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[Transcript] Season 4, Episode 3. X-Men ‘97 Spoiler-Free Review

The X-Men are back! Ron and Mon caught the Canadian premiere of X-Men '97 at Toronto Comicon 2024, and the following episodes. We share our review of the new season, all the feels about seeing our favourite X-people onscreen, and what we're looking forward to from the rest of the season. No spoilers!

Read Mon's Episode 1 review at Vocal, and learn more about the creation of the show with Mon's Comicon recap. Ron shares her experience at the X-Men '97 activation at Toronto Comicon 2024 on WWAC.

Listen to the episode on Spotify.

(L-R): Beast (voiced by George Buza), Wolverine (voiced by Cal Dodd), Morph (voiced by JP Karliak), Bishop (voiced by Isaac Robinson-Smith), Rogue (voiced by Lenore Zann), Gambit (voiced by AJ LoCascio), Storm (voiced by Alison Sealy-Smith), Cyclops (voiced by Ray Chase) in Marvel Animation's X-MEN '97. Photo courtesy of Marvel Animation. © 2024 MARVEL.

Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of Stereo Geeks.

I'm Mon.

And I'm Ron.

Today, we will be discussing X-Men ‘97.

The new season of the 1990s X-Men animated show has got everybody a flutter.

We managed to catch the Canadian premiere at Toronto Comic Con 2024, and the hype was real.

I have never seen this many X-Men t-shirts, X-Men cosplayers, X-Men art, X-Men love, anywhere ever before.

And as two X-Men fans, this was a jam.

We literally went to Toronto Comic Con this year, just trying to get as much X-Men stuff as possible, and we did well.

Well, it's also nice because you suddenly see that there are other X-Men fans out there.

They love this franchise.

They love these characters.

Some of them are a little too enthusiastic.

But the highlight for a lot of people was the X-Men activation at Toronto Comic Con.

But it was an experience, getting in there.

Listen, with these exclusive things, it's always a bit of planning, a lot of loss of sleep, considerable anxiety before you can actually get there.

Sometimes you get lucky.

The stars align, the timings of your transporter line, and you get there well in time to stand in line and actually get into the room where it's happening.

The X-Men activation, we were already told several times, limited seating, you should get there early.

So that's exactly what we did, even though we'd spent all of Friday at Comic Con and it was kind of a late night for us.

But yeah, we were there first thing in the morning for the X-Men activation zone.

And it's a good thing that we went as early as we did.

So the activation was called Xavier's Lounge for Gifted Youngsters.

At first, I thought this meant it was only for young folks, like family zone or something.

Thankfully, it was open to everyone.

It was just, the naming of it was a bit odd.

But anyway, basically what this activation was, it was a couple of conference rooms turned into a giant North American living room like you would have back in the 90s.

It was Saturday morning, which is when the original show used to air.

And that's when they had the premiere.

I'd say there were about 10, 12 people before us, and this was a good half an hour, 40 minutes before the show even started.

So yeah, we were there really early.

Yeah, and you're talking about the show as in Toronto Comic Con.

That's not even when the screening started.

That started later, and it actually ran late.

So we missed another session.

But anyway, all in all, it was such a cool experience to be sitting amongst all these X-Men fans.

A lot of people had dressed up, a lot of t-shirts out there.

We were also wearing our X-Men t-shirts.

And just a great deal of buzz and excitement about this franchise that so many of us have loved for a really long time.

The thing is, you and I didn't grow up with this X-Men show.

It never came to India.

The X-Men movies, they came, and then we suddenly just fell in love with this group of characters, and we've been in love with them since.

But for a lot of people in North America, this was their introduction to the X-Men.

This is how they got into the comics.

So for them, this revival is huge.

Yeah, but also just spending time with the X-Men is so special.

It's weird because the X-Men weren't a thing when we were growing up.

Not just this show, but just in general, you never saw X-Men comics.

You never saw anybody refer to them.

So the movies were a game changer for us.

And then on the back of those movies, we had the PSP game, X-Men Legends 2 Rise of Apocalypse.

That really changed how we saw these people because there were all these characters in there, so many of them who still haven't made it to the big screen.

Then we went into reading the Wiki articles about them and finally got to the comics.

And that's how we learnt about this amazing group of people.

Now listen, comics, man, they're tough.

Some are good, some are bad.

Most of them are disasters.

You'll go through some runs and you're like, why do I like these people?

But in general, the X-Men do speak to a kind of community a lot of us feel, which is that you feel different, you feel like an outsider, you don't feel like you belong, and then you have the X-Men to turn to.

This is a really very important group of folks for us, and for a lot of people as we figured out at Comic Con this year.

And we were really like, you get pulled into that excitement.

Even if you're a little bit apathetic or unsure, I was like, oh, you know, like, you just get sucked into this.

Yeah, and we were so excited for anything X-Men related at Toronto Comic Con that we watched all five seasons of the 90s X-Men show on Disney Plus in anticipation for this event.

And I'm glad we did because at Toronto Comic Con, most of the main conference rooms were running the trailer for the X-Men ‘97 show.

And that starts with the ending of the 92 show.

Which has a huge spoiler for what happens in there.

So yes, I'm glad we watched it.

We marathon watched it.

Maybe that wasn't the best way to watch it.

And also as adults, you kind of do look at things differently.

On top of that, we're entertainment writers, so you're constantly analyzing everything you watch.

We are not devotees of the original series.

We have our criticisms of it.

But listen, it's the X-Men.

We had so much fun spending five seasons with them.

And I've gotta say, there were some very interesting notes in that original series.

And when I think about it, I'm like, wow, in the 90s, they were doing this.

I really enjoyed that aspect of it.

And there were some minute character changes, which I really enjoyed as well.

So yeah, I just enjoyed watching all these characters that we've completely fallen in love with for so many, so many years.

And I've been reading the Krakow era comics.

I keep telling you about everything that's been happening.

It's tough to get into those.

It's so vast.

There are so many different series.

I still don't know how certain plots ended because they weren't in the runs of the books that I was reading.

And I'm just like, okay, I'm just going to have to accept that this character died and just move on from that.

I will never find out how it happened.

Well, this revival is also happening at the same time that a comic book revival is happening.

So that's interesting.

I might actually start with these new comics because as you said, the Krakow era, I started it, but it's just too much.

There's too much to do in the world to catch up with that many comics.

I was kind of six months behind on the Krakow comics during Christmas.

And I literally didn't do anything else during the Christmas break, aside from reading comics from the Krakow era.

I'm caught up now and now I'm behind.

Such is the life of a comic reader, especially the Marvel comic readers.

Never know.

Anyway, shall we talk about 97?

Indeed, X-Men ‘97.

There's already a little bit of controversy just before the show launches on Disney Plus with creator and showrunner, Bo DiMeo, unceremoniously being fired.

No idea why.

And I think it's kind of odd because he was talking a lot about how much he loves the X-Men.

I don't know what happened.

We can't really speculate or anything, but it is a bit strange.

And it was obvious from the cast and previous producer and director, Larry Houston, when they were at Toronto Comic Con, nobody mentioned Bo DiMeo.

I was like, obviously the PR people got to you guys.

