#and am still impressed at the forward momentum of the characters�� developments | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lesbianrobin · 4 years ago

Note

have u done an analysis on endgame st ships? a penny for ur thoughts

i have not!! i would like two pennies please. my thoughts are not actually worth that much but i think i deserve them anyway. i’m gonna talk about some stuff that may seem unrelated or only loosely related to the question but i prommy it’s relevant <3 warning this ended up being like a thousand words somehow idk how that happened but i’m putting it under a cut bc i’m nice like that.

so! something that’s kinda unique/interesting to me about stranger things is how all of their ships are so clearly telegraphed and quickly developed. there’s a sense of... impatience, for lack of a better word. on the surface, it appears to be largely an effect of the cinematic style of the show; there’s very little room for questioning who someone’s gonna end up with or for slowly developing a relationship over time when you only get eight episodes every like. twoish years. AND you have about a dozen main characters AND evil government forces AND monsters from another dimension. it’s a lot to juggle!

stranger things has a lot to accomplish in a pretty short amount of time. the timeline of a single season usually spans no more than a week (excluding flashbacks/end-of-season timeskips), and well... nobody wants the important stuff to happen offscreen! i’ll use the stoncy love triangle as an example: jancy was originally intended to get together at the end of s1 after steve’s death, but since they decided to let steve redeem himself and survive, there was just no time to separate stancy and get jancy together without it seeming wayyy too abrupt. since jancy was always their plan, they didn’t want to leave nancy with steve, but they knew they couldn’t just have that boyfriend swap occur offscreen... which is why s2 Had to have a stancy breakup plot in order for the writers to accomplish their goal of getting jancy together.

the main characters in stranger things tend to maintain homeostasis between seasons, their circumstances and relationships rarely changing any more than the audience might have just assumed they would anyway (like lucas and max dancing together + sharing a kiss at the end of s2 and officially dating by the start of s3). steve and nancy are dating at the end of s1, so they must still be dating at the start of s2, and thus we must break them up DURING s2. joyce and hopper are friends with some deeply buried feelings in s2, so they’re friends with Less Buried feelings that must become apparent during s3. excluding the stancy situation (for reasons which i think are obvious but i will talk more about later), momentum is always forwards. mileven, lumax, and jancy argue, but they come back together, presumably more mature and stronger than before.

all of this is to say that stranger things has thus far been rather dedicated to their starting ships. there isn’t much misdirection; mike’s crush on el is obvious from the start, nancy and jonathan share charged moments even while she is with steve in the beginning, lucas shows interest in max immediately and shares more significant interactions with her than the other boys from early on in s2, and the deep loyalty and care between joyce and hop is always apparent. steve and robin (initially intended to be together romantically) hold hands quite early in s3 and dustin asks steve about whether he likes her.

the point? stranger things doesn’t dick around when it comes to love! they handle their ships with remarkable efficiency. in each season, it tends to be pretty obvious from the start who’s going to end up with who, and heading into the show’s fourth season, almost everybody is paired off: mike and el, max and lucas, joyce and hop, nancy and jonathan. which leaves us asking... are all of them going to last until the end?

we’ve only had one true breakup on the show so far, and as i’ve said before, the stancy breakup is an anomaly as it was essentially “righting a wrong,” allowing jonathan and nancy to get together as they were intended to do from the start. the only other romantic relationship to end on the show was between joyce and bob, and well... we all know why that ended, and it started/ended within the confines of a single season.

stranger things tends to treat each season as an extended film, right? they draw inspiration from classic 80′s films, and each subsequent season after s1 is treated as a sequel (they are Literally referred to as stranger things 2 and stranger things 3). when they introduce tension in a season, they’re inclined to resolve that tension by the season’s end so that people leave satisfied, while also providing a plot hook for the next “sequel” for audiences to theorize about. this hook is always part of the grander plot, not a will-they-won’t-they tease or something else of the sort. remember, they could have broken up steve and nancy in s2 and waited to get jancy together in s3, but they didn’t! they wanted to go ahead and resolve the tension!

while there are narrative and practical incentives that i’ve covered for this impatience/efficiency/[insert better word i can’t think of here], i also think it kinda reveals something about the writers of the show. to some degree, they genuinely care about and want their ships to be together! we’ve watched them introduce new characters just to kill them off a couple of times now, and i think it’s fair to say that the writers might be a bit too attached to the mains to consider killing any of them off (at least prior to the series finale). maybe... this reluctance to kill their darlings extends to ships.

romance isn’t the primary draw of the show, but an indulgence, something that there may not always be time for but that the writers continue to prioritize as much as they can because they enjoy it, or feel that it is important to the overall product. if we accept this idea, that the inclusion of and focus on so many romantic relationships in stranger things is (to some degree) indicative of the writers’ own desires, then it might inform our speculation regarding endgame ships.

i’m not here to like... really actually assert that i know what’ll be endgame, because i don’t really know jack shit. however, i do think that the writers are pretty invested in all of the current canon st ships (and yes, i am including jopper in that, as their romantic development was explicit in s3). i also think that the writers like catering to fans, leaning into popular jokes (steve “the hair” harrington) and devoting more and more time to the ships fans obsess over (particularly mileven).

with this all in mind... i really think that most if not all of the current canon ships will be endgame.

i think that barring any extreme circumstances (i.e. a character Actually dying instead of just fake dying) jopper will be endgame. they’re the only ones that the writers have had the restraint to actually do a slow burn with, and i really can’t see them devoting so much to developing their dynamic just to say it was all for nothing in the end.

i’m less confident on the others. there are some signs in canon that the remaining couples have some serious problems and may not last, but these issues are often dismissed, played for comedy or brushed over within the text itself, and many of the details within the text contradicting this dismissal are often so small that it’s unclear whether they’re intentional or not. while breaking up mileven might make perfect sense for a fan who reads into subtext and pays attention to unusual acting choices and subtle parallels, it would be a pretty risky move on the surface level. allowing these ships to remain canon for awhile and garner large fanbases only to break them up later would require both a willingness to actively contradict the desires of their audience as well as a certain degree of restraint in their romantic storytelling, which runs counter to the impression i personally have of the st writers (this is, of course, my own personal opinion).

there’s a good chance that at least one of the current canon ships will break up by the end, if only because i think that it would be a little boring if every relationship stayed the same for almost the entirety of the show’s run, and the stranger writers like to keep things new and exciting. perhaps long distance will kill jancy or mileven, or lucas and max will go off again and never come back on, but either way i wouldn’t be surprised if we got a breakup in s4. even with that, though, i think it’s somewhat likely that a current couple may break up in s4 and get back together for the series finale, just for the sake of a little suspense. overall, though, i feel like our current canon ships are going to be more or less the same at the end of the show.

that’s about it. i suppose i didn’t really... answer the question you asked skdndsdkjc i feel like you probably just wanted to know like if i’m a byler endgame truther (which i am not but i could happily be proven wrong). thank you for asking, though! i hope this made at least a little bit of sense.

#me answering an ask: yeah this is long as fuck and makes no sense drop it #asks #em talks #lesbianrobin.canon #stranger things

26 notes · View notes

libermachinae · 4 years ago

Link

Tags: Teen and Up Audiences, Major Character Death, M/M, Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime, Dreadwing/Optimus Prime, Optimus Prime, Dreadwing (Transformers), Skyquake (Transformers), Post-Predacons Rising (Prime Movie), Canonical Character Death, dead characters meeting in the afterlife, Mutual Pining, Enemies to Lovers, speed version, First Kiss, DreadOP Day Word Count: 3148 Summary: Deep in the Well, Optimus runs into a familiar face. Twice over, in fact. Notes: DreadOP Day, you say? 👀 No way I wasn’t going to put something together for this.

---

Heat.

Like the friction experienced by a meteor hurtling down, destined to expire, Optimus flew into the light at the center of his world and felt welcome.

His Autobots had stood under many foreign stars and held under lights curious, interrogative, and revealing, but he knew none would ever hold such presence or penetrate so deeply as the one they all emerged from. It sunk into the seams between plating, prying and leveraging until the gaps yawned and with a click, the excess plating fell away.

And he was a protoform again: delicate mesh and wires and struts exposed to the impossible light. It was in him, sinking between the atoms of his body until they shivered and shook, dancing away from each other. Metal melted, edges dulling and structures collapsing, and drop by drop Optimus felt it all fall away, one billion beads sprinkling away like shards of glass in a night sky.

There was no pain. Not here. Optimus stepped out of his body while it was still partially solid and let all of it fall away, into an abyss he could not see against the light.

And from there he had no way to tell which direction was which, or if he was still moving. All he knew was light, to such an extent that it took him another moment to realize he was seeing it, that even without a body the world around him persisted. He pressed in on himself, felt it out. He considered his name. Time passed, as he explored the boundless confines of his new existence, and he considered for a time whether he might try to close his eyes, or let the light pull him micron by micron into eternity.

As it turned out, he did not need to worry so much about his choice. Time finished passing (which, if he recalled correctly, was not in the nature of the thing, and yet) and he saw a point, what he could only describe as a single unit of contrast against the light. Its darkness grounded him, reminding him who he was and where he had come from (though not for how long he had been away) and he endeavored to draw himself to it by mechanisms it did not occur to him to consider closely.

It was a point, then a spot, then a dot. It developed variation in its tone, darker splotches on the bottom that developed into shadows, its squirming edges sharpening into corners. It took on dimensions, stretched, vertical expanding while the horizontal stayed squashed. Lighter grey tones highlighted the darker: reflections, though he could not tell their source, when every particle between here and there blasted the same white light.

Still, somehow, shadows slid and clipped together, and forming the façade of a simple Cybertronian house. Minimal decorations outside and the windows were closed, but still it had the appearance of a place lived in: a couple of oil cans sat on the front porch, behind two steps that led down to empty, and in one of the upper windows he thought he saw the shine of aged crystal growths. There was also noise coming from inside, voices too dulled to understand.

Directly in front of the building now, he could not see either side and so did not know how far back it extended. He had the impression, though, it was a comfortable size. Only as big as the space its occupants needed, no room for unwanted excess.

His momentum carried him the rest of the way, until he could place his pede on the first step and walk up to the door on his own. He did not need to send a ping, which was a lucky thing, since his comm suite had fallen away with the rest of his processor. The door slid open for him, and he stepped inside.

The gray shading of the exterior persisted inside, clear shadows that built around him the image of a home almost like what one would have found on Cybertron before the war. The metal walls were painted with a matte finish, the seams between them cut with delicate patterns of straight lines and right angles. Like the door, the entry way was large enough to accommodate him twice over, a feature of lower caste residences, but he could feel the hum of complicated circuitry throughout the foundation, optimization the caliber of which only the upper caste could have afforded.

“Optimus!” He startled at the noise. “Stop staring at my walls and come in.”

He stepped walked down the main hallway and turned at the first open door. Within was a sitting room, a couch on one end with a table and chairs closer. Two identical figures sat there, a cube of energon in front of each of them with a third before an empty chair.

“Well?” Dreadwing asked. Skyquake said nothing but stared at the intruder.

“Am I welcome?” He did not know what this place was or what it meant for him to have found himself here, but it clearly belonged to Dreadwing and Skyquake both. He had no wish to insert himself somewhere he did not belong.

“My brother has been waiting for you,” Skyquake said. “It seems that somehow, in the months I missed, you managed to gain his respect.”

Optimus glanced at Dreadwing.

“I would be honored if that were so,” he said.

Dreadwing’s lips twitched and his helm tilted to the empty chair. So much of the way they had spoken to each other in life had been based on the unspoken, it was no surprise it would continue here, where they were stripped to their purest elements.

Optimus stepped inside and took the seat. Sitting here, he faced the windows, but even through the cracks in the shade none of that overwhelming light came through. In here, it was peaceful, comfortable, like it had been designed with the intention that they might stay here for some time.

Dreadwing raised his cube to his mouth.

“How did it happen?” he asked around the rim.

“I sacrificed myself,” Optimus said. “The Allspark was at risk, so I drew it into my own frame and returned it to its rightful place.”

“Then the Well is back online?” Skyquake asked.

“Yes. Cybertron will awaken to new life once more.” He smiled, imagining new beings waking up, drawing themselves to the surface of a world that was theirs to build upon. He wished he could have been there to see it, but with his Autobots to guide them, he knew the next generation would be well looked after.

“And the war?” Dreadwing asked.

“Megatron followed your path, actually,” Optimus said, turning to his former assassin. “He renounced the cause and turned his back on his army. He will not be back.”

But Dreadwing’s lips curled down, and he set the energon back on the table with force. It seemed he had drunk none.

“Do not compare me to Megatron,” Dreadwing said. “He made a mockery of a cause we dedicated our lives to fighting for. I betrayed the Decepticons because to continue supporting them would have gone against my beliefs. If he simply left, then the Decepticons remain a flawed entity, and there is no honor in abandoning something one has the power to change.”

Optimus listened and nodded along.

“I will refrain, if that is what you prefer,” he said. “But if the Decepticons are as far gone as you say, are you sure it is still possible for anyone to change them from within?”

“Megatron could,” Skyquake said. “If any force in the universe were powerful enough, it would be him.”

And Optimus found he could not argue with that, so he nodded and attempted to take a sip of the energon he had been given. It tasted like energon, and he felt the impression of it moving down his intake, but the cube itself did not seem to drain. No matter how long he drank, it seemed to stay at the same level.

So curious he was about the phenomenon that he did not realize how long his silence had passed before he heard snickering. He lowered the cube and looked around: both twins were laughing at him.

“This place operates on its own rules,” Dreadwing explained. “Too many to bother explaining in detail. You will find discrepancies and you will adapt, and eventually it will become as natural as life once was.”

“So, this is death?” Optimus confirmed.

Dreadwing tilted his helm, first to one side, then the other.

“Something like it,” he said. “You will find the specifics don’t matter so much. We are here.”

“And occasionally we are not,” Skyquake said, rising from his seat. His cube, also full, remained on the table.

“You’re leaving?” Optimus asked.

“Stepping out,” Skyquake corrected. “My brother has been looking forward to your arrival.” He grinned, and Optimus turned to catch Dreadwing’s reaction. Too late: his expression had already shifted back to annoyed-neutral.

“I suppose so,” Optimus said. “Your revenge has been achieved, after all. though unfortunately not by your hand.” It was easier than he might have expected to make light of his own demise, or the effort both these mechs had expended to hasten him toward it. Perhaps such things dimply did not matter so much, here on the other side of the Well.

“You think my mission was for revenge?” Dreadwing asked, leaning forward on the table. “For what? Skyquake’s death was just another in a long line of our being separated by Cybertronians who thought themselves worthy of making such decisions. It was a question of honor, Optimus: Skyquake was denied an honorable death, and as his kin it was my responsibility to secure that honor in his name.” He traced patterns on the table as he spoke, like he was drawing the concept of honor and the way it could be passed around like energon siphoned between lines.

“In my estimation, you did,” he said. He glanced at Skyquake. “If you are unsatisfied, though, I would be willing to duel again.”

“Perhaps,” Skyquake said. “If Dreadwing decides you are worthy enough to stay.” He gave them a short bow, then ducked away, disappearing into the same hall Optimus had entered from. He heard a door activate elsewhere and was not sure whether it was to the exterior of the house. It didn’t seem there was anywhere to go out there, but then, he still had a great deal to learn about this place.

He turned back to his remaining host.

“He seemed to imply that I’m being tested,” he pointed out.

“Somewhat,” Dreadwing said, leaning back in his chair. Optimus didn’t think he had ever seen the Decepticon lieutenant comfortable before.

“What is your determination so far?” Optimus asked.

The corners of Dreadwing’s lips pulled up. A grin wasn’t the right work for it, nor a smirk; it was the attempt of a mech who had never tried to form a single cordial relationship in his life to look friendly.

“You are entirely too optimistic, Optimus,” he said. “Don’t you remember the last time we spoke?”

“You handed over the Omega Keys and offered us an opportunity to revive Cybertron under Autobot control,” Optimus said. He could never forget it: the memory often replayed in the last few moments before he fell into recharge.

“I also refused to join your cause or leave my own,” Dreadwing pointed out. “We were enemies for most of our lives, Optimus.”

“And now all those matters rest in our past,” Optimus said. He gestured to the window, though he had no idea which direction the living world lay in. “Cybertron lives again, headed toward a peace founded on the same ideals you fought for. We may not be able to witness it, but we can know that all of our actions, battles fought and sacrifices made, were building to this end.” He glanced to the hallway. “Perhaps it is bold of me to assume, but I feel it worthwhile to ask: have you found happiness?”

He looked back. Dreadwing was watching him, that forced smile eased into something more natural for his handsome face.

“There is no simple way to answer such a question,” he said.

“We have time,” Optimus pointed out. He stood from his chair, taking a moment to look around the room. It was a utilitarian space, but there were a few decorations that betrayed some sentimentality on the part of its owners: image displays on the walls, a mantle with a collection of = stones from other worlds, and a tin of wax that had been left out all contributed to a personal feeling that allowed Optimus to relax a bit more.

For Dreadwing and Skyquake, this place was home, and they had welcomed him into it. Whatever hostility might remain between them, nothing could overshadow that fact.

He made his way to the couch, its back against the windows, and sat down. It was comfortable, though he had no way to know whether that was because of the strange magic of this place, the make of the furniture itself, or the fact that he no longer had a body in which to feel discomfort. Dreadwing remained at the table, and he watched Optimus as he settled, helm rested on one hand.

“I wished to live to see Cybertron’s revival,” Dreadwing said. “I wished to watch if from the air once more, the way its inhabitants moved as if in a perpetual dance.” His hand moved across the surface of the table, imitating traffic. “I was assigned to energon drilling, and occasionally tasked with passing rapid communication between facilities. It was during my flights I started to get a sense of how truly large Cybertron is, and how much was being denied to me and others of my caste.”

