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shyrose57 · 4 years ago

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AU(s) where all the mod videos Tommy does, along with some other videos, are all alternate universes, and their residents end up in the SMP. Chaos ensues.

Voice Mod AU:

Universe where nobody talks aloud. They telepathically communicate, and the closer you are, the clearer and louder you are, unless you have the control the lower your mental voice.

Why?

Post-apocalyptic world(because Tommy said welcome to the new world at the start, and I too that and ran with it). They’re the new versions of humans, created after life returned on the planett, and the telepathy is a survival method, because outward noise draws predators, inner noise does not.

This also means they possibly have some other features similar to that. Like maybe Quackity’s duck wings being from some newly evolved duck species in the new world, Wilbur being a bit abnormally tall, or similar. I’m not sure.

Oh hey, no, Wilbur can be like a tree hybrid or something, cause Treebur.

Basically, evolution and telepathy.

Wilbur has a horse named Bert, he is speedy, and spends just as much time dragging his owner out of trouble than he does riding him into it.

The gang is basically just traveling the lands, exploring what’s about.

There are fish-horses, ender-horses, spider-horses, silverfish ponies, and horses that are somewhat like a breed between llamas and sheep in the world.

There are a lot of new horse breeds.

The Quackity of this universe wears clothes a lot like Manhunt Dream’s, hoodie-wise, but it’s all bright blue, and his mask has the :] face on it.

Size Mod AU:

Universe where people can shift and change sizes, though only to certain ones.

For example, Wilbur’s stuck small. He can shift to the size of a small dog, height wise, or that of a flower, but he can’t get big. Quackity can go smaller than Wilbur, or literally bigger than the Enderdragon. Both Tommy can be normal sized, or big, and Phil’s can be about the size of a tree, or become the size of a small mountain.

They all live in a nice house in the plains and spend their time terrorizing the locals.

Wilbur has a little house within the house, and he uses his size to cause havoc more often than not. Quackity is equally guilty of this.

Sometimes when the kids are being particularly bad, Phil puts the smaller ones in a compost bin and holds Tommy off the ground until he starts behaving.

Quackity’s a follower of the Blood God. Not to Techno’s length, but he goes and kills rabbits for him, and dedicates the chaos his giant form causes to the guy. In return, the four always have a flourishing harvest, and Quackity’s absolutely mean in battle.

Wilbur sleeps in one of Tommy’s old shoes that he stole and made into a bed.

Honestly, Wilbur’s kind of like the house mouse. He steals stuff and vibes in his little home in the walls. The cats that occasionally slip in try to eat him a lot too.

Wilbur and Quackity are bird hybrids, Tommy’s a zombie hybrid(cause he’s fighting a zombie and saying ‘I burn’ at that little bit), and Phil’s an iron golem hybrid.

Quackity and WIlbur have little bird-houses set up around the area for them to dart into and hide if anything comes after them.

They all met when tiny Q and Wilbur tried to rob Tommy and Phil. They succeeded with Tommy, but Phil was less than impressed at the attempt. Somehow it resulted in them all sharing a house.

Dragon Mod AU:

Universe set in more medieval-themed world. Phil, Quackity, and Tommy are dragon hunters. Wilbur’s a mischievous dragon sorcerer who enjoys shapeshifting into a dragon to mess with people. The hunters were originally sent after him, but spent more time frantically running for their lives while he laughed at them.

Wilbur’s actually good friends with the actual Enderdragon, who he calls Keithette. It was with her blessing that he decided to pick on the hunters.

He just spends all of his time messing with them. That’s all he does. He messes with them. It’s originally more malicious, which means they had a ridiculous amount of deaths, but they eventually all grew fond of each other, so now it’s more playful.

He helps them find treasure and scares off rivals.

Tommy’s a trained medic.

Quackity and Wilbur are...something? It’s a Skephalo situation. They could just be very affectionate friends, or they could be dating, or they could be messing with everyone. Nobody knows, and everytime they think they’ve figured it out, the two seem to magically know and do something to throw them off.

They’ve confused many, many people with their antics.

(They’re probably messing with people though, because they definitely know what they’re doing)

When the actual Enderdragon and her egg mysteriously went missing, Wilbur rounded up his friends and asked for their help in finding her-so now the group is on a quest to find her and return her to the End.

Natural Disaster Mod AU:

Universe where world ending natural disasters just keep happening. It killed off a lot of people, but honestly, at this point, it’s been going on for years, and those that remain are pretty used to it.

Tubbo and Wilbur are followers of the Mule God, and were brought together by him. Jack and Tommy are two good friends who came together to survive. And Phil’s a top-tier survivalist who keeps an eye on the four, mostly because he’d feel bad if they died too often while they live in the area.

Though they’re all three different groups, they stick together and help each other out.

Tommy and Tubbo were childhood friends before the disasters separated them. A young Jack found Tommy and took him in, and Tubbo was saved and blessed by the Mule God. They’re still friends, but have somewhat grown apart with their differing lifestyles.

Tommy’s a penguin hybrid.

Tubbo and Wilbur have been known to try and scam people passing by, and they have tried this with everyone in the area too-the difference is the ones who stick around know better than to buy it.

Whenever Tommy wants to hang out, he declares he’s rescuing Tubbo, and steals him from whatever he’s doing. Wilbur has long since accepted that occasionally Tubbo is going to be stolen, and doesn’t even blink anymore.

Tommy wears green, and Tubbo wears red.

Storm riding is a favored sport of Tubbo’s, where you grab a hang glider and get swept up into the storm. Jack hates it, but often gets dragged along anyway.

Morph Mod AU:

Universe where shapeshifters are more common, and Tommy, Charlie, Phil, Schlatt, and Wilbur are all a clan of them.

They co-exist with humans, and actually protect the local villages they live close too.

They also spend a lot of time messing with people outside said villages, but that’s unimportant.

Charlie and Wilbur prefer to be aquatic creatures. while Phil transforms into whatever works better for the environment he’s in. Schlatt just does whatever, and Tommy usually sticks to human form, only shifting when he’s bored or he needs too.

Wilbur tried to transform into a horse once, while in fish form. He’s not sure what exactly happened, but long story short, he’s the reason for the myth of the hippocampus.

They have a house in the village, one out, and then general little areas meant for them in animal form.

Because shapeshifters are strongly group-oriented, they prefer to shift in pairs or groups. Charlie and Wilbur typically pair up, as do Schlatt and Tommy. Philza doesn’t really have that instinct as strongly, so he just stays close to them instead.

Laser Eye Mod AU:

Universe set in a futuristic setting, where, due to an ancient void deity becoming malicious, Tommy, Phil, Charlie, and Wilbur are selected to become plasma wielding cyber warriors(futuristic magical girls, basically) to fight back against such threats.

These four’s cybernetics were embued with magic to produce specific plasma that would be effective against threats.

Phil wields divine plasma, and it’s fired out from his cybernetic wings, which were implanted as a military experiment. He can even detach a feather to act as a plasma covered sword.

Tommy wields phoenix plasma, and it’s fired out of his cybernetic eyes, which were transplanted into him when he was in an accident young, rendering him blind. They allow him to see by scanning out the outlines of objects and areas, and feeding the image into his brain.

Wilbur wields soulfire plasma, which is fired from his prosthetic legs, which have a kind of mermaid-motif, with fins and all, and make him a fast swimmer.

And Charlie wields greekfire plasma, fired from his cybernetic arm-it can also fire slime-like globs that rapidly grow and incase the area they’re attached too.

Wilbur was actually the first selected for the program, but he went missing shortly after, stolen and controlled by the void deity, who turned him into quite the obstacle for the others.

They eventually rescued him from it’s control, and after he recovered, he joined the fight.

Endermen and endermen hybrids are common minions of the void deity-it seems to have End-based origins, being able to control them.

Lava Ravine Mod AU:

Universe where Phil, Charlie, Wilbur, and Tommy are all strangers, who get a mysterious invite to an unknown world. It seems like a lovely vacation at first, strangers aside, but things turn deadly when a seemingly normal ravine in the ground begins to grow, the lava inside it begins to rise, and our heroes find themselves unable to leave the world.

They soon realized they may have been selected for their ability to survive, but to do that, they’re going to have to all work together.

Tommyinnit originates from the world of RLcraft, Phil grew up in Hardcore Mode, Charlie is a fallen god from a world of chaos, and Wilbur has lived through a world like this before.

They build a giant glass and stone dome, and live within there, using their various skills to survive.

Wilbur pretty much knows how this world works to a T, and is able to predict when the lava will raise and how quickly. He knows how to survive and work around the heat.

Tommy and Phil have a variety of skills from their lives before, not limited to first aid and cooking.

And Charlie’s got a bit of godly power he can put to good use here, as well as many out-of-the-box ideas for what to do.

Charlie brought a card-game from his old world, and teaches Wilbur how to play. It becomes a favorite past time of theirs.

Jump Mod AU:

Universe where enhanced individuals have recently begun to exist. Tommy, Wilbur, and Quackity are some of many who choose to use their new abilities for their own gain, becoming thieves. They were taken under the wing of master thief Philza, who was in the game long before he gained his new powers.

Or, well, they were thieves. A job gone wrong resulted in them being caught by authorities, and forced into a deal. Once thieves for their own gain, now they’re agents for the government, stealing back what was stolen from their country.

All of them are generally more physically enhanced, with agility, endurance, and all that jazz. But they also have other abilities.

Tommy’s faster than anyone. Wilbur can refract light, essentially becoming invisible. Phil can communicate with birds. And Quackity can change the density of anything he touches, himself excluded.

Philza was actually caught because he stayed behind for his new partners. He had realized someone was looking into them, and didn��t want the younger ones going into that alone.

TNT Mod AU:

Universe where everyone is a mob hybrid, and they live divided in tribes. Tommy, Phil, Charlie, and Wilbur are a tribe/keg of creeper hybrids, who protect their territory, and cause havoc for any trespassers who happens upon them.

No one dares settle there, because these four are just as likely to swear a village’s protection as they are to laugh as they set it ablaze. It’s purely up to how they feel at the moment, finicky keg that they are.

However, there is a reason some do venture here.

Every tribe/(name for grouping of specific mob) guards a certain treasure. For the creeper boys, it’s an orchard of apple trees that grow, not only red apples, but gold ones too-and rarely, a god apple.

If you do happen to stumble upon their territory unintentionally, your best bet is to appeal to Wilbur, as he does have a soft spot for people-of course, you’ll need to make sure none of the others think you’re taking advantage of that soft spot, lest they slowly and painfully kill you for even considering it.

Creepers are very friendly to them, and see them as one of their own. Other mobs, not so much.

The orchard is surrounded by a dense forest, that’s abruptly lets up to a clearing that rings around it. This is where the keg lives, in high tree houses all connected to one another.

Their forest is their pride and joy, and it’s filled with many exotic trees and plants from around the world. Bringing them an addition for it is a sure way to assure your survival, and even gain an alliance, if it’s a really good addition.

Likewise, messing it up even slightly will immediately get you murdered.

Black Hole Mod AU:

Universe where the sun exploded and became a black hole that’s slowly consuming the world. Though many perished, some survived, with the advanced technology in the future.

Wilbur, Charlie, Phil, and Tommy are some of those survivors.

Charlie is a scientist, studying the black hole to see if there’s anyway to perhaps stop it, or survive within it once it consumes them.

Phil’s a former mercenary who came to the lab with Tommy, after finding the young student stumbling about the remains of a city.

Wilbur’s the former on-board scientist from the crew that first encountered the black hole. He was originally presumed dead, but suddenly reappeared one day, and was found nearby by Phil, who dragged him to the lab. He’s...different. He’s seen things.

Charlie and Wilbur graduated from the same university, and were actually working in the same lab before Wilbur joined his crew in space for an up-close study.

Philza has a bad habit of adopting any creature he finds, and it’s become something of a joke by the four. He adopted Tommy, he’s adopted Wilbur and Charlie, and he has quite a few birds and other creatures that followed him back.

Body Shuffle Mod AU:

Universe where glitches a common sight, and humanity has evolved alongside them.

The world basically...well, I wouldn’t say revolves around? But glitches are a large part of life at this point, and players have specifically evolved to be able to work with them.

A common glitch includes the Body Glitch, where random body parts will seemingly vanish off a person without causing them harm or effecting them.

Tommy and Charlie are Takers, people who have a special, glitch-specific gene that allows them to take a glitch effecting a being or item, and pull that effect from said being/item, and upon themselves.

They’re equally loved and hated, considering the rarity of the gene, and what uses it could be employed for.

The two have a business that they use this ability to take and relocate glitches for various purposes.

Philza and Wilbur are the two’s bodyguards turned friends, who protect them from less savory people, and suss out the ones with bad intentions.

Gas Mod AU:

Universe set in a modern fantasy world where a mysterious gas suddenly overtook the planet. Many died. A few survived-but for some of them, that was the crueler fate, as the mysterious gas began to make them monsterous creatures that sought flesh and blood.

Tommy, Charlie, Phil and Wilbur are the scattered survivors in a city overtaken by the gas, banding together to fight back the monsters born from the green fog, and stay alive.

Wilbur was formerly a cartographer on a ship. He’s also half siren, and his most priceless possession is a diamond dagger given to him by his former captain.

Charlie is a doctor, as well as a wizard. His magic pet is a slime-like dragon. Yeah, he’s not sure where the little guy came from either.

Phil got a whole cocktail of heritage, but most are sky-related, so he’s got a strong grasp on air magic, which he uses to create safe bubbles for the gang to breathe freely.

And Tommy’s a low tier human-turned demon after death- an imp, basically. He causes havoc.

They all have to wear gas mask, which are heavily enchanted to keep the gas from affecting them.

The group basically just has a weirdly domestic life in the abandoned city, after they cleared out an abandoned apartment building to chill in.

Surgery Mod:

Universe where the gang are the experiments of a mad scientist having escaped.

Tommy is a poison-based experiment, Wilbur is a Nether-based one, Philza is an End-based experiment, and Charlie is an Over-world based one.

They were all grouped together in a cell because the older three are part of the Dimension Project, and Tommy accidentally imprinted on Wilbur when he was created, meaning he would have died if he was separated from him.

The four eventually decide that they hate this life, and stage a break out with the rest of the guys experiments.

Once they escaped, they decided to travel the world as a family, exploring everything they’d never had the chance to see, and finding where they belonged in this place.

Lava Floor Mod AU:

Universe where all the oceans in the world have been replaced by lava. For Ninja, Tommy, Wilbur, and George, their get-along vacation goes south when they’re stranded alone on a chain of distant islands, far from any sign of civilization.

If they ever hope to survive, they’ll have to put their issues to the side and work together to get to the one place unaffected-the Nether.

Tommy ‘Smokes’ Notfound, and Wilbur ‘Soot’ Fortnite are the two children of the struggling couple George ‘Specs’ Notfound and Ninja ‘Bow’ Fortnite, who haven’t seen each other in years, despite still being married.

The two, knowing how close their kids were, agree to meet up so the two can hang out, which is why they ended up on this vacation on the first place.

Wilbur and Smokes would really appreciate if their parents could get along too-it’d make vacation a lot nicer without all the tension. And yes, they could worry about all the oceans turning to lava, but they won’t. Instead, they’re going to be gremlins who try to get their parents to make up, whether that means divorce, or becoming a happy couple again.

Rising Void Mod AU:

Universe where the planets are being eaten by the void. Tommy, Philza, and Quackity are all aliens who managed to escape the demise of their home planets, and crashed landed on Earth, with the intention of warning them of what was coming.

Unfortunately, the only guy around for miles is Ranboo, a conspiracy theorist who prefers his isolated mountain cabin to the city...and also is in complete denial about the existence of aliens, even if they’re standing right in front of him.

Quackity is from a planet where ores and gems have a large part of fashion culture.

Tommy’s planet was the first to fall. However, Quackity was the one who was closest to be touching, and it leaves side effects-like him occasionally hearing it’s eldritch whispering calling for him to surrender himself to it and stop fighting-

But, y’know. It’s fine. It’s all good.

(Although he does happen to be the most aware of their inevitable fate, and uses humor to cope with the knowledge that no matter how hard they try, he and these people he’s grown to care for are going to die, and there’s absolutely no way to stop that)

Sky Grid Mod AU

Universe where Ranboo is a young, lonely god born to a grid-formed world. Though he has made many interesting creations, he decides he wants someone like him. Who can listen, and answer, and love, and hate.

And the universe loves him, so it answers.

It finds two souls who’ve died too young, and puts them into his hands to mold as he wishes. One, he creates in colors of green, like grass, and emeralds, and poison alike. The other, he creates in colors of red, like lava and poppies, and warm beds.

Their names are Tubbo and Tommy, and they’re different than what he thought they’d be. They cannot be controlled or remade, but they can bleed, and they can laugh, and most importantly, they can make choices.

And they choose to love him, taking him in their embrace as a friend, treating him kindly, and as one of their own, regardless of his power or abilities.

The three make a home in the gridded world, finding themselves and never fearing the fall, because the world loves both it’s godling, and the people made within it.

Terraforming The Moon AU:

Universe where the remains of humanity have fled to the moon upon the destruction of earth. They unintentionally awake age-old space deities, who, luckily for them, feel like lending a hand-mostly.

Wilbur is the only actual deity of the moon, but the rest of the SBI spend more time there than they don’t, because humans are interesting.

Tommy’s the youngest god, a deity of the stars within their young galaxy-it’s a position that was passed onto him by the former star deity, Clara.

Technoblade is the deity of both Mars and Venus. He’s actually been to Earth a few times before it’s destruction, and finds their cultures fascinating-particularly the Greek and Romans.

Philza is the god of the End. The oldest, he’s not just a deity, he’s a primordial of the end of all things. Truthfully, it was the very end of Earth that awoke him from his slumber, and it’s former inhabitants interesting lives that keep him awake.

