#like come on what the fuck miyazaki

[sweetmapple]

When your Lambkin uses the Pureblood Knight Medal before the commencement of your dynasty

[hyperions-light]

The Poison Fruit Ripens

#defendingtheending here we go

First of all mega super ultra spoilers for the ending teaser that Steam says like… 6% ? Of players have seen? So you’ve been warned. No cuts baby, it’s Miyazaki style

Okay, so it’s the Executors, and they’re probably coming across the sea in the next game (if EA doesn’t nuke BW), from what I can gather. I mean, this is fine from a lore perspective. All we knew about those people before is that 1) they are mysterious 2) they are from over there, across the ocean

And now they’re maybe connected to the revealed Qunari lore, which I am ! So excited to have! We already knew that the Qunari fled across the ocean for unspecified reasons, and that going back there was Not A Thing. But now we know that they left because of the (probably metaphorical?) Devouring Storm, which could be connected to the Executors. What are the odds that there are two separate Huge Bad Things Over There that both want to destroy Thedas? Probably is just one big thing— also the title Executor implies they are doing the bidding of someone else, so whatever the Qunari were talking about could be it. (They also talked about being agents of someone else’s will in the Inquisition War Table quest).

So the cinematic shows a bunch of our prominent villains from the previous games being influenced in some way by the Executors. Which I think people are upset about, but I think it’s fine because:

- They did not really specify the manner of influence. I would be annoyed if they retconned Loghain’s decision to leave Cailan on the battlefield because it makes him interesting, but they didn’t say that. They just said they influenced his decisions. They could have done that by stoking his paranoia about Orlais, or by planting Arl Howe to influence him after the battle. He did a lot of OOC stuff while he was King Regent, and this could be a chance to explain what didn’t make sense for his previously established character and was just put in there to make him seem Very Evil.

- They also were around some people doing a blood magic ritual… there weren’t enough of them to be the Magisters, technically, but that is usually what it looks like when we see them in DA art so I’m going to assume that’s them for now. I mean that’s wild if that’s what it is bc that was such a long time ago? Thee guys have really been playing the long game I guess

- The other person they directly influenced seems to be Bartrand, which is really easy because who the fuck gave him that damn map? We NEVER found out who pointed Bartrand to the Thaig! Someone did it, and they probably did it on purpose! It may as well be these guys

- the rest of the villains don’t get guys whispering to them, so I have to assume they mean to imply that they just set up the circumstances that would lead to these people gaining power. I mean someone sent the Carta to the Vimmark mountains, right? And there was like some weird demon there, too.

-So basically they’re just implying that these people have been manipulating events to make sure that shit in Thedas is hitting the fan all at once, which does kind of explain the frankly improbable number of world-ending events that have happened during the Dragon Age. I mean, three Blights, two Magisters, two Evanuris, Antaam invasion, major mage rebellion, Templar schism, and the death of the Southern Divine? It’s only been like 50 years!!! Before the Dragon Age there had only been four Blights since the Ancient Age! Shit does not normally happen this fast in Thedas

I think the phrase itself is pretty direct (also giving Southern Reach vibes). All this chaos they helped sew is reaching its culmination, and now they’re getting ready to cash in the chips. They’re coming to Thedas at the moment that all the great powers are at their weakest, when there’s basically no one to oppose them. Tevinter? Fucked. Qunari? No military anymore. Antiva? Haha! lol, even. Fereldan? Basically gone. Orlais? In shambles. Free Marches? Decimated. Anderfels? There’s like 100 Wardens left in a swamp. Nevarra? I actually don’t know, maybe the lichlords can do something. Maybe Rivain could field some token resistance if they didn’t get hit by the Antaam too badly, but that’s kind of it IMO. This is THE time to come in and conquer(?) the land, or whatever they’re trying to do. Kill everybody?? Turn them into Darkspawn? Who knows!

Some speculation about what could be done to repel invasion:

- shit ton of blood magic

- fix titans, wake them up??? But idk if they’d be into it

- adaari, but idk if there are that many

- people with dragon blood, like the Theirins, are maybe super special and can do things?

- pirates, baby!!! Woooooo!

- I guess Mythal could know something? She can see the future a bit

- dragon army! Dragon army!!

[wordslikesilver]

I am once again thinking about Hoarah Loux, the only man Marika ever trusted and the only man she ever loved. It’s such an insane thing to think about the fact that the second last boss of Elden Ring is Some Guy. He is literally just A Human Man. Marika looks at this fucking raving barbarian man and decides to My Fair Lady him into a Lord like the deranged woman she is by assigning him a babysitter to perpetually gnaw on his neck whenever he’s in public. As insane as all that sounds, let’s break down that imagery a little because it’s actually really good! His babysitter is the king of beasts, a lion named Serosh, who digs his claws and his fangs into Hoarah Loux’s body to keep him suppressed and restrained enough in temperament to now be fit to be named Godfrey, The First Elden Lord of Queen Marika.

Serosh is frankly quite mysterious as far as what he actually is goes but as far as story themes go, he’s a really interesting symbol of lordship. The lion basically IS Godfrey’s crown, it’s what makes him Godfrey. The symbolism is essentially stating in a very overt way that this man is more savage than all the beasts of the world. In Elden Ring, beasts with five fingers indicate an enlightened or elevated intelligence, blessed by the greater will. It’s fascinating how it’s basically stating that Serosh is more intelligent, refined and noble than Hoarah Loux, that this man is more wild and savage than the greatest of all the beasts in the world. That only a beast king could teach this man to be a Lord. Godfrey can rip him apart anytime but he doesn’t. It takes more than strength of body to wear a crown and he knows it. He needs Serosh to honour and do right by Marika. He is showing his opponents a courtesy, as he puts it. Morgott takes after his example and so too is Radahn inspired by him. It’s really wonderful imagery.

