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itsclydebitches · 4 years ago

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Welcome back, everyone!

We’re now on Chapter Eight and once again the story is told from Velvet’s perspective. So our starting question is: why is she getting the most attention so far? If memory serves, the PoV order has been Coco, Velvet, Sun, Fox, Yatsu, Velvet, Scarlet, Velvet again — meaning that in a text balancing eight main characters, so far four of them have received a single chapter, two (Sage and Neptune) zero chapters, and one three chapters. That seems rather imbalanced. I suppose it makes a certain amount of sense if we factor in RWBY viewers’ familiarity with Velvet, but I’d wager we’ve gotten far more screen time with Sun overall. My only point being, why Velvet? It’s not that you can’t make her a focal point of the narrative, I just haven’t seen anything to explain that choice in the first 100+ pages. Her perspective hasn’t brought anything unique to the story, something we couldn’t have gotten from the seven other characters involved in these events… but here we are, back with Velvet for the next six pages.

Yeah, this chapter is short. Silver lining?

We learn that Team NOVA is on their second mission — why bother showing us the first when they’re an entirely new, volatile team, right? That would be silly! — escorting a technician “through the Grimm-infested mountains just outside of Oscuro Combat School.” So Shade students regularly conduct real huntsmen work but throw a fit over having to spar with one another? Interesting. See, if I were a civilian who got even a glimpse of what goes on inside these schools, I would not trust these kids with my life.

Lo and behold, things go horribly! We learn right off the bat that “The technician had been knocked unconscious in a skirmish with a band of Dromedons.” For those of you with an iffy memory like mine, these are the camel-like creatures that spit acid and… that’s about all we know about them. That’s really all we need for this scene though because this grimm nailed the tech in his leg, a wound which now requires “serious medical attention.” Great. Gus Caspian, who I learn is a younger friend from the previous novel, is trying to treat the wound as best he can, clearly a little freaked out about being here, “but apparently Oscuro teachers didn’t coddle students any more than Theodore did.”

Do you expect them to? Despite Atlas being the only one who combines their academies with their military, we can’t pretend like these schools aren’t teaching teenagers to wield deadly weapons and kill things with them. There’s no institution on Earth (or Remnant) that should “coddle” those looking to take on that responsibility. I mean yeah, we had moments where Ozpin encouraged them to be kids, like after the food fight and during the dance, but he still took a hard stance whenever there was an actual lesson in the works: “No. You will be falling.” Based on the age of the students, the academies are akin to colleges. In real world college if you don’t do your work or don’t pay attention in class, well… nothing that bad happens. This is by no means a call to not do you work, merely an acknowledgement from a formerly grade obsessed student that individual test scores really don’t have the impact on your life that it feels like they will at the time. Trust me on this. So yeah, some leeway is great in the real world… but when the students are fighting monsters and defending others from death? Then the schools should absolutely discourage any slacker-esque attitude. The concept of any institution “coddling” huntsmen is horrifying.

Note though that the chapter starts after all the action has taken place. We skip the rest of reinitiation. We skip NOVA’s first mission. We skip the attack that landed Velvet in this predicament. It’s not automatically a bad technique provided you’re skipping over boring parts to get to the interesting bits… but this isn’t interesting. We learn almost nothing new from this scene: Velvet misses her old team, her new teammates don’t believe in her, Nebula is mean. Those are the emotional beats here — things we’ve known for at least three chapters now. The only thing that’s introduced is the advertisement on Gus’ scroll, which could have been been added to any other scene.

Let’s revise a bit:

We get to see the battle against the Dromedons wherein Velvet uses her camera, revealing her weapon to Team NOVA and earning more of their respect. Information about Gus’ improvement is shown through his combat abilities as he’s unexpectedly chucked into this battle (perhaps with him using his semblance to further his growth there too). While taking a hit he loses his scroll, slightly damaging it. In the aftermath Velvet retrieves it for him and finds this ad displayed, growing curious. Over the course of Gus’ explanations the rest of Team NOVA is clued into Velvet’s worry and suspicion. What’s wrong? It’s just an ad. But you’re clearly hiding something… Now, does she tell her new team about the Crown, or keep it silent and risk the tenuous trust they’ve just created?

Why is Myers skipping over all the action and potential growth?

Instead we get the boring stuff. Velvet admires Gus’ uniform because of how it’s built for the heat and recalls that “Coco had been messing around with new outfit designs for Team CFVY.” I swear though, 95% of my enjoyment with this novel comes from the throwaway details. I would actually like seeing how Coco combines her personal love of fashion with the necessity of designing combat gear appropriate for the environment. Maybe they frame it as merely a hobby outside of their huntsmen work, giving them an excuse to keep helping their former teammates. That could be cool!

Though of course, this is the series where Cinder, Neo, Hazel, and Emerald all walk into the ice Kingdom with skin bared, so...

(You all are going to freeze to death, have fun.)

“Velvet’s ears swiveled around, listening for danger.” That’s anything detail I like. At the very least Before the Dawn remembers that Velvet is a faunus and frequently incorporates that into her character. She’s on the lookout because other than Gus tending the unconscious technician, she’s alone “on the sidelines.” It’s framed simultaneously as the group rejecting her and as an unavoidable necessity: “it wasn’t like she didn’t have an important task of her own [repairing the relay], one that none of her teammates had the expertise to perform.”

Wait. Why does Velvet have this expertise?

The justification is that she’s “handy with electronics” and “Anesidora was incredibly complicated, and she’d designed it herself,” but that’s like saying “I built a computer so I’ll come fix your refrigerator. That’s easier.” I don’t know, maybe someone with the ability to build a computer from the ground up could figure out a refrigerator on the fly, but they feel like different skill-sets to me. All electronics are not built the same and claiming that because you understand one you automatically understand all others — even supposedly simpler pieces of tech — seems a little suspect. If that were the case, we’d have no need for experts who fix your phone, your television, your toaster, and your watch. Surely if you understand one you understand the others, right? It’s the same assumption here: If Velvet can understand building a hard light weapon, then she must understand relay communications too!

…right.

She even goes so far as to say that they “probably should have left the technician at Oscuro—she could have done this on her own” yet just a few minutes later it’s, “Velvet double-checked everything. She didn’t know what was wrong. She glanced back at the technician, Gus still at his side. The guy was out cold. He’d taken a pretty hard knock to the head. Well, she had tried.” So she’s confident enough to think that the technician is unnecessary one moment and then looking to him for help the next? Which of course isn’t followed by any sort of revelation. Velvet doesn’t acknowledge that her knowledge isn’t as specialized as she had assumed it was, or that huntsmen rely on non-combat experts for other things. She just shrugs and…

…kicks it.

Yeah. Velvet’s skill amounts to kicking the box until it works. Which, of course, it does.

I can’t with this novel.

More seriously though, that’s terrible characterization. Not only does it undermine Velvet’s actual skill to reduce it to being “handy with electronics” — isn’t every huntsmen “handy with electronics” then, considering they all build their gun/energy/dust weaponry in school? — but it adds another layer of supposed uselessness to the adult professionals around her. Theodore doesn’t teach them anything because, as their headmaster, he’s removed from everyday interactions. Rumpole can’t be trusted now and every lesson she tries to impart is rejected. The unnamed technician who is referred to only by his professional title is deemed unnecessary, knocked out, and then indeed proves useless when Velvet magically does his job for him. So why are any of them in school? Why aren’t they just running the world with their superior knowledge and skill-sets? Every time the RWBY franchise puts its characters in a position where they might actually learn something through failure, it pulls back at the last second. ‘Never mind, they actually knew this all along!’ Or, ‘Never mind, the things they’ve been taught are stupid, so best to forget them!’ I struggle to understand what kind of story I’m reading — or watching — when the characters are already framed as perfect. Or rather, flaws absolutely exist (as these recaps attest), but the story pretends they’re not there.

I hesitate to use the term “Mary Sue” here due to its origins and history. Meaning, the Mary Sue was conceived of as a parody, a deliberate exaggeration to comment on the types of characters written in the Star Trek fandom. Then people began using “Mary Sue” as a catch-all term for any female character that people deemed too talented (regardless of how talented their male counterparts might be), we started acknowledging the sexist undertones of that, then started reclaiming the term as something to celebrate and embrace… but we haven’t quite gotten there yet. “Mary Sue” is still a pretty loaded name to force on a character and it carries a lot of implications that I absolutely do not want to attach to Velvet. Yet it’s also the closest term I know to describe the act of an author giving a character what feels like a badly justified skillset. Such as “handy with technology” actually meaning “can fix anything powered by electricity or Dust as the plot needs.”

Velvet is the action movie hacker going, “I’m in” is what I’m getting at. It’s not a compliment lol.

During all this grimm watching and relay fixing, Gus wants to know why they don’t just high-tail it out of there. Especially since the person they brought to do a specific job can no longer do that job. Mission’s a bust. Velvet gives what sounds like a decent explanation: “Retreating from Grimm isn’t an option when you’re fighting this close to a settlement. If we leave without destroying them, the Grimm will just look for another target.” AKA the settlement itself.

Thing is, by this logic any grimm that are currently close enough to attack them are already close enough to the settlement to latch onto those people as the next target. They’d pick up on the civilians whether Velvet’s group was there to kill them or not. The group is there though, so they feel responsible, but why not just head to the settlement anyway? If the grimm follow you, fine. You can still fight them AND you now get the additional benefit of any other huntsmen/students who might be there. If they don’t follow you, great. If they were close enough to the settlement all along… again, this was always going to happen.

Which, to be clear, isn’t the worst stance to take. I understand them wanting to avoid any potential risk by leaving/leading the grimm towards anyone else. I only want to point out the additional stupidity of fighting them when you’ve already got an unconscious civilian in your care, a barely trained student, and the whole reason you came out here might now be for naught. Yeah, Velvet gets the relay working with her magic kick and yeah, the rest of the team handles the grimm just fine, but none of them are able to see into the future and know that both these events will occur. Gus’ ‘Why are we staying here? It’s dangerous and pointless’ question has merit.

But of course, no one in RWBY would ever consider retreat. It’s a very iffy characteristic at this point.

We learn — or at least I learn now — that Gus’ semblance is the ability to enhance others’ emotions, so basically the opposite of Ren’s. That would indeed be incredibly handy provided he has good control over it. We get another reference to Yatsuhashi’s “meditation exercises” that helped Gus’ grandfather in the last novel. Velvet theorizes that his improved memory has more to do with Yatsuhashi’s semblance than any generic meditation: “No one knew for sure what Yatsuhashi had done with his Semblance when he’d tried to heal Edward’s mind … even Yatsuhashi wasn’t sure. His ability was to erase memories, but it was possible that there was more to Yatsu’s Semblance than that.” Um… subtle yikes? Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad things have turned out well for the guy, but if I were the grandfather—or a family member of his—I wouldn’t really want a student messing around with my mind when he ��wasn’t sure” what he was doing. Especially when the base skill is to erase memories, not recover or strengthen them. Honestly, I love taking a good look at fantasy series because half the time you realize how horrifying things actually are, once you strip away the common place aspects of these skills. An equivalent third year college student is running around experimenting with peoples’ memories to see if he can achieve something other than erasing them. Great!

The good thing is that Yatsuhashi is just as suspicious of this power as I am. Velvet things that he “hated messing with people’s minds.” Understandable, bud. I’d hate the ability too.

While they’ve got this time alone, Gus mentions that he had planned to contact Velvet soon anyway. Two of his classmates have gone missing and though his school has told Shade about it—there’s at least some of that additional info that Rumpole mentioned—he wanted to let her know too because remember, no one in this franchise trusts the professionals to fix problems. It’s a mindset I’d better understand if the professionals were actually inept. Or the protagonists weren’t training to be those professionals. It’s still exceedingly weird to me that there’s so little respect and trust for huntsmen while they desperately try to become huntsmen…

Something something broken systems, but RWBY isn’t interested in exploring that.

So yeah, Gus ropes Velvet in with the hope that she can help. He says that they were last seen attending a new club called Mirage that hosts one-on-one fights for a championship title. So… it’s not really a club, right? Sure, sure, we’ve all seen Fight Club, but generally that’s used to describe dancing, not fighting. It’s a rather misleading term for what they were actually looking for. No one else finds this odd though. Nor that the information was sent out to select, powerful individuals. Nothing shady about this, folks! Velvet obviously recognizes all these details—a club, powerful semblances, a crown in the advertisement—and asks Gus to pass it along to her.

Our plot forwarded ever so slightly, their conversation ends as Arslan calls Velvet on the now fixed connection. One of the first thing she says is that Octavia used the other students as bait for the grimm.

At least Velvet shares my reaction: “What?!”

Octavia then takes an already bad situation and makes it that much worse. Listening in, she defiantly says, “That’s right. And it worked. It’s called strategy.” She confirms that the students are “mostly” okay and taunts Velvet about inviting them to her “Baby Brigade and you can all cry about it!” I hope I don’t need to take up precious document space by explaining how awful this is. Overlooking the fact that these would-be huntsmen are willing to put their younger peers’ lives in danger like that—and then mock them for needing mental health resources after the fact—why is Octavia the one pulling the murderous Mean Girl act? Yeah, she was an asshole during reinitiation, but wasn’t the whole point of that to demonstrate that she and Velvet got a little closer? Even if she won’t admit it? She saved Velvet from flying down that hole, but now she risks the lives of students at least three years her junior? If anyone should be this violent and antagonistic towards Velvet, it’s Nebula. The most she’s done for Velvet is offer a hand up, otherwise we just watched her express glee in getting to fight her and mock her for not abandoning Beacon… the same sort of behavior we’re seeing from Octavia now. Does Myers think that these two characters are interchangeable? That he can just pick one willy-nilly per chapter and let her play at being Velvet’s Mean Girl?

As a lovely anon reminded me recently, these are also the girls that were created and backed by fans. If I had put money and creative energy into these OCs, I’d be pretty frustrated with how the RT team has been treating them.

Arslan at least is complimentary towards Velvet for fixing the relay—“Truly, great work today”— and Velvet herself is appropriately shocked at Octavia’s behavior. That’s more emotional consistency than I’ve come to expect of this book, so I’ll take whatever little bits I can get.

Arslan signs off with plans to meet back up soon and Velvet thinks about how “everyone was safe after the mission, which was no small thing.” I’d agree… except for Velvet’s early thoughts about how easy this mission supposedly was and Octavia’s decision to put her teammates in danger. It sounds like if anything did go sideways, it’s in part because you chose to enter this overconfidently and then actively made it more dangerous.

Finally, the chapter ends with Velvet believing that she might be able to make her new team work with time. Our final line, in its own paragraph is: “If they had time.”

Am I the only one who finds this weird? The line reads like an omniscient bit of foreboding. Velvet thinks about how she just needs time and we, the reader, hear that this won’t be possible. Except this chapter is told from Velvet’s perspective. So why does she think they might not have time? Because of the Crown? I assume there will be an attack towards the end of the novel—can’t have a RWBY story without the final, epic battle—but right now Velvet has no reason to believe that an attack is imminent, or that the teams will change back, or anything else that would interfere with her hopes of strengthening this relationship… so why the rather confident sounding pessimism? I don’t know. I don’t pretend to know anymore lol.

At least this chapter was short? As said, silver linings. We’re still treading water though: Velvet’s bond with her new team seems to have regressed after two missions, rather than improved, and Gus didn’t reveal anything we didn’t already know, just further confirmed it. I assume that next chapter Velvet and the others will visit Mirage. Let’s hope something actually happens then.

See you! 💜

[Ko-Fi]

#rwby #mymetas #Before the Dawn #BTD Recaps

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jaybug-jabbers · 4 years ago

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Pokemon Prism Review

Well I’m currently finishing up the post-game content of Pokemon Prism.

Dang.

What a fun game.

(what follows is an informal review of the game. it got a little long, lol. it has some spoilers for the game, of course.)

My background

To give you a quick idea on my perspective on Pokemon, I grew up with Pokemon Red on the big grey brick Gameboy. After Red, I pretty much stopped playing for many years. My little brother had a Gameboy Color and had Silver, but I never got one myself. Wasn’t ‘til years and years later I found some emulators and played through several generations of Pokemon at once. So, Gen 2 really isn’t nostalgic for me. It’s close enough to Gen 1 to hit some nostalgia buttons, though. I am admittedly somebody who feels Gen 1 is the best gen of pokemon. I don’t care of people laugh or say I’m a genwunner for believing that. Gen 1, I feel, had the raw creativity and charm of the original idea, and it simply sets my imagination alight far more than any other gen does. Those simple pixel designs for those little virtual creatures just opened up a world in my mind. THAT SAID, I did play and very much enjoyed all the other gens of pokemon. I do not shun things just because they are new, and I am not one of those people who says the new designs of pokemon are stupid. I adore plenty of modern pokes.

Blend of Old and New

Anyway! Pokemon Prism, for those unaware, is a ROM hack of Pokemon Crystal. It essentially delivers a brand-new Pokemon adventure for the Generation 2 games. It’s a really neat blend of classic gameplay and modern features. You’ll find species from modern games all the way from Gen 3 (such as Breloom) to Gen 6 (such as Sylveon) but their sprites perfectly integrate them organically into the Gen 2 environment. You’ll get many modern pokemon moves and conviences but also plenty of throwbacks to older experiences. Miss crafting pokeballs from Apricorns? It’s there. Enjoy a simplier time when there weren’t any Natures? Well, there ya go. Really want to call Joey and talk to him about his Rattata? Well, err, no, you can’t do that, but let’s face it, the telephone feature was probably one of the most hated features in Gen 2. :P

But Prism isn’t simply about updating Gen 2 with some modern pokemon, moves and game features. Not in the slightest. It’s full of original mechanics and gameplay concepts, and has tons of original areas and an original storyline. Pokemon is known for experimenting with new gameplay ideas, so it’s really fitting and enjoyable to see these take shape as you play the game. Mining and crafting is introduced in the game, for example, and there are a couple new pokemon types. There’s even a few sections where you can play as your pokemon, Mystery-Dungeon style. Do all of these experiments with new concepts work? Probably not ALL of them– when you try something new, not all of them will work out as amazing as you’d hope. But a lot of them are welcome and fun additions. And the game is bristling with these new ideas! It’s a joy to see so much creativity and novelty.

Sprites

It should be noted the spritework for these games is A+ and utterly fantastic. There is perhaps 3 or 4 out of dozens and dozens of new sprites that I thought were a tad off? Seriously, they look AMAZING and their animations are perfect and they fit in with the style so well I found myself briefly getting confused as to which were originally from Gen 2 and which weren’t. Saying these sprites are good is no small thing, because they are such a vital part of the game. The backsprites were not shafted, either– something even Gamefreak often shortchanged on back then.

Music

It should also be noted the music in this game is really damn good and has a huge variety. There are tons of classic songs, classic remakes of modern pokemon songs, remixes, and original tunes. There were like one or two tunes I was a bit iffy on, but considering that’s only a few out of so many, that’s impressive. The new bike music and Surfing music are probably my favorites, and they are SO GOOD, and those are especially important ones to sound good, because you typically hear those a lot.

Writing

The writing in this game is fairly solid. Not A+, but still not bad. It suffers occasionally from slightly rough and confusing grammar, and the climax of the story is definitely anti-climactic and very weak. In addition, the post-game story basically does not exist, but that can be excused since most likely more story was planned but they ran out of time. (C&D)

I also felt that at times, the story felt out-of-place within the world of Pokemon and went “too far” in the darker direction. The entire prison sequence, especially, and the frequent mention of inmates being mistreated, pokemon being abused, etc., just felt a bit much. Because this game was largely concerned with replicating the feeling of a true Pokemon game (some hacks intentionally focus on making a story that would never take place in the Pokemon world, like zombie survival horror stories or whatnot), I find it relevant to mention that. All of that said, though, its darker departures were at least not *too* extreme. We don’t get the very jarring and frequent problem of some ROM hacks where it’s full of cussing all the time or intense violence. Compared to those it’s still relatively subtle. And while the NPCs in this game I felt were rude a little too often, (holy crap, it felt like 95% of Naljo and Rijon were crankyass people) I do appreciate the attempts at making people a little more “real” and not quite so freaking happy and idealized all the time like Nintendo tends to do. The dialogue often made me chuckle. It did go a tad overboard with that “realness” (because, hey, a variety of people exist in the world, you know, both rude and polite, optimistic and bitter) but oh well.

So yes, the writing had its drawbacks. But overall, it felt like it was progressing a pokemon-style narrative with some interesting ideas, and wasn’t simply a dreary rehash of the same basic tropes Pokemon has been regurgitating for ages now. I just think if the writing were cleaned up a bit– the grammar cleaned up in a few sections, the plot threads clarified a bit more, and the climax reworked– it could take a “decent story” and make it a great one. There’s definitely some neat ideas there, it just needs polish.

Maps

As to the different towns and locations in this game to explore, there are many. This game is ambitious AF. As I said, it’s FULL of new ideas, features, things to do, and places to explore. Naljo is the region you explore in the main game, but post-game you can wander a whole new region of Rijon (the featured location of an older ROM hack, Pokemon Brown) and beat all the gyms there. In addition, there’s a few towns in Kanto and Johto you can visit (I believe they originally planned to open up all of those regions eventually), AND one town in ANOTHER new region, Tunod. The game’s ambitiousness occasionally outpaces what it delivers, but that’s quite acceptable in my mind, since updates with additions to the game were originally planned. So, yes, there isn’t much to do post-game, but that’s largely because a lot of stuff was going to be added.

Back to the locations, though! It’s an important aspect of ROM hacks. Not everyone is good at designing a good town, with logical building placement, intuitive layouts, aesthetically pleasing locations, and interesting things to explore so it doesn’t feel totally plain and lacks character. I’m pleased to say this game does a great job of it, though. I should point out I have a terrible sense of direction and bad spatial memory. Despite that fact, I found myself remembering important features and where they were located– oh, the Move Deleter house is in Phacelia on the left, the bullet train is in Torenia– and that’s a good sign. Physical travel was not a sloggy chore, and it wasn’t bogged down in a confusing layout. Towns were memorable and fun to explore.