They all pick a human to favor, and help out. Changes on the day.

Honestly, they aren’t necessarily malicious? They don’t really consider the fact that humans don’t have the same limitations and powers as them, so occasionally they fuck something up that somebody worked hard on, and don’t understand why they don’t just fix it already, not realizing that the humans actually have to take awhile to do that.

One Hundred Player Laboratory AU:

Universe set in modern time.

Wilbur and Technoblade are two university students trying to do a study for their finals-unfortunately, the rats they were supposed to use are both oddly sentient, and incredibly chaotic.

Techno and Wilbur are doing a study of behavior, and other scientific things. To do this, Techno has built a large, complex maze/building thing.

And Wilbur purchased a bunch of rats-except, he probably should have been a bit more careful who he bought from, becomes these rats definitely understand human speech, are all not normally colored, and desire to be as annoying and detrimental to their grades as possible.

To put it lightly, it’s not going well.

George’s If You Laugh You Lose Rematch AU:

Universe set in a chaotic, light-hearted world.

Sapnap, Karl, George, and Dream are some of the world’s residents.

Karl and Dream are chaotic shapeshifters who enjoy messing with George.

Sapnap’s a mischievous nether spirit who likes to team up and help them do it.

Karl can shift into objects, and Dream can turn into animals.

The whole world is comedic, and all it’s residents have a permanent case of the giggles-to the point of making a game of how long one can hold off laughing.

Sapnap usually takes the form of an enderman or enderman hybrid

#dream smp #dream smp au #tubbo #ranboo #tommyinnit #philza #technoblade #charlie slimecicle #quackity #georgenotfound #dreamwastaken #karl jacobs #wilbur soot #sapnap #Bits And Bobs of AUs And Mods AU

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detectiveplease · 4 years ago

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Henderson: We have a very simple true north, which is: This is the story of an unworthy son who wants to feel loved, wants to feel worthy, wants to feel cared for by his father, by his family, by this woman that he's met. It all comes down to that very simple idea of someone wanting to be redeemed. And the concept behind that is, if the Devil can be redeemed, so can all of us.

Henderson: I think one of the biggest evolutions of the show was bringing Chloe into the fold of knowing what's going on […]. It was something that we always talked about in early seasons, and for various reasons, we always stepped away from it. Honestly, one of the fears was, "Do we break the show by letting her know the truth?" And every year we'd have a long debate about it. Finally, at the end of Season 3, we were like, "We're going to do it. We're going to take a big swing, and we're going to tell the story." And instead of making it one episode and then they're back to normal, we wanted to make that Season 4. […]

Henderson: Season 4 was Chloe's season, and Season 5 is Lucifer's. Season 4 was teeing up a lot of his realizations, and Season 5 is him having to come face-to-face with them. And we meet Lucifer's dad. It is Dennis Haysbert. You talk to him and it's like being in a tractor beam. He's so good.

Modrovich: He has so much presence and he's so simultaneously warm — you feel like you're in this glow. But you also feel this power, strength, and authority.

Henderson: So, a bit of the season [starts to lay out] the sort of original sin, which is the conflict between Lucifer and God — and obviously, between father and son. And one thing we are doing this season is explaining where Chloe fits in with everything and why she affects Lucifer.

Modrovich: In the comics […] the whole theme is free will versus fate or predestination. And that is definitely explored in Season 5, more than we really ever have.

 Modrovich: Yeah. Michael is […] kind of the shadow self to Lucifer. But the other fun thing that we've loved about bringing Michael in, is that in a way, he's a sadder sack than Lucifer even is. It almost makes Lucifer look like he had the golden childhood.

Henderson: [Michael is] an externalization of Lucifer's issues. [We also thought,] what if we can get double the Tom, and just show up how good Tom is? Five seasons of Lucifer, and everyone takes for granted how effortless his performance is. And I feel like getting to have him play a whole different character, against his character, it helps illustrate just how much craft there is in the work he does. I mean, we would have these readings of the episodes, and there was Tom doing entire scenes with himself, going back and forth. We were just, our mouths open, going, "What?!"

Modrovich: [Season 6] did seem sort of like a natural progression of the story we wanted to tell.

Henderson: Yeah. Because the midpoint of our show was Chloe finding out the truth about Lucifer. And that's [what] we've been trying to do ever since — explore the relationship between Chloe and Lucifer now that she knows the truth.

Henderson: When we found out about Season 5, we were just told it was the final season and honestly, it was nice to know ahead of time, because we were able to craft an ending. We always felt like it should go to six, but we were like, "OK, we can wrap this up in five and still make it very satisfactory." And so at first, we were just like, do we want to do a Season 6 when we have this perfect ending that we love so much? And we took a couple of days [and realized we really wanted to do it.] I feel like the legacy of a show is so defined by whether it sticks the landing. And that was where our concern came from […] — we felt like we were about to stick the landing and it was, "Do we want to jeopardize that?" But what we realize now is, this is us sticking the landing, and it's really, really exciting.

Modrovich: And Lucifer getting six seasons — it just sounds right.

#lucifer #lucifer s5 #lucifer season 5 #lucifer on netflix #lucifer s6 #spoilers #ildy modrovich #joe henderson #interview #tv guide #links in replies #mystuff

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districtfourmermaid · 5 years ago

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!!!SPOILERS. A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. My Thoughts. SPOILERS!!!

I just finished the Ballad, the prequel book to the Hunger Games Trilogy. I have a lot of feelings. Spoilers under the cut. If the cut doesn’t work for you, scroll fast.

I’m keeping thoughts here to brief points just to get the ideas down. Might flesh them out at a later date.

The Trilogy exploring Just War theory, and the Ballad exploring human nature. What are we at our core? Are humans inherently good or evil? How would one even determine this when context matters so much and can never be neutral?

The theme of the loss of innocence. How a “vapid” child whose favorite things about war are fancy uniforms, parades, and fireworks can grow into a cold leader who uses those very things to sweeten and strengthen the presence of the Games in Panem culture.

The relationship between Tigris and Coriolanus and how she must feel by the time of the Trilogy about his rule and treatment of people. Plus, her being much older than we originally are lead to believe, getting to see her at the start of her career and before her feline transformation, hinted at with her raw meat craving. I want more on her story.

Lucy Gray Baird as Katniss and Prim’s grandmother. I know her fate is ambiguous, but the way she preferred “katniss” over “swamp potato” because “it has a nice ring to it” and the fact that Katniss’s name was her grandma’s idea.

Sejanus’s position in society. District transplant into the Capitol where he has no friends, new or old, and feeling both socially and philosophically lost. His presentation as a simple, if sad, character masking a deeper passion for the rebellion and much less honestly than he presents on the surface.

The history of inter-District travel in Panem. We do not get a lot of information on pre-war Panem, but the Covey are certainly something. And vacation destinations in the Districts for Capitol citizens and maybe even District people too. And there is no mention of a perimeter fence yet in D12.

The songs! The true origin of The Hanging Tree and our first look at the Lullaby. The actual perspective of The Hanging Tree is very similar to Katniss’s interpretation but slightly different. Further connection of Lucy Gray (maybe Maude Ivory, I’ll take it) as the Everdeen grandma. I need professional recordings of most of the Covey songs right now, please.

Coriolanus and Lucy Gray’s relationship and his perspective of it. I think he sees himself very differently from how the audience can see him. He says things in such a way that you know he thinks he’s being romantic or innocent, when really, he’s no good. He clearly looks down on her despite thinking he cares for her. His jaded feelings about love going forward and the fact that we know he does go on to have at least one grandchild, which is chillingly in-character.

Coriolanus being responsible for the Games’ evolution from disturbing annual event few care to witness or keep up with at all to the spectacle we know in the Trilogy. I want to know about his entire Gamemaking career.

Coriolanus in the Trilogy probably maintaining that lack of self awareness and continuing to think he’s actually doing good. When he lectures Katniss about how hard a flame can be to control, the background he’s coming from. How he may even think he understands what she and other District citizens go through just because of what he went through during and after the Dark Days. Like he knows hunger and chaos, so he’s right in his actions.

#ballad of songbirds and snakes #hunger games #spoilers #meta #analysis #idea dump

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artesesarthouse · 5 years ago

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My Pokemon Shield team!

Decided to use my Friends OC as the character I play in Shield because she's british and well this IS the british region so it fits.

So I've beaten pokemon Shield, finished about 90% of the Dex, and have gotten about a third of the way through Sword, and for the most part, I'm having fun with it. I say, despite the bad news that kept pouring over the last few weeks, it has enough good things to keep it fun and fresh. That said, there are some issues because not everything is perfect, and I'll detail the pros and cons I find with most of the important things about the game. Keep in mind I'm not a professional in the industry. I'm a casual fan who likes to collect Pokemon and a fan of the creature design. That said, let's get into it.

TLDR: Pokemon SWSH is good; its good on the things it improves on and adds to make the game more helpful to the grind, but it has many short cuts that make certain features tedious and time-consuming. Buy the game for the new mons and quality of life improvements. Don't buy if you expect everything to carry over from previous titles.

The Dex:

Of course, I have to talk about this as it was the biggest thing that started to change people's minds about SWSH and is a controversy that continued till release. For me, when I heard it, I didn't care because, for me, the only Pokemon I care about are the new ones. My team for each game is only the new Pokemon (including the alola and galar forms). But I do understand why people are upset because once pokemon home comes around, no doubt pokemon bank will close and you'll HAVE to switch them over and thus not be able to use Pokemon you've had for a while until they get added in future games. Which could be years. But let's switch gears and talk about what was added. Then just over 80 new pokemon, not including galarian forms. Now, this isn't the smallest amount of new mons we've had. XY had the least, but it still disappointing that there aren't that many new ones. BUT the new mons we got are fun and creative. I have many new favs, and GOD do I love that they brought back regional forms and made them better! obstagoon isn't the only one that got a region-based evolution, and I LOVE that they brought more. I think one of the unique things about Pokemon from most other monster catcher type shows and games is evolution and a big disappointment for me is whenever there is a pokemon with no evolutions because it feels like there's no potential and it's boring, and yes there is no-evolution pokemon among the new mons. My final note, though, is that there are more new evolution gimmicks, and I am not a fan, stones? Okay, friendship? Annoying but with berries, it can help. Trade? It can be annoying if you don't have friends, but you can use the GTS (OH WAIT :( ILL GET INTO THAT LATER), but making it, so yanmask needs 49+ damage AND can only evolve in a specific spot? FOR SHAME.

Wild area and Dynamax dens:

The one thing that was advertised the most, the thing that was in basically every trailer and hammered to death, the wild are. SO how is it after all this hyper? It's okay.

Pros:

It's big, way bigger then I thought, I thought it was just that beginning area in front of motorstroke but nope! Way bigger.

The wild area is split up into sections that each has their spawns and weather separate from the rest. This allows you to build a variety of teams early on; you don't have to wait till the end of the game to get an Ice-type or Dragon-type. If it's snowing in one section, there will be plenty of Ice-type mons.

The Dynamax dens are a great way to help the grind that pokemon games tend to have. Not only do you have a chance to get rare mons, but you get EXP candies which help level up your mons from 100 exp to 100,000 exp, so you can use those to level up mons you don't plan to use but need the evolutions for their Pokedex entries! It helps simplify the grind and tediousness of the grind.

Cons:

It's very tiresome to travel around, there are many hills and slopes you can't move through and have to take the path around it, which gets annoying very quickly, especially if you are trying to get into the water, but you can only access it from a lower level, what would've been nice is a rock climbing upgrade for the bike so you can traverse up the cliffs and cut downtime.

Overworld pokemon aggro too much and get in the way. They are a lot of Pokemon that can only be caught in grass, and the way you have to trigger a grass pokemon is by moving in the tall grass, the problem is the Pokemon that some pokemon that wander around will notice and charge at you, stopping your progress until you end the fight. It gets in the way, and from I've seen, there's no item to make them ignore you.

Weather spawns, one worry I had when I heard about the changing weather feature was that some pokemon are locked into only appearing during particular weather, and sadly I was right, but it's even worse! Not only is that true, BUT some mons can only be gotten in individual sections too! So there's an even smaller chance at getting them! Weather also is daily, and every section can get nearly every single weather effect, so it could be literal weeks until you get the one weather effect you need in that one section for your damn Pokedex.

GMAX raids are too infrequent, one of the big things that made people get on the side of Dynamaxing was the introduction of Gigantamaxing, which is just mega evolution with extra steps, but you can only get them from raids. Except for Charizard, Eevee, Pikachu, and Meowth. And they are a very low chance even with the event going on that increases some of the spawns.

The Wild area is a good idea which they will hopefully explore and improve in future games, but only time will tell.

Pokemon Camp:

The new substitute after Pokemon refresh. And it's okay, leaning towards Tedious.

Pros:

It's fun to see the Pokemon interact and run along and even play fetch with them, Cute and fun,

Cooking curry increases their EXP, friendship, and restores their health. So it's very convenient if you don't want to use potions or don't even have them.

Cons:

No way to level up affection quickly, in Pokemon Amie, you had those special cupcakes, and in Refresh, you had the rainbow beans. Not in this one, though, it's all involves the two toys you get. And it's slow and tedious after the 500th stick wiggle.

Getting berries for curry is tedious; this is part of the wild area problem, but there is no way to farm berries you need for specific curry, or in general, SM and USUM had the poke pelago which was a great addition especially the berry farm. But there is nothing to help with that in this game, so you have to resort to being lucky to get the berry you need from a tree and not be attacked by the squirrel.

No clear way of how to get the best rating for curry. It warns you about speed before your first curry session, but there are nothings to indicate how fast or slow you need to be for each section, additionally if you are using a controller, you can't stir as quickly as using each Switch controller separately.

Pokemon camp feels like a simplified pokemon refresh with a few improvements but not enough to streamline the process.

The starters:

Now about a week or so before the release, the whole Pokedex was leaked, including the starters, which stirred up controversy due to how they look compared to most other gens. I think they're fine. Each has its positives and negatives like every other gen. For me, Rillaboom is the best because it has a freaking drum set and is a big hunky boy. Then why did I not choose it as my starter for the pic above? Because of my complaint about the starters. They aren't dual-type, So they had no guarantee they could learn other move types from their base type, which for the most part, is true unless you use TMS or TRS. So it was either Intelleon or Cinderace because grass-type has so many weaknesses. I went with Intelleon because Cinderace just looked the most boring to me? It looks like a rabbit wearing pants, not that I don't get the theme, which is Cinderace as a soccer player, but still, it was engaging to me. Intelleon stirred up controversy due to its smug look and big hands, but I saw someone explain why he might be like that which helped warm me up to him, It's based on a lizard that is long and lean with big hands, and most likely is based on a spy theme. Especially with that official art of it doing a dodge with a finger gun attack (which it has in the game), so that made him more interesting to me. I think the biggest problem with Intelleon was that is has nothing to do with sobble's gimmick. Scorbunny kicks? Turns into a soccer player. Grookey using a stick to hit things? Turns into a drummer. Sobble cries a lot? Turns...into...a spy? Like the crying thing doesn't play into his final form at all, and that is probably why people were so off-put by the idea. Honestly, I say some of Drizzles design should've been for sobble. That way, it could help learn into the edgy lizard design. But I think the BIGGEST problem with the starters is that WE DIDN'T GET TO SEE THEM BEFORE RELEASE. I'm okay with not showing all Pokemon, but the starters are NEEDED. It's the first Pokemon we get and will spend hours leveling up. I honestly think the leaks helped save the game because if we didn't know the final evolves before the release and found out after, many more people would have been upset. The leaks helped give people a week to process and get used to them.

That's enough about the Pokemon, let's get into the story elements.

Rivals:

This game has three Rivals, and each represents the arch-type of Rival we have gotten over the years. Hop represents the friendly Rival who fights to get to know you and become strong with his Pokemon. Marnie represents the Rivals who are kind and respectful to you but also battle to be competitive and prove themselves. Bede represents the asshole Rivals, the ones who, no matter how much you beat them, they think they're better than you and won't shut up about it, but they might have a tragic past that makes up for them being jerks. My favorite is Hop, mostly because he gets the most development and because I like the friendly Rivals. It started for me in XY actually, when you got that group of friends it was nice because ironically in a game about companionship with pocket monsters, you're very alone. You only see your Mons when you fight or use Amie, Refresh, and Camp. So having a friend come around every once in a while feels nice and helps that feeling of loneliness. Anyways Bede and Marnie are nice but don't get enough time, but they serve their purpose.

Gym battles:

I love what they've done with the gyms; they are spectacles thanks to the crowd, the music (by toby fox C:), and Dynamxing makes each gym battle feel as epic as it should be. The pre-gym fight challenges and activities range from okay too annoying (looking at you pinball and collapsing trap puzzles), but they serve their purpose for getting more EXP before the final fight.

There is no Elite four, which makes sense since the game builds up Lee as the champion. Even without the Elite four, I do like the tournament aspect, it makes sense for the region, and you still fight four powerful trainers.

The antagonists:

Spoilers alert, if most of what I said isn't already a spoiler. Team yell felt disappointing; they weren't involved that much unless to block off an area until you beat a gym or something. But I did like Piers and Marnie's relationship that developed from around the team. Rose and Oleanna were great because Rose had charisma and was generally kind, so you can see why he gained the respect of the region. And his plan makes sense, but he went about it the wrong way by rushing and imprisoning a pokemon that caused a significant problem years ago. Oleanna was a treat because of how dedicated and stone-cold she was, and when she battled you, her expressions were priceless. Sordward and Shielbert were total jerks, and it was satisfying enough to beat them. The antagonists are alright, I say the plan from Rose came in a bit last minute, but it was still a good threat.

