the executive producers, who own the tv show and are the head authority on it: "Executive producers usually hire a team of qualified producers, directors, and writers to take care of the creative aspects of the TV program" (Vinovich). Next, there are producers who control the creative quality: "The producer is similar in nature to the architect who designs your house, but who does none of the actual work of building the house. The producer will hire a director to serve as the general contractor to be in charge of the daily responsibilities on the set, but the director normally must answer to the producer in regard to overall quality and progress of a particular episode of the TV series" (Vinovich)." Then, assistant producers, who well, assist the producers: "Some producers have a lot of responsibility in coordinating the creative aspects of the show, while other AP’s are merely glorified secretaries that assist in coordinating schedules, telephones, and contracts in non-creative, clerical roles" (Vinovich). There are many other positions that are just as important, but I am focusing on the ones listed above. There are also showrunners, who are gifted overall creative authority and management of a show.

The current executive producers for TWD are Frank Darabont, Gale Anne Hurd, David Alpert, Robert Kirkman, Charles H. Eglee, Glen Mazzara, Scott M. Gimple, Greg Nicotero, Tom Luse, Denise Huth, Angela Kang, and Joseph Incaprera. The producers are Jolly Dale, Caleb Womble, Paul Gadd, and Heather Bellson. The assistant producers are Skip Schoolnik, Kenneth Requa, Amy Beth Barnes, Alex Brown, and Christina Perez. The current showrunner is Angela Kang. The current AMC CEO is Matthew C. Blank, and the previous one was Josh Sapan. All are responsible for sucking the heart out of TWD, but I place my blame on Blank and Sapan above all else. They didn't care about what made this show good, they cared about what made them money. So, they approved spin-offs. Which is what truly killed the show. It didn't need spin-offs. It needed to just be. There is no reason in any of the stories of both the comics and TV show for there to be spin-offs. Sure yeah, it's fun to explore how other parts of the world are dealing with walkers and how it started, but it wasn't necessary.

I also blame the executive producers and showrunners for terrible story-telling decisions. Needlessly killing off beloved characters for the sake of shock value won't get you views. Making pointless spin-offs with dumb plots and non-sensical writing won't get you views. Introducing dumb villains because you're trying to draw out the final season of your dying show won't get you views. Milking a conflict that should have been over last season and completely destroying characters' personalities and motivations just because an actor is the only reason people still watch your show won't get you views. You know what will? Actually telling a good goddamn story. Deaths are supposed to serve a purpose. Conflicts are supposed to serve a purpose. Villains are supposed to serve a purpose. They're supposed to help a story move forward. Why is it that these big-shot creatives can't understand this? I can't entirely blame the execs and producers either, as they are more than likely under pressure from the CEOS.

Back to the bane of spin-offs, you know who should be telling these stories and answering these questions? Fans! That should be stuff left for fanfiction! Because that doesn't milk the dead cow! That's just encouraging innovation! It doesn't matter if something a high schooler wrote makes sense in the show's canon because it's not! The heart of the original is still there! And I'm not dissing on fanfic. I mean, I write it. In fact, at this rate, I prefer fanfiction because we care about telling good stories because we're not driven by greed. Fanfiction also usually tells the stories that need to be told. But there are some aspects of worlds that need to be told by fans, and aspects that need to be told by the creatives, and the industry doesn't care about either. It cares about the aspects that bring in the buck.

Hollywood has no integrity. It has no heart. It has no passion. Capitalism doesn't breed innovation. There's nothing new about The Walking Dead anymore. It's just old, tired, and sad. There is no future for creativity.

Only selling your soul to survive.

To make it to the next season, to the next slot. To the next career. Hop on to the next trend, bring in the money.

I get it, I really do. I won't lie and say I wouldn't tell the most lifeless, bland story if that story would keep me fed. But it's sad, and it leaves me with no hope.

The next generation of storytellers is here.

But we know there's no place for us.

#vent #anti-capitalism #i wrote an essay! #please don't let this flop #twd #the walking dead #amc

[thanks-mike-stamford]

Fics that inspire my writing - Part II

This is Part II. Read Part I or Part III

Continuing the discussion, I grouped these fics together for something they have in common: author style! It was actually a bit hard choosing them because they are all written by authors who have a distinct style. Something in them that makes you recognise the author right away, that makes you think - oh yes, definitely is a story from this person. When you have a bunch of stories with the same kind of feel, it's hard to choose one to illustrate my point. Tip is: binge read the authors below!

Part II

I Used to Live Alone Before I Knew You by etothepii Back when there wasn't even s2 yet I was already reading stuff from this author. I absolutely love their fics. This one is super interesting, a Good Omens fusion book version - beyond numerous screaming posts on the internet I'm not really familiar with this universe.

Something I like in all their fics and it's worked beautifully in this one is that there's more than it seems under the surface. The characters are not an open book even to the reader, and the narrator (close Sherlock POV) doesn't give all the information. The narrator sometimes doesn't even explain the information we are given. The facts are presented piece by piece, building the layers of a character, making it clear that even if right now, for this story, it's not relevant, this person is a complex human being (or angel. Or demon) that doesn't exist solely for the purpose of the plot. Two factors help with this: the non-linear narrative, that permits we only know a part of someone when it becomes relevant; and the sort of omniscience of Sherlock. I say sort of because yes, he's a demon and he has access to the core of someone. He's able to fish for stuff that happened in someone's life and how they feel about that as a way to build their vulnerability to sin. However, this is not necessarily mind-reading or future prediction. He makes deductions based on the soul, let's put this way. But because he can't use it to predict exactly what is going to happen, he still gets surprised. Because the characters are layered, they are able to be consistent with what we know and yet unexpected, up until the end.

The combination of giving powers to the narrator and using non-linearity is brilliant, working to enhance the themes behind the plot, which are about the complexity of the human soul. I'm working on a WIP that has similar themes and I try to play with these aspects to make it smooth like this story, instead of a philosophical essay using voices of characters. I've tried the non-linear narrative in a published fic, but it didn't have the same level of success in serving the story. Let's see if it goes better when I try again.

What It Is by toyhto This author has two main things going on in their fics: the type of angst that makes you question yourself, and the type of humour that is not really about trying to make you laugh, it's a very weird type of humour. I love weird stuff.

This fic is not Toyhto's best angsty one or best humourous one, but it's one that creates a good mix of both, like a tragicomedy (but without a tragic ending). You have John not knowing how to feel about Sherlock, and Sherlock gambling possibilities on how to fix the situation. It's the narrative that fascinates me. The story keeps its cards close, the reader is often a bit uncomfortable, a bit wrong-footed. You don't know where the story is going (hell, sometimes you don't even know where a scene is going), so you keep hanging up until the end. There's an underlying panic in how characters interact, but it's never hysterical, it's never loud or obnoxious. And then you find yourself snorting in situations that shouldn't have been funny. Life is usually not one genre or the other, so why literature should be? I love that the story never tries to be something (sad, funny, intriguing), and yet it is. It's not easy to pull something like this.

I have a WIP currently on my drive folder where I try to play with this tragicomedy narrative thing. This fic inspires me in trying to keep the reader on their toes all while looking effortless.

Borrowed Ghosts by DiscordantWords DiscordantWords has been out there since 2016 showing how there's more than a way to fix canon. In fact there are multiple ways. This is the author you want to go if you watch the show and think eeh this should have gone a different way. There's probably a story in here which takes the same premise you thought about.

This one is just too incredible. Because it picks up right from a crucial point in canon and said - ok, what if everything still happened, but they actually make sense? For this story consistency is key, and if canon gave us a John Watson making bad decisions while nursing an unreliable brain work, that's what you get. But make it make sense! This is what happens when you are on a roll of bad decisions, this story tells me. This is what happens when you're isolated from what before kept you on track. This is what happens when on top of everything your mind is playing you tricks: they don't just stop because you decided to. That's not how it works. This story acknowledges the bad stuff, but to fix them it doesn't propose miracles, and it definitely doesn't ignore them. We get the consequences but we also get the process of change that is necessary for things to be good once again. Like John says: there's a difference between wishing something happened differently and wishing it hadn't happened at all. But it did happen, so now what?

Make it canon divergence but character consistency and twist it to fix it, it's what inspires me in this fic.

The Ancillus's Tale by Chryse I reiterate that everything by Chryse is a must, but everyone that follows me on twitter had to deal with me constantly gushing about their most recent work for months, so it will be this one here. I just have a lot of feelings about this fic. Oh, yes, omegaverse again, inspired by The Handmaid's Tale.

The one aspect that comes to my mind when I think about Chryse's works is dark themes. If I want to read about fucked up stuff happening, I will go to them. And this particular fix has fucked up stuff from the first to the last chapter. And it's very immersive: you get inside the head of whoever is POV at the moment, Sherlock or John. You get their physical reactions, their thoughts, you know what they know. And the world building is on point: detailed enough that is totally credible, you can see reality becoming that way, but it's not described to exhaustion. We are presented the info about what we need to know, and rest is there, somewhere at your peripheral vision where you know it exists but it doesn't become a nuisance to the plot. But more important than that, it's how the dark themes are treated. It's never on black or white situations, surprisingly, despite the universe setting. The characters especially - they are allowed to have conflicted feelings, they are allowed to misbehave even if they are supposed to be on the good side, they have nuance and complexity. And the cherry on top: just because it has a dark premise, it doesn't mean it can't have a super satisfying happy ending that even brings comfort to the soul after letting it being hurt. We get snippets of comfort, the promise it's going to happen all along the fic, to compensate the extreme suffering the characters are going through. It's glorious.

I have been toying with the idea of writing something on the dark side. In fact my next multi chapter is super fucked up (but as always, with the certainty of a happy ending), and I hope it can see the world soon. I'm writing with this premise in mind: characters are allowed to have conflicted feelings, and they are allowed to misbehave, that won't make them the bad guys.

This was part II! If you missed part I, just click here. Part III is up!

#johnlock #sherlock fanfic #hoverseas talks about fic

[k7l4d4]

Luz the Seeker (Owl House/Huntik: Secrets & Seekers Crossover Idea)

I want to ask, has anyone thought of a Crossover fic between the Owl House and Huntik: Secrets & Seekers? If not, I will discuss my own!! Everybody clap your hands!!!

