#Their writing choices would be baffling to the point of incomprehensible??? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

magioftheseas · 4 years ago

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It's pretty difficult for me to explain why I dislike the abuse theory for TBHK so much,, but I just do?? What are you reasons if I'm allowed to ask?

I do kind of hint at it in some of my meta but like...

It basically boils down to Tsukasa’s age, presentation, and overall characterization.

Tsukasa was very young when he died, like 13-14. He was a child. If a child is so troubled at that age that they abuse their sibling of the same age, there’s something seriously wrong with their environment. You can’t just make the choice that he’s abusive at that age lightly as it brings to question how the hell he developed that behavior (which wasn’t present when they were younger if the Festival chapter is anything to go by) and what the hell the exact upbringing of the twins are. Basically, despite being the easiest assumption to make, it’s in fact the most loaded and the most unnatural.

Tsukasa’s personality and characterization later makes it even worse. Tsukasa, yes, is a little shit force of destruction, but he acts and is presented in a way that emphasizes childishness. He’s hyperactive, curious, impulsive, cheerfully carefree, and often doesn’t dress himself properly. While Hanako and Tsukasa are both the shortest of their respective trio (not sure about Mitsuba, sorry bby), look at how much shorter Tsukasa is with Sakura+Natsuhiko compared to Hanako with Nene+Kou.

Natsuhiko and Sakura are among the older kids in the cast, yes, but the decision to put them next to Tsukasa in contrast to the HanaKouNene group still noticeably gives off a different vibe. Rather than a group of friends, we have what obstensively looks like babysitting, which makes Tsukasa’s youthfulness stand out even more. And AidaIro finds other ways to emphasize that quality, so it’s intentional.

Like look at these images.

Tsukasa’s more twisted behavior is not a secret to the audience by this point. It’s made clear that Tsukasa can be cruel very early on, and yet AidaIro insists on drawing him this cutely and endearingly. There’s far more art of Tsukasa looking wide-eyed and innocent than there is of Tsukasa’s more dangerous and alarming side. Even more notably, Sakura and Natsuhiko respond to this side of him with less fear and more...

Pictured: Me holding back the cat.

Of course, yeah, Sakura and Natsuhiko do find him intimidating at times, but isn’t it pretty fucking weird that they’re so calm when handling him? That they (well, Natsuhiko) can pick him up and even hold him back without hesitation? Hell, Sakura has been shown to hit him without consequence. If Tsukasa’s really so villainous, you’d think the characters he’s spent the most on-screen time with would be...well...terrified of him, but they’re mostly just exasperated by his antics as if they’re not even worth being all that concerned with. They treat him as lesser.

Even when Mitsuba (the only explicit victim of Tsukasa we have besides that rip blowfish) appears, Tsukasa being treated that way by Sakura and Natsuhiko doesn’t change. Hell, they reprimand him for his behavior and try to make Mitsuba feel more welcome.

These two are technically underlings, yes, but despite deferring to Tsukasa for the rumor-spreading, they themselves manage Tsukasa on a personal level. Tsukasa’s not in control when it comes to the casual interactions. It may seem like I’ve derailed a bit, but here’s the thing.

Abuse is about control. Why, then, is Tsukasa so willing to tolerate the way he’s treated? He’s not even bothered about it, and takes it all in stride. Even if you could argue that’s just because Amane was more passive, well... First of all, it’s just theorizing.

Second of all, bringing up the festival arc again, Amane was perfectly okay with leaving Tsukasa alone, and Tsukasa was perfectly okay with being left alone.

And this is literally the only bit of insight we get into specific relationship dynamics when they were alive.

That’s actually another reason why the abuse theory just...doesn’t hold water.

Tsukasa being Amane’s abuser is the easiest assumption to make.

Why, then, is AidaIro so vague about the dynamic the twins had in the past? Why is it this ambiguous even 70+ chapters in? It’s not like we couldn’t have shown Tsukasa in the festival arc or in any kind of flashback at all. Tsukasa doesn’t even get a mention by Tsuchigomori.

That amount of mystery makes me think that there must have been more going on and that the easiest assumption to make regarding their relationship is, just that, a simple assumption, shallow and inaccurate due to a lack of information. That Tsukasa’s childishness gets more emphasis than his cruelty also makes me wonder.

There’s also that...when it comes right down to it... Hanako is also super fucking shifty and dubious when it comes to his actions and planning, hell he’s arguably more dubious than Tsukasa because while Tsukasa is transparent with Sakura and Natsuhiko, Hanako is...christ, he is very fucking not. Hell, remember what I said about how abuse is about control? Hanako’s controlling. Tsukasa’s more flexible. He’s perfectly alright with having “Amane” make other friends, including girlfriends, and doesn’t interfere in the slightest with Hanako’s relationships. He doesn’t even interfere with Mitsuba. He does not care if Kou and Mitsuba hang out to the point where he happily leaves them alone for considerable amounts of time in Picture Perfect.

I said easiest assumption, but in reality, in full context... Tsukasa being his brother’s abuser would be jarring. At this point in time, Tsukasa just not only isn’t given a lot of control and capacity for intimidation (due to his relationship dynamics with Sakura and Natsuhiko), there’s too much ambiguity regarding the twins’ past. And, like, he hasn’t even taken on the main antagonist’s role since...the Hell of Mirrors. Which is the current midpoint of the series. Given he hasn’t shown up at all in this current arc, that gap between now and then is probably going to get even longer.

Narratively, the abuse theory just doesn’t click. Metatextually...

It would reflect pretty badly on AidaIro, I feel, to go that route. It’s incompetent to go not only the first route people would assume (despite making it a complete mystery for 70+ chapters). It’s irresponsible to knowingly present an abusive character in the same endearing light that Tsukasa has been shown. Yes, Tsukasa is still a dubious character, but why present him like this if you’re going to eventually double down on his horridness? Wouldn’t you want to, idk, build that up? Show like, an escalation? Commit to him being an enemy that the audience is meant to not only dislike but also fear?

Why would you do this if not to eventually subvert expectations?

AidaIro has glorified shittiness before, but that’s usually with the romantic leads (Hanako and Akane). Tsukasa doesn’t have a single romantic cell in his body. One intention that there sure as shit isn’t is making Tsukasa appealing as a guy. He’s like...a child. A baby. Most readers aren’t going to consider him dateable despite being the same age as Hanako, who is very often idealized as a love interest. Not even on a bad boy level. Tsukasa’s just way too baby. So, even if I’m super cynical, I just don’t think AidaIro would make these kinds of decisions in their writing.

#Magi answers #meta #anonymous #tw abuse #long post #For me personally though it really is just Tsukasa's age alone that makes me super resistent to the idea #It's just such an abnormal situation to the point of feeling forced #AidaIro might be in shit graces due to previous events but if Tsukasa's abusive then just...#Their writing choices would be baffling to the point of incomprehensible???#Like what the fuck???#critical #kinda

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brawltogethernow · 3 years ago

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@mirrorfalls submitted: Came across this while searching for James Bond’s scrambled-eggs recipe (long story). Your thoughts?

But did you find James Bond’s scrambled eggs recipe?

In this article, Scocca laments his inability to find accessible, lighthearted superhero comics suitable to read with his young son, while also demonstrating a mysterious aversion to looking at DC and Marvel’s lines of comics for children, which is where the accessible, lighthearted superhero comics suitable for reading with young children are. He wants his elementary schooler to be able to safely have the run of all superhero media so he doesn’t have to touch the yucky baby books.

This is not an industry-wide crisis. This is just one dude who got paid to write an article where he accidentally exposed one of his personal hangups.

The child headed toward the trade paperbacks of Marvel and D.C. superhero titles on the side wall […] a few steps in front of me. […] Is he with you? a clerk asked me. I said he was. You know, the clerk said, we have a kids’ section. The clerk gestured backward, at a few shelves near the entrance. I said, Thanks, we know and tried throwing in a little shrug, as the kid kept going.

You can’t just turn a seven-year-old child loose in a comic-book store to look at the superhero comic books. […] My seven-year-old really wanted to see that last Avengers movie […] that is, he wished it were a movie he could see, but he understood that it was, instead, a movie designed to scare and sadden him—a movie actively hostile to people like him.

They have a children’s section. Because comics are a medium suitable for stories for everybody, and they are sold in comic book shops, which have sections, like bookstores. You can use this organization to find books that you know in advance are suitable for children. What goes in that category is determined by industry professionals. This area will be bigger the bigger the shop is. These comics are not lower quality that titles from the main lines. They are actually slightly better-written on average.

Your local comic book shop has considerately wrapped Empowered in a plastic bag, so your child will not be drawn in by a colorful superhero and accidentally read a graphic scene. If you think your kid might find a memoir about internment camps upsetting, it is your job to notice them picking up They Called Us Enemy and read the blurb on the back before you let them have it. This comic adults are meant to read is in a comic book shop because that is where comics are sold. Not every public place is supposed to be Disneyland.

Movies have ratings systems. If you do not want your child to watch a PG-13 movie, you will find that most superhero cartoons are for children. They are about the same characters. Some are quite good! I really enjoyed Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Your child may like Avengers Assemble. At least I think that’s right. I’m always mixing those titles around.

This is a deeply weird bias for Scocca to casually demonstrate, because he identifies in the article that real childishness is striving for empty maturity.

He compares an old comic,

[…]a 1966 Spider-Man comic in which Spider-Man meets, fights, and defeats the Rhino; participates in a running argument between John Jameson and J. Jonah Jameson about his heroism; buys a motorcycle; breaks up with his first girlfriend, Betty Brant; flirts with Gwen Stacy; and reluctantly agrees to let Aunt May take him to meet her friend Mrs. Watson’s niece, Mary Jane.

and a new comic,

[…]a 21st century comic book in which Thor, brooding in a Katrina-destroyed New Orleans, beats up Iron Man. He also yells at Iron Man a lot about some incomprehensibly convoluted set of grievances, including involuntary cloning, that he believes Iron Man perpetrated against him while he was dead(?), and then summons some other Norse god from the beyond somehow for reasons having something to do with real estate. I think. Where the 1966 comic is zippy and fun and complete, the whole contemporary one is muddled and lugubrious and seems to constitute a tiny piece of a seemingly endless plot arc—simultaneously apocalyptic and inert.

and concludes that the edgier comic is actually less mature. This is true. (This is not news about mediocre comics.)

It also has nothing to do with either comic being child-friendly, the article’s nominal thesis, except in the sense that ASM #41 (yes, I eyeballed that from that summary, yes I am just showing off now) is better written, making it more everyone-friendly. It also has practically more space dedicated to word balloons than art and is about a college student juggling girl problems and a part-time job with a tyrannical boss. But the immature one, as Scocca points out, is dour.

