#if you had a similar premise except it's a monster that turns into a human and the show was made by monsters he might find it fascinating

[rustedleopard]

Hate to be a Debbie Downer but I don't think Chujin would like Ben 10 (or at least not be openly obsessed with it).

I feel like if you told him the premise of the show (A 10-year old human boy gains the power to turn into 10 aliens (which are kinda sorta monsters) and he fights other aliens with this ability), he'd scoff and say "This show is an appeal to humanity's naturally violent tendencies!" and "They're indoctrinating children! Humans find the idea of child soldiers entertaining!" and "This show discriminates against monstrous beings!" and all of these other dramatized nit-picks about it, despite the fact that it's a fictional cartoon whose target demographic is tween boys.

(I just think that all monsters should take human media a bit too seriously in one way or another. IDK if he would actually believe that a human could turn into a bunch of aliens with a wrist watch, but I do think he'd take the premise of "a child fights fantastical battles against aliens" too literally. Kinda like those parents who think their kid playing a video game where you kill fictional monsters is "corrupting the youth.")

Now, if you put an episode of Ben 10 on the TV, I do think he'd stop whatever he's doing to stand behind the couch, arms crossed/in his pockets in that "I am interested in what's going on on the TV but not enough to commit to actually sitting down" sorta way. He'd probably scoff and roll his eyes whenever Ben does something stupid because Ben is a 10 year-old and this boosts his ego a bit because "ha, I'm way smarter than this kid, I could see how that action would go wrong from a mile away. If this is how humans are on the Surface, I'd easily be able to crush them. Especially with my serum and Axis." But the split second you catch him in the act of watching, he pretends that he was looking for something in the room and then walks out.

[picturejasper20]

What's your opinions on modern Pixar, do you think their films are becoming generic?

Not necessary?

Their latest films have had different types of plots. Luca was about two monster friends who want to belong in the human world Turning Red was about a girl dealing with a curse, learning to see it as something positive for her and working through her family generational trauma

Lightyear was about a man being so obsessed with fixing his own mistake that he didn't realize that he was missing the lives of his friends (even if the execution wasn't the best)

Elemental is a story about a girl dealing with how hard her parents work to give her a stable life and the whole thing about being daugther of immigrants.

Maybe there are some similarities in themes between Luca and Elemental? But even then the execution is different.

What i see, with exception of Turning Red, is that the films lack certain...spark to put it that way. They don't feel like they push hard enough or try taking more risks.

So when you have films like Across the Spideverse, Tmnt: Mutant Mayhem and Nimona, Pixar films feel like they lack certain substance, or a certain identity, you could say.

Their films aren't probably bad. In fact, many people like them if you asked them. The thing is that i think people believe that haven't done anything too groundbreaking lately. Something that years later is going to be looked back as an example of a film that left an impact in the industry.

There is reason of why their films from the 2000's are still remembered and cited by so many today. Because, even if the animation is outdated, the writing, direction, themes and characters are still memorable to this day.

I think the films from those years were more...polished. In the sense that they tried pushing boundaries and go out of their away from their comfort zone to tell a story the audience could really connect with.

I mean, Ratatouille has one of the most simple premises ever and yet i consider it one of the best Pixar films because of how good everything is executed in it.

I do like that their current films try to be based on personal experiences from the directors and people who work in them but... the problem is that they lack that certain ¨push¨ to be in the same place that other animated films are in.

[revengerevisited]

So I’ve been kinda dancing around my original story idea for a little while, and I got this idea in my head of ‘what if I release chapter 1 and then get feedback without telling anyone what the story is about first so it’s more of a surprise?’ But honestly? I’m realizing since I already released a preview-of-a-preview for chapter 1, and it might be a little while until I finish chapter 1, plus I honestly kinda feel like I’d rather work on sketches of my character designs than write at the moment, I might as well go ahead and tell you guys. X’3

So! I watched a couple anime recently both centered around the premise of... monster girls! These being Monster Musume and Monster Girl Doctor, but then I noticed there’s also Interviews with Monster Girls, A Centaur’s Life, and the infamous Interspecies Reviewers, and I asked myself... Monster girls are pretty popular right now, yeah? But where’s all the monster boys?! And that’s how I got the idea! I re-watched some of my favorite anime based on Otome Games, Kamigami no Asobi and Uta no Prince Sama for inspiration as well, and a few ones I hadn’t seen before like Dance with Devils and Magic-kyun Renaissance for inspiration as well.

So now I’ve got my premise that I shared earlier: This is the story of Millie, a young woman down on her luck who happens to live in a world where monsters aren’t just real, but commonplace. She started working as a maid in a mansion-turned-art-school whose students are a group of very attractive monster boys. The twist is that these aren’t just any monster boys; they belong to various rare and exotic species with deadly reputations...

Note that character and place names are technically place-holders for now and may change if I come up with better ones. Now, I don’t wanna spoil anything story-wise, but I think I can introduce my setting and some of the characters that you’re gonna meet. The story is set in a modern setting, though it’s vague if it’s actually Earth or just some generic world similar to it, as I try to avoid referencing real-world places or events. This is a world where humans and monsters live together after a Great Interspecies War happened in the past, but tensions have mostly relaxed by the time the story takes place. The war could be thought of as the equivalent of our own World War One, one in which there was a truce decided after many years of stalemate fighting.

The city everything takes place in is tentatively named Dullahan, and was built directly after the war to commemorate peace between human and monster kind. It’s considered an artistic cultural center, and it’s got a lot of interesting entertainment places to go to, arcades, theaters, aquariums, etc, that the characters can have a lot of different shenanigans in. The other main setting is the Beaufort Academy of the Arts, which was actually a mansion that was converted into a small private school. This is where all the characters live, and our main character Millie works as a maid there.

Before I go into the characters, I should start with the various monster species. There are 12 species, divided into 2 groups: common monsters and exotic monsters. The common monsters are centaurs, harpies, lamias (snake people), kobolds (dog people), ogres, and merrows (mermaids). These species are all pretty standard, and will be mostly background characters and npcs. The main characters, and love interests for Millie, will be of the exotic variety: arachnes (spider people), sirens (deep-sea mermaids), mandrakes (plant people), dragons, manticores (with a liontaur body-type), and scyllas (octopus people).

So what differentiates a common monster from an exotic one? Well, while the Interspecies War was between humans and monsters in general, some monsters were already at least partially integrated into human society, and the rest followed soon after the war ended. These monsters were almost as common as humans, and either herbivorous or omnivorous, with the exception of the carnivorous lamias who prefer to eat eggs over anything else. On the other hand, the so-called ‘exotic’ species were not only much more rare, but they had a very different food preference... one which earned them the now derogatory nickname... man-eaters.

Naturally, most ‘man-eaters’ weren’t exactly welcomed into human --nor common monster-- society with open arms, not that most of them wanted to. For the most part, species as powerful and dangerous as them didn’t want to play nice with those they had once --and in some cases still do-- regard as prey, and so hid away into the furthest reaches of the world. Which of course makes them perfect material for all our leading men and Millie’s various love-interests!! Oh yes, while all of these monster boys are perfectly civilized --well, for the most part-- they still belong to species that many both human and monster alike continue to fear to this day. While they aren’t exactly fish out of water (well, except for the siren) there’s still plenty of awkward misunderstandings and interesting scenarios that can be played out.

So! Let’s have a quick run-down of the characters, keep in mind that none of these names are final and could change later on. First there’s Millie, a hardworking young woman who’s had a recent streak of bad luck. Through a misunderstanding she gets hired as a maid in a mansion-turned-art-school. She’s very sweet and tries her best to help others, but she’s not as innocent as she appears; she’ll understand your innuendos just fine, even if she doesn’t really say any herself! Next is Richard and Lara Beaufort, a husband and wife who run the school. Richard is rather laid-back, yet he’s also a master of all kinds of art, painting, sculpture, photography, dancing, singing, you name it! Lara is his arachne wife, a rather boisterous woman who owns a high-class fashion company. The secret to her clothing’s success?? Arachne silk, of course! The school was her idea, a way to help better integrate exotic species into society. Will her mission succeed? Only time can tell.

Richard and Lara have a son named Simon, our first love interest and a human-arachne hybrid who takes almost entirely after his mother in the looks-department (hybrids tend to look like one species or the other, rather than a mix of both). He’s a bit withdrawn due to dealing with bullying as a kid; most people --human and monster alike-- are afraid of his spider-like appearance, so he doesn’t get out much-- to the point his parents worry about him being a shut-in for life! He’s also a gamer boy, and has a secret soft side for gothic poetry, although he doesn’t want to join his parents’ art classes. He actually disapproves of his mother’s exotic species integration plan, as from what he’s experienced he feels it’s a waste of time.

Simon’s best friend and Millie’s second love interest is Louis, a mandrake who lives in the woods behind the manor. Louis is extremely shy and more than a bit lonely, even more so than Simon, and he doesn’t speak very often out of fear that the sound of his voice will hurt others around him. Mandrake screams can induce insanity or even kill those that hear them, hence his fear. Being part plant, Louis has mild shape-shifting abilities and is able to transform between child and young adult forms at will, although he’s actually the oldest of the group. He also isn’t a student at the art school, although he has an interest in floristry.

Now for our actual students! Forrest is a manticore, which in this world means he has a body similar to that of a centaur, but with the lower half of a lion instead of a horse, and a scorpion-like tail tipped with a deadly venomous stinger. Despite his species’s name literally meaning ‘man-eater’, Forrest is extremely friendly and cheerful, and is very sporty too. His passion is photography, and he also loves eating food-- any sort of meat dish is fine by him! He’s also a fan of fantasy tabletop roleplaying games, and will often make references comparing them to everyday life; he always plays the knight who saves the princess!

Anthony is a childhood ‘friend’ of Forrest’s, though he’s loathe to admit it. Highly intelligent and highly snobbish, Anthony fancies himself an intellectual-- and he’s not exactly wrong. Being a dragon, he likes to hoard things-- in his case, knowledge. Anthony loves to read, and is most often found in the library. His skill is in drawing and painting, and all his paintings’ invariably morose subject matter worry Millie. Still, this haughty dragon could definitely learn to loosen up a little, and be a little more kind; perhaps his stay at the academy --and his interactions with Millie-- will open his mind to appreciating the feelings of others. He does, at the very least, greatly respect Master Beaufort as a master of the arts.

The other two students are denizens of the sea, and have been friends for a very long time. Emil is a scylla, and like all scyllas he’s a little eccentric, and just can’t seem to keep his tentacles to himself! While Forrest is obsessed with eating, Emil’s true calling is cooking, and he loves making all kinds of dishes, especially anything seafood and/or foreign. Emil also is highly appreciative of women’s fashion, and absolutely adores everything to come from Madam Beaufort’s clothing brand-- so much so that he actually wears them himself! His pretty-boy looks and penchant for wearing women’s clothing actually has Millie mistake him for a girl at first, though he’s very much unafraid to show her his romantic side, or at least what he interprets as romantic... 

Keeping Emil’s pervy antics in check is our sixth and final monster boy, Oswald! As a siren, Oswald spent most of his life in the sea, and still has a lot to learn about humanity. He’s a pretty cool guy but gets a bit embarrassed about his species’s troublesome past as the cause of many shipwrecks at sea, and would prefer to not discuss it. His passion is rock music, and his main instrument is the guitar. He also loves to sing, but refrains from doing so due to the hypnotic effect it has on other species. His lack of legs, tentacles, or a snake-like tail means that like other merrows and sirens he requires a wheelchair to move around on land, and often feels frustrated that he can’t show off how adept he is at traversing water. He’s also easy to embarrass and obsessed with not allowing anything to ‘ruin’ his manly image, including allowing Millie (a girl!) to help carry him around.

So there you have it, all my monster boys! I left out a few things, as those would be major spoilers, but those are my ideas for the characters for now! I’ll try to draw and post some sketches of their designs later. Hopefully I haven’t forgotten anything, but this won’t be the last time I talk about monster boys. Any questions or comments would be very much appreciated! Nsfw questions are allowed (all the boys wear pants for a reason, after all), though I’m currently not sure if this series will be 16+ or 18+, if you catch my meaning. Lemme know how interested you are in this story, or if you’re not interested please let me know that too! 

[duhragonball]

Hellsing Liveblog Chapters 25-27

This is the first leg of the “D” arc.   I had originally planned on trying to do the whole thing in one post, but it’s pretty long and meanders in places, so instead I’m going to break it up, starting with the part that wraps up volume 4 of the collected editions.

Much of these first three chapters just showcases Millennium preparing to depart their secret headquarters in Brazil.  They have three blimps, maybe more.   We already saw the Graf Zeppelin III, but there’s also a Graf Zeppelin II and a Hindenberg II.   Also, the Major refers to all of this as “Operation Sea Lion 2″.  The original “Operation Sea Lion” was Nazi Germany’s plan to invade the U.K. during World War II.   It was never enacted, however, because the Germans couldn’t establish air and naval superiority over the British.  Basically, the Major is declaring that he has finally achieved what Hilter could not, thanks to his “Last Battalion” of 1000 vampire soldiers.

The bridge of his flagship (flagblimp) has this big comfy chair on a robot arm, and a panoramic world map.   The arrows on the map point in all sorts of nutty directions, including the United States and other European nations.   I could have sworn I had heard some mention in Hellsing Ultimate of Millennium sending forces to the U.S., but the international angle was never mentioned again, and I assumed that I must have imagined it.  In any event, the Major made it clear that his target is Alucard specifically, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense to invade places where Alucard is not.

The Major prepares to take his seat only to find Warrant Officer Schrödinger sitting in his chair.   Remember, Schrödinger inexplicably teleported himself to London to address Hellsing and Iscariot, and then he got shot and killed for his trouble.   But now he’s back, alive and well.   He mocks the Major for being to slow, and the Doctor scolds him for his insolence, but the Major orders Doc to back off.   This is a running gag throughout the rest of the series.  The Doctor keeps trying to chastise Schrödinger, but the Major lets him do whatever the boy wants, almost like he’s some favorite pet.  

Meanwhile, an unidentified helicopter tries to land on a British carrier, the H.M.S. Eagle.   The Captain orders his crew to open fire, but the first officer suddenly does this:

So yeah, the first officer is a vampire now, and he’s sold out Queen and Country for Millennium.  He and a handful of vampire crewmen kill the rest of the crew and turn them all into ghouls, allowing the helicopter to land, making way for...

This lady, Lieutenant Rip Van Winkle.  I should point out that in the pages leading up to her boarding the Eagle, she was singing Engelandlied, a German war anthem from World War I.   She’s nutty, is the idea.

So, I’m gonna go ahead and put forth my fan theory that all the bad guys we dealt with prior to Rip were just patsies for Millennium, and not actual members in their own right.   This includes Tubalcain “Dandyman” Alahambra, because, for all his powers, no one ever said his rank, leading me to think he didn’t have one.   Same with the Valentine Brothers and any of the vampires Alucard and Seras were sent to fight during the first dozen or so chapters of this manga.   Millennium may have turned them into vampires, and in some cases they even let them in on Millennium’s inner workings, but they were never more than cannon fodder.   Jan seemed to understand this, although Luke and Dandyman seemed to believe they were genuinely created to represent the new pinnacle of vampiric power.   Even the Doctor thought Dandyman had a strong chance of beating Alucard, but in the end they were just experiments meant to test Alucard’s mettle.

And, really, the rest of Millennium is not much different, except Rip and the others actually know why they’re being sacrificed, even if they don’t necessarily understand how or when.

Meanwhile, Seras still won’t drink blood, and she keeps trying to eat regular food instead, even though she struggles to swallow every bite.   I’ve never been very clear on whether vampires in Hellsing can eat non-blood food or not.  Seras is doing it, albeit painfully, but I don’t think she really gains anything from it, except whatever coping mechanism this is supposed to serve.   

So in walks Sir Integra, who dumps a bag of medical blood on her table.  Seras never really answers Integra’s question, but she already told Walter, and it’s not much of an answer.   The heart of the matter is this: Seras really doesn’t want to be a vampire.   Or, maybe, more accurately, she doesn’t want to stop being human.   The trouble is that she already lost that battle way back in Chapter 1. 

