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ineffable-baker-street · 7 months

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Metatron's Evil Plan

Starting with Gabriel's trial. Metatron said, "No speeches Gabriel you're not going to Hell.

He then adds "which there isn't."

It would obviously be an issue if Heaven were to be viewed as problematic and out of control, with fallen angels left, right and centre. So they tried to manage Gabriel, make it so he just faded from his place of power, but he outsmarted them. And suddenly there were two former high-up's down on earth, and we all saw just how desperate they were to get Gabriel back. It's clearly A Concern.

So unfortunately Gabriel has escaped from their clutches, with a Prince of Hell no less.

Very much not a good look. So Heaven needs to act and it needs to be now. Mere minutes after Gabriel and Beelzebub leave together, Metatron is on earth.

Then he goes to the coffee shop. He asks Nina, "Do people ever ask for Death?" and the subtitles were capitalised which I do think further supports my point. We already know that seeing Death is a bad omen, since at the end of Season One right after they saw him they were both dragged away to their would-be permanent discorporations.

There is also something to be said for the mirroring of the first season and second season. I've seen theories, as well as noticed myself that many things line up. I can't find the post that laid a lot of things out but here's a few that I've noticed.

The mention of Death in the final episode, right before something bad happens (they both get taken to be punished/Aziraphale leaves Earth.)

Aziraphale and Crowley both holding someone's hands with the person in between them (Adam in S1E6 and Jimbriel in season 2, episode one or two i can't remember which)

The Nightingale reference. Pretty obvious, but ending the season on that song holds significance. I think most people have seen the theory that that's a message from Aziraphale, but I won't go into that here or this will never end.

The nightingales plus the plans to go to the Ritz being gone I think is definitely symbolic of the fact that they've lost something. Again, an obvious option, but it's an important place for them, so the fact they had similar plans, that were then interrupted, reflects Season One while also telling us that things are clearly not going to be good.

But then you also consider that it's perhaps exactly what the Metatron wanted all along, for Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship of love and trust to completely fall away, symbolised by the hopes of dining at the Ritz disappearing.

Therefore I think a pretty reasonable conclusion from the mention of Death - and the parallels with last season - from someone as sinister as the Metatron is that something is going to happen to most likely both of them. Metatron is also almost surprised that people never ask for death, as it is "so predictable." There was definite intention in that scene, and makes me wonder if he thinks whatever he's trying to make happen will make them wish for death?

This next point is a big one. At first you might think its coincidental but if you go back and watch the scene I think you'll be convinced. When the Metatron enters the bookshop, the lamps with the candle looking bulbs and the glass decorations jingle and move. I can't find a good GIF to show it but if you rewatch I promise you'll notice it. And yes, since the door has just closed and there's potential wind they might move for a few seconds, but they continue moving the entire time Metatron is in the bookshop. This scene goes on for approximately 2.5 - 3 minutes, definitely too long for them to be moving. But, I suppose you never know, could be coincidental. Until he leaves the shop with Aziraphale. They move more vigorously on his way out, but by the time (about three seconds) Crowley walks towards the window to watch them go, they've completely stopped moving. Not a coincidence. Metatron has some sort of energy that's powerful, or influential enough, that it cause material objects to move vigorously when he's near them. They didn't even move nearly as much when literal demons entered the shop, at the beginning of episode six.

Considering the fact that those lamps were completely conjured by Aziraphale for his ball, I have a strong suspicion he's particularly influential over magical objects... or magical things (entities) in general. (This is important later)

Metatron also says, "just you and me, Aziraphale, eh?" which is honestly something that sounds more like enemies facing off in a battle, than friends going out for a chat. It's like when a murderer is alone with their victim, and while Az and Metatron are talking there are no witnesses. I definitely think this is foreshadowing for next season when Aziraphale has to face off with the Metatron.

When they're leaving the shop the Metatron is all lovely smiles while Aziraphale is looking, and he seems a bit like a harmless old man, but as soon as Azi's back is turned he gives Crowley the most hateful, sinister, conniving glare, with [tense music playing] according to the subtitles and also my ears. He is up to something. This is a very strong piece of evidence that the Metatron Does Not Like Crowley.

He tells Aziraphale, "you are just the angel for the job." It could be an ordinary thing to say, but no I don't think so. I think the Metatron has been carefully considering this for quite some time, and I think this is all about Crowley. He says there are "huge plans afoot, enormous projects," and he's so careful to be extremely vague, while talking Aziraphale up. Then he uses a tactic knows will work, which is playing with Aziraphale's heart and using Crowley.

"I've been looking back over a number of your previous exploits, and I see that in quite a few of them you formed a de facto partnership with the demon Crowley."

He has done meticulous research, and it's made clear earlier that he hates Crowley. But, he knows that Aziraphale loves Crowley, and that he wouldnt be able to resist the chance to try and do what he thinks is the right thing. Metatron mentioned that he was a 'Prince of Heaven' and that it could be seen as an 'institutional problem'. Well Heaven can't really been seen to have problems can it? And Crowley has been doing whatever he pleases for six thousand years, not on the side of Heaven or Hell, and I think that they're sick of it. He's already 'corrupted' one angel, who knows what's next? They don't want someone to hold that kind of knowledge and power over them, and Crowley holds a far greater knowledge of earth than any of the rest of them do.

And so the Metatron offers Aziraphale something he knows he won't refuse:

And I have to ask, why, why would he ever have Crowley reinstated to "full angelic status?" Two seconds ago he just described him as a demon?? The answer is that he wouldn't. Somehow I don't think heaven makes a habit of restoring fallen angels. He has a master plan, and that involves getting to Crowley, which means getting Aziraphale out of the way. Eventually I think they'll attempt to use them against each other, but the first thing for them to do was gain some control over Crowley. The Metatron had offered for Crowley to come to Heaven, which does of course provide easy access to him and if Crowley had chosen to do that it probably would've worked for them. But I think the Metatron was counting on Crowley not wanting to go back, and that Aziraphale suggesting it would even drive a wedge through their relationship (which it did).

And now Aziraphale is off somewhere busy working, they aren't speaking to each other and Crowley is alone on earth, no one is going to notice if something happens to him or he goes missing.

Aziraphale also really isn't that special to Heaven, he's just another angel, and one who doesn't always do as he's told, which begs the question of why Metatron would make a whole trip to earth, just to give him Gabriel's job. It could go to pretty much anyone honestly. So when Metatron says 'The Job,' I'm certain he does not mean taking over Gabriel's position. He means the job of getting demon Crowley back in order and control, so he stops causing problems for Heaven. Because wherever there's a problem, Crowley is at the centre of it.

Finally. Aziraphale's insane smile in the elevator.

DO YOU SEE HOW CREEPY THAT IS?? It's so off putting, and given he's just effectively broken up with Crowley you wouldn't expect him to be too cheerful. That is the least genuine smile I have ever seen, like it does not even look like Aziraphale anymore. At first I thought it was just him trying to make himself feel okay about everything, and it technically could be, but I'm not convinced of that. There's obviously the theory that Metatron put something in Aziraphale's coffee, but I just don't buy that (no hate to the theory ofc, definitely still a possibility). It's so simple, so human, and this brings me to my point about Metatron having influence over objects, particularly magical ones, and potentially entities as well. I think it is far more likely that Metatron is either brainwashing Aziraphale or simply has an element of control over him, but isn't entirely controlling him. Could be persuasive power, which he uses to influence Aziraphale, but technically if Az fought really hard he could fight him off. My mind influence theory is supported on multiple occassions, where Aziraphale seems to want to change his mind, or act a certain way, and then suddenly snaps back to acting like everything is okay. Examples of that are:

- Aziraphale straight up says he doesnt want to go to Heaven. He tries to play it off as a bit of a joke but he looked pretty damn serious when he says it. He looks so doubtful, but between then and speaking to Crowley, his attitude does a complete 180 flip

- "Well obviously you said no to Hell, you're the bad guys." Aziraphale would NEVER say that if his mind was completely his own. He has spent almost their entire existence saying that Crowley is nice and good and kind. He doesn't think for a moment that Crowley is grouped in with Hell anymore, but that's certainly what the Metatron would think

- Metatron walks in right after Crowley leaves and isn't at all surprised by the fact that Crowley refused, more evidence that it was what he'd hoped and planned for. "Ah well always did want to go his own way. Always asking damn fool questions too." Which is a tiny bit of further background into fallen angel Crowley.

- When Aziraphale is heavily considering changing his mind, Metatron keeps talking as though Aziraphale is saying different words. "It should be in safe hands." "Anything you need to take with you?" He's suddenly really pushing Aziraphale, even though he said there was no need to answer right away.

And that is all I have for you!! If anyone has anything to add I would LOVE to hear, this is my theory, definitely not the only possibility but I do think it's a candidate. Please let me know if there's any major points I've missed, I'm sure there probably is 🤍

@a-hearts-a-heavy-burden let me know what you think!!

#good omens #crowley and aziraphale #aziraphale #crowley #aziracrow #ineffable husbands #neil gaiman #good omens meta #good omens theory #metatron #i hate the metatron

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mirageofadesert · 4 months

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Looking back on my first year as a c-drama fan!

This year I fell - first down a flight of stairs - and then (because I couldn't walk properly for a few weeks) down a rabbit hole of cdramas!

In total, I have watched 28 dramas since May. I actually finished 17 of them. I re-watched 8 of them at least once. My most rewatched show is Till The End Of The Moon, followed by Love Is Sweet and The Untamed!

Shows I loved

Till The End of The Moon: This drama triggered my hyperfixation, and I still love it so much. Tantai Jin became my new obsession.

Love is Sweet: This one surprised me because I don't usually care for romantic dramas. It made me more open to different genres.

The Untamed: I watched this for the first time in 2019, and now I can appreciate it even more.

The Sleuth of Ming Dynasties: It took me several tries to get into the drama because the political setting was too complicated. I'm glad I didn't give up. Wang Zhi became one of my favorites!

New Life Begins: I was just looking for something light in between and was quite surprised how much I liked the show.

Things I learned as a newbie:

Cdramas are an acquired taste. Sometimes it's worth going back to a drama that you initially gave up on.

To avoid spoilers, it's best to skip the intro and especially the outro.

I love my characters unhinged.

Apparently it is okay to share leaks from filming.

Never believe anything that comes from yxh accounts.

Shippers are toxic in any fandom.

C-drama fans are a bit older than K-pop fans, but they can be just as unhinged and have trouble distinguishing between how to treat actors and the fictional characters they play.

My ADHD is better regulated when I watch shows in a foreign language while reading the subtitles. I don't get bored watching TV, which is rare!

Shows I dropped, and what I learned from it:

Hidden Love: I still don't like romances that have no significant plot beyond the relationship. Especially if I don't care about the characters at all.

Back from the Brink: Sometimes dramas that start well become an unwatchable, rage-inducing mess halfway through, and it's not worth sticking it out to the end.

