#I love repetition of symbols in a character's design <3

[lil-ms-dipst]

What if I picked him up by his scruff he would be stuck there like a fucking baby

[dokidokitsuna]

Slowly, I think I’m getting a handle on this…I tried studying the character art from my favorite dead MMORPG, Maple Story 2, and I think it helped me find a style for the shading and rendering that’s more dramatic but still sort of cartoony.

Plus, I’ve been doing a bit of script writing, which always helps me figure things out. ^^ So please enjoy the additional work I’ve done on these character concepts.

-Between these two, Magolor definitely needed the most work: you can tell because I basically drew a full character design sheet, which is something I almost never do because I don’t like repetition. XP But it doesn’t feel repetitive when I’m totally lost to begin with. ^^; I think I got a little too abstract that first time I drew him, so my focus here was to figure out the specific shape of his body and rebuild outward from there. In stark contrast to my usual Magolor designs, he’s very tall and muscular, with an imposing silhouette (especially with his cape on). Yes, he IS hiding something under all those purple bandages, but we won’t talk about it today. ;)

-I also like that his outfit gets darker the further inside you go, from the solid white cape and glittering chains, to the silver armor and gray scarves, to the skintight navy blue fit underneath. Symbolism??? Perhaps~

-Blade’s design was already pretty solid, so I just adjusted her cape a little, and then dove straight into the Rainbow Malady concept art. ^^ Phase 1 has her sprout a second eye and wings on one side of her face. Her head catches fire, as the power of the Rainbow Sword attempts to ‘burn away the darkness’. In this phase, Blade is already in a lot of pain, but remains fully conscious and can even speak, when she isn’t coughing up multicolored blood. She can recover from this on her own with a day of rest. Phase 2 is much more serious, forcing her organs outside of her body, and growing star-shaped welts over the rest of her skin. At this point, she can no longer recover without Magolor’s help-- essentially, he uses magic to shove all her organs back where they belong and stitch up the open wounds. It’s like setting a bone after it’s broken-- just as painful as the injury itself (if not more), but necessary for proper healing…which takes about a week.  Phase 3 is the last and worst, transforming her arms into elongated wings and her whole body into burning plasma, on top of all the issues from Phase 2. Thankfully, she can’t really remain conscious in this phase-- she’s usually delirious from fever, blood loss, and her brain literally burning away. ^^; Storywise, she needs about a month to recover from this, so she doesn’t use it too often…of course, as the 'player', you can put her through it as many times as you want. =T

-Fun fact, I guess: So the primary love language between these two characters is food. ^^ I was musing about what I could do with a protagonist arc centered around worsening illness (which is…surprisingly rare), and I thought, “so what do you do for sick people? You put them to bed, you manage their symptoms, you clean and comfort them…and most importantly, you feed them.” And then ^that little doodle basically came to me in a dream, and from there evolved the idea of Magolor showing kindness to Blade by cooking for her.

Most of the time, the little affection Magolor shows to Blade is…basically performative. Think of it like a hammy supervillain petting their cat-- it’s more of a character stim than anything else. ^^; The way Magolor talks to Blade (and especially the way he talks about her…) makes it clear that the hand-holding and headpats don’t mean much.

But on the other hand, giving Blade food and watching her cutely devour it, especially during the times when she’s bed-ridden and he doesn’t see her as often…I like to think that might genuinely endear her to him a little, enough to make it a sort of stand-out gesture. Like, if he strokes her forehead when she’s sick, that’s whatever; but when he spends 5 hours making a Maxim tomato consommé for her to eat, that’s him trying to say he cares. Maybe it’s just a tiny bit, maybe it’s just in that moment, but a small part of him truly wants her to be happy.

[coolcoolcoolbutwtf]

dudeeee, do you know how feral I’m going over this?!? I fucking love it! You absolutely understood the assignment! There’s the unrestrained emotions and chaos I wanted to see in a piece like this! 

And believe it or not…the silhouettes surrounding Scourge instilled this sense of personal fear in me. [I’m fine btw.]

I think I’m really bad at finding the clues though…but I can try to interpret what I’m seeing.

[I’m sooo sorry if I get this wrong, you could tell me if I am.]

on the left page:

Piece of the orange jumpsuit, bloody and torn apart. 

Key and lock next to a red wall, possibly determined to keep others out. Can also symbolize feelings of being trapped and restrained.

Two silver circles, I’m betting it’s the handcuffs? 

Lots of teeth gnashing together. Either out of anger or endurance of pain. 

on the right page: 

The angry red scribbles on the top right corner, with highlighted teeth, it’s either the verbal abuse he’s endured or is lashing out verbally at others. 

Eyes on the bottom right corner constantly watching him, even when he’s free, representing his severe paranoia. 

Whenever I see swirls with a golden light, I can’t help but think of the Warp Ring, and based on how you gave the design repetition, I see it as Scourge desperately trying to move forward but he’s stuck in the same time and place mentally. 

The former king himself, looking pissed as ever, except he seems to be wearing a spiked collar. 

A lot of stars, that has to be part of the cosmic interstate, so he’s on the run. Constantly. 

That’s all I can take away from it, let me know if I miss anything!

Overall, it’s just amazing to look at. Thank you for answering my request.

Ooh I'm so happy you love it! ˖⁺‧₊˚ ♡ ˚₊‧⁺˖

It was really fun to make and Scourge is just such a fun character to explore with this type of stuff! Ahh so happy you found all those details especially the stars! Even made some have weird pupils.

The star thing was something I think really fits well with Scourge in my humble opinion. (Star metaphor) like a burned out type of way or a slowly dying one.

Since we are so far away from the stars we don't see them going out or dying. The stars are so far away yet we see them. Their light even if it's now gone echoes across space and we see them.

The collar on Scourge is supposed to be one of those with spikes or prongs on the inside and outside so when he speaks he hurts himself and others. °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°

Really nice catch on the bloody orange jumpsuit pieces! 👍(＾▽＾) Also you see that light blue on the left corner behind the prison stuff? Yeah that's supposed to be his childhood then it turns purple (a royal color haha) the red cloud the rage,his fall. The black all over is supposed to represent hurt, both mental and physical.

Crammed so much metaphorical (?) shit in this baby *slaps this sketchbook spread* sooo much.

φ(^∇^ ) Again thanks for the request it was super fun and sorry for the late reply <3 I'm always up for requests so swing by with them whenever, they are so fun. ☆ ～('▽^人)

♡〜٩( ╹▿╹ )۶〜♡

[rknchan]

HAPPINESS CHARGE PRETTY CURE LOVE POST

i just finished hcpc and i really enjoyed it !!!!!! its not going to be some kind of deep analysis i just gonna be silly about things i like in hcpc

THE CHARACTERS i adore each and every one of them (except for namakeruda i wanna punch him with lovely punching punch)

MEGUMI CHAAAN shes so precious to me !!!! so pure so truly lovely her desire to make everyone happy is so heartwarming megumichan always puts a smile on my face whenever shes on screen ^^

i saw people thinking shes mary sue but i cannot agree :c for me marysue is a character so perfect that theyre unbelievable (!)

and megumi IS believable to me . people like megumi do exist,,,,, and she has more serious flaws than being clumsy and bad at studying;

shes all about helping others but cares about herself little, when shes suffering her pain is hidden behind a smile to the point she can't resist her pain anymore, she worries about being weak and her help is not needed - altruistic people like megumi often experience this feelings too

also she reminds me of my fav person </3 and she motivates me to become a better person myself and believe in love and happiness,,, sorry it sounded cheesy but its true.. thank you megumi ^^

HIME HIME HIME my blorbo !!!!! at the beginning her anxiety and arkwardness, feeling of being not worthy enough to be a precure, escaping from problems felt so relatable :c and it felt so good to see her grow. the moment when she saved iona was so powerful. i wish we saw more of her family when she returned to blue sky

btw i love meguhime as friends and as a pairing theyre so pure so cute they care for each other so much awwww,w,w,,w,w,w, *holds them gently*

YUKOO precious rice bean and the most canonical lesbian of hcpc

i love her rice song its cute and catchy i often chant it ahhahaha

also i like how she always wants to keep peace, to befriend villains and give them love they lacked !!! "why keep fighting if we can eat delicious rice together" SAY THIS LOUDER QUEEN HONEY shes so based for this

i can't say much about iona maybe ??? shes a deep and realistic character and her story with cure tender makes me cry but tbh she put me off in the beginning as it was uncomfortable to watch her being harsh on hime (tho its justified)... but she grew a lot too ,,,,

i expected to dislike seiji but actually he was such a nice character and a loyal friend who actually has chemistry with megumi and role in the plot

QUEEN MIRAGE is my fav villain ever and tbh i can even relate to her

deranged traumatised emowoman ily

the story of her relationship with blue breaks my heart ... the moments when she still wants to be loved by blue but cant resist her anxious thoughts and red's manipulation... HER PURIFICATION SCENE WHEN ALL THE CURES COMFORTED MIRAGE;;;;; HER REUNION WITH BLUE;;;;;;;; sobs

the generals are so fun to watch :) dorks with goofy hats

hosshiwa remains my crush forever..... and oresky and namakeruda are just fuking silly smashing them smashing them

tho their final battle with the cures and their purification was such a deep and impressing scene

i love how brutal and creative was this season with its attacks. lovely punching punch <333 lovely beam <33 princess bullet machine gun <333 let cute girls do some violence

and their innocent form attacks are just beautiful

hcpc is often criticized for its repetitive designs and i sorta agree... but at least they were creative with international cures designs (aloha and bomber girls are my favourite, also im glad to see a cure from my country !!!! cure katyusha <3) and form changes AND FOREVER LOVELY DESIGN JUST SLAYS. SHE LOOKS LIKE A LITERAL ANGEL

also maybe theres a meaning behind the similar designs??? like, all the cures all over the world have similar costumes and it can symbolize they have a lot in common, theyre unite, they are a million-cure team .. while the phantom generals are all different, there's nothing uniting them, there's no team spirit or friendship between them

also the soundtrack is so good and catchy !!!!! i adore the opening and the rice song (and especially honey and hosshiwa's song battle) and the innocent song !!!!

i love the message of hcpc that everyone is worthy to be happy and loved, even if youre in deep despair, disappointed in life, thinking you'll never be loved and thus love is worth nothing - someone is always going to be here for you

but at the same time it points out that love can be a destructive force (red, mirage, dark seiji), that its impossible to be happy all the time, that feeling pain and hate is valid

sorry it turned out so long i hope i could share my love for happiness charge with you ,,,,,

i love you megumi i love you hime i love you yuko i love you iona i love you blue i love you red i love you mirage i love you seiji i love you masukomio i love you phantomu i love you hosshiwa i hate you namakeruda i love you oresky I LOVE YOU HAPPINESS CHARGE

[temporalreverie]

ponysona ref sheet :3

[text transcript: Carrie Go-Round, or Carrie for short It/She, Trans Mare, Lesbian Can prance through air with its saddle on. Gives carousel sky-rides to help others. It likes going around again, solving puzzles, helping with problems, music, good fortune, and going around again. Beholden to the whims of its fate & cycles, it tries its best to be carefree but secretly feels aimless at times.]

