#you can debate where on the chart people go but this is my version

[soapywankenopy]

#trials of apollo #toa #pjo #pjo hoo #pjo hoo toa #lester papadopoulos #meg mccaffrey #piper mclean #leo valdez #reyna avila ramirez arellano #toa nero #toa commodus #toa caligula #toa python #you can debate where on the chart people go but this is my version

[moreespressoformydepresso]

So to expand upon this TreeMina post since I have my computer... @crazycriter

I am now officially using lore I've thought up for a potential book of mine. In case Hannah reads this, no it's not the one I told you about. That's a different thing entirely.

Lets start with my (probably disastrous) attempt at explaining the world and magic in short fashion. As stated, the magic society is a hidden one. It exists in plain sight, but only those who are a part of it can see it. This hidden society has two subcultures: Order and Chaos. They are, naturally, in a constant conflict with one another since they're polar opposites and all that. Order's hidden city has very grandiose buildings with a very structured general layout that doesn't vary much between buildings. Walk into one and you have a pretty solid idea of what all the others look like. They have personal touches but everything is very, well... orderly. Symmetry is key in everything for them. They call themselves reglarians and use order magic. As you may expect, they believe that order is the correct way to be and are very much lawful on the alignment chart. What kind of lawful depends on the person. In terms of clothing they certainly have similar outfits. You can tell someone's a reglarian if you know what you're looking for, even though the clothes themselves are very different. It's a similar, recognizable theme rather than a uniform. It's about patterns and styles, and they tend to stick with light color schemes and very much consider themselves the "light side" in general. Because order is good, and chaos is bad. Their buildings are higher up in every city they reside in, some are even in the sky and hidden by magic. Very divine-esque aesthetic, like they're trying to literally be above chaos. For some extra spice you can go with my version where the two sides actively call themselves Light and Dark, to feed into the conflict you may start to see growing here already.

Meanwhile, Chaos (they call themselves warlings) lives mostly in the actual, literal underground of the city. In a complete opposite to Order, their buildings are all very different and openly uniquee, often making no sense in layout on purpose. Honestly everything about them is the complete opposite of Order. Generally darker color schemes and a very nonsensical... everything, really. That's not to say that there's nothing homey about them though, because they know how to make places cozy. If dizzying, given how they will use their magic to actively confuse anyone who comes into the house. It's a go down the steps into the basement to enter the upstairs bedroom kind of situation. Their clothing is alike in how different it is. Some like very practical clothes, some wear the most extravagant nightmare to move in you've ever seen. The only consistency is that their main color is almost always dark, but even that has exceptions. Really, the only common theme that holds true for every single warling is mayhem. They are, well, chaos. Gotta give it to them, they are dedicated to their brand. Rules are made to be broken and their whole culture is built around causing as much mayhem as possible. Not in a way that hurts people, but they've been designated the bad guys by their magic so why not follow their nature? It's not like they can change how they're perceived. Warlings have their strong opinions on the good vs evil debate and they don't necessarily like being seen as "evil" for something they had no control over, but it's not something they actively oppose. They do cause mischief on the regular for kicks, so it's not like they're helping their image.

Ykw I'll save the actual history and conflicts between these groups for a later post and stay focused on the worldbuilding for now. The magic system! Order is pretty straightforward. Their magic is very structured, with rules on what they can and can't do and explanations for why those rules exist. It's something you can study and understand completely if you take the time. Most of their magic comes down to rules, actually. Changing the rules of nature to some extent. They call upon the world and make it do what they want, working within the limits of whatever they're working with. Water can turn to ice, but it cannot naturally turn into wine. So order cannot turn water into wine because that's not how nature works. Those are against the rules. Chaos, on the other hand, works pretty much the exact opposite way. There are limitations but there aren't. They can't do absolutely everything except sometimes they can. Does this make sense? No. That's the point. The magic system is that there is no magic system. In a sense it's more worldly, because it changes with the moon. Metaphorically, because no order is allowed here. That's actually a conflict between Treech and Lamina. Mostly it's a problem for Lamina, though. She's been raised with order drilled into her head from the day she was born. The world works on order, she was told, and that's what makes them better than chaos. They are the world, and chaos tries to destroy them. Good vs Evil. But Chaos magic is a direct refutation of that, because it's entirely natural and there isn't a single semblance of order involved. Yet it exists just fine. She was taught chaos only destroys, yet it's existed for years.

She and Treech fight several times because he "refuses to explain" his magic to her, but the thing is that he can't. It makes no sense. That's all there is to it. You can try all you want to figure out how it works but you'll only drive yourself insane because the whole point is that it doesn't make sense. There is nothing logical about it. It's disorganized and chaotic, because that's its nature. A direct opposite of Lamina's entire life and worldview. By the end, the resolution to the conflict is her finally realizing that maybe her people don't know everything. It ends with her finally accepting that sometimes, things just don't make sense, and sometimes you just gotta live with that. Yes, there are parallels to psychology there that I may explain later.

#the ballad of songbirds and snakes #tbosas #the hunger games #hunger games #treech tbosas #treech #tbosas treech #treech thg #lamina #tbosas lamina #lamina thg #lamina tbosas #treemina #lumberlove #alternate universe #au

[a-d-nox]

Can you talk about Persephone? Thanks!

persephone, queen of the dead (asteroid 399)

Persephone is the daughter of Demeter and Zeus and infamously wed to Hades. The union of Hades and Persephone is perhaps one of the most popular and retold (A Court of Mist and Fury, A Touch of Darkness, The Star-Touched Queen, etc.) myths of Greek mythology. This is the myth regarding the Queen of the Underworld. It was a warm day in a meadow filled with blooms, Persephone was picking flowers (some say they were narcissus flowers in particular) with her hand maids (sometimes it is a nymph named Cyane). One flower in particular caught her attention, seemingly the largest and most fragrant flower in the meadow. As Persephone reached down to pick the flower, the ground opened up and from that dark crevice came Hades on a golden chariot pulled by nightmares (a type of shadow horse found in most hellscapes). Hades grabbed Persephone and pulled her into the Underworld to become his wife and queen (this may or may not have been okay-ed by Zeus lol (ALSO some versions say Hades rapes Persephone in this moment)). Hecate (who heard it) and Helios (who saw it), who are both well informed of this occurrence and told Demeter what had happened. Helios also includes that Zeus gave Hades the rights to Persephone in the terms of an arranged marriage. Demeter was outraged - similar to the Ceres post, Demeter shifted the seasons aggrieved by her daughters disappearance. Zeus only intervened when he learned that people were dying from famine due to Demeter's neglect towards the land. Zeus then sends Hermes to the Underworld to bring Persephone to Demeter. Unfortunately, and much to Demeter's dismay, Persephone had eaten a pomegranate seed during her time in the Underworld (whether by force, trick, or out of disparity is unknown and often debated). By law that one seed forced her to remain in the Underworld. Outraged once more Demeter went to Zeus who offered a compromise - Persephone could spend some of her time with Demeter and the rest with her husband, Hades. Thus Persephone’s coming and going is marked by the seasonal changes. Persephone also prominently appears in Adonis's tale. Ironically, Zeus divides Adonis's time between Persephone and Aphrodite like he did Hades and Demeter. Ultimately Adonis refuses Persephone when he is finally allowed to choose who he wishes to stay with. In some versions, Persephone sends a boar to kill Adonis - personally, I believe it was Ares. IN MY OPINION Persephone in a chart can represent a) where you are most popular and fantasized over, b) where you feel held hostage, c) where your time is not your own, d) where there are a lot of bystanders in your life, e) where your absence causes strife, and/or f) where you feel isolated.

i encourage you to look into the aspects of persephone along with the sign, degree, and house placement. for the more advanced astrologers, take a look at the persona chart of persephone AND/OR add the other characters involved to see how they support or impede persephone!

OTHER RELATED ASTEROIDS/PLANETS: zeus (5731 / h42), hades (h41), demeter (1108), adonis (2101), aphrodite (1388), hermes (69230), hekate (100), and cyane (403)!

like what you read? leave a tip and state what post it is for! please use my “suggest a post topic” button if you want to see a specific post or mythical asteroid next!

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#astrology #asteroid astrology #astro community #asteroid #astro chart #natal chart #persona chart #astro placements #greek mythology #persphone #asteroid399 #zeus #asteroid5731 #adonis #asteroid2101 #aphrodite #asteroid1388 #hermes #asteroid69230

[therealtsk]

tsk i’m DYING to hear your play-by-play on which worm characters have dumb fanon interpretations

UH OH YOU JUST OPENED THE FLOODGATES so the short answer is pretty much every major character but I am a high-effort bitch so let's do this: Taylor Hebert: jfc, I could probably hit a word count limit talking about Taylor alone. First you have the dumb as shit TINO (Taylor In Name Only) phenomenon where people just straight up SI as Taylor but pretend it's her and she's basically a different person wearing Taylor's skin like an ill-fitting suit. Then there's the Memetic Escalator Taylor interpretation where Taylor's Warlord era characterization is flanderized so hard that she turns into her world's version of Doomguy where her response to literally everything is ultra violence, mutilation and torture and she can totally beat up anyone you guys hahah coin sock goes brrrrr you go brutalize those totally deserving victims queen. And then there's shy, stuttering, soft spoken "useless lesbian" Taylor which is not as common but still, fuckin straight men and the way they infantize gay women. Taylor is perhaps the most consistently inconsistent characterization I've seen in fandom, it's fucking wild Lisa Wilbourn: Has two fanon settings. Taylor's best friend who exists solely to give exposition and get the "Stop Coil" subplot rolling (occasional gay subtext will be added in a way that feels fetishy) Or, the evil bitchy blonde who is first target of the SI. I constantly wonder if the people who write the frankly masturbatory SI's are aware that we can tell they're still bitter about girls not dating them in highschool. Brian: basically does not exist in fic aside from the occasional joke cause racism and also because of how popular wlw ships are in Worm fandom. you deserve better dude Alec: has a few token appearances in wormfic fandom that usually have him as the comic relief alongside Aisha, which might actually be for the best considering he's a rapist and the Worm fandom's uhhhh tendencies. Moving on- Aisha: prankster girl that alt!Taylor will adopt as a younger sibling. hopefully is not part of the totally-not-a-harem considering she's even younger then the rest of these teens Bitch: Another girl to fall into alt!Taylor's definitely-not-a-harem, but with more butch tendencies. Basically has no personality in fanon outside of her dogs Parian: SHE DOESN'T HAVE A SHOP FFS also another member of Taylor's totally-not-a-harem Flechette: yeah it's a harem Sophia: holy shit you think Brian's bad? The racism in pretty much every fanon depiction of Sophia is off the charts. Hyper-violent, super edgy, "predator/prey" speech inbound, will get humilated/killed in some new, supposedly satisfying but actually just deeply uncomfortable way, probably throw in some E88 shit too just because Emma: again, do the writers know we can tell they're still malding over the fact that the pretty girls in highschool didn't date them? fanon emma is pretty much a cardboard cut out of whoever was mean to the author. something something bitches three Madison: in fanon has a C53 fetish, occasionally is also Browbeat. don't ask why Victoria: gets hit with the blonde stereotypes even harder then Lisa, "Collateral Damage Barbie" is one of the phrases that activates my flight or fight responses. she basically is an entirely different character in fanon. bubbly dumb blonde girl with a massive temper and well other sexist bullshiit Amy: I hate even touching this character with a ten foot pole but basically is hit with the "soft useless lesbian" trope hard enough to make her into a completely separate person from her canon self. whether or not this is a good thing is still up for debate Carol: in fanon, an evil bitch who exists solely to bully Amy Mark: who? The rest of New Wave: cannon fodder for Leviathan Danny Hebert: literally stale milk instead of a personality, will probably die before the fic is over but we won't care because the author did not care either Armsmaster: hahaha robotman go brrrr or is an arrogant self-aggrandizing shit, can't interact with people without Dragon helping him 24/7 Miss Militia: fanon bat'd into team mom,

idk where this came from considering her first instinct upon seeing children is to pull out a gun holy shit wait is she actually Taylor's true mom- Velocity: canon fodder for levi Battery & Assault: sitcom wife, sitcom husband! please ignore how fucked up this relationship is if you look at it for more than two seconds Dauntless: haha armsy is JEALOUS also cannon fodder for levi Triumph: who? The BB wards in general tend to be incredibly bland, the only ones who have fanon personalities of note are Clockblocker and Vista. The former being such a huge prankster that every other line is a joke- or him complaining about how BULLSHIT Alt!Taylor's powers are. Vista is an angry kiddo who says that Shadow Stalker doesn't count as being a girl on the team The E88: no personality for any of them except that Kaiser is noble and really isn't that bad and also Purity did nothing wrong totally she's just a hot mom trying to do her best, please ignore how she exclusively targets characters of color and literally calls white criminals more civilized than miniorities- the worm fandom has something of a nazi problem i hate it here The ABB: racism and honorable samurai lung even though that has no canon basis so again, racist stereotypes The Slaughterhouse 9: This one makes me just as sad as the Lisa shit because dear god this is such a good cast of villains that fanon completely flattens to bowling pins for the Alt!Taylor of the week to mow down, why does this fandom suck so much. Anyway Jack is just the Joker, Crawler is masochistic, etc i'm moving on now The PRT/Protectorate as a whole: They are an evil paramilitary organization that pressgangs kids into signing up to become child soldiers, and somehow at the same time, they are a bunch of idiots who listen to the PR department and have stupid things like RULES that prevent capes from COMMITTING VIOLENCE. Being called "the biggest gang of all" is common and some shit like "at least the criminals are honest" is a likely statement. Cauldron: whoo boy this one really boils my blood but fanon Cauldron are just a bunch of evil idiots who can't even tie their shoelaces. basically a bunch of dudebros are upset that women run the world and that two of them essentially have "I win" powers so they have to make them lose to their SI- er, Taylor in fics so they can assuage their masculinity, which totally isn't pathetic Scion: Is at once the end all be all of worm you can't write a wormfic without scion or else it's TOTALLY MEANINGLESS because what is the point of a story if all the characters are going to DIE in a few years anyway, and at the same time is incredibly easy to defeat- this ties into how Cauldron is stupid. Scion Truthers pls shut up and go read something else okay I think that's everyone I would apologize but the only thing I'm sorry for is how messy this is

#Worm #Parahumans #Worm Fanfic #Worm Fanon #if you can't tell #I'm a little annoyed with the worm fanfic fandom #dear SI writers stop being such creeps #and nazis pls fucking leave we don't want you here go away

[idrellegames]

Hi so if I wanted to make a game like you did, do you have any advice?

Hey hey!

If you’re new to creating an IF game, there are a few things to think about:

1) Interactive fiction is a huge undertaking. Even if you plan on making a small game (like, say, 30k per average playthrough), the amount of content you’ll have to create to account for player choice is going to grow exponentially depending on how many choices and different mechanics you include. You will want to be prepared for that. As you’re planning and developing, start small and allow for natural growth as you get more comfortable with your systems. If you choose a bunch of gameplay elements right off the bat, you’re going to get overwhelmed.

2) Play IF games. Like a lot of games. Check out different platforms and different engines; this will give you an idea of what’s in store, what your eventual game can look like, and what restrictions you’ll be working with. 

For example, ChoiceScript offers very little control over what your game looks like; Twine allows you to develop your own stylesheet, so you can customize your game’s appearance to be pretty much whatever you want. If visual elements are important to you, that’s something to consider. (Inkle, Ren’py, and other IF engines are, again, all different).  

3) Choose an engine and practice. Get accustomed to what the code is like; this will help you plan your gameplay mechanics and figure out how to execute them. You can see my post here which includes popular IF engines and links to tutorials for beginners. 

You don’t need to make a full game just to practice; I usually keep what I call a “mess copy” in my Twine editor so I can practice different gameplay elements and figure out how to code them using placeholder text. 

4) While you’re practicing coding, start developing your worldbuilding. Write down some thoughts about what world you want to set this in. If you’re doing fantasy, you’ll want to figure out the rules of your world (how your magic system works, how your supernatural elements work, the cultures, the people, etc). As you figure out your setting, think about ways you can implement that worldbuilding into your game mechanics (for example, Wayfarer’s ancestry option reflects the different peoples that inhabit the world). 

5) Make a beat chart. I know there’s usually a big debate surrounding the benefits and drawbacks of outlining and some writers really do not like outlining, but if you’re making an IF game, at the very least make a beat chart of your entire game. A beat chart breaks down the overall narrative structure of your game into very broad building blocks. It maps out the process of how you get your characters from the beginning to the end of your story and account for any major variations along the way (for example: multiple endings). Though IF incorporates player choice, there is still going to be a roughly linear thoroughline. You want to know what this thoroughline is before you start writing, otherwise you are going to get overwhelmed with new ideas and variations and remember, content grows exponentially in IF. 

If you don’t have a plan, you may back yourself into a corner where you it is physically and mentally impossible for you to create enough content for all of your choices and variations. 

