i feel like im not making any sense but does anyone else feel like there are stories that let u run with them and ones that spell everything out for you
red team are FULLY going feral im so here for it, cellbit vouching for cannibalism and getting excited, baghera wanting to build a dirt shack and everyone wanting to crawl into a cave and chase people through the woods
Lilith might just have made the worst choice she could in going to Jillian, no? Not just because of basically becoming her lab rat and throwing herself into the unknown by walking into the ark, but because of the sharp, undeniable contrast that is painfully drawn between Jillian's love for Michael, which sees her stop at nothing to retrieve him, and Lilith's mother's indifference towards her own daughter.
Of course she had met Jillian before, but season one had another context to it. Now, however...
Here's a woman who will set the whole world on fire in order to help her son if she must; meanwhile, Lilith's mother could care less if she knew about her daughter's little season frolicking in the flame pits of hell after being dragged there by a tarask.
Lilith goes to Jillian expecting the brilliant scientist -- she finds her, but perhaps more than that she finds the devoted mother she does not have. There's a cruelty to Jillian's treatment of her, of course, but in this moment of recognition she realises that a) not only is her worth still seen as tied to her "usefulness" to others, but b) that nobody will do for her what Jillian is doing for her son... And that might just be the deepest wound.
Hi, everyone and welcome back to Sonine Prime! The part of the show when I come out and talk about Sonine (and a bit of Sontails) in Sonic Prime!
Last time we finished up the set of scenes starting with their meeting and ended with Sonic and Nine's capture by the Chaos Council. This time, we're hoping to get to move on to the next episode before moving on to the next part😂
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<< Part 2 | Part 4 >>
(Essay/thoughts/analysis under the cut)
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Starting out with an honerable mention of a moment!
"Nine! Is that you?"
Nine: You're just wasting your breath.
Sonic: Omg Nine👀😊
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And then, just before Sonic is put through a series of grueling diagnostic tests, Nine is used as collateral to get him to comply.
"Do not fight them. It will only end badly. For him."
"Nine!"
"Okay, let's start the test. The sooner we do this, the sooner Nine and I can get out of here."
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Another small thing:
The way Nine tenses up furing the first test, as Sonic risks being shot by both laser guns (another tick in the "Nine cares a surprising amount about someone he just met" box)
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Hmmm, and the little things just keep coming, don't they?
Sonic loses his footing in the giant hamster ball filled with spike balls.
"Sonic!"
Which of course, makes Sonic palpably annoyed
Hmmm almost reminds you of when Eggman insulted Tails, doesn't it?
"You wanna test me, Eggheads? Question. How do you tick off a hedgehog? ANSWER. Mess with his friends!"
Hehe. Interesting.
"No one messes with my best friend!"
vs
"How do you tick off a hedgehog? ANSWER. Mess with his friends!"
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Sonic begins to "hallucinate" as he says, and we're treated to another flashback
Amy: I guess he didn't hear the stick together part.🙄
Knuckles: Does he ever?
Tails: No. But he also hasn't let us down when it really counts! You know Sonic. He'll catch up at some point.😊
No comment about how everyone else is at least mildly annoyed at Sonic and Tails stands up for him in a way that redirects their attention from what Sonic did/is doing to the fact that he'll be there when they need him.
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Good bye Season 1 Episode 1 of Sonic Prime, hello Episode 2!
"It's not about the zigs or the zags... It's about the friends we made along the way."
Sonic looks at Nine, has a flashback/vision of seeing Tails and Shadow before the shattering. Then, he looks at Nine both after being confused and still a bit out of it
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Okay, so aside from that funny little moment (Sonic's face), there are some little things to piece together from Nine's end after the council brings out the energy extractor.
First, unlike Sonic's repeated winking afterwards, Nine winks at him smoothly. He doesn't change expression as he does so, and it happens in a singular smooth motion. This makes sense as to why the message Sonic received from the wink was a sort of "I have a plan". While we can't know exactly what he meant, what is clear was that the wink at Sonic was deliberate.
