#i had no ideas for the conflict/context and ended up picking the plot of transformers soooooo hope this is okay lmao!!

[arachnidiots]

⎯⎯⎯⎯ @darehearts sent : ❛ the only thing i do know is we have to be kind. be kind. especially, when we don't know what's going on. ❜

“you sound like a friend of mine.” she swears those words have fallen out of andie’s mouth on one occasion or another. their own philosophy is not so different. to help, to bring relief— what greater responsibility and honor is there? again and again, liam claws at love and hope for survival because everything will turn out alright. she’ll make sure of it, and she’ll do it till she can’t, and then maybe some more after that too she thinks. it’s optimism through gritted teeth. “she’s pretty big on that stuff, spreading kindness and… the feel-good stuff.” at one point or another, liam was too.

“i’m hoping i only have to ask this once, i mean i’ll keep asking if you say no until i wear you down, but you kinda seem like someone i don’t have to ask this a whole bunch so… think you can lend a hand with the uh,” their head tilts, “killer robot aliens?”

[thepapergirlandthespiegelman]

Castlevania Season 4: I’m not mad, just disappointed

Season 4 is poorly written fanfiction, which is...better than a lot of things could be, I guess.

Spoilers below the cut.

Content warning: trauma, sexual assault, psychological manipulation

The Gods Have Had a Change of Heart

Or, “Season 3 Blocked and Ignored”

Season 3 felt like the fabric of the universe had been twisted just to inflict additional pain. Season 4 overcompensates in the other direction; trauma evaporates, and good things happen for no other reason than to make our favorite characters happy.

The Season 3 finale left two characters in particular totally devastated: Alucard and Hector. Alucard is violently betrayed in a horrifying sexual assault by the first two people he’s spoken to since Trevor and Sypha left. He ends up killing them in self-defense and puts their bodies on stakes outside the castle, alluding to his father’s habit of doing so and potentially hinting at a turn toward evil. Hector is seduced by Lenore and then enslaved using a magic ring.

Yet at the start of Season 4, it’s as if these things never happened. Alucard is troubled, but not totally devastated, certainly not evil. Taka and Sumi are referenced in exactly one conversation with new character, Greta, in which she says the rather tactless throwaway line, “I had a boyfriend and girlfriend at the same time once. But they never tried to kill me.” Hector is nominally imprisoned, but immediately seems highly agentic, perhaps even more so than before. He studies, lays traps, and makes secret plans with other people. Furthermore, his relationship with Lenore is completely transformed. From falling to his knees in abject horror and despair at being enslaved, he suddenly switches to light banter, in what is apparently a basically okay, mutually enjoyed romantic/sexual relationship. Manipulative, selfish Lenore is now a sympathetic character struggling to reconcile her own role and feelings with Carmilla’s plans.

The events of season 3 happened, remaining canon in the most basic, literal sense. But the emotional weight attached to them has disappeared into thin air.

Not gonna lie, I did breathe a sigh of relief when I saw that Alucard and Hector were okay. I’m soft-hearted! I don’t like seeing characters I like suffer! I mean, conflict is important, and I can deal with (or even enjoy in a certain sense) seeing characters suffer if it makes sense and serves a narrative purpose. But as far as I can tell, the season 3 finale was nothing more than lurid, meaningless violence. I probably wouldn’t have continued watching the show if it devolved into nothing more than finding novel ways to torture the characters.

Still, it doesn’t feel quite right to pretend like nothing happened either. Or, really, not that nothing happened, but that those things didn’t matter, didn’t hurt, didn’t leave lasting scars. That’s...almost kind of worse.

But, I thought, I can sort of forgive this sudden shift in the stars, given that there may have been some sort of change in creative direction relating to Ellis’ decreased involvement with the show.* Plus, season 3 was insanity. It’s not like it was full of great writing choices, so if we quietly ignore some of them, maybe that’s for the best.

*I only later learned that Netflix actually chose to continue with Ellis’ season 4 scripts. It is not lost on me that maybe Ellis doesn’t know how to write about the lasting effects of traumatic sexual experiences or how power dynamics can make a sexual relationship problematic because he doesn’t understand that those things exist.

Characters Being Nobody and Nothing Happening

Pretty Pictures, Not Much Else

Unfortunately, the disconnect between seasons 3 and 4 isn’t the only problem with this season. Although I felt that season 4 was a bit less boring than season 3 (I particularly enjoyed some of the earlier episodes of season 4), it suffers from the same basic problems of Characters Being Nobody and Nothing Happening.

None of the characters experience any significant development, let alone any sort of coherent arc. Sypha has changed slightly, becoming more rough and jaded. I did really like the scene where she talks about becoming the kind of person who says “shit.” I think it really speaks to how entering into a relationship with someone means taking on aspects of their lifestyle, and how that can change you in ways that you can’t predict and therefore can’t exactly “agree” to. Sometimes those changes are good, sometimes they’re bad, sometimes they’re neutral, and sometimes it’s difficult to know. But you have to accept that you’re sacrificing some aspects of the person that you could have been if you chose to live completely independently, or with someone else.

Trevor really hasn’t changed since season 1 when he first decided to take up the mantle of hero again. Likewise with Alucard. Hector and Lenore change, as previously noted, but that change is sudden, jarring, and occurs completely off screen in between seasons 3 and 4. Carmilla dies as exactly as she lived: bitter, angry, and violent. Saint Germain just kind of...gets fucked over in a nonsensical subplot, which is its own whole can of worms.

We also get several new characters in season 4, none of whom have developed personalities or motives, nor do they develop any of those things over the course of the season: Greta, Zamfir, Varney, Ratko.

And nobody. Does. Anything.

Trevor and Sypha spend the entire season trying to explore and aid Targoviste, which comes to absolutely nothing. They’re unable to help anyone, Zamfir dies, and they end up just jumping through a magic portal to the actually relevant subplot in the finale. Carmilla literally does little more than draw maps until she’s ultimately killed. Hector plays a minor role in Saint Germain’s extraction of Dracula from Hell; otherwise, he and Lenore basically just exchange banter. Saint Germain does sort of do some stuff? But it’s often unclear how he’s made his connections, who the people who are helping him are, or what exactly he’s doing in terms of his magic beyond “whatever it takes to get back to his lover.”

Sure, there are fight scenes, but they feel meaningless. There’s no context, no stakes. There’s also a LOT of dialogue, and it is. Not well written. Exposition is embarrassingly clumsy at times, and the philosophical musings are cliche at best, muddled and confusing at worst. There’s just not all that much going on.

That is, except for Isaac. But more on him in a second.

What Kind of Show Is This?

When the plot line adapted from Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse ended with season 2, the show struggled to establish a new identity.

Despite nominally dealing with themes like whether humanity is inherently good or evil and how to cope with wrongdoing and loss, seasons 1 and 2 ultimately boiled down to a pretty generic action-adventure/fantasy plot with found family/power of friendship elements. Main characters Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard don’t really wrestle with big philosophical questions or suffer any major defeats. They know that they have to take down Dracula for the good of the world, and they work together as a team to do it, with a little character development relating to their various backstories sprinkled in.

Then season 3 happened, and things got weird. The trio is broken up for what feels like a pretty trivial reason—Alucard has to protect the castle and Belmont hold, I guess? And the result of that decision is that the dynamics for the three main characters are completely unbalanced.

Ellis openly admits that he basically went feral with the writing of season 3, and it shows. The messaging in seasons 1 and 2 was cliche, but consistent. The message of season 3? Anyone’s guess.

Season 4 reversed the darkening of tone from season 3, but shares its inability to pick a story and tell it.

Isaac is the Main Character

Always has been.

While I can’t say that his character or arc are perfect, I can say that he actually has a character and an arc. He starts off motivated by his fierce loyalty to Dracula, then has to struggle to find his purpose once Dracula is gone. He goes from subservient to agentic. He goes from fully endorsing the genocide of humanity and not caring about his own life to seeing some worth in humans and genuinely wanting to live. He has an interesting moment that deepens our understanding of what night creatures are, while also serving as an exploration of the meaning of one’s fundamental nature. Most importantly, these changes happen naturally over the course of the show. They never feel forced or out of the blue, and while I feel like even more could have been done with Isaac’s character, there’s a lot to appreciate about what is there.

If there’s any thread holding Castlevania as a single, coherent work together, it’s Isaac. Not only is his character the best executed and the most coherent over the course of the show, his character explores themes that are larger than himself and relevant to the show as a whole, like those mentioned earlier: misanthropy versus a belief in the value of humanity; the ability to go beyond one’s “nature” or initial circumstances; and how to respond to being wronged or losing something important to you. Exploring the individual lives of characters is great, but really good writing usually requires going beyond that to reflect on broader questions and ideas. Isaac is the only character here that serves that larger purpose.

Sorry...I Just Don’t Buy It

The season 4 finale is crazy, although in a different way from season 3′s.

Varney being Death makes no sense on several different levels. I’m not going to spend a lot of time picking that particular plot twist apart, but I will talk about why I think it doesn’t work at the largest scale, and how I think season 4 might have been done better.

Last minute twists with zero foreshadowing are rarely a good idea, and this is no exception. Why introduce this “Death” entity at the last minute to be the most important battle of the season? The finale of the entire show, even? Besides the lack of logic or emotional buildup, this robs the show of the opportunity to make use of the antagonists that it already has. Since Dracula died, Carmilla has been the obvious choice for a new big bad. Why hasn’t she done more?

Season 4 feels crowded with characters and plot lines that amount to nothing. Why not bring some of these characters together? If Carmilla is the main antagonist, how come she never meets any of the protagonists (except Hector, who is a pretty minor player in this ecosystem) or even affects them in any way?

Season 4 feels like maybe it was trying to make something out of season 3 and the model that it presented, but it ultimately fails to do so. The writers throw the trio back together at the end anyway, so why not have them rejoin sooner and work together? Maybe Sypha and Trevor’s past experience with Saint Germain could have helped Alucard and Greta piece together what he was plotting sooner, rather than all four of them being completely blindsided by it in the penultimate episode. (Sypha and Trevor know that someone is trying to resurrect Dracula, but they fail to find out any actual detail about the plans, despite their supposed attempts.) Have characters actually do stuff, figure stuff out, advance the plot!

Likewise, maybe Carmilla becomes aware of Saint Germain’s scheming, sees it as a threat, and tries to take him down. Maybe she tries to get involved and somehow use alchemy or the Infinite Corridor to her own benefit. What does it look like when power-hungry Carmilla, who wants to rule the world, finds out there’s an entire multiverse out there? That could easily set her up to be a foil to Saint Germain, causing him to realize that what he’s doing is wrong.

What actually ended up happening in the show feels disjointed and often empty. In particular, most of the events that happen in the last two episodes just don’t really work for me. I didn’t like Trevor suddenly sacrificing himself to this random, new, super powerful enemy, or how the gems and dagger that he found just happened to be the perfect weapon to kill this new enemy, or how he inexplicably returns from the dead.

This kind of thing is what I mean when I say that this season feels like fanfiction. Trevor comes back from the dead for no discernible reason other than that it would really suck if he died. Greta as a character seems to literally only exist to be Alucard’s girlfriend and support him so that he doesn’t have to continue to be alone and potentially turn evil. Alucard’s trauma from Taka and Sumi and Hector’s trauma from Lenore are both conveniently erased. Even Dracula and Lisa are resurrected somehow and get their happy ending. And it’s like, I guess I prefer deus ex machina to the opposite (Does that have a name? When everything is going well but then something terrible happens for no reason other than to make things worse for the characters?), but they’re both bad writing.

God. This isn’t even getting into what happened with the Council of Sisters. And I don’t even really like those characters, but that doesn’t mean I want to see their characters handled poorly.

I’m not sorry that I watched until the end, but I can’t in good faith recommend the show as a whole. If you’ve yet to watch Castlevania, just stop at the end of season 2. While there are some shining moments in seasons 3 and 4 (4 more than 3), it’s just really not worth it.

[kingwuko]

Wuko in the comics

Welcome to my first post discussing Wuko in the LoK comic books!

This first post will be discussing Turf Wars- which unfortunately does not feature Wu. But there are lots of excellent Mako moments, and there are some major plot points that carry over into the next comic trilogy.

Turf Wars is the first LoK comic trilogy released after the finale. Though it was released two and half years after the finale aired, it picks up right where we left off. While the creators confirmed after the finale aired that Korrasami was canon, the last moments of the animated series were a little ambiguous (on purpose, since this was a time when queer representation was just not considered "acceptable" in children's media-it was truly the only way they could get away with it). The comics definitively remove all ambiguity. Turf Wars features multiple frames of Korra and Asami kissing, holding hands, and coming out to their friends and family. 

The overarching plot of Turf Wars is a conflict over the land upon which the new spirit portal sets. There is also conflict between rival Triad gangs, the Triple Threats and the Creeping Crystals, over turf in Republic City following the chaos of Kuvira's invasion. These two sets of turf wars overlap when a business tycoon hires the Triple Threats to secure the spirit portal for him by driving others off. The new Leader of the Triple Threats, Tokuga, is attacked by a spirit defending the portal, causing him to gain a dragon-like appearance and a new agenda-seizing control of all Republic City. In the midst of all this there is a refugee crisis, a presidential election, and Korra and Asami trying to navigate their new relationship once they return to the real world with all their responsibilities.

Notable plot points and character developments:

Korra and Asami canon is confirmed (repeatedly)-They come out to family and their friends

Business owner Wonyong Keum, who owns the land upon which the new portal sits, demands everyone vacate so he can turn it into a tourist attraction for profit-prompting Korra to enter the Avatar state to temporarily drive him away.

An unhappy spirit requests Korra closes the portal to prevent exploitation of the spirit world.

Bolin joins Mako as his rookie detective partner.

Zhu Li is running efforts to care for refugees who lost their homes during Kuvira’s attack and teams up with Asami to begin rebuilding homes for everyone displaced.

Tokuga is introduced as the leader of the Triple Threats, fighting for control of the streets with Jargala, the leader of the Creeping Crystals.

Kya reveals she is queer and gives us a history lesson on the context of LGBTQ+ history in the world.

Tokuga is attacked by the afore-mentioned spirit and his right arm and half his face become dragon-esque.

Raiko is a colossal idiot. He is way too focused on getting reelected and making his decisions based on what his campaign advisor suggests, rather than just, you know, governing his city. He calls the military to occupy the portal, prompting the Airbenders to peacefully protest.

Zhu Li runs against Raiko for the presidency. She rallies more protesters to protect the spirit portal while her husband films her for his newest project- a “docu-mover” which he presumably uses to influence the election. 

Asami and Keum are kidnapped by Tokuga and forced to make a poison gas device bring the city under Tokuga’s control.

The Krew manages to save the day of course, thanks to Asami’s wit, Korra’s unstoppable stubbornness, and back-up from Bolin and Mako. Except Mako, bless him, says he’ll “take care of Tokuga”, and then promptly loses him.

Tokuga mysteriously disappears into the spirit world.

Zhu Li wins the presidency.

