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kumeko · 4 years ago

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A/N: For the once in a lifetime zine! I just wanted to write all the siblings.

…

1. Past

“Gure-san!” Ayame crooned into the phone, delight spreading to his toes at the sound of his friend’s voice. It had been ages since they’d last called, since they’d last played this game of lovers and midnight escapades. He pouted. “You took too long to call me.”

“Aaya, you know I could never leave you for long,” Shigure breathed on the other end of the phone, his tone perfectly serious. It was the thing that freaked out their teachers’ the most: the absolute lack of a teasing lilt or mocking smirk. The inability to determine if he was serious or not. “There’s no one who could replace you.”

Really, it had been too long. Ayame closed his eyes, his finger twirling on his antique phone’s cord. It was too bad there was no audience for this performance, no Hatori to give them a dry look, no Mayu tossing a table. He would have even taken his mother’s disgusted expression. Glancing around his empty shop, Ayame noted the light escaping under the sewing room’s door. Mine was still here then.

Mine was here. His lips tugged up into an involuntary smile as he sat down on an empty couch. “So you weren’t cheating on me, Gure-san?”

“Never.” Shigure chuckled. There was a short pause, the breath between actions, and while his tone was still light, Ayame could almost see his slow smirk. “Though that might change. Yuki’ll be staying with me.”

“Yuki?” Ayame blinked, confused. Yuki. Yuki. A familiar name. An old classmate? A younger cousin?

“You still don’t remember your brother’s name?” Shigure let out a short, bark-like laugh. After a long pause, he added incredulously, “Or did you forget that you have a brother entirely?”

Both. Ayame didn’t respond, his grip tightening on the phone. Yuki. His brother. Faintly, just faintly, he remembered small fingers reaching for him, a tiny voice and teary eyes. A black room and Akito’s smirk. A hazy image with a hazy name. “He’s moving in with you?”

Shigure didn’t press the matter, to Ayame’s relief. “Haru asked. Haru. Can you believe that? The cow helping the rat? I guess your brother actually has friends outside of Akito.”

A cruel comment. Ayame couldn’t refute it; he had thought the same thing, on those rare instances he thought of his brother at all. “Akito let him leave?”

“I know! Amazing. And he’s even going to our high school.” Nonchalantly, Shigure changed topics. “Well, they managed the three of us, I think they can handle one well-behaved kid. It’ll be like having a second Hatori. He’s a quiet kid.”

“He’s in our high school,” Ayame muttered, his brow furrowed. Yuki was in high school. His tiny fingers were bigger now, his voice deeper. There must have been a time—at the new year’s banquet, at any of the million times he’d visited the main house—that he’d seen this Yuki, an almost grown-up Yuki.

But his memory was still that of a child and a heavy feeling settled in his belly.

“Don’t tell me you forgot high school too!” Shigure teased playfully.

“No…I just…” Ayame struggled to find the words to describe this feeling, this aching, gnawing feeling. “I didn’t know.” That his brother was in high school. That his brother was leaving the compound. That his brother had friends, had at least one friend. Even the facts he barely remembered, favourite foods and toys, were all circumspect. “Does he know that we went there?”

“I don’t think so. He’s never brought it up.” Shigure paused and Ayame could tell before he even took a breath, before the first syllable was uttered, that this would hurt. “He hasn’t mentioned you either.”

It was like the twist of a knife. A punch in the stomach. Ayame was left winded and he didn’t even know why.

“It’s not like you two talk.” There was a pounding sound on the other side of the line and Shigure sighed. “Well, I suppose I have to let her in eventually. Or she might actually hang herself. See you in my dreams, Aaya.”

“Not if I see you first,” he responded automatically. On the other end, the phone went dead, a dial tone echoing in his ears.

“Ayame?” Mine poked her head out of the door. Spotting him, she cocked her head. “Is something wrong?”

“Yes. No.” He stared down at his shirt, at the edges of his right sleeve. Tiny fingers had reached for it once, tiny fingers that he had never considered once. “I…I don’t know.”

2. Present

“Heya, squirt.” Arisa ruffled Megumi’s hair as she walked past him to the kitchen. Yanking open the fridge, she rifled through its contents for drinks. “Didn’t realize you were home.”

“I just came back.” Calmly, he ran his fingers through his locks, brushing any stray hair back in place. There. Much better. While he liked the attention, there were times when Megumi wished Arisa would be less physical about it. Noting her cotton shorts and white tank top, he cocked his head. “A slumber party?”

“Yep.” Grabbing four cans of pop, Arisa closed the fridge with her shoulder. She held out one can to him with a grin. “Come on, you can join us. We’re playing some card games and I’m tired of Saki winning all the time.”

“She’ll beat me too,” he pointed out, still accepting the cold can.

“Then at least we can change who’s losing.” Arisa shifted the cans from one hand to the other, rubbing the cold appendage against her leg to warm it up. “I feel like Tohru should be doing worse than she is, and Saki’s screwing me over.”

The chances of that happening were almost a hundred percent. Megumi didn’t even need to ask his sister to know. Trailing after Arisa as they headed upstairs, he asked, “So all three of you today?”

“Mmmm, yeah. It’s been so long since it’s been just the three of us.” Arisa practically bounced up the steps. Looking over her shoulder, she winked. “I kidnapped her from the prince and the pauper. Just because they live with her, the Sohmas think they can hog all of her attention.”

“The prince and the pauper?” Megumi raised a brow. That was a new nickname. “I thought he was an orange-haired bastard?”

“He can be both.” Arisa shrugged, reaching the top landing. She spun around, a mischievous smirk on her face. “He’s a pauper because he almost always loses at Rich Man, Poor Man.”

“That would make you one too.” Saki suddenly appeared behind Arisa, grabbing a pop can. Ignoring Arisa’s surprised jump, she stared at the can. “It’s cold.”

“Warn me a little, would ya?” Arisa leaned against the wall, calming down. She shot Saki a disgruntled glare. “At the very least, I beat Kyo. And sometimes Tohru.”

“A grievance I shall never forgive,” Saki remarked, rolling the can in her hands. “This feels good.”

“It is hot today.” Megumi pressed his can against his cheek. The cool aluminum sent a shiver down his spine. Ah, that was much better.

“…I can never tell if either of you are serious or not.” Arisa rubbed her forehead, torn between exasperation and annoyance. She glanced at Megumi, and then at Saki. “At least you’re wearing short sleeves today.”

“I am not completely immune to the heat,” Saki replied, fanning herself lightly. “Ah. It truly is hot.”

“Now you’re making fun of me.” Straightening up, Arisa barged into Saki’s bedroom. “Alright, time to kick everyone’s asses.”

“K-kick?” Out of sight, a surprised Tohru squeaked. “It’s a card game!”

Still standing in the hallway, Saki leaned against a wall, closing her eyes with a pleased smile. Quietly, Megumi stood next to her, his shoulder bumping into her arm, listening as Arisa crowed excitedly, as Tohru stuttered and panicked. His sister chuckled softly and he could feel the vibrations through her skin.

A laugh. A smile. Megumi watched her, transfixed.

“Yes?” Saki cracked open an eye. Even the aura around her felt light and teasing.

“You’re happy,” he said, more a statement than question.

“Hmm.” Saki considered it before nodding. “I am.” She opened both her eyes and smiled fondly at him. “Your prayer came true.”

3. Future

“She’s here!” Momo peeked out the living room curtain, into the main garden. She quickly let go of the cloth, letting it fall back into place as she stumbled back. “And so is everyone else.”

“Ahhhh…” Momiji’s smile dropped a notch as he tried to figure out just how did his cousins know about this concert. There was Tohru, of course, but while she was a terrible liar, she wouldn’t actually tell anyone. Standing behind his sister, he drew back the window curtains just enough to get a glimpse of everyone. Haru. Yuki. Kyo. Shigure—

Shigure. Momiji rubbed his forehead. Yep. That was the root cause. It would have been hard for Tohru to hide it from him, her face gave everything away. From there, it was a single call to invite all of the ex-zodiac members. Add in their friends and a performance for three became a performance for a crowd. Frowning, he shot a glare at his older cousin. “It’s always him.”

“That’s a lot of people,” Momo muttered, clutching her violin tightly. She glanced at him in askance. “Are we really going to perform?”

“Yep!” Smiling at her encouragingly, Momiji pointed at the few cousins that she’d met. “There’s Kisa and Haru and Hiro—actually, never mind Hiro.”

Despite the things that had changed since the curse was broken, Hiro’s tongue was not one of them. Even Kisa couldn’t sweeten his barbed words by much. Still, he was at least moderately kinder to others and Momo hadn’t come back in tears whenever she played with the pair.

“Kisa.” Momo brightened. “And…there’s Yuki. And Mine and…” She stumbled, trying to remember the names of all their friends. “And…and Uotani and Hanajima…”

“Yep.” Momiji grinned, counting them off himself. There were far more outsiders in the Sohma compound these days, the doors open to all now. High school friends, coworkers, that guy from the bakery—wait. Momiji cocked his head. It was good and all that anyone could come and go, but why were all of these random strangers here for a single violin recital?

Momiji’s eyes landed on silver hair. Of course. He should have known. Ayame. Who else could it have been? As though sensing his thoughts, Ayame spotted him and shot him a thumbs up. He winked, mouthing, Good luck.

It was hard to decide between Shigure and Ayame which one deserved more punishment. Maybe he could sick Hatori on both of them later. Turning back to his sister, he wrapped an arm around her and hugged her to his side. “We have so many friends! I think they’ll be happy to hear us play.”

“Right.” Momo swallowed, peeking back through the curtain once more. She took a deep breath, stood up straight, and then moved back into the center of the room. Staring at her violin for a long moment, she squared her shoulders and raised it. “We have to tune up.”

Part of Momiji missed the baby chick, the little girl who was always peering around her mother’s skirts. As a teenager, the only part of that left was the tremble of her hands as she raised her violin, the slight shake of her bow as she tried to settle herself. Yet this girl was able to talk to him, was able to be with him, and he would take that over the baby chick any day. “Right.”

Momiji raised his violin. Finally, after all those years, they were playing together. Like real siblings. Like a real family.

#fruits basket #ayame sohma #momiji sohma #shigure sohma #saki hanajima #momo sohma #megumi hanajima #arisa uotani #fanfic

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 5 years ago

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Humans are Weird “Drugged”

You will all have to forgive me for not posting the last few days. I went on vacation with family then had a couple tests and then ended up in the ER, so busy week, but i cooked something up for you all. Forgive me if it has issues, see above paragraph or my excuse :)

It is not specifically a human phenomenon, the use of chemicals, to help and support the body. It is, however, a much more complicated field of study for humans. Most species react the same exact way to a drug that any other member of their species would. Many of our species have found specific drugs that cause only minor physiological side effects despite their potency. The system of the non-human body has multiple unrelated systems that are unaffected by one specific drug or another

Humanity on the other hand, is a different story.

The cocktail of chemicals in the human brain integrate into a system that provides the body with a perfect storm of reactions. While most aliens only experience the physiological side effects related to the action of the drug upon an injury , say a numbing sensation or the reduced motility of digestion, humans are some of the only known species to experience extreme psychological effects due to drugs.

In many cases humans will present with wildly different reactions to the same drug as presented in this paper. Though, I find that the most interesting drug reaction, in humans to be those that take place in the brain, specifically the ones causing, or related to sedation, weather that sedation b mild or complete.

…. Let's be honest though, I mostly just find it entertaining.

***

The board of surgical experts was getting ready to convene their conference about human anatomy when it happened. The Summit was taking place on the rundi homeworld courtesy of the GA council. Humanity had proven to be the most difficult species to treat, not simply for their staggering ability to stay alive, but for the numerous drug actions and reactions that could take place in the body.. Rill had been planning to do a lecture during the session, but as per usual, he was cut off by the humans.

The council doors thundered open and one of the marines ran into the room causing quite a stir. Those clinicians who had never before seen a human gasped in shock and awe at the creature’s powerful speed and grace. He came skidding to a stop at the center of the room, barely winded head turning, dark eyes frantically searching the room and zeroing in on Krill, who stood at the front of the auditorium.

“Kill, Krill, something happened. We need your help like, right now..”

If krill had had the capability to roll his eyes, he would have. Taking care of humans was a disaster sometimes. The rest of the auditorium took to their feet in curiosity and, fear, in some cases.

“What happened now?” he wondered

The marine rubbed the back of his head a little sheepishly, “Well uh, we were just messing around.”

“Save me the story and get to the point.”

The marine’s shoulder;s slumped, “The commander dislocated his shoulder.”

The room muttered in some confusion.

Krill sighed, “Of course he did because who else would it be.” He turned back to look at the other assembled medical professionals, “Well come now, class. It seems that today has favored us with a perfect teaching opportunity.”

Hesitantly the rest of the medical professionals followed watching the human prowl along before them with some trepidation.

They found the human sitting outside on the steps of the GA headquarters cradling his arm in one hand as two others attempted to help him support the it, “Shit, shit shit, this hurts.” The man moaned piteously. One of the assistants shifted as he saw the group of doctors coming, but quickly returned to position as the human yelped in pain, “Shit, not like that…... “ Many of the medical professionals had never heard a human distress call before. It was a surprising amalgamation of moaning, hissing and the occasional yip, not to mention the strangely random words, that later had to be explained as profanities.

Krill took charge immediately moving up around the side of the human and dropping down to examine the injured limb.

“Morning doc.” The human said voice unusually slow.

Krill thumped him lightly over the back of the head, “always, always you. Every single time I am busy your body decides to malfunction.” The human mewed pitifully.

A hand raised, “is hitting them in the head part of the treatment.”

Krill sighed, “Only for this one.” He moved over to the side of the human pulling up the strange fibrous covering to reveal the horrible disfigurement below. The medical professionals gasped and muttered in surprise. The skin about the upper limb was bowed upwards unnaturally the arm held awkwardly out before him. What horrible accident could have caused an injury like that…. Well they couldn’t have said. It would be a horrible issue to have for the rest of his life.

Krill prodded around the skin, “Can you feel this.”

The human nodded. Despite what must have been excruciating pain the human had now become very quiet. Its single, wide green eye, the other one was covered by some sort of strange patch, was glassy and distant. When he was asked a question, his answers were clear and concise but very slow.

“alright , the group of you pick him up and bring him inside, try to keep that arm still.” They watched in surprise as a team of humans coordinated themselves to pick up their fellow, grabbing him about the uninjured arm and legs. Awkwardly they shuffled him inside to where Krill ushered them, slowly placing him onto the demonstrative medical equipment that had turned into an impromptu hospital. The other aliens gathered about.

The human refused to lay back hissing in pain when the arm was jostled into the wrong direction.

Krill turned to look at his audience. “What I will demonstrate next is a simple procedure.” At his words the crowd looked rather skeptical muttering and chatting to themselves, “The bone has been pulled from the socket and needs to be reset as soon as possible. It will be a simple push inwards to correct the damage. However, The muscles about the injury may tighten making it difficult and painful for the patient while awake, so we will induce unconsciousness and give analgesic medications for the pain.” He ordered a few of his people around as the human cradled his arm staring off into space with a blank expression. He continued to be responsive and answer questions though he was even slower than normal.

With some instruction from the doctor, the other professionals brought forward the correct medication.

Krill huffed when he saw the label on the bottle.

“Something wrong doctor?”

“No,” Sigh, “He’s just a handful coming out of this one…. Is this all we have.”

“I am afraid so.”

“Well I suppose we are all in for a treat then.” he responded. Adjusting a clear tube about the human’s face running under the protruding sensory organ. Another was being instructed on the placement of an IV into the vein of the hand seeing as the human would not unfurl himself to allow access to the inner arm.

Once that was done, the drug was administered. The human’s eye closed, and he went limp falling backward, lowered slowly by a few other humans, seemingly unaware of the pain that he must have been in, “Now it is important to keep a human speaking after the initial trauma even if you may have to ask the same questions multiple times. Now intense pain and shock can sometimes have similar symptoms, but as long as the human is responsive everything is alright and you don’t have to worry about shock. I wouldn't consider a dislocation something that will cause shock in most cases.”

He moved forward, “Now we are going to do what is called a closed reduction, and simply pop the tip of the bone back into place. I will position my hands here and here, and-” Those with especially good ears heard he grinding pop as the bone slid back into place, the convex surface of skin that had been displaced before falling back into its original position.

They grimaced. It looked horrific.

Krill demonstrated the administration of pain medication and gave a time estimate of when the human would likely to wake up.

“Be warned, these medications tend to have a very severe effect on the cognitive function of a human, you can expect to see mood changes, confusion, slurred or slowed speech, inattentiveness, difficulty focusing, and in this one’s case the need for hand restraints.”

The room muttered.

“You will see why.”