These are both teenagery issues, separated only by quality. It’s true that lots of new comics published by the big 2 are bad in the specific way Scocca describes here, taking themselves too seriously and hauled down by associated stories instead of buoyed by them. Some are not! Some titles from these companies’ main continuities are zippy, contained, and child friendly. Give your child The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl! Or if you like vintage comics so much better, why don’t you…buy some?

The books on the kid’s rack are good and fun and totally suitable for parents to read with their children without wanting to scoop their eyeballs out. Scocca cites the Batman ‘66 comics as the brightly colored, tightly written all ages solution to his problem about sharing superhero stories with his son. My local comic shop stores this title in the kid’s section. I am glad that Scocca’s does not, as he seems to have a peculiar aversion to looking for comics to read with his son there.

Scocca cites Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as a superhero movie he could watch with his kids. (I was surprised when this line made it sound like he has several. I don’t want to assume the other one isn’t in this article because they’re a girl, but I very much am assuming that.) Great! Go to the kid’s section and look for Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man. It’s a fun, zippy title directly inspired by ITSV where Miles, Gwen, and Peter superhero together. It’s much more tightly written than most of the various Spider-Verse comics, which are ambitiously messy ubercrossovers. You may not want to give those to children because they include murder and so on, but also you just have the choice between the two as an adult reader deciding how much continuity you want to deal with. Adventures is one of the only titles I would buy on sight before corona. The kid comic rack is a reliable place to take a break from How Comics Get Sometimes regardless of how old you are.

This article makes me feel quarrelsome. Maybe it’s that it doesn’t seem like exploration of a single idea so much as a loosely grouped bundle of things to kvetch about. Maybe it’s that the experience of getting into superheroes that Scocca describes experiencing, projects his seven-year-old son will experience, and from which he extrapolates a metaphorical microcosm of the history of the genre is completely alien to me.

Comic books [and] comic-book movies—are […] trapped in their imagined audience’s own awful passage from childhood to adolescence. A seven-year-old has a clean […] appreciation of superheroes. They like hero comics because the comics have heroes: bold, strong, vividly colored good guys to fight off the bad guys and make the world safe.

But seven-year-olds stop being seven. […] They become 13-year-olds, defensively trying to learn how to develop tastes about tastes.

The 13-year-old wants many things from comics, but the overarching one is that they want to prove that they’re not some seven-year-old baby anymore. They want gloomy heroes, miserable heroes, heroes who would make a seven-year-old feel bad. (Also boobs. They want boobs.)

Not because of the boobs line, although that does illicit an eyeroll that this gloomy thinkpiece is fretting over preserving the superhero experience of little boys who resemble the little boy the writer was while casually dismissing everyone else. I was one of those unlikable little seven-year-olds with a college reading level and the impression that maintaining it was the crux of my worth. I only read Books - distinguished media you could club someone with. I have a formative memory of pausing, enraptured, in front of a poster for Spider-Man 3, preparing to say that it looked pretty cool, and being beaten to the punch by my mother making a disparaging comment about how the movie was trash. It wasn’t out yet, but it was a superhero movie. That meant it was for loud, brainless children.

That was the total of my childhood experience with superheroes, excluding being the unwilling audience to incessant renditions of “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells” that left me wondering why in god’s name Batman’s sidekick was named Robin. I certainly never visited a comic book shop. I got into TvTropes, which got me into webcomics, which got me following David Willis, who got me into Ask Chris at ComicsAlliance, which led to me rewarding myself for studying like a demon for the AP tests with three volumes of Waid’s Daredevil, pitched as a return to the character being colorful and swashbuckling. I was seven…teen.

This is of the same thread as Scocca’s point that immaturity is running from childish things. It leaves me baffled that he doesn’t follow that maturity is embracing them.

I will disclose here that while I think it was dumb I had to overcome my upbringing’s deeply embedded shame associated with enjoying arbitrarily defined lowbrow media and children being childish, I think it’s fine that I was allowed largely unchecked access to technically age-inappropriate content. In my limited experience, content small children are too young for is also content they’re too young to understand, so it kind of just bounces off of them, and what actually ends up terrorizing them is unpredictable collages of impressions that strike out at them from content deemed perfectly child-friendly. I would not forbid a seven-year-old I was in charge of from seeing an MCU movie unless I had a reason to believe that specific child would not take it well. These are emotionally low-stakes bubblegum films. It will probably be easier to socialize with other kids if they have seen them.

But then, when I picture being in charge of a hypothetical child, I usually imagine this being the case because they are related to me, and the pupal stage in my family strongly resembles Wednesday Addams. ALL children love death and violence, though, right?? This isn’t a joke point. I know it looks like a joke point.

The MCU thing seems especially weird in light of the article’s particular focus on Spider-Man, which is the kiddie line of the MCU, even if they refused to waver from their usual formula enough to get a lower rating. Though I am more inclined to describe it as “preying on the young” than “child-friendly”.

(MCU movies are increasingly dubious propaganda, but I would not judge them in front of a child who wanted to watch them for that reason, just in case this led to them partaking of them without me the second they were old enough to and then they grew up to run a blog about them while our relationship suffered because they didn’t feel like it was safe to talk to me about their interests…Mom.)

I tried to overcome the philosophy of letting anyone read anything while compiling this handful of mostly-newish superhero recs for the road that anyone can read. (Handily, I have been in spitting distance of being hired as a comic shop clerk enough to have thought about it before):

For actual children:

Marvel Adventures Spider-Man (the new one is reminiscent of ITSV, the old one is more like 616) any DC/Archie crossover, Archie’s Superteens The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (for bookish children who think they’re too good for comics and adults afraid of the kid’s section) Teen Titans Go (even if you hate the show) Superman Smashes the Klan

For teens:

Ms. Marvel Young Avengers (volume 2) Unbelievable Gwenpool Batman: Gotham Adventures Teen Titans Go (the tie-in comic based off the old show was also called this)

Here are a bunch of relevant C. S. Lewis quotes.

#me every time i read a comic book article by a rag not exclusively about comic books: i know more than you.#marvel #spidey #DCU #MCU critical #mirrorfalls #asks answered #submission #unearthed this and bashed it out in one sitting ... i have not been working on it since you sent it last year XD

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hyena-frog · 4 years ago

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To be honest, Virginia fooled Octavia, Aja, Moira, Atalantia, the entirety of the Bellona household and many others and mantained a foothold on Luna using her own spy network, long after she leaved. I did not like how the Cassius plot unfolded, personally, but the fact that she can juggle so many enemies will always leace me in awe, especially because Octavia was very good at reading people, considering the info we have on her now. Not only that, but Virginia was openly a Reformer - not only did she speak for other Colors' rights, but Reformers also believe in the Independence of the Rim and she had strong connections with the Moon Lords. Still, she was trusted by Octavia and her court.

After Golden Son and even during Morning Star, people thought she was too much like her father, now that she is 'in need of a win'. I think that these discussions are simply unfounded bullshit.

Also, it was never confirmed, but I do think that if Virginia failed to save her family on Luna, House Bellona would have received a pretty box the next day, after she had taken the ArchGovernor seat on Mars. So I truly believe we are in for one hell of a treat now that she obtained Imperium. Hail Sovereign!💖🦁

👏👏👏 Amen!

You explained how Virginia masterfully played Octavia’s court during her time on Luna in your own post way better than I could have, so I’ll add a few thoughts on your other points.

It drives me nuts how Virginia can juggle so many enemies and still be called “weak.” Strength isn’t just about swinging a razor around. It comes in other forms. Virginia has a level of self-control that is awe-inspiring. That’s a kind of strength hardly anyone else in this series has tbh. I mean, Virginia duped Octavia! Octavia “inventor of the Pandemonium Chair” au Lune! Is that not the most badass thing you can think of?

Pierce Brown has a knack for writing complex characters very economically. He gives enough information about a character that you’re able to fill in the gaps on your own. I understand why these characters think and act the way they do because the narrative gives me enough clues along the way that I’m never left floundering to understand their choices. At the same time, the writing never holds your hand; the audience is trusted to put those pieces together.

So it’s amazing to me— no, it’s actually kind of incomprehensible to me how so many people (in certain fan groups) can so badly misinterpret Virginia in particular. A certain level of ambiguity is good; it’s no fun discussing stories when you know everything with certainty. But there’s a level of misunderstanding surrounding her character that baffles me, because I find her fairly easy to understand, especially upon rereading the series. It’s even easier now that we have her POV but somehow that has made the misinterpretations worse.

You’re so right. In GS and MS, her “problem” was she was too much like her father— she’s a manipulator, she’s too cold, she obviously has some secret evil plan! But now in IG and DA, her “problem” is suddenly— “She’s too weak, her decisions never go right, she just needs to whip out her razor and kill people to solve these complicated political matters.” So which is it, precious? :)

It’s especially infuriating when I see people willfully ignore the mistakes made by favorites like Sevro and Victra in favor of heaping the blame entirely on Virginia’s shoulders. It’s a disservice to Sevro and Victra to ignore their mistakes. As if the entire narrative of DA didn’t show us how our mains suffered unnecessarily because they weren’t listening to each other. That’s the whole reason I found the ending kind of uplifting, because Victra and Virginia are finally back on the same page. As it is, heaping the blame on Virginia only is such a bad faith interpretation of the situation, it’s maddening.

I agree with your point about not liking Cassius and Virginia’s plot. I don’t mind it, as a whole, but I wish we had gotten more time to better understand the context of Virginia’s choices on Luna. She outright tells us her reasons later on, but I would have liked more build up, if that makes sense. I honestly wouldn’t mind if Pierce Brown went back and wrote the first trilogy again entirely from her POV. There is so much story, especially in GS and MS, we simply weren’t privy to because we were “stuck” in Darrow’s POV. Now that he’s had some practice writing her POV, I think it’s doable.

So there are problems in the writing, especially in the pacing of the earlier books. But I’ve always found the character writing to be wonderfully consistent. Hence my frustration with the idea that Virginia “needs a win” as if she hasn’t been carrying this series on her back.

I’ve said it before, but I love your “Dark Virginia” headcanons! Octavia’s whole plan to kill House Augustus at the gala was predicated upon the assumption that the version of Virginia presented to her was the truth. That Virginia would never rebel against her and would fall into the place, and marry Cassius to sooth her heart (ick) after the massacre of her family. But she didn’t know Virginia was secretly pulling strings of her own the whole time.

Virginia is always fearful she will turn into her father. I think without Darrow and her many friends at her side, she could have very well done so, under the right circumstances. Her family dying at the gala could have been a tipping point. Cassius’ head ending up in a box would have been entirely possible, in a different timeline. I love thinking about this kind of stuff!