Korra and Asami share a lovely, romantic moment where they exchange their first “I love you”s at the conclusion of the comic.

Mako scenes

There is no Wu in the Turf Wars comics (Unless you count one line of dialogue where it is mentioned that the Earth Kingdom is sending supplies to help the refugee situation) - however, there is plenty of Mako! Mako’s primary role in this series is as a detective trying to find and stop the Triads from waging their turf war in the city.

Our first scenes with Mako shows him back to being a detective- and his brother is his partner. He doesn’t seem super thrilled to be working with Bolin, but I think it’s just because he knows how his brother is- not that he doesn’t want to spend time with him. They are trying to track down the new leader of the triple threats and control gang activity. Mako’s arm is still in a sling, he’s got his usual brooding grumpy facial expression, and his hair is spiky again! He and Bolin arrest two-toed Ping and try to interrogate him. Two-toed Ping is weirdly proud of Mako and Bolin for rising up from being “nobodies” to a couple of “bigtime cops”.

They catch up with Korra and Asami, and the four of them are alerted by Jinora that the Triple threats are attacking the Airbenders that were meditating at the portal. Asami gets hurt in the battle and she and Korra share a kiss in front of everyone:

Look at Opal’s sweet face. She looks like she’s barely containing her excitement and is maybe squealing a bit, and she’s looking directly at Bolin which I think is a sweet moment to show their relationship. Bolin calls dibs on the first double date.

Mako probably needs time to process the information....

Mako and Bolin do some detective work to try and find Tokuga. There is an interesting scene where they are questioning Scoochy (We saw him in the first season, he’s the kid that told Korra and Mako the Bolin went to do some work for the triple threats before getting captured by equalists) Bolin tells Mako they should do “good cop, bad cop”, with Bolin being the good cop. Mako gets annoyed, and Bolin asks if he’s grumpy because his exes are dating. Mako insists he’s cool with it- though he’s got a distressed look on his face. They catch up to Scoochy and Bolin actually loses his temper and is rather menacing. Mako pulls Bolin back and genuinely connects with Scoochy- relating to his past, pushing him to do the right thing and help others. I really liked this moment because it shows how much character growth he’s had when you compare the way he treated Kai in season 3. (They are ultimately unsuccessful and Scoochy’s tip leads them to a room rigged with explosives- but I don’t think Scoochy knew that, I think he was fed false info).

There’s another touching scene, after Asami is kidnapped, where Mako notices how upset Korra seems as everyone is trying to form a plan to stop Tokuga. He steps aside to check in and see how she’s feeling. He comforts her’ empathizes with her, and reassures her that they are going to find Asami. At this point he seems to have fully processed that they are together and seems to fully accept it and is very supportive. Not easy considering the awkward position he’s in as both their exes. In this scene, Mako also informs Korra that he can’t firebend with his injured arm.

Mako and Bolin helps Korra to find Asami by requesting help from Jargala- in spite of the fact that Chief Beifong told them not to… They show up for Korra and Asami even if it means risking their jobs. They team up and fight the bad guys together, just like the old days.

We see many examples of how bad the damage is from Mako’s injury in the Colossus. He can’t bend with his left arm, it’s in a sling almost the whole comic, and he really doesn’t seem to be at the top of his game. He told Bolin he would take care of catching Tokuga, but apparently couldn’t and lost him. Mako’s injury is pretty bad and it’s probably really frustrating.

At the end, Bolin decides to quit the force (surprise. The guy loves to hop from calling to calling!). He makes a big dramatic speech to Mako, talking about how it’s time they go their separate ways. Mako is like “Um I’m going to see you at home in like two hours”, so it sounds like they are living together.

What all this might mean for Wuko

So now I’m going to try to tie things back into how all this affects the potential of Wuko- whether that’s for headcanons or fics or whatever- and just try to give you an idea of what this comic means for Wuko shippers.

Wu is governing in the Earth Kingdom right now. It is mentioned by Zhu Li that the Earth Kingdom sent supplies, so one can assume Wu has taken his place on the throne and the Earth Kingdom is in a stable enough position to be sending supplies to aid another nation. Nothing is mentioned about efforts to transform the Earth Kingdom into a democratic nation (we’ll get to that in the Ruins of the Empire comics).

Mako’s primary relationships that are explored are with his brother and with Korra. His relationship with Bolin is just as it always is. He loves his brother even if he is a little exhausted by his upbeat, enthusiastic attitude. We build up on his final interaction with Korra from the animated series and continue to firmly establish them as friends and amicable exes. Interestingly, we don’t get any meaningful Mako and Asami interactions. When he is comforting Korra, he relates to her by remembering how worried he was when Korra was kidnapped by Amon. He doesn't try to say “Yeah I’m really worried about Asami too”, which, to me is bizarre because he and Asami are friends too, right? I don’t know if we should read too much into it though- most likely it was just a writing choice that we aren’t meant to psycho-analyze- but it could also mean he is being careful with his words so that Korra doesn’t wonder if he still has feelings for Asami. The love triangle is completely resolved and Mako is out of the picture romantically with either of them and has no lingering romantic feelings. In other words, he is 100% ready available for a relationship with someone else.

The scene where Kya gives us a history lesson establishes how LGBTQ+ people are viewed in the world of LoK. In short, Korra and Asami are fully supported by their friends and family, and even their enemies acknowledge their relationship without any homophobic tones. The closest we get to homophobia is Korra's father, who, after expressing his happiness at their relationship, warns Korra to be cautious going forward because not everyone will be as understanding. Kya gives us a quick lesson on how same-gender relationships are viewed across the nations: The water tribe, being a patriarchal culture, expects discretion. The Earth Kingdom is not particularly accepting-Kya says that Avatar Kyoshi was bisexual but couldn't affect "real change" and that the earth kingdom is the slowest to accept change and is also militarily repressive (full disclosure I have not read the Kyoshi comics, maybe there is additional insight in those?). And in the fire nation, Sozin made same-gender relationships illegal when he took power (I hope Zuko undid all that when he became Firelord). The air nation is the only one that seems truly accepting-Kya paints a picture of total acceptance and says that Aang was supportive when she herself came out. Korra is worried that maybe her father was right, but Asami points out that a lot has changed over the years and everyone seems accepting, especially in Republic City. 

I think what we can take away from this as far as Wuko goes- is that in Republic City, same-gender relationships are not much of an issue, while in the Earth Kingdom it could be viewed negatively. One could make a case that Wu might have cause to be closeted, while Mako might not. (Feel free to reject this history canon and substitute your own. I’d just as soon say that no one in the avatar-verse cares if you aren’t cis or het).

In conclusion. Mako is just a guy trying very hard to be a good, supportive friend to his exes who are now dating each other. He loves them (platonically) he loves his brother, he’s kind and has matured a lot, but he still always has a grumpy look on his face so it’s time for him to move on and get together with Wu.

Well, that’s Turf Wars. I did cram the plot of three comic books into one post, so I certainly did not hit all the details. If you feel I missed something crucial, feel free to reblog with your own takes. Next I’ll discuss Ruins of the Empire, in which we get lots of Wu and potential Wuko moments, a sizable helping of angst and even some Wu & Korra friendship! RotE is a really fun comic trilogy and I’ll be breaking it down into multiple posts. Thanks for reading everyone!

Wuko In RotE part 1

Wuko in RotE part 2

[miraculouscontent]

Talking about the Season 3 finale time!

...yaaaaaay.

So I just want to start by saying how much of a shame it is that “Miracle Queen” was a terrible dumpster fire of an episode, because “Heart Hunter” legitimately had a lot of good things going for it. It had better pacing than usual, let Marinette have fun with Adrien and Kagami rather than be in a constant state of misery (she was miserable a few times, of course, but with good reason), gave Luka screentime and let him actually do things, built up suspense with Hawk Moth taking the Miracle Box, and it allowed Marinette to both have a breakdown and be comforted.

“Heart Hunter” was not a perfect episode, but for Season 3 standards, it was darn good. Its worst faults are things that I’ll get into soon, but most of them relate back to what “Miracle Queen” ends up being. I mean, despite how much “Miracle Queen” tries (and fails) to follow up on what “Heart Hunter” does, the two episodes feel as if they were written by completely different people; it’s like someone wrote “Heart Hunter,” got fired before they wrote the following episode, and someone else who hates Marinette and good storytelling in general was brought on and told to finish what the other writer started with no context as to what that other writer had actually planned.

But, anyway, yeah, just wanted to get that out of the way. Let’s get into the salt.

[Justice Delayed]

I'll just say it outright: I honestly didn't want Chloe to be redeemed. I'm not saying that she was outright irredeemable, but at the very least, I didn't want her getting her miraculous back.

The ultimate problem concerning Chloe is that the writers sent conflicting messages.

"Evillustrator" had Sabrina returning to Chloe, not because she's in a toxic relationship and doesn’t know how to deal with a better one, but because of a complete misunderstanding.

"Antibug" didn't have Chloe apologize for anything. Chloe gave Sabrina a gift instead of apologizing, and that's only because Ladybug brought up their relationship.

"Rogercop" completely ignored the possibility of Sabrina getting mad at Chloe for getting Roger fired.

“Despair Bear” had Chloe trying to be nice, but only to please Adrien. As soon as he was back on her side, she went back to being terrible.

"Zombizou" had Chloe feel bad, but for Miss Bustier. Like, oh, great, she sacrificed herself, but for what when Miraculous Ladybug fixes everything anyway and now Marinette is led on this idea that she has to be a good example for her bully when it was the bully getting consequences for their actions that made them react?

"Style Queen" threw in the “my mom hates me so i’m sad” card (far too late in the plot) and just had Chloe continuing to care only about the people who mattered to her: Ladybug and Adrien. They're people who are useful to her, and then "Queen Wasp" throws any intrigue into the trash by having her nearly kill dozens of people in a train crash (including Marinette’s parents, by the way) and not even feel bad about it yet still getting the sad sympathy music and the “feel bad for me” camera angles. The episode even goes further into confusing territory by having Marinette make Chloe and her mother bond over being mean to people.

After that, despite Chloe revealing herself to all of Paris, “Malediktator” has Adrien come in and make Marinette feel bad for being glad that her bully is gone, leading Ladybug to give Chloe another chance with the bee which just caused more chaos in “Catalyst” (where she insulted the one who brought it to her because he wasn’t Ladybug) when Hawk Moth used Queen Bee’s identity against her.

Then Season 3 comes along, and it is a mess. “Startrain” and “Stormy Weather 2″ featured Chloe being demanding of her miraculous (similar to “Catalyst” at least), then there was “Miraculer” which finally put the foot down on her only to do it in all the wrong ways by showing flashbacks of Chloe and Sabrina having good times (which might’ve worked had this been an episode trying to redeem Sabrina, showing why she’s attached to Chloe and going deeper into the themes of a toxic relationship with how a few nice things fool the mind) and showing Chloe resist an akuma, which no character has ever done before. It also revokes Chloe’s miraculous because she revealed her identity and not because she constantly acts like a terrible person.

And, might I add, how convenient it is that Chat Noir goes against the idea of Chloe continuing to be Queen Bee in the season where she gets her miraculous revoked. We had Miss Bustier's lesson which is presented like a good idea in "Zombizou," only for nothing to come of it, then Adrien scolding Marinette in "Malediktator," only for Marinette to take the fall for trusting Chloe in the first place.

The show can't do that. I mean, it can, but only if it wants to look hugely incompetent while doing so. This is even ignoring the fact that Ladybug had already said that Chloe was never getting the bee back. "Miraculer" stated, loud and clear, that Chloe wasn't getting it back, yet Chloe continues thinking that Ladybug is going to give it back to her.

"Miracle Queen" is not Ladybug's fault for not picking Chloe because it was Chloe who didn't listen and continued feeling entitled to the bee miraculous.

Like, first of all, Ladybug is not Chloe's babysitter. It's not Ladybug's job to coddle Chloe and give her what she wants. Had Ladybug given Chloe the bee, Chloe would've just continued believing that the bee miraculous was rightfully hers. It doesn’t matter if Chloe was good for the bee or not; they’re temporary holders and liable to replacement. “Style Queen” almost had Alya as the bee, after all, implying more of a miraculous rotation than one person on one miraculous. Even beyond that, no one who feels entitled to a miraculous should get it back, and Chloe not only falls under that category, but she trusted and liked Ladybug rather than the Miraculous team as a whole; that does not make her a viable team member.

(By the way, the fact that they had to cut the bee signal was a glaring issue; why did they not just have Mayura camp at Chloe's spot to prevent Ladybug from giving her the bee? Chloe could've easily been like, "YOU cut the bee signal because Ladybug would've come for me otherwise!" Having Mayura camp at the hotel while Hawk Moth follows Ladybug ensures the retrieval of the Miracle Box and that Ladybug won't go for Chloe even if she picks the bee. Furthermore, it was utterly pointless anyway because Hawk Moth's plan hinged on having the bee miraculous to bribe Chloe with. It banks on Ladybug grabbing a miraculous that isn't the bee - remember, the miraculous Ladybug took stayed with her to use later - and why would Ladybug care whether the bee signal was up or not? Chloe hangs at the hotel basically all the time.)

Secondly, if the issue is that Ladybug didn’t de-transform, she had no choice. Mayura had lingered around the town before, but Hawk Moth doesn't often go outside aside from the bigger battles. Ladybug knew that she’d lost Mayura and had no idea that Hawk Moth was on her tail. Had she gone somewhere to quickly de-transform, Hawk Moth could’ve either figured out her identity or at least suspected her and followed after her just to confirm, which would’ve outted both Marinette and Fu. Narratively speaking, Marinette could not have made any other choice without the show having to deal with the crisis of Hawk Moth knowing Ladybug’s identity.

Thirdly, even outside of Ladybug potentially choosing the dragon due to wanting to get Kagami away from Adrien, the dragon ended up being the right choice in the end. Ladybug had a plan put together with her Lucky Charm before Hawk Moth de-akumatized Heart Hunter, and she didn’t stutter or seem unsure of herself at all. Kagami is also completely unlike Chloe in that she accepted when Ladybug told her in “Ikari Gozen” that she wasn’t going to get the miraculous back; Kagami was even respectful and greeted Longg politely when they met back up the second time.

Kagami is a legitimately good dragon, and was also the only other miraculous wielder that Ladybug currently knew the location of. Plus, Kagami needed to be taken away by Ladybug anyway because Adrien didn’t know that there was an akuma running loose until Kagami was whisked away to help fight. Had Ladybug chosen Chloe, the team would’ve been short one cat.

(Also, y’know, dragon was the right choice again later because dragon is awesome and was used to create the water shield; as far as I’m concerned, that was Ladybug’s intuition kicking in when she picked dragon.)

Point being, I don’t blame Ladybug for Chloe’s akumatization.

Still, the fact stands that it’s all of this just to make a big deal out of whether Chloe is going to turn good or bad. All of these episodes focusing on Chloe and Chloe’s problems and giving her a sad backstory about her mom not caring about her, just to throw it all away and have her go back to the dark side.

