#like the story and acting aside (which are all great) the quality of it is just so comforting

[anarchypumpkincowboy]

Robin of Sherwood is one of those shows I could watch again and again and again

[funnyscienceman]

yknow midway through episode 7 i thought, holy shit, was act 2 really just the weak link? does act 3 save it?

then we got to episode 8 and i was like oh, no. right. ok. nevermind, carry on i guess.

this season still doesnt register as real by the by. like, memes about singed aside. actually the whole reason why i joke that the entirety of arcane was just him is because he's the only one who remained mostly consistent throughout seasons 1 and 2. everyone else just changed and changed and changed at the drop of a hat. there was so little development of character, rarely did anyone talk about anything or just sit with what's been going on. i think i've said this before, but if season 1 was rushed then season 2 was breakneck speed, and it's broken several necks and got several bodies by the time the ride finished.

it's like i'm still waiting for the actual season 2 to drop. which, yknow, i'm not. i want riot to leave these characters and their stories tf alone after all that, it's just that this whole thing felt like fanfic put up on the big screen. and fanfic can be fun, fanfic can be great, fanfic can be spectacular. quality varies because a lot of the time, fanfic is made by one person in their bedroom.

This is an entire writing team. For a TV show. With almost 300 million dollars in budget.

What

[aotopmha]

I saw Sonic movie 3.

And it was a really solid movie, in fact, surprisingly strong in terms of theme and character writing in particular even if I already expected an improvement.

But I think the blunt nature of the movie was my favourite aspect of it.

It had the brisk pacing and concise writing of the best Dragon Ball movies.

I saw some reviews say the second act was slower than they would've liked, but I never felt any kind of slowdown myself.

There was some stilted exposition here and there, but because the movie was so propulsive, none of it ever overtook the story to the point where it started affecting its overall quality, same for the pop culture references or human characters (helps that the roles the humans got were relevant to the story at hand).

Some of the references were actually funny because of the more snappy execution – among other elements the comedic timing for jokes improved considerably here (though I personally still could do without most of the referencing).

They did exactly what I think they needed to do, which is to tighten the pacing and focus on the strongest aspect of their writing: the forementioned themes and characterisation.

Team Sonic was great, the Robotniks were great and Shadow was great.

Though by the end, there was a mild nagging wish for just a little bit more of everything on my part.

All of the above elements were great, but because there were so many characters to focus on in a relatively short span of time, the exact opposite issue for pacing in comparison to the previous movies popped up in that I think the movie needed just a little bit more runtime to let some scenes sit a little more.

Because it was so larger-than-life, I also had no issues with the back and forth between comedic and serious scenes like I saw some reviewers say they had, as well, not just because it is a movie about an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog, but also because the movie did a great job of setting the tone to make the more ridiculous elements work.

The best I had to say about Sonic 2 is that it was a live action cartoon and Sonic 3 fully embraces this element of itself.

So, the movie is as fantastic of a Sonic Adventure 2 adaption you could get given the time limitation of a movie, but just short of truly amazing because of it, as well.

What truly surprises me is that I think I can recommend this as a generally good movie, not just a good movie for Sonic fans.

I brought this up with the other two, but these movies feel like classic 90s kids' movies and this movie is that ten fold.

Definitely, absolutely go see it if you're a Sonic fan, though.

SPOILERS FROM HERE.

They totally killed both of the Robotniks because they don't know if they can get Jim Carrey back, and if they are able to get him back, they'll absolutely bring him back.

He was at his peak performance here in my eyes, but more than that I love how he ended up also having a character arc that tied to the themes of the story along with Sonic and Shadow.

Putting everything else aside, I think the part of the movie which earned that 88% Rotten Tomatoes rating with the critics is the strong thematic throughline augmented by the extremely economically told character stories.

Gerald Robotnik's existence allowed to explore Ivo Robotnik and his lack of any familial connection similarly to Shadow's and Sonic's familial losses.

Robotnik's farewell and acknowledgement of Stone at the end of movie not only paid off his arc in the movie (the realisation that he did not share his grandfather's hatred for humanity), but also all of the screentime Stone and Eggman had in the other two movies.

While Sonic's similarity to Shadow was highlighted when Shadow attacked and seriously injured Tom (even without willingly wanting to do so) and Sonic temporarily went down a similarly vengeful, solitary path.

Unlike Shadow, however, he ultimately chose the different, better path, by sparing him.

And both of them understood each other by the end because of their shared experience of loss.

I think how Shadow and Knuckles were handled actually was the best example of this movie's extremely tight script.

Shadow actually didn't talk that much, with a very large chunk of his story actually being "shown" via flashbacks characterising Maria, but when he did, it always felt like it had gravitas.

And to me the absolute best of this was the scene at the tail end of the movie where you actually see Maria die; the cinematography transitioning to present Shadow powering the Eclipse Cannon said everything it needed to say just via the visuals and nothing else. It was a fantastic example of "show, don't tell".

Because it is all so firmly consistent, when it all comes together in the final 20 to 30 minutes, everything feels natural and earned.

Everything connects and makes sense on a character level, even if the plot itself uses a bunch of coincidence/contrivance to streamline the order of events and, in turn, all of the side characters tie into this three-way web.

I mentioned Stone, Tom (earlier in the movie, Tom also has a thematically good, if more stilted heart to heart with Sonic) and Maria (who I also like because she's just a fairly normal kid in this interpretation of the story), but I actually really want to highlight Tails and Knuckles, as well.

Moreso Knuckles because I like how the argument throughout the movie about the team name evolves from Team Sonic or Team Knuckles to just "team" by the end and I really like how Knuckles responds to (and opposes) Sonic recklessly asking to use the Master Emerald, which ties into the themes of the second movie. It's a surprising bit of refreshing nuance.

I think Tails is the most standard out of all three, serving as a mediator and the brains of the operation, mostly staying the same from the previous movie, with perhaps simply less prominent admiration for Sonic.

Everything, from sometimes to the smallest of lines or visuals to the most impactful ones is tied to the theme of family and familial loss.

Eventhough they have such comparatively small roles in the movie, even Tom and Maddie wanting to join the insanity is a great payoff when thinking about where their characters started.

This story has a theme that is extremely old, but you can't argue with rock solid thematic/character substance (and so can't the critics it seems).

Do I myself think as highly of the movie as the current Rotten Tomatoes score?

Not really, I think I see it more in the ballpark of a firm 7-8/10, but it certainly is fantastic for what it is trying to be.

Thinking a little bit about the future, though, I'm really curious about what they'll do with Metal Sonic and Amy because I think CD and Heroes are to this day my personal "flawed favourites" of the series.

CD was my favourite Sonic game when I was younger because I loved the aesthetics of it, from the intro to the zones to music and Metal Sonic might be my favourite rival character for Sonic because of how the game presents its set pieces.

Unfortunately, I think it just doesn't hold up in terms of level design, in the same way how I think Heroes has awesome level design, but does not hold up because of the control issues and glitches.

So if there's one Sonic movie made "for me", it'll be this 4th one.

I certainly have much higher expectations for it with the context of this one, at least.

[latay7]

hi do you have any headcanons for abel and abyss?

Why hello helllooooo ><

Thay you so much for your request and i hope i fullflled your wish how you wanted

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

General headcannons for Abyss and Abel ☆

ੈ✩‧₊˚genre : i think fluff with a few mentions of their background stories

ੈ✩‧₊˚Note : idk why is it taking me so long to do the requests 🥲

(Btw Devider by the amazing : @saradika )

Abyss razor

For starters , we know how is our poor boy when comes to girls💀💔like , i love this man but....he is ...miserable.

So you can defently imagine the one sided tension between you too , but you were patient and gentle with him , it wasn't easier for him eaither.

At first , it took a while , but then he slowly warmed up to you because he saw how much of you were wiling to accept him for who he was. Which was something he questioned for a while.(my man will throw himself out the window if a female touched him )

I mean , not many people saw him as something other than a curse because of his eye , and being a part of the Magia Lupus , people feared him , stayed away from him.

But he was met with your kindness that no one has ever given him. He found himself thinking , Overthinking , why , why were you like this , to him ?? He was a monster , a curse...

But you saw beyond that , you saw the poor soul inside him that had to endure all that suffering , the little child that never got to feel love before , locked up in a dark room to cry himself to sleep , regretting being born , everyday.

If he was to describe it , it was how your hand slowly inches towards his so you don't jumpscare him , how you go easy with his overwhelmed self , your sickening sweet words thay he heard not with his ears , but his heart , the heart that was in you hands , and to sum it up. (i talk a lot...i know)

He loves words of affirmation and quality time , because it makes him feel the dedication and love you have for him , it makes him feel alive. And i think that he slowly leans towards physical touch since it was smth that we can say he NEVER had any of it in his life.

In return , he gives you acts of service and quality time as well (idk why but i think he's not that great with forming sentences , especially when girls) , he tries his best so you stay with him so he can live in your eternal love and warmth.

Abel and the Magia lupus know about you , athough he tries to keep you away from the latter , he sometimes tend to tell him about you when Abel notices his mood or behaviour being better than the previous days , and tbh , i feel like Abel would be a but delighted to see that change in Abyss (this is a wild take that i have no idea what basis is it taking.....headcanon w/o the head)

"Be careful of my heart won't you , see , you're taking it home with uou tonight , please , don't break it"

Abel Walker

You can fix him (wtf am i smoking)

Jokes aside , Abel , before his encounter with with Mash and you , had a very....specific....percpective of the world , but after you heard his story , you too were willing go change his looks towards the world and the people.

Approaching him was VERY difficult , let alone having a conversation with him , but you were consistant until Mash did what he did and Abel...opened up.

When you two got to talk , you tried to tell him more about what you think and see in this life but he seemed to dissmiss you , he didn't deny your ideas but he ignored you the first times.

He did that because you were kind and lovely , just like his mother , so he was intrigued , which led to unexpected outcome.

He starts showing up to you , out of te blue, for no reason 💀just to do whatever , you're studying at the library? He's there studying too, which is wierd because he as well denies the idea you're getting about him wanting go be friends.

But you're like "yeah sure buddy , whatever helps you sleep at night". He's curious , why do you think the way you think , he of course remembers his mother like that too , but he wanted to know more.

You show him , bit by bit , everything beautiful in life , and how forgivness is more powerful than revenge , and how helping others will benefit you more than focuisng on only yourself.

He didn't realise it and fell in love with you , and here , a new story began.

He's not that great with physical touch but he will always be there when you need him , freeing his schedule to be with you.

You're well acquainted with the Magia Lupus as well , (which he threatened : if anything happens to her on your watch , you're paying the price) so they to be as welcoming as ever with you.

He tells you about his mother and watchsd how you smile when he describes her and her kindness to you , and how you sympathise with him about her death.

You do everything you can to find the kind hearted soul in him , and despite him denying it , you're not gonna give up.

"It's you , despite everything , it's still you"

That was crazy , ahhhhhhhh it took me soo long im sorrryyy

And i hope i did well because this was quite the risk that i took

Anyway , i noticed that i curse a lot so im sorry if that bothers anyone-

And hope u like my next works! I'll try to be quick

[thegeminisage]

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA ECHOES OF WISDOM FINAL VERDICT

SHORT VERSION: minor nitpicks but rad as hell

LONG VERSION:

what i loved about eow:

zelda getting her own adventure, FINALLY. it matters so much to me <3

the thinking aspect of it. i'm used to trying a puzzle a few times and then looking it up if i can't get it, but eow made me WANT to throw myself at the wall until something clicked. it made solving puzzles even more satisfying than in link games, somehow. though i had my initial concerns over not getting a "real" sword, i didn't really miss it until the final fight, and most of the time, i went out of my way to avoid using it if possible, because i wanted to be creative. in fact, even while playing, i looked forward to being able to watch other peoples playthroughs to see how they tackled certain puzzles differently from me. it's so fitting to who zelda is in the lore that it's crazy to me she wasn't een in the original concept - she just fits so PERFECTLY here, as if they'd designed it for her from the ground up.

the way link mattered in the story without stealing the stage (everywhere except the final boss, which i have mixed feelings on). i know that link's function is to act as a stand-in for us, but in this project especially, it's nice to see him get some personality - i think he's earned it!

i ALSO really loved, of course, the final dungeon and working together with link to solve puzzles. the last zelda co-op game we had was four swords where everybody had the same abilities bc they were all link, but what if we had one with link and zelda where they had different abilities? it was so exciting and rewarding to finally get to work with link after all the mystery surrounding him and the fights with his evil duplicate.

the stilled realm stuff was incredible. i had so much fun in the rifts i wish there had been more of them. picking your way around that fucked up landscape is great

being able to cheat your way around any landscape is great also. like i can get to hebra from the ground with enough platbooms, i can jump over tree barriers, etc. it made me feel like a master of the world.