6) If you’re working in Twine (or another engine that allows you to import your own CSS stylesheet), spend some time researching web design. I started learning CSS because I wanted to use custom tumblr themes and pages; a lot of my love for web design comes from tumblr’s theme maker community. Seeing how designers have made designs I like has been a really good source of inspiration. I’m at the point now where if I have an idea I want to execute, I can usually google it, follow a tutorial and a functional version of that idea. It may take a few tries and it might be a little cobbled together (I’m still a CSS novice), but I can usually make something work. 

7) Get involved in the IF community. Whether it’s on tumblr or on the Choice of Games forum or intfiction, spending some time researching common IF gameplay mechanics and reading how different developers have handled them is really valuable. I lurk on a lot of forums (usually when I’m researching a problem and Google has led me a random corner of the IF community) and the conversations on these forums are all very valuable. 

#answered #resources #interactive fiction #game development #Anonymous #coding in twine

[softer-ua]

I have no idea what Bakugou would have done if Izuku died in the sludge Villain accident. They had a lot of strong unresolved emotions, I just can't fully visualize it, the only thing I have clear is him trying to latch onto anger, but that would burn out fast because the Villian was trapped and the heroes did their thing (Winning, which at that point he believed everything was) so I don't know what would he do. Sooo...could you please give us your insight? Please :D

I’d love to give my insight! Thank you for asking!!!🥰

It would depend on which sludge incident, the one where Deku ran to save Katsuki or the one where Deku was on his own? 🤔 I’ve got ideas on both lol

Buckle up this is gonna be a long one, and it’s not a fun ride

For the first I think Katsuki would latch onto anger and be a self hating righteous little monster for the rest of eternity. Because obviously he’s never getting therapy.

If he can blame himself for AM’s retirement and his parents can blame him for getting kidnapped than I have zero doubt the Entire Bakugo family would blame Katsuki for Dekus death. That family loves to victim blame, and Mitsuki would have a field day with chart topping world’s lowest blows like

If Katsuki hadn’t been hanging out in an alley and had gone straight home the villain wouldn’t have got him

If Katsuki hadn’t just been randomly blasting the heros wouldn’t have had to divert their attention to the fire

If Katsuki hadn’t been so weak(what’s the point of that flashy quirk if you can’t even save yourself)

Going with him to make him apologize to Inko (trying to imagine this feels like my brains touching a hot stove, it would be a thousand times more horrible and scarring than being forced to apologize to his Idol and teach for being kidnapped)

If hs Katsuki didn’t have the tools to block out his mother and broke down over a 50 year old man retiring, then poor ms Katsuki doesn’t stand a chance against being forced to bare the blame in someone’s actual death, especially not Dekus. Plus whatever destructive aftermath Katsuki created.

Did you have to blow up the entire alley way??

Katsuki would also never stop blaming those heros, even if the villain was captured they lost what really mattered, Dekus life.

They should have stopped the villain before Deku ever showed up

They should have never let Deku cross the line

They should have saved him

I think his fear of being weak would have been magnified by 10000. And it wouldn’t be a stretch for me to believe that witnessing that kind of hero failure so personally would be his villain origin. But even if it wasn’t, I think 10 months of stewing in grief, rage and self hate at such a young age would leave some very permanent scars

He’d habitually train to the point of self harm(reminder to check in on your fitness bros)

He’d never ever let someone close to him again (he didn’t want Deku close to him in the first place and look at how bad it hurt anyway)

He wouldn’t give a shit about any heros opinion anymore, if it’s not about how he can get stronger than any would be mentor can fuck off

His ego would have taken a massive hit, he’s no longer trying to prove he’s the best

Instead he’s insuring it because he’s never losing anyone again

Even with that in mind I think the sports festival actually would have gone a lot calmer because he no longer gives a shit about showing off, he’s just fighting to test himself and Dekus the one who pushed Todoroki to the point anyone even knew he had a fire side(I always wonder how much longer Aizawa was gonna let that go on for) so he’d except his medal quietly so it’s possible the lov would never have tried to recruit him

I think he’d be a lot more proactive in helping his classmates get stronger

Just not in a cute tsundere way anymore, but in a “if you can’t keep up with me I will keep attempting to murder you until you drop out” way, because B List heros are not allowed to be a thing anymore

Eventually he would grow up to be the top hero and he revels in that victory by hating himself, his job, his coworkers, his family, and everyone and everything else. The best part of his days are the adrenaline highs and that’s not even a happy high, in a bad headspace it just makes you ansty and aggressive, still better than being a hallow husk of resentments

I wouldn’t be surprised if he eventually did kill a fellow pro for not meeting his standards. Depending on what the hero did to earn his ire would shape wether he went on to be the new hero killer or simply stopped being a hero himself in custody or more permanently

Now if the villain had instead been captured after being caught hiding in Dekus flesh suit things would have been very different than the above

Katsuki would definitely be traumatized at this news, so would most of their class and they’d probably do some kind of memorial deal, and over the course of a couple of days Katsuki would slowly descend into madness at watching his class act like they have ever given a single fuck about Deku

Then he would speedball into it, because how dare they grieve over him, non of them deserve to especially not him

He’d be angry for as long as he could, at himself and everyone else, but eventually that’d putter out without anyone stoking the fire, no one else blames his class for feeling sad and no one blames the heros for not existing on every single possible street corner

Maybe he makes it through UA. He’s not as hot head, not as naive, but teens hold grudges like no other, he can be mad at the world a little longer.

Throws himself into the work so he doesn’t have time to think. He’s going to be the best because Deku always believed he would be and if he’s not allowed to be sad than this will be his only way to honor the nerds memory.

But the thing about pain is that it demands to be felt.

Eventually his regrets and grief would come for him, in a year or in ten years doesn’t matter they will eventually claim the time and space they need with interest.

He’d probably meet his regrets first so that he can be mad at himself for a little longer

He should have let Deku be

If he hadn’t held Deku up after class maybe he’d have made it home

His last words play on loop growing distorted and more malicious as the years go on(fun fact about memory ! It’s easily manipulated because each time you remember something you’re actually just remembering the last time you remembered the thing! Basically your brain reconstructs the memory completely each time! Fuck it up once and it’s all down hill)

He regrets not ensuring that he’d have more than his flimsy memories to hold onto Deku with, he never realized he’d want to, never could fully conceive that he’d actually have to.

He should have been kinder

He should have been less of a coward and faced his own insecurities

He should have talked to Deku about so many things

He can’t just focus on what he did and didn’t do forever tho, eventually he’ll have to recognize the hole Deku left behind, his regrets will paint the picture of his grief

Maybe he forgets the exact date of Dekus birthday but he knows it was in the summer, he regrets not going to his last one and grieves never going to a next one.

He regrets not going to the funeral, of course he was sad, he’d been an idiot to think he couldn’t be

He regrets not visiting Dekus grave, and grieves over how long he’s been gone now

He regrets that he had to learn what the value of saving is by having lost, god how he grieves that loss

Without Deku Kaminari never hears that nickname, Kacchan died with Deku. He grieves over never hearing it again

He wonders if Dekus hanging out with Kacchan wherever he is, he wonders if this makes him crazy.

He grieves over Deku dying so young, so alone, so horribly. It gives him nightmares, he can’t imagine the pain of having all his organs crushed down from the inside, and yet he’s some how intimately aware of its possibility. He debates looking for the autopsy results, maybe if he confirms it was asphyxiation and not internal blunt trauma the nightmares will stop. But you don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to.

He grieves over the dreams Deku never got to chase, and regrets ever playing a part in taking away the happiness a dream is supposed to have

He grieves over the Deku shaped hole in his life that seemed to grow with him despite only ever getting to know the knobby knees version, he can’t help but think with every achievement and milestone “you should be here”

He doesn’t hate his life, it just feels half lived.

Without Deku pushing his buttons and no god complex shaped alarm bells people were slower to reach out to him.

Without Deku to vouch for his good qualities people were a lot more hesitant to see them.

He still did make friends it’s just a shallower connection and he doesn’t make time for them

He becomes top hero but the victory feels hallow like there should have been more of a fight for it. Maybe he is crazy but it feels like it should have been Deku fighting him for it.

His saves are legendary and numerous, he’s never able to shake the feeling that there’s someone out there who needs him just around the corner

Between the nightmares and the anxiety clocking off gives him he probably gets less sleep than any hero before him, even Aizawa.

It was a short career

#softy answers #tw child death #tw child abuse #tw selfhate #tw grief #idk what else to tag #let me know if there’s any I should put up #I like talking about heavy topics but I want to help keep bnha a fun space for everyone #I am so sorry about how long I made this #I’m on mobile and idk how to make it do the read more thing

[thelovelyghostwriter]

just wanna throw it out there, i don’t know where you watched it, but neferpitou is never referred to as her in the subs that i saw, like not even once that i can think of

Hello. Well, of course, our experiences are different.

My memory is a little hazy, but I first watched it on Kissanime (or is it Gogoanime?) several years ago. The second time watching it was on Singapore Netflix, which only has the Eng/Chinese subtitles and Japanese/Mandarin audio back in 2018/9.

Now, I cannot remember if the Kissanime referred to Pitou as a her, and the site was shut down already, though I do remember the subs referencing Pitou as a mother cat. Back then, I actually thought Pitou was a girl because of the appearance and the mother cat, until sometime a year later, I found out that the manga and anime had discrepancies.

For the Netflix one, I must say, the English subtitles are different and inaccurate (we had the full series really early). I remember rewatching this and I think they referred to Alluka as a "she" throughout, even with characters other than Killua, although they had referred to Alluka as a "brother". I had to explain to my friends because they just assumed Alluka is biologically female. I think they also used "she" for Pitou (again, this is 2 to 3 years ago, my memory is super hazy). I could check again, but currently, I'm too busy to check the episodes.

Maybe I had made a mistake with that phrasing, although I'm not sure what phrase I should use instead as data collection is still ongoing. I need to be careful when editing it, as it might affect the charts. I may have to fix the phrasing, but right now, I’m out of ideas and I’m open to anyone who have suggestions. 

Now that has gotten out of the way, let me share with you my thought processes on Pitou in this survey.

Please note that I am aware that anon just wants to tell me this information, and I am willing to take any questions and clarify anything. I am only taking this opportunity to clear up any potential questions by ensuring that everyone who is interested understands the decision I had made when it comes to Pitou, since the question is in regards to Pitou's gender.

Frankly speaking, it doesn't matter to me if Pitou is a female or male, it's just a fictional character, it's a chimera ant. I like Pitou as a character and the design, and initially, I never bothered to look at Pitou's gender due to mixed opinions about it. While some people refer to Pitou as a boy, there's someone on Reddit recently that is debating that Pitou is a woman and commented why I did not include Pitou in the hxh girls/women under the "favourite hxh girls/women" question. The Redditor also reasoned that the manga part about Pitou referring to themselves as "boku" was a mistranslation. And then there's people who are just saying chimera ants do not have biological sex (but we see the Chimera Ant Queen giving birth so??)

It's honestly extremely confusing to me and that's why I never bothered to look into it. Pitou is just a character that I know and love. And I never cared about whether people prefer addressing Pitou as a girl or boy, or something else.

Until I had to make this survey.

The only reason why I categorised ships into het, BL and Yuri is that there are over 50 pairings on Hunterpedia. For example, if people indicate that they only ship het ships, then all the ships featuring a girl and a boy will be presented in the next question. The BL and Yuri ships won't appear. This is designed so that people do not have to go through the trouble of scrolling through an incredibly long list of ships just to pick their favourites. Again, it's a technical reason.

However, this was a problem for Pitou because well, I didn't actually bother to look up Pitou's gender previously.

At first, I went to look at what people who refer to the manga had to say, and most of them reasoned it's because Pitou used "boku" which was a masculine(?) term. Now, I can't read Japanese but this is what people used for the rationale. It's just that Pitou seemed to have breasts and more feminine in the anime.

So initially, I wanted to list Pitou as a boy in that shipping section.

The only reason why I changed my mind, is because many people had only watched the 2011 anime version for the pre-Dark Continent Exploration arc. Even in my survey, only 168 had read the manga before the Dark Continent Exploration arc, but 403 people had watched the 2011 anime.

And as far as I know, from my observation, most people who had only watched the 2011 anime refer to Pitou as a girl (even if they know how Pitou is presented in the manga). And when they ship Pitou with someone, they usually view Pitou as a catgirl or something. Or at least, in the fanarts I've seen.

I did not want the case where people who ship Pitou with someone has to adjust their "thinking" when choosing the list of ships.

Those were pretty much my thoughts when I decided to list Pitou as a girl in the shipping section. And I'm not sure if that affected my memory when it comes to thinking that the anime referred to Pitou as a she/her.

Pitou is ambiguous but the anime refers to Pitou as a "her" a lot. Therefore, listed as a girl.

This is why I came up with these two sentences. Again, I am not very particular about this detail, but for the sake of technical reasons, I did what I had to do. You also need to understand that for texts in a survey, you have to make them as concise as possible.

Which we move on to the other comment I had about not including Pitou in the list of hxh girls/women. It's tied to my initial decision of listing Pitou as a boy. I made a tough decision to just... not include all Chimera Ants in that section, since they aren't human anyway. The only character that wasn't human that I included in that question is Nanika, but that's because Nanika is tied to Alluka (I listed Alluka as a girl. I know certain people won't agree with me. Killua says Alluka is a girl, and that's that). Besides, there was already a question regarding ranking Chimera Ants. So I think it's fair not to include Chimera Ants, although I do feel really bad because I think there are people who feels that their favourite female hxh character is Pitou. 

Please understand that the decisions to include and what not to include can be difficult, in certain questions or characters when it comes to this. I cannot make everyone satisfied with the survey and I don't intend to make that promise. However, I will try my very best to make it as good as it can be. 

I am going to address this in my report, in regards to Pitou and my decisions when it comes to this character in the survey. I need to look for the manga panel where Pitou uses "boku" so that I can properly explain it in my report.

#hxh #hunterxhunter #hxh survey #pitou #neferpitou

[grannygerd]

PVRIS’ Lynn Gunn: "There's a lot of external pressure on things that really don't matter"

By Aliya Chaudhry - Louder

The pandemic has given PVRIS' Lynn Gunn pause to reconsider the important things in life. Here, she joins us to discuss livestreams, new music and the joy of meeting her fans' pets

(Image credit: Sasha Samsonova)

PVRIS have been keeping busy since releasing their highly anticipated third album, Use Me, in August 2020. As well as unleashing a deluxe edition of the album at the end of last year, they’ve been holding a virtual concert series via the Pillar platform, playing each of their albums in full, starting with their 2014 debut album White Noise, last November.

Continuing the trend, on January 9 they kicked off 2021 with a livestream (yeah, they're not going anywhere for a while) of 2017 album All We Know Of Heaven, All We Need Of Hell.

Beyond the livestreams, Lynn Gunn – the creative force behind PVRIS – has also been staving off lockdown boredom by remixing music for artists such as US indie rockers Joywave and actor and musician Kat Cunning.

Here, we speak to Gunn about PVRIS' livestreams, releasing music during the pandemic and the reality of connecting with fans virtually.

Pandemics, having to release albums without touring... how has the last year been for you?

"I think it took a bit of pressure off everything. It has had everybody really just do it – put an album out and share music, and that's what it should be about. I think a lot of the time with album releases, there's so much pressure; around release numbers, the charts, what your touring numbers are. There's a lot of external pressure for things that really don't matter. When someone releases music, it's for people to listen and enjoy and take it for whatever they want If someone wants to listen to the album, they're gonna listen to it. And if they don't, they don't. It felt really good just to get to release the album and have it live."

I also wanted to ask about the deluxe edition, because that came out kind of by surprise. What made you decide to release that?

"There were just a lot of leftover demos and songs that we wanted on the album – or were kind of debating being on the album – such as Thank You and the alternative version of Things Are Better. There's still a lot of others that didn't make it onto the deluxe as well, but it gave us a chance to kind of showcase different sides of Things Are Better and Loveless… We wanted to give a little bit of extra love with what we could."

What made you decide to do the full album play-throughs for the livestream series, as opposed to a more traditional setlist?

"Right now we wanted to find the best way to stay connected with our fans and the community within that. We thought, what better than just kind of revisiting everything and going back down memory lane? Obviously it's been a crazy year and a crazy time. I think a lot of people are reflecting on their past, their present, their future, and it's been cool to just revisit everything and give those albums their moment in a modern virtual show context."

A lot of people are talking about the future of livestreams and whether they'll stay around after shows come back. Both because it's a way for artists to make more money but also it makes shows more accessible. Is it something you'd be open to even after tours start back up?

"Definitely. We can only do so much with the resources we have and the budget we have at this time, but hopefully, when the world turns a little bit back to normal, we can continue to do the streams. I definitely wanted to do more, as far as lighting and production, but we can only really do so much right now. But that would be my one thing with it – if it's a thing that continues, I want to make sure we can do something that's unique and elevated from the ones we're doing right now."

