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#tonal whiplash rollercoaster
anima-virtuosa · 1 month
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I was sad thinking about pinatas
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lavenderlyncis · 2 years
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Cthk is still so dramatic😣
Can't wait until it's in its sitcom era
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slocumjoe · 11 months
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If you were to rate the Fo4 companions from most to least favourite how would you rate them?
I can't list them in order, because I have too many feelings on them....and also, I love them all! It's just...there's such a Rollercoaster of quality of writing, of character concept, of VA performance, of actual attention and care given to the meat-and-potatoes aspects...
Like, I can say I have a favorite (Danse) and a least favorite (Piper) and a dude in the middle who I give not a crap about (Deacon), but I still like these characters??? They're fun! Its just, I like my idea of them more than what's actually there.
So, uhhhh
RORY TALKS ABOUT THE COMPANIONS 2 ELECTRIC BOOGALOO
this is basically a long-post of a bunch of mini-essays, so grab a snack or nice bev and get cozy
Cait, to me, is a prime example of "this character sounds better on paper". I've already complained about her three greatest flaws; being bloated, being mishandled, and being a very confused character. If I were to describe Cait, it would be that she's a troubled young woman who was traumatized all her life, but understands that it's effected her heavily and wants to work past it and better herself.
In game, she's...an Irish Girl. She talks about drinking and fucking and fighting. If not that, she's detailing her absolutely horrific life. It gives me tonal whiplash. I feel like they were too busy adding things on rather than fleshing her out. I mean, really...what is the significance of the Tough Irish Girl type in the wasteland, where everyone acts that way? Is Cait an example of your average wastelander, someone whos supposed to show the daily life in this world? Well...no, that can't be it, she's put away from others, an outsider who doesn't fit in whatever circumstances she finds herself in. She doesn't belong with raiders, she doesn't fit into the average civilian life. So, is she about ostracization and how even after being nuked, there still is a society to ostracize people? That is brought up in text, but that's not at all Cait's thing, that concept is with Hancock.
I travel with Cait to quickly get her affinity up to speedrun her "recovery" (see the Cait breakdown to learn my thoughts on That Fucking Chair) because I want her to get better...but I don't like traveling with her that much. It's not just that she often disagrees with my usual choices, she's just rather flat. I don't get the impression that the writers really considered her psychology, what she stood for, what someone should or could take away from her.
But I like her conceptually. There's a lot of fun and emotional catharsis to be had with a traumatized character like her, someone who has to navigate life after escaping her bad situations, and not knowing what to do with the survival instincts she had to cultivate, but no longer needs.
Codsworth is inoffensive to me, and I like sassy but polite characters. I find them refreshing in settings like Fallout. I had more fun imagining his lines as thinly-veiled bitching than sincerity, though. I think he's fine, just simple. Simple is best, sometimes. I wouldn't trust Beth to give the indentured servitude robot an even remotely palatable story, given how they handled the synths and their whole thing...
But Codsworth, I like having him around. He's the lemon water to the black coffee, sugary soda, whiskey, and occasional cups of tar. He's needed at a palette cleanser.
Curie should have been a main plot companion, argue with the wall. She's a Ms. Nanny who becomes a synth, which are functionally human beings. She has a lot of narrative potential, being an example and counterargument for many different things.
Unfortunately, she's kept mostly a secret, being the most hidden companion, and she's left as a simple French maid fantasy. I'm not even sure why they bothered to make her a doctor. It has nothing to do with how she's actually handled and presented. Curie's more often blushing than meaningfully interacting with the world. She talks to Amari, she becomes a synth, and the rest of her story is just her going KYAA~ at the SS. I wish they gave her some edge, some weirdness. I like my version where she's this slightly pretentious, condescending, incredibly old-seeming entity that clearly doesnt come from around here.
Danse...my boy. My boy. I adore him. You don't need me to explain why. And you don't need me to explain why his incomplete writing infuriates me.
I've said before he's very similar to Hancock, and since I have something else I want to discuss about with Johnny down in this, I'll use Danse's slot to discuss it, very quickly.
Danse and Hancock are remarkably similar people and characters, even there is parts that drift or parallel in their differences.
Substance dependency (Hancock does chems, Danse is a canonical alcoholic)
They both struggled to find their footing and place in the world, and hate the people they were in their act 1's (Hancock's takes place during his founding of Goodneighbor, Danse's after BB)
They're fiercely loyal and protective of 'their people', even if it can take a LOT for them to consider someone 'their people'
Both are suicidal and identity plays a huge part (Hancock pretends to be someone he isn't, Danse is desperate to be the person he thought he was this whole time/hates that he isn't who he thought he was)
Both of these characters are two sides of the same coin. It's just that Danse's upbringing led him to believe in authority and control being the best way to help and take care of the wasteland, Hancock's upbringing (filled with corrupt authority and control) led him to believe in an egalitarian, we-all-lift mindset where the people have the power, he's just the guy who people talk to about any issues. It's somewhat implied that Cutler was similar to Hancock, judging by Danse's few lines about Cutler.
So uuuhhh Todd where the fuck is the last 2 arcs for danse and last arc for hancock? todd? todd where the fu
As said above, Deacon is nothing to me. I like him. I don't care about him much. I think he's fun to play with, but the moment you start getting into his backstory/angst, I slide right the fuck off.
Okay, the Barb thing. Dead wife. Fucking boring story, done to death. At the point I met Deacon, I had already met Mac, Nick, knew of Longfellow and his deal. So it was like "JESUS they really dont know any other reason for a dude to be sad, do they." But the thing that keeps me from caring about Deacon is that no one can agree if Barb is real. If that actually happened.
...his backstory is supposed to inform his character. Why is Deacon doing this? Because of his backstory. If his backstory isn't real, we know nothing about Deacon, and he is, functionally, not a character. Why does Deacon lie if Barb didnt happen? Dunno. He just...does. Why is Deacon helping synths? Uhh...we needed an RR companion? Deacon's character rides or dies on Barb. If she's real, then the rest of him makes sense. She's the windex and towel to the cloudy glass house that is the rest of him. If she isn't, Deacon...doesn't matter, in any meaningful way. He's a guy in the RR who lies about everything, which means you can't care about him. Because there is nothing to care about, because it's all bullshit.