To help with people who don't know it, I shall now info-dump some of the lore!! And by some I mean a lot. In the World of Huntik, spirits of incredible power, known as Titans, are native to a separate Dimension, also known as Huntik. For generations, the Titans have been summoned to Earth to aid humanity, with the most famous being the Legendary Titans of Casterwill, an ancient sorcerer who saved the world from the Nullifiers, another species native to Huntik, but are instead pure evil, consumed with nothing less than the desire to see all of reality destroyed and subsumed into them. After their defeat, Titans have been scattered throughout human history, lending their immense power and potential to those people who can bond with the Talismans that act as their method of summoning and anchor in our world; these individuals are known as Seekers. Titans are principally divided into Eight core categories: Draco-Titans, Gaia-Titans, Hecto-Titans, Krono-Titans, Litho-Titans, Meso-Titans, Swara-Titans, and Yama-Titans. Each corresponds to a region of the world in terms of design, though some can seem off theme to some extent, and each has some form of connection to historical myth, legend, and even historical facts. Draco-Titans are a type of Titans featured prominently in European legends, particularly those of Medieval England. The fighting style and noble, chivalrous nature that most of them possess, inspired people to act the same and developed into the code of chivalry followed by knights. Draco-Titans' amulets are usually steel-blue with a grayish-pink gem in the center. Gaia-Titans are a type of Titan which tend to be protective and helpful. Gaia-Titans are strongly tied to nature, particularly wood or plants. Because of these ties, most of them are green or greenish-brown. Some may be covered in bark or leaves, with some even looking like walking trees, such as Dark Dryad. Gaia means Earth in Greek, so these Titans are essentially Earth-Titans or Nature-Titans. Gaia-Titan amulets tend to be a pale silver white with a light green gem. A notable exception is the Amulet of Will for Overlos. Many Gaia Titans are found mainly in Ireland. Hecto-Titans are Titans based upon Egyptian legends. Many Hecto-Titans appear like mummies with a monstrous appearance, earning them a place as the monsters residing in Egyptian tombs. Their terrible nature and taking enjoyment from chaos and destruction means that bonding Seekers need to possess a similar attitude. Their amulets tend to be yellow with blue and green highlights and a pale silver gem in the center. Krono-Titans are Titans that are based off of Greek or Roman mythology. These Titans tend to be warriors, a fitting position considering the war-like nature of the Greeks during ancient history. The word 'Krono-Titan' may be based on Kronos of mythology, the imprisoned Greek Titan and father of Zeus. Krono-Titan Amulets tend to be orange and yellow with an aqua gem. Litho-Titans are a very durable type of Titan because most of them are composed of rocks or ice. Litho-Titans usually carve themselves a place in history, even among humans who know nothing about Seekers or magic. Metagolem became the famous Golem of Prague. Gar-Ghoul inspired the gargoyle statues on the rooftops across Europe. Fenris and Ymir are famous among Norse mythology, being responsible for the birth and death of the world. Litho-Titans act almost as if they want to be known for their power. Lithosphere is the ground part of Earth. Litho-Titan Amulets tend to be stone grey, with occasional light blue highlights for ice-based Titans, and have a purple gem in the center with yellow outline around the gem. Meso-Titans are powerful Titans that are difficult to control. They tend to be aggressive and may cause collateral damage if not watched carefully. Some Meso-Titans control powerful natural forces, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and tornadoes. Others use combat attacks based on stomping, jumping, and spinning. Meso-Titans often resemble creatures of Native American and Central American stories, such as fierce warriors and totem like monsters. Mesosphere is the middle part of the Earth's atmosphere. Only a Seeker with a very strong will can bond with, let alone control, a Meso-Titan. Meso-Titan Amulets are typically grey with black or yellow highlights and a blue gem. Swara-Titans are a type of Titan, most often used by villains, and are based upon African legends and insects. Like Araknos, a large number of Swara-Titans tend to lean toward arthropods such as arachnids and insects. Swara-Titan Amulets tend to be brown with a darker brown or gold trim and a red gem. Yama-Titans are clever and often overly independent. They often think that their way of doing something is better than their bonded Seeker; because of this, successfully controlling a Yama-Titan can require concentrating exactly on what one wants them to do. Human-like Yama-Titans often have features common to Asian myths, such as clothing or weaponry. Yama-Titans were appropriately common in ancient Asia. People told stories about them, and these stories eventually became myths. Yama-Titan amulets tend to be black with silver highlights with a pale green gem. A notable exception is the ring of Tao since the amulets of Legendary Titans are gold with a gem that matches the Titan. The Legendary Titans are an incredibly rare, powerful type of Titan which were originally controlled by Lord Casterwill and his family and whose Rings and Amulets were later hidden with greater safeguards than the Amulets of any other Titans. The Legendary Titans find their places in the legends of many ancient civilizations and were sometimes considered gods. If a Seeker attempts to use a Legendary Titan without the Amulet of Will or without passing the proper Casterwill test, they may be put under a powerful curse. Three Legendary Titans, Tao, Behemoth, and Araknos, are involved in a ritual to summon Overlos from the Amulet of Will. Because they could technically be considered a sibling species to Titans, I'll include some info on Nullifiers, especially as they can be summoned like Titans. Their isn't a whole lot to say about them, but Nullifiers are often ludicrously powerful, with a bevy of mind-bending abilities as a whole, they largely draw inspiration from the Cthulhu Mythos when it comes to appearance. Nullifiers do not have the standard Classes. In addition to their type, Titans can also be identified by their Class, that is to say, if they are Blasters, Enchanters, Explorers, Scouts, Sentinels, Sharpshooters, Sorcerers, or Warriors. Blasters are those whose specialty lies in high-power blasts as their combat method of choice, and are surprisingly rare. Enchanters are, like Sorcerers, those with principally mystical powers, but are usually geared more towards indirect combat or support, or are associated with more "good" legends as a whole. Explorer Titans are those that excel in espionage, information retrieval, and stealth, distinguishing themselves from Scouts by being larger, more humanoid, and often having more direct combat options. Scouts are often small, with a higher emphasis on information retrieval, spying, and so on, than combat. Sentinels are those which are typically used to guard or watch over something or someone, with a bigger emphasis on durability and defense than the other martial Classes, and are as rare as true Blasters. Sharpshooters are high flying ranged-attackers, with a big emphasis on movement and speed, and while pretty rare in terms of variety, are not as rare as those of Sentinels or Blasters. Sorcerer Class Titans are associated with magical abilities, but often of a darker bent than Enchanters, they are often more likely to be direct attackers as well. Warriors, the absolute MOST common Class, are straight up melee fighters, with the occasional esoteric power thrown in, often wielding swords and shields, or more odd weaponry on occasion. All Seekers, by virtue of the connection they have gained to the Titans, can wield magic. The forms of magical spells Seekers can wield are rather varied, and rather than being marked by specific schools, are instead based on how they are used. It's not something I'd go to much into right now. The nature of the connection that the Titans and their Seekers have is known as the Bond; Titans fresh from Huntik are essentially blank slates when it comes to bonding, and while certain personality types might bond easier, the first bond they gain will always color them when it comes to bonding later. Titans lack true personality when they are first summoned and bonded in our world, communicating mentally with their Seeker through Intuition, feelings, etcetera as opposed to words, and finding the language based thoughts of humans, and Witches, unnatural, not that it will prevent them from obeying. The mentality, thought process, and beliefs of their initial bonded will permanently influence who that Titan can later bond with, as they will invariably bond easiest with those that have a similar personality and attitude to their initial bonded, though the bond can sever if the Seeker's personality changes too much from the mindset that allowed them to bond in the first place. Seekers who've established a particularly strong bond with their Titans are capable of Powerbond, initiating an incredibly powerful transformation that greatly augments the powers and fighting abilities of their Titans and themselves. Anyway, now that the info dump is out of the way, my basis for this crossover is for Luz to be a young Seeker with a reputation for causing havoc. She basically enters the Boiling Isles the same way, but that is when the divergences start. In this AU, I would like to think that the Titan that composes the Isles is a Titan in the Huntik sense, that transported to the Demon Realm and died. As it perished, its essence merged with that of the Demon Realm, and gave rise to the Witches, who are analogous to a hybrid between Titan and Human, though not quite all the way. Titans summoned on the Isles often display heightened intellect and learning ability, and are capable of staying summoned functionally indefinitely so long as they are there, though sufficient injury can dispel them and send them back. Due to her background as a Seeker, however young and inexperienced she may be, Luz is even more used to insanity and danger than her canon self is, and is extremely curious as to the nature of the Isles and its magic (Eda: Can't you cast your own spells already, kid? Luz: Yeah, but not THIS KIND!!!). My biggest issue is finding a way to expand the idea beyond just having Luz use Seeker powers and Titans in the Owl House, with the appropriate butterflies and shenanigans as a result of course, so I've composed a couple of possibilities. My first idea is that Belos is unknowingly connected to the Nullifiers, partially to explain his incredible strength and extremely bizarre abilities compared to the already strange nature of the Isles, and that all his efforts have been unknowingly orchestrated by the Nullifiers to grant them a foothold in the Isles to destroy it and the rest of the Demon Realm, and then move on to Earth. My second idea is a new faction of Seekers, not so much evil as morally grey and with a mixed roster of good and bad, has stationed themselves on the Isles, and are conducting experiments on Titans there; the nature of the experiments is to find new ways of modifying Titans to possess new and interesting abilities for their goals, as well as the creation of genuinely artificial Titans entirely, dubbed Neo-Titans, which, if I got that far, would differ from the rest of their kind in having themes closer to Science Fiction and Alien-life than the mythological basis of their peers, being sleek and technological and possessing powerful abilities beyond the standard. Anyway, this is mostly me ranting, sorry, but if anyone is interested in this or wants to talk or has questions about it, let me, okay? Thank you.

#the owl house #huntik #owl house crossover #luz noceda #emperor belos #huntik: secrets and seekers #huntik: secrets and seekers crossover #huntik: secrets and seekers au #owl house au #alternate history #boiling isles alternate history

[meandmyechoes]

Anime round-up!

Since I’m back on holiday mode, I burnt through anime at an incredible speed. I finish one each day haha. I followed much less anime the October season than the last, only Mieruko-chan was on the menu and I picked up the Taisho romcom out of boredom. They are alright. 

They are pretty similar but I like Summer’s Kuromaid better. The characters and setting are more interesting with a fantasy element and slight mystery. The flirtations are funnier over there with necessary touching and reflective moments. The Taisho romcom did make use of the titular time period and like it advertised, gives a more ‘pure’ story. Things are very rose-tinted. It was a bit, traditional fairy tale, old-fashioned day drama even - but in a heartwarming enough kill-time way.

Mieruko on the other hand, hits the passing mark but I have to knock a few points off for the excess sexy fanservice. It wasn’t like that in the original manga. You expect maybe some suggestive shots of Hana like the horror girl trope, but it distracts and i wasn’t sure i could continue three episodes in. Luckily the plot starts to pick up as it simultaneously hits your tear spot witht the famed Granny tale and Miko’s father. The scary elements are quite good though, so is the comedy. The monsters are ugly, relying on Miko’s indecision instead of jumpscare. Yulia’s misconception of Miko’s power was particularly funny. It’s off to a slow start, and perhaps not very climatic ending curtesy of the little and ongoing source material. Luckily it did not go off-track like another manga-adptation last season, Shadow House. I look forward to the rest of the story but not sure I do in anime form. Looks likely it’d get a S2. Checked out the manga in under an afternoon.

A shoutout to Uramichi Oniisan. Dark comedy about adulthood and capitalism is my jam. So, the first thing I binged is Vampire Dies in No Time. It was almost a PPT but i lauged out loud so much. Kind of pointless kind of loud, but it was a nice four hours spent.

I really looked forward to the music x battle theme of takt. op destiny before its release. After I finished it, I don’t, I don’t really know what to say. It doesn’t really make use of music itself all that much despite its speeches about how crucial it is. Regardless for its effective atmosphere and emphasis on the appreciation of music, unlimited to classical, the pacing was the biggest problem. I thought it would be all epic battles but it was a road trip but then the world’s ending??? Well, I saw the pretty people on the poster and started watching, but I clicked on the second episode and was all ??? over my head and was like ‘so it’s maho shoujo + pokemon’ but the road trip wouldn’t end and i’m like ‘is this going to stay a character-based sitcom what a waste of worldbuilidng we saw little of’ and episode 11 hits me like a truck and i’m. not quite sure how the boss’s plan world but i guess his motiviation is okay-conveyed geh. The moment I learned it was a prequel to the mobile game its mess makes a lot more sense. But I am concerned about how good a job it does for promoting the game when it’s not really about the same characters. You could even say the emotional core from the anime is not going to get their happy ending. I’m kind of used to these goodbyes so I’m ok, I just feel like, the whole thing is a bit wasted potential. So say if it’s an original anime it’d be even more disappointing. The characters and designs are charming though, so if you come for Madhouse and MAPPA’s visuals, you definitely get your money’s worth. Still worth a watch I’d say, the first nine episodes are pretty good, but better spoil yourself first. That op is a banger though. The exact mix of sensory overload and soothing.

I am not a fan of isekai but since I watched Katarina in April I’m more open to it. Realist Hero fits my expectation that it presents a simplified but plausible manual for rebuilidng a medieaval magic kingdom’s economy. The worldbuilding is surprisingly solid with interspecies/international tension and real-life conflicts like natural disasters. It wasn’t heavy on the comedy like it does with building a harlem but stay focused on the drama of revolutionizing the goverment structure. I can pretend I learnt something. Will be following this season ‘cause I have nothing better to do haha. There’s one with similar permise where the prince is trying to increase the kingdom’s value so to sell it and retire at 25. That one is more sitcom and dumb luck so let’s see.

Started Komi-san Can’t Communicate today. Love it so far. Clever use of the manga panelling and on-screen text effects. The dialogues aren’t bare. Funny and a varied and distinct cast. Look forward to finishing it.

For this season, my money’s on Sono Bisuku Dōru wa Koi wo Suru. Yeah, I don’t know why i’m making myself watch romcoms three seasons in a row. But this show is as close to made for me with a protagonisht who loves to sew and make his own dolls and an anime lover. The first episode is really pretty and smooth. I’d binge it if it’s all release haha.

