#had to speedrun his entire backstory

[beefblood]

Every time I talk to gale in bg3 I’m reminded of my first playthrough where I interacted with the sigil he comes out of, heard the narrator say it looked dangerous, and then left without touching it because I didn’t want to fuck up my character. I didn’t go back until I made it all the way to act 2 and was seeing posts on this app about the damn rizzard and thought “oh! Where is he? I don’t think I’ve met him yet :3”

[solradguy]

why is xtra hated? Does it have character inconsistencies or something else to have hate towards it?

Ok. So. For starters, one of the main characters is a girl named Mizuha that is very probably a child/young teenager and they draw her like this all of the time (sometimes even WORSE):

(her personality is... fine... I guess. she's just uncomfortably sexualized)

The plot is basic shounen genre trope soup. The other main character, Tyr, has a dragon/Gear arm and was sealed away for a mystery amount of years so he looks like a teenager but is older than Ky (who was ~24 in the canon at the time). They also did that thing where Ky ~just so happened~ to have seen Tyr on the battlefield when he was a kid before he joined the Holy Order, and Tyr is apparently working with/under Kliff. Very "we have a new character and need to speedrun making him relevant. let's shoehorn him into everyone else's backstories."

Tyr's Gear arm (it looks like a normal arm unless he activates it):

None of the characters ever bring any of this up ever again outside of Xtra. It's not mentioned in GG World, any of the guide books/encyclopedias, character profiles, novels, interviews, etc. Which you think it would be if Kliff knew A GUY WITH A GEAR ARM IN THE HOLY ORDER LOLL

The characters that are actually in the games make cameo appearances throughout the comic and I think the artist had more fun drawing them than they did the actual protagonists because they all look leagues cooler than anything Tyr or Mizuha end up doing

I will give Xtra credit for one thing though, and that's for giving us one of the rawest Sol Badguy scenes in the entirety of Guilty Gear:

I just don't get how the guy that wrote Lightning the Argent and Butterfly & Her Gale, two books that are still canon-relevant and generally enjoyed by the (JP) community, ended up writing such a bland story. Was it solely his idea? Was someone else forcing him to make changes to the plot and he just had to go with it?? This was GGX era so Guilty Gear was doing PRETTY GOOD in Japan at the time.

I have no idea why they felt the need to put out something with such an unoriginal premise in a series that frequently bends or breaks genre expectations. Daisuke Ishiwatari is included as an author on this, but I get the impression that was just a legality thing since he wrote basically the entire setting and cast outside of the few new ones introduced in Xtra. None of the Tyr lore beats line up with any of the established Gear lore, either pre- or post-Xtra.

Why did they write Xtra when they could have written something focused on the established cast instead. Going into Xtra for the first time is like when you pick up a cup expecting it to be pop and find out it's water instead but since you were expecting something sweet the water just tastes gross and extremely disappointing. Xtra is my least favorite Guilty Gear entry out of the entire library. Vastedge at least gave us Naoki Hashimoto and Isuka gave us A.B.A. Xtra just gave us wiki editors annoying homework.

You can read Xtra over on Mangadex if you wanna form your own opinions about it. It's only one volume and can be read pretty quickly: https://mangadex.org/title/911025e8-ae47-499c-8eff-453d18b6459a/guilty-gear-xtra

[balillee]

had to turn back to tumblr after a year of not using it to hate on the new atla adaptation

a few things

speedrunning through half of the story with the fire nation family is not a good idea, actually. lu ten was introduced far too early, and with it you delve into iroh's backstory, motivations and true character before you've even fully developed the whole 'silly old spiritual man who prefers tea and hanging out with his nephew over hunting down an 11-year old air nomad'. the lu ten funeral scene was fine as an addition, but it's not something for book 1. learning about lu ten is something we do in book 2 as it compliments the developing relationship between iroh and zuko with the fire nation as a whole. also, iroh seems a lot less cool. the show commits the grievous literary sin of always telling rather than showing, and by continuously telling us 'he's the famed general iroh, dragon of the west' you're not actually accomplishing anything. let him redirect some lightning you fucking cowards.

azula also seemed to exist for no reason. any of the correspondences to azula from zhao could have bypassed her entirely and could have gone straight to ozai or even the fire sages. she exists in season 1 purely to rush through explaining zuko and iroh far too early. the show exists as a guideline. FOLLOW THE GUIDELINE. THE GUIDELINE IS GOOD. EVERYONE KNOWS THE GUIDELINE IS GOOD. also make her fire blue. cowards

aang does not waterbend for the entire season, which means the window of opportunity for him to learn to bend the other elements before the arrival of sozin's comet is even shorter than in the original show. even the original aang, who the netflix adaptation changed because he was 'too childish and always goofing off instead of getting to the point' understood his responsibilities to learn the elements better than this new live action version - part of the reason for the gang to get to the northern water tribe was to find aang a teacher (not just katara), master pakku, because katara was not capable of teaching him at her novice waterbending level but even so they were still seen practicing together on multiple occasions.

this brings me to my next point. WHERE THE FUCK IS JEONG JEONG. aang in the original series understood the urgency of defeating the firelord before sozin's comet after speaking to roku very early on, not as late as depicted in the adaptation. currently, the gang don't even know that they're on a time crunch, and yet still the show refuses to let them take their time by going on side adventures. this leads into the episode where aang meets jeong jeong and tries to learn to firebend before he's even started earthbending at all, because he's still scared that he only has a year to master the elements. he burns katara while trying, which is the reason she learned she had the power to heal with her waterbending, we see how fucking sick jeong jeong is at firebending for the first time during the fight with zhao, and aang swears off learning firebending at all, which is one of his main points of conflict leading all the way into book 3. if we skip that whole episode, we have skipped meeting one of the members of the order of the white lotus. the show could think it's slick by omitting him to just have iroh as the white lotus' firebender, but that's possibly one of the worst changes they've made. the deserter was not a filler episode.

i know a lot of people were talking about this before the show even came out, but sokka is not sokka. in book 1, sokka is three things - funny, overconfident and sexist. in the live adaptation, he is kind of one of those three things. part of why sokka's arc is one of my personal favourites from the original show is the stark change you see from the start to the end of his story - he believes himself a leader but has no real tactical or combative experience despite telling all the fighters and warriors he meets about how impressive he is. and then at the end of the show he is a definitively strong leader, shown by leading the assault on the fire nation armada - his team being two of the show's most competent female characters, who he trusts and respects with his life. by omitting these traits from sokka's character, you remove a big part of why he's even there in the first place - his arc's beginning allows him to become the fearless leader that lead his team to defeating the fire nation army.

i also hate that aang meets monk gyatso in the spirit world. a big part of aang's conflict about running away is that there exists nobody in the world who can tell him that what happened to the air nomads was not his fault, and that there was nothing aang could do to stop it if he was there. the new adaptation decides against the inclusion of one of aang's primary internal conflicts by changing the 'running away from his responsibilities as the avatar because he's a terrified child' to 'getting some air', and then throws in meeting the spirit of monk gyatso to tell him all of these things that aang needs to learn on his own. once again, telling rather than showing.