***

Krill had not been lying. The human woke slowly foggy green eye out of focus on glassy. His hands pawed at the blankets below him wandering over the bed until he found the tue to the IV. Krill was forced to pul it away.

“Commander… Commander, how are you feeling.”

The human’s head lolled to the side flopping limply to one side, “Where am I” His speech was slurred just as predicted.’ He grabbed at the Iv tube again, and Krill was forced to pull it away, “No, keep still ok.”

“Okayyyyy.” The human responded groggily.

He seemed pretty happy for someone who should have been in tons of pain.

“How are you feeling?” Krill repeated.

The human didn’t answer head turning this way and that eye wide with curiosity. He looked at his arm, “Oh….. my arm is ok…. That’s gooooood.”

“Commander, try to focus.”

The human did not focus.

Instead he reached a hand out to prod at the little nodes attached to his chest. He began peeling one away. They were forced to take his hand.

“Commander.”

“Yeeee?”

“Can you answer my questions?”

The human nodded widely grinning,, but then seemed to completely forget what he had been asked reaching a hand out to touch one of the machines before being intercepted, “Hey, hey, hey.”

“Yes commander.”

“Wait…. I i forgot… I’m not making any sense…. Am I making any sense.” He glanced towards his arm, “oh my arm is back in place…. That’s good.”

“Yes .” Krill said reassuringly

In the next moment a Drev stepped into the room. She was small for her species, but with a striking electric blue carapace. She walked over, “Why do you insist on getting hurt when I’m not here.”

The human didn’t answer staring at her with a wide green eye. She paused by the bed, and he continued his scrutiny reaching out a hand to stroke the armor of her forearm, “Pretty…. Blue is my favorite color. My best friend is blue too.”

“Adam, I’m right here.”

The human looked up, “Oh ... hi, I didn’t see you there. I saw someone who was just the same color as you, “Pretty…..”

“That was me, Adam.”

“Ohhhhh….. Wait…. That was you.”

“Yes, Adam, that was me.” She didn’t seem perturbed by answering his questions instead taking his hands gently in two of her four and immobilizing them as Krill attempted to slip a sling over one arm.

The human whimpered.

“You’re ok.” the Drev said, “I just need you to hold still.

The human mad a few more distressed noises before becoming distracted by something else, “Sunny, Sunny.”

“Yes Adam.”

“My shoulder is back in…. That’s good.”

The Drev seemed amused, “Yes, that’s very good.”

And then the human started to cry. It was very strange, they had neer seen that before. In fact they didn't think it was physically possible to move so quickly between emotional states. Apparently humans leak from the face when they are upset. A few of the physicians postulated that this may have been an evolved way to gain social attention from other humans. It seemed to work even on nonhumans and the Drev let him hug her arm.

“What’s wrong, Adam.”

The human shook his head, “I-dont know.” That seemed to upset him even more until something else caught his attention and he was back to being as pleased as he had been originally. The drug was everything and more than Krill had said it would be. The large Drev had to keep the human’s hands immobilized, and even then he still managed to cause trouble. It was a wonder that humans managed to do anything in their daily lives if the inside of their heads were like this. Their attentional ability normally must have been herculean to focus this dumpster fire.

It was extremely interesting to watch the human slowly recover himself. At some point he finally began to understand that he wasn’t acting normal despite still acting abnormal. After that came the ability to pay attention and converse normally. Even then he was still doing things that only made sense in a roundabout way.

His voice was no longer slurred, but slow. He seemed almost groggy, but not quite. His previous emotional state had evened out.

“Feel like I got hit by a train.” he groaned. One eye flicked about the audience, “Shit, I didn’t interrupt anything did I?”

Krill let of a deep sigh, “sometimes I wonder if it is your mission in life to interrupt everything I do,” He raised a hand to cut off the human’s apology, “And AS USUAL you somehow still managed to be helpful.”

And that is why the new transuniversal internet currency is not videos of cats, but humans waking up from surgery because, let's be honest, humans on drugs are kind of funny

#humans are insane #humans are space orcs #humans are space australians #humans are space oddities #humans are weird #earth is a deathworld #Earth is space Ausralia

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gayregis · 4 years ago

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Do you have any thoughts on TWN using non polish actors to portray characters from polish fantasy book with dense polish culture and roots? And on how most of the cast apperereance are drastically different than in the books? Like Foltest, Renfri, Fringilla or Calanthe? (Sorry this is the correct one, i forgot to add Fringilla on my previous question.)

i feel like the witcher should not be handled by a large american company like netflix. it is clear that a lot of decisions were made to “dumb the series down” in a manner that would make it more of a pop culture phenomenon that could be used to profit off of from viewership, subscriptions, social buzz, and merchandise, instead of an opportunity to demonstrate actual artistry, storytelling, character depth, and poignant messages. the company that handles it CAN be american or another nationality besides polish, but it shouldn’t be a huge one focused on making as much money and social sharability as possible, that will ruin things. (i also feel like the witcher should not be a live-action adaptation, but this is kind of besides the point... to better gauge how i think the feel of a visual-audial witcher adaptation should look, my dream adaptation would be that of a more “adult version” (”adult” meaning in themes like war and despair) studio ghibli or laika).

in regards to casting, i feel like it’s fine to not use an all polish cast as long as they fit the character description in a way that is actually relevant to the plot. so many people in response to people of color being cast in the witcher were volalitely racist and demanded a “polish cast” - as if polish MUST = white. even though poland is not as ethically diverse as some other european countries, people of color do exist in poland, as they/we exist everywhere. if you want an “all-polish cast and production,” that’s fine to me, i don’t think it’s inherently necessary, but i think if one is doing so, that doesn’t mean that it would be wrong to cast actors of color in roles.

i think the issue lies more with storytellng, for two reasons. one is that eastern european people involved on set seem to actually understand the witcher and what it’s about way better than any of the british cast, and by that i mean sakharov and baginski, who have demonstrated more understanding of like, the style of storytelling (not every scene needs to be jammed with action, drama, sex, gore), what the characters actually mean to each other, and the lore in general. this makes sense because i have read some articles and such before about how the witcher was and is important to its fans in poland and eastern europe because very little “slavic fantasy” ever gets exported and represented internationally, and of course sapkowski involved many cultural references in the series, so it’s recognizable to people from those regions (or are diaspora from those regions) who grew up hearing these fairytales, etc. it’s more of a meaningful callback and less of a “foreign curiosity,” if that makes sense. so for those reasons, i think it’s important to have a majority polish and/or slavic writing room/directors/etc, people behind the story and how the story is told - but that doesn’t mean the writer’s room should be all white men, though. diversity in gender, race, etc should be considered.

the other reason is that the casting for the netflix is inaccurate, but not for reasons of race. the issue with anya chalotra as yennefer isn’t that she is indian, it’s that her hair is incredibly straight and flat and not like yennefer’s curly stormy hair at all, and that her face is so soft and childlike, she doesn’t look stern and cold like yennefer at all. there are many casting issues amongst the white members of cast, such as henry cavill, who doesn’t fit the description of geralt at all because geralt looks like he’s starved constantly, and joey batey, who ... well, dandelion is supposed to be blonde and curly long-haired... but of course, these are the appearances which don’t really “matter” in regards to the story. except i think geralt’s build, as well as yennefer and ciri’s proximity in age, which makes me nauseous to think about how they only have a 6 year age difference

one physical description which does actually matter to the plot/lore is that of calanthe, pavetta, and ciri, as they are a matrelineal line, but in netflix, they don’t look related at all. i saw so many people complaining that they should have chosen a white actress for calanthe, but why is she the problem? why not cast people of color for calanthe, pavetta, and ciri altogether? they should look related and have the ashen grey hair/green eyes, but that doesn’t mean they have to be white. it’s a similar issue with yennefer and fringilla. they are supposed to look similar, and i saw many people complaining that they chose mimi who is black to be fringilla, they are just using “they need to look similar” as an excuse to hide their racism and anti-blackness, because anya is more white-passing than mimi is. from my perspective, why not then cast a black actress who looks similar to mimi as yennefer, then? “they need to look similar” again does not mean “they need to all be white or white-passing.”

we should have cast actors that both fit the descriptions of the characters in the books AND are diverse, without it being “random diversity to appeal to a diverse audience.” lauren thought she was so clever by throwing the actors of color in the roles of background characters, stereotypes, forgettable and disposable aides to the white leads, or super evil villains... i see what you did... why not center actors of color in an actually proud and leading light, with lead roles, where the casting makes sense and isn’t there for tokenization that does nothing to empower people of color? actually incorporate people of color into your artistic projects in a way that respects them and makes sense and not just so you can get more views to make more money

other divergences from canon like foltest were just piss-poor and demonstrated the lack of understanding about the messages of the story. foltest was supposed to be handsome, elegant, and as a refined a king as any, to show how those in power are actually corrupt and as prone to disgusting acts as any other human being, that foltest is not a better man than geralt because he is beautiful and sits on a throne. by making him disgusting on the outside, they totally missed the point that he is supposed to mask his disgustingness on the inside with beauty on the outside. also i feel like (maybe related) twn really made a whole joke out of foltest and his relationship to his sister because in one of the flashbacks (in the sorcerer? gala? party?) foltest is shown as a kid with his sister and his mom grabs his arm or whatever and is like “foltest stop bothering your sister” as like some kind of fucking joke... literally they made a “funny ahaha incest joke” like seriously wtf. the story of the striga in particular should be taken seriously imo because of how rawly the tragedy is depicted... this is probably why it’s one of my least favorite short stories... its so sad and also incest disgusts me horribly

for renfri i feel like she was just sooooo ... more “likable” as a character, a lot like how yennefer’s character was changed. you feel feelings of pity and curiosity towards her rather than actually being intimidated by her. renfri in the books actually made me so mad because i think she represents something like what ciri goes through across the saga, just how when you have the choice on how to respond to your abuse, you can easily become consumed with revenge, and i think renfri made me think of myself in that way so i really disliked it when they changed this terrifying raw aspect of her anguish and hunger for retrubution that made her lose her humanity into like, more of a palatable manner of killing... it really was just “girl with sword” and it was so boring. the lesser evil literally makes my stomach turn and that’s why i only read the story like once as well...

also to return to fringilla, i liked mimi and i thought she should have been cast for yennefer instead maybe.... i just was really upset at how much they changed fringilla’s character in the writing to be a “generic evil villain” when in the series she actually is kind of unique in my opinion. she is like, not allied at all with the main characters, but ends up saving both yennefer and geralt’s lives. she’s not good or bad, she’s not super loyal to the empire but she is still nilfgaardian/beauclairoise, and she just exists as a character and that’s why i actually like her in the books (asides from all of the unnecessary library nonsense). i thought mimi could have handled that complex role really well but they totally took that away from her and just made her a flat boring forgettable “evil” character that does “forbidden black magic” and is super loyal to an empire that brought her purpose because yennefer was mean to her once or smth ig... yeah ok. also i fucking hate how they had cahir of all fucking people order her around. idk how old cahir is supposed to be in netflix because he’s obviously not like 16-20 as he would be in canon during this time period, but to have him be the boss of fringilla... that is dumb as hell. i just try and think about that ever occuring with books verse cahir and fringilla and i think she would smack him off of his horse and into the mud. she’d tell assire and assire would get mawr to drag him off by his ear as he tries not to cry. also of course i hate cahir’s casting and the fact that they showed his face. why. it ruins like every message that his character had...

oh also because i HAVE to talk about it. i hate how they tried to make jaskier more masculine/boyish with not giving joey a wig or flamboyant setting-appropriate garb, i think they are allergic to men with long hair that’s not a grime, dirt-covered mess... literally just give half of the production wigs or better wigs i swear to god ... also like this is totally for another post but i don’t think making jaskier a flirt is inherently misogynistic like he acts in the books at times. like just write the misogynistic bits out and it’s fine... flirtatiousness is not evil when it’s consensual and appreciated ... i think they just really wanted geralt to be the one that gets large amounts of p*ssy because he’s muscular or w/e and jaskier became this sort of helpless annoying barnacle on his side instead of a real character and friend to him. and to bring this point back to the main point , i think character appearance really affects their characterization: jaskier in twn has short, boyish hair with no facial hair, which makes him look kind of juvenile, jaskier in the books has curly long hair with some light facial hair, which kind of brings up ehhh what would you call it... 70s casanova energies maybe, a man that puts oils in his hair and such, male thottery...

#the witcher netflix #anon #ask

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atamascolily · 5 years ago

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Lily liveblogs: “The Rise of Skywalker,” part three

I end as I began: hopelessly confused about what the point of all this was. (Except for money. I got that part loud and clear.)

Rey just leaves Finn behind, because... friendship, right? Jannah does not have a good opinion of Rey right now, and tbh, I can't blame her. I realize Rey is under a lot of stress, but... her behavior since arriving on this "moon of Endor" has been wayyyy out of line.

Also, Poe pulls up with the Falcon right then, so I guess they got it repaired in record time, lol. Convenient.

Meanwhile, at the Resistance Jungle Base, everyone is sad because Leia is dead. I wonder who's in charge now???

"Goodbye, dear princess." Oh, so she's a General right up until she dies, and then it's back to princess again? I wish the ST would make up its mind about her title.

Oh, I guess Poe is, since he showed up and actually has a rank??

Chewie LOSES IT at the news Leia is dead--I feel you, bud. I feel you so hard.

Kylo tries to look dignified as he broods on the wreckage, but he looks awful. Like a drowned rat, with a convenient lightsaber-shaped hole in his tunic where Rey stabbed him. (She didn't even take the saber with her or drop it into the sea or anything! WHHYYYYYYYYYYY - gimme a reason, any reason, even a stupid one.)

And then Han shows up. Is he a ghost? Is this a memory? Is Kylo hallucinating? WHAT WHAT WHAT IS HAPPENING??? (This would have so much more resonance if we had SEEN how Han's death impacted Kylo earlier on instead of that one confused flashback at the beginning of the film....)

grizzled Harrison Ford looks great, why the hell did they kill him off in the first movie whyyyyyy

Okay, so they answer the question and this is a memory, which is fine, I usually love this trope, BUT it would be hella more effective if we'd seen Kylo arguing/interacting with memories of Han earlier instead of this happening for the first time NOW...

"Come home." Uhhhhhh, I honestly don't know what exactly Leia did, but she certainly kinda abetted killing him. What home does Kylo have now, anyway??

So Han says that what Leia fought for is still around, which is true, but Kylo is ostensibly the supreme leader here, so he doesn't just have to go AWOL, he can drag the FO leadership with him, and what passes for their government, he could SURRENDER and end the war right now. Does he? Of course not. He fucks off all by his lonesome after Rey and Palpatine because... that's all he knows how to do, apparently.

There's a callback that is supposed to resonate but doesn't work for me, because I just can't make myself feel for Kylo at all. Yes, redemption is hard. Yes, you have to work for it. Stop whining and just do it!!

We're supposed to think that Kylo will stab Han again (I guess?) but he turns and throws his saber into the sea. So that's why Rey didn't take it - so he could make a dramatic fucking gesture with it.

Palps is upset that Leia messed up his plans, but whatever. He orders Pryde, who apparently is now in charge of the FO in Kylo's absence, to come to Exegol. Apparently Pryde is a diehard Imperial (and possibly Sith cultist/Palpatine's secret puppet/agent??) I guess. It's never explained, he's just bad. And his name isn't subtle, either.

Palps just wants to burn everything to the ground for... evulz, I guess? I got nothing.

Pryde's star destroyer pops out a giant gun and blows up a planet.... apparently, Kijimi. Why, I don't know. Because they were just there?? Anyway, BOOM. Kijimi literally explodes.

What the actual fuck. How is that EVEN POSSIBLE?? What was the point of building two Death Stars if a Star Destroyer can do that????

Oh, apparently, that was the new model from the "Sith fleet" with a better upgrade. sounds fake, but okay. Poe is not thrilled by this news. The same Resistance member brings him the bad news, so I guess that's her official job??

Poe is genre-savvy enough to know that every ship in the Sith fleet has planet destroying weapons and they're doomed unless they stop the Final Order... which isn't new? I thought there was a countdown to an attack in 16 hours or something. What did they think they were attacking with? I don't even know, this movie is that incoherent.

Rose pops in with a message broadcasting on every channel about the "Resistance is dead. The Sith flame will burn. All worlds, surrender or die"... but given that it's in a language that isn't Basic, there's this one random dude with a beard who translates for the audience... and even though I assume it's meant to be some more commonly spoken language, given that the Sith have their own language in this movie, It makes it seem like this Random Resistance dude understands Sith and... I have questions.

Poe goes to sit by Leia's shrouded corpse because apparently they haven't buried her yet??? I wish Poe and Leia's relationship was more prominent in the movies, because I love the dynamic they're supposed to have, but never actually manifests in any of these movies.

Lando shows up to console him!

"How did you defeat an Empire with almost nothing?" "We had each other."