The story:

Now Pokemon stories aren't complicated; You want to become champion, you get a Rival, the evil team gets in your way, so you get dragged into a major conspiracy, you beat them along your journey and then become champion. There can be things to read into, and development for some characters that make them exciting and put simply, SWSH follows the same formula. I think the best part is Hop's journey, and seeing Sonia grow as well, most of the other major players don't change all that much till the end of the game. So it's not a bad story, just the same formula as before. It IS a kid's game so that I wouldn't expect anything complicated anyway.

The end game story:

This is where Sordward and Shielbert are introduced, and they fill the role of villains who only care about themselves if you didn't like what they did with Rose. Sadly they weren't introduced or even mentioned throughout the game, so it's not as fulfilling to beat them due to them just appearing out of nowhere. My only problem is that we have to go to every gym to fight dynamaxed Pokemon, but we don't get to capture them, and its a long road till we get to catch the game legendary finally.

The story offers new aspects, but for the most part, follows a formula, so don't expect something complicated or nuanced. Now on to the technicals.

Improvements:

They have made quite a few quality of life improvements that have helped make things tighter and more comfortable to access.

In battle, they made it so you can press X to go to pokeballs quickly for easy catching.

The PC link box. You no longer have to travel back and forth between poke centers to get Pokemon from the box so you can level and evolve them, now you can access it on your person anywhere which is convenient and handy.

The name rater, move reminder, and deleter is all the same person and in every poke-center at no additional cost too!

From SM-Lets go, there were ride Pokemon that took up the task of the bike and the Hm moves, which was great! No more annoying Hm moves you couldn't get rid of and had to have to move around the world. Now it's improved further with the bike being able to slip between land and seas without any menus, you get the ability to fly very early, AND there's nothing for strength, cut or flash. Less tediousness and more easy-to-access features, thank you.

You can organize the menus to your preferred order. The bag is easier to understand, and you can favorite things and organize it by favorites so you'll always be able to see them. There are more options in the settings to help skip through dialogue-heavy parts and make the game more accessible to get through if you want.

Bad advertising:

I think one of the things that hurt the game pre-release is that the advertising was crap, barely any of the improvements were shown outside of the wild area and Dynamaxing. I mentioned before how stupid it was that we didn't get to see the evolutions for the damn starters. I don't mind that we didn't get to see all the new Pokemon, I like the surprise, but we should've seen at least the other exclusives, so help people decided what to buy. I do say you shouldn't show everything, but the starters and exclusives are necessary for people to decided what to buy and who they are going to choose.

The worst thing about the game:

Now I can see the problem with Dexit, and I can see the problem with the battle animations, BUT I believe the worst part about the game is the Ycomm feature. It's the replacement for the multiplayer menu from the DS games, and it brought over the worst feature from let's go. No Global trade System. So if you're looking for exclusives or low percentage chance pokemon well you're on your own, there's nothing to help you find the Pokemon you need. There's link trade and surprise trade and no way to specify what you want if you have a friend who got the other game, then your lucky. If you don't have any friends? Well, your fucked, sucks for you, you friendless loser lol lol. That's not it, though, and there's no friends list either. You have to use a four-digit link code, which by the way a random can also use it as well. But you know what they do have? League card trading section, League cards are fun and cute but a section to getting them from randoms when it means nothing? Pointless, that slow should've been for the GTS or at least a friend list section. They do have a way to search through stamps so you can find battles or trades and even Dynamax dens, though! Oh wait... the list barely updates frequently enough until the person searching for a raid team has either quit or started anyway, but the game won't tell you that until you attempt to join!

Pokemon Sword and Shield is a good game with shortcuts and flaws that are tedious and frustrating, but the improvements and good things that were added make up for its shortcomings. Heres hoping next year's game will carry over the good changes and improve on SWSH faults.

#Pokemon sword and shield #gaming #fandom #galar #fan art #team #intelleon #falinks #coalossal #corviknight #Mr Rime #obstagoon #galarian froms #pokemon variant #pokemon #pokeart

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imthepunchlord · 5 years ago

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For all the new things, I kinda wished they showed all of this before SwSh was released, now it's a bit more pricey and I feel like it's kinda rushed. Also for the Mystery Dungeon, I'm excited for that bit I really hope that include all the starters and non starters as well in the final.

I wish they went ahead and pushed back SaS so it’d be released 2020, with this expansion back already included, and the new places we go to can be unlocked during our adventure or as postgame. I would’ve fine waiting and would’ve preferred it, especially to give them a chance to do more with the main story which is pretty weak and made little sense, and Rose was a very forced in villain. Also made no sense in the story climax. Watching playthroughs and seeing the climax of SaS I’m just...

Its also frustrating that you get to hear about things happening and not actually witness or help. Like, its nice having adults acknowledge that you’re a kid, don’t worry about it we’ll handle it, but at the same time, that’s a chunk of story we have a right to see, and we’re kids in this game, we don’t always do what adults say we should follow and see what’s going on. That could’ve been something optional. Go to event to see what’s happening or skip it to go to the next gym.

And this is turning into a rant so I’m going to put this below. For those that just want to read my comments on Mystery Dungeon, scroll down till you get to the Pikachu gif, I’ll talk about it below.

Also there could’ve been improvements with the rivals. Marnie is suuuuper intriguing and I love her, Bede I also like though that’s more me missing mean rivals and man, he’s a brat and I say that with affection. But in the grand scheme of things, they felt pointless. More could’ve been done to include them. And Hop. God, Hop. I know people like him, but from what I’ve seen, he seems like the most annoying “friend rival” made to date. He does not know what personal space is. He waits for you in front of gyms. He waits for you on new routes. He has to comment on almost every move you make in your fights with him.

I don’t even own the games but just from the playthroughs I’ve watched I’m just... go away. Leave the lead alone. Everywhere you turn, he’s there, waiting for you. It also feels like he only got endorsed because he’s Leon’s younger brother. There’s nothing about him that I like. And, I don’t know why he gets the other wolf legendary? What makes him worthy?What makes him want to be a Professor in the future? That’s out of nowhere.

Something more could’ve been done with Hop, maybe an arc of him resenting you a little because every match you beat him, and he’s the Champion’s younger brother and you just seem to stay ahead. Maybe let us have more scene of him talking with Sonia since he’s going to be her future assistant. If he’s going to be constantly stalking us and waiting for us, then yeah, let’s at least better build up where his character will go.

Then there’s the issue of pokemon. With it pretty much confirmed they just reused models from gen 7, yeah, there’s no reason to not include more pokemon. If not the National Dex, which wouldn’t bother me too much, then go ahead and add about half. At most, I’d love pokemon included that would make the most sense. Like, lion is a big symbol throughout all of Europe. There should be a lion in Galar, either Litleo or Shinx returning if not a new lion pokemon. And with the expansion packs, yeah, they’re already adding 200 each pack.

And a lot of this dlc should already be in the game. If 400 pokemon are going to be added in, they should already be there. The new Giga forms should already be there and we should’ve seen the Giga Venusaur and Blastoise the same time as Charizard.

I’m also salty that there’s no going to Kalos. Maybe it’ll be a future expansion, and that’s a dlc I wouldn’t mind, but those are two very linked countries they’re based on. And Galar truly isn’t a big region. The Wild Area isn’t as big as it could be. Like, it doesn’t have to be BotW big, but it could’ve been bigger than what we got. And if not expanding the Wild Area, we could’ve had Kalos as a new region to go to, and more gyms for us to do.

ALSO.

I am not a fan of you refacing the gyms and having them act as your “Elite Four”.

They’ve already been fought. Aside from the first two, you’ve already fought all the star Giga forms they have. Its a really lazy decision. At least, you can have the two first gym leaders come in since you didn’t fight their star Giga forms, and include the other two version exclusive gym leaders as the other two. Just for some freshness in this final challenge.

I know they’re not big on voice acting, but, they should’ve put some form of VA into these games. Its a little awkward to get animated cutscenes and there’s no voices coming forth. And its at its worst when you get to Piers and you see him singing away, I presume loudly, into his mic and its just awkward cause there’s no voice and you can hear him tapping his foot to the music and its just so off putting to watch cause something is missing: a voice! And you know what’s the kicker? Pokemon has included voice acting before.

youtube

There is no reason to not do something similar, at least for Piers’ intro so its not so awkward to watch.

And then post game... the official post game... I, I honestly can’t say what is even going on? Those two blonde bimbos, those designs, who agreed to pass them? For sword guy, I don’t know whether I should be laughing or uncomfortable. Its like, an in between especially when his hair flops around. Also, their reasoning, they’re causing chaos in Galar because they didn’t like a book Sonia wrote???

The villains in these games are just so dumb.

Like, Rose had a good motive but, he is still forced in. And he activates the climax for no reason. He was promised by Leon that he would help with Eternatus, all he had to do was wait through one match. One match that would’ve been 30 minutes at most, roughly. Yet he couldn’t wait for one match and went ahead and woke up Eternatus, does a video asking for help, and when you arrive, stops you for a battle that doesn’t make sense to have cause he asked for help why is he holding you up with a battle??

And Team Yell. Supposed to be like, a 2nd Team Skull and these guys could dream to live up to Team Skull. They can’t. They’re not funny or enjoyable at all. And my friend brought up a good point on the issue of having Team Yell based on punks when they’re supposed to be the “villainous” team. Punks, historically, were rebelling against an unfair system, they were progressive and revolutionary. They stood up for LBGT rights, they stood for having individual freedom, and just wanted to break the restrictions society wanted to place on people, let people express themselves and be who they want to be.

If you want Team Yell to be a 2nd Skull and play around with punks as their theme, then they should’ve been set up to be red herrings as well. Be wary at first and then later find that they have hearts of gold, and mean well, even if they can be a tad extreme sometimes. And maybe they can help build up the danger of Rose, who in turn wants to paint them in with a bad image since they’re going against him and what’s normal in society.

Anyway... Sword and Shield honestly should’ve been pushed back. They should’ve been saved for 2020, or even 2021, or however how much time they need. I would’ve been fine waiting. A lot of fans would be. But what we got wasn’t worth the $60 it was being sold at, and definitely not worth the $90 its being sold at with the expansion packs, and as far as I know, these are very, very small areas to explore. Cause as we’ve seen with SaS, they built it up to be big and grand and, well, the Wild Area was smaller than expected and the whole was far shorter than expected. You could beat it in 20 hours roughly.

I even have mixed feelings on there being no enhanced version, cause these games do have potential, they just needed more time and polish, and then it could’ve worth the $60 price. But also thankful that there’s not another 2nd version and we may be getting a few expansion packs instead.

Though I do think a lot they’re bringing in should already be in the game.

Anyway, enough ranting about Sas, onto Mystery Dungeon!

Demo I think could’ve been a little longer, they stop you before you go on the Skarmory mission, I think it could’ve been a better placement to end after the Skarmory mission.

Anyway, I like the changes so far. I love you can choose a different pokemon if you don’t like what you got from the test. I love that you have an updated move pool, though I feel kinda OP but you also kinda need it for these games cause I remember them being so hard and as a starter that can’t evolve till like, post game, yeah you’re going to need that help. I love that you get to wear a little scarf. Design wise, a little weird at first but it grew on me. Kinda reminds me of Okami.

By trailer, for sure they’re adding more pokemon in. Lucario is seen in the team, when before, you only saw Lucario as a statue in Red Blue, I believe? Its been a long time. But they only had Gen 1-3 in RB, and Lucario is there so I would think they’d add in a lot more pokemon.

For starters, I’m hopeful that beating the game, if you replay, you’ll get more options for the starters to play as and have as your partner. I’d loooove to have a chance to play as Popplio. Mega Evolution is confirmed, I wonder if regional forms would also be playable, like if we could evolve into Alolan Marowak or be one of the other two regional Meowths. Otherwise, everyone you could be in the old game is there, with no gender restriction! You can be a female Cubone! A male Eevee! A female Cyndaquil! I’m so happy about that since as a kid, I wanted to play Cyndaquil but never got it in the test and had to look it up and was bummed that it was male only and I wanted to be a girl.

My biggest hope though is that with this, we’ll have a chance to play two player, since you have a team of two usually, and your friend or sibling or SO can play your partner.

I am pleasantly surprised with it so far, though I will be holding off when its released in a few months, just going to listen to all reviews once they beat the game and if its very positive, cause SaS had a strong start and then went down hill with Gamefreak rushing it and cutting corners. I’m hopeful for this remake but cautious still.

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mentosmorii · 5 years ago

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“How does one describe Artemis Fowl?” Artemis Fowl, Book 1, Page 1.

Although this quote from the first series sets the tone of Artemis being a character who is loath to be understood, what with how he “delights in not talking” about how it is he perceives himself to truly be, I want to attempt to answer this rhetorical question. After all, the quote serves as a bookend for the series — both the first and final book contain it.

In answering this question, I want to not answer “how does one describe Artemis Fowl?” but rather, “what is Artemis Fowl?” — the series, that is. I think now is a good time to answer this question, what with the first cycle of the series, the Artemis Fowl saga, being complete and the second cycle, the Fowl twins saga, beginning. In short, I want to ask: what context surrounds the book series being published? What are some important themes to the series? And what gives the book series its spark?

I first have to start this video essay by admitting that I was wrong in another essay: “A look into the role of Irish mythology as inspiration for Colfer's depiction of the People: an essay”. You can find this on fanfiction.net or on archive of our own under works by mentosmorii, by the way. The synopsis I provided for the essay is as follows: “Although Colfer has stated before that he has drawn from his knowledge of Irish mythology, he has never stated specifically which myths informed his writing. As someone with a bit of a background in Irish mythology, I have made a guess at some of the sources of inspiration, explained a couple of references within the series, and analyzed a few characters as having connections to Irish history/mythology.”

A lot of the content in that essay is correct, I feel I should say. However, an area where I misstep is here: “ Eoin Colfer has been asked about the influence of Irish mythology on his writing during various interviews, and his response is usually a sort of permutation of the above answer — ‘I grew up reading Irish myths and legends, [and] I… put… a spin on them’” (Colfer). He admits that he was influenced by Irish mythology, and this admission of influence is usually enough to get interviewers to move along to the next question. I’ve looked through many of the interviews that he’s done, and I think I can say with confidence that there is not currently any interview available in which an interviewer presses him to be more specific and point to the myths and legends in question by which he was influenced. In all likelihood, I think that this is because once Colfer confirms that he did, in fact, take inspiration from Irish mythology, the interviewers think of pop culture Celtic mythology and move on”.

The assertion that I made that was incorrect is about the interviewer moving on due to a lack of visibility of Irish myths. However, you also have to look at when the first book was published, which was in 2001. During the 90s to the early 2000s, Ireland was going through something called the “Celtic tiger”, which essentially means that there was an international market that was becoming quite interested in Irish culture, leading to the development of a new, commercially successful Celticism. Cormac MacRaois (pronounced: Cormick Mccreesh) estimated, at the time of writing in 1997, that there were at least thirty books dedicated to the retellings of mythological tales on the children’s shelves of Irish bookshops, alongside a burgeoning quantity of contemporary fantasy drawing upon mythological sources for its characters and themes” (Irish Children’s Literature and Culture: New perspectives).

Furthermore, in Mary Donohue’s unpublished 2003 MA thesis entitled “From Wexford to the arctic circle, a cultural journey”, she remarks that in a video interview, Colfer mentions that he had initially planned to publish a collection of Irish myths and legends, but that he abandoned this plan when he realized how many good collections were already in print (Donohoe, 2003, p. 24).

What I want to point out is that although the series was published at a time when there was increased interest in Irish mythology, it is interesting that Colfer deviates from the fairy tale and leans into the futuristic. What do I mean by this?

In many ways, the Artemis Fowl series, at least up until book 8, is more of a sci-fi than it is a fantasy. Which is a bold claim for me to make, I know!

A quote from book one in which Root is talking to Foaly as the LEP tries to plan how to get Holly back summarizes this analysis of the series quite nicely: “Science is taking the magic out of everything”.

As Anna Bugajska (pronounced: ah-na boo-guy-ska) states in her essay "Human Magic", "Fairy Technology": The Place of the Supernatural in the Age of Cyberculture: “Fairies deprived of natural wings use their artificial counterparts. Dwarves are practically walking machines. Invisibility is achieved by ‘shielding’. Artemis uses ‘human magic’ to heal a fairy [the sprite in Ho Chi Minh whom he gives a serum to help her alcohol dependence], but must rack his brains to escape ‘fairy technology’. The convergence point comes at the search for a Booke of Magick and at a failed Ritual performance… In the world where fairies rely on blasters and bio-bombs to take out their enemies, is there any place for good ol’ magic? Or is it by any chance homogenous with “man-made magic”, that is technology?”.

The fact that the book series seems to be more of a sci-fi than a fantasy is important for two reasons, the first reason of which is discussed in Elizabeth Parsons’ essay “Fowl Play: Artemis Fowl, Sitting Ducks, and politics for children” and the second of which is discussed by Anna Bugajska. The first perspective, Parsons’, is that the book brings up parallels between the People and humanity that suggest that the fairies are just as guilty of the environmental issues and social injustice that they like to critique humans for. The second perspective is that the emphasis on the blending of science and magic in the narrative helps explore the themes of moral evolution within the series.

Let’s first address Parsons’ argument. Parsons argues that there is no discernible difference between the two worlds that share the planet — “Technological advances drive humanity’s destruction of the earth’s surface as much as they [drive] the spread of fairy civilization underground” (Parsons). In fact, Parsons points to the enormous sum of gold at the center of the conflict in book one as evidence that the People are not as innocent of this kind of environmental destruction as they would like to think. After all, you cannot mine gold from the earth without having some kind of negative impact on the planet. Whether it’s from how you might destabilize the ground as you mine, or the pollutants you may release, or even the effect that comes with removing the gold from its natural place in the earth, you cannot escape the fact that Faeries likely also have a history of troubling environmental impacts to answer for. There is also the fact that fairy society is *extremely* industrialized. Just as how the presence of gold presents the question of how the People acquired that wealth, the technology the people have presents the question of how did they develop said tech. You can’t go from a building the wheel to building a neutrino gun — there was likely an industrial revolution in which the People engaged in unclean energy practices as they developed their understanding of how to engineer. And this concern is supported by the text!