Pacing/Level Curve

Another thing ROM hacks can screw up, because it’s a tricky thing to do, is the challenge pacing. How many trainers? What teams do they have? What levels? Are the Gyms challenging without being insane? I actually Nuzlocked the main part of the game. In my opinion it was well-paced. There’s probably fewer trainers overall in this game than a standard Pokemon game. But it did not take me much extra grinding in the grass– and I was only doing that to play it safe for the Nuzlocke. And that’s GOOD. You shouldn’t have to do tons of grinding in the grass all the time just to have a reasonable shot at the gyms. Pokemon Uranium, sadly, seems to suffer from that issue. So, yeah, the pacing was very reasonable to me, good balance of fair and challenging.

… with one important note. Once you reach the League? Well, we could have used higher-levelled wild pokemon in the cave that served as the victory road. The highest in that cave was level 34 or so, and you were facing trainers with teams ~level 55. That’s a huge gap. Not everyone has the same play style. Some people like to do extra grinding before the Elites. Some people are Nuzlocking and may do extra grinding as a safety buffer. Some people might want to adjust their team & add a new pokemon to their team and need to grind them up from a lower level. For those cases, you NEED decently-levelled wild pokemon to grind on. So, yeah, I really do think the Seneca Caves wild pokemon need a level buff. It would also help with the level gap for the post-game. Trainers in Rijon are suddenly at levels 70ish and higher, and for some folks playing, that’s a bit much and they’d like to do a little grinding first.

Puzzles

This game has puzzles. You have been warned, lol. Apparently a lot of people found the number of puzzles a bit frustrating, or felt that some of them were excessively tricky or annoying. I find it very funny, because usually puzzles are my least favorite part of a pokemon game. But I really enjoyed the puzzles in Prism and didn’t find it annoying or offputting at all. I was sick with a cold through most of my play of Prism, and yet even in my dumb brainaddled state, I didn’t find the puzzles too difficult. I solved them all at a pretty average length of time, even the ones some people traditionally found a little unclear or confusing. (the Ruins puzzle often confuses folks, apparently, but I really didn’t have a problem with it at all.) I was briefly confused on one of the switch puzzles (and it contained an element of bad puzzle design imo– there’s a gap that you can leap down into when normally a gap of that size just gives the ‘run into wall’ sound and is not passable) but not for too long. Even the ice slide puzzles, which I traditionally hate with a passion, were not bad!

All except for one thing. The Magikarp Puzzle. Anyone who has played Prism knows what I mean. Haha, fuck that puzzle man. Even the creator of the ROM hack himself has acknowledged the puzzle was not great, heh. To be honest, I find it kind of hilarious, in a way, though. I mean, obviously it’s a nightmarishly difficult and frustrating puzzle and is intensely exhausting to look at, let alone try to solve. But it’s also kinda glorious in its demonicness. I didn’t spend too much time on it before just looking up a solution to it. It’s tedious and not fun at all, and hey, that’s OK, because even the creator realized that.

pls nerf magikarp

But seriously, outside of the magikarp puzzle, I didn’t just enjoy the puzzles in this game– I felt like they were an important part of what gave this game its character.

Fakemon

There are even a few fakemon in this game! Which I was excited to learn because I thought there weren’t! All of the fakemon are Legenderies. Unfortunately, I don’t care for most of their designs. Like, at all. I think Varaneous and Libabeel’s sprites look really, really shitty. They’re ugly and don’t match the style of Pokemon at all. This feels weird to say, since I love so much about this game, but man, there’s just no way around it, I hate ‘em. Everyone has their own tastes, of course. There’s a couple fakemon I have yet to capture– I’m finishing that up now and the very very last of the post-game. But one fakemon I did capture and ADORE LIKE NO OTHER is Phancero.

I happen to know about Phancero’s designer, because I saw their design years ago. They apparently were approached by the team and were asked permission for the use of the design, which is awesome. I won’t rant again about Phancero here because I already ranted about it before, and literally could keep ranting for pages. :P But yeah, it’s a totally creative and awesome pokemon both in idea and execution, and by FAR my favorite fakemon ever created.

Conclusion

This is the best ROM hack I have played in years and probably ever. I haven’t played hundreds of ROM hacks, but I have probably played dozens over the years. I think they are a creative and wonderful expression of the pokemon community, but let’s be honest. There’s a lot of really bad ROM hacks out there. There’s even more ROM hacks that have a lot of potential but are never finished or anywhere near completion. (And that’s perfectly understandable. People run out of time, they have real life get in the way, etc.) The fact that not only did a ROM hack of this caliber get made, but was 95-99% completed? Is fantastic. It was an intensely massive project and I cannot begin to imagine how much work it must have been. Pokemon games are normally developed by an entire team at a company, and folks are paid to do it. The comparatively small team of devs who made this game in their spare time and implemented these amazing things had to do it all on their own. It’s no wonder it took as long as it did for them to finish it; and the amount of effort SHOWS. There is so much loving attention to detail and polish to Prism. (I mean, yes, there’s still some bugs and the occasional unfinished bits, but of course there are, those were going to be finished, but then the C&D hit)

Most ROM hacks are just strong in a few areas, because it’s one or two people who have strengths or interests in a few things. So, you’ll play a hack with a really good story but terrible fakemon and mapping, or you’ll play a hack with fantastic designs of new areas, but no new story, etc. Prism kinda has everything, though. It really did feel like playing a new Gen 2 game.

(It’s now almost 11pm and oh god where did the time go. I have a problem with being concise. :P This was far longer than I intended but thank you if you’ve read this far!)

This is a repost on a new blog. The original post was on Jan 17, 2017.

#pokemon #pokemon prism #pokemon fan games #pokemon rom hacks #mycontent #spoilers #pokemon reviews

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phoenix-downer · 6 years ago

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Kingdom Hearts 3 Ultimania - Interview with the Destiny Trio VAs - Paopu Sharing Scene

Okay, a few things before we begin.

Miyu Irino (Sora’s VA), Risa Uchida (Kairi’s VA), and Mamoru Miyano (R*ku’s VA) have known each other for years. In previous Ultimania interviews, they have mentioned that they even went to Disneyland together after the recording sessions for KH2 I believe it was. For each of the numbered titles they’ve had an interview like this together, and KH3 continues the tradition. The KH1 Ultimania has an interview of them when they were still teenagers to give you an idea of how long they’ve known each other. They’ve spent much more time together for KH-related stuff than the English VAs for the Destiny Trio have.

The whole tone of the interview is very relaxed and they all seem to be having fun and teasing each other a little even. You can tell they all get along really well, understand their characters well, and build off each other well. Irino and Miyano in particular were very supportive of Kairi and talked about how they’d like to play a KH game as her. Irino even suggested a Destiny Trio game, and Miyano suggested Kairi be in the middle with Sora and R*ku following her.

With that in mind, let’s get started. Usual disclaimers apply about how my own Japanese ability and translation abilities are still a work in progress, etc. Feel free to compare it to the other translations floating around to get a fuller picture. I may update my translation if I notice mistakes or things that need to be changed for clarity. R*ku’s name is starred out and has an asterisk inserted in the Japanese version so this won’t show up in his tag.

ー　カイリといえば、最終決戦の前にソラとパオプの実を食べさせ合うシーンもこころに残りました。

Interviewer: Speaking of Kairi, before the final decisive battle, the scene where she shares the paopu fruit with Sora also really stuck with me.

Notes: The phrase I translated “stuck with me,” kokoro ni nokorimashita, is more literally “stayed in my heart.”

Also, “shares the paopu fruit” is more literally “feed each other the paopu fruit” in Japanese, so I’m going to use that translation from now on. Just wanted to note that here because “share” is what the official English version of KH uses.

内田　私も、すごく大好きで大切なシーンであると同時に、（“重い��シーンだな……」と思っています。

Uchida: Me too. I really love (it), it’s an important scene, and at the same I’m thinking, “This is a heavy scene, isn’t it...”

Notes: It’s really nice to hear Uchida’s thoughts on the scene in question. I thought her performance was wonderful here.

入野　食べさせるパターンと食べさせないパターンの両方を録ったんですよ。収録時にはどちらの展開になる決まっていなくて、最終的に食べさせるほうが採用されたみたいですね。ふたりの気持ちをどこまで描くのか野村さんも悩んでいたんだと思います。

Irino: (We actually) recorded both a version where (we) feed each other (the paopu fruit) and a version where (we) don’t feed each other. At the time of recording, it hadn’t been decided which direction the development would go in, (but) ultimately, it seems like (the version where we) feed each other the fruit was used, doesn’t it? I think Mr. Nomura was also worried about to what extent (he wanted) to depict Sora and Kairi’s feelings.

Notes: the word I translated as “version” is literally “pattern” in Japanese. The “feed each other” is “share” in the English version of KH.

Irino uses the particle yo at the end of the first sentence to indicate he’s imparting information to the interviewer (hence why I included “actually” in parentheses).

The word I translated here as “recording,” shūroku, can also mean “editing.”

“Which direction the development would go in,” is more literally something like “which one will become the development/progression” but I tried to get it to sound more natural in English. It was a bit hard for me to parse, to be honest.

I used “doesn’t it?” to translate the ne particle at the end of the second sentence because it’s generally used to indicate someone is seeking affirmation/agreement. There was no question mark in the original Japanese version.

“Sora and Kairi’s” is more literally “the two’s,” but I changed the wording to make it sound better in English.

I added in “he wanted” in the last sentence to make it flow more smoothly in English, but it isn’t in the original Japanese version.

宮野　ソラとカイリの純粋な想いが表れている繊細なシーンですからね。あのやり取りは、見ていてときめきます。彼らは自覚していないでしょうけど恋心がなかったら、あんなにときめくシーンにはならない（笑）。

Miyano: It’s because it’s a subtle scene that expresses Sora and Kairi’s true feelings, isn’t it? When (you’re) watching that exchange, (your) heart pounds/flutters. They probably aren’t aware (of it) themselves, but if there isn’t (any) love/love awakening, then it wouldn’t be such a heart-pounding scene (haha).

Notes: The word for “true” here, junsui, can also mean “pure, genuine.” The word I translated as “feelings” is omoi with the kanji that tends to be used for the feelings sense of the word. “Subtle” can also mean “delicate, sensitive.”

I used “isn’t it?” to translate the ne particle at the end of the first sentence because it’s generally used to indicate someone is seeking affirmation/agreement. There was no question mark in the original Japanese version.

The word for “heart pounds/flutters,” tokimeku, can mean a number of things according to the handy-dandy jisho.org: (a heart) beats fast, flutter with joy/anticipation, throb, pound, palpitate, etc. It doesn’t seem to have the same connotation of danger that the English “heart pounds” sometimes does though. Think of it more like “heart flutters,” “heart beats fast,” that sort of thing. The connotations, or feelings and ideas the word invokes, are somewhat different from the English phrase “heart pounds,” which brings me to my next point.

The word I translated as love/love awakening, koigokoro, can also mean yearning for or missing someone or potentially even a heart in love. Again, the Japanese word has a different set of connotations than the English one. That’s what makes translation so tricky; for more abstract concepts in particular, a translator can introduce a whole host of connotations that were not present in the original language and/or can lose some of the meaning implied by the original language as well.

The last sentence (where Miyano talks about why the scene makes your heart flutter) I’m feeling a little iffy on, but I think I got the general gist of it, so let’s continue.

入野　でも、食べさせ合うことが「恋心を持っている」という明確な答えではないと思うよ？

Irino: But, I think that feeding each other (the paopu fruit) isn’t a clear/precise answer (as to whether/that means) “(they’re) in love?”

Notes: The phrase I translated as “they’re in love,” koigokoro wo motteiru, is more literally something like “have a heart in love,” “have love,” “have a love awakening.” Not 100% on this and I think that’s where a lot of the confusion is coming from.

(As to whether) isn’t in the Japanese version at all, I just added it to make the sentence smoother. From what I can gather, Irino uses the toiu pattern in this sentence to define the kind of answer he’s discussing - “a clear answer that means (they’re) in love” kind of a sense.

I added in the pronoun “they” because English requires pronouns... but not Japanese, and there is no pronoun here. It’s sort of ambiguous... he could be referring to Sora and Kairi sharing a paopu in particular, or paopu sharing in general. In context, since they’ve been discussing the scene where Sora and Kairi share it, I’m going to go with the former, but I’m not 100% on this.

The question mark comes after “I think?” in the Japanese version, but Japanese has different word order than English, so it got moved to the “(they’re) in love” part of my translation.

Irino is saying he doesn’t think there is a clear answer... not that the paopu sharing isn’t romantic at all. This can’t really be used to disprove that Sora and Kairi are in love; he’s merely saying he thinks there is no clear answer when it comes to sharing the paopu fruit. From what I can gather, he also isn’t necessarily commenting on the legend of the paopu fruit itself, just Sora and Kairi sharing it in this particular scene, but I am less certain on this.

We need to be careful when examining this sort of thing because context matters. And when you think about it, it makes sense within the context of KH3 itself. Sora has his love epiphany in the light in the darkness scene later on, not here. Miyano picked up on this and noticed that while Sora and Kairi might not yet be aware of how they feel about each other in the paopu sharing scene, the viewer certainly is.

And man... that light in the darkness scene. By the end of that it’s obvious both Sora and Kairi know how they feel about each other.

All that handholding...

...those held gazes...

Sora literally seeing the light...

...and then looking at Kairi as she gives him a knowing look, like “figured it out, did you? I’m in love with you and this was my act of true love.”

AND THEN THE SMILE ON HIS FACE AFTERWARDS!

Going back to the interview, Miyano is very quick to correct Irino. He clearly thinks there is a clear answer even if Irino isn’t sure if there is!

宮野　いやいやいや、だって、そもそも俺、カイリからお守りとかもらってないし……。

Miyano: Now hold on just a second here. Okay, first of all, I don’t get (things like) a charm from Kairi (among other reasons)...

Notes: I changed the wording around to make this sound more natural in English. Miyano says something more like “no no no” at the beginning to indicate he is strongly disagreeing, then a very emphatic “but,” then “from the beginning I, / in the first place I,” maybe? I tried to go for the overall gist of what he meant instead of the literal wording. The “I” actually groups with somosomo, so... I’m having a little trouble parsing this part here, but the takeaway is that he’s disagreeing with what Irino said.

Also, I love how he’s the one to point out that Sora got a special gift from Kairi and R*ku didn’t. He’s also saying this isn’t the only reason he has for thinking how Sora and Kairi feel about each other is pretty clear by using the -shi construction, which is used to give reasons.

He also identifies himself with R*ku by using ore, the masculine pronoun “I”, which also happens to be the pronoun R*ku uses for himself. In another part of the interview Miyano used the more polite masculine pronoun boku to refer to himself. He really loves and understands his character to the point he’s speaking as if he is R*ku here, and it’s pretty awesome.

入野　約束のお守り？

Irino: Oathkeeper?

Notes: the name for Oathkeeper is a bit different in Japanese. It’s more literally something like “promise charm.”

内田　ごめん！（笑）

Uchida: Sorry! (haha)

Notes: Uchida laughing here shows how playful the whole exchange is. They’re having fun and they aren’t taking themselves too seriously.

宮野「KHI」のときにも、俺に内緒でふたりだけで島を出ようとしてたでしょ？

Miyano: In KHI as well, you kept it a secret from me that just the two of you were trying to leave the island, (right)?

Notes: “right” more literally means something more like “wouldn’t you agree,” but I changed it to fit the register Miyano is currently speaking in here. And again, he’s speaking like he is R*ku, using “I” to discuss what happened instead of R*ku’s name.

Speaking of which, he remembers what happened well, haha. Could it be that R*ku’s still a little upset about it? ;)

Also, I love how Miyano is basically teasing the two of them here. Again, you can really tell how well he understands R*ku as a character. R*ku teased Sora hard about his feelings for Kairi in KH1. Seems like that hasn’t changed.

入野　もしかしたら、リ*クを闇に向かわせたのはカイリなのかも。ソラと仲良くしているカイリを見て、リ*クは孤独を感じちゃってたんじゃない？

Irino: Maybe Kairi caused R*ku to turn to the darkness. He saw how well she was getting along with Sora and felt lonely, didn’t he?

Notes: The word for “maybe” here is kamo, and it can also be used to mean “might” or “perhaps.” I get the sense it’s not quite as strong as “maybe” is in English. Irino is just indulging in speculation here.

The second sentence is more literally something like “(R*ku) saw Sora and (a) Kairi who is getting along well with him, and he regrettably felt loneliness, no?” but I switched things up to sound more natural in English.

Again, this is just fun speculation. I don’t think we can really say Irino is actually blaming Kairi for R*ku’s fall to the darkness, because the tone of the interview matters, and it was very relaxed and fun (while still professional, of course) and this part in particular is very playful.

And... when we look at KH1 itself, yeah, you kind of do get the sense that R*ku was jealous of Sora, and in KH2, he even admits he was. R*ku is both Sora’s best friend and, at times, his rival (which this very Ultimania pointed out in R*ku’s profile), and to me at least R*ku seemed to be crushing on Kairi in KH1. It’s not much of a stretch to think his jealousy as Sora and Kairi got closer and closer might’ve fueled the darkness in his heart.

内田　……そうか、私のせいだったのか（笑）。

Uchida: ...You’re right, it was my fault (haha).

Notes: “You’re right,” sōka, is more literally “oh, I see” or “is that so?”

Again, this is a teasing, playful joke, and Uchida plays along, indicated by her laughter there at the end.

That concludes my translation of the paopu sharing scene in this interview. Hope that helped clear things up!

Edit to add: too late to fix it now, but by “Disneyland” I mean “Tokyo Disneyland.” The three of them went to Tokyo Disneyland together :)

#kh3 #kingdom hearts 3 #kingdom hearts #sokai #sora #kairi #kh ultimania #kingdom hearts ultimania #phoenix translates

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laws-yellow-submarine · 5 years ago

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Did you know. That I would like to hear. Everything I can about your OCs/Quasi-Self Inserts? Because Cringe Culture is dead and I love them.

First of all: THANK YOU for asking about them lol I saw the ask and I got so so excited cause I literally never stop thinking about them lol that being said, I apologize for the novel I just wrote about them lmfao I put it all under the cut (hopefully it works on mobile!), so hopefully I don’t bog down everyone’s feed.

So I don’t wanna reveal too much about Skylar (full name Valentine Skylar), cause I really do plan on actually writing the fic I planned for her (I’m just really good at procrastinating lmao), but like I said in an earlier post: she’s my bisexual disaster brain child running away from her homophobic parents and the threat of conversion therapy by impulsively deciding to sneak onto Law’s submarine when he visits her home island. I’m basing the conversion therapy stuff off of something similar in the Bloodlines series by Richelle Mead (one of my all time FAVORITES! If you like vampires, action, and romance I can’t recommend it enough! Though you should start with the first series, Vampire Academy as it introduces the world and the cast of characters and the events of that series lead directly into the Bloodlines series. I took some inspiration from Vampire Academy too for some other events in the fic as well).

Skylar is...a lot like me in personality lol she’s 5’5”, goofy, loves to laugh and sing and just generally have fun, and she’s very clumsy. She’s also got major anxiety, but it’s not something she actually has a diagnosis for (so she doesn’t know there’s a problem and can’t handle it when it flares up, she’s unprepared to deal with it). She does like to read, mostly fiction, and she likes to look at the stars, and gaze out the windows of the sub when they’re submerged. She’s very musically gifted. Part of her deal with Law for essentially free room and board is that she cooks (they don’t have a designated cook otherwise, and this way they never have to let Law back in the kitchen again), and while she’s cooking she’ll be singing so loud it carries through the pipes on the sub (almost like they have radio lmfao). She’s also impulsive; her decision to sneak onto Law’s sub was totally spur of the moment, she knew the risks, she knew exactly who’s ship she was sneaking onto (thanks to wanted posters), and that it was dangerous, but she still packed up as much of her stuff as she could, stole a TON of her parents’ money, and snuck on anyway. Law wonders a lot whether she’s just an idiot or possibly someone trying to spy on him (either for the Marines, or more sinisterly for Doflamingo. He knows the likelihood for either of these things is extremely slim, but he keeps her close so he can keep an eye on her. He can’t afford to make a mistake with that). It takes a LONG time for them to move past the “I don’t trust you” stage, and even then she’s much more invested than he is for a really long time, mostly because he’s an emotionally constipated BUTT who doesn’t like to acknowledge that he FEELS THINGS lmao

Most of her life she’s been fighting against someone else’s control; mostly her parents (she’s 21 at the start of the story but hasn’t been able to feel like a true adult until she leaves, they’ve had such a hold over her AND they’re powerful people where she lives so she HAS to leave the island completely to be free). She also experienced some of this with her girlfriend, Mimi, though not to nearly the same extreme. Mimi had big dreams of getting off their island and becoming a world famous musician, along with Skylar. Skylar just wants to travel the world, but Mimi’s loud personality manipulated her into adopting the dream of being a musician. It wasn’t malicious in any way, but usually when Mimi would say “We’re doing this” or “We don’t like that”, Skylar usually agreed. She wouldn’t speak out against it, in part due to finally feeling loved (ahh parent issues lol). About a year before the start of the story, Mimi joins the Marines as a way to start earning some money, as well as getting her foot out the door in a way (it gets her off the island, so all that’s needed is to earn enough to get settled somewhere, go back for Skylar, and then they can begin their life together). Unfortunately, her patrol ship was destroyed by a pirate crew a few months later, and she’s now MIA and presumed dead.

Being with Law and his crew is really the first time she’s been able to try deciding things for herself, and then follow through. He’s not gonna try to push her in any direction, that’s not his business, and so there comes an extra sense of freedom with them that she’s never had before.

