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flanpucci · 1 year ago

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An ASD oriented analysis of the character of Enrico Pucci

Okay guys after letting this draft cook in my notes for months, here it is!!!

I have decided to embark on the journey of listing the reasons why I think Pucci is autistic coded and if he isn’t, he’s written with a pretty good idea of what an autistic person is! Since I'm pinning this, the analysis will be under the cut ↓

I can’t guarantee that my analysis won’t come with a whole lot of general delusion or projecting on my side, so don't hesitate to tell me if you feel some type of way about this. I understand that many of the traits or behaviors i’m gonna talk about are mostly explained by the events happening in canon, but they give him a general super autistic vibe. Disclaimer that I’ve also decided to ignore most acts of murder type violence for this analysis as I think those are more relevant in the context of the story than the character building.

Although not on purpose this analysis is organized almost like diagnosis criteria, so we're going to look into repetitive behavior and interests, communication, aversion to unpredictability and sensory processing etc...! Before we start, I'd like to say once more that I am autistic, my analysis is mine and reflects my opinion only, it's my headcanon and comes with a lot of projecting, so proceed with caution.

Anxiety and counting prime numbers, Repetitive behavior

Counting numbers is a well known technique to stop panic attacks. The reason is that when you panic, your brain’s logical part doesn’t activate. Counting numbers will help you get the logical part of your brain back ‘on’. Simply counting numbers in order or in a simple pattern is too natural, and may not work, so some people will count numbers backwards from 100, count numbers in a non-patterned, random way, or even count prime numbers.

In Pucci’s case he counts primes because they can’t be divided other than by 1 or themselves and are “lonely numbers”. The prime numbers remind him of his own loneliness against adversity, and give him courage. I don’t think a lot of neurotypical people feel personal closeness to something unemotional like a mathematical concept, but I might be wrong. I think what’s interesting to note is that prime numbers are a fixed series of numbers, never changing, offering a great deal of familiarity in repeating them (and also by doing so out loud, in the sound of repeating them). He has also memorized them up to the hundreds, (maybe even thousands iirc?), which shows he has an amazing memory skill, but also that he’s probably counted them a LOT. (Funny anecdote, Oliver Sacks mentions in one of his psychology books a pair of autistic twins that would figure out prime numbers together, and use it as means of communicating and bonding. They were able to produce huge prime numbers without a table!)

It is just something I wanted to point out, but I think it’s funny that a priest wouldn’t recite prayers as a calming mantra, but something very cartesian like mathematics. This furthers the idea that he has a lot of interest and finds a peculiar comfort and understanding of the world in science.

Oh and I think resetting the entire universe for everyone to gain precognition of events COULD be considered as a liking for repetitive things… ! /j

His interests and the random trivia at unexpected times

Pucci seems to be a man of many interests but primarily these are science (especially biology, animals, maths/geometry and physics), Dio’s plan/heaven, christianism, art (paintings). At least that’s what I got from the manga. There aren’t a lot of characters for which you can easily lay out the interests in that manner. The reason for that is that he talks about those all the time! And he always uses metaphors related to what he knows about to explain the world, his intentions, or situations.

• The corridor scene where he meets Jolyne, it’s not like it’s random or out of the blue, but it feels a bit peculiar to bring up this subject in this manner, and Jolyne seems dumbfounded at what he said to her.

• When handcuffed to Jolyne, he starts explaining about the swallows that are prone to accidents to make a parallel between the birds and her own situation.

• References both a politician’s use of subliminal sex and a painting (the “Domine Quo Vadis”) in a dramatic moment where he’s literally ending his brother’s life.

• Seems to be particularly interested in art as shown by the book he was reading when he met Dio (about Fra Filippo Lippi, a painter) and the conversations he has with Dio (once again using art as a metaphor to understand other concepts such as stands, and souls.).

• Of course bringing up the subject of the man eating a mushroom for the first time at the most unstable point of the battle against Jolyne, feels very out of the blue, (but not out of context.)

• When talking to Miraschon, he does a whole bunch of inappropriated stuff lol, doesn’t pay attention to what she says, and starts talking about his own interests/ideas.

This happens again when talking to Donatello Versace, where he's bouncing off questions, not acknowledging the answer right away and coming back to it a little bit later. His train of thought seems to come first, and his communication is not centered around making the other feel like they've been listened to.

Overall he often makes a great point, but sometimes it feels like the context is lacking, like he has had many thoughts before saying the things he says, but we don’t get to hear them, so the conversation topics are a bit unnatural. Plus he generally has a very self-important way to talk and explain things.

Other than that I think his exceptional focus on the same goal and obsessive idea of fate, from childhood and up into late adulthood can be the sign of a truly one track mind, which can be often found in ASD. Could also be noted that a lot of his behavior and actions is copied/referencing Dio, which could be because of Dio’s literal influence (being absorbed by green baby), or an overall tendency to use direct references in speech/behavior.

Self importance and the desire of previsibility

As I just mentioned a little while ago, the Miraschon scene is a scene where he’s info dumping her for at least three pages, on two different subjects, but also not paying attention at what she’s saying. This is not very nice behavior, but it’s very frequent in autistic people too. Being centered on one’s self, and unable to put yourself in another person’s shoes is very characteristic of ASD.

Pucci’s motivation and his ideal of heaven makes a lot of sense from an autistic viewpoint for a number of reasons. The first one being the discomfort caused by the unknown, or at least the fact that he thinks the world would be a better place without unknown events. The desire to know everything in advance and be able to have the time to be prepared for it will resonate with a lot of autistic people, because our brains have so much trouble adjusting to unknown outcomes and situations. I can’t explain it much better, it’s just wiring.

Second reason is Pucci’s overall sense of self importance throughout the part. There are many situations in which he will put himself first, expecting better treatment, straight up explaining that he’s different than other people.

The frog scene is interesting because he tries to weigh logically why his situation is objectively worse than the guard’s, without acknowledging the slightest the guard’s panic when assessing such a stressful situation.

(Pucci thinks the guard takes decision based on logic and not panic, gets frustrated that the guard isn't calm and rational.)

His inability to see things from outside his viewpoint is ultimately what will lead him to try to push his own ideal onto the whole world, always sure inside himself that he’s doing that out of altruism and for the greater good. Of course I think there is a slight disconnect from his inner emotions about what has led him to this point. But for me, this is the truest sign of being unable to understand that other people might see things any other way than he does, but he’s just sure that people don’t understand that it’s for their own good. In a way, his self-centeredness is mostly intellectual and not of intentions. This is something that is often present in people with ASD, because of a lack of (or misplaced/altered) cognitive empathy. People with ASD can have trouble mentalizing other people’s emotions or point of view. It doesn’t mean that they don’t care, don’t respect it, or can’t show support, but they just can’t really understand that another person has another mental space.

Cognitive empathy is described as such :

Identifying and labeling the emotions, connecting feeling to cause, and reading the thoughts and perspective of others. Ability to read nonverbal communication and social context. Ability to read the mental experiences of others.

Pucci will often justify his lack of mind theory by « you just can’t understand it. » : from his view point, being opposed by other people is not due to divergence of opinion (which would mean to accept that other people understand the situation but are in a different mindset), but due to lack of intellectual comprehension. This is why even though very intelligent, it can seem like he’s confused.

Young Pucci and the scenes with Dio

An important thing to note about young Pucci is his inability to break the rule that priests can’t talk about what has been said in confession. He’s not even a priest at that time and the confession was forced on him. These are perfectly good excuses to break the rule, or at least bend it a little, to confront the Weather and then Weather/Perla situation. Hesitation or inability to break the rules, irreasonable attachment to morals and taking irrational decisions because of those despite having great intelligence is a trait that can be found in a lot of autistic people. However, we see that he’s flexible enough to permit that Dio stays in the church basement until the sun sets. In my opinion, he’s quick to give his trust to such a suspicious person as Dio, even when Dio hints that he might be lying. This could be the sign of a little bit of naivety but it's still pretty much normal at a young age.

In the chapters with Dio, we can extract quite a lot of information on Pucci’s communication because it’s the almost only scenes where he’s not in scheming mode, in a pinch, or fighting. Pucci has a very different reaction to meeting Dio, even at a young age, compared to how Avdol or the hunchmen describe their reaction to Dio for example. He’s not shocked or in awe, but not hostile either, which is unusual. Even when he talks about Dio in narration, he has a detached way of calling him beautiful and mysterious, which shows it’s obviously how he feels even though he stays calm at all times in front of Dio, even in dangerous situations.

Dio makes numerous observations about Pucci’s behavior, expression and communication. He seems relaxed and expressive, very different from the rest of what we see of him.

(Pucci 'making a face.')

Another important thing to note is the unusual way he communicates his love to Dio, using very profound words, with a lot of sincerity, without flinching. This genuine confession of a difficult emotion to confess even sets Dio aback.

(Probably having the most fun he’s had in his life here, and is that a smile!?)

Also, parallel play!! They’re shown having bonded profoundly, at the point of hanging out in bed together, but apart from chatting, they don’t really do things together like for example Hermes and Jolyne throw the ball with F.F., they’re doing stuff next to each other (Pucci watches Dio build his boat, and they read lying next to each other.).

(generally also seems kinda bad at picking up subtext)

Two words on sensory perception

(Pucci wondering about how pretty the green baby is, he really wants to know if it's not ugly fr.)

About sensory perception, it’s actually one of the first things I noted when watching the anime especially, he’s very curious about the green baby, and talks to F.F. about it, but as he says himself, he can’t get the “feeling” from a memory disc, and he wants to know how the green baby feels in a sensory kind of way. (Is it soft? is it beautiful?). Of course the many scenes where he purposely mutilates himself without even flinching could indicate that he has a very low perception of physical pain. Both these traits would indicate a very peculiar kind of sensory relationship to the world.

In this scene with Donatello he does state that he has an acute sense of taste, in response to Donatello describing with great precision ingredients in a dish.

(Having a little solo party and dropping trivia again.)

He also seems to feel the music strongly, even though the scene is meant to be comedic, he’s really into it and seems to have some sensory associations (visual/auditory) (also trivia dumping).

Although not directly a sign, the way he asks Dona to test his food because of allergy may also remind of many autistic people who have food allergies and aversions and get people to test food for them before eating.

Body language and facial expression

Pucci has a very specific kind of body posture, especially in the wrists, they’re always limp or twisted in some kind of way, similar to what autistic people might call “T-rex arms”. Araki is very talented at showing detail about characters in the strictly visual part of his drawings, so I think that’s important to note. In terms of facial expression, apart from with Dio, he seems pretty stoic and stern in most situations where he’s not under a lot of stress, almost never laughs or smiles, even in power high situations where other villains usually at least evil laugh for a couple seconds .

(Cute snapped wrist picture collection.)

End note about Weather Report

I just wanted to add a quick word on Weather. Weather Report without his memory disc is also extremely autistic coded. Walking on tip toes, talking in a very low volume not respecting personal space, when he is introduced, he seems super autistic. The reason is the lack of memory disc and consequences of being hung, but I personally think this adds to the overall neurodivergent feel of the manga. I’m also not sure of how much of his backstory was planned at first, and if or not Araki had planned his behavior because of his backstory or not at the point of his introduction scene :3

And there we have it!! I tried not to be too lengthy so I hope you understand my point. I don't think I've seen him being analyzed/hc as autistic a lot, especially compared to characters like Jotaro, but I think he shares some similarities with Kakyoin who is very ND coded too! I would also like to point out that I don't think Araki purposely created a character that reads as autistic, but that he has a very realistic vision of personalities and identities that can lead to this kind of analysis. Also, fun note, Pucci is often typed as INFJ/INTJ and these are prominent personality types in autistic people :3. Anyways, hope you enjoyed, feel free to share your reactions, I'd be glad to hear your thoughts.