No, I didn’t want Chloe redeemed, but even if she had been, my problem is that so much time was wasted on a bully character when the show had tons of other characters ready and willing to wear a miraculous without feeling entitled to it. We already have a rich white blond character with a sad backstory - Adrien - and he’s the deuteragonist of the show!

The reality is that, wherever Chloe ended up in the end, it never could have been properly satisfying because--

1 - There were too many conflicting messages of Chloe having some good in her and her being outright evil.

2 - It took too long to reach the conclusion of her nonexistent arc. Either it was a tedious exercise in making a Season 3 villain happen or it was a redemption that took so long to happen that people stopped caring about it.

3 - Chloe didn’t have any of the necessary steps that a good redemption arc would require (like actually feeling bad when she bullies someone and appreciating Marinette after Marinette went through so much effort to throw her a party). Miss Bustier didn’t promote giving Chloe actual consequences and even “Miraculer” refused to point out that her being a bad person was part of the problem (Chloe can’t do anything about her identity being revealed, but she could’ve done something about her attitude), which would’ve just made a redemption for her feel hollow and incomplete.

I’d rather have a dropped redemption arc than a failed one (i.e: where she’d get “redeemed” but it was too clumsy getting there), but the fact that we had to deal with episode upon episode of this girl bullying people, treating her “best friend” like trash, and constantly going back to her old ways no matter what happened... it’s infuriating, and wasted time that could’ve gone to characters who needed that screentime.

Another weird thing about it is when Miracle Queen is de-akumatized into Queen Bee. I understand that Chloe is rather childish and probably not thinking clearly, but it just goes to show how little time this two-parter has when, instead of choosing to fight Ladybug with Venom, Queen Bee tries to run away with the box, not even using her spinning top to get away.

Then, almost immediately after being tripped up, Queen Bee basically gives up all of the miraculouses except the bee on the spot, not even trying to keep them out of pure spite for Ladybug. Afterward, all Ladybug has to do it pluck the bee from Queen Bee’s head and it’s over; Chloe didn’t even try to fight back or run from Ladybug.

Heck, even the akumatization itself wasn’t satisfying...

[Satirical Queen]

I never liked mind-control akuma.

Like, ever.

Dark Cupid at least did something by not explicitly mind-controlling and just turning people into evil versions of themselves, but after so many mind-control akumas in this entire show, it gets tiring. Akumatization itself is already a form of mind-control, but it at least leaves a semblance of the original personality sometimes. This is just mind-control on mind-control.

Miracle Queen is just the next typical mind-control akuma, and she’s not even good at it. For starters, the aqua powers were already used in the last finale (as was the butterfly sentimonster but that’s not important, only aggravating) and water is the only place that the bees can’t go. Yes, Ladybug and Chat Noir would eventually be forced to leave the water in order to rescue Fu, but it’s just Queen Wasp all over again with (hive)mind-control instead of paralysis

...and a crown.

It’s also just... boring. Like, really boring, not to mention way too easy.

Hawk Moth gets the Miracle Box by beating up an old man (who basically did nothing but got turned into a ping pong ball), Chloe is literally just handed the miraculous and the Miracle Box, and then Miracle Queen can just call for anyone who’s used a miraculous before.

There’s not even any way to break the mind-control. I’ve talked about this over Princess Fragrance too, but it’s just not fun when there’s no way out besides Miraculous Ladybug, especially when Miracle Queen sweeps the city so quickly and puts almost all of Paris under her control in an instant (and she doesn’t even do anything with the civilians).

When it was just “Heart Hunter,” it was fine because we - as an audience - didn’t know the repercussions of what was happening. For me personally, I thought that the Miracle Box would be reclaimed, Chloe would get her miraculous revoked (...again), no identity reveals would happen, and Marinette would become the new guardian while Fu retires.

Nothing overly dramatic, but Hawk Moth had the miraculouses AND Fu. That was enough. Adding things on made the whole situation feel extremely unrealistic because the amount of effort Hawk Moth put into his plan gave him way more of a reward than he deserved.

He got to see the identity of every hero (Nino could be figured out by process of elimination), essentially forced the guardian to revoke his guardianship (which sounded bad on his end but put Ladybug at a huge disadvantage emotionally and just by virtue of likely not having full training), got the entire translated grimoire, and got to fix the peacock miraculous.

All he did was basically leave his house and everything just fell into his hands.

Even Miracle Queen as an akuma is laughable; Chloe in general is a laughable akuma. Antibug lasted about six and a half minutes, Queen Wasp lasted a pathetic four (her Scarlet akumatization did about double that), and Miracle Queen lasted for ten if you cut out the extra instances of Second Chance.

In order for Chloe to work as an akuma, she can’t be taken head-on. Antibug only lasted as long as she did because Marinette was de-transformed and had to renew her energy after fighting Vanisher. Miracle Queen was the same where she had several people fighting for her; as soon as there was an opening in the water shield leading to her, she was basically done.

A massive issue with Chloe’s akumatizations is that she always ends up sharing the spotlight with someone else, which cuts both her time and threat level.

Scarlet Queen Wasp was basically irrelevant but like--

Antibug had to share her episode with Vanisher,

Queen Wasp had to share her episode with herself (i.e: Queen Bee),

and Miracle Queen couldn’t even get an entire two-parter to herself; Heart Hunter was the akuma in part one and then Miracle Queen brought in her Miraculous Henchmen as soon as she could while she did nothing in the background.

At least in “Mayura,” even though not splitting the akuma up into groups was a mistake (would’ve made the plan look more thought-through and easier to follow visually), Hawk Moth was at least the mastermind of it. Miracle Queen is just Hawk Moth’s lackey, so it’s like getting a downgrade.

And... okay, while I know this doesn’t have anything to do with Miracle Queen’s competency, I have to ask: why didn’t Hawk Moth akumatize the Miracle Box? Why akumatize one superhero’s weapon when he could’ve akumatized the box that contains the things that make the superheroes what they are? Hawk Moth doesn’t try to keep the Miracle Box away from the heroes anyway because Miracle Queen keeps holding onto it, so it’s not like he was trying to protect it from being taken back.

It also would’ve given us potential mind-controlled kwami, which is far more interesting than standard human mind-control. There’s no need for identity reveals if the kwami (who can’t say their holders’ names; Miracle Queen and Hawk Moth would be very frustrated by this) are the ones who deliver the “infected” miraculouses (which then cause mind control) to their holders and possibly force them to transform under Miracle Queen’s command. Heck, maybe it’s a matter of purifying the miraculouses in the light of Ladybug’s yoyo or it being the power of de-transformation that “fixes” them, and it becomes a matter of slowly evening out the playing field as the infected heroes start to switch sides (bonus if Ladybug and Chat are working hard to protect their teammates’ identities so they have to choose wisely and lure the hero to someplace discreet first).

The other reason I’d be for akumatizing the Miracle Box instead is that it means we don’t get a season finale villain that’s just an edit of Queen Bee.

I mean, sure, Miracle Queen is technically the most creative compared to what the original form was, but that’s not saying much of anything, and it leaves “Miracle Queen” with a villain who isn’t even new-looking. It’s just more typical “akumatized miraculous holder that’s supposed to be a crazy special event until you realize that they just turn into recolors and edits of themselves” stuff. The new material in the episode is mainly Dragon Bug and Snake Noir and...

*sigh*

[Bad Things Come to Writers Who wAIT TOO LONG TO DO THEIR JOB]

Remember “Kwamibuster,” where all plots meshed together seamlessly because they were all created by one action (Ms. Mendeleiev seeing the kwami, leading Adrien and Marinette to have to protect their identities, which led to Marinette using a new miraculous to accomplish multiple tasks)?

Yeah, the two-parter doesn’t do this. Fitting the continuation of the romance plot in is coincidence at best and contrived at worst.

For one thing, Luka and Kagami are taken out of the plot as soon as “Miracle Queen” hits. Luka pulls a Chat (i.e: “let me shield this person with my body”) to protect Marinette instead of acting more thoughtfully like in “Captain Hardrock” (the bakery is literally right next to them), which makes no sense because it requires one of the bees to be ahead of all the others, thus stabbing only one of them and giving Marinette time to react to Luka being mind-controlled while also being able to get away. If Luka had demanded that she run and then picked up his guitar or something as a weapon to try and keep the bees away from her for as long as possible, that’d be different, but it just doesn’t seem very “Luka” to shield Marinette like that without doing anything else.

Kagami’s is more believable, but it’s still a matter of one bee being ahead of the others to give Adrien time to react. Adrien could've just been running away and glanced behind him to see Kagami getting mind-controlled.

It’s also a weird trade-off in general. It’s like the writers thought that Viperion appearing in part two made things equal between him and Ryuko despite the fact that Viperion was under mind-control at the time. (I acknowledge that Viperion appeared in “Party Crasher,” but that episode was literally just an excuse to throw all the male heroes together and Viperion didn’t get to do much anyway nor did Luka get any significant screentime.)

It means that both Luka and Kagami have no proper involvement with the plot going on despite the fact that they play a huge role in the romance side of things and the fact that both dragon and snake are used in the battle against Miracle Queen.

At the very least, Miracle Queen could’ve ordered Luka and Kagami (in civilian form) to fight Dragon Bug and Snake Noir, which could’ve led to a realization moment between Marinette and Adrien over just how much they really care about their alternative love interests due to just how unwilling they are to fight them and how much it hurts to see them under enemy control.

For two, I question both Dragon Bug and Snake Noir’s appearance in general. Like, just on Snake Noir, “Desperada” happened in this season and showed that Adrien wasn’t good at using the snake. While it’s totally possible that he was better at it because of the situation change or because he felt more confident having an aggressive miraculous to go with it, it’s jarring seeing him not only use the snake without question, but succeed in using it after failing at the snake so many times before.

(Also, just saying, snake and cat is a terrible combination considering that Cataclysm can destroy miraculouses and the hand used to flick the snake head is the hand that’s used for Cataclysm; the animators clearly noticed this as well and had Chat put the miraculous on the wrist that the turtle miraculous would’ve gone on.)

And while I don’t doubt that Marinette can use the dragon skillfully, it seems like the water shield - and a shield that forces out Miracle Queen at will too - is somehow a power gained by using the dragon and ladybug together, which... doesn’t really make sense? “Water Shield” screams dragon and turtle, not dragon and ladybug. While the yoyo can be spun to be used as a shield, it’s not the same type of shield that Dragon Bug creates. It could’ve been the same disc-shaped shield that the yoyo creates, but just hovering above them and making it rain over the battlefield for protection; Miracle Queen could’ve still been too afraid to intervene since she’s too valuable.

It’s also just a woefully missed opportunity that Luka and Kagami didn’t get to fight alongside Ladybug and Chat because it would’ve been a beautiful team. Chat knows both Ryuko and Viperion’s identities, so it would’ve been a team where Ladybug and Chat have the same information and it really feels even.

Unfortunately, the opening to “Miracle Queen” just summarizes how out of the main plot Luka and Kagami are forced to be. “Heart Hunter” seemed to really care about both of them, giving them sweet moments with their respective love interests (though, granted, I would’ve liked it if Luka was free after riding Marinette to the hotel and joined her in helping, so he got to participate in the fun too; would’ve been amazing as a callback of sorts to “Frozer,” showing how the interactions have changed from way back then), but as soon as “Miracle Queen” kicks in, both Marinette and Adrien recoil from them and watch them get stung by Miracle Queen’s bees soon after. Luka and Kagami go from being a comforting presence in the story to being an afterthought.

And it’s just made more confusing by things that are either dropped or added between the two parts. One would think that Chat’s line about having a girlfriend would come back in "Miracle Queen” (like, he and Kagami actually getting together and him proclaiming cheerfully this time that he really does have a girlfriend), but it’s just there and gone as if the audience needs a reminder (we don’t) that Chat can be really petty with getting Ladybug’s attention. On the opposite end, Luka playing Marinette’s song seems like typical “Captain Hardrock” Luka in “Heart Hunter,” only to turn into some sort of metaphor in “Miracle Queen.” The two parts are just so disjointed compared to the other two-parters, not helped by the fact that previous two-parters maintained focus on one/two akuma (Stoneheart in “Origins” and then Catalyst + Scarlet Moth in “Heroes’ Day”). While “Heart Hunter” and “Miracle Queen” do forward the plot in a significant way, they feel more like “Style Queen” and “Queen Wasp” in terms of execution.

Or, rather the failure in execution, along with both two-parters heavily featuring Chloe.

Speaking of Chloe, actually, the romance plot suffers from the same problem that Chloe’s did; the episodes dedicated to it weren’t given the treatment they needed. In order to save the next step of the romance plot for the finale, the show meandered around the topic, keeping Luka strangely away from Marinette during episodes where it didn’t make sense (”Gamer 2.0″) and having “Ikari Gozen” happen late so the show could dance around the topic of Marinette and Kagami’s relationship (like, just throwing this out there, but it would’ve been nice to have that “we’re friends but I still want Adrien” conversation to happen in another episode).

It’s... yeah, it’s not great. “Heart Hunter” almost succeeded in making the romance plot more relevant to the main plot by having the akuma be love-based (Kagami’s line after the fact almost makes that connection, in fact), but it was ultimately just a piece of Hawk Moth’s plan and not based on anything, like Mayura learning in “Ladybug” that Ladybug already liked another boy. The two-parter ends up feeling more like two stories going on at once and fighting to see whose turn it is, rather than one cohesive plot that ties everything together.

It’s also weird to have the Adrimi ship be in the position it is by the end of “Miracle Queen.” There were multiple episodes showing a significant attraction between Adrien and Kagami, and “Heart Hunter” had Adrien readily leaning in to kiss her and not flirting with Ladybug when Ryuko was around, but then “Miracle Queen” gives completely mixed messages by having Adrien pull away and feel conflicted by the almost kiss, only to then have him lovingly caress Kagami’s cheek by the end of the episode. “Heart Hunter” and the end of “Miracle Queen” scream “ADRIMI IS CANON,” but that one part where Adrien pulls away leaves things in the dark and hurts Kagami’s feelings because Adrien keeps doing all these things with her (HI, “FROZER”) but they don’t go anywhere romantically. It feels like a last-minute change where Adrimi was meant to be an official couple by the end of Season 3, but it was decided against because... I don’t know, they wanted it to be on roughly the same level as Lukanette by then instead?

I have no idea, but it’s a weird decision. “Miracle Queen” is full of weird decisions.

And also, you know, really dumb decisions too.

[Remember to Write (Well)]

So...

Okay, now it’s time to talk about Fu; both Fu in general and “the thing” that happens by the end of “Miracle Queen.”

For Fu in general, ever since he’s been on the run, it’s been a confusing experience figuring out what exactly he’s trying to accomplish. Hawk Moth knows his identity apparently, yet Fu - an old man who can hardly defend himself even while transformed - continues holding onto the Miracle Box, doing odd jobs here and there while Marinette undergoes guardian training...

I presume, anyway, because we literally don’t know. Basically all of Marinette’s training (both concerning the Miracle Box and overall) has been off-screen, and most of Fu’s appearances post-”Feast” were just him handing off miraculouses that Marinette needed.