In book one, Holly is talking about two mechanical wing types that the LEP uses — the older models called the Dragonflies and the newer models called the Hummingbirds. The book says the following: “Holly unhooked a set of wings from their bracket... Dragonflies. She hated that model. Gas engine, if you believe it... Now the Hummingbird Z7, that was transport. Whisper silent, with a satellite-bounced solar battery that would fly you twice around the world. But there were budget cuts again.” (pp. 50-51).

Perhaps the People may like to argue that they are more environmentally evolved than humanity, and sure, they are, but they’re far from being as innocent in the exploitation of earth than they’d like to think — they still use gas engines, after all!

But that’s just from an environmental point of view. Socially, there is also little difference between the progress of the People and humanity. Honestly, in some aspects, the people are farther behind, what with how Holly mentions being the first woman to be hired to her position even though the book opens at the start of the 21st century. And although Holly understands that others assuming she is less capable on the basis of her gender is both illogical and prejudiced, she herself falls into similar lines of thinking in books 1 and 2. She certainly makes some unkind assumptions regarding how she thinks her coworker Lili, an attractive woman, was hired because the recruiter fancied Lili. Which, knowing the rather old-fashioned beliefs the LEP higher-ups have regarding women, could be the case! Yet the way she specifically talks about Lili makes it clear she does not see a potential ally against mistreatment in the office — Lili is someone who, in unkind moments, Holly privately sort of sees as an acceptable target of workplace gossip. And Holly, to be fair, grows out of this mindset by the final book — she still doesn’t like Lili, but she’s matured past the point of engaging in making harmful assumptions about her coworker.

And beyond this, Holly also in book one falls into patterns of making assumptions about the various different groups of fairies in Haven. For example, she implies in her first encounter with Mulch that his rapscallion behavior and petty crimes are kind of linked to the fact he’s dwarf. And she certainly doesn’t treat him well in book 1 — she zaps him when he makes a move to pick-pocket despite the fact the situation could have been de-escalated with initial action other than violence. Again, she moves beyond this way thinking by the final book. Yet the society she lived in, no matter how much she values things like justice and equality, still influenced her to make judgment calls that either are solely about another person’s identity, such as her comments about Lili, or that tie someone’s behavior to their identity, such as how she links Mulch’s behavior to the fact he is a dwarf. Holly isn’t the problem — the society is.

This is why you have Mulch’s later quote that “I’d rather trust a bunch of humans not to hunt a species to extinction than trust an LEP consultant” (177). Here, the first book kind of hits you over the head with the message: both of the societies, human and fairy, have issues of inequality and environmental abuse built into them.

Holly, I think wakes up to this fact at the end of book 4 following the fact that Sool and the council valued money and power over bringing Opal to justice for her murder of Root. After this, she has a more nuanced perspective on ideas of justice and what means to want justice. A line that sticks out to me is from book 8 when she’s thinking about what she wants for Opal. She brings up the fact that at one point, she would have wanted Opal to suffer as she had. However, what Holly wants by the 8th book is for the suffering to stop, period. She doesn’t want to seek justice by humiliating or hurting Opal, what she wants is Opal to no longer be capable of hurting others. And this doesn’t mean that Holly no longer hates Opal, because she unequivocally does. But the cycle of Opal hurting others, the LEP hurting Opal, and then Opal coming back to enact vengeance again, and again, and again, is something that Holly wants to end. She no longer wants to engage in this cycle.

To circle back to my original point, this is why the series relying on sci-fi more than the more magical elements of fairy society is important: by showing us fairies that evolved past the role they would fill in myths, which is more nature-based, Colfer is able to talk about technology in human society, both good and bad, and human society itself, both good and bad.

The second point, that the series uses technology and sci-fi to explore philosophical topics, is also part of the appeal to the series.

One particular example that comes to mind is how the series (maybe unintentionally) engages with Gilbert Ryle, who was a British philosopher, and his concept of ‘mind-body-dualism’; Ryle wrote on the idea of human existence being the tale of ‘a ghost within a machine’, or our sense of self-existing in a separate, physical shell. To simplify, this essentially points out the fact that what we view as being our “us”, our personalities, our inner thoughts, our perception of ourselves, is often separate from our bodies — such as how when I think of who “I” am, I think of my “mind” rather than “body”. Often, sci-fi seeks to explore what if this barrier dissolved — such as what if with the evolution of the mind, there was also an evolution of the body, and whether this could be achieved through things like AI, cyborgs, and so on. To go back to Anna Bugajska’s work, she wrote an essay entitled “Artemis Fowl: Posthumanism for teens” that tackles this within the series.

To go back to the idea of transformation and Artemis Fowl, the series deals with this theme quite a bit. To quote Bugajska: “What naturally could develop into a coming-of-age cycle, swerves into the direction of a transformation, calling into question human nature and individual identity in the age of the morphological freedom, mind uploads, bioengineering, and hybronauts…[the series explores ideas of transformation as a result of a desire to seek previously unaccessible power, but it also explores the idea in the context of the mind and body becoming one in how an impact one must result in an impact of the other].

“A prominent example of those who went too far in their quest for [transformative] perfection are Briar Cudgeon, an LEP officer, and Opal Koboi, a genius pixie inventor. Cudgeon, embittered by professional conflict, sought the cognitive enhancement through the use of drugs. As a result, “the tranquilizer had reacted badly with some banned mind- accelerating substances the former acting-commander had been experimenting with. Cudgeon was left with a forehead like melted tar... Ugly and demoted, not a great combination” (Colfer 2003a: 77). [In this case, his desire for power causes his downfall, such as how he tried to enhance his abilities past his limit with the mind-accelerating drug that ended up reacting with the tranquilizer. However, this is also an example of the barrier between the body and the mind dissolving, as Cudgeon’s internal ‘ugliness’, such as his hunger for power, deceitfulness, and disregard for others’, is reflected in his physical form through his overindulgence in substances he uses to try to get around his natural limits.]

“In the case of Opal Koboi, we can observe a conscious attempt to transform from one being to another. She has her pointy ears operated upon to give them human shape. What is more, she implants in her brain a human pituitary gland to provoke the secretion of the growth hormone (Colfer 2005: 173–174). She even goes as far as extracting substances from various animals to enhance her magic (Colfer 2011a: 263, 270). All these attempts in the end cost her her sanity (Colfer 2012: 36) and her magic powers, which is especially well visible in the fourth book of the cycle, the Opal Deception (Colfer 2005: 329).

“On the other hand, the changes in identity must necessarily be reflected in the alterations of at least some parts of the body... “Artemis himself, as he grows from a calculating rationalist to a globally-responsible, empathic man, earns a few body modifications. And although he does not seek them, he does not attempt to get rid of them, instinctively hoarding as much of the “fairness” as he can get. For instance, in The Lost Colony, where Artemis and his friend Holly Short of the LEP travel through a time-tunnel, first his fingers are switched, then he swaps an eye with Holly, and finally he steals some of the fairy magic, which grants him limited healing and regeneration powers. He also gains three years during the travel: in his own time he has to pose as a seventeen-year-old (Colfer 2007: 371)” (Bugajska).

In essence, you have both people seeking to perfect the body in order to match the goals of mind, such as Opal trying to steal new types of magic or Cudgeon using mind accelerating drugs, and then you have Artemis switching eyes with Holly, representing a more benign example of the body changing to match the mind, as switching eyes represents that he has literally switched perspectives and can see things through her eyes as a result of their friendship. And in the end of the series, you also have Artemis being reborn into a clone — he has changed so much from his self at the beginning of the series, it is like his past self is dead, and his moral rebirth is reflected literally in him being given a new body free of the constraints of the mistakes he made before his passing, such as kidnapping Holly or endangering Butler on multiple occasions.

I don’t know if answered my original question of “what is Artemis Fowl?” — I think I’ll always have something to say about the series. But this puts words to a lot of thoughts I’ve had, and it’s nice to at least have it all there, I suppose. Thanks for listening, and if you have questions, leave me a comment or send me an ask!

#artemis fowl #my writing #yes i know this is immensely obnoxious but know this: this is actually the short version of the future video essay

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dingoes8myrp · 5 years ago

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Alien Franchise Thoughts

This weekend I happened to catch and rewatch Alien: Covenant. Right after that I caught and rewatched Aliens. This was sheerly through channel surfing luck that I watched these movies in this order. But, in doing so I connected some dots and had some realizations that gave me a new appreciation for the prequel series.

A Bit of Background

I can’t remember if I saw Alien or The Terminator first, so Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor get equal billing for being “the first” female action heroes I ever encountered. Prior to them I’d seen Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bruce Willis watching action films with my dad. So seeing not Tom Skerrit’s Captain Dallas or John Hurt’s Kane but Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley take on the role of Action Hero was essential to my development as an eleven-year-old girl. I’m not even exaggerating for the sake of drama. Watching Ripley in Alien was one of the first examples I saw in media of a woman in a role I’d only seen taken on by male characters before. For this reason alone, the original Alien holds a special place in my heart.

The Original Series

I have mixed feelings about the franchise as a whole. I loved Alien and Aliens to me was just as good and is one of the few sequels that measures up to the original. It lost me at Alien 3 when they killed off Newt and Hicks in the opening crash land. Forcing Ripley into the “sole survivor” role becomes formulaic here and… honestly I’ve had no desire to rewatch Alien 3 and completely forget the entire plot other than the fact that it takes place in a prison setting and Ripley had to shave her head. And they killed off Ripley! I remember being very upset all around at Alien 3 and I think I mentally disowned it.

Alien: Resurrection brought me back around because Ripley was back! And there was Winona Ryder! However, Ripley wasn’t the same Ripley we remembered. She was some clone or hybrid or… I don’t really know what they were going for there. But, I looked at this film as a standalone almost AU installment and I’m actually very okay with it. Not my favorite by a longshot, but a slight redemption from Alien 3’s mess.

Alien vs. Predator

No. Just no. Denied. Why? What even? WHY?!

I’ve seen a few of these movies and if you’re a fan of big monsters fighting one another with a bunch of random humans caught in the middle, these movies might be your jam. If you’re a Predator or an Alien fan, though, it kind of doesn’t fit in with either in my opinion.

The Prequels

When I watched Prometheus I hadn’t done any research on it at all, so I had no idea it had anything to do with the Alien franchise. I saw a space-themed action-horror film with Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, Noomi Rapace, and Michael Fassbender involved and I was IN, man. Honorable mention to Logan Marshall-Green, who is also awesome but I didn't catch in the trailers. So he was a nice surprise.

The opening scene was unworldly and gorgeous, much like the opening of The Mists of Avalon, which is a weird comparison, I know. But I was enchanted by this opening scene much like I was as I watched Morgaine Le Fey float through the mist that served as a doorway to a magical world. We see an unknown being on an alien planet perform a mysterious ritual and then plummet into the water. The first clue was the title card, which even then I thought “Oh, cool! They did the Alien thing!” but hadn’t connected it as directly related. I’d just thought it was a subtle nod because of the Ridley Scott connection.

I loved Prometheus as a film. I had a very similar reaction to it that I had to the original Alien movie. We had an ensemble of characters, all with their own personalities and enough development to make us care. Noomi Rapace became the reluctant hero as opposed to the expected Charlize Theron, who had been in the Ripley role (“He’s not coming on my ship.”). As the Alien clues dropped, I picked them up and quickly (excitedly) realized the film was somehow connected – it had to be. For me, that was just the cherry on top of a fantastic film.

Alien: Covenant made me feel much like Alien 3 did. The ending of Prometheus had been hopeful, echoing both the endings of Alien and Aliens. Our hero Elizabeth Shaw had survived and would bring android David along to find the Engineers and get her answers. Ridley Scott himself spoke about a possible sequel involving Elizabeth and David trying to do just that.

And then we got Alien: Covenant. Elizabeth and David were nowhere to be found and instead we were (hastily) introduced to an entire new crew of characters whose development was severely lacking in the film. We don’t even know everyone’s paired up in romantic couples until people start dying. When David did finally appear to rescue everyone I was excited. Yes! Finally, a tie-in to Prometheus. And then we learn Elizabeth died suspiciously and the franchise is turned over to David. To say I was infuriated would be an understatement.

I was more excited about the project Sigourney Weaver and Michael Biehn spoke about at a comic-con panel that would’ve followed Alien and Aliens (and maybe retconned some stuff) than I was about whatever Ridley Scott did next (I still kind of am, if I’m honest). Why would someone take a franchise helmed by a powerhouse female action hero and then make its lead an insane android and his pet virus? Why would I want to follow this asshole instead of Shaw, Daniels, or even Vickers?

Final Analysis

Watching Aliens right on the heels of Alien: Covenant made it easier for me to make some connections and parallels. In Aliens, a group of marines attempts to travel to a space colony that lost contact to see what’s going on. Ripley is brought along (with Burke, that shit) as a consultant “just in case” (even though everyone treats her like she has a case of the vapors when she tells them about the xenomorphs). The premise makes little sense on the outset. However, when we later learn Burke’s true motivation it makes perfect sense. Burke believes Ripley, although he makes a show of the opposite. And he wants to bag an alien to bring home and sell to the highest bidder. When the soldiers start stomping carelessly around blowing holes in things with there big dumb weapons, it’s infuriating to the audience, knowing what we know. However, it’s also infuriating to Ripley and we’re reminded why she’s there. These are soldiers who, of course, have no idea what to do with an alien species and probably aren’t used to exploring alien environments.

This is very similar to what’s going on in Alien: Covenant. Not made clear in the film due to the character development scenes (such as “the last supper” prologue) being cut, this crew are explorers and colonists. They’re not astronauts or scientists. A few of the characters appear to be military escorts or officers. Of course they’re tromping around without a care in the world. They don’t know any better. Their captain, Jake Bronson, dies mid-journey and his second-in-command, Billy Crudup’s Oram, is super insecure about his new position. This is frequently shown in his interactions with Katherine Waterson’s No First Name Daniels, who was also Bronson’s wife. Daniels has a comradery and respect with the crew not present with Oram. So, when Oram has to start making decisions he’s acting more on his insecurity and his need to Do Something and be taken seriously than acting on the information and advice he’s given. Also, once we know the relationships between characters everyone’s bizarre anti-survival behavior makes a ton of sense. After a certain point in the film, everyone has lost a spouse and/or a ton of friends. Everyone is grieving, scared, and not at all trained to be doing what they’re doing, and they don’t have a Ripley on board to help guide them. “Game over, man! Game over!”

Yeah, Alien: Covenant is what happens when you make every character a Hudson.

Watching Ripley’s reaction to Bishop in Aliens reminded me how iffy Ash the A.I. was in Alien. You know, he got all murdery and everything.

Then I remembered – oh, yeah – Alien: Covenant is a prequel. This means David is an A.I. precursor of some kind to Ash… which means he’s a faulty A.I. Also, Ripley encountered creatures and situations no one had discovered before to our knowledge (due to everyone’s reaction to Ripley’s story in Aliens). This ultimately means no one can make it out of these prequels alive or it compromises Ripley’s established story.

David is a faulty A.I., which hasn’t yet been experienced by anyone living who has encountered androids in space exploration if we go by the example of Ash in Alien. Failsafes haven’t been given to androids yet to limit their emotional depths or put rules in place to prevent them from harming humans. He’s creating creatures that are new. No one knows they exist, so no one is prepared for them (just like the crew of the Nostromo wasn’t prepared for the xenomorphs in Alien). Even heavily trained soldiers, scientists, and astronauts will be encountering deadly things they don’t know are out there: a highly intelligent rogue A.I. capable of experiencing emotion and evolution, mutated weaponized creatures unlike anything they’ve ever seen before, and an alien virus that mutates its host and is undetectably ingested.

Guys, ain’t nobody emerging as the lone heroic survivor of anything in this franchise (except the fucking xenomorph).

Having digested and accepted that information, I am grimly awaiting what happens next, and I really hope with all my giddy little heart that theorized Aliens sequel Sigourney Weaver and Michael Biehn teased is going to happen. I’ll even take a video game version.

Hicks and Newt deserved better and I stand by that.

#alien #aliens #alien covenant #dingometa

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joyofcrime-elinorhigh · 6 years ago

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Dragon Ball Super: Future Trunks Arc REVIEW:

(Warning: This review contains spoilers.)

Far from now, in a distant time.** I, Zamasu, immortal lord of the Kai’s, UNLEASHED AN UNSPEAKABLE EVIL! But a foolish Saiyan warrior, wielding a giant sword, step forth to oppose me. Before the final blow was struck he tore open a portal in time, and ran away from the future, where my evil was LAW! Now the fool seeks to return to the past, and undo the future that is Zamasu!

Gotta get back. Back to the past, stop Goku Black. Wa-Watch Out!~

Hello everybody, my name is JoyofCrimeArt, and it’s been…a while since I talked about Dragon Ball Super. Long enough that my plan to review the arcs as the English dub comes out are pretty much dead. But I’m here now, and ready to review the next chapter in the Dragon Ball saga, the “Future Trunks” arc. Which honestly, is a stupid name cause we already had a “Future Trunks” arc. It was called the Android and Cell saga. Why didn’t they just call it the “Goku Black” arc? But whatever. With each arc in Super surpassing that previous one up to this point, will this arc be able to continue the trend? That’s what I’m here find out. Also, given that this arc is a bit longer than the previous ones, I’m going to skim over or abbrev certain things for the sake of time. (Trust me, when we get to the Universe Survival Arc you’ll be glad I’m doing this.) But with all that said, let’s dive in.

