#like “what the heck happened” in the narrative and character psychology sense. I know what happened but I need to know what happened like

[yuttikkele]

oh no. saw ctommy art. am I going to spiral into the clutches of the dsmp again or stay Normal.?

[renegadewangs]

Van Zieks - the Examination, part 2

Warnings: SPOILERS for The Great Ace Attorney: Chronicles. Additional warning for racist sentiments uttered by fictional characters (and screencaps to show these sentiments).

Disclaimer: (see Part 1 for the more detailed disclaimer.) - These posts are not meant to be taken as fact. Everything I'm outlining stems from my own views and experiences. If you believe that I've missed or misinterpreted something, please let me know so I can edit the post accordingly.  -The purpose of these posts is an analysis, nothing more. Please do not come into these posts expecting me to either defend Barok van Zieks from haters, nor expecting me to encourage the hatred. - I'm using the Western release of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles for these posts, but may refer to the original Japanese dialogue of Dai Gyakuten Saiban if needed to compare what's said. This also means I’m using the localized names and localized romanization of the names to stay consistent. -It doesn't matter one bit to me whether you like Barok van Zieks or dislike him. However, I will ask that everyone who comments refrains from attacking real, actual people.

It’s time to take a close look at Episode 3, The Runaway Room!

Episode 3: The Runaway Room.

We're skipping the first two cases, as they have no relevance to Barok van Zieks, and starting off here.

So Ryu is tossed into the deep. The Lord Chief Justice tells him that he’s basically the defendant’s only hope; if he doesn’t at least try to fight in court, McGilded will lose the trial and die for sure. (HAH… Good one, Stronghart.) So Ryu falls for this would-be motivational speech and heads for the courthouse where he finds out why McGilded doesn’t have a defense attorney to begin with; it’s because of the prosecution. No one dares to go up against Lord Barok van Zieks, also known as the Reaper of the Old Bailey, because all who he prosecutes are damned. This should sound familiar to anyone who’s played an Ace Attorney game before. ‘The prosecution has never been defeated before’ is the implication, which would initially lead us to believe Van Zieks is another one of those prodigies. Sure enough, Susato points out he must be very talented, to which McGilded replies that Van Zieks is not talented, rather, he’s cursed. This sets the mood even further. With words like “Reaper” and “curse” being tossed around, we’re sooner reminded of a prosecutor like Simon Blackquill, who was a convicted murderer wielding psychological manipulation techniques. Either way, with the grim atmosphere set, Ryu is ushered into the courtroom before he can ask any more questions.

As a sidenote, McGilded really scored some negative points with this remark:

Feels a bit softened compared to how fan translations tackled that line, but a nasty jab all the same.

So anyway, entering the courtroom we get our first look at Van Zieks and if the foreshadowing in the Defendant Antechamber wasn’t already bad enough, he honors his eerie reputation.

So far, he’s meeting the requirements then. He’s intimidating and as a wealthy white man, he’s perfectly juxtaposed to Ryu, the rookie from another country. Meanwhile, the first micro-aggression of this trial is actually uttered by the judge:

Which also makes narrative sense. Ryu’s more practical goal isn’t to win the prosecution’s trust. Heck, he could get through any trial just fine with Van Zieks’s dislike. No, what he needs is to win over the judge and the members of the jury. For them to also hold prejudice but put that aside in order to side with the truth is another important end-game here. So let’s continue. Van Zieks also has something to say here:

Initially, the remark about Ryu’s eyes might read as a typical racist jab towards someone from the East, but he is in fact referring to the way Ryu’s eyes are ‘swimming’ when he’s nervous, as evidenced by the next lines. “They shroud your fear, your doubt, your trepidation… They run wild, clinging to some phantom notion of courage.” Van Zieks is saying that while Ryu puts up a brave front, his swimming eyes betray just how nervous and unsure of his cause he really is. So really, he’s targeting the fact that Ryu is new to the courts. He did, however, make a point of tossing the word “Nipponese” in there when he didn’t need to, drawing attention to Ryu’s race in a derogatory fashion.

After the jurors are introduced, something else of interest happens. The judge points out that Van Zieks hasn’t been seen in the courtroom in a number of years. The judge had assumed that Van Zieks had renounced his fame, to which he replies with the following:

This is a very telling line. We learn several things. Firstly, Van Zieks had retired, and secondly, he doesn’t seem to think too highly of his title of Reaper. If he did, he would have gloated. To describe his reputation as infamy implies negative associations with this ‘curse’ that McGilded spoke of. Putting these two things together, one might conclude he retired because of this curse. When asked why he’s returned to the courts, he says that he’ll leave that to the judge’s imagination. So there’s hints of a backstory already being tossed in before the trial’s even properly kicked off.

Which it does now. So the opening statement happens as always and witnesses are brought in, but once it’s done Ryu interjects to say that he doesn’t understand the circumstances. ‘How could the witnesses have seen the inside of a moving carriage’? It shocks the entire courtroom and Van Zieks is the one to speak:

“-But you’re here in London yourself. Are you really so ignorant about our omnibuses? Tell me, my Nipponese friend… Have you even travelled in an omnibus?”

I have to be honest, I struggled to pinpoint just how I felt about these remarks. Sure, I can overanalyze this, looking at how the words “I’d read-” imply he doesn’t know the following sentiment to be true and therefore doesn’t feel confident enough to say something like “I knew-”... But it doesn’t change that he’s being scummy here. In a roundabout way, he’s still saying Japan is far less civilised than Britain and that Ryu is extra ignorant for not knowing about omnibuses when he’s in London. So basically, he gets scumbag points for this. But then there’s…:

Which is just a basic jab at Ryu’s intelligence. It’s the sort of remark we’d get from every single prosecutor. I think even Klavier would say this sort of line with a smile on his face.

But definitely more scumbag points here, because this was a direct attack in more ways than one. Particularly the word “stray” was uncalled for. CEO of Racism, indeed. Something very interesting happens when the knife gets pulled into the story halfway into the first cross-examination, though. When Ryu asks about it, Van Zieks replies with this:

He’s… actually being civil? (I doublechecked with Scarlet Study, and they are in agreement on the timid nature of this line, translating “yes, Counsel” as “Quite so”.) Instead, Van Zieks turns his attention to the fact that there’s an M on the sheath, directing all his offensive attitude towards McGilded. It gets even more curious when the last juror refuses to cast a guilty verdict, instead talking about what a good man she believes McGilded to be. Van Zieks says:

So he’s not only frustrated with McGilded now, he’s frustrated with the people of London for not knowing what sort of person McGilded really is. Van Zieks reveals he’s a dirty money lender who gained his fortune through corrupt means. He even takes the time to inform Ryu of this with the words “Your client is a shylock, sir!” Edit: I feel a need to address this: shylock is a word with antisemitic roots. It originally came from a Shakespeare play involving a very bad stereotype. It later evolved to have a more broad meaning basically synonymous to loan shark and I think that’s the context the localization means to use it in. There’s absolutely no indication of McGilded’s religious beliefs and even if there were, I highly doubt the localization would use that sort of slur. Still, it’s a very unfortunate choice of words and is sure to accidentally sour Van Zieks even more with some players.

With that, the last juror votes, the scale tips towards Guilty and Van Zieks assumes the trial to be over. He thanks the jurors for their work. Unfortunately, once Susato brings up the Summation Examination, Van Zieks gets very frustrated again. This happens:

IIII don’t know what to do with this line. On first glance, I didn’t think much of it and was even willing to consider it was a compliment. Then I thought it must’ve been passive aggressive somehow; that it’s the sort of thing he wouldn’t believe until he’d seen it with his own eyes. A friend directed me to the notion that it might be referencing a stereotype that ‘Eastern women are fierce’ because they were associated with, well, certain ‘paid services’. I don’t think I need to explain, I’m sure you understand what I mean. And if indeed that’s what Barok is insinuating, that’s a new low I never thought he’d reach. However, when you’ve finished the games and know that Barok was friends with a married Japanese man, it’s entirely possible that he’s remembering a story once told to him by Genshin Asogi. So this is either a bittersweet reminiscence or the most scumbag association he ever could’ve made, but I’m not sure we can ever prove which it is. Edit: As another option, it’s possible he’s referring to the Yamato Nadeshiko stereotype, if indeed it already held the ‘touch of iron’ aspect to it back in 1900. He proceeds to toast his hallowed chalice to “the enigmatic East” and to be honest, I’ve once again got nothing. All I know is that he once again drew attention to the defense’s race when he didn’t need to, so… Scumbag point. As a sidenote, in regards to the wine… I don’t count this as a humanizing trait. The same applies to the leg slam. These are animations meant to add some more lighthearted air and breathe more life into Van Zieks, so he doesn’t just stand there like a statue. They’re just quirks meant to have him stand out from other characters. So yeah, fun as the wine and leg slam animations are, they don’t count in the redemption requirements. Anyway, Van Zieks mocks the age of Susato’s book, saying that judging by its bindings it must be fifty years old. Considering the context of the conversation, this isn’t out of bounds. The defense is using ‘outdated’ information on the law, so he points that out. Any prosecutor would’ve done it like this. Simon Blackquill likely would’ve offered to shred that outdated tome to bits for Susato. Van Zieks does toss in a “Hmph, typical Nipponese” later though, which earns him one more scumbag point. Van Zieks continues to dismiss the Summation Examination, but the judge overrules him and allows it. Law is law, after all! And this is what I meant in my previous post when I said it’s satisfying to see Ryu use actual British law against Van Zieks. Ryu is using a perfectly legitimate technique to win the jurors over, and as Susato tells him, he can only do it by turning the jurors against one another with facts. He can’t appeal to them, he can only have them see sense. Which is difficult, because some jurors are more prejudiced than others:

… Yeah. Uh. Calling Ryu a “Dark Jinx” is pretty awful. Scumbag points for Juror No. 1! Meanwhile, Juror No. 4 keeps us updated on Barok’s actions throughout this trial:

Wow. Typical prosecutor behavior, though. Regardless, Ryu manages to win them all over in the end. With enough of the scales set back to not-guilty, the trial is allowed to continue, which leads to this:

Bye, hallowed chalice. A fun animation to keep things fresh and show us that the trial is about to take a turn. Once again, nothing new. We’ve seen prosecutors lose their patience before. What does interest me, though, is that Barok doesn’t direct physical frustration towards the defense. Remember: Franziska snaps a whip at Phoenix, Godot throws coffee at his head, Blackquill sends a hawk to attack the defense or uses that aijutsu slicing move, Nahyuta throws restricting beads… These were all direct physical attacks. Van Zieks, much like Edgeworth and Klavier, directs his frustration more inward and as a result he destroys his own property.

He succeeds in intimidating Ryu, though. Van Zieks explains that he kept silent, as is the norm during Examination Summation, but makes it clear that he considers it a charade all the same.

Van Zieks has been a pretty good gentleman towards the jury up until now, speaking to them politely despite that one remark about having their head in the clouds. Now that he’s seeing them ‘buy into Ryu’s stories’, as one might describe it, he’s getting frustrated with them. Maybe he’s even frustrated they’re choosing the defense’s side over his own.

He removes his cloak, entering what he says to be the next round of their ‘battle’. More typical prosecutor behavior, this. I’m not sure there’s an underlying thought to this, other than to indicate to the audience that ‘things have gotten serious’. When the next bit of testimony is going on, I noticed something odd. Both Fairplay and Furst testify to having seen blood on McGilded’s hands, to which Van Zieks says:

“... Reported that there was no trace of blood on Mr. McGilded’s gloved hands.” So in a way, by establishing this fact, he’s helping the defense and going against what the witnesses are saying. It doesn’t help the prosecution in any way at all.

