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ruby-whistler · 3 years

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Why c!Dream should (and probably will be) redeemed

Hi! I’m bad with intros. You’ve read the title, so, let’s start with the definitions.

In this essay, we are considering the popularized definition of “redemption” instead of the classical one, which is, as per the Oxford Dictionary, “the act of saving or state of being saved from the power of evil; the act of redeeming.” That’s not however the way the word is used in fandom and media.

/dsmp /rp

The definition of redemption I’ll be working with in this essay is not forgiveness by the people who c!Dream has hurt, nor is it removing himself entirely from his past actions, but moreso the decision to change for the better and abandon destructive mindsets for himself and others.

A “redemption” in a narrative sense would be circumstances and a character arc that would allow that kind of healing and betterment.

I’d like to start this off by the fact that being “irredeemable”, in this sense, also doesn’t exist; redemption is a thing of conditions and choice, not of being allowed by someone else. You can’t gatekeep healing from people who seek it, just to be clear, and that even goes for people who have done terrible things.

Since I understand there is a lot of concern for c!Dream’s past actions, here is a post from people who are much more fit than me to speak on the matter, about the way in which they see a possible c!Dream redemption arc.

Another disclaimer, I am not going to be considering c!Dream only from the perspective of c!Tommy in this essay. c!Dream appears in other people’s perspectives and he himself has his own, unseen perspective. As a character, he is an individual person in his own right rather than just the antagonist of c!Tommy’s story, and so I do not have much concern for their narratives intertwining too much should this writing choice occur.

I’d also like to note that redemption is, in this sense, always a positive thing for everyone involved - someone who’s been prone to doing bad things in the past deciding not to do them anymore and try to change, or just simply heal enough to consider it, isn’t going to have a long-term negative effect in any of the characters, but rather the other way around. Healing is an unlimited resource, and the victims do not have to heal first for the person who hurt them to consider being better.

Here’s a well-written thread on Twitter that elaborates a bit to finish off this point, and let’s move on to actually talking about redemption in the context of the Dream SMP, and c!Dream specifically.

Why a c!Dream redemption arc is not only a good writing choice, but in this case the only good writing choice;

c!Dream, as we all know, has been subject to mental and physical abuse to the point of straight up torture by both c!Sam and c!Quackity (to different extents). He has been in indescribable amounts of suffering for the past 74 days at the time this essay will be published. That is six and something times the duration of the entire exile arc in canon.

Whatever the interpretation of his words in prison is, what is undeniable is first of all the fact his mental stability is absolutely crushed at this point, second that no human being could possibly ever deserve to undergo this, and third, his stay in the prison is showing off his humanity and making him out to be sympathetic.

Now, consider this; how would it feel if c!Tommy died at the end of the exile arc? Empty, there would be no catharsis to such an end, especially because of all of the hurt he’d gone through. Objectively, a bad writing choice.

Let’s compare, narratively of course, this situation to the prison arc. Even though I would never say one of them is “better” or “worse” than the other, since both are terrible and undeserved, c!Dream’s current state checks off all of the boxes that would make his death unsatisfying in the storyline; even if people want him gone, there would still be the dissatisfaction at the current build-up and why they even did it in the first place (it really wasn’t necessary to anyone else’s story to make him out as a victim, and yet they did) if they were planning to kill him off anyways. And since the prison arc is naturally meant to induce sympathy, even from an angst perspective it would simply not make sense within the themes and writing of the plot.

So, c!Dream can’t die, and he also can’t stay in the prison forever - the build-up must lead to something, which is logically a breakout. Great… what now?

Well, the Dream SMP prides itself in accurate representation of trauma and mental instability, specifically cc!Tommy and cc!Dream who have pulled it off incredibly during the exile arc.

Now, undoubtedly, after the prison, c!Dream is going to be just terribly traumatized- considering the writers’ past creative decisions, would it make sense for him to play the role of a dangerous, heartless villain in other people’s stories, while completely ignoring the logical fallout of what he’s been through?

In my mind, no. The most possible result is that cc!Dream is going to rightfully portray someone who’s been hurt so much he is broken, scared and tortured into submissions over months of agony and slowly stripping away of his agency, his dignity, his humanity. And that is… not going to be pretty, nor is he going to be in any way the same as before.

After everything, I’d be surprised if he can properly look at shears without shaking. That’s not villain behaviour, that’s the behaviour of someone who needs help.

Which leads me to another point, which is relatability. Believe me or not, there are people out there who heavily relate to c!Dream because they have been through things that allow them to see themselves in the character - abandonment, mental illness, etc. - or who have had destructive mindsets they have struggled to let go of in the past.

To them, as well as to the viewer, redeeming c!Dream could actually be a very good example, showcasing that anyone who has done bad things or has been hurt in the past can learn that it is possible to be better, to move on, to not be stuck in a loop but to actively seek help and then use that support to find the path to healing.

Making c!Dream a better person, who in a way, wins over his past, over his trauma, over the hurt he’s caused, and manages to actually get better… is inspiring, in a sense. It shows that you can abandon unhealthy mindsets, you can find a support group of people who care about you, you can make your life better simply by deciding to be better and then sticking to that, no matter how difficult the process.

This is why I believe that redeeming c!Dream would not be bad writing, but quite the opposite, and that the prison arc is an obvious set-up. Alright, but how does that work with the character? How could someone so widely hated mentally improve in such a seemingly violent and terrible environment? Would it even make sense within the context of c!Dream’s character so far? Well,

Why c!Dream has the capacity for healing and the Dream SMP the ability to provide it;

First of all, let’s remind ourselves that through c!Dream’s entire spiral he wasn’t ever directly given a chance to change. He was regarded as someone to defeat in order to accomplish a happy ending, or as someone who needed to be removed in order to achieve power on the SMP. Ever since the 16th, which is when the corruption of the character is the most obvious, there have been no attempts to reach out or to help him. I do not blame the characters for this - I am simply pointing out that since it has never happened before, we do not know how he would respond, and that, after everything he’s been through, any bit of kindness or compassion towards him will be a new concept he will have to learn to deal with somehow.

This point is especially driven home by the fact that both c!Quackity and c!Sam would often tell him he is a monster who deserves nothing but to suffer, and that what he’s going through is never going to amount to all the hurt he’s caused - basically removing any possibility for ever getting better (because by this logic, he doesn’t deserve support, and he doesn’t deserve to get better) from his line of sight.

He also hasn’t had a support system since shortly after the 16th, when his friends left him over c!George’s dethronement and made no effort to mend their relationship afterwards. c!Dream isn’t used to having allies and people on his side, but to being hated; again, wouldn’t that mean positive reinforcement could very well be all he needs to make the choice?

His bad mindsets - attachments are weakness, ends always justify the means, people will consider you a bad person no matter what you do - have been continuously proven right by his environment, even in prison. Any kind of subversion, plus an explanation as to why they are wrong, could be of great help to c!Dream.

Just another disclaimer; I do not believe c!Dream would change thanks to the treatment in prison, but rather despite it. His mental stability is non-existent at that point, and in order to get better he needs genuine emotional support from the people around him as well as to heal before he can redeem himself.

Alright, but… c!Dream has hurt a lot of people. Who would be fit to help him?

Let’s start off with the worst option and why it’s impossible the writers would even attempt this; c!Tommy.

c!Tommy has no responsibility to help or ever forgive c!Dream - not to say he could. The two, as it is, would drag each other down instead of helping in any capacity, and only make matters worse. The two of them shouldn’t even interact in the best case scenario - the best thing for both of them would be if they got enough healing and support individually that they could live around each other and not get their trauma or toxic habits triggered when interacting for whatever purpose of the plot.

So, if not c!Tommy (and c!Tubbo neither by extension), who could redeem c!Dream?

Well, he can’t do it on his own for sure. Being in nature with animals is nice, but further isolation from other people would merely help with the prison trauma, not with the state of his tendencies when interacting with others. He, once again, needs positive reinforcement from other people for him to heal properly.

There are two main options for this in my mind, and then there’s a few individuals he could also find comfort in, including people from both groups or those unaligned.

1) Kinoko Kingdom

From the people of this new country, c!Dream has never negatively interacted with c!Karl before, he has never hurt c!George and he hasn’t directly harmed c!Sapnap. Although the relationship with his old friend group could be difficult to rekindle, none of them have grudges against him that are too personal, and they have been canonically close friends since the beginning of the SMP, so it would be very much possible to rebuild burnt bridges. They’d be familiar, and with the addition of c!Karl they could be a good source of comfort for c!Dream after he either breaks out or is released from prison - just gotta convince c!Sapnap not to kill him first.

2) The Syndicate

From the Syndicate, c!Dream has never directly interacted with c!Nikki, and from what I know of her character she never seemed to be very affected by his actions - even doing his work for him when he was planning to burn down the L’Mantree. c!Techno is an ally who doesn’t have anything against him, and as for c!Ranboo, here is why I believe c!Dream being in the Syndicate could be positively influential on his character arc as well;

c!Ranboo and c!Philza have had a conversation about change, during which c!Ranboo made it clear he thinks everyone can change except for c!Dream; who, in his mind, is “too deep down the rabbit hole”. c!Philza replied that he thinks anyone can change if given enough time.

… you see what I’m getting at?

c!Dream has been implied to be an ally to c!Ranboo’s enderwalk state (or the state when he has access to his full memory), and hence would most likely not behave negatively towards him at all. While it might make it more difficult for c!Ranboo to deal with his own issues, it might also give him more motivation to get to the bottom of it as well, especially since he now has access to the person who, presumably, started this all. While this is going on, c!Dream would show himself in a much different light than c!Ranboo sees himin, which could lead to confusion, realization of the flaws in his own logic, and hence, positive character development.

Here’s a great post about why c!Techno as a character could be a great asset in c!Dream’s healing process & redemption, and why there is not much need to worry about him not knowing or finding out about c!Dream’s actions.

Of Kinoko Kingdom and the Syndicate, as far as I know, neither c!Tommy nor c!Tubbo have ever been directly involved with these groups, nor are they planning to.

Another important point to make is that, while c!Tommy needs to be kept away from c!Dream in order to heal properly, the same goes for c!Quackity and c!Sam in c!Dream’s case. While c!Quackity has high chances to interact with either Kinoko Kingdom or the Syndicate in the future, there’s an even higher chance, in that situation, that c!Dream would be offered protection, which is also important; there is no healing from trauma without the knowledge of safety, to some degree.

So, this was an essay as to why I think c!Dream’s recovery and redemption (one needs to come before the other, naturally) is not only extremely possible but also could be pulled off well and have a positive impact on both the characters, and the audience.

#dreblr #dream smp #c!dream #c!dream sympathetic #c!quackity neg #c!sam neg #dsmp analysis #tw torture #tw abuse #long post #i really should start writing longer essays #i need more material #anyways #hope y'all liked this #just joining the debate #:]

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bokunosimpfiction · 3 years

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Yandere!Heisenberg x Reader Pt 3

A/N: Since y’all demanded a plot that’s what you’ll get. Will it be good? No. I’ve never written anything with a plot in my entire life. Ever. Not even when I did Nanowrimo or whatever. I just bullshitted the whole thing. Like I’ll do with this fic. Y’all are going to have to remind me to update because I have the attention span of a goat. I’ll try to update this on Saturdays??? IDK at this point. ALSO, WHY THE FUCK IS THIS SO POPULAR?????????? DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY NOTES THIS HAS ON AO3???? 69????SIXITY FUCKING NINE??? I HATE EVERYTHING MY LEGACY WILL BE READER CALLING HEISENBERG DOOFSCHMIRTZ I HATE EVRYTHING DSHFUGSADFJ

Synopsis: You have totally, %100, given up on escaping. Totally. You haven't been gathering supplies for one, final last hurray. Nope. Totally not. All you have to do is persuade Heisenberg of that so you can change your mind at the last minute. Y’all know the trigger warning for this series but if you don’t tw:kidnapping (implied)

Taglist: it’s exclusivly @localdepressedvampire so if you want to be on it for just this story or for all my pieces fill out the google doc in my pinned post or dm me and I’ll put you on it. :)

You’ve made a breakthrough in your long-term plan of escapism. Even with the mini escape attempts that were really about exploring the factory and less about actually trying to get out, you hadn’t made a lot of progress: until now.

Well, two, really… Okay, maybe 1 ½. Firstly, you found a sawed-off two-barrel shotgun. With ammo. In fact, there was a various amount of ammo around the factory, but no actual gun. Until now. The second discovery, which is nowhere near as useful, was a window. Which was probably 50 or more feet up from the ground. You didn’t get a chance to inspect it that much, considering as soon as you saw it and got a glimpse at the far-off ground, you had to run again from Lycans.

Which gives you a basic idea of a way to escape. You knew where the ammo was, you knew where the gun was and had a route to the edge of the building, and hopefully could find stairs at the end of the hallway. Now all you had to do was find a time where you could be gone long enough to get a decent head start before, he notices you’re even gone. Even when he was in the workshop, he kept a close eye on you, keeping you in arms-length to the point where it taxed on both of your mental health.

And even then, in that chair in the small room, you watch him work in the finer details on something the size of your head and torso. You try not to look at the phone in your lap, he doesn’t even know you have it, much less how great the reception is in the building. How did he not know about his old phone that was still working fine? Oh well, he doesn’t need to know you’re looking at memes and reading feel-good wolf-star fanfic on ao3.

The best idea you had was to leave him while he was asleep, but there were two some issues with that: he clung to you like his life depended on it, your back to his chest and arms around you almost tight enough to keep you awake; it was dark as hell in the hallways of the factory as is, but it would be impossible to navigate safely with the lights; and the Lycans were most active outside at night, which was where you were trying to go. They’ve tried to eat you before as they show no discrimination on food.

The only way to get a good enough head start would be to leave while he didn’t notice you were gone, and wouldn’t notice for a long, long time. And that when it hit you. The only time he ever left you by yourself was when he had to deal with the other three lords. And while he left you in that basement that you originally woke up in, you had memorized your way out and found that going up five flights of stairs took you to that faithful widow.

Would you have enough time to explore and look for an actual exit/entrance, or should you play it safe and find a way to go out that window. You wanted to laugh to yourself, you’d never think that going down a 50ft plus drop would be considered safe, but here you were, kidnapped and held hostage by one of the people your late grandmother warned you not to associate with, or even go near. The letter you received directly quoted “the four lords and their mother, Mother Miranda, are not to be approached or associated with at any costs. You’ll know them when you see them, they smell like death and money. See them and run.”

You can’t help but find that ironic, considering that you did try to run, heeded her warning, and still faced the consequences that were far worse than she had warned you about. You regretted coming here, to this small village, when you first arrived: no friends, and even those you tried to approach held you to her standard and expected them to be just like her. You were far from her kind and optimistic nature (at least that’s what you heard of her; you hadn’t even known of her whereabouts until she was dead).

Even the duke, who had helped smuggle you into the village, didn’t seem fond of you. It was a shame, you tried so hard to impress him. But he saw you to a point where you could easily reach her old cottage without having too many issues, turned his cart around, and left without a good-bye. It bothered you to no end that your only companion for about a year or so was an elderly outside cat and the creaking noises the walls made at night.

And then the cat died and not even a week later you got kidnapped. You never considered yourself lucky, but damn if that wasn’t the worst streak of luck you’ve had in a long time.

You pretend to turn a page in your book and scroll through your Instagram feed, seeing friends having fun at the beach, or studying at the library, or your old best friend taking selfies in provocative clothing to your ex-boyfriend. Did she forget he cheated on you? She wasn’t always the smartest, but she brought that heartbreak upon herself. You see a photo of your mom, she had posted a picture of a black and white photo of her with her mom, you’re guessing, you have no idea who that old woman is.

This is the last photo I had with my mom before she died. We lost contact after I moved out. I wish we parted on better terms, Nana.

She’s in a prairie dress, holding an ancient-looking key in one hand, and the other wrapped around her mom, a middle-aged woman with long hair in two braids and a face that had too many stress wrinkles. You guess your mom was as bad as you were in college. The background looks dreary. You would have guessed it to be the quality of the photo if you hadn’t recognized the house behind them as the house you lived in used to live in.

The loops on the handle of the key look familiar. You spread your fingers apart to zoom in and see the blurry engravings on the side. It was the payment you gave to sneak into the village. You thought it was a worthless family heirloom at most and found it strange that he had even found interest in the key, or even valued it deeper than money in general. Maybe this photo or other photos of you and your family would help out.

Why is that key suddenly piquing your interest? Were you that bored, as to sit there and think about a key that was at least twice your age? A key that you didn’t even have. You needed a hobby besides escapism and rejecting your captor’s sexual advances. You look up at him again, only to find him leaning against the desk, hat off and sunglass placed on his forehead, his gaze on you. It wasn’t his normal piercing one, that studied you and calculated your every move, but soft and lazy. His current gaze was dreamy; he was daydreaming about you. You found that equally undaring s it was unnerving.

“Karl.”

“Yes, Sweetiepea?” Honestly, what the fuck.

“Firstly, why are you staring at me like that? Secondly, that is the most disgusting way to use that pet name. I need to take a shower after you called me that.”

He chuckles light-heartedly. Even his softer more genuine, happy chuckles are booming and loud. “Okay… Sugarplum!” And he busts out laughing.

Clearly dodging the first question and focusing on the second. You can’t believe you gave him ammo for his annoying-you-gun. And you thought you’d grown immune to most of his… less-savory traits. Were you growing used to him? Next thing you know you’re going to like him and develop Stockholm syndrome!

“You’re a shit head, hobo magneto…” You turn your head away and let your hair cover half your face so he can’t see you smile. You’ll miss him when you escape and get the duke to smuggle you back to your home in Bucharest. But only a little. Just because calling Heisenberg these names are funny.

“Why don’t you call me by my name, I know you know it.”

“You sure about that?” You quip back.

“You’ve lived with me for at least two months now!”

“Hm…. I think I know your name! It’s uh…” You are totally faking not knowing his name. “It’s… Heidi Carlson? Yeah, that sounds about right!”

“It’s Karl Heisenberg!”

“Quit being so silly, Heidi! Maybe it’s nap-time!” This was a little too fun.

