#It's an interaction between two characters which will indirectly involve my favorite one

[thewirewitch]

Leaving off my writing in a part that I wanted to get to so that I have motivation to continue writing the next day.

My evil plan for future me mwah ha ha >:)

[bobbyshaddoe80]

Liberated Audio Reviews

Blake's 7 - The Liberator Chronicles Vol. 6

RELEASED OCTOBER 2013

Recorded on: 2, 10 and 30 October and 13 December 2012

Recorded at: Moat Studios

Review By Robert L. Torres

Incentive by Peter Anghelides

'The Liberator crew are recovering from a Galactic War and searching for their lost members Blake and Jenna. But it’s a search that leads them into terrible danger…'

Because this story marks the return of Steven Pacey to the role of Del Tarrant, I think it is best that I get my views on the character out of my system before getting to the rest of the review.

Honestly.... Out of the main characters that have come and gone on the show during its four season run, there are two that I do not count as my favorites.

The first is Soolin, largely due to how bland and one note the character was compared to the character she was brought on to replace in Series D... Cally.

The other character is Del Tarrant, and I shall endeavor to explain why I dislike him despite Steven Pacey's fine performance.

From the first moment he appeared on the show, there was something about him that just rubbed me the wrong way. For years I knew it was the character himself that seemed like the problem... But I could never work out why.

This story finally brought to light why I disliked Tarrant's character. He was a young, cocky, hot shot with loyalties only to himself... Basically a less charming and less endearing version of Star Lord. He was impatient, brash, and only seemed to be throwing in his lot with the resistance for no other reason than for fame and glory.

In addition, Tarrant seemed to go out of his way to get under everyone's skin (or rather just Avon's), and always bristled under Avon's command.

I understand that with Gareth Thomas having left the series, they needed to create a new character to go up against Avon on the decision making, much in the same way Avon used to butt heads with Blake. Except the dynamic between Avon and Tarrant, from what I remember, was different and far more antagonistic than it was between Blake and Avon. Avon was an Alpha dog, but Tarrant was also an Alpha dog. This is probably why most of their disagreements, from what I remember, tended to come across like dick wagging contests.

It has been a while since I saw the series proper, but there are only two things of any significance regarding Tarrant that I remember. The first was the Series C episode 'Death Watch', which I think involved his twin brother Deeta. The other was the episode 'Sand' from Series D, which involved him and Servalan being trapped on a planet together... Having conjugal relations.

While the character of Del Tarrant isn't my favorite, Anghelides does a pretty good job of at least attempting to shed a bit of light on his character. This is accomplished by focusing on his desperate desire to stand out from the crowd and make a name for himself on par with the legendary Blake and Jenna.

The story begins not long after Tarrant and Dayna have officially joined the crew. During their latest attempt to locate Blake and Jenna, Tarrant and Avon are captured and interrogated while strapped to an electro-shock lie detector. This dual focused narrative split is in itself a pretty interesting dig at unreliable narratives, especially given that both Tarrant and Avon receive electro shocks whenever they aren't being completely truthful in their recollections.

By the way, kudos to Adrian Lukis for his exquisite portrayal of Interrogator Bracheeni. The scenes that featured him interacting with Tarrant and Avon were actually some of the best parts of the story. The revelation of who and what Bracheeni is added a great deal to the narrative, especially in providing an explanation as to why the Liberator crew had to abandon the search for Blake and Jenna.

All things considered, it is nice to get an actual in-universe explanation as opposed to what actually happened: the plot thread being dropped without explanation, forcing viewers to accept the fact that Blake and Jenna weren't coming back... Ever.

While there are some interesting ideas and set ups featured in the story, the narrated recollections are not really that engaging. In addition, my problem with this story is the same problem I had with Volume Three's 'Armageddon Storm'. Its a narrated story that should have been done as a full cast audio.

Final Score: 6 out of 10 Plasma Bolts

As it stands, this story does its job of filling an hour and retroactively provides answers to lingering questions, thus making it essential. However, this is marred by being an uneven story that is only half engaging.

Jenna's Story by Steve Lyons

'Jenna's story is finally told - from her escape from the Liberator during the Galactic War, to her determination to continue the fight against the Federation alone… with the odds stacked against her.'

When Big Finish Productions obtained the rights to produce new stories set within Series A through C of Blake's 7, this not only opened up story avenues to provide greater focus stories for many of its characters, but also an opportunity to fill in a couple of gaps in the narrative.

While 'Incentive' was an uneven story, it still managed to do what the show itself was unable or unwilling to do at the time: explain why the Liberator crew abandoned their search for Blake and Jenna.

Answering lingering questions seems to be this boxset's central theme as the next two stories are focused on what happened to the characters that literally jumped ship at the end of Series B, Jenna and Blake.

According to dialogue spoken by Cally in early Series C, it was always assumed that Jenna was with Blake when they abandoned ship during the Galactic War. It was also naturally assumed that Jenna had been with Blake the whole time during Series C and D.

Turns out that wasn't the case at all... Which actually works to the benefit of this story and the next.

Here, Jenna recounts how she spent her time surviving and fighting during the events of Series C and leading into Series D. It provides Sally Knyvette with great material and also serves as a reminder of what made me, personally, fall out of love with the series during Series D... Particularly with the way the series ended.

Let me be clear, as much I personally didn't like not having Blake and Jenna around on the show anymore, Steve Lyons managed to craft an exceptional Jenna-centric story that absolutely had to be told. This story, as well as the next one, managed to do a much better job implementing the central themes of what was meant to be on display during Series C and particularly during Series D: how the crusade that Blake started with hope and optimism slowly but surely devolved into cynicism, suspicion, self-interest and ultimately self-destruction.

This is highlighted well during Jenna's dealings with Correll, played by John Banks, and his disrespectfully dismissive attitude towards people with 'noble causes', his derogatory disbelief in 'heroes', as well as his overriding, self-serving self-interest.

Kudos to Banks for portraying someone that's basically an unlikeable, selfish jerk without becoming despicable.

The crux and climax of the story is based on a line of dialogue Blake tells Tarrant during the series finale regarding Jenna's ultimate fate. While the moment itself is thrilling and well executed, I had hoped that it was a lie as part of Blake's test or something. Still, what was crafted here is suitably tragic as it showcases the depths of Jenna's devotion, and even her love, for Blake.

The ultimate tragedy being that, in the end, she never did get to tell Blake how she felt about him... and how much he meant to her.

Final Score: 10 out of 10 Plasma Bolts

A superbly satisfying sendoff and sublime swansong for Sally's Stannis!

Blake's Story by Mark Wright and Cavan Scott

'Blake's story is finally told - from his escape from the Liberator during the Galactic War, to his new life as a troubled, scarred man on a distant rebel world…'

Before getting into the review, I have to state that while I understand the reasons why Gareth Thomas and Sally Knyvette left the show at the end of Series B, it is my opinion that the show lost quite a bit of its inherent identity once Blake and Jenna were gone.

While many contend that promoting the late Paul Darrow to lead actor was the creative booster shot the show needed, there is a reason the show was still called Blake's 7 and not Avon's 7.

No matter who is given the spotlight and focus, Blake's presence is still very embedded within the show's DNA. Despite his absence, Blake's influence is still keenly felt by those that inhabit this fictional universe... Both directly and indirectly.

While the storytelling avenues may have opened up for the rest of the cast, the audience would still inevitably wonder, 'Where the hell is Blake? When is he coming back?' Largely because the audience was still interested in seeing Blake's story continue.

Both Gareth Thomas and Chris Boucher no doubt understood this to be absolutely true. As long as the Roj Blake character remained alive, but missing from a show that bared his character's name, then Gareth Thomas would not have been able to truly move forward in his career.

Which is why its no surprise that the most memorable moment in the entire series came about at Thomas' insistence.

But this isn't about how Blake's story ends... Its about the circumstances Blake experienced during Series C and D that led to his ultimate fate on Gauda Prime. And I am pleased to say that Wright and Scott do an excellent job filling in the blanks of Blake's journey.

From landing on the planet Epheron in his escape pod, to attempting to reunite with the Liberator (which includes Blake visiting the planet Shorlan post-Armageddon Storm), to being captured, tortured and accused of treachery by the Resistance (thus explaining the scar over his eye he displayed in the series finale), its all presented here brilliantly. I also appreciate how engaging these moments are, and aren't treated as plot points to check off.

The late Gareth Thomas really did a great job with this material, displaying the same charisma and intensity he had shown throughout his tenure on the show, which is doubly unfortunate that he had opted out after Series B.

The framing device utilized for Blake recounting events is brilliant, and the twist reveal is actually rather clever... If a little unsurprising. However, it serves the narrative well as it goes to the heart of the tragic and ironic inevitability that lies ahead for Blake, particularly in his connection to Avon.

Despite their disagreements and opposing ideals... And no matter how often Avon secretly wished to be rid of Blake... They still needed each other.

It often reminds me of why the Doctor chooses to travel with companions, the companions keep the Doctor grounded and keep the Doctor from going too far for the sake of selfish self interest and so on.

While neither one would ever admit it, Blake and Avon had the ability to keep each other in check. And even though Blake said at the end of 'Star One' and even near the end of this story that he always trusted Avon... Its only with the benefit of hindsight do we question whether or not that trust was warranted.

Final Score: 10 out of 10 Plasma Bolts

A truly satisfying sendoff for the original star of the show.

Final score for Volume 6 of the Liberator Chronicles, in its entirety, is 8 out of 10 Plasma Bolts.

This is an essential set of stories for longtime fans. Even though there are six more boxsets of stories left in the range, if the Liberator Chronicles audio range ended here, it would have ended on a major high note.

As an aside, while the next six boxsets have produced some outstanding stories, I personally feel that both 'Jenna's Story' and 'Blake's Story' should have been the stories utilized as the finale for the Liberator Chronicles range overall.

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Questions or comments:

Email - bobbyshaddoe3004@yahoo.com

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[hotel-japanifornia]

What’s your feelings on godot i do feel sorry for him and i don’t hate him but he was a huge prick to Phoenix

Godot is a rather complex character. I like him as a character in general, however the fandom does seem to misunderstand who he is and what his motives are, even his fans.

When we first meet Godot chronologically, we meet him as the defense lawyer, Diego Armando. Diego is honestly pretty charming, he’s smooth, he’s confident, he’s cool, and I like the way he plays off of Mia. I personally never found the “kitten” nickname sexist nor do I understand why it would even be considered that way. It’s never said once that Diego doesn’t think Mia is lesser for her gender. In fact, in their first conversation during the case, this is said:

Armando:No, no, no… You’ve got it all wrong! Today, YOU’RE the finest! After all, it took an amazing amount of guts to take this case! Imagine… An escaped death row convict for a first client!

If anything, I think the whole kitten thing is probably just his nickname for rookies in general, and not necessarily women. I’ve seen people think it’s his way of flirting with her, and that’s possible too, just not necessarily how I see it. Anyways, at the end of the case, Mia beats herself up because she thinks that she was the reason her client died and Diego gives her this piece of advice:

Armando:Don’t you get it? You can’t cry yet. The only time a lawyer can cry is when it’s all over.

Mia:M-Mr. Armando…

It’s honestly a good piece of advice, and I love how Mia takes inspiration from that quote and uses it towards Phoenix even if it’s said in a different way:

“The toughest of times are when lawyers have to put on their biggest smiles.”

It’s not exactly the same as what Diego said, sure, but it does have the same meaning. In that way at least, you can see the impact he must have left on Mia. Regarding the two’s relationship for a moment, I do think they had just started dating when Diego was poisoned. It does explain why Grossberg calls Diego Mia’s boyfriend, but I digress.

When we meet him in 3-2 and 3-3, it’s obvious he dislikes Phoenix but we don’t know why yet. Honestly, Godot is probably one of my favorite parts of 3-2: he’s mysterious and confident, but he also has some goofy moments like when he refers to himself as a legendary prosecutor because he’s never lost a case but he’s also never won one either. I don’t know that it was intended to be funny but it’s always made me snicker a little. He comes off as being a jerk sure but so did Edgeworth and Franziska, and like them, we learn more about Godot and his motivations later on.

Godot in 3-3 is why I can never agree that T&T has a filler case. For one, in 3-3, you learn about Godot’s inability to see red on white when he fails to notice the ketchup on Maggey’s apron. It’s an extremely subtle moment, but it’s given quite a bit of focus so the player could then assume that that unique feature will be important later on. Godot is still mysterious and a jerk but I love the way that he handles Furio and willingly admits to being the one who summoned him to court. Like Nick said after the fact:

(T… Too cool…) 

Not only that, but he does manage to have a somewhat nice moment with Phoenix at the end of the case after throwing coffee at him:

Godot:Well done… Trite. I saved my 17th cup of coffee just for you. Savor it… While you watch your caged prey. 

While we don’t learn that much more about Godot than we did in 3-2; what we do learn about him plays a very important role in a case later on. 3-3 isn’t directly involved with the Feys at all, but it does have some importance to the overall plot of the game.

We meet Armando in 3-4 which is the first playable case chronologically in the trilogy’s timeline. Right off the bat, we notice he looks similar to Godot, the two even have a similar suit to each other, just different colors and have a similar hairstyle. I’m not entirely sure how many people guessed that Godot and Diego Armando were the same person right away but I think people might have at least thought the two were related at least (I’ve even seen people think that Godot and Diego were identical twins!). As for me, I kinda had a feeling since the two look alike and have the same love for the hot, bitter lady known as coffee.

Godot is extremely important to 3-5. If it wasn’t for him forming a plan to save Maya with Misty and Iris, Maya would be dead. Thing is, I don’t agree that Godot is entirely to blame for not going to the police and bringing the plot to them or just burning the note the whole way through. If the latter had happened, Pearl would have told Morgan she couldn’t find it and Morgan would definitely suspect that something was going on and possibly even relay the plan to Pearl herself. The former happening is unlikely because of reasons that I will go into a bit deeper. Another problem lies in that Misty also shares some of the blame herself but this post isn’t about her so I won’t go deep into it. 

We don’t see Godot until the second investigation period when Dusky Bridge has been rebuilt and Phoenix enters the Inner Temple, desperate to find Maya. It’s there that we learn why Godot hates Phoenix so much. Godot blames Phoenix for the murder of Mia Fey. He states that since Phoenix was there at the time, he should have protected her and by failing to do so, he in a sense, killed her. And because Maya is missing at the time, he goes further and says that Phoenix killed Maya indirectly by failing to protect her when she needed it most.

Personally, I find this conversation to be more Godot venting out his frustrations on Phoenix. Think about it, the guy spent 5 years in a coma because a psycho killer poisoned his coffee. He wakes up and he finds out that his girlfriend was murdered while he was in a coma. He feels mad at himself for not being able to protect Mia and thus sought to protect Maya as a way to make amends. While it seems like a weird conversation and just another example of Godot being a douche during one’s first time going through the case; a replay of the case after finishing it helps shed new light on the conversation the two have. 

We also learn more about Godot’s inability to see red on white during that same encounter in greater detail. He says that his eyes are messed up and that mask is the only way he can see. Although it’s not much, it is something. 

During the first trial portion of the last trial day, Godot starts acting rather strangely. When he learns that there was writing in red on the stone lantern in the Inner Temple Garden, he starts freaking out. Not only that but he actually helps calm Phoenix down when he freaks out over Dahlia’s suggestion that Maya jumped into the Eagle River from the Inner Temple side, and tells him that would be impossible to do.

Eventually, after Dahlia has been exorcised from Maya’s body, the Judge attempts to hand down his verdict. Godot immediately objects and says that they still don’t know who killed Misty, and the only person who can testify about that is Maya Fey. Some people have called this move callous and insensitive to the state that Maya is in, but it really isn’t. Godot could have simply let the Judge hand his verdict down and get away with his crime. But he doesn’t, he requests that they summon the one person that could incriminate him. Also, he does show a fair bit of empathy towards Maya in this exchange of dialogue towards her before her first testimony:

Godot:Straighten up this moment, young lady!

Maya:Huh…?

Godot:Pick your head up and speak clearly. There’s always time for crying later.

Maya:B-But I…

Godot:Your mother was killed right in front of your eyes! There’s nothing you can do to change that fact.

Maya:…!

Godot:But there’s something you can do… You can finish this. You’ve been watching the whole thing right? You’ve seen the witnesses come out and you’ve seen us squeeze the truth out of them. Now it’s your turn. …Let’s hear your testimony. On the night of the crime… what exactly did you see happen!?

It’s pretty obvious during Maya’s testimony that she’s willing to protect the identity of whoever killed her mother, even to the point that she begs Phoenix not to reveal his identity and even suggests that she thought it was a man for other reasons than the three red glowing lights. We also get to hear about this one cute little story about an interaction between him and Pearl in which he actually comforted her and gave her coffee. That’s pretty sweet…and kinda dangerous.

Still, it’s quite obvious upon cross-examining Maya that Godot is the killer, so why is she covering up for the man who killed her mother to the point that she’d be found guilty otherwise? Godot did save Maya’s life in the process of killing Misty who was channeling Dahlia at the time and would have killed her if Godot hadn’t intervened. Maya is plenty aware of this and it is in character for her to do something like that.

