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shining-magically · 4 years ago

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so I’ve wondered this since the trailer came out years and years ago and Chloe defended the movie - was the red shoes teaser written by the same team that made the movie? were they forced to market it like that, was that based on an earlier draft, etc?? not sure if you know but you seem like the leading expert!

Sorry, this is gonna be an absolute novel because you know I’m an animation fan and the history and production of Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs is SO interesting and insane. Like, Tangled levels of insane. Thanks for calling me an expert, no one else was gonna do it so I just kind of took up the helm lol.

Here’s the low-down... The timeline of the movie’s production is an absolute mess and kind of an extremely wild ride. It was in production for ten years, went through a lot of different crew members, and went through at least two other major versions of the story before landing on the final version.

Since there’s not a ton of info on the movie’s production, a lot of this is pieced together from different interviews and context clues, and also a lot of what I’ve read and what I am quoting has been translated from Korean, sometimes pretty roughly. But yeah.

Here’s the story of why the Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs teasers and poster were so, so bad and fatshame-y and the actual movie was so, so good and body-positive. (With pictures and production artwork!)

(This is a beast of a post so I’m putting it under a cut.)

All right, so. After its conception originally as a short story by the South Korean studio Locus Creative in 2009-2010-ish, Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs was being worked on and was set to come out in Summer 2017, as evidenced by this poster at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, featuring a different logo and very different character designs for most of the dwarfs.

In early-mid 2016, the first teaser (in which we see Snow White undress and then two dwarfs recoil in horror at her fatness when she takes her magic shoes off) was released, after the film had kind of been slowly chugging along for 6 or so years. (I am having such trouble pinpointing when the second teaser was released (in which one of the dwarfs basically attacks Snow while she is sleeping to steal her shoes), but I believe it was around the same time.) The teasers didn’t get that much traction because this was a small film from a small indie studio in South Korea.

None of the final actors had been cast yet. At this point in the production, the story was different, one of the many versions that the movie went through. As in the final movie, the dwarfs were actually cursed knights/princes and Snow White switched back and forth between two body types due to her magic shoes, but in this version, the dwarfs needed to steal the shoes from her in order to break their curse (rather than needing “a kiss from the most beautiful woman in the world” like in the final movie).

The weird thing is, I believe they had JUST changed the movie’s story when the teaser came out. I’m almost positive it was released more as a proof of concept than as an actual trailer for the movie. They had just recently combined two separate characters (seen above), a typical pretty, skinny princess character (Snow White) and a cute chubby girl character (’Bonnie’), into one single character that switches back and forth between the two appearances when she wears the magic shoes (also they had just dropped literally half of the movie taking place in the real world, with a magic mirror portal, it was a whole thing).

They didn’t have the details of this aspect of the new story hammered out yet, and the first pass at presenting Snow’s magically changing body type, was, yeah, not good and super offensive. This was a really inexperienced indie studio making their first film on a low budget, so even the animation and voice acting wasn’t great. I think they just wanted to get SOMETHING out there because it had been 6 years and they wanted to have something to show for it.

But here’s the thing. Despite how the teasers make it seem, this was always supposed to be a movie about body positivity, letting go of appearance-based prejudices, and loving yourself and others for who you are and for who they are, which we see in the final film.

I like to think of our film as a kindhearted one. Our intentions are nice.

- Director Sung-ho Hong

It’s important to keep in mind that this movie was made in South Korea by a 99% Korean crew, and, as I understand it anyway, in Korean culture, ‘fatshaming’ is not really a thing that is seen as overtly offensive. Also, children’s media there seems to have more adult things in it than in the US, which probably accounts for the more risque parts of the teasers. That said, I really believe that at this point in the timeline, the movie was on-track to be bad (or at least not very good) when it was released, and it would have ended up bad IF a few key players hadn’t signed on (which I’ll get to in a moment).

Interestingly, the movie’s producer, Sujin Hwang, said in a 2017 interview:

“[Both teasers] were solely produced to induce curiosity. They’re completely irrelevant to the actual story.”

- Producer Sujin Hwang

I think what she was trying to convey was that neither one is a scene in the actual movie, because while the teasers didn’t reflect the revamped story as it existed in summer 2017 (the time of the interview), they DID reflect the earlier version of the story where the dwarfs wanted her shoes, which is what the story was at the time they were made.

Now that we’re in post-teaser 2016, HERE’S where things start to turn around. After the teasers were released, my guy Disney veteran and native Korean Jin Kim joined the project. He and Red Shoes director Sung-ho Hong had been buddies for about eight years and Sung-ho had been trying to get Jin to come to Seoul and work with him at Locus for a long time, and he finally succeeded.

Jin and his twenty years of Disney experience as an animator and senior designer on films like Tangled, Frozen, Big Hero 6, Zootopia, and Moana, had a HUGE HUGE HUGE influence on the movie. He redesigned almost all the characters, oversaw all the visual development from the moment he signed on, and heavily (HEAVILY) supervised the animation, literally going frame-by-frame through preliminary animations and drawing over them, teaching the inexperienced animators at Locus everything he knew. (Literally almost everyone except him either only had TV experience or had no professional experience because they just gotten out of school.)

From an outsider’s perspective, it really seems as though Jin joining the project (and his gargantuan effort) made the quality SKYROCKET. Not just in character design and animation, but also in things like effects animation, story, etc. After he joined, Locus really started pushing HARD to make a good, high-quality movie, and his influence and experience from being a prominent figure at Disney was absolutely key. The studio also began to really study Disney films and other well-made animated films from other studios to really try and pinpoint what the DNA of a good animated movie really is.

I don’t have any solid evidence, but I’m pretty sure that Tony Bancroft (an animator and the co-director of Mulan) then joined the project because he’s good friends with Jin Kim. He is only credited as the voice director (the movie was recorded in English and the characters were animated to the English dialogue), but I am SURE that he probably also had a pretty big influence on the movie, because like... How could he not? I really really think there was more to his role than his title would have you believe, even though there’s almost no info out there about it.

So now the movie goes through a gigantic metamorphosis. Character designs, visual development, and animation quality are all rapidly improving, the story is tightening, and the themes of the movie (which, again, were always the same and intended to be positive) are being presented in a more sincere way. The movie is becoming the sweet, self-love-encouraging and body-positive movie that was eventually released.

I’m putting a gif from the credits of the final movie here. As we move into 2017, when the giant eruption of backlash occurred, please keep in mind that the story was finalized at this point and that THIS was the movie people were so mad about:

Chloe Grace Moretz accepted the role of Snow White immediately after she read the script and she recorded her lines (I think) in early-ish 2017. Her co-star Sam Claflin also immediately accepted the role of the romantic interest, Merlin, after reading the script and recorded his lines in (I believe) July 2017.

In the summer of 2017, the story and script were more or less the same as in the final movie. Promotional images from that time show that most of dwarfs had been completely redesigned by this point and didn’t have their teaser designs anymore.

They also released a few screenshots that look exactly like the final film. The movie was advertised as coming out in ‘2018′ at this point. Here’s a promo image from 2017 that is MUCH more tactfully worded than the infamous Cannes poster:

So now we’re in summer 2017. The Cannes Film Festival. The movie’s script and story have been basically nailed down, animation is underway, and the Korean film company Finecut is beginning to market and sell the movie to worldwide audiences. They are planning on showing some footage to potential buyers at the festival, and they make a poster to advertise the film there.

Unfortunately, it’s THIS POSTER:

Now here’s where there are some unknowns. By this point, the movie is basically in its final form, which is an adorable, body-positive story about loving people for who they are, loving yourself for who YOU are, and that provides commentary on society’s standards of beauty and how they affect how people are treated/viewed. So why this poster??? All I can really tell is that someone (I think Finecut) really, REALLY messed up and either horribly mistranslated the tagline, or didn’t do enough research to know that this kind of thing is REALLY NOT OKAY in western culture.

The above picture is shared and the internet backlash begins, fueled by tweets from prominent body-positivity activists like Tess Holliday. Even Chloe Grace Moretz speaks out against it, because she of all people KNOWS that that’s not what the movie is about. The internet then finds the old teasers from before the movie was revamped and it makes things worse. Producer Sujin Hwang profusely apologizes and says that that is NOT the message of the movie. Locus pulls the advertising campaign, and takes down the two old teasers.

“Our film, a family comedy, carries a message designed to challenge social prejudices related to standards of physical beauty in society by emphasizing the importance of inner beauty.”

- Producer Sujin Hwang

Voice director Tony Bancroft also tried to explain the situation:

“The truth is the film has a body-positive message as its core theme–it’s the opposite of what reports are saying. The problem is one poorly translated movie poster that has been taken dramatically out of context.”

- Voice Director Tony Bancroft

And then... There was nothing for a while. The movie didn’t come out in 2018 and was delayed. From what I can tell, I DON’T believe this delay was related to the Cannes backlash. I think it was mostly due to Locus’s limited budget and resources, because as we know, animation is difficult, time-consuming, expensive, and easy to do badly but hard to do well. Also, probably with Jin Kim and Tony Bancroft’s influence, they REALLY wanted to make sure to do a good job with the animation because they now had a great story and they really wanted the movie to be a quality, worldwide hit that would kind of put South Korean feature animation on the map. Just take a look at how nice the final animation was:

The movie was released in South Korea on July 25th, 2019. Unfortunately, the damage was done in the English-speaking markets and it was not released to an English-speaking audience until June 22, 2020, when it was released digitally in the UK. At the time of this post, there is no set US release date, but the distribution rights were recently bought by Lionsgate and the MPAA gave the film an official PG rating.

So who’s to blame? There’s no good answer. You could blame Locus for making those old teasers. You could blame Finecut for the competely tonedeaf Cannes poster. You could even blame cancel culture for raging against the movie based on one poster and two old teaser trailers without researching what the movie was actually about.

All I know is, it’s a damn shame.

#mooncactus #red shoes and the seven dwarfs #red shoes and the 7 dwarfs #animation #animation production #animation history #red shoes movie #redshoes #jin kim #tony bancroft

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yanderes-of-inkwell · 2 years ago

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what'd you think of the dlc? personally, i loved how smooth animations were! i love everything ab it, but the smoothness really caught my attention!

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to string enough words together to describe how much I adore it, but I can certainly try. I’m going to put my thoughts under ‘Keep reading’ so that I don’t spoil anything for anyone who wants to go into the DLC completely blind.

As I’m not good at properly describing why I like something, or going into depth about it without it becoming incoherent, I’m just going to make a short list because it’s the easiest way for me to write my thoughts down.

- The music. I truly didn’t believe that it was possible to top the original soundtrack, but somehow they managed to do it and it’s absolutely phenomenal. While all of the songs are great, Bootlegger Boogie and High-Noon Hoopla have been stuck in my head all day, so they’re definitely contenders for being my favourite. One Hell of a Dream, Inkwell Isle Four, and Snow Cult Scuffle are also ones I enjoyed greatly. Additionally, I think A Chef’s Coda is pretty funny, so there’s that.

- The animation. My goodness, this was probably the thing that blew me away the most. The original game was already gorgeous, but this? The DLC’s animation is on a whole ‘nother level! It’s hard to pick a favourite bit because everything was so visually stunning, but I’d have to say the animation during Chef Saltbaker’s fight was probably the best in the game.

- The boss fights. The DLC has given us, without a doubt, some of the most unique and interesting boss battles in the entire game. While A Dish To Die For obviously takes the cake, every other battle also brought something exciting to the table. Doggone Dogfight in particular is probably the most “out there” fight in the entire game, and it absolutely paid off.

- The character designs. Because Cuphead doesn’t really give its characters all that much personality, most of their appeal comes from their designs, and oh boy were these new ones wonderful. Just thinking about how I’d describe them makes me laugh; a bug mafia, an icy wizard who is also a cult leader, a possibly corrupt sheriff who’s a literal cowgirl - the descriptions alone are enough to give you an idea of just how zany and colourful they are, not to mention the fact that they’d all fit in perfectly in a cartoon of the era the game is based on.

- The backgrounds. One aspect of Cuphead that I think a lot of people tend to overlook is the designs of the actual levels, which is a shame, because the watercolour backgrounds/occasional real life models they use are always gorgeous. I think my favourites would have to be the background to Bootlegger Boogie, and the last phase of Snow Cult Scuffle. They’re so vibrant and mesmerising, and I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve died to several bosses solely because I was too busy staring at the backgrounds.

And that’s about all I have the mental energy to write down. I could honestly spend hours gushing about every single little detail that I loved, but if I did, this post would quickly turn into a novella, so I’m going to end it here.

TL;DR I absolutely adore the DLC and I think it’s a great addition to the game. Also, I would die for Esther.

#🎲 chatting with mod dice

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primordial-soupcicle · 3 years ago

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All the sharing of Ranboo headcanons on @ranboo5 ‘s blog today finally inspired me to Do A Fanart, so uhh. Here’s The Eyes. Disembodied. You know how it is. Rambling about it under the cut. (TW: body horror, unsanitary(eye licking, like a lizard))

The left eye is essentially just an eye of ender with particle-like speckles in it. The actual biology of the eye itself is pretty similar to a cat’s eye, minus the eyelids, with features like a slit pupil that has a dramatic range of dilation, a tapetum lucidum, and the presence of a nictitating membrane(though its transparent enough to essentially be indiscernible). The eye has a full range of motion and lacrimal ducts(not pictured) which, while still being visually very similar to a cat’s, function similarly to a human’s in certain aspects(ie: crying).

The tears lubricating the left eye itself are much more viscous and thick than human tears though, more like a layer of vitreous humor over the surface of the eye than anything else. This gives the eye a very glossy appearance, with a similar level of reflectiveness to a mirror glaze. The layer doesn’t move when the eyeball does and subjects it to water refraction, which in turn makes it look like he has mild amblyopia. When actually crying, the liquid is very highly diluted, which is why it burns him. The purple bits in the eye are essentially an equivalent to central heterochromia and are only there because I thought it looked cool.

The right eye is based off of a ghast, which I headcanon to be one of the many components of his non-ender half, and the spiral you can faintly see in the yellow portion is inspired by Graphite’s design. The thing is, it’s not an eye. It’s a pit. In my little minecraft headworld, a ghast’s “eyes” have the same function as the “mouth”, which is only to shoot fireballs. It’s a direct entrance into both the open circulatory system and the digestive system, with the blood being either full on lava or very similar to it in viscosity I’m not sure yet. They eat with a mouth in the center of their tentacles like a squid, and any non-edible material they accidentally scoop up can be fired out of the orifices, conveniently also on fire, as a defense mechanism. Not only in doing damage but also drastically decreasing their weight and allowing them to rapidly ascend away from the danger.

Now in Ranboo’s case he has things like a skeleton and closed circulatory system and such so it doesn’t work right. Instead the right “eye” is pretty much just a layer of skin around the bone of the eye socket, the maroon and yellow coloration being a natural threat display as found in full ghasts, and the glowing red ring is essentially a giant scab?? Like it’s made of clear tissue but it is still functioning as one, being a big, partially dry blood clot shot through with living tissue and veins that’s purpose is to keep everything INSIDE the body since he can’t just close the eye to do so like a normal ghast can. It glows because the blood feeding it is bioluminescent, and it’s only in that one ring instead of over the entire back of the eye socket because instead of one big cavity it’s a bunch of little scattered, malformed holes in the bone.

Once again ripping off Graphite, he has to. He has to lick the scab. To keep it from drying out and to stay healthy. Can’t spray water on it because it’ll burn him. The pit still has tear ducts too, despite everything else being absent, which creates the very real risk of a bad day turning into a very bad day if some tears accidentally touch the scab while he’s crying.

The little black dot in the center is a second hole, which is physically impossible since it a) would not show up in an x-ray, b) does not expose or lead to any internal biology, and c) extends farther back than where his head would end. During the experiments Tubbo had Ranboo lay down and lowered one of those depth measuring ropes that cave surveyors use and it ran out of length.

As for his eyes in the enderwalk state, they’re his secret eyelids. They don’t close under any other circumstance, even for sleep or to prevent damage(such as being touched or something being caught in them), and Ranboo is completely unaware that they exist. There is only one lid on each eye, sort of like a ‘98 furby, which shutters the entire eye socket starting from the supraorbital foramen and ending at the infraorbital margin. This makes his already uncomfortably large eyes appear even larger and creepily project out of his face, you can see the curve of the sphere really clearly(sort of like a barreleye fish visual effect if that makes sense).

The fact that the eyelids resemble enderpearls(aside from the color) is because they’re coated in a crystalline structure that is essentially the enderman equivalent of cardiac muscle, since enderpearls function as hearts in my headcanon. This is due to the ghast dna, which says that eyes are a part of the circulatory system, trying to develop normally with the interference with everything else going on in there and the mostly enderman resources.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk, feel free to ask questions if you have any :)

#graphite if you would like to not be tagged in this i can remove the at #cave paintings #ranboo #headcanons #weird biology #tw body horror #dsmp

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thesimperiuscurse · 4 years ago

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08.04

It’s The Kingston Legacy’s sixth anniversary, so here’s a throwback post to celebrate! Last month I forced myself to reread the entire legacy, and while I stopped, clicked off the tab, and emitted a soundless scream of pure cringe numerous times (I wish I was kidding)—the past generations are actually not as terrible as I remember. I think enough time has passed for me to detach myself from the childish storytelling and look back in nostalgia.

Thank you to my fellow Wordpress writers who have come along the journey, some for many years now, through every high and low. It’s astounding how much has changed in the legacy from when I was 15, and 21. Follow me down the (very) long memory lane, as I reminiscence about each story and my perspective on them now ❤

Generation 1 — Fern (2015)

To my shock, I found myself genuinely enjoying Fern’s story. I think this was because the first generation was purely me commentating on gameplay, and not trying to write a story (that’s when the cringe began). I was inspired by one of the original stories, Alice and Kev, to make a homeless sim and document her struggle for a better life: Fern, a snobby aspiring writer. Reading this, a huge wave of nostalgia hit me, and it reminded me of how wonderful Sims 3 gameplay is. Although I’m long past it now, there’s real heart and life in the design. I think it speaks about the rich personalities and quirks that I could write a whole life story off it. It was super fun making Fern camp out at Old Pier Beach, stealing from townie picnics and roasting apples on the fire, finding little ways to scrounge money, giving her a makeover in the salon, watching the townie dramas unfold around her. Although she faced homelessness two times and a shitty first husband (yeah, fuck off, Xander), Fern grew into a strong and independent yet sweet and gentle character, in love with the ocean like her great-granddaughter comes to be.