So, that's my thoughts on Deacon, in-canon. I don't know what his deal is or if his proposed deal is genuine, so I can't click with him. But in my own canon, Barb is real, so my Deacon ken-doll does appeal to me. But in Fallout 4, in text, I regard him the same as I do Tom Bombadil. To give you an idea of how flimsy Deacon is in text, a prevailing fan theory from around 2017-18 was that Deacon was Mrs. Rosa's son. Mrs. Rosa was a pre-war neighbor. Her son was a kid. The fact that Deacon is so weird and fluid and almost omniscient isn't a plus for me, it isn't a point of fascination. It's a puzzle that I know doesn't have a finished product, so I leave and go hang out with Danse, who can't speak if he isn't being absurdly blunt.
Gage is a character that deserved a better DLC. The more I think about Nuka World the more I kinda wish it was just Gage and the handmade rifle, instead the map...but that's about Nuka World. Gage himself could have easily been a swing and a miss and fall face-first into the dirt, but he's a surprisingly well-written character? There are layers of psychology with him. You can look at an action or opinion he has, and map it to something that happened to him. You can literally unravel why he does what he does, is who he is. His writers had a concept for him, and they worked backwards to understand why he would become that way.
What really sells him is his VA. Rolston put his whole pussy into that performance. Gage has so many lines that would be utter cringe if not full-assed. The "That vault suit makes your ass look great" line comes to mind...i've seen modded followers with similar lines, and jesus christ i want to pepper spray some of them. It helps that Gage has multiple faucets to his personality. It also helps that he is intentionally distinct from the other raiders, and occasionally doesn't associate with them, himself. It gives him standards and principles, which help give him shape and dimension. Good character. He isn't my favorite, that's Danse, but he's up there.
Hancock is such a waste of a character and it boggles me no one else seems to think so.
He starts on a bad note because his core reason for existing, is Beth wanted a historical figure reference. There's a reason he gives you a history lesson about John Hancock, it's so everyone knows exaclty what Johnny Ghoulie is a reference to. It's not even so much a reference, because it is a direct mimicking. I cannot stand the moments in 4 where something exists because the team learned a fun historical trivia fact, and wanted to pepper in that they did research. I've already bitched about their love of this with the Railroad at some point on this blog.
I genuinely wouldn't mind Hancock if he wasn't pulling so limp-dickedly. It's specifically the contrivance of explaining why this dude is called John Hancock, in John Hancock's clothing. It's okay if they pull from history and allude to it, But Hancock is just...some history stuff tacked on, with no real thought or care. The clothing, the name, the catchphrase. I feel like this is Disney's Hamilton on Ice.
But moving away from that...what is the point of Hancock?
Is his character about drug use and addiction? NOPE, only Cait's addiction is noteworthy. Okay...idenity issues, since he's larping? Not really. It could be, but that's not at all of interest to the story/writing itself. The Hancock thing is an aesthetic, not a trait. So, don't have that either. Is his character about leadership, in any capacity? Kinda, I guess. He briefly mentions insecurities and guilt about it a few times. But if I said "Hancock's story is about leadership", most people would raise an eyebrow and ask why. Not because it's...wrong, it's just not prominent enough to say that's his story, definitively.
So...what is the point of him? What should I take away from Hancock? Duty to the people? Preston does that, and does it better/more explicitly. Regret about past actions? Mac does that. Protecting the people from political corruption? Piper's thing (AND WE'LL GET TO FUCKING PIPER.) What is there to Hancock that isn't done by another companion? It isn't his depression because ALL these bitches be suicidal. What is unique to Hancock? Pretending to be someone else? Deacon. Drugs? Cait. Trying to figure out who you are, removed from the expections that come with having been someone else? Nick. Leadership, and the failures of it? Danse. Struggling to navigate the world in a new, different body, as a new person, functionally? Curie.
The only thing I can think of is mentioned only twice, and is immediately brushed off; the questionable nature of your leader being buddy-buddy with you, and acting like 'one of the bros' even as they hold power over you and have resources you don't. Parasocial government, if you will. It's brought up by Finn and Bobby No-Nose and is shut down/forgotten.
So...the only thing unique to Hancock, and it's regulated to, like, 3 individual throw-away lines. 2 of which you can miss.
Great.
Again, I like him. I just like him when I'm writing him, and can actually have him work through his shit and concepts. But as he stands, he's just...hey, y'know John Hancock? New Vegas also pulled from history, but New Vegas had shit to say about it. There was debating. There was actual philosophy and politics. There wasn't some dude named Caesar who was just...hanging out. What does Fallout 4 say about John Hancock?
Here's something you can say about Hancock; Hancock owned slaves. He inherited them from his uncle, Thomas Hancock. He later freed them due to terms in Thomas' will. But the guy Fallout 4 meagerly puts up as a figure of freedom and independence, and duty to fellow man, was a slave owner, and had slave owning family.
So, what does that mean for our Hancock? Who looked up to this guy, mantled him, and this guy is, in some way, a perversion of his own ideals.
And our Hancock's favorite quote is from Lincoln. Who started the Civil War. Did Lincoln own slaves? Contested, i couldn't find any clear answers. But Hancock mantles a slave owner, using a quote from the president that would try to outlaw slavery, while pushing for freedom and independence and anarchist rhetoric.
Is that the best you can do with Hancock? No. But it's an example.
MacCready, I've compared to a can of Campbell's soup. He's simple, he's decently-done. He's not Codsworth's lemon water but he isn't Cait's tar. I often struggle to write MacCready because he's so simple. There's not much there, he isn't a complex character. He's not even a complex person. And I like that! I like that the grumpy mercenary is a normal guy, who's just going through the motions and has simple desires. His type is often tar and I'm happy to see that subverted.
Its just that his lack of complexity means there's not much to say about him that you don't already know. He's accessible, which is a good thing. Most people don't want to drink tar, but if you're reaching for a fun beverage, you're not often reaching for water, either.
I think the best thing about MacCready is how excellent he is as a romance option. I think he's the strongest romantic choice in the game, period, largely due to him being a simple guy. I would go for MacCready IRL, because he's a good dad, he has good work ethic, and he's emotionally available and isn't afraid to talk feelings, without being a clusterfuck of issues. I love Danse, but you have to talk him out of suicide before you do anything, and he himself will admit that there's going to be a lot of issues simply because he doesn't know what he's doing or what he wants out of his new life.
You don't get that with MacCready. He knows what he wants and who he is and what he cares about. He's such a solid romantic interest, and there's incredible fic potential with the Sole Survivor and MacCready both as soon-to-be grieving parents.
On the flipside, I can't understand people who romance Nick and think its all sunshine and roses. Mini-rant, but /rad-roche (i think thats their user?) has the right idea, with Nick being a hot mess of unresolved issues who is never not projecting or in denial. Nick is not fit for a romantic relationship, not in the state you see him in game. Especially not before Far Harbor. Especially if you don't get the good ending of Far Harbor. I know, bisexual women, I'm sorry. He's got more shit than Danse and Hancock combined. I write romantic Nick prompts as if this isn't the case, but make no mistake. Me giving yall what you want is not me under the impression that this is a good idea.