and finally, my least favourite change - the agni kai. part of the reason why i personally think the agni kai is so significant to zuko's story is the fact that zuko intentionally refuses to fight. in the adaptation, zuko fights back against his father, and his father scars him simply because zuko hesitates. in the original series, zuko bows to his father and pleads for mercy, and refuses to fight at all, and that is when it cuts away to iroh and azula's very differing reactions to the altercation, zuko screaming in the background. the setting also irritates me, because in the original, the agni kai was a public spectacle for hundreds to see in an ominous chamber, while in the new show it looked like just a regular old family gathering in the sun. zuko's adaptation scar i also hate because it doesn't even look like a scar. it looks like a birthmark, or at best, a black eye. if you hadn't seen the original, you would only know that it's a scar because the show tells you that it's a scar. zuko's scar in the animated series is a definite physical deformation of his face, his face looks red and raw, and his eye is smaller likely due to how the tissue healed, and as the show goes on you learn that the severity of his physical scars reflect the severity of his emotional ones. the original show does a brilliant job at showing how, just through the scar and the banishment alone, that despite zuko's beliefs, his father has betrayed him time and time again.

[cellarspider]

23/30 Characterization speedrun

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We return to a movie that exposits with all the grace of an inebriated hippo on rollerskates, Prometheus.

Y’know, I have a soft spot for the first movie adaptation of Silent Hill (2006). Yes, we're tangenting to talk about something else I like better, but I swear it's for a purpose.

It mostly sticks to the first game’s content, meaning it limits the number of themes it has to handle. It makes some alterations that affect its interpretation–it switches the gender of the protagonist, alters the religious elements, cuts out the bit where you basically fight Baphomet at the end of the game, but that always felt weird anyway. And, of course, there’s a required appearance by a certain tetrahedron lad, reanalyzed as a punitive figure turned outward on the world rather than inward toward the person that conjured him. I’ll allow it, partly because I saw it when I was a teenager and I thought he was badass.

But what it really nails camerawork, creature effects, and set design. So much so that a lot of the visuals of following games lifted from creative decisions made for the movie. The Silent Hill movie is more a thing of vibes than anything else, and the vibes are appropriately awful.

[Video description: Rose (Radha Mitchell) and Cybil (Laurie Holden) encounter a Lying Figure (Michael Cota), AKA Armless Man or Straightjacket. There’s only a tiny amount of CG here. It was pretty much all Cota’s unnerving shuffle and his willingness to be shoved into blinding, deafening, arm-tying monster-bondage with a breathing tube hidden around butt-height.. We salute you, Mr. Cota, possibly with our feet.]

But where the movie trips and falls is right near the end, where the vibes screech to a halt so that the movie can sit you down and explain the backstory that it already intimated throughout the rest of the runtime.

On a totally unrelated note, Janek has something to tell Shaw.

This barren moon, believe it or not, isn’t the Engineers’ homeworld. Y’don’t say.

You know what would’ve been a better way to set this up? Have somebody ask “hey, there’s nothing but rocks and ominous buildings here. What gives?”, but they literally never do. Not even the biologist, who does no biology in the movie. The geologist, who also doesn’t do any geology, doesn’t note, say, a lack of siltstone that’d indicate running water, no coal of any kind that’d indicate previous growth of plant matter, no signs of oil or natural gas deposits derived from ancient microbes. Lord knows the poor bastards weren’t swamped with work before the script ate them.

But no, there’s no questioning of this. Shaw dictates in her notes “Was there an outbreak here?”, after exploding the head. But that’s it. No, we leave it to Idris Elba explain, as seriously and as military guy-ily as he can. This is a weapons lab or depot, something went wrong here, Janek’s going to do a self-sacrifice if it seems like the weapon might get to Earth. He even says the weapons are in “those vases”, in case you didn’t notice them before.

Consider: Principle photography for Prometheus was done in 2011, from March 21 to June 10 (cite 1). On November 14, Filming began for Pacific Rim, in which Idris Elba gots to play a serious self-sacrificing military guy with the exact same mustache who has an actual character arc, AND was allowed to use his actual accent.

In Prometheus, Janek apparently had more characterization planned, but it was stripped entirely away until all you’re left is a christmas tree, a plot-mandated laxity in keeping track of passengers, and incomprehensible flirting with Vickers. On balance, that’s more than pretty much everyone else gets, but at the same time, what does that tell us? We are left with a man who’s going to pull a heroic sacrifice, essentially because he’s the only other character we know about.

In cut material, Janek was originally going to give a sympathy monologue to Vickers after she killed Holloway, about a traumatic event in his military career: he watched a bioweapons lab suffer a breach that ended with its destruction. That was cut. His motivation was cut. And more, too, you can see the ragged edges of the script. 

“Right, ‘all you do is fly the ship,’” quotes an exasperated Shaw. “That’s right,” says Janek, who told Vickers that in a cut scene.

Despite these pieces missing, I haven’t been drawing on them very often. Why? Because the movie was still full of baffling decisions, regardless of how they edited it down. The movie that’s shot never looks like what gets shown in theaters, but it is still a representative sample of the material, one that was prepared for us to watch.

While Janek’s entire motivation fell off him in the editing room, Vickers gets undermined by what they did keep. Turns out she’s not just nasty to her employees, she’s nasty to her boss as well, because he’s her dad. She’s presented as obsessed with making sure he dies, which, fair, we’ll soon confirm that his only begotten robo-son is pretty big on that too.

…Except this also means they have the same character motivation, which… That can work, but how well does it work as a twist? 

I am not convinced. Vickers has constantly been pulling power plays on David, who’s pushed back a little in return, but they don’t have to functionally be siblings to make this work. Nor does the weird, occasionally robotic behavior from Vickers have to mean “aha, you see, they are both Weyland’s children with daddy issues!”

She could just be a disposable asset of the Weyland Corporation! She’d have a more sympathetic arc that way, because unlike corpos of Aliens past, she doesn’t want to be there at all. She didn’t want them to talk to aliens, she didn’t express any of the usual flimsy “we can profit off of this uncontrollable killing machine” stuff we’ve come to expect. She seemed to just want to get the fuck out of there. And obviously, she’s gonna die, this movie is frequently aping Alien and Aliens, the corpo does not survive. That could be tragic!

But apparently she wanted to be here, taking five years out of her life and career to sit on ice and do literally nothing but make sure her already dying dad actually dies. Okay. 

It’s especially, structurally weird, because the very next scene has David explaining his motivation to Shaw.

“What happens when Weyland isn’t around to program you?” “I suppose I’ll be free.” “You want that?” “"Want"? Not a concept I’m familiar with. That being said… doesn’t everyone want their parents dead?”

This is what happens when you leave a hyperintelligent newborn alone for two years with nobody but Peter O’Toole as a role model. 