What's it been like, connecting with fans and interacting with them online?

"Our fans are so fun, and funny and amazing and sweet and talented. I'm just really grateful that we have amazing people supporting our music. I go through waves where I feel really weird about the internet. I'll just leave it and vanish for a month, or not go on for weeks. But I think especially when we launched Pillar and started going into a little bit more of a tight-knit setting to interact with our fans, it's been really, really nice and I love it."

How have the virtual meet-and-greets been?

"They've been so fun. I was really sceptical when we were first discussing doing it, because I really felt that it might not be as fulfilling or as high quality of an experience as an in-person meeting. But in my opinion, I've enjoyed it more than when we do in-person. When we did it online, we were doing like 20 people a day versus on a normal day on a regular tour, where we would meet about 100 people in a day. And typically, just because of circumstances and how scheduling is and how venues are, a lot of the time we'll have to rush because the doors will need to open and they need to let people in or there's some issue with security… and we can't spend too much time. So the virtual meet-and-greets have been really great for having extended time to talk to everybody. I also think that because I'm in my home and people are in their homes, it's really disarming and casual and comfortable. I've gotten to meet people's families, people's pets, their partners, and it's just really wholesome and awesome. I love it. I want to do a lot more."

You've been doing a lot of producing recently, was that something you always wanted to do?

"I've always been doing it under the radar, but haven't really released anything or had the confidence to really fully go for it. The pandemic was definitely a nice time to actually sit, take the big gulp and go for it."

Have you been working on any new PVRIS music?

"Yes. It's hard to get stuff completed right now just because part of the process that's really fun for me is taking whatever I'll make at home and bringing it to somebody, and then getting to go crazy on instruments and synths and have that studio exploration time. That's obviously hard to do in a pandemic. There's ways you can kind of make stuff work via Zoom, and it’s definitely been a learning curve to adjust to as far as writing and producing at the time, but it's fun. It's been cool to have downtime to really dive in."

Use Me is available now. You can find details about PVRIS' livestreams on their official Pillar page

January 13th, 2021

#pvris #lynn gunn #lynn gvnn #lyndsey gunnulfsen

[lucyreviewcy]

The Three Three Musketeers (or Where The F*ck Did All The Stupid Hats Go)

I read The Three Musketeers and then I watched the 1973, 1993 and 2011 adaptations. Which one wins tho?

Adaptation is a fascinating concept, especially of texts which are frequently adapted or parodied. After I rewatched the 2005 Pride and Prejudice I was reminded how weirdly divisive the two dominant adaptations of that book are. A lot of people consider the 2005 to be an inferior betrayal of the 1990s BBC version. I actually prefer the 2005 because I think Matthew McFadyen’s Mr Darcy is a wonderfully complex character. McFadyen imbues Darcy with social awkwardness and anxiety, which Lizzie misinterprets as his pride. To overcome the “Lizzie doesn’t fancy him ‘til she sees his house” debate, director Joe Wright includes a moment where Lizzie glimpses Darcy alone with his sister. He’s comfortable, his body language is completely different, and he’s smiling broadly. That moment really sold me on the entire film because it made Darcy a full character and was a really simple addition that rounded out the story. I still like the 90s version but for me, it’s the 2005 that takes first place.  (Although an honourable mention for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies because it is an excellent romp.)

Look: adaptation is always a complicated topic. You can’t untangle one adaptation from another, because it’s pretty rare that somebody adapting a classic text like Pride and Prejudice or The Three Musketeers is not already familiar with existing adaptations. The most recent adaptation of any classic text is not simply an adaptation of that text, but the next step in a flow chart that includes all the previous adaptations and the cultural context of the newly created product. These three adaptations of Dumas’ 1844 novel are all texturally and stylistically very different, and two of them diverge significantly from the original text. What I found truly fascinating was what all of them had in common, and what each new era (these were made at around 20 year intervals) decides to add or remove. What do all these movies agree are the essential parts of the story, and what are some adaptations more squeamish about including from Dumas’ original narrative?

Before we dive in, no I have not seen every single adaptation of the story, that would be a dissertation level of research and I do actually have things to do right now (although, I will admit...not many.) I’m looking at these three Hollywood adaptations because they all had star studded casts (for the era they were made in), they’re all English language, and (crucially) they were all easily available on the internet for me to stream.

What are the essential ingredients of a Three Musketeers adaptation?

Firstly, there should be at least three musketeers. Secondly, D’Artagnan (Michael York 1973, Chris O’Donnell 1993, Logan Lerman 2011) should be a young upstart who is introduced part way through a sword fight. He should also have silly hair. He is also consistently introduced to the musketeers in all three films by challenging them each individually to duels at noon, one o’clock and two o’clock. 

The films all maintained some elements of the original “Queen’s Diamonds” storyline, and featured the Queen, Milady and Constance. The characterisation of these three varied a lot.

Our villains in each case are invariably the Cardinal, his pal Rochefort (who always has an eyepatch, although this trope is not in the book and is actually attributable to the way Christopher Lee is styled in the 1973 film), and Milady de Winter. Satisfyingly, at least two of the villains usually wear red because they’re bad. Red is for bad. 

All three are very swashbuckling in tone, have elements of physical comedy, and two of them include one of the three valet characters Dumas wrote into the original story, Planchet (1973 Roy Kinnear, 2011 James “ugh why” Corden). They also all bear the generic markings of the movies made during the same era, our 70s D’Artagnan feels like a prototype Luke Skywalker. The 90s version features a random martial arts performer. The 2011 version has CGI and James Corden in equal measure (read: far too much of both.)

What are the big differences?

I’m going to divide this category into three main segments: character, story and style. My own three musketeers, the three musketeers of movie making.

Character

D’Artagnan

D’artagnan in the book comes across as a pretty comical figure. He’s nineteen and there’s something satisfying about how similar Dumas’ caricature of a nineteen year old is to a modern character of the same age. He’s overconfident, has a simplistic but concrete set of morals, and falls in love with every woman he sees. If D’Artagnan were a 2021 character, he’d really hate The Last Jedi, is what I’m saying. He’d definitely have a tumblr blog, probably a lot like this one, but perhaps a scooch more earnest. He really loved The Lighthouse but he can’t explain why. Isn’t it nice to know that awkward nineteen year olds have been pretty much the same for the last three hundred years at least? 

In all three films he’s kind of irritating, but at least in the 1973 this feels deliberate. This version has a certain “Carry On Musketeering” quality to it and D’Artagnan is your pantomime principal, he’s extremely naïve and he takes himself very seriously. This is the closest D’Artagnan to the book, and the 1973 is, in general, the film which adheres most faithfully to that source material. 

The 1993, which is (spoiler alert) my least favourite adaptation, has Chris O’Donnell as the least likeable D’Artagnan I’ve come across. I’ve only seen O’Donnell in one other thing, the Al Pacino movie Scent of a Woman. He’s bearable in that because he’s opposite Al Pacino, and so his wide-eyed innocence makes sense as a contrast to Pacino’s aged hoo-ah cynicism. Rather than being introduced in a practice sword fight with his father, as in the other two films, D’Artagnan is fighting the brother of an ex-lover. This captures the problem with the film in general: this adaptation wants D’Artagnan to be cool. He is not. The comedy of the 1973, and indeed the book, comes from D’Artagnan being deeply uncool, and from his blind idolisation of the deeply flawed Musketeers who actually are cool, but not necessarily heroic, or even good people. Their moral greyness contrasts with D’Artagnan’s defined sense of right and wrong, but he still considers them to be role models and heroes. 

2011′s version also suffers from “Cool D’Artagnan” syndrome, with the added annoyance of that most Marvel of tropes: the quip. One of the real issues with this film is that the dialogue has a lot of forced quippery that doesn’t quite land, and the editing slows the pace of the entire film. D’Artagnan’s first interaction with Constance is a bad attempt at wit which Constance points out isn’t very funny. The problem is that Constance has no personality so there’s no real indication that she’s in any position to judge his level of wit. She’s just vague, blonde and there: three characteristics which describe an entire pantheon of badly written female characters throughout the ages. Cool D’Artagnan also means that Constance should be additionally cool, because in the book, Constance is older than, smarter than and over-all more in charge than D’Artagnan. 

Female Characters

Let’s go into this with an open mind that understands all these films were made in the sociological context of their decade. The 1973 version would absolutely not be made in the same way now. Constance is a clumsy cartoon character who is forever falling over and accidentally sticking her breasts out. This is not the character from the books, but does at least leave an impression on the viewer one way or another. 

In contrast, the 1993 has a Constance so forgettable I literally cannot picture her. I think she holds D’Artagnan’s hand at the end. That’s all I can say on the subject. 

The 2011 has Gabriella Wilde in the role, and absolutely wastes her. Anyone who’s seen her in�� Poldark knows that she can do sharp-tongued beautiful wit-princess with ease. It’s the writing of this film that lets her down, in general, that’s the problem with it. The storyline and design are great, but the actual dialogue lacks the pace and bite that a quip-ridden star vehicle needs. This Constance is given simultaneously more and less to do than the Constance of the original book, who demonstrates at every turn the superiority of her intellect over D’Artagnan, but doesn’t get to pretend to be a Musketeer and whip her hat off to show her flowing golden hair like she does in the 2011. 

The best character, for my money, in The Three Musketeers is Milady de Winter. Even Dumas got so obsessed with her that there are full chapters of the book written from pretty much her perspective. In the book, she’s described as a terrifying genius with powers of persuasion so potent that any jailor she speaks to must be instantly replaced. My favourite Milady is absolutely Faye Dunaway from 1973. She’s ferocious and beautiful and ruthless, but potentially looks even better because the portrayals in the other films are so very bad. 

The 1993 version has your typical blonde 90s baddie woman (Rebecca De Mornay), she wouldn’t look out of place as a scary girlfriend in an episode of Friends or Frasier. 2011 boasts Milla Jovovich who presents us a much more physical version of the character, even doing an awkwardly shoe-horned anachronistic hall of lasers a la Entrapment except instead of lasers its really thin pieces of glass? The “yeah but it looks cool” attitude to anachronism in this film is what makes it fun, and Jovovich’s Milady isn’t awful, she’s just let down by a plot point that she shares with 1993 Milady. Both these adaptations get really hooked on the fact that Athos used to be married to Milady at one time (conveniently leaving out the less justifiable character point that Athos TRIED TO HANG HER when he found out she had been branded as a thief - doesn’t wash so well with the modern audiences, I think.) Rather than hating/fearing Milady, the two modern adaptations suggest that Athos is still in love with her and pines for her. This detracts from Athos’ character just as much as it detracts from Milady’s. Interestingly, and I don’t know where this came from (if it was in the book I definitely missed it), both films feature a confrontation between the two where Athos points a gun at Milady but she pre-empts him by throwing herself off a cliff (or in the 2011, an air-ship.) I think both these versions were concerned that Milady was an anti-feminist character because she’s so wantonly evil, but I disagree. Equality means it is absolutely possible for Milady to be thoroughly evil and hated by the musketeers just as much as they hate Rochefort and the Cardinal. If you want to sort out the gender issues with this story, round Constance out and give her proper dialogue, don’t make Milady go weak at the knees because of whiny Athos (both Athos characters are exceedingly whiny, 1973 Athos is just...mashed).

The Musketeers

These guys are pretty important to get right in a film called The Three Musketeers. They have to be flawed, funny but kind of cool. Richard Chamberlain is an absolute dish in the 1973 version, capturing all those qualities in one. Is it clear which version is my favourite yet?

Athos is played variously by a totally hammered Oliver Reed (1973), a ginger-bearded Kiefer Sutherland (1993) and a badly bewigged Matthew McFadyen (2011). They all have in common the role of being the most level-headed character, but the focus on the relationship between Athos and Milady in the 93 and 11 editions undermines this a lot. Athos should be cool and aloof, instead of mooning over Milady the entire time. The 2011 gives Athos some painfully “edgy” lines like “I believe in this (points at wine) this (flicks coin) and this (stabs coin with knife.)...” which McFadyen ( once oh so perfect as Mr Darcy) doesn’t quite pull off. 

Porthos seems to be the musketeer who is the most different between interpretations. A foppish dandy in the 1973, a pirate (!?!) in the 1993, and then just...large in 2011. I think the mistake made in the 2011 is that large alone does not a personality make. There are hints at Porthos’ characterisation from the book: his dependence on rich women for money and his love of fine clothing, but these are only included as part of his introduction and never crop up again through the rest of the film. Pirate Porthos in 1993 is... you know what, fine, you guys were clearly throwing everything at the wall and seeing what stuck. 

Aramis is our dishy Richard Chamberlain in 1973, followed by womanising Charlie Sheen in 1993 and then strikingly suave Luke Evans in 2011. I actually didn’t mind Luke Evans’ interpretation, his dialogue is forgettable but his sleek charm stuck in my head. For some reason, this version has Aramis working as a parking attendant for horses, it worked for me as a fun A Knight’s Tale-esque bit of anachronistic character development. Charlie Sheen has never managed to appear likable or attractive to me and so his role in the 1993 falls flat. In fact, in that edition there’s not much distinction between the musketeers as characters and they’re all just very 90s and American. As anyone who’s read this blog before will expect, I think Keanu Reeves as Aramis would have really upped this film’s game. In fact, Keanu Reeves as Aramis, Brad Pitt as Athos and Will Smith as Porthos could have been the ultimate 90s adaptation, throw in DiCaprio as D’Artagnan and Roger Allam as the Cardinal and I’m fully sold. 

The King and Queen

All three films try and do the “Queen’s Diamonds” storyline, but only the 1973 actually includes the Queen’s affair with Buckingham. The queen, played by Geraldine Chaplin, is a tragic romantic figure (she doesn’t have a tonne to do besides being wistful and sighing over Lord Buckingham). The king is played as a frivolous idiot by Jean-Pierre Cassel (voice dubbed by Richard Briers). He doesn’t really think of the queen as a person, more as a possession that he doesn’t want Buckingham to have. 

In the 1993 version, Buckingham doesn’t really feature, and it’s the queen’s refusal to get off with the Cardinal that prompts his fury at her. The book does touch on the Cardinal’s desire for the queen, but it’s placed front and centre in 1993. This is definitely the boobsiest version, with quite a lot of corsetry on show and a cardinal who hits on literally all the women. The king is shown as a stroppy teenage boy under the thumb of the cardinal, who just wants to ask the queen to the dance but doesn’t have the nerve. The king is, essentially, a Fall Out Boy lyric. 

The 2011 also seems to be really squeamish about the idea of the queen having an extramarital affair. It paints Buckingham (played with excellent wig and aplomb by Orlando Bloom) as a stylish villain, who’s advances the queen has rejected. Like the 1993 version, the King is a feckless youth rendered speechless by the presence of his wife. Both these versions want the King and Queen to be happy together, while the 1973 doesn’t give a fuck. 

The Cardinal and his Cronies

The cardinal is kind of universally an evil creepy guy. One of the characters from the 1973 version who actually left the least impression on me, played by Charlton Heston. I think he’s overshadowed in my recollection by cartoonishly evil Christopher Lee as Rochefort. Lee’s Rochefort is dark, mysterious and wonderfully bad, and so influential that all other incarnations’ design is based on him. The 1993 version had truly over the top Michael Wincott as a character I could honestly refer to as Darth Rochefort from the way he’s framed, while 2011 boasts a chronically underused Mads Mikkelsen in the role. 

Cardinal-wise, 1993 was my favourite with Tim Curry in all his ecclesiastical splendour. It was disappointing that everything about this film, including the Cardinal’s sexual harassment of every single female character, really didn’t work for me. Tim Curry is a natural choice for this role and gives it his campy all. 

2011 has not one but two trendy bond villain actors, with Mikkelsen working alongside Christoph Waltz who was...just kind of fine. I was really excited when he appeared but he didn’t really push the character far enough and left me cold. 

Story

The story is where the different adaptations diverge most completely. 1973 follows the plot of the novel, D’Artagnan comes to Paris, befriends the Musketeers and becomes embroiled in a plot by the Cardinal to expose the Queen’s affair with Buckingham through the theft of two diamond studs. D’Artagnan, aided partially by the musketeers, must travel to London to retrieve the set of twelve studs gifted by the King to the Queen, and by the Queen to Buckingham. He does so, the plot is foiled, he’s made into a musketeer! Hurrah, tankards all round.

The 1993 version drops D’Artagnan into the story just as the Cardinal has disbanded the Musketeers. I found the plot of this one really hard to follow and I think at some point D’Artagnan ended up in the Bastille? There was this whole plot point about how Rochefort had killed D’Artagnan’s father. In the original, and in the 1973 version, D’Artagnan’s entire beef with Rochefort is rooted in a joke Rochefort makes about D’Artagnan’s horse. I guess for the producers of this one, a horse insult is not enough motivation for a lifelong grudge. That is really the problem with the entire film, it forgets that the story as told by Dumas is set in a world where men duel over such petty things as “criticising one’s horse”, “blocking one’s journey down a staircase” and “accusing one of having dropped a lady’s handkerchief.” The colour palette and styling are very 90s “fun fun fun”, but the portrayal of the cardinal and the endless angst about D’Artagnan’s father really dampen the mood. 