Extended character bio & art process thoughts below the cut v

Carrie Go-Round is a unicorn with carousel themed magic. Carousel magic works in mysterious ways. It can direct the magic somewhat and hone certain patterns through repetition, but it’s ultimately at the whims of the fate chosen for it. Usually everything works out just fine though.

While actively using its carousel magic and wearing its saddle, it can prance on top of air. It takes others on rides through the sky using this, giving them time and space to think through a problem they’ve been having. These rides can involve a conversation, a magical spectacle of lights and music, or simply peace and quiet, whatever will help the other pony best. Flying, putting on light shows, and making music are all come naturally when the magic is in service of another.

Carrie has adapted an outwardly carefree and playful nature. It’s partially its true self, and partially a defense mechanism in response to the lack of control that the carousel makes it feel. When you’re stuck going around in one big circle, it’s easy to feel aimless and confused. Helping someone else with a problem of theirs always makes it feel better though. It's also fond of rhymes, puzzles, and riddles.

It’s somewhat taller than average. Not very strong, but when its magic is active any passengers feel light as a feather. Both the color and shape of its hair is all natural.

—

Art process thoughts:

An idea for a ponysona design popped into my head the other day and I'm really happy with how it turned out! Multiple times I've played with designing a ponysona by taking more grounded and literal elements of myself but none of those struck me as exciting or fun. Being freely indulgent and overdesigning a pastel magic horse is way better.

In terms of the drawing itself, this is probably the closest you'll ever see me mimic the G4 artstyle! I referenced a couple screenshots of pinkie to get an idea for scale, and then I cut apart my rough sketch into chunks so I could stretch out the neck & back because I like when the bodies are longer than proportions on the show. This also doubles as making its tallness present in the art but really I would've done that regardless.

The carousel concept is a fun way to tie in the colorful aesthetics with themes of cycles and fate. Girls love to be stuck in a loop of mayyyybe their own choosing. And it also means I get to bring back the saddle & bridle fashion concept Lauren Faust considered for the show's pitch bible. It's definitely kind of weird but in a fun way.

Carrie Go-Round like Merry-go-round but also like Carrie short for Carousel but also like Carry because she physically carries other ponies & helps lift them emotionally. Do you get it.

This is my first time adding ALT text to my images; I did my best to be thorough but not too verbose.

Miscellaneous design thoughts: I love pink and green together! IRL horse coat patterns are so so cute I wish more MLP characters had them. Plus the bubbly shapes on the hooves match her cloud prancing. Duality is everything to me: two different shapes and colors of hair, two symbols on its cutie mark, two little eyelashes. Although I tried less to make it look like me, its hair still has the same general shape (however mine will only rarely form curls like that all on its own). Also the cutie mark arrows being green is a slightly inspired by a real dream I had about getting my cutie mark:

I've been meaning to make a ponysona for a long time now. All in all this was very fun to do and now I'm excited to draw more of my own OCs and their interactions.

[p2ep]

hmmmmmm... umineko for the ask (please try to keep it spoiler free i haven't read it yet)

ohohoho!!! i will always take the opportunity to gush abt umineko.

i really appreciate the hierarchy of information it has. new info is given at a satisfying pace + the game respects the player enough to not state the obvious most of the time. the characters are overall well written and i really appreciate that the female characters are allowed to be complicated and messy all the time too!! all of them feel so real yet the author treats even the shittiest ones with such care. it's a story that loves the reader and itself

i tend to get kind of annoyed with vns that are too repetitive but umineko somehow avoided that completely for me despite being longer than god. i love watching rich people beef with eachother and die i guess

OH and also i love the vibe and atmosphere of it!! i genuinely really like the haziness of the real-life photo backgrounds in the original i think it adds a lot. dreamlike and kind of pretty..... the sound design is fantastic too

last thing is like. its one of those stories that manages to have its themes, motifs, and format kind of intertwine perfectly imo. the symbols and mediums perfectly convey the point it was trying to make!! slayyyy!!! sorry for rambling so much but its just that good. <3

[everyothermouse]

Time for new hunters refs!

I’m gonna ramble about their designs under the cut so u can read that tasty character analysis if u wanna :3

did these in order of who I had the most to say about to least, so dw gabby and peters are super short compared to genny’s lol

Genny

Genny has a general theme of imperfection in her design, meant to allow her appearance to betray her attempts at portraying herself as perfect and above everyone else. You can see her being brought down to the characters she paints herself as better than (hash and Peter) by her similarly messy hair. You can also see many instances of asymmetry where there shouldn’t be to show how she really isn’t all that put together (mismatched hair color, one rolled up sleeve, all bracelets on one wrist, off kilter belt, a jean pocket matched on the other side with a knife holder, and her incredibly lopsided bangs are all obvious examples of asymmetry in Genny’s design.)

Genny’s design also makes a point of using more true pointed ends than any of the other characters, thanks to her ‘sharper’ personality. She also has more triangle esque shapes than the others.

The four green details on Genny’s design represent four sides of her life- the knife is the hunters, received during a monster hunting mission and representing her protectiveness and her desire to fight for those she cares about, the necklace is her children, made for her by nut, a sweet little sentimental craft with no real purpose representing her relinquishing her need to be over productive and destructive and instead doing what she loves (being a parent), the bracelets are her friends, given to her by her best friend Melissa in high school and representing how she still isn’t ready to let go of her teenagehood, and her eyes are her family, with her at birth, green representing how she focuses outward away from herself with jealousy, seeing only how she fails in comparison to others thanks to the way she was raised to always be overly critical of herself and to always compare herself to others.

Ps there not this much symbolism in the others designs, I’m just deranged about genny’s design in particular <3

Hash

Hash is meant to be a character who blends into the background well due to her tendency to try escape/disappear and her general feeling of being invisible and unable to create change. This is why here color pallet uses the least unique colors- her colors are very dull and her clothing choices are fairly basic. Even her shapes are meant to read as somewhat boring, being made not of cute circles or sharp aggressive triangles, but simply squares upon squares. You can see this primarily in her center, as her extending to her edges at the feet, head, and arms start to drift into the more rounded shapes reflective of her weak personality.

Hash’s body hair and bandana serve both a design and practical purpose. Practically, thanks to hash’s difficult life situations the bandana is good for covering up injuries and her hair good for some amount of warmth (and also makes sense cus she doesn’t always have access to the ability to shave) and design wise they bring in a sort of boyish energy that is important to hash’s relationship with her gender (relationship with femininity is a common theme in this story between the main 4, mostly the 3 women.)

Peter

Peters life is pretty dull and repetitive, and I wanted to sort of reflect this in their color palette by making it fairly low contrast and not super bright. I wanted to avoid having details of theirs really pop out too much, hence why I gave them eyes which aren’t as white as the others- if you look at their face compared to any of the other three you’ll find their eyes stand out way less, adding to the low contrast. I also found that giving them lighter schleras made their eyes looks wider, which I wanted to avoid considering their eyes are actively meant to look droopy and tired.

The brightest parts of their design, their red sweater and gold crown, are meant to draw visual similarities to the most important people in their life, gabby and prince. The gabby connection is probably less obvious esp now that their sweater isn’t bright red (similar to Gabby’s reds) like it used to be.

Gabby

Gabby uses a mixture of more triangular shapes (pants, scars, leg warmers, nose) and round shapes (shirt, hair, eyebrows, shoes) to communicate her personality as a mix of her more energetic leaderly traits and her more childish traits.

Like I mentioned in a post I made while drawing the above references, Gabby’s colors are a bit crazy on purpose- she likes her style to stand out, hence why every color she wears is more obnoxious than any of the other characters same clothing pieces, even down to her khaki pants, which despite being her most boring clothing piece, is still much brighter than the other three characters pants.

All

Genny and Peter both have smaller eyes than hash and gabby- this is to help emphasize the age difference, with Peter and genny being “the adults” of the group

Additionally their eye shapes are all meant to line up with their personalities/dispositions. Gabby has large, round, childlike eyes. Peter has half lidded and generally tired looking eyes with their eye bags and wrinkles. Hash has very elongated eyes, as if they’re constantly widened in fear- this also helps to further exaggerate her expressions since her eyes can squint further than the others cus they’re tall. Genny doesn’t have this kind of eye language the other 3 have, but you could see her eyes as just generally being the most adult as they’re small, or say they look squinted compared to the others, which can come across as judgemental, or confused if you wanna dig deeper on how genny is kind of lost in life and just pretending to be totally in control.

You can probably already tell by looking at them, but the biggest theme of the hunters cast design is a lack of similarities, being that they’re the most forced together least friends cast in monsters (despite becoming their own lil found family in the end). Not a single shared height, hair length, age, or facial feature will be found among them, although there are still shared details like genny and hash both being basic denim pant bitches and hash and Peter both having very dull red and brown focused palettes.

[was-it-really-worth-it]

Game 158 - Signs of the Sojourner by Echodog Games

I picked up this game through the itch.io Bundle for Palestine Aid and Equality. I chose to donate 10 dollars, and I found about 88 games in the bundle that I was actually interested in. So, the consideration for this game will be if it was worth the 11 cents (rounded up) that I paid for it and the hours that I played it for. The bundle has since ended, but I still encourage you to make a donation to the organizations listed here.

What did I think it was at first? I read that this was a recommended game from the bundle. I don't normally play card games in video game format except for a brief foray into Hearthstone?

How was the character creator? There isn't a visual character creator, however, you can create your character by building your deck to match the personality you want.

How was the game? The game is about networking in your apocalypse caravan while you try to make sure your little town is a good place to live. Your ability to negotiate with others helps you keep your shop open and keep your town on the map.