This scene and the pre-caesarian one set up a weird dynamic between David and Shaw that didn’t seem sufficiently motivated by the rest of their interactions, in my opinion. It suggests that David has latched onto her in some way, which the next movie certainly confirms. But why? They’ve barely talked, ad most of it was pure exposition or telling David to do something. Is it because she hasn’t been as bad as the others? Because that’s going to change later. 

David’s hopes are pinned on the Engineer rejecting Weyland. This is a reasonable assumption. The way the scene plays out, however, is not entirely reasonable.

And that will have to wait for another day. Before we get to that, I want another ramble all to myself. About something I like.

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Alt-text rambles:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/paulbhartzog/558247427/in/photostream/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greeble 

https://youtu.be/cOrcwL5MHYg

Overflow Ramble 1

The kitchen counters don’t have any grippy surfaces on them, and no lip. The *stove* has no lip, which I have seen before, but it’s stupid. Most modern designs for stovetops meant for installation on ships have a high lip and/or grippers that hold cookware in place. There are multiple open shelves that have no lip. And there’s yet another piece of Decorative African Art just hung on the wall above a food prep counter, within the potential reach of steam or grease splatter. The chair Holloway sat in last time is revealed to be free-standing, as is the coffee table.

No. No free-standing furniture, unless it’s collapsible and used at rest. Put lips on every counter and table. Have lots of grip mats you can throw down anywhere. The design in here is more along the lines of airline tray tables, which are meant to be stowed during rough flight. There is no way to stow all this shit in a reasonable and timely manner. Airline furniture is also designed according to hostile forces, which, frankly, might be relevant here. This comfy, beige apartment space was designed by someone who did not give one fuck if a glass went winging off that 2m tall open shelf and gave you a concussion.

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[garthofshayeris]

GARTH WAS ABANDONED BY HIS TRIBE/FAMILY???? HUHHH??

Once again I must preface this by saying the lore you’re reading is from pre-Flashpoint and no longer applies to current lore. If they wrote Garth a new backstory I am unaware of it because I cannot stand reading any comic he’s in anymore 😭

Speedrun backstory time:

Garth is not from the main city of Poseidonis, or the kingdom of Atlantis. Bloodline wise he is from Shayeris, the kingdom of the Idylists. They (were) a peaceful kingdom that broke away from Atlantis shortly after the fall. (So his species is Atlantean and he was BORN in Atlantis, but in terms of family history he is the prince of another kingdom entirely)

He was abandoned as a baby and found as a feral child by Aquaman. He was unaware of his parents until an Idylist explained that his father went mad and was killed by his own people, and his mother was banished from the city.

This was a lie.

Garth’s father, King Thar, had a brother who had turned to necromancy and wanted to usurp the throne. He sacrificed his life to banish his brother, Slizzath, in a prison dimension. The only person capable of freeing Slizzath would be someone with the royal magic birthright, aka his then-unborn son.

Queen Berra, pregnant with Garth, fled the city and gave birth to him in Poseidonis, the main city of Atlantis. Her people spread the rumor that babies born with purple eyes (the Idylist mark of power) were a bad omen. Using the superstitious nature of Atlanteans, they were able to make a case to leave the newborn out to die of exposure for this reason, when they just intended to kill him to ensure Slizzath would not be freed.

Garth did not die (some say he was aided by the father of Aquaman, an immortal wizard named Atlan) and thrived for a little under a decade on his own until he met Aquaman.

You can read about how Garth claimed his birthright and defeated his uncle in Tempest (1996) aka my favorite comic in the entire world :)

[just-sp-in-inginthevoid]

*ahem* Boys Bands -- Future Idols TR AU

In which Takemichi doesn't have to prevent Toman & co to become criminals which will only cause them suffering

But in which Takemichi has to prevent Toman & co to enter the Japanese idols world because it will only cause them suffering

Random thoughts about it:

First of all, it remains dark af; it's the Japanese idols world we're talking about after all (aKa, the deaths will happen. Perhaps in another way than in canon, but they'll be there)

Kisaki doesn't himself become an idol (although he will deal with the outside stuffs/become Mikey's agent or something like that)

Toman is just a Boys Band at first (and is boiled down to the Founders+Captains and vice-captains)

Toman will have become an idol group anyway but Kisaki speedruns the process

Mikey wants to make (dead) Shinichiro proud

·✨BLACK DRAGON BOYS BAND✨

The fact Shinichiro disbanded the idol group caused a lot of controversies, but overall every members (+fans and staffs) had to accept it. Shinichiro left it all behind for Mikey (then opened his motor shop and lived in tranquility until he died)

Backstories remain the same

Inui - althought because of his scars, he can't - somewhere deep down wants to become an idol too, since he looks up to BD. He handles security (of Izana's; Taiju doesn't become an idol, I just.. can't see it)

Koko also isn't an idol but an agent

Hanma is there to help Kisaki with security/his plan+He's the one to actively have ties with criminal organizations (he's definitively a part of it too, but nobody can prove it). If a controversy happens, Kisaki will shift the blame on him

... Takemichi doesn't remember it because ✨middle school trauma thanks to local bully Kiyomasa✨ but his childhood dream was to become Japan n°1 idol (hence, Kisaki wanting a spot at the top too (although Mikey is the idol. But Kisaki finds a way to be known too))

Mizo boys band. They never go really far, but it exists

Izana took over Black Dragon etc... Resents Mikey

Mucho leaving Toman for Tenjiku -drama

Kazutora not being known by fans & co since Shinichiro's death+his stay in juvie

Valhalla drama. Don't know how to do this one but. Valhalla happens.

Brahman has only Senju on stage

Like Inui, Kakucho and Sanzu can't be idols because of their scars. Well. Sanzu finds a way to be in the background with his mask on (+ reminder: he is ranked 3rd worst singer, so he can't have a leading role anyway)

Takemichi is having a hard time becoming an idol since he is ranked 1st worst singer - but he has to save everyone so he'll do it anyway and will stop Kisaki and his plans!

I have no idea what initial goal to give to Takemichi if Hinata doesn't die at first and I don't know how to make Hinata dies in this AU. Since Kisaki still has ties with underground activities I guess the same premise as canon works

Wakasa never sings (on stage/where fans can hear him). He is canonically ranked 2nd worst singer. His pretty boy face still helped a lot to launch Black Dragon

Takeomi's scar created a controversy and led to him leaving stage (he still helped in the background) until Shinichiro ended BD seemingly out of nowhere - aside from Wakasa's pretty face and Shinichiro's natural charisma, Takeomi's negotiation skills and his way with words helped a lot too

Bonten group has to be veryyyy careful with Sanzu and it's drug abuse since his life (and their by extension) can be entirely ruined if the public ever learns about it (welcome to Japan where idols/celebrities have to be perfect otherwise they are shamed until the publicly apologized and/or quit and live quietly for the rest of their life)

The Haitani Brothers are absolutely living it up (whether it's S-62 boys band, Black Dragon under Izana boys band, Tenjiku boys band(or idols group if they succeed to have a contract? after all they're almost all 18 now, they can't remain a little boys band forever. (-Mucho), or whatever-name-would-their-group-have in Manila timeline or Bonten) - Ran accepts his fame with open arms and Rindo is glad people listen to his music and/or songs