The arc begins in Future Trunk’s timeline years after he defeated the androids. And…things are somehow even worse. That’s right, there world has had TWO apocalypses in the span of about thirty years or so. The few remnants of humanity have been forced into hiding as a small resistant stands to fight against this new threat. This resistance, consisting of Future Trunks, Future Bulma, and a future version of Mai of all characters, has one mission in mind. Rebuild the time machine and travel back in time to get help from the past, to help them stop this new enemy. And who is this new enemy? It’s none other than Goku. Or at least, an evil villain impersonating Goku, known as Goku Black. A name that probably sounds a lot better in Japan than it does in a country that has with a sizable black minority, like America.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDYJO-1IhN8

…Big oof.

But let’s talk about Goku Black for a minute. Now, the idea of making a character that’s designed to be an evil Goku isn’t really anything new. (I mean look at Turles.) However what makes Goku Black, and this whole arc in general, really stand out is the mystery aspect. The whole first half of this arc is all about figuring out who, or what, Goku Black really is and where he came from? And they’re are clues hidden thought that hint towards a larger picture. While Goku Black sounds like Goku, even being played by Sean Schemmel, his cadence is nothing like Goku. His speech is more polite and flowery. Also he refers to Trunks as “mortal” and even “Saiyan” at several points, implying that he is none of those things. It opens questions and allows the audience to speculate. And speaking of voice, Sean Schemmel does an amazing job voicing Black in the dub. Managing to make it sound like Goku while also making it feel distinctly it’s own thing. It’s a really great performance.

Just as Trunks, Mai, and Bulma are about to finish the time machine, Black shows up and attacks. He kills Bulma and injures Mai, but Trunks is just barley able to escape. And while all of this is going on we keep cutting back to wacky hijinks in the present timeline. Things like the Pilaf Gang in school and Goku and Piccolo harvesting lettuces…which really clashes with the incredibly dower tone of what’s going on in Trunk’s timeline. Regardless, Trunk’s time machine arrives in Bulma’s yard. However, they’re not in the clear yet as Goku Black was able to follow them back, briefly, using a magical object known as a time ring.

Goku goes and battles Black. The fight is pretty one sided with Goku holding back, not going beyond Super Saiyan so he can gauge Black’s power and have a good fight. I want you all to remember this, as everything bad that happens in the rest of this arc wouldn’t have happened if Goku had just gone all out on Black from the beginning. After a bit of a brawl Black’s time ring flings him back to the future. But not before he’s able to damage the time machine. Whis notes that the time ring gives the wearers ability to travel between timelines, and are only meant to be worn by Supreme Kais. Not only that but Black’s energy feels remarkably similar to a Supreme Kai in training that exist in universe ten. So with this lead Goku, Whis, and Beerus head off to universe ten, leaving Trunks to explore the present.

When this arc was first announced, I have to admit I wasn’t really looking forward to it. It felt like it was just going to be a rehash of the Android and Cell arcs, with Trunks going back in time to stop another apocalypse. personally, I was fine with the idea of never seeing Future Trunks again, as it felt like his story was over. However, what kinda turned me around on this is all of these neat little interactions that we get to see, which we could only get by having Trunks travel to the “Super” era of the Dragon Ball timeline.

One of these great interactions is between Trunks and Kid Trunks. Kid Trunks forms this almost sibling-esq rivalry with his future self, which is honestly pretty fun to see. And we get the most elaborate two person love triangle ever devised. You see Kid Trunks has a crush on Mai, who’s actually a forty year old woman trapped in a child’s body. (But Kid Trunks doesn’t know this.) Mai, being an adult mentally, has a crush on Future Trunks. Meanwhile, Future Trunks has a thing for Future Mai, who’s is actually a middle aged woman trapped in a young adult body. So…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SC-KleaUBc

We also get to see interactions like Trunks learning that Krillin married Android 18. As well as Trunks getting to meet adult Gohan. Now keep in mind, the last time Trunks saw Gohan he just unlocked Super Saiyan Two and had just completely decimated Cell. And this is what he sees when he meets him here.

Let me explain why this image is the best scene ever. We got Trunks on the left, representing all the Gohan fans out there. We got Videl being all like _“MAI BAE!” _And then we have Mr. Satan who just looks like he’s completely high on Quaaludes and is just here for the ride.

Meanwhile, Goku arrives in universe ten they meet the universes Supreme Kai, Gowasu, along with his apprentice Zamasu. Zamasu was the former North Kai of universe ten, and is now being trained to take up the role of Supreme Kai when Gowasu eventually dies. Whis senses that Zamasu’s energy feels very similar to Black’s, but they don’t wanna tip there hand just yet. So Goku challenges Zamasu to a friendly fight to see if they’re fighting styles are similar, without telling him about Black. Zamasu is hesitant to battle a mere mortal, but he complies.

Now let’s talk about Zamasu. I’ll be honest, one of the main reasons for me doing these Dragon Ball Super retrospects in the first place was just so I could have an excuse to talk about/make fun of Zamasu. Zamasu is great, and let me tell you why. Zamasu is very different from other Kai’s in a multitude of ways. Unlike the generally peaceful Kais, Zamasu has a massive disdain for mortals. He believing that they are sinful by nature, and only cause destruction. As such. he also believes that the Kai’s should take on a more hands on approach to running the universe. When you really look at it, He’s not wrong in his assumptions. The Kai’s are pretty useless in general, and it seems like SOMETHING’S always putting the universe in danger every other week or so. So his way of thinking comes from a fairly rational place.

That being said though, it’s pretty clear from the beginning that something isn’t right with Zamasu. While he doesn’t seem outright evil, he definitely doesn’t seem nice either. And given the fact that he is the only suspect in the Goku Black mystery (and the fact that he is featured so prominently in the arcs theme song.) It’s pretty clear that he is involved in one way or whatever. Usually something like this would ruin the mystery, but it actually works here. We know Zamasu is somehow tied in with Goku Black and is probably up to no good, but we don’t know exactly how. The mystery is less about finding out WHO the culprit is is as it is figuring out HOW the culprit is committing the crime, and finding proof. It’s also a refreshing change of paste to have a villain with somewhat noble intentions, at least at the start. Most antagonist in this franchise are just evil from the start for no real reason, but it’s nice seeing a characters decent into darkness. But it’s not the motivation or the mystery that makes me love Zamasu as a character. _I LOVE HIM BECAUSE HE’S SUCH A FRICKIN’ EDGE LORD! AND THE SHOW ACKNOWLEDGES IT! _Zamasu is that emo kid who thinks he knows everything about the world and believes that he is above it all. “Cause he isn’t blinded like the other idiotic mass! He’s deep man!” And it’s just to great!

Zamasu is voiced by James Marster. At first I didn’t really like the voice, as it sounded a lot older than what I was expecting. But it really grew on me as time went on. James Marster has been a massive Dragon Ball fan for much of his life. Even agreeing to play Piccolo in the Dragon Ball Evolution movie. So to see him get a chance to finally be in a piece of Dragon Ball medium that’s actually…good. He does a really stellar job, capturing the pompousness and the insanity of the character really well. His performance is one of the arcs highlights.

Zamasu fights Goku and Goku is able to beat him in his Super Saiyan 2 form. Zamasu is disgusted that he was beaten by a mortal, and silently swears revenge on Goku for besting him. However, Goku isn’t able to make any firm connections between him and Goku Black. So he, Beerus and Whis head back to Earth.

With Trunk’s time machine was destroyed Bulma and the Pilaf gang began working on repairing Cell’s old time machine from all the way back in the Cell saga, which Bulma had kept in capsule form for all these years. As they wait for the time machine to be prepared it allows Trunks and Vegeta to do some good old father-son bonding.

_See everybody, Vegeta’s great at helping people as long as he can do it by punching and threatening them!

_ While all that’s going on Beerus and Whis get a message from none other than the Omni-King himself. And for some reason, he wants to see Goku. The two are obviously worried as Zeno is capable of whipping out entire universe in an instant and Goku…is Goku. But with no real option Goku, Whis, and the Supreme Kai head off to Zeno’s palace to see what he wants. They are greeted by Zeno’s Grand Priest, who Whis confirms is one of the five strongest people in the multiverse. He leads them down to Zeno’s throne room where Zeno tells Goku what he wants. He wants a friend.

The gods are shocked, but really it makes sense. Zeno is just a little kid, and it must get lonely at the top. All the other deities fear the Omni-King due to the sheer amount of destructive power that he possesses. But Goku is the only one who’s ever treated Zeno like an actual person, due to just how kind and thick headed he is. This lack of hesitation has earned him the Omni-Kings respect. Goku tells Zeno that he can’t play with him right now, since he’s a bit preoccupied at the moment. But he says that when he’s done, he’ll find Zeno a friend that’s even better than he is. Zeno agrees and gives Goku a button that can summon him directly once Goku finds this friend. Goku puts this very obvious Checkov’s gun in his pocket for latter and arrives on Earth just as Bulma is finishing the time machine.

Now that it is fixed, Goku, Vegeta, and Trunks hop in the machine to face Black head on. They arrive and find they’re way to the resistance HQ, where Trunks is reunited with the Future Mai. But it doesn’t take long for them to encounter Goku Black, who through a combination of zenkai boost, and getting a better handle on Goku’s body, is much stronger than he was during his first encounter with Goku. He’s even able to transform into his own twisted version of Super Saiyan Blue known as Super Saiyan Rose.

Vegeta, ready to beat up anyone who looks like Goku, attacks Black. And as we know, every time Vegeta fights the arc’s main antagonist, it-it usually goes really well for him, so we shouldn’t have anything to worry about-

_VEGETA! You’re suppose to learn from your past mistakes! _

And if all that wasn’t bad enough, a time portal opens up in the sky revealing Zamasu. Or at least, a future version of Zamasu with potara and a time ring. That’s right, Zamasu isn’t Black, he’s working with Black. (Or so it seems at least.) The three try to battle the duo in a really well done fight scene, but they notice something about this version of Zamasu. No matter how much damage they inflict on him, he just heals from it seconds after. He’s somehow invincible. This, coupled with Goku Black’s new power, is simply to much for our heroes to handle. Luckily, they’re able to just barley about the escape in the time machine in the nick of time due to Mai distracting Zamasu and Black.

Meanwhile, the present version of Zamasu is becoming more and more fascinated with Goku. Gowasu is as well, and even does some research on him on Godtube. The actual thing that actually exist in this universe and is an important plot point. That’s right, apparently the entire Universe Six tournament was actually live streamed this entire time!. Though I can’t speak to the validity of Godtube as a platform. Heard they’re copyright system is pretty bad.

Dang it, Toei!

Zamasu see’s Super Saiyan Blue Goku’s fight with Hit and is furious that a mortal like Goku is able to achieve such Godly powers. And it’s at this point that you realize that Zamasu is really just the Frank Grimes of the Dragon Ball franchise. And Goku is _Homer. And I’m okay with that…

_But this is where Zamasu learns about the Super Dragon Balls. He goes to Zuno (The all knowing alien from the last arc.) and demands information from him. And this is where Zamasu comes up with his plan. He’ll use the Super Dragon Balls to swap bodies with Goku, than use the time rings to travel to a different timeline, and team up with a parallel version of himself. Then THAT Zamasu will use the Super Dragon Balls in order to wish for immortality. Than they will begin they’re plan to whip out all mortal life from the multiverse. Convoluted enough? But hey, at least unlike other villains he plans on wishing for immortality BEFORE engaging our heroes.

But before he can do this, he needs to kill Gowasu first. As only a Supreme Kai can use the time rings. Goku, Whis, and Beerus begin to figure out this plan. (They figure parts of it out later, but I’m abbreviating this for the sake on length.) They travel to the tenth universe and catch Zamasu in the act of murdering Gowasu, but Whis uses his time rewind powers to save him. It’s honestly a clever and unexpected twist. Seeing the ability again here makes it feel less like it was something only invented to get our heroes out of a jam in the Resurrection ‘F’ arc. Even if it still most likely was.

Beerus, being sick of having nothing to do this arc, destroys Zamasu. They return to Earth to tell Trunks about the good news. Trunks tries to explain that time travel doesn’t work that way in this universe, but Beerus just wants this arc to be over with and buggers off. Trunks, Goku, Vegeta, and even Bulma decide to go to the future and see if everything’s all right. Now, I know what your probably thinking. Shouldn’t they have some kinda plan to fight Zamasu and Black just in case they are still in the future? Or at the very least, do some training first? But, y'know, they’ll probably just cross that bridge when they get to it.

_GOKU! You’re suppose to learn from your past mistakes!

_ Things come to a head when Black and Zamasu point out that all of this has been a self fulfilling paradox. If Trunks never went back in time in the first place, Goku would of never met Zamasu, Zamasu wouldn’t have become Black, and the future wouldn’t of been destroyed. And since I didn’t know where else to point this out, I just wanna praise that that fact that everything that has happened in this art does follow the rules of time traveling that the story established. Given how losey goosey Dragon Ball can be with it’s own lore and consistency, I was sure there would be some kind of plot hole regarding something as elaborate as time travel. But, surprisingly, they went through the effort to keep everything consistent. They forgot what color hair Trunks was suppose to have, but they got this right. So kudos.

Trunks is furious when Zamasu and Black point out that, in a way, this is all his doing. He has a breaking point as the two mock him. And in his anger, he develops a new transformation. Super Saiyan…they never name it in the series proper. I know that it’s called Super Saiyan Anger or Rage or whatever the translation is, but they never name it in the series or explain what exactly it is beyond a form that is formed via anger. _AKA: ALL THE NON GODLY SAIYAN FORMS, CAUSE THEY’RE ALL FUELED BY ANGER! _

That being said though, despite the lack of real explanation on how it works and the fact that it doesn’t really add much to the plot, I have to say it’s one of the coolest looking forms in the series. Like Super Saiyan Blue Kai-o-Ken it has two aura’s, as well as incorporating elements from Buff Super Saiyan form used in the Cell saga. I wish they elaborated on it more, cause this design feel way too cool to be this quote unquote generic.

Trunks holds Black and Zamasu off while the rest of the group travel back in time on more time in order to find a way to actually STOP Zamasu and Black for good. Goku goes to Roshi in order to learn how to do the Evil Containment Wave, in hopes of being about to seal away Zamasu rather than kill him. Meanwhile Vegeta goes to train for twelve hours in the hyperbolic time chamber. They return to the future to have they’re final rematch with Black and Zamasu.

While this is going on Beerus realizes that he’s failed to kill Zamasu and actually feels bad. Not bad enough to go and help, but bad enough to send Gowasu and Shin to help in his place.

They arrive in the time machine, which Black immediately destroys, also damaging the jar they were planning on sealing Zamasu in. See, unlike other villains, Zamasu and Black are actually proactive. I like that. It’s up to Trunks, Mai, and Bulma to fix both the time machine and the jar. Fighting ensues as Vegeta just wails on Black. Black realizes that anger can result in him getting more strength, so he channels that anger into…a scythe…that he uses to open a portal in space time, that creates clones of himself….being angry did this. Ah, whatever, the arc’s almost over. Who cares?

_So, could Vegeta and Goku do this too? I can’t think of any logical reason why they shouldn’t be able to.

_ While Goku and Vegeta are busy with the clones of Black, Zamasu heads for Trunks. The only hope is for Trunks to preform the Evil Containment Wave. Luckily Bulma has a video of it on her phone for Trunks to use as a reference. Bulma goes out to buy him some time by trying to seduce Zamasu in one of the greatest scenes ever put to television, and Trunks is able to successfully preform the move, trapping Zamasu in the jar forever…

Or at least he would of if Goku hadn’t forgot the seal! _TWICE! TWICE GOKU FU*K UP IN STOPPING THE VILLAINS! _Since Zamasu’s free, he realizes that it’s time to take these mortals seriously. So using the potara earrings he fuses with Black, becoming FUSED ZAMASU! Who manages to somehow be even more of an edgelord than he was before!

_AND THIS…IS TO GO…EVEN FURTHER…BEYOND! IT’S SUPER SAIYAN EDGE!

_The three of them simply aren’t strong enough to stop Zamasu in this state. They’re only hope is to use the potara themselves and fuse into Vegeto! Which is retconned into only being permanent with Kais. Cause fusions are popular and they’re going to milk it for all it’s worth. Even though they could of had them return to normal without the need for a retcon cause it’s been established that the dragon balls can undo a fusion…but who cares? Now they only stay fused for an hour, but the more energy they use, the shorter amount of time they can be fused. They fuse and go Super Saiyan Blue and we get one of the best fights we’ve had in the series thus far, despite it only being about two minutes. The fluidity of the animation is done in a way that Dragon Ball has never really done up until this point, and resembles a fight from _One Punch Man _more than Dragon Ball.

It’s during this fight that they discover how to beat Zamasu. While Zamasu was immortal Goku Black wasn’t. When Zamasu took Goku’s body he also inherited many of his Saiyan traits, including lust for battle and his desire to have a proper challenge. As such he never wanted immortality and now that he and Zamasu are fused together, he isn’t wholly immortal anymore, and his body begins going into flux. Unfortunately they burn up they’re energy to quickly and defuse before they’re able to kill Zamasu. Unable to even transform anymore due to how depleted they are, it’s up to Trunks to stop him. All the resistance members cheer Trunks on, and they’re hope and belief in him forms into a mini spirit bomb that he channels through his sword. He uses this energy to defeat Zamasu by slicing him in half. Dick first no less.

This ending seemed to be a bit divisive when it first came out, with many people saying it was a Deus ex Machina. And I have to say that I kinda agreed with a lot of the criticism when I first saw it. Trunks learning the Evil Containment Wave so fast via just one video he saw was one thing, but the spirit bomb is literally a move that he never learned. Nor even really had an opportunity to learn. However, while it doesn’t make sense logically, this ending does work really well in a thematic sense. It ties in to the arcs, and even all of Super in general, theme of mortals rising up to reach a power beyond the Gods. It shows that, when all of humanity works together for a common ideal, they is no limit to there power. Cause in the end, humans where able to do what the Gods couldn’t. Beerus’s plan to kill Zamasu failed. Shin and Gowasu’s plan with the potara’s failed. Even Goku and Vegeta’s plan of using God Ki failed. In the end it was all of humanity, giving they’re power to Trunks, they’re one hope, that was able to defeat Zamasu once and for all. And it shows that Trunks was able to save his own future, without needing to rely on Goku and Vegeta or Gohan or anyone else. Zamasu and Black where his problem, and he had to be the one to stop them.