In many ways, Seras has accepted her fate.   She works for Hellsing, recognizes Alucard as her vampire master, and so on.  I think she understands that this is the only life she can have now, and her will to live is strong enough that she appreciates what Alucard and Integra have done for her.    At her core, Seras is a public servant, and fighting monsters for Hellsing is not so different from fighting crime as a policewoman.  I think she sees her current condition as a means to that end.   She doesn’t crave power like the evil vampires we’ve seen thus far.    Seras views her abilities as a means to an end.   Alucard biting her gave her a way to stay alive and continue fighting the good fight.

However, she doesn’t want the baggage that goes along with that.   She wants to retain as much of her humanity as she can, and drinking blood is the one thing that she has some control over, or so she believes.

But Integra’s far too practical for that dilemma.   Alucard was willing to respect Seras’ relucatance, but she needs her troops on their toes and ready for action.  So she takes a knife and cuts open her finger, and then orders Seras to lick the blood off.    This is... disturbingly sexual, and one of a number of scenes that reminds me that Hirano Kouta had done a lot of, er, adult comics before Hellsing.   I think he did a lot of uniform fetishy stuff too, which is why Seras and Schrödinger’s uniforms look so similar to each other.   Both are meant to resemble German WWII gear.   I’m willing to grant some leeway here, because there’s probably only so many ways to do a finger-licking scene like this without sexualizing it a little, but the last bit with the saliva trail is just revolting. 

So, what’s bugged me for a long time was that if Seras drank (a little) of Integra’s blood here, why did this subplot not get paid off until much later in the story?  She drank blood, didn’t she?   Well, yeah, but Integra ordered her to do it, so it doesn’t count.   This came up a couple of times earlier in the story, when Walter and Al mentioned that she wouldn’t drink blood willingly.  It’s not just an ethical issue for Seras, or she’d simply chow down on the medical blood.  I guess Integra could force feed her every night, but that wouldn’t solve anything.   This is about Seras accepting her transformation as a fait accompli.   I think this is why she very nearly drank Alucard’s blood back in Northern Ireland, when it sure looked like there was no other way for her to survive.  But if she’s just sitting there with no one making her do it, and no urgent need to do it, she’ll refuse every time.  

I think Hellsing uses the premise that a vampire has to do more than just bite a human to turn them into a vampire.  That is, Alucard had to put his own blood in Seras’ body to complete that transformation.   I think that’s how it worked in the Dracula novel, and Seras herself mentions it in the Gonzoverse anime.   But that wouldn’t count either, because it’s part of the change itself.  The idea is for the new vampire to partake in blood-drinking by choice, and until that happens, they won’t get all the cool powers.   

One other thing, Integra takes this opportunity to mention that she’s a virgin, which is a weird flex for this situation, but okay.  In Hellsing, that means Integra could become a vampire herself, but not if Seras bites her, because it has to be a vampire of the opposite sex.   In any case, Tegs warns Seras not to bite down during this creepy finger-licking KFC-hentai thing.   

Back in the damn ocean, Lt. Rip van Winkle is welcomed aboard by the traitorous crew of the Eagle.   She asks them how it feels to be a vampire, and causally reminds them of their treachery.   Then she gives them new orders, which are to die by her magic gun, which fires a bullet that can turn around in midair.

And so the First Officer and his lackeys learn the same lesson as the Brazillians working for the Dandyman, and the Dandyman himself, and the Valentine Brothers and whoever else.  Millennium might turn you into a vampire, but that hardly means that you’ll live forever.   Millennium always demands treason as payment for their help, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that they might betray you sooner or later.

Besides, Rip doesn’t need the British crew, because she has her own henchman on board her chopper.   While she waits for them to wake up, she paints a swastika on the deck, just to make it clear that they’ve taken control of the Eagle, which she renames the Adler.  That’s German for “Eagle”, you see.

Back on his blimp, the Major cuts this twenty-minute promo which basically amounts to “I love war, we have no particular agenda except to wage endless war for the fun of it.”   Back in England, Alucard is eagerly awaiting their arrival.  

[cherry-valentine]

Fall 2020 Anime Season:

Golden Kamuy Season 3 is, so far, just as good as the first two seasons. For anyone unfamiliar with the show, it follows a former soldier called “Immortal Sugimoto” (nicknamed so for his tendency to survive a lot of shit that would kill most people) and a young Ainu (the Japanese equivalent of Native Americans) girl as they search Northern Japan (and even parts of Russia) for hidden Ainu gold. The story is pretty wild, with threats coming from the wildlife and the harsh, snowy conditions as often as from mercenaries, assassins, and various other human dangers. The cast has expanded enough that we have several separate groups of cool, well-written characters roaming about (and they’ve shuffled a bit from season two, making their interactions very interesting). Sugimoto remains one of my favorite anime protagonists. He’s one of the more brutal, violent main characters I’ve seen, but, strangely, also one of the nicest. He’s kind to innocents (both people and animals) but will slaughter his enemies without hesitation. He’s also pretty funny. Then again, almost every character is subject to the show’s weird but endearing humor. It’s very hard to dislike any character, even the ones who are quite cruel. The show is also notable for having a lot of homoerotic subtext. The beefy, handsome men sure do love taking their clothes off and wrestling. Like, taking it ALL off. Multiple times per season. Yeah. Watch this show, everybody.

Ikebukuro West Gate Park is a new show this season that I was initially interested in because it reminded me of Durarara!! in that it’s set in Ikebukuro and features color gangs. That’s where the similarities end, however. Whereas Durarara!! had tons of supernatural elements and just plain craziness, IWGP is more realistic by comparison. The show follows Makoto, a seemingly normal guy who seems to function in a sort of “odd jobs” type of role for a color gang called the G Boys. While they’re a gang, they don’t seem like criminals or thugs, or even delinquents. They really feel more like a club, held together by their respect for the leader referred to as King. So far the series seems to be episodic in nature, with most stand-alone episodes focusing on some sort of social issue, from drug addiction to immigration. It’s interesting to see these issues presented in such a sympathetic light, viewed through the lens of Tokyo’s youth. The art is nice, with varied character designs and animation that���s just good enough that you don’t notice the problems very often. The music is a highlight, with my favorite opening theme of the season and one of the better ending themes.

Magatsu Wahrheit is a show I was very iffy on at first. It has a lot of things working against it. It’s based on a video game I’ve never heard of, the opening theme is one of the cheapest, most unimpressive things I’ve ever seen (note: it does improve a few episodes in!), and the series overall has a low budget feel (though nowhere near as bad as Gibiate from last season). But the story is actually very interesting and very well written. The basic premise is that Young Man A (I’m not remembering these weird names, sorry) works as a delivery truck driver in your usual “modern fantasy” setting (kingdoms and monsters and other medieval fantasy trappings alongside trucks and cars and advanced science laboratories). When he’s loading up his deliveries, Young Man B, a fresh recruit in the kingdom’s military and general goody-two-shoes, randomly offers to help Young Man A load his truck. Young Man B spots some boxes off to the side and, assuming they were part of the load, puts them into the truck while Young Man A is talking to his boss. These boxes turn out to be illegal weapons being smuggled by a group of... freedom fighters? I guess? This, in turn, drags Young Man A into a shit storm of trouble when the illegal weapons are discovered in his truck. It also leads directly to tragedy for Young Man B as well, setting them both on wildly different but similarly dangerous paths. The whole idea that a simple act of kindness for a stranger sets off such a terrible series of events is pretty engaging. As it stands in the show right now, Young Man A is the more compelling character. He’s just a truck driver. He’s a coward who runs from danger and wants no part of any of this. But at the same time, he can be surprisingly brave at times (usually when a child is in danger). In a twist on the usual trope, these spurts of bravery are rarely rewarded. At least twice, his decision to act has led to heartbreaking tragedy. So far Young Man B is your typical “idealistic youth realizing the military isn’t comprised entirely of nice people” type of character. As such, he’s just not as interesting. He hasn’t had as much screen time though, so hopefully he’ll grow as a character. I guess it says a lot that I’ve written so much about the show, and almost all of it is about the plot. But the plot is really the only remarkable thing about it. In this case, that’s enough.

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni is, well, a bit of a trainwreck. And I’m not necessarily talking about the quality of the show. Let me explain: The show was marketed as a remake of the 2006 anime, which was one of my all-time favorite series. I was pretty excited about it. Lots of new fans who had never watched the original started this one. The first episode was okay. I wasn’t crazy about how shiny everything looked (I realize the original’s visuals are a bit dated now but at least they were unique, this new one looks like pretty much every harem anime from the past five years) but the story seemed to be doing good and I looooooved the use of the original opening theme song as the closer. Then episode two dropped, and the fandom basically exploded. The first few minutes of episode two reveal that this is not a remake, but a sequel! Shock! At first, I was impressed by this little bit of manipulation. It felt exciting to realize the truth. But then it dawned on me (and the rest of the fandom) that new viewers who came to watch this were screwed over. Those first few minutes of episode two spoil some very important things from the original series (we’re talking major spoilers here), and it’s going to ruin a lot of plot points for those who never watched the original and now want to go back and watch it first. So here’s a PSA: If you’re new to Higurashi and want to try this new series, DON’T unless you’re okay with watching a sequel that spoils the original.

Okay, so now let’s talk about this new series/sequel. First, the good points: The ending theme is GORGEOUS. Just... go watch it. Soak it up. The opening isn’t bad but I can’t help comparing it to the far superior original opening. Aside from the overly shiny and generic character designs, the rest of the visuals are pretty great. The scenery in particular is very nice. In terms of story, I like the idea of beginning each new “arc” by staying close to the original story, then throwing in some pretty wild deviations that make them end in completely different ways because a character that lived through the original is trying to make subtle changes (that so far have ended up turning out very badly). When it comes to the bad points, one in particular sticks out: It’s not scary! The original had some truly unsettling moments, and so far this one hasn’t even been creepy. It’s had some moments that obviously tried to be scary but have failed miserably. For example, the early scenes with Rena in the original were actually terrifying. But I felt none of the intensity or creepiness in this sequel. Still, it’s nice to see these characters again and to see how this story deviates as someone tries desperately to change the outcomes.

Haikyuu!! has another new season and... I don’t really know what to say about it. I’ve talked about this show several times now. Looks like this season is going to focus primarily on one long match, a concept I’m not crazy about. They also made the baffling decision to cut in with a full episode about a rival team’s match right in the middle of showing the match with the main team. I mean I love seeing more of the rival teams but it felt disjointed to do it this way. Still yet, it’s a fun and energetic show full of great characters and easily understood volley ball matches.

Jujutsu Kaisen is probably the most hyped up new show this season, and I would say it definitely deserves that hype. It’s a pretty familiar shounen fighting anime setup: A teenage boy acquires special powers and joins a school to train so that he can use those powers for good. However, following that formula does little to negate just how fun and well-done this series is. A lot of people have compared it to Naruto (the protagonist is a vessel for a powerful entity, he joins a trio of characters with a more serious and moody black-haired boy and a chick, and they have a badass teacher with silver hair who keeps his face partially covered). So sure, it’s like Naruto... except it’s much better than Naruto in every conceivable way. The animation and fight choreography are consistently fantastic. The main character is not the least bit annoying. The only chick in the group (there are more cool ladies in the story, just not in this group!) is a badass in her own right and her story and motivations have absolutely nothing to do with romantic interest in any of the guys. Even the teacher character is incredibly fun. The music is great, with my favorite ending theme of the season. You know it’s an excellent ending theme when people start making different versions of it using characters from other shows. It’s so, well, fun. A word I keep using here, because that’s the first word that comes to mind when I’m watching this series.

Talentless Nana is one of those shows that’s going to be difficult for me to talk about without spoiling a very cool surprise. This surprise comes at the end of episode one (basically, the show makes you think it’s about something, but turns out it’s about something completely different). So if you want to really enjoy that surprise, stop reading this and go watch episode one before coming back. If you’ve already watched it or don’t mind having the surprise spoiled, here we go: The first episode sets up the series to be a cheap Boku no Hero Academia knock-off. We have a school of “talented” (super powered) kids training to use their powers to save humanity from (so far) unseen monsters referred to as “the enemies of humanity”. We are told one boy has no “talent” or special power and he’s ridiculed for this. There’s a new transfer student named Nana, a super sweet and cheerful girl with pink hair who has the ability to read minds. There’s also another transfer student, a sullen and quiet boy named Kyouya who hasn’t disclosed what his “talent” is. With that setup, I think a lot of people were ready to dismiss it as “BNHA, but not as good”. But then, a few minutes before the first episode ends, we’re hit with the twist that reveals what this show is really about: Nana is the one with no “talent”. She lied about being able to read minds (the boy we thought had no talent did actually have one). She’s a totally normal human being, and she has been sent to infiltrate the school and kill off the students, the true “enemies of humanity” (called so because their powers make them incredibly dangerous). Thus, the show is about a normal human girl using only her wits and skill in manipulation to kill off super-powered individuals. Watching her work is an absolute delight. She is ruthless and incredibly intelligent, but she does have one major problem: the other transfer student Kyouya, who is at least as smart as she is and is suspicious of her right off the bat. But since he’s not sure she’s up to no good, he can’t really act on his suspicions. Nana in turn knows he suspects her, so she has to be careful around him. As a result, the two become “friends”, constantly watching and outmaneuvering each other. In this way, the series reminds me of the early, best parts of Death Note, with the mental sparring between Light and L. But the most fun you’ll have with this show is watching Nana come up with ways to deal with each new “talent” she comes across, from the ability to time travel to necromancy, all while having no special power of her own. The art is nice, a bit generic, nothing too fancy. The music is great, with one of the better opening themes this season.

Moriarty the Patriot focuses on the classic Sherlock antagonist Professor Moriarty. Let me get this out of the way first: I know next to nothing about Sherlock. I haven’t even watched any of the various tv shows about him. What I know of the character basically comes from mentions of him in Detective Conan. So I’m coming into this series with no preconceived notions about these characters and no other versions to compare them to. Anyway, Moriarty as a series is about class warfare. Moriarty as a character pretty much embodies the phrase “eat the rich”. If you’re familiar with the phrase and understand its meaning, you’ll probably like this show. Moriarty works as a professor, but his side job is as a “Crime Consultant”. He helps the poor lower classes get revenge on the cruel nobles and elites who have wronged them. This revenge most often involves murder. There’s something refreshing about how unapologetic it is. In most anime, the hero tries to find other ways to punish evil than by actually killing them, or there’s some lesson involved about how revenge isn’t the answer or how killing someone who wronged you makes you as bad as them. In this series, there’s absolutely none of that. People get their revenge and, so far as I’ve watched, seem to be living much happier lives afterwards. In this way the show totally avoids being preachy. The art is gorgeous, with classy character designs and lovely backgrounds. There’s a certain lushness to it. The music is very nice as well (particularly that poppy ending theme). The only downside is that this has probably ruined me for watching other versions of these characters now. I mean, once you see them as sexy anime pretty boys, it’s hard to see them as anything else.

Carry Over Shows From Previous Seasons:

Black Clover

Best of Season:

Best New Show: Jujutsu Kaisen

Best Opening Theme: Ikebukuro West Gate Park

Best Ending Theme: Jujutsu Kaisen

Best New Male Character: Moriarty (Moriarty the Patriot)

Best New Female Character: Nana (Talentless Nana)

[electronicdelusionstarlight]

I think what fundamentally makes BNHA and Harry Potter so similar to each other (aside from the fact that BNHA is literally mirror world Harry Potter) in the end is that both source materials specifically state Racism/Ableism is usually perpetrated by a small few either misguided or outright evil individuals while a fortunately not small number of fanfics out there based on either franchises realize that, you know, racism/ableism and shit are usually something deeply rooted within the society that generated it rather than be caused by the existence of a few bad apples.

1) Because we don’t see any sort of actual discrimination perpetrated against Muggleborns in HP canon outside of, like, the Wizard KKK. We have non-human discrimination laws, don’t get me wrong, but even those are more of a afterthought, like a comment on how the ministry is stealing centaur land, or house elves loving to be enslaved, there is never much thought on that, as much as there is never much though based on the fact the Malfoys had had a seat within the government for years yet no anti muggle-born laws worded in a particular way are not a thing until the wizard KKK literally take over the government.

2) On the same note, Izuku being Quirkless and Quirkless people in general and the treatment they face is also a modest afterthought for most of the story. Hell, chapter 1 literally begins with Izuku saying that the government had just passed a law that lifted the ban of hero academies on not accepting Quirkless People based on lack of Quirk, this is a disabled minority outright mocked and oppressed by his peers for simply wanting to do the right thing, and yet outside of, like, Bakugou and his peers bullying Izuku and everyone enabling this for some reason.

