#hate apple for not providing the adapter though

[bluephantasia]

getting a new phone is so strange because everything runs sooo smoothly, but i also have to remember the slight differences about it when it’s basically the same one as the previous

[jean-does-not-have-a-horseface]

Levi Headcanons

& some small analysis of my thoughts on Levi facts by Yams

No one, I repeat no one asked for this but I guess here we go I need to get those of my chest

Here are some very specific Levi headcanons that live in my head rent free. I shared those with @ladyofpandemonium yesterday and I had to post them

Topic: Levi and Marriage if you squint you can see some general Levi in a relationship thoughts

Next one is Levi and his love for apples, don't even question why

Listen, a fresh out of the underground Levi thinks that marriage doesn't really have to happen to bind two people together. He stands by it at all costs, because he believes in the dynamics of human relationships and doesn't give a shit about things that are set up by religion or law.

But supposing he has an s/o, a person he wants to spend the rest of his life with, a person that knows him like the back of their hand, its not bound that that his s/o won't bring up marriage, they probably will at some point

But it won't be them expressing that they want to get married, it's probably among the lines of conversing about another couple, or after Erwin shares that he liked Marie, who eventually married Nile and Levi dismisses the topic many times, saying that for him marriage is pointless and that he doesn't like the fact that people act like it's the only thing that binds couples together.

I'm pretty sure though that the thought of marriage will come randomly to him, maybe while reading a book and there's a marriage scene in it. His imagination is going wild, he loves to imagine an altar bathed in the yellow light of the sunset, some of it peaking through the colored glass that decorates some windows and the way it reflects on parts of the room. He doesn't want guests, so he never daydreams about anyone else other than himself and his s/o in this certain situation.

I think he'd like to see himself in that setting and by making these scenarios in his head he'd feel like he wants to experience them. At one point, maybe while cleaning, it would all come to him again and he'd find himself imagining he's there, waiting for his s/o to walk towards him.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that he's the most romantic person ever. He doesn't know how to be romantic, he can't find himself in a position to be romantic either. He's not bound to make anyone swoon with his words like Erwin could and he's not cheerful and cute, he's not a person you could fall for easily, given his past and upbringing, but this doesn't mean that he can't and won't dream about things he reads in books.

I think that, also, he'd long to be officially claimed by someone just as much as he'd love to claim someone his officially as well. Jump on me all you want about this, but it feels like he would love to find a home in a person, marriage aside, he wants to be held, he want to be someone's Levi. Not just Levi.

He's spent most of his life uncertain of his own last name. Again he was just Levi for most of his life so when he'd give it a second thought he'd like to feel that joy. That he can hold a hand and lean on a shoulder and that he could be with a person who he could be open with without having to talk much. Levi wants someone to want him as he wants them and he'd give his whole heart in his s/o.

Plus, Levi seems, to me at least, like he is one who won't stubbornly stick to his ideas if his s/o expresses they want something.

Say for example you want to sleep with him, you want to cuddle him, you want to shower him in kisses, you want to give him a long, hot bath. At first, he'd say no. It's a new territory for him, he doesn't know how to provide all that affection, he can't bring himself to believe he'd enjoy them. But on second thought?

On second thought he sleeps with his s/o between his legs in the loveseat in his office, on second thought he kisses his s/o chastely on the cheek randomly, on second thought he lets himself loose in his s/o's embrace. And eventually he'd find himself wanting to rest his head on his s/o's chest, he'd want to put his head on their thigh's and have a much needed nap, he'd be willing to make some time to step in a hot bath after having a shower to get rid off the dirt. (Of course he wouldn't like to float in his own filth)

It's not that he feels like he has to change who he is to fit into someone else's standards. He's just open to new things after giving them much thought, he wants to keep moving forward and get better.

And since he likes to adapt his traits to other people's (something I do as well) you'll find your Levi to be open to become a better partner. I'm not talking about him changing, not at all, if you want to be with him you have to accept what comes with him but when it comes to his partner he's soft and loving and needy. It's much more deviant to what he paints himself to be in front of everyone.

Thus if his s/o even so as lingers on the subject of marriage he keeps thinking about it and he likes that it could be a scenario made into reality. And I think that he would probably and randomly announce to his s/o that they should get married if they both think it can happen.

With Levi such things come out randomly, he can't never find the right place or time to set the ground to try new things, he just thinks that blurting them out is the way to go, it saves him from being embarrassed, remember -he gets all stuttery around someone he likes-

And another reason why I think he would get married is that maybe if him and his s/o planned to have children he'd never want anyone to doubt them.

He knows in their setting that children born outside of marriage aren't really considered legit he'd hate for anyone to look down on his children as if they were him.

He wants his children to have a full name, to know that they have a family they belong into. He would never, ever let his children become that heartbreaking 'just Levi' human beings.

This could be a time for me to write Levi as a father and my opinion on it, but I'll save that for another time

[linklethehistorian]

Randou and the Sins of Season 3's Fifteen Adaption (Part 14/???)

Episode 27 — The God of Fire (2/4)

Contrary to the presentation of the conversation between Dazai and Chuuya following the former’s aforementioned actions in the anime, where it simply ends on the suicidal boy’s several agreements that shooting a dead body is probably excessive and unnecessary and that his partner is right to claim such, that is not really the way it truly unfolded within its source material; no, instead, when Chuuya asks him to show respect for the dead by not continuing to shoot the man’s lifeless form, Dazai only acknowledges his statement once — his superficially familiar “Yeah. You’re right.” taking on an entirely different tone and context in the novel — before adding that that is ordinarily what people would think and pausing a moment, laughing dryly at his own statement soon after as he walks away towards the mansion.

Of course, I suppose that you may be wondering why something as seemingly small as removing his laughter and perhaps swapping a few choice words out for others is such a big deal to me — or to anyone else, for that matter — when it ultimately all sounds much the same, and I suppose I can’t really blame you for that, either, but it’s necessary for you to understand that in this case, the key to the scene’s proper nuance really does lie in these very things that were taken away from us. As I said above, the words, “Yeah. You’re right” are used by Dazai in an entirely different light between the two versions; while in the animation, it was clearly used as an agreement with the redhead’s sentiment, in the novel, it functioned more as a show of attentiveness towards the person presenting their views to him, as well as an acknowledgement that this was something he’d heard many times before from other “normal” people and thus was not the least bit surprised to be told again — especially when Chuuya was, from his then-current perspective, not any different from the rest of the masses in his thought processes.

On the question of whether or not this is a compliment or an insult, I think that it is worth acquiescing that it may genuinely be a bit of both, for although I personally lean more towards the latter and have my own reasoning for believing it was meant as such, I do think that Lea also has some rather interesting insight into and ideas on the matter, herself, and I absolutely don’t want to just ignore her point of view on it, when I do feel that it too at least bears a decent amount of consideration; therefore, I will do my best to give a bit of elaboration on both angles, along with asking that if I fail to explain her thoughts well to you, you might feel free to check out the post in which she originally goes over it.

From Lea’s personal standpoint, it is her belief that the bandaged teen’s laughter at his assertion that Chuuya’s thoughts were ordinary compared to his was not meant as a mockery towards Chuuya or so-called “ordinary” people, but rather was aimed at himself; according to her explanation, this is because Dazai is well aware of how strange his mind is and, as such, how he himself can never qualify as or belong to the notion of anything ‘ordinary’, thus causing him to hold some bitterness towards himself for how out of place he is in the world and how little he believes he can ever fit in. As before, whilst I may hold a different opinion on the situation overall, I don’t actually think this interpretation is precisely wrong, nor do I think it should be completely overlooked, as I absolutely don’t doubt that Dazai does, to some extent, feel a deep dissatisfaction in himself because of how ‘different’ and, in a sense, removed from everyone else, he is, and how that has led to him experiencing this great emptiness inside and struggling to want to continue living; I don’t doubt for even a moment that there are and have often been times in the past when Dazai may have been, on some level, jealous of those around him and perhaps even had a part of him wish that he could be like everyone else, because I’m almost sure that all of this has been true — at least, at one point or another.

That being said, though, that also does not erase the fact that regardless of any envy he may feel for the general population, it is absolutely not because he in any way believes them or their ways of thinking to be genuinely superior; in fact, based on all that has already been established about Dazai — both in this particular entry and all of those in the past as well — I think it is very fair and safe of me to make the assessment that, if anything, it is exactly the opposite that is true. Dazai envies others and their thought processes not for some alleged superiority, but rather, for their supposed inferiority, which his emotionally and empathetically narrow mind perceives them to have; to the young so-called genius, his occasional desire to be like the ‘ordinary’ people around him is little more than a wish that he could sometimes turn his ‘logic’ off — to become simple and ‘naive’ enough to be unaware of what he thinks are the true ways of the world, or at least just be ‘foolish’ enough to see it and still be able to ‘delude’ himself into denying it anyway.

Assuredly, I can grant that the suicidal teen may dislike or even resent his own nature, but once more, it is not because he believes there is something wrong with him mentally, half so much as that he believes he is much too smart for his own good; thus, I hardly think it appropriate to say that his laughter is in intentional mockery of that or of himself, when I find it far more easy to believe that he is amused by and making mockery of the “lower intelligence” of others and their compassionate, ‘uninformed’, emotionally-driven outlooks.

Of course, if this conclusion of mine is indeed right, then we would naturally have a much better explanation for why this moment was omitted in the anime. I know that some people might think that it is very logical to presume that they simply cut whatever they could for time, and that this part was just one of those things that could be easily and fairly harmlessly expended, rather than to take the less charitable stance in saying that this was a calculated move of some kind; however, when you truly give any degree of genuine thought to it, you must admit that it is a little absurd to suggest the studio decided that these few potential seconds of additional dialogue were “taking up too much time”, especially when you consider that they were just fine with wasting much, much longer on credit sequences and extended events that did not even happen as presented in the original story on other occasions.

Furthermore, while no one is denying that the moments leading up to this removed final exchange aren’t exactly the best at providing pleasant representation for Dazai, there is still no ignoring the fact that without this last piece being kept in, it is nonetheless infinitely better for a more SKK compliant, ‘kinder Dazai’ narrative than it would be with it still maintained, as it not only makes Dazai look slightly nicer, but especially lends much more of a sense that Chuuya’s words had a profound effect on him than they actually did. As for what they gain in pushing this untrue portrayal I continue to allude to so often, and what reason I have to believe they’re actually doing that, well, that’s something I’ll get into much more later, but I imagine it isn’t so hard to at least partially figure out on your own anyway, in the meantime — even if you don’t truly know the full extent of the butchery they’ve committed to achieve it.

Temporarily setting aside this treachery and mutilation, though, even if this one choice hadn’t been a part of some much bigger picture, I would still be just as disappointed in their decision, as I feel it heavily tones down the full extent of the scene’s eeriness and loses the true sense of the two teens’ personalities, thoughts, and relationship with each other.

It is, true, too, I have no doubt, that the earlier addition of Dazai’s “what you say is probably correct” to the conversation, after twice confirming that Chuuya was right with his assessment, was included in order to mirror a certain scene in DEAD APPLE, but I don’t really have much to give of my own, commentary-wise, on it, since unlike the other alteration, its existence does not change all that much, and as a result, I neither hate nor adore it; it simply exists, and that is fine.

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[stray-tori]

TPN S02E05 - Initial Thoughts (anime-only)

the reaction video: Google Drive

.

. Blue friend!

That i didn’t immediately catch that they were two different groups was kind of embarrassing asuhjd- they do be surveilling. They clearly already tailed them, but idk why they didn't just show up at their hideout --- I guess that would have been too undramatic.

It was kind of obvious towards the end and I felt like they could have made it a little more dynamic. I don’t need still shots. Make them attack and the mask comes off after he also speaks or... idk, so many still frames; masks hiding any emotional reaction (though I do like the whole taking off mask reveal in theory); and then also the kind of.... EH reaction I’m just... idk, I expected more somehow but I can’t exactly pinpoint what I wanted differently.

(This whole thing kind of goes back to my initial theory way back after s1 how Norman might try to infiltrate the system as a demon and then have to pretend to not be their ally in front of them and have to pull through with something, or some tragic shit like that. Or one of them trying to kill him, but he can’t say anything and then they realize when the cover comes off --- yeah VERY BAD, I’m glad that’s not what’s happening.)

I’m assuming the tidbit about farms being raided “recently” means he’s not been out for that long (at least not longer than a few months) so that’d explain why it wasn’t brought up with Isabella.

I also don’t think anything happened when he was removed from GF - but between Norman’s surprised expression when entering the gate room and him being here now, I don’t think he was shipped out for food (unless the high quality ones don’t get flower’ed right away and instead only at their “eater” --- since that’d at least give the support duration for someone to rescue him or him to do something about his situation).

So I’m very curious to hear about that whole story and I have a small bit of hope that the recap episode will be framed as Norman talking about s1 from his perspective and then also transitioning over into what happened while they were apart either in next episode or the episode after that. Don’t think we need a recap either way, but OH WELL, I hope there’ll be SOME framing to it at least.

edit: I thought episode 6 would be a recap, but it’s 5.5 and likely due to production issues so forget my rant here, I’m fine with the recap. I’m not fine with staff being overworked but oh well that’s a whole different dilemma.

They got so much to do and so few episodes AHHH

I wonder if there’s any meaning-parallel to be drawn between the old demon having a walking stick and Norman also having a walking stick??? idk it just felt odd to me-- Norman why are you old.

Though gotta also appreciate that anime really went opposite manga approach here, he didn't age AT ALL duisjsd. still babey. (edit: I didn’t know about his “inbetween” design as much and seeing them side by side it’s actually pretty accurate so yayyy. he babey anyway though)

what did that one guy out of Norman's group do when he leaned down to presumably Don I'm confusion

Norman, surrounding his friends: "lets ominously walk up to them"

.

. The demons' form

I didn’t post it I think but I actually made a “you are what you eat” joke in my ep3 post but discarded it because Sonju and Mujika look completely fine despite never having had any humans and I thought that’d throw a wrench in my thought.... and it still does so... that’s really interesting.

It also seems as if him saying “The world won’t change” is kind of..... like a prophecy sort of thing? It could just mean the massive class divide of course, but maybe if all the demons were well fed with humans, they’d achieve greater things? Since when you’re dying you’re kind of not in the condition to do anything, and if eating their body parts makes the demons adapt; is the implication that eating their brains makes demons smarter? if so that's a pretty literal parallel to the lower classes of society being robbed the chance to do something great by sheer circumstance. they're just actually dumber bc they don't get provided the materials to be smart

Honestly I’m a bit confused and not sure what it means, i can think of:

once a demon has ever eaten a human, they have to continue doing so

eating singular body parts makes them generate on you and you need “higher quality” humans to counter-act it. Would explain why Mujika and Sonju aren’t affected, since they don’t eat humans at all. Would also be an allegory for a healthy/balanced diet I GUESS but I don’t think it seems very plausible? it just seems kind of random.

They’re descendants from different demons and Sonju&Mujika simply don’t need to eat humans to maintain their form.

I also brought up that maybe it’s faith related / a placebo? But that seems even more forced.

I also don’t know if the implication is that they need ANY food, but then why are there hands on them?? So I do think it’s that it’s humans specifically that are either the problem or the solution. But since the bigger demons don’t seem to be affected AND the higher ups also not, I doubt it’s what causes the problems, unless it somehow is the whole balanced / “have to KEEP doing it” angle.