#virginia au augustus #red rising #golden son #morning star #iron gold #dark age #red rising trilogy #iron gold trilogy #astreamikaelson13 #my post

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miminorenai · 4 years ago

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Chapter 21

In the church engulfed in silence —

Sitting on the bench, Charles speaks of conversation he had with Mimi, bit by bit.

Charles “......Even if she believes in Dazai, she said she can’t believe in me.”

Charles “She said he’s never a person who won’t be sad by a person’s death......but a long time ago, I used to be sad a lot too?”

Charles “What’s the difference with me and Dazai? Mimi seems like she’s having a hard time with Dazai......”

Faust sighs at Charles who’s muttering vaguely.

Faust “How rare, for *Shall to show negative emotions.”

(*Faust called Charles ‘シャル’ instead of his full name シャルル

Charles “Negative emotions......?”

Faust “Are you jealous?”

Charles looks up blankly at Faust.

Charles “I’ve never been jealous of anyone before, but......”

Faust “Your UNawareness is a pain.”

Faust “It appears that winning over vampires in the mansion is out of the question.”

Charles “Such thing is non-negotiable/undiscussable, huh?”

Charles “But Dazai —”

Dazai “If you could make my wish come true ···— I might be interested to get on with our discussion.”

Charles “Despite saying it like that, he didn’t tell me after all.”

Charles “What is Dazai’s wish, I wonder? What does he desire to the point pretending not to see Mimi’s favor......”

Faust “......”

From the information they received from Shakespeare, the reasons of resurrection for the great men in the mansion......

......their purposes and backgrounds were being investigated.

But regarding Dazai, his exact purpose remains unknown and has not been reported.

Faust thinks with his finger on the chin, and opens his mouth after a while.

Faust “......Shall. You once said that Dazai’s past might be resemble you.”

Charles “Hmm......yeah.”

Charles “I used to execute......a lot of people. That guy let someone died too, although the amounts are different.”

Charles “I don’t know what caused his double suicide affair, but......”

Faust “If that’s the case, a thought experiment......would you like to play an *association game?”

Charles “Game?”

Faust “It’s simple. — What do you think of the person who’s causing other people to die?”

Charles “......”

Charles’s suffocated by the cruel question.

Faust, observing his reaction, urges Charles to answer with a sharp gaze.

Charles “......Regret, I guess. Even if I said I’m sorry......no matter how much I apologize, it’s not enough.”

Faust “And, there’s no way for atonement.”

Faust “So — what if you could go back to the world before you made a mistake?”

Charles “Huh......?”

He blinks.

Charles “If I can go back......if I can do that, I’ll stop the execution.”

Faust “How? Are you going to let the dying people escape?”

Charles “If it’s possible, I’ll do it then......”

Faust “You’ve got a point there. Then, if there’s a more fundamental solution —”

Charles “Fundamental solution......”

Charles drops his gaze on the floor and thinks carefully......and suddenly raises his face.

Charles “The executioner ···— it’d be good if I were gone.”

Charles “—··· Ah, I see. Perhaps Dazai......”

Charles smiles, as if he discover a star before his eyes.

Charles “......Hey, doc. Lord Vlad said this earlier.”

Vlad “If all the great men who influence the world disappear, what will happen to the future?”

Vlad “……Hmm, how interesting.”

Charles “If Dazai’s purpose is really ‘that’, is it worth trying?”

Faust “The great men to disappear......should we do that experiment?”

Charles “Yeah. If we’re to use that door, we can even try it right away. Lord Vlad said that the abnormality had subsided.”

Faust “No one could use the door properly except for His Excellency Vlad.”

Charles “But I’ve heard of it before.”

Vlad “— The other side of the door is a space-time interval.”

Vlad “It gathers the earnest feelings of humans throughout every era and period. It’s such a door.”

Vlad “If you have a strong will, the door may respond and lead you to the desired place.”

Faust “......I see. It’s certainly interesting to see what happens if we succeed in using the door, but —”

While Faust’s face shows that he’s still has objection on the matter, Charles’s truly in bliss.

Charles “......Yeah, that’s it. It’s different from our original plan, but isn’t it better to fulfill Dazai’s wish?”

Charles “And then, there would be no death to come after this.”

Charles “Isn’t this a good thing? Mimi will definitely understand.”

Faust “— Shall. You......do you aware?”

Charles tilts his head to Faust’s voice, which has a slight suggestion of sounding out.

Faust “His Excellency Vlad still loves human.”

Faust “When he casts something away, he has his own standard, whether it’s necessary or unnecessary for the world.”

Charles “Ah, if I do whatever I want, will he get angry......?”

Faust “It’s not like that.”

Faust “......What are you trying to do is Shall’s own choice, not His Excellency.”

Charles “Uh huh, is that so......? But I’m sure it’s not in vain.”

Charles “Mimi might be sad if Dazai’s gone, but — “

Charles “......I’ll fill the empty hole in her heart.”

—··· A few days later, MC’s going out shopping in town with Sebastian.

Sebastian “Which reminds me, do you still read Dazai-san’s book?”

MC “Ah......, yes. Little by little between works and nights, though.”

MC tries to keep calm and answers the shaken topic that’s suddenly comes to her mind.

MC “To be frank, I still carry it around, even now.”

Sebastian “Right, Mimi is steadily becoming a Dazaist.”

Sebastian “It seems that Dazai-san is also writing.”

Sebastian “If there’s a request, allow me to do the editing or proofreading......”

MC “Sebastian, are you serious......!?”

Sebastian “Of course.”

Sebastian “But, it’s been particularly hard to catch Dazai-san again, nowadays.”

(......That’s right.)

MC hasn’t been able to talk with Dazai since that night he kissed her.

(He’s actually avoiding me after all......)

(But, I’ve been refused many times now, what should I do?)

The feelings of awkward, sadness......various emotions are mixed in MC’s chest and she cannot advance to the next step.

(Even so, I want to talk, even a little......I want to meet Dazai-san.)

When MC’s thinking about such thing, a scenery suddenly pops into her head.

(From what Dazai-san told me, if it’s that place —)

(I feel like I can meet him......)

There’s a strange sense like being called to the multicolored spectacle.

(Yeah......let’s go there.)

Sebastian “Mimi, what’s wrong?”

MC “Nothing......um, Sebastian. Can I take a short detour on our way home?”

And then, MC heads for —

— alone, to the path she visited with Dazai before.

On both sides of the path, the hydrangeas still have their vivid petals. But......

(Dazai san’s —··· not here. As expected, such coincidence will not happen so often.)

(I wonder why? It felt so wonderful when I walked with Dazai-san, now I’m just lonely......)

Except for the changing seasons, the scenery doesn’t change that much, but it looks different.

Instead of someone she couldn’t meet, MC opens Dazai’s book.

(In those days, it was fun to be together, and it felt so natural to be close to Dazai-san.)

(Somewhere in my mind, I was hoping he feels the same way......)

MC “This is......a hairpin?”

Dazai “It’s a hydrangea hairpin. I thought it would look good on you when I saw it in the town.”

Dazai “All right, it suits you well. You look very cute.”

Dazai “You are so good at believing in people.”

Dazai “……Really, Mimi-san is so honest enough that makes you dazzling.”

Thing that were fun and exciting......when MC remembers the days she spent with Dazai, her chest tightened in pain.

(I wonder if we can’t go back like we used to......)

(No, even if we can’t go back —)

(Right now......the scariest thing would be Dazai-san will go somewhere that’s out of reach.)

Dazai “......If you’re going to say that far, then tell me.”

Dazai “What kind of things filled my heart/mind while I kissed you just now?”

MC “......Dazai-san, are you angry? That, or is this also your intention of being a clown......”

Dazai “Hmm, who knows?”

Dazai “Mimi-san, I......I’m afraid of your straightforwardness.”

Dazai “When you’re with me, I ···—”

(I'm still curious about what Dazai was going to say back then......)

(What is making Dazai-san baffled to be with me......?)

For that little while, it seems MC was able to reach the edge of his heart, and while she’s pondering on his words many times over —

MC “Ah......”

Maybe because MC was distracted, the book slips off her hand.

She reaches out to pick it up in a hurry......and catches sight of a sentence from a page that opened by accident.

—「駄目な男というものは、幸福を受取るに当ってさえ、下手くそを極めるものである。」

“A hopeless (useless/no good) man is someone — even at the time he receives happiness — will carry his hopelessness to the extreme.”

(Happiness......Right, Dazai-san too —)

Dazai “Listen, stop have feelings for such man, since I cannot make you happy.”

MC “How about Dazai-san’s happiness……?”

Dazai “I don’t need that. I don’t wish for it anymore.”

That guy, being stubborn, doesn’t even try to accept something like happiness.

(Since the reason for his revival is “to accept punishment for making other people unhappy”......)

(But I —)

—··· MC wants Dazai to be happy.

He scoops up the subtlety of human hearts, and give them incomprehensible kindness in indirect (roundabout) expression.

(But even then, he always takes a step back......)

MC wants to reach out for him —··· who’s alone at a distance and feeling lonely in his whole life, as he sinks into a dark place.

MC “Dazai-san......”

MC picks up the book as if touching his heart gently, and as her feelings welled up, she hugs it tightly to her chest......

......there were eyes staring at Mimi from the shade of tree.

Dazai “I just turned my legs somehow, I wonder why are we attracting each other......”

Dazai “The weak fear happiness itself, huh......?”

—「弱虫は、幸福をさえ恐れるもの」

“The weak fear happiness itself. They can harm themselves on cotton wool. Sometimes they are wounded even by happiness.”

After muttering a sentence he once wrote in ‘No Longer Human’, he laughs, like mocking himself.

Dazai “Mimi-san, I’m afraid of you. Since when you’re with me, I feel happy......”

Dazai quietly leaves the place, as their thoughts and feelings passing by one another —

He then goes towards the man who summoned him.

Charles “Welcome, Dazai.”

Dazai “It’s an honor to be welcomed directly to your stronghold.”

#ikemen vampire #ikevam #ikevam dazai #osamu dazai #ikevam spoilers #kind of literature chapter haha #it's getting depressing to translate his route xD #dang #I pretty much want to hug both of them #both dazai and charles #since I'm on my break today #I manage to translate two chapters~#so happy to get rid of that procrastination haha

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sol1056 · 6 years ago

Note

I cant find your posts on the production timeline so i have to ask, if DW really did started planning for a sequel (w/o the EPs) roughly one year ago and it will be announced soon and air roughly one year from now, when in your production timeline calculations did their decision fall? What season were EPs working on (or reworking on? as they already had been given permission to break the series?) when they were notified and they spitefully started to sabotage things?

hrm, maybe try my #television-production tag? I’d suggest my #sol-thinks-about-stuff tag but that’s probably going to get you a lot of other stuff that’s not relevant to your question.