i liked tri! not the most standout companion, but they were just confused enough about basic emotion and nonplussed about things in general to be funny and make me fond

in fact, most of the secondary characters were a lot of fun. i was pretty neutral on wright and lefte and the gerudo ladies, but the zora leaders, impa and lueberry, and of course, conde - they were all fantastic. zelda's dad not being shitty for once was a really nice touch, too.

loved all the callbacks to other games - the deku scrubs, the river vs sea zoras, volvagia, big blue pig ganon even though he sin't my fav

speaking of, i'm not mad about the lore either. it fits with what we know so far and it was GREAT to hear from the three goddesses again when it's been like 20-something years. i was kinda mad when they got shunted aside for hylia and i'm glad nintendo is bringing them into co-existence again

most of the time the music was just okay but when it was good it was REALLY fucking good.

overall, the story was absolutely charming, filled with mostly fun characters and environments and a creative mechanic and a world i cared about saving. none of that feeling i got from totk sometimes where i went "wait, what?" or "this is bullshit!" except maybe when the goron had to break the picture of his dead dad lol.

what i did not love about eow:

my absolute #1 main complaint is the quality of life bs. i should NOT have to go through so many dialogue boxes for a task that is repetitive. minigames that have a 20-second time limit where i spend almost as much time skipping thru the dialogue to try again? come on. smoothies? the dojo? these are things we do dozens, perhaps hundreds of times per playthrough. there is NO NEED to make it that tedious. i would have had a LOT of fun experimenting with smoothies if it hadn't been so tedious, but instead i went out of my way to avoid using them because i was dreading having to sit through the animations and dialogue boxes for more. and there's no quick retry for minigames, either. for the dojo where one misstep means you'll have to start over, all you can do is quit early and then go through the dialogue ALL. OVER. AGAIN. it is 2024!!! surely when they played the game they got annoyed by this too! what are we doing!

similarly, while i didn't hate the slidey menu as much as everyone else cuz i got pretty good at skimming it, it's still nuts to me that they couldn't come up with anything better, perhaps involving some sort of category. sometimes i want platforming echoes and sometimes i want combat ones. separate them!!

while the final boss was FANTASTIC in mood and presentation, my echoes and automatons being kind of useless + me being denied a sword made me feel like i had nothing to do but run around and dodge and watch link and my lynel fight the boss. this is a tricky one because i'm not sure what could possibly be changed to make me a more active participant and still leave link his sword (his presence elevated it so much - much like zelda's does in final fights against ganon), but it felt just an inch to the left from perfect for me

automatons in general - i was really hype for them, but most of them don't even move around on their own, and they're so slow a fast-paced combat sitch will obliterate them instantly. which would have been PERFECT for the final boss where i wanted a more direct means of attack, but they'd get toasted before i had a chance to wind them up. JUST removing the winding element would have improved these greatly without any other change at all, but it's another quality of life thing

the horse was also useless, but the horses have been useless in every game since majora's mask, and even in majora's mask it's iffy.

the world DID feel a little small sometimes, but i think that's the natural result of being able to cheat your way around it - and i wouldn't change that.

finally, the music - most of the music for the overworld sections was boring, where the dungeon music occasionally had more character. i was a little disappointed there wasn't more of the old melodies aside from little snatches of them here and there. i definitely understand composers wanting to do something new, but if their new something is this atmospheric, unhummable stuff...that just doesn't feel like a zelda score, you know? that said, again: when it was good, it was GREAT. that final boss fucking rocked.

overall this made me SOOOO ready for an oracle or minish cap remake from grezzo and absolutely RABID for zelda to have her own 3D adventure someday. they thought it wasn't possible but it ABSOLUTELY is, and the co-op sections near the end were especially wonderful and something i'd love to see in a mainline title someday. yes, this game was flawed, but it wasn't flawed the way totk was, it was overall a great joy to play and well worth both my time and money. there's very little i would change.

and, on a mushy real life note, echoes of wisdom did also help me get through the 15-day power outage after hurricane helene...i started the game just before the hurricane hit and finished it just after i got my power back, so helene kind of defined the experience of playing it for me. i'll never forget sitting in my dark bedroom with all the windows open and the generators going outside and my switch just propped up on my monitor stand, surrounded by battery packs, my only light from flashlights or candles, trying to help the time pass and enjoy the game while keeping a clooose eye on my battery life. it was one of the very, very few things i could look forward to in an uncomplicated way every day, and having something to keep me going was vital to my not just going nuts. zelda games usually seem to come out when i need them most! and i'm grateful to her too <3

[ryuichirou]

Replies

Happy Monday! Catching up a bit... About our recent posts, Jade and Floyd’s new card and some random twst-related stuff.

Starting with replies about the OruVil comic from a couple of days ago!

Anonymous asked:

HOGH I really love that recent Film Club art~

And the outfits you gave them is so good!

Thank you for the food! 💚

Hi, 💚 Anon! You’re very welcome and thank you!! I am very happy you liked the outfits; for some reason (pretty obvious one tbh), picking clothes for Vil always makes me nervous lol So I’m glad it looks ok!

I love Film Club...

Anonymous asked:

FUCK SORRY IM BACK

💚 ANON HERE

I FORGOT TO SAY THAT ORTHO DESIGN IS SO GOOOOD I SWEAR I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT HE'S SO TALL  AND BEAUTIFUL asddsfdsgfGAfdf

HI AGAIN, 💚 ANON!!

Thank you again! I really like to think that Ortho would’ve been a handsome guy. Well, it’s not like he isn’t handsome as he is~

blackbutlerfandomnerddomain asked:

DUDE ORTHO HAS SOME FASHION SENSE HOLY SHIT!!!

Yes! This is what you become when you have Vil as your mentor <3

Anonymous asked:

Rook would be cheer captain of anything he's so excited for literally nothing half the time.

I would say good for him, but honestly, good for everyone around him. We all need Rook hyping us up for no reason in our lives sometimes.

Anonymous asked:

The tweels are the worst kind of caretakers XD XD XD

(this is related to this post)

Well, at least their caring nature makes Azul recover way faster! <3 Isn’t that sweet?

Anonymous asked:

Hmmm, is Neige enjoying watching Vil’s agonized screams?

This one is probably referring to a sketch from Ko-Fi; and it’s related to a fic that Katsu wrote!

But to answer your question: I think he is just mesmerised by his acting talent <3

Anonymous asked:

Oooh, so who’s the lucky someone who took Trey’s v card? What’s his body count?

This one is also related to a sketch from ko-fi wink wink~

Anon, I really want you to ask this question to Trey directly while looking into his eyes, I think it would result in our witnessing a human being becoming a tree (to become unnoticeable) in real life. But jokes aside, I think Trey is the type of person to have his first time with just some guy who he was kind of attracted to, nothing big or serious. He might have had a couple of encounters like this... But stopped the moment Riddle became a NRC student for some reason.

TLDR; Trey Clover has stories to tell but he doesn’t anyone to know about it.

Or maybe! Maybe he is still a virgin and this whole thing is just a big misunderstanding. Who knows~

Anonymous asked:

does fem idia only forgo bras or is she just straight up commando under her clothes

Come on, Anon, she’s not a certain eel woman... and not even another certain eel woman. She wears panties! <3 Sometimes this is the only thing she wears though.

Anonymous asked:

Hyperventilating right now, have you guys seen the new upcoming Tweels (in their merform) ssrs cards??? They look so HOT 🔥

Yes!! They look very good! I’m really looking forward to seeing them in good quality + the groovies, I am so glad we got them!

Anonymous asked:

Why is everyone crapping on the anatomy of the new tweels’ ssr card? It looked great to me 😓

They are? I’m very out of the loop, the only thing I’ve seen is some kids being angry at them having pecks + abs and at people thinking they look sexy... Which is very stupid; they’ve always had pecks and abs, they’re mermen, for fuck’s sake, they use their stomach and chest muscles a lot. And the cards are very obviously drawn to look sexy lol of course people are going to comment on that.

If we’re talking about anatomy though, I think the anatomy on twst cards is always “good enough”; sometimes it’s amazing, sometimes it’s less successful, but with these two in particular I don’t see anything super offensive anatomy-wise. This isn’t a certain Diasomnia boy’s certain groovy.

Anonymous asked:

I’m  going to guess that Azul leaves a lot of his lovers unsatisfied with his speed rounds of sex

(referring to this post)

Not necessarily! Speed rounds of sex is Azul’s ideal form of sex because it’s efficient. But Azul would also absolutely hate to leave his lover unsatisfied because it would hurt his ego; so basically no one leaves until everyone is satisfied... which is even worse somehow lol This is probably one of the reasons Azul doesn’t like sex very much.

Anonymous asked:

Strange idea, but Azul with Idia or something and they're having fun and whatnot and Idia's just so tired and wants a break and he keep saying that, but Azul doesn't believe him.

So he just keeps going.

I don’t think anything strange about your idea, Anon, I think this is pretty normal for these two. Azul doesn’t necessarily have more stamina than Idia, but he does have a lot of energy, stubbornness and determination! And horniness too sometimes...

Anonymous asked:

have you considered jade/jamil at any point?

Not in any serious way; we just haven’t seen anything that would get us the sparks yet. But we’re not opposed to it.

Anonymous asked:

For some reason, this clip: https://youtu.be/enJda42gLcA?si=SQe9LFw1SsfDX4Ev. Especially when she was questioning what all the suffering was for because that’s exactly what Riddle was doing during his overblot

My main takeaway from this video is damn I would love to read a detective book written by Riddle...

But also, I see what you mean! It’s easier to deal with trauma if it results in something good or at least right. But unfortunately, this isn’t how it always is...

[drudeger]

Beyblade Burst Quadstrike Review

(spoiler warning for the entire show)

ok so let's talk quadstrike.

I think we can all acknowledge the low expectations we had for a hasbro produced season of the anime, and while the season definitely delivered on those expectations in some aspects, it also managed to surprise me with its quality in others.

Animation

let's start with the animation. the quality of the animation ranged from abysmal to passable for a large majority of the season, with the only really good animation being reused from previous seasons. that being said, in a couple of episodes, including the first and last, it was actually pretty good. overall, I'd say the quality was most comparable to that of the sixth season with only some episodes ever managing to surpass or dip below that.

Voice Acting

the voice work was great overall. the returning cast from quaddrive maintained a level of voice acting quality on par with that season, which is to say, pretty damn good and it’s a similar story for the returning cast from before quaddrive. you might expect the part of the cast returning from a 2+ year hiatus from their previous roles to need to readjust and settle back into performing their characters, but honestly most of them seemed perfectly comfortable jumping back into it with the only exceptions being xander and kit. both character voices definitely feel just slightly rusty, but considering the massive ~4 year real life time gap, you really can’t blame them and honestly they do a great job getting mostly settled back into their roles pretty quickly.

when it comes to the casting decisions made for quadstrike specifically, kieran regan was a great choice to portray a more grown-up and mature ken and he absolutely nailed the role. keru and besu’s voices were also just right, sounding like characters that are voiced by ken but are still distinct-sounding from him, and the quality of all three performances speaks to kieran’s skill.

anjali kunapaneni was practically perfect as pri, giving her a full voice that matches her character but doesn’t overdo it with shoutiness despite pri’s boisterous personality, balancing it out to accentuate the more cool outward appearance she tries to impress upon other bladers. they really bring a level of depth and nuance to their performance that gives pri a very real and unique voice and it was easily the best voice performance in the season.

darren delfin’s performance as pax is definitely a close second and his ability to portray character depth shows through a lot here with the subtle differences in tone when pax is being disingenuous (e.g. when he pretends to be happy about pri making friends) and when he genuinely wants to show appreciation and admiration (e.g. when he talks about his admiration for red eye.) honestly, I’d be lying if I said I’d caught any of this on first watch. it’s just not the sort of depth I believed I had any reason to look out for. the only reason I say it was the second best performance and not the first is because the accent feels awkward and it doesn’t sound quite right, an unfortunately important skill gap when you’re asked to voice a character with a foreign accent.

Plot

the plot itself was. ok. plot points were arranged in a sensible enough order and it almost never managed to feel too forced. except for the part where pax just calls aiga up on his phone and THAT'S how they decided to have pax challenge aiga? and absolutely nobody questions how pax got his number?? I literally laughed out loud when that happened like bro what??? 😭😭 also that one part in the finale where we get a somewhat dramatic shot with some random fucking kid and get absolutely zero explanation????? aside from these (admittedly incredibly weird) oddities, the plot was ultimately unengaging but passable. there really just isn't a lot to say about it due to its overall lack of substance.

Story

but if you asked me to describe what quadstrike is actually about — its story — I'd tell you it's a story about a bunch of kids running around with highly marketable toys. which sounds comically cynical but, despite its best efforts, quadstrike struggles to be much more than that. although that isn’t to say I wasn’t pleasantly surprised by the unexpected amount of depth in some aspects of the writing.