He looks back at his project for a moment and genuinely considers it. “I know you’re being antagonistic but you’re probably right.” And with that, he walks towards you and goes to scoop you up. You have to shut your book quickly in order for him not to notice the phone in between its pages before you let him pick you up.

He immediately notices that. “Are… Are you sick?”

“No! Of course not!” Because you genuinely aren’t sick, and he’s already up in your business as-is, you don’t need him dotting on you because he thinks you’re sick or something. You’ll go fucking crazy.

“You’ve put in zero effort into anything remotely physical since your last little failed escape attempt.” He gave it a little bit of thought. “You’ve given up, haven’t you, and you’re just depressed about it aren’t you?”

You want to say no, you really do, but if Heisenberg thinks you’ve given up on escaping, perhaps it’ll give you enough space to plan the big one. The reverse heist so to speak. “No- I… okay maybe I have but I still don’t like you.

He leans down and presses a kiss to your forehead. “Good girl. Now let’s get us that well-deserved nap.”

You plug your nose and turn away as a joke. “You’ve gotta take a bath first, you smell like oil and sweat.” You don’t fight it, because you have to play the part, but you still have to act a little bit like yourself.

“Okay, fine doll, but don’t think you’ve escaped my barrage of affection, because as soon as I get out of the shower-“

You bonk him. And he looks at you so confused before he smiles and leans down to nuzzle his nose against yours. You try to hold the bile back in your mouth and lean forward and peck his lips before leaning back. You failed at trying to not visibly gag.

“Ew… I can’t believe I just kissed you.”

“Well, I guess someone caught feelings… Didn’t they?”

#Karl Heisenberg #yandere Heisenberg #yandere resident evil #resident evil x reader #yandere heisenberg x reader #heisenberg x reader #tw: kidnapping #fluff #well it's as fluffy as it gets with sarcastic reader-chan and yandere heisenberg #he thinks this is fluffy #because he's fucking delusional

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kyndaris · 3 years

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Braving Tried and True JRPG Tropes

When Bravely Default II was released, one of the first reviews I stumbled upon spoke about the person’s disappointment. Some of it came down to personal taste: the art style. Others were a bit more valid: the weak narrative and carbon copies of protagonists from other games. While the fan in me wanted to contest many of their claims, the more I played of the latest Japanese role-playing game (JRPG) from Square-Enix, I could not deny that there was a lot of tropes being used to prop up the strong gameplay loop and to give players the chance to try out the different jobs on offer. Still, many of these grips failed to deter me too much from my playing of the game. After sinking a hefty amount of time into it, I was able to push my way through the multiple endings and give Seth, Gloria, Elvis and Adelle the happy ending that they deserved.

As the faithful readers of my blog, you should know that I bought Bravely Default II while on a road trip with family. Though I should have been luxuriating in the February sun, I was much too engrossed in my Nintendo Switch to pay much mind to my surroundings. And even if Zac Efron or Chris Hemsworth had walked past, I’d probably barely bat an eyelid.

The first few hours of Bravely Default II had me busy reengaging with the mechanics that I knew from the first two games on the Nintendo DS and Octopath Traveler. Considering my familiarity with old-school JRPGs, it came as no surprise that I quickly managed to level up Freelancer as I cut a swathe through the grass surrounding the starting city of Halyconia. In fact, I realised quite quickly that the best way to get good items without paying a cent for them was to play the game like Link, eager to find rupees in the bushes. By the time I fought Dag and Selene and Horten, they went down like flies even though I hadn’t even bothered to change from my default jobs.

Truth be told, when I read about the difficulties many people supposedly had with these earlier battles, I was scratching my head. Perhaps it was simply the method I play the games - grinding out each job to my satisfaction that had simplified what should have been difficult. On a side note, I thought that the job levelling was much better balanced than Yakuza: Like a Dragon and an infinitely more fun experience because of it. It allowed me to experiment with my team and find the best balance for taking on the various mobs in a given area.

The only time I actually prepared properly for a fight was when I took down Adam and the last few bosses. But even they were a considerable breeze when one had access to so many abilities. Paralysing everyone that stood in my way, inflicting poison and contagion, then having a maxed out Freelancer with Thief skills using Godspeed Strike? Child’s play.

Now, onto the weaker elements of Bravely Default II. The various plot-holes and unexplored characterisation of the heroes and villains. While Elvis and Lonsdale stood out to me, many of the others could have been interchanged with someone else and I would have barely been able to tell the difference were it not for their individual Asterisk attire.

Let’s start with Seth, shall we? Our main protagonist despite the ensemble set-up could have been ripped from any Japanese role-playing game. The ones he reminded me strongly of were Tidus and Vaan. Tidus, because he was a fish-out-of-water that had fallen in love with the woman that would have to sacrifice her life to bring peace back to the world. Vaan due to the fact that he never truly stood out and was simply part of the story just because of Wind Crystal shenanigans. Later on, he was made a bit more special due to his status as someone that had come from the Outer Seas.

In a way, it was a clever voice direction for Seth to be the only character with an American accent. This helped paint the fact that he was different from the others. Still, it would have been much better if we could have seen what his life had been like prior to the events that brought him to waking up on a beach in Halyconia. And while there are scenes in several sidequests that explore a little of Seth’s backstory, there’s little to sink one’s teeth into.

Gloria, on the other hand, is very much a stereotypical princess of a mystical kingdom. Though the voice actress is very good at expressing the pain she has gone through as one of the sole survivors of Musa’s destruction, I feel like it would have connected better with players to have seen the invasion and perhaps played a small part in controlling her escape. Though these things are just little nitpicks, it adds to the characters and allows people to emotionally invest in the happenings of the world.

That, in and of itself, is probably Bravely Default II’s key problem. The fact that it tells rather than shows.

Elvis, of course, is the star of the show. His quirky traits, affable nature make him a clear favourite and much more human than his other counterparts. The narrative around Wiswald was also great example of fleshing out his past and the people he knows. It is much more personal, pulling on our heartstrings to learn about the death of a young child, and thus carries more weight than the water shortage in Savalon or the fairy hunting in Rimedhal, which was clearly meant to mirror witch trials.

While Folie, the main antagonist behind the happenings in Wiswald, could have been better written and with a more tangible tie to the people of Wiswald, the fact that she manipulated Roddy, Lily and poor Galahad with visions of the dead Mona meant that a bit of pathos was achieved when she was finally brought down.

Adelle, a little cliche, was still an intriguing character that rounded out the team (I still can’t place her accent). The reveal that she was actually a fairy was a delight. It was also nice that her goals also aligned with the main narrative of stopping the Night’s Nexus, instead of being as superfluous as Elvis trying to solve the riddle of a book he had in his possession or Seth just tagging along for the ride.

As for the foes that we faced? Most of them seemed like excuses to dress up how players obtained their Asterisks. Many of them seemed like caricatures. And honestly, Martha’s excuse to fight the Heroes of Light was abysmal. But, of course, the developers needed a way for players to experience what it might be like fighting a foe that had the Dragoon Asterisk before they could use it for their own.

I will admit, the story just felt like a vehicle to pick up each Asterisk along the way. Oft times, I had to wonder why so many of these people felt compelled to stand in the way of the Heroes of Light. And while it would have been much better to have a more personal reason for why we fought these enemies besides the fact that ‘Oh, they have an Asterisk and something, something Crystal!’ I still managed to push my way through.

Still, the fact that Dag and Selene managed to snag more character development in the sidequests was great. Gladys’s attempt at atonement and her brother’s grief was also good ways to delve into topics that might have been a little too dark for a title that had such gorgeous backdrops and adorable character models.

Now, to the meat of the matter. The plot holes and the things that were never truly explained. Edna’s descent into madness though Adelle often insisted her sister had always loved humans. How and where Lady Emma found the book that actually contained the memories of the Night’s Nexus? Where does Seth actually come from? How did he die? Why was he chosen by the Wind Crystal? Why was Adam so invested in trying to conquer the world? Did he experience something bad in his past that informed his current need to stop war by starting it? Where did Folie come from? Who is she and why did she feel the need to torment the people of Wiswald for her art?

So many mysteries. So little explanation.

Overall, Bravely Default II has quite a few flaws and missteps. Yet, despite that, it’s a sum greater than its parts. The narrative might not have been captivating, but it managed to keep pulling me through until I saw the true ending. Anticlimactic as the final boss battle might have been, I still felt a certain satisfaction in seeing Gloria tackle Seth to the ground. And honestly, who doesn’t want to Godspeed Strike their way to victory?

P.S. I will say that after witnessing Adelle save Martha, I had hoped for a blossoming romance, but the dialogue between her and Elvis during the second bad ending got to me. It may not be my one true pairing, but Elvis x Adelle was an arrow to my heart. My only question is: how old is Adelle? She looks like a child and yet, because she’s a fairy, she could be like a century older. Maybe better not to think too hard, eh? After all, why sweat the details?

#bravely default II #video games

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aiden-png · 3 years

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Hyrule the baby detective?

ohohoho okay so.. I have three genres I like to write in my original lit: horror, scifi, and mystery. so I wanted to write a mystery for LU, multichapter and thoroughly outlined (partly because analyzing HSH was so much fun and I wanted to keep that going alkdfjkasdfj). so I came up with an idea for a crime mystery set in a vaguely 1890s ‘modern’ Castle Town city following apprentice detective Hyrule... I actually wrote a Lot for the first draft before realizing it was a bit too silly for my intent and I hadn’t outlined it enough to solve the sideplots I’d introduced while writing. so I scrapped this... 4? chapter first draft right before the climax and sat down to Really plot it out (I wrote this one in July I think lol)

I have a whole outline and I made a new setting: ‘modern’ university AU with a serial killer antagonist who takes an interest in Hyrule. I had so much of it planned out and I was hype to write it because the twist was amazing, which is the part I felt was lacking set up in the first try. but then classes started and I came up with another multichapter idea and started writing that instead, kinda.. oops!

so if I ever release a version of this fic, it’ll probably be an edited and finished version of the crack taken seriously first draft XD and I’m not sure if I’ll ever use the twist I came up with for the second version so I won’t share it, but it was Good omg.... I love adding twists into my multichapter fics, they’re so much fun aaa! :D

and I guess, just because I can.... have a (unedited and messy) snippet from it! :D

Hyrule was so nervous he’d managed to leave the office and board the subway before even opening the envelope. The envelope where the address of the client and time of meeting was… Hyrule sighed, carefully opening the clasps and peering inside. There was one tiny slip of paper and nothing else. Great. Hyrule pulled the appointment card out, squinting down at the scribbled address and-- oh dear, the meeting was in less than an hour! Hyrule’s eyes flicked around, only relaxing slightly as he realized he’d somehow managed to board the correct train.

He was a bit frustrated at the lack of information he’d been given, if he was being honest. A murder case typically had a name, some pictures, a report even when they got the call, but the card Hyrule held simply had an address and a name--Twilight. Odd name, but he didn’t really have room to talk, his parents had named him after a country after all.

The train arrived and Hyrule shuffled his way through the crowds at the station, climbing the stairs to find himself in the center of the historic district. Towering stone buildings lined the streets in streaked creams and greys, stained by coal even as most of the city moved to electric. The houses here were expensive and ancient and Hyrule knew the district was made of wealthy, private citizens more than anything else. People who preferred to keep their affairs under the table, tight-lipped and aloof, rude even. Hyrule lived in a dingy apartment, packed like a sardine in rooms barely big enough for a bed and stove. He felt small and out of place just standing in the street, suddenly aware of how cheap his white shirt and suspenders looked compared to the businessmen clad in full suits around him.

Hyrule rushed to find the building, glancing up towards the clock tower that rested in the building at the end of the street. Rows and rows of brownstones, all looking strikingly similar, before Hyrule found the bright red overhang of an apartment building, the address emblazoned on the cloth in gold script. He let out a small sigh of relief, still ten minutes ahead of schedule, and pulled open the grand wooden door at the entrance.

The interior was dark but spacious, high ceilings and sconces all fit with gas lamps that were out of use. There was a window at the top of the first flight of stairs, smudged and allowing a grey, watery light to pass into the foyer--the only light present. The right side of the hall held a built in alcove, a set of open mailboxes behind a desk and chair. An attendant sat in the dim light, head slumped forward on his chest, brown hair disheveled over his maroon uniform. Obviously asleep. Hyrule looked down at his note, up at the stairs, and quietly snuck past.

Two flights up Hyrule noticed a massive chandelier hanging from the ceiling at the top floor, visible through the gaps in the alternating staircases. A small man was strapped to the rail and ceiling, grease and soot staining his shirt and hair pulled away with a green headband. Hyrule found himself on the fifth floor and peering at the precarious set up the man had constructed--or was he just a boy? He didn’t look much older than fourteen, but he was clearly hard at work, wires looped around his arms and clamps in hand as he converted the chandelier from gas to electric. The kid shot Hyrule a questioning look and he realized he’d been staring, quickly turning away and facing the hall ahead.

There were six doors, three on each side of the hall with tiny golden plaques adorning the wood with each apartment number. Hyrule winced as each step he took broadcast itself in loud squeaks, the maroon carpet rolled over the wood doing nothing to muffle them. Fortunately the apartment he was looking for was the first to his left, room 501, and he took a moment to check his pocket watch and take a few steadying breaths. Before he moved to knock on the door he heard the click of the knob, and a moment later the door tugged open to reveal a man dressed in a dark jacket with dirty blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. They narrowed for a second and Hyrule felt himself stiffen in fear before the man grabbed his arm and pulled him in.

The door shut quickly, trapping Hyrule in the mysterious apartment with a threatening stranger and no escape. He almost considered trying to bolt before his eyes landed on the teen sprawled over the loveseat ahead, long blonde hair spilling onto the ground while his bare feet rested over the couch back. His left side was covered in a layer of streaking pink scars that pinched his eye slightly shut and twisted his mouth into a perpetual smirk. What made Hyrule pause however was the grin the kid shot him, warm and excited, and when he turned back to the other man he saw the tense posture had relaxed significantly.

“You’re from the agency, right?” the man asked, voice a bit tired and hopeful, like he’d been through this song and dance several times before.

“Ah, y-yes! My name is Hyrule, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Hyrule stretched out his hand and the man shook it readily, firm, and Hyrule felt himself begin to relax slightly.

“I’m Twilight. Why don’t you have a seat and I’ll fill you in on why I called.” Twilight offered a small smile and Hyrule let himself be guided to sit in a high backed armchair opposite the loveseat. Twilight shoved the teen’s legs off the back and came to sit beside him as he readjusted into a cross-legged position, grin still wide on his face.

“I’m Wild by the way,” Wild waved, Twilight nodding somewhat resigned.

“It’s nice to meet you, Wild,” Hyrule nodded despite the odd name, smiling at the thanks Twilight mouthed at him.

“Alright, so,” Twilight huffed, crossing his legs and straightening his back. Hyrule perked up, pulling a notepad and pencil from his jacket pocket and flipping open to a blank page. “I didn’t say much on the phone last night because this is a… well, a sensitive case, let’s say.”

Hyrule hummed, curiosity easing his anxiety enough to shine through. “A murder, yes?”

Twilight winced and Wild snickered at his side.

“Yes and no…” Twilight shot Wild a glare. “See, it hasn’t exactly happened yet.”

Hyrule paused. Huh.

“So you heard that a murder is being planned and you called us to help prevent it?” Hyrule surmised, only to be met with more laughter from Wild. Twilight shoved him but the teen only hid his smile behind a hand in response.

“Not exactly,” Twilight sighed, and Hyrule noticed the dark circles beneath his eyes. “You see, we have this odd neighbor at the end of the hall, and--”

“Twilight saw the guy’s ghost in a dream and is convinced he’s going to be killed.” Wild cut in, ignoring the sharp glare Twilight shot his way.

“Well, that’s a new one.” Hyrule raised his eyebrows, taking in the giggling teen and Twilight’s tired expression.

“It wasn’t a dream, I saw him, or at least I think I did.” Twilight sighed, fixing Hyrule with pleading eyes. “It must have been a ghost because he just appeared out of nowhere in the hall, covered in blood, and told me to call the cops. I did, but when they arrived they said nothing was wrong and I must have been seeing things. But I have a bad feeling about it, something isn’t right. I just want to make sure the Old Man’s okay.”

“When was this exactly? Have you checked on him yourself?” Hyrule tapped his pencil on the notepad, mulling over Twilight’s words. This certainly was an interesting case, and while he wasn’t sure how much he could truly do to help, he understood what Twilight meant. Hyrule trusted his own instincts--a bit too much according to Legend--but they hadn’t truly led him astray yet.

“This was a week ago. I checked on him right after I woke up the next morning. He was fine, not a scratch on him, but something tells me whatever is coming for him hasn’t yet.” Twilight twisted his fingers together nervously and Wild’s laughter petered off. “I’ve been hearing arguments from his apartment. More and more strange people have been coming to visit, and at odd times of the night. I think he’s gotten himself mixed up in something, but he’s pretty stoic and keeps to himself. I just worry…”

Alright, so maybe this case wasn’t as straightforward as he’d been led to believe, but Hyrule wasn’t deterred. Twilight’s words shone with honesty and he realized that the man was likely on his last attempt to find help. No one in their right mind would believe this story, no respectable detective would take on such a case. So it was a good thing Legend sent him, because Hyrule had literally nothing to lose.

“I’ll help you,” Hyrule announced, feeling a swell of confidence as Twilight smiled and Wild shook his head fondly. “If what you say is true there is cause for concern. I can start interviewing those close to him and keeping tabs. If he’s in trouble, we’ll find out, and I can make sure he stays safe.”

Well, he could try, but that was beside the point.

“Thank you so much,” Twilight said, already relaxing. “You don’t know how many detectives I’ve reached out to. They all say I’m crazy or trying to pull a prank.”

“Well, I’m here now, and I’ll get to the bottom of this.” Hyrule replied with far more confidence than he had. At least Legend had taught him one thing--how to bullshit. “So, why don’t we start with what you know about this man…”

Twilight sat back in the chair, Wild getting up to make tea in the adjacent kitchenette. Hyrule readied his pencil, hands steady as his nerves eased.