I say this because Fu could’ve passed on the Miracle Box to Marinette and just visited whenever he needed to train her. Sabine is Chinese, so Fu could've easily struck up a conversation and made friends with her, giving him an excuse to visit.

Would it have stopped Hawk Moth from trying to steal the Miracle Box? Maybe, maybe not, but my point is that a guardian who can’t guard is essentially worthless and just ends up placing a giant target on their head.

In addition, while we don’t know the extent of the other kwami powers outside of the miraculous, I don’t understand why Wayzz didn’t at least try to protect Fu himself. Would the shield have been too large? The only case of a kwami using their powers outside of the miraculous is Plagg, the kwami with possibly the least self-control, and even he managed to save Adrien without destroying the city in the process, so I’m sure Wayzz could do it.

Anyway, even beyond that, I’m stunned that Fu didn’t notice Mayura’s ill state and realize that the peacock miraculous was broken (presuming that he didn’t know it was broken before). It could’ve been a great moment where Fu talks about the dangers of wearing a broken miraculous, then shouting that information to Ladybug and Chat Noir. It would’ve helped in finding Hawk Moth because they’d know to look for those kinds of symptoms (looking at you, Adrien, please get involved here) in order to find the peacock holder. Even if Gabriel still fixed the peacock miraculous in the end, I doubt that the illness just goes away, because that’d mean that Emilie would be alive and kicking by the start of Season 4.

I mean, just in general, if Fu was going to leave by the end of “Miracle Queen” anyway, why not have him and Hawk Moth engage in a battle of wits? If this was going to be Fu’s last stand, why not have Hawk Moth beat him down, taunt him, boast about how he’s a pathetic guardian since he doesn’t have all the miraculouses, then give Fu a single shot at touching the Miracle Box before promptly sending an akuma at it?

Fu doesn’t have to actually get fully akumatized - he can resist it (though considering “Feast,” the man seems terrible under pressure) - but STILL, GIVE ME SOMETHING.

Instead, Fu just kinda... goes out on a whimper. “Origins,” “Syren,” and “Feast” teased Fu’s transformation into Jade Turtle, but when we finally see it, it’s Fu hiding inside Shell-ter for the entire time.

It’s so disappointing. It’s Fu’s last chance to do anything, but in the end, he renounces himself as guardian which does... something, I guess?

Like, let’s just actually look at what happens for a moment.

Miracle Queen is defeated. The mind-control bees that Hawk Moth probably planned to use on Master Fu are gone. The best he can do is either kidnap Fu, use him as a hostage (either of these options being once the shield is down), or continue beating him senseless.

But the heroes can, like, jump. Queen Bee might have the Miracle Box, but she’s not doing anything about it; the kwami aren’t even listening to her because she doesn’t know their names. There’s no reason why Dragon Bug and Snake Noir can’t go up to Hawk Moth and Mayura and take them on face-to-face.

Yeah, Hawk Moth beat them up in “Mayura,” but they’re wielding two miraculouses now. Ladybug also wasn’t afraid to take on the butterfly sentimonster head-on in “Mayura,” so it can’t be that they’re too scared to fight it.

Hawk Moth and Mayura are literally just... chilling on the rooftop. Hawk Moth had to jump up there himself to join Mayura so like--

why not go fight them?

And while Snake Noir dismissing Sass makes sense because Second Chance was already used, Dragon Bug dismissing Longg makes no sense whatsoever.

The dragon still had two powers left in it: wind and lightning. The dragon also seems to give enhanced speed (judging from Ryuko in “Ikari Gozen”), so Dragon Bug can just rush up to everyone and take them on directly.

But instead, Dragon Bug dismisses Longg for no verbally explained reason, thus leaving Ladybug twice as helpless to stop what’s happening. Multimouse handled multiple miraculouses and was just fine, so it can’t be that two miraculouses was too much strain on her (I’ll forgive Chat warning Ladybug about unifying with Longg since he doesn’t know that she was Multimouse).

Furthermore, now that Miracle Queen is de-akumatized, she presumably can’t order around the remaining mind-controlled heroes, yeah? I mean, Queen Bee doesn’t even try and they’re just standing there motionless (Sidenote: this is why Ladybug is actually overpowered in the sense of saving people. It’s one thing to heal the damage an akuma caused, but it’s another thing for basic stuff like mind-control to not wear off unless Ladybug uses Miraculous Ladybug; that’s messed up).

Anyway, Fu is still protected in Shell-ter. Nothing is stopping Ladybug or Chat from grabbing the horse miraculous off of Pegasus, feeding Kaalki, unifying, then teleporting inside of Shell-ter to grab Fu.

Like, there, done, mission accomplished. Now Fu is back with Ladybug and Chat at the very least.

I mean, Fu renouncing the Miracle Box doesn’t even seem to do anything. Yes, it gives the ownership to Ladybug, but Queen Bee doesn’t even try to open it back up and she’s in the same state as before where she has all the miraculouses but doesn’t know the kwami names to use them.

Hawk Moth also seems to know what Fu was doing, and... I don’t know why? Yes, Hawk Moth took the tablet (we’ll get to that soon enough, just you wait) and it has the translated grimoire on it, but we never saw him read it. Like, was he doing some light reading conveniently off-screen?

This show just has a terrible habit of not showing things before they come into play. Queen Bee makes a big deal about the Miracle Box changing, but we don’t know what difference it makes. Hawk Moth and Mayura are apparently too afraid to even try to fight Ladybug and Chat even though both heroes are on a timer already, so my point about them rescuing Fu with the horse stands even stronger (plus, if Viperion and Ryuko had been there, would’ve given reason for Hawk Moth and Mayura to retreat, fearing that they’re outnumbered).

And all this - ALL OF THIS - just so that Fu can get his memory wiped because that’s the “fate of the guardians” apparently; to get their memories erased to protect the secret identities of the heroes.

Like--just...

I have a few questions.

...Sorry, did I say a few?

Because NO, I HAVE MANY, MANY QUESTIONS.

Question number one: Wasn’t Fu the one in “Feast” who said that he was trashing the guardian traditions? If so, why go for the memory wipe at all? Again, it does nothing, we had no idea that Hawk Moth would know to give up on Fu (seriously, a shot of him reading the tablet and taunting Fu about it would’ve sufficed), and the bees were gone, so Hawk Moth had no way of forcing the information out of Fu (that line was so vague, it was irritating; what, is Fu seriously going to give in to a little torture?).

Question number two: Do all guardians throughout all of history do this since Wayzz said it was a rule? How is that efficient, like, at all? What happens if a guardian trains their protege, gives up the box, and that protege dies soon after, leaving no one who would know where the box is? Are there literally guardians in the temple who just know all this guardian knowledge and keep passing it down to other guardians who will never own a Miracle Box because they just need to know it in case the guardians of a specific Miracle Box die or lose the grimoire?

Question number three: Following up on two, what happens if a guardian perishes before they’re able to relinquish the box? What happens to the box? Does ownership go to the next person who touches it?

Question number four: If the guardians’ memories are erased to protect the secret identities of the miraculous holders (according to Wayzz), why does everything else about the miraculouses need to be erased too? Hawk Moth was making a big deal out of using Fu to tell him their identities, but was Fu good for nothing else?? Marianne still presumably knows about all this miraculous stuff and there’s no big deal made about that. Heck, she even seems to know Marinette’s identity too since it was Marinette, not Ladybug, who dropped Fu off at the station.

Question number five: Why do guardians have to erase their memories if there’s no danger involved and they just need to pass down the box due to old age, especially if there’s no one else who knows about them being a guardian? Like, “better safe than sorry” or whatever, but why have a rule that basically forces them to relinquish valuable memories? If their protege is the only one who knows about them being a guardian, it’s not like the guardian would be useful at all since they already trained their protege. Thus, even if their protege went bad, there’s no need to go after the guardian.

Question number six: What if there was something important in those memories? Like, seriously, Fu didn’t even know who Ladybug and Chat were; if Fu went walking around the street not even knowing basic facts about the heroes of Paris, people would deem him senile and put him in a home or something.

Question number seven: Is renouncing the Miracle Box like, the last thing a guardian learns? If not, what’s stopping salty guardian teenagers from constantly renouncing the Miracle Box in hopes that the temple will give up on them? Fu knew about the memory loss, but did he learn it from the grimoire, and if so, where are the hints of him realizing what he’d have to do? He clearly had plans to get back together with Marianne, so what gives?

Question number eight: With how much gets erased when renouncing the Miracle Box, it ends up leaving such a risk of putting the guardian in a state of cruel confusion. Journal entries they can’t explain, pictures of people they can’t remember... it’d be a mess.

Question number WHY: How is it a good system to take people who are basically children, essentially force them to be guardians, have them waste their lives away learning all this stuff they might not even want, and then expect them to follow the rules and not be resentful of the fact that they’re going to lose a giant chunk of their memories when they pass the box down? If you ask me, that’s just begging for villains to happen.

And this whole memory loss nonsense is just character death in disguise. Fu has vague feelings towards people like Marianne and that’s it; he has no memories of even the love of his life.

It’s a cheap excuse for ANGST and nothing more. It’s supposed to be the big tear-jerker of the episode yet I’m too busy seething at how utterly lazy and stupid it is.

Like, for something that’s supposed to be so magical or whatever, the actual memory loss process is extremely basic. There is no reason for the memories to be completely erased when they could just as easily be adjusted.

For example: instead of Fu remembering Ladybug coming to him for miraculouses, he remembers her coming to him to ask if he’s okay since there’s an akuma on the loose. Instead of Fu remembering talking to Marianne about miraculouses over tea... he just remembers having a pleasant conversation with her over tea.

But instead, the Miracle Box - apparently the laziest magical object in the universe - just erases the memories completely and leaves only the strongest feelings behind, casually having Fu forget all the terrible things he did and all the lessons he learned because of those things.

Oh, oh, oh, and then there’s the tablet that Hawk Moth and Mayura stole. The one with all the grimoire information on it.

Did Fu seriously not have any security on that tablet? Like, at all? If we’re going off the logic that Hawk Moth knew what renouncing the box meant because he read about it, I can only imagine the look on his and Mayura’s faces when they expected to have to do some serious hacking, only for the tablet to open right up and them to be like, “Oh, that was way easier than we thought.”

Nathalie even said right at the end of the episode that the tablet had the method to fix the peacock in it, so they must’ve already read through it (because, with just knowing that the grimoire is on it, there was no guarantee that the miraculous-fixing method would be in it).

And this episode leaves so many things vague that we don’t even know if Marinette has any of that information. As stated before, we never even saw Fu train her to be guardian.

Does she know the grimoire by heart? Did Fu email her all the data just in case something like this happened? Fu was even the one to give her the potions, so what happens when her supply of macarons and cheese run out?

Outside of Nathalie mentioning that they have the translated grimoire, the episode just leaves us hanging. Just like how “Mayura” ignored Marinette and Fu talking about the peacock being active now, this episode ignores all the things we should be aware of so we know exactly how screwed the heroes are going to be starting next season.

It’s not leaving us in suspense; it’s leaving us questioning things that we should already know.

“Miracle Queen” fails as a follow-up to “Heart Hunter” because, instead of building on the things that “Heart Hunter” chose, it dumps every single thing it can think of onto its audience while leaving no time to explain any of them.

Adrien pulled away from Kagami’s kiss, but the endcard implies that he’s still going forward with his crush on her over Ladybug despite there being no discussion on this at all. Where is the turning point of Chat deciding to give up on Ladybug even though he wasn’t ready for Kagami?

All the heroes got their identities revealed, but what does that really mean anymore? Mayura can’t camp at everyone’s houses waiting for Ladybug to throw them a miraculous. Also, it was Chloe who did this in the first place, so is there any evidence or hints that there will be repercussions for her actions outside of getting her miraculous revoked yet again?

Hawk Moth has the grimoire, but even though Marinette’s first thought should be on it because she’s guardian now, we have no idea how much she knows or even if Fu had a backup plan for something like this happening.

Ultimately, Fu losing his memory was for shock value. That’s why it was never discussed even in the episode itself until it happened, and if angst needs that shock value to touch its audience’s hearts, it’s not doing its job.

Oh, and let’s not forget the effect this has on Marinette.

[Fool’s Marigold]

...I’m baffled.

Just... truly, honestly baffled.

I’ve been doing critiques of so many episodes of Season 3 because, honestly, most of them torment Marinette in someway, but...

Geez, if this isn’t just a culmination of all the misery she’s been through, put in a blender and set to ‘high’...

Let’s begin with “Heart Hunter;” specifically, how the episode throws blame on Ladybug for not de-transforming. Outside of, again, Ladybug really having no choice narratively (because Hawk Moth was following her and really, how was she supposed to know that when there was nothing out of the ordinary with that akuma?), it’s just ridiculous to toss even more stuff for Marinette to fret over.

Marinette has already been through more than enough this season, and there was build-up for Fu to be the one to make the mistake instead.

Like, Fu has a history of not trusting Ladybug. There’s “Feast” and also “Kwamibuster” where Fu is doubtful of Marinette’s capabilities while Wayzz has to be the voice of reason. The exception is “Queen Wasp,” but since that’s in Season 2, one could argue that something made Fu nervous about trusting Marinette (perhaps “Malediktator”? Marinette was convinced by others to give Chloe another chance, but Fu doesn’t know that).

Even in "Heart Hunter” itself, Fu questions Ladybug’s choice in the dragon. Like, yes, Ladybug may be choosing it for reasons outside of the akuma, but again, dragon ended up being a good pick in the end and Marinette has almost never failed before, so what right does Fu have to ask?

Anyway, point being, it could’ve been a matter of Fu being too anxious - too nervous about Ladybug’s capabilities - and he ends up leaving his hiding spot (maybe believing that dragon was the wrong choice), which then allows Hawk Moth to swoop in and swipe the box.

I mean, hey, if Fu’s going to just forget everything anyway, why does it matter what mistake he makes? Marinette can still blame herself for it and there could even be a lesson about thinking things through and not blaming oneself for everything (A LESSON THAT MARINETTE DESPERATELY NEEDS).

And this is basically the moment that sets everything else in motion; Ladybug accidentally leading Hawk Moth to Fu is the moment that causes all the identities to be revealed (excluding Ladybug and Chat Noir’s) and causes Master Fu to both lose his memory and make Marinette the new guardian.

It’s extreme, and--like--look. Regardless of how much Ladybug is at fault, the punishment given for it is far too severe for such a small error. Had this been almost any other episode where Ladybug went to Master Fu, there would’ve been no issues with Ladybug forgetting to de-transform.

The fact of the matter is that Ladybug is a 14-year-old girl who just gave up the person she saw as the love of her life to someone else, and even when she was trying to have a good cry about it, it’s almost immediately interrupted by Heart Hunter showing up and forcing her into action. Then, while she was heading towards Fu to get a miraculous, the show found it necessary to have her coincidentally swing by the exact two people that she didn’t want to see, throwing her off entirely. 