Themes

the season has two themes, one of which is executed decently but neither being given the time or care needed to feel nearly as impactful as they could have.

Identity

the most prominent and complete of the themes is that of identity, which is explored through the season's secondary (arguably primary) protagonist, pri forsythe/quadra. the season introduces the foundations for this theme when quadra loses to drum in the abyssal tournament after taking off her mask. pax tells pri to keep her mask on in battle because it will increase her elemental power and make her strong and pri begins questioning if he's right. it was also revealed in a flashback that pax made the mask and when pri wears it, pax says she assumes an entirely different persona and becomes quadra. this poses to pri as well as the audience three questions: does pax know what’s best and should pri therefore listen to his instructions, allowing him to control what decisions she makes? are pri and qudra the same or different? if “becoming quadra” makes her stronger, should she be ok with being her when she battles?

the first question takes a backseat for a bit while the second and third questions are explored, although we see it reiterated as pri continues to battle without the mask.

we are introduced to one position for the last two questions when, during a flashback, pax says that pri becomes a different blader entirely when she assumes the identity of quadra during battle. the other position is introduced when pri asserts that it shouldn’t matter if she doesn't wear the mask because it’s still her battling regardless. the second position is built upon when ken’s mom explains to pri that keru and besu are a part of ken’s identity and pri restates the question later that night, asking herself if she’s pri or quadra. after she loses to ken, he gives her some advice — that quadra is her too. then, after her first loss to xander where she doesn’t wear the mask, pri finds a letter to her from ken that says "it doesn’t matter if the mask makes you stronger. you’re you with or without it, it doesn’t define you,” explicitly stating the answer to both questions. with all of this in mind, pri decides she’ll wear the mask for her rematch with xander and from now on will wear it in battle at her own discretion. so at this point in the story, the last two questions have been answered.

having pri’s decision be one that retains her agency is the strongest choice they could have made, but having ken spell out the answer for her, especially not even an episode after he gives her his advice, just feels bad, and it ends up feeling unearned since she’s given such little time to actually struggle with the question and deliberate on his advice or develop as a character before coming to the conclusion she does.

(tw: this section contains discussions of emotional manipulation and generally toxic behavior from a caretaker)

but that’s only two of three questions and now that the last two questions have been answered, we finally get to see the first question being explored — does pax know what’s best and should pri therefore listen to his instructions, allowing him to control what decisions she makes? during the battle camp, we learn that pax was forced to quit blading due to an injury and it was his dream to become a legend like valt. this, combined with previously revealed information as well as pax’s constant use of phrases like “our goal” and “our dream,” makes it clear that pri partially accepts the role of quadra for pax and this sets up another part to the first question: is it really ok that pri/quadra center her identity around a dream that isn’t completely her own? while she does have her own reasoning for wanting to battle, she wants to help pax in his goal to create the ultimate elemental bey which was the entire point of him making and having her use pandora, the mask and the quadra persona in the first place. it’s a driving force behind the question, as we see pri struggling between her want to do things her way and her want to make her brother happy and we constantly see them both grappling with the idea that if pax is happy, pri should be happy too because they're convinced that this is what they both want.

as the story continues, pax begins pushing even harder for pri to do things the way he wants. near the start of the battle camp, quadra uses lightning pandora when pax wants her to use tidal pandora. pax asks why and intuits it’s because of her loss to xander. he says that it doesn’t matter if she loses, everything is going according to “their” plan, and pri lashes out from her frustration that he won’t explain what the plan actually is and he snaps, yelling at her that she doesn’t need to understand everything going on and tells her to just do as he says and she hesitates for a moment before agreeing.

later, pax tries to get wakiya to withdraw pri from the tag-team tournament because he doesn’t like the possibility of bell influencing her. jiji gets pax to allow pri to continue participating in the tournament by showing how happy pri and bell are to be battling and says there’s no doubt the two will help make each other stronger. and while pax gives in, knowing he’d only come off as unreasonable had he protested further, it’s clear pax isn’t happy he wasn’t able to maintain full control of the conversation and therefore make the decision for pri. this scene is meant to show how pax thinks he knows what's best for pri and wants to convince not only pri but the people around her of that too.

later, during the tag-team tournament, pax convinces bell to try and win the next match all by himself and he loses the match for both himself and quadra. pri, having deduced that pax said something to provoke bell, confronts pax and he says pandora should be battling on its own and the tournament is a waste of time. this upsets pri greatly and she runs from him. this scene is meant to establish pri beginning to realize pax might not have her best interests in mind.

then, aiga shows up to hell’s gate and challenges pri and bell to a 2-on-1 battle, and if they win he’ll battle them both individually. before she makes a decision, she calls pax and he says she doesn’t have to accept any team battles she’s challenged to, but she retorts that aiga will battle her individually anyway if she and bell can win. pax, not-so-kindly, tells pri to do what she wants before hanging up. this is actually a common tactic of highly controlling and manipulative people where they basically say “you don’t need me, so do whatever and see what happens when I’m not there to tell you what to do,” usually under the guise of wanting what’s best for the victim so when something does go wrong, the victim feels obligated to go back to them. she battles aiga with bell and without her mask and they end up losing. everything pax has done so far has been to convince pri to give up her individuality for the sake of achieving “their” goal, and quadra losing this battle is exactly what pax wanted to happen so she’d feel obligated to listen to him.

after the first couple of rounds in the champion challenge tournament and the first individual battle is announced as kit vs quadra, pax confronts pri and tells her she must win against aiga and that everything will work out if she just listens to him and she once again agrees. during the match, wakiya and valt explain to aiga pax’s situation and valt posits that pri took up pandora and the identity of quadra to carry on pax’s dream of becoming a legend. aiga restates the thematic question, asking if that’s what quadra wants and explains that he couldn’t ever see himself blading for the sake of someone else’s dream. after quadra loses, pax confronts her and tells her pandora should have won and that the reason they lost was because quadra chose a flawed strategy. aiga goes out of his way to defy pax and tells quadra her strategy was perfect. he declares pax has no say in the matter because it wasn’t his battle to begin with, which of course offends pax. then later, quadra loses to valt, frustrating pax even further and cementing pax’s growing belief that pri does not have what it takes to achieve his goals as long as she has any say in what she does.

later, valt gets a call from shu about the ruins in england and valt plans to leave to see what’s going on. pri talks to pax, saying she knows he’s leaving for england too. she asserts that it has nothing to do with them or their plan but pax responds saying that he’ll be the one to decide that, a clear declaration to pri that he’s the one who knows what’s right. he goes on to tell her that there isn’t any reason pandora should lose to belial and that if she loses, the only explanation is that she’s the problem. pax then admits he doesn’t believe in pri and challenges her to prove to him that he should. while at the ruins, pax declares that “his” pandora is the only bey capable of reaching the highest level of elemental power and pri hopes he meant to say that pandora was both of theirs, again giving pri more reason to doubt pax. aiga approaches pri and tells her she’s her own person and she should do things the way she wants to and reassures her that pandora is her’s as well.

the next day, it’s announced that quadra and bell will battle to determine who will face kit in the finals. pax tells pri to use twister break against bell but pri says bell knows twister break because of how much they used it in the tag-team tournament. pax says it’s the perfect chance to master twister break so she can beat aiga and valt and that bell shouldn’t be of any concern. he reminds her that it’s “their” dream to create the ultimate bey and then reassures her that pandora is both of theirs. for the first two rounds of the battle, she listens to pax but ends up hesitating before the third round, causing pax to insult her and say that if it were him battling, he would have won. this causes quadra to break from pax's plan and battle her own way and while she ends up losing, she finds herself happy in spite of the outcome. at the end of the episode, pax confronts pri demanding she tell him why she broke from his plan when she would have won if she hadn’t. she finally asserts to pax that, even if he would have won, it doesn’t matter because she isn’t him, she is herself — pri and quadra. pax demands pri give back pandora, but before he can take it, bell stops him. pri then proclaims that she’s been the one making pandora stronger, not him, so pandora belongs to her.

(end trigger warning)

and so that’s a wrap on the first question and subsequently pri’s arc as a whole. this particular exploration of the theme was good. it wasn’t nearly as deep as it could have been and the last two questions should have been far more substantial parts of pri’s arc as they have just as much bearing on the outcome of the first question as all of the things in the story that seem more directly related to it. as stated before, it’s frustrating that the last two questions get answered so quickly and require so little struggle or introspection for pri to find the right conclusion for herself, but the conclusions she comes to are those that would be rewarding and feel great if they’d actually allowed pri to earn them. the third question was obviously the most prominent with a very decent build up, though there could have been far more emphasis placed on pri’s struggle with it. we know how much she cares for pax and wants to make him happy and we know she knows to do that she needs to do what he wants, but we also know how much pride she takes in being able to do things her own way and seeing her grappling with the two conflicting motivations is engaging and impactful, but we just don’t get enough of it.

with all this being said, we aren’t quite done with the theme of identity as it is also explored a bit with pax, which makes sense considering he’s as important as he is to pri’s arc dealing with the theme to begin with.

(tw: this section contains brief mentions of emotional manipulation and generally toxic behavior from a caretaker as well as mentions of an ableist trope)

the exploration of the theme of identity through pax is shown with how he projects his identity onto pri. after it’s revealed his injury barred him from blading any longer, we see in flashbacks how devastating it is to him as it was his dream to become a legendary blader like valt and shu and pri sees this too. it’s shown to us how close they are, and that beyblade has helped them bond and so the previously presented information that pax made pandora, the mask and the quadra identity for pri and the constant use of phrases like “our dream” makes it clear that pax has to some degree imparted parts of his identity onto pri so she can carry out his dream and she accepts it because she cares for him. as the story continues, it becomes even more clear how he takes advantage of this part of pri, constantly guilt-tripping her into listening to him by reminding her that this is “their” dream until it culminates in her snapping and asserting her own identity to his face. pax is a character who goes through a devastating loss, becoming disabled which forces him to give up on something massively important to him, something entwined with his sense of self and identity. losing something like that would make anybody feel completely lost, and with pax the grief results in him pushing that part of himself onto pri so he can live vicariously through her. the logical conclusion would then be to have part of his arc be about him finding a new sense of identity, one that doesn’t require pri to subjugate herself to him, but they don’t give him that at all. in the end, pax doesn’t need to do any sort of introspection or search for a new sense of identity because he is simply cured of his disability and he doesn’t have to face any consequences for how he treated pri.

(end trigger warning)

Grief

and that brings us to the second theme of quadstrike — grief. this theme is primarily explored through the main antagonist, pax forsythe, although pri has some part of it as well.

as stated before, it’s revealed pax goes through a devastating loss after his injury forces him give up on blading and his dreams and the loss causes him an immense amount of grief. throughout the season, we’re shown through flashbacks how he feels lost without this part of himself and then it’s revealed he finds out about elemental power. he is in denial that his dream is over and he sees elemental power as a means to give pri the power needed to carry on his dream and he becomes obsessed with it and achieving those goals vicariously through her. it also explains his admiration for shu while he was red eye, a time in shu’s life where he had obsessed over power so he could achieve the dreams he had been unable to previously.

later on, after he decides he has no need for pri any longer, he creates a new bey, some sort of mechanical brace for his injured arm, and a mask. the mask actually conceals the vision on his right side, making it so he can’t see his injured arm and during the lodestar battle tournament, shu explains to pri that when pax sees his injured arm, it causes him emotional pain, compounding how much his grief has affected him and showing the extent of his denial.

(tw: this paragraph contains a brief mention of an ableist trope)

and with all of this in mind, you’d think pax’s arc should have been about him learning to accept his disability and the things it prevents him from doing, beginning a long journey of healing, but that isn’t what happens (and, to be clear, that journey of healing wouldn’t have had to have happened during the show. sometimes the end to an arc marks the beginning of another that’s implied to happen after the end of the show, and arcs that end like this can be incredibly powerful). again, he doesn’t have to accept his loss and grief, he is simply cured of his disability. aside from the gross implications of this that I will get into later, it’s just such an awful way to end an arc. no introspection, no emotional compromise, no real consequences for his actions. he’s just handed a conclusion and the conclusion is everything he wants it to be so they can force in a “beyblade is fun, buy our products please” message instead. and it doesn’t end there.