I never actually addressed this, but she (and her love Christopher) passed away in the story between the end of Gen 3 and start of Gen 4. It just felt weird to make it a big deal because they never died in game—still ‘alive’ and well, scattered across different backup saves and the bin.

Generation 2 — Briar (2015)

Briar’s story was strange, because it was half gameplay and half story, which meant that there were things that just did not... make... sense. She was quite an ‘unreliable’ character to follow because of her Insane trait. The plot revolved around her as a fresh detective, investigating supernatural phenomena in Sunset Valley. Her character arc was almost the opposite to her mother’s: a naive, optimistic, silly girl hardening through trauma into a cold and ruthless police chief. Ash’s death was the one moment I felt true sadness in this legacy, because he did really die. Imagine me actually getting emotional over my characters, lmao. Wild.

Also, Max is OP. To this day he is one of the best male characters in my legacy, a healthy and supportive best friend (to husband) in stark contrast to the following generation.

Fallen Angels — Cherry (2016-2019)

Yes. It’s this generation. Square the fuck up, Cherry. I will fight her any day. Old readers will know of my pure hatred for this story. It’s been about two years since it thankfully ended. My verdict now?

It’s not quite as horrifically shitty, Gabriel and Lilith being a lot nicer than I remembered (Gabriel’s only a bit of a dick at the start), but it still has glaring problems, such as the pacing and clumsy handling of sensitive topics. The story would have been far nicer if it focused less on Cherry and Luc’s relationship and their respective issues, more on the found family and her relationship with Gabriel (which was rushed due to me despising the story by that point). During the first chapters, I was cringing spectacularly at the combination of Luc’s initial jackass behaviour and Cherry’s whining. Toxic as FUCK. I had to skip 3.8 and 3.9 entirely. These two (because of my own shameful mistake) tainted the generation in my eyes, and even though all of the characters grew from their toxicity, I can’t really see past that guilt to the better parts of the story.

Jade has been telling me for years that this story isn’t all bad, and upon forcing myself to reread, I can see what you mean. I’m sorry LOL. Something that pleasantly surprised me was the writing quality (just the prose, not the actual story mechanics... lmfao), and Raphael, who made me smile every time he appeared. Every single careless, sarcastic line of his was a banger. The pictures are something else I like, too. Many of them stand up to the best ones in En Pointe—the fiery, gritty, industrial tones of Bridgeport just hits different. The world was rich and immersive, which is missing at the moment in En Pointe because of me being too lazy to build a proper Los Angeles world, but Act III is set in Boroughsburg so I’m excited to get back into the city scenes. 17 year old me wasn’t mature enough to tackle dark themes, but at least the visuals for them were nice, I guess. The atmosphere of the story I really enjoy. It’s just the toxic characters and way-too-angsty moments that ruin the whole thing for me.

En Pointe — Evangeline (2019-)

And here we are now! The early chapters are kinda painful to read because 1) Mako looked so ugly and 2) the dialogue was so clumsy and generic. I sighed in relief when Chapter 5 came around, because it was then both of those aspects really began to improve. Eva’s voice was simple, with her punchy remarks, much less romantic and descriptive than Cherry, so it was interesting to see her voice becoming more complex and layered as I more understood her character. Also, me visibly struggling with the natural lighting and only getting a handle on it 7 chapters later has me shaking my head.

I’m already beginning to identify issues with the story, mostly with character arcs and pacing. It’s a strange combination of fast pacing (spanning half a year in 8 chapters) and Eva becoming surprisingly comfortable with Mako’s touch due to their unusual pas de deux circumstances. It’s curious how real life time actually played into the pacing of the story—because of the slow publishing schedule, less time has passed in the story as real life, so it’s almost as if the time jumps were made up by real life time, making the jumps feel not too strange. Reading consecutively, however, Evako’s relationship growth doesn’t feel slow burn... a little underdeveloped, in a way, despite their lengthy conversations. I think that’s because of Mako being such a reserved and mysterious character, and that I’ve unconsciously come to rely on Tumblr to give more depth to the characters/relationships. Luckily, pretty much everyone who comments on the story also follows me here, so this dual-platform storytelling is okay, I suppose. I want to post more of #Mishako since there just isn’t enough time to explore their bromance in the story!

At the moment I’m not happy with the story, but it’s fine. I’m learning. There’s more than half the story to go, which means plenty of time to reflect upon the issues and improve. I’m really looking forward to Eva and Mako’s character arcs in Act III. At the moment their relationship is based on their natural chemistry and respect for each other, and since they are yet to face trials their bond isn’t super deep, but Evako are still my favourite couple in the legacy thus far, and feel much more real than any character I’ve written before. It’s been very interesting for my aro ass (and being way more logical than emotional) to figure out a dynamic that is actually compelling to me, because most of the time when I look at romance I’m just like 😐🤨 I’m liking it so far but we shall see how everything unfolds, because I have barely any idea what’s going to happen beyond Act II, lmfao.

That’s it for my incredibly long throwback! I hope it was at least nice for the OG readers, and interesting for anyone else who managed to battle through this essay, haha. This family has been an integral part of me growing up, as a person and writer and artist (what I’ve developed in visuals I apply to architecture), learning a great deal of awareness about real life through story research, which is pretty cool now that I think about it. I’m aiming to finish En Pointe by the end of 2022. I’m excited for what unexpected changes are to come!

#wordpress is being annoying like tumblr right now #they're trying to sneakily integrate the new site design into the old #pretty sure a lot of people don't like the new one #why can't i view media by month #now i have to scroll through a million pictures to find old ones #why is it selecting several when i just want to open one pic #fuck youuu #anyway #very busy week #lilaremonn #thesimperiuscurse

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riraro489 · 3 years ago

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Pls give knowledge on how to do comics

I'll be honest with you. I’m probably not the most qualified person to answer this, but I'll do my best! (I'll try and give advice for short comics and long comics. Also warning: this is ridiculously long because I'm terrible at explaining things :/)

Before I begin talking about drawing comics, I'll tell you a bit about the most important part: the writing.

1. Plot

In ANY story, plot is extremely important. After all, you'll need an interesting/entertaining/relatable story if you want to keep your reader reading. You must have your ideas organized (whether that be through writing the story in a different format or creating a storyboard to help you visualize everything) before you can truly begin your comic. Another important part of creating a plot is to ensure that it isn't too similar to some other media. Besides the obvious perk of not being called a plagiarist, people may enjoy your comic because it's something different from everything else they've read. The only time in which it would be acceptable to have a plot similar to something else is if you are creating a comic based off of a video game. In such a scenario, you might want to consider introducing something new to the world. However, bringing something new to the table can be difficult as plot holes will likely pop up if you do so. It may take some time to explain any plot point or characters, but it is key that you elaborate on things readers will have questions about.

2. Characters

While it is quite tough, you'll need to define a character's personality and keep it as consistent as possible. If you want to, you can always write an arc to explain a character's behavior/personality or to change it altogether. Designing characters... Now that's the most difficult part. If you're having trouble trying to come up with a character design, looking at different characters with a similar personality/vibe can give you some insight on how you want your character to look. Viewing different outfits or hairstyles can be really helpful, and can lead to inspiration for your character!

3. Punchlines

Punchlines are just as important as the plot of a story. Even in a comic that has a bit of a darker mood/tone, a joke once in a while can make the comic more entertaining to read. The whole purpose of making a comic is to make something enjoyable, right? Don't feel forced to overdo it with punchlines, however. It can be rather difficult to come up with something that would make someone laugh. In such cases, you'll want to slowly ease the reader into the ending of the chapter or perhaps end with a dramatic cliffhanger. The latter will likely make the reader want to continue in order to find what happens next.

And now...

The Fun Part™

Here, I'll talk about some of the artistic aspects of comics.

Frames, Sizes, Speech Bubbles, and Emphasis

What do frames, sizes and speech bubbles have in common? They help place emphasis on certain parts of a comic! This part is a bit difficult for me to put into words, so I'll use a little comic I made as an example.

Now obviously, this is not the greatest comic in existence. I literally made it in less than a day. One thing you may have noticed while reading is that the frames that Jeff is in are larger than the others. Another thing that might stand out is that certain words are isolated. Both of these things place emphasis in certain areas.

DO's and DON'Ts of Comics

As I already explained, the comic I made is pretty terrible. The story is ok, and the punchline is mildly funny, but overall it seems really mediocre (I intended to make this comic something that could sort of be a good and bad example). Anyhow, here are some Do's and Don'ts that I thought of.

DO: Try and keep line art consistent if you use it.

DON'T: Allow your character's appearances to change too much from previous frames.

DO: Change up the perspective of each frame if you can (unless you are hiding something from view for comedic affect)

DON'T: Let your characters face the same way too often.

DO: Use a variety of facial expressions (unless you're drawing a character who is completely deadpan)

DON'T: Have too many close ups of any character. (unless, of course, it's for the sake of comedy)

DO: Simplify backgrounds (when needed) and background characters (this is especially true if you are attempting to make a comic by yourself. If it shifts from being enjoyable to being stressful, you might end up giving up on it)

DON'T: Allow your characters to have inconsistent personalities, unless they have a split personality. (Lazy characters shouldn't be the ones getting involved in fights!)

DO: Extensive research on anything you think you will need. Some examples of things you could research are: background inspiration, personalities, and other comics to help you get a feel for what you'll be creating.

Comic Starter Pack

To recap: here's everything you'll need to start a comic.

Story

Characters

Organized Ideas

Decent Drawing Skills

A Ton of Dedication and Time

Final Notes

I've included as many things as I can think of in here. I may add more later as I gain more experience in creating comics. I'm sorry if this advice isn't helpful; as I said, comics are not my area of expertise, so this advice may be kind of terrible. :/

#riraro's random things #long post #tw swearing #ok i need to take a break from everything now hhhhh #sorry that this is so long ;^;

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franki-lew-yo · 4 years ago

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I really hate 2d purists. No, not 2d animation. Not 2d animators.

2d purists.

The sad thing is it’s gotten to the point that I really cringe hearing any pro-2D sentiment at all. I hate the arguments I agree with because how often they're misused and weaponized by idiots.

Let me make my stance here clear - 2d is NOT appreciated and 3d is used for everything! The layman Karen-mom who doesn’t have an artistic bone in her body looks at stupidsmooth 3D Grubhub ads and assumes quality cause it “looks more real” (aka ‘rendered’). I know as much is true because I literally have a member of my family who told my sister and I that she thinks 3d is better (and also that she “tolerated THOSE movies for us kids”. Touching words. My sister was taking an animation course by the way). Combined that with the studios either using 2D for cheap stuff or finding good 2d animation too “costly”, I get it and I’m not even any animator. I'm just a worm an illustrator.

but holy HELL -

There’s a backlash from the artistic community that's it's own kind of insufferable and deserve to be addressed.

“(insert2Danimatedfilm) is better BECAUSE it's 2D!”

followed by: "Animation is a visual medium and the quality of the art affects how much the story means !!!!”

Yes. Totally. Animation is a visual medium and the look and style is important. Sadly, people use this excuse to really obnoxious ends, insisting that design being pretty is '' everything ''. When you treat a movie more as a special effects demo I get why you talk about the artistry at hand; but I’m sorry, visuals are not the only thing important and it’s why I’m also getting sick of the sameElsafacesyndrome rants too! There’s this attitude that's reads as "but it LOOKS better fromaproductionimage/teasertrailerwhichapparentlyisindicativeof all themovieactuallyis so it MUST BE better".

-“3D should only be used to make things look realistic!”

I think I know the logic this criticism is made in response to, and that’s the Sony + Illumination films which look just as good in 2D as they do in three dimensions. I know it feels like people are twisting this medium to try and make it like a classic cartoon when by all means people can and would love a classic cartoon being a classic cartoon. That I get- From the unsung 2D animator’s perspective, that’s more than valid !

But it’s a huuuuuuge slap in the face to 3d in saying it should only be used for "realistic animation" because

1: It’s not like realistic animation could age badly or look uncanny in the next few years. It's almost like technology is constantly improving, which I guess 2d animation never did and it was always the same technique and quality as every film that came after it.

2: The industry does treat 3d as a magic-moneymaker for this reason. Just listen to these people call the 2019 LION KING “live action” as if they’re embarrassed to call it animation. It IS animation! It would be impressive if you acknowledged that what it is, but like the CATS, you basically are treating it as just a neato tool to better your live action and not it's own artform - which it is!

3: By this “three-deeonly gud when real liek in da toystories” non-logic I guess 2d should ONLY be for flowyflowy SPACE JAM cartoons and maybe some Disney*. Just that though. You can’t do anything more with 2d. It’s never supposed to be realistic I guess. Good thing Richard Williams only did 'toons' and just toons that’s why we need 3d in the world I guess.

Wait no - that’s stupid.

"I HAVE to see the “Land Before Time 14″ when it comes out! I mean it’s a 2D animated film!"

Lost in the aether that is Youtube comment chains removed from kid's videos is a stream of this very VERY stupid argument supporting the buying of the 14th LAND BEFORE TIME film because it’s supporting 2D. My sister and I can be found on that chain arguing against this stupidity. All you have is my word, but trust me: it really did happen.

I’m sorry but...no.

Unless you have a friend or a family member who worked on these movies there’s no reason to see this and ESPECIALLY no reason to insist it’s a win for the 2D community if you buy up this crap - and I'm not judging if you do like it, but come on! LAND BEFORE TIME 14 isn't where your money should go if you really like this medium.

What’s so infuriating about this argument is you can tell it’s made by nonanimators. Real animators will tell you to support their movies cause they want some respect for their artform which is why there’s such a push from the PRINCESS AND THE FROGcrowd that you SEE and LOVE every 2d thing out there, regardless of how good it is because any recognition for it is k i n d o f what they're after!

Kiddy sequel schlock isn’t even in the same ballpark as KLAUS or WOLFWALKERS; these films DID have very limited theatrical runs (Klaus so it could be nominated; Wolfwalkers in places where theaters opened up after Covid) and should have been supported because they were labors of love made by people who love animation.

As other people have already pointed out, one of the reasons for the lack of interest in 2000sera2D animation is that the only films released alongside critical+financial 3D hits were cheaper 2D films that either coincided with daytime tv shows or should have been just direct-to-video. It’s not to say art couldn’t come out of these flicks, but dayum if it wasn’t abused as much as the texture software that era's CG used... Point being, should the world ever go back to normal: If you hear about an out-of-town showing an acclaimed 2D animated film, make time to trek out and see THAT!

Don’t give your money to see yet another made-for-tv movie on the big screen because all that tells the studio is: “yeah 2d IS cheap and only good for cheap stuff let’s just keep it cheap. Only 3d is important 8D 8D 8D !!!"

“I don’t understand how it works. So it sucks.”

This text is from an ANIMATOR btw.

“I don’t understand how it works” and “it’s just some computer rendering” is the exact same wave of logic the people who prefer cgi use.

The plebian Karen I mentioned earlier? She understands the basics of 2D animation as much as you did from one of those cruddy flash classes you took in middle-school. She 'understands' the basics cuz she watched how it was made on the DVD features or maybe back on the WONDERFUL WORLD OF DISNEY. To her, the illusion is broken and she’s not impressed by 'just some drawings on paper'. You, an animator, know the process is more complicated and is intrigued by knowing how it’s made - not bored or disinterested -

Neither you nor Aunt Karen have really good cg-animation software at your house and unless you ARE a 3D animator you probably DON’T know all the ins-and-outs of how these movies are modeled, rendered, and animated.

Aunt Karen is bedazzled by them cause she doesn’t know how it works and the technical aspect makes her brain hurt so it might as well be magic and she can feel like a cool kid sharing Minion-memes. Aunt Karen is the nonartistic type who just wants to feel safe. You're not. You want to feel challenged.

I get it: you’re pissed off cause you’re in a field no one, including Aunt Karen, appreciates; told to work in cg which it's an artform you didn’t devote your life to and told to learn it cause THIS style sells! 3D is everywhere and is starting to look like 'garbage' even if you don’t animate 3D models yourself you just KNOW, I guess. Besides, you know all there is to know about 2d!! You know all there is to possibly know about this artform and have to fight this 'war' against "r e a l" animation! And I mean even when 3d software is there to use, it's not like you can actually make anything worth while in it, especially not anything that transcends the medium. Right Worthikids?

TL;DR: This argument is basically just " BWAAAAH I’M NOT GONNA USE IT I HAVE STANDARDS (a chip on my shoulder cuz art should be what I deem it to be) "

“PRINCESS AND THE FROG is-”

There’s a reason I can’t say I truly like PRINCESS AND THE FROG even though it's not even a bad movie! Like, stop reading this and watch PATF if you haven't it's good. It's my 'FROZEN', in that; I see a lot of potential in it I just think it needs some serious rewriting and that bugs me. Always have felt that way, tbh.

I dislike this movie because the response from the animation community seems to be it was perfect and the Academy was just Pixar-crazy with UP ((ftr, the Academy IS Pixar’s bitch and I personally advocate a sequel be made to WAKING SLEEPING BEAUTY about Mike Eisner’s sabotage of the 2D department at Disney which is still in place now!- but that’s a story for another day)). I’m sorry but UP was just a better story. So was CORALINE. So was FANTASTIC MR. FOX. Honest to god it feels like poor PATF is brought up as just a talking point and never for it's own worth as a labor of love - which it was! I'd like to honestly know: had PRINCESS AND THE FROG come out now and been cg if it would have even half the defenders for it because now it doesn't "look" like how a Disney movie "should" look...

If you like PatF more than the currant Disney lineup because of it's culture, it's music, it's feminism, it's black representation? Awesome. Great. Those things should be appreciated and I never want that taken away from you. But if you seriously think PatF is better just for how it was animated and looks - I lowkey may hate you.

“ALL OF DISNEY’S LATEST MOVIES SHOULD HAVE BEEN 2D! THEY ALL LOOK AWFUL IN 3D!! ALL OF THEM!”