We also learn through Godot’s self-reflection that he knows that he could have killed Pearl instead of Misty that night and that Misty’s murder was out of a fit of rage against the ghost of the woman who ruined his life. He also goes on to say that he’s not really sure that him saving Maya’s life was out of a genuine will to protect her, and even tells her that if he genuinely wanted to help Maya, he should have gone to Phoenix instead. Despite this, Maya genuinely believes that he wanted to save her life and so does Phoenix even despite the way Godot had treated him up to that point.

Godot is an extremely gray character and it’s really interesting to study him as a character, who he is and what his intentions were. I don’t think he truthfully wanted to kill anyone that night in the Inner Temple Garden, all he wanted to do was protect Maya the way he wanted to protect Mia. He was never willing to actually kill anybody and even helped Phoenix catch him in the end. Iris and Misty both played a role in this plan too and made their own share of screw-ups so I don’t understand why people shift so much of the blame for it onto Godot?

Honestly though, I think that the whole black-white morality lens that people typically view characters through doesn’t really work with characters like Godot. Godot is not a good guy but he’s not a cookie cutter bad guy like some of the culprits in this series seem to be and that’s what makes him so intriguing to me. He’s not my favorite character, but I can see why someone may say he’s their favorite.

[theboywhocriedbooks]

How to Be Remy Cameron by Julian Winters

[Goodreads]

Everyone on campus knows Remy Cameron. He’s the out-and-gay, super-likable guy that people admire for his confidence. The only person who may not know Remy that well is Remy himself. So when he is assigned to write an essay describing himself, he goes on a journey to reconcile the labels that people have attached to him, and get to know the real Remy Cameron.

Thoughts:

I met Julian Winters in 2019 while I was helping out at YALLWEST. He’s super nice and I was looking forward to checking out his books, mainly because I knew they had queer characters of color at their forefront. I decided to start with this book and I am so happy that I did because it was so damn good! So much of it is about identity, obviously but also the ways identity interacts with things like friendship, love, and school. The characters all felt very fleshed out and were so lovely, and there is a cute dog so that’s always a plus! There were so many important themes/ideas shared throughout this book and some of them were a bit heavy-handed but that’s completely fine. I love heavy-handed things. My view is this: this book is for young adults and many young adults really need to hear these things told to them directly in a way that often isn’t in popular media. That they’re valid, that queerness is okay and comes in many forms, that people of color can be queer, that racial fetishization isn’t okay, etc. ALSO! The main character AND his love interest both are not white and that brings me so much joy (that I’ll go on about later!) The point is, if this sounds a little like it might interest you then you gotta pick it up now! Going to go on about it in SPOILER-Y DETAIL BELOW: _______________________________________ I loved this. Lucy was my favorite friend but I think I could have liked Rio more had she been in it a little more beyond their fight but Lucy was just generally really good. I loved the cast of characters because most of them felt so individual. Well, I would say that there was a set of twins that really fell on the sideline but aside from that everyone was so fleshed out. I loved his family because they were so warm and felt really close, which was important to his character as an adopted kid. The birth sister, Free, was so good too though. She didn’t even have too many scenes but I felt the connection and I loved it when she would talk about their birth mother. It was just such an interesting and complex situation to be in and I thought it was handled honestly and very well. The other best character was obviously Clover.

Ian was so good. I had a playful friend crush on someone named Ian in high school so I did think of him lol. I really liked Ian and Remy’s relationship though. It was a lot less dramatic than relationships I’ve read in YA and I appreciated that. They were friends and connecting so it was nice. I appreciated the honesty in the book generally but especially between these characters. The lack of drama was really in them being pretty honest during certain moments instead of stewing too much. It was just cute. They had lots of little moments, like the cafeteria whisper, the pool, the walking the dog talks, etc and it felt very natural. As I previously mentioned, it feels so good to see an author of color writing two queer characters of color romantically involved. We all know how white the media can be but even when they do give us, say, a gay Black character, they then give him a white boyfriend. So often, that’s what happens. But not here, and I loved it. It really reflects my own experience as a qpoc and that always feels good since it is so rare.

I did say things were heavy-handed but again, I do think things NEED to be heavy-handed at times. Especially since certain ideas aren’t directly addressed too often that when it is addressed, it can feel almost clunky. I thought it was very well done here though. An extension of that, I really appreciated how diverse the cast of characters was. It felt very natural. 

The topic of identity was so big, understandably. I love an introspective narrative and I thought this one was set up well — Black gay guy adopted into a white family, there really are so many identities at play there alone. Then you add his relationships with people (friends, family, birth family) and the pressure of school?! It was intense and I enjoyed watching Remy explore these certain aspects of himself and trying to understand them or how others view them perhaps.

Outside of the heavy-handed comments, I did see a few critiques online for this book. One was the Harry Potter references but I was okay with them despite my current feelings about that franchise but I can understand the annoyance there. He also made Buffy references and I’m obsessed with Buffy so that made up for it to me lol. A lot of more serious critical comments were about the references to the main character getting a boner. It was referenced directly and indirectly a handful of times and it did catch my eye. My response to that, as a person who has a penis, is that boners happen literally all of the time and so that’s life. I just think people are uncomfortable with the writer referencing it because it so rarely is talked about in YA. Like periods or condoms lol. The last big critique I saw was around the outing of a character. After the MC spends the whole book emphasizing he can’t out his love interest, a side character randomly reveals her bother (the school loner) is “demisexual and not straight”. Reviews/thoughts I saw about this question the characters agency over his identity, especially since we never actually see him speak. I did feel like this was a fumble.

Overall, I think it’s a fun and almost perfect book. It made me smile and laugh and I can’t wait for little queer Black boys and queer boys of color to read it. I hope you enjoyed it too!

[natsubeatsrock]

The Rewrite of Fairy Tail: Part 19 (Juvia)

What was Juvia's character arc? 

Well, this is something I'm not sure I could have avoided. I don't think there's a way to talk about Juvia at any length and not piss someone off. As someone who recognizes this, I'm usually more cautious involving Gruvia. But I figure we ought to start with the elephant in the room. With that in mind, here's what I mean to address in this post. 

How can Juvia's character be described without talking about Gruvia in a romantic sense? 

It's hard for me to talk about Juvia and not talk about Gray. One the one hand, that's been something I've loathed over the years and still don't like. But, on the other hand, I don't complain about this in other instances. I don't complain about Igneel's influence on Natsu, Deliora's influence on Gray, or Jellal and Erza's influence on each other to name a few examples. (inb4 something about the differences between these examples and Gruvia) For many people, these things are one of the big points of interest in the character they involve. 

What I can say is that, as Gruvia becomes more romantic, it became more contentious. Regardless of how you feel about the ship, that much shouldn’t be ridiculously controversial. I have to talk about their relationship a bit, but I don't want to dwell on its romantic aspect too much in this post. (I’d say this would be a long month, but it’s already almost over.)

As someone who is decidedly not a shipper, the best point made by the Gruvia fandom involves Gray's impact on Juvia. Before their fight, Juvia hasn't had a whole lot of exposure to good meaningful love in any respect. I guess her friendship with Gajeel had to be of enough importance to refer him to the guild. But, that's about it. Her most relevant relationship outside of that was a failed romance with Bora, that had about as much importance to the series as it sounds. 

In meeting Gray, she's able to start making genuinely meaningful relationships. While Gray probably would have done what he did, even that was more than Juvia probably felt she deserved. It reminds me of that one scene in Erased (if you know about the series, you know the one). While Juvia doesn't always express that in the best of ways, that's because of her own past. While no doubt imperfect, it serves as a reflection to her own romantic interest in Gray. \

If it sounds like I take issue with this, it's not that it's an inaccurate view of the situation. I've had a lot of time to sit with this explanation and, the more I reread and think through the series, I can't help but think of this as a fair description. In fact, the issue I have with this is only the lens which people see Gruvia through. Keeping this in mind helps understand how Juvia's character is supposed to work. 

In joining Fairy Tail, she ends up in a guild that isn't just where Gray is. She's joining a genuinely loving community that, not unlike a few characters, serves as a surrogate family. There's a scene during the Gray fight where she says she doesn't need love. Not two arcs later, the Tower of Heaven, Juvia communicates a desire to change to Lucy. That should mean something considering she not only was directly responsible for kidnapping her but was ready to kill her for Gray's affection. 

And then we got Fantasia arc which is, for all intents and purposes, her best arc in the series. There's the moment that comes to mind of most when Juvia sacrifices herself instead of fighting Cana. At this point, she goes in opposition to her previous statement and shares that she loves everyone in the guild. But I love the moment in the chapter after that. Cana starts to fight Freed with tears in her eyes over him calling Juvia a former member of Phantom Lord as she's currently a Fairy Tail wizard. I've loved this moment at first but going through Fairy Tail again, this might be my favorite Juvia moment in the series. 

Tenrou arc comes along and Juvia starts to make relationships outside of the guild. What I find interesting is that she makes a connection with Meredy. I would say that her situation is better than Juvia's before Fairy Tail as she had a family (presumably that got killed because of Grimoire Heart) she had Ultear as an important relationship. However, she was more cold and distant than Juvia before their fight. There is an obvious sense of irony in which someone who is closed off has a magic ability involving connecting others. After meeting Juvia, she goes from being willing to sacrifice herself to stopping Ultear from killing herself to make up for what she did to Meredy. Juvia even notes the difference in Meredy when they meet again before the Grand Magic Games starts. They even have a few moments in the last arc together. 

And that's it. 

I mean, Lyon has a crush on her, but that's obviously more one-sided than mutual. There are some hints at it being more in the anime, but they go nowhere important. Chelia sees her as a bit of a love rival because of it but that's not a great thing by my estimate and it's definitely not a relationship. Outside of that, there's nothing else. 

She only meets Meredy in two other arcs past Tenrou, though, considering the nature of Meredy’s new line of work, that’s not without reason. Honestly, her relationships don't get furthered much in the guild. Lisanna wants to connect with Juvia, but that goes nowhere after Tenrou Island. It's not even like it couldn't have considering Gruvia and Albis are still similarly functioning relationships with different dynamics based on the differences in the characters involved. Albis is still a couple, but they're more public about their affections. Gruvia was still one-sided but it's an insecure Gray not being accepted by Juvia. Most other relationships didn't progress either. 

Most. 

On the back of the Edolas arc, Juvia hears about Edolas Gruvia's dynamic from Happy. (I'm not sure how much she was told about how the rest of that entire world was different, but I also don't know if that would have mattered.) It's obvious that Juvia's always been interested in Gray romantically. However, it's not until after Edolas this becomes a more active effort on her part. 

Consider how even something like the potion from the anime version of Special Request: Watch Out for the Guys You Like, the arguably most active attempt Juvia makes towards a relationship with Gray up to that point, is still only about making Gray "passionately gaze" at her. The emphasis is still on making Gray do something. Now, Juvia is on the offensive to get Gray's attention and confession of love. 

To be perfectly honest, I don't think this is, in and of itself, a bad thing. I like good old-fashioned slow-burn (read: reasonably paced) ship development. A lot of my favorite romances involve characters falling more and more in love with each other. However, I'm glad Juvia's at least trying to speed up the process. While the methods used and overall success she goes through are contentious, to put it lightly, I genuinely believe the base is good and her intentions are pure. 

But it’s more than just Juvia wanting to be with Gray. After the Edolas arc, he becomes more or less the focus of how Juvia learns to love more. In Tartarus, the focus is on whether or not Juvia should love Gray after (somewhat indirectly) killing Silver. The whole fakeout death in Alvarez is an example of Juvia’s sacrificial love for Gray.

That focus goes almost entirely into one of Juvia's relationship, albeit the most important one for her, feels like a misstep. Even if you think that Gruvia is a good ship, her relationship with Gray shouldn't be the only way Juvia comes to find a better sense of love than what she's known. Especially considering there are different dimensions to love besides romantic love. Especially in a guild that many members, including Juvia, think of as a sort of family unit.

How do I want to fix this?

The simple and easy way is to bolster Juvia's net of relationships. That doesn't mean she randomly has a ton of new friends she couldn't have reasonably had within the series. It means refining the relationships Juvia has with other characters in the series. I don't have much to say about her relationships outside of the guild considering that involves characters I've yet to talk about if I decide to talk about them. However, I do want to talk about Juvia's general relationship to the members of the guild post-Edolas. 

If there's any moment that's irked me in this regard, it's during the Grand Magic Games. Juvia considers making sure she's able to work with Gray during the events. Of course, she doesn't go through with it and it's an anime-only moment, but it feels symbolic of the change in focus of Juvia's relationship with the guild. No one ought to question her devotion to the guild, as I'm worried does get questioned by people who also don't like Gruvia. Still, the balance of Juvia's love tips away from them and I want to change that a bit. 

What I want to do is bolster some of her in-guild relationships. She'll have plenty of time to grow closer to her supposed love rivals and future teammates for the Grand Magic Games. Frankly, all that means is more interactions between Juvia and other characters. There should be a bit more of a deepening in her relationships in the guild to a point where if (not necessarily when) I decide not to make Gruvia canon, Juvia has more people to care about, not unlike what happens in Fairy Girls. 

Of course, some time should be spent regarding how closely I want to write the most relevant event of the main series to the start of the series. That's right. We're going to talk about the rejection at the Grand Banquet...

Later. 

Introduction | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18

[fasterthanmydemons]

1, 2, 7, 24 (murder-popsicle)

@murder-popsicle

1. If you had to change your character’s FC for one day, who would you pick?

Oh gosh, I have absolutely no idea! None of my other usual or favorite go-to male FCs really would fit Pietro as well as I feel Aaron Taylor-Johnson does. I’ve been thinking for like an hour now as I work on the rest of these asks and I can’t think of anybody that would be better or even comparable. I guess I really just like ATJ’s interpretation of him that much, heh.

2. What drew you to rping this character?

I wasn’t overly attached to Pietro in the comics, tbh. I more liked him in association with Wanda (sometimes... when he wasn’t being a jerk to her, but let’s be real, she got her licks in too). But MCU Pietro felt like a very interesting reboot of the character for me, and because of the unfortunate way they killed him off so soon, it’s actually a writer’s dream as far as having a character so lacking in development that you can do so many different things with. Pietro had so much potential and so many different directions he could have gone in after Age of Ultron, and I found myself drawn to those possibilities and wanting to explore different AUs with him.

That’s the serious answer. The less-serious answer is that he was a constant pain in the ass on Wanda’s blog, like a true muse that was in my head and bugging me to be written whether I liked it or not, haha. I went from only writing Wanda, to writing Pietro as a guest muse on her blog, to considering just making it a duel blog, to now here we go and he got his wish with his own blog, heh. There are muses that I choose, and muses who choose me... and Pietro definitely chose me and would not shut up until I gave him his own blog, haha.

I think also there was an aspect of me wanting to write more of him aside from his sister. Wanda has many threads that have nothing to do with Pietro, and I wanted that same opportunity for development with Pietro. He wasn’t going to get that as a guest muse on her blog.

7. What’s a negative thing about your character that you enjoy writing? 

Haha, just the fact that he’s a cocky, impulsive, hotheaded little shit, haha. I have the most fun with Pietro when he’s being a smart ass, whether it’s a crack thread just meant to be funny, a serious one in which he’s mouthing off or shirking duties, or a touching one where he’s trying to cheer up other characters or show off for ones he likes. Even though being loud, impulsive, and arrogant can be considered negative personality traits, there is something endearing about it with Pietro, at least in my opinion.

It’s one of the reasons why I prefer to age them down, as well, because I get the impression with MCU Pietro that he’s very young mentally speaking and has had a relatively sheltered life despite the few catastrophically outside the box events that have happened to him that have left him with a lot of issues. But as he grows and depending on the AU, those negative personality traits can take him in different directions. So to take a character with some negative traits and watch how he develops with them has been a lot of fun.

24. What’s your favorite AU?

Okay, Imma blab for a bit so get ready haha. So I don’t write this one on Tumblr because I don’t happen to write with any Tony Stark muns (yet... would love to though), but a friend and I have an AU going with TinyMaximoffs™ at age ten and Tony in which the twins are absolutely freaking adorable:

The basic premise is this: The twins’ house is bombed during a conflict between U.S. allies and the Sokovian Army and their allies involving U.S. soldiers taken prisoner and a political mess that results in just a massive use of heavy ordinance from both sides. Their apartment building is gutted and their parents are killed by a bomb with Stark’s name on it... except in this AU, the name isn’t visible to the twins on the dud bomb that rests near them. So they do not immediately know Tony Stark is at least indirectly responsible for their parents’ deaths.

Now... enter Tony becoming involved through the Stark Relief Foundation and because he feels incredibly guilty at the loss of innocent life that’s occurring in Sokovia. He’s going around in his suit helping to extract trapped people... and he finds the twins. My twins happen to be mutants like in the comics, so my take on them is that their abilities are genetic and hereditary, and experiments just hasten the process of bringing those power out and making them stronger. So even at age ten, the twins could do certain things. Tony feels very guilty that these two young children have been so traumatized by being trapped under rubble for two days and is concerned as to what will happen to them now that they are orphans. He tries to ensure that they will get into some sort of adoption system and aren’t just left on the streets, and he makes sure they get to a hospital to treat some breathing issues that Wanda has and some wounds Pietro has from shielding Wanda from the collapsing rubble.