DAMN RIGHT YOU DID AND THE NEW GENERATION COULD TOO, IF THE WRITERS WEREN'T INTENT ON SEPARATING THEM CONSTANTLY AND MAKING EVERYBODY SUFFER....

Poe decides to make Finn his co-general. I have a lot of feels about this.

Turns out D-O knows all about Exegol because he used to belong to Ochi... that's actually earned, I'll allow it. Hilarious Rey never asked the droid about it (or any other details of his past, given that she was pretty sure Ochi killed her parents).

Ahch-To! Rey is wearing her hood and I don't know why. She's throwing driftwood into the flaming wreckage of Kylo's TIE and sobbing and... I don't know what's going on here. There are SO MANY REASONS she could be crying, I don't even know.

And she tosses her lightsaber into the sea... just like Kylo did. Parallels. I get it. And just like Luke did to her... She's giving it up because she doesn't feel worthy of being a Jedi because of her heritage, I guess?? (I'm guessing because this movie doesn't explain shit.)

Speaking of which, there's Luke's ghost, right on schedule! I love his snark but it's SO OUT OF LINE given his behavior in the last movie... and the fact that Yoda told him he had to let go of the past and let the books burn. I mean... the fuck???

Rey has this dark throne vision that's driving her, but ironically that's the one vision we don't see in this whole mess.. we have all these OTHER visions instead, I can' teven keep them all straight.

Oh, she's decided to model Luke and fuck off to Ahch-To forever because she feels she made a mistake. that's absolutely the WRONG LESSON from Luke's life, Rey!!

(also, what happened to saving the world? The sith wayfinder? She just conveniently forgot Palpatine was gonna slaughter everybody because she's having heritage angst?????)

Leia not telling Rey about Rey's heritage makes perfect sense when you realize just how much Leia's life was fucked over by the knowledge that Darth Vader was her father--once in ROTJ and again when she got kicked out of the Senate and ostracized in Bloodline.

Luke has Leia's lightsaber conveniently hidden in his hut... so now Kylo/Ben can have a weapon of his own in the upcoming fight, gag. (Really, Rey should use it to make a double-bladed saber, but she won't, sigh.)

The flashback looks like a video game to me. The CGI is not terrible, but doesn't look nearly as real as the rest of the film to me.

Also, I'm forever mad that Leia gave up her saber thinking it would save her son, that is SO AWFUL, especially since IT DIDN'T WORK, HE STILL TURNED OUT EVIL ANYWAY AND RUINED YOUR LIFE.

"A thousand generations live in you now" would have so much more resonance if Rey was an avatar of the Force or a reincarnation of Anakin instead of the metaphorical. (Yes, I know it will be realized literally later on.)

[Just realized that Kylo's obsession with Rey would make TOTAL SENSE if she were an reincarnation of Anakin given how much he idolizes his grandfather!!!]

Whyyyyy doesn't Luke talk here about the revelation that Palpatine is alive? That he and his father failed to kill the Emperor? That Rey has to finish LUKE'S journey, too??? But no, it's all about Leia here.

Rey somehow didn't notice the wayfinder in Kylo's TIE until Luke says "you have everything you need"... I guess? I don't know how she missed it before!!!

And the X-wing rises out of the water like the deus ex machina that it is... somehow still spaceworthy after six years in the ocean. Okay, then.

Apparently, Force ghost Luke can still manipulate physical objects through the Force??? Okay, I can kinda buy that, but... still....

I love how Artoo doesn't even wait for Threepio to get started with the bullshit, he just imports the uploaded memories right away without asking. Normally, I'd be mad about consent, but a) they're married, and b) he's restoring Threepio's personality, so I'm okay with it.

I love how warped and creepy the space is around Exegol.

Also, D-O looks just like a desk lamp.

Oh, so the Resistance follows Rey through Luke's X-wing computer via Artoo. Convoluted, but it works, I guess.

Okay, so time for some technobabble, but there's a navigation tower (the new shield generator) they have to hit for REASONS with a "ground team" (aka strike team). Sigh.

Love the dismissal of the "Holdo maneuver"--which is essentially kamikaze-style suicide. Not a great battle strategy if you want to survive the fight.

Wait, wasn't Poe angsting earlier about how nobody answered their call from Crait back in the last movie? What makes him think this is going to be any different?????

Okay, so all the FO folks on are on Exegol now?? Who is piloting and crewing those Star Destroyers?? Are they First Order or Final Order people? What happened to the First Order? What is the relationship between the First Order and the Final Order? Are they the same thing with two different names?? (But no, there are two fleets, the Sith destroyers are different.) What happened to the First Order then? Does anyone notice and/or care the alleged "Supreme Leader" of the First Order is missing in action??? I'M SO CONFUSED.

Okay, it makes sense that Poe is in an X-wing given he's a hotshot pilot, but he's also a general, and... I'm so confused about the tactical aspect of that, but fine, whatever. Also, Artoo is in the X-wing with him instead of BB-8, who I thought was Poe's droid (to the point of reaming Rey over injuring him earlier in the film!!!) WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE???

we're baaaaacck in the creepy sith ruins just like the beginning of the film, but so much has happened that my brain has fried and so the parallels are not as compelling as they could be.

WHEN DID THEY PICK UP JANNAH?? Has she been there the entire time and we just didn't see her until now, or did they stop back at Endor's moon along the way??? I'M SO CONFUSED!!!

Finn has " a feeling" where the ship is... it's the Force, why are you teasing us like that. LET HIM BE A JEDI.

Okay, I actually really like the fact that all the FO deserter stormtroopers from Endor are using their mounts so their enemies can use the tech against them. That's poetic justice right there. And also, epic cool. Good thing all the ships are still in the atmosphere... (nobody's wearing masks like Finn did for the Kijimi pickup)

I don't know how there is lightning in a fucking underground pyramid, but 10/10 for aesthetic, I love it.

"Grandma, it's me, Anastasia"--oh, wait, never mind.

The reveal that Rey is in a giant arena is hella creepy, even though it makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. Where do all these people come from? What do they do? Where do they live? What do they EAT?? Are they born Sith? Brainwashed Sith?? Cultists? Clones??? I NEED ANSWERS HERE.

Palpatine dangling in his creepy metal arm-thing is a lot like GLADoS from Portal.

So... Palpatine can possess the person who kills him in anger??? Explains a LOT about how he treated Luke, actually. And why it was so important that Anakin finish him - one, because Anakin's body was failing, and two, because he did it for love.

Love the aesthetic of the flickering lights for added creepiness and nothing is quite real. Even if it makes no sense. My id knows what it wants, okay??

Jannah and Finn teaming up for the battle is great, BB-8 actually gets to do something for once, and I love Jannah's crossbow.

Oh, now Palps is going to monologue about Rey's parents, while telling us no interesting details whatsoever. Sigh.

HOW THE FUCK DID KYLO GET TO EXEGOL AGAIN????????????????? she left him stranded in the middle of a frikkin' OCEAN... and he just knows how to get back to Exegol without the macguffin,.... how....?

(yes, I know he's supposed to be "Ben Solo" again, but so far there has been zero explanation in the film itself, so I'm just gonna keep calling him Kylo.)

Okay, there's a TIE fighter next to the X-wing, but... where did he GET IT?????????

That "ow" is priceless. I watched that sequence twice.

(clearly Kylo has not been exploring ruins much recently.)

Finn explaining to Rose that he's going to sacrifice himself for the cause, exactly like she wouldn't let him do in the last film... and Rose goes with it. Okay, then.

Now Kylo has to fight his own boy band... who were secretly following the Emperor's orders the entire time (?) THE ENTIRE FIRST ORDER WAS LITERALLY A FRONT TO KEEP KYLO REN DISTRACTED AND KYLO TOTALLY BOUGHT IT. I... have questions, but I actually admire the sheer audacity of this.

Kylo fighting said knights would be way more emotionally engaging if we a) knew anything about them, b) had seen any interactions between Kylo and the knights earlier, and c) gave a shit, but none of those happened, so we don't.

Kylo and Rey have some sort of Force bond communication thing that is super vaguely filmed so it's hard to understand wtf is actually happening. Rey tosss her saber back and... Ben pulls it out behind his back.

what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the FUCK

I won't say that wasn't forshadowed, because it kinda-sorta was. I will just say that this movie has NEVER EXPLAINED HOW THEY CAN DO THAT or talked about it at ALL, just treats it like a fact, and I... have questions about how reality can be bent that way even if you are a Force dyad or whatnot.

So Kylo's fight with the knights parallels Rey's fight with a bunch of Imperial guards and it's so hard to care. Th timer says there's still a half an hour left, how is that possible???

So... it's okay to stab people as long as you do it with the properly colored lightsaber, I guess???

Kylo shows up, he and Rey exchange Meangingful Looks, they raise their sabers, Palps zaps them and slurps up "the lifeforce of your bond" and uses it to grow younger, whatever the hell that means ughhhhhhhh please let this be over soon.

Did he know they were a dyad before? Is THIS his real plan? I'm so confused and I have no idea wtf is going on.

RIP Snap. I guess I should care more about you, but I don't think you're mentioned in any of the other movies, so... *shrugs*

Poe has a meltdown but.... Lando shows up AGAIN to give him a pep talk, and also a fleet. Like seriously, Lando gets results, if he'd been running the Resistance, the war would be OVER by now.

Is the "Nice flying, Lando!" Older!Wedge?? I think so. I hope so, anyway.

Zorii shows up too, to fight and also insult Poe over the comm... I guess she's upset about Kijimi being destroyed? (Or maybe not given how she was so eager to get off it???)

Palps tosses Kylo into a pit, which... given that Palps survived, maybe not the best plan if you wanted to actually kill him.

Then he shoots force lightning through the hole in the arena into the sky and... zaps all the new fighters.

Well.

Okay then.

Rey wakes up and... reaches out to the spirits of past Jedi for help. (Apparently, Palpatine doesn't care about her killing him now, because he's young and healthy again, so it's okay to kill her? I guess he can always try again with another grandkid, lol.)

Also, it's funny how Rey is a Palpatine and blood is sooooo important and scary and destiny until someone's trying to diss her and then she's just "a scavenger girl". And by funny, I mean terrible. Sigh.

"I am all the Sith." I don't think the Sith, by the nature of their existence, can embody their predecessors the way that the Jedi can. I mean, to be a Sith is to be alone, and there is that whole Rule of Two business if that's still canon now. I mean, unless the Sith literally eat their masters and thus become them? But it seems a little late for THAT detail.

But it's okay because Rey's embodying all the Jedi this time (and has TWO sabers, lol) and she turns Palpatine's Force lightning back on himself and he turns into a crisp. You'd think the Sith Lords would have worked out a defense against that, since that's how Mace Windu scarred him in the first place, but okay then.

The entire arena crumbles. All the faceless cultists are crushed by falling rock. Pryde goeth before the fall. Lando rescues Finn and Jannah before Poe can. All the star destroyers are stranded because the command ship is gone and start blowing up.

Anyway, Rey collapses in the ruins. Finn senses her fall. but Kylo climbs out of the pit and cradles her in his arms. (ewww ewww ewwwwwww NOOOOOOO) and cradles her to his chest [gross gross grossssssss she's dead and can't consent and I can't decide if that makes it grosser or not, she's never let him do this while she was ALIVE fuckkkkkk]. He finally lets go and then places his hand on her stomach, and ughhhhhh I have so many issues with this I don't care if he's reformed, he's been stalking for three films, this is NOT OKAY and does the Force healing trick, and...

literally he could have just put a hand on her forehead or shoulder, which I would still hate, but would be less creepy than this.

Rey wakes up, puts her hands on his, sits up, startled and... doesn't say anything, doesn't even flinch, and smiles. "Ben."

and she kisses him. I knew this was coming. I still hate it.

he smiles, falls over, and dies. Like, literally, it's like Rey's kiss murdered him. I'm a terrible person, I know, but I really can't mourn him.

Kylo's body vanishes (Leia's stayed intact, damn it!) proving I guess that he was good after all?? I thought only special people learned the vanishing trick??? Leia's body vanishes right at the same time, and... I don't get it, I really don't.

Maz apparently skipped the final battle to watch over Leia's corpse and I.... definitely don't get it.

was Leia possessing her son this whole time? What. Just. Happened??????

Rey flies away in Luke's X-wing under her own power, and... "Red Five is in the air again," says Finn. People are rising up all over the galaxy, though against what, I'm not clear, and the skies are suddenly clear, implying that the Emperor was warping the weather with his darkness.

We see Star Destroyers blowing up behind Cloud City and on the FOREST moon of Endor with the Ewoks and I just... never knew they were there??? Were they connected to the rest of the Fleet somehow (like the Katana fleet in Legends??) Where did this come from?? Wicket and his son are clearly satisfied, though why they think anything's going to change is beyond me. And was the First Order oppressing them? Why didn't we see any of their fleet when our protagonists were IN THAT SYSTEM AND SO WAS THE OSTENSIBLE SUPREME LEADER???

Another Star Destroyer crashes on Jakku, so literally NOTHING HAS CHANGED THERE, LOL.

Back at the Resistance Jungle Base, everyone cries and hugs, Poe and Zorii have a moment that goes nowhere, Poe's arm is somehow in a sling (???) There's a very brief lesbian kiss, but it gets even less screen time than Rose Tico, so again, don't think that counts as representation, but nice try.

Maz gives Chewie Han's medal from Yavin and... where the hell did she get it??? Leia's corpse??? Creepy!!

Jannah comes up to Lando and asks him where he's from, and when Lando asks the same question, she say she doesn't know. "Let's find out." Wow, that's way more interesting than most of this movie!

Rey hugs Finn and Poe and I... just... it's the tearful hug of "wow, we've all been through a lot of trauma since we last saw each other and also I was a jerk and threw you across the sea with the Force to get you out of my way and I abandoned you without saying goodbye to isolate myself on an island in the middle of nowhere until my ghost mentor reminded me I could save the day".

ButWeDon'tHavetimetounpackThatNow.jpg

Rey takes the Falcon to the Lars' moisture farm on Tatooine with BB-8. No one is in sight. This is an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere, not a shrine to the Legend of Luke Skywalker. Rey slides down the sides on a piece of metal and into the courtyard. She wraps up Luke and Leia's sabers and... we cut to her back up on the ridge near the droid garage, using the Force to bury them in the sand.

Then she pulls out her own saber and it's yellow-bladed and looks like a double quarterstaff (although I only saw the top blade ignite). What she should have had this entire movie.

There's a random woman with an eopie there, who... came over to investigate? there is literally NO ONE ELSE FOR MILES. HOW????

The woman asks who she is, and we have callbacks to that earlier conversation on Pasaana. Rey hesitates, sees Luke and Leia's ghost on the horizon, smiling their approval and says "Rey Skywalker". The movie ends with her standing watching the double sunset... alone except for BB-8.

Wow, she's literally come full circle from being alone in the desert with a droid to being alone in a different desert with the same droid. What the fuck.

Cue triumphant music and credits.

Oh, and I just realized we never found out what was so important for Finn to tell Rey about... so that went nowhere. I assume it's "he can use the Force" but apparently that wasn't important enough to ACTUALLY INCLUDE, sigh.

Did Rey fuck off to Tatooine to be a hermit? Is she going back to her friends? Is she going to train the next generation of Jedi? How will she keep the cycle from repeating? Is it broken? Is Palpatine really dead this time??? How does she feel about Kylo/Ben?? Is HIS ghost still around stalking her, too? Why did she take the Falcon? Doesn't it belong to Chewie now? Why didn't the rest of the gang come with her???? I'm so confused.

This was even worse than I had anticipated, and I came into this with super-low expectations. This wasn’t bad in a “bad B-movie kind of way,” this was bad in the “nothing makes sense, it’s all jumbled blur, I am numb and cannot begin to care” kind of spectacle. I cannot imagine watching this in a theater. No wonder the critics savaged this.