TANGLED, FROZEN, and MOANA? Yeah. Sure. But um, e x c u s e y o u- WRECK IT RALPH sooooo doesn’t work in 2d! It could have used different between the various worlds but it’s about hopping through different video games. I’m also of the opinion that ZOOTOPIA and BIG HERO 6 are fine the way they are. Their 3d is awesome.

The latest fairy tale Disney films are really big on their place alongside the 2D canon esp in marketing. They keep trying to mimic 2D to varying results though I don't think it works as well as the movie's I'd previously mentioned. Me personally, I would love a mix of 3D and 2D technology, like if the backgrounds in FROZEN still got to be 3D but the characters were handdrawn and shaded ala KLAUS ((sweet sigh)). But even then are they truly unwatchable just based on how they're animated to you?

MOANA would have been incredible in 2D but for the record - I don't think it feels out of place in it's style. It reminds me more of a Pixar movie with the heart of a Disney classic which is it's own just as good.

“2D is the oldest form of animation and it’s being replaced.”

Actually, if we’re talking animation in film, stop motion is the earliest form of animation. The stop motion animated THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED and TALE OF THE FOX predate Disney’s SNOW WHITE. And yes: stop-motion IS still a form of animation even if it’s a serious of pictures taken of real life things and not drawings, so don’t you dare come at me with the "but that's not animated"/"Technically it’s LIVE ACTION" crap or I’ll envoke the spirit of Sandman to get you at night.

“Every animated film would look better in 2D! Even PIXAR would look better in 2D!”

Again, Stop Motion.

No, I mean it.

Lemme ask: Would ISLE OF DOGS or FANTASTIC MR. FOX carry any of the same effect if they were generic 90s toons? I know NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS wouldn’t. Christ, don’t even get me started on Svankmajer!

Sometimes the problem is that a movie is envisioned with a specific artform in mind. Pixar started out with toys and bugs for a reason and that’s cuz they were always gonna be a 3d studio and they needed to first overcome the placisity of the models. Over the years they’ve gotten really good at effects and blending unrealistic proportions with real textures (and also not so much- ONWARD and THE GOOD DINOSAUR really needed some different character designs and yeah, I do think would have looked better with a 2d artstyle, but not the ones they had in their films. THE GOOD DINOSAUR needed more realistic-speculative looking dinos and ONWARD needed a grittier HEAVY METAL/BLACK CAULDRON appeal to its designs.) My point being that the problems with these movies aren’t even inherently the animation as much as it is a problem of style. As someone who runs a group speculating different styles and designs for movies and tv shows I’m all for envisioning a 2D ZOOTOPIA or Bluth-inspired FNAF. That’s amazing!

But that’s also the talk of fan artists and nerds and not the professional artists working on visualizing their stories!!

Since I ate, slept, and breathed NIGHTMARE in my youth I’ll use it as an example: All the concept art ever done for TNBC was on paper and 2D was used in the final film. However, even when Tim Burton was thinking of making it just a tv special it was always going to be stop-motion. NIGHTMARE’s puppet cast do work very well in two dimensions, believe me, but the film was made as a love letter to Rankin/Bass and the art form of stop-motion. Skipping to another Henry Selick-helmed project (haha), JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH was also always envisioned as a multimedia film to give it a truly dream-like atmosphere. If you know anything about Henry Selick you’ll know he’s 1) a perfectionist, and 2) loves mixed media and different types of animation and puppetry at once. That’s why he was the perfect pick to direct TNBC at the time, why JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH and CORALINE are so beautiful and why MOONGIRL, his only fully 3d film, doesn’t have the same appeal.

As for what films I couldn’t imagine NOT being 3D? Probably; 9, Padak, Next Gen, Soul, Finding Nemo, the Toy Story films, Wreck-it-Ralph (as previously mentioned), Wall.E, Waltz with Bashir, Robots, Inside Out, Arthur Christmas, The Painting, Happy Feet, Shrek, Enter the Spiderverse, Megamind… just naming a few here.

“I want a traditionally animated film [and by that I mean a 90s-Disney/Don Bluth looking movie] of ‘x'-popular live action/stage thing!”

Okay I’m cheating a bit but it’s my blog and so I’m gonna stick this one in because it’s related.

When I see musings about wanting live-action or CGI shiz to be in 2d again a lot of the time this argument actually boils down to " I want this to look like a 90s Didney movie ". Or, if it’s about animals - " I want it to look like a Don Bluth film! "

Like...there ARE other styles of animation out there...you know that right?

Frack, Disney themselves tried different styles throughout the 90s it’s just that the peak of the Disney renaissance films (LITTLE MERMAID, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, ALADDIN, THE LION KING) and the many imitators that followed tended to have the same look to them where only film/animation nerds kept watching into the era that was TARZAN, HERCULES, and ATLANTIS along with the kids. Aunt Karen wasn't singing Part of your World in the carride with you every day.

The Don Bluth argument is especially irritating because...what exact feeling do you WANT from a movie if it looked Bluthish? Each of the four ‘quintessential’ Bluth movies (NIMH, AMERICAN TAIL, LBT, and ALL DOGS) have such a different feel to them that’s complimented by that style; SECRET OF NIMH is a drama about wild animals trying to understand humans; LAND BEFORE TIME is even more squarely about an animal’s perspective as there’s literally no humans around; AMERICAN TAIL uses animals stowing away on the ship to tell a story about refugees; and ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN is ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN.

What the frack are you even asking for with that because I think there’s a certain flavor to the Bluth-styled oeuvre as well as the 90s Disney catalogue that would clash too much stylistically with some films.

Also come on! Like some Bluthian-style 2d would really fix THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS or SCOOB!, bite me.

I think this fixation solely on these two hand drawn styles and nothing else is based on nostalgia goggles, refusing to step outside the norm and discover different films and feelings than Disney and Bluth, and just preference. Goin back to NIGHTMARE there will always be a special place in my heart for Henry Selick’s stop motion, but I couldn’t imagine CHICKEN RUN or ANOMALISA in it's unique style.

Also I’m tired of every time there’s a "lets make an animatic to ‘x’ musical theater song" it’s reliably just Disneyesque or realistic. WHY envision an animated version of the show at all if it doesn’t have A STYLE to it??!?! I’m sorry but 90s-Disney does NOT fit CABARET!

“3D is so CHEAP now! Why can’t they just do 2D again?”

I think - on the cusp of the 2020s and the Grubhub hatedom, there ARE changing times ahead for 3d and 2d. The general public are starting to get tired of the same looking 3d films and wanting some 2d back, but they don’t have the best resources or opinions on animation to know what it is they want. Meanwhile, the animation community + industry is trying to figure out what to do and you have a lot of turmoil between the monopoly that is the industry, the high standards of the artists, and the mixed wants of the animation fanbase deciding what art needs to be.

It’s a tough business. And in the spirit of that tough business - maybe DON’T act like the means of a film’s production is solely your control, that you know best, and know definitively what the artists should have done....cuz you don't. Sorry my fellow criticalfanomanalysist-folks we DON'T and in an age of standom where fans and critics think it's okay to hackle indie animation studios about not getting their pitched cartoon out fast enough - we need to reserve these discussions to our circles and not treat them as gospel.

3d animation and 2d animation have to share this world. Stop acting like they’re either interchangeable in terms of budget, means of production, or artistry or that one has to be superior to the other.

The industry already says one art form is better (spoiler: it’s always live-action), we don’t need anymore of this purist garbage. Just stick to what you like while trying new things on the side. Be critical while also being compassionate. And remember:

youtube

#animation #animation on tumblr #2d animation #3d animation #traditional animation #hand drawn animation #Franki's Features

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itsclydebitches · 4 years ago

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RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Divide”

Hello, everyone, and welcome back! It feels good to be doing some normal RWBY-ing in this strange world of ours. First, some supplementary materials.

Number One: In response to any (valid) questions along the lines of, “Hey Clyde, it’s now been a full year since Volume 7 was airing and you still haven’t answered my ask about it. Or the ones about Volume 6… what’s up with that?” I’ve created what I hope is an informative video detailing the problem:

vimeo

(I assure you, the Earth, Wind & Fire was a happy accident during the screen recording.)

Needless to say, there’s a lot and I’ve known for some time now that I will LITERALLY never get through all my asks. Which doesn’t mean I don’t want you to send future thoughts in! Just know that as we head into Volume 8 territory I’ll most likely prioritize those, as well as any Volume 7 asks that aren’t woefully out of date. But I do want everyone to know that I read all the asks I receive, appreciate them immensely, and think too much about hypothetical answers, even if I don’t have time to actually write them out 💜

Number Two: There’s a bingo board this year!

Jury’s out on whether I’ll remember to update it, but at the very least this serves as a decent glimpse into my — and others’ — expectations going into this volume.

Number Three: I’ve collected a list of things I’ve heard about Volume 8 from what seem to be reputable sources. I did this because RT is developing a tendency to talk up certain points and then fail to deliver, either because something was taken out of a volume/moved to another, or because RT apparently has radically different ideas about what including something means. So this might be handy to keep on file and ask ourselves two months from now, “Did RT actually deliver on what they promised?”

Emphasis on Ruby’s leadership and how Summer’s death has impacted her

Insight into Ren and Nora’s flaws

May Merigold will supposedly have a larger part

More information about The Long Memory (Ozpin’s cane)

Theme of the volume is that you can respect someone but that doesn’t necessarily mean you agree with them

Very short timeline (supposedly just two days)

Yang in particular is very suspicious and distrustful

I was also going to include a list of all the threads that need to be continued/wrapped up, but honestly that would have taken too large a chunk off my life. Let’s just throw out the highlights:

Are we really going to have Qrow gunning for Ironwood?

Clover is dead regardless. Press ‘F’ to pay respects

Oscar bb you got shot please acknowledge this

Ozpin bb you got done dirty please acknowledge this

Penny is a Maiden now. I feel like the fandom has been sleeping on this (myself included)

Queer baiting, queer baiting… you’re on thin ice at this point, RWBY. Just skate on over to the queer snack bar before you fall straight into the lake.

Ren spill your deep dark secret already and it had better be something more than just ‘Oh no Nora might someday die :( ’

Salem is here so how the actual fuck is the cast surviving this?

Will Ironwood likewise survive his descent into antagonism? Yes or please yes no?

I think that’s all the biggies. I strive to keep lists like this in mind while analyzing, but honestly RWBY has a hundred moving parts that are abandoned or changed or simply retconned at the drop of a hat. So an attempt will be made.

Number Four (last one I promise!): Normal disclaimers and reminders for Recaps apply:

Please don’t fill up the already full inbox with flames. It’s still 2020. No one has time for that nonsense.

There will absolutely be typos and wonky parts because I try to get these out the same day an episode premieres. I have now been working on this for ten hours, nearly straight, and have no more energy for edits. Apologies in advance and RIP to my Saturdays.

I reserve the right to use stupid GIFs and memes at my discretion.

I strive to keep my focus on recapping/analyzing but salt tends to worm its way in… If you’re a die-hard RWBY fan with little patience for criticism, let alone (at times) snarky criticism, please proceed with caution.

No wait I lied, this is the last thing:

Okay, got that out of my system LET’S DO THIS!

We start not with the episode itself but rather Rooster Teeth’s (RT’s) strange non-promotion of it. If you follow my blog you may have caught the post where I pointed out that there was nothing on RT’s website to suggest that one of their most popular shows—if not the most popular show—was premiering today. Nothing on the main page. Nothing on the RWBY page either, not unless you count the Volume 8 poster background (easily mistaken for the Volume 7 poster) and the trailer buried all the way down past Episodes, past Merch, in the Bonus Features section along with videos like Live From Remnant and the volume intros. RT… the promotion of your feature show is not a bonus. This should be front and center! Honest to god, five minutes before the episode dropped I was checking the website for a Volume 8 section, a countdown, anything that would tell me the episode was imminent without relying on fans on tumblr to keep me in the loop. We got nada, zilch. I’m not sure whether that speaks more to RT’s iffy management of the series or simply the website’s horrible design—RIP losing RWBY on Youtube—but I was surprised when I saw the episode a few minutes after 11:00am. At that point I honestly expected to hear about a dely.

So that’s the mood I entered the premiere in, but truly? We start off strong. Things take a pretty severe nosedive later on, we’ll get to that, but I was impressed with our beginning and that probably has a lot to do with the fact that we start with our villains.

We open on a Cinderella character, Cinder, and thus I’m immediately pleased that we’re getting something about her backstory after all this time. Seven years! She appeared in episode one, folks! To say we’re overdue is an understatement. There isn’t a whole lot to go on, just a younger Cinder sadly scrubbing the floor, poised under a spotlight. What we learn, or potentially learn, is based far more in cultural knowledge than this scene. We know Cinderella’s story, which includes the abusive family, the longing for more, the eventual escape, and thus we’re able to read all of that in this image, despite the image itself not telling us any of this overtly. That means we could be wrong in our interpretation, but if we’re not it’s an easy shorthand in an already packed story.

What I’m really impressed with is the sound bridge between the scrubbing and her nails on the back of Neo’s chair. Fantastic way to confirm that this is Cinder as well as showcasing just how far she’s come. The sound of her labor has been replaced with the sound of her power and given that Cinder’s power is stolen, tied to a grimm arm, the property of a genocidal maniac… that’s messed up. It’s a Cinderella story gone wrong.

So yeah, Cinder tells Neo to head straight into the creepy, grimm infested blood cloud to see Salem and Neo is like, ‘Uh… no thank you?’ lol.

RT does a good job this episode with her expressions, ensuring we know exactly what she’s thinking despite an unwillingness/inability to speak.

Poor Neo might be in too deep, but I quite like the overall atmosphere of this opening. Say what we will about Salem’s awful characterization, at least she has style. This woman knows how to make an entrance and, piggybacking off of the Apathy, RT knows how to infuse horror elements into their fantasy. The red and purple coloring of the clouds, spiked whale teeth peeking through, bright orange in the background looking like explosions… that’s all 👌 Including the intro card.

The only thing I want to gripe about is this:

I’m sorry, why does the whale grimm have landing pads? Or something like it?? The whale otherwise works because it’s poised between the natural and the fantasy synthetic. It looks like a real grimm whale on the outside, but is sporting a throne room, a control panel, and other unnatural elements on the inside. It’s a visual indicator of Salem’s ability to control and change grimm. Now though, the additions are wrong, infringing on the line between organic and tech, the line between what helps the grimm individually (giving monkeys wings) and what just helps Salem. Every other aspect of the whale straddles that line wonderfully, adding to the creep factor, like a grimm version of the Uncanny Valley: it’s not quite a whale anymore… but landing pads? That looks ridiculous. Why does Salem even have that? How many ships are her people feasibly using? Why are there five?

Take it away, please.

Cinder waltzes in like this is a normal home visit, but Neo has an appropriate ‘What the actual fuck?’ face going on.

They approach Salem on her throne where Cinder immediately kneels, greeting her with, “My queen.” I mentioned during my trailer breakdown that I think Cinder is lying her ass off here, and I still think that based on a line we’ll get in a minute, but now at least we have a sense of how she can pull this off. A woman who started out as a (presumed) servant is going to know how to mimic subservience, even if her heart isn’t in it. Salem is very good at playing the girl who will still kneel and scrub the floor for you. She will scrub the floor, she’ll do everything you want, she’ll just be plotting her own rise to power while she does it.

There’s quite a bit of interesting cinematography in this episode, not all of it good, and I think one of the mistakes is here when we get a closeup on Salem’s mouth as she greets Cinder. A closeup like that should be reserved for more significant dialogue—“Rosebud”—and yet we get this shot again when Cinder tells Emerald to be quiet. It’s awkward and coupled with the numerous eye closeups we got in the trailer, I think RT is playing a little fast and loose with the camera. Each shot should add something to the scene, not distract from it. If you don’t have a reason for including a technique like that then leave it be.

Back to the actual dialogue though. We knew that Salem knew Cinder was alive and now it seems that she just expected her to come back? I’m slightly lost. It feels like we’re missing something here. Cinder goes off to secure the lamp, fails, nearly dies, wanders on her own for months, and then randomly shows back up on Salem’s whale doorstep, yet Salem isn’t angry at all? Did she have faith that Cinder would return when she has something to offer? Did she just not care about Cinder, considering her return an unnecessary but otherwise welcome surprise? That would make the least sense given that she holds the key to accessing Beacon’s relic… but that circles right back around to why Salem is seemingly indifferent to Cinder’s comings and goings. Surely she can’t actually believe that Cinder is loyal?

“So I trust you wouldn’t return to me empty handed,” she says. Yeah, trust means nothing in this show, Salem, didn’t you watch Volumes 6 and 7? Again, I simply don’t know. I suppose I’ll just chalk it up to confidence, that if Cinder did bail Salem knew she could track her down again. Deciphering her motivations and beliefs is a lost cause when the show continually gives us so little.

The important thing now is that Cinder does indeed have an offering and you can see that Salem is somewhat surprised at being handed the relic.

Cinder, of course, takes credit for the victory and we’re given another wonderful shot of Neo. ‘YOU took it?’

Oh, Neo. Best get out while you still can.

Tyrian appears having obviously made his way to Salem’s ship sometime between her arrival and now. The exchange is pretty standard for this group. He insults Cinder for failing and needing this victory to make amends, talks about how any win against Ironwood says more about his lack of intelligence than her skill, and Cinder… doesn’t have a whole lot of comebacks, actually. I’d say Tyrian won that verbal spar, enhanced by a better use of the camera when we get his tail looming menacingly towards Cinder and Neo.

He goes on to say that Watts was a “necessary sacrifice” so, uh… I’m just going to toss out the ask I answered yesterday. Based on our intro I’d say Watts is still significant to the volume—hacking Penny is my guess—but by the end? He could be in trouble.

(As a side note: I plan to analyze the intro next week. It’s just easier when it comes first.)

Tyrian also calls Neo “little one” which I just found absolutely hilarious. In an on brand creepy manner, that is. Not that Neo couldn’t kick his ass, but there’s something wonderfully chilling about having the serial killer use an endearment towards a potential victim, one that comments on her size while he’s looming.

In contrast, Cinder refers to Neo as a “valuable asset” and we get our third mood of the episode.

Who’s going to start a Neo reaction image collection?