Also the demon scene in the ruins was so interesting, I really liked how it was so somber and kind of just... quiet. Emma, our queen, emphasizing once again.

I wonder if the demon realized it secretly or not... he seemed kinda overall nice and reasonable so I wouldn’t be super surprised if he noticed and just didn’t really care...

.

. The timeline

GF kids have been escaped for 1 year, they were a month at the bunker, so they’ve been out and about for another ~11 months.

Anna says nothing happened in the past 6 months; what else happened to them? just that they hid somewhere and had to flee again?

Is that also where they got their new clothes? i fail to see why they couldn’t just get them at the bunker, would make a bit more sense imo- but oh well.

farms keep being attacked recently and stealing children. it was def not our group, Norman's group potentially? They seem to be pretty badass, so that’s probably not unlikely.

Alternatively, it could be an overarching even bigger group that also rescued Norman, I think.

.

. Other things I liked

the scene of Emma being kind of lost was... pretty good, seeing our sunshine kind of doubt herself (understandably so after not making progress for an entire year) is pretty impactful. But i also feel like she’d try even harder to hide it in front of the others. but also why are you talking to a wall, are you mentally okay, probably not--- 

LOVED the nice subtle reveal to show how they mask their scent in the Lani and Thoma scene when they wanted to go with them

shot of the apple rolling and the screen turning over but head-down was cool!!

Emma and ray flinching when the demon's hand reaches out to Lani and Thoma

That convo between Lani and Thoma and how the older ones always give them the food and pretend to eat I'M EMOTIONAL

also their costumes are so colorful :sparkles: it’s such a big switch from their usual outfits-

.

. Other things I didn’t like

i'm not even a rayemma shipper and I still wanted Ray to do more than say a few lines and WALK AWAY?? ray what ya doin-

[Lani and Thoma] also literally why did you let them come. This season does really depend on someone fucking up and it’s kind of annoyingggggg :) Though in this case it isn’t that much their fault, they just stood around.

also why Norman only say “Emma” pls kill me. I was so happy that (very light manga spoiler) ...... Ray and Emma were both there for the reveal but fuck, the anime just straight up didn't care about Ray being there anyway :V

they better gife me a good trio hug to make up for this next (... uh... next-next TvT) episode

I do agree he’s back too soon but..... I kind of can’t hate them, with the whole 1 season to wrap it up chaos. Anime industry bad.

Well at least I’m excited and didn’t hate it. I’m somehow a little empty-headed but it was a good episode, and the surrounding anxiety probably just makes me a little iffy.... Hope the recap episode next week will have some merit and otherwise, see ya in two weeks.

[allywrites360]

Red Shoes - Analysis/Review

“You’re the most beautiful woman in the world… whether my eyes are open… or closed.” - Merlin

““But I’m still that Merlin inside.” - The one who grew. The one who changed, and learned to love himself and others for more than what’s on the outside. I know Snow is the main example of self love in this film, but Merlin provides a great example of this; something we don’t often see in male characters.”

--

So this film just released in North America, and I thought I’d share some thoughts and overall themes/metaphors from this film. But first, I’d just like to encourage you (if you haven't already) to go and support this film. It pretty inexpensive, and was made by an independent animation studio, which I think is absolutely amazing. Now onto the analysis!!

Love the concept of everyone being an adaptation of a fairytale character; adds to the society being shallow and appearance focus as a whole, as fairytales were traditionally focused on dichotomy and physical beauty.

The lighting, and really animation as a whole, is phenomenal for a film made by an independent studio. The shading and colour grading is a real standout, though. And the landscapes!! They feel really three dimensional, and gorgeous.

[ID - A shot of a sunrise, beautifully lit behind a belltower - End ID].

Scoring/motif for the main villain is amazing.

Introduction to the protagonist is really not setup well. Did she actually get sent away from the palace? How long was she gone? How desperate is she to save her father? All of these questions are left unanswered, and no prominent character traits are shown through her first scene. She could be clever? All she did was change her hiding spot, so even that’s a stretch.

I hate the king’s narration. The dialogue is choppy, and repetitive in a completely irrelevant way.

The lore around the tree is really unclear. Why haven’t the shoes worked for Regina? Why do they work for Snow? Will they not regrow?

Love the transition scene to the dwarfs; makes it feel as though they’re just been walking listlessly since the spell was cast. Which, y’know, more or less true.

[ID - A shot of the seven dwarfs walking together through the centre of a forest in midday, looking slightly dejected - End ID].

Love the fact the mirror points out that ‘wisdom’ and ‘kingdom’ don’t rhyme; I paused to point that out.

I will say that the action scenes are really well directed/choreographed. The camera flows really nicely, and always follows our protagonists (ooh, tying into the dichotomous nature of fairytales overall?), which makes the stakes and emotions feel higher/more personal.

The villain’s voice acting and dialogue is really sharp and entertaining. She feels like a real threat (and also uncannily similar to Gothel but).

Love the wooden front on their house disguised as a castle. Really nicely done metaphor for them clinging on to a cheap version of their pasts; refusing to move on, which is torn down when she arrives. Also ties in to the “what’s on the inside outweighs what’s one the outside” moral.

[ID - The seven dwarfs’ house, which is a cave, with a wooden cutout shaped and painted like a castle sitting in front of it to give the illusion of a grander living space - End ID].

Can I also say I love that her first reaction isn’t insanely positive to her new appearance? In general, she just notes there’s been a change, which is a really nice subversion of the ‘overweight people have to be unhappy at the outset’ trope.

Her facial expressions are also really animated, which is something I’ve always loved (see Ariel, Anastasia, etc.), especially her eyes. Really well designed. Actually, all the expressions suit the characters’ personalities really well. Great job, animation department!

The fact that all seven dwarfs are names after popular mythical characters is really inventive (much more so than simply naming them after a character trait), as well as having their diverse fighting style be built from that, which I loved. Could even be allusions, but I don’t know enough about the original stories to say.

Hate the electric guitar of Prince Average. Highlights how much he doesn’t belong in this movie. His name is horribly uncreative, and his pop culture references break the forth wall, and aren’t funny, as they aren’t used properly. With him as the involved antagonist for most of the film, I can’t take the threat seriously. Other comic villains have been done so much better, such as Prince Charming from Shrek. The only valid line he has is about ‘dwarfs’ vs. ‘dwarves’; I never know which to use. “Finally, the big guns, thank you!” One more fourth wall break from this man I swear.

Love the added detail of the shoes not being able to be removed once you place value on the beauty they give. It’s hard to let go of that temptation; and if you don’t, you won’t be seen as your true self. It also highlights how she loves herself at the outbreak of the movie, and is therefore able to remove them freely. Also gets rid of the the deus ex machina of her shoes coming off freely in the water.

Wish we could’ve seen her doubt grow as she realizes they wouldn’t have helped her in her original form. Feels like we were a bit disconnected from her emotions. Which might not be a bad thing… if we assume Merlin in the protagonist.

Nice foreshadowing to her father being the bunny; if you know to look for it.

References such as ‘#blessed’, or ‘Pablo Picasso’, don’t work in the slightest. They serve no purpose, and aren’t funny simply because most would recognize them.

Normally I would make a note about Merlin and Snow having really standard, basic designs, but one, this animation studio is small, and on limited resources, and two, it, again, relates back to the shallow, uninteresting societal expectation of beauty that refuses to be unique.

Ahh, nice that apples are what trip the guards up in the chase scene through the market. Symbolic.

Love that she’s willing to defend the dwarfs even when she realizes they won’t help her in her original form. Again, wish we could’ve seen her emotions pertaining to that a bit more, although the reflection shot in the mirror (reflected from the shot at the start of the scene) was nice. Speaking of that, the broken, fragment reflection of her ‘fake’ self, is beautiful, because it isn’t a representation of herself, however at the end of the scene, we see the reflection in the same manner, but with her original self, but due to newly inflicted self doubt, we get a split second of that reality being fragmented too.

[ID - Snow White frowning as she looks into a shattered mirror leaning against the wall of an alleyway in her society-dictated “beautiful” - End ID].

[ID - Snow White looking into the same mirror, frowning, and having removed the shoes, restoring her to her original appearance - End ID].

The three bears (I’m assuming an allusion to the Goldilocks mythos) don’t really serve any plot relevance… however they are cute, so make of their inclusion what you will.

Again, the scene where she exits the dwarfs’ home; it would’ve been great to see a shot of her internal conflict before she submits herself to giving up her freedom for Merlin and Arthur’s. Relating to that, I have noticed that the hostage situations have shockingly low stakes in this film. For instance, at the end, Merlin is simply held in a branch, and a second later, Snow is willing to give up her life to set him free.

The movie didn’t end up using this (which was a nice subversion of expectations), but if Merlin had used all his spells in the final battle, and needed just one more shot, it wouldn’t have been a deus ex machina, because we establish previously he has the one Snow gave him for luck. I assumed it’d comeback again, but turns out they just used it as a symbol (for having the flower, a symbol of outside beauty, float out of his hand), for him letting go of his shallow mindset.

[ID - Snow White (wearing the shoes which change her appearance) smiles at Merlin, in his dwarf form. In his hand there’s a paper flower she folded from one of his spells - End ID].

Really love the joke about the mirror being hurt by smoke. Get it? Smoke and mirrors? Now that reference is funny; and also ties into the theme of false fronts/illusions. But not gonna lie, all that was an afterthought. It genuinely made me laugh.

Love that they rebuild the house too. It’s not beautiful, at least in a traditional sense. It’s cracked, uneven, but personal to them; they did it as a family. I’ll give the writers credit for so fully entrenching the theme into every frame and action. Nothing is meaningless in this film. Well, at least surrounding the protagonists.

Ooh, ooh, I could forgive the use of pop as their love motif if at the end, when there are no facades, it’s replaced by original scoring. I don’t remember that scene in all that much detail though.

The tree thing is… strange, I’ll admit, but considering Regina puts all her stock in the beauty which comes from the magic tree, it makes sense it’d be rooted into her magic in some way. The apple details are cool (notches shaped like seeds on the trunks), if nothing else, considering the scene with the three attacking is not investing the slightest, beyond some inventive attacks from Merlin (the action and attacks surrounding him aren’t executed all that poorly).

The directing in general is phenomenal in this movie; which is something I’ve been trying to put a bit more attention on lately.

Love small details like Merlin holding his back after the fight, circling back once again to the fact these characters are more similar than they realize (if you remember, that’s what she used as a cover when she first woke up).

[ID - A shot of Merlin running, pressing a hand against his back as he does so - End ID].

Okay, I can suspend my disbelief for a lot of things in this movie, but when Snow dives into the lake, that surface tension would’ve seriously hurt her. If even some waves would’ve been added, it would’ve not only added suspense to the scene, but made it a bit more grounded as well.

“Who do you like more, Snow White or Red Shoes?” “Easy, it’s Red Shoes.” “Who does Red Shoes love more?” “Easy, it’s me. Wait… no. It’s you.” That line is by far my favourite from the film. I love that it shows his guilt. She’s chosen to love him despite his appearance, but he won’t do the same for her. And now he has to look in the mirror at that ugly part of his personality.

[ID - At night, Merlin in his dwarf form stands beside Merlin in his human form. The dwarf version of him looks irritated as he looks up - End ID].

(Assuming Merlin named the rabbit, and if I’m being honest I didn’t pay attention to that) It’s sorta fitting to his character that he named it ‘Long Ears’ - a notably physical attribute.

While I do like that, just because the climax called for it, the sword didn’t suddenly lift from the stone, I really dislike that it was broken out by sheer force; which goes goes against the entire magic system/point of the sword and who gets to hold it.

Kronk as the magic mirror is hilarious. I want to credit the screenwriters for his lines… but I have a strong feeling it was mostly improv. Well done whoever is to credit for that.

Now this action scene, with Merlin being attacked by the tree roots, is insanely well done. For maybe the first time in this movie, I feel the suspense I’m intended to, and the setup and just character movement in general is really inventive. You feel his emotions and breath in this scene, which takes serious talent.

“How could she possibly want to save you more than she wants to be beautiful? Did you cast a spell?” - On a related note, I’m proud of this movie for not falling into the traditional ‘misunderstanding breaks up characters before the final battle’ (they technically do split up, but it’s the fault of Merlin’s unresolved selfish intentions rather than a petty matter) through Snow seeing the love spell, and assuming the worst even though Merlin never uses it.

The vines could be a metaphor as well; in this battle, they’re the shallow desires holding him back, while he, with the assistance of others, has to break his own way out (as shown by him using his lighting to crack a small hole in the doors (or exit) of the room.

[ID - Merlin is running towards the “camera”, however, he looks surprised as a vine grabs his waist, and attempts to drag him back into the castle - End ID].

“I’m sorry, Snow White.” That’s the first time he uses her name; and he does it mentally; in a voiceover. It isn’t to impress her, or win a competition. It’s how he truly sees her now. Also, so beautiful how his motives go from being self centred, to focused on her; he changed because of her influence. It’s been done before, but that doesn’t make it any less meaningful here.

“You’re the most beautiful woman in the world… whether my eyes are open… or closed.” That wasn’t his final line (he survives), but if it was… that would’ve been so powerful. Still is, just in a different way.

“I kinda liked the short and green Merlin.” “But I’m still that Merlin inside.” - The one who grew. The one who changed, and learned to love himself and others for more than what’s on the outside. I know Snow is the main example of self love in this film, but Merlin provides a great example of this; something we don’t often see in male characters.

And I loved that it was a hug immediately after his spell is broken. He isn’t trying to gain anything, he’s just happy to be with her, which is super romantic. 

[ID - Both now restored to their original forms, Merlin and Snow White sit on the ground just outside the palace hugging each other, both smiling with their eyes shut. The king, and a few of the dwarfs stand in the background - End ID].

Onto a few of my favourite lines;

“I was worried about you!” “I was worried about me too. But- but mostly you!”

“If you could see the real me…” “I think I can see the real you… eyes open or closed, I still see Merlin.” What a great line. What a great theme. You don’t need to know the facts about someone, or see their original appearance, to know who they are. And I think that’s beautiful.

“Someone you’l be proud to be seen with.” “I think you’re right.”

“I thought that we were both under the same spell… but I was wrong.”

“He likes you more than he likes me,” as she looks down at the shoes.

“Who do you like more, Snow White or Red Shoes?” “Easy, it’s Red Shoes.” “Who does Red Shoes love more?” “Easy, it’s me. Wait… no. It’s you.”

“How could she possibly want to save you more than she wants to be beautiful? Did you cast a spell?”

“I’ve never been so glad to be chubby and green again.” - Because it means he’s not alone.

“I’m sorry, Snow White.” 

“You’re the most beautiful woman in the world… whether my eyes are open… or closed.”

“I kinda liked the short and green Merlin.” “But I’m still that Merlin inside.” 

I’ll just say, as an ending thought, that the 2D animation of their wedding is adorable.

Overall, I’d give it 8/10. Nothing phenomenal that was entirely groundbreaking, but there’s a lot of heart to be shown here, with some truly amazing characters, even if some of their universe isn’t all that intriguing. Would highly recommend.

[flightofaqrow]

adaptation to common society excerpts

jumping on the bandwagon of qrow in the tribe vs coming to vale/beacon while in a meta mood. except this is less something i have actual headcanons about, and more something i try to keep in mind, and let the muse reveal the details as i write. so here’s some excerpts.

╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾ This entire thread with @erudite-rebel is infused with Barty helping Qrow understand the communication towers:

“…these CCT things seem pretty important to protect.” intricacies of mechanical inner workings are practically second nature to qrow, but he’s still working towards full comprehension of all this advanced tech and invisible communication. he halfway hopes to instigate a tangent on that alone to help him catch up…

“They are indeed,” says Barty, unbothered by Qrow’s lack of knowledge on the subject. Once he’d gotten over the shock of things that Qrow wasn’t used to, or didn’t know how to do, he’d adapted. “The CCT towers provide communication to every corner of Remnant.”

[qrow] “every corner that can afford it.”

╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾

mountain girl [ @lifahakondotter ] and forest boy commiserate about HVAC:

Lifa: “You’re one of those Vale kids. The hell are you doing up here? Aren’t you all allergic to weather below thirties?”

qrow: “projected aura? …well that and growing up without heat.”

Lifa: “I’m more used to a hearth than the fancy heating they have in this school. Honestly, I hate the noise it makes. Part of the reason I come up here.”

qrow: “oh man, agreed! i’d take the crackle of flames over bangin’… uh,” what was the word… “ - ventilation any day. can barely hear the crickets at night with that kinda racket.”

╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾

clothing is bullshit!!! also with @lifahakondotter

qrow: sweet stars a warm fire, yes! his shoes are already kicked off by the time she says so. in short order followed by socks, and pants and… once she’s set up her supplies, he’s stripped down to burgundy boxers, hung his clothes from the mantle to dry, and laid down on his back, basking like a cat.

lifa: She turned back around to ask, “Do you like venis– ancestors above me!” He’s practically naked! ...Without an ounce of grace, she tossed [a reindeer skin] over him. “You won’t warm up like that.”

qrow: the fact that baring so much skin could itself cross the lines of decency never even occurred to him. he had found not everyone in the kingdoms had the same openness he grew up with, but that’s why he left the boxers on!

╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾

pickpocketing:

“get away with it? psh. not in the least.” he reaches into his pants pocket to pull a wallet that most certainly isn’t his, “the big guy’s payin’ for it by buyin’ our rounds tonight.”

╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾

difference in kid games with @shcdeacademy (Saphron)

“Yea you can say that again, I have Jaune to thank for that. Since most of my siblings put most of their attention on him after he was born. You know tea parties, dress up, the works.”

“dress up, was a new one the girls taught me, i gotta admit.” some manner of toys could be common across all cultures, even if materials might have changed the quality. plastic swords or sticks, robots or rag dolls. bandit games were more physical, competitive. the tea parties were real. he doesn’t speak of his past as if he felt anything had truly been missing, however, there wasn’t much room for make believe. Especially when, “…didn’t grow up with enough extra clothes for all that.”

╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾

Raven [ @boundariestcbreak ] and qrow adjusting together:

Raven didn’t understand why he’d rather lay on the floor than sit on a bed like she was. Sure, it was what they were both used to, but now that she had a bed, she intended to use it as much as possible-even if it was just to sit on instead of actually sleeping on it.

sure, beds were more comfortable, but they break. qrow has been learning that about many of the civilized little luxuries at beacon, quite literally, real fuckin’ quick.  ( qrow loves beds, but his semblance means he can’t have nice things. :[ )

...   

Raven laughs and reaches for her water bottle, holding it out for a cheers. “Cheers only work if you actually have something to cheers with, little brother.” She says with a light chuckle. It’s still taking a lot of adjusting to go from living in the woods with no electricity, indoor plumbing or anything of the like, to having all of that at their finger tips, but so far she’s actually enjoying what she has discovered. Even though she can’t quite wrap her head around some things, like the shows that some of their classmates seem so invested in. None of that makes any sense to her, if she’s being honest.

qrow rolls his eyes and reaches over his head to snatch at an empty plastic glass on the bookshelf, pulling it back to raise it over his chest upside down and toast… sort of properly. ... he holds onto it, making mental note to drop it back off in the kitchen. because they have one of those now. it feels strange not to have his own cooking duty rotation...

╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾╾

bad table manners and general adjustments with @whytrose​

as he pushes open the door, and the smell of all the foods in the cafeteria hall hit his nose, he supposed he could deal with missing an afternoon drink in trade for the guarantee of three square meals a day. he’s still getting used to that kind of security.

more expectations. more than him trying to keep up with responsible studies when he’s done nothing but learn through trial and error his whole life. more than figuring out how functioning in polite society even worked, right down to the proper attire, apparently.

he takes a lazy lean against the wall near the exit to the atrium, and wonders if Summer is just going to stand there and eat a lunch of only a single apple without even having a seat somewhere. he thought sitting down for lunch together was how it worked anyway. observations of the past several days made it seem so.

he tears a bite of his sandwich and cackles, rude, with his mouth full as the pieces finally fall into place. he swallows, and smacks the table with his other hand - the sound reaching even higher pitch from the contact of his ring. somehow in the combination of tearing at his food, grinning to himself, and that elbow to the ribs he chokes on his own bite and inhale. steadying hands tossed down on the table then squirt juice from a slice of his orange right into his eye. (well, this one may have just been the sloppiness of his own mirth.) one palm covers his eye and one fist smacks high on his chest to assist a cough before extending fingers for Summer to just. give him a moment.

[dallaswebsite]

Web Design Trends in 2020: Are you ready to increase conversions?

Simple animations and GIFs, brutalism, microinteractions, diversity: get to know the 10 main Web Design trends for this year.

As a good Web Design professional, you should already know that it is necessary to be aware of all changes in the market to have a competitive advantage among your competitors.

A few years ago, design trends moved towards unrestrained creativity – abandoning traditional grids and photos in exchange for vibrant illustrations, bold color schemes and asymmetric layouts.

In other years, technological advances have made websites smarter (with machine learning and subtle interactions) and these changing paradigms have influenced design trends (hamburger menus, anyone?).

In 2020, web design trends will see these two sides of the coin – aesthetics and technology – come together like never before.

So if you want to know what Web Design trends are in 2020, check out our article and find out if any of them could be the key to increasing your conversions!

1. Vertical page transition

It is not new that people want information faster and faster on the internet. And one of the characteristics of the new user is that he is in a hurry, does not like to wait.

Therefore, one of the trends of Web Design in 2020 is the transition of pages smoothly, and preferably, vertically.

That’s because the feeling of clicking on a link and waiting for it to open looking at a completely white background is unpleasant and leaves the user impatient, which can increase their bounce rates.

The transition makes the action smooth and reduces the feeling that the user is waiting for something.

In addition, vertical movement (from bottom to top) generates familiarity and improves usability on both desktop and mobile devices, as this is the standard page scrolling movement.

Combining this strategy with an SEO consultancy to increase the loading speed of your website, it is possible to increase your conversions and improve the user experience.

2. Simple animations and GIFs

No user likes to access a page and find only columns and more columns of text. Therefore, it is the obligation of every Web Designer to insert images to optimize a website.

However, with the insertion of GIFs on Facebook, WhatsApp and other social networks, people are becoming more and more familiar with the animations.

Therefore, a trend in Web Design and 2020 is to use simple animations, but that guide the user to the important points of the page.

In addition to making a website more dynamic, animations inserted at the right moment of the user’s journey can be decisive in guiding the lead to take the action you want.

GIFs can also be very useful, especially to demonstrate simple actions in a few seconds, without the need to produce a video.

3. 3D illustrations

One of the main trends for Web Design in 2020 is to use 3D illustrations as a replacement for photos.

The idea is to exchange the common “text and image on the side” for a centralized illustration that shows the brand’s solutions in a cleaner way.

The main advantages of using illustrations are:

generate user identification;

explain the process of using your product / service clearly;

helps to humanize the brand;

ideal for businesses with more than 5 people, as it does not exclude groups of people.

In addition, you can assemble the illustrations based on the visual identity of the brand, reinforcing the company’s branding and generating more trust in the user.

4. Brutalism

Hated by some and loved by others, brutalism is a design style focused only on functionality, ignoring the appearance of a website. As a consequence, websites with brutalist design present disorderly elements, very aggressive fonts and little refinement, creating a very “raw” appearance. Many people find the style uncomfortable, but recently it has gained popularity among young audiences, especially when used with elements of the 90’s web. In addition, it is possible to set up a brutal website that is functional and does not look so aggressive, just select the elements used and, of course, test! The truth is that the style can work, but it will depend on your brand strategy, your goal and, mainly, your audience.

5. Serifs on the screen

We’ve all heard the rule that serif fonts are for printing and sans serifs are for screen / digital. But what would become of web design trends if they were not to shake that “old idea formed about everything”? While the sans family, with its clean readability, is still the preferred one to be applied in long texts – be it copy or institutional texts – more and more brands are betting on a serif font. The bold serif can have a very interesting effect on headings and headlines or headlines. There is a good reason for this: serifs are designed to be decorative, making them perfect for showing emphasis. And even though serifs are often associated with the past, they are extremely versatile and more adaptable than you might think. Take, for example, the rounded serifs that represent the joyful brand of Mailchimp.

6. Black and white palettes

Color is one of the most important elements of a website. It creates a mood, unifies a brand and guides users through an interface, creating points of visual reference. For 2020, we are seeing several sites using a black and white color scheme, to dare and give more visual prominence. Color is literally how we see the world through the particles of light being absorbed. When color is lacking, we begin to see the world differently: textures and shapes become clearer, and the world seems noticeably slower, still.

White by itself is clean and reserved, while black is strong and assertive. Combine these and you will have a completely striking appearance, with the ideal light and contrast. Ironically, the biggest effect that black and white designs can have is their combination with minimal amounts of color. Adding an accent color will not only break that monochromatic air, but will make points of interest and calls to action stand out.

7. Natural and organic forms

Although websites are typically set up for systematic grids, designers are turning to natural shapes and smooth lines. Geometric structures such as squares, rectangles and triangles with their sharp corners create a feeling of stability, but the trends of 2020 are more concerned with the feeling of accessibility and comfort. Since organic shapes are naturally imperfect and asymmetrical, they can provide depth to the page layout. The shapes are based on nature (think of the curved shapes of trees and mountains), but they can also be elements drawn freely, to give the idea of ​​spontaneity of accidents caused by man, such as paint splashes, coffee stain, or something like that. . The goal here is for the layout to be more “human” and alive through this illusion of movement.

8. Microinteractions

Microinteractions are events with a purpose: to surprise the user and create an inviting and humane event.

Every time you perform a small action on a website or application and there is a specific response to it, this is a microinteraction.

When you update a Twitter page and hear a beep, this is a micro-interaction. Or when you check Facebook, the red icon displaying your message count is also a micro-interaction.

These were the most common uses of them, but in 2020, sites will have their most interactive incarnations. The user can hover or scroll the page to activate animations and other effects.

In short, this is a way to engage your target audience on your website, convey information to users about your actions and make websites a little more intelligent and interactive.

9. Even more video content

Video content not only diversifies the page, but serves a moving audience that doesn’t have time to read a lot of text.

Be it a video explaining your service or a background video, to give more movement to the site.

However, using videos on the site is nothing new, what is new is the movement that Google has made. The search giant favored sites that use videos on its pages in search results.

10. Diversity

Often, people forget that the web has always been accompanied by two more important ones: “World Wide”. The internet connects billions of people around the world from different cultures, skills, ages, gender identities – people who want to see themselves reflected in their content.

Even small considerations from the past (like Apple’s varying skin tones for emojis) went a long way to making people from all walks of life feel more welcome in a brand’s digital space.

In 2020, web designers should take an even greater leap towards inclusion, from improved accessibility standards to socially aware and diverse images.

The world still has a long way to go in this arena, but designers today can use their art to demonstrate that the web must be plural, about real people making real connections.

In the end, trends come and go. Some last for decades, while others are simply a flash. What matters is that you remain true to the brand you are creating for.

Choose the trends that best align with the company’s values. If something is trended, it doesn’t mean you have to adopt it. You need to choose the trends that are useful to make your projects more effective and impactful.

Did you write down all the tips or are you already testing them? So leave your comment if any of them worked!

The post Web Design Trends in 2020: Are you ready to increase conversions? appeared first on Dallas Web Design Company | Best Web Designers In Dallas.

source https://dallaswebsite.design/web-design-trends/

[hamliet]

The Soul Eater: Dafan Mountain’s Dancing Goddess

Ah, the Dafan Mountain arc--or, a crash course in MDZS’s themes. 

In the anime, Dafan Mountain is a scene that lasts one episode; in the novel, it’s several chapters and our first significant look at many of the characters. Besides changing Wen Chao’s death, Dafan Mountain was probably the scene most changed in adapting the novel into the donghua. In the donghua, the ghost hand was behind the stone goddess's possession, and L’il Apple the donkey is the creature caught in the nets; in the novel, both of these are changed: the goddess is something else entirely, and the nets accidentally catch people. 

In my opinion (as with the Wen Chao change), it’s a good adaptation decision for the donghua to have made--the arc in the novel serves as a sounding point to symbolically summarize the whole story, but it doesn't work very well in a truncated visual medium which anime/donghua, by its nature, is. The donghua’s beginning was already disorienting (deliberately so, because we mimic Wei WuXian's experience being disoriented after being reborn in a new body, but perhaps a bit too much so), so having the previously established mysterious ghost hand play a role in the Dafan Mountain scene makes the story more succinct and easy to follow for viewers, as does having us fear for L’Il Apple whom we’re already attached to, as opposed to characters we don’t have time to get to know. 

That being said, you do lose some of the beautiful symbolism of those chapters that is present in the novel. As a warning, what follows will have spoilers from the novel as translated by exiledrebelscans. 

Dafan Mountain was an arc I appreciated more when I reread the novel, because I like missed a lot the first time around. It basically foreshadows the novel's major twists and turns, and also introduces the story’s major themes--society creating monsters, the sins of the fathers passing on to the children, and the butterfly effect/unintended consequences--quite explicitly. 

Let’s begin by looking at the worldbuilding background and setting in which the goddess goes on her rampage. The story brings up classism pretty much right away, noting that the there is a small cultivation clan that plans to night-hunt on Dafan Mountain, and that:

Society asks people to earn respect, but sets them up to fail by providing incredibly difficult/near impossible stakes for them to be able to earn the kind of respect the more “highbrow, affluent” clans (yes, it uses those words) enjoy. The idea of society setting impossible standards is something this arc and the story as a whole deconstructs. Because what happens next is that Jiang Cheng, the leader of the YunmengJiang Sect (one of those highbrow affluent sects) refuses to allow the smaller sect to night-hunt. The people complain, noting that it’s not really fair, but at the same time, they have no power by which to oppose him. 

In addition to keeping the smaller sects from interfering with Jiang Cheng’s plan to have his nephew, Jin Ling, earn glory in Dafan Mountain, he buys him hundreds of deity-binding nets that are noted to be extremely expensive--and the nets also catch some of the people in the smaller sects by mistake. It’s significant symbolically that nets that are noted to be an extreme show of wealth are what catch poorer people up, and trap them. Society traps them. 