Beauty of Resilience: I'm a character-driven audience. If the characters aren't compelling and the story isn't interesting, I don't care about the show.

Ashes of Love: I hate childish FL with baby voices and naive personalities. I need better written female characters. I'm on my 3rd attempt to watch this show and I only have a handful of episodes left, so I'll actually make it to the end (eventually).

I've dropped a lot more shows and actually watched some to the end that I didn't like very much in the end, but those are the ones I learned the most from.

What will stay with me:

Tantai Jin: I'm still obsessed with this character. He is everything I need in a fictional character.

Luo Yunxi: This will come as no surprise to anyone who follows me, but my obsession with TTJ soon extended to Luo Yunxi.

Bai Lu & Sun Zhenni: While I appreciate both of them as actors, it's their fun and uninhibited personalities that made me fall in love with them!!

Costumes: I adore the detailed costumes and hanfu styles, and do prefer costume dramas to modern ones.

Food & drinks: I'm now looking into more Chinese foot now and how to cook vegetables in more interesting ways. I also bought "moon cake stamps"... so wish me luck!

New online acquaintances: I have made some new friends online who I can fangirl with to my heart's content!

What I'm looking forward to in 2024:

I'm really looking forward to Luo Yunxi's upcoming dramas, Follow You Heart, Shui Long Yin and Immortality (🤡). I'm also looking forward to Sun Zhenni's first leading role!

There are still many dramas I want to watch, but haven't found the time for. Like A Journey to Love, Goodbye, My Princess, Nirvana in Fire, Then Miles of Peach Blossoms and The Blood of Youth.

I'm not sure what else I'll post here next year. Probably more reviews and content related to my favourite actors. Let's see if something triggers my hyperfixation soon!

Happy New Year!

#cdrama

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discluded · 2 years

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I'm so proud 🌈 of Apo for how brave he's always been.

In case you missed it since Apo never specifically said it in an interview, Tong spoke about having this conversation with Apo about how Apo viewed Porsche's character (I'm guessing Tong here means Porsche's gender preference... this is the official BOC subtitled version too, sigh.)

This is a companion to the Proud🌈 of Mile piece I wrote a while back. I've been wanting write one for Apo but it's very hard because it's obviously very hard for him to talk about too. Sometimes I when I get notes on the Mile one, I still feel shy about it (even though I don't think Mile is shy!) But someone needs to loudly celebrate both of their bravery! Especially Apo's!!

It takes a lot of courage to walk away from a career you love because you realize you're being not treated the way you're supposed to be. Especially when it's an art you love and you've gotten to a place that most people dream of. Let's not forget, Apo was quite famous as an actor in Thailand already before KinnPorsche. Not only is he a great actor, but he was building a reputation for himself and he chose to walk away from all of that, potentially permanently.

The kind of policing that Apo received of a young person's self-expression while working on the sets of Channel 3 has really detrimental effects on the psyche. I won't say too much about it because Apo is human and he's allowed off days and deserves the grace, but you can see glimpses of how being at an industry event full of industry people, some of whom may or may not have said shit to him in the past, inadvertently hit him at the Vogue Gala. Of course Apo had fun still and it was an amazing experience he got to share with Mile! But if that's how he felt like he had to police his own body language every day on set, I can see why he quit.

New York was so good for Apo because it allowed him to see that the problem was with the people around him, not with himself. When I was in my early 20s, I remember seeing a billboard in New York that said something along the lines of: "Here we judge you more for the shoes you wear than who you love." And ain't that the type of freedom Apo needed.

But when he got back from New York, he committed himself to making queer art.

How brave does he have to be in the first place to walk away from a career he loved because of the homophobic comments he got and knowing it wasn't right (and a reminder, he wasn't working on any BLs before KPTS), and then how much braver still to come back and say: you can't hurt me with what I own about myself. And, I want to make art that expresses it.

Make no mistake, I'm not commenting on Apo's sexuality here. He's asked us not to. But being queer, queerness isn't just about gender or sexuality. It's about identity, the struggles you go through; it's a political stance. Many queer musicians who've never been publicly linked to a same-sex partner have made art specifically to explore their queerness and grapple with violence they still are at the brunt of as a result of being part of society.

And Apo has let us know multiple times what his political stance is, the kinship he feels with expressed queerness. It's the way he came back home and owned the queer art he is a part of. It's the way he continuously expresses the humanity in the stories he's telling, and talks about in interviews how he sees that honesty in the story resonates with the audience.

Apo is a role model in not only how we should treat those around us, but a reminder that being kind to everyone includes being kind to yourself. Especially when society tries to tear you down.

youtube

#queer #lgbtq #apo nattawin #actor apo nattawin #kinnporsche #pride #mileapo and pride #kinnporsche promo #not gay as in happy but queer as in fuck you #they tried to buy my pride #but that just ain't up for sale

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unlikelyjapan · 9 months

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s2e3 rewatch notes

One more before the weekend...

"When I was a kid anything that would give me some type of excitement, or amusement or enjoyment would get fucked ... Sometimes they'd try too hard, or they'd make promises they weren't able to keep" - everything in Carmy's AA statement can be related to cooking, the restaurant, drawing, Claire - pretty much the sum of Carmy's parts now.

Second Carmy/Syd kitchen scene:

Carmy is always the first to ask about anyone's parents (but only to Syd) - just like he inquires about Syd's Dad, his first concern is to ask about Marcus' mom while they debate sending him to Copenhagen. Family and people, in general, are always at the forefront of his mind, while progression is always at the forefront of Syd's (even if she does genuinely cares and checks in, it's secondary)

Carmy's "I want to make a suggestion" to go out was so loaded - it was obviously a premeditated move that he wanted to do the food tour with Syd. "I think WE need to go out, and we need to try some stuff"

After he tells her he'll see her in an hour, Goodbye Girl by Squeeze starts playing, and the track ends as Tina realizes that Ebra isn't ever going to be by her side in class *dies twice*

Richie dropping off his daughter: I have a precocious 6-year-old daughter as well and.....they tried to squeeze way too many lines into Eva to advance Richie's storyline when it should have come via Tiff or something - I hate being a negative nelly, but this part is so botched/lifetime drama-y.

(His obvious tenderness is sweet though)

10:44am call with Claire: this is only 2ish hours after his AA talk - I guess the subject matter was resonating with him?

Her forcing the convo on how ingratiated she is with his family makes me throw up my hands and say "no wonder the guy had a fucking panic attack later!". I was just highlighting how in AA how his family tries too hard sometimes - this is a prime example with her "I know all the fuckin' Faks" jousting.

And my god, she knew he was about to tell her that he was busy today, and she claps back "can you not make this weird?" - it literally harkens back to his family's bullying and expectations that Carmy will pacify them. (I know she can't know all this, but damn)

This part of the conversation gets its own bullet point:

"You know, he [Fak] told me that you guys are really close and that he's your best friend" - I didn't realize the first go around how bold the attempt at enmeshment was. With Fishes as context, the toxicity levels in this conversation are off the rails.

Also, her demented smile when she says "really?" when he says "no...no, Fak's not my best friend" - aggghhhh!

"No, no. He is. He's probably my best friend"

What the hell is this? "That's interesting, to sit with, for you" with the continued weird little smile -this isn't flirting, this is her relishing in the fact that she can manipulate him.

Why didn't I clue into how caustically fucked this scene was the first time? I think I was so distracted by the whispy dialogue and cadence of the conversation that I actually blacked out of the dialogue. Thank goodness for subtitles, because this script is mildly psychotic to read.

I know Storer said that one of the themes of this season is "winning is losing" - Claire is definitely playing to win at all costs. Is s2e10 showing that she lost? Or am I sitting through this dialogue again next season? I NEED TO KNOW.

Anyways, Secret Teadrops by Martin Rev (google the lyrics) plays as sydney enters Kasama - God, the music suggests she was thrilled to be spending a day out of the usual context with Carmy, and her checking her phone constantly is killing me.

Twenty Five Miles by Edwin Starr starts playing at the start of the food montage, just as Sydney gets the text from Carmy that she'll be doing it alone.

"I've been walking for three days and two lonely nights, and you know that I'm mighty mad"

After the owner of Avec tells her that she needs a great partner above all else, the lyrics blare again with "although my feet are tired, I can't lose my stride" - she can't abandon faith in Carmy just yet.

After the Pelican meats scene where the butcher (I forget his name, sorry!) tells Syd that he and his wife lost their restaurant in Bucktown after a business partner cut and ran, the song again blares with "I'm SO tired, but I just can't lose my stride"

Syd starts to adjust her language to "I'm not exactly solo" in the next restaurant scene- ugh - painful.

Enter conversations about profit sharing. Naiya assumes that she and Carmy are INVOLVED involved, and when she finds out they're just "gentleman's agreement" partners, she basically tells her to watch her back. Syd registers the statement, but looks so dejected, like she knows she's on a fool's errand now.

The lyrics flare one last time simply with "I've got to walk on"

Cue Carmy's phone going to voicemail as she has the jitters on the loading dock. She looks so sad, but also resigned to her fate at this point.

Sydney calls Marcus right after trying to call Carmy looking for any kind of sign or reinforcement. We're at the triangle again, with Marcus interpreting it one way, and Syd....really not reading anything into it at all.

I feel like Fak making fun of Marcus for "looking forward' with that big, dumb smile on his face means he knows Marcus' affection for Sydney.... and I'm starting to realize all the plots I don't like are the result of Fak's intuition and/or meddling.

Syd awkwardly trying to poach BOH workers is adorably baller and shows how aggressive she is just now realizing she needs to become- and she's so terrible at it, and I love her.

Future Perfect by Duretti Column (what an awesome deep cut) playing - I love that this part of the montage is Syd diving deep into herself and her more analytically-bent creative process and fuck everyone else. It's just her carrying the creative load of the restaurant right now, but she's truly free.

Lyrics repeat "You tell me stories, you speak in pictures"

She's being absolutely present ("Don't live in the future") and letting the food and the city that birthed it speak to her honestly and it's just so beautiful. The old family pictures surface in her memory alongside the plates she's crafting - her own contribution to the chaos menu, her past and present combined, her future (The Bear) undetermined.

Back to The Bear with "Make You Happy" by Tommy McGee playing in the background - I feel like enough ink has been spilled on this scene, but honestly read the lyrics here - ack.

One small observation after Carmy says "I'll let you know" - in the background, Marcus looks completely defeated, Fak's suppressing a laugh or something, and we get Richie's "ooooooohhhhhhh!"while Carm gives him dagger eyes. Y'all....these are not great men.

Syd rightfully realizes she needs to get the fuck away from everyone in that instant if she's going to do anything productive with the inspiration she's culled from her day of exploration and calls in the favor from the kitchen. I love that it almost immediately cuts to her there with her emotional support spoon 🥺

The ravioli failure - i.e. the fantasy vision of the food she had on the plate during her journey day not matching the reality of what she can craft on her own = the fantasy vision of the restaurant/life she could craft with Carmy not matching the reality of what she can is forced to craft on her own.