#star wars #lily liveblogs #WHY DISNEY WHY

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beesmygod · 6 years ago

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this is what riverdale is about (part 6)

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4

part 5

and now...we come to the end of our journey...the final 4 episodes of the season. who killed jason blossom? you forgot that’s what we were doing, huh. you were way too distracted by sex archie and the jughead/betty relationship (called ‘bughead’ in universe).

i have a friend who has been watching riverdale because i have basically tricked him into doing so and frankly, what i am typing here was and is only the surface of this show’s nonsense. as he watched episodes, he reminds me of all the completely bananas shit that this show throws at you literally every second it is on screen and honestly its a relief to know that, as much as i can try to just give you some basic facts, watching the show itself is still a totally different transcendent experience. its really the only show of its kind; shamelessly stupid but unaware of it while openly delighting in all the silliest cliches presented as straight faced as possible. if these write up do anything for you at all, please, please. watch the show. you will be shocked at how much more there is to discover.

images are from the riverdale wiki

---

SEASON 1 (PART 4):

the lost weekend: this is the one with a very special guest star in it: molly ringwald as archie’s mom! she and fred (luke perry) have been separated for some amount of time for an unknown reason. yay she’s so cute! i love her. oh uh, also they’re getting a divorce. the papers are going through. archie gets the bad news in the middle of a gaming sesh with jughead.

meanwhile, veronica meets with her dad’s lawyer (whose name is paul sowerberry?? he never shows up again despite his unbelievably silly name) and tells him she’s not giving him a good statement as to her father’s character to help him get a lesser sentence. “fuck you dad!” is the general sentiment before she stomps out to go to school.

oh man there’s a weird aspect of this show that i have neglected to mention. this isn’t something i’ve ever experienced in school so it was totally foreign and weird to me but the students have their own lounge that they mingle and talk in...at...some point during the school day?? jughead’s opening monologue of this episode makes great pains to talk about how every moment of their lives are scheduled from 8am to 3pm but there’s apparently plenty of sittin’ time where they can just laze about this random room talking about crimes they have or are going to commit. a great deal of talking happens in this room when usually you’d have to like, sneak a convo while getting shit out of your locker between classes. i dunno, it’s weird. this is where archie tells veronica about clifford blossom sending her dad to jail so he can jack the land everyone is fighting over.

archie and betty make plans to celebrate jugheads birthday by taking him to the movies, which i feel like is in poor taste given his movie house was just destroyed but whatever. with betty coming along it’ll be just like the three muskateers! betty replies “AcTuAlLy ThErE wErE fOuR mUsKeTeErS” and somehow he doesn’t beat her to death with his bookbag right there and then. betty then doubles down on the bad words flowing out of her mouth and proposes they hold a surprise party for jughead since, according to his dad, he’s never had one. i have no idea what would compel her to think he would want this. even i know he doesn’t want this and i only know him through a tv screen. on top of this she goes out of her way to invite his deadbeat alcoholic dad multiple times. i thought she was supposed to be the smart, observant nancy drew type but like...what the fuck betty. jughead does, in fact, get pretty pissed at archie just for telling his girlfriend that he even has a birthday. presumably instead of telling him he emerged fully formed from the leader of the black parade’s forehead.

after finding out from some files that her dad was receiving money monthly from clifford blossom for some unspecified reason before the arrest, veronica challenges cheryl to a dance off and wins. unfortunately, veronica cant come forward with what she knows because it would make it look like her dad put a hit out on jason in retaliation. dance off to relieve the pain.

jughead fucking hates his party and makes sure everyone knows it. this is something NORMAL people do and he is NOT normal!!! he leaves the party in a huff when cheryl shows up to get her dance off revenge by ruining the party by inviting the whole school. this is the episode where he does his famous “im a weirdo, i have a hat” speech, which is deliciously dumb. they get in a fight, while jughead’s dad talks to kevin’s boyfriend (who you will remember is a member of his gang he assigned to keep tabs on the progress of the teens looking into the whole land plot mess) while betty’s mom secretly listens in?!

cheryl activates chaos mode and locks everyone in the house so they can play a game called “secrets and sins” which is really just an excuse for her to ask everyone horrible questions to make them feel bad. veronica accuses cheryl of fucking her brother, dilton doiley tells everyone about grundy’s statutory rape of archie andrews and chuck tells everyone about dark mode betty drugging him for an impromptu bdsm session which causes jughead to go apeshit and try to throw a weak little baby punch. jughead’s dad, as the only adult who for some reason let all this happen, finally throws everyone out and tells them to go home.

archie and veronica sleep together, by which i mean, next to each other in the same room. veronica testifies on her father’s behalf and discloses to betty the link between jugheads dad and the serpents and her dad’s land plot dreams. molly ringwald appears for 20 seconds.

INHALES. OKAY.

to riverdale and back again: its homecoming babey! archie’s very supportive mother has a nice talk with him. :) veronica founds out that her dad only has to serve “a few more months” in prison for his various white collar crimes, further proof that riverdale takes place in america. jughead and his dad have a nice normal breakfast while fp sweats and asks him “hey uh, how come uh you’re writing about the uhhhh murder and investigating it and stuff” like a normal dad would. archie and veronica tentatively agree to start going out.

penelopy blossom brings polly (betty’s pregnant sister, remember her? i didn’t) a strawberry milkshake in the most ominous way possible. veronica plans to sneakily find out if jughead’s dad is helping her own and for what purpose, ultimately. jughead accepts and invite to betty’s house for dinner, not knowing her mom is going to grill the shit out of him and his dad over the whole kid murder thing.

polly finds the ring jason proposed to her with back in penelope’s room while snooping, and has no idea how it wound up back in the hands of his mother. according to penelope, jason threw it in their face when he renounced his lineage, then gives her another milkshake.

the cooper family event is disrupted when betty, wise to her mother’s horseshit, invites her estranged dad to dinner too. all hell breaks loose when the subject of homecoming comes up and fp reveals that while alice and hal were crowned homecoming king and queen, they got in a knockout, drag-out fight backstage. alice flips out before he can reveal what it was about and betty and jughead flee for the dance. meanwhile archie and veronica try, and fail, to find something incriminating in fp’s trailer.

cheryl discovers the milkshakes are DRUGGED and polly is going to sleep through homecoming. she informs her parents that she has disposed of the ring (evidence) and they dont have to worry about it anymore. you can see where this is going.

jughead’s dad drops a bomb on him right before homecoming that they’re going to move to toledo to meet up with jughead’s mom and baby sister. jughead hates this bc he just got used to betty and he wants to write his murder book.

archie and veronica sing a truly terrible cover of “kids in america” that has to be seen to be believed.

youtube

meanwhile, sherrif keller tears up fp’s house with a search warrant and finds the gun that was used to kill jason blossom. WHAAAA??? BUT ARCHIE AND VERONICA JUST SEARCHED IT??? how could this happen.....jughead finds out about the web of deception weaved by the friends and tells them all to fuck off so he can go to toledo with his family. jughead literally turns around and is informed that his dad was just arrested for murder. his life is so hilariously bad.

the sheriff sucks so bad at his job because he tells his gay son everything who then spills the beans to archie and co (sans jughead) who learn that fp is being framed, because they already tossed the place before.

cheryl has the ring. at this point none of these things mean anything.

i cant believe i still have two more of these. i’m going to have to split this post after this one.

anatomy of a murder: as it turns out, archie discovers, information you discover during a breaking and entering won’t hold up in court. oops. meanwhile fp inexplicably confesses to kidnapping jason after his fake drowning at sweetwater river so he could use him as ransom after discovering he heir to all that sweet maple syrup money. according to fp, jason nearly escaped so they cut their losses and blasted a hole in him. he also confesses to torching the car and stealing the sheriff's files (which we, the audience, know hal cooper did, not fp). well. that’s that, i guess.

betty’s dad comes back to the family home to destroy the murderboard evidence all like “whoo hoo! fp took a bullet for me!” hal’s concern and his reason for stealing the files in the first place, as it turns out, was because the feud between the coopers and the blossoms is more complicated than we thought. the coopers WERE blossoms, until grand-pappy was murdered, so they packed their shit and left with a new name. so that makes polly and jason related. cool!

fp apparently used his his last phone call to call kevin’s boyfriend who, after some pressing by the gang, admits that while he didnt see fp pull the trigger, he did help him put jason’s body in a freezer. this tip leads them to the corpse of a serpent who had a sack of money in a monogrammed dufflebag with the initials “h.l.” (hiram lodge). this is a comically dumb move for a crime boss to make. it is shockingly stupid.

joaquin tells kevin about a secret stash he and fp set up before he bounces from town forever because riverdale sucks. in the stash is jason’s jacket. everyone puzzles over what it means until betty, noted brain genius checks the pockets. in it they find a usb drive.

they sit down and watch the usb and react like they’re watching a sad documentary and not a snuff film. betty calls CHERYL OF ALL PEOPLE and tells her what they just saw on the usb. cheryl, queen of chaos, confronts her dad and tells him that everyone knows what he did.

it turns out the video depicts jason tied up in the basement of the whyte wyrm, there the dead serpent watches over him. clifford blossom walks in and blows a hole in his kid. fp confessed to protect jughead, who was threatened by cliff as the heat poured on.

clifford dies surrounded by his greatest love, maple syrup, by hanging himself in the syrup barn. lol

the sweet hereafter: how the fuck is there another episode of this? they solved the murder, what else could there possibly be to do. wtf. anyway.

the cops find hella drugs in the maple barn after clifford’s death. the assumed story is that jason learned about his dad’s heroin smuggling business and threatened to tell the cops on his dad which lead to his abduction, and eventual death. i guess the polly thing is in here too somehow. not important i guess. the lodges prepare for hiram’s arrival. betty and archie are going to be honored by the mayor for cracking the case at the 75th annual jubilee (wtf). hermoine attempts to buy fred out of the project now that the cops are cracking down on the serpents and making them the face of the construction company is now a very bad look.

betty tries to write an article for the town paper about fp being innocent but her parents wont publish it, citing it as a conflict of interest given she’s smooching the subject’s son. jughead FINALLY JUT NOW gets a social worker who realizes that fred has a dui and is not fit to care for a kid. he has to transfer to a new school district...SOUTHSIDE HIGH SCHOOL!!!

cheryl apologizes for throwing hands at jughead in a previous ep and gives him her iconic spider brooch. i am only bringing this up because she says, specifically, that selling it will net him a good amount of hamburgers and “s t-shirts” for years. why is she the only one who notices he only wears one kind of shirt. betty’s article getting published in the school paper leads to the above retaliation.

veronica’s mom honest to god asks her to sexually manipulate archie into convincing his dad to sell the project to her.

betty’s mom, after a confrontation, tells betty abt the fight she and her dad had on homecoming night when they were high schoolers. turns out...alice was pregnant. she gave the baby up for adoption after she went to the sisters of quiet mercy, like she did with polly, even though hal wanted an abortion. betty immediately tells all her friends this shit.

jughead transfers to the new high and flourishes. turns out they’re all baby gangsters there so they look at him and his dad as kings to be admired. when the archie group heads off to go rescue him, it turns out they dont need to do anything. but now that theyre all conveniently together, veronica gets a txt from cheryl saying she’s going to go be with jason....

they rush to the river where cheryl is having her ophelia meltdown in his stupid little river boat dress where she punches through the ice until she falls through. theres no way to describe how silly this scene is unless you see it so i won’t try but its so melodramatic and cheesy that youre going to be amazed that it got through the writing team at all. archie saves her by punching through the ice the other way. from under the ice. you will soon find, that all of archie’s solutions are to punch things.

betty does a speech at the jubilee that convinces fred not to sell. a nice ending for him.

meanwhile cheryl burns her fucking house down for a lark. just for the drama of it all.

the same night, jughead and betty start to fuck, as do veronica and archie. not int he same room, like totally separately. but jughead is interrupted by the serpents and a dog named hotdog, who give him a jacket of his own so he can join the team. betty is scandalized.

archie goes to meet his father for a breakfast at pop’s chocklit shoppe for a serious talk. but while he’s int he bathroom, a man with a gun is holding up the chocklit shoppe. he demands fred’s wallet, then pops a hole in him and runs off.

and that.........is where this season......ends.

---

thank you for joining me for season 1 of this shitshow. i love this shitty show. if you loved reading about it, or were mortified by whatever the fuck happened here, then you should watch it as well.

i never pass up an opportunity to shill myself, so if you like what i write, drop me a buck or two at my patreon. i do more writing like this, but also i mostly make comics, so make sure to read the page when you’re signing up so you know what you’re getting!

i WILL return...with season...2!

https://www.patreon.com/aghoststory

#riverdale

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whatisthisnonsense · 6 years ago

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Okay you know what I am gonna talk shit in a proper well-thought-out manner because I’m salty and stressed and I may as well channel it into something fun like yelling about anime in an over the top display of angery as befitting this cesspool of a social media platform. This being said I’m gonna do it under a read-more ‘cause most of ya’ll ain’t got time for no negative nonsense and some of you genuinely enjoy Tri, and you know what, I respect you, you’re valid.

Okay so to explain how much I want to throw Bandai into a dumpster, we first need to go back and explain Adventure and the fiasco that was 02.

Digimon Adventure came out in 1999 (March 6th in japan and August 14th in the states, which coincidentally means this show came out exactly on my sixth birthday!) and lasted for about a year, with 54 episodes. The plot was simple; seven punkass grade schoolers turned out to have been chosen by fate to defend the Digital World, an alternate plane of reality created by various forms of digital information (the wee baby internet of the era, for example), mostly to kind of justify Bandai’s V-Pet (Tamogatchis but they’re gross and can FIGHT) and sell toys. So like, Transformers but with more human characters and kickass monsters and sometimes a lesson about the Power Of Friendship. Later, they find out they were chosen because they saw their neighborhood get wrecked by two monsters and Inexplicably Forgot This, as well as the fact there’s actually a missing member of their group (which less than surprisingly turned out to be the leader character’s little sister, who had already been seen in a prior episode and had also been involved in that early monster attack). It was hokey, the english dub generally bordered on that of a proto-abridged series if not aggressively sanitizing things (turning sake into green chili sauce, for example) and it was just good dumb fun and in the end everyone was crying anyway because dammit, while it was dumb fun you still cared about these characters and loved how they grew up. And then came 02.

Hoo boy. Digimon 02 came out in 2000 (April 2nd in japan and August 19th in the states) and lasted for another year or so. While sometimes listed as a second season, in truth it was a sequel series and it had...some interesting ideas, lets say. And I mean that sincerely! They did have some good ideas! But it was pretty clear from the lack of direction and the constant roller coaster of serious and stupid that it was being a sequel for the sake of being a sequel. For example, a whole new super secret crest turned up out of nowhere, which brings up a lot of questions in the lore but is mostly used to prove Ken isn’t irredeemable because he’s a Chosen Child ,as well as the questions about how this Crest is still present and useable and then literally gets no use. No Ultimate Form Wormmon for you, folks, NORMAL digivolution is out! I think I and @yunisverse have made our opinion on how to use that crest better clear while we’re being salty over Wizardmon, ha People have said that it’s big draw was that it had a heavier focus on character development and...yes and no? On the one hand, Ken and Cody’s arcs were genuinely enjoyable, Kindness shenanigans aside, as was occasionally exploring TK and Kari’s trauma, something often brushed over in the original series. On the other hand, more or less the whole of Adventure centered AROUND character growth where in 02 it’s...sporadic. Sometimes even random. However the main two reasons everyone was mad at 02 were these;

The original digidestined that were not Kari or TK got shunted onto the backburner, usually using excuses as they had given up their crest powers sometime between Our War Game and the present (despite that A) this is otherwise disregarding the fact they were supposedly not able to enter the digital world again until 02 and B) the power is literally inside them as part of their core, not something the digiworld actually gave to them, and while it could be diminished it could never actually be removed) or that it was the New Kids turn, often with wildly out of character personality developments. (Looking at you, Sora’s new docileness and Mimi’s lack of involvement in most of the plot period.)

The epilogue, which not only gave everyone really weird future jobs (why is Matt an astronaut?!) but also seemed pretty much out to be as aggressively Happily Ever After without actually stopping to think about any implications or actual lead-ups.

02 usually gets a pass from riding on the Adventure coattails, but everyone still tended to be at least disappointed in what had occurred. Also, more serious takes on Digimon, such as Tamers and some of the games, had been growing in popularity.

Thus Bandai, in it’s infinite wisdom, decided to cash back in on Nostalgia by focusing on the Adventure kids, making them closer to 02 so they’re older and they can therefore do more serious mature takes like Tamers, while also trying to rectify how they would even begin to come around to their epilogue jobs. They do this by killing the 02 cast in the first two minutes.

Welcome to Tri folks! Okay, so the 02 cast isn’t actually dead, but we don’t know where they are for six movies. Six movies!! The most we know for a few years is Ken, for some reason, has reverted to evil! And he has Imperialdramon, which implies Davis is brainwashed too!

He is basically doing this most of the series (which was initially going to be a mini-series before becoming a series of movies which then proceed to often be cut up into episodes, which that alone should tell you the problems BEHIND the scenes much less on screen) and we find out what he is (not actually Ken but an evil Gennai clone which is also out of nowhere) and what he’s doing (apparently bringing Yggdrasil, long time lore big bad of various digimon continuities and also god, into the Adventure storyline) not by efforts of the kids. Oh no. They’re too busy playing with their new friend Mei!