South gets famous bc: 1. He sings goooood (ranked n°1 best singer by Wakui (followed by Senju and Mikey)), 2. foreigner

It's the exact same reason why Senju and Mikey get famous too btw (-even if all three of them are part Japanese, but physically it's a bit hard to tell (a bit less for Mikey than the 2 others))

Ig it could be the same for Izana

Draken has to hide his tattoo to his great disarray and displeasure to not cause any controversy (+has to actively hides his upbringing)

Mikey is losing more and more what the meaning of being an idol is, and how fun it is made believed to be; how fun it initially was when they were still a little boys band having fun (if not for the deaths, being an idol in Japan in itself makes him depressed)

Their (canonical) nickname are the nicknames fans use for them (there are some others too, but those are the one everyone knows of)

I feel like Hakkai will still find a way to be in the boys band even tho he has a noticeable scar. It's bc he's too pretty, handsome, and he can sing, probably

Yuzuha isn't an idol but she still has an important fan club for some reason (she really doesn't get it and just wants to be there to help Hakkai)

Mitsuya is busy being an idol but somehow he still finds the time to draw outfits idea for the production team (sometimes he even sews them himself, they all wonder when he finds the time to sleep (and how he doesn't look like a zombie))

btw, even if Kakucho doesn't become an idol (he doesn't really care anyway, he just wants to be around to help Izana and he doesn't have to be an idol as well to do that) he sings great (a lil birdie told me this). Tenjiku/S-62 doesn't complain about being the only ones to know that

If you have any, any thoughts about this, pls share, I'm having way too much fun

[familyabolisher]

re: annihilation im glad im not the only one who disliked it lol! ive struggled thru the second book as well bc people keep telling me the third is the best but. we'll see. id be curious abt ur thoughts & if you have similar critiques (lack of interiority for the mc for one, a lack of clarity on Whats Going On but not in a fun way imo but in a way that makes me really unsure what the Point of it all is, & (book 2) just. the most tedious mommy issues ive ever had to read thru) or if its something else entirely. no pressure tho! i just like hearing ur opinions on things.

tbh my immensely pedestrian answer is that i just couldn’t get on with the style at all—it felt very clumsy and, like, amateurish. i got the sense that vandermeer wanted to narrate The Horrors in a quotidian, somewhat clinical tone that established a discordance around an effort to record and empirically tackle something that resisted the boundaries of human language and communication, and i think a more skilled writer could have pulled that off to great effect; however, as it was, he neither leant far enough into that voice that the discordance could fully emerge & exert a significant enough narrative force to make the piece compelling, nor relaxed it enough to allow his language to play around with the lurid, macabre, paranatural setting. 

like, for example, i’ve just gone to a random page to give you some sense of what i mean.

This was really the only thing I discovered in him after his return: a deep and unending solitude, as if he had been granted a gift that he didn’t know what to do with. A gift that was poison to him and eventually killed him. But would it have killed me? That was the question that crept into my mind even as I stared into his eyes those last few times, willing myself to know his thoughts and failing. As I labored at my increasingly repetitive job, in a sterile lab, I kept thinking about Area X, and how I would never know what it was like without going there. No one could really tell me, and no account could possibly be a substitute. So several months after my husband died, I volunteered for an Area X expedition. A spouse of a former expedition member had never signed up before. I think they accepted me in part because they wanted to see if that connection might make a difference. I think they accepted me as an experiment. But then again, maybe from the start they expected me to sign up.

this is like … the first time we get a real, direct account of the biologist’s backstory. it’s like a speedrun of heterosexual our wives under the sea (also a bad book btw lol) and is supposed to pack a pretty hefty emotional punch, but it’s just … well, i mean. “a gift that was poison to him and eventually killed him.” like, the extract falls back on cliches; the prose lands in a very ‘safe’ register and feels a little afraid to push anywhere significantly outside of that. this is pretty representative of (what i read of) the whole book, tbh—and it stings especially when you have things like a mysterious tunnel-tower seemingly made of flesh that only the narrator can see that’s spawning fungi spelling out sentences as other characters in the novel start to die … like, that’s good, and that’s just really not being communicated on the page in any compelling manner. 

it felt as though vandermeer had established this fascinating world and then just failed to communicate any of it to any memorable standard. also, the pacing was all over the place, lol—like, take your time with it a little more, spend some time on setting and description! or if you want to lean into that clipped, clinical account, maybe experiment a little more with the texture that that could lend; like, journals, reports, the kind of temporal weirdness that those can generate (as is common in the gothic novel, for instance) … like, there were just a lot of ins where vandermeer could have negotiated a more interesting piece of work than what i was reading.

it just felt very, like—the word coming to mind for me is ‘timid.’ like the text found its own concepts a little too unwieldy and pared itself down into a very meek prose rather than rising to the challenge that its scaffolding presented. and as a result, i was just, like, bored and irritated trying to read it. i’m told that the film is very different so i might give that a go at some point, but i really couldn’t push through to the end of the book, lmao. maybe it’s worth reading for like the last 70 pages, but i’ll never know. sad! well there’s other genre fiction

[ritsukageyamas]

god it is always going to drive me nuts that the moriarty the patriot anime skipped so much stuff and then gave it an ending in which moran isn't missing, MI6 was literally just formed with louis as its leader (plus moneypenny never existed and neither does moran's whole backstory), and sherlock and william somehow didn't stay together after the fall and sherlock had to go to freaking switzerland to find him, so it's like how would they ever continue to adapt the story of the manga even if they wanted to 😭

i watched the anime first, and knew about a number of things that were missing because i'd seen screenshots of them online in the past: mainly the conversation between sherlock and bonde in chapter 19 where he talked about his struggle to make the criminal justice system more equal, and literally all of chapter 31. but there is so so much else i didn't know about, so many entire chapters and important details and huge sections of other chapters!!! i ended up loving the anime but still feeling as though pretty much none of the major characters and relationships got as much development as they needed and that it was overall a bit rushed... and then i read the manga and felt so much better about how fleshed out literally everything was in comparison to the anime.

like. my dad is an anime fan and a sherlock holmes fan so i recommended the series to him, and have been explaining manga details to him that i felt were especially important. but i honestly just might ask him to read the manga if he likes the anime enough, even though he's not normally a manga reader. because during the whitechapel arc, when sherlock refuses to investigate the jack the ripper case and never elaborates on why... he thought sherlock was being an asshole who didn't care about the victims! sherlock holmes, who's supposed to care just as much about equality and justice for the oppressed as william does! but it's understandable because that's how the anime makes it look by cutting out his explanation and statement that he is in fact going to investigate! and i'm worried he's going to think sherlock saving william is rushed as well unless i make him read chapter 31 before he finishes. gahhhh why did this anime not just get an additional season instead of speedrunning to the final problem as fast as they could??