“I had a similar experience,” Optimus said. “While working in the archives, I would receive data that indicated a much wider world than I had experienced myself. Until Alpha Trion’s intervention I had no means to reach beyond.”

“So, you understand what a gift it is to behold Cybertron as it lives,” Dreadwing said. “Not everyone does. But I digress, I did not live to witness it, and so in that way I do not know if I can call what I have here happiness. How can I claim a peaceful afterlife if I did not first achieve that which I desired in life?”

It was a valid question. But by the way his wings relaxed down, and how he gazed at Optimus with a look like a familiar friend, it seemed Dreadwing already knew the answer.

“I have spent more consecutive days with Skyquake here than I ever did in life,” he said, ducking his optics. His voice was gentler suddenly, as though speaking too loudly would make his joy obvious and break the spell. “It is what I imagined security must feel like. We part ways, and I know he will always come back; neither of us will ever be forced to choose to leave the other. Even if we had lived to see Cybertron again, any number of things could have intervened to separate us. To exist without that fear is, I believe, what happiness might feel like.”

“Then I am happy for you, old friend,” Optimus said. He smiled and hoped Dreadwing recognized his sincerity.

There was a beat of contemplation, and then Dreadwing stood and approached, broadcasting his movements before he made them. Optimus was not sure the sofa would be wide enough for both of them, but when Dreadwing sat the space was perfect, just wide enough that their knees could have touched, though Optimus kept his own drawn in for now.

“And you?” Dreadwing asked.

“Hm?”

“What will it take for you to find your happiness here?” He was facing forward, but Optimus still got the sense he was being paid attention to.

He turned over the question for a moment, inspecting it, though not too closely. He trusted the Allspark would do him no harm, which meant he trusted Dreadwing and his questions, and wanted to give them as honest an answer as he could fathom.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s not something I’ve considered in a very long time.” This was a good start, though. Knowing that Dreadwing had made it here and found peace gave him hope. He had lived a long life and done so much; he was ready for a place where he could rest.

“If you leave here and wander a bit,” Dreadwing gestured behind them, toward the window, “you will find the Pious Pools, as they were before the channel was blown up and they were drained. Perhaps a walk will give you guidance?”

Optimus misunderstood him.

“Anywhere I could go with you would be a gift.”

That wasn’t a bad thing, though.

By the time Optimus realized Dreadwing had meant for him to go on his own, the latter was already watching him with a smile on his face like it had snuck on and was hiding from him. He leaned closer, hand up to trace a delicate claw over Optimus’ audial.

“If we had lived,” he said, “would you have walked with me then? There was a trail from the lower end of Staniz that led up into the foothills, a dented trail formed by the weight of all the mechs who walked it. A mile out, the city disappeared, and the wind would blow so strong it would threaten to knock you over and send you tumbling back the way you had come. Would you have preserved that path while the rest of Staniz was restored? Would you have walked it with me, allowed me to hold you against the strength of our planet?”

“Why would it not have been me holding you?” Optimus asked, and then what must have been lips, warm lips, were pressed to his own.

He shut off his optics, leaned in, chased Dreadwing when he started to pull away. It did not matter that they were without frames: they kissed, held each other, phantom plating slotting together. Dreadwing had a scent and Optimus locked onto it, archived it, saved it to what might have been the fabric of the Well itself. He trailed his fingers along a ghostly wing and felt a shiver run through Dreadwing, strong enough to break them apart and force their optics back online.

They stared at each other, panting. Optimus did not know his mouth was still open and he wouldn’t have cared regardless.

“You’re beautiful,” he blurted.

And Dreadwing smiled, and there was no fleeing from it, no hiding. He smiled at Optimus, and happiness no longer seemed like such an unknowable thing.

“The wonders of life yet to be lived,” he murmured. And then he kissed Optimus again.

#maccadam #transformers #tfp #dreadop #optimus prime #dreadwing #my writing #oneshot #wanna share it with you #im gonna sleeb now

36 notes · View notes

strangelyokay · 5 years ago

Text

Anime Review: The Rising of the Shield Hero

!Spoiler Alert! !Spoiler Alert! !Spoiler Alert!

Summary:

Four heroes are summoned to another world that is plagued by violence, all of them are from different versions of Japan. Each hero is designated a weapon, and in turn a role, shield, spear, bow, and sword. They are expected to get stronger, save the world, and then they will be able to return home. Naofumi, the Shield Hero, notices right away that he is treated differently, less valued, and expected to be the weakest; still he is optimistic. To aid the heroes, the king presents Adventurers, who will choose the hero they want to join. They will help the hero increase their strength and provide information that will enhance the hero's knowledge of their surroundings.

All four, expect the Shield Hero, are joined by the right amount of Adventurers. The Shield Hero has none, no one wants to join the "weakest." Naofumi doesn't think this is fair but has no choice in the matter; however, an Adventurer from the Spear party decides to join Naofumi, her name is Malty. Unfortunate events occur, Naofumi is betrayed, he is accused of rape by Malty and is not believed by anyone (he did not commit the crime).

This world is ruled by Matriarchy, rape is punished by death, but since the kingdom needs the heroes, he is left alone, but not given any assistance. Rumors are spread, the Shield Hero is hated and considered a devil, he has no money, no connections, and is despised.

However, Naofumi needs help, as the Shield Hero, he is prevented from wielding anything other than a shield. Because of this, it is hard for him to level up, he needs another member to be his sword. Naofumi is not only hated, but he is traumatized by the whole experience; he doesn't trust anyone and is unwilling to try. However, thanks to a seller names Beloukas, he obtains a slave named Raphtalia. She is contracted to him through a spell, this spell prevents the slave from lying or refusing to follow any command. Raphtalia is terrified of Naofumi at first, but slowly begins to realize that he is not a bad person. Naofumi, in turn, begins to trust Raphtalia, and together they form a bond. Together they meet new Adventures and friends, and slowly Naofumi beings his path as a hero.

First impression:

So initially, when I heard about this anime, I was excited, just base on the graphics alone the anime had potential. Depending on the art style, it is easy to determine whether the anime will be serious, funny, or given a higher budget, which can make or break a series. However, I was worried that the storytelling would lose momentum, or that at any moment, it would display its shortcomings. Basically, I was scared that the anime would have a great start and then the writing would get lazy, or that the voice acting would be out of place, or the anime would have too much fan service. Fan service sounds great, but sometimes it can have too many sexual implications, which isn't bad, but it can cheapen the story, and I love a good story. I heard that the main character Naofumi, got betrayed, and I wasn't looking forward to that. I get really into stories, and watching a character get mistreated unfairly is really annoying. Still, l was looking forward to the show and the possibilities it portrayed in summary.

Review:

This anime was terrific; honestly, I love it. It has character growth and actual development; the enemy is realistic, human nature is explored, and it isn't super cliché. Like I mentioned earlier, I was not looking forward to the betrayal part, but that was basically all in the first episode, so I didn't have to worry much about that. Naofumi is a great character, at the beginning of the show, he is so optimistic, but through events, he is no longer so naïve, and matures. He actually grows with the story, a lot of anime have characters who are happy and stay happy, or enlightened when things are hard. However, Naofumi was realistic, he was angry for being mistreated, and when he finally regains trust, he isn't so willing to just trust anyone like before. Raphtalia grew on me more than I expected, with anime, girl companions can be annoying for me, sometimes with the personality of meek, a female character loses dimensions in growth. While Raphtalia wasn't just docile, she did lack realism, but she made it up, she was useful and not always so cliché.

Also, Raphtalia meets Naofumi as a child, and she has been mistreated and sold, so it is understandable why she devotes herself to Naofumi so actively. Still I would have liked more diversity in gender when it came to Naofumi party, mostly because it started to feel like a harem anime at times.

The anime was fun, and the story made me want to see the Shield Hero get a win, the only problem that I saw, were in the details. When Naofumi's party learned a new skill, it wasn't always known until they were fighting, so as the viewer, we get to assume they learned that skill along the way. Still, I understand that an anime can be complicated, and too many details can ruin a story or be too much to fit in one season. Not all animes have the same number of episodes as Naruto for example and producers can never assume they will get a second season of any series. So honestly, I was okay with some details not adding up; the story, after all, was entertaining and exciting to watch.

Did I mention there was a cute adorable chicken, it wasn't actually called that in the series, but it was basically a giant adorable chicken. The chicken had a human form, but it was another cliché look, so I wasn't really that interested in that version. Personally, I would have loved it if the writers always kept the chicken in its original form, but maybe I'm biased. I think the anime does cater a lot to specific fan service, and it's trying to form a harem. Still, I am hoping that in the second season, there is less of that, and puts more focus on the skills and the fighting ability of the members.

Conclusion

Overall, I really enjoyed the anime, I give it a four and a half stars, I would give it five stars, but I think it will gain that in the second season. I hope anyone who wants to get into anime gives this show a try, or if your use to watching shows like Naruto, this show is worth it. It is very different than Naruto, but it follows the path of the underdog. While it's not as serious, I still wouldn't consider this show light hearted. It does lean more towards that side, but it does have a story that develops and one that is easy to get invested in.

Comment down below!

#tate no yuusha no nariagari #the rising of the shield hero #review #personal review #anime #love #animation #fandom #spoiler alert #lovethisanime #wishing season

60 notes · View notes

thekrawra · 5 years ago

Text

Ricky (and Gina and Nini but mainly about Ricky): MOVING FORWARD AND BACKTRACKING (WOW OKAY SO EPISODE NINE HAPPENED)

okay.

before i get into this, my usual preface: this is all personal opinion and interpretation based on how i understand the show. ship your ships, love the characters you love, read into what you want and forget about what you don’t. no hate, just a fun love of ships.

that being said: i genuinely am not sure how this season is going to end.

ricky and nini still sees likely. but we are one episode away from the end, and nothing said convinced me that ricky and nini should be together.

that’s not saying they won’t be together...but just that no one really seemed all that enthusiastic about the idea. one of the first scenes we get in this ep is both big red and kourtney, ricky and nini’s best friends, respond negatively to the idea.

“just for a moment” is a great song for sure, and i think it nails the dynamic and joshua and olivia did an amazing job with it. and while it’s very obviously a love song: it’s literally called just for a moment. so it doesn’t really feel like a song that references and/or really embodies leading into a potential longish term relationship.

then when gina shows up, ricky first mentions he’s changed, but then corrects himself saying that maybe he’s gone back to how he was before. it’s about as direct a characterization statement you can get as far as development goes.

now this isn’t a hard and fast rule: but it’s generally a discouraged principle to backtrack on character development. character development is a huge part of writing and characterization and generally rule number one of screenwriting is that your plot and characters should move forward in some capacity. the idea of “going back to as it was before” generally is used as a tool to reminisce on the past, and occasionally juxtapose against forward change: and normally forward change wins. even in stories where the idea of going back is much more extreme (ie apocalyptic films trying to “fix the world” and revert it to how it was before, time travel, etc) normally there’s a point where the characters have to acknowledge that they have to move forward. that they can’t just go back to the way things were before.

further, to backtrack on character development makes most of what happened before seem inconsequential. again: not a hard and fast rule, but when your characters either don’t develop or go back on their development makes it feel like they didn’t come out of their experiences with anything to show for it. it’s normally a tactic used to imply some sort of negative connotation with the character - that they can’t process what’s happened/that they are beginning to hit a downward spiral that they don’t think they can deal with/that it’s too much/that they are scared to move forward. rarely is the backtrack in character meant to imply something good.

by having ricky admit that maybe he’s gone “back” implies that he’s probably been seeking out the regular, and admitting that he hasn’t been moving forward. it’s an interesting choice to have especially this close to the ending because normally, when a character becomes aware they are going “back” something happens that then pushes them forward.

then there’s the fact that now that todd has shown up, ricky now has to deal with an issue that has been pushing his arc (his parents splitting and change) in his mentality of having gone back to how things were in the summer (before the summer even).

there’s no right or wrong answer on how that will play out, and what makes sense to me might not be what writers will go with because no two people would tell the story the same. so this is just what i get from the scenes and what makes sense to me with my style of storytelling.

gina’s return forced ricky to on some level realize that while she’s been gone he’s gone back to “before” (in this case who we were introduced to in the beginning of the series). this isn’t saying that gina and ricky are definitely going to get together but it’s also not encouraging that ricky and nini are going to get together.

then everything happens and todd shows up and all of it mirrors and parallels to the rest of the season. here’s ricky who did the musical originally to impress nini, deals with change and his parents splitting up, grows close with gina and finds a home in the musical (reshapes his support system in a way), and when gina leaves, he focuses back on nini. when she comes back, he admits to having gone back to “”how he always had been...back to the summer”. then, with this mindset and realization, he’s once again faced with dealing with a situation with his parents, and he freezes, and he knows how much this means to nini so he’s giving it up to ej for her (echoing back to: “if you really cared about me, you’d let someone who wants this part play it”). again, i think him doing this 100% shows he cares about nini, but i don’t think it is a good sign for them romantically. he’s ready to give up everything he’s spent the season working towards for nini -- a give and take that really isn’t healthy for him (just look at how happy and how good he was going performing before he saw his mom). point is he’s conflicted, he’s confused, and he’s defaulting. rather than pushing forward, he’s withdrawing and moving back (and before anyone says anything - i can admit this point is super subjective on how you read relationships and ricky. more than anything i think his actions are more about ricky than helping to support any particular relationship, but i thought it was big enough that i’d address my thoughts on it anyway)

all that being said though...

to be honest, i really can’t figure this show out. it either has really great writing or really okay? bad? mediocre? inconsistent? writing and it’s entirely dependant on how they tie up their plot lines in episode 10. they’ve been laying a lot of seeds and have a lot of really interesting character development and its clear they are conscious of their backtracking of ricky’s character when they had gina leave. they’ve played into some sort of element of ricky and nini not being a good romantic pairing (something they honestly laid on pretty thick with a) their friends immediate reaction being hesitancy and very clearly not thinking its a good idea, b) they aren’t looking for the same things, and c) they’ve been unable to really talk to each other about any sort of romantic attraction or feelings (as in any time their romantic relationship is brought up it gets awkward/uncomfortable and they can barely look at each other)). they basically confirmed that gina did change ricky to an extent, and without her he went back to how he was before (they also basically confirmed that when she came back, it was like she’d never left, which is why ricky was as confused as he was when he spoke with her - he didn’t know how to feel because there’s two different mindsets there: who he developed into throughout the course of the series and who he was before the series/in ep 1 and when gina left, rather than continuing to move forward he went back to the second, rather than continuing to adapt)

what does any of this mean? well to me, ricky and nini just doesn't feel right at this point? and even though the pessimist in me thinks ricky and nini are going to get together next ep, i just can’t wrap my head around how it will work considering a) the acknowledgement of a lack of forward momentum with them and b) the lack of any positive connotations with them - both facts that the writers seem to be aware of if the recent episode shows for anything.

and look, there’s obviously no one way to screenwrite and most of what i’ve been talking about is based on the classes i’ve taken by the teachers i’ve had, mixed with my own personal style. so there’s no hard and fast rules. this is slightly educated speculation based on my own experiences with the craft (which aren’t necessarily how the writers feel: there’s not really any right or wrong - just stories some people like and some people don’t)

on the other hand, ricky and gina have room to grow as a couple. they’ve had connotations of moving forward, of helping each other individually and ultimately that helps them as a pair - their give and take seems more equal than the give and take that comes with ricky and nini. so season two definitely seems to lean ricky and gina for me regardless of how season one ends.

and yes, part of me still thinks that ricky and nini are season one endgame - we’ve all been prepared for it all season because it seems inevitable. but so far, the writing of the show just doesn’t seem to lean that way.

of course, there’s a lot more you could talk about in this episode. did ej get gina the plane ticket? who sent the flowers? god can we all just be pissed at ricky’s mom and todd (like come on todd, you couldn’t even show up on time?)? i’m excited for next week to see how they tie the season up.

i’m excited to see how they handle ricky’s character moving forward now that he’s acknowledged he’s moving back. i’m hoping nini realizes those words she says to gina in the sneak peek apply to her as well (that she has a chance with YAC and she should go for it! it’s an amazing opportunity). i’d love to see them talk and realize that they should probably just be friends (really good friends but friends). i’d love to see gina be the one to get ricky to do the show (probably won’t happen but man i’d love it).

point is, i’m curious, excited, and honestly don’t know how this all is going to end. i just hope the writers move their characters forward, not back.

#hsmtmts #rina #ricky bowen #character analysis #ramblings of a slightly educated film student #ricky x gina #wow i love them #ricky and nini are cool and all #but i just can't see it dudes #high school musical: the musical - the series #look there's a lot more i could talk about in this ep #but this was getting long #so i stopped #character development #i might write more later #but for now #its been fun #rina supportive #ricky x gina supportive

147 notes · View notes

lazzledazzler · 6 years ago

Photo

RUNE FACTORY 4 SPECIAL + RUNE FACTORY 5 INTERVIEW TRANSLATION Disclaimer that im not winning the award for best translator in the world so it aint perfect guys gomen

Do not re-upload to other sites!

President of HAKAMA Co., Ltd., Hashimoto Yoshifumi:

He is in the center of producing family oriented and warm-hearted works, having produced a number of titles, while ambitiously working to produce clean and sharp works. HAKAMA was established in 2018 to create an environment where new things to things that have been cherished up until now can be enjoyed by both staff and customers alike.

Marvelous Game Planner Maekawa Shirou:

Rune Factory series’s number one fan, though his adoration grew from the production side. He is in charge of Rune Factory 4 and Rune Factory 5′s assistant producers.

Q How/why did you start HAKAMA Co.,Ltd?

Looking at how many challenges are in the same-generation gaming industry, I thought “I want to try making something new”. After joining the organization I thought, “First, I want to work hard and carefully/slowly” and then “I’d like to take/show more care in the things I have created up until now”. After saying those types of things to internal and external staff here and there, everyone responded “Whatever form you decide on, we will follow you”. Then I decided to create the company, not solely with my own form/style in mind. (Hashimoto)

Q How were the responses to this announcement?