So that was my review of Dragon Ball Super: Future Trunks arc. So what are my final thought…and wait. What do you mean they’re one more episode left?…

…Oh no…

So Zamasu, being truly immortal, isn’t killed by his body being destroyed. He simply transforms into an ethereal state, in honestly one of the most horrifying things Dragon Ball has ever done. He turns into Gygas from Earthbound and in one attack levels the Earth and whips out all of humanity minus our heroes. Without a body there’s nothing for our heroes to fight, and all hope seems loss. Until Goku remembers Zeno’s button and calls him for help. This summons the Future Zeno, which is weird cause you’d think God would be like beyond the confines of space and time, but apparently he isn’t. Zeno see’s all the damage Zamasu has done and decides to deal with this by destroying the timeline completely. The gang escape in they’re time machine before being erased too. You know, I was joking around with the Samurai Jack comparisons at the beginning, but that’s basically what ends up happening. Goku returns to the void that was once Trunks timeline and grabs the Future Zeno and brings him to the present. He goes to present Zeno and tells him that he’s found his new friend. We also learn that the Grand Priest is Whis’s dad.

After returning to Earth, our heroes discuss what to do now. Whis mentions that when Beerus killed the present Zamaus it created a new time ring, and that Trunks and Mai could use that to travel to a new future. One that never had Zamasu in it. That’s right, they’re taking the Rick and Morty approach. “Close enough, right?” They fly off in the time machine together and then the arc ends.

Now, I will say this. Having the guts to have an arc like this end on such a bittersweet note is definitely a ballsy move. In a world where so many problems can be solved by just collecting the Dragon Balls, I like the idea of their actually being serious consequences that can’t be fixed. But because this all happens in the last episode of the arc, there’s no time to let this sink in. And the ending is just to depressing. The arc basically ends on-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ufmrn7BCuA

Everyone in Trunks timeline is dead. Not just dead but erased from existence completely. Trunks failed to save his future, making not just this whole arc pointless, but the Android and Cell saga pointless too! Why even go to a new timeline at all? Why not stay in the present timeline? At least you know these people! Everything Trunks said about the power of humanity working together was wrong. Humans couldn’t stop Zamasu. They needed the power of a God to save them. And the entire DESTRUCTION of an entire timeline could of been avoided if Goku hadn’t summoned Zeno. Or if he had just brought the dang seal. Or, you know, if he defeated Black in their first fight!

So yeah, in conclusion, I feel very mixed on this arc. There are a lot of pros. Zamasu and Black are both fantastic villains who in my opinion deserve more recognition. Also it’s refreshing just to have a new Dragon Ball villain, as appose to all the other arc antagonist who are rivals or…Frieza again. I appreciate the darker tone and the feeling of actual stakes, which is something the last two arcs felt particularly lacking in. And I also enjoy all the fun moments we get seeing Trunks interact with the older Z fighters. But man, does the ending kill a lot of what the arc had going for it. Also the arc drags a bit in parts, as personally I feel you could cut out at least one of the trips to the future. Overall, I think I’d say the arc is still the best arc the series has had so far, but it’s defiantly a case of higher highs and lower lows. But at least we don’t have any evil Goku’s to worry about.

Cause the one we have is enough trouble as it is.

So that was my review of the “Future Trunks” arc of Dragon Ball Super. What did you think? Feel free to leave any thoughts you have in the comments down bellow. I’d love to hear them. Fav, follow, and like the review if you’d enjoy and have a great day.

(I do not own any of the images or videos in this review. All credit goes to there original owners.)

https://www.deviantart.com/joyofcrimeart/journal/Dragon-Ball-Super-Future-Trunks-Arc-REVIEW-793870861 DA Link

#Dragon Ball Super #Dragon Ball #Future Trunks #Review #Zamasu

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crystalelemental · 6 years ago

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You know, talking even briefly about how I don’t care much for the Gen 5 starters has resulted in me wanting to share my opinions about starter Pokemon as a whole. Like, what I think of each of their evolutionary lines. So let’s do that. Not really a ranking or anything, just my opinions on each.

BULBASAUR LINE Bulbasaur’s evolution line is great, fight me. They’re little dinosaur creatures with a giant flower that blooms on its back as it evolves, how is that not cool? Grass/Poison was super redundant in Gen 1, putting it into conflict with every other grass type bar Tangela, but nowadays it’s...slightly less common of a typing? Okay, it’s pretty standard. But I really like the concept behind them. Also, I can’t remember where I saw this, but someone insulted Venusaur’s design and I want you to know I’m judging.

CHARMANDER LINE Okay, Charmander? Super cute, love the little lizard creature. Charmeleon? Okay, bigger and angrier, kind of a thing with Pokemon as they evolve. Charizard? The most stock-standard “dragon” you can imagine. It’s literally just a Dragon. Had they not been cowards about the typing back then, it probably would be Fire/Dragon. But no, Fire/Flying. I really don’t like Charizard. It’s so standard and yet it’s held up as one of the best Pokemon designs, and for what? For being a standard, boring-ass dragon. Listen kids, dragons are boring, and we need to get over them.

SQUIRTLE LINE Squirtle itself is just adorable. I love this thing so much, it’s honestly becoming my favorite of the gen 1 starters, even over Bulbasaur who I adore. I’ve heard others mention that Wartortle is kinda underwhelming, but really, it’s not worse than Charmeleon or Ivysaur, and they’re just fine, so I think those people are just mean. As for Blastoise itself, it’s a cool concept, though you do have to wonder how it got metallic cannons coming out of its shell. Really doesn’t make much biological sense at all, which proves once again that anything that genwunners complain about Gen 5 being stupid for, Gen 1 did it too. Overall great, probably turning into my favorite of the evolution lines.

CHIKORITA LINE Okay, I really like this evolution line, but for contrarian reasons. Chikorita is not the cutest of the starters in Gen 2. Cyndaquil is. Its concept of having a giant flower around its neck isn’t bad, but Venusaur’s just a little more interesting in concept. But ultimately, I still really like this line. Because it’s the worst starter line from a competitive standpoint. It’s so bad it’s hard to use even in the main game. This poor thing deserves love, and if you hate on them, you are a bad person.

CYNDAQUIL LINE Okay, real talk: Cyndaquil was my go-to as a kid. It’s so cute! It’s such a cool concept, too. The evolution line is a little stale, though? I know the other starters aren’t exactly much better, but it really feels like it’s just slowly elongating with no substantial differences between the forms. Also, mono-Fire feels like a huge waste on such a cool concept. Like, imagine if this thing got a secondary Electric or Ground type or something. Yes, horrific 4x weaknesses, I understand that, but counterpoint: it’d be cool. And that’s really what matters. Not like Typhlosion’s exact copy of Charizard’s stats did it any favors to begin with. Still, this line is probably my favorite of the generation for one, singular reason. It’s not a reptile. Every other starter up to this point was some kind of reptile! Gen 1 had this whole dinosaur motif going on, and Chikorita’s basically a dinosaur thing while Totodile is an alligator...crocodile...thing. Thank you, Cyndaquil, for being the most unique animal type of the starters. Even if your evolution path is kinda boring.

TOTODILE LINE Totodile’s line is...interesting. It starts out as a cute little critter, and as many evolutions do, becomes a huge hulking monstrosity in its final form. Feraligatr is pretty cool, and I do think it’s interesting how it’s the lowest level for final evolution of all starters. That was a neat trade-off. But man, Croconaw’s design just looks...odd. It’s probably supposed to be like an egg pattern, but it really looks like a weird caveman cloth print, and it doesn’t look great. It’s like an awkward teen years before getting to be a fairly cool adult.

TREECKO LINE Treecko was always my least favorite of the Gen 3 starter lines, and I never really knew quite why I was so lukewarm about it. Spoilers, I adore the other two, but Treecko never really stood out. I think my comments on Cyndaquil gave me a realization as to why: it’s another reptile creature. It’s a cool-looking evolution line, but it’s still a reptile. And I’m about reptiled out. Still, we have to admit that Grovyle is super cool, both because of its sleek design, and its role in Explorers of Sky.

TORCHIC LINE Prior to Gen 6 producing the greatest starter of all time, Torchic was my stated favorite. Listen, Fire/Fighting was a cool typing back when it happened the first time. It wasn’t until it kept happening that everyone got sick of it forever. A kickboxing chicken is also just about the funniest way to go with the typing, too. You can’t deny how imaginative this line is. Plus, the first form is super adorable. Tiny little chicken, doing its best. I love it so... And its final form looks nice, too. Really, the designs of Gen 3 were all spectacular.

MUDKIP LINE Mudkip was the one that gave Torchic a run for its money. Mudkip itself is super adorable and precious, and while it and all its evolutions can look a little dopey, they have a lot of charm in their design. Plus, Water/Ground is an awesome typing. Quagsire did it first, yes, but that didn’t make it any less cool.

TURTWIG LINE Believe it or not, I don’t have very strong opinions about most of the Gen 4 starters. Like Gen 5, I feel like none of them stuck with me that strongly, and any playthrough of the game, I’m perfectly fine dumping the starter. That said, if I had to pick a favorite of them, it’s Turtwig. I guess I just like turtles. It’s mostly the concept behind its final form that I love. It carries a giant tree on its back, and packs a fairly unique Grass/Ground typing.

CHIMCHAR LINE And now the exact opposite. From day 1, I never liked Chimchar. First off, I do not like monkeys. I just don’t. Secondly, Infernape stole the exact same typing as Blaziken, which is not only shitty, but also really boring. Every other starter so far has been fairly unique in typing choices, and this asshole is gonna just do the exact same thing as last gen? Oh, I’m sorry, it gets to be way faster but a bit less strong but still really strong. Fuck Infernape.

PIPLUP LINE Piplup is cute, though. And having its final form be some emperor penguin that’s apparently made of steel is awesome. Torterra is the favorite from this gen, but man, Empoleon had such a cool typing it was hard to not consider it the most interesting.

SNIVY LINE Snivy’s alright. It had a solid design, and I can understand why Smugleaf caught on as the fan favorite. That said, that’s kinda all it’s got. Serperior is plain boring, and it’s the only Grass starter not to get Earthquake for coverage at any point. The only thing to its name is Contrary, and somehow it’s on its way to being the highest competitively ranked Grass starter, even above Mega Venusaur. Which just goes to show that competitive Pokemon is broken beyond all repair and we should probably torch it all and start over.

TEPIG LINE I can’t believe they gave us three Fire/Fighting types in a row. I’m gonna say it: if Emboar had gotten literally any other typing, it’d be my favorite of this gen. Not even a contest, really. Emboar looks cool, and Tepig is adorable. Sure, Pignite is...a little awkward of a design, but that’s fine, it stood up. It’s not lying to me unlike some middle stage fire starters I could mention. But the fact that it’s part Fighting means it’s a huge disappointment.

OSHAWOTT LINE Oh wait, except Oshawott is also a huge disappointment. An adorable little otter to a cool samurai otter, to whatever the hell is going on with Samurott. “Steve, it can stand on its back legs and has the sword thing so-” no. No it does not. You know why? Because it’s not drawn like that. If you wanted to keep the samurai thing going, it’d be drawn and displayed as bipedal. Instead, you gave us water horse, whose special attack is higher than its physical attack. This should’ve been the favorite of the generation, but that final form does not look good, does not make sense for the line, and is mono-Water. Not even a dual typing to keep things interesting? Sad. So I guess I don’t have a favorite of Gen 5 starters. Because none of them are consistently good.

CHESPIN LINE Gen 6 did many things wrong. Starters were not one of them. Chespin is adorable and wonderful. People made fun of Quilladin, but really, it’s the same deal as Pignite: it looks a little awkward but ends on a high note. Chesnaught looks great, and the paladin concept is great, giving it a lot of good support moves and a Grass/Fighting type that is never really good but is interesting. I like it a lot, but it’s massively overshadowed by...

FENNEKIN LINE Behold, the greatest starter line ever made. They gave me a fox! A Fire/Psychic fox! Do you know how long I had waited? Literally since Ninetales. Fennekin is adorable, Braixen is the sassiest thing ever I love it, and Delphox is still an excellent witch design. If there is any flaw this line could possibly have, it’s that Braixen should have the Psychic typing and access to some of the tech Delphox does. Oh, and that the evolution line is competitive trash and has gotten literally nothing of value while a certain bastard-ass frog gets like 12 different favors over nothing.

FROAKIE LINE This is the worst starter line of all time. Froakie itself was fine. The idea of going ninja-theme on the frogs? Fine. I don’t care about ninjas at all, but fine. That should’ve been the end of it. But no. It could’ve been just as simple as “not my preference” and move on. And it should be. But instead, they give it Protean, one of the most broken abilities in the series, on top of its blistering speed. Hell, in ORAS, they gave it Gunk Shot, which rounded its coverage so perfectly it got banned to fucking Ubers. So obviously, we went too far, right? Time to dial it back. Haha, idiot. In the change to Gen 7, they give its multi-hit priority move a special designation instead of physical, because god forbid this bougie-ass frog have to work for anything in its goddamned life. Oh, and we gave it a special snowflake form based on the anime, that gets like 50 more base stat points than a goddamned mega evolution. Because, again, god forbid this bougie frog have to work for a damned thing in its life. I thought it was blatant favoritism that Charizard got two megas. I thought it couldn’t get any more obvious who their favorite starter was. I was a goddamned idiot. They could’ve gone way harder, and they did. Greninja deserves nothing but getting its ass nerfed into the ground where it belongs.

ROWLET LINE You know, I actually wish the Rowlet line was better than it is. Rowlet itself is cute, and while the final form’s design isn’t really my thing, the concept of it being an extinct bird and thus being part Ghost is...morbidly hilarious. It’s also an archer! That’s really neat! But...it’s not very good. I blame the speed. Why did they want to make everything so bulky offensive this gen? It didn’t work. Whatever their reason, it’s a nice enough evolution line that just doesn’t quite hit the mark for me.

LITTEN LINE Ooooh boy, okay. Look. Litten’s super cute. Torracat? I can work with that. But Incineroar... Oh my god it looks so weird. I don’t know what it is. I think it’s similar to Bewear, in that it really just looks like someone’s fursona, only instead of being a really bad and lazy fursona with no personality, it’s a surprisingly high-quality one with a backstory about being a wrestler that’s simultaneously endearing but also concerning how much effort was put into it. I know it’s a fire-type thing to stand up in the final form, but maybe...you shouldn’t have. Maybe you should’ve been like Samurott. Actually, maybe the two of you should trade places! Samurott should stand its ass up, and you should sits yours down. Then everything would be fixed. Forever.

POPPLIO LINE Were it not for Fennekin being an adorable fox with the best typing, this would be my favorite evolution line. Popplio was cute. Maybe a little odd looking, but still cute. Brionne was one of the prettiest middle evolutions in starter history, and it ends on the most elegant thing in the world. Primarina is gorgeous, and I adore it. Much like Fennekin, if there’s any real detriment, it’s that the middle stage doesn’t get the secondary Fairy typing. Then it would truly be perfect.

#pokemon #starter pokemon #for anyone wondering my favorites by type #water has 2 #grass has 2 #technically grass has 1 but someone from gen 5 had to win #and fire has 3

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cmissary · 7 years ago

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typist info.

TAGGED BY: blame ellwood TAGGING: hideous screeching

NAME: Britt, Little Bit, BB

GENDER: HIDEOUSER SCREECHING EYE COLOR: black HAIR COLOR: blondie RELATIONSHIP STATUS: busy. ZODIAC: Libra, lmao FAVORITE COLOR: Green FAVORITE SEASON: I’m a farmer. I love and need all of them, but I’m honestly pretty jazzed about summer this year because I need some Cherokee Purple tomatoes soon or I might literally die. FAVORITE PLACE: a shady porch in the mountains with a big bottle of wine and some good company. FAVORITE HOLIDAY: Big fan of Easter and Christmas? There are a lot of fond traditions around both for me.

FAVORITE VIDEO GAME: uuuhhhh many. Dragon Age: Inquisition comes to mind. KOTORs. Dishonoreds. Fable 2?

LAST SHOW YOU WATCHED: Twin Peaks!

WHAT’S YOUR HONEST OPINION ABOUT YOUR MUSE? : She’s my mule to explore the themes that get me jazzed. The evolution of character as they deal with loss and trauma. The hardening, the steeling, the strength and struggle that comes from surviving. Sometimes things don’t work. but this is RP. everything is our first drafts, more or less. shit doesn’t work all the time, but it gives us the freedom to figure out what does work.

WOULD YOU DATE YOUR MUSE? : aha. big no. sounds like a nice way to end up dead.

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE KINDS OF THREADS? : uhhhhhh can i get gut wrenching angst that leads into smut for 500, Alex?

ARE YOU A SELECTIVE ROLEPLAYER?: man. I think I am, but only because I’m here so infrequently and People Scare Me. DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE MUSE?: Honestly, Alexi might be my favorite and I don’t think any of you know his biggest secret yet? WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO JOIN THE FANDOM?: ‘fandom’ that started with me studying international politics and Russian language in university, then building up around it. thank you all for enduring. DO YOU SEE YOURSELF STAYING WITH THE FANDOM FOR A LONG TIME?: i’ve been here for four years. can’t see myself stopping now, lurking as I am.

#ooc #long post

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the-desolated-quill · 7 years ago

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Nightmare In Silver - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

Neil Gaiman writing a Cyberman story? What could possibly go wrong?

...

Fucking EVERYTHING!