It's always uncomfortable when you start off something with a little bit of controversy.

His name is still in the credits from what we saw in the screeners.

So there's that.

But anyway, aside from the controversy, there's also been a lot of discourse about Morph.

We won't get into that because that's not even there in the first three episodes.

So let's just talk about the story.

First of all, we are not going to share any spoilers for the first three episodes.

The first two will be dropping on March 20th.

And then there'll be weekly episodes, total of 10 episodes.

All happening on Disney Plus.

So the show kicks off from the previous storyline.

It's not immediately after.

Things have changed.

Visually, things have definitely changed.

The animation style is gorgeous.

I would say it's almost too sexy.

I love the animation, the colors, the movement.

Actually, Larry Houston kind of said, that is really the Disney money because he couldn't get any of that kind of movement when he was doing the show in the 90s.

But yeah, oh God, it looks so good.

And there's a scene that for some reason, they've already shared it on Marvel's Instagram of Jubilee dancing.

It's absolutely gorgeous.

You would not have got that kind of movement in the 90s show.

Definitely not over here.

It's like your eyes just cannot move away from the screen.

Yeah, and the music is outstanding.

Not only has the theme tune been tweaked and updated to be more modern, but there's like these beautiful synth pop background tunes going on, which I'm like, this is exactly what I like.

Yeah, I'm like, are they going to unveil Leila Cheney here?

But you know, she wasn't there.

So one thing the voice cast at Toronto Comic Con mentioned was that the creators of the new show wanted to showcase the X-Men using their powers, but in new ways.

And that's obvious from the first episode itself.

And speaking of the powers, that's what makes the action in this episode so spectacular.

Each character and their awesome powers are introduced one by one.

This allows audiences old and new to acclimatize to the new era as well as the characters.

It was great to watch this.

And it's a really tight episode.

And honestly, it was more fun because we were watching it to the crowd and we were all like oooing and eyeing when the characters were in peril and ooh, they got out of that tight situation, yes.

So yeah, it was a lot of fun.

And another thing that, not that I noticed it, but the cast actually mentioned that the episodes in this season are going to be slightly longer.

So looking at the runtime, it's about 30 minutes for each of the episodes.

And I believe the 92 show, the episodes were generally about 21, 22 minutes.

So you get about six, seven minutes more story.

And I don't know whether that's the reason why it's only 10 episodes long.

We'll talk about that later.

Yeah, so the first episode really sets up a bunch of plot lines, which we're going to be seeing throughout the show.

The story does seem interesting.

The main story maybe, I don't know.

And then there's the Magneto drama, which honestly, I am far more into that than anything else.

Listen, if there's one thing that the X-Men is extremely good at, it's drama.

We don't care about who these big bad guys are that are attacking them.

We live with the drama.

Superhero soap operas, that's what we like.

Let's talk about Storm.

I know that the creators had said, oh, she's going to be powerful and cool.

In the first episode, she is definitely powerful.

She's never been more bad as before.

Yes, Storm's mohawk hair, like that just signifies that this is going to be an era.

I thought she was so cool, so powerful, and I love what she does with her powers.

It's different.

And I don't know whether it's because I've been reading the Krakoa era comics and all the characters are super powerful.

I just feel like it's a nod to what she can do in those comics.

So yeah, I like it.

On the flip side, Morph's look, that's a choice.

Well, Morph's look is much more consistent with their comic book look.

He looks like that?

In the comics, yes.

And now Morph and Bishop have been added to the main cast.

As you see, they're in all of the promos, etc.

Morph's human looking face, I don't know, I felt like it's been softened a little bit from the rather severe angles of the original show.

I don't know if it's a different choice because they have adopted a different default look or if it's just part of the animation style.

Bishop on the other hand, his powers are just so cool.

Again, the way they're using their powers in this show this time around, it's gonna blow people's minds.

I also feel like Rogue's face is slightly more soft.

The angles are gone.

I don't mind it, but because we've been watching the old show, and immediately after we see this one, you feel it.

I don't think this is a spoiler when I say Roberto da Costa has been added to the cast.

A lot of these characters, as we know, they sort of expand their roster, but it's not like they have full on main cast roles and screen time.

But love seeing Roberto, the way he's animated, so beautiful, really beautiful voice acting as well.

Now, we have seen one other new mutant in all this while.

One and a half, if you take into account little Ileana.

But what about the rest of the new mutants?

Also, so Bertro is like a little bit problematic in the comics, especially when he was first introduced.

I really hope they don't have all that misogyny in there.

Listen, when I see Bertro, my lad, I am so happy.

Listen, we lost Adam Cantor, who was a very lovely Bertro to see on the big screen.

I was so happy to see him, and it's really sad that we lost him.

But now we've got Bertro in this show, and he's being voiced by Guy Agostini.

I think he's doing a great job.

It's exactly what I'd imagine Bertro to sound like.

He's not sleazy here.

He's actually kind of sweet, very lost, and I really enjoyed the way they did his story.

There's a particular line that he says that got everyone in the feels.

Having said that, I don't think anybody ever gets Bertro's skin color right.

Like the New Mutants movie, let's not even start with that.

Bertro's mutant powers kick in because he's being bullied so badly because he has dark skin.

He's a very rich young boy.

It doesn't matter.

He's still getting bullied because of his skin color.

I just don't think it's correct in this show.

Like I love the fact that Bertro is here, but it's not right.

Yeah, no, I agree with you.

I really wish that they had just gone with the darker skin tone.

It's always these little things, you know.

Well, one course correction here has been the voice actor for Jubilee.

She's finally being voiced by Southeast Asian actor Holly Cho.

The original Jubilee actor, Alison Court, she said that she has a different role on the show, and she's actually very happy that she has passed on the baton to somebody who has the lived experience of Jubilee.

Court did not mention who she's playing, though.

Very, very sedative.

Yeah, I'm very happy that Holly Cho is taking over this role.

She got a really great shout out actually from Alison Court during the Q&A section.

She's really very happy about this new addition to the cast.

I'm really glad to see that they're willing to make these changes, you know, after everything that happened during the pandemic.

So it's a good change.

Can't help but wonder why we needed it in the first place.

Having said that, I did do some research, and at the time that Alison Court got the role, when she was, I think she said she was like 16, 17, they didn't tell her Jubilee's origins.

Poor thing was a bit shocked when she found out.

Well, at least they cost corrected.

So another cost correction, if you can call it that, is that this show is finally realizing how hot Gambit is.

Listen, I'm a writer at WWAC.

The WWAC team loves Gambit.

We once did an entire post about how much we love Gambit.

That's how much we love Gambit.

This episode, oh boy, people are going to love Gambit in this one.

Wow, yeah, how is Gambit this hot?

That's all we're going to say.

We're going to leave the rest to your imagination, because he doesn't.

That's a good one.

Oh wow.

So we had a kind of sad reason for a new addition to the cast.

Ray Chase has joined the cast as Cyclops' voice.

And this is unfortunately because the original voice actor Norm has passed away.

I absolutely love Ray Chase.

He is doing a great job.

When I started listening to Cyclops' voice in this show, I was like, this is it.

This is how Cyclops sounds.