We don’t even have the throw away line we had in HP, where Ron says one of his mum’s relatives was a Squib, but they never talk about him and never met him. Imagine the absolute power the Ron analogue here Uraraka going “Oh, yeah, my uncle was Quirkless, we never really talk about him” to a however Quirkless Izuku. Imagine how great it would be to explore this fucking society with literal second class citizens who are not allowed to take certain jobs or be in certain schools (Do you actually think the police or fire fighters would go for a Quirkless recruit over someone with a Quirk?) out of the circumstances of their birth, and instead it all devolves into this Cain and Able scenario ala Naruto where Izuku manages to become the chosen one out of his own merit which, on one hand, good for him, on the other, what a fucking wasted potential, this story could have said something, something about the way we treat authority figures or law enforcement, or even about the bullshit double standards between men and women in scenarios like this, something that Persona 4, for all its fucking fault, at least TRIED to do.

Because, like... you can still be a hero even without a Quirk, I’m not talking about shit like Batman I’m talking about those underground heroes that do not have a combat quirk like fucking Eraserhead, the Snape counterpart, who himself is a dark mirror of this society, a Liberal who talks big words about how the entrance exam is biased toward a specific kind of Quirks leaving in the dust other, less combat based ones, all the while basing his first base judgement of his every class on the strength of their quirks in purely physical scenarios, which is, of course, all actually a rouse to “Motivate them in doing their best and test their spirit and shit.”

All Might is Hagrid.

(And, you know, I get IT, they are a children book and a shonen manga written by a TERF and a man who has never stopped been horny once in his entire life, I’m not expecting some fucking high fucking literature about the state of mice and men and shit, except I DO because fucking SHINJU NO NECTAR of all fucking thing is a deep, well thought out piece about the horrors of Imperialism, racism, the gender fucking barrier, war crimes and shit, all both in the context of early 19th century Europe and Japan with a modernity vs tradition, be it local or indigenous, commentary among all the SHIT that manga touches upon and yet the whole fucking premise is that this is the story about a conman passing for a famed military leader in order to bullshit his way out of most problems all the while having the power to turn into a god-empowered monster when SUCKING THE TITULAR NECTAR OFF SPECIFIC WOMEN’S BOOBS).

[cavesalamander]

My brief thoughts on this season of anime!

Just a quick review of the ones I’d recommend and/or keep watching. I managed to find all of the below on Funimation or Crunchyroll or Youtube!

Horymia: (Yes) This is looking to be a very funny romcom slice of life style anime, and seems to be a fairly good one! Had me laughing a lot. The Main couple are a nerdy quiet boy who’s actually dumb as a sack of bricks using his disheveled appearance to hide his tattoos and piercings, and a popular pretty girl who’s actually a total homebody. Their friends seem to have a lot of potential to be fleshed out as the series progresses and I look forward to seeing how it goes!

So I’m a Spider, So What?: (Yes) Whooo another isekai (excited)! This time a girl and her entire class!? Get isekai’d in a massive explosion. The main character reincarnates as a trash monster in a dungeon and must fight her way up the food chain just to survive. Meanwhile her friends who have mostly reincarnated as Cool Humans or the occasional elf or baby dragon, have mostly found each other, and want to figure out what happened/why and if they’re all okay. It’s genuinely pretty funny, though leans a little too hard sometimes on the gamey aspects of this new world. I think it may get darker as it goes along too.

Mushoku Tensei: (No) Whooo another isekai (derogatory). 34 yo old man gets reincarnated and uses his worldly experience to Learn Magic Fast and creep on his mom and prepubescent tutor. If you can stomach that stuff, it actually has a fair amount of potential? It did set itself up to touch on some interesting stuff down the road, but I’m kind of Over the horny toddler/young boy trope and it kinda just seems like the protagonist is Just Awesome At Everything but not in a remotely charming way.

Cells at Work Code Black: (Yes) If you liked Cells at Work, this is that but dingier, and is able to tackle some darker themes - like what stress, smoking, drinking, and probably eventually STDs can do to your body.

Kemono Jihen: (Yes) I don’t wanna explain TOO much about the plot of this one because it looks to be a mystery series, and the first episode sets it up the characters very very well. A man from the city is called to a rural town where animals are being mysteriously killed and found rotting. He’s tasked with finding and killing the perpetrator, assumed to be a monster of some kind. It does the horror very well, and even in the first episode manages some twistyness.

The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can Enter: (No) Even for a blatant fan service anime this one is just......... stupid. It might have a scrap of joy to it if the protagonist were anything other than a boring sycophant. His harem just all seems to be random girls who’s singular personality traits are to be in love with him in various stereotypical ways, that he just uses to min max his Cool Stats. But like, it’s not even self aware enough to make that into an interesting premise.

Sk8: (Yes) It’s a racing anime that seems super stylish and fun and very well animated. The protagonists have some cool chemistry already, and it really leans into the Underground Illegal Racing part of the fun - all the various characters who battle in death defying races through this abandoned mine, all have seemingly ordinary day jobs. Definitely worth a shot if that sounds up your alley.

Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies moved to a starter town?: (Probably) Okay so the premise is just there in the title and is actually pretty fun. Think: a random NPC who is considered pretty weak where the monsters are lv 50 moving somewhere where the monsters are scary at lv 5, shenanigans ensue. The MC boy is hilariously oblivious to the fact that anyone with a shred of sense can see he’s insanely over leveled to the area, and just trying to be nice and polite to everyone ^u^. The tentative nature of my recommendation is that it is kind of leaning harder on the Girls are Obsessed With Him train than is ideal. How much it depends on that as opposed to utilizing the premise to its fullest extent will have an enormous bearing on how fun the show is to watch going forward.

Ex-Arm: (Absolutely not but yes) It’s a fucking train wreck.

Heavens Design Team: (Yes) God decided to outsource creating animals to a team of angels, and works as a client giving weird ass requests for the angels to fill. Hilarity ensues, and it is peak edutainment to boot. It’s so much fun learning weird shit about animals, or trying to guess the animal these seemingly random train of failed attempts leads to.

Dr. Ramune -Mysterious Disease Specialist-: (No) It has a promising premise and some good moments. The main characters are solving these weird “diseases” that people get by finding the actual emotional cause and using magic of some kind to monkey paw it into a resolution. This could be really fun and interesting, but something about the execution just... falls flat? Like maybe it picks up as the season goes on but for now it’s not rly worth it.

Vlad Love: (Yes) I was going through the list of anime this season and was like wtf is this and literally just now watched episode 1. It’s about a girl with a blood donation kink and her vampire girlfriend. Literally. It’s rly funny and over the top ridiculous but like, gay vampires.

Back Arrow: (No) It’s like... fine. It’s about these two warring kingdoms surrounded by a wall with a mountain range between. They worship the wall as god, and occasionally get gifts from beyond it, in the form of mech suits they use to fight each other in. One day a boy shows up from beyond the wall in one of those suits and no memories of anything and he wants to get back. Which... could be promising I guess? But something about the show just didn’t grab my attention.

Skate-Leading Stars: (No) It’s like Yuri on ice if it was less gay and less well written I guess...? The first episode set up the Drama competently enough, but I just... couldn’t give a shit.

Project Scard: (No) For some reason part of Tokyo has been turned into a post apocalyptic hellscape where people just murder each other. They also have super powered tattoos and use them to fight each other. Animation is very similar to Handshakers - which is an Aesthetic that may not appeal to some. The first episode didn’t rly do much for me but I could see it going somewhere if it tries.

Wave!!: (No) Might have been a tentative yes if I hadn’t gone on and watched the second episode. First ep went hard with the queerbaiting cause they want to be the new Free! but with surfing, but Ep 2 just forgot all about that entirely. Dialogue is mostly boring and there’s like 3 sets, which becomes painfully obvious very quickly by ep 2.

Idoly Pride: (No) Literally looks like they ripped off the waifus of a bunch of other more popular anime and made an idol anime with the most basic ass idol plot. Nothing exceptional here.

Gekidol: (undecided) It’s an idol anime... set after a mysterious apocalyptic event? It’s mostly so far seemed intriguing as hell but not my jam. Mysterious craters destroyed parts of Japan, and its rebuilding and the MCs wanna bring light to the world. Maybe aliens exist? Idk! I’m intrigued.

I*Chu: (No) Another idol anime but this time it’s cute boys! Idk maybe this is a decent idol anime but it rly didn’t grab me and idol stuff isn’t usually my jam. I couldn’t tell anything exceptionally unique about this one from just the first episode.

WIXOSS Diva: (No, but) I don’t normally watch spin-offs of series but I didn’t realize until halfway into this that it was one cause Crunchyroll didn’t attach it to the core line. It’s like... magical girl battle idols in VR! Which honestly if you’re a fan of that it might actually be worth checking out.(edited)

Idolls!: (No) Another idol anime! But this one uses mocap 3d models. Phoned in plot line delivered by a weird tiki statue that tells the girls what to do. Seems extraordinarily low budget, and more just a way to sell music. The whole episode happened in a single set and  was basically just... girls want to make it big as idols... oh no... gotta book a stage! Yay they got one! Now must get an audience! Like... ok

Hortensia Saga: (No but) Sword and sorcery fantasy setting that’s mostly sword, main character is a princess masquerading as a male knight alongside the son of her dead parents’s also dead bodyguard. The first episode is very lore heavy and felt kinda like the prologue to a video game. So it ended up feeling a little expository and trope laden, but it has potential. Seems a bit Game of Thronesy? Wasn’t like... bad or anything, so if it’s your thing you might enjoy it.

Otherside Picnic: (Yes) I think it’s gay first of all, two girls going exploring / treasure hunting / monster hunting in a bizarre mirror world to their own. Girls are cute, it’s very interesting premise and writing seems solid.

Wonder Egg Priority: (Yes) It deals with some HEAVY themes? But it’s... a bit of a psychological horror but in a way that feels very like it’s dealing with some of the real life issues. The main character girl comes across as neurodivergent, and it’s just... idk man the first episode was good and left me wanting more.

[luckythereviewer]

The Truth about Fodlan

This is certainly something a lot of people have discussed and looked into. Ever since the release of Three Houses as well as the Cindered Shadows DLC, people have been looking over ever detail they can find to figure out how Three Houses fits into Fire Emblem as a whole. Some believe it’s simply a different world, some believe it isn’t and there has been debates about everything for a while. Today, I would like to bring up some information that possibly clears up the confusion around Three Houses.

To start off, let me simply lay out the premise now. What if Fodlan is Jugdral 3000 years after the events of Genealogy and Thracia? I know that sounds crazy but think about it. In Awakening, a game that was suppose to be the last game in the series and give us one last look at the world that started it all long after Marth had passed, there is barely any mention of Jugdral. We travel all over Archanea, now called Ylisse, and go to Valentia, now called Valm, but we never see anything Jugdral related. The only time we ever see such a thing is during Chapter 22. The chapter where we face Risen Deadlords and some of them are wielding Holy Weapons: specifically, we see Valflame, Gungnir, Helswrath, Balmung, Yewfelle. Now whether the Risen Deadlords are the actual Dead Lords used in Genealogy and converted to Risens or simply a new take on the Dead lords of old is up to debate. The question here is, how did the Grimleal get their hands on 5 Holy Weapons from Jugdral when we have no mention of them throughout the game.

To this, I ask another question: how come the Three Archanea Regalias and Hauteclere are absent from Awakening yet rusted versions of them can be found in Three Houses? These weapons never have appeared outside the Archanea games (the sole exception being SoV but the fact they have to be forged makes their canonicity dubious at best) yet we can end up finding them by battling special monsters and forging the rusted weapon they drop. What’s even more confusing is how the in game description for Hauteclere reads “An Empire Wyvern Corps Axe, wielded in the War of Heroes, that has a high hit rate and might.” These weapons were used during events of the games. Mercius was used during the War of the Eagle and Lion and Gradivus was used by a defender of Fodlan’s throat. Parthia lacks a sort of description but 3 of the 4 having such descriptions means these weapons were used throughout Fodlan’s history. But that begs the question of how these weapons ended up in Fodlan? One would guess that, since they could be forged in SoV (something I don’t consider cannon) that it means they were forged in Fodlan and yet we have no one that takes credit for them. They aren’t considered Sacred Weapons forged by Maculi, They aren’t Heroes Relics made by TWSITD. They are not stated to have been made by the only other legendary Blacksmith, Zoltan. Meaning these weapons have to be the orignal Regalias and Hauteclere. 

With this we now have two questions from both Awakening and Three Houses. How did 5 of the Holy Weapons end up in Archanea and How did the 3 Regalias and Hauteclere end up on Fodlan? First off look at 4 of the Holy Weapons given: Balmung (a Sword), Gungnir (A Lance), Helswrath (A Axe), Yewfelle (A Bow). Then you have Mercurius (A Sword), Gradivus (A Lance), Hauteclere (A Axe), and Parthia (a Bow). Here’s my idea. During the War of Heroes, TWSITD likely wanted to give an edge to Nemesis and his army in the form of more powerful weapons. This lead to them getting into contact with the Grimleal in the early days after Grima’s first defeat. The Grimleal, likely aware of Jugdral’s amass of Holy Weapons, offered a trade. The 3 Regalias and Hauteclere for 4 Holy Weapons. Given that TWSITD likely did not know or simply could not make use of the full power of the Holy Weapons agree and threw in Valflame as a sign of good faith as well as an item they likely would not need, seeing as all of Fodlan operate on non-tome magic. Of course, the description for Hauteclere shows that the shipment carrying the Regalias and Hauteclere did not make it to TWSITD and said weapons ended up in the hands of the Empire. While some would say TWSITD wouldn’t be dumb enough to give away Holy Weapons, remember these are people who were arrogant enough to try and fight Sothis. From their perspective, they would simply see a group of people offering really powerful weapons with no real requirements and asking for weapons that nobody can make full use of in exchange. Then there is the questionability of TWSITD even having Holy Weapons and to that I say this: The Heroes’ Relic and the Holy Weapons act in such a similar manner that it’s very likely TWSITD found the Holy Weapons, found out what they were and how they worked and figured out they could replicate them if they took the remains of Nabateans and crafted them into weapons. Once they figured out how to do this, the Holy Weapons were just taking up space. 

Now that’s only the first piece of evidence but it’s certainly the biggest and one that took time to explain. These next ones will be much simpler and quick.

The second piece of evidence for this theory is the maps of Fodlan and Jugdral. When you compare both maps, they are very similar in shape. Given that we have examples of continents ending up with different names and changing over time, Archanea being Ylisse and Valentia becoming Valm. Given how Jugdral would have an additional 1000 years to change comapared to Valentia and Archanea, it’s possible that Fodlan is Jugdral after that long of a period. The only other thing of note here is how Thracia and Almyra play similar roles for Jugdral and Fodlan. Thracia tries to invade and conquer the Munster District while Almyra tries to invade the Alliance. The difference being Thracia does it due to lack of food while Almyra does so as a show of strength. Not as strong of evidence as the first example but it was still worth mentioning.

The final example is how the Nabateans were created. We know they were created by Sothis via her blood. Now, the first question would be why Sothis did it this way. If this was any world, why not simply have kids the traditional way as we’ve seen with almost all dragons in FE outside a few notable exceptions (Grima and Lilith being such exceptions). Well, playing devils advocate and saying Fodlan is within the world of Archanea, then people would quickly remember a certain issue that plagued dragons alongside the degeneration: their loss in fertility. These two factors are what lead to dragons becoming Manakete and stepping to the side to allow humanity to become the leading race in the world. Given how many crests there is in the game, there simply no plausible way for Sothis to have so many kids and possible descendants unless she went the blood route. Not to mention this explains why none of them are Divine Dragons like Sothis. (Yes the whole debate of if Sothis was a Divine Dragon or not is a thing but given how we’ve seen how dragons like Mila and Naga can not only control the passage of time but repair the lands as Sothis did after the war with TWSITD, it’s more or less pretty open and shut case Sothis is a Divine Dragon). 

Now as for how she discovered the whole creating dragons through blood method, there is only one known instant of a dragon being created this way before Sothis: Forneus. What’s even a odder coincidence is how Sitri, Byleth, and Forneus’ names are names of demons in the Ars Goetia. Sitri and Byleth being connected via this piece of trivia makes sense. Forenus, on the other hand, a person who only just got named during SoV’s post game, is something to think about. Regardless, Sothis had to have found out or find something that would give her the idea of creating the Nabateans via her blood somehow and Grima and his creation is a very strong possibility. 