Okay, trying to recall off the top of my head… April is the traditional shopping-for-staff month. It has something to do with when TV series finish their year, wind down, and new series put out feelers for people to do pilots... uh, I can’t remember the details, only that March-April is when you’d act if you wanted to snag people coming off other projects.

That would’ve been one month after S5 was released, which was not a good one, numbers-wise. It would’ve been far enough into the Kuron storyline execs were aware VLD was going off the rails in terms of storyline, bible, skeleton, etc. Oh, and there would’ve been several months negotiation with Hedrick over his transfer and promotion, all of which was formalized and announced in, you guessed it, April.

Discussion probably began earlier, of course (this stuff doesn’t happen fast). I’d bet the EPs heard rumblings in the grapevine, hence their use of interviews to pitch/push their vision of a sequel. That was around March, and somewhere around April is when they went silent; when asked in a followup (May, iirc), JDS shut down the question, saying such decisions were over their heads.

No other mention of a continuation until after S7, when Kimberly and Josh both talk fondly of continuing their characters. I don’t think it got much traction, since most people seemed to see the EPs’ silence as cue that talk of a continuation was just a fantasy.

So, what’s below this line and behind the cut is entirely my speculation, and based on nothing more than tugging at the various pieces and trying to make sense of things. Not really organized, but my brain isn’t entirely out of vacation-mode yet, so go easy on me.

If DW started a new team to come up with a sequel, let’s say around March, that would’ve been S5’s release. That means the execs may’ve already decided they didn’t want the EPs continuing on the project, and already knew the broad strokes of S7/S8 and where the story would go from there.

But it could be internal politics stifling attempts to course-correct. Sometimes you do just have to do an end-run around certain obstacles, so DW may’ve decided their best choice was to write off the loss as a lesson learned.

Which means: if they brought on a new team, and there’s no story bible… either the new team had to wait and watch the entire series… or maybe they were told, “just start from this point”?

(Keeping in mind that any approval for the Keith-BP storyline had to have been fall, possibly winter, of 2017. Any earlier and animation wouldn’t have been completed in time for it to be reworked into its final version, after all.)

What if the execs didn’t really fuss all that much about S7/S8 because they already knew they were going to ignore it? Timing-wise, they’d already have two seasons of the Kuron fiasco, knew what the fandom wanted – and may’ve known the EPs were determined not to deliver that.

That could be why DW saw reason to amend S8 only enough to communicate their corporate position (against BYG, for LGBT storylines). The rest – Shiro being benched, Keith shoved into leadership, Allura dead, Lotor condemned – they knew the sequel would fix or ignore.

So they picked the area that sent the fandom into the worst paroxysms of fury, plugged in enough to send a signal, and washed their hands of the rest?

Another -- and this is way out-there but humor me -- theory is that when JDS got permission to keep Keith as BP, he did so by going over his own bosses’ heads, and getting the okay from Bob Koplar specifically.

Harking back to the Feud being written by Hedrick as a last dig at his soon-to-be-former team, it’s notable that a) the all-powerful but incomprehensible (and somewhat ridiculous) deity is... Bob. And that b) Bob bestows his blessing on the second lineup, leaving Shiro entirely out of the equation. It just seems a little pointed, and we know the writers weren’t above that (”I’ll never get rid of you, Shiro!”). So... maybe.

Thing is, you never ever go over your boss’ head unless you’re on your way out the door or you didn’t like your job and wanted to be booted soon. That’s pretty much a scorched-earth thing, but then again, we’re talking about someone who seemed baffled (and a bit annoyed) at fandom furor over the BYG trope. It takes that level of arrogance to think you could contact what’s effectively the client, talk them into a major change, and then use their agreement to put your own bosses on the spot and force them to go along.

It’s also a really quick way to find yourself not wanted around, anymore. idk, execs just seem to take that kinda personal. Who’da thunk it.

Either way, DW may’ve seen it as something they’d write off, but also learn from: would the fandom react well to Keith being BP? Which is grasping at straws if it’s supposed to be a lesson, since even Keith stans needed Keith to be, y’know, actually Keith, and not Recycled Shiro v2... so who knows.

Well, if anyone really wants to dig into this theory, here’s one way: check IMDB for writers and staff whose series ended in late 2017 or early 2018. Cross-reference that with people on linkedin listed as starting a new position at DW for an unnamed project, and you might be able to narrow down some possibilities.

#vld #voltron #sequels #wild speculation #sol thinks about stuff

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1358456 · 5 years ago

Text

Review Response, June 23-29, 2019

I totally forgot about this until right now. Whoops! My bad.

And also, starting with this post, each weekly review response will now show the updated graphs... charts (I keep saying graphs but they’re more charts...) of the stories that got the reviews.

Destiny #010

1) OH GOD. I KNEW IT. Y'S GOING TO DIE. THE WHOLE THING WITH X AND NOT THINKING OH HER AS "HIS GIRL" WAS A BUILD-UP OF SOME SORT. This will only cause X grief as it was one of the last things he said about Y before she died. Ohhhhh god. Poor Y, she tried so hard. I simply cannot imagine being attacked like that. And speaking of being attacked, Sapphire? Really has to get over her fear. I know its difficult love, but you're hindering the rest of your team! But anyways, going back to Y, the way she was dominating at first made me soooo happy. Finally! Proof that they can win! But nope. I still can't get over it. A death so soon... unless she miraculously survives. But tbh I can't see how.

Also nil I forgot Silver even existed for a moment there. When you mentioned him, I was completely take by surprise lmao. I don't blame you or anything, it's really hard to focus on a lot of dexholders in one chapter. But I was surprised to find that none were mentioned at the end, the it hit me that of course they weren't. They've got their own battles (problems) to deal with. Those shiny pokemon aren't going to disappear by themselves. Although I hope and pray that they do. But I am really interested as to how this battle will end. Will the dexholders prevail? Will they be defeated? Or will they retreat with their tails in between their legs? So many questions. And there can be so many answers. I'm hoping that they will win, but I just don't think that is likely tho. They've practiced yes, but it's probably not enough. They need years of practice before they can get to his level.

Also I forgot to mention, but I started sweating when I realized that Emerald still had his Mega bracelet thing I forgot what it's called. I was like "Ho boiiiiii." One could easily predict that he would be targeted first. Or at least second only to Y. But I feel like Peter is definitely using the Salamence to his advantage. I mean who wouldn't? That's one dexholder down.

Speaking of Sapphire, I absolutely love how you added in that bet between her and Gold. Like I said previously the balance of fun and not fun (?) is absolutely amazing. And I can only imagine a lot of people there probably face palmed. Which I get but like it's also a fabulous way to motivate someone (especially two competitive dexholders like them) to fight. But I doubt that that either of them will still have the heart to order around the other person after this battle. Well... then again this is Gold and Sapphire we're talking about. They are two people who might still do it. And it makes for a perfect opportunity for comedy later on. Nicely played.

I've decided to use paragraphs 'cause I tend to wander in my reviews, and it makes it easier to process. I'm sorry of this review isn't as good as the others. To be honest they only thing I feel I can say now, is about how good your writing is. But that gets tiring. And I'll make sure to shut up about Peter being so powerful later on. But I'll admit you're legit making me worried.

Anyways, thank you. Its been a pleasure like always.

I didn’t really think of that as a build-up. More like... “the f*ck, X?”. If I recall, I put that line in there because he says it in the XY arc, and it was incomprehensible... at the time. And yes. Poor heartbroken Y... :( And death so soon? This is chapter 10. It’s too soon*! And yes, Sapphire needs to get over the Salamence weakness... which she has in Destiny because this was before that scene in ORAS where Sapphire did not give a FUCK, since there was no time for such trivial things. Damn ORAS...

Silver? ... Oh yeah. That’s right. Heh. Not only are there a lot of Dex Holders in the mess, but there are those who I just do not give a damn about, who always wind up being forgotten as the focus of the chapter is elsewhere. Hehe. And the Dex Holders don’t need years of practice... they just need to embrace the game mechanics!! Hehe. ... What, is a Modest Rhyperior going to win against an Adamant one if it practiced? Heh.

The Salamence over-usage is not only because of how it cripples Sapphire, but also because the guy the Mega Hunter is based on generally always has a Salamence in his singles team. ... Usually with Choice Band and Moxie and Outrage. One-shot a guy, get Moxie boost. One-shot the next guy, get another Moxie boost. And one-shot the next guy. 3 Pokemon down in 3 turns. ... And then it usually hits itself in confusion and deals like 75% damage to itself.

Ah, the competitive rivalry between Gold and Sapphire! The one that’s hardly ever mentioned by anyone else... It’s fun, though. And all lighthearted. They always need to get the one-up on each other. Heh.

I do like the new paragraphs! It makes it easier for me to respond! I really do appreciate your reviews! :)

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Destiny #011

1) If shit wasn't already real, it is now. I honestly love the tension between Platinum and Sapphire, and it makes sense. They're the complete opposite of each other, one's quite literally wild, while the other is as refined as possible. It's only natural that they should clash. But I must admit, Platinum was being exceedingly rude. Like goddamn, you're fresh out of a battle, you need to find a new teammate and Sapphire is giving the perfect way in order to find her. Who cares if someone sees you with a girl sniffing. Stepping back was petty, though I'll also admit that Sapphire was being a but rude to Platinum when she told Platinum to just follow her. But it's simply Sapphire's way (as it is Platinum's), so I guess I can't complain too much. But I'm still rather peeved.

So, Peter thinks that the dexholders will get better, huh? That's new. Usually villains will boast and get cocky, and that usually leads to their downfall. Seems as if Peter is not going down that path. I found that a nice thing for you to add, because it only adds on to how clever this dude is. Like the little clues you leave for certain things, I'm not sure whether you write them on purpose, but some of them I notice and it only gladdens me.

In any case, I did not think Peter was going to manipulate Oak and Daisy. That actually quite surprised me, but in reality its a great way to gain information. After all, knowledge is power. And the more you know about your enemy, the more of an advantage you have. Meanwhile the dexholders don't know anything about him, only that that he wants to kill them for reasons? And some of the strategies he uses. Yikes indeed. Red voiced this perfectly in this chapter, with those questions of his. (And if I'm correct) I believe that this is another one of those "clues" I mentioned earlier. I believe Red might be the one to find out the answers to those questions, as he was the one to ask them. But that might just me looking too far into it. And I'm not exactly sure that that is a clue lmao. Ah well, a girl can come up with as big of theories as she so wishes.