We announced Rune Factory 5 and Rune Factory 4 Special simultaneously. We are very sorry for the wait. And we are full of thankful emotions; thank you very much for waiting. The response was so big, we were surprised. It was a little too overwhelming to the point that it was scary. (Maekawa)

Q Please tell us what Mr. Hashimoto’s role in Rune Factory 4 Special was!

I am mainly in charge of “Game Producing”, “Storyline”, “Settings/Configuration” and so on. The other major part is the actual developmental related work. The Illustration related work went to Iwasaki-san (Iwasaki Minako, who is in charge of this work’s character design) and myself, who delivered to Marvelous. The voice related work is something that is also recorded and delivered here...so the actual work is quite diverse, but the system used for this is similar to the first run. (Hashimoto)

Q Why was Rune Factory 4 brought to the Nintendo Switch? Please tell us about the HD version!

Customers who have waited for “Rune Factory 5″ for 7 years as well as those who have been fans for 7 years are probably wondering “What kind of game was Rune Factory again?” or may have forgotten the game altogether. So as an opportunity to remind them and customers who are interested in RF5 once again that “Rune Factory is this kind of game”. With the feeling of reintroducing Rune Factory, “Rune Factory 4 Special” was created. We are in the hopes that you will be able to have a wonderful fantasy life with the Heroine and Hero who have been cleaned/turned beautiful (in quality) by the Nintendo Switch. In this switch version, not only is the 2D characters’ graphics and scenery enhanced, but the animation is improved as well. We also think unlike playing Rune Factory on the 3DS screen, playing on the TV screen will be a new and fresh feeling. Since the game that was originally created for two screens is now made for one screen, we feel the UI has been considerably improved and implore everyone to test that for themselves. (Maekawa)

Q Please tell us about the newly added “Newlywed Mode”!

Newlywed Mode is a game mode where you can marry a love interest from the main game. In this mode you can play a Lovey-Dovey new game scenario, focusing on your newlywed life with your partner. Newlywed Mode has also been implemented with a new feature involving the expressions of characters’ faces that was not previously in the main game. We think that those who have already played the 3DS version will be able to play with a new and fresh feeling. (Maekawa)

Q How did you interact with the voice actors when recording the new voices? Please tell us of an episode with a lasting memory/impression you had during the recording!

Just to remind everyone of those days, the recording studio and the mixer staff were basically the same members. (Although there was a schedule at a different studio for just one day...) Rune Factory 4 was released in 2012, but the recording took place in 2011 before that, so listening to your own voice from 7-8 years ago made us think “Ah, the voice is so young~” or “Ah, how embarrassing” and so on. It was almost like a reunion. This time, new voices have been added to the main game’s recording, and depending on the voice, there are voices that will follow behind the voices that were previously recorded. In order to match the voices from before, we have welcomed back the voice actors from 2011. It was fun, and I think the way the voice actors were adjusting their voices (to match the previous recordings) gave a very Professional feeling. (Hashimoto)

Q What kind of scene will the newly added movies be like?

As for the newly added movies, first off would be the Opening. The song and animation have been recreated through new editing. Additionally, in the “Newlywed Mode”, all love interest characters have received new movies. (Maekawa)

Q How has the production in the new developmental environment been? Please tell us about your daily activities and episodes lately.

Because everything is still so fresh, it’s hard work. Even so, I find the hard process of making things very fun. In relation to Rune (Factory), since Marvelous’s producer is also working with me, I am able to work on developing with all of my power. As for my recent life, I spoke on the phone with the people worked with me on Rune Factory Frontier after about 10 years, and they asked me “If you stop [working] won’t you go to lunch with us?”. There have been many times where I have gone to lunch. I thought I would have new encounters with people, but I didn’t think that I’d be able to reconnect again with broken/paused relationships from the past. (Hashimoto)

Q Please tell us about your enthusiasm for Rune Factory 5!

I would like to make Rune Factory 5 in the way that it will not betray everyone’s expectations and positive responses. The release is still a little ways away, but the development team is very motivated in response to the immensely positive reaction (to the game’s announcement). Keeping this current strong momentum going forward, I’d like to surprise everyone with all kinds of information. Please look forward to it in the future! (Maekawa)

Q Do you have any plans or ideas in the future for Rune Factory 5?

Well, the game’s theme has already been decided. I would like to include all the promises I’ve made, and if I am given the time, slowly mature the game into something very good. I would like the game to cause players to think “How fun!” and “I’d like to live here!” while playing the inside a Fantasy Life. (Hashimoto)

#it was so hard to read this bc i kept crying and almost crying and I had to stop several times LOL #my translation #rune factory 4 #rf4 #rune factory 4 special #rune factory 5 #rf5 #long post

551 notes · View notes

snkpolls · 6 years ago

Text

SnK Chapter 116 Poll Results

The chapter poll closed with 1,671 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

RATE THE CHAPTER 1,533 responses

The chapter overall had positive reviews, with only 19 respondents leaning toward disliking the chapter. Will Isayama be able to keep up this momentum with the rising action?

Amazing as always. Definitely I always get surprised by Isayama each chapter, you never know what can happened in the next chapter, and i love that. Thank you Isayama

It was amazing. Can't wait to see how things will play out

Felt short, little content. I'm happy Porco can be seen when Pieck says "hey there", nice touch

I don't understand how some people thought this chapter was boring. I found it to be the most entertaining one in ages! Hyyyype. Also yay Colt!

I'm glad it looks like we'll get a bit of a break from the political conspiracies and constant double crossing. This is not the kind of stuff I started reading this manga for.

Pretty good chapter with a lot of characters stepping up imo. It's getting pretty tense and I was hoping for more information regarding Ymir or more of Zeke but reasonably this chapter was necessary.

FAVORITE MOMENT FROM THE CHAPTER

1,634 responses

This chapter had no shortage of excitement, and we nearly had a three-way tie for the favorite moment of the chapter. For 14.7%, Eren coldly calling Pieck’s bluff was chilling enough to be their favorite moment. In contrast, 14.6% most enjoyed Pieck’s betrayal as she turned to name Eren her enemy. Despite Porco’s failure to incapacitate Eren, 14.1% still loved the Jaw Titan’s surprise attack! He tried!

Nice to see Eren playing 4D Chess with Pieck. I loved Pieck's "Please take care of me!" as she went up the stairs! And Yelena standing up for Sasha was a great moment in my book too - a bit extreme like, but that's Yelena's style though! Eren at the end returning to his old self - angry and legless - was my favourite moment though!

my favorite moment was jean, just jean, jean all the time but that wasn't an option :(

Reiner finally showing his beautiful face again is the best, one can only hope that we get Annie soon.

This chapter was amazing and really set the tone for the upcoming battle. That last page with Reiner looking down at Eren was my fav moment.

WHO WAS THIS CHAPTER’S MVP? 1,627 responses

This wasn’t much of a competition - with Pieck taking the MVP title for Chapter 116 with more than half (56.2%) of respondents thinking her actions were exactly right (as expected). We had a close race for second place, with Jean (17%) taking a slight lead over our problematic protagonist (15.4%).

I never really got invested much in the new Marley characters, but god damn if I don’t love Pieck more after every chapter. I mean the pointing thing? That was SICK

I liked Nicolo's defending of Sasha and it hurt to see her family forced to listen to that guy degrading her. And because of his feelings for her and for eldians, I chose him as the MVP for now :)

Grior. He showed us how deeply Nicolo felt about Sasha, he created a scene where Jean got to show his worth, and he opened the door to everyone seeing exactly how creepy Yelena is. He made EVERYONE (besides Yelena) look good. :D

ERENS ABS

YOUR FEELINGS ON PIECK GIVING GABI A DOSE OF REALITY? 1,578 responses

The vast majority are happy to see someone from Gabi’s side of the war finally tell her the reality of their situation. 12% of respondents don’t think it will ultimately matter as Gabi is too stubborn to change her views. A smaller portion feel that Pieck doesn’t actually believe what she’s saying to Gabi at all.

Gabi is easily the character whose future development I look forward to the most.

I feel like Gabi needs to listen but Pieck here really means there's another method on the way; the rest is just her LARPing as a restorationist to gain Eren's trust, just as Armin did with Annie in the past.

Gabi's already gotten so many doses of reality that have done nothing. I honestly don't feel anything about these moments at this point.

Pieck isn't entirely lying here. She believes that eldians should fight for themselves and is using Marley to get what she wants. Good on her for calling out Gabi's blind devotion to Marley! Stupid child.

Pieck is showing her true thoughts but won't act on them, because she won't betray Marley and everyone she knows.

Gabi truly believes that all the Warriors are doing what they do in the name of Marely, Zeke turned his back on Marley to accomplish his ultimate goal and Pieck revealed that she doesn't trust them at all. Gabi may understand that simply being an honorary Marleyian isn't why the Warriors fight for Marley, they simply fight for themselves, even if it does help Marley to an extent.

I'm more interested in what it means for Pieck's viewpoint tbh. She says this, and is clearly smart enough to know this to be true, and yet is still apparently fighting for Marley. I'm very interested to see whether she actually has any ideas on how to win Eldian freedom after the Paradis battle.

Pieck was telling half-truths to Gabi, she knows about the danger of the Eldians being obsolete but Eren is not the answer for the survival of her people in the mainland.

WHICH MEMBER OF THE 104TH DO YOU MOST AGREE WITH ABOUT EREN’S ACTIONS? 1,582 responses

70% of respondents feel similarly to Jean, believing that Eren wouldn’t do everything he’s done without a good reason for it. 21% feel similarly to Armin, just wishing to understand Eren’s actions and why. A smaller percentage feel similarly to Connie and agree that Eren has simply become irredeemable regardless of his motivations.

I BELIEVE THERE IS A GOOD MEANING BEHIND EREN’S ACTIONS, TRUST MY WORDS

I still don't know how to feel about Eren and his plans

I really like how Jean was trying to see Eren in a different light to try to understand him and Connie's ongoing grudge against eren.

WHICH JEAN ACT SOLIDIFIED HIM AS BEST BOI? 1,582 responses

Jean provided some much-needed comfort this chapter, and 38.4% were most pleased that he decided to finally introduce some much-needed objectivity to the Eren discussion. On top of that, another 26.1% were most impressed with his ability to stay calm despite the stressful circumstances.

All of the above. Any of these moments in isolation would have been good, but it's all of them taken together that made Jean amazing this chapter.

Now our favourite Jailbirds: I'm so happy to see them after a few months. Jean continues to be the best, and my most favourite boy, I liked how rationally and objectively he viewed the situation -- and the fact that he was still vouching for Eren, and showing so much care for Mikasa made my heart flutter a lil bit.

Horse-face standing up for that suicidal bastard was the best moment in this chapter!!! Jean growing so much makes him best boi-horse ever!

He should join the yaegerists, then we can talk about best boy

Literally anything the majestic stallion does classified him as best boi. He breathes and he’s best boi.

Jean's actions in this chapter show the signs of a good leader, and I hope he is rewarded for it down the line.

getting the SOLID gift of character development that just KEEPS ON GIVING

Oh so for THIS one you ain't got 'all of the above'? WHERE IS ALL OF THE ABOVE

You utter fools, everything Jean has done since Season 1 has solidified him as best boi

MIKASA ISN’T WEARING HER SCARF. DOES THIS HAVE SIGNIFICANCE? 1,569 responses

Is it getting hot in that jail cell or did Mikasa take off her scarf for more personal reasons? Almost half of us believe this is hinting at Mikasa breaking away from Eren in some way, but more than a third think it’s just another of many instances where Mikasa has gone scarfless for practical reasons.

Isayama probs used it to sew another seed of doubt so that we'd ask this exact question.

she's sad :(

It's typical for her to take the scarf off when it's warm, so it shouldn't have any significance, however it's hard to think she would just casually remove/interact with the scarf after that conversation. I feel like Mikasa'd either keep it with her at all times, or get rid of it completely (though if it's the latter, the chapter should've focused on the absence of the scarf more). For now, the scarf situation has me really confused.

She doesn't want to think about Eren right now

She finally saw how hot Jean is. Just as everyone else in that cell. That's it.

She is Sad, not Mad at Eren

This can mean that she is still shaken up after what Eren said to her, but that doesn't mean she's sick of him. She's probably realizing that her attachment to him is not doing her any good so far.

She wants to let go

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON ONYANKOPON ALLYING WITH YELENA? 1,562 responses

The majority are still uncertain about where Onyankopon stands. Less than 1/4th of the fandom believe he’s truly on Yelena’s site. Many agree that he needed to side with Yelena at that moment regardless of what he truly believes. Nearly half the fandom (45.6%) selected “He’s been too hard to predict, I hadn’t made up my mind.”

My man is legit Yelena’s hostage. He never asked for this.

He looks very hesitant, so I am also hesitant to make a call

he’s sweating and eyeing yelena like he’s worried so he is just playing along with. i think he’ll go free the 104th during the commotion!

At the very least, he and Yelena are not on the same page. In a way, they've been foils since their introduction: from the way they interact with the Survey Corps, the ways they assisted in Liberio, to their stance on God. I've always loved their dynamic, and I definitely look forward to more of these two in the future!

Great way for Yams to maintain tension in the storyline. It doesn't really matter what he chooses, but he works great as a character to bounce concepts off of.

He is on Yelena's side for now. You can tell that the guilt is weighing on him.

He's just here until the next Star Wars movie

ON A SCALE OF 1-5 HOW BADLY DID YOU WANT TO PUNCH GRIOR? (1: HE WAS IN THE RIGHT SOMEHOW; 5: I’VE NEVER ROOTED HARDER FOR YELENA.) 1,574 responses

Perhaps the most interesting thing in this result is that 51 people in our fandom don’t want to punch Grior. The vast majority (72.2%) selected the highest choice, “I’ve never rooted harder for Yelena”

She's nuts but she's fun and gets props for shooting Grior.

Jheez the disrespect coming from Grior. Connie and Nicolo were rightfully fuming. Yelena putting a hole in his head has been the best thing she’s done in the whole story.

Fuck Grior

I wasn't a fan of Grior, but shooting him was an overkill. Yelena did it in front of the kids no less.

WHAT ARE YOUR CURRENT FEELINGS ON YELENA? 1,576 responses

“Crazy” was the most common reaction with nearly half the fandom (41.9%) selecting that option.

Although she's 'cray cray', I would feel bad for her and Zeke if they find out that Eren is using both of them. I'm staying neutral to her.

I hate fanatics. I hope Zeke steps on her and we never see her again.

I love Yelena. Truly, her actions aren't that right, but everyone in this show depends on some corrupt decisions. I'm sure she has good reasons why she's that way and she shows to the 104th some of her weak as well as nice side. I think she would be a good ally for them, but we will see!

She's very interesting, although her motivations are indeed 'crazy' (not normal admiration for the Yeager brothers), her actions stay logical and reasonable considering her goal.

First she kills people in ruthless way and few minutes later she is crying and tells others about Yeager bros being gods. Yet, I have to admit that she is a good character.

She’s an interesting combination of things tenacious, devoted and cunning. I can’t wait to find out if what her and Zeke want is actually the same thing.

cray cray, but still, P O U N D T O W N

WHY WAS ARMIN CRYING? 1,573 responses

Another strong consensus in the poll! 65.4% selected “He realized Eren would never agree with what she said, and is still on their side”.

Armin is trying to like to gain the upper hand

he must've felt overwhelmed with something, and decided to play it to his advantage

Biggest mystery of the whole manga imo. Ymir fritz and he origins of the titans? Nah fam, I need to know why Armin crying was important enough to take up a whole pageworth of panels.

Boy tryna get tf outta here even if it means temporarily joining yelena’s wack ass cult

He just got heads-up about some harsh truth.

He was definitely faking

He's figured SOMETHING out, we don't know just yet. I'm so excited, it's been a while since we've seen his tactical cunning side!

He's obviously manipulating her. Yelena is a bit of a nut case, but she's also really passionate. Armin is using that to his advantage.

I think he's genuinely crying, but certainly not for the reason he said. As for why exactly... Not sure, it might be for a lot of things… I think he understood something about what Eren's plan might be

he could be crying from relief. he has known eren the longest, knows how much he values freedom, and knows he would never agree to euthanasia. after 112, he was really asking himself whether eren was actually on their side or not. he's definitely seeing through his mask now and realizes that he's playing zeke and his cult like a damn fiddle.

THIS MONTH SEEMS TO CONFIRM THAT EREN KNEW ABOUT THE WINE PLOT. ARE YOU SURPRISED? 1,576 responses

Ahem. The Snk Poll Team would like to remind you that we asked this question in the chapter 111 poll and at that time only 27% believed he knew about the wine. Just sayin’ :P

DO YOU THINK THAT EREN KNOWING ABOUT THE WINE HAD ANY INFLUENCE ON HIS DEFECTION? 1,556 responses

The larger half of the fandom doesn’t feel that the wine plot had anything to do with Eren taking his own actions. Still, nearly half feel it’s possible it could have influenced his decisions.

Eren is planning something

Eren is suspicious.

HOW DO YOU THINK EREN FEELS ABOUT FALCO INGESTING THE WINE? 1,580 responses

Nearly 75% of voters feel that Eren does care about Falco’s situation, but not enough to distract him from his plans. Nearly 15% feel that Eren doesn’t actually care about Falco at all, and 9% believe that he is feeling concerned for Falco.

Sympathizes with another unknowing Eldian pawn

Eren collapsed a building on Falco, like, are we forgetting this.