During the course of their hospital stay, Tony visits the twins mostly to calm his own conscience, but a sink hole opens up and partially collapses the hospital. Pietro rushes his sister to safety before grabbing Tony and dragging him to safety as well. Outed as having heightened speed and strength, Pietro is afraid, since both he and his sister have tried to keep their powers a secret lest they be harmed or hunted (Wanda was hunted for being a witch by age six). Tony, realizing that these children are special and need guidance and protection, ends up adopting them himself. He and Pepper become their adoptive parents, essentially. Without Hydra’s abuse and experiments in their lives, and starting much younger in a safe environment to explore and develop their powers, the twins develop much differently mentally and emotionally, which is super cool to play around with.

It’s an interesting AU because the original animosity the twins felt for Tony isn’t there, and this rescue situation at a time when they really need it ends up fostering a bond between the twins and Tony that never existed in canon. It also opens up a lot as far as redemption arcs for Tony, but..... it does leave the possibility for some very extreme angst later on if the twins should discover that it was actually Tony’s weapons that killed their parents. So I really love this AU because it turns canon just completely over and opens up so many opportunities for new interactions and interesting directions that never would have existed before. Also..... adorable Baby!Maximoffs slowly becoming Americanized and learning to use their powers in a protected and privileged environment, something so far from their very poor but loving Romani upbringing, leaves room for interesting situations and conversations about culture shock and how different the twins’ life perspectives would be from Tony and Pepper’s.

[travllingbunny]

The 100 rewatch: 2x10 Survival of the Fittest

This episode has 4 different storylines with 4 very different character pairings, but I believe is known to many as the mutant gorilla episode. :D But as ridiculous the mutant gorilla is (and as bad the CGI is), it’s kind of… ridiculous in an almost charming way? Like something that comes from another show takes itself less seriously. So it doesn’t really bother me, unlike many other things in the show – instances of stupidly written storylines that seem dead serious. There’s also one of those Octavia storylines that don’t make sense to me but that make some sense to Octavia. But the storyline with Bellamy and Lincoln trying to infiltrate Mount Weather is really good, and the last scene is what I mostly remembered this episode by. The interactions between Jaha and Murphy (now this is an interesting new dynamic I doubt anyone saw coming before it happened) are also really interesting and well-written.

Rating: 6.5/10

My favorite part of the episode is Bellamy’s and Lincoln’s journey to and attempt to infiltrate Mount Weather. This is the most extensive interaction between those two in the show, and they have come a long way since their first meeting, when Bellamy thought of Lincoln as his sister’s kidnapper and tortured him for enemy secrets. By the season 2 finale, he had accepted Lincoln as his brother-in-law and was OK with Octavia going off with him, and in season 2 he was helping Octavia save him, but this is the first time we see them interacting one-on-one. I was never a fan of how season 1 portrayed the beginning of the Linctavia relationship (I’ve never been into the Romeo-and-Juliet type insta-romance), and Lincoln didn’t get enough characterization in season 1, but season 2 fixed that and gave him a lot more depth. He had several of the best lines in the show, and he has some really good ones in this episode. When Bellamy tells him: “You are good for her, you made her strong”, Lincoln replies: “She was already strong”. Which explains why he was drawn to her, and is also a good point that is often lost on people, that strength of character is not about fighting skills.  We also learn Lincoln’s very interesting backstory (which is also generally interesting as additional backstory for the people of the Ark), when Bellamy asks him what made him want to help Octavia at the time he didn’t know her yet: as a child, he found a ship with an injured man who had fallen from the sky. Bellamy recognized that as an instance of “suicide by Earth”, which was an unconfirmed urban legend on the Ark. Lincoln wanted to help the man but didn’t speak his language at the time, so he told his father, who made him kill the man. “The world has been trying to turn me into a monster since I remember.”  A line that is crucial for Lincoln’s arc in season 2. Bellamy has himself struggled with the idea t that he’s a monster (in 1x08, struggling with his feelings of guilt over indirectly causing the culling, he told Clarke “I am a monster”).

But the scene I most remember this episode by is the cliffhanger in which Bellamy’s plan to infiltrate Mount Weather with Lincoln’s help goes wrong because Lincoln wasn’t able to resist his addiction to the “red” when he saw it right in front of him, so the result was Lincoln apparently falling back into his old role as a Reaper, and Bellamy in the MW, but in the role of a “Grounder” prisoner to be harvested. I really like the fact that the show acknowledged that addiction is incredibly difficult to overcome, no matter how strong or ethical a person you may be. At least it did it in this episode, though this storyline will later get a rather quick resolution a couple of episodes later.

The other really good storyline was a very unexpected pairing of Jaha and Murphy, which works wonderfully. After Murphy ended up in a cell for a minor altercation with a Grounder who was blaming him for being there with Finn during the massacre (while the Grounder law and custom seems to be that it’s only the leader or whoever is perceived as the leader or main perpetrator who must be punished, people probably don’t quite feel that way in practice), he and Jaha ended up sharing a cell (do they have more than one cell in the camp at this point?) and having very interesting conversations that would have never happened on the Ark, where the class system was strict, and where a leader and a member of the lower class would have never interacted like this. This finally gives Murphy some really good dialogue and a role that’s not just being the nuisance in the background that other characters must begrudgingly tolerate (occasionally telling him “Shut up, Murphy”). And it also gave Jaha more interesting moments than he’s had since…ever? I really disliked Jaha on my first watch, and was bored and annoyed with most of his scenes, until season 4 when I started finding him more interesting. I still have the same, mostly negative opinions about his leadership and morality, but now I feel I understand him better and find him a bit more sympathetic. I also wasn’t a big fan of Murphy at this point, either, though I didn’t hate him anymore as I did in season 1. I enjoy his snarky lines, especially when he was telling Jaha some hard truths, but I just roll my eyes when he is whining that he’s still treated like trash in spite of being pardoned for his crimes. Well, duh, Murphy, what do you expect? Who would think that people will hold a grudge because they gave you a second chance and you went on to murder two of their friends, nearly murdered another one and crippled another, not to mention wasted ammunition and weakened the group’s defenses against an army trying to kill them. Especially when you just expect them to forgive and accept you back, and you haven’t even really said “I’m sorry”. I only fully got on board with Murphy’s redemption in season 4, when he started genuinely apologizing for his actions and trying to do better.

But it’s fun to watch a clash between Murphy’s sarcasm and pessimism and Jaha’s hopeful, messianic preaching. You kind of see how Jaha managed to get elected Chancellor – he can give good, convincing speeches. Even if, this time, he only managed to convince Murphy and 11 other people to go with him. Some of the lines he uses this time are: “Good can come out of the darkest things” “Everyone deserves a second chance”, and one that’s more worrying: “Sometimes you have to sacrifice the few to save the many” (this message will be shown just as dark as it is later in the season, when Jaha murders one of his companions in cold blood). A part of Murphy’s motivation to agree to the trip through the desert towards the mythical City of Light is that he feels like a complete outcast, but, even if he won’t admit it, he does have a desire for something better in life. “Let me show you there’s much more for you than this”, says Jaha. The City of Light thing will turn out horribly, of course, but Jaha’s promise will kind of come true: on the trip, Murphy is soon to meet Emori, who will change his life.

Also add this episode to the list of references that Wells used to exist as a main character for 3 episodes – Jaha asks Murphy to take him to his son’s grave and learns all the details about his death.

My least favorite storyline out of 4 is Octavia’s. I don’t get Octavia’s “I’m a Grounder” thing or her desire to assimilate herself into their culture, even though they are clearly not interested. But at least Octavia isn’t portrayed as being on the same level of skill as life-long Grounder warriors, after her 10 days (?) of training with Lincoln. She decides to do the Jake La Motta thing and prove herself to Indra by getting beaten up badly and still not giving up, because impressing a woman she’s met a week ago and who’s so far only shown her hostility and wanted to kill her and all her people, is apparently her main goal in life. Maybe she just really wants a mother figure. But it works, and Indra makes Octavia her “second”, telling her that the first rule is to never question her. Grounders have a very strict hierarchical society. Obviously a perfect fit for Octavia, who is constantly trying to rebel against something or someone.

Some backstory: in an awkward joint Arker/Grounder training session, where Kane is trying to be the perfect host, we learn that the reason Grounders don’t use gun is that they have a deep fear of them, due to the way the Mountain Men had discouraged them from using them, by destroying entire villages as punishment if anyone did it. Grounders also mention that they’ve lost thousands of people to Mountain Men, but we don’t know exactly how many.

Finally, the Clarke/Lexa storyline is a mixed bag and has some interesting and important interactions between those two, but also involves really bad CGI, and the only appearance of possibly the most annoying and hypocritical minor character in the entire show. The latter is a Trikru general called Quint, who’s going overboard with the Grounder habit of constantly yelling, acting irrational and ranting at the Sky people over the fact that they dared defend themselves when Trikru attacked them and tried to kill them all. At the strategic meeting about attacking Mount Weather, where Clarke was explaining Bellamy’s mission, he instead gets in her face and yells about how she’s burned his brother in a ring of fire. Clarke responds by getting into his face and making the obvious point: “He shouldn’t have attacked my ship”, which pisses him off even more, since he’s obviously used to being good at intimidating people. I guess he’s not used to losing wars his side has started, and the fact that the people he and other Grounders keep calling “weak” every episode not only defended themselves, but kicked their asses. He makes himself feel better by saying Clarke is only brave due to the Commander’s protection, and then tries to kill her as she’s walking in the woods by her own, yelling “Not so brave now, Sky girl?” Look at me, I’m a big muscular dude with a sword, stalking an unarmed teenage girl half my size, and I’m mocking her and talking about courage? Is this guy for real? Clarke runs away, sees her Arker bodyguard Major Byrne, whose arm has been apparently cut off (actually ripped off) fall dead, gets rescued by Lexa and her guard, and then hesitates to kill Quint when Lexa gives her a sword to do it. But then it all becomes irrelevant as Byrne’s actual killer appears: yep, it’s the mutant gorilla!

Then we get some action scenes of Clarke and Lexa trying to escape the gorilla while arguing over what it means to be strong. Lexa continues with her “lessons” to Clarke, which are in line with the Grounder mentality – ruthlessness is strength, compassion is weakness, etc. Clarke was at this point just as fed up with them as I was, so she mocks Lexa at one point and snaps at her when Lexa says: “To lead, you must make tough decisions” and Clarke replies ‘You’re telling me that?” – one of the only two times post-2x09 that she’s referred to her mercy-kill of Finn. A part of Lexa’s leadership philosophy is that people are expendable, and in that vein, she tells Clarke that she shouldn’t save her. Clarke calls her heartless but smart and says she needs her because things would be awful if one of her generals became the Commander. Which is true, but Clarke doesn’t know at this point that this is not how Commanders are made.

And this is where we get our first info on that, and on the Grounder religion: Lexa says that “death is not the end” and that her “spirit will choose more wisely than that” – which makes Clarke conclude that it’s reincarnation. It is actually not, but Clarke wouldn’t know that at this point. I’m not sure the writers did either, because the Flame thing has been retconed at least 3 times. I have no idea how exactly the previous Commander’s spirit is choosing anything, when the Conclave is decided by candidates killing each other?

In the end, Clarke saves Lexa from the mutant gorilla… which is kind of funny since season 3 gave Lexa’s fighting skills a huge upgrade and we learned that she basically had superpowers due to Nightblood, but she barely ever got to fight in season 2. (And IMO, she was far more interesting before the show made her into another “badass chick with a sword who is a Strong Female Character because she can fight well”). And Lexa changes her mind and admits she was wrong about Clarke: “You heart shows no weakness”. Clarke’s emotions give her strength. And you can see in that exact moment that Lexa has fallen for Clarke – she’s suddenly giving her big heart-eyes. For a moment, it seems like Clarke may be noticing that there’s some chemistry there, but then her mind goes back to the same place it is constantly going to throughout season 2: her people in Mount Weather and a plan how to save them – Bellamy will disable the acid fog and free the Grounders trapped in Mount Weather, who will be their army inside. (This was a great plan. Too bad that Lexa threw it all away in 2x15.) Since Clarke was later taken by surprise when Lexa kissed her in 2x14, she clearly didn’t notice Lexa’s interest in her – which is in character for her. She didn’t even notice in early season 1 how much Finn was hitting on her since the first time they met on the dropship, and she seemed convinced he only gave in to his emotions at the end of 1x04 – and Finn was really, really obvious with his flirting and trying to impress. That’s because Clarke is usually too distracted by other concerns, like survival and saving people. Lexa, however, can multitask and is pretty perceptive, and you can now see a tinge of jealousy as she notes how much faith Clarke puts in Bellamy (which Clarke confirms, giving another one of her many “Bellamy is so awesome” season 2 speeches, her second one just in this episode).

Timeline: The walk from Tondc (aka Washington DC) to Mount Weather on foot is 8 hours, according to the next episode, so that’s how much time passes from the end of 2x09 to the end of 2x10.

Body count: Byrne, Quint, Lexa’s unnamed guard – all killed by the mutant gorilla. I can’t say I felt very sorry – we didn’t know the guard, and my feelings on the deaths of the former two characters was “good riddance”.

[slusheeduck]

Geeking IN: How Online Fans Are the Future of Media and Media Marketing

           Once dismissed as socially inept nerds, fans are taking the lead as this generation’s most successful creators. While there has always been the odd story of fans who end up taking the helm of favorite TV shows or adapting their favorite work into a movie, many new faces in the entertainment industry are using their knowledge from years of participating in online communities to market to the global internet audience, as well as keeping their own fandoms somewhat in line.

           Recent years have seen a boom in the acceptance of “fandom,” that is, a community of fans. Comic conventions have gone from a punchline to mega-events that require a lottery just to get in, there are countless articles on sites like Buzzfeed about “How wrecked were you during the Game of Thrones finale?” and “Seven ways to tell you’re a Cumberbitch.” Even something once as obscure as “fanfiction” has practically become a household term.

So how did we get to this point? Where in the scope of the past decade has it become acceptable to “geek out”? The main answer to this is, naturally, the internet. When the world wide web was still the great unknown to the general public, many fans saw it as a way to gather, creating their own websites or posting their fanwork on sites like Livejournal and DeviantArt. As the internet became more and more accessible, so too did joining in the fun of fandom. That leads us to today: now, many fans who have more or less grown up in these online spaces and seen the shifts in fan communities and interaction, are coming of age and producing their own content with a keen sense of how these communities work.

Perhaps the most public example of this comes in the form of best-seller book Fifty Shades of Grey. Regardless of what your opinion on the raunchy romance is, London-based author E.L. James has been completely upfront with the fact that it began as a Twilight fanfiction. While it is already rare for a fanfiction writer to “make it big,” much less into a novel that has sold over 100 million copies worldwide[1] and spawned a movie series and sex toy line, it’s even rarer for them to actually admit that it began as a fanfic. And yet James has no qualms mentioning it.

“Well, it all started way back in the day when I saw ‘Twilight,’ the film, and I loved those books — I could not put [them] down, absolutely avidly read the books,” E.L. James said in an interview on “Katie,” Katie Couric’s talk show. “This switch was flipped. I had to write — started writing, wrote a novel, then I discovered fan fiction…[I] wrote about Edward and Bella and then decided to write about Christian and Anastasia. I took the fan [fiction], and a friend of mine re-wrote it and I thought — if he could do it, so could I, and now I am here.”[2]

James even goes so far as to put this backstory up on her personal website. Regardless of individual opinions of the book, her success and openness about her past in writing has opened up a new wave of potential writers (and agents) who can see their fanfiction transforming into original works.

In addition to Fifty Shades and other books such as Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, the once heavily maligned group of fanfiction writers are shaping up to be the popular, original novelists of the next ten years rather than merely running fan magazines or writing something for a company-approved spin-off novel.

However, while the internet is just beginning to be seen as a source for new talent, it’s more importantly become a place to take seriously when it comes to marketing. Many fans who grew up in the age of internet fandoms have a keen sense of the international aspect of the web; it’s now nothing special to discuss the latest Star Wars movie with someone in Bangladesh from your home in Seattle with a dissenter from Norway. As a result of this global recognition, they are able to market their work for the internet community at large rather than simply the demographic of a set area.

With entertainment and media becoming more and more global rather than regional, this is an invaluable skill to have. It’s not enough to appeal to a target audience, but to instead be ready to market it, however indirectly, to the world. One of the most notable, recent examples of this comes from the show “Gravity Falls,” created by Alex Hirsch. While intended for an American audience of 8-12 year olds, “Gravity Falls” has reached worldwide audiences—its series finale, aired earlier this month, clocked in 2.9 million views in the US alone, and the series as a whole has become number one in total views on record for a children’s show[3]. While the show itself was enjoyable to fans, what gave it the extra punch into worldwide success comes from its use of “easter eggs” (special nods to previous episodes as well as other shows) and secret codes hidden in the show.

“I’ve always been a fan of shows that gave little hints to regular watchers, and I wanted to do the same thing with Gravity Falls,” Hirsch said. “But I never expected [the fans] to go so far with it! So I made things harder, and within an hour, they would find the answers to what I’d hidden.”