Law also keeps her around because he finds out she has a roundabout connection to Doflamingo, and he thinks he can find a way to exploit that connection for information. Her parents have a very on-the-level business selling pharmaceuticals, which is what keeps them in good standing with the Marines when they come to the island (there’s no actual base set up, but there’s another close by). They ALSO have a black market business smuggling hallucinogens throughout the Grand Line, beginning to venture into the other seas as well, starting with North Blue. There’s a fruit that grows on the island called the Follia Fruit (literally Insanity in Italian) which causes strong hallucinations when eaten. They were able to get a good foot in the black market using Doflamingo’s connections, and they know HIM because they were actually formerly part of his crew (they left the crew before Law joined, so he doesn’t know them, and they left because Skylar’s grandmother was dying and leaving the entire fortune and family-run business to them, otherwise they would’ve stayed with Doffy. Skylar’s more of an object for them to use.) Skylar vaguely knows her parents have an underworld contact, she’s seen his Jolly Roger in her father’s office, near his wall safe, but she doesn’t know who he actually is. At most she’s heard mention of a “Joker” and that’s it, so Law can easily fish for information without giving up that he’s honestly using her too (he doesn’t have any reason to just be nice to her, especially since she snuck onboard before he ever met her, and that’s part of the journey; balancing his goal with the fact he’s developing feelings for the person he’s using to help achieve that goal). It’s a slooooooooow burn btw lol takes a long time for things to truly get going between them, but when it does it kinda picks up quick. It’s gonna be fun lol

Speaking of the Follia Fruit, that’s how Skylar got her devil fruit. I do NOT have a name for it yet, because I can’t find one I like that still overall fits? But essentially she can manipulate light particles (photons? Idk science stuff, whatever light is actually made of). She can use it to create a camouflage cover (it’s main use, she’s a sneaky person despite also being clumsy as hell lmfao), and that works like she’s placing a cloak over herself (like an invisibility cloak!), and she also eventually learns to create force fields of hardened light, like the light bridges in Portal 2 (it takes a lot of energy though, so it’s not nearly as easy, but it does come in handy). Whether these are all actually scientifically sound remains irrelevant, in my universe it works muahahaha (there is precedent for these powers at least, I just don’t know how it all actually works. Science is NOT my forte). She was actually trying to eat the Follia Fruit when she ate the devil fruit instead, as when consumed in a large enough dose it can be fatal (so yeah, WARNING there: her girlfriend is dead, she’s being tortured, she manages to escape at one point and decides she absolutely is NOT going back). Fortunately, she didn’t check what fruit she was eating before chowing down, and she not only lived but she gained super powers lol. She also at one point asks Law to help teach her how to fight and defend herself, which is super fun cause she’s NOT in shape lol but she does eventually learn at least basic hand to hand and how to use a blade (typically a knife or a dagger, she’s small).

Skylar also works very hard to develop her Observation Haki. I’ve always wondered if it was possible to manipulate your haki so you could be indetectable by other users, which would be extremely useful when your abilities include sneaking and camouflage. So Skylar learns how to do it, focusing more on the detection aspects of haki than any of the other uses (predicting movement). It hasn’t been shown in canon, obviously, but I think it’s feasible.

Clearly I’ve thought a lot about all this, now it’s just a matter of writing actual sentences lmao

My other main OC is Monkey D. Hazel. She’s Luffy’s big sister, older by about 4 years (so she’s older than Ace and Sabo by 1 year). She’s a good big sister lol she’s super protective, almost mothering despite not being that much older, and it drives the boys nuts (but they still love her anyway and appreciate her for it and all that. They can take care of themselves, but they know if they ever needed her to step in she would in a heartbeat). She’s not nearly as chaotic as Luffy, but she does follow him into a lot of shenanigans (usually with a shrug and a grin like “yup that’s Luffy”). She’s always wanted to help Luffy achieve his dream, and write down his adventures for future generations to read, so she stayed behind until he was ready to start on his own pirate journey.

She also totally had a thing with Ace (I know it can be kinda iffy, given their shared past and psuedo-sibling status, but I think they work well together, and given that they were 2 teens going through puberty at the same time in the same area, I think it’s extremely likely they could’ve developed feelings for each other that they didn’t necessarily fully understand at the time. I also don’t think she’d be one to participate in the sake drinking scene that the boys use to say “ok we’re brothers now”, and until she was an adult only saw Ace as a close friend that Luffy also saw as a big brother. Being that they were in the same age group, I think it’s less likely she’d see him and Sabo as brothers until they were much older. Sorry if that seems like I’m making excuses, I know not everyone is going to agree with that kind of “ship”, but I literally started shipping them on accident and now I can’t stop cause it makes sense to me that something would have happened between them, even something small). Any relationship they did have ended when Ace left to be a pirate, and with time spent apart and both growing older, Hazel’s views turn more sisterly, like “We grew up together, he’s practically my brother” (though Ace’s may or may not have stayed kind of the same. It makes for interesting conversation when they do meet again in Alabasta). When he dies, she’s absolutely devastated, and does start to wonder “what if?”, like what if she’d pursued a real relationship with him from the beginning, gone with him, could she have kept him safe, etc. It takes a very long time for her to come to terms with it, and to accept that she couldn’t have done anything to stop it, nor was it her place to try. She loses her best friend, and it does take some of the spark out of her, so she’s more reserved after the time skip.

She loses her right leg in a fight with CP9, essentially the bones gets crushed, and her new pal Franky helps whip up a cool robot leg for her in between work on the new ship. It’s got a few bells and whistles: a pistol in the kneecap, a roller blade in the bottom of the foot, and she can detach the metal plates in a way that makes her taller (if she stands on one leg lol). She thinks Franky is SUPER cool (I always hated that the girls in the series never think robots or ninjas or anything are cool, she’s not like that lmfao), and Luffy is jealous of her robot leg.

She sustained some pretty major burns to her right side at Marineford (either by Akainu when he murdered Ace; she stepped in front of Luffy, Ace stepped in front of her, the magma-arm didn’t touch her skin because it was stopped by her coat, but the heat was enough to still cause 3rd-degree burns to her arm, shoulder, and face because it’s fucking LAVA, and destroy half of her clothing; OR some other thing set on fire and burned her lol I dunno enough to say whether that’s feasible with magma but I like that version better, that it was caused in some way by Akainu). It was a question of if she’d ever be able to use her arm again, but Law’s a very good doctor (though she did threaten him when he wouldn’t let her see Luffy right away, saying with him being in critical condition they couldn’t risk an infection. She was not happy). She actually bonds slightly with Law after they escape and she’s in stable condition, cause she breaks down about what happened before he can escape (lol). In her mind she’s just lost another person she cared about (a brother-type figure, and someone she loves very much in her own way), and Luffy could very well be on his deathbed, and she can’t even see him, and the rest of their crew is who knows where, and she may lose use of her arm, and she HURTS, and it’s a lot to take in. Law keeps trying to tell her to calm down or she’ll undo everything he just did to save her, and she accuses him of being insensitive (I mean...yeah), and throws out a comment like “what you never lost anybody? Fuck off”. He glares at her, then sits and sighs, hiding his face beneath his hat. He’s silent for a while, then tells her he’s also lost a sibling. He doesn’t say anything more, doesn’t give details, but it still hits like a slap to the face, and she realizes he’s offering an olive branch by telling her that, and that hey here’s someone who knows exactly how you feel right now, don’t push away the only person who understands. They don’t bring it up again, but she does start to calm down.

The Crew: When she met Zoro she kept scolding Luffy about bossing him around, that it’s not his place to tell someone they’re joining the crew (of course he doesn’t listen), but after Zoro joins they get along really really well (she also mildly flirts with him for fun, he blushes like crazy, but it’s pretty harmless overall. Those three together is pretty chaotic on its own lol).

She didn’t trust Nami at first, as she came out of nowhere after messing with a different pirate, so she’s wary that the girl has something up her sleeve regarding her brother, but after they defeat Arlong Hazel is extremely protective of her, and the two take care of each other (also again: mild flirting. That time spent with Ace as a teen really helped Hazel’s confidence as a flirt, but after the time skip a lot of that goes away).

Hazel and Usopp tell stories together, usually for the whole crew, and she sees him as another little brother sort of figure. Chopper is baby, she loves Chopper instantly and will beat down anyone that looks at him funny. She doesn’t flirt with Sanji, because she doesn’t like the way he falls over himself around her and doesn’t want to encourage more of it, but once he (finally) takes the hint the two have a very strong friendship. She was very wary of Robin, until Water 7/Enies Lobby, and now sees her as an older sister. Robin, for her part, and even Franky to some degree, wish that Hazel would stop trying to be the crew’s grown up, and would go have fun as a girl in her early 20’s. She does ease up once the two join the crew, but bonds with the adults a lot. She’s someone the younger crew members go to with problems, but Robin and Franky, and eventually Brook and Jinbei, are who Hazel goes to for advice.

After the 5th time of Brook asking to see her panties, she says fuck it and throws a clean pair at him, saying that’s all he gets and if he asks her one more time she WILL throw him overboard. He doesn’t bring it up again.

Jinbei actually shows her the basics of Fishman Karate on their way back to Marineford before the timeskip. She still can’t move too well, so she just watches, but she incorporates what she learns into her fighting style.

She wanted to stay with Luffy when he went to train with Rayliegh, but the old man put a stop to it right away saying she’d not only be too distracted to focus on her own training, but she’d likely coddle Luffy. It was better for them to spend some time apart anyway, for really the first time in their lives, and though she’s nervous about not being with him she agrees. Hancock ends up taking her under her wing for the time being, but only because she’s Luffy’s sister (and therefore not a threat lmfao).

As far as after the time skip, she’s mostly the same but doesn’t immediately jump into Luffy’s shenanigans, and can be more of a voice of reason when needed. At Punk Hazard, she’s the first one of the Straw Hats (besides Luffy) to trust Law and agree that they should form an alliance. She furiously hates Caesar, like she isn’t even able to be near him or his heart cause she might stab him and ruin the whole plan (you don’t mess with kids man Hazel WILL fuck you up). At Dressrosa she joins in the fight to help the Tontattas, and follows Usopp and Robin to the port under the coliseum. When she sees Sabo, she IMMEDIATELY bursts into tears and latches onto his shoulders so tight it would take a crowbar to separate them (not that he tries, he’s happy to see her too). She also scolds Robin later for not telling her, but the older woman just laughs and says “but isn’t this so much better?” It is, but Hazel won’t admit it yet lol

She doesn’t go with Luffy to Whole Cake Island, but she does end up meeting up with him and Zoro in Wano, and helps rescue O-Tama.

Potential love interests for Hazel (besides Ace) would be Zoro, Nami, or Law, but honestly she could be shipped with anyone which makes it super fun lol (if anyone read this whole thing and has ideas send them in I’d love to hear them!!)

Anyway thank you for reading this entire long ass essay about my brain children! I think about them a lot, as I’m sure you can tell lol

#valentine skylar #monkey d. hazel #one piece oc #one piece original character #trafalgar law #portgas d. ace #roronoa zoro #cat burglar nami #law x oc stuff #fan fiction #zoro x oc #nami x oc #ace x oc #long post #doesn't look like the read more is working on mobile I'm so sorry #thanks for the ask!

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thoughts-of-loyalty · 6 years ago

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Fire Emblem: Three Houses 2/13 Trailer Analysis - Gameplay Elements

After such a long wait for information about the newest Fire Emblem title, we finally had a trailer drop on 2/13 , giving us another glimpse of the game we have been so eagerly anticipating. While still very much so a Fire Emblem game, it has no doubt taken a lot of people by surprise, given what we’ve learned about the cast and story - while we figured Byleth was being referred to as teacher by the narrator, I don’t think we expected for Byleth to be a teacher at an Officer’s Academy for nobles.

Regardless, the game is due to launch on July 26th, so a lot of what we’ve seen in this trailer is likely what we’re due to be seeing in this game. While I am analyzing the trailers we’ve been given, due to the sheer length I will be focusing on the gameplay for this post. If you want a refresher before reading, you can see the trailer here. The analysis is below.

In the first look at gameplay, we see Byleth approaching the Black Eagles house - presumably, the trailer decided to go with Byleth instructing the Black Eagles. It looks to be a meeting before the house travels out to fight the bandits, which will likely be the pre-mission structure for some of the earlier maps. Of note is in the upper-left corner of the screen, which reads “Entrance Hall - Day.” The former isn’t particularly interesting, but I find the latter worth noting: while a time system isn’t exactly new to FE (in Fates, certain events would be available at certain times of the day or after a day had passed), it makes me think it will play a role in this one as well - perhaps you can only teach during the day, which can be interrupted by events like needing to go into battle, and there are nighttime events unrelated to teaching.

As we see shortly thereafter, the presumably-aforementioned bandits that were located by the knights are confronted by the Black Eagles. While this just mostly pre-battle map stuff, I did notice he’s standing on a glowing tile (it’s even more glowing in the Japanese trailer, interestingly enough). There’s a couple of potential meanings for that, such as it being a heal/”throne” tile (where Kostas stays holed up to give himself a boost/recovery like most bosses) and/or a seize location (the two can be identical, after all). It’s impossible to say for sure, but it does make me wonder...

We get an overall look at the Black Eagles in this shot. There’s a few things of note here, so let’s delve into it: 1) Byleth (and as we can see below, Bernadetta) both have a total movement of 4 squares, which is rather low for a Fire Emblem game - Not counting Heroes, I think only Gaiden and Echoes have movement that low to start with for non-armored units. Given that we’ve seen Byleth with 5 movement in the previous trailer, I believe movement ranges might have been decreased, though why is still up in the air. 2) Almost every single unit has three upwards facing green arrows to the bottom-right of left model, and both Byleth and Bernadetta have those same green arrows in their little info box on the bottom-left of the screen, to the right of their HP. Notably, only Dorothea is lacking this indicator. What this means is unknown for the time being, but it makes me wonder.

Bernadetta is selected to be the one going forth, so we get a slightly clearer view of some of the basic UI. In the top left, we see a small tab dedicated to describing the current highlighted terrain and it’s effects - in this case, Flatlands, which is noted to be “Terrain with no special effects.” In the bottom left, we’re informed of basic info on the unit - their Name, HP, Level, currently equipped weapon, a 3DS-esque overworld sprite, and those triangles again. Nothing more to say, however, so continuing on...

We see the updated drop down options menu. For one, it seems “Attack” has been shortened to Atk (I kinda hope they undo that, personally, it’s weird to see it shortened). “Combat Arts” has also been shortened to “Arts” (a bit iffy on that, too, but I’m not as bothered there). We can also see “Gambit,” which has possibly replaced what was “Formation” prior. “Equip” and “Items” were also options beforehand, but it’s likely “Equip” has been merged into “Items” like in prior games. Meanwhile, while “Trade” was technically not seen beforehand, no one was close enough to allies in the previous trailer, so it’s probably there now for that reason. “Magic” has also been removed from the options - whether it’s due to Magic being merged with “Attack” (and “Heal” having it’s own location) or because Bernadetta can’t use magic currently, I couldn’t say.

Given that Bernadetta prepares to attack, we then get to transition into the combat preparation menu. It bares a lot of resemblance to the previous menu, containing a lot of the same layout, only a bit more uncluttered. On the bottom-right, we can see that it’s been laid out into more organized boxes. Defense has also presumably been changed back after it was “Endurance” last trailer, but it seems “Resistance” may be “Resilience” now. The top-left is much the same as beforehand, albeit we now see those triangles to the right of the Bernadetta’s HP and Bernadetta’s class is “Noble,” presumably a class she shares with everyone else that isn’t Byleth and maybe Edelgard (her class in the previous trailer was Aristocrat, but in the Japanese trailers, Bernadetta and Edelgard share the same class, so it’s likely she’ll have been made into a “Noble” now).

On the top right, we see the weapon menu, which is very much similar to how it was in the prior trailer. One thing of note, however, is that the “Mini Bow” Bernadetta is carrying lacks the Feather icon that the Iron Bow has. This indicates that said bow isn’t effective against flying units, so I figure the bow probably has some extra effect to make it worth using alongside the Iron Bow (such as how the Short Bow had lower weight and better crit in the GBA games, or 1 range like in Fates).

We now get to see the combat forecast menu, and it’s about what we’d expect it to be compared given what we saw last trailer (seen to the right), pretty much the exact same layout as before. That said, it seems we now have an idea of what that tab above the weapon’s is for, as the “None” has now been replaced with “No Combat Arts.” There’s also a icon above Bernadetta similar to Byleth’s, so it’s probably a skill icon of some sort. Finally, there’s two weapon icons next to said icon with “Lv 1″ at the bottom right, which wasn’t there before: what exactly this means isn’t clear, perhaps it’s just an indication of current weapon rank but it’s impossible to say for sure.

Continuing from the above, we can see that Combat Arts can be cycled through in the same ways as weapons/spells in other Fire Emblems. In this case, Bernadetta swaps to Curved Shot - introduced in Shadows of Valentia, it decreased HP by 1 to increase damage by 1 and hit chance by 30%. This Curved Shot seems to increase range by 1 (something that probably didn’t see use in Shadows of Valentia due to bows having 1 massive 5 range already) and a damage increase of 1 as well (no way to tell if it also increases hit chance, as Bernadetta had max hit chance already). It also doesn’t use any HP, but given the 3 placed above the Bow’s 50 durability, it makes me think that Three Houses will have weapon durability be used up to trigger Arts.

As a final note, in Echoes, every Combat Art would prevent follow-up attack from triggering (with a few exceptions like Double Lion, which functioned akin to doubles a la later-game Brave weapons). While Bernadetta couldn’t double beforehand due to not being fast enough anyway, I’m thinking this will remain as well to help continue the balance there.

On the right, I included the Japanese trailer’s representation of the same - interestingly, the range does not increase by 1 (and we can tell it IS supposedly the same skill because that’s the same name for Curved Shot in Japan). I don’t know what to make of this discrepancy yet, but I’m certain it means something...

Now, just a more minor thing, but they’ve definitely put a bit more effort into making the allied soldiers look a bit more unique than those “Blond dudes in blue clothing” that was nigh-omnipresent beforehand. Definitely good to know that what we saw in the first trailer was not everything we’d be seeing beforehand.

And then we get to see a Critical Hit in action, which definitely tells us that what we saw at the tail end of the first trailer with Byleth was a critical hit then, too. And it looks like they forced that critical, too, unless Petra is such a broken unit she’s got a natural 100% critical rate with an Iron Sword. That said, I can’t complain too much, as...

We finally get to see a post-battle experience gain screen - something we haven’t seen at all up to this point, so this is pretty valuable to us. I also made sure to take a screen shot of the before situation, so we can see exactly what she gained. So, let’s break down everything we see, bit by bit: 1) The top is the standard “Until Next Level” experience bar most FEs have, but there’s a slight twist: it looks like Petra needs to gain a total of 110 experience instead of the regular 100. Why exactly this change exists is difficult to know for sure, though here’s hoping this doesn’t impact unit progression too significantly. 2) We also see her gain points in what is referred to as the “Professor Level,” which seems to likely be akin to Weapon Ranks in most FEs. We see her gain 3 points in Swords, and 2 points in what we later know to be Authority; interestingly, given the clip beforehand, it’s impossible to say why she gained it, given she didn’t seem to be doing anything out of the ordinary, nor why it only gained two points. I have a theory I’ll elaborate on later tying into this, though. 3) We also see her gain a single point in a bar under a tad labeled “Until class is mastered.” While we can likely tie toward class progression seen later in the video, I’ll elaborate how I think it ties in during that analysis. 4) There’s finally an experience bat under a tab labelled “Until Battalion levels up,” and she gains 15 points in “Empire Infantry.” Now, it’s easy enough to know what those are: the generic soldiers fighting beside her. But what I’m curious about is what will occur as they level up. Does leveling them up grant access to different types of infantry, or does is that tied to “Authority” and does leveling those up grant access to new gambits? To be seen, I suppose.

We then transition to a scene presumably in the Garreg Mach Monastery, where Ferdinand and Sylvain are poised to duel each other with Training Lances. This reminds me of some degree to the Arena in a number of FEs, as well as the duels one could have in New Mystery of the Emblem. There’s a couple of interesting things to note here: 1) The tab at the top indicates this is “Round 2,” likely indicating some fight preceded this one in some way. Whether it’s Ferdinand fighting his way through some students or it’s several paired into duels, it’s impossible to say. 2) The reward for winning the duel is apparently 300G and an Intermediate Seal. We later learn that the latter is required to change classes, as it’s listed as such when Edelgard class changes to Brigand. As it’s unknown how else these will be earned, these duels might be important when it comes to improving your units. 3) Sylvain and Ferdinand have both Lances and Axes to choose from (and Ferdinand also has Swords), though both use Lances to duel each other. This makes me think that units in these situations will be saddled with the same weapons so as to make the duels relatively fair, presuming the weapon triangle is present. 4) Back to the Arena comparisons, we see that the player is given an option to withdraw in the bottom right. The player obviously accepts the duel, given they have no chance to lose, but it’s nice that we’re given the option to back out of duels we can’t win/don’t want to risk before they begin, especially since we’re given a combat forecast to help us make our decision. 5) Finally, most of the Arena duels in previous Fire Emblems (even in New Mystery’s Barracks duels you had to pay to enter) had your units facing generic enemies. As we see Sylvain in the Monastery earlier, but not as part of the Black Eagles, this makes me think most of the enemies one can fight in the Monastery will be picked from other houses. Whether we will end up fighting generics as well in these duels, or maybe even teachers, is unknown. We also don’t know for sure if arenas exist outside of the barracks, as they did in New Mystery, so who knows how this will end up being?