The trial continues on, with Van Zieks uttering things like “My Nipponese friend” and “my learned friend from the East” and lord knows what else… I suppose to soften the harshness of the original wording a bit and make Van Zieks just a bit less dislikable? Edit: Tumblr user @beevean​ has pointed out that “my learned friend” is an actual term used in courts of law. There’s a tradition (also employed in British courts of law) that when addressing either the court or the judge, a barrister refers to the opposing counsel using the respectful term, "my learned friend". Of course, it can be said with an air of passive aggression and pretending to be respectful to the court while shamelessly disrespecting it is something Barok has always done, so the addition of “my learned friend” to the localization text is amazingly in-character. Then of course we have:

This is both a scumbag remark and foreshadowing. Naturally, those playing the game for the first time won’t recognize it as the latter and therefore take it as nothing more than a harsh blow. Things spiral even further out of control when he starts talking about how people who claim the island nations of the Far East have a learning and culture of their own use those terms ill-advisedly. He also uses the words “artless backwater” and really, this is the low point of the trial right here when it comes to prejudice. Van Zieks is just plain lashing out with these sort of jabs.

Eventually, McGilded is dragged onto the witness stand to testify about whether or not there was another passenger aboard the omnibus. McGilded admits that there was, and Van Zieks snaps at him some more for using convenient excuses. Ryu is forgotten here for a moment. The whole smoke bomb thing happens, Van Zieks confers with McGilded and Gina in his own chambers, then the trial resumes. McGilded testifies, then Gina testifies… The jury votes not-guilty, buying into McGilded’s story about protecting a poor young pickpocket and Van Zieks loses it. He slams his heel down on the bench, pointing out that this is why he doesn’t like the jury system; because emotions are ruling where evidence and facts ought to be paramount. He points out while the cubbyhole Gina had been hiding in was empty now, it had been full of the coachman’s belongings during the police investigation. Someone tampered with the omnibus. This is where things get interesting, because Van Zieks addresses Ryu:

He’s giving Ryu the benefit of the doubt here. He’s offering an option for Ryu to be truthful about this matter. And that’s curious, because any defense attorney would naturally say what’s best for his client- or so it’s assumed. It puts Ryu in a difficult position for sure, but for some reason Van Zieks put the question forward anyway. The game responds as follows:

For the sake of argument, I attempted all three options. So when Ryu says he didn’t look, Van Zieks says: “Hm… Perhaps I credited you with too much intelligence.”

So when feigning ignorance, Van Zieks is kind of a scumbag about it. He is correct in his expectation that any attorney worth his badge would thoroughly examine the details of the evidence, but he didn’t need to be such a jerk about it. Now, when outright lying and saying it was empty, Van Zieks instead says:

The lines are very similar, which is an interesting note. It adds a feel of these responses being 'rehearsed', in a way. Just a default for him to fall back to. But the real kicker comes when Ryu tells the truth and says it wasn’t empty. Van Zieks is actually speechless at first with no more than a “...!” Clearly, he wasn’t expecting Ryu to respond like this. Everyone in court is baffled, McGilded gets angry… Van Zieks is a bit rattled now.

“Your task is to defend the man in the stand. Why would you say something to compromise his position?”

So really, it seems as if Van Zieks had only ever offered the question to Ryu with pessimistic intentions. He too had assumed there was only one answer the defense could give and was prepared for just that with his silly little wine analogies, only to be shocked when Ryu defies his expectations. Ryu confesses that he’s not entirely sure on where he stands in the matter, to which Van Zieks replies with “... Interesting.” 

So now the jury members are doubting themselves again, with some offering guilty verdicts. Van Zieks decides to honor the ‘Scales of Justice’ once more now that they’re back in his favor, like the hypocrite he is. Gina testifies, Ryu points out an inconsistency, Van Zieks takes that opportunity to turn the tables back in his favor by implying Gina is a liar… He passive aggressively thanks Ryu for saving him considerable trouble and whatnot with some more “my learned Nipponese friend” remarks in there… Ryu turns the tables once more by insisting the victim came into the omnibus through the skylight, Van Zieks demands evidence and points out that furthermore, if indeed such a thing had happened, the witnesses on the roof would’ve seen it. McGilded hops into the conversation to imply that the witnesses themselves were the killers, which sends the court into a frenzy. Both Van Zieks and the judge shift the responsibility of the accusation towards Ryu, even though he never said a word to directly accuse the witnesses. Kind of a douchey move. Barok even states that Ryu’s ‘command of the English tongue must be wanting’, since

Yeahhh, that's pretty unfair. McGilded was the one who dropped that implication. However, since the judge basically accuses Ryu of the same thing, it’s a narrative choice to warn Ryu he needs to anticipate where his reasoning will lead him. Fairplay and Furst testify, pandemonium ensues. McGilded eventually gets what he wants when it’s revealed the skylight can open and there’s blood in there. Van Zieks once again turns his attention to McGilded:

He knows McGilded is at the root of all this tomfoolery and evidence manipulation. McGilded is the real enemy here, in Van Zieks’s eyes. The conversation shows this by having Van Zieks point out that he’s well aware of McGilded’s involvement in dubious matters and that evidence is often ‘adapted’ to suit this guy’s stories. And now, once again, he turns his attention to Ryu. Once again, he’s giving the defense the benefit of the doubt:

The game gives you the illusion of choice here. If you choose to say it’s ‘out of the question’ that the evidence was tampered with, Ryu will refuse to say it out loud. If you say it’s entirely possible, Ryu will admit to that.

This is probably baffling to Van Zieks. It would’ve been so easy for Ryu to insist the tampering couldn’t have happened, but he doesn’t. The game won’t even let him. No matter what you choose, Van Zieks is clued in on the fact that Ryu doesn’t condone the deceit that McGilded is resorting to. But it gets even better, because a short time later, we get:

Another option to either draw attention to forgery, or to feign ignorance. Once again, I chose both options for argument’s sake, but having Ryu say he has no idea doesn’t get us anywhere. Susato will instead object to say it for him. With “I have an inkling”, Ryu says it himself. Van Zieks once again confesses, in his own words, that he’s caught off guard.

Ryu clarifies that he thinks the blood stain inside the omnibus is decisive evidence, but he can’t say for certain whether it’s genuine. McGilded loses it and by this point, is outright branding Van Zieks an enemy. Since the player at this point doesn't know whether McGilded is guilty or not, it leaves Van Zieks in a bit of narrative limbo. One might think: 'if the prosecutor is so intent on taking down a murderer, shouldn't we be on his side? Is he perhaps not as bad as he seems?' Unfortunately, McGilded points out that recollection and memories don’t matter, only evidence does. And… Well.

Which means they can’t rule on a guilty verdict and will have to let McGilded go. Van Zieks admits that he has no more witnesses or evidence to present. He’s out of options. As a formality, the judge asks the defense’s closing statement and we get one last option. Do we believe him to be guilty or not-guilty? When claiming he’s innocent, Van Zieks says:

It seems he means “abject” in the sense of “without pride/respect/dignity for oneself”, which… You know, is fair. By this point it’s very clear that McGilded is guilty, and since Ryu has already admitted that the evidence may be forged, insisting otherwise is indeed pretty spineless. Scumbag points to Van Zieks for continuing to draw attention to the fact that Ryu is from Japan, though.

Let’s instead just admit that we can’t say for certain McGilded is innocent. Unfortunately, we don’t see Van Zieks react to this, which is a bummer because this could’ve been very telling. The judge questions Ryu’s sanity (no joke) and McGilded laughs because it doesn’t matter; it was just a formality anyway. The judge scolds Van Zieks, saying that his case was flawed and it was his job to keep the evidence secure. Instead of objecting, Van Zieks just outright takes the blame for this and apologizes. Very interesting reaction, here. He stops pointing the finger to McGilded, he doesn’t attempt to accuse anyone else… He just admits his performance was flawed. Ryu tries to interject here:

(A badly-timed screenshot if I’ve ever seen one.) Ryu is making an attempt here to defend Van Zieks, the guy who has built up like 20 scumbag points by now. Ryu sincerely doesn’t hold a grudge against him. That’s very interesting. It doesn’t matter, though. The judge won’t hear of it, Ryu thinks it’s unfair, Van Zieks warns McGilded that this isn’t over and then we get the not-guilty verdict.

Hurray??? Profit??? It’s a victory that’s bound to leave the player feeling conflicted and jarred.

But after all’s said and done, we get one last cutscene to establish just how ominous Van Zieks really is. The omnibus is on fire, someone is inside and we know McGilded went into the courtroom earlier to investigate the omnibus in question. So really, by putting two and two together we can already guess what’s going on here. Van Zieks approaches the scene and watches silently.

It’s a good reminder to us that every defendant he prosecutes is ‘damned’ and he’s called the Reaper for a reason. Really puts the finishing touch on the eerie undertones of his character.

All in all, a pretty typical first time against a new prosecutor. Now I just want to draw attention to the fact that the first time we face Van Zieks in court… he’s actually on the right side of the courtroom and Ryu is not. Van Zieks presumably specifically returned to the court after those five years to target McGilded, as he knows about this guy’s shady reputation when it comes to ‘adapting’ evidence. Barok is 'cursed' in such a way that every defendant he faces is damned. So long as he stands as the prosecutor, McGilded can’t get away with his crimes. No matter how much forgery is done, the Reaper will go after McGilded and it seems Van Zieks was banking on this happening.

He likely also expected Ryu to have been bought off by McGilded; to say whatever’s convenient for his case. Turns out, Ryu is actually a man of integrity who’s invested in the truth and near the end of the trial, Barok has seen evidence of this. So what will happen next? We’ll have to play The Clouded Kokoro and find out! Stay tuned!