This mutual understanding of the fans wanting to find things and the creator wanting fans to work hard made it possible for fans to connect even more with Gravity Falls, as well as helped to create a tighter community. With these interactive elements, online communities began to form around the show, and soon enough people from all over the world were discussing and, more importantly, watching the show.

As if this wasn’t enough, Hirsch took his involvement with fan communities a step farther. He has done two Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions on the message board site, Reddit: one as himself and another surprise visit as the main antagonist of Gravity Falls, Bill Cipher. Both of these AMAs gave more dedicated viewers a deeper look into the world of Gravity Falls as well as behind the scenes information straight from the source. Additionally, Hirsh regularly held contests related to “Gravity Falls” on Twitter, offering prizes of personalized messages from the characters (of whom he voices four of the mains) and often displaying all entries on his page, ushering in a sense of community with the creator of the show himself.

As lines begin to blur between social media and entertainment media, online fans are becoming a more crucial demographic than ever to reach out to. And as their numbers increase, more and more communities can spot the difference between pandering and “hype”. As we can see, fame can pop up merely because of involvement with a fandom or because of deliberate marketing based on understanding the current “fandom” market. An example of this comes from game developing newcomer Toby Fox, whose game UNDERTALE became an overnight success. Before UNDERTALE, he was very active in a few different online fandoms. In an interview with The Existential Gamer, he discusses the importance of the Nintendo game Earthbound in his past, because he “was part of an Earthbound fan community and it was a cornerstone of my life.”[4]  In addition to being in the Earthbound community, Fox was well-known in the fandom for the webcomic “Homestuck,” going so far as to have his music included in the series. With the knowledge of fandom mentality and what people look for in independent media, he was able to successfully fund a Kickstarter and produce the game, which itself is full of online and fandom in-jokes, endearing it to those “in the know”. And, given the fact that it’s sold over 1.2 million copies[5] and won “Best PC game” from both IGN and Destructoid—two prominent gaming magazines/sites—as well as numerous other awards during the 2015 gaming award season, the amount of those “in the know” is much more than most would assume.

With the acceptance of fandoms and sheer amount of people participating in these types of fan communities, it’s more important than ever for businesses and entertainment networks to begin studying the trends of these demographics and seeing fans as potential employees as well. The latter particularly seems to be the direction entertainment-focused businesses should consider; not only are fans notoriously creative and attentive to detail, but they know precisely what online audiences will be looking for in way of content as well as advertising. And, as was shown by “Gravity Falls”, a show with a savvy team can create a feeling of community with the fans of their product, letting them know that yes, they’re also fans! They understand the frustration of waiting through hiatuses and know what kind of in-jokes to make for those who look for deeper meaning in their media.

I would say that now, we’re living in the time of the super-fan, and that should be something that is embraced in media circles, from a marketing and hiring standpoint. The more media legitimizes their super-fans, particularly the large number of those online, the more they can begin a symbiotic relationship to gain both views and profits.

 [1] http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/27/fifty-shades-of-grey-book-100m-sales

[2] http://www.examiner.com/article/e-l-james-discusses-twilight-influence-fifty-shades-of-grey

[3] http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/gravity-falls-series-finale-disney-xd-ratings-records-1201711939/

[4] http://existentialgamer.com/interview-toby-fox-undertale

[5] http://steamspy.com/app/391540

[toonstarterz]

BECAUSE I’M NOT POPULAR, I’LL READ WATAMOTE: CHAPTER #141

The first half of Golden Week is over, and Tomoko has found herself the object of “platonic" affection for four different suitors. And as our intrepid heroine muses over the which of them to pursue, out of nowhere comes the dark horse. Once thought to be missing in action, this little girl, having been there since the very beginning, threatens to overtake the competition in one psychotic swoop. 

Chapter 141: Because I’m Not Popular, I’ll Go to School with Kii-chan

The things that Stuffed Yuu-chan and Pals have seen...

Ah, the classic Introvert Burnout. I had a feeling Tomoko would be drained after having what may have been the most socially stressful time of her life. Not simply for being social, but for how much she had to navigate as a fish out of water. Each “date” involved a new experience for Tomoko to address, and that much effort at once can be really exhausting for a layabout like her.

That my friend is what we in the TvTropes community call, “Tempting Fate”.

Heeeeeere’s Kii-chan!

Can’t even begin to tell you how much I love this entrance. We all know who Kii-chan is. But even those outside of the loop would get a feel for who she is. Adorable and sweet-natured, but disturbing due to an apparent lack of negative emotions (even when appropriate). Ah, Kii-chan, it’s been far too long. 

Nothing to say here, really. Just think it’s a particularly lovely picture of Tomoko. 

Because the popularity of a manga series is largely dependent on real-time reception, it’s very common for mangakas to add new, “popular” characters, or give the spotlight to characters who’ve been out of focus. Watamote is no exception. It may seem contrived to bring Kii-chan back after being gone for a while, but it works here because it relies on Kii-chan’s character to it, instead of a series of implausible plot developments. Kii-chan is just considerate of her cousin’s schedule–that’s all we need.

The first hint of Tomoko’s reawakening as the role model onee-chan. 

One of the perks of being a sporadically-appearing character is that you can really see just much the art style has evolved since the character’s last appearance. For Kii-chan, she hasn’t really changed much design-wise other than being a little taller. But even then, the linework is much cleaner and consistent this time around, which compliments the more “everyday slice-of-life” approach Watamote’s been embracing. 

If only she could grow a nose.  

The best thing about this type of censorship is that you don’t necessarily have to understand what's being censored. All you really need is a bit of context to put the pieces together. The outlines are detailed enough that we can see the characters as some kind of humanoids with animal features. And given what we know about Kii-chan, it makes perfect sense.   

Y-Yeah, I...I’ve totally heard of that show.

Other than the whole Ucchi situation (which is slowly becoming an unintentional blessing), this is the last of the misunderstandings that still needs resolving. It’ll be hard, though, since this particular issue isn’t that troublesome. For now...

Look at that platonic sibling bonding.

Perhaps I’ve been conditioned by manga/anime, but I find it refreshing how Watamote has managed to develop the Kuroki siblings’ relationship while avoiding any incestual subtext. Lots of series oversell the sibling relationship by having them be overly affectionate and clingy. With Watamote, their bond feels organic because they don’t have to be touchy-feely. An unspoken quality time is all there is to it.

It’s hard to get a read on Tomoko’s emotions here, but at the very least, she seems troubled. It could very well be that Tomoko just realized that she’s changing in regards to the media she consumes. The former her would’ve probably jumped on the Kemono Friends bandwagon, but the reality is, Tomoko’s otaku interests are being compromised by the mainstream, at least as mainstream as rap battles get. 

But the kicker is...she realizes this change isn’t all that bad.

Of course, nothing beats watching anime with your psychotic cousin. 

The whole “pet-sitting” relationship they have here is a tricky one since each side is trying to accommodate the other based on “flaws” that don’t exist (or no longer exist). This usually results in an endless cycle of misunderstandings that lead to nowhere, but this confusion has transcended that cycle to develop into a progression of sorts. Similar to the Ucchi situation, the absurdity became so frequent that it just became reality. One that each side has been influenced greatly from.

With her constantly adorable face, you forget that Kii-chan is a middle-schooler and is therefore old enough to know about things like sex and perversion. Like Yuu-chan, she may look innocent, and while she was aware of such things as a kid, she didn’t really get it until they approached high-school age.  

You know, I read this really good manga called Kaguya-sama: Love is War (shameless plug, I know), and they actually had a chapter about a rap battle a while back. Given that both series tend to be up-to-date on contemporary trends, it makes me wonder...has rap suddenly become a hot thing in Japan? Or has it always had its niche audience?

I’m sure many fans knew that this was going to be an inevitable development whenever Kii-chan showed up again. Unlike Tomoko’s school friends, Kii-chan wasn’t there to see the slow, gradual growth of Tomoko’s character, so it must have hit her like a ton of bricks to see her precious onee-chan go from helpless loner to mature teen in the blink of an eye. 

Sometimes I wonder just how pitiful Kii-chan thought Tomoko really was...

Why would you censor Disneyland now of all times?

Those of us who were clamoring to get close-ups of the photos taken in the Disneyland arc finally get their wish.

The Kowarith photo is my favorite, even though two-thirds of the people in it are faking their asses off. While that may be my personal bias towards the Tomoko-Yoshida-Yuri trio, I think it reflects a better sense of kinship between the girls. The effort is there, phony as it is, to support each other in an awkward situation, which is fundamentally what the series is all about.

The assumedly Fireworks photo is also pleasing, make no mistake. You can definitely feel more genuine emotions (or lack thereof) being expressed than in the other photo. But this focuses more on the individual than how they work as a collective group, despite there being more people. The girls ultimately look like six different colored Skittles–part of the same package, but each unique.    

Could this be the start of Kii-chan revitalizing her perception of Tomoko as a super popular girl? I sure hope so.

How ironic. Kii-chan’s perspective of Tomoko is starting to grow ever so gradually on the upside, whereas Tomoko’s perspective of Kii-chan grows more and more negative.

Hang on, is that supposed to be some fake Dragonite shirt? Neat.

At this point, people assuming that Yoshida as some kind of punk based on her looks is a dead horse of an issue. Some stereotypes exist for a reason, I suppose.

I see your game, Nico Tanigawa, using a deliberately vague line about “two girls” to make your readers overanalyze a single panel. All I have to say to that is that I am completely and utterly guilty.

One of the girls is probably Yuri, if only because she’s the only girl to appear in both photos. As for the second girl, your guess is as good as mine. I’m inclined to say Ucchi because if Kii-chan only has their appearances to go on, then Ucchi and her emoji-face make quite the impression.   

I’m getting Yuu-chan vibes here with the way Kii-chan phrases half-insults with a friendly demeanor. 

+ 1 TO THE HAREM.

Kii-chan is definitely that relative you leave a self-imposed boundary on. Fine in small doses, like at parties and family gatherings, but long-term exposure is unhealthy for the brain. This isn’t even a wholly exaggerated fantasy on Tomoko’s part. Okay, the eating bit is a little much, but given that Kii-chan allegedly dreams about treating Tomoko like a pet, the latter is right to be a little concerned.

There needs to be an AU one-shot of Tomoko, Tomoki, and Kii all going to the same school at the same time. Right. Now. 

I do appreciate that despite Kii-chan’s deteriorating sanity, Tomoko doesn’t view her as a lost cause and even tries to put a positive spin on it. Reconciliation Arc is a-go! 

Did Kii-chan really have that big of a growth spurt, or has Tomoko just reached her peak in height? Not sure how far the genetics will go, but Kii-chan becoming taller than Tomoko is only going to make her even more intimidating. 

This little scheme of hers is definitely reflective of the “old” Tomoko, but there’s a nice reversal going on here. Instead of Tomoko trying to make things sound cooler than they actually are, she’s trying to make things seem worse. Of course, Murphy’s Tomoko’s Law states that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Especially if Tomoko wants it to go right. 

Ah, Ogino. The only character whose relationship with Tomoko has remained relatively unchanged despite indirectly having the most impact on Tomoko’s life.

Better update her Wiki page now. 

It’s pretty telling how it’s these two who cause Tomoko the most grief. It’s not the delinquent who routinely bashes her face in, not the pervert(s) lusting after her little brother, and not the otaku who passive-aggressively teases her. As for why, I think it boils down to the fact that Ogino and Kii-chan challenge her comfort zone the most. It also doesn’t help that Tomoko doesn’t interact with them as often as the others, so she hasn’t really had the time to get desensitized by them.

This freakin’ teacher, man.

The second worst part of Ogino’s “help” is that she never actually lies. Sure, she exaggerates to hell and back, but it’s always loosely based in reality, like some cheap movie adaptation of a best-selling novel. 

But the worst part of it is...you can’t hate Ogino for it. Her personal assessment may be founded on largely suspect reasons, but it’s still an honest assessment. I have no doubts that Ogino really is proud of Tomoko, and that’s exactly why she’s the best worst teacher.

That’s true. If Ogino gave that spiel to people like Hijirisawa or Hatsushiba–y’know, people who don’t know her as well–they might actually buy that crap. But people who know Tomoko like Yuri or Nemo, people like us, can tell that Ogino’s sugarcoating the whole thing. Kii-chan, with her terrifying skill for knowing too much, is no exception.  

Ah, I see. This is one of those put-all-the-secondary-characters-who-we-haven’t-seen-in-a-while-into-one-chapter chapters. 

Can’t complain, though. I like Itou. 

“Or something” can also be translated as “lust after Tomoki”. 

We don’t really have much to go on for how Itou views Tomoko, but I think it’s reasonable to think that she may not see her in that good of a light. Not only did Tomoko give off a weird impression when she played off the whole fist bump thing, but Itou’s “powers of perception” probably made her aware of Tomoko and Komiyama’s frenemy-ship, hence her “warning” that Komiyama was around.

The Inherent Awkwardness of Second-hand Relationships: The Life of Tomoko.

Betcha’ no one saw this interaction coming. Whether it’ll lead to anything more remains to be seen. Itou’s still got the whole “friendship potential” going on with Futaki, but given that she has the tolerance to BFF Komiyama, I see no reason why she can’t befriend a psycho like Kii-chan. 

That desire to “loudly blow” is Kii-chan’s inner demons screeching out in desperation for release. I pity the fool who unleashes the beast.

That does sound like your typical amateur definition of a psychopath, doesn’t it?

For the record, I don’t actually believe Kii-chan is a psychopath, despite the jokes I made. There are way too many moments that discredit such a claim. Now, if you were to accuse Kii-chan as being some sort of deviant (sexual or otherwise) I might see that. But ultimately, I think Kii-chan was just a victim of having her innocence shattered too fast and too soon, which made her more, uh, crafty than Tomoko could handle. 

Man, it’s been a long time while since we last saw Dicky-chan, hasn’t it? Hope we get to see more of her (and Sayaka, for that matter) after this chapter.

I love how even when she’s collecting masturbation material, Komiyama has to hold her camera phone all lady-like. If the term “purevert” ever needed a concrete definition, this girl would be it.

Main Character privileges, that’s why. 

Get. The. FUCK. Out. Of. Here.

With each subsequent appearance, Komiyama’s standard for what constitutes a bitch primed to steal away her Tomoki-kun falls hilariously lower. It’s not enough that a girl in their class makes two seconds of eye contact with him, nosiree. Any girl with an inkling of a relationship with Tomoko is not immune, even if it’s his own damn cousin. Granted, I don’t think Komiyama would be so pathetically scummy as to confront Kii-chan about it like she did to Yoshida.

...I hope.

“Best friends” may be stretching it now that we’ve gotten this far in the series. However, there is one aspect of Tomoko and Komiyama’s relationship that triumphs over all the others:

Absolute candidness. Even now, the only one who gets to see the complete, raw package that is Tomoko Kuroki is Komi-something. While Tomoko has made substantial friendships with the likes of Yuri, Nemo, and Katou, Tomoko still restrains herself just a tad lest she pushes them away. It’s only with Komi that Tomoko bears her full ugliness, which I think has developed into some freakish level of respect/understanding that none of the others can claim.

Damn, even the bishounen dude gets to make an appearance. All we need know is Lethal Chef Girl to make a cameo and I’m set. 

Nope. Any game is an away game when your “harem” shows up to cheer you on.

A few people have expressed discontent with how the chapter seems to end so abruptly, and it’s a fair criticism. It may be the lack of a “Next time...” tagline throwing people off, but while this chapter indeed ends at an odd point, it’s not that unprecedented. Some of the previous chapters ended this way, like that time Komi was all “Oi!” at Yoshida at the cafeteria, which indicates that this chapter is likely one of those series-of-vignettes that also doubles as a build-up chapter. 

On a positive note, while the chapter does feel prematurely ended, how the next chapter plays out if it is connected to this one is sure to be a surprise. 

[apathetic-revenant]

Consider this ask as a request to get that rant on Roadside Attraction STARTED!

Hoo boy. 

Okay, first of all, I sincerely apologize for leaving this unanswered so long. Things…happened. 

Disclaimer: I haven’t watched Roadside Attraction in a while so I might be slightly misremembering some of it. (It’d probably be a good idea to rewatch it first, but honestly just writing all this has got me riled up enough already. (look emotions are hard okay)

Disclaimer 2: I critique because I love, I swear. 

So when it comes down to it, I guess my problems with RA basically boil down to two big things:

1. The overall ‘message’ and how it treats the characters.

2. The weirdness of it existing at that point in the show in the first place.

First things first: look, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for media messages about not being a skeevy jerk and treating women as objects, but the way it was done in this episode was, honestly, just…weird. It basically introduces a character trait for Dipper (and, to a lesser extent, Stan; I mean I know Stan is…Stan, but did anyone really get ‘sleazy pickup artist’ as the vibe from any of his interactions with women that we saw before this episode?) that he was never shown to remotely have before or after (though admittedly there’s not a lot of ‘after’ to begin with), just so he could be taught a lesson about it that he never should have needed in the first place. 

