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apas-75 · 2 days

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Okay, two weeks to go, putting my cards on the table: there is no way in hell that Barriss is going to be an Inquisitor. That's not what this is. Everyone’s taking for granted that because the trailer sets up her training as an Inquisitor that means that we’re seeing a corruption arc for her, but just. Look at her. There is not a single frame of this trailer where she is not visibly looking for the exit. There is not a single frame of this trailer where she isn’t either visibly masking what she’s feeling or just looking determined to survive. This isn’t a start of darkness; it’s Ahsoka getting hunted for sport in Padawan Lost.

We aren’t doing the “we’re setting Barriss up as an Inquisitor so we can give her a redemption arc later” scenario. This is the redemption arc, this is her facing an in-universe attempt to force her into the fanon Inquisitor!Barriss mold that she doesn’t fit into at all, and she’s going to prove it and she’s going to outsmart all of these actual fallen Jedi she’s surrounded by who are trying to make her be like them. When Order 66 happened, Barriss was sitting defenseless in a cell and was offered a series of choices that weren’t real choices. But she knows that, she is not buying into it, and that offers her one, incredibly dangerous route to freedom: convincing them to trust her enough to send her into the field with a lightsaber.

It’s going to be rough, it’s going to be an incredibly dangerous, difficult path for her to navigate—they will make her do some messed up stuff to prove herself and for a moment it might look like she's given into despair—but she’s going to come out the other end of this miniseries having rejected both the Empire and the dark side. Not only as a Jedi in every way that matters but also as someone who is equipped with knowledge of how the Inquisitorius operates, which she can use to save as many people as she can from them—because she knows what happens when they take you alive.

And she's going to do it all onscreen in a story that is about her, she is the main protagonist here, and that is frankly something that was beyond my wildest dreams.

This isn’t wishful thinking on my part, this isn’t me trying to do a preemptive rewrite—this is me looking at what’s onscreen in this trailer, at what they’re telling us, at what they’re not telling us, and seeing the story laid out in front of us.

The only way out is through.

#star wars #barriss offee #tales of the empire #I can break down citations but if I did this post would be a mile long and take me all week so tldr just pay attention to her in the traile #and to the narrative framing around it #'divergent paths' wrt her and morgan in the official series description. etc.#so like. it feels unreal but after 11 years this is how we win #because if they were gonna just lazily make her an inquisitor they would have put it in the background of something else years ago #instead of waiting for a chance to animate a whole story for and about her

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animebw · 1 year

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I’m gonna be honest, I thought going into Winter 2023 that this was gonna be a bit of a dump season. One of those seasons where anime just kinda sits around farting and we all wait patiently for the actual Good Shit to start coming out again while pretending to catch up on our backlogs.

That... has not been the case.

Bofuri Season 2: Seriously, how does this show get so many incredible action cuts?

Buddy Daddies: Look, it’s probably not gonna be gay, but Spy x Family meets Tiger and Bunny is something we all need in our lives, okay?

Campfire Cooking in Another World: Couldn’t even last a full episode of this one before my eyes glazed over. Dropped.

Endo and Kobayashi Live: Now this is pretty charming! Pity the animation’s such garbage, though.

Giant Beasts of Ars: It’s a damn good season for fantasy anime, y’all.

Handyman Saitou in Another World: Could actually end up a halfway decent isekai SOL if it stops being so goddamn terrible at structure.

High Card: This is exactly my brand of Anime Bullshit(tm) and I am so on board.

Ippon Again: An actually great female-led sports anime? With major A Place Further Than the Universe vibes? Do not sleep on this one, y’all.

Kaina of the Great Snow Sea: Damn. Good. Season. For. Fantasy. Anime.

Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible: As far as Takagi-san knock-offs go, this one is pleasant enough.

The Magical Revolution of the Oh Fuck It These LN Titles are Impossible to Remember Just Call it “MagiRevo”: Buckle up, folks, we might just have another Actually Good Isekai on our hands.

Malevolent Spirits Mononogatari: It’s Noragami but shit. Dropped at 1 episode.

Nagatoro-san Season 2: Yeah, turns out I’m still not above the occasional well made trash.

Nier Automata: Genuine question, is this gonna be an acceptable substitute for the game or will I just be spoiling the experience for myself?

Onimai: I fucking hate the Mushoku Tensei studio so much and I hate myself even more for deciding to stick with this one.

Reborn to Master the Blade: This one might be soon for the chopping block, but I’m holding out hope that its story can overcome its middling production values. We’ll have to wait and see.

Revenger: GEN UROBUCHI’S BACK BABY YEEEEEEHAW

Sugar Apple Fairy Tale: Take notes, Every Isekai: this is how you explore slavery in a fantasy setting.

The Tale of Outcasts: Feels like a 13-year-old’sedgy Ancient Magus Bride fanfiction. Honestly, though? I kind of really dig it.

Tomo-Chan is a Girl: LET. TOMBOYS. BE. TOMBOYS. WITHOUT. SHAMING. THEM. FOR. IT. Dropped at episode 2.