Another one I had a delight in is Kuroitsu-san from the Monster Development Dpeartment. Yeah! Tokusatsu Saikou! And they featured real local heroes I couldn’t be more proud. I had a great time with Heaven Design this season last year and I only expect it to be even more up my alley with specific tropes and similar realist comedy like Uramichi Oniisan or Hataraku Saibou Black. But even more niche haha.

#anime #myechoes

[crusherthedoctor]

Crusher Elaborations #1: Thoughts on the Aesthetic of Sonic’s World

If someone came up to me and asked “Which do you prefer, Classic Sonic or Modern Sonic?”, my answer would start off with “Well, technically Classic Sonic because...”, and then I'd get cut off by the other person immediately lecturing me on why I'm wrong and why I'm the worst kind of fan imaginable. Should they finish their rant, I would then explain to them in the midst of them basking in their flock of easy Twitter likes that I didn't necessarily mean it in the way they predicted.

If we were talking about the games, the characters, or the character design, I'd be fairly neutral, since I like both halves equally for the most part. In fact, when it comes to characters, Modern might actually have the edge believe it or not, since the sheer number of characters introduced from SA1 onwards naturally means a lot of my favourites were introduced from that point on, such as Tikal, Rouge, Gamma, Omega, Blaze... But then again, Classic introduced Eggman and Tails, and the Hard-Boiled Heavies are technically Classic as well despite being relatively new...

Anyway, the point is, I'm not talking about any of that today. I'm talking about the world that Sonic and his multicolored chums live in. Or rather, the aesthetic of it.

NOTE: This is purely about the game universe. While I do have my thoughts on Sonic’s world as presented in other continuities, that won’t be the focus here.

If you're familiar with my blog, you'll know that as a general rule of thumb, I much prefer colorful and creative worlds in my Sonic universe, and that rings true for my reasoning here. And I know what you're gonna say: “But Crusher, isn't there plenty of that in the Modern games as well?” Yes, there is, and I appreciate them very much. But this is why I feel the need to make a post of this sort to begin with, because I'm NOT saying “Classic cool, Modern boring” and calling it a day. There's a little more nuance to my tastes here.

When I say I prefer the Classic aesthetic for Sonic's world, I don't mean it in the literal sense of disregarding everything about the Modern aesthetic. Let's put it like this: when you're asked to paint a picture of these two sides of Sonic's universe in your head, a specific image will likely come to mind. When you think of Classic, you'll probably think of Green Hill first and foremost, whereas with Modern, you'll probably think of something like City Escape or Rooftop Run before anything else. In other words, when you think Modern Sonic, you're probably imagining the more realistic kind of locations first. And between the two mental images that come to mind, I personally prefer the Classic image. Shock, horror.

I wish I could swim in a sea that’s probably radioactive.

Now keep in mind, I'm not saying that City Escape, Rooftop Run, and all similar environments in the series look bad, because they don't. Unless they're painted with the '06 brush, they generally look fine, and the locations in Unleashed in particular are undeniably beautiful from an graphical standpoint. The problem is that although I can picture this as a world that Sonic could be in, I can't necessarily picture it as Sonic's world specifically. Because when it comes to the more realistic environments, I feel there's not much of an attempt to let it branch out as its own thing.

I know that might seem harsh, especially for Unleashed, since the real world angle was the deliberate theme of that game. And Sonic taking cues from real places is a fine concept, there's no issue there. I'm not gonna complain if there's a France Zone with an Eiffel Tower in the background. In fact, Sandopolis Act 1 has one of my favourite aesthetics in a Classic zone (mainly because the background is really pleasant to look at), and that zone is essentially Egypt Zone. But if you're making a Real World Zone, there needs to be more to it than that, otherwise you don't truly get a Sonic interpretation of our world... you instead have our world as it is with Sonic characters awkwardly stapled on.

When I look at City Escape, it may not be completely unfitting for Sonic (the posters and billboards in particular are actually a really nice touch), but when I look at it, I don't see Sonic's interpretation of San Francisco. I see San Francisco with Sonic shoved in. When they morph these places to Sonic's liking, they'll add rings, loops... and that's it. They rarely take the concept any further, which is a huge shame, particularly in the case of Rooftop Run, where I otherwise do like its visuals a lot, but it just doesn't go far enough with the concept for my liking.

At least you get to murder car owners, and give G.U.N. a legitimate reason to arrest you.

So which Modern games do I feel did the best job at making Sonic's world... er, Sonic's world? Well the truth is, most of them actually do a decent job in this area, regardless of the level design quality or the game’s quality period. SA2 has Pumpkin Hill, Eggman's Pyramid Base, and... SOME levels aboard the A.R.K (mainly the “outside” ones, like Final Rush). Shadow the Hedgehog, a game that reveled in how brown and gritty it was, still had highlights like Circus Park and Digital Circuit. Even '06 of all games had Aquatic Base, which was pretty cool from a conceptual standpoint. And although Unleashed as a whole might be a touch too vanilla in the creativity scale, it still had the glorious Eggmanland at the very end. But if I had to say which of the Modern installments did the best job overall...

- For starters, I'm gonna give a shoutout to SA1, because even though it was the first Modern game, and thus it was technically responsible for the more focused angle of realism in Sonic's world in the first place, it didn't take it quite as far as later games would, and although it may not be a perfect 1-to-1 representation of the world we saw in the Classic games, it does well enough with what it brings to the table that I can still accept it without any issue at all. Some of that has to do with the fact that you still have wilder areas like Windy Valley and Red Mountain to balance things out, but even with the other half, the game's use of colour is enough for it to go a long way, oddly enough. Take the At Dawn section of Speed Highway for instance:

From innocent times, when the radar wasn’t a piece of shit.

Technically, it's really not that different to the urban environments you see in SA2 or Unleashed. But something about the sleepy morning approach gives it a subtle, almost dream-like edge to it that I really dig, and despite it being pretty similar to the likes of City Escape, somehow I have an easier time buying into the idea of this place being part of the same world as zones like Sky Sanctuary.

And seeing how I already mentioned Red Mountain, let me compare it to Flame Core:

Yes, I know bringing '06 into this discussion at all is inherently and hilariously unfair, but let's put aside the game that Flame Core comes from for a moment. Aside from maybe the purple crystal caves indoors (and that's assuming you can even see where the fuck you're going in there), Flame Core is pretty boring to look at as far as Sonic levels go. Red Mountain is vastly more interesting, even though it's basically the exact same concept, and a lot of that has to do with - you guessed it - colour. Sure, it's day time, that's one thing, but you'll also notice that for a lava/mountain stage, it surprisingly has a few grassier sections, sort of like Hill Top in that regard. A little bit of green among the brown and red, and a great contrast to the volcanic nightmare you'll experience when you head inside.

Now this might seem like a fairly minor detail... and yeah, it is, but the thing that SA1 does so well is that it combines so many of those small details to make a complete, well-rounded package. This is why SA1 meshes well with the Classic style despite not being an exact replica, because just as the Classics excelled at, it wasn't afraid to use colour in interesting ways. It understood that a fire level could have more than just red and orange, in the same way that a grassy level could have more than just green and blue.

But of course, as I mentioned, SA1 is not an exception. There are other Modern games that did a great job on the whole...

- Heroes is an obvious answer, since it's translation of Genesis-style environments to 3D is probably one of the most recurring praises the game receives, and rightly so. Not much to say here, except that Hang Castle is still cool as hell.

And plenty of opportunity to admire the not-broken-in-half moon.

- Colours is another obvious one, though something of an ironic one given that the premise of the game involved going to other worlds, and those worlds were all converted against their will by Eggman. Yet, they did an equally superb job at creating fun, unique locales, and Aquarium Park in particular remains a favourite of mine.

Gotta love that red/blue contrast.

- The Riders series has a more futuristic bend compared to the rest of the series, but even when it's not all high-tech, it's got some pretty cool environments of its own, and I feel they even do well at mixing the real world side of things on top of that. Gigan Rocks comes to mind, as does Aquatic Capital.

Reminds me of when Perfect Chaos peacefully protested against Station Square.

- Regardless of my thoughts on the game itself, Secret Rings had some undeniable winners in this depertment. You tell me with a straight face that Night Palace doesn't look amazing.

A wonderful palace for a domestic abuser.

- And lastly, they might have had an early advantage since they're already 2D, but the Advance trilogy and Rush duology deserve a mention. They had some fantastic ideas for zones, like Planet Sonata Music Plant, and they did great with the colours as well. Hell, throughout these five games, the sky was practically every shade of the rainbow at one point or another.

Oh look, another completely whole moon.

Also, quick shoutout to another minor detail akin to the grassy sections of Red Mountain: these pink tunnel sections in Ice Mountain. No elaborate point to make here, just another perfect example of how much I adore these games' use of colour and contrast.

Seriously, I could go on for hours about good contrast.

Although I do bring up these small details for another reason, and in turn, another layer to my more nuanced take on Sonic aesthetics. By this point, we get the basic jist: Crusher likey when Sonic levels unique and pretty. But this can - and has - lead to a couple of misconceptions, so I'd like to address those and then laugh at them.

“So you want Sonic's world to be exactly like Mario?”

A common complaint that Lost World received was that it was too much like Mario, in more ways than one, and part of this was to do with the game's visual style. The zones may have been upbeat, but they often consisted of a bunch of things floating in the air and not much else, ala 2D Mario. While I didn't outright hate it, it’s definitely not what I have in mind for Sonic.

Of course, all complaints about being too much like Mario suddenly turn into praise when Eggette gets brought up...

And why is that? Because yes, I like my Sonic locations to be fun and lively... but I also want them to be firmly established within the context of this universe. The Lost World approach is fine with Special Stages and the sort, but outside of that... well, Studiopolis is a perfect example of what I'm talking about:

On one hand, it's very unique when compared to other cities in this franchise, and it's full of quirkiness, great use of colour, and all that good stuff I've went on about. But at the same time, it's grounded just enough so that it still feels like an actual city that the people of Sonic's world could feasibly live in, rather than a basic and empty video game level with a tacked on city background. Studiopolis may be a level from a video game, but you can totally believe it's a fully fleshed out place from its own perspective.

Naturally, this praise also rings true with the Modern games I listed earlier, and is yet another reason for why I approve of their settings.

“So you think Sonic can't have darker locations?”

It might be easy to take my compliments at face value, and assume that I'm immediately opposed to a zone that's not brightly colored. This is... very obviously false, as even the Classic games have their share of less-than-cheery areas, such as Scrap Brain and the Bad Futures in Sonic CD.

However, when you're making a grittier location in Sonic's world, regardless of the context, it still needs to be interesting. The problem with a lot of them in Modern installments is that they're boring. Crisis City is a generic city on fire. Westopolis is a generic city with aliens firing lasers from above. The prison levels in SA2 - and the indoor ARK levels not named Cannon's Core - are just grey hallways for the most part. That shit isn't exciting, and it doesn't get my mind speculating. It just makes me want to move on.

Let the eggsperts take care of this.

By contrast, Eggmanland is a prime example of how to do it right. Eggmanland is a magnificent theme park as envisioned by the good doctor, but it's also, at its core, a giant metal hellscape fueled by the energy of a dark entity, and it only gets more ominous the further you go through it or try to before you give up because it’s too fucking long and you died at the end. So it sets the mood to be sure, but it's still visually compelling to look at, and interesting to think about.

And since Eggman is apparently the only one who can show us how it's done, here's a shoutout to Titanic Monarch as well:

Like Heavy King, but Heavier and Kingier.

When comparing the final zones in Sonic games, I especially love this zone's visual approach, because it manages to be dark and colorful at the same time, and in a strangly organic way. It's got a spooky atmosphere, with a moody moonlight backdrop to match, and the titular robot is foreboding as hell as you climb up it and traverse through it... all the while having red floors, green and yellow wires, blue and pink buildings, and stained glass windows of Eggman and the Heavies for you to marvel at. So even putting aside the unique scenario of climbing up and then through a Kaiju-sized mech, the mood of the zone alone manages to be extremely memorable.

So what have we learned from all this? Aside from the fact that I’m way too interested in this subject? We now know that when I say I prefer the Classic “style” over Modern when it comes to the way that Sonic's world is presented:

- I don't mean that literally.