I... You... Wha... What the hell happened?! This came from the same guy that wrote The Doctor’s Wife, Coraline, The Sandman and American Gods? This piece of shit came from him?... THIS?!?!

Look, the Cybermen are very precious to me. They’re my all time favourite Who baddies due to their timeless themes and limitless potential. Which is why it breaks my heart whenever I see them mistreated like this. I mean... Jesus Christ!

Nightmare In Silver picks up where The Crimson Horror left off with those two kids blackmailing Clara into getting a free ride in the TARDIS (yeah, that didn’t make sense in and of itself. The girl Angie says she’ll tell her dad that Clara is a time traveller, but what are the chances of her dad actually believing her? Come off it!). Normally I despise children (both in real life and in fiction) and this episode very handily reminds me of all the reasons why. God I hate these brats! The little boy (Arty I think his name was) is this big wooden dork and Angie is quite possibly the most spoilt, arrogant, ungrateful little shit I think I’ve ever seen. She’s travelled to another planet in a spaceship that’s bigger on the inside, and what’s her reaction? ‘Oh this is so boooooooring! Oh Clara you’re so stupid! You always spoil everything! I want to go home!’ Oh go fuck yourself, you moaning little bastard! What’s worse is that these kids don’t actually play any sort of role other than needing to be rescued. You know characterisation has gone seriously wrong when their personalities are actually improved by Cyberfication.

Speaking of which, let’s talk about the new Cybermen. While I do prefer the RTD Cybermen in terms of design, these new ones are quite cool. More robotic looking this time around and I’m fascinated by the suggestion that at this point in their history they’re less cyborgs and more biomechanical, converting flesh directly into metal. It’s been a running thing that each new Cyber design in the series represents another advancement in their evolution, and this feels like a very logical leap to me. I also really like the Cybermites. Much prefer them to the Cybermats, which I’ve never liked. What I really don’t like however are the superpowers. My jaw hit the floor when that Cyberman started running at super speed like the Bionic Man, not just because the effect looks like shit and there’s no way Angie would have survived being hit with such speed and velocity, but because it’s a leap too far. Same goes for Cyber body parts detaching and operating by themselves, as well as Cybermen being immune to lasers and upgrading themselves so that they can’t be electrocuted. They’ve effectively become an army of Cyber-Supermans. They can just do anything now. They’re way too overpowered to the point where it all starts to become laughably absurd, and because we no longer know what their limitations are, they become more vague as a threat, and therefore more dull. (Also how come the Cybermen never use their super speed ever again? That ability could have come in useful multiple times).

Actually I tell a lie. They do bring back one limitation from the classic series. It’s... hmph... their weakness against gold.

For those of you who don’t know, in the classic series they introduced the idiotic and nonsensical idea that the Cybermen were vulnerable to gold because it’s a non-corrosive substance that can clog up their breathing apparatus and suffocate them. First of all, since when did Cybermen need to breathe? Second, what does being non-corrosive got to do with clogging up anything? And third, why specifically gold? Couldn’t you clog up their breathing apparatus with something else? Like water for instance? And it just got worse and worse when it developed from gold suffocating them to gold just affecting them in general. Despite being bulletproof, apparently you can kill a Cyberman with golden arrows. Rubbing Adric’s gold badge on the Cyberleader’s chest plate in Earthshock was enough to hinder it, and there was one really low moment in Silver Nemesis where the Cybermen were destroyed by Ace using some gold coins and a slingshot. It’s quite possibly the most embarrassing aspect of Cyber lore and it makes me cringe whenever I think about it, so you can probably imagine my relief when the Cybermen first arrived in New Who back in 2006 and there wasn’t a single mention of gold anywhere.

Now imagine my horror and disappointment when the Doctor is able to briefly incapacitate the Cyber-Planner inside his head by slapping a golden ticket on his face. And somehow Gaiman managed to make it even worse by implying that cleaning fluid can have the same effect. Yes. Cleaning fluid. So the Cybermen are an unstoppable force that will not rest until they’ve hunted you down and converted you, and you should be very afraid of them... unless you’ve got a bottle of Toilet Duck to hand, in which case you’re basically fine.

Yes the Cyber-Planner makes its first appearance since The Invasion way back in the 1960s. It’s no longer a brain inside a giant metal apparatus however. It’s now a Cyber hive mind/network that assimilates other beings into its consciousness, mostly children in order to use their imaginations for military strategies. Until it catches sight of the Doctor that is and tries to assimilate him. Which leads to quite possibly the worst thing about this episode. Mr. Clever.

The Doctor being cyber-converted could be legitimately frightening, seeing this manic, warm hearted adventurer become a cold, calculating menace. Unfortunately that’s not what we end up getting. Instead we end up getting more of Matt Smith’s goofy bollocks. Mr. Clever (ugh) is just too emotional. He’s not his own character. He’s just the Doctor but evil. What’s even weirder is that the Cyber-Planner talks about how emotions are useless and that everyone is better off without them whilst it’s displaying emotion. It’s really inconsistent. I was astounded by the number of critics at the time praising Matt Smith for his performance because I honestly thought it was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen. Watching him yelling and gurning his lines like an insecure pantomime villain was just embarrassing, and it shows a complete lack of understanding of who the Cybermen are (and I don’t just mean the whole emotions thing). As I’ve said numerous times in the past, the Cybermen aren’t evil like the Daleks. They’re altruistic foes. They honestly believe what they’re doing is helping us. That’s what makes them so frightening. By making the Cyber-Planner the default cackling baddie who’s evil just because, it makes the Cybermen less interesting and, as a result, less scary.

Speaking of actors giving bad performances, Jenna Coleman, I know you’ve been lumbered with a really shit character, but can you at least try to deliver your lines in a manner that isn’t smug or smarmy. Every single line has this air of snugness about it, which is irritating in and of itself, but there are occasions where it becomes really inappropriate. There are Cybermen about to breach the comical castle and the kids are in danger, and yet Clara is wandering around without a care in the world. Um Clara, shouldn’t you be panicking? Just a little? And there’s one really shocking moment where one of the soldiers informs her that someone has died, and Clara doesn’t even so much as react. In fact she’s surprisingly glib about the whole thing. I don’t know if it’s bad acting or bad directing. All I know is somebody fucked up. (Also I could have done without the bit at the end where the Doctor describes Clara as a mystery inside an enigma wrapped in a skirt that’s a bit too tight. Just... ew).

Beyond that, there isn’t really a whole lot to discuss. The theme park setting is nice, but we don’t really get to explore much of it. Jason Watkins is always good in everything he’s in, but he’s barely in this before he gets converted and is left to stand silently in the background with the kids. In fact the whole thing feels really rushed and under-developed. The punishment squad could have been interesting to explore, particularly in the context of the setting. It’s 1000 years after the Cyber Wars. The Cybermen have become the equivalent of mythological bogeymen, and now this rag tag group of failures and rejects are about to come face to face with their worst fear. The return of the long thought extinct Cybermen, now more powerful than ever. Think of the drama you could wring out of that. Instead they barely get a look in. They’re just a bunch of nameless redshirts that we don’t give a shit about. Same goes for Porridge. Warrick Davis gives a decent performance, but his character just isn’t very well developed. You could have expanded his character greatly. Given him a whole arc with him coming to terms with the horrible decisions he made in order to end the Cyber Wars (wait. He’s over a 1000 years old? Well I suppose if Liz 10 can survive well past 300 years in The Beast Below, I guess it’s possible) and finally reaccepting his position as Emperor. Instead it just feels like he’s going through the motions. He never actually changes or evolves. He just returns to being Emperor because... the script said so.

Nightmare In Silver is bad. Like Revenge Of The Cybermen/Silver Nemesis bad. The plot is weak, the characters are under-developed, the kids are annoying, the Doctor and Clara are still just as obnoxious as ever, and they completely botch the Cybermen. I pity anyone who tries to write a Cyberman story in the future after this disaster.

#nightmare in silver #neil gaiman #doctor who #eleventh doctor #matt smith #clara oswald #jenna coleman #cybermen #steven moffat #bbc #review #spoilers

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aryabliss · 8 years ago

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Absolute skating interview with Tessa and Scott

Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir: “We want to be an entirely new team”

March 24, 2017 By Asli Photos © Ludwig Welnicki (Joluskating) After the Grand Prix Final, we talked with Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir about their goals, their programs and their new life in Montreal.

Your comeback to competitive skating has been spectacular so far. What are your goals for this season? With this year’s free dance you have explored a more contemporary style. Is this your new direction?

Tessa: When we set up to come back and compete, we got attached to the idea of doing everything so differently. We wanted to reinvent ourselves and be an entirely new team. We wanted to do crazy things and surprise and shock people! The more we skated, the more we realized that what we really wanted to change was the fundamentals of our skating. However, that will take a lot of time, it’s a 2018 project. So to start, we thought: how can we best incorporate these subtle changes in our skating mechanics and highlight some of our strengths? So we ended up with a contemporary-lyrical style that is a nice progression from where we left off and it’s still exciting and challenging because it is a little bit different. What are the changes that you would like to make in the fundamentals of your skating?

Tessa: As far as skating skills go - knee action, the glide of the blade, the weight distribution and the overall freedom of movement. In the old days when it took years for ice dancers to progress through the rankings, they continued to improve the aspects that you mentioned through their mid-twenties. Now most dancers don’t even compete that long. Do you think it is an advantage for you to have this maturity?

Tessa: It can go both ways, I think. When we competed in Vancouver we had this innocence and naivety that may have worked in our favor at that time. We do have experience now. I think, more than anything, the perspective that we have after two years away from competition can help us, as well as the different approach we’re bringing to our training with our new team. Do you also feel freer because you have already won everything?

Tessa: (laughing) You know, it’s funny, people say that a lot! I guess it should give us that sense of freedom but it just makes us want it more, because we know that feeling, we know what we’re striving for. Did you expect to win the GP Final?

Scott: No, not really. We always say that we expect to win a competition when we enter it, but this season our goal definitely wasn’t to win, not even every Grand Prix. We just wanted to qualify for the final and be in the mix. How much input do you have into your programs, your music choices, your choreography, your costumes?

Tessa: Lots. Especially at this stage of our career we had to take responsibility for our product and our material, something we have always felt very strongly about. With our new team we are figuring out how that process unfolds. We worked with David Wilson and Marie-France on our free dance and that collaboration was really interesting. Sam Chouinard helped with our hip hop. It’s really cool to surround ourselves with such fabulous visionaries. They all have such a vision, and we trust that. As the choreography develops, we’re part of every step of the process. Even with all the changes, we are inevitably still Tessa and Scott, so we have a tendency to move in a certain way and work together in a certain way. We’re trying to push the boundaries of what we are used to, but I think our natural tendencies just come through. The theme of our free dance is second chances

You have said before that your free dance has a storyline. Could you explain it?

Tessa: When Marie brought the music to us she presented it in the sense of “second chances”. I think the common thread throughout is showing vulnerability and showing strength. Ultimately finding strength in your vulnerability. Within a partnership there’s always that give and take. In the first part of our music Scott’s needing to lift me up and physically be there to support me. In the second part there’s turmoil between us as a pair, there’s confusion, it’s about struggling through that together and then finding that joy and love and freedom in the last section. This is speaking in general terms - we have a very specific storyline. It’s an interesting theme, I think, and moving forward we want to explore even further how we can portray that evolution of relationship. We’ll work a lot with our artistic coach. Scott: What Marie has done for us is really push us to keep evolving. That storyline will develop even more. From competition to competition we’ve found these rich levels to our program. That’s what really motivates us as performers. Indeed, in your free dance there are so many subtleties that one discovers each time one watches it. Is the choreography still evolving or are you just working on the interpretation?

Tessa: The way we have choreographed these programs, there may be subtle changes but overall the structure of the program will stay. We’ve worked on creating a solid foundation to work upon. Scott: Part of what we really missed about ice dance is how a program evolves so much in a year. To be able to give a full season to a program and see it mature is some of the most rewarding work that we can do and this program is no different, of course. What other styles would you like to explore?

Scott: What’s left? We always say that we try and do things that we haven’t done before. With this so-called comeback, it was difficult because we want to do things that we can relate to, but also do things that are different. There’s so much music and so many directions where we can go. So with the ISU loosening up the rules a little bit, we can have more freedom, like using Prince. We commend the ISU for opening up those rules and giving us the opportunity of doing programs like that which probably wouldn’t have been possible before.

In Montreal we have a complete life and that helps us on the ice

What about your new life in Montreal? What is your daily routine?

Scott: What’s great about the school in Montreal is that we don’t live far from the rink. We can get back and forth a couple of times a day. Our gym and B2ten, the organization we’re working with for all our off-ice needs, are very close to the rink as well. Life is different for us in Montreal because we are there full-time. In Detroit, we used to train Monday to Friday and go home for the weekend. In Montreal we have our life set up. We feel very lucky that we get the opportunity to train, but also live in Montreal. There’s so much cultural life, in the summer there are festivals. We try to have a complete life and mature as adults as well. I think that is helping us on the ice, honestly, being a bit away from the skating rink. Our daily routine is very simple. We go to the rink twice a day and then we do our off-ice training. Tessa: We’re usually at the rink around 6:15 am and start skating at 7:00. We skate for two hours, take a break, skate another two hours and then go to the gym. Is there a division of tasks between your coaches, Marie-France Dubreuil, Patrice Lauzon and Romain Haguenhauer? Do you work on a different aspect with each coach?

Scott: Our coaches in Montreal have really surprised us. We thought that it would be categorized like that, but it’s different every day. They all do have different strengths but it’s very impressive how all three of them can really do anything and they’re teaching us a lot. It’s really cool to be at this stage of our career and to be learning so much day to day! As Tessa has said a couple of times, we had thought that coming back for two years was a big amount of time but now we’re starting to worry that we won’t have enough time to learn as much as we want to! We didn’t want to come back and skate the same way!

Maybe you know that during their competitive career, Marie-France and Patrice were loved and supported like a home team here in France. Of course they’ve been trained in the school of Muriel Zazoui in Lyon, known for great skating skills.

Scott: We’ve heard a lot of stories both from Romain and from them. Is there any particular aspect of skating that they have brought from Lyon to their school in Montreal?

Tessa: I think, quite a bit, yes. The overall technique and approach to the tracking between partners, the hip placement, the weight distribution. A lot of it comes through in the way they coach. Technically their approach is even more different than we anticipated. We want to make so many changes to our skating, that’s a huge priority for us right now. Isn’t it a bit risky, to make such changes just a year before the Olympics?

Scott: Ah, but that’s the fun of it! Tessa: I think it would have been risky for us to come back and not make changes and that wouldn’t have been appealing at all. We didn’t want to come back and skate the same way and I don’t think we could have competed with the best in the world. You share coaches with Papadakis and Cizeron. Do you have the same training hours? Do you share the ice often?

Scott: Not always and not as often as we’d like, to be honest. We split the time at the rink, due to the demands of our work with our coaches, but we always love being on the ice with Gabi and Guillaume. What an energy they bring! It is so motivating to work with them and to watch what they do on the ice. It’s very similar to the way we work. I particularly like watching Guillaume. I always watch the male skater and I am very motivated by the way Guillaume approaches the sport - how he can dance, how he can move. I always like being on the ice with him because I feel like I can grow as a skater as well. We were fans of them before we went to Montreal because of their pure talent and because of what they brought to the sport of ice dance, which is pretty impressive in the last couple of years, but now we are really fans of them as people. They are just such fantastic people! They are much more mature than their twenty-one years might suggest and it feels like we have learned a lot from them in these first six months. Tessa: This is familiar territory for us because we used to train with Meryl and Charlie. We have admiration and respect for both teams. You witness the hard work of your competitors every single day. We see that with Gabriella and Guillaume. We love their material, we love what they do as artists on the ice and we’re fans of their skating. So it’s a pleasure to train with them. We’re in a stage where we’re just trying to learn as much as we can from everyone we share the ice with. We’re feeding off their energy and it’s nothing but encouraging. Is this training partnership any different from the one with Davis and White?

Tessa: In a sense it feels the same but we’re at a different place in our lives. Scott: That’s a great point. We’re in a different place in our career and also as people so it’s tough to make a comparison. We’ve been lucky to train alongside two very very talented teams, both with amazing work ethic. What we took from Meryl and Charlie was how they were such workhorses. They’d just train and train and train and be so ready for a competition. Gabi and Guillaume and Tessa and I probably approach the sport in a more similar way. We’re trying to push boundaries and we’re trying to do things that bring the fun in a little bit more. What really impressed us in Montreal is the environment that Marie-France and Patrice and Romain have created. It’s a really positive environment, full of lots of support, lots of love and every day you want to go to the rink, you want to cheer your training mates, you want to be there with them. Here we skated last in the free dance, but after the short dance it was really nice to sit in the Kiss&Cry and cheer for Gabi and Guillaume and want them to skate their best. We just want them to showcase the talent that we get to see every day. If you try to please everyone you forget your own vision.

Your generation was lucky because you were still young when you were rewarded for your talent and hard work. Former generations used to have to wait their turn and move slowly up the rankings. During the course of your career, have you ever had a hard time with the judging?

Tessa: It’s part of figure skating. What we love about it is that mix of art and athleticism and you just don’t get the art without subjective judging. So we’ve had to accept that and come to terms with it and really focus on own job. That’s maybe where we’ve learned our biggest lessons, trying not to get caught up in the politics and the judging, and not trying to please everyone. That is an easy trap to fall into: trying to appease everyone else’s wants and thoughts and ideas and feedback, and forgetting your own vision. Certainly we’ve had hard times over our career, but so has everyone in the sport.

You usually look so relaxed in competitions. Here in France skaters can look very stressed and tense. Is this due to your character or is it your working environment? Or rather, are you really relaxed?