Anyway. Nick himself.
Dead wife. Booo. I've already complained about his dumbass quest, which i really dislike for all its contrivances. Also, I find him mismatched with the world around him, and I wish there was more attention paid to that. He's a stock character playing out in real life (in Fallout 4's real life, that is). He's a 40's noir flick detective. This character does not belong in a post-apocalypse. This is an urban setting character. Fallout is not urban.
But that doesn't mean he can't exist! I just wish they went more ham with it. I mean, how does a detective function in a lawless wasteland, full of secrets simply because there's so few people see shit happening, know what goes down? It's an information blackout, out there, and a detective is all about information. Nick deserved to be let loose and go full camp on it all. Instead, we got 2 piddly little piss stains of "mystery" side quests. With someone as clashing as Nick, you really need to either sand down the edges to make him fit, or make the fact he's so weird part of the Thing. Nick is played incredibly straight, and given that that man is clearly lgbtq+, i find that almost a waste. Let this man be deranged. This is why Far Harbor is best Nick. He's holding together in the base game, but i don't want him holding together. I want him to suffer. I want him to monolog like Hamlet before driving a cane into someone's forehead.
Now, as for Piper...
Oh, Piper.
You were doomed.
You were so fucking doomed.
I've written about Piper and her shitty paper multiple times, so if you want a refresher, go to my blog > pinned post > meta section, and find the Piper posts. My peer review of The Synthetic Truth will be your best look into what I think of Piper.
The thing is, if you removed her awfully done journalism aspect, I'd like her base form! When she isn't going on and on about shit that's either wrong, baseless, or presumptuous, she's sassy, she's community-orianted, she's mischievous, she's kinda sardonic. She has a sugar problem. She's a burnt out 20 year old with a parentification issue. There's a lot to like here! The problem is they set up the journalism, fuck it up, and then veer hard-right and crash into the "I'm raising a kid when I'm not even an adult either" thing, where it had no build up or time to unfold naturally.
In my own little world, Piper's journalism fuckups are addressed and have consequences. I don't want her smoothed out and perfect, I want her glaring flaws to be intentional and acknowledged. And that just doesn't happen in text.
Ive also got a ramble on my thoughts on Preston. I've said before I don't like his voice acting most of the time, and I actually got a lot of pushback?? But the people who disagreed didnt...disagree...they just pointed out that John Gentry had a gnarly recording circumstance. I think it was that his first takes weren't supposed to be the final product, because he wasn't really intended to be the VA? Something like that, I forget. Point is, I said John Gentry obviously had a rough time in the booth, and wasn't given a fair shot, and people went "No, his voice acting is good! John Gentry just had a rough time with his line recording and wasn't given a fair shot!"
M-ma'am. Thats...what I said.
If it makes anyone feel better, I don't like the majority of the voice acting in this game...a lot of it is very 'modded skyrim character.' Remember the Skyrim Romance Mod? Thats what most of it sounds like to me. Remember Mrs. Peabody? Holy shit. Do not let anyone involved in that cook ever again. I also have personal beef with Nate. The male VA for the SS...someone, somewhere, made a bunch of choices. It was the wrong one, frequently. (The only good male SS line i can think of is the one romancing Danse. Has some texture to it. It's shy and cute, very good)
As for Preston himself, love him, love my paragon good-guy characters. He's such a sweetheart but he's down for bloodshed. I adore those kinds of characters, those "do no harm, take no shit" types. He's treated as a fluffball by fanon (when not suffering racist ass takes or absolute disregard), but Preston has got some lovely edges to him. If you go through his dialogue page and his approvals, you'll find he can be hard at times. There are moments he approves of 'asshole' choices, which is very fun. I love this dude.
Anyway hot take. IF HE WAS WHITE, ALL OF THESE BITCHES WOULD LIKE HIM. YEAH. I SAID IT. He'd be a depressed white man who's buff and kind and snarky, and you Danse girlies, you Nick girlies, you Deacon girlies, all of them would love him too. He is tailor made for standom but nooo, he isn't #FFFFFF so I guess he's doomed to stupid ass settlement jokes.
Yall lack taste. Hawk puhtoo.
SPEAKING OF AWFUL FUCKING TASTE, LEAVE MY BABY X6-88 ALONE.
X6-88 is so unappreciated. Grotesquely so, by both Bethesda and fans.
X6-88, I've said many times, is a spoiled rich man's cat who sits all poised and hisses if you so much as look at it if you're below a certain tax bracket. He's fussy and egotistical and snippy and dislikes bugs, children, water, heights, and generally anything above ground. He gushes over Danse and thinks he's the coolest. He'll let you kill the Institute if you're Railroad or Minutemen and have high affinity with him. He'll brag about getting to travel with you with his courser buddies. He's a fucking dork.
X6-88 is a nerd/prep who could be goth if left in a Hot Topic to run wild, but until then, he's in a suit for his private school and he's going to sit on HIS bench at recess and snipe at the rival school children with his friends and then he goes home and complains that his english eacher failed him on his Roman history test for writing it in perfect Latin. That is X6-88.
If you don't like X6-88 we cannot be friends. Fuckiung look at him. He's such a little shit. He's perfect.
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feral-and-chaotic · 4 months
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Hiiii it's me again with more:
Thoughts
Plot wise:
- I enjoyed the changes from the books, splitting Grover from the party made his part more influential and I adored that choice
- the chair stuff was a nice link to the myths and I liked Annabeth talking Hephaestus down
-cutting the comedy elements has been something I've noticed throughout, which is interesting. I like most of it because it means there's less tonal whiplash (the books manage the balance very well but I don't think the show could without undermining the tension). Though I am sad that the booby trapped rollercoaster was cut.
- I thought Hephaestus being won over so easy was kinda sad, I wanted to hear him get more angry or upset.... But the choice to have Annabeth's speech was great and played into the themes of family and abuse cycles very well
-you know they did Ares well when you come out HATING him.
Characters
Annabeth
-Oh I love her.
-Leah is playing her so damn well.
-the emotional goodbyes with Percy were great, especially if you know about the trauma with Thalia and losing one friend in the past.
-I like her realising how fucked up her family is too. And realising she wants no part in that.
Grover:
-In the books, Annabeth was my favourite, in the musical I prefered Percy but I think in this show, Grover takes the biscuit
-I love how intelligent he is. And the way Aryan plays him as so you can really feel how much older he is than the other two.