Now some might bring up how they’re called Nabateans and not Manaketes or how the Crest Stones are something we’ve never seen before. To answer the Nabatean and Manakete thing, Manaketes are usually referred to as dragons who sealed their draconic powers into dragon stones. The name is likely just to avoid confusion. Ultimately, it’s a name. The core that makes Nabateans the same as dragons is the method of which they transform. We’ve seen how crest stones are integral to this, given what happens to Miklan and other characters that use the crest stones and end up as demonic beasts. We know that the crest stones are quite literally the heart of these dragons. What did dragons do to become Manaketes? They sealed their dragon forms in stones and took a human like form. This is the detail many have missed. Nabateans are not just a different race of dragons. They’re how dragons used to be before they were forced to take on the forms of Manaketes. The entire reason we’ve never seen these crest stones is due to the fact that, in Valentia/Valm and Archanea/Ylisse, dragons have either become Manaketes or they were well respected as to not have their bodies scavenged and turned into weapons. 

There are plenty more details I could bring up like Anna’s existing in Genealogy and Thracia, explaining the Anna we see in Three Houses and why she has a crest, and more, I think I’ve made enough points here. Maybe there are details proving this is wrong or something but this post was mostly to bring up a possible idea I don’t think I’ve seen people really touch upon in regards to Three Houses. 

[oveliagirlhaditright]

Cherish the Moment - A SoKai Wedding Fic

Rated T. Sora and Kairi get married... Though there's some subverting expectations in here, since it's the only way I could write this--A, because so many others already have and B, because I felt I'd mess it up if I did it any other way--like, there are some moments Kairi's a bit sad that the few feelings she had for Riku will remain a question mark now (and thinks Sora might feel the same way about his feelings for Naminé)... But that really only lasts for five seconds, and can be seen as Kairi wedding jitters, as I swear all of this is really the fluffiest SoKai piece you'll ever read. SoKai, RokuShi, Namiku, Terqua, Gulava, VentusStrelitzia (as well as past PlayerStrelitzia). Slight RiKai and SoNami, but not really, but definitely more of the former, if any. Kind of written by accident when I needed a break from my other stories... and then it snowballed.

Kairi's PoV

As lovely as Kairi’s marriage to Sora was—that she did want more than anything else in that World, and that was a dream come true in so many ways—there was a little part of Kairi, that was sad that the questions she’d once had about Riku and herself would remain exactly that. And she imagined that… even though Sora would never admit it, the side of his heart that still existed in Castle Oblivion felt that about his tangled feelings for Naminé. But it was what it was—since this was real life, and it wasn't perfect, and Kairi wouldn't trade this feeling for the nothingness she’d felt at Sora’s disappearance for the world. Kairi wore something evergreen as her wedding dress—since it was the color she looked best in, and she wanted to look as beautiful as she could for Sora. ….Also, because Kairi had lost her virginity to Sora a long time ago, and she wasn’t going to lie or feel ashamed about it—and in order to match her, her sun was wearing a yellow tuxedo: that reminded Kairi of the bog world she and Sora had recently visited, that made her happy. Of all places they could've gotten married, the couple had chosen Monstropolus' laugh factory, for Kairi had thought if they got married in front of all the running doors, it could make a lovely sight. And it had. The two had also gotten Barbossa to marry them (when King Mickey had said he would be too nervous to do so). That had been Sora's idea… and Kairi got the sense that it was largely because he had been inspired by Will and Elizabeth’s wedding, who he thought they were like. Which was beyond sweet... And seeing the man's humorous reaction to this new world—before Sora and Riku had nearly instantly shoved him back through a Corridor of Light—had been more than funny to Kairi. But he'd actually officiated for them perfectly, in asking Sora if Kairi was the Elizabet to his Will or Calypso to his Davy Jones… But when Barbossa had begun talking about Sora and Kairi’s upcoming wedding night, Sora and Riku had furiously made him vacate the premises… and despite everything, Kairi had laughed. Even while she’d tried to defend the pirate from her husband and big brother (because yes, that was what Riku really was to her) But after that drama—right after they’d been married—Sora and Kairi had rode atop one of the doors together for a while—with both of them kicking their legs to and fro as it moved beneath them, like they’d both rocked on the paopu tree all those years ago. And while both Kairi and Sora felt somewhat bad that they were keeping their joy from everyone else, by having this special and private moment… they contended themselves with the fact that every other married couple would have been getting pictures away from everyone else at this point, anyway. "But maybe we shouldn't be doing this," Sora eventually said with a chuckle. "I mean, your wedding dress is so impractical for writing doors on, Kai. You might fall right off! And the last thing I want, is for my wife to die on our wedding day." But at this point that Sora had said this, the door had already reached its destination—sort of making Sora's words moot—but Kairi couldn't help teasing her love about it, all the same. "It's okay, Sora. Wielding the Keyblade gives us mastery over gravity, remember? That's how I fought in a dress in The Castle That Never Was. So, I’ll be fine if we want to do this again." But right now, they had bigger fish to fry. So Kairi walked towards Boo's door. The spouses had planned to go visit Boo during their wedding—because they'd wanted everyone they loved to be able to attend. And Kairi adored her, now that she’d gotten to meet her a few times. But now that she and Sora were at her door, planning to go through, Kairi found herself second-guessing if this was a good idea at all. They didn’t want to risk spooking the girl’s parents, who still somehow didn’t know about other worlds… "Sora," Kairi started, as she with loving eyes pulled him away from the door he'd just opened. “We can maybe disturb Boo later… But don't you think we should go see the rest of our friends for a little bit before our honeymoon? Sora didn't have to be asked twice; Kairi had sensed that he was missing Riku, after all. When the two of them got back to the Laugh Floor—where their ceremony had taken place—the lovers could see that Riku was trying to see if Naminé would eat the lemon meringue pie, if he got rid of the gooey bits from it, that she didn't like. …Riku and Naminé were wonderful for each other, and Kairi was honestly glad that they had each other... And Naminé ending up accepting Riku's offer was just further proof of that, in her eyes. And what were Sora and Kairi’s other friends doing right now? Most of the ones with responsibilities in other parts of the galaxy had left already. But some were still here. Like right now, Kairi could see that Ariel was thrilled that she could be part human, part mermaid in a monster form here if she wished... Aladdin was trying to stop Abu from stealing things, it appeared (though this was unnecessary, as both Kairi and Sora had told their guests that they were welcome to any of the decorations the two of them had brought here), and Kairi was glad when Xion kept reminding him that it was fine... Hercules was trying to convince Mike and Sully that they might as well have statues of themselves put up here in their world, like he had a few of his own in Olympus. And the Restoration Committee was trying to see if they could use the door system themselves, as some part of the defense mechanism. And a Lightning was wondering why just because a "Tron" (who had thankfully been restored!) had added a data version of her to his system, the real her had been invited to this wedding… Kairi didn’t even know the answer to that herself, but the more the merrier! Right? As for everyone else... Roxas was by Xion’s side in the whole Abu and Aladdin scenario. The former Nobody did seem somewhat sad that Xion was paying all her attention to it, instead of him… But since it was for Xion, it was clear that he was happy to be doing whatever she was. Terra and Aqua were dancing, and it made Kairi ponder whether or not they'd now decided they saw each other as more than siblings, after all. Lauriam and Ven were… comforting Strelitzia over Player's death. And Kairi once again thought about telling the poor dear that she hadn't had to come here—and that she could leave whenever she wanted to—but that she and Sora were both thankful she had come at all... And Lea, and Isa were catching up with Skuld at the punch table... And it looked as though King Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and Master Yen Sid were working on some amazing fireworks for Sora and herself? "Where do we even begin?" Sora asked nervously, as he scratched his ear. Kairi imagined that Sora probably wanted to go help with the fireworks display, but given his tendency to sometimes make things blow up—like those blasters back at The World That Never Was—Kairi didn’t know if that was the best idea. "Say, Kairi… what do you say we go talk to Ava first? Is it me, or does she seem lonely?" And Ava did seem that way. And Kairi got the sense that while the woman was thrilled, that what she’d done had helped to lead everyone here... that she was beginning to think what the Master of Masters had been after similar things, after all, and that maybe she had been wrong to kill him. And as soon as they approached Ava, she was telling them just that. "It's a beautiful wedding you’re having, Sora, Kairi... but my father should have been here, since he created all of this. But he isn't... and that’s my fault." '…Except that, as great as your father was… I think he did go insane from it all and would have destroyed the world, if you hadn't stopped him,' Kairi wanted to say, but didn’t. And judging by how Sora kept opening his mouth and shutting it again, Kairi thought that her other heart felt much the same way. But instead, she enveloped the girl in her arms--that Sora watched with a proud twinkle in his eye before he’d turned away from them, Kairi had seen. Perhaps he was about to find Gula and tell him to make sure his girlfriend was happy –and told her what was in her heart. "I get where you're coming from, Ava. Really, I do. And joyful times can make you think of all those who you've lost, who you wish could be there for you, too. …But I think you're looking at this in the wrong way. You've got to think about all that you have! Like your dear friends Gula, Invi, Aced, and Ira... and all of the various Key Kids who found their way here; and how you're now friends with us: the new guard when it comes to the Light, and together we've created some beautifulthings." And there was also the answer to Kairi’s own problem, wasn't it? She had been somewhat focusing on the teeny, tiny bit that she and Sora were losing in getting married—since they had had other feelings for others in the past—that she’d missed that, despite everything, she was finally tied with the love of her life in every way she had wanted to... and that meant more than all of the munny in the world ever could. And her words must have had the intended result of getting through to Ava, too, Kairi saw, because the older woman wiped her tears away... smiled at Kairi and Sora, as he joined them with Gula being pulled behind him, and said, "You’re right, Kairi. And in my heart, I’m still a leader to the Dandelion children. So why am I becoming undone, when I should be comforting Strelitzia--who's already lost so much!—about her love? If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go do that right now. Thank you, my King and Queen." Kairi blushed at that title she and Sora had been given after everything they'd done (Riku and Naminé had even been given some, too), but didn't let it show. Instead, she admired how at that exact moment, Gula had chosen to kiss Ava on the cheek—to show her that she was cared for, but not distract her too much from her mission; or so Kairi guessed—while Ven had chosen to kiss Strelitzia full on the mouth, who was responding positively while Lauriam was not. So suddenly feeling very much in love for a few reasons, Kairi leapt into her precious Sora's arms—wrapping her legs around his waist, as he caught her at the last minute after her surprise attack. "Sora, you know what I just realized?” Kairi asked, as she leaned close to Sora and prayed to Kingdom Hearts to give her strength to say these next words, since she was a terrible dancer. “We've been lame! in not giving everyone our first dance yet!" Sora chuckled at this, as he leaned his forehead against Kairi’s own and looked deep into her eyes with loving ones of his own. “Then let’s go give them a show, Mrs.” And everyone around them must have realized what they were finally about to do, because Terra wolf-whistled, and Riku called out with a hand over his mouth, "Dance already, you two! You've already broken tradition by having the other couples do so before you!" Sora stuck his tongue out at Riku for that one. So in wanting to everything wedding the traditional way now, Kairi let Sora lead her onto the dance floor—and he winked at her in a way that made a shiver run down Kairi’s spine in the best way possible—and she prepared to do a nice, slow dance with Sora... only for the song to change to the Cupid Shuffle. And Kairi and Sora cracked up, as they once again leaned their foreheads against each other’s, but also held both of each other’s hands this time while doing so. After dancing to the song by themselves very shortly, Kairi and Sora motioned for everyone to come onto the dance floor with them... which Kairi was glad for—since it would hopefully distract everyone how she always messed up timing or did the wrong thing in this song. But Sora was a godsent when it came to making her look good at dancing, and somehow seemed charmed by her bad movements, so it was a win-win. Fortunately, the Cha-Cha slide came on right after the Cupid Shuffle—that Kairi knew better than any other dance—and she was able to redeem herself some. And seeming to realize she wanted to leave the dance floor on a high note, Sora asked with the kind of kindness he’d had in his eyes when he’d told Chirithy she’d made him remember how good it was to experience things with a friend, "Want to give everyone else the dance floor now?" And Kairi shouted "Yes!" faster than anything she'd ever said in her life, since—as it was—her feet were starting to kill her in these high heels, too. Sora, truly being a psychic, swept Kairi up off her feet before she could even voice the thought. And she leaned her head into his shoulder, like a soldier coming home for the first time in ages. It was at this time that everyone seemed figure out that they were ready to leave. So there were last minute goodbyes (Roxas pretended to cry that his brother was all grown up—and this had gotten a kick out of everyone—nevermind the fact that Sora was older than he was), thank yous, and promises to see each other again soon....As well as Kairi trying to give away some of the lantern decorations that she and Sora had bought for the event... But soon enough, everything was sorted out and Sora and Kairi were leaving in the gummi ship to go somewhere magical for their honeymoon, as all of their friends waved at them... and it was then that Kairi promptly passed out in Sora's arms... all the planning, stress, and exhausting—though perfect day—having finally gotten to her. … When Kairi later awoke, it wasn't to her and Sora's honeymoon location—as nice as that would have been; and Sora was still keeping it a secret where they were even going—but to their room in their gummi ship. And Kairi had to say... even if there was always a part of her that would slightly prefer being home, she could certainly get used to waking up in their bed in the gummi ship together. Sora’s scent was all over the blankets and it was lovely; Kairi had to resist the urge to roll herself back up into them and go to sleep again, even. But Sora must have sensed what she was about to do, because he stole her blankets away from her before she could get too comfortable and Kairi glared at him... before descending into a fit of giggles. "Hey, Kairi!" Sora was laughing himself. "You can't go back to sleep yet! I mean... here I am, somewhat carelessly leaving the ship in autopilot to make sure I was by your side when you first woke up after we were married. And you don't even care? C'mon! Where's the Kairi who jumped through Corridors of Darkness to see me?" Suddenly feeling more awake now, and giddy, and even somewhat like their younger selves, Kairi sat with her knees on the black mattress, and spared Sora a glance and a thought. "You're right... I'm not appreciating this moment enough at all. I should be calling you a 'lazy bum', and slapping you upside the head... Or actually, not doing that, because I'm a sensible girl who knows how to deal with her feelings now, outside of physically hurting the object of my affections. Especially since I need no excuse to touch you now. Eep!" And even before Kairi herself knew it—and she was the one who had done this!—she was flying through the air and then in Sora's arms, as she peppered kiss after kiss on every inch of his face, neck, and shoulders. And when he gently pushed her away from himself—while still smiling stupidly—Kairi could tell that he’d been getting distracted, too. But Sora somehow got himself back under control soon, to which Kairi could only frown. "Kairi… not now. The gummi ship will crash. And we're saving this for our special honeymoon, remember?" Kairi wanted to do anything but let Sora go. But as she recalled how Riku and Naminé's ship had been nearly destroyed by Heartless not so long ago, she thought that being cautious probably was for the best. "…Okay, Sora. Go pilot the gummi ship—and take me to wherever this glorious new world is—and I'll get us breakfast." Kairi, who had been moved by Sora's cooking at the bistro, almost hated that she was going to make stuff for them now... instead of letting the professional chef make food for her. But she also thought it was only fair, since he was apparently going all out for her in another way. And besides, she was quite the cook herself, wasn't she? Hadn't she found many neat ways to cook fruit on the island, that Sora and Riku had adored? Kairi got her answer to that question soon enough, when Sora told her "Yes, please do that, Kairi! And bring out the fruit flavor even more in the orange chicken, as you do!" And then Sora was diving for the control panel, as both he and Kairi saw an asteroid heading their way. And the Keyblade master got the ship to move in just the nick of time. Kairi laughed. As much as, in some ways, she didn't want it to be... this was kind of like old times: like when Sora had been driving the gummi ship after saving her from Hollow Bastion, and Kairi had been left asking Goofy what she could do to help him at all, while the brunet and Donald had fought about who was driving. And as much as Kairi had grown since then and was thrilled by it, because she never wanted to lose her friends again but to rather be their equal... She still liked being cherished by Sora like this—especially the day after their wedding—and if creating non-breakfast food was her part of the bargain to have that feeling, then she'd gladly do it. And she did. And the happy couple ate merrily. When they were done? Sora was pointing out to her the biggest amusement park she could have ever imagined! "Is this where we're going, Sora? It seems so fun! Oh! What's that ride that looks like a skyscraper, and-" Kairi got her answer to that question when she saw the "elevator" within the false building rocket back down to ground level from a horrifying height. "...You know, Kairi, weirdly enough... I must have somehow drawn on the imagery of this place when I developed my Attraction Flow. Or something. Like, I almost wanted to make an attack like that skyscraper—like a guillotine, almost—but I didn't." Huh. That was odd. Kairi really didn’t know what forces governed the multiverse—so maybe all things happened for a reason—but even so, there was at least one thing she didn’t want to talk about in that... "I'm all for us being entertained by roller coasters as part of our honeymoon, Sora... But can we stop talking about beheadings, please? I think I’m going to be sick." And not needing to say anymore to convince him, Sora gently took Kairi’s hand in his own and began leading her through the exit… and the moment Kairi’s feet touched the ground, she was already having so much fun! She ran on the cobblestone to where she could get funny little hats, and then motioned with her eyes that she and Sora should go to the castle towering above them next! Which they did. And as the two of them had always wanted to fly with one another, they went on a ride together of soaring elephants. And it reminded Kairi of that “Dumbo” Sora had summoned on his first journey. She had seen this while being in his heart. And Kairi made sure to point this out to Sora, as she leaned as close to him in the seat as she could—even getting out of her own seatbelt, so she could be within his. Once they exited that attraction, one of the workers seemed annoyed with what Kairi had done... but upon seeing the rings on her and Sora's fingers, shook his head and seemed to imagine it was only expected of newlyweds. Or so Kairi guessed, since he let them walk by without chewing them out in the slightest. Then, Sora was amazed by something called vanilla ice cream—since the two of them had only had seasalt and chocolate before—and in trying it herself, Kairi decided it was every bit as good as Sora said it was. And after that, Sora and Kairi discovered something called "race cars" in a place called “Autopia”, that neither could get enough of. But too soon after that—or perhaps not soon enough—they were back in their hotel room (that had aesthetics they both loved. Kairi partly loved them because there were pictures of Sora here somehow! Maybe the two of them really were somehow connected to this place and the multiverse was trying to show them it). And then Sora and Kairi were worshipping each other's bodies, lazily, as warm air spilled into the room. They'd both been slow and nervous with each other when they’d started, almost like it was their first time again, but then they’d found their way—as they always did with each other—and had just opted to make slow love. "And to think we can start every morning like this, Kairi," Sora said sweetly, as he kissed her lips and the morning sun spilled in. "Mmm. That’s the most perfect thing I can think of," Kairi answered back… “Well, aside from a few other things to make this even better”, Kairi said cheekily, as she sat up and her lips started going down, down, down Sora’s body. And in a world where anything could be torn away from them in any given moment—including each other, as they both knew well—knowing that they could wake up together for a while really was the best feeling in the world. And Kairi cherished it.