It’s true enough on the surface—who wouldn’t want an ally who can turn into anyone else?—but we’re still bumping up against question of why Salem needs this. She’s immortal! She has an endless army! Magic! This scene works well with a villain who needs a skillset like Neo’s to succeed, but Salem doesn’t. RT is doing a great job writing a story thus far, just not the story we’ve previously been given. This isn’t the story they set up.

This will come back up when we reach the RWBYJNOR group. Just wait.

Before that though, the gang’s all here as Emerald, Mercury, and Hazel show up, all in new outfits.

I think I like everything except for the weird Xs on Emerald’s jacket—it’s way too distracting and frankly makes an otherwise good look ugly—and the fact that she’s showing her midriff in Atlas. Hazel doesn’t have any sleeves! Oh my god, why doesn’t anyone dress for the weather in this show?

Frankly, I found their reunion to be kind of lackluster. I mean, there was nothing wrong with it. Emerald does sound briefly excited, she does run, and it’s in character for Cinder to cut her off… it just didn’t resonate with me emotionally. I thought after two volumes of thinking she’s dead, then working through the knowledge that she’s alive, that I would feel Emerald’s shock and relief more, but I didn’t. And I’m not entirely sure why. I don’t want to level any accusations at the voice acting because frankly I know next to nothing about that skill (and from what I’ve seen it’s usually praised in the fandom), but I will say that throughout the premiere I was noticing it more than I ever have before. The lack of emotion here and some awkward deliveries later, like when Yang goes, “Ruby, there is no way Ironwood will cooperate with us” and I immediately thought, “Wow, that came out stilted.” These observations stick with me because, as said, voice acting usually isn’t on my radar. It’s not something I’ve studied or had practice analyzing. If you’d never told me that Ren or Qrow’s VA changed then after a year hiatus I literally wouldn’t notice… but there’s something about this episode that didn’t sit right. Anyone else get that sense, or was it just me?

Regardless, the arrival of our other three villains really doesn’t amount to much, though I’m happy for all the Emerald and Mercury fans who get to see them in new outfits. The focus is still on Cinder as she delivers a line indicative of her true motivations: “That power will be mine.” Yeah, she’s not loyal to Salem, she’s just power hungry. Of course, Salem immediately takes note of this and raises her hand, in another nice use of the foreground, reminding her that she hasn’t given that order.

Cinder is shocked, angry even, but quickly covers it up with her “Without you I am nothing” line. If I caught it right I think she also calls Salem “Ma’am”? Hilarious. Again, skilled at playing the servant.

Also, before I forget, it’s worth noting that almost everything from our trailer appeared in this episode. Yeah, there are a few details like Nora attacking some tech and the group on their bikes, but on the whole we’ve already seen the majority of our promo material and will likely get most of the rest next week. It makes me both interested and nervous for what another twelve episodes are going to hold.

Salem opens her whale, or opens a portal type view in it, something that gives us a long-distance look at Atlas. I don’t know what exactly is going on here, but it’s pretty so I’ll take it.

She also delivers the frankly badass line, “Just because you’re more valuable to me than a pawn does not make you a player.”

She waves them all away with perfect ‘You mean nothing to me’ attitude and we sadly leave our villains.

Sad not because I don’t love my farm boy, but because things are about to get a whole lot messier.

Oscar has made his way to a camp of civilian survivors… all of whom are just hanging out in the supposedly deadly cold. Yeah, there’s a single fire, but at least four of them aren’t anywhere near it. Three of them also aren’t wearing gloves. What was that survival rate again?

A nice if gruff dude gives Oscar soup—water?—while showing off his… badger claws? I don’t know what kind of faunus he’s supposed to be, but he feels like the sort of two second, minor character who could easily become a meme lol.

Oscar thanks him (my polite son!) and hands the bowl back after a single sip. Which is impressive because I would have assumed the guy was giving me the whole bowl and just taken it. Hell, I’ve done that even when I didn’t assume it’s all for me. A Starbucks barista once approached me with a tray and a plate of samples, I knew I was supposed to take just one, yet for some reason my hand went to take the whole goddamn plate. He had to tell me off, then I was trying to explain that I didn’t actually want or think I should have eight shots of cappuccino all to myself, I don’t even like coffee, he clearly didn’t believe me… it was awkward. So good job, Oscar. You’re less awkward than me (though that’s not saying much).

Now a question, Oscar. Darling. Brilliant boy who has been through too much: why the fuck aren’t you talking to Ozpin? This will be A Thing later when he presents a lack of time to talk as justification for keeping more secrets (we’ll get to that too…) yet here is time! You’re just sitting there for who knows how long, with plenty of privacy to hide a supposedly one-sided conversation so the Mantle citizens don’t get weirded out or suspicious. Talk to Ozpin. Our headmaster gets two lines in this episode, utterly inconsequential lines like his airship scene, lines that feel like they exist to say, “See? He’s still included in the story!” even though he absolutely is not. Two volumes of mostly silence, a perfect setup to start the reconciliation process, but we’re going to put it off again?

Instead Ruby randomly and conveniently appears. I want to know how she found him. Oscar isn’t wearing a tracker. He clearly didn’t call them because he’s surprised when Ruby shows up. He fell alllllllll the way back down to Mantle and then wandered to a random part of the slums. You’re telling me they flew over the entire city—after beginning this search thinking he was in Atlas—and somehow managed to spot him from up in the air? C’mon. I would have rather had a beginning where Oscar makes his way back to the group himself, giving him and Ozpin time to hash things out.

“Need a lift?” Ruby says, eliminating that potential. Sigh.

Oscar immediately starts beating himself up when he gets onboard, saying that he “was stupid to think the General would listen.” Nah, you were stupid to buy into Ruby’s nonsensical confidence and for telling Ironwood he’s as bad as Salem. Sorry, Oscar, but everyone is written badly these days. I will, however, say that I am THRILLED at the group’s reaction to his return. Ruby says that she’s “just glad you’re alright.” Nora has a wonderfully tender moment where she hugs him gently rather than her usual glomp.

That? That added a year to my life. Everyone else seems relieved that he’s okay too, so kudos there. After four years of Oscar being an outsider in the group, this is one of the few moments that feel like he’s 100% accepted. Really glad to see it.

Now let’s see if it sticks after they learn Ozpin is back...

They fly to the Happy Huntresses’ base and I again feel like I’ve missed something crucial. When did they team up? I mean, RWBYJNOR was working directly under Ironwood up until the last hour and Robyn ran off to fight Tyrian/Clover in the last couple episodes. When did she have time to explain her (briefly) changed allegiance and why would the Happy Huntresses trust the group without that? Did Robyn share that Blake and Yang went behind Ironwood’s back for her? Do the Huntresses instinctively trust them because they’re now wanted by the military? How did they even run into each other?

Again, I think we would have been better served to have an episode before all this. Let Oscar make his way back and let the group struggle with the magnitude of their situation on the airship, before they find new allies. Transferring directly to, “They have help and a secret base and a plan in the works!” makes me feel like I missed the real premiere last week. You know, the one where Salem unexpectedly arrived and we left the group like this.

This is where we’ve ended up though. The group is cozy in this hideout, getting info from Joanna, and my only other thought is, “Why is she giving all this exposition?”

Shouldn’t it be May? I mean, we were told that she was going to play more of a role this volume, a promise that’s pretty important imo given her status as a (so far off screen) trans character, so why not put her in the role of mediator between the Happy Huntresses and RWBYJNR? Giving her that setup as a leader among her people as well as lots of lines would be meaningful. A trans character just existing and being a part of this fight! May could obviously still fill that role—I’m well aware that we’re only one episode in—but it just seems like a missed opportunity to me. Out of all the undeveloped Happy Huntresses, our premiere focuses on the one who has the least importance to the fandom.

As said, Joanna talks a fair bit but what it basically boils down to is trying to get everyone to the crater below Atlas. It’s apparently not safe, but it’s warm, which is what matters right now.

So… let me get this straight. You want to gather everyone into a not safe crater, by leading them through an army of grimm, so that they can wait there in case someone moves the Staff, thus dropping an entire city on top of their heads? That’s the plan? Which admittedly isn’t Joanna’s fault. This is another instance of RWBYJNOR having information that a leader does not and they should really consider speaking up about it. But of course they don’t.

Also, how long does everyone have in regards to the cold? Shouldn’t there be dead civilians by now? The time it would take to find the Happy Huntresses, team up with them, get settled in the base, and find Oscar says that things should be pretty grim right now (pardon the pun), yet every non-aura user in this city seems content to just hang out in the snow. Either the cold is deadly enough to justify moving everyone to the crater, or it’s mild enough to let everyone survive this long, not both.

After hugs are given everyone obviously wants to know what happened to Oscar. His response?

“It’s a… long story. I get the feeling there’s been a few of those tonight.”

That’s a check for the bingo card! We’re halfway through the first episode and we’ve already got another secret. Yes, this is a secret. Oscar actively chooses not to tell anyone that Ozpin is back—something Ozpin himself comments on—and then skillfully draws attention away from himself with “I get the feeling there’s been a few of those tonight.” Indeed, all eyes go to Penny. Oscar’s plight is forgotten, which is what he wanted. His justification?

Ozpin: “You’re not going to tell them?”

Oscar: “You and I aren’t done talking yet.”

Along with this look.

Oscar no. There’s so much wrong with this I don’t even know where to begin. Let’s create a list.

As said, you had plenty of time to talk to Ozpin and chose not to. Miss me with this excuse.

You are now doing to your friends exactly what you and your friends did to Ironwood, which in turn is what Ozpin did to you! I can’t believe we’ve got Oscar critically side-eyeing him when they are still—still—repeating the behavior they drove Ozpin away for.

What is there to even talk about now? Oscar didn’t punch himself/Ozpin (lol) but he did steal Jinn’s name from Ozpin in the first place. You got what you wanted, drove him away, and have been lying and keeping secrets ever since. The only thing they should be talking about involves apologizing. Any further criticism—which is what Oscar’s expression and curt reply suggests—is beyond hypocritical.

Seriously, what needs to be discussed? There’s no reason not to tell the group unless Oscar wants to talk about whether they should tell them. There’s no good ending here...

Don’t you think it would be nice to know that Ozpin is back and you’ve got super magic powers while making plans to save the entire world?

This is all especially stupid given Oscar’s “Salem wants to divide us” reminder to Ruby in a moment. Oscar, you are doing the most to divide the group right now. By not forgiving Ozpin. By refusing to work with him. By keeping him secret from everyone else.

This is bad, friends, I worry for what the rest of the volume will bring…

The story is done with Ozpin for now so I guess I will be too. The group continues filling Oscar in and we get some shots of the base, including a rather prominent poster of what I assume are two Happy Huntresses. Did they die in battle perhaps?

It’s a little strange.

Oscar: “Where’s Qrow?”

Me: “Likely still making bad decisions.”

No one knows so they just drop it. Which I kind of get, only so much you can do to find him if he’s not out on the streets like Oscar, but it still reads as kind of iffy that two nieces look down at the ground for a hot second and then move on with their plans, content to leave Qrow to whatever fate befell him. In a minute we’ll see Yang firmly take Ren’s side regarding helping the people they can in Mantle, which frankly comes out of nowhere for her. I think an easy motivation would have been Qrow. Ruby wants to save the world, Yang wants to find and save their uncle, and that just happens to align with Ren’s desire to save the civilians who need immediate grimm and cold help. Don’t get me wrong, I like that there’s finally some division between the sisters, I just wish it hadn’t come about so abruptly. Ren had setup for standing up to Ruby. Yang did not.

But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Joanna lists the grimm horde and no heat as the major threats to everyone. The group agrees.

Me: What about Salem?

Joanna says that this is all doubly dangerous because there’s “no more military protection.”

Me: Oh, so now you want the military?

This is all so disjointed. Even more-so when Joanna mentions that Ironwood has stopped all evacuations to Atlas, likely due to the “hard light shields” that are the only thing standing between Salem and the city. Thing is, the show never makes this connection, I just did it myself based on this scene and the one that comes later. The show presents Joanna’s line as a pure condemnation. Ironwood won’t let more evacuees in because… he’s just evil, I guess. Yet there is a justification here, namely that continuing the evacuations even while he’s stuck without Penny leaves him wide open to a Salem attack, the death of everyone currently safe, but that argument is never presented to the viewer. I don’t need people to agree with Ironwood’s perspective, I just wish that perspective was offered as an option. The show is very good about acting like RWBYJNOR’s opinion is the only justified opinion, or simply the only opinion at all.

After everything is laid out Weiss goes, “We’re never going to sleep again, I just know it.”

I could make a crack about the lack of continuity and how the group should be collapsing right now… but that was a funny line. It can stay.

What is far more of a problem is the fact that no one is talking about Salem. Okay, that’s a lie. They do talk about her, but in a roundabout way like her presence isn’t impacting every decision they make. That’s the real issue. They’re acting as if Salem isn’t here right now, like she’s off far away, maybe approaching slowly, and they’re arguing over how best to prep the world for her eventual attack. There’s no emotion here—let alone action—to reflect that the series’ Big Bad has arrived and is poised to murder them all. Literally what is this? Ruby is yelling about warning the world and, ignoring the continued question of why that’s a good thing when the world can do nothing to stop Salem and knowledge of her continually drives people to horrible acts, she has yet to acknowledge that… she’s the world? Ruby is the world in this conflict. She, Mantle, and Atlas. Salem is here for you all. Right now. You are, this instant, in the situation you want to warn others about, so why don’t you try to do something about it? Or at least acknowledge it. Ruby wants to warn the neighborhood about a potential fire while her house is actively ablaze, and the fire could have totally killed her by now but decided not to for… reasons.

“Ruby’s right,” Nora says. They have to tell the world so “they can prepare.” How? How are they supposed to prepare for this? The story cannot continue ignoring Salem’s immortality.

“Ruby’s right,” is all Blake says and I’m starting to thinks that’s why her character exists now, to agree with Ruby. It’s great that she’s getting a little distance from Yang, but man.

As Ruby asks whether Pietro can get Amity up and running despite it not being finished (called it) we start an incredibly odd sequence of flashforwards to their individual missions. I’ve seen a lot of praise for this already and though I agree that, in theory, it’s a good way to save time, I found the actual execution to be jarring. Upon thinking back through our timeline, it became clear they were flashforwards, but while watching I thought they might be flashbacks (especially since that’s more common).

Some of the shots, like Nora’s, just look awkward when you’ve got the exact expression and pose transplanted from one scene to another, like she’s a cardboard cutout behind a green screen. To say nothing of how the flashforwards ruin any suspense (I use that word loosely) in the conversation itself. If the question is, “Will they decide to go to the military compound?” then that question is answered when we see Ruby scoping out the compound, not when the group actually decides on the course of action.

It just made an already muddled scene worse for me, so I hope this trend doesn’t continue.

And of course, Amity can be used despite all the info last volume claiming that it wasn’t finished. Pietro suddenly acts like it is finished and the only thing standing in their way is Ironwood providing access. If that were the case, he would have used Amity weeks or days ago like he wanted to! When was it finished? Not after Watts commented on how incomplete it was. When did they get back the resources they needed from Robyn? It’s as ridiculous and retcon-y as I thought it would be.

Yang points out that Ironwood will never listen to them and Ruby counters that “he doesn’t have to.” They’ll just take the access from him. Because why wouldn’t they in a series where they’ve already stolen two airships? Stealing from the super evil military that Joanna wishes were helping them right now is just the group’s go-to plan nowadays.

Pietro isn’t sold on this plan though. He lists at least three obstacles they’d need to get through “and then… oh boy, I might need to think about this some more.” “And just to clarify,” Oscar says, “This is the easy option?” Um...no it’s not? We also know there’s an access point in Ironwood’s office so… why not go there instead? They really think the Academy is less guarded than the military base? There’s a potential justification here along the lines of, “After Neo and Cinder broke into his office Ironwood will have the place on high alert,” but unless I missed it the group doesn’t assume anything like that. They just listen to Pietro point out all the ways they can’t get into the military base and jump straight to that being the best option. It feels like a transparent way to create conflict for the group. We’ll just have them taking the most dangerous route despite an easy route being offered alongside it. Why bother mentioning his office at all? Just have the access in the military base. Boom, done.

It’s that conflict and the fact that Ruby tends to hear “You can’t” and digs in her heels. You can’t go to Atlas. I’ll just steal a ship then. You can’t defeat Salem. Watch me. You can’t break into this base. Guess what I’m doing! She’s dangerous in her fairy tale, meta-driven insistence that everything will turn out her way because she wants it to.

Speaking of, we finally—FINALLY—get someone challenging Ruby. Sort of. Not actually but it’s the closest we’ve ever gotten:

Yang: “Ruby, when we came here we said we’d follow your lead… but things haven’t exactly worked out.”

Now, there are two things to take away from this moment. The first is how utterly shocked Ruby and the others are. I mean, take a look at these expressions.

Ruby straight up can’t believe what she’s hearing. Weiss put her hand to her mouth like this is the most dramatic thing to ever happen to her. Oscar looks down in a ‘Yeah, I agree but please don’t look at me and make me admit that’ way. And Nora looks indifferent in the screenshot but animated she goes sort of stern, likely pissed that Yang would dare say that given her own agreement with Ruby. This not only reiterates that Yang’s challenge came out of nowhere—seriously, how did we move from following Ruby no matter what to this? Last volume she asked a single question along the lines of, ‘You sure?’ and when Ruby said ‘Yes’ Yang was entirely on board—but also demonstrates that no one has EVER said no to her before. Ruby is amazed that someone would challenge her. The act of challenging Ruby is, in and of itself, shocking. This group has gotten so used to following Ruby blindly that the teensiest little pushback is greeted with this.