- There are certain qualities that although both of them possess, they tend to be more immediately associated with Classic in the collective consciousness, even within the fandom.

- The environments that I love the most in Modern games are often the ones that would also fit perfectly in the Classic style.

So whenever I express the basic nature of this opinion in the future... just imagine a small asterisk at the end of my sentence.

#Crusher Elaborations #Opinion #Sonic the Hedgehog

[shihalyfie]

Shihanne’s Kizuna FAQ

Since Kizuna is finally becoming gradually more accessible to English-speakers online, I’ve decided to put together a quick FAQ for those who are not sure about watching the movie or are (understandably) apprehensive about anything about it, especially due to recent events in the franchise and occasional fanbase misinformation. This is not meant to convince anyone towards or against watching the movie as much as it’s just meant to clarify some questions for anyone who might be unsure about watching it, such as how relevant it is to tri. or how canon-compliant it is, etc.

This is meant to be as spoiler-free as possible, although due to the nature of the movie’s contents, I will ultimately have to make minor hints or references to minor plot details. I’ve done my best to keep it to a minimum, but the references to what happens in the story increase progressively as we go further into the post, so feel free to stop reading as soon as you like.

Is Kizuna a sequel to tri.? Are they related?

They are not related. Other than Kizuna being set five years after 2005, there is no relation, not on a story or creative level at all -- the themes, writing style, everything is different. Even the staff is different -- of the tri. staff, the only ones carried over are the voice cast, Producer Kinoshita Yousuke (who was only on Parts 5 and 6, at that, and had no involvement in tri.’s story at all), and some music staff members (AiM, Miyazaki Ayumi) that were also on the original series. Everyone else is either from the original series (original series producer Seki Hiromi, writer Yamatoya Akatsuki) or new staff that self-identifies as Digimon fans.

Notably, Producer Seki was pretty unsubtle about finding certain things about tri. to be unsatisfying, to the point that she openly admitted that certain things in Kizuna were made in direct response to it, so that probably lends a lot to why the creative process behind Kizuna was so diametrically opposite.

What do you need to have seen so far to understand the movie? Do you need to have seen tri.?

You do not have to have seen tri.; it’s effectively irrelevant to Kizuna whatsoever in both theme and story.

I generally recommend having seen Adventure, 02, and their four movies (Digimon Adventure, Our War Game!, Hurricane Touchdown, and Diablomon Strikes Back). Even then, if you’re missing some stuff, the story doesn’t rely on their events so much that it’ll confuse you if you haven’t seen it, and in fact it’s mostly its own story; it’s just that the emotional resonance hits best when you’ve seen what’s happened in the prior works, and its core themes have a lot to do with what was established in Adventure, 02, and its worldbuilding.

Surprisingly, despite being Adventure-centric, I’d say it actually has deeper relevance to the events and themes of 02 than it does Adventure, although that’s just my personal impression. (That’s still “deeper“, in the comparative sense; it most certainly has strong ties to both, and part of it being more 02-relevant is also simply due to the logical nature of it being set in this point in timeline, where 02 is a closer temporal reference point and also has an epilogue that this movie is building up to.)

Are the characterizations consistent with Adventure and 02?

Yes! Very much so! There are a few differences, but they’re all things you can chalk up to how someone would naturally get older and more mature, and even if you personally don’t care for certain developments, they’re still logical extensions of what they might be like as per their character arcs. For the record, making sure the characters felt like themselves seems to have been a pretty big priority for the staff:

Before the preliminary meeting for the script, [Producer Seki] told us, “I haven’t finished reading it, so I’ll be there later,” and then she arrived sometime after the meeting had already started, and said things like, “no, Taichi feels wrong here. He wouldn’t say something like this.”

Producer Seki was personally involved in the creation of all twelve kids and their partners, so it’s safe to say she is probably one of the people you can reliably trust most to understand them. (During the production of the original series, she was also well-known for being the one who pushed for portrayal of their personal home lives and family backgrounds.)

The 02 quartet (Daisuke, Ken, Miyako, and Iori) is portrayed in line with their Japanese version characterizations, so if you watched 02 with the American English dub (which at times took some pretty massive liberties with some of them), there may be some differences.

How much of the cast gets to play a major role in it?

I’ll be frank about the fact that this is mainly a Taichi and Yamato movie (to be fair, it’s not like they hid this fact in advertising). That said, a surprising amount of attention is given to the 02 quartet, and there’s a bit of attention on Koushirou, but the protagonists are most certainly Taichi and Yamato. Mind you, this is in terms of story, not, say, making everyone randomly weak in battle for no good reason; Taichi and Yamato are the “protagonists” of this movie (similar to Our War Game!).

Sora also gets a bit of focus in the short side story “To Sora”, and there’s also a planned upcoming one with Jou (public release details are still unclear, but most certainly expected by the Memorial Story project in December). The accompanying drama CD that came with the deluxe version of the Blu-ray is also centered around the 02 main cast.

What’s with the whole thing about a novel?

There were two official novelizations of the movie, the Dash X Bunko version and the Shueisha Mirai Bunko version. I recommend them as reading for anyone who’s watched the movie; the Dash X has some extra scenes that weren’t in the movie and clarifies a few things, while the Shueisha Mirai clarifies some of the core themes and background points that were a little more obscure in the movie itself.

However, since the movie is first and foremost a visual medium, I do not think that either serve as effective replacements for the movie itself, nor, conversely, that the movie itself is particularly incomplete without them, but rather that, since there are a lot of intricate nuances behind the themes of the movie, they may benefit from some extra clarification. The novels by themselves omit a lot of visual details that enhance the presentation of the movie and make its intended themes much clearer, and since this is a movie that relies more on emotional resonance and feelings moreso than it does events on paper, I don’t think the novels alone constitute an accurate reflection of it.

What was that whole thing about the movie not being compliant with Kakudou lore? Is the 02 epilogue still canon?

The issue most likely has to do with the movie’s premise about partners disappearing when you become an adult. Director Kakudou (original director of Adventure and 02) clarified himself that the “lore inconsistency” had to do with underlying lore that wasn’t depicted directly in the TV series, so it’s not something major like the epilogue (which definitely was depicted on-screen).

His relevant posting is to do with the theory of Digimon being manifested as part of the soul, so my personal guess is that he wasn’t quite on board with the slightly different take the movie had on such a detailed and absolute matter. (He did, however, gracefully invite people to enjoy the movie regardless, so take that as you will.)

Another thing that he mentioned in his detailed posting is that he felt that it would be impossible to reconcile the lore for the TV series and the occasionally contradictory lore from movies 2-4 (Our War Game! through DSB), to the point the original plan for the third Adventure series was shelved partially due to that. Without saying too much, Kizuna does (latently, but nevertheless) involve references to the movies in question, so that probably also contributed to the issue.

For the most part, though, the movie itself doesn’t actually violate that much of the underlying lore for Adventure and 02; it’s compliant with even the background details of his concept (the Chosen Children number tallying over 30,000 by the time of 2010 is consistent with the doubling-every-year principle), and, without spoiling too much, there’s multiple indications in the movie of that whole thing about “partners disappearing when you become an adult” actually being more of a deceptive premise than press made it seem.

As for the epilogue...official press and staff have practically whacked you over the head with a statement that the 02 epilogue still holds and that this movie leads up to it. (Need proof? Here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and about half a million other places in press and press releases; warning that these links are spoilery.) The last one has a pretty clear statement, too:

This is not a movie meant to change the world’s timeline, but rather made to be a connecting story that happened within those 25 years, and we consider it to be a story that expands the world of Digimon.

Producer Seki herself was infamously the one who put her foot down when people asked her about epilogue-related questions in V-Jump, so we’re talking about staff with a history of having no intention of going against the epilogue. This is also consistent with the fact the movie itself constantly drops epilogue and latter-half 02 references (the increasing number of Chosen Children, the kids’ career paths being clear lead-ups to the events of the epilogue).

For all it’s worth, it’s important to remember that the concept of the epilogue ever potentially being retconned has always been purely fanbase invention (and especially Western fanbase, at that). At no point has official staff ever made an indication that they had any intent to go against it (even the tri. staff, of all people, made a huge point of claiming they would still be going with it). Kizuna is not a movie that really holds your hand nor caters to what the fanbase wants, so the best way to enjoy and understand it is going in with the understanding that the epilogue applies by default, rather than considering it to have been written with any possibility of it not applying.

In addition, the actual core theme of the movie itself is very dependent on the assumption that the epilogue holds in mind (which really should be the case, considering that the epilogue was literally right there on screen, no matter how controversial it may have been), and having that assumption allows for a much better understanding of said themes.

Are Takeru and Hikari still involved with the 02 kids?

The events of the movie engineer a situation where the other four end up working as a quartet, but not in a sense where they’ve split or become distant from Takeru and Hikari (rather the contrary, in fact). The circumstances alone go a lot towards explaining why they’re working separately at the time (much like Diablomon Strikes Back), and the drama CD included with the special edition of the Blu-ray confirms that the situation in the movie is purely due to its individual circumstances, and in all other scenarios, they’re still regularly in contact and very close with each other. It’s not played in a way that feels contrary to their known relationship, and, without going into too much detail, there are certain depictions within the movie that reflect them as being part of a “younger group set” with the other four.

Beyond that, a large amount of promotional material classifies Takeru and Hikari as being with the 02 group instead of the Adventure one (for instance, this piece of Ani On Station art).

Is there romance or clear romance baiting in the movie?

No. The movie also happens to be extremely fast-paced (it tries to get a lot of major content out of the way in only 95 minutes, and does not let up even once), so it’s executed in a way in which it’s completely understandable that the topic or depiction would not even be brought up front-and-center, and it comes off as pretty natural in that respect. Quite simply, it feels that even if any of the characters are romantically involved or dating, they’re more than capable of putting the issue aside for the 95 minutes of bigger priorities this movie spans.

For those who are interested in this topic in terms of epilogue compliance (i.e. the two canon confirmed married couples Yamato/Sora and Ken/Miyako), the depictions of the respective characters’ relationships are done in a tasteful way such that, even in the lack of clear depictions of romance, there is minor evidence that the epilogue outcome was on the staff’s minds when writing them, and there’s no awkwardness about it. Or, in other words, where they are now seems completely feasible and natural based on what we know about where they were as of 02 and where we know they’ll end up; there isn’t anything in-your-face about it, but some things might stick out to the particularly perceptive person looking out for it.

Is tri. canon to Kizuna?

Hoo boy, that sure is a question. The answer is...yes and no.

There is a veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery brief, borderline blink-and-you’ll-miss-it clear reference to tri.’s central character Mochizuki Meiko and her partner, Meicoomon. (It has no real relevance to the story whatsoever.) There are things you may consider references, like Yamato being into motorbikes or Koushirou being in company business, but that’s if you really squint. Otherwise, there are no other conclusive references to any of the events from the tri. anime series. In addition, Kizuna very much prioritizes compliance with Adventure and 02, and, when faced with a plot, lore, or characterization point where it has to decide between Adventure/02 compliance or tri. compliance, it absolutely prioritizes the former, even if that means posing a direct contradiction to tri. (a good example being its portrayal of Digimon and Digimon partnerships as something that’s been a naturally increasing part of life since 1995, in stark contrast to tri. having Digimon be seen as unidentified mysterious entities all the way in 2005).

I wouldn’t say Kizuna retcons tri., but it seems to handle it in a way similar to what I call “M03 status” (M03 being previously Adventure/02′s most infamously difficult-to-rationalize entity in canon, especially when it has its own sequel in the form of The Door to Summer) -- it doesn’t go out of its way to reject anything as much as it encourages you to not think too hard about it, and prioritizes compliance with the original series when push comes to shove. Since there’s nothing really contradictory about the idea that “a girl named Mochizuki Meiko with a partner Meicoomon exists” (just like how there’s nothing contradictory about the idea that “a boy named Wallace exists and Daisuke and his friends met him in the US once”), I would say that if you do want to think about it too hard, it’s possible for some of the events of tri. to have happened, but not in the exact way they were presented in the actual real-life anime series.