[felixcloud6288]

Higurashi: Atonement Chapter 4

The first part of this arc is Rena speedrunning the Curse Killing arc.

Teppei is really dumb. He willingly followed Rena out to the middle of nowhere because she said Rina was there. He never once suspected anything was amiss until he had an axe to his face.

And his murder is practically given anti-buildup cause everything right before the axe hits his face comes before the volume's table of contents. It's the same vibe as the scene before the opening credits of a show.

I hope those guys Teppei and Rina were extorting find out they're dead so they can breathe a sigh of relief.

We have a panel of Rena standing in front of Rina and Teppei's corpses such that their heads are closer to her. Then two panels later, we see one their feet, implying the Rena is now standing on the opposite side of their bodies.

This arc is billed as the answer arc to Abducted by Demons, but it's also the answer arc to a question arc we've never seen before.

It's likely possible that you could take the parts that are entirely Keiichi's perspective, fill in a few gaps, and create a new question arc that Atonement would then come in to give the alternate perspective to.

Rika knows all that's happening. The moment Keiichi suggested going to the junk heap, her face became somber and never changed. She's not even shocked to see Rena cutting up bodies.

We know from Time Killing that she knows the future. But her words do not imply she's acting this way because she's seen the future, but rather that she's experienced it.

Satoko has the right to be the most terrified of everyone there. One of the people Rena is dismembering is Satoko's uncle.

back

Spoiler Discussion

There is a manga-only arc that partially serves as the question arc side of this and it's Beyond Midnight. Everyone was killed when Rena blew up the school, claiming that alien parasites were infesting the villagers.

For fans who are already familiar with the core eight arcs, Beyond Midnight's backstory just helps the reader have a sense of what kind of Hinamizawa we're dealing with.

For manga-only fans, this will gradually come across as the answer arc to Beyond Midnight rather than Abducted by Demons as the arc starts talking about alien parasites and Rena starts becoming more unhinged. Readers will know how this plays out in the end only to then get caught by the straight punch of what will actually happen.

[etchbee]

rotb

hi guys. so i saw rotb. unfortunately i fucking hated it. lemme talk about why. (spoilers, obviously. be warned this is very long.)

first of all, lemme preface this by saying two things. number one being i did not have high expectations for this movie in the first place. because lets be honest, this is the transformers fandom, and hollywood has almost never done us justice. also, the trailers and teasers weren't exactly encouraging. number two being i am a huge fucking movie nerd. okay. i love movies. so just keep that in mind.

i think it's worth pointing out that my number one critic of this movie is that for almost the entire runtime, it's something worse than bad: it's boring.

i mean, how do you make giant robots boring??? how is that even possible? let's unpack that.

first of all, it has the most generic, cookie cutter action movie plot ever. we have to get the.... thing! you know, the thing! and we have to do it before the.... other guys! who are working for the BIG guy! and if we don't... the world will end! wahhh!

how is anyone supposed to be invested in that. there are no stakes. there's no tension. there's nothing. we've literally seen this exact plot played out one million times. THERE'S NOTHING NEW!!!

furthermore, the characterization of literally everyone is dogshit. the villians are bland, and have absolutely no motivation behind "darkness and evil." that's NOT INTERESTING!! there's no backstory! i literally could not even tell you the NAMES of the three main antagonists that are on the screen for half the movies runtime. that's how unimportant they are.

and god, the autobots are even worse. first of all, optimus prime and mirage are the only actual characters. i can't remember a single line any other robot says. not one.

but optimus is so under-hyped. they claim he's some big warrior (optimus primal even goes "i'm named after you") but we don't get ANY backstory. we don't know anything about cybertron, or the war, or even what the hell they're doing on earth. we know they "crash landed 7 years ago, and haven't been able to get off since". and they "have to get back, or cybertron will be destroyed!" do they ever tell us WHY cybertron might be destroyed? NOPE!

now we, as an informed audience, can reasonably assume it's because of the war.

but.... what??? friends, the decepticons are never even MENTIONED.

lemme repeat that. the decepticons are never. even mentioned. SO WHY WOULD ANY AUDIENCE BE INVESTED IN THEM RETURNING TO CYBERTRON? THERE'S NO STAKES!!!

back to the autobots though. also mirage is just annoying. he's literally just a"POP CULTURE REFRENCE" machine. that's it. that's all he does.

i... i can't even address what happens between him and the human guy (literally can't even be bother to remember his name) in the finale. i can't. i need to leave that alone or we'll be here all day.

god, i have so many things to say about this movie i need to speedrun a couple okay let's go

humans. boring. why are these movies about giant robots so determined to shove human characters in our faces they DON'T COMPARE EVER!!! the two humans are? fine? but the dude is literally just hero fantasy and the girl is. unimportant. nothing in this movie is important. you could cut any of them.

the action. mediocre. impossible to enjoy when "GENERIC ACTION ONE LINER!" is being crammed down your throat literally every five seconds.

why did the movie market so heavily with arcee wheeljack and bumblebee. they literally have like 15 total lines of dialogue. i can't express to you how much they don't matter.

and you know what. all of that could have even been forgivable. if they had just bothered to put some classic characters in there, with classic character designs, and make a product that actual fans could at least appreciate in aesthetic/homage, if not writing!

but they didn't. they used random ass characters who NOBODY cares about and gave them all SHIT designs too!

and it's so tragic when you consider all the amazing source material that they have to offer. i mean, i have been begging for YEARs for a movie set on prewar cybertron following megatron. the political conflicts and class wars! the origin of megatron is literally the MOST INTERESTING PART OF HIS CHARACTER! BUT IT HAS NEVER A SINGLE TIME BEEN ADDRESSED! HE GETS REDUCED DOWN TO BIG MUSCLE SCARY GUY WHICH IS LITERALLY!!!!!!!!!!!! THE VERY THING HE REBELLED AGAINST!!!!!!!!!! ITS THE WHOLE FUCKING REASON FOR THE WAR AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

can you tell i have a lot of feelings about this. wow. okay this is so long. i'm sure nobody's acutally read this far. alright. what's left.

what'll i'll say is this.

there is literally no appeal to this movie. NONE. it isn't watchable as a fun, transformers piece come to life. it's not watchable as a quality action movie. hell, it isn't even worth a hate watch!!!!!

and somehow. some fucking how. it is still the second best transformers movie. OUT. OF. SEVEN.

friends. how is this possible. how could this have happened.

to all the fan creators making fan art and writing of this movie. you guys are fucking heros, alright. you are taking this incomprehensible garbage, and making actual art. you guys make this franchise worth staying in. thank you, and i wish someone put you guys in charge instead of MICHEAL. FUCKING. BAY.

in conclusion. fuck hollywood. someone give money to the people who actually care about this franchise. or i'll die.

thank you and goodnight.