-him outsmarting Ares to some extent is fantastic. He damn well knows Ares is a bitch ass motherfucker.
-I love the funny moments and the deep moments with him.
-And I think the choice to more him away from just comic relief is a good one.
- he feels mature, but funny and brave, with room to fully grow into how he was in the last book (Vagueness for spoiler reasons)
Percy:
-This kidd
-his humour is fantastic.
-the emotions are great.
-I love the fugitive stuff!
-How could I say more!?!
-Walker plays him so well!
Biggest gripe:
DISNEY. *Grabs them by the tie* FOR LOVE OF GOD. IMPROVE THE LIGHTING. I spent the ENTIRE episode squinting at the screen.
I rewatched LOTRs recently. Fucking bring back day to night technology. I will fucking riot.
Overall: a solidly enjoyable episode wish I could have SEEN more of it.
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ooh, the subject of first bls is interesting. i started in bl dramas officially with cherry magic. i started in thai bl when someone made me watch fish upon the sky. then i watched kinnporsche the series. complete tonal whiplash but I’ve been a bl manga enthusiast for a long time now, so it wasn’t too out there, let’s just say that.
id say futs was probably not the best beginning for me as a person who is not much into strong comedy over romance, and it was quite flawed, but it DID get me into the gmmtv style of shows and i loved pondphuwin so, it overall wasn’t that bad. kpts afterward was a rollercoaster and got me very intrigued with what else there was. then i went to not me, and had a complete blast. (funnily, though, tol afterward is what actually got me obsessed with thai bl) i think something simple but suited to their tastes in dynamic or trope and then something more crazy as the first two would be a good fit for most people? it got me accustomed to the feel of thai bl and then got me really pumped for more.
i know someone who got into thai bl through bad buddy (great, solid choice, i think! though it isn’t one of my ultimate favorites). i made my best friend sit through all of bmf with me and now I’m making them watch cherry magic (they like the cuter, silly shows, so I’ll probably try to get them more into those) but yeah, i agree with you that it’s best to get people hooked on something suited to them.
We have a very similar past in how we started getting into BL! I also used to read Yaoi manga when I was in middle school (way too early, I know) and continued all throughout high school and most of university. At the time, I was almost exclusively reading BL rather than watching it (anime is another conversation entirely) but there is one significant exception: Doushitemo Furetakunai. All in all, I was consuming exclusively Japanese BL at the time and then suddenly stopped altogether mostly 'cause life.
KinnPorsche was the one that pulled me back in completely out of the blue when I randomly had it show up on my dashboard and the rest is history. I also watched Not Me and ToL shortly after that along with some much older shows. I went into it with kind of a researcher mindset. Since I was already used to the Japanese style of BL, Thai shows were kind of a culture shock which I was determined to work through. I'm now consuming Thai, South Korean, Taiwanese, Japanese, and - a little less frequently - BL from Hong Kong and the Philippines almost indiscriminately. Japan still holds a special spot in my heart in that regard, though.
Bad Buddy is also a great BL for a first-timer, I agree. And yes, it's just so fucking awesome when you get the right recommendation to the right person!!!
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based-bobcat · 10 months
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The Flash
Yup, I got dragged to see this movie. It’s the best comedy of 1994!
-The opening scene was fine, but it set up the rollercoaster of tonal shifts we were about to jump on. I admit I laughed during the baby shower scene. Barry not being able to touch the people he saves seems like a new handwavy addition so they wouldn’t just speed to, say, Russia.
-Affleck in the Batsuit looks like Dark Knight Returns Batman, especially his face. It didn’t look good at all. Another laugh when WW showed up with that epic musical sting out of nowhere.
-There is no fucking way that Iris West would ever interact with Barry after him schizoing in front of her every single second. 
-The time travel itself was pretty cool, until they used CGI akin to Jimmy Neutron to show the ‘waves of time’ or whatever. Also it looked so much like the cosmic treadmill, you might as well have used it. Made totally not stolen from Flash season 3 stand out even more when he pushed Barry off the not!Treadmill.
-Whoever decided to have Ezra Miller play a dual role should be fired, shot and set on fire in that order. Barry Allen is the most annoying character to ‘grace’ the screen since Jar Jar, and no, film,  outright saying Barry is annoying doesn’t help. It just makes it worse.
-Barry and Barry have a scene in which Barry comes to the shocking conclusion that nobody of the League is around to stop Zod... Even though during MoS nobody was active during that time aside from Batman. They retcon Barry into the same trailer scene Bruce was in, which felt like I was finally watching a comic book. Pointless retcons!  That shows that Barry tried to save a kid and a dad, but failed to save the dad. A nice waste of time because you do see them later, they literally suffer the same fate. Even worse, Barry wasn’t even there this time!
-The usual ‘this is how OUR time travel works’ scene was generic, but spaghetti metaphor was at least an interesting take. Also autism be damned, Bruce can cook a good pasta
-While I usually like Michael Keaton, it seemed like he was phoning it in. He said ‘I’m Batman’ like an old person welcoming you to Target. He looks so bored
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-In a later scene he says “You wanna get nuts? Let’s go nuts” in the same bored tone, shot the exact same way and the movie gives a pause for fucking applause. Beyond embarrassing. They also had Batman shield others from bullets with his cape like 5 times minimum and every time he made this face.
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-Now the 4 people who follow me and read this will say ‘of course you’d say that’, but Supergirl is the only good part in this fucking shitshow. Rushed as hell, yes, but good. She took off because mankind imprisoned her so mankind bad, and immediately went back because Barry saved her in the span of a literal minute. Could’ve been explored better though. One of the Barry acts like a 4 year old could’ve been cut for Kara coming to terms with the fact that Kal-El isnt out there. Or just adjusting to freedom. Instead she immediately fights Zod, because the movie needs to (They do give her a reason, but only after she agreed to help to stop Zod)
-The reason being, yet another fucking retcon, on this Spaghetti strand Kara is the one with the Birthing Matrix, and Zod killed infant Clark to discover this. I genuinely dont get this change. It’d be more interesting if Clark died on arrival and the matrix was destroyed. So Zod is just Terraforming the Earth as a fuck you to Jor-El. 
-Just now realising that Zod came to Earth because Clark/Lois activated a signal, but without Clark how the fuck did he know where Kara even was?
-Final fight scene had tonal whiplash every five fucking seconds, I kind of tuned out until Kara and Bruce died. Barry and Spaghetti-Barry go back in time, it doesn’t work. OG!Barry finally learns the lesson that CW Flash never fucking learned about time travel, but Spaghetti!Barry keeps going until we get a literal crisis on infinite Earths type shit with Earths clashing into each other. To nobody’s surprise, Spaghetti!Barry is not!Savitar. Well to everyone’s surprise probably since I forgot he existed. They have the gall to say Spaghetti!Barry created himself, using OG!Barry as a way to do so.