You build your negotiation skills by building a deck of cards based on your interactions with others. In order to succeed at conversations, you need to be able to match card symbols with your conversation partnerI thought this was a great way to make a character's personality meaningful. In many story-based games or visual novels, it's easy to simply match your conversation partner and input desired lines to achieve success. In this game, your ability to interact with others is based on the way you develop your personality and cards in your deck.

There isn't an easy on-ramp, and it takes a few rounds of the card game to figure it out. At first, I tried to diversify my personality with a few cards from each suit, however, that wasn't a great strategy! In the end, the most effective route is to focus on one or two suits and simply ignore those you don't click with - however, this also locks you out of lots of content.

I found the soundtrack a little repetitive, but the art is very pretty and the characters are super unique and diverse! I really enjoyed the folks I got along with and building relationships with them over time.

What did I not love? The deck-building mechanic makes it really hard to build relationships with people who aren't from the card suits you are focusing on, so you get locked out of parts of the story depending on your playthrough. The fatigue mechanic (unmatchable cards after being out on the road for a long time) is very realistic but discouraged me from going too far from home.

Ultimately, the theme of the game seems to be "travel changes you, and you won't ever be able to get along with everyone" - but this comes across by frequently locking you into no-win matches. Since the game seems to be designed for play more than once, I wish there was more internal cues for that - maybe a tooltip for "hey, you won't get along with this person without more blue cards" or a way to end a conversation early if you cannot win it at all. I think that expanding the deck over time could also match the character growth that comes with travel - or an ability to build two decks at once as a reflection of code-switching.

At 3 hours and 11 cents, was it really worth it? I did really like this game, but not enough to go through a second playthrough. Steam currently has it for 20 dollars - I'd go for it if it was like 10?

[reachexceedinggrasp]

Would love to hear about your beefs with Lucas because I have beefs with Lucas

(Sorry it took me three thousand years to answer this, anon.)

They mainly fall under a few headings, with the third being the most serious and the thing that I am genuinely irl furious about at least biannually (and feeling unable to adequately sum up The Problem with it after yelling about it so often is a huge part of why this post has been in my drafts for such a long time):

1. His self-mythologising and the subsequent uncritical repetition of his bullshit in the fandom. Obvious lies like that he had some master plan for 10 films when it’s clear he did not have anything like a plot outline at any point. We all know the thing was written at the seat of various people’s pants, it’s blatantly self-evident that’s the case. There’s also plenty of public record about how the OT was written. Even dumber, more obvious lies, like that Anakin was ‘always the protagonist’ and the entire 6 films were his story from the beginning. This is preposterous and every time someone brings it up (usually with palpable smugness) as fanboys ‘not understanding star wars’ because they don't get that ‘the OT is not Luke's story’... Yeah, I just... I cannot.

Vader wasn’t Anakin Skywalker until ESB, it’s a retcon. It’s a brilliant retcon and it works perfectly, it elevated SW into something timeless and special it otherwise would not have been, but you can tell it wasn’t the original plan and there’s proof it wasn’t the original plan. Let’s not pretend. And Luke is the protagonist. No amount of waffling about such esoteric flights of theory as ‘ring structure’ is going to get away from the rigidly orthodox narrative and the indisputable fact that it is Luke’s hero’s journey. Vader’s redemption isn’t about his character development (he has almost none) and has no basis in any kind of convincing psychological reality for his character, but it doesn’t need to be because it’s part of Luke’s arc, because Vader is entirely a foil in Luke’s story. It’s a coming-of-age myth about confronting and growing beyond the father.

All attempts to de-centre Luke in RotJ just break the OT’s narrative logic. It’s a character-driven story and the character driving is Luke. Trying to read it as Anakin’s victory, the moral culmination of his choices rather than Luke’s and putting all the agency into Anakin’s hands just destroys the trilogy’s coherence and ignores most of its content in favour of appropriating a handful of scenes into an arc existing only in the prequels. The dilemma of RotJ is how Luke will define ethical adulthood after learning and growing through two previous films worth of challenge, education, failure, and triumph; it’s his choice to love his father and throw down his sword which answers the question the entire story has been asking. Vader’s redemption and the restoration of the galaxy are the consequences of that choice which tell us what kind of world we’re in, but the major dramatic conflict was resolved by Luke’s decision not the response to it.

And, just all over, the idea of Lucas as an infallible auteur is inaccurate and annoying to me. Obviously he’s a tremendous creative force and we wouldn’t have sw without him, but he didn’t create it alone or out of whole cloth. The OT was a very collaborative effort and that’s why it’s what it is and the prequels are what they are. Speaking of which.

2. The hubris of the prequels in general and all the damage their many terrible, protected-from-editors choices do to the symbolic fabric of the sw universe. Midicholrians, Yoda fighting with a lightsabre, Obi-wan as Anakin's surrogate father instead of his peer, incoherent and unmotivated character arcs, the laundry list of serious and meaningful continuity errors, the bad storytelling, the bad direction, the bad characterisation, the shallowness of the parallels which undermine the OT’s imagery, the very clumsy and contradictory way the A/P romance was handled, the weird attitude to romance in general, it goeth on. I don’t want to re-litigate the entire PT here and I’m not going to, but they are both bad as films and bad as prequels. The main idea of them, to add Anakin’s pov and create an actual arc for him as well as to flesh out the themes of compassion and redemption, was totally appropriate. The concept works as a narrative unit, there are lots of powerful thematic elements they introduce, they have a lot of cool building blocks, it’s only in execution and detail that they do a bunch of irreparable harm.

But the constant refrain that only ageing fanboys don’t like them and they only don’t like them because of their themes or because they humanise Anakin... can we not. The shoddy film making in the prequels is an objective fact. If you want to overlook the bad parts for the good or prioritise ideas over technique, that’s fine, but don’t sit here and tell me they’re masterworks of cinema there can be no valid reason to criticise. I was the exact right age for them when I saw them, I am fully on board with the fairy tale nature of sw, I am fully on board with humanising Anakin- the prequels just have a lot of very big problems with a) their scripts and b) their direction, especially of dialogue scenes. If Lucas had acknowledged his limitations like he did back in the day instead of believing his own press, he could have again had the help he obviously needed instead of embarrassing himself.

3. Killing and suppressing the original original trilogy. I consider the fact that the actual original films are not currently available in any form, have never been available in an archival format, and have not been presented in acceptable quality since the VHS release a very troubling case study in the problems of corporate-owned art. LF seizing prints of the films whenever they are shown, destroying the in-camera negatives to make the special editions with no plans to restore them, and doing all in the company’s considerable power to suppress the original versions is something I consider an act of cultural vandalism. The OT defined a whole generation of Hollywood. It had a global impact on popular entertainment. ANH is considered so historically significant it was one of the first films added to the US Library of Congress (Lucas refused to provide even them with a print of the theatrical release, so they made their own viewable scan from the 70s copyright submission).

The fact that the films which made that impact cannot be legally accessed by the public is offensive to me. The fact that Lucas has seen fit to dub over or composite out entire performances (deleting certain actors from the films), to dramatically alter the composition of shots chosen by the original directors, to radically change the entire stylistic tone by completely reinventing the films’ colour timing in attempt to make them match the plasticy palate of the prequels, to shoot new scenes for movies he DID NOT DIRECT, add entire sequences or re-edit existing sequences to the point of being unrecognisable etc. etc. is NOT OKAY WITH ME when he insists that his versions be the ONLY ones available.

I’m okay with the Special Editions existing, though I think they’re mostly... not good... but I’m not okay with them replacing the original films. And all people can say is ‘well, they’re his movies’.

Lucas may have clear legal ownership in the capitalistic sense, but in no way does he have clear artistic ownership. Forget the fans, I’m not one of those people who argue the fans are owed something: A film is always a collaborative exercise and almost never can it be said that the end product is the ultimate responsibility and possession of one person. Even the auteur directors aren't the sole creative vision, even a triple threat like Orson Welles still had cinematographers and production designers, etc. Hundreds of artists work on films. Neither a writer nor a director (nor one person who is both) is The Artist behind a film the way a novelist is The Artist behind a novel. And Lucas did NOT write the screenplays for or direct ESB or RotJ. So in what sense does he have a moral right to alter those films from what the people primarily involved in making them deemed the final product? In what sense would he have the right to make a years-later revision the ONLY version even if he WERE the director?

Then you get into the issue of the immeasurable cultural impact those films had in their original form and the imperative to preserve something that is defining to the history of film and the state of the zeitgeist. I don't think there is any ‘fan entitlement’ involved in saying the originals belonged to the world after being part of its consciousness for decades and it is doing violence to the artistic record to try to erase the films which actually occupied that space. It's exactly like trying to replace every copy of It's a Wonderful Life with a colourised version (well, it's worse but still), and that was something Lucas himself railed against. It’s like if Michaelangelo were miraculously resuscitated and he decided to repaint the Sistine Ceiling to add a gunfight and change his style to something contemporary.

I get genuinely very upset at the cold reality that generations of people are watching sw for the first time and it’s the fucking SE-except-worse they’re seeing. And as fewer people keep physical media and the US corporate oligarchy continues to perform censorship and rewrite history on its streaming services unchecked by any kind of public welfare concerns, you’ll see more and more ‘real Mandela effect’ type shit where the cultural record has suddenly ‘always’ been in line with whatever they want it to be just now. And US media continues to infect us all with its insidious ubiquity. I think misrepresenting and censoring the past is an objectively bad thing and we can’t learn from things we pretend never happened, but apparently not many people are worried about handing the keys to our collective experience to Disney and Amazon.

4. The ‘Jedi don’t marry’ thing and how he wanted this to continue with Luke post-RotJ, so it’s obviously not meant to be part of what was wrong with the order in the prequels. I find this... incoherent on a storytelling level. The moral of the anidala story then indeed becomes just plain ‘romantic love is bad and will make you crazy’, rather than the charitable reading of the prequels which I ascribe to, which is that the problem isn’t Anakin’s love for Padmé, it’s that he ceased to love her and began to covet her. And I can’t help but feel this attitude is maybe an expression of GL’s issues with women following his divorce. I don’t remember if there’s evidence to contradict that take, since it’s been some time since I read about this but yeah. ANH absolutely does sow seeds for possible Luke/Leia development and GL was still married while working on that film. Subsequently he was dead set against Luke ever having a relationship and decided Jedi could not marry. Coincidence?

There’s a lot of blinking red ‘issues with women’ warning signs all over Lucas’s work, but the prequels are really... egregious.