There’s more to the symbolism. My knowledge of alchemy is, I completely admit, too surface level to elegantly speak at length but I’ve done some light reading online to back up my confidence in what I’m saying. We know Miyazaki loves dark edgy anime like Berserk and I posit that he also gained inspiration from the anime/manga Hellsing, in which the main character recites the line “I am the bird of Hermes, eating my own wings to make me tame.” This line comes from the Ripley Scroll and is theorized to have many meanings but popularly is presumed to mean giving up higher philosophy and knowledge to live normally on the earth as a human. Miyazaki uses lots of alchemical symbolism in his works, Elden Ring especially (go watch Quelaag’s videos!) so I could be totally full of shit about hellsing but I’m completely confident that Godfrey is meant to be an inversion (like literally everything else about his character) of what the Bird of Hermes represents. Godhood is a prison, a shackling. The entire plot is Marika (and Ranni tbh) trying to escape that imprisonment. Godfrey loves Marika enough to chain himself down, to eat his own wings, to pull out his own teeth and claws for her to make himself tame and ascend to lordship.

What’s especially fascinating about him is that he carries Serosh out into the badlands with him, as the opening cutscene shows. Cut dialogue indicates he already knew the Elden Ring would shatter and the tarnished would be beckoned to return. That Marika told him her plan in full before she took from him and his warriors the grace of gold and sent them away. A line from him saying to trust in gold, always, that it will guide our fates to our true destiny has wonderful implications I would certainly love to expand on in another post maybe. Hoarah Loux was just a human man and Marika trusted him enough to tell him everything. Trusted him with her gambit to escape the shackles of godhood. This is the fascinating part about taking Serosh with him. Keeping himself disciplined enough to remain a Lord when he returns. To hold back his aching heart just enough that he could follow through on this dark plan and allow his wife to protect him from the machinations of the greater will by sending him away. Also note that in that opening cutscene, he’s being crucified, with a lion about his shoulders and spear buried in his abdomen. They could not be milking the Jesus imagery harder if they tried. The Bird of Hermes is also thought to represent Christ, more points for that symbolism.

I love Godfrey so much as a character. He loved his sons and he loved his wife. The tenderness that he holds Morgott with is enough to make me cry. How he wished he could’ve seen him sooner, I’m all too sure. He’s the only other character we see guided by grace in the entire game. Marika guides you and her beloved husband, that’s it, that’s how much she trusts him. When he rips Serosh from his shoulders, you understand how Marika felt such faith in him. In Elden Ring, it is through battle that you face the true self of an opponent. Godfrey reveals to you Hoarah Loux, Warrior Chieftain of the Badlands. It is a test. Are you worthy to free her? Can you do what I could not? I have shown you courtesy enough as a Lord. You served me well, Serosh. I relieve you of your burden and feel only gratitude for your service. Now begins the test. Are you, tarnished, stronger than the only man who was strong enough to bear the burden of Lordship? Are you stronger than the only man that Queen Marika ever trusted? Are you stronger than the only man she ever loved?

[morgana-ren]

What Shigaraki wants to hear: Damn babe, that sex was definitely the best of my life and nothing will ever top it. But you know what was really hot, you explaining all of Elden Ring lore to me.

Listen, this man's idea of a good time is you under the desk, blowing him while he muses on about Dark Souls and Elden Ring lore. You will know more than Miyazaki himself by the time he's shut the fuck up. Yes, he expects it when he is on a discord call too, and he thinks he's so sneaky with his subtle innuendos to the chat. It's not like you can tell him to stop, since your mouth is a little full at the moment.

This man has his Switch under the pillow ready to go the second things are over. He's still heaving, chest sweaty and hair sticking to his forehead, rolls off of you, whips it out and immediately starts it up, while looking at you expectantly because you need to get the towel.

Yes, he does ask you to cosplay for him. Yes, it is sexual in nature.

He has to move all of his figurines because he gets a little too into it on the bed and he nearly had a breakdown when one fell. Figurines aren't cheap-- especially his big ass Malenia and Drizzt ones. Some of them are hand painted. Yes, he uses the goofy little magnifying glass like a nerd, and yes, he will do it in his boxers.

This man says 'Critical hit' in bed. Yeah, he does.

He has wondered if he can incorporate the Guts sword into his villany. Unfortunately, it's a bit unwieldy by nature and requires all five fingers. He still has it though. He thinks it makes him sexy to just have it laying around (he's right.)

He will refer to the female orgasm as "The final boss" and liken it to trying to fight Radahn Two: Electric Boogaloo. Hey, at least he gets into it.

You will be made to wear the Ranni hat. It's happening. Come to peace with it.

[homunculus-argument]

Unapologetic toddler take, but the enjoyability of any ghibli movie is directly proportional to the amount of magical whimsy going on. Forest spirits, random gods, magic existing as a technological tool, magic existing as a symbol for the power of the human spirit, magic happening for insane inexplicable reasons because fuck you I'm Hayao Miyazaki and I ain't gonna explain shit? Riveting, delightful, pours joy into my heart even while illustrating the bleakness and despair that are also an instrinct part of this life that we know, which is equal parts beauty and suffering. Love it.

But the down-to-earth, realistic ones? Coming-of-age stories of school kids doing school kid stuff, a 27-year-old woman having a Single Girl Midlife Crisis and taking a year off at a farm, an enemies-to-lovers slow burn between an obnoxious writer kid and an obnoxious musician kid? Slow-paced slice of life with realistic stakes at hand, a snapshot of the ordinary everyday grind, so painstakingly real that it tastes like the inside of my own mouth? Ew. How am I supposed to enjoy any of this without my side of fantastical nonsenscial bullshit?