Oof, taking a break for a few days now....

#the bear fx #the bear season 2 #the bear spoilers #the bear #carmy x sydney #carmen berzatto

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trickster-archangel · 7 months

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Random thoughts about Hawaii Five-0 rewatch: part 1/?

So, as someone of my mutuals already knows, I'm currently undergoing the exhausting task of checking all the fucking 61 DVDs from the H50 box set before the 30-days guarantee expires, because it's physically impossible to watch them all completely in that time, even if I took 1 month leave. So I'm simply skipping back and forth and leaving the regular rewatch for when my life will be less of a living hell...so, supposedly around 2038...

I have one complaint, which is the subtitles are not completely matching all dialogues, but since my brain only needs them until it's switched to English-mode and I can start understanding it again, I guess it's alright. Second complaint: they're fucking HUGE and OVERLAPPING THE SCENES SO RANDOMLY IT HURTS.

Anyway, I've by now processed only s1-s5, and dude....some things I caught in the deleted scenes (which I've watched entirely) AND in some parts of the commentaries I specifically sought because curiosity won, and which I've never seen giffed or captioned....man, I was so angry and disappointed at times. So I thought I'd be randomly processing them here, no pics sorry, only thoughts.

~~~~~~more under the cut~~~~~~

Thought #1: Alex and Scott goofing around.

Trust me. The gag reels are so much better than you'd expect. At times I was genuinely laughing to tears and god knows how rare it is.

What I loved most was to watch that scene where Alex and Scott start cussing in Italian, and I bet no one who's not Italian could understand a fuck about what they're yelling. Best part, though, were the subtitles, captioning ALEX AND SCOTT: SWEARING IN ITALIAN 😂 Just to make sure what language exactly they were using.

Thought #2: missed chance to make Amber's character less of a plastic doll, or: Why did you fucking cut those 57 seconds?!?!

While watching s5 deleted scenes, I stumbled upon two real jewels from the 24th episode. I'm still trying to understand why they couldn't include them in the canon episode, since both of them combined are less than a minute and surely there were other moments that could've been cut. My only explanation, sadly, is that it would've painted Amber in quite a different light, making her a stronger, rounder character, and giving her an agency we rarely saw in her, except when confronting her ex husband. They could've followed that route, but we cannot have a beautiful woman who's also her own person, a self-confident person, and not just a plastic Barbie doll, right?! God forbid a woman can have agency and call out men on their bullshit, it would threat masculine privilege too much....

So, what exactly happened that bothered me so deeply? (Be aware I'm quoting by heart and not literally, as I didn't take screenshots and anyway I can't make gifs. Also, the following meta is just my interpretation of the implications running through subtext).

The first scene is very short, just six or seven seconds long, but it's a jewel in subtext and non-verbal communication. It takes place presumably after or around the moment Rachel tells Danny about Charlie: we see them from afar, clearly in a street-taken point of view, from an external observer. They are agitated and distressed, Rachel more than Danny, who's tensely spread on the bench with his arms looped behind the backrest, angling far from Rachel's compact and almost self-hugging frame.

They're distressed, not happy, not even remotely connecting to each other, so it's clear it's not a scene which could be envisioned as romantic. It's only a couple of seconds long, and then we see whose this external point of view belongs to: Amber. Amber who's not an idiotic, mellow, shallow doll. Amber who's been so clearly upset by Danny's lie about the texts, that she decided to follow him to the place Rachel had indicated. Amber who's been manipulated and controlled and abused long enough to become suspicious and self-preserving when someone she loves, and who knows her vulnerability, tries to play her around. Amber who looks at them, and clearly isn't angry nor jealous, because those few moments the actress uses to convey all of Amber's inner distress, are some of her best ones (giving that the actress, alas, is not very expressive to begin with), and we understand that she doesn't see any romance in the air. She's disappointed. She's hurt. Betrayed. Again.

Amber's face, in a handful of seconds, perfectly displays the devastating feeling of someone who finally felt safe and respected and secure, only to discover that it's yet another kind of control and manipulation, less cruel, less brutal, but not less humiliating and even worrying.

This is something she's learnt at her expense, and now that she knows the red flags, she cannot trust a man who can't be honest with her, not with this kind of problems, not with something which is clearly affecting his life to a deep level. He wants Amber to be a part of his life, but only if he can control the terms, limits, boundaries and times of their relationship. And Amber has been through it all before, and can't trust that history won’t repeat itself.

She then drives away, hurt and disappointment written all over her face.

The second deleted scene is even more important plotwise, because it explains Amber's absence as Danny’s plus one at Kono's wedding, after all the talk he did in the car about bringing some Amber's friend as Steve's date, and it casts a new light over Danny's reaction to Steve's resolve to ask Cath to marry him, or his tension about Lynn, or Amber's condistent absence for the whole first part of s6, or even Danny's and Amber's fight during their Valentine's dinner.

The scene is longer, about fifty seconds, and it supposedly takes place right at the end of the episode, after Danny pulls up at the hospital's parking lot, after Steve's affectionate text. He takes his phone out of his pocket again because he's received a voice-mail message.

A message from Amber (sorry, I noticed just now I'm still going with Amber instead of Melissa).

She says she's sorry to be doing this by voice-mail because she'd prefer to do it in person, but given their situation it's probably for the best if she spares them both the trouble to be forced to find shallow excuses. She says he's an amazing man, and that she likes what they have and that she thinks it might be real, and that she hopes he feels the same. She's understanding that his job comes first and it's terribly demanding, as she's also aware of how hard his life and his backstory is, with Grace and Rachel. This all considered, she thinks it's best if they stop and take a pause, so that he can reflect and decide if he wants to keep this thing going, but as for now, she can't keep seeing him on these terms.

Amber decided to stop seeing Danny until he decided what to do with their relationship and be honest with her, and started thinking seriously if he was just using her, as she probably felt.

Why?? Why did they cut this whole plotline? It's pivotal for Danny's arc, for his strained and angry attitude towards everyone, for his constant distress, for his even worsening negativity, for the way he's overcompensating with excessive euphoria to Steve's announcement about Cath, for how he meddles with them and confronts Cath about being honest, for how he's not thrilled about Lynn's insertion inside Steve's life.

Because he's alone, at that time. Call it temporary breakup or period of reflection or a break, but he was single and thinking, again, about everything he was doing wrong with his life and his relationships, and falling again into his old black hole of depression and self-sabotage, and seeing Steve going on with his life even at the cost of pretending he was happy with this woman he had supposedly no trouble cheating on, during their "couple retreat", making him wonder if either what he had with Lynn wasn't serious, or if his obvious charade about his threesome with Alyssa and her friend had a second meaning.

Also, they were probably both single again, or at least testing the waters, when they were at the retreat. And Danny definitely was when Cath left Steve once again abandoned, betrayed, and never-chosen in face of anything else.

Quite a lot of subtext to think about, for just 57 seconds which were, prudently, cut.

#h50 #mcdanno #steve mcgarrett #danny williams #h50 5x24 #danny/melissa unhealthy relationship #rachel edwards #h50 meta #h50 rewatch #h50 deleted scenes #h50 gag reels #long post #amber vitale #melissa armstrong #alex o'loughlin #scott caan

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thebroccolination · 1 year

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- WinTeam Supercut -

To support the series, watch Between Us on Studio Wabi Sabi's official playlist (free cut version), their membership channel (subscription-based uncut version), and iQiYi (subscription-based uncut version).

A while back, I decided to make a WinTeam supercut for myself, and I made a post talking about why. I enjoyed the series overall, but I think there were some aspects that really suffered from the editing decisions, so I'll go through how this edit will differ from the main series.

Couples: This cut only has WinTeam, WanTul, and DeanPharm, since ManaowPruk and BeePrince are unrelated to the main storyline. Flashbacks: I'm a devoted enemy of the flashback, especially when the scene we're flashing back to was fourteen seconds ago. Flashbacks are shorter or removed entirely. Music: I've found an AI tool that separates the vocal and music tracks so I can either isolate the dialogue completely and make the scene quiet or replace the music with something different. Subtitles: I adjusted these only to make them more readable with some native English nuances – I tried to keep them mostly intact because I don't speak Thai, so these are mostly linguistically cosmetic adjustments.

Example: Below is a clip from episode one of the supercut. First, I edited the initial audio when Team approaches Pharm. In the original, when Team walks up, his voice is just as loud both times he calls Pharm's name, but since the scene begins from Pharm's perspective, I wanted to help the transition to Team's perspective by putting a fade-in effect over his first "Pharm?" so it shows how disconnected Pharm feels until Team shows up and calls him back. Also in the original, after Team gets the call from Pharm, there's a long stretch of Pharm having a breakdown intercut with flashbacks to InKorn. I removed all of this as well as the original background music. While searching for a different instrumental track to use, I realized that I'd shortened the scene enough that I could extend the previous scene's instrumental from Until We Meet Again throughout Team and Pharm's scene as well. I cut just enough from the top of the scene that the music swells just as Pharm puts his head on Team's shoulder, emphasizing this sweet moment early in their friendship. To me, the UWMA music felt more thematic than the music in BU, since the scene is about DeanPharm. Like this, it's a fond callback to the original series where most of us were first introduced to these characters. And as a bonus, I was able to place the track just right so that the music gets softer when the camera pans to Win, switching our attention to his perspective right before the scene ends. And that's it! A few simple edits and we have all four characters covered by one of the most iconic tracks from the series that launched them all!

Note: This project is above all a labor of love. I don't want to take views away from the original series, so please support the official versions where you can.

Enjoy! \o/

Episode List **updated when time permits**

• Episode 1 • Episode 2 • Episode 3 • Episode 4 • Episode 5 • Episode 6 • Episode 7 • Episode 8 • Episode 9 • Episode 10 • Episode 11 • Episode 12

#between us the series #between us #winteam #teamwin #bounprem #premboun #boun noppanut #prem warut #winteam supercut #keycuts

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flyingwargle · 10 days

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iwaizumi stands in front of his mirror, phone in one hand, the other running through his hair. he has his notes open, english words typed across the screen. he knows what each word means, how they're spelled, how they sound. when it comes to speaking, however...

he takes a breath and stares at his reflection with the same intensity as preparing for a jump serve. with a quick glance at his phone, he quirks his lips into a smile and speaks in english. "hi, my name is iwaizumi haji- wait." he frowns. given name first. he tries again. "hi, my name is hajime iwaizumi. it's nice to meet you."

the words feel awkward on his tongue. his vowels are too exaggerated, words slurred together. he clears his throat. "hi." his voice rises in pitch. "my name is hajime. it's nice to meet you." ugh. it's obvious that english isn't his mother tongue, but he sounds like he's barely spoken it, which isn't wrong, but that's not the impression that he wants to give, especially in america.

iwaizumi falls onto his bed with a groan. going to school overseas remained a dream until he decided to make it a reality during his second year of high school. aside from classroom learning, he attended a weekly english class, but stopped to focus on volleyball after losing the inter-high prelims. now that their last chance has come and passed, it's about time that he picked up where he left off.