Chase is doing a really good job of channeling Norm Spencer, but his voice acting is just so perfect.

He is exactly the way I hear Scott in my head.

I don't know what it is.

Maybe the timbre in his voice or something.

Scott is still a little bit more snarky in both these shows than I would expect him to be, but I love it.

It's so good.

I would listen to Scott in this show forever.

So we'll end the review for this episode by saying, it gets you in the feels.

There's a lot of emotion involved, not least because of the nostalgia value.

You're back with these characters.

You're spending a whole 30 minutes with them, which is honestly more time than you get to spend with the X-Men most of the time.

So this is great.

The best part of this episode is kind of in the trailer, but at the same time, every time I think about it, still makes me kind of teary.

This is quite an experience.

I don't know if it was heightened because of the Toronto Comic Con community and the whole premiere and the voice cast and meeting the person who made most of our favorite shows from our childhood, Larry Houston.

I don't know what it was.

It was a combination of a lot of things, but let's just say this first episode is worth the wait.

100%.

We can't really talk much about what we see in episodes 2 and 3.

We did get screeners to see them.

Let's just say they're quite different from the first episode, and comics fans are really, really going to love this.

From episode 2's credits itself, your mind is blown.

They're openly telling you nothing is the same anymore.

Without revealing anything about the episode, I will say that it was very tense, and honestly, there was one scene which I felt like it was riffing off the January 6th insurrection in the US.

Those sort of visuals and the tension of it, really scary stuff.

Now, whether it's intentional or whether we're putting those sort of visuals together because it literally happened not so long ago, I don't know.

Sometimes I do think art is sending a message, and if an X-Men show is not sending a message, it's not doing it right.

But from the scary to the sublime, if Magneto is so bad, why is he so hot?

That costume, that's something else.

It's making me question a lot of things.

Oh man, well, you know, Magneto's outfit is straight from the comics.

But I think it's the way it's drawn in this animated show.

It's really striking.

And I think it's because you don't usually see male characters dressed in that combination.

We can't reveal too much.

It may already be in the trailer, but when you see it in action, it definitely has a different feel to it.

And on top of that, you have this beautiful animation style and the colors are so beautiful, which actually makes a lot of sense because the X-Men are so colorful.

Like you have to have a colorful show.

Now what I do like, especially in this episode, is how they amalgamate a bunch of storylines into one tight story arc.

It's great because especially if you read different comics, you'll be like, oh, that bit's from this comic arc and this one's from that run.

I really love how they've done that.

Episode 2 for me was the best episode so far in 97, but probably the best episode of all of the original series as well.

Wow, that is high praise.

And I understand the sentiment because the X-Men, the 92 show, it kind of consistently had one message.

No matter what the mutants do, no matter how many people they save, humans will still hate them, humans will still hunt them.

The way that the Krakoa era comics have been going right now, that is the underlying theme.

It doesn't matter that the mutants have found their own island, that they're trying to just help people, cure people, it doesn't matter.

At the end of the day, they'll always be other, and because they are other, they must be eradicated.

This episode leans into that, and I think that's why it really hits you that these events can keep unfolding over and over again, despite what's happened to the X-Men.

The humans in this world will not accept them ever.

Well, one of the things which you can intuit from the first two episodes is that the humans are gonna hate the mutants because they don't see them as people.

And that is literally the real world issue with so many marginalized communities.

The people in power don't see them as people, so they don't see their suffering as an issue.

Now, how many people watching this in the year 2024 are gonna be able to draw that through line?

I have no idea.

Well, one of the things that was really hard hitting during the Q&A at Toronto Comic Con, George Booza and Lawrence Bain, both talked about how the X-Men appeal to people who don't fit in, who feel like they're on the periphery of society, the freaks, as Lawrence Bain called them.

They find refuge in the X-Men, which is what George Booza said.

And that's what makes the X-Men so enduring.

I do have to say that the Krakow era comics, I don't think they did justice to that feeling.

They got kind of lost in all the sci-fi stuff.

Very interesting to read, very imaginative, but so often I would be reading it, and I'm like, all those strong messages about it doesn't matter who you are, what you are, who you love, you're still a person who deserves respect, and the right to not be killed, whether you're mutant or human.

It just didn't come across that much in the Krakow era comics.

I'm hoping that the rest of the season really plays with that, because if you look at it, every time Bishop travels back and forth from the past, he's doing the same thing.

He's trying to save mutants, because humans just will not stop fighting mutants.

And honestly, at a time when the world is so divisive and so ready to fight over absolutely nothing, we need this show to send a message.

And I think it is, in its own way.

I think we're getting very maudlin over here.

Let's talk about the action.

The action was great.

Like the first episode, I loved the action.

It was so crisp.

And again, because we've been watching the old series literally days before, the movement of the characters was really something to behold.

What I loved about the action in the second episode is it's really hard to predict the outcome.

Again, maybe it's the crisp animation, but I felt I could really follow the different characters as they were fighting.

And sometimes in the old shows, I didn't always feel like I could figure out which character was fighting which.

I guess you could say the direction is a little bit crisper.

Again, technology has improved, so you can move animation and camera angles, et cetera, in a different way.

So it's much easier to follow, and it really ups the tension and the pacing a lot.

And Storm has a very interesting storyline here.

It's very different from episode one, but I believe we know which storyline from the comics this is.

So I'm very intrigued to see how the show is going to handle it.

So we mentioned the music in the first episode and how fun it was.

In this one, I felt like there were some musical throwbacks to the films, and it kind of reminded me of the Gotham Knights TV show, Short-lived, Why Did It Get Cancelled?

It was so good.

But that show had a few musical throwbacks to the Dark Knight trilogy.

It really worked to cement that show as part of that universe.

I kind of liked it.

Yeah.

Alright, episode 3.

Now this one, we really can't talk about anything here.

I swear every frame was a spoiler.

So we'll just give a sort of brief idea of this episode.

It kicks off with some extremely disturbing horror imagery.

If I was a child watching this, I would be awake for a few weeks.

This is not for the faint of heart.

And it actually makes me think, is this show for kids anymore?

The original show definitely was.

It was a Saturday morning cartoon.

It was meant for children to watch.

But watching the aesthetics of this show and some of the story arcs, I'm beginning to think this is a show for the people who had been kids when the original was around.

Yes, this episode was the first time when I thought to myself, who is this show for?

Because there are some really mature themes thrown in here.

They do scale back on some of the costumes because the comic storyline, oh boy, they did not leave anything to the imagination.

So that's definitely a bit different here.

But even then, like the horror elements, those were pretty disturbing for adults.

Forget children.

So the other thing I'd say, and I don't know if you noticed this, but Berthold's powers, it's borderline giving me trypophobia.

I really hope it doesn't actually because in the comics it never bothered me, but over here, because of the movement again, I don't know, it was like, oh boy, oh boy.

I really hope it doesn't get any worse.

Oh wow, I didn't notice that.

Now I'm worried.

But I do like how they're adapting stories from the comics.

And the original 90s show also did that, with Dark Phoenix saga and everything.

But the one that's in this episode takes place over several issues, and it's all kind of clumped together in this 30 minutes.