NB:

I felt like adding a few to this post so here it is. I would like to say that I think overall Pucci is the most multifaceted, complex character in the series, he has often been described as such, and that’s what makes him the exceptional last boss of the first Jojo era. Many people have had trouble understanding him and Made in Heaven, as can be seen by the numerous amounts of questions on the internet « what did Pucci want to do? » « what is Made in Heaven? » etc. Araki himself said it was very tiring writing such a nuanced villain. I think many of Pucci’s actions and behavior can be attributed to elements in the story narrative, his almost impossible circumstances, and I don’t want to oversimplify, or kick him into a box that might not have been intended at all by Araki. I would also like to add that ASD is a spectrum and one may or may not relate with every trait exposed here, or may find others that I haven’t listed. And it’s always a bit hard categorizing villains as ND because of their reprehensible actions. However I think he is nuanced enough to be considered good rep anyway. But maybe that’s just me fangirling a little too much. In any case, I hope you enjoyed.

Flan, out!!

#pucci #enrico pucci #analysis #jjba #stone ocean #jojo’s bizarre adventure #idk really #autism #autism awareness month

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nalyra-dreaming · 9 months ago

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Hi darling .

There's something I'm confused about Louis asking Daniel I don't remember any of this .

Is it related to Claudia's diaries in Paris & Europe ? Do you think it's something Louis didn't know about Claudia or possibly Armand ? Or is he talking about himself not remembering something about himself?

Because the only thing Daniel can know better than Louis is from the diaries & Louis seems to have not read those Paris diaries bc he seems surprised by it , maybe he could only read some of them . If Armand is trying to protect Louis would he give these diaries out to Daniel or would he just let Louis finally have some truth even when he knows it will hurt him ?

Hey dear!

I... don't think we can tell yet.

There is canon things that he might not remember, for fallacy of memory, maybe. There might be pages of diaries (or whole diaries) that he has not read (which would be in line with Merrick). There could be the "veil" that drops away canonically at some point (indicating Armand's spell).

I mean, it should be rather clear by now, that the cut out pages seem to be the ones removed by someone else than the torn out pages. And these pages have to be somewhere, right? (Or should be.)

And it is canon (book canon) that Armand influences Louis several times, and given the posters and the teasers I have no reason to believe they will change that.

So what exactly that comment pertains to... I am not sure. It could be anything. I mean, Louis already knows that things do not add up - that is why he invited Daniel (to a part, at least).

But what exactly it is in that scene... we will have to wait and see.

And as per Armand giving out the diaries to Daniel - I think a lot of season 2 will be breaking the truth out (of Armand). We saw how he could be "annoyed" out of his subterfuge in season 1... Daniel will now proceed to get under his skin. And "trigger" him, for lack of a better word. (And, I mean, Daniel is uniquely equipped to do that!)

As they said, Dubai will be a three-person-play this season, and the dynamic will be Armand/Louis vs Daniel at first... and then, as Jacob has hinted iirc Louis will find an ally in Daniel, and then it will be Louis/Daniel vs Armand.

And I think Armand will then (eventually) give his POV of it all, and maybe bring out the cut out pages et cetera, when it is clear that he has them.

We'll see.

It's going to be a hell of a ride :))

#loustat-0 #asks #ask nalyra #amc iwtv #iwtv #amc interview with the vampire #interview with the vampire amc #iwtv amc #iwtv 2022 #interview with the vampire #louis de pointe du lac #armand #loumand #the devil's minion #daniel molloy #devil's minion

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gamesception · 1 year ago

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lets read rgu chapter 17

So, after a fun filler side story, we're back to the main plot. Last time we left off with Utena answering a letter from EotW asking to meet her personally in the greenhouse, but when she went there it was Touga instead, claiming to be her prince. Manga Utena has been /all about/ finding her prince, so this is a fairly significant turn, even if I think Touga forged the letter.

Utena doubts just like I do, but Touga has an answer for everything, including my old questions about how Touga being the prince from Utena's childhood would even fit the timeline, specifically:

A convincing answer indeed.

Self professed groomer Touga. Gross. What did Utena call her prince in the prologue? Mr. Licky-Licky? Yeah. Gross, Touga. Go to jail.

Touga goes in for another kiss, but Utena pushes him away. Despite his clever deployment of the Wizard card, Utena can still feel that something is different. Touga isn't her prince.

But just then Anthy walks in. Awkward!

And Touga then proceeds to talk about Anthy like she isn't right fucking there and it's extremely uncool.

Fuck you, Touga.

Oh, we're doing this bit, where Utena basically tells Anthy to say she doesn't want to be the Rose Bride, and she does so, and Utena doesn't get that Anthy is just doing what she says rather than answering honestly, because honest expression is way too difficult and painful, and part of what Anthy gets out of being the Rose Bride - one of the very few benefits of the nightmare she's trapped in - is that she never, ever has to sincerely confront who she is or what she wants or what she's done or what's been done to her. And Utena doesn't even begin to get that - even when Touga spells it out to her, until after she's lost Anthy in a duel.

Or, at least, anime Utena doesn't get it. Manga Utena is either a bit more aware of her surroundings or at least a bit more open to what Touga is telling her.

But just because she gets it doesn't mean she has to like it, or not try to change it, so Utena storms out with Anthy.

So Utena is determined to get Anthy to be a normal girl. Which is definitely something Utena knows all about how to do!

Only not really, so Utena asks Wakaba to be Anthy's 'normal girl' mentor. That's a fun idea, and I like Wakaba, but, uh, the manga's been pretty clear that this version of Wakaba Does Not like Anthy.

1) that's a bit over the top and 2) I thought we already established that Anthy Can't Cook.

Yay! Chuchu is here.

Boo! Touga is here.

Wakaba it's been 15 seconds. You didn't even try.

Manga Anthy is a fellow practitioner of the 'If negative emotions feel so bad then just don't have them!' discipline of mental health. Just put the feelings in the bottle and lock the bottle in the cabinet and shut the cabinet in the basement and then you just don't go down there! Never ever!

That night Utena has a nightmare about it, and wakes up to Anthy missing and Chuchu crying and then the next morning...

Jesus Christ. Man the battle stations, we are entering Akio territory.

And this is, iirc, an even sadder and more unsettling way to build it up, starting here before we even know who Akio is. Iirc by the time the anime did this we had already met Akio and learned or at least suspected that he was in charge of the duels and was the main villain. This is just WARNING SOMETHINGS WRONG alarms blaring with little to no clue what it is because of how manga Anthy is somehow even more closed off than anime Anthy, and everything we know about her so far is that she is fully committed to being the Rose Bride and obeying the champion duelist and only now she's hiding something from the champion duelist? And right before this page she comments on Utena being up 20 minutes earlier than usual like she tracks when Utena gets up implying that whatever she's hiding, she's been actively hiding it for a while, possibly longer than Utena's known her?

And the only other time something even vaguely like this happened, was when she mentioned that she had a brother.

So the next night Chuchu wakes Utena up again, this time deliberately, so she's able to follow Anthy and see where she's going...

To the Chairman's residence

And the Planetarium. And the Couch.

And Anthy's Brother.

Looks like we're skipping the Black Rose arc after all.

#revolutionary girl utena #sception reads rgu #rgu

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toastess-with-the-mostess · 1 year ago

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Let's Rewind! Toast watches Voltron: Defender of The Universe (1984)

Season 1, Episode 2: Escape to Another Planet

As much as the intro is cool, I like the GoLion one better because the song slaps

Nobody sounds distressed while crashing sodivns

Line change from last episode as they call the castle of lions the royal castle, so I guess they don't know that's where voltron is? I'm trying not to give the writing too much credit because it's an episodic show more than a story based on

At least the GG believes in the team's survival,,, which isn't much anyway

Pidge is just the absolute cutest, kind of wonder why he didn't do this during his fall last episode, but he wasn't prepared for that one I guess

"Your face is disGUSTing!" -Pidge [Hunk proceeds to spit sand onto Pidge's face] True friendship, insulting one and grossing out the other

"Leave me alone, I'll get up when I want!" -Lance Trying to cover for your ass being up in the air like hunk's was after the fall isn't working my guy

"What's next?" "How about food?" "How about we look for that CASTLE" There's the Pidge sass I was hoping for, get em pipsqueak

I've ribbed Lance a lot for being sassy and almost uncaring sometimes, but that really isn't the case for him, he really does care about the Arusians and puts himself on the line for people who are too afraid to fight back What a sweet guy, no wonder my clone likes him so much

Keith hates fog, good to know

Woop animation error, Keith's tracksuit is half blue and half red when it's supposed to be all blue because of the fog the team is in everyone else's clothing is blue too

Hunk has canonically wrestled a lion cub, I wonder if this means he's worked with exotic animals before!

Oh I never realized there was a moat around the castle, that's probably where blue lion launches, but I like the idea of blue just chilling in a lake instead

The mice are so cute, very expressive too Pidge with his jumping skills again somehow bounces his way to the top of a castle wall

Have you boys never been taught to not go into weird abandoned looking places? If you're going in at least one of you has to stay at the door like c'mon That's why you losers are trapped inside now

Coran! His official title of diplomat of Arus, interesting. Also, why would you tell a random group of dudes about voltron if that's your only hope? They're literally pointing weapons at you good sir

I'm not sure of the aesthetic entirely so feel free to correct me but Arus looked like it had a lot of Greco-Roman architecture, very nice looking but too bad it got destroy OISNV

Princess Allura at last! Very much looks like Aurora/Sleeping Beauty, but I wonder if that's what they were going for since she legitimately is a princess Pidge is smitten lol, I like to think the crush lasts like a week before it changes into seeing her as an older sister figure

Immediately she starts crying about her dead dad, like maybe I'm just being too apathetic, but I don't think you should trauma dump onto strangers princess

The legend just keeps getting more and more muddy So what's true so far is that voltron was split into 5 lions because of Haggar, but apparently King Alfor had activated it before Zarkon's attack and THAT'S when the split happened?? Yeah, uh, I'm just going to stick with Voltron was a legend on Arus and the boys weren't there to see the start of Arus's destruction because it happened years before they got there

Keith "anime eyes" Kogane

I love Allura's voice, it's so nice to hear, and she very much seems her age or older GoLion said she was 16 at the boys' arrival, so I don't see them much older than their mid 20s except for Pidge who is definitely a child at 12

And the official uniforms are on! I still don't really understand why Keith never got black but iirc I was told that red was seen as the color for a leader or something like that I also like to believe that Lance chose blue because it looked good on him lol

Oh, so blue lion IS in a lake, but the castle is basically on an island in said lake which is why there's a bridge as if there was a moat interesting it's probably a moat in GoLion but shh I'm gonna build whatever lore I want with this

Man the old control room was so cool, maybe it's a me thing but LOOK AT ALL THOSE BUTTONS I WANT TO PRESS TO FEEL THEIR CLICK

Voltron is apparently king of robots? I think that's funny considering the VA for Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) is the one narrating the show

End of Episode 2! More exposition, finally getting to see some supporting cast and settling into the main setting for the show Already getting the vibes that this dub isn't supposed to be that deep but because of its more gruesome predecessor it really can be if you pay attention to it

#Let's Rewind!#voltron #voltron defender of the universe #voltron dotu #80s voltron #toast talks

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thelakesuite · 2 years ago

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new gameplay video screencaps & analyses

future aint shorter it just proceeds really quick. does somewhat look like twd's sarah, but we don't see her lil side-ear-hair-bits. fairly certain this is a demo segment from a convention (i mean it fuckin explained what a cube is at the start), so it's not confirmed that these are the only player characters. 'the past' one being rose, obvs.