Although it may seem like a cop-out to some, personally, I feel that the contradictions (especially the lore and timeline-related ones) between Adventure/02 and tri. are so huge in number and significant that it would be impossible for a 95-minute movie to maintain its integrity as a creative work while trying to resolve that laundry list of issues, and overall the movie does give off the impression of being “fun and emotional” more than anything, so it does feel like about the most practical decision they could have feasibly made.

Is it a perfect movie?

No!

Like with any work, there are things you might criticize, or that your personal taste might not match up well with. I mentioned earlier that the movie itself actually is closer in thematic line with 02 than it is Adventure, so people hoping for Adventure reference overdose or Digital World specific lore might be a bit disappointed in this respect (it focuses a bit more on the human growth and drama angle than the Digimon lore and coolness angle, although that’s not to say it completely neglects it whatsoever). There are some writing nitpicks I would say were endemic to the original series as well (some very vital thematic elements are a bit too subtle for their own good, to the point the novels and staff interviews feel a bit more necessary than they should be), and if your favorite character didn’t get a lot of spotlight in this movie, that might be a bit disappointing.

But don’t get me wrong: I don’t say any of this to harp on the movie, but mainly because I think it’s unfair to have unrealistic expectations of it. This is a single movie that’s meant to be fun and enjoyable more than anything else, and to make you think about the themes it has to say. I would not think of it as a full series nor something meant to fulfill the role of a full series, but rather a single movie -- much like Our War Game!, which is a fun and enjoyable movie but by no means a comprehensive series-scale entity -- that’s meant to entertain you and give you lots of emotions and make you think about things in the span of 95 minutes.

If anything, it is a movie definitely made with a lot of heart and passion by its staff, who clearly put a lot of love and effort and respect for the original Adventure/02 (yes, both) into it and wanted to say something emotionally moving. For all intents and purposes, both Adventure and 02 were the same way -- not necessarily free of writing problems, but full of a ton of love, passion, and soul -- and so I think it is a movie very true to the original series in this way.

#digimon #digimon adventure last evolution kizuna #shihameta

[abigailnussbaum]

The Boys 5x06, “The Bloody Doors Off”

I’m generally quite positive about this episode, but before I get to that, this really needs to be said: the trope of “doors open at the asylum, murder and mayhem ensue” is really poisonous to the mentally ill, and should have been discarded a long time ago. It’s particularly common in superhero stories, which are, after all, very fond of the setting of a superhero asylum. Off the top of my head, both The Gifted and Batwoman have employed it in the last two years. Which means that even as it’s patting itself on the back for skewering the tropes of superhero stories, The Boys is indulging in a particularly vile one. And while we’re on the subject of things this episode should have been above: that joke about transgender strippers. It’s not as bad as it could have been, because the gag isn’t “she’s got a penis!” (and MM’s response is immediately “I don’t care for strippers regardless of their genitalia”). But it’s still fetishizing the trans body - which, I suppose, is hardly surprising given the show’s generally judgmental attitude towards kink.

That being said, this is probably the best episode of the season, largely because it plays to the show’s strengths: tight thematic and plot coherence (finally justifying the decision to move the show to a weekly format after weeks of shapeless installments), strong characterization, and a willingness to complicate seemingly black and white situations that belies the show’s reputation as an outrage machine. So yes, this is an episode that features Homelander crushing a man’s skull while in the throes of passion (apparently we need to have at least one of those per season), not to mention a man with a giant, prehensile penis. But it’s also an episode that deepens our understanding of Frenchie, introduces us to a new character who is almost instantly compelling (while also complicating that reaction significantly), and forces us to reexamine our feelings towards Maeve without telling us anything new about her.

The common theme running through the episode is the things you’ll do for the people you love, how you live with the consequences of those choices, and what they make of you. We finally get to meet Lamplighter, the boogeyman whose murder of Mallory’s grandchildren broke the Boys apart years ago and has hung over Frenchie in particular. And we find out why that is - Frenchie was supposed to be keeping an eye on Lamplighter, whom Mallory had just recruited to her investigation of Homelander, and left his post to tend to a friend who was ODing.

Shawn Ashmore is inspired casting for Lamplighter. He’s got the sort of look that can just as easily convey sympathetic concern as selfish entitlement, and slide between the two with ease. Which makes Lamplighter both less hatable than we might have expected, given what we know of him, but also hard to trust. (To be fair, I’m reading a lot of Johnny Jaqobis into the performance, and that was Aaron, not Shawn; but honestly, those two are surprisingly similar for how solid both of their careers have turned out.) But the episode really belongs to Frenchie, who not only takes on Lamplighter’s admission that he didn’t know Mallory’s grandchildren were in the room he set on fire, but finds enough common ground with the man to confess his own part in that night’s disaster. When Lamplighter asks “did [your friend] live?”, it’s a moment of human connection that we don’t often see between the Boys and their quarry (and leads to Frenchie’s heartbreaking revelation that Jay lived, only to die of another overdose shortly after). The episode ends with Frenchie begging for Lamplighter’s life from Mallory (and also trying to make peace with Kimiko, who is otherwise sorely underused).

At the same time, the episode doesn’t encourage us to feel uncomplicated sympathy towards Lamplighter. As MM points out “I meant to murder an innocent woman, not her grandchildren” is hardly a defense. And even more disturbing is Lamplighter’s repeated refrain to Frenchie, “why didn’t you stop me?” Whereas Frenchie doesn’t want to be let off the hook even though he had a good reason for abandoning his assignment, Lamplighter is looking for someone else to blame for his own actions, even to the perverse extreme of blaming an opponent for not fighting back. And, as we see in the present, he’s still killing innocents, burning experiment subjects who don’t pan out or refuse to play along, while claiming that he’s being forced.

Which ties into Maeve, who for the first time is called to account for her part in the plane crash last season. Maeve sees the video of the crash as indicting Homelander, which is also how we’ve been trained to think about it. But when Elena watches it, she sees a woman she’s been taught to think of as heroic abandoning others to save her own life, begging fruitlessly for mercy but finally just saving her own skin. Like Lamplighter - and more importantly, like Annie earlier in this season, when she was about to kill Hughie at Homelander’s command - Maeve might reasonably say that she didn’t have a choice. But she still did those things, and hid them. Her final line to Elena - “why are you looking at me that way?” - sums up the episode’s core message.

It’s a message that is also echoed in the Annie-Billy-Hughie storyline, though it’s a bit more wobbly in that context. The idea of having Annie and Billy bond over their shared love of Hughie is a solid storytelling beat, but I’m not quite sure what to make of Annie’s “he’s too good for either of us”. Annie kills the driver to save Hughie, and the show doesn’t let her off the hook for that (her long look at the baby seat in the car once she gets in). But it’s still a choice she made in order to save someone. Hughie killed Translucent for no reason at all - or really, because he wanted to feel strong and powerful after weeks of stewing in grief and rage over Robin’s death (and Annie, though she knows the Boys were responsible for Translucent’s death, still doesn’t know that Hughie is the one who pushed the button). I’m not sure he’s too good for anyone. 

(Meanwhile, the fact that Annie was on the verge of killing Hughie to save her own life just a few episode ago seems to have been memory-holed, even though it would have been a really obvious thing for Billy to throw in her face during their fight early in the episode.)

The other big thing that happens in this episode is that we find out Stormfront’s background, and between what she says to Homelander and what Lamplighter reveals to the Boys, it seems clear that her plan is to create a superpowered neo-Nazi army and use it to take over the world. It’s good to finally have some answers (and I admit that this is a more interesting turn of plot than the one I anticipated last week, a false flag terrorist attack). But I also feel that the show is in danger of outthinking itself. Having Vought be a company with roots in Nazi Germany was a clever touch earlier this season, but making Stormfront a German Nazi herself - and making the entire genesis of superheroes a Nazi project - undercuts a lot of what the show has been saying about American racism and how much its superheroes are rooted in it. Suddenly we’re back to that familiar trope, invasion by an army of foreign and foreign-inspired Nazis. It’s not unlike the way that Winter Soldier whiffed its central revelation, choosing to focus on a fifth column of hidden traitors instead of admitting the more terrifying truth, that after seventy years there’s really no way to disentangle “good” SHIELD from “evil” Hydra, because the former has been hopelessly corrupted by the latter.

When I wrote about last week’s episode, I praised it for skewering rainbow capitalism in its depiction of Vought’s plans to “sell” Maeve’s queerness and her relationship with Elena. Since then, several people have pointed out that The Boys was speeding well ahead of the actual industry it’s lampooning - in a blockbuster market dominated by superhero movies, there are currently no queer superhero characters (though there are several on TV). Which means that the show’s satire can end up missing its mark - instead of pointing out how capitalism squeezes everything good into an easily-digested, marketable form, one can easily read this subplot as saying that a gay superhero would be bad, full stop. 

I think a similar dynamic is at play when it comes to Stormfront’s secret plot. An army of superpowered neo-Nazis is scary, but is it really scarier than the President of the United States not only refusing to condemn white supremacists on stage at a national debate, but addressing them directly in terms that can only be taken as an instruction to riot if he loses the election? Is it scarier than videos of police that repeatedly show their sympathy towards white supremacist, to the point of standing by when one of them fires into a crowd of people? It doesn’t take superpowers for fascism to take hold - it didn’t in Nazi Germany, and it doesn’t today. By pretending otherwise, The Boys is neutering its social commentary exactly where it should be most trenchant.

#the boys

[ty-talks-comics]

The Boys Season 1 Review and Comparison

This was so cathartic.

In an age where we’re inundated with superhero media on all fronts with their bright colors, cheery jokes and positive outlooks, it’s easy to slowly become sick of it, feel the “superhero fatigue” as it were. Where Marvel ruins some stories with far too many jokes (looking at you Thor: Ragnarok) and DC is far too dreary and serious for its own good with a lack of levity, where can one turn to for a GOOD happy medium?

Well, in comes Seth Rogan and Evan Gold, the brilliant minds behind the amazing adaptation of Preacher with yet another brutal and slightly more cynical series. The Boys absolutely stuns not only by being a genuinely compelling series, but also by being one of the few adaptations that improves on the original medium in a few aspects.

Story

The story centers around Hughie Campbell and the titular Boys as they work to expose the horrific deeds of The Seven, a collective of the world's greatest superheroes, and the company that sponsors them, Vought American.

In this world, superheroes are everywhere. They're on breakfast cereals, TV shows, movies, pretty much every piece of media and entertainment imaginable while also protecting America from crime. Sounds familiar, huh? The kicker here is that, much like every asshole celebrity that lets the fame and fortune go to their heads, these heroes are massive cunts. They take performance enhancing drugs, routinely cause accidents that hurt or kill people, sexually harass people left and right and just lie to their adoring public like they’re children.

Unlike the books, however, The Boys team isn’t the well oiled machine that’s been taking down and blackmailing superheroes for years and the first four episodes are spent introducing the different team members.This is likely due to wanting to give people time to care about them individually and the limited number of episodes in the season. This definitely works in also retooling the characters themselves for TV since they may not have seventy-two issues of character development ahead of them

For the most part, the show follows the initial story beats of the comics with a few select differences before splintering off in an entirely new direction. Hughie’s girlfriend still gets blown apart by A-Train, he denies Vought America’s hush money which draws the attention of Billy Butcher and Starlight joins the Seven after the “death” of the hero Lamplighter. 

This also means that there's less time to focus on smaller plotlines and teams that are referenced to in passing dialogue like the Teenage Kix, a pastiche on the Teen Titans, or Payback, the number two group of superheroes to The Seven. While seeing the team take these guys down on the small screen would have been fun, I like the idea of keeping the plot focused on just the core group of antagonists. This way, we don’t have to slog through three or four seasons of small fry and get the big bads in the last few.

After the first half, fans of the comic may start to feel a little bit of the familiar, but then things start to take a drastic turn when Billy's pride and the rest of the teams sloppiness gets them all burned and branded wanted criminals. This never happens in the books because The Boys are funded and protected by the CIA, but here they’re just another group of concerned citizens that are completely in over their heads, adding to the tension and keeping everyone guessing as to what will happen for the rest of the season and in Season 2.