Also, could it be possible that for a future strategy, they use Yellow for her healing? I mean, it seems practical. Their pokemon are not strong enough, and they drop one by one so easily. And while it seems rather cruel to constantly heal them only to fight again, that is reality. We do it all the time in the games and actually that brings me to another topic. The world of pokemon is wonky. We just capture these sort of "animals" and force them to fight for us? We might create bonds with them, but jeez these guys are just living their lives when bam! You come across them and then just capture them? And have them battle for you and constantly drain their health, only to do the process all over again. That is fucking cruel imo. I know certain trainers consider pokemon as companions and friends and whatnot, and that's all great and dandy, but like jeez. At least some pokemon come with you willingly and that's the best part. But whatever I'm getting off topic.

Again, personalities on point, writing smooth. Honestly I've never read something of your that felt jagged in a way. (Which is what really confused me when I accidentally skipped this chapter, and I was thrust into the future without an explanation of what happened at the end of the battle) Thank you.

I don’t think Platinum was being rude there at all. She doesn’t say anything, and from her perspective, it’s natural to be baffled at Sapphire. It’s like... you see someone sniffing at the air and the ground and the trees, and you just feel the urge to not be seen right next to that person. Stepping backwards was an unconscious decision, and hell, I’d do that too. And of course, Platinum hadn’t spent enough time with Sapphire to be used to it, or even appreciate her uniqueness. So for now, it’s an understandable natural reaction. And the cause of the Sapphire vs. Platinum minor feud that... I was going to push but abandoned because no one gave a f*ck.

One of the things I absolutely HATE about villains in anime/manga is their usual cockiness. If I had a dime every time some bad guy said something along the lines of “it’s over”... Well, it ain’t over ‘till it’s over. The Mega Hunter won’t be saying that it’s over when no one has died yet. And I left quite a few clues about him throughout the story. They become far more evident when Blue points them out later on.

Knowledge is power, indeed. Especially when it comes to Pokemon! ... And battles. 知彼知己百戰不危 and all. And I think Red’s internal questions are a bit too blatant to be considered as clues. Hehe. But hey. That’s just a-

Using Yellow for healing? Oh, I do love how you consistently point out options that actually do happen shortly afterwards. It is, after all, the logical next step. And... ah, the morals of Pokemon. “Pokemon are not tools of war”... that’s because you’re not using them properly. HA! The Pokemon world ain’t looking too bright. Also factor in humans’ tendencies of eradication, and...

I did notice that you skipped this one, given the review order. But I respond in the chapter order, so this one comes first. As to how you NOT notice that you skipped a chapter... ...

2) I swear to god these reviews take me an hour to write lmaooo. I didn't even realize it took that long. Not like I'll stop but dam.

You don’t have to write such long reviews, if that helps you. I do enjoy reading your long reviews, but if it’s too much for you, you can shorten it!

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Destiny #012

1) I wouldn't be surprised if they were copying your work ngl. In fact, they'd be stupid not too. Its that good but anyways, I'm face palming myself now. Of course it was a pokemon. What else could it have been? Honestly, sometimes I'm amazed at my own stupidity. Just like I'm amazed at your writing this chapter! Y's, Platinum's, and Blue's insecurity felt all unique! Like, one could tell it was insecurity, but each felt it in a different way. Which I felt reflected in your writing (as I'm starting to realize most emotions of the characters do) which might've just been encase of their different situations, but I feel like it was more than that. Kudos to you, that's hard to accomplish. And speaking of insecurity, this Peter guy seems to really know how to manipulate it. 'Cause I know the pokemon was doing the brainwashing, but Peter was the one putting the ideas and thoughts into Blue's mind. But he wasn't forcing them, he was juts voicing some of the thoughts he assumed were going on in Blue's mind. Also speaking of Blue, we finally have a chapter in her point of view again! It was nice seeing her again, and making sure that she was okay. But um the whole "It's not my problem" is worrying me. I completely understand why she's at that point. But still, not how the Blue I know from the FRLG chapter would act. (I say FRLG 'cause I'm not sure whether or not that's how she would've acted in RGBY. I mean she's had her small arc)

Fucking bastard. I was hoping Blue would somehow turn him down, but I suppose my prediction was correct. He "tricked" her in a way. But I guess I can only hope now that Blue will snap out of it the moment she sees the dexholders and is assured that they are indeed her friends. Seeing as how we already know she is capable of at least breaking free of his grip for a few moments with only the help of her subconsciousness and thoughts. Break free, Blue! You got this!

Also, on the matter with Y. I am so surprised she survived. The was quite a beating in the last chapter. I mean, forcefully being held in the air against her will. With things like Hydro Canon shooting at her. Not to mention the branches and rocks that pummeled her. What a remarkable girl. Even is she had on her suit. Dam. And even still wishing to fight. Is this what it means to be a dexholder? I can hardly imagine. If I break a nail I feel like crying and I start hugging my teddy bear. Well no, I don't do that either. But you get the idea.

But speaking of the time when Blue will have to battle the others. I wonder how that will play out? I wonder what the reactions of the others will be. Especially the ones close to her like Silver, and Red and whatnot. I'm sure that very moment is when my heart will break and I will cry. I'm certainly looking forward to the fluff that will help heal those wounds of mine. But Green's guilt. That will certainly overwhelm me. More than I thought X's guilt over Y's supposed "death' would have. Also, I wonder who's perspective that will be in. Lately it's been a lot of Platinum and Y, but I think it would be great if that battle was in Green's or Blue's point of view. As they were the ones who had the "falling out" in their relationship. Nonetheless, I'm sure it will be quite enjoyable. I cannot wait to read it!

Lackspeed to my babies. Treat them well I beg of you. They deserve all the love in the world. But still I thank you.

The conspiracy! First ORAS copies SA’s Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre, then XY copies... er... well, I can’t say right now I guess, since you’re not far enough in Destiny. Heh. And yes, of course it’s a Pokemon. Destiny literally begins in Terminus Cave in Kalos. And you do know what’s in that cave, right?

The insecurities of the different Dex Holders are the cause of their different personalities and their situations! Blue, the lonely girl who’s been drifting away from her friends and feeling utter isolation, would have insecurities about her friends. Platinum, the proud girl who have never known defeat previously would have insecurities about her own capabilities after losing multiple times to the same enemy. And what she says is what she would’ve read in a book too. 敗將有口無言, and all. And Y, the new girl, who has a lot to prove and a lot of catching up to do, will have her own insecurities after being absolutely obliterated.

Blue saying “it’s not my problem” is the result of her drifting away so much from her friends and feeling betrayed. In FRLG, it’s subtly revealed that Blue doesn’t remain in contact with anyone other than Silver (since Red and Green had no idea what she was doing in One Island, or what she had been doing), and so if that was to continue for years, and she lets her darker thoughts go rampant, she would end up quickly reverting to her old colder self.

And yep. “Tricked”. Rampancy in AI (which is what Blue’s rampancy is based on) doesn’t require something HUGE happening. It can all start with just a subtle suggestion. And now the struggle begins, between her rampant thoughts and her rational thoughts. Hehehe...

Yep. Y took a hell of a beating... again. And yet she’s still trying to fight. The resiliency of the Dex Holders! ... Also, the resiliency of those who are in the top 5 favorites! In order to be able to fight even after such a beating, you need to be in the top 5 of my favorites. Otherwise... hehe.

Oh, Blue’s upcoming fight against the Dex Holders... it will be quite the journey!

Treat them well, eh? Hmm...

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And so with that, Destiny’s chart is updated!

With the reviewed chapters in the red circle. ... Destiny still doesn’t show a trend, as it is ALL OVER THE PLACE.

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Legacy #007

1) Janecklyn from Specord here :P

Anyway, i really appreciated those "slice of life" chapters and some of the dex holders forming friendships with others outside their region! Makes the stakes higher and the mental problems more heavy.

Aww, jelly X, I have a feeling Jeremy is gonna be important to the plot.

Moon, you goofed up D:

One thing I like of your writing, is that you get the characterization pretty well, most of the time I can tell who's speaking for the lines alone. It tells me that like you love these characters 3

Intense and suspenseful chapter! Will wait for the update 3

Oh. I had no idea that you actually read Legacy. ... It happens if people just don’t review, since I have no other way to know if it’s being actually READ.

Gotta love those “slice of life” things, eh? It’s not always just chaos and catastrophe in the lives of the Dex Holders. Even if they’re always in the middle of one.

X is going to have to compete with Sky Trainer Jeremy! Hehe...

Moon had failed to properly heed Platinum’s warning, and had failed to react fast enough. Ouch.

Hehe. Thank you :) I do try to make each one sound as unique as I can, though some... just... can’t.

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With this one review, Legacy’s chart now looks like...

The red circle was the change, and so now it’s no longer a straight line barring the last chapter’s “anomaly”. Still, the trend is too clear. Legacy will not be getting an update until that dot in the red circle goes up by another 5. And it has the rest of 2019 to do so.

#qna

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minaminokyoko · 6 years ago

Text

Venom: A Spoilertastic Review (that is mostly just a rant)

When the end credits to the Venom movie started, just as Eminem began his embarrassingly uninspired rapping, I turned my head to one of my two friends and asked her, "What the hell did I just put into my eyeballs?"

To be frank, Venom is one of the most peculiar, bizarre, baffling films I've seen in years.

I want to preface this review by saying I was against this idea when it was announced. I thought it was beyond idiotic to make a film about a supervillain whose entire creation hinges on a certain Webhead, and since Sony lent him out to Marvel Studios (the only smart fucking decision they've made in probably over a decade, imo), they went off half-cocked with the hair-brained idea that they could create an anti-hero solo flick for Venom instead. To some degree, sure, they were warranted because the general audience these days has low fucking standards and if you put the words "comic book movie" in front of them, they're usually going to lap it up no matter how terrible it is. After all, fandom doesn't care about things being accurate anymore, by this point, if you dangle fresh meat like Tom Hardy riding a motorcycle in front of them. As long as there's an attractive person at the helm, fandom will just adopt it as canon and ignore any red flags, as they have already done. That being said, I still think this is one of the most blatantly stupid things done for money and for notoriety from any studio toting around a popular comic book character.

Is Venom as bad as legendary awful comic book movies like Catwoman, The Spirit, Batman & Robin, Daredevil, Green Lantern, or Spawn?

Well, no.

And that's almost the only positive thing I can report about it, personally.

In short, Venom is inept. That's the word I'd choose, aside from bizarre. It has no fucking clue what it's doing at any given time, from start to finish. It's too wacky to be serious, too serious to be a parody or satire, too mature for kids, too childish for adults, too mainstream for nerds, and too nerdy for mainstream. It's just a piping hot fucking mess.

So let's dive into why. Spoiler alert.

Overall Rating: D

Pros:

-Note: I am being very fucking generous by giving this movie points for anything at all, just so y'all know.