Both: No! Scott: What we try and tell young skaters is quite the opposite, that we are more nervous now, at this point of our career than we’ve probably ever been. We have had to learn to deal with big pressure situations like the Olympic Games. Tessa: We are more nervous now because the expectations are higher. Scott: Nervous is not a bad thing. Nervous means you care. We care about our career and we care about what we do on the ice after we have worked so hard. Are there any young teams that you especially enjoy, any Canadian juniors?

Scott: We always try and watch. We train with Marjorie and Zac (Lajoie and Lagha). They shattered our junior record last week so the focus has to be on them but I also like watching dancers even younger than that. We were lucky to have the Olympics in Canada in 2010, and it seems like now the sport is busier. I don’t know if it’s also because of us, but there is a lot more young talent in ice dance. Young boys in particular were so hesitant to go into ice dance and thanks to the Olympics we have many more teams. Even in our own skating club that we came from there are five or six young teams. What a joy for us! Hopefully that’s a big tribute to what we have brought to the Canadian skating community - that people are interested in ice dance instead of just looking at singles and pairs. You were successful very early. Great things were expected from you from a very young age. Tessa, did you feel extra pressure from this when you were around fifteen?

Tessa: I’m not sure that we realized it at the time. We were always looking forward and looking ahead to what we wanted to accomplish. We were always striving for the next goal and didn’t take much time to listen to that kind of buzz. There was a gradual increase of attention. If anything it helped us learn to deal with the pressure from a young age. Your sport is high-profile in Canada. Do you get recognized a lot, does this bother you in your daily life?

Tessa: No, everyone is so polite in Canada. People are very supportive and we’ve been so grateful for all the love we’ve felt from across the board in Canada. In our daily lives we can really fly under the radar. We know that people are just cheering for us and we appreciate it. What is your dance background ? Do you work a lot on dance off-ice?

Scott: Tessa’s our dancer. Tessa: It depends on the program and the year. This year we’ve done quite a bit of hip hop and have worked with ballroom dancers as well for the blues feeling. We bring in different people for contemporary… We have started working with a new artistic coach and she’s very movement-focused, so it’s about telling your story through physical movement. So I’m excited to explore that a little bit. So it changes depending on the time of the year and what programs we have. After your competitive career, what would you like to be remembered as?

Tessa: It’s a tough question. I think ultimately we would like to be remembered as hard workers and good people. Especially while competing, it’s difficult to answer for yourself. It’s for other people to figure out for us. Scott: We always admire the hard workers among other skaters. We’ve gone through many stages of our career and I hope that shows through. It would be a success if we were remembered as good people. Skating is a great opportunity but at the same time there is a whole big life after that, so we’re trying to set ourselves up for that. Do you already have an idea for your Olympic programs? I’m not asking what it is!

Scott: I think this will be a big part of the coming weeks. We want to reach spring having an idea, but this year’s programs must mature before we can know what the correct vehicle will be for the Olympic season. We hesitate to say we want to do something different because we will have to choose something that plays to our strengths, but I think it will be a different Olympic program than what you’ve seen from us in the past.

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estrelatzia · 5 years ago

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Ok, so as I said before, I wanted to post my thoughts about the SWSH games.

These are mostly thoughts I had on a whim during my first experience, and they might change with time or by playing the games a second time. So please don’t @ me, I am not here to argue, these thoughts are just for fun and somehow a way for me to go back and see if my thoughts on the games changed since they were released.

I categorized them as “things I liked”, “things I thought were meh” and “others” (Others are just interesting points I wanted to talk about, that I might have gave me mixed feelings about, but are not necessary bad).

Before the games were released, they gave me a lot of mixed feels that I never really experienced before with Pokemon games. From the start, I always get excited about new Pokemon games, it’s one of my favourite things since I was a kid. And even when games were not my cup of tea or I was going through a “I don’t like Pokemon anymore” phase, I would still get the game and play along with my sibling and cousins, It’s almost like a tradition.

But this time, during the period before the games got released, I felt nothing...like I was not really interested??? Like I was excited for new Pokemon, the games looked pretty and I loved the thought of exploring a new region in the pokeworld, but besides that, there was nothing more to it. And I got exhausted after all the conflicts and the bad news I saw in the last months, that I barely followed up on the SWSH news.

So I kinda started the news games kinda blind? I knew about the officially released Pokemon, but didn’t check the leaks, so many new gen8 pokemon were new to me as I played. I didn’t read much on the gym leaders, except for knowing what the ones officially revealed looked like, or other little features of the games (Like the wild zone, dynamax, raids etc). And it was an interesting experience to me.

Things that I really loved:

The scenery is gorgeous!! It really had amazing views and it give a beautiful atmosphere. I know many will laugh, but to me exploring the pokeworld is always one of the things I am the most looking forward too. It’s something I did since I was a kid. So all this to say that exploring the regions was really important to me, and I adored exploring Galar. My facourite towns were Wedgehurst, Ballonlea and Circhester.

The new Gen 8 Pokemon were great! They were cute and while some of them were “meh” to me I admit, in general I love the direction they were going with most of them. My faves of this region are Scorbunny, Raboot, Hattena, Galar Ponyta, Galar Meowth and the evolution family of Corviknight (My champ ;u;).

I was surprised to find many Galarian versions as well, and it was so nice to see their new takes on pokemon (bonus points, they were from other gens than gen1! yay!)

The clothing option was great! I love the options they gave to us early on, and even tho I have some comments about it, I really adored the customization options!

I like camping and the curry option, not gonna lie. At first I was joking about completing the Curry dex, but really I want to complete it! It was so fun to me! I always took my time to play in the camp and try different types of curry lol

The Gym Challenges were super fun for the most part. My fave was the first one lol I was disappointed by some, but in general they were interesting concepts and I hope they can keep challenges similar to these in future games.

Also really I loved all the Gym leaders in Galar. I thought the game really made them all memorable by giving them personalities and details. I only played Sword, so I cannot 100% say since I didn’t interact with them, but I love the design of Allister and Melony. Piers was kinda relatable to me lol and Opal was a fun concept for a Gym leader. All around, It was a really strong gang and they were fun to interact with. I loved the cards we get knowing more about them and their backgrounds.

The “rivals” are interesting. I feel like they gave us a little of every type of rival people like. Like you have your friendly neighbour/rival Hop, a friend you learn more about during the game Marnie, and the old fashion arrogant type of rival we all missed, Bede. My fave was Marnie! But I appreciate the arc Hop got and Bede as well.

Things that were meh to me:

First of all, when they introduce the Pokemon, the usual theme that would appear (Welcome to the world of pokemon segment), Is not there???? Blasphemy!! (This one is a joke, please don’t take this seriously. But it was weird not hearing the theme I was used to at the beginning lol)

The thing about GF being forced to release the game before the end of the year, and the fact that they were in a rush, kinda made me wonder when there were things in the game that didn’t settle with me. Like I was always wondering “Was it cut because of the lack of time?” or if it was just things they wanted to go with it, or if it was me being paranoid?” Because, not gonna lie, I kinda compared to the last games to try to figure out what was the reason being the things that made it meh for me.

I love the scenery and towns in Galar, and once again, idk if it was because of the lack of time, but sometimes the places in Galar feels empty...? Idk how to explain, because there is a lot to explore and I love what they did with like the routes (for the example, the two mines look so different and are so pretty! it’s not annoying to explore). But I kinda compare/think to USUM (or even SUMO), some places feel like something is missing?

For example the Budew Inn in Motostoke town. If you have the chance to go to the second floor and explore, you will find most of the rooms look empty? Like there is a lot of space, but nothing much to decorate or make the room feel less empty, compare to the hotels in Alola. I know it’s a weird nitpick, but like I said I love exploring, and remembered that this was something cool to me when I saw the details in Sun and Moon, so I felt a little like things were missing.

Another example are some towns have no homes to explore? Like the town of the first gym, it had no houses to explore and it was so strange? Our hometown had only two houses as well (Ours and Hop’s)...or the fact that Galar’s towns we get to explore are most of the time ones with Gym leaders in it (except for our hometown, the one where the professor is and the one with the champion battle), and it was strange to me not having just a town that is there to explore without having a major plot related thing? Idk if it was just me, but as someone who likes to explore the pokeworld, that’s my thougths.

About the clothing, I really super feel like they should have cabins to change your outfit in like every Pokemon center or something. Because you can only change in cabins at boutiques. But these are like available in about 5 towns. Sometimes you just want to change clothing or accessories after one town and have to wait until arriving to a town with a boutique to change (or go back to the last one). Idk why they removed this from SUMO honestly.

Also...as someone who choose a girl character, I was disappointed that I didn’t get option to wear many pants like the boy, since the girl’s option was mostly skirts :( Like I like the skirts, don’t get me wrong, but idk why it’s such a downgrade compared to SUMO in term of pants. Honestly, I just wish that all the clothing would be accessible to everyone regardless of the characters’ gender.

The rivals were great imo. But sometimes I wanted Hop to leave me for a few seconds ngl. Especially at the start, like he talks in a scene in every new town you arrive. I actually don’t have a problem with Hop, I enjoy these types of friendly rivals actually and his feelings during his arc were really relatable, but sometimes I just wish we could get a break from his scenes for a while lol But at the same time, I understand that maybe his arc would have seen less good if we would see less of it? On the other hand, I kinda wish we could have seen MORE of Bede’s arc honestly. He is the arrogant rival, then something happen that is a change in his life, and the next time we see him, he takes on this new challenge and has quite changed. We see what starts all the change, but it’s a shame we don’t see the change more.

I am not big on online stuff in general, but the way to interact online in the game is such a big meh to me! So I was trying to find my sibling in the online feature to participate in a raid battle. So I filtered by raids, don’t find them. Filtered by friends, still don’t find them. So I try to find them on the map to see if I can interact that way, fly to the other side of the map, and even if I am still connected to internet, the stamps are gone???? So I have to un-connect and reconnect to the internet again and STILL don’t find them! It’s just weird and annoying to me honestly. The fact they don’t have the GTS anymore is disappointing as well :( I know the GTS had issues, but they could easily fix the issues imo.

I could talk forever about the dex cut, but I won’t because we all heard about it. Instead, I will just mention, that I wish there was a way somehow to get alolan versions.

Other:

The music is so good and interesting but, I don’t know if it’s just me, but I feel like I got more like Final Fantasy vibes more than Pokemon sometimes. Like when we are exploring the Forest early game and our hometown really gave me adventure RPG vibes lol.

The Ex share all. *Inhales* SO I always somehow disliked the ex share all since XY. I just have some weird thing that I want all my pokes to be at the same lvl, but in prior games it was hard to do with ex share all, because my starter would always be more lvl, and when I capture a new poke at lower lvl it would be difficult for me to lvl it up to the same lvl as the others. It was such a turn off for me. But this game, I feel like they did a good job! The pokemon who battles gain more exp than the others and the poke you capture in the wild are definitely at a lvl that is closer to your team. I didn’t get really overleved like I did in prior gens as well and I am thankful for that. I feel like they balanced it very well and I hope they keep this type of thing in the future.

No night/day cycle: During the main game, the night/day cycle is scripted lol Like you arrive in a town and it is sunset and it’s supposed to give us an atmosphere and a feeling of time passing and I think it’s interesting. It took me a while to realise that the time in the Wild area actually corresponds to your time zone in the Switch tho lol

The curry and camp are neat, but a part of me is sad that I can’t give my pokemon pats like in Pokemon refresh/amie or feed them food directly especially when there are scripts ingame before battling where the pokemon says they want to be petted. ;;

The story is almost non-existent. The villain is kinda predictable (Lysandre you have competition!) and it seems all to happen in the very last part of the main game. The pacing was kinda weird, and honestly, I am not sure I got all of the point the villain was going for, so I will digress on talking more about it. I know some people wanted a briefer from the last games (SUMO was super plot-heavy). And it gives us the chance to enjoy the games for only the Pokemon journey, it’s just felt kinda like something was missing for me because I am so used to the plots in the games tbh. I am not sure where they were going with it.

There is a story post-game...but well...idk what to say. These recent gens seems like there are no much post-game content, so idk what to say here. It’s not super fun, but it adds to the story and is enjoyable? It’s interesting I suppose, but just like the main plot, I am not sure where they were going with this as well lol It was nice seeing Hop getting involved into it though!

In brief, It was a good experience. Not the best, but definitely not the worst. To me the worst game was Pokemon Let’s go, and I am so glad SWSH didn’t beat it as the worst lol I honestly feel like I would have missed a fun experience if I had skipped SWSH.

I just wish GF would have spent more time on it not gonna lie. Some parts really need to be more polished. And I hope in the future they will stop trying to produce a game a year and take more time to fully and comfortably polish their games, but maybe I am hoping for too much here.

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drink-n-watch · 5 years ago

Text

Genre : Supernatural thriller, suspense, action, drama

Movie: 58 mins

Studio: Ufotable

Shiki is a special girl with a special talent. A volatile potentially destructive power that’s been nurtured and trained by her father all her life. She is different than most people but she isn’t unique. There have been other little girls born with gifts or curses that set them apart, and the world has not always been kind to them. Today, we tell the story of such a girl. One forever held apart from her peers for having one of the most basic human rights out of reach. The ability to feel pain. Well physical pain at least, her soul aches and her mind screams. But that is not the only secret she hides. How can you befriend a deeply hurt girl who can’t even feel it? And what do you do with her after? The world can be cruel to those that are different, you should hold on to kindness when you can.

The Garden of Sinners chapter 3: ever cry, never life. (Remaining Sense of Pain), continues the short live tradition of giving these movies ridiculously long titles. I mean really, look at this light novel sounding thing. I guess they were light novels to begin with so… The nice thing is that it spares me the struggle of coming up with my own post title. No way is there any need to add extra words to this!

well, here we go again!

As some of you may know, I’m slowly making my way through The Garden of Sinners movies in order. You can read my thoughts on the two first ones here and here if you like. There’s no real reason to proceed this way. The movies are almost entirely stand alone and are presented in anachronistic order. However, you do get to really see the evolution of the production as so far the studio remains the same. It’s pretty impressive, especially with a studio like ufotable that invests a lot in design and animation.

There was a subtle but highly impactful stylistic shift between the first and second movie that favored a more familiar look with sharper outlines and an even more saturated palette. The Garden of Sinners chapter 3: ever cry, never life. (Remaining Sense of Pain) continues in that vein. It *looks* a lot like the last movie but there have been a few minor improvements in the visuals. Most notably, the rich color palette is more eye catching and interesting thanks to some high contrast scenes and the inclusion of soft color gradients in previously flat features.

I can’t say I caught much in way of production symbolism this time around. Aside from Fujino’s character design which is ironic on purpose.

don’t ind her, she hits her head a lot

The reason for stepping back from visual cues may be the actual narrative. This story seems to take place some time between the first and second movie, and it’s the most straightforward yet. For once, we even get a clear and unambiguous conclusion. For those that may have dropped the movies early on because they were annoyed by their cryptic nature, you may want to give chapter 3 a shot. It does seem slightly better rated than the two previous movies, as well.

This attempt at earnest storytelling is admirably weaved into most elements of the movie. Light is played with for atmosphere, rather than color, which looks more… believable. Dialogue makes more sense and characters speak in complete if mundane thoughts. They’ve even tried to add little casual movements throughout, to soften that extreme stillness of the previous films. This is not as successful as it could have been and small movements often end up looking awkward. It’s as if ufotable can only do highly dynamic action or none at all.

turns out you can’t really show small movements in screencaps…

Like I said, most people seem to have preferred this movie to the first two, although not by much. I went the other way. It was my least favourite so far.. although not by much. Once again the narrative continues the bleak exploration of the emptiness and violence of existence, layered with themes of identity, but in trying to create a clearer and more upfront story, it presents the underlying thesis in a simpler and ultimately more immature way that ended up making me roll my eyes. It just went laid it on way too thick for the plot to properly sustain the philosophy, in my opinion.

There was also the Fujino problem. As a new character introduced specifically for this movie, she takes center stage for most of the runtime and is responsible for acting as a catalyst for the events of the movie and she’s…kinda boring. Ok that’s not entirely fair. The true issue is that, as the movie points out on numerous occasions, she’s just too similar to Shiki. On the surface they seem like very different characters but they are in fact just two variables of the same basic archetype with similar backgrounds and reactions. With only 3 notable characters for the entire movie, I would really have appreciated more variety. Not to mention that for my money, I simply prefer Shiki. It was frustrating to spend time on this ultimately forgettable girl instead of digging into the truly interesting mysteries of Shiki’s existence.

We did however get a few clues. Although I must say, Shiki’s power remains extremely ambiguous. She’s good with a knife and has interesting eyes? That seems to be it so far. Oh she is amazing at tying an obi maybe? I’m not sure, someone may be helping her with that.

nevermind..no one helps her….

As usual Koturou and Touko are both delightful. And there was a line I particularly enjoyed: ” you’re different, you understand how precious death is”. This was a comforting and cheerful line for me.

Although I’m not sorry I saw this movie, I honestly could have simply skipped it and I don’t think I would have missed out on much. Hopefully the next one will be better

I’m trying to include everybody

Favorite character: Touko

What this anime taught me: Blue scenes can be surprisingly warm

Don’t be the chaser, be the one who gets chased. You are the Tequila, not the lime!

Suggested drink: Painkiller

Every time anyone mentions Fujino and pain – take a sip

Every time there’s a pool table – take a sip

Every time someone loses a limb – take a gulp

Every time it’s raining – get some water

Every time anyone mentions Keita – take a sip

Every time Fujino cries – take a sip

Every time anyone smokes – take a breath

Every time Fujino gets mistreated – gasp

Every time anyone says “twist’ – take a sip

Here are a few more screencaps. If you want to see the rest, they’re HERE

The Garden of Sinners Chapter 3: ever cry, never life. (Remaining Sense of Pain) Genre : Supernatural thriller, suspense, action, drama Movie: 58 mins Studio: Ufotable Shiki is a special girl with a special talent.

#action #anime #drama #Garden of Sinners #supernatural #thriller

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