and damn does it sound like he lost all his progress from before.

his other skills are solid. listening - he's been watching american shows with subtitles since middle school. writing - he's been translating his homework as practice since the start of high school, along with the comics that he started reading. speaking, however, is a different beast because of how few opportunities he has to practice.

he scrolls through his notes, where he's saved other phrases that he'll need for university life. is this the right classroom? do you know where the washroom is? can you please repeat that? he even has volleyball-related terminology, just in case he decides to try out for the team.

but something tells him that he'll be busy enough, especially with the language barrirer.

his phone buzzes with notifications, but he dismisses them and stands back up. facing the mirror, he takes in a breath. "good afternoon." draw out the vowels longer. pronounce the Rs clearer. "nice weather today." he has no idea when he'll use that, but it's good to have, anyway. he scrolls to practice other phrases. "excuse me, do you know where this classroom is?"

his arm falls to his side as he stares at himself. heat rushes to his cheeks, and he grits his teeth, tosses his phone aside. he practically yells at his reflection. "hello! my name is hajime! i'm from japan! it's nice to meet you!"

that's when his bedroom door opens and a sing-song reply in english responds to him. "it's nice to meet you too!"

"jesus christ!" iwaizumi jumps, glaring at oikawa, who shows himself in. "how did you get in here?"

oikawa gives him a look. "i've had a key to your house since kindergarten. did all that english make you forget?"

"no, i...why are you here?"

"mattsun asked if we wanted to join him and makki for ramen. you didn't reply, so i came over to ask."

iwaizumi deflates, falling onto his bed. "no, thanks. my mom is making dinner."

oikawa sits beside him. "okay, i'll let him know we'll come next time."

"...what do you mean 'we'?"

"you clearly need me to help you practice your english! your accent is awful, iwa-chan."

he grits his teeth. while he'd score higher on written and listening tests, oikawa passed the oral exams with flying colors. "aren't you going to argentina? don't you need spanish instead?"

"english is the language of the world. i'll need it eventually." oikawa waves a flippant hand. "besides, how much spanish do you know? exactly." he smirks at iwaizumi's silence. "so, let's stick with english."

"okay." iwaizumi fiddles with the edge of his blanket, suddenly shy. they'd spoken in english to each other before, but there would always be a topic and vocabulary to use. the real world has no such parameters, no limits as to what can be said or how. "what...what should we talk about?"

"anything." oikawa shrugs. "just like how we always talk, but in english." he switches gears, as seamless as his tosses. "what's your mom making for dinner?"

"she's...making curry," iwaizumi answers slowly. he can envision all the words in his mind, knows how to arrange them into sentences, but when he speaks, they become wobbly, hesitant. "her vegetable curry is pretty good."

"i know, right? i love how it's both sweet and spicy. my mom would never put apples in her curry." oikawa falls onto the bed, and iwaizumi joins him, both of them staring at the ceiling. "do you think you'll play volleyball in america?"

"i want to, but don't know if i can."

"why not?"

he gestures at himself. "i'm not tall enough. the other guys will probably be better than me. i'll be busy trying to understand my homework."

"you understand more english than me. i think you'll be fine. you can tell them you were the ace in high school!"

“that isn’t a term americans know, idiot.”

“wow, you know how to swear?”

“you’d be surprised, shittykawa.”

“mean! iwa-chan, that’s mean!”

he chuckles. “i picked it up from all those shows we watched.”

“oh, yeah. i forgot about them.” oikawa has a smile on his face. “you wanted this for a long time, huh?”

“yeah. i guess i did.”

they keep the conversation going, all the way until iwaizumi’s mom returns home and shouts for him to help. “coming!” he calls back, jaw snapping shut when he realizes he said it in english. oikawa gives him a look as he remains still, shocked. “oh.”

“see?” oikawa prods him, switching back to japanese. “you’ll be fine. your accent is still terrible, though.”

“shut up.” iwaizumi shoves him before he rises to his feet. he catches his eye in the mirror, watches his friend grumble and stand behind him. oikawa looks up at his voice. “let’s do it again tomorrow?”

“sure. we can even rope in mattsun and makki.”

“they’re so bad at english.” iwaizumi chuckles, remembering how they complained about the exams last term. he pushes the door open, gestures for oikawa to follow. “thanks. for helping, i mean.”

“any time, iwa-chan.”

#flyingwargle original #drabble #haikyuu!!#iwaizumi hajime #oikawa tooru #iwaoi #haikyuu drabble #i still feel like the language barrier was downplayed a lot in the manga #but maybe iwa is a genius and he had no troubles #who knows #but learning a new language is hard that's for sure #speaking from both experience and as a tutor to language learners

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aevyk-ing · 4 months

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Rise of the Titans, the Aevyk Cut

On December 23rd, 2016, the first season of Guillermo del Toro's Trollhunters premiered on Netflix. It was a hit, followed by two new installments: 3Below and Wizards. The series were grouped into the Tales of Arcadia.

On July 21st, 2021, the Tales of Arcadia ended. And it was done with a bang... but not a good one. The fandom was enraged. The promised epic final chapter was sloppy, everyone was ooc and even worse: it destroyed everything canon in ten minutes. The LAST ten minutes.

A while ago, I discovered the also convoluted story of the production of The thief and the cobbler. I watched the recobbled version (I highly recommend it) and started wondering... how many versions of a movie can you make?

I'm not a stranger to diamonds in the rough. You could even say I'm a professional. My first book ever published, Zem, is the result of me rereading the very first draft from years ago and doing my best to try to find something, anything that would made that story worth telling. I've done it again several times with other books and, even if it is just one little thing, I always find it. So, was there something worth in Rise of the Titans? (Well, actually yes).

Then began my journey of cutting and mixing, but mostly cutting. I had to rewatch it (yeah, it was painful) and decided what my biggest issues were: the pacing, the stupidity of some characters, unnecessary deaths, unfunny jokes and, of course, the ending.

I did my best so the cuts are mostly unnoticeable, but I had to do a lot of cutting in some scenes. Fortunately, other parts could be left almost intact.

What's gone?

Steve's pregnancy

Scenes and jokes that dragged on too much

The characters being stupid for no reason

Strickler's death

Gun Robot (yeah, it was for the sake of pacing, sorry)

The ending

What's new?

Subtitles!

The ending

The music for the credits

The result is roughly over an hour. Yes: at least 30 minutes of that movie could be cut. So it plays more like an special with some sort of open ending. About the ending... it was really hard to find something that worked with the material I had. It's not perfect, but I hope it's at least satisfying.

BTW, I edited it with Clipchamp and my computer couldn't deal with the whole movie, so I separated it in three parts. I have them in higher definition, but keep in mind they're way heavier.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

I'm still sad about what happened after that underwhelming movie was released and I'm glad there's still so many incredible people in the fandom trying to keep it alive. I hope you like the way I tried to fix it!

Happy 7th anniversary of Trollhunters!

Happy holidays, everybody!

And... keep it crispy!

#tales of arcadia #trollhunters #rise of the titans #trollhunters rise of the titans #toa rott #video #movie #me

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shwoo · 3 months

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I thought since I like Bugsnax so much, I should probably play the developer's previous game, Octodad as well. And I did, like last August according to Steam. But now I've finally mustered up the energy to make a rambly post about what I thought! Sort of mustered up the energy. Just in time for Dadliest Catch's tenth anniversary in a couple of days (On the 30th of January).

Wait, it's been two days since I started this post. Um, just in time for Dadliest Catch's tenth anniversary.

I played the original 2010 game first, and I knew it was a student project, so I was surprised it had voice acting. Looks like the school also gave them a voice acting budget? That's cool. I was also surprised that a game from 2010 still worked fine, although it did crash the first time I tried to go into the kitchen. So I just did some kitchen chores in real life instead. Showed that… video… game.

The game will save if you save and quit, but not if it crashes, so I started quitting after every task, and then ended up having to do the basement and post-basement sequence like three or four times. At least once it was because Octodad got stuck on some geography. Luckily there is a checkpoint if you die there. I know this because I died repeatedly.

The original game was pretty fun, except for the bit where you have to stomp on all the spiders before they reach your daughter's bed and if you let too many through, the chef guy kills you. Which is just the usual game over, but it is funny that he apparently kills you for failing to protect your daughter properly. Anyway, the controls aren't really precise enough to aim your feet properly.

I did like the gameplay in the basement, though, even though it was a big jump in how precise you have to be. But it is a bit weird plot-wise, even with a game that's obviously not supposed to be that consistent. It seems like everything is wrapped up, and then you go through a random hallway of lasers, and chef guy is there and kills you if you walk into the lasers too many times? And then you get through it and the game just ends.

Another thing that surprised me in both games was how often they acknowledge that Octodad is an octopus. I was already familiar with the meme of people responding to Octodad pictures by asking why someone posted a picture of a perfectly normal dad, to the point of never even saying the word octopus, but in the they say it all the time in the game. He is an octopus in a suit, and he knows this. So does chef guy. A giant Pacific octopus, probably, but I found that subtitle in the game files and I'm not sure if it's in the game, because it would only be said if you get caught by the biologists, and doesn't make a lot of sense in context anyway. I should probably check at some point.

Anyway, I liked Dadliest Catch a lot. I've played through it three times now! I like the characters. Like the Bugsnax characters, they seem to have their own point of view and motivations, while still living in an absurd setting.

And I'll usually reference whatever I'm currently obsessing over when playing something else, but I really overdid it with this game, since they were made by most of the same people. Is the reason I like Scarlet specifically because, being a passionate journalist who believes in aliens and hates being lied to, she reminds me of one my seven favourite characters from Bugsnax? Maybe! Probably.

She's better at identifying parasites, though. But the Bugsnax journalist is better at identifying cephalods. Which was another time I was surprised to hear Octodad being referred to as an octopus, since I hadn't played the games when I saw the crossover April Fools trailer. They just came out and said it.

(Pulls down conspiracy chart) Now let me explain the minutae of why Filbuddy = ...Do Scarlet and Octodad have a ship name? If so, I hope it's Octoscar. Filbuddy with a bit of Snorplo with the "one of them is keeping huge secrets from the other because he's afraid of rejection but the other one is more upset about the secret-keeping than what the secret turns out to be" thing.

Gameplay wise, Octodad:Dadliest Catch is kind of... a little too short to really take advantage of its mechanics? But I hear when it came out, they apparently threw you into difficult stealth sections when most of the challenge beforehand was just getting him to go where you need him to. They left in some of the late game stealth sequences when they updated it, as an optional thing, and I did them on my second playthrough. It was pretty fun, now that I was more used to the controls. Trying to navigate the environments for all the ties was fun as well. He's pretty mobile for someone who shouldn't be able to walk on land at all.

I also liked the optional 2D platforming level you can find by flushing yourself down the toilet. I'd play a whole game like that, if the mechanics were introduced a bit more slowly. The last bit took a while to get through, though.

One of the biggest problems I had with the game was not being able to move the camera. It made it a bit hard to see things in detail, and I had more trouble than I should've with the ship level because I didn't realise a beam extended all the way to the middle of the ship, and I could walk on it. I thought I was meant to sneak past all the sailors.