If I can spend the entire duration of the movie knowing exactly what's going on and what's going to happen next, then I don't want it. I don't even do that in real life.

[beesmygod]

As one of the few people who played the base game and Shadow of the Erdtree back to back I'm curious for your take on how the two compare - or an easier version of that take, is there anything you think the dlc improves on (or does worse)

NEGATIVES: the minibosses are genuinely fucking terrible. i dont mean design-wise, the furnace golems are very striking and scary looking. but they suck complete dog ass to fight and are not fun. i don't like the stealth segment lmfao. i play the games to fight things, so having a section where i don't fight things is like....counterintuitive to what makes the game fun. the radahn fight is very bad. i still haven't gone back to it bc i was so ??????? at the whacked out phase 2. additionally, its such bullshit the snake-slaying spear doesn't work with messmer. dude come on. it would have been badass lol. if he gets to do his big snake attacks, i should get to counter with big spear.

AND NO MORE BEARS!!!!! NO MORE BEARS MIYAZAKI

the world also has the breaking bad mexico filter on it which is a bit ugly for my tastes. piss yellow world.

POSITIVES: the new weapons are primo (very fun and VERY WEIRD), the world map is fucking huge for a DLC, most areas are not designed by sociopaths. really, when you play them back to back there's very little that jars you out of the experience or makes you feel like you're playing something that was stapled on at a later date. it's very cohesive. the boss fights, outside of radahn, are really good. i kind of bitched about the mother of fingers fight at the time but its still a striking, extremely weird, and memorable fight.

[centrally-unplanned]

Wasn't sure how to search for the other 18 rants about Eva not being about his depression, mind ranting again or linking me to a past one?

Oh, I don't think I have written it with any coherence at any point (maybe I have, I have been here for a long time after all), I was being cheeky. To quickly summarize, Anno's own mental health is certainly not irrelevant or anything, I was exaggerating for comedic effect, it isn't some truly-false statement. After all, depression can mean a lot of things! A generalized sense of struggling with one's place in the world? Oh sure, Eva is about that.

But Eva wasn't intended to be about mental-health-style depression and "Having Depression" is probably not how Anno saw himself? The themes of Eva are coming a lot more from genre commentary and discourse around otaku identity, and far more universal than the depressed. And while Anno did have a pretty famous bout of capital-D Depression, it was after the making of Evangelion, a bit of a "what do I do now?" kind of deal.

A lot of this is sort of a lost-in-translation across time and culture deal. Like you see this being said all the time (Shinji's wikipedia page):

Neon Genesis Evangelion director Hideaki Anno was depressed for four years before the series began production.[4] After the failure of Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise's sequel Aoki Uru, Gainax began planning a new series. According to Gainax co-founder Yasuhiro Takeda, ideas from Aoki Uru were borrowed for the new project, including the concept of "not running away".

And here is the source quote:

They say, "To live is to change."  I started this production with the wish that once the production complete, the world, and the heroes would change.  That was my "true" desire.  I tried to include everything of myself in Neon Genesis Evangelion-myself, a broken man who could do nothing for four years.  A man who ran away for four years, one who was simply not dead.   Then one thought.  "You can't run away," came to me, and I restarted this production.  It is a production where my only thought was to burn my feelings into film.  I know my behavior was thoughtless, troublesome, and arrogant.  But I tried. 

Now, for a weak argument I will say even without any context it should be notable that he doesn't say depression - this is more like feeling like a failure. The stronger argument is that Anno runs his fucking mouth all the damn time. He says bombastic and cryptic and tortured artist shit all over. When he asks Miyazaki to take his dick out and show the world his erect penis in Princess Mononoke, does he actually want that? Is that, you know, an authentic, unfiltered expression of his true emotion? Or is he playing to the crowd? He does this shit, its great, but, you know, you gotta read the tone.

One of my favourite quotes from Hiroyuki Yamaga is when he delicately called him a faker lol for the (Post-Eva, to be clear) depression:

On Anno’s severe depression, his “crisis of the soul,” as a motive in the development of Evangelion. YAMAGA: Well, I think Anno may have appeared in the Japanese media as you suggest; he’s made comments about wanting to die, and so forth, but at least from my perspective, things were never as serious as they appeared in the press. [LAUGHS]

Anyway, the far stronger argument is that this statement is false. He did not do nothing for four years! Nadia shut down production in 1991, and in 1992 Gainax began working on Aoki Uru, a sequel to their film Royal Space Force, with Anno as the director. Then funding fell through, so Anno himself goes to King Records and hashes out a deal with producer Toshimichi Otsuki for a new anime, with a focus on artistic agency and in particular rejecting funding from toy companies (standard at the time in the long tail of the Gundam boom for something mecha-esque) as he thinks they are a creative straightjacket. They put together a funding structure, and he writes the Evangelion Proposal which is finished in 1993, two years before the show airs. In that proposal are most of the core themes of Evangelion, the same depressing tone and otaku-commentary stuff. Work begins in earnest in 1994.

I have no doubt this was a stressful and harrowing time for Anno, I am just saying A: he does not mean these comments literally, he was in fact doing a lot and quite busy at this time. And B: this comment is about creative freedom and the future of the anime industry. Anno is depressed about anime, otaku, stagnation in the field, commercialization, things like that. Nadia was a gigantic fuck-up in his mind due to studio meddling, he is responding to that - it is an external and artistic struggle that he is referring to here. And these "universalized" themes are more like what he was putting into the work. And this makes sense because in Japan at the time you wouldn't really express things about mental health in the western, "capital-D Depression" way.