Dipper’s problem has always been that’s he’s obsessed with one girl, and he certainly got plenty of embarrassment and woe out of that general experience, but ultimately that was good for him: he loosened up (somewhat), became more understanding and accepting of Wendy’s autonomy, and moved towards being able to deal with rejection while still being friends with her. That’s a satisfying arc and it makes no sense to me that they would suddenly partway reverse it and then use that as a reason to try and take Dipper down this weird incredibly short character arc that he didn’t need.

Is it realistic that you don’t just immediately get over someone even if intellectually accept that you’re not going to be together? Absolutely. But frankly, this is a weirdass time for Gravity Falls to be invoking realism. And regardless, realism does not automatically make for a better story, especially when that story has to be told in 22 minute intervals.

So it’s already weird that the show is portraying Dipper that way, but then what he does is really not all that heinous to begin with. The thing is, Stan is right. Dipper does need practice talking to-well, everyone, really, but especially girls. For God’s sake, the poor guy needed a massively oversized list, a bunch of clones, and a Rube Goldberg-esque plot just to ask Wendy to dance with him, a task he ultimately failed at anyway. (Which, honestly, even aside from intent, makes the whole idea of him successfully managing to actually lead any girls on to any degree pretty dang unbelievable.) And that’s really all he does with any of them, is talk. He doesn’t promise them anything except maybe to stay in touch, which we don’t really have any evidence he wasn’t planning on doing. Hell, even Stan, for all that we’re supposed to see his behavior as Not Good (which, to be fair, it usually is) doesn’t really do anything more than flirt with an apparently receptive woman and then take a walk with her, which is honestly way more honorable than most of Stan’s interactions with people. We’ve certainly seen him treat people way worse than that without getting condemned for it.

And then there’s the whole thing with Candy, which is…really frustrating. She puts Dipper in a situation he’s very, very obviously not comfortable with, demands something of him he never gave her an indication that he was interested in, and then when she doesn’t get what she wants…he has to apologize to her? By ‘admitting’ that he was being an idiot? What? 

Like, I know they were going for ‘don’t be a pickup artist’, basically, but what it came off as was more like ‘never interact with women because if you do they’ll immediately start acting like you’re in a relationship with them and expect you to act the same way and sometimes they might do that even if you don’t interact with them (also sometimes they might turn out to be spider women who will eat you)’. 

Basically, any time you set out to give the message ‘treat women with respect’ and instead wind up with ‘women are strange, irrational and sometimes horrifying’, I think you’ve really got to step back and reconsider things for a minute. 

But what’s especially weird to me is the contrast between this and the way the show treats Mabel’s behavior. Mabel’s been spending pretty much the whole show doing what this episode punishes Dipper for doing. We see her hitting on three boys in rapid succession within the first ten minutes of the show, her desire for a relationship and rather aggressive pursuit of that is the formation of a lot of plots during the show, and she’s only called on it when it gets to the point of hurting her friendships or literally imprisoning boys in her room.

I mean, I’m not trying to pick on Mabel here, or say that the show should have been calling her on that except when it got extreme (like, say, literally imprisoning boys in her room), at which point the show did call her on it. But it’s weird to me that the show then goes out of its way to condemn Dipper for doing basically the same thing except to a lesser degree. I guess you could argue that Mabel was looking for a relationship and Dipper was looking for ‘practice’, but that still doesn’t really work for me; in both instances they have a goal in mind for which the specific other person involved is basically a variable. Why is Mabel wanting an Epic Summer Romance with more or less any boy worse than Dipper wanting to just talk to more or less any girl? And at any rate, Dipper’s attitude in RA hardly seems any worse towards the girls than the attitude Mabel, Grenda and Candy went into the Northwest party with towards the boys, but we’re supposed to take one as being terrible and the other as being perfectly normal girl behavior. 

So yeah, there’s that. Now, part two. (Still with me?)

The pacing. This episode makes absolutely no sense to me where it is. You spend 3/4s of the show building up to this big reveal that completely alters the atmosphere, plot, and character dynamics, and now you have all of five episodes to explore all the ramifications of that while ramping up the tension towards the big finale…why would you make one of those a filler episode that has no impact on the plot at all and is so disconnected to anything that it could have been stuck pretty much anywhere else in the show without next to no changes? 

Like, okay, I’ll admit, part of why I don’t like this episode is because it doesn’t have Ford in it. And hey, that’s a personal thing. But it’s not just about me wanting MOAR FORD. The thing is, regardless of whether you like him or loathe him or whatever, Ford is, objectively, an incredibly important character. He’s the catalyst for the central plot and driving mystery of the show and the principle catalyst for the oncoming confrontation, his appearance changes pretty much everything that we took for granted about the show before, and just by existing he has a huge impact directly on Stan and Dipper and indirectly on Mabel (in that his interactions with Dipper in turn impact Mabel’s relationship with him). And, again, you have five episodes to explore all this. In one of them Ford’s barely there at all and then in this one he doesn’t even get mentioned. We don’t even get an explanation for why he’s suddenly absent. (I know we do in the Journal, but not in the show itself.) I just…that doesn’t make any sense to me. I mean, maybe I’m showing favoritism here, but-no offense to Candy-I really don’t get why she gets more character focus in this episode than, y’know. The long-lost close family member with massive unresolved issues and a huge amount of secrets. 

And it doesn’t make any sense to me to have a light-hearted filler episode with nothing to do with the plot so very close to the finale when the tension is so high and the last episode literally ended with a very ominous threat. It certainly doesn’t make sense in plot terms that they spent so much time last episode working to protect the Shack so they had a sanctuary from Bill, and then everyone runs away from the Shack. I just. What.

And, this is a lesser point, but it doesn’t really make sense to me for them to leave Gravity Falls itself at that point in the show. Just, sure, we know weird stuff exists in plenty of other places, but there’s a lot of focus on there being something especially weird and significant about Gravity Falls specifically. And that’s something that gets really dialed up in this last part of the show-Ford specifically seeking the town out to study, the significance of the Mystery Shack and all its secrets, the connection Bill has to the area, the crashed UFO, and of course it all builds up to a big plot point in the finale that Bill’s confined to Gravity Falls. But then right smack in the middle of all that we briefly detour to some pretty much unrelated location for…what reason? It’s like MYSTERY OF GRAVITY FALLS MYSTERY OF GRAVITY FALLS MYSTERY OF GRAVITY FALLS oh by the way there’s some spider people over here too MYSTERY OF GRAVITY FALLS. It’s not a huge deal but it feels weird to me, especially since the show had hardly been going on so long that that they had worn out the setting. 

I know I’m committing the great sin of claiming to know better than the writers, but since we’ve come this far anyway, you know what I think would have worked better than Roadside Attraction?

You’ve already got this idea of the other tourist trap owners annually pranking Stan, so why not just go with that? Have them come to him like they apparently usually do. That way:

-You can keep the focus on Gravity Falls and all the plot points therein.

-You don’t have the problem of everyone inexplicably leaving their sanctuary; in fact, that adds to the plot, because now they have even more motivation to protect the Mystery Shack.

-You’ve got a lot of opportunity for character interplay as the family has to deal with all this (imagine the opportunity for conflict between Ford and Stan over the house, and how much you could build up the oncoming tension of Stan having to leave the Shack by showing how much he had really made it his home over the years).

-You can still hint at the existence of weirdness outside Gravity Falls without taking the focus away from it.

-You could expand on Stan’s past a little-because God knows we all wanted it-by referencing what was going on with him and these other rivals for all these years, and show a bit more about how the Shack actually operates as a tourist trap, which I, at least, would have liked to see.

-You could continue the ongoing character arc of Dipper’s relationship with Ford and how that was impacting his relationship with Mabel, instead of dropping it for something completely out of the blue.

-You could still have a bit of a breather episode before the finale (since that was evidently the reason we got this one here in the first place) without having to completely drop the plot and derail all the building tension to do so. 

-Tell me you wouldn’t want to see a full-scale Pines family prank war unleashed, because I sure as hell would. 

But anyway, in conclusion:

I don’t like Roadside Attraction much. 

[nothliu-blog]

Art Games (Independent Study)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfH64wUC8-IW1,2 Task:

1.find references about Art games.

2.Pinterest.

3.Five ideas for midterm.

4.Ten good game examples (video games or traditional).

5. Readings: works of game p1-8, Pound-stone pdf.

6.150 words thoughts on the reading.

_______________________________________________________________________

My note Below:

_______________________________________________________________________

1.Game of memory: involves mnemonic principles and techniques used to organize memory impressions, improve recall; includes the association of emotionally striking memory images within visualized locations, the chaining or association of groups of images...

2.Conclusion of Game theory: Game theory started as a mathematical exploration of human behaviors.The point of game theory is to understand decision making.

What needs to be considered in game theory: Does a certain player always have an advantage, no matter the behavior of the other players? Or is the game always balanced, as long as the players involved make intelligent decisions most of the time?

Emotions:

3.Game theory in Game Design: https://www.gamedesigning.org/learn/game-theory/

The point of game theory is to understand decision making.

If there is a choice players can make in a game to give themselves an unfair advantage, a few players will find it and start abusing it.

{Tips for me: It’s possible to use a game theory decision matrix and build backwards to reverse engineer a game. You’ll probably want to start simple with this one, because the more decisions you add, the exponentially more complex the game can get.}

4.The Chinese Room Experiment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0MD4sRHj1M

5.Turning test: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test

6.Prisoners' dilemma: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkXI-zPcDIM&feature=youtu.be

_______________________________________________________________________

Tasks:

_______________________________________________________________________

I.References about art games:

https://vimeo.com/127253695

College 1:https://vimeo.com/94303542

College 2:https://vimeo.com/40505337

Big keyboard:https://vimeo.com/232666774

Group work and shared results:https://vimeo.com/106589895

II. Ten good games (I analyzed their advantages):

1.The Magic tower (strategy game): Players have very limited resources (HP MP keys etc.) to make their way upstairs to the top of tower (50 floors). So players have to make very wise decision each time. This kind of challenge motivates players eager to get to the tower top.

https://www.solitaireparadise.com/games_list/tri_towers_solitaire.html

2. Traditional magic cube & Chinese puzzle rings: Players need to memorize each of their step very well, and sometimes need to think backwards.

3.Paper fortune teller: Super easy to play with, but gives complex and interesting results. The strategy is to do a good math about odd and even numbers. However, it still involved a lot of randomness. Also, the game designer (2nd pic) have the complete right to decide the probability of “good and bad” things, which attracts players curiosity.

4. Pick stick game: It needs some physical skill, and involves lots of randomness. Unlike most strategy games, It’s mostly unpredictable. It’s a slow process that good to kill people’s time.

5. The Jungle game: It’s an animal chess. The most interesting part is that the food chain design. It’s an endless circle: because mouse seems the weakest animal in jungle but it can actually kill elephant, who seems at the top of the food chain. Maybe because of this, the chess is super playable.

6. Drop the Handkerchief and Musical chair: This two games are all team games which force players stressful and afraid of “die” because of inadequate resources. The way for them to “make a living” is to rob other people’s resources directly or indirectly. Players can only take actions on certain moment or complete actions in every limited time. In my opinion, these games are more like “limited time robbery game”.

7.Maria Stella: For players, the trigger behavior is super easy, just spin the plate, and there will be maybe hundreds of possibilities of the result. But it’s a lot of work for game designer the design the “events”. But they get the right to decide the probability. It’s a game of chance.

8. EUCLID’S ELEMENTS and the FEZ game: The two games all “play trick on 2d and 3d”. EUCLID’S ELEMENTS is taking advantage of 3D to explain 2D stuffs. But the FEZ game as a game, it does the opposite: it blokes players’ 3D vision, and tell them to finish task that only can be done in 3D. But there will be clues provided to help players to solve seemingly impossible tasks.

In my opinion, it’s like solving puzzles in a creative way.

FEZ - Game designers’ vision - players can see it (If players see it, all the puzzles will be solved).

FEZ: Players’ 2D vision.

9. Untitled goose game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/837470/Untitled_Goose_Game/

As a narrative game, there’s no demo gameplay instructions or text instructions for players (which is rare). It only provides players with some simple “emoji like” conversations between NPCs.

This kind of direction of interaction is what I appreciate most. It’s an easy and efficient way for understanding what’s going on.

10. VR Chat:

https://www.vrchat.com

You can immerse your whole body into the virtual world. It’s based on the VR device set Oculus Quest. You play a virtual character that customized by you. The device track your body gestures and positions. So, your interactions among people are very close to reality. However, the real fun is still hide your real appearance and most importantly - emotions. I feel like this “game” can become the future way of life.

You can join realistic events in the community.

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III. Thoughts on Readings:

My biggest reflection is, “Human beings being mortal, no recreational game is intended to go on forever.” I find some parts the reading boring (about a half), especially when author explained some mathematic field in game theory. Unlike games, most of the game theory examples just don't have enough rewards for participants’ efforts. Most strategies are charts of probabilities, just like the basic model of Prisoners' dilemma.

1. Poundstone Game_Theory:

I strongly agree with: Jacob Bronowski , he wrote "You must see that in a sense all science, all human thought, is a form of play. Abstract thought is the neotenyl of the intellect, by which man is able to carry out activities which have no immediate goal (other animals play only while young) in order to prepare himself for long-term strategies and plans." So I think that’s why I sometimes feel most human activities involve game theory.

Borel posed the basic questions of game theory: for what games is there a best strategy, and how does one find such a strategy? This question really burns my head off.

In the Cake Division example, game theory is mostly about fairness.

“Chess is not a game, von Neumann told Bronowski. He meant that there is a ‘correct’ way(s) to play the game.” Therefore, in some cases, other than game designers,  designers of interactive installations aren’t designing a games, because they expect audience to accomplish a task in only one predictable way. For example: For my thesis, in my anticipation, only when the two audience show the same facial expression at the same time, the shards image they see will become an image of complete object.

“Unfortunately, the complexity of games, and of the necessary com- putations, increases exponentially with the number of players.”  “Von Neumann and Morgenstern point out that a zero-sum n-person game is in effect a function ofn variables, or alternatively, an n-dimensional matrix.”    This two sentences warns me the difficulty of my thesis, but also tells me is solvable using game theory.

2. Works of Game 1-8:

I love the phrase “new ways of using games to think about the rest of the world”. And Bill Viola’s work “The night journey” has more concerns of artistic practice. Also, I find some other works of Bill Viola has been used of “game strategies”. For example, “Catherine's Room” isn’t like a game at all, it’s with pure art elements, but the composition of the visual remind me of some video game settings. It’s one certain character in different situations that may be the different results of players’ decisions.

“Catherine's Room”

The second example is “Mártires”, which is my favorite one. The best strategy Bill uses is to make viewers confuse about time. There’s 4 events below. Each event has two possibilities: the video is played in normal real life speed, another possibility is the video reversed. For example, viewers may think: Is the man being burned by fire? Or the man escapes from fire? Moreover, 4 events link with each other in some kind of narrative tension. So Bill really grabs viewers interest and make them busy of comparing different events with each other.

“Mártires”

At the end of the introduction, “Chess is an idea space and a material from which art can be made.” This make me begin to think what “material” I need for my project. 

At first, I need to know what’s my goal. My goal is hiding some information away from players’ view, and lead them to find something that I’m hidden. Or the result can be unknown.

I would like to use a “puzzle-like-game” form, because before the puzzle is completed, people don’t know what the “game” creator wants to say. The need some kind of instruction to complete the puzzle. So, what I need to think of is the instruction part. I’ll make the instruction not so directly so that players can devote more time spending on my art game. But the instruction should also be attractive to ensure that people won’t feel bored while interacting with it.

And I’ll be focused mainly on visual instructions other than texts or sound.

_______________________________________________________________________

V. Midtterm ideas:

1.”A Soft Murmur” - Guess the mood of each random sound mix.

https://asoftmurmur.com

The result will be in form of record of the guessing and the analysis of sound components. Then I’ll infer the impact of each sound component on our moods.

2. Transparent puzzle: each piece of the puzzle is transparent, instead of putting them together by the edge (horizontally), players can put them together vertically. The result may be only one or multiple ones. Material: transparent acrylic (pattens will be engraved on them), software: Photoshop/Illustrator.

3. Create my own game wheel/target kit. And assign my own possible events by dividing them into even areas. Record the result of playing each time.

4. Create colleges of “random food generator”: https://www.randomlists.com/food?dup=false&qty=3. Form of results: images. Software: Photoshop/Illustrator.

5.Make a contradictory space like "FEZ” game - let players successfully get through left to right on the screen (maybe in limited time). But put fewer and fewer clues, until players can’t get over the space. Form: screenshot of unity (the space will be switched between 3D and 2D visual effect, but they’ll still be made in 3D form). The result: show the image when players fail.

_______________________________________________________________________

W3 Midterm ideas and reading:

1.Reading: Radical game review

I’m interested in The sim game. And I found something interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWaULYGNRiE

I’m shock to see the workflow of designing the prototype of this game.

But as a player, I feel pretty nature to be immersed in the game. 

However, for board games, I’m not every into it. It take much time to finish one 

round, and if you fail, it sometimes not that fun. Too me, I want to design one kind of game that doesn’t have the result of win or lose. And unpredictable is the key (weather it’s random or in orders). But at least, it has some certain rules to follow.

“The authors are also interested in how games are emerging around the news, beyond the “doing” of traditional news tasks. Literacy news games seek to educate journalists and the public.”