(end trigger warning)

with pri, we're shown how she sees pax grieving for this loss and how it affects their relationship. they’re no longer able to bond through beyblade the way they were able to before and pax can no longer find happiness and meaning through beyblade in the way he wants, which of course hurts pri. she cares for him and so she does what she genuinely believes will help him heal, taking up the identity of quadra and his goal to create the ultimate elemental bey and become a legendary blader for him. through her, we get to see the way grief impacts the people around the grieving person as well.

we know she eventually breaks away from his control, or at least that’s how it starts out. of course after what happens between pri and pax, pri would be going through grief herself. she denies to herself that pax just doesn’t care about her now that she’s asserted her own identity and this could have been taken in several interesting directions, but they simply go for the worst option imaginable. they have her continue to orbit around pax, every decision she makes from this point forward being for him, completely undermining her original arc and practically abandoning this second one. there is no introspection or closure and the only compromise is them compromising her entire character arc.

quadstrike starts out so strong with this theme so I have genuinely no idea how they ended up fucking it up so unbelievably badly. and the mishandling of themes isn’t the only reason quadstrike’s story feels like it lacks much substance.

Characters

quadstrike’s use of its characters for its story manages to be impressively refreshing at times, disappointingly safe and boring at others, and infuriatingly incompetent at its worst.

first, let’s talk about the secondary characters. this part of the cast doesn't really have anything all too interesting going on, which is understandable. they’re there for the purpose of serving the plot and the main characters’ narratives and they fulfill those roles perfectly competently. that doesn’t mean they couldn’t have been more interesting, but what we got wasn’t bad. a lot of the issues of shallow character-writing with most of the returning characters are things that are rooted in characterization from past seasons, and at this point you can’t really change that without either dedicating way too much time to characters that just aren’t meant to be all that important in this season or completely retconning parts of those prior seasons. if this season had been 51 episodes, maybe we could have gotten some of the former as well as more time to flesh out other parts of the plot and story, but that just wasn’t ever going to be in the cards for quadstrike.

Bell

now let’s get into the protagonists. between bell and pri, bell is very clearly the weaker character and it’s not a close competition. while pri’s arc is written to develop a theme as well as to explore her as a character, bell isn’t given an arc at all. well, ok, he gets an “arc” where the conclusion is just for him to upgrade his beyblade again so hasbro has more product to sell and it’s frustrating because they get so close to doing something actually interesting with his character.

throughout the season, bell loses. a lot. yes, he wins a lot too and a large portion of them are not deserved, but he actually does lose more than he wins. in episode 12 in particular, he’s provoked by pax to try and win the tag team battle with pri against hikaru and hyuga by himself. being an egotistical 10 year old, he falls for it and ends up losing the match for himself and quadra. while this moment is mostly used to further pri and pax’s story, bell is shown to be massively affected by this loss, at least at first. but of course, he couldn’t care less after the next episode begins. then, after bell loses the title match against aiga, he’s shown once again to feel incredibly upset and frustrated with the loss, but he simply gets over it immediately when he decides the solution is to evolve belial. and before any of this, bell loses to several other opponents as well, but only ever seems to be shaken by it a minimal amount if at all.

the reason I bring any of this up is because I think it’s such a wasted opportunity. bell loses so much and if they’d leaned harder into bell’s frustration with losing so many battles (and honestly if they’d had him lose more, like his final battle against ken and/or his second solo battle with hyuga) then they could’ve had an actual arc for him. like, have him get super upset and angry with himself that he keeps losing and maybe have him push too hard and end up breaking belial. that’d even give them an excuse to have him evolve belial. yes it would be a very similar arc to aiga in cho-z but at least it’d be SOMETHING. obviously this is only a single idea for the direction they could’ve taken and I have absolutely zero doubt any of you in the audience could come up with something more interesting than what ended up happening in the show.

that aside, bell was mostly just his usual over-confident and obnoxious 10-year old self committing acts of sillay mischief (which to many of you might be a negative but I love him and I like it when he’s obnoxious so this was a win for me<3).

Pri

on the other hand, pri was a very strong character for the vast majority of the show and was easily the highlight of the entire season. when it comes to her characterization, I found her to be very enjoyable. she’s kind and incredibly passionate and boisterous and playful but she tries to put on a cooler outward appearance in front of other bladers which she often fails at because of her hot-headed and stubborn nature. she’s caring but prideful which often ends up causing conflict between her and pax since she cares about making her brother happy by doing what he wants but she can’t help but disobey at times because she takes pride in doing things her way. her cocky demeanor in the beginning is par for the course with burst characters, but it becoming more and more a mask (haha, get it) for her decreasing self-confidence as the story went on was a level of depth I hadn’t expected to see in a new burst character at this point in the series. because of all of this, her dynamics with other characters, especially bell, are so much fun and it was an absolute joy to see her relationships with the rest of the cast and it was always fun to see her getting silly with it.

unlike bell, she was written with an arc in mind and the arc in question was pretty good for the majority of the show’s runtime. as stated previously, it wasn’t nearly as deep as it could have been but by burst standards, it was a massive breath of fresh air. seeing pri make decisions that retained her agency felt good and the moment when she stood up to pax and asserted her own identity was great.

so yeah, it sucks how they then managed to drop the ball as hard as they did right at the finish line. having pri be in denial about pax’s behavior towards her is fine, but they never give her the moment of realization she deserves. she never leaves him despite what he’s done and every decision she makes after standing up to him continues to be for him, which is such a monumental moon-jump backwards from the incredibly strong writing they’d done for her before. her identity once again becomes centered around pax and it is infuriating to watch play out, like literally what was the point of her asserting her own identity if this was what was going to happen afterwards. it’s like they just decided to completely drop everything interesting about her after her moment in the spotlight (a very familiar problem they seem to have with every strong girl character in this series hmmmmmmmm 🤔.)

Pax

(tw: this section contains discussion of an ableist trope)

and pax. oh boy what to say about pax. well, first and foremost his arc started out as another one of the best in the season. which isn’t really saying that much when there’s only two other arcs and one of those arcs concludes with the character just making more beyblade products, but still. but then they managed to blow it so fucking hard at the end that it easily became the worst of the three.

the setup for his arc centering around his grief and lost sense of identity was good, and the build-up throughout the season was even better. his motivations were understandable, but it became increasingly clear just how unhealthy his obsession with holding onto his dream was, not just for himself, but for pri especially. you want him to accept his disability and what it prevents him from doing so he can finally heal and find something else to live for and you really want him to see that what he’s doing is wrong and for him to apologize to pri. so why does none of this happen and instead he just has his disability cured.

ok, let me make something super clear here. this is a disgustingly and infuriatingly ableist conclusion to a disabled character's arc. pax’s entire arc centers around how he has to give up on his dream because of his disability, a common reality for disabled people in real life. it is an absolutely devastating thing to go through, but something disabled people stress is the importance of coming to terms with their disability so they can find some semblance of peace and continue living their lives to the best of their ability. there is no cure for disability in real life and every attempt to do so has resulted in failure at best and outright eugenics and genocide at worst, and so disabled people have made it clear that the “cured disability” narrative commonly seen in fantasy and sci-fi settings is a harmful trope. in some stories, it’s used as a “reward” for the hero, while in others it’s used as a copout so the creators don’t have to deal with having a disabled character or so the previously disabled character can have a happy ending. curing their disability is used as a conclusion to an arc because able-bodied writers cannot for the life of them imagine a character living a happy life with a disability and that’s very much what it’s used for here. from the beginning, I was hoping so so much that they weren’t going to do this, and I’d gotten my hopes up because of their surprisingly deep and empathetic handling of pri and pax’s characters for most of the season, but they went for the easy option resulting in an insulting and vile conclusion to an otherwise great arc.

(end trigger warning)

pax is, however, a great antagonist. as obvious as it may be to the audience, in the story it starts out pretty ambiguous what exactly his role is meant to be in the season, but as the season goes on, his mask begins to slip and his sinister personality becomes more apparent. this is actually a somewhat common trope with antagonists in the burst series, but pax stands out due to the fact that he isn’t even a blader until the last few episodes in the season. most of his time is spent as a coach to pri, using manipulation as his main weapon rather than a beyblade. again, not necessarily completely unique to him but it feels more present and impactful in this season due to his deep history and close ties to one of the main protagonists.

let me elaborate a bit: with drum and gwyn, the slow reveal of gwyn’s manipulation doesn’t feel as significant because, throughout the season, drum isn’t only naive to gwyn’s ulterior motives, but to literally every stranger he meets. we know he isn’t going to see it until it’s too late and we know at the end he’s going to win gwyn over with the power of friendship and beyblades. additionally, he has no previous relationship with gwyn either, so there's no reason to be invested or feel impacted when it happens.

with pri and pax, however, we see that they have a close familial relationship. pri’s trust in pax isn’t just her being naive by nature, it’s because she cares for him and has little reason to do otherwise. yes, she disobeys him early on, but it’s not out of a sense of distrust for him, but because of her own pride. and it’s not that pax just straight up doesn’t care about pri at all, he has thoroughly convinced himself that what he wants is what pri wants too. so as the story unfolds and pax’s selfish, controlling, and manipulative behavior comes through, it has a far more obvious impact on pri and therefore the audience too, and it creates a stronger reason to be invested in the developing story around their relationship.

and speaking of that story, it is easily one of the most interesting aspects of the entire season. pax’s descent and the slowburn reveal that he’s only interested in his own goals and happiness once pri has made it clear she doesn’t want exactly what pax does is paced so well and feels genuinely devastating. which makes it even more frustrating when they fuck it up right at the end. again. one part of this has to do with what I discussed about pri’s arc before. the fact they never give her a moment of realization means the break in their relationship is completely one-sided, which makes any realization pax has about what he’s done/is doing way less impactful. and then the fact he doesn’t even really have that realization, but instead realizes that “beyblade is fun,” a conclusion to an arc that pax never has, is just. what. and then on top of that, the fact he realizes this because of bell instead of pri??? there’s no real closure between them, everything is just fixed all of a sudden at the end. it just feels awful and it makes it clear that the only reason they never had pri leave pax was so they could minimize pri’s writing at the end and have bell fix everything and it is, once again, rage-inducing to watch.

and all of this — quadstrike’s unwillingness to dig deeper into its themes, its baffling mishandling of said themes and its characters, and insistence on derailing every interesting part of its story for a “beyblade is fun, please buy our products” message at the end (a message they could have easily ended with without throwing out every character arc and theme they’d established) — is why quadstrike struggles to be anything more than an advertisement. it’s a story about kids running around playing with highly marketable toys that seems to desperately want to be about a pair of siblings grappling with grief and their own identities after having experienced loss, but can’t be that because the toys need to get advertised.

Conclusion

so yeah. I enjoyed it. ok I know after how harsh I’ve been, you might be a bit confused. let me be clear: I don’t “like” quadstrike. in fact, I fucking hate it. I hate its unwillingness to defy its status as “just a children’s toy anime,” I hate what it represents as a symbol of the compromise and degradation of story-telling as an artform and art as a form of story-telling for the sake of corporate marketing, I hate how it comes so. SO close. to being something more than what it was expected to be just to fall short right at the end. I hate it!

but I also can’t help but love it. I love this series. I love the characters and their stories. I love the ridiculous and stupid shit that happens to and because of them. I love their relationships and dynamics with each other. it’s all so much fun and they all mean a lot to me, which is why I’m so hard on the burst series whenever it fucks it up. because I see so much potential in what’s here and seeing it be wasted constantly, over and over again, hurts. I know beyblade is a kid’s show and none of this is to say that it can't just be dumb fun, but the problem is when it clearly wants to do something more but ends up compromising out of fear, and I can recognize the parts of it that don’t treat its audience like idiots whose sole purpose is to be marketed to and I just wish it would wholeheartedly embrace that part of itself. I want kids to see stories about trauma, identity, grief, communication, etc. because these are real world things that kids are dealing with and are going to deal with for the rest of their lives and they deserve quality stories and art that teach them about these human things and about being human just as much as anyone else. so that's why I ask: why can’t it be that. when it constantly comes so close, why can't it just hit the mark once and be something more than a marketing trick. just once, why can't it be a piece of art instead of a piece of advertising.

with all that said, if I ever decide to do a rewatch of the burst series, you can be sure I'll only be watching quadstrike through episode 19 and then making up the rest in my head, and if you're wanting to watch the season too I'd suggest you do the same.

[iam-back]

A Review of Vinny's Quality DOS Games 1

We begin the stream with a little game called...

[KOR] Duck | Also known as Bulsaejo Duck by D.Swizzy's little folder, this one is a Galaga-esque. It seems right up Vinny's alley, being about a duck and all. And when I say Galaga, I do mean Galaga. Look at the way the enemies swirl around! And look at the enemies themselves! You got little ships, little wheels, big blue-and-red worms with yellow heads, individual segments of said worms, big bees...

The duck himself seems to be a robot, given how he explodes into screws when he dies. Says to me that the story is about this robot duck who flies above Busan or Seoul or that culture village and blasts down whatever may come in his way. If you don't shoot for a bit, a shield forms around you, which you can turn into a big energy-blast by resuming fire. You also have 7 backup ducks, which Vinny, not being the best gamer in the world, loses all of them.