The 2011 version, this is where the shit really hits the fan. We meet our musketeers as they collaborate with Milady to steal the blueprints for a flying ship (it’s like a piratecore zeppelin). Milady betrays them and gives the plans to Buckingham, they all become jaded and unemployed. D’Artagnan arrives on the scene (his American accent explained by the fact that he’s from a different part of France) and befriends the Musketeers. The cardinal tries to frame the queen for infidelity by having Milady steal her diamonds to hide them in Buckingham’s safe at the tower of London. Something something Constance, something something help me D’Artagnan you’re my only hope. MASSIVE AIRSHIP BATTLE. The king and queen have a dance. James Corden cracks wise. 

It seems like as time has passed, producers, writers and directors have felt compelled to embellish the story. I think, specifically in the case of the two later versions, this is because they wanted the films to resemble the big successes of the period. Everybody knows no Disney hero can be in possession of both parents, so D’Artagnan is out to avenge his father like Simba or Luke Skywalker. In the 2011 version, the plot is overblown and overcomplicated in what seems like an attempt to replicate the success of both the Sherlock Holmes and Pirates of the Caribbean franchises. Remember the plot of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End? No, me neither. 

Style

The style of these films grows increasingly wild along with the plots as time passes. The 1973 features a lot of slapstick comedy, some of which really made me cackle, and some of which was cringeworthily sexist (Constance’s boobs through the window of a litter.) That’s the 70s though! I love The Godfather but Diane Keaton’s character is unbelivably dull and annoying. Star Wars features a pretty good female character but she does end up in that bikini. The 70s seems to be a time of movies that were great except for their occasional headlong dive into misogyny. That doesn’t mean the entire movie is bad, it just means it’s suffering from the consequences of being made in the 70s. There were other consequences of this, I doubt many modern productions could get away with physically injuring so many of it’s cast members. From a glance down the IMDB trivia page, this film yielded a higher casualties to cast ratio than the My Chemical Romance Famous Last Words music video, and that’s a hard figure to top. 

The 1993 version is a Disney feature and suffers from having a thin sheen (not Charlie in this instance) of “Disney Original Movie” pasted over every scene. It looks like The Parent Trap might be filming in the adjacent studio a lot of the time. The vibrancy of the colours makes the costumes look unrealistic, while the blandness of the female characters means this movie ends up a bit of a bland bro-fest. Also occasionally the sexual and violent moments really jar with the overall tone making it an uneven watch. One minute it’s Charlie Sheen cracking jokes about trying to get off with someone’s wife, the next minute you see Milady throw herself off a cliff and land on the rocks. Weird choices all round. 

The 2011 version, as I’ve already mentioned, was trying to borrow its style from the success of Sherlock Holmes and Pirates of the Caribbean, with a little Ocean’s 11 thrown in. The soundtrack flips between not quite a Hans Zimmer score and not quite that other Hans Zimmer score, and after the success of Stardust it ends with a Take That song (for it to match up to the story it should have been Take That feat. Harry styles imho). Visually, there’s some fantastic travel by mapping going on, there’s far too much CGI (one of my friends pointed out that the canal in Venice seemed to be full of Flubber). Everyone is dressed in black leather, and there are not enough big hats at all. One of the best things about Musketeers films is that they’re an excuse for ridiculous hats, and in a film with a quite frankly insane visual style, I’m surprised the hats didn’t make it through. The cast, unfortunately, really lack chemistry which means the humorous dialogue is either stilted or James Corden, and the editing is just very strange. It’s one of those films that feels about as disjointed as an early morning dream, the one where you dream you’ve woken up, gotten dressed and fed the cat, but you actually are still in bed. 

Conclusion

Adaptations focus on different things depending on the context they were created in. The 2005 Pride and Prejudice is deliberately “grittier” than its 1990s predecessor, at a stage when “grit” was everywhere (The Bourne Identity, Spooks, Constantine). The Musketeers adaptations demonstrate exactly the same thing: what people wanted in the 70s was bawdy comedy and slapstick with a likeable idiot hero, the 90s clearly called for... Charlie Sheen and bright colours, and the 2010s just want too much of everything and a soundtrack with lots of banging and crashing. The more modern adaptations simplified the female characters (although the 1973 version definitely is guilty of oversimplifying Constance) while over-complicating the plot. There’s a lot of embellishment going on in the 2011 version that suggests the film wasn’t very sure of itself, it pulls its plot punches while simultaneously blindly flailing its stylistic fists. 

The film that works the best for me will always be the 1973 because it’s pretty straight down the line. Musketeers are good, Milady is evil, falling over is funny and the King’s an idiot. The later adaptations seem to be trying to fix problems with the story that the 1973 version just lets fly. The overcorrection of Milady and the under characterisation of Constance is the perfect example of this. If you want your Musketeers adaptation to be more feminist, don’t weaken Milady, strengthen Constance. Sometimes a competent female character is all that we need. A Constance who is like Florence Cassel from Death in Paradise or  Ahn Young-yi from Misaeng could really pack a punch.

I adored the energy of the 2011 adaptation, I loved how madcap it was, I loved how it threw historical accuracy to the wind. I thought the king was adorable, and I really enjoyed seeing Orlando Bloom hamming it up as Buckingham. I was genuinely sad that the sequel the ending sets up for never came, because once they got out of the sticky dialogue and into the explosions, the film was great fun. It was a beautiful disaster that never quite came together, but I really enjoyed watching it. I love films that have a sense of wild chaos, some more successful examples are The Devil’s Advocate, Blow Dry and Lego Batman. I think the spirit of going all out on everything can sometimes result in the best cinematic experience, it’s just a shame the script wasn’t really up to muster for 2011 Musketeers. 

I’m excited to see what the next big budget Musketeers adaptation brings, even if I’m going to have to wait another ten years to see it. I hope it’s directed by Chad Stahelski, that’d really float my boat (through the sky, like a zeppelin.)

#ThreeMusketeers #Three Musketeers #Adaptation #Movies #Film #The Three Musketeers

[its-bound-to-get-loud]

Why I believe 5SOS didn’t work as a pop-punk band (+ my opinion on THAT Rolling Stone article)

This title of this post may be an unpopular opinion for a lot of you. But I don’t believe 5SOS worked as a pop-punk band. In this post I will explain exactly why. I hope that even if you don’t agree, you will at least understand my POV. This post is probably gonna have a lot of text. Not a lot of links, videos or pictures involved. I hope it will still be interesting for you. All of this is just my personal opinion, I have no way of proving that this is 100% true. It’s just a careful deduction of things I’ve seen and thought about over the last few months, mixed with some personal opinions. With this post I’m trying to tackle some topics that are being talked about often and showing them in a different light. I’ve put quite a lot of time into writing this, so I’m hoping you will appreciate it. Finally a huge, massive thank you to my friend R for proofreading this, it means a lot to me.

To start things off, I’ve had quite a lot of thoughts about this topic: I don’t think 5SOS truly worked as a pop-punk band. The image didn’t fit them and it wasn’t right for their era. It was a fun sound, I enjoy listening to it, they probably even enjoyed making it. Obviously fans enjoyed it as well. I fully believe that when they first started, pop-punk is what the guys wanted to sound like. It’s the music they listened to, those were the bands they looked up to. When they got signed they had not been a band for a super long time, they were young and barely had any experience in both life and music. I’m not someone with an extensive knowledge of pop-punk groups, but from what I know a lot of these bands were misfits, outcasts. People who didn’t feel like they had a place in society. In some cases from broken homes, with bad childhoods, etc. That’s who they were and it’s what their music was about.

I’d say 5SOS as whole do fit those characteristics. They were from a small town where music wasn’t really a career for most people. So they felt the need to get out of their town and pursue music. Michael dropped out of school for music, Ashton obviously had a very difficult home situation. Calum has mentioned that his family didn’t have a lot of money when he was younger. I’m not sure how the situation was for the others. But besides this, everyone but Ashton came from a stable home, Calum’s parents separated later on. So I can see why the guys related to these pop punk bands put out songs about this. Especially when you’re a teenager you often feel misunderstood by everyone else.

But when 5SOS started they looked more like a boyband than a pop punk band. Their earliest songs were mostly love songs. While the boys might have felt like being a pop punk band, and maybe even considered themselves to be one, I would say they were more of a pop/pop rock band.

In some cases a label can mold an artist or band into a certain image upon signing. But 5SOS had already gathered a following before they were even signed, so molding them into a rougher pop-punk image right upon signing would not have worked, it would not have been organic. They probably didn’t want to alienate the fans they already had, because they were valuable in getting the word out about 5SOS.

Their first manager, Adam Wilkinson, didn’t seem to think 5SOS would work as a pop-punk band as well. Just look at these quotes taken from That infamous 2015 Rolling Stone article (I will not link it, because I despise it, just google if you feel the need to read it).

“While they cannot cross into the realm of pop punk, they can stand on the sidelines and capture the end of that market.”

“They always wanted to be Blink 182 or Good Charlotte, but I’ll be the first to admit I thought that was shooting too far,” says Wilkinson. “We tried to make them a little more pop.”

That last quote is basically what happened. 5SOS ended up connected to One Direction, a huge pop act at the time. A connection that wasn’t as much of a “coincidence” as they wanted to make it look like. Louis was never the one to truly discover 5SOS, this was simply a smart PR decision to connect 5SOS to the 1D fanbase and grow their audience. I highly suggest reading this post that lays out exactly how 5SOS came to get signed and how their connection to 1D began. You will see that there is clear evidence that it didn’t happen like they wanted us to believe.

And let’s be real. Take a look at this early 5SOS picture. Does this look like the next Green Day or All Time Low? They all look like the boy next door, with maybe the exception of Michael. Basically they had the looks of a boyband, and while they never have been a traditional boyband (and certainly aren’t now), they certainly were marketed as one early on. This is a label that still sticks to them to this day.

I fully believe that their team (management/record label) tried to slowly evolve them into a more pop-punk image as they got bigger. They couldn’t ride the 1D train forever and had to stand on their own 2 feet. That’s where we arrive at the Sounds Good Feels Good era. This is a fascinating era for me, because there is a shift. Their looks start changing, suddenly they slowly become rockstars, piercings start happening. The boys are growing up. They are old enough to drink, girls are in the picture, etc. Musically it’s also clear that their sound is changing. The self-titled album is still fairly pop-rock, 1D but a little edgier perhaps. Sounds Good Feels Good is the more pop-punk album. But is it really? Because as most fans will know, the album knows 2 sounds. It has the clear pop-punk bops, such as Money or Safety Pin (to name a few), but there’s also some songs that already predict the sound for Youngblood such as, for example, Waste The Night and Vapor. It’s clear to me that while they probably still enjoyed their pop-punk sound the guys were growing up and were slowly discovering what music their sound as a band should be.

If we’re being honest for a moment. What songs from SGFG really feel the most personal? Sure, She’s Kinda Hot is a bop, but what about Vapor? Vapor is by far my favorite song on the album, it tells me a story, it makes me feel emotion. Now I’m very biased towards SKH, because (unpopular opinion) I don’t like the song much because of the lyrics. But that’s a different story (we may get to that someday). There is nothing wrong with a song that’s a bop, you need those. I could enjoy SKH if it wasn’t for the lyrics. But bops can have meaning too. SKH doesn’t in my opinion. Besides the fact that the guys were growing up and maturing their sound, the music scene just wasn’t very pop-punk or even rock based anymore. It wasn’t a sound that was popular anymore.

I took a look at the billboard charts and pulled some statistics. Friday October 23 was the release date for SGFG. The Top 3 Billboard hot 100 songs that week were

The Weeknd – The Hills

Drake – Hotline Bling

Justin Bieber – What Do You Mean?

The songs/artists closest to 5SOS in sound in the WHOLE Billboard Hot 100 that week were One Direction – Drag Me Down, Fall Out Boy – Uma Thurman and Twenty One Pilots – Stressed Out. That’s 3 songs in a list of 100 songs and you can debate how close the sound of those actually was to the sound of 5SOS at the time.

Taking a look at the Billboard 200 Year-End chart, the #1 is Taylor Swift – 1989. SGFG ended up at #136 (keep in mind that the album was released in October, so close to the end of the year). 5SOS self-titled ended up at #73. The LIVESOS album ranked #176. There’s a few other records that can be considered rock in the list, but barely any pop-punk in the whole chart. The only one to be considered for that title would be Fall Out Boy’s – American Beauty/American Psycho album, which was #15.

Pop-punk or rock in general, wasn’t a popular sound that topped the charts around the time 5SOS got started as a mainstream act. Number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 the week 5SOS released their first ep (Unplugged) was Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen. The real mainstream success of pop-punk was mostly in the late 90’s running all the way through the early 2000’s. This is why I wonder why the label tried to make them into a pop-punk band in the first place. My best guess is that their team relied on the fans to push the success of the band forward after they came off of 1D’s Where We Are tour. They might have tried to create an edgier version of 1D with similar success. Where you create a fan base that is big enough to support the band without the need of casual listeners or fans from different demographics (male, female, old, young, etc.).

I think they relied too much on 1D fans to gravitate towards 5SOS as well, which may have been a mistake. Not all 1D fans actually liked 5SOS, some even actively stayed away from them the more they were pushed under their noses. When I entered the 1D fandom in 2014 most things I saw about 5SOS were negative. 1D fans considered them problematic and didn’t like them. This is partially why I steered away from 5SOS at the time. Besides that, I had enough going on with 1D to keep me occupied. Of course 5SOS’s fan base still grew quite a bit from the 1D exposure, but they never got to the same heights as 1D did. In several interviews the guys have said that they were being called “the biggest band that nobody has ever heard of”.

On a more personal note. As a recent fan, the whole pop-punk image never felt very genuine to me. Which might be because I came into the fandom backwards, starting with CALM and going back to their older material after that (side note: I did listen to the Youngblood album once or twice before). Don’t get me wrong, I love SGFG, I play it regularly. Money is a banger, Hey Everybody!, a bop, Permanent Vacation, love it! But as a fan I like to identify with songs and recognize that the artist is telling something that is personal to them. I don’t get that feeling from some of these songs. 

An example of a song that is emotional, yet (mostly) not personal to the band is Broken Home. It’s a beautiful song, but I generally skip it. 1, because it’s a very sad song and it’s not always something I’m in the mood for. 2, because it’s not a song I relate to on a personal level. And most importantly 3, I don’t see the song relating to 5SOS as people, other than maybe Ashton. An interesting quote about the song, made by their producer John Feldman, is on the genius page for this song.

“Other than Ashton, the three guys have parents who are still together. Ashton has never met his father. Ashton really connected into the theme. “We’re saying something with this song, it’s going to connect with the audience, at least 50% of our audience comes from broken homes. We’re actually taking a stand.” The other guys are loyal and family-driven and sweet, so they were like, “What are our parents going to think about us singing about a broken home when we don’t come from broken homes? How authentic is it?” It was a two-month debate.”

So the guys themselves were already questioning the authenticity of the topic when they were recording it. Ashton connected to the theme of the song, but the others didn’t. It wasn’t something they had experienced. It doesn’t say why the song made it on the album anyway. As stated in the quote, a lot fans can relate to it. I’m sure many fans found comfort in the song, which is a nice thing. The song doesn’t make you relate to the band though. If any of them had written this song from a personal experience it would have connected a lot differently. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing that the song is not personal, it just doesn’t feel very genuine when you know the artist has no relation to the story they are telling.

Moving on to the 2015 Rolling Stone article I have mentioned before. This seems to cause some division among fans. Was it all true or was it made up? My opinion is that it’s a mixture of truth and BS. But a whole lot of it feels taken out context or exaggerated. I have been a fan since March, so I wasn’t around at the time this came out. But since becoming a fan I have watched tons of interviews and clips and have extensively discussed this band with my friend, so I’d like to say I have done my homework and have a good picture of this band. On top of that I’d like to think being a 1D fan sharpened my critical thinking skills and might have helped me see through certain bullshit. I don’t claim to be the person with all the answers, but maybe my thoughts make sense to some people. There might be some context that I’m missing or facts that I haven’t come across, if you feel like there’s a piece of information I’m missing, feel free to let me know.

The way the article starts, it reads like fanfiction. Literally. The extensive description of the surroundings, the time of day, everything. The first time I read it, it made me cringe so hard I had trouble getting through the whole thing. First things first. This interview takes place the day after the AMA’s. Who the fuck scheduled this? Either someone should have prevented them from getting drunk and partying, or they should have scheduled this on another day when these guys were in a better state of mind. That is, assuming things went the way they went as described in the article. Which is something I highly doubt.