We’re then given a look at the teaching mechanics that this game looks to be pushing as a major mechanic. At the very top, we see a meter with the number 3 below it - given the various icons beside “Turoring” and “Auto-Tutor,” it’s likely that you get a maximum of 3 tutors before you run out of time that “day”, so that one can’t abuse the tutor system. Both Tutoring and Set Goals is explored in more detail later in the trailer, so I’ll save those for later. Auto-Tutor, considering the 3 icon, is likely allowing the game to determine which someones are selected for tutoring; this would no doubt be useful for those who either don’t want to be bothered to figure out/use the tutor system or just can’t decide - hopefully, there will be options to select auto-tutor after using up a few tutor plans in case one figures out a couple to tutor but can’t figure out what to use the final one(s) on. Group Task is a complete enigma, given that we’re never given a peek at how it works - while it obviously involves students working together, the time costs involved and how it is used is still unknown. There’s also “Start Class” as the final option - this makes me think that you first select who you want to tutor and set up the goals/group tasks, and then select this option to put it all into action; that said, Tutoring vs Start Class could be different matters entirely, like classes being focused on everyone gaining progression in Goals while Tutoring is focused on individual students. To be seen, I suppose. Finally, of note is the rather empty classroom - only Edelgard, Dorothea, Bernadetta, and Ferdinand (hidden behind the “Group Task” bar, visible very briefly after Tutoring is selected) are visible in this shot. Perhaps this means tutoring will be limited to select students if they’re around, akin to how you had limited options with who you could spend time with in the Private Quarters portion of the My Castle. Of course, it could mean nothing and you’re not limited by who is seen on-screen.

Here we see Tutoring in action, with Dorothea as the subject of a tutoring session. While Byleth decides aid her in learning how to use Reason magic, we can see that technically every option is available (including Hvy Armor, Riding, and Flying lower on the list, considering the sidebar has lower to go). Below the Skill Details box, we can see her Current Goals is Sword and Reason focus - to be elaborated upon later. Above that, meanwhile, we can see a bar with a Smiley icon, below which reads “You can train one more times.” This likely means, in the English trailer version, Byleth had already instructed twice before.

Focusing on the “Skill Details” box, we can see that deciding to tutor her in Reason magic would yield 6 EXP to that rank - +4 from Base (likely meaning tutoring in general offers a certain base growth) and +2 from “Strengths.” The latter likely means that Dorothea is incline toward growth in the categories marked by the Blue upwards arrows (It likely does not mean it’s because of her focus - you’ll see why under Linhardt’s instruction). There’s also a Red downward arrows, by what is later identified Faith magic - likely meaning that she would have a penalty if one tried to tutor her in that. Interestingly, Faith is also marked by 3 stars, but what those could mean is unknown.

In the Japanese trailer, meanwhile, we can see her getting instruction in Swords, which gives us a peek at that other icon I left for now. Now, my best translation efforts via Google Translate (And I only found out after Serenes Forest already translated it...) revealed it to say “Teacher correction,” which... probably isn’t 100% accurate. But this makes me believe that selecting skills tagged with the index finger add a bonus to EXP gained related to Byleth in some way (maybe Byleth is trained in the marked skills, and tutoring the students in skills he’s proficient with offers a bonus). We can also see the “Tutor Bar” from the classroom above Dorothea in the Japanese version, but it’s mysteriously missing in the English version. Wish I knew why, but who knows for sure.

We can see what gains is made from the tutoring now, with Dorothea gaining EXP x 1.5 - whereas the prior screen said she’d gain 6, she gains 9 instead, going from 62 to 53 (in the Japanese version, the same happens, where she gains 12 EXP instead of 8, going from 15 to 3). I can’t offer up a good reason why she’s gained 1.5 times the expected amount. Perhaps those smiley faces indicate mood, with students earning more EXP if in a good mood; alternatively, it could be based on supports between Byleth and his students, or maybe it’s just random and we had some brute-forced luck. Again, to be determined.

Above her dialogue tab, on the left, we see her portrait in a small square with a yellow arrow pointing upward on the upper-left corner and a heart in the upper-right corner. We’ve all pretty certain to see supports in some capacity, so it’s likely that indicates a support gain because of him tutoring her. As an aside, in the Japanese version, Dorothea has two arrows instead of one - this can likely be chalked up to focusing on a skill she’d have better gains in (since she has two bonuses in Swords to Reason’s one bonus) being responsible for the increase, but I can’t say for sure.

This is the Set Goals option of the teaching mentioned above. At the beginning, Linhardt’s current focus is Reason and Faith Focus, but the player in the trailer decides to swap Linhardt’s focus to Faith and Riding instead. Given that Linhardt’s best skill is Faith, it’s not surprising, but I guess they want him to branch out into being a horseback mage later. In the bottom-right of the screen, we see X can bring up the status screen, likely so one can see how well their focuses will work with their stats.

I’ve danced around discussing this beforehand, but Heavy Armor, Riding, and Flying are given growth ranks starting from E, like every other skill in the game. While not fully surprising, as it’s likely to serve as a gateway for Nobles seeking to reclass into classes with those traits, it makes me wonder if there’s any particular benefit to leveling up those skills beyond that point. As we know, the weapon ranks give us better weapons as we rank up, but will there be an equivalent for the others? Or do the ranks act as gateways throughout, forcing us to to level from E to A/S to access, say, the Paladin class? It makes me wonder.

Returning back to focusing on the screenshot, one thing of note is one can possibly select to have only one focus at once, given that there’s a None option below Flying. What sort of benefits one could achieve from choosing to focus on one skill instead of two is uncertain, given that it goes unexplored (my best guess is faster growth, but that’s just a guess), but it seems like it’s an option all the same. Unsurprisingly, one can’t double down on the same focus (as the confirmation screen doesn’t pop up until after Linhardt selects Riding, despite Faith being double under the Custom Focus), so if you’re going to focus on one skill, guess one probably will have to use the None option.

The English version unfortunately cuts away too early, but we see aftermath of it in the Japanese trailer. There’s not much, but there’s a few things to glean from it. For one, we can see that Linhardt doesn’t automatically gain a Blue arrow for Riding when it’s selected, despite it being his new Focus, meaning it’s not a Strength for him. While understandable, given that this would help prevent abusing easier EXP gains, it likely means Strengths are set in stone (and so are the Red arrows, too) and branching out from that would take extra effort. Second, when Linhardt’s custom focus is selected, it gains an E next to it (on the top left box), while the previous Reason and Faith focus is placed below, indicating that the Custom Focus is equipped. This tells us that the students have preset Focuses (likely tailored to their Strengths, like Linhardt with Reason/Faith and Dorothea with Swords/Reason) and will probably keep them around as quick-select options.

Finally, I should make it clear that the Japanese and English builds are different, and while most of what they do is the same, their selections do result in notable differences . For instance, in the Japanese trailer, the Tutor bar was at 2 the whole time, while in the English trailer, it was at 3 the whole time. I bring this up because this number doesn’t change when the Goals are changed in the Japanese trailer. This thankfully means tweaking a student’s Goals won’t interfere with your tutoring, so changing around your student’s focuses before tutoring them won’t eat up any of your allotted time.

And Linhardt shows us that one aspect of Faith is healing, likely having replaced staves this time around. He uses the spell heal to restore 11 HP to Byleth. Fire Emblem has never been fully consistent with the calculations, generally using “Healer’s Magic +10″ in older games, “Healer’s Magic/2 +8″ in the Archanea remakes and Awakening, and “Healer’s Magic/3 +10″ in Fates. This makes me believe they’re following FE11/12/Awakening’s formula for healing (or I hope so, otherwise Linhardt’s healing is trash), given how low the restored amount is.

Now, in theory, this is taking part after Linhardt’s goals have been switched to Faith and Riding, but obviously, Linhardt isn’t on a horse in this scene. Most Fire Emblems haven’t had their healers dismount to heal their targets after combat, so I don’t think this is the situation either. This leads me to believe that even if you decide to focus on a certain movement-altering skill, you still need to increase your Ranking before you can see it in action (I’d guess to E+ at the very least?). Thankfully, I believe that this isn’t too major an issue in the game. As you’ll recall under the bit during Petra’s gains, we see her make gains in both Swords and Authority after battle, and I said I’d discuss my theory on it later. Here it is: I believe that units will gain EXP in their current focus regardless of whether or not they’re currently making use of said skill. Of course, I can’t prove this, but I do hope this is the case because otherwise progression will take forever.

Moving away from the teaching and its results, we cut to Caspar fighting a “Western Church Soldier,” wielding “Iron Gauntlets.” Interestingly, when using these gauntlets, Caspar has a x2 next to his Mt, and deals two consecutive hits to the soldier before he can counterattack. There is no indication he used any sort of Combat Arts, too, considering it generally shows above the unit’s name if one is active. Therefore, it seems like it may be an innate feature of the gauntlets weapons is to attack twice consecutively a la Brave weapons. I figure that as a trade-off, they’re weaker than most (consider that he’s dealing 7 damage per hit despite facing a not particularly powerful unit). But what exactly the case with that is will be seen when we learn more, I suppose.

The trailer then hops back over to the more scholarly side of things, where we see Edelgard preparing to take the Brigand Certification Exam. This seems to be an equivalent of sorts to exiting a trainee class, which I believe we’ve established is likely what all of the students (and possibly Byleth, in a unique one of his own) start out in. Given all the classes shown on the left side, it’s likely that all classes will be available to every student and rather they must be trained up in certain skills before one can access them.

On the right side, meanwhile, we get to see peek at what exactly these “exams” will contain. Speaking of Exam Contents, there’s a ZL and ZR option to the left and right of where it says “Exam Contents.” It mostly makes me wonder what the other screen(s) will show, I figure something like “Here’s how this class change will change this unit’s stats” but I can’t say for sure, but just make note of those buttons there.

We also see, below that, a basic blurb describing Brigands in the standard Fire Emblem style (like if you tap/highlight a unit’s class). Lower down, we see ”Exam Skills” which notes Axe being C or higher - whether this is a requirement or recommendation isn’t fully clear, however. That said, we do see we are required to have an Intermediate Seal - something we see is a prize when Ferdinand duels Sylvain, making it one known way to obtain these seals.

Finally, we can see a “Pass Rate,” which Edelgard has as 100% going in to this exam, meaning she’ll become a Brigand with no problem. This makes me wonder: will these be binary rates, with either a 100% if you meet all the requirements and 0% if you don’t? Or will there be a bit more variety, like having extra points in Axes, or even reaching B, guarantee better success than having just a C rank, thus making success semi-dependent on luck if going on unprepared? Impossible to say, of course, but it’s definitely something I’d keep an eye on going forward.

Of course, Edelgard passes and is promoted to Brigand. This part progresses no further, so there’s no indication of what effects this will have on Edelgard as a unit beyond changing class and focusing more on axes, such as growths or class change stat influences. We’ll probably see more as time goes on.

We then cut to a scene of Ashe (who is likely from the Golden Deer) having a meal with a blond-haired girl (possibly from the Blue Lions, but unknown for sure) having a meal together. The dialogue over the meal indicates it to be some kind of team-building, but whether this is meant as the equivalent of a Support Conversation, simply a means to help build supports, or is unrelated to supports and simply tied to building bonds for gambits. Hopefully, we’ll learn more in the future.

Now, we see the beginnings of a Gambit Boost in action, being a part of a Gambit led by Edelgard. The Gambit is targeting a monster (identified as Black Beast) these units are nearby, with the particular targets being in front of Edelgard (with two arrows in front of Edelgard, interestingly). We can also see Byleth with a glowing sword (which has been identified as the chain sword from the prior trailers), making it unclear when exactly in the game this is. Interestingly, Byleth is the only one with a particularly unique-looking weapon, so it’s possible he’ll be getting one before the others (presuming Edelgard/Claude/Dimitri do as well).

In the Japanese version, there’s a few differences in presentation, but the end result is still the same. For one, Edelgard and Ferdinand are facing a bit to the right (compared to being front-facing in the English version), and the squares below and arrows above the Black Beast in the English version aren’t present. Otherwise, however, they’re positioned in the exact same way as before.

We then see the “Gambit Boost” activating, which involves Byleth, the black-haired guy from the Black Eagles we’ve seen a few times, Ferdinand, and Edelgard. The four being in close proximity to each other and the Black Beast seems to be relevant to their performing the gambit, which raises the future question of how complex or simple the Gambit Boosts can be.

Meanwhile, in the Japanese version, there’s a few differences. For one, Byleth and Ferdinand have swapped positions, but there isn’t any visible reason why. Byleth and the black-haired guy have visibly different outfits, with Byleth being much more armored and the black-haired guy sporting red robes (Ferdinand’s outfit might be somewhat different, too, it’s difficult to tell) - which points towards most units being rather customizable, possibly even allowing Byleth to become an armored unit.

Finally, we the (beginning?) of the Coordinated Gambit in action. Edelgard twirls her axe, which is the indication for a bunch of “Assault Troop” soldiers to charge forward, hitting the Black Beast. It possesses 14 Mt (likely using similar damage calculations as normal attacks), a 100% hit rate (does that mean that gambits have a chance of missing?), and 0 Crit (again raising a question, this time if gambits can cause critical hits). The Black Beast, meanwhile, has absolutely no indication it can counter Edelgard despite her being right in front of it - perhaps this means Gambits can allow units a form of attack without putting themselves at risk.

Finally, despite being referred to as a “Coordinated Gambit,” there’s a significant lack of coordination being displayed here, especially after the whole big thing with the Gambit Boost before. There’s a couple possible explanations for this, however. One could be that their involvement could be the reason why Edelgard isn’t at risk of taking a counterattack. The other option is that Edelgard is the first of a few gambits set to take place, and we only get to see the first because the trailer doesn’t want to spoil. Whatever the reason, I’m sure the game will eventually make it clear.

#fire emblem three houses #three houses #fire emblem 16 #FE16 #potential FE 16 spoilers?#edelgard #byleth #ferdinand #dorothea #bernadetta #petra #linhardt #caspar #fire emblem three houses trailer analysis #three houses trailer analysis #2-13 trailer #gameplay analysis

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wileds · 6 years ago

Note

so does he have a lower opinion of faunus since a lot of his houses help were faunus

wakes up early, sees this in my email notifs, hewwo ??

i can’t emphasize enough that love grew up a bit sheltered especially in the years immediately after he came into his semblance. his power is activated by shedding blood and being exposed to it. it was not a pleasant experience and it had real legal ramifications between the victim and love (a minor at the time of course) which brought on a surge of protectiveness from his parents as well as them using their political/social clout to win a favorable solution for love, basically sweeping the event under the rug, while also keeping love ignorant about what exactly happened to the person. which is why i still say that he has no criminal record. quite a bad idea in hindsight - love feels certain that he killed them and he was not given the chance to personally apologize to the family for it, if they would even have him at this point, and all of this began his feelings of shame around his semblance alongside its celebration from his tribe as a mark of charisma / a good warrior / what have you, which is why i’m always inches away from saying that love has a bit of a complex around his affinity which is … pretty unfortunately janus-faced when you really think about the contrary natures of his supposed fate: greatness or madness, or greatness even in madness - greatness is the central destiny here, the contrariness bolstered by stories of previous inheritors of their hereditary semblance who always fell into one of the two categories. the inheritor immediately before him was for sure bloodmad. which doesn’t help matters. love has a feeling that he would become so too if he fully indulged his semblance. maybe that’s paranoia or the aforementioned shame talking, but whatever, it’s genuinely how he feels.

why am i talking about semblance again.

back to the point, he was sheltered more after this event. a lot of the house help and hires were faunus so he did spend a lot of time with them when his parents were busy. yes seeing faunus in certain roles affected him, i know how iffy it can sound to say ‘i have a __ friend so i understand ___!’ or ‘i know many __, so __!’ his curiosity about some faunus traits will come across as ignorant or even affronting if done in the wrong way. and a question like ‘can i touch it?’ always vacillates between ok and wtf no. but in actuality he typically doesn’t bring attention to faunus traits at all because then he knows he won’t make a social faux pas and he’s taken way too many etiquette classes to blunder too badly at this point idk how he was as a kid, he was a fucking handful. but today he is a naturally sensitive person. has more tact than you might expect from his abundance. he’s not afraid to apologize or be corrected, at any rate. tends to notice/comment on someone’s overall attractiveness rather than specifics (he takes note of people’s attractiveness like people do the weather. it’s just a part of how he meets someone and it doesn’t need to mean anything). there’s no intentional othering going on when he thinks of faunus or meets one. also like … i’m sure historical figures such as the faunus queen of vacuo who led during the great war + the apparent egalitarianism of the society (but is it tho) has introduced some levity into vacuoan society and into love’s mind even if through history books or lessons or moments of exposure. going too far into the i don’t see species i see people direction is also an issue (kind of like the i don’t see color argument which negates imp history, current social/criminal/etc injustices, prejudice & racism, etc). but. i answered this ask a year ago and it’s still faithful to his attitude.

… after going to shade academy he at least feels ok to ask mai and aris questions too lol, rip if he’s ever said anything awkward or offensive to them. i am sure he has been offensive due to some part of his upbringing.

that said, all of the faunus in love’s life were not in subservient roles while growing up. some of his most impactful tutors were/are faunus. including one of his primary weapons & combat trainers who i am currently trying to create. her name is leila and she’s one of the lakhdari’s (alt name for the akhdar clan which his tribe belongs to) most formidable warriors. even though she flitted in and out of love’s life because she needed to go and kick ass somewhere, she is like one of his most favorite people ever. not pictured: little love, an only child, precocious and celebrated and sometimes feared with very few friends his own age, telling his badass adult trainer that they’re friends now ok? can i visit? what’s your scroll number? then they actually became friends and leila is always like, well, alright i guess. leila is an arabian oryx whose faunus trait are those horns and she is also literally a golden-eyed warrior (they have their own lore for golden-eyed warriors) (it’s a wip from my end but i gesture vigorously at love’s own gold eyes. when i say he’s fated he’s fuckin fated) … leila’s profile post is forthcoming mostly because i don’t know how the hell to edit gifs in ps for her graphic.

AND NOW THE CONNECTION.

the point of his tribe’s endogamy (marriage within one’s own group) is to preserve their hereditary semblance. it already skips generations instead of being passed down faithfully from parent to offspring. there is an element of blood purity for a blood affinity going on here. in a difficult place like vacuo you can understand why one might want to keep a semblance like that close and alive. the clarkia semblance plus their role as prominent dust merchants contributed to their wealth and influence today. in addition, the clarkias are a human tribe. so that reinforces things. the akhdar clan they belong to have both humans and faunus though, hence folks like leila. this dynamic even goes into his and ksenija’s relationship, who are second cousins i think … there was reluctance from some people in love’s life about letting them meet a lot, although their parents got along fine because love’s parents went the exogamous route. exogamy is when one marries someone outside one’s own group. isa married amina who is way outside the kin group although still of an equal (or higher tbh) socioeconomic status than isa, when the general tradition of the clarkia tribe is to marry within one’s own group. basically they all married for love and so they didn’t really give a fuck about faunus heritage when love like, cried and begged to skip out of lessons in order to see ksenija when he was little. family is so important to them.

the clarkias are a failing house because they’re in the dust industry, and that hasn’t been doing too hot in vacuo for a long while. love is trying to help save his family from obscurity. part of this means him keeping traditions and expectations like the above going. part of his decision in choosing to become a huntsman is because of this desire to keep them from obscurity, when the clarkias really have no reason or tradition of buying into the idea of a huntsman when they’ve been warring and fighting against grimm generations before shade academy ever popped up as the ““““only real source of order.””””” so love fully expects to marry a human too. it doesn’t stop who he associates with, befriends, flirts with, or sleeps with. but he’s gonna marry a human. he is currently engaged to one even if they kinda want to break it off, but even then love is gonna marry a human. if anyone thinks that’s problematic please call him out on it but he never talks about his betrothed or marriage expectations unless he has to, not because he’s ashamed (they’re actually very compatible! they just don’t want to marry each other) (also i have not ‘created’ his betrothed yet because this is going to be all disney aladdin / 1,001 nights mythos which i haven’t had the time to watch/read for the past. year … lol.)

he is a member of vacuoan elite and marriage prospects or who his family has hired / continue to hire seriously does not mean that he personally thinks lesser of faunus, only that he grew up in an environment that has informed his life and expects certain things from him.

#thrushed #✧ﾟ * hc. i see gold on your cheeks and glitter in your lungs –— *#long post /#me: i-- ; sb: you love making headcanons. we know. you LOVE headcanoning you love it SO MUCH we know - you LOOOOVE HEADCANONS

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mslauriedavis-blog · 6 years ago

Photo

TASK 1, PART 1 – QUESTIONNAIRE !!

BASIC INFORMATION.

What is your character’s full name? Laurie Ann Peniston-Davis. How is it pronounced? Luh-or-ee Ann Dave-us. Is there a meaning behind it? Laurie means ‘from the place of the laurel leaves’ or ‘fierce’. Ann means ‘favor’ or ‘grace’. Davis is derived from David, which means ‘beloved’. Does your character have any nicknames? Maybe a few by her closest friends. When and where were they born? Long Beach, California. December 12, 1968. What’s their zodiac sign and what traits do they most relate to? Sagittarius. Independent, strong-willed, creative, playful, idealistic, open-hearted, smart, generous. I want to say she’s adventurous as well. What’s their nationality? American. What’s their occupation? Nurse. What gender do they identify themselves as? Female.

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE.

What’s their eye color? Blue. Do they wear glasses or contacts? Reading glasses. Hair color? Blonde. Have they ever dyed their hair or wanted to? Yes, it’s naturally a brown shade. Height? 5′5. Body build? Slim. Do they have any birthmarks? Nah. Do they have any piercings or tattoos? Ear lobes. If not, do they want to get some? There’s no longing for that. Do they have a healthy life style? Overall, yes, absolutely. How easy do they get sick? She works around sick people and takes good care of herself, so she’s got a decent immune system. She doesn’t catch colds often. Any marks on their body (injuries, …)? Nope. What’s their personal style/how do they like to dress? When she’s not in her nurse scrubs, you’ll find her rocking outfits like this, this, this, this and this. What is their favorite and least favorite feature about themselves? Laurie appreciates her eyes and her skin. She’s iffy about her arms.