[floralkittygambler]

Spoiler to upcoming H*skerD*st post (why I dislike it)

Spoilers:

“ [SECT 1 - Body Language (Nif > AD) - Avian/Feline/Human] [SECT 2 - BOUNDARIES: rejection, pushy, reflects val, pref unavailable men like Henroin/Bro (Trav, H), power dynamics in fic/rl, candid pic] [SECT 3 - Age, chemistry (pro, con)/common grounds (addictions), convo, maturity, AD type, Opposites DONT attract (proven by science)] [SECT 4 - IG, fans, viv - streams, viv sis, staff, mick ear comment, issues w staff shipping, requests, new and outdated art, mentality, tsundere, male sex abuse victims in media, poor character and world mapping, neg gay stereotype, oversized pet, H being OOC for fanservice and self indulgence is creepy] [SECT 4.5 - Impact on audience: The message this conveys to audience, esp impressionable young people. lack of staff maturity and understanding on this. concerning fetish.] [SECT 5 - Personal Experiences + why it triggers, where my pov comes from and why its valid] [SECT 6 - CONCLUSION: Why it wont work, brief sum of impact on reality, no respect or boundaries, dangerous message, clear and unrealistic bias (that can lead to sloppy storytelling), How to Fix (best course of action from here, maybe a lesson in boundaries and accepting rejection/cant have everything to AD? Start of a purely platonic bond between the pair, Paternal/grandfather and grandson love (not always covered in media), healthy relationships that arent just sex/romance, how different bonds can help give support to healing, realistic relationships and bonds, moving away from creepy stereotypes and stigma, expanding from the cliche of love healing all and why thats dangerous, love is not to fix someone or yourself, how fanservice dampens storytelling and weakens development - ex pyramid head, viv ‘symbolism’ is heart trademark + lack of research, lesson of respect and boundaries, positive messages, how to improve of the storytelling of HH to avoid cliche and self indulgent/fanservicey pitfalls)] “

Finished the introduction and warning sections. Thisll take some time, esp as its touchy stuff for me. But working on something more refined and professional sounding/looking whilst linking the original for reader ref. Some personal info will be redacted as I feel uncomfortable sharing it as well as it’s in my right to have my privacy. Im aware people will question it however some things will trigger me and I will mention that, however I would rather keep somethings personal. Respect that from a real person please.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Im also going to cover other (Viv Related) topics such as:

The Dangers of Stolitz

Valentino - The Bastardisation of the Pimp ‘Game’ (It’s NOT romantic)

The Flaws of Angel Dust (From Design, Stereotype, Drugs and Sex Work)

Viv and Critique - Why Criticism is CRUCIAL to Growth + the Difference Between Hate and Help

Points to Improve (in HH/HB)

Professionalism Lacking in Spindle + Concerns

Research! Some Facts About Each Era + Demonology (from a Real Witch!)

[Now I know many may have issues with this one but] Viv Inserts - Verosika, AD, Charlie...? (Incl. Viv Impsona, Staff OCs, How to correctly Self Insert)

Vox is a Victim (Whilst dark humour is great, this just crosses a line - and other facts on male abuse victims treatment)

Viv Has Taken on too much - Why this destroys industry before it begins (and how to avoid the temptation!) - A handy guide on realistic workload to reduce your own stresses and work your way towards your final goal!

Alastor - The Poor Portrayal of Race, Spiritual Practice and Design (And how to improve!)

Biggest Pet Peeve - LEARN YOUR DRINKS, DEMONOLOGY AND GAMBLING! 

What Drink is Husk Drinking? (Ft my decent into booze aka I can make a drink and drink a drink but my arms tire from the shaking aka blended booze b4 aka Repetition of the AoM ‘What Drugs is David Taking? ft The Addiction Boss Monster’)

Redesigns

What Variation Can Spice It Up?

How To Make An Adult Cartoon For ADULTS (And not just horny teens)

Sigils, Incorrect Usage and WTF ARE YER DOIN?! (Even for non-believers, dont misuse!)

Some Theories To Some Gin (or Whiskey or Voddie)

Review on Each Released Product (From Pilots, Comics to Merch)

Symbolism whilst combining Tragedy with Comedy

Bias, Misogyny and Treatment of Same Sex Ships 

Repetition

Why Stan Culture is Dangerous, So is Hate

How to plan, produce and market your own show!

Husk’s Peach Princess Cocktail (as seen on Tipsy Bartender) and Proof the Fans are Too Young To Booze Cruise

Building Rep and Trust whilst keeping boundaries as a creator

The Point and Purpose of the Hotel 

Sexual Fixations in both shows - why is everything sex

[dalekofchaos]

My hopes for WWE & AEW in 2021 and things I hope changes  for WWE and AEW in 2021

Hopes

WWE

Roman Reigns stays dominant and reigns supreme as the Tribal Chief

Keith Lee wins the Royal Rumble,  joins The Hurt Business and brings the WWE Champion to the Hurt Business

Naomi returns and joins The Hurt Business and dethrones Asuka to take home the gold

The Hurt Business DOMINATES Raw

Bianca Belair wins the Royal Rumble and dethrones Sasha Banks at Wrestlemania

The Riott Squad win the Women’s Tag Team Champions

Unify the men’s Tag Team Championships 

Unveil a new Title and give us WWE’s very first Television Championship. It should be styled similar to the NWA and WCW’s TV belts, but on the sideplates it should include USA and Fox on the plates. Shelton Benjamin or Ricochet should be the TV Championship 

Big E reigns supreme as Intercontinental Champion and finally gets to face Roman for the Universal Championship at Wrestlemania 38

Rhea Ripley gets called up and goes to Smackdown

Mercedes Martinez dethrones Io Shirai and becomes NXT Women’s Champion

Karrion Kross reclaims the NXT Championship

Anyone but Johnny Sameface as NXT North American Champion

Queen Of The Ring. The amount of female talent available on Raw, SmackDown, NXT and NXT UK is quite something. It's clear that this is the richest women's division in WWE history. They really should do something with all those workers. The 'Mae Young Classic' tourneys have been fine, but people would trip over themselves to see a fully-fledged 'Queen Of The Ring' epic staged across multiple nights. If booked correctly, this tournament could help establish a new contender for top titles. If she isn't Champion by then(though she should be) the perfect person to become Queen Of The Ring would be Bianca Belair! Bianca Belair would have unparalleled credibility for her 'StrongEST, FastEST, ToughEST' mantra if she whipped a bevy of skilled workers to become the first 'Queen'. WWE could also get creative by linking the event in with Charlotte Flair's nickname and spinning off into a feud between her and the winner afterwards.

Form Full-Time Female Tag-Teams and keep them around. The Women’s Tag Team DIvision is a mess. Keep creating makeshift Tag Teams and breaking up established tag teams and your tag team division is dead. The current champs and their predecessors haven't even been "proper" full-time duos - Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler were shoved together awkwardly in the summer, and they've since been replaced by the unlikely Asuka and Charlotte Flair combo. This cannot be allowed to continue. It's damning that WWE don't have more fully-formed pairings ready to go. The Riott Squad are perhaps the only actual twosome who are presented as a tight-knit collective weekly. Other than that, who is there? Considering the belts have been around for a few years now, that's unacceptable. The IIconics split, so did Sasha Banks and Bayley, and the scene is littered by 'odd couple' tandems like Mandy Rose and Dana Brooke, Lacey Evans and Peyton Royce, and Billie Kay teaming with the likes of Natalya or Tamina when it suits.

Ensure NXT is treated like a proper third brand rather than a quasi-development league for Raw and SmackDown. NXT has been on USA Network for over a year now, but it's still very much behind both Raw and SmackDown as a priority. Need proof? Look at the way Keith Lee was handled when he was "called up" after SummerSlam 2020. The former NXT Champ had to start all over again, and he's had several teething problems on Monday nights. It'd be nice to see WWE move away from positioning NXT as a 'feeder' for the other two shows. Changing someone's gimmick when they leave makes the brand look less-than, and there's simply no need for that anymore; NXT should be an equal to Raw and SmackDown, not a development league. Sadly, it still comes across as that. Lee's stop/start plight and the (mis)fortunes of others like Aleister Black and Ricochet should be a lesson to WWE. Some workers are better off rocking the black and yellow, not the red or blue.

AEW

Darby Allin becomes AEW World Heavyweight Champion

Adam Page costs Kenny the title and Page gets revenge and DESTROYS Kenny

MJF destroys the inner circle from within and when Jericho realizes what just happened, that’s when MJF and Wardlow destroys Jericho

Which is when we get a Sammy Guevara babyface turn and we get MJF vs Sammy

Arn Anderson turns on Cody

AEW’s Four Horsemen is formed. MJF, Shawn Spears and FTR with Tully and Arn managing as the JJ DIllon mouthpieces

Darby Allin and MJF feud for the title

The Women’s Division is improved. The girls get more time to shine on Dynamite. Your champion actually appears(shocking, I know) and build feuds and stories for your women’s division. There’s still some time to do what’s right for your women’s division, but the only thing that remains to be seen, does the powers that be of AEW even care?

Get a new title design for the Women’s Championship. It looks like a toy for a child. It’s plastic, not gold.  It should be as big and beautifully designed as the men’s titles. It should be as big as the NWA’s title or even the WWE’s title. The title is symbolic as to how AEW treats it’s own women’s division and that needs to change with a fresh new design.

Sign Thunder Rosa. It may not fix everything with the women’s division, but it gives you your needed star power. Tony Khan should be begging on his hands and knees to sign Thunder Rosa in 2021 after her time with the NWA is up, his women’s division is getting their asses kicked by what his EVP refers to as a “developmental brand”

If you can’t sign Thunder Rosa. My solution is Push Anna Jay and  Britt Baker as the top face and heel of the women’s division and either of them dethrone Shida.

Changes

WWE

Leave whatever that monstrosity of a creative team they have for RAW is. Let the Wrestlers dictate what they want their characters to be. Ditch the scripted promos. Let promos feel organic and real. Let the wrestlers be characters who feel real and genuine. Get rid of a “Creative” that isn't creative and let the wrestlers be creative and let them be free of terrible creative.

Get rid of the Gimmick PPV. WWE has ruined gimmick matches by turning them into themed PPVs. none of these matches are organic or special anymore. The matches themselves are great but are booked to fit a theme of a pay-per-view, when they should be used organically at the height of feuds. no one cares about the name of PPVs, so i don’t understand why WWE does this. the only one that actually works is MITB, because it makes sense as storylines reset after Mania.