[dgcatanisiri]

For the love of...

Look. Let’s address the obvious first off: Fandom has problems with women. We all know this. We also know that “has problems” is putting matters rather mildly.

That is a fine premise. Plenty to go on from there.

What is NOT a fine follow up is defending the idea that “fandom hates women” by pointing to the reaction to R*ylow. Because that entire ship? That is a dumpster fire in its own right even before getting to the whole dust up where, because of him making a harmless joke about sex, specifically his character in Star Wars and Rey, another fictional character in Star Wars, having sex, there’s a movement within that group to discredit and tear down John Boyega. 

Like, we’ll get to that business in a bit. But let’s address the fact that the majority of R*ylows are shipping CHARACTERS THAT ARE NOT SHOWN. 

The whole business of this ship is to use Rey to “redeem” “Ben Solo,” a character who metaphorically killed himself in TFA through the literal killing of his father. The two meetings of Rey and Kylo Ren in TFA were first him rendering her unconscious and kidnapping her, and then her attempting to kill him for his murder of Han Solo and attack of Finn - killing her mentor and attacking her friend.

But those who ship this transplant the characteristics that defined Finn onto Kylo Ren, who they refer to as Ben Solo, a name he rejects until about the last hour of the most recent movie. They make him into a tortured character who is tragically torn between the light and the dark, has not made a decision on where he stands and needs to be pulled back. EXCEPT Kylo Ren was introduced ordering the slaughter of an innocent village - a slaughter that Finn refused to participate in. 

All of this is, let’s not mince words, based off the fact that Kylo Ren is a white man and Finn is a black man. Because we saw, back before TFA released, a heaping TON of abuse hurled towards him purely for BEING a black man - I remember vividly all the anti-blackness going around when we had no more than a trailer for the sequel trilogy. 

I am not - let me repeat this NOT - shaming anyone, male, woman, enby, whatever you identify as, for wanting the narrative of “saving the monster.” As a queer person, yeah, I get that, considering that a lot of my narratives growing up that I can identify with have all kinds of queercoding throughout them, even when involving straight pairings. But the defining difference has always been that in those stories, the monster wanted to be accepted as a person. TFA gave us a monster who chose to be monstrous.

And TLJ only added into this narrative - Rey refused to join Kylo. ONCE AGAIN, he spurned her offers of coming back to the light, choosing to take the leadership of the First Order. We also saw in flashback that he chose to respond to Luke briefly flirting with the idea of killing him by BURNING THE ACADEMY TO THE GROUND. Whatever you want to say about Luke’s moment of weakness, that is definitely overreacting, that is taking out your pain on innocent others.

TRoS even brings this to a conclusion, a similar one to the redemption of Anakin Skywalker, being unable to live in the world that he saved, that no act he could do could balance the scales to allow him to be a part of that world, considering the deaths and pain at his hands in specific.

So that - THAT - is who Kylo Ren was on screen.

The R*ylow version of him, however, is some scared teenager/young adult, who has been ignored, emotionally neglected by his parents, nearly murdered by his uncle, and drowning in the darkness, in need of a rope.

The canon version of him, to sum up, is a roughly thirty-ish adult man, raised by loving parents who had a galaxy to rebuild and couldn’t devote every second to him, his uncle had a moment of weakness where he pointed a weapon at who he perceived as a threat (I can give this, or I would, had Kylo stayed and even TRIED to get answers, but the indications are that he ran and proceeded to destroy the academy), and at every turn gave in to the darkness until his mother gives her life to drag him back to the light side.

I don’t care what your fantasy is, what bothers me is the ignoring and VERY HIGHLY SELECTIVE reinterpreting of the on screen material to justify this idea of Kylo Ren being a broken and abused bird in need of kindness. Because on screen, he spurns all the kindness he gets until Leia sacrifices herself. And THAT I only accept because of the filming limitations of Carrie Fisher’s last content.

And then we return to the issue of this backlash to John Boyega’s tweets. All of this is because he made a joke about sex, implicitly his character and Rey - the character that R*ylows have designated “belongs” to Kylo - having sex. And this has led to him being harassed (and not for the first time, because TFA did seem to be building to something between Rey and Finn), and by these same people.

We led with “fandom has problems with women.” This? This is “fandom hates black people.” And “fandom REALLY hates interracial couples.”

Like, take a stroll through AO3. How often do you see interracial M/F couples in the top of the listing of pairings? About the only serious example I can come up with off the top of my head is Sleepy Hollow and Ichabod/Abbie, which ended up never being canon. Because of the white showrunners and producers getting cold feet about it and deciding to repeatedly throw white women at Ichabod while continually sidelining Abbie until her actress finally decided to leave - given that she hadn’t even been invited to be part of the special features for the season two DVDs, and the fact that she’d already gotten reduced to the sidekick on a show where she should have been the lead.

Or even on a show where a non-white man is the lead - let’s look at Teen Wolf for another fine example. The show’s lead was a Latino teenager. The favored fandom pairing involves two white guys who, the initial episodes featuring them interacting showed, didn’t particularly care for one another. This led to the fandom turning that dynamic into “they secretly want to fuck,” and, as we see with Finn and Kylo, transplanted characterization and dynamics onto the other characters to prop up their ship.

I repeat myself above. I am not judging fantasy. Hell, I’m not even against writing alternate universe variations where the good guys are bad guys and vice versa. The problem I am seeing here, the reason that I cannot abide R*ylow, the reason that I see that specifically as a toxic fandom element, is because it actively diminishes the black man involved in matters - MANY fics will either downplay or completely trash Finn’s canon character in the name of making him the villain who Kylo must defeat to claim Rey.

These people claim to love “Kylo and Rey,” but frequently they are treating her as his redemptive sexy lamp, her purpose is to be his reward for reaching the bar that is basic human decency, having no interest in her beyond her being there to reward him for finally rejecting the darkness, when she has no canonical romantic interest in Kylo and only knows Ben as an idea. Even when the canon has her trying to reach to him, she is NOT doing it because of her intense love - love is not a switch, it is not some snap decision. It comes about because of knowing a person. Lust is instant. Attraction is instant. Love? That requires time. The ideal of Ben as a person could be attractive. But Kylo is not who Rey is or would be attracted to. 

All of this is still secondary to the fact that, because of an actor making a joke about his character and another character - a character who repeatedly has an inherently far kinder dynamic with his - having sex, there is a group of this fandom who has decided that this was an attack on them, and they must respond in kind. 

Whether or not you agree with ANY of what I have said of the interactions of Kylo and Rey, PLEASE tell me that you agree that THAT behavior is unacceptable. And THAT is the group that people are referring to when they speak so derisively about R*ylows. 

Because that is the group that speaks loudest. They’re who come to mind when the topic turns to this ship. You may not be part of it, but guilt by association comes into effect, because this group is hostile to anyone who doesn’t implicitly agree with them. And when you get this hostility from what comes across - whether it’s fact or perception - as a massive wing of total strangers, strangers who decide that, because you disagree with them, you are The Enemy, and you must be destroyed... Yeah, your reflex becomes “That group is trash, do not listen to them, do not engage with them, and god, aren’t they pathetic for devoting themselves to this ridiculous thing of made up characters.”

You want to go after the issue here? Root out the bad behavior that is the cause. Not the symptom. The symptom might be hating on women. But the cause is still the racism that started all of this.

You want to talk about how fandom hates women? Fine. Go right ahead. But don’t use a topic that came about because of racism to do it.

[pellicano-sanguino]

Today I went to see a play that’s based on the Little Vampire books by Angela Sommer-Bodenburg. I know, it’s embarrassing for an adult to go see a play for children, but I have a strong nostalgic connection to these books. They introduced me to the concept of vampires and got me hooked on the genre. So, here are some random thoughts about the play.

I should probably say a word or two about the books first. The first book came out during the 80s and after re-reading it a while ago, I must admit some parts of it haven’t aged that well (also, I’m no longer the intended target audience). I will give Sommer-Bodenburg credit for not watering down her vampires into child friendly versions. There are a lot of childrens’ vampire fiction where they clearly just wanted the aesthetics of vampires, not the actual brutal reality of vampirism like blood drinking and, you know, the whole being undead thing. Angela Sommer-Bodenburg doesn’t pussyfoot around the creepier aspects of vampire culture. Her vampires drink blood (except Anna, who hasn’t grown her fangs yet), and they talk about their deaths quite frankly and openly, including that they were turned by their own family members. 

The basic premise is a small boy named Anton befriending some vampire children and them trying to hang out with each other while keeping it secret from each other’s families. The play is based on the first book of the series and I think it’s a pretty decent and quite faithful adaptation. They’ve changed some things, but not much and the plot follows the book accurately.

Not gonna lie, the actor playing Anton was really wooden and fake, like a cardboard cutout. That’s the problem of having grown adults play small children. I know theater is all about suspending your disbelief (like in Takarazuka, believing that the clearly female otokoyaku are in fact male on the stage), but somehow I just have trouble buying Anton’s performance. Doesn’t help that he speaks in a very formal version of Finnish that no child speaks in real life. He tries so hard to make his voice and body language appear childlike, but it’s just not working. 

Rydiger on the other hand is fantastic. He’s quite different than the Rydiger from the books, but I don’t mind. In the books, Rydiger was my least favourite of the vampire children but here he is the best one of them and the best actor in the whole play. Instead of being a bratty, insufferable gremlin, he has elegant mannerisms, pleasant voice and he’s the most reasonable and caring of the vampire siblings. It’s not book accurate, but I approve. I especially like how this Rydiger talks and uses his body language. Unlike Anton, who shouldn’t be speaking in formal Finnish, Rydiger was raised over a hundred years ago and so was taught different kinds of speech and manners. He really comes off like a creature from another time. I love his little hand gestures, and his costume is so stylish and much more nice looking than the ragged gremlin-Rydiger from the books. Despite his adult-like mannerisms, Rydiger still acts like a child, much more accurately than Anton.

I fail to see what this cooler version of Rydiger sees in the boring, wooden block that is Anton. I totally see what Anton sees in Rydiger, who wouldn’t want a stylish little vampire friend. In the books I criticized Anton’s reasons for keeping up his friendship with Rydiger. In the books, Rydiger was a rude little shit, constantly making fun of Anton, stealing his books and being generally a real jerk. I thought, that if Rydiger wasn’t a vampire, Anton would never put up with such a lousy friend. Anton only tolerated Rydiger’s bullshit because he was a vampire and having a vampire friend was cool. Kids, don’t keep up friendships with people just because you like what they are, the more important thing is who they are. Anyway, in the play I can more easily buy their friendship (yes, Rydiger gets his moments of being a jerkface, but not nearly as badly as in the books). The scene where Rydiger teaches Anton how to fly was very adorable. And because the child characters were being played by grown adults, also kinda...  romantic?

“I’m flying, Jack! I’m flying!”

Anton’s parents were your token Normal People (TM) of the show. Both in the play and in the book they make fun of Anton’s interest in vampires, especially his mother (I swear, Angela Sommer-Bodenburg must have had some mother issues). It’s very sad to see parents mock the interests of their child. I know the feeling, it’s one of the reasons I always place the books I read down cover first so that no one can read the cover and call me stupid for liking a book like that. I’m so conditioned to do this, I do it even when I’m all alone at home. Do not mock your childrens’ interests, people, it will have long lasting effects. 

For whatever reason they changed Geiermeier the vampire hunter’s name to...  I don’t quite remember, Kalmankulma or something similar. Anton’s surname was changed to a Finnish name too, and they’ve updated the story to modern times, since they talk about euros instead of marks. But Anton’s family still has a corded phone, and Anna could call them from a phone booth. It’s weird they updated some parts but also kept some things that have become obsolete tech since the 80s. 

Man, did they fuck up Anna. I hated the look they gave her. What is up with that white, poofy hair, she looks like an old granny, not a five or six year old little girl. And why is her dress so short, we do not need to see her legs all the way up. Ugh, and how they failed with her character. Everything good that I said about Rydiger they must have cut off from book-Anna. In the book, Anna is the kindest, smartest and most humane of all the vampire children. The boys are selfish assholes who treat Anton like a fun toy, but Anna actually genuinely cares about the feelings of their human friend. She is also a strong independent young lady who has a fiery temper and will not tolerate any sass from her mean spirited brothers. Her only downside is that she’s a victim of a really annoying childrens’ book trope, namely that whenever there’s another female character around she becomes jealous of Anton and is unnecessarily rude to the other girls. I get it, kids can be bratty and jealous, but can we please stop teaching little girls the stupid lie that all girls are each others’ enemies and must fight for the attention of boys. For fuck’s sake, let girls be friends with each other, thinking they can only be friends with boys is ridiculous and misogynistic!

Well, Anna of the play is not smart, caring or strong (unless you count annoying, noisy hissy fits as strength, I guess). She has turned into a brainless diva, who simultaneously is smitten by Anton and also doesn’t care what he has to say about anything. Why would you do this to my favourite character!? In the books there were some really heartfelt scenes between Anna and Anton. Like, when Anna proposes the idea that when she gets her fangs she could bite Anton and turn him so that they could be friends forever, and Anton makes it very clear that he has no intention of ever becoming a vampire. This saddens Anna, because it means that Anton will grow to be an adult but Anna and her siblings will forever remain children, with no one to play with. These two must come to an understanding that while they like each other very much, they belong in two different worlds and they must accept that it means they will one day have to say goodbye. All things come to an end, it’s only a matter of when and how. So, why wasn’t a meaningful scene like that in the play?