[trash-side-of-nox]

fic writer interview

tagged by @meikuree, thanks for having me in mind! It’s been a while since I did one of these. 

name: NoxCounterspell

fandoms: Currently writing for Kakegurui and Shingeki no Kyojin.

two-shot: The Beginning and the End (or Knocking on Heaven's door), a Kirasaya (KKG) Fic. This was intended to be a one-shot, however ended up being posted in two chapters because it was too long (insert here cynical laughter when I'm currently posting 14k chapters). The project was conceived by a very creative mind and acquaintance that came to me with a very fucking good outline. Together, we managed to create a very immersing post-canon AU, even if I say so myself. This touched a lot of different subjects, everything revolving around the concepts of family and freedom, right versus wrong, the lack of understanding, psychological projection. One of my favorite parts is the tag Meeting the Parents, and how that can play in how the story is perceived.

most popular multi-chapter: To you, the girls lost in Hell (SnK, Mikannie). An absolute whim of mine, taking Yams story and twisting it and shaping it into a narrative that fits snippets of my own imagination, regarding Annie and Mikasa's relationship (this is basically going to be an enemies, to lovers, to enemies, to friends, to lovers). Really, this is a fic entirely about them, for them and how their basic symbiotic relationship: clashing and attraction impacted everything happening on SnK. This is an excuse to study two characters in canon-verse, getting and providing a humble glimpse of how these characters, in the context they are being written, work. Vomiting a heck ton of my own headcanons, I'm trying to add angst, action, psychology and others to the table, following the overall outline Yams created, but redrawing the entire canvas. Honestly, I'm deeply surprised by how well received the story has been. This will try to keep up the intensity, overall, the outline is designed to play with emotions for the whole ride: we know where we begin and where we are going, but the how it's the sting.

actual worst part of writing: Writer's block. Obsessively researching something to realize it just won't fit the story. Self-doubt. Isolating oneself while writing non-stop. The built-in expectations one may have about their writing that might not be met by the end result.

how you choose your titles: One of my favorite parts of writing it's designing titles. Most of them respond to the question of what does the fic need, how can I guide the reader as to why this has been written? So say, To you, the girls lost in Hell is a direct nod to SnK's first manga chapter and the Light Novel: Lost Girls. This story is for Annie and Mikasa, two girls/women left to their own devices, surviving, searching, trying. A message I hope gets delivered. The Time series (Kirasaya, Meariri, Kakegurui) needs definition. Words are concepts we never really stop to decipher, as much as we ignore human behavior. Defining an entire character study by just one word, the context is easily guided: perhaps Fall is the clearest one, how can a character fall and break without them meaning to? I can rant for days as to what's the process I prefer for title creation, but I can summarize in: how can a whole story be told from the very beginning?

do you outline: Yes. My outlines give me an overall idea of how to get from A to Z, without closing the doors to letters from other alphabets. Pretty much every story I start comes from a dialog that won't leave my mind or a very vivid scene I pictured. Building around it - how the narrative goes and comes, rises and falls - is what outlining comes to do in my case. I outline in two stages: overall skeleton (indents, phrases), then, general paragraphs describing each scene. To this, add specific dialogs and phrases that are non negotiable. If I can’t fit them in, then the scene is not working. I like highlighting bits and pieces of the prose. Phrases that will get stuck with the reader and myself. 

ideas I probably won’t get around to but wouldn’t it be nice: PACIFIC RIM MIKANNIE. There, I said it. This has been running around my mind for a while but I think it's mostly for the lols and for how much of a nerd I am. I don't think I would write it but there are snippets in my head of what that might look like. There is also an ExMilitary!Annie and Cop!Mikasa Modern AU running around in my head, with them getting into a relationship with twists and turns to pertain to what they've lived, boundaries, psychological walls, PTSD... etc.  For Kakegurui: BLADE RUNNER + ALTERED CARBON AU.  Yes, I like SciFi. I have a heck ton of wips, some might see the light, some might not. We'll see.

callouts @ me: I don’t know what a omniscient, general narrator is. For the love of Dio I can’t wrap myself around how to narrate something without siding with a character. I’ve read examples, designed scenes... and still there is always one character I get introspective with or predominates in the scene and everything, then, sides with them. So I’m faulty of jumping from POV to POV by scenes. Or I write an entire fic based in once character’s perspective. In both instances, I always hope it’s not confusing.  Long sentences without breaks or very stuffy wording is another fault of mine. Probably from the fact that I like to write from thoughts and actions in depth than leaving things to the reader’s imagination. I want readers to see what I see, to feel what I feel. I try to write from a place of empathy, channeling the character and their psyche, and the impact that creates is what I want to reflect. So overdetailing is a dear friend of mine. A very talented fellow fic writer told me that I build until people can’t escape what I wrote. I think that’s both good and bad, as I’m taking the freedom people get when picturing their own version.

best writing traits: Based on comments, narrative and characterization. Again, I try to write from a place of empathy, and I undust my psychology classes each time I’m trying to write a character. I like character studies, dissecting something until it’s raw, how can I make or break a persona that’s already been written, that already has a defined mind/soul. That’s why I love angst and currently, thriller/horror.  I’m, also, obsessive with details. Everything has to be accurate and clock work. Does anyone care if the bus I’m describing actually exists? Not really, but I need to have a model in mind. Is it really necessary to open google maps and calculate how long it would take X character to walk from Tokyo’s University to a fictional apartment building? Certainly not. However I need to know in order to sell it. If it makes sense to me, then I’m comfortable enough to write it. It’s not practical, but allows to create tangible actions/places.

spicy tangential opinion: Very snob of me... but mind your text’s visual presentation. If the text is unappealing to the eye, it can be uncomfortable to read. I like fics (and books as well) that are mindful of the aesthetic in lines of words. Having adequate spacing in between paragraphs, balancing length of sentences, using defined styles for dialogs... Gives a very professional feel to it. I’m all for AUs and canon divergence, but fanfiction has a very fragile requirement that is to respect the character. Do with them whatever you like, have them tap dance or bungee jump, alter their canon-verse or send them to Hogwarts, but keep the essence. How and why is a character acting the way they do is key while writing fanfiction. I’ve read great stories that would have worked best as original fiction, because I can’t feel the characters. Again, a very snob thought. 

tagging (no pressure): @ladyjay1616 @askboxangel @blankiebandit and anyone else that may want to join

[gilded-green]

In celebration of the 10th anniversary, I’ll probably reread GG and send updates/highlight areas and as for commentary. Probably XD

But first. What aspect of Gilded Green was your favorite? What was something you put in a lot of world building for but never got to show either in fic or on tumblr. Who is your favorite character and why, what makes them special in your eyes? Which character has turned into a completely different one as soon as you started writing them? Which part of the fic did you like most when you finished it, do you still like it? Similarly, which part do you dislike most?

Lasty, anything about gg2’s story you want to share/talk about/rant?

-love, the dai li fangirl

Haha, no pressure! But at the same time yes if you do feel free to send me passages for commentary here! <3

What aspect was my favorite? Hmmm. *thinking face* I think, when I first came up with it, I was just thrilled to have these two small things - minor character Lu Ten, overlooked villain organization Dai Li - that I was able to combine into something so big. That was pretty nifty!

As I started developing the story, I think what really caught my attention was the fact that “Wow, all these characters are awful people!” Like. The Dai Li aren’t good.The Fire Nation aren’t good. Lu Ten is a victim but also an oppressor. All off these people have extremely different beliefs and worldviews - Fire supremacist, police state enforcers, classist academic gatekeepers - and all of them think THEY’RE in the right here and none of them are. I think Tien and Hoang might be the only people with a decent, non-oppressive worldview in the story so far. XD I was growing out of the storytelling trope of black-and-white morality at the time, so it was really fun to start experimenting with writing awful people as enjoyable, sympathetic characters.

World building? Hmm. I was just learning how to use my worldbuilding muscles back then. I seem to remember reading up a lot on how brainwashing actually works in the real world and going “I don’t think this is compatible with what we have in ATLA” and just kinda tossing that whole thing out. XD I also recall looking up a lot of stuff for the bits about Jouin, some of which - kalua pig! - has since shown up again in WFFD. I also recall someone on FFdotnet at the time saying “All this chapter did was tell us more about a dead character than the living one” and I was just kinda like -_- yes because he is DEAD and this is your chance to feel sorry about that, we’ll get plenty more of the living one later on account of him still being, y’know, alive. XD

Oh, and Shirong’s personal side projects. I finally got into that a bit in A Meeting of Minds, but the dude DOES have his own stuff going on, which Delun so rudely interrupted to drag him off to see Long Feng about brainwashing a Firebender.

I also did a bunch of research for the birthday party interlude, I think. Mostly appropriate alcohol for such an occasion? And....okay, this’ll sound funny, but.....food containers. I wanted Fen to pack up leftovers for Suyin and Shirong. That’s what my Italian family does after get-togethers, and I assumed that a Chinese family/friend group would do the same! But I also had, like, zero exposure to everyday Chinese life, let alone everyday Chinese life in the 1800s, and I just didn’t have the...idk, cultural osmosis? to figure it out. Like, if you asked me how Victorians would transfer food I’d probably come up with “Idk, wrap it in cloth and stuff it in a basket?” and I assumed people living in modern China would also be able to explain what their people did for food storage/transport 150 years ago but I didn’t have that cultural background, now, did I??? Also this was 10-12 years ago I was looking this up, mind you, the internet was still very different, there was plenty of information on Chinese historical events but not on everyday life objects, CDramas weren’t easy to find if they were translated at all and I certainly didn’t know they existed, and no one was posting beautiful aesthetic videos of life in a rural Chinese mountain village to youtube yet. Eventually I learned that bamboo baskets were a thing, but there wasn’t much info on THOSE either and I wasn’t sure how to describe them, so I just tentatively typed “basket” and called it a day. XD

YOU CANNOT ASK ME TO CHOOSE MY FAVORITE CHARACTER THAT’S LIKE ASKING ME TO CHOOSE BETWEEN MY CHILDREN!!! *shoves Yong off a cliff*

I’m very fond of the Dai family, along with the Trungs and Sais. I’m very proud of how Tuan turned out. I adore Yuan, who you’ve barely met, and Xun, who you haven’t. Huang and Wu Sheng are also definite faves and I can’t wait for y’all to get to know them better.

Characters do usually behave for me in terms of personality development. They surprise me, but they never really turn out to be the complete OPPOSITE of what I was expecting? They just kinda develop organically. Huang and Wu Sheng surprised me, tho, those boys got deep. I knew they had the potential, but developing their backstory actually caused Stingrae and I to develop Ba Sing Se’s socio-political backstory and Long Feng’s rise to power, all because of an inkling I had. That was a very satisfying few years of worldbuilding and story development.

Um, favorite part of the fic....idk, I’m very fond of the final scene, with Azula and her wall chunk from Lu Ten. I’m doubly fond of it because of how it always resonates with readers. Heck, during Azula week last year, I used that chunk of rock as an ongoing theme in Sandstone, and someone commented like “I DIDN’T REALIZE YOU’RE THE ONE WHO WROTE GILDED GREEN” and that made me really happy!

Lu Ten’s time stuck underground - I used the seven stages of grief to get through that one and it was very helpful in structuring that part of the story, and I figured it was deep or something because PSYCHOLOGY.

I’m also proud of myself for getting through the dark brainwashing scenes. So, like, FYI, fanfiction could get...very dark, back in the 00s. People love to play purity police these days and complain about how nasty people get can, but listen. Listen. Do you have any idea how dark FFdotnet got back in the day? Legolas And Aragorn Get Captured By Orcs And Brutally Tortured was an entire genre. I feel like torture fic was actually a lot more common back then, and darkfic in general - I’m sure someone could write a whole thesis on why it’s not so prevalent anymore, I’m gonna guess the fact that fandom is less-insulated and more public now could be part of it, maybe also the fact that the internet is more social media/influencer culture based so people care about their image, and also the purity police which is its own kettle of worms, but I also think that the Bush Administration had something to do with it? You have all these kids who were pre-teens when 9/11 happened, growing up during the Iraq War with an awful presidential administration while everyone was scared and conservative Christianity started to realize that their control over the nation’s “morality” might be slipping and reacted accordingly......yeah there was a lot of darkfic back then.

And I read a lot of darkfic too, but, uh....well, statistically speaking, a lot of writing is bad, okay? A lot of those fics were just weird; you could see where the writer had this idea, and also where they failed to execute it in a way that resonated or made sense. And whatever, writers were young and just wanted to pound out some catharsis, it’s cool, but it still just felt narratively awkward when you could tell how the writer was more focused on LET’S MAKE THIS AS DARK AS POSSIBLE instead of “Let’s tell this as well as possible.”

So the first several attempts at writing the brainwashing scenes, I was nervous because I didn’t want to get TOO dark, and when I finally decided “eff it” and said to Stingrae “I think I need to let this be as dark as it needs to be” I was still nervous because I didn’t want it to end up WEIRD. Idk if that makes sense, but anyway I seem to have done a decent job at it!