But since that is how it was expressed in 90's & 2000's America, the Prozac Generation, when these comments went to press in America that got put through that lens. These interviews are summarized in our media with the word depression - it comes up far, far less in Japanese sources at the same time (not zero of course). As an example, take the famous Hiroki Azuma Evangelion essay, "Anime or Something Like It". Depression is never mentioned - instead the societal lens is the focus:

According to Anno himself, this change of attitude came about while creating and producing the work. "Evangelion" was received enthusiastically among anime fans. He said that in noticing that autistic, enthusiast reception, he thought he should changed the entire conceptual structure of the work, and in the end that's what he did. After all of the episodes were broadcast, in what looks like a self-tormenting, auto-destructive critique of anime fans that ANNO would repeat many times in radio interviews, specialty anime magazines, etc., he would clearly reiterate the personal intellectual history of MIYAZAKI and OSHII. All three of them isolated themselve from "anime-like things" owing to their hate of the autism after they achieved overwhelming success among anime fans. 

Lol for openly expressing a hatred of autism, it was 1998 don't cancel him okay. I like its emphasis on the lineage - Anno's themes are not tabula rasa, instead in conversation with others, things western sources didn't pick up on.

Anyway, I am just presenting the negative case here, certainly depression is a part of Evangelion. That reality is just often stretched into a sort of "Eva as Anno's therapy" lens that I think is not justified by what we know of the production. (Not to mention it was a joint production, not Anno's work alone, but I have gone on long enough)

[moofahdrome]

In regard to your pin post, what games do you like to play? I'm always a sucker for hearing about other tabletops people enjoy.

Ooooooh thank you for asking!!! I'm a big sucker for easy to run character focused games like Thirsty Sword Lesbians or Masks: A New Generation, but I also love love love games with potential for really cool and creative combat like Eidolon: Become Your Best Self, Gubat Banwa, and LANCER.

My primary experience is with Powered by the Apocalypse games, but I'm looking to expand my horizons a bit in the future! Blades in the Dark is super cool, but other Forged in the Dark games appeal to me a lot, especially Brinkwood - The Blood of Tyrants, a super cool game about organizing a revolution against colonialist capitalist vampires.

There's really so many amazing games by queer indie creators out there - Apocalypse Keys recently had its full release, as did EXTREME MEATPUNKS FOREVER the TTRPG! There's really something for everyone. I really need to play more Ryuutama for its lovely adventure vibes, Hard Wired Island for a return to true anticapitalist cyberpunk, as well as Flying Circus for amazingly accurate WWI-era plane action in a miyazaki-inspired setting! Other stuff I've had for a while but need to play are Monster Care Squad, Heart: The City Beneath, and Comrades, a Revolutionary RPG.

There's also plenty of nice, charming, slower paced games as well. Wanderhome is a beautiful pastoral journey game, where everyone comes together to heal a land and experience wonders. Our Traveling Home is inspired by Howl's Moving Castle and has everyone play a unique role as a queer found family. Yazeba's Bed and Breakfast just released, and it's an amazing episodic experience packed full of beautiful content!

One of my favorite game creators is Dinoberry Press, creator of fantastic titles like Justicar, What Waits Beneath, and GUN&SLINGER, a cool 2-3 player game where one person plays a magical gun and the other their haunted wielder. It's got a couple great extra modes of play, too, like SWORD&BEARER or MECH&PILOT !

And there's even more amazing games in development. Dinoberry's You're in Space and Everything's Fucked just funded, as did HELLPIERCERS: TACTICAL HARROWING ACTION. Guns Blazing and Wetrunners are really close to being funded, too, check them out! Some other great games that aren't fully complete but you can play right now are ICON, Bloodbeam Badlands, Red West, and In the Time of Monsters, all of which are some of the COOLEST things I have ever seen.

Feel free to ask more questions about any of these! I love talking about them and I'm thrilled to see interest in indie ttrpgs!!!

[swallowtail-ageha]

Thank you for that Marika post! I feel like I'm taking crazy pills with how all the takes seem to be "Oh I guess the DLC says it it's ok Marika commits mass murder and genocide :(" like what? What?? In no way does it even come close to saying that

Oqdoqkkdiqic yw yw!

I guess it always come from fandom people having very poor reading comprehension. I log onto reddit and see "uuuh the hornsent deserved that for the shamans!" maybe a few did i doubt the little hornsent kids that got caught in the fire or were put to sword or were curshed by rubble or the two old hornsent couple who watched their family get slaughtered before their very eyes personally raided the shaman village and stuffed marika's family and friends in jars.

I log onto tumblr and see people be like "oh miyazaki made female hitler have a little sad backstory where she is justified to slaughter the poc coded people who are genetically more violent and deserved to be slaughtered" which is on so many interpretations wrong like where the fuck does it ever says that the hornsent are more violent by nature and WHY are you linking specifically the hornsent to POC when there is nothing indicating that. And why do you get so mad that villains have nuance

Both sides of this discourse are extremely exhausting because people who engage in it simply put the marika backstory in a vacuum to make it fit their own mold and then are the ones to act all superior with "oh reading comprehension" and shit like that while every single thing in the game slaps the player in the face with "marika was wrong. she was still a brutal tyrant, and most of the times we see those "evil" races be brutal is because they have been enslaved and abused for hundreds of years due to her own paranoia and just want to be left alone"

[ezrasimp]

thank you @amrv-5 for tagging me!! this is actually so much fun because this year was the first year where i actually tracked each of the films i watched (because @cannibalismpdf informed me i actually had to log each film lmaoo) this year i watched 107 films, 71 of which were new to me. seeing 71 surprised me so much considering how many times i rewatch films paha, but here's my top nine!! (explanations for the top 9, and the runners-up under the cut!)