So, Instead of doing traditional tasks, give players more free will to explore new staff, new different ways to achieve sth.

_______________________________________________________________________

W4: Midterm

_______________________________________________________________________

0330: zoom

Links to look at:

1. The case for video games: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afjbOpnJni0

2.https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2020/03/27/video-shows-cell-phones-on-florida-beach-during-spring-break-and-where-theyve-travelled-during-coronavirus-outbreak

3. 2D game into 3D game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_S3fX4F9nU&t=112s

4.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_S3fX4F9nU&t=112s

5.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfH64wUC8-I

_______________________________________________________________________

Final Project:

dsfsfsa

[gigsoupmusic]

Jason & The Rex Goes In-Depth about New Video "Bullets Are Flying" - Exclusive Interview

Recently debuting with an activist video on gun violence, Jason & The Rex is stepping onto the scene with "Bullets Are Flying". A mixture of hip-hop, future-funk, and dream-pop combine to create a dense soundscape of vibrant horns, a melancholy piano lead, and strange-sounding synths. Jason's pensive, sometimes manic, flow washes over creating a dialogue on the gun violence issue in the US. Jason was kind enough to sit down and give GIGSoup the exclusive inside scoop on the creation and inspiration behind "Bullets Are Flying". https://youtu.be/g5DTa6cvfcs Tell us about writing the song "Bullets Are Flying"…. what emotions were you feeling at the time? Chaotic. Disoriented. There’s a scene in Dario Argento’s Suspiria where one of the characters falls into a pit of barbed wire. The more she tries to escape, the more she bleeds. It’s a mangled inner conflict. That’s kind of how I felt when I was writing “Bullets Are Flying.” I felt more and more entangled in a barbed wire mess of thoughts and emotions and political jabs and daily, present concerns. When the Parkland incident happened, I was already feeling very professionally and creatively stalled. I’m an actor by vocation. At the time, I was going for a lot of Chinatown thug types -- violent, gun-wielding, angry Asian dudes. I was getting rejected over and over again for projects that I didn’t really even believe in. I felt inauthentic as an artist. Music was supposed to be my outlet, but everything I created was stale and uninspired. And the worst part, I felt like I was failing as a citizen. I was -- and still am -- a reasonably privileged adult who has skills and a higher education. The gun crisis stripped teenagers of their adolescence, and those teenagers responded by standing up to the gun lobby and the politicians they controlled. What was I doing? Beating myself up because, after several attempts, I still couldn’t land a part as a stereotype on Iron Fist? Something snapped after Parkland. All the “thoughts and prayers” and familiar rallying cries came to a fever pitch, and I just started writing down…stuff. I was trying to express grief, to articulate my panic and anger, while also trying to provide commentary. I wanted to find an explanation. And someone to blame. A way out. Or a way forward. I wanted to crack the code on gun violence. I was also coming to terms with my guilt. My social posturing. My vanity in all of this. In trying to create this piece, was I turning the attention to myself? It wasn’t joyous or inspiring. It was a regurgitation of all the thoughts and feelings -- all the stuff -- I hadn’t processed.

The refrain of the song actually came to me much earlier, quite randomly. I like to think it’s because it’s more of a passive observation. Bullets are flying. Where? And why? While they fly, people are mourning. These are constants. Whereas, the two verses -- they’re snapshots of that gloomy winter morning when I was pacing back and forth on my bed trying to make sense of Parkland. It’s like I was trying to extricate myself from the gun culture and the epidemic it has created. But every thought would just pull me back into the mess. Barbed wire. Can’t help thinking about it. Gun violence. Mass shootings. I dream of ways to reshape gun culture. But, uh oh, gun culture has shaped giant parts of who I am. And I contribute back into gun culture. Not only do I love a bloody action thriller. I routinely express my love for John Wayne movies. I think the Punisher is a pretty cool anti-hero. In debating and discussing issues related to gun violence, we shout into our echo chambers while attacking opposing views. We display our alliances. We present ourselves on a side. Scoring our solidarity points is just as essential to gun culture as shooting the guns themselves. In writing this song, I was incredibly self-conscious. Was I just filling my notebook with solidarity points and quips from self-reflection? I offered my perspective on gun violence, while simultaneously reflecting and taking apart that perspective. I felt angry and powerful. But I also felt guilty and insignificant. Is saying something mostly an empty gesture? Probably. But not saying something is equally, if not more, disconcerting. Maybe this song is entirely descriptive of this emotional purgatory I create after a mass shooting like Parkland, where processing anything is just squirming in my barbed wire, while bullets are flying. What is your favorite lyric in the song? "I’m an actor, so I know how to weep. "

There are lots of hidden layers and meaning in the video… can you tell us what some of those are and why you chose to include them? I’m pretty fluid with my interpretation of the video. But most days, it goes something like this: Setting - The characters are in a place of purgatory. It’s that place I create when I’m trying to process gun violence. They may or may not know each other. Screens - On the screens, the characters stare at scenes involving their physical selves. Characters - I play the boy, and we designed the look to reflect someone in a prestigious position. On the TV’s, he’s probably a politician of some sort. I don’t think that’s who the boy is in real life, especially if the boy is me. But in this particular place of purgatory (maybe there are multiple rooms in purgatory), I’m presenting the politically active parts of myself. The dancer might be a whole separate character. She’s someone directly impacted by political leaders and their decisions. So in this place, we have a civic leader and someone he impacts. Seen this way, let’s say the boy is fried in the beginning. He’s lost his will. Been in purgatory too long. The dancer enters. Maybe she sees a party she’s currently attending in the real world. She pulls the boy out of his funk. They are actual human beings who can connect. When we hear about gun violence, our screens create abstracts of the event and the victims. But here in purgatory, the two have to make actual, physical contact. Their actions directly impact each other. Movement - There is a loose choreography. But, mainly, Ashley (the dancer) and I created a structure and improvised within it. Basically, there’s a struggle in the beginning. Japanese Butoh definitely informs the early interactions in the video, as the style can create a sense of shared grief. The movement becomes more playful and celebratory, which I think reflects another convoluted part of processing gun violence. After Parkland, I sunk into a pit of melancholy for probably no more than half a day and then I was out with my friends. We’d talk about mass shootings, but then we’d goof off, and the topic eventually recedes, until we’ve tuned it out completely (though temporarily). In the video, the TV screens are upfront and center in the beginning, but then the movement draws our attention to the characters themselves. There’s an ominous outro, where we intercut to the party-goers on the screens lying facedown on a roof. Lives lost to gun violence? In the purgatory place, we only have close-ups of the characters, many of which focus on the hands in spell-like gestures. The issue of gun violence does seem to have this elusive, enigmatic quality. So maybe whatever happens between these two in this purgatory has some ineffable effect in the world.

What do you hope fans gain as a result from watching/listening to your art? Mostly, I hope this keeps the conversation going. Like I said about the video, the topic always recedes, often because the screens start showing other things to us. As artists, I think we can keep things front and center. It’s funny. When I finished the video, I came across grandson’s “Thoughts and Prayers” single. For a whiff, I felt like my project would be redundant. But, of course, until it’s a non-issue, I say the more content we produce, the better. On a more practical note, I’m pledging all the royalties from this project towards organizations like March For Our Lives. So when people listen or watch, they are indirectly or directly (starting to really question my understanding of this concept) benefiting the cause. I think it allows listeners a little extra way to participate in reform measures. You had a hand in creating all of the aspects of the single… writing, producing, creating the video….. tell us about that process as an artist. How does it influence your work? It slows down the process by too much. No, but really, it allows complete ownership over the process, at least of the track itself. I’m entirely responsible for every aspect of it. Holding the work so precious does create a lot of room for self-doubt, but the fears of commitment also pushes for more experimentation. When I create tracks, it’s like I’m recording and re-mixing an exploration. Or maybe it’s like I’m a one-man jam band in my room. It certainly allows me to include weird ideas like recording the words “thoughts and prayers” and using that sample to create different drum sounds. You can’t really tell when you hear it, but I think it’s a fun little Easter Egg. As for the video, I came up with a structure, but this is where I wanted to open up the perspective. I’m kind of enjoying the thought that creating the track itself was like the boy in the video struck in purgatory alone. Then with the video, I’ve invited other perspectives, just as there’s now another person with the boy in purgatory. I’m a nerd, I know. But, yes, I think because I gave myself a clear foundation after working on the track, we were able to do a lot of exploring with the concept of the video, which then allows for its fluid interpretation. Fun fact: the video was originally supposed to involve a dancer and an agent of death battling over a remote that controls one single TV screen displaying a party. You've spoken about how you want your music to be a platform for activism….. what are some other issues you are passionate about? There are a lot. But I’m just going to list one here to emphasize how important it is. THE ENVIRONMENT. Tell us about your upcoming album….. what can fans expect to hear? It’s tentatively called Synthesizer or Variations of: An Endemic Cycle. The EP will have about 6or 7 songs that expand upon the narrative in “Bullets Are Flying.” Just as “Bullets Are Flying” is set in emotional purgatory, the other songs will be placed in their own settings. All the songs will fit into a narrative that has a circular structure. I’m designing musical themes that provide a through-line in the tracks. If you play the album and replay it, the narrative from the last track continues right into the first. You can start the album from any track, and the narrative will continue and circle back. I’m also creating visuals for each track. So if you were to edit them together in a specific and play it on loop, it might feel like one single never-ending movie no matter where you begin. Gun violence is so cyclical. You can enter into it at any point -- initial grief, debate, ennui, etc. --and it’ll eventually loop right back to where you started. How would you describe your musical sound? Musical genres are so bewildering to me. I guess I’ll say this: I’m sort of finding a hip-hop voice in other genres I love. They’re mainly psychedelic dream-pop, future funk, new wave, or even cinematic anime soundtracks. If my process were a scene, I’d like to imagine Childish Gambino getting really high and watching the news with Tame Impala, and maybe Jon Bellion barges in and blasts his new album. I don’t know that these are the sounds that come to mind if you were to listen to my work. But they’re certainly the sounds I’m after, sounds that provide a framework when I produce my music. Read the full article

[comicteaparty]

September 17th-23rd, 2018 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from September 17th, 2018 to September 23rd, 2018.  The chat focused on Soul Hymn by Draco Plato.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to the first week of our trial run for the Week Long Book Club! If you need more information on that, you can check out the link here: https://comicteaparty.com/post/178065237140/new-week-long-book-club Otherwise, let’s get started!

This week we’ll be discussing Soul Hymn by Draco Plato~! (http://khyatix.com/soulhymn.shtml). Use this week to read the comic at your own pace! You are free to come leave comments at any point during the week. You can comment as you read, or you can wait till you get through the entire thing. Whatever suits your schedule best is fine~! As always, remember that while we allow constructive criticism, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic. You have until 9/23 to tell us all your wonderful thoughts! Below you will find four questions to get you started on the discussion. However, a new question will be posted and pinned everyday (between 12:01AM and 6AM PDT), so keep checking back for more! With that established, let’s get going on the reading and the chatting!

QUESTION 1. What has been your favorite scene in the comic so far? What specifically did you like about it?

QUESTION 2. At the moment, who is your favorite character? What about that character earns them this favor?

QUESTION 3. Do you think Erik being a faun will be beneficial or harmful to his endeavors to save everyone? Ultimately, do you think Erik will succeed in saving the pillars and stopping Decebal? Please provide your reasoning for both!

QUESTION 4. Erik and Celeste received their powers from three space people, which Hope later reveals as Maha Deva Vijaya. Do you believe Maha Deva Vijaya will provide more help in the future? Why or why not? Why do you believe they’ve taken such a personal interest in what’s going on?

Capitania do Azar

ekekeke

1. my favourite scene was the one about the "oh everything's wrong but at least nobody asked me about my ears" followed immediately by "so what's with the ears?"

2. favourite character would have to be sassy gal Celeste

Tenor | Shinavar

“3. Do you think Erik being a faun will be beneficial or harmful to his endeavors to save everyone?”

We don't know much about them other than people are unaware they're 'real'. Truthfully unless I see some actual world affecting stuff, I don't believe this won't have any affect on his endeavors directly. Indirectly, perhaps. Like how Eric + Celeste already have been doing the magical thing for some time - that there's conspiracy theorists going around

“4. Erik and Celeste received their powers from three space people, which Hope later reveals as Maha Deva Vijaya. Do you believe Maha Deva Vijaya will provide more help in the future? Why or why not? Why do you believe they’ve taken such a personal interest in what’s going on?”

IDK and TBH this is the most frustrating part of the read for me. It's all hearsay footnotes in the comic. If these three space people were so important and play such a huge role, why have they only been foot notes so far? In fact I didn't know it was 3 people initially because the compound name has been confusing and it took a trip to the creator's site and into the character reincarnation to figure out it's actually 3 people. Which sadly has spoiled some things for me ;;;;

Sadly I don't have a favorite scene nor character yet. Mickael was getting close but I'm kinda playing it by ear right now. >_>' But it's a very pretty comic; the eyes in particular have such a pretty depth to them ^u^(edited)

Draco Plato

1. My favorite scene so far was the one where Decebal was behind Mickeal at his home. It felt kinda spooky. I also like Erik talking to Naples in bed, I think it showed how young Erik is, lol. 2. My favorite character is Erik, cause he's adorable n(UvU)n I'd like to see more of Arrow though, I feel like he's been underused so far.(edited)

RebelVampire

QUESTION 5. Unlike Erik and Celeste, Arrow has neither powers nor previous knowledge when he becomes involved. Why do you think Hope invited Arrow along? What do you think Arrow’s ultimate purpose is in all this?

Tenor | Shinavar

5. Hope said hes a proxy for one of the big space people so I'm guessing that initially. The only reason he doesnt have powers is because they havent given him any, right? So I think hes going to have a much bigger purpose later. I mean it seems Erik is the big power house but theres probably areas he cant touch that the other two can.

I'm curious though what proxy means specifically in this case

Kabocha

“1. What has been your favorite scene in the comic so far? What specifically did you like about it?”

http://khyatix.com/soulhymn/chapters/chp2/chp2pg19.shtml Probably this interaction? Celeste stopped being bossy for a minute, though....... She still doesn't believe he's really a faun...

“2. At the moment, who is your favorite character? What about that character earns them this favor?”

Arrow, for his intrinsic... Lyall-ness. Don't ask. XD I might have read the world page and may have been spoiled.

“3. Do you think Erik being a faun will be beneficial or harmful to his endeavors to save everyone? Ultimately, do you think Erik will succeed in saving the pillars and stopping Decebal? Please provide your reasoning for both!”

Can't say! Not enough info to judge this. As far as stopping Decebal -- if not in this life, then maybe another...

“4. Erik and Celeste received their powers from three space people, which Hope later reveals as Maha Deva Vijaya. Do you believe Maha Deva Vijaya will provide more help in the future? Why or why not? Why do you believe they’ve taken such a personal interest in what’s going on?”

MDV -- Because making sure the earth doesn't get screwed up by a grumpy fallen angel is kinda important. Also, clearly Erik, Arrow, and Celeste are somehow otherwise linked to those three!

“5. Unlike Erik and Celeste, Arrow has neither powers nor previous knowledge when he becomes involved. Why do you think Hope invited Arrow along? What do you think Arrow’s ultimate purpose is in all this?”

Good question! We don't know too much about him aside from the fact that he's a twin and also is interested in Erik.... So maybe he'll become the story's damsel in distress alongside Rose. >:3

RebelVampire

i will support this canon of arrow being the damsel in distress

Kabocha

Ahahaha. I mean, realistically, I imagine Arrow will support Erik and Celeste, but beyond that? Hard to say. If he's a proxy like the other two, then it's curious that they haven't given him powers, unless his space person is working more through him? ...tbh I can't remember which one corresponds to which without looking at the life chart

mostly 'cause they haven't shown up much yet XD

FeatheryJustice

One of the things I always wonder while reading Soul Hymn is that would Erik like goat cheese? Or what kinds of foods with the characters like or dislike and if they are connected through all the souls do the all have the same likes and dislikes or different depending on each thing.

Kabocha

You know, that's a good question. XD Pre-wedding ring spell, do they all maintain some prefs between lives?

FeatheryJustice

1. Favourite scene so far was when Arrow saw Erik for the first time and completely just shoved his sister across to make room for him. It was just the comedic moment of the dismay in Celeste's face. 2. I think my favourite is Squirrel Familiar? I'm trying to look for the name since it's been awhile since I read the comic, but I love how sassy that squirrel was.

Time to re-read the entire thing, again :3

Kabocha

Napples, I think!

or Naples

Draco Plato

Haha, I like that scene too with him pushing her on the chair Yeah~! Naples is his name. Also, they do generally keep a lot of their likes and dislikes from other lives, but some things change too based on their current environment and upbringing. The ring spell didn't give them any new knowledge or information so it didn't really change anything in their personality. The spell varies from life to life though based on what their souls predetermined for it before being born. Erik would like goat cheese I think XD He's not really a picky eater, although I do think he's vegetarian. Erik really likes to cook too so he has a wide repertoire culinary wise. Arrow would most like foods he can eat while working I think, like sandwiches and fast food. Celeste is kind of apathetic about food overall, although I don't think she'd turn down a pastry, lol.