As for parts I dislike the most, uhhhhh Iroh’s retreat (I didn’t care, I just wanted to get it over with), Enlai might’ve been promoted too fast? idk, the fact that I came up with Nanyue AFTER I finished publishing GG so I couldn’t work that into the Quy bits, the fact that I was young and innocent and didn’t understand sexual slang or innuendo and randomly chose Dong as the name of the court physician which could lead to some awful puns except no one ever seemed to pick up on that and maybe I’ll regret pointing it out but the man IS going to appear again so I might as well get the first shot in myself. XD

I might have GG2 stuff to talk about but not sure, if I do I’ll make another post on that!

<3

[randomfandomblabdom]

I already posted this as a response to someone else’s post which I’ll link right here but I wanted to put it in my own post about the Outlander Season 5 Finale which, for all intents and purposes, was fairly well done in my opinion. I still love the show, I’ll still watch it, and still think it’s one of the better, most underrated pieces of television out there right now and I know everyone and their mother has made a post on this but...

As a small disclaimer: I’ve never read the books, so I can only make judgments based off the show. 

I always say that the first book/season of Outlander uses rape in a really interesting way story-wise. People are always kind of put off when I say that and I understand why. Using rape as a plot device is an extremely touchy, controversial subject but I genuinely don’t mind as long as it’s handled delicately. Season 1’s was foreshadowed and built up extremely well, it made sense within the context of the narrative as well as character traits previously set up earlier in the season, and it progressed the story forward in a way that felt natural. Was it necessary? No, not really but it didn’t come out of nowhere and the healing process - though somewhat sped up at the end - was handled with care. (It also brought up some really interesting discussions about male rape in general). Unpopular opinion but I’m also a really big fan of the change that they made in Season 2 regarding Jamie’s trauma. Apparently he experiences little to no mental/emotional damage in the 2nd book. Kudos to the writers for that one regardless of how well it was handled, that was the right decision to make in my opinion. As someone with a degree in psychology, I would have been pissed if Jamie didn’t feel any sort of repercussions after such a traumatic event. 

That being said, most of the other rapes on this show could have easily been written around.

Mary’s was completely unnecessary to the plot aside from giving a kind of stupid reason that Claire could use to convince Alex (that’s his name right?) not to marry her. Well…no, that’s not true. It did put even more doubt on St. Germain and it’s basically the reason the Duke gets killed later, so I guess there’s soooome payoff there but again, it didn’t have to be rape for it to cause drama and tension.

Fergus is a bit iffy as it’s basically the definition of a plot device. It’s what brings about an entire chain of events that need to happen in order to get to the next chapter of the story. That being said, if the writers were hell-bent on keeping the assault, he didn’t have to be raped. It could have been a close call. A near-rape would have been plenty to anger Jamie enough to break his promise to Claire. Not to mention, it’s only brought up once after that when it’s convenient to the plot and then never mentioned again which is a bit absurd because uhhh… he’s literally a child.

Ian was just…okay, I’m not the biggest fan of the latter half of Season 3 in general but again, that really served little to no narrative purpose. Geillis being alive and covered in blood was enough shock value as it was. Just allude to it at the beginning of Season 4 when him and Jamie are digging the grave, that would have been absolutely fine but again, it never comes up again after that scene. 

Bree’s I’m somewhat okay with considering who Stephen Bonnet is as a character. It makes sense for him to do it within the context of the story. However, why not allow Bree some agency in that moment and choose to sleep with him in exchange for her mother’s ring? It still could have brought about the debate regarding Jemmy’s parentage and could have dealt with things like shame and guilt over making that choice. Sure, it would be a change from the books but it’s not like the writers have never changed anything before. I get that it gave Jamie and Brianna something but bond over but did it have to be that of all things? At the very least, maybe have Bree’s happen and not Claire’s? Or visa versa? 

Having this happen to Claire would have been far more impactful had all of the previous ones either not happened at all or were not shown on screen - explicit or not. While I’m curious to see how this will impact her and their relationship in the next season (whenever the heck we’ll be getting that), all of this deserves to be called out. They could have easily changed it to Claire only being beaten or abused but once again, the writers chose not to. Not to mention, it felt completely out of the blue to me. It was beautifully filmed and well acted and I understand that they probably need to create tension between the Browns and the Frasers for whatever’s to come but...why this way?

I’m not trying to desensitize rape nor am I saying that it shouldn’t be shown in media. These things do happen in real life, awful things that warrant discussion and having it in stories or media is a good way of starting said-discussions but when it’s being used as nothing more then a plot device that only impacts the characters for as long as is narratively necessary and is treated as really nothing more then lazy character development…that’s a problem. Again, I’ll continue watching the show cause I still enjoy it and I’ll continue to rewatch my favorite parts but this is getting ridiculous. 

(Jesus, I just realized that a character has been raped in every season of Outlander…how is this one of my favorite shows right now?? Oh yeah, cause Season 1 is really fucking good and Jamie and Claire are literally the best pairing on tv lol)

*this doesn’t even include Claire sleeping with the King or any other attempted rape that has taken place on the show*

[itsclydebitches]

You really have to wonder where the heck volume 8 is going to go. I get cliff hanger season finales, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t a good thing for a show leave people wondering what the fuck is going to happen next season because the situation is so simultaneously confusing for the audience and hopeless for the protagonists. This really ties into your RWBY has no plan criticism. Okay, so they’ll land the bullhead and do...what? WTF are they going to do?! Seriously! Ugh 😑

RWBY has actually got me thinking a lot about early forms of visual, serialized storytelling. Authors prioritizing the emotional impact of a cliffhanger - “Omg that was so intense! I have to come back and find out how this is resolved!” - over the actual continuity of the story - “So... how will we solve this problem?” - is nothing new. Indeed, it’s somewhat popular because you’ve already achieved the primary goal of getting viewers to come back and consume your product. It almost doesn’t matter if the product is good provided you continue to generate those feelings of, “Dammit, I have to know how they get out of this situation” and get viewers back in their seat. Even when the viewer has reason to believe that the explanation won’t make sense/won’t be satisfying. It’s a capitalist perspective to storytelling (I just want to make money) as opposed to an artistic perspective (I just want to tell a good tale).  

Ben Singer refers to these as cop-out cliffhangers and (in film, far earlier in comic strips) they began in the early 1910′s. To quote from his book Melodrama and Modernity: Early Sensational Cinema and Its Contexts, emphasis mine: 

“By late 1914 or early 1915, virtually all episodes [of serials] culminated in suspenseful cliffhanger endings. With this design, serials encouraged a steady volume of return customers, tantalized and eager for the fix of narrative closure withheld in the previous installment. In this system of artificially perpetuated desire, serials conveyed a certain acuity about the new psychology of modern consumerism. Actually, the design is slightly more elaborate due to the cliffhanger’s system of narrative overlap wherein the next episode briefly retraced (usually with cop-out modifications) the immediate situation leading up to the cliffhanger” (210-11) 

AKA, a lot of serials ended with a threat seemingly impossible to overcome (woman is falling to her death - cliffhanger), rehashed that ending at the beginning of the next installment (woman is falling to her death - opening), and in doing so changed some crucial aspect that allows the characters to escape when they previously couldn’t have (woman now has a parachute when she didn’t before). As that example shows, such cop-out cliffhangers include continuations that completely re-write what came previously, such as Undersea Kingdom where in one installment you’ll end with the characters getting blown off a cliff of their own, but the next installment begins with them still at the edge, erasing any continuity. Other cop-out cliffhangers are a little more complicated, such as A Woman in Grey where installment #1 shows a massive block about to crush our bound Ruth and in installment #2 it misses her... even though she was directly underneath the block in installment #1. I expect RWBY to fit within this kind of cop-out, simply because we’ve seen them do it numerous times before. We’re presented with Situation A, then Solution B that doesn’t really make sense, and the fandom is left to connect the two themselves. Which they do, often letting RT off the hook in the process. As Singer says of that Grey episode: 

“A charitable reading would surmise that during his attack Hunter [another character involved] had inadvertently moved the bed on which Ruth was tied [resulting in the block not hitting her]; but since that is not established, it is probably more likely that the film simply hopes viewers will be too excited by the thrilling events to remember the spatial details of the previous episode’s cliffhanger crisis” (143) 

Authors may have thought they could get away with this in 1920 (audiences have always paid attention) but this is the digital age. Every installment of RWBY is re-watchable. More importantly, it’s GIFable. Viewers don’t even need to put forth the effort of re-watching the show because others do that labor for us, condensing these moments into bite-sized pieces we see on our dashes for months on end, to the point where we know the canon even better than the authors do. Yet RWBY continues to present “solutions” with the (presumed) hopes that a) audiences won’t remember what actually happened, b) audiences will be too caught up in the excitement of the story to care about logic, or c) audiences will do the work of connecting the two scenarios for RT, often doing a whole number of logistical gymnastics in an effort to get the solution to make some sort of sense. I’ve seen all three of these results countless times, but that doesn’t mean audiences should have been put in that situation in the first place. It’s not “good” writing, but it’s what I expect of Volume 8. I don’t think RT is so bold as to actively erase canon to the extent we’ve seen in some serials, but providing us with “solutions” to the Salem problem that don’t line up with what we learned in Volume 7? Absolutely. 

[a-crimson-lion]

Katsuki Bakugo: Lightning Round

[Bakugo bashing ahead. Avoid if you don't like that sort of thing. Potiential spoilers. Viewer's discretion is advised.]

Sometimes you just gotta review every nook and cranny for why you hate a character.

Just my opinions, btw. Maybe they're acurate, maybe not. In any case, I do hope Katsuki improves in a more meaningful way than he has been so far.

Now then, let's begin...

The only things legitimately going for Katsuki are his looks and his quirk. That's it. His attitude has gone from megalomaniacal asshole to slightly above average asshole, but everyone treats it like a gigantic improvement. It's only a noticable improvement. You want to see gigantic improvement? Look at Izuku. Look at Tenya. Look at Shoto Todoroki. THAT'S gigantic improvement.

It does not matter that Katsuki told Izuku to kill himself once. It does not matter that Izuku dismisses the idea and it has never been brought up again in the story thus far. Katsuki still told Izuku to kill himself on top of all the other physical and mental abuse. Izuku doesn't jump off of a roof because he wants to live; he doesn't do it because it would tarnish Katsuki's reputation. This kid has no sense of self-esteem, self worth, or self-preservation because Katsuki beated and berated it out of him over the past decade.

Look, I'm glad U.A. isn't taking Katsuki's crap as lightly as his middle school did, but they're still taking his crap. For one of the best hero schools in Japan, they didn't do background checks? (Granted his middle school probably gave him a flawless record because of his "potential.") Katsuki charging at Izuku shoulf have at least sent Eraserhead some red flags. No one gonna talk to him about nearly NUKING another student during the Battle Trial? Good Lord...

Eijiro, sweetie, you're a good character, so why do you follow Katsuki around? I get it, you're helping him improve as time goes on, but what has he done aside from impress you with several admittably awe-inspiring feats of strength? You didn't approve of him much during the Battle Trial. You some how started turning tail during the USJ. Katsuki is not being "manly" during the Sports Festival, he's being an egotist. He probably only took you on his team aside from your quirk because you brought up beating Izuku. Why aren't you more friendly with Tetsutetsu!? You both have better chemistry than... whatever it is you have with Katsuki. For Pete's sake, didn't you deal with bullies in your past? Why can't you see that, even toned down, that's how Katsuki is treating Izuku!? It's not him being excessively angry, that's him being his normal and rational self. He thinks telling people to die is normal; it's not some sort of charming characteristic. Why is it treated as such!?