again, demo segment, this might not be part of the game proper, but iirc these bugs are associated with emma & albert respectively, if anything. the video chose 'bee'. also new anims so idk maybe it's relevant

same past area as in the steam demo, but 1. it's so red 2. new letter! dated to albert's death! he somehow both fully expected himself to get murked (or just poor timing) and was the one to hook up to Da Future. i thought it just kinda barged in, no this shit was consentual. sorta. rose didn't sign up for any of this, maybe

almost definitely some kinda bug over there (bee?). if my venture plans get screwed by this game i'm gonna be vigorously upset. but anyway

confirmation that the past room is at least metaphorically inside the 'cubical device' so that's cool

man doesn't that look. well kinda shit but it's nice. mostly established symbols besides the Rusty Lake Obelisk. why on earth does this exist though, did albert get into glassblowing for a time? doesn't get used in the footage so who knows

ah fuck me bugs are gonna be relevant for this one. at least not the same ones i'm using. forgive me i just like how this looks. albert looks normal, yet he did not get into interior design, those frames are just kinda there. the other walls were blank why'd you do that

so when they confirm that 'the past' got a matchbox, 'the future' gets one that falls from the sky? not from the 'cubical device' or anything, just god hand-delivers it. i hope that's not just a given

mmm, ps3 matches. i won't knock em too hard, though, 3d modelling aint easy

they put a lot of detail into this background, i feel like. maybe it's actually relevant. maybe not.

lil flippy-puzzle. panels being: albert and kid-rose, the house, the bee, one of the voodoo dolls, a cube, and a crow. what's P-17? sounds like an age rating. i think the doll is sam's technically, as ida's had that yarn/worm hair, but i am not exactly an unbiased party. please let him show up god.

ok yea i hate the art style sometimes. are we keeping coal in a velvet-lined box? that's the only way it's ourple like that. at least it boosts my self-confidence by showing the big fish have ugly moments too

no wait after you get the coal the picture changes to a bee. is that intentional? how would it do that? nothing else changed tf is up

mind how rose is gonna burn the house down, al looks even worse, geez.

the fan thing they've got going (the 'cubical device' turned a fan on) is cool but c'mon you're just sliding a jpeg across the screen

overall mood for the game: scared

i know this is only 3 minutes of gameplay but it feels so disjointed. like the worst thing an escape-room game can do is make most of the puzzles just code after code, since it never feels like you're actually doing puzzles, it just gets tedious. that's what this game has to do by design, and i don't think the cooperative nature will overcome that.

still gonna play it though, that part of my character is firmly established

#both scared that it's gonna be shite and scared that it's gonna tread too much into my own work #rusty lake #see my previous post for the source of this stuff #and see my sideblog vastberaden-descendant for what i mean when i say my venture #what do i have over the rl devs? gay lovemaking

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starlightshore · 3 years ago

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barring the no mercy route being an influence in this case, how would you describe chara's personality? I cannot describe them well at all despite them being my favorite character. they're too complex lol. all of the meta i can find at this time as them described at both extremes of innocent & evil but i don't think that's accurate

TW: discussions of canon dark topics such as abuse , death and suicide

i love talking about chara, i've talked about them at length before lmao. thank u for giving me a chance to talk about my beloved child.

you can actually read a character exploration i'm doing in a mini-arc for Askfallenroyalty. actually, if you want one condensed post, this comic sums up chara's motives

My interpretation:

chara is an abused kid and suicidal kid*(1) who ran to mount ebott to die.*(2) upon learning that monsters are made of love and humans aren't*(3), chara began to hate humanity. the deltarune prophecy*(4) makes them to be The Angel despite being a human. Feeling undeserving of this title and obligated to fulfill it, Chara wanted to be a good kid more than anything.

But then the buttercup pie incident happened. They've accidentally*(5) poisoned asgore and came up with a plan to ensure the prophecy could be fulfilled and take a hit against humanity. Two birds with one stone -who cares if it's also a personal win too? then obviously the plan goes up in flames and they and asriel are murdered. then asgore wants to kill of all humanity.

your influence*(6) gets Chara onto a path of redemption or a path of destruction, mirroring the deltarune prophecy's two main interpretations.*(7)

in summery: chara is a scared kid trying to fit into a world that demands violence by the past actions of the previous generations. The war massacred monsters and locked them up with a kill-solution -ensuring that further violence would be needed to be free, thus continuing the cycle of violence.

chara is just a kid. they knit, they make macaroni art, they loved their family and had a best friend forever.* (8) but they're also vengeful, they cared so deeply for monsterkind they were ready to die and had no idea they'd be awake as a soul, they were prepared for death. they're complicated, you can't have one side without the other. while i’ve never wanted to murder anyone, i can still relate deeply to chara and see myself in them a lot. the tragedy of them -the fact they never really got a “happy ending” like everyone else just haunts me and it’s why I spend so much time making AFR. I just... love this character so much, i want this kid to be happy. (not that it could ever be easy to get there, happy endings aren’t free.)

And frankly, seeing this hurt kid get demonized just rubs me the wrong way, and it feels completely against the morals Undertale tries to tell with it’s story. I see it as a cautionary tale against violence and dehumanizing others for the sake of hate and violence. how kids can be influenced by the violence -or kindness around them. you don’t need to forgive the ones who hurt you, but killing them is not always the solution -though sometimes necessary as framed in the Undyne the Undying fight.

People get both Undertale’s themes and chara wrong the most, and for the game that’s meant the world to me it bothers me more than it should lol. It’s a Good Story, and I don’t mean to frame my interpretation of the character or themes as 100% canon and I know Mr.Fox’s brain to confirm it kinda deal, but with all the time I’ve spent analyzing and thinking it over I do think it’s not off in the general direction of it lol. And besides the author’s intent isn’t really the end-all-to-be-all. It’s what you get out of the story and the themes that matter and stick with you. No one can take that away from you.

Sources and evidence:

"* If you're cuter, monsters won't hit you as hard." -faded ribbion flavor text * "The ends of the tools have been filed down to make them safer." -gardening tools in New Home (and iirc Toriel's home as well, too lazy to double check rn) * Where are the knives. -no mercy chara (this and paired with the previous imply there are no sharp objects in reach of chara's home because chara can't be trusted with sharp objects out of self harm. This doesn't necessarily mean abuse but paired with them hating humanity so deeply, being suicidal and a child it paints a picture of abuse.

"* I know why (chara) climbed the mountain.* It wasn't for a very happy reason." -asriel post pacifist epilogue dialogue

"* Love, hope, compassion... * This is what people say monster SOULs are made of. * But the absolute nature of "SOUL" is unknown. * After all, humans have proven their SOULs don't need these things to exist." -Library book on monster souls)

* Legend has it, an 'angel' who has seen the surface will descend from above and bring us freedom. - gerson

"* It takes at least a human soul... * And a monster soul. * ...* If you want to go home... * You'll have to take his soul. * You'll have to kill ASGORE." -Alphys. Because boss monster souls are the exception and can persist after death for a short period of time, Chara could of killed any of the family members to escape the underground. this implies escaping wasn't the goal -it was to die (considering they already attempted suicide to fall underground the first time, this is explicitly suicide.) the plaque doesn't mention or speak like monster/human fusion's consumed soul would be aware. chara had no way of knowing they'd be awake. also the whole thing with the pie is a prank. cups of butter. -> buttercups. putting flowers in a pie is a joke to do, we see Chara is similar to Toriel (they mimic her speech in the no mercy monologue, they say “greetings” as she does like how Asriel says “howdy” like Flowey does. Chara makes puns and jokes in the flavor text all the time.

https://imgur.com/a/zP18P -dog food bag at different LV. "When the protagonist first encounters Mad Dummy, they are given the option to beat it up. Choosing to beat it up prompts one of three responses depending on the protagonist's LOVE." (source: undertale wiki)

If the protagonist’s LV is 1, the response becomes "(You tap the dummy with your fist.) (You feel bad.)"

If the protagonist's LV is between 2 and 4, the response becomes "(You hit the dummy lightly.) (You don't feel like you learned anything.)"

If the protagonist’s LV is between 5 and 7, the response becomes "(You sock the dummy.) (Who cares?)"

If the protagonist’s LV is 8 or higher, the response becomes "(You punch the dummy at full force.) (Feels good.)"" This implies Chara (who is the narrator) will feel different about the dog food -which references the classic phrase of "glass half empty/full" showing your out look in life. Then hitting the dummy show's Frisk's out look on violence depending on LV. Note that by the end of it, it's no longer "you feel..." but "feels good" This is Chara.

7. “* Lately, the people have been taking a bleaker outlook...* Callin' that winged circle the 'Angel of Death.' “ -gerson “* Only the fearless may proceed. * Brave ones, foolish ones. * Both walk not the middle road. “ -the first plaque in the first puzzle room with Toriel. The idea is to walk on both the left and right sides -you can’t go half way in the middle. this mirrors the “true” endings are only accomplished if you stick to no mercy or pacifist only.

8. literally their home in New Home is a treasure trove of pre-game chara characterization.

#personal stuff #ut tag #character analysis #chara analysis #ask to tag #i put the warnings up top tho

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incorrect-ikevamp-quotes · 4 years ago

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hey so I’m not trying to be gross but this genuinely something that I wonder about like how does mc survive on her period in a mansion full of vampires? Especially with a pure blood like Comte or Leonardo like can’t they sense it? sorry if this is weird I’m just genuinely interested In like pure blood and vampire lore and like what they pick up on especially comte as he’s a fave. I’d love to hear your thoughts as always I love your posts and I hope you’re doing well and staying safe and healthy 💛☺️

Haha, please don’t worry! 😂😂😂 I’ve often wondered about the very same thing, and while I don’t have any canon answers, I can offer the most likely scenario from my understanding of the game. Hope you’re doing well too, lovely, thank you! Stay safe out there~💛💛💛

Given what I know, and the fact that blood is only a small component of the discharge that comes with one’s period, I’d wager it poses a low risk generally speaking. I think the plan would be to make sure everyone’s on guard and has been keeping up with their usual doses of Blanc/Rouge (no waiting until you starve, Jeanne, yes that is a threat) but otherwise everyone proceeds as they normally would. I think it would be hardest on the vamps who are most sensitive to the presence of blood/have a harder time controlling their thirst, like Isaac and Arthur.

Purebloods have been canonically established as having a much lower tendency to bloodlust by comparison to lesser/turned vampires, so I very much doubt Comte or Leonardo would react much. A blip on the screen for them, nothing more. (I often categorize Jeanne as the closest to pureblood level reactivity because his ability to control the thirst is exceptional; the only time he has ever come close to attacking MC was when he was at a point of intense starvation.) I think the only time her period could potentially become risky is if one of them was starving (and therefore reacting on the level of base instinct) or grievously injured. If they have feelings for her or she’s in a relationship with one of them, it may make them want to bite her more, but I don’t think they’d necessarily act on it. I’d assume most of them would be reluctant because MC is already losing blood as it is? Better to be safe than sorry, and all that.

As for whether or not they can anticipate it, I’m really not sure? It’s possible they might sense hormonal changes, but given I haven’t seen them react to anything so slight I can’t be sure. Purebloods I’d say it’s a coin toss; it’s very possible they can sense it before it comes--but I just have no way of knowing for sure. Lesser vampires, I very much doubt it.

That being said, you bring up a very timely contention (for me) as of late. Which is to say: what are purebloods capable of sensing? I’ll be elaborating on a recent JPN collection story event that included Comte, as it had a very interesting tidbit that I’d like to share with y’all. It isn’t a huge spoiler as I’ll be focusing on the pureblood lore that was included, but for those who don’t want to see it I’ll be placing it under a cut. (Also some slight spoilers for Comte and Leo’s main story rt).