“We call him Time.”

#genderfluid-puddle-of-soup #aiden writes #this fic is so fun aaaa I wish I'd just finished the first draft XD #oh well

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dragolianx · 4 years

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How I’d rewrite Miraculous Ladybug a.k.a Miraculous Ladybug Final Mix

Before I start I just want to say, I actually loved this show. I always appreciate shows that establish their own universe separate from the big publishers. Ben 10, Generator Rex, Big Hero 6, hell My Life as a Teenage Robot does this well.

When I started Miraculous I had high hopes and season 1 definitely delivered. However, season 2 had some issues and season 3 only made it worse.

Say what you want about the show, but there was a noticeable shift in quality between season’s 1 and 2 and an even bigger drop in season 3.

I won’t touch season 1 since it did its job well. It established the world and explained some of the rules and lore about Kwami and Miraculous powers.

Now the end of season 1 gave us new antagonist in Lila. Her arrival shook up the established flow of the school. She was the new kid so she hooked everyone with stories of traveling around the world. However she had a habit of lying about herself to make herself seem interesting.

She lied about knowing ladybug and about being the latest in a family of superheroes.

Marinette knows that she’s lying because Lila claims to be Ladybug’s BFF, but she never met Lila before that day.

We then get the episode Volpina and so far this was the closest Ladybug came to surrendering. The only other akuma to get close to getting her earrings was Lady Wifi at this point. She knew how to manipulate people, even if she was sloppy with her lies at first.

When season 2 starts however she’s no where to be seen until the season finale, Hero’s Day. This is where I’d make my first change.

Season 2

Make Lila stick around for season 2 instead of adding her back at the end of the season

Her absence is attributed to her “Traveling around the world” when she’d really just at home skipping school.

Her mom believes that the school is closed due to constant akuma attacks. The problem with this is that the school would most definitely have called her about her daughter’s absence. Or at the every least gave her a courtesy call about how the trip is going. It also make’s Lila’s mom seem incompetent because she doesn’t bother to go her kid’s school.

If there’s ever a parent teacher conference this lie would be easily dealt with.

Instead have the season 3 premiere episode “Chameleon” be the season 2 premiere. Instead of having the class change the seating order because she came back have her manipulate it so that she’s sitting next to Adrian and that Marinette is sent to the back.

Instead of Adrian telling Marinette to take the high road, have him warn her that without actual proof she’d just be isolated even more by the class. Adrian then promises to help Marinette whenever he can.

This worked in the episode because it showed just how persuasive she could be and how she could sway people she barely knows.

The episode would play out the same way, except at the end Bustier has Adrian stay where he is because she insists that he be a “good role model” and help Lila because of her “Disabilities”

In the end, the seating order is changed permanently and Marinette is moved to the back of the class. Lila begins to wedge herself between Marinette and the class.

Other big changes I’d make to season 2 would be moving Zombizou closer to the episode Despair Bear. At least make them be within an episode of each other. These will be the seeds for Chloe’s redemption, which can work in the show if Astruc would get his head out of his ass and learn how to write his damn characters.

Going off topic for a bit, but Kevin Levin from Ben 10 has tried to kill Ben for most of the original series run. After his mutation he tries to frame Ben for crimes and then off him when they were dragged into a gladiator match. He even teamed up with Vilgax to trap Ben in the Null Void and take the Omnitrix.

When Alien Force rolls around Kevin still tries to kill Ben, but when he meets a Majester Plumber and witnesses him die because of weapon deal gone bad, the same deal that Kevin set up, he realizes that he could be good and teams up with Ben and Gwen.

The same can be said for Chloe.

The most she’s done was prank Marinette, get Alya suspended, and plagiarize Marinette’s work.

As an antagonist she sucked. Hard.

Over the course of season 2 Chloe should steadily get better at not bossing people around and stop playing the “Mayor’s Daughter” card for her own selfish reasons.

At the same time, we should get small hints at Lila driving a wedge between Marinette and the class.

It could just be her mentioning how flaky Marinette can be because she’s never on time for events or just disappears sometimes.

It’d be hard for Marinette to counter this without revealing herself so the class begins to question her.

The season plays differently with Chloe mellowing out and Lila planting seeds of doubt.

Another thing worth mentioning is how Adrian/Chat Noir factors into the show.

In season 3 we see him miss his mom more, but it comes out of nowhere. We the audience know his mom is dead and assume he’s sad about it, but we don’t get actual scenes about this until Gorizilla and it’s not touched again until Felix.

In season 2 we should get more of how Adrian handles his isolation and how the loss of his mom affects him.

Have him lean on Marinette for support like how he asked her to lean on him for help with Lila.

Also have Chat Noir more involved with the whole temp hero thing and have Master Fu keep him in the loop.

Balance seems to be a central theme to the show, but Ladybug seems to be holding all the cards between the duo and Chat Noir is just in the background.

This makes him seem more like a sidekick instead of a partner since he’s almost never consulted when it comes to choosing heroes.

When Anansi happens have Adrian pick Nino to use the Turtle Miraculous and save Alya

The same can be said for how Chloe gets the Bee Miraculous in Style Queen.

He’s known her the longest and sees that she’s been making an honest effort to change, so as Chat Noir her gives her the Bee Miraculous.

This way Chloe gets to have her secret identity and prove herself to Ladybug and Chat Noir as a worthy hero.

Queen Wasp is removed from the series entirely

Maledictator happens because Audrey threatens to go back to New York and Chloe doesn’t know if she wants to go with her or not because she knows she wants a better relationship with her mom, but she’s also making progress at being a better person at school.

Lila sets off the celebration for Chloe leaving and that make Chloe want to leave because she thought she was getting better, but it seems as if her efforts weren’t good enough. Marinette doesn’t participate and defends Chloe since she hasn’t bothered Marinette or anyone else for the last few weeks and Lila takes this opportunity to make it seem like Marinette wants Chloe to stick around and bully the class.

Instead of defending herself Marinette chases after Chloe, and Adrian follows soon after once he hears the news.

The episode play nearly the same way until Chat Noir get whammied by Maledictator and becomes an actual cat.

Ladybug then gives Chloe the Bee Miraculous again and the episode plays out the same way until the end where Marinette offers to be Chloe’s friend and she accepts

Event play out the same leading up to heroes day and the season ends the same way. However, as a reward for their bravery in facing Hawkmoth and Mayura: Rena Rouge, Carapace, and Queen Bee get to keep their Miraculous

Season 3

Since we moved Chameleon up a season and removed Queen Wasp, we’ll give those two episodes to season 3 as exposition episodes. One where Fu explains in detail to the current holders what happened to the order.

Have it be different from Feast sense the whole reason was Ludacris to begin with. Introduce the concept of an order dedicated to chaos that wants to use the Mirculous for various reasons. The temple is attacked and Fu managed to get away with the main miracle box with the Ladybug and Cat Miraculous in it.

We also get Fu choosing Ladybug to be the new guardian if something should happen to him with the other heroes agreeing that it should be her.

She begins her training after this episode

In another episode explain what happened to Adrian’s mom

We know that she has some sort of sickness keeping her in a coma and that only the Miraculous can fix it. We know because Adrian mentions how Natalie showed the same symptoms his mom did before she “died”

Have Gabriel remember what caused her to use the Peacock and how he found them to begin with. Have him study the grimoire to learn how to use Ladybug and Chat Noir’s Miraculous to save his wife.

Remove Animaestro since it adds nothing to the plot and was just an excuse for Astruc to shamelessly insert himself into his own show.

As a writer this is a major sin if done wrong. And while other cartoon creators have done this, the make their appearances cameos and don’t take up a majority of the episode complaining

The love Hexagon remains mostly the same, but Marinette doesn’t get super jealous of Kagami and ends becoming friends with her after getting to know her better. Meanwhile have Adrian subconsciously react to Luka’s presence around Marinette and have him question why when he thinks he’s dead set on loving Ladybug.

The episodes leading up to Ikari Gozen remain the same except Kagami doesn’t reveal her identity in the fight and Chat Noir gives her the Dragon Miraculous before she get captured by her mother.

Chat Blanc would be completely different. Instead of a what if episode, we have Chat Noir gets akumatized because it’s the anniversary of his mother’s death and he can’t hide how sad he is. Hawkmoth capitalizes on this and Chat Blanc is born. The other heroes show up to deal with the threat and the new reserves show up to help as well.

Chat Blanc almost sets off a world wide Cataclysm, but Viperion uses second chance to warn them. Have Monkey King disrupt Chat Blanc’s powers and then have Queen Wasp paralyze him so Ladybug can find the Akuma and cure it.

Felix plays differently as well. For starters have him not be related to Adrian and make him look different from him entirely. Felix and the other Quantic kids can be in a different class altogether. His introduction can play into the whole Lila situation as he and the other quantic kids don’t buy into her lies, but they can’t prove any of them are false.

For this to work even more, Lila’s lie of knowing Prince Ali doesn’t come up since she didn’t leave the school.

Now comes the big episode of the season, Ladybug.

This episode was good for so many reasons, but this time we’ll up the ante.

Lila still plants the necklace and test answers, but this time she goes further.

When they’re sent to the principal’s office she throws herself down the stairs can then claims that Marinette pushed her.

This time the evidence is damning and Lila’s mom is called. With the actual scrapes and bruises to help sell the story along with the test answers being put in Marinette’s bag and the Lila’s necklace in her locker Marinette is expelled and the same events as the episode take place, but this time Nino isn’t akumatized because it’s implied that he’s known Marinette for a long time so he should know she’d never get physical with someone or cheat (But she has taken the occasional cell phone)

Alya looks for clues to prove that Marinette is innocent and Nino joins along with Adrian.

The trail goes cold and then the episode pans out the same way. In the end Chloe makes a big scene about Marinette being expelled and find proof that she didn’t cheat on the test and didn’t steal the necklace, but can’t ultimately prove that Marinette didn’t push Lila. She then uses the “Mayor’s Daughter” card to get Marinette back in school, but the damage has been done. Most of the class believes Lila over Marinette and begin to isolate her. Although, Alya decides to finally do some fact checking on Lila after the string of incidents that morning and finds out that she’s been lying. She apologizes for how she’s been acting and nukes the ladyblog since she deems it “tainted” and commits to the school blog.

This shows a great deal of growth for Alya since he doesn’t feel the need to follow superheroes since she is one, and is willing to give up something for her friend’s sake.

After all of this happens Marinette is stripped of her class rep title and the Class nominates Lila.

Hearthunter and Miracle Queen don’t happen at all sense Chloe is fully redeemed at this point. Instead, Lila returns as Volpina to lure out Fu since Hawkmoth managed to figure out that he was in town after Hero’s Day.

Volpina creates an illusion to lure him out, but Fu realizes this and runs to find Marinette while in disguise. He gives her the Miracle Box and he loses his memories. Marinette stashes the box in her room before trying to get him somewhere safe, but when he gets to the train station he’s Akumatized by Hawkmoth and Ladybug and the other heroes must fight their mentor.

After the battle Marinette calls Marianne to take care of Fu and the two leave Paris while the other heroes watch the train depart with heavy hearts.

My biggest gripes with the show are how the character are never allowed to grow and how much the status quo remains mostly the same at the end of each episode.

Almost none of what happens in a regular episode changes the flow of the story, and only the season premieres and finales seem to hold any weight. Not to mention Astruc’s obvious bias towards certain characters. He expects Marinette to be super mature, but she’s 14. He stated that he hates Chloe and Felix and goes out of his way to treat them like garbage.

In Felix’s debut episode he had him make an enemy with damn near the entire cast and even had Ladybug deck him.

Astruc for the most part doesn’t change anything and plays things too safe, unless it’s pointless fanservice that just serves to anger the fans even more.

I rewrote the last two season of Miraculous because for the most part, it’s become a sinking ship that could have easily been fixed.

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir #miraculous season 3 #miraculous ladybug rerwite #ml salt #Miraculous ladybug salt #marinette dupen-chang #adrien agreste #alya cesaire #Nino lahiffe #chloe burgeois #gabriel agreste #ladybug #chat noir #carapace #rena rouge #queen bee #Astruc can't write for shit

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dazeandhaze · 4 years

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What is the kagerou project?

This post is for those who are interested in interacting with my muses Kido, Kano, and Konoha, but maybe don’t know enough about the series to really know where to start plotting wise. I’ll be linking this post to their abouts (when I make them) and I welcome any questions you might have on it!

First off, the Kagerou project is originally a set of vocaloid songs / videos that later got translated to a manga, novels, and an anime. It’s a story told achronlogically, meaning pretty much out of order and not straight forward at all - another reason I wanted to make this post so newcomers don’t feel confused. That and all the mediums help tell the full story - so unless you’ve taken in all of them it’s hard to piece together the story from start to finish, and there is still a lot of details we don’t know. The kagerou project isn’t perfect but it’s a good story overall.

The actual story / character info will be below the cut cause this is gonna be a super long post.

Also if you get weirded out by snakes it’s probably not the best idea to read this - there’s no pictures but the word ‘snake’ comes up ALOT. Also please don’t read this if Suicide is a trigger for you, as that is something that I will be mentioning a few times aswell.

MAJOR CHARACTERS

First off I’ll introduce the characters / what their powers are and then explain the songs then the story and how the powers are significant and how the characters play into the story as a whole.

Azami - the medusa. Creator of the abilities.

The Mekakushi Dan - the ‘blindfold’ gang. It started as a childhood fantasy but Kido, Kano, and Seto kept the group name after Ayano’s death. Kano was the one that came up with the name.

Ayano Takeyama - Number 0, Foster older sister to Kido, Kano, and Seto. Has the snake of favoring eyes. She is able to project her feelings and memories onto others.

Tsubomi Kido - Number 1, technically the leader. Has the snake of Concealing eyes. She can make herself effectively invisible and unable to be perceived by others as long as she doesn’t touch anyone. She can use this ability on other people, and any sound they make while the ability is active is unheard of by others.

Kousuke Seto - Number 2. Has the snake of Stealing eyes. He can read people’s minds and when used to its full potential, he can read a person's memories.This ability also lets him understand the thoughts of animals, though they can still not understand him.

Shuuya Kano - Number 3. Has the snake of Deceiving eyes. It allows him to change what people perceive him as. He can change his appearance to impersonate other people and even animals. He can only use this ability on himself and not others.

Marry Kozakura - Number 4. Has two ‘eye’ abilities technically, Locking Eyes and Combining eyes. Locking eyes she inherited from her mother Shion and her grandmother Azami. It allows her to temporarily stop the movement of whoever meets her gaze. She is not able to turn people into stone, but it can paralyze them for a short amount of time. The Snake of Combining Eyes can combine and therefore control all snakes. It was directly given to her by Azami when she died and entered the Kagerou Daze. This ability causes her to automatically obtain a snake after its owner has died and also allows her to take a snake directly from them.Combining Eyes also passively causes the other snakes (and thus their owners) to be drawn towards its owner.

Momo Kisaragi - Number 5. She has the snake of Drawing Eyes. This ability can draw peoples' attention to herself regardless of their preferences in tastes or interests. She is also able to tell where a person's attention is drawn to.

Ene / Takene Enomoto - Number 6. She has the Snake of opening eyes. This allows her to to split her consciousness from her body, which then can reside in electronic devices (such as a cellphone) as a cyber-being. After regaining her body as Takane, she is still able to send herself to other electronic devices as Ene, but doing so causes her body to lose consciousness.

Shintaro Kisaragi - Number 7. Has the snake of Retaining eyes. This allows him to remember everything he sees. When his ability is fully activated, he is able to remember the events of past routes and speak with the Snake of Retaining Eyes.

Hibiya Amamiya - Number 8. Has the snake of Focusing Eyes.This has the power to perceive objects and details that are far away from an aerial view.

Konoha / Haurka Kokonose - Number 9. Has the snake of Awakening Eyes. This gives him the power to remake his body into one that he finds to be his "ideal" - as Haruka was physically weak and sickly, this meant for him to become supernaturally strong. He can also heal from even fatal injuries with this ability, which looks like multiple black snakes wrapping around his body when activated.

Hiyori Asahina - Number 10. Depending on the route she will have the snake of Focusing Eyes instead of Hibiya. 9/10 times though it is Hibiya. Just mentioning this fact for technicalities sake.

The Snake of Clearing eyes - the story’s main antagonist. This ability can interfere with and stop the use of other eye abilities completely. It normally possesses either Ayano’s father or Hibiya depending on the route. In every route it will always possess Konoha towards the end - as he is the strongest member and none of the others in the Dan can stand a chance against him. (if you see me reblog a black haired konoha, it’s him being possessed by this ability)

SONGS

As mentioned before, this started off as a set of vocaloid songs. So I will list SOME of the songs below - there’s over 33 songs related to the kagerou project but these are ones with MVs (or at least fan made ones) that have the main characters as the focus.

Shinigami Record - Azami Song

Jinzou Enemy - Ene and Shintaro song

Mekakushi Code - Kido’s song

Headphone Actor - Takene song

Imagination Forest - Mary song

Kagerou Daze / Heat Haze Days - Hiyori and Hibuya song

Konoha’s state of the world - Konoha song ft Hiyori and Hibuya

Yobanashi Deceive - Kano song

Shouen Brave - Seto song

Kisaragi Attention - Momo Song

Ayano’s theory of Happiness - Ayano song

Yuukei Yesterday - Takene and Haruka song

Children Record - everyone is here lmao serves more like an opening if anything

Moon Viewing Recital - Momo and Hibuya song

Outer Science - Clearing eyes song / The Bad ending

Lost time memory - Shintaro song

Summer time record - everyone is here but there is a focus on Haruka / the good ending

Additional memory - Ayano in the daze song

Never lost world - kido post story song

THE STORY

the first thing to know about the kagerou project story is that it is a time loop story. Each medium contains its own loop (or in the manga’s case, multiple), which is why someone has to consume all the mediums to really get the full story. Some character details or interactions only happen in one route / loop. I’ll be going over what people are most likely to find out through google searches / the easiest medium (the music or anime) but will mention other routes here and there for context. Generally most routes we know of follow most of the same story beats but some differ dramatically - and I don’t want to confuse people.