I don't know if that had to be so rushed.

I agree, it felt really rushed.

This was definitely one of those stories that required multiple episodes for the entire arc to run.

But again, how do you squeeze in a multi-arc story when you only have 10 episodes in this season?

The original show, one of the seasons had 13 episodes.

Some of the other seasons had 17 episodes, 19 episodes.

That's a good long time to base out your story.

But also there were a couple of other moments in this episode where I was just like, are people going to know who these characters are?

Because if you're a comics fan, you're like, oh yeah, oh yeah, this is great, this is wonderful.

If you're coming to this show as a newbie, you're going to be like, who's this?

There was definitely one character who I felt like, okay, they've put this character in there because they were part of the original comics arc, but there's no way the X-Men know about this person.

Or does this person even exist in this timeline?

It just doesn't make sense.

It's a great Easter egg, but it just doesn't make sense story-wise.

Talking about things that don't quite make sense story-wise, there's that love triangle.

Where did this love triangle come from?

I mean, it's alluring because the people involved are kind of hot.

But at the same time, it's also ecky.

Was it even canon in the comics?

When you guys watch it, you will know what I'm talking about.

Was it?

Okay, but I think we read about this in the trivia section of the Rise of the Apocalypse game.

I'm pretty sure.

But still, that doesn't mean it's canon.

Must be canon at some point.

This is so weird.

It's really weird.

This is probably the first episode of the three where I could tell that Gambit has a new voiceover artist.

He sounds a lot gruffer.

I couldn't tell.

He sounds the same.

He just looks great.

Yeah, the animation is so beautiful.

Yeah.

So yes, after watching these three episodes, how do you feel about the show?

Oh, I am super excited.

I'm enjoying it.

I love how many of the comic stories I can actually recognize.

I'm interested to see what's happening with the characters.

The animation is just so, so stunning.

I really just love being able to see it.

But I'm very intrigued by some of the story arcs that they've decided to adapt for this season.

And honestly, more X-Men.

Can't go wrong with that.

I completely agree with you.

Enjoying the action, the characters, the storyline, it's all great.

And we love the X-Men.

So glad this show is back.

And that's all from us talking about X-Men ‘97.

What did you think about the show?

Ron: You can find us on Twitter @Stereo_Geeks. Or send us an email [email protected]. We hope you enjoyed this episode. And see you next week!

Mon: The Stereo Geeks logo was created using Canva. The music for our podcast comes courtesy Audionautix.

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bereft-of-frogs · 7 months ago

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friday! ✨

reading:

(in-progress) Jaw Bone - Monica Ojeda - This is an excellent follow-up to Yellowjackets in that it is about how teenage girls can and will start a cult, while an adult figure in their lives looks on in horror and then does something way worse. Also, the line "Why do [girls] love [their girl friends] so much that they would rather see them dead?" tell me that's not Shauna

(phone book) Into the Dark - Claudia Gray: omg I forgot how much I love Reath. This is legit making me considering pushing through my issues with Midnight Horizon because this can't be where we part ways. He's just so me. He stays behind for historiography. I loved historiography. He shows up kind of buzzed for an important journey. Do you know how many times I've gone through TSA still drunk? So many times. Ok not when I was 17 because I was kind of a square back then, but I for sure made up for it in my 20s. I love him. I think my issues with Midnight Horizon were 1) just being #done with forbidden romances. There are like 4 of them. I'd just read Gray's Lost Stars for book club (which was a disappointment). I don't love forbidden romances at the best of times and I was just over it. 2) some of the dialogue literally made me cringe it was so bad. But. I am considering powering through because Reath is just so me. I will say, this is probably because of my MH annoyance, but I do wish that Jora hadn't died, I think she was better for him than Cohmac is but...maybe that opinion will shift during this reread. I also really appreciate that this dodges some YA sins (unlike some others in this recap...👀 see below) by making a major theme be that the adults are equally as lost and stressed as our teenage protagonist. Like, they're sort of useless because yeah adults are also lost and confused sometimes, not just to get them out of the way of the plot. I just love the cut from Reath's POV being like 'look at them, they've got it all together, maybe when I'm an adult I won't feel so lost and uncertain' and then to all the adults' POVs being like '*internal screaming* what if I'm making a huge mistake.' I feel like, for me, this is what makes a YA book readable as a 30+ year old, treating the teen protagonist and the adult side characters with equal respect and depth.

Lord of the Rings chapter-a-day: I was supposed to finish this today, based on that blog's schedule, but once I fell behind I just decided to keep with the one chapter per day thing. Should finish by early next week and then I'm moving on to The Silmarillion to spite that one person who didn't believe the 'have you read this book' poll results. Many Partings today <3 ah.

watching (tv):

Severance (AppleTV+): I love how for like half an episode I was like 'idk this might not be such a bad idea' because I have a lot of work-related dreams and I'm like, hm but if I can't remember work, will have I have nightmares about it, and then the show immediately spent the rest of that episode and the three following being like 'hey this is a fucking horror show'. What a nightmare. Possibly the most disturbing show I've watched all year so far. Patricia Arquette's character is legit a little triggering haha.

watching (film):

the only movies I watched this week were all of the Hunger Games movies. They put them on Netflix. And. Look. I have such a complicated relationship with the Hunger Games series, some of you might be like 'um don't you bitch about that series quite frequently' yes. Also, when Netflix puts them on I WILL watch all of them. I saw the new one in theaters. I'm committed but. Hunger Games rant incoming, this is one of those things that has gotten a bit ruined by the fandom. Because I really enjoy it -- at least the first two -- I just don't think it's a masterpiece that is so deep it should be taught in high schools. It's pretty shallow actually. The first two books/movies are so fun, they're tropey and fun and a great angsty setting. (When I'm in a certain mood, oof, Hunger Games AUs? Hit so hard.) But they do indulge in some YA sins. Like not as many as the wave of knockoffs that followed, for sure, but they're there. The one that bothers me the most Katniss is both a blank slate for the reader to project on, and also the only one that's ever right. None of the other characters have depth or development just so that Katniss can be right all the time, even though by Mockingjay that just makes her seem like a hypocrite. Mockingjay, both the book and the unnecessary two-part conclusion, is just abysmal. But it feels like both my enjoyment of the tropey dystopian first two books and my dislike of Mockingjay, gets this response of 'you just don't get it, Suzanne Collins is playing 5D chess--' and I'm sorry, I just don't buy it. Anyway, this is but a fraction of the rant I could go on, Netflix tried to email me a little 'what did you think of The Hunger Games' survey and I was like, Netflix, babe, you don't know what you're asking. I also apologize to everyone who has to put up with my commentary whenever I put these on, the victim this time was @aurorawest thank you for putting up with my commentary. Also Gwendoline Christie is in the last one for like 2 minutes and cannot do an American accent so that was kind of endearing. Ok. End Hunger Games rant.

list:

guest-ready level clean of my apartment. we're mopping. we're doing the baseboards. we're making sure there's not any more butter on the walls (side note, I finally figured out how butter got on my wall: I was holding the butter knife in my right hand while picking up the bread in the toaster with the same hand and it tilted and gently brushed the wall exactly where I found the butter, so. no one asked by that's how butter got on my wall it's been like three days and I've been like....what happened here)

ECLIPSE DAY!!! I am both very excited and slightly stressed because the news has been like 'APOCALYPTIC CROWDS' but I do have to remember that my measurement for 'apocalypse-level crowds' has been shaped by almost exclusively living in places with much, much higher population density. So what I consider intolerable crowds and what the good citizens of this lovely state consider intolerable crowds...is slightly different. I definitely am anticipating a lot of traffic but I do think I need to recalibrate my understanding here. XD We'll see maybe it will be bad, but I have alternate routes planned, we'll have snacks, it'll be an adventure either way.