Kabocha

Celeste has tastes I can appreciate

Draco Plato

a pastry a day keeps the doctor away

also, sorry i'm not responding to everything, I'm trying to avoid anything that'd be really spoiler territory from me, but I love reading all the different PoVs.

anything on the site isn't particularly a spoiler though so it's all right to check out the world page, since I decided it's okay to know the lifetimes of the characters from the beginning as it helps to see their evolution over time.

cause some people seemed concerned about that, but it's also not important to read the world page either.(edited)

Kabocha

Heheh. I get that! There's a lot about the story which I think we have yet to learn, but it'll unfold.

Like, I can't wait to see decebal do some more dickish stuff lol

Draco Plato

Ooooooh yeah, he's still got a lot of stuff to do

RebelVampire

yes, can confirm theres still plenty in soul hymn that hasnt been blathered about on the site itself at least.

RebelVampire

“1. What has been your favorite scene in the comic so far? What specifically did you like about it?”

That scene in the train subway thing where Erik and Celeste fought that demon and had to be bailed out by Hope. I vastly enjoy that Hope came expecting the proxy people to solve all his problems, except nope. No problems solved for him. They aren't ready.

“2. At the moment, who is your favorite character? What about that character earns them this favor?”

For today, at least, gonna pick Celeste. I think Celeste all around has the best facial expressions and I like that shes upfront about the fact she hates being considered 2nd class to Erik.

3-5

[REDACTED SPOILERS]

Draco Plato

looooool

Rebel knows too much

RebelVampire

QUESTION 6. While visiting Desire, Arrow and Celeste learn of a deep connection to Erik that activates some sort of magic that makes them all married. Do you think the three will figure out a way to break the spell? If not, how do you think the relationship between the three will work out or fall apart?

Mharz

“1. What has been your favorite scene in the comic so far? What specifically did you like about it?”

My favorite scenes where the times Arrow goes head over heels over Erik in first sight. It was a fun scene.(edited)

Also that part where Arrow said he and erik just met today but it has hearts on the bubbles.

have to say Naples is freaking adorable here.

“2. At the moment, who is your favorite character? What about that character earns them this favor?”

I have to say Celeste. She's sassy sure but not in an annoying way and I like that. Also Naples... such an adorable puffball.(edited)

“3. Do you think Erik being a faun will be beneficial or harmful to his endeavors to save everyone? Ultimately, do you think Erik will succeed in saving the pillars and stopping Decebal? Please provide your reasoning for both!”

I feel like it's too early for me to gauge it so I can't really give a clear answer. I believe Erik will succeed tho as long as he gets his psyche intact and not get affected by the pillars like what happened when Desire grabbed his hand.

“4. Erik and Celeste received their powers from three space people, which Hope later reveals as Maha Deva Vijaya. Do you believe Maha Deva Vijaya will provide more help in the future? Why or why not? Why do you believe they’ve taken such a personal interest in what’s going on?”

I dunno... I feel like they will just watch and let the trio deal with this themselves. Otherwise they would've interfere already.

“5. Unlike Erik and Celeste, Arrow has neither powers nor previous knowledge when he becomes involved. Why do you think Hope invited Arrow along? What do you think Arrow’s ultimate purpose is in all this?”

I do know stuffs from outside the comic that is particularly spoilery <.< So I kinda know the real reason but I do hope Arrow will transform in anyway? That would be fun to see.

Kabocha

Magical boy Arrow! XD

I actually wanna see that, too, even if it's a joke or if he gets some sort of halloween costume

Mharz

6. While visiting Desire, Arrow and Celeste learn of a deep connection to Erik that activates some sort of magic that makes them all married. Do you think the three will figure out a way to break the spell? If not, how do you think the relationship between the three will work out or fall apart?

Eh. I'm sure it'll be fine. <w<(edited)

"Sorry Arrow, since you can't transform me and Erik just bought you this."

gets a totally random halloween costume

RebelVampire

and hten arrow died

and everyone mourned him

erik went crazy and ate cans for the rest of his days

and celeste took over the planet and became a vicious dictator

Kabocha

aaaaaa

I don't.... Well. that is a way it could go, I'm sure

Mharz

that is a scenario I can imagine as a high possibility

Kabocha

I'm sure the problem with the marriage spell is probably going to come from Arrow and Celeste at first, bc like.... I can imagine one of them logicking it all out like this: -We're all married -I'm married to my sibling?!!!!! -I'm going to kill my sibling and keep Erik to myself without realizing that it's just that they're BOTH married to the same guy. ....I mean, this could all just get awkward. Or murderous, if they're so inclined to take the murder-the-hypotenuse route -- but I mean, that would require someone stepping in and bein' like "Yo, Celeste.. Arrow........ wanna make Erik suffer for cheating on you with your sibling?" Meanwhile Erik's all over in the corner, like "What"

Mharz

I think Hope explained that they're married only to Erik and not to each other. In which Arrow cried polygamy.

Kabocha

........oh crap, I forgot about that

still

Mharz

literally just read it. <.<

Kabocha

XD

Mharz

like the past hour.

Kabocha

well, that makes your memory much sharper than mine!

But still.................... Now I'm imagining Decebal getting Arrow to align with him, all for the purpose of forcing Erik and Celeste to give up

Mharz

or just get Erik to himself. XD

I mean Arrow agreed so he can have Erik to himself.

RebelVampire

tbf even if hope said it doesnt mean they accept it in their hearts. hope also explained a lot of things and i think from many of their dumbfounded wtf faces, not all of it absorbed into their brains

Kabocha

.............Hey, I remember the first time I read it, I was kind of with them XD

I wasn't familiar with much of Draco's other stuff!

RebelVampire

i think draco actually trimmed hope's explanation a tad cause im pretty sure originally it was supposed to be longer

Mharz

I like how Draco made all of these interconnected with all of the rest of the comics

RebelVampire

yes. its nice when things are governed by the same rules.

Kabocha

it'll be really cool when more stuff is complete, too -- we'll get a good feel for how it all works together

Mharz

Yas. I'm excited to see how this goes.

Kabocha

...Is this point where we start coming up with crack theories

RebelVampire

yes

granted as long as its related to soul hymn since dont want to alienate ppl too much with draco's billions of other comics

Kabocha

Ahahaha! SO crack theory: Decebal is going to use Mickael to release a mind-control hit single. He's going to spread his message through the world that way, and...... The first step to suffering will be removing all pizzas from the planet.

NO PIZZA EVER

RebelVampire

well i mean

that would be suffering

unless they already dont have pizza

Mharz

Not the pizza

Mharz

I have a weird question... Does Erik produce milk? <.< hides

Kabocha

I don't think male goats do

Tenor | Shinavar

Some do - usually dairy bucks who are in dairy-heavy lines can develop milk during rutting apparently. /Sorry had to look it up

Draco Plato

No, he definitely doesn't produce milk XD although for awhile the comic was titled Goat Milk for other reasons

Tenor | Shinavar

oh god

Kabocha

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

I... You know. I just DRACO

Fuckin' hell, I feel like a pervert now XD

Draco Plato

Just realized how porny that title can sound, lol

Tenor | Shinavar

That's why I'm dying about it lmao

Kabocha

Now I'm thinking there needs to be a "name your comic like it's porn" joke, but......... that's neither here nor there. What would the difference have been if it was called Goat Milk though? Was there story significance?

Tenor | Shinavar

But I am curious Draco - how much would you say you need to read your other titles to be in the know with Soul Hymn? Cause seeing others' opinions I"m curious how out of the loop I am ;

Kabocha

See, I know some spoilers so I don't count for what I know

Tenor | Shinavar

Fair but IDK how many people know spoilers either

So I'm just curious :D

Draco Plato

I mean soul hymn should be pretty okay by itself, but maha deva vijaya have appeared in Zenchav out of order so it explains them a touch more atm, and soul hymn will directly feed into Zenchav by the end, but it hasn't yet. Witch Carnival also mentions the ring spell more, but again I don't think any of them are actually necessary to read for the story, more just additional information for people into the overarching story

RedEmyr ties into Soul Hymn the least so it d be super irrelevant to read for SH info

It ties into Zenchav and OoO tho a lot

Tenor | Shinavar

-Nodnod- Aaaah okay~ I haven't had the chance to get to OoO nor RedEmyr yet.

Draco Plato

Thats totally okay XD

Oh and it was called goat milk before because it focused on pregnancy and Mickeal and Sam's story more, but I took all that out so it no longer was relevant.

Cali helped me to think of the soul hymn title which I like a lot

Kabocha

cough

Mickeal, plz But I mean, that makes sense. XD

Draco Plato

Yeeeah, there's a lot of versions of this story at least 10

Draco Plato

Oh, cause it was mentioned earlier Maha Deva Vijaya is always said as one name because the three souls are so close they are treated as one entity

Tenor | Shinavar

That would be me, I think. THat's good to know - I think the confusion comes from addressing them as 3 people so I legit thought it was someone else entirely and it made me have to double over everything fFFFf

Not addressing, describing hem*

Draco Plato

Yeah, that's fair XD

RebelVampire

since someone mentioned it earlier, i will mention random fact: despite knowing all the many spoilers, i actually do have to look up which one is maha and which one is deva because i forget a lot and mix them up

Draco Plato

Ffft, they would be pleased

Kabocha

GASP

Pleased?!

Draco Plato

All according to keikaku

Kabocha

But... But... Well, I guess at that point they don't have a lot of the arguments that the would have in previous lives XD

Draco Plato

Nah they don't, they're just vijayas pillars of support so all their focus is in him

Kabocha

Maha is actually going to be very easy for me to remember because Maha sounds like how you say Macha as in the cat character from .hack and Macha was a girl, so Maha is.... well.

anyway XD

....that train of thought just occured to me

don't mind me! :'3

Draco Plato

Lolol! XD

Their name roughly translates to Mighty Deity Victory in Sanskrit.

So the names Maha and Deva are even just accents to Vijaya

Kabocha

RIP Celeste and Arrow

Draco Plato

Nah it's a good thing OvO

Or maybe just symbolic, lol

Mharz

Omg goat milk

imagines if that became the title

CalimonGraal

the 18+ version of soul hymn

looooool

Mharz

Where all the dark secrets happen

The solution for saving the world is goat's milk

Draco Plato

Erik plz you must give up your milk to save the world

Mharz

baaaaaaaah

Draco Plato

ooooomg

if i'd used that title I could've just used emojis for it

missed opportunity

Mharz

This has took a strange turn whoops(edited)

Draco Plato

hello darkness my old friend

Kabocha

So would the logo then include an eggplant? Oh gosh ahaha

Tenor | Shinavar

Omg. All of u need jesus

Kabocha

HEY, HEY, we have Vijaya, why do we need Jesus? I mean, what jokes were we supposed to make about a Mickael/Samantha relationship story called Goat Milk? It ends up with her pregnant, right?

BUT, that's neither here nor there. XD Speaking of those two, we're gonna learn more about their relationship with each other, right? :3 Like, just, generally, I mean. How did they meet... How did they fall apart... Why do they get along now instead of hating each others guts XD

How often has Rose been spotted with her horns in school XD

Draco Plato

There's a version of Goat Milk where everyone ended up pregnant, it was not my finest writing moment

And I am super happy that it was scrapped, it went in really weird places

and if I'm saying it went too weird, that's pretty off the deep end weird

Kabocha

I heard some comic sites pay $70/page for that sort of thi--- /shot

Draco Plato

LOL!

there's that olympic dames comic

I didn't want to be in the same genre as that

We proooobably won't get to see Mickeal and Sam's backstory unless I make it a side comic

but the whole focus of it would be teen pregnancy and I've been trying to back off on that kind of stuff

so It's kind of been sidelined indefinitely

I became worried about portraying it insensitively unintentionally

Kabocha

Ah, fair!

Maybe it's one of those things that they just mention they were teenagers and well, at least Rose is happy now

Draco Plato

yeah, I think I'll be able to squeeze in most of the details at some point within Soul Hymn anyway, especially since interest has been expressed about it

Kabocha

Also, I apologize in advance for craziness with my train of thought, I have had to take the nyquil tonight!

But yeah! I'm interested to know more about them in comic, even if it's a passing mention

Draco Plato

I can do that

I think Rebel was afraid I'd make Erik Rose's father for awhile

all comic decisions are a roll of the dice so you never know where it'll land

Kabocha

It's not canon until it's firmly in print, right? And even then, it can be revised in future editions

Draco Plato

baaaaaasically, altho I do try to not change things that have already happened at least. But I have had to go back and fix dialogue in some of the comics when it didn't quite add up right to things later on, oops

Mharz

RebelVampire

I think Rebel was afraid I'd make Erik Rose's father for awhile :joy:

all comic decisions are a roll of the dice so you never know where it'll land

that may have something to do with the fact youve point blank said youve played around with the idea

Draco Plato

muahahaha

It's super unlikely though, very improbable

RebelVampire

QUESTION 7. Desire mentions Hope is the sixth pillar, implying there are four others we have yet to meet. What do you think the other pillars are like? Do you think all the pillars are on Hope and Desire’s side, or do you think some might side with Decebal? What do you think will happen when Erik runs into the other pillars?

Kabocha

So, what are they pillars of? I've actually been confused and hadn't asked about that before. What do the pillars represent and how are they important to the world? I may be just not remembering. xD

Or well, I guess they're important to Decebal's plan.... (looking at it again now lol)

What...... were they before they were pillars

.........Virtues. XD OKAY SO WHY ARE THE VIRTUES IMPORTANT ........I'm going to have to reread this comic hrrrghleble

You forget details when you read in chunks! So, time for a fresh readthrough which I'll do tonight.

Capitania do Azar

hauehuhah

Draco Plato

Legit straight up forgot I mentioned there being 6 already and had to remember who the others were, totally on the page of forgetting details after not reading in awhile

Draco Plato

Basically the virtues are angels who perform small miracles within mankind and represent a virtuous quality. Decebal turned them into their negative opposite and that negative quality is then constantly feeding into them from their surroundings (via people's negative thoughts and energy). They're called the pillars in this negative state because to Decebal they represent a pillar of negative energy he's building for a "purpose".

Mharz

Was thinking along the lines of 7 virtues turned into 7 deadly sins of some sort. XD(edited)

I have the feeling some already sided with Decebal. :u

Draco Plato

It does seem similar to the seven deadly sins weeps

ah good they aren't all the same as the seven deadly sins, lol! I couldn't remember what the 7 were for that

Mharz

RebelVampire

QUESTION 8. In recent happenings, Decebal kidnaps Rose. Why do you think Decebal would do such a thing? How do you think Decebal intends to use Mickeal exactly? On a different note, what do you think will ultimately happen between Sam and Mickeal?

CalimonGraal

feels like decebal is going to use mickeal or something for whatever he's planning

RebelVampire

hes gonna use mickeal to trim his lawn

and then start a goat lawn mowing service

CalimonGraal

omg

Mharz

he needs goat fur for coats

RebelVampire

decebal is gonna start a whole goat based industry

Mharz

goats are great for business

Mharz

I feel like Decebal will use Mickeal's influence being a famous singer and all to brainwash people into feeding his pillars negative energy

RebelVampire

http://khyatix.com/soulhymn/chapters/chp1/chp1pg18.shtml

well mickeal does have a head start with lyrics like htat

CalimonGraal

he could collab with daed inside

Mharz

deep inside he agrees with decebal. <.<

RebelVampire

and here i always thought mickeal was the good one

Mharz

if there's anything I learned, is that the most innocent looking people are the evil ones... sometimes.

Draco Plato

Does Mickeal look that innocent tho? XD

I like how disinterested he looks while singing, as boring as doing laundry to him

Tenor | Shinavar

I like Mharz theory with the brainwashing

But I'm willing to bet hes about to take him in for some plastic surgery missing some extra parts he'd like

Draco Plato

lol! Oh no

RebelVampire

now thats just gruesome

RebelVampire

QUESTION 9. At the beginning, Hope warns Decebal that he will fall for his actions. Do you think Hope is right and that there is indeed no saving Decebal? Why or why not? Additionally, Hope and Decebal argue about whether the outcome is decided or not. Do you think Hope is right that the outcome is decided, or do you think Decebal is right?(edited)

Tenor | Shinavar

IDK I mean - someone who gets pissed and turns you into a beacon of negative energy doesn't sound like someone you can reason with /shot

Mharz

I feel like it can go either way? Like Decebal probably believes you can change your fate of some sorts. Tbh I think he has good intentions tho his execution is really really bad. :v

Kabocha

Decebal, if I recall, thinks humanity needs to git gud and start doing what they need to do ........ ........................ So he's going to make them fall in to despair so they can appreciate what they had or something.

I wonder where on the timeline this all happens compared to like, OoO

Draco Plato

it's both before and after

don't cry, it'll all make sense some day

Kabocha

Hahaha, yeah. Is it time shenanigans or just that it's over a long span of time?

Draco Plato

it's because of there being multiple lifetimes of the characters in the story

some are before and some are after

Mharz

draco no

@_@

Kabocha

So... Erik might fail this time, but...

or is it just because of the lifetimes and the space people XD

Draco Plato

The before and after is just because of the chronological happenings of the individual lives.