He thinks he cares, but has decided that the end justifies the means. How noble

I think that Eren thinks it sucks but that 'it be like that'

He’s so cray cray right now that I don’t know what to think

WHO IS THE OTHER WOMAN THAT EREN IS SAYING HE DOESN’T TRUST? 1,575 responses

Was Eren shading Yelena? 30% of the fandom seems to think so. 23% feel that he is referring to Kiyomi. 20% don’t want to make any calls yet but feel that this is something we’ll be calling back to down the road, while 10% think the rest of us are making a big deal out of a small statement. A few write-ins also listed Annie, Hange, Gabi and Historia as potential options.

He's talking about Pieck, the translation is weird.

Can we hack Eren's brain?

Have we considered Historia? I'd love for Historia to be one of the big players herself.

Either he's talking about Pieck if you take the translation as "just as she doesn't trust me" or Yelena, since he's not on board with her plan as a whole.

"That woman" is Kiyomi and she will appear like a wildcard next chapter.

I think that he means Pieck doesn't trust him either? I don't really know, the translations are so wildly different.

WHO PLAYED THE OTHER BETTER? 1,608 responses

Regardless of who wins or loses the upcoming titan battle, Pieck won the chapter with more than 75% believing she won this particular meeting of the minds.

As expected of Pieck, she's best girl (hope she won't die too soon).

Erem seemed way too easily convinced by Pieck that she would point out her colleagues. Yes he threatened her with his pricked finger, and yes he was ready to transform on the roof, but it felt like he went along with everything too quickly.

I love pieck and eren and I didn't know I needed them to meet until now!

I was super worried that Pieck wouldn’t be given any spotlight and would stay in the background forever. Now all I need is her last name and I will die happy.

PORCO FAILED TO EAT EREN AGAIN. WILL HE EVER GET HIS MOMENT OF GLORY? 1,571 responses

Sorry Porco. Most (73.1%) of us have no confidence in you. But look on the bright side - 17.1% think that maybe you can be redeemed. Oof.

Coming up through the roof *was* his moment of glory. It's all downhill from there.

His moment of glory was getting to see ymir's gorgeous face four years back

I believe that his mission was about injuring Eren, not eating him. I hope he will have his own five minutes because he is strong as a titan and knows very well how to use his powers.

Eating Erens legs off is pretty impressive on its own right tbh

Eren is gonna eat him before he gets another chance to do something impactful

He'll be forever a failure but I still love him very much! He's trying his best!!

WHAT WAS THE GRIMMEST GRIM REMINDER? 1,577 responses

The opening scene, and one of the most iconic, has had several imitations since. The slight overall majority, at 51% think that Eren turning the tables and being the one to deliver the grim reminder in chapter 100 was the grimmest. 33.5% of you prefer the classic scene that started it all. 9.2% thought that this chapter offered the grimmest circumstance, with Marley’s blimps appearing overhead.

The grimest reminder was chapter 84 for the simple reason that heroes of the story showed the worst side of humanity and ever since then I think they don't deserve happy ending.

THOSE BLIMPS HAVE MOUNTED MACHINE GUNS

It’s so cool that we get to see another grim reminder, again, so soon, as to ensure that it has little emotional impact!

WHICH MARLEY CHARACTER WERE YOU MOST EXCITED TO SEE RETURN THIS CHAPTER? 1,564 responses

There was some genuine excitement at seeing Reiner’s return to Paradis. Of the Marley cast, 84% where most excited to see him.

Why you gotta be assuming people are unanimously excited for Marley characters to return? I literally could have gone this entire series without any of them.

ITS BEEN SO LONG MY SON IS BACK i missed you reiner youre doing amazing sweetie pls dont die @_@

BEST BOY REINER IS BACK AND READY TO KICK ASS

My ovaries exploded when Reiner showed up looking badass with those swimming goggles. I missed my best baby boy so much.

REINER VS EREN ROUND 4 BABY!!! hopefully reiner can win! he deserves to win a fight with eren once at least lol

I was so happy to see Reiner again. It's so ironic of Isayama, that Reiner looks like a hero in this panel and Eren as the bad guy.

cOLT STILL EXISTS BOIS YEE HAW

REINER, MAGATH, AND COLT ARE ALL WEARING PARACHUTES. WHO (IF ANY) WILL BE GOING SKYDIVING? 1,566 responses

In chapter 92 we saw Reiner join his comrades by jumping out of a blimp; will he do it again? And if so, who will join him? The general consensus, at 92.8% think Reiner will be skydiving once more; and about half at 52.2% think Colt will join him this time. 36.6% of you think Magath will as well, with 73.4% feeling he’ll likely command from the skies. 2.8% of you think no one will be leaving the blimp anytime soon.

Reiner again! I still fear that Colt will end like Farlan, but it's just me.

I freakin' wish Pixis weren't in jail. I'd love to see him and Magath match wits while commanding large forces.

Colt is allowed to exist dammit

I think Marley is going for the same tactic they used in Slava: sending in Pieck and Porco on the ground, then deploy Reiner via parachute. Zeke will also show up last this time and fire on enemy ships, the difference being that the enemy isn’t marley and the ships are airborne.

I didn’t realize Colt was even in this chapter until I filled out this survey

WILL EREN USE THE WAR HAMMER POWERS IN THE UPCOMING BRAWL? 1,575 responses

With Eren recently acquiring the unique and awesome war hammer abilities, many of us are waiting with bated breath to see him show them off. 87.5% think that Eren will utilize them in the battle, and 8.3% think he already has. While his titan form doesn’t seem radically different yet, it seems to have formed in the style Lady Tybur’s did. Only 4.2% don’t believe Eren will break out these powers.

Disappointed that Isayama didn't give Eren's titan form a redesign after eating the Warhammer Titan. Hopefully we'll be able to see how Eren's going to utilize its power in the next chapter.

Marley came prepared to deal with the Founding+Attack+Warhammer Titan. If he's overwhelmed, he may get desperate and who knows what could happen then.

I thought Eren easily fell into a trap, and I don't see why he can't easily take down the blimps with his Warhammer power.

After that Awesome entrance I really wanna see warriors kicking his Eldian ass, but I just somehow know that Eren Warhammer will wreck them.

i'm really hoping to see some badass war hammer action

i am ready for the war hammer boy

THE LAST TIME EREN FACED THAT WARRIORS HE HAD THE SUPPORT OF THE SURVEY CORPS. THIS TIME HE IS ALONE. DO YOU THINK THAT WILL AFFECT THE OUTCOME? 1,615 responses

The results here are relatively divided. Nearly 40% of the fandom believe that Eren’s going to be able to handle himself in this battle without the help of the Survey Corps. 23% are certain that he will be defeated. 30% feel it could go either way and don’t want to make a solid prediction.

Eren will struggle but ultimately not be taken captive

He is totally going to get kidnapped😆

They will help him anyways. They need to protect their home, and without Eren it's impossible

Eren's fine. He's been able to predict and deal with everything up to this point. If he knew there were already spies on Paradis, he could've predicted the invasion. Might be too much credit, but he might've even used Pieck's arrival as the opportunity to lure everyone out.

With the help of Zeke and the Yeagerists I believe he’ll be able to hold his own

I sure hope so. He better fail. And he SC better only reluctantly help him they have to; ends don't justify means Eren. You made your bed, you gotta lie in it.

He has the support of the Yaeger faction, Eren has shown massive improvement with his fighting ability in titan form in Marley, and with the power of the Warhammer he can only improve.

He will not be able to overcome them on his own BUT WITH THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP will win out once Armin convinces everyone of the truth

Last time he didn’t have the Warhammer’s abilities, now he does. He also has the Yeagerist faction with him. I say he takes it.

We've never seen Eren in a fight where he was completely on his own. He always relied on an assist from either the Survey Corps or an Ackerman. It's going to be really, really interesting to see how he does without his cheat codes.

WHO ELSE WILL JOIN THE FRAY FOR THIS FIGHT? (CHECK ALL THAT APPLY) 1,488 responses

Another battle finally erupts! What other challengers will approach? Zeke is the most popular option at 68.7%. Armin, Mikasa, and Jean all had about half the fandom voting for them, and Connie and Floch just below that, but still popular choices. About 90% of you think Levi and Hange will sit this one out whilst on their own little adventure.

I suspect that Zeke will show up with the Yeagerists in time to save his younger brother.

If Zeke should appear, then the battle is almost certainly lost to Marley.

Zeke will probably show up at that moment so he can save Eren just as he claimed he would long ago. His promise to Eren was even brought up Pieck this chapter, who we know is exactly right!

Reiner is going to get SO depressed when Armin transforms into the Colossal. Also not a big fan of Annie but she needs to get out now.

Now Eren is facing the strong enemies alone. I would like to see how he can handle them, that why I hope that Zeke and SC won't join. I want Reiner to win at least once.

Floch and co. will come to the rescue after Eren starts losing

I'm sorry but ew who wants to see Floch?

Floch needs to make an appearance I wanna see the rest of the 104th rip him a new ass hole tbh

Floch is best boy

I just really wanna see all titans fighting each other. Just Imagine how Eren is standing there with Zeke like : Hey We just won and then Eren is kicked from behind by Annie and then Levi show up + Armin (and others) gets out of prison and transform to fight Eren.

I know I've said that I hoped Hanji and Levi stay away from this war as long as they can but LORD please tell me how they've been currently.

WHO AMONG THE SC, IF ANY, DO YOU THINK WILL EVENTUALLY CHOOSE TO SIDE WITH EREN? 1,519 responses

Has Eren burned every bridge? The majority, at about 55% think both Armin and Jean will still end up siding with him. Just below that, 47.7% think Mikasa will continue to support him. 28.9% think everyone listed will oppose joining up with him.

Eren alienated Mikasa and Armin so i think they won't join, but they can't abandon him either.

I bet Eren broke ties with Armin and Mikasa so that they wouldn't get involved in this fight, because he's seen a scenario where they die here.

It's hard to tell because Eren's "side" is still quite a mystery. If he truly believe in the euthanasia plan then I doubt anyone in the SC will join him, even Mikasa. But if it turns out his plan is something else we don’t know, then they might help him in the end. Most likely Armin and Jean. But I doubt any of the SC joins the Euthanasia side, now we just need to find out if that's actually Eren's side.

Mikasa believes that the Eren now isn't the Eren she knew back when he saved her

I think it would be interesting for at least one warrior to join forces with him.

IS THIS THE FINAL BATTLE? 1,570 responses

The warriors have returned to Paradis Island on the offensive! Will this be the final conflict in the manga, or is there more to come? 78% of you feel there will be another fight after this one; while 22% think we’re in the endgame with this brawl.

I'm concerned that if this does turn out to be the final battle many important characters like Levi, Hange, Historia and Annie will not be involved.

I think this is the start of the final fight but depending on how you look at it the fight may pause and continue on elsewhere, but this is for sure the final conflict I think

The chapter is a kickstart to the final climax of the manga, and I'm excited to see how the end turns out.

I hope this isn't the final battle, if so, I hope its very long

The final battle will end up decimating the entire island. No one will survive.

I really like that Pieck was pointing her finger at Eren, as he asked on the rooftop where the enemy is and she said 'there'. I'm wondering if this has a special meaning that Isayama will turn Eren into the last 'antagonist' for his final arc. Maybe the last fight, includes the whole world vs. Eren, but who knows?

This chapter was great! i thought pieck will side with eren and others but nope. Also hyped for final battle!

I hope it isn’t the final battle. I’m so confused by everything happening.

HOW HAS YOUR OPINION ON THE FOLLOWING CHARACTERS CHANGED?

The biggest winners this month were unsurprisingly Jean and Pieck, with huge upswings in popularity. On the other end, Onyankopon, Yelena and even poor Connie took a hit. It seems Connie’s distrust of Eren might have upset a few people.

I don’t know who in the SC will side with Eren but I am almost completely sure Connie won’t.

I'm glad we got to see more of pieck! best girl snapped on this chapter. She was playing it safe and smart with the things she was saying to both Eren and Gabi.

Could someone please punch eren in the face

Honestly feels like Onyankopon is just a side character that won't affect the plot much at all and therefor is pretty much irrelevant.

Also, WTF are you doing, Onyankopon?

Can't say I was surprised about how things unfolded. The SC are still in jail, at this point it's laughable. Pieck and Marley attack - who didn't see it coming? Onyankopon is still shady. Yelena is still cray cray. Eren is still acting like a heartless asshole. Gabi is beyond redemption, she would have shot Pieck if she hadn't been stopped. So nothing much was new :D

Still tryin to figure out what's the point of Gabi in this story.

AT THIS POINT, AROUND WHICH CHAPTER DO YOU EXPECT THE MANGA WILL CONCLUDE? 1,561 responses

Just like last time, most respondents (37.5%) believe that Chapter 130 is most likely to be the final chapter of the manga. 85% think that the manga will go until at least 130, and 48% think it will go until at least 134. With the recent announcement that the manga will continue for another 1-2 years, it’s looking like we won’t be getting a conclusion before Chapter 128 (or 130 if we are going by volume-ending chapters and chapters per volume remains the same).

WHO DO YOU MOST HOPE TO SEE NEXT CHAPTER? 1,554 responses

We may or may not have forgotten to include Annie on this list, but aside from that, people seem overall most anxious to get an update on Levi’s condition, as well as see Historia (presumably doing something other than sitting in the rocking chair). Floch… sorry, dude.

Annie wake up and kick some people in the head.

Can we get some annie or is she just like the basement we'll never get?

PLEASE JUST SHOW ME HISTORIA, WHERE IS SHE

I just want to see Bertoto at some point again :(

I still curious with Levi's and Hange's condition after Hange throws herself to the river.

I wonder how many more angles can we view Historia from that rocking chair.

WHERE DO YOU NORMALLY DISCUSS THE SERIES?

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE CHAPTER?

Porco and Pieck look good in Paradise Military coats...

It would make the most sense for Eren to lose this upcoming fight because he abandoned his friends, while the opposing side is united because of their friendship (if we're speaking in narrative terms). But we still don't know what his thoughts are, how much he knows, what his plans are, or his reasoning for anything. How can he be the main antagonist of this fight if we don't know this much? Idk but I hope we'll get some clarification during the fight (but I doubt it)

Will Reiner overcome his sufferboi status to finally do something right for himself? That's what I want to see.

I want to know if they have Hot Chocolate in the cell or some coffee. Why only tea? What is Eren planning withholding the coffee?

Armin's ability to manipulate has levelled up so much! He might be overplaying it a little bit with the tears, but considering previously he was really bad at making the emotions on his face reflect what he was saying, he's getting better at it. It both excites and saddens me. Excites because it makes him all the more dangerous; saddens because my greatest wish for Armin is that he needn't know these skills at all. Just let him be free and travel and see cool things! He deserves it.

What a ride! And what a turn-around. I love how the narration has come around to Eren being the villain, and Pieck and Reiner being the heroes. I also can't wait to see Eren get his ass stomped.

I'm so happy that it looks like the remains of the 104th might actually do something soon.

The direction the manga is going it’s fucked up. I think the manga has lost that sparkle that once had. Basically at this point everybody is waiting just to see who makes it out alive and lives to tell the tale.

Eren is finished. Maybe imprisoning your best soldiers, crippling your strongest trump card, having Zeke titanize a bunch of Scouts, and generally wreaking havoc in Paradise wasn't such a good idea.

I was really impressed with Eren. He’s become such an interesting and amazing character. And he didn’t fall for Pieck at all, and it was so smart when he healed his finger in front of her to show he “trusted” her, meanwhile still having another finger cut and hidden. And his overal distrust and not telling Pieck anything he knew. He obviously didn’t trust her. *sniff* my baby going out to destroy people

JEAN FOR BEST STALLION

Jean and Connie are both right. Eren's not absolved just because he has reasons for his actions. Lying and manipulating your friends is shitty, especially if you're doing it "for their own good." That's not a solid friendship. I hope Isayama sticks to his guns on this. And also get Historia out of that damn chair, I'm so tired of it. But mostly I really liked this chapter, particularly the arrival of Reiner and Co. And Gabi and Pieck!

Pieck is the best girl of all time. You CAN’T change my mind.

The Marleyan military is attacking Paradis. Them killing Eren and getting his powers is bad for Paradis. I have no idea why there are fans saying the Survey Corps will outright abandon Eren or even fight against him right now. Helping the people currently attacking them is...unwise, to say the least.

I know Eren looks like a tasty snacc, but I would be extremely grateful if Porco keeps his filthy mouth away from Eren. He can eat a 10 foot flaming pineapple for all I care, please and thank you!

Best part of this chapter: no Zeke. Thank you Yams.

Porco and Pieck look good in Paradise Military coats...

Will Reiner overcome his sufferboi status to finally do something right for himself? That's what I want to see.

I want to know if they have Hot Chocolate in the cell or some coffee. Why only tea? What is Eren planning withholding the coffee?

What a ride! And what a turn-around. I love how the narration has come around to Eren being the villain, and Pieck and Reiner being the heroes. I also can't wait to see Eren get his ass stomped.

I'm so happy that it looks like the remains of the 104th might actually do something soon.

Eren is finished. Maybe imprisoning your best soldiers, crippling your strongest trump card, having Zeke titanize a bunch of Scouts, and generally wreaking havoc in Paradise wasn't such a good idea.

JEAN FOR BEST STALLION

Pieck is the best girl of all time. You CAN’T change my mind.

Best part of this chapter: no Zeke. Thank you Yams.

I know Eren looks like a tasty snacc, but I would be extremely grateful if Porco keeps his filthy mouth away from Eren. He can eat a 10 foot flaming pineapple for all I care, please and thank you!

#snk chapter116 #snk 116 #snk polls #snk poll #snk poll results #snk spoilers

88 notes · View notes

orionsangel86 · 6 years ago

Text

14x02 - Episode Review - Without the Bells and Whistles

Bucklemming colour me impressed. This episode was a rich character driven story that left me full and satisfied and that is something I NEVER say about Bucklemming. I am amazed at how character focused these first two episodes are and truly hope that Dabb keeps up the momentum among writers. It is a change of pace with the show, and a change of focus, but it is WORKING so far.