Second, the way he plays off the earlier wink. I think it's pertinent to mention that he's at the end of two Eggforcer's weapons, and Sonic hasn't exactly been subtle this whole time with the winking. His fairly loud whisper to Nine about a plan isn't exactly subtle either (and Nine isn’t exactly the confessing to caring about someone type), so it makes sense if he plays the earlier wink off as having dust in his eye. There is a real contrast begin the smooth wink before and the way he rubs his eye when he says he just has dust in it. That also being said, they did just meet still, so even if Nine cares about Sonic a surprising amount, I think it can be true that his earlier wink was him trying to tell Sonic that he's thinking of a way out of this just as much as it's true that Nine might prioritize making sure he'll live at least if Sonic's not going to survive the extractor. And since this is all about talking about ways certain bits in this series can be interpreted, anyone want to talk about how "I just had dust in my eye" is commonly used by characters who are pretending they're not tearing up due to the display in front of them? Nine has been watching this display of a hedgehog's last words with...an interesting expression on his face, I'll say. Is he...confused? Just thrown off by how Sonic’s acting here? Dumbfounded? Who knows. All we know is that the camera cuts to Nine quite a bit to show us his changes of expression as Sonic speaks, and that after Sonic looks at him for a prolongued amount of time (after asking if he has a plan), his expression instantly changes. This is to say, even though he clearly wasn't tearing up/betraying sadness in that moment, what if Sonic looking at him then, asking if he had a plan, sort of made him feel laid bare? What if he was afraid for a moment that his expressions betrayed his thoughts and feelings on the inside? I mean, imagine meeting someone for the first time and caring about another person for the first time in years. Imagine you've been lonely and isolating yourself for years of your life, and this hedgehog you've barely met uses his last words to call you one of his friends. Imagine he's begging on what could be his death bed for a plan, and you haven't worked anything out yet (even though earlier you'd winked to make him feel better, feel like there will be a plan). He could die, you don't know what to do, you're still not sure why you care, why this makes you sad. You just met him didn't you? He looks at you for a while, asking for a plan, and for a moment, as you're afraid something will happen to you as he mentions plans to free him, you're also coming to terms with the thought that this hedgehog *could* die. Playing it off as just dust in the eye doesn't just save you from another nasty shock, but it protects you from feeling like the hedgehog is staring right into your soul, seeing your conflicting feelings.
Third, after Sonic says "looks like this is game over" and seems to accept there's no way out, the extractor closing in, the camera cuts away to Nine again, zooming in on his face. There's a subtle shift in Nine's face right then and he looks...almost sad, or like he finds it hard to believe that this is real. Then, when it cuts away from Sonic again, after he says goodbye, Nine's eyes are wide.
Actually, on Nine's expressions during what he and Sonic both believe to be Sonic's last moments, I may have hit the picture limit, but I can at least embed a clip here so you all can watch Nine's expressions.
All I'm saying is that if Nine wasn't having feelings about all this in some form, the creators would not have chosen to keep cutting away to Nine's expression, bidding the audience to see and wonder how he feels about all of this. And I think the fact that Nine is reacting at least a little, not looking bored or uncaring or as if he's trying to get this over with, tells us a lot about Nine and what the creators wanted the audience to focus on.
More evidence to the "Nine cares a surprising amount for a hedgehog he just met and doesn't only care about him out of curiosity/what sonic can do for him" box
Not to mention that just after this, when Nine gets his chance to slip away, he frees Sonic right after freeing himself. This is one of these scenes that *is* arguable, as there's really no point in him leaving Sonic there to die. But, we know that Nine has the capability to go on the offensive (not just because of the entire fight scene from episode 1, but also from the fact that he destroys/dismantles an eggforcer at the computer without even needing to turn around) and Rebel and Renegade are there. So it personally tells me a lot that Nine didn't leave Sonic there to fend for himself (especially since he'll later weigh his options and choose to leave Rebel, Renegade, and Rusty to the council over the chance of saving them and losing the red shard).
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Wooo! Season 1 Episode 3, everybody, let's go!
Now, this episode starts with a pre shattering flashback. Just like in episode 2, Sonic's friends talk about how annoyed/frustrated they are that Sonic isn't yet fighting with them. After everyone says their piece, Tails again stands up for Sonic, telling them that Sonic will arrive at some point and that he knows he will.
(We'll come back to these flashback bits with Tails standing up for Sonic while others don't trust/believe in him or are annoyed at him later)
And back to the present, Nine just manages to take control of Rusty Rose in time to save Sonic.
Now, as there are a couple things I'd like to bring to everyone's attention with the aid of screenshots, until part 4, everyone!
Next time we'll hopefully get to tackle the rest of episode 3, and there should be smooth sailing til the last few episodes of the season after that.