Scrap the Brand Warfare/Brand Supremacy. WWE should scrap the tired brand warfare format at Survivor Series and move away from Raw vs. SmackDown completely. Booking around a calendar has become company law in WWE over the past decade or so. Perhaps McMahon always formatted things this way really, but it's more glaring now that gimmick bouts like Elimination Chamber, Hell In A Cell and Money In The Bank have their own pay-per-views. Survivor Series, with it's played out Raw vs. SmackDown vibes, also needs a rethink. "Brand warfare" is boring now, and it has been for several years. Although 2020's event was fun, it's nonetheless true that the month-long build to Survivors feels like a repetitive slog fans are forced to sit through every November. Hopefully, 2021 will change that. It is possible to book traditional elimination bouts without some sort of false show loyalty - WWE did this almost every single year until the first brand split in 2002. Their over-reliance on Raw vs. SmackDown is plain lazy. Survivor Series should be revolved around great rivalries between stables/factions. It’s really not that hard. Or at the very least if there IS a Smackdown vs Raw themed Survivor Series, at least add a damn reward. Give the brand a head start in the Rumble,, give the winners of the match number one contenders for their brand’s respective titles or ANYTHING better than just “brand supremacy lol”

Get rid of the 24/7 title. It has run it’s course. R-Truth is funny, but even he can’t make it work anymore.

Stop. Breaking. Up. Tag Teams. Stop killing your Tag Team Division. For the love of god just stop!

Cut Akira Tozawa’s ninja bullshit. It’s not funny, it’s annoying

Kill Retribution. It’s complete garbage. It has been consistently terrible ever since Retribution began. Mustafa Ali cannot save Retribution, he’s trying but no one can save it. 

Stop the 50/50 booking

Stop rewarding Nia Jax, the living botch machine for injuring her fellow wrestlers

Stop pushing Lars Sullivan. Absolutely no one wants him. 

They should cut raw to 2 hours because 3 hours is unbearable

Stop the overreliance of part time wrestlers. I don’t want to see Goldberg being pushed at the expense of today’s talent and I don’t want to see Goldberg period. I don’t want to see Brock Lesnar return at the expense of today’s talent. I don’t want to see Legends return. Push your current fucking wrestlers and make stars. You idiots!

Do not rush Becky Lynch back to the ring, she just had a baby. I read the reports that Vince wants Becky back by Wrestlemania. That is a terrible decision

Stop killing pushes because Vince changed his mind

Enough with “creative has nothing for you” if your “creative” has nothing for a certain wrestler, then they are not creative. Either let the wrestlers appear on the show or release them if you don’t want them anymore, it’s simple as that.

Do. Not. Put. The. Title. On. Goldberg. Goldberg should not have beaten Bray Wyatt's 'Fiend' for the Universal Title at Super ShowDown in February - that was a huge mistake, one that set Bray back and felt totally unnecessary. In 2021, WWE should outright avoid any temptation to repeat the trick and give ol' Billy another go-around with one of the top titles. If anything, Goldberg's only purpose should be to play victim for a quick Roman Reigns squash. Get through that elusive match then turn Bill into a company ambassador. He doesn't need to pretend it's still 1998 all these years on.

AEW

Leave the overabundance of spots just for the sake of spots and enough with the false finishes. Jim Ross was right, like it or not, the spots for the sake of spots and the false finishes need to end. This is my major problem with AEW and why I can’t stand The Elite in general. Everyone just needs to  get their shit in. Everything looks fake. No one can look strong or credible and we have to see garbage Indy wrestlers and the spot monkeys make everything look fake and phony. The champions never look credible and everyone is on the level of job guys. This needs to change

Stop leaving your Women’s Champion off the show. It is downright insulting how dirty they are doing Hikaru Shida. She deserves as much time to shine as the other champions deserve.

Stop putting the NWA Women’s Champion as more of a priority than your own Women’s Champion

Enough with Brandi. Why is the women’s division given absolutely 0 screentime and barely anytime to develop their stories, but Brandi is ALWAYS THERE! Everything has to be about her. When a feud between Cody and Shaq was close to happening, of course it had to be about her. She’s turned heel/face as much time as the Big Show. I’ve grown tired of Brandi Rhodes. Stop shoving that attention whore down our throats. WE GET IT! You wanna be Stephanie so bad!

Enough with Cody’s big dramatic midlife crisis entrances. We get it, you wanna be Triple H SO BAD!

Stop the petty bullshit shots at WWE. It was fun at first, but it’s getting annoying. This is Eric Bischoff giving away the results and “That’ll put butts in the seats” level of petty bullshit. AEW had the fucking nerve to tweet a fan’s post saying they did a better tribute for Brodie Lee than WWE. HE JUST DIED! AND YOU ARE MAKING IT ABOUT YOUR FUCKING RIVALRY? GROW THE FUCK UP!

[leapingtitan]

The Final Season - Episode 1 Thoughts

I've watched the first episode around 3 times on my own and over a dozen times from anime-only live reactions on YouTube. Those are always something to have a field day with every season, and are part of the whole enjoyment post-watching the episode on your own.

Obviously I'm only reviewing this based on the first episode, so it's way too early to judge The Final Season as a whole. However, I will say that my strategy to keep my expectations low definitely worked. I was very hyped, don't get me wrong, but after Season 3 Part 2, I realized that production and scheduling has never been this show's strong suite and things behind the scenes were always chaotic. And it was my mistake to realize it this late and have unrealistically high expectations of the manga's adaptation.

But enough about that. I'm just gonna say it right now. I absolutely loved this episode and was completely blown away by it. It was a rollercoaster ride from start to finish and boy, the staff wasn't kidding when they said the first episode was like a movie. It definitely felt like that, and it went by in a flash. Now, on to the individual points.

Story/Adaptation

Flawless. Everything was executed perfectly and went beyond my expectations. The thing that stood out to me the most was how many things were changed from the PV in terms of scene construction, camera angles, and overall storyboards. There was only one shot that we reused from the PV, namely the one with Zeke and Reiner inside the airship where they're referred to as the spear and shield. Everything else was redone, which was a huge surprise. Wit was always very faithful to the original manga panels with how they used them as a big reference for most of their cuts, but this one changes them up a lot. Personally, I am 100% fine with it and as someone who has read these chapters in the manga dozens of times over the past few years, seeing them like this was a pleasant and very welcome surprise.

The anime-only additions here are notable and also quite welcome. Falco's line in the beginning in particular stood out the most in the long-run, but the addition of the Eldians' terror being shown as well as the scene before the ED was very welcome. I would like to assume that this was Isayama's doing as whenever the anime usually adds/changes up things, it's his request to do so. He sort of considers the anime to be the "definitive" version of the story that he, for one reason or another, couldn't do in the manga himself when that particular chapter came out. Season 3 Part 1 (The Uprising Arc) is a prime example for this. Once again, I'm very content with what was done here and I trust MAPPA will do the story justice.

A small but very neat thing is the fact that we got to keep the title cards and the info eyecatches mid-episode. Really added to the whole sense of consistency.

Animation

When the initial trailer came out, many people were concerned about Shigeki Asakawa (Director of Photography)'s odd and excessive usage of blur filters on top of the scenes and were wondering if they would remain in the final product, given her track record with other shows like The God of Highschool. Luckily, that is not the case here as the scenes look very clean and the minimal blur on top adds a bit to the muddy/gritty atmosphere of what's going on. Personally, I don't mind it at all and I barely notice it anyway. MAPPA's biggest strength to me is the usage of effects like blood and explosions. You feel the impact of everything and with such an action-packed episode, it made everything so much better.

The usage of 3D CGI for the Titan Shifters has been the biggest controversy surrounding this first episode. When I first watched it, it didn't bother me at all. Personally I care more about a model fitting in the action sequence rather than how it looks for the most part. Right now I would say I'm neutral. It's not the greatest CG ever conceived in anime but it definitely does not look out of place and is pretty decent. For the Jaw Titan, I couldn't tell what was CG and what wasn't for the most part. For the other Titans it's more obvious, but it's not too jarring. Obviously, if it was up to me and the production committee/NHK didn't push their scheduling shenanigans onto MAPPA, I would have gotten every Titan in 2D, but you can't have everything. If they choose to focus on more important scenes later on and cut corners in this first episode as a result, that's understandable. I can live with it. And again, even then, it's not that bad in my eyes.

Now, the character designs are just absolutely stellar. In multiple interviews, it’s been stated that they wanted to stay true to Kyoji Asano’s designs at Wit while also being consistent with Isayama’s style in the manga. And boy did they absolutely nail it. It’s exactly what as they said. Tomohiro Kishi could not have done a better job with the characters we’ve seen so far and I am beyond impressed with his work. I look forward to seeing the rest of the characters in this arc.

Sound

I've been following Kohta Yamamoto's works for a few years now, ever since he started working with Sawano (and being mentored by him to an extent) in early 2017. Although he's been involved with AoT before, particularly with the character songs in Season 2, whenever those two would collaborate on a project it would usually be because Sawano is too busy to compose a full soundtrack. So what usually happens is, Sawano does one track and variations of it (think ShingekiNoKyojin, ThanksAT and T-KT), and nothing else. Meanwhile, Yamamoto handles the rest of the music for the show. On top of that, Yamamoto's style as a composer is different from Sawano's as he comes from a rock/guitarist background as opposed to Sawano, who is a pianist and is classically trained. My biggest concern for The Final Season was that we would get a similar case as with the other shows where Sawano doesn't put in too much effort, while Yamamoto essentially becomes the main composer. Although it looks like this is in fact the case after this first episode, let me explain why I don't think it's a bad thing.

After the premiere of the first episode, both Sawano and Yamamoto tweeted that it was in fact Yamamoto who is handling the majority of the Marley Arc's music. And after this first episode, I have to say I'm impressed. His initial track that he made for the PV was a bit off-putting to me because it sounded like every epic blockbuster Hollywood trailer background track ever, but after the way it was used in this episode alongside a few other tracks, I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised. It fits what's going on, and overall delivers a fresh sound to the show that is very appropriate given the massive change in narrative. Back during S3 Part 1, Sawano stated in an interview that he was already burned out and had trouble coming up with new music for AoT given how many tracks he had already composed for it. Given how few new melodies were in S3 Part 2;s music, I think this should be clear. Especially now that we're going into yet another season. To summarize, I think Yamamoto's work here is a result of three conditions that just happened to line up perfectly. The change in narrative, which the new composer style reflects. Sawano being busy. And Sawano being burned out with AoT. Now personally I still believe we're going to get at least one new original Sawano track with variations of it for the big climax moments this arc, and he may compose more music for the 2nd half of this 16-episode season, since that's technically a new arc. But we'll see. As a whole though, I'm satisfied with what I've heard from Kohta Yamamoto in this first episode.