I have no other plans this is all I've been thinking about, this is the first thing I put in my calendar when I got it, I put in my PTO request in January lol

anyway, happy friday

#lists lists lists #long post

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heroes-fading · 1 year ago

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tumblr did eat this but as a wise poet once said “honey i rose up from the dead i do it all the time”

so i feel like i have been slowly entertaining in the back of my head for a year or two now the idea of writing again. it started with like, writing bad poetry in journals. i’ve been consuming media, but in a lot more of a disconnected way. engagement was like, reading reddit and twitter threads for a day and putting it back down. then episode 8 happened, and i was like FUCK i’m unglued.

to put in perspective what kind of shit i was up to in high school: i wrote half a million words of like...once upon a time fanfiction. and in that i found lots of lovely connections to people but amidst a sea of other factors: being a literal teenager who still thought i could be the smartest person in the room (spoiler: never), having no real social net outside of the internet (and i will say my internet friends -- many of whom i still love and talk to today -- got me through some of the WORST times of my life), and having a very fragile ego. probably related to points a and b. everything felt like the biggest thing in the world because my world did not feel very big.

now i look back at it like...holy shit you wrote a goddamn novel. who cares if it was like, literature or not?

to be honest one of the things that got through to me was this cj the x video, especially their point which i’ll recap here:

“We are under the impression that art is something special people do, and to do it well makes you a genius, and to do it poorly is embarrassing. This sectioning off of the art world for artists from regular life and regular people is completely artificial and it is bad for the soul of your society.”

and they talk a bti about the Terrifying Ordeal of Being Known and perfectionism and just the amount of fuccccckin mental blocks we put around what’s good art and bad art and we spend so much time agonizing over what’s good and what’s cringe and you know what? embrace cringe! who cares! none of us will live forever!!! sharing art is the way we sustain ourselves in the long run.

i always have an internal voice saying something’s not good enough. i’m Always like “damn, these metrics ain’t metricing like they were earlier...” and then i’m like fuck...am i doing this for the Idea of Fandom Success or because of my fun silly lil hobby? my fun silly lil hobby? aight guess i ought to just embrace the Terrifying Ordeal of Being Known and accept that silly lil numbers ain’t what’s fufilling, it’s the practice of writing and sharing and going at the end of the day “at least one person liked this, and being known isn’t the Most Horrific Thing Ever”.

another thing i Never did when i was a teenager is tell anyone i wrote fic in real life. now my husband and friend and sister-in-law know (the latter involved either alcohol or being confined to a plane, which is a lot like alcohol) and you know how much they think i’m embarassing? they don’t. oh and actually a co-worker. they just go “lol, this is My thing” and it’s a novel they tried to write in college or fanart they post on a secret instagram or a monsters inc page they ran in high school (all real examples) because everyone has some kind of thing they care about, some artistic expression, and we’ve conditioned people to think trying is embarassing. trying is vulnerable and the point, i think! no matter how cringe!

and vulnerability is this awfully stingy thing because sometimes when you think about it for too long it’s not unlike putting your hand on a hot coal. like, fuck, laying awake at night knowing that people know You Tried and what if they still didn’t like it? humiliating. awful. please schedule me with the goddamn firing squad. you didn’t get the metrics you wanted. or worse, you did and now people don’t think you deserve it. they’re gonna find out you’re just a big fanfiction writing fraud.

but maybe that’s the point! i don’t know! vulnerability is hard and painful and growth and sincerety is almost WORSE. but there’s also something lovely and cathartic about it and at the end of the day knowing that other people feel that, too. can never get too lost in either sauces of thinking you’re the worst thing ever or the best and the only one who gets it. just gotta accept the vulnerability of it all~

i’m back in my daydreaming era, i think fic gave that back to me. i shut her off for a little while, but she’s still there! and it’s not the worst thing, having overwhelming creative ideas on the treadmill or in a hotel lobby or furiously writing in a google doc in the middle of the night even if it does feel Silly. sometimes it does make the world a little more magical, framing in a narrative.

(my therapist at some point has made comments about my narrative framing skills in the context of my life and getting out of a shitty family situation with a lot of embedded generational cyclical fun stuff to a point i have a lot of the things now i used to dream about despite it, my pathological need to write my way out also applying to my life and maybe it’s not the worst way of moving a locus of control inwards. i used to dream about feeling safe and being respected interpersonally and professionally because it’s something no woman in my family ever really got and i get that now. anyway, as i said, radical vulnerability!)

narratives are powerful and meaningful and art is too, i don’t care if it’s fanfiction at the end of the day! we’ve all felt something or gptten something or felt community and that’s meaningful enough.

this is a very long-winded and frankly chaotic way of saying sure, i’m a writer enough!

#fic talk #and talk and talk.............#i have a job i love that fufills what i want to Do and Be but also i will always love writing so much #and to get to do that in space where i get feedback and community #at the end of the day when i'm hittin #g that lil refresh button for a dopamine hit because social media has broken our brains #i do take a deep breath and be like #oh cool #i did that #and the more we police that feeling or worse misplace it the harder it gets to the Point #of just doing shit for the sake of it and having a good time!#don't get sucked into all the other shit #i think a big turning point in my life honestly #was being in the car after having the worst fucking day of my life or second worse #after a really terrible situation with my mom #and i was in a goddamn target with a radically different hair color in my hands #and after that i was like #i'm not doing this to myself!#i'm not going to doom myself!#i'm going to listen to some goddamn kelly clarkson #because of you LEGENDS ONLY #and live for myself here and build my own existence #i literally found old journal entries to myself saying something to the idea of this #and then i interned at my current job and met my husband and slept on the floor of people i still love and am friends with today #and this isn't fic but #NARRATIVE #and what i was and wasn't going to do #and i read that a year or two ago and just bawled my eyes out #because she did that :')#and that's the power of building something for yourself and owning your own lil narrative even if sometimes it's just lil fanfic

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the1975attheirverybest · 1 year ago

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Alright I finished the whole episode so I’ll sum it all up one more time just so everyone is aware

They start the podcast by bringing up the fact that their podcast has been in the news a lot lately, and so they have to talk about this.

They then pull up the Buzzfeed article specifically and read about half of it (pausing a lot to make fun of Buzzfeed and bad journalism) before getting more serious for a minute.

They make it clear that they did not know what GG was at the time of the podcast. They wanted to tell a funny story and Adam used the term GG because he knew it was a type of hardcore porn, but didn’t know exactly what it entailed. Matty was the one who decided to keep going with that version of the story by saying “yeah I think it literally was GG” and Adam clarified today that he “doesn’t know” if Matty was serious or not. But the gist of it was that Adam and Nick were both unaware what GG really was at the time.