Tokyo Revengers Season 2: At this point, I’m just watching out of morbid curiosity of how bad the manga’s ending supposedly was.

Trails of Cold Steel: The Northern War: Easily the weakest fantasy anime of the lot. Giving it one more episode to impress me, otherwise it gets the drop.

Trigun Stampede: Y’all are buggin, the CG here is incredible.

Tsurune Season 2: Good god, the glow-up from season one is nuts. KyoAni just does not miss.

Vinland Saga Season 2: Okay, manga readers, let’s see if watching a bunch of sad men farm is as incredible as you say.

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shgcommissions · 6 months

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Rean, Luke and Crow

Illustration #commission for @/Luke35117620 on tt

#tales of the abyss #luke fon fabre #trails of cold steel #rean schwarzer #crow armbrust #illustration #commission

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fridaypls · 28 days

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AU Seed: Rival Art Thieves

Humming softly, Gale finished wrapping the portrait neatly in brown paper for removal and leaned it against the gallery wall it had once hung from so neatly, ready for easy removal. There were only a few things left to do, then he could be gone—into the night, as though he’d never been there.

First, though, he needed to leave proof he had been.

There were plenty of art thieves in the world; good ones and bad ones. Gale tended to judge good and bad on two scales; talent and morality. There were plenty of talented art thieves—perhaps a dozen with true talent—but morals? Scruples?

As far as he was aware, there was only one truly good art thief. One man working from the shadows to reunite art with the peoples it belonged to, ripping creations from the rich and powerful in order to return that art to the people it was created for. One silent thief, never caught on so much as film.

Him.

Gale was aware, of course, that there had been others who had trod the path of an enterprising, Robin-Hood-esque art-thief—Stéphane Breitwiese, for one, had been an inspiration. There had been others, their names less well known and their prior careers less… chaotic? Publicly enflamed?

He shook those thoughts off and went back to the task at hand, carefully wiping down the little glass plaque he’d brought to replace the stolen painting. It would inform the gallery of why the painting had been taken, drawing attention to reason for the theft—warning other galleries that he was coming for them, as well.

“Now that,” intoned a bored, cold voice from the shadows above him, “is just needless pageantry.”

Want to see more? Leave me a comment.

This is a story in progress, featuring retired-assassin Astarion, who retired from a life that his former mentor and master, Cazador Szarr, will stop at nothing to drag him back into. With a bounty on his own head, he seeks to buy back his life by stealing as many valuable paintings before his time runs out.

...except he has a rival. An exceptionally frustrating and dashing rival in the form of Gale Dekarios, who has made it his life's mission to return art to the people it belongs to, following years of stealing it on his ex-wife's behest.

Created with @wincestielfttfwin ♡

Scattered work start-up notes below for your amusment:

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||| With Astarion as a rival art thief in it for profit, with some formidable talents of his own; I think he’s a retired assassin with a price on his own head he’s trying to pay off before someone completes the contract on him ||| Stealing for his life while trying to evade the man who made him and who has offered him a choice; live by the sword or die by the sword. Or, less dramatically, come back to work and start killing people for Cazador again or get killed. ||| Astarion hopes he can just pay off the price on his head, since Cazador dangled an impossible price over his head ||| Intrigue sparks when they try to pull off the same job and the same time; Astarion shows up while Gale is still setting up his Stolen to be returned to the people to whom it belongs by Gale’s Art Thief Name Here display in its place because he’s Gale and he does have to show off a bit, after all ||| And Astarion calls it pageantry, they argue, sparks fly and neither of them realize it—Astarion baits Gale with something flirtatious, then escapes with the art while he’s distracted, possibly tripping an alarm deliberately on his way out to be a shit ||| They meet again while they’re both casing another job, Gale persuades him to work together and split the gallery; Astarion takes the art that Gale wasn’t there to steal, Gale takes the three works he’s there for and they go their separate ways. By working together, Astarion can take much more art, much more easily… so he says yes ||| Gets to see Gale on the job, realizes he’s actually pretty skilled (and he has been the whole time, but now Astarion’s having trouble denying it) ||| Jobs goes really well, Gale asks him to work together again, Astarion says no (to keep him safe) and vanishes the instant he’s not looking, leaving Gale pretty heartbroken ||| …until he starts getting anonymous texts that are very much Astarion, flirting with him more comfortably when they both pretend he’s anonymous ||| Astarion deliberately bumping into him again on a new job, working together… and the pattern repeating again. Perhaps a couple times more. ||| Until Cazador makes an attempt on Astarion while they’re both casing a job together and it could easily have killed them both - almost kills Gale, if Astarion hadn’t barely spotted something critical and saved them both ||| And Astarion vanishes into the wind again, rather than get Gale killed ||| And they go back to not talking ||| And Gale mourns the loss of his friendship and what he’d hoped was a blossoming romance ||| And keeps working ||| …until he finds a note behind a painting he steals with his name on it, in a familiar handwriting.