The only direct source saying that this article is not genuine is this tweet from Luke. Besides that I have only read secondhand that the band and people surrounding them have spoken up about the inaccuracy of the article.

Some people believe 5SOS could have sued Rolling Stone for slander if this article was really as false as they claim. Now I’m no lawyer, but this is not how things work in the entertainment industry. An article like this has been agreed upon before. The interviewer didn’t just decide to drop by one day. During celebrity interviews there’s always someone from their management or PR team around to make sure they don’t say any stupid shit. Celebrities are a brand, they have an image to protect, albums to sell. If they say things that make them look bad it can cause damage to their good name. Record companies have invested money in artists and they want to see a profit in return. They don’t want to risk losing money, that’s why celebrities have PR teams. RS may have had a reputation for being a very honorable publication, but these days that’s not the case. They are not that far removed from cheap gossip rags such as the Sun or The Daily Mail nowadays. They still get read by a lot of people, which puts them in a position of power. Often when an interview takes place there are certain topics that have been agreed upon before, there are also topics that can be blacklisted if the artist or their team doesn’t want them talked about. For example relationships or family matters. These will also be agreed upon beforehand.

Here is a story about a former journalist for the British tabloid The Daily Star, who has admitted to making up stories and explains how they get away with it.

For arguments sake, let’s say the guys slipped up and showed their “true colors”. With a big publication like this it’s common that their team would have to approve the article before it comes out. If there’s anything in there that was not agreed upon that they don’t like, the article can be edited.

This leaves us a few possibilities.

The article is completely true and their team is shit at their job. They failed to prevent the boys from slipping up about stuff they shouldn’t and did nothing to stop Rolling Stone from publishing.

The article is true and their team just allowed the article to be published for whatever reason.

The article isn’t true, but their team let it happen anyway, possibly because they wanted to move the band away from their boyband image into a more punk-rock image that went with their sound.

My vote goes out to the last one. I think their team wanted to make the boys look more edgy/punk-rock and get rid of their boyband image and this is how they tried to do it. I think parts of the article may be true, but a lot of it is greatly exaggerated and in some cases made up. If my theory is true, it also means 5SOS or their team had no reason to sue Rolling Stone if they wanted to. Because it would mean you have a major publication on your bad side, which means no more future promotional opportunities for the band and/or the label. While Rolling Stone may be trash, it’s a publication that a lot of people read. Therefore it’s a very important connection that you don’t want on your bad side.

If you still think they could have sued Rolling Stone then take a look at some examples from 1D. 1D has been targeted by the British tabloid The Sun for YEARS. They wrote the most awful shit, a lot of it not true. Yet they still had exclusive scoops whenever something important happened. Exclusive meaning, these topics were given to them exclusively for publishing. It was proven that their PR manager is friends with the journalist from The Sun responsible for most of the stuff written. 1D never sued The Sun for those articles, because they most likely were agreed upon by their team beforehand. 1D has never tried suing the Sun over anything, despite what they wrote. This was not 1 article, these were many articles. Especially towards the end of 1D, when it was clear their label was losing 1D, there was a smear campaign in the media to discredit 1D and its members. There was a chance some members were going to sign with a competing label, and that’s something their label didn’t like. Here is a good collection of headlines from that smear campaign. Nobody ever got sued over these articles.

Do you still think 5SOS could have just stood up and sued Rolling Stone? The entertainment business is full of politics. If you don’t play the game you’re out. Also, question yourself. Why does Luke still say the article was twisted and inaccurate 4,5 years later? He has owned up and apologized for past mistakes, yet he keeps insisting the article didn’t tell the truth. He even goes to say that the article “broke and hurt him”. If you believe Luke is still covering his ass for what he said in that article, that essentially would he mean he is emotionally manipulating people by saying the article hurt him. Is that the person you think Luke is?

1 more thing I want to point out. Yes, I am aware of the fact that Calum has a large version of the magazine cover hanging around in his house. I can’t say exactly why. This is my best guess. That cover was still a big thing in their career, despite the article, it is still a Rolling Stone cover. That’s a milestone that not every artist gets to do in their career. Just because he has the cover hanging around doesn’t mean he enjoyed the article that came with it.

This whole post has gotten super long, it may not be the easiest thing to get through. So thank you if you made it till the end. As stated before, this whole thing is mostly just my opinion. But the parts about how PR teams work are a fact. I do not work in the music or entertainment industry, I’m not a lawyer, so I may have gotten some things wrong. If I did, please let me know and I will try to fix it. Feedback is always appreciated.

#5 Seconds Of Summer #Ashton Irwin #Calum Hood #Luke Hemmings #Michael Clifford #5SOS #musical direction #pop-punk #Sounds Good Feels Good #Rolling Stone #original

[parachutingkitten]

Which Ninja Has Really Had The Most Focus Seasons? Let’s Find Out!

I am not here to end the focus ninja debate, I’m here to perpetuate it. We tend to squabble over the little things when we talk about this. Who gets to open their eyes in the beginning of the episode? Who’s on the set boxes? What counts as a real season? Well, I’ve come up with a system to try and quantify some of this. Now, it’s not perfect, and you might disagree with what I put where, or even the structure of my system, but I think the results are a fair estimate of how much time the writers actually spend with each character. And also, there are some pretty interesting conclusions to look at, so if you want to know more, join me under the cut :)

(Fair warning, this is a lengthy one)

How Does This Work?

I have 4 tiers of points. Focus, half focus, sub focus, and misc. Focus is worth 4 points, and is for ninja who are the sole focus of a full-length season. Half focus is worth 3 points, and is for focus ninja of split seasons, or seasons that share focus ninja. Sub focus is worth 2 points, and is for ninja who have a large, season defining plotline, but aren’t important enough to be the sole focus. I use this category to settle a lot of the debatable seasons. Misc. is worth 1 point, and is for the focus ninja of a short/special, sub focus of a half season, and other little things like that. Whatever ninja earns the most focus points has had the most focus time dedicated to them (theoretically).

I will be including all of the seasons, along with the pilot episodes, Day of the Departed, and the Prime Empire shorts, because these are pretty solidly essential viewing when watching the show. I’m not including stuff like Wu’s Tea, and those original ninjago shorts cuz… well, first off, I don’t think anyone really cares about them, but also, they’re not essential, and don’t really have focus ninja anyway. For the record, I am counting March of the Oni as a special and not a season. And no, I’m not including the movie. Duh.

I’m awarding points to any character I feel earns one, but not villains. Of course, villains are going to get decent screen time, that’s how basic plot structure works. In addition to characters, I will also be awarding points to an ensemble category, for any seasons that do not have a focus ninja. Though, the ensemble can only earn points at the focus and half focus levels. The ensemble earning points for sub focus just… doesn’t make sense. Like yeah, the rest of the cast is there… in every season. That’s how having a cast of characters generally works.

I would also like to add that this does not take into account the quality of the seasons. There’s always a debate to be had that the highest scoring ninja deserves another season, cuz the ones they’ve had are bad. I’m just interested in quantity. Alright? And again, this isn’t an end all be all answer, it’s just a set of numbers based on my perception of each season. I just want to start some more informed discussion. 

And last but not least, spoilers.

The Breakdown:

(if you don’t care about my reasoning in assigning points, feel free to skip to the results) 

Pilot Episodes

Kai is the focus character in these. I don’t know that anyone’s gonna fight me on that one. This is a special, so 1 point for Kai.

Season 1

Now, this one’s a bit trickier, because Kai is still noticeably the main character, but compared to the pilots, his role seems pretty equal within the cast of the OG 4. The season is about all of them growing as individuals and as a team together. Kai serves more as an insider POV than a real pure focus. I’m going to dub this an ensemble season (4 points) with a sub focus on Kai (2 points)

Season 2

Lloyd is definitely central to the plot this season, and does do the whole final battle thing, but again, the season is more about the ninja training Lloyd than Lloyd himself. Additionally, Kai serves as narrator this season, and gets himself some pretty sizable speeches etc. Again, I’m going to give ensemble 4 points for focus, and Kai and Lloyd both get 2 points each for sub focus.

Season 3

This is a Zane season. He gets the final battle, and the big realizations, and the love interest, it’s his season. There are some sizable sub plots this season, but none of them big enough to give anyone sub focus points. 4 points to Zane.

Season 4

This is a Kai season. He has the angst and love interest; he gets the points. Now, some people might think Zane earns sub points because the plot focuses on finding him, but that doesn’t mean he got more screen time than normal. That’s a plot device, not character time. He has a good little mini arc, but like… so does Garmadon, and Lloyd, and pretty much everyone. Kai gets 4 points.

Season 5

This season doesn’t have a focus ninja. Lloyd does get the intro, but he’s possessed half the season. Again, that’s a plot device, not character time. I’m labeling this as an ensemble season, so 4 more points to ensemble. The two arcs that really define this season are Nya becoming the water ninja, and Cole becoming a ghost. 2 points each for sub focus.

Season 6 

This is a Jay season. This is undebatably a Jay season. 4 points for Jay. In fact, this season focuses on Jay to such an extent that they actively kick other characters out of the show in order to focus on him more. That’s getting him an extra point, cuz it’s kinda ridiculous, and this is my thing so I can do what I want. Now, this season focuses a lot on his relationship with Nya. He shares his title card with her. That’s not nothing. She has a sizable arc, and noticeable presence. I’m giving her 2 points for sub focus.

Day of the Departed

This is a Cole special. Do I really have to explain myself on this one? 1 point for Cole.

Season 7

Our first split season! This is a pretty clear-cut Kai and Nya season. I wouldn’t say one overpowers the other. They share the spotlight pretty well. 3 points each for half season.

Season 8

This is a Lloyd season. It’s his dad getting brought back, his angsty drama, his love interest, his season. 4 points for Lloyd. There are some other noticeable plotlines, but none of them big enough to award points for.

Season 9

Another split season, this time taking place in two separate locations. Season 9 in Ninjago is pretty much just season 8 continued. Same tone, location, conflict, everything. This half is still a Lloyd Season. 3 half season points to him. The half in the first realm is harder to pin down though. It’s mostly an ensemble season, but I do feel Wu and Cole’s relationship plays a big enough role to earn them some points, especially since it’s a multi season arc. I’m going to use the misc. category to award them both 1 point.

March of the Oni

This is a Lloyd special. I mean, they had some pretty good ensemble stuff, and them giving the intro to Cole was cute and all but... It’s Lloyd’s special. He dies and talks to God before being resurrected. Classic main character stuff. 1 point to Lloyd.

Season 11

It’s a split season again! But I would like to award full focus to the ensemble. Both chapters either focus way too much on side characters or split the time pretty equally between the core cast for it to be anything else. 4 points to the ensemble. But I would like to single out Kai and Wu as both having significant arcs. The first chapter spends a lot of time on Wu’s past, mistakes, and guilt. And Kai’s arc is put noticeably center, resolving in the last episode of the season. I’d like to give these two 1 misc. point each. To those who would argue that Zane needs points for his ice chapter… no. First of all, he was gone for the majority of the ice chapter, and was being used, yet again, as a plot device rather than a character. And also, technically, that would conflict with my no points to villains rule.

Prime Empire Shorts

These are weird, but most of them focus on Jay’s experience in Prime Empire, so 1 point goes to him.

Season 12

Now, this is, at least as of right now, a half season. It’s 16 10-minute episodes, that’s one chapter’s worth, so I’m going to award points accordingly. Now, a lot of people might think this is a Jay season, but the story doesn’t follow Jay’s perspective. That’s what the prime empire shorts were for. The story follows the ninja going to find Jay. And yes, based on episode descriptions, there is an episode where Jay fights a boss all by himself, but it’s not the final boss, and it’s only one episode where he’s on his own. I mean, Okino had his own episode this season, and this isn’t an Okino season. So, though I will award him 1 point for being a sub focus in a half season, I’m awarding 3 half focus points to the ensemble.

Results:

Chart version of the points awarded in my explanations above

Total points gathered by each person

Number of times a person was awarded any number of points

Number of times a person was awarded 3 or more points

Conclusions:

Well, there are several things I got out of this. Obviously, Kai scored highest in most categories. He was the main character of the pilot, so it’s really not surprising that the writers have ideas for his character. That being said, I do find it funny that, even though we would all agree that Lloyd is the series’ overall main character, he does not appear in the pilot. People watching the pilot to get a feel for the series would be missing the most important character. That’s just really funny to me. Additionally, the main character of the show did not score the most focus points. He was in the double digits though, so he really can’t complain too much.

The Times High Ranking Points Were Earned data refers to times a character got points for being the focus ninja of a season/half season. For all of the fuss people give about Kai and Lloyd having like 5 seasons, it’s really only 2 each that they have an undebatable hold on. And on top of that, they both only have one all to themselves. Kai having season 4 and sharing season 7, and Lloyd having season 8 and sharing season 9. They do have an absurd amount of sub focus on top of all that though, which is definitely what trips everyone up.

I was surprised Nya scored as well as she did, especially for joining the team late. In fact, if you take off the bonus point I gave to Jay, she would actually score higher than him. Even though she doesn’t have a solo focus season, she has a decent amount of focus in 3 consecutive seasons. Also, Wu made it on the board, which is good for him.

Again, unsurprisingly, Cole scored lowest in almost all categories. There’s a reason the Cole fans are pissed. The 0 high ranking points stat is really telling and seriously stings. But, the one thing he did score well on was times points were earned. Though he has little personal focus, the focus that he has is recurring and spread across the series. I would also like to add that he didn’t even score any points for his ongoing friendship arc with Jay, which did put his character fairly center stage for a while. I mean, though Cole doesn’t have any big focus areas, I would still say he’s got some decent development with several multi season arcs. He’s definitely not being totally ignored by the series or anything.

On the opposite side, one of the saddest things to me personally is that Zane was not only tied with Cole for focus points, but also was ranked lowest (lower than even Wu) in times points were earned. That means season 3 is the only point in the series when he held any meaningful and sustained focus. There are no shorts for him, or larger important plot lines, it’s just season 3. I mean, he was supposed to have more focus than Cole, right? We always rag on the fact that Cole doesn’t have a season, so he must have the least focus. Zane had his own season, surely he would have scored higher! But when you look back you realize that even though he’s had presence, the amount of meaningful stuff he actually does is pretty minimal. Seriously, writers, time to get this droid some sub focus.

Speaking of droids, I would like to bring up something I’m sure no one else was thinking about while doing this, and that’s Pixal. Pixal has been a part of the show since season 3 and has technically been working on the team ever since Season 4. By the looks of season 11, the writers want to include her as part of the main cast. They gave her a plot with Kai, Cole, and Jay where she basically led the defense of the monastery. She got her first solo episode in the ice chapter. Though the episodes aren’t out yet, season 12 episode descriptions seem to have her taking on a more active and offensive role and operating on equal footing with Zane. She is a member of the core cast now. Although she did join recently, it is interesting that a full-fledged member of the team didn’t score any points. Both Lloyd and Nya officially joining the team earned them some sub focus points. I just find it interesting that Pixal’s joining the team didn’t get her the same. Maybe there’s a more formal ‘joining the team’ arc for her coming in the future, but as for right now, she remains in this strange focus-less limbo.

My favorite finding though is that the ensemble category just dominated pretty much everything. Ninjago at its core is an ensemble show, and I honestly think it’s at its best when it just functions as one. What are some of the fandom’s least favorite seasons? 3, 6, and 7, right? These are all very clear-cut ninja focus seasons. I really think the fandom needs to stop forcing ninja labels onto every single season, cuz it really doesn’t do them any real service. It just makes you disappointed that X ninja is getting yet another season, or this X ninja season isn’t focusing enough on X ninja. Just enjoy the show for what it is! An ensemble show! The ninja shine best when they interact off of each other, not when they’re left to process their troubles alone.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. Feel free to comment any other cool data connections I missed! I hope this did a little bit to enhance your perspective on focus seasons, focus ninja, etc. It also probably made focus sound like a non word, so I’m sorry about that one. I know this is a long one, so seriously, thanks for reading! 

#ninjago #parachuterants #focus ninja debate #is that a tag? #I used excel for this #it took forever #help a girl out here

[himbowelsh]

Your writing is amazing! Could you please add David Webster to the valentines head canon list? 💝

valentines day alphabet  ( accepting! )

A   :   AFFECTION.   how does your muse show affection?

He leaves notes around the house. Sweet things, like ‘I’ll be thinking of you all day’ or ‘I wanted so badly to kiss you this morning’  ---  or even something simple as ‘Left you a smoothie in the fridge, love you’.  It’s a silly thing, and a few have gotten crumpled or swept into the trash before his partner noticed, but it’s just a way for them to know he’s thinking of them. He’s not very physically affectionate, and while he can (and has) professed his love a thousand different ways, words just don’t feel like enough. Notes are tangible, something to hold on to and tuck away to look over on a rainy day.

B   :   BOUQUET.   does your muse like flowers? which ones are their favourite?