After seeing that Fu is no longer around, she finally gets to break down and be comforted by someone who actually knows what to say to her, but her quiet moment is interrupted yet again by an akuma.

She just finished having a breakdown, and it was already time for her to swing back into action after watching as the person who comforted her got mind-controlled because he protected her.

I could really go on and on about all the mental stress Marinette goes through in Season 3 alone, but the point is that needlessly guilting Marinette when she already has the weight of Paris on her shoulders isn’t constructive.

It’s sadistic, only serving to pile on the angst and make Marinette miserable. She has a total of four moments where she’s either breaking down or about to break down, which is insane for a proper story but also completely understandable with everything she’s going through.

The breakdown in which Luka was comforting her was the closest thing to dignity she got, but she’s not able to vent to Luka about what the actual problem is, so when she sees how bad everything really is, of course she breaks down again.

But... well, Chat...

Chat is bad at it. Like, really bad at it.

The episode tries to present both of Chat’s comfortings as touching, but they both fail and fail hard.

The first time, Ladybug is venting about what happened and how she forgot to de-transform, apologizing and calling herself a failure. Chat’s response, essentially, is to remind her of their current mission, tell her how they need her focused.for it, and to request that she just forget about it for the moment.

The second time, Ladybug is freaking out about how she can’t figure out the Lucky Charm, apologizing again and calling herself useless. Chat’s response this time is to first tell her to focus, then simply place his hands on her shoulders and say, “Ladybug, no.”

Neither of his comfortings involved him telling her that she either wasn’t a failure and/or wasn’t useless.

And just by the way, I have a serious bone to pick with that Lucky Charm she summoned. This somewhat correlates with what I was saying about shock value, but why would Fu keep that key with him? Why wouldn’t he give it to Marinette at the very end of “Feast” and go, “if something happens to me, you’ll need this”? It’s banking on Ladybug either summoning the key as her Lucky Charm (and Fu recognizing it, because apparently he can’t remember the woman he shared his guardian secrets with but he can remember that he has a key to a locker that contains the thing he kept the Miracle Box in), or that Marinette/Ladybug happens to be there when this happens to him and he happens to have just the right prompting to give her the key in the first place.

And for another thing, the Lucky Charm is just another excuse for Ladybug to freak out and self-deprecate. Of course Ladybug would have no idea what to do with it; she doesn’t even know what it’s for, which is something no other Lucky Charm has been established to do.

Now, if the Lucky Charm had been seen by Fu, giving him the realization that he needs to renounce the Miracle Box, that’d be different, but that’s not what happens. Instead, Ladybug is looking around frantically for a way to make a Lucky Charm work when it’s not supposed to work, and either way, Fu had no way of knowing that she’d hold onto it long enough for his amnesiac self to see it and know what it was.

And Ladybug clearly didn’t know about the memory erasure. Hawk Moth and the kwami were the ones to react to Fu preparing to renounce the Miracle Box.

This means that Marinette has been training to become guardian with no knowledge of eventually having to give up her memories. Unless Fu had a plan (perhaps involving the box being revoked to Ladybug instead of Marinette, but in the moment, it seems more like something that just made sense for the sake of protecting her identity), he essentially gave Marinette no warning about this when he started training her, subjecting her to the same fate that he didn’t want himself.

And this just furthers the idea that Ladybug isn't allowed to feel anything because the slightest missteps end up causing disastrous consequences. Marinette has to constantly bottle up and suppress how she feels because it means either getting akumatized or the universe fighting back against her, which just leads to her feeling more emotional down the line because that way of thinking is unhealthy no matter how necessary it might be for her to do her job.

Now, if I were Marinette, the FIRST question I would have after becoming guardian is if I'll have to erase my memories too, but we all know that it'll either never be addressed or come out of nowhere if/when Marinette has to renounce the Miracle Box herself.

And while I feel terrible for the poor girl, she doesn't deserve to have all of those memories scrubbed away when there are valuable memories in there. It's sad that she's going through this, but it'd be sadder for her to be forced to let go of memories that she might want to hold onto.

Not to mention, it's all this just because she was hurt that she had to let go of the person she loved. Fu even acknowledges it as her mistake without putting any semblance of blame on himself, so the plot clearly blames Ladybug for this.

Because of her, the identities of all her temporary heroes became known to Hawk Moth.

Because of her, Hawk Moth has the translated grimoire that she might not even have herself.

Because of her, Fu renounced the Miracle Box and gave up his memories in the process (oh, and of course they have to add in a line where he says that he'll never forget about her; twist the knife even more, why don't you?).

Because of her, she now has the role of guardian and has to keep the miraculouses protected. She was sobbing in "Heart Hunter" over all the responsibilities she had and how she couldn't be who she truly was, and the show's apparent solution to that is to give her more responsibilities and take away the one person who knew her secret,

Because, let's be honest, Marinette can't talk to Marianne about this. It's apparently all Marinette's fault that this happened, so Marinette can hardly throw any of her troubles at her when this whole situation caused the man Marianne loved to forget about her.

And Tikki doesn't even do anything. Even when Marinette is all alone, reading Fu's letter, Tikki doesn't come out to offer comfort or just generally be there for her holder. The show chose to have Tikki do nothing while even more weight is being put on Marinette's shoulders. Yeah, maybe Tikki is busy mourning the loss of Fu, but we don't know because they didn't show it.

And just thinking about it, the show literally punished Marinette for doing the right thing.

All throughout the series, Marinette has been repeatedly punished for trying to make progress in her life. Attempts to drop Adrien as a crush led to her friends arguing about it, and attempts to confess to Adrien either ended in failure or embarrassment. Her being happy that Chloe was gone led to a scolding from Adrien, and when she tries to give Chloe a chance, it doesn't work out for her. When she then tries to respectfully revoke Chloe's miraculous, she gets stabbed in the back by Chloe allowing herself to be akumatized so the identities of the temporary holders can be revealed. When she tries to out Lila, she's yelled at and told by Adrien not to do anything, eventually leading to her expulsion that was only reversed because Adrien did just enough to get Lila to undo the damage.

Marinette knew that Adrien had feelings for someone that wasn't her; he told her as much. She recognized that Adrien and Kagami had a bond and decided to let them be together because it was the right thing to do.

And she was punished for it. She was punished for having a reaction; for having feelings.

We don't know what Season 4 holds for her, but judging from how she's treated in Season 3, it can't be anything good.

Buckle up, people.

[puawarriors-production]

Week 17 – Alex – I Told You I’d See You Later

My previous post was a little anti-climactic if you ask me, and I didn’t get to recap what I did so here we gooo.

----------------------FIRST, MAJOR DISCLAIMER---------------

     As you can see, this post is pretty dang long, so I’m just gonna put evaluation stuff for the class here first, and if you feel like reading on afterward that’s cool, but it’s just personal reflections and final send-off stuff. 

     So, shockingly, I was one of the main contributors to the rough animation which you can see in the animatic, and can track the progress of throughout this blog’s history. I finished 15 roughed shots in total. I also have 8 shots concurrently blocked (in other words, partial progress,) and 2 shots unstarted.       I also made the 3D environment models used for reference in making the backgrounds, as well as handling the editing side (video composition, timing, and sound edits) for the animatic up to this point. 

     Next, I worked closely with Sophia and our sound mixer Tim to get the voice actresses recorded, their clips edited, and finally integrated into the film. And also, while this hasn’t made it into the animatic yet, I have been creating some original sound design elements as well. Here’s a sample of some:

I’m focusing mostly on the characters’ Pua powers and transformations right now, and some sludge sounds. And in hand with that, I also did the voice clips/sound effects for the Sludge Monster. Aaand that’s pretty much it from me this semester! Super excited to keep up the work in the weeks to come! If you’re not sticking till the end of the post, then thanks for an awesome class, and awesome semester! 

------------------ The Feels Side of the Post -----------------

                                       The Pua Warriors Experience

     When I first heard about Pua Warriors, I thought the idea sounded awesome: Magical girls set in Hawai'i using flower powers and sparkles to save the day? Yeah I’m down for that. It felt… familiar to me, I suppose. But at the time I still knew relatively little about the characters, the story, and only had a vague idea of their designs.

     As time went on and the Capstone application deadline was approaching, I felt like I was a bit stuck, with the exhaustion of working on Midnight Showing holding me on one side, and having only a vague outline of a plot for my own film idea on the other. And with no crew to speak of, the decision not to make a Capstone of my own was … difficult… one of the most difficult in my time at ACM. Cause in my mind (at the time at least,) not making “your own” Capstone project felt like a failure somehow. But this whole Pua Warriors thing was sounding pretty nice, and I already knew everyone working on it. So I decided life’s better together, and far be it from me to not work on a project of some kind. So I hopped on-board for a little trip into the unknown. And well, here we are, still in the unknown. But that doesn’t mean we’re lost. Not yet.

     I have to say, Pua Warriors has grown on me. At a certain point it stopped feeling like a student film, and started feeling more like a potential series: a world with its own storyline, and indeed one that’s worth telling – yes, I would make a distinction between the two. Working on the project has just been the sweetest, most wonderful, enlightening, mild existential crisis inducing, and bizarrely friendly thing I’ve had the privilege of working on, all at once. It didn’t just change how I approach character design, animation, or working on a team – I feel it changed me for the better as a person, and at times I feel almost unworthy to be on this project.

     One thing I’ll never forget is the time we spent hanging out in the Keller lab, going to group meetings, and recording at MELE. What silly fun times those were. I admit, not being able to hang out with my friends after the virus shut the world down has truly been one of the most difficult parts of my whole “college era” of my life experience. To feel like something great was forming, only to be ripped away by something so crazy and completely over-the-top as this virus – words just can’t capture the feeling of melancholy. But even when we’re spread hundreds or thousands of miles apart, at times I can still feel near, even if it is only through a screen. And personally, I don’t want that to change just because the semester’s ending. That’s why, in a way, I’m sort of glad we have time to work on into the summer.

                                             Reflections on Life

     Some lessons this semester taught me: First is on fitting in. It’s never blending in for the sake of blending in, nor standing out for the sake of standing out. It’s being comfortably unique in your own talents and skills, strengths and weaknesses, styles and tastes - while being happy to share those things with others. Indeed, it’s not about being “good enough” to belong, but rather belonging, in order that may do good for others. Second is on wanting to help. For a long time I remained kind of a loner in ACM, sitting in “my” corner with “my” ideas. It wasn’t until last semester and especially during this semester I realized just how powerful, or perhaps rather how much more powerful the drive to help and serve others can be. That’s true not just for creative endeavors, but all areas of life. The Third lesson: doing things for the right reasons. We do things for a lot of different reasons, and often times we aren’t cognizant of why we act or feel the way we do. Having an understanding of who you truly are and what you really want is critical in exercising self-control, and you may come to realize your desires aren’t always what you think they are. And the Fourth lesson is on being assertive. We all want and feel things, and one of the greatest feelings is being in control. You may doubt yourself when you don’t know where your feelings and desires come from. You may think your mind is playing tricks on you. But the truth is, we’ll never go places in life if we don’t speak up and acknowledge our ideas. We may not always come to the right conclusions, but that doesn’t mean we’re wrong for trying. So try, try, and try again. It’s okay to fail, as long as you pick up something with you as you get up. Take risks, and understand that doubt is often our greatest enemy, so fight it!

     So now, at the end, I don’t really know what I feel: I don’t know if this is sadness or happiness? Courage or fear? Maybe it’s none of those things, but something I haven’t quite felt before. Until recently, I didn’t realize there’s an emotion that can make you feel so weak, yet feel strong at the same time. One thing’s for sure, I’m going to miss the project, the crew, and all of Hawai'i. To us, the future is a blank slate: nothing is written on it, yet it holds an infinite number of possibilities. 

                                          Honoring my Maker

     Now before I wrap up, I have a specific topic I’d like to address.

     While I  usually avoid discussing my religious life openly in a scholastic context, I will say here and now that God has been my greatest help throughout these past couple years. For the longest time, even before coming to Hawai'i, I struggled with feelings of not fitting in, of low self-esteem, and of self-doubt. There were a lot of recurring battles at my home growing up, and many of the wounds followed me into adulthood. And if nothing else, this semester has brought many of those to the forefront.

     As a child back in Washington, I would often just go with the flow of my friends at the time, because it was easier, and allowed me to avoid conflict. Yet I would be lead into instances where I would not speak up or act, even though I felt what we were doing, thinking, or saying was wrong. My family wasn’t particularly religious, or at least they certainly didn’t act like it. And for a while I think I didn’t believe in God. Maybe there was some higher power... maybe, perhaps, but not God. Yet still I felt a crushing weight on my conscience, for both the things I had done, and the things I had failed to do. So I watched TV shows and movies to help me feel safe, to distract myself, and indeed to feel as if I had more power than I actually did. 

     There came a time in middle school when a big storm came through my life, and when I was living in fear, I turned to God, and He helped me through it. And again in high school, God helped me. And in college, many times more. Through it all, God answered my prayers, and showed me there is a better way. And I came to understand that He gave me a way to life through His Son, long before I was even born. And because of that, I could find comfort and rest by trusting in Him through the afflictions I faced.      So the way I see it, God has lead my life in a way neither I, nor any human being could. I have found that He has a purpose for all things, and truly that nothing comes by accident. I may not say it aloud, but I observe it every day in the places He sets me in, and the people with whom He places me. Yes, even in the midst of this virus. So while family and friends may not always be there to support me, and while institutions may crumble and fall, and while I may move away and feel isolated from all I’ve known, my God was, is, and always will be with me. There is nothing more empowering or reassuring than that. And without coming off too preachy, my hope is that people might perhaps look at that reflected in my life - to see the work God has done, and to consider their own relationship with Him.

                                                       Roll Call

     Next, I have a few shout-outs I’d like to mention.

     First, to my wonderful film Director Sophia: What can I say? This project has been simply amazing to work on with you. I think back to the moment I first overheard you talking about Pua Warriors. You were so thrilled to do it, and that’s when I realized I might want to jump onboard as well. Since then, the only adjective that comes to mind describing this experience is “vibrant.” I know there have been a lot of ups and downs, but that’s part of what makes the experience worth remembering. And there may very well be more hills and valleys to go through, but I actually look forward to them every day with you, as we continue to make this film happen. You shine like a star with a brilliant, positive energy I’ve never seen before. And I think you have a much greater potential than perhaps even you yourself realize. Of course, everyone has room to grow, but that doesn’t reflect poorly on you at all. It’s the fact that you’ve been so supportive of your team, and that you didn’t give up on your vision, and indeed, you’ve made massive efforts to grow this semester – that’s what makes you a good director in my eyes. And to be honest, I wouldn’t have anybody else direct the film – certainly at least not this “episode” anyway. It’s been a lasting experience, and I hope you’ll take what you’ve learned from it with you. You have a bright future ahead of you Sophia – all you need to do is reach out to it!