Because it is teensy. This is the second takeaway: Yang barely challenges her and that challenge leads nowhere. She doesn’t accuse Ruby of anything, she doesn’t question her continued authority, she just broadly implies that things could be better. We followed you, now things are bad, take from that what you will. It’s incredibly mild as far as criticism goes, making the shock all the more, well, shocking, but it also amounts to—wait for it—nothing! Because Yang didn’t truly challenge Ruby’s leadership. She’s still in charge, she’s still calling the shots, and they’re still listening to her. We might have gotten some change if this division had been allowed to play out, but instead Jaune comes in with a, “Let’s go for both!” solution. It let’s both groups get what they want which, in turn, releases them from the need to grapple with whether they’ll listen to Ruby when she’s advocating for something they don’t agree with. We have now lost the chance to see whether, when push comes to shove, Ren and Yang will cave to Ruby’s will or stick by their own beliefs.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s more conflict than we’ve gotten in years, but that doesn’t mean it’s particularly compelling conflict. It’s good by RWBY’s standards, which doesn’t necessarily make it good. The actual issues at hand—Ruby’s dangerous arrogance, the group’s loyalty, her choices up until now—are just swept under the rug. For all the visuals we get insisting that there’s this great divide in the group… there’s really not. Not in any way that matters.

Also, Ruby is an idiot. Okay, that was mean, but she really is in this scene. She’s actually not an idiot overall because she was written as wonderfully intelligent in the early volumes, but now? Lately? She makes me want to bang my head against a wall.

“But that’s how Salem got this far,” she cries. “By dividing us!”

Ruby… oh my god, Ruby. No one should have to explain to you that dividing people means turning them against each other, not literally dividing your team to complete separate tasks. This girl honestly thought that because there was this teensy disagreement and that half the team would complete Plan A while she and the other half completed Plan B, both of which notably work towards the goal of, “Protect people from Salem,” that this was somehow what Salem wanted. That is was dangerous. Honestly, it’s a scary look at her view of leadership too: If everyone doesn’t 100% agree with me and do what I say, that’s an objectively bad thing that the grimm queen wants, right? Does Ruby think that unification means following a single person (her) without question or variation? That would explain a lot...

The fact that Oscar needs to explain the difference to her is not good. It really doesn’t say great things about this version of Ruby. Though he was comparing Ironwood to Salem last volume, so really they should all be wearing dunce hats.

Penny offers to take the relic directly to Salem in exchange for her leaving the kingdom alone. I honestly didn’t expect that. If anyone took that risk I would have put my money on Ozpin (but of course, during all this talk of the women he knows best, he’s kept quiet). Oscar is again the voice of wisdom, pointing out that they have no reassurance that Salem will keep her word. At least Penny is thinking about Salem as a threat though, so kudos for that. When this plan is shot down she volunteers to get Ruby past the military security instead and, uh, she’s a little intense about it.

I’m not entirely sure what is going on with Penny. She disagreed with Winter but then seemed to come around to her point of view, enough to help anyway. They had another (stupid) disagreement about the value of individual lives, so that helps to explain why she’s teaming up with RWBYJNOR (if you ignore that Ironwood is also trying to save individual lives...). Did watching Fria die shake her up? Is it being the Winter Maiden that’s not sitting right? Does Penny have lingering feelings about the framing that haven’t shown up until now? Her status as a ‘real girl’? We’ve got a lot of reasons that could definitely explain this sudden need to fight, but we’re not told which—if any of these—is the driving force.

We’re then given a lot of little details. Someone points out that if Salem gets the staff and “create[s] anything else” then Atlas will fall (so yeah, let’s move the people underneath it). We still don’t know what exactly the Staff does because “creation” is kind of broad and “powering a city to float” doesn’t seem to sit within that category at all. Pietro gives Yang the keys to his lab so they can get the bikes. We see the group dividing in the flashforwards, something I do like, especially since the show has gone out of its way to break up most of the usual duos. Nora in particular is pissed at Ren for his choice.

“Oh, I’m saving Mantle because I actually believe we can do this.”

#yikes. Well, I did say I wanted a conflict other than ‘Oh no, one of us might die’ and it looks like I got it. But Nora, the only reason you can do this is because the plot is in your corner: none of you are collapsing from two major fights, you didn’t lose your aura so the cold isn’t a danger, the military is barely a threat all of a sudden, Salem is helpfully hanging out in her whale instead of killing you, and the story decided that Amity can function so long as you all are the ones who get to use it. That’s why you can do this. Ren, who follows in-world logic and doesn’t want to risk a whole kingdom’s worth of lives on a pipe dream, thinks differently, oddly enough.

As they leave though Penny gets a call from Ironwood. I know precisely what the fandom is going to say here: “This evil man is just trying to use Penny to open the vault!” Of course he is. He needs it open to save everyone he can, Penny included. Plus the concept of “using” her is a double-edged sword. What do we think the group is doing right now? Using her to get past the security. Penny’s power is a tool any way you slice it. Granted, Penny volunteers to help the group, but notably here Ruby speaks for her. Penny seems torn and Ruby takes the scroll away with, “She’s not going anywhere until you change your mind about Mantle.”

Sorry, Ruby, but coming from you that sounds less like a reassurance for Penny and more like just an order for Ironwood. Remember Harriet? We’ll stop attacking you provided you do what we want. Ruby has yet to learn about compromises, let alone acknowledge that she might be wrong. How about you let Penny decide where she goes, especially since by all logic she should have a lot of loyalty to Ironwood. She knew him before she ever met you. She’s worked with him since she was rebuild post-Volume 3. Despite what Penny has said, if the story would just let her think about his actions for a hot second—making her the protector of Mantle, sticking up for her after the framing, sending her to the party, teaming her up with Ruby, etc.—she might realize that the ‘He doesn’t want me to have friends’ and ‘He just treats me like a tool’ assumptions are just that, unfounded assumptions. But no, Ruby speaks for them both because Ironwood is evil now.

“If she makes it through our defenses,” Ironwood says, “everything that follows will be on your hands.”

That’s true! Kind of like how it’s own Qrow’s hands that Clover died. When you insist on making a bad situation worse you hold responsibility when the shit hits the fan. You know though that Salem won’t get through their defenses now, somehow, so that there’s no chance RWBYJNOR will be blamed for it. Or, by that point Ironwood will be so crazed that anything coming out of his mouth is dismissed, no matter how accurate it might be.

We then transfer to the Ace Ops who are, despite what the fandom theorized for many months, clearly upset about Clover. Also pissed. Which they have every right to be. Their friend and leader was killed. Imagine for a moment that Ruby had been murdered by Tyrian with an allies’ help. Exactly what do you think the group would do? Swallow it quietly and get over it? Ha.

I’ve already seen some speculation that Clover survived due to details like showing us the bandage and his room being listed as for a “Patient,” but he looks pretty dead to me.

He got gutted through the chest and left out in the snow for who knows how long. We saw him slip away. Qrow screamed over his dead body. He’s not breathing now. If RWBY suddenly claims he survived this, I’m calling BS.

Most of the other visuals we get here were already dropped in the trailer. Winter is pretty injured from her encounter with Cinder, likely permanently based on her new outfit. Ironwood had to replace his arm—and I am calling BS on that “Losing his arm is reflective of him losing his humanity” commentary from RT. Please go read up on a couple decades worth of ableism in media and then get back to me.

We get Ironwood’s line about the light shields and, notably, a whole lot of empathy. Regardless of what he might want Penny for, he still called her with compassion. He’s watching the Ace Ops mourn their friend. He’s talking about protecting his kingdom. The first thing he says to Winter is, “Thank you, Winter. I don’t know what I would do without you.” Ironwood has a heart! It’s always on display, which makes this scene utterly ridiculous.

I literally don’t know how to respond to this. The gunshot made me jump, both because it’s a gunshot and because, again, what the fuck? I know I said that next volume RT might just have Ironwood descend into full villainy, shooting whoever he pleases now that he’s shot Oscar, but I didn’t actually expect them to do it. Because he never should have shot Oscar in the first place! I wanted the story to let Oscar grapple with it a bit and then quietly backtrack, acknowledging it as the mistake it was. The concept that Ironwood, empathetic Ironwood, rational Ironwood, always thinks before he acts Ironwood, let’s kids yell at him Ironwood, tried to team up with Robyn Ironwood, did everything Ruby wanted Ironwood, won’t kill Watts after he destroyed his arm Ironwood would shoot this guy just to shut him up is absurd. It was absurd then, it’s absurd now.

That being said, there’s a possibility he didn’t actually shoot the council member, but rather just (“just”) gave a warning shot down the hallway. I say this because the reactions to this are pretty tame. Everyone looks startled, yeah, but after the initial shot there’s nothing that I would expect if there was now a guy bleeding out on the floor. The council woman doesn’t scream. Winter doesn’t seem overly shocked. No one is running to try and help him. Basically, if Ironwood had just killed a political figure in front of six witnesses, entirely unprovoked, I would expect a bit more of a reaction than this. This feels far more like a, “Damn he’s not joking around, letting off warning shots to get people to leave him alone” not “WOW, our general just killed someone in cold blood!”

What I really hate though—beyond just assassinating his character—is how many fans think my friends and I are delusional for calling it character assassination at all. I hopped onto the RWBY tag for five minutes this morning and was bombarded with posts about how Ironwood needs to be murdered horrifically, anyone who likes him is sick, the Ironwood stans are as bad as Adam stans, you’re an idiot if you want him redeemed… because apparently the concept of a story writing a character badly doesn’t compute. I’m not here to argue that Ironwood didn’t do these awful things (regardless of whether he actually killed the guy or not). I’m not here to argue that they’re not awful. I’m just here to say that we never should have gotten these scenes in the first place, or if we were going to get them, we deserved an actual descent into murder at the drop of a hat territory. I’ve already explained extensively on this blog how early Ironwood was not accurate foreshadowing for this, and Volume 7 certainly wasn’t setup, but it looks like the majority of fans aren’t interested in examining whether any of this adds up. Which makes my job, as someone trying to examine this series somewhat objectively—in as much as that’s possible for any single viewer—as well as simply enjoy it as a show, really hard. It’s bad enough when a story keeps taking the characters you love and villainizing them, and doing that badly, but then when you turn to the community and see them rallying around the idea that you’re awful for being dissatisfied—you’re the bootlicker, you’re the blind stan, you can’t see what’s ‘really’ going on here… that sucks. For those of you happy and satisfied with Ironwood’s arc, that’s great! I’ve also seen a lot of posts hyping up the complexity of his character now. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying what we’ve been given and I’d never want to imply that just because it’s not what I wanted it’s somehow wrong. I’m honestly thrilled that after a year of worry so many people have adored our premiere, including this scene. I just wish that I could say RWBY had given me something I didn’t want in a persuasive manner and that the fandom as a whole was a bit more welcoming of differing criticisms.

Not that I didn’t already know the RWBY fandom had its flaws, but still lol.

That’s basically it for our premiere. Nice note to end on, huh? Our final scene is of Salem using the lamp to set her bloodhound grimm on the city. Why doesn’t she just go herself? What was she planning to do here in Atlas in the first place, considering that getting the relic was a surprise? Who knows. Little about this holds together. But we do end with another awesome shot, so small favors.

It’s always strange concluding a recap, but even more-so when it’s a premiere, during a historical moment in the U.S., amidst all the nonsense that is 2020. So for now I’ll just conclude with three quick things:

The updated bingo board will be listed at the end of each recap, provided I don’t forget about it lol. Today I’m checking off tone (not nearly enough freaking out about Salem), the team keeping secrets (Oscar), and major plot point dropped (Amity is suddenly finished). I could also probably check off the cold not killing civilians and getting Amity up and running, but we’ll see if any changes with those.

I’m including my Ko-Fi link at the end of recaps now. Not with any expectations. Not with anything resembling pressure. I thought long and hard over whether to include it at all—let alone mention it here—because I love doing these and never want anyone to feel like it comes with strings attached. But life is a little harder and weirder than it was last year, so I figure it can’t hurt. Feel free to pass on by and I won’t be bringing it up past this note.

Far more importantly: thank you for reading! :D

(Bonus 4. Editing this was an absolute nightmare — damn you, tumblr! — so I apologize if anything is super wonky when I finally post.)

See you next week! 💜

[Ko-Fi]

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #mymetas #rwby recaps

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hopeymchope · 4 years ago

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If you like Danganronpa, you might like...

I’ve discovered quite a few games/animes I’ve loved and even new fandoms by using recommendation engines/following online message board recommendations for people who already like the Danganronopa games or anime or manga, and I thought I’d give a quick rundown of how these things have worked out for me.

I’ve been wanting to do this for a while now, honestly... it’s just time-consuming to write it all up, y’know?

Today, I’ll focus primarily on the video game side. If I put “Danganronpa” (any entry) into a recommendation engine, these are the results that I see spit back at me the most... and now that I’ve tried all the most common results, here are my findings.

Persona

Why This is Probably Getting Rec’d: The storylines have teenagers in Japan having to investigate dark goings-on while counterbalancing that with scenes of daily life that are lighter and more humorous. There are also “social link” scenes with the other characters that could easily be compared to the “Free Time Events” in DR, wherein you learn more about the lives of your compatriots via some one-on-one time.

What I Played: Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden on my Vita, then Persona Q on my 3DS. And I watched the main anime adaptions for 3 and 4...

Did It Work for Me? Will it Work for Others? Persona 3 and 4 absolutely worked for me. Q didn’t so much; the Etrian Odyssey-style map-your-own-first-person-dungeon gameplay was a turnoff. Regardless, it’s hard to pin down exactly why there is SO DAMN MUCH crossover between Persona and Danganronpa fans - probably more than anything else I’ve got listed here - because they’re actually very different. These are RPGs with turn-based combat and fantastical story elements involving magic and mystical beings and other worlds. And yet... I do feel the tonal similarity, and the characters feel like they could be at home in a DR game or vice-versa. And I deeply loved 3 and 4. (The stories are individualized to each numbered entry with the exception of the two “Persona 2″ games, so you can jump in on any numbered entry without any problem). I am excited to one day play 5 (although it is so much easier for me to play portables so I really, really, really wish there was some portable version of 5 in existence). Also note that the “social links” didn’t exist UNTIL Persona 3, so you can’t really go back and find that aspect in the first few titles. I can’t say these will work for everyone, but the massive amount of fan overlap says something, so if you’re game for a turn-based RPG AND you like Danganronpa... have I got a soup here for you.

Zero Escape Series (”9 Persons, 9 Hours, 9 Doors” + “Virtue’s Last Reward” + “Zero Time Dilemma”)

Why This is Probably Getting Rec’d: Dark, complex storyline filled with twists, memorable characters trapped in killing game, a mysterious mastermind, visual novel-style presentation, off-kilter humor interjected at surprising times.

What I Played: All three games on the Vita (the first two are collected as “The Nonary Games”).

Did It Work for Me? Will it Work for Others? Yes and yes. Aside from maybe Zanki Zero (see below), this is probably the most obvious thing to recommend to Danganronpa fans, and I’m kind of surprised there isn’t even more of a fandom to it. I can see why it doesn’t have as big of a following as DR - I mean, the humor isn’t quite as widespread and the characters are a bit less quirkily odd - but it’s hard not to get sucked in and fall in love with these stories. The big point of separation for DR fans is that instead of “Trials” where you use logic to solve puzzles, you have to constantly do “escape rooms” and use logic to find your way out of those rooms by doing point-and-click style hunting for items and solving puzzles in those rooms. Just like in DR, however, you’ll find that the more you fail, the more the game gives you increasingly blatant hints as to what you’re supposed to be doing, so it’s not like anything should get you stuck for too long. There’s also the somewhat obtuse nature of how to progress at times, but if you use the branching storyline map whenever you get stuck to look for updated items, you’ll probably be just fine (I hear the DS version of the first game doesn’t have such a map - or even voice acting - so you may need to beware of that being the most obtuse version out there). I loved these games, even if my rankings for them are probably out of sync with how most of the fandom seems to feel.

Phoenix Wright

Why This is Probably Getting Rec’d: Visual novel-style plot and investigation scenes, murder trials with logic puzzles where you need to point out flaws in testimony/falsehoods using evidence, plenty of humor.

What I Played: All of the first game (Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney) on the DS

Did It Work For Me? Will It Work for Others? Well... this is a little unfair, because I played the first one of these before I ever played Danganronpa, but... I didn’t like it. The humor was... lame for me? and I found the trials excruciatingly difficult because MY version of how the logic was flawed was never exactly how they wanted me to approach it. It was a matter of me attacking the wrong parts of sentences over the same general facts but... yeah... I didn’t get into this. Maybe I’m dumb, or was dumb, but it didn’t click for me and I only got through the first game using a guide and expending a lot of patience. I later tried out the anime because I heard it had a good rep (and this was after getting into DR and anime in general), and I didn’t care for that either. So I don’t know about this one.. it wasn’t up my alley. Will it work for other people? Well, clearly it DOES work for other people or this wouldn’t be considered a similar recommendation that comes up so often, typically in the top three of “if you like DR games” results! I do think the humor is FAR different than that of Danganronpa’s, and the characters lack the same kind of nuanced depth you see in DR (but again, that’s just from me playing the first game). But it’s easy to see from the “Why This is Probably Getting Rec’d” that there are elements that would definitely appeal to DR players. Give it a try for yourself if you aren’t already a fan, I’d say. My experience feels... esoteric to what most people think. I may need to try one again. These are on tons of platforms nowadays, many with demos, and often at discounted prices.

Zanki Zero: Last Beginning

Why This is Probably Getting Rec’d: It’s made by largely the same team using the same art style and presentation stlye and is an extremely dark story full of unique personalities and LOADS of weird off-kilter humor with zany mascots somehow overseeing apocalyptic circumstances and the characters look and act like they could easily be in DR and...

What I Played: The whole lone game from start to finish on my PS4.

Did It Work For Me? Will It Work for Others? HELL YES. Everyone who likes DR should really give this a chance. It gives off so much of a similar vibe despite being a “survival”-style game with navigation puzzles rather than logic puzzles, and you can turn off the survival/combat aspects entirely if that’s not your thing! And the story is excellent and the characters are excellent and really just please play this. Underrated game of 2019, and most underrated game that needs a fandom that I’ve ever played.

Fire Emblem

Why This is Probably Getting Rec’d: The bonding sequences you get when your units stand next to each other could be compared to FTEs. It’s got an anime design aesthetic, and the story can go pretty dark. Characters may suffer permadeath (even if other characters won’t react to this fact), so I guess there’s that...

What I Played: Awakening and Fates on the 3DS in their entirety (Yes, I did all three routes on Fates).