PERSONALITY.

Positive traits? Empathetic, selfless, responsible, loyal, determined, mothering. Negative traits? Gullible, stubborn, smothering, scatterbrained, remote, strict. What do they consider to be the best and the worst part of their personality? Her heart, her ability to love, is no doubt the best part of her personality. On the other side of the coin, her willingness to be stepped on to make other people happy is her downfall. She can stand up for herself, but she always puts other people first. Are they more extroverted or introverted? Straight down the middle, I think. She’s friendly and outgoing, but she’s withdrawn, not very open about herself. Any talents? She can bake/cook certain things very well. She also has the ability to sense sadness in the people she loves and know exactly how to cheer them up. What are their fears? Losing her children, having them move away and forget about her. Do they have any phobias? No. What is their soft spot? Andy and Molly. List 3 pet-peeves they can’t stand? Slow/rough traffic, losing things, sexism.

EDUCATION.

How far did they go in school? Are they still studying? She is a college graduate. Do/did they like school? High school was a blast. Laurie was popular. College was nice too. It wasn’t the best time of her life, but she looks back on it fondly. What type of student are/were they? She wasn’t all straight As but her grades were good. She would blow off studying for parties and hanging out with friends occasionally, but she was behaved in the classroom and always got her homework in on time. What is/was their favorite subject? Home economics. And their least favorite? History. What were they/would they have been voted as “most likely to…” in the yearbook? Become an NFL cheerleader.

FAMILY.

Who are your character’s parents? Annie and Lance Peniston. How would your character describe them? Set in their ways. They were strict, religious and conservative. She was never very close to them, but they weren’t bad parents. She still keeps in touch with them, makes sure they are doing well. Do they have any siblings? No. Are they close with their family? Her children, yes. Everyone else, not really.

ROMANCE & SEXUALITY.

What’s their romantic and sexual orientation? Heterosexual, heteromantic --- as far as she knows. Are they seeing anyone right now? No. Have they ever been in an relationship? Yes. Have they ever been in love? Yes. How easy do they fall for someone? She takes her time going into relationships, but she also has a soft heart. In their view, why didn’t any past relationships work out? With her ex-husband: stress. He hadn’t been ready for the commitment. With him, and others, it wasn’t meant to be. What do they look for in someone? Someone with a good heart. A feminist. Do they believe in love at first sight? Or fate? It could happen. What’s their views on romance? Do they go after it or avoid it? She would love to fall in love again, but if that isn’t in the cards with her, that’s okay. She’s willing to go on a date here or there, she just hasn’t found that spark again. It isn’t like she runs around town looking for men to chase after. Did they have their first time already? How was it in their point of view? Uh, she has two biological kids, so... she’s had her first time. It was awkward, but it wasn’t bad. It was sweet. What is their view on sex? Dang, it’s been awhile. What are their turn ons and turn offs? She loves spontaneity, slow kisses, soft music. Turn offs would be dis-respectfulness and rushing. Were they ever cheated on or have they cheated on someone? Absolutely not. Do they want to get married in the future? If the opportunity presented itself again, of course, but she doesn’t see it happening. Have kids? While the baby fever is strong at times, and she loves Molly and Andy more than life itself, she doesn’t want anymore kids.

QUIRKS.

Are they right or left handed? Ambidextrous! What’s a word that’s always on their lips? Some sort of pet name. Is there a saying they keep on repeating? Something along the lines of: how are you and do you need anything? Do they curse? Not often. What’s their worst habit? Misplacing things. Do they drink or smoke? How frequently? A glass of wine a couple of nights a week. Smoking, no, the thought of doing such a thing to her lungs makes her physically ill. Are they an early bird or a night owl? Early bird, but only with a cup of coffee in her hand. How tidy is their room? She loves a good clean room. How long to they usually take getting ready in the morning? Half an hour.

FAVORITES.

What’s their favorite color? Purple. Favorite movie? The Notebook. Music genre? 80′s pop or singer-songwriter. Food? Burgers. Book? Too many to choose from! Favorite non-alcoholic drink? Lemonade. Ice cream flavor? Vanilla. Indoors or outdoors? Depends.

#carthaytask #ugh loml #carthaytask001

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demos-cloud · 7 years ago

Note

Opinions on 3rd job designs? (as many as you feel like sharing)

I’m still very sick but I dislike responding to asks late so here we are! It’s quite long so everything is under the cut.

– Elsword –

Knight Emperor isn’t particularly bad at all. His design is generic but then again, Elboy’s Imperial path has always been that of the traditional RPG knight. I like the addition of his eyes turning blue as a result of the El’s influence, but it’s not consistent with Elboy’s other two classes so… Shrugs. I find his Battle Ready passive to be a bit strong, especially with the first skill costing 20% less, but everything else seems pretty fine to me.

Rune Master looks weird. Rather, he looks and practically acts like Zelos Wilder (Tales of Symphonia) and so I can’t help but have see RuneM in that sort of similar, negative light. His stationary runes are a neat concept, but they’re stupid and kill my FPS and so I dislike him for that.

I’m not a big fan of Infinity Sword or his path in general, but I like Immortal’s design the most out of all of Elsword’s third jobs. I could do without the long hair, but I really like the slightly more casual tone in his outfit (that shirt especially, is really cool). It also feels like an intentional design to remind players that even with all his arrogance and battle-lust, Immortal is still essentially the same old Elsword. All his force change skills look pretty cool (although I’ve heard some of them are less than practical), but I would really like a change to his Master of Combat passive. That +20% damage to Conwell skills is. Really strong.

– Aisha –

Aether Sage’s new earth combo is super cool but I rarely get to see it used so that’s lame. I like her design a lot (I’m very weak to large lab-esque coats but that aside), and it feels like an appropriate advancement from Elemental Master. That being said, her backstory feels really lacking. There isn’t much detail and Aisha just seemingly gains all this power out of nowhere. Her chain skill options are… A bit odd as most of them are a combination of close-range + long-range skills, but that’s speaking as a non-Aisha player. Her passives, too, seem very underwhelming. I’m disappointed with her new hyper, Aether Immersion, as well. It. Feels like a rehash of her first hyper, Elemental Storm.

Oz Sorcerer on the other hand seems like a logical advancement from Void Princess, and her design is absolutely beautiful. I adore the consistency in her outfits throughout all her Rebellion jobs, and her hair is both fantastic both in artwork and in-game as always. Her force change skills are cool in concept, but not in practice. It feels the same for her combos but I can’t say for certain.

Metamorphy’s design is a bit iffy to me, but her new awakening is 💯💯💯💯. I’ve no qualms about her skills and I’m admittedly fond of how her new hyper is like. I feel like Metamorphy has too many stoic options, but again, I’m not an Aisha player so I can’t say much about that topic. I would’ve liked KoG to elaborate more on her backstory, however.

– Rena –

I quite like Daybreaker’s backstory, how it addresses the long-standing issue regarding Rena’s potential return, seeing as her mission has long been completed. Everything else about her though… Is a bit lackluster. I don’t understand the skin suit either. Why.

As for Anemos, I like her deeper connection with the spirits and Ventus, but everything else is not particularly appealing to me. Her design seems very nice in her promotional artwork, but the in-game model carries a very different feeling in comparison.

Twilight’s in-game model looks really poorly done. Actually her design as a whole seems a bit oddly done. What’s with the hole in the hood for her ponytail. Why a leotard? What’s with all the skin exposure? What are those rings around her ankles? Nothing makes sense and I am confusion.

– Raven –

I honestly feel like Furious Blade is one of the better third jobs released in the first wave. His design is very appealing and I like that he’s decided to utilize his Nasod arm as a means of improving his swordsmanship, rather than abandoning it completely. It’s nice that this transitions into his new Overpower passive, too, increasing the attack speed of Nasod arm combos. That being said, his passives seem very weak compared to other third jobs.

I don’t like Rage Heart’s hair. I’m also mildly bothered how Reckless Fist suddenly gained control of his Nasod arm. It doesn’t feel like a proper progression, especially given RF’s backstory and his views on his Nasod arm. Force Wild Charge is fun to watch when it bugs out though.

It’s interesting seeing Nova Imperator’s character progression, going from someone who hates Nasods, to someone who gradually opens up to their technology, to willingly merging himself with a Nasod core. There’s something about his legs that bother me, but overall his design is quite nice and solid. I do think recovering 40% HP upon death, as a result of his Last Resort passive, is a bit too much however.

– Eve –

Code Esencia’s passives are outright broken and although it pains me to say this, she really needs a huge nerf. Her force change skills are questionable, but I do like her new combos, and it’s wonderful seeing her show even more personality through her skills. I like her design, too, but there’s a few elements that bother me: what’s with the halos? Given their length, why not change her thigh high boots to just pants? What’s with the excessively large cape? Why did we go from descriptive names for her job paths to “Code: Esencia”? Code Architecture is a class who builds something (Oberon); Code Empress is an empress. Esencia means “essence” in Spanish, but what the heck is an essence?? I am confusion, America explain.

Code Ultimate is bad and I hate her so much. Her Nasod Weapon Restrengthening passive is nice to have, but why is it only spears?? What about all her guns? Those are Nasod weapons, too! Why is her Queen’s Wings passive RNG when Code Nemesis’ path is all about precision and lack of RNG??? Also what is with that b.s. backstory. There’s absolutely no relation to Code Nemesis, and there’s no character development whatsoever. All it does is create more unanswered questions. Anyhow Code Ultimate is dead to me and you can read more here if you want to.

Neophix and I were complaining talking the other day about how Code Sariel’s skill cut-in covers the entire screen. I still find her design to be very pretty though. Her Overload passive addresses her issues with long skill cooldowns as Code Battle Seraph, but her Evolution passive is flat-out useless… It makes me a little sad. Also force Giga Stream is outright broken, how did this get past quality control.

– Chung –

I feel that they went too far with Comet Crusader’s hair and crown, but I do like his overall design. It feels like a more refined variation of Iron Paladin’s armor. Both his passives need adjusting, they’re way too beneficial with little to no drawbacks.

I don’t understand Fatal Phantom’s coat things. Or the blue aura thing around his helmet in Berserker mode. His passives are stupid. Also guns do not work that way.

Centurion’s design feels pretty solid overall, but I dislike the inconsistency with the armor - true to his path line, it’s very bulky. …Except for his torso area. Don’t get me wrong - his jacket looks very nice, but it’s very noticeably out of place. The trend of Chung’s third jobs having stupidly strong passives continues.

– Ara –

“Vishnu is too masculine of a name for Ara so we’re demoting her, despite her previous job paths also having “masculine” names.”Vishnu’s passives are. Weird. It doesn’t help that the tooltips display incorrect information. Force Moonlight Slash is great except when it doesn’t drag mobs back and you end up completely whiffing your Dragon Arts. New combos are fun. Her design is definitely very pretty, too. One of the better classes from the first wave.

Brahmadeva is super pretty and her combos are also very fun. Passives are still weird. Force skills are better than Vishnu’s. She finally gets a strong magical attack modifier. Her backstory of slipping into insanity feels really half-baked (is that the right term?).

Shiva’s backstory is inconsistent with Asura’s but her design is still 💯💯💯💯💯. Passives are still weird. She kind of got scammed with her force skills lol. Also please give her something to wear under her robe, and a more practical spear. Her playstyle doesn’t change much, which is nice, but it doesn’t really feel like a job advancement either…

– Elesis –

I like Empire Sword’s design purely because it reminds me of her Savior class in Grand Chase. That being said, I don’t feel like it’s an appropriate progression from Grand Master. Her Tranquility passive is weird.

Flame Lord’s design looks weird. What’s with the skin suit that reveals just one leg? What’s with the whole “incarnation of fire” deal? Why is it not explained better? Why the awakening change? At least try to explain things better, KoG…

For a zombie, Bloody Queen is surprisingly very emotional. Also her shoes are the worst I’ve ever seen. I do like her overall design, though. Her Thirst passive is. Weird, to say the least.

– Add –

I’m lowkey crying as a result of the inconsistencies in Dominator’s backstory. It kind of makes sense, but at the same time, it doesn’t match up with MasterMind’s story. I know a lot of players are upset with his short hair, but I personally quite like it. His design is very solid.

Why does Doom Bringer not wear any socks. Why. That’s gross Add, put some socks on. I like how Doom Bringer retains the “add an extra belt-tail with each job change” that Psychic Tracer and Lunatic Psyker had. Much like Dominator, his design is very well coordinated. I was expecting him to retain some of the more classy clothing style he had as Lunatic Psyker, but I don’t mind his clothing tastes reverting back to that of a street gangster.

Mad Paradox totally ripped off of DFO’s Dimension Walker and no one can convince me otherwise. I’m salty. He doesn’t even look as nice as Dimension Walker. Also his passives are outright broken and incredibly stupid, and I’m so glad KoG realized this and proceeded to nerf their effects.

– Lu and Ciel –

Ishtar doesn’t look half bad, and it’s nice to see Lu gradually regain her true form throughout her Imperial line. Chevalier on the other hand… The fur coat is a bit excessive. I do like the retained trend of using French words (or related terms) for their class names, but I’m mostly neutral towards their designs.

I find Timoria and Abysser’s designs to be a bit on the messy side. There’s a lot of different elements in their promotional artwork, and it feels like they clash. I do like their character development and how they become two separate - but equal - entities. Their hats are dumb though.

Anular looks bad™. The jump from Demonio to Anular is very drastic, although the transition from Madness-state Demonio to Madness-state Anular is much more reasonable. Iblis’ hair is pretty but she also looks bad™. Her Madness state also looks very bad™. I find it strange how her shirt and dress eventually merge into her arms and torso, respectively, and the markings on her face seem out of place. Their backstory is also poorly written but then again, Lu/Ciel’s Transform path as a whole is pretty badly written.

– Rose –

Black Massacre’s design honestly looks pretty nice to me, though I can definitely do without the hat. I’m sick and tired of KoG trying to push F. Ranger as Rose’s “dark and evil” class, however. Her Research Target passive is flat-out broken. Why can it debuff mobs that are normally debuff-immune.

Tempest Burster is an abomination. KoG essentially took Storm Trooper’s design and turned her into the classic action girl who’s good for nothing but fanservice™. I hate her design almost as much as I hate Code Ultimate’s. Almost.

Prime Operator looks so beautiful and I am very gay. Unfortunately my heart remains loyal to MetalHeart, even through all of Drive’s attempts to sway me away. I’m a little bit sad that she doesn’t look remotely like a researcher, but hey, none of the Seven Shards members really look like researchers either. Also her in-game hair model is really ugly - it’s just a block of waves; it reminds me of uncooked instant ramen noodles…

I also like Minerva’s design, and I must admit I like what KoG did to her Nitro motors. There’s definitely more emphasis on them and they do feel like they’ve been upgraded in an “Elsword”-esque way. Her hair is also very pretty, and I like how she went back to a more uniformed look, similar to Valkyrie.

– Ain –

I really like Richter’s design! …Though his non-Spiritualism hair bothers me. I’m not sure why, but something about it really bothers me. It looks very nice in Spiritualism mode, at least. His wings in Spiritualism mode are as beautiful as ever, too. His character progression is also consistent, which is always nice.

Bluhen doesn’t look much different from Erbluhen Emotion, in my opinion. It’s not bad, but I feel like more effort could’ve been put into his design. Also his passives are too strong yo.

I miss Apostasia’s let-down hair and his eyes, but Herrscher’s hair and eyes are also very fantastic! They both look great in-game too, which is a huge bonus. Although I feel that Ain’s Transform path’s story is a big stretch (and a bit… out of character), I appreciate how consistent KoG has been with each stage. His deteriorating body is also very appealing, though I’m definitely going to miss the eye-themed wings from Apostasia’s Spiritualism mode.

...And that’s all of it! Thank you for the ask anon, this was enjoyable for me to think about and answer. It definitely helped to take my mind off of my sickness as well, haha.

#Canticum de Camellia #Rozen gets an Ask

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kiritokun · 7 years ago

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2017 Anime in Review

So, it is that time of the year again, the end is neigh, and it has snuck up on me yet again. With the end of the fall season for me only 3 days away, I thought I should get to writing and compiling this list, which, compared to other years feels dauntingly short. With a total of only 33 anime/movies I saw this year, I feel like either I’ve gotten pickier, shows have gotten worse, or there were too many sequels that I didn’t wanna rush through previous seasons to watch the new season. Regardless, keeping up with tradition, here I am for my fifth annual anime review. As always, the top 12 are in alphabetical order and then the rest are discussed in alphabetical order as well since, as you may have noticed, I was lazy this year and didn’t do any quarterly reviews. So, you’ll get my full rambling here this year! Let’s get this party started!

Ao no Exorcist: Kyoto Fujouou-hen

The long awaited sequel to Ao no Exorcist, the Kyoto arc is where the action finally ramps it into high gear. The stakes get higher and the action gets real fucking rad. I’m so glad the Ao no Exorcist got its second season finally, it’s, in my opinion, somewhat underrated as an anime and doesn’t get the respect it deserves. Here’s hoping that the second season garnered enough attention for another season, because with stunning visuals, great story, and music to boot, it be a shame not to continue seeing more of this series.

Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka Gaiden: Sword Oratoria

And here we have it, the spin of to DanMachi that focuses on the Loki Familia. At first I was skeptical that they decided to do this instead of another season of DanMachi, but to quell my concerns I read into the manga and fell in love. The motivations you see for Aiz in the story help make sense of why she puts up with Bell, why she is the strongest and overall just a lot of fleshing out of her character. But luckily it doesn’t just center around Aiz, but the whole of the front line of the Loki familia, letting us see how a strong dungeon clearing familia does business, and boy does they show us the business in the season finale.

Eromanga-sensei

What is this train wreck? Another imouto series? Yes, I’m sorry. I can’t stop myself, I’m a sucker for comedy. Eromanga-sensei is great, because unlike its predecessors (OreImo) it doesn’t try to make the viewers stomach that blood relations hell. With an adorable cast, great punchlines, and reasonable visuals, it’s well worth a watch if you need a laugh.

Gamers!

What is this, another train wreck? Yep, sorry not sorry. At least it’s a unique train wreck, with our 5 main characters in a horrible love pentagon from hell. Amano likes Tendou and vice versa, Aguri likes Uehara and vice versa, and Chiaki likes Amano. Seems simple enough, just a love triangle you say, NOPE. Because its all a clusterfuck of people thinking the person they like likes someone else. EVEN THOUGH AGURI AND UEHARA ARE DATING. God help me why did I like this again. Wait the great lolz. That’s why, grade A lolz.

Imouto sae Ireba Ii.

Yes, it says Imouto in the title. But I swear, its not OreImo again. My boy Itsuki here is a light novel author… with an obsession for little sisters. See that’s new. This anime is a slice of life that revolves around the light novel publishing business and we see most of it through the perspective of Itsuki, but Nayu and Haruto have been in the spotlight, showing us their process to writing their novels or anime adaptations. But the cake for me has to go to Itsuki’s college friend Miyako, who is best girl of the year for me. Lord have mercy that girl is adorable. Also this bastard of an anime has the best ending song of the year for me, freaking great song.

Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni.

The premise here was interesting, our protagonist meets an early end in his world, but God having pity on him allows him to reincarnate in a new world, taking one thing with him. He chooses to keep his smartphone and there by gains a interesting advantage in a world of magic, where he is able to access all the old information from his home world (Assumingly an anime Earth), but also gains amazing power in this world. Because God felt the phone was a bit of a cheap gimme, he enhances all hit attributes including his affinity for magic, allowing him to be incredibly fucking broken and OP in this world in combat. So don’t go in to this for a fair fight, but for comedy, bullshit fights, and a interesting take on how a medieval magic world would benefit from someone from our time period came and started just dropping knowledge. (ICE CREAAAM)

Koi to Uso

A society that has a system that will match you to your perfect soulmate, seems ideal doesn’t it? But what if you find yourself fallen in love for years and come your 16th birthday you are matched with someone whom you have no feelings for. That’s the premise of Koi to Uso, and man it’s a doozy. I wish this had gotten more episodes because I feel like the premise was great, even if the protagonist was a bit spineless. Unfortunately I doubt it did well enough to get another season, so I’ll have to read the manga for some closure, but it got my interest. It also had a fantastic opening song, catchy as all hell.

Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! 2

If you read my reviews in the past, you should NOT be surprised that KonoSuba2 made it into this list. The laughs were still there, the bullshit success story of Kazuma never ends. God what else can I say about one of the best action comedies I’ve seen? Go watch it? Season 1 first though, it does actually continue story wise so you need to see it in order. ERIS IS TRUE LIFE, AQUA LIES!

Rewrite 2nd Season

Man, I can already feel how controversial this pick is. A lot, and I mean a lot, of people did not like Rewrite, nor Rewrite season 2. I am one of the few that thought it was alright. I have also not played the visual novel its based on so I’m more forgiving to its faults than most. But I have researched into the series post watching the anime, and can see very well why people were so… triggered. Overall the second season I feel was stronger than the first, elaborating on back story a lot more and giving viewers more to understand what the actual fuck is going on. And you gotta admit the season started off with a bang with that huge battle in episode 16. After which the series I feel took a darker and more realistic turn, which I thought was a step in the right direction.

Rokudenashi Majutsu Koushi to Akashic Records

Yes, another magic world school series. What was unique about this one? The main character is older for one, isn’t trying to fall in love for another, and lastly, isn’t purposefully gimped of his power. He tends a lazier route but is able to be bring forth his abilities to full blast when necessary. I will say the uniforms are kinda bullshit, like how are they practical lol.

Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata

Why oh why did we not get just a bit more of this series? I’m glad they announced a movie to hopefully finish the story since its so close to the end of the light novels. But this ends up being more of the same, with Aki trying to pursue his game creation dream further with more trials and tribulations along the way. But none of that matters, what matters is we got more Megumi in our lives and man oh man is she still as great as ever. Best heroine, no boring heroine here!