     Next, to the Art Director and my good friend Gavin, wow what a ride this has been. Your artistic vision, your stamina, and your work ethic are so very remarkable. It’s been awesome these last few years getting to know you and work with you through all the late nights and long class periods. And especially through Midnight Showing and Pua Warriors. You basically set the standard that I and most other animation students aspire to, and you have such a unique way of looking at things too. Even when you’re feeling drained from all the work, your passion clearly shows, and you know how to communicate both very clearly, AND very, uh, sassily, which makes hanging around you hilarious. You’re also one of the only people on Earth that could get me to watch Clone Wars, and I don’t regret it. You give exceptional feedback in each critique, and though it can be tough to incorporate sometimes, you make listening to you a worthwhile endeavor. ACM simply would not be what it is without you, and I know you have many great things you’ll do with your skills moving forward.

     To our excellent Animation Supervisor Chandelle, this semester’s been a tough one, but even in the darkest times, the sun still rises! You’ve always been an awesome animator, an incredibly hard worker, and an exceptionally friendly and helpful member of the group. And what’s more, you never sought to put the spotlight on yourself for it. You do things simply because you care, and you do them with such a level of discipline and professionalism that few in the ACM department could match it. I’m sure I speak for the whole group when I say, we care about you so much, and we’re just thankful you’ve been with us on the project. Never sell yourself short Chandelle! You’ve conquered some major obstacles in the past, and I know you have it in you to overcome this one as well.The light will shine again someday, so hang in there, and thanks for all the help you’ve given!

     To my fellow animation friend Jared, man, have I got a lot of respect for you. You really know what it’s like to get down and dirty for the team, or feel stuck in a rut in the middle of a project. This last year has probably tested you the most, and yet you never fell apart. Sure, cracks may have formed at times, but you held together and pulled on through to the end. That proves you’ve got guts, and a great capacity for patience and accommodation especially in times of crisis. And that’s exactly what we need - that kind of boldness and passion, to be able to outlast our worries, especially when there are so many unknowns. I remember back to Midnight Showing; boy, that felt like a big time of unknowns too. We had no idea what was coming. And yet you outmatched it, and sure enough, things worked out in the end. And because you’ve been so humble and willing to improve yourself, I’ve seen you get so much better over these last few years, and frankly, it’s astonishing! You’re a great friend, and a hard worker Jared. Keep it up! You’ve got this!

     I’d also like mention my fellow animation friend Kalilinoe! Even though we’re not in the same team this semester, you’re still an awesome and inspiring animator to have in class! Working together on Midnight Showing last semester was a lot of work, but also so much fun! And I love your style of animation using rotoscoping. And I gotta say, the animation in Pua Ka Uahi looks sooo smooth and beautiful. Watching your progress on the film this semester has been super inspiring, and definitely keeps the other teams on their toes! I can’t wait to see the finished film!

     I’ll also make a brief mention of Jayme and Bobby from our 320/420 classes! You guys rock, and made the year all the better! I hope we’ll get to hang out again sometime! 

     PLUS, A big thanks to the whole Capstone class! Stay creative, and best wishes to you all!

     And finally, one last big shout-out to Lisette for making all of this possible! You’ve been an awesome teacher not just for this course, but for the last few years in general! You always bring such wisdom and expert film knowledge to us younglings. And you’re so willing to make yourself available to your students; always helpful and encouraging to everyone, and even more so now during this time. That’s just the kind of support we need! I’ll be missing your classes greatly! Thanks so much for all your care and help!

                                              A New Chapter Begins

Well, that pretty much wraps up my blog (for the school-production time anyway) of Pua Warriors. I’d like to once again thank each and every one of you for making the ACM experience so incredible. I think I like posting, so I’ll probably try to keep up with the blogs for the future, or at least make an update every once in a while. Thanks for reading through this epic conclusion of a post. 

Until next time my friends! This is Alex(is) Nelson, Ganitine, the Undercover Animator, uncovered! See you next time!

[malarkiness]

I have Thoughts on Frozen 2 because of course I do. Spoilers galore under the cut.

Just to recap my feelings on the first movie: I loved Elsa, thought Hans was hilarious as a villain, liked most of the songs, and enjoyed the “true love” twist at the end. 

Everything else? Pretty mediocre.

But I think Frozen 2 actually improved some things about the first movie in retrospect (while also being a good movie in its own right). Some things that I wanted but didn’t get from the first movie but got from the sequel were: 

No villain. Well, there technically is a villain, but Elsa and Anna’s grandfather is long dead in this movie and not an active participant in the plot. Instead, the characters (primarily Anna) are working to fix the results of the villain’s betrayal of the Northuldra. The story’s more about characters working through circumstances rather than fighting bad guys, which I like.

Less Kristoff and more Anna and Elsa interaction. This movie felt a lot more like a story about sisters than the first one did because I actually got to see their relationship in action and their personalities play off one another.

I remember being annoyed at how the “Let It Go” scene in the first movie cut away from Elsa’s face to focus on the ice palace, but her big transformation scene in the sequel showcases her expressions.

Characters of color with actual names and lines and active roles in the story. That shouldn’t really be notable in 2019 (or back in 2013, even), but here we are.

Olaf was still annoying, but also funny.

More interesting/creative/colorful imagery as opposed to lots and lots of white snowscapes. There were a couple of sequences that looked like someone handed Jennifer Lee a stack of rainbow scratch pages and just told her to go nuts.

I think I liked the soundtrack more from this movie, too:

Elsa gets two Oscar-bait songs in this movie: “Into the Unknown” (which is genuinely fantastic and gives me the same “I could fight a whole mastodon right now” feeling that Idina Menzel’s songs usually do) and “Show Yourself,” which is framed as the successor to “Let It Go.” I actually found the second one’s melody a little lackluster compared to the first when I watched the movie, but it’s really grown on me after a couple of relistens. I like how it starts off very gently and quietly, and then works its way up to a powerful reprise of Iduna’s lullaby. And it’s a good answer song to both “Into the Unknown” and “Let It Go,” as well as the movie’s overall theme about uncertainty and finding your path. The thing is, the main reason I loved “Let It Go” so much was that– taken out of context– it’s very easy to read it as a metaphor for coming out (especially with the pop version’s alternate lyrics). And I realize that that was probably purposefully baity as hell, and I fell for it like a total clown, but whatever. Anyway, you can’t really decontextualize “Show Yourself” in that way quite as easily. That’s not bad, really. Just a little disappointing for me personally. Oh, and I really want a goth metal cover of “Into the Unknown.” Someone page Evanescence or Within Temptation.

“The Next Right Thing” is incredible and a very effective song about grief (The line ”How to rise from the floor when it’s not you I’m rising for” hit me like a train.). I like how muted it was, and how simple the lyrics were. Kristen Bell’s singing voice is usually sweet and upbeat and sincere, so hearing how raw and tired she sounded in this song really left an impression.

I really liked Iduna’s lullaby (because I love a good lullaby in any musical).

Olaf’s song felt kind of jarring for the point it was at in the movie, and it has this really dopey melody that I feel like was conceived and written in the span of like twenty minutes tops, but it’s still genuinely funny. I liked the how it fit into his whole little subplot about growing older (and the movie’s overall theme).

Kristoff’s song was... a Choice. I guess if you really wanted to put a 80s pop ballad music video in this movie as a gag, "Lost in the Woods” is fine. I actually really like the song on its own, but there was just no reason for it to be as long as it was in the movie, lmao. Like I get that you have a Jonathan Groff and you want to use him, but I got the joke after we hit the chorus the first time; you don’t have to stretch it out. Just cut the song short in the movie and put the full version on the OST.

And lastly, the character arcs and overall storyline were better this time around:

I liked the movie’s theme of feeling lost and having the courage to find your footing and also yourself. “Into the Unknown” is Elsa’s song, but the rest of the movie’s soundtrack advances the themes from it. Olaf’s song is about assuming he’ll understand everything when he’s older highlights the point that there is no fixed time in your life where everything is clear and easy and you stop having to grow as a person. Anna’s “The Next Right Thing” is about picking yourself up after a harsh blow and making yourself keep going, simplifying it to just taking one step at a time. Even Kristoff’s song builds on this theme since it’s about feeling completely lost without someone, so it still fits the broader concept of being uncertain. And “Show Yourself” is about finally finding your path and feeling certain in spite of your fear.

Elsa’s character arc has a much more satisfying resolution than the one she had in Frozen. In the first movie, she accidentally reveals her powers, runs away in shame and then finds that she actually likes herself when she’s on her own and isn’t forced to hide who/what she is, is eventually brought back home against her will, and... that’s where she stays at the end of the story. In this one, she starts off safe at home, does the standard Hero Rejects the (Literal) Call to Adventure thing before finally deciding to follow it, ultimately finds the source of The Call, comes into her own, and stays with the Northuldra at the end to live out her life as the Avatar one half of the “fifth spirit” that connects humans to the elemental spirits. She still has Anna, understands who she is, and gets to stay where she’s happy and where she feels like she belongs. I kind of wish she’d just let Arendelle get destroyed, though. Not like anyone was home anyway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

I liked Anna a lot more in the sequel. I didn’t really care for her or Kristoff in the first movie (or their relationship because it was basically just a watered-down version of Rapunzel and Eugene’s), but I think it helped that she spent most of her screentime in this movie either with Elsa, Olaf, or alone. I like that she’s not clingy exactly, but she’s clearly very anxious about Elsa’s safety at all times. She follows Elsa everywhere, asks if she’s okay like a dozen different times, and only leaves her side when Elsa physically forces her to. I liked seeing how desperate she was to keep Elsa with her after being pushed away from her for so long. I liked watching her pick herself back up after she thought she’d lost her sister for good, and I loved how willing she was to destroy her own home to make things right with the Northuldra and the forest. Anna was very flawed and admirable in this movie, and just an all-around great character. And I definitely think she’s better suited as queen than Elsa. I wish we’d gotten a scene showing Elsa telling Anna that she was going to stay in the forest. It would’ve capped both their storylines a bit better to show both of them accepting this major change to their lives and their dual roles in their world. It seems like such a natural and obvious conclusion that I’m almost convinced that a scene depicting that very thing exists and was just cut for time.

I liked the snowman’s character arc, lmao. It was a nice microcosm of the movie’s themes, and the post-credits scene was a good way to end it.

I liked Mattias. He introduces the concept of doing “the next right thing” whenever you’re at a loss of how to proceed with your life. He’s also surprisingly willing to destroy Arendelle after Anna tells him why that needs to happen. I would’ve liked more dialogue there, or to see him struggle with the decision a little, but I guess there was just no time for it.

Aside from Iduna, the Northuldra characters weren’t in the movie quite as much as I think they should’ve been. There’s the tribe’s leader, who obviously has some (mutual) distrust of Mattias and what’s left of the Arendelle guard. There’s Honeymaren, who gives some useful exposition here and there, and she also gives you an idea of just how long the conflict between the Arendellians and the Northuldra has lasted since she’s lived her whole life without seeing the sky because of it. And then there’s Ryder, who... is basically Kristoff personality-wise, lmfao. Because we really needed two of him. I think you could’ve collapsed him and Honeymaren into one character without really losing anything crucial to the plot. But anyway, maybe they all could’ve played a part in guiding the rockbiters Earth Spirits to destroy the dam the way the Arendelle guard did. I get that that was meant to be a moment of reckoning for the Arendellian characters, but the Northuldra (and not just Anna) had a right to play a part in that, too. If nothing else, it would’ve been good to see the tribe’s leader watch the dam fall since she was alive to see it built in the first place.

As for Iduna... She’s an actual character in this movie. We learn that she’s part of the Northuldra tribe and that she apparently hid her identity from her husband all her life, I guess out of fear that he may harbor the same distrust of magic as his father (and given how he tried– however well-intentionally– to suppress Elsa’s magic after she accidentally hurt Anna, Iduna probably wasn’t wrong for that). At the same time, though, it makes you wonder why she never told Elsa about her heritage or the spirits while she was alive. She knew that humans and magic could coexist harmoniously; did she really keep that a secret just so her husband wouldn’t know who she was? Did King Husband just not suspect anything when his first kid was born a waterbender? I mean, I know the real reason for all this is that the writers just hadn’t thought this backstory up yet when the first movie came out, lol, but still. It throws the king and queen’s actions in the first movie in a more interesting context, but not one that really makes sense... I dunno, I guess it needed some more fine-tuning. A little more insight into Iduna’s rationale during Elsa’s childhood would’ve helped.

So to sum up: it’s not perfect, but I definitely think it was better written than the original (which I realize isn’t saying much, lol, but still). It does everything a sequel is supposed to do: it expands on the world the story takes place in, gives more depth to the characters (not just in giving them more backstory, but also in giving them new challenges to grow from), and tells a story that’s actually new. There are obviously things I think could’ve been done better, but it’s mostly stuff that would just improve something that already has a pretty good foundation (as opposed to the first movie, which almost needed to be completely reworked from the ground up). 

I liked the unified theming and how clearly it’s shown through the songs, the two leads’ character arcs, the OST, the visuals. I do wish it had followed through with some of the stakes it presented (like actually destroying Arendelle and just... letting Olaf stay dead lmfao), and that it’d developed a couple of the Northuldra characters a bit more, but yeah, overall? Not bad. Definitely an improvement from the original if nothing else.

[melissafoxmedia]

Gender roles, witches, demons and Hereditary. A film essay and review.

An opinionated and biased essay ahead, perfectly imperfect. This writer is aware of said bias's and welcomes your ideas respectuflly. Proceed. 

Halfway through his movie, I turned to my husband and said, “I think we might need therapy when this is all over.” I’d like to start with a caveat that we are a household that loves horror movies. In my opinion, horror is an under-appreciated genre. I'm not talking about franchise horror films, of which we are not a fan, with the exception of Insidious. I'm talking, The Shining, Blair Witch Project, Suspiria, Mommy, Let The Right One In, Babbadook. Classic horror tales and the like. Greek tragedies, even Shakespear. I have a lot to say about this one. So fair warning, this essay is long. 

A QUICK BACKGROUND

I grew up reading Steven King, Bram Stoker, Mary Shelly, Edgar Allen Poe, Anne Rice and Mark Danielewski. I would argue that even my favorite fantasy and science fiction writers like Tolkien and George R.R. Martin borrow from the horror genre. 

What solidified my interest in horror was actually a class in Chinese and Japanese cinema and art history. I enjoyed studying the nuances of the culture through the stories they told. Most of which were ghost stories. Ancestral worship is part of their culture. When visiting someones home, you might find a shrine to their passed loved ones. Ghosts are a normal, everyday part of their spiritual life. So too are their ghost stories. 

This connection to the dead is apparent in many cultures. The Celtic festival of Samhain, The Buddhist Obon, Dia De Los Muertos, Chuseok in Korea and Gai Jatra in Nepal. All have ceremonies and celebrations that honor ancestral spirits. Essentially, the ghosts of your family. I joke that even the Bible is one long ghost story. Full of death, rebirth, angels, demons, spirits, voices and apocalyptic visions. But where eastern religions and ancient cultures differ is around the premise of fear. Specifically spirits.