[CHN] Act of Fighter | Tragically misnamed Action Fighter (no Vinny, this is not that Spy Hunter copycat game for Master System), Vinny can't get past the copyright protection. In a Trio of Trash stream much later on (that includes the hidden gem Toonstruck), we finally see what it looks like - and it seems to be a fantasy-themed Tetris-esque game. Moving on to...

[KOR] Zis: The Adventure | "Ablex~" This is the game studio which brought you Little Witch and Hades, and now this! I mean Zis! Meet Zis, the lovable little rascal whom nobody knows about, otherwise they'd call him a Korean Dennis the Menace. Apparently it gives Vinny the dèja vú. The first thing he sees is the copyright protection - or "Password Check" as the game calls it. You're thrust into a little playground where you must shoot these enemies in this order (p9n4, p3n2, p4n2) - or since D.Swizzy did a little wizardry, Vinny just shoots whichever enemies in whatever order, and he's off!

Zis never shuts up - when he stands still he goes "la la la la", when he accomplishes certain things he giggles, when he collects the little diamonds he says "mmm", when he climbs up onto the things he yells "YABBO" at the top of his lungs. Apparently the gameplay tune sounds alarmingly like the Donkey Kong Country theme, at least to Vinny. But I'm more concerned with the title screen reminding me of Mega Man X!

We're thrust into a cutscene of Zis relaxing by the river, when he should come across a map in a bottle that will take him all across Lisnia in order to find... something. I'm not fluent in Korean. The first level is apparently called "Slowly Forest", and it's there that Vinny starts to ramble about how DOS platformers are never good (apparently ignoring Commander Keen), aside from The Great Giana Sisters, which is a slapdash bootleg Super Mario Bros to everyone else!

His eye's a bumhole, his finger's a chode, and his weapon of choice is a slingshot, which becomes a yoyo when he finds a watermelon and wears his bunny suit. By the way, there's an owl who shoots an arrow at your health meter, which I'm just now realizing might work like the Gloom in Tears of the Kingdom, unless I got to actually play it for myself and see otherwise. Unfortunately, after that Vinny can't figure out how to yoyo up (if one can), and so he leaves the game on Zis singing what sounds disturbingly like the Thomas the Tank Engine theme!

[CHN] Battle Europe | After a bit of Wiseau and an oopsie-crashie, we see that this is a game about tanks and stuff - you can play as Allies or Axis. This one plays decent if you don't have Hearts of Iron and don't mind slow framerates, but brace yourself for the worst horn and drum known to MS-DOS. There's a bom (sic) you can collect which can summon an airstrike missile to wipe your screen, but Vinny doesn't seem to think it did anything. Spoilers - it reduced the number of enemies by 3! Oh, there was a shi that he failed to notice, he coulda used it to protect himself for a bit. He also realizes you can shoot down your own base and fail the mission on purpose, which brings an end to the European battling.

...Have you noticed that the same drums and same horn are in the DOS port of Street Fighter II? I have.

[CHN] Battle of the Martial Arts | Once upon a time, a kindly old monk-esque character by the name of Shau Ling was going on a calm afternoon walk in a thunderstorm. Except it wasn't afternoon, it was like midnight or something! Lesson learned, kids, never go outside at night during a thunderstorm - you could be killed, in this case by this evil wizard with a murder-palm-blast technique.

The game itself is one of a strangely prolific amount of 1v1 fighting games - look, I know I mentioned Street Fighter II earlier, but gee beasties, the game created a lot of competition just by existing! Anyway - Vinny picks Hua Shan v.s Gai Bang (!!!!!!!) in the forest. A comment below mentions his apparent brother Gang, but I know how Chinese nomenclature works and so I realize it would then be Gai Gang.

Hua Shan is a swordsman whereas Gai Bang borrows from Sun Wukong's playbook and speaks softly, but carries a big stick. Anyway, after that Vinny picks Shau Ling and his wiener-leg v.s his exact clone off the coast of the Forbidden City, a very popular tourist attraction in China. Shau Ling actually has some magic palm-blasts of his own, which makes you wonder why he didn't defend himself against the evil wizard. I didn't understand a single thing of that opening text, so for all I know the whole game could be his dying dream as he lays bleeding.

[CHN] China Pro Baseball 1 and 2 | This should be a run-of-the-mill baseball game using at-the-time teams for the Chinese baseball leagues, but the game got stuck on the opening cinematic and the faces (probably real Chinese baseball superstars at the time) made Vinny crack up so hard he could substitute for a malfunctioning space-time continuum. Plus, the music in CPB1 reminds me of Upside Down, a song my old Discord friend said was used in plenty of animation memes, yet I know it from speedpaints that also have *gasp and shock* NCS music in them!!!

Oh yes, the 3D rotating title screen graphic glitches out when it reaches its loop-point.

[FRA] The Death of Vegeta | One of exactly one fangame on this list, it's very short, but very infamous for the way the always Super Saiyan-powered Vegeta screams out "BIG BANG ATTACK!!!!!" at the top of his royal Saiyan lungs. It ends when he falls down an impassable pit and you're greeted with text that says "Vegeta is dead. As he did not perform beneficial gestures in life, he is immediately sent to Hell. [Game's end] NB: Nothing is preventing you from using the crystal balls to revive him. You could start another game." You can tell this was made before Vegeta became Goku's BFFFL (Best Friend Forever For Life).

[KOR] Father World | Much like France has Flashback/Another World/Heart of Darkness, Korea has this little doozy. Vinny was laughing at the game's name, but at least it's not called Daddy World. It's very story-driven, and hey, how much percent of the game's data do you think went into recording voiced dialogue for it?

You've got scenes featuring a cityscape, an evil overlord, some sort of rivalry staring contest as the glass breaks in front of them, the most 90s shonen anime cutscenes your Korean game company can buy, blondie and blue-hair are friends now, and then when he starts the game he's immediately run over by a car. Good job, buddy.

Then he's nursed back to health by a lady. Let's move on.

[KOR] Fox Ranger 1 | "SUFFICIENT TOILET" That's the first thing Vinny hears upon booting the game. It actually says "Soft Action, present:" Anyway, this one's a side-shooter along the likes of R-Type and Life Force/Salamander. It takes place in 2044 AD, 26 years after this VOD and therefore 20 years from now. Having graduated from Korean air force boot camp, this little NF43 is saving the world from aliens. It's always aliens in these sorts of games.

I see you, Mr. Death Star! You can't disguise yourself as a Saturnesque planet and get away with it, not without Lucasfilms noticing! And you, CATS! You just gonna stop by without saying "all your base are belong to us"?

Stage 1 is called "Outer Space", yet that's the most inner-iest space I've ever seen! That's, like, plane-cruise height! Anyway, you shoot all sorts of creeps and weirdos, the game says "flushing right here/fashion deer/f⨺⩙⫑ you nerd", and there's a giant skull-monster as the boss. Shoot it in its sensitive eyes to kill it.

[KOR] Fox Ranger 2 | This exciting sequel improves upon the original in many ways - presentation, story (something about alien monsters being dropped into the ocean), cutscenery (Listen! Voice acting!), a whole different play style (think Star Fox), and more creeps and crawlies to fight, including a two-headed dragon boss that roars like a gong! Unfortunately, Vinny has the exact wrong soundcard (likely Soundblaster instead of Roland) and so his shots sound like a piano constantly smacking the D key and occasionally D-Sharp. You'll be screaming for vengence (sic), just like the game's tagline!

Stage 1 is still as inappropriately named as the first game's - "Into the Fire" when you're swirling in a weird vortex.

Just like that Vinny is immediately thrust into a voiceless cutscene where NF43 is getting debriefed by his boss and now we're in a top-shooter. The enemies now die in a very low D-Flat.

[USA] Krusty's (Super) Fun House | Nothing much to note on this, aside from Vinny's Krusty impersonation. It's Rat Trap for the British computers, only now it's multiplatform (released for Game Gear, Nes, Genesis, Snes, and of course DOS) and you assume the giant clown-shoes of Herschel Krustofsky as he guides the rats into the Bart-painted mallet-operated rat genocide machine. Would this be foreshadowing for the Simpsons fangame where Krusty beats up dolphins?

[KOR] Lars the Wanderer | Gravity and Samsung combine their forces to give us an Adventure of Link-esque game where you play as a Marth recolor who finds a fairy and goes into town. Unfortunately, it's very text-heavy and Vinny only knows English (and even then sometimes he screws up), meaning all he can do is be distracted by fairy cleavage and wander around the town and do nothing and then give up. At least the music's awesome though, especially the title screen.

[CHN] Last Hero in China | ...You know what I just noticed? Given the digitized stills from some kind of movie, Last Hero in China might be based on a movie, thereby making it also a licensed game! How did I not notice this before!? Anyway, they turned the movie into a beatmup, where you play as the movie's main character, master of a flying kick and a Mantis eye-poke.

The story seems to be about some bad guys taking over the Forbidden City and therefore our white-clad protagonist saves the day and stuff. However, the gameplay on display is no Turtles in Time or Streets of Rage. The sound effects don't kick in until a good bit into Vinny's short romp with the game - you'll have to wait to hear the Last Hero in China yell out what sounds like "week Dwight" when he uses the flying-kick move.

Heh, check out those two identical goons! They're synchronized in a way only fictional twins could be! ...Oh of course. It wouldn't be a beatmup without the flying kick hurting you. And this won't be the last beatmup we see in these MS-DOS stream rundowns, oh no. But let's move on to...

[CHN] Little Monk | In this Zeldalike, you are Little Monk, and you're sent on your merry way by Big Monk off to save the world and stuff while the whole way, a fun, dopey little tune plays. First stop, the forest! If I could read more Chinese I'd figure out just what that forest is called. Little Monk has 2 Extra Dudes™, infinite apples, no firework rockets yet, and one scroll of each major element, all while a timer counts down from 1,400.

The candles represent his health bar, and they go down kinda like Minecraft hearts. Essentially he's 75% as durable as a completely unarmored Minecraft person. This isn't that bad when you have infinite apples, which explode into some Bonk-like monstrosity and are a handy defense tool against the snakes and fiery skulls and evil mushroom-monsters and whatever else. Little Monk can restore health with these pork buns, which says to me that he gets them as a little treat for a job well done.

You can also find bubbles that contain little busts of Hippocrates and a necklace - both likely talismans. Vinny accidentally uses the wind-scroll, so at least we see that the wind goddess floats around on a cloud and carries a banana-leaf fan which she uses to literally blow away the competition. Immediately after he gets mauled by boars and dies, noticing a Vineshroom (read: a green variant of the evil mushrooms) and not the old man who dropped a scroll. Why if that were me at that DOSBox, I'd trudge through, or as through as I can without understanding very much Chinese! So he gives up and moves on to...

[KOR] Little Witch | Remember the crow from the intro screen to Zis: The Adventure? He's from this game! Unfortunately, his appearance changes the book cutscene's music from this nice waltz to a horrible screechy mess. Not to mention Vinny can't get past this one, nor understand the story. Cool page effects, though. Ablex was ahead of their time, with their game Hades being Korea's very first FPS.

[KOR] My Love: Chaos Daejak-jeon | Why are you surprised that this one's published by Samsung? Samsung is based in Korea and so of course they'd be the ones to introduce video gaming to that little fun and fancy-free southern half. All the loons up north get is endless streams of propaganda left and right. Speaking of lunacy, this one's opening cutscene goes for some Ranma½-style wackiness, as we see the old man educate these five heroes on the dog-ship about the sorry state of the world - the rivers are drying up, the forests and flowers are dying, genetic scientists are splicing pigs with bunnies and horses with ducks and pigs with chickens, it's horrible! And so after some insane slapstick we see a weird yellow dinosaur chase after an electrified bone.

All this just for a beatmup where you attack skeletons in the cave while stock dancehouse music plays and the game-over screen is the villains eating you in the soup.

[KOR] Pee and Gity | Not yet, buddy! First we have to watch a trailer for the producers' other game, Illusion Blaze! From what it displays it seems to be a space-shoot game with multiplayer support where you and a friend can shoot aliens in space together.

Okay, after fiddling with what the right command is, he can finally experience the game. The cutscene is about a frog and a mouse, best of friends, frolicking in the fields together when they should come across a smoldering house. Their first course of action is to investigate, whereupon they're immediately accosted by Carills and soon afterward Gators. Surprise, Vinny! Another beatmup!

Then he messes with the screen settings and immediately gives up on the game. By the way, Pee is the mouse. First "Mr. Goo" from that one K-drama and now this.

[CHN] Prince of Evil | Featured in Eat Drink Man Woman (a movie from China) and now in good-ol' American-grown Vincent Vinesauce, this game is also a Zeldalike, only now instead of limited time your dude now has limited ammo. This one features a soldier galloping through the woods on horseback when he finds a demon-werewolf-thingy. Then we're thrust through the door into the game.