Alien (1979) dir. Ridley Scott Bullet Train (2022) dir. David Leitch But I'm a Cheerleader (1999) dir. Jamie Babbit Chicago (2002) dir. Rob Marshall Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) dir. Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) The Four Seasons (1981) dir. Alan Alda Paddington 2 (2017) dir. Paul King The Telephone Box (originally: La cabina) (1972) dir. Antonio Mercero The Wild Robot (2024) dir. Chris Sanders

gonna try and keep these explanations around 100 words each because i do tend to ramble i apologise.

Alien - i truly can't believe it took me so long to watch this amazing ass film. i was on the edge of my seat the whole time and i understand why it's a classic

Bullet Train - got scared this was so overhyped by all the tiktoks edits i'd seen of it, but holy fuck i really don't think it is. it's so much fun and aaron taylor-johnson and brian tyree henry are a delightful highlight

But I'm a Cheerleader - how did this film come out in 1999????? like how???????? it's so beautiful while also being sad and hopeful at the same time, and watching this film made me realise why natasha lyonne is a queer icon <33

Chicago - once again surprised it took me this long to watch this film considering how much i love musicals and movie musicals but now that i finally have. oo booy!! love all the songs and the choreo is so good

Everything Everywhere All at Once - i will always regret not watching this film at the cinema because i would give anything to watch this on the big screen. someone i know is writing their diss on this film, on how its entire thing is just "nothing matters but positive" and yeah. yeah man. awoke something in me.

The Four Seasons - AHHH!!! i neeeeed to rewatch this holy shit, this is such a fun film and my favourite of alan alda's films i've watched (so far) by far!! the vibes are great but it's the friends as family trope that really gets to me

Paddington 2 - technically cheating with this because i love the entire trilogy (all of which i watched for the first time this year), but out of all of them paddington 2 was my favourite because i think it was the funniest and most charming of them all <3

The Telephone Box - omfg watch this. watch this right now. here on youtube, it's a short film, only about half an hour. and as a matter of fact i'm not gonna say anything about it. just watch it please. it has subtitles in many languages <33

The Wild Robot - the moment i saw the trailer for this film, i knew i'd adore it. and i was so right. i want to give chris sanders a hug. this film was so warm and beautiful and i cried through 3/4ths of it.

and now for the runners-up!!:

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022) dir. Joel Crawford (still feel bad about being skeptical about this film. it proved me so wrong) The Questor Tapes (1974) dir. Richard A. Colla  (mike farrell falls in love with robert foxworth android. what's not to love????) Spirited Away (2001) (orginally: 千と千尋の神隠し) dir. Hayao Miyazaki (i was finally spurred to watch this because i found out david ogden stiers played kamaji in the english dub. ofc he was great but so was this movie, will have to rewatch in japanese one day coz i normally watch stuff in their original lang but DOS <33) Goodbye, Farewell and Amen (1983) dir. Alan Alda (i don't think i'll ever be emotionally prepared enough to rewatch this) Isle of Dogs (2018) dir. Wes Anderson (once again, never got the chance to watch this in cinemas. once again, a massive mistake on my part) Aliens (1986) dir. James Cameron (love this one a lot for its action, but i just preferred the psycological horror aspect of the first one more) Billy Elliot (2000) dir. Stephen Daldry (julie walters slayed in this film. also GOOD TRANS REP???? such a pleasant surprise) Room (2015) dir.  Lenny Abrahamson (fuck man this film was heartbreaking) Hidden Figures (2016) dir. Theodore Melfi (a film has literally never gone quicker for me in my whole life. it got to the end and i was like huh????? where's the rest of the film???? even though 2 hours had gone by lmaoo) The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) dir. Brian Henson (so happy to have finally watched this. this was very cosy, plus i love the muppets so much so it was easy for me to like this film)

i think parker tagged basically everyone i would have ahah so i'll just add @cannibalismpdf, @bjxhunnicutt, @80smen-fanclub, @bardengarde, @cuddleswinchester, @remyfire, @onekisstotakewithme but as parker said as well, feel free to do this even if i have missed anyone!! <33

[yeetspace]

All right so apparently, just learning for the first time ever unironically, Miyazaki stated that his philosopher game design is,

"No matter how bad off they are, the player must always have hope for a miracle"

What do you call the boss falling out of the map before you even get there?

What do you call some random person out there in the world absent-mindedly praising your funny message and that is the deciding factor between you winning and losing a penultimate battle.

Running into a player who has a plethora of items and like just drops a random talisman right before they leave after helping beat a boss.

Insane shit like that. That is Dark Souls, that is Demon Souls, that is Bloodborne, that is Elden Ring.

(Separate from the literal things in the games called miracles)

These stories are all predicated on some sort of major event

Dark souls 1 2 and 3, all entail some sort of miraculous herald of the coming age, each for their respective ages and also just kind of areas of interest for their games.

Demon souls, miracle of even having a single person to fight back against the demons as they are, to the extent where the world is literally fucking ending

Bloodborne, the single person who shows up who is not privy to any of the destruction or the corruption that now plagues the world and the literal blood of the people, in a singular night somehow miraculously hunting every single beast.

And Elden ring, though you yourself are not the exact miraculous one, every player is a warrior and wars are won by warriors not a warrior, the idea is that there's just nothing anyone who wasn't already there I could do, a miracle in the form of the tarnished, those bereft of what others would consider a miracle itself.

See I fucking love being extremely verbose and liking games with like Ludacris amounts of information behind it and symbology and actual anthropology to its history and like internal mythology that's expressed through symbology even within the lore and the symbology that exists as the game itself being a story.

I always like to cut these off with like a goofy ha shit's funny I love it, which is true, shit's funny I love it, but like hot damn. That philosophy is perfect to describe these games and I never heard it until today.