Did It Work For Me? Will It Work for Others? I can’t say I fully “get” this one. Fire Emblem is a turn-based strategy game that takes place in a medieval setting, so why is it always turning up in recommendations for people who play Danganronpa? Yes, I did enjoy it quite a bit. I became a newly minted fan of Fire Emblem. Success! And yet... I don’t know that the crossover is obvious to me, nor do I expect it would be a clear-cut case for most DR fans. I don’t even know that all of the traits Iisted under “Why This is Probably Getting Rec’d” actually apply to the whole series. I suppose that any game series that has a balance of darkness and humor plus a “character bonding” scene mechanic might just fall into the “if you like Danganronpa... “ pit, regardless of how incredibly different EVERYTHING ELSE is. But perhaps there’s a deeper connection here than I realize. Care to theorize?

#fire emblem #phoenix wright #danganronpa #danganronpa fandom #zero escape #zero escape series #persona #zanki zero #zanki zero: last beginning #video games

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sinceileftyoublog · 3 years ago

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Small Isles Interview: Filmless Music

Photo by Dustin Aksland

BY JORDAN MAINZER

It’s rare that you find a record with a genesis as specific as The Valley, The Mountains, The Sea, the debut album from Small Isles. The new project of guitarist Jim Fairchild (Grandaddy, former Modest Mouse) and songwriter/composer Jacob Snider has its basis in film scoring. The catch? The films don’t exist. The Valley, The Mountains, The Sea is presented as an imaginary score to an imagined sequel to Ang Lee’s 1997 familial drama The Ice Storm, itself based on Rick Moody’s 1994 novel. And the band’s upcoming, unfinished EP, with strings arranged by Snider and recorded by collaborator Sienna Peck, is, according to the band, a distillation of the concept of the band, one that consciously combines film scoring motifs with traditional songwriting. In a way, you could say that Small Isles is music about film scoring as much as scores itself.

Fairchild and Snider hold the belief that film scores should hold their own as a piece of music independent of visuals, and on The Valley, The Mountains, The Sea, they announce themselves convincingly. Opening track “The Concept”--essentially the prototype for the band--combines vaguely harmonic deep bass sounds with pristine, echoing string plucks, and wordless vocals, building up like an Explosions in the Sky tune. Other tracks, too, juxtapose the ambient with recognizable structures. “Fort Wayne” shimmers atop a drum machine, while the vocal samples of “Maybe We Will” cut in and out among the beats and arpeggios. Each track also has a pristine sense of place, as much of the album was written while Fairchild was on tour with Modest Mouse, tracks like “Fort Wayne” and the washy, atonal “Lake Superior” started in those locations.

I spoke with Fairchild (calling from his home in Ojai, California” and Snider (calling from near Philadelphia) last week, a few days prior to the release of the album via AKP Recordings. (The album comes out on vinyl next month). Read our conversation below, edited for length and clarity, about the band’s artistic process, The Ice Storm, adapting the songs live, and what Small Isles has in common with Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour.

Since I Left You: You’ve called this record an imaginary score to an imaginary film. Did you think of the sequencing of the record in a narrative arc?

Jim Fairchild: Kind of, but honestly, there’s a sequence that originally existed, and I don’t remember what it was, and it would have been more aligned with what I pictured from the movie, but it didn’t work as well as a comprehensive piece of music. The last song on here, “The Plot to Take Clover”, that was earlier before. “Life at One”, the first single, really kicked off me and Jacob’s partnership. It was designed that way; it’s not the way the record plays out. I wrote all of the principle themes, the underpinnings of all the compositions, as an imagined score to some sort of a sequel to The Ice Storm. I don’t know exactly how it would play out with Rick Moody. The first one was really successful. I have this idea for a similar type of movie that takes place in contemporary California and all these cues I can use as a mood board. Like, let’s sit down and figure out what this palate is. Let’s write a movie around it. That’s what I was thinking.

SILY: You wrote a lot of this while on tour. Had you conceived of the idea before then and wrote while on tour because of your downtime, or was the downtime the launching point for the idea?

JF: I was totally inspired by the idea. I started some of the themes that popped up, but once the actual Ice Storm Ang Lee idea came to mind, it was really generative. It’s how a lot of this stuff works with me. It kind of floats around for a while, reaching out this way or that. Once the real kernel appears, it’s like, “That’s it!” It all happens pretty quickly. That was definitely the case with this. It was the real fine-tuning that’s the most time consuming. That’s what Jacob and I have experienced. The EP that we’re releasing later this year, basically how it’s worked so far is I send him a sequence of chords and basic rhythm, which happens pretty quickly. Then--and we’ve only done it on Zoom with the new EP, though it was the same with “Life at One”--there was this theme. Jacob came in, we were gonna write some other stuff. He came in with a mic and sang some stacked harmonies. Then it’s carving out all the other elements around that to make it.

These are unconventional compositions. They’re meant to accompany visual ideas. With that in mind, cues and scoring music doesn’t always work in recorded music, traditionally speaking. There’s all these lengths, sometimes time signatures shift, a melody might exist in an unconventional way to fit what’s happening visually. I really wanted to embrace that. With “Life at One”, Jacob did all this stuff, and there’s this really interesting sound I don’t know how to describe. He asked, “What are those over there?” [My partner Natasha Wheat] had made these ceramic bells for me, and that’s the most fun part about working with Jacob. A lot of the people who are trained as Jacob is--and I say this with great admiration for his abilities--are stuck in certain modalities. This is a perfect example. He looked at the bells and said, “Let’s do that.” He grabbed a drumstick and played the edge of these bells and processed them. That was a big feature in the composition of “Life at One”. This all happens very thematically and reflexively, but to then carve it up and get it to have purpose, meaning, ebb, and flow and make it work visually--that’s where the dirty shit happens. [laughs] I also look forward to when Jacob and I can be in person more. We’ve made a lot happen over the past 7 months, but it’s hard when you’re not in the same room. Plus, I’d like to show off. If he’s sitting right next to me, play some fast guitar...[laughs]

SILY: The title of the record refers to various aspects of topography, and there are song titles that refer to specific places, like “Fort Wayne” and “Lake Superior”. Do these aspects exist within the narrative of the film?

JF: “Lake Superior” and “Fort Wayne” were just started in those places, literally. I picture the Ang Lee movie--the new Ang Lee movie that is inevitably gonna take form because he’s gonna hear me and Jacob’s music and think, “You’re right, we gotta do this,”--in this zone a little bit east of Berkeley. It’s the West Coast equivalent of the Connecticut zone where The Ice Storm exists. It’s this affluent, green place. But the reason I chose to keep the others as titles is like, Fort Wayne, that’s pretty grand and has Batman implications. And Lake Superior, what a fucking great name for a lake, you know? I like the power of those, and if I were sitting down and writing a movie, those titles could be at least generative of a conversation.

SILY: What about the other song titles? What inspired them?

JF: “The Concept” is literally the concept for our band. The concept has expanded since then, but out of the ordinary--no sounds are out of the ordinary in modern production--but in the film scoring landscape, out of the ordinary, ambient, or textural sounds. But then big, beautiful melodies. Jacob’s voice. All that stuff. Synthesizing our two strengths. Jacob’s also a songwriter and makes amazing songs, but my background’s in bands, and so I treat our relationship as if it’s a band. Taking our two strengths. Jacob’s more conventionally trained, schooled, and knowledgeable than I am. He has a richer depth of knowledge in theory and orchestration. I can arrange that way, but he knows what’s going on. Mine is more reflexive--I don’t want to say auto-didactic because that’s kind of an arrogant term--but learning through mistakes. I think Jacob’s made fewer mistakes than I have.

SILY: What were all the instruments used on the record?

JF: There’s a lot of found stuff. 12-string guitar. I was writing it using this Rosewood Fender Stratocaster that Fender made for me. The 12-string is prominent on “Life At One”. There’s a piano Jacob played. There’s a lot of me coming up with drum beats. A lot of the initial stuff was in the box. I’d roll in my portable studio backstage, I’d have a guitar, Universal Audio space, whatever drums and synths I had.

SILY: What is your background in film scoring?

JF: I don’t have a specific background. From a very early age, I’ve been into film scores. I’d buy them starting when I was 15 or 16. CDs. Pretty obvious releases, but things like Danny Elfman’s Batman score, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Sort of getting into Jerry Goldsmith. Elfman, Morricone. I like some of the Bernard Hermann stuff. I started studying it from the way I study everything: figuring out chord sequences, the way the melodies work, to the degree I was able. In the early 2010s, I was making a lot of music that was getting licensed for TV. Once Modest Mouse really started touring [2015 album] Strangers to Ourselves, I let a lot of those pursuits wither a little bit. But I’d always longed for a collaboration. A lot of that stuff was done in a solitary way, so I felt very fortunate when Jacob and I met. He was into that idiom but has a range of skills I don’t have. We also really work well together. All the reflexive stuff that happens, the melodies, it’s easy for us to go back and forth and see what we’re into and where to keep going. Neither of us get upset when the other person isn’t feeling whatever the direction is.

As I get older, I realize the value of stimulating multiple senses. I look forward to Jacob and I doing more of this stuff in collaboration with people. The Riley Thompson video for “Life At One” was him responding to a finished track, but in an ideal world, filmmakers would come to us and, in the way Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross work with David Fincher, where he says, “This is the concept for the new film,” and Jacob and I come back and say, “This is the sonic and melodic landscape we’re thinking of, and here are some character cues. Let’s take it from there.” I love being in conversation with people collaboratively and am attracted to the idea of it across media.

SILY: Do you think the idea that the music might not be responding to a finished film would make the score stand on its own more as a piece of music?

JF: The scores that I like totally stand on their own as music. When Morricone passed away, I read that John Zorn had a quote when they were hanging out in the late 80′s or early 90′s, Zorn said, “Don’t do it unless you’re thinking about what the soundtrack record is gonna be like.” The music needs to be cool enough to just be music.

SILY: Tell me about the album art.

JF: Natasha and I sold our place in Los Angeles last year and moved to Ojai. We thought it was a temporary transition, and now it’s somewhat permanent, because we bought a place here. We’ve been in this guesthouse next door since November. I like taking pictures at night with whatever ambient light [there is], so I took that picture from our place. I wanted there to be contrast with this technicolor paint and silver border on the upper and lower parts of the image. Homes are very interesting to me, and there’s a lot of that in The Ice Storm. There’s that shelf people look at from the outside and think, “It could be dilapidated, it could be beautiful.” People think of it as a thing. But there’s this whole other world that only exists inside of there. It’s always fascinating to me when walking by the place. Stories in the shell. I like the idea of a structure having implications. I don’t have an agenda for what those implications might be, but I like the idea that there could be implications there.

SILY: Jacob, when Jim came to you with this idea, how aware were you of The Ice Storm?

Jacob Snider: I had seen it. I don’t know if in our first meeting, it came up that specifically and clearly that this is where the music was going. In fact, it started more as a casual meeting of creative types. When I came over to Jim’s studio, he just showed me the latest thing he was working on without any huge idea behind it expressed to me in that moment. Jim might have been thinking it in that moment, but that day was more, “Alright, I’m working on something, what do you hear and is there something you think you could contribute to it?” It was really organic. Like Jim mentioned before, the best thing you can do when making something is show it to somebody else, because they’re gonna hear it in a different way or they might suggest something if you’re open to it. People can make amazing solitary music, but it will always be just their thing. You bring in someone else, there’s a different energy, a different perspective.

As it stands, I do love that film. It’s really haunting. Jim and I talked before that it’s not a movie you can watch every week. It’s heavy, and the themes are deep: family, loss, grief, betrayal. It’s a great one. I think it’s a movie that’s cinematic but also has a lot of depth. I think that’s what we’re going for with Small Isles. It has shades of film music but also shades of rock and roll and romantic string writing from the orchestral traditions. I think we’re trying to combine a few things at once, and we’re really curious how it starts to strike people and how some filmmakers respond to it.

SILY: Are you both generally Ang Lee fans?

JF: I haven’t devoured all of his work. There’s plenty I like. But I’m so in love with [The Ice Storm]. I was in love with the book before the movie came out. He treated it so beautifully. As high in the sky as it is for two nascent film composers to say, “I want to work with Ang Lee,” it’s very important to know where you want to go. It may take a long time to get there, but [it’s important] to have a place where you’re headed. That was definitely the case in the early Grandaddy days, and having watched [Modest Mouse lead singer] Isaac [Brock] for as long as I did, I think it was the case there, too. It may not be as specific knowing that I’m traveling in this direction, but that direction can totally change. There can be diversions that knock you off your course positively or negatively, but thinking about how beautifully he treated that material, that’s where I want to go.

SILY: How are you adapting Small Isles to a live performance?

JF: We’re gonna play at least some of this, maybe all of this live. I’m really looking forward to it. Jacob’s only on half this record, and the 5-song EP we’re releasing later this year, he’s on all of. That’s a straight-up 50/50 collaboration. I’m looking forward to the stuff Jacob didn’t contribute to on the record, hearing what he does with strings. We’re still figuring out how we’re gonna approach it. Jacob will be on keys and vocals, and I might sing a little bit. I’ll be on guitar. Our friend Sienna who Jacob went to school with, who’s doing the strings, we’re talking about having her lead a double string quartet. I would like to have a drummer doing some electronic drums and maybe a kit as well. I definitely don’t imagine we’ll totally nail it on night 1. There’s a lot of stuff we have to work out. There aren’t many antecedents in this zone, but something like Explosions in the Sky mixed with Johann Johannsson. I saw [the latter] in 2010 in San Francisco; there was a little bit of strings, various electronics, and he was on piano. That was a very striking performance. So the explosiveness of a big arena rock show with lots of subtleties and nuance that can come from strings and orchestral.

SILY: What else is next for Small Isles?

JF: We wanna finish this EP. I also really love the way a lot of rap and hip-hop people have gotten it right over the years. Using current listening habits and technology to get out as much music as possible. I definitely have the seeds for at least another EP behind this. Once we get this EP done--there’s just a little bit of tinkering to be done over the next month before going into the mixing stage--I want to make as much music as possible and release it. With the spirits of the world willing, I want to get off the ground live and collaborate with filmmakers, dancers, artists, people in the visual medium. I just love making music with Jacob and this type of music. I’d like to have a few releases a year. EP length [or] album length. I have a number of concepts written down. The seeds that Jacob and I have been playing with to make the EP. I was thinking about The Last Black Man in San Francisco when making this EP, and I’d love to collaborate with those filmmakers. Even just being in person, to tell Jacob, “What do you think of this sequence?” and have him respond without dealing with latency issues and dodgy DSL.

SILY: Anything you’ve been listening to, watching, or reading lately that’s caught your attention?

Jacob Snider: I’ve been listening to a lot of pop. I’ve been listening to the Olivia Rodrigo record [Sour]. I think there’s great writing on there, great production. Watching, I’ll just piggyback on The Last Black Man in San Francisco. It took me a while to finally see it, but I had a filmmaker friend tell me I had to, and I loved it. Also the other film Emile Mosseri did the score for, Kajillionaire, the Miranda July film. Reading-wise, I’m about to jump back into Louise Erdrich’s The Round House.

JF: I’ve been digging the Olivia record, too.

JS: There’s some cool strings on there too from the guy who does a lot of the strings for Portugal. The Man, [Paul Cartwright]. They created a string orchestra sound with just one guy layering violin and viola, which is really cool, and that’s what we’re doing with our collaborator Sienna Peck. There’s totally room for that now, the way the world has been so remote. We can’t put 16 players in a room right now due to public health restrictions, so let’s get one person. It’s really hard to do--you can be a great violinist and not be able to layer yourself in a way that makes it sound like a string orchestra. You have to change your position in the room, the way you’re playing slightly, pretend to be three different people sharing a stand. That’s what you’ll hear on the next record.

JF: I just got into How to Change Your Mind, the Michael Pollan book about psychedelics, which I really loved. I just started a book called The Magic Years, which is about child development. I have a three-and-a-half-year-old son, and I’m very fascinated by what’s going on in his brain and what makes him make the decisions he makes. Just how to be a better dad. I am always a religious reader of The New Yorker, every week it comes out. Natasha and I watched The Kids, a documentary [about the making of Larry Clark’s Kids]. When that movie came out, Grandaddy were skateboarders, so it was important to us. But even as a young kid, I felt that it was really exploitative, and the documentary verifies it. It’s heartbreaking. Larry Clark is a really derelict dude. Truly lecherous. But [The Kids] is a beautiful movie. We’ve been watching Los Espookys. I’m really excited about Vince Staples’ upcoming record. My friend Nik Freitas put out a new song. My musical diet’s gotten really regressive in a way because my son is very into the Super Furry Animals record Radiator. It’s all he wants to listen to in the car.

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iamacolor · 4 years ago

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fashion queen! which nct era has the best fashun in ur opinion?? and if u were a designer which neos would u pick as ur models?

I was so excited to answer this that I wrote several pages and it basically turned into a style analysis for each unit so I sure hope you have some time on your hands to read everything I’ve just written! (I did not reread so sorry for any typing mistake)

NCT is known to be experimental in their music and that’s also the case in their styling so there’s a lot for me to get into even though sometimes it’s a miss. One thing I will say though is that when it comes to the styling in mv/teasers, what’s around the clothes is super important because if you have a very specific styling concept, your set design or graphic design needs to complement that and give the audience more clues on how to read all these elements together (the cherry bomb era is a great example of that with all the added graphic elements and the predominance of the colour pink) and recently I’ve found that the creative team has not really gone further than just putting nct in an outfit in front of a basic background so it makes for a pretty underwhelming result

But let’s move on to my favourite styling eras. I’m going to do this per unit (I’ll finish with NCT U) and define an era by its teaser pictures and the mv (and not go through all the performance looks during the promotion period)

I’m putting this under a read more because it’s reaaally long (I put pictures so that it’s not just one big chunk of text)

NCT 127

Easily the most experimental unit when it comes to fashion, especially in their first years where they would wear mix of sportswear, grunge references, avant-garde fashion and a lot of layers. When it comes to their debut “Firetruck”, I think it fitted the song really well but that it didn’t fit all the members equally (especially the younger ones, for me Taeyong and Taeil pulled it off the best – it’s expected of Taeyong but I also think that Taeil always stand out when they go for edgy/unconventional look, I think it really suits him).

Anyway, just to say that they were off to a very strong start and then I’m just going to kindly ignore the Limitless styling and move on to Cherry Bomb!

One thing nicely done for CB is how when you look at a group picture they’re clearly all following the same concept but they’re not necessarily matching or giving off the same vibes if you take them individually. I love the use of the colour pink which brings a) a great visual impact (you don’t ever see that much pink at once – especially on men) and b) an harmony despite the shapes and styles of their outfits being so vastly different, you’ve got ties, tousled, shirts, little frilled collars, stripes and all-over prints, sportswear and formal wear… (ex: taeyong’s short jacket is reminiscent of something a little luxurious, even maybe historical/noble with the little added embroidery-like details, it reminds me of these boleros jackets worn by toreros that are often red/gold VS doyoung’s overalls is an outfit that has a much more recent origin as it was first worn by factories workers, it’s usually blue or grey and is meant to be practical rather than pleasing to the eye -> here it fits very well with the general setting of the mv in what looks like an empty industrial storage space)

This second look is more of a game on how to deconstruct formal wear (there are less prints and no bold colours, their hair is less messy…) but they don’t just add sportswear like the bomber jacket, you can find rock or more “modern” elements with the leather jackets or the jean jackets. All in black and white so great contrast with the previous looks, although that mix and match concept is still there. My favourite elements are the checkered ones (worn by taeyong, taeil and haechan) as it reminds me of the strategy element of the chess game which fits pretty well with all the weapons and other arms visible in the mv (a bit like a nod to the game battleship)

This one I love that they developed their own print, especially since it’s another graphic element used elsewhere (see their album cover), because it’s a great way to really introduce their identity as a group, through the different visual elements they put out in a comeback, it’s like a logo but as a print. And all the teasers and the mv did a great job at mixing 2D/3D contents so that’s another nice way to be cohesive. It’s not my fave look out of the 3 (especially because I do not approve of that belt-suspenders-bag they gave Johnny, it’s like everything you don’t want to put a dancer in and it’s ugly as well) but I still like the fact that’s it’s another nod to the battle/strategy aspect of this comeback, like they’re on a mission to hit the stage and conquer it

Then fast forward to my other favourite one, Simon Says! (No teaser pictures here because they don’t show anything or they show not enough lol)

First of all THE MASKS

Oh how I wish they could’ve been shown more (imagine teasers with the members wearing them!!! I would’ve loved individual teasers based on each of the masks concepts) Once again, a great to have group concept without making everyone wear the same thing. They’re all super different and full of details. Haechan’s is the only one from what I could who’s mask is actually a mask and not a fully covering hood. The materials and techniques used on these are either evocative of “fragile” things like glass and flowers but theses elements have their own hidden strength. Some others are covered in lace, pearls, fringes or fur…all these things are usually considered to be precious or even luxurious but it covers their faces and their identity and they throw it away in rebellion (and I think it’s also super interesting how Taeyong who takes off his mask first has the least ornamented one)

Then the outfits themselves. Simon Says in an interesting MV because unlike most others they wear one outfit for most of the MV (the second one appears quite late in the mv and is lit and staged in a way that makes it less visible). It’s a mostly grey/white set of outfits which is usually a colour combo for office wear or maybe factory workers, it’s not something that can seem very exciting or edgy. The styling in these outfits reminds me of the works of Japanese designers who came to Paris in the 80’s and kind of shook the whole high fashion system by bringing a different type of shapes, aesthetic and purpose to fashion (Rei Kawakubo, Yohji Yamamoto…). These designers went on to become super successful and inspired another wave of “avant-garde” designers nicknamed “the 6 of Anvers” (Anvers is a city in Belgium), this group includes Martin Margiella, Dries Van Noten…And to me the outfits in Simon Says really fit into this aesthetic. Unconventional fits, various layers, it’s not so much mix and match than a work on contrast between structure and fluidity (Yuta’s half skirt with un-trimed edges, Haechan’s long shirt with the long bow and the fitted jacket, Mark’s top with the various see-through layers of different lengths…).

An other interesting details (which to me calls back to the mask and that tension in the song/concept of letting go/being free of expectations), is the way they all have thick strings tied on their feet/ankles. Not holding them back because their feet aren’t tied together but there’s still this clear restriction of the garment itself, a reminder that there are tied to something and not completely free (also an interesting choice when dressing dancers who would need to have no added weight or discomfort in their outfit to dance but visually something is holding their ankles)

Honorable mentions:

Kick It– they managed to create very memorable outfits while taking inspirations from already well known elements (both for the fighting/training outfits and the bomber jackets). The black and white outfits especially are very original as performance outfits/dancing clothes since the og garment they’re inspired by has already such a strong identity outside of the performing arts and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it be used as a stage outfit? Or concept? It’s a nice exemple of how you can take inspiration for something designed to be useful and to be efficient (in fighting) and turn it into an aesthetic.

Truthfully, martial art training outfit was already an “aesthetic” on its own but they made it a performance costume and now I do feel like it’s one of these looks that everyone will remember (like if there was a “most memorable kpop outfits” list it could easily have kick it’s black/white fits). The rest of the outfits for that concept weren’t as memorable/original to me although I feel like it showed a new approach to the styling of nct 127 as a group since they all had very similar outfits this time (especially when wearing the jackets).

Also, interestingly, that shot of Jaehyun that had everyone go “wow” ? Well it’s impactful because it’s him and he looks like that and it’s shot in a very specific way, but it’s also even more impactful because he’s the only one who gets to wear that kind of outfit in the mv. Everyone else has 3 sets of outfits (black and white, shiny black, red jacket and black pants) but he has 4 and that suit is only used in that shot which makes for a greater impact!

And I feel like Kick It in terms of styling opened a new era for NCT 127 has it kind of broke their usual mix and match/edgy concept. This time they were clearly referencing something already well known (either martial arts, the 90s…), and the members were all matching and they kept on doing that with the military jackets in punch, the other 90s concept in nct 2020…

Touch – for the way the outfits match the sets (in all their individual sets their outfits have a detail in a matching colour), the focus on colours !!! You can see that this whole concept was designed with this colour game/colour progression between the outfits and the set in mind. It’s just very pleasing to the eyes and a great contrast to their usual stuffs (also I wrote my graduation paper on colours so I am really into creative use of colours like this)

OK now moving on to Dream!!

The interesting thing about Dream compared to NCT 127 is that from the beginning although their outfits had to match the song an the concept of the comeback it also had to match their age. Dream’s a group that had to look young when debuting (to the point where they wore outfits that made them look even younger than they were which is rarely done for boy groups) and then they had to transition into adulthood, and all of that had to be made visible. In that aspect, I really like the styling for We Young and Boom (especially when you look at them at the same time).

For We Young, the styling is meant to be reminiscent of school/boy scout uniforms but with a marine vibe. It makes for playful outfits that aren’t too childish but that also aren’t grown up. I prefer the “seaside” outfits as I don’t really like school uniforms as a concept for styling and I think it’s really a choice that suited them and the song so well, it really fitted their energy. It’s playful but it also has a vintage touch to it as these outfits with their stripes and their squared flap at the back date back to the XIXth century (I just found out that it all started with the queen Victoria dressing up her kid in an outfit inspired by the royal navy uniforms for a painting after a cruise ).

Boom on the other side is their first proper “grown-up” concept. We go up was already more grown up but still very “teenager-ish” and although they were mostly teenagers when they did Boom it was clear that this was supposed to be their first entry into “adulthood” as a group at least. And although they did wear a sportswear/casual outfits which is something that isn’t related to age (and I really like the black and white “skeleton” set which already feels more grown-up and more “stylish” than the other casual outfit) , they wore two other “grown-up” elements: suits and all-jean outfits.

And yeah teenagers, and kids wear jeans too but a full jean-on-jean outfit is more of a “grown-up” fashion choice and it makes them look like young men rather than boys. As for the suits, I just really love when stylists play with the codes of that garment (length of the jacket, tightness of the pants, the way the shirt is tucked in…).

Notice how Renjun has a really short jacket, Chenle’s pants are wide, Jeno has a tail…Once again, a really interesting aspect of Kpop is the variations of the same concept based on the members. In the mv, there is a tension between their more grown up selves (the one in suits, the one with a craft/a path) and their young selves (the one running around in the field, the one laying down in the flowers and eating a cake). And there is also in these outfits and the contrast between them this tension, this contrast…which path should they go? The jeans are the more laide back, innocent outfits, whereas the suits come with responsibilities and status (and you’ll notice that in the scene where jisung is left alone to blow his candle it’s when he’s wearing jeans not when he’s in the suits).

Now on to WayV!!

WayV are different from the two in the sense than when they debuted they couldn’t have an “age” concept or an edgy concept because 127 and dream had already taken those and I feel like for that reason they’re still looking for what makes them stand out visually from the others (and in my opinion it’s not in whatever they were wearing for turn back time!). WayV’s concept is space and time travel, it’s building a new life, a new worl, going beyond anything! In my mind, they’re either supposed to feel a bit “otherworldly” (either spectacular or literally like they’re from another world/another universe, a little bit futuristic maybe?) or to look like explorers/travellers (they have a lot of travel/transportation “gears” references in their outfits). Their MVs also have a very different production than the other nct mvs (the scale and the way it’s filmed, the sets…it’s a different approach and it’s usually much more “grand” for their title tracks). The great thing about WayvV styling is usually that they match the outfits well with the world that the mv is set in (like in Moonwalk for example you get a sense of the world they’re in and the fact that it’s not ours or at least not as we know it now through the way they dress – you can’t really say oh it’s inspired by this era or by this or that because -at least- to me it immediately gives me a vibe of something that could be worn in a sci-fi movie, almost like a costume) or that they allude to travel in their styling.

When they debuted with Regular they went for a very sleek and high fashion look which worked really well for them! Even their more “casual” looks were a bit striking and I think that’s very “wayv-like” to me.

Same goes for Take Off where they mix the individual styles (and I don’t like ten’s leopard fur sleeveless jacket at all) and the group concepts – the “flying” outfits and the “racing” outfits (that last one is my favourite! I love the silhouette it creates with the tight pants and the larger tops with an emphasis on the waist).

There’s something a bit extra to WayV - which is why some of their outfits remind me of costumes more than fashion while at the same time they’re the most “high fashion” unit– like the “flying” outfit in Take Off are recognizable as “flying gear” but you can’t really tell what they’re flying, it feels once again like something that they could wear in like star wars or a similar kind of story.

Imagine a movie about 7 men on another planet trying to come together to overcome the dark forces or whatever’s bad on their planet in a futuristic society with a mix of “traditional” and “trendy” outfits? That’s WayV. The movie the 5th Sense? That’s WayV but on steroids. They’re also the only group with actual characters in their mvs, they’re all supposed to have a backstory or an individual setting and find a way to get together in their mvs.

Anyway all that to say that it’s hard for me to pick an era for them because they’ve only had a few and they still feel like they’re looking to solidify their concept, and since moonwalk and turn back time really set the styling in different worlds than ours, you have to look at how they fit in that world rather than ours and I think Moonwalk does it best since it’s the most cohesive one visually. But then I think Regular had the best individual styling!

Okay this is super long but we’re finally getting to NCT U!!!!

Number one favourite:

The Year Party outfits!!!! I’ve already talked about this but I love when they say we’ll put them in suits and then since they have to make a different one for each of them they cut bits an dpieces of the suits here and there, play with lengths. It’s not a revolutionary concept but in terms of searching for a shape, searching for variations of an already so famous, so well-known garment (everyone has seen a suit, and so many designers have already deconstructed it and then put it back together and so on) it’s so nice, it’s almost like a full collection given how many members there are and it’s just a good tailoring work.It almost feel like an exercise of how many variations of an outfit can you think of? And it looks fun to do! It’s all about the details and the way the layers are set together.

The accessories add to the “formal attire” aspect of it. It almost has a ceremonial look to it. A bit of royalty with the futuristic vibe usually associated with WayV. The dark blue suits were pretty classic, the most interesting details (for me at least) were on the light blue ones. Especially since it’s a rare colour to find in formal wear or in ceremonial wear. In general, I feel like it’s a pretty rare colour in fashion outside of like shirts and baby clothes? I think it was a great styling choice for a content like the year party although I do wish they (either NCT or WayV who’ve touched upon this kind of outfit a bit already) would do a full comeback with this kind of styling (like the lighter version of the black and green outfits in SuperM’s One). It’s not revolutionary but it was something new for NCT and I really hope they use that elegant/futuristic concept once again.

Also in these outfits, the jewelry is super important and adds to the “grand” aspect of these outfits. The concept is that these aren’t ordinary outfits for ordinary men, we’re witnessing something “special” and so they aren’t wearing their usual jewels either (of course the big chains are still there but differently look at that necklace jaehyun is wearing)

Honorable mention:

Boss & Baby Don’t Stop (they’re different but they go together in my mind lol). Look at them in their uniforms! And also they had doyoung wearing these sunglasses

Ok I think I’m done, if you’ve made it this far thank you so much and I hope it was a nice read!!

As for who would I chose as my models…it really depends on what I’d make them wear tbh for menswear the things I’d like to design would either be something like formal wear or knitwear – I’d pick Lucas, Taeyong and Doyoung (I think they’re the most model-like members and could pull off pretty much anything even my non-edgy concept because I can’t do that lol and they pose very well) and then depending on the concept I’d pick between Winwin, Jaehyun, Kun, Jungwoo, Taeil, Haechan and Shotaro (the way I struggled to remember all the members at once…there are too many really)

#this is soooo long omg I didn't know I had that much to say wow #I hope you've managed to read it all and that it was somewhat coherent and clear #now it's time to eat #nct #nct 127 #nct dream #wayv #nct 2020 #fashion #leemarx #I've got mail #vinformation

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ronnytherandom · 4 years ago

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I forgot to watch content all week so i wrote about games ive been playing

9/2/2021: The Truman Show

You should fear your fears but embrace them and use them to guide you into the unknown, to explore and experience what life has to offer. Fear stands between you and the fullest experience of life so you must pass through it to better yourself. Heed not the walls built about you and the chains made to hold you. Though the architects insist it will preserve your life, containment is anathema to life. Do not take in faith the benevolence of powers that be; instead trust those who would support and liberate you, guide you through fear and into life.

As best I can lay it out, I think this is the philosophy of the Truman show but there is so much more to read into it also. There is critique of systems of commodification and celebrity (i.e. capitalism) reducing human beings to a consumable good as well as encouragement to find and pursue your goals despite adversity and even sensibility which is also tied to the illusion of economic responsibility. You can’t put a camera inside a human head, you can never “know” them without being an active and intrinsic part of their life, but also there is need for reciprocation. If one half exists with ulterior motive then the entire relationship is rotten; sincere humanity is what creates real connections. Without such your world is fake. A world built around one person is a world where no one can truly live. All these actors have given up basically their entire lives for the sake of watching Truman have his life built around him by outside forces, have allowed themselves to be commodified and dehumanised for the good of one man, Christoph. The man at the top has delusions of grandeur and thinks only of his own bottom line, he cares not for his subjects but simply wants them to do as he tells them because it benefits him to commodify their lives and interactions. Even then he cannot stand to lose control and in seeking to demonstrate Truman’s “realness” he structures his life so thoroughly that eventually there’s no reality left, only a script and adverts. But the people watching still empathise with Truman because everyone in the working class understands what it is to be trapped because real life is our own Truman show and one day we must all pass through fear, step out of the dome and create a real life for ourselves outside of the system of commodification which consumes everyone’s life and removes all realness and sincerity and emotional catharsis from it.

I unreservedly love this film.

14/2/2021: Assorted Game Reviews

Horizon Zero Dawn (Unfinished due to technical issues, 45 hours inc. parts of Frozen Wilds): This game is really cool and really fun. I think it is defined by its incredible setting which somehow creates a fresh feeling post-apocalyptic environment. Said environment creates intriguing alt-future lore and some very interesting environments to explore. I love the machine designs (especially tallnecks!) and was very sad to hear one of their contributing artists passed away recently but I’m glad their work lives on in this visually stunning game. I’m a sucker for Ubisoft-style open world games simply because it tickles a certain kind of itch and somehow this non-Ubisoft game has outdone Ubisoft on their own formula, which is hilarious, but also good for me as running around this world exploring and clearing map markers is engaging fun. Not least because of the combat. I have a minor criticism here that the combat feels slightly awkward on mouse and keyboard, the arrows never seem to go where I’m aiming, but aside from that the experience of fighting is a grand one. Enemies never lose their threat and I love the weak spot system the game employs which makes every tool useful in niche circumstance and rewards curiosity. It specifically manages this in a way that I feel the Witcher series could learn from if it ever returns; by making head on assault less viable and encouraging tactical hunting. I do feel this system makes hunting robots so fun that by contrast hunting humans becomes a chore however, though I noted this improves in the dlc with the addition of humans with elemental weaknesses limited in number as they are. I cannot speak for the story in entirety but what I encountered was pretty good, though I feel as if it was only just really getting going at the point where I could not continue. I find Aloy to be a compelling and well portrayed protagonist and though I can guess about her origin and the ultimate end of the alt-future apocalypse I still want to see how it plays out on screen, so will return to this as soon as I’ve fixed it.

Rimworld (122 hours. Familiar with but do not own Royalty Expansion):

Rimworld is one of those super special games that I don’t think I have a single problem with. Fair warning it can be brutal and is heavily dependent on RNG but this allows it to create truly unique and interesting scenarios on a constant basis. In the wider perspective it could be described as formulaic, with regular cycles of managing the settlement between raids and random events, but the devils in the details. Colonist traits, health and skills dictate how you play and sometimes you’ll be forced to adapt as some colonists simply refuse to perform some tasks. The depth of health particularly amuses me, in that each little part of someone’s body is modelled in a way. If you’re in a firefight you may take a single bullet which grazes your finger and you’re fine. Alternately it could pierce your human leather cowboy hat, your skull and kill you instantly and the game will tell you exactly what happened. The risk/reward element is addictive enough, and that’s without accounting for just how cool it is to see your colony slowly expand. Establishing more and more options for crafting is fun and shows off the full range of different items in the game which is fucking extensive. Between clothing, weapons, armour, sculpture and drugs to name only a few you have the opportunity to create many varied production lines either for your colonists or to trade for money and there is a lot of fun to be had here as well as it is quite satisfying to see psychoid you have grown personally become the cocaine your colonists snort to help them stay awake on limited sleep. From an archaeologist’s perspective it is especially cool to look back over your base and see the hints of how and why structures were built and remember the history of your limitations and development through structure. I think the lore of the universe is really cool too, a very 40k-esque kind of place except with far less order, somehow. But the universe does an excellent job of feeling alive and moving constantly on both a planetary and interstellar level. You can fully believe that while you build wooden shacks to shield yourself from terrifyingly low temperatures there are simultaneously rich pieces of shit living it up on the glitterworld that’s one system over. The music does an excellent job of creating the wild west frontier atmosphere the game cultivates to great effect. Ultimately, for just being a grid with a series of different numbers attached, this game does a fantastic job of creating a compelling, brutal and very real colony management experience. I dont think I can properly put into words the grandness and scope of this one. I didnt even mention the modding scene, which is expansive and tailors to basically any need you could have. The Rim is a terrifying place but theres so much fun to be had.

Factorio (86 hours, mostly 1.1): Having completed a game of Factorio I can tell you reliably that this is one of the best games ever made, thoroughly addictive and fun. If you like numbers, logistics, TRAINS, its gonna be your thing. Not to mention its probably the only documented case of a game with no bugs (so far as official forums are concerned). Strictly speaking this games combat is not the most engrossing thing but good lord do you feel it when you acquire a flamethrower. The way each aspect of the game (production, research, logistics, combat, upgrades for everything therein) feeds into the next is a really well constructed balancing act such that you must experience the full game in order to complete it and I always appreciate this kind of design. I think its one of the best tenets of factory game design especially as its something present in Satisfactory too. Beyond all of this generalised good the game is also excellent in its intricacies, the architecture necessary to build a maximum efficiency base, the level of planning and organisation that can be employed is mind-blowing. Not to mention the mod community, factorion is already an extensive experience and some mad bastards have seen fit to complicate it further, hats off to them. This really is a great moment in gaming.

Destiny 2 (198 hours, all expansions, played some post Forsaken release, mostly Season of Arrivals onwards, spent roughly £20 on microtransactions):

This is a very interesting and enjoyable experience, but I must say it can be a bit controversial at times. What its does particularly well is moment to moment gameplay and design in all aspects. The game is stunning; between environments, cosmetics, shaders ships and ghosts there’s a vast range of incredible things to see, all rooted in the “pseudo-magi-science” aesthetic it’s got going on. The class design is excellent and you really do feel like you embody this rampaging madman / agile gunman / space wizard archetype, whichever you choose to play. The abilities, especially supers, are very satisfying. Everything has heft and power behind it which can be felt in all aspects of design; sound and animation is top notch. Movement is cool, you can feel how fast you move both on foot and in vehicles and the navigation has a little fun subtlety depending on your class jump, even if you can bounce unpredictably occasionally. But for the love of god why is the wall kick in there? It has only ever served to push me from a ledge into a bottomless pit. You're looking to remove antiquated content? Start there. Some guns are not so good to shoot but there’s such a great range of guns that are fun its like complaining about one drop in an ocean; and enemies are fun to shoot at, each faction distinct in meaningful ways and presenting an effective challenge. Speaking of oceans, that’s one way to describe the lore. I haven’t dived too deep but it keeps going down forever and everything I’ve read is intriguing. As a former Elder Scrolls lore nut this is something I could definitely sink my teeth into, though its much more of a pulpy sci-fi vibe than a pure nonsense vibe. I do think the game has a bit of a loot problem, primarily in regards to the conflict between high stats and looking good. This should never be a conflict, and yes you can apply ornaments to any purple gear but that’s not enough when I spend the entire time grinding power levels and thus must change armour and weapons on a constant basis to progress. This game needs a true transmog system and if not that, rethink how gear power level works. Perhaps rather than earning new instances of gear you always possess a version of it and the loot you acquire in missions just upgrades your instance to your current overall power level? This would serve to do away with the current upgrade system which I think is a needless additional grind. Perhaps it could be retained in using enhancement cores to empower gear as present but necessitating a whole upgrade module to keep your favourite weapon on hand is kind of painful honestly. There is also at present the issue of sunsetting gear, mildly controversial to say the least. If it’s necessary to streamline the game and make it function moving forward so be it but surely loot pools should be adjusted so you can actually get useful loot from older locations? And why sunset personal instances of gear which can be acquired at the regular power level anyway? I had to throw away my favourite bow and hunt down a new version of the exact same weapon for… what reason? I do think destination navigation leaves a little to be desired also. I get that having a physical hub world is meaningful but Destiny does not have a very extroverted community; I can count the times someone noticed me in the tower on one hand. And its not even like there’s fun activities to be found in the same sense as say Deep Rock Galactic, which really does take advantage of its hub. Perhaps for players who simply want to go about their business all of the vendors could be set into a menu system where just clicking an icon takes you to their menu from anywhere in the system rather than, per se, having to go through an entire loading screen (Which takes you to orbit and back) to reach a location which serves simply as the front for four menus. These are established player problems. As a dedicated PvE player I can say that this game is immensely fun in combat and growing in power does feel really good. It’s something I recommend getting into, there’s just some very large creases that need ironing which the Bungie should really take the time to address rather than pushing out new in game content every three months.

#the truman show #horizon zero dawn #rimworld #factorio #destiny 2 #d2 #film #movies #video games #i dont know what im doing #hzd #opinion

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the-final-sif · 5 years ago

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Actually, now that I’ve talked about my headcanon that Katsuki was kidnapped several times as a child, let me talk about a complete random scene/story arc inspired by that and the fact that Katsuki + Izuku + Shouto are all interning with Endeavor now.

Overhaul breaks out of jail and gets his arms back somehow. He’s gone quite a bit nuts. A lot nuts. He’s surpassed ‘focused villain trying to do one thing that he sees as right’ to more of a ‘just want to watch the world burn’. To that end, he sets about getting a team together to catch a certain group of meddling heroes, and to rekidnap a certain child.

A second hideout raid of sorts is planned and goes down, only this time, it was a trap. Izuku/Shouto/Endeavor/Hawks/Kirishima/Tamaki/Fatgum/Tsuyu/Ryuko/Ochako were on the raid team and were caught. Aizawa who was watching over Eri while she had a playdate with Tsuyu’s younger sister, Satsuki, are all also captured. Overhaul had a very specific team set up, knew about them in advance and planned out counters for each person. Alongside that, he used his quirk to create a giant beast like robot that’s made of metal able to withstand even Deku’s punches and Shouto/Endeavor’s flames. Said robot is roughly modeled/made to take on the LOV’s nomu, but non-organic. Notably, Katsuki wasn’t on the hideout raid team (or aware of the raid), because he had a Obligatory Family Trip planned on the same day and so wasn’t at the internship then.

Izuku had managed to put in a distress call before he was taken down, but all the heroes + victims were moved to a different location afterwards in an old long abandoned hideout in the middle of the woods, and there’s about no chance of anyone tracking them down any time soon.

So that leads us into the main scene. The heroes are all captured/restrained up near Overhaul whose ranting on about using Eri to destroy the world/destroy quirks once and for all and then rule over it with a robotic army which is the only thing he considers “clean” anymore. Meanwhile, Eri and Satsuki are down in a different location in a cell of their own (to prevent the heroes from comforting the children), and there’s a camera system in place so the heroes can see the helpless children.

Overhaul demands Eri be brought to whatever Evil Machine he’s devised, and one of his goons goes to get her, but Satsuki fights back against the goon and actually does a pretty damn good job of it. Which leads to Overhaul demanding that the goon kill her.

There’s nothing any of the heroes can do. Satsuki fights back as best she can, as does Eri, but they’re both only 6 years old and Eri’s quirk isn’t working. They struggle, but it’s looking hopeless, and Aizawa tries to tell Tsuyu to close her eyes because he knows what’s about to happen next.

And then the entire dungeon the two girls are in shatters.

Everything is chaos for the next minute as Overhaul tries to figure out what the hell just happened, getting his cameras back in order until finally he gets a visual and contact with one of his goons just before they get taken down and it’s Katsuki.

He’s in a flannel, regular pants and his combat gloves, very clearly confused/pissed off/not prepared for whatever the hell is going on here, and it takes them awhile to figure out what’s going on.

As it turns out, Katsuki has been hiking a trail near this hideout since he was 4 years old. His family drags him up to a nearby location to visit some extended family, he has 0 interest in doing that, so he goes and hikes/camps along a trial instead. Every year he hikes this fairly long trail, and every year he sees this weird abandoned building that he’s gone to explore a few times, and every year the first thought in his mind is ‘Man, that place looks exactly like a villain hideout’.

Then this year, he comes up on it, minding his own business with his headphones in, and he sees the building active again with people with weird masks running around in it, and he’s got a super bad feeling in his gut that just slams into him and he goes ‘Alright, fuck it.’

So now Katsuki is here, he grabs the kids and gets them to a semi-safe location, getting info from them and trying to understand what’s going on. Once he gets it, this turns into a game of him keeping the kids safe from Overhaul, taking down his goons as he goes and working his way towards where the other heroes are. Only, we’re going with the aforementioned headcanon that Katsuki has been kidnapped a bunch of times as a child and never realized that wasn’t normal. This leads to the heroes watching him on the cameras with an increasingly pissed off Overhaul as he walks the two children through how deal with being kidnapped as if these are normal everyday life skills.

Overhaul really, really wants him dead, but unfortunately his team was handpicked to counter the heroes who he’s already captured, and he wasn’t counting on Katsuki showing up. Katsuki’s quirk is flexible and very destructive + Katsuki’s combat skills means he’s pretty much a worst case scenario for Overhaul. Even worse, Katsuki successfully took down the com lines so there’s no communication through the scattered goons, and Katsuki played in this abandoned hideout as a child so he knows his way around it.

Ideal things happening during all of this:

Aizawa torn between being overjoyed that Katsuki saved Eri and then horrified/so done with this child as he walks Eri and Satsuki through how to use knives and grenades.

Katsuki being confused that neither Eri nor Satsuki know how to use a knife.

“Okay, did I have a weird childhood or did you two have a weird childhood. I can’t tell.”

Katsuki gives both children knives, and gives Eri a second knife when she loses her first one (and by loses I mean it ends up embedded in a bad guy’s shoulder)

Izuku keeps pulling notebooks and pencils out of seemingly thin air since Katsuki is openly discussing his quirk/aspects of it with the kids as they make their way through the base and by god he needs to write it down. Overhaul keeps taking his notebooks/pencils but the moment he looks away Izuku somehow has another set.

Katsuki keeps mentioning offhandly things from his childhood and the more things he mentions the more all the other heroes are like “????????”

Finally, Overhaul realizes there’s no chance of his guys taking down Katsuki as Katsuki finishes off the last or second to last one, and so he unleashes The Robot.

By this point, Katsuki already called for backup, but it’s at least half and hour out. He sees the robot and he’s like “Ah fuck.”. Eri and Satsuki already told him a little bit about it and particularly that it’s built to withstand anything short of a nuclear weapon. Not to mention it’s decently fast/agile.

And then when Eri is hurriedly relaying all this to Katsuki, she mentions that Overhaul built it himself.

Katsuki: “Wait like, he actually designed and built it. Overhaul’s the guy with the weird purity/evolution obsession right? He made this? Not somebody smarter?”

She confirms and Katsuki is suddenly No Longer Worried: “Okay, you two chill here, I got this.”

So then he goes to fight the weird beast robot, and nobody’s really sure what he’s planning. As he starts fighting it, he seems to be blasting it’s head into stuff a lot/slamming it around, but that’s not doing any actual damage, right?

Wrong.

See, Overhaul’s somewhat of a moron who put all of the robot’s processing/”brain” into the head area, because that’s how things are supposed to be in his mind. Katsuki figured the guy would probably pull something like this, and so he gives the robot a bunch of repeated strikes to the head area/knocking it around. Because even if the outside is super tough, that kinetic energy still travels through and can do damage to delicate circuit boards.

In layman’s terms, he gives the robot a series of minor concussions until it adds up.

The robot starts to malfunction, going somewhat rouge/pausing/getting stuck places/etc. But it’s still not destroyed and the heroes aren’t sure what Katsuki’s planning next. Katsuki is quite sure of what he’s planning next though. He lures the robot outside and then traps it in place with some large rocks or some rope or something. It’s not going to hold it for very long, but it’s enough to keep the weakened robot in place.

Then he takes aim with one arm as if he was doing an AP shot.

Everyone (heroes and Overhaul included) are kinda like ‘okay what the heck’ because even Katsuki’s strong blasts aren’t enough to really damage the robot’s exterior. Why would trapping it change that?

Then blue starts to spread up Katsuki’s arm along his veins, his hand starts to crackle and there’s 1-2 seconds of “wait WHAT” before Katsuki unleashes a blast on par with that of a small nuclear weapon. The explosion is bright blue, narrowed down to a fine point like Katsuki’s regular AP spot, but once it hits it’s target, it explodes outwards disintegrating the robot and taking out a good chunk of the surrounding land. The whole hideout is shaken to it’s foundation. Windows shatter, some cameras crack, and when the dust clears, Katsuki’s standing tall.

His left arm is still covered by that spiderweb blue though, and it’s hanging limply at his side.

Okay, so this is 90% me making up science but shhhh

So as the heroes quickly learn as an exhausted/barely on his feet Katsuki stumbles back to the kids who of course have questions, this is apparently something Katsuki has been able to do since he was 6.

He calls it “Blue Core”, and it makes his explosions super powerful by pulling nitrogen from the rest of his arm/blood stream/flesh and stocking it all up.

However, he basically never uses it because it comes at a really high cost, namely it takes several seconds of charging, does a ton of collateral damage, and by using it it takes whichever arm he used out of commission for at least the next 24 hours. He can still use his quirk a little with the other one, but it’s heavily weakened.

Obviously he can’t use this in training either, so he never thought to mention it to his teachers.

The heroes + Overhaul just watch stunned for like a solid minute as he starts making his way towards where the heroes are being held hostage with the kids because what the fuck.

Finally though, Overhaul snaps out of it and goes to fight the weakened Katsuki. The kids hide when Overhaul comes out and he throws Katsuki against a wall or something b/c he’s heavily weakened and can’t really fight with his quirk anymore, and then he struts over to him monolouging and ready to claim victory as Katsuki is laying there, slumped over and barely breathing.

And then the moment Overhaul gets close to him, Katsuki is up in a flash and the heroes can hardly even see what happened, but the next thing they know Overhaul is on the ground screaming bloody murder clutching his eyes and Katsuki is holding a blood stained knife. Then he gives Overhaul a curb stomp and he is OUT.

It should be noted, this is not any of the knives that he gave to Eri/Satsuki.

Someone, maybe Aizawa: “How many knives does he have???? I thought he was hiking????”

Shouto: “Oh yeah, at one point during the remedial courses we were babysitting kids together and he mentioned to me that he had 7 knives that day, and I honestly couldn’t tell if he brought more or less knives than he normally carried because of the children. Still not sure actually.”

Izuku: “I know he usually carried around 4 knives when we were kids but part of that was he had limited areas to hide them back then.”

Fatgum and Tamaki are both completely baffled and trying to fit this guy they’ve just been watching with the person that Kirishima described Katsuki to them as.

Anyways, so then Eri & Satsuki get the keys and go to free the heroes which are fairly close by while Katsuki guards Overhaul to prevent him from pulling a ‘gotcha’ on them. And also because the heroes are up a flight of stairs and Katsuki physically cannot walk up them right now.

It’s very emotional as Eri rushes to Aizawa and Satsuki rushes to her big sister who is now crying. And then the group heres a noise and all eyes go back up to the camera screens which are still somewhat up and running, currently focused on where Katsuki and Overhaul’s battle went down.

Turns out, before this whole mess started, the LOV sent Dabi to go take care of Overhaul because He Cannot Be Allowed To Have Arms, Goddamnit We Were Making A Point With That.

But then Katsuki went ahead and did Dabi's job for him, so Dabi radioed back to Tomura and Tomura changed his objective to "You know, while you're there anyways and he's weak, might as well grab the kid."

There’s two endings to this:

The door to the room Katsuki is in swings open and fucking Dabi waltzes in probably saying something like

"So, is this a bad time?"

Katsuki turns to look at him and in the most done, tired, angry, voice: "You asshole."

After drugging Katsuki somehow (because unlike Overhaul, Dabi is not stupid and isn't getting with 10 feet of Katsuki without being damn sure he's down for the count), Dabi kidnaps Katsuki for the second time and the two of them are teleported out of the area about 10 seconds before Aizawa/the other heroes are freed just barely too late to do anything about it.

This ending would mostly be because I'd want Dabi and Katsuki to have back and forth banter of Katsuki being so 110% done with everything and Dabi being like:

"Yeah, I'll admit, this is kinda a dick move and the universe definitely has it out for you today."

"You don't get to say 'the universe has it out for me' when you're the one kidnapping me asshole"

And also because it sets up some serious hurt/comfort.

or, ending 2)

Katsuki stumbles his way over to a doorway on the other side of the room to go grab some rope so he can tie Overhaul up. He opens the door, and Dabi's just standing there, having been about to open the door so he could capture Katsuki.

They just stare at each other wide eyed for several long seconds before

"Is now a bad time-"

And Katsuki slam's the door shut.

"N o !"

He takes five seconds to just stare at the door being pissed and then is like "No, fuck this, I have dealt with enough today." Then he proceeds to barricade the door as he goes through various forms of the words 'No, nope, fuck that, not happening', still exhausted and beaten up and done but 100% N O T H A V I N G T H I S.

The heroes get down there to help and and they search for Dabi only to discover on the camera footage that after Katsuki slammed the door on him, he apparently thought it was so funny that he just kinda shrugged, turned around and actually fucking left. Because, you know, his main objective was already completed, and he didn’t really feel like going the extra mile today.

All of this is on camera too, so it quickly spreads as a meme, along with other choice moments from the whole hideout fight including several ‘vibe checks’, one of Satsuki throwing a grenade into the face of on of the goons that was harassing her before, and also ‘knife check’ becoming a thing.

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