Soldier-boy has no elemental scrolls this time, just his feet, his wits, and his 300 spirit cards. They're all you have to stand a chance against the haunted dresses, skeletons, beetles, Adhering Suzies, and Vagina Dentata.

[KOR] Super 64 Classic | Way to break the alphabetism of the folder-pack, bucko. Now your dreams of Super Mario 64 on DOS are ruined - instead we just get MS-X games, like this Hello Kitty (Cat Widemohom) one where he immediately dies and gives up.

[KOR] Rage of Tiger 2: Blood, Money, and Tears... | I agree, Vinny, that title sounds super silly. After a bit of a struggle, he finally gets it to work whereupon he beholds the chalky jank that lies within. Meet our roster - Hanin, Kent, and Mangho! I see Kent wants to go Skins against a buncha Shirts.

The gameplay isn't much better - Vinny hasn't increased the cycles, and so he can't combo his opponent to death, which is required for victory. And why is the background a spraycan-doodle of a tiger?

[KOR] Shakii the Wolf | Hey, this one's in English! We can understand the story this time!! *ahem* So, once upon a time everything was happy in the land of Shake, and its ruler, good old titular Shakii. Then one dark and stormy night, this bad lion called Midnight Sword came in, and so Shakii and his people (wolves?) had to go to the Land of Giants for help.

Then after that Vinny bungles up the cutscene speed when Shakii finally shows up - way to go, pal. You can't play the game now because now the cutscene's gonna take 99 more hours instead of another minute or so!

[USA?] Shaolin Campus King | Why is the opening cutscene silent? It's eerie without, say, a fiery swoop and some rock-n-roll. And as MrDmoney156 said, you need to press Escape when the vanity plate appears - this would cost you the cutscene, but at least Vinny would've gotten a taste of the game!

[KOR] Super Cop | Sorry, you spiky-shouldered Jupiter-helmet, you're no Mappy. Especially when your game has that stanky Korean DOS snare and you run around a Ghost House from Dinosaur Island (Super Mario World) and you say "DIE!!!" when you get hurt and you ricochet everywhere when you die. ...A-and a princess is there now too. The art direction makes me sad.

And that start-game menu has to be stolen from something too! Day of the Tentacle? Ironic, Super Cop - you steal, which the police would actually reprimand people for.

[RUS] Super Tetris | Finally, something with less infringement! In this take on the classic (which coincidentally celebrates its 40th anniversary this year), we're sent to the Moscow Circus, with bomber-rats and kids who look at elephants. What changed in 7 years? The music is quieter and in Vinny's case it stops early, not to mention the controls, tragically, have been worsened. From Russia with FOON!!!

[KOR] Adventures of Eol! | More like "Eeyole" in Vinny's case - he should know better, in Korean pronunciation logic, "eo" is pronounced like "aw".

Anyway, this one has the most insane story out of every Family Pro game - there's this evil purple character who tears the mountain asunder. Eol must stop him before he turns the whole world into rubble! Vinny can't play past the first level, which means he'll never experience the twist that Eol is a prince of some sort.

After he dies and gives up, he laments how his collection is double his usual. Moving on to...

[KOR] The Adventure of Tipi: Legend of Meda | From the makers of Lars the Wanderer, here's a cutscene with a badass mother-fricker in a cloak and then a dragon shows up. And then... demo footage. Tipi herself reminds me of Yuko Asou in design.

[KOR] Dragon Force: The Day 3 | Another space-shooter where you shoot aliens!? Perish the thought! Well at least this one doesn't work, just makes a gentle hum.

[CHN] Journey to the West | If I had 5 yuan for every time a non-game medium from China was turned into a beatmup available for MS-DOS, I'd have 10 yuan, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice. Anyway - Vinny immediately picks Bajie because "Ooh, piggy-man!" and fends off weird red-green-blue demons before falling off a bridge and dying. I miss this sort of brevity from Vinny. Now it's just Corruption Stockpile this, Commercial Chaos that, horror fangame this, hot new game that.

[CHN] Legend of the Dragon | Ignoring the IM stock sound at the title screen, remember Sun Wukong, snotty little brat and so-called "protagonist" of Journey to the West? Here he is, as a playable character alongside Little Dragon Lady! When you begin, the wind goddess (remember her, from Little Monk?) shows up and tells us of a bad situation. Vinny then mistakes the Manji for something worse. Then bazoomy, we're sent to the mountains!

It plays like Graal, as Vinny said, and you fight your way past music-loving sea serpents, weird racist caricatures, Peahat-Piranha Plant hybrid monsters, and this bouncer who won't let you in without an ID or something. He looks like a pirate who got drunk and wound up on the wrong side of the Himalayas.

[KOR] Van Slug: X Mission | This one has the usual scifi story of "it's the future but ohs no aleins took over", but in a more comical sense - this bumbling little idiot is late for his mission! So the general chews him out, he hops on his bike and into a run-n-gun adventure!

After the longest transformation sequence in the world that isn't a Fetish, we're off, shooting skeleton-demons and mud-monsters and being distracted by "I Love Elvis" on the bottom! But don't get the pills! Big mistake!! Now you got hurt a bit!

After he dies to spikes, he ends this big fat ugly DOS stream right then and there, exactly 2 hours long, for your "enjoyment".

[animehouse-moe]

Overtake! Episode 1: The Man Who Races

I really like cars, so of course I'd like racing. I heard of the concept for Overtake! and was immediately on board, then I saw the previews and was a bit more apprehensive. But, I watched today's episode, and I'm very surprised. Lots of great stuff to chat about. If you were on the fence like me though, I'd say to watch it.

So, obviously, the racing. That's what I'm here for. It's what I was concerned about, and for very little reason it seems as the execution on it is impressively good.

Working with CGI you need to understand the flexibility you're given to convey that three dimensional space. Troyca grasps that very quickly and uses all the tricks in the book to make things look great through this stretch.

The use obstructions like the fence to mask detail, as well as shots that aim to follow the subject so that they don't appear perfectly still in the scene. Following that up they make use of "camera shake". That is the movements are non-linear, they overextend on their panning or rotation and have to come back in slightly. It's a simple detail but important to add to the believability. The depth of field/focus shifts also help with that a great deal. They even mix in 2D shots of the characters driving for extra effect.

I think the only thing I really say is somewhat subpar is the visual information with the cars. Initial D/MF Ghost understood the assignment and added visual effects to denote the pace of the vehicles. Not that they feel slow, but that they feel too clean in some shots.

Anyways, the 3D racing is incredibly good and features some really great work throughout.

Of course, as an episode it's not all about racing (though a lot of it is), and not all of it is 3D. There's a lot of impressive work on the 2D front as well, and the direction very strong throughout the episode. Lots of use of space and perspective that provides very strong and standout scenes and layouts.

Personally speaking, I think I got a little tripped up by the 3D aspect of this series, so I wasn't expecting the level of quality apparent in the 2D animation, which was a considerable mistake. It's not balls to the wall 24/7 or anything, but there's a lot of character acting that really has effort placed into it.

That's enough about the production though, let's start into story. I think... it's okay. I don't have anything that really grabs me by the collar right away, but I can feel the potential. Koya's afraid of taking pictures of people due to a traumatic experience of his past. He can't find a reason to further explore his passion, and Haruka is the catalyst for that passion. It's somewhat straightforward, but aside from a sort of grating exposure to Koya's trauma, I can sense a good bit of potential.

Also surprisingly, Overtake! fits in a sizeable chunk of information regarding how formula racing works. It's not too heavy, nor does it take ages to explain. It might make the first race seem a little convenient, but it does a good job of covering quite a bit of information both with exposition and just plain old exposure. The idea of using Koya as a vehicle for viewers to understand the sport was a good idea.

All in all, it was a good series to cap off this Sunday with. Lots of energy and excitement, and pretty clear dedication to the sport of formula racing. Intense action and pace as well as emotional beats and character driven stories being set up. I smell quite a bit of potential for this series as a racing anime, which is great to see considering how dry the genre has been for so long now.

[doubleddenden]

I've been playing 2 pokemon fan game demos recently

First off, Project Untamed, probably more well known as the Mazah Region fan game being made based on Subjectively's fakemon region project

The demo isn't long and only goes 1 gym deep so far, but this is definitely a fan game to watch out for. The fakemon all have this unique charm but unifying style that make them stand out, and the overall quality is pretty great. It's based on Central America, and overall have a Tradition vs Change motif. My time was fun, however brief it was. Mechanically speaking too, this is one of the few fakemon fan games I've played with an actual speed up button- something I desperately wish normal pokemon games had, and I definitely appreciate it. Artistically speaking the game is gorgeous to look at, and I admire the respect towards the culture and actually allowing it to... well, exist unsullied. A lot of pokemon games have this issue where they put regions in unique locations but skimp on the unique culture of the area in favor of a more generic map- which I would get why in some cases, but not others. Mazah shows it off respectfully, even the first gym being a ghost gym with inspiration from Day of the Dead (also I just want to say how funny and happy I was at the gym theme for that one). The characters are also endearing so far, and the game's humor is also on point, which I always appreciate.

Anyway keep an eye on this game. In a few years every poketuber will be hailing it as the best fan game of whatever year it comes out.

For my next game

I took a dip back into the Spanish side of the fan games to play a demo of Pokémon Armonia, which has a very decent English translation so far. I think 4 gyms are in, and I'm nearing the end of that.

Armonia's region is Safar, which I believe is based on Africa- at least the map sort of looks like the hook of the upper west side. The environments are beautiful and varied, and the art style is really high quality and filled with so much soul in each location and sprite. I find myself studying these Spanish games tbh, because there's always such a unique quality and extra care out into them, and I'm actually taking notes on the sprite style here as well. There's big photos done in pixel art as well that just... well, it looks great, as I've been gushing about for a while.

Remember how I said Spanish fan games have a unique quality to them? How's this for unique: the opening scene has VOICE ACTING. Yes, the world's richest franchise can't even add it to the spearhead of off their commercial operations for the next few years, but a fan game certainly can! I'm not sure if more is planned to be added in the future, but I hope so.

Anyway, that little aside put... well. Aside. I guess. The fakemon are fun and fantastic. I will say that it's rare to find fan games with fakemon in general, and of the 3 I've played from the Spanish side so far, they're still somewhat rare to see here. That's different in Armonia. The dex is still building, but so far, 4 gyms in, and I've seen mostly new designs rather than old- think something like Hoenn if that makes sense. Pretty much every single one has been a hit in some fashion or another and are fun to mess with. The regional variants are fun too, and I especially adore my Safaran Arcanine, which is Ground/Fairy.

I say this too, they do a very interesting take on introducing new evolution methods: in one particular side quest, they pull over and basically demonstrate the circumstances required to evolve a certain regional variant. Honestly, that is super refreshing from a story telling, mechanical, and time saving angle, and is something I really wish official Pokémon games would do instead of us having to wait for a data dump to reveal you have to take your guy to a particular spot under a particular tree at a certain phase of the moon while landing 3 crits in a row and singing The Macarena backwards. Like seriously, an NPC being like "hey, here's a rare candy, why not try evolving X here in this little spot?" Is not only immersive, it just makes more sense! It's simple, but brilliant! Honestly great job to the devs here.

As far as anything else mechanically speaking, the game also features a mobile PC like in Realidea System, and of all things, the selective multi exp share similar to the one from Opalo. I'm gonna guess that feature must be from a special build of Pokémon essentials or something. I really enjoy it and I think more fan games should make use of it.

So far, gyms and exploration are sort of straight shots, but I think that's okay given the story it wants to tell. And let me tell you, the story is looking interesting so far. I can't wait to see where it goes!

I'll probably make a team shot of the Fakémon I've used so far soonish. I'd definitely say check it out if you can- although I gotta say, hunting down the EN translation was ROUGH. It's a good translation, minus dex entries, but it is R O U G H finding it.

Good luck to both the Mazah and Safar teams! I can't wait to explore your fully made regions someday!

[perpetual-canon]

Perpetual Canon Chapter 1. Light in The End of The Rabbit Hole

before / 2. “we go way back” II - 2/2 / next where it started / navigation / about the story

Russ turned to Noodle.

“So that's your friend?”  

“Yeah,” she said. “‘Ts ma bestie. Great guy.” 

Russ raised his eyebrows.

“We go way back,” she added defensively.

Ace blinked. Alrighty then.

(ABOUT) THREE WEEKS AGO

To be honest, no person in their right mind would go to the club to listen to a solo bass performance.

Ace tried to master acoustic guitar back when he was a kid, but apart from bringing some skills and some change on the streets, it made him bored outta his mind. Besides, Ace couldn’t even mask his mediocre skills with singing. He was no Ed Sheeran, that much he knew.