Katsuki, you got third place in the Obstacle Course. I get that you're upset you didn't get first, but you don't have to look like you're about to commit murder.

You got second place in the Cavalry Battle. You get to move on to the tournament. Why are you whining like you just lost the whole thing?

Katsuki would throw down with anyone he came across in the tournament. Going all out against Ochako is nothing special. He would have gone out against anybody else all the same.

Also, Katsuki's sudden power buff has no logical explanation other than Horikoshi not wanting to give one of his favorites actual consequences. It would have made more sense from a logical and character developing standpoint if Ochako actually won that match. She could have lost at any other point (or heck, maybe even pull a full blown win), and she would still come to the conclusion that she needed to get stronger, and thus apply for Gunhead. Katsuki would get a better reality check than if he beat Shoto. Just saying.

Katsuki didn't even think Ochako was a threat just because she was. He naturally had to come to the conclusion that Izuku was the one responsible. And then Izuku goes and puts his sorry ass in check by giving him the facts. He's not gonna have somebody diss his friends and get away with it.

"Izuku didn't have faith in Ochako." ...Izuku has had to endure the burden of knowing Katsuki Bakugo since childhood. He's only known Ochako for a few months. He's experienced firsthand the kind of firepower Katsuki's wielding. Ochako had the decency to keep Izuku from falling, save Izuku from dying, changing Izuku's insult into something empowering, help Izuku win the Battle Trial, and help Izuku and his team advance to the Tournament. Naturally, he wants to pay back Ochako for all the times she helped him, and what better way to do it than give her a strategy? But she refuses. And Izuku doesn't push it. Ochako says she's got this, so even if Izuku is worried, he'll put that aside and trust Ochako. He'll root for her regardless of circumstance. "Didn't have faith?" What a load of crap. And then people will point to Katsuki's "What part of her was fragile?" even though he wasn't even taking her as a threat. He was taking her association with Izuku as a threat, forgoing the possibility that she came up with that strategy by herself until Izuku set the record straight. *Exhale* That rant felt good...

Katsuki. You won the Sports Festival. You should at least have the decency to keep yourself composed. I don't care if Shoto didn't give it his all; YOU of all people overheard his backstory! Your ego be damned, Shoto doesn't have to go all out if he doesn't feel like it. Emotions are complicated, Katsuki, and you know that, too. But by all means, please act like an unreasonable animal just because you think you're above us mere mortals.

...Katsuki isn't directly responsible for Izuku's Full Cowl. Stop framing it like he is. If anything, that's all Gran Torino with a bit of Tsuyu and maybe some of Katsuki's fundamentals, but it isn't directly Katsuki. It never was, and it never will be.

How does Katsuki pass the exam again? He hit Izuku just for trying to talk to him. He kept trying to attack All Might and refused to cooperate with Izuku at the start. He had to get his sorry butt dragged out by Izuku because Izuku is selfless and the only one there acting out of reason. Are we watching the same footage? As far as circumstances go, Izuku passed with flying colors. Katsuki should have been lumped into remedial lessons at camp with the rest of the Bakusquad and Rikido.

Katsuki, for the love of God, you were ordered multiple times to get back to camp. Stop acting like you're hot shit and trying to take out the villains. Maybe if you listened to Mandalay, you could have avoided capture altogether. But no, you have to go and act like an asshole trying to take down Moonfish, and because you were out in the open for so damn long, give Mr. Compress the opportunity to capture you and make Izuku and the rest of U.A. suffer for your actions. Wow...

I've had it up to here with Katsuki's "I didn't need help" routine. You just got saved by All Might when you didn't even have a plan for breaking out of the hideout yourself. Your classmates found a way to get you away from the battlefield and from the villains without being followed, so stop acting like you weren't rescued. Accept the fact that you needed help, full stop. Nobody likes to admit it, but it makes you a better person for it.

Why are you so surprised that you failed the Provisional License Exam? You did well enough in the first half, but you clearly forgot that interacting and actually helping citizens was a part of hero work? Jeez...

Katsuki. Talk to All Might if you feel bad about ending his career. Using your usual method of beating up Izuku does nothing, even if he inherited All Might's power. Why the hell does that matter to you anyway? How does knowing about One for All help you in any way, shape, or form? Why does Izuku have to be the one to take your shit? Why can't you be remotely reasonable and just TALK to All Might instead of tracking down Izuku just because of some weakly related correlation?

Haven't gotten that far in the series aside from the Shie Hassaikai arc, but I did see some stuff about the Joint Training Arc. Katsuki announces he's gonna get a 4-0 victory. Katsuki saves Kyoka. This isn't Katsuki taking All Might's words to heart in spite of what the narrative is trying to tell us. This is Katsuki's ego at work. His pride just happens to be tied to his teammates in this regard. Also, "This team is too perfect?" Where was Hanta, or Rikido? Kyoka barely did anything... This is just Horikoshi trying to play up Katsuki's development, and it's getting annoying.

Again, what does knowing about One for All actually do for Katsuki? He acts like Izuku and All Might forced the secret on him, even though Izuku willingly told him after the Battle Trail and Katsuki threw a tantrum after figuring it out. And then he decides the best way to unlock Black Whip is by combat, even though we know and Izuku knows (to some extent) that black whip was psychologically triggered.

I don't know where it is in the manga, but Katsuki says something along the lines of "Did something happen with One for All?" in regards to Izuku. Not "Did something happen with your quirk?" All Might has accepted that it's Izuku's quirk, Izuku is starting to accept that he's making One for All his own, but Katsuki saying OFA's full name makes it seem like there's a distinction. Katsuki calls it OFA because he still sees it as All Might's power. He accepts that Izuku wields that power, but he doesn't accept that Izuku owns it. He thinks it's a borrowed sword, not a sword Izuku owns. That's why he bothers keeping OFA a secret: it was All Might's secret. Izuku just happens to be a side effect of said secret, nothing more. He thinks that Izuku is capable now solely because he has a quirk. That's only partially true, considering the amount of work Izuku put into recieving OFA, and the additional amount of work and strife he endured in order to properly control it. Honestly, Izuku deserves better than Katsuki.

Looks like I'm done for the day. Whew, this was cathartic.

-Crimson Lion (14 August 2019)

[daresplaining]

Iron Fist Season 2 Trailer Analysis

    We are just over two weeks away from the second season of Iron Fist, and we hope we won’t lose our Daredevil blogging license if we say we’re currently more excited about this than about DD Season 3. Season 1 set up some amazing stories that look like they’re going to be every inch as awesome as we’d hoped! Let’s take a look at this sucker punch of a trailer.

    Showrunner Raven Metzner has mentioned that one of his goals was to bring the action out onto the streets of New York (specifically, Chinatown). The trailer starts with a standard-issue nighttime criminal beatdown that’s likely from the first episode. And we’ve seen in the earlier promos that Danny has taken Matt’s “last” words to heart. He has fashioned himself a new purpose as the Iron Fist on Earth: stopping crime in his new city. And Danny certainly does this in the comics too, since he spends most of his time on Earth. What’s interesting here is Colleen’s comment, because it suggests a take on this narrative that has never really been part of Danny’s story before. A lot of street-level heroes run themselves ragged to the concern of the civilians in their lives. Matt Murdock is a prime example-- bringing the negative effects of his superheroics into the lives of his non-superhero loved ones is one of his primary modi operandi (love ya, Matt...). But we’ve never really seen this with Danny because 1. he doesn’t really have a civilian life to come home to, and 2. he doesn’t tend to surround himself with civilians. If he’s out all the time being a superhero, that’s cool, because so is his girlfriend (in most cases) and all of his friends. And he usually has a pretty good handle on it. He doesn’t tend to beat himself into the ground fighting crime the way Matt does-- partly because Danny has some degree of super-stamina going on, but also because most Iron Fist stories don’t tend to focus on that sort of thing. But clearly, this one will, and it’s a neat way of exploring Danny making the shift to being an Actual Superhero(TM).  

    It’s also interesting to hear this from Colleen, for the reasons mentioned above. Colleen is a crimefighter too. You’d think she’d be out there with him. But Jessica Henwick has mentioned that since so much of Colleen’s training was facilitated by the Hand, the whole experience has become somewhat tainted for her. Fighting brings back memories of that bad experience, from which she has still far from recovered, and so it seems that she will be trying to avoid it. While this certainly doesn’t make her a straight-up civilian, it clearly will give her enough perspective to see that Danny is going too far. 

    It’s usually pointless to try and analyze out-of-context dialogue in trailers because it is often misleading/edited beyond recognition/etc. But we have to say something about this line because it worries us. The process by which Iron Fist candidates are selected in this universe was left vague last season in order to add power to the conflict between Danny and Davos. We know it’s going to be clarified this season, and it seems that-- like in the comics-- it will involve ritual combat of some type. In the comics, all boys of a certain age are eligible, and according to the most recent continuity, they fight in a big tournament in which participation is... probably not optional. However, Danny wanting the Iron Fist is a major part of his early narrative in the comics. It’s this desire that, in part, empowers him to win it. He has the passion and drive, and also the skills to back it up (unlike Davos, who mostly just had the former). Removing that desire and pride in the legacy weakens Danny’s entire character. He needs to feel honored to be the Iron Fist. He needs to be confident in his ability to be a good Iron Fist. Otherwise, when Davos challenges him for the position this season, Danny won’t have a leg to stand on. We always come back to this line from Immortal Iron Fist when thinking about the Danny/Davos dynamic: 

Danny: “That’s the difference between us, Davos. You want eternal life... You want unlimited power... The Iron Fist wants only honor in death.”

Immortal Iron Fist #6 by Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, David Aja, and Matt Hollingsworth

    Davos wants the chi of Shou-Lao for his own selfish reasons-- to serve his ego, to soothe his father issues, to feel tough and invincible-- whereas Danny comes to understand the responsibility and the legacy and the significance of the position itself. And we fully support adding complexity to Davos’s motivations; we loved Davos’s humanization last season and are looking forward to more of it this season. But this shouldn’t come with a weakening of Danny’s motivations. Making a characterization choice like that would make no sense. Heck-- Danny flat-out stated last season that he wanted to be the Iron Fist and actively worked toward that goal. But again-- this line may end up being perfectly logical in-context, and we trust that Raven Metzner is a big enough Iron Fist fan to be aware of the above-mentioned concerns. 

    This is very mysterious. They also released a promotional still featuring these women, possibly from a different fight (or maybe Colleen just takes her jacket off):

    This fight came up at various points during interviews at SDCC, and the amount of verbal tiptoeing that took place during those conversations implied that these are comics characters. But so far we have no idea who they could be, and given the integration of Typhoid Mary (a DD antagonist) into the show... they’re not necessarily Iron Fist characters. They could be just about anybody. The scene from the trailer seems to take place in a tattoo parlor, which may end up being significant. Either way, we’re excited to find out who these guys are, and of course, to watch them get their butts kicked by Colleen and Misty.  

    It’s Davos, looking fancy and trying to channel Danny from Immortal Iron Fist! 

Danny: “Davos. You and I have some family business to resolve...”

Immortal Iron Fist #6 by Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, David Aja, and Matt Hollingsworth

    (A weak attempt, Davos...)

    Based on Danny’s nicely charred outfit here (which we saw last season too), this is a flashback to shortly after he acquired the chi of Shou-Lao. We are massively excited about all of these flashbacks and the ways they will dig into Danny’s psyche, his dynamic with Davos, and the K’un-Lun worldbuilding in general-- all of which are priorities for us this season.