[jumpscaregoose]

What are your thoughts on the character writing in Shaman King? I think it's pretty interesting since it doesn't always spell out everything for the reader.

sorry for leaving this for like 87 years I was deliberating my opinions and then I forgot

pinkie promise to not ignore more asks for this long please give me more things to drabble on about

this triggered an unskippable cutscene so I'm adding a read more but if you don't wanna be here for years me complaining is still above the cut (though I recommend being a nerd with me I have a graph)

anyways I have a running bit with myself whenever I'm googling something mankin related (like when capitalism was invented or the average altitude in hokkaido or something about lsd for the fiftieth time) that I do more research than takei did originally writing the damn thing. the exact words I say are usually "I should stop expecting takei to be good at his job when I do this" because takei does suck at his job sometimes. directing you towards him using the entirety of pre-colonial mesoamerica as a grab bag of random traits that results in hell for me googling stuff because ohmygod

I think the character writing is where this happens the least (though there was one point during my flowers reread where I had to step away from my computer because I forgot he did a thing and it was the SINGLE WORST THING HE COULD HAVE WRITTEN for those characters with that plot element but I digress that is a whole other thing that I am not qualified for)

the writing of our main characters (specifically pacing) is funny though one second I have a graph

these lines display (roughly) the points in the story where we're introduced to our five main characters and also the points where we get full backstory reveals

as you can see

takei what the actual fuck why is it so imbalanced

I think it's a cool funny haha but sir did you forget that one of your most important characters didn't have a full backstory for like four years

not much else to say about pacing except the manga is already really zoomy and when you don't give them enough episodes to adapt it you get an any% speedrun wr 19 hours 50 minutes whateverI'mnotdoingmoremath seconds also look at this typo I made writing this it's very important

ok right where we we

actually answering the ask sounds like a good idea now

overall I really like the characters in the shaman king manga, reboot anime, and what I've seen of the 2001 anime. I've already written an entire post about how much I love yoh and hao's writing. hana and alumi are neat and red crimson is an excellent manga but we're no here for sequels

also it's important to note that I have been staring at shaman king for like two years straight, I have no sense of what's obvious knowledge and what's obscure nolifer wisdom ( no idea where I fall on that spectrum basically)

recently I've been in a real x laws appreciation phase, I think lyserg's arc specifically is a neat and complex take on justice and healing. it feels like something that could realistically happen to a person, minus all the supernatural stuff of course

ever since I first watched the 2021 anime the summer it started airing I've also really liked ren. he's got the zuko type redemption arc thing going on, and while that's an age old trope something about the way he was written always gets me. watching 2021 episode 27 for the first time the day it came out (as the first episode I watched weekly btw, rip osorezan arc you're beautiful but the first time I watched you I was so preoccupied) was one of the most memorable media experiences I've ever had. 😲 face the entire time

horo's another fave writing wise, again mostly because I think the ridiculous pacing of his arc is Hilarious, but if you interpret it as takei being good at his job (possible but unlikely) his introduction scene is fantastic at establishing a character without letting you know you're missing something. I for one didn't notice until the narrative pointed it out at which point I freaked out a bit because oh no I ignored my son by accident. the wisdom kings fight still makes me lose it every time I watch it scene of all time as well (voice performance has to be my favourite part of that I don't think it would go half as hard animated without that)

those three are my favourite characters writing wise. I also think jeanne is cool but her entire arc is very similar to both lyserg's and ren's so I shan't elaborate. I will however tell you about the time I was sitting in math class when my teacher mentioned joan d'arc, I had what can only be described as a eureka moment, and spent five minutes frantically googling things until I zoned back in to him talking about the time he almost drowned in quicksand on mont saint michel

there's also some neat stuff with plant and flower symbolism that I haven't looked into in months but is pretty neat (I like the part where weed shows up because I am so very mature)

don't even get me started on the musical leitmotifs and themes (no seriously don't I have no real musical knowledge and no one to fact check my bs) but I did write another post about some of it if you haven't read it

uh in conclusion I don't think takei knows what he's doing sometimes, character writing in shaman king pretty good sometimes me likey, I will make graphs on a whim for basically no reason

here have another one I did in two minutes to explain ren and jeanne's parallel character arcs once

giveb me more mankin asks if you have any I have so many OPINIONS and TANGENTS I wish to be PROMPTED

[sideblog-usernametaken]

This is also kind of tangential, but I feel like the Stampede version of events actually weakens a lot of both Knives and Vash's ideologies from a narrative standpoint. Like, the point of the manga is not to necessarily agree with either of them, and Stampede feels like it's trying to frame it so A) Vash is fully in the right all the time and B) Knives is obsessed with his brother and plants to an irrational and self destructive degree.

Bold claims to make, I know, but let me elaborate.

(Also this includes spoilers for the manga, the original anime adaptation, and Stampede so those who didn't realize that from OP's post you have now been warned)

Edit: I'm on mobile and it doesn't look like the "readmore" function is working on my end. Sorry to anyone trying to scroll past this and I'm leaving it in in case it does work on other screens.

:readmore:

On several occasions in both the manga and the original anime Vash is confronted by people that no one would blame him for killing, and he spares them anyway. You could argue the same is true for Stampede, but that's only on a surface level. For instance, look at the difference between Rollo in the original versions and in Stampede.

In the originals, his sole purpose in the story is to kill people, destrot stuff, and attack Vash. The closest thing we get to a tragic backstory is that he was locked up for a really long time, because he killed people and destroyed stuff. And we see that he likes doing it too. This is the first (And maybe only? I need to rewatch and reread) time in the series we really see Vash have to stop himself from killing someone in a blind rage. That moment cements that he truly believes that everyone is included in his no kill rule, no matter who they are or what they've done. It also shows us that following this rule isn't always easy for him and he does doubt himself every once in a while. After all, the main point that keeps getting thrown back in his face is "What happens if someone you spare goes on to do more damage?"

Meanwhile, Stampede takes a different approach. Now Rollo is a kid who was raised by a cult and got experimented on in a lab to turn him into what he is today. Oh, and Vash knew him before all that and failed to help him out. In doing this they make Rollo a sympathetic and tragic character, implying the destruction he caused wasn't really his fault. Plus, right before Wolfwood kills him Vash had almost successfully talked him down. Granted, this moment was probably meant to replace a similar moment with Zazzie in the original anime, but that scene was more about Wolfwood and Millie than it was Vash. However, changing Rollo's purpose to "Kid that Wolfwood killed but he kinda had a reason for it" makes it so he can't serve the "everyone means everyone" role that provided a lot of character development for Vash in the original. And they don't really replace him with anyone else.

The closest we narratively get to a Rollo stand in us the Nebraska Family. They attempt to steal a Plant which would doom an entire town if they succeeded, which is arguably much much worse than the original Rollo. The difference? The entire time they're acting like cartoon villians, and when Vash actively goes to save Yosef it is after he brought the Plant out of harms way and proved he was "redeemable". Literally by the end of the episode they are all drinking together in a bar, they basically speedrun the "Goofy season one villian who stops being a threat and isn't really reformed but is kinda part of the group now" trope in an episode. This makes people in universe question Vash, but not the audience, which is the whole point of "Vash spares/saves an antagonist" scenes.