The last point to make in regards to the sound is Masafumi Mima who, apart from Sawano, the voice cast, and some freelancers, is the only one from the previous seasons' staff members to return here. And once again, his work here is absolutely phenomenal. The mixing and usage of sound effects in this episode was stellar and truly felt like I was watching a war movie. It enhanced the action tenfold and I could not want it any better. Music usage is something that goes through the director (Yuichiro Hayashi), but ultimately the sound director is the one who implements the track (instrument layering/stem editing) and does the mixing. The usage of Kohta Yamamoto's music here was very well done, and although the track from the PV repeated quite a bit, it didn't get repetitive at all. Also, the sound director remaining consistent here means we got to keep things like the titan transformation sound effects, which may be a small thing but was very welcome and added to the whole consistency.

Opening/Ending

I'm gonna wait until Shinsei Kamattechan releases the full version of the opening in a single or album to fully judge the song, but boy do I love this opening. Although I'm not sure if the TV-size version is my favorite AoT opening yet, I have to say that it's without a doubt the most fitting OP this show has had until this point. It perfectly showcases the themes of war that this arc focuses on and has this lowkey disturbing eerie vibe with the dissonant chords and mixing of the vocals that feels just as "mysterious" and "tense" as the show itself. I love it so much, honestly. Now, Isayama was a fan of Shinsei Kamattechan prior to them doing the S2 ED, and was the one who got them on-board to do it. Although that song isn't really my thing it's also a perfect fit, which leads me to believe that Isayama himself most likely chose the band again, namely to do this OP. And it's fantastic. I love the song. The visuals also have a very distinct style with all the colors and white backgrounds and I love how it's more metaphorical and symbolic (I guess "abstract" as well?) rather than flat-out just spoiling everything like the last arc's OP did.

The ED by Yuko Ando is fantastic. The first time I listened to the full song on its own I couldn't stop getting chills. Love the production aspects of the song and it's just really nice altogether. The visuals are quite interesting especially towards the end and I also like them a lot. Not much else to say about the ED. It's amazing. Go listen to it.

Conclusion

As a whole, I kept my expectations extremely low prior to the premiere despite my hype. As a result of that, not only were they exceeded, I was absolutely blown away by this first episode in pretty much every way. It may still be too early to judge, but from what has been shown here so far, I am absolutely looking forward to see MAPPA adapt the rest of this amazing story, or about as far as they can get with 16 episodes.

[rayless-reblogs]

the effect of The Caligula Effect

I just beat The Caligula Effect, a game I heard about years ago, but always understood to be a semi-bad Persona clone full of angsty-looking high school kids with superpowers. But I was eventually convinced to play The Caligula Effect: Overdose, an expanded rerelease that allows the gamer not only the opportunity to play alongside the Go-Home Club – a group of students who are searching for a way to escape the virtual utopia that entraps them – but also the chance to simultaneously join the Ostinato Musicians, another group of students who are determined to preserve the utopia and their idealized lives within it at all costs.

I'm a big fan of Persona, and this isn't the first clone I've played. Last year I tried out Falcom's Tokyo Xanadu. As far as I'm concerned, neither game approaches the quality of the latter three Personas, but in terms of visuals, gameplay, and story, Xanadu has Caligula pretty well beat.

I like Xanadu. But between the two, Caligula is the one I like more and care much more about.

Justifications below the cut. Also some extremely vague spoilers.

The Bad: The Caligula Effect has major shortcomings in many, many areas. For me, the battle system is clunky and bland (though if I raised the difficulty, I might find it more interesting). The character models are awkward. The environments are repetitive and the levels are too long. And as far as battles go, you are literally just fighting other students – no interesting monster designs anywhere. Those are a few points, but there are definitely more flaws that could be gone into.

But if you've followed me for a while, you know that the games that end up grabbing my attention aren't necessarily the most deserving. So here's what I like:

The 2D art is lovely. The characters have changeable portraits based on their emotions, as per Persona, but the menu features two full-length portraits for each character, Go-Home and Musicians alike. The elegant, silvery art style is gorgeous, and it's a shame it wasn't used more prominently and creatively, rather than the awkward 3D models. The main visual motif is flowers, and to that end each Go-Home member has unique (and highly symbolic) flowers associated with them. When they access their superpowers, each of them is shown with a stake driven through their heart, surrounded by their flowers – a striking and unusual effect. The desaturated colors in the characters' designs make their flowers stand out all the brighter.

And definitely check out each character's status screen because their portraits hint towards their true personalities.

Speaking of which –

Caligula mimics Persona's Social Link system (it doesn't use the term Social Link, but that's what I'll use here), allowing you to grow closer to your teammates on both sides of the ideological conflict. Not all of the Social Links are written equally well – some are more interesting than others – but a number of them are intertwined (even across both teams in the Overdose release) and become very engrossing as you try to figure out how events fit together. And who these people you're working alongside really are.

Like Persona, several of your teammates are motivated by personal trauma. As great as Persona 3 is, it can start to feel ludicrous how many of its characters have dead parents. (In fairness, their traumas aren't just that they have dead parents – but most of them have at least one dead parent and it gets old.) In Caligula, the traumas feel varied and more unexpected, touching on subjects I haven't often seen in JRPGs. For example, I guessed Mifue's trauma fairly early on, but was surprised at how seriously it was eventually depicted. I thought I figured out Ayana's quite quickly, only to have my theory pulled out from under me. Izuru's Social Link ended up shocking me at one point, then made me more thoughtful as I listened to him analyze himself. I've heard Kotono's arc wasn't universally liked in Japan, but I was really happy to see her specific backstory handled, even if it made her more complicated than a typical pretty girl in a high school game. And when it came to Shogo's, I immediately started to downplay the seriousness of his past – only to be proven quite wrong.

And it's not just the heavy stuff. Going through characters' Social Links (and talking to them on the game's texting feature) often changed how I felt about them. When I first met Suzuna, I was instantly fed up with her timid personality and thought I was going to hate her. She ended up being one of my favorites, the change not so much due to big story events but because of small details about her personality. I disliked Ayana and Naruko early on, but softened as I got to know them. This is especially noticeable with the Musicians. If you only encounter them as the Go-Home Club, they'll be rather flat, easily dismissed antagonists. Getting to know them on their own turf reveals characters who are often as fleshed out and interesting as the main cast. And again I was surprised at who I ended up really liking, like Sweet-P and Shonen-Doll.

Another, more subtle, thing I enjoyed – in different Persona games, a number of your teammates are very cool people. Eriko's mysterious and interested in the occult, Mitsuru's this unattainable school celebrity, Akihiko's a star boxer, Ann's a professional model, Yusuke's an artistic prodigy, Rise's a literal teen idol. There are certainly talented people among your teammates in The Caligula Effect, but for the most part, you're all nerds and losers. And that goes for the villains as well. Most of the characters aren't that socially impressive, either because of their personalities or they have very powerful reasons for turning away from the mainstream. And while many of them grow and change, they're not really wish-fulfillment characters.

One last thing I want to touch on – this virtual utopia our characters are struggling in is rather deceptive. Everyone within it takes on the role of a high schooler, but this doesn't always reflect who they are in reality, adding another layer of interest for me. Without going into specifics (because one of the most fun things for me was trying to figure out who people really were), a (vague) number of these characters are adults, not teenagers. And many of them are motivated by very adult concerns, such as dissatisfaction with their professions and questioning their positions in their adult lives. One of the main tensions of the game is whether it's better to direct yourself as an adult in the often-disappointing real world or whether it's better to remain a child free from responsibility in the virtual world. Despite all the game's high school trappings and tropes, I found myself wondering who the intended audience really was.

Caligula's main story is pretty flat and basic, much less sophisticated than the plots of the Personas or Tokyo Xanadu. But because of the characters and the multitude of B-Plots you go through with them, the game still has a compelling, and even adult, quality.

It's not a great game. I can't stress that enough. The first handful of hours are terrible. I think one reason I'm so into it is that I entered the game with very low expectations. But its characters have a lot to offer, and for me that ended up being the heart of the game. So I liked it.

[x0401x]

Hey miss wonderful taste in everything, can you recommend us some of your favorite KyoAni productions?

Sure! I love doing recs and I’m literally taking any sort of positive content related to KyoAni lately because we truly need it at the moment. Long post alert, though. Here goes my top 10:

1. Hyouka

This one will probably be my first choice forever. It’s KyoAni’s most brilliant work so far and easily one of the best animes I’ve ever watched, hands down. It’s also their finest novel-to-anime adaptation in my opinion, and one of the very few animation series that actually turned out better than their source material.

The books are extremely interesting, but they’re also bland. The alterations made to the anime added visual value to it in order to make it more alluring and appealing, turning ordinary situations into rather unique and thought-provoking settings, while managing to never deviate from its novel counterpart. The changes on the characters’ designs were also a very good choice in my opinion, as they fit more into the character archetypes and the impressions they give off.

This one is honestly an example for the whole anime industry and a timeless gem. I’m pretty certain that it was one of the studio’s turning points in terms of animation style. Surely will become a classic in the future.

2. Koe no Katachi

KyoAni’s most well-done movie, as far as I can tell. I’m specially fond of the symbolism of every scene and the effort put on the scenery, which gave an effect of depth to the frames. The studio managed to portray the mangaka’s art style while staying true to its own trademark traits as well.

Animation quality and sound design aside, it’s also loyal enough to the manga. There were cuts in order to fit the story into the time limit, but KyoAni made up for the gaps with later released specials. The movie is also considerably less dramatic than the original, yet I’m certain that the alterations in that regard were made so that the transition between the phases of the story wouldn’t feel rushed. Albeit in a much more uplifting way, it nevertheless managed to transmit the characters’ essence and emotions.

What caught my attention the most in this movie was the soundtrack, though. There was a lot of care in its production, and it was clearly made to be gentle and almost imperceptible, with glitch-like repetitions here and there, as if it means to put the viewers in the shoes of the deaf heroine. It certainly did its job well.

3. Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu!

First anime from KyoAni I’ve ever watched, aside from the Inuyasha movies. Easily one of their funniest series, if not the actual funniest. It has a very special place in my heart. I dropped Amagi Brilliant Park on the first episode, but I’d cry internally every time I saw Bonta-kun in it. The nostalgia is strong, kids.

It’s got excellent animation for the year it was made, and I dare say it’s more decently animated than many current animes. The pacing is dynamic and the jokes vary from over-the-top to smart and witty in a smooth way. I also give this one kudos for not relying nearly as much on fanservice as more recent titles.

For the people who didn’t watch the first Full Metal Panic, I suggest doing so before trying this one out. Anyone who enjoys the two should also watch the second season, Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid, which comes right after Fumoffu and was also animated by KyoAni.

4. Clannad

This one I deem as the best out of KyoAni’s most notorious classics. I also recommend the other titles related to this one, such as Clannad: Another Story.

Much like Hyouka, it’s a masterpiece in every aspect. It has a very non-cliché and unconveninent plot that deals with delicate themes in a sensible way and tears your heart apart at the same time. Frankly exemplary to the drama genre and exceptional as a visual novel adaptation.

5. Free!

The franchise became lackluster after the first director left, but the first two seasons were fun enough in their own right. Unlike most novel-to-anime adaptations, Free! started with original content through creating a future for the main story, which was turned into the not-so-distant past in the anime. This is unusual enough, but it worked out well as the anime maintained itself as loyal as possible to the first book and never went off the rails with the plot. The main characters’ personalities did suffer many alterations, yet it’s obvious that they meant to make the two more charismatic and likeable. As far as fan responses went, it worked.

I find very interesting that the creators were aware the story took itself too seriously at times, and they made this clear by compensating the heavy melancholy with heavy comedy. They also compensated the overdramatic atmosphere of the first season by picking up the pace and getting a little more serious in the second season. Everything was intentional and designed to be a hit amongst women, which I think had served the purpose until the first movie came out.

To be honest, I’m not fond of the exaggerated fanservice, but it gets easy to ignore it after a while if you only pay attention to the storyline. I don’t consider myself a fan of Free!, and I actually took very long to start liking it. I only did get into it at the last scene of episode 8, back when the first season was still airing. It was only by this time that I could see the true value of the series, so I recommend anyone who tries it out to go at least that far with it. I know it might be a lot of work, but in my honest opinion, it’s worth the trouble.

I deem the High Speed! novel awe-inspiring because of its nostalgic tone and the awfully realistic depiction of childhood crises. The most serious situations of it are a little out of reality, but the rest is absurdly relatable in levels that I myself don’t know how to put into words. Yet I also appreciate Free! for its strong tone of encouragement. It feels like the creators are trying to cheer up the viewers.

6. Kyoukai no Kanata

It starts becoming a mess from episode 4 onward, yet the beginning was quite promising. This one relies heavily on fanservice, often makes use of nonsensical tropes for the sake of comedy and sometimes goes overboard with the jokes. However, it doesn’t fail to deliver emotional value and the action is pretty neat. Anyone who hasn’t read the novel will definitely be able to enjoy it as a standalone.

I don’t think I need to mention it, but the animation is stellar. I in particular love the blurry movement effects of when the characters draw their weapons and the geometrical spectrums in the colorful power barriers. I also recommend the OVA, as well as the second movie I’ll be Here, although the latter is 100% original content. It was actually cute and fun to watch. The first movie is merely one huge recap.

7. Hibike! Euphonium

Truly dazzling take on slice-of-life. It’s healing and heartrending at the same time. The way that characters are portrayed allows the viewers to feel their passion and dedication without it occasionally feeling unrealistic. Everyone has their own problems, but none of them are taken out of proportion. Miscommunication happens, just not in a frustrating shoujo manga way.

The soundtrack and scenery are breathtaking, yet the forte of the animation in this one was the huge amount of detail put into the eyes and hair. Everyone’s hairdos are remarkably glossy without ever looking weird, and I especially like how their eyes all glinter in different colors.

The author published another volume of the novel after the anime, saying it had inspired her to write more, and it’s no wonder. I also recommend season two and the OVA. The first two movies are just recaps and the third was to me a disappointment, so I leave those to people’s own discretion.

8. Tamako Market

Rather odd but nice story. It blends iyashikei elements with a peculiar plot and actually manages to do that in a cute way. All of the characters are likeable and the visuals do a good job in transmitting what they have to transmit in a very relaxing manner.

This show caught me off-guard by how unproblematic it was. It has trans, gay and dark-skinned characters, but none of them is ever used for fanservice or jokes and their respective circumstances are portrayed as 100% normal, which is sadly still rare in anime even nowadays. The romance is pretty not-dramatic and filled to the brim with fluff, and I very much like that the main guy treats his female love rival as a serious threat.

I recommend the specials and the movie as well. Especially the movie, which is basically the same as direct sugar injestion and gave me diabetes.

9. Munto

Also has a special place in my heart. Cheesy but good, actually. I’d be lying if I said there aren’t some surprises in it, though, but I’ll refrain from giving too much info on the story itself.

It was firstly an OVA, but then got adapted into three movies. The animation was done finely enough, but there’s a drastic change in style from the first to the second half, though I myself didn’t really mind it. The characters are all well-stablished and the plot is consistent. There’s a present quality of feminist shades in it and the relationships are very endearing.

10. Nichijou

Not really one of my favorites but certainly one that I recommend for people who are in need of a laugh. It’s got some pretty creative and iconic humor. Its imaginative retakes on routinely affairs manage to transform the most trivial real-life situations into Oscar-worthy wit. It also gets nonsensical every so often, but this fits within the show’s own narrative.

It has a very unique animation that sometimes mixes different styles of art, which only makes every scene a hundred times funnier for being so soft and adorable. It varies from hyperrealistic to surrealistic at the speed of light and sometimes even becomes abstract as hell. It’s full of notes on Japanese culture, not only about daily life but also about media, which adds up to the fun.

[erunapendleton]

seven comfort movies

I was tagged by @alliecatcorner to share my 7 comfort movies!

1. Catnapped! (1995)

I first saw the trailer for this movie in the VHS for Sailor Moon R: Promise of the Rose when I was maybe 6? The main theme’s song was repetitive and bright colors of cats turning into balloons and a strange Godzilla-sized dog intrigued the hell out of me, but alas the movie evaded me for years. Until while browsing an FYE as a sixth grader (?) and I found the movie on DVD! 

The movie meant a lot to me as a child as I found it sweet and exciting, but it meant even more to me during the time when my dog had passed away. 

The movie tells the story of knuckle-headed, but good hearted Toriyasu, his excitable sister Meeko and their lost dog Papadoll. After Papadoll goes missing, the two are summoned to the world of Banipal Witt, a land of anthropomorphic cats and their ruler Buburina who is using Papadoll to terrorize its inhabitants. Toriyasu with the help of some rebels, must save Papadoll and return home all within a day lest he and sister also become Buburina’s monsters!

It’s movie that few know, but I try my best to get people to watch a hidden gem like Catnapped!. 

2. The Whisper of the Heart (1995)

TWotH is by far my favorite Ghibli movie. It’s the only feature by Yoshifumi Kondo who unfortunately passed away after completing this movie. I find his direction while still slow paced, meaningfully so and effective. I would have loved to see other Ghibli features with his touch, but alas it will never be.

TWotH stars Shizuku, a bookworm and fledgling writer who slowly falls for her classmate and aspiring violinist Seiji. Their relationship is rocky at first, both finding the other annoying, but both bond over their shared passion toward their chosen art. Both promise the other to throw themselves into their work and meet again when they’ve finished a goal. And it’s just an overall heartwarming tale of two young people impassioned by a love much greater than them.

I watched this while I was writing Crimson and Clover and living at home going to uni and my boyfriend dormed away from me working toward his degree, so I relate a lot to Shizuku’s circumstances too. ☺️

3. Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989)

This is a movie that gets better once you revisit it. At first glance Kiki is a young witch looking for her place in the world and that’s all the movie is about. But her figuring out what kind of witch she wants to be and staying in love with flying and delivering is something all young artists, passionates and anyone who has a hobby can relate too. This thing that I love - is it worth my time? Am I making a fool out of myself? Should I give up? Are all questions I ask myself all the time.

Miyazaki has a way of telling fantastical tales like Kiki’s Delivery Service about a witch and her love for flying that perfectly symbolize the relationship between an artist and their art. It’s comforting because we’ve all been there and ultimately, your art is not a waste of time.

4. Animal Crossing: The Movie (2006)

So, it’s no secret that Animal Crossing has been a huge part of my life ever since I played Population Growing (2001). This movie has many magical parts and relatable parts. It’s about a girl named Ai who moves to an animal village and learns to live on her own among her new mysterious and friendly villagers. She grows close particularly to her neighbor Sally (Margie, in the games) and learns about her desire to become a famous fashion designer. 

Playing the games is not necessary for enjoyment. You will mostly feel happy, if not a little bittersweet after. Also listening to the live version of K.K. Bossa is enough to give it a watch!  

5. Ratatouille (2007)

This is the best Pixar movie. Period.

Ratatouille is sort of a meme because of the premise of a rat controlling a lanky man in the kitchen is really funny, but this movie is so much more than it’s funky little premise. With the through line, “Anyone can cook,” the movie tells the audience that you can do anything you are passionate about, not necessarily just cooking, by telling the tale of the most unlikely chef that could ever be. A rat who wants to be a chef, aka food service’s number one enemy? But still Remy is determined by his love for food to bring that same fervor to others and refuses to give up or be bound to the odds given to him by his species. 

Another thing I love is how he says, “I hate taking. I want to make things.” He recognizes the negative stereotype his people have and wants to prove to the humans he has something to offer, all rats are capable are more than just stealing. It’s a gorgeous message for everyone that you are more than your circumstances or what people tell you are. You can be anything. Anyone can cook. 

6. Hercules (1997)

There’s a lot to love about Hercules between the absolutely creative new art style used for the characters, the clever pop culture references like the air-hercs, or even just the humor. What I love the most is the characterization of Hercules. 