As always with BL episodes there were some pacing issues and clunky dialogue in parts, but damn Dick Speight Jr is doing a fabulous job making the show look beautiful. As with 14x01 there is a lot to discuss, though I will try to be brief as I have a desperate need to write a separate post about Cas because my angel had me in tears in this episode and he needs an essay written about him in it.

Without further adieu, a long review is under the cut.

Michael and the Bait

Firstly Jensen did spectacularly in this episode. Such a drastic difference from 14x01 and I’m not sure if that’s because of Dick being a more hands on director or Jensen finally making a choice but he has settled into the role and plays Michael as a sinister psychopath on a mission. Michael has far more personality in this episode. He is more interesting to watch and managed to hold my attention unlike in 14x01. This makes me happy.

So what’s the deal guys? Michael spends this episode focusing on his monster experiments, brags about owning Dean, and then just leaves? Obviously that’s not what happened. The clue is in the key moments:

“Why be the hunted, when you can be the Hunter?”

“Rule no.1 you can’t have a trap without bait. Rule no.2 Once the trap has been sprung, you don’t need the bait anymore.”

Michael’s plan has been set in motion. The scene with the vamp girl being foreshadowing for the bigger picture, the bigger goal. Is Michael going after the hunters? If his plan is to make a world where Monsters are in charge, then the hunters need to be eradicated. It makes sense. It also therefore makes sense that you would set your sights on hunter central – the bunker. So Dean was let free so Michael could keep a watch on the bunker and it’s residents through him. As far as the rules go, if Dean is the bait, then releasing Dean is Michael not needing him anymore directly. The trap itself is the mystery, but I suspect we will find out more about exactly what Michael has done in 14x03, and it will most likely all have to do with this mysterious scar. I don’t think Michael is hiding “in” Dean so much as has an “open connection” to him where he could jump back in at any time without Dean’s consent. But we shall find out soon enough I’m sure.

Mary x Bobby

Obviously I support this ship, but I support it even more seeing as they have now paralleled Mobby to Destiel in two episodes in a row.

“My FBI is a little rusty”

This week, Bobby is our Cas mirror and Mary is our Dean. The fond pat on the back was the only hint we got that this was romantic, but like with 14x01, I ask you to try to find a single viewer who doesn’t see “something there” between this generic heterosexual couple? They are continuing to show their relationship through nothing BUT destiel parallels and it continues to delight me that this is now the shows go-to way to portray romance.

On a slight side note, Bobby being from an apocalypse AU world, he is the classic hunter right now who only sees in black and white, and the way he went for the vamp girl even after she tried to explain how she had never harmed a human. Bobby’s take on things this season will be an interesting one as it’s a continuous theme in this show to explore what makes a monster, something that dates back to John Winchester days (the ultimate black and white hunter). Also his understandable suspicions about angels making the dynamic with Cas a potentially interesting one. I wonder if this Bobby will ever utter the phrase “family don’t end with blood”?

Nick – It’s a chicken and egg situation

*sigh* I’m still not won over, and I probably won’t be. I expected this episode to be Nick heavy, and the flashbacks irked me because I simply don’t care. But I get that they would be necessary for a general audience. My lack of care is my own issue. It doesn’t matter how much Mark P acted his arse off trying to give us a decent performance (his first in years), I’m still not gonna be a fan. I’m still gonna skip those scenes in subsequent re-watches but that’s just me. I just don’t find it interesting even if he is being embedded into the story in a way that is paramount to the plot and the characters own struggles and development. I will acknowledge that importance and move on. I suppose the take away from Nick’s role in this episode when not specifically tied to Castiel (which I will yell about later) is whether or not he murdered his wife and child before he was possessed by Lucifer. The set up in the episode, the scripting and the direction implies that yes, he did. Though that could be a misdirection.

At the beginning of the episode, when he was asking Castiel what would possibly make him say yes to Lucifer to begin with, he had seemingly forgotten all about the brutal murder of his family, until Cas reminded him. Perhaps he had just repressed the trauma to the point that he had removed it from his mind to save himself further torment – but then murderers do that as much as grieving widows. Interestingly of all the things we learn about the murder case, we never actually learn Nick’s whereabouts, only from Castiel saying “you weren’t there” which is entirely unreliable because how would he have known other than from reading about the case himself? We know Nick’s neighbour is jumpy around him, so what did the neighbour actually see? We know his wife and child were killed with a hammer – an extremely intimate murder weapon and one that has been meta’d before in relation to Demon!Dean. Strangers don’t murder people with a hammer. It’s the weapon of crimes of passion, of extreme emotional connection to the victims. There is nothing cold and detached about a hammer. People who pick hammer’s to kill seek out the mess and extreme violence that they cause. It’s horrific and so much more gruesome than a knife or a gun. To kill an infant with a hammer? Even worse. To then see Nick murder the neighbour in the same violent attack, it is very easy to assume that he was the original killer as well.

If we assume Nick was the killer what does this mean for the canon of the show? Is this how Lucifer picks his vessels? What does this say about Sam? Who had to consume gallons of demon blood before he could contain Lucifer, Sam who had to be “corrupted” from a young age to prepare him? Was Nick already corrupted enough thanks to his apparent violent streak?

OR was this new kill with the hammer a result of what Cas called Lucifer’s “influence”, the “damage on his psyche”? Did Lucifer create the monster? Or was the monster already a part of Nick? If the season is going to continue the themes of previous seasons in exploring the shades of grey between men and monsters, then Nick is a key component. Is he the innocent victim of the devil? Or is he a tormented killer, who just so happened to get what he deserved? How would this affect the boys? If they are already struggling to find compassion towards a man wearing the face of their abuser, how does this potential new bit of information fit into that story? Perhaps, if Nick really is the killer, once this is found out it gives the writers an easy way to ultimately have him killed off without any guilt of tormenting and villainising an innocent. My money is actually on this theory. Plus it gives me a reason to continue hating him for the hell of it. But hey, that’s just me.

Castiel – The Angel with Too Much Heart

Oh Cas. What DON’T I have to say about you in this episode? I was amazed by Bucklemming’s dedication to Cas as a character and devotion to getting him right for once… I feel like I have slipped into an alternate universe because of this.

In 14x01 Cas was physically beaten, and in 14x02 he is emotionally beaten. I can’t help but wonder if this spells gloomy foreshadowing for Cas in the coming episodes. I want to write about this in depth as this episode is a fascinating insight into Cas’s psyche and his character arc going forward BUT I am leaving that for a separate post so in this review I will just sum it up:

Consider what happens to Cas in several points:

He overhears Bobby saying “angels ain’t known for their veracity” about Jo – that he doubts she was telling the truth. Cas shrugs it off and “tends to agree with him” but the awkwardness is obvious. This isn’t the Bobby who saw Cas as a son after all.

He is told he cannot go along on the mission to save Dean because his “angelic presence would be sensed by Michael” therefore his grace has rendered him useless.

He is made to relive his own possession by Lucifer “you were in a lot of pain, and Lucifer saw a vulnerability and he exploited it” though not talking about himself, the implication is obvious to anyone with a good memory of previous seasons.

He is made to relive another dark chapter of his history when his grace was stolen and he was human. Cas gives Jack a heartfelt positive speech that does show he is in a better place now “I had Sam and Dean, but I had something else that was extremely helpful. I had myself. Just the basic me, as Dean would say without all the bells and whistles” (which btw is so so good for human!cas meta) but the truth is actually far more depressing than Cas lets on, and the pain of what happened at that time, how Dean kicking him out of the bunker only encouraged the view that without his grace he was useless and unwanted by Dean – hence jilted lover.

He is surprised by Nick trying to “snap” him to oblivion which could easily be a trigger for Cas bearing in mind Lucifer has blown him up before via that very gesture.

He had to relive his “greatest regret” and what he did to Jimmy and his family. “You’re just a stone cold body snatcher, you’re no different from Lucifer” and you can SEE how much that pained him. How much Nick twisted the knife at those words.

He was told by Jack that he wanted to meet “The only real family that I have left” which is a slap in the face to poor Cas who sees Jack as part of his own family (and his reaction to that line is heart breaking).

Then the worst thing, he is made to face the possible conclusion that Dean may have to die to save the world. “Dean doesn’t matter” oh boy. No hate to Jack who doesn’t really have any real reason to put Dean ahead of the world, but to Cas, who is in love with him? Yeah that’s the killing blow right there.

Right at the end Jack says “Do you think he’d want it any other way?” and Cas KNOWS Dean wouldn’t, because they have been in that situation before as well, and when that happened Dean asked Cas to take him out. So he had to relive that painful moment as well. One that he refused, and because he refused to fight Dean, got beaten to a pulp after proclaiming that he would “be the one to watch you murder the world”. I have no doubt that Cas would still take that view over the alternative.

So Cas was emotionally beaten all episode. Forced to live through his worst moments and biggest regrets, and then have to face the fact that putting Dean above saving the world just isn’t right and he needs to prepare himself for that eventuality. If this episode and the last have told us anything, it’s that Cas is once again in a pretty low place. That much beating, both physical and emotional, are going to have an impact, and I am now really concerned about where Cas disappears to in episodes 4 to 6.

There is so much more to discuss, specifically in relation to what his view of his grace as “bells and whistles” could mean for human!Cas meta writers, not to mention the basic fact that any argument now about Cas hating being human just isn’t true. He still had himself, and he still believed in himself even when human, and even if he didn’t back then, he does now. He doesn’t see that period of his life as a total negative. That is HUGE.

Summary

A+ episode for Cas development. Amazing as that is being a bucklemming. It has also left us with lots to speculate and theorise which is always a great thing - keeping people tuning in. The Michael!Dean mystery as well as the Nick mystery probably won’t get revealed any time soon, but are enough to have people talking about them for a while.

Sam was still very much in Leader mode, though didn’t really get to do much this episode, but the way I see it, 14x01 was for Sam, 14x02 was for Cas, and I fully expect 14x03 to be a Dean heavy episode (which is fair since I am sure we are all missing him by now). Jack is also one to watch. His inner turmoil is textually acknowledged several times over and seeing as he is basically a mini Cas, the possibility that Jack could decide to do something drastic is probably very likely. I wonder if we will see Kelly’s parents again any time soon - I kinda hope not as I reckon that would spell certain doom for them.

It was a strong episode, and I enjoyed watching it (other than the Nick stuff). Probably my second favourite Bucklemming episode if I was to rank them all now which is very impressive (11x18 will always be top imo).

That’s all for now, as I am in the mood to write some Cas stuff. As always if you read this far kudos and please reblog and comment and send me asks as I love all that stuff. :D

#supernatural #episode review #castiel #spn meta #spn speculation #spn spoilers #season 14 #14x02 #my meta #my review #my thoughts #my poor angel #mirrors and parallels #michael!dean

123 notes · View notes

mainadjacent · 6 years ago

Text

Sticking to the Script (pt.2)

Pairing: Gwilym Lee x Reader, one-sided Ben Hardy x Reader

Summary: You are the star of the hit TV show, “Winthrope Manor” and you’ve just got a new costar, Gwilym Lee who happens to bring around his friend, Ben Hardy, to set. You develop feelings for Ben, but they’re not well received. Lucky for you, your costar is there to help make things better.

Author’s Note: I just want to say how blown away I am by this response! I truly am grateful to all of you who are reading, liking and reblogging. It honestly makes writing so much easier and faster when I know people are looking forward to reading what I write! I also wanted to point out that the whole plot & name of “Winthrope Manor” is legit from the episode of “Bob’s Burgers” entitled “Zero Larp Thirty” so there’s that. Lastly, if you want to join the tag list, just add your username HERE. If you’ve already messaged me or commented about being tagged, you’re good!

PART 1

PART 2

Things don’t get automatically better between you and Gwil, nor were you expecting them to, but things have gotten easier. You find yourself spending more time with Gwilym and you are actually enjoying it. He’s funny and easy to be around and he makes the long hours on set bearable. The other members of the cast take a liking to him too which is encouraging. The two of you gain some sort of familiarity with each other and you can tell it helps with your on-screen chemistry.

The only time you feel like the two of you have regressed back to your original awkwardness is when Ben is in the picture. You figure it’s because you and Ben may be approaching romantic territory and he feels awkward being the third wheel. You try not to put too much thought into it.

What you do spend a lot of time thinking about is what’s going on between you and Ben. The day after your initial lunch, he shows up on set and jokingly tells you he’s hoping to get your number before filming wraps that day. You are more than happy to give it to him. He showed up again, the next day and wooed the cast with fancy pastries from the “X-Men” superior craft services tent, which pretty much granted him free entry for the rest of his life. It’s been a week since you and Ben had met and the two of you have been texting pretty much nonstop. Against your initial impressions of him based on the media, Ben is a true gentleman and has been nothing but respectful and sweet. The texts are pretty flirtatious in nature and that makes you scared but excited. You don’t want to jump into something or make assumptions, but you think he might be interested in you beyond a meaningless flirtation. Next time you see him, you decide, you’re going to ask him to hang out, just the two of you.

Hey beautiful! Mind if I stop by the set this afternoon? X

Not at all! You can finally see me and your boy in action! :)

_______

Despite having been filming for almost a month, you and Gwil are just getting around to the scene where your two characters meet.

Your character, Violet, is an avid suffragette and is attending a Women’s Rights rally in the city. The police show up and Violet flees from the scene and ends up running directly into Gwil’s character, Edmund, knocking him literally off his feet. The two characters exchange a “meaningful glance that shakes both of them to their core” before Violet gets up and keeps running. It’s a classic “Winthrope” scene, all dramatic and full of tropes so obviously, you’re excited to film it. And you can’t wait for Ben to see you in action.

You arrive on set that afternoon and greet Gwil with a warm smile. He smiles back nervous.

“You doing okay?” you ask.

“Yeah totally, it’s just that, it’s the first time I’m filming and not just rehearsing. Just a bit of nerves is all.”

You reach over to pat his arm comfortingly, “You are going to do great and lucky for you, you have one of the best scene partners in the biz.”

Before Gwil can respond to you, you hear someone bellowing your name from across the set.

“Ben!” you can feel yourself light up when you see the blond.

“Hello Miss Winthrope,” Ben says, slinging his arm around your shoulder, “how’s the most beautiful textile heiress in the world doing?”

You smile brightly in response and excitedly begin showing him around the antique street set, your nervous costar forgotten.

As everybody else filters in, Ben quietly slinks to the back, trying to respectfully give you the space to do your work. You, on the other hand, are accosted by makeup artists and costumer techs putting the finishing touches on your appearance. Gwil, who is suffering from a similar fate, catches your eye and you send him an encouraging smile and thumbs up.

The two of you separate and go to your respective marks as the extras are ushered in to be suffragettes and other background characters. You film the suffragette scene first, which is a lot of fun, you’re in your element in a crowd and feeding off of others’ energy. The scene is filmed in only four takes. You’re on you’re A-game which probably has something to do with your very handsome audience member.

The crew begins to reposition for the next scene: Violet running into Edmund. One of the most frustrating things about shooting scenes like this is that you can easily lose your momentum, so you try to talk as little as possible to keep in character.

Your director signals for action and you begin to run down the recreated streets of 1919 New York. You expertly weave through a throng of extras, your skirt bunched into your arms. You spot Gwil ahead of you, and just like you rehearsed in blocking, you run full throttle, into him. You land exactly as you were supposed to and out of the corner of your eye, you catch the camera coming in for a close shot of your face, inches above Gwil’s. You look deep into his eyes and you feel your heart stir as if a shot of electricity is going through you. You jolt into yourself and jump up, into your blocking. You run away from your camera and turn into an alleyway where another camera is already set up to film you from the other angle as you catch your breath. The “police officers” run past you and the director yells “cut!”.

You come out onto the soundstage to cheers and applause.

“We got the take!” the director exclaims. “That was great!”

You are smiling so much your cheeks hurt. Getting the scene in one take is an incredible accomplishment and you’ve never managed it before. You turn to Gwil, who’s approaching behind you, just as enthused. You rush over to him and throw your arms over his shoulders.

“That was amazing!”

He chuckles as his arms find your waist, “You were a great partner.”

The two of you are quickly ushered out of your embrace and off of the sound stage while the crew repositioned for a new scene. Gwil is pulled into wardrobe to change for the upcoming scene, you meanwhile, stick around. You still have another scene to film with your onscreen siblings.

You find Ben near craft services. “Did you see our scene?” you ask excitedly. He nodded silently, his lips press together.

“Yeah, you guys were great.”

You’re thrown off by Ben’s sudden coldness.

“Is anything wrong?”

“No, not at all,” he says quickly, “It’s just, er, I just got a call. I’m needed back on set for some more reshoots apparently, so I need to go now.”

“Oh,” you try not to sound too disappointed. You realize that if you want to ask Ben out on a proper date, this is your last chance to do it. It’s now or never.

“Listen, actually, I was wondering—”

“There you are! We’re needed on set!”

It’s Melanie Todd, the girl who plays your younger sister, Alice. On screen, Violet and Alice are close, even though Violet is sometimes frustrated by Alice’s flighty nature. Offscreen, you care for Melanie as if she was your sister. The girl is only a few years younger than you are and you strive to take her under your wing. You usually love Melanie, but right now you hate her.

You throw Ben an apologetic smile over your shoulder as Melanie pulls you away.

“He’s cute, are you two dating yet?”

_____

You resolve that you’ll just ask Ben out the next time you see him, which will most likely be tomorrow. No sweat. Maybe it’s for the best.

Thanks for coming today! I hope you had a good time, you text Ben in between takes. Just as you hit send you kick yourself; you should’ve sent a heart. Or a smiley face. A kissy face, maybe? Were you there yet?

Before you can agonize over it any further, you pulled into wardrobe to change for your next scene which is supposed to be with Gwil and Melanie inside a jazz club.