Not only does society trap them, it gives those with power all the power to free them, or not. It’s not really on the poorer sects to try and earn approval; they almost certainly can’t earn approval. It’s up to the larger sects to decide to give them respect or not, and they don’t. Jin Ling doesn’t treat them as though they matter--he doesn’t even set them free. He views them as an inconvenience because society offers him no reason to respect them (and he’s a bratty teenager) 

Aaaand enter Jiang Cheng, Jin Ling’s uncle who set all of the nets up. He teaches Jin Ling this attitude, of people having to earn respect but not giving them much actual chance to do so, on a far more personal level, thereby showing that society’s rot is far more insidious and also nuanced than just “wealthy people suck.”

Also of note: the story will later show us that Jiang Cheng is literally reenacting his greatest pain onto his beloved nephew. He was never able to earn his father’s approval, nor his mother’s, and noted as much to his favored adopted brother Wei WuXian that his father “just doesn’t like me. He doesn’t like my mother, so he doesn’t like me.” Still, Jiang Cheng repeatedly drives himself to extremes trying to earn his father’s approval--and he never gets it. By ordering Jin Ling to succeed and earn his respect or else (even if it’s a more empty threat than not) he’s passing down the sin his father passed onto him. 

Jiang Cheng is also not considering the consequences of his own words. He loves his nephew and just rescued him, so the audience likely knows this is an empty threat--but words still have consequences. Every action, and speaking is an action, has an effect and sometimes we can’t control what the effect is. Jin Ling will later almost lose his soul in the battle with the goddess, purely because he wants to prove himself and chooses to fight the goddess on his own instead of sending up a signal to ask for help. And Jin Ling even directly tells (a frantic) Jiang Cheng that this was his fault: 

Next, let’s look at the goddess herself and her symbolism. The goddess was originally just a hunk of rock that happened to look like a dancing woman. And yet years and years of worship turned the slab of rock into an actual monster. 

The story isn’t condemning of the people, though--it’s not surprising nor wrong for people to want to find meaning and beauty around them. The problem is that things get out of hand, and people lose control of what they’ve created, and lose what the truth is as stories spread and spread. What society teaches is unreliable, in other words, and rumors and truth aren’t easily distinguished. It’s also worth noting that the dancing goddess’s myth is passed on through several generations, so again, it’s the stories of the parents passing onto their children (and later harming them). Once you start something, you can’t control it--it has unintended effects. The goddess is a symbol for society itself: people decide it has value and by doing so they create a monster that eventually consumes the desperate people praying to it. The rich trap the poor, the ‘righteous’ thing it do changes depending on who society has determined the villain is, and either way it consumes innocent victims (lots of innocent people will die in the wars in MDZS--whether it’s the Sunshot Campaign, the aftermath, the Nightless City Massacre, the Siege of the Burial Mounds, or the corpses that attack a cave). 

If you’ve finished the novel (or most of it) you’ve probably realized where this is going symbolically.

To return to the concept of empathy for the people in the mountain, who could not have known what would happen, it’s also worth noting that the soul-consuming begins with the goddess consuming the soul of a scared man seeking refuge from a storm, a man who desperately wants to matter:

The entirety of MDZS rests on two men who were scared and desperately wanted to matter: Wei WuXian, and Jin GuangYao. The people on Dafan Mountain who lose their souls to the goddess symbolize both of them (since they are foils) in that they didn’t consider the consequences of their actions and wound up losing themselves. Wei WuXian goes half-mad at the Nightless City and is later literally torn apart by his own creations....

... which for what it’s worth are noted at the beginning of the Dafan Mountain arc to still be in use, yet they are not working against the goddess, because for all Wei WuXian’s inventions, he could not control everything, and in the end lost control of himself as well. But of course Wei WuXian had a helping hand in that, because Jin GuangYao is the only character who throughout the story knows exactly what society is--a monster--and manipulates it to steal away what he needs it to steal away in order to maintain power. By the end of the story, his own crimes--the dead body of the sworn brother he killed--is what kills him. He thought he could control it, but he couldn’t. Yet Jin GuangYao is a victim too, and the story repeatedly emphasizes this (and does a fantastic job at it--he’s very hard to hate). 

The parallels and foreshadowing for both Wei WuXian and Jin GuangYao’s stories continue with a description of how the other people lost their souls: 

As we later find out, a marriage that is not what it seems later is a major twist in the story. Jin GuangYao found himself trapped in a wedding to a wife he found out just before his wedding was his sister--and whom he’d already gotten pregnant. The father who had scorned and hated him was tolerant of him and approved the match, his bride’s mother told him it was a rape and she didn’t want her husband to know his daughter wasn’t his daughter, and honestly, he was too scared to rock the boat and it’s hard to fault him. As a result he winds up losing himself even more, killing his son and later his wife. This description is symbolic of Jin GuangYao trapping himself in a wedding that would really just lead to ruin and death, not what he meant at all. And it winds up hurting the people who genuinely cared for him--his innocent son, his wife/sister, Nie MingJue, Lan XiChen. 

Wei WuXian, too, in his desire to help Jiang Cheng get revenge on the Wens, will later wind up hurting and almost destroying the Jiang Sect despite that never being his intention, when he loses control. And there’s direct foreshadowing of that here as well: 

The father's sacrifice parallels Wei WuXian’s sacrifice of his golden core for Jiang Cheng, and also Xiao XingChen’s sacrifice of his eyes for Song Lan (but Yi City will be its own meta). All of these sacrifices are noted to have drastically unintended consequences that actually wind up harming the relationships they attempted to maintain, though none of the sacrifices could be called anything but beautiful love. Xiao XingChen’s blindness is exactly what enables him to be tricked into killing his best friend, and Wei WuXian’s inability to tell Jiang Cheng for fear of offending him only leads Jiang Cheng to believe he is motivated to cultivate demonically because of arrogance. As a result Jiang Cheng starts to lose himself to pettiness and revenge, and Wei WuXian to his worser instincts as well--isolation (he’s always felt lonely) and to his martyr complex. Greed and the need to keep getting stronger are things that destroy Wei WuXian in the end (before he gets a second chance), but also are still destroying Jiang Cheng. 

And with that, let’s transition to the resolution and aftermath of the battle with the demon goddess. 

The goddess is provoked into attacking by Jin Ling, and it’s fairly karmic as well. Jin Ling expresses how hurt he was by Wei WuXian (who did not know who he was) taunting him for not having a mother, how hurt he was by a careless, ignorant word. And it’s Jin Ling’s careless, ignorant words that lead to one of his fellow disciples losing their soul. 

Society repeats its mistakes and does not learn (the fact that society is still using Wei WuXian’s creations is certainly a sign of this--though like everything it’s nuanced). And Jin Ling himself almost loses his soul as a result of trying to prove himself, but Jin Ling and the other disciples are repeatedly examples of hope in the story, hope that the novel’s conclusion will emphasize in its message that while society repeats itself, there is progress, and we are able to see Jin Ling and the others moving on from the hatred and prejudices that consumed the older generations. (We also see Wei WuXian, Jiang Cheng, Lan WangJi, etc. moving on, but the younger generation is even less encumbered by society’s poison). Society might not learn, but Jin Ling does. 

But who saves Jin Ling in the novel from losing his soul and in the donghua from losing his life is also massively important thematically, and for foreshadowing: the Ghost General, Wen Ning.

Wen Ning uses the chains he has been kept in for thirteen years to tear apart the goddess/society. The chains we will later learn were put on him by Jin GuangYao, a person turned monstrous thanks to the cruelty of society, who kept him imprisoned for years and years. Wen Ning is loathed by society his entire life: firstly, when the Wen Sect is in power, for being weak and a stutterer, then for being a Wen even though he helped the opposite side (which directly foils him with Jin GuangYao as well, since both were more or less moles), then as a monstrous fierce corpse who was used to kill people. 

But he saves Jin Ling--and all of them--by destroying the goddess. And Wen Ning will later save Jin Ling again in the novel’s climactic scene, at a temple to another goddess.

And, of course, there’s Lan WangJi, who plays an important role in unraveling the hell of Dafan Mountain, because his later canon romance with Wei WuXian is incredibly thematic in how it provokes characters to change their perceptions of society, and its his love for Wei WuXian that encourages both of them to grow to a place where they’re able to dismantle society’s presumptions. 

From the very beginning of the Dafan Mountain scene, we find out it’s Lan WangJi who destroys the deity-binding nets and sets the trapped people free.

When Wei WuXian uses his signature flute-playing to summon Wen Ning and save them all, Lan WangJi sees him for who he is. He doesn’t recognize Wei WuXian because of his technique, though--as Wei WuXian notes, hundreds use his techniques--but because of the song he plays, a song Lan WangJi wrote and--unbeknownst to Wei WuXian--only ever shared with Wei WuXian. It’s through seeing a moment of his own vulnerability, through love, that he recognizes the person he loves has come back to life. The song is aptly named “WangXian” in canon, because their relationship is key to the story’s themes. Lan WangJi, so stringent and too by-the-rules, is encouraged to break from society repeatedly for Wei WuXian, and Wei WuXian is encouraged to think more about consequences through his relationship with Lan WangJi. 

It’s also interesting that Jiang Cheng similarly recognizes Wei WuXian, but because of his technique and tries to force him to reveal himself via whipping his soul out with Zidian--but it doesn’t work, so he can’t confirm it until later. And what gets Jiang Cheng to release Wei WuXian to Lan WangJi is a topic the story does address head-on: the fact that the relationship between them is gay. 

Homophobia is something bystanders brings up when Jiang Cheng is certain Mo XuanYu’s body is inhabited, as it is, by Wei WuXian, and it’s something Wei WuXian seeks to use to get both Jiang Cheng and Lan WangJi (whom he hasn’t realized recognizes him) to release him by teasing him that he’s not attracted to Jiang Cheng but is attracted to Lan WangJi. Wei WuXian would rather depart from society all together, but that’s not what the story aims for even as it does take down society. Connection is important, connection keeps us going, and isolating himself has always been a flaw of Wei WuXian’s. 

Of course, Lan WangJi is in love with Wei WuXian, though no one but his family knows this--but it’s when Lan WangJi slowly stops caring what people think about that aspect of him that he and Wei WuXian are able to get together, and so begins the first aspect of Lan WangJi breaking with societal expectations for the person he loves. He also offers some words of wisdom fitting for the events that have just happened: mark your words. Watch what you say. It actually does matter. And for MDZS, that a significant factor of what helps topple some of society’s rules and encourages people to grow towards empathy is WangXian--a gay couple who marry each other--really does matter. 

[chouetteffraie]

About BSD S3

Alternative title: Kenna talks about stuff literally nobody asked her to <3

So now that s3 is over and I’ve had a few days to breathe, I think I wanna say a thing or two about the season overall. Now, I’m not a meta writer, I’m not a person who can go in over analyzing everything perfectly- quite simply, I don’t have the brainpower to do that for too long. So rather than this being an analysis of everything and an objective evaluation of the quality of the season, this is largely an emotional response where I just talk about my experience with it. I’m not a critic- I don’t think I have that in my blood. I watch to enjoy, then reflect on what I did and didn’t enjoy, taking snippets and twisting them into something that might become deep and meaningful occasionally if it suits my writing. There’s nothing wrong with being a critical analyzer! We need you all in the fandom for all these fabulous metas and such <3 I just don’t think I’m the right gal for the job.

“So, Kenna, what is it you have to say?” Well, in the simplest of terms,

I really liked season 3.

“...wow. Groundbreaking.”

Now, let me explain myself. There are problems with season 3, as there are with most seasons, but I feel, overall, there were enough things that I liked about season 3 to keep the season in my favor.

I think my biggest criticism would have to be with pacing. The pacing  in this season was so off for me and can be described as sporadic at best. From backstories to character introductions to character re-introductions, there was so much that went by in a blur and so much that seemed to go on forever. My biggest complaint probably has to do with (yup, you guessed it) the adaptation of Fifteen.

Let me explain.

First of all, I think the complaints that Bones used Soukoku as ship bait have a sturdy foundation, and I’m not here to dispute that. As a Dazatsu main myself, I’m not gonna complain about loving scenes with your favorite ship in them- I would absolutely die if next season (hopefully there is a next season!) we got a three-episode plot revolving around Dazai and Atsushi. However, I just don’t think it fit in nicely with the rest of the series.

After all, it’s kind of unfortunate that we got 3 episodes of Soukoku’s backstory, and yet our protagonist only got 1/3 of an episode.

Maybe Fifteen would’ve stood better as an OVA, or maybe if it could’ve been shaved down to two episodes. Maybe if BSD had been given three more episodes for genuine content, things would’ve been better. I don’t know how possible any of these things would’ve been, but they’re ideas. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed Fifteen overall. But I remember thinking that it seemed so out of place when I knew the chaotic arc that was coming. 

I’m not an avid manga reader, but I know enough to be able to say that the BSD manga has a lot of content, a lot of nuance, and a lot of personality. The manga is the source material and what got people so invested in the story. If there wasn’t an interest in the manga, would there even have been an anime adaptation? What I’m saying here is that staying true to the manga is a good rule of thumb, and while of course you won’t be able to translate everything into animation, it’s probably best to try and be as similar as possible with a story like BSD.

Manga readers ate up the story of BSD without being interrupted by Fifteen, because as far as I’m aware, Fifteen is fairly new? (Didn’t it come out around Dead Apple time? I’m not entirely sure, but it might’ve been.) And, unlike The Dark Era, the events of Fifteen didn’t have nearly as much of an impact on Dazai (that would later impact our protagonist- after all, how could he mentor Atsu if he never quit the mafia?). Fifteen was more Chuuya-centric in terms of future impact, which brings me to my next point.

Chuuya is a side character. I love him, honestly, and think he’s a great character, but he isn’t our main focus. This seems to be a problem that Bones has a lot: “forgetting” who their protagonist is. 

I can defend The Dark Era because of how it explains Dazai’s connection with the mafia and why he switched sides. Dazai is easier to get away with focusing on because he is a primary character, although not the protagonist, and probably has some of the most influence on our true protagonist out of all the characters we know. Chuuya....doesn’t. At least, not yet. His backstory, while interesting and fun to see, is inconsequential to where our protagonist is at right now in the story. In fact, I’m not even sure if Atsushi and Chuuya have interacted in the anime aside from that standoff in the hospital hallway- and even then, that was an illusion. While Fifteen gave us a glimpse to Dazai’s life in the mafia, it didn’t give us anything we didn’t already know other than how he met Chuuya, and how he met Chuuya didn’t impact his relationship much with him or explain why he hates him so much- they just kind of always did. (what would you call that? Anti-chemistry?) That means it also didn’t really impact the major decisions Dazai had to make to get to where he was when he found Atsushi- which is when he began to matter, because that’s when he started influencing the world of the protagonist who is supposed to drive our experience through the narrative.

Please note, this isn’t a hate on Soukoku, and if you like Fifteen, or thought it fit, or just liked it because it gave you such good SKK content, I’m happy for you! This is just a personal grudge I have with the series.

This is why Fifteen would’ve stood better as an OVA- it doesn’t have anything to do with the protagonist. A core purpose of the protagonist in any story is to make the narrative relevant. The events of a story are connected because they pertain to the protagonist. Let’s take the Hunger Games as an example. The events of the actual game don’t relate at all to the death of the Everdeen father, or the fact that Primrose Everdeen was selected, or the fact that a certain Everdeen was given a pin of a mockingjay. These are all important because they relate to our protagonist, Katniss. Her father dying made her have to step up inthe household and feel responsible for her mother and sister’s safety, which helped prompt her to volunteer as tribute. Her pin later became the symbol of a revolution, but only because it was hers. If our protagonist had been Peeta, Katniss’ backstory with her father and mother and sister wouldn’t matter to us because it wouldn’t be our protagonist’s concern.