It’s best encapsulated in the scene when Hercules sings “I Can Go the Distance,” which explains his feeling of ostracization from those around him and the lines of “I dream of a far off place where people cheer when they see my face and voice keeps saying, ‘This is where I’m meant to be,’” always gets me. I really admired how Hercules just goes off to learn who he is and then throws himself so strongly into becoming a hero all so that he can finally feel like he belongs... He didn’t wallow - he changed his circumstances. It’s empowering to see.  I won’t drone on too much longer lol stan Meg

7. The Little Mermaid (1989)

I often get really irritated when people zone in on Ariel’s infatuation with Eric and decide that is the ONLY reason she wanted life on land. It’s like they ignore her cove of thingamabobs or her overbearing father who never taught her or sisters anything about the surface. Eric was just another reason for her to break away and be free. Ariel’s bravery, wit and passion is admirable and it’s so wrong to diminish any of those traits just because she was in love. 

One of my favorite scenes is when her father, who finally realizes Ariel is serious about life on land and her love for Eric, not only gives her legs, but the most beautiful, sparkling purple gown. It couldn’t be anymore different than how Ursula discarded by leaving her naked while her father wrapped her nicely and lovingly and finally ready for life above. I just find that very touching.

Ok that went on for far too long lol time for some tags

@duechainz @rengokukyoujurou @yoshis @king-gappy @phantom-riter @nezukoh @jojo-sama

[crystalwillow]

Choices – Stories You Play Merch. A Review

I was talking with a friend about the merch that Pixelberry Studios have recently released, for their stories on the Choices app. That conversation got me expressing how I feel about the merch, and one feeling that seemed mutual was that it seems very rushed. Let me explain why.

I personally feel there is too much High School Story and The Royal Romance stuff on the first launch when it could have been more diverse and included all of the books in some way.

The Apparel (T-shirts) – The designs themselves are okay. What I feel iffy about here is the colour selections, for each design.

·         Liam & Drake & Hana & Maxwell Shirt – With this shirt you get an option of two colours, but they are both shades of blue. Royal blue and Light blue.

·         TRR Logo/Title Shirt – This only comes in one colour. Navy blue.

·         Corgi Shirt – This is only currently available in one colour as well, which is red.

·         TRR Book 3 Cover Shirt – Only available in a deep purple right now.

·         TC&TF Title and character names Shirt – There are currently 2 t-shirts for The Crown & The Flame on the website right now. The title logo and one that reads ‘Kenna & Don & Val & Raydan’. Both of these shirts only currently available in red.

·         HSS Shirt #1 – Again there are two colour options with this design. Red and Kelly (A green colour.)

·         HHS Shirt #2 – This shirt has the cover of the first high school story book on it and comes in 2 colours again. This time a muted, sort of mustardy yellow colour and heather mint, a pastel green.

·         AME Shirt – This comes with the cover of the first book printed on it and is currently only available in a light blue colour

·         The Elementalists Shirts – The first shirt has the books title with the attunement symbols underneath printed across the chest. This one is available in purple with white text or grey with black text. The 2nd shirt for this book however is only available in purple and has the cover of the first book printed on the front.

·         BB Shirt: Has the cover of the first book in it’s series printed on the chest area and is only available in red.

·         Pixelberry Shirt – This shirt comes with the Pixelberry logo printed on the chest and is available in black or heather mint (pastel green.)

·         “Don’t Talk To Me” Shirt – Again is available in just 2 different shades of blue. Navy or Light.

·         Desire & Decorum Shirt – Is basically the title of the book printed onto either a grey shirt with black text or a royal type of blue shirt with white text.

·         Choices Shirt #1 – is the choices logo w/ wording printed across the chest in white text on a blue shirt.

·         Choices Shirt #2 – Is just the book logo of the app printed again, on the chest on the shirt in black.

So as you can probably tell by now,  the colour choice here is very poor. You have 1 black t-shirt option for 15 shirts. The main colours are Blue, Purple, Red, Green and Yellow. So if you dislike these colours or they don’t suit your skin tone and you’re a fan of these books wanting a shirt, you won’t be able to get one just yet. You will be waiting until possible future upgrades to their store. But I will digress as we move onto the next section of the store, where we will start with...

 Phone Cases

Personally, I feel like there is quite a bit that could change here. When a new merch launch happens, it is expected for there to be limited designs. Especially when you ae launching multiple items at once in your first launch. In the phone case section you have 8 case designs to choose from.

·         1 x BloodBound

·         2 X Blades of Light & Shadow

·         TRR Corgi

·         TF Zig jersey No.

·         HSS

·         2 x Pixelberry designs

To my personal self, 7/8 of the designs are okay. I’m not satisfied with the bloodbound phone case. Adrian Raines, is a customizable Love Interest (Li) in the book, yet the only version of the art for the case that is available is that of the white version of him. What about those players who customized him to be Hispanic or Black? They’re being sh*t on again by not having the option to have the artwork for those two versions of Adrian, that PB already have, on the case. That case is literally just for white Adrian fans.

Coffee Mugs

Again, with this product there are 8 options. They are as follows.

·         Open Heart, Edenbrook Logo

·         BloodBound

·         TRR Cordonian Apple

·         2 x The Freshman

·         3 x HHS

I feel like by this point things are getting a little repetitive. I understand that TF, HSS & TRR are some of their first projects and they want to cater to the people/fans who were there for that and may want merch for those series but there is such a thing as over catering, to certain things. As it stands today Pixelberry Studios have 45 series for their platform, 5 of which are not yet released. So far in the store, we’ve been in 3 sections where there’s been 15 shirts, 8 phone cases and 8 mugs. Yet only 10 series have been made into some form of merchandise so far. Now yes, I understand not ALL the shirts are series from the platform there is some standard PB merch included there and with the phone cases but that doesn’t take away from the fact the series/books such as Hero and Most Wanted could also have been put onto some for of merch too.

Water Bottles

With the water bottles you only get 6 designs.

·         1 x BloodBound design

·         Liam & Drake & Hana & Maxell design

·         HSS Notebook design

·         Hartfeld logo

·         PB Studios design

·         HSS Crest design

I haven’t got much critique for this product, except there could be 2 more designs of series that have not yet been made into merch as they are mainly just the title logo on an aluminium bottle with a screw top lid.

Pin Buttons/Badges & Stickers

All these products come individually and all retail for 3.99 apiece. There are currently 26 pin buttons and 6 stickers on the site. I want to just say that this. These sections could have been made so much better if PB would have brought out packs, for each series instead of doing it separately. Also in the BloodBound series there are 2 Li’s that later became members of the council. Whether it was officially done or not. They were part of the council by the end of the series, yet they don’t get their brands or sector logos on a pin badge like the rest of the council members did in this merch launch. That is just wrong and should have been done without a second thought from the merch teams on PB’s end, when talking about this concept for pin buttons. As far as stickers are concerned? The selection is poor. You have the 3 familiars from The Elementalists, Threep the Nesper from Blades of Light and Shadow, a Cordonian apple and Maxwell Beaumont’s hippo tattoo. Again, if packs had been made with all the characters, including the characters that are customizable in ethnicity, and retailed at around the 10.99-12.99 mark, depending on how many characters are in the pack, then it would have been a better investment. Of course some series only have 2-5/6 main characters and hardly any consistent side characters that are relevant to the stories plot so you could either add all the characters wearing different expressions and a group sticker and retail the packs for the same price as those with loads more characters or just retail them for half the price, only putting one of each character in wearing one expression.

Posters

These posters come in 3 different sizes/measurements. 8x10in, 12x16in and 18x24in. There are currently 8 of them in the store after the first initial launch of the merch store.

·         TC & TF Poster, Signed by the PB Team. This one if 15.99 for that reason

The other 7 all retail at 10.99 as they are not signed. Which begs the question in my mind of “How are they justified 5 for some signatures?” Anyway the other posters are,

·       �� The Elementalists 1 & 2 Book Covers

·         Open Heart 1 Book Cover

·         The Freshman 3 Book Cover

·         BloodBound 1 Book Cover

·         The Royal Romance 1 & 3 Book Covers

So now you’re probably wondering, “What’s wrong with that?” well let me tell where I kind of have an issue with this. Yes, there is a selection but it’s very limited. They have 30+ book covers to have chosen from and they choose 8 which they already have some kind of merchandise for. They could have chosen to do a Hero or Most Wanted signed poster and then which ever they didn’t choose to do put that on in as part of the 7 unsigned posters along with other posters of book covers such as A Courtesan of Rome, Endless Summer, The Haunting of Braidwood Manor etc. and then put in 2 newer book cover posters.

After reading all of this in full, some of you are probably thinking that I’ve been way too harsh here because you have to think of cost of making the products and then the amount shipping out all the orders will cost that don’t have free shipping attached to them. But I am fully aware there is so much more that goes into making merchandise than just putting the final product out there. I just feel like this was very rushed and not given the proper thought and attention it needed and deserved, some of the examples would be the colour range with the t-shirts, it’s very limited. Again with the coffee mug and water bottle designs, they are good but some different titles other than HSS & TF could have been used and the poster like I explained at the end of the paragraph for that section, could have had different book covers chosen for them. Now this is not me saying to hate the merch and not buy it and protest about it, starting arguments online over it. I’m not doing that at all. This is simply just my review of things after I took a first look at the website and found myself disappointed in the range of book diversity there is here. I get that money is an aspect that has to be thought of here, I get that they would go broke if they were to do certain things and the app, stories, all of that would stop. But yet again, it comes back to the point of things getting repetitive. The only section BloodBound is not included in, is the stickers. It’s in every other section. Same for a couple of other book titles. They have some amazing books, who’s titles they could have made into merch but for some reason they chose not to. Whether that’s because they thought it “wouldn’t sell” to which I say what the heck?! Are you serious?? There are people who are fans of just one certain book and would most likely buy that merch if they’re to hear about the merch shop somehow. Ultimately, I just feel like this store was a rush job. And like my friend said a way for them to make more money, as it looks like hardly any deep thought process went into this at all. Just like with their books, there was so much potential here, but it wasn’t met. I don’t know I honestly just think that if more thought, time and effort was put into this, then It would have been so much better. For example like I mentioned, if they had added Jax Matsuo and Lily Spencer pin buttons and made the pin buttons and sticker into packs and done 10 books for pin buttons as packs and 6 books for sticker packs, that would have been a better marketing viewpoint to approach from.

I would like to end this by saying, even though by my review it may seem like I hate the merch store for choices, I don’t. I just dislike certain parts of it and can see where there is potential for there to be so much more done with it. I really don’t know though... I guess I do just feel upset with the lack of book diversity on the store when really, they already have the resources to make merch with different book titles from everything they’ve released over the past, almost 4 years now.