I died there so many times.

Also, there are some jokes and stuff that you can't really see because they're too far from the camera. Like, early on Scarlet says that she send a picture to a tabloid or something that she says made the front page, and she suggests picking it up because she can't be seen reading it. And you can find it in the supermarket, but I couldn't get it close enough to the camera to see what the front page image was without going into the files.

Luckily, a lot of the files are just sitting there easily accessible, like with Bugsnax, so it was pretty easy to find. It's a picture of Octodad sitting and drinking coffee, with the headline "Alien Life Sighted?" There's a few lore kind of things that I don't think you can see in the game either, and it actually answered a few questions I had, about the aquarium especially. Also, I learned Sports Johnson's real name (Maxwell "Sports" Johnson), and what year the game takes place in (1971).

I have a lot of thoughts about the lore, and I think there's more going on, particularly with the aquarium, Octodad having human kids, and the Cod Wars setting in the flashback, but this isn't really the post for it. It's long enough already. Anyway, pretty fun game!

Also, you can see Octodad as a metaphor for disability in general, but he has a weird sleep schedule, basically can't function without coffee, is "usually so talkative", and is so scared of rejection that he never told his wife what species he was. Octodad: ADHD icon?

#Octodad #Bugsnax #(Because I talked about it pretty extensively)#I do want to make another post speculating about the lore at some point #The newspaper texture and the texture for Scarlet's notepad was particularly enlightening #Apparently Octodad carries a chest of soggy gold coins around with him to pay for things he damages?#Where'd he get that?#Same place as the submarine ghosts he mentioned on his first date with Scarlet?

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srtatropicalia · 3 months

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So, I've been holding onto this for a while. And I just had to let it out because I haven't really seen someone with this take yet (but if there is, PLEASE point me out to them!!). People's reaction to Din's name order reveal in that last episode baffled me a lot, because the fans didn't seems to like it all that much (and some seemed to outright hate it). But I actually LOVED IT and I think it brings out some of the themes of identity and what it means for Din in particular and for his covert in general.

Right out of the gate I will say: I don't really think that this was planned from the beginning. Yes, I think that most probably Din's name started as Din and and his surname Djarin, until someone somewhere had the idea to change it up for that last episode. Though I wouldn't put it past the producers to have had that idea from the begining, as there are some pretty involved individuals on the creative team that like to make lore that never makes it to Canon.

But, though I don't think it was planned from the beginning, I don't think that this reveal (and I will call it a reveal, because I think it was meant to be one) loses all that much by not being planned from season one. Ideas progress, and I don't doubt that they were doing it a season at a time, finding new ways to explore Din's identity when confronted with the various occurrences throughout the episodes.

Having said that, I will explain why I think it's genius. And I totally understand if people don't necessarily agree.

Din's anonymity is a big part of his character, and I always loved how the show did its best to first: actively hide his face and name; and second: when revealed, do its best to not remind us of his face and name or use it unnecessarily.

I don't really need to explain that first part, you guys saw the show. We don't know his name until almost the end of season one, and that is the same for his face. His face is only shown when we have confirmation that a sentient (if you consider a Droid a sentient, BECAUSE I DO) sees his face. That is a big step and this reveal will mark Din because this is a first step on the big list of technicalities in which he "breaks" his code. The second being when he wears the imperial soldier helmet.

Every moment he breaks his rule of anonymity, there's weight.

But the second part is the one I'm gonna focus on: the show actively tries to not remind us of his identity. Even after the reveal of the face, we don't get free scenes of him alone without his helmet. Though I will admit that the show uses his name casually a lot, I will also point out that is kinda hard to not use it when he's with other mandalorians (how to distinguish that the Armorer is speaking about him or about Paz in scenes? Etc). And I will forgive when people that are not mandalorian use his name after they learn it. (Like that scene in BOBF when Fennec just announces to a group of mercenaries his name). But the fact that people seem weirded out by Fennec announcing his name like that is proof of how they don't use it unless necessary. I even had a friend point out to me that in the subtitles (at least for S2, dont remenber for S3) they chose to use [The Mandalorian] instead of [Din Djarin] when hes talking offscreen. Even the spelling was very uncertain in the begining, you can still find posts and fanfics written with "Dyn Jarreen" or other variants.

Though his helmet and his belief in wearing it continue to be a big part of his identity and faith/creed, I think that the need for anonymity in the form of not revealing his name is eroded slowly throughout the series. He opens up more, makes friends and allies, and recognizes Grogu as family. And, progressively, his friends get to know him and use his name (or not!). This last step, of recognizing Grogu as family, is fundamental to me. Lastly, the mandalorians don't need to be anonymous for survival anymore: they can profess their culture, identity and creed under the sun, not hidden. And that's why I love it, because one last barrier that the series has given us is eroded IN the scene that Mandalore has ressurged as a unified nation and Grogu is adopted. In that scene, they reveal to us that Din's his surname and Djarin is the personal name. We get the meaning behind the words that we've been using to call him all this time, and that changes everything!! We didn't really know him because he was not in a position to be safely known. Now he is. He is ready to have his clan and it's not Clan Djarin, it's Clan Din!!

On a sidenote, I don't think that his friends knew the order. The only confirmation we have is that the Armourer knew, though maybe not long before the ceremony. So the weirdness of having Bo-katan call him by his "first name" and Cara call him by his family name is kinda part of it. He didn't open himself up until that last moment.

TLDR: The reveal of Din Djarin's personal name and family name is a last barrier that the series erodes to us, in a three season progression of slowly but surely revealing The Mandalorian's identity; progression which goes hand in hand with his character arc and the revival of Mandalore, that makes it possible for Mandalorians not to live in anonymity anymore.

#the mandalorian #din djarin #din grogu #grogu djarin #grogu #mandalore #the armorer #the book of boba fett #fennec shand #bo katan kryze #meta #the mandalorian meta #analysis #character analysis #star wars #mandalorian season 3

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oediex · 7 months

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Some screenshots from Kitten Lady's 2019 video titled "I Went KITTEN SHOPPING!" in which they discuss the Herb Garden kittens who had to be kept separate because they were sucking on each other. These kittens were without a mama cat for so long they tried to nurse on each other, by sucking each other's genitals (usually those of the male kittens). This is a behaviour that may stick even after they start being bottle-fed again. It is very dangerous both for the kitten sucking (because it will make the other kitten pee, and the sucking kitten will ingest urine); and for the kitten being sucked on, as it can lead to deformation of their genitals.

The solution to this behaviour is to keep the kittens separate when not supervised. They can have play time together with supervision after feedings, but need to be separated again once they go back to sleep.

The behaviour usually disappears once they're no longer bottle fed, though I've had couple of cases where it persisted after, when a kitten is looking for comfort (similarly to how kittens can continue to suckle their mama for comfort after they've been weaned off of her milk). As a foster parent, my only solution to persistent sucking is not to adopt that particular kitten out with her brothers.

I've had a couple of litters that engaged in sucking (once two litters of a similar age at the same time) and it can be very stressful. If you're dealing with this and you're struggling, make sure to reach out to your shelter for advice and additional material. I had a lot of trouble making sure all the kittens had a heat source (which they need in the first few weeks) and keep them from each other once they were older and needed more space (but were still bottle fed). Luckily these particular kittens stopped once bottle time was over and they were able to be together 24/7 again.

[ID: 6 screenshots with subtitles on from Kitten Lady's Youtube video "I went kitten shopping!".

In the first screenshot, three women, with Kitten Lady on the right, are talking to each other. In the next five screenshots, Kitten lady is holding a black baby kitten, while another person approaches with a cat carrier, opens it and Kitten Lady puts the black baby kitten inside.

The first screenshot has white overlay text that says: "The herb garden kittens were separated due to sucking (nursing on each other) which can be harmful for the babies."

The 2nd to 6th screenshot shows the following subtitles for the dialogue:

"How long have they been separated from each other?"

"V: We- They came into us nursing on each other, so they cam [sic] iiinn..."

"KL: So they don't know each other?"

"V: They… They know each other- They see each other because they get to be together while they're being monitored,"

"and then when they go back to bed, we separate them out."

/ID]

#kittens #foster kittens #kitten fostering #baby kittens #fostering saves lives #kitten lady #Hannah Shaw #image described

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mirageofadesert · 12 days

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Give me more morally gray characters ...

Let me interrupt my regular program for a brief rant about Downton Abbey and Thomas Barrow… well, not really regular as I've been too busy to watch anything with subtitles for the past few weeks. Instead, I passively binged on Downton Abbey while working.

I love morally gray characters, be it Tantai Jin from TTEOTM or Spike from Buffy. One of my favorite characters is Thomas Barrow from Downton Abbey. (Spoiler Alert, TW // suicide, homophobia, conversion therapy)

Thomas is everything I need in a character ... unhinged, angsty and gay.

I loved him from the first rude line to the last. He starts out as a delightful troublemaker with a cruel streak born of fear, hurt and the desire to be respected, fit in and belong. He is, as Baxter understands so well, his own worst enemy, having perfected self-sabotage over the years.

A supporting character for most of the show, the footman-turned-butler's story is usually prioritized over his character development - meaning the writers know where they want him to end up each season, even if it contradicts previous characterizations. This leaves the audience with a character who can be hard to follow at times.

The writing really got on my nerves at times. From conveniently forgetting his medical training when they want him to despair during his job hunt, to pulling any kind of cunning out of him when they want him to appear changed (and depressed), Thomas is always what the showrunners need him to be, but not necessary what would make sense for his character. I'm still annoyed that they made him go through medical torture in the form of conversion therapy and a suicide attempt, and then glossed over these traumatic incidents in favor of boring other storylines. Or how they portrayed his war injury as an act of cowardice rather than desperation.

What I love about him is that he was still a coherent character who remained a morally gray character (the last film aside, because they sort of forgot to give him any of his character traits back). Thomas would still lash out when he was angry or hurt, would still manipulate others for his own gain, and would still feel wronged by the world. Once the world has brought him to his knees, he understands that he has only himself to blame, and he tries to do better - which has its ups and downs. The Thomas we see in the final and in the films still wants to belong, is still a desperate romantic, but he is also so incredibly insecure in a rather endearing way.

Younger Thomas was rather stiff but dignified, trying to appear immaculate, trying to hide the fact that he felt he was anything but. Once the mask comes off, he goes from being a reluctant cat to being full of nervous puppy energy. As a neurodivergent person who has recently struggled with not being able to masks well, I can relate a little too much to this version of Thomas.