Tsurezure Children

Considering how much I love the manga series, it is no surprise that I loved the anime. They stayed true to the manga and made it a snippet of short stories for all the characters. I only wished it had been 24 episodes so we could have developed everyone more and introduced more people as well. But, its okay, we introduced the best characters anyway with BROTOYAMA being introduced and of course, everyone’s favorite LOVE MASTER! He gets even better, just you wait.

Honorable Mentions

ChÃ¤oS;Child

This was just a big disappointment to me, I had hoped it would fall back on Chaos;Head a bit and explain some more, give us an epilogue if you will of what happen to those people, but we just got a new story full force. While the story of Chaos;Child isn’t bad, it wasn’t what I wanted, though man, the movie was something else. Sadly it wasn’t what I was looking for.

Clockwork Planet

Iffy animation, story all over the place, main dude kinda nuts and annoying. I couldn’t actually find something I liked about Clockwork planet. It’s a shame because I thought I’d love it based on the poster art, but, it wasn’t meant to be apparently.

Code:Realize: Sousei no Himegimi

I have a very love hate relationship with Code:Realize. I don't actually enjoy it that much, but its interesting enough that I was not able to bring myself to drop the series. Week after week I watched with half attention because I wanted to see a resolution to the series, but it wasn't very good to watch it. I don’t know what drew me to it, but it brought me back for more every week so I guess it had to be somewhat good if I can't find something I hated either.

Fate/Apocrypha

Man, Fate Apocrypha is an example of why ufotable should be the only people that are allowed to handle the Fate series. While the story is pretty interesting war wise, the character development felt slopy, the fights were poorly animated (til episode 22-23 those were pretty rad), and overall just felt bad. It’s a shame ufotable doesn’t have exclusive rights to fate adaptations, but oh well, it was okay. Hopefully Shaft does better with Fate Extra, but I doubt it.

Gin no Guardian

Normally if a series gets a second season announced and I watched the first season, I watch the new season. Like I watched Samurai Girls, then tried to watch Samurai Bride and realized it was god awful. Well with Gin no Guardian, I watched the first season and will not be giving its second season a watch because it was very boring, slow paced, and scattered about. I don’t see how it got a second season, but I guess some people might have liked it, or maybe since its shorter episodes it was worth finishing up another season? I don’t understand really.

Hajimete no Gal

The boobs in this series were fucking absurd. Who was the character designer for this and the manga? They need to go look at some real women to understand how boobs function. Holy shit was that a problem in this series. Unless the designers only watched porn with very fake breasts, they should have realized something was awry with their boob design. Holy fuck have I been waiting to complain about that for a while. Besides the boobs, pretty good anime, I laughed pretty hard actually, when the boobs were functioning like human boobs.

Hand Shakers

Now, the art style alone was a bit of a departure for me, but it also caught me attention so I gave it a shot. Hand Shakers story was rocky at best, but at the end of the day, it wasn’t actually bad. The concept of not being able to let go of her hand got real old fast, like come on that’s a horrible life flaw to force on someone, even anime wise. But oh well, I didn’t hate the anime, I found it enjoyable at least.

Juuni Taisen

Some people really loved Juuni Taisen, I was not one of those people. Don't get me wrong, it was actually pretty interesting; I enjoy that battle royal genre a lot. But I just couldn’t get behind the predictable episode structure and most unlikable characters. I was glad when I started to like people, but then they’d die off and make me feel like I wasted my joy. So, that was rough going, even if it was predictable in the end it was a fun watch.

Kino no Tabi: The Beautiful World - The Animated Series

Oh my god, Kino is a wonderful anime, but I couldn't make myself drop one of the other 12 down. So no don't think I didn't love this anime, I did, I adored it. The visuals were beautiful, the music was great, and each individual story was amazing. Episode 11 was incredible in my opinion, and a satisfying watch to realize how Kino came to be.

Konohana Kitan

I might be a bit slow, but I did NOT realize that the hotel was a kind of limbo til very late in the series. Did I miss some key dialogue? Maybe, someone let me know. But holy hell has this been an amusing watch. Its been beautifully animated, and on top of that the stories are all heartwarming.

Kuzu no Honkai

This fucking anime, holy shit this anime. I had some issues here. First of all, our two protagonists, like fuck, why didn't you end up together? Like, are you that childish that you can’t accept that you’ve made mistakes but are essentially good for each other? Also; Ecchan; can really go fuck off, her attitude drove me up a wall the entire series. What a horrible personality. God, I think I only made it through this because I was hoping for a happier ending and man did I not get that.

Little Witch Academia (TV)

Very unpopular opinion incoming. This should have stayed a movie. There, I said it. I didn't think it needed to be adapted into a full length anime. It felt like every episode dragged on and on and only felt like it reached a proper pacing structure towards the end when everything started to go down. Had the series been condensed to 12 episodes I get a feeling I may have been fonder of it.

Masamune-kun no Revenge

Masamune really needs his revenge; he went from tubby to abs in a few years. He needs to get vengeance for starving and working out to be healthy. Wait that sounds wrong, shouldn't he be thanking her for making him realize that he needed to get healthy and that she was kind of a bitch? That would be the logical outcome, but no, we get led into a lengthy hell. The manga has started to move towards the conclusion, which I think might satisfy me more than the anime did, but we'll see what happens.

New Game!!

More of the same and that's okay with me! Watching the game development process is fascinating! And the characters are all adorable and relatable! And so well drawn and animated. I really do love this series so much, even though it broke my heart with the last episodes. Oh well, I trust the writers!

Princess Principal

I really liked the series. But, I felt like I was watching the episodes out of order a lot of the time. That really threw the pacing through a loop in my opinion. I thought it was a lot more mature than I initially gave it credit for though, so that was good overall. I'm glad I watched it.

Re:Creators

This on the other hand, I regret bothering with. But I was so many episodes in by the time I regretted it that I couldn't just stop anymore. Man, this was not a good anime.

Shingeki no Kyojin Season 2

If you'e watched season 1, you know what season 2 is all about. Death, glory, fighting, WOO! While we do make some plot progress in season 2, we haven’t gotten to the real meat of the plot just yet, so hopefully another season and we'll get to the nice dark conspiracies!

Sword Art Online Movie: Ordinal Scale

I loved the Ordinal Scale movie. I was able to go see it in theaters and it was fantastic. While original content, it fit so well with the world that Sword Art Online has built. And the magnificent tease at the end. We will see Alicization soon enough boys!

Trinity Seven Movie: Eternity Library to Alchemic Girl

A shame I didn't get to see this in theaters, but man it was good. While not canon to the manga's story it held its own with a very interesting take on the series. I enjoyed it quite a lot.

UQ Holder!: Mahou Sensei Negima! 2

Oh god what a fucking train wreck. Why can't they make a good Negima anime? Is it really that hard to get it right? It was so fucking bad. Why can't you stick to the source material? Why must you skip so much? God fucking damn it.

Youkoso Jitsuryoku Shijou Shugi no Kyoushitsu e (TV)

At least we end on a high note. This was one hell of a trip. The concept was cool and the animation was decent. They had some issues with slow pacing to start, but once the politics and drama began it just kept rolling. I wish it had had more episodes to give us more plot because with how it ended, you really are left wondering what the intentions of the main character are and where the story is leading. Oh well, hopefully it gets another season or if not I'll have to read the light novel.

And with that we come to a close, yet another year of anime. While I watched significantly less this year, it was still a lot I think. I hope this helps you if you are on the edge about some of these, if not, well, sorry I like to ramble. I';m always open to discussion, so if you have opinions that clash, let us have a duel of words. Til next time!

Edit: Apparently my formatting freaked out a bit and I had to fix it, hopefully I got everything, if not let em know!

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kansascityhappenings · 5 years ago

Text

Joe’s Weather World: Building heat next week and watching some weekend rain chances (FRI-5/29)

Another weird weather day yesterday with a ton of rain for parts of the area and very little (comparatively) in other parts. When things are looked at again in 2 years or whatever…and we go into the record books to look back at this day…we’ll look at the “official” stats, kept up at KCI and see that yesterday we had a whooping .25″. Some places got 20 times that much…perhaps even more.

There was also the wind damage that hit parts of west Olathe. At first I thought it was a microburst but it might have been a small and brief little spin-up that lasted a block or two. Those would be the types of spin-ups that really can’t be warned on ahead of time…just one of those things.

_____________________________________________________________

Forecast:

Today: Sunny and perfect with highs in the upper 70s with a nice breeze and lower dew points

Tonight: Clear and cool with lows in the lower to mid 50s

Tomorrow: Sunny skies in the morning with some increasing clouds in the afternoon. There may be some showers later in the afternoon or in the evening but it appears as if the better chances are across northern MO. Highs in the mid 70s

Sunday: A small chance of some additional showers/storms in the morning then partly cloudy and mild with highs 75-80°

______________________________________________________________

Discussion:

Let’s start with the rain from yesterday. Yup…believe it or not KCI had less than 1/4″ yesterday…only .13″…incredible isn’t it. That’s what will go down in the books and be looked at down the road.

Meanwhile for almost everyone else…these are the two day rains…most of which occurred yesterday.

Down south…

and farther south…

Here are some other totals…

Some have asked me about the lack of data outside the top two maps…that is a function of a lack of rain gauges…wish I could do something about that but I can’t and thanks to all who have filled in my information with their reports including almost 7.5″ in some area in Jackson County.

Doppler estimates were undershooting reality on this event. I even tried to dig into some more detailed data and was having a tough time coming up with reliable indicators. So the automated/manual rain gauges out performed the fancier technology once again.

Trying to pick out the corridor of heaviest rain in the #KC Metro area with the use of #MRMS data…Some areas with at least 7" that isn't being seen in this data in Jackson Co, MO. JL @KimRunk pic.twitter.com/FEu5Lr97cO

— Fox 4 Weather KC (@fox4wx) May 29, 2020

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

As far as the potential brief EF0 tornado in West Olathe…that remains to be seen, and odds are it won’t be looked into any harder because of the minimal damage to a few shingles and a tree snapped, but if it wasn’t a tornado then it appears to have been a “wet” microburst if nothing else.

What causes a Microburst? (from the NWS)

“It all starts with the development of a thunderstorm and the water droplets/hailstones being suspended within the updraft. Sometimes an updraft is so strong it suspends large amounts of these droplets and hailstones in the upper portions of the thunderstorm. There are many factors that can lead to evaporational cooling (sinking air) and therefore weakening of the updraft. Once this occurs, it is no longer capable of holding the large core of rain/hail up in the thunderstorm. As a result, the core plummets to the ground. As it hits the ground it spreads out in all directions. The location in which the microburst first hits the ground experiences the highest winds and greatest damage.”

There was some rotational indicators though in the spot of the damage…so it’s possible there was a brief spin-up.

This product shows rotation…you can see something was going on near and west of Ridgeview Rd

then a couple of minutes later…

Whatever it was was fast hitting.

Moving on towards the weekend…

We’ll be in pretty good shape but there is one or two flies in the ointment. There will be a tendency for little disturbances to come down from Nebraska moving towards the SE. One will come later tomorrow and while that will increase the clouds…the better rain chances appear to be more focused toward northern MO as opposed to the KC Metro and points south area.

The NAM has been the most bullish on this…and here is the morning solution…keeping the rains up north of KC.

It’s close though..so it’s still worth a mention of a chance…the model is also really generating quite the cold pool of air with this…perhaps too cool I think. It keeps highs in the mid 60s tomorrow. I think we should get enough sunshine during the day before whatever weak front moves in from the precip up north to get us into the 70-75° range…perhaps falling a few degrees later in the afternoon.

Then on Sunday whatever weak boundary that the later Saturday activity pushes through…will be around…the winds above the surface will be blowing over that boundary…it’s not a great set-up though and as a result any activity looks to be somewhat scattered during the morning. Overall it looks like a pretty decent weekend. Not perfect…pretty good though.

We may have a few more showers/storms around on Monday…with a lot more wind out there too. That means we’ll warm up nicely into the 80s…and then it gets hotter and muggier during the week. We’ll make a run towards 90° either Tuesday or Wednesday with iffy storm chances on Wednesday.

It’s a warm to hot outlook in the latest 6-10 day forecast…

and if we want to go into next weekend…

So a nice shot of summer coming…to start the 1st week of June, if not a bit longer. There is a LOT of moisture in the ground as well and that will take quite some time to evaporate so that means a lot of humidity is coming to us next week with higher dew points…likely in the upper 60s to lower 70s.

The feature photo of the day comes from William Johnson…a had a spectacular sunset last night.

Lake Jacomo

Joe

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/weather/joes-weather-world-building-heat-next-week-and-watching-some-weekend-rain-chances-fri-5-29/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2020/05/29/joes-weather-world-building-heat-next-week-and-watching-some-weekend-rain-chances-fri-5-29/

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itsclydebitches · 4 years ago

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I have no idea what you’re talking about, Oz was still fairly strict, and while he did give RWBY certain privileges, he made it clear he wouldn’t bail them out if they got into trouble. Doesn’t erase the fact the girls were criticized and accepted it. They don’t expect to be handed things, the show's written is just inconsistent to the point it feels like the show has a completely different message with completely different characters.

I’m not going to claim that the characters haven’t been written differently the last few years - they absolutely have - but that doesn’t mean that Ozpin didn’t also create an environment that encouraged the girls to think that they were special exceptions to every rule. These two things, bad writing and in-world explanations, can exist simultaneously. I wouldn’t at all argue that Ozpin was “fairly strict” or that he was critical of the group. Beyond some of the examples I gave in the recap - Glynda says Ruby is in a lot of trouble for fighting those goons, Ozpin rewards her with cookies and getting into Beacon two years early; Glynda is pissed about the cafeteria fight, Ozpin tells her to let them be kids and shrugs it off - we see just how far he’s willing to let them “bend the rules” in Volume 2′s “Field Trip.”

This takes place after Team RWBY has heard rumors about the White Fang and immediately after Ruby spotted Cinder at the dance. She’s invited to Ozpin’s office where he, Ironwood, and Glynda question if she knows anything more about the intruder. Ruby says she doesn’t know. The woman wore a mask, she didn’t say anything, she used glass but that might not be her semblance because her clothes lit up... that’s it. Ironwood notes that weaving dust into your clothes is an ancient technique so it could have been anyone, but Glynda says that sounds a lot like the woman she and Ruby fought when they first met. Ruby perks up, wondering if Cinder is linked to the White Fang stuff, to which Ozpin replies:

“But we still lack the required evidence to link the two together.”

Now see, Ruby does have evidence. Or at least rumors. She and her team have been conducting their own investigation and have heard about this potential hideout in the southeast. She thinks it’s very likely these events are indeed linked, but she can’t just admit to doing rule-breaking/illegal stuff in front of her professors... not unless she can figure out a way to give them that info while leaving her own misdeeds out of it. It’s harder to see in pictures, but Ozpin’s “But we still lack the required evidence to link the two together” is incredibly leading. He has this little nudge-nudge-wink-wink smile going on. He and Ruby have started their own conversation here: “Hey, Ruby. It’s really TOO BAD we don’t have ANY WAY to link these things together. I would be SO USEFUL if SOMEONE *muttermutter-you-muttermutter* could provide that link for us. SO SAD that’s not possible...”

Ruby gets the message. Her own tone becomes an understanding, “Oh!! I know what you want 😉” and she lies.

“Actually I-I think I remember her saying something about a hideout or something...” (note the backtracking “Actually” and the nervous stutter)

Ozpin is pleased, that I-know-that-you-know smile is even more obvious. He readily accepts the iffy attempt at using the info she’s gathered without admitting to all the rules she’s been breaking to get it.

“Interesting.”

Glynda, however, isn’t a part of the ‘Let the kid lie to help us but also save face’ conversation hidden in their regular conversation. She immediately picks up on the discrepancy. Ruby, you just told us - seconds ago! - that the woman never spoke to you and you learned nothing from her. Now you’re saying she conveniently spilled info about a whole ass hideout? Which is it??

“I thought you said the intruder never-”

But Ozpin deliberately interrupts her, ensuring that she can’t pressure Ruby into admitting to her lie. He firmly ends the conversation: “Thank you for your cooperation, Ruby.” We’re done here! Leave while you’re ahead, kid. I can’t hold Glynda back for long.

So Ruby leaves. We get a quick scene of her reuniting with her team and then we return to Ozpin’s office where both Glynda and Ironwood have accepted the hideout info without questioning if Ruby really got it from the intruder. After all, Ozpin made it clear he didn’t question it, so they’ve moved on. Ironwood is ready to send in his military to weed out whoever is there, Glynda gets mad that he always jumps to using his military first (insert the iconic “measuring dicks” line here), and Ozpin agrees, asking whether, in cases like this, you should send in “the flag-bearer, or the scouts?”

Team RWBY are his scouts. Ironwood and Glynda don’t know this and it won’t become clear to the audience until the next scene, but when Ozpin promises that he’s not just going to sit back and wait, this is what he means. He’s sending in the students who have already demonstrated a desire and a talent for fighting this fight. Let’s see what they find first.

The scene that confirms this is when Team RWBY are trying to sign up for the mission conveniently in the southeast and find that it’s too dangerous for first years. Ozpin arrives and starts listing a number of the things Team RWBY has been up to since this all began. He’s making it clear that he’s been keeping tabs on them and that he approves. They’re not in trouble for breaking so many rules, they’re being rewarded with the implied promise of his continued silence - I guess I’ll just NEVER KNOW what really happened. I’m SO CURIOUS but woe is me, I suppose it’s just not in the cards - as well as allowing them to go on another technically not allowed mission, this time with his express approval.

“I’m still curious as to how you all found yourselves at the docks last semester. I’m interested to know how you really learned about a hideout in the Southeast. And I certainly wonder why witnesses reported seeing robots and rose petals in a dance club sometime ago.”

Ruby gives another nervous, awkward, she’s definitely feeling a little guilty stutter. She can’t actually answer these implied questions without admitting to that guilt. Ozpin knows that. Ruby also knows that Ozpin doesn’t need her to answer. His, “I wonder...” is all an act. He knows precisely how all this stuff went down. They’re playing a game of implications and convenient lies.

“Uhhmm... uh-well”

Which is when Ozpin straight up says that since he knows they’ll keep breaking rules regardless of what he might have to say about it, this time he’ll simply help them bend the rules instead. Unlike someone like Rumpole, he does want them breaking rules because it has proven to be very useful thus far. He wants that small scouting group to head to Mountain Glenn and see what’s up. Ozpin, like Glynda, does not want to immediately resort to Ironwood’s army. Too much is at stake to go in blasting, so a group of four low-profile teens who are already involved in all this is a better alternative to his mind.

“Instead of waiting for you all to break the rules, why don’t we just bend them?”

It’s at the end of the episode that we learn Ozpin isn’t actually sending four first years into a likely enemy hideout alone, he’s sending them with Oobleck. The rest of the volume shows them finding that hideout, the train, and helping to protect the city from grimm. The unspoken plan Ruby and Ozpin cooked up saves a lot of lives in the end. Through those white lies, secrets, and rule bending, they each got what they wanted: Ozpin learned about the hideout/prevented a much worse attack, Team RWBY got to act more like real huntresses than all their peers. They’re the special first years helping their headmaster thwart White Fang attacks on the city while everyone else just does normal shadowing

That’s a lot of special treatment and this is just one interaction between him and the team. Ozpin encouraged Ruby to lie to her professors for what they both believed was the greater good, made it clear that he knows all about their rule breaking excursions, approves of it, and will now assist them in “bending” further rules to achieve what they both want. He wants information, they want to be a part of the fight. It’s a win-win at this point because things are still relatively safe. Beacon is standing. They live in a comparatively safe city. Their mission is accompanied by an incredibly talented huntsmen. Ozpin is a far cry from Rumpole’s ‘STOP doing illegal things already!!’ He encourages rule breaking - rule bending - because he believes that’s what it takes to win a war and, though they don’t know it, all huntsmen are involved in this centuries long war (especially when they have silver eyes). Sometimes you have to lie. Sometimes you have to let people get involved even if you think they’re too young. Sometimes you have to have conversations within conversations. He’s training them to walk that fine line between doing what’s necessary to help and doing too much so that you get yourself/others in trouble, and for the first year that works rather well. They’re not really at war yet. Not like they will be later. It’s war training in a semi-safe environment. And in this semi-safe environment I can’t think of a single place where he implied that he wouldn’t “bail them out.” If anything, the overall sense is that Ozpin is always watching, knows everything that’s going on, and won’t ask of them more than he thinks they’re capable of... but he’s still there to protect them if needed. See: refusing to let Pyrrha fight Cinder and telling her to escape with Jaune. It’s a much more complicated version of the initiation ceremony. Ozpin says that no one will help them out in the dangerous forest... and then we see him watching their every move via CTV. Do we really think he’d just let one of them die if things got bad out there? No. Of course not. He tells his students they’re on their own so that they push themselves to do things like take out a Nevermore with teamwork, but he’s there if they ever truly need help. Or he sends someone like Oobleck to be there if they ever truly need help. It’s his education for a harsh, dangerous, complicated world.

But then Beacon falls. Ozpin dies. Yang loses an arm. Ruby finds out she has magical silver eyes. Salem is on the move after years of keeping quiet. EVERYTHING changes and yes, that includes how the authors approached these characters, but in the context of the whole show I don’t think we can ignore how Ozpin treated them in the one year they knew him. He played favorites. Encouraged them to break rules. Gave them privileges. Treated dangerous missions like a fun game - because to an extent it was. It was a training game Ozpin had control over and it was benefiting everyone. Now though that control is gone and things have gotten deadly. It’s not a game anymore. So when the group meets up with him again like, “Hey, headmaster! You’re the guy who involved us in those cool, secret missions and let us get away with pretty much whatever we wanted. Now you’re in the body of a kid even younger than us, making us feel like your superior! You’ve never denied me a single thing the whole time I’ve known you, from saying I wanted to go to Beacon to saying I wanted to go on that mission. The answer was always ‘Yes’! So you’ll still share all your secrets and give us whatever responsibility we want, right?”