But bass was another story. Ace was leaning mainly on intuition while learning to play, and all jokes about bass players aside, it proved to be possible to reach a somewhat decent level just by lots and lots of improvising, and some solid pointers from Grubber.

So one thing led to another, and Ace landed this part-time gig downtown. He was hired by a fairly successful local cover band for a set of services, which included:

1. Playing before said band in bars, to make up for them being constantly late due to various “mystical coincidences”. (Ace suspected the lead guitarist's drug addiction. It was quite mystical how she fell from the stage a couple times already in the past week Ace has been working with them.)

2. Watching over the band and being their designated driver in case something goes wrong. (Things did go wrong for them pretty often.)

Unfortunately, considering the quality of bars the band was performing in, unless you were Jaco Pastorius, there was always a slight risk of being shot on stage. So Ace’s act usually was brief and involved a lot of guitar-slapping.

Apart from that, it was nothing special – worse than it could’ve been, but better than the jobless void Ace was stewing in for a whole year. To be honest, it was hard. When he and the boys were living in a leaking bus on a literal dump, Ace was a proper leader, capable and (allegedly) even fearless. Now, when they finally were able to afford renting a flat, everybody proved to be more capable than him. Everyone managed to find decent jobs, and they even started a fund for Lil Arturo’s college. Sure, for now it was just a jar in a closet. But a big, promising jar. Full of wonders yet to come, as Big Billy used to say.

And then there was Ace. 20-something, good for nothing. He has been doing odd jobs, but couldn’t settle anywhere for long. Maybe he looked too much like a street rat to catch the eye of proper employers. And, in all honesty, he was one, no avoiding it. Wasn’t looking good in a resume tho.

So no, Ace was not complaining about the gig. He was just observing, making notes. Wasn’t his fault notes came out to be sorta greasy.

--

After Ace finished his routine, he sat down at the bar.

He watched the band perform, and let the familiar numbness blur the uncomfortable pangs in his chest. As a cover band, they accepted requests. Sometimes they were hilariously bad. Right now someone ordered Nickelback and it was a jab at the vocalist’s pride, so instead of singing properly, he was hissing like bacon on fire.

Ace swirled on a bar stool and heaved a deep sigh in hopes that the bartender would take pity on him. The bartender wasn’t impressed, but rewarded him with a glass of water.

The night was still young and people just started to gather, so the bar was not very busy.

Ace was wearing his dark shades again, and so could stare at people busying around without drawing attention. Some might say that only douchebags wear shades in the building, but Ace was ready to accept any label as long as it came handy.   

Aside from a couple of obvious regulars, there was also a tiny woman in a sickeningly bright hoodie. She looked quite out of place, like a teen who wandered in to take home her drunken father.

She sipped whiskey on rocks.

Maybe she was the drunken father.

Even with the hood covering her bangs, Ace couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something familiar about her. He vaguely hoped that it wasn’t because she was Asian and he had sight problems. He didn’t want to be That Guy.

In the meantime the band had finally finished torturing people with their take on Nickelback and got to another request.

“Somebody is feeling nostalgic!” the vocalist yelled in the mike. “Here is “Feel Good Inc”! Without the rap part tho, sorry”.

Ace felt a tingle of warmth rise up from under the dull blanket of boredom. To be honest, that was him who left this request. He figured that if he is going to sit here at the bar with only water in his system, he might as well try to enjoy it. And he knew for sure that this was the only Gorillaz song the band was capable of playing.

Humming under his breath, Ace glanced at the girl again.

She looked sorta tense now. She finished her whiskey in one gulp and called the bartender.

From the corner of the eye Ace saw her showing something to him. It looked like some piece of paper. Whatever it was, the bartender shook his head with a blank expression.

The girl was visibly disappointed by that and slided down from the stool, clearly about to leave. But then she looked up – straight at Ace.

He quickly darted his eyes back to the stage, burning with sudden embarrassment. The girl’s look was pretty intense.

By the time the vocalist reached the second windmill, she was already gone.

Only way later, when Ace was driving drunken band members home at night, it suddenly hit him. The reason why she seemed so familiar.

But it couldn’t be true. His vision must’ve been playing tricks on him.

It couldn't have been muthafuckin’ Noodle from muthafuckin’ Gorillaz.

--

The club was way more sleazy than the one they played at before. Ace half-expected that someone would throw a bottle at his head at some point during the performance. The band climbing on the stage was still hungover and slightly high, so for them the possibility was still on the table. Ace was already bracing himself for driving them all to the hospital instead of their houses.

Unfortunately it meant that, once again, he couldn’t get even a fucking Margarita.

Ace quickly slided between people and furniture, trying to find the least grease stained place for himself and his bass. He was pretty sure at least three couples were already fucking in darker corners of the bar.

That’s when he saw her again.

Same hoodie, same complexion. It was the girl.

She was diving through the crowd like a little koi fish, with a joint in her fingers and a hood on her head. Heart-shaped glasses sparkled dully under the dim lights.

Now Ace could say that he was quite intrigued.

Hypothetically, yes, it could’ve been Noodle. He was aware that The Band was staying in Detroit. But what could’ve prompted her to visit such smelly places? Aren’t stars supposed to club at the tops of skyscrapers with Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart making brownies, of something?

How dangerous exactly was it to get mixed in this?

--

So far things have been pretty intense. The guitarist ended up in ER two times in the last week, and the drummer caught some STD that didn’t allow him to sit properly.

But all this meant nothing to Ace. His thoughts were completely occupied by the hoodie girl.

For the last five clubs and bars they’ve been playing in, she was always there. She usually arrived well after the band started to play and there was a decent crowd in the venue already. She was always covered up in some way, took something to drink and chatted with the bartender. Then she disappeared.

By this point Ace was pretty sure that she was, in fact, the Noodle from Gorillaz herself. He’s made a point to google paparazzi photos just to compare how she would have looked without makeup and photoshop, and it was a match.

This time Ace was expecting her. The curiosity was bothering him like fleas (And he knew the feeling, the metaphor was quite literal here).

Would he get a chance to talk to her, to learn about why she keeps visiting all these places? Would it be better to ask her directly? Wasn’t she a direct person? What were the odds she’d hit him directly in the face?

As always, Ace sat down at the bar. Watching the drummer suffer on stage was quite entertaining, but he couldn’t stop looking around, waiting for a glimpse of the pink hoodie.

“Hey,” the bartender snapped his fingers, to get Ace’s attention. “You can’t sit here”.

Ace stared at him blankly, trying to remember if he did something to piss the guy off in the past. He appeared quite generic.

“Unless you buy a drink, you can’t take up the space. I don’t make the rules”.

Ace looked at the plaque behind the bartender. It said “My Bar – My Rules”. Right.

“Sorry chef. Ain’t got no money tonight. But you see, I need to watch those fuckas on stage. I’m, how do you put it… their nanny”.

“I don’t care, mate. Unless ya skinny ass ‘bout to order somethin’, Imma callin’ the security. We’ve got a hit up ‘bout ya folk, that stuff disappears here and there after ya’all performance. And from what I’m lookin’ at, you better leave the premises and wait for your friends outside”.

Ace clicked his tongue.

Fuckin’ band had a chance or even a plan to throw him under the bus for whatever junk they’ve smuggled from those shitholes? Not cool.

“That’s a shitty team to be on, that’s for sure,” chimed the voice from behind Ace.

He turned around.

The one and only Noodle from Gorillaz plopped on a stool beside him.

“I’m buying, man,” she said to the bartender. “Long Island for my friend here. And make it longer.”

She saluted Ace with her drink.

Bartender shot them a weary glance, but obliged.

Ace stared at Noodle, desperately trying to find some words to say that would not sound completely and utterly dumb.

“So,” he said.

“So,” she repeated. “Wassup?”

“Drummer got an STD and can’t sit properly,” blurted Ace. His cheeks burned. By the end of the sentence he was already accepting his imminent death.

Noodle raised an eyebrow and shot a quick glance on stage.

“Shit,” she chuckled. “I thought he was just energetic.”

“Gettin’ a solo in the middle of the chorus? Yeah, you can say so.”

Noodle snorted in her drink, splattering whiskey all over Ace’s shirt.

Great.

PRESENT TIME

“Music,” stated Noodle with a strainingly wide smile. “That’s how we know each other! Ha-hah”.

Russel was observing her quietly, with some sort of underlying intensity. Sure, it seemed that he was doing everything intensely, but Ace still panicked – just in case.

“Look, he’s got a guitar! So yeah. We jam sometimes. Don’t we?” She slapped Ace’s shoulder, probably dislocating it forever.

“We sure jam,” croaked Ace through the pain. “We jam very much”.

--

before / next where it started / navigation / about the story

[sergeantsporks]

If you have time, could I ask for some writing advice? I love your stories, and I was wondering if you have anything specific you do that helps keep characters in, well, character? Like do you rely on memory or read something

Step 1: Be very, very obsessed with cadence of speech/syntax/semantics.

Step 2: Become very, very obsessed with media

Step 3: Profit

Sporks' pre-advice mandatory bad joke aside, I'm going to focus mostly on dialogue/internal monologue to answer this, because that's the main vehicle I drive my stories with.

First thing to keep in mind: "out of character" is a myth and "he would not fucking say that" is a sham. By which I mean to say, there is no sentiment that a character won't express if put in the right situation. The questions are 1) in what circumstances would he fucking say that and 2) HOW would he fucking say that. You can make a character state almost any feeling if you manipulate the setting and circumstances to where they would say that. Example time!

"Character A calls Character B stupid" "he would not fucking say that!" Okay! He probably would not say "character b, you are stupid." You're right! That dialogue isn't right. And maybe the situation made it uncalled for and not what Character A would say in those circumstances. So. 1. What's the underlying sentiment? The underlying sentiment here or what character A is "saying" is that he thinks character B is stupid.

Part 2: WHAT situation would character A have to be in that would make them believe and wish to express that they think character B is stupid? Maybe 97% of the time, A wouldn't think or express that. But that 3% of the time is, say, B did something stupid that resulted in the deaths of several of A's friends. A is in a bad place, they're stressed, they're grieving, they're in a place where they might call B stupid for what they've done. It's less about what the character does being out of character and more about making the audience believe that this is a situation in which they WOULD act like that.

Part 3: HOW would A say it? They may not say "B, you're stupid." That's our underlying sentiment; maybe they say something like "How could you do something so stupid?!" or "Thanks to your misjudgement, they're dead!" Or even bring someone else in and say "Character C thought you'd mess this up! I can't believe I defended you!" Something that implies they think B is stupid without saying it outright. It's not "He would not fucking say that" but more "He would not fucking say it like that."

So: you're trying to contrive a situation in which A would say that, and you're trying to figure out how they'd say it. However, it's not JUST about A; this affects B as well. If B is a character who would make a stupid mistake and get people killed, then great! You're set! If B is the sort of person who makes prudent choices and would not do something so stupid that it gets A's friends killed, well, to avoid making A out of character, you're either going to have to make B out of character or contrive a situation in which B would make a stupid choice that got A's friends killed.

Basically, there are degrees of out of (usual) character that you can get; some situations and the sentiments being expressed in them are going to be harder to set up depending on what characters you're using and their base qualities. It also depends on how close they are to the epicenter of "he would not fucking say that." Character A has to have the situation pulled around them to make them act "out of character" convincingly. B similarly has to act in character to out of usual circumstances in order to get A into that situation. The further you are out, though, the more wiggle room you have to mess with. Character F doing something mildly and excusably out of character in maybe an uncalled for situation causes Character E to do something more in character, causing character D to do something, etc, etc, all the way back to Character A doing something they might not usually do but you can picture them doing in this circumstance.

Now, thing to remember is that while you CAN create a situation where they will say things they wouldn't usually say, the more out of the usual it is, the more you're going to have to meddle with the situation at hand, so it may end up being a VERY long game to get them there, and that's something you have to take into account. Sometimes you just. Shouldn't make him fucking say that, even if you can, because it's going to be too much meddling to get there. You also have to take into account your piece's tone; in a low stakes coffee shop AU, you won't be able to fabricate the situation where A calls B stupid without DRASTICALLY changing the tone of the piece. A calling B stupid isn't an option you have, here. If you're writing them in a warzone, you can probably manage it pretty easily.

There are also "it doesn't count" ways to make things out of usual character and still keep the interaction believable. If you're in a magic world, maybe A got hit with a spell that makes them more belligerent, and therefore more likely to say an out of the usual thing. Maybe B, usually a bastion of good decisions, got hit with a tranquilizer that clouded their usual judgement. It "doesn't count" because it wasn't their fault and was a completely weird circumstance. As long as whatever caused it is properly addressed, you can explore sides of a character that they wouldn't say in a regular situation without fabricating a complex scenario.