God I wish I was joking. The original squad literally shows no concern for where the 02 gang is until halfway through, and it’s a handwave at best and quickly moved on from. Hell, they barely react to “Ken” and CHEER on defeating Imperialdramon! More gravitas was given to having to kill the plot coupon of the day, Meicoonmon, than someone they actually know and should be upset about. Also making Tai NOT want to rush into a fight (what?), Turns Out Homeostatis Is Also Evil Or At Least Amoral (why), a reveal one of the backstory five original digidestined went mad with grief (no), and also I guess for some reason the kids and digimon were separated again given their reactions despite 02′s ending? That’s. That’s not even keeping your own continuity. Why are you like this. Also connecting to the epilogue just seem to be on a whim (not metaphor, Matt decides to be an astronaut on a whim), the general lack of gravitas in most moments followed by moments of SEVERE gravitas (which is the 02 problem but Worse), and bad jokes. I don’t mean Good Bad Jokes like Adventure, just really not funny jokes. And the real bitch of the matter? It had a few things that should’ve made it AWESOME! Like listen, I miss these idiot kids a lot, and the concept of a virus forcing a reboot on the digiworld and thus having to explore, finally, the digimon as characters and what they would be like without the kids? That’s cool! The idea of undoing all the Perma Digideaths (like WIZARDMON goddammit, and in this own show friggin’ Leomon again) with said reboot and thus having a pretty legitimate reason to allow it? Also cool! Worldbuilding about the previous five digidestined? Neat! And lets be real, you all cried at the cast version of Butter-Fly. You know you did. But the thing is they didn’t DO anything with most of this, or did it in a sloppy way. Example; the virus was basically a means to an end for waking up Yggdrasil (I’m not calling him King Drasil, that’s stupid), right? Why? When the Adventure-verse, often to it’s own detriment, is actively tied to the Milleniumon mythos, you could just pull in that eldritch horror and finally have Ryo make sense everywhere not japan. Or heck, the Dark Ocean! Remember the Dark Ocean? Where literally cthulu is and also Daemon now? Apparently neither do the script writers since that would’ve been a golden opportunity. Of course, this would be asking for continuity, which Tri has issues with within its own narrative. Remember when I said the reboot should’ve undone all permadeaths? Yeah, Wizardmon still shows up as a ghost later to lead Kari out of trouble. No lines or anything, just pops up facing away from the audience and leads her out, and then vanishes, despite the fact that according to the rules they made up for the reboot, he should be a cute little Mokumon in Primary Village at the moment who remembers nothing. Also it kind of low-key has the vibe that growing up is terrible and results in having to make awful decisions? Which I’m not sure is what they meant to do, but it does pretty much have that end result. And that sucks! Even Tamers didn’t do that! Growing up is HARD, sure, but there are GOOD things about it too, and being Adventure one would think that would be the main focus! Nope. I just. This should have been good and when it was announced I was super excited and now I’m pretty much exasperated by its mere existence. And now we’re getting a sequel after ANOTHER timeskip.

Bandai if this is how you give us a nostalgia feels trip, do us a favor and let Adventure die. You’re just making the sugary memories of childhood have a bitter aftertaste. Or, if you must, just do a proper reboot. Tie up things that actually WERE wrong with the original series and do some clean ups but otherwise leave it untouched. We all know you’re trying to capture the magic twice, guys, you’re not even trying to hide it now. TL;DR, The only parts I like about Tri are Butter-Fly (cast version) and the fact Tai and Matt are gayer than ever

#Digimon Adventure #Digimon 02 #Digimon tri #I'm about to get REAL salty so like #If you like Tri don't look you're still valid #I just do not and want to express why since I've been mulling it over since that ask

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tumblunni · 8 years ago

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How do I write an autistic villain without demonizing autism by accident? ;-;

I’m not really sure why you’re messaging this to me. I’m really sorry but I’m not an expert on like.. political stuff about autism stereotyping, just because I’m autistic. And it depends on which country you live in, I know that america has a far more visible sort of cultural presence for stereotypes, due to the whole Autism $peaks controversies. I dont live in america and I’m not super smart or anything, so yeah this is a disclaimer that this is just my opinion and you should probably research answers given by other people too. And maybe ask people about the specific circumstances of what you’re writing, like the context of the setting of the story and what the villain is like, etc. I’d be happy to chat to you about that if you need help! (but again, im no expert, lol)

ANYWAY!

My opinion on the subject is that having an autistic villain is perfectly fine, as long as you’re not villainizing autism. Like...* Don’t make the autism the reason theyre a villain.* Don’t make people scared of them because of the autism, rather than because they’re a villain.* Don’t treat their autistic traits as scary or inherantly villainous.* Don’t make anyone insult them for their autism and act like its justified because they’re evil.

And similarly its bad form to do any of that stuff in regard to any sort of minority really. An example that always bugged me is how Excellus from Fire Emblem Awakening is scary and evil because he’s a murderous monster, yet everyone in the game constantly insults him for the fact he acts ambiguously gay/transgender/effeminate. Like, there’s way too many jokes about people finding him ‘disgusting’ because of some random thing he can’t change, like a sexuality, race or mental illness which plenty of non-evil people have too! It also lessens his impact as a villain because the characters barely even address the actual villainous things he does, and he doesnt seem to have any motive at all. They just ride on the whole ‘the audience will find him gross’ thing as a crutch and forgot to bother writing a good villain.

Oh, and your concerns are indeed valid, yo! Sometimes it is important to think about the context you created a character in, even if you didnt intentionally create any negative messages within your writing.It’s just that the case where a character will be seen as villainizing [minority trait] for being a villain... that’s kind of only in a very specific circumstance? its just that this specific circumstance is very very common in mass media nowadays.It’s ‘The Smurfette Principle’.If you only have one character of a minority in your cast, its easy for an uninformed audience to pick up messages that you’re saying ALL members of that minority are the same as them.If you only have one autistic character and he’s the villain, then you might accidentally be villainizing him. In a world where autistic characters being villainized for their autism is already very common, people could just assume you made them autistic for the same reason all those other writers did- because they think it’s ‘scary’. It feeds the stereotype even if you didn’t conciously intend it that way.

So a very very easy way to fix this problem is just to add multiple characters of a minority into your story, filling various roles from villain to hero to helpful npc. or anything you can think of!

Another good quick fix is to have your villain be autistic, but portray their autistic traits as sympathetic/relateable/a humanizing aspect of them. Not just portraying it as something neutral that doesnt make them scary, but going out of your way to add some scenes showing how they’re just like anybody else. Or even making it one of their redeeming traits!It doesn’t have to outright be something like ‘yo being autistic makes me inherantly good and childlike’, which is a stereotype all to itself, lol. But you could show them experiencing predjudice from another character, in a way that makes the audience sympathise. Honestly having a character attack them for being autistic instead of being a villain would be a good way to do this, as long as that character is actually shown as being wrong for what they’re doing. Or simply showing the villain having common autistic traits, facing common problems, doing common everyday things... that can be enough to portray autism positively. Have them shown doing this stuff outside of the situation of them being villainous. It makes them feel more human and less of an abstract symbol of evil. And because these small glimpses of normality are lightening the mood, they become seen as a positive aspect!

KIND OF AN OFFTOPIC TANGEANT SORRYJust my personal experience as an autistic kid experiencing this story... I personally headcanoned Cyrus from pokemon as autistic. Not because he’s ‘scary and emotionless’, but because his backstory was relateable to me as an autistic person. It’s said that his parents were emotionally abusive, and that he had nobody to turn to because everyone thought he was ‘a creepy kid’. And he was able to find solace by obsessing over repairing machines in his bedroom, and apparantly has trouble understanding people because they can’t be fixed as easily. Stuff like maths and science are kind of a stereotypical Special Interest for autistic children to be given in fiction, I guess because it makes you seem more intelligent when you obsess about that instead of video games, norse mythology, or collecting tiny novelty spoons from around the world XD (Yeah i was a weird kid.)So yeah sorry I went a little offtopic there, but the point is that it might have been by accident instead of intention but that villain has a lot of traits that read as autistic. And when i first played Diamond and Pearl I actually disliked him a lot because of that, I felt like they were villainizing someone who seemed relateable and potentially redeemable. I mean, he seemed pretty depressed too! Give that man some therapy! But when I played Platinum and got to learn his backstory I started to feel like the writers actually did want us to feel sympathetic to him, because of how all those ‘scary’ traits were presented so sympathetically. Like.. the backstory isn’t that he became evil because he was an autistic kid who did creepy things like obsess about machinery and suck at social contact. No, he became a villain because he was abused by his parents, him being ‘weird’ is just intended to make it clear here that he didnt deserve it. It makes him pitiable, it makes him relateable, it makes you feel so much more frustrated that nobody listened to him and saved him from that hell, and nobody even seems to remember him fondly, just because he was ‘weird’. And hell, even his ‘emotion is evil’ philosophy seems very relateable to me as an autistic child. It seems like he learned to seclude himself to avoid angering his parents. That’s the impression I got from his final scene in Platinum, where he finally acts angry at you for beating him, then gets angry at himself for expressing emotion and forces himself to go back to how he usually talks. I get a bit pissed off whenever I see fans of the series claim he actually IS emotionless, lol! This scene made it clear to me that this is just a guy who WISHES he was emotionless, somehow seeing it as the only way to be free of pain. Someone who struggles to deal with his own emotions, or feels like he’s disgusting when he expresses them. And this is VERY relateable specifically to an autistic kid who suffered from an abusive parent! “Quiet Hands” is a kind of common concept that autistic kids might experience, that’s the name for a popular ‘parenting technique’ that really fucks people up. Focusing on making your kid never ‘act autistic’, rather than actually helping them understand things. ‘Quiet Hands’ is specifically about slapping or smacking your kid whenever they show stimming behaviour. (Hand flapping being a common way this symptom can manifest.) We’re taught never to be too loud, and to always always have to restrain ourselves to avoid embarassing our parents. We have to try and learn how to act like ‘normal people’ and become scared of harmless parts of our own brain just because theyre ‘embarassing’, leading to even worse emotional problems as an adult. i mean seriously how is it logical to tell a kid who has troubles with social interaction that they shouldnt even practise it?? Plus its a huge mess to teach these kids to do way more emotional labour than neurotypical kids are expected to do, and then treat them like they’re below average intelligence for not being able to do twice as much as everyone else...

ANYWAY! That’s a thinG! Sorry I went rambling off there about how a particular fictional character touched my heart, lol!I just kinda wish he could be canonically autistic, or if I had similar canonically autistic characters to relate to, instead. So i think having more autistic villains can’t be bad, we’re so badly in need of more autistic characters in general! And villains have a unique perspective of being able to hit our emotions the hardest. I think its easier to cry over someone who has a sad backstory of how they became evil, compared to anything else!So yeah what I was trying to say before I went offtopic is that if the backstory is ‘became evil because autism’, then people will complain. But if the backstory is ‘became evil because someone mistreated them because autism’ then that’s a good way to make people sympathise with autism. Aaaaand I’m bad at explaining this, because autism XD Well, i mean, my personal symptoms and lack of diagnosis til I was an adult means that I’m still working on learning how to communicate correctly, I don’t mean every autistic person writes terrible tl;dr advice posts that degrade into pokemon XDOh man i feel embarassed now, you asked me such a polite question and I didnt know how to answer it very well...I just hope maybe I inspired you to go out and do more research, rather than putting you off with my nonsense!

#im sorry this is incoherant and bad #i didnt know what specifically was making you worry so #i tried to explain all the common problems and solutions i've seen from different villains #if this didnt help would you mind sending me another ask with what i got wrong?#or more info on your villain so i can figure it out a bit more #i hope your storywriting is going well and you have a great day!#A Nonny Mouse #ask

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comicteaparty · 6 years ago

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October 11th, 2018 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party chat that occurred on October 11th, 2018, from 5PM - 7PM PDT. The chat focused on Four Corners by Boniae.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- THURSDAY BOOK CLUB START!

Good evening, everyone~! This week’s Thursday Book Club is officially beginning! Today we are discussing Four Corners by Boniae~! (http://fourcorners.smackjeeves.com/)

Remember that Thursday discussions are completely freeform! However, every 30 minutes I will drop in OPTIONAL discussion questions in case you’d like a bit of a prompt. If you miss out on one of these prompts, you can find them pinned for the chat’s duration. Additionally, remember that while constructive criticism is allowed, our focus is fun and respectfully appreciating the comic. All that said, let’s begin!

QUESTION 1. What is your favorite scene in the comic so far and why?

RebelVampire

one of my favorite scenes is actually when hideki and kazuhiro have their little confessions. i really loved the silence, pacing, and paneling in that moment. the time it took to depict it and the fact that the images were allowed to speak for themselves made it a really great moment with fantastic atmosphere.

another scene that i quite enjoyed was when we first see ranmaru. i felt like itd been quite a while since there was a good fight, so it was good to see. but i also like the story effects the scene had. since this was really the moment hideki stopped toeing the line and was ready to admit he was in it for something more. and i think this sort of fighting parallel worked well with having such a pivotal character development

less of a scene, but in general i liked that whole chapter where hideki and kazuhiro spend time together. it was nice to see them bond over not work and learn a ton more about hideki. i think as a whole it was a needed chapter because it helped bring the characters closer together to create a stronger dynamic for what i imagine will be many troubles ahead

mathtans

I made it! ^.^ I only got partly into Chapter 5, busy week... for everyone, apparently.

I'm guessing the bonding was mostly in Chapter 5, that seemed to be where it was heading.

Superjustinbros

Hello!

RebelVampire

yes it was chapter 5

cause i had to look just now XD

mathtans

Was Ranmaru the guy who drugged people?

(I'm bad with names, for the record. Every week.)

Superjustinbros

Can I just say that I'm in love with the art style?

mathtans

I liked seeing how the art evolved over time myself.

Superjustinbros

It's very manga-like and I like how the faces don't go overblown with details

RebelVampire

yes ranmaru was the guy who drugged me.

yeah i also like the art style in regards to the setting. its got a kind of older manga nostalgia feel to it

but the art evolution is also fun. i forgot how diff that first chapter was (cause this is my 2nd time reading the entire comic for the record)

mathtans

Okay, then yeah, I also liked the scene with Ranmaru and the two of them fighting (I'm assuming you meant that, since I think the first time we see Ranmaru he's with the fortune teller).... though part of the reason I liked it was because the guy had call waiting for another fight or something.

Superjustinbros

I actually never thought that it looks like the "vintage manga" style until you mentioned it

mathtans

I noticed a mention that the comic had been reviewed in StArt Faire.

Superjustinbros

That's cool

mathtans

Yeah, and it went from shading to colour - I think the artist said it was to deal better with shading? I might be misremembering. Interesting.

RebelVampire

yeah i meant the fighting scene. sorry. im like on 3 hours of sleep atm and havent quite woken up to full function yet.

but yeah i liked how the fight was ultimately ended by a phone call

like that takes a lot of gall, but i like how it shows off ranmaru's character of not really giving a damn about their little fight that much

mathtans

Not a problem, I understood, and the wee one kept me up last night here too.

Yeah, that's true, it went to characterization.

Then there was the little bonus comic (non-canon) where he was called away to talk about types of shirts. I gravitate towards the humourous bits.

Superjustinbros

That sounds cute, lol

mathtans

It's cool that in a comic like this which has fighting and relationship issues, that there's still fun to be had.

Superjustinbros

Indeed

I mean if it was nothing but those two it'd get boring/repetitive.

mathtans

I dunno, they have pretty good chemistry. But yeah, not totally feasible for world building.

I want to see Hideki at an all you can eat buffet.

RebelVampire

yeah. i really like that the gang focused on also is a gang who is just going around protecting ppl and stuff. i think that gives them a needed high ground for what the comic is doing.

hideki at an all you can eat buffet sounds spooky XD

Superjustinbros

Well it's almost Halloween so X3

mathtans

Yeah, that was an interesting take on gangs! Doesn't seem to net them any additional popularity in the school though (or with the ladies).

I wonder if "four corners" is from, like, if you're doing evil anywhere in the four corners of the room we'll spot you.

Superjustinbros

Well it's always good to see characters doing things outside what the audience expects them to always do

Helps flesh 'em out, if you know what I'm saying

RebelVampire

ya know ive never actually thought about what the name might stand for and now im curious

mathtans

Indeed.

Their founder really liked squares?

RebelVampire

i was just gonna make a square joke XD

Superjustinbros

Quick, what's the square root of 24

RebelVampire

QUESTION 2. Though some things have been revealed over the course of the comic, Hideki still remains quite the mystery. In what way do you think Hideki was involved with Four Corners in the past? Was he some sort of consultant, a member by association, or something else? Do you think Hideki really left gang life just to avoid violence, or do you think there is something more to it? What do you think he did that gave birth to the dark rumors surrounding him? Further, what is Hideki’s relationship with the man he keeps hallucinating on seeing? What exactly happened that seemed to cause Hideki such worry and trauma? Does it have something to do with why Hideki is so knowledgeable about gang activity? Lastly, do you think his current involvement will have negative consequences for his future, especially in regards to taking over for his father?

mathtans

A bit under 5, SJ.

Superjustinbros

Nice

mathtans

Well, Hideki's family is into big business and all, maybe he was just looking for something to analyze in that sense, like as you say a consultant or something... makes sense that he would attempt the same thing later with ... ... damn it, I forget name of protagonist. x.x

RebelVampire

kazuhiro

mathtans

Starts with Y.

Superjustinbros

Thanks Rebel

mathtans

Oh, right.

That's not even a Y. (Is there a character page? I always need one to keep everybody straight, it's the visuals I remember more than the names.)

RebelVampire

http://fourcorners.smackjeeves.com/characters/

mathtans

Sweeeeeet. I didn't remember seeing a link.

Superjustinbros

Nice hairstyles on these characters

mathtans

Anyway, back to what I was saying, maybe Hideki was just looking to apply his skills, and was turned off by the violence; maybe I just don't look that deep.

Superjustinbros

Keiichi especially

But I digress(edited)

RebelVampire

maybe although idk. itd be weird if hideki was involved cause of the business. but then again maybe his father has secret gang connections we dont know about? tbh tho i think he was just assumed to be part of the gang cause he followed keiichi around. that and was into his own sort of trouble.

keiichi does have great hair

Superjustinbros

http://i.imgur.com/qvXivUg.png Dare I say he looks like a total daddy

RebelVampire

so i assume the man hideki was seeing is arakawa (fortune teller guy), though i didnt want to be presumptious in the question. so im wondering how the heck do they know each other. cause im worried hideki tried to join the yakuza or something but then chickened out. and thus sought refuge with the four corners when the yakuza were mad

mathtans

Oh, that'd be interesting, Dad with secret connections. Or maybe the mastermind behind everything is a half brother Hideki doesn't know about. And he keeps getting pulled in by those forces.

Arakawa is half brother. Calling it now.

Superjustinbros

That would be an interestign twist

RebelVampire

i did consider that. or if the mystery man and arakawa are two diff ppl, the mystery man is hideki's secret brother.

mathtans

Hideki maybe got in over his head and figured he might need the gang, perhaps? But then realized he could just run away and that worked better, so gave it up.

I'm impressed, I just came up with random crazy plot off the top of my head.

RebelVampire

that could be maybe. although idk where hideki's quitting resides with keiichi's death

mathtans

Or maybe part of Hideki was thinking he was gay, and gangs are largely guys, and so he figured he'd try it out as a way to meet more guys, but then was turned off by the actual fighting and stuff. Because he hadn't met best fighter Kazuhiro yet.

RebelVampire

it could be keiichi died before hideki quit

and hideki was like peace out

mathtans

Hmm. Maybe but I didn't get the vibe from the timelines.

RebelVampire

i didnt get it either but hard to say for sure.

i do think hideki had a run in with the yakuza in some way. cause itd make sense then why hed know how to watch gangs or something. and itd explain why hideki's cousin was super extra worried at the path hideki was starting down again

or maybe...keiichi was the one in the yakuza all along O_O and hideki found out and was like "how dare"

mathtans

Oooh, there's a twist.

Superjustinbros

That'd be... kinda scary

mathtans

I've been continuing my reading in the background and just got to this page: http://fourcorners.smackjeeves.com/comics/2456598/ch5p18/. Maybe Hideki is rebelling a bit about the fact that his future is laid out for him? Could explain some of the worry about him, as well as his investigative skills.

"I don't want to be a businessman. I want to be a private detective."

RebelVampire

yeah on a more mundane but equally believable level, it couldve just been youthful rebellion. albeit id more believe that keiichi helped hideki with some bullies or something and hideki was like "wow if i learn to fight i can control more own life." and he just happened to be super good at it

i wonder if well get to see hideki's dad ever cause that could be an illuminating conversation

Superjustinbros

I wonder which of those two occupations would be more troublesome to work in

RebelVampire

which two occupations?

mathtans

Could be. (I think we saw his dad in a flashback panel or something, but he doesn't seem to be around. Maybe Hideki was also hoping to get Dad's attention?)

Superjustinbros

The ones Match mentioned

mathtans

Businessman or private detective, I wager.

Hideki just needs to make friends with a gourmet chef. Oh wait, he has Kazuhiro there.

RebelVampire

i dont think hideki's relationship with his dad is bad. but maybe his dad has all the answers. is like "hideki i know you miss your secret brother"

and businessman is probably harder

given the setting

mathtans

Oh whoa, comic has multiple languages. (I guess when we see English they're actually speaking Japanese, and so this is... chinese?)

Yeah, his family relations don't seem bad, just distant.

Superjustinbros

I heard Japanese

mathtans

I'm still reading Chapter 5, they just met Hideki's cousin.

Oh, Taiwanese. Helps to keep reading.

RebelVampire

yeah youre gonna see some info about hideki there

which shows his dad is actually not that bad a dude just busy and socially awkward

mathtans

Maybe Hideki's mixed heritage is also how he ended up so aloof.

Superjustinbros

Perhaps

RebelVampire

yeah. hideki has a lot of demons there i think. or had cause i feel he seems probably more adjusted than he used to be? not that hes fully healed but he seems less troubled than in that one flashback

mathtans

Seeing the banter reminds me of another scene I liked, after Hideki had turned down the girl or whatever, and Kazuhiro is hiding and then he goes... wait, why am I hiding?

RebelVampire

yes i enjoyed that moment too. especially cause i was already laughing wondering why he was hiding.

in terms of comedy i like hideki with his "friends"

and his magical excuses to leave

QUESTION 3. Besides Hideki and Kazuhiro, we also see several scenes with the villainous Arakawa who seems to be immensely involved with what’s happening to the gangs. What do you think Arakawa’s aim is? Is it a solo goal, or does it have something to do with the yakuza? For what reason do you think Arakawa hides under an assumed identity? Is it related to his goals, or is there a different reason for it? Do you think Arakawa is still even part of the yakuza in full? For what reason do you think Arakawa tolerates Ranmaru, and how might Arakawa’s plans change to deal with him? Finally, Arakawa mentions fortune-telling and how knowing what’s going to happen beforehand is a viable strategy. What do you think this might mean for what’s going on in the story, and do you think Hideki and Kazuhiro will be able to handle it?

Superjustinbros

Money, dear boy

RebelVampire

i mean its possible. although if arakawa wanted money i dont think hed be worked a service industry manager cover story.

mathtans

Right. Also interesting how at the festival when he left his friends and encountered Kazuhiro that he played it off as the guy's just another friend from a year down.

The Arakawa fortune telling thing is an interesting angle. I wonder if he can do readings on people without their knowledge. I also wonder if he just tries to make things come true that he sees, like a self-fulfiling prophecy.

Superjustinbros

That would be interesting

mathtans

As far as tolerating Ranmaru goes, sometimes it's fun to have someone around to tease? ^.^

Superjustinbros

yus

RebelVampire

oh thats a good line of thought. id never consider that arakawa meant he didnt actually tell the future. he meant that he just makes the future happen to suit his vision

maybe hideki was arakawa's apprentice and arakawa was trying to teach hideki all about fortune reading but hideki was like "fortune telling isnt profitable" and bailed

im gonna go the simple route with theories and say arakawa's goal is simply to eliminate competition. cause he wants to push the drugs but cant do so easily when gangs are around protecting territories. so hes just making it easy for himself

mathtans

Hideki preferred using a crystal ball, but only amateurs use crystal balls, so they had a falling out.

That makes some sense, except why knock the gangs out rather than simply cutting a deal with them or something?

Pride? Desire for a monopoly?

RebelVampire

desire for a monopoly. and like really why cut them in if theyre so simple to move out of the way. arakawa seems very much a play the long con game sort of guy. so if he has to put more in the overhead to get tons more profit later, hed probably do it

mathtans

(Oh, hey, a trans character, that's neat.)

I suppose, just seems like that would call more attention to you, putting down all the gangs, which is something Arakawa wants to avoid. Maybe that's also why he has Ranmaru, to act as a lightning rod?

Superjustinbros

(Good to have them trans characters, always)

mathtans

(Wow, Hideki's pretty sharp, picking up on things.)

Superjustinbros

So sharp he can easily pierce through steel

RebelVampire

but is anyone gonna care about gangs besides gangs? cause nobody of the general public seems irritated that the gangs are being taken out XD

but yeah i do think this is why ranmaru is around

Superjustinbros

RebelVampire

he can deal with the gangs and is crazy enough to follow arakawa

mathtans

I suppose there's that. I wonder why the Four Corners is being targeted now? Is it just they were next in the region, or if there's some method behind it? Like, maybe Arakawa's behind Keiichi too.

RebelVampire

are they being specific target tho? cause i took the 'they're next' thing as more metaphorical. in the sense that theyre on the chopping block in general and could be next or they could be taken out at any time

mathtans

Not sure, just wondering if there's more to it somehow.

RebelVampire

there could be

QUESTION 4. Compared to the present, Kazuhiro’s time before the Four Corners seems drastically different. Do you think their walk-out father is the only reason Kazuhiro and Keiichi had a strained relationship? Or was there something else going on between them? Why do you think Keiichi started the Four Corners, and why do you think Keiichi kept up with it in the face of his family’s disapproval? Why do you think Kazuhiro was so compelled to take over the Four Corners, especially considering the drastic change in personality and style he underwent? Do you think Kazuhiro will be able to uphold Keiichi’s ideals and save the Four Corners at the end of the day? Also, do you think he’ll repair some of his relationship with his sisters, or will his pursuits continue to cause a rift? Lastly, do you think Keiichi died of natural causes, or was his death caused by sinister means?

RebelVampire

the keiichi segue

mathtans

Well played.

RebelVampire

i dont think keiichi died of natural causes. if nothing more than the fact that nobody has yet said how he died in the comic and that is hella suspicious

Superjustinbros

yes

mathtans

Interesting point about Kazuhiro taking over Four Corners, given how they didn't get along too well, that didn't even fully register with me. Maybe he realized his brother had been trying to do good? Maybe he was even a member before Keiichi passed away? (I mean, you don't get promoted from outside, do you?)

Keiichi, suspiciously walked in front of a bus.

RebelVampire

idk id believe he got promoted from outside. if only because none of the other members ive seen strike me as leader types.

mathtans

There is that. He knows the gang members pretty well though.

RebelVampire

i do think theres some message of respect hidden behind why he took over. and he just didnt realize how much he respected his bro till it was too late

mathtans

Yeah, I can see that. Nice thought there.

(Made it through Chapter 5, OMG, the anniversary/april video at the end... that's amazing. And Arakawa has a magic 8 ball, hilarious!)

Superjustinbros

lol

I used to love those

mathtans

As to why Keiichi started it up, maybe a bunch of them wanted to clean up the four corners of the neighbourhood, and decided a gang would be the best way.

RebelVampire

maybe keiichi just thought if he tidied the neighborhood their dad would come home

although maybe keiichi felt he didnt belong to his own family. so he started the four corners to create that sense of family and fill the gap

mathtans

The sister relationship angle is also interesting, I liked that it was brought up back in chapter 2, to help put the family in perspective. Might be interesting if that one unapproving sister met Lei... um, the cousin character, not on the character page... they have some things in common.

Maybe. Lots of Dad issues on the part of both main characters, for different reasons.

boniae

(whispers) HI everyone!! btw im here just listening into the conversation and screaming on the inside dont mind me

Superjustinbros

Hello!!

I see you're the maker of this lovely little comic~

mathtans

Oh, hi creator! Hope you're screaming for good reasons.

boniae

Hi everyone!!! HAHA yes for good reasons!! Im so blown away by this conversation and just thank you all for reading it this week!!! ahhhh

mathtans

So yeah, as to whether Kazuhiro will save the Four Corners, I think obviously he'll die a tragic death saving Hideki, who goes off to become a monk. It paves the way for the sequel involving sister Kiyomi taking over the Four Corners next.

Superjustinbros

Heehee, glad you're enjoying the show.

RebelVampire

glad you could make it, @boniae ~!

Superjustinbros

Well there's only about 15 minutes left so...

I'm sure you got my comments on the art style when I popped in earlier

also lol Math

RebelVampire

haha i did kind of route for kiyomi taking over. just an endless cycle of respect, the four corners will never die. its why the mom had kids.

Superjustinbros

oh yes

mathtans

Actually, Mom had four kids... and they're the four corners gang... coincidence?

It was the Boxing club in the video parody.

boniae

@Superjustinbros YES AH thank you im so glad you like my art?! @RebelVampire LMFAOO

Superjustinbros

Aay, you're welcome! It some really good art you got going on~

boniae

@mathtans somebody's onto me...... you know too much....

Superjustinbros

lol, that's math for ya

mathtans

Or possibly too little. But maybe Keiichi had wanted a boxing club and was rejected and figured, I'll start a gang instead then.

Then someone dropped a piano on him. Tragic.

Superjustinbros

Math running a gang

I can sense all the incoming math puns

RebelVampire

couldnt get enough members to make a boxing club, but everyone was totally up for a gang

Superjustinbros

and characters with outrageous hair

mathtans

Oh, speaking of gang members, just wanted to add that Azumi's an interesting member. Not just for the female perspective, but how she seemed to know how to push Hideki's buttons.

RebelVampire

yeah i also liked that azumi had been around when keiichi was. cause i think that adds an interesting dimension to the whole kazuhiro takes over thing. since he really did kind of overtake more likely ppl to take over

mathtans

Yes, that too. You can see how the continuity goes through the two leaders, and there's still respect there.

Superjustinbros

Yuh

RebelVampire

i wanna see more of the gang in general tho. especially makoto since hes supposedly a great but unreliable fighter

Superjustinbros

mathtans

Started a bit into Chapter 6. Interesting fleshing out of the 'villain' characters. There's a lot of interesting characters overall.

Superjustinbros

I second Rebel's comment

mathtans

Could work as a flashback. "Remember the time Makoto slept in for the big fight?"

Actually, some of the flashback stuff has been interesting in it's own right. And I felt like it was well placed. Like, relevant.

RebelVampire

since makoto liked manga apparently, i hope the context of them seeing him fight was that someone told him his waifu was trash

yeah i really loved getting to actually see past hideki in the house and kazuhiro being grump master of glares

mathtans

Heh. Gotta pick your battles.

Superjustinbros

And pick them well

mathtans

Ranmaru prefers to just let things happen. He's gonna annoy the wrong person the wrong way some time... needs to adopt Hideki's "run away" strategy more often.

RebelVampire

are there any final comments anyone wants to share?

mathtans

One last thought, I wonder if the setting of 1995 is relevant? Or is that just to avoid cell phones?

Superjustinbros

Nothing much, other than that I'd like to quickly wish Boniae success on the comic, it's coming along great so far and I'm sure it'll grow to be even bigger!

mathtans

(My history is pretty bad.)

Or maybe it's to have Makoto be a fan of the anime back then.

boniae

Aww thank you so much!!! I appreciate this so much you guys!!! and LMFAO i legit dont even remember why I picked 1995, I think it was on a whim and then realized i had/have to do so much research to see if things existed and what was happening in 1995

mathtans

I guess we'll see then! Thanks!

Superjustinbros

You're welcome, @boniae!

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- THURSDAY BOOK CLUB END!

Sadly, this wraps up this week’s Thursday Book Club chat for now. Thank you so much to everyone for reading and joining us! We want to give a special thank you to Boniae, as well, for making Four Corners. If you liked the comic, make sure to support Boniae’s efforts however you’re able to~!

Read and Comment: http://fourcorners.smackjeeves.com/

Boniae’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/boniae

Boniae’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/cooljalebis

Comic Tea Party- Thursday Book Club

Next week’s Thursday Book Club will be about The Origin Story by Carolin Reich. For participants, you have the next week to read as much of the comic as you would like~! We hope to see you on Thursday, October 18th, from 5PM to 7PM PDT for the chat in #thursday_bookclub!

Comic’s Main Site: https://tapas.io/series/The-Origin-Story

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic tea party #ctp #comic chat #comic discussion #book club #bookclub #webcomic bookclub #webcomic book club #four corners #boniae

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paulisweeabootrash · 6 years ago

Text

First-ish Impression: Angelic Layer

Welcome once again to Paul is Weeaboo Trash!

Today’s topic: Angelic Layer (2001), based on three episodes.

I went to Saboten Con, an annual anime convention in Phoenix, AZ, this year, and I attended a panel on the history of the influential manga group CLAMP. Even if you’re not an obsessive or long-time otaku, or only really pay attention to anime, not manga, you may be familiar with them from works like the TV adaptations of Cardcaptor Sakura and its brand-new sequel Clear Card, or tangentially from Code Geass (which they did not write, but did design characters for), or perhaps from the work of theirs I’m by far most familiar with, Chobits. In addition to telling me some stuff I didn’t know about CLAMP’s members and catalog of works, the panel gave me a few promising things to add to my “to do” list, both for reading and for watching. One of which, it turns out, my wife owns and I’ve seen the first episode of before, but which I somehow entirely forgot about: the earlier series to which Chobits is the sequel, Angelic Layer.

Angelic Layer follows the story of Misaki Suzuhara, a middle schooler moving on her own to Tokyo to live with her aunt. As soon as she sets foot outside the train station, she is captivated by an enormous screen on a nearby building, showing footage of a fight during the championship of Angelic Layer, a sport where two players duel via remote-controlled robots called "Angels". She immediately feels the need to learn to play, rushes off to the nearest department store and, with the help of an enthusiastic random stranger (who is understandably mistaken for a kidnapper by a store employee), spends all of her money (including money set aside for local train fare from the station where she arrived to her aunt's place) on the beginner essentials for playing Angelic Layer. Including, apparently, a special purpose laptop preloaded with the necessary software.

The random stranger, by the way, is named Icchan, and he immediately takes an interest in Misaki as a player and teaches her the basics of the game. He is revealed to the audience to be a comedic relief-level eccentric who works for the company that makes Angels and runs the Angelic Layer tournaments. Misaki does not know this, which is bizarre and uncomfortable. His insistence on teaching her could be portrayed as reasonable and kind of endearing, except that she has absolutely no idea who he is or why to trust him, and does not seem to question that he keeps showing up to offer her his help, which alarms me, at least.

Anwyay, Misaki gets to work setting up her Angel, which she names Hikaru, modeling her on Athena, the winner of that first fight she watched. She even makes her own clothing for Hikaru, using what turn out to be experimental fabric samples given to her by Icchan. Who was supposed to bring them to a meeting. Oops. As of episode 3, Misaki has won a couple of pickup fights against other, much more experienced Angelic Layer players -- getting into those fights accidentally both times -- met both extremes of the spectrum of realistic gamers (from supportive veteran encouraging new players to the antisocial jerk bent on pwning noobs), and made friends at school who share her interest in the game. Icchan has even decided to sign her up (without her knowledge) for the upcoming tournament, for which she is technically eligible purely because of those pickup fights. And this is where I am now, staring down the prospect of a tournament arc.

Usually, I would dread this sort of thing, especially with the way we’ve seen Misaki start out playing so easily. I would be fearing the worst: an unreasonably talented competitor breezing their way through fights where the writers are inconsistent on or don’t bother to establish how their own narrative universe works as long as it furthers the plot goal of the main character winning... but Angelic Layer seems promising on this front. It really seems like it should be a lot harder for any player to pick up even the most basic controls of this game, but I guess that could be chalked up to very good thought-reading technology -- and there’s a pretty obviously-foreshadowed but technically spoiler reason I happen to already know for why Misaki in particular would be talented. But despite her too-easy start to the game, she also is shown winning partially through her opponents simply not anticipating her unusual choices, and more importantly, she is shown needing to actually learn new skills, which together make this angle not bother me as much as it otherwise could. So maybe the tournament will turn out more reasonably than such arcs have a reputation for.

One thing that tangentially occurs to me about the setting: I wish I could put myself into the mindset of the original audience in 2001 (or 1998, when the manga came out), to know how immediate this felt, or didn't feel, then. In 2018, it feels just around the corner. Thought-controlled computer interfaces, e-sports, personal robots... these used to be the realm of sci-fi generally, and probably more prominent in otaku circles than in Western-focused nerddom. Now they're things that get mainstream media attention, and there are even easily-available toys for small children based on customizing and programming robots. If not for the more fantastical elements of the sport as depicted (the energy ball thing in the first episode, for example), I wouldn't be that surprised if people started playing it IRL in a few years.

I’ll definitely keep watching, and I’m glad I went to that event to remind me how many CLAMP stories I need to start or resume.

-----

W/A/S: 2/2/5

Weeb: Because of what I mentioned above about the trajectory of nerd culture and technology, I think this probably used to be far far weeb-er when it came out than it is now. These days, probably the most foreign concept depicted is a minor being considered competent and responsible enough to take the train between two cities on her own.

Ass: Very little suggestive content, but still not something for small kids unless you want to answer uncomfortable questions about a couple jokes, e.g. Icchan realizing he's coming off as possibly perverted after he looks under Hikaru's clothing to examine her.

Shit: This is shaping up to be an interesting premise and enjoyable characters, but something is just... off... with the art, and I'm not whining because it's in a simpler art style than earlier CLAMP projects. I mean things like uncomfortably long still frames, eyes that look like they're in the wrong place, and inconsistency in character drawings between different scenes in the same episode, suggesting this was rushed. Finally, at my wife's insistence, I watched the dubbed rather than subtitled version for the first couple of episodes because she remembered it being pretty good, but some lines are just delivered with such awkward inflections that we questioned the competence of the direction, so, uh, add a full point of shit if you're watching that version.

-----

Stray Observations:

- Real life gamers like Kyoko, the player who challenges Misaki because she’s new and therefore presumably an easy target, are the reason I so rarely play online games. That and I’m bad at just about all of them.

- Speaking of gamers like that, do kids these days even say “pwn” anymore? I’m getting “old” by internet culture standards.

- Oh wow. I knew this was an old DVD, but I was still surprised when it had an ad for Newtype USA play before loading the menu.

#anime review #first impression review #except actually I've seen one episode before #CLAMP #Angelic Layer #weeaboo trash

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megadarkbouquettidalwavethings · 7 years ago

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Brits 2018: The real winners and losers

Stormzy and Dua Lipa both took home two trophies at the Brits, but there’s always more to the show than the awards.

On a night of joy and disappointment, X-rated confessions and spectacular performances, who were the real winners and losers at the O2 Arena?

Most dress – Dua Lipa

So much dress, in fact, that it took two or three people to move it around.

Dua’s baby pink tiered Giambattista Valli gown was an extravaganza of ruffles – but she wasn’t being precious about it.

“There’s a lot of it, so if it gets damaged I can pick up a piece from somewhere else.”

Best mum – Emma Bunton

Emma Bunton’s kids were disappointed they couldn’t come to the Brit Awards, so she threw them their own awards ceremony on Tuesday.

“We had orange juice, they did a little performance, and they won best male and best group.”

Biggest snub – Ed Sheeran

He might have sold 12.8 million albums last year, but Ed Sheeran was shut out of the Brits. His only prize was the global success award, which recognises commercial success, while best male, best album, best single and best video all went to other artists.

There’s certainly a sense that the industry isn’t on his side right now – he was similarly overlooked at the Grammys – but it’s hard to work out what he’s done wrong.

Perhaps voters felt his latest album, ÷, was too safe, or cynically commercial, to deserve a prize. Or maybe they just really, really hated Galway Girl.

Either way, it feels odd that the star couldn’t catch a break in his home country.

Sauciest confession – Cheryl

Photo: ITV

During the ceremony, pop couple Cheryl and Liam Payne were confronted by presenter Jack Whitehall, who had a question about Liam’s upcoming performance with Rita Ora.

“You’re performing later, you’re doing a song from the Fifty Shades of Grey movie,” he said. “Sounds pretty saucy, is there a safe word?”

Liam gallantly threw the question to Cheryl, saying: “She knows that.”

Without batting an eyelid, she leaned into the microphone and said two words. “Don’t stop”.

Stormzy’s performance was a show-stopper, and not just because it literally came at the end of the ceremony.

Still beaming after winning best album, the star showed the full range of his talents in a performance that encompassed the heartfelt gospel of Blinded By Your Grace and the tongue-twisting wordplay of Big For Your Boots.

But in the middle, he did something special – a ferocious freestyle verse that took aim at the government’s response to the Grenfell fire.

“Yo, Theresa May, where’s the money for Grenfell?” he rapped. “What, you thought we forgot about Grenfell?

“You’re criminals, and you got the cheek to call us savages? You should do some jail time, you should pay some damages. We should burn your house down and see if you can manage this?”

In true Stormzy style, though, the rap wove the personal into the political, and he went on to talk about his pride in seeing other black British stars succeeding, including model Jourdan Dunn and actor Daniel Kaluuya.

“When Dan Kaluuya won the Bafta, I could have cried,” he grinned.

Speaking to the BBC afterwards, the rapper said he wanted to use his platform “to say something bigger” than “yeah, it’s the Stormzy show”.

“This isn’t about me. It’s about Grenfell, it’s about all the things I said in that lyric.”

Narrowest escape from injury – Taylor Swift

Technically this happened three years ago but we only found out about it tonight, and it’s our public duty to inform you that Taylor Swift narrowly escaped a black eye at the Brit Awards.

Mike Kerr from Royal Blood revealed the incident, while grassing up his musical partner Ben Thatcher as the culprit.

“We went into her dressing room to say hello, and Ben opened a bottle of champagne,” he recalled. “The cork nearly hit her in the face and knocked her out”.

“I get a little overexcited sometimes,” said Ben, sheepishly.

Greatest hook-up – Haim and Nile Rodgers

Out on the red carpet, we introduced disco legend Nile Rodgers to Este Haim, who essentially exploded with glee.

“You are the funkiest man I’ve ever heard,” she gushed as the Chic guitarist greeted her with a hug.

“I’m literally… I wish I was wearing a diaper right now,” she said.

When they record an album together, you can thank us.

Most outrageous robbery – Harry Styles

The video for Dua Lipa’s New Rules is unquestionably brilliant. Its message of women supporting women chimes perfectly with the times; and the iconic choreography inspired hundreds of tributes and covers.

Last week, it clocked up its one billionth play on YouTube. At 22, Dua is now the youngest female artist ever to reach that milestone.

So why wasn’t it in the running for best British video? Because the Brits opens that category up to a fan vote, which meant Dua was dumped from the longlist in favour of multiple videos by former members of One Direction.

In the end, the not-very-good video for Harry Styles’s not-very-good Sign Of The Times won. A complete travesty.

Nicest surprise – Jack Whitehall

Hosting the Brits is a poisoned chalice. The audience aren’t listening, the artists aren’t interested and the script is perennially awful.

But, amazingly, Jack Whitehall pulled it out of the bag with a series of acid-tongued one-liners. Like these ones:

On Rag ‘N’ Bone Man: “The man with the voice of an angel and the beard of a wizard”. On Sam Smith: “If you like Adele songs, but find them too upbeat, you’re in for a treat as Sam Smith will be performing!” On The Voice judges: “It’s a knight of the realm, an Oscar-winner and… Olly Murs.”

Biggest metaphor failure – Kendrick Lamar

Kendrick Lamar performed Feel, a song about how stardom left him feeling isolated, while a dancer smashed an orange Lamborghini with a baseball bat.

His intention was to make a statement about the emptiness of status symbols and the trappings of fame. But, with most viewers unable to hear his lyrics, it came off as “I’m so rich I can afford to smash up this very expensive car live on TV.”

Biggest softies – Dave Grohl and Dua Lipa

Dua Lipa brought her little brother and sister up on stage when she won best breakthrough artist, because she wants them to follow their dreams.

“I told them to believe in magic, because it’s real,” she said. “And this is the closest I’ve come to it – so I wanted them to experience it first hand.”

But she wasn’t the only one thinking about family. Dave Grohl might have picked up the Foo Fighters’ fourth Brit Award for best international group, but the highlight of his night was getting Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown to record a video message for his daughter.

“My daughter is such a huge fan of Stranger Things that she draws pictures of Millie Bobby Brown and puts them up around her bedroom,” he told BBC 5 live.

“She also shaved her head to look like Millie Bobby Brown – so when she gets home from school and sees the video I just took, it’ll be the biggest thing that ever happened.”

Best dressing gown – Leigh-Anne Pinnock

We never got an adequate explanation for Leigh-Anne’s sartorial decision. Maybe she just slept in.

Whatever happened, Little Mix were available to give us an update on their fifth album, which they’re aiming to have ready for the end of the year.

“We’ve only done a few sessions so far,” said Jade Thirlwall. “And we go back to work next week, all the way through March.”

The band will “hopefully” have a new single in time for their stadium tour this summer, she added.

“That’s the aim: To have something ready by then. But we don’t want to rush things.”

Least drunk ‘drunk woman’ – Este Haim

While Jack Whitehall was interviewing Liam and Cheryl, TV viewers spotted an “absolutely plastered” woman in the background mouthing the words “Call Me”.

Only it wasn’t a random record company executive, it was bass-playing pop phenomenon Este Haim.

“Not drunk, just living my truth,” she tweeted.

Source: BBC

The post Brits 2018: The real winners and losers appeared first on Breaking News Top News & Latest News Headlines | Reuters.

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courage-a-word-of-justice · 7 years ago

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Kekkai Sensen seems to be off limits, even when I try to comprehend the relevant JavaScript after dodging region lock. Grr…I spent and hour and 30 mins just trying to figure out that code!!! Oh well (dejected tone), at least I have Classicaloid…

Reflection 12 (FINAL)

Oh please, X-On. Fighting fire with fire is the worst thing you can do. Haven’t you learnt that over the course of this show?

Gahhhh! Finally, the magical girls have arrived! Thank you, Stan Lee!

Wowee, that was some concentrated sound, so to speak.

Well, that’s just original, y‘know? Pyramid. In the desert. Whoop-de-doo.

Rule number 14138008 of crime-fighting: Always make sure you have a backup in case someone uses yorur kryptonite against you. Or in this case, a superpower-stripping technique.

I don’t think X-On’s become one with the Darkness yet. He has some flippin’ plot armour on his side, after all. Why haven’t any of these guys succumbed to the ageing process yet?

Well, I got my answer to my previous question, but how did vision!Eleanor appear, anyway?

Wait…wait. I knew he had plot armour! Argh! X-On! What the heck did you do to deserve plot armour???

Oh, the magical girls are part sentai and part actual magical girl. Notice they have kanji across their chests for their associated element.

“Why won’t you accept Darkness’s darkness?” – Okay, “Darkness’s darkness” is a bit too redundant, y’hear?

Wait…wait. Ninth Wonder only had 4 members??? Wat. Then Ian goes and undoes all their hard naming work by calling them by their real group name, dangit. You ruined a perfectly good magical girl show, Ian.

They didn’t even put in the crack on X-On’s helmet…head…thingy.

Okay, I am so confused…Guh. Thank goodness it’s over.

Netjuu no Susume 1

I like the rare stories where a girl transforms into a boy for non-hentai reasons. This is the closest anime I’ve gotten so far to that concept, so…yay, me?

“Recommendation of the Wonderful Virtual Life” and “Recovery of an MMO Junkie” mean two very different things on the same topic. What was happening in the localiser’s mind when they created this title for the English-speaking audience???

That scene where Moriko collapses on her bed…for some reason, someone was watching a show with the Moonlight Sonata in the background, so now I think MMO Junkie is sad. (Which is probably wrong.)

Oh, by the way. The –juu in Netjuu gives the word a special kind of connotation. A riajuu is what’s known as a normie, or a non-otaku, non-gamer sort of person. A netjuu must therefore be a net addict. Kiznaiver taught me that.

“I chose the NEET life.” - I know that feel, Moriko.

Oh, they even gave Moriko’s character Saiyan hair for a moment, LOL.

Okay, here’s a pun. Mori (forest) is 3x ki (tree) and hayashi (grove) is 2x ki. That’s using the kanji, though.

The guy with the glasses looks like a dude from Occultic;Nine. I have bad memories of that show because of Ryouka…er, big knockers girl.

Owee. I once joined an RPG because of some IRL friends but I forgot to ask them what group they were in, and so I was a solo quester…so I know that feel, Moriko.

This is based on a Comico manga, so the designs are simple to draw and they were originally in colour, so they just needed to be reworked for animation. See? Backing Comico in my Superstar wa Nemurenai days wasn’t such a bad idea, now, huh?

Himeralda? For a guy character? Well, that broke the gender barrier.

Christmas is a holiday for lovers in Japan, so I suspect it’s something to do with that.

Lawson -> Cowson, LOL.

Despite all the obviously still motion shots, I’m really enjoying this. Why does it have to be 10 eps??? (By the way, why didn’t I get Kekkai Sensen??? Dangit, Funi!!!)

Oh, this is so adorable! Lily even dressed up and Moriko got her chicken! It’s such a heartwarming Christmas for these guys.

These transitions, while not original, I find are really cool. Not Disney-level, but still inventive. Also, that green dot is definitely Hayashi and the pink one Lily.

LOL, Lawson was a sponsor this ep, it seems. Had I paused a little later, I would’ve missed its credit!

This is a keeper for sure. I’m just disappointed about the short ep count (due to the nature of Comico)…and Kekkai Sensen, uwu…

Mahoutsukai no Yome 1

Le hype. That’s all. I’ve been watching 1 – 2 eps per day (for these first eps of the fall season) and since the weekend is so full of good shows, I don’t know how people can watch entire seasons like this…As for my take on this show, it’s pretty and well-received after the OVA and advance screening, so hopefully this will deliver. I’m not an AMB manga fan by the way.

It’s normally a bad sign to start with an OP, but it shows off the animation, so I’m not complaining.

The English title shows how interconnected the world is these days…it’s kinda scary, actually.

Chise looks lke a bride here, or she’s on her deathbed. Both symbolic meanings are applicable.

I never thought Japanese people would be able to capture Western elegance so well.

The chibi-ish style doesn’t suit such a serious show. Are these chibi-ish sections also part of the manga?

I thought the woman with the bonnet was called Silky? Not Silver? The promo materials all say “Silky”, and the OVA did too IIRC.

I think the biggest descriptor of this show is “whimsical”.

Historically, fairies lure people into Fairyland like the stereotypical portrayal of sirens, and they’re not as benign as my portrayal of them in One Wish They Never Wanted.

The irony of a dog-face skull calling you his puppy. It really brings an odd sense of humour to this show.

Welp, that’s another safe keeper. I’ve being quite definite about my choices, as you might have noticed, since the weekend is positively overloaded with shows (as I mentioned earlier).

Code:Realise 1

It’s an otome game adaption. They don’t always go down well, but it’s worth a shot.

Isn’t it “London Bridge is falling down”?

CR seems to have forgotten to title this ep “London Steam” on their site.

Well, they’re guards. Y’think lowering their guard would’ve been a funny pun, at least if this were dubbed in English (which this will be…eventually).

Ooh, so this plain bishie is Arsene Lupin? Me likey.

Like, seriously, Where are this tiny spark-star-thingies coming from?

Impey…who? Update: Google (plus previous spoilers) tell me that Impey is Impey Barbicane, accomplice to Lupin.

LOL, I’ve watched me too many Kaito Kid heists. Me likey, once again. However, the thing I don’t get is the voiceover. Couldn’t Lupin have actually said these lines instead of putting them on voiceover???

Gahhhhhhh! This eyecatch’s bishie has such horrible eyes that they burn mine! Get me out of here!

How does Impey know Cardia’s name??? Update: You’ll get the answer later…

It’s a few generations too early for a man to go to the moon, LOL. Poor Impey.

Victor…well, I never. Anime really does cover everything. Plus, Frankenstein ain’t his monster in this one, which would make Mary Shelley proud.

Hey, Kaitou (Phantom Thief) Lupin is one thing but using your real name as your kaitou identity is taking it a bit far. Sure, there was Kaito Kuroba, but at least he was Kaito Kid as well.

Sheesh, the Horologium sounded like nuclear power before Lupin explained it was Cardia’s heart…that would’ve been tonnes scarier, had Cardia been a nuclear monster.

LOL, Lupin’s so tsundere! Hahaha…

Oh please. Don’t let the vampires steal away Cardia (LOL)!

Victor being pegged as a terrorist has something to do with Isaac, right?

Lupin’s so effin’ short. No wonder he stands in high places when he lords over the British Army, haha.

Smol corgi with cyborg leg is probably my new dog aesthetic, haha. Plus top hat. I like top hats.

Shouldn’t the corgi have died when Cardia grabbed it though, or was that because of its leg?

The rainbow transition was a bit much, but okay. I can live with it.

So smol corgi is called Sisi? What a weird name.

It’s…not bad, I could probably watch until the end. However, the colour scheme seems to be “bright” with these recent female games (see Sengoku Night Blood for another example of what I mean). Well, since I said that, it’s a keeper. (I think the random James Bond-esque scene involving shooting guns then being in front of an explosion in the ED sealed the deal though, LOL.)

Kino’s Journey 1

I’m a noob to the world of Kino, so please don’t spoil me on anything you’ve seen in the previous adaptations! All I really know is the shtick: Kino is neither a guy nor a girl. They stick around in a country for 3 days then leave. They have a talking motorbike named Hermes…that’s pretty much it.

Lerche? On Kino? Y’think someone else could’ve done it better? I feel like a washed-out, subdued feeling would suit this show best. However, these words are coming from a Kino’s Journey noob, as I just said, so disregard me if you want.

Mori no naka de…b? What’s the “b” for?

A few times when they say “country”, I imagine a sea. That makes sense, considering it’s the sea that separates a lot of us.

How does Hermes talk???

Hermes is CGI. Trust my eyes, they’ve seen a lot of CGI for their time.

The gun is called Cannon? Wuh? The other gun is called the Woodsman? Wuh wuh???

A motorrad appears to be a motorbike, but…okay. It’s a BMW make of motorbike. Like a Ford Gran Torino.

*Kino points the gun* Whoa! What a fakeout!

Kino is CGI sometimes, too, it seems.

Those cows seem to be angry at Kino for some reason…

Why does no one question the talking motorbike???

Oh, I see. That was what I suspected from the moment the rifle was shown in the store. Public order is good here because people simply turn a blind eye.

I think Kino hopping behind Hermes should’ve been 2D. It’s not fluid enough in 3D…not quite yet to convey a proper sense of action, but enough to create a sense of disquiet. (Which is what I believe the show wants, so I’ll take my words back for the moment.)

“Ow!” is an understatement, considering it (the arrow) must’ve severed a muscle or two.

Ah, loophole. I didn’t see that coming.

Whoa. What dramatic irony.

I swear they recycle parts of this footage over and over again. I’m getting dejavu.

Hahaha, that crepe ending was funny. It wasn’t an ideal way to finish such an unsettling episode, but it was a good punchline.

Well, I think this is going to be really repetitive, so I’ll put it on hold and roll the next show up.

Dynamic Chord 1

More Ume. As an Ume fan, I’m spoilt for choice this season.

Cherry blossom opening is probably a bad omen. It’s probably the most cliched opening you could go for.

Holy eye colours, Batman! “That yellow should not exist as an eye colour,” is all I’m saying.

Honestly, this is the least gripping band/idol anime I’ve tackled all season. If they’re just going to be angsty in the rain, they should’ve been one season earlier because I would’ve taken this over The Reflection or In Another World With my Smartphone, laser eye boy be damned.

Wait, is pinkhead in the car or out of it? Update: He’s in a convertible. So it’s a yes and a no.

That metronome transition was pretty bad. Really hamfisted.

That transition away from the metronome, I couldn’t even tell that was a transition!

Aw gawsh, spare me. This looks like one of those ads you see play between shows on TV channels without company sponsorship. Or an only-half-decent MV.

I think they’re trying to be Dark and Edgy (TM) in comparison to, say, TsukiPro, but that was better than this.

Extended Pans for No Reason Whatsoever (TM)! Also, Bumblebee car. I’m having fun ripping this show apart, man. Now I see the real quality of Hatewatches (with a capital H), but it’s only been 5 minutes...

Dual eye colour boy (Reon), oi. You really didn’t do anything. Don’t give yourself unnecessary credit.

Bumblebee boy has way too long eyelashes, by the by. Did I ever mention that?

At least they justified the previous shots. That one there, at about the 6 minute mark, was not justified.

Based on Dai Murase (Ume’s role in TsukiPro), I thought the Kyohso doppleganger was gonna be Ume, but he thankfully got someone more attractive (Kuro of apple polisher). I still don’t like the name apple polisher though, how the heck did that name “get popular overseas”???

The camera shakes sometimes for no reason at all.

Reon seems constantly grumpy for some reason…

C’mon…this production is visually quite junky. Admit it.

Please don’t make this another ad fakeout. Only play your cards once for a certain trick…

Pink and blue eyed boy looks like a villian, but he’s probably a “hero” in this story.

This is probably a music video, but if I wanted a music video, I’d go to YouTube. Not an anime, unless it were an anime musiv video (a proper one, not an amateur effort YouTube Poop).

Wait, they spent 5 minutes just showing us a music video? It was pretty bad, so of course I noticed it in a bad way.

What is up with black and blue guy’s hair? I thought bumblebee guy was bad enough.

Sometimes removing the volume is all you need to figure out if an anime is good, since if they cared about their visuals and plot enough, then they wouldn’t be relying on shots of dudes rocking backwards and forward so much.

I get not all band people are singers, but still…bumblebee boy, if you’re so willing, why not you take Reon’s place?

Wait, so pink-haired convertible boy is the famed Yorito??? Dorito, more like it!

If the animators for this show were any good, they’d animate the fingers when the guitarists play. I’ve seen people play the guitar before. I used to take music classes. Geez, Pierrot. Stop skimping.

Another Skimping Technique (TM) – Speedlines in Replacement of Actual Motion (sic).

Too bad Dorito’s skipping practice, eh, Reon?

C’mon, Dorito. First it’s an angsty rain scene, now it’s an angsty shower scene? You don’t even look half hot here. Or half wet, for that matter.

I know anime is meant to look flat, but these sections I’ve been calling “music videos” are…superflat, to give them a name. They look like paper overlaid on the anime background, with little to no real animation being done, and that’s why I’m giving this show such a bad rap.

All that angst…for this? It seems a little anticlimatic, is all I’m saying.

Well, I made it through one episode. It’s probably not as bad as I made it out to be, but I do hatewatch picks for my own pleasure and this just became one of them. Onto the drop pile it goes…

Houseki no Kuni 1

This is the last debut of the fall season, at least until someone hands me Kekkai Sensen. Okay, here’s the story about why I’m here: I heard good things about Steven Universe in my home country, so I went on a trip and tried some Cartoon Network there. Thing is, Steven Universe didn’t resonate with me as much as I thought it would. Therefore, to take the concept and turn it into a real anime – would that do it for me? Let’s find out.

Hmph, I had the sound on this time and I had the feeling all the gems were voiced by women. Like Steven Universe.

When they said “sunspots”, they…uh, kinda meant it.

I feel like Master Kongo’s VA is a bit too soft. Otherwise, this show is pretty good.

Whoa. Seeing Phos shattered like this and still conscious must be freaky. Makes for some good body horror, eh?

Well, this show has some excellent worldbuilding. That’s something I haven’t said in a few seasons…in this simulcast commentary, that is. Made in Abyss has good worldbuilding too. The only problem with this is…where did Phos’s gloves come from?

The eyecatch seems to be in English. Like Princess Principal last season.

The echo, I think, had a worse effect this time than when Kongo destroyed Phos.

“Don’t use that hand!” - LOL.

So Cinnabar’s poison creates amnesia and (an indirect need for) amputation, eh? What a duo of afflictions.

Well, it’s…actually pretty good. Let’s press on.

Anime-Gataris 1

I actually wanted to pass on this, but after seeing Karandi pass judgement on its second episode and seeing a Haruhi reference, I decided I would pass a judgement on it too. Well, it’s an anime about anime. What do you expect, really?

Hahaha…Oarai is known for being popularised by Girls und Panzer, so Galtan is short for Girls with Tanks.

Haritaro = Hamtaro, Dezumon = Digimon, PreFae = PreCure. Haha, it’s an anime watcher’s paradise of parody anime!

“Double riding is illegal.” - I think that’s a reference to the first episode of Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun and the tandem bike.

Fish??? Wuh???

Aw. That fakeout, I was hoping for it to be A Certain Magical Index or something.

Geez, typical School Council Pres with optional Ethereal Glow. Now available in Blonde too, it seems.

Sebastian Michaelis right there.

The teacher just did the flippin’ Ringo (from UtaPri) intro! Holy gender-barriers, Roppongi is a man??? Why I don’t react like that to Ringo, I’ll never know.

The “I should go by myself” bit is also from UtaPri, IIRC. The bit where one of the boys reveals he’s actually the star Haruka likes.

Obvious Chuunibyou with extra Fake Magic. Geesh, if it weren’t for the anime references…I really wouldn’t be covering this…

That’s my face when people talk about anime, LOL. Hero School = Boku no Hero Academia while R:Zero is Re:Zero.

Shika = deer, hence the weird deer. I don’t know what the references around the Shikabari one are, though, including the fence jump.

You picked a fight with the wrong anime lover, Anime-Gataris (I specialise in recent anime, for obvious reasons)! Tamukeda = Tanakeda (Tanaka-kun wa Itsumo Kedaruge) and Toramiko = Kumamiko. Clearly someone doesn’t remember that Kumamiko was a controversial flop, anime-wise.

Bakusou = Bakuon. Therefore, Shikabari is probably…Kiznaiver? No, it’s Kabaneri. That’s the best match, considering we’re talking about spring 2016. Time Travel Shonen = Time Travel Shoujo. Still don’t get the fence jump though.

Kyou Kara Sessha Wa!! = Kyou Kara Ore Wa!!, where “sessha” is an pronoun for…I think it’s older males. Angel Story = Angel Legend (Angel Densetsu).

The OVA references went over my head again…

Gachiemon = Doraemon, naturally. Nobue = Nobita and Karashi = Takeshi (Gouda). Well, while looking for the Gachiemon movie, I found Reddit spoiling it all for me. Refer to it if you don’t want me doing it for you, because I’m going to...ignore it! Haha, you thought I was going to use it as a crutch now, didn’t you? I like this challenge.

The dog one is A Dog of Flanders, Everstrike is Evangelion. I thought the Cinnamon Roll one would be the not-often-mentioned Powerpuff Girls anime but Reddit says it’s Dragon Ball??? Autumn Wars = Summer Wars.

Light music club = K-On, classical literature club = Hyouka, NJ club = GJ Club.

The cover of this magazine appears to be Newtype or Animage, which I think both started around the 70s or 80s. That’s definitely Urusei Yatsura on the front, though.

The Girl who Slept Through Time = The Girl who Leapt Through Time and Replica…Paprika, perhaps? (Think I was recalling Reddit there.)

Is that…a Boueibu reference?! Or is that just a cliché…? (If it’s a cliché, I’d feel sad, man.)

I feel like the video quality seems to warp a little at infrequent moments. It’s quite disappointing for a 2017 anime to be suffering from strange visual problems like that.

There’s a KonoSuba poster…sort of.

Maria Clara doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen although it does kind of look like Hatsune Miku or Elsword.

Dang that fakeout, I thought she meant the beret.

I feel like this is best binged to get at all the references, so onto the on hold pile it goes. I think its plot will be cliché but its references are the best thing about it.

Idolmaster 1

Time to thin out the herd! This’ll be tough, since all the contenders I’ve kept have the potential to be great.

The pun here is that 315 (saikou) can mean “the highest”, or in this case, “the best”.

The eyeless producer (and Saito, by the by) was probably a bad idea.

Hey, it’s a 315 business card!

The cardboard boxes say “Bear Mark Moving Company” (Kuma no Ma-ku no Hikkoshi Kaisha).

Ooh! I like ponytail boy. I have a thing for bishies with ponytails.

“Handwriting” is probably the wrong word for a typed contract, CR subbers.

An odd juxtaposition between lawyer (or any other job) and an idol. That’s what piqued my interest about this idol anime specifically – because there is clearly going to be some dirty stuff that comes to light once characters have debuted as idols, and the more disconnect between the past and the present, the more the paps are gonna eat it up. At least, that’s my thoughts, having written Half-Paid Heroes. (I’m currently not sure if I should continue on HPH though, since I had a fight with fellow Honeyfeed writer Aura…).

Nice shirt, Teru (LOL).

When Kaoru broke the cheery atmosphere, Teru’s shirt suddenly said roiya (“lawyer” in katakana, transposed to hiragana).

Dandou literally translates to “male way”. It’s actually hilarious since it sounds really macho…in a bishie show intended to capture a female audience.

“I want us to work together…”

Does this producer have a name? I get the feeling he doesn’t. Maybe, instead of that woman producer they were hinting at at the end of Side Jupiter (was that a woman?), it was this guy.

Sakuraba’s being kind of awkward on the side with his fistpump. I like him.

“Then from now on, the three of you…”

If you know me from Boueibu, you’ll know the line Saito says should actually be “Boys be ambitious”.

The board up the back of the Dramatic Stars’ party says “Celebrate! Dramatic Stars’ Formation”…or something like that, anyway…(Happoro beer, LOL.)

Oh, it’s Hokuto, Shouta and Touma from Jupiter.

It’s this shot from last episode. Oh, okay. It’s kinda like Death Parade in that there are two backstories leading to the same ending shown in ep 1.

What’s with those 17 badges, guys???

This frog mascot looks kinda funny in a (LOL) sort of way. I think Ume’s character will be in a unit with the shota that likes this frog mascot, so…good on me.

At least “Drive a live” doesn’t sound as bad as “Burny!!” or “Crazy Baby Show”, namewise. It does, however, sound like a slogan for a drink-driving government prevention scheme.

I think Ume’s character is the guy behind the counter, although I’m a bit sketchy on that. We’ll see in a few eps.

I think I’ve probably been missing out on something by not listening to the trio with the music. Even though I threw the others out based on visuals and plot, an idol/band show is nothing without its music, so I’ll put Idolmaster on hold so that I don’t become too attached to any of the trio and maybe someday I can evaluate TsukiPro vs Idolmaster better.

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