Then they got pissed when he said, “No.” For the first time Ozpin started denying them things. Team RWBY has never acknowledged how drastically the situation changed post-The Fall and how that, in turn, changes what they’re entitled to/what Ozpin is willing to risk on them.

The reading of ‘Ozpin encouraged the girls to feel like they were exceptions who automatically deserved whatever involvement they wanted’ doesn’t completely explain their attitude - let alone justify it - when the writing has indeed gotten this bad, but I think it’s a part of it. Not in the “RT planned all this so it’s actually GOOD writing” way, but just a “It exists in the text and therefore it’s a valid reading” way. Because Ruby absolutely expects to be handed things now. She expects to still be involved in Ozpin’s war. She expects that she and her team will get to use the relic however they please. She expects Ozpin to share his secrets. She considers stealing those secrets to be what she’s owed. She expects Cordovin to let her into Atlas on her say-so alone. She expects Qrow to stop disagreeing with her because she’s in charge. She expects Ironwood to let her keep the relic even after she betrayed him. She expects that she and she alone is allowed to keep these secrets. “Doesn’t erase the fact the girls were criticized and accepted it.” The group is very rarely criticized nowadays and when they are they certainly don’t accept it. Ruby doesn’t get a talking to for interrupting Qrow’s fight with Tyrian after being explicitly told not to, or for leaving home to go fight a Maiden, she doesn’t think she needs to keep training because she already knows how to fight, stealing military property and endangering a city is brushed off with a smile, using Jinn incorrectly is reframed as smart, her arrest is swept under the rug to make room for more praise, she faces nothing for betraying Ironwood because Ironwood is bad now. The only people who have criticized them in years come with the message, “Lol but they’re awful so why would we listen to them? Obviously they’re wrong and we’re perfect.” Because Qrow is too drunk to listen to, Cordovin is too mean, Ironwood is too evil, and the Ace Ops are too obedient. The people who criticize Team RWBY are also the people the story says are too out of it or too downright bad to listen to. That’s mostly the fault of the authors for never writing an arc where someone trustworthy challenges Team RWBY and they listen, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t evidence for where this attitude came from in-world. Based on the writing we got they were treated as special at Beacon and no one they respect has told them otherwise since... so why would they change?

Who is Ruby Rose now? Does she expect to be handed things? Does she receive criticism well? I wouldn’t say so. Ruby makes it clear that she does what she wants, regardless of what others might have to say about it.

“We would have come whether or not you’d let us, so stop talking like we’re your responsibility.”

“You try stopping these kids when they have their mind set on something.”

Ruby refuses to accept any consequences for her actions.

“Surrender for your crimes and accept your punishment.”

“No!”

Ruby lies to get what she wants.

“I’m a huntress, my team and I are heading to the Leviathan and can weaken it for you to attack.”

“This says I’m a huntress now.”

“We were in a train crash, and ever since, well, suddenly Oz wasn’t there anymore.”

Ruby is told that she’s an exception to previously established rules.

“I think that’s a pretty big difference.”

Lying, rule breaking, eschewing punishment, seeing yourself as special... she started learning all of this at Beacon. It’s just that Ruby never learned enough to realize when lying does more harm than good, what rules she can’t afford to break, when she needs to accept the consequences of her choices, and when ‘I’m special’ isn’t a justification anymore. Ozpin died and was run off before he could instill any of those distinctions - already hindered by things like Yang buying into Raven’s lies and a body that discouraged anyone seeing him as an authority figure - and no one (outside of presumed antagonists) has tried to teach her the difference since. And with Ruby failing to learn, no one else learns either.

“We’ll follow your lead, Ruby.”

#rwby #mymetas #Anonymous

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a-travels · 5 years ago

Photo

taken: 22 dec, 2019 AMC 34th Street 14, Manhattan, NY

this is where the fun begins

Yes, I’m going to do a review of the new Star Wars movie.

Personally, I hate reading a review and reading endless fluff to hear their thoughts on a movie. So upfront, I did not like this movie at all, perhaps not entirely evidenced by the jubilant nature of this picture, but my views, nonetheless. If you want to stop reading, then by all means please do. This is unsurprisingly my longest post to date, and probably will be for some time so I don’t blame you if you don’t want to read through the text equivalent of a grown man crying.

I don’t know if I represent the classic Star Wars fan or not, but I think it makes more sense to hear my review with some context of my relationship with this franchise.

Perhaps contrary to popular belief, I did not grow up a Star Wars kid. I was certainly aware of the franchise and knew the famous aspects of it. I knew about Darth Vader and lightsabers, I knew about the “I am your father” moment and the Force. I saw Episode III in theatres in 2005 and remember the Anakin and Obi-wan fight, but was asleep for most of the movie. Since then I had somehow seen all of the 6 movies and knew the basic story of the movies, but never had any deep interest in the lore like I do now. My story with Star Wars began in high school, watching the Clone Wars television show. I won’t bore you with how much I loved that show, but it really exposed me to the vastness of the galaxy, the deep emotional storytelling that Star Wars really built its core fanbase on. I found myself connecting to the characters and really encouraged the inner fanboy to latch on to every minuscule detail of the lore and finding the connections to the movies. Needless to say, it was what really awakened (no pun intended) my passion for this franchise and really recontextualized the prequels and original trilogy for me in a new and exciting way. I think it all culminated in this perfect storm before 2015 before The Force Awakens (TFA) came out in 2015 and with general fan fervor at an all-time high. It was a good time to be a Star Wars fan.

Episode VII hits and fans are generally happy. It wasn’t perfect mind you, it felt like a retread, some iffy story points, but overall very satisfying and for many a return to “feeling like Star Wars”, which for many was distinctly absent from the prequels because it was so different. Rogue One was also positively received as well in 2016. I happen to like both of these movies as well.

And then 2017 hits with Episode VIII, The Last Jedi.

I won’t ramble too much about this movie, because I know this is something that divides a lot of people. I think most people in my sphere did actually enjoy this movie. It’s not a perfect movie, and I think everyone (including supporters like myself) would admit that. But for me, this movie recaptured that spark of surprise and wonder that really made me fall in love with this franchise to begin with. By all means, this is an unconventional Star Wars movie: the original hero (Luke) is a jaded cynical man, the whole B-plot is the world's slowest chase sequence, and plot-wise, very little actually happens. I think where this movie really sings was in its attempt to really focus on character and bring something new to Star Wars. It asked questions about the power structure of Star Wars, namely the force, and had you question its workings, matching the cynicism of Luke, but in turn making your conviction in it that much stronger, just like what happened with Luke and when he comes back and has that incredible Kurosawa-esque fight with Kylo on Crait. I think a lot of people who think of this franchise, fans especially, have such a fixed idea of what this movie and franchise should be, that anything that seems to deviate or challenge that can seem honestly jarring in some ways. It’s why the Holiday Special is reviled because coming right off the original movie, people didn’t still have that sense of what made Star Wars, Star Wars; but when people saw it, they knew that wasn’t it. It’s why people hated the prequels (at first) because rather than seeing a hero’s journey, good versus evil and more, you got clunky dialogue, droll politics, seemingly-idiotic and childish characters, and wooden acting. For all the wrong the prequels did, and the criticism it (rightfully) deserved, the prequels had a story to tell and told us something new (albeit in a largely ham-fisted way). Keep the prequels in mind because I’ll be touching back on it.

I’m going to be upfront, I’m writing this bit now almost two months after I started this post and saw the movie. All the stuff above this was from then, but I’ve really just taken a break to just let my thoughts congeal more on this movie because I was just in a bit of shock coming out of it. To be honest, I still can’t tell you my thoughts on this movie are fully formed, but I do think I’m finally ready to express my thoughts on this movie in some sort of coherent manner.

If it isn’t obvious, my review is obviously going to be colored by my view of this franchise. You are entitled to your own view on this franchise and view on this movie. Also, I have tried to link the deeper lore information with articles in this review. The links are the underlined words so feel free to check them out. Anyways, here we go.

So, I didn’t like the movie then; but having thought about now for two months, this film just makes me angrier and sadder with every passing thought. For me, this movie is not only a betrayal of the past two movies which I enjoyed but honestly a betrayal of the whole franchise which I love so much. There was an excellent video I just watched and I think it accurately sums up my views on this movie quite well. But this movie for me can be summed up in four words: unearned, unsatisfying, wasted potential. I think it makes the most sense to unpack this movie with those four words because, to be honest, I could go on for hours on this movie, and I think any of you who know me, know I could, but still probably will.

Unearned.

This movie touts itself as an ending, holding all the answers to the questions we started off with from VII, and arguably, from I-VI. I was nervous when it was announced that the king of the mystery box, the notorious reviver and rebooter of franchises, J.J. Abrams, was tasked to not only write an ending but answer all these questions, many of which he set up. Seeing the ire he caused in the Star Trek community after Star Trek: Into Darkness, I can’t say I was all too shocked to see that these answers (among the few we actually got) unfolded in ways that made little to no sense with the story we were set up with.

Let’s start off with the big one, (oh yeah also this post is going to be spoilerific. I’d say don’t read if you haven’t seen it, but frankly I don’t care if you just read this, don’t see it and just save yourself the time) Rey Palpatine, or Rey Skywalker?? Yeah, I have problems with both in massive, massive ways. But let’s tackle these one by one. Rey is our hero of this trilogy, a character we are introduced to, who we are told and who herself thinks is nobody, is whisked away on this journey on a story much bigger than her. Nothing new here, this is just Luke as a girl so far. Episode VII goes out of its way to seed us with this one big question: who is Rey? Our extensive Wookiepedia-esque knowledge of Star Wars dictates to us that, based on precedent, if she is the main character, she has to be someone we know. Anakin was our prequel protagonist and was related to Luke, maybe she’s related to Luke? That was what we wanted to know going out of VII and into VIII. So what do we see in Episode VIII? Rey struggles with trying to figure out who she is, “trying to find her place” and even dabbles with the dark side of the force in her “limited” training to try to uncover who she is. And what was the answer: she’s no one. A shock to the system. Impossible! How can this be? A protagonist this powerful is a nobody? She’s too overpowered! No force user with that little training could be that strong. But is it really that shocking? The Skywalkers started off as a family of nobodies. Shmi was a slave. Anakin was a child without a father, albeit with some freaky immaculate conception circumstances, but in all other senses, unremarkable and inconspicuous. The same could be said about Rey. And honestly, was it really all that surprising? The trailer we saw at Star Wars Celebration 2015 literally starts off with Maz asking Rey “Who are you?” and her replying “I’m no one.” I know a bunch of people were not so happy with Rey already being so force-sensitive and powerful, essentially being a “Mary Sue” character despite having no important lineage or bloodline. But to me, the democratization of the force was something that really intrigued me and seemed to set the stage for a new era of Star Wars, maybe with a new set of movies based on Rey’s lineage, the Rey Saga or something. This was an idea we saw with broom boy at the end of VIII, which fits with what we already know about the galaxy, that everyone is born with the force but some kids are force-sensitive, and that he could be among the next generation of “Jedi” or force users. And then IX comes and tells us, nope it was just Palpatine’s granddaughter. Where was that evidence (and do not point me to that fan theory video where some guy on YouTube who says that)? Where in any of the prior movies did we get any remote inkling of Rey’s connection at all to Palpatine? Hell, where was the hint that Palpatine was remotely involved with any of the scheming going on in VII and VIII? Even in the prequels, we got hints that Anakin would turn to evil (fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering). Well I can tell you having scrutinized those prior two films myself, there was never any seeds of Palpatine’s presence. It was something just brought in because “OOO a name I recognize of a powerful force user.” How that happened, what that means for the story beats of her being no one in those other two movies, “Eh, just don’t worry about those, this is how it is”. Unearned. And oh boy, Rey Skywalker. Let’s talk about this in the context of Episode IX logic, apart from the logic I already presented, that the prior movies very clearly seem to imply Rey is a nobody. Episode IX is a movie about Rey ultimately discovering who she is, and how when she finds out her lineage, how she eschews her “nature” and stands for good and righteousness in the galaxy because she isn’t defined by a name or bloodline. Even beyond that, we’re told she’s nobody because her parents “chose to be nobodies” and didn’t want to be defined by the name of the reviled megalomaniac of the galaxy. Great! So, wouldn’t it be interesting to see our character find strength in herself and set aside the dumb importance of name and legacy (letting the past die 😉) and honor her parents by choosing to be nobody herself? She buries Luke’s and Leia’s lightsabers on Tatooine (a planet that Luke hated by the way and Leia was on for maybe a few hours or days as a slave to a fat, gross, giant slug in a metal bikini and has no attachment to, a planet with no significance to Rey either) and is somehow asked randomly by this traveler “who are you”, who isn’t satisfied when she gives her name as “Rey”. Forgive me for being nit-picky here, but how weird is it to force a conversation to ask someone their last name randomly, especially when there are TONS of creatures in the galaxy with one-name names. Somehow, a vision of Luke and Leia is enough to convince her she is now a Skywalker, because....force ghosts, Tatooine, Twin Suns, Binary Sunset music, nostalgia-porn. Where in the hell does it make any sense that she adopts the name of Skywalker? How? Because it doesn’t make sense, because it is unearned. Nothing about her “choosing” to be a Skywalker jives with the internal logic this movie sets out, much less the logical flow of the prior eight movies as a whole.

What about Reylo. Oh boy. This is something I know a select few of my friends actually liked. Yes, I concede there was some sexual tension between Rey and Kylo in Episode VIII, but I do not think they were setting them up to be a thing. Kylo is a character who murdered his own father in cold blood, and then murdered his own master (Snoke). This entire time, we are led to believe Snoke is manipulating Kylo and his conflict isn’t given room to settle because its forced one way over the other. Now, Snoke is dead and Kylo is relinquished of this external force telling him what to do, and he still chose to be evil and rule the galaxy, despite Rey’s pleas to join her on the light. Any and all hope to redeem him in my eyes, vanished in that moment. Yes, Anakin fell to the dark side and did some terrible things, but he never was irredeemable because there was someone above him pulling the strings and orchestrating it all. This is a key story structure that makes us as an audience believe that is because of how our villains were set up. In these movies, you have your big bad villain, and then your sub-villain. The sub-villain is usually redeemable but is often dispensable, while the big bad villain is simply the embodiment of evil and can only be destroyed, not redeemed. The sub-villain is sympathetic because you get the sense they are being manipulated or played like a puppet, always leaving room to be redeemed or free themselves, if they can be free of those shackles. That is the nature of the relationship between Palpatine and Darth Vader, and that was the nature of the relationship between Snoke and Kylo Ren. The difference now is Kylo kills Snoke in VIII instead of IX and has now an entire other movie to live with the consequences. He is free of those shackles, and yet he still chooses to be evil. Rey’s connection through “force-time” was her connection to Kylo and her attempt to turn him. She literally leaves her training with Luke because she believes that, only to find Kylo betray her faith in him. Rey acknowledges he cannot be saved, and literally closes the door on Kylo, accepting he is now fully gone. Tell me, how does closing the literal and metaphorical door on someone who has murdered his own father, killed hundreds of innocent people, was given the full free choice to be good and choose evil, lead to love? Because it’s unearned. And frankly, their interactions in Episode IX doesn’t really do much to change that either. Kylo Ren is still moody and literally acts as a constant source of opposition to Rey, with little to actually show their relationship is romantic in any way. Oh yeah, but somehow getting stabbed by a girl and getting healed from almost dying really is such a turn on. I’m sorry, but it’s just unearned. (Hello from even further in the future, I am now writing this in April with updates to this bit. The novelization of Episode IX revealed that their kiss wasn’t romantic, in fact. They gave us this: “His [Kylo’s] heart was full as Rey reached for his face, let her fingers linger against his cheek. And then, wonder of wonders, she leaned forward and kissed him. A kiss of gratitude, acknowledgement of their connection, celebration that they’d found each other at last.” I don’t know what the hell is going on in Lucasfilm, but this is much, MUCH worse. Just a few months back, J.J. said their relationship was a “brother-sister” thing in a romantic way but not really. Can we go back to a half-baked romance again, please? Also, they revealed that Rey’s dad is failed clone of Palpatine.).

Now, let’s talk about Palpatine himself. “The dead speak” “Somehow, Palpatine has returned.” Yeah so this is the big, big leap this movie asks you to take right from the get-go. I understood a lot of the trepidation around bringing back Palps back, mostly surrounding the fear that his return invalidates the sacrifice Anakin/Vader make at the end of Episode VI, bringing balance to the force, mortally electrocuting himself in the process saving his son out of love. I understood the concern, but I had enjoyed the first two films in the sequel and I’m always willing to give a movie a shot in the theater. As long as they explained his return in a satisfying manner, I’d be in. Once the lights dim, the Star Wars logo pops up and you hear John Williams triumphant score, regardless of the drama and bad press, everyone always starts with a clean slate. And then, of course, we get no explanation as to why he’s back beyond a cheeky quip from the prequels “The dark side of the force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.” Har har, +100 nostalgia, much memes.

Yeah it just boggles my mind that the head villain, that for six movies our protagonists tried to defeat and who we thought was defeated (and who even the actor, Ian McDiarmid thought was dead), somehow came back to life. He was thrown down an energy shaft, and vaporized. Then the space station in which he was thrown down is subsequently destroyed and atomized, and somehow, we’re told he comes back to life. Perhaps the casual audience wouldn’t remember or notice or care, but beyond the fans, and anyone following a story deserves a little bit more than just a little tease with no actual explanation. For the record, yes, they did explain how Palpatine was saved, but in the visual dictionary, with his body retrieved by Sith Acolytes, brought to Exogol, and revived using “technology and the occult”. Say what you will, but that is not satisfying to me and still begs a better explanation for his return and undercut Kylo’s character progression, invalidating his choice to be bad without being beholden to anyone. Kylo was not going to be redeemed, and then Disney gave him a get-out-of-jail-free-card by putting him under the shadow of “the real villain” so that his redemption “made sense”. Except, it made no sense to randomly introduce a more powerful villain. It was narrative cheating and it was unearned to see Palpatine back, and eventually, Kylo/Ben redeemed because of it. It just is not good enough. I think more heinous for me, is that this move inarguably undoes the work of the past 6 movies. In the effort to create this breathing piece of nostalgia and love for George Lucas and the past 42 years of storytelling, it ends up betraying it in perhaps one of the most scathing ways imaginable, unintentional or not.

(Hi, another update from two-month-future me. The novelization for this movie now revealed that Palpatine’s “essence” is what is alive and is now being transferred into clone bodies, of sorts. Here is the quote: “So the falling, dying Emperor called on all the dark power of the Force to thrust his consciousness far, far away, to a secret place he had been preparing. His body was dead, an empty vessel, long before it hit the bottom of the shaft, and his mind jolted to new awareness in a new body—a painful one, a temporary one.” Yeah, this novelization really isn’t making things better.)

Unsatisfying.

Admittedly, this is a very subjective metric (though I guess so are the other two descriptors), but satisfaction is a unique experience for each person, more than the other two descriptors. I think one of the worst things a movie can do is be boring, where there is no excitement or energizing quality to a story that there it can’t illicit any emotion out of you. What I think is worse potentially, and what I think is the cardinal sin of this movie, isn’t just the fact this movie was bad, but how it is so far beyond a failure that it has retroactively affected how I view the prior movies now and has diminished their impact on me.

Let’s first talk about its failings as a movie itself. I think when discussing this movie, and this new era of Star Wars, it’s hard not to separate the shift in direction from its new relationship with its new owner, Disney. It’s actually shocking to see how Disney has overall mismanaged this franchise and created such a rift amongst the fandom from the five or so movies it has released over the past four years. This movie more than any other, even more than VII, feels uniquely like a product of corporate intervention and directing, rather than the voice and vision of an auteur. What is now known, is that Disney fired the original director of this movie and scrapped his plans for (in my mind) a far more interesting movie that took the characters and story in brand new directions, paying homage to the past without relying on it, but utilizing it in an effective manner to further the story and plot in a meaningful way. And yes, it importantly kept Rey a “nobody” and it kept Kylo Ren bad and unredeemed, and did not have them kiss. If you want to read more about this, I recommend searching for “Colin Trevorrow Dual of the Fates Script” and you’re bound to find it. I also have the full pdf script of it and would be happy to share it if you would like. I encourage you to read it if you’re interested and form your own opinions on it.

Speaking more to this movie, it objectively had three major goals: wrap up its own three-movie trilogy, wrap up the entire 42-year, nine-film saga, and of course function as its own movie. That is not an easy job by any stretch, and I think any filmmaker would have an incredibly challenging time accomplishing those three tasks, while under the scrutiny of a giant corporation and a rabid fanbase. Except, that is almost exactly the same position George Lucas was in when making his prequel films. Again, I’ll get back to that point in a little bit. I think there could be an argument of cutting this film some slack if it accomplished some of these goals. Maybe this movie didn’t end all nine movies nicely, but at least it worked in its own trilogy? Maybe this movie didn’t end either the trilogy or saga so well, but at least it was a fun movie itself? Somehow, J.J. Abrams and Disney succeeded in fulfilling none of these tasks in my mind.

Like I mentioned, the Force Awakens is far from a perfect movie, but it too came in with a very similar set of goals, especially being Disney’s first Star Wars movie, those being:

1. Establish a new story that connects with the prior six films 2. Set up the foundation for a new trilogy that will last the next 4-5 year 3. Reinvigorate the Star Wars fandom and get them excited about the new era of Star Wars entertainment on the way 4. Work as its own movie.