For the overall story though - it starts with Azami. She is the medusa, but not in the traditional greek myth sense. It is just what humans started referring to her as thanks to her snake-like features. Truthfully she doesn’t know entirely what she is, she was born at the beginning, and lasted through the ages with not even a physical form until she met two beings - humans and a snake. The humans tried to kill her on first sight while the snake was kind and explained what the humans were to Azami. Her physical form ended up being a mix of these two species, hence humans calling her a medusa. (pictured below is azami from the novels)

Overtime she tried to interact with humans but they always shunned her and tried to kill her until one day she met an albino man named Tsukihiko. I will skip over the specifics but she ends up falling in love with him and building a family with him. They were both considered ‘monsters’ by society and thus made a perfect pair. They even had a daughter, Shion.

Now it’s important to note that during this time she made her abilities. considered ‘eye’ abilities or ‘snakes’, Azami had the ability to create almost sentient forces within her to help her solve problems. For example, the ‘favoring eyes’ ability was created so she could properly show her emotions to her infant daughter, pass on all the love that she had onto Shion in a way she would understand even as a baby.

However after Shion was born, after creating these abilities, she realized that both Tsukihiko and Shion were going to out live her and die. She had lived thousands, maybe even millions, of years by now and hadn’t aged a day - but her husband obviously had. In this fear a new power was born, the snake of clearing eyes. It offered a solution to Azami, for them to create an entirely new world where death and time didn’t exist, where she could simply be happy with her family. She does this, and tells her husband and child they would leave the world together. They agree, but Tsukihiko wants to officially marry Azami before they leave the world. She allows him to go back to his old home to get wedding rings and someone to marry them officially, but doesn’t return. What does return are humans, out to kill Azami and her daughter. Azami defeats the men with ease but believes now her husband is all but dead. In her grief, she escapes to the world she made - the Kagerou Daze - and leaves her child behind.Tsukihiko manages to return, escaping from the confinement the other humans had put him in, and knows once he finds his daughter alone that his wife left the world. They are not upset with her, and continue to live out their days in their home in the forest.

Tsukihiko eventually dies of old age and Shion grows up. Shion has her own daughter called Mary, who is a quarter medusa. Shion is extremely protective of her daughter after the events of her own childhood, and tells Mary never to leave the house. However being the fun loving child she was, Mary disobeyed her mother once. It wasn’t long after she was found by humans who were proceeding to beat her to death when her mother found her. They were both about to die at the hands of these humans when Azami decided to intervene.

She wasn’t gone completely, she had been watching over her daughter and grandaughter from the Daze. Knowing what was about to happen to her family, she issued a command to the world to take in the two people dying and bring them up into the world. The date? August 15th.When the two arrived in the world they were dead. The world brought them back to life but they couldn’t leave back to the ‘real’ world without a new lifeforce. Azami, wanting her daughter to live, gave her the core of her power - the snake of combining eyes, also known as the ‘queen snake’. But Shion wanted her own daughter to live, and passed it onto Mary. Mary was able to return to the real world, but had no memory of the Daze or what her mother and grandmother had done for her - she was now alone.

The combining eyes was the core of Azami’s power, and without it she could no longer control the Kagerou Daze. She couldn’t tell the world to stop bringing people into it, to stop giving them powers,and to stop returning people to the real world. This was the mistake that costs the main character’s so much grief.

Each of the members of the mekakushi dan (besides Shintaro) died on the day of August 15th. The Kagerou Daze, still fulfilling its order, took them and whoever they were with at the time up into the world, and if they resonated with one of Azami’s abilities, gave them the snake before putting them back out into the real world - the snake/ eye ability being their new life force and the reason they’re alive.

Kido died in a fire with her sister, and got the snake of concealing eyes. Seto drowned with his dog and got the snake of stealing eyes. Kano died in a robbery with his mother and got the snake of Decieving eyes. Momo also drowned and got the drawing eyes ability. Takene was poisoned and got the opening eyes ability. Haruka had a heart attack and got the awakening eyes ability. Hibuya and Hiyori were in a traffic accident and depending on the route - one of them gets the Focusing eyes. As stated above, 9/10 times it’s Hibuya, Hiyori only gets it in the manga route/loop.

Ayano is a special case. She committed suicide with the goal in mind to go to the Kagerou Daze. She stays in the daze with her eye ability for a reason which I’ll get to later.

Now Shintaro does have an eye ability of his own, however it was NOT one of Azami’s abilities. I will also get to this later.

Kido, Kano, and Seto all end up being orphaned around the same time and ended up in the same orphanage. Forced into the same room together as they were the ‘strange’ kids. They were all adopted by the Tateyama family, Ayano’s family, who were researching the Medusa aka Azami. they took these kids in for their research but also genuinely cared about them. With the help of Ayano - the three children come to be not so scared of their abilities and learn to like humanity again. The hoodies the three wear were gifts from their foster parents and Ayano to hide their eyes - as when their abilities were being used / went out of control, their eyes turned red.

One August 15th, Ayano’s parents were involved in a mudslide. They went to the Daze, and her father returned with the snake of clearing eyes. This wasn’t apparent to Ayano or any of the children at first, but Ayano soon found out that her father planned to kill her two friends at school (Haruka and Takene, who have pre existing health conditions and were in his ‘special education’ class) on August 15th so that they would go to the daze and get more snakes.

She found the clearing eyes wanted all the snakes in the real world for some reason, and thus on August 15th, she committed suicide by jumping off the roof of the school building, going into the daze and holding one of the eye abilities hostage by never returning from the daze. The clearing eyes still continued with his plan, Takene and Haruka died that day as well and got their respective powers. Haruka and Takene were strange cases though, they didn’t die with another person. Instead the clearing eyes tricked the world of the Kagerou Daze, getting it to recognize the mind and body as two different entities. So Takene’s body was left in the Daze while her mind returned to the real world as ‘Ene’, and could only exist within cyberspace. Haruka’s mind was left in the Daze and the perfect, healthy, body that he wanted returned to the real world as Konoha, who had no memories and seemingly little personality.

But left the only one of their friend group, Shintaro, alive with all of his friends having died on the same day. He became a shut in, and for two years did not leave his home. The story officially ‘starts’ with Shintaro and Ene. Ene pretending she did not know Shintaro at all, found his computer during the two year timespan and proceeded to make his life hell, but also give him company within those two lonely years.

It’s important to note that Ene is crucial to Shintaro’s overall development. In some loops, her presence wasn’t enough and he ends up committing suicide out of grief. But emotions and lessons learned are kept throughout the loops, and eventually Ene came to realize that she had to help Shintaro no matter what.

Anyways, in a series of unfortunate events, Shintaro ends up needing to leave his house to go shopping as August 14th is a part of the obon holiday in Japan and he couldn’t survive one day without his precious computer being operational. On his one outing in two years - he ends up being wrapped into a robbery / terrorist attack on a shopping center and meets the rest of the Mekakushi dan (at this moment, only Kido, Seto, Kano, Mary, and Shintaro’s sister Momo). They help diffuse the situation at the shopping center and Shintaro ends up passing out (just due to nerves or he actually gets grazed by a bullet, depends on the loop), and brought back to the Mekakushi Dan hideout aka their apartment. It’s here he learns about the eye abilities, how his sister has one, and the exact events after this differ from loop to loop. Either way Shintaro becomes a sort of ‘unofficial’ member of the Dan and spends time with them over the next few days as he tries to wrap his head around the mysterious powers of the Dan and what they mean.

How the Dan ends up recruiting Hibuya and Konoha differs as well, but generally the group comes across the traffic accident that Hibiya and Hiyori were involved in and Konoha being there as well. Sometimes Ene will ask Shintaro to chase after Konoha, recognizing him as Haruka, and then they end up at the hospital and wait for Hibuya to be released / able to have visitors so they can talk to him. At this point in some of the loops, the Dan knows that August 15th is an important day to them, they’re just not sure why.

Hibuya leaves the hospital, determined to find Hiyori - not quite sure what has happened to her but knows she might be dead or lost or looking for him. Momo manages to get Hibuya to calm down and control his new eye ability, just in time for the Dan to be put into trouble.

It should be noted that technically, Azami had only 10 powers. And now with the exception of the power now taken by Ayano, all of those powers are in the real world. Which means it was time for the Clearing eyes to make its move. In the Novel and Anime route, the Dan ends up taking the fight to the Clearing eyes. (Possibly in the manga route aswell, I haven’t finished it).

Regardless, the Clearing eyes objective becomes clear rather quickly - it plans to kill every member of the Mekakushi Dan except for Shintaro (who doesn’t have one of Azami’s powers, but he still dies in some routes just for getting in the way) and Mary (who has the queen snake / snake of combining eyes, which clearing eyes wants). With each member of the Mekakushi Dan that dies, Mary gains their ability and grows closer to a full medusa. When she has five snakes - she can control the Kagerou Daze itself. The Clearing Eyes plans to kill the Mekakushi Dan, possess Mary, and become immortal + have control over the Daze and all of Azami’s abilities.

This is how most routes end. As soon as Mary has five snakes (four or more of her friends die), she has the power to control the Kagerou Daze and she has the world take in the Clearing eyes and thus trapping it there forever. After this she uses her new found powers to rewind time to sometime after her mother’s death but before everything else happened. This is how most routes start.

In the manga route specifically, the only ones alive after Mary has trapped the Clearing Eyes is Ayano (as she didn’t stay in the Daze in this route), Shintaro, and Mary. Everyone else is dead and gone and Mary is about to rewind time. Before she does though, she has Mary do something - give Shintaro an eye ability. Ayano gives up her life so that Mary may make her life force into an ability - the snake of retaining eyes. It is so that Shintaro ‘will never forget the tragedy that occurred here’. Shintaro has the ability to retain everything he sees, even across timelines. This route happens early on in the number of routes, but it’s never told to the audience when exactly it happens.

But, the problem with this is that he doesn’t remember he has an ability, it has to be triggered somehow. But it’s because of this that Shintaro killing himself out of grief in some timelines is so detrimental to the overall story - if Shintaro dies then he can’t activate his power and he can’t help save everyone. So for the story to truly be realized and head towards a good ending, Shintaro can’t die until after he remembers his ability.

In the novel route, only Seto, Mary, and Hibiya are alive after the confrontation with the Clearing eyes, and they live out their lives for almost two years before Mary decides to rewind time. Hibiya is able to contact the people who died and are now stuck in the Kagerous daze (death doesn’t exist there, so people are ‘alive’ there but trapped forever) and they all collectively make the decision to turn back time. Shintaro even comments that they’ve probably done this dozens, or maybe even hundreds or thousands of times by that point.

In the Anime route is when Shintaro remembers his ability. He remembers this due to something he knows but he shouldn’t have known. While he was friends with Ayano in school, he never knew that her siblings that she spoke about were Kido, Kano, and Seto. Yet while at the Mekakushi Dan apartment, he finds a picture with them all in it - and somehow knows that it’s the truth despite being surprised to find it out. This one event was enough for him to get things rolling and eventually remember his ability. He ends up killing himself and going to the Daze to see Ayano.

This is also shown in Route 1 of the lost time memory music video. He gets shot trying to protect Konoha (who was getting possessed by the clearing eyes, and thus tried to kill himself so that he wouldn’t hurt his friends), and he appears in the Daze to speak to Ayano and bring her back to the real world. The combination of Shintaro’s Retaining eyes, and Ayano’s favoring eyes, is enough to help get Mary to calm down. Ayano’s ability also lets her put the memories of others into other people, so she helps Shintaro show Mary that everything will be fine and that no matter what happened in every other route, they all love and care for her. This was enough to get her to calm down and for her to take everyone up into the Kagerou Daze, not just the clearing eyes.

Once trapped there, the Clearing eyes had nowhere to go and also was tricked by Konoha and Haruka into becoming the new snake / life force for Hiyori so that she could come back to life. I should note here that it is possible for those with snakes to sort of come and go from the Kagerou Daze as they please - people in the daze just can’t leave without a snake, so Mary also returns the snakes to those who had died up until this point so that they could leave the kagerou daze afterwards. Haruka is able to get back into his body after Konoha willingly gives it over, Takene gets her body back, and they are all able to have a few moments with those that they had died with to get some closure.

They then leave the daze together, and are able to continue on with their lives. (also shown in sumertime record)

Again, I skipped over ALOT here. But this is overall the major plot points of the kagerou project.

The Kagerou project is about dealing with loss, about looking forward to the future, about learning that you don’t have to deal with everything alone - there is always someone willing to help you. It’s about overcoming fear and despair, and learning to take a step forward. There is a lot of death and sadness in this story but there’s also a lot of goofy fun moments too - to remind us that even dark moments have a little light in them.

#suicide tw #snakes tw #this is over 4000 words so i hope it's worth it wheezes #i hope it's not too confusing either the kagerou project is a mess but i love it #tsubomi kido  ➼ headcanon #shuuya kano  ➼  headcanon #kousuke seto  ➼ headcanon #konoha ➼ headcanon

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someplace-that-is-else · 4 years

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“Shaking It Off...?’: Is the Magicians Surviving Post-Quentin in Season Five?

Editor’s Note: Spoilers for the current season of The Magicians lie ahead. Read at your own risk.

I still can’t listen to it.

Every time I was at work, the radio loved to drop in Taylor Swift. I admit it. I love Taylor Swift. It was earned respect so I won’t knocked it. However, when I heard ‘Shake It Off,’ I changed the station. Why? Because I was reminded every time.

The Magicians Episode 4, Season 1…Quentin Coldwater in the mind asylum. Him singing it. It was a turn left moment in a somewhat serious scene that was hilarious.

But I was always reminded when I heard the song. Now…

Quentin Coldwater was dead.

In case you missed it, the fourth season of The Magicians went out with a bang. In order to save the world and his friends, Quentin Coldwater sacrificed himself. It was a heartbreaking moment and yes, there were tears at the gang’s tribute to him with a cover of ‘Take on Me.’ It was also shocking because who would have thought a show would kill off their main character, the character that viewers are brought into the show by. Even ballsier? Leaving the main character dead, confirmed immediately after the episode aired that night by way of internet interviews from the producers.

That was the world viewers were coming into walking into Season Five. Unlike Supergirl which I dropped in Season Four due to the on-the-nose political writing, I was curious to see how the writers would play the death of their main character.

So how was it?

Did Someone Order an Apocalypse?: Raising the Stakes in Season Five

After a season where magic was rationed out, this season was different. Now there was too much magic. How much? So much that people were exploding for crying out loud.

As a result, there were plot threads being introduced. You had Penny being made a professor at Brakebills and dealing with the presence of a signal that one of his Traveler students was hearing. You had Kady struggling with being the leader of the hedgewitches while being in the middle of a mystery involving the disappearance of a book depository. Most importantly, there was a Pig running around, encountering Julia and saying an apocalypse was coming.

Hm…the end of everything. While the Magicians has had moments that were life and death, I do not think it has actually dealt with an apocalypse. It sounded so Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And it was during one of these moments of too much magic that the apocalypse was supposed to happen.

And this was all in light of the fact that Quentin was only dead a month. Alice, Julia, and Elliot were the ones who were hit the hardest by his passing. Julia was Quentin’s best friend. Alice was Quentin’s girlfriend. Elliot was his woulda, coulda, shoulda. But as usual, the world as they knew it needed saving.

And there were casualties on the way to the apocalypse. Penny lost his ability to control his Traveler abilities so much so that he could accidentally kill himself now. Dean Fogg was lost to a whole dimension in Kady’s pursuit of the book depository. In the gang’s attempt to stop the apocalypse, they succeeded. But there was a BUT.

WRONG apocalypse.

All that struggle. Encountering goddesses with agendas. The return of evil hedge witch Marina who was behind the depository mystery. Kady almost was killed by an assassin. Elliot and Margo got stuck in a time loop.

It was all for the wrong apocalypse. You see the Pig was talking about a whole other apocalypse that was coming. One that appeared to be tied into another plot thread from last season involving Elliot and Margo being trapped at one point in the Narniasque land of Fillory 300 years in the future and its future ruler the Dark King.

Oops.

The Power of Three: Character Development in Season Five

Magic comes from pain.

Eliot said that to Quentin in the first season. Over the course of the seasons, that has truly held up quite well. Going into Season Five, there was still plenty of it. And that brought me to the character development for Julia, Alice, and Eliot specifically. Their pain. Their grief over Quentin’s death.

I loved Julia’s Season Four arc. The ‘is she or isn’t she still a goddess?’ arc. She had been practically redeemed in Season Three. She had sacrificed her being on a higher plane for her friends. And where did she go from here? From here led to a new relationship with Penny, getting to get close with her best friend Quentin again, and have a chance to be a full goddess again. However, that was snatched away from her by the Monster and so was Quentin. She was human again with no magic…until her pain over Quentin’s death, bringing her magic back to the surface.

And that miracle was what was driving Julia this season. She was determined to not have Quentin’s death be in vain. She was going to stop those apocalypses. She was so determined that it was revealing cracks in her relationship with Penny. In fact, they broke up…just in time to find out that Julia was pregnant. So would Julia keep focusing on stopping apocalypses to honor Quentin’s memory, or would she focus on herself and her future which may or may not include Penny? Oh, the dilemma…

And then we had Alice…

Honestly, I haven’t liked Alice since Season 2. She was cute. She was brainy. She wore glasses. And Niffin experience, while a great plot twist for those of us who hadn’t read the books, really tainted her. And any sympathy she got for her pain was destroyed by betraying the gang by helping the Library at the end of Season Three. I enjoyed everyone giving her the business in Season Four.

So I was saddened to see Quentin take her back. Especially with someone better hanging in the wings.

That said…the pain that Alice felt for Quentin dying. The staying in her room. Her wearing his clothes. Her trying to resurrect him. That felt real. And for the first time, Alice felt like a person again. She felt like Alice. And as the current season has progressed, a new persona has taken over: old Alice. The last few episodes had brought back the brainy, the problem solving, and dare I say it the cute Alice from the early seasons. From the darkness, she had come back into the light.