Mandatory spoiler warning:

So this last event featured MC and her suitor taking care of a child for a few days, in which they act like a pair of surrogate parents. Naturally, being a feral Comte stan, I got his story. In it, both he and MC are taking care of a young girl named Emma--the daughter of a fellow aristocrat (a friend of his). At some point during the story, MC accidentally loses sight of Emma while hanging up the laundry. MC searches the entire mansion but can’t find her anywhere, and she begins to panic when Comte encounters her. Alarmed, he gently asks her what’s wrong and she explains what happened. There’s a brief pause [”...”] and then he says “It’s okay, MC. Emma is–”. Comte then leads her to the gazebo where the little tyke is fast asleep, taking a midday nap in the shade. Naturally MC is relieved to see her safe, but also a little baffled as Comte led her directly to Emma.

MC: “I’m so glad she’s okay. But…how did you know she’d be here?”

Comte: “Purebloods are good at sensing/detecting nearby human beings.”

And I ????? Granted it’s possible it got translated incorrectly but...I really don’t understand how else he would have known exactly where she was? If MC asked around and searched the entire place and still couldn’t find any trace of her, how would Comte have just known in an instant? Additionally, if he spotted her before he found MC panicking, then I doubt he would have just left her there without an adult/guardian nearby--he would have either stayed there or taken her with him.

So this makes it plenty plausible that he really did just sense her presence in the vicinity. But........like..........howmst in the fuck. Is that even possible. I have no idea, but I find it a little shocking that I’ve only discovered this now? I mean maybe I missed it somewhere else where this tidbit of lore came up, but as far as I know they don’t discuss it much? The most I remember is Comte giving very clear indications that purebloods were able to sense each other, but I assumed that was restricted to purebloods only...

That being said I’ve been thinking about it and, well, there are at least three pretty strong instances in the game that could affirm his claim in this story. Namely: the beginning of the story itself (Comte’s POV of the prologue), the kidnapping incident in Comte’s main story, and the beginning of Leonardo’s main story.

I remember @a-maidens-dream asking about something very interesting in Comte’s POV story, and at the time I was a little unsure what to do with the information--it wasn’t aligning in a way that made sense. But I think this might help that tidbit fall into place? I think that Comte really hadn’t realized she followed him into the door until she was already in the mansion, and as such this ability to sense humans would explain why he knew she was there before Napoleon even told him anything. If purebloods can sense human people, then he would know a human being entered the house because of the species signature; the only human person living there otherwise was Sebastian. I’m not sure if the sixth sense is acute enough for him to be able to differentiate between human people. (My guess is that it’s not that specific, or if it is, the pureblood has to know the person very well to be sure.)

Building on that, this is a subtle distinction, but it still stood out for me. In his main story route, both MC and a fellow aristocrat (a woman she was friends with) are taken to these small cabin things in the middle of the woods. All Comte, Napoleon, and Jeanne have to go on is the general location of these hideouts. They decide to split up; Comte goes one way, Napoleon and Jeanne go another. I find this instance particularly interesting because Comte’s POV indicates a kind of loss of rational thought--he is 100% in a panic state, just moving to satisfy one objective: save MC before time runs out. This suggests that Comte very much could have been relying on that sense to pinpoint her and her assailants. We have no evidence to believe he was ever a soldier or somebody with extensive experience in tracking--or that knew the landscape well. But he only trusts she’s alive and unharmed for sure when he has her in his arms again, suggesting either that this sixth sense has its limits (in regards to specificity of the person being detected) or that his judgement in that moment was too compromised for it to be clear.

The last one, and perhaps the funniest possibility of the three, lies in the beginning of Leonardo’s main story route. Iirc, Leonardo spends much of that time hauling MC around the mansion to interact and properly situate herself in the mansion’s social dynamic. While this may just be a coincidence, MC notes that she actively tried to hide from him and make herself scarce, but whenever she tried no amount of stealth worked. One can certainly argue he just paid attention or asked other residents about where she was, but I do think it’s worth considering? I need to re-look at the chapters, but I seem to recall her trying to hide in a garden shed and he still found her immediately and just picked her up and walked right back out.

Tl;dr: So does this mean Comte/Leo can sense when MC is on her period? I have no idea, but at this point I really can’t be sure what abilities they do and don’t have!

#asks #ikevamp #ikemen vampire #ikevamp meta #ikevamp comte #ikevamp saint germain #ikevamp leonardo #ikevamp leo #ikevamp jpn spoilers #i dont need sleep i need a n s w e r s yall holy shit #i'm torn bc i feel like i sound like a conspiracy theorist but i also #can't shake this feeling that there are hints of it in the storyline #oh well i will at the very least be paying closer attention moving forward #its interesting to me because like #its such an expansion of comte's character construction to know this?#in that like #he has every capacity to sense whether or not she's alive to some extent it seems #and yet he literally can't calm down/trust it as a result of the trauma #i love this little character detail--it feels v apt considering his contradictory nature #but i digress!#hopefully this was interesting and/or informative #happy to answer though the topic is a bit odd HAHA #thank you for the ask lovely! <3 #rambles #not incorrect quotes #tw: period talk

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ducavalentinos · 3 years ago

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Thoughts on Spanish movie "Los Borgia" (2006)?

It’s so bad, I don’t have that many thoughts, lol. Like the only good thing about it is María Valverde as Lucrezia, and I mean only asthetically, because as a character, it was almost hilariously bad. As a whole, It’s not the worst depiction of the Borgia family to be sure, but it’s definitely among the top 5. It confirms the old Spaniard bias against them, even though I’m sure it wasn’t intended at all. All the myths, the terrible mischaracterization of Rodrigo and his papacy, of Cesare, and of Lucrezia are present, only they aimed at a demonization with the first two, and the canonizing of the latter. I felt personally insulted by the casting of Cesare and Rodrigo, as well as their characters. And it’s not even so much that the creators obviously wanted the audience to despise them and they are like the “villains”, and more like they’re “boring villains”, and I’m of the opinion that if you must follow the predictable, fallacious path of showing Rodrigo and Cesare as villains of the Italian Renaissance, then at the very least, make them fun. It was painful to watch. I didn’t know who those men were and I did not care to, I just wanted the thing to be over already. That being said, there are some moments, that I can remember, which made me laugh a lot because it’s so absurd: - The convo Rodrigo has with his children after he is elected pope, where is all like: for yeaaars these Italians mocked us and now we will get our revenge!!!!!, it was so dramatic and completely out of everything we know about Rodrigo and his papacy, if only it had been like that, quite frankly. To a fault Rodrigo was way too tolerant and without a sense of vengefulness towards his enemies and detractors, and it did not go very well for him and his family, the movie itself it just another example of that. - The depiction of Giovanni Sforza, as this young, kind and attractive man, and Lucrezia’s relationship with him: her being in love with him and helping him escape her terrible family’s murder plan dsjdjsdjsjdsjdjs. - The whole interaction between Cesare and Caterina Sforza, if Cesare was alive today, what they show there would be the thing he could definitely sue for defamation of character let me tell you. But it is hilarious to me how he just drags her to a secluded fortress???, proceeds to r*pe her, (in a rather strange position, too) and then just lets her go, and she goes, and iirc she never shows up again.................???? - Lastly, it was great to see how the writers clearly had a hard time reading the history and the facts which makes it clear Lucrezia never, ever, turned against her family, and much less against her brother, and she remained very aligned with their political plans, and one of Cesare’s most staunch supporters, until the end. It’s like they went on full on denial and they just thought: no, that can’t be right! oh well, we can change that in the movie. Hence, they make her break ties with him at the end, like see? our angel with superior morals had broken her bond with this monster of a brother, and again, it’s so dramatic 😂. And I think here are where my thoughts end, anon. I tried really hard to find positive things about this movie, as I do with all Borgia-related content, because otherwise I can’t enjoy anything about them in fiction lol, but this movie is just so strange, and poor. The casting is mostly off, the writing is totally off, the costume failed to impress me, not event the soundtrack did it, or the locations. There are no relationships I could enjoy, I mean, if you like Cesare and Lucrezia and the whole incestuous siblings myth, then their first scenes together are cute and can be seen as “positive” aspect, but as of now it doesn’t do anything for me, either, and it gets bad by the end anyways, so yeah, I think Spain owes it to the Borgia family to give them a more high quality production in fiction tbh, because this one is just no good. Thoughts on...ask meme

#anon ask #ask answered #los borgia (2006)#house borgia in fiction #pope alexander vi #rodrigo borgia #cesare borgia #juan borgia #lucrezia borgia #aahh i forgot to say that the casting for juan was also good #and his portrayal was actually the most ok portrayal of the borgia family in this movie djdjsjds

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felassan · 4 years ago

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Dragon Age Library Edition Volume 1 annotations & additional pages/art compilation

Dragon Age Library Edition Volume 1 is a hardcover collection of some pre-existing Dragon Age comics that was released in 2014. It comprises of all issues of The Silent Grove, Those Who Speak and Until We Sleep. In places, it includes additional annotations/commentaries by the illustrators and authors, as well as a few additional pages with additional art. iirc these additional annotations and pages/art aren’t featured or available anywhere else (in the franchise I mean; other people have probably put them online at some point I’m sure).

From what I can see at least, Library Edition Volume 1 is no longer in print, and as such listings for it on resale sites etc are.. price-inflated & prohibitively expensive (~£100+, which I’m sure we can all agree is just not reasonable or accessible to most people). Due to this, I’ve compiled the additional annotations and pages here in this post. Thank you and credit to @artevalentinapaz, who kindly shared the material with me. This post has been made with their permission. The rest of this post is under a cut due to length.

These commentaries are in the context of The Silent Grove, Those Who Speak and Until We Sleep. If you notice any errors or annotations missing, or need anything clarified, just let me know. I think the annotations are in chronological order. In places I elaborated in square brackets to help explain which part of the comics an annotation is referring to. A note before you proceed further: some of the topics referenced in the annotations/additional pages are heavy or uncomfortable. The quotes here are word-for-word transcriptions of dev/creator commentaries, not my personal opinions or phrasings.

(Also, I do recommend always supporting comic creators by purchasing their comics legitimately. I own each issue of these comics having bought other editions of them all legitimately. The reason I put this post together is because this specific Library Edition volume has been discontinued and the consequently-inflated cost is so high, rendering the additional material inaccessible to most.)

-----

The Silent Grove annotations

Illustrator Chad Hardin: “I used to be an environmental artist for video games, so I built a 3-D model of Antiva City using the program Silo. Many of the buildings are simple cubes, but a few are more detailed. Overall, I spent the better part of a day building it, but I used it again and again throughout The Silent Grove to maintain continuity in the backgrounds.”

Script Writer Alexander Freed: “Even working with David Gaider, it took me several drafts to find Alistair’s voice. His narrative had to convey his humor and self-doubt from Dragon Age: Origins while suggesting a newfound weariness earned during his years on the throne. For readers familiar with the character, he needed to seem like a changed Alistair - but Alistair nonetheless.”

Chad Hardin: “If you read a lot of comics, you might wonder why the majority of the heroes wear skin-tight suits. Well, I can tell you: they are easy and quick to draw. In video games, you build the model once and then animate it, so details don’t slow you down. In comics, everything has to be rendered by hand. Varric and Alistair’s outfits were quite detailed. It took me a long time to get used to them, and even longer to memorize the designs until drawing them was second nature - Varric’s knee armor in particular! Oy vey!”

David Gaider: “One of my favorite scenes in the entire series [when Varric and Isabela are disarming traps and picking locks together while Alistair looks on]. Isabela and Varric, doing what rogues do. I had a suggestion for how to put it together, but Alex managed to make it fit and did a great job with it.”

Chad Hardin: “I never used to keep any of the artwork I created for comics. I would just hand the pages over to my agent to sell. This page [when Alistair, Varric and Isabela are in a tavern together, with hookah in the foreground] I kept for myself. I love the hookah-smoking elves in the second panel and Isabela’s face in the last panel. I rendered the first four chapters of The Silent Grove in grayscale using ink washes, gouache and Copie markers.”