Please, his family’s had a personal florist for ages. He might not know how to pick out flowers himself  ---  the best he can do is identify them, but he doesn’t know how to take care of them, or which flowers look good together   ---   but he can order up a gorgeous bouquet for any occasion.

C   :   CHOCOLATE.   does your muse like chocolate? which one is their favourite?

He doesn’t mind it. Milk chocolate only, please, and in small quantities, otherwise it makes him queasy. To be honest, he doesn’t trust himself with boxes of chocolate, so tries to avoid them.

D   :   DATE.   what is your muse’s ideal date? where / who with / etc?

Let’s go out sailing! Oh gosh, if a person hasn’t seen David sailing, they haven’t truly seen him. He’s in his element on the water. Never is his grin broader, his eyes brighter, his shirt looser...  he loves being out on the waves so much. Being out there with someone he loves sounds like heaven. God, he would love to show his partner the ropes  ---  literally  ---  to introduce them to his boat and teach them how to sail. If they handle themselves well on the waves, he’ll definitely fall a little in love.

E   :   EMBRACE.   does your muse like hugs? what are their hugs like?

Depends who the hug is comping from. Web can be picky. Sometimes Hoobler just grabs him and he stays there like a spike in the ground until he’s done  ---  David much prefers seeking out the hug first, at least initiating it. His hugs are gentle, not too intrusive, clearly meant to share comfort rather than offer anything. He’s fond of rubbing someone’s shoulders.

F   :   FLIRT.   is your muse good at flirting? how do they flirt?

David is well-spoken, handsome, and can be profoundly charming at the right moments. He’s probably better at flirting after a glass of champagne, but can usually handle himself. Of course, he’s not always great at reading the room, so some occasional blunders can’t be helped.

G   :   GIFT.   is your muse good at gift - giving or do they struggle to get it right?

It’s definitely a struggle, but David wants to get it right  ---  and he puts a lot of effort into it. While he’s not above just asking, to know point-blank what they want, then he has to get the best version of that thing possible. He’ll search for hours to find exactly the right gift...  and even if he ended up getting a hair straightener instead of curling iron, or a the wrong brand of toy, all that heart still shines through.

H   :   HEART.   is your muse quick or slow to give their heart away?

David is...  that really weird type of impulsive where he thinks everything through, until he doesn’t. Those impulsive moments are his greatest successes or greatest failures. He doesn’t mean to fall in love quickly, but the moment he realizes he’s in, he’s all in. His heart isn’t easily dissuaded.

I    :   I LOVE YOU.   does your muse find ‘i love you’ easy or hard to say?

Words are easy; these three particular words, not so much. He’s really got to fight his way to a place where he feels confident in saying them...  and even then, they’d stall on his tongue, because he’s really not sure his partner will say them back. No matter how fiercely he loves them, there’s always that little shred of uncertainty...  and to get past it, Web probably ends up blurting “I love you” at an unexpected time. It’s not how he planned on doing it at all, not half as romantic as it should be...  but once that wall’s been bulldozed through, and his partner says it back, suddenly it’s easy to say all the time.

J   :   JEALOUSY.   does your muse get jealous in a relationship?

Quite. He just...  doesn’t like seeing other people encroaching on the person he loves, and if he has to make that displeasure known, he will. David’s style is subtle and public. He’ll lace hands or pull his partner closer during a night out, occasionally pressing a kiss to their cheek  ---   just close enough to their neck to give a thrill, reminding them that they’re his, and he’s right here. He’s not really vocal about it, but his jealousy sends a message.

K   :   KISS.   is your muse a good kisser? why / why not?

David is… an inquisitive kisser. He likes to test his partner’s limits, exploring their mouth like a born scientist. He charts the groves of their lips with his own, memorized their taste, sucks gently just to gauge their reaction… and the more encouragement they give him, the more adventurous he’s willing to get. Needs to have his partner close, right against him while they’re kissing. If they get too into it, he’ll start grinding unconsciously; god forbid it gets pointed out, cause he’ll turn five shades of red at once.

L   :   LOVE.   who does your muse love?

Sharks, sharks, sharks sharks sharks  ---  EVERYBODY!    (No, okay, he’s the sort of pretentious to say “my first love will always be my craft” while glowering at a novel draft he hasn’t touched in three months, but...  he really does love his family, no matter how often he bickers with them. Web’s the sort of person who absolutely cherishes his friends, and takes them very deep into his heart. He loves whatever he’s passionate about, be they people, things, or ideas.)

M   :   MOONLIGHT.   is morning or night a more romantic setting?

He loves early morning; it’s the epitome of serene tranquility, the point of existence all humans should aspire to. The sun breaking over the horizon illuminates a person’s truest self. Too bad he’s a horrible morning person who resents dragging himself out of bed any time before 9am. If people are their truest selves at dawn, Webster’s a feral rat who just won a fight for the last pizza crust on the subway.

N   :   NAUGHTY.   what is your muse like in bed?

There’s a lot of hip action; David grinds without meaning to, rolling and writhing on instinct alone. It serves him well when he actually puts it to use, hands locked around his partner’s waist as they roll like a ship on high seas. No matter what, David needs to be holding his partner, anchoring himself — it lets him feel in-control, even in a situation where he’s utterly out of it. A very expressive lover — his facial expressions are obscene, holding nothing back — and a furiously intense kisser. During the act, he loves to be working at his partner’s neck, pressing deep kisses into the flesh there… because meeting their eyes overwhelms him too easily. Good luck getting him to keep quiet. He gasps and moans, sometimes going to the effort to muffle himself against the back of his own hand, but usually not bothering. At his peak, his entire body arches, muscles going tense, and he can never restrain a moan as he slowly comes down.

O   :   ODE.   does your muse have a way with words?

Absolutely  ---  though he thinks he’s a lot better at love poetry than he actually is. It’s a work in progress. David is an eloquent and spellbinding speaker, especially when his words come straight from the heart. He’s excellent at expressing what he feels.

P   :   PARTNER.   what does your muse look for in a partner? looks / personality?

He’s drawn to very vibrant people  ---  people who seem to light up a room when they walk in, people with a slight current of energy to them. Like any artist, David craves inspiration...  so he seeks out people who can provide him with it. Maybe someone who enjoys reading, who can carry on intellectual discussions with him  ---  but also someone who can debate and challenge him when he’s too set in his own ideas. Someone with an adventurous spirit. Someone who can play nicely around his parents, and looks great in formal wear. Caring about the environment is a must. Someone who...  will take an interest in the things he’s passionate about, but also has their own passions which they care about deeply.

Q   :   QUESTION.   would your muse ask the big question or expect their partner to?

The problem with David is that...  he thinks. Too much. Overthinker extraordinaire. He wants to consider all the possible alternatives before making a big life decision, which often leads to him not making that decision at all. Pretty much every big leap he takes is on impulse, and he handles the fallout later. He’s never expect his partner too, but, frankly, would be better off it they did. When he does drop the question, it’ll probably be impulsively, with some grand poetic declaration, and possibly a ring improvised with whatever’s onhand. He’s got a rich family, they’ll get a nice diamond later.

R   :   ROMANCE.   is your muse a romantic or a cynic?

He’s got a romantic soul, even if acknowledging it makes him feel like a fool. He knows better, after all. The world is not a kind place to those who leave their hearts open, inviting happiness like sweet deliverance when pain so often disguises itself as pleasure...  but he likes the idea of love. It would be nice. He wants to fall in love, he wants to be in love, and he wants to finally understand what so many writers are obsessed with. He wants the sort of love you fill books with.

S   :   SWEETHEART.   did your muse have a childhood sweetheart?

If you subscribe to the “kids only bully other kids because they like them” line of thinking...  sure. Lil’ David had  t o n s  of admirers.

T   :   TRUE LOVE.   does your muse believe in true love?

I reiterate: “He wants the sort of love you fill books with.” Maybe it doesn’t exist anywhere outside of fiction, and in the minds of some...  very questionable historical lovers  (Bonnie and Clyde, F Scott and Zelda, Percy and Mary Shelley)  but he’s open to being proven wrong.

U   :   UNREQUITED.   has your muse had their heart broken?

Everyday, by the unrelenting oppression of human cruelty. And the fact that sharks are nonironically viewed as monsters by the general public. And the fact that people don’t see knowledge as the bright light illuminating the path to the future? Or the fact that people don’t realize that if you don’t remember your history you’re doomed to repeat it? Or the fact that some people genuinely like pineapple on pizza  ----     He’s a sensitive boy.

V   :   VALENTINE.   how does your muse feel about valentine’s day?

It’s a capitalist scheme to sell a frightening amount of chocolate boxes and prey on the vulnerabilities of single people. He’s against it on principle. Couples can have romantic dates any day of the year, what’s so special about this one?  (Still, get him roses, he’ll be thrilled.)

W  :   WEDDING.   would your muse get married? why / why not?

He...  goes back and forth. It’s what his parents really want for him, which is almost enough reason for him to never want to...  but he’s got a sense of obligation, too, so maybe. But what if it’s a mistake? What if he doesn’t truly love the person? What if he thinks he loves them, but one day wakes up and realizes it was all an illusion? What if they fall out of love with him? What if ---

He wants to, deep down. Once he finds the right partner, all those anxieties will fade away. It’s really just the not knowing what to expect that worries him.

X   :   XOXO.   does your muse use / like pet names?

He’s not excessive about them   ----   “darling”  and  “sweetheart”  being his biggest offenses   ---   but also isn’t above literary allusions.  “You’re the Hermia to my Lysander” / “The Isolde to my Tristan” / “The Zelda to my F. Scott”, at which point he’s earned any eyerolls he gets.

Y   :   YOURS.   does your muse get protective easily?

Definitely. How willing he is to fight over it is directly proportional to how much alcohol is in his system, or how egregious the offense is   ---   some things will send him feral, alcohol or not. Like insulting his partner outright, or grabbing at them? Web doesn’t stand for that. While he’ll usually try to diffuse a situation just by taking his partner and ducking out, or maybe trying to talk it through, if he sees shit like that, he’ll snap. There’s a lot more fight in him than one would assume at first glance.

Z   :   ZZZ.   how many people has your muse slept with?

Well, he’s had a few girlfriends back in college, but nothing obscene. David really keeps to himself. He’s had maybe… two or three partners beforehand, so it’s not like he doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he doesn’t really know… all the ins-and-outs yet. (Make of that what you will.)

#Anonymous #david webster #david kenyon webster #headcanons

[human-enthusiast]

Antagonist: Buggy (East Blue - And Before This Time Frame)

At first, I was still on and off about my decision on whether or not I would make an analysis on Buggy at all. My analysis pages aren’t necessarily about the villains of One Piece in general, but more towards humanitarian or misanthropic topics reflected in their world from ours. In the first few appearances, I thought I had nothing to go off from, at least in context of World Issues. But I started writing out his characteristics and anything known about his past that could reflect on it, and then I started writing on something to reflect later after writing out other analogies with other villains and their world.

Characteristics: 

Stereotypical behavior of a pirate

Narcissism: Blames others for his mistakes (Shanks)

Treats a majority of his     underlings as replaceable/worthless

Alignment: Chaotic Evil/Neutral Evil

Worthy Notes

He was one of the recognizable characters who witnessed Roger’s execution up front.

Before this, he knew him personally and grew close with his captain.

To me, he and Shanks are friends/crewmates that had similar circumstances but different outcomes - two sides of the same coin (Important Distinction).

Buggy is a character that I both dislike and love for various reasons. If there was a person, who had a striking resemblance to him (in both looks and especially personality), there is a 100% chance I would not get along well with him. The arrogance, laugh, and overall characteristics of a narcissist that gets his ass handed to him in nearly every encounter is annoying to the point of wanting to punch him personally.

However, he also handles many of his problems and the crazy reality that is their world with great comic relief like a majority of the characters. He himself has great one-liners and funny encounters that make him a great antagonist towards Luffy and an overall character of One Piece.

He’s one of the few designated antagonists of the East Blue Arc that popped up later, not only in the same arc, but in other arcs afterwards. Alvida does as well but she isn’t treated very much like an antagonist after Loguetown. More mild and laid back as Buggy’s vice captain, without straying from her original personality.

The thing about him from the beginning is how iconic of a character he is, mixed with some stereotypical personality traits as the main character’s villain. With the listed traits above, he actually isn’t the most original kind of villain under a broad definition.

I use the moral alignment chart for these analysis and/or characters because it’s one of the easiest ways to place and understand the foundation about them. For Buggy, he could go either way for being neutral or chaotic in the evil row. He does things for his own gain. But he also does evil acts because he is under the notion that he can with no other reason. Many of the East Blue antagonists are essentially like this.

Before knowing anything about Buggy later on, and even after, I would put him in the same boat as Krieg and Arlong. These are very chaotic pirates who also display typical pirate personas. Greedy, foul playing, captains without any remorse or care for others (although Arlong, towards fishmen and crew mates, tends to be an exception). They appear to not have an underlining motivation to be the way they are. Just regular, run-of-the-mill pirates.

But taking in consideration his past affiliations on being a cabin boy to Gol D. Roger, his attitude, in tune with Arlong’s, makes a lot of sense. 

The start of the Pirate Era sparked a grand affiliation to the massive sweep of pirate crews to take to the seas. A historically popular phenomenon done in a way that no other sailor accomplished the way Roger did: conquer the Grand Line. When an ever-changing event like this occurs, you have a mix of on-lookers who are changed by this. Characters like Luffy are filled with adrenaline. A need to seek adventure, making him the perfect predecessor for Roger’s Legacy, but in a way where he can call it his own.

Then there are characters like stereotypical, unnamed pirate crews, a majority of which mainly focus on the prospect of Roger’s treasure One Piece. They physically have nothing to tie them down, so they feel it necessary to pursue that challenge. This sparks greed or a search for infamy, something that actually connects to Ace’s motivation the most, but he has a more dynamic change that alters his motivations. Compared to others, this change is due to an instance where he is showed an alternate approach on life and dreams, a somewhat more healthy version. But when this alternate approach isn’t introduced to others, they are bound to the same mindset, installing more harm along the way. 

The known reactions are like two sides of the same coin. They’re broad chances of what someone will turn out in response to this freedom on treasure hunting and adventure seeking. And the two characters that are on those sides are Shanks and Buggy.

Personally, I find this to be an excellent coincidence. Now whether Oda intended for there opposing characters to mean anything significant is up for debate. But my interpretation proceeds them as the differing approaches when they (1) lose something significant in their life and (2) in retaliation against the unfair advantages life threw at them.

Buggy takes on the evil, greedy and infamy route in response to Roger’s execution.

As selfish as he is, Buggy did care very much for his past Captain. Most likely as a father figure of sorts considering he was rather young when he first joined as a cabin boy. He was able to make bonds with the crew mates, showing the more humanistic side of him.

In the events of Roger’s untimely sickness and later execution, I say it created an unfathomable emotional downfall on Buggy. In love and loss, it can have a negative influence on someone. He doesn’t seem to stray away from a greedy persona even with the Roger pirates. However, they acted as a sort of buffer, suppressing that intent need enough where it tends to affect only him.

With instances like Orange Town in Episode 5-8, his greed has an outward impact on the people and environment. I doubt he had any monetary reasoning for docking in the small town. There could have definitely been some looting, but that probably wasn’t their main purpose. It seems more along the lines of a power move.

Throughout his stay, he ultimately uses his Buggy Balls to obliterate different sections of the town, describing it as “his idea of fun.” Now whether because he lacked the resource or motivation, he never seemed to be this destructive as a younger cabin boy. He was still capable of violence and only doing so when needed.

He offers insight about the potential in taking on negative behaviors against the world, in combination of this obtainable freedom. He takes it with a motivation in the form of retribution.

Now how does Shanks play into this?

I said before that these two are like the sides of the same coin. And this is how far it goes:

They, literally and figuratively, were on the same boat. That being the Oro Jackson’s crew and witnessing first hand Roger’s execution.

Unlike Buggy, however, Shanks wasn’t affected in a downward spiral of vengeance. Where Buggy took on the active persona of a vindictive route, he took to Roger’s will. The concept of inherited will within One Piece is a powerful notion. Especially with how it plays into the influence of a character and the world around them.

Roger’s will is directed more towards the importance of adventure and unbridled freedom. Doing something for yourself and “destroying” the world in a round-about way.

He is the opposite of Buggy by choosing the path of piracy in leniency. He isn’t necessarily upright and morally good in all regards. Because I’m certain he could have done bad things. But his outlooks on life make him move forward from the past.

Meanwhile, Buggy is situated into his past persona, and possibly due to the loss of his captain, by striving to be the King of the Pirates. Buggy has a connection to it that many others wouldn’t have known about until around Sabaody and Marineford. This need with the title is one of the defining elements of being greedy to an unexpected turn in his life.

This plays in well with his narcistic attitude in blaming others for mistakes he’s made in the past. Specifically where he blames Shanks for “making” him accidently eat his devil fruit. While he does find a use in his powers, he remains to be bitter about it. A reaction like this shows a character that ties himself with things he wish were different, believing that acting on them in the future will somehow change it. And about the only way he finds some use in it is fulfilling his desire to be at the top. A familiar form that ties him to Roger in the past.