Finally, we have Lumpi (whose name was changed to Leo in the play). I think he was fine, maybe suffering from a tiny bit of overacting, but still an ok performance. He doesn’t get much screentime, because in the first book we don’t get to see him much. Which is a shame because he is my favourite right after Anna. 

If you thought Claudia from Interview with the Vampire was the most tragic of all child vampires, then clearly, you have not met Lumpi von Schlotterstein. He was turned right in the middle of going through puberty. And so, he is doomed for all eternity to suffer from acne, breaking voice and mood swings. Truly, a lamentable fate is his.

Adding Lumpi to the vampire children friending Anton added a lot of dramatic tension to the group. Because of his mood swings, Lumpi was unpredictable and sometimes even downright threatening. Out of all the vampire kids, he had the least control over his vampire instincts and there were several moments where he considered drinking Anton. So scenes with him could be really intense. Also, he was supposed to be the vain kid with style, being especially proud of his long, sharp fingernails that he cared and filed constantly. They took his style and gave it to Rydiger, they took his vanity and gave it to Anna. Well, he still had a nice, red shirt that went well together with his white scarf and black cape.

Rydiger’s grandmother Sabine also makes an appearance. Strange that they added Sabine and not aunt Dorothee, who was the most dangerous, most blood thirsty of all the von Schlotterstein vampires. In the books Dorothee is the one the kids need to look out for whenever Anton’s visiting their home in the graveyard. There’s a scene where Anton has to hide in Rydiger’s coffin because of her and in the play they do the scene with Sabine. Well, maybe they thought any old vampire lady will do. Also they clearly wanted her to be more comedic relief character, not a threatening, blood drinking monster. Just like Dorothee in the book, Sabine commands Rydiger to go back to sleep and he has to cram himself into his coffin with Anton still there. Once Sabine’s gone, the boys get out and sigh in relief, and Lumpi comments “Well, did you take advantage of the opportunity, brother?” Look, I know he means blood drinking, but these kids being played by adults I can’t help but think about gay vampires sharing a coffin. Doesn’t help that Rydiger replies with a disgusted “Of course not! I’m not like you!” Which enrages Lumpi, because “W-w-what are you implying!?” I’m sorry, my mind is in the gutter, but I can’t help it. Carmilla and Anne Rice have made me see lesbian and gay vampires everywhere.

Well, for a small budget childrens’ play, it was a fun show. Wished they hadn’t changed some of the characters so drastically, but overall it was pretty book accurate, which was a relief (I was worried they were going to make a story of their own and just use the characters’ names, like that awful movie version). A nice nostalgic visit back to the first vampire books I ever read.

[radcatcrown]

Stephen’s Cosmos

Alternative title: My frustrations with Steven Universe coalesced into form in an AU

So Steven Universe: The Movie came out and after months of slumber, it woke my gripes with the series due to stuff that happened within the movie that irked me. I’ve had my problems with Steven Universe for some time now, and it's not that the movie is the straw the broke the camel's back, but hey, seems like a good time as any to do this.

Statement of Purpose: My main problem with Steven Universe is not an issue of the attempt at redeeming villains, for a dude like myself that grew up on an anime media diet, villains getting turned good is old hat. I’ve seen it better done than SU and worse than SU. The idea that yes, somebody that has done wrong in the past and has recognized the error of their ways has a possibility to atone is a good message. The problem is with SU scale, because of its insistence of going cosmic and having most serious problems have the sake of the world in the balance as an allegory for family issues makes it less credible, and more than a tad reprehensive. So this is an AU that remixes the show to do away with it. Mind you this is just a basic, vague, ranty pitch, probably not going to write out any episodes. We good? Ok. Let's begin.

Premise and Setting: In the interest of cutting down on the ‘epic’ scale of original SU, I’ll have this set mostly on modern-day earth and maybe other realms if necessary. Stephen’s Cosmos would have more of a straight-up magic/fantasy feel than the sci-fi magi-tech the show uses. This is because we’re not using aliens here, we’re using witches. And since we’re going for differences I’ll be using a Floral/herbal naming scheme for these witches, maybe even have them have developed plant-like features, but having them be human women at least as a basis. The backstory would go like so; existing for centuries in the shadows there would be a coven of powerful Witches known as the Chrysanthemum Circle, composed of the Elder Sister; White Chrysanthemum, Middle Sisters; Blue and Yellow/Golden Chrysanthemum and the youngest Red Chrysanthemum. They would rule over a pseudo-amazonian secret island in the middle of the pacific ocean, where they have built a society of witches that work under them, basically for both the preservation of the society itself and for them to be able to live in luxury. Red would be treated as a child by the other three instead of an equal, constantly the victim of abuse and punishment for her oddities in her sister’s eyes. This causes her to run away a few times before burning bridges in an impulsive manner, escaping and taking a few like-minded witches with her, namely her handmaiden and confidant Lily, the mysterious Sunflower, and a few others. Red would shed her imperious persona for a softer, friendlier Pink Rose. From there they would wander the world of man, picking up a young human girl that would come to name herself Carnation. They would settle and build a temple in the small coastal city of Beach City eventually, where they would live until the foreseeable future as the coven of the Wild Flowers. There Pink would find Mr. Universe and things would progress as cannon... except Pink doesn’t need to die here. So we have Pink Rose as part of the secondary cast. The main premise of the story would be to have an episodic structure with monster/problem-of-the-week setups(depending on how much action it makes sense to have in it), slowly integrating Stephen and the Flowers into the quirky town of Beach City, as well as learning lore and having the Flowers help with the strange occurrences in this town. These episodic seasons would get broken up with two-parter season finale to have a nice bombastic event. It would get slightly more serialized as it goes along, more-less the Avatar: The Last Airbender model. There would be a reveal of who Rose is about halfway through where Lily reveals it under dire circumstances and would fragment the Wild Flowers. Why not go with a completely mundane plot? Because flora is pretty, witches are cool and lesbian witches are double cool. (If you must though it's actually not that hard, the Diamonds are an old money/noble family, staunchly elitist and traditionalist, have them be in Europe where they rule over a township. Rose runs away due to similar situations and we’d have her and other runaways come to Beach City and slowly get integrated with ensuing hijinks and slice-of-life situations.)

Characters

Red Chrysanthemum/Pink Rose: Ok this is the big one so we better get it out of the way first. Since she’s going to be around her main impact on the show is actually being able to be there and explain herself but also deal with the fallout of her own choices. Her personality would be very nice, motherly, soft and friendly but in a way that she seems above it all, careless and perhaps a little too hands-off. Her main flaw to be dealt with is her selfishness. Her main arc would be raising Steven, and recognizing other people as her equals that she loves instead of her inferiors to be protected. The secondary arc would be having to deal with the repercussions of her past actions and her secrets.

Stephen: If one’s theme is generational abuse then exploring the next generation is crucial. Stephen would serve as an instigator to get the Flowers closer to the regular human population, and the audience closer to the bizarre and mysterious Wild Flowers. Stephen’s arc or arcs rather would focus on many things, but the main one being on his growth is the best of both worlds, his mother and father’s better qualities without the baggage that brought them into being, having to struggle with his identity between two worlds and the friction therein. He would eventually mature to be better than Pink. 

Lily: Lily would be Pearl’s equivalent, a Handmaiden literally sworn to serve Red; now Pink. The first thing that was done after their escape was to break her oath. We’d keep her arc of her having unrequited feelings for Pink, and her issues with her self worth and need for outside stimuli and approval. Her feelings would eventually need to be confronted and her dependency issues would be dealt with by her efforts to own her own person, be well with herself by being independent, and find maybe a new love?

Sunflower: Sunflower would be the fusion between two witches in love, separated by their classes back in the Island; the knightly and flaming Poppy and the serene seer Tulip. They wanted to be together with such fervor that when they were ordered to stay separated due to their social standings they performed a forbidden ritual that bound them both as one sole entity, sort of as a witchy marriage. The Chrysanthemums banned this ritual due to the exponential increase in power between the two participants, fearing it may topple them, so they declared it forbidden and decadent due to the ‘loss of two precious lives to bring in one tortured life’. The ritual cannot be sustained forever and it would be dissolved every new moon, and the preparations to properly perform it take a few days at least. This allows the two cute lesbians to be cute together. There would be parallels between them and the Rose/Lily relationship, but also serve to contrast them. Their arcs would mostly be relationship-based, regarding if they are codependent, if their relationship is healthy, they would have their rough patches and arguments like any married couple and hopefully a second more human wedding. 

Amy Thistle Aka Carnation: Carnation would be a neophyte witch kicked out of her foster home due to her magical inclinations. Finding a kindred spirit in their search for freedom Rose takes her under her wing. Carnation turns out to have the more ‘normal’ demeanor of the three witches. She would have parallels with Rose in the sense that even after Stephen’s around she’s treated like the kid and even not a ‘proper’ witch, this results in aggravating the self-worth and self hate issues she had. Rose’s words of ‘you’re perfect as you are’ would soothe her but in the long run, it just put obstacles in her development. She would grow to have frictions with Stephen, but would resolve them together with him. 

Connie: Basically the same but make her parents actually overbearing or traditionalist as to make parallels with the Chrysanthemums.

Lavender: A cloudshaper that got caught up in a riot against the Chrysanthemums, was sealed in a mirror until Stephen liberates her accidentally. Once out she lashes out against even the ones that gave her a helping hand. Her way to cope with her own trauma due to being sealed for hundreds of years would be violent and volatile. Her arc would be of her working through that trauma and for her to serve as a MASSIVE red flag for Rose of what her sisters’ deeper sins may be.

Mint: Keep Peridot’s arc and just adjust for lower scale. Her whole arc should be about broken misconceptions about the society outside the Island, and breaking through the behaviors that repressive society has ingrained. Parallels with Rose on that one. 

Oak: Oak would have more-less Jasper’s role in the story at large, first as a weapon for the Chrysanthemums and later as a recurring antagonist. Functionally she would begin to show to Rose and the others the consequences of her running away and other past actions since Oak was a member of her former court. 

Peony: An original member of the Wild Flowers that was found by Stephen as he messed around with portals. Her conflict with Rose originally would be more-less the same than Bismuth, their ideological differences, in this case, Peony has created a garment that would sever one’s connection with magic, reducing the user to a regular human. As with the original, she would be right in wanting justice and revenge. She wanted to use that to topple the Chrysanthemums and have them face the people’s justice. Rose exiled her before, and kept her secret. When she appears again old wounds are opened, and it is Peony that plants the seeds of direct rebellion within the Wild Flowers.

Townies: Most of these are fine and we don’t need to touch it, there are three major changes to be done though; Kevin, who should get a rehabilitation arc from a douche creep to a decent person, as a sort of practice for Stephen to help everybody else. Lars, since he can no longer be of the Stars, would become a part of the human contingent of Wild Flowers, mostly out of a search for purpose and adventure. Ronaldo would be rehabilitated from a self-important conspiracy buff into another, Dipper Pine’s-ish Wildflower.

The Chrysanthemums: Ok now the big bads. The Chrysanthemums would be aristocratic and authoritarian, capable of atrocities and overall believe themselves to be superior to everybody else. They would be the center of a “Diamond-Days”-esque arc in which Stephen, Rose and the other Wild Flowers go back to the Island with the explicit purpose of changing things for the best. They would need to test the lessons learned by Rose and her growth. General personality for the three? Yellow should be be imperius and ruthless, Blue should feel sublime, like the serene calm for a perpetual storm. White would actually have a god complex; she thinks of herself as perfect and eternal. They have been ‘mourning’ Red since she ran away, but the mourn an idealized version of her, the Red they wish they had lived with. From here during their story arc we would slowly begin to find out that Blue and Yellow act the way they act out of fear, though there is a degree of them that did buy into White’s beliefs. They’ve seen what White is capable and they know they’re not powerful enough even combined. Rose would end up confronting all three of them about the trauma they put her through, not only that but for the combined suffering and pain their rule of repression has caused to the witches in the island. She would reach through to Blue and Yellow… but not White. White reacts how an angry god might. They would manage to repel her and she would become the true antagonist, a goddess ousted from her temple. Blue and Yellow over the course of the next seasons begin to realize the true extent of their actions and set upon trying to fix and atone, but it would be made clear that hundreds of years of oppression cannot be easily wiped away. White herself would end up being defeated, depowered, and put on trial. Ultimately she would be sealed away.

So yeah, that’s it, thanks for coming to my TED talk.

[dingoes8myrp]

Alien Franchise Thoughts

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

A Bit of Background

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

The Original Series

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

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

Alien vs. Predator

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

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

The Prequels

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

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

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

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

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

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

Final Analysis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hicks and Newt deserved better and I stand by that.

[myassbrokethefall]

Do you have any favorite scifi shows? Or any recommendations?

Well! This is a fun ask. Let me see…

So, I really like sci-fi, but sometimes I also don’t like sci-fi. I overdosed a little bit on spaceship stuff after my years of Star Trek obsession and then BSG (and like, I hear The Expanse is great but I just…haven’t been in the mood), and these days my favorite sci-fi is talky, high-concept atmospheric mystery stuff in a fairly realistic world where something is a little bit weird. What I really DON’T like is violence/shooting/chasing/action, and a lot of sci-fi, unfortunately, is that. (Westworld, I am looking at your ass.) I also am a LITTLE bit over sci-fi as sledgehammery social parable, again a la Star Trek. Even though I’ll always love Star Trek (and will get around to watching Discovery one of these days). 

Some sci-fi TV that I’ve enjoyed recently includes:

(hey surprise, this got very long! so it’s under a cut)

Dark. There’s just one season of this on Netflix right now, but I LOVVVVVED it. Talk about atmospheric. It made me want to move to Germany and live in a forest where it rains all the time. It’s in German – this isn’t a bother to me because I like subtitles, but it’s available dubbed as well if you prefer that. It takes place in a small town and starts with a missing child, and it quickly becomes clear that something strange is going on. Time travel is an element. A central part of it becomes about the way all the characters in the town are interconnected and how the events of the past affect the future. It’s part Lost, part Stranger Things, part Back to the Future. 

The Returned/Les Revenants. So there’s an American show called The Returned as well, and this is not that one – the one I’m talking about is in French (sorry…I swear some ones without subtitles are coming) and was on uh, IFC or something like that. One day in a(n extremely attractive and cinematic) French town in the mountains, a girl comes home from a class field trip…except she died on that field trip years ago, in a bus accident, and her family is completely shocked and freaked out. The same thing is happening all across town. Includes one (1) very creepy child. Very spooky and also super atmospheric. (One reason I loved Dark so much was that aesthetically it reminded me of Les Revenants.)

The 4400. I binged this show and had a window of time in my life where I was super obsessed with it. Premise is similar to The Returned, actually: A bunch of people (4,400 of them to be precise) who were believed to be the victims of alien abductions – across many years – are returned to earth all at the same time, all at the age they left. So you have a man who was taken in the 1950s (Mahershala Ali!) and a little girl from the 1930s, etc., all dropped back into modern-day America – and most of them (all of them? I forget) have mysterious powers of various kinds. Two police detectives (am I predictable or what) investigate. Things escalate from there. It is a little XF-y in a way I appreciate, while also being totally different (and much less arty than something like Les Revenants). 

Stranger Things. I might as well list it…everyone knows about this show but it really is pretty great. Season 1 especially. Huge ET vibes, creepy/Spielbergy, not a cop-out where it’s all a metaphor or something (pet peeve). 

Fringe. This isn’t so recent (well, neither is The 4400), but if you like sci-fi and you haven’t watched it, you should! It starts out being a liiiiiiittle bit of a less-hooky ripoff of XF (a group of FBI folks, including a retired mad scientist basically, investigate paranormal cases), but after a few episodes it finds its groove and it becomes its own weird and wonderful thing. It was a show I really enjoyed and it ended satisfyingly. John Noble as Walter Bishop is fantastic, and one thing I really loved about it was that it was not afraid to make things happen and shake up the premise if needed. 

Jessica Jones. I really, really am not into Marvel or any of the superhero stuff, but I like this show a lot. It puts the idea of having “powers” in a very grounded kind of gritty, cynical, noir-y setting and I enjoy that. It’s also woman-focused, which is nice, and it’s just different from other stuff on TV. I dig it. 