David Gaider: “For a little while, Varric [in these comic stories] was supposed to be Zevran from Dragon Age: Origins, which would have made sense, Zevran being Antivan and all. I know that some fans would have loved to see him, but the dynamics of the group just didn’t work as well. Then a planned cameo later had to be cut for space. Ah well, Zev, another time.”

Alexander Freed: “Isabela at her most dangerous [climbing up the side of the cliff]. This scene - featuring a scantily clad, dripping-wet woman who tends to flaunt her sexuality - could easily have come across as exploitative, but Chad did a lovely drop portraying Isabela as purely focused and deadly.”

Chad Hardin: “Isabela rising out of the water and scaling the cliff with the knife in her mouth is one of my favorite parts of The Silent Grove. It is one of those moments where the writing really inspired the art. Hats off to Alex and David. This is another page I kept for myself.”

Colorist Michael Atiyeh: “This is one of my favorite Dragon Age pages. Chad is such an amazing artist; I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with him.”

Chad Hardin: “I love that this page [when a guard spots Varric and shouts ‘Intruder!’] made it in uncensored. So many times in comics, I draw something and some stuffy lawyers come out of the woodwork and tell me to tone it down. Dark Horse and BioWare always let me have fun, and this turned out to be one of my favorite pages with Varric and Bianca. Any guesses to which word he is mouthing in the second panel?”

Alexander Freed: “Note the simple decency of Alistair as he gives his cloak, without comment, to Isabela. For all his flaws, he’s genuinely kind at heart - a rare enough trait in Isabela’s world that I think it’s much of what she values in him.”

Chad Hardin: “I love the opening panel to this chapter [the opening panels to Chapter 3, when the team are on a ship at sea]. It’s the image I use on the homepage of my website. This page was a gift to my cousin Wendy, who loves pirates. Seascapes with sailing ships might be clichéd in fine art, but for me it was a first.”

David Gaider: “I wanted to have this story center on the group travelling to a Witch of the Wilds other than Flemeth, and originally I had set it somewhere else - until I remembered a Codex entry from Dragon: Age Origins that offhandedly mentioned a witch in the Tellari Swamps. Brilliant! It’d look like I planned it all along. I didn’t.”

Michael Atiyeh: “I love opportunities where I can show a change in the time of day as you move from panel to panel [when the ship heads towards and the team arrive in the Tellari Swamps]. I feel the palette of each panel is very distinct and beautiful.”

Alexander Freed: “Why did Alistair choose two people he barely knows to be his companions on this quest? We never make this explicit, but of course Varric is on the right track. Alistair wants to surround himself with people who don’t know him and won’t judge him, yet it’s Alistair’s idealism that Isabela and Varric work to preserve.”

Chad Hardin: “Another page where the writing inspired the art [when the group suddenly encounter a dragon]. I love the dragon bursting onto the scene and Isabela’s stare. Some writers will try to cram six or seven panels on a page like this and the pacing just doesn’t allow the artist to give each moment the right punch. Can you imagine if the first panel was crammed into a single square inch?”

Chad Hardin: “Yavana was one of the only characters that we did no preliminary sketches for. I don’t know how that happened, but thankfully it worked out.”

David Gaider: “I love how Yavana looks like a cross between Flemeth and Morrigan. Flemmigan? She’s totally Chad’s design, and it’s great. Typical for these witches, she never says things straight. In my mind, this Alistair is the one who did the Dark Ritual in Dragon Age: Origins - and I was half-tempted to have him lose his cool in this first scene [opening panels of Chapter 4] with her. Too early, though.”

Alexander Freed: “Through this whole sequence [the page when Varric aims Bianca at Yavana], Yavana is dropping cryptic hints and Alistair is refusing to play along. He’s met Flemeth and Morrigan - he knows Yavana won’t give him a straight answer, and he won’t give her the satisfaction of asking needlessly.”

Michael Atiyeh: “Sometimes it’s the little things on a page that spark my interest. Here [when the team navigate vines and mud to get to the temple], the sunset panel came out great and the mud looks really thick and gooey. It’s fun to focus on these details and make them stand out.”

Chad Hardin: “I hated drawing this scene [when Isabela gets kicked] where Isabela gets the boot to the face. Call me old fashioned, but I was raised to believe that only a coward would ever hit a woman (even a battle-hardened pirate adventurer). I draw at home, and my girls often watch me work in my studio. This was a page I didn’t want them watching me draw. I do like, though, that Isabela gets up, yanks the arrow out, and then soldiers on (and later extracts brutal revenge).”

Michael Atiyeh: “Poor Isabela. It seems I gave her more bruises and black eyes than any of the other characters. [when Isabela is yanking the arrow out]”

Chad Hardin: “It’s always interesting to go back and look at artwork because it reminds me of what was going on in my life at the time. I inked this page [opening panels of Chapter 5] at a ‘draw night’ session at an anime convention in St. George, Utah. I was one of the special guests, but I missed the first day because I was at my grandfather’s funeral in Las Vegas, Nevada. Seeing this page brought back those memories.”

David Gaider: “‘Bianca says hello.’ [quoting the panels being referenced] I adore Varric. I was tempted to have him narrate the entire series [in reference to these three comics], but then again I liked the idea of having each series center on one of the trio’s viewpoints. This book belongs to Alistair, but that doesn’t stop Varric from getting all the best lines.”

Alexander Freed: “Claudio, of course, is not a terribly sympathetic figure. But I wanted to emphasize that he takes this fight as personally as Isabela - he sincerely loved Luis and blames Isabela for the man’s death. I think it’s important to give every character, even the most loathsome, some dignity. [when Isabela and Claudio are fighting]”

Chad Hardin: “Payback! Here is where Isabela extracts her revenge on Claudio [when Isabela stabs Claudio]. I never enjoyed killing off a character so much. I particularly enjoyed putting the look of shock in his eyes. He had it coming. There is something satisfying about killing a ‘made man’.”

Chad Hardin: “Every now and then when drawing comics, I wish I could animate some panels and watch them as a cartoon. It would be great to see this sequence [when Yavana catches Claudio’s soul] in full motion as Yavana snatches Claudio’s soul, makes it reenter his corpse and then extracts information from him until he bursts into flame. It was a very Hellboy-ish moment. I enjoyed the movie that played in my mind while drawing this scene. Hope everyone liked the result.”

Chad Hardin: “As I mentioned on page 17, I rendered the first four chapters in grayscale, which made the black-and-white art look great, but had a neutralizing effect when it came to colors. By the time I drew chapter 4, I had seen the effect it was having and decided to stop using the grayscale so the colors would pop. When I saw this page [when Alistair says to Yavana ‘And we helped you find it’] in print, it confirmed to me that I made the right decision. I honestly feel this art was the best of The Silent Grove.”

Chad Hardin: “I practically painted these pages [when Yavana says ‘It is permitted. Tonight and only tonight’] in thumbnails hoping it would help me choose how to render them in ink. It is so hard trying to figure out how to get a full range of value out of just black and white. There are some artists and inkers that make this look easy. Mark Schultz comes to mind. Michael saved my bacon. Colorists really do so much work when it comes to rendering; this page came out awesome because of him.”

David Gaider: “Here we reveal the existence of Great Dragons (as opposed to High Dragons), and also that Yavana was the source of the return of dragons to Thedas after their departure for so many centuries. But why? There’s the rub, and not even Alistair can trust that she’s telling him the truth.”

David Gaider: “Here’s the controversial scene [Alistair killing Yavana]. I think some fans don’t like that Alistair did this, and have said they consider it out of character. I don’t. From his perspective, Flemeth and her daughters have been toying with the world for reasons that can’t be trusted. They dragged Maric away from his family, from him. One might think his judgement foolish, but considering what Alistair was capable of deciding even back in Dragon Age: Origins, it’s certainly not out of character.”

Chad Hardin: “[same scene as above] This was a controversial page, and there were a lot of people who thought it was out of character for Alistair to kill Yavana (I didn’t see it coming - I mean, you just don’t kill a Witch of the Wild), but here is the thing: this page is Alistair acting as a king. Yavana has been manipulating him, trying to play him like a pawn, and he just can’t allow that. There’s too much at stake, for himself and for his subjects.”

Alexander Freed: “The end? An end, at least [the trio walking off into the distance]. The series needed a note of closure while leading into Those Who Speak (which wouldn’t arrive until many months later). David tweaked the ending in the outline several times, and I did my best to balance resolving Alistair’s emotional journey without resolving the quest. It’s not as clean as I’d have liked, but fortunately, now it’s all in one volume...”

Those Who Speak annotations

Alexander Freed: “Capturing Isabela’s narrative voice was much easier for me than capturing Alistair’s - partly because I’d already written The Silent Grove, and partly because of my own writing proclivities. Rereading now, I wonder if I laid on the (mild) profanity a bit too thick. I’ll leave you to judge.”

David Gaider: “I like the additional detail Alex and Chad put in, letting us see more of Qarinus and more of Isabela’s crew. Alex wanted to give her crew more of a presence, and let her first mate have some face time, so they weren’t just parts of the scenery. Good call on his part.”

David Gaider: “I’m really fond of the formal getups Chad made for the party. Isabela’s actually comes from a concept we didn’t use from the cancelled Dragon Age 2 expansion, if I remember right. And Maevaris came from me asking for ‘someone who looks like Mae West’ - with the wonderful outfit all Chad’s doing.

Chad Hardin: “Maevaris. I love Mae. When David and Dragon Age art director Matthew Goldman spoke to me about designing Mae, they wanted her to be fully female with the exception of her biology. They told me to think ‘Mae West’. Well, when I think of Mae West, I think of her... womanly shape. So, drawing Maevaris was always walking a fine line between portraying Mae’s identity and her biology. The process endeared her to me.”

Michael Atiyeh: “Just like in The Silent Grove, we are introduced to another gentleman from Isabela’s past [when the team meet Lord Devon and Isabela threatens him]. As was the case with Claudio, he will meet his fate at her hands.”

Chad Hardin: “When I was drawing Titus, my kids asked me why I was drawing ‘angry Jesus’ or ‘evil Jesus’. I can’t remember which term they used exactly, but it made me chuckle. I was going for a mix of Rapustin and Joe Stalin, but ‘evil Jesus’ would do.”

David Gaider: “I’m not sure it’s apparent here [when Alistair says ‘I’d really rather not’], but Alistair was supposed to be using one of his Templar powers on Titus (that’s why Titus recognizes what he is on the next page) and disrupting his magic.”

Alexander Freed: “Isabela is witty and charming enough that it can be easy to forget that she’s not, in fact, a nice person. Even after finishing the outline, David was concerned about making her too unsympathetic - but I loved his approach in this series. The dark deeds Isabela commits - this murder included [Isabela killing Lord Devon] - are what make her guilt tangible and no easy matter to overcome.”

Alexander Freed: “I thought the notions of Isabela’s pride in her captaincy and dedication to her crew were some of the most interesting aspects of her character in David’s story. In scenes here [when Isabela is on her ship saying ‘Keep them focused and keep them sober’] and elsewhere, I did my best to emphasize their place at the core of Isabela’s world.”

Chad Hardin: “Most of the time I draw from imagination, but because of the complexity of this page [Qunari trying to board Isabela’s ship] I decided it would work better if I had photo reference. On this page are my nephews Jared (Varric) and Adam, my niece Melissa, my kids Erica, Tasey Michaela (Isabela) and Chad (Alistair), my friend’s daughter Amy, my wife Joy, and the neighborhood kids as Isabela’s pirate crew. (The crew member mooning the Qunari is out of my ol’ noodle.) I paid their modelling fee in pizza and root beer. Also, I had originally drawn cannons on Isabela’s ship, so if there are parts of it that look slightly wonky, chances are there was a cannon there.”