    This setting is in the trailer a lot, and it seems to be some kind of home base/training center for Davos and Joy. We don’t know what it is, but it is visually awesome, and clearly very significant. And of course... we’ve also been on the edge of our collective seat since Season 1 waiting to see the Joy/Davos team-up will get adapted, so we’re psyched! In the comics, Davos offers up his services to the Meachums once he discovers they want Danny dead too. The Meachums finance him-- and Joy has him do a few jobs for her on the side-- and in return he gets a shot at the Iron Fist. In the show we’re expecting more nuance. This has always been an unusual team-up, and we’re really excited to see how their dynamic plays out, and to see how this version of Joy handles her revenge quest.  

    AAAAAH!

    This is concrete confirmation of one of our big hopes for this season: further exploration of the Iron Fist legacy. Not only is the legacy really interesting and fun, but learning more about his predecessors helps comics Danny to place his career in a broader context and thereby empowers him-- and we’re hoping for the same in the MCU. This is also a really nice look at the mask, and confirmation that even though Danny and Davos we both wearing these during their fight, the official Iron Fist mask also looks like that. (Which we could have guessed, obviously, but confirmation is nice). And of course, the big question is: Who is this?! 

    It’s Mary! Earlier in the trailer we see her seemingly teaming up with Danny, and now she’s kicking his butt. We’re going to write a post about Typhoid Mary for our countdown, but for anyone unfamiliar, she is a Daredevil antagonist in the comics, and has multiple personalities. One of these personalities is very docile and kind. The others are varying degrees of extremely violent. Thus, Mary spends a lot of time battling herself as the different personalities fight for control. As if this didn’t make her dangerous enough, she also has telepathy, telekinesis, and pyrokinesis… though we don’t know yet whether that’s true of her in this universe.

    The Iron Fist Twitter account also just posted this image, which might be a note Mary has left for herself: 

    Davos is actually using the Steel Serpent symbol! This was far from guaranteed, considering how much the symbol has been repurposed already in this universe. Steel Serpent was introduced as a type of heroin all the way back in Daredevil Season 1. We’re curious to see how they reconcile that with Davos’s claiming of the symbol, but also really happy that he’s using it at all, because dammit, that’s his. In the comics, he loses the right to face the dragon to Danny’s father Wendell (who ends up chickening out at the last minute). Feeling bitter and petulant about the whole thing, Davos sneaks out and illegally tries to fight Shou-Lao anyway. He almost dies, and is left with a partial brand and a whole lot of psychological scarring. Clearly, that’s not the case here, and we’re eager to see how and why he ends up claiming that symbol in this context. 

    Also... who’s that?

    It also seems that Davos has the chi of Shou-Lao! Or at the very least, something that mimics it. Since becoming the Iron Fist is Davos’s big life goal, this happens a whole bunch of times in the comics, and it’s exciting that MCU Davos will be doing the same. In the comics this kind of story has taken several different forms. In a few cases Davos has managed to tap into other sources of chi that have given him powers analogous to that of an actual Iron Fist. And there are also a few times he has actually stolen Danny’s chi. This has never really worked out for him. In one instance, Danny simply challenges him to ritual combat and wins his powers back. And in the other, Davos loses control of the chi, causing him to spontaneously combust (don’t worry, he uh, comes back to life eventually...). 

    The contents of the trailer seem to suggest that this might be a case of actual chi theft, which is the most exciting option, because it also means that Danny will spend part of the season powerless— which is always a compelling superhero narrative (at least, in our opinion). And since this power is tied directly to Danny’s identity as the Iron Fist, fighting to get it back will allow Danny to fully analyze what that part of his identity means to him, how much he wants it, and by fighting for it, to thus own all of that. This is really exciting, and makes sense as a logical next step in the journey he has been taking in these shows. 

    In the comics, stealing chi in this way involves what we've dubbed “Extreme Hugging”: 

Davos: “Step into my arms, young fool!”

Iron Fist vol. 1 #15 by Chris Claremont, John Byrne, and B. Patterson    

Danny: “Come... embrace me.”

Iron Fist vol. 2 #2 by James Felder, Robert Brown, and Mike Thomas

    We hope the same is true in the show, because we cherish this heartwarming worldbuilding detail.

    MISTYYY! Misty Misty Misty MistyMistyMistyMisty!

    Oh, right. Analysis.

    Misty is coming home! Her debut issue was Marvel Premiere #21 (an Iron Fist comic), she was a major Iron Fist character for a huge chunk of her career, she and Danny dated on-and-off for thirty years as Marvel’s first interracial couple, she and Colleen have been business partners and best friends for nearly their entire comics existence, and it’s about dang time she made her way onto this show! All of the information we have so far suggests that Misty’s police work will take her to Chinatown, where she will end up working with Danny and Colleen. We’re dying to see this, because she has yet to even speak to Danny on-screen(?!!?!), her friendship with Colleen was beautifully set up in Luke Cage Season 2, and we cannot wait to see how she reacts to all of the trademark Iron Fist shenanigans.         

    (Woooo!)

    It goes without saying that all of the fight scenes look awesome. If we took the time to go through and point out every cool fight, this post would be way too long. Here’s another one: 

    (There are a whole bunch of kitchen fight clips in this trailer. Can’t wait! You can’t go wrong with a kitchen fight.)

    And one more: 

    But just watch the trailer. This season is going to have some amazing action-- which, as an Iron Fist show, it should. 

    Once again, amid all of the supernatural shenanigans we have the poor Meachum siblings. For us, most of what made Ward interesting died with Harold, so we’re curious to see how he’ll fit into this season. On the other hand, Joy is going to be right in the thick of things, and so watching how that impacts their relationship should be fascinating. Whose side will Ward take? Will he finally get a vacation?  

    We also know, as mentioned above, that Danny and Colleen are still dating, and have in fact moved in together. (They were already essentially living together, so this isn’t that surprising.) Based on the little promos the Twitter account has been putting out, this season is clearly going to emphasize this relationship, and all of the struggles and complications inherent in this degree of intimacy. We don’t find romance all that interesting, though have been impressed by how well the writers and actors involved have crafted this relationship. And of course, we love Danny and Colleen and are happy to see them in any context. 

    T-minus sixteen days to go!

[ruwithmeguys]

Hi there jessica! Do you see a reunion of olicity before the season ends?

Yes.

…Were you looking for a bit more? ;)

Ok, but I’m going to add a couple of other asks to this because they’re very similar and no point writing out the same reply 5 different ways (2 have been in my inbox for too long, oops):

“Hello; read your posts, really liked your explanations but I’m worrying. I don’t see how Olicity could reunite by ep20! Won’t they need more time?! They’ve already taken so long. Since they’re following S3, they could sleep together, especially if they go on the run together. Saw a theory that they go Lian Yu? That would be interesting. Would fit with them running. What do you think’s going to happen?”

“Hi! There have been a lot of theories about Olicity this season. Do you really think season 5 is paralleling season 3?”

“Hey Jessica! So what do you think about the Olicity love scene being a flashback?”

“What about Oliver’s dark spiral? SA said he’s going to be resigned to his fate; won’t that affect a possible reunion?”

Wow! I see: it’s THAT time of year! (I’ll do my best!)

Here’s the meat of it: since they broke up, I have been 100% certain that Olicity would get back together but I wasn’t always certain of when until last October (2016). I figured they’d be sending the wrong kind of message to have them take 2 or 3 seasons to reunite; as if they were the type of couple who couldn’t work through their differences and that ONLY time apart could heal them.

Time apart – factually – would kill them.

It’s part of the reason why she stayed with him in episode 4.23.

But until last year, I was the type of reviewer that didn’t think or consider the content of the shows I watch. I should have done because I missed so many clues. I took Psychology (a lifetime ago and am rusty as heck so don’t expect any profiling, you’ll be disappointed ;)) and I loved English literature; I know what a thematic analysis is etc, so… shouldn’t I have known better?

I have my own life but Arrow – this fandom – is where I go to replenish, so to speak. It’s where my brain switches off. To escape for a while. But it became more than that during season 4. Suddenly it was this hopeful symbol; the idea, however naïve, that love prevails and that trust can be earned, that even when things look so very bad, they can always get better. Naïve, right?

Because then Oliver and Felicity broke up and my mind just kind of went… ‘what’?

Too much heart. Not enough brain :)

I was too involved in what I was watching and sometimes you need to take several steps back and actually connect some dots: I used to be so good at that. But it had been years and I’d forgotten how. But then I found @louiseblue1 and her insights; these on top of @jbuffyangel reviews and her fabulous way of understanding narrative flows, Cali’s knack for hitting the head of every nail out there and @dust2dust34 @so-caffeinated natural understanding of Oliver Queen, gave me a kind of swift subconscious kick to the head that I needed to pull back a bit and really look at the show the way it needed to be looked at.

(I will fully admit that I’ve needed Bre and @callistawolf to bring me back from a major huff and puff once or twice this year too;))

I say this because I want you to understand that I’m just going off what I now see. I may not be right. But until proven otherwise, I’m sticking to the near-invisible threads we’ve been watching so far this season.

Do I think they’ll reunite by season end? Yes. Absolutely. Since Diggle asked Oliver that question in episode 1, about whether his life would personally involve Felicity Smoak in future (OF COURSE IT WILL), to which he answered ‘I don’t know’.

Since then.

There are other reasons why I do but as the above questions don’t ask for them, I’m going to save you the many pages I’d write about them ;)

Okay! *rubs hands together* episode 20…

Why are people assuming they WILL reunite episode 20?

Has there been a spoiler saying they will?

I’d LOVE it but I think we’ve learned pretty damn well that expecting anything to happen will only end in disappointment.

Just because its episode 20, it doesn’t mean they’re following season 3 to the letter. I’ve had a few asks that have made it very clear to me that people are expecting a LITERAL – not just a figurative – 3.20 parallel for episode 5.20.

Please don’t.

Season 5’s parallels to season 3 are absolutely present and we should pay attention to them but they also haven’t been quite so obvious thus far as to copy season 3’s progression.

The obvious parallel is that Felicity is – in a different kind of slide into darkness – sort of doing a ‘season 3 Oliver Queen’. But mostly, it’s been in the little things. And the symbolic things.

For instance, I highly doubt O + F are going to go away together to someplace in episode 20, have some life affirming sex (I’D LOVE IT THOUGH), say I love you and have Oliver leave her to face her horrible fate… just like a 3.20 parallel. Like a copy and paste, just switching character placements.

I don’t think I like that idea. It feels cheap. This deserves to be handled properly; no rushing.

For one thing, from the spoilers, I think they’re trapped – not necessarily running - and the team needs to save them (remember that pick of Echo propelling down that shaft?). I think they’ll be alone together.

As I theorized in my post (an hour or a day), I think they’re going to air everything out in this episode. Big time. They’ll have no choice because they’re trapped but to face each other. They’ll have no choice because with out it, moving forwards will be impossible for them. And though I have no idea what would come of it I do know that by itself is supremely different to what happened with them 3.20. That was an ‘I love you’ and a ‘goodbye’. A physical representation of repressed feelings coming to the surface.

Oliver and Felicity have always been magical at communicating without words, which was why sex was the obvious conclusion in 3.20.

But THIS time? They NEED to flipping talk.

And sometimes? Talking is an intimacy – and an openness - unto itself that even sex cannot reach.

I think they need to reach that final level with each other; the level where two people meet in the center and understand each other completely. They’re going to connect. Really connect, one soul to another (cheesy I know), or that’s what I hope for. I mean, there really is no other choice for these two.