Orphan Black. Man, I loved Orphan Black. What a fun show, and – not necessarily the most important thing to me in a show, but hugely refreshing nonetheless – it’s also very woman-centered. The premise is that a woman named Sarah sees someone who looks exactly like her – right before the doppelganger throws herself in front of a train. And in unraveling the mystery, Sarah learns that she’s a clone and she has a bunch of “sisters.” Tatiana Maslany is FREAKING AMAZINGGGGG as all the various clones. It is definitely sci-fi, but it’s also a lot of fun and just a fast-moving, action-packed (but not in a way that makes my eyes glaze over) cool-ass show. 

Grimm. Grimm was a pretty silly network-y show, but my affection for it really never waned (though it also never really went too far above “mild”). Premise: Basically, that fairytale monsters (broadly speaking) are real and walk among us (disguised for the most part), and there are these people called Grimms who can see them and are supposed to fight them. Lots of ancient documents, old books, mysterious keys, etc. This one dude who is a police detective in Portland (it was shot in Portland and is basically the second Portland-iest show after Portlandia, as far as I can tell) finds out that he’s a Grimm, and he meets this guy who is one of these monsters but also a delightfully civilized clock nerd who becomes his friend and helps him learn about this hidden world, and it’s pretty much monster-of-the-week episodes every week (though there is a mytharc of sorts involving an evil cabal of European royalty or something, snore). I think it’s the people who did Angel (which I never watched; I’m not a Buffy person). It also started the same year as Once Upon a Time, so it was the “other” fairytale show.

The Leftovers. Technically, it’s sci-fi. It’s also just very imaginative storytelling, and is a good example of what I mean by high-concept and atmospheric and something being a little bit weird in an otherwise contemporary setting. (This is a post-Lost Damon Lindelof, and Damon Lindelof has learned from his Lost mistakes, with wonderful results.) The central premise is a sci-fi one (2% of the earth’s population mysteriously vanishes), but aside from that there are also just a lot of kind of fantastic imaginative leaps and surreal settings and…ah, The Leftovers. My standard intro/warning: Season 1, while really good, is VERY depressing; Season 2 becomes marginally less depressing while also changing things up considerably and in my opinion becoming much better; Season 3 is even better than that. Love you, show. 

Lost. I suppose I should mention it even though it’s another obvious one. I have rarely been hooked as hard as I was by the pilot of this show. It doesn’t necessarily deliver on everything it promises, and it’s interesting to think of it in terms of it being one of the first shows to, basically, cancel itself – to choose to end so that it could pace its story effectively and lead to a deliberate ending instead of just vamping forever and trying to keep sucking the audience in for one more season until that stopped working and it was canceled. However, before that happened there was some time-killing, and I think that maybe contributes to people’s perception that it didn’t know what it was doing half the time. A divisive ending that I did not have a problem with. If you watch it in the spirit of being taken on a ride and enjoying the feelings that the twists and turns give you in the moment, you’ll find it more satisfying than if you’re trying to solve every mystery and trying to make it all work out perfectly with every loose end tied up.  

The OA. This was a weird-ass motherfucking show on Netflix and I still don’t know what the fuck it was about. I feel like I dreamed it. It maybe involves angels? And stuff. 

Carnivale. Lord, talk about atmosphere. This was an HBO show several years ago now about a creepy traveling circus in the 1930s. Being on HBO, it’s very violent and dirty and twisted and stuff. I was obsessed with it, and loved watching it although I vaguely remember the ending being not super satisfying? I should rewatch it, really, because I have forgotten a lot about it beyond impressions (it started in 2003). It’s not that sci-fi, but it has kind of mysterious portents and shit like that all over the place. Anytime I see anything remotely carnival-y I’m like AAAHHH CARNIVALE

Westworld. Sigh…I’m having a lot of trouble connecting to the season of Westworld that’s currently airing (Season 2, on HBO). I loved Season 1. My opinion is that they blew their premise too quickly and now they have nowhere to go – it’s just been violent chaos of the sort that puts me to sleep. Literally – one episode a couple of weeks ago I tried to watch and fell asleep during TWICE – two evenings in a row – before I finally got through it on Day 3. Because it was just a bunch of shooting. But the premise is cool – in the undetermined nearish future, there is a giant elaborate theme park where extremely realistic robots interact with the superrich guests who pay to come and basically be super destructive and violent (this show doesn’t have a particularly high opinion of humanity) in an Old West-themed setting. Like Disney World if your dream was to fuck and murder everyone in the Hall of Presidents. It’s made by one of the Nolans so there are lots of twists and also you don’t know what the hell is going on half the time. But there are some high-budget groovy sci-fi set pieces in it, and if you like amazing piano covers of popular songs (sometimes but not always in the in-show context of the player piano in the saloon), that is a fantastic bonus (the music is terrific overall). ROBOTS.

Battlestar Galactica. Speaking of robots. I loved the hell out of this show, although I have my issues with it. I felt when I first saw it (this is the 2000s remake I’m talking about, not the 1970s original) that it was like Star Trek had grown up. It gets more and more high-concept the longer it goes on, and some people weren’t fans of where it ended up (I, again, was fine with it), but it starts out with a hell of a premise: Cylons (humanlike robots originally created by humanity, which then evolved) destroy almost all of the human race except for a few stragglers in a few scattered ships, who have to pull together and somehow survive. Great acting, great writing, big themes, Laura Roslin. 

Black Mirror. This is an anthology series, meaning each one is a short story basically, with different characters, a different near-future setting, and a different premise (often having to do with technology going wrong. In the words of Mallory Ortberg: What If Phones, But Too Much?) Some of them are better than others but if you can take some upsetting conceptual stuff, it’s really a super interesting show. Your bingeing tolerance may vary, but I personally could not handle more than a couple of episodes a night.

Roswell. Holy shit I was so into this fucking teen soap opera about aliens. Also not recent. They might do a remake of this I heard?? MAX + LIZ 4EVA

Millennium. Yes…Chris Carter’s Other Show. I’ve said this before, but in a weird way I feel like this show is…CC’s best work???? Without the chemistry supernova of Mulder and Scully dimming everything around it, the “scary stories” he’s always talking about actually have room to be kind of interesting. It also works with his inclination to do what is essentially an anthology series loosely connected via recurring characters that are almost more narrators/observers than participants. In XF, this makes me want to break things when it results in stagnated character growth and no continuity and endless reset-button-pushing. In Millennium, Frank wandering grimly through the show universe encountering fable after fable (grimmer than XF – less on the stretchy mutants and fat-sucking vampires and lake monsters and Reticulans and spooky green bugs; more serial killers and cults and angels and apocalyptic stuff) actually worked pretty darn well for me. It’s not that the characters aren’t good, but they are VERYYYYY archetypal (kind of like how M&S could have been if not given such aliveness and humanity by David and Gillian, and Morgan and Wong and Vince Gilligan at that). Frank Black is the tormented detective, he has a beautiful kind wife and an innocent young daughter and they live in a beatific yellow house and he has to keep them safe from the evils out in the darkness. You might say this is hammered home a lot. But: the kind of mythic tone of it is a much better fit here than on XF. Lance Henriksen is perfect as Frank, and some of the stories are really absorbing and emotional. I cried during WAY more Millennium episodes (I can think of three or four off the top of my head that I remember WEEPING openly over, one of which stars Darren McGavin) than I ever have at XF. 

Everything changes in Season 2 when Morgan and Wong take over as (I believe) showrunners – things lighten up considerably versus S1; there’s even a Darin episode! With Jose Chung! And the Spotnitz Sanitarium! – and then everything changes again in S3 when they leave. The show does suffer from a lack of cohesion in that sense, and frankly the “mytharc” parts never did a lot for me (loosely, the world is going to end in the year 2000 and a cabal of mysterious dudes something something). But there is a lot of cool shit in this show. There really is. Every few years I attempt a rewatch and never finish; I should try again. In late fall, which is the only time Millennium should be watched. 

 BONUS

Face Off. This isn’t sci-fi per se (it’s a reality competition show, on Syfy), but if you’re a sci-fi person you might love it. The way I describe it to people is very simple: It’s the exact same premise and structure as Project Runway, except instead of fashion, it’s FX makeup. The best thing about it is that everyone is NICE and HELPFUL to each other. It’s a bunch of creative nerds making monsters together and the competition element is there but no one is a dick and there’s no fighting and drama. Michael Westmore, who did the makeup on Star Trek: TNG among many other acclaimed projects, is the mentor (and the dad of the show’s host, McKenzie Westmore), and he pops in to give dad advice to all these starstruck dorks. The new season just started and it’s just a fun show. I have, at times, thought of it as my FAVORITE show on TV. 

Well, that was probably more than you wanted, anon! I feel like I’m missing some, too. TV! I like it. 

[aion-rsa]

The Trouble with Alien Zombies

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Soon we’re going to be watching Zack Snyder leave behind the quest for a “grown-up” superhero movie and return to his old playground, the zombie movie. Army of the Dead looks like a huge amount of fun and leaves us wondering why nobody has made a zombie heist movie before (except for Train to Busan sequel, Peninsula), but one of the plot details that has leaked about the film is that Area 51 plays a significant role.

This suggests that the zombie plague may be extraterrestrial in origin. Like most subversions of the zombie apocalypse genre (although Army of the Dead promises a much smaller and more contained “apocalypse” so that all that cash they steal is still worth something) this is actually a plot twist you can trace back to the earliest roots of the genre.

In Night of the Living Dead, the zombie apocalypse (although again, by the end of the film the “ghouls” seem to have been mostly mopped up) is the result of strange radiation emerging from a probe that has returned from Venus. The trope goes back even further than that.

One of the few films that can make a claim to an earlier take on the zombie apocalypse than Night of the Living Dead is the timeless classic Plan 9 from Outer Space. In that film, which we will not be making any jokes about, aliens reanimate the recently dead and drive them to attack the capital cities of the Earth.

In fact, if you want to find pre-George Romero examples of zombie apocalypse stories, the original series of Star Trek has done two. In the episode “Miri” the Enterprise encounters an exact duplicate of Earth, except that humanity has been wiped out by a deadly pandemic that turns every adult human into a violent, raging monster. It’s a premise explored in more detail by Charlie Higson’s YA zombie series The Enemy, and the Netflix series Daybreak.

Star Trek also gives us the brilliantly titled “Operation — Annihilate!”, where a swarm of spacefaring parasites sweep through the galaxy, infecting humanoids and driving them to a violent rage.

Yes, zombie purists might claim both of these are close to 28 Days Later’s “Rage infected humans” than true zombies, but in truth, the genre is big enough to include multitudes, and anything that A: uses human bodies, to B: create more entities like itself, while C: Not appearing to be intelligent, will usually create a story that looks a lot like a zombie story.

Indeed, Star Trek would come back to space zombies again, once more in the Star Trek: Enterprise episode, “Impulse” and again in the pilot episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks.

Is There Death on Mars?

Star Trek is not alone in drinking from this particular well. Early in its run Dark Matter had a space zombie episode. Doctor Who has done two space zombie episodes in the new series alone, “The Waters of Mars”, and “Oxygen” (which used zombie movie tropes for their intended purpose- bringing down capitalism), and that’s just including the ones actually set in space. Hell, even the primitive bandage-and-hospital-gown-wearing Cybermen from “The Doctor Falls” have a very George Romero vibe to them.

The appeal of putting a zombie in a spaceship for a TV show is easy to see. Zombies are a cool and instantly recognisable monster. Spaceships are a cool and instantly recognisable setting. What’s more, while your production values may vary, zombies on a spaceship is a pretty damn cheap concept to realise on screen. Zombies are just however many extras you can afford with some gory make-up. All you need for a spaceship is some suitably set-dressed corridors and maybe a couple of exterior model shots if you’re feeling swish.

And as with the zombie apocalypse genre as a whole, the audience instantly and instinctively understands “the rules” of a zombie story, allowing you to focus on your characters and the solutions they come up with.

The movies are no stranger to the space zombie either. The most straightforward example being The Last Days on Mars, which is pretty much a note-for-note remake of Doctor Who’s “The Waters of Mars” but without David Tennant. Mars is a popular venue, in fact as we see also Martian zombie apocalypses in Doom (2005) and Doom Annihilation (neither of which I watched to research this article, because there are limits). Even the “Ghosts” in Ghosts of Mars (which I did watch) may resemble more of a cross between Mad Max baddies and Evil Dead’s Deadites than zombies, but still, have a certain zombieness about them.

Most recently, in this last year Bruce Willis has starred in not one, but two movies with sub-Doctor Who production values where he fights space zombie-like adversaries (I have watched Breach/Anti-Life and Cosmic Sin, so don’t know why I thought I could get away with being snobby about the Doom movies earlier).

But Doom also raises another point about space zombies – a really popular venue for the extra-terrestrial undead is videogames.

This is for surprisingly very similar reasons to why space zombies are popular on telly and in film. Videogames will get far more creative in designing the appearance of their space zombies  – with the Dead Space trilogy setting the bar with their gloriously gory Necromorphs – but the AI for a zombie, environmental navigation aside, seldom needs to be much more complicated than that of a Pac-Man ghost. Space has been a popular videogame setting for as long as videogames have been a thing, thanks to the handy black background it offers, and once again, corridors.

We’ve seen them in Dead Space, in all the Doom games, but also the Halo games in the form of the fungal, cancerous looking, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis-inspired Flood. Mass Effect gives us colonists zombified by the sentient Thorian plant, as well as the more technological “Husks”. And of course, there’s that one Call of Duty map.

Even now the makers of the original Dead Space games are looking to get back in on the action with the upcoming game, The Callisto Protocol.

And yet, while the appeal of space zombies is undeniable, by the same token they just don’t feel quite like “proper” zombie stories.

In Space, Nobody Can Hear You Shout “Brains!”

The problem is this: Your archetypical zombie story is ultimately a siege narrative. Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead, even twists on the formula like 28 Days Later, Train to Busan, and Pontypool all operate on a similar premise. You and some humans you probably don’t get on with are trapped in a structure (in Train it’s a moving structure, but still counts). Outside of that structure, there are somewhere between hundreds and thousands of zombified humans who want to get in and kill you. The humans keep arguing until the zombies get in and kill everyone.

For this to work you need a structure with a lot of room around it, and a big population of people to be turned into zombies.

Unfortunately the living conditions in space, even in our wildest space future fantasies, tend to be A: Quite claustrophobic, and B: Don’t have many people in.

Even in Dead Space, arguably the best example of a space zombie story, you very often find yourself thinking that if zombies hadn’t killed off this mining ship/space station/mining colony, overpopulation would have.

At the same time, spaceships, space stations and colonies tend to have really good, robust metal doors separating any two parts of the habitat, quickly reducing any zombie plotline to this XKCD cartoon.

But there are workarounds, and ways to use these restrictions to your advantage. Zombies are, by nature, pretty rubbish, slow-moving, stupid, easy to kill in small numbers. Most zombie stories get around this issue by throwing loads of them at you. Space zombie movies can make use of those corridors we mentioned earlier, showing how much scarier a single zombie can be in enforced close quarters.

Zombies also have one major advantage over their living victims – they don’t need to breathe. This is a major plus point in space, offering you the chance to have hordes of zombies crawling along the outer hull of the ship – something we’ve seen in Dead Space and Doctor Who’s “Oxygen”.

At the same time, the space setting also emphasises another key aspect of the zombie story – resource management. In space there is no huge abundance of well-stocked shopping malls or bunkers full of firearms. One of the ways The Last Days on Mars manages to make its very small number of zombies threatening is that their small hab modules have very little that you could use as a weapon.

And yet, space zombies still lack a certain something of their terrestrial counterparts.

It’s Undeath, Jim, but Not as We Know It

The thing is, aside from anything else, zombies are a transformation of the familiar. They look like more beaten-up versions of your neighbours and co-workers. The zombie apocalypse is a scene you can easily imagine on your street, at your pub, your local shopping centre.

Army of the Dead gets this – no matter where you are in the world, the iconography of the Las Vegas strip is familiar and we enjoy seeing it overrun by the undead.

And spaceships just aren’t. You might conceivably end up on holiday in Vegas. You’re statistically unlikely to be an astronaut.

But it’s more than that. Zombies are far more than cheap monsters that require little in the way of make-up or AI programming. The symbolism they carry is incredibly weighty. Earthly zombies have been used to represent capitalism, conformity, Vietnam soldiers, couch potato culture, mob mentality, our instinct towards violence, poverty, our obsession with mobile phones, and our ability to dehumanise one another.