David Gaider: “Ever since the BioWare artists finally did a concept for female Qunari, I’ve been itching to include one in the game. It’s always slipped through my fingers, so I was going to be damned if I’d have a Qunari plot in a comic - without the same technical limitations - and not have one present.

Chad Hardin: “I had no idea this was the first time anyone outside of BioWare had seen a female Qunari.”

Michael Atiyeh: “I really like the lighting in this sequence [Isabela in her cell thinking ‘I haven’t eaten in days’], especially the strong white light and the characters in shadow.”

David Gaider: “The entire sequence of Rasaan interrogating Isabela was something I plotted out in detail when this series began. Here they discuss names - something treated in a manner peculiar to the Qunari, considering how much importance they apply to what things are called (and not called), because it forms the core of their identity. Isabela brushes it off, but as we find out later it’s also at the core of her identity. I liked that parallel.”

Alexander Freed: “To balance out the relatively static talking pages elsewhere in the issue, I hoped to make the interrogation and flashback sequences beautiful and full of information. I proposed an approach to Chad, and he wisely reshaped it into what you see here [the page with the scene where Isabela says ‘I’ve made a lot of stupid mistakes’]. Anything that succeeds on these pages should be credited to him; anything that fails is my fault.”

Chad Hardin: “Probably the most challenging spread I have ever done. My friend Stacie Pitt was the model for Isabela on this page, and my wife Joy was Rasaan. I saved these pages [around the scene when Rasaan says ‘Mistakes can be corrected’] for myself.”

David Gaider: “Sten from Dragon Age: Origins becoming the new Arishok of the Qunari was something we'd planned even during Dragon Age 2. This was a great opportunity to show that, and also to show that Sten didn’t acquire horns even despite the makeover the Qunari received in DA2. Hornless Qunari are considered special, and Sten is no exception.”

Michael Atiyeh: “I think that David, Alex and Chad handled Isabela’s flashback [to when she was sold by her mother] in an interesting way, and it created a nice flow to the story.”

David Gaider: “This was a controversial scene [what happened to the slaves Isabela was transporting], the end result of a lot of discussions between me and Isabela’s original writer on the team, and it went through a lot of revisions over that time. It needed to fit with the story Isabela told the player in DA2, but fill in the blanks of what she didn’t tell. We didn’t want Isabela to be someone who became who she is because she was ‘broken’ but instead as a result of her own actions - yet also not be completely beyond redemption.”

Chad Hardin: “These were hard pages [as above] to draw. It was difficult knowing that events such as this are part of human history, such as the Zong massacre in 1781, where the British courts ordered the insurers to reimburse the crew of the Zong for financial losses caused by throwing slaves overboard when faced with a lack of water. Horrifying beyond words.”

Michael Atiyeh: “Here, Isabela visits here crew, and I wanted to play up that she was in the light and they were in a dark cell. The light streaming through the bars gave me the opportunity to highlight Brand, who also had dialogue in the scene.”

Alexander Freed: “I struggled to find a way for Varric to contribute to victory without distracting from Alistair and Sten’s big fight. I’m happy with the solution: a brazen lie seemed appropriate to the character without taking away from the main show.”

David Gaider: “I believe my original plan had Isabela’s and Alistair’s fight scenes happening separately, but I like how Alex intertwined them in the script and I especially like how this ends up highlighting the differences between their characters when their fights are resolved. Isabela is defiant, revealing her name not because Rasaan demands it but because it’s her choice. In both cases, mercy is strength.”

Michael Atiyeh: “The brush I created for the clouds really gave them a nice watercolor effect here [on the deck of the ship, Sten calling Alistair ‘kadan’]. That brush has become a staple in my toolbox.”

Alexander Freed: “With the strong theme of names running through these issues, I liked the notion that Isabela had outgrown being, well, ‘Isabela’. When her name comes up in Until We Sleep, it’s largely played with ambiguity.”

Until We Sleep annotations

Alexander Freed: “The story of ‘Arthur’ is one of my favorite minor sequences [Varric infiltrating and fighting his way into the fortress]. It tells us something about Varric and it delivers plot information - and it’s also a reminder that our heroes kill an awful lot of people during these series and cope with it in their own ways. In general, writing Varric let me skirt the edge of metacommentary, which I greatly enjoyed.”

David Gaider: “Varric, as always, is my ‘voice of the narrator’. Here he’s expressing some of my own amusement at Alistair’s growing list of peculiarities [‘Your majesty is quite the special snowflake’]. To think, back at the beginning of Dragon Age: Origins he was just the player’s goofy sidekick who grew up in a barn.”

Michael Atiyeh: “By the third series, Until We Sleep, I really started to have a complete feel for what I wanted the final art to look like. As an artist, it’s important to continue to evolve and grow. The close-up of Sten’s face [same page as above] is a perfect example of how I wanted the rendering on the characters to look.”

Alexander Freed: “David’s outline called for a short, somber reveal of the Calenhad story by Sten. Fueled by my desire to avoid ‘talking heads’ sequences, I scripted it as a full-on storytelling flashback. David made sure the history worked (at least from the Qunari point of view), and Chad did a beautiful job handling it in a mere two pages.”

David Gaider: “Blood is important in Dragon Age, as a theme. Here we tie in the dragon blood that was mentioned all the way back in The Silent Grove and explain what it means at last. I was a bit hesitant to tarnish the legend of Calenhad the Great in this way, but I comfort myself with the knowledge this tale is but a viewpoint and not necessarily the entire truth.”

Michael Atiyeh: “Titus melting the attacker is a great example of classic comicbook storytelling and exactly what made me fall in love with the medium.”

David Gaider: “I was really happy with how Chad handled the reveal of Mae as transgender [the scene with Mae in the cell]. My worry was that Varric finding her disrobed might be potentially titillating, but I think he handled it nicely. I only wish there was more time to have Mae properly respond to being exposed in this manner, even to a friend.”

Chad Hardin: “I originally drew Mae as female [same scene as above], then changed her anatomy, so the psychological violation and humiliation she felt would be the focus. Hope that came across.”

Chad Hardin: “When in doubt, have Bianca shoot it [Varric shooting the artifact].”

David Gaider: “This scene [Varric and Bianca the dwarf] with Varric was one I wanted to do for a very long time. We’ve hinted that Varric’s crossbow was named after a real person, someone he never wants to talk about. Now I finally had the chance to show why.”

Chad Hardin: “Of all my Dragon Age pages, this scene was hands down my favorite, because Varric is my favorite. It was awesome to get to draw Bianca in her dwarven form. These scenes give you a glimpse of the love Varric and Bianca shared. It doesn’t tell you the whole story, but you can assume plenty from what is shown. You get to see Varric mostly naked (you’re welcome), but most of all you witness Varric’s heartbreak. I felt privileged to draw it. I got so obsessed with drawing this page I did an entire watercolor painting based on the last panel [Varric gets up to leave, ‘This isn’t right’ - ? or perhaps the scene where he opens the door to leave].”

Alexander Freed: “Unreliable narrators are always tricky - done wrong, they can just confuse the reader. But I’m fairly happy with Varric’s lies throughout this series, most of which are used to downplay the emotional cost of events rather than whitewash the events themselves.”

Michael Atiyeh: “This palette worked perfectly [Varric standing in front of the doorway/portal in the Fade proper], but I can’t take all the credit because BioWare provided reference for the Fade. I added the hot orange energy for the doorway, which looks great with the sickly green sky.”

David Gaider: “This scene [Isabela’s Fade nightmare] was actually inspired by a fan named Allegra who did a cosplay as a Qunari version of Isabela. I knew I wanted something like this for Isabela’s Fade section of the comic, but it didn’t really solidify until I saw the cosplay.”

Chad Hardin: “Isabela is more affected by her encounter with Rasaan than we were led to believe. A portent of things to come?”

Michael Atiyeh: “I love this shot of Mae in the fourth panel [on the page where Isabela is affected by vines]. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention what a great character she is in the series, and Chad captures her beautifully in this shot.”

Alexander Freed: “I saw this issue as a sort of downbeat victory lap. Over the course of the previous series, our protagonists largely came to terms with the inner demons the Fade confronts them with here. The fact they’ve come so far lets them win this last battle... but they still have scars that will never completely disappear.”

David Gaider: “Maric was in the first two novels I wrote for Dragon Age. Seeing Chad’s rendering of him as a regal, grown-up version of Alistair made me incredibly nostalgic. Some characters you just never let go of.”

Alexander Freed: “I feel Varric’s lines (‘tell yourself the stories you need to tell’ but ‘never live your own lies’) are the natural endpoint of all the exchanges he’s had with Alistair, starting from the end of Chapter 1 of The Silent Grove. And of course it plays off the story of ‘Arthur’, as well.’’

Chad Hardin: “I’m happy with the way Titus came off in these pages [Titus attacking and saying ‘The last magisters of Tevinter were so close’]. He looks threatening and powerful when fighting Alistair, Isabela and Varric, but genuinely confused by his inability to defeat Maric. Bye-bye, evil Jesus.”

Alexander Freed: “I can’t help but feel for Titus. He was unthinkably corrupt, but I see him as genuinely motivated by Tevinter’s glory. (The fact Alistair reads zealous ideology as a lust for power says a lot about both characters.)”

Michael Atiyeh: “I love the seamless transition of color from Titus’ magic to the dragon breath and then back into the orange remnants of his magic in the smoke. This was a really fun panel to color [Titus saying ‘Die by what wrought you’].”

David Gaider: “‘You are not the dreamer here. I am.’ I always have a scene or a line that’s in my head when I begin a tale, and this line of Maric’s was one I wanted all the way back when I started working on The Silent Grove.”

Chad Hardin: “I love this page [Maric and Alistair clasping hands]; Mike’s colors are spot on. We get to see all our heroes in an ideal state for the last time. This is the last Dragon Age page I saved for myself.”

David Gaider: “This scene kills me [Alistair destroying the Magrallen]. I knew it needed to happen; I knew I wanted it to happen even back when I began the story. Alistair lets Maric remain in the Fade rather than dragging him back to a world which has moved on. Alistair’s ready to move on, but forcing him to give up that hope... it makes me feel like a bad person.”

Chad Hardin: “Heartbreak for Alistair as he realizes that once again, as a king, he must kill: this time, his own father (granted, the Magrallen did most of the work). I really like how Maric crumbles away in the end. This was my last page, and the emotions on the page and in my studio were very final. Altogether, this was a year of my life in the making. On my last page, I wrote a thank you to everyone involved, the crew at Dark Horse and the crew at BioWare. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank them again. It was a thrill. Finally, a huge thank-you to the Dragon Age fan community, whose support was overwhelmingly awesome.”

Michael Atiyeh: “As the story came to an end, I knew I was going to miss these characters. Writing these annotations reinforces the fact that I hope to work with this great creative team again one day. Many thanks to Dark Horse and BioWare for the opportunity to work on Dragon Age.”

Alexander Freed: “The tension between the art and the narration on this page [the one with Alistair sitting on his throne while nobles argue] is something you can only pull off in comics. Neither tells the full, bittersweet story alone. Similarly, these issues wouldn’t have been possible without everyone on the team; thanks to David, Chad, Michael, and everyone I lack space to list!”

Additional pages / art

Library Edition Volume 1 also came with some additional pages, with additional art and commentary. These are as follows (I’m including them for the sake of completion, click the links to see):

1. Alistair and dragon concepts

2. Rasaan and Maevaris concepts

3. Sten, Titus and Yavana concepts

4. A series of cover pages 1

5. A series of cover pages 2

In case anyone has trouble reading the notes that accompany these images, I’ve transcribed them below:

1. Dragon Age Sketch Book

Alistair Concept

Dragon Age / Dark Horse

Chad Hardin: “The headshot of Alistair is from a finished sketch with a rejected armor design. In order to save time, the redrawing was completed on the computer, where tweaks and changes are quick and easy, if somewhat less glorious.”