-It's not boring. Other comic book movies that have failed, whether it's the really bad kind or just the mediocre kind, have failed worse than this movie simply because at least there aren't any dead periods. Venom doesn't have awful pacing, even with its sloppy, uneven story. It moves along at a steady rate and you can never accuse it of being a borefest like Superman Returns or something. Even though most of it is incomprehensible from a story standpoint, it keeps your attention throughout.

-The doctor boyfriend surprisingly averted the usual stereotype/archetype for this kind of story. For example, in the first Ant Man, the cop boyfriend who is with Scott's baby mama is a smug, overprotective dickhead who later gets better. Most of the time when a main couple breaks up, the girl picks some douchebag who is either so much better than her former lover that it just feels insulting or it's just a one-dimensional asshole for us to hate so we want the two of them to get back together. Hell, doctor boyfriend was actually TOO nice and understanding and helpful. There is no way in hell I'd have stuck it out after seeing Eddie bite the head off a goddamn lobster. I'd have sent his ass to a mental hospital immediately, fuck the regular hospital. That being said, I like the movie averting the trope. It was a welcome change and was awfully refreshing too.

-Even though this is one of his strangest fucking performances to date, Tom Hardy is doing what he always does and gives 110% to a film that really doesn't even deserve him. I've already been hearing rumors that he's not pleased with the final product and that doesn't surprise me, but he does what he can with that awful script and I appreciate the effort. In fact, the only reason I sat through this turd is for Tom Hardy. He is a dedicated, talented actor and even when he's in tripe, he's still busting his beautiful ass to make the best of it anyway. I like him a lot and I'd go to bat for him any day, which is the only reason I coughed up the money for Venom when I knew damn well it'd be a trainwreck.

-The effects are at least decent. Not always. But Venom and the symbiotes actually feel as if they're really there and it's not just the actors staring at a ball on a stick. I appreciate it, since Sony goes in and out of quality regarding CGI.

-Despite the fucking travesty of a fake clown wig on his head, Woody Harrelson is an excellent choice for Cletus Kasady. Everyone knows that. I just hope they get him a better hairpiece next time, sheesh.

Cons:

-Jesus fucking Christ, where do I fucking start?

-Plotholes. This movie doesn't have plotholes--it has plot canyons. It's plothole Inception, for God's sake, with holes inside of fucking holes. It's so clear that the movie doesn't give a rat's ass about anything because there are some of the most ridiculous moments you're expected to swallow with the power of Willing Suspension of Disbelief. It's why it took me a whole two days to try and write a review/analysis of the film. There is so much wrong with it that I frankly wasn't sure where to start and how to process it all. The best I can try to do considering the overwhelming number of holes in the story is go chronologically. First off, Eddie stealing Blondie's confidential documents (Note: Michelle Williams' character was so bland and unimportant I can't remember her name and I don't care to look it up because we all know she doesn't matter, so she is now Blondie) but then not doing his actual job as a journalist when making wild accusations is the first monumentally dumb thing in the film. Why the hell did he go through the trouble of breaching her personal security and trust if all he was going to do was rant about it to the Bad Guy without proof? What did he think it would accomplish? Why would you just confront the guy instead of looking for more proof? Plus, you stole that information, which means it's inadmissable in court since it was obtained illegally, so you still wouldn't have a case anyhow. Any writer with half a brain cell would simply have it so that Eddie read the document, became curious, and started snooping around Life Foundation himself looking for hard evidence that would stand up in court to get justice for the victims. The way they did it in the film makes no sense, but it's because they wanted to bust up the couple and make Eddie a "loser" to kickstart the rest of the film. Then, the girl who tattled on the Life Foundation 100% did not need Eddie Brock to do that. She had full access to the lab and the trust of her superior. All she had to do was document everything herself, send it to Eddie to pass along to his boss, and then skip town with her fucking kids to avoid being murdered. Hell, she could have given it to the authorities anonymously. Third, why after everything went tits up in the lab did she fucking return to the lab as if they wouldn't immediately know it was her? She was seen outside the lab seconds before Eddie set off the alarms and her palm print is recorded having opened the door to the lab. Why the fuck did she go back after she let Eddie in there with no way to cover her tracks? And then she actually told on herself and Eddie, which led to her death. I can't comprehend that level of stupidity at all. It's staggering. Because I'm trying not to turn this into a seven-page single spaced review, I'm just going to stop here and not try to point out all the other plotholes in detail, like the fact that the cops only get involved one time and are never seen again despite the fact that they'd be all over the explosions and missing people associated with the Life Foundation or Eddie's phone working perfectly after he swam under the fucking bridge or Eddie leaving his phone for his boss instead of just sending him the goddamn pictures or the symbiote magically knowing where Eddie was after they took him from the hospital. We'll be here all day if I keep going. I'll just reblog CinemaSins' eventual video of this movie and feel satisfied that way.

-The movie makes zero attempts at explaining anything about the symbiotes except for "they're vulnerable to fire and sound frequencies, need a host to survive, and eat brains." What is even stranger about the lack of explanation is that this isn't a long film. They could have easily added about ten minutes into the story to give us an overview of where they came from, what their world was like, how they found human contact, and why they were on that comet. All we can do is infer things, which pisses me off because this is YOUR story and YOUR new continuity that you just fucking made up on the fly, so I don't know the rules here and it's shitty of you to just gloss over it all. Why is it called Venom? Is that a translation from whatever the hell the symbiote was called on its own planet? Did it hear that somewhere and decide it liked the word? Why? Why does it get touchy if you call it a parasite when that is literally what it is? Is it like Ratigan from The Great Mouse Detective and it's just in denial? We have to guess that it knows whatever Eddie knows, but why does it have any conceptual knowledge of romance and relationships when it attempts to get Eddie to apologize to Blondie or when it says it "likes" her? Or that Eddie "changed its mind" at the end? And how can a symbiote even be a loser? That concept is almost universally human and it's a giant sentient piece of fucking tar? How can it possibly be a loser on its own planet? There is just no damn context for majority of the shit surrounding the symbiotes in the movie and it's all the more frustrating since we spend a great deal of time in the lab with them during the movie and yet we learn almost nothing.

-Eddie and the symbiote don't actually form a proper bond or partnership. This is one of the things that's irritating me about people who seem to have taken to the movie. I was told multiple times by people that the movie is stupid, but the repartee between Eddie and Venom is enjoyable. Not really, no. Are there quips? Yes, there are quips. But quips do not inherently create a bond. Anyone can bounce dialogue off each other. If said dialogue does not change the characters, then it's just lip service. Sadly, though, a lot of people don't notice that absolutely nothing between Eddie and Venom lines up. Venom helps Eddie survive the attacks, but is killing him in the process. It's self-interest alone. The truly confounding part is when they get Venom off of Eddie and find out Venom has basically been consuming Eddie's organs to stay alive inside him, Eddie acts betrayed and storms off, but then when Venom returns wearing Blondie as his guise, he just accepts it and they go off to the badly filmed climax. What the hell changed in between those scenes? Nothing. Eddie still runs the risk of dying being piloted by the symbiote, and while Eddie has motivation to stop Bad Guy (again, another character that is so thin I can't be bothered to learn his name) from bringing the symbiotes to earth, Venom is given zero reason to want that at all. As mentioned above, there's no backstory. Is Venom concerned his race will consume the earth? If so, who cares? There's seven billion people and Venom has already found Eddie, who is a suitable match for him to survive, so why does he care at all? Eddie would survive an invasion anyhow. It makes no damn sense. Films that have dealt with symbiotic relationships always establish a common ground at some point but Venom doesn't for some inexplicable reason. I'm incredibly frustrated that everyone's just going "tee hee, look, they're best friends now, it's cute" when in fact Eddie is just running around committing murder randomly without ever really contemplating how serious it is, even though he claims to only be eating bad people.

-Nitpick: Fridging two different female characters, the homeless lady and the Life Foundation tattletale, rubbed me entirely the wrong way. Both of them were in Eddie's vicinity, both die, and both are never brought up again or shown to have impacted Eddie's motivation or life. They are simply used and discarded, which is another thing that makes this movie feel so hollow.

-The tone is all over the fucking place. It can be argued that Venom never went full serious and is always sort of tongue-in-cheek, but there's just this ridiculous whiplash feeling when you watch it spike from an action scene to "wacky" Brock antics to Venom quips. Eddie's personality even before the symbiote is just confusing as hell. It's like stuffing a bunch of random character traits into one man and all of them are fighting to get out at once like the characters from Split. The most consistent thing is he's sarcastic, but even then his moods range far too widely to get a bead on him. He can be dry one minute and then frantic and excitable the next, and that's before the symbiote. After the symbiote, it's like they gave Tom Hardy cocaine and steroids. The man's acting is simply all over the damn place. He accepts near-impossible things sometimes with a shrug and other times he freaks out. The movie just doesn't know what the hell it's attempting to accomplish, and that's why mood and tone are important to set from the get-go with a film. It just slingshots between a faux-horror film and a snippy action flick over and over again until your head feels pulverized.

-The final action sequences is one of the dumbest, messiest things since Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. It's an ugly, dark, jumbled up mess. It's so indistinguishable that Godzilla (2014) can take potshots at it. Why in perfect blue hell did they choose two symbiotes with such similar appearances to showdown with each other on top of a rocket at night? It's so hard to see what the two of them are doing, who is winning or losing, or what kind of movement is happening at all. We also are never given the full range of their abilities, so the only real stake is when they pull off their hosts and their bodies are vulnerable, but even then it appears that Venom can raise Eddie from the dead seconds later anyhow. I'm stunned the movie couldn't even do a fake out death properly, which is so fucking easy that even Disney can do it. Eddie dies and is revived in less than fifteen goddamn seconds. The camera doesn't even linger on his body to sell the emotion (not that we'd ever have one, he is just barely a character anyway) before it just takes it right the hell back. That's filmmaking 101, for God's sake, and the movie blows it too.

-The last scene in the movie. In its entirety. I haven't been that exasperated since I stupidly forced myself to watch Pacific Rim: Uprising. There are so many things wrong with it that it's hard to know how to tackle it. I don't care that Eddie stopped that guy from extorting the shop owner--he openly turned into a 10 foot tall alien and ate a guy in front of her, and the movie just laughs and shrugs like it's just totally fine, like that woman isn't about to lose her shit, call the cops, or fuck, the NSA/FBI/CIA/Avengers on Eddie for making her a witness to murder, and endangering pretty much anyone around them. To say nothing of the fact that there is no reason a 10 foot tall alien with a million sharp teeth needs to say a single word to threaten someone. You are the threat, buddy. Your existence is the threat. Why did you need to insist on threatening to bite things off? You're terrifying and nothing you say is going to somehow make you scarier, especially when you just ate the guy anyway. It's like they just made that scene for the final trailer, much like that "I thought she was with you" comment all the way back in Batman v. Superman despite in-canon it made no sense. It's so unnecessary. And don't get me started on the fact that the crook actually asked the giant alien who it is. Fuck you. That was a lazy, transparent attempt to spoonfeed the wretched cliche that Michael Keaton's Batman made famous. (Consequently, all movies ever, please stop doing this cliche. Stop it. Just find another way to announce yourself. It's really tired, y'all, let it go already.) No human would ever look at that thing and ask it who the fuck it is. He'd piss himself and die of fright. Period. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Piss. Die. Period.