Themes

The original series was written during the latter years of the Bush Administration. Tensions were high and America was still embroiled in the Iraq War. The president was a simpering fool and companies were fucking people over left and right in the name of patriotism. Reality TV and the awful personalities on our screens were on nearly every channel and all of this only fueled the anger that is Garth Ennis’ pen and Darick Robertson’s pencils. It was a product of its time and it was perfect.

We’re now in the Information Age where superheroes and social media are the only things that matter in everyone’s mind, where women’s empowerment is stronger than ever and our leaders speak bombastically with shit eating grins full of lies. Rogen and Goldberg have kept the series modern and take everything to task.

Media. Marvel and DC are everywhere nowadays with some indie companies managing to scrape up their own part of the pie. The Boys makes fun of the seemingly endless cycle of sequels and the goody-two-shoes images of America’s favorite heroes. Everything is carefully managed and curated by a media team, similar to how Disney micromanages even the smallest details of their properties to make everything so sickeningly squeaky clean. 

Not only do the heroes stop crime, but they star in their own movies about themselves as well, some have sponsorships for shoes and have to compete with each other for everything. Almost everything is done for the cameras, even intimate moments whenever Vought can find a way to make it work. The heroes are never too far from the spotlight even when they want to be and oftentimes their acts can go viral without them knowing.

Sexual Assault. In the comics, Starlight is sexually assaulted by Homelander, Black Noir and A-Train in a gross scene to establish that there’s nothing good in that world. It was good for its time in its own dark way, but today there are absolutely consequences to such things as there should have been back then. In the show, Starlight is assaulted by The Deep, her childhood crush, alone. 

It’s dark and makes use of the imbalance of power as The Deep threatens to have her kicked off of the team. Soon after, Starlight comes forward with what happens to her, not allowing herself to let what happened stand and unlike in the books, The Deep gets his comeuppance. Though this also unfortunately leading to him getting assaulted as well. It’s powerful and allows for Starlight to move what could have been an image of weakness, though Vought uses this to their advantage as well, painting her a feminist icon. Best for business right?

Politics. While not everything has to be an allegory for Trump, it’s hard to say that Homelander isn’t just that. He’s what the president thinks he is, a strong, blonde haired man that the entire country loves. Homelander has the people eating out of the palm of his hands and he’s only feeding them shit. He hates the common man and will just as easily let many die if it can somehow serve his interests. He’s not above a little sexual harassment himself and he is just an evil bastard.

There’s also a subplot of military application of superheroes that I feel mirrors the discussion on the use of drones in war. Drones are absolutely deadly and have caused the deaths of hundreds, even innocents when things have gone really wrong. Even President Obama was criticized for how reckless and dangerous their use could be. The world could only imagine the hell that would rain down if superheroes were allowed to duke it out over national security.

Characters

The Boys as a comic series was an unrepentantly cynical take on the superhero genre in an established universe of heroes. The creator, Garth Ennis, didn’t grow up with many superheroes and actually felt disrespected by a few of them, like Captain America. He brought on the amazing Darick Robertson and other artists to realize this horrid world of drugs, hardcore sex and brutal violence. Many of the stories are fun and hilarious, but with the unfortunate feeling of a lot of them feeling one note due to the one dimensional nature of a lot of the “heroes” and the ever escalating level of black humor to the point of being cartoonish.

Our main character cast is absolutely fantastic. Jack Quiad’s Hughie is much like his comic counterpart, aside from being like six feet tall and not Scottish. He’s surprisingly smart with a lot of awkwardness about him. He has a good heart and doesn’t see ALL superheroes as being evil, but does have a slight sense of justice that wants to see The Seven and Vought taken down. 

Karl Urban’s Butcher was the absolute perfect casting choice. He’s got that wry British wit, the fury to capture Butcher’s rage against supes and can play a manipulator like nobody's business. His character arc is one of the few regressions that I can actually appreciate for how it's done, especially as things become more fucked because of him and how he chooses to blame everyone else.

Everyone else is a slight bit of an improvement over the comics versions. The Frenchman, played by Tomer Capon, is similar to his comics counterpart, but we’re given reason to care about him and The Female. In the comics, Frenchie and the Female knew each other prior, but I don’t think it’s ever revealed how they met or became close. In the show Frenchie frees The Female, played by Karen Fukuhara, from thugs that had been keeping her prisoner and he slowly gains her trust over the course of the next few episodes after her introduction. We see their friendship grow, learn a little bit of her backstory and get a better understanding of what she wants versus just following Frenchie around and being terrifyingly adorable.

Annie January aka Starlight, played by Erin Moriarty, is probably the second best change in character in the series. She starts out as a bright eyed, bushy tailed hero looking to do good, but after being sexually assaulted on her first day in The Seven, decides that it will never happen again. In the comics, Annie stays around in The Seven and takes the abuse for a little while before speaking out and fighting back against the rest of them. What makes things even better, not only does she challenge her uber Christian beliefs during an event sponsored by Vought, but she does so while also getting Vought to force her abuser into giving a public apology at the mere thought of her causing their stock prices to crash.

Consequently, Mother’s Milk, portrayed by Laz Alonso, one of the most layered characters in the comics isn’t made better, but the more ridiculous aspects of is character have been toned down. We don’t hear of his disabled mother and his addiction to her breast milk that fuels his own superpowers, nor is his wife a crack addict that makes pornos with their daughter. He’s simply a reliable member of the team that loves his wife and will give Butcher the truth when he’s acting like an asshole.

The series actually brings a lot of grey to most of these characters. A-Train never once shows remorse for his actions in the books, but in the show he's painted as kind of sympathetic, while still being seen as a monster for what he does and the reasons behind them. The Deep could go either way after his actions with a redemption arc or a full turn to villain, but is shown to be knowingly aware of how little regard there is for him. He calls himself a "diversity hire" and acknowledges his own ineptitude, but he's still an absolutely terrible person.

Queen Maeve may be one of my favorite changes that manages to be even more sympathetic than her already pretty great comic counterpart. She, much like Starlight, did want to change the world, but she let the apathy and jaded nature of the job take her over. She's an alcoholic that sees a bit of herself in Starlight. The change comes in how she reacts to what I think might be Homelander's most heinous act in the show. She shows far more remorse and guilt over what happens than she does in the comic, showing us a side of her makes you want to root for her and to see her get better.

The best character… dear Lord, is Homelander, played by Anthony Starr. Homelander is a bastard. The worst thing imaginable because of his sheer strength and power. He’s a sociopath with all of the powers of Superman and none of the goodness. In the comics he’s simply just another asshole. 

He’s the most powerful of the Seven and absolutely revels in the hedonistic lifestyle that he’s accustomed to while also hating being under the rule of Vought. In the show, he’s shown as being supportive to Vought, especially it’s current Senior VP of Hero Management, Madelyn Stillwell. He has something of a mommy fetish as shown with his interactions with her and later in the series actually expresses emotions over learning of his own tragedies, but instead of trying to change for the better, he doubles down on his hatred and anger to become an even bigger monster than before. 

In the comic he just wants all of the superheroes to conquer the world, but here, he just wants to hurt everyone who hurts him. He plays games like a child, threatening and revealing secrets to toy with people before absolutely breaking them. He's horrible in a very personal way and his sneering smile only makes him so much more hateable. He knows there isn't a damn thing you can do to stop him and he revels in that fact, I love it.

Pacing and Direction

Coming in at an hour for each episode, the first two to three can feel a bit slow. Getting all of the story elements to sit just right can take time, especially as new things are introduced every few minutes. This slow burn approach easily helps to build the tension before things get really crazy by episode four. By that point, the story is unfolding at a perfect rhythm, the team is mostly together, they’ve made their plans of action and it’s all so smooth.

Thankfully each episode is directed by different people to avoid each feeling so similar. The common humor and tone is kept the same, but some episodes are very hopeful almost before being met with one that absolutely makes you hate certain characters and the actions that they take. In particular, the episode where Hughie and Butcher visit a group therapy session and Butcher flies off into a rage about the weakness of the attendees as they basically lick the balls of the heroes that have maimed them was amazing. The director pulls so much emotion out of that scene and continues on as the episode moves along in a far more dramatic fashion than some of the others.

Some others lean heavier on the debauchery such as the episode where Hughie and Butcher venture into a superhero sex club and watch as these guys do some pretty amazing feats with their abilities in some really gross ways. There’s a good balance of levity and drama that makes neither feel too overwhelming.

Overall

With a great cast, impeccable acting and an unpredictability that I actually enjoyed, The Boys absolutely blew me away. I was wholly prepared to rip it apart if I felt like it didn’t do the story justice, but Rogen and Goldberg are fans and knew what we all wanted. It’s unabashedly a comic book show, but still has enough to it that people who have never heard of the series will be floored by how much they can find to enjoy.

It’s for the nihilistic and jaded comic book fan. It’s for the casual watcher who’s gotten enough of Marvel’s colorful displays of happiness and it’s absolutely for the happy person who just wants to have some fun with what they watch. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this season of The Boys. So much so that I’m aching with anticipation to re-read the comic series in preparation for Season Two. It’s unlikely that it’ll follow the plot much, if at all after the ending, but with Stormfront (as a woman) being announced as the new Hero joining the Seven in the next season, I’m excited as to who else they might pull. This first season absolutely earns a high recommendation from me.

#comics #dynamite comics #the boys #billy butcher #karl urban #hughie campbell #jack quaid #tomer capon #the frenchman #karen fukuhara #the female #laz alonso #mother's milk #anthony starr #homelander #queen maeve #dominique mcelligott #a train #jessie t usher #starlight #erin moriarty #eric kripke #seth rogen #evan goldberg #amazon prime

[irandrura]

Third and final post: what were my other thoughts?

 Let’s talk about the game’s mechanics first.

I am overall very pleased with the battle gameplay. On the battlefield itself the gameplay is more-or-less unchanged from the past, but the character advancement and customisation system is significantly improved. Moving to a single overall character level and giving every character the ability to change classes at will is a much more fluid and elegant system than in the past, and the ability to choose the specific combat arts and abilities each character takes looks like it adds a lot of depth. It’s probably appropriate for the overall ‘teacher’ theme of the game that you have much more power to mould each character’s skills and talents, but I’d like to see it in other games as well. There’s an important balance to strike: on the one hand, characters should not be infinitely malleable, and should all have their personal strengths and weaknesses. On the other, so much of the fun of the game is in developing characters and watching them grow that it’s really good to be able to specialise them.

Speaking of battle gameplay, divine pulse is great. The Fire Emblem series has always struggled a bit with accessibility, and while casual mode definitely made the series easier, it also felt to me like missing the point. Casual mode is too easy, and by removing any risk of permanent death, it felt like it removed a lot of the game’s tension. Divine pulse is a much better way to make the gameplay a bit easier and less frustrating while still keeping the same feel as classic FE gameplay. It gives you just enough room to survive a lucky enemy crit, or a small misjudgement on your part, without totally removing the need to be careful. I approve. That said, I did feel that by late-game you probably had access to too many pulses and it removed the need to conserve them. With a dozen pulses, there isn’t much risk any more, whereas if it stayed capped around three to five, each individual pulse might have felt more precious.

 (Apparently Mila’s Turnwheel in Shadows of Valentia actually did the mechanic first, and I totally forgot about it. Oh dear…)

Other gameplay innovations were more hit-and-miss, for me. Battalions were fine, but I don’t think I would have missed them if they weren’t there. They helped make the battlefield seem busier and more populated, but they don’t seem to have had a massive impact on the game. Similarly, monsters were mostly fine (Cindered Shadows boss notwithstanding), but again, I don’t think I’d mind very much if they didn’t come back. They rarely actually felt like the most dangerous enemies on the battlefield, and just required a slightly different strategy, and… well, maybe it’s just me, but it feels weird for FE to have boss monsters like that. I suppose arguably it’s been a tension in the series going all the way back to the original game? Marth was supposed to fight monstrous dragons, but his entire game was about enemy soldiers, and dragons didn’t stand out as the terrifying beasts they ought to have been. Still, I’m not sure I’m sold on them here.

When I started playing I complained that exploring the monastery was tedious. You can get into a routine later on, but for the most part, I did think it could have been streamlined more. Having lunch with students or going for special training or browsing the marketplace are all fun things to do, but a bit less sprinting all over the map to talk to everyone and return lost items would have been appreciated. The lost item mechanic in particular feels like busywork. A bit of exploring is nice, but only as long as it doesn’t get tedious. It might have been lovely to explore other locations as well – Enbarr, Fhirdiad, the army camp outside Gronder, etc. – but I can understand that the amount of work required would not be practical.