Most characters, that start out as villains, either change completely (like Tantai Jin), their behavior will be excused (like Mo Ran or Spike) or they sacrifice themselves for the greater good to redeem themselves (like Spike). Thomas stays more on less morally gray. We understand the reasons better, why he would lash out at others, and we can feel sorry for him. He had a harder life than most, but that still does not undo the harm he has done to others.

All in all, the last film was a bit of a disappointment for me, mainly because a lot of the characters felt a bit off. I had to watch the film twice to get behind the romance with Guy Dexter. What Guy meets is Thomas desire to be respected as a person, to be seen as worthwhile, to escape the life as decorative wallpaper and to finally have a romantic relationship with someone that is rather enthusiastic about him. A lot of their relationships seems to have developed off-screen, based on Guy knowing who Carson was during his proposal and understanding how uncertain Thomas still feels about his role in the household. I wish them well - but not at the expense of Thomas being excluded from the rumoured 3rd film. I hope it takes place in the USA and we get to see him again!

I really wish we would see more morally gray characters like this, even through a quick look into the fandom of Downton Abbey shows me, that not everybody can handle it.

#downton abbey #thomas barrow

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fiercynn · 1 year

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perspectives on แผลเก่า | plae kao, aka kwan riam or the scar: a summary of analyses in english

so while working on my bad buddy fake dating fic traffic was slow for the crash years, i got interested in learning more about the play that the architecture students put on in pat and pran’s second year: แผลเก่า | plae kao (alternately romanized as “phlae kao” or “plae gow”, and translated into english as “the scar”, “the old scar”, “the old wound”, or “kwan riam”).

i tried to find out as much as i could about the story, and somewhere along the way it stopped being about fic research and more just about my own interest in film – especially when i started reading analyses of two of the film adaptations of the story, and, in particular, the role that the 1977 film adaptation had in thai cinema and history. there's a lot out there about the impact the film had domestically in fostering thai nationalism, and also in presenting a specific view of thailand to international audiences. so i thought i would share what i found for other english-speakers who are curious but, like me, don’t speak thai!

caveat that i've obviously missed the vast majority of analysis on the films from scholars and writers writing in thai, and my sources are overly-reliant on non-thai authors (i believe two out of the six analyses i read are by non-thai authors).

there have been many adaptations of the story, but i've included only the ones for which i could find substantial information in english.

ORIGINAL 1936 NOVEL written by mai muengderm; i unfortunately could not find much in english about the novel.

1977 FILM directed by cherd (also romanized as choed) songsri and starring nantana ngaograjang as riam and “ek” sorapong chatree as kwan, this is the classic version of the story that most people seem familiar with. the film set the record at the time for the highest-grossing thai film and was one of the first thai films to win a major international award. you can read a synopsis of the film on its wikipedia page and watch the trailer with english subtitles, plus you can read about the film’s restoration when it was rereleased in thai theatres in 2018.

it seems fairly well-established by critics that director cherd songsri’s intent in making แผลเก่า | plae kao was to cement an idea of “thainess” that was based in certain characteristics (folk-derived, agrarian) and values (traditional, buddhist, anti-communist, and anti-westernization), and that the film was promoting this image both to thai citizens and to international audiences as an expression of thai nationalism in the late 1970s (which was operating under authoritarian regime). he said this about his intent:

“when i produced แผลเก่า | plae kao, i used the slogan 'we must show thai traditional style to the world.' this produced a great deal of negative sentiment towards the picture, because some people believe that this is not a topic to be shown on film. i am a stubborn person though, and once i set my mind to including this in my films, well it's been in every film I have ever made. the press is always asking me when i will make a contemporary film, but now, no one is asking.”

beyond that, i found a lot of interesting examinations of both the film itself and the larger context it existed in within thai cinema:

"the pastoral romance returns": a 2018 review of the restored film by kong rithdee for bangkok post that discusses cherd’s intent and posits that the film’s popularity with thai audiences came from a nostalgia for a “simpler” past during a time of political turmoil in the 1970s.

"thai cinema since 1970": a 2001 article by anchalee chaiworaporn for film in south east asia: views from the region that characterizes critique of แผลเก่า | plae kao:

“some thai critics see cherd as promoting just the image of thailand that foreigners want to see – an exotic traditional eastern society. but to be fair, it must be said that cherd himself would see his repeated attempts to create a sense of traditional, often rural, pre-modern thailand, as an important work of cultural resistance, an attempt to delineate the thai personality and its basis in rural life and rural traditions, and to examine the importance of buddhism as not only a religion but as an element significantly shaping thai character” (p. 153).

"cold fire: gender, development, and the film industry in cold war thailand": an unpublished 2017 phd dissertation by rebecca townsend (who, i should note, is american and does not appear to be of thai or southeast asian origin herself) for cornell university, which goes further in critiquing แผลเก่า | plae kao, using the lenses of gender and nationalism. the dissertation looks at how thai cinema functioned during the cold war era as a nationalistic tool of thailand’s monarchy and authoritarian governments, as well as of u.s. influence. films like แผลเก่า | plae kao, townsend argues, were used to construct the image of an “ideal thai woman” who was passive, virtuous, traditional, and apolitical – quite in contrast to actual thai women of the time – and this “ideal thai woman” was seen as the bearer of thai authenticity and essential to the national cultural identity and national security during the cold war. riam, in townsend’s analysis, represents the tension in thailand in the 1970s between romanticized nostalgia for a rural, traditional thai heritage and the reality of development, urbanization, and the threat of westernization.

"phantom light: to save and project": a 2020 piece by imogen sara smith for film comment that discusses films shown at a series on lost film hosted by the museum of modern art in new york city, including แผลเก่า | plae kao. interestingly, this piece notes that the film includes a subplot of where a visiting theater company performs a stylized melodrama that echoes the larger story, which i found fascinating given plae kao’s role as a story within a story in bad buddy. so many layers!

2014 FILM directed by m.l. pundhevanop dhewakul and starring “new” chaiyaphol poupart as kwan and “mai” davika hoorne as riam. you can read a summary and watch the trailer with english subtitles. some analyses of this version:

"the romanticization of scars": a 2014 film review by kong rithdee (who also wrote the first piece on the 1977 version linked above) for bangkok post, which compares this production to the 1977 version and finds it lacking, largely because the context in which it was made has a “psychological distance” from the source. kong alleges that the film is “hyper-romanticized”, both in acting and post-production, and hypothesizes that this approach was deemed necessary to reach modern audiences.

"a love idealized and its scars revisited in ‘plae kao’": a 2014 film review by prae sakaowan for coconuts bangkok that has a different take, praising the production for its “vintage appeal” and its “irrational, full-hearted embrace of romantic love”, focusing less on how the film functions socially.

2018 AMATEUR STAGE VERSION not analysis actually, but a half-hour video of a (possibly student? i couldn’t find much information about who put it on) stage version. unfortunately ot does not have english subtitles, but i still enjoyed watching it! there are some elements of it that have been treated ahistorically, as dramatic interpretations of older stories often do, and the scenes of kwan and riam helped me understand their dynamic better.

so that’s what i've learned! definitely curious if others have thoughts, or know more about the story or any of the adaptations.

also yes i did read the entirey of a 283 page dissertation to learn more about this asldkjfldsjfls

#thai cinema #แผลเก่า #plae kao #the scar #kwan riam #bad buddy #fic research #that eventually took on its own life #this always happens #research is so fun #when you're doing it out of interest #traffic was slow for the crash years

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veilchenjaeger · 1 year

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Okay. After over a goddamn year, I have finally finished Couple of Mirrors. Consider me wrecked.

I don't even know where to start with this show? It's everything I've ever wanted, save for the censorship issue. (But I think I can read the manhua to soothe that particular ache.) It's so damn good. I watched this with month-long breaks between episodes, so I don't remember everything, but I still want to try to write up my initial thoughts bc it's fun to reread that kind of thing after a rewatch or some time of brainrot.

First, without getting into spoilers: I adore this show. The plot is incredible - dense without being overwhelming, unpredictable without nonsensical plot twists. Nearly every episode had me on the edge of my metaphorical seat. At the same time, the characters were given time to shine and develop. Especially Xu Youyi is just one of the characters of all time, I'm obsessed with her, but I definitely got attached to side characters as well. (Which is dangerous, considering the body count this show has.) I really appreciate the pacing, the little moments of downtime between the imo impeccably paced rush of revelations and developments. There are some things that could be seen as... soap opera-esque, in a way? Just because of the amount of family drama, but I think it all worked really well bc the show immediately tells you what kind of show it is and what the stakes are. None of the drama is out of place, is what I'm saying. There's a lot of murder.

There are complaints about Xu Youyi and Yan Wei not having a lot of screentime together, and while this is in some way true, I... didn't mind? They're both set up well enough as individual characters for their interactions to be meaninful, and it was more than enough for me to get invested in them. (Not to mention that there's a whole episode of domestic Yiwei in the end.) But mostly, and I think I've said this before somewhere, I came for the lesbians and stayed for the plot. Xu Youyi's story is about so many things, and it's important that each of these things was given the space it deserves. This is a murder mystery/thriller first and a romance second, and I honestly prefer it that way. The pacing felt right, and the central relationship still came across well.

Final non-spoilery verdict: PLEASE watch this show if you haven't seen it yet. It's so, so, so good. You can watch the whole thing on Youtube for free, and the subtitles are actually decent.

Spoilers under the cut.

There are approximately fifty separate things I'm obsessed with, but I'll only name a few.

First of all, the whole Thing between Zhou Heng and Xu Youyi, and especially Zhou Heng's character. Holy shit, this is well done. Zhou Heng is never portrayed as the good guy, but the sheer extent of his unhingedness is revealed so gradually that you're pretty much bound to underestimate him. He starts out as a bad husband who cheats on Xu Youyi, but for what it's worth, it seems like he does love her and wants to try to be better for the first episodes. He defends her from his family, he supports her, and while Xu Youyi is right not to let him get away with that after he broke her heart like that, he's sympathetic. He's not a cartoon villain or a cardboard cutout of an evil abusive husband. And he still isn't that when it's revealed that he fucking tried to kill her. That caught me off guard so hard! I didn't expect that at all, and then it just fucking kept going. It's in episode 10, during the dinner he has with Xu Youyi, that I realised that he's not only an utter dickhead, he's batshit insane. And it's the very fact that he was built up as a sympathetic character that makes this reveal as creepy as it is. Gods, what an asshole! Gives me chills of the worst kind! A superbly done antagonist.

(The same is true for Zhang Wan, too. She's a lot more obviously mean, but the extent of that isn't revealed all at once, and the relationship she had with Xu Youyi before is still meaningful. Zhou Heng's father, too - he acts according to his motivations, and whether he's with Xu Youyi or against her depends on the way she fits into his plans. Just, good antagonists all around.)