Take, for instance, the Buddhist Obon and Del Dia De Los Muertos. Celebrations designed to honor the people who came before you. Essentially, one envokes the spirits of your ancestors come back to visit the living. One would light lanterns or lay a path of flowers to guide those spirits back to earth for the celebration. You are literally inviting ghosts to come and have dinner with you. These rituals are not fear based spiritual practices. You will find no children running away in horror from the ghosts of great granddad. They are beautiful rituals full of dancing, prayer, and community.  

I grew up going to Church for a large part of my life, so my religious experiences of adolescence are based on my experiences with the Chrisitan church. Here notes my personal bias. I have no such memories of honoring my ancestors in a such a way from the Church. In fact, anything involving something seance-like would have been viewed as the devil. The dead are mourned in quiet reverence but one must be careful in creating any false idols. The only ghost that is ok to envoke, is the holy ghost. It's still very old testement thinking when it comes to this one. 

I have a vivid memory of sitting on a picnic bench at Jesus camp, 13 years old, sobbing uncontrollably. I just listened to a fiery sermon about hell and I was truly conflicted. I was already "saved," having said the prayer and done the ritual at 8 years old. But my father was not. He was an atheist. I didn't want him to go to hell. I was terrified and felt guilty. My counselor at the time kept pressing me to call him. She wanted me to "get him saved," right now. 

As an adult, I see how flawed that moment was. I did not call my father that night. I couldn't understand how my Christian peers thought less of me for doing so. I thought for sure that God would understand my compassion. My father and I had already discussed his feelings. He always respected my right to choose a religion, and I liked that, so I respected his. But that is not how I was treated by members of the Church. Needless to say, my relationship with the Church ended shortly thereafter and became an agnostic in my adult life. 

I could give many instances of examples of why I feel that Christianity is a fear based religion, but I am not defending that point for this essay. Let's assume that it is. 

I think it's interesting that our writer for Hereditary uses Goetia as it's religious influence. Goetia, an ancient Greek word that literally means sorcerer, get's its roots from the 16th century. Later, during the Renaissance, it became dubbed "black magic." The backdrop for the ending of the film and it's 17th-century Greek influence, we will explore later. But culturally, I think it's worth looking at this film through an American lens, of which, most of the population is Christian, making the comparisons I make relevant. Hereditary is an American film, written by an American writer. So I don't think he is trying to say anything specific about religion, other than to use it as a horror construct. This writer is obviously aware of his audience and is using that within his film. 

We like horror films about evil, possession and ghosts almost as much as we like superhero movies. That classic good versus evil fight. We love it when the lines are drawn in the sand and the tension is clear. We don't get that kind of clarity in life. In fact, life is made up of many unknowns and gray areas. Those two, a cause of our fear and anxiety. 

Hereditary doesn't put this idea front and center. Which is why I love it. The supernatural takes a back seat up until the second act. It dives headfirst into the gray areas to establish our characters and keeps us in the deepend with our worst fears. 

ABOUT HEREDITARY - NON-SPOILER REVIEW

Hereditary is brilliantly written and performed. If I were awarding Oscars, I would give one to the writer and one to the lead actress. The writing and specifically her performance is award worthy. It is visually stunning and draws from some of the best ancient storytelling techniques of the ages. Its greek tragedy influence is what makes the whole story so strong. The best moments are the long takes, the timing of the edit, the absence of music and truly breathless performances. 

But I would argue that the best thing about Hereditary is what it doesn’t explicitly say. Like a Greek Tragedy, it’s about the things that take place in-between the lines that make it so terrifying. It’s a spiritual horror film that speaks to our fears of inheriting the tragedies and traits of our ancestors. It’s about secrets between parents and children. Grief and it’s emotional manifestations. How tragedy can transform a person. It’s about the unspeakable terror that leads to more questions than answers. If you are looking for a nice bow-tie ending, you won’t get it. You are more likely to walk away going, “huh?” I loved the ending, but I think it will turn a lot of people off. It’s not what you are used to these days. 

The best thing about the movie, in my opinion, is about women, spirituality, possession, and emotion. Which leads us to the essay below. I won’t be diving into Greek Tragedy or deconstruction of its uses in horror films. That’s for another day. I think it’s been widely documented in reviews thus far. I’d like to take a look at Gender, Christianity, Religion and how this film plays with those larger social constructs. 

GENDER ROLES IN HORROR FILMS 

Gender roles in horror films are one of my favorite things to pick apart culturally. If you want to dive in more, this is an excellent place to start. Women in horror films have a long history of being gas-lighted by the male characters they interact within the plot. They are scorned with male “logic,” that the things they are experiencing aren’t real. Usually, they are tortured, shallow characters that look pretty and scream on cue. Often viewed as “crazy,” and spend most of the plot running from danger. This isn't always the case, there are a few standouts. But for the most part, I think the above is true. Women are either victims or "witches," in the majority of horror films. I also think it's interesting how we treat women who are having spiritual experiences. In our stories, we are uncomfortable with female emotion. Therefore, if someone is having an extremely emotional experience, we are likely to view them as scary.

We are at our roots a Puritan nation. One whose fear of “the devil,” allowed us to pillage “savage Indians,” in the name of that fear. Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries persecuted thousands of witches. Whole villages of Swiss women were wiped out in the hysteria.

In America, we have the Salem witch trials. 

I recently got to visit Salem Massachusetts. I read this fantastic book before I went called, “A Delusion Of Satan, The full story of the Salem witch trials.” Which outlines in more context the conditions and beliefs that lead to the "witch hysteria.” Today, those Puritans have received their Karma. Salem is a joke. It’s become a tourist Halloween town. Complete with haunted houses, tarot readers, and hippie spiritualists. The “devil,” they so fought to destroy has won. I laughed thinking about the righteous judges jumping through time to see children running around in witch costumes pretending to put spells on each other in their beloved village.  

The story of Salem became a cautionary tale of the dangers of religious belief. But the book attempts to take it one step further in outlining the gender roles of women, power dynamics between men and women and femininity, creativity and inspiration. Unlike the modern telling of the story like “The Crucible,” the book deliciously researches connections from historical records. The trials were meticulously documented. Which may be why the story has been passed down to new generations and became taught in schools. But the book makes some connections for me that my 5th-grade classroom reading of The Crucible didn’t. 

Life was hard as a puritan and men made all the rules. Imagination was stifled among children. Art was functional. Creativity was not encouraged, survival was. Sexuality was almost exclusively prohibited as a sin of the flesh with the exception of procreation. Pleasure was not allowed. Expression among women was silenced. These are all feminine values. Women who express extreme emotion are “crazy,” while men who express themselves in extreme ways are “passionate.” Soon “crazy,” became “a witch.” Any outburst of extreme emotion and a woman could be accused of being possessed by the devil. Witch hunting thus became inherently female and while anyone a could be accused of being a witch, most of the persecution was of women. 

As a little girl, I played a lot in an imaginative space. I experimented with all kinds of storytelling and play acting. As a teenager, I was emotional and dramatic. I guarantee if I had been observed by a Puritan priest, they would have convinced the town that I was possessed. I think most artists would have been accused of witchcraft in that era.

These tropes still exist today. We still silence women. We write stories where they are silenced by others. In a large majority of our horror films, women are either the victims or for lack of a better term, "witches." As time moved on, we stopped persecuting witches and started locking women up in asylums for misbehaving.  Thus replacing "witch," with "crazy."

I’m sure at some point, we have all thought our mothers to be “crazy,” through this lens too. Extreme imaginative outbursts or expressions of emotion are squashed in our society. We can barely handle a crying baby on an airplane let alone a woman who cries in public. 

And here marks the line of spoilers people. If you wish to continue, do so at your own risk. I am about to talk about the details of the story. 

GENDER, DEMONS AND WITCHES IN HEREDITARY

 Hereditary begins with our main character, Annie, in the midst of working on her art. She creates model dioramas. It is implied as the story chugs along that these dioramas are her emotional outlet. This is how she processes grief, anger, and fear. The tension between imagination, memory, and reality play nicely here. Why in the world would someone make a miniaturized model of the death of her mother? 

I enjoyed the duality of the models with life. The idea that I could take memories and tragedies out of my head and examine them as real-life objects. To see if I could make sense of them, process them differently. This process apears painstaking in the film. The details are fussed over, out main character possessed with the idea of recreation. A rebirth of her pain. Nicely done. 

Next, we meet Charlie. Charlie is different. She makes you uncomfortable but we trust her slightly more because we assume it’s a mental disorder. The play on gender here is masterfully done. Our young actress is phenomenal but I question the casting choice. We love to put our humanly different in horror films and this borders exploitation for me. It's akin to pointing at her and calling her "freak." I get that we are establishing a long line of mental health issues for our characters, so I'll leave this one be. But do better next time. 

Next, the shocking tragedy that propels our characters into some of the best moments of the film. Personally, I did not see that one coming. The car accident begins our true emotional terror. 

Annie experiences real grief for the first time in the loss of her daughter. She was relieved when her own mother died, having been released from the burden of that relationship only to be thrust forward into the guilt of playing a part in her own daughter's death. Grief is not handled lightly here. Our main character moves through hysteric fits. She retreats. She creates twisted dioramas of the accident. All the while her husband grows more and more suspicious of her behavior. Her husband literally acts as men have throughout history. Questioning the intensity of her emotions and wondering if he should send her away. If we are sticking with our horror metaphors, Annie is possessed by grief. 

My favorite scene to illustrate this concept is at the dinner table. Tensions mount in the household to an emotional breaking point. Our male characters confront our female lead and claim that she isn’t being truthful about her feelings. They invite her to express herself. 

She does. This eruption is the best scene in the film. Rarely do we get to experience female emotional flow on the screen. The sight of a woman in full emotional and visual expression makes our male characters physically retreat from the scene. The very thing they invited her to express is the very thing they can not handle and rather than applaud her completion of this expression, they squash it. The men refuse to join her and instead they persecute her almost as if saying, "burn the witch.’ The refreshing length of the shot and the stellar performance by the actress is noteworthy. They do not shy away from the complexities of extreme emotions. 

I think all of us are afraid that if we let go on some level, what comes forth would be bad. Tapping into our emotional flow is scary. So scary that as a society we can’t handle people doing it in front of us. We tell each other, “don’t cry,” when comforting one another. We tell our men, “crying isn’t manly.” And when we see our lead actress express herself on screen, we too as an audience are scared. We question her sanity, if only for a moment. Can we pause for a moment to admire the cinematography choice here? It's like an 18th century painting. 

I mean, look at that still shot above. Gorgeous terrifying women in full power feeling herself fully. Just hand Tonni Collect the Oscar, please. This scene is fucking amazing. I applauded Annie's capacity to let go and laughed when the men wouldn't join her. Granted, it has taken me a long time to be ok with my own extremities of emotions but now that I am, I was praising this goddess on screen. I honestly can't think of another on screen performance that accomplishes this as well as Hereditary does. 

Emotoins escalate as the film begins introducing the supernatural to the plot. Annie, meets with a new friend in her grief group, this friend conducts a saence to bring back the spirit of her grandchild. It seems to work and despite her reservations, she tries it. This triggers the climax of our film and leads to its ultimate resolution after discovering that her mother had a secret spiritual life. Spirituality “literally," kept in a box and hidden away until the very end of the film. I think spirituality is what our writer wants you to infer as the "hereditary trait." It’s the thing that our lead character doesn’t want to inherit from her mother. Her secret life. Her mental illness. Her spirituality. One might even say, she demonizes her mother. 😉 

 CHARLIE

The gender play with Charlie is also worth noting. At the conclusion of the film, we learn that Charlie is a male demon reincarnated into a female body. His name is Paimon. His rencarnation into Charlie was a mistake, as we learn at the conclusion of the film. The whole film is a plot to correct this mistake. Charlie referenced as she presents more like a tomboy with an androgynous name. While women are often “Witches,” in our scary stories so to men are painted as “Demons.” 

I always wondered why this trope existed in our storytelling. Sometimes I think it's about dominance and submission, Witches serve Demons. Men subservient to women. Demons are usually powerful creatures in our stories. Females are usually the victims of demon possession, either used for literal possession or for impregnation. But it wasn’t always that way. 

In the pre-Christian era, demons were both male and female. Much like the ancient polytheistic religions that had many gods and goddesses, so too was the gender spectrum of demons. It’s Christianity that spun the gender roles and made them sexless. Technically, Christian demons are fallen angels, as referenced in the Bible. They are sexless beings whose purpose is to test human beings on their faith in God and lead them to sin. 

 "For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ. 14. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. 15. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.” —2 Corinthians 11:13–15

 I always wondered, why then do we paint demons as masculine throughout history? See that winged creature demon up there - - - what sex do you infer when observing it? For context, the above painting is Dante and Virgil in Hell - William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1850. It’s a scene from Dante’s inferno, in which there are several biblical references used to describe the journey into hell. This painting is terrifying in person btw. It’s the size of a billboard and you can see the demons eyes staring at you from all angles. Notice the color palet and the lighting on the main figures in the foregroud. Remind you of any shot from before? 

Back to Hereditary … 

Why does Paimon need a male body? Why is he unhappy in a female body? Paimon is supposed to be a Prince not a Princess. If you don’t know who Paimon is … you aren’t alone. I had to look it up too. He’s one of the kings of hell with Goetic orgins, also referenced in Persian and Iranian stories. The “King," denotes man right? 

Paimon is referenced in a demonology spell book called Lesser Key Of Solomon. Therein lists 72 demons of which, one is Paimon. Each demon has a symbol, which was a clue in the film. Annie wears one around her neck. Guess she should have googled the symbol before wearing it. 

 So essencially our demon "man-king," is pissed because he was born a woman and his followers work to correct the issue. Wow. Talk about some gender issues right? The wiki page for Paimon also gives us a hint at a sequel btw… go read it if you like.

SO have you made it this far? 

If you have, cheers to you. Welcome to my geekery. I spent a lot of money on my education in art history, English and film critique. Literally wrote a paper a day for 4 years. I’m still paying off the bill. Blogs are more refreshing though, I don’t have to worry about being perfect or getting graded. I can just share my passion for picking apart social and cultural references in storytelling. 

That said, if Hereditary made me spawn a long essay like this, imagine what it might do for you. I will warn you, my husband is still having nightmares from the visuals. Which I didn’t even get a chance to geek out about here. That said, I do think that our tales of horror are the most interesting things to look at in society. Our relationship to fear or lack thereof is still taboo. Last year marked the first time a horror film was nominated for an Oscar, and I think to Get Out was nominated more for its cultural relevance and discussion of race in our time. I’d love to see more from this writer. I was seriously impressed. It’s well researched and smart with an excellent understanding of pace and emotional landscapes. 

So just like our movie, here ends my essay. I’m not going to neatly tie this up.

What did you think of the film? 