Then later in the episode they make fun of swifties for a bit (this part was actually funny, I was laughing out loud) and mocking the tendency of fake news and cheap media outlets like Buzzfeed capitalizing on Twitter outrage.

Then they talked about other irrelevant stuff for the last third of the podcast.

THANK YOU SO SO MUCH FOR YOUR THOROUGH RECAP. 💗💗💗

YOU ARE AN ANGELLLLL. this is so helpful. For real!!!! Also, I’m glad they addressed it and I’m glad that we’re ok the same page about buzzfeed lol.

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torawro · 1 month ago

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BLEACH THOUGHTS !!!! 🎤

EJJJJJ WHAT UP BABY ! ? ! ? ! ugh i’m so glad ur here bc we can revive of ej + sosa bleach podcast the tumblr edition 🙂‍↕️ this brings back old memories <3 bleach tybw cour 3 spoilers below ‼️‼️

because speaking of old memories, gosh, watching this episode felt so….refreshing in a way? literally like a breath of fresh air or going to one of ur favorite places after not having been there in a long time; this is exactly how it felt to return and revisit kubo’s masterful work 🙂‍↕️

after watching today’s episode i realize how desperate i am for a refresher of some sort like i feel almost lost because i haven’t watched any bleach content in a long time— and its been a year and some change since cour 2 and its like i’m skydiving out of a plane, i need to get acclimated with the story and the characters again, just a tad 😭😭 but one thing is for sure i am really glad they spent the first half of the episode recapping us from what happened last cour by showing us the senjumaru’s bankai + yhwach v. ichibei again, very much helpful ! and seeing uryū’s battle prowess and his style of fighting was just SOOO amazing and he looks so cool and i remembered i love him😭😭😭 glad he got his time to shine and i hope he gets more time since tybw has already been adding in extra scenes and details

now let’s talk abt that OPENING AND ENDING SEQUENCE ! absolutely phenomenal idk who was in charge of that but i hope that person or people have icy cold pillows to sleep on tonight 🙂‍↕️ the monochrome palette with bright colored eyes that pop out against an otherwise dull shot was just so cool to look at !! seeing everyone in the op and ending themes just made me miss everyone like how it really has been too long :((

need to make a separate paragraph for ichigo because…….ichigo. nuff said. (i miss my boyfie so much but i can’t string the words together rn bc im half asleep and im still trying to process my excitement)

and AIZEEENNNNNN OMG i already said it in disc but his 5 seconds total screen time throughout that whole episode was one of the best parts as well like I WAS SILENTLY (S)CREAMING MY MAN IS COMING SOOOO SOON! the way they’re building up the anticipation oh my days the pacing is pretty good so far ! think i mentioned this to u as well in disc except i can’t remember but SHUNSUI !!!! ive been think abt him quite often leading up to today’s premiere seeing his few seconds on my screen was also exhilarating

oh…and those two shots of juushiro…………..no i’m not well like UGHHHH i know that’s gonna be so emotional when they get to it, i just know i may cry bc i was sooo so so sad when i read it 💔💔 but enough of my yap fest, please please tell me what ur thoughts are 😝

#*☆ﾟ. destinies cross ── asks.#i love having a bleach brain rot <3 #<- it was ESSENTIAL and imperative that i brought back this tag #it’s sos iconic

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acasestudyofaria · 1 year ago

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✅ 32/52 recap + reflect

i don’t have much to say about this week because i spent more time doing than thinking about things and my working memory is a tad bit deficient BUT here’s one thing i took away from week 32:

embrace imperfection and difficulty in doing new things - you finding it difficult is not a sign to back away, it’s proof you’re trying

as a child, things came very easily to me, esp when i was interested in it, so i relied on what i would call beginner’s luck to get me through a lot of things growing up. i feel like i breezed through the majority of my life unaware of how to actually do certain things (like studying, and i can’t tell if that’s a blessing or a curse). now that i’m trying to be more aware and present in what i do, the reality hit me like a sack of bricks. i can find things difficult. my natural response was to resist facing the difficulty and run away from my responsibilities, which set me back a thousand steps.

this week, i pushed myself to do more difficult things (that ideal me would do), esp when i really didn’t feel like doing them.

my findings: difficult things became less difficult the more i attempted to do them, or at least, i was less resistant to doing them.

things that helped me “not think, just do”:

🍄 say bismillah - this is literally a cheat code. you’re unstoppable with the creator of the heavens and the Earth on your side. all He has to do is say be, and it is. ok bismillah, letsgooo!

🍄 set a timer - switching my study goals from content-oriented tasks to time-oriented ones helped me build momentum too. i didn’t always manage to finish studying the content i wanted to, but by the end of the day, i had finished at least half of it instead of only having thought about doing it.

🍄 visualise doing the thing - i screened mini “spoiler alert” reels in my head, showing myself how in 30mins, i would’ve completed a certain task. the resistance to it dramatically decreased because the “future footage” made me see the task for what it actually was: something i could definitely do and NOT a threat to my well-being.

🍄 set intentions and systems around your goals - i started the week off telling myself i would finish one biochem topic a day. it didn’t work and i kept berating myself for it. two days ago, i told myself i would commit to increasing my biochemistry knowledge base a little every day. i switched my goals to timeblocks instead of topics and that system increased my productivity. even when i wasn’t able to complete an entire topic, i had taken steps towards improving my knowledge base, AND achieved my goal of x study timeblocks.

🍄 give yourself a “gold star” once you complete a task - for me, posting my todaystodos updates on my story and seeing the green ticks (or the absence thereof) gave me just enough dopamine to push myself more the next day. but i also rewarded myself w cake, or talking to my brother, or today, watching an episode of Strange Planet. find something that works for you and DO NOT pre-reward (it doesn’t work as effectively).

🍄 be your loudest cheerleader too - we’re usually our worst critics, and that’s okay (as long as we stay constructive) but we have to cheer ourselves on too. how would you talk to a friend or a sibling? my brother rerouted a lot of my negative thoughts this week, and once i started talking to myself the same way, it changed how i approached the things i needed to do - again, it dramatically decreased the resistance.

🍄 treat yourself w compassion even if you fail to meet your own expectations - because we will sometimes. and that’s okay. we do better next time. cultivate a growth mindset. there are no failures in this garden, just unsuccessful experiments that leave more soil for new flowers to be planted. and it shows you what not to do with the next attempt. it’s trial and error until it works out, loves.

happy monday! <><3

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daysofourlivesrecaps · 1 year ago

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Wednesday, 7 June 2023

At the end of yesterday’s recap, I expressed concern about the show getting a little too real with the whole Colin/Talia abuse thing. And I’m not going to sugar coat it: there was more today, and it was even harder for me to watch. I cannot imagine what this experience must be like for people who have actually been through something like this. This is my typically long-winded way of saying:

1. I never thought I’d have to put a content warning on these dumb things, but maybe that’s a good idea today. cw: psychological and physical abuse

2. I’m going to do my ever-loving best to make jokes about the rest of this, but those parts are just going to be straight retellings of what happened.