[Dragon] Head #1 / Head #2

Chad Hardin: “Everyone liked this dragon sketch so much that Dark Horse printed it for signings at conventions. You can see I did multiple proposals for the dragon’s head. It was more effective than drawing the body over and over.”

2. [arrow pointing to Mae’s sleeve] concealed [I think that’s what it says anyway] daggers / shurikens?

Chad Hardin: “When designing Rasaan and Maevaris, I wasn’t exactly sure how their roles would play out in the series. Maevaris’ outfit was inspired by brothel madams of the Wild West. I thought it would be cool to have some weapons concealed in the formal wear. These never came into play in the series, but they were there in my mind.”

3. Chad Hardin: “Although we only see Titus in his battle garb in one issue, I really liked the design of his armor. The sketch of Yavana was done on the fly and served as both a rough preliminary sketch and as a panel layout. You have to work hard and smart in comics to keep up with the deadlines.”

4. Cover Artist Anthony Palumbo: “This was my first assignment for Dark Horse, and I was both excited and nervous. I drew pencil sketches of the main characters, scanned them and played with different arrangements, poses and color schemes in Photoshop.”

5. Anthony Palumbo: “Fellow illustrator Winona Nelson helped me by sitting for photo reference. I created the mock-jewelry with gold-painted Sculpey. That’s a quick photo of my own gaping maw, to help with the image of Varric.”

#dragon age #bioware #video games #artevalentinapaz #alistair theirin #fav warden #morrigan #queen of my heart #long post #longpost

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hevcrap · 5 years ago

Text

Timestamped trigger list for Castlevania Season 3

If you’ve seen the warnings for season three and thought “gee it can’t be that bad!”, let me tell you! It’s worse! Just play the games or something. And if you’re going to watch it, pirate it because if this shitshow gets a fourth season I swear to god. Under the readmore and. obviously spoilers for all of season three.

TL:DR Just fucking play the video games this was an edgelord’s wet dream about cool vampires. I wish I hadn’t wasted my entire afternoon on this.

The timestamps are rounded to the nearest 5 seconds!! (I am also updating this when I see things brought up in the tags that I missed) Some of the longer quotes are not exactly verbatim because I don’t want to go back and have to transcribe them.

Do not pull a fucking “GOTCHA” with me over anything. I did this on my own free time and risked my mental health to warn others. This is not a matter of it being “a mature show”, this is a matter of the brutalization of characters of color, of sexual entrapment, of rape, of demonizing lesbians, of so much shit that was not necessary.

episode one

4 Weird bestiality joke

7 Gorey fight scene

Repeated ableism by calling Trevor Sypha’s “brain damaged servant” (sorry no specific timestamps, it happens at least three times iirc)

12 to 14:20 Hector chained and visibly brutalized with dehumanizing comments the entire time

13:30 Hector is stripped naked and thrown in a cell.

Various jabs at Trevor’s alcoholism a few times hes onscreen

24:42 to end of episode Hector chained up and splashed with icy water

episode two

4:30 to 4:45 Shot of Hector chained up when Isaac uses the mirror

7:20 Gorey fight scene

episode three

2:50 Bestiality joke

20 until episode end Hector manipulation time with Lenore. awful note: he crawls like an animal to eat food from her hand. she beats the shit out of him too and hes nude for this entire sequence. she proceeds to call all of this "fun" and makes a fetch joke. to the man currently caged at her whim.

episode four

11:30 Unsanitary warning for a pile of human waste in the corner of the church

19:25 to 25:30 Hector and Lenore conversation? beginning of the manipulation i guess.

episode five

16 A couple of passing jokes at Alucard being Sumi and Taka’s slave, not taken seriously but still

episode six

The episode opens with Hector and Lenore, almost immediate comment about him being "almost human" and "good boy" and "taking him for a walk" and she puts a leather collar with a bell and leash on him. She then says "good boy. walkies!" as she puts the collar on his neck. The collar is visible the entire time they're walking. They look like they're about to kiss as she takes off the collar and he thanks her for “outside privileges.” This scene ends at 8:50

10:45ish to 15:00 Rapidly flashing lights and colors on the whole screen during Saint Germaine’s dream

episode seven

Nothing major

episode eight

15:20 to 19:40 Lenore kisses Hector on the cheek and furthers romantic advances on him.

episode nine

2:35 ends at 2:59 Hector gets on top of Lenore and they kiss

4:30 ends at 5:40 Alucard gets sexually advanced on by Taka and Sumi and they frame it as a reward for teaching them. They pin him down and kiss him.

5:40 to 6:45 Gorey fight scene

6:45 to 6:55 Hector and Lenore again

8:50 to 9:10 Sumi Taka and Alucard sex scene. :|

11:20 to 11:45 Hector and Lenore sex scene :|

13:40 to 13:50 Sumi Taka and Alucard again

16:10 to 16:45 Flashes to both ongoing sex scenes

19:00 to 20:35 Both sex scenes and both Alucard and Hector get entrapped through various means

21:50 to 21:55 Flashing lights

episode ten

11:05 Flashing lights

12:05 to 14 Nudity and Alucard kills Sumi and Taka

16:30 to 20 It is revealed that The Judge has been killing people when Trevor and Sypha find Prior Sala’s corpse, mainly children (Sypha says “What are all those small bones? Animals?”, by the use of a pitfall trap full of sharpened stakes. Later on they find a locked room in his house full of children’s shoes, confirming that he killed the boy he caught running in the village earlier with the same trick.

20 to 24 Talk of slavery intermittently, Lenore calls Hector her pet

25:30 A shot of Sumi and Taka’s bodies impaled on stakes, much in the same way that Dracula used to display the corpses of people he killed. Alucard says “It worked for dead old dad”

#☢️#i dont know what to trigger tag this as PLEASE look at your own risk #castlevania #castlevania season 3 #castlevania s3 #castlevania spoilers

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qqueenofhades · 4 years ago

Note

If/when they make a Joe/Nicky prequel movie, what are some of the Dos and Don’ts for them, with regards to historical accuracy. Like, what do you think they should include, and what do you think they should avoid?

Oof. This is a GREAT question, and also designed to give me a chance to ramble on in a deeply, deeply self-indulgent fashion. That is now what will proceed to happen. Consider yourself warned. So if they were miraculously to be like “well that qqueenofhades person on tumblr seems like she knows what she’s talking about, let’s hire her to consult on this production!”, here are some of the things I would tell them.

First off, a question I have in fact asked my students when teaching the crusades in class is whether you could actually show the sack of Jerusalem on screen. Like... if you’re making a film about the First Crusade, what kind of choices are you going to make? What narrative viewpoint are you going to uphold throughout the story? Are you actually going to show a slaughter of Muslim and Jewish inhabitants that some chroniclers described as causing enough blood to reach up to the knees of horses? (Whether it actually did this is beside the point; the point is that the sack went far beyond the accepted conventions of warfare and struck everybody involved in it as particularly horrific.) Because when you’re making a film about the crusades, you are also making it by nature for a modern audience that has particular understandings of Christian/Muslim conflict, religious warfare and/or tolerance, the War on Terror, the modern clash over ISIS, Trump’s Muslim ban, and so forth. The list goes on and on. So you’re never making a straight, unbiased historical adaptation, even if you’re going off the text of primary sources. You’re still constructing it and presenting it in a deliberate and curated fashion, and you can bet that whichever way you come down, your audience will pick up on that.

Let’s take the most recent example of a high-profile crusades film: Kingdom of Heaven from 2005. I’ve written a book chapter on how the narrative choices of KoH, aside from its extensive fictionalization of its subject matter to start with, make it crystal clear that it is a film made by a well-meaning Western liberal filmmaker (Ridley Scott) four years after 9/11 and two years after the invasion of Iraq, when the sympathy from 9/11 was wearing off and everyone saw America/Great Britain and the Bush/Blair coalition overreaching itself in yet another arrogant imperial adventure into the Middle East. Depending on how old you are, you may or may not remember the fact that Bush explicitly called the War on Terror a “crusade” at the start, and then was quickly forced to walk it back once it alarmed his European allies (yes, back then, as bad as America was, it still did have those) with its intellectual baggage. They KNEW exactly what images and tropes they were invoking. It is also partly why medieval crusade studies EXPLODED in popularity after 9/11. Everyone recognized that these two things had something to do with each other, or they made the connection somehow. So anyone watching KoH in 2005 wasn’t really watching a crusades film (it is set in the late 1180s and dramatizes the surrender of Jerusalem to Saladin) so much as a fictional film about the crusades made for an audience explicitly IN 2005. I have TONS to say on this subject (indeed, if you want a copy of my book chapter, DM me and I’ll be happy to send it.)

Ridley Scott basically sets it up as the Christian and Muslim secular leaders themselves aren’t evil, it’s all the religious fanatics (who are all made Templars, including Guy de Lusignan, going back to the “evil Templar” trope started by Sir Walter Scott and which we are all so very familiar with from Dan Brown and company). Orlando Bloom’s character shares a name (Balian de Ibelin) but very little else with the eponymous real-life crusader baron. One thing Scott did do very well was casting an actual and well-respected Syrian actor (Ghassan Massoud) to play Saladin and depicting him in essential fidelity to the historical figure’s reputed traits of justice, fairness, and mercy (there’s some article by a journalist who watched the film in Beirut with a Muslim audience and they LOVED the KoH Saladin). I do give him props for this, rather than making the Evil Muslim into the stock antagonist. However, Orlando Bloom’s Balian is redeemed from the religious extremist violence of the Templars (shorthand for all genuinely religious crusaders) by essentially being an atheistic/agnostic secular humanist who wants everyone to get along. As I said, this is a film about the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq made three years after 9/11 more than anything else, and you can really see that.

That said, enough about KoH, back to this presumable Joe/Nicky backstory. You would obviously run into the fact that it’s SUPER difficult to make a film about the crusades without offending SOMEBODY. The urge to paint in broad strokes and make it all about the evil Westerners invading is one route, but it would weaken the moral complexity of the story and would probably make it come off as pandering to guilty white liberal consciences. Are we gonna touch on the many decades of proto-crusading ventures in Iberia, Sicily, North Africa, and other places, and how the eleventh century, especially under Pope Gregory VII, made it even thinkable for a Christian to be a holy warrior in the first place? (It was NOT normal beforehand.) How are we going to avoid the “lololol all religion sucks and makes people do crazy things” axe to grind favoured by So Very Smart (tm) internet atheists? Yes, we have to demonstrate the ultimate horror of the crusade and the flawed premises it was based on, but we can’t do that by just showing the dirty, religiously zealot medieval people doing that because they don’t know any better and are being cynically manipulated in God’s Name. In other words (and the original TOG film did this very well) we can’t position ourselves to laugh at or mock the crusader characters or feel confident in looking down on them for being Dumb Zealots. They have to be relatable enough that we realize we could BE (and in fact already ARE) them, and THEN you slide into the horror and what compels them to do those kinds of things, and THAT’S when it hits. Because take a look at the news. This is happening around us right now.