That's a really long way of saying "do what you want, just do it believably" but as for writing "in character," I really cannot emphasize enough studying speech patterns and word choice in the show. I said it as a joke, but if you can nail down how a character talks, you're probably about 50% of the way to sounding convincing when you write them. When I first start writing for a fandom, I mostly obsess for a while over writing their dialogue as close to show dialogue as possible. This is going to sound stupid, but practice. Really. Practice making them match the characters in speech pattern (and, by extension, thought pattern), and once you get used to doing it, it'll come more automatically. Start with scenarios close to canon, then branch out further and further away. Keep the character, swap out familiar situations for whatever it is you want. Mostly I just rely on memory, but if I feel like I'm starting to get out of character, I'll go back and watch/read the source material to get back into it.

[demacianpuppet]

You know that the worst thing with the new lore retcon is? Riot Games haven’t actually done anything to solve this problem at its source, which is 100% a bad faith manager who knows nothing about his job and has all other power and no good will to do anything.

Because every single problem they try to “solve” wouldn’t have existed in the first place… if they simply would have listened to the narrative writer in the first place.

Then Riot Games finally started to earn their “s” in the name, they probably had discussed about canon and if it is shared on all of their Runeterra IPs. It seems that they clearly decided against it back then - because making sure everything is canon you have to manage so many different teams, which is so much ressource and time. I can almost understand it. They clearly didn’t care enough about their IP to do the work properly but it is, on a manager level, more than reasonable.

The actual problem starts with the Sentinel of Light event. I know, we all hate it and it was obviously an awful lore for so many reasons. And the fault was because the skin writers wrote the light novel instead of the normal writer… which is not really what happened.

First of all, I’m pretty sure the narrative writers worked on that event as well. Second, this whole event was a mistake of management. People enjoyed the Spirit Blossom Light Novel, which was light-hearted, so they thought it would work with SoL.

So some higher up said it had to be like the SB event. The narrative writers explained that it wouldn’t make work for this kind of story and this resulted in firing three writers, some who have done some of the best work in the Runeterra IP.

The event flopped, because surprise, people don’t like if their champions are treated like dirt and Riot Games apologizes… without truly gasping that the problem was.

After that and the success of Arcane, the higher up didn’t do anything with lore (aside from the Riot Forges games, which have been in development for some time).

They told us that they are moving away from written media, because the engagement is not high enough, while refusing to give us a tab in the League client or fix the Universe website.

They say they want to do more interactive media, but this is awful for archiving purposes (see the Briar teaser in the client) and takes so much more time and resources to do.

A longer short story can be written, edited and translated into a few weeks and it would all take less time and resources than any cinematic.

Cinematic and written media are not even competing in the same narrative niche. Cinematics are great but these are just so much more shallow, in the end.

So, we have a higher up who clearly knows nothing about narrative writing - instead of listening to the people who know their craft, they fire them and produce an event which everyone acts like never happened.

At the same time, they lack the insight and/or willingness to make lore more accessible and try as usual to explain that “people are not engaging enough with it” even if enough people complained about the lack of updates outside of Riot Forge.

(I promise you, if that higher up would have any power over Arcane, the quality either would have suffered immensely or it would have never been made. Quite simple.)

And I promise, that higher up earns so much more than these three narrative writers they got fired.

However, this is a tech company. So of course we can expect that kind of person to ruin even more lore. Because of course they keep their job even though they know nothing about the power of well-written IP.

It is that simple - you don’t develop lore to make money with it, at least not a video game like League.  You create it for customer loyalty. This is not 2013 anymore. The main selling point back then was that League could run on any PC. It still does, but the competition is much higher. Fortnite, Roblox, cheap Steam Games.

It is not that easy to win over the new player but you have to make sure to keep the ones who are still playing. And making them invested in the IP is an excellent strategy.

Somehow, they are unable to grasp that.

It is a pity that so many good writers have to try to create good work while your management is only trying to sabotage them. Only for them to be erased because their management was unable to think more than two weeks ahead. That a pity indeed.

[jinxviolets]

tell me about ur comfort shows, movies and video games plsss 🥺🩷🩷🩷

ooooohhh okay i will try to be concise but i can have lots of things to say lol

shows:

the good place - i just love this show. it's about ethics and morality and also choosing to be good to others. and it's funny. what's not to love??

elementary - elementary is like a warm blanket i wear. it was the first show i ever started watching when it premiered and stayed on top of for the entire time it was airing. sherlock & joan are literally everything to me and i fell off my rewatch at the last season bc i didn't want it to end (again)

ted lasso - this one is pretty self-explanatory but much like the good place, it's about kindness and being good to others and it's hilarious. whenever i feel like shit i rewatch the christmas episode from s2 lol

movies:

the princess diaries 1 & 2 - i just love these movies so much. the humor in them is so good!!! i missed so much when i was younger. they're just as funny, if not funnier, as an adult now. maybe they're comforting bc of the nostalgia but i just love how familiar they feel

into the spider-verse - if i want to be entertained by a Quality Film, this is what i'll watch. when i saw it in theaters i wanted to see it again and when i bought it i watched it and then literally started it over to immediately watch it again. it's just phenomenal and i love every second, every frame. this movie has a special pedestal in my heart next to peeta mellark

captain america: the winter soldier - aside from movies i watched as a kid, this may be the film i've seen the most. i just think it's great. the music is so special, the pacing is perfect, and the dynamics between everyone.... this was top-tier moviemaking, particularly for marvel, bc it was before every mcu movie felt quite so formulaic.

video games:

animal crossing - i kind of don't want to count new horizons in this bc it doesn't feel the same but i spent soooo much time playing ac games on my nintendo ds lite and my 3ds. i just love going into the games to talk to all my adorable ass villagers.

the last of us part ii - so this kind of comes with a caveat. i only count this if i skip all the cutscenes. i really really like how the gameplay feels so sometimes i'll just hop into chapters or combat encounters to mess around bc i know exactly how they'll go and i challenge myself to harder difficulties (or just go OP with all the cheats on). the content itself throughout the story isn't particularly comforting sldfjksdfl

skyrim - i have a tough time playing it these days (i just got it again and am playing for the first time in like 10 years) because of motion sickness stuff that hurts my eyes but i love skyrim so much. this was the first huge open-world game i ever really loved and i credit this one and portal 2 for kind of opening the door to gaming for me.

portal 2 - i can't go without mentioning this one bc even though i haven't been able to play it in a LONG time bc i have it on xbox 360 and my laptop can't run it, this game is the first game i remember REALLY loving. it's so special to me. i don't remember how many times i played through it but i know it was at least twice if not 3 times, which is a lot for me as a teenager. it's a quality game with really clever levels, fantastic voice acting, hilarious lines, and a really fun style of play.

it's sleepover saturday! send me... whatever?

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🦇 A Most Agreeable Murder Book Review 🦇

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

❝ "Let go of what everyone is supposed to be, and you shall see who they truly are. Let people be who they truly are, and they shall reach their greatest potential." ❞

❓ #QOTD What's your favorite murder mystery book, TV series, or movie? ❓ ❗ Shout out to all my fellow BBC Sherlock, Elementary, Sherlock Holmes (RDJ films), OG Sherlock Holmes (ACD books), Truly Devious books, or Jackaby books fans. OR

❓ What's your favorite period piece?

🦇 Beatrice Steele isn't like the other ladies of Swampshire (a small English township outside of London), but like much of the town, she harbors a secret: Beatrice is obsessed with murder. Not committing it, of course, but solving it to exact justice. Of course, it wouldn't be lady-like, especially in their etiquette-obsessed community, to act on her obsession. When an eligible bachelor is murdered at Swampshire's autumnal ball—a bachelor who was courting Beatrice's sister—she's partnered with a well-versed detective to unravel the thread. Is this her chance to put her sleuthing skills to the test?

💜 Though certain qualities of Beatrice's world—the decorum, the obsession with reputation and wealth, a marriage-scheming mother—all seem familiar, the prose is full of wit and charm unlike most period piece-inspired stories. Julia Seales brings a flare of comedy to her debut that allows it to stand on its own two feet, when many Austenian novels run the risk of dragging in pace or sounding dry. This cozy mystery is entertaining and action-packed, with a cast of characters that present as red herrings—each with their own means and motives. The little clippings (whether from letters or news stories) and asides slipped between chapters were a fun way to add layers to the story as well.

🦇 Maybe it's because I'm obsessed with mysteries in all forms, but I guessed the murderer the moment the character's name was mentioned, long before the murder was even committed. Though the large cast gives readers and Beatrice plenty of red herrings to chase, it's a little dizzying to remember so many names. It also takes a moment for the pacing to find its momentum; the start of the book drags to establish how strange Swamshire really is, and though the setting plays a part in the narrative, I would have preferred a "show, rather than tell" approach. Beatrice comes off as a little frustrating; more than once, she gets in her own way, which can make certain moments cringey more than funny. She's not the best judge of character, either; the truth about the investigator she swooned over and Drake, his disgraced partner, is right in front of her. If this series continues, I hope we get a glimpse into Mary's story within another mystery (which might be a great play on ACD's Hounds of Baskerville mystery).

🦇 Recommended to fans of Jane Austen, Agatha Christie, any Sherlockian variation, or Bridgerton. If you want to add a little decorum and intrigue to your life, this is the book for it!

✨ Vibes 🗝️ Locked-Room Mystery 🗝️ Regency-Era Cozy Mystery 🗝️ Satire and Sass 🗝️ A Hint of Romance 🗝️ A Quirky Cast

🦇 Major thanks to the author Julia Seales and publisher Random House for providing an ARC of this book via Netgalley. 🥰 This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

[skitskatdacat63]

Hello happy new year I have returned with new knowledge (watched nosferatu and remembered your ask so I’m here to rant) Spoilers of course

—————————————————————————————

I first want to point out the cinematography. The way the shots were put together felt so right to me and when I found out that they made the set I was taken aback. Like HOW?!!?! I love the aesthetic of the movie from the sets to the outfits (I kept staring at them in awe), now I understand the posts you were talking about. Then theres my favourite part of movies personally, the special effects which was done very well imo. The design for Nosferatu really threw me off which is a good thing (blame the mustache) but I loved the coat and hat he wore, I too would wear it. His character in general was very interesting to me as a force of nature which showed no signs of weakness along with his obsessive infatuation with Ellen.

I’m a sucker for tragedies so I did have a grin when Willem Dafoe explained how to break the curse and seeing the cast try to work against it. I didn’t expect to get that endeared to Thomas (I kept joking about his almost deaths in my head) but I did so seeing him at the end moved me. Lily Depp Rose did a phenomenal job, I felt so bad for her when she acted in The Idol so seeing her come alive here was amazing. Everyone else did their work seamlessly too shoutout the one scene where a pigeon’s head got bitten off, simon really sold it for me.

I think I could talk aimlessly about the movie, I’m glad my friend (who is an expert at all things dracula) came along with me for the ride. I’m pretty sure everything is out of order so hopefully you’ll see what I’m getting at.

— Penalanon (o/)

Happy New Year Penalanon!!!! So glad to hear that you liked it aaaah! I love that you have a Dracula expert friend, especially considering this version is honestly so much more similar to Dracula compared to what I remember the original Nosferatu being like tbh. I kept pointing out similarities. Though I feel like they really fleshed out the story, considering I remember the original to be pretty basic by today's standards. Though god, here's a funny story. In the original one, they have gothic text for the font, right? Which is kinda difficult sometimes to parse, so before this, I always called Thomas "Butter" because my mom and I couldn't NOT see "Hutter" as that instead haha. But my perception of him in this film was soooooo different, as you said, he was quite endearing!! I wish there had been more scenes of him at the castle, cause I found him soooo endearing and cute. i really liked all the characters tbh, and as I said, I can't even really remember anyone aside from Thomas and Nosferatu from the original one(then again, that was over 2 years ago now.) And his clothing of course was so captivating to me, honestly all of the historical elements felt so real. If not for the film quality and modern improvements, some of it really felt straight out of a German Expressionist film(ex. that shot where the shadow of his hand flies over the city.)

I think the cinematography was great overall, but the best shot was definitely the one where the carriage comes to a stop in front of Thomas, that was amazing!!! I felt like I was gonna get run over by the horses. As for Orlok's design, I guess I'm very endeared to his original design, but at the same time, I really appreciate the historical accuracy. It reminds me a lot of historical portraits, and also traditional hussars, which he's sorta reminiscent of. God though, he's so repulsive to me icl hdskjfls, but I guess that's the point! I also like the fact that feels like a force of nature, a feeling, rather than any sort of person, he really does feel like some ancient force! Like even when he first meets Thomas, there aren't really any airs of civility or humanity being put on, he feels like a force from the get-go, rather than a guy who starts to become more and more weird as the film goes on.

Also under the cut, my list of potential letterboxd commentary sdmsndfk: