#can you tell which Alucard design I prefer by looking at this | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

beevean · 1 year ago

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Comparing CV and NFCV designs

I was having thoughts about how game designs were translated to the show. While I'm not a character design expert, I ended up having a fair bit to say, because most of the changes are fascinating, for better or for worse :P

1) Sypha

She's the only character I would say that was improved over the game version.

While Sypha never starred in any game post-CV3, and wasn't redesigned by Ayami Kojima like Trevor and Alucard were (excluding a cameo in PtR), we know what she looks like by her ending sprite of CV3 and the Fake Sypha of SoTN:

Yet another long-blonde-haired woman. Like pretty much every other woman in CV with few exceptions. She's carried by her mage outfit and her big hood that give her a mystique air, but I don't blame the showrunners for redesigning her.

Giving her short, reddish hair was a great choice IMO. It's a very cute haircut that doesn't fall into the "Stronk Female Character" stereotype (think Zafir essentially lol). Too bad they didn't even attempt the whole "secretly a man" plot point because it would have worked pretty well. Her clothes are simple, and I wish she hid herself in the hood more, but they work for her character. Full thumbs up!

2) Dracula

I'll use the Dracula from SoTN and CoD as reference, since those are the designs that inspired the one from the show.

His SoTN design is iconic, a true classy villain that inspires awe, and surprisingly faithful to the description in Bram Stoker's book. His CoD design isn't bad, very similar in features to the previous one, but with clothes more inspired to his "Classic" style, which makes sense. (the spiked wings are particularly cool)

... but I must confess that I prefer Dracula with black hair rather than white:

I know that LoI didn't happen in NFCV, but it would make more sense for the original Dracula. He could have looked like an older Mathias by the time of CV3... then the grief of losing Lisa would turn his hair white, as we see in CoD and after. Also it's just aesthetically more pleasing lol.

I like the outfit as well. The top is inspired from the CoD outfit, where he looked like a sorcerer, and the bottom is inspired from the SoTN outfit, where he looked like a noble (he wears boots, hidden here). Not particularly elegant, but then again this Dracula is neither of those things, so it works well enough.

It's ranked below Sypha simply because, well, it's just Dracula with a dye job, not much effort went into here. Hell, Kojima herself considered the idea first:

But it's a small change that works wonders and I like him a lot!

3) St. Germain

In CoD, St. Germain was meant to look very out of place:

He wears anachronistic clothes, and even his body build is unusual for the style. You can tell before he opens his mouth that something's up with him.

In the show, having a different background, he had to be redesigned:

He looks more time appropriate and stockier, but still recognizeable as the original character in physical traits. They even kept the hourglass!

I have little to add. The two characters serve different purposes, so they have to look different, and both work. I don't prefer one over the other, which is good enough. It was also a cute easter egg that N!St. Germain at one point wore the original outfit.

4) Trevor

Now we're getting into "obvious downgrades compared to the original" territory, but Trevor still looks fine for what he is:

Handsome in a scruffy way, combat ready (especially after ditching the cape), and with noble heritage. Nothing near as iconic as his CoD design, which looks both elegant and as combat ready as a veteran vampire hunter should be...

... but again, it's fine for the kind of character this Trevor is, and he's still aesthetically pleasing.

I do question, however, why Trevor starts out with his scar. In CoD, he got the scars on his eye and chest after the fight with Dracula, to mark him as a survivor of the Dark Lord at the peak of his strength. Giving it to Trevor simply because he got in trouble with humans is cheapening it.

5) Hector

Hector has the dubious honor of being one of the few characters who looks nearly identical to his game counterpart. As you can tell by the placing of the designs, I don't like this choice (Dracula notwithstanding because the black hair really is an improvement IMO), because they end up looking like discount versions of the beautiful Kojima designs.

Still, what more or less saves Hector is that his design had to be simplified, because man there is a lot going on here:

Hector's design conveys two important factors: he's a knight, and he's proficient in combat. The outfit's not elegant, but it's protective - look at the armor on his chest, his boots, and the guard on his left arm. His clothes overall look sturdy and comfortable enough to run and fight. He also has a ton of details that would be a nightmare to animate, such as the holes in his sleeves and pants, the chains, the skewed belt...

The simplification here was done with the right amount of care. The holes have become a motif, and the sleeves are no longer asymmetrical in color; same for the holes in the pants. The armor and boots still share the same motif, even without the detail that made them look protective (in fact, the armor is more visibly made of metal here, while in Kojima's style it's hard to tell if it's metal or leather). The belt has become a singular object, and most importantly they removed the black ribbon wrapped around the sash - it was most likely an accidental choice, but since that is Rosaly's ribbon, and ofc Hector wouldn't have it in this version, it was the right call.

There are, however, some problems with this. All these compromises make for a weird design in the context of the show: no other character has this extravagant design, even with all the simplifications. I'll explain later that he's especially jarring contrasted with Isaac. Also, it simply doesn't fit the character: this version of Hector is infamously completely ineffectual in battle, spends most of his screentime being used and tortured, and never once swings a weapon at an opponent (perhaps this is why he looks like he lost all muscle mass lol). Just look at the glove on his right hand: the reason the real Hector wears it is as protection when he uses his sword. Hector from the show doesn't even have a sword! That glove is completely useless for a blacksmith like he's supposed to be!

As a plus, this is what Hector is supposed to wear when employed under Dracula:

They gave Isaac the correct uniform (and I will have words about it). Hector started to wear his CoD clothes after he decided to run all over Wallachia to chase Isaac. Again, the outfit is not for work, it's for combat.

But it's not just the clothing that changed. On a positive note, I like his darker skin: Hector here is canonically Greek, and I appreciate it. I would like to see this bronze skin tone with game Hector's silver hair. On a negative note, however, this Hector's hair is very bad: not only it's a dull grey and not shiny silver, but the haircut is simply unflattering - why did they cut off the tips like that? It falls very badly around his face, it looks like a cheap, static wig.

(i'm not even going to deign words for how they drew child hector. that thing has suffered enough)

Overall, I don't know why they bothered to recreate the same design when it simply doesn't fit the character, and the character in general just looks like a downgrade, but I can accept the compromises in a vacuum. It helps that Hector's original design is just that good.

6) Lisa

Lisa also looks identical to her game counterpart, perhaps because there was no need to waste time for a minor character.

She's female Alucard with a typical mom ponytail. Nothing much to say.

And I will only say one thing about Lisa in the show.

Man is the style so damn unflattering for her.

She can look better depending on the artist...

But I'm not giving points for literally copying Kojima's design and doing it poorly.

7) Alucard

Alucard's design by Kojima is one of the most iconic in videogame history.

Look at him. Pure, effortless elegance. An absolute prince, graceful and deadly. The sheer amount of detail in his clothing are a fashion designer's dream. You cannot top this. Which is why I imagine the show didn't even attempt to.

... but what the actual fuck am I looking at here.

Again. Simplification was in order, I get it, I understand. But... really? Really. You did this to Alucard. You gave him the shittiest V-neck shirt and pants I could buy at the thrift store? Where is the elegance? Where is the nobility? Just having a long coat isn't enough to recreate the same style!

I also resent the scar on his chest, given to him by Dracula (unlike Trevor). That is the true reason he wears the shitty V-neck shirt. His S4 design all but proves it:

Now this is just nonsensical. What's the point of wearing a cape and a coat, but still going around with your whole chest out? I mean. We all know why. But it's ridiculous.

This is why Alucard ranks far lower than Hector and Lisa: his design has cheap fanservice as its priority, and I find that disrespectful towards the character and the audience. Plus, much like Lisa, the style is very unflattering to him.

I don't know what to tell you, guys. I just find him ugly, even in the best shots.

8) Carmilla

Comparing the two Carmillas isn't even worth it, but then again I could say the same about Isaac, and I don't want to be unfair :P

This is the most famous design for Carmilla in the games:

A giant, masked, naked woman riding a skull crying bloody tears. Nothing like any other foe in the series, and absolutely raw.

We also have "Camilla" from CotM:

Aww, she's cute. She's so pink and frilly! She has fins in her hair! Hard to imagine her as a villain. But don't worry, she also turns into a giant naked demon lady riding a skull:

So the showrunners had some good ideas to transport into the show.

... And they went for the most generic "sexy female villain" design they could.

She's not ugly, but... she's just boring. This design fits her to a T because her whole character is boring. They didn't even give her a mask, or a skull motif. Nothing. It's just a forgettable sexy #girlboss. Disappointing. Even the dress is boring - does this thing even have shading?

I guess they recycled the idea of a cute vampire villain for Lenore, but she's outside the scope of this list, so.

9) Isaac

And finally we get to the worst downgrade in the whole show :)

Where do I even begin with this guy. He's unlike any other character designed by Kojima, but not to the point of looking like he doesn't belong. What matters is that you can tell everything you need to know about him at first glance, and first and foremost: he's the peak of flamboyancy and insanity. You are not going to forget Isaac very soon lol.

But it's all the details that make the picture. He's red and black, marking him as a foil to Hector who is blue and silver. His outfit is obviously similar to Hector's, but fallen off of him and rotten (the "armor" on his chest resembles Hector's own, just stripped down). He has long forgotten anything resembling "sturdy and comfortable", but the bloodied spear tells us he's still a formidable fighter. The hair is anachronistic to say the least, but the way the bangs cover a side of his face contrasts Hector's billowing hair and draws attention to the tattoo on his face. He is covered head to toe with intricate tattoos, that must have been painful to get: a show of strength, loyalty, or masochism, you decide. Among these, he proudly displays a tattoo in the shape of the Devil Forgemaster crest on his back: this, along with the collar, tell us that he's slavishly devoted to his master.

This is Isaac's character, and the design does a fantastic job at telling us everything we need to know without even needing him to move or speak. I would say that his main characteristics are the color red (the hair, mostly) and the tattoos.

Yeah, good job not keeping a damn thing that made him recognizeable.

This is a dude. This is a completely average dude who rolled into the set and stole a costume for the role. No, giving him red eyes and a few dots on his face is not enough to give him an unique, memorable design. He's bland... neutered. And they absolutely did it on purpose, because this design is the complete opposite of the controversial original above - this Isaac is serious and "deep", not a gay clown, duhhh.

They don't even deserve credit for the uniform:

And may I say that Kojima, being an artist on a whole different level, was able to make the cossacks look elegant and dynamic, while N!Isaac above looks flat and boring.

Also, in PtR, Hector and Isaac match:

Because they're wearing a uniform. They have the same job and the same role, so they are wearing the same clothes. It's common sense. (it also makes more satisfying when at the end they diverge, displaying more of their personalities)

In the show, they do not:

Why is Hector, the ineffectual non-fighter, wearing combat clothes, while Isaac, the sharp and strong fighter, is wearing a full vest? Why is Hector wearing blue and Isaac is wearing black? Why do they have different crests on their armor???? IT'S A UNIFORM!

This is what happens when you browse the wiki without actually doing research on what the elements you're referencing mean.

Also, blue and black? Nowhere near as striking as blue and red. Isaac has something of a red motif in the show, only in his magic, but his personality doesn't match it. Even worse, Isaac wears blue in S4. Because he's not a foil to Hector, he is Hector but worse.

As for the tattoos, obviously I would never expect all those intricate tattoos in an animated show, but it would have been cool if he had at least the Devil Forgemaster one (even the extremely simplified version on this Hector's back), since even this Isaac starts out as being blindly loyal to Dracula. Instead, they thought that Isaac has a fetish for pain, and they gave show Isaac the habit of flagellating himself... which then got attributed to religion, and then was dropped lol. His actual tattoos are... weird? And overall they hardly matter, since they're concealed most of the time. Unlike game Isaac's tattoos, they don't convey anything about his character.

As you can guess, the reason Isaac is my least favorite design is that he's not just a downgrade: he's a downgrade that pretends, and is accepted, to be an upgrade. You can feel the contempt against the real Isaac, by showrunners who didn't bother to understand the character and hastly rewrote him to "fix" him. Isaac was deliberately neutered because the show thought itself too superior... although in retrospect it's funny, since they allowed a pink haired BDSM vampire in Nocturne...

#anti netflixvania #just in case #mostly anti by the second half #i was very charitable in the first one lol #dunno i need to share my thoughts sometimes

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asotin · 4 years ago

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what're your thoughts on castlevania (the netflix show, not the game, ive never played the game) what do you like, what don't you like? make it as long as you want. i don't care if i have to scroll for 5 minutes. go feral (personally trevor is extremely hot and i would like to date sypha. i'm not really into alucard's whole sickly victorian child aesthetic, yknow?)

oh god this is way too long, but you did say to make it as long as i want, and i have a lot of thoughts that i need to inflict on the world

i played two castlevania games, both from the nintendo gameboy era, so please don’t get mad at me, gamers

details below the cut, but since i’ll be talking about season three, i need to preface this with content warnings for mentions of: graphic violence, rape and sexual violence, racism, and the holocaust

before i get into it, i usually don’t go for alucard-type characters either, but knowing that he was redesigned to be bishounen sexy specifically because the boring, middle aged man look he originally had in the games wasn’t appealing makes me enjoy him. and he’s fun with trevor and sypha

do like:

the voice acting

it’s all good. i can’t think of any characters whose voices were awkward or fit poorly. they don't make sypha’s va use the standard flat affect or false high voice women tend to be assigned, trevor sounds suitably worn out but not monotone, and alucard sounds exhausted but in a sexy way

and the spanish dub is killer, arguably superior

the animation & design

it isn’t full-on artsy, but it’s definitely got a distinctive style that’s easy to look at. the color use and effects are gorgeous. it’s a story set in the medieval era, and the mixture of desaturated and oversaturated elements works so well with that

dracula’s castle and the belmont bunker aren't revolutionary in design, but they didn't need to be. they're suitably creepy and empty, and i enjoyed them

the monsters were unique enough to have obvious different types, and the scene where a monster commits blasphemy in a church by accusing a priest of committing blasphemy was good writing

lisa

she shows up to a stranger’s spooky home and scolds him for being rude. she really looked an ancient vampire in the face, told him he had no manners, then had a kid with him. what a phenomenal woman. 11/10, no notes

“start with me, and i’ll start with you.” you know what? i’d fall in love, too

dracula

this ancient, unfriendly vampire let a human woman walk into his home and tell him he’s got no manners. and that made him fall in love with her. just like that. lisa walked in and handed him his ass, and dracula thought “oh i love her”. and when she was killed (more on this in the bad section), he raised literal hell to destroy the world for doing it

speaking of lisa being killed, it fucks me up that it happened because she convinced him to leave the castle and experience the world. he left her alone to see what she loved so much, only to come back and find that the people he’d come to like- the people lisa had loved so much it drove her to help in a way that got her killed- had burned her at the stake. i love a good tragedy, and that’s good tragedy

the way he weeps when he has to fight alucard?? during a showdown in their home?? the “i must already be dead” moment in alucard’s childhood bedroom??? when he speaks to lisa about killing their boy, her greatest gift to him??? poetic cinema.

the trio’s dynamic

three bisexuals with two total brain cells and only alucard bothers using them. incredible

i went so hard for this ot3. it's right there and so good

sypha

she initially seems to be assigned the role of the adult™️ ie she's the only woman and gets stuck being responsible, but surprise! she’s just as annoying and dumb as alucard and trevor. she dropped a castle she didn’t understand on the ground and didn’t think too hard about it. then she argued about breaking it. i love her

if we don’t get an ot3, then she needs to have a dumb gf

alucard

he's got a stupidly low neckline and lower pants. they really leaned into ayami kojima’s redesign, as they should have. his little curl annoys me, though. why the fuck does he have a random section of hair that’s like three inches long when the rest is shoulder length or longer? love that he really looks like lisa

if you say he's canonically bisexual and polyamorous, no he isn't. yes he is. no he isn't :)

trevor

disgusting. a nasty man whose appearance mirrors his state of mind. he's 50 mental illnesses in a dirty jacket and his coping mechanism is… alcohol? maybe? he’s a mess, and i dig it

him trying his trick of kneeing alucard in the balls during their fight? and finding out it doesn't work? (which…… why doesn't it……?) juvenile but suitable

hector

his love of animals makes him my favorite. normally, i won’t touch anything with this much animal death, but i’m willing to set that aside because hector loves them so much. he’s so sweet and kind, and he loves his monster pets

yes he sided with dracula and has some really fucked up ideas about what constitutes humane treatment of people, and yet i love him. 11/10, but i have a lot of notes

isaac

i support him, including his murdering and his decision to support dracula. dracula throwing him out of the castle to save him was so cruel in that it was an attempt at kindness from a man who hated the whole world, but it was against isaac’s wishes

his time with the captain was great

idk enough about islam to know if he's portrayed correctly and haven’t seen any complaints, but given the show’s track record……… i wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not great

the forging

very cool. fresh and interesting! hector creating pet friends is cute and heartbreaking. love isaac for his dedication to reducing, reusing, and recycling

season 2’s big battle with all those vampires

the new version of “bloody tears” is phenomenal

this goes back to the animation, but listen……. it's so good. i loved the smoke vampire, and alucard’s fluid wolf transformations. his flying sword looked really good, and incorporating them together? super good to watch. and trevor’s whip?

the type and level of violence are suitable for what it is. it would be weird for a gritty show like this to be bloodless, but i don't think it would work if it were bloody to the extent of a slasher. it's also more clean violence, if that makes sense. you don’t linger just to look at gore; you see it because stabbing someone spills blood. the games weren't about extended, gritty scenes of realistic murder, so the show sticking with quick, slice and dice type fights fit with what i remembered of them

please watch this fight if you don’t remember it or haven’t seen it (part 1, part 2)

trevor’s whips

trevor’s weapons don’t follow the physics of normal whips, and they shouldn't. they’re heavily stylized and clearly a fantasy weapon, but they still have rules that they (mostly) have to obey. his morning star-whip hybrid in particular is so good

it’s easy to follow, too. a lot of times, speedy weapons disappear, which is an understandable effect but one i find boring because there’s nothing for me to do. i’m just sitting on my ass with nothing to do

trevor’s whips don’t disappear. they’re fast, but you can always see them. and they have weight! you can see them slow down and gain speed. i don’t need physics to be real; i want movement to be pleasing, and that’s exactly what i get with the whips

don’t like:

fridging lisa

she could have been kidnapped (possibly make dracula think she was dead bc people want to lure out her scary demon husband, idk), then s2 could have ended with her and dracula reuniting as he died. she and alucard go on a trip together to attempt to make amends for the pain dracula wrought in lisa’s name. orrrr she dies a tragic death with him and we’re left to hope that they find each other in the afterlife. do vampires get to go to the afterlife? can alucard reintegrate? can he be happy with his new friends? or will he go back to his crypt and sleep again? will he ever be rediscovered? if so, what will he do? deep questions. i would prefer to cogitate on these instead of experiencing the shitshow that is s3

season 3

they should have ended it with dracula’s death. the quality of storytelling goes down immediately. just plummets. i’m sure there were problems in the first two seasons, but this one is so bad, i genuinely can’t remember

but i may as well get specific, so here we go:

abandoning alucard

trevor and sypha leave their friend alone in his childhood home where he just killed his father. where they helped him kill his father who, as i’ve said too many times, raised literal hell to get revenge for people burning alucard’s mother to death

yt they don’t talk about alucard. they don’t make any plans to touch base ever again. trevor’s entire family got killed. sypha’s culture, from which she’s now estranged, is family-centric. if ever two people should give a shit about alucard and know why alucard shouldn’t be left on his own, it's them

so what the hell is going on?

trevor and sypha’s relationship

look. it could be good. it would be better with alucard but they could be together and it could work fine

but this……….

trevor hates what they're doing. he hates traveling around and fighting. he's clearly tired and deeply depressed

sypha not only doesn't care enough to address it (did they forget the first two seasons?? sypha is annoying partly because she doesn't stop poking people) she might not even notice? yes, she's having fun, but trevor is basically dead on his feet in front of her

racism

hector, sumi, and taka all got done dirty

sumi and taka

i hate the way they died. i hate that i’m certain that the plot won’t bring japan back into the narrative (or if it does, i don’t trust it not to be shitty). i hate the fact that by killing them off, i’m not going to get any more of them. they were interesting!!

speaking of the japanese vampire: the biphobia, arguably, given what happens with alucard

the addition of sexual violence

i don’t need or want lenore. if all she’d done was manipulate hector, i could have lived with that. she’s a villain, so she does bad things. that’s the point. but what she did was a massive escalation. we hadn’t had any sexual violence, and then the last few episodes gave us

tumblr feminists who love her for how she treated hector need to be quarantined until their brain worms have been cured

everything that happens to hector

what was this shit? why did i open my netflix app and tap castlevania and find them making this man walk around naked in the cold to torture him? and starving him? he got manipulated, degraded, chained up, collared like an animal, and raped. and why? to show us how bad lenore is? that the other vampires are bad because they let her do it? i didn’t sign up for this

the holocaust reference

the imagery at the end of s3 when it’s revealed that the judge has been killing people he’s decided are undeserving to live and collecting their shoes in that barn was chillingly close to images of shoes taken from victims of the holocaust. there's no reason to invoke the holocaust here. it’s unnecessary and in bad taste

#asks #anonymous #long post #anti-castlevania netflix #i guess #cw rape #cw holocaust mention #cw racism #cw holocaust #all of these are tags i didn't anticipate using on my stupid sideblog #i'll probably find a bunch of typos in like 12 hours rip me #but i feel bad for taking so long

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smokeybrandreviews · 4 years ago

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Breaking Bad Actors

The myth of “Go Woke Go Broke” is hilarious to me. Everyone is out here reporting that, if you actually have a social conscious about your productions or business, you end of tanking your profits by alienating those who don’t “agree” with that position. This ain’t it, bud. Some of the most progressive shows on television, are some of the most revered. Avatar: The Last Airbender literally has no white people in it and no one cares. The show is good and respects the cultures it pulls from to build that world. Hell, even Korra has it’s moments, when it’s not up it’s own ass with the abrupt shift toward everything Avatar was against. Adventure Time was one of the best cartoons on television for it’s entire run. It grew up with the audience and never got preachy about it’s politics, even if the ending was a little forced. F*ck, man, Steven Universe exists. That sh*t ain’t my flavor but i get why it’s popular. Before anything, Steven Universe is a good show. It tells a decent story but the characters therein are what drive that show’s popularity. A stable of characters that are, effectively, all lesbian. “Woke” content can be great when the representation is integrated into the show organically. Owl House does a good job with this, or, at least it does so far. We’ll see if they start forcing things going forward. You start running into trouble when that sh*t is forced.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is how you don’t do diversity in your shows. Look, i love Catra as a character. She’s the best thing about that show. Scorpia and Entrapta re close but Catra is the only character with any semblance of an arc. I'm glad Catra got her happy ending but it was a f*cking slog getting there. The problem with the new She-Ra as a whole, is that it’s an exercise in virtue signaling. This is a bad show to begin with, bad writing, poor direction, rambling plot, but calling out the lack of quality earns you the title of sexist or anti-female or whatever else, because the diversity of the show has been weaponized by bad actors for the cause. It’s wild to me because it’s sister show, Voltron: Legendary Defender, does the exact same sh*t and is still beloved, even if the last two seasons were less than ideal. Why is there such a stark difference between the two shows? It comes down to the quality of the narrative, the focus of the production. Voltron had a story to tell. It's characters were developed and grew along with the narrative. There was a ton of diversity in that show, even a whole ass gay marriage at the end, and no one was wielding pitch forks about any of that because it was organic to the story the creators wanted to tell. She-Ra was a framework for the show runner to preach at an audience. It fell into the same trap that Star Wars under Kathleen Kennedy did and fans responded in kind. Hell, the Castlevania adaptation is one of the best shows airing now, and there was a legit bisexual love scene where Alucard was visibly bottomed and no one bat an eye, never mind the race bent characters turned fan favorites. Isaac, I'm looking directly at you. You don’t go broke when you go woke. you go broke when you get antagonistic about your sh*tty narrative being called out for what it is and use the diversity in your show as a shield from criticism. If your sh*t is bad, there isn't any amount of black dude or gay chicks that can cover that sh*t up, bro. F*cking make a better show.

I actually follow a lot of right-wing blogs and watch what could be considered toxic male YouTube channels specifically to understand that point of view. I don’t agree with anything they ever say, but I would prefer not to exist in an echo chamber. I need to have properly diverse opinions and takes to be well informed. I'll admit, though, it is exceptionally hard to see their logic, mostly because it’s racially charged nonsense, but i get why they're angry. A lot of it does have to do with entitlement and ignorance but, under all of that backwards nonsense, there is a valid point which should be considered; No one wants to be told what to think. Overtly. You can‘t put whatever message you want in anything you make, as long as it’s subtle and clever. Take Get Out for instance. That sh*t is a straight up accusation of white people and their predatory ass nature but they love that sh*t. Jordan Peele spent an hour and forty-four minutes, calling these motherf*cker out on their bullsh*t and they gave him an Oscar for it. Audiences rewarded his veiled sermon about the parasitic nature of white “culture” with fifty-seven times his budget, in profit for the studio, catapulting his directing career into the stratosphere. How the f*ck did he pulled that off when Brie Larson became the arch nemesis of every neck beard, toxic man-child, and MAGA cultists on the entire interwebs for just saying that we should have less stories about white dudes? Subtlety. Get Out is a masterclass on how to say something career-ending, while packaging it in an incredibly palatable way. Before anything that film is excellent. The writing is on point. The message is cleverly buried under layers of outstanding performances and deft direction. You’re too entertained to consciously realize you’re being directly accused of being sh*tty people. Cats aren’t looking to engage intellectually with their entertainment so you can technically say whatever you want, however you want, as long as you distract them enough to miss the sermon on a conscious level. Larson openly making her stance known to Hollywood, while commendable, is too easy. It's too direct. Sh*t makes you a target, not a hero.

Diversity matters. I think that sh*t should be in everything because the world, itself, is mad diverse. A lot of the culture here, in the states, is driven by people who look like me. Fashion, music, sports; The stuff that get the youth going is all manufactured by people with melanin. It’s mad disingenuous to present a “Hollywood so white” face to the world when the world looks so much more colorful than that. If this year has taught us anything, it’s that there is a very vocal minority that hates to see faces which don’t look like their own, prosper. Entire cities have burned because of it. Entire careers have been lost because of that. The answer isn’t to go the other way. The answer isn’t making “The Force Female.” The force was already female. Ahsoka Tano, Darth Talon, Mara Jade, and Darth Treia were all female but also great f*cking characters. Rey was a plot device that cheapened the already rich and diverse universe that Lucas allowed great creators to expand. The force was already female, and black, and Asian, and white, and blue, and green, and red, and orange, and whatever else because it was designed to be that way. Star Wars failed and sent Disney into a panic because they let a chick with an inferiority complex and massive ego, do whatever she wanted with a franchise that has existed for forty f*cking years, because Twatter has opinions and so does she. Kennedy forgot to make sure the plot around those opinions was good enough to distract you from her politics. She forgot to tell a good story and just decided to preach. No one wants that sermon in a movie, not even the most Woke motherf*cker in the world.

As a creator, myself, i get it. I’ve been on the other side of that Tumblr activism and, more than anything, it feels like if you don’t agree with whoever’s politics, you are automatically the problem. I mean, i got called racist for the way i speak by a black chick, while being black myself. It was surreal and stupid. This chick didn’t like the tone of two reviews i wrote, on a blog with eleven year’s worth of content. Like, for real? Okay. I type how i speak on that blog and i can’t help that i speak with an “urban” flair. I grew up in the ghetto. I speak to my friends like this because they grew up in the same neighborhoods. I actually have a firm grasp on grammar and syntax. I’m a proper writer by trade, working toward getting my first novel published and, guess what? It’s chock full of f*cking diversity. Not because I'm preachy, but because that’s a realistic portrayal of the whole ass world. Because i grew up in a neighborhood that had White people and Mexican people and Asian people and Indian people and Native people and Pacific Islanders and Fijians and whatever else. The world is, inherently, diverse and catering to one extreme or the other is f*cking ridiculous to me. Just tell good stories with strong characters. If the narrative is accessible, you can inject whatever the f*ck you want to say directly into the audience but you have to have a great story to start from. You have to make those colorful characters real. You have to package that bitter pill with a sugary coat so it goes down easy for those who would refuse the dose. If not, you’re just going to antagonize the audience and no one is going to give you the time of day. They're just going to tell you to get out.

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smokeybrand · 4 years ago

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Breaking Bad Actors

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knightofbalance-13 · 8 years ago

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Boss Battle: Vs. Dudeblade 2

(ttp://dudeblade.tumblr.com/post/160665858330/vol4-gripes-primarily-about-the-finale

Yep, More Dudeblade bullcrap. And my god, is this going to be a trial on par with Hercules’. So i hope to the people who read this: Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi34XJx35ZE

Volume 4.

Oh boy, are you a subject that is a pain in the ass to handle.

Sometimes it feels this volume was made just to be hated.

So much time spent on setting up for future volumes that you forgot about the volume in front of you most of the time.

And yet throughout this review.critique you will constantly be shown to manipulate facts and be either deliberately vague with your complaints as so you can’t be directly contradicted or you will and I’ll do a better job of understanding the sources than you. This shows that you are not unbiased and professional in this but rather out for blood to insult and attack what you personally don’t like to try and manipulate the show into what you want. And I’m here to knock down the pillars you have built up. Let’s go.

A vague and convoluted timeskip that raised more questions than avoided it (like seriously? It took WeissSIX MONTHS to decide to leave her broken home? - (And no. If anyone says “Weiss’ arc took place at a different point in time than the timeskip.” Then that basically validates my accusation that Yang recovered overnight. You can’t say that about one character, and then claim it was completely different for another)).

That’s your only example? That example doesn’t even work here because parents, not matter how much a child hates them, holds a very strong psychological hold on them to the point that the idea of straight up defiance takes a lot of power. Weiss grew up with a man who is able to keep a business afloat despite rampant racism and mistreatment of workers due to his ability to persuade people so it would take a lot of Weiss to rebel against him, especially if it means she’ll have nowhere to go. This is especially egregious because you have directly compared your own mother to Jacques Schnee (http://dudeblade.tumblr.com/post/158279625962/more-beef-with-taiyang-xiao-long) so you should know better than to act this way. Your lack of empathy and understanding is disturbing honestly. Not to mention your one exasmple with the timeskip not only fails so the point is mute, you display a lack of empathy and understanding here, showing you are just hating on the show, disregarding logic and facts to do so thus this entire post is useless.

And you treat the timeskip as actually happening for the rest of the critique but argue it didn’t happen here, showing an inconsistency in criticism and thus showing a bias against the show. So your argument here is useless on two fronts.

Questionable decisions that make the plot even more confusing than that vague timeskip already did.

Dudeblade, you clearly show you are capable of giving examples in the previous point and even an incorrect point is better than no point since you just expect us to agree with you blindly without any proof. If you don’t have proof, why should we listen and how can the writers get better if you don’t tell them what went wrong: Vague criticism like this is worthless.

A PTSD recovery arc that was so fast-paced, that the song at the end of the season had to basically say, “Yes. This character has now recovered.”

Dudeblade, you just said that there was a six month timeskip thus meaning Yang had six months to recover from the PTSD so it wasn’t as immediate as you say. Not to mention even if you take that away, Yang had been directly working on recovery with her father for weeks within Volume 4 (https://youtu.be/rox3yphzLy4?t=1m46s) so it wasn’t as fast as you say. Could there have been more shown? Yes preferably but that's not your argument and thus you don’t get the benefits of that.

Characters appearing out of nowhere, and plot points that were never planned so it feels as if they were shoehorned in.

No example so again, no reason to listen for any reason. Next.

A finale fight that was so underwhelming and overhyped that it felt as if the Spawn vs Alucard DBX was more interesting. I’ll prove it!

Ignoring the fact that the purpose of DBX is too have quick, easy to make fights so the creators can evaluate what their potential animators can do which is completely different than what RWBY is about, I completely removed anything knowledge of Alucard and Spawn I had except what is given in the fight and I felt nothing for the fight. It wasn’t fun, it wasn’t exhilarating, it wasn’t emotional: it left no impact on me. i knew nothing about these characters in the video’s context and thus had no impact on me. Doesn’t matter how pretty it is, unless I care about the people, I won’t like it. Contrast this with the Nucklevee fight which had foreshadowing, build up from before hand, a personal connection to the heroes and defeated in a symbolic way that reinforces the theme of moving beyond the past that is present in Volume 4. You don’t take any of this into account and judged two entirely different things as one being superior or inferior.

Seriously. The fight took less than a minute, and it was better-paced than the fight of RNJR vs. Nucky the straw hat grimm.

I honestly felt more tension in the fight made with sprites, than I did with the fight that was 3D animated.

Once again, this is because you judge two entirely different things by the same standards. DBX has around three minutes to do their thing at best whereas the battle with the Nucklevee took so much longer because there was a lot going on with the characters personally and not in battle. Are you saying character moments cannot happen in the middle of battle? Because that is very close minded and moronic.

Also, due to your derivative nickname, most people will brush this off as blind hating and thus, this is useless. If not for this then how you never say what slows down the battle, it just is.

Seriously.

Look, this is a grimm that is years, if not decades old, and four kids who didn’t even graduate their first year of Beacon could beat it?

- Either this undermines the ability of the Hunters, or this wanks the ability of RNJR significantly. Both of these options are bad, and neither are desirable. Pick your poison, I guess.

I want you to take a look at the cave of the Nucklevee (https://youtu.be/QjBtT4uCWpI?t=17m1s) Notice how it has not unique weapons in it, thus meaning no Huntsman has fought it. This means that the Nucklevee has only fought normal humans who are said to be incredibly weak to the weakest of Grimm and two children who say their home destroyed thus they would have a rational but misplaced fear of it. Just as well with Jaune and Ruby, who have never seen a Grimm like this every before and thus this is the fear of the unknown controlling them. But as at least partially trained Huntsman they are capable of killing it, especially as they have three talented huntsman on their side (and Jaune).

You are aware of Tv Tropes and are aware RWBY ahs apage: This has been noted in the Fridge tab (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fridge/RWBY Under the Volume 4 folder of Fridge Brilliance). There is no excuse for this lack of research.

How is it that a hammer to the backside deals little damage, but a rusty old knife is what kills it? I mean, as impractical and absurd as Jaune’s sword is, that also didn’t do much. But a rusty knife is what puts it down. I mean, I hate Jaune. His character has been done to death. There have been so many characters who wield swords, are constantly told they are important (without having earned it),and get to be the designated good guy even if they can’t take ‘no’ for an answer.

1. Symbolism. The knife is a handime down from Ren’s father who taught him and saved his life from the Nucklevee and him holding it is him understanding what he must do and how he cannot let his emotions control him, be it fear or anger. By killing it with his knife, Ren is putting that in the past and moving forward with his life, fulfilling the theme of the Volume.

2. You go on a tangent about Jaune in the middle of the illogical fighting and continue on as if this is the focus of the point. This just reinforces the fact you are doing this to attack and hate, especially as most of what you complain about Jaune has no correlation with what you said before. And you cannot deny this as you acknowledge in the post this was a tangent and do nothing to edit it out, showing your intent.

3.You have a self admitted bias against male characters. (http://dudeblade.tumblr.com/post/160161209960/rwde-theory-reactions-to-everything) and considering the jaune point, you have shown that you are incapable of removing your personal bias from critique and is thus useless.

I’m getting off-topic here. Look, this fight makes little sense. Aside from the animation errors of buildings and trees moving around, no impact feels as if it has any real weight to it. Like when Nora hits the back of the thing, it doesn’t feel as if it had any real impact.

It just feels as if the old magic is just… gone.

I mean, I get it. Monty (god rest his soul) isn’t around anymore. But if they hadn’t booted Shane, the magic could be recaptured. - The only fights of note were Qrow vs. Tyrian and RNJR vs. Tyrian. And both of thosefights had unnecessary breaks that disrupted the flow of the action. Animating combat 101: Don’t disrupt the flow of the battle to do something dumb.

You don’t explain why the battles seem to lose impact and thus the writers cannot improve on what they have done wrong thus your “critique” fails at your job. Had you said that the animation isn’t fluid enough or the sounds are muffled or the characters move awkwardly you may have had a point but now, this is a waste of space.

And you take the Shane problem out of context: Shane resigned, Shane was causing problems and even shane himself noted that only Monty could work the system they set up and thus it was useless after he died. It would have not worked one bit even if Shane stayed: probably would have gotten worse as Shane’s mental state deteriorated.

I have a good example. When Sun got hurt, a lot of people wanted to know if he’d be okay or not. Then, we get a WoR. That disrupts the flow of tension that was already built. This causes a disruption that makes people less inclined to have concern for Sun because we get some exposition.

Don’t disrupt action for exposition. Exposition is dumb. Especially if the exposition has nothing to do with the situation at hand.

Again, you take this out of context. Due to the complexities of 3D animation and an inexperience at Maya, RT cannot complete every episode in time so they use WOR to fill in an airspace hole as they polish an episode. Demanding that they do not do WOR is demanding to go a week or more without any RWBY content which would be an even bigger upset.

And tension does not work the way you say it does: spands of time increase tension instead of lowering it so what you are saying is the opposite of what actually happen i the time frame. And you saying Exposition is in and of itself dumb as exposition is narrative talk for “info” and thus you are demanding each show go into their conflicts without context or info, killing tension.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWnS8iKYnbQ

Also, Qrow getting better undermines the situation that they were put in. It amounts to cheap tension, and now, when another character is placed in a similar situation, very few people will have concern because thelast time, there were no lasting injuries (or at least, none that the audience is informed of. Seriously, Qrow? You were treated for poison, and not only are you not in a hospital recovering, but you’re also allowed to go right to the bar?)

Sun getting better undermines his situation as well. Look, I didn’t want Sun to die. The Bumble/by shipper in me would bemoan the fact that this would simply make Yang the rebound, and the storyteller in me would bemoan the senseless loss of a character that was likable (even if his character got derailed for this volume).

I did not understand how Qrow getting better from a non-fatal injury to be a tension killer and undermines a situation. Going on from my first part, Qrow could not die because his narrative purpose was not yet fulfilled, scorpion stings are not fatal for the most part and Tyrian tried to sting Ruby, who he was ordered to capture alive. All factors pointed to Qrow surviving. The only reason why people were worried because of the true basis for death in RWBY: Volume 3 where three characters where injured seriously and died. That is the true basis for judging death in RWBY which you ignore. because so much happened in Volume 3, they couldn’t kill anymore character or else risk something similar to what happened to Akame ga Kill and the audience becoming detached from the show due to the continuous deaths so it was in fact the correct choice to not kill Qrow so people know that others can get hurt but still survive, giving hope and thus maintaining tensions.

As for your Sun point: Sun joined Blake as supposed backup against the white fang, exactly what he did with Blake beack in Volume 1 and Volume 2. This is oefectly in character for him as well as the rest of his actions such as interrupting Ghira and Blake like how he barged in on Team RWBY in Volume 2 (https://youtu.be/mj3jfqPwJEk?t=2m43s) thus his actions are the same: What has changed is the circumstances and this is good writing showing the complexities of situations through circumstances and context and how even we normal people do not always get it. You simply ignore it for the sake of complaints and fault mining.

Yang suddenly getting used to the prosthetic overnight undermines her trauma as well. Seriously, she wakes up, puts on the prosthetic, and she’s suddenly a master with it. Almost as if she never lost an arm to begin with (Follow-up question: How did Tai sneak out of Vale to get that arm from Atlas for Yang without her noticing? Are we supposed to assume that Ironwood had it delivered? - Because then how did he know the length it would have to be? How did he know the shape? How did he know what the functionality would have to be?) Not only that, but the prosthetic itself also undermines the trauma Yang went through. There were a lot of people who wanted to see Yang kick ass with just the one arm, and then get a new one (myself included).

1. She does not get the prosthetic overnight, it took six months for her to get it, an unknown amount of time between Episodes 3 and 4 to put it on and weeks afterward as said in Episode 9. So you are misrepresenting her time frame what happened in the show.

2. You ask for details that you would not ask for in any other show that would be classified as “nitpicks” and thus are not worthy of attention. Just as I ignored how you you said she got it overnight when it was evening or how she was not an immediate master at it. Or how she mentions that she did not expect it to be so easy to wield the arm nor how her moving like she never lost it is the point as a replacement. I do not believe you want to get nitpicky with me.

3. Fighting with one arm is far different than fighting with two and she would need to relearn her entire fighting style in order to fight properly. She would need to be out of teh show for months more and thus would have no involvemnet with the plot whatsoever for months, especially as Taiyang has two arms and thus wouldn’t know how to teach her such a style. And the new prosthetic would undermine all that in the end and cause another split. Hence simpilar to have her take the arm before training.

4. An actual amputee has priased Rooster Teeth over their depiction of Yang ( http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Awesome/RWBY Under the meta folder). You are not an amputee so their word is more reliable about such a subject like this than you, as little as that means as I will explain latter.

- And while I could rant here about Tai, and his comment, I have a better thing to ask: “Was anybody expecting that comment (or something similar), and actively wanted to hear it?” if we’re being honest with ourselves, I doubt that a whole lot of us wanted to hear that kind of humor from Tai of all people. I get it, he also went through depression, but depression isn’t the same as PTSD. If he can go out with plans to get Yang a new arm, then he should be able to afford a therapist. Hell! given that the literal embodiment of the consequences for having negative emotions is supposed to be a major threat, you’d think that people specializing in psychology and emotional therapy would be more valued than hunters at this point.

You say you will not rant about Taiyang then spend half of the post ranting about him, thus this is no different than the Jaune tangent before and shows off your hate. I will not address it here because there is a better instance coming up in which we see your hate on Taiyang so i will conserve myself for that.

As for the expectation of the joke: In hindsight, yes it should have been see. Taiyang is friends with Qrow, who also has the sense of humor as seen when he says “Nope” at Ruby’s greeting as well as Yang’s where she is shown to be sarcastic while she freaked out over the stressful thing happening in episode 8 of Volume 1. Rooster Teeth treat one another much like Taiyang and insult one another as well, espeically in their products (Camp Camp, X Ray and Vave and Red vs Blue) And Rooster Teeth characters do take after their voice actors and Taiyang is voiced by Burnie who voices the snarkiest characters in RT series (X Ray and Church). all in all, you have no one to blame but yourself for that.

- - Look, that joke was cheap shock humor, and cheap dark humor. Don’t go for the cheap jokes. Hell! the laughter that Ruby had in the first episode was more forced than the Bruce/Nat romance in Avengers 2. The uncomfortable forced laughter just feels as if… it’s out of place. - Unless that was the point, in which case, good job.

Subjective comparison, potshot at another event which is also subjective and misunderstanding of the joke’s genre and purpose. Next.

A lot of trauma and injuries were undermined in their severity here, and it pisses me off. I myself, have a disability (I’m blind in my left eye), and I feel as if most of this is basically telling me that I should have been over it from the start. I adapted to my injury. I adapted by getting used to using only my good eye, and I think that Yang should’ve done the same until she felt as if she herself was ready to put on the arm. She shouldn’t have had to feel as if she wasn’t worth her father’s time if she was missing an arm, she should have gotten used to it.

And yet, you are contradicted by an amputee who should be logically more offended seeing it was their type of disability that was being “underminded” and yet they praised RT for it.

The problem with you is that you don’t take into account the circumstances of your disability and Yangs as well as the fact that you and Yang are different people. Your disability is something you were either born with or deteriorated naturally, your eye was not gouged out while trying to protect your friend. Just as well, your eye prevents you from seeing, Yang’s arm prevents her from living her life the way she wants too. And just as well, your eye could not have caused PTSD.

And even if your arm was taken off in the exact same circumstance, it would only be applicable if your experiences, environment, loved ones and base personality is exactly like Yang. Fundementally, you and Yang are different people and thus would operate in different ways. Yang adapted to her arm just fine, just as you have with your arm. All she did was do it her own way and expecting her to do it any otehr way is not smart.

And here I will address the Taiyang hate: you say that yang felt like she needed to put on her arm to feel like she was worth her father’s time when Taiyang directly states that he would help her when she was ready, ( https://youtu.be/GaB62PeuFwM?t=7m31s) meaning that Yang had shown herself to unready for his help, shown by her inactivity towards recovery and her defeated acceptance of her PTSD and depression. The mere fact he is there looking after her and he looking her is proof that she cannot feel that way because if he did give off that vibe, he would have acted exactly like Raven and left to find Ruby. You misrepresent what he said just so you could have a justified reason to hate.

- Also, what does it feel like for Yang to take off the arm? - We never see. Does she have a brief moment of anxiety from the sudden loss of a limb? Does she have a panic attack because she can no longer feel the arm? Or was she lying when she said that it felt natural? - We don’t know! I mean, Yang is good at hiding her emotions (see: Her opening up to Blake about what eats her up inside) so she obviously isn’t that emotive of a person.

If Yang is good at hiding her emotions: How did she lose her arm in the first place. a person in control of their emotions would not have rushed Adam so foolhardy, would not have let Neon toy with them, would not have counter attacked Mercury and would have not lost to Neo. This is a direct contradiction to what we see of Yang and only exists to justify your feelings.

All injuries feel as if they were placed there for some cheap tension. It’s hard to see it otherwise. This basically means that you haven’t prepared your audience for when the stakes get raised again. As a critic, this means that when a character does die, there will be uproar. You haven’t prepared your audience for this, because the characters who have gotten major injuries managed to recover and get better.

A character has already died: Three of them. you act as though Volume 3 never happened, you act as though you live in RWBY chibi. It has already happened and those are the basis of tension surrounding characters in RWBY. You failing to take this into account shows you are not a critic but indeed a hater (or complainer, whatever.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkwLHDx-zzc

From what I’ve seen around various critique tags, Volume 4 goes into either one of two categories for most (if not all) fans:

1. Great volume, with some moments that were bad.

or…

2. Bad volume, with some moments that were good.

If this were true then the raitings for RWBy would have dropped significantly seeing as critics would give it around a 3-6 out of 10 instead of the usual 8 out of 10. But the ratings have not been hit: they have stayed mostly the same at 8.3 out of ten (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3066242/). Thus showing this split is due to you staying mostly in the rwde tag where things are slanted negatively.

I fall into the latter category, because I enjoyed the Ren and Nora backstories, and liked the development of Weiss and Blake’s families. Other than those, however, the whole volume was… bad. I couldn’t enjoy it (Although, all the writers had to do was say that Blake wasn’t an orphan, and her parents wouldn’t have felt as if they came out of nowhere. - Just sayin’).

you ignored the nucklevee’s point in their past, you are about to comapliant about Weiss’ family and her plotline and you just complained about Blake’s so your actions do not match up with your words at all. This seems more like trying to appear like a critic than actually being objective so you don’t get called out.

I totally respect anyone’s opinion that if it was a good volume to you, and that if you did like it, but I myself could not enjoy it.

hence why everytime you have been confronted about this, you treat your subjective opinion as fact and call everyone else “Rt Whiteknights.”

The opinion aren’t black and white though. Much like the characters in the show. Qrow is not the definitive hero, Cinder is not the definitive villain, Raven isn’t a complete monster, and Jaune isn’t a precious cinnamon roll that needs to be protected at all costs (and if this were a Jaune hate post, I’d make a quip about how Miles seems to favor him over other characters… Wait, does this count as making that quip? - I’m so confused.)

Once again, your actions don’t match your words. You have complained about the White Fang conflict in the show being black and white, you have defended Raven only and anything you say about male characters can’t be trusted due to a self admitted bias, reinforced by an out of nowhere potshot at Jaune.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4_qFrc6704

Then the decisions made by the characters make little sense. Even the decisions that they didn’t make also make little sense as well.

Like Weiss wearing LOUD OBNOXIOUS HEELS WHILE TRYING TO BE STEALTHY! Seriously Weiss? -THAT was your definition of stealth? The freaking HULK is stealthier than that! I swear, the universe bent over backwards to make sure Weiss wasn’t caught. Characters shouldn’t be bailed out by bad writing.

Weiss is never shown to own any shows outside of heels so it is entirely possible that she had no other option, reinforced by the fact that even in casual attire she has high heels. Also, you are not allowed to talk: You made up a nonsensical curse, made up a reason why it affected Yang to excuse her being OOC, acknowledged it was cliche and got her out of it because of another cliche you admittedly stole without understanding why it worked in the source.

Weiss not being caught is a coincidence. The writers cheated. This doesn’t teach the character of Weiss anything. Now she will believe that wedges are the footwear to wear for stealth. - Follow up question: How are those shoes combat effective? - They don’t seem practical. Like at all. RW/BY should set the trend of females wearing proper footwear into combat, it shouldn’t be following the trend of this sort of thing. It lookscool, yes, but practicality should be the main priority before style when entering combat. Magic users can get away with wearing heels because magic. But since it’s been established that semblances aren’t magic, Weiss has no excuse. Unless a secondary effect of those glyphs make it so that the user is able to fight in impractical heels, I have to call bull.

And you cheated in yoru work, ripped some one else soff and admitted it, on top of that you also didn’t understand what you were ripping off and why it worked.

And considering that RWBY is descended from Gurren Lagann which has characters going into battle damn near shirtless and it’s half sister Kill La Kill...speaks for itself, expecting such a thing out of RWBY is ridiculous as well as demands that the crew does what you want exactly or else it;s shit, showing that your critique is indeed you throwing a temper tandrum. Not to mention only Weiss and Blake wear heels (and Blake is a Cat fanus and cats walk on their toes) so only one character is impractical so this is yet another nitpick.

Also, Sun stalking Blake in a creepy hood doesn’t feel like something that he would do. It also wasn’t romantic, or heartfelt. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, I guess. But that doesn’t really excuse his behavior on Menagerie (Seriously, “Menagerie” means “Zoo.” why the hell haven’t the faunus changed that name yet? Were the humans all like, “You kicked our ass. Here’s an island, all to yourself. Call it ‘Menagerie,’ because we already named it, and you get no say in renaming it.”) - Sorry about that, I’m a little frustrated about that whole debacle. I feel as if was validated for stalking Blake and not respecting her personal space because of the events that happened. He barged in on Ghira an Blake (when Blake was just about to open up about what happened at Beacon, by the way), to tell her that he saw some White Fang members wearing Grimm masks? - Nobody wanted that interruption. Nobody asked for it. That was basically showing off a sandwich in front of a starving person, and then throwing it out. - I will acknowledge that Sun was in the right to be concerned, but the excuse he gave didn’t exactly seem to convey a sense of urgency. It just conveyed Sun not respecting Blake’s privacy.

Considering the fact that Blake is a self admitted coward whose tendency to run is greater tan a Romaning legendary on crystal meth mushrooms, this was Sun’s only option. Was ita good option? no but you don’t always get that luxury. Not to mention the fact that it was a single day and not the months you make it out to be, showcasing a case of melodrama that extends to your starving metaphor (Delayed character development will not kill you, drama queen.)

As for the Menagrie thing: That si exactly what is. (https://youtu.be/uUwuZdbUzT8?t=3m) it is a zoo, why change the name when you can keep it as a reminder of hwo far you need to go for true equality? Just as well: fanaus make up 80% of the population on Remnant and judging from Sun, most Fanaus wouldn’t care about Menagerie’s name so there is nowhere enough people for a name change to matter. Not to mention symbolism again, Remnant isn’t our world and thus words might have a different meaning and this is a point less tangent again showing your hate.