So, why, then, did we get 3 episodes of Chuuya’s backstory and 10 minutes (not even) of Atsushi’s? Hell, we got more of Kyouka’s backstory than Atsushi’s, or at least a better buildup to it. We even got more content of Randou, a character they completely screwed up (and also didn’t really affect Atsushi). I know events are tied together and connected, but when trying to fit an arc like Cannibalism into 12 30-minute episodes, you’ve gotta decide what’s important and what’s not.

Bones, I feel, didn’t choose what was most important.

“Alright, Kenna, all you’ve done is complain. I thought you said you liked season 3?”

That’s the thing, though- I did.

I like the time they spent with Lucy and Kyouka’s hostile interactions. I liked the background they gave to certain characters (Gin, Kyouka, Atsu [even though we got so little], Katai [-ish]) plus we got more Fyodor content. Fitzgerald’s episode was really good, too! I’m a newly-fledged, softcore Fitzgerald stan. I think the last three episodes were pretty well put together, and I ADORED the final scene (no, not just for the Dazatsu content- although thank you for the food, Bones uwu).

Now, these are all little things, yeah, but I feel together they make up enough for Fifteen on my end. See, I’ve always thought BSD had pacing issues from season 1. It’s no news to me that they had trouble squeezing all the content in the episodes they were given, to be honest. If I separate Fifteen from the rest of the season, to me, it’s cardinal sin is pacing, and only pacing. The issues of Fifteen are plentiful, but it doesn’t seem fair to me (and for me, it’s more than ok if you disagree) to pile that all on to the rest of the episodes. Yeah, it was disappointing that we didn’t get as much Fyodor time, or Atsu backstory time, or whatever else we wanted. But to me, that’s okay. We still got the point of what’s going on- the city is in trouble, the worst is yet to come, and Atsushi and Akutagawa have a deal now.

Bungo Stray Dogs has always appealed to me because of its characters more than its story, I connected with the people, not the narrative. I still thoroughly enjoy the story, but I’m more interested in how the characters interact in general and how they operate as a team or in stressful situations. For that purpose, Bones provided. At least they did in my book, even if we didn’t get enough of who we wanted to see.

I have hope for next season, if there is one. I have hope that Bones will right their wrongs. I have hopes that they’ll fix their pacing a little bit. The manga has so much content to portray, though, that a certain pacing issue can be forgiven (like the ones I saw in s1 and s2.) And, because I love the characters, I’m willing to hold out for another potential season and see if they can fix it.

If you’re upset, you have every reason to be. But, though I have my complaints, I can’t say I’m too terribly disappointed. Maybe a little, but I still look forward to future content. I hope we get it soon, if at all.

(And, believe it or not, this is the shortened version of all my thoughts. Haha!)

[ikonislife]

Home.

-Hoseok (J-hope) x female reader

-Friends to Lovers softness

-“How could I fucking hate home when to me, you’re home!”

“I like you.” There was an ease in the way he sighed so contently that sentence as if matter of the heart had always been weightless. It was as if all the pain of unrequited love, all the sorrow of heartache since the beginning of mankind had always been effortless and thoughtless as a breath. It was almost beautiful… Almost.  As you stared up above, leaning back in the patio chair with your feet up on the railing of your apartment’s balcony, the sky had been inky and far too bright for the heaven to shine through, your eyes glossed over with, hell, you didn’t even know what it was. Nonchalant, unimpressed, light? For so long you’ve harbored feeling for Jung Hoseok, the man so beautiful in all of his duality that had left you breathless since you were both learning the alphabet. To you, he was Hobi, bright as the sun and happier than a field of sunflowers in full bloom. No honey in this world could compare to his sweetness, how caring he had always been and how beautiful his soul will always be. 

“Good one, Hobi.” You bit out in a near mirthless chuckle, “Say it a few more time and I might actually believe you.” 

A sip of green tea to calm your soul, though no longer piping hot as the moment Hoseok had handed to you, warm enough to keep your blood running. You’ve never believed it, your Hobi, sweet and lovely, the kind of man you bring home to your parents could be anything else but that. His reputation preceded him, and it too made it back to your little neighborhood, one he had left in pursuit of the bigger and better. His kid brother raved about the amazing life he had led, the people he made friends with, and the girls… You felt your heart clenched as Chanwoo words flourished with excitement of the amazing dates, how beautiful the girls were, and the fun they had. Your little naive heart could never, didn’t dared dream to compete with. You couldn’t believe the preposterous stories but now, you wondered if you had simply refused to open your eyes to the new world, a world you had lost your Hobi to, all because you couldn’t deal with the fact that he had changed. 

You never spoke a word of it, not during the many phone calls you shared, not even when he came home to visit. Gone were the leather jacket and styled hair Chanwoo and Hoseok’s friends had spoken so fondly of, gone too was the many terms and slangs hopelessly lost on your foolish self they had used to describe a much cooler version of your childhood friend. He came home the dorky Hobi you remembered with stars lighting his eyes and a warm fire in his soul. He reminded you of freshly baked apple pie on a cool autumn night, cuddling up beside the glowing ember of the fire place and hot cocoas. Your heart thrown for a loop and for the first time in your life, his hug felt like a lie. 

You spent that week doing a song and dance about your daily life, all in a big effort to avoid him, doing your best to feel a bit of normalcy with the storm brewing in your heart. Did your best too, to stay out of his way once your company had decided you outgrown the little niche this corner of the world and sent you right into the vibrant life of the big city, his city. Millions of places life could’ve sent you but life’s funny in its own twisted sense of humor, it likes to watch people suffer and life had never taken a favor with you. Nothing could’ve prepare you for the day your company had placed you right into the lap of Jung Hoseok, an apartment all paid for just one floor away - you were F103 and he, F203. Funny thing too, apartments are, it was nothing more than a bigger, better, glorified version of your old bedroom. Sure the space was yours, sure the freedom was there once that front door close but deep down, it truly never was, will never be. Fact of the matter was you shared a roof with hundreds other tenants just as you had shared a roof with your siblings. One major difference, you had traded your annoying brother stomping away at your ceiling for Hoseok and his morning stomp from being late for work was the very least of your concerns. Every late night private party, every morning fuck, every single time he forgotten to close his window (a nasty habit he got since he was a mere baby, gotten sick countless time yet lesson never learned), you were suddenly reminded of how little you really know the man you thought was your best friend, just how much lied he had fed you every Thanksgiving, every Christmas, and just how little you mattered to him.

“I’m so into you, it scares me a little.” The words vibrating through that alluringly deep voice, yet it did nothing to comfort the turmoil in your heart. Your dress swayed in the soft breeze of a mild autumn night, a year now since you’ve learned to live with the baggage that come with Jung Hoseok. Though the soft moans and creaks of bed haunting your nightmare no longer manifest often, courtesy of a very very awkward conversation, the damage was done. You’ve learned to accept, and you’ve adapted even if the progress made barely considerable. 

“Alright cut it out. I know you’re into mocking me and all but. What do you think you’re doing?” But you weren’t a fool. You too a different woman than the innocent childhood best friend Hoseok left behind for the glamour and felt the need to put up a facade for, to lie to. You’ve been duped for far too long to take anything Hoseok say at face value. You’ve dreamt of the day you hear those words, the fanfare and lightness left from the dissolving of all the suffering through years of unrequited love. But this moment, hearing the little confession, it brought nothing but the fire of hell upon your soul, souring your inside, and searing your skin with disgust. 

“Well you say if I say it a few more time you’ll believe me.” Perhaps the sentiment was earnest, as earnest as fuckboy Jung Hoseok could manage… God, you hated that word. Fuckboy… or rather, you hated that your dear best friend had gotten boiled down to how smooth his lines was and how amazing the heaven his tongue provided could be. His beautiful soul withered away with pointless small talk and his wonderful, magnificent mind lost to the moans of momentarily gratification. 

“Might. I said might.” You corrected, half way hopped out of your chair before facing him with a grimace, a sharp pain in your chest. “And are you insane? You can’t just casually say something like that and expect me to… to what? fall to my knee? willingly add my name to your long laundry list? suck your dick? let you fuck me till I can’t distinguish up from down?” Your chest puffed up, eyes redden and for the first time in a long time, Hoseok was scare. He was truly fearful because the last time anguish had flashed so painfully in your eyes despite your best effort of hiding it behind anger, he had told you of his plan to move away.

“Jesus, Y/n. Is that how you fucking think of me?” His hand reluctantly reaching forward yet before it could sooth your raging soul, you had slapped it away in complete disbelief. “Is that all I am to you? A loser that will do anything to get in your pants?” There was no denying the hurt spreading through his veins like wild fire, searing every bit of his skin with disappointment… Disappointment that he was no longer Hobi in your heart. 

“What do you want from me, Hoseok? You can’t really expect me to still be that gullible girl patiently waiting for every phone call, bated breaths and anxious heart counting down the day until you come home? You’ve lied to me for so long so why should I believe anything you have to say. I don’t even know who you are anymore, Hoseok.” 

You bit out bitterly and Hoseok remained silent, what could he say when every word that came out of your mouth was true. He loved having your attention, craved it to a point where he was willing to make a fool out of you fearing that the new him would drive you into the arms of someone else. He was selfish, yes, so incredibly selfish but it was all because he wanted you all to himself. But at the same time, he loved the new him, stains and all its hell fire glory. The party made him feel alive and for once, he wasn’t nerdy Hoseok waiting for his best friend and her fiery soul to come rescue him from the playground’s bully. People paid attention to him because he was Jung Hoseok, not because he was Y/n’s best friend, Y/n’s little pet, Y/n’s boy toy or whatever else jealousy had conjured up. He was cool, he made women swoon and men envious. With a well-placed smirk and a few charming words in that sultrily deep voice, the world was at his feet. For once he was the man. He knew lying was wrong, but he wasn’t ready for you to learn of the new him. Fearful that disgust would replace the love you had for him twinkling in your lovely eyes. 

“No… Don’t say that, please. You know me, I’m me, I’m Hobi.” Oh the desperation in his heart, if he could tear it out of his chest right moment and present you with the truth, he would. But ripping his heart out would also mean ripping you out of his soul because truly, you own his heart. He clutched your hands in his trembling ones, tear had begun to dot the length of his lashes. “Hmm? Y/n… It’s Hobi.” He pressed your palm to his cheek, nuzzling in close as he always did but this time, desperation drawn out a small kiss and placed it delicately on your wrist over your tiny bee tattoo. He had nearly forgotten how much trouble you had gotten into, drunk out of your mind, paired with the foolishness of 16 years olds agreeing to get a matching tattoo with him. He’d have a sunflower and you’d have a tiny bee. You had insisted that he was as bright as the sunflower and you, nothing but a small bee lingering, drawing from her flower friend’s brightness and strength. If Hoseok really did have his way that night, you would have the sun dainty on your wrist and he, the humble Earth. You were his sun, his warmth, and his everything. 

“Stop, Hoseok. I know you hate being Y/n’s dorky best friend Hobi, just as certain as I know you hate home.” You voice wavered at the sentence you’ve for so long despised, denied, and suppressed even if you knew it was the truth. You knew home was always too small for Jung Hoseok and he deserved the world, but you didn’t let yourself believe it. Because for Jung Hoseok to conquer the world, it would’ve meant he left you behind. 

“How could I hate home, hmm, Y/n? How could you even say that?” You couldn’t remember the last time you had saw him cry… The tear streaming down his cheeks and how his hands still clutching so tightly on yours as if fearful you’ll dissipate the second he let go. “How could I when… When…” The word choked in his throat, a ragged gasp was all that escaped when he truly realized just how angry you were. Never before had he seen the light behind those beautiful eyes darken so, and to be here, to know he was the reason, he dimmed out the universe inside your soul, it was terrifying. 

“When what? When what, Hoseok? Spit it out!” Your feeble little heart no longer able to contain the surge of emotion rising at an exponential rate. It exploded with the vigor of watching him laughing away with his exes, of hearing those vulgar words fallen from his lips, of crying yourself to sleep to the moans of faceless and nameless, of realizing that after all these years… You still love him.

“You’re home, Y/l/n Y/n. How could I fucking hate home when to me, you’re home! I fucking love you, what about that is so hard to understand?”

The very next second your lips were on his and the world melted away. The distant between home and this new hectic life of yours no longer exist, line blurred between Hoseok and Hobi, and suddenly, ceased to exist too was the anger in your heart. Hoseok stiffen under your unexpected touch but soon melt into the way your lips desperately moulding against his, gentle fingers dancing across his chest and rest against the sharpness of his jawline. He stilled himself, reveled in the delightful taste of your lips - bitter of the tea mingling with the faded sweetness of your chapstick.

“Then why did you left me…” Forehead resting against his, your eyes fluttered shut as tears of sorrow hot against your cheeks. Your hands still flushed against his skin and soft kisses bloomed on his lips. “Why did you lie?”

“I never meant to hurt you. I wanted to take you with me but this city life, it changed me. And before I could catch my breath, I had turned into this person that I wasn’t sure myself if I could still be love.” Though tears no longer raining down those beautiful features, his voice trembled under the insane rollercoaster of the last few minutes. “I wanted to change so badly, want to be a better man, a more befitting man for you… But all this, I fell in love with the party, the loud nights, and the clothes but I never once wanted to be known for my laundry list. I just wanted you but before I know it, I could see the confusion, the disappointment in your eyes.”

“I would’ve love you no matter what. I’m angry because you felt like you had to lie to me, as if we hadn’t shared most of our lives together. Am I that, that…” You wanted to ask all those questions lodged in your heart from hearing those words being spoken about your Hobi, and if you had truly been such a horrible friend, he thought you’d judge the new him. 

“Shh, no, baby. Don’t. Don’t blame yourself for what I did.” All the self-doubt, all the self-pity, the confusion harbored, festered in your heart hushed out, washed away with the moment his lips returned to yours. “I just thought, if I act and make myself look like the way I used to, that I could somehow convinced you that I’m the same person. That was the only reason why I lied, I just wanted you to look at me the way you used to.” He reveled in the way you leaned in so close, body heat warming, dispelling the shiver running down his spine and let his arms snaked around your waist.  

“Hoseok, there’s nothing wrong with changing and I’m sorry if I ever made you feel judged for being yourself. Everyone has to grow up someday. I changed, even though I insisted upon being the same boring person all these years. To me you’re Hobi, no matter what. I don’t care if you change your hair, your clothes, your face, deep down you’re still my sunshine. Nothing will ever change that, nothing will truly change who you are inside. I just wish you had been honest with me.” You let your hands rested at the nape of his neck, fearing that the second you let go, he’d just disappeared into the late night moans and the cold sent off the next morning as his late nights do their walk of shame. “I loved you for so long and I thought coming here, giving into my hate for this new you would finally let me move on but…” You word trailed off, the thought of him fucking another girl, of the bliss on her features as he worships her body, and the way she gets to touch him… It lit a fire in your heart and not in the way you wanted it to. Then you thought too of how much these girls that had thought they got the best of him, went on living their days not knowing just how amazing it would be if Hoseok had decided to worship their heart and soul the way he did their body. 

