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askfallenroyalty · 2 years ago

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Darkworld Arc Anon once more haha I'm on AFR brainrot now!! This is all so inch resting! Do you think you're going to find some way to have some type of character that has some type of Asriel symbolism in this arc somewhere, Or is it just going to be Feylow = Chara's fear of growing up? Also, I have to say, as a writer myself, it's good that you can look back & acknowledge that are arcs you might have not handled well, and you have the determination to redo/remake/handle it in a better way 😊!

anon u r so sweet omg!

Feylow still works as an Asriel replacement -even if they're not an Asriel personification. ...Maybe? NGL I was thinking "oh that fake-out regarding Asriel only matters at the start so this should be fine" but that's not true! the whole emotional crux was this

If Feylow is Chara's fear of growing up, then uh, this scene wouldn't make sense???

shiiiiiiit.

Feylow was always a convoluted character -two competing ideas. Oh Oh it's actually Chara's view of Asriel. Oh because it's Chara's perception, Feylow is a mirror/kinda is a part of Chara. That's hard as hell to explain to people, thus harder to write coherently.

makes the most sense if Feylow works as an extension of Chara's fear of growing older -that's kinda Chara's true conflict. It seems they're just angsty over Asriel being a shit friend, but in reality it's the change of being alive and (someday soonish) they'll be an adult ontop of that. Feylow is perfect for a metaphor of that, reflecting "oh this is about asriel" but its actually "oh this is about Chara's fear."

And then in hindsight of Chara being a flower and their monster form being the same as Feylow's makes it foreshadowing. it's good stuff!

but uh. The whole reason we have the dark world is that Chara needs to address their idealization and realize that Asriel's absence and behavior is hurting them, and they need to cut her out. (Only to realize later that people aren't black and white, that Asriel is still the same Asriel deep down, no matter how much they've changed. that they're both fucked up people who need help and support.)

so if Feylow is about growing up, how does Chara cutting Feylow off help??? that arc???

i mean, even just thinking about it, i don't even really like the method of it happening. doesn't really work here, not when the shape shifting thing is more about the angel/demon mentality Chara has. The "i don't feel so good" and shifting into Asriel wouldn't make sense or even work in the slightest. MAAAAYBE if for a breif moment Chara sees Feylow as an evil ruler (thus equating their "destiny" of being a royal and an angel morphed into the demon) kinda makes sense, but at that point the cat would be out of the bag and it'd be clear Feylow isn't Asriel-based but rather Chara. (since the adult designs would be so different.)

thinking on it further, it'd make more sense if this ^ end for form was a seperate being from Feylow. An older sibling... idk about names tho. Kinda limited on what you can name darkners -and hell, I don't even know what on Chara's person would create such a darkner.

I guess the plot line CAN mirror Asriel in this sense, esp with the older sibling darkner angle ^ but it'd need some tweaking. Thinking about it psychologically... Chara's fear is becoming Asriel in a sense. An adult who uses people, a capitalist, someone distant and uncaring about their cruelty. Just tainted further with the blood of those killed*

(both from Chara's initial buttercup plan + Chara and Frisk were in a failed no mercy route initially before discovering pacifist. Chara still holds guilt, despite knowing the two of them were being controlled)

≡(▔﹏▔)≡ bummer we won't have that exact scene, but hopefully this new playing ground makes for a more interesting boss battle and coherent arc.

#redraw #darkworld

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murasaki-murasame · 4 years ago

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Thoughts on Higurashi Gou Ep19

OK this episode was actually just fucking with me by having Rika at a Western-style preppy boarding school drinking tea in a parlor and having debates with people. This level of concentrated Umineko content bait is going to literally kill me at some point.

Thoughts under the cut. [Plus even more Umineko stuff, but honestly who can even blame me at this point, lmao]

I don’t think I commented on it last week, partly because I was hoping we’d get the actual visuals for it in this episode, but the new ED theme is extremely good. I think I like it a lot more than the first one, but they’re both really good. I’m kinda biased though, since the new ED feels extremely Umineko-y, but still, it’s really good.

I’m kinda surprised that we still haven’t gotten the visuals for it yet. And instead of just having the ED theme play over the final scene of the episode or something, it was another round of having the credits roll over a black screen for the duration of the ED, which makes the continued lack of visuals really noticeable. I guess it’s possible that they just haven’t completed the animation for it yet, but I’m hoping that they’re holding back on it because something about the visuals for it is a spoiler for something that’ll happen in the next episode or two. And that makes me really curious to see what it might show, since at this point there’s only a narrow list of things that could probably be ‘spoilers’ for upcoming stuff in this arc.

Realistically I doubt it’d be on the level of straight up showing Umineko characters, but I’m probably still gonna get my hopes up anyway, lol.

At the very least, with how this episode brings us to 1987, and we know that Rika dies as a teenager in 1988, we’re rapidly approaching the point where everything goes to shit, and we already know that Satoko apparently got contacted by Oyashiro-sama, so honestly it wouldn’t be that strange for some kind of witch character to show up, even if maybe they’ll be presented in a somewhat abstract and indirect way.

Anyway, this episode went a long way to show the path of trauma that leads Satoko to initiating the new loop, but I think there’s going to be more going on in the next episode or so that really pushes her over the edge. Obviously she’s already in a downwards spiral because of Rika drifting away from her, and her being socially isolated all over again, but I don’t think this alone would make her go as far as trapping Rika in an endless torture loop.

I wonder if maybe Satoko is going to start getting directly bullied by the other girls at the school, rather than just being ostracized by them. It’d suck to see it happen, but it’d be the sort of thing that’d make her situation even worse than it is now.

From what we heard here about how the school runs, I don’t think they’d directly expel Satoko for having low grades, but if she winds up slipping into the Special Class, it’d probably make her feel more and more like everything could fall apart for her at any moment, which could also make her way more volatile.

I’m pretty sure we already know that Rika ends up getting killed in 1988, and that’s how she got thrown into the new loop, so I’m curious to see how that ends up panning out. Satoko might just end up snapping and straight up killing her out of anger, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s some kind of horrible accident. With what Satoko was saying in this episode about wishing she could just have fun setting up traps around the school, I could see her setting up a situation that ends up getting Rika killed.

Either way, it feels like we’re on the brink of disaster, and I’d be surprised if it takes more than one more episode to show how everything falls apart and the loops start.

Which is also making me wonder how the arc as a whole will be paced out. In spite of being the longest arc in the show, it feels like there’s still a LOT that needs to be covered. We still need at least one more episode to conclude this big flashback sequence, then we’ll probably get some sort of flashback to show how the Gou question arcs played out in the background to solve those mysteries, and then we still have to go back to the end of Nekodamashi to follow up on that whole cliffhanger, and get into whatever the true ending of the show will be.

I still doubt that we’ll get a full second season, but I’m just not sure if five more episodes will be enough to do everything it needs to do.

At the very least, I’ve basically given up hope on Gou doing more than the bare minimum to touch upon Rena or Shion’s backstories at this point, lol.

I’m also still wondering what the ending will be like in the first place. Ideally everything would just work out fine and Rika and Satoko will talk things out and resolve everything peacefully after we return to Nekodamashi, but I’m feeling more and more like this will have a darker ending than that. Mostly because it really feels like this is barreling straight towards the ‘Bern/Lambda origin story’ route, and that just makes me feel like the ending will be really depressing and make it more clear why Bern is so messed up in Umineko.

And on that note, on top of it just being really nice teasing, it’s actually kinda neat to see Rika entering this sort of Western-style ‘high society’ life, since it goes a long way to clarify why Bern’s entire personality and aesthetic is the way it is. They never really ‘explained’ it in Umineko, aside from it just matching more with Umineko’s more Western-style setting, and in a lot of ways it feels like this ‘explanation’ was thought up way after Umineko was written anyway, but even as a retroactive explanation it’s still nice to see them show why Rika ends up that way. They haven’t shown exactly why she’s so bitter in Umineko, but at least now we know why she’s the sort of person who likes stuff like this.

In a lot of ways, everything about this whole arc and the St. Lucia’s stuff kinda feels like Ryukishi’s sort of clumsy way of directly tying together these loose threads between Higurashi and Umineko, and showing us exactly why Bern ends up the way she does. I kinda agree with the criticisms I’ve seen that Rika apparently idolizing high society upper-class life and seeing St Lucia’s of all places as Heaven on earth feels really forced, and I think that has a lot to do with what I said about how Ryukishi probably just designed Bern as a Western-style goth lolita because that fit Umineko’s setting more, and he’s only just now trying to go back and give an in-universe explanation for it via Gou. So for better or worse it kinda has this vibe of retconning parts of her character in order to brute-force this connection between the two series.

Though I can’t help but be OK with it, at least for now, since it just makes it feel like he’d only be this overt about it if he was actually setting up for something better that justified making up all this new story stuff just to contextualize Bern’s whole character in Umineko. It might just be his way of tying things together and he’s not setting up for anything, but it’d feel like a waste at this point if he’s not, considering how many people are already feeling like he’s messing with Rika’s character retroactively to make it all tie into Umineko. So it’d at least feel more justified if it’s actually setting up for something along the lines of an Umineko anime remake, even if that’s still probably just wishful thinking.

Anyway, I think this episode is gonna cause lots of discourse about how people feel about both Rika and Satoko’s choices in this episode, but my stance right now is just that they’re both understandable, while also both being in the wrong in their own ways. Ultimately this just boils down to them not communicating with each other properly. I can see what people mean by Rika’s whole attitude here feeling out of character, but I can understand why she’s genuinely enjoying her new life, and honestly she’s always had major issues with not talking to people about things and just going with the flow, so I get why she’s not doing more to reach out to Satoko, especially since doing so would mean rocking the boat with her new friends who clearly all look down on Satoko.

And on the other side of things, I think Satoko’s whole side of things makes total sense, even though she’s also in the wrong for continuing to respond to trauma by bottling it all up and rejecting any help or communication that people offer her. That at least feels like a totally natural extension of her personality, especially when you think about how the current timeline is one where Teppei never came back to the village, and so she never had to have her whole character arc where she learns how to open up about her trauma to people and seek help. Also the end of the episode makes it feel pretty likely that this is going in the direction of her re-developing HS, which would go a long way to explain why she’d go into a full on downwards spiral, mentally. I highly doubt that she actually got completely cured for good, even if Hanyuu’s absence changed how the virus works.

Which also reminds me that we still haven’t heard anything about what happened to Satoshi, despite them talking about the virus more or less going away. At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s past the point of no return, and learning about his fate might be one of the things that fully pushes Satoko over the edge.

Either way, I get why a lot of people don’t really like where this is all going, but I’m at least enjoying it for what it is [even though I’ve had to really readjust my expectations for it, lol]. But tbh at this point a big chunk of this is just me being hype about the pipe dream of a new Umineko anime, and if this ends up not leading to that, I’ll probably be a lot harsher on Gou in hindsight after it ends.

#murasaki rambles #higurashi #higurashi gou #We've only got like five episodes left and I still have like no idea how this is actually going to end lmao

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keelywolfe · 4 years ago

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FIC: A Pressing Engagement ch2 (Not baon AU)

Summary: Brotherly bonding, by way of felonies.

Tags: Spicyhoney, Fluff and Angst, Dating, Developing Relationship, Humor

Chapter 1

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Read it on AO3

Read it here!

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“Brother,” Blue sighed as he pulled his car up to curb two houses down from the Fell brother’s home. “I’ve known you for a long time.”

Stretch gave him a sideways look. “we’re brothers, i was literally there when you were born.”