“Didn’t exactly convey a sense of emergency”

Not like Blake directly said she was running from the White Fang or how such an oddity means that said White Fang is probably working for Adam (which is latter confirmed) AKA “I’ll destroy everything you love.” I do not wnat to know what you’re sense of emergency is if there is one at all.

Jaune also didn’t get called out on calling out Qrow. Qrow is Ruby’s uncle. And while Jaune has every right to be mad, it doesn’t excuse the fact that Ruby should have come to her uncle’s defense in that scene. The most Jaune gets to being reprimanded for his comments is some glares that are in the background.

Ruby is probably processing that her uncle was behind such a powerful group, had knowledge he didn’t share with her and general shock as shown when she asked him why he didn’t tell her. (https://youtu.be/g91qG3qTaXE?t=15m28s). I, a person with a social disorder who doesn’t get subtleties of human interaction, got it better than you. Shame on you.

- Yeah Jaune. “What did Qrow do to help?” - After all, it wasn’t as if he cleared most of the grimm out of the way, or saved Ruby while you were busy closing your eyes, or fight an experienced minion of Salem’s single-highhandedly fpr about 90% of the fight. Oh wait, he did. - I’m not trying to validate Qrow for using Ruby as bait, here. But Qrow has done more than Jaune story-wise, and trying to make Jaune sympathetic isn’t going to work in this situation.

He wasn’t being sympathetic, Jaune was treated as a pentualant child by his tone of voice and framing. He wasn’t in the right anymore than Qrow. You just got done admitting things in RWBY aren’t black and white: does the show need to hold up a sign for the shades of grey. Probably not considering this is just more Jaune hate.

Or how about the large amount of time it took for Salem to decide to send one of her lackeys after Ruby? - Follow up: Why not also send Emerald? I think that someone who can make a person see something that isn’t there (or make them not see what is there) would be useful in kidnapping someone. Why didn’t she send more people as well? - They should be aware that there would be at least one person trailing them, if Salem is supposed to know what her grimm are doing. Three major players against Qrow and RNJR (The latter of which are a team of newbies) probably would get overwhelmed.

Nitpicking with chosen ignorance over the fact that the dialogue between the team shows it is their first meeting a long time.Next.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE2DjF-ZON8

Characters that are thrown in that don’t even feel as if they belong anymore.

Like Oscar (actually, this entire section is probably going to only touch on Oscar, so I feel as if this is redundant (or, at the very least, it’ll primarily be about Oscar.)) Oscar is basically the new Ozpin. But his screentime could have been given to other characters. We could have waited the entire volume, and then have him say his line, and the Qrow says his, and then first episode of Volume 5, is a flashback to what Oscar was up to, how Oz is sharing a body with him, why he goes on this journey, and other exposition stuff. That screentime could have gone to Weiss, or Yang, or even Ruby. Heck! It could have even gone to Ren and Nora (Dust only knows that those two need more development about their backstory outside of “There was an attack. Everyone died, except us.”)

Oscar needed to be onscreen because you yourself said there shouldn’t be exposition so this is the show weaving him into the narrative. Just as well, people often say Oscar needed more screentime to show his conflict about Ozpin being in his head, something that is surprisingly absent from your critique. also: Demeaning Nor and Ren’s backstory and saying it was an enjoyable part.

Whitley was only made to give us an asshole to hate on, and the half of team WTCH basically have zero personality. And I’d just like to reiterate that if the writers had just said that Blake wasn’t an orphan, her parents wouldn’t feel as if they came out of nowhere (Though, how does an ex-terrorist faunus have luggage? - I can understand clothes and books, but I can’t understand stuff like a scroll, and basic school supplies).

Whitey shows hostile and broken her family truly is (which is why he’s a part of a part you say you like) and said team are the main villains so they will be in later Volumes, something you never take into account and thus should have stopped watching by the end of Volume 2. Ps: Point to where Blake said she was an orphan. because her being an orphan would have been just as unbelievable.

Klein was enjoyable though. Even if his caring nature brings up the question of why didn’t he call Remnants equivalent of Child Protective Services when he saw ho bad Weiss was being treated (unless Jacques threatened to raise the price of dust if they had done so, thus, De-stabilizing the economy… Actually, that sounds like a good idea for a fanfic. Someone should use it.)

Man, this just gets easier and easier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XixH7NMkOe8

The last thing I want to touch on is the four relics.

The whole “Four artifacts that can destroy/save the world depending on who wields them” is a cliché so old, that it’s probably written in stone somewhere.

So is 90% of RWBY with the Hyperactive Kid Hero who is a Grade Skipper, her Hot Blooded Unskileld But Strong Bug Sis, the Rich Bitch Heiress with a Heart of Ice and the Mysterious Londer with a dark secret. I just reduced the main four characters into basic tropes: You should have quit at Volume 1 if this bothered. But considering you think heterosexuality is a cliche, I take this as another attack.

Much like the four maidens, there was no foreshadowing of this. But while the four maidens had potential to become something really awesome (Like Ruby being a maiden (Preferably getting it from her mom, so as to emphasize how little she knew about her to help develop that character aspect)). the four relics fell shoehorned.

I can even deal with the silver-eyes-machina. Did I want them to be planned from the start, so as to have proper set-up and foreshadowing for it? - Yes. But while I can think of different ways to make it better (and even turn it into a point for character development), the four relics don’t have that kind of flexibility.

The four relics are just… there.

and nothing more is known about them.

Fun Fact:The relics were planned since the beginning hence why nothing is known: it’s for latter volumes. The shoehorned in stuff was the maidens and Dudeblade knows this. Again, an attack.

Reinforced since his main compliant is that he personally cannot improve on it: He just wants stuff to go his way.

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

This will be the last thing I personally post in the rwde tag concerning Volume 4. I’ll still reblog other people’s stuff, and probably add my own two cents, but for now, I just want to enjoy Chibi. Even if every joke is hit-or-miss, there’s still a level of enjoyment to be had.

Maybe I’ll write a review at some point. Who knows? - But for now, my brain is tired. I can’t change the pat, and while I hate that, I have to accept it.

Maybe a theory post. I have one in mind that’s basically “Jaune lied about his heritage as well” floating around in my head.

Or maybe a “Hopes for Volume 5″ post.

See you guys when Volume 5 rolls around.

I think I got out most of my frustrations about Volume 4 anyways.

Here’s hoping.

This is all a crook of shit.

He said he wouldn’t attack Taiyang and broke that immediately. he said he was a critic but showcases inexcusable bias as well as fact manipulation and lies. Dudeblade’s word isn’t worth crap.

The instant a joke “misses” (because all comedy is hit or miss), he will be back bitching about the show once more, most likely Jaune or Taiyang.

The instant Volume 5 doesn’t go his way, he’ll proclaim it to be shit.

Everything about this post, from the hate tangents to the fact manipulation to the hidden jabs tells me this. And I will be here to knock him into mud like the rest of us.

If you want to stop that Dudeblade:

Come at me bro.

#rwde bullshit #dudeblade #rwby #rwby4 #\

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swipestream · 7 years ago

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More Proof Hollywood Spits at Heroism And Adventure: Castlevania

As I was reading Jasyn’s outstanding review of The Last Jedi, I kept thinking how much it applied to another 2017 production I watched last week. Namely, the Netflix-produced miniseries of Castlevania. For those unfamiliar with the property, it’s a series of video games, beginning in 1987 and continuing to the present, which follow a simple premise. You play a hero who goes through Dracula’s castle fighting various monsters, from Medusa Heads to Frankenstein’s Monster to Death himself, before finally encountering and slaying the king of vampires himself. While the protagonists have evolved over the past three decades from members of the Belmont clan to Dracula’s son Alucard to a random tattooed witch, and the weapons have changed from the Vampire Killer whip to swords, hammers, and even grenade launchers, the core concept remains the same. Kill a bunch of monsters, then kill Dracula. (Yes, I’m aware there are a few games, like Lament of Innocence or Dawn of Sorrow, where you don’t ever technically fight Dracula)

Castlevania is my favorite video game series of all time, but I wasn’t excited about a planned series, and not only because I suspected Hollywood would fuck it up. In terms of story, Castlevania is as banal as it gets. You could not, for instance, write an interesting book based on the franchise. There are simply not enough ideas there. However, I believe it’s possible to make a good television series or movie from it, as that medium doesn’t require nearly as much depth as the written word. Two strengths of the games can carry over to film; the cool characters and awesome set pieces.

There is a problem, though. Modern Hollywood fails pitifully at manly, heroic characters, and they have gotten increasingly lazy with set pieces.