And finally, there was Eliot. Eliot spent the majority of Season Four possessed by an ancient Monster. A Monster who was on a mission to resurrect his even more dangerous sister. In the process of Eliot trying to find a way to contact Quentin, Margo, and the gang, it was revealed that there was a scene not revealed to the audience. Back during the Season 3, Episode 5 episode “A Day in the Life,” Quentin and Eliot were trapped in a time loop of sorts and lived a whole life together. Fell in love. Had a child together. Died. In the end, quick thinking brought them back. And it was over…right?

Wrong.

It turned out that Quentin and Eliot had had a talk. Proof of concept. Most people took a chance when they got into a relationship. Here they had a whole lifetime and saw they worked together. So…Quentin wanted to make it real. The debatably straight character wanted to give it a go…but Eliot pulled away. Being trapped in a Monster gave Eliot that push. The push he needed to get free and tell Quentin that he was ready to give it a go.

So of course…Quentin died.

And just like that…they became Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Tara and Willow. They became like The 100’s Clarke and Lexa. What did I mean? I meant that the ‘Bury Your Gays’ trope struck again. You know, the trope in literature and tv where two people of the same sex cannot be happy and if they found happiness it usually ended in tragedy. And the fact that Quentin got some form of closure with Alice in terms of their relationship while he did not with Eliot was quite the tragedy for fans.

While I personally would have liked to see some closure for those two (called Queliot by their fans) due to the relatability of their situation (which happened more in real life than people thought), I was pleased to see that in the latest season that Eliot was definitely dealing with his unsolved feelings about Quentin. Not only did he find some closure to it, he even got to some closure with Alice as well since they had quite a bit to deal with between each other. Bonus, Eliot had been bantering with the Dark King, this season’s potential Big Bad who happened to be flirting with Eliot.

A happy ending for our resident gay man? This is The Magicians. So…iffy. LOL!!! Especially after that reveal in Episode 9. So time would tell how the relationship between Eliot and Sebastian the Dark King would resolve itself.

Speaking of…

Pieces of a Puzzle: Using Plot Threads that Work Well in Season Five

While a lot of the seasonal plot arc had to do with the gang dealing with apocalypses, there was also the arc having to do with the Dark King who usurped Margo’s rule of Fillory. Fans got to meet him in a clever introduction during Alice’s and Eliot’s quest to give closure to Quentin. Thus, the tension between Sebastian the Dark King and Eliot began.

In another blog I did ( https://someplace-that-is-else.tumblr.com/post/183733192088/well-fuck-how-i-fell-into-syfys-the ), I mentioned that protagonists were only as good as their antagonists. The more complex the antagonist, the better. And if the Dark King was to be the main villain this season, the writers did him right. On one hand, there was the burgeoning relationship between him and Eliot and the fact that Fillory worshipped him for his ability to push back the invading Takers. On the other hand, it was revealed HE was behind the Takers being in Fillory in the first place and was immortal to being killed. Add on to that the reveal in Episode 9: Sebastian was one of the Chatwin siblings, brother to the Beast…

...still the best villain in this series. His goal: to resurrect his lost love. Given the gang was dealing with the aftermath of Quentin’s death, how could they not relate? How could we? Things were more murky.

Meanwhile, there was the mystery of the signal. As mentioned earlier, the increase in magic meant there were a lot of new traveler magicians coming into their abilities with no one to guide/teach them. Enter Penny the only Traveler alive to tell the tale. At first Penny was reluctant, but he attempted to. That was how he met Plum, one of his students who was hearing the mysterious signal. In the process of hearing the signal, Penny lost his abilities. And to add on to the mystery…Plum...

... was ALSO a Chatwin. Whom daughter…Jane, the Beast aka Martin or Sebastian…remained to be seem.

And then there were two.

Finally, there was the world seed. I had greatly enjoyed seeing Alice morph back into her brainy persona that I remembered from the first two seasons. At the same time, she had started a bantering friendship with another magician who was some expert in possibilities. And from some notes left around by Quentin, Alice and this student had been creating a world seed. The belief…that it could create a whole new world. Leave it to Quentin to be gone, but NOT forgotten.

How that would come into play with Plum, the Dark King’s plans, and the Fillory apocalypse was too early to know. It was recently announced by the SyFy Channel that they had cancelled The Magicians. Insert eyeroll here given my colorful history with SyFy. However, the producers of The Magicians have always mentioned that they wanted to adapted the last book in the series The Magicians’s Land for one of their seasons. And all signs of what I knew to happen in the book revealed this current season was loosely based on that book (in the book Quentin was still alive for example). So it would be interesting to see how it all ended for everyone.

With a bang…or a whimper?

#themagicians #syfychannel #syfy #whoorderedanapocalypse #buffythevampireslayer #buffyreference #glory #seasonfive #taylorswift #quentincoldwater #shakeitoff #aha #takeonme #apocalypse #supergirl #raisingthestakes #plotthreads #characterdevelopment #grief #queliot #writing #narnia #darkking #magic #buryyourgays #powerofthree #puzzlepieces #signal #seed #withabang #withawhimper

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peachymess · 4 years

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On Eren

If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Snk, you keep me up at night. It’s 7am and I can’t sleep. It just hurts too much. All the fears hitting me at once. I need the next chapter, just to further the in-verse present time. Yet at the same time, I can barely read another word or I might perish.

Listen, Eren might have had a very black-and white sort of tunnel vision all his life. He may always have been rash and headstrong and quick to decide what he deems as right and wrong. And he might come down on what he deems “injustice” very hard. But that’s not all there’s been to him. He’s also always cared about strangers in need, his friends, the freedom we’re all born with and deserve to have. He cries for people’s fates, he smiles at others’ joy.

He felt hate, yes, but he also felt love. I’m just gonna go ahead and pick a side. I refuse to accept that we’re meant to land on the far-evil side of his spectrum. If his plan is exactly what he says it is, I actually accept it as IC, because given Eren’s circumstances, we can understand what lead him to become this consumed with hate and misguided action. However, even so, I don’t think that’s where he’ll be by the end of this story. He’s swinging, and he’s gonna land somewhere closer to the middle. I’m not talking redeemed, I’m just talking understood and hopefully reawakened from his hate-consumed state - unless we’re just gonna have a straight up “this had to be done for best ending” twisteroo.

The thing is. If his plan is what he says it is, it’s nuts. But it’s *so* nuts that it’s... almost cartoony. Because not only do we get the plan like he says, it also means that the bleak as hell narrative Mikasa gave this chapter, is meant to be correct. Paraphrasing to a dangerous degree, we can sum it up like this: “Eren is a monster and I’m starting to realize he didn’t become one; he’s always been one”. This, canonized, would erase the weight of any smile, care and love Eren’s shown to give from earlier years. It would mean that beneath care for his friends and laughter at the dinner table, his thoughts and goals were so ugly and selfish that it even at that point outweighed the “shallow” good he projected into the world. Not only does that set the bar extremely low for what people we are meant to consider “evil”, but it also flips the script of the entire story to be one of hatred and fake beauty from start to finish. If we’re told Eren’s meant to be evil masked as good from the get-go, 1. If we accept it, every happy interaction looks empty and pointless as hell and strips the story of its stakes to some degree, or 2. We realize it honestly doesn’t fit because his “good” feelings being genuine is why entire plot points work and the story developed in the way it did.

What I’m trying to say is this: Mikasa’s temporary conclusion that Eren might have been a monster* all along, isn’t correct (and it’s meant to be seen as a wrong read imo). But if his plan is what he says it is, he IS one, thus her conclusion would be correct. Which it isn’t.

Side note: while I believe Eren’s plan and Mikasa’s conclusion need to coincide (plan true = M conclusion true VS plan fake = M conclusion fake), there is an argument to be had that Mikasa could be wrong about Eren always having been a monster while Eren still truly having become one by this point in time. But I don’t believe so. For instance: if Eren wasn’t a monster before but has become one now, Mikasa’s closing conclusion (him being one NOW) is still correct - but the reasoning/buildup used to arrive at that conclusion, is wrong. It would be like solving a mathematical problem incorrectly but arriving at the right answer by luck. She’s asking herself if, looking back, she can actually see the seeds of his true form, where she previously saw him through rose tainted goggles. But if he truly was a good boy before, it would be unfair (and a waste of time) to put on the table, a plot point that’s synthetically explained/constructed, when there is a true calculation/formula to the conclusion since (if) it’s correct. And the other way around, if her conclusion is right, but the plan is fake, the “monstrosity” she’s caused to reflect on, is fake to begin with, so how can she still be right he’s a monster?

So, back on track, I don’t feel like Eren is meant to end on this 100% villain note. His plan of genocide, his on-the-nose villain final titan face, PLUS Mikasa’s “sike, he’s ALWAYS been a monster”... it’s just too much evil. Especially for a story like SNK. It feels to me, like this is the “the night is darkest before the dawn” part of the story, where we go from “he’s a pure boy”** to “my god... no... he’s actually a demon boy, god help us”. Mikasa’s narrative says this, and Armin is having that exact themed melt-down when his desire to see Eren as good, physically stops being compatible with what he sees around him. They’re both so scared of acknowledging Eren’s flawed, that having to accept it, initially feels like a much bigger deal, a much longer fall from grace. So we swing with them, from one outer point to the other. Panic mode... but it won’t end there. It’s too cartoony, too black/white still. Looking back, the good times they shared, they were real. And the pain he’s later caused, is also real. But he’s not setting out to do damage for the sake of damage. He’s not evil to the core. I refuse to believe that’s what we’re meant to be left with at the end; redeemable or not, his goal isn’t pain. A lie is best wrapped in truths, and Isayama is fueling our own fear of Eren’s monstrous side by making us do callbacks to things in the past that could be seen as seeds of evil. And to a degree he’s right. Eren is violent. To be honest, it never say well with me how he killed those men at age nine. I understood the “the end justifies the means” aspect of it, and I think that’s why I was able to let it slide despite the discomfort. Yet it never quite... fell to rest. A nine year old being able to stab other humans to death with no remorse and such violent words... should a nine year old child be able to do that, even if it’s for the greater good? I’m sure I’m not alone. And Isayama intended it this way, to be able to do this callback. It spreads uncertainty. You start to buy into it... Becayse it’s true to some degree: it’s messed up. Your regular kid couldn’t do something like that... But it’s not proof that Eren is evil through and through. It’s just presented in such a way that it makes for a compelling argument. And in the heat of the moment, it provides the “holy shit fuck” the story needs to make the stakes as severe as possible. Taking a step back, I refuse to believe it’s a true revelation, but an intensional gaslighting of his person, presented so we’ll swallow the bait. Eren having always been a monster incubating, is too cartoony to be the final note.

So the question becomes: is the plan true or false? Depending on the answer, we’ll have three different proceedings. In neither scenario, he’s means to be the evil monster he’s seen as right now, though. If the plan is true, he’s become this way through being misguided and lost in perpetual hate and pain caused by all the knowledge and visions. With this backdrop, EMA/SC will have to either take him out despite realizing/finding out the pain that corrupted him - so not hating him but having to end him all the same. Or, they manage to win through to him by countering the hate with love (he could still die though, we might be past the point of no return, ngl).

On the other hand, if Eren’s been playing the long game and about to throw them for a loop, the cast members will all learn this in time and come to accept the bittersweet outcome that after all will be the best ending they can ask for in a world with so much hate. Eren can still die, I’m not delusional (but here’s hoping he won’t).

*when I use the term “monster” - and “evil”/“villain” - I’m pinning that to a personality that intends harm with the end goal of harm. Just because he’s not a monster (if this turns out to be the case), that doesn’t mean he isn’t still in the wrong, antagonistic, irredeemable for actions done in the name of good, etc. This ramble meta is about Eren being a conscious agent of pain versus a bringer of pain yet an agent of “good” (not considering his performance as an agent of such).

**He was already tainted from the attack in Liberio, so while I say “pure boy”, I mean in terms of us/the characters still seeing him as originally good (possibly - but “I refuse to believe it” - bad).

Edit: while I say at the start that if the plan is true, he’s a monster, and later say it could be true and he’s still not a monster for it, what I mean is this: if the plan is true in the sense that he knows how evil and selective it is, and will fight for it till the end, then yes, he turned out to be the monster that Mikasa correctly realized him to be. If, on the other hand, erens goal isn’t the pain but the greater good, he’s a misguided “good boy” who caused more bad than good out of mistake. If this is the case, I also believe he will realize it before the end, to swing that morality pendulum back towards the middle. Hope that clears it up. It’s about intent.

Thus concludes my late night/early morning rambles. I’ve said it before, I’m fine with anyone calling me a naive idiot for still holding out hope, but I’m just not accepting that Eren going full Satan and us accepting that “surprise, he always was Satan” is what Isayama wants to leave us with.

Isayama say sike right now.

#snk #snk 123 #eren yeager #snk meta #snk 123 meta #’you never go full retard’ to quote a good movie lol #save me jesus

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rwbyconversations · 5 years

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The weaknesses of Volume 6

As someone who had sub-zero expectations going in, Volume 6 was overall a really good season of RWBY- in fact I’d called it the best overall Volume since Volume 3, if not overall, the best season we’ve had so far. Everything seemed to come together for this season, and most of the fandom has agreed that the opening salvo of episodes was the best the show had, and that the season hadn’t had a dud episode until the group reached Argus. I know some parts of the fandom don’t love the Argus episodes but I found something good in nearly all of them so I can’t say it was a complete waste of time.

But, every cloud has a silver lining, and while Volume 6 was unmistakably a huge improvement over the previous Maya seasons, especially Volume 5, there are still several areas the show can seek to improve on as the show moves to the chilly frozen north of Atlas. So in this essay, I’m going to highlight the (ultimately small but notable enough to warrant talking about them) weaknesses I found in Volume 6.

1) The show needs to more efficiently handle its villains (and why Cinder and Neo’s plot was a drag)

Weird that I’m saying this in the season that gave its longest episode to exploring Salem’s origin story, but Volume 6 had a lot of difficulty managing the pacing of its villains, and the largest subject of its focus arguably didn’t need to be in this Volume. I’m talking of course about Cinder and Neo’s plot this volume.

Now on paper, giving Cinder more spotlight should be what I want. After all, I wrote an essay last year detailing why parts of the fanbase weren’t fond of Cinder, so giving her focus should ideally be able to remedy those problems, right?

Well, that’s the problem. In that essay, I talked about how Cinder’s two biggest flaws as a character were that she was very boring, and how her lack of backstory made it difficult to really care about her as a character. Cinder has effectively been the same character for six volumes in a row and much like Volume 4, the show has a golden opportunity to finally change that and give her a new narrative arc only to waste it.

Volume 6 should have been a drastic wake-up call for Cinder. Unlike at Beacon, where she lost due to Ruby’s sudden intervention and the awakening of her Silver Eyes, Cinder lost at Haven entirely thanks to her own failings. Raven beat her handily in straight combat and goaded her into the entire train-wreck of an operation to begin with, which for a power-focused individual like Cinder, should have really been an igniting spark to get her to begin seeking some introspection on why she’s lost twice in a row in failing to burn down the Academies. But sadly, just like in Volume 4, right as Cinder appears to be getting an arc about her recovering from her loss at Haven, she just ignores it and goes right back on her murder-Ruby train, as if she’s stuck in a Groundhog Day loop.

Cinder’s refusal to move on from a basic arc of “Plan to destroy an academy, enact the plan, get slaughtered, blame Ruby, rinse and repeat” has made her easily the least interesting villain in the entire show. At this point we’re six years in and barring a few contextual clues, Cinder has no backstory, no sympathetic traits, not even any character development to differentiate her from her Volume 1 self. And this after the season where she dominates the villain screen-time until the final third when Adam hijacks the plot.

Cinder’s plot in Volume 6 is therefore largely just setup for Volume 7, in that it explains how Cinder survived Haven and how she reaches Atlas. Along the way, she encounters the in case of bad season break glass button Neo, whose out for revenge and gets a really cool fight scene that’s ultimately just there for fanservice.

Let me repeat. Good fight, really liked it. Let me also repeat- just there for fan-service. This is not an inherently bad thing, but it does have weaknesses.

Neo was always coming back to the show and part of me feels like she was always being held in reserve in the event of a really bad season, so that the next one could have her return and generate some hype since her fan-base are that loyal. And sure enough, Neo’s return did see a notable collection of fans who had dropped the show after 4 and 5 coming back to see their ice cream queen return in a non-Chibi format. I won’t fault the crew for using a plan that worked. Where I take umbrage is that this fight was not necessary. It was a good fight, but I’d have much rather taken a Cinder scene of her actually recovering from Haven and thinking about why she lost again. Instead, Cinder and Neo effectively hijack all the villain screen-time for the rest of the season. And as someone who doesn’t adore Neo like her fans, this made their arc very tiresome, especially when the hints we got of the other villains were far more intriguing. I could talk a lot about the symbolism and thematic choices of the Mercury/Emerald scene in Chapter 9 but I’d struggle to find a lot to say about Cinder’s plot that wasn’t just “Setup for Volume 7.”

The other problem of course is that the rest of Team WTCH are sorely underdeveloped. Hazel at least is interesting again now that he’s several miles away from Ozpin, Tyrian came back and was a delight and I loved seeing him all-but-begging Merc and Em to run so he could hunt them, but Watts remains crucially underdeveloped. He really needs to step up in agency in Atlas because his sardonic wit can only carry him so far, and the man’s voiced by Christopher Sabat, what more reason do you have to give him more to do? The man made the virus that Cinder used to cause the Fall of Beacon, can he be given some agency now please?

Ultimately, Cinder’s plot didn’t need to be the focus for the villains and yet again, the fragments of focus they got showed how much more interesting they were as antagonists. While ultimately Volume 6 did finally give Mercury and Emerald more screentime than Volumes 4 and 5 combined and reminded the audience why you should be paying more attention to them, the rest of Team WTCH desperately needs development, Watts in particular. Cinder remains the worst villain in the entire show in my opinion, and it’s a shame that she’s almost guaranteed to be the one that makes it to the end of the show. I can only hope in Atlas she finally gets time devoted to what makes her tick, but at this point I’m almost at the point of not caring. It’s been six years, I won’t start caring for Cinder now if the show finally remembers to tell us why she joined Salem.

... also I just think Cinder’s new costume sucks and I’d rather Em and Merc get new ones over Cinder and Neo buying extensions for their wardrobes.

2) Cordovin was a joke and she really shouldn’t have been

Show of hands, who actually took Cordovin seriously? Yeah, me neither.

Even during the fight scene, the heroes don’t take it seriously. Having a fight the characters aren’t taking seriously isn’t an inherent flaw but it does mean you can’t expect us to turn around and take it seriously five minutes later.

Cordovin was a wasted character, and one that the show shouldn’t have undershot in all of her scenes by making her the punchline of nearly every joke. Her long-winded rant at the gate scene in Dead End is a huge factor in why a lot of fans, myself included, consider it the weakest episode of Volume 6 despite picking up in the back half. It just drags on for so long that Cordovin outstays her welcome from her first scene.

Additionally, the show not taking her seriously steals a lot of gravitas from the mech battle, and plays a large role in why I think the mech fight failed to really excite a lot of fans outside of key moments like Ruby’s missile run and canon shot. Being alongside Adam’s confrontation with Blake and Yang didn’t help but even on its own, the mech battle drags. Not quite to the same extent as Haven dragged, but on rewatches I was making liberal application of the skip button. That lack of gravitas itself goes on to hamper Cordovin’s serious moment in the season finale where she realizes that her ego allowed the Leviathan a straight shot on Argus and undergoes a soft redemption to let team RWBY leave the city. However, this moment of taking Caroline seriously comes after the plot has made it clear that the entire reason the Grimm attacked Argus was because of Caroline over-reacting to Maria and breaking out her mech instead of scrambling fighters as Qrow predicts they will. Caroline is solely at fault for the Leviathan getting as close to destroying Argus as it did, so it’s difficult to care when she pulls her head out of her ass to do her job.

A lack of investment also means a lack of emotional dedication, which I think showed in the lack of fanart Caroline has generated since her reveal. Her design being very drab and militaristic doesn’t help matters but unlike say, the Yang/Adam rematch where the stakes were present on an emotional and thematic level, Caroline failed to excite the audience beyond a few funny memes.

The additional problem with lacking in emotional dedication/investment is, again, we don’t have enough interest in Caroline to take her seriously, she goes in one episode from the Kooky Racist Grandma to someone we’re expected to sympathize with. And additionally, asking the fans to sympathize with a character whose opening scene includes a not-too-subtle dig at her Faunus traits was asking a lot of the fandom, especially after the previous years showed that the show’s handling of the Faunus racism plot was... varied in quality.

In short, Cordovin basically took a shotgun to her own foot in her first scene. Establishing her as an over the top comic relief character before expecting the audience to care when she broke out a walking advertisement for gen;LOCK was an extensive reach for the writers to try and unfortunately they fell flat. Trying to make the audience care for the problem she herself created is a similar long-reach. Hopefully this extended comedy sequence depiction of the Atlas military will be left behind as Volume 7 heads into the heart of darkness itself.

3) Oscar desperately needs limelight

Oscar’s been in the show now for three volumes. He spent much of Volume 4 on his own, much of Volume 5 as Ozpin’s meat-sack, and now in Volume 6 he finally gets to... get some clothes. I like them, but they’re not suitable compensation for the character development that he clearly had stolen from him.

Oscar is easily the most underdeveloped main hero right now, and it’s a problem that’s haunted the series since Volume 4. Oscar wants to be a hero much like Ruby herself did as a child, but this sole fragment of backstory is never used to make a connection to Ruby. Aaron Dismuke, bless his heart, is giving this show his all and his impression of Shannon McCormack’s tones must be applauded, but much like Cordovin he’s not given much to work with. In a way, he’s almost the hero’s version of Cinder- a character who keeps finding themselves in situations where they should realistically develop as a consequence... only for each time they do, it either gets shuffled into the next volume or relegated to offscreen happenings.

Volume 6 really should have had Oscar undergoing some kind of arc, be it his fear at being persecuted by Team RWBY and Qrow due to harboring Ozpin, his fear as his days as himself become more and more numbered, his acceptance of the fight against Salem or, most glaringly, his running off while the team is in Argus. But every time, Oscar just powers through these circumstances and never gets to develop from them. He never holds it over Qrow that he attacked a child, that Yang indirectly called him a bastard, he never thanks Ruby for having his back after the train crash, and he brushes off Jaune’s apology for smashing him into a wall and alleging he’s Ozpin masquerading himself as Oscar.

Argus is really where Oscar should have stepped into his own. I was looking forward to him going solo and having to fend for himself for a short while, maybe have a scene where he forces Ozpin to come out and talk or gets to chat with Ozma himself about his place in the war against Salem. Have him be scared of losing his personality and just becoming another body for Oz to inhibit, have him be angry that his dreams of being a hero have been cruelly dashed on the rocks for some agenda he never signed up to. Oscar should be an emotional hurricane and instead he’s just a gust of wind.

Seriously show, you had a golden opportunity for an Ozma and Oscar scene since we know Oz can speak to his past selves, and you know Arron has enough range to do both roles at once, why do you spite my farmboi.

But he got a coat now so I guess that’s technically development. Kerry admitted in the Rewind for Volume 6′s finale that some parts of the season got pushed to the next one as they usually do, and I can only hope that Oscar finally expressing emotion was one such scene because Christ alive, he needs it after all the times he just got over crap offscreen this year. I want to like Oscar, he could easily have one of the most tragic arcs of the entire show if they went with it, but the show really needs to give me something to like about him in the first place. Or else he really will become the heroic Cinder, trapped forever in a nightmarish world of never getting to properly develop in spite of countless opportunities being handed to them on a silver platter.

... I still think Oscar lifted Qrow’s wallet for that costume btw.

4) The reaction to Jinn’s story felt lockstep

I don’t have as much to say on this point but I find it rather saddening that all of the characters have much the same reaction to the truth of Ozma’s past- “Salem can’t be killed, you were leading us on for nothing”- when the weeks around the Ozma reveal had the fandom reacting to the story in a far more diverse way. Even in the hiatus we still have arguments over whether Ozpin was truly in the right or if the story was painting Salem as the true innocent party, to say nothing of the takes that Salem and Ozma’s relationship could be seen as an early iteration of Arkos or even Taruadonna with Salem as the abuser.

The fandom had such a diverse range of reactions to Jinn’s story, with everyone seeming to have their own take on the episode and the truth wherein. Some people even used this to ponder if Summer Rose had learned the truth during her time and tied it in with Red Like Roses 2, where she laments having made a necessary sacrifice, to ask if Summer had learned the truth and bitterly signed on to the war against Salem in the hopes that she’d be able to turn the tide thanks to her Silver Eyes.

“Just because I have to give you this origin story doesn’t mean you’re gonna take the right lessons from it.”

Some idiots even decided that this meant Oz was the main villain now, but I’ve learned to drown those people out.

But the show itself has a very flat range of reactions, with nearly everyone in-universe only taking away from the story that Salem cannot be conventionally killed and that therefore their entire journey is pointless. Everyone had the same reaction, with the only levels of variance being how angry they were at Ozpin and Oscar, ranging from Ruby’s “ask first if they have a plan and then be angry at Oz specifically” to Qrow and Jaune’s “physically assaulting a fourteen year old child.”

It almost makes me wonder, if the characters themselves didn’t take anything from the lesson barring Maria connecting the Silver Eyes to the God of Light and that “SALEM CAN’T BE KILLED,” why should the fans? No one took this and went “OK so we can’t stop Salem with force, maybe try talking her down?” Their minds all immediately went to not just being able to shoot her.

Jinn’s story was great, but the reaction to it in universe felt very lacking and I only worry that the more people are told about it, the more chances we’ll get to hear a variant of “Salem can’t be killed.” It’s a shame that such a morally gray out of universe debate has been stripped to its raw components in-universe.

Conclusion

Volume 6 was really good, I really liked a lot of it and it still warms my heart that I can say that about a season of RWBY post Volume 5. But there’s still a lot of work that can be done behind the scenes to fix up the flaws remaining. I chose three big flaws here but there are a few more I could bring up for quick points (mostly: Weiss getting shafted entirely in V6 feels like an overly corrective backlash to her constantly getting slaughtered in V5, Ruby’s agency does not substitute for a character arc and she still needs one, the introduction of the Faunus in Ozma’s flashbacks felt very contrived, Ren and Nora continue to feel useless to the wider plot but at least this time Ren wasn’t getting bodied every fight, so on and so forth), but ultimately we got more good than bad, and you don’t throw out an entire batch of apples just because of one rotten one near the top. I can forgive a lot more when the overall product is good, and Volume 6 certainly was a good season. Hopefully with these smaller problems fixed, which mostly just extends to “Give Cinder and Oscar onscreen development,” Volume 7 and onwards can keep the show moving forward into a brighter future and a better tomorrow.

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incorrectmlpquotes · 5 years

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My Thoughts on Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks

Or: Are we sure this didn’t come out in 2004 rather than 2014? Because the “battle of the bands” story line feels super dated for some reason. I feel like almost every early 2000s cartoon had some sort of music contest episode, and I never liked them. I blame American Idol for making those popular.

Some History:

I’m under the impression that everything in this movie I dislike is a completely subjective thing that wouldn’t bother someone else. I know that, from a movie standpoint, this is much better than the first, but I just don’t like it as much. Everything that warrants complaint comes from a personal hangup that I have (such as: my lack of any musical ability causes me to not care at all whether their band is successful), so if you disagree, I completely understand. These are all my opinions, and I’m aware that this is probably the best of the four movies. (As stated on a previous post, I haven’t watched any of the shorts from 2017 or 2018 as of this entry)

There were a series of promotional shorts released before the movie debuted that explains how the members of the Main 5 came to play their instruments in Rainbow Dash’s band, and some other random stuff. Here’s the link to the playlist on youtube. Here’s a quick rundown of what I think:

Music to My Ears : meh

Guitar Centered : funny, but kind of mean spirited

Hamstocalypse Now : Hilarious.

Pinkie on the One : exactly what you’d expect it to be

Player Piano: a masterpiece

A Case for the Bass: Applejack is one word, why would she have AJ embroidered on the strap? I know people call her that but those aren’t her initials

Life is a Runway: There’s a reason they didn’t let Rarity write the songs

Shake Your Tale: Bad.

This was a pretty clever way to establish some musical background within the group without taking up time in the movie. It also is some sneaky foreshadowing with Trixie, which I appreciate.

In the actual movie: My nitpicks are going to be less Why is no one in class? Why is doesn’t anyone have homework? Because I realize this is a movie and depicting high school as it actually is would be boring to watch. Besides, there are plenty of other things to complain about.

We open on a scene of this film’s villains. And yes I am going to refer to them as villains instead of antagonists because 1) they are actually a threat and we see them doing bad things, and 2) other people will serve as antagonists. A villain is different from an antagonist, even though the terms are often used interchangeably.

The Dazzlings are so cool, they make a cameo four years later. Either this is some really deep foreshadowing, or by season seven the writers were so desperate for an ongoing arc, they looked to other properties. But we now know that the guardians banished them over 1,000 years ago. So they really are ancient magic. And now they have to go to high school. Talk about eternal torment…

Way to take all the credit, Starswirl

We are shown how they are a sort of siren, who feed off of people’s negativity and discord and use their beautiful enchanted voices to cause mayhem. Kind of like a mix between Ursula the sea witch and Spectra from Danny Phantom. Oh my gosh, this is the second one of these reviews that I’ve brought up Danny Phantom. Maybe this is why Butch thinks he’s so popular.

The Dazzlings, we can infer, have been exiled to the EQG-verse from Equestria. So apparently this universe is like the pony version of colonial Australia, where they send all their criminals and miscreants. A solid plan that couldn’t have any negative repercussions. The sirens see a beam of light that must be the one from the last movie. This is good news for them, but bad news for me because now I have no idea how much time has passed the two films. Has it been a couple days? Weeks? Moons? This will make a difference in regards to why people still don’t trust Sunset. But why waste time setting up the story when we can get right into the remix title card?

At this point, I can only assume that principal Celestia threatened to expel students if they told the news or the FBI about the magical winged demon that attacked the school, because no one seems too concerned about that incident.

But they have plenty of time to hurt my baby’s feelings

I’m going to be honest, when I first watched EQG I thought that Sunset was faking her remorseful act after being defeated. As cool as that would have been, she makes a much better reformed bad guy than an antagonist, because she really wasn’t in the last movie that much.

List of “evil” things Sunset Shimmer has done: send fraudulent text messages and emails that honestly could have been pretty easily disproved, made fun of Fluttershy, made fun of the steamers in the gym, somehow divided the school into cliques, ran a mostly unsuccessful smear campaign against Twilight’s bid for dance princess, threatened to destroy the portal to Equestria, transformed into a demon to hypnotize the students, and she dissed the Apple cider.

Ok, that last one is pretty evil. But what really makes this and all subsequent movies great is that we get to see her learn and grow and change from the experience into a real friend.

I am glad to see that the Main 5 have forgiven her, but no one is quite ready to absolve her of guilt. Like, I might not think she did all that much bad junk, but the students of Canterlot High seem to think she was one tier below Mussolini in terms of maniacal dictators, so I don’t blame them for being cautious. It takes a lot to earn back trust.

Back in Equestria proper, the Mane six plus Spike are sitting around waiting for the plot to affect them. They kindly provide some exposition and once again setup the fact that only Twilight can go through the portal, because the others can’t interact with themselves. So we think. I will be bringing this up when we get to The Friendship Games.

Back through the portal, Twilight gets looped into the fact that Sunset has changed her ways. It’s fair to be a little apprehensive to trust someone who, the last time you saw them, was an actual literal demon. (Don’t worry though, Twi, you’ve still got two more unicorns to reform. It’s kind of your thing.)

Don’t reject her love Twilight, it’s all I have to live for

And now it’s time to discuss the small blue elephant in the room. I feel like I really need to explain why I dislike the addition of Flash to any of the plots. He’s kind of a waste of a potential. You want to add a male character: fine. But make them an actual real fleshed-out character. The show has proven that they can do it and do it well. Sunburst and Thorax are great characters who feel like a good addition to the story. And we got a real sense of who they were in one or two twenty minute episodes. I have no clue what this guy’s purpose is except to be a love interest, and this is not the show to do that with. With very few exceptions, the main characters of MLP have not sought out romantic partners, Twilight included. Why would she choose to do so now? I mean, I get why he’s into Twilight: she’s taken the form of a cute teenage girl. But he’s a species that doesn’t even exist in Equestria. She just fell through a portal and instantly got the hots for some weird otherworldly creature…

Wait a minute. Wait just a minute. Perhaps this isn’t compulsory heterosexuality. Perhaps Twilight Sparkle is just a Monster Lover™. I can respect that.

Moving on.

It was so very smart of the writers to have the Dazzlings brainwash the principals in order to get away with this scheme. That makes so much more sense and covers any plot holes that could arise (such as, someone claiming to be a new student despite having no transcript, no grades, and no knowledge of how to hold a pen).

Does time work differently between these two universes? Has it been months in Equestria but only a week in this world? (It really threw me off that the first four season of MLP took place over one year, and these movies don’t help that). And the sad thing is, this could be easily hand-waved away by a single throw away line, but it isn’t.

The Dazzlings are already better villains than Sunset, even from a character standpoint. We know their powers, we know their motivation, and we know they are capable of bringing about an actually believable rift between friends.

Then the best song, best montage, and possibly best scene in any of these films happen: the Dazzling come into the lunchroom and hypnotize everyone. This song is beautiful and eerie and exactly what you would expect a magic spell to sound like. I also enjoy the visual representation of the bands competing (and not just because I didn’t want to hear any of them perform) that we’ll see later. To give credit where credit is due, this movies has some great visual sequences.

Give ‘em the o’l razzle dazzle

At first I thought it was unrealistic that this many kids had bands, but I realized it was probably an effect of the spell. But I might not be the best judge: I think I know maybe three people, plus myself, who don’t play an instrument. I’ll just assume that the Disney channel exists in this universe, and all these children just really want to be famous.

It’s worth sitting through this movie just to see everyone’s pajamas. That’s not weird, right? No really, the scene of them all having a big slumber party is everything I ever wanted from this series. They managed to capture everyone’s personality from an article of clothing. Now THAT’s good character design.

I get the distinct impression that the writers of this don’t like Rainbow Dash.

Oh good, references to technology that couldn’t possibly date this movie in the slightest. Wait… this is Pinkie’s house. Aren’t the Pies supposed to be like Amish or resembling Amish-type folk? What is the human equivalent of rock farmers? Not actual farmers because those exist in the pony-verse. This really confuses me, but Maude’s cameo is fantastic.

The scene with Twilight and Sunset is one of those really well-done moments that reminds me why I love the show so much. It feels really genuine, and supports my argument that it was worth having Sunset as a crappy villain just to reform her.

Ah yes, the sweet, lingering glances that totally platonic female friends share with each other late at night. I know them well.

Our girl Twily seems to be having trouble writing a spell that can double as a catchy pop song (She’s no Lana Del Rey), so they go with an old set list. How long has this band been operational? Weren’t they in a huge feud for several years?

Mac is a close second for best cameo

So we get to watch the band audition, and it goes about as well an actual high school talent show. The CMC are in the outfits from Showstoppers (which is hilarious) and Snips and Snails rap (which is disturbing). In order to keep my goblin brain from exploding while trying to figure out the ages of everyone, I’m just going to assume that this is a combination Middle School and High School. So, if Sunset won fall dance princess four years in a row, she would be in the tenth grade now, so they would be about 15-16. The Equestria Girls Holiday Comic shows Rarity driving a car, so that could be a possibility.

A. Daft. Punk. Reference. Wow. Just wow. (Note: this was more shocking before season five, when there was a character that was basically Lady Gaga. And by basically, I mean very obviously Lady Gaga. Remember when the pop culture references in this show were subtle?)

Dash’s song is quite possibly the most cringeworthy thing I have ever heard. The only defense is it does sound like something a high schooler would write.