I think in some ways, these challenges were harder than what Episode IX faced and yet in a lot of ways, it still succeeded in many, if not all of these respects. I think the major failing of Episode VII is its reliance and, often, copying of past story points without much of the finesse in “making it rhyme like poetry” which George Lucas loved to do so much. Episode VII really did reinvigorate the franchise, did introduce us to great cast and characters that left us wanting more from a trilogy, did connect in some satisfying (though sometimes a bit on the nose) ways, and did leave us feeling excited, hopeful and energized with Star Wars. Episode VIII came in and was arguably a lot more disruptive, asking us to challenge what we knew and what we thought we wanted to know and instead posed more basic fundamental questions about the foundations of this story, which I think was an important introspective moment for the saga and this trilogy as the penultimate chapter of both. It had us question the nature of the force, the importance of this “Skywalker” lineage, and the nature of Jedi in this universe where Luke truly is the only one left. It had us question our own conceptions of Luke as a swashbuckling do-no-wrong hero and showed us a more cynical, perhaps jarring, but a realistic Luke that blames himself and his belief in this ancient religion for unleashing Kylo Ren and a new era of darkness upon the galaxy. We also saw how Luke was struggling with how he was roped into this way of life from this old hermit he met for a day or two and then left to navigate reviving the religion of the Jedi on his own. We were also asked to question the nature of the force and whether this sort of power was isolated to a few people and families, or is truly something anyone can have? Again, whether fans agree or not with these story choices or not, The Last Jedi still functions as its own story and does (in my opinion) meaningfully connect to the prior story. Whether fans believe that meaning was eschewing the fabric of Star Wars or whether they believe these challenges strengthened the mythology (like I do), it was still meaningful in that it does draw upon the story from the last movie directly and progress it in some manner (whether a positive manner or not, I’ll let you decide). And regardless of how you like VIII or not, the movie left the door wide open for any kind of story to be told. Our heroes are starting from zero, the villain is now trying to learn the ropes. There is no real cliffhanger of sorts but rather an invitation for total freedom to tell the next story and wrap up this trilogy and saga.

Episode IX unfortunately comes across as one of the laziest ways imaginable to end this nine-story arc. In serving as the final movie of the saga, this movie seemed obsessed with callbacks, and nostalgia plays to remind us of the world we’re in and the “story” we’re watching, rather than relying on the story, character and narrative. I think to a fault, it incorporated elements of past movies, just to say it had it, and in many ways cheapened the overall character or object or story point. I think the biggest example again, is bringing the emperor back, which makes such little sense in the context of what we were presented in the prior two films because it wasn’t ever hinted or ever part of the plan to include him in the first place. The emperor was simply added because of the “nostalgia”. Using the remains of the Death Star on Kef Bir was super cool imagery, but didn’t we already literally see the Death Star completely disintegrated? Na, it’s ok, a huge chunk of the important bit just happened to land here fully intact for our heroes to find. There are many more callbacks in this movie, but almost every one of them, I’m left asking myself: “Why?” “Why did this callback have to be here?” “Could something else achieve the same effect?” Why did Maz give Chewie a Battle of Yavin medal? Why did we go back to Tatooine at the end? More often than not, none of those callbacks had to be there other than to try and excite fans, except doing so in the laziest manner by ultimately pandering. Callbacks are not a bad thing, mind you. Star Wars has been secretly calling back and seeding things in the background for ages, hinting and suggesting to us the vastness of this galaxy in terms of creatures and places. A recent example that comes to mind is Avengers: Endgame, and how it uses callbacks masterfully, calling back not just items and places, but character and relationships. It all works there because everything serves its purpose to drive that story forward in a manner that doesn’t feel cheap but feels necessary and important and something that wouldn’t work otherwise. This movie tried to be like Endgame in that regard but just failed to capitalize effectively on nostalgia and characters in the same way in way to emotionally resonate, but rather elicit a cheap, ephemeral reaction. This was a movie that lived from moment to moment of attempting excitement, but ultimately never establishes a through line for me to care about it as a cohesive piece of a nine-chapter story.

(For the record, I am writing the rest of what is below in April, like those other parenthetical notes above.)

Beyond just my frustration with callbacks, I ultimately ask myself, “What is the drive of this trilogy? What was it trying to accomplish?” The whole premise of this movie is Palpatine is back and they need to stop him from taking over the galaxy. I’m definitely beating a dead horse, but how does that adequately connect to the goals of Snoke/Kylo from the last two movies? How do our character’s stories culminate and end in this movie, in the context of the prior two films? I’ve already talked a bit about Rey’s story making little sense, but my god did they squander Finn’s character. If you look at the “new” characters from this trilogy, Poe was our Han Solo-eque type, Rey obviously our Luke type, but Finn was someone totally new. The idea of a disillusioned Stormtrooper seemed inspired, a totally different perspective in these Star Wars, a regular grunt who didn’t like the side they were fighting on in this war. For all my love of Episode VIII, that movie did not do much for Finn’s story. In the three years since VIII released, I have increasingly appreciated Finn’s journey in VIII, starting as someone who only cared about himself and Rey, to caring about the overall cause of the resistance. It was intriguing, albeit not executed in the best manner. But I think back to IX and struggle to see what the whole point of his arc was. He was a key fighter, who becomes a leader, and finds a whole group of defected Stormtroopers, but we never explore it. And all the while, he has this “burning secret” he needs to tell Rey and never does, which we find out from press junkets is that he’s supposedly force sensitive. It’s just an absolute mess. Even Poe’s arc seems to revert this movie in some regards, where VIII was all about him learning to not be so trigger-happy and actually thinking through things like a leader, IX is the same story beat about him becoming a leader in the eventual shadow of Leia. The only character who’s arc makes some sense (apart from the nonsensical Reylo kiss), was Kylo Ren, because he seems like the only character JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson somewhat agreed on. It’s why undoubtedly the best scene in this movie was his vision of Han Solo, as a revisit of the original confrontation on Starkiller base where Han died. Even then though, look deeper and you realize Kylo’s arc is also filled with contradictions.

Perhaps my view is a bit too colored by my view of Episode VIII, but in terms of following the narrative, Kylo was someone who was tired of being beholden to the past and killed Snoke in part as a refutation of the traditional power structure that had held the galaxy. At the end of VIII, he literally tells Luke “I’ll destroy her, and you, and all of it”, being Rey, Luke and all the remnants of this old way of life. Again, whether or not you like that story in VIII, as a storyteller, J.J.’s and Chris Terrio’s jobs were to continue the story in a manner such that there was consistency to the through lines. On the face of it, Kylo’s actions make some sense, again because I think there was some general agreement on him. Think deeper and you realize this is someone who refuted his past, his “destiny” and decided to choose his own path, only to inexplicably come back to his past again. If he wanted to come back to his past, that should have been seeded in VIII, where the conflict still existed. Rey felt this conflict and that’s why she went to try and redeem Kylo. But, once she is with him in the throne room, Snoke articulates how he now senses Kylo’s resolve where there was once conflict. Kylo made his choice, and we bring back up again the idea that he’s conflicted simply because Disney wanted Kylo to be redeemed. It’s lazy and its narrative cheating.

I will say, I know some Episode VIII supporters were unhappy with Luke’s portrayal in this movie and were quick to jump and say how J.J. “undid” Rian’s take on Luke. Luke is actually someone else who’s character stays consistent with his arc from VIII to IX, where he learns to believe in the Force and the light side again and learns to accept his role as a Jedi. Looking beyond characters though, the trilogy set up various story points which we were hoping to get some kind of payoff for. Much like the movie, I’m not really going to delve into them too much other than just list them. Who are the Knights of Ren (idk, but they all died at the hand of their supposed leader)? Who was Snoke (just a test tube deformed clone I guess)? How did Maz get Luke’s lightsaber (“a good story for another time” 😒)? How did Snoke seduce Kylo and undo the work of the prequels and original trilogy (eh, look for it in a comic I guess)? How did the First Order come about and rise to power (¯\_(ツ)_/¯)? What did the galaxy look like once the rebels won and could bring democracy back to the galaxy (watch The Mandalorian, only on Disney+)? The only real question this movie was interested in answering for the trilogy was Rey’s identity, and really that’s it. And even then, we kind of already got an answer about that from the past two movies: Rey was “nobody”.

Listen, a movie can suck in terms of connecting to prior movies, connecting to a full nine movie story, but hey if it’s a good adventure of its own then maybe there’s something redeemable about it. Unfortunately, this movie fundamentally fails to even service its own story properly. Any movie, no matter how good, needs to be self-contained and its own story in order to be effective. A storyteller cannot rely on a moviegoer to have seen eight other movies, read comics, books, etc. to know what’s going on. For all the praise I’ll give Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, my one strike against them is that the emotional resonance and impact of these movies only hits fully when you’ve followed all prior 21-22 movies, like me. It relies heavily on intertextuality of prior movies, though not like Episode IX as a cheat to explain things. And even if you haven’t watched every movie, you can make some sense of what’s going on and get some of the impact, it just won’t hit the same way. It’s near impossible to balance that inclusivity with referential storytelling, but Avengers just about gets away with it because each story still does work on its own. While the Avengers movies are enhanced with more background knowledge, they did still give you every relevant piece of information you needed to follow the story. Episode IX on the other hand, uses narrative cheats to hope you’ll buy into their story and go with it. Obviously, the big one cheat here is not explaining Palpatine’s return. Again, a villain who was thought to be dead and is crucial to the overall story should have his return be properly explained. They did it in Kingsman with Harry’s character, they did it in Avengers: Endgame with Gamora and Thanos, they even do it with Superman in the dumpster fire that is Justice League. When you leave something like that unresolved, it just leaves a giant asterisk above the whole movie, leaving you questioning the nature of it all, asking why it’s even happening, rather than being able to go on the ride. You know, even if the movie told us that “technology and the occult” story beat, or even showed it to us as a prologue to the movie, I would have been able to buy into this premise of this movie more and not just be left asking why or how the whole time. Again, I recognize that those questions may be more personal and not apply to everyone, but I think the criticism of a movie being its own story and explaining itself still holds. Beyond that, the movie just never has any time to breathe and appreciate its own emotions. With a majority of a movie seeming like a video game fetch-quest (that is just getting one item to get another item, repeatedly), the characters aren’t given the room to grow and are simply at the mercy of the next macguffin to find.

One of the fundamental ideas of storytelling is the idea of a passive protagonist versus an active protagonist. The latter is a character that drives the nature of the story through their actions, whereas the former is driven by the flow of the story. Neither is necessarily better than the other and can be employed to excellent effect in both regards. Perhaps one of the best examples of passive protagonist is Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski in The Big Lebowski, a guy who just has consistently poor luck surrounded by moronic friends and people trying to take advantage of him, and really speaks to the kind of character The Dude really is. In an action or drama movie or a movie with a strong lead character, you generally want a balance of plot happening with the lead character forced to make consequential choices that add tension and weight to the story. Star Wars is a franchise driven by strong characters with their backs consistently against the wall and forced to make tough choices. It’s what drives the tension as Han Solo tries to escape Vader’s Star Destroyer by going through the asteroid field in Episode V, or compels Luke to leave with Ben Kenobi to go to Alderaan in Episode IV, or how makes Rey decide to leave her training with Luke to try and save Kylo in Episode VIII. This element of choice in a movie also works crucially to tell us about a character and their motivations. Han chooses to go through the asteroid field, an almost suicidal endeavor (the odds being 3,720 to 1), telling us how this is a man acting with a mix of desperation and bravado, perhaps overconfident in his abilities while also secretly trying to impress Princess Leia who he clearly likes. Rey goes back to Kylo out of a naïve sense of optimism and hope in other people and hasn’t had the experience Luke has, chiding his cynicism. This movie doesn’t give room for a character to decide much of anything. Rather there is a problem and somehow only one solution to the story. The whole goal of the characters this movie is seemingly to find this Sith wayfinder, to reach the Emperor and destroy his Final Order fleet. Conveniently, there happens to be one last clue of where to look, that leads to one thing, that takes them to a place, that leads to another place, where something just happens to work out and then the final battle takes place. If you’ve seen this movie, then you know I’ve just pretty much exactly described the order of events in this movie. There is no room for a character’s choice to dictate the flow of events here, there is no crossroads of destiny for someone to face. Ultimately, there is no tension and no stakes, because you’re left feeling like the heroes will just find the next clue to the next place or someone will tell them. It’s happened X number of times before, so why not have it happen again. It not only comes across as lazy but ends up hurting our characters’ progressions in the process.

I’ve also already talked about how the within-movie logic just seems to crumble on itself. This movie only seemed to be headed towards tackling the renunciation of bloodlines and the internal conflict between inherent nature and free will. Instead of seeing those story beats through, the story decides to instead shift away from that flow and gives us something we don’t expect but dripping with nostalgia. Obviously, the Rey story spring directly to mind, but even Kylo’s story does the same thing, like we talked about. So, I won’t go much further into all that again, but yeah. It’s pretty baffling how for me this movie just systematically failed on every level.

Wasted Potential

When I drafted out this review, I had put my main points for each of these three descriptors for this movie. I guess in the course of my weak-sauce furor and passion, I inadvertently covered most of my points on this part in prior parts. I was going to talk here about Finn’s story arc being totally wasted and also the whole idea of Rey being nobody, wasted. The former I think I spoke to a sufficient amount and the latter I’ve practically beaten to death by this point in this seemingly never-ending review. All I’ll say on these two matters is that there was the potential to tell a very unique story about finding your identity alone from two unique perspectives. For Finn, it was someone who thought he was alone, but finding that he was one of many and found validation and strength in others, where he initially was fearful of others except for Rey. And on the flip side, Rey’s story could have presented the idea of accepting who you are, even if you are a “nobody”, anyone can become someone. In this case, Rey could have become her own person, a new hero to which the galaxy looked up to or someone totally different.

Yeah, it’s really no wonder this is my longest post to date, but frankly I don’t imagine any of the five of you reading this are all too surprised. So, I’ll just touch a bit on the last point I wanted to talk about which had a lot of potential.

When George Lucas started this crazy Star Wars project back in the 70’s, he was a scrappy, young filmmaker really trying to push the boundaries and do something new with film on a shoestring budget. Doing something new was always at the forefront of George Lucas’s goal with every Star Wars film, through the prequels. I had mentioned back in the beginning of this mess how the prequels, for all the bold steps it tried to take, ended up making a lot of missteps as well. In a way, Lucas is in a similar position as Disney right now, begged by fans to make something new, and immediately angering fans with what they tried to do. Where I think Disney’s vision and Lucas’s vision differ is that one, Lucas had a clear vision and plan for his movies while Disney did not, but two, I think history will and already is looking back at Lucas’s films more favorably than we will on Disney’s trilogy. I think for all the missteps that the prequels made, a lot of the kids that grew up with those movies now champion it in the way Lucas intended them to. He was unapologetic in his approach to Star Wars being a space soap opera for children, teaching them good from evil through a basic hero’s journey. Disney for all its guts with the Marvel movies, trying new genres and championing new stories and heroes was playing it ridiculously safe with Star Wars. Very clearly, Disney’s goal was to make movies for fans and not necessarily children like Lucas did. So their primary focus to please fans was making movies that skewed perhaps a bit more mature, but “felt like Star Wars”. Once they re-established that “feel” with The Force Awakens and re-energized the fan base, they inarguably ended up losing a lot of that goodwill taking creative chances with Episode VIII. So rather than hold true to their Marvel formula of trusting the filmmaker and story, it seems that Disney caved and wanted to keep “pleasing fans” instead. A choice like that isn’t necessarily a wrong one, ultimately these movies are costly projects and they need to be made in a way that can generate the money back and actually make money. Where I think Disney was artistically and creatively bankrupt was relying on and weaponizing fan service and nostalgia to try and win back good will. And for what it’s worth, a lot of people did like Episode IX, because a lot of them said it “felt like Star Wars again.”

I mentioned that idea also in the beginning, “feeling like Star Wars”. To be honest, I thought I knew that feeling, but I honestly don’t know if I do anymore. In the past five years of Disney’s reign over this franchise, it seems to have evolved into something else entirely, something designed simply to please fans and focus on its past more than explore a lot of new ideas and themes. Arguably, Star Wars television has taken the biggest steps in that direction and that’s where my interest also seems to have shifted as well. And even then, our “new shows” are just fresh coats of paint on old ideas and concepts. The Mandalorian, for how much I loved the first season, is comprised of proxies of characters we as fans knew and associated with. Mando is the same as Boba Fett, IG-88 is the same as IG-11, we have the Empire (Werner Herzog and Giancarlo Esposito’s characters), and we have a force user in Baby Yoda. Even the return of Clone Wars these past weeks (which I am not complaining about), seems more of a reaction to give fans what they want rather than an idea borne out of creative inspiration or guts. And for however happy I am to see Clone Wars back and see its actual finale, I think a lot of fans and I had made peace with the way it ended with season 6, unresolved though it may have been. It’s not necessarily something new but revisiting something we know. The sequels were just a roundabout way to revisit the characters we knew and loved, just older. Rogue One was arguably a new angle on a story we already knew from the opening crawl of Episode IV. Solo was a backstory really no one wanted on a character we already understood fairly well. Maybe that’s what Star Wars has just become now. That “feeling” may now just be that simply be the sense Disney tries to evoke by drawing on nostalgia and old themes and ideas and characters and bits and bobs, and that’s really saddening to me.

Lucas’s idea was always to tell a new story, something different and unexplored. He follows the philosophy that Nintendo does when making a new game in a series like Mario or Zelda, or Pixar when making a new film: if there isn’t something new (a game mechanic, a story idea, a new film-making technique), then what’s the point in making it. George was obviously interested in telling his story, but in a way that pushed the limit of what was possible and sparking a sense of amusement and awe in what we watch. By this point, audiences have become accustomed to the level of photorealistic computer graphics employed in major blockbuster movies. It’s not hard to imagine anymore and is generally easy to discern. Lucas was interested in doing something no one else could do or conceive of, and in turn audiences wouldn’t be able to believe was possible. It’s why he founded Industrial Light and Magic, the premiere VFX company in the world today, to realize his lofty goals of space wizards and impossible spaceships and laser swords. It’s why he made Skywalker Sound, the masters of sound mixing and editing, to construct this sonic tapestry to define this universe. It’s why he helped spin-off Pixar in the 90’s with Steve Jobs, albeit not related to Star Wars but still exemplifying Lucas’s ultimate drive for doing new things. That Star Wars feeling isn’t just sense of excitement from the clashing of a lightsaber or the recurrence of a familiar face, but the investment in a character’s backstory, the sense of wonderment of seeing something pure and unadulterated from someone’s wildest imagination. It’s the music, it’s the atmosphere and background characters. It’s why a lot of fans were averse to some of the choices Lucas made in the prequels, doing away with a lot of the practical sets that were common in the original trilogy. In Lucas trying to realize his vision for this bustling galaxy and universe with increasingly complex elements and ideas, it ultimately became easier to just add it in post than build it, but in turn sacrificed the grittiness and rough-worn down of the galaxy we were exploring.

Before I’m accused of being a prequel shill, I will simply say that I don’t love all the prequels. I think Episode I is charming, II and III are messes for sure. But I think in all of the failures of execution, Lucas really did try to do something original and new with this story. You can fault a story for maybe not resonating or working, yes, but for trying, no. These were movies that were not trying to be “Star Wars”, but something new that was in that same universe, and I think fans rebelled because of that. It was something new that challenged us to look at this galaxy differently at a different time and didn’t match that same mold we were accustomed to from 1983 to 1999. I think A lot can be forgiven for Episode VII especially in how it was trying to get us back to that feeling that a lot of fans were missing. Also, it’s a very unique position it was in, as the characters in that story were a lot like us, subject to the tale and legend of the “Star Wars”, with the hero Luke Skywalker and the Rebellion and whatnot. They were reverential to the past, because it was a movie that drawing in it to set up the future. Episode VIII took that and tried to set the stage for something totally new, and question what actually was and wasn’t important in this myth we thought we know. Episode IX instead then decides to revoke the thrust towards the future and decides to focus on the past to a far greater degree. But rather than show it the reverence it received from Episode VII, its ultimately stuck pandering to it, rather than adding to the conversation. It was a move very clearly to recapture the enjoyment the audiences found in VII, by trying to appease angry fans clinging to the past. Ultimately, this movie ends up appeasing so few because it is more focused on trying to win back the goodwill it lost from Episode VIII than focusing on its own story, and just ends up as a mess as a result.

It hurts to feel this way about Star Wars. This is the first mainline Star Wars movie I haven’t wanted to rewatch. It makes me feel upset and even angry at times. It took me so long to write this because I’d just get so bummed every time I’d start writing and thinking about this movie and just lose all energy to keep going till some time later. It’s a movie that has made me re-evaluate my relationship with this franchise and question whether I was even right to enjoy the last two movies, VII and VIII, since they’re all meant to be the same story. I think I just have to accept that this new Star Wars is not all made for people like me anymore. I think like a trip to the restaurant or a buffet, I’ll just pick and choose the bits I engage with now. I am quite happy with Star Wars on television right now, but I just hope at some point, somehow, the movies will connect with me again. I just hope the movies can connect with all the fans again eventually, remind us of that magic that defined each generation while not being beholden to the past. I hope it continues to fascinate and indulge our sense of childlike wonderment, building lightsabers, theorizing the physics of star ships, acting like we’re force choking our friends or able to grab the remote with the force across the living room. The Star Wars experience isn’t a solitary one, but rather one best shared with friends and loved ones. It has the power to bring together a disparate group of friends from across the country to one theater for two+ hours to eventually praise and/or criticize it. I just hope Star Wars can warrant such a jubilant reunion again, not relegating such occurrences to a long time ago, or far, far apart.

Also, Ben Shapiro liked this movie so I think that just validates why this movie is total garbage. Maybe that could have been my whole argument. Eh, four months too late I guess…

tl;dr – If into the recordings you go, only pain you will find.

P.S. If you made it to the end of this review, congrats. Perhaps you are nearly as crazy as I am, though honestly probably not. Nevertheless, I appreciate you sticking around to read through this all.

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