Which brings us to the series itself. It takes place in the late 1400s, following the events of Castlevania III interspersed with Alucard’s backstory revealed in Symphony of the Night.

It begins with Lisa, a peasant girl trying to learn about medicine, waltzing straight into Dracula’s castle. When Dracula threatens her, she shows zero fear, and dresses down Dracula for not showing proper courtesy to a guest. Dracula is taken aback and proceeds to do everything she tells him to, like a properly repentant boy.

Yep. Three minutes in, and the main, terrifying villain, lord of demons and monsters, has been emasculated and is being ordered around by an ordinary country girl. In exchange for this feminist bullshit, the mighty Dracula is robbed of all menace and mystery, vital characteristics of a villain.

However, contrary to expectations culled from three decades of the franchise, Dracula isn’t actually the main villain in the series. Oh no, THAT would be Christianity.

It’s a bloodthirsty, insane Catholic priest who decides to burn Lisa alive, precipitating Dracula’s vengeance against the region of Wallachia in Romania. It’s the Catholic Church that purposely keeps the villagers poor, ignorant, and miserable. It’s the Church that employs a bunch of cartoonishly evil, ugly thugs to murder peaceful old men in the streets. It’s the Church that the main hero, Trevor Belmont, is mainly fighting against, not the forces of Dracula.

It’s impossible to understate how vindictive, vile, and hysterical the decision by Warren Ellis to cast Christianity as the main evil in the series is. (And this, coming from a non-Christian) Moreover, it’s nothing more than a bunch of ahistorical lies.

As the excellent Brian Niemeier noted on an episode of Geek Gab, Wallachia wasn’t even under the authority of the Catholic Church then, but rather, the Eastern Orthodox Church! While I hadn’t realized that, I still thought how imbecilic it was for the Catholic Church to have military power in rural Romania at a period of time when their strength was waning and they were struggling to hold onto their Papal States in Italy.

And if you’re wondering if there is anything like this in the game series, the answer is no. In Symphony of the Night, it’s revealed that Lisa is burned as a witch, but no church is ever implicated. While rarely touching upon religion directly, the portrayal of Christianity is generally positive throughout the series. Crosses and Holy Water are classic weapons from the first game, and later on in the series, rotating Bibles. Priests have also aided the player several times, with Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest and Portrait of Ruin both coming to mind. Yoko and Sypha (more on her later), both playable characters in the series, are Christians fighting on behalf of the Catholic Church.

Thus, in addition to being repulsive by itself, being virulently anti-Christian is not something that Castlevania ever was.

In another pure invention of the Netflix production, the Catholic Church is responsible for taking the lands of the Belmont clan and driving them from home, further evidence of their evil. According to official Konami materials in 2006, it was the Pope who called on the Belmont clan to fight Dracula in 1476 after the Eastern Orthodox forces had failed to subdue him, the precise opposite of the series. Which brings us back to the characters and how miserably the series fails at them.

The Netflix series’ character design for Trevor is an American attempt to do the slim, beautiful Japanese male anime character design. I prefer this Conan-esque design for Trevor.

Trevor Belmont, the legendary warrior who was the first of his clan to fight and kill Dracula (or at least since Leon and Sonia were retconned) is depicted as a sullen, aimless drunk who has no desire to help anyone and gets coerced into doing so with great reluctance. Now, a reluctant hero can work in the right hands, but there is simply nothing heroic or admirable about Trevor at any point in the four episodes. He is petulant and morose, with the explanation for this being thoroughly unconvincing. Yes, the Church took his lands, but he still wears nice clothes, has an array of weapons, and plenty of money. Him being resigned to his fate is not the behavior of any hero, reluctant or otherwise, but of a loser.

This lack of heroism applies to his physical abilities, too. It’s stated many times throughout the series that the Belmont line is far more powerful than ordinary humans. Their physical strength, speed, and endurance is comparable to a comic superhero, and they can easily kill a regular human with a single blow. Which makes perfect sense. How the hell could a Belmont hope to defeat an army of supernatural monsters otherwise, when a few Lizardmen, Bone Dragons, or Axe Armors could ravage an entire village? And yet, Trevor is no larger or stronger than a random villager he fights at a local bar. His only advantage is that he is more skilled when sober.

At least it’s consistent, right? After making Dracula a subservient sissy, it only makes sense to make Trevor Belmont a churlish, weak, wino, right?

Amusingly, despite all the Social Justice with the feminism and hatred of Christianity, the series fails as putridly with the female hero of Castlevania III, Sypha Belnades. In the game, she is a magic caster (ergo, her power is not derived from physical strength, as it is for the male characters) and thanks and helps Trevor on his quest after he saves her by defeating the Cyclops boss. Their ending also implies a further romantic relationship between the two.

In the series, she is the granddaughter of the head of the Speakers, a multiracial collection of vagabond cultists. (Because why the hell wouldn’t there be random black guys in Romania in the 15th century, you goddamn racist?!) Naturally, the Speakers are genuinely good, holy, and non-violent, and persecuted by the evil Christians. This is already a huge misstep.

See, Sypha in the game was a brave adventurer fighting Dracula’s forces as part of a monastic order. By instead making her part of a pacifist group led by her grandfather, they rob Sypha of heroism and agency. She is just a child following around a grandparent who only fights due to circumstance, not a bold protagonist making a conscious decision to risk her life against Dracula’s hordes.

But of course, it gets worse. Far from being thankful when Trevor saves her in the series, Sypha is angry and bitter towards him. And then tries to order him around. (Hey, it worked for Lisa with Dracula!) This is more feminism (a woman can’t ever be vulnerable or thankful towards a man), and the cost this time is transforming a likable female protagonist into a shrill, odious, harpy cunt.

So we’ve established that the Netflix series has an ugly, off-putting hatred of Christianity, a love of feminism, idiotic race virtue signaling, destroys everything cool about the characters, and spits on all things masculine and heroic. It might seem besides the point, but what about those set pieces?

Lazy and uninspired, as expected. With all the fascinating weapons, armor, locations, and monsters in the Castlevania games, it’s pathetic how little they do with them. The climactic fight in the fourth and final episode between Alucard and Trevor is especially bad, as there are noticeably few frames of animation being used. As a result, it looks choppy and disjointed. The conclusion also sucks, but you likely already guessed that. Instead of Trevor defeating Alucard, as in the game, (Alucard was testing Trevor’s strength) they’re in a stalemate which is broken up by Sypha, after which Alucard shrugs and joins them. Lame.

On a technical and choreography level, the fights look worse than some anime I’ve seen from the late 90s, let alone the early 2000s. Seriously, go watch 1997’s Berserk and note how much more dynamic, fluid, and inventive the combat there is.

There is also a lot of useless, imbecilic talking in each episode, as opposed to an emphasis on action. (Social Justice trumps entertainment, after all!) As with The Last Jedi, the pacing is terrible.

Notably missing from the Netflix series is Grant Danasty, the fourth playable character in Castlevania III besides Trevor, Alucard, and Sypha. Grant is an awesome dagger-throwing pirate who can climb walls, an utterly unique ability throughout the games. His omission might be excusable if they couldn’t work him into the story, but consider all the superfluous bullshit they added instead. The Speakers. Demonization of Christianity. A village peasant talking about fucking goats. It’s obvious where the priorities of these troglodyte “creatives” are.

Whether intentionally or not, despite the vilification of the Church, there is a group worse than them. The villagers. At one point, a town mob is trying to kill Trevor, spurred on by accusations by those evil Christians. However, after Trevor says a few words accusing a Church leader of malfeasance, those same villagers turn right around and murder a man of the cloth with repeated, merciless stabs of their knives and pitchforks. That’s right; the people are such maniacal, murderous madmen that they go from allying with X and trying to kill Y to allying with Y and killing X in the span of a minute and a few generic words.

Perhaps this is how Hollywood feels about the common man shining through. Perhaps this is pure incompetence. Regardless, this makes it impossible to care about a single villager, and effectively eliminates the stakes of the series. If the villagers are this awful, who cares if Dracula’s hell-spawns rip their throats out and feast on the carcasses?

Netflix’s Castlevania is a shoddy, boring series infused with the worst, most idiotic nihlism and Social Justice that spits on heroism, Christianity, and anything else positive.

And yet, this also brings us to an interesting question. I despised this production with every ounce of my being. Brian Niemeier hated it, too, despite wisely only watching the first episode. However, the majority of people like the series, judging by ratings and reviews on IMDB and elsewhere. What gives? My guess is that these folks are simply used to the awful garbage of today. Netflix’s Castlevania, sadly, does not stand out as an anomaly in 2017. Ergo, most either ignore, accept, or actively enjoy what I’ve noted above.

More Proof Hollywood Spits at Heroism And Adventure: Castlevania published first on http://ift.tt/2zdiasi

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