[lorddeathofmurdermountain]

So. One of the "final bosses" for Shadow of the Erdtree got leaked. Rather, they all got leaked by name, but I only found footage of that one. And lemme tell you fellas, it fucking hurts to watch.

I love FromSoft. I love Elden Ring. The DLC looks great and I've been hyped af for it. When it comes to actual work, I'm sure it was a lot of work to make it, but... It feels lazy. I guess creatively bankrupt is more accurate. The Remembrance doesn't help at all, it only makes things worse. Obviously, glazers will shit on me for saying this, but as a fan of the involved character (well, those who know, know) it just doesn't make sense to me and feels... I don't even know. I know it's legit, but it feels like a fucking mod. The moveset doesn't even seem that impressive, the model is shockingly basic considering how many fans were waiting to see such a thing, I mean for god's sake you could mistake the silhouette for one of the base game bosses being straightened out in Blender (they slouch/crouch a bit in-game).

I'm just bitching, I KNOW I'm just bitching at this point, but this feels like getting to the end of fucking Ringed City and fighting fucking Pontiff again, or maybe Aldrich. It's like if Champion Gundyr was the final boss of the base game except now he had a few simple fire attacks. Finishing a DLC as amazing as what I've seen like that feels like an empty void in my chest. I just know fighting this boss myself is gonna suck balls, not because it's hard but because it just feels lame. I didn't even have any preconceptions about what the end would be like, I was actively trying not to assume anything at all because I really wanted to see what FromSoft was gonna cook up, and what they gave me feels like it was a mistake. Like a fucking accident. Knowing this is probably what Miyazaki had in mind this whole time confuses me. I could keep yapping on and on about this but I just can't find any words I'm satisfied with.

[girl4music]

You know animation is successful when it’s able to convey emotion through the visuals and not just the writing. Where you can mute the sound and still feel the depth and intensity of emotion: - which is something a lot of people believe can only exist in live-action art.

It’s why I always prefer a drawn art style to computer graphics. But I think what sets Arcane apart from every other animation is that it’s both and it works very well as both. The animation itself gives the show character. But you can tell it’s digital at the same time. Which - of course you expect in this day-and-age but you often don’t get that with so much organic personal effort.

Here in Arcane you do. And it really shows. And that’s why it’s compared to the likes of the greatest and most successful animations ever created. Anything Akiri Toriyama or Hayao Miyazaki. Drawn art style over CGI.

Animation can take many forms. It can be entirely organic, it can be entirely digital. But a mix is best.

That’s where Arcane really shines as an animation. It’s managed to make digital look emotive and realistic because it’s still hand created at the same time. Only the lazy stuff involves Ai to the point of characterless crap. And Arcane is so far above that low grade junk.

It’s honestly probably the best animation I’ve ever seen. At least as far as digitally generated animation goes.

It’s like as if I was listening to 80’s music on live stage.

Not sure people will understand what I mean by that. But I know what I mean so it’s an effective analogy.

Everything pops. You’re immediately drawn into it.

The point is it found the right balance of digital and synthesised VS analog and natural. And man does that work insanely well for the storytelling they went with because it looks and feels so god damn authentic.

I always prefer something more organic and spontaneous over manufactured and forced.

I’m only early into watching it so I can’t speak on the storytelling itself just yet. But I had to mention this because it’s something that really draws you in when you don’t have all that much reason to want to be yet..

It sucks that it’s Netflix because I hate that streaming service but at least it got the budget that it deserves because animation of this quality needs money thrown at it constantly and I’m glad Netflix chose to pay out.

I hope that it fucking stays that way if there is more to come and they don’t start cutting down its resources because that really would be criminal with this quality.

Arcane has its own original style. It’s very distinctive. Stands out among the masses of lazy AI created crap.

If you want real art - you make sure humans do it all. Even if it has to be digitally and technologically. The moment you remove the human from the process,…

That shit goes down really quickly because there’s no anchor to emotion, expression and experience.

To consciousness. That’s the difference with Arcane and it’s clear as fucking day in just the visuals alone - never mind the storytelling, writing and voice acting.

I know I’m really going to enjoy watching this show.

And my claircognizance is never wrong. Never ever.

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

yippie!!

ok so one day i was hangin out and thinking about how jinx and murie are both my favourite little sad wet guys in my two fave medias of all ever *And* at the same time SO far apart on the spectrum personalitywise

and it took me listening to this to flip the switch on the Autism Blender and want to just fucking mash them together like a coked up toddler making Slime out of fish guts and hayao miyazakis mothers ashes because thats what i do thats my job💅👌so theeeen it comes out pretty reminiscent of my first muriel au that also sprung up from a song i like, just- a bit to the left? like, moving along on the scale from The OG not liking violence and being involved in it whatsoever, to AU 1 where i pictured him going "yeah ok fuck it this is what i do i guess" and revengy motives to his whole thing that i now connected with him more thru the song lmao it just made me realize the vision of like. jinxies "murderingmurderinmurdering 💕fun✨" aspect + his potential desire to still do good things despite being doomed to be a machine made for destruction (ignore the fact of that desire being nonexistent in his canon form because of how he perceives himself as a thing unable to achieve performing any good ever under any circumstance) (but still refusing to actively cause harm as he isolates himself to prevent any situations arising that would lead him to do so) (ignore all that) (were yassifying him a little were allowed its fine ive already lost the plot here anyway were wildin) so a vigilanty type beat and also ~my axe is my buddy🥰 we both cry with the trees😔✊ /me & my axe will bring the devil to his knees (✿◕‿◕ )~ goes hard as phUCK

so then all that led to This new V.3 mutation where hed be actually having fun with it........ so I kinda start turning him over in my brain some more, forgetting about jink by now and at first I go Huh this is kinda. him but lucioey a lil bit. and THEN i go hm. Well this ground is awful soft n ready to dig

so with all that out of the way i can now present!: Brand New Vague Shadow of a Concept of an Idea that ill Never Do Anything with

and I really don’t know how to verbalize this very well at all mmjfdh but like. Ok bulletpoints activate