On that note, why is Rainbow Dash the lead singer of the group? I mean, I know why, but WHY? (and yes, I am aware that her voice actress is a singer. But Ashleigh Ball uses her normal voice when she performs. Think back to all the songs RD has sung in the previous four seasons before this aired. There are not a lot of solos or high notes. When she sings as Applejack, it is beautiful, but Dash’s voice is grating sometimes)

Really? A battle of the bands is the greatest thing you’ve done at the school? That whole “stopping an actual demon with magic” was just a regular Friday for you? I’ll chalk that up to the brainwashing, otherwise I might go full on rage and throw my laptop out a window.

I guess our merry band of protagonists weren’t paying attention to big cafeteria scene, because they just now figured something suspicious is going on.

Still haven’t fixed the lights in that dim corner of lockers. Fortunately, there are many dramatic confrontations to be had.

I think we’re supposed to see Rarity’s obsession with the outfits as a ridiculous thing, but I think it’s important to distinguish this universe from the one with the professional seamstress who has unicorn magic at her disposal. This is a teenager who has school, extracurriculars, and parents to contend with. If I went through the trouble to hand-make seven costumes for my friends, then found out no one would wear them, I’d be pretty ticked off as well.

Now this is how you montage. We get to play a fun game of “guess which characters are in which band,” and seeing their “humanized” designs. Lotta bootcut pants in this show.

I’m just going to leave this here...

This is some actually effective villainy. The whole school has turned against each other. Maybe they need to learn about the magic of friendship. Unfortunately, the gang is too busy squabbling over band stuff, and Twilight is too distracted to give an overly emotional speech.

No one in the rule book does it say magically turning into a pony is grounds for disqualification...I would assume.

If we’re being honest here, the Dazzlings are better performers than the Rainbooms.

And we’ve come to the crux of things. The scene where they’re locked under the stage is the perfect example of my biggest issue with this movie. I do not like to see Mane 6 fight. I don’t like Trade Ya, I don’t like Putting Your Hoof Down, and I despise Look Before You Sleep. Seeing this otherwise close group of friends constantly have petty arguments, even if it’s for completely valid plot reasons, make me want to turn the movie off. This isn’t a criticism of the screenwriting, it is just a reason why I personally dislike Rainbow Rocks more than the other films.

Of course, they make up because this is about the magic of friendship and what not, but notice how no one actually apologizes for their behavior. No, “I’m sorry that I minimized your contribution to the group or made fun of something you were passionate about.” I realize they were under the influence of magic, but they also knew that! They knew the Dazzlings had the power to turn people against each other! An apology is just a preamble to fundamental behavior change, and if they don’t realize why they were being bad friends, how can they learn from anything?

And the real kicker is, they knew what the Dazzlings were capable of. Twilight read a book about them immediately before going through the portal. It’s not they they just learned that they spread chaos. Why are we fighting? Gee, I don’t know.

DJ-ex-machina. I’m ok with this.

To the movie’s credit, the finale really has one of the best song of the movie. And by that, I of course mean Trixie’s song. Trixie is the most fun addition to the cast. She makes for a fun antagonist, on her own and as a Pawn to the Dazzlings.

Fight scene! Fight scene! We’re gonna have a fight scene!

Now that they’ve put their petty squabbles behind them, it’s time for a big music battle. The Dazzlings pony up harness the energy of the audience to project their Equestrian selves to...I don’t know. Take over the world or something.

This isn’t even their final form

Oh. This design looked better in book form

Sunset is Magic. That’s the show.

So the stones auto-tuned them, and that made everyone mindlessly antagonistic. I’m sure there’s some clever commentary there.

T’was the magic of friendship that killed the beast.

No, you don’t get to just rejoin the plot

Thank you, Trixie.

The real story here is how Principal Celestia will pay off the press.

Thus Twilight goes back to the land of horses, Starlight has been truly forgiven, and my Netflix suggestions will never been the same again.

I want to give a big shout out to the person who put all the captions on the image gallery for this movie’s wikia page. They are funnier than I could ever hope to be.

Some general thoughts:

The scene of Twilight awkwardly yelling “Friendship is magic!” to a room of confused teenagers is the cringiest thing I’ve ever seen, but it got a good laugh out of me. Look at the Dazzlings faces in this scene. “Ok, we legitimately didn’t see that coming.”

One of the reasons that I am so drawn to the show is that they are able to create conflict and drama without being mean-spirited. I have to deal with that kind of nonsense so much in my daily life, I just don’t want to subject myself to eighty minutes of it. But i get it: from a narrative standpoint, this is the most cohesive. There’s some good set up and pay off, and an actually intimidating villain who is actually present in the plot.

I love Trixie so much, I should be dead. She really is the star of the show. I forgot how little we saw of her before season six.

The stinger, oh the stinger. Forget what I said about the pajama party; it was worth sitting through this for the promise of an interesting sequel.

We’ll get to you soon, you marvelous lesbian disaster.

Starlight’s redemption is the best part of this franchise, and it’s worth all the nonsense to hear Rebecca Shoichet’s angelic voice.

From a purely film standpoint, this is probably the best one of the bunch. It has a clear structure, everyone’s motivations check out, there’s an actual climax that feels earned. I just don’t enjoy it. There are worse ways to spend eighty minutes 3.7/5

The worst thing to come from this, however, is the terrifying merchandise:

What Fresh Hell is This?

#MLP:FiM #MLP Equestria Girls #equestrian girls review #equestria girls #rainbow rocks #more of my opinions

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 7 years

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Michael After Midnight: Guardians of the Galaxy

So as you may well know, I loved Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. I can safely say it’s my favorite movie ever made… or one of them, anyway. While I do think it is marginally better, there is a marginally there, and I gotta be honest, I still love part one just as much in its own way. Guardians of the Galaxy is one of the coolest, freshest, and most out-there superhero comic book movies of the past decade, and a stylish change of pace for the sometimes very formulaic MCU.

But who could have guessed that? The MCU was known for taking the less famous heroes in its roster (Since they didn’t have Spider-Man, the X-Men, or the Fantastic Four to work with) and turn them into juggernaut blockbusters, but did anyone really guess that they could take a bunch of characters as obscure as the Guardians and make a quality film with them? And that’s not the only reason this movie was a gamble; this movie was almost totally detached from the rest of the MCU and its overarching plot, with the appearances of Thanos and the Collector (both of whom only appear in a single scene, though the Collector also pops up in a post-credits stinger) being the only connection to other movies, and even then, both characters were relegated to stingers to foreshadow future movies anyway! And then you have to throw in the fact that the movie is directed and written by a guy who directed cult movies and the horrendous Movie 43, the fact that one character is a talking tree, the fact another character is a talking raccoon who uses guns, and the fact the MCU is locked out of using characters like the Skrulls, Galactus, and the Silver Surfer… you can kinda see why this was a risky move on their part.

But oh boy, did it ever pay off. Rave reviews, audience love, and people hyped for more… it’s safe to say that Guardians is one of the best films in the entire MCU, and it really set itself up as a nearly impossible act to follow, which is all the more impressive seeing as it came after Captain America: The Winter Soldier, ANOTHER very tough act to follow. So, now that we have all this context, why are Peter Quill and his rambling gang of space jerks so endearing and enjoyable? Well, here’s the story:

Peter Quill was a young Earth boy taken in by the alien Yondu and his band of Ravagers on the eve of his mother’s death by brain tumor. Decades later, Peter is all grown up and calling himself Star-Lord, and is now about space pirating. Unfortunately for him, the latest trinket he stole (and left Yondu out of the loop on) is something that the Mad Titan himself, Thanos, is looking for. Thanos sends his daughter Gamora out to retrieve it, and at the same time, bounty hunters Rocket and Groot decide to take Quill in for the price on his head. All of them fight and end up in prison, where they meet Drax the Destroyer, a man who desires vengeance against Ronan the Accuser, a fanatical Kree renegade who serves Thanos. These unlikely allies decide to team up to escape the prison they’re trapped in and head off to sell the object for massive amounts of cash; however, Ronan is hot on their tails, desiring the object for himself. Can these knuckleheads stop bickering long enough to make some big bucks, or is Ronan going to destroy them all?

The biggest selling point for this movie is how weird it is in comparison to the rest of the MCU. Due to its weird, cosmic nature, Guardians gets to throw in stuff you’d never see anywhere else. We have Rocket, the gun-toting raccoon; Groot, the talking tree man who can only say “I am Groot” and who acts as Rocket’s bodyguard and best pal; we have Drax, an alien who literally cannot grasp the concept of metaphors and jokes; and then we have weird cameos from Cosmo the Russian space dog and, most famously, Howard the Duck. The only reason it’s easy to swallow Howard being here is because he only appears in the stinger to a movie that has featured the aforementioned gun-toting raccoon seriously; he’s the perfect capstone to this awesomely strange film.

But hey, this film is more than just weird and wacky characters; it has a kickass soundtrack, too! “Hooked on a Feeling,” “Escape (The Pina Colada Song),” “Cherry Bomb,” “I Want You Back”… Peter’s mom had great taste, and gave it to her son in the gift of a treasured Walkman. The soundtrack is another big reason the film is great; from the moment that “Come and Get Your Love” by Redbone kicks up while Peter dances about the ruins he’s raiding during the opening credits, I could tell I would love the movie. It’s just a perfect summation of the movie as a whole: dark, intense dramatic moments followed up with goofy, fun, lighthearted moments.

Now, a comic book movie is only as good as its villain… so how are the villains in this movie? Well, there are actually quite a few antagonists here: Ronan the Accuser, Nebula, to a very small extent due to his minimal role Thanos, and in a not-evil-but-antagonistic role Yondu. Let’s start with the big bad, Ronan: Ronan is a villain I’m of two minds about. On the one hand, he definitely fits the “Generic Doomsday Villain” mold in a lot of ways, acting more like a roadblock for the characters to overcome than a truly complex antagonist. On the other hand… Lee Pace, his actor, throws himself into the role and elevates it above its genericness by being a truly incredible ham. Ronan’s every line of dialogue involves him chewing the scenery to the highest degree, which makes him a solid villain at the very least. What he lacks in being truly complex he makes up for in sheer hamminess, which is more than can be said of wasted villains like Malekith.

For the other antagonists and villains, Nebula is incredibly cool, but also pretty underused, really only getting one big fight scene at the movie’s end and kind of standing on the sidelines for most of the rest of the film. This is one thing the sequel definitely did better, which is also the case with Yondu, but for a different reason. As in the sequel, Yondu is absolutely fantastic and badass here, and Michael Rooker is clearly making the best of every second he appears, making him easily one of the best characters of the film… but the sequel gave him even more badass moments and even more character development. Still, Yondu was well-established by this film and is utilized quite well. As for Thanos, well, he gets but a single scene… but what a single scene it is. Josh Brolin gets to show off his skills playing the Mad Titan in all his glory, and he is everything he should be. He’s intimidating, he’s badass, and every line of his is just oozing with the capacity to be a bombastic ham of galactic proportions. This is his first impression, and my what an impression it is!

Guardians of the Galaxy is a modern comic book movie masterpiece. As the introduction/origin story, yes, there are some rough patches here and there, but for what it was trying to do and ultimately did, well, it’s really an incredible movie. And let’s be real: this probably opened the door for other movies that might not have been made otherwise. As an action-comedy superhero film, it paved the way for movies like Deadpool and ESPECIALLY Suicide Squad, which seems like this movie after a lobotomy. It’s a big step forward for comic book movies, for better and for worse.

Even if I like the sequel a bit better, I can’t help but stress it is just a bit. Like the sequel is at 100% and this movie is about 91%. They’re tied for my favorite movie ever, and I think to truly appreciate them they need to be watched one after the other, Kill Bill style. Needless to say I give this movie the utmost recommendation: if you like action-comedies, superhero movies, sci-fi, any of that, this is the movie for you.

Guardians of the Galaxy has manged to stay the freshest series in the MCU so far aside from Captain America; the Thor and Iron Man movies went downhill after their first installments (though the third Thor movie is looking good from the trailers), and Age of Ultron was a flawed but not irredeemable mess. Only time will tell, but it seems quite likely that so long as James Gunn has his way, the Guardians series will always be fantastic space action fun.

Infinitely rewatchable, infinitely quotable, and infinitely enjoyable… movies like this don’t come around often.

#Michael After Midnight #Review #Movie review #Guardians of the Galaxy #Marvel #MCU #Peter Quill #Thanos #sci-fi #action-comedy #Yondu #comic book movie

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fandomsandfeminism · 7 years

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Character Design is an important part of any movie, but few use it to map out character design as well as Howl's Moving Castle

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Full Transcript below

Character design is a funny thing. It is an integral part of visual storytelling, but most viewers don’t pay it a whole lot of attention. I want to focus on character design in Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle, and how it helps establish character development, but first let’s look at some of the basic philosophy behind character design.

Beyond “This character looks like a badass” or “holy crap, I want to cosplay her” most people don’t consider the design of a character too closely. But it’s a really very important part of developing a story. Good character design has to not only be nice to look at, but also convey information to a viewer. How a character looks- their clothes, their hair, the shape of their eyes and face and body types, convey a lot of information about them. Personality, profession, stuff like that. -

So, Let’s Look at Naruto, for example.

Never mind that orange is, logically speaking, probably the worst color a ninja could wear. This is actually some really solid character design. Bright colors, exaggerated posing, and that spiky spiky hair- one glance and you can sum up his core personality. Naruto is energetic, outgoing, and a young hero. The colors and shape of his composition are able to convey an effective first impression. While the story itself will introduce more nuance to his character, this initial impression primes us for his outlandish, even prankster attitude in the early chapters.

And bright colors + spiky hair is a really good character design for shounen heroes.

Look at Izuku in My Hero Academia

Bright colors and spiky hair. His design is more subdued than Naruto’s, but then, so is his personality- more shy and nervous than Naruto, but still young and heroic.

Bright colors and spiky hair are a main stay for your energetic, young, friendly shounen hero. And This even holds true for the ultimate shounen hero of our time:

Goku has super bright colors and super spiky hair, and never a hero more bright and energetic and pure hearted have you seen. Aspects of his design- like the tail and the power pole, are a nod towards his origin as Son Goku of The Journey West legend. His fighting gi instantly let’s us know that not only is this a fighting, action show, but one with action based in martial arts specifically. It’s a very effective design -

But not only does character design help establish character traits with a first impression. It can also be used to draw a contrast between characters.

Compare little Goku to little Gohan.

Gohan is still in bright colors, and his hair is even a little spiky. But instead of a fighting gi, he’s dressed in traditional looking Chinese clothes, much like his mother, ChiChi. Little Gohan isn’t a fighter (yet), and his outfit clearly reflects that. Also, his hat and the dragonball on top are much rounder and more contained that Goku’s wild mop of hair, hinting that Gohan will be milder and less outgoing as well.

Character design can also be used to draw a connection between two characters. Look at Sukeroku and Yotaro from Showa Genroku Rakugo. If you’ve seen this anime, it’s fantastic. Everyone should watch it.

They both have that same little curly loop on their nose. It’s a subtle thing, one that’s easy to miss, but it gives the characters an implicit connection even though they have never and will never meet. Their personalities, their style of performance, and their roles in the story are hinted to parallel each other with this simple visual cue though.

- So let’s look at Howl’s Moving Castle. Howl’s Moving Castle came out in 2004, and is based on the book of the same name by Dianna Wayne Jones. It’s apparently pretty different from the book, but since I’ve never read it, I can’t speak on that too much. It’s a film that deals a lot with war and pacifism, emotional honesty and responsibility, and even the question of identity.

Note: lots of spoilers moving forward. So if you haven't seen the movie, be careful.

Between the missing Prince being disguised as a turnip headed scarecrow, Markl disguising himself as an old man, and the state magicians slowly losing their human forms forever, the question of appearance and identity is a recurring motif.

So character design becomes particularly important in Howl’s, not only to help in our initial impression of the characters, but also to help us understand their character growth. We see this very clearly with the Witch of the Waste, Sophie, and Howl himself. -

Let’s start with the Witch of the Waste. When we first meet her, she looks like this. She’s used magic to glamour herself, and the result is...kind of alarming. She’s this big formless shape in bright make-up and jewelry, menacing and obsessed with outer appearance. It tells us an awful lot about her- she puts us on edge. She’s dangerous, kind of inhuman. She could not be more different than the rather plain Sophie.

And then, she gets her magic taken away. Deprived of all her magic, she reverts to this tiny, rather sweet, kind of senile old lady, totally human and almost helpless. It’s a startling difference. It also happens at the exact same time that the much larger threat, the looming war and the war mongering government, appears center stage in the movie, and the witch goes from the main antagonist to a lovable side character. Her character development happens narratively at the same time it happens visually. -

Sophie is a much more complicated case. Her character design shifts are a major plot point. At the beginning of the movie, Sophie is a bit of a shut in. Mature to a fault, she has dedicated her whole life to work and has eschewed fun. And her character design reflects that. She wears a plain dress, her hair is in an unassuming braid. Despite working in and owning a fancy hat shop and making beautiful, intricate hats all day, her own hat is very simple and plain. She keeps her emotions totally subdued and comes across as rather lonely and unhappy with low self esteem. Especially when she is compared to her younger sister- friendly, and outgoing, and in big bright outfits.

After a bad encounter with the Witch of the Waste, she is cursed for her outer appearance to reflect her inner emotional state. And Sophie takes on the appearance of an old woman. So now Sophie’s appearance literally reflects her emotional state and growth. In moments of emotional vulnerability, when she lets herself be honest about how she feels or acts more spontaneously, she grows younger to reflect that, but fear and self doubt make her revert to old age.

By the end of the film, she has broken the curse on her own, and her appearance is far more youthful and open, a bright dress, her short hair, and she herself has grown more open and confident. -

While Sophie’s character development and character design is a major plot point, Howl’s is a bit more subtle. When we first meet Howl, he has bright blond hair, a bright pink and grey jacket cape thing, tons of sparkling jewelry and a real habit of showing off. He is as flashy and flamboyant as his outfit- shallow and dazzling, truly a man who would eat a woman’s heart. When Sophie, now an old woman, because of the curse, shows up at his house, he pays her no real mind at all. He doesnt even have much to say about it. He just continues on as normal.