Second of all, I adore the characters so, so much?! Xu Youyi's development, her sunny personality, her heartbreak, and the way she gets more and more tired of being nice, are so [chef's kiss]. Detective Jiang was right, actually - she is someone who'd happily live with a murderer. She's so genuinely kind, she doesn't mean harm, but after everything she's been put through, she's ruthless deep down. I love how cold and collected she is when she demands the divorce, when she signs the papers, when she's in court, and especially when she finds out that Yan Wei is indeed the murderer of Zhang Wan and doesn't even hesitate to lie to the police to help her. Xu Youyi has had it and she will not be taking any prisoners.

It took me a little longer to get fully attached to Yan Wei, simply because she's not the main character, but the last episode really sealed the deal for me. She's grown so much because of Xu Youyi! She's started to live a life that isn't ruled by her past, she's capable of joking with Xu Youyi and she's a good mother and she's happy, which she didn't know how to be before! She even gets along with other people; she's on good terms with Mr Wang and has a bit of a teasing relationship going on with Detective Jiang. (Big fan of that, btw. I think they should be bros.) And yet, she's also presumably doing some very shady stuff to get money, and we haven't seen her find actual closure yet. I get why the last few minutes aren't the most popular ones - they're a bit of a shock, for one, and the pacing of the show fails here, although I assume that's all a set up for the next season - but they make sense. Again, Detective Jiang is right! Xu Youyi doesn't know anything about Yan Wei's past, and it's a past that's pretty important for who Yan Wei is! That's the one thing I was worried about throughout the show: that Yan Wei's past would just stay unaddressed, and that Xu Youyi wouldn't find out. So, yeah, I do like that they made that into a (future?) plot point. It's such a strong beat for Yan Wei's arc, I really hope we do get that second season and get to find out what she's been doing behind Xu Youyi's back and what those flowers mean. Yan Wei deserves some more development!

(That being said, I still think that season finale cliffhangers are bad writing and shouldn't be done, especially with the state of queer entertainment in China being what it currently is. Looking at you, Scum Villain season 2.)

And last but not least, I'll be listening to the opening song on repeat for the next lifetime, thanks.

#[talk less smile more]#couple of mirrors #/I LOVE THIS SHOW #/oh also zhang nan hot

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thenewfuture · 8 months

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Ranking the Mainline DanganRonpa Entries

Hey guys. The mastermind ranking list brought a lot of discussion and attention here, and I had a lot of fun making it. Now it's time to start list that won the second place on the poll; ranking all of the main series entries.

Oh, beloved DanganRonpa. How you started out as a niche spiritual successor to Ace Attorney, to now becoming your own big entity that can rival the best of them. Where have the years gone?

Quick rules to explain the process here:

-Like I said this is only the mainline entries. Fanganronpas like the Another series, Rebirth, Blowback, etc. will not be counted.

-That being said, I will also not be including any side content like Summer Camp S, The Kirigiri, Togami and Ultra Despair Hagakure novels, Killer Killer, IF, and Zero. For one, because a lot of them don't do much to add to DanganRonpa's overarching story. And two, a good half of them I have not seen nor am I interested in doing so because they don't much for the main series anyway. Apologies...

-This list is going to be INCREDIBLY SUBJECTIVE AND OPINIONATED, if you disagree with any of the spots I've put them in; that is completely fine, just don't be a jerk about it.

-And finally, the following will contain massive spoilers for the DanganRonpa series and their respective games and entries. View at your own risk. But considering this is on a story blog that takes place after three of the entries here, maybe you shouldn't be here anyway, but I'm still warning others just to be safe.

#5 DanganRonpa 1: Trigger Happy Havoc

Why is the subtitle for the game way bigger and upfront on the cover while the actual series name is way smaller? I don't get it...

To kick off our ranking list, it's the game that started it all. The very first DanganRonpa game, Trigger Happy Havoc! Now don't get wrong, even though it's this low doesn't make it the "worst", just my personal least favorite out of all of them. I mean I would have had to like the first game to some degree if I stuck with the series this long, right? I think this game has just aged......poorly...

The premise of the game starts out very well, each student is trapped in an enclosed environment and the only form of escape is to kill another classmate. This sort of environment encourages distrust of others so that when it's inevitably time for a murder, not only are you devastated that the character you were growing attached died but also saddened at how another character you liked could do something like that. That's all fine and dandy......here's the problem...

You can't convince me these guys were EVER friends! Not only is the player supposed to get attached to the other characters, the characters themselves have to from lasting trust and bonding experiences so that they too can feel despair. But barring a few good exceptions, it's not really done with anyone else. Let give a few examples:

Could imagine Sakura getting well with Kiyotaka? ......Hard, right?

Could imagine Leon getting along with Touko? ......No, right?

Could imagine Celeste getting along with Aoi? HA! Right?!

And that's not taking into account despair loving diva Junko and her sister Mukuro who would barely have any identity of her own.

Like I said; there are some great relationships here, I am not ignoring that. I was saddened with Kiyotaka having to get separated from Mondo too, and even more saddened when Aoi tried to get everyone killed because she believed the reason for her best friend's suicide was everyone else. But the comradery of the group doesn't work as well as it should or could have been we focus on these smaller groups and leaving behind the characters that exactly fit into a group of there own. Many of the other games fix this by having much more morale boosting events and activities for the rest of the remaining cast, meanwhile I can't exactly say the same here. As an unfortunate downside of this, it makes some of the characters bland and forgettable at best. Cast makes or breaks your visual novel game people, and the cast of THH leaves a lot to be desired.

The pacing's also very slow here. Because Monokuma doesn't outright say that a blackened has to survive and outwit the others in a class trial, the first chapter feels much more sluggish as a result. Future entries would go on to fix that issue by telling them right out the gate. And like I said, because there are hardly any events or anything of note going with the cast at times, most chapters play like: "waking up, meet up with everyone else, talking about what happened, explore new area, Free Time, Free Time, sleep, wake up, meet up, Free Time, Free Time, motive, sleep, wake up, meet up, Free Time, Free Time, sleep, Free Time, Free Time, oh hey someone kicked the bucket"

The slowness also translates to the gameplay as well. Having no breaks means going through 1 to 2 hour trials in one big burst. The joke of "Naegi, telling them" is very much true here and it's normally him, Kyoko and whenever he's not being a dick, Byakuya carrying the trials with everyone else offering their input every once in a while. "Gee, I wonder if we could spice this up by having other characters object to your line of thinking?.......NAH!" The minigames are serviceable as well, I mean Hangman's Gambit was never bit it's fine here, Climatic Return is always awesome, and while MTB is fine I just want to talk to the person that suggessted having this sort of action take place NUMEROUS TIMES in some of the later trials! And I have an unexplained, visceral, HATRED for the RE:Action prompt. Imagine having to watch and read some text explaing important information to just suddenly STOP TO A HAULT and press another button to get more info because your character to ask, "what do you mean?" by himself.

All in all, while Trigger Happy Havoc may not hold up as well as most of its predecessors, and maybe some of my reasons boil down to me spoiling myself on this game but watching a let's play of it and skipping down to see who survived, that doesn't mean there isn't a whole lot good to this game. The characters I do care about are written pretty well, Makoto is a good protagonist for this game and works in a number of ways, the trials are fairly simple to what we get later down the line, and the atmosphere works well for a killing game environment. I just have a few issues with it personally that question if I want to go back to it on numerous occasions. But as I said, if I didn't like the first game somewhat I wouldn't really be here, would I?

Just remember your first shot isn't always going to be your best, and that's okay.

#4 DanganRonpa V3: Killing Harmony

I consider V3 to be the Fire Emblem Fates of the franchise..............now I know that made sense to a whopping two of you, so let me explain.

Fire Emblem Fates comes off the massive success of its predecessor, Awakening, and fixes a lot of its issues. The gameplay is much more advanced and easy to understand, the music is really good, the environments look amazing, and there is a ton of content for many to enjoy. .......Everything else with it?

OH BOOOOOOOOYYYYY!!!!!!!!

A great number of characters are incredibly one note, has an insane number of unwanted fanservice moments, has numerous localization controversy, and the story is so GODDAMN convoluted, confusing and messy, surrounding itself in a mountain of incest!

.........So onto V3...

DanganRonpa V3 comes off the massive success of its predecessors, and fixes a lot of issues. The gameplay and mingames are much more easier to understand and scrum debating is awesome, the music is fantastic, the graphics and environments take use of its new console software, and there is a lot of content to enjoy. .....Everything else with it?

OH BOOOOOOOOYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!

Some of the characters are incredibly one note, has insane number of unwanted fanservice moments, has numerous localization controversy, and the story is so GODDAMN convoluted, confusing, twisted and messy, surrounding itself in a MOUNTAIN of incest!

..........Ya get it now?

I don't want it to seem like I'm ragging a whole lot on V3, but there are a lot of things that this game does that is straight up bad.

I will be nice and start with the good first however. I really like the cast and their designs, very unique and hard to forget even if I tried. The Ultimate Academy is a pretty cool set-piece for the killing game to take place in; having it be closed off to the world like Hope's Peak Academy but open to see the sky and other areas like Jabberwock Island, a pretty decent blend of the two. The music is a phenomenal treat for the ears, and for the eyes comes amazing sprite work for the new characters as well as Monokuma and great use of angles not before seen in the class trials. The new minigames for this game, Scrum Debate and Mass Panic Debates are also hella fun. And the bonus content is spectacular with Salmon Mode and Ultimate Talent Development Plan treating the fans to some actually GOOD fanservice.

That's about where the compliments end unfortunately. The other minigames aren't that fun to play through, Mind Mine is pointless and I don't enjoy it. V3 is notorious for having the ridiculous and mind stretching logic of all the class trials and that is a fact, Seesaw murders anyone? The back route mechanic sounds good on paper, and I'm not going to pretend that actually having multiple routes in a trial isn't a tremendous amount of work to pull off, but most of the optional ones are just time wasters as we don't learn much and just end up back on the correct path after a few minutes, so one has to wonder the point of all that. While I do like this cast, there are some stinkers that bring it down for me and can't compete with other ones. What the fuck is with all the incest in this writing?! And of course...the big two...

Why did we replace Kaede, a unique talent personality type who had tremendous potential for the first ever girl, main series, DanganRonpa, class trial protagonist.....for Shuichi? A low self-esteem, doesn't feel like he belongs, boy protagonist?

THIS IS THE THIRD TIME WE'VE HAD SOMETHING LIKE THIS!

We were this close to greatness....this close... And I love Shuichi too, but it still hurts everytime I think about it man, come on! Kaede could have done great things for this story or even have the two share the role of dual-swapping protagonists! And oh, that story though...