You could argue that E.G. Mine an episode later fills the spot Rollo left, but he's not given the same focus that Rollo or the Nebraska Family gets. Knives shows up, rips a bunch people's arms off, then destroys the town. The episode's impact on the audience is "Oh that's what he's up against" not "Oh Vash character development."

Now on to Knives. We don't really get too much of him in the original anime because he didn't show up much in the chapters they adapted before they split from the manga, and after the split they focused more on Vash and the main cast. However, it's still made clear that the reason Knives is constantly attacking Vash is an attempt to get back at him for a perceived betrayal. Does he want Vash back? Yes. Will he take him back until he kills someone? No. They show through some flashbacks that Vash and Knives travelled together after the crash that Knives caused. From what we get to see of it, Knives fully trusts Vash (Completely comfortable sleeping around him) and treats him like a naive little brother. We even seen him refrain from killing off a settlement of humans because Vash stops him. He knows Vash doesn't like murder so he'll hold off on doing more until he knows he can finish what he started. The sense of betrayal comes from when Vash shoots him after revealing he still wants to wipe humanity off the planet. His thoughts go from "Vash cares about me to the extent I care about him" to "Vash values humans more than he values being my brother" and that his when his behavior towards Vash shifts. The events at July were to get back at him, and after Vash shoots him again, everything that follows is a combination of trying to get back at him for it and trying to break his spirit so he doesn't do it again.

As for the manga version, it's almost the same deal, except Knives is willing to shove his feelings to the side when he finds out that he and Vash are dying (And everything about baby Knives, but that was already covered by OP so I won't get into it here). This is around the same point he starts showing that he regrets causing the crash (Because of how many Plants died during and after) and causes the Plant revolution. He does try to have Vash merge too, but he also resorts to having Legato keep him immobile to keep him from using up more energy and dying. It's obvious he does still hold resentment though, and we see that all the way up until the final fight where he does change.

Stampede, once again, kind of removes and adds complexity. Instead of Tessla making him think "Oh no we can't get along with humans" apparently his thought process is "Oh no I need to protect Vash because he's weak". When taking this perspective, it makes no sense why he doesn't chase down Vash when he runs after the crash. Then when they meet later as teenagers, Knives thinks of the humans as stealing Vash from him instead of Vash really making an active choice. On top of this Vash's arm gets cut off to save him, and he only points a gun at Knives instead of actually shooting him. He hinges his whole Independent plan on brainwashing Vash too, but when Vash breaks free and the power is obviously unstable, Knives keeps going for it even as it's literally shredding him. What does this do? It removes intelligence from his character. The smart thing to do would've been to let Vash fire the cannon, scoop him up while he's weakened, then go try again. It's something the original Knives probably would've done too. We also see that Plants don't have free will or souls, and his plan also involves impregnating the Plants even though they can't give consent as he wants to shift focus to creating more Independents.

I'm going to be honest, in Stampede Knives is always made out to be fully ethically wrong and unhinged while Vash is always made out to be ethically correct. It honestly just removes complexity from both characters paints it as a "good vs evil" kind of thing even though the originals made the line blurrier. Don't get me wrong, Stampede says the main argument between Vash and Knives is complex, but saying it and incorporating it narratively are two different things. I mean, if Plants have no free will and no souls then discussion about the ethically of using Plants shifts from "Should we use them?" to "How do we do it humanely?" because they obviously can still feel pain. In the Manga we get to see that Plants do have their own thoughts, hence why they don't want to power up weapons aimed at their own kind and they give up on their attacks when they can communicate about their feelings, thoughts, and memories with humans.

I don't know, my analysis on Knives feels a bit shakey, but overall I don't think Stampede does a good job of trying to create a conflict that genuinely makes you consider both sides.

Ok I know these are my own tags but there's so many Stampede-takes about Vash just wanting to be loved and honestly I get why they made the changes they did but shit... I think there's something so crushing about thinking how the person Vash becomes isn't his natural state, it's him following the memory he has of Knives

Look at the difference in their expressions and reaction when it comes to humans accepting them. Being loved was not Vash's wish, it was Knives'.

[angstience]

akaashi opens tenma udai's apartment door right when his watch clocks at 9.00 pm.

he's suposed to be receiving the manuscript for the new manga issue tonight, and since the writer hasn't sent anything he has, as always, decided to pay him a visit. you know, to check if he's even alive.

the lights are dimmed and the only room in the apartment is closed, so the editor guesses tenma's either sleeping or... well, akaahi just guesses tenma udai is not working on the manga chapter that is due in two days.

he knocks a couple of times on the wooden door for him to get no response. is he dead? he thinks about the bajillion possibilities that wait him behind the door. like schrödinger's cat, he thinks, giggling to his own joke. however the mangaka still hasn't responded, and they really need to get the chapter done

i'm so sorry tenma-san, he thinks before blasting the door open.

what awaits him in tenma udai's room is certainly something he wasn't expecting. the man is looking at him with wide eyes, pencil in hand and what akaashi is certain that's the new chapter.

"apologies, tenma-san" he says, bowing. "i came to pick the manuscript. we seriously need to finish it."

"ah, akaashi," he smiles, recollecting the paper sheets and hiding the page where he currently is drawing on. "don't worry! i'll bring it tomorrow morning to the publishing house. i still need to finish some pages"

akaashi nods, not paying much mind to it, and leaves the room.

"well then," he says. "i'll take my leave then, please don't stress eat all the chips. i've also brought some soup that i've left in the counter." he tells the writer. leaving the door open, he walks through the tiny apartment and leaves the mangaka to his own devices.

the next morning, tenma udai clocks at ten am with a stack of pages in his hands. akaashi takes the manuscript and sets it in his desk. time to speedrun the editing.

it doesn't take him too much, to get the gist of the new chapter. the main characters are on set point, dramatically reliving their entire family tree's backstories, making akaashi laugh. he could've sworn he had met some people who would have definitely done that during matches.

not him, though.

he's cleaning and polishing the twentieth page when akaashi realises the man curled on the hallway watching something in his phone looks very familiar, and it takes him a couple minutes to realise that it is an uncanny version of him, but blonde.

the very same man that has been depicted as the loser editor for the main character's favourite mangaka.

what?