Muriel:

From a badass warrior tribe

Didn’t get booted out cuz theyre fine this time oopsie no genocide

Hes in there way chillin way awesome way good at fighting everybody loves him

Hes like. Way himboey in this one. SO jock. Smiles a lot <3 <3 <3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3

Like okay if i was actually serious about writing this I think id need a fucking lucio consultant because I really know zilch about that bitch but like okay you know how lucios kinda all scary n cunty and cunning and fancy and seems like hes got shit figured out. Until he *starts talking*? Muriel here is like that but hes just really fucking scary until he starts talking BUT not like normally where hes adorable just has resting bitch face, its just like. that part of him that came thru in the reversed ending at the very end, yknow. but make it less depressing ihjhsrfbjs hes like full letterman jacket highschool bully core total kurt & ram vibe, like ok youd see him on a battlefield ABsolutely WRECKIng some fools into a pulp with his bare bear hands and immediately after that he turns around like WOOOOOOO THAT’S what im TALKIN ABOUT LETS GO GUYS WHO WANTS A BEER *cut to him chugging an entire keg over his head with da boys around losing their minds* like think college frat but they raid villages for fun and profit. Pretty orc coded. Kinda thor coded. Actually exactly thorcoded wow that really is what I was going for. I was wondering why I couldn’t help imagining him with a australian accent, I guess that’s a mystery solved. anyway

Maybe his parents got killed in some other battle im not sure how to weave around that in detail yet BUT- ok so check this I thought ill have to give him some motive to wanna reach the devil somehow for,,.,,… something right. to make him fill an antagonist role So this might be stupid a lil I just thought of this and it needs to cook for sure but what if he just rolled up into vesuvia as the magic capital or something whtver, to figure out how to get to talk to the devil, cuz he just like, really wants his parents back cuz they got valhallad in some glorious combat, and they were cool and he misses them and they could fight some more cool fights together and pillage n chill jhbsfvjgzdc beCAUsE hear me out im rolling with the swap inversions opposites motive here right, so the thing that popped up in my head was- Lucio had the “I wanna kill my parents bcause I hate them and so I can rule and get what I want” thing goin at the start right, like that is basically what started it off he got his dad he didnt get morgha SO what IF I gave murie a “i wanna conquer this place and use it to get my parents back. cuz I missem :(” like fully turned it around idk IDK IT SEEMS MESSY IDK IS IT CUTE IS IT DUMB IT MAKES ME FEEL DUMB BUT IN THAT WAY THAT MIGHT MEAN THAT ITS ACTUALLY WORKING BUT I DONT KNOW *screaming with no air*

But overall yeah hes khal drogo but more noticeably himboey but not in a likeable way cuz were switching them so I cant make him likeable for myself hnjdgfgb leaning into popular dumb jock trope

UnLESSSS i DID combo it with murdermuriel au 1.0 some more and made their tribe like. Not murdery somehow like what would be the opposite of the og scourge roaming around ruining shit. well that was the og kokhuri but now I gotta do some fucking triple axels here to make it make sense so how the fuck do I make this version of kokhuri more warriory in culture than the original but still nice like robinhoody style jhbfsvhjbs this is falling tf apart might need to scrap it bc on lucios end itd be even harder wouldn’t it. Spartan cunts but they don’t kill people that’s a nono lmao

now im thinking some more about the aspect of lucio being, you know. a pretty shitty leader right, and how to incorporate that here, because i have no idea if im following an actual set rule here regarding whats swapped and how even, theres barely a theme im straight up just

but yeah so now i figure it could be murie tryna get his folks back because they were the actual defacto leaders of their tribe, he was just kinda still following along and doin his chores in being the uhh the face, the charisma, the one to kinda like. get the people on board easier with whatever decision they made for them and hyping it up as the best possible choice anyone could ever make and maybe even actually believing it too cuz theyre actually that tightknit and he trusts them with anything aw. is this too onedimensional or can i give my boy some good nice facking family relations at least in an alternate life ghhkjkfdh hes their pride n joy and can do no wrong but yeah the point is he himself hasnt actually made any decisions without them before, isnt very good at actually leading and strategizing and planning and knowing how everything complicated works and he knows it, so he sees his only solution in bringing them back to not let everything fall apart

SEE I BROUGHT IT AROUND I CLEANED UP NICE WITH OG LUCIO SETTING OFF FROM THE POINT OF FEELING LIKE HES THE BEST AT EVERYTHING AND SHOULD B RECOGNIZED AS SUCH AND TRYING TO GET RID OF HIS PARENTS TO GET IT AND MY BOY HERE ENDING UP EXACTLY OPPOSITE. GO SHAWTY GO SHAWTY IM SO SMART am i fucking up lulus backstory i feel like i am cuz im like wait what the fuck did he kill his dad for again. demonheart. deal. thing. whatd he wish. like he wasnt already running for count n shit yet he did want to climb up the ladder in his own tribe right i have no idea yell at me in comments thank you

I also don’t know if the first (last) scourge battle wouldve happened or nah

Lucio/Montag

Oh my fucking god what if I figured out an alternative L moniker for murie so theyd get to switch letters in their namesssssssss like lucio is a made up name he made it up so like UAGHASHG L.,,,...,, Lion ofthe,... south NO he HAS to be bEAR CODED AAFYFFHG BUT LUCIO HAD LEOPARD IMAGERY N SHIT RAAHAHHGH IM FITIN FOR MY LIFE HERE