Speaking of tedium, though… I really could have done with a few more maps. Maybe this is my fault for constantly choosing battles, but I found myself replaying the same forest, plains, beach, or volcano map too many times for comfort.

I might also have liked for crests to be a bit more mechanically impactful, given their important to the world and the plot. I regularly forgot which of my units have crests, and what any of the crests do, since most of them have so little effect as to not matter. The only one I did usually remember was Felix’s Crest of Fraldarius, and that was mainly because it makes him do more damage and sometimes made him kill people I’d hoped to leave on one or two HP. I don’t think crests should have been overpowering, but a little more power would still have been nice. It should not have been so easy to forget that they exist.

Similarly, by the time I finished the game I realised that I had never used a Hero’s Relic, even once. I would like to say that this was a principled decision on my part, given that they turn people into monsters (and it looks like I was right about them being made from bone?), but it was mostly just the BUT-WHAT-IF-I-NEED-IT-LATER effect. They all have quite low durability, and while I understand that infinite durability, as with relics in previous games, was not an option due to breaking how combat arts work, it was still enough to discourage me from using them. Perhaps on a higher difficulty they would become necessary? I always feel a bit sad when for mechanical reasons I never let characters use their most iconic weapons.

 Moving on from mechanics…

There is technically a shipping mechanic, with an S support for the protagonist, but it really felt like an afterthought to me. I don’t think the game would lose anything significant if you just removed all the S supports. Compared to a game like Awakening or Fates, where the second generation makes it mechanically important and the plot seems like it works best with a bit of romantic drama (f!Robin/Chrom and m!Robin/Lucina looking particularly intended), Three Houses is surprisingly chaste. I suppose picking a character to be your waifu might be part of the culture now, perhaps looking also at the growing influence of waifu gacha games, but for me it felt tacked on. I can imagine potentially rewriting the game to make romance a more important theme – perhaps talking about Jeralt and Sitri a bit more? – but to be honest I think that that would have been worse for the game overall.

In particular, it stands out to me as sitting a touch oddly alongside the teacher concept. One of the things that stands out to me about Byleth as a protagonist is the way that Byleth is in a superior position relative to the other units. You are a professor, in a position of authority, and you have more life experience. Your job is to teach and mentor these younger characters. This contrasts strongly with Robin, who I think was presented as the equal of the other Shepherds (your relationship with Chrom is that of comrade and friend), and with Corrin, who was presented as an inferior or junior (your siblings are older than you, and they start off with higher status). Because of that superior position, then, I found the game suggesting a feeling of responsibility towards them, and a feeling of pride in their accomplishments.

This might be a bizarre comparison, but in some ways a game that Three Houses reminded me of while playing was Princess Maker 2, a weird little DOS game from 1993 about raising a girl. The core loop of choosing activities to raise the stats of a character in your care, punctuated with occasional outings to fight monsters and get loot, felt quite similar. Similarly, the emotions that seemed to be evoked, to me, were emotions of care and pride: perhaps not paternal as such, since Byleth isn’t that old, but certainly the satisfaction that comes from nurturing a younger and less experienced person.

For the most part that actually worked, and I certainly applaud it for feeling less icky than Fates. If I compare tea parties to that weird Fates mechanic where you could invite characters to your room and touch their face, it is vastly less creepy. So I’m glad that the romance has been toned down.

And speaking of things that I’m glad aren’t prominent…

I’m deliberately burying this part in the middle of a long post. Tumblr is famously ruthless on issues like this, but fortunately I have a very low follower count and you’re all nice people. Basically, one of my worries going into the game was that Three Houses might be the ‘woke’ Fire Emblem game. I am glad to find that concern averted, at least so far. A person could perhaps make some pretty cringeworthy interpretations of Duscur to do with racial politics, but the game itself does not push you in that direction. Tumblr and AO3 love slash shipping, but as far as I can tell that remains as canonically unsupported as ever. Interestingly, while Three Houses has a small handful of same-sex romantic S supports and endings, as far as I can tell they’re all for Byleth and they’re all simply copy-pastes of the opposite-sex versions. It’s enough for me to genuinely wonder whether they’re in the original Japanese at all, or if they were added. I know translations of FE games have played around with character sexualities before, so it’s possible. At any rate, part of me was concerned that this might be the Dragon Age: Inquisition of Fire Emblem, and fortunately it isn’t. (I mean, I did actually enjoy Dragon Age: Inquisition, but at times it did get to be a bit much.) I’ll take this as a valuable lesson when it comes to not believing posts I see on Tumblr. You’d think I would have learned from previous games: popular fan interpretations of a character are often completely wrong. Three Houses seems for the most part to be a very traditional Fire Emblem game.

In terms of the overall series trajectory, I take Three Houses to be an overall positive sign. Awakening and Fates seemed to be taking the series in a direction that I didn’t care for as much, with heavy use of player avatar characters, much more fan service, and more trope-driven plots. Three Houses seems like a return to deeper worldbuilding and characterisation. The cast of characters overall has definitely been a high point: in Fates I sometimes struggled to build a team of characters that I felt truly fond of, but in Three Houses there were usually more characters I wanted to use than I had space for, and there were no recruitable characters that I truly disliked.

Really, the biggest disconnect between me and Three Houses, in the end, is the fact that Three Houses is built for replayability, and I don’t like replaying games very much. However, I don’t think I can in good faith call that a flaw or poor design: obviously there are a lot of people who love replayability, and considering that I got a good eighty hours of gameplay out of my first playthrough (DLC included) and enjoyed it, I’m not really in a position to complain.

So in the end, then, I think that while Three Houses is not my favourite Fire Emblem and does have some places where it could be improved, for the most part I think it’s quite a good outing and a significant improvement on the last few. It is not designed entirely to my tastes, but what is here is mostly good. Three Houses leaves me feeling much more optimistic for the future of the franchise than Fates did.

[bare1ythere]

[ID: Three replies from @allydave that say: Lowkey I think it’s bc the majority of the podcasting audience is (or at least Was) adults. People who grew up with old fan community etiquette, or who are at least mature enough to consume content in a responsible way. It’s what always makes me a little nervous when I think about the huge popularity boom tma had, especially on tumblr, bc tma is a Mature Podcast with Mature Themes. Doesn’t mean minors can’t listen to it, but that I think the majority of the audience used to be adults (continued)

And those adults were able to interact with the content and each other in responsible ways and were able to create a very nice community. Tumblr is too big to have a community and new fans with their tumblr culture and unachievable expectations are trying to navigate and expand what used to be a tighter knit space, which leads to gaps in knowledge and miscommunications and all sorts of missed context that makes fandom wars a thing. I’ve lost the thread of what I was trying to say but (continued)

I think the expansion of the tma community into a Fandom is scary, but I think there are some core groups of fans that have been able to maintain their communities. The twitch audiences (that I’ve seen) are surprisingly respectful and supportive but that comes down to good mods curating good community spaces and honestly?? It’s actually really nice that a proper community that’s larger than a friend group but smaller than a fandom has been able to survive and imo thrive despite it all (end). End ID]

Ohh there’s a lot here!! Yeah I think you’re right that largely, podcast fandoms are made of adults. Of course this isn’t 100% true as I myself am I minor but I do think its probably because podcasts are Very difficult to get into. It’s not like a “oh I’m gonna go watch this cartoon” or “I’m gonna play this video game” which a lot of folks my age today Grew Up doing, podcasts are something you have to be introduced to and it can be hard to get into them (since there’s no visuals). That alone curates the audience to those more open to the medium I think? I wonder what that might have to do with over all fandom maturity.

Also when a fandom is made largely of adults, fewer adults will go “ew cringy” because its not something directed towards kids. It’s unfathomable to me that someone Within a fandom would go “lol u like this? cringe” but even more so with something directed more towards adults. I guess it has something to do with stigma around being “childish” as an adult when really there’s no such thing as 100% maturing and growing up. From what I’ve seen being The Mature Adult™ seems mostly a cover up for most adults not really knowing what is going on. @ those people: Just let people enjoy things, maybe?? Its really doing you no harm?

And yeah I think I definitely saw a little of what you’re talking about yesterday with the discourse that came from the new episode yesterday. Valid criticism, but also some misunderstanding and miscommunication.

I got TMA late july, and joined fandom spaces for it mid-september (took me a while to catch up) when it was still a fairly small fandom/community. So lets just say the explosion in popularity after MAG160 was exciting, but also terrifying? I kinda liked the small community size, it felt more like a friend group discussing the podcast rather than a capital-F Fandom™. I also knew that Discourse was gonna come of the increased community size and I was not excited about that. Outside of tumblr, though, like in Jonny’s streams or on the RQ discord the community is probably one of the best I’ve been in? Especially the discord, where similar discourse I was alluding to earlier Happened in the early access chat and for the most part stayed chill where there wasn’t a lot of fighting.

I think it’s fairly impressive that the TMA fandom is still a largely positive space despite being so big! 

#shut up me #long post #tma #Oh god i rambled #I hope any of that made sense?

[eriisaam]

Ten for Ten for Ten

AFKL:jafklasfjj I have been summoned by @arlithenerd

(Just kidding thank you, now here’s hoping I did this right haha)

My responses will be posted under the cut (cuz I’m a wall of text monster and don’t know how to do read mores mid-post), but in the spirit of the meme, I’ll move my own 10 questions up first, and the tags at the bottom of it.

Now let’s see what to ask, UUUH...

1) Is there a character you really, really like? Could be waifu/husbando, could be just someone you really resonate with.

2) How about OCs? Is there an OC you���re really fond and/or proud of?

3) What’s your most favorite character trope, and what’s your least favorite? (Example tropes: Jerk with a Heart of Gold, Beware the Nice Ones, Amnesiac Hero, etc)

4) Now what’s your most and least favorite plot trope? (Examples: Rags to Riches, Hurt & Comfort, specific AUs, etc)

5) To complete the Trope Trifecta: What tropes do you most or least like in terms of character design (Examples: Capes, futuristic or fantasy style, how practical they are, how complex or simple they are, etc)

6) What are you the most proud of? (Like, something you made or an achievement)

7) Who/What has been your biggest inspiration? (Like an artist or celebrity, a fandom, maybe something you read or watched growing up, etc)

8) When you want to relax, what’s your go-to way to chill? What immediately calms you?

9) Any favorite myths, legends, folklore or themes you really like? Or what kind of theme or element would immediately draw you in to a new series if they have it?

10) How merciful or evil will you be with your 10 questions you’re giving? (Heheheheh)

And now to subject all of you to these questions, but especially you: @mdzs-tgcf-svsss-fanblog @miss-laney @moanderfe @abenignsmile @okamiryuu @flowerytrashpotato​  @milli-and-chika819​ @littlemissdash​ @grimastiddies @avistella (kidding, join in if you want, tag or no. Or don’t, even when tagged. It’s all cool, no pressure~ I have no idea who to tag and/or who is chill about being tagged for something like this, I’m sorry orz)

1) a personality trait that most people wouldn’t know about you (if you feel comfortable with sharing of course!)?

I’m kinda self-defeating. I tend to think of the worst about what I do as default and have to ease eventually to the idea what I did turned out at least ok afterwards. It’s still a mindset I’m learning to work on, though it trickles in from time to time.

2) what are you most passionate about?

Creating.

|’Dc Broad answer, I know, but more specifically, I love a lot of creative hobbies, and it’s hard to narrow it down to any specific one since I love them in different moods and different reasons. Things like writing, drawing(/spriting), textile things like sewing or crocheting or origami... It’s easier to say I like the core theme of knowing you made something, and it exists because of you, and “you did this” kind of feeling.

3) what is your favorite flavor profile? (sweet, spicy, sour, umami, bitter, etc)

Sweet! Depending on the food and my mood, I also like sour and spicy things, but I tend to gravitate more to sweetness with less fussiness of how so.

4) favorite series/franchise (from any medium) and favorite character within that series/franchise?

Oh gerd, there’s a bit, but in a vague attempt to narrow it down that let’s face it, I know I’ll fail, UUUH...