-This is after an embarrassing amount of ‘REMEMBER THIS’ zooming in on those other Earths, with DC using the corpse of Christopher Reeves as nostalgia bait. Classy. 
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-At least Nic Cage got to play Superman, good on him. Sad he still had to fight that giant spider. Telling that they CGI’d Reeve in, but Adam West only gets an audio clip
-A delicious middle finger to CW because the only reference to that we saw was Zoom-as-Jay-Garrick also known as the moment CW Flash went to shit.
-Anyway the movie ends with a woman hugging a bloody, dirty, crying man who is clearly wearing stolen clothes, then crying homeless man proceeds to steal her can of tomatoes. This is played with sad music and slo-mo. I genuinely haven’t laughed that hard in the theater in years.
-The movie ends with George Clooney as Batman, instead of giving me more Sasha Supergirl. Which they should’ve done. With Henry no longer playing Clark, why not give us Supergirl.
Numbers for movies dont mean shit, but this movie is a 3/10 and that generous. I laughed along with the movie the same amount of times I laughed at it, so that is a win? The people I went with could not name a single thing that they liked. Not a single fucking thing. Reportedly Aquaman is going to be worse. I cant wait.
Lets hope James Gunn turns this around. Not holding my breath
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starfolk7 · 3 months
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1 for Lies of P and your other fandoms (how yould you forget Pino and friends? xD)
Omg you're right I blanked and forgot to list that in the tags MY BAD JFHDHD
1. List 3 positive things about your current fandom(s)
I guess I'm gonna organize these by fandom lol
Pokemon:
- Diversity! Since it's been around for so long, there's tons of fics to read. If you can think of it, someone has probably written it. There's a Mewtwo fic I found in college that's basically a retelling of the events of the first movie, but holy shit it's written so beautifully it made me cry in front of my friends rjrhdgde. It's a dense read, but still one of my absolute favorite fics to this day. That's just an example of things you can find!
- Sub-fan bases. Basically, if you're a big fan of a certain Pokémon, a type of Pokémon, one of the games, etc., you're going to find your people very easily. Kind of falls under the first one a bit but ya know lol.
- Some of the cutest and also the most badass fanart comes out of this fandom. I have both art of a Sylveon with a lollipop and art of Mewtwo breaking out of their armor from the first movie. The duality of man djrhdgs
SoulsBorne
-Maybe I've gotten lucky and just found really nice people, but so far my experiences in the community have been largely positive! I've met some of the loveliest people by posting my Dark Souls and Bloodborne fics, and it really got me back into writing OCs again (you know that's my lifeblood lol)
-Character and lore analyses. Not that I agree with all of them, of course I don't, but if you want an analyses of anything in these games, there's some mad lad out there that's done it, whether it's a post or through an entire fic. Gives you tons to think about!
-ART!! Holy shit there's so many amazing artists in this community. We don't talk about how much SoulsBorne art I've snagged at conventions (I got more of it and Elden Ring stuff at Magfest don't look at me fjfhdhd)
Lies of P
-I haven't been in this fandom for long, but so far everyone I've met has been very sweet! They're also super OC-friendly. I can't tell you how many Stalker and Puppet OCs I've seen, among others, it's really amazing!
-Probably gonna say this for all of my fandoms but the ART OMG. There's so much gorgeous fanart floating around for this game it's insane. Still on the hunt for more Romeo pieces tho rjrhehe
-Headcanon diversity. Do you want a totally mute P? One that talks sometimes? One that's Had Enough? What I'm getting at is there's a P out there for everyone! People have been exploring all the different character angles on him and it's wonderful to see.
Ultrakill
-THE HYPE. Since this is an early access game still in development, the hype that cranks up every time an update is announced is INSANE. I don't think I've ever seen this level of it for an indie game. I got in just in time to witness this for the Violence update and the rush it gives you seeing everyone so excited is amazing!! It helps that every single update has just been an absolute banger. We have reason to be super excited, the devs do stellar work!!
-LORE. Do you wanna feel like Charlie at the corkboard in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia? Because that's where I'm definitely at right now. Since we're in the last act of the game, there's so much speculation and so many theories about how the game will end. On top of that, people have been playing in the lore sandbox ever since this game started. I know I've def been up at night wondering how the hierarchy of Heaven works and what certain layers of Hell were like before Certain Events TM (I'm being vague because I know at least one person wants to play this bear with me lol). Basically there's tons to explore and the community collectively goes insane about different bits, we have fun here lmao
-I'm bundling art and memes into this one because oh my GOD. The tonal whiplash is a rollercoaster ride. You can go from the most heart-wrenching art of Gabriel you've ever seen to a piece that goes "V1 is a shrimp now" and sometimes you just need that snap back to some levity. The memes are absolutely top-tier. It helps that the voice actor for Gabriel already does memes and shitposts on his YouTube channel, so he just carries that over for Ultrakill stuff sometimes and y'know what? This game is dark, I'm gonna need these memes for when the ending makes me bawl like a baby. The Violence layer already has me feeling the creeping sense of dread (if you know you KNOW).
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ferrous-ironclaw · 1 year
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The Dragon Prince Book Four: Earth (Mystery of Aaravos) - A critique
Introduction
First off, this post is going to contain spoilers. Don’t read this if you haven’t seen all of Book Four yet.
So I recently got done watching Book Four with my partner. I binged my way through books 1-3 after she told me she wished she had someone to appreciate the new season with, and I bought into the world of The Dragon Prince with a great deal of eagerness. I love the world they’ve set up and that’s why I felt so let down by Book Four. I wanted to write this post to explain some of my feelings on some of the odd choices I feel were made and point out how I feel the show’s potential could have been better used.
The Critique
So this isn’t an exhaustive list of the issues I had with the show, but I’ve broken it into categories to highlight the key issues I had with it.
SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT FORWARD
Pacing and Tone
This was possibly the biggest deal breaker for me - Every character seemed to get the bad end of the gag character stick at least once this season, often at times where it felt out of place or tone deaf. The Great Gate guards were just awkward comic relief from the outset, whilst Terry and The Being often were relegated to being the butt of the joke when Claudia and Viren needed some screen time that wasn’t about the mission (more on that later). Soren’s stupidity continues to be an amusing gag, although it felt overplayed. The biggest offenders though were the questionable (and occasionally downright absurd) scene interjections in “Rex Igneous” and “Escape from Umber Tor”. Cutting from tense Dragon negotiations to Janai and Amaya making smalltalk was jarring, and some of the beats had me actively cringing when they were injected into what was supposed to be a dramatic scene (Sludge Tarts and Soren’s foot smell to name but a handful).