Violet accompanies Alice to a jazz club, so she can rendezvous with her new beau (Alice was always falling in love and she seemed to have a new love interest each week) then, Violet miraculously runs into Edmund, the stranger from the rally earlier who identifies her immediately. The scene is meant to lay the framework for the relationship, so you pay extra attention to getting it right. You’ve read and reread and re-reread the script, marking the margins with sloppy notes and gone over the blocking a thousand times. You’ve gone over this scene so much you had dreams about it.

You are ushered back to another sound stage, this one a glittering and golden night club already full of dancing extras and a full jazz band. Melanie comes and grabs your arm and pulls you towards your entrance mark as the two of you quietly run through dialogue. You run the initial scene a couple of times, trying a number of different angles. Then, Melanie runs her scene with Alice’s love interest a few times while you stand at the periphery of the set.

Your scene with Gwil is rapidly approaching and he has yet to show up. You try not to let your confusion and concern show while you’re on camera, though. Around take seven of the scene, you spot Gwil being ushered onto the stage by some costume techs and for the first time since you met him you’re struck at how handsome he is. He’s wearing a dapper three-piece suit with tails, his hair groomed back showing off his sharp, angular face and you realize you’ve never seen him in eveningwear. It occurs to you that you might have been staring too long when his eyes find yours and he smiles discreetly, making you blush and look away.

Soon, the two of you are brought together for your scene. His character, Edmund, finds Violet on the edge of the dancefloor and asks her to dance. Violet doesn’t recognize him at first but agrees. While the two are dancing, Edmund confronts Violet about being the girl that knocked him over earlier that day, having been at the rally and Violet panics.

“So, you’re the girl from the rally.”

Gwil leads you in a waltz while a camera follows your movements through a close shot.

“I don’t know what you are talking about, sir.”

“There is no need to lie, I remember you. Beauty like yours does not escape easily from one’s memory.”

“What if it was me? I don’t suppose you are interested in turning me into the police.”

“On the contrary, Miss…”

“Winthrope. Violet Winthrope.”

“Miss Winthrope. I am a supporter of women’s suffrage and I want to know more about your opinion.”

“You tease me, sir.”

“Not at all. I am an editor for the Post. We’re looking for an interesting female voice to write a column of women’s politics for our opinion’s section. You’re a high society lady who risks her position by going to rallies in the city. That seems pretty interesting to me.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t say anything. Let me take you to luncheon tomorrow and we can discuss it further with some of my other editors. Stop by the Post’s office around 1 o’clock and just let them know you’re meeting with Edmund Nottingham. “

Gwil delicately places a card in your gloved hand and leaves you in the middle of the dancefloor.

“Cut!”

______

You run the scene with Gwil a few more times. It’s interesting to see him transform. You know the silly, laidback Gwil that you’ve come accustomed to. On camera though, Gwil transforms completely into the mysterious and suave Edmund and you can feel both yourself and Violet being charmed.

You finish up filming for the night and by the time you are stripped of your beautiful costume, your intricate hair and your delicate makeup, it’s pretty late into the night. As you walk to your car at the edge of the lot, you check on your phone. Ben has yet to respond. Internally, you’re a little freaked out. He seemed weird this afternoon and now he was not responding to your texts. You try to placate the surge of panic by trying to convince yourself that he might still be filming, or his phone might be dead although you know how unlikely those two things are. Still.

“Hey! Wait up!”

Gwil jogs up behind you breaking you away from your panicked reverie.

“Oh, hi,” you say, slightly surprised, “I thought you would have left by now.”

It’s true, the men take much less time to get out of wardrobe at the end of the day than the female actors.

“I was waiting for you actually, I wanted to walk you to your car,” he says sheepishly.

“Oh, there’s no need. It’s safe here, we have security patrolling.”

“Right, er,” he pauses for a second, running his hands through hair, “I also wanted to say that you were great today. Working with you was… really… You make falling in love with you easy.”

“That’s just the writing,” you shrug and smile noncommittally. “They don’t call it ‘award-winning’ for nothing.”

Your car beams at you from a distance.

“Anyway, this is me. Thank for walking me. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” You shoot Gwil one last smile before opening your car door.

“Right, see you tomorrow.”

TAGS: @xbarrjallenx @alexfayer @chlobo6 @softbenhardy @thathufflepuffbitch

#ben hardy imagine #ben hardy x reader #ben hardy x you #bohemian rhapsody imagine #borhap fanfic #bohemian rhapsody fanfiction #gwilyn lee imagine #gwilym lee x reader #gwilym x reader

14 notes · View notes

kiederen · 6 years ago

Text

Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE review

I said I would give my impressions on #FE and I neglected to do so till now, but better late than never.

I’ll be talking about:

Story

Setting/Theme

Characters

Gameplay

1. Story

The story is nothing special - I enjoyed it, but it's a fairly typical jrpg "power of friendship and bonds" deal that is only made unique in any capacity by the idol culture that frames it. It's not bad, but it's not groundbreaking either. I wish the story were a bit longer to give more of a build up into the final confrontation. The earlier stages slowly start to set things up but even just one more dedicated chapter to ease into the final arc would have probably made the ending feel less rushed. That and I just enjoyed playing it overall and would liked more content.

The distinct chapters format to the flow may have been meant to simulate FE chapters while still also representing how persona stories often have noticeable breaks between dungeon arcs. In TMS though, it felt a bit more artificial, not damningly so, but I think the plot momentum was a bit worse for it.

The set up for each chapter break also revolves around Itsuki himself improving as an entertainer, even though he doesn’t know what direction he wants to focus on, and while it’s most emphasized early on, this aspect of Itsuki’s development himself feels almost abandoned or ignored through the mid and late game until the very end. The solution does make some sense, but some of the details that enable it to happen are a bit questionably contrived, and like the overall story, it felt a bit rushed in the final hour, based on what I remember.

Otherwise, the story did a good job of setting itself up, providing the characters with adequate motivation and means to seek the goals they set and each dungeon gave reasonable purpose for the main characters to tackle it.

The final chapter seemed to be trying to make up for the lack of build up by twisting and turning a bit more than usual, but most of its attempted twists were fairly standard fair for trying to draw out suspense and unfortunately were somewhat predictable for it. I was a little surprised at the host for the big bad, but mostly because I hadn’t been paying close enough attention so that was on me.

2. Setting/Theme

The Tokyo idol scene setting is the most interesting aspect of the story and while I can see it being polarizing, I found it novel myself. Mechanically, it does a good job of unifying the dungeons under a common theme of "things idols do" - such as posing for photo shoots or acting on TV.

Beyond dungeon design, the idol theme also naturally informed character designs and the multitude of costumes that appear throughout.

You can even see this thematic flair in the way that spell casting involves a character signing their autograph as a glyph!

If there’s one oddity that stands out to me about the aesthetics of the game, it’s that the monster designs seem to be unable to decide whether they should be FE inspired or SMT inspired or neither, but even in the latter case most don’t seem to fit in with the idol theme in any capacity.

Even when enemies are FE inspired, they seem to have gone through a similar (if not more extreme) filter that the Mirage characters went through - becoming dramatically stylized and the only real purpose I can conceive for it is to make enemy classes that were definitely human in FE appear non-human here. For instance, the middle and right monsters above are myrmidon class enemies - unpromoted swordmasters from the FE universe.

Not to mention: Why do their out-of-combat sprites look like Organization XIII members!?

3. Characters

Like the story, the characters are good if nothing particularly revolutionary. Most seem built around one or two tropes but then are fleshed out beyond that which is fine. You learn more about them as you do their individual side quests (social links) and these do a good job of giving the feeling of evolving your bond with that character. The pacing of the side stories is mostly okay, though the gameplay reward for those that are plot locked to be very late doesn't always feel equal to how long you had to wait to do them. There's a bit of persona syndrome wherein all the chars get plenty of opportunities to interact with the MC, but would benefit from more time interacting with each other as well.

I liked all the characters in the end. There's a good variety between both the girls and boys, though because of join times some chars got more focused screen time than others. Again, I think a longer late game with more story side quests (instead of fetch quests) would have helped balance things out.

If I had to be as base as to rank the girls in terms of waifu ratings: 1. Eleonora 2. Tsubasa 3. Kiria 4. Maiko 5. Mamori = Tiki Though it's worth noting that top four are all really close, and each slot only wins out over their competition by a small margin. I don’t dislike Mamori or Tiki, I just am not into the little sister appeal.

I suppose Barry Goodman is worth mentioning as well. Barry is a foreigner who settled in Japan and behaviorally embodies the most cringe-worthy aspects of otaku culture. He’s heavy-set, roughly groomed, and somewhat aggressive/abrasive about his passions. I’m not one to judge him for the subject of his passions, but the way he interacts with them would make me uncomfortable around him had he been a real person. Ultimately he is a good person at heart, but his poor people skills are unlikely to endear him to anyone on first impressions, and the fact that he doesn’t care only exacerbates his problems.

Finally, and predictably most disappointingly, the FE chars (heroes and villains) are barely developed and could be replaced with persona or persona like motifs without changing the overall plot. The FE aspect is little more than a coat of paint that gives secondary theme to the invading 'otherworld,' and it's a real shame and waste of potential.

Aside from the Mirage characters and Tiki themselves, there are however a few unmarked references that are at least self aware enough to be welcome Easter eggs for fire emblem fans:

Anna is your convenience store shopkeeper, and there’s even a ‘shadow anna’ who will sell you more dubious dungeon consumables that a normal convenience store wouldn’t stock.

Ilyana works at the cafe, keeping close to her beloved food.

Aimee runs the jewelry store as she was the item store merchant in FE9 and 10

And Cath runs the costume shop. She’s a thief in FE6 with a distinct affinity for money, not unlike Anna, though not as extreme either. Admittedly, it’s been a while since I’ve read over her supports though.

I saw an npc employee at one of the random background shops in Shibuya central street that could also be Brady from FE Awakening, but the camera never got close enough to see him clearly enough to make a positive ID.

Finally, I found it amusing that all the playable chars' names are class puns/references

蒼井樹 = Aoi Itsuki > Aoi means blue in reference to FE lords typically having blue hair

織部つばさ = Oribe Tsubasa > Tsubasa in reference to her peg knight class

赤城斗馬 = Akagi Touma > 赤 (Aka) gives us “red” while 馬(uma) is “horse.” Red cavalier (partnered with a green cavalier) is a reoccurring archetype in FE. The Red cav tends to be the hot-headed one.

I can break down the others if desired, but these will do for examples.

4. Gameplay

Going to break this into a few parts:

General

Combat

Dungeons

1. General

The real reason this game is compared to Persona; gameplay mirrors a lot of persona's elements and it's almost easier to describe how it deviates from the Persona format than spend time detailing how they're the same. That said, if you like the persona formula (as I do), you'd probably enjoy TMS's gameplay flow as well.

While the lack of daily life and day limits for dungeons removes a lot of the tension of time management for them, I think it's fine since a lot of persona players rush dungeons in 1-2 days anyway and in TMS, once the dungeon is done, you don't have to worry about doing busy work to tick off the days until the plot is allowed to move forward again. The lack of social stats is an element of depth removed, but without a time cost element to activities, it makes sense and is probably a good thing for it to be absent from TMS (even if story wise it could have actually be viable as Aoi and the others grow their skills as performers).

Using the WiiU game pad as a smartphone screen to facilitate off-screen character interactions as well as display more detailed enemy information was clever if perhaps unnecessary (as persona 5 showed). Having the only map on the game pad actually made it a little disorienting to reference for me since my eyes had to leave my tv entirely, leading to me either holding my game pad up or bobbing my head up and down to compare my map with my surroundings. On the DS, the two screens are at least close by. I’d like to say there may have been a better use for the game pad, I’m not thinking of anything off the top of my head, so it may have been wise to minimize its use as a gimmick anyway.

This is already in your phone history when you start the game, but it’s still probably my favorite moment from the text message logs:

#relatable.

Replacing persona fusion is a more straightforward crafting system that is the source for your weapons and passive skills, and in turn, much like Tales of Vesperia, your weapons are the source of your skills, both active and passive. The system sounds more grindy than it is in practice though. Simply advancing through the dungeons and fighting 70-80% of the monsters you encounter naturally will provide you with enough materials to forge most weapons as they become available. In fact there were a number of times when I ran out of new weapons to forge and had to push on with already mastered weapons equipped. I liked that bosses and some savage encounters would drop mats of a higher tier than what was readily available from current monsters, and you had to spend them wisely before advancing the plot to the point where those mats became common. It let you preview the next tier of weapons and abilities for select characters but who you gave those weapons to was never overly stressful since you could get the other weapons you passed on later anyway.

Rare monsters drop unique mats that can make weapons that give unusual or otherwise off-type skills to characters and it makes catching rare monsters that flee rather than engage the player rewarding. IIRC, I encountered fewer than ten rare monsters in my entire play through though, so I did not feel it worth the time to actively hunt them unless there was some trick to make them appear more reliably (and catching them was also a bit dependent on the surroundings). Like treasure monsters in P5, they usually had some kind of gimmick where they were only weak to one thing if they had any weakness and the latter ones also came with dodge [weakness] passive and had a chance of just up and running from battle.

2. Combat

The one-more mechanic is replaced by "Sessions" which are not unlike self contained one-more combos anyway. The tag in attacking animations were pretty fun and though late game sessions can get quite long, there’s no way to speed up or skip session animations, possibly in part because of the existence of duo arts which use the session animations as a timer. They could have prohibited skipping prior to deciding on a duo art and then allow skipping or speed up after, though. Long session animations didn’t bother me, personally though, as session attack animations were varied and interesting enough that I never got tired of even the early basic ones (most of which were replaced by late game).

Openly displayed turn order, plus some late game skills that can actually influence turn order were both welcome features as well.

Beyond sessions, specials, duo arts, and ad-lib performances were great at providing extra variety and changing the pace of what might otherwise be rote combat. While duo arts and ad-lib performances were rng bonuses that you mostly just take whatever you can get and be grateful, specials were more deliberate, needing a resource that builds slowly at first. Later on, with longer sessions and meter boosting passives, the sp gauge builds up much faster, but even then specials usually should be selected carefully, especially within boss battles where recovering lost sp is a bit trickier.

That said, special skills were not created equal. Even though buffs and debuffs are powerful, some of the later buffing and debuffing specials came late, at a point where I already had normal skills that could buff or debuff at almost if not the same potency without spending SP. Similarly, as my repertoire of skills grew, my ability to hit weaknesses improved and using specials to break through resistances became less necessary, even as monsters began appearing with more resistances.

Finally, Itsuki’s second special - “Strike A Pose,” was absurdly good and only got better as my session combos grew longer late game. The ability to give everyone twice the actions in a turn opens up so many other combos that often times, there was little reason to use offensive specials in favor of either two individual sessions or a concentrate/charge boosted session.

Inversely, I found myself using healing specials a lot less, and perhaps it was because I used Tsubasa a lot less late game - I made Chrom a great lord which gave Itsuki healing and support which was kinda Tsubasa’s niche previously, so with Touma able to out damage Tsubasa and Elly covering flying enemies, Tsubasa just wasn’t out in combat all that often, which meant Mamori was the only one with healing specials (which were helpful on occasion) but in the end using Strike A Pose allowed me to get normal heals out in extra abundance while still enabling attackers to make a play to help clear troublesome enemies.

The FE weapon triangle’s representation in strengths and weaknesses among weapon types (not extending to magic though) gave a welcome way to predict weaknesses for enemies I had not encountered yet. One of the frustrating things about persona had always been that weakness/strength attributes for new monsters were difficult to predict and late game could cause you to walk into a bad situation that was never really your fault. Not only did the weapon triangle help mitigate some of the arbitrary mystery, but weaknesses were frequently consistent across similar enemy types at different levels even outside of the sword/lance/axe trinity. For example mage type enemies were, with few exceptions, all weak to swords and fire. Skills that deal effective damage (i.e. horseslayer/armorslayer) were also a great addition that gave characters tools to start session combos on enemies that they might otherwise be powerless against. The player also gets other ways to work around pesky resistances, features that are both welcome and necessary because...

If I have one glaring critic of the battle system it’s that Itsuki, like persona protags is mandatory. However, unlike persona protags, Itsuki has static combat tools and extremely limited ability to influence his own strength and weakness attributes. He’s always weak to fire and lances and since you can’t remove him from the front line, you always have someone in combat weak to those elements. Fortunately this is less deal breaking for the fact that Itsuki dying in combat doesn’t immediately game over (hallelujah!). In addition, later in the game most chars get passive skills that greatly increase their avoid against elements they’re weak to, Itsuki included. Still, being able to remove Itsuki from the front line would greatly increase your party diversity and flexibility. For a while after recruiting a second sword character, I had difficulty justifying putting him in the active party because Itsuki already filled the sword role. Eventually, I promoted Itsuki to a more support role and let the other char handle offensive sword plays.

One more minor complaint I have is the inability to swap out fallen allies. Having only three party members means that even one of them dying can be crippling, especially later on and on harder difficulties. I’ve wasted turns reviving downed allies and trying to heal back only for enemies to just repeat what killed someone in the first place and put me exactly where I was last turn with less healing items or sometimes in an even worse situation. While the boss dichotomy of easy/impossible with little in between that some persona bosses suffer from is present here, the existence of specials, ad-lib performances and duo performances that heal or revive greatly alleviate some of the comeback struggle that has a tendency to snowball in this combat system. As the only active non-rng option, specials in particular are important to the system. The severity of boss gimmicks isn’t quite as punishing in TMS compared to persona, but TMS’s smaller party size, can still cause a bad situation to cascade into unsalvageable territory.

3. Dungeons

The dungeon design of TMS is interesting in that it departs from persona 3/4′s formula of randomly generated floors in favor of deliberately organized floor plans with usually only one correct path to the end. The linearity is sometimes broken up by treasures that you’ll have to backtrack for, but aside from that, there’s little mandatory backtracking within a dungeon. Dungeons stick around even after you clear them, allowing side stories to ask you to venture back over familiar ground for one task or another.