Like decebal's life takes place before Mickeal's

He even mentioned that mickeal is his future on one of the recent pages

http://khyatix.com/soulhymn/chapters/chp3/chp3pg39.shtml

Decebal's life is before Rex's since Rex is a fallen angel, Erik's life is after Damon's though

The space people are irrelevant time wise I think since they exist in their own sort of timeline with a different trajectory

But they do interact in some manner with most of the lives.

Technically they're supposed to play an inactive role within the lives of mortals and use other means

Karmic laws and all that

Mharz

Decebal is one of the powers right???

Is Rex a high ranking angel as well?

Draco Plato

Rex is a Jinn now so not really an angel anymore but he was Decebal, sooooo I mean he was a Power XD

Kabocha

Ahahah, well, I meant timeline as far as like, linearly-speaking now

Mharz

oh I see

Kabocha

so, like, OOO takes place in year X, Soul Hymn takes place in some other year... or is it all overlapping owo

Mharz

lol I got it confused a bit. I was thinking Decebal came after Rex woops

Draco Plato

events at the end of Soul Hymn will lead into Zenchav, but for Erik, Celeste, and Arrow it takes place after OoO but before WC(edited)

Mharz

rolls around

Draco Plato

S-sorry, I guess it gets a bit confusing

Mharz

it's fine draco

XD

Draco Plato

This is why I didn't hide the lives cause I thought nobody could ever guess them

And it d just be even more difficult to tie it all together for people(edited)

Mharz

but it's fascinating tho

Kabocha

Hehehe

I had figured the progression of lives didn't take place in a linear fashion compared to the timeline overall

Draco Plato

Nah, originally I'd planned to keep everything linear bit that didn't work out

There's technically other dimensions too with different outcomes but I'm avoiding going into those since it's already confusing for readers

Kabocha

hehehe

Draco Plato

I've also cut down what I had planned for the astral plane stuff too cause of that

RebelVampire

QUESTION 10. What are you most looking forward to in the comic? Also, do you have any final thoughts to share overall?

Mharz

Looking forward to Erik and Decebal face-off and seeing all the pillars and how everything links together.

Draco Plato

There's a lot of scenes coming up I'm looking forward to, particularly with the main three's relationship and the changes I've made to the story recently.

FeatheryJustice

I can't wait to see when they all duke it off and then see how the reincarnation works.

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for chatting about Soul Hymn this week! Please also give a special thank you to Draco Plato for volunteering the comic for this trial run! We really appreciate it! :D If you liked Soul Hymn, make sure to continue to support it!

Read Soul Hymn: http://khyatix.com/soulhymn.shtml

Draco Plato’s KoFi: https://ko-fi.com/khyatix

Draco Plato’s Discord: https://discord.gg/NTYuQTU

Draco Plato’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/KhyatiX

[game-refraction]

Game Review: The Legend of Zelda - Breath Of The Wild (Switch)

“It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this.” was the only instructions given to Link when we were first introduced to the character, and series, back on the original NES. That all too brief bit of advice actually told us quite a bit. The world was in peril from some sort of evil, and that Link would need to be well prepared for it. It is that same underlying message of being prepared that is introduced to us all over again in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and it couldn’t be truer. Breath of the Wild is not only the most wildly ambitious and incredibly polished entry in the Legend of Zelda series, it’s quite possibly the greatest Legend of Zelda game to date.

I consider myself a fairly big Legend of Zelda fan, despite not fully completing a few entries in the series. My favorite, up until Breath of the Wild, was Wind Waker as not only was it as near perfect to an adventure game as you can get, it just had a level of polish that most developers can only dream of having in their games.

Right from the beginning of Breath of the Wild, you are told very little. You are given a few hints on the plot and then set on your path. You know that Princess Zelda is out there somewhere and that Ganon, or as he is called here; Calamity Ganon, has taken over the kingdom. You’ll come across a few gameplay hints via the loading screens or from various NPC’s that litter the world, but a lot of it, and I mean a lot of the what’s and how’s, are left up to you to figure out, and the creative fun that comes with doing so.

I’ve heard a few stories about how some players tackled certain objectives, despite how complex or simple the more traditional methods would be. One such example left me rather impressed. During one of the Dungeons, a player couldn’t find a second power node to open a door. They noticed that both platforms required electricity to run and they, in an act of desperation, came up with a rather impressive trick. When Link is out in a rain storm you have to be worried about wearing metal when you hear thunder about as you can get struck by lightning. Using this logic, they placed metal weapons from one node platform to the next. Upon placing the node on the platform, it transferred enough power to the adjoining platform and powered the door. During my playthrough, I had no problem finding that second node, but it’s nice to know that no matter the player, you can find your own way. I lost track of how many times I had an idea and it paid off, with the game at no point telling me I could play that way or forcing me down one direct path of reasoning.

It is in this creative ingenuity that makes the open world of Breath of the Wild so fresh and original. Sure, the world abides by a few open world gameplay designs like collectibles strung everywhere and points of interest allowing for fast travel and map revealing, but it is the way in which you interact with this world that is unlike anything I have ever seen. Want to bake apples? Hold a torch under an apple tree. Want to cook some fish or sear a steak? Throw it on the ground while visiting Death Mountain. You can freeze meat with an ice arrow or throw a metal weapon at an enemy in a storm to have lightning finish the job. There are so many different ways that the environment will affect either Link or the materials of his weapons or items that I could just go on and on, but I’ll leave the rest for you to discover on your own.

As you explore the massive open world around you, you’ll often rely on your paraglider, an item you’ll earn within an hour of starting the game, should you stick to the main path. The paraglider allows you to glide on the wind currents to essentially fly around the map. Should you need to reach a higher location you can simply just scale the surface. These feats of exploration are held in check via a upgradeable stamina system that also limits how far you can run without becoming winded or swim without drowning. The wall climbing is also limited to outdoor areas as climbing up walls in dungeons or shrines are just not possible, it’s also worth noting that rain will prevent you from scaling surfaces as well, but oh, we shall talk more about the “rain” later on, don’t you worry. The game also has a 24 minute day and night cycle that changes the locations of various NPC’s, merchants and even what types of items and enemies you can find nearby. Even certain side quests and various shrines are only accessible at key hours in the day.

Before I get too involved talking about the story, weapons and various other systems the game has to offer, I want to take a moment and talk about how gorgeous this game is. While I am playing on the Nintendo Switch, the game still looks rather impressive on the WiiU. As I mentioned above, Wind Waker was my favorite pre-Breath of the Wild Zelda game and a lot of that had to do with the art direction. Breath of the Wild grabs ahold of the look that Wind Waker contained and finds a nice middle ground between that and the previous Skyward Sword. The game has an almost anime inspired look to it, with characters looking fully animated and having remarkable detail even among how simple their designs can be.

Regardless of traversing cliffsides above lakes of lava or racing through the forests of Hyrule on the back of Epona, the widespread environments of Breath of the Wild are stunning in their beauty as well as the secrets that hide around almost every corner. The lighting and shadows that come with the day and night cycles can drastically change the look and feel of your surroundings and standing on a mountaintop to see the fog creep over the mountains is something else.

The Switch runs the game at a modest 900p, while both the WiiU and the handheld nature of the Switch run it at 720p. The WiiU version does have a bit of slow down even at 720p and the Switch, while docked on the tv at 900p has comparable slow down as well, mostly in areas that have lots of shadows in play. I never noticed any slow down while playing via the handheld mode of the Switch, but this could be due to the game running on Switch hardware at 720p. I also noted that playing Breath of the Wild via the WiiU gamepad’s screen is mostly blurry and I would recommend sticking to the TV mode for that console if at all possible.

The Legend of Zelda has always had tremendous sound design and Breath of the Wild ranks up there with the best of them. Each selection of music or sound effect is absolutely perfect and they even throw in a few classic sounds in some really interesting places. I love the musical melody that plays when your Sheikah Slate is scanning the map, or the ping your arrow makes when you get that critical headshot. Several characters of the game also feature some terrific voice acting that I wish happened more often throughout your journey.

As the characters you’ll interact with all have remarkable animation and detail, so do the various enemies you’ll encounter during your 60+ hours with the game. While there isn’t a staggering variety in types of enemies, the small details that encompass them will make you enjoy each encounter despite how repetitive it can get. Should you disarm your foe and then pick up their weapon, they will lash out with surprise and anger, pointing at you and shocked at what just occurred. I had an enemy retreat to set his wooden club on fire to attempt a better tactic against me, except I threw an explosive barrel at his face and he flew off the cliff. The personality given to many of the game’s foes is fascinating and can lead to some rather fun ways of dealing with them. One of my favorite moments was when I took a Cucco from a nearby village and caused a Lizalfos to indirectly hit the Cucco four times causing a massive army of Cuccos to unleash chicken hell on it, he didn’t last long.

After you break away from the basic Bokoblin’s and Moblin’s, you’ll start to encounter the Guardians, giant pillar looking enemies that can be stationary or mobile, should they still retain their spider-like legs. At first, they can be incredibly intimidating, but once you figure out a neat trick you can do with your shield, I started to go on a killing spree collecting all the rare items they would drop upon their destruction. Also, upon upgrading my stasis rune to freeze enemies, I found that I could halt them in their tracks for a few precious seconds and start chopping off their legs, crippling them in sheer delight.

There has been some talk about the weapons in Breath of the Wild as for the first time in the franchise, we have weapons that can break during combat. Each weapon has a variable limit to how many fights it can withstand and this can make or break your experience. Early on you will find weapons that will break after an enemy or two and later on you can find weapons that can outlive dozens of foes with even the Master Sword needing a small recharge after a certain amount of abuse. Eventually, you’ll find weapons that can be repaired, but I didn’t find them to be that much better than the disposable ones littering each and every battle. I often would revisit shrines to grab a few more Guardian weapons; glowing blue spears, axes, swords, and shields, as they can last fairly long and deal out some nice damage, plus it helps that they look really cool. Breath of the Wild has a vast amount of weapons for Link to wield, which is a huge change of pace from prior entries. I never found myself bored with combat as there was just a tremendous amount of variety in how to dish out damage to an unsuspecting foe and attempting to master the dodge and parry systems can be rewarding as well.

With the world being much bigger than anything else Nintendo has ever made, closing the gap between you and a nasty little Bokoblin can be made much easier with a solid arrow to the face. Link’s bow is far more essential this time around than ever before in a Legend of Zelda game. Arrows come in regular, fire, ice, shock, bomb and the ancient Guardian arrows that can one-shot almost anything. Jumping in the air and unleashing your bow will freeze time as long as your stamina holds out. I approached a small Moblin camp that had 2 of them sleeping while another kept guard. I paraglided in from a nearby mountain and dropped from the sky with my bow at the ready. The added time the slow down mechanic gave me allowed me to headshot the guard and fire off two arrows at explosive barrels that were just a few feet from the sleeping duo. Needless to say, the camp exploded in a flash of yellow and orange.

Working alongside your arsenal of swords, axes and bows, are Runes. These are special abilities that Link has access to via the Sheikah Slate, an ancient tablet that can learn new skills and be upgraded later on. These Runes are all available within the first few hours of the game so that you can freely tackle any of the Dungeons or Shrines in whatever order you see fit. The Runes that Link will have access to are Bombs, Magnesis, Cryonis, and Stasis. Bombs are pretty self-explanatory, but it’s the other three that really shake up the Puzzle dynamics here. Magnesis lets you lift and move metal objects around, Stasis lets you stop time to objects and enemies, and Cryonis creates ice platforms out of bodies of water. Several areas of the game force you to use these powers in tandem to one another and can lead to some very creative methods to solving puzzles. Later on, you will use the Sheikah Slate to take pictures or utilize the Amiibo compatibility.

Breath of the Wild’s large open world has a lot to explore and you’re going to be picking up a ridiculous amount of items and resources everywhere you go. The room you have for weapons is fairly small early on but can be upgraded to allow more space, which is great considering how fast some of your weapons can break. The resources you gather like fruit and meat can be used to cook meals that grant more health, temporary hearts and other buffs like extra stealth or boosted stamina. You can use monster parts like tentacles and bat eyes to create Elixers that do roughly the same things but without the health recovery. The cooking is incredibly addictive and the music and charm of the food bouncing around in the pot makes this a system that you’ll want to use, rather than need to. You will also outfit Link in a variety of outfits that have some sort of stat like extra defense, better stealth, or surviving harsh climates. Several outfits and weapons are also locked behind the use of Amiibo’s, which also work as a method of collecting resources as well.

Breath of the Wild changes up the themed Dungeons of Zelda’s past by making them giant mobile animal shaped mechs from a long passed civilization. These animal shaped fortresses are called Divine Beasts and there are four of them. As you progress from the start of the game, you’ll find that Link shares a history with the custodians of these Beasts, a group of warriors that attempted to help Link and Zelda stop Calamity Ganon 100 years ago. Considering the world is currently ruled by said evil gives us a clue as to how well this attack went.

While the Dungeons are very creative and well designed, they sadly don’t last too long and can be cleared in well under an hour. Once you discover the map in each Dungeon, you can alter sections of the Beast to allow access to sections of the Dungeon that are normally blocked. The Divine Beast Vah Medoh, the Bird, as an example, can tilt left, right, or just remain straight flat. Despite the disappointing length to these locations, they are still very engaging experiences that I still rather enjoyed. I would say that my biggest complaint regarding them is their lack of variety inside each of the Divine Beasts as they look nearly identical from one to the next.

While the Divine Beasts were once used to destroy Ganon, here they are actually tools to be used by Ganon himself and conclude with a boss battle with one of his minions. Each Boss has an elemental effect that is paired with the type of Divine Beast they inhabit. While these encounters are fun and engaging, I had harder battles with some of the Lizard enemies found in various areas of the map. Each boss has a few phases that are rather easy to figure out and I honestly can’t remember if I died once during these encounters, or had much of a challenge provided to me. I still think they are rather entertaining, I just wish the fights were a little more challenging.

Despite the short length to the Dungeons and somewhat disappointing Boss battles, the real stars of the show in Breath of the Wild have got to be the Shrines. These 120 locations offer up combat challenges, puzzle rooms or just a simple room containing a chest. The combat challenges range in difficulty while the puzzle rooms are where the Shrines truly shine. These elaborate puzzles make great use of the motion controls that Nintendo has perfected here. I’ve had to tilt my controller almost entirely around to solve a few rolling ball puzzles or swung it like a golf club to send an orb flying. I’ve been stumped by a few puzzles like one where I had to transport an Ice Block from the start of the Shrine to the end, carrying it in my arms until I had to drop it to use Magnesis to block a wall of fire. I sat there wondering how I could move the Ice Block with my hands full using Magnesis until I figured out that I had to fail certain aspects of the objective to succeed.

I wish I could say that the underwhelming Dungeons and Bosses were the only issues I had with this near perfect masterpiece, but sadly, no, there are a few more problems with the game I need to mention. I’ll start with the biggest problem I had with the game; the rain. While I really loved the elemental effects that the game can offer with regards to creative game design, the rain can become more bothersome than anything else in the game. See, you can’t climb during the rain and often upon nearing the top of a mountain or needing to climb to find a Shrine or some other motivation for the tough climb, I’ve had rain storms show up suddenly and cause Link to just slip and fall off the mountain. While I didn’t find this to be game-breaking, it did lead to much frustration and often I would just give up on that area and move on to something else. Had some type of climbing claws or a climb-during-rain perk for the upgraded Climbing gear been made available later on in the game, I could have dealt with it, but as it stands now, rain can put a damper on how fun this game can be.

As for Link himself, he can be quite the problem as well. I’ve had to run away from various enemies and have had him auto-climb a tree or a rock or if you got too close to the camera and initiated the auto-climb, it can be a split second mistake that can cost you your life. While the auto-climb is great when you’re falling to your death and glide into a wall, it can be disastrous during a combat encounter, especially against enemies that can one-shot you. I also had an issue with the recovery speed of Link when he gets knocked down. Many times I would be knocked down by a Guardian or one of the Lion flavored Minotaurs, and before I could get up I’d be blasted or hit all over again. I don’t mind challenging combat, but at least let me get back up and get injured due to my own mistakes and not poor game design.

I’ve spent the better part of three days writing this review and wondered if I would award a perfect score to this game or not. While it has its flaws, it still is a game that I constantly think about and count the minutes in my work day till I can get home to play it again. I converse with friends and co-workers endlessly about this moment or the next, eager to see how someone tackled a particular foe or puzzle. Yes, the rain can be bothersome and yes Link can cling to a tree or rock during a crucial battle, but in the end, Breath of the Wild is a fantastic experience and worthy of the highest score I can possibly give. A game like this, one that raises the bar in so many areas, needs to be awarded praise and recognition. This is a game very untypical of Nintendo and it can be rare to see this type of genre redefined. Even after beating the game and tackling every Shrine the game has to offer, I am only just getting started, and until then, you’ll catch me east of Hebra Tower playing Snowball bowling for another 300 Rupees.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was reviewed on a retail copy of the game, and comments regarding the WiiU version were from observations of seeing it in action. All screen captures were taken from the Nintendo Switch via its upload to Twitter function.

  Game Review: The Legend of Zelda – Breath Of The Wild (Switch) was originally published on Game-Refraction