-Nitpick: Why was there that weird Godzilla (2014) trailer noise every time Venom attacked someone? Did they just steal it from public domain? They used it almost like the Inception horn cliche that Hollywood was obsessed with for a while and it took me right out of the scene every damn time.

-Nitpick: They really thought we're so stupid that we needed Kasady to actually say his character's name out loud. Look, you fuckers, you know goddamn well that end credits scenes are extras and that people can go home and Google things instead of you literally spelling it out for us. Hell, you know that not that many Average Joes and mainstream people went to this movie anyway since Venom is a second-stringer villain and your main demographic is die-hard Eddie Brock fans anyway. So having Kasady say the damn name “Carnage” in the post credits scene really was the final fart in my general direction. Give us some fucking credit, man. Venom has barely five plotlines to his whole character anyway. Of course we knew you were going to drop Carnage for the Sequel Hook, you condescending twat of a film.

Look, I get it. I'm hypercritical because I write fiction for a living. There are plenty of movies where turning your brain off is required in order to enjoy it, but I think this movie is asking me to get an entire lobotomy to be able to swallow the big-ass pill it's offering. It's just so sloppy and uncaring and yet it's holding its grubby little hands out for your money and your love and I think it's undeserving of it on every last level. It has zero comprehension of what it's trying to accomplish since it's a money grab, and its artistic choices are nothing short of bonkers. It's so strange that it even veers outside of the So Bad It's Good category for me. I can't in good confidence recommend it to anyone even though it's almost like a study in what not to do in both comic book movies and movies in general. It's weird in a distasteful way rather than in a charming way for me, honestly. I know people have rallied around it for being different and out there, but I don't think different and good are the same thing in Venom's case.

#Venom #Venom 2018 #Eddie Brock #film review #movie review #film rant #rant #movie rant #spoilers #spoiler alert #don't @ me #i don't care #anti Venom

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emeraldnebula · 6 years ago

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Thoughts on the comic book industry, Part 2

One of the biggest gripes about comic books is one that’s gotten a lot of traction since the end of the big 1990s comic book boom. And it’s only become a much bigger, much more unavoidable issue since then:

American comics are inaccessible to the general public, largely inappropriate and/or incomprehensible for all-ages audiences and newcomers, and are prohibitively expensive for anyone who isn’t already a die-hard collector.

Let me put it this way: For about $5 to $7, you can buy at your drug store or supermarket a 300-page paperback novel that tells a complete story. For $4 or $5 bucks at minimum, your money will get you a 22-page comic book that more often than not is part of a prolonged story arc that even upon completion probably won’t be a complete story. And you won’t be able to find said comic anywhere but a comic book store, so you have to put out the extra effort to see if there even is a store in your area. Which is the better value for your money? The complete story that’s easily accessible and reasonably priced, or the 22-page booklet that won’t be a complete story, will likely be impossible to understand unless you’re already a fan, and will be much harder to come by?

Obviously, the devolution of American comics from something easily available and accessible to all to the impenetrable mess they are today is the result of the industry switching over to the direct market system exclusively. In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, comics started abandoning newsstands, grocery stores, and drug stores in favor of comic book stores. That transition bled a lot of readers over time, and gradually led to comics catering almost exclusively to an audience of aging die-hards. Dick Giordano commented around the time of John Byrne’s Man of Steel that they were playing to “a much smaller and much more demanding audience” than had existed before. So there was no more incentive to make comics reader-friendly for potential newcomers or to bother with wide distribution. Just play to your captive audience and call it a day.

The consequences of this have been playing out for the last 32 years. Since 1986, when Alan Moore and Frank Miller made their names by shaking up the public perception of comics (for good and ill), the major publishers have adopted soap opera-style storytelling as the default model, a nihilistic and mean-spirited overall tone, lots of graphic violence and shock value gimmicks, and the default assumption that their readers are the same people who’ve been with them all along. Little to no effort is made in publicizing their wares to appeal to a larger audience; any publicity that’s done is purely to pimp the latest bad idea the editors are stuck on at any given moment to their existing readership. (This is even more baffling when you remember DC and Marvel are both owned by major studios, and could have used those resources at any time.)

And by not even bothering to make themselves available on a mass scale, comics have abandoned any notion of being reader-friendly, relying on convoluted, incomprehensible “continuity” and seldom bothering to open issues with even a brief recap of previous events to get new readers up to speed. The assumption is that anyone who’s reading today’s comics has already been doing so for years, is already an adult, and is more than likely somebody who gets off on material that can best be described as malicious. The high price of modern comics is even more of a problem when you have franchises with multiple books to their name, as crossover events either within said franchises or within the publisher’s entire line force readers to buy multiple books just to follow one storyline. And God help you if there’s a book or even just a creative team you don’t like, because you’ll be faced with the choice of buying stuff you don’t like or not buying anything at all. At $4 or $5 a pop for 22 pages at a time, that’s not an investment worth making.

This all assumes, of course, that there’s even a comic book store anywhere near you. In the last 18 years or so, comic book stores have been gradually dying out with the emergence of digital media. (In my neck of the woods alone, at least four stores have bitten the dust.) Again, availability is a major issue. And since the overall idea behind crossover stories is essentially double-dipping – profit off both the individual issues and the eventual trade collection – missing out on the individual issues automatically means having to wait for the trade. But by that time, any potential new reader is likely to lose interest and move on to something else. So again, the industry is still playing to the same aging, ever-shrinking audience.

Another failing of the direct market system and the overall inaccessibility of comics is that new readers more often than not won’t have any idea what all is really out there and how much variety there is. In the olden days where comics were available everywhere, it wasn’t just DC and Marvel running the show. You had stuff like war comics, funny animal comics, crime comics, horror comics, romance comics, comedy comics...anything and everything you could imagine was available on the newsstand. And while there is still some variety in the comic book industry from the smaller publishers, it doesn’t get nearly the exposure it should because DC and Marvel both stand to benefit from the limited availability of comics in general. If all you’re aware of is those two companies, you won’t know to seek out anything else. And if you find those companies’ output to be absolute shit (and it is), you’re not going to want to bother looking for anything else. So again, the other, smaller publishers end up suffering for it.

And let’s be honest, there’s really no reason for the comic book industry to be so exclusive and inaccessible in the age of social media. With Facebook and Twitter alone, promoting and bringing awareness to comics should be a snap. It’s even less excusable when you remember we live in a time where digital downloads for books and music are the standard, and movies and TV are gradually following suit. But since the industry by and large doesn’t want to be accessible to a bigger audience and doesn’t care about appealing to anyone outside the tiny clique it already has, a golden opportunity to bring in new fans is being wasted. Then again, as gruesome and nihilistic as DC and Marvel have become, would parents even want their kids reading this stuff? Would kids really want to see the heroes they watch on TV and in the movies making deals with the devil, being humiliated/torn down/killed off and replaced with alternate universe impostors, being dismembered and having loved ones killed off needlessly, having their romantic relationships destroyed out of the blue on a whim, turned into glorified villains in heroes’ clothing, or changed beyond the point of recognition?

(Yes, I’m fully aware that there are still kid-friendly comics in existence. But those books don’t get nearly the publicity and the attention as the event-gimmick crap I just mentioned, and tend to fall by the wayside. Again, another opportunity to get new readers on board is being largely wasted.

And yes, I also know that as of this time of writing, DC’s planning a series of 100-page digest comics for distribution with Wal-Mart. But since it’s just going to be more of the same shit they’ve been doing and failing miserably with in the direct market, I’m not holding my breath on it.)

The biggest sin with the current setup of the industry? Everybody who’s currently in the fandom was a newcomer at first. They all, in one way or another, benefited from the industry at one time being accessible and easy for a newbie to understand. By making comics so impenetrable, hard to find, unappealing to anyone who isn’t maladjusted, and expensive, the industry has effectively cut itself off from the people who could, in theory, keep it alive for years to come. You can’t expect comics to stay in business when you’ve made them too costly, too unpleasant and confusing, too far under the radar for anyone not already in the know to be aware of them, and too hard to come by. And by clinging to a dying brick-and-mortar system in a digital age...well, we all know how that sort of thing ends.

It’s not rocket science. The 22-page pamphlet format of comics is obsolete. In the age of digital, it’s not worth the inflated price tag and doesn’t give you any real value for your money. Digital comics made widely available thru a variety of distributors AND complete paperback graphic novels on sale at retail stores and/or newsstands would be a far better bet. Greater convenience, more satisfying formats than the old model, more value for your money, and a cool-looking graphic novel available for a decent price at your grocery store or drug store would be an enticing impulse buy for kids (provided, of course, the content wasn’t nihilistic garbage). But that would require looking beyond the ever-shrinking core audience of entitled fanbrats the major publishers cater to, so thus we’re not seeing anything like that happening. They won’t take advantage of digital media (if they do digital comics at all, it’s in the most half-assed way possible), and they do not want in any way, shape, or form to reach a wider audience. This goes beyond leaving money on the table; this is the industry saying they don’t want to make money at all if it means actually putting forth anything resembling effort. Forget long-term business sense, this is idiotic even in the short term. And it’s ignoring the most basic truth of the comic book industry: Without new fans, without another generation to carry it along, the industry will die.

But as we’ll be discussing soon enough, neither the major players of the industry or its ever-shrinking core audience of aging, lunatic fringe fanboys and fangirls see anything wrong with that at all.

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inthisformiambadwolf · 8 years ago

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Requested by @brbraisingcain

war veteran!reader specific. Starts out very serious and ends on a somewhat silly note because we've been too angsty here lately. This is a little sloppy because I wrote it in about ten minutes, but I was in the mood for speed-writing so this is what you get.

If the Doctor had ever asked you, you would have proudly told him that, yes, you had served. You were a soldier. You were one of those people who he sneered at because they held guns and took orders. You would have shoved your service record in his smug face when he acted like not using a gun or disliking salutes made him so morally superior. But he didn't ask, so you didn't say anything. You just waited for him to notice, and you knew the look on his face when he found out was going to be worth however long your silence lasted.

That said, the fact that the Doctor didn’t know about your military background was the only thing keeping you from slapping him. Both of him.