That said, the linear nature isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In TMS’s case, it allows the developers to give the player a learning curve for the dungeon’s mechanics and then challenge how well the player understood the earlier lessons, because the devs can guarantee that the player experienced the earlier sections before the later ones. It may sound obvious on paper, but it means that the developers can have a better awareness of the player’s competency at any given point in any dungeon, which is something that can’t be tracked when the player can go multiple routes at any given time. But I digress.

Another mechanical difference of note is how the player, Itsuki interacts with enemies pre-battle. In persona 3 and later, you could swing your weapon to hit an enemy in the field and that would start combat (at an advantage if they didn’t notice you), but in TMS, striking an opponent on the field knocks them back and stuns them, giving you the choice to then get closer and touch them to begin combat at an advantage or to avoid combat entirely. I like this greater degree of choice and it fits within the philosophy that TMS dungeons are made to be less stressful - less about meticulous resource management - than persona games. There’s still an incentive to engage in combat: you need to keep up a certain amount of level growth just to have the raw stats to beat bosses, but if you’re low on health and/or healing items or just plain short on available play time and you think or know there’s a checkpoint up ahead so you just want to make a push to reach it, you aren’t forced into battles you don’t want to engage in... with the exception of “Savage Encounters,” which are challenge monsters that seem to just exist to screw with you anyway. I think there was only one area prior to the last or second to last dungeons that had savage enemies I could actually beat albeit with great effort.

Playing TMS after Persona 5, it was also apparent that TMS’s idolaspheres were prototype palaces, from the set floor layouts and linear progression to the overarching themes of the dungeon informing its aesthetic and unique mechanics. In fact there are a number of things that TMS pinoeered for Atlus that then went on to feature in P5. You can read about some others here.

Puzzles were almost entirely navigation in nature - that is, how to use the dungeon mechanics and infrastructure to get from your start to your goal. It may be because it’s been a little over a month now, but none particularly stand out in my memory as being exceptionally good, while one or two I remember for being somewhat arduous or tiring. I’m still of the opinion that areas that the player is trying to solve puzzles in should have lower if not 0 encounter rate with random enemies, as battles, especially turn based ones that don’t tend to resolve in a single turn, can disrupt problem solving trains of thought.

Overall the dungeons are good though, and that’s important as they’re the meat of the gameplay. They are generally well paced with plenty to do and some minor stuff to find on your way to your target goal. Each dungeon’s unique mechanics fit with the dungeon theme and aside from a few exceptions the enemies are fairly distributed.

5. Conclusion

It has its flaws but I think, in the end, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE gets more right than it gets wrong. Even though the story was standard fair for this genre, I thoroughly enjoyed it and wished it had more content to its core for me to experience. I know there’s dlc, but the nature of dlc means that it’s nothing integral to the story and I’m not sure it would scratch the itch the way I want.

The setting is unique and the game fully embraces the themes it sets up and the themes in turn inform and affect almost every aspect of the game, giving it a unified appeal.

The combat is arguably more interesting than persona. It takes the same core formula of targeting weak points for massive damage but allows players more tools and freedom to circumvent bad matchups, make carefully planned strategic plays, or simply style on enemies with flashy satisfying attacks.

#TMS #Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE #Sharpfe

2 notes · View notes

douxreviews · 6 years ago

Text

Manifest - ‘Contrails’ Review

"The government didn't start hiding things on the day we came back. They started on the day we disappeared."

Even paranoids can have non-imaginary enemies, and sometimes the crazy conspiracy theory is not just a theory and nowhere near crazy. Just ask Captain Bill Daly, who was the pilot of Montego Air Flight 828 when it left Jamaica on the evening of April 7, 2013.

Last week, we saw that Captain Daly was something of a mess, more so than most of the 828ers. As the pilot, the safety of the passengers was his responsibility, one he took very seriously. When the plane encountered the storm/wormhole/alien spaceship/wrath of God/whatever it was, he got them through it in one piece and landed everyone safely--only to find himself being blamed for whatever it was that kicked 828 five and a half years into the future. Add that on top of all the other stress that the "average" 828er has to deal with--finding out you were presumed dead, your loved ones remarried, and your worldly possessions were given away to Goodwill years ago, and such--and, well, if that happened to you, you'd be a mess, too.

After Cal prophecies that "the man from the plane" will need his father's help, Ben gets a call from Capt. Daly, who enlists his help. The good Captain has determined that the official government records of the crash investigation are deliberately misleading, or at best wildly inaccurate, regarding the weather conditions. The crash investigation report is dated April 8, 2013, just one day after the disappearance.

Ben subjects the inquiry record to one of his trademark analytical binges and discovers that a meteorologist named Roger Mencin, who was conducting observations of "dark lightening" near where 828 disappeared, was supposed to testify at a hearing, but backed out, and almost immediately took early retirement and moved to Massapequa. They go to visit Roger, who tells them that he was pressured into erasing his data--but saved a copy just in case. They load Roger's weather data into a 737 cockpit simulator, which gives them a pretty good replica of the storm and turbulence, but registers a crash when Daly tries to repeat the maneuver that got them through the storm. As Ben points out, the simulator probably doesn't model time travel--but Daly just gets even more frustrated at his inability to "prove" that what he did was right, and even more convinced that Fiona Clarke is behind it all.

Meanwhile, Michaela is babysitting Cal on her day off when Autumn shows up at the apartment, asking Michaela's help in locating someone she claims stole her identity and framed her. While Autumn is there, Ben calls Michaela and she asks him "Hey, how was Massapequa?"

The next day, Roger Mencin turns up dead in a suspiciously-timed boating accident. Ben and Michaela go to check up on Daly, and when going through his apartment discover that he's planning to steal an airplane and fly into a storm cell looking for more dark lightening. When they get to the airport, they find out that the airplane isn't the only thing Daly is stealing--he's kidnapped Fiona and is taking her with him!

I should mention here that while Autumn is attempting to break away from The Major's operation, her new handler is refusing to accept her resignation and putting the squeeze on her. (The new guy gives off the same weasel-y vibe as Autumn's previous contact, the late Lawrence Belson., and will therefore be designated "Weasel 2.0.") While Ben and Michaela are chasing after Captain Daly, Autumn breaks in to Michaela's apartment, takes photos of Ben's research documents, and steals a page out of Cal's sketchbook.

Though Ben and Michaela do their level best to talk him out of it, Daly goes roaring into the center of the storm, pursued by two Air National Guard F-16s. The plane is either shot down or flung forward in time, take your pick.

In reviewing the events of the day, Michaela realizes that Autumn overheard her mention Massapequa, and realizes she's the Major's mole.

And then Grace discovers that the window to Cal's bedroom is open and Cal is missing.

"828" Watch

The flight number appears on the cover of the government report. The tail number of the stolen plane is N728PH.

Also on the manifest.....

In further developments on the romantic-triangle front, Michaela, to her credit, tells Jared that it's over between them and she will not be "the other woman."

"Dark lightning" really exists. The technical term for it is "terrestrial gamma ray flash," a phenomenon first detected in 1994, and still not all that well understood. They seem to propagate in and around thunderstorms, though the exact cause is still the subject of some scientific debate. A typical "TGF" lasts from 0.2 to 3.5 milliseconds (don't blink or you'll miss it!) and kicks out up to 20 million electron volts. While "20 million volts" sounds impressive, we're talking electron volts, which are a measure of energy (and mass and momentum) in particle physics. (They have nothing to do with the volts in your 9-volt batteries and 110-volt electrical outlets, which measure electrical potential.) An electron volt is so small that you'd need 249,660,461,771,990,093,472.9 of them to power a 40-watt light bulb for one second. (That's the answer I got, anyway. Please feel free to check my math.) I imagine it would take a lot more than that to send a Boeing airliner hurtling five years into the future through the space-time continuum.

Captain Daly drives a C2 Corvette Stingray. Definitely a pilot's kind of car.

In the first scene with Ben and Daly in the Corvette, the car radio is playing "Midnight Rider" by The Allman Brothers: Well, I've got to run to keep from hidin'/And I'm bound to keep on ridin'/And I've got one more silver dollar/But I'm not gonna let 'em catch me, no, not gonna let 'em catch the midnight rider. Fitting choice for Daly's theme song, given how his story arc plays out.

This week's gold star for acting goes to Frank Deal, who played Capt. Daly. In the flashback scenes and the first act of the pilot episode, the character is snarky and supremely confident (as pilots usually are). In the "present day" scenes in this episode and the previous one, he's a broken man--but still the same individual, and still sympathetic even at the end. Honorable mention goes to Francesca Faridany, playing a terrified Fiona Clarke.

In the cockpit scenes during the storm, Daly says he's "increasing speed to 300 knots." According to Wikipedia, a 737's cruise speed is in the neighborhood of 450 knots when at altitude, so how could he be increasing to 300? He's referring to indicated airspeed, which is not the same thing as "true" airspeed. A plane's airspeed indicator measures speed by measuring the difference between static air pressure around the plane and the pressure in the pitot tube, which points directly forward. At cruising altitude, the air is thinner, and this causes the airspeed indicator to register something less than the speed the aircraft is actually travelling relative to a fixed point on the ground. That 450 knot cruising speed therefore translates to something a bit below 300 knots IAS.

Massapequa is a town of 21,685 (2010 Census) on the south shore of Long Island.

According to the co-pilot, Kelly Taylor was demanding a hypo-allergenic blanket from the flight attendants. She would do a thing like that.

I am very certain that I would not want to be Autumn Cox when Michaela catches up to her.

Quotes

Captain Daly, to his co-pilot: "I'm a cowboy. Plane's my horse, and the sky an open desert."

Captain Daly, in his debriefing: "You don't understand. There is no 'conventional maneuver' when a storm appears right on top of you. And this storm was like nothing I've ever seen."

Airport guard: "Hey, hey, Captain Future! You gonna fly through the Bermuda Triangle again?" A more prophetic statement than he realized.

Conclusion

Another good episode with a couple of annoying little details. The Major's organization seemed uncharacteristically ham-fisted: kill the meteorologist the day after he talks to Ben Stone? Way to draw attention to your secret operation that no one is supposed to know about and blow your mole's cover in the process! Shoot down a plane and kill the hostage? Not swift either, guys. Also, I thought it a little too neat that Fiona, a neuroscientist in a narrow specialty with New Age leanings, would be conversant enough with high-end particle physics to know what dark lightening was in the first place. (A quick scene of Fiona looking it up on Wikipedia would have been a nice touch.) However, the episode did an excellent job portraying Captain Daly's descent into madness in a believable fashion, and I liked how Fiona Clarke, until now the very portrait of emotional equilibrium, completely lost it as she concluded she was about to die. And the cliffhanger at the end--oh, boy!

Three out of four terrestrial gamma ray flashes.

Baby M avoids exposure to gamma rays whenever possible.

#Manifest #Ben Stone #Michaela Stone #Manifest Reviews #Doux Reviews #TV Reviews

3 notes · View notes

metalgearkong · 6 years ago

Text

Spider-Man - Review (PS4)

10/17/18

Developed by Insomniac Games

Spider-Man has always been my favorite super hero, but good Spider-Man games are far and few between. My two favorites are the linear adventure game from 2000, which nails the characters and story, but the other widely regarded favorite is Spider-Man 2 from 2004, which introduced realistic web swinging. Somehow, this new Spider-Man game manages to outdo both qualities, and tie it into one epic product. Insomniac Games is an extremely experienced studio, developing games such as Spyro the Dragon, Ratchet & Clank, and Resistance. Not only is Spider-Man the best Insomniac game to date, its one of the best exclusives for the PS4, and is the best incarnation of Spider-Man I’ve ever seen in any medium.

This is a brand new story of Peter Parker and his world, not tying into any other games, films, or comics. Things pick up 8 years after Peter has become the wall crawler, and has lots of experience fighting bad guys and putting super villains behind bars. While he may have tangled with some big names from his lore already, many more villains and side characters have not been mentioned, leaving tons of possibilities open for sequels. Spider-Man also dwells on Peter’s brilliant scientific mind, as he is able to keep pace with Dr. Otto Octavious, and several mini-games can be played conducting research, identifying chemicals, and reprogramming hardware.

Peter and Otto are designing advanced prosthetics that could change the world, but the two scientists are struggling when the city pulls its grant from their lab. The mayor in this story happens to be Norman Osborn, and a brewing conflict between Otto and Norman fuel much of the story, especially near the end. It’s in Otto’s lab where we conduct most of the scientific mini games, mainly being optional, but can unlock currency to upgrade Peter’s suit and gadgets. Peter also helps out with F.E.A.S.T., an emergency shelter where Aunt May works, and is lead by Martin Li, a man with a secret agenda of his own. The game opens with an exciting tutorial, whereupon Spider-Man is finally taking down a long time rival, The Kingpin, giving us perspective on how far Peter has already come.

One of the main things that took me off guard about this game were how well the cut scenes and characters are done. Not only are the graphics detailed, and motion capture was used for most of the acting, but the care and nuance each character is given in their personality and dialog was constantly impressive. Many of the characters were designed in-game to look like their voice acting counterpart, and many people have genuine chemistry between each other. Mary Jane in particular got a major change, in that she is a persistent investigative journalist instead of a fashion model, and has the capability to help out Peter in many of his outings. No character off the top of my head has any glaring weakness, other than maybe a few by the end of the game not having as much closure or explanation as I may have wanted.

A Chinese gang known as the Demons is slowly terrorizing the city, and act as one of the main entities Spider-Man must go up against. Surprisingly, after the big Wilson Fisk fight, the game feels devoid of super villain entanglements, yet makes up for this in spades with the last portion of the game. It would have been a little nicer to have more than one villain to fight other than The Shocker for the first half of the game, but it’s a small imbalance that doesn’t affect the overall quality or pacing much. Many encounters with squads of goons can be tackled stealthily at first, but usually end up in a big controlled chaos fight. The combat is ripped straight from the Batman: Arkham games, but in this current generation of gaming, this system is pretty much ubiquitous for action/open-world formats. While Spider-Man loses points for originality, it makes up for it in spades with incredible depth the combat system offers. I’ve always thought the “press a button to react” combat was more of a fit for Spider-Man anyway, and I’m glad I finally get to see it in a good Spidey game.

Everything we do earns experience points, and when we reach enough, can use skill points to upgrade gadgets, webbing, and suit powers. Largely, I didn’t take advantage of the depth of the upgrades and unlockables because I found the core gameplay fun and entertaining from the very start. As I write this, I am on my second run at the game (attempting to achieve 100% completion) and just now am experimenting with fighting styles I never used the first time. It speaks to this game’s detail, something you may not think it has at first, especially being a licensed game. However, one of my objective problems with the game is I found the stealth mechanics highly inconsistent. The game tells you when we can safely web up an enemy without anyone else noticing, but much of the time when I would push the button for a clean stealth take-down, it would alert the guards around my victim, launching into all-out brawls.

A great detail that Insomniac knew to include was the ability to earn multiple Spider-Man costumes that can be switched instantly at any time. Many of these costumes I recognized from comics and past games, but it also offers modern outfits, such as three suits from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and original suits all together. Each suit comes with a new power that helps combat and gameplay. The best detail is, once the suit is unlocked, we can use whichever power on whichever suit. This lets you pick both your favorite gameplay buff, as well as look exactly how you want Spidey to look during the game. I also love how the costume translates into every single cut scene, further immersing you into the story in your own little way.

Aside from the main narrative, tons of side missions can be played, but also with varying quality. Most of the citizens who offer quests have stories worth experiencing, and that play into the character of this version of Manhattan. Other quests can be glorified collectathons or challenges, which luckily are optional to complete. Even still, they usually offer further insight into Peter’s personality, intellect, or into the personality of other characters involved. Easily the best part about the gameplay is the web swinging. Traversing Manhattan is delectable, and an absolute blast. Peter has tons of natural looking animations that make him look graceful and realistic. Having to attach webbing to actual surfaces gives locomotion dramatic weight, and lots of fun payoff. Peter can also web zip forward, maintaining horizontal speed, given that there is an object in the near distance in front of him.

What also helps immensely is the smooth 60 frames per second that the game runs on. Every web swing feels and looks graceful, and even into my second time completing the game, was discovering new tricks to keep momentum going forward, things that the game lets you discover for yourself. For the first time in any open-world game, a blip on my map over 3,000 meters away, rarely felt like a hassle. I looked forward to going from one place to the next almost every single time. The game offers a quick travel mechanic, but I honestly believe it isn’t necessary in a game where going from one place to another is so consistently thrilling. This is a big aspect of the game I’m sure Insomniac knew they had to nail, and they passed with flying colors.

Spider-Man (or is it “Marvel’s Spider-Man”?) is a brilliant representation of the wall crawler, and is an extremely fun open-world game. Everything from the graphics, to the combat, to the web swinging, to the music is all done excellently, and is easily worth its $60 price tag. While I’m not a huge fan of every type of side quest or mini game, the core of the game’s narrative and heart makes any small imperfection look that much smaller. The poorer qualities of the game are only seen as worse because they’re surrounded by so much greatness. This has become the quintessential version of Spider-Man and something I will compare every future incarnation to. I was so pleased and so impressed around every corner, I still can’t believe this game turned out as well as it did. Absolutely worth plaything through to see the story to its end, and purely for the fun of every minute of the experience.