Of course, I’m not implying that Roger’s death sparked his greed, because it is quite obvious he was always like that. No, it’s more of he represents the expected type who find satisfaction in titles. The expected results of Roger’s last words that the world paints into perspective. Buggy’s the negative aftermath that people expect when the world changes.

Because in simplistic sense, change begets destruction.

Change creates numerous responses that guide people, and it can be interpreted in broad groups. The results of these events divide people and their motivations, creating a diverse but also destructive world within One Piece.

~~~~~~~~

#one piece #analysis #themes #manga #world issues reflection #antagonist reflection #honestly this is me rambling trying to make a clear point #one piece analysis

[everydayanth]

Let’s talk about talking about politics! Yay! Everyone’s favorite!

Over the past few weeks/months/years, I have had this strange insider seat to a bunch of criminal justice/poly sci professionals (as in, they get paid as professors or scientists or compliance officers, etc.) as they talk about politics and get angry at the general public for our lack of understanding, without having the patience to teach or explain. 

Two problems: 1. the ivory tower issue of watching and not actively engaging in the social part of social science, but as their friend, I will note much of this comes from burnout through negative engagement and attacks; 2. expecting others to have had an adequate education to even know many of these tools exist in order to discuss things beyond our average public school education that cuts out Fridays and makes random half days because we can’t afford teachers or textbooks. 

As an awkward observer, here are some things I never talked about in school, despite having a better political/civil/economics education included in my curriculum than many of my friends:

1. When we vote for someone, we are voting on a trend in politics. Not as a result, but a direction to move, and most voters vote for the candidate who is closest to their current values already, rather than following the trend of voting for who would move policy to match their needs. 

2. Our values change far more than we think they do and they almost always align with a problem we require a solution to or a fear we would like to stabilize or go away, such as property taxes. Because we need to trust the person to solve our problems, especially if we are projecting large fears, candidates who are most likable. We don’t like to stir the pot, we just want it to go where we want, fighting for something is exhausting for everyone.

3. We consider political agendas to be moral agendas but do not agree on obligations. Many feel powerless, others are powerless, we talk about responsibility, but without acknowledging those first two things, it sounds more like blame. We also imagine many things to be wishful thinking that are enacted successfully elsewhere and fail to understand or use logical reasoning to really discuss issues. Anything will be an experiment because the US is so huge, but it is a scalable experiment working in other places, often we don’t understand that until we’re abroad and sick.

4. We’re not sure how to translate policy, and our country was built by and for lawyers. There are very little areas where we agree as a society on black/white right/wrong, and in many ways that’s good, but when it comes to discussing policy, it can be very confusing.

To account for these aspects, people use charts and grids. Much like personality tests, these are useful for creating a foundation upon which to debate and discuss, but are ultimately made by humans in order to generalize and will have errors and discrepancies. But the political spectrum has rarely been the single line most of us were taught. Instead, it is often a grid used to navigate the direction and preference of trends. Most people are much more moderate than they think, but have problems that need cooperative solutions, like the water crisis and fires on the west coast, disaster relief in the south, crop failure in the midwest, and ticks and diseases in the northeast. We all have huge problems and some areas are insulated from them for now, but they will come. How we navigate and demand solutions for those problems is what creates policy and the policies we agree with because of our value is what dictates our vote. 

So here’s some charts that human people made to talk about these things with and they have helped ground a lot of engaging conversations with people as I watch them argue but not get angry, because there’s a visual thing to talk around. Those kinds of tools should be everywhere. 

The political compass:

via Wikipedia: political spectrum

^

^A generalization of what different areas might look like. I’ve seen so many versions of this, but I liked the way this one because it gave me a better understanding of words I’m more familiar with and where they fall within the broad concepts. I couldn’t find the source. 

^ Here is another one from Google that took me to a shady site, so I didn’t link it, but the goal is to just be familiar with the different ways people structuralize and use definitions and terms to divide them up, in the end, the general understanding is all that matters, and our goal is to be functional, for the government to be usable by the people. Hamilton, the musical, was/is so important for many reasons, but one of the big ones is that it reminded us that this fight of trends and moving around the board has been going on since the very first election of a president to America. It’s always about one group pulling another, creating a tug-of-war that keeps us near the middle, hopefully.

This is a graph showing the individual party ideologies of past presidents by a site called Fact Myth. It is showing the party split between individuals and while we could argue and speculate about accuracies and meanings, whether a president was pushed to make a decision as a person, etc. in the end, they represent the will of the people and the trends we with to follow to solve problems at the time. 

^An outline someone made of 2020 candidates on Reddit that has been going around for a while. Jake showed this to me and while he was perfectly receptive to me saying that yeah, but a person made this and they can have agendas and just put people places, he also had some really great points on how Americans often think we’re moderates, but what we perceive to be in the middle is often skewed by capitalism. That’s not to say it’s bad, simply that if we’re talking trends and problems and solutions, we have to understand where we are on the real scale, not just our own. We will also tend to vote for those who are closest to us, rather than moving in the direction of us, so, say someone sits right where Ryan is, Ryan drops out; now, despite their personal political preference being on the edge of the middle moderate square, they move to Biden rather than Warren or Sanders because Biden is closer to their original place, even if, coming from Trump, moving to Warren/Sanders would pull the political trend back toward their moderate preference. 

Not everyone does this, obviously, but I’m fascinated by how our individual personalities affect how we decide politics. Are you a “next best thing” kind of person? Are you a “obsess relentlessly until it’s done” kind of person? Are you a “don’t fix it if it ain’t broke? Or what about “out of sight out of mind, doesn’t bother me, I don’t care” kind of person? So many of the ways we solve our daily problems are reflected in the ways we move our own political affiliations during voting times. I just think that’s interesting because I’m a social science nerd though. 

A friend from Brown who is much older than us (also a social science nerd <3) pointed out that she grew up with such antagonizing propaganda during the cold war and beginnings of technological boom and peak oil, and it all said the same thing, anything outside the blue is morally wrong and heavily corrupt. I thought that was an interesting point about exposure and remembering past problems, how voting ages overlap to find new solutions or rely on old ones, and what it would cost us to see American politics on a global scale. 

^This is a global scale of values (not politics) from the wikipedia page on political spectrums, and I thought it tied into the conversation in interesting ways, especially when we look at American generation differences in individualism and social cooperation and how they are viewed by each other to both be equally negative. There’s a whole world of solutions and different ways things our done, but we’ve been taught from birth that some are bad and others are exceptions and ours is good. 

Vox has an interesting tool to figure out where abouts you would lie on the compass. I think debating it with others is a better way, since it’s a primarily relative scale (unless you prefer those structuralist ones, but keep in mind that it’s a preference, not a requirement). But I thought I’d include it for those who may not have access to that kind of conversation. 

In the end, consider your morals and how they are different from your current values, and how your current values are affected by your current problems, and how you want the world to look, how you want trends to move, and how your biases of experience or ignorance might play a role in that. I honestly didn’t really think about healthcare until I was in Ireland and saw how simple an alternative was and how freeing it felt. My parents can’t even imagine it (and they are of the class who should most desire those changes), they don’t have enough of a base knowledge to understand how it works, it’s electricity after gaslamps. 

Anyway, just thought I’d share some of those tools. As a skeptical person, I want to remind everyone that these are tools, not documented facts, and fighting about where people are on the graph and where we might be is part of how we come to conclusions about rights and wants and solutions and needs and what we actually value. Most of us, in the end, value comfort and hope, and we vote for the people we think provide that to us. The problem often lies in people misunderstanding their own comfort and relying on ignorance rather than hope. I found these graphs useful in grounding my talks with overwhelming professionals and finding some semblance of peace in what I wanted to hope for and I hope maybe for some of you they can provide that as well. ❤️

If, like me, you reached your 20s and realized a gaping hole in your education, I also recommend the Crash Course series on US Politics. It helped me understand a lot of things that were skimmed over in textbooks or left as multiple choice answers on a standardized test. Politics are a series of solutions to the problems we face as a social group, and knowing how to talk about them completely changed my own feelings of helplessness when communicating to others. 

#politics #political spectrum #political compass #education #american politics #voting #policy #society #sociology #anthropology #discussion #education access #crash course

[themelodicenigma]

So you really DON'T believe that Sora looks like Ven or Roxas??? Wtf lmao Bluerosesburnblue stuck to the facts there as usual, so why are you fighting the truth so hard? I dont want to sound rude but nothing you said made any sense. It's PERFECT for Sora to have been influenced by Ven and its basically implied in BBS.

I do like how the moment I allow anonymous asks again, the questions come flying in. Especially, when this is one of four that I’ve received talking about the same thing since those posts. I can’t tell if it’s even the same person, or if I just riled up some indignant feathers of her followers. I don’t know Blue personally, but I do feel pretty confident that she wouldn’t encourage one of the things you (probably) sent based on her comments about similar behavior during the SRT debunk. I know that the original inquirer, Mademoiseli, wouldn’t like it either. 

Well done.

In any case, you could’ve brought it to the table on the reblog/comment chain instead of in my ask box, but...

Okay.

I am pretty tired of this conversation and the impact it has had on my interaction with others, so this is probably going to be the last time I address this unless any actual new information comes about regarding this part of the story. There is something that needs to be realized though:

For one—the reason why I even commented in the first place and why the conversation took its turn is essentially linked. The reason I entered it was because I held a difference to these statements and phrases made by Blue’s first answer:

“I think it’s certainly possible that Sora’s connection to Ventus did effect his appearance in a number of ways, and out of every possibility that one seems the most likely to me.” 

along with:

“Ultimately, I can’t say for certain that Ventus had an impact on Sora’s appearance, but since there seems to be a good deal of evidence supporting that it would be possible, it’s one of the better explanations in my opinion.”

[via Blue post]

Admittedly, I was “triggered” to respond from this, which so happen to be the opening and closing statements of the posts. But, I understand that I shouldn’t have been prompted by it in the way that I was (not fully, anyway).

In that, she was primarily talking about the topic of Ven influencing Sora’s physical appearance as a probable explanation to the hypothetical question of, essentially, “Why do Sora and Ventus look alike?”. All the while, looking at how the ideal was congruent with existing concepts.

I, on the other hand, in addition to that, took it as an evaluation of, not only a hypothetical scenario, but extending to that of weighing the probability of the question and explanation becoming reality within the context.

In other words, while she was much more concerned with whether there existed congruent truths between the premise (Ven influencing Sora) and the context, I was primarily concerned with establishing whether it HAS happened and judging the likelihood of it happening at all. Between us speaking on theory and concepts or plausibility and probability—these certainly aren’t mutually exclusive, but the direction of the conversation was split between the two somehow. 

And I’ll take the blame for that, but in recognizing that our approaches weren’t completely separate, still, talking about the likelihood of the premise being true and/or introduced at a later time WAS still a relevant topic. It could’ve been its own conversation, but it was relevant, nonetheless.

Two—I am a person that, when encountered with a question, I am first immediately concerned with the facts. Always. Only after that do I inquire about uncertain material through a “possibility spectrum”, and what determines the strong end of this are the facts that suggest or support the proposition at hand. Through that, I’m never opposed to admitting my uncertainty about something or the existence of “breathing room” to probability. Not to mention, establishing the difference between plausibility and probability for its interaction in gauging truth—I could get more into that, but it won’t be necessary for the sake of this post.

Anyway, with that out of the way, I’m going to approach the rest of this post by centering it around this question [ID as premise]:

Premise: “Do you believe it’s possible for it to be explained that Ventus influenced Sora’s physical appearance when their hearts connected?”

Understanding the extensions and work around of the questions (Sora growing into the influence and not being instant), I would answer—yes, it is possible by the merit of its potential to be. However, after reviewing the explanations already established for this connection and the results created by said explanations for the topic the prompt addresses, I would say that it’s unlikely to happen.

Yeah. You read that right.

Possible, but unlikely to happen. [improbable] 

Remember to consider that there are two ways in which something can be explained for fictional media. This is typically split in what is taken from the concept of Diegesis, where in this scenario, we’re talking about explanations that function internally within and by the world, and explanations that function externally outside and by other means. Both approaches can even simultaneously exist for the same topic—there being an appropriate explanation for something in both ways.

The formation of my conclusion, actually, is based on the facts, which also don’t include any strict implication that Sora was influenced by Ven, as if to even create an equilibrium between their facial features. If anything, you could argue the opposite was done, specifically in the way of making a distinction between the two by their face.

So, let’s take a step back, and go to where all of this actually started in the game’s context. The first question revolving around this topic would essentially be this:

Q1: “Why do Roxas and Sora look alike?”

*we’ll refer to this as Q1

If not automatically generated by the events of the story itself, this question was made relevant even back in the release of the Ultimania Alpha (when Roxas was just “Mysterious Boy”). Here we could see Roxas’ face and model much more clearly than that of the picture at the end of the GBA version of CoM. The Ultimania Alpha features this as his profile header (and also on the correlation chart):

“Who does he (you) look like? The key person of “II””

- KH Ultimania Alpha—Roxas’ Profile, pg.12 

First, it’s good to establish that by design, the characters of Sora and Roxas do and were intended to [basically] have the same face, save for a few differences made. They also have other attributes that are considerate of each other, but we’ll highlight the face specifics. This is certainly non-debatable from an external application that they are to be correlated characters by design.

“The facial models of Roxas and Sora are basically the same, but the chin is slightly different. When I put on his hair, Roxas looked a little bit stout, so I made him thinner.”

- KH2 Ultimania—Tomohiro Kayano [3D Modeling Director], pg. 345

“Roxas: I traced Sora for this piece. My image of Roxas actually came first, before Sora, and I had already drawn him for the first project document. The concept of "between" was something I kept in mind: since Sora's outfit was to be black this time, I made Roxas' base color white, and I also added a black and white checked pattern. The cross on his chest isn't a necklace, it's part of his zipper, and it is the motif of the Nobodies. Also, his hair is supposed to be the exact same length as Sora's.”

- KH2 Ultimania, pg. 701 [via KHInsider]

“Roxas A lot of thought was put into this character. Based on the premise that he was 'an expression of the reverse, hidden inside Sora', I gave him pretty much the exact same face as Sora, just with slightly narrower eyes. And then, I made white the basis for his clothes, in contrast to KHII Sora. The black and white checkered pattern, 'neither darkness nor light', was to be a hint. My absolute favourite scene of his has to be the one at the end of the opening of KHII, when he says 'looks like my summer vacation is over'. I put a lot of feeling into creating that, as I intended it to feel, for a moment, like the end.”

- Nomura, KH Character’s Report Vol. 1 [via KHInsider]

The third one is the most interesting because it’s the only one to provide an explanation to the external application of the similarity—it being based on the connection that the characters shared and how they’re perceived against one another. Roxas being the “reverse” of Sora was utilized in more ways than the face, more so than what is understood by how that could apply to Riku’s design.

If considering the relevancy of correlating Sora and Roxas’ designs outside of representing their connection to one another (i.e. just by design alone in representing it—external), the answer can also be assumed from the game’s revelations. Meaning, after playing KH2, it would be reasonable that people would essentially believe that the answer to Q1 was answered as:

“Because Roxas is Sora’s Nobody”

Hah.

However, in the reality of the internal explanation that directly influences the characters, this didn’t quite turn out to be the answer that was presented. Not only that, but the question changed. BBS happened, and instead, we receive an answer that turns Q1 into a misleading question, and presents another in its place:

Q2: “Why do Roxas and Ventus look alike?”

No, seriously. It is the literal question posed in the BBS Ultimania:

“Why do Roxas and Ventus look alike? A: Because inside Sora, which is Roxas’ body, is Ventus’ heart.

As was shown in the opening to KH BbS and the ending to Last Episode, Sora and Ventus’ heart are linked (P.646). And so Roxas, who is a part of Sora, was affected by that and looks just like Ventus.”

- BBS Ultimania, pg. 616 [via KHInsider]

The answer here is pretty straight forward. The “why” is propositioned by two things: Sora and Ventus’ hearts being linked and Ventus’ heart residing in Sora when Roxas was created. Whether it was just one or both of these reasons is inconsequential—Roxas took his physical appearance from Ventus, NOT Sora. This is the internal explanation given on the topic of Roxas’ and Ventus’ appearance, not the external as previously given in KH2.