“I don’t think I can ever make up for what I put you through. Just thinking of you and another guy…” Breath hitching, his jaw clenching tightly as the ball of anger in his chest unravelling picturing you under a faceless, nameless guy. “Let alone hearing, knowing…”

“But you know what the funny thing is?” Your question dispelled the jealousy and envy in his eyes as they soften at the sound of your voice, once more lingering on your soft smile. “Hearing you… Them, made me realized just how fucking jealous I was. It forced this part of me that wanted so desperately to hate you into defeat and I just, I want to be them, I want to be the one that make you moan, make you smile. It forced me to come to term with just how fucking hopelessly in love I still am with you.” Thumb petting over the soft skin of his cheek, you let yourself relearning the sharp features and soft, plush lips of the man you were still desperately in love with, the man that you now knew in love with you. 

“So, what does this mean for us now?” He sighed, heart finally content, soul basking in the solace it deserved.

“Well, we have a lot of catching up to do, and all the missing time to make up for… I suppose you’ll have to spend the night, maybe the weekend too seeing how it’s Friday night.” Idly drawing circles atop his tone pecs, you mulled over the plan for the weekend and how suddenly none of your plan seemed to matter anymore. Everything seemed so pale in comparison now that the possibility of lazing in bed with Hoseok, morning breath and bed head and all, was possible. 

“Oh, can we do those brunch things with like alcohol and like eggs and bacons too? I’ve always wanted to do it!” For a split second, it was as if you were both 17 once more, hanging out on a Friday night trying to figure out where the weekend will be spent now that Hoseok officially had his license. The pure excitement in his eyes and the way his smile beaming so brightly, it made you wonder if there really ever was another version of Hobi. 

“Okay, when they say alcohol, you know they meant like mimosa right… Not tryna get drunk at 10 in the morning here.” You heed a warning, knowing full well just how drunk your sunshine could get when he really wanted to. 

“I know, just excited. I always wanted to do this with my girlfriend.” A kiss placed delicately on your nose, Hoseok couldn’t stop the smile blooming on his lips, overjoyed that one was mirroring on yours too. 

“Girlfriend? I- Wow…” You sighed dumbly, repeating the word you had only dreamt of. The reality of the last mere half hour hadn’t yet settled in your erratic heart. Who would’ve thought when Jung Hoseok called you up for a Friday hang out to reminisce the past that you would’ve ended the night kissing the man you’ve been dreaming of. Now that his little confession had been made, it wasn’t so strange after all that someone as popular as he was would be bored on a Friday night, calling up his childhood friend.  

“Yes, you’re my girlfriend. I’m your boyfriend.” He said matter of fact-ly, tugging you closer into his embrace as the piercing wind of the night began to pick up. For a second, neither of you said much, letting the content soft breaths warming each other to echo through the night lit with sight assaulting neon signs. You both were so far from the moonlit nights of the small town you’ve fallen in love with one another in. Yet the longer you remained in each other arms, even as he led you back inside to the warmth of your bed awaiting, the realization that the place and time matter not for as long as you got love for each other finally settled in your heart. It’d be a long way till all those lonely nights, painful nights could truly be forgotten but you had an inkling that with Hoseok by your side, healing will too be effortless. 

[pass-the-bechdel]

Dollhouse full series review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

96.15% (twenty-five of twenty-six).

What is the average percentage of female characters with names and lines for the full series?

45.89%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Twenty.

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 50% female?

Twelve.

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Zero.

Positive Content Status:

Very poor - this is exactly why we don’t just rely on passing the Bechdel and having a large number of female characters in the cast as ‘guarantees’ that we’re watching feminist content. If all those female characters exist to be punished, objectified, and abused by the story’s creator as an expression of his misogynistic rage, that is not a good thing (average rating of 2.76).

Which season had the best representation statistics overall?

They’re about the same, really. The one Bechdel fail was in the first season, but season two had less female character presence overall, but it was also more balanced insofar as it scored more episodes with 40% or more on the cast. Both scored equally badly on content quality, though my feeling is that perhaps season one’s sins were the worse of the two. On the other hand, season one had more guest female characters AND it used its supporting female cast more prominently, whereas season two was more male-heavy not just in numbers but in screen time and narrative attention. At the end of the day, I’m not sure it matters which you consider to be worse.

Which season had the worst representation statistics overall?

See above. I cannot recommend this show for feminist content.

Overall Series Quality:

For a first-time viewer, there’s probably still solid potential for enjoyment, and at least some of the twists should be genuinely enjoyable. The majority of the cast is very excellent, and the idea of the show is compelling. However, the quality of the series as it turned out is negligible, full of flash and little substance, the bad apples in the cast spoil the batch while the good grapple with bad writing and the woeful underuse of their skills, and the whole thing remains far better as a thought than it is in execution. And then there’s the misogynistic rage thing. That’s a problem that really messes with the overall product, to put it lightly.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

For the record: I believe, sincerely and completely, that Joss Whedon hates women. Not that he doesn’t know how to relate to them or he misses ‘the old days’ or any other such placid disdain; I think he deeply and violently hates women, and I think the evidence is written all up and down his work - all of his work, but perhaps never more clearly than in this show. He can claim to be a feminist all he wants, he can put women at the forefront of his shows and talk big game about what he believes they’re capable of, but so long as the women in his stories continue to be mistreated at every turn, beaten, raped, and constantly belittled and devalued within the text, I will not be convinced that the man doesn’t resent the Hell out of women for existing - and particularly, for existing with potential for sexuality. The misogyny of the Whedonverse is rampant, unchecked, often participated in by his ‘heroes’ as much as his villains, and treated as largely incidental, rarely acknowledged and even then, gleefully delivered as ‘just the way things are’. Characters might shake their heads about how that’s unfortunate (and Whedon pats himself on the back for making such an insightful feminist statement), but the verbal denouncement doesn’t detract from the indulgent inclusion of that misogyny, the platform provided for it to roam uninhibited, and be showcased and vicariously enjoyed. For someone who claims to be a feminist, Whedon sure does seem to be fetishistically obsessed with making women suffer, and when I compare the content of his work to that of the other creators whose shows have appeared on this blog, the result is most unflattering. 

As easy as it would be to while away this post explicating the details of Whedon’s reprehensible worldview, however, I shall refrain; for one, it would be boring as Hell, it’s not a complicated reality and the truth really is in the pudding for all to see, you don’t need me for that, and for two: I already promised to at last talk about the characters and their arcs (such as they are), since that is one subject I often neglected in the posts on this show, and arguably the only subject upon which the show could hang any virtues. Naturally, we will begin at the beginning, with the much-maligned lead character: Echo. 

Eliza Dushku is not a terrible actor. But her range is pretty limited, she plays variations on the same archetype almost exclusively, and that’s a terrible fit for a show where the central caveat is supposed to be that she can take on any personality and be a complete and whole different person week by week. No one should ever expect to be able to float that idea with a lead who is so very obviously not up to the task, and while I don’t think she’s responsible for the failure of the show (all of its other flaws would have soundly sunk it even if Dushku was a crown jewel of talent), it certainly does not help that she’s easily the blandest and least compelling player in the whole sorry mess. It’s a cringe every time she utters some silly line about how powerful and badass she is, because there’s nothing convincing about it, and if the creative team really believed (and believed their audience would believe) that Echo is THAT great, they wouldn’t feel the need to have her showily declare it. When season two hits and Echo’s ‘character development’ fast-tracks to full sentience, she becomes even less dynamic: all of the things which could have provided legitimate engagement with the character’s struggle are skipped over, her process of self-actualisation (anyone who read my Farscape reviews knows my love for hard self-actualisation narratives), her navigation of her role as a developing entity in a world hostile to such things (touched on occasionally in season one, thrown to the wind in season two), anything to do with her cognitive evolution is scrapped in favour of ‘she just remembers it all now’, and there’s no arc to it. I invoked the concept of the Mary Sue in one episode post, and that is exactly the problem we end up with: a ‘perfect’ character who can do everything and anything and be ~the best~ at it, who is beloved and desired by all who meet her, except for her (mustache-twirling cliche villain) enemies, who fear her awesome powers. There is no personality in Echo, no conflict, no meaning. Wild as it may sound, you could actually remove her from the show completely and easily adapt the other characters (the ones who have personality, conflict, and meaning) to fill the space, and not only would it work, but the show would be infinitely the better for it. That’s the absolute opposite of what you want from a lead character.

The other BIG mistake in the casting for this show is Tahmoh Penikett as Paul Ballard, who plays his part with all the verve and charisma of a piece of wood with eyes drawn on (ever watch Ed, Edd, and Eddy? Plank has more dynamic personality than our boy Ballard). I’m not sure how much of it is Penikett’s fault - it has been many years since I watched Battlestar Galactica, and while I don’t remember being particular impressed by him, I don’t remember being frustrated by his inability to walk in a straight line without making it look weird, either - but whether he’s handicapped by his own acting non-prowess or not, he’s certainly fighting a losing battle with an unfocused mess of a character, and if the writing couldn’t decide what Ballard’s deal was to start with, I’m not shocked that Penikett had a hard time conveying it. Is Ballard a morally righteous hero (on a show with no moral centre for him to relate to)? Is he flawed and secretly-dark, and if he is, who recognises that, is it deliberate? Is he losing control, or is that just supposed to be ‘normal person’ behaviour? Again, who notices, does he know? How much of his interiority is a white-knight cliche, and how much is supposed to be genuine, and is any of it supposed to be subversive? I honestly can’t tell, one episode from the next. In season one, he’s garbage at his job, and some characters mention it, but then Ballard himself appears to be under the impression that he’s fighting the good fight and the tone of the show seems to agree with him rather than acknowledging his self-delusion. In season two, he joins the Dollhouse at the same time as openly declaring himself to be still against it, the plot conveniently pretends he never raped Mellie so that we can uphold the idea that he IS righteous, after all, and has no dark impulses, other characters at the Dollhouse put up with him being an obvious liability for no discernible reason, and then eventually he gets rendered brain-dead, reconstructed as a doll version of himself, and then dies a few episodes later anyway. Big whoop. It feels an awful lot like they had no long-term plan for what to do with the character, so they just focused on giving him a romance with Echo and then threw some contrived death stuff on top of that for flavour. Speaking of the romance thing: eek. Again, in season one it seemed they couldn’t decide whether or not his mounting obsession with his damsel-in-distress vision of Caroline was creepy as Hell (pro tip: it absolutely was), but then in season two it all became very simple: Ballard wants Echo, but doesn’t really believe she’s a real person (for some reason this is not a deal-breaker to her), and they dance around each other for a bit but never get together and somehow we’re supposed to interpret this as the development of a wonderful love story with a bittersweet tragic end when he dies, twice but also not really because then she downloads him into her brain anyway so they live happily ever after, sort of. It’s a fucking mess, y’all, and they don’t earn it, and the utter soup that is Ballard’s personality and motivation goes un-examined. The fact that season two tips heavily in favour of Echo/Ballard scenes is something very significantly to its detriment, because it’s the worst and most shakily-developed non-relationship of the series. Ok, that, and whatever the fuck Topher/Bennett was supposed to be.

Speaking of Topher...actually, I don’t have much to say about him. Breaking pattern with the rest of the characters, Topher shows no real sign of a personal story in season one, so it’s season two which attempts to give him some function as an individual outside of being the comic-relief tech guy. It’s not particularly successful, since the attempted character development revolves around 1) moral compunctions (which, as noted ad nauseum, this show left itself incapable of engaging with in any meaningful way back when it pretended sexual slavery was a morally grey issue), and 2) throwing a love interest at him: zero actual relationship-building ensues and it’s awkward and chemistry free and then she dies (so glad Bennett could exist to tick off a bunch of Whedon’s favourite suffering-woman tropes and then die for shock value, yay). At the end of the day, Topher was just a handful of affectations, fun to watch, but hardly amounting to more of a ‘whole person’ than the paper-thin personalities of the sex-fantasy cliches he imprinted into the dolls. 

If Topher is the character who suffers most from a lack of development in season one, Boyd is the hardest hit in season two, easily. As Echo’s handler in season one, Boyd was pleasant, mild-mannered, protective, and he had an ethos which governed his choices (imagine such a thing!). His former career as a cop was referenced variously, and it seemed clear that we should expect one day to learn how he came to leave the force and wind up as a bodyguard working for a secret organisation. Season two? Forget about it. Forget about it because of the idiotic ‘twist’ that turned Boyd into Rossum’s cuckoo founder and thereby unraveled his entire personality as a sham in one fell swoop, obviously, but forget about his character having even the appearance of development in the meantime, also. Removing Boyd from his position as Echo’s handler was a grave error, as it downgraded his importance and effectively stifled the natural bond he had developed with his charge which represented a nice, uncomplicated character dynamic (one far more welcome than that clusterfuck replacement which was Ballard as Echo’s handler, euch). Additionally, this led to Boyd being largely backgrounded for the entirety of season two, given no meaningful stories to engage with, and certainly not expanded upon or explored as a character. As noted, any such expansion would have been irrelevant anyway once the dumbass ‘big reveal’ happened, but that’s all the more reason to bemoan the loss of Boyd’s character, which essentially occurred a full season before he actually donned his suicide vest and exploded in the Rossum building. If you have to dump a character just to service your twist, don’t. Dump the twist instead. Like pretty much every other actor on this show, Harry Lennix deserved better.

And then there’s DeWitt...I largely covered the DeWitt issue back in the episode posts, really; she starts out an intriguing character (and I credit Olivia Williams with much of this, she created dynamism out of an oft-lacking script, in every case), but season two really did a number on her when it came to leaping wildly about different plot ideas that jerked DeWitt’s characterisation from one extreme to another with very little connective tissue to sell the change. If Ballard was the character whom the narrative couldn’t decide how to handle in season one, DeWitt takes up that odious mantle in season two; is she losing her grasp? Is she playing the game? Is she an evil, pragmatic genius? Is she foolish and deluded by an idealism that plainly has no basis in reality? Is she an alcoholic who spontaneously gets her shit together after a couple of other characters tell her off? Damn, that was easy. As with Ballard, the problem is not just that the story seems to change tone and purpose for DeWitt’s character from one episode to the next; it also robs her of the opportunity to be defined through consistent interaction with others - she has no one to bounce off in a manner which would create a baseline for her behaviour and how it is outwardly perceived (and thus, how the audience is intended to interpret it). 

I’m gonna talk about Sierra and Victor together, because frankly, that’s both the way the show packages them, and there’s not much to say outside of it. For the millionth time ever on this blog, I will complain that all shows ever would be improved by being ensembles; in this case, Sierra and Victor both would have benefited from a framework which allowed either one of them to take greater precedence more often, instead of having their own narratives distilled down to a single Personal Episode each in season two. I do enjoy both, and their relationship has legitimate chemistry and charm while also following a sensible plot concept through - the idea that strong emotional connections and bonds can transcend the mind wipe. Unfortunately, the show has little functional purpose for either character outside of their relationship, to the extent that it even sidelines them almost entirely in the climax of the series (pre-flashforward). Victor/Anthony is given the least plot purpose in the show proper, which is just a criminal misuse of Enver Gjokaj - Anthony is a soldier and that’s essentially his entire personality right there, and the only thing that gives them an excuse to make him do Manly Fighter Stuff in the latter stages of season two. Sierra/Priya gets more to do, but the bad news is, it’s all about being raped, and that’s her whole story - horrible possessive misogynists abusing her so that she can embody Whedon’s favourite Broken Bird trope, with the added misfortune of changing the nature of her relationship with Victor to make it a little bit about him ‘rescuing’ her with the love of a good man. Both of these actors are so good, and their characters had such potential, I can’t believe the show fucked around and wasted them like it did. 

Ok, one more before I go. I know he was never a member of the central cast, but we gotta talk about Laurence Dominic, because he was deceptively essential to the show, important to what made it work for the brief time when it could be said to work, and he was altogether the best character on the show insofar as he was the most cohesive, consistent, and logical player in the piece. I said as much when he made his welcome return in ‘The Attic’ (the best episode of season two...coincidence?), and as I noted then, it may be that Dominic’s early exit from the show was to his benefit in that he avoided being jostled across season two having all semblance of coherence torn to pieces along the way. I’m fairly certain the writer’s had no idea how valuable Dominic was to the story when they axed him (not least because they clearly had no idea how important it is to create some kind of moral framework to support a story that is inherently morally dubious), but consider the most obvious changes to the show format and the other character’s stories once Dominic was out of the picture: Boyd takes over as Head of Security, to his detriment as a character, and to the detriment of his relationship with Echo, leaving her wasting time with that dolt Ballard instead and putting audiences everywhere to sleep. And DeWitt? DeWitt loses her sounding board, the right-hand man who - for most of the first season - anchored her character by giving her someone to talk and plot and, at times, disagree with, creating that behavioural baseline that she lacked when she was being dragged all over season two. Dominic’s role was a structural pillar on the show, he held the roof up so that the rest of the characters could interact and interrelate - with each other, and with him - he had distinct relationship dynamics with pretty much all of them - and he was exactly the kind of character that you want around being a stable, unobtrusive presence. They could even have kept the idea of him being an NSA spy, just keep him working undercover, the audience knows the truth but the other characters don’t, it creates tension! Sure, it’d probably mean letting Ivy be sent to the attic under false charges, and that wouldn’t help this show’s abysmal abuse-of-women record, but considering the show did nothing of consequence with Ivy in the end anyway and she just existed to be belittled by Topher while he sent her to fetch him snacks...yeah, anyway. I could talk a lot about why Dominic was the best character on this stinking show, but it’s ultimately beside the point: the point is that nothing in this show really worked, and that had a lot to do with major conceptual issues (moral grounding is not optional! Misogyny is not tasty plot flavouring! Joss Whedon is an abomination!), and keeping Dominic around long-term would no more save the show than if Eliza Dushku possessed a modicum of acting range. It’s frustrating because there are so many good pieces there, excellent actors, intriguing character set-ups, fantastic plot possibilities, and heady existential implications. It’s just that some moron decided the best thing to do with that would be to play nasty sexual wish-fulfillment games and leave the rest to rot. I’m pretty sure the version of this show I enjoyed once was largely the version I made in my head, because the reality is a wasteful disaster. And misogynistic as Hell, too. We, the viewers, deserved better.

[theliterateape]

I Like to Watch | Pet Sematary (2019)

By Don Hall

Full confession: I love the work of Stephen King like a gender studies student loves bell hooks or a middle-aged cosplayer loves J.K. Rowling. I’ve read every thing he’s published (including the Richard Bachman stuff) and he is one of those rare authors whom I can revisit periodically and still enjoy. I think I’ve read The Stand five times and the entire Gunslinger series at least ten. Much to Himmel’s frustration, it could be argued that my writing style comes from my wading in deep to King’s prose and coming out of it with some seriously bad habits that I tend to really enjoy.

Like putting my internal asides in italics which drives my co-editor insane…

I am not exactly a superfan of the movies that have been adapted from his books. There are currently forty-six movies adapted from King’s books and short stories with three more coming to date. Aside from those three, I’ve seen them all at least once (and some multiple times).

For every brilliant adaptation — Carrie (1976), The Dead Zone (1983), Misery (1990), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), IT (2017) — there are some equally terrible attempts — Maximum Overdrive (1986), The Lawnmower Man (1992), Thinner (1996), Cell (2016), The Dark Tower (2017). After multiple viewings of even the crap, my conclusion (with a few exceptions) is unless you’re Stanley Kubrick, don’t fuck with King’s language or plot in any way.

Frank Darabont and Rob Reiner get it. The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Mist, Stand by Me, and Misery, are all uniformly excellent and part of that was what was written in the books was put on the screen with little tinkering. Kubrick gets the big pass because, well, he’s Kubrick and The Shining (1980) is a singular work of genius despite what King has to say about it.

So whenever I hear that a screenwriter has changed some of the essential plotting of one of these books to make a script, I’m dubious. I read that Jeff Buhler, David Kajganich, and Matt Greenberg decided to update the third act of Pet Sematary and I rolled my eyes in that way that a Marvel fan cranks his rubber neck up with incredulity when someone praises the FOX Fantastic Four shitshows.

I had just seen Jordon Peele’s Us and had some real problems with the third act explanations even though the first two thirds were extraordinary and, while I love both versions of IT, I dread the ending of the upcoming second part because (and this is King’s fault and no one else’s) Pennywise is far scarier as a fucking clown that as a giant spider.

OK. Enough preamble.

Pet Sematary is the tale of Dr. Louis Creed (Jason Clarke), his wife Rachel (Amy Seimetz) and their two children, Ellie (Jeté Laurence) and Gage (Hugo & Lucas Lavoie) as they move from Boston to the ever familiar haunting grounds of Stephen King (rural Maine) only to discover a pet cemetery on their property. Their old neighbor, Jud (John Lithgow), befriends Louis and, when Ellie’s cat, Church, gets run over on the side of the road, takes him past the graveyard to an ancient burial ground that brings the dead back to life. Except that they come back evil. 

It’s a perfect expansion of The Monkey’s Paw tale.

An evil cat is kind of an oxymoron but you get the drift.

SPOILERS, FUCKER!

In both the book and the 1989 version, it is Gage who gets squashed by a truck and whom Creed takes up to the burial ground and comes back evil. Jeff Buhler, David Kajganich, and Matt Greenberg decided to monkey with King’s Monkey’s Paw send up and have it be Ellie instead. And it works! In fact, I’d argue it works even better than having Gage (who is precious and cute but pretty much preverbal) and in no small part due to Laurence’s scary as fuck portrayal of Evil Ellie). Directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer are deft with the camera and provide some great jump scares along the way.

It’s such a simple change but watching a more advanced female evil child is somehow more sinister, more malevolent. Especially as Creed brings her back because he needs more time with Daddy’s Girl and she is anything but his precious apple of his eye. The feelings of grief over a toddler are excruciating but the grief over the loss of a child in her budding years, as she learns the ins and outs of human behavior and as her personality has blossomed in front of you carries with it more weight. Watching her become malevolent and gleefully murderous after seeing her delight in a doll or brood over her cat is devastating.

King writes in an interstitial in The Bazaar of Bad Dreams:

“I hate the assumption that you can’t write about something because you haven’t experienced it, and not just because it assumes a limit on the human imagination, which is basically limitless. It also suggests that some leaps of identification are impossible. I refuse to accept that, because it leads to the conclusion that real change is beyond us, and so is empathy. The idea is false on the evidence. Like shit, change happens. If the British and the Irish can make peace, you gotta believe there’s a chance that someday the Jews and Palestinians will work things out. Change only occurs as a result of hard work, I think we’d all agree on that, but hard work isn’t enough. It also requires a strenuous leap of the imagination: what is it really like to be in the other guy or gal’s shoes?”

Based on that, I’d like to hope that soon, King will write a horror story featuring a black family that Jordon Peele can then make into a movie. That’d be amazing.

[truthbeetoldmedia]

The Critical Role of 'Critical Role'

It’s any given Thursday night, roughly 9:50 pm Eastern Standard Time, and my house is filled with the scent of oven-fried chicken and the driving thrum of Celtic percussion and string instruments. The PS4 Twitch app is open, streaming an impressive flow of themed fan art over-scored by the aforementioned tune. My loved ones are gathered; we hunker down with our meals, eagerly anticipating the clock’s turn to 10 pm. It’s time for Critical Role.

Critical Role is a weekly Dungeons & Dragons campaign livestream, currently available on both its own Twitch channel Critical Role, as well as the Geek & Sundry Twitch. The series features live gameplay of a home-brewed world, created and made manifest by the talents of popular voice over artist Matthew Mercer, acting Dungeon Master, and featuring live unscripted performances by his equally-gifted friends. The core players are Laura Bailey, Taliesin Jaffe, Ashley Johnson, Liam O’Brien, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, and Travis Willingham; special guests also occasionally join in, such as Khary Payton, Mark Hulmes, Sumalee Montano, and Ashly Burch, who've all appeared briefly in this campaign.

If some of these names are familiar to you, that’s because the talent involved in Critical Role are renowned, tested, and aggressively committed actors/members of the production, animation, television, film, and gaming industries. Their varied skills, gravitas, and dedication combine with Matt’s ceaselessly creative mind and quick thinking into an amalgam so dense and compelling that it’s hard, as a viewer, to escape the show’s pull. Not that I’d want to; I’ve long since passed the event horizon and I’m in it until the end.

Currently, Critical Role is on its second iteration. Campaign 1 ran for several years as a private home-game amongst friends, then was translated into a format fit for livestreaming. It followed the heroic band of adventurers known as Vox Machina,  made up of characters birthed from noble archetypes; imperfect yet admirable individuals with the heart and skill to face world-rending, inconceivably fearsome enemies; a story intricately laced with nuance and lore, but grander and more sublime for it.

Campaign 2 is quite different in flavor, though still seated in the same world as its ancestral adventure, some 10 years after the fact. The team is now The Mighty Nein, a name blithely transplanted from an in-joke made by the Twitch chat and the cast themselves. The new characters are deeply flawed, broken, and self-centered individuals brought together by aligned goals and a specific brand of apathy only possible in jaded, wounded souls who just want to do at least a few decent things in their blighted lives. Despite this somewhat bleak tapestry, Matt and the Players have managed to weave in glittering threads of love, charity, hope, and devotion. It's tragic and beautiful; both rough and soft to the touch, depending on which swatch you feel.

Given that Campaign 1 is so voluminous in its scope, breadth, and tenure, it is understandably overwhelming as a starting point for the uninitiated. For this reason, I recommend diving in at the beginning of Campaign 2, launched on January 10, 2018 and available for free on Geek & Sundry’s YouTube.

I’m aware that modern media is crawling with genre stories: you can’t walk three feet without banging your toe on some phylactery or superpowered humanoid. And while Critical Role takes place in an indisputably fantastical setting, where the characters level up and come into powers which they often don’t initially comprehend, this is not a “coming of age” tale. There are no “Hero’s Journey” tropes. The growing pains explored are generally relegated to the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. The Mighty Nein learn and develop in tandem, outside the constraints and moors in which storytelling often entrenches itself. That’s the beauty of Dungeons & Dragons. Regardless of what the Dungeon Master has planned for each session, if they’ve given the Player Characters enough freedom, the emergent narrative is wholly original.

Being a Dungeon Master is famously likened to wrangling cats, though I find it more like wrangling cats who’ve learned to use laser pointers and Roombas on their own. One of the areas where Critical Role shines is that Matt is always over-prepared for whatever path the characters may choose, not to mention remarkably quick on his feet in adapting this sandbox he's established in response to how the Players decide to play, and the Players do him the courtesy of self-regulating their out of character moments and the silliness which often accompanies the excitement of roleplaying with your friends. Each session accumulates calculable progress.

But now that I’ve described the scaffolding on which Critical Role is built, I’d like to talk about the more abstract reasons I feel the series is so important, and why it’s absolutely worth your time.

One obvious benefit is that the series is live. Live broadcast media, in recent memory relegated mostly to sketch shows, soap operas, and the exhausting 24-hour news cycle, has been reinvigorated by the podcast, vlogging, and gaming communities. It’s a special joy to be present when something momentous occurs — a precious time-locked thing you share with a community made up of those who love what you love. An intangible communion of experience: in this instance, one where you cannot rely on your knowledge of narrative structure, because not only are we learning new things about these characters with the passage of time, but the actors who portray them are learning as well; all of which is packaged in breathtaking improvised acting.

The Players who make up The Mighty Nein are unafraid to make bold choices, to do things which until that precise second they didn’t know their characters would do. They don’t pander to the audience in order to provide the story beats which will make us comfy and complacent; these actors are so dedicated to maintaining organic character growth that, on occasion, some of their actions will frustrate, annoy, or anger the audience. However, the beauty in this is that none of the Players’ calls are pre-fabricated to elicit a specific reaction from the audience. You’ll love some stuff and hate some stuff, but there’s no onus, no learned helplessness, no pretense or smugness or hubris: those very things which can drive us up the wall when dealing with a lot of media these days.

Like most fandoms, there are some bad apples here and there, but Matt and the Critical Role team are dedicated to creating and maintaining an inclusive, intersectional environment where we can all thrive. The Critical Role cast and staff do everything possible to step in on behalf of their core players, special guests, and fans alike, in order to defend against, mediate, and mitigate the sporadic flares of anger, cruelty, and general suckiness which pervade so many other fandoms. They are humble and grateful and express it often, with deep sincerity.

Fan artists and other creators are welcomed, embraced, appreciated, and encouraged. Cosplayers are readily provided reference images and showcased on the official series Twitter. The Critical Role production group is even working on programs meant to provide new players and novice DMs with guidance for the 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons game system, as well as help navigating the more complicated aspects of RPG group dynamics. Every Critter is celebrated and bolstered in an open-source, accessible, super-fun community.

This show has brought pure, distilled hope and joy to so many, while also maintaining its initial purpose: a group of close friends who nerd out roleplaying and having a blast. The only thing that’s ever changed is that now we get to be part of it, too.

Critical Role airs Thursdays at 7 pm Pacific Standard Time on either the Critical Role or Geek & Sundry Twitch channels.

[westerngreys]

Zenbook pro duo

#Zenbook pro duo full

#Zenbook pro duo portable

#Zenbook pro duo pro

Our huge stock of laptop LCD screens have been manufactured by companies like LG Phillips, Samsung, AUO, Chi-Mei, Toshiba, Hannstar, Chunghwa, Sharp, etc. They are brand new high quality generic replacement and covered by our warranty. If they were made by no-name third party manufacturers we list them as No scratches / no signs of use on the LCD itself, works same way as new.Īlso, we sell some generic parts like flex video cables, extension cables, connectors, screen digitizers (but not LCD screens). The part was pulled from a laptop (or other device), has some signs of wear and tear and is fully functional and covered by our warranty just like new items. No scratches, no signs of use, looks and works same way as new. The part was pulled from a laptop (or other device), no signs of tear or wear and is fully functional and covered by our warranty just like new items. I reviewed the top-spec model, with a Core i9-9980HK backed up by 32GB of RAM, which is more than enough for even fairly demanding work, and unsurprisingly it pretty much breezed through our benchmarking.Brand new part made by one of the above mentioned major manufacturer.

#Zenbook pro duo pro

So it’s a bit of a brute, and the second screen (mostly) works, but does the ZenBook Pro Duo deliver where it counts? Specs: Like it or not, this is what peak performance looks like It’s available in dark blue (‘Celestial Blue’) finish with pretty minimal detailing, with both the Asus logo and its concentric circle finish offset slightly on the aluminium body. The Asus ErgoLift hinge design returns, naturally propping the base of the body up at a slight angle – ideal for both cooling and comfortable typing – and beyond the silly screen the rest of the design is actually very restrained. The tone of the audio is strong, with a nice balanced sound profile, but max volume is actually a little lower than I’d have thought, and I found myself cranking things up higher than I usually ever would.

#Zenbook pro duo full

Still, given the intended use case it’s odd that there’s not even a MicroSD card slot, let alone full SD, while limiting it to a single USB-C slot and no ethernet at all means you might still need to cart a dongle round anyway.Īs is standard for Asus laptops these days, sound is provided by Harmon/Kardon, though I found it unexpectedly weedy. You get two full-size USB ports, one USB-C, and one HDMI, along with a dedicated power port – Asus still hasn’t jumped onto the USB-C charging bandwagon, sadly. One advantage of the heft is that it does leave Asus space for plenty of ports, though the potential does feel a little wasted. Portability clearly wasn’t the priority here, and while it’s still just shy of the biggest gaming devices out there, there are plenty of other premium creative laptops from the likes of Apple or Dell that offer similar performance with a slimmer build. Between the top-end specs and the extra display, this thing is thicc, and it’s got the weight to match at 2.5kg (5.5lbs) – an ultrabook this ain’t.

#Zenbook pro duo portable

I’d recommend investing in a portable mouse. The track pad is great too, and I quickly adapted to having it next to rather than below the keyboard, but you just can’t get away from the fact that it’s seriously small, and that may be a compromise too far for some. The keyboard itself is pretty comfortable to use at least, with a tactile, responsive feel, good-sized keys (no compromise for space there), and a comfortable 1.4mm travel distance. With a secondary display built into the main body, the ZenBook Pro Duo is built for multi-tasking and heavy duty creative work – think Apple’s MacBook Pro Touch Bar on steroids – but that brings with it design changes and compromises that you’re likely to either love or hate. Thanks to a 4K OLED main panel and RTX 2060 GPU backed by up to 32GB of RAM and a Core i9, the specs are about as premium as it gets, making this a veritable portable powerhouse. You can usually rely on Asus to come up with something a little different for its laptops, and Computex 2019 was no different: the company unveiled what it calls the future of laptops: the ZenBook Pro Duo, a high-end creative device that boasts not one, but two 4K displays. This isn’t perfect, and future dual-screen devices will find better ways to make the form factor work. The question is how much you’re willing to compromise to get it, with rubbish battery life and a giant chassis. This may or may not be the future of laptops, but for creatives, multi-taskers, and the attentionally challenged, the second display quickly makes a case for itself. Don’t write the ZenBook Pro Duo off as a mere novelty without trying it.

[nadin-bayramova-blog]

Integration - The Danger of a Single Story of Africa

The memory of me moving to Africa the first time, never leaves the back of my mind. At times I look back and realize how different my perspective of moving to a foreign country was, and how ignorant my thoughts might have been before the move. I had the kind of behavior or attitude about moving to Africa, that I now would judge someone else for having. Being an expat family, we like to say we are immune to change. Change has been a huge part of my life, since the age of 8, when I first moved from Azerbaijan to America. Moving, as time progressed, became a part of my identity. As expats, moving to another country so suddenly should never come as a surprise, yet this was our first big move, to such an “exotic” location.

Living in Texas at the time, the pressure to fit in was what motivated me daily. The pretty girls from average families, that had never been out of the country, were the majority. If you were not one of them, you felt like a fish out of water. At first not speaking English, not having a family pet, our car not being a truck, my confusion for country music and for the need of big backyards, made it hard for people not to view me as different. As time went on there was a shift in my mindset. I slowly faded into the crowd. I became much more close minded, especially about the people and different cultures around me. I no longer stood apart from the majority, the only difference in me being, that I still noticed the people who fell between the cracks, since I was one of them once. People often say that to make it in America, you need to leave your past behind and start a completely new life. Looking back at it now, a part of my true self was lost those short few years. I can now confidently say that I definitely regret my attitude back then.

Although this was a big turning point for me, it didn’t last very long. Staying true to the expat way of life, I didn’t get to feel comfortable for too long, as the time for our biannual moving tradition once again. When my parents said we were moving to Africa, my first reaction was shock. “Africa? How? But will we even go to school? What about a house? How will we go without a car?!” I thought.

I laugh at this now, but could you blame me? I was so oblivious to the world around me, given that for the last few years I lived in a tiny bubble of ignorance.

After the initial reaction, The first thing I did was check the World Atlas. After looking at “Africa” for a bit I realized I never even asked the specific country we would be living in. After finding out it was Luanda, Angola, I was a bit confused. Last time I checked that was in Asia. After finding out the difference between Mongolia and Angola, I laughed it off simply. “Who wouldn’t have mistaken the two?” I thought. I now feel a little embarrassed sharing that, since I don’t even have an excuse for not knowing even basic African Geography.

In a way, I was a bit worried with what I was about to experience. Having to go through the same adaptation process would have been even more unpredictable in a completely different country. Also, now being 10 years old, this was a big deal to me. As the date got closer, my worries grew. I  began to question my safety living in Angola (based on the conflicts in Sudan), the language barrier (even though my school would be in English), the cultural difference (as if the abundance and contrast was something I couldn’t handle), everything that a cautious tourist (which with my experience, I definitely wasn’t) considered before traveling abroad. I remember being rather stressed, yet not even doing any research to educate myself on life in Angola. I was solely reliant on my perception of Africa, from what I heard on the news, which was sometimes playing in the background at our house, and from scares my peers liked to joke about (like living in a hut or becoming malnourished). I was set on one opinion, that I would absolutely hate my life in Angola. Reflecting on this now, I realize just how completely, foolishly, and obviously wrong I was.

As we packed our several hundred boxes, from all the material items that were plentiful and always available in the United States. We left our lifestyle behind, and without looking back, flew business class seats provided by British Petroleum to our new home.

My first impressions were the following.

The airport was not the crowded huge building I had been used to, but rather small empty one. The African climate instantly caught me by surprise. I did not expect the sun to hit so brightly, and the humidity to be so high (almost as high as in Texas). The shuttle from the airport, felt like my personal African tour bus. A horizon of slums, and bright red mud, reminded me of another planet. Slowly the slums transformed into tall palm trees, and gated fences. Rows of modern houses stood close to one another, as I simply admired. Where were all the huts that I was promised? When we arrived home, our fridge was already stocked abundantly, with fruits the colour spectrum of a rainbow. Coral pineapple, purple passion fruit, bright orange mangoes, were a sight to see, given that I was so used to typical granny smith apples. The mosquito net wrapped around my new bed, resembled girly room decor, or bed curtains, that I had wanted so badly before. I slept so deeply that night. School was what came next. In my old school, my friends had worried for me. “ Will you even get an education?” “ How will you even learn with the whole town in one classroom?” “ It will be taught studying in Africanese”, they all said, with full and portraying confidence. I wish to show them, just how much, they got wrong about African education. Yes, African patterns did decorate the walls of the several classroom buildings, but compared to the crowded public schools in the US, this was a sight to be seen.

Students gathered at the sand filled playground, a swimming pool, and a football pitch, was available always throughout the school day, something that I never saw in Texas. Not only was I feeling so entirely grateful for moving to Luanda, but also felt guilty for choosing to believe my naive friends before, and so obliviously feeding into the African stereotypes.

I want to spread a message, that not only will change bring good to you, but change will also bring the often unexpected. A person only learns from new experiences, and that is the unique beauty of integration.

[fantroll-purgatory]

@nxbulaholic

I made this one as mostly a joke, but I might as well add a little bit more to her.

Oh, this is gonna be a… a fun one. Because everything is kind of clustered in a harder to individually comment way, I’m going to talk about my theme idea here… TR suggested that she should be a Johnny Appleseed type character, and I think that’s BRILLIANT. So that’s what she’s gonna be. This legendary troll roaming and generously providing apples to the good people. 

I’m going to change her blood to lime for several reasons. Firstly, you say that nobody knows her blood color. Her operating under hemoanon makes a lot more sense if you make her a limeblood character. Secondly, green apples are pretty limey in color. 

Thirdly, you’ve given her a frankly bizarre name (that I will be altering), which fits what Calliope said about limebloods tending to have odd names. 

And fourthly, Limeade (Lime Maid) Pun. 

Name: Appple Girlie

Pumila Aplcap

Pumila from Malus pumila, the scientific name for the apple tree. Aplcap is a reference to the name Appleseed as well as the tincap which Johnny Appleseed was noted to wear. 

Species: Troll Gender: Female Age: 6 sweeps Derse or Prospit?: Prospit  Strife Specibus: axekind 

Batkind is my recommendation. First of all the real Johnny Appleseed, Johnny Chapman, died playing baseball with the Fort Wayne tincaps. Apple Pie and Baseball have also often been historically associated together as the All American Things. So I think it makes a fun joke to have her walk around with a bat.

Land: The Land of Gardens and Nice Smelling Candles (LoGaNSC)

How about the Land of Orchards and Cider (LoOaC)?

Many of the trees that Johnny Appleseed planted weren’t in fact of the edible apple variety and were instead used to make spiced ciders! The land could be full of empty orchards, all the water in the land turned to fermented cider, leaving the consorts in a drunk tizzy… She’s got to find a way to turn back the clock and create a new timeline where she’s tended the nurseries better, so she can spread the good fresh appley word!

Title: Maid of Juice (or Maid of Time to reference Minute Maid???) 

I super do want her to be a Maid of Time because that Minute Maid pun is… my favorite.

Maids are the creators of time, actively. They are ones who mess around with the timeline in a pretty significant way. Aradia, for example, actively created various timelines and versions of herself across time by destroying the space they inhabited. Remember how she created so many doomed timelines and brought her robotic selves over to help the main timeline win? It was overall quite selfish, but it helped propagate the Main Timeline. Pumila would function much the same, though I imagine she’d primarily utilize her time power to make Infinite Apples. 

Blood color: Gold (but she doesn’t know that, she thinks it’s apple juice)

Maybe now she can think it’s a green apple smoothie. 🤔

Symbol: Nobody knows (similar to Ardata or Marvus in mystery)

If we considered her Lime/Prospit/Time persuasion, it’d theoretically make her symbol

Canrist, The Vehement. Which is… an oddly fitting name for someone like her. I might play with this a little to see if I can get it to be pie-like.

Lusus: I don’t really know (can you please help me?) 

Hmm. Since I’ve positioned her as a lime, it’s unlikely she’d be taken in by a traditional lusus. Maybe she got adopted by just like, a hive of bees? She doesn’t have one independent lusus she just has a Collective Of Bees Who Raised Her. I suggest this primarily because of the Honeycrisp apple and the fact that some vegans (who don’t understand apiculture) like to make beeless apple honey. I’ve got this working headcanon that mind honey makes your mind function at “maximum capacity,” for better or for worse. So she could put it in the stuff she bakes for Stat Boosts that can have unintended side effects. 

Trolltag: crimsonOrchard

How about pomaceReprocessor? 

Pomace is the remains from cider production, and nursery planters esp Johnny Chapman were noted to pick through pomace to regather apple seeds for planting!

Quirk: She speaks the tongue of apples, usually ending her sentences with an apple. 🍏

Can I suggest also changing S to 5 and T to 7? This is mostly because apples have approximatelyyy 57000 genes, which is a pretty significantly large amount! It’s a cool apple fact she can communicate with every message! Personality: Appple Girlie is an optimistic fellow for she enjoys giving out apples to every troll she meets, but would be devastated if they would toss them away or what not, she’s absolutely obsessed with her sweet red fruit and would fight somebody to the death if one were to take one without asking, don’t worry she doesn’t have the cliche ‘evil side uwu’! It’s just what her lusus (again, I don’t know what to put for her lusus) taught her.  

Okay, how’s this… Her “lusii,” for lack of a better word, taught her to appreciate the fruit that the land bears, but she just REALLY fell in love with apples. And we know that Alternia’s pretty harsh, and maybe she hates pre-packaged food and wants to get back to FRESH, so she decides to start travelling the land along with her bee family and planting nurseries full of apple trees in various lowblood areas, to help them be able to sustainably provide for themselves! She sticks around long enough for her bee hive to help pollinate the various kinds of apple trees she plants, then continues on to keep spreadin’ the good appley word. 

And, of course, she’ll get pretty upset if people mess up her apple orchards, because she’s trying to do a good thing! So if people go trampling her saplings, she might get a little bat-swingy. More than a little bat-swingy. It’s fine. 

Since she’s a time player, she should be interested in adaptive rebellion. She’s not outright trying to uproot the system, oh no, but she’s probably trying to flex within it and help lowbloods get a little bit of their own time back. They all spend so much time doing things for others and not for themselves, taking a little bit of the labor load off their back just seems like the best deed to her.  Likes: Apples, apple juice, apple pie, apple everything, looking up at the night sky, more apples

Hell Yeah Apples. You definitely have gotta make her interested in growing apples right, so a little bit of highly specific farming knowledge. Make her have an interest in pomology! Definitely give her some interest in self-reliance and nomad living, too. 

And, because she’s got a whole box full of beefamily to take care of, maybe apiculture is good for her, too. She’s gotta know how to beekeep with the best of them! Maybe that’s even how she has a computer! She rolls her apiculture network along with her as she travels. It’s a little more power than she Really needs, but it’s also the most reliable system she knows. 

Baking and distilling’s probably two good interests for her to have as well. 

Dislikes: Bananas, trolls who take her apples without asking, people who’re rude, bright lights

Does she hate bananas because they’re an unsustainable monoculture that disrespect the practice of good old fashion farming with all that cloning crap? Because if that’s not why I think it should be. Voice Headcanon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OW8eNWPFho

I have a counterpoint for you. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LKPupuh4cQ

Applejack’s voice, b…because apples. Quadrants: (Don’t really have much to put here since she’s a joke character) <3 -  <> -  o8< -  <3< - 

Wh…what if she was in a blackrom with a banana themed troll? 

Design: 

Horns: I decided to try to make them form a sort of apple shape! Curving down and with the stem sticking up. 

Hat: I made her a nice tincap, edited from Squarewave’s hat. 

Hair: Just a few more little flips. 

Face: Okay I dunno why you did that to her skin, but I changed it back. She’s not old enough to have the darker troll skin like some people headcanon the ancestors have. I also edited her eyeshines to white. I edited the glasses to lime to reflect her blood color and edited them into apple shapes! 

Shirt/symbol: I changed it to black just to provide more color contrast, and also to give the eyes a break from the vibrancy y’know. I also edited the Canrist symbol! I flipped it vertical and made it look like a pie! 

Overalls: I wanted to give her a bit more of a traveler look, look a bit like Johnny Appleseed’s iconic overalls. I made the underneath of the skirt into candy apple red! It looks a bit like pie filling and I love it.

Shoes: I changed the colors here to lime and candy apple red. It’s fun to have her hemoanon when she’s wearing lime and red. It must seem like she’s either a really incompetent lime or a highblood with an interesting idea of aesthetics. 

This was a fun character to review! Thank you for sharing.

-CD