Fire Emblem (particularly Fates and Heroes) - I love both of them for just how easy it is to generate ideas for. It’s funny because I realize it’s admittedly taking a lot of things that frustrate or disappoint or leave me hanging with either games that I end up liking the two most by virtue for how many ideas it paves way for in terms of headcanons or fanworks or the like. I do like things on their own merits as well, but I think the “I wish things could’ve been better/elaborated on, and therefore I will create things based on that!” side to it was what made me appreciate them more (probably not exactly for the best reasons, but! It’s a thing.) In terms of favorite characters, there’s a ton inside and out of just these two games, but I’ll give the honorable mention to Summer Takumi specifically, because the paralogue he (among others) was released in came at a critical point in my personal life that had some effects on me that, tl;dr, led to me commiting to making this blog, and making more art in public, and eventually writing fanfics in public too. 

Pokemon - Was basically my childhood and went a long way into starting the first spark of a lot of the kind of hobbies I end up growing up and obsessing over/enjoying. Things like giving me a massive interest in coding and programming along with glitches and unused beta elements, or how it’s where I got my start in art back when I was little and trying to figure out how to do pokemon fusion sprite edits. I’d probably say my favorite character is a tie between Missingno and Celebi (in case the former doesn’t really count), the former for just how varied it is and being the main part of why I love how game coding works while being a gateway to beta content interests, and the latter for sentimental reasons spanning all throughout the entire time I followed the fandom game-wise.

Animal Crossing - It got me through ups and downs, it made up a chunk of nostalgia since the first game up to New Leaf (no switch, so now New Horizons, oh wellz), and I had a lot of memories both fond and low-key terrifying otherwise all throughout. I got a lot of favorites among villagers and NPCs otherwise, but if I had to narrow it down to one each:

 I love Whitney for being the only snooty-type villager back when I played Wild World who was surprisingly kind to me (and I’m sad I no longer have the original cart and imagine she long since moved out anyways probably), and so she gave me an experience pretty similar to Ai’s own experience with Whitney in the movie.

NPC-wise, I’m going to go with Sable (it was a really tough choice!) for the fact that in every game, she was among the first instances you can get to know a villager so closely that she was willing to explain to you more and more of her character. Usually in many of the games, once her arch is finished, she no longer elaborates on her life and goes right back to talking generally, but if it wasn’t enough that it was among the first times you see how her demeanor changes from ignoring or staying quiet with you, to going out of her way to find things to chat with you, it was also the memories she explained once you start befriending her.

5) how have your closest family members and/or friend(s) impacted your life?

I consider friends more as family than my actual family (to put it vaguely and/or kindly, my actual family did few to no favors for me). My closest friends have picked me up when I fell (multiple, multiple times), and they were much of why I’m still here, doing what I can. I owe the world to them...

6) if you could be anything (any job, other person, type of animal or beast, literally anything aside from what you are now) what would it be?

A multi-billionaire Maybe someone who shapeshifts. The possibilities with that are endless.

7) favorite beverage?

Coffee. There’s quite a lot of drinks I really love, but coffee is the most easily accessible for me.

8) i know this is a generic one but favorite subject/class you’ve taken?

Arts & Crafts and Computers, give or take. Pity they’re usually the least important for grades and also the shortest class semesters of the year. 

9) early bird or night owl?

I’m heavily inclined to be a night owl, which is unfortunate, because I’m in a place constantly forcing me to be an early bird.

10) favorite meme?

I’m completely in love with memes of cat pictures where cats have expressions that are beyond words, yet represents big moods all the same. If I had to narrow it to one specific meme, however...

My heart will always be with Anfisa. Aka Angry Cat No Banana.

#Tag and ye shall receive #but srsly thanks #Also if you get tagged and don't want to do this then again no worries sorry

[recentanimenews]

Sympathy for the Devilman: The Legacy of Go Nagai's Magnum Opus

I've always had a thing for villains. Unlike my brothers, as a kid I'd always choose the "bad guy" action figures. If they went for the ninja turtle Leonardo, then I'd go for the uber-buff Super Shredder. I personally identified with villainy because of how it connected to the idea of "evil." I personally see evil as a generalized concept that expresses antagonism toward violent and dominant societal structures. Due to a coercive religious upbringing, I now see how my younger self unconsciously found ideologically-oppositional comfort in "evil" art. This eventually led me to one of my most cherished pieces of fiction: Devilman.

Devilman has left an indelible mark on manga and anime creators over the last few decades, inspiring major industry heavyweights such as Hideaki Anno, Kentaro Miura, and Kazuki Nakashima. The series was created by Go Nagai, a manga auteur also responsible for Mazinger Z, Cutie Honey, and Violence Jack (which is a Devilman sequel). Although Devilman retains much of the explicitness native to Go Nagai's usual fare, it uses these graphic elements uniquely to deliver a haunting, unforgettable, and compassionate message.

Let's explore the surprisingly relevant political and social significance of Devilman, along with a few of its animated offshoots. Read on but be forewarned, this article contains major spoilers!

  Devilman (original manga, 1972) 

via Seven Seas Entertainment

  The Devilman manga is a dark antiwar narrative in deep contrast to the standard monster-of-the-day, "evil fights evil" set-up of the anime (which ran at the same time as the manga). Ryo Asuka — who turns out to be Satan, the leader of all demons — helps convince the world that anyone dissatisfied with the status quo could turn into a demon and needs to be killed. Every nation starts a war with each other, and Japan creates the "Demon Busters" to murder anyone suspected of being a demon. This plot twist is the most explicitly political angle in Devilman and a clear critique against the genocide of marginalized peoples. One page features a taste of the global hate brewing around the world: a collective white desire to murder Black communities, the renewal of German anti-Semitism, and hatred for any protestor. There are also many moments that display the horrors of historical genocide when Akira and Ryo travel through time.

Devilman builds additional nuance around this theme with Ryo's character. In the manga's final scene, Ryo describes how demons were once oppressed by God, and that they in turn preyed upon humans in the same way that God preyed upon demons. Ryo recognizes that he continued the same cycle of genocidal hate and marginalization he once suffered. This is a striking moment that functions as a cautionary warning against abusing imbalanced power dynamics, and how even once marginalized groups are still capable of enacting horrors against those with less power. 

via Seven Seas Entertainment

  Ryo's character also made a groundbreaking stride in the representation of marginalized gender and sexual identities. His true form as Satan is easy to interpret as trans, possessing emotional, mental, and physical traits that defy the standard gender binary. The manga also makes it clear that Ryo considers Akira more than a friend, and is actually in love with him. Amazingly, Go Nagai does not use Ryo's trans-coded self or his queer love for Akira as fodder for insulting or disrespectful commentary from other characters. Ryo's gender-variant form is certainly mentioned, but it's never negatively framed or conflated with his murderous attitude toward humanity. Additionally, the manga never suggests Ryo is evil because of his romantic feelings for Akira (a simple, yet important distinction). It feels all the more impressive when you remember that this was made in 1972. Devilman's subversive portrayal of non-normative gender and sexual identity could still be considered groundbreaking even by today's standards.

Devilman OVAs

  The first OVA, The Birth, covers Ryo and Akira's discovery of demon existence, with a very brutal early sequence that shows the bloody survival-of-the-fittest origins of life on Earth (which beautifully expands upon and mirrors the same sequence from the manga). It concludes with a gore-soaked finale where we see Akira's fateful transformation into Devilman. The sequence is filled with face stabs, top-notch body horror, and decapitations galore as Devilman rips apart demon after demon in a nightclub setting.

  The second OVA, The Demon Bird, had the same crew that worked on the first OVA and contains a very similar feel. This OVA is more action-oriented than the first since it doesn't spend time on the build-up and exposition leading to Devilman's initial appearance. The animation and art design is probably even better than the first episode, which is most notable during the fight with Sirene. On a side note, the Manga Entertainment dubs for these first two OVAs are absolutely essential if you're seeking a fun evening with fellow anime nerds with a decent sense of humor. Their typically sleazy dubs — where Manga Entertainment excessively hyped up the seedier, more "adult" side of anime in order to market their products as wildly different from cartoons for kids — contain an assortment of unnecessary profanity and generally crude dialogue compared to the Japanese source material, to great comedic effect.

The third OVA, Amon: The Apocalypse of Devilman, is based on Amon: The Darkside of Devilman manga, an alternate-universe offshoot by Yu Kinutani. This OVA contains a reworked version of the end of Devilman and has a much darker edge compared to the first two OVAs. This entry in the series has an ugly, grim quality to it – such as the horrific depiction of Miki and her brother getting slaughtered by an angry mob — that initially felt off-putting to me. I started to enjoy it more on subsequent viewings however, when I remembered that, well, the entire Devilman mythos is pretty damned bleak in general. I think the desolate mood would have been more bearable had Akira felt like the compassionate, tragic hero of the manga.

Actually, overall I'd say that Akira's portrayal is one of my biggest complaints about these OVAs. He displays a cold lack of care for human life — like in the Demon Bird when he unconcernedly tears through an airplane while fighting Sirene and allows its passengers to presumably plummet to their deaths — that for me, offsets one of the biggest strengths of Devilman's core: that although Akira has the body of a demon, he never loses the tender heart of a human. With that in mind, let's explore Devilman Crybaby. 

  Devilman Crybaby

Devilman Crybaby is my favorite animated incarnation of Devilman, period. I might be in the minority with that opinion, but I think there's a lot to love. Masaaki Yuasa is already one of my favorite recent anime directors — Kaiba, Mind Game, and Lu Over the Wall are highlights  — so it's no surprise I'd be head over heels for his take on a classic Go Nagai story.

Yuasa impressively shifts the '70s setting of the original into modern-day Japan: The group of surly highschoolers from the manga are replaced with rappers and smartphones are everywhere. In the hands of a lesser writer, a modern setting would be no more than a cosmetic, surface-level change of scenery to an already-written narrative. In contrast, Yuasa avoids this trap by using the modern setting to make incisive social commentary relevant to our times: social media is the means for both horrendous and beautiful moments in the show. It leads to Miki's murder when she posts on Instagram to defend Akira, but also serves as the online catalyst that unites Devilmen across the globe (in contrast to the original manga, where a set of demon-possessed psychic monks unite the Devilmen). Yuasa explained this in a 2018 Japan Times article:

"Today's situation is a lot closer to 'Devilman' than it was when Nagai wrote it in the '70s," he says. "The popularity of social media means people are a lot more connected, for good and bad – like someone getting shot over a video game. We learn about unarmed black people being killed by police, people being tortured and the rise of nationalism in politics. In Japan, too, where a lot of problems are openly blamed on foreigners.

"But it can also help spread good that we wouldn't otherwise know about. We see people coming out as gay or trans on social media, and there's a greater opening up and acceptance of different opinions and lifestyles."

  Another beautiful aspect of the show is how Yuasa amplifies the queer elements present in the manga. Ryo and Akira's relationship feels even more loaded with romantic undertones, and Yuasa also introduces two queer characters unseen in the original manga. One of the characters is named Miki Kuroda, initially portrayed as a jealous antagonistic foil to the Miki we all know and love. Miki Kuroda changes as the episodes progress and she becomes a Devilman, and we eventually see her sacrifice herself in an attempt to save Miki Makimura, who she confesses her love to before dying. It's refreshing to see a queer woman represented in a story that previously had none, and incorporated in a way that feels organic and thoughtfully integrated within the larger narrative.

  In contrast to the Akira of the OVAs, I absolutely adore this incarnation. Yuasa did a stellar job showing not only Akira's horny goth-jock side but also his compassionate traits. As the name implies, there's a lot of crying in Devilman Crybaby, and Akira is responsible for at least half the tears throughout the brief 10-episode series. Akira evokes such intense compassion and cares for people around him, which is a noticeable deviation from his cold demeanor in the OVAs. The human heart at the core of Devilman is on full display here, taking the emotional elements from the original and turning the volume up to 11. Though the art style and setting might be drastically different from what you'd typically expect of a Devilman remake, Yuasa did a masterful job honoring the source material while injecting it with fresh life and even fresher modern resonance. 

What other aspects of Devilman  — or its many incarnations  — did you find important or interesting? Let me know in the comments below!

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