Divorced from our world, from us as we recognise ourselves, that symbolism becomes a lot harder to nail. The zombies in The Last Days on Mars are just zombies. Dead Space’s Necromorphs are maybe a legally-safe satire on Scientology? Pandorum gives us extremely pale evolved human descendants that are extremely zombie-ish, and they certainly exhibit some of the worst bits of humanity, but they also live in a darkened, claustrophobic Hell, so it’s hard to hold it against them.

Zombies rarely represent anything in the way Earth-bound zombies do.

At least, nothing human.

Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Ruin features a sentient alien slime mould-like creature that, in its curiosity and need to explore, infiltrates and takes over the nervous system of the humans it encounters. To an outside observer, they look extremely like zombies, but the lifeform itself isn’t aggressive, just very, very alien. Andrew Skinner’s Steel Frame gives us not only space zombies, but space zombie mechs, and again the “Flood” (not the Halo one) that infects them is implied to be a kind of hivemind.

Most of the space zombies we’ve seen here aren’t what purists would call “true zombies” but are some manner of hivemind. This is true of Halo’s Flood, Mass Effect’s Thorians and Husks, and if we throw the doors to zombie-dom wide open, while they’re very different in the TV series, the Borg of Star Trek: First Contact come across as alien cyber-zombies.

One book to feature relatively harmless alien-created zombies is Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s Roadside Picnic. In that book the aliens aren’t robots or little green men, we just encounter their leftovers and garbage, which are artefacts strange and incomprehensible to humans. That these artefacts somehow raise the dead as mindless automata is a minor side issue – the book is about how alien intelligence might be something so different from ourselves we don’t even recognise it as intelligence.

If there is a space for alien zombies and zombie astronauts in the zombie pantheon, maybe it’s there. Space zombies are scary because they look like us but think so differently that we can’t comprehend them, while Earth zombies are scary because we have oh so much in common with them.

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Chris Farnell is the author of Fermi’s Progress, a series of novellas about a prototype FTL ship that blows up every planet it encounters. The latest instalment, Descartesmageddon, features an alien planet undergoing a very different kind of zombie apocalypse. It is available at Scarlet Ferret and Amazon.

The post The Trouble with Alien Zombies appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[firstagent]

So Who the Hell is Yggdrasil Anyway: A breakdown

(After putting way too much time and thought into a response on our Discord chat, longtime user fuzzleyan expanded on and wrote up this guide to Yggdrasil’s prior appearances in Digimon. Since she’s no longer on Tumblr, I’m posting it here with permission and without edits. All credit goes to her!)

Long before it actually happened, I mentioned dreading the idea of Yggdrasil appearing in tri. because it’s an entity that was introduced into the franchise long after Adventure’s run, and it would feel somewhat odd for such a thing to be introduced retroactively into the Adventure canon. Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened, and I’m informed that this is apparently making things a bit tricky for people who aren’t familiar with the later entries of the franchise. Yggdrasil is indeed in an odd position where it’s become a “franchise staple”, but only for works that were introduced after the franchise’s post-Frontier hiatus, so I would say it’s something probably only really well-known to diehard fans familiar with said entries, and most certainly not exactly to tri.’s general target audience of those familiar with Adventure’s canon.

Of course, Adventure!Yggdrasil, like most other franchise elements, is only a “recurring” element, and is distinct from any other incarnation of Yggdrasil that may appear in other franchise entries – that is to say, you don’t have to know about its other appearances to understand the one in Adventure. That said, the active fanbase naturally tends to analyze its role in Adventure based on how it’s appeared in other works, which makes things a bit tricky for those who are coming in new. So here’s a bit of a rundown on what Yggdrasil’s supposed to be, and how it’s appeared in prior franchise entries thus far.

Note that the below text contains spoilers for all the entries discussed!

Overview

Yggdrasil (technically officially spelled as “Yggdrasill”, which is a viable romanization, but I’m defaulting to the more common modern spelling) is a name that fans of various other things like Tales of Symphonia or Granblue Fantasy might know, because it’s named after the World Tree in Norse mythology. Depending on the work, there may be further references to Norse mythos made to it, but other than its occasional (proper) depiction as a tree, there aren’t really any deeper connections than that.

Digimon “null canon” (i.e. things like the Encyclopedia) describes it as the host computer that runs the Digital World, and there are a few entries that describe it as the Digital World’s “god”. Note that in most cases, it’s not actually treated as a multiverse divine entity, and it’s at least somewhat implied that the denizens of the Digital World only “see” it as a god because of how powerful it is. (That said, Savers did treat the “reveal” that Yggdrasil was merely a computer as somewhat of a plot twist, although not to a huge degree.)

Like with anything in Digimon, portrayals of the entity vary from entry to entry, but there are a few common points:

If it has a prominent role, it’s almost always an antagonist. That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a “bad guy”, as it might have reasons that it considers to be good, but it has a tendency to take them to the extreme.

Its opinion of humanity is rarely good. (Hence, its fanbase reputation for hating humanity. tri.’s version is no exception.)

As the master computer of the Digital World, it’s often trying to act in what it believes to be the Digital World’s best interest. However, said things tend to be things like “killing all of humanity” and “killing anything it remotely perceives to be a threat”, so that’s how it usually ends up in the antagonist role.

It may be associated with the Royal Knights. Note that this is optional – the Royal Knights were developed separately from Yggdrasil in Digimon canon (remember, their first appearance was in Frontier), and even works that feature both may not have them be connected, but there is a strong tendency for the Royal Knights to be serving Yggdrasil.

It should also be known that Yggdrasil’s most “iconic” appearance is in its 7D6 form:

This wasn’t actually how it originally appeared in its first visual appearance in X-Evolution, where it was just kind of a…sphere, so the prevalence of this appearance is very likely due to its very prominent role in Savers. (Since it was also in Next, it may also just be that 7D6 was developed around this era, but because 7D6′s name itself comes from the year 2006 that Savers debut in, and because its appearance in this form didn’t debut in Next until very late into its run, I’m more inclined to attribute this to Savers.)

And finally, note that it has a “dub name” thanks to Savers’s English dub: “King Drasil”. I can’t tell if the dub was concerned about the potential religious element of the Norse etymology or if they sincerely thought American kids can’t pronounce Yggdrasil. Either way, I find this to be stupid, and even though future works like Cyber Sleuth’s official English localization seem to be using it, I’m going to happily ignore that even if tri.’s dub decides to use it as well.

Digimon Chronicle

Yeah, this is actually Yggdrasil’s first appearance. Thing is, very few people tend to remember this thing existed, so most people tend to attribute said first appearance more to X-Evolution (see below).

The story basically exists to introduce the X-Antibody: the Digital World begins to reach over capacity, and in order to stop this Yggdrasil created “Project Ark”: an initiative that would use the “X Program” basically wipe out all Digimon except ones that Yggdrasil had personally selected and migrate all the survivors to a new world it had created. However, certain Digimon developed the “X-Antibody” that made them immune to the X Program, and Yggdrasil, not liking this, dispatched the Royal Knights to kill them. At this point, some kids sucked into the Digital World end up partnering with some X-Antibody Digimon, and join the fight against Yggdrasil…

…And that’s pretty much all I know. Sadly, information on Chronicle is quite scarce (since, again, not a lot of people really remember this existed), and it was basically a product pamphlet so there may not really be a solid conclusion to this in the first place.

Note that this actually is the closest to the Norse mythos etymology – the new Digital World created by Yggdrasil is split into three terminals, “Urðr”, “Verðandi”, and “Skuld”, three deities that are considered to determine people’s fate.

Digital Monster X-Evolution

Yggdrasil’s first prominent appearance. As I wrote earlier, this predates the 7D6 appearance, so it kind of looks like a weird blue orb here.

The premise starts off similar to Chronicle, in that Yggdrasil tries to create a new Digital World by wiping out most of the Digimon population, but with the key difference that there are no humans – instead, simply Digimon fighting on their own to form a revolution against it.

Yggdrasil thus starts a plan that ends up being its own undoing: it creates an experimental Digimon called DORUmon, a natural carrier of the X-Antibody, who slowly gestates the data for the Death-X-mon meant to carry out its plans. After a few of the Royal Knights start to turn on Yggdrasil and become X Digimon themselves, eventually DORUmon ends up fully evolving into the thirteenth “secret” Royal Knight, Alphamon, who realizes that Death-X-mon is his shadow and does a suicide blow that kills himself, Death-X-mon, and Yggdrasil all at once. (Don’t worry, he gets better.)

The movie ends on the note of questioning why Yggdrasil did what it did (a common question raised by the Royal Knights throughout the movie), and the conclusion is that it was doing the same thing everyone else was doing in the movie: fighting to live. The Digital World being over capacity meant that it was no longer able to handle it, so that was its way of trying to survive.

Digimon Savers

While X-Evolution was its first prominent appearance, Savers probably codified a lot of the preconceived notions we have about Yggdrasil and paved the way for certain recurring elements in future appearances, most notably its 7D6 form that serves as the “final boss”.

In the backstory, Masaru’s father Suguru had gone on an expedition to the Digital World and eventually started a mission to realize a future where Digimon and humans can peacefully coexist. Hearing about the Digital World’s “god” Yggdrasil, Suguru and his newfound partner BanchouLeomon go on a long journey to find it, eventually meeting it and beginning peace talks. Unfortunately, at that time extremely xenophobic human asshole Kurata Akihiro started going on a Digimon genocidal spree, convincing Yggdrasil that humans are assholes after all.

Kurata’s actions end up triggering space-time distortions between the human and Digital World, and Yggdrasil thus dispatches the Royal Knights to destroy the human world that it perceives to be a threat to the Digital World’s existence. Fortunately for DATS, one such Knight that was originally sent to be a mole ends up liking humanity too much, and while some of the Knights end up defeated in standard form, others end up slowly being convinced to humanity’s cause and helping them out.

Eventually, Yggdrasil concludes that humanity continually causing miracles that shouldn’t be happening through DigiSoul (their bond with their partners in physical form – it’s a recurring element in the series) has made things too unpredictable, so it’s just going to reset the Digital World from scratch. Masaru and his friends decide they’re having none of that, leading to a final battle where eventually Masaru punches a god in the face convinces it to pull back into the shadows and observe what’ll happen here.

Yggdrasil probably exhibits the highest number of distinct forms here. For much of the story, it spends time “possessing” Daimon Suguru’s body – in fact, the series intentionally misleads you into believing that Yggdrasil is simply Suguru gone mad, leading to a lot of angst on Masaru’s part as Suguru had been his role model growing up. In the backstory in its first chronological appearance, it appears as a huge tree true to its namesake; Suguru and BanchouLeomon end up inflicting their first defeat on Yggdrasil in a suicide attack (sort of) that destroys Suguru and the tree’s bodies (don’t worry, Suguru gets better…BanchouLeomon, we’re not sure). Its “final boss” form is the 7D6 terminal, where it “reveals” it’s actually a master computer rather than some spiritual deity; it has a “fragile” statue-like form that emerges from it at the very end when Masaru punches it out; it appears in a crystal at the very end when it says it’ll withdraw.

So despite being the one possibly most explicitly delineated as a computer, it ironically exhibits the most traits similar to that of an omnipotent god. Likewise, even at the end of the series, it seems that the Digimon still revere it as one – it’s noted during the ending and epilogue that Yggdrasil’s loss comes as as huge shock to them, since they’d all effectively just lost their god.

Digimon Next

There are effectively two Yggdrasils in the story, caused by the fact that in the backstory, it wanted to investigate the relationship between humans and Digimon and sent its consciousness into the human world in the form of a gothic lolita-dressed human-shaped moe girl named Mikihara Norn. (In Norse mythology, a Norn is the kind of deity that Urðr, Verðandi, and Skuld are; the name “Mikihara” also includes the character 樹, referring to her origin as the World Tree.) Norn befriended the kids who would become the main characters in the story, to the point where much of anti-hero Shou’s motive is to keep his promise to her to “always fight for the Digimon”.

Unfortunately, Barbamon (the main villain of the story) then decided to approach the remaining empty shell of Yggdrasil and convinced it to cause a “revolution” in the Digital World, promptly fusing it and using it in its grand plan to Take Over the World. He then binds up Norn in chains and renders her nearly useless for the entire story.

In the end, Norn is freed and is put into an outfit reminiscent of the 7D6 terminal

after which she continues to be completely useless for the rest of the story.

Oh, but at the end she returns to her role as the “goddess” of the Digital World so it’s all okay.

(I don’t have the best opinion of this manga, as you can tell.)

Digimon World Dawn/Dusk

It’s only mentioned in passing, but apparently it’s still master computer-ing.

Digimon World Re:Digitize Decode

It’s mentioned in the backstory that apparently it used the X Program to eradicate Digimon it deemed unnecessary, and was promptly deactivated. It then reactivates in response to the threat Vitium poses. Unfortunately, letting a thing that kind of kills Digimon run around isn’t exactly advisable even in the case of Vitium, so it sets up shop as a boss for Taiga and co. to take down. (You fight it in 7D6 form.)

Digimon Xros Wars (manga)

Yggdrasil is mentioned only as a reference in backstory – it’s said that it was once the AI controlling the Digital World that brought its logic to such an extreme that it treated the human world as a threat to be destroyed. As a result, it was “brought down” (it’s not said by whom) and replaced by Homeostasis, an entity that “wishes for harmony” (but is significantly more cryptic), and explicitly said to be a more calm and protective god created from the lessons learned from the incident.

Note that as of this writing, this is the only time Homeostasis appears outside of Adventure canon. Prior to this, the name of the entity that had appeared in Adventure was not particularly well-known, as it was from the Adventure novels written by director Kakudou to add upon the series canon. (How applicable novel canon is to the anime is a bit disputable as there were places the novels actually altered events to condense the series into three books, but they’re clearly based on Kakudou’s setting notes – and since multiple plot points in it are relevant to tri., either the staff is referencing said novels or they’re using the same setting notes left behind from 1999.) Nakashima Yuuki, the mangaka for the Xros Wars manga, apparently fell so in love with Digimon when writing it that he promptly researched everything he possibly could, leading him to drop this reference to it. But because not many people knew of what was at the time an extremely obscure piece of Digimon trivia, until tri. explicitly brought it up many fans thought it to be a concept original to the manga.

In any case, Yggdrasil being a backstory character means that it doesn’t do much in the plot, but in said backstory it appears in its 7D6 form. In further backstory, after Yggdrasil’s deactivation, final boss Bagramon found what was left of it – the “tree of information” (in which it does indeed appear as a tree) that served as the Digital World’s main server. As Bagramon had lost half his body trying to rebel against Homeostasis, he cut out a part of the tree to replace it, and in the process gained a ton of power and knowledge of the Digital World’s history, leading to his motivation to kickstart the events of the plot. (Note that Bagramon himself is also somewhat of a well-intentioned extremist in this entry, but that’s not relevant to this Yggdrasil spiel.)

Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth

The second half of the game revolves largely around the Royal Knights, all in the service of Yggdrasil. The premise of the game involves the fact that an incident in the past caused “Eater” – a corrosive program with no will – to accidentally get leaked into the Digital World from the human world, laying waste to it and destroying the Digimon within. Unfortunately, Yggdrasil isn’t exactly the easiest entity to communicate with (it’s not clear whether it’s because its nature means it can’t communicate normally in the first place, or whether it’s because Eater had made it impossible to understand), and so the Royal Knights couldn’t tell what its intentions were – half came to believe that Yggdrasil wanted the human world and its inhabitants destroyed for the threat it posed to the Digital World, while the other half believed that it wanted to protect everything, including the humans.

This doesn’t cause a complete split; there are some that are taking obvious sides (Nokia’s Omegamon comes to the human world explicitly with the intention of protecting humanity, and his friend Dukemon sides with him immediately, while it’s mentioned that ones like Duftmon and LordKnightmon have pretty much zero chance of wanting anything but human blood), so a good chunk of the second half of the game is convincing those who are in debate about it towards humanity’s cause.

At the end of the game, the main cast finally travels to Mother Eater’s core to defeat it, and find that it’s almost completely consumed Yggdrasil. Before getting to the center, you have to fight a number of 7D6 terminals that serve as its defense system. If you transliterate the DigiCode it spouts out before it starts fighting you, it’s basically screaming repeatedly for help – and the music playing in the background gives off the distinct feeling that you’re performing a mercy kill euthanization on every terminal.

At the end after everything is over, a 7D6 terminal representing Yggdrasil itself appears and begins the process of restoring the Digital World to normal, also sending the kids home in the process, so it seems like there aren’t any hard feelings.