Since BBS, the idea of Roxas = Sora has essentially been replaced with the actuality of Roxas = Ventus multiple, if not every single, time appearance is mentioned or corresponding questions were answered.

"Ven has the same hairstyle, face, clothes, and voice of Roxas, but just who is he?”

“The face of the polygon model of Ventus that appears in this title is, strictly speaking, different to the one from KH BBS. The one in KH BBS was subtly altered from Roxas' face, but this time, in order to increase efficiency on motion work, we used the same model for Ventus and Roxas.”

“Yes, it is the same actor. Therefore the player will only look at Ven as Roxas from Kingdom Hearts 2.”

[blazed through because those quotes are too long]

* Keep in mind it’s usually about how VEN looks like Roxas, because Roxas was introduced as a character first. Internally for the story, it’s really the other way around.

And, in the mountains of paratextual material that has covered the two characters since BBS, it has opted to mention the similar notion of Roxas getting his appearance from Ven—this being mostly by the specification of the face. The idea that Roxas and Ventus share the same “physical entity” has been introduced and cemented by the explanations given by BBS.

So, instead of getting Q1 v.2:

“Okay? But uhh, still, why do Sora and Ventus [Roxas] look alike, then?”

We get this:

Q3: “Why do Sora and Vanitas look alike?”

The answer, of course, was explained in a similar fashion to Q2:

“How did you decide on the design for their faces?

Nomura: Well Terra’s look was already a decided thing, we just had to make him look a bit younger. I knew that Ventus should look either like Sora or Roxas, and I wasn’t sure which one to go with, but I thought Vanitas looking like Sora would have a bigger impact so I had Ventus look like Roxas instead. And there is a reason that Vanitas looks like Sora. As Sora filled in Ventus’ fractured heart, the fractured part (Vanitas) was effected by Sora and ended up with Sora’s face. So if it had been Riku who had filled in Ventus’ heart, Vanitas would have looked like Riku.” 

- BBS Ultimania, pg. 646 [via KHInsider]

Similar to the above, instead of Vanitas, who comes from Ventus, looking as such of his existential bond, instead it emphasizes that of Sora = Vanitas by the physical attributes. Interestingly enough, in the same quote is the proposition of whether Ventus would look like either Sora or Roxas in development, lending more to the idea of this separation of their appearance. Similarly, this is mentioned consistently in how Vanitas looks like Sora. This extends even beyond the Ultimania books, as even the KH3 Character Files book emphasizes that Vanitas has “Sora’s face” and resemblance. [pg.86]  

If you read my posts in the original chain, you’d understand that what I’m pointing out is that, instead of establishing an equilibrium between the four characters, it instead creates the separation of two different physical entities:

Sora [Vanitas] and Ventus [Roxas].

This would be different than what was cleanly set between Kairi, Namine, and Xion—this being accompanied by external and internal reasons that not only captured the connections between the characters, but also have literal, internal reasons applied that are part of the narrative.

“How did you go about designing Xion's outward appearance?

Nomura: It was decided from the start that she would have a deep connection to Kairi, so she was based on Kairi with her hair changed a little. We were actually thinking of changing nothing but the colour of her hair, but when designs were drawn up her hairstyle was made quite a bit different too. Even the 3D polygon model's face is the same as Kairi's, apart from the hair. So, if you look at the 3D models of Xion, Namine and Kairi, they have the same face and differ only in their hair, but unexpectedly have individual personalities.”

- Days Ultimania, pg. 485 [via KHInsider]

Actually, the quote itself is similar to the comment made by Tomohiro Kayano above about Sora and Roxas’ 3D facial models being “basically the same”, except the girls are without difference of detail to the face, with the note of being the same while the hair is specifically what differs. This turns out to be an interesting detail because, there’s never an attempt to create a distinction between the three characters outside of what has been spoken for—their hair. And, they have the internal explanation to boot for what makes it literal in and of itself.

This is different than that of the Sora [Vanitas] and Ventus [Roxas] entities, where for internal functionality, there is then a difference by the face in those two and what it means for the characters in the story. As far as I’m concerned, there isn’t even an attempt to establish that they all have “the same face, but different hair.”

Where’s the equilibrium?

The further we go into the explanations that take a different road than that of what Q1 proposes, the question itself starts to become irrelevant—the mystery of the question’s origin (that between Roxas and Sora) was instead supplied by other lore reasoning in the world. All the while, setting a distinction between the two physical entities by “the face” as opposed to just answering the original question.

At least, in an internal way.

Really, Q1 is already answered—this answer being more external, that Roxas has “pretty much the exact same face” as Sora as a way to represent their connection to one another, with the “pretty much” representing the differences that can be accounted for.

However, when it comes to an in-world, internal explanation, instead of providing a lore-based reasoning to express in the narrative, which would’ve been thought to be the same reasoning (because he’s Sora’s Nobody) as the external reasoning, instead we have an answer that makes the Q1, now, seem misleading.

To be fair, it doesn’t necessarily eliminate the Q1, just makes it seem less likely to be answered or if even to be something to be asked anymore. That’s because, in all the ways we understand what resulted from the connection made between Sora and Ventus, we haven’t exactly been given an explicit negative to the possibility of the original premise:

Premise: “Do you believe it’s possible for it to be explained that Ventus influenced Sora’s physical appearance when their hearts connected?”

or, to reintroduce it in a familiar angle:

Q1 v.2: “Why do Sora and Ventus [Roxas] look alike?”

It’s not explicitly negated, but in all the information I could find, this following quote is the closest to answering either question.

– So it’s not “Once Sora’s story is finished, another hero’s story will begin”, the hero is always Sora.

Nomura: Yes. One of the concepts behind the KH series is that the main character Sora isn’t special, he’s just a normal boy. Yes he does have connections with Ventus’ heart, among others, but he hasn’t inherited anything from them. He’s just a normal boy you could find anywhere. I wanted to make Sora a character that the player could take onto themselves and feel that you don’t have to be special. But connect to many people and you will realize your secret potential. With BbS I want to make fans excited to see Sora’s return. The secret event is a symbol of that, so I hope everyone will get to see it and wait for Sora’s next adventure.

- BBS Ultimania, pg. 650 [Via KHInsider]

Unlike the other quotes supplied for the topic of Sora and Ventus’ connection, this quote was on the conversation of Sora’s adventures post-KH3. However, the comment itself is still in retrospect of the internal attributes of Sora’s character, even specifically mentioning his connection to Ventus’ heart, putting it in perspective of that particular circumstance that happens in the game.

So, what do we have now?

That comment doesn’t completely negate the premise, technically, but it also doesn’t support it either. In tandem with everything else in what HAS been done with the connection between Sora and Ventus....

It doesn’t look likely.

There’s also the mention of Aqua pointing out how Sora is:

ENG: “the spitting image of Ven”

JPN: “ヴェンそのもの [Ven himself]”

Even though there isn’t anything conclusive to whether she, just like with Riku, was talking more about Sora and Ven’s disposition than their physical face, the BBS Ultimania does go with the former.

“Guided by a warm light, Aqua meets two boys on the island. Their atmosphere [presence] was similar to that of Terra and Ventus.”

- BBS Ultimania, pg.384

As it is, the fact remains that there hasn’t been any attempt in equalizing the appearance between Sora and Ventus outside of what could already be understood externally through Sora and Roxas. 

The understanding of it being unlikely to be addressed or to be a truth doesn’t rely on “it wasn’t talked about”. Because, IT WAS talked about—the topic surrounding this HAS been approached, it HAS been explained, and the premise at hand isn’t anything offered as actuality.

So, why should I assume then that the information we’ve received for years, that has been explained and told in so many ways, is incomplete?

It could change, sure, but it’s not incomplete as it is. As to this day, we can safely say that the literal equalization of similarity isn’t between Sora and Ventus, because it, as of right now, literally isn’t in accordance to the observable facts. It hasn’t happened, even if to predict it to happen. And if to weigh the possibility of this change occurring, after all the facts presented above and how the subject has been breached, that yes—it’s an unlikely change.

Not impossible, but improbable.

And that is VERY reasonable to say after 10+ years and an immense amount of supplemental paratext produced to say something about it.

This being by not what information is lacking, but by what has been provided. And even then, the frequency and different angles in which the information has been touched upon makes it hit much harder.

If in the attempt to play devil’s advocate on myself, I would proposition that the proposed premise would be setup by the concept behind the story of BBS:

"There is no coincidence in fate"

In which, along with the questions of “why Riku was chosen to wield the keyblade, or why Kairi met Sora and Riku”, the original question (Why do Sora and Roxas look alike?) could’ve been a part of that, and thus, explained similar to that of the Kairi, Namine, and Xion situation—that Sora AND Roxas were influenced by Ventus (and, logically, Vanitas would’ve been as well), and that being why they look alike.

But nope.

Instead, we got it all the other way around where Sora is the character influencing the other characters, and being connected to all three through that direction, not backwards. Creating, really, the impression that the visual similarity between Sora and Ventus IS fate, but through this, it is part of that scheme in which two people who just so happen to be similar are connected to one another.

Their resemblance and their connection is by the design of fate and the way it was meant to be—not necessarily due to a direct phenomenon, but that two people who have that similarity were fated to have the connection they have.

It certainly has been done in storytelling before, so it isn’t a crazy concept anyway.

Don’t know for certain, but from the information available, that actually seems more likely.

Sora has not been affected by Ventus, and the fact that this information isn’t presented as incomplete, this idea becomes less plausible to even be implemented, if not, irrelevant. This would be the same to Q1 as it is, where it was diverted by other information and questions.

All the while, in recognizing the distinction given between the two physical entities of Sora[Vanitas] and Ventus[Roxas], I much more prefer how they’ve handled it so far, where that bridge between Sora and Ventus isn’t closed by that type of phenomenon, but instead, through the efforts of capturing the connection that the characters have. This is directly through the acknowledgement of how the story has implemented understanding of the distinction between the two, particular the face, NOT just the hair. This is also in accordance to story things, in that in the connection between Sora and Ventus, this is primarily a one-sided affair in how Sora influences Ven, NOT the other way around, and I’m fine with that in how it is represented in the story.

This is especially for the sake of Sora and Roxas’ characters is very concerned with his identity in relation to his existential ties towards Sora, and Sora is the normal boy who has “secret potential” by his ability to connect with other people. I’ve of zero interest of Sora’s character being tainted with that type of effect, especially now and in everything that hasn’t [would’ve] acted in accordance to it.

Sigh.

Anyway, that’s just what it is. Don’t send me any more asks expecting me to post this, because I honestly don’t have anything else to say about it that would be that much different. My points would largely be the same. If you have concerns though (like some quotes I got myself since KHInsider didn’t have them), just message me, and I’ll send some screen shots and whatnot.

Anyway, overall, it still remains an interesting thing to thing about alongside the concepts that are implemented in KH. That, I can agree on.

#kingdom hearts #sora #roxas #ventus #vanitas #but seriously #knock it off

[johannesviii]

Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 1988

So that’s the year I was born. A controversial move that had its detractors but ended up being recognised as “eh it's all right I guess” a few decades later.

Obviously my first-hand experience of “hearing songs on the radio and actually liking some of them” starts when I was around 3 or 4, so nostalgia will have very little to do with the first top 10 lists I’m making.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will be stuff in French. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

To be honest, we’re off to a good start because I didn’t mind listening to these year-end lists for the most part. Not a bad year for music overall.

Number 3 and 2 are heavily debatable because wikipedia doesn’t have a reliable list of the French year-end top 100 and the other sources I have contradict each other.

10 - I Think We’re Alone Now (Tiffany)

US: not on the list / FR: #57

I know it’s a cover. It’s not even an objectively good cover. It’s full of terribly 80s synth noises. Tiffany’s voice isn’t very strong either. And the version I’m the most familiar with is the cover made by The Birthday Massacre.

What can I say. I like it anyway, especially these little isolated keyboard notes that really shine over the mess of the music. The guitar makes some parts pretty epic too. Also, singing “RUNNING JUST AS FAST AS WE CAN” and failing to hit some notes feels great for some reason.

9- Need You Tonight (INXS)

US: #2 / FR: #45

Surprising a grand total of exactly zero people, edgy teen Johannes thought these guys were delightful every time there was an 80s retrospective on tv. Never actively listened to their stuff, but they still pop up pretty regularly on the radio here, and yeah, very good song.

Guess their other songs from that year would be honorable mentions.

8- Combien de Temps (Stephan Eicher)

US: not on the list / FR: #79

After this point, there’s only songs I’ve actively listened to at some point in my life.

This one has never been on any of my cd compilations but I kept it on one of my tapes and it was a delight to hear it every time, even though I can’t stand the singer’s voice and the lyrics make very little sense. The music is THAT good. It’s some quality pop-ish French new wave full of instruments and it’s visual eye candy and I adore it to the point I’m willing to ignore the rest.

If you’ve never heard it before, check it out just for the sake of the music video featuring a guy rolling on the floor to get anywhere because it’s quite surreal and funny.

Also, despite the fact the lyrics are mostly nonsense, I still adore the line “J’ai de la folie plein les veines” (”My veins are full of madness”).

7- Heaven is a Place on Earth (Belinda Carlisle)

US: #7 / FR: Not on the list

I discovered this song in January 2012 thanks to Todd In The Shadows’ Worst of 2011 list, where he joked about being worried that every 80s song he liked would be ruined by “Dirty Bit” by The Black Eyed Peas someday and he used this song as an example. I loved it instantly and put it on my mp3 player at the time.

Until a few months ago, this was still on my mp3 player.

I don’t think this needs further justification to be on this list.

6- Pourvu Qu'elles Soient Douces (Mylène Farmer)

US: not on the list / FR: # 5

This was one of the biggest hits of the year in France in 1988.

It’s made by one of my favorite French artists ever, Mylène Farmer, and I used to be a huge fan.

It’s a song about butts entirely written in euphemisms, with an earwormy chorus, and accompanied by an insanely long (18 minutes) artsy music video in 18th century costumes featuring an army being massacred in slow motion, mud, broken bottles, really terrible jokes, and a shit ton of not safe for work content, including (but not limited to), indeed, butts.

It’s also right there on the very, very first personal top 30 list I ever wrote down, back when I was 14. It’s number 21.

If you think I’m sorry, think again.

5- John (Desireless)

US: not on the list / FR: # 34

I had literally no idea that song existed until 48 hours ago and in that time I’ve listened to it more than twenty times.

Desireless is basically the French Eurythmics and I love her but for the longest time I was dead certain she was a one-hit wonder with her monster hit Voyage Voyage, and clearly, I was wrong since she had a second hit the next year. This is about an unknown soldier dying at war and I can’t believe this was completely erased from public consciousness to the point a new wave fan like me didn’t even know it existed.

Better late than never I guess.

4- Always On My Mind (Pet Shop Boys)

US: #80 / FR: Not on the list

This isn’t my favorite Pet Shop Boys song by a mile. And it’s a cover. And it’s full of weird synth noises left right and center, and it’s visually absolute chaos.

What can I say. It’s Pet Shop Boys. I love them and I love this cover and it sounds happy and epic and energetic, and it transforms a song I didn’t even like in the first place into something that puts a smile on my face every time I listen to it, and frankly it was #3 at first when I made this list, until I realised how long the next song stayed on my list of favorite songs.

3- Bleu Comme toi (Etienne Daho)

US: not on the list / FR: one site swears to me it was top 30, the other tells me it didn’t make the year-end list. Fuck it. Too late now.

I discovered this song in April 2005. I know this because I wrote it on the back of my top 30 favorite songs list labelled “9 April 2005″.

It immediately appeared on my list the next month as #15 and never left it until I stopped making these lists in 2007.

It’s an upbeat song about being depressed and finding another person who’s just as depressed as you and suddenly things don’t seem that bad when you’re together. Let’s just say it struck a chord with me at the time. A lot. A looooooot. And it builds into this epic thing and you and up singing “et mon humeur est down down down” (”my mood is down down down”) even though it SHOULDN’T be epic at all.

I haven’t actively listened to it in years but I sing along every time I hear it on the radio. I think at some point I had it on three different cd compilations, including one with both the single version and the live version. That’s the level of adoration we’re talking about here, and it still hasn’t completely faded.

2- Behind the Wheel (Depeche Mode)

US: not on the list / FR: same thing, one site swears to me it’s not on the top 100, another tells me it’s number 21. Whatever.

This was a big hit here and even though I don’t have a reliable list, whatever, this is my blog and not a professional publication.

If you know me a little the fact that I love Depeche Mode and have been loving Depeche Mode for a long time isn’t really a secret, so this is a bit like picking the Pet Shop Boy song at #4: I see one of their songs I like, it ends up on the list. Not my favorite of their songs by a mile either, but still wonderful.

1- Fast Car (Tracy Chapman)

US: #76 / FR: Not on the list

The problem when you like a song and don’t speak the language it’s in is that you can spend years without knowing what it’s called and who’s the author.

My father would play this song fairly often when I was a kid and it took me years to know what it was, who was singing it, and even more years to actually understand the lyrics and what it was about.

I loved it even before knowing all that. It already made me want to cry and I got the general idea of longing and sadness and hope way before I started to learn English. It is that good. It is that powerful. I can’t possibly rank any song above that one in good conscience and it was going to be #1 the moment I saw it on the Billboard list.

Next up: 1989, which is probably gonna feature a lot less songs I actually love.

#Johannes’ bad not good pretty terrible music lists #long post #music