AND @wincestielfttfwin WAS IN CHARGE OF LAYERING MYSTRA

IT'S SO GOOD, HERE WE GO:

I really was picturing the vibes of some yeah, again, Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief, Catherine Zeta-Jones in Entrapment, we’re wearing tight clothes and doing all sorts of gymnast-style feats to get our burgaling done, so I thought “what if Gale’s background is a gymnast?”

So then I thought, Gale, training for the olympics around age 15, catches Mystra’s attention

Mystra is a museum curator in my idea space, and she believes she can make use of Gale’s skillset and naivete

She convinces him that the real villains in the world are the private collectors who’ve smuggled art of artifacts out of their countries of origin and that all those important objects belong in a museum (with my apologies to Indianna Jones)

So, Gale gets into thieving for Mystra initially, going after targets who yes, are terrible people who’ve absolutely smuggled their art and have it illegally, and Gale brings the art/artifacts to Mystra, who waits until the initial heat around their theft has died down to display them in her museum as coming from an “anonymous donor”

And like, it’s not suuuuuuper secret that Mystra is up to some shady practices in her museum, but she’s got Important Social Connections enough to be pretty powerful and well-respected, and the people she-via-Gale is targeting are already into enough shady shit, they can’t exactly go to the cops about it, so *shrugs* all round

And of course, at some point in a barely-legal timeline, she and Gale start their romantic relationship, though Mystra knows it will reflect poorly on her, so she insists they keep it a secret, and Gale still has all his “not good enough for Mystra” self-esteem issues, believing *he’s* the problem (for some reason, he never made it to the Olympics, so he sees himself as a “washed-out gymnast” who clearly isn’t good enough for Mystra, the Curator of Important Museum who has her pulse on the rest of the art world too)

HOWEVER! There’s some specific artifact Mystra is butt-hurt her museum doesn’t have. I thought maybe it’s something she even wrote her Master’s thesis on and is convinced it would tie together some important/essential collection in her museum, her “brain-child” exhibit or whatever, and when it went up for auction X number years ago, she was outbid by someone else, so it is in Another Museum, and Mystra has never let it go

So, still young, trying to impress Mystra Gale decides to stage his first heist at another museum. He manages to steal the thing, and he brings it to Mystra, but unlike stealing from shady private collectors, this heist was BIG, and it made the news. People know the thingy was stolen, and the cops are looking for whoever did it!

So, Mystra of course freaks out, because she can’t handle having this kind of heat put on her. She can’t even take the artifact, because it’s too hot right now, it would ruin her if word came out she had it, her whole life would blow up in her face (heheh), etc. And she’ll never be able to put this in her museum now. So, she breaks up with Gale, leaves him with the very highly-sought after artifact, and he is utterly shattered

But in the end, he decides that maybe a museum in like, NYC or London isn’t the best place for the artifact anyway. He returns it to the culture it’s from and realizes that’s what he should’ve been doing all along. The museums and people like Mystra treating all this art as their personal feathers-in-their cap are part of the problem. And thus, Gale’s crusade is born!

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saiyef · 10 months

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WOAH! WOAH! WOAH! An actual bed scene? In Final Fantasy? This is a series where sex is non-existent/entirely offscreen. Sure, there’s Cloud and Tifa’s night under the Highwind, or Tidus and Yuna’s really long kiss in the water in FFX that people think was a metaphor for sex or that technically Wakka and Lulu had to have had sex in order to make their baby; but even then, those examples were more chaste than titillating.

Though, to be fair, this does more apply to basically like 95% of all JRPGs in that, even if they do have romance, it only goes as far as kissing (which even then it’s still pushing it) and for the majority of the game it will remain teasing romance or the interactions remain platonic. For specific examples, the Tales of games (which a number of games do have romances in it), after 28 years and 17 main title games, there are about only 3 kisses in the entire series (Tales of Symphonia 2, Tales of Arise and technically Tales of Graces but only in a side quest and it was an accident). Fire Emblem, despite the S-Supports, Marriages and having children as part of the gameplay, has no mentions or allusions to sex whatsoever (though it being a Nintendo game definitely plays a part in that). Even Persona, the series famous for its romance options and does go out of its way to explicitly allude that your romantic partners do go all the way with your player character, keeps the scene entirely offscreen and some players still find it ambiguous. And, on a final note, there’s Trails of Cold Steel 4 where there is a point in the game where main character Rean does in fact have sex with his chosen romance options (note: NOT any of the ones that are his students) but it is kept ambiguous except for these 3:

I think the JRPG that really pushed it to that level of explicitly sexual (but still keeping the sex scene offscreen) would have to be Xenogears.

Yeah, that’s about as explicit as JRPGs go. I know this does count as a rant, but this doesn’t make me mad; it’s just something I noticed that kinda bugged me. Though to be fair, I think Japanese media in general (other than specific media) does go out of its way to keep sex out of it.

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