At the opposite end of the spectrum - “Rebirthday”, “Fallen Stars” and “Breathtaking” all felt like they could have been condensed into two episodes. The awkward diplomacy between Zubeia and the Kingdom of Katolis could have been summed up in a few scenes rather than being dragged out, leaving us more time to deal with the show’s resolution, which felt like it was rushing to get all the beats wrapped up.
There are really far too many things I could list here, so I’ll just summarise: For most of the season, I felt myself getting tonal whiplash and being hurried along on a rollercoaster that couldn’t decide what story it wanted to tell in that particular episode, which is a real danger when you have so many subplots and not enough focus.
Terry: Wasted on the Bad Guys
Oh boy, where to start on this one. From his introduction in “Rebirthday”, right up until the ending scenes of “Beneath the Surface”, I found myself questioning why Terry was within a hundred miles of Claudia. A life-loving, caring Earthblood that was seemingly OK with Claudia’s dark magic, dubious obsession with resurrection, and the creepy chrysalis on her cave-bedroom wall. From a storytelling point Terry is clearly there to humanise the villains, but it feels unnecessary. We know Claudia and Viren’s motivations and failings, it’s been illustrated throughout Books 1 and 2, so rehashing it through Terry feels weird and against everything we’ve been taught about Elf culture. 
To me, it would have made sense for Terry to be the one who was Team Zym’s guide into the Pit and Path of Despair (as N’than already feels shoehorned and serves pretty much the same purpose), only to be kidnapped for the villains before the conversation with Rex Igneous and highlight what Claudia and Viren are going through. Having Terry see the compassion still in Claudia and appeal to her better nature through Viren would have been so much more impactful if he hadn’t been OK with all the dark magic and murder up to this point.
There’s also the introduction of Terry as the first visible trans character in TDP, which the more I think about the less happy I am about its execution. His coming out to Viren in “Beneath the Surface” feels like we’re supposed to take this reveal as part of an explanation as to why he’s so determined to support Claudia - because he knows how it feels to be treated as different? Which feels like a weird justification, and gets a little lost in the moment because it immediately is overwritten by a gag moment and the rush to save Claudia. It feels like a disservice to what should have been a momentous character moment, and again feels like it should have been something that was played with Callum, Rayla and Ez to riff off of.
Mystery of (what the hell) Aaravos (actually did this season?)
So when I saw that Season 4 would be titled “Mystery of Aaravos” I was very pumped. Aaravos is quite possibly one of the most interesting characters in TDP, and I was hoping this would be the season we got to see him flex his arcane muscles, especially when we saw him hop inside Callum’s head during “Through the Looking Glass”. Instead we were treated to… glorious nothing. Aaravos is suspiciously absent for comment, even to Claudia and Viren whose primary efforts are in rescuing him. Despite the display of power at the start of the season, he has little to no influence or contribution, when it feels like he should be the one reaching out to manipulate Claudia and Viren through each other.
This links somewhat into the “out-of-place” role as comic relief for Terry and The Being, as well as taking Terry out of the Bad Guy party - Imagine what we could have seen if The Being had been puppeted by Aaravos on occasion to egg on Claudia and psych out Viren, rather than Terry trying to sympathise with them and The Being just being a wordless Gollum. Rather than Claudia finding a “boyfriend” in Terry, what if Aaravos had been providing the praise and recognition she craves from her absent father figure. Celebrating her accomplishments where Viren is horrified. Gaslighting Viren whenever Claudia’s back was turned, telling him how much his daughter is relying on him for all this, that he is to blame. Show our villains for what they are - powerful, yet disposable tools to Aaravos.
The Future of Lux Aurea - A victim of sub-plot slaughter
The Janai/Prince Karim conflict is one of the best parts of Book Four, but it’s tragically butchered by being a B-Plot. The motivation behind Lucia extinguishing the flame is flimsy, and would have been more convincing if we’d seen any evidence of cultural conflict before this point. I mean, these people have been living and travelling together for almost two years at this point - a single other instance of racial/cultural conflict being mentioned or shown would have made much more sense to promote Karim’s reaction. To add insult to injury we watch Amaya, a character who is not only deeply in love with Janai but has also been shown to be compassionate and understanding of conflict and tensions, actively mocking a serious situation which just felt WRONG. It just feels like they were struggling for reasons to push a conflict in this substory, when they knew that Prince Karim was using this for his own reasons anyway and could have kept him as the primary antagonist to begin with.
Additionally - this plot needed to be given a handful of its own focal episodes. Trying to have a bunch of conversations about romance and duty juxtaposed against Team Zym trying not to get massacred by an enormous dragon detracted from both plots, and would have been better served by being kept apart save for the final conflict. It was a good plot thread to show how far the Sunfire Elves have come, but suffered for all of the above.
Rex Igneous and the Sequence of Rushed Plot Contrivances
This was the most egregious series of missteps that had me and my partner angrily jabbing fingers at the screen. The whole sequence with Team Zym approaching Rex following the events of “The Great Gates” is a series of plot contrivances that forces the party to muddle about in ways that don’t really make sense. It feels forced that the rockslide prevents them from going in with Zubeya (could we not have had some Dragon Etiquette reasons instead?), the Drakeriders are a one-note baddie that don’t really serve any purpose other than to give Soren an excuse to bump into Claudia, and the Path of Despair offers some Faux-Peril that whilst aesthetically very pretty is a self contained plot device that is over in less than an episode and is subsequently glossed over when Claudia and Viren need to catch back up. The conversation with Rex Igneous feels like they wanted to avoid a trope about Dragons and hoards and unintentionally just played right into it, and the entire final antagonism between Team Zym and Claudia just felt arbitrary (Why was Zym unaffected? Why did Rayla fall for this trick again when we know she’s aware of how it works?). This is followed by a very weird sequence with Rayla & Claudia over the Soul Coins: Why does Rayla give up her chase after being tricked? Why is THIS the one thing that Terry draws the line at? Why the hell does Claudia turn around to give them back?
It feels like this entire sequence is rushed and simultaneously is grasping to find conflict. Bait “heroically throwing his weight” onto opening the door feels forced to fit with Soren’s comedic bit, only for them to be Deus-Ex-Machina’d by Zubeia anyway (why not just have the cool dragon confrontation be the reason they’re saved rather than the weird moment with the Glow Toad). How did Rayla get to the surface at the same time as the heroes to be trapped in the rubble, when she clearly left the lava chamber AFTER Rex Igneous? It’s just too many contrivances and nonsensical beats that leaves the ending feeling disjointed and a bad taste in my mouth.