Anyway he lives in a forest somewhere cuz his tribe threw him out fully voluntarily bc he sucks ass (or at least for their standards cuz I guess he would be way younger than 18 here for this) (Like a spartan type deal ur too weak we don’t want you *drops you off a cliff*  *but theres 4 feet of snow under it so he survives*  *that’s so fucking goofy hjbsfbj kinda suits him*) so uhhhhhh i don’t know where hed be currently chilling for an mc to meet him ever but yeah hes kinda Floki Vikings™ type of vibe at least visually that’s what came to mind first to picture him lol

look at this little blond rat bastard. adorable. becoming increasingly obsessed. picturing lucio with this exact hairline. moving on

and his thing is hes still insecure as fuck but worse at ignoring it and hiding it and hes a lil nervous bundle of sticks and always talking bc of it, kinda Bruno Madrigalesque type vibe julian but a pitch more pathetic who knew it could be done yknow? opposite of The OG The Mountain The Stone Cold Silent The Muriel The Scourge The Kokhuri The Third and also me when writing and not stopped in time

oh oh what if he was totes in denial that his tribe kicked him out and in his view hes on some super intense convoluted secret mission (lasting from. age 7 to now apparently) and as soon as hes done they’ll totally come back for him kdfsgjffd I thought it could either be his own copium or he took it from some last interaction with someone who took pity on him as a kid and wanted to give him some comfort, or something he misunderstood entirely

hm. They both have canid familiars idk what to do with that. muriel with two wolves tho. thats hot shit righ there if i do say so myself

oh now im toying with the idea of taking away muriels SUPPOSED YET UNCONFIRMED AS MY VERY CONTROLLED ACADEMIC STUDY HAS SHOWN COUGHCOUGHJHBSRGJBHF talking to animals buff, i dont wanna just take it and give it to lucio tho, but like. what the fuck else do i give him. astral projecting to tie into his ghost era? sounds dope actually alright lets do that lmao

ok its 1 30 am i hope this is comprehensible to anybody anywhere im zonking out now khbsfhbfk love u

@tetsuooooooooooo I've missed your essays, this was such a treat to log in to!!!

And WOW, thorcoded Muriel is not something I ever would have thought of on my own but oddly enough I feel like the AU you're coming up with could really work, goodness me. And the way you've inverted Lucio's character too!! I'd love to see how their interaction dynamics invert as well!

Always good to hear from you friend, hope you're doing well!

[luckyladylily]

Reading about the response to Erd Tree has been really funny and interesting because there's been a huge push back against what many people see as difficulty so high it is simply bad design, and the FromSoft sycophants have come out of the woodwork to explain that actually good games feel like being kicked in the balls repeatedly and that the level design for that one part is deeply anti intuitive, unfun, and unfair on purpose and isn't that so cool, and if people were not complete scrubs they wouldn't be tackling challenges in an organic and self directed way in this open world game, everyone knows you need to do things in a specific order to get the purely artificial power ups needed for the game to actually be remotely playable.

Like, I didn't intend to play Erdtree but if I was on the fence the fans defense of the game would be all I needed to decide it wasn't worth playing. It surely cannot be as bad as they make it sound but good god they make it sound terrible.

And I like FromSoft! I like hard games! I 100% finished the launch version of AC5, a game so bullshit hard unfair that even FromSoft had to admit they fucked up bad and nerfed the difficulty. But this just sounds miserable. Elden Ring was already over indulgent in the worst habits of FromSoft getting high on the memes of soulsborne difficulty and it sounds like Erdtree just ramped it up.

I think Hidetaka Miyazaki might need to take up building kaizo Mario rom hacks or something so he can get making troll designs out of his system.

[beesmygod]

i'm a little jealous at how quickly you're mowing through these elden ring bosses but i guess i should have expected that from a more experienced fromsoft player! how does the combat/world feel compared to prior games?

im realizing its mostly a matter of knowing the "language" of the games so i know what to look out for. i've died 12000000000 deaths to learn the true secret of fromsoft games: swing the camera around to look for enemies waiting to leap out at you behind walls. and always check to make sure the elevator is there

it feels great! i have some small complaints but a lot of quality of life stuff they added is a godsend. they finally combined all the good parts of previous games without clipping off any beloved features.

pros: i really like the ash systems, i think they're fun and easy to understand. i understand fromsoft's insane, overly complicated leveling menus more than i think most people would, but i think they've finally whittled it down into something a normal person could reasonably come to understand. DS1 is like trying to read ancient sumerian, comparatively. everything about the map near perfect (i wish there was a way to mark things as "done" but that's like. it.). its astoundingly readable. the increase in "bonfire" locations is very appreciated. they did me a huge favor by cutting down on the repeat minibosses (so far) which was one of the worst parts of sekiro. the enemy and boss diversity is kind of nuts. i cannot believe how massive the map is and how complex it is. when i discovered there was a whole underground part i was blown away. despite these improvements, i do not feel like from is holding my hand; i like figuring things out for myself! i like getting verbal instructions from a character who expects you to remember what they said instead of giving you a fucking quest marker.

cons: (skill issue) dude i think they fiddled with the parry timing across games again (i was fiddling with ds3 before this) bc i am REALLY struggling lol. ALSO FIGURE OUT A CONTROL SCHEME AND STICK WITH IT!!!!!!!!! STOP CHANGING THE ESTUS BUTTON. MIYAZAKI'S WORST PRANK YET. i've also stated how amazing the game runs considering the sheer size of it all but twice now it's locked up on me to the point of crashing/near crashing. this might be an impossible to avoid hurdle considering im playing it on ps4.

also, critically regarding how fast i'm moving: its really getting in the way of comic. the faster i finish it, the less distracted i'll be. i needed a lark.