Well, at least things kick off with someone I have no problem making jokes about: Johnny Goddamn DiMera. He’s on his thirtieth “one more chance” with Wendy, and he calls to confirm that he’s supposed to pick up some carry-out at the pub and bring it by her place for their date this evening.

Which is a thing that’s definitely going to happen. He couldn’t possibly find a way to Johnny this up again, right?

At the hospital, Chanel (the third most dramatic person on this show) is trying to talk Paulina (the second most dramatic person on this show) down.

Then Julie (the most dramatic person on this show) enters.

Julie has been a character on this show since literally the first episode in 1965. The role was recast in 1968, and this woman — Susan Seaforth Hayes — has played her ever since. I have no idea what Julie got up to in her first half-century on the show, but ever since I’ve been watching, she just sort of barges in to a scene like the Kool Aid Man and insinuates herself into someone’s problems. This is another kind of person I would hate to know in real life, but I adore what she does for this show.

So Julie starts doing her Julie thing to Paulina, and Chanel, picking up on the fact that her mother isn’t a fan of hospital food (am I right, people?) volunteers to go get her some real food. Someplace far from Julie. Nice job, Chanel.

Meanwhile, Colin swings wildly between “I’m going to kill you for what you did to me” (throwing him off a roof) and “I can’t live without you so you should come with me while I lam it.” Talia is, rightfully, terrified.

Meanwhile — oh thank christ this batshit stupidity is still happening — Abe is still being held captive by Nurse Kim Coles.

And he’s continuing to pull some magnificent faces in reaction to her madness.

Speaking of pulling magnificent faces! Sometimes I’m a little harsh in my criticism of Jackée’s performing ability, but she’s giving Abe a run for his money as she’s forced to lie still and endure Julie.

Tripp returns home from Seattle and Wendy informs him that Johnny’s coming over for a date any time now.

I mean, what possible reason could he have not to? It’s not like he’s going to run into his ex at the pub and blow Wendy off.

Wendy starts to get a little impatient, encouraged by a newly-aggressive Tripp (this means he’s now willing to call Johnny a little shitty sometimes because Tripp is still inherently a kind and beautiful man) and texts Johnny. And Johnny replies.

DiMera, you absolute piece of shit. When someone specifically asks for an ETA, “soon” is not an acceptable answer.

So Tripp makes Wendy some tacos. And I’ll bet if she asked him how long until the tacos are ready, he told her an actual time and not just “soon.”

Side note: I would happily do what this apron suggests if presented with the opportunity.

Chanel has decided that since she’s at the pub and Talia lives in one of the rooms upstairs, she’s going to go up and confront her. She tries to get Johnny to come with her, but he says no. He does agree to stick around downstairs though because, hey, he’s got nowhere else to be.

So Chanel goes upstairs and begins pounding on the door. Which I’m sure would make Talia feel great even if she were here by herself right now.

Colin sees an opportunity to finish the job on her and pulls the gun he stole from Officer Skippy.

Talia convinces him to hide so she can get rid of Chanel.

Naturally Chanel just barges right in, because she shares her mother’s inability to read a room.

Talia patiently (especially under the circumstances!) gets yelled at by Chanel, then leads her back to the door. Then she hands her something, mouths “help me” and closes the door.

Chanel realizes it’s Officer Skippy’s badge.

She tells Johnny about the encounter and Johnny, thank god, does not decide to play junior detective or to charge upstairs hisownself. Instead, he calls Rafe.

Back upstairs, Colin realizes the badge is missing and threatens Talia some more. Like, lots more this time.

But then the cavalry shows up. Colin briefly holds a gun to Talia but Rafe is able to get it away from him and arrest the garbage rubbish fire again.

I said this before and I’ll say it again: this was all extremely difficult for me to watch. One of the things I love about soaps is how they cut right to the raw, base emotions of human experience. Everyone has massive feelings that are extremely easy to read and then they’ll monologue to you about them for awhile just in case you didn’t manage to pick that up. But it’s all usually so exaggerated that you don’t get too wrapped up in it.

This was a combination of “shit, it’s probably really like this, huh?” and a cast that really sold every awful thing that was happening. It wasn’t any better written or produced than anything else they do on Days. It just managed to strike a nerve that made me feel like I was watching a truly artful suspense movie or something. Just for a couple of minutes.

Also, I’m a lifelong pacifist and I’m pretty cynical about cops. But god, I wanted Rafe and/or Talia to shoot this abusive motherfucker right in the goddamn face.

#Days of Our Lives #DOOL #soap opera #Peacock

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jq37 · 3 years ago

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The Report Card – Fantasy High: The Seven Ep 1

Meet the Maidens

It is back to school baby, both for D20 and, funnily enough, myself as well (something I hope will give me more time to get the recaps out in a timely manner fingers crossed).

As I’m sure you all know if you’re reading this, this season of D20 takes place in the world of Fantasy High but with a focus on Aguefort’s OTHER most badass adventuring party who we’ve so far only seen on the sidelines, the Seven Maidens! You’ll recall, they’re made up of the seven girls who were captured by Penelope and co. to fulfill the prophecy that would let Kalvaxus rule the world freshman year. And, in fact, we start with a flashback to freshman year so let’s just jump right in.

We find our seven soon-to-be heroines chained in the Red Waste in front of what we know and they will shortly learn in Kalvaxus’ lair--a crucial part of the prophecy that was the subject of season 1. The structure of this episode is sort of like 2 rounds of introductions--first here with the maidens meeting each other for the first time and then again at home with their families a la the first episode of Freshman Year so I’ll be glossing over certain things that we’ll get to later in their second intros.

Anyway, the first two to wake up are Danielle (aka Yelle: half-elf, druid) and Zelda (satyr, barbarian as we know). Zelda is her usual, adorably nervous self in contrast to Yelle who is no less sweet but in a super chill, granola girl, fuck the system kind of way. We actually learn that Penelope had her on board with the plan for a hot second when she thought it was just “overthrow the government” but didn’t know about the “install a just as bad if not worse evil dragon overlord” part.

Ostentatia (dwarf, cleric) wakes up next and is, as Izzy--her player--describes her “Jersey Trash.”, all blinged up with jewelry that she secretly made herself and didn’t buy. She wakes up pissed and ready to bodyslam Aelwyn which are both extremely valid emotions as much as I love Aelwyn. By the way, all of the girls recognize each other as girls who go to their school but none of them are really friends though they very quickly start throwing the label around because that’s what you do when you wake up chained with 6 other people in front of a dragon’s lair in a place called the Red Waste.

Katja (half-orc, fighter) wakes up and immediately cares about nothing more than the status of her beloved horse, Cinnamon and declares that if Cinnamon dies, she’ll die. This is a fantasy world so Ostentatia and Danielle are a little concerned that might literally be true via a soul bond or something but it’s more that Katja just really, really loves that horse. Danielle tries to cast a spell to locate the horse but can’t get the somatic components quite right with her hands manacled.