Conclusion
I love TDP. It’s such a great world, like Avatar meets fantasy world politics, and I’m actually taking large amounts of inspiration from it for my next D&D campaign. Which is why it hurts so much that Book Four falls short of its promise.
I hope that Book Five realises the mistakes it made and adapts the storytelling to better serve the pacing they perfected in the earlier books. Bring us more of the Katolis/Xadia & Magic/Non-Magic politics that made the downtime of the other series so compelling. Don’t fall into the gag character trap. Let Aaravos and his puppets return to being the ominous dark threat of the series, rather than trying to rebuild the sympathy for their motives.
This has been a rant from a fan. Thanks for listening.
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cherry-pop-soda · 5 months
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the tonal whiplash between my normal aesthetic and poetry and like. thoughtful posting and memeing henry kissinger’s death is insane. my dashboard is a rollercoaster. i love this site
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almightyrozenidiot · 1 year
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God that post just reminded me of just a bunch of random shit from Y0 that I feel like I should list to persuade people to play it:
The game starts out with Kiryu having a fun night out with his bestie until he's accused of murder. And this is just the start of the tonal whiplash rollercoaster this game has to offer.
There are three wise, capable men but only one of them can go on to be the Tojo Clan's Next Top Captain. One of them absolutely hates your guts, wants you dead and has one of the best boss themes in the series.
Tachibana and Kiryu's meeting is accidentally framed like something out of a BL manga. Also when Tachibana takes him in, he happily uses his shower and bathrobes but refuses the food offered.
Kiryu abandons his bestie in the middle of bumfuck nowhere at one point. Judging by said bestie's walking speed during the fun night out, he probably had to literally walk back to Kamurocho to get back into the plot when he did.
There are hulking great men that roam the streets and will fight you for huge sums of money. You will have to fight each of them if you want 100% the game.
Several achievements require you to do really stupid shit like getting hit by a champagne bottle during a certain QTE and letting takoyaki you're getting for a traumatised woman go cold.
Majima is given a very time sensitive task, but you can just ignore that and take over a failing cabaret club for what is implied to be weeks on end.
Majima meets the personification of how a chunk of the contemporary fandom perceives him, who calls the police on himself to goad Majima into having a quick fight. Said fight involves a knife being tossed in the air.
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bloodraven55 · 3 years
Video
Symphogear: it might have a musical number about making beef stroganoff, but it also contains bucketloads of blood and tonnes of traumatic backstories!
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anima-virtuosa · 10 months
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🐾WELCOME!! TO NEONPAWEXALTED TONAL WHIPLASH ROLLERCOASTER PAW REALM [18+] 🐾
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ART TAG | ART ARCHIVE
< full gallery (most nsfw/kink content) on FurAffinity >
&lt; also on cohost!! >
content warnings for occasional gore, kink, & other sensitive themes; all triggers are tagged; nsfw/kink tag is #Impy; if you hate it i don't care, block and move on ♡
✨pro-ship, anti-abuse✨🌈 PLUR furever 🌈
( DNI: antis, terfs, pro-contact pedo/zoo, pro-AI art. i kick you with my PaWPaws Out of the room 🐾🐾🐾. i block anyone with bad vibes )
✨🐾🌈if you are Pawsome i hope you enjoy sharing my art journey!! all shares & nice comments are appreciated Including being horny weird ;3🌈🐾✨
( ABOUT BELOW THE PAWS )
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Auri / NeonPawExalted (it/they/paw, pawtistic otherkin Rave Creature)
<~ COME RIDE ON OUR 1,304,984 STYLES OF TONAL WHIPLASH ROLLERCOASTER ~>
SciFi Fantasy Worldbuilding!
PAWS PAWS PAWS PAWS PAWS PAWPAWPAWPAW!!!! PAW HELL APAWCALYPSE! (I am literally a paw)
ManyPawed ManyHeads ManyCreatures
Pretty Foxes! Foxes that are Abstract Concepts! Foxes that are Airplanes! Foxes that are a Penis!
Gore Blood Murder KiLL!!! Bloodshed Hedonism (The Creatures in Perilous Situations)
100 Levels of Heaven(Hell) Torture Horror Time!
Transformation!!! (Animals Plushes Pooltoys etc.)
BodyFuckery (Fat Inflation Hyper Merging etc.)
Creatures that are a penis (sweating throbbing glug glug scream cry etc., Divine Highest State of Being(Along with Paw))
Objectum stuff LivingMachines, Pooltoys, PLUSHIES ♡ (we make out with ours everyday and worship their Paws)
More Stuff We Forgot there is More Everyday (The Ride Never Ends)
cute drugs
<~ ART RULES ~> - do not repost our art to other sites - do not use our art for anything related to N/F/T or AI - do not use any of our art/OCs for roleplaying, as a fursona, as an avatar, as a design base, etc.
<~ OTHER RULES ~> - no requests, trades, or comms - if u are a freak and have pawsitive vibes NeonPawExalted would love to talk with you !!! (first DM must start with paw emoji 🐾 I wanna see those paws)
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So I read The Wails in the Walls and I just wanted you to know the rollercoaster of emotions you had me on! Chapter 3 had me sobbing and chapter 6 also had me sobbing but in a happy way! I love the way you write. Thank you for sharing your writing with the world!
Also, I would die for tiny Izuku.
Thanks so much!  I’m glad you like it!  Wails is one of those fics where I’m worried people will be thrown off by the tonal whiplash, so this is really reassuring.
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wickedlehane · 4 years
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//ooc; Okay, so tonight I watched S.6 Ep. 3-5; After Life, Flooded, and Life Serial
AFTER LIFE WAS SO GOOD, I loved the horror bent, like the real fucking freaky horror angle. GOOD EPISODE.
Flooded and Life Serial? Also fun. Holy fucking shit the Trio?? I’m screaming!!! oh my god I love baby Tom Lenk what the fuck these guys are such losers but oh my god I can’t stop laughing
giles and willow fighting over her magic was so fucking delicious too. LISTEN TO RIPPER, WILLOW. oh my god there was just so much tonal whiplash in these episodes and im here for the rollercoaster of season 6
so later this week my friends and i got a big projection screen and we’re gonna do a social distance viewing of episodes 6, 7, and 8- WHICH MEANS I GET TO SEE ONCE MORE WITH FEELING!!! FOR THE FIRST TIME!!!!