Obviously, as I was doing in my First Crusade chapter in DVLA, a lot of this also has to spend time centering the Muslim point of view, the way they reacted to the crusade, the ways in which Yusuf as an Isma’ili Shia Muslim (Kaysani is the name of a branch of Isma’ili Shi’ites, he has a definite historical context and family lineage, and hence is almost surely, as I wrote him, a Fatimid from Egypt) is likewise not just A Stock Muslim. In this case, obviously: Get actual Muslims on the set to advise about the details. Don’t make stupid and/or obvious mistakes. Don’t necessarily make the Muslims less faithful or less virtuous than the Christians (even if this is supposed to praise them as being “less fanatic” than those bad religious Catholics). Don’t tokenize or trivialize their reaction to something as horrific as the sack of Jerusalem, and don’t just use dead brown bodies as graphic visual porn for cheap emotional points. Likewise, it goes without saying, and I don’t think they would anyway, but OH MY GOD DON’T MAKE THIS INTO GAME OF THRONES GRIMDARK!!!! OH MY GOD!!! THERE IS BEAUTY AND THERE IS LIGHT AND THERE IS POETRY AND THAT’S WHY IT HURTS SO MUCH WHEN IT’S DESTROYED! AND THE CHOICES THAT PEOPLE MAKE TO DESTROY THOSE THINGS HAVE TO BE TERRIFYINGLY PLAUSIBLE AND FAMILIAR, BECAUSE OH MY GOD!!

Next, re: Nicolo. Evidently he is a priest or a former priest or something of the sort in the graphic novel, which becomes a bit of a problem if we want him to actually FIGHT in the crusades for important and/or shallow and/or OTP purposes. (I don’t know if they address this somehow or Greg Rucka is not a medieval historian or whatever, but never mind.) It was a Major Thing that priests could not carry weapons, at least and especially bladed weapons. (In the Bayeux Tapestry, we have Odo, the bishop of Bayeux, fighting at the battle of Hastings with a truncheon because he’s a clergyman and can’t have a sword). They were super not supposed to shed blood, and a broadsword (such as the type that Nicky has and carries and is clearly very familiar with) is a knight’s weapon, not a clergyman’s. The thing about priests was that they were not supposed to get their hands dirty with physical warfare; they could (and often did) accompany crusade armies, bishops were secular overlords and important landholders, monks and hermits and other religious preachers were obviously part of a religious expedition, and yes, occasionally some priests would break the rules and fight in battle. But this was an exception FAR more than the rule. So if we’re going by accuracy, we have Nicky as a priest who doesn’t actively fight and doesn’t have a sword, we have him as a rule-breaking priest with a sword (which would have to be addressed, and the Templars, who were basically armed monks, weren’t founded until 1119 so he can’t be one of those yet if this is still 1099) or we just skip the priest part and have him as a crusader with a sword like any other soldier. If he was in fact a priest, he also wouldn’t be up to the same standard of sending into battle. Boys, especially younger sons of the nobility, often entered the church at relatively early ages (12 or 13), where it was treated as a career, and hence they stopped training in arms. So if Nicky is actually out there fighting and/or getting killed by Yusuf several times for Important Purposes, he’s... almost surely not a priest.

Iirc, they’ve already changed a few things from the graphic novel (I haven’t read it, but this is what I’ve heard) so they can also tweak things to make a new backstory or a hybrid-new backstory in film-verse. So once we’ve done all the above, we still have to decide how to handle the actual sack of Jerusalem and massacre of its inhabitants, the balance between violence comparable to the original TOG film and stopping short of being exploitative (which I think they would do well), and the aftermath of that and the founding of the new Latin Christian kingdom. It would have to, as again the original film does very well, avoid prioritizing the usual players and viewpoints in these events, and dig into presenting the experiences of the marginalized and way in which ordinary people are brought to the point of doing these things. It doesn’t (and frankly shouldn’t) preach at us that U.S. Invasions Of The Middle East Are Bad (especially since obviously none of the characters/people/places/events here are American at all). And as I said already but bears repeating: my god, don’t even THINK about making it GOT and marketing it as Gritty Dramatic Medieval History, You Know It’s Real Because They’re Dirty, Violent, and Bigoted!

Also, a couple tags I saw pop up were things like “Period-Typical Racism” and “Period-Typical Homophobia” and mmm okay obviously yes there are these elements, but what exactly is “period typical?” Does it mean “using these terms just because you figure everyone was less tolerant back then?” We know that I, with my endless pages of meta on medieval queer history, would definitely side-eye any attempts to paint these things as Worse Than Us, and the setting alone would convey a sense of the conflict without having to add on gratuitous microaggressions. I basically think the film needs to be made exactly like the original: centering the gay/queer perspectives of marginalized people and people of color, resisting the urge for crass jokes at the expense of the identity of its characters, and approaching it with an awareness of the deep complexity and personal meaning of these things to people in terms of the historical moment we’re in, while not making a film that ONLY prizes our response and our current crises. Because if we’re thinking about these historical genealogies, the least we can do (although we so often aren’t) is to be honest.

Thanks! I LOVED this question.

#history #medieval history #kingdom of heaven #joe x nicky #long post #persephone-rose-r #ask #the old guard meta

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demetriandelibinaryboyfriends · 4 years ago

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Thanks for replying! Could you possibly link the rp blog? I love your headcanons! What do the Cobras and Miyagi-Dos think of them? I like to think one of the characters in canon came up with their ship name, who do you think it was?- Cherry

But of course, Cherry!!! Those headcanons were so fun to write :D It’s honestly one of my favorite headcanon/ask posts that I’ve done, I think. I love thinking about how Johnny would react to Hawk and Demetri dating XD And writing that paragraph about how I think Demetri and Eli met was honestly the most fun ride haha

@sipping--snowflakes runs a Demetri RPG blog I think, it’s @binarybrother1! Idk if it’s still active, you’ll have to hit them up about that. I also think @hawkxatxheart RPs as Hawk and ships the binary boyfriends, if you want to hit them up too!

Aight screw it, Imma do the most complete analysis I can XD

Miguel ships it SO hard XD Like Miguel is a very smart and intuitive person who seems pretty good at picking up on emotions and such (he was able to almost instantly call bullshit on Kreese’s war stories, IIRC), so I’m almost certain that he picked up that there were Some Kinda Vibes going on with those two from day fucking one. But obviously he doesn’t wanna outright say anything, especially not at a school where kids will get bullied for literally ANYTHING and something like kids being gay for each other could legit put a target on both their backs if it got out. So he lets these boys figure shit out on their own time but is also like “...yeah, they’ll realize it eventually, I’m sure.” XD And you dun best believe he just went “ohhhhh my godddddd” when they fell out and developed a super intense rivalry because he’s like guys??? Do you NOT realize being that obsessed with fucking with each other...kinda means you’re obsessed WITH each other??? Even though you both have other friends now??? Doesn’t seem like normal best friend behavior :/ But of course our boy doesn’t want to interfere unless it gets really bad--and he’s got his own issues to deal with, anyhow. I imagine after the dojos join and Demetri and Eli start dating after a while, Miguel is just like “FUCKING FINALLY!!! Sam pay up, you owe me 20 bucks!!!” He’s so happy they finally dragged their heads out of their asses and realized they loved each other, because man, you can bet your ass Miguel knew they did from the get-go.

Sam I think I’ve touched on a fair bit in my other posts so I won’t get into a whole big long thing, but she’s...certainly leery of them dating at first, mainly because she remembers Demetri’s issues with Eli are what pushed him to join Miyagi-Do in the first place, and she witnessed him breaking Dem’s arm so she’s pretty...not crazy about Eli XD But Miguel and Demetri both vouch for Eli a LOT, and reassure Sam over and over that he’s a good guy at heart and just let Kreese get in his head and fell victim to his brainwashing for a while. Sam comes around to the idea after a while, and she can see how happy he makes Demetri and ultimately trusts Demetri to be smart enough to not date someone who’s going to treat him badly. Then eventually she and Eli bond over what a fuck Kyler is (he bullied Sam too, don’t forget!!! And they DATED, so the thing he did with the blowjob rumors was a HUGE violation of the pretty intimate trust you have with a partner) and after that she is VERY on board with him and Demetri dating XD

Chris is...Not A Fan, to put it lightly XD Like he saw firsthand how much of a fuck Hawk was to him and Mitch when they first joined Cobra Kai and how he basically hazed them both for funsies because he let the tournament win get to his head. And hell, HE was one of the ones who got sicced on Demetri in the mall and tried to get Hawk to back down, and SAW that he wouldn’t. And when Hawk was about to go after Demetri at Moon’s party, Chris was the first Miyagi-Do to step in and protect him. And, of course, he saw Hawk break Demetri’s arm, too. So he’s no stranger to the antagonism Hawk has always had for Demetri in particular, and doesn’t trust that it’s completely gone. However, Chris is a pretty down-to-earth and reasonable dude, so with a LOT of vouching from Demetri, I can see him coming around eventually. Also if he was willing to give Mitch a second chance, ain’t no reason he can’t do the same for Hawk. And Mitch would probably vouch for Hawk too, after he and Chris became friends again--after all, Mitch DID end up becoming pretty good friends with Hawk after all the hazing stuff. So ultimately Chris ends up being at least civil with Hawk, but he sometimes glares at him when no one’s looking like “I’ve got my eye on you, you’d better not hurt my bro or there’s gonna be hell to pay”

Mitch is fairly indifferent, I think, although he DOES find the irony of Hawk now being head-over-heels smitten with the same dude he sent him to beat up in the mall and the same dude who told everyone Hawk wets the bed to be IMMENSELY hilarious. He loves to tease Hawk about it, like “Man, what would you have done a year ago if you’d known you’re now regularly making out with that shrimpy little nerd???” and Hawk is like “oh my god shut UP” but then he turns away and smirks because the joke is on Mitch--he TOTALLY still liked Demetri through All That Mess Last Year, he just...had a very poor way of processing it XD

I imagine Bert kinda looks up to Hawk as an older brother figure (there’s a snippet I’ve seen some gifs of of Hawk teaching him how to block and it’s actually really cute--huge Big Bro/Little Bro Energy) and probably also admires Demetri quite a bit for trying to protect him and Nate during the Christmas party fight, so he’s definitely on board!!! His two honorary big brothers dating--he’s thrilled!!! Nate not so much, since you dun best believe he still remembers Hawk and his goons “kicking the fucking shit out of him” XD Nonetheless, Nate probably also has a soft spot for Demetri for trying to protect him, so with lots of vouching from Demetri (and Bert too, once he and Nate are friends again), he eventually comes around to the idea of Hawk and Demetri dating.

ON TO THE SECOND QUESTION, FINALLY!

I actually think Aisha is the one who comes up with their ship name!!! XD Allow me to elaborate--so at some point Aisha comes back (because fuck it, I miss her), either to join the new merged dojo or just to visit, because ain’t no one telling me she didn’t keep in touch with at least SAM and visit occasionally if she was still in the city or general area. So she walks into the dojo to go see Sam and her other friends and start catching up with everyone, and--oh, Sam and Miguel are in the same weird, combined karate dojo now that isn’t Miyagi-Do OR Cobra Kai??? Super wack, but okay. Then she sees Demetri and Hawk holding hands and her eyes get really wide and she’s like “Wait, you two are DATING now??? That’s...kind of gross :/”

And Demetri and Hawk just freeze up for a hot sec because is Aisha of all people about to be judgmental??? But then she immediately follows up with “Well, aren’t you the binary brothers? I don’t know if I can get behind incest, guys.” And Hawk just breaks out snickering and is like “Shit, man, she’s right. We should probably update that.” And Demetri’s like “NO WAIT I GOT THIS” and then he just goes “dEmEtRi aNd eLi, BiNaRy BoYfRiEnDs” complete with the super cringey robot arm and Eli is like “Oh my GOD I am GOING to kill you” as the entire dojo proceeds to Lose Their Shit.

Also you dun best believe that literally every picture Aisha takes with Hawk and Demetri after they all start hanging out again (because I WANT THEM TO, FIGHT ME) is captioned things like “Chillin’ with the binary boyfriends!” “Eating tacos with the binary boyfriends!” “Doing karate with the binary boyfriends!” and before too long she refuses to refer to Demetri and Eli as anything else XD

Also yes I know Moon was also there during the Binary Brothers scene but she most likely wouldn’t be cheeky and tease them about it later. Aisha absolutely WOULD.

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