Kinda weird question- do you have any links to people talking about Mira from ZTD and ableist stereotypes? I mentioned that I was uncomfortable with her portrayal but kinda fumbled it and made some other ND people in chat uncomfortable. I searched for various keyword combinations but most of what I'm finding is like "and not to mention the ableism with Mira" and doesn't elaborate lol.
Not weird at all! And uh, you see, there's a recent post I made where what I complain about is the very fact I've never seen anyone post too in-depth about her at all, I'd love to see posts that do elaborate on that but I do not have any that I know of right now, sorry :/ hopefully someone else who sees this can point to one? Okay!! After some tag searches I have found exactly one post who kind of gets into it I like this take still would love to see. more than just one but hooray
And like though I complain I couldn't elaborate much on it myself I don't think, I believe most of the posts people make about Saito from aitsf would apply since it's a different uchikoshi take on the very same trope of "emotionless characters who cannot function without killing others" I guess he's a worse portrayal though since she's at least not stated to get reward brain chemicals when killing people and I guess her case also has the added layer of "femme fatale" to it? Which either makes it less bad or worse depending on where you approach it from As I said I am not doing a good job of being coherent on this oh and also there's her being "redeemed" and "cured" in the epilogue which in on itself is kinda not great to imply it just goes away like that and honestly I personally don't even buy it I think she'd just be like oh okay Akane over here has like a thousand reasons to hate me after all that oh and what's that she's the leader of a super wealthy underground organization who's organized one of these death traps before yeah no I'm better off going to prison I'll be fine there lmao bye
But I'll say as an autistic person with relatively low empathy I usually see a character who just doesn't understand other people's feelings and wants to feel them too and is just trying to survive despite getting no help and I just kinda go hm. yeah. shout-out to roxas kingdom hearts shout out to mary from ib shout out that's why I started hyperfixating on media art helps me with understanding others a great lot and Mira is just in a story too badly executed for me to care or even begin to wrap my head around tbh like god she's so fucking terribly used as a plot device in every conceivable way that it makes it difficult to see past it and into what she could possibly be if it weren't for the stereotype of equalling low empathy with no compassion what's with her killing off screen in ways that wildly deviate from her stated m.o? why or how was she even in cahoots with Zero why was that a thing? Honestly her dynamic with Sean could have been better fleshed out could have done something interesting about robot child and his aspd big sis but we just kind of don't get any attention brought to the subject of emotions and the authenticity there of except for the "reveal"...
YOU KNOW WHAT that's probably one huge reason it feels so fucked up actually! Like the whole fucking game is written so you could experience it in whatever order you want and therefore Mira being a serial killer at all is something that though not very well hidden it also cannot be a topic of discussion or explored Ever ever because the player may not have seen the fragment where that is revealed yet- problem being the menu design of that game sucks so bad and practically everyone gravitates towards the same few more interesting looking thumbnails first and then the rest is kinda just there, I mean that is part of the reason A Lot of characters feel half-baked I think but also I think it definitely does impact perception of her character specifically probably The Most and then there's just the general not being given nuance not being able to see the minutiae of how that disorder manifests in her character aside from the killings about how she acts aside from being overly flirty trying to lure in Eric but that affects pretty much all of the new cast we don't have last names and in her case we barely have any backstory at all like Saito is a harmful stereotype sure but we get So Much Context for him that people still love talking about him and delving into different aspects of his life since we have that very well telegraphed in the narrative meanwhile for Mira all we can do is fill in the blanks guesswork that only highlights the worst aspects of the surface level portrayal we got and ultimately that people just don't care enough to dissect because there isn't much there character wise once you remove it
opened up minecraft on my computer for the first time in like over a year i think nd got so so fucking scared cuz it was saying i didnt own it anymore (turns out i just logged into my bedrock account on accident) and then we had to deal with trying to figure out how to even log into my java account and we almost thought we completely lost it or smthn
maybe this is just a sign of how petty we are at times, but we genuinely think that if you can't make your point without being an asshole about it, then... we probably won't listen? like, being an asshole is not a great way to get people to hear what you have to say. like sure, if you're making a good point then you're still making a good point, but like... more flies with honey, etc.
this post is not going to be very well planned out so i’d like you all to be niceys to me if i bungle the wording but i feel like the moment people understand that certain forms of bigotry stem from hatred for certain groups but can affect people not belonging to those groups and hurt them just the same is the moment a lot of our conversations about diversity, oppression, and how to combat marginalization stop going so hard in circles and start being productive