9.5/10

#spider-man #spiderman #peterparker #marvel #ps4 #ps4exclusive #openworld #videogame #review #cantwaitforthesequel #insomniac #insomniacgames #comicbook #superhero #manhattan #nyc #nycwallcrawler

3 notes · View notes

silver-elysium · 7 years ago

Note

Hi! I really enjoy reading your blog because you are so knowledgeable in terms skating skills and dance technique all the while remaining level headed and respectful. I hope I’m not being a bother, but if you wouldn’t mind, I’d love to hear your opinion on some ice dance questions. Who had the best rumba? As a couple as well as individually which male and female ice dancer(s) from this previous quad have the top skating skills and technique overall and why? What sets them apart? Thank you :)

Wow, thanks, anon! This message really made my day :) I am always enthusiastic to talk about skating, so you certainly are not bothering me! I love these kind of questions. I’m sorry it took me a while to answer, I just wanted to watch some videos specially for this and think about it. This turned out rather long, so I’m putting it under a cut.

To be honest, I am mostly knowledgeable in singles skating, and I can mostly speak about ice dance from what I know of what generally good skating skills are or what I know of ballet or character dance. Therefore a lot of my opinions are somewhat subjective.

I’ll get to the rhumba first, only to say that I know very little of specific ice dance patterns. I am not sure what the requirements for the perfect rhumba are, since it’s all very complicated technical-specialist-stuff. I do know that the choctaw is a key point both for the man and the lady though, so I guess that’s how it can be assessed by people who have not gone through major ISU judging training. But when a pattern is judged on one particular step, it is difficult to say who has the best one, since it’s mostly impossible to execute a step exactly the same way every time one steps on the ice. Since I can’t answer this one really objectively, I can give my favourite rhumbas of the season: obviously, Virtue/Moir, whom I am biased towards, but at the same time I genuinely believe no one is better than those two at anything on the ice. I choose their rhumba because 1) it has such beautiful fluidity and their skating skills just make it exquisite to watch 2) the character they added to it, the looks, arm movements, musicality, made it more than just a compulsory element. I also think Hubbell/Donohue had an impressive rhumba.

As for the skating skills - again, I don’t think anyone comes close to Virtue/Moir. I think they are both individually miles ahead of everybody else, and when they come together as a pair, there are no words for how great they are. One thing that is really evident with them, whether in person (it’s staggering) or on tape, is the massive ice coverage and speed achieved through exceptionally clean turns and deep edges - basically, doing the things that normally take momentum away from you, they manage to gain it. Then goes their ability to execute turns with textbook cleanliness, the depth of their edges (look at the photo below) and the way you’ll never see snow skidding/toepicks digging into the ice from their skates during turns and steps. They’re just so smooth.

Then there is one of the fundamentals of good skating skills - their ability to keep a straight back and their weight front of the blade whilst having an enormous knee bend. That is really difficult to do on ice (try going to the rink and trying to bend your knees to say, 60 degrees, and feel how your upper body will lean forwards and butt will stick out). Examples:

In this photo Tessa shows a different kind of control and balance, even if the knee bend isn’t as deep: although her free leg is in front of her body, and her arm being pulled behind her, her weight is still clearly on the middle/front part of her right foot. And Scott is just showing perfect posture while skating on one foot with his knee bent really deep all whilst doing partner work.

I could go on and on about Tessa and Scott, but that’s pretty much it in rough terms. Another team that has fantastic skating skills are Maia and Alex Shibutani. They have lots of speed, never miss a turn or an edge, their edges are deep, they’re basically perfect haha (not quite as wide across the ice as V/M, but phenomenal nevertheless). I’ve heard Tatiana Tarasova say that even when she was sitting by the boards commentating, she couldn’t hear anything at all when they skated past (means they have correct glide and don’t dig in with their toepicks, hence don’t cause any sound against the ice), which is saying something. That is proof of very well developed skating technique.

Another couple with great SS is Hubbell/Donohue. They don’t have quite the flow or ice coverage that Virtue/Moir do, but nevertheless are very impressive. They both have very smooth glide and deep knee bend.

Also, their ability to fully lean their upper body “on” their edge, not sure how to explain this properly, but here’s an example: (it’s very difficult to do and requires a lot of control). You’ll see their upper bodies leaning to our left - which is over their edges.

Kaitlyn Weaver has pretty good, smooth glide and clean edges, however I sometimes find myself disliking the way she doesn’t fully extend her free leg. I’d say most of the rest of the top teams (excluding the three I’ve already mentioned and Papadakis/Cizeron) are pretty equal. Now, Guillaume Cizeron could be really good, he has pretty decent basic skills and skates pretty smooth but his partner has really really poor skating skills. She isn’t always able to execute turns cleanly on her own, and it can be seen with one’s naked eye. I watched their Moonlight Sonata without sound, and it just seems like Guillaume’s skills are slowly getting poorer. His edges are now often incomplete, shallow and turns choppy, which I was surprised to see. The three teams I mentioned first and some others as well use a lot of difficult steps and turns as transitions between elements. That is really difficult to gain/maintain speed with. Now, P/C mostly do crossovers in between elements, which are essentially very simple steps which were designed for speed gaining, so if they seem to have a lot of speed during a step sequence, it’s probably because they did some basic stroking that is only acceptable before big jumping passes in figure skating before that. The difficulty of transitions in my opinion is another good indicator of a skater’s/team’s basic skills.

Sorry this turned out so long 😳

8 notes · View notes

recentanimenews · 3 years ago

Text

INTERVIEW: Girlfriend, Girlfriend Director Satoshi Kuwabara Tells Us His Best Girl And More!

Girlfriend, Girlfriend is a romantic comedy that started airing earlier this season and has quickly earned a spot in anime fans' hearts! The show features a blend of situational comedy and romantic tension and brings it together with a big, earnest heart.

Satoshi Kuwabara is an experienced anime director who has headed productions including the first season of The Quintessential Quintuplets and various adaptations of Osamu Tezuka's Black Jack manga (as Chief Director). Now, he brings this experience to a new production as the director of Girlfriend, Girlfriend! Following our interview with manga-ka Hiroyuki, we are pleased to share an interview with Satoshi Kuwabara. Read on to learn about his experience heading the series!

Video form of the interview

Exclusive interview with Girlfriend, Girlfriend director Satoshi Kuwabara✨ (via @girlfriend_en) pic.twitter.com/EtanyljthX

— Crunchyroll @ #VCRX! ???? (@Crunchyroll) August 1, 2021

Crunchyroll: Can you please introduce yourself and what you do to our audience?

Satoshi Kuwabara: So, introductions come first ... My name is Satoshi Kuwabara. I'm an animator in Japan. And for my current project, I'm directing the Girlfriend, Girlfriend anime. Which is something I hope you'll all enjoy. Should I explain what kind of work the director does?

Yes, please!

Kuwabara: Well, specifically speaking, a director's job comes down to ... As I'm sure everyone knows, animation is based off of hand-drawn artwork. And because every single element has to be drawn by an individual person, that means there are a lot of people involved. At the very beginning of the process, there's the screenplay, which is the foundation of the lines that are going to be recorded. Then after that comes the storyboards. And after that comes the animation process. You have the animators, whose job it is to make the characters move. And then, you have the backgrounds which are handled by another art team. After that comes the process of filming all these elements together, editing that footage, and then comes adding the voices of the individual characters; so those have to be recorded. After that, the remainder of the sound production gets taken care of, and when that's done, you have a complete animated film.

But for that to happen, it usually involves a lot of different people. So, the easiest way to explain a director of an animated project's job is that he's the one who oversees everyone else's work. Specifying things like "This is how this should be done for this scene," or saying how a character should be colored in a particular scene ... Or "We want this scene to be shot this way." The storyboarding process is essentially about giving these kinds of directions, which then goes out to the assorted other departments ... And then that work all comes together while working on a film ... What's a good way of putting this? It's a bit like being the captain of a ship. I think that's why directing isn't something that can be done by yourself. Each different section of the production team has their key leaders, and their help is what gets everything done.

I think one thing almost all animation has in common is that it's a team effort. You have a lot of different people coming together to complete a project. So being the director is about making sure that everyone's efforts come together successfully, and making sure the final product is reflective of their contributions. I personally think that might be the secret of what makes animation enjoyable. If you think about it, a single person is, at maximum, only able to produce 100 percent of their strength, but through collaboration, the more people get involved, that can turn into 200, 300, even 1,000 percent, it's almost a kind of inherent potential. And I think animation is unique in that it takes that potential — and because of that potential, it really has no limits, especially in the language of film. I think it's a medium with unlimited possibilities.

What an amazing answer! How did you get your start in the anime industry?

Kuwabara: Well, I got into the animation industry around 33 years ago, I think ... Before that, I really wanted to get a job in film because I really loved both live-action and animated films. I would always be heading to the theater in my free time. And eventually, I decided I'd like to try making a movie, or some other film myself, so I ended up enrolling in a technical school for animation, and after that, I ended up joining the company where I still work to this day.

You've worked in the anime industry for quite some time. What is the biggest thing you have learned during your time working on anime?

Kuwabara: That really is a hard one. When I'm asked to just list one it's hard, because I've learned so much in the past, and am still learning to this day. But something I always find is that, when I'm working on a project, I'm totally immersed in it, and just focused so entirely on working as hard as I can, and whenever I end up finishing and getting a chance to catch my breath, the thing that I'm always struck by is how grateful I am to all the other people who I've worked with.

It's like I mentioned before, animation is definitely not a one-man job. I mentioned them before, but there're the animation staff, the art department, the photography department, the audio staff ... And that's not even everyone, there's still the project leads, and the general managers, I honestly think that animation is only possible with their collective support. And another thing that I tend to reflect on is that animation only really exists thanks to the audience. It's like realizing that, even though those of us on the creative side are the ones who put a project together, the way that it shapes up once it gets into the hands of the audience is just as important. And it's the audience themselves that are the biggest factor, there.

It leaves me with the feeling that the truly memorable works that really shine reflect the combined passion of the creators, the people who support us, and the people who watch it once it's completed. And I'm always really grateful for that. That's the biggest thing that comes to mind.

What is a day in the life of an anime director like? Is there anything you would like people to know about what the job is like?

Kuwabara: Well, when I became the director on Girlfriend, Girlfriend, and this is the case with every project, but I think that I personally need to love something in order to work on it. I don't know if I'd be able to do a good job working on something unless I felt like I was one of its biggest fans, so the first step is to familiarize myself with what I'll be working on, and figuring out what I love about it. And my first impression from Girlfriend, Girlfriend after reading the manga is that it was really easy to fall in love with.

After thinking it over, what I really do like about it is how the characters are really well developed in the sense that they feel like they could really exist. In specific terms, you have the protagonist Naoya, along with Saki, Nagisa, Mirika, and Shino, and the way that they're honest about those feelings, and live in a way that reflects those feelings, strikes me as really wonderful, and that's a big part of the story's charm. That's what makes the characters stand out, and really the big thrust of their appeal, from where I stand.

Can you go more in-depth and explain what Girlfriend, Girlfriend is about?

Kuwabara: Falling in love is something I think everyone can relate to, and I think that this is a story where those sort of thoughts ... Or more like, those sort of feelings are depicted very frankly. And because of that, I'm truly grateful to have been involved with this project. If there's one other thing I can add, I think it's an extremely well-executed comedy. The story as a whole is about delving into the romances that bud through the character's lives, and the comedy is sort of how we digest it. And the tempo that it unfolds at is something unlike anything else I've ever seen. The story really develops at a pretty rapid pace, but instead of feeling strange, it's actually very comfortable. I think that it's a manga where, once you start reading it, it becomes hard to stop due to the amount of momentum it has. That's another one of its big appeals and part of why I was drawn to it as a project.

You also directed the first season of The Quintessential Quintuplets, which is another ensemble romantic comedy. Are you bringing your experience directing that series into Girlfriend, Girlfriend?

Kuwabara: I think that when you work as a director, every single project ends up helping you grow, and it's definitely that it's all cumulative. Quintessential Quintuplets was also a comedy, so I do think my experience working on it was beneficial for Girlfriend, Girlfriend. For Quintessential, you had these five different heroines who would come into the scene, and there'd be a chat, and back and forth with their interactions, which would be what pushed the story along. And having to manage a narrative like that, one that is having to move forward while having many focal characters, is a difficult thing to do, both from a plot structure and an animation standpoint. But since I had gone through that once already, it helped me know what to do in Girlfriend, Girlfriend where you had all of these characters showing up and progressing their own arcs, along with the fun that they have with Naoya, the protagonist. So, that experience definitely helped me with knowing what to emphasize to really bring out the fun in the story.

Do you work closely with the original manga-ka, Hiroyuki? If so, what has that experience been like?

Kuwabara: Well, with the creator, it started with meeting him after I had become the director of the project, and from there we discussed a lot of the finer details of the story, and I got to hear a lot of his thought processes, as they relate to it. After that, with animation, after production gets decided upon, the screenplay is the first thing that gets put together — the script in other words. And a lot of us had the opportunity to check in on the script during its progress, from the producers, to people on the client side, and then those of us on the production side, and the writers, we all get together periodically and discuss things. And Hiroyuki-sensei managed to make the time to join those meetings, even though he's so busy, and he would offer all kinds of advice, which was extremely valuable. I had read through the original manga already, but he would point out things that I didn't realize, on top of offering ideas for the project himself, and the suggestions he came up with would always be very funny. We ended up taking a lot of his ideas and incorporating them into the anime.

Another thing is, after the scriptwriting process we begin to work on storyboards. I don't know if everyone is familiar with what they look like, but it's essentially ... If the script is the blueprint for how the dialog will work, the storyboard then takes that dialog and, with a mixture of rough art and written direction, it creates a blueprint for the animation staff when they're drawing the characters. Hiroyuki-sensei also did some checks during that storyboard process and gave us a bit of device for little tweaks like what facial expressions would be best and what lines would go best and where. He really helped us understand certain key things about the story. So I'm really glad to have gotten to work with someone who was willing to offer so much advice to the project, and give such helpful advice.

What can fans of the Girlfriend, Girlfriend manga look forward to most with the anime?

Kuwabara: Well, a big appeal of Girlfriend, Girlfriend is all the cute girl characters, and I think people will really appreciate them when they see them in the anime. There's a real joy in seeing how expressive they become when animated, getting angry or crying, laughing. Other than that, there're the elements of action. You'll get to see the characters act out the more kinetic elements in a way the manga couldn't, and I think that'll be something worth looking forward to.

Beyond that, when we started working on the Girlfriend, Girlfriend anime, we were really conscientious about maintaining the speed and momentum that the manga has, and careful not to do anything that would slow it down. I think that the animation is going to really feel like the manga come to life, and I think that getting to experience just how fast it hits with jokes will be something that's really entertaining. There are so many things I could touch on. We've put a lot of effort into making it a visually appealing show. And in order to properly express what the girls and Naoya are feeling, we use a lot of abstract touches to depict the interiority of the characters that the manga didn't get a chance to. I'd say those are all the things that I think people can look forward to.

How has your team adapted your work process during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Kuwabara: Well, even in Japan, the COVID pandemic isn't quite under control, and there have been effects felt in the process of animation production. Normally everyone assembles at the studio, and there's a lot of in-person interaction and discussion, and that is in the background as everything proceeds to unfold. But with COVID's prevalence, a lot of people are working from home instead. Because of that, there's a lot less naturally occurring communication, so instead, we try to make sure that those conversations still happen either using Zoom or other video chat software, and by actively making time for that, we keep the lines of communication open during production still.

In addition to that, on the sound production side, when recording the voice-over for the characters, they now split up the recordings so that a lot of people aren't crowded together which is intended to help avoid infection. The thing is, since everyone involved is a professional, we're all consciously making sure none of this has a negative impact on the project, so I'd say the audience shouldn't need to worry.

How do you feel about Naoya's idea to date two girls at once?

Kuwabara: That's definitely the most notable thing about Girlfriend, Girlfriend, the fact that the protagonist is going out with two girls at once. And that's easy to see how something that can leave people with a negative impression of the protagonist, but reading the manga, I came to really like Naoya as a protagonist. And I think that's because he seriously cares about both Saki and Nagisa. He has a pure, unclouded love for both of them, and cares deeply as a result. I think that forms the core of his character.

I think when it comes to fiction, no matter how bad a character might be, or how bad they're depicted, if they have one fundamental thing that makes up their character, that they won't budge on, the audience will be able to appreciate that. And that's something that they'll even come to approve of. I think you can really get a feel for Naoya's unshakable love in Girlfriend, Girlfriend. And the way he's so earnest ... If you take a step back, you can really see that he really doesn't come across as very cool or impressive. But that's a big part of how you can tell he's serious about his feelings for them, and how he works hard for both their sakes. That's why I think that, in the manga, it's able to take a protagonist in a situation that would normally get him hated and instead turns it into something that is a part of his charm.

Who is your favorite girl out of all the female leads in Girlfriend, Girlfriend?

Kuwabara: Well, that's actually a pretty common question, and it even comes up with other projects ... And I swear this is the truth: I like both of them equally. I think it'd probably impact the show in a bad way if I had a preference. Saki, Nagisa, and the rest of the characters all have things that make them amazing, and I feel like I can depict this story well because I genuinely like them all so much. So, I'm really sorry, but I honestly love them both. If I absolutely have to pick one, I would say Saki's mom is particularly cute.

You're a man of culture. Is there anything else you would like to say to fans of Girlfriend, Girlfriend?

Kuwabara: I hope you'll all really enjoy Girlfriend, Girlfriend. I think it will be really entertaining for both people who are familiar with the manga and for people who aren't. It's got a fun sense of speed, and I think the characters have turned out particularly cute. Those of us on the staff have worked really hard on it, so we'd all be really pleased if you checked it out. All we can really do is try to put together a great show and deliver it to you all, and it's my belief that it will only truly shine with its full potential once it's in the audience's hands. So, I'd love it if Girlfriend, Girlfriend became that kind of a project. Thanks for talking with me. Thank you for watching Girlfriend, Girlfriend on Crunchyroll.

Watch Girlfriend, Girlfriend on Crunchyroll Now!

Cayla Coats is the Editor-in-Chief of Crunchyroll News EN. She tweets @ceicocat.

By: Cayla Coats

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

0 notes