They’ve ruined each other for anyone else.

Felicity found a boyfriend in Billy, because it wasn’t a chance to take (she wasn’t risking her heart, she was defending it); he was an escape option and a shield. It was her saying ‘look how fine I am’? ‘I’m absolutely over Oliver Queen’. ‘He can do whatever he likes too’. ‘No I don’t think about him every second of the day’…

It’s human. And it’s painful. And it’s sad. It’s natural. It tells us just how much she isn’t passed it all.

Oliver found Snoozan who, like Billy, doesn’t quite fit the title of girlfriend.

Neither Oliver or Felicity – or ANY other character – has really been able to refer to Billy/Snoozan as their boyfriend/girlfriend respectively which delights me.

Oliver has been routine in his belief that he isn’t good enough for Felicity since season 3 (a bit of 2 as well), so he settled for whatever life threw at him this year (HIS WORDS IN EPSIDOE 5). Life threw Snoozan at him and he went along for the ride.

Wow.

Both Felicity and Oliver developed feelings for these two but I promise you now, those feelings aren’t lasting. Nor are they romantic love.

They’re both these tools for O + F to try with.

These attempts failed horrifically.

Billy was killed by Oliver, a deliberate attempt of Adrian’s to prove him the monster he keeps inferring he is and Snoozan and Oliver broke because of secrets he refused to share hoping she’d just believe in him anyway.

Which she didn’t.

(Funny, we all thought Oliver would tell her his secret etc but he didn’t even come close and he CHOOSE that; it’s why he questions what he was even thinking getting involved with her. I’ll tell you Oliver; you were lonely and desperate for someone to see a man instead of the monster you think you are. Poor guy.)

Because, when you spend enough time with someone you develop feelings for them. It’s only natural. But it also makes me feel sorry for Billy and Snoozan (not really) because neither Oliver nor Felicity chose them because they were attracted to them, or because they were tempted, or because they even liked them.

Felicity was hiding. Oliver was settling. Both were looking for comfort.

How flattering.

Which ultimately makes both these relationships utterly unimportant.

AND it explains how stiff Oliver was after sleeping with Snoozan and the feeling that Felicity wasn’t completely present with Billy after they’d done the same.

Now timing has been ridiculous on this show; sometimes the pacing makes sense, sometimes it doesn’t. Maybe the flashback will explain more as to the why’s of their behaviour. But, really, one episode is all they need. OF COURSE THERE’S TIME.

Olicity has spent the season decidedly NOT talking. And it HAS to be for a reason. They used to always talk. Now they don’t. Why did they make that choice? A choice that has obviously hurt them both.

Just as the flashback sex HAS to be for a reason. As great as it is that they will show this, they wouldn’t do it without a reason. I’m guessing that whatever happened between them between S4 and 5, explains their behaviour this season. There’s been a ‘we’re completely fine’ air about them both that feels off (we know SA and EBR are fab actors so this is deliberate). Eventually ‘fine’ won’t cut it for either of them.

They’re already coming close to their attempt at pretending that they’re fine, shattering into little pieces.

BRING.IT. ON.

We’re already seeing the signs in episodes 15 and 16.

Notice Felicity’s physical and verbal responses to him? They’re a bit softer. There’s a lack of defensiveness about her person that made me grin. His focus on her in episode 16 broke through a wall and it surprised her. I think she’s building up to a conclusion.

And Oliver? He’s started concentrating on her again, directing his thoughts to her – I MEAN SNOOZAN WAS TAKEN AND HE WAS ALL ‘NO THAT DOESN’T MATTER; I’M WORRIED ABOUT YOU’ - like he can’t help himself. But his path – because of Adrian – is about to get ten times darker.

Like I said in my post, I think he’ll break. I also think there is a chance Felicity might too for a different reason and in a very different way. But in this regard I also think that, in this respect, she’s stronger than Oliver. Maybe she knows more than we think she does about Helix.

But him breaking will test EVERYONE, including the team. (Maybe that’s why episode 18 is called disbanded *shrugs*)

The sex scene being a flashback isn’t a problem for me.

But when I first discovered it, I will admit to thinking DAMN! WHY NOT IN THE PRESENT? LET THEM VENT IT OUT! BRING ON THE SEX; ALL THE SEX!!

But… at this stage, without really connecting again, wouldn’t that kind of physical explosion just hurt them? It wouldn’t be an answer. Maybe AFTER they talked.

Plus, flashback sex proves neither could keep their hands off each other during the summer. How gratifying.

But I’ve also heard some people saying that their perception of the sex being a flashback is Arrow’s way of telling the fandom that Olicity really are a thing of the past. Dear God, why waste ANY sex scene on them if they were saying goodbye to them.

Why trap them together?

Why claim it’s a big Olicity episode?

Why would the climax of the season be anything but that: a CLIMAX. Something we’ve been waiting for.

Look at season 1: Oliver and Laurel, after spending most of the season apart (seriously, their scenes were few and far between and absent of romantic emotions) suddenly (because it was abrupt, no lead up or anything other than Laurel throwing herself at Oliver right after he lies and tells her what she wants to hear), have sex. Episode 21.

It’s VERY possible. Probable even. There’s no way they’re saying goodbye to Olicity. James Bamford even confirmed (last year) @jbuffyangel theory about them relearning each other. How better to know someone than to walk in their footsteps?

MG asked us to be patient.

WM said that there were some storyline they could only do if they were apart and they were obligated to do them, even if we didn’t like them.

Other than that, we don’t really have enough info to say for sure about what, when, where, how… and I expect to be proven wrong at some point.

Whether they go to Lian Yu or not, I’m also clueless.

But I want to point out something.

True love, fun and bedroom antics…

These are Stephen’s words about the nature of Oliver and Felicity’s season 4 relationship and they make so many things clear in where they may be heading. He didn’t need to clarify that: he offered it. We’ve learned a fundamental truth about our Captain this year:

Everything Stephen says is deliberate. EVERYTHING he says is honest (sometimes you just have to dig or filter or read between the lines):

He brought up the Russian Vodka sex, which I’m sure, was meant to be a joke (I thought it was) but we know has been confirmed thanks to JB for the flash back sequence. And notice how he behaved when he said it – the slight ‘it’s important but I’m going to coolly play off’ shrug thing and slight smile – and the way Emily looked at him, like she was dying not to laugh.

He brought up killing Billy BEFORE episode 1 even aired. Yes, it was another joke, but he referenced it at least 2 more times afterwards. And Oliver did kill Billy.

Bu that quote made it clear that their relationship in season 4 was fundamentally lacking something. The words are great but a relationship doesn’t last from embracing only the good things.

They learned how to fight in season 3.

In season 4 they learned how to live together.

In season 5 maybe they’ll finally learn how to UNDERSTAND each other.

It gives them room to grow as a couple too. It suggests that once they achieve this, then that will be it. When they get back together, maybe they’ll never break again (*fingers crossed*).

He also stressed that Oliver KNOWS he’s at fault for their breakup (to all the people hating MG’s interview recently where he said that Felicity’s lack of understanding is was broke them up, please be aware we only received a partial interview and that he was talking technically – Felicity DID break them up but the reason why they broke up was Oliver’s, that was the point).

Now, why would Stephen do that? Why would he also say that she was right to break up with him, that it was only choice for her to make? She needed to learn something this year and I think she is. I think they’re going to focus on this. Soon. Because they have too; they can’t leave this hanging in the air.

Stephen also said that we shouldn’t stop hoping for them.

AND he has said that there’s a reason for the way Oliver’s been acting this year…

So I looked back at how he’s been acting. He’s content in a way, but not happy. More brutal. Tougher. A better manipulator, lonelier, more understanding and ethically confused. Tired. Like a constant cognitive dissonance. Felicity told him that he was in a schism. He still is in one.

Season 3 had him choose between the Arrow and Oliver Queen. He chose the former. Season 4 had him discovering how to be Oliver. Season 5 has had him try to merge these two identity’s but he can’t because he has a third. The monster. Where every other aspect of himself is defeated by this creature of violence and death and destruction. The man we’ve been seeing in the Bratva flashbacks. The thing created from placing a man in hostile environments for years and having him claw his way out. Only, he never really did.

He never left.

I think that’s what Adrian is trying to reveal to Oliver; that his true self is this monster. Stephen added that Oliver will be resigned to his fate after episode 17. I think Prometheus is going to somehow convince him – manipulate and mind screw with him – that he can’t change his fate: a fate to be a monster who lives alone.

(Can’t wait to discover this secret he wants Oliver to reveal to him!)

This season NEEDS Oliver to find a way to merge his identities. To see the light again and I don’t think that’s possible without Felicity Smoak.

So yes, I feel very good about a reunion. Due to how the season has run, I don’t expect one until episode 23 but I do feel that episode 20 will be one for the books!

I know I ranted. It’s a problem. But I cannot WAIT for this episode (well I can but it’s very difficult) because WHATEVER happens - BAD OR GOOD - will be a culmination of the events leading up to it – with Oliver a broken and Felicity making morally ambiguous choices - and I for one am super excited to see how it plays out!

[drink-n-watch]

BoogiePop’s messy release schedule was driving me just a little nuts so I did the most reasonable thing possible and drove Shania a little nuts too. The results! We are almost caught up! Here’s everything that happened before this Friday! There Shall Be Spoilers!

go us! we wrote posts! YAY!

Boogiepop at Dawn – Episodes 12 & 13

The BoogiePop at Dawn 4 episode arc has been quite the rollercoaster. It started with what I believe is the best episode of the season then plunged right into the worst only to settle somewhere in the middle for these last two.

I definitely agree with you there Irina. But on the flipside, we finally get what I’ve been hoping we would get for a long time. More info on Nagi! Starting with her illusive father no less.

First we get a flashback episode to Nagi’s past and we finally get to meet her mysterious father. I gotta say, I was sort of disappointed with how ordinary he is. BoogiePop (the series not the phantom) has made a habit of creating these weird, disjointed, drastically underdeveloped characters and Mr. Kirima just didn’t stand out in any way. The only notable thing about him is that evolved humans liked his books.  In principal, that notion is actually very cool, but it came off rather dull in presentation.

He was a bit dull, but I did like how much his books were basically the driving force for most of the situations in this series. Especially since they are referenced to so much.

we just thought he was a little boring…there’s no need to take it this far! huh soilers

Was the little girl in the park a little BoogiePop?

Wait…there was a little girl in the park that looked like a little Boogiepop? How in the world did I miss that…

There was some throwbacks to earlier episodes, we got the sentence sometimes it snows in April again, proving that this wasn’t some odd mantra of the Imaginators. By the way, t is currently mid March and there’s a good 6 inches of snow on the ground right now. It was snowing quite generously all weekend as well. I really wouldn’t be surprised if this weather held up for another two weeks. I don’t get this expression at all. Is it suppose to mean something rather common but not guaranteed. Like sometimes it rains on a Tuesday?

I think what they are trying to get at is more psychological and metaphorical. Like sometimes unique experiences can happen whether we plan for them or not. It just matters how we deal with them when they come.

But it’s not unique at all. That’s my point.

this little girl…. not the same body but the same entity?

Besides the book thing, we found out the Nagi’s dad is divorced and that’s actually it. Next thing we know he gets murdered by synthetic megane same as scarecrow and his daughter takes it rather well, all things considered.

I think she just has a rather large capability to internalize things but I could be wrong.