Well, there were three of him, at the moment. A future him and a past him. The future him, Eleven, was actually being less irksome than the present him, but they were both being rather difficult. And that was all because of the past him.

His past self, the Warrior, was achingly familiar to you. You liked him, too, as much as you liked every other version of him. And, as brusque as he acted, you had caught him shyly staring at you when he seemed to think you weren’t looking. They called him the Warrior, but all you saw was a man who just wanted the fighting to end.

And the Doctors were acting like it was all his fault. Their behavior wasn't as surprising as it would have been if you didn't already have the gist of their dynamic as different versions of the same man, but, oh, the anger you felt blindsided you. You hadn't expected to feel like this, like there was fire in your chest, just because one Doctor sneered so derisively at another. But the anger was there, and you had to focus mainly on breathing evenly and not slapping either of the Doctors.

That got a little more difficult when you were all confined within a small space.

In the Tower, Ten and Eleven argued. About what, you didn't care. You didn't listen. You sat as close to the Warrior as you could and made a point of not listening to the temperamental Doctors.

"Ignore them," you told the Warrior. "They don't want to remember how hard it was for you."

He scoffed lightly. "And you would know?"

"I'm..." you trailed off, not sure how exactly to phrase it, until you settled with, "uniquely qualified to make an educated guess."

At this, the Warrior's eyes sparked with understanding. A smile played at his lips, and you knew you had made the right choice, telling him. He needed to know. And maybe you needed him to know.

"I've never had a soldier for a companion before," he said.

"He doesn't know," you said, gesturing to the Tenth Doctor. "But, one day, I'm really gonna enjoy telling him."

"Mm, make sure to take a picture," the Warrior advised with a delighted smirk.

"The TARDIS will, I'm sure. But I did get a video of that one time he fell off the console."

The Warrior barked out a surprised laugh, startling the two Doctors enough to draw their attention towards you.

"He did what?" he wheezed out, covering his mouth with one wrinkled hand.

"Fell off the console!" you exclaimed eagerly, happy to see him laughing. "He was trying to reach that funny little bike pedal thing with his foot and still keep that one button down, so he had to actually get all the way onto the console, and when we came in for a landing, he-"

"-Fell off," the Warrior finished for you, laughing.

"Hey!" the Tenth Doctor whined. "Stoppit!"

"Shan't," you informed him. "I'm supporting our veterans."

And then the door opened, and into the cell stepped Clara Oswald.

Clara was the new companion, or so you had gleaned, which... okay, that hurt a little bit, or a lot bit, but you weren't terribly surprised. It wasn't like the Doctor would keep you around forever, right? He moved on from all his companions, in the end. You had seen him do it plenty of times. You had remained while others had left him or been left by him, but you knew that, eventually, someone else would stay, and you would lose your VIP pass on the TARDIS. Somehow or another. You didn't want to kid yourself into thinking you were special.

But, then-

"Hey!" Clara exclaimed when she spotted you. "I didn't realize there was another you here! Oh look at you, all-!" And then she made some sort of incomprehensible gesture to pretty much your whole body. You didn't know what it meant but you really hoped this didn't mean you were gonna get fat in the future.

"Clara," Eleven warned.

"You mean I'm still traveling with you?" you asked, surprised.

"Of course, it's not like you'd leave," said Clara, the same way one might say, it's not like you'd turn to the Dark Side for oatmeal cookies or something equally ridiculous. "You're back on the TARDIS with the ba-"

"Clara," Eleven hissed at his petite companion, "I think that's enough."

Ten's eyes narrowed with suspicion. "With the what?"

"Nothing," Eleven insisted. Then he looked at you. "Come along, sweetheart, no need to entertain Gramps anymore. Door's open, we can go."

A vicious smile slowly spread across your face as you processed his words. Oh, no, he didn't get to talk about the Warrior like that, not now.

You casually draped your arm over the Warrior's shoulder and leaned as intimately close to him as you could. The Warrior, being one smart non-oatmeal cookie in his own right, figured out what you were doing and snaked and arm around your waist, smirking triumphantly.

"Let a pair of tired soldiers have their fun, would you?" the Warrior said.

Every muscle in your body clenched with the effort it took not to laugh.

The Eleventh Doctor blinked, blinked again, before his whole face transformed into an expression of horrified understanding by a man who had just added up the evidence and realized exactly how much trouble he was in. "Ooh."

Clara giggled. "Wait, they didn't know?"

"What?" Ten's baffled expression was exactly what you were hoping it would be. "Didn't know what? What?"

Clara leaned over and whispered something in Ten's ear. And, well, you didn't know what she said to him, but judging by how pale he went-

You were uniquely qualified to make an educated guess.

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regigigina · 6 years ago

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So I went to an escape room...

Not sure if reliving this traumatic experience through writing is beneficial for my mental and physical health, but hey, I need a topic to write upon.

I have been a patron on an escape room establishment in Singapore some four years earlier and found the experience displeasing if not altogether upsetting. The game was treasure-hunt themed and we were given a full hour to solve puzzles and retrieve keys, with which we discover yet another hidden room and another locked chest.

It was not so much the difficulty that baffled me, but several of these riddles seemed too far fetched that they were incomprehensible without hints rendered through the walkie-talkie. Above all that, since time was of the essence, we had to work on each puzzle separately. The obsessive compulsive in me was displeased with not knowing how the others were solved - not until after the end of the game, at least.

So when I got invited to another escape room game late last November, I knew not to expect control over the situation and just enjoy the game. By now, I had in fact learnt to surrender control over everything which are not my own doing. I was not the least bit compelled to ask about the minutiae of our game and left the entire arrangement to my friends.

We arrived at the premises just in time, promptly made our payment and signed a waiver. I am one who would skim through the small prints in T&Cs, so breezing through this 10pt font waiver was nothing. The content was surprisingly pretty serious, with mentions of holding the business harmless of injuries, heart attack and death incurred during the game. I did not recall the game being that grim, what on earth are we playing anyway?

To my horror, my friends pointed at the far right of the three posters hung on the wall behind the reception desk. The title “SANATORIUM” was written large and blood-red across the top of the poster. In the background was a corner of a room, gray and in industrial style, plain but stained. Right in that very corner was a long-haired female figure with long white dress, crouching on the floor so that the face was hidden from view. A shiver ran through my spine, my stomach tied up in knots, suddenly my steps were heavy.

“...I thought these games were all treasure hunt and detective themed,” I said in defeat.

“That doesn’t sound like much fun! It’s only fun because some of us are scared.” replied a friend who came up with the idea to play this escape game (duh).

Now it appeared impossible to back out of the game having paid my share of it, and to the mental list of pros and cons I added good reasons to go on such as not wanting to be a killjoy, and a wish to be invited the next time they go out. But now it looked as though the waiver terms were tailor made for me, and there was no eradicating the possibility that I would emerge from the room horizontal on a stretcher.

Worse, we had discussed on the way, at some point in the game the five of us would have to split into two groups. In the car I (only half) joked that I was not scared to die so feel free to throw me under the bus, but secretly dreaded not being able to figure out the riddles by myself. Upon the disclosure of our game title, I simply dreaded being on my own.

"It is all in my head,” I repeated to myself as I fought my gut feeling and proceeded toward the locker.

No phones or bags were allowed in the game, instead we were given one walkie-talkie to communicate with a helper stationed outside. We stood in an all-black antechamber next to a metal door bearing our game title. On the opposite wall, sound effects and scream or shouts of other players blared from behind closed doors.

After a brief explanation, the helper bid us good luck and - not open the door to our game, mind you - showed us a ladder leading to the ventilation, through which we crawled our way into the game. Already my imagination ran wild in that corridor, any moment now rats could run squeaking past me, hands reaching my legs, a shiver up my spine again.

Clawing our way through that corridor we emerged into a chilly, virtually pitch black reception room save for one mounted monitor which first gave us the background of the story. The scant lighting from the screen illuminated the four walls around us and, bloody hell, the wall was literally splattered with blood and scrape marks - what the hell am I doing here???

A creepy tune started playing and the video explained that we were actually locked in the hospital reception for our own safety. The doctors and nurses had all abandoned the scene due to ravages by an eerie patient (guess who? that woman in the poster!), so we must find the clues they left behind and get out of there before she finds us. Fuck me. A mild gush of cold air blew and the woman’s shriek blared across the room. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck! I let out an abrupt scream and glued my back to the nearest wall, not that it made me feel less frightened.

The haunting tune lingered throughout the game, interspersed with the woman’s howling, doors’ creaking and something clanking. The atmosphere grew infinitely eerie while I grew infinitely stressed. I cannot tell you enough how much my imagination is my curse. I stopped watching horror movies in eight grade when they started to creep into my dreams. Twelve years later now, I am no less adept at picturing my own reflection smiling back at me, or a hand jolting from behind a glass or mirror.

The guys were having fun and actually working on the puzzles, but I was too petrified to function from the start. Imagine my terror when they finally managed to unlock the exit door, opening up a hallway leading to - yet - a number of other doors (we were probably only 20 minutes into the game by then). I plunged into anxiety and apprehension. I felt my heart raced uncontrollably, lightheaded and sick in the stomach. I begged to give up the game early but my friends gave me that we-don’t-want-to-be-the-bad-guy-but-that’s-a-no look.

When the time came to split into two groups, things went horribly wrong and we ended up with groups of three guys and two girls. We, two girls, huddled up and crouched under a computer desk, terrified. I was near crying and fainting - and by crying I mean wailing, because tears had been discreetly shedding since long before. Tortured, I dared not look but to my feet.

It was horrifying when there were five of us; now that there were only two of us I thought a heart attack was imminent. I had been clutching hard to my friend’s arm and she, in turn, was clutching hard to the walkie-talkie.

“Ugh.. We give up, please get us out of here, please... We’re too scared to continue. I think I might need the toilet too,” my friend radioed the helper outside.

“....so you guys need the toilet?” he answered.

“We can’t walk out of here... We can’t go on anymore, we give up, please send someone to pick us up,” we begged.

“...you can’t.”

A short silence.

“Your friends need you.” he continued.

At once we both gave a loud, despaired, helpless sigh and let our heads fall back to the wall. In retrospect, this was perhaps the most hilarious moment - here we were two girls waiting to be saved, but had no choice other than to be the knights lest our friends would be forever stuck in the escape room. Kudos to my friend for saving the guys all by herself, while I desperately clung to her and painstakingly covered my view from everything but the floor I walk on.

There were a handful other funny moments throughout, but elaborating on them would be spoiling the best bits of the ingenious plot. Safe to say there were enough jump scares to leave me with a fresh phobia of doors for a couple of days. Just writing down some of the details here gave me the chills... Needless to say I took precaution not to work on this article after dark.

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