Howl’s big design change happens after Sophie has shown up and moved into the castle. She buckles down one day while he is out and cleans the entire castle, top to bottom, scrubbing and sweeping. This is one of my favorite scenes in the film, because only god damn Miyazaki knows how to make cleaning look like so much fun. This is the scene that really cements Sophie’s place in the castle- she isn’t just a stowaway. She takes charge, gets things done, and carves out a place in Howl and Markl and Calcifer’s lives. Howl comes home, sees the change in the castle and the good Sophie has done, is ok with it, takes a bath, and boom-

Character design change. He lets Sophie into his life in a meaningful way, and his entire hair color and wardrobe change. After this moment in the movie, the entire dynamic of their relationship alters. Howl asks Sophie for help, Howl gives her the flower field, Howl stops running and takes a stand.

And look at his character design! All the pomp and poshness has been stripped away- his hair a plain black, shirt a plain white, plain black pants. It is a drastic change from what we saw in the opening act. He never wears the bright pink diamond coat cape thing again. Even in the final shot of the movie, when he’s in a pink shirt, his hair stays that more subdued black.

And here’s the sign of really effective character designs: If you had never watched the movie, and I showed you a picture of Sophie and Howl from the beginning of the film and then the end of the film and asked you to guess how their characters had changed, you could probably ballpark it. Sophie looks happier and more confident. Howl looks more genuine and content.

And that’s the joy of visual media. Movies and tv shows and comics have ways of giving and reinforcing information that other forms of storytelling just don’t. And it’s always a joy to see it done so well. So I guess what I’m saying is take a minute to appreciate the good character designs around us. And take a minute to grieve the terrible ones.

#howl's moving castle #hayao miyazaki #anime #howl and sophie #howl

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mlpandminecraftgirl1 · 7 years

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My Thoughts on the New Steven Bomb (WARNING: SPOILERS)

WELL THEN

I’ve finished watching the new Steven Universe episodes (not JUST finished watching, mind you. I watched them about a week ago) and I thought, with all of this time on my hands, I’d share what I thought about it.

And what I’ve got say is: - WHAT?! and - DOUBLE WHAT?!

(WARNING: These next sections concern the new Steven Bomb and will most definitely contain spoilers. I was unfortunate enough to have the new characters spoiled for me via Instagram (and my impatient non-suspense-wanting self looked at the plots on the wiki before watching the episode on YouTube because I couldn’t watch them on my TV, long story) but I am aware that some people excel at being spoiler-free (whoever you are, you’re very lucky) and I can not and will not be held responsible for anyone who ends up have the Steven Bomb spoiled for them. I apologize in advance).

Ok, so the plot of the first episode (“Doug Out”) starts out simple enough: A simple “filler” episode where Steven and Connie hang out with Connie’s dad while he’s on a stake-out. A very cute episode that I personally enjoyed and one that I know a lot of the fandom wanted after seeing the events of “Nightmare Hospital” unfold. (Also, I’d like to point out that Doug already seemed to know about Connie taking up sword-fighting and all of that at this point, so I’m guessing they already told him, which I thought was a very nice personal touch by the Crewniverse, seeing how this took away the stress of revealing this stuff to him). I also liked how he seemed genuinely O.K. with it and how he seemed more comfortable and friendly around Steven than Connie’s mom was. And of course, the bit at the end with the new gem silhouettes sent me for a loop. It was some good quality filler if I ever saw any, and I have.

The second episode, “Are You My Dad?” (I’m covering “The Good Lars”, along with “Stuck Together” as a whole because I have a lot to say about it.) was a very clever concoction of plot points and drama. We get a throwback to a VERY old episode (A very clever throwback, I might add) and we get to see two new gems: Aquamarine and Topaz.

Aquamarine is….well, she seems to be a very interesting character. It’s very interesting to see a character who is actually villainous and doesn’t also have any emotional problems like Jasper or Blue Diamond. (Inner me: You forgot about Eyeball. She’s villainous and she’s unemotional, sorta. Real me: Shut up, me).

Not that I don’t think that you can’t have real emotions and still be a villain. It’s just that I felt like the Diamonds got a little bit of hate from the fandom because they weren’t really what the fandom expected, which were intergalactic tyrants (Connie’s words, not mine). Granted, they were pretty mean-looking and they seemed pretty evil, but they were really just big ladies with insecurities for days. Jasper was the same way. She was an interesting antagonist and character but it turned out to be her insecurities that were her downfall. Appropriate concept, but a little cliché, you know? There’s a way for character to be developed without touching on sensitive emotion-y bits. So it was nice to meet a gem like Aquamarine. Her voice actor fits her perfectly and I hope to see more of her.

As for Topaz, I have just three words to say about her (breathes):

I. LOVE. HER.

Not just because of her quality voice acting, which is so cool, because her voice is so unexpected for her character yet it FITS SO WELL. It’s like how Kevin Hart and Thomas Middleditch are voicing George and Harold for the Captain Underpants movie (which I am very excited about. I’ve read all of the books at least once, except for the last two). Kevin and Thomas make George and Harold sound older than elementary kids, but they tackle it so well, I can’t imagine anyone else voicing them.

No, the reason I love this character is because I relate to her SO. FLIPPING. MUCH. Particularly, this line:

Topaz: They’re always sending me on these miserable missions. I’m always pretending that I’m fine with it. I have to pretend I’m fine.

And this is one of the relatable things I’ve heard on this show so far. If there’s one thing this show has taught me, is that it’s ok to feel bad about something. It’s ok to be sad or angry about something you can’t control, and yes, there are people out there who have these problems who like to pretend they’re fine. Most people think that this is the person’s own choice, but some people (bless their hearts) they don’t HAVE a choice. Some people know that it’s better to just hide it than to drag people down with them or to have to justify it or to keep it from slowing them down. It’s not healthy or wise to pretend you’re fine when you’re not, but most people do it because they don’t really have a second choice on what to do most of the time.

And I should know. I am (or at least, used to be) one of those people.

Anyway, I can’t wait to see more development on these new gems!

Now, for the main event…..

The Lars episodes.

“The Good Lars” and “Stuck Together” were, in my opinion, some pretty good episodes, mostly because of the Lars character development (that’s not the only reason I liked them, of course). I mean, we get to see these new sides of Lars, which show that he loves baking (which is awesome) and that, just like everyone else, he’s scared of what people think of him.

But that’s not what I want to talk about. You see, I’ve been hearing rumors (and seen fan art) that suggest that Steven and Lars are gonna fuse. Now, none of my friends really watch Steven Universe, but if any of them did, I’m sure they would’ve asked me “Do you think that Steven and Lars are going to fuse?” And my answer to that is: yes and no.

You see, I don’t exactly know what level a relationship has to be on in order for two beings to be able to fuse, but I’m guessing it has to be pretty high. I mean, Connie and Steven are the best of friends (“Alone Together”), Steven and Amethyst had a pretty strong relationship already (“Earthlings”), the Rubies were a pretty strong team (“Hit the Diamond”), Pearl and Amethyst are a good team (“Giant Woman”), and Garnet is….well, Garnet (“every episode ever”). I know that consent has to play a role, too, given the circumstances with Malachite. (I’m not going to mention Jasper’s fusion with the corrupted gem, because, as sad as it is, that gem wasn’t in its right mind to give consent at that moment, so it doesn’t apply).

Also, since Steven can fuse with Connie, a human, it’s a good guess that he can fuse with other humans as well.

So why Lars?

You don’t really need to watch every episode with Lars and Steven together to see that Lars can be a bit of a jerk, especially to Steven, but we know that Lars is just covering up the fact that he’s insecure (Inner me: just like everyone else on this show. Real me: Me, what did I just say? I said shut up), but I can’t help noticing that we’re getting a lot of character developments with Lars, and since I don’t think it would make sense to have all of this development without something big happening (and no, I don’t think he’s going to die, despite what they’re saying on Instagram), then it is definitely a possibility for a fusion to take place. Maybe we’ll end up getting a “defining moment” for their relationship like we got in “Earthlings” during this bomb.

On the other hand, the reason I say no is because of something I’ve noticed in the show, but something I’ve noticed in general, and I’m pretty sure that fandom has noticed it, to

No disrespect to the Crewniverse, but when it comes to giving people what they want, they can be a little late on their delivery.

Now, I know what that this isn’t their fault, but let’s be honest, they’ve made it a habit of raising fan’s hopes, and then shattering them. I mean, people have been asking for a Lapis/Peridot fusion for Lord knows how long, and don’t even get me started on the hate I saw on Instagram about “Rocknaldo”. I’m not trying to be disrespectful or trying to question their methods of storytelling, but if there’s one thing that this show has taught me, it’s that when expecting something big to happen, one shouldn’t hold their breath.

Like I said, I’m not saying a fusion between Steven and Lars is impossible. After all, another thing this show has taught me is to expect the unexpected. No one expected Steven and Connie to fuse, and look at them now.

Also, in Rebecca Sugar's defense, she may not give us what we want, but she gives us what we need. Anyway, that's all I have to say about this bomb so far. I can't wait for the next new episodes, because I'm sure they're going to be mind-blowing, and thank y'all for listening to my VERY LONG post about what I thought. Please like and reblog if you want me to keep on posting stuff like this and I will see you guys later! Adios!

#steven universe #su garnet #su amythest #su pearl #su peridot #su lazuli #su jasper #su lars #su connie #su topaz #su aquamarine #su thoughts

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meiklemons-blog · 7 years

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Assignment #2, Part 2

1. Write a brief summary of the main plot, describing the event or events that are the focus of the film and stating where and when they take place.

All of the notices about the movie have told us that the story is told in reverse order. Leonard, played by Guy Pearce, kills the murderer of his wife in the film's first scene, and that the film then moves backward from that point, in roughly five-minute increments, to let us see how he tracked the guy down, ending with what is, chronologically, the story's beginning. He has witnessed the violent death of his wife and is determined to avenge it. But he has had short-term memory loss ever since the death and has to make copious notes--he even has memos tattooed to his body as reminders.

2. Name and describe the protagonist and the antagonist in this story.

Who is the true antagonist in Memento?

Is it John G or “Teddy”, who "killed" Leonard’s wife?

The first and most obvious choice for our antagonist is Teddy, the dude who's using Leonard to make some green and leaving casualties on the way. He's constantly trying to get at Leonard's car so he can cash in on the two hundred grand stashed in the trunk. He lies to Leonard about almost everything. But Teddy also has moments of honesty. He warns Leonard against Natalie and tries to persuade Leonard to investigate himself and question where he got the suit and the car. He consoles Leonard about being alive, and maybe he even tells Leonard the truth at one point about who he really is. So maybe he isn't completely a bad guy.

Is it Natalie, who manipulated Leonard into kidnapping Dodd?

Natalie is next on our list for obvious reasons. Teddy might be manipulative, but at least he's nice about it. But Natalie's manipulation is right in Leonard's face. She enrages him by mocking his dead wife in some pretty sleazy ways, and then gives him what is perhaps the evilest smiles as she prepares to use his violent nature against him. However, Natalie may actually like Leonard, or at least pity him. There doesn't seem to be a selfish motive for her running the license plate number and giving him info on John Gamel. Her desire to be remembered by him also seems sincere. So maybe she's not the antagonist either.

Or is it Leonard himself, who chose to ignore the facts (Even after going on about how facts are very important) and continue searching for John G, even after he was dead.

It is Anterograde Amnesia which Leonard is constantly battling and creates the scenario and drives the plot. It is the thing that shapes our protagonist, just like every good villain shapes their hero. Anterograde amnesia is at the center of all conflict in Memento. Both Natalie's and Teddy's manipulation is a result of—and accomplished because of— Leonard's condition. Antagonist is the force of nature against the protagonist. Sometimes, the protagonist and antagonist are the same character, depending on whose point of view you're watching the movie as.

3. In the story told by the film, what is the main conflict and how is it resolved?

Leonard Shelby, a former insurance investigator, suffers from anterograde amnesia, short term memory loss in which he cannot make new memories, after he was injured while trying to stop two men from raping and killing his wife in their home. After he awakes to find one of the intruders, he later confirms his name is John G., got away he vows to find that man and get revenge for his wife’s death. This pursuit of revenge and justice is extremely difficult for Leonard who has to use aids such as Polaroids, notes, and extensive tattoos to help him keep track of things because he loses his memory about every fifteen minutes. These tools remind him of where he is, where he is going, and the purpose of his investigation. Leonard interacts mainly with two other interesting characters in the film: Teddy, an unjust cop who pretends to be Leonard’s friend while gaining money on the side and Natalie, a barmaid, who is seeking her own revenge for the death of her boyfriend.

4. Identify and describe two literary elements or devices that are evident in the movie other than conflict, antagonist, protagonist and imagery. Other literary elements or devices may include: prologue, expository phase, voice, symbol, foreshadowing, flashback, irony, foil, opposition, archetype, motif, characterization, climax, and denouement. For each literary device that you identify, describe the role that it plays in presenting the story told by the film.

The use of Polaroid photographs and multiple plot lines in Memento function as a representation of Leonard’s character. The story itself follows two different plot lines: one that is presented in color (the main plot line), and another that is presented in monochrome (sub-plot line). The main plot follows a sequence that is non-linear and actually loops the story by starting where it ends and vice-versa, which is the plot sequence of the entire film in itself. The subplot follows a chronological sequence, contrasting with the main plot. By having two different plots, Memento not only succeeds in resembling Leonard’s character, but also reinforces the importance of the relationship between the Polaroid photographs and the narration sequence. The film reveals to us how and when Leonard took specific photos. In essence, the photographs are an evidence of a time that once existed but is now forever gone. But, due to Leonard’s disability, they will always be new and true every fifteen minutes (approximate time of how long it takes for Leonard to lose his new memories). So, in a way, they are timeless to him; there is no difference between the past and present, which we see twice when he questions how long it has been since he was in the hotel and since he’s been looking for John. G. The plot sequence is also supporting evidence of the past versus present idea.

Leonard’s voice which serves as a first-person narrator and also an unreliable narrator, whose credibility is seriously compromised, is another literary device served in Memento. Sometimes the narrator's unreliability is made immediately evident. For instance, a story may open with the narrator making a plainly false or delusional claim or admitting to being severely mentally ill, or the story itself may have a frame in which the narrator appears as a character, with clues to the character's unreliability. A more dramatic use of the device delays the revelation until near the story's end. In some cases, the reader discovers that in the foregoing narrative, the narrator had concealed or greatly misrepresented vital pieces of information. Such a twist ending forces readers to reconsider their point of view and experience of the story. In some cases the narrator's unreliability is never fully revealed but only hinted at, leaving readers to wonder how much the narrator should be trusted and how the story should be interpreted.

5. Music and lighting are part of the way that the moviemakers communicate their message. Go deeper than that. Give two specific examples of how other elements of the cinematic art, such as shot framing, camera angles, camera movement, color, editing choice, or length of take were used by the filmmakers to get their point across. (2 paragraphs)

Christopher Nolan alternates the usage of black-and-white and color to fulfill a narrative strategy and the passage of time. The black-and-white scenes, which run in forward order, find Leonard in his hotel room talking on the phone. In these sequences, Leonard tells that parallel tale, illustrated for us with visual "flashbacks." As an insurance investigator, Leonard had a curious case: a man, Sammy Jankis, who had an accident and wound up with anterograde amnesia. Leonard investigates and ruthlessly denies the man's medical claim on the grounds that it was a mental problem and not a physical one. With the black-and-white scenes in chronological order, Nolan alternates that with much more kinetic and confusing main backward story line, which is told in color.

In addition, Nolan uses Leonard's voice-over as a simulation of his thinking, not speaking. The use of interior monologue places the audience in Leonard's head. We learn what he is thinking and feeling as he looks around the motel room. We enter into his experience of disorientation because his thinking expresses his confusion. The artistic challenge was to figure out other means of telling Leonard's story within the confines of the motel room. Interior monologue in film can only be used in very limited doses because the device is inherently static. The focus of interior monologue scenes is on the words, not the visuals. The image is subordinated to the verbal. The challenge is always how to make the visuals engaging in an interior monologue scene without distracting the audience from understanding what the voice-over is conveying.

6. Describe a lesson from this film that viewers can apply to their own lives: (1) to help them decide on a position to support on a public issue or (2) in their relations with family and friends. Detail the events that relate to this lesson. (1 to 3 paragraphs)

Natalie: “But even if you get revenge, you’re not gonna remember it. You’re not even gonna know that it happened.”

Leonard: “My wife deserves vengeance. Doesn’t make any difference whether I know about it. Just because there are things I don’t remember doesn’t make my actions meaningless. The world doesn’t just disappear when you close your eyes, does it?”

Leonard’s words ring true to my being that we shouldn’t live in ignorance. In the possibility of unperceived existence, can something exist without being perceived? If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? I choose to live my day by educating myself on other existences and events around me, by listening to the news or reading articles, by just simply being aware. You don’t hear the screams of people trapped under rubble in Mexico because of two high magnitude earthquakes that we didn’t feel it or affect our lives here in Southern California. You don’t see the pigs’ heads bashed by metal bats to render them unconscious for their meat or cows’ throats be slashed with buckets sitting underneath waiting to be filled with blood. In David Foster Wallace’s essay “Consider the Lobster,” he illustrates the lobsters' consciousness and invokes that the obvious "struggling, thrashing, and lid-clattering" which accompanies the lobsters' descent into the boiling kettle and adds that, according to most ethicists, “ this combination of neurological structures and behavior can be used to determine a creature's pain capacity”. Having worked through the complexities of the issue, Wallace returns to his original question: is it possible to truly defend the act of consuming flesh without acknowledging the act's inherent selfishness? I for one, am very passionate about animal rights and have not been consuming meat or taking part in purchasing animal-tested products, etc. We cause suffering on a much larger scale to farm animals on a daily basis than any other form of life including humans. I'm not asking for all meat consumption to end (while that would be ideal); I'm asking for stronger, non-prejudiced animal protection and rights while urging everyone to consider what they eat, where it came from, and how it got there. It frustrates me that progress on this subject is disturbingly slow. For that I blame ignorance, which can be cured through open minds, education, and compassion.

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