{also i just had a freelance assignment pop up that’s due monday so replies over the weekend might be a wee bit slow- thank you for understanding! I’ll try to queue things out.}
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manda-kat · 4 years
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Tagged by @spacekrakens to put my playlist on shuffle and post the first ten songs and tag ten people. Let's do this:
Taxi Cab by Twenty-One Pilots
The World Has Gone Insane from the Jekyll and Hyde musical. (Quite the tonal shift from the first song)
Major Tom by Peter Schilling (Getting Tonal Whiplash now lol)
Lent by Autoheart
My Plea by Jack Stauber
What's Up by 4 Non Blondes
Send in the Clowns by Judy Collins
If I Killed Someone For You by Alec Benjamin (Back to the tonal whiplash I see)
I Don't Know What I'd Do from A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder (rollercoaster of emotions my playlist is)
Deploy by Jack Stauber
Now to tag some folks. Feel free to ignore: @doctorbluesmanreturns @orion98 @firstfandomfangirl @undeadoctopus7 @jamminy-dodger @mandatalks @thunderstruck-owl-gal @regina-de-testudines-est-vacca @ambigiousgelpens @katniss-evermeme
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murasaki-murasame · 5 years
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Thoughts on Fruits Basket 2019 Ep4: “What Year Is She?”
I’ve been thinking for a while now that, even though this reboot is mostly just an adaptation of the original manga, this episode REALLY goes to show that they’re still taking some inspiration from the 2001 anime, or at least including nods to it here and there, which is interesting.
I actually think this episode might win over people who thought that the reboot wasn’t being comedic enough, though for the same reason it might put off people who liked that the reboot wasn’t as comedic as the 2001 anime, lol. I enjoyed it a surprising amount, at least.
Anyway, thoughts under the cut.
OK first off I just gotta say that I am losing my MIND both over how Funimation keeps posting gifs that are clearly multiple episodes ahead of where we’re currently at, and how we still don’t know exactly how long the reboot as a whole will be. In the short term I’ve just been going through a goddamn rollercoaster of mislead expectations, and in the long term, these sorts of episodes where they adapt just one chapter make me REALLY concerned about whether or not they have a concrete outline for the whole thing, and whether or not they might end up having to rush the parts that we’ve been waiting to see adapted for the first time.
Like, I think this episode was actually really good, and it’s probably for the best that they didn’t try and fit chapter 6 into here as well because it would have been a huge tonal whiplash, but I can’t help but be like “Y’ALL BETTER KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING WITH THIS”.
I’ve been playing it safe and assuming that the reboot will probably just be two sets of 26-episode seasons [so 52 episodes in total], but now I’m even less sure about if that length could actually work in the long run. I guess we’ll see. Thankfully the animation studio actually has a fair bit of history doing stuff that’s longer than 50 episodes and goes on for seasons and seasons, but I guess I’m just paranoid and skeptical about how long this will be.
Anyway, onto the actual episode itself, it pretty much just covers chapter 5, with a fair bit of anime-original content to make it actually fit the length of a full episode. Which also means that it basically covers the exact same material as episode 4 of the 2001 anime, which feels a bit odd. But the fact that they’re so similar also highlights their differences, which goes to show why I wasn’t really a big fan of the 2001 anime, and why I’m enjoying the reboot more.
For one thing, even though this episode technically just adapted chapter 5, it also incorporated the flashback we got from way later in the manga in chapter 68 about how Kagura and Kyo first met. Which is an interesting choice. It’s at least an example of how the reboot kinda inherently benefits from having an entire finished manga to work with from the start, so they’re able to incorporate stuff from a lot later in the series when it makes sense. I think this little addition helped make Kagura a little more sympathetic, even if it doesn’t really get into all of the deeper stuff going on with their relationship that we find out later.
I also thought it was interesting that a lot of the anime-original content felt really similar in concept to the original content from episode 4 of the 2001 anime, I ended up feeling like they were handled more nicely. Like, instead of getting a whole thing of Kagura forcibly ripping off Kyo’s shirt and messing up the laundry, she just walks in on Kyo in the shower, and instead of her basically burning down the kitchen while trying to cook, she just used up all their food and then wound up destroying it all by slamming Kyo into the dinner table. They also had that scene where she helps patch up the sliding doors and she uses some cat-shaped stickers to patch up the holes, but it was more of a casual scene with all the characters, whereas in the 2001 anime it was more heavy and serious and just about Tohru and Kagura bonding. And on that note, we got what I think was a completely original scene of Tohru noticing that Kagura left her bag behind, and going to help her buy groceries, which I thought was a very cute and fitting way to show Tohru being nice to her.
The kinda unavoidable issue with this episode is that I just . . . don’t really like Kagura as a character, lmao. I’m really not a fan of this brand of hyper-manic, shouty, often violent comedy. With Kagura specifically there’s the whole thing of how off-putting [and outdated] the whole ‘girl gets comically violent with the boy she likes’ trope, but in general, it’s kinda the same reason why I also don’t like characters like Ritsu, or Shigure’s editor, or even some moments with Ayame. It’s just not my kind of comedy.
But I did still enjoy this more than either this chapter of the manga or this episode of the 2001 anime. It’s not like they toned down Kagura’s whole, uh, personality, but I think the overall execution was just nicer. It also reminds me that one thing I’ve been really enjoying about the reboot is how it’s really fun and knows how to be light-hearted and cartoony when it wants to be, which you really get a lot of in this episode. Even if it’s not my brand of comedy, it’s still fun to see this sort of anime messing around with silly cartoony animation when it wants to. And I actually did like the little visual joke where Kagura spins Kyo so fast in the air that she starts lifting off like a helicopter. I was honestly kinda worried at first that the reboot would try too hard to be on-model and ‘pretty’ with it’s character designs and animations at all times, but that hasn’t been the case at all.
I’m glad that I’ve been holding off on actually posting about all of my more in-depth speculation about how I think the pacing and stuff are gonna go, because I just keep getting proven wrong every step of the way, lol.
As I said before, I’m still leaning on the safe option of assuming that the reboot will just be two seasons/50-ish episodes long in total, since that at least seems like it’s probably the minimum we should expect, but if they keep up this sort of willingness to take things really slowly, I’m gonna end up really hoping that they plan on having it be a fair bit longer than that.
Anyway, it looks like we’ll at least get chapter 6 adapted in the next episode. I’m curious to see if they handle it like the 2001 anime again, and have it take up an entire episode like chapter 5 did, but we’ll see. Funimation’s posted gifs from chapters 7 and 9 as well, but who even knows if they’ll be part of the next episode at this point.
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