Blue ignored that. “And I know we’ve discussed that shortcutting around is rude, but in this situation, I feel as though you could simply pop into Edge’s garage, look for the ring, and we can be back home in time for the new Napstaton special.”

“oh, that’d be too easy for my life,” Stretch grumbled as he pulled a dark knit ski mask over his skull, drawing it down over his face for maximum espionage. The last thing he needed was his white-ass noggin out there bobbing around like a second moon. “i can’t shortcut in. red rigged up some kinda anti-teleportation field around their house, ever since sans stashed all that nitrogen-frozen shaving cream in red’s room.” He tried to flash Blue a grin before he remembered the damn mask. “can’t blame him even if it was funny as hell. i doubt his room has been that clean before or since.”

“Yes, I remember that. Edge wasn’t as amused.”

“that’s ‘cause his sense of humor is atrophied from disuse, we’re working on it. so if shortcuts are out, we gotta be discreet. which is why you should’ve changed when i asked!" Stretch said accusingly. He glared at Blue's bright pink She-Ra t-shirt, showcasing Catra and Adora in a loving embrace. The sentiment was appreciated, the color, not so much, his bro was gonna stand out like an adorably affectionate beacon.

“My apologies for not owning any cat burglar gear, I missed out on auditioning for the remake of Ocean’s 11. Really, brother, we’re breaking into one garage, not a casino vault.” Blue sighed again and turned off the car. “I really don’t think this is a good idea.”

“none of this was a good idea, but here i am.” Should’ve known it was a mistake the second he walked into the jewelry store, could’ve wasted a lot less time if he’d probed Edge for marriage opinions before he opened his wallet. But there wasn’t time (heh) for him to work out his own version of ‘Back to the Future’, so they were gonna have to stick with heist movie.

Stretch got out of the car and skulked closer, inspecting their surroundings, Blue following reluctantly behind. The sidewalks were empty, everyone else was sensibly inside watching their preferred nighttime entertainment since it was dark except for the bright streetlamps positioned evenly down the length of the block.

Stretch paused outside the ring of light by the Fell home, summoning a small, sharpened bone. At his elbow, Blue asked worriedly, “What are you doing?”

“i’m gonna break the streetlamp so no one can see us.”

Blue grabbed his hand, hissing, “You are not! I did not sign on for destruction of property! Unscrew the bulb and we can tighten it again when we leave!”

Okay, to be fair that was a much better idea, even if it took a lot more concentration and a quick mental ‘righty tighty, lefty loosey’. With a little effort, Stretch managed to coax the oversized bulb loose and the light went abruptly dark. Perfect.

The two of them crept closer to the house and if Blue was humming the ‘mission impossible’ theme song under his breath, Stretch couldn’t exactly gripe at him. He’d had it blaring nonstop in the back of his head since they’d left the apartments. They paused by the well-trimmed shrubs that ran alongside the garage while Stretch considered the plan.

Opening the main garage door was out. Even if Stretch could clip the house alarm, there was no way one of the Fell brothers wouldn’t hear that grinding its way open. Reconnaissance was supposed to happen before the damned heist, every movie Stretch ever saw taught him that, but they were working in a time crunch and wasn’t it a shame that the only room in the Fell house that he knew with any real detail was Edge’s bedroom. Also the shower, but neither of those options were real useful right now.

He looked around, squinting through the dimness, hell, they should’ve done this before he killed the streetlight. To his relief, he could see the outline of window in the shadows, up high on garage wall. He gestured to it, whispering to Blue, “give me up boost up.”

Blue gulped visibly and reached out, the faintest glow rising in his fingers. There was a soft ting as his magic enveloped Stretch’s soul, lifting him off his feet and towards the window. Or more like sending him on an increasingly wobbly flight through the air, limbs dangling as he slowly rose. Stretch bit back a squawk as the grip on his soul twisted him nearly sideways, then hastily overcompensated in the other direction to almost send him careening into the building.

“careful!” Stretch whispered furiously, biting back a curse as he shoved away from the wall. “seriously, what have you been learning with all that training you do!”

“I’m terribly sorry, Alphys never covered breaking and entering!” Blue hissed. Sweat was visibly standing out on his skull, glimmering in the moonlight. Another minute of unstable and slightly painful antigravity later and Stretch was hovering outside the window.

His black hoodie was a better choice for more than the color. Its pockets zipped securely shut, holding his tiny collection of burglary tools safe and sound. If Stretch’d been wearing this one earlier, none of this would be happening and wasn’t hindsight a nosy bitch. He dug out his tools, flicking on a penlight to inspect what the paranoid goblin had going for home security. There was an alarm, to be expected, but it looked like a simple wire job. All Stretch needed was five minutes and a pair of wire snips and he’d be inside.

“Oh!” his brother’s voice suddenly carried through the quiet, too loud and verging on a panicked cheer, “Good evening, Mrs. Gerson!”

Stretch’s head whipped around to see an elderly turtle Monster gradually walking up to Blue, cane in hand and waving with dreamy slowness. He couldn’t hear what she said to Blue, but his brother’s voice came loud and clear, “Yes, working on my stretching exercises! I do them for a few minutes every day. Trying to hurry up with it today, it’s later than I thought!”

Not exactly what he’d call discreet, yeah, but Stretch sure as hell got the message.

Frantically, Stretch got to work on the wires, clipping and twisting them into a messy sort of bypass. There was no time to be tidy, not while he was dangling here like a bargain basement Spider-man as Blue tried to keep Mrs. Doubtfire distracted over there. A muffled grunt escaped as Stretch suddenly listed to one side, hanging horizontally in the air. Another twist sent him face-first into the wall and Stretch tried to brace himself against the siding, biting off a yelp as he was dragged noisily upward.

“Whoops,” Blue called in a loud, nervous chuckle, hopefully covering the rattle of bones whacking into the side of a damn wall, “I think I still need to hold that stretch for another couple of minutes.” From this angle, Stretch had no idea what Mrs. Gerson was making of the washboard sound of him lurching up and down the siding like mysterious jug band traveling through the night, “Goodness, not sure how much longer I manage!”

Whatever calisthenics Blue was doing finally bent him in a direction that was close enough to the window for him to reach. Stretch grabbed on, hauling himself upright and holding on frantically with one hand as he clipped the last wire. He shoved up the windowpane, wincing as it screeched ominously the way windows only did in the middle of the damn night when someone was trying to sneak through it. He didn’t wait for Blue to try breaking out in song to cover it up, diving through the narrow panel and nearly tumbled straight to the concrete floor as his brother’s magic released, barely managing to catch himself and drop clumsily to his feet.

Okay, that went well.

Damn good thing he was breaking into Edge’s garage; the entire thing was pin-neat, no suspicious stack of paint cans to knock over or a pile of trash bags to fall into. Only tools on the wall, a clean workbench, and the pristine shape of his car precisely in its place, gleaming metallic cherry-red beneath the narrow beam of the penlight.

Now all Stretch had to do was get into it. A slim jim tool was out, for several reasons. One, despite watching several youtube videos on his way over, Stretch was not confident he could do it, two, it might damage Edge’s car and that was right out.

There was also the small matter that Stretch didn’t have a slim jim, so that left trying to hack into Edge’s Onstar account to wirelessly unlock it.

That he could probably manage and he spent a long, sweaty ten minutes on his phone, wrangling through firewalls and password detectors, searching and fruitlessly guessing, getting more frantic by the second as he silently cursed paranoid fucking Fells and it was only when despair was setting in that it occurred to him to try the door.

It opened easily under his tentative touch and the amount and variety of swearing that went through his mind right then would have sent Blue sprinting to the nearest grocery store for their entire stock of soap.

Okay, no more time for distractions, the finish line was in sight. Stretch crawled inside, penlight flashing as he searched frantically through the interior.

Not that there was much to see, Edge kept his car painfully clean. Even the mats were glossy black, not a speck of dust on the control panel, no stray fries or pennies caught in-between the seats. His panic was hitting all new highs when the light caught on dark velvet wedged in between the passenger seat and the door.

It must’ve fallen when he got out and Stretch picked it up, his knees watery-weak with relief as he opened it to look at the rings which, stupid, what was he afraid he got the wrong velvet box?

Time to get out of here, rescue Blue from Granny Mcgee and get the fuck out for the celebratory fist bump, and he barely had time to even think it when the overhead light came on at the same moment a much harsher blue magic than his brother’s took hold of his soul and slammed him painfully into the garage door. It knocked the breath out of him and Stretch hung there, wheezing, the box clutched tightly in his fingers as the last voice he wanted to hear echoed coldly through the garage.

“Stop struggling.”

Fearfully, Stretch lifted his head to see Edge strolling in through the doorway and it was honestly impressive how imposing he could be in a pair of silk pajamas and slippers.

“I’m afraid you’ve chosen the wrong car to steal, thief, I’m rather fond of it, I—” Edge stopped, his eye sockets narrowing and Stretch cringed as he reached out and roughly tore the ski mask off. His sockets widened in disbelief. “Stretch?”

“um. hey.” Stretch waved feebly with his empty hand.

“What the hell are you doing,” Edge sputtered out, cold anger melting into clear upset, “I could have hurt you!”

Yeah and sweat was running down his tailbone just thinking about it. Good thing it was Edge and not Red who found him, the gremlin might’ve dusted first and felt a micron of guilt later.

Stretch waggled his feet in the empty air. “um. gonna let me down?”

Edge’s gaze narrowed. “I’ll consider it. What are you doing here and if I hear the words shaving cream, I’ll—"

“no! no, nothing like that,” Stretch blurted in automatic denial and regretted it immediately. Shit, mistake, probably should’ve let Edge believe it was a prank of some sort, let him get mad and yell. He would’ve gotten over it eventually and they could’ve gotten back to their non-dates and twice weekly sexytimes with the occasional overnight thrown in for extra flavor. Except, Stretch didn’t like it when Edge was mad at him and not just mad, he would’ve been disappointed, even hurt, because any prank that involved his car was taking it up to a level of cruel. Edge’s car was his baby and Stretch wouldn’t do that to him, never never ever.

Didn’t matter, he’d sort of lost his chance to go with prank when he denied it was one, so there was nothing left but some version of the truth. Stretch took a deep breath and went with the basics, “i left something in your car, is all. didn’t want to bug you to get it, not after begging off on you. stupid, i know.”

“Very stupid,” Edge agreed, “considering that we have motion sensors in the garage.”

Of course he fucking did. “yeah, um, sorry.” Now that a portion of the truth was out there, time for a distraction. Hanging on the wall like a modern art installation probably wasn’t giving off the sexiest vibes, but Stretch gave it a shot, calling up what he hoped passed for an enticing smile, running his tongue lightly across his teeth, “’m feeling a lot better now, though, could head upstairs if you want, make up for a little lost time…?”

Edge raised a silencing hand and Stretch reluctantly obeyed, ah, fuck, he was too late, Edge was thinking about it, shit, and proved it by saying, slowly, “Let me see if I understand. You left something in my car and decided you needed to break into my home, bypass the alarm, pick the locks, and skulk through my garage to get it instead of simply asking me?" Edge crossed his arms over his chest and the intensity of his glare went up a notch, "No."

"no?" Stretch parroted, confused.

"No, that goes beyond the bounds of suspending my disbelief, so you're lying." Edge’s sockets narrowed and Stretch flinched from the true anger he could see there, "I do not like liars or thieves, so show me what you took."

His grip tightened around the velvet box. “but i don’t—”

“Show me,” Edge barked out.

Humiliating tears started welling, fuck, this wasn’t the time for it, all his earlier disappointment rising back up chokingly painful in his soul as Stretch whispered brokenly, "please don't make me."

Edge’s grip on his soul wavered, sending him sliding down an inch as that anger faded into bewilderment, "What…you broke into my garage, why are you—just show me!"

Miserably, Stretch held out the velvet box, let Edge snatch it away. From his continued confusion, he still didn't get it, not until he popped it open. The bands gleamed garishly in the overhead lights, carbon tungsten because the salesman assured him that it was extremely durable, with a twined color strip woven through the black metal of orange and red. Their colors joined together the way Stretch had hoped, stupidly, that their lives would.

Dawning realization as Edge looked from the rings to Stretch and back, again, and once more for good measure.

"Oh," Edge said blankly.

"yeah,” Stretch said, tiredly. “can you put me down now?"

Hastily, he did. "Stretch--" Edge began, all awkward gentleness now, the ring box still open in his hand like a mockery of Stretch’s hopeful daydreams and wasn’t that just typical of his life?

And Stretch just couldn’t. He couldn’t listen to the pity he could already see in Edge’s eye lights, he couldn’t, not right now with what felt like his entire soul choking in his throat. Red’s little shortcut blocker worked for going in, but not out and now that Edge didn’t have him pinned, Stretch was fucking gone. Stumbling out onto the sidewalk outside and almost went to his knees right where Blue was still chatting awkwardly with Mrs. Gerson.

“we need to go,” Stretch blurted. “right now!” And when Blue didn’t move fast enough, Stretch grabbed him around the waist and yanked him off his feet. Let someone else get dragged around for a change tonight, Stretch was sick of it, felt bruised inside and out as he dashed over to the car.

“Oof, bro-oth-er!” Blue yelped as he was all but bowled into the driver’s seat while Stretch scrambled over to the passenger side “What on earth is going on?!”

“go!” Stretch pleaded, “just go, i’ll explain at home.”

Blue probably would’ve put up more of a fight, sure as hell would with any other brotherly manhandling, but he caught sight of tears starting to boil down Stretch’s cheek bones and instead fumbled for his keys. “All right, we’re going.”

The engine started and he began to pull away…right into a massive cage of bones grinding up around the car from the ground, chunks of asphalt falling from the jagged tips. Directly in front of them was Edge, both hands flung out and his roused magic surrounding him in a fiery aura. His crimson eye lights blazed as he forcibly held them back in a glorious depiction of viciously controlled power even while he was still in those damn silk pajamas and slippers.

Really, it was damned impressive. He was fucking gorgeous and Stretch hated himself for noticing, for even thinking it.

“Turn off the car,” Edge said, loudly, and Blue did, sitting mutely as Edge let his magic fade. He walked over the passenger side and opened the door, leaning in as he said evenly, “I think we need to talk, don’t you?”

Stretch buried his face into his hands and wondered if he could get away with a ‘fuck, no.’

He dared to look out and from the expression on Edge’s face, fleeing was only gonna lead to a wild hunt through the city and Blue already said he didn’t want any property damage.

Might as well get it over with. Stretch nodded and impatiently wiped his face on his sleeves as he got out of the car. He couldn’t even be insulted when Edge firmly grabbed his elbow and held on, leading him towards the house despite the way Stretch’s sneakers dragged through the crumbled remains of the road.

Mrs. Gerson smiled and nodded as they walked past, waving as she croaked out, “Have a good night, boys!”

“Thank you, Mrs. Gerson,” they said in unison, Edge crisply polite and Stretch a dismal mutter.

Edge unlocked the front door, pushing Stretch through it and he didn’t look up, not at Red who was on sofa, sitting up from his slouch with a genuinely startled, “what the fuck…?” and not at Edge, who ignored his brother to guide him up the stairs to his bedroom.

He closed the door and firmly set Stretch in the desk chair while Edge sat across from him on the bed.

“All right,” Edge said. He held out the ring box, blessedly closed, hiding the contents that Stretch was pretty sure he never wanted to see again; he’d rather toss them in the trash than try to return them at this point, “Now. Start from the beginning.”

tbc

Read Chapter 3

#spicyhoney #papcest #keelywolfe #underfell #underswap #underfell papyrus #underswap papyrus

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inmyarmswrappedin · 4 years ago

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DRUCK reactions - s4 ep1

Ages ago I said I wanted to write meta about Cris’ and Matteo’s seasons, so of course, when I finally sit down to write reactions to a Skam remake, it’s about Amira instead.

A few weeks back I was composing tumblr posts in bed before falling asleep (my number 1 hobby lol) when it struck me that the writing for Amira’s season was really… indefensibly bad. So let’s stroll down through memory lane and revisit Druck s4, or how to throw away your potential because you have to put out this season before summer is over!

CLIP 1: Dark clouds over Winterberg

Obviously I’m writing these with the benefit of hindsight, but I will try and incorporate what my initial reaction to a clip was whenever I can remember.

Sometime between the Abiball episode and episode 32, I argued (on twitter) that the Abiball special was the Abiball episode instead, the first episode of Amira’s season. It would thus introduce us to the conflicts and characters that would take place during Amira’s season. I thought that in addition to the obvious Amira/Mohammed, Carlos/Kiki/Essam would be important, Kiki’s family life would be important, Stefan would be important, and David/Matteo would probably not be important as they seemed to be doing just fine in their scenes.

I didn’t think Mia/Alex would be important because I didn’t actually watch their clip lol. The Winterberg stans on my twitter orbit thought the clip was cute and nothing to worry about. That should’ve been my first clue that the (twitter) stan habit of repeating the “we never lose” mantra doesn’t make for great viewing comprehension, because watching the clip, it’s so obvious that shit is gonna go down lol.

Mia moves from one of the flat share’s bathrooms to the other because they never really recreated Mia’s room in the s3 flat share.

I still haven’t watched Mia’s episode, so I don’t know how all this stuff is going to get resolved, but it seems like Mia doesn’t think they can handle a LDR, and Alex is picking up on those vibes hard. I guess I don’t really get why Mia is so pessimistic about it because at that age I kinda thought a few months break weren’t really an obstacle. (Not sure if it would help me to watch Mia’s season, because this seems like a wholly new conflict.)

Anyway, Alex acts sweet/reassuring (I really like how soft spoken everyone is in this episode), so Mia puts it out of her mind for now. But Idk, they haven’t really spoken about the elephant in the room.

CLIP 2: Don’t call them the chastest evak ever again

Tbh this clip comes across as a direct rebuttal to all the s3 commentary about David and Matteo seeming like they’re not into each other, or like they aren’t ~passionate~ like the other evaks.

It’s like, “these gremlins are horny on main, now shut up.”

But I like that they’re fully dressed, like yes, you can show physical intimacy without undressing your teen actors (shade fully intended).

I love Lukas von Horbatschewsky’s hair and I’m very jealous of Matteo in this sequence, lmao.

Luis Sepúlveda died of coronavirus this year, in Spain. You’re welcome for that bit of 2020 misery dripping onto this cute clip.

I do think David feels guilty that he may have caused Matteo to fail his Spanish exam because of David’s own issues, which I think is very on brand for David. Obviously it wasn’t his fault.

I really like how soft spoken everyone is in this episode, 2X.

And this has been said a million times by now, but David and Matteo are the one evak version where they’re the same age (Joana is in the same year as Cris, but is a year older, so she must’ve gotten held back at some point). So it’s funny, and possibly a reference to Isak and Even, to see David talking about what it’d be like if they had that age difference. Like, maybe David would be more like Even in behavior! And, going by Matteo’s reaction, he wouldn’t be into that.

This clip really feels like the ending to Matteo and David. They’ll go on a road trip, they’ll work on David’s movie, they’ll be around, but this clip is their conclusion. They both feel secure and content in their relationship, and ready for everything that’s to come.

Like I said on the post about Cris and Joana, I like that David and Matteo don’t have further issues. And while I have tons of issues with Druck s4, which I will be talking about forever in the following posts, I never had an issue with how they deployed Matteo or David. (Okay, self. Now say that again without crying about David’s season that should have been.)

Fucking David cutting their make out short only to then say such a highkey flirty, romantic thing to Matteo though. No wonder Matteo’s like, “STOP, I’M SUPPOSED TO STUDY.”

CLIP 3: A challenger appears!

I like the fanon that David is a healthy eater (or at least in comparison to Matteo), because all we ever see David eat of his own volition (i.e. not food that was made for him) is candy.

God, I love Kiki snatching David’s fruity gummies out of his hands. It makes me laugh every time, particularly how she demands to know if the candy is vegan.

Hanna looks beautiful. ;_;

There’s a split second when Jonas is about to give Hanna that box where David looks alarmed in the background. In my mind he’s all, “Bro, no. Not a public proposal. Reel it back in, bro!”

And then, to the surprise of Jonas and all the viewers, we find out that not only are Jonas and Hanna not together, but Hanna is dating German Arthur. Again, in “fandom refuses to acknowledge storyline conflict until it’s staring right at them” news, Stefan had actually been introduced via an audio to Hanna the day before, but people were convinced it was Hanna’s dad. Whose actor they called just to record an audio. Clearly.

My belief at this point was that Stefan would be relevant to Amira’s storyline, but instead it was just a way to give Hanna her own episode. 🤡

Matteo’s transformation into Michi is complete by donning his grandpa hat.

He also makes to trip David for no real reason. Throwback to Unter Wasser.

Matteo saying Inshallalalah in a sing song voice is cute, but so annoying.

Matteo Florenzi: He’s a pain in the ass, but we love him.

CLIP 4: I guess Abdi and Axel picked up his grades at another point

I love the way Matteo grabs David’s head to pull him along. They’re so cute and I’m gonna enjoy every second.

Jonas also grabs Hanna along, because fans needed to be further confused as to what was happening with Hanna and Stefan and Jonas.

Thank you, Druck, for telling me Kiki’s and Amira’s grades, but as you can understand, that’s nowhere near enough to satisfy my curiosity and I will be needing to know everyone’s GPA because that is the kind of thing that’s important to me. What about it!!!

I think, going by how impressed Mia is, that Mia’s grade isn’t as good as Amira’s. Which I think is a neat detail, since the Nooras are kind of supposed to be the perfect girls. I like that Amira is even better than Mia at school.

I thought the concept of Carlos failing his final exam and maybe realizing school wasn’t his thing would’ve been an interesting storyline to explore, but I’m not mad that it didn’t happen. Hopefully Druck will touch on it with the next kids.

And we’re now treated to three reveals about Kiki. Kiki has a sister (now she has two), she likes the idea of moving out and living with Carlos, and her mom isn’t doing well.

The remakes trying to develop their Vildes past s4 make sense to me. By the end of Skam, Vilde clearly was the character who’d been the most robbed of a season, there were several potential storylines to do with her. Financial instability, alcoholic mom, eating disorders, plus it seemed obvious that any season taking place during the girls’ russetide should go to her. And that’s without getting into Vilde’s strong denial that she was a lesbian.

So the remakes are sitting on all these potential storylines, but as we now know, they can’t make their own Vilde season.

And from a European TV exec’s point of view, Vilde (who in every version is a white, skinny, ostensibly straight girl) is a very safe main after the gay and Muslim seasons.

Cue the LITTLE SISTER.

I get why people are fed up with the Vildes’ prominence in the remakes that are in their latter stages, but at the same time we got 8 versions of Noora’s season, most of which are a limpdicked enemies to lovers story with a misguided sexual assault storyline tacked at the end. (And I say misguided because after a strong start, it’s mostly about what William will think, how William will react, I can’t tell William about this, etc.) So in my case, I’ve had quite enough Noora to last me a lifetime, but my Vilde thirst has only begun to be quenched.

Tangent over, Kiki lies that she’s not going to the lake because she’s going to check on Carlos. Bad form, Kiki.

CLIP 5: Graduation (Friends Forever).mp3

In clown news, I predicted there’d be a clip between the Kiki stuff and the actual dance (maybe a Sam clip), as it seemed to me there wasn’t much of a connection between Kiki looking sad on that ping pong table and PARTY TIME. Lol at me.

And speaking of clowning, while I thought the Abiball episode was part of s4, I also thought that was fine because it was just doing the multi POV episode in the beginning of the season rather than at the end, right? Wrong.

As much as it would’ve been great if Sam and Abdi had storylines pertaining to racism and islamophobia (whether Abdi is or isn’t a Muslim, people would probably assume he is), I also have to admit… This conversation is hilarious.

“I want to have intercourse with you.” [glass breaks in the background]

Abdi closing his speech with a wide smile gvvhvh.

The first hundred times I watched this scene, I thought Alex seemed a bit alarmed at the conversation taking place, but really… We’re back to stone-faced Alex lol.

Don’t kill me, but I feel a little bad for Abdi in this moment. He really put himself out there and Sam just leaves without giving him an answer, yikes. I actually got tired of Abdi’s sad sackiness during the season, but right now I feel for him. L

There’s this smile Jonas sometimes directs at dudes (like Alex here) that makes me think… Bi. He also directs it at Matteo in s3.

Ugh.

There’s a parallel universe where Stefan was the villain of Amira’s season, and it would’ve been a much more interesting season than the one we got.

Because Stefan is a bit of a Darth Jonas. He works for Greenpeace, but, at least in this scene, seems a bit full of himself, and like… twisting the knife in a way that feels like it has to be intentional. And it would’ve been so interesting if Druck had tackled the white dudes who seem like they’re not going to be assholes about Muslims, but then turn around and say some shocking garbage. I’m sure we’ve all met a guy like that before.

In my mind, Stefan would’ve driven a wedge between Hanna and Amira, which would’ve been way more compelling than what we got, but on the other hand, it probably would’ve made fandom people hate Hanna, and people outside of fandom hate Amira.

Anyway, tag teaming gays! I love how David and Matteo share a look and immediately take care of both Jonas and Stefan.

I also love it when David looks murderous. It looks good on him.

But I feel like this didn’t go anywhere? Like, Matteo always hated Stefan and continued hating Stefan until the finale. In this scene, David seems to dislike Stefan just as much, but it’s not a thread they bother following. It’s too bad because I think Matteo and David together sabotaging Stefan is a lot funnier than just Matteo doing it.

I love how soft spoken Amira is when telling Essam not to show up at her graduation party. I would’ve been a lot less polite lmao.

You know, I actually thought Kiki was genuine here when she said she wasn’t a fan of competitions. Obviously that’s not the Kiki we’ve known until this point, but like, I thought it was meant to show character development on her part, But we’ll talk about THAT more in the following episodes.

Matteo fully blames their win on David being so hot, mysterious and new, and it’s hilarious because that’s also what initially drew him to David. Like, “fuck you for being so hot!”

I thought it was such a nice detail that they brought back the girl from the refugee classes in s1. We’re saying goodbye to all these school people who are going on their own post high school journeys without us!

In my mind, Abdi and Alex are talking about something completely serious, like, I don’t know, Abdi’s dad wanting him to study business and Alex advising Abdi on the best business schools in Berlin or something.

I feel like Hanna is the one girl in the squad who really doesn’t feel ready for post high school life and I HATE the writers so much for how they wrapped her character up, but we’ll save that for later.

I could watch Matteo passing the tiara (=the main) to Amira forever. The way he tips his hat and looks like even he’s a little surprised that he (a character like him!) was ever the lead on a teen show, David’s voice asking Matteo if he’s coming, Matteo leaving with David to live happily ever after, the initial notes of Just Got Paid as Amira looks at nighttime Berlin. This meme is overdone by now, but THE POETIC CINEMA.

Jonas glaring at romantic rivals at end of year dances is iconic at this point.

Amira being tagteamed by an annoying little brother AND a well-meaning, embarrasing older brother. Choose your own nightmare.

I really love the set up for the Essam/Kiki/Carlos conflict. The emotional potential is SO good because on one hand you have Kiki, who wants to have a good time for once instead of parenting her own parent, then Carlos whose self-esteem is on the floor after having failed his final exam, and Essam, whose own sense of self-worth hinges upon whether white German girls find him attractive. Like, obviously Essam is never going to come between Kiki and Carlos who have been through some shit together, but with Carlos out of commission and Essam eager to please, you can see how the situation could so easily turn into a mess.

Amira and Mohammed have the most sexual tension out of any Yousana pair, period. They literally just said hi to each other and I already feel like I’m intruding gvhvhv.

Social media

David saying of Matteo: “Er bekommt Auslauf.” (Something like, “he gets walkies” because he’s been good with revising) is the cutest shit ever.

Remember when Stefan sent Jonas a whole ass message and signed it “with sunny greetings”? Stefan was much more fun when we were supposed to find him unbearable.

Kiki creating a new Whatsapp group for every single thing is so true to life.

I’d forgotten that Amira also hated Stefan almost right away. The season that could’ve been, I tell you.

All the Abi Chaker Clan content reminds me of how I thought Jonas looked like, well, such a child, compared to Stefan, and I thought that was intentional. Like, here is Stefan with a Greenpeace job whereas Jonas doesn’t know what to do with his life, and he’s like, spray-painting abi chaker clan onto walls and posting pics to the abi chaker clan account. It’s not that I thought Jonas should’ve acted like a whole ass adult, of course he’s having fun with his high school friends, but I thought Jonas might feel inadequate in comparison to where Stefan is at this point of his life.

I can’t remember who revealed it, but Sara was supposed to end up with Toilet Sam and that was supposed to come out during the s3 finale (on that week, Sara posted a story with a guy whose face was obscured iirc). Since that was part of the clip where Hanna and Jonas also got back together, which they cut to make way for Hanna/Jonas/Stefan drama, Sara takes some other dude to the Abiball. And I think we’re supposed to think that’s the same dude she went on that date with.

#druck #these are very heavily inspired by lightsandlostbells' format btw!#in case you wanted to check her out #about druck

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bwprowl · 5 years ago

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Whoda thought a video-game show would be a hot source of toy news? I mean, it makes sense in hindsight, as gaming and collectibles attract a concentrated section of the same nerds. Mix that with the love weebs have for plastic crack, and the Tokyo Game Show seems a proper place for companies to show off their new tie-in merch. Square-Enix are the obvious ones, I guess: They’ve been making their own toys based on their own games for a long time now. And with that Final Fantasy 7 Remake gearing up it makes sense to use it as an excuse to sell people new figures of characters they’ve already bought swag of dozens of times before.

The Turks were the big focus reveal of the new FF7R trailer, and going along with that, Squeenix had new Play Arts Kai figures of Reno and Rude to show off, alongside all the other characters we already knew about. I can’t mince words, I have *never* been a fan of the PAK line- They’re too big and unwieldy, their joints are odd, and the mass-produced figures tend to have not great quality in-hand. But these are here, and if you’re a big ol’ Turks fan, they’ll be your option for action figures. Me, I’ll settle back and hope Square-Enix comes to their senses and does FF7 figures in their significantly more preferable-looking Bring Arts line. Especially if we’re getting any sort of Yuffie out of this

#final fantasy vii #ff7 #turks #reno #rude #cloud strife #aerith gainsborough #tifa lockhart #barret wallace #sephiroth #final fantasy #toys #tuesday night toys

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spacezeta · 5 years ago

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Devlog - About combat, or: let’s threaten the player

So here’s the devlog about combat that I was going to write the other week but then the camera one turned out way too long!

And if you thought the camera one was long, boy do I have a surprise for you...

So here’s a fairly long (and a little bit rant-y) write-up of my thought process about to combat or not to combat, and how to raise the stakes in a horror game in order to give more substance to the ‘horror’ part.

*Emphasis on thought process because as the game is still in development, I’m still figuring out the proper mechanics of it all

---

When we first started making this game, one of the first things that we ended up establishing was that there would be no combat. And looking back I’m not sure why - it just kind of... was. I guess it was to make things easier, but on hindsight we really should have thought that more thoroughly.

So that was the first version of the game that we developed (we had a sort of demo alpha thing done as a student project), but right away there were some glaring issues that needed to be addressed (hence the whole ‘reestructuring of the game’ that I’ve mentioned a few times before). One of the biggest issues weren’t exactly about combat, but rather how to create a tense atmosphere for the player. So follow me down the rabbit hole until I get to the bit about combat!

So. We’re making a horror game, right? And when you’re making a horror game you don’t want the player to feel all safe and happy and calm, you want them to feel tense, to be on edge, and, most importantly, you want to scare the living shit out of them. So how do we go about achieving that?

(No, not jumpscares, you cut that shit out right now)

What I think you should to (emphasis on I and think, as in, personal opinion, and you should, as in, me making this game) is basically make the player feel threatened. You make the player feel scared to enter a room because they don’t know what might be lurking inside. Have a constant threat of something looming over the player’s head everywhere they go. And while that might be an easy concept to grasp, the big issue lies in what exactly that threat is.

(No, not jumpscares! I said stop that!)

So here’s the thing about jumpscares:

They’re not a bad thing... when used in conjunction with other things. Used by itself, it’s just a very cheap way to get a reaction from the player. Sure, a monster popping out of nowhere to scream in your face is going to startle you - but that’s just it. It’s startling the player, not scaring them. If your brother hid in the dark to pop out and scream at you when you come in the room, you’re gonna be startled. And then you’re gonna be angry because that’s just not what normal person should be doing, Peter.

But anyway. A jumpscare is also only really effective the first few handful of times, because after that it loses its power and the player will probably just be going ‘Oh, boo to you too, Mr. Monster’. You need to save up on the jumpscares to only use them when a perfect opportunity arises (like when the tension is at its highest, or when the player is least expecting it and quickly build tension). There are a lot of situations where a jumpscare can come in handy, but it should never be used by itself. If you’re gonna Boo! at the player, Boo! at the player and then do something else along with it.

(Also I have a jumpscare pet peeve when jumpscares make absolutely no sense in-universe. Like, I can understand a monster screaming - monsters are, you could say, prone to shrieking and loud noises, so it makes sense. But when a horror game or movie have a thing pop out with a loud sound, a thing that by all means and laws of physics should make no sound whatsoever, it just grinds my gears so friggin much. Worse yet when the characters react to it! Boo, camera cut! Boo, title card says TUESDAY! Boo, there’s some paint on the wall! Boy what a loud wall!)

But I digress.

So, about the threatening the player bit...

How do we threaten the player to make them feel unsafe? That was the trickiest part to figure out during initial development.

One option is going for the being chased by enemies route. Think something like Outlast or Amnesia, where there’s no combat and you have to run away and hide from monsters to survive. Aaand we kind of just ruled that out. Partly because the map isn’t all that big which might have just ended up with the enemy and player running around in circles, and partly because if you don’t do it properly you might end up with something less threatening, and more troublesome. Like, say, you’re in the middle of completing a puzzle and suddenly an enemy pops out and you have to drop everything to run all the way back to shake them off to finally be able to go back and do what you were trying to do in the first place - that kind of troublesome.

A second option is having combat. Or enemies that appear and that you can deal with in one way or the other. Aaand we also ruled that out and I just don’t know what the friggity frack we were thinking. I was very dumb, essentially. I think I was influenced by this current trend in horror games to have no combat whatsoever, in order to maybe leave the player feeling helpless in the face of danger. And honestly, I should have just taken a long hard look at the horror classics that are influencing this game and realized: the!! friggin!! combat!! it’s there!!! dammit!!

So, no chasing and no combat. What the hell do we do?

Basically I did this thing of trying to make an idea work that clearly does not work but I tried and tried anyway instead of letting it go and it’s basically a really bad thing that I do, and now that I’m finally aware of doing it I’m trying really hard to stop.

Note to self: if an idea isn’t working, let it go! Try something else!

Long story short what we tried to do was this thing where being around an enemy drained your health/sanity/whatever and you needed to escape the room to be safe by pressing a series of quick time events to open the door and leave. It didn’t work.

So there’s combat now! The end!

Well, okay, not really.

So, combat at last.

When I say combat, I don’t mean the action-game-one-man-army kind of combat. I mean the combat that’s of the I-have-a-rusty-pipe-and-will-smack-the-shit-out-of-any-ugly-thing-that-comes-my-way-oh-god-what-the-hell-is-that-maybe-I-should-just-run kind. Think of the first Silent Hill games, the first Resident Evils and even Fatal Frame, where the combat essentially boils down to being a ghost paparazzo.

So, now that we’ve decided on combat, the looming threat that I mentioned before becomes fairly well defined: it’s the possibility of an enemy encounter. You can even play with that expectation, like having one or two fake out scares (just do not overdo - I’m looking at you, scenes of a random cat jumpscaring you out of nowhere), or by pulling the rug out from underneath the player by having an enemy pop out in a seemingly safe area and give them trust issues.

But for the player to dread meeting an enemy means the combat can’t be easy - but it also can’t be frustrating otherwise it just fails as a game mechanic. The player can’t breeze through enemy encounters, each one needs to feel like an actual threat that the player has to deal with (either by killing them or tactically retreating a.k.a. running away please don’t hurt me).

Kind of a side rant: Honestly, if someone asked me what the downfall of the Resident Evil games as a horror series was, I’d probably say it started with the combat. Not all of it, but I’d say a good deal of the blame was there. *Please note I haven’t played either RE7 (as someone who tends to get motion sickness, first person games are things that I avoid) or the RE2 remake (this one I will get as soon as it goes on sale because games are expensive and I got no money).

I mean, I still love RE4 with all my heart and those Regenerators will live on inside my nightmares, but I thought earlier games felt much more tense because the combat in 4 was a lot more action-y than horror-y, though it hadn’t entirely tilted over to the action side... Then 5 came and ruined it all and then 6 came and was like ‘what’s a horror game’ (and I say this as someone who had fun with 6!) and the rest is history.

But it did get me thinking about one thing: the combat mechanics. I found myself frustrated when trying to go back to older Resident Evil games and struggled to deal with the bare bones combat and the clunky tank controls (granted, the latter more than the former), so I started wondering how much of the tension in older games had to do with actual horror, and how much of it was due to the insecurity you get when dealing with awkward controls in a moment of crisis.

Playing around with combat mechanics

So, having figured out that I wanted combat, the question became ‘how to combat’. Or something along those lines. I didn’t want to make things too easy, but I also didn’t want to make the player frustrated.

Here’s the part where I repeat what I said right at the top of this post: as the game is still in development, I’m still figuring out the proper mechanics of it all. So basically I’m just gonna register here what my experiments have been so far, and, like I said in the camera devlog, there are no tank-like controls because those are just a pain to deal with.

So at first I made it so you could only attack after aiming... But then that felt clunky as hell considering this is melee. So I scrapped that idea and made it so you could walk and attack at the same time.

I did keep the aiming part though, but made it optional: you can still walk and attack, but attacking while aiming will deal higher damage.

And in the spirit of keeping the player from just mashing the attack button I’m trying out a little something: Chaining attacks to deal higher damage but also making it so that, should the player press the attack button again too fast, the animation will restart, basically cancelling the previous attack. This would be a nightmare in a fast paced action game but since it’s not, I’m hoping it’ll force the player to be a bit more careful when confronting an enemy without it becoming a frustrating mechanic so, again, it needs more playtesting!

Also enemies can also chain attack you for higher damage!

And that’s basically it! I’m sorry if after all this buildup it ended up being disappointing oops

But considering Observo is going to be a somewhat short game I don’t have the time to develop a complex battle system that’s just not gonna be used a lot in a game with puzzles as the main focus. So that’s it! Thank you so much to anyone who’s still reading this at this point, haha

#game development #devlog #indie game #gamedev #game dev #this is long #like really long #observo #updates

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benisasoftboi · 5 years ago

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Some unorganised, stream-of-consciousness thoughts about the Golden Deer/Verdant Wind route, having just finished it for the first time:

Yes this took me three months I’ve been busy

Wish I’d done this for Blue Lions but I didn’t so oh well

Did make a list back then of questions I still had (never posted it), and basically all of them have now been answered except for the Edelgard ones (I’ll find out when I do Crimson Flower I guess - yes I still haven’t done it, I’ve been very busy, check back in another three months I guess) and also what happened to Dimitri’s eye

So. Claude. I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about him because characters of his general archetype can be really annoying to me. But I really liked him from pretty early on

He married Annette and it was cute

But as I think about it, there’s something I find kind of interesting about him, and it’s how relatively uninteresting he is compared to Edelgard and Dimitri

Edelgard and Dimitri are both deeply complex, flawed people. I could definitely understand someone not liking either or both of them. Their motivations, choices, actions, are all pretty questionable and often grey - they’re good, interesting characters, but not always the most likeable ones (for the record, I like Dimitri. Reserving judgement of Edelgard until I do her route)

Claude, meanwhile? Claude’s primary motivation is to End Racism. He wants to achieve this by Being Nice To People. And somehow, this works

How do you hate that? You can’t hate that

It does, in hindsight, make his chapter in Azure Moon extremely funny, because the whole scene is just him talking about his vague goal to ‘achieve his dream’, and then he just pisses off. Like, mate, why are you being so coy? Your dream is Ending Racism. The worst thing Dimitri and I might think of that is that you’re being a bit overly idealistic

His other goal is to Solve Mysteries by being Nice and sometimes Harmlessly Sneaky. Again, not remotely unlikable

Claude is, in this sense, the closest thing this game has to a more traditional Fire Emblem protagonist, and by extension, Golden Deer is also closer to a traditional Fire Emblem story

A nice, well-meaning, if not terribly deep Lord who wants peace and prosperity in his country is joined by a ragtag group of disparate, mostly simple, but generally likable characters. He and his crew fight some battles before all out war kicks off, where he fights a neighbouring country, with another neighbouring country sometimes involving itself as the plot demands. Just when it seems like the war’s all over though, it’s revealed that there’s actually a bigger problem at hand. A dragon is involved. Victory is achieved regardless

See?

Claude is probably smarter than most FE protags though. I don’t think he’d ever eat an unpeeled orange

Also, I do want to stress that Claude being a bit simpler than the other two isn’t a bad thing - like I say, I do really like him. And it works, seeing as his story is more lore based. Also, he’s hardly a flat character - I saw someone else put it that he’s just a character who already had his development before the story even began. I think that’s a fair assessment

I would like to know how TWSILD got so oddly high tech and if Claude and the others will adopt it. Or will this actually lead to an anti-technology backlash?

Seriously, I can only compare Shambhala to walking into the Fifth Stratum of Etrian Odyssey for the first time

I would actually kind of like to see a high tech Fire Emblem game. Something kind of like Devil Survivor

Referencing allll the obscure DS games today! (and also pretending that I haven’t only ever played their remakes, shush)

For the sake of triadic structure, I’ll say that I’d also like to engage in Rune Factory-esque monster taming (that is to say, I want to be able to pet the demonic beasts and feed them home cooked meals until they become friends)

Please tell me the Death Knight is good in one of the Black Eagles routes. Please don’t actually tell me I don’t want spoilers.

It’s just in both of these two he’s been very... edgy and random, and that’s about it

He’d do well on the 2009 internet

Oh, also this was my Boyleth playthrough. I played him as 100% gay and had him marry Linhardt. Made all his interactions with Manuela very funny and even sadder than usual. It’s okay, I got her and Seteth together and they were cute

Felt really weird about it though because after accidentally getting them together in Blue Lions I’ve become a hardcore Linspar/Casphardt fan - they might even be my favourite pairing in the game. It’s definitely not because I strongly project onto them, I would never do that

Dimitri’s death was kind of badly handled imo. He shows up once, after being thought dead, then immediately dies for real off-screen. Then Dedue dramatically swears vengeance, and later shows up one more time to do ultimately very little

I let Dedue die :(

Wouldn’t have happened if he’d been my dancer husband like I made him

Annette was my dancer this time, purely because she really wanted to be in my Blue Lions run and I had felt so bad rejecting her offer. I recruited her specially for the task

I was really happy with pretty much all of the endings I got this time around - as yet unmentioned highlights include Dorothea/Petra, Ashe/Ingrid, Lorenz/Mercedes, and Flayn/Ferdinand (these all being pairings I didn’t get last time)

I probably shouldn’t have laughed when I read that Leonie becomes a bit of an alcoholic in her ending with Alois

I put Caspar and Bernadetta together because their A support is cute but what the fuck is their ending

They enter an arranged marriage and then have tonnes of children that Caspar apparently can’t tell apart from his wife, what the actual-

WAS THIS MY PUNISHMENT FOR TAKING LINHARDT AWAY FROM HIM? I SWEAR I’LL NEVER BREAK THEM UP AGAIN, I PROMISE

Last time Ingrid got together with Seteth of all people. Not really relevant, just wanted to share. Was actually kind of wholesome

I wish endings were stored in the events logs

I’ll be doing Silver Snow next. In Golden Deer, I ill-advisedly made everyone into a Wyvern Rider, the quality of that as a decision for each character being:

100% Great: Claude, Hilda, Byleth, Leonie

Actually Pretty Good: Ignatz, Raphael

Surprisingly Not Terrible: Marianne, Lysithea

Just Awful: Lorenz

For Silver Snow, I have equally silly plans. Watch this space

#fire emblem #three houses #fe3h #fe #golden deer #golden deer spoilers #verdant wind #verdant wind spoilers #fire emblem three houses

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thegirlintheredchair · 5 years ago

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Book Review: I’ll give you the Sun by Jandy Nelson

⭐⭐⭐

I don’t have words to describe this book! The second I finished this I just sat there for a while just thinking “what did I just experience” cause this book really was an experience. It’s a well-built tale of love, loss, grief and how art helped them deal with that grief.

NGL I was a little taken aback by the writing style cause I’ve never read anything even remotely close to it yet I still enjoyed it cause it opened up this new avenue for my imagination to venture down to. Here’s a #mini review

I practically had no idea what this book was about and I assumed it was a love story. It sure was a love story and then some! As it says on the book cover “love is only half the story”.

Here’s a little blurb of my own for this book. This is a story about two twins, told from both their perspectives - but at different ages Jude: present, 16 years; Noah: past, 13 years- about a set of events that alters their lives irrevocably and how they choose to live and deal and fix with the consequences of their mistakes and decision. There wasn’t much in the mystery front although a mystery is built. I kinda guessed it. It’s like each character played a pivotal role in each other’s lives without them knowing or realizing immediately (they do in hindsight).

In essence, this book is very much about art. There’s a whole lot of art. Art facts, art history, sketches, clay models, rock structures, spray paints, sewing, any and every form of art known. The art facts were a bit too much for me because I seriously didn’t care and I have like limited to zero knowledge of art! 🤷‍♀️ but it wasn’t boring, I was fully engrossed probably because of Jude. I looked forward to her POVs more than I did Noah’s. Jude felt like a close friend. I liked that she legit believed in her grandmother’s crazy bible and went about with onions and candlesticks in her coat pockets. But some of the things were really cute like:

“If a boy gives a girl an orange, her love for him will multiply”

come one it's cute! 🥰🥰

Also my favorite part of any book is when the title makes sense and this was the cutest ever. ** SPOILER ALERT** :the siblings used to play this game where they would divide up the world among them, the sun, the oceans, the mountains and stars etc. so for a portrait her brother made Jude gives him the trees, stars and ocean and eventually the sun too “oh alright she says completely surprising me, I’ll give you the sun” my heart! It’s very poetic!

The other half of the book that wasn’t a love story dealt with grief and loss and love and hurt and human emotions so beautifully. It also portrayed sibling rivalry very well. Noah and Jude being the same age had so many insecurities and jealousy sprung so easily within them. It was very authentic. The mistakes and lengths their jealousy drives them to were very human and in places much unexpected. Cause that’s what jealousy does, turns you so green you barely recognize your own skin.

This book depending on what you want to take from it was basically about change. Changes in life where you experience the dips and rises in sadness and happiness and how happiness isn’t some key to a healthy life. And how achieving something isn’t a guarantee for happiness. The book literally shouted “celebrate even the smallest victories”

“I don’t want to imagine meadows, I want to run through them.”

It also dealt with changes within thy self; how you have so many versions of yourself, one when you were 13, the one the year before, and the one that got shaped by a tragedy. All of them are you…

“Or maybe a person is just made up of a lot of people”

“Each new self, standing on the last one’s shoulders until we’re wobbly people poles…”

We are indeed wobbly people poles. this is one of my favorite quotes. the book is littered with many!

In short. It was uplifting, it was about second chances, either about giving it to other people, yourself or the world.

“Quick, make a wish.

Take a (second or third or fourth) chance.

Remake the world.”

Have you guys read it? What was your favorite bible quote? 🤪😂

#i'll give you the sun #jandy nelson #noahandjude #noah #jude #reading #Book review #3 stars #october read #art #siblings #loveyourself

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sol1056 · 6 years ago

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Hey, I know you hate the Lion Swap and all, but I liked Keith as BP, which he was in the original. And I know you probably disagree, but the rights holders doubtlessly would've wanted Keith in the BP position at some point to go with past canon. This was supposed to be a reboot, after all.

Reboot, remake, revival… I can never remember which is which without looking it up. Hold on, there’s a thread you might find really interesting. I think it was @nomadicism who weighed in on that long thread about reboots vs remakes? If someone knows the one I mean, could you drop it in the comments? (tia!)

As for the original series, I did see it as a kid, and among all the characters, hands-down, Keith was my favorite. I mean, I was okay with Lance, Allura was mostly tolerable, and kid-me wanted Nanny to die in a fire. Possibly along with Pidge. (I don’t remember why Pidge, I just remember not liking him.) But Keith? He was totally leadership material, and his dynamic with Lance was probably my favorite part of any episode: Keith’s even keel, Lance’s hotshot snark.

Needless to say, I was a bit baffled when I first sat down to watch VLD. I mean, there’s Keith v1, and then there’s this Keith… who’s not really a Lance v2, but he’s not… uh. Well, I wasn’t sure where he fit. It took a bit to set all that aside in my head and just accept that Shiro is Keith v2. Not exactly, but about as close as Lance is to Lance v1, which is to say kinda? But anyway.

As for the lion swap, I can’t say I hated it. That’s too strong. More like: the execution left a great deal to be desired, which I guess is putting it mildly. On its own, the lion swap had some great story potential. When the story begins with everyone where they ‘fit’ perfectly, you really do need to shake that up.

The problem was the story broke its internal consistency in the process. The character discussions and reactions made S1′s lore seem almost arbitrary, and there never was an explanation for the second swap (Blue to Red).

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before (hopefully tagged correctly under #lion-swap), but there’s a special delight for me when a story takes an established rule, turns it inside-out, and reveals either a loophole or a hidden rule. It’s got to mesh perfectly with what we already know, and once revealed, the audience’s reaction should be: oh damn it that makes so much sense, why didn’t we see that before, it’s so obvious in hindsight!

The (way too much later) revelation that Shiro’s spirit was in Black did work in this way. With hindsight, it made sense why Black insisted on Keith, and hesitated with the clone. [For the purposes of a shorter response, I’m setting aside the unintended consequences of making the capable WoC commander appear unqualified to fly Black.]

Having Shiro as a kind of conduit for how Keith could fly a lion that (according to the original lore) shouldn’t ‘fit’ him was great, and revealed an intriguing loophole. Unfortunately it did nothing to explain why Lance had also leap-frogged lions. It also meant that Keith staying in Black in S7 made no sense, because the original justification was gone. I mean, Shiro’s back, so… why aren’t we getting another swap?

In some ways, what makes me grumpy about VLD is that it sets up interesting premises… and never really pushes at them. So Lance and Keith don’t get along in S1. And then they… just keep not getting along. Until they do. No, no, give them something to really conflict about, with urgency, where it’s thrashed out and in the open so we can all move on already to some new dynamics. And that’s ignoring all the interactions we never really saw: Pidge and Keith working together, Lance and Shiro, Hunk and Allura, Allura and Pidge, and on and on.

The lion swap is just one more example of that strangely tentative approach. Take the rules and push ‘em further. I wanted to see Pidge in a situation where she had to fly Yellow, or Hunk land temporarily in Red. Go ahead, put Shiro in Blue (but goddamnit stop with the ‘training wheels’ lion, who came up with that insulting phrase). Put Allura in Green. Do something with the concept.

Even with VLD being branded, iirc, as a reboot (not a remake), I think it was a common expectation among those of us who’d seen the first iteration as kids that Keith would eventually (even if only temporarily) fly Black. So it wasn’t that much of a surprise. It’s pretty much an obligatory nod, whether remake or reboot, whichever is the one that’s clean slate.

By the time the lion swap did happen, after all, we’d mostly settled in with this new Keith, and while other parts of the writing bugged me, I figured hey, it should be interesting. If the goal (big if) was to have Keith grow from this lonely, awkward, somewhat temperamental kid into the even-keeled Keith of the original story… well. That’s a huge personality jump, so let’s see how the story rolls everything out.

And then what, uh, three episodes later, Keith’s suddenly with the blades? And this not-quite-Shiro is in Black, and yet Lance is still in Blue? I mean, wasn’t the entire point to, y’know, get Keith to figure out leadership skills? And what was Lance’s lesson about being in Red, anyway? The story set up the lions as being more than just big machines (as the original had)… and then did so little with it.

If the lion-match is predicated on some kind of simpatico state, then a swap is a great vehicle (err, so to speak) for demonstrating a character’s growth, or for triggering some kind of realization/development. I mean, there’s just so many possibilities, and as long as you can find a way to use them to explore and deepen the lore (respecting continuity), then it can only strengthen the story.

And the worldbuilding, but I’ll leave that for another post.

#vld #voltron #lion swap #analysis #sol thinks about stuff

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littlemisssquiggles · 6 years ago

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(1/2) So this isn't specifically RoseGarden related but I love all the ideas you come up with so I thought I'd get your opinion on this. I've had this idea in my head for a while now that, what if the CRWBY decided to remake RWBY from V1C1 in the Maya engine with all the skills and things they've learned? I personally think that would be a cool idea since they could use that idea to fix up the story and have it start at the beginning rather than in the middle of V3.

(2/2) They could tighten up the story since, V1 (at least to me) seemed like a rough draft of what they really wanted and it would be a great opportunity to fix up the writing people always complain about. They could also make so much better scenery so we could actually see what Vale looks like and Beacon wouldn't just be a 2D picture in the background! I know some people wouldn't be fond of it since Monty wouldn't be behind it but personally I think it would be cool. Anyway, what do you think?

‘Sup Velian. Hmmthat’s actually not a bad idea. I can definitely see the CRWBY committing tosomething like that as part of some kind of anniversary milestone special,y’know what I mean? As of now, RWBY had been on the web for at least five yearswith a total of 6 seasons and 79 episodes as of Volume 6’s conclusion. If theCRWBY have the resources, the budget and the production crew to pull this offthen I can see this idea being like a full remaster of theBeacon Trilogy. I’m not sure if you’re a Kingdom Hearts fanbut KH is notorious for this kind of thing. Kingdom Hearts had its first originalgame start on the PlayStation 2 but over the years spread its game storyline acrossmultiple different consoles correlating in different engines and more or lessdifferent styles to cater to each engine, as in the case of Chain of Memories.And don’t even get me started on all the Re-Done games andFinal mixes which had additional scenes from the English versionsince the Final Mix Kingdom Hearts games were only available in Japan.

However,later…years down the line, we inevitably got Kingdom Hearts 1.5 and Kingdom Hearts 2.5 (andbegrudgingly KingdomHearts 2.8) which basically takes all the games and clump themtogether onto 2 discs redone in beautiful HD graphics.

Overall Ican see the CRWBY doing a remaster of theentire Beacon Trilogy (V1-V3) in the Maya Engine if they’re feeling ballsy andagain, have the time and budget to pull such a stunt off without interferingwith their schedule for other upcoming seasons of RWBY.

Or…evenbetter, they can do what Kingdom Hearts did with Unchained X, it’s game available onmobile. In 2.8, they basically created this movie that summarized the events ofUnchained Key with all the characters being modelled in the new game engine.

For yearsI’ve wanted to see the CRWBY possibly do a RWBY feature length movie. RoosterTeeth hasalready done original movies before. I’m just waiting for them to grow biggerto the point that they can evolve again and branch out to have another studiothat’s in charge of creating feature animated films including ones for known RoosterTeethproperties like RWBY.

Who doesn’t want to see a RWBY moviesomeday? Thissquiggle meister would for sure.

Besides,if the CRWBY Writers don’t wish to hot up their heads over coming up with an original concept for a movie that possibly deviates from the canonanyways (like how the Pokémon films used to move), they can always create afull feature length RWBY movie that basically summarizes the events of theBeacon Trilogy while adding a new spin on it, as you suggested.

Nowcontrary to what you and other fans might think, this squiggle meister actually thought the Beacon Trilogy was flawless. Don’t get me wrong, it had its fairshare of faults, yes, however the key thing that impressed me the most aboutthe Beacon Trilogy and why I personally will defend it as the best trilogy ofRWBY so far is because of its plot structure.

Let meexplain. I’m a glutton for a well thought out, well-written, well-paced and well-structuredplot. I love stories that give me a plot where every piece ofinformation shown on screen means something in hindsight to the overallnarrative. I love it when stories create this perfectly woven spider web thataffirms that everything in the story---even those little throwaway details thatsome audience members might overlook, meant something in the development of theoverarching plot. So that when you get the final payoff, you feel this biggersense of excitement because it’s something you know the story has been buildingup to for ages. It’s why I get why fans love the Marvel movies. Each movie wasjust a piece of a thought out Cinematic Universe that’s been building for yearsand it’s still going strong.

I mean, Ilove surprises and moments just thrown in for shock value in stories too but Ilove it even more when I get stories where everything is connected andadds up to something bigger; y’know what I mean?

This iswhy the Beacon Trilogy will always be perfect in my eyes because it had a great structure. Everything addedup. Almost every detail the CRWBY Writers introduced to us between V1 and V2meant something in the grander scheme that led up to V3. If I had to compare the Beacon Trilogy tosomething, it would be a well-baked lasagne with each volume representing theperfectly staked layers of meat and cheese that slowly build up to a savouryplot of baked perfection (meaning V3 and the Fall of Beacon) that anyone cansink their teeth into.

This iswhy if the CRWBY ever redid the Beacon Trilogy, I don’t want nor do I expectthem to change anything. At this moment, the Beacon Trilogy---the first threeseasons of RWBY are by far some of the best seasons in the show. Between the Beacon Arc and the Mistral Arc, Beacon still stands superior to itssuccessor because of that strong plot structure; something that Miles and Kerryunfortunately did not carry over into the Mistral Arc.

Theystarted off decently in V4 but messed up sadly in the middle with V5. V6 waspretty much damagecontrol for what transpired in V5while setting up for V7 and for the most part, V6 was a great season. Still thebest of the Mistral Arc for me, hands down. It’s just unfortunate that theCRWBY Writers had that slip up in V5 because that’s what most fan critiqueskeeping bringing up. I, as always, have a different stance on this.

I actuallydisagree with you Velian. The overall story did technically start in V1. I meanfrom V3, the key plot of RWBY definitely did kick in more but everythingstarted from V1.V1, by my observation was a solid good season to me. V1 wasabout establishing the important details---our main cast of colourful characters,the setting for the arc and our course our key villains while at the same timeproviding the first instance of what was going to be the main conflict goingforward.

The mainconflict of the Beacon Arc which was the Fall of Beacon at the Vytal Festivalwas something that had clues dropped as early as V1 with Torchwick. RomanTorchwick was the man who the audience identified with since he was the villainwe mostly got to see this scheme get conducted through. It wasn’t until V2 whenthings started to pick up with the involvement of Cinder, Emerald and Mercury.I don’t want to go too much into this but…everything about the Fall of Beaconstarted to build up from V1. In V2, we got more clues but we still weren’tclear on what the main plan was until V3. The CRWBY did a great job of buildingthe suspense and mystery toward the Fall of Beacon so when it finally wentdown, you were surprised but you also got this sense of revelation when yourealize that everything that happened in the volumes before it meant somethingin the grander scheme of things. At least by my eyes. You, of course, have yourown thoughts on that.

I guesswhat I’m trying to say overall is that I like your idea. I think it canhonestly work better as a remaster as part of an anniversary type of event orperhaps a movie where we get to relive our favourite moments of the BeaconTrilogy. However it’s not a straight retelling of the original story. I likeyour idea of it adding more to the story than what we received before plus itreally would be lovely to see Vale remastered in the Maya engine with all thatthe CRWBY had learnt over the past three seasons.

Not sureif they would actually do something like that. However, it’s a pretty sweet idea=) Hope this answers your question, fam.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2019)

#squiggles answers: rwby #rwby #velianmagicalgirl

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douxreviews · 6 years ago

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Charmed - Season Seven Review

"I don't think we're getting out of this one, girls."

Season Seven is one of Charmed's weirdest years. After the mess of Season Six, the series seemingly finds its way again. The first 13 episodes take the season in an interesting and thoughtful direction, after which the show starts to build towards some sort of resolution, though said resolution feels rushed and odd. Despite what is clearly a season begging to close out this seven-year story, there's sadly more aneurisms on the horizon in Season Eight. Before that we do get to experience some surprisingly decent material, with a few crappy episodes thrown in for good measure.

Following the events of Season Six, the Halliwells' lives are still in turmoil after Gideon's betrayal, and the death of future Chris. The most interesting element of this is Leo's struggle to clear his name after killing Gideon, something that gets even more complicated after Barbas' meddling in the premiere forces Leo into murdering another Elder, this one completely innocent. This destructive behavior sets Leo on a path towards the Avatars, a mysterious group initially introduced in Season Five, back when Cole was groomed to join their cause, a cause that was at that point, unclear.

There’s also the introduction of Kyle Brody to contend with, a detective who has a large distrust of the Avatars, thanks to their role in murdering his mother and father when they stumble into the wrong place at the wrong time. His relationship with Paige is interestingly drawn, with her loyalty to him being tested in an altogether different way than Phoebe's was back in Season Four. Brody has some valid reasons for siding against the Charmed Ones, reasons that Paige herself understands. He loses his life while trying to stop the Avatars’ plan to remake the world in their image from coming to fruition, but his death is a powerful moment, and gives Rose a rare chance to make Paige appear likable again. His reincarnation as a whitelighter is completely unnecessary, though.

The Avatar arc is actually one of the more inspired of Charmed's long running stories, mostly because it attempts to tackle something a little “grayer” than would be typical of the series, especially this late in the game. Though they seem to initially offer a better world for the Charmed Ones, one without demons or evil, the Avatars’ "new order" isn’t as clear cut as it seems, with free will eradicated. The girls are left with no other option but to join forces with a demon named Zankou in order to reverse the world altering spell in 'Extreme Makeover: World Edition' (the episode titles are starting to get real wild). The resolution to this whole debacle is a refreshingly tame one, with the girls reasoning the Avatars out of their position of power, and parting ways with Zankou who promises to come face to face with them further down the line. Initially I was a bit underwhelmed by what transpires with the entire arc, but looking back its actually quite poignant, interspersing moments of intriguing mystery with bitter realizations about the world these characters exist in.

The seeds sewn during the girls' reluctant team-up with Zankou are used to great effect later on the season. Some of the episodes in question are plagued by poor execution, notably in 'Death Becomes Them', when the guilt the sisters' are forced to relive when Zankou resurrects innocents they failed to save just doesn't hit home; it's a fantastic idea that doesn't push the boundaries far enough. Zankou himself is still a terrific villain, with Oded Fehr's performance way outshining the bland macho-posturing of the Z-list demons around him. His villainy comes to a head in the finale, with the girls "sacrificing" themselves to stop him from taking control of the Nexus beneath the manor. The episode itself is a tense, exciting ride that gives Zankous's master plan a lot of gravitas, and has a few fun call-backs to elements of past seasons, though it's oddball ending leaves the season in a weird place, with the girls faking their deaths and escaping the potential exposition of their explosive showdown with Zankou at the manor. The ending has some interesting repercussions in theory, and the open-endedness of it is pretty exciting, but it's not exactly where I would want the show to end up. In hindsight, it would seem almost a mercy to viewers to end it here, rather than face the shit-show that is the show's final season. Not to mention how clumsily this is all dealt with after the fact. Ugh.

Outside of the resonance of the Avatar arc and Zankou's generally fun presence, the season feels a little off. 'The Bare Witch Project' is an embarrassing approach to modern day sexism that is unintentionally sexist itself. Any excuse to get Alyssa in her underwear, right? 'Freaky Phoebe’s is another shitty hour that is the perfect example of how tired the possessed sister trope has become. And 'Imaginary Friends' is a bad re-hash of the "let’s turn Wyatt evil" plan that was done to death in Season Six, with the episode further hindered by the black-sucking hole of boredom that is Wes Ramsey's portrayal of an adult Wyatt.

The generally tired attitude is evident in the rest of the guest casting, too. Phoebe's annual love interest this season is the terribly cast Nick Lachey, whose character Leslie steps in as a ghost writer for Phoebe's column when she takes a sabbatical from dishing out useless advice. Of course, the writers use this opportunity to shove them together, even though their chemistry is non-existent. Erica Dane's charm that kept Jason Dean afloat last season just isn't there with Leslie, either; stick to the boybands and reality shows, Nick. Things do look up briefly mid-season, with Billy Zane's brief arc as ex-demon Drake, who momentarily suspends Phoebe's descent into a chasm of whining and self-importance. Zane is ridiculously charismatic, elevating otherwise drab material and injecting life into an increasingly bored looking cast. His exit after just three episodes is sad to watch, but it's more of a tribute to how great Zane was rather than how well Drake was written.

In general, the sisters’ journeys this season are a little uninspired. Paige does find some purpose with her inheritance of Magic School, a job she later passes on to Leo when she fully embraces her whitelighter duties. Phoebe thankfully parks sperm hunt '04 to embrace her role as a source of relationship advice; it’s a nice change of pace from her standard plots revolving around bland love interests but she's just as annoying as she was when she was man-hunting. Piper is still focused on helping Leo, though it’s her role as a mother of two that's one of the few elements that help her to remain somewhat relatable. That aside, there isn’t a whole lot of growth where Piper’s concerned, despite remaining the only tolerable character.

Potions and Notions

Phoebe regains her power of premonition this season. It’s the only of her three powers that she ever gets to use again on-screen, with empathy and levitation remaining too strenuous on the budget.

Death makes his second appearance here, and his first since Season Three. I love that there’s reference to the fact that it was only Prue who saw him last time. One of the rare occasions where the series keeps its continuity in check.

I loved the shots in 'Extreme Makeover: World Edition' that showed all the people going to sleep, with the characters addressing little plot holes like the planes in the sky falling without a pilot to fly them.

Julian McMahon reprises his role as Cole in the 150th episode ‘The Seven Year Witch’. It’s disappointing that he only gets to interact with Piper, who is temporarily stuck in some form of limbo, but he remains a huge talent, and it was great to see him on the series again.

In the season finale, the girls use Astral Projection when trying to trick Zankou. There’s a reference to Prue having taught them the skill at one point, though back in the day it was heavily implied it was one of Prue’s individual talents, not a learned ability.

Spells and Chants

Death: "Which means ending death effectively ends life, throws off the entire cosmic design, the whole point, and for what? A single fleeting life. This is bigger than your sister, Piper. Much bigger."

Paige: "Well, you're gonna go deaf first. Don't forget, you're the older sister." Piper: "Yeah, I love you too."

Paige: "Last column?" Phoebe: "Well yeah. How much advice can a world with no conflict need? I may be out of the job." Paige: "You okay with that?" Phoebe: "I've got better things to look forward to."

Leo: "I tried to change the world for you ... and I would do it again in a heartbeat. "

Phoebe: "Those demons do have a way of keeping you warm at night." Piper: "Yeah, but that's only because they have fireballs."

Best Episode: Witchness Protection; a remarkably affecting episode, with Charisma Carpenter's incredibly likeable Kira bringing the show together in a way that hasn't been seen since early season five.

Honorable Mentions: Charmageddon; Something Wicca This Way Goes.

Worse Episode: The Bare Witch Project

There's a general sense that those behind the camera (and in front of it) wanted this to be where Charmed's journey ended, and it's hard not to argue with that. By the time we reach the season finale the series had completely drained the well of ideas and, despite a short lived creative resurgence during the initial Avatar arc, the season was mostly a mere shadow of the series Charmed used to be, and the sisters themselves were starting to grate. Sadly, the WB Elders kept the show plugged in for one more year. The only reprieve of the show's extended life is the potential for the series to craft an ending that feels a little less rushed. In hindsight that still doesn't justify the trash we get fed in Season Eight, but 20/20 I guess...

5 out of 10 world altering spells.

Panda

#Charmed #Piper Halliwell #Phoebe Halliwell #Paige Matthews #Charmed Reviews #Doux Reviews #TV Reviews #something from the archive

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raenparade · 2 years ago

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01/12/22 - Subversion in Media/Horror

If I’m being honest, the reason I chose the subversion question was because when I first read all of them, that one was the only one I could somewhat understand. After a little bit more research I decided to stick with it, even if I had to quickly accept that I didn’t really understand anything at all. Some progress is better than no progress.

Throughout my tutorials and more research, I mostly had subversion in my mind as something related to media and film studies? That’s where I’d had my previous exposure to the concept. During my time at A Level I did Film Studies, where we had a module on themes present in the horror genre. This was looking at a lot of tropes that appear in horror, such as character archetypes or the idea of ‘The Final Girl’ - which is a trope that was coined by Carol J. Clover in 1992. According to TV Tropes:

‘The simplest definition of this is "the last character left alive to confront the killer" in a Slasher Movie. The character in question tends to follow a certain set of characteristics. The most obvious one is being (almost) Always Female. Especially in older works, she'll also almost certainly be a virgin, remain fully clothed, avoid Death by Sex, and probably won't drink alcohol, smoke tobacco, or take drugs, either. Finally, she'll probably turn out to be more intelligent and resourceful than the other victims, occasionally even evolving into a type of Action Girl by the movie's end.’

While all of our focus wasn’t on tropes specifically, it made me think about how tropes and by extension - rules - affect our creativity and the things we decide to produce. I don’t think tropes are bad, lord knows I’m a sucker for them, especially the really cheesy ones. I don’t think they’re inherently bad for a good narrative, either! Structure is good. What it does do, however, is lull people into having certain expectations. The easiest way to subvert these expectations is to twist it, pretend you’re using a trope and then yank it away, ideally still in a way that is satisfying to an audience.

Even though I’m not really a fan of horror, Drew Goddard’s ‘Cabin in the Woods’ remains something I actually quite enjoy. I’m the first to admit that I’ll look up the Wikipedia page for a horror movie to avoid a sustained sense of dread, so it’s very likely I did that with this movie too. Even then I still like the movie! It uses almost all the typical tropes found in horror as a direct element in the narrative, everything serves a purpose. The main characters all seem to fit in boxes and we see their personalities on display as they go to spend a weekend in, you guessed it, a cabin in the woods. It’s then revealed that this is all part of a sacrificial ritual meant to appease ‘The Ancient Ones’ and if this doesn’t work, humanity is doomed. Not only that, but the characters don’t even embody the personalities of the archetypes they’re supposed to be. The main character, Dana, who has been chosen as ‘The Virgin’, isn’t even a virgin. This is similar in regard to most of the other characters.

Each country has to perform a similar ritual, each ending in failure up to this point. A character named ‘The Director’ tells Dana that the sacrifices deliberately mimic American slasher films. As long as ‘The Whore’ dies first and ‘The Virgin’ the last one standing, living or not, the ritual is complete.

I’ll admit in hindsight it is a little on the nose, especially when you realise the message of the movie is that the Ancient Ones - most likely representing the audience, or typical horror fans - would riot if things don’t follow an established formula. I don’t doubt some people feel this way and it still is a clever way to not only subvert tropes, but use them! I admire Drew Goddard for curating a pretty consistent vision with this movie and it’s something I’d like to achieve with the things I make. I find remixing and remaking pre-established media very satisfying, not having to come up with all my own characters or narratives but slightly changing things to make it feel new is something I’ve done since I was a child. When I was younger I’d make my own characters from the Sonic the Hedgehog universe (I still do sometimes) and in one way, this isn’t too different.

I don’t think everything you make has to be totally innovative or different, sometimes people just want to build upon something or change it slightly! Or use the themes present in something in a slightly different way. As someone who hyperfixates on one thing for a little while before moving onto the next, I often feel the need to keep things fresh and gravitate towards media that does this.

I think breaking the rules is fun, often necessary, but I won’t lie that I always like having tropes or structure to fall back on. I’m just someone who likes labels, categories and boxes! A shortcut to explain things makes it so much easier on my brain, but I do sometimes just like some good ol’ cheese when watching films or playing games.

#a question of research #ma illustration

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miloscat · 2 years ago

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[Review] The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (3DS)

A scuffed classic, slightly smoothed.

It’s Ocarina of Time. Much celebrated, often imitated... highly overrated?? Perhaps familiarity has bred contempt for this game that was a childhood constant for me. Its relative simplicity has made it a good candidate for randomisation; I have watched and enjoyed many shuffled runs under different parameters. It also has laid a solid foundation for the series to build off, whether it be the subversion of Majora’s Mask, the iterative depth of Twilight Princess, or just the additions of lore, creatures, and people that persist and enrich the later stories.

But as I age my critical eye has gazed at the underdeveloped stock characters, the barrenness of its early 3D world, the tedium of required backtracking and slow, repetitive tasks. These complaints really only revealed themselves in hindsight, as my fresh eyes were only enchanted by the possibility and scope of this world. I was hoping for a little of that sense of wonder by finally visiting this remake. But I think I’ve been too desensitised by watching speedruns; my own fault of course! I did take some interest from the graphical enhancements on this more powerful handheld: smoother models, higher quality textures, added details, not to mention the more stable framerate.

Compared to the more liberty-taking MM remake, this one is very straight. The only actual tweak to the game world is some slight retexturing in the infamous Water Temple, although you still have to go through all the boring motions to clear it. The control changes are perhaps the most significant: the addition of touchscreen buttons, letting you bind an extra item as well as a permanent ocarina button and live-consultable song list (plus the boots more conveniently use the item button system now). Reaching across to them is not as comfortable as the N64 controller’s C buttons, though. The second screen being used to display maps is also welcome.

Apart from that there’s a boss refight mode, the Master Quest maps as a bonus after completing the main game (maybe I’ll check those out in another ten years or so...!), and an overbearing if highly-ignorable extra hint system. The visual upgrades are a plus, although amusingly my friend Laura pointed out that both the original N64 game and this remake on the 3DS’s dinky screen are technically running at 240p! Overall it’s one of those remakes that makes me question “Did this need to exist? Could Grezzo have been better served creating original titles in this style?” For me my preference would be no and yes, respectively, but here we are. The original game holds up just fine, but this is a neat way to play it if you don’t mind hand cramps over long sessions, I guess.

#the legend of zelda #zelda #ocarina of time #the legend of zelda ocarina of time #grezzo #3ds #review

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listoriented · 5 years ago

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Choplifter HD

military realism and the tyranny of remakes

Choplifter (1982) had the player fly a wobbly helicopter across a lurid purple landscape, looking for blobby white humanoids to pick up and rescue while trying to evade and gun down enemy planes and tanks. The Choplifter page on TV Tropes quotes the game’s framing narrative:

“In an international incident, the militaristic Bungeling Empire has kidnapped the 64 delegates to the United Nations Conference on Peace and Child Rearing. Exploiting an ancient treaty with the United States, you have disguised a helicopter as a sorting machine and smuggled it to a mail distribution center near the border where the hostages are being kept. An opportunity comes when one of the Bungeling's barracks suddenly catches fire, and the hostages run about frantically. As Bungeling planes and tanks approach, you rush to your chopper, seizing this brief opportunity for heroism...”

It was rather fantastical, a little ridiculous. There’s the gag of the set-up, the strange made-up place name. The game’s 8-bit visuals give you the sense that it’s maybe set on another planet. Sure, the game was made the year after the 1980 Iranian hostage fiasco – something the developer, Dan Gorlin, claimed not to have been conscious of when conceiving Choplifter’s premise – but (and perhaps this is easier to say with the distortion of time and distance) the otherworldliness of it makes it hard to now immediately connect the game with the idea that it’s commenting on, responding to or really in any way promoting the US military project.

So it’s interesting, I suppose, to consider the choices InXile – apparently in collaboration with Gorlin – made when remaking the game as Choplifter HD (2011). There’s the choice to set a lot of the scenarios in real places, having you respond to events that sound like remixes of, well, real contemporary events and lots of other contemporary military games. The first mission is prompted by: “A repressive Middle East regime has imprisoned all foreigners. As part of a UN force your mission is to fly into the chaos and rescue as many multinationals as possible. Fortunately, most of the military forces are engaged in controlling the population, so resistance should be light.” The second has you rescuing “stranded victims” from a village overrun by warlords in Indonesia, the seventh has you respond to “terrorists have taken over several buildings on our home soil.” There is, in other words, an intention to give the game an element of real-life simulatory fantasy, one that isn’t destabilised enough by, say, the surprise appearance of zombies in mission four, or the silly wink-and-nod bonus objective of having to rescue the same war reporter, “Scoop Sanderson”, over and over again, or the various missions which lack specific place-name details in their flavour text.

Additionally, we’re now accompanied by the voices of our helicopter pilot and co-pilot, who constantly cycle through a bunch of quips in full American-accented machismo trope-jargon to alert the player to the presence of enemies, such as:

“Another idiot who needs a lesson”

“oooh what a Big Gun he has”

“Truck, about to go BOOM”

“Bad guy with a bad-ass toy!”

“Jeep about to be scrap metal”

“Big-ass gun he’s obviously compensating for something”

“Boo-ya”

“Watch that jeep become junk”

“Who’s that woman I saw you with last night?” “You only saw the one?”

There’s also the look, a little jagged sure, but something approaching realism, 3D environments with details backgrounds drawn to evoke the various mission settings. You add all this up and it’s a clear intentional shift into positioning the player in the hot-seat of a contemporary American heroic power fantasy in such a way that’s meant to be cross-read into real-world events. This is the nexus of a narrative that the US and allies already sell to themselves about themselves – that they’re a global peacekeeper just stepping in to help others in times of crisis caused nebulously from nowhere, in far off places that just happen, for reasons unknown, to be tragically unstable. Given that it’s presented uncritically here and (barring some late-game injunction I never made it to) without any reference to the roles various components of western imperialism play in instigating these kinds of conflicts in the first place (CIA-backed coups, geocorporate-backed military governance and so on), it’s hard to get past the gross feeling that Choplifter HD is basically a playable propaganda leaflet.

What’s doubly weird is that, given how overt it is, none of the reviews of the game from 2011 seem to make note of this shift at all. Sure, many complain that the “comedic” pilot and co-pilot banter gets annoying quickly (agreed), or that the realist-leaning Unreal 3 engine assets don’t look that good (also agreed), or that the game is often difficult in a way that tends more toward unfairness and janky design than simply being mechanically challenging (definitely). But there’s little to say about how this remake is dressed in a tone-deaf, unselfconscious veneer of status quo American imperialism that’s much more pronounced than it ever was, ever could have been, in the 1982 Apple II original. Perhaps there was an acceptance of inevitability here about the games industry in 2011, that if you’re making a military-ish shooting game then OF COURSE it’s going to evoke these ideas of distinctly American heroism and righteousness, it’s hardly even a choice, no questions asked. Or perhaps there’s a feeling that this choice of presentation doesn’t matter, given it’s a sidescrolling arcade game, something you’re gonna play in fifteen-minute bursts, where the flavour-text for each mission makes little functional difference to the game-play.

But this was a set of choices that InXile made, regardless of whether these choices came about from a passive parroting of the hegemonic narrative, or whether they were made with certain conscious political and/or marketing intentions. Each of these choices might, in hindsight, seem like a sacrifice, given that they’ve all made the game worse – the gung-ho copter bros are unbearably irritating, the realist-aesthetic leads to a lot of visual clutter and indistinctness, and much of the flavour text is half-hearted and dull. Perhaps a more creative remake of Choplifter could have revived the original’s interesting arcade concept without making it into a bland and problematic power fantasy. I guess we’ll never know.

up next is Chroma Squad

#game86 #choplifter hd #choplifter #apple arcade II #games of 2011 #inxile entertainment #humble yogcast jingle jam 2016 #helicopter game #remakes #agamewithguns #sidescroller

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