I get it, the power of fiction is real and it affects reality,and it does work for this game's overall theme of truth and lies, blah blah blah... But with how many times they HAMMER the message of: "Everything's fake! Everything you know and lie isn't real and it didn't happen! Look at you, the fans, you love killing games! You love DanganRonpa! Hahahahaha!" The message work so well it loops back around to feel insulting to not only the "fake" audience of the TV Show series, but also the auidence that's playing the game now. And apparently must have not worked enough because we still have people making videos on what they want in DanganRonpa 4, as well fans like me still being here and creating content discussion for it right now.

And with how ridiculous some of the characters' backstory are, such Gonta living with actual dinosaur people, Kaede preforming for famous kings across the world, Kirumi being the FUCKING PRIME MINISTER, maybe these were the clues all along to help you figure out this place was a fictional world. And I know that this is the series where a high school girl can overthrow the world into chaos, demigods are basically born left and right, and ghosts and aliens directly affect the plot, but I think we should have some sort of groundedness to this world, no?

Bottom line: V3 is a good game but has a mediocre story and because this is the last game in the series(maybe?), it leaves nothing but a bad taste in my mouth. I swear these writers aren't even trying anymore, DanganRonpa 17 was the best.

#3 DanganRonpa 3: The End Of Hope's Peak Academy

*THE BIGGEST AUDIBLE GASP KNOWN TO MANKIND*

Mod Freeze, isn't DanganRonpa 3 relegated as one of the worst installments in the franchise by the fans? Yes.

Mod Freeze, isn't the Final Killing Game a massive jumbled mess of time management, rules, and scope? Yes.

Mod Freeze, didn't DanganRonpa 3 not utilize a whole bunch of its characters as well as the DR2 cast? Yes.

Mod Freeze, isn't DanganRonpa 3 responsible for instilling the idea of the Remnants of Despair simply being brainwashed? Yes.

Mod Freeze, is this straw-man arguments tired out and old? Yes.

Mod Freeze, why is Danganronpa 3 so high? Well my dear reader, that is a long and extravagant answer.....

I like it.

........................

....That's it.

I'm not here to paint you a picture on how DR3 is the greatest piece of media in the history of existence, or even sway your mind from thinking that DR3 is so garbage that it could be mistaken for a Garbodor. I like DanganRonpa 3, for the simple fact that I enjoyed my time with it.

Now I am not blind to the various things DanganRonpa 3 has done wrong. It doesn't utilize most of the branch leaders well or hardly gives you any reason to care about them. A good chunk of the DR2 cast get left behind in the dust, especially those that should garner more attention like those present for the Twilight Syndrome case. And those that took the time to read and explore other lore such as DR0 do not get rewarded. Skips what could be interesting scenarios such as Chisa's time in the reserve course or even a few moments with the THH cast. And that's not even mentioning the Final Killing Game with all its confusing and convoluted bullshit.

But honestly, despite all that, I didn't mind any of that too much. I really liked the idea of a free-for-all killing game that Future Arc tried to implement, and seeing the fun and cute moments of the 77th class was such a delight. Some characters ere unfortunately narratively more built important than others, but some of them stuck out to me for the best of reasons. Chisa's fun mommy-sue nature, Seiko's tragic backstory and relationship with Ruruka, Koichi how he's trying to protect and be there for Kyoko, and a lot of the designs here for these guys kick ass.

Great Gozu is a more well-rounded character than a good chunk of others from THH and V3, and I can and will fight you on that.

Some of the returning cast was done really good here too, a real Chiaki for added wholesomeness, Hajime with his doubts of self-worth due to lack of talent, Imposter shined more than I thought he would, dude would ever imagine Imposter getting some shine in the main series, never me, holy cow. And we explored other characters who we hadn't known more about, like Izuru finally making him his own character, exploring the relationship and natures of Natsumi and Sato, and Mukuro.............y'know let's just not talk about that blunder...

I don't even mind the brainwashing portion either because.......that's what it always was....

And I had a talk with an anon a while back about this topic. I don't mind it too much because, if you're telling me that Junko can just switch your marolaity with a few words from her silver tongue, that makes her look too overpowered and the rest of the DR2 cast indigenous and kind of already shitty people. And I know a few of them can be swayed to despair give the right circumstances(Fuyuhiko, Peko, Mahiru, Mikan, Hiyoko, Akane), but honest to god how can someone like Imposter, Nekomaru, or ray of sunshine fall to despair with her words. I think we're stretching it here...

DanganRonpa 3 may have disappointment me as well as others on a quite few number of fronts, but kept me more invested in its story and mysteries than the past two entries. Again, my personal opinion of course... Without DR3, I wouldn't be making The New Future in the first place so it has to have some merit of enjoyment in here. And I think there could be more stuff to enjoy from this anime as well, squint and tilt it a little bit and you might find a gleam of hope...

But hey, what do I know? I'm the guy that likes DanganRonpa 3 :P

#2 DanganRonpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls

Okay how do you say this name?! Ultra Despair Girls: DanganRonpa: Another Episode?! DanganRonpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls?! DanganRonpa Ultra Despair Girls: Another Episode?! DanganRonpa 1.5 Final Remix?! THREE FIVE EIGHT OVER TWO DAYS?!-Wait.

These years have shown that not much has changed in the grand scheme of this list, as it's secured second place spot has not been challenged. And that's funny because I'm pretty this game is much more divisive in the fandom as well, and it has the unfortunate perk of being more well known than the anime series. I mean, a game with no class trials, no investigations, no definite mascots, smaller cast than normal, a huge change in gameplay, and Monokuma being demoted to near Goomba status. It may be a spin-off entry, but these are some drastic changes to the formula, almost a whole new game at this point.

However, I think Ultra Despair Girls is a fantastic entry to the series, and you would do yourself a disservice by skipping out on it. Makoto Naegi's little sister, Komaru, fights through the streets of Towa City for survival against the Monokumas and the Warrior of Hope with the help of a returning face, Touko Fukawa.Right off the bat, I have to say this idea for a story is really impressive. Because this takes place after THH but before DR2, we get to see kind of the world is during the Tragedy. Hectic, apocalyptic, barely clinging onto hope.. I may not be a fan of zombie or horrors movies, but the ambience here is top notch and works extremely well.

We have a ton of colorful characters as well, the Warriors of Hope are good antagonists with heartbreaking and understanding backstories, seeing relatives or people close to the first's game cast is an excellent treat as well like Hiroko, Kanon, Yuta and Taichi even if we get a little out of those two...and of course, the main big bad, Monaca. If you read my ranking list of the series' masterminds you know full well why I like her. She is a perfect villain for this sort of story, a twisted and manipulative person with the face of the child but the heart of a demon.

Of course, I can't forget to mention Komaru and Touko. Komaru's development from an average whiny high school girl who can't do anything learns to stand up and fight for herself. And Touko, who has outgrown her shell of being reclusive and venomous to others....while still retaining that somewhat, now has an active roll of helping Komaru get through these tough times. She offers her advice, lessons, support, everything. These two's relationship make this game for me and I'm sure many others would agree with me on that front.

Okay, time to get on to the negatives here, ah......oh boy....

For starters Towa City is huge and many areas here are really cool looking, but the path is quite linear and that can be quite tedious for exploring and hiding collectibles. It's not too hard, but there are a lot of collectibles to nab, and if you miss one you have to start the chapter all over again so be mindful. One of which is the wanted list that the WOH have to hunt down other "demons" aka, THH's families and friends. You give them to Hiroko to hopefully go get them, but do you ever seeeee or meeeeet them in the Resistance base. Nope! That's a missed opportunity if I ever heard of one!

And um.......all the.....uncomfortable....things this game does....hoo boy... From Touko's fantasies, to the scoring screen at the end of chapters, to.....the Motivation machine in Chapter 3, and.....j-just how manipulative and twisted Monaca can be in chapter 4, this game proves it is not for the faint of heart. Probably not even that too, those who aren't faint of heart might reel at some of these questionable decisions here. I'd call it fanservice but because some of these scenes involve, ahem, MINORS; I'd call it fansqueezing with how much it'll squeeze and hurt you with all this psychological trauma. I suppose I've either seen worse over the course of my life to not be affected by this, or I've endured these sorts of things in the game so many times that I have become numb to it. Remember folks, I platinumed this game.

Ultra Despair Girls may make you feel despair at times, but beyond that despair, lies hope. Hope of a game with a great story, great cast of characters, and a great episode for this franchise in general.

Oh, also this...

Another point to V3 being so low. How dare they tease us…

#1....DanganRonpa 2: Goodbye Despair

"Wow, shocking! The guy that's blog is about the DanganRonpa 2 cast ha DanganRonpa 2 as his favorite! I tooootally saw this coming a mile away!" Hey look man, I don't appreciate all that sass. I saw that train coming a mile away too and I didn't say anything. Also on you're right-

*HOOOOOORRRRNNN!* *CRAASSSSH!*

Eugh....oh, oh that looks bad.....A-Anyway....

Yes, if you follow me on my main blog you probably know that I love DanganRonpa 2 a whole effin' lot! I love mah boy Hajime! I love mah girl Chiaki! I love my other boys, Fuyuhiko, Kazuichi, and Imposter! I love mah other girls, Sonia, Ibuki and Mikan! I love DanganRonpa 2!

Everything is so right here. The gameplay, the setting, the story, the characters, it's all great!

Mind Dive and Rebuttal Showdown are excellent additions that keep the mystery paces going as well utilizes other characters and their outlooks on certain things. It's almost like it's a real trial here guys. And some would say that an island doesn't really fit for a whole killing game setting, and I agree somewhat, but I love all the places of Jabberwock island and I can argue waking up and finding yourself on a deserted island far, far away from any signs of civilization works just as good too.

And the cast, the cast is perfect! A great combination of personalities coming together to make every moment feel that much more impactful and memorable. And even though I may not like afew of them(Hiyoko, Nagito, Teruteru), they evoke more of a emotional reaction out of me and stick out in my mind far more than other members of the other casts. Not to mention there are plenty of group activities and moments together that serve to boost the character's morale and hope. While again, some of them are locked behind presents, some that aren't work well enough. The party at the old building, a beach party on the second island, Ibuki's concert, there are so many ways for the characters to come together that when some of them do die, it is really sad and heart-wrenching. Like what THH was trying to do, but better!

And the main story is really good as well. Having characters we all know and love turning out to responsible for the Tragedy set up in the first game is a really nice twist, as well as learning that it may be possible to bring them back. Some say it a cheap action that miiiiiight devalue all the tragedy and lose the player and characters have went through, and again, I can see that point being made. I personally believe if you give me the option to have them back I would take it a heartbeat.

If there is one true negative I have for this game, it's that the motives are fundamentally lacking in some regard. The motives for chapters 2 and 3 are very much targeted for specific people, and don't affect the others too much, which made the motives in THH work so well is that anyone could fall into the temptation, everyone was treated equal. And with those two chapters, eehhhhhhh.....not so much....

But even still, I hold DanganRonpa 2 very near and dear to my heart. It was the first game I saw and watched from beginning to end, the first game I played and even why I bought a Vita in the first place. I would come back to this game at a moment's notice, the emotions I felt through every chapter make me want to sit by the beachside and experience it all over again...

DanganRonpa 2: Goodbye Despair is my favorite game in the entire series. I cannot express how much I love it so much...

-Mod

#the new future #mod freeze #ranking #danganronpa #super danganronpa 2 #danganronpa ultra despair girls #danganronpa 3 #new danganronpa v3

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