[wrydsigil]

WRITING THE SPEC SCREENPLAY BY A “HARD KNOCKS” SPEC SCREENPLAY WRITER - RICH KAMBAK

CAVEAT: 

MORE OR LESS AS YOU SERIOUSLY PURSUE YOU GOAL OF SELLING A FULL FEATURE SCRIPT/TV PILOT/SHORT FILM, THE BEING AND NOTHINGNESS OF YOUR LIFE STARTS TO LOOK MORE ABSURD, AND THE LESS YOU SERIOUSLY PURSUE YOUR GOAL, MIRRORING YOUR PROTAGONIST’S OWN DOUBTS, CONFLICTS WITH THE ANTOGONIST, AND MORE CHALLENGING IN THE REWRITES  YOU COME FULL CIRCLE BACK TO YOUR PSYCHE’S MUSES TELLING YOU THERE IS MORE WORK TO BE DONE.

PART I

The basic plot category development of screenplays has left many scratching their heads, wondering how to break it down into a coherent format.  The screenplay format is as complex as designing a blueprint for a house, but follows the basics of storytelling.

As a novice scriptwriter, you only need to understand the rudiments of screenplay structure to bring to life your writing imagination and creativity into a screenplay.

In this article I will incorporate a fictional script layout of my own examples for you to follow.  Each step is called a “plot pillar” (TENTPOLES) and each one ought to vary in intensity, gradually building a complex but enthralling story.

First, the title must be the metaphor for theme of your story.  For my example, I’ll use TETRIS, a suspense thriller genre that relates to the Russian video game and evokes a sense of checkmate computer intrigue.  Also, just about everyone knows Tetris, so it has a universal audience marketing appeal.

THE SCRIPT - PLAIN VANILLA - POWERFUL AND CONCISE

Write your: 

Genre/Tagline/Logline (25 words or less), A 3 paragraph synopsis. Use simple sentences, concise with crisp adjectives.

ACT I

A) In the beginning, page one, you introduce your Protagonist, setting them in their world – symbolically placing the appropriate atmosphere, and provide something that gives them a rub, friction in their lives, by revealing what the Protagonist is willing to accept or not accept.

In the opening scene action, JAKE, is the world’s smartest computer hacker and works for the good guys.  We see him in a gigantic mainframe vault, the biggest security surveillance system in the world.  Jake’s just found out someone new is joining him.  He fears he’s being phased out.

B) Moving on, the Protagonist’s allies are introduced.  These are characters that might be instrumental later on with helping your protagonist, or they define your Protagonist further.  How they interact will give you the mood you want to set.  The following character will provide me with the mood, foreshadowing and context I want to set up for the action to come later.

Enter, NINA, sultry Russian.  Every conversation with her is like playing rugby. She’s a wiz-kid engineer light years ahead of everyone else, especially Jake.

Jake’s reputation precedes him as Nina portrays.  Jake doesn’t trust her.  We don’t trust her.  But she just might be his last hope later on.  

The Foreshadowing I will use is that Nina worked for secret military research during Soviet times.

C) Next comes the Adventure.  This includes some planning, or event, that will cause our Protagonist to have to enter the Antagonist’s world.  

Jake and Nina are sent to China to work on a high security Internet system for the Chinese government. China is still a communist country.   Jake suspects Nina might have former contacts, living in a safe haven there. Jake’s old school, Cold War mentality.  Nina’s new school: Western “cool” capitalism.

D) A new ALLY appears.  This can be someone who gives advice, helps in resolving the major issue of the story, or they can appear from time to time in carrying along the story thread.

Jake and Nina meet LIU, the assigned interpreter, and Jake trusts her more than Nina, which Jake shows while they meet with China’s top brass in a secret meeting.  He’s playing into Liu’s hand.

E) Now comes the Point of Attack (POA). The Protagonist can witness or experience something that will challenge the Protagonist’s character.   This can be a sufficient gain or loss.

Then, Liu seems to prefer Nina more, leaving Jake out of an important meeting.

This brings about the second portion of the POA: Reaction and response from our Protagonist.  This is written with intensity, so the audience starts to enjoy the roller coaster ride, which is vitally important for a suspense thriller.

Jake doesn’t want any part of the project.  He decides to abort and return to the US.   Nina persuades him to stay.

F) In the next plot point, the Protagonist is now committed to the Antagonist’s world.   This is called, “crossing the threshold” and the antagonist’s allies appear.  At this stage the Antagonist’s motives ought to be revealed, though the Antagonist is not exposed.

Jake and Nina are taken to a very remote location in China, where a military installation operates global surveillance.  Jake is impressed with the high tech operation.  Nina becomes aware that Liu is an ally of the antagonist.  Tries to warn Jake, who doesn’t believe her.

ACT II

It is crucial that you have a transformation arc between Act I and Act II, because this is the turning point of the story.  The plot doesn’t change here, but continues with emphasis on location.

G) The Antagonist’s allies test the Protagonist to start the learning process, the character arc for the Protagonist to start shifting.

Chinese military officials show their surveillance of Jake.  They show how they tracked his less than honest hacking of their computer systems years before.  Confronted with this evidence, Nina questions Jake’s integrity.  Liu has been leaking everything Jake confided with her, which is now exposed.

H) The Antagonist’s motives appear. Finally the push and pull, and challenges facing the Protagonist are put directly in front of the Antagonist’s plot.  

The Chinese test Jake’s ability by forcing him to crack a certain code, a code that is familiar to Nina.  It is a hybrid CYPHER ENCRYPED binary code that runs like a very familiar video game Jake played as a kid.

I) The Protagonist’s crisis has finally come.  This ought to be the near-triumph point for the Antagonist.

Jake fumbles the test in cracking the code.  He’s frustrated.  The Chinese are delighted.  Nina was afraid to help Jake, because she recognized the programming style.   Her hesitation confuses Jake.

Up till now Jake’s gone along with the challenges, looking the other way at the militaristic culture, the communist regime’s intolerance for Jake’s American mannerisms, the censorship of the media and people, and especially Nina’s competitive nature.   This is his last straw.

Now, it’s your turn to write out your own storyline using this format.  In Part II, you’ll bring it all to a nice resolve.  

Now take a break, a day or two off then come back to where you left off.  This will give you some time to digest, reflect and your mind cinema will tell you where your need to make edits.

PART II

We pick up in the middle of Act II, where our Protagonist has come to his own despair about the circumstances of his actions.  Hopefully,  you’ve fleshed out your own storyline from the previous article, giving you some ideas in how to proceed in bringing the story to a brilliant resolve.

RECAP: The plot so far has Jake trapped in a secret Chinese military surveillance facility with his colleague Nina.

The Antagonist comes forth.  

It is Nina’s old Soviet boss, a ruthless and cunning Oleg, who has designed a new Internet virus, named “Tetris” which can cause a global “zero day” crash.   

But he needs Nina to finish it.  She’s the wiz-kid.  Jake was just a pawn to use to bring her to him.   Jake’s tossed into a cellar prison.   Oleg will kill Jake, if Nina doesn’t do what he asks.

The Protagonist gets a second chance.  He bounces back from despair and escapes immediate danger.

Liu has a change of heart.  Appears at Jake’s cellar prison door, telling him she’ll help him.  He asks for a wireless laptop.

The Protagonist learns something through the immediate predicament.

Jake realizes that he’s in love with Nina, and she means more to him than his profession.

M) The Protagonist has a profound change about his computer hacker life.

Jake, using a remote laptop, hacks an online access to an old friend, a member of the clandestine hacker’s Club 21.   Meanwhile, Nina is stalling, purposely reconfiguring the virus worm program, which makes Oleg furious.  He demands for Jake to be brought back.

ACT III

The final transformation arc moves us into another spin of the Protagonist’s behavior in coping with his desperate situation and bringing it to resolve.

O) Here the Protagonist’s most remarkable qualities shine.  They signify the most important plot point in the story.

Jake tells Nina to do what Oleg demands.  Nina is confused, afraid.  Jake sides with Oleg; reinforcing Oleg’s demented scheme with the Chinese. Why not, it’s been revealed that Jake once wanted to bring down the WWW all by himself.    But this is what makes Jake so good at what he does. Jake is a master at using reverse psychology to get what he wants.   Jake demands that Nina do it.  Hating him, she does.

P) The Antagonist is thwarted.  

When Nina finishes programming Tetris, and Oleg sets it to run, it suddenly goes haywire; showing the simple Tetris game on the monitor, that is obviously being played by someone not in the room.  

In the cellar prison scene, we planted the foreshadowing of Jake contacting one of his hacker buddies.  We already knew going into the above scene that Jake had fixed the deck in his favor.  The audience can enjoy the duping of Oleg.

The show down between the Antagonist and Protagonist.  The Protagonist has already made their transformation and is going to act upon it.

Jake and Nina must now flee the Chinese bunker, with the help of Liu.  Here is the life and death chase scene, and Jake’s cunning at having already scoped out the possible escape routes when they first arrived, that saves their hides.

The final resolution.  For this plot driven story, there’s a happy ending.  The Protagonist returns to their ordinary world, redressing the Protagonist’s problems at the beginning, now eliminated.  There’s restoration to the world.

Jake’s hacker friend notified the appropriate authorities about Jake and Nina’s plight in China.  Consequently, all was exposed.

Jake and Nina returned to the US, along with Liu, who is having an online romance with Jake’s hacker friend.

Jake and Nina have finally admitted their initial mutual attraction when they first met. Checkmate. 

(I LIKE THE METAPHOR OF THE CHESS GAME - BECAUSE THE  FIRST MOVE WILL DECIDE THE END GAME’S WINNER.)

The key point that is a must for the ending is to portray vividly the heart of the issue of the story at the end.  This example is very simplistic.   Of course, you could do better.

GOOD LUCK!

[adventuresinlibraries]

Du Iz Tak (Audiobook)

Written by Carson Ellis

Produced by Weston Woods Studios a division of Scholastic

Narrated by Carson Ellis and Eli and Sebastian D’ Amico, Burton Galen, Laura Fott, Sarah Hart, Bella Higginbotham, Evelyn Hipp, and Brian Hull.

2019 Oddessy Award

I settled on this audiobook purchase while looking at 2019 Oddessy Award Winners. We had just finished Kekla Magoon’s The Summer of Styx Malone and I figured a 7-minute book would  be the perfect way to cap off our book group.

I should have known what I was getting into, Carson Ellis was the illustrator half of the husband-and-wife creators of the Wildwood series, written by Colin Malloy, a tale where children adventure into a land of talking wolves and other wild creatures. My family both loved and hated this book series when we listened to it last year. Its fantastic strangeness and unique concept is sometimes overshadowed by a darkness that was too much for some of my listeners.

Du Iz Tak was beautifully and utterly confusing. It consists completely of soaring music, gentle sound effects, and the voices of the characters, who the Audible description said were insects.

They speak entirely in nonsense syllables.

It is easy to define the voices and you get a vague idea that these bugs have names and that they’ve found something. Changes in inflection provide subtle clues to the action.  The narrators’ voices rise in excitement at “Unc Gladdenboot,” whatever that is. We tried to pick out names, objects, questions, and statements based on the speech patterns in the recording.

The story is told primarily by the music introduced by a gorgeous assortment of instruments, a pan flute, violins, a piano, a harp, and others. The listener can hear suspense in the tremolo of violins, happiness in a harp, anger in slammed piano keys, and sadness introduced by a cello.

The children listening were confused, too. After two minutes, an eleven-year-old was ready to turn it off. At five minutes, a six-year-old asked what was happening. At seven minutes, I sat there stunned, wondering what I was missing. How had this recording won any awards?

I pulled up a video of a librarian, Miss Mel of the Canadian International School of Singapore reading aloud the hardcover version of Du Iz Tak. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_GGDlNQu3I. I pressed play and our confusion vanished. The illustrations made all the difference.

Later, I pulled up the same video and turned off the sound. When I played the audiobook on my phone I could pause and play the video to sync the page turns up with the dialogue on the audiobook.

This time listeners wanted to “read it again.”  The music and well-paced dialogue offer a perfect foil to the context clues provided by the pictures. The story is told chronologically and is about a group of bug friends who find a plant growing in a field. As the plant grows and the story of its life cycle unfurls, a giant zinnia-like flower blooms. The insect children add a ladder and some bits and pieces and it becomes a tree-house wonderland. Then, the flower goes to seed and the seasons change. But at the end of the story, an entire field of green shoots stand in harmony with the bright and hopeful piano score. By adding the pictures, the audiobook made sense, even for a young child.

This audiobook, when paired with the physical book, creates a listening experience well-suited to a classroom listening corner. Upon further investigation I found that one of the narrators involved in the project, Galen Fott, had produced an animated version of the book, available on Amazon Prime Video.

The pictures in the physical book are whimsical and detailed. The book won a Caldecott in 2017. 

The concept, a group of characters navigating a situation using only nonsensical dialogue, is set in a dynamic evolving outdoor landscape that could be anywhere. The conflict in some ways is between the reader and the language itself as words and names repeat and ideas sync with syllables in the mind of the reader. This offers a bunch of different perspectives to explore with children. They could use the book as a springboard to put on their own play, written and illustrated with own nonsense words, or break down the language and sentence structures in this book to create a glossary while working in small groups. 

Using the audiobook to follow along with the picture book narrative will help steppingstone readers develop fluency and up their reading speed as nonsense words stretch the reader to recognize letters, not just whole words. (Groff, P. G., 2003)

The other theme in the book, the subtle change of seasons is also a great one to study using this audiobook. The children could dance to the rhythm of the season, slowing down in winter, dancing gaily in summer and spring, or make their own picture book using favorite familiar play spot as a setting. 

Another way to use the book would be to practice careful listening skills. The music in the book is powerful and varied. Throughout the audio book there are many different instruments for listeners to pick out. They each have different moods and attitudes and it would be an interesting activity to talk about how we can tell how the characters feel or how the seasons are changing by the tone and cadence of the music.

It would pair well with concept books about the seasons, like  Four Seasons Make a Year by Anne Rockwell and illustrated by Megan Halsey. In this book, a young farmgirl plants a sunflower seed in the spring. The book follows the life cycle of the plant and the girl’s activities through the four seasons. 

Fiction picture books about nonsense words would also pair well.  The Hungry Thing, by Jan Slepian and Ann Seidler and, Froodle by written Antionette Portis are two suggestions.

The Hungry Thing is about a hungry monster who gets things a little garbled. 

Froodle is about birds who decide to get creative when they sing.

There is a metamorphosis in Du Is Tak when a creature changes into a beautiful moth, so A Luna Moth’s Life, by John Himmelman which documents the life cycle of these delicate creatures, or classic The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle about a caterpillar who is trying to find the perfect food to set off his transformation into a butterfly, might be good additions to seed your bookshelf with if you are using this audiobook.

The story is simple and would appeal most to younger children, probably four to 6 or 5-7. Children who were very young might have trouble keeping up with the unfamiliar language. And, older children would not be as interested in the simple nature of this story. The characters are flat and the plot is very straightforward. 

The soothing rhythm of this audiobook would also probably make a great bedtime addition, once a child knows the story. I’ll test that hypothesis later…

Groff, P. G. (2003). The usefulness of pseudowords. Strasburg, VA: The National Right to Read Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.nrrf.org/essay_pseudowords.htm.