The narrative has gone back to the nonlinear format which I liked. The sudden jump forward brought us back to a little after Scarecrow’s death which is still a flashback when compared to other episodes.

Synthetic megane teams up we now esper Nagi to hunt down whoever’s been murdering left and right. Let’s keep in mind that this particular synthetic already killed Nag’s dad when she was little, and her friend Scarecrow just recently. There’s a little sleuthing, nothing too impressive. They talk to one girl and Nai magically figures everything out so they go confront shrink lady who’s name I still don’t know. (Synthetic megane is called Sasaki, and hilariously Mo Murder!).

well um, I guess that’s an important distinction?

At this point we see an unrecognizable Pigeon bait and distract Sasaki so that he can get promptly murdered by psycho shrink while he simultaneously killed Pigeon. It took my awhile to figure out what was going on but apparently Pigeon was sacrificing herself to avenge Scarecrow nd n her last moments BoogiePop came to her in a scene paralleling her friend’s death. It would have been touching if I knew the first thing about Pigeon. I honestly thought that she had ordered Scarecrow’s death in the first place. Anywho, she dead now.

In a way it was rather poetic though. Especially with Pidgeon’s last line after Boogiepop told her instead of Heaven shes go to hell: “Heh, you’re right. Just like you.”

I did love Pidgeon aesthetic though. She might be a cool cosplay in the future.

I like her better with her blonde and pink hair. It helps sets her apart I find

see, it’s cool

Then Nagi and Shrinki face off in a swamp, after Nagi’s done all the work, BoogiePop appears and finishes her.

Again, this could have been exciting or at least cathartic if this shrink wasn’t the worst villain so far. Just plain uninteresting even when considered a madman evil with no viable motive. She didn’t even hurt anyone we care about so it’s not like we felt any sense of justice or retribution here.

It’s unfortunate that Nagi went from being a bedridden sick girl straight into being a superhero without BoogiePop bothering to show us that evolution. A training montage, an indication that she suddenly wants to solve crimes because of her father’s murder all batman style…something would have been nice. Nope, just jumpcut and apparently we’re a firewitch now.

True. A little explanation would have been nice.

don’t make that face

Nagi makes it back to have Sasaki die in her arms. Two synthetic humans have now sacrificed themselves for her, for no real reason. I assume that just like her dad attracted espers, she’s catnip to synthetics.

This would have been such a sad scene if Sasaki had any sort of personality or developpement other that “follow the plot”, well you get the idea.

At this point there’s a conversation between Nagi and BoogiePop. It’s one of those cryptic small talks at an inappropriate time, what with all the murdered bodies all around. We didn’t get any information or anything. What I got from it mostly is that at this point and time, Nagi and BoogiePop are on rather friendly terms. BoogiePop is impressed and interested by Nagi and has helped her out in a difficult situation. From what I can tell the feeling is mutual. So something must have happened to make their future encounters so frosty. Knowing this show, there’s almost no chance they’ll tell us what that was.

Which is a shame. Its really good for character development. Then again, that’s exactly what Boogiepop lacks.

And this is when I realized that I had forgotten that the entire arc was a story being told by BoogiePop to Echoes. We still don’t know where that weird red place is or why Echoes is alive but you know, I’m just going to let that one go.

oh yeah….you guys….

The King of Distortion – Episodes 14 & 15

The King of Distortion open with a familiar face. We catch up with Takeda some time after the Maticora arc and he’s reading an architecture magazine. I grew up around architects, several members of my family were architects including my mom who use to say that every time there was an architect in a work of fiction they were evil. It was a weird sort of mini persecution complex. I don’t think she was right at all but it always stuck with me. So yeah, I’m saying akeda is evil now!

There’s this new swoopy monument building and it’s the place to be apparently. It’s one of those decorative buildings that cost a fortune in taxes to upkeep but the government hopes it will encourage tourism so they brand it as a national treasure and source of pride. It looked pretty cool.

I like it….cause I don’t have to pay for it

So a crowd of people are there for the opening inclusion an assortment of Shinyo Academy students. We learn that the man whose building it is (I’m assuming the man who designed it) was some type of multi talented super genius who just recently passed away. It wasn’t specified by I’m going to assume it was under odd or mysterious circumstances. And yet, ironically he’s seen talking to little boy at the beginning of the episode. And leaves him with the ominous phrase of saying he was just reborn.

Takeda is also meeting Miyashita there for date s we’re setting up all our big players. However, when she gets there Boogiepop takes over and she ips away into the crowd. We’re quickly introduced to this arc’s baddie, The King of Distortion.

We are told that this entity wants to turn the world to gold. I should be annoyed by the cryptic nonsense of it all but I actually like that motivation. I dunno. It’s completely ridiculous yet so concrete that for some reason, it speaks to me.

oh…I was just talking to a supernatural entity that wants to turn the world to gold. Tuesdays! Am I right?

The King of Distortion seems to be able to trap people within their own minds and make them confront unresolved issues in their past. I’m not entirely sure why yet but as clichéd as it is, it’ also a mechanic I generally enjoy.

True. It is a quite overused trope, but I think the King of Distortion could actually be a decent villain this time. I hope.

Between the shrink lady last arc and this trauma facing/closure seeking character, I’m starting to think that the main thesis of BoogiePop is that psychiatry is evil!

Or straight up freaking confusing heh.

BoogiePop and I are freaked out by mannequins

Not that we have much of a moral judgement on the King of Distortion yet. So far they haven’t hurt anyone in any way. If anything they do really seem to be helping people. But BoogiePop considers them an enemy of the world so you know how that goes…

After a brief setup, both episodes mostly consisted of set pieces where the Kin of Distortion has conversations with various characters and makes them confront traumatic past experiences by taking the appearance of people from their past. These dreamscapes are very abstract and at times the narrative felt more than non-linear but downright non-sequitur.

This is a level of weirdness I like. It’s not pretending that everything is supposed to make sense. There is a surreal element. Heck the second episode turns into a kaiju movie at some point. But you can still follow along easily.

Heh, so true but I gotta admit it was a bit entertaining to see it go that way.

entertaining is a good thing!

We catch up again with Kentarou which we had seen briefly in the past. At this point, I’m starting to blur the manga and anime together so I’m not sure how much we’re supposed to know about the character but I always liked him. I’m happy to see him again.

I do remember that manticore killed his girlfriend, so there’s that.

I’m not sure he had a girlfriend?

Conversations with dead people is my favourite Buffy episode. Now I’m not trying to imply that BoogiePop comes anywhere close to it but there is something comparable in the mood and pacing of his arc. A bittersweet melancholy. Rather than having people turn into monster or cause their own doom through fear or greed, The King of Distortion is creating a hollow longing and cold guilt and offering up salvation. There something particularly disturbing about that.

I don’t want to call it a strong start or the most promising arc yet. I do that everytime and every time I get stung. BoogiePop knows how to start stories, it’s everything else that falls apart. But it’s a really strong star and seems very promising….

I’m scared to get my hopes up…

Since we didn’t write much today, cough, here’s a bunch of pics to tell the story instead. This is 4 episodes worth!

BoogiePop and Others Ep. 12-15 with Shania BoogiePop's messy release schedule was driving me just a little nuts so I did the most reasonable thing possible and drove Shania a little nuts too.

[animeindoblog-blog]

Beatless – 02

New Post has been published on https://animeindo.org/blog/2018/01/21/beatless-02/

Beatless – 02

OP Sequence

OP: 「Error」 by GARNiDELiA

「Analog Hack」

The setting of Beatless isn’t extraordinarily complex, but there’s one thing that I really want to know: how advanced is the average HiE? We’re reminded constantly that Lacia is a super-special model of android, but she’s really more than even that, right? And our erstwhile protagonist (what was his name again? He’s so very forgettable) knows it. So the story’s going something like this: the kid meets Lacia, some piece of rogue military technology or the like, out of pure coincidence, she uses an incredible electronic warfare weapon right in front of him, he decides to take ownership of her (‘it followed me home!’), and then goes on with his life as if nothing was strange. Is nothing strange? Does this happen all the time? Even if not, it seems like an awful waste of a warbot to just have her play dress-ups.

To be fair, the secondary cast are a bit savvier than Arato (right, his name was Arato). They, at least, can sense that there is supposed to be a plot hook here and seem to be actively investigating it. It’s good that somebody is, because plot does seem more interesting than the awkward flirting, but alas Beatless still seems intent on investing more into its daily life with robot segments. There are two necessary side-effects of this decision. One, the protagonist has to be, at least at this moment, irreparably thick, devoid of both wit and curiosity so that he will neither see the plot right in front of his eyes nor endeavour to seek it out. Second, with the plot so firmly rejected by the protagonist it rebounds onto the secondary cast, making the protagonist look increasingly irrelevant. This makes Arato a rather frustrating as our point-of-view character; he’s not supposed to be an idiot, yet acts like one, occasionally showing hints of recognition that suddenly owning a piece of unexplainable super-technology of unknown original like Lacia may be a serious matter, yet never willing to engage his cerebral cortex for deeper contemplation.

At this point I can’t really tell if Beatless expects too little from its viewers or too much. On the one hand, it feels like they keep pushing the relatively shallow boy meets cute-robot-girl angle because hard sci-fi doesn’t sell well with a modern audience, but on the other hand it does bury hard sci-fi underneath the surface that we need to dig to find. In this episode, when I first saw the death-bot turned fashion model subplot I must confess that my first reaction was, ‘What the hell is this bollocks?’. And indeed, the sequence didn’t sit well with me. For one, manufacturing obsession with trends to control the masses sounded far too Brave New World, a hint of dystopia in this otherwise bright future, only there was nobody who called it out. As we went further, though, I considered that maybe this was the intended effect after all. They drop the title of this episode — Analog Hack — near the end, but it’s just a fancy term for psychological manipulation, with robots. I don’t think the episode actually explains it that well, but how I see it is that in Beatless we have these robots that are even better at acting like humans than actual humans. They are capable of emulating any personality, skillset, or behaviour model so long as they have the correct programming (‘clouds’, whatever). This makes them, like the functional psychopath, perfect manipulators. Consider this: an AI designed to convince us they are people is already a layer of manipulation. With sufficient understanding of human psychology, they can manipulate even more. One HiE can emulate authority to act as law enforcement. Multiple HiEs can coordinate to move a crowd. On a subconscious level, human beings use body language, subtext, and emotional cues on each other all the time. On a conscious level, actors are trained to elicit specific responses from the audience with the most subtle of expressions and gestures. Heck, when we watch anime we can cry at a sad scene or whatever even though it isn’t real because of careful timing of dialogue and music and whatever. But there is a willing suspension of disbelief there. What if, instead, we were surrounded by psychopaths and being consciously manipulated every moment of our lives? Beatless notes why some people don’t like HiEs in its setting. They don’t like being manipulated, being ‘hacked’. Do we empathise with these robots because it feels like they have a ‘soul’, or are they just tricking us? Consider every cutesy gesture of Lacia’s. By her own admission, all her actions are calculated. Arato is clearly fond of her, but everything she does around him is designed to be liked. Does that make her actions more sinister? Or is it fine as long as we can’t tell?

And that was how five minutes of the show became more interesting than the other 20. I admit that I may be amusing myself a lot more than Beatless is, but there were interesting ideas that set me off. I really hope that Beatless will grow more courageous about exploring these ideas it goes along. At some point Arato will become a functional character and not just an unnecessary weight on the plot. The third episode usually ends Act I and truly opens up the narrative. Let’s see if it Beatless can manage a show of strength there.

Preview