---------------

this is based off this tweet which had me laughing five minutes because furudate really said fuck akaashi

[robotlesbianjavert]

how do you think spinner's interview with shigaraki went? I imagine with how spinner was a hikikomori like 3 weeks beforehand and how shigaraki hates stain it must've been a little crazy.

if you are new to Me and also missed the only highlight of the MVA anime adaptation you can see my true and important interpretation on spinner's approach to his LOV audition here.

for real tho i can't even like. conceive what this must have looked like for spinner, with no apparent prior criminal/villain record of note he was literally just hanging out in his room, to meet up with the league of villains and be included among what shigaraki apparently considered to be elites.

was shigaraki really that impressed with the fact that spinner could find them without any apparent connections or whatever (assuming giran helped hook up the rest of the LOV on top of toga and dabi).

was he hoping that spinner could act as a lightning rod of nerd accusations cuz one of the first things spinner listed on his resume were speedrunning stats and how many 100% playthroughs he's accomplished (shigaraki would note that they are NOT more impressive that shigaraki's own videogame accomplishments just that he's able to be more chill about them)

maybe spinner just started spouting off vidgame language and shigaraki was like fuck yeah finally someone to translate Me to everyone else. thank god.

for real tho chances are, horikoshi didn't think about it too much when he was establishing the New & Improved League of Villains in the forest training/kamino arc, or hadn't entirely figured out spinner's backstory in particular when introducing them (though i will note that spinner had Extra Underdog vibes from the beginning).

therefore while i don't have a True Scenario outside of the risque, i think shigaraki originally like. was gonna turn spinner down cuz dude did probably come off as a useless fanboy at first glance, but spinner was just so insistent and stubborn and sincere when demanding to join the LOV that shigaraki just had to be like. wow okay we can make something out of your energy. you got potential kid.

for super real tho main manga spinner thinks he's auditioning for action hero but WE know the truth.

[incubusmommy]

Okay so... Imma ramble.

https://youtu.be/ZqbbNoy7zIE

I watched this and I have so many words to say.

OKAY SO hes complaining that 'miranda shows up at the end, the writing is so fucking dumb, we barely see her during the show, so why does she wait until all of her 'children' are dead to show up and create her kid?'

DID YOU EVEN PLAY THE GAME?!?!?!? They literally say that she hated all of them, she just used them and she knew that Ethan would get rid of them for her!!!

ANDDDD

'Oh ethan killed himself uselessly, it was a remote detonater bleh bleh bleh' He is made of mold. HE IS MADE. OF THE MOLD. THAT HE IS DESTROYING. He wouldnt have survived the Megamycete being destroyed, and knew that seeing him die would destroy his fucking wife. He literally gave his own life up because, with him alive, the fucking megamycete would carry on.

GOD he compares it over and over again to RE4, and yeah its similar. It's less horror than 7, which is one of the main issues that had people not being able to finish 7 (i should know, i am one of them). But its not resident evil 4! Its not! Yeah, its referenced and yeah its compared a lot, but its not 4. Its a good game. The story is good when you put effort into figuring out the lore. Yeah, Ethan fucking sucks. Everyone hates ethan. He's a horrid fuckin dude, hes boring, hes so so fucking stupid. But hes connected. His 2 games link the entire franchise in a really amazing way! It's the best way to appeal to a new generation! the first re game i played? Biohazard. And that game, even though i couldn't finish it, made me go back and play others! Comparing a game like RE8 to game that came out in 200fucking5. GOD.

He's a dude who puts effort into perfecting the game mechanicals, specifically the fighting. He didn't search for the hidden things, he didnt look for the detail, he made comments on the fact that lady d is hot and apparently thats bad writing? Yeah, she was overused for advertisment for how long she was actually in the game, but she fits! she has a backstory!

She is based off the fucking original vampire, Carmilla! She has backstory, as do the rest of the lords, if you bother to fucking look.

Lady D was raised as nobility, but she has a blood disease. She travelled the world with her jazz band, because she was ignored by her family. She met miranda, and believed she found a place where she wasnt going to be ignored. But then she was, so she was given her daughters. She, out of all of them, have something to lose.

Beneviento lost her family and, when she was infected, took out parts of herself to put into her dolls because she didnt want to be alone anymore. She asks you to take care of 'our Little Rose' because she understands what its like to lose those you love.

Heisenburg was taken from his family as a child, experimented on, and told that the people who helped torture him were now his family. Hes trying to destroy miranda, but his mind is so twisted from that torture as a child that he has no empathy for children. he tries to use rose, because shes a child who can do what he couldn't.

Even Moreau is so fucking sad. He was sick, riddled with cancer, and getting infected extended his life, yes, but it didnt get rid of the cancer. Hes riddled with tumors, is in constant pain, and hes so thankful that he doesnt care. he wants to be loved, he wants to be useful to the woman who 'saved him' but his brain is so messed up from an illness he cant control that he struggles to speak, to plan, to do what she wants right. He watches tv with happy families, and wishes he has that.

You won't find any of that fighting the zombies, or trying to speedrun the game. If you dont look at the story, you dont get the right to complain about the 'lack of story'.

Sorry for rambling but GOD

[strandedcrow]

Okay hold on bc I'm about to send you a NOVEL about why his manhunts are so good.

So I hadn't played Minecraft in probably... 6ish years before my friend asked our discord if anyone was interested in playing. So I had next to No knowledge of anything aside from the bare basics. It was also around this time that I started watching a variety streamer who did Minecraft speedruns sometimes. And I had watched set seed runs in the past so I knew the nether > rods > eyes > stronghold progression. But other than that? Not a lot. Didn't even know about Piglins. Plus I'm an Adult™️ and never really watched mcyt outside of those wr set seed runs so I knew NOTHING about the mcyt community at the time. (I unfortunately know more than I want to now)

Okay, with that backstory out of the way, I start hearing about someone named Dream who apparently cheated. And the streamer I watch confirms. Now, what do I care? It's just a game. But people are still super hyping this up. So I decide to check him out. And I'll admit, I went in with a somewhat negative mindset about him bc of everything I was hearing. So I find the channel easy enough, and a lot of his videos are "speedrunner vs hunter" whatever that means. So I'm curious and think, what the heck, let's see what Speedrunner vs 4 Hunters is.

My guy. That was the most excited I'd EVER been watching a video. A fucking MINECRAFT VIDEO.

I didn't know which voice belonged to who. I didn't know who any of these people were. I didn't know half of the mechanics or why he did specific things until they paid off. The frost walker boots play STILL remains as one of my favorite plays from him bc of how unexpected it was to me. I can't tell you how many times I've binge watched all of the manhunts or just put them on for background noise while drawing or playing another game.

And I'll also say that one video didn't completely make me change my mind about him. Not right away. But it made me do more research about the situation and look at it a different way. And here I am about 10ish months later, still excited about his videos which have only gotten better and better. Plus, it led to me finding other content creators I enjoy watching now too, plus a lot of talented artists and just genuinely nice people in the community.

This is long and rambly and I'm not sure how to end it off but like. The masterful storytelling and excitement he's able to create from his editing. Especially if you watch the full length manhunt vid vs the edited one. They feel like two completely different manhunts and it's all thanks to his dedication to making them as cinematic as possible.

Tldr: I basically became a Dream fan in 48 minutes and 2 seconds -lss

oh i LOVE hearing this kind of perspective, especially as someone who found his content before everything to do with the speedruns happened :o the manhunts are just so exciting and well put together, from an editing standpoint and from the narrative standpoint !! because i found him before the manhunt series like,, existed, i’ve just been so amazed watching how his editing style just continues to grow and develop throughout the entire series, getting cleaner and more professional without feeling inauthentic or mechanical in a sense. no matter how much he grows and improves, his content still so clearly comes from a place of passion, he just cares about his content and that SHOWS whether you’ve been here for two years or two weeks