They all get into a discussion about the fact that everyone for a fact knows they’re all virgins now (you know, the real issue here) and what exactly counts as “virginity” for the purposes of this prophecy (like, does second or third base count or only traditional home runs using the baseball analogy) when Penny wakes up and is, just so excited to be here gang! Penny (halfling, rogue), who is one of the girls who has been kidnapped the longest, is adorably and honestly a bit concerningly exuberant to be surrounded by all these new friends, totally disregarding the fact that they are clearly in some deep shit. Zelda mentions that Riz, her old babysitee, knows they’re kidnapped and is trying to help and she lights up.

Next up is Sam (water genasi, sorc/bard) who immediately starts thrashing to get out of her chains and, when she can’t get free, is devastated by the fact that her ex betrayed her (!?) Finally Antiope (human fighter/ranger) wakes up all out of sorts having started her growth spurt while in the crystal and also having needed to pee right before she went in which becomes a problem all over herself (which Sam helpfully cantrips away).

With all of them awake, the stones they’re chained to light up and some of Kalvaxus’ minions (the ones who tied them up) show up to do minion speechifying. Yelle does a horrifying Animorph style morph into a waterbear (a tardigrade if you wanna get all Bio 101) to get out of her bonds but then Sam who has a serious one track mind re: getting out of here (Correct) and has exactly zero patience for these guys casts Tidal Wave and just knocks them off the cliff. Yelle frees Ostentatia who frees everyone else with Animate Object on their chains. Hands free, Yelle also casts Locate Animal and tells a very pleased Katja that Cinnamon is doing a full Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron down the highway searching for her.

The girls decide to explore the cave which has recently had most of its treasure moved (it’s currently in the gym for the Prompocolypse fight which is currently happening). Penny and Sam (who are in insanely different emotional places) find all these broken mirrors which Sam takes as a cue that they need to GTFO (which is what she was already doing) and Penny thinks would make a great material for friendship bracelet making which she starts doing as Sam physically pulls her away. Sam hears someone doing post-cry sniffles and is like, “Not today Satan,” still trying to leave. However, Penny sees that there is one mirror left and, inside, sees a ethereal looking human with flowing, preternatural, black hair who senses their presence and asks if Penny is someone named Anima. She asks for their names though she declines to give hers (hmm, feels very fae) and the girls give the fake names of Kelly and Cecelia which the figure says she will guard and not misuse. The figure says she is looking for her sisters (who she says when Penny asks are at Aguefort which...hmmmmm) and, all of a sudden, Sam and Penny are having a bad feeling about those mirror shards.

They ask her a question about the mirror and she gets really aggro when it’s referred to as “her” mirror as she would very much like to be out of it. The woman really wants to get out and says she can give them lots of power if they help. Sam pulls out her compact Mirror of the Past (magic item that does basically what you’d expect--shows you info from something’s past though in a cryptic way usually) to try and get some info on this thing and just barely avoids losing her mind in the process because this thing is ancient. Like eons old. She also learns the woman’s name (or maybe title): The Ending of Things (will be calling her Ending for now).

Yikes!

Right around now the other girls come in and can see at the angle they’re looking at her at the woman in the mirror is Not Really A Person and Antiope points at her and reflexively casts a ranger sense spell to try and clock its weaknesses and stuff but Ending grabs the spell energy like a lasso and tries to drag her into the mirror. She does however find out that she’s stacked with hella resistances (total immunity to necrotic damage and non-maj weapons, resistance to most elemental damage, and more).

Sam briefly considers using Lightning Lure to pull Antiope back before deciding on a much less ouchy Counterspell. Unfortunately, it’s not strong enough and now she’s being pulled in by her spell energy too. Yelle casts Erupting Earth which has some pros and cons.

Pros: Antiope and Sam are saved! Yay!

Cons: The mirror breaks and whatever was in it is fully freed. Not yay!

Shortly after (but not before Penny gives everyone their new friendship bracelets), someone calls into the cave looking for them--it’s Fig’s mom, Sandra-Lynn (with new art)! She’s happy and impressed that everyone is OK (also, Katja and Sam both have little lines that foreshadow their ~parental issues~ for the season--Katja being very moved by the simple act of Sandra-Lynn showing up for them and Sam saying that in her experience moms can be very evil).

As they all leave the cave, they all do checks and get some info:

Ostentatia: The mirror was kinda like a palimpsest (the crystals they were trapped in) and whatever this thing is is ancient and powerful.

Yelle: Gets the above info and the fact that when the thing left it wasn’t quite a bad vibe, just the vibe that something big and important is at play.

Penny: On an Arcana check she knows that what Danielle did 100% saved Antiope and Sam’s lives from whatever and wherever was on the either side of the mirror but the contact marked them in some way.

Katja: With History she sees some Primordial writing which is the writing of elementals (one of the things Ending has resistances to which might be relevant; also Sam reads Primordial but doesn’t get to read what it says)

Antiope: She knows that she and Sam are connected to Ending now somehow but it’s a two way connection which means they can also use it to their advantage.

Ostentatia casts Mending on the mirror shards which I think was to reconstruct the mirror but what it actually does is someone link their friendship bracelets. Cute!

And, with that, we cut to the present a year and a half later (which is Jr or Sr year for everyone).

We hop from kid to kid as they get ready to head in to school and get glimpses into their homes lives! Let’s do a quick rundown for each girl:

Antiope Jones

We see that Antiope is the youngest of five in what is essentially a military family full of basically every kind of fighter (she says she basically lives in a “Crossfit box”). There’s an 8 year gap between her and her sister Corsica who is the second youngest so her parents are kind of already living like empty nesters. When she comes downstairs she is promptly handed a protein smoothie and told two pieces of info: (1) from Corsica she learns that she overheard at school --where she teaches--that Aguefort needs to talk to her for some reason but she won’t say why which annoys the crap out of Antiope and (2) her parents lined up an internship for her at the Ministry of Adventure. She and her mom verbally spar a bit about them being all up in her life and how stressed she is and how she likes what she has going now with the Seven but her mom wins ofc because she’s a Mom and also a master tactician with a deft hand for loving mom guilt. On the way to school her bros (who include a gunslinger and an eldritch knight cause they run the whole gamut of fighter classes) Facetime her like, “Yikes Ant, heard about what happened with Mom, this is why you don’t fight her lmao.”

Sam Nightingale

This is a heavy one so strap in.

We check in with Sam who isn’t at her own family’s home but at Penelope’s family home which is off the bat eyebrow raising. It’s an upper middle class house and, on the way down, she has to pass Penelope’s bedroom which is conspicuously empty. Downstairs she’s greeted by Penelope’s human mom Rebecca who she learns is moving out soon because her elf husband is both cheating on her while away in Falinel and starting the divorce process. Sam clearly sees Penelope’s mom as a surrogate mom (for reasons we’ll learn in a second) and goes full ride or die assuring her that her ass is better than the ass of the woman he’s cheating with and offering to help burn his stuff even though drowning is more her specialty (she’s so cool). She also is a little stricken at the thought of Rebecca leaving her in the house alone but Rebecca says she can come with if she wants, she just didn’t want to disrupt her school life.

She also tells Rebecca that her bio-mom called recently which immediately sets Sam off. Through the convo we learn a couple of things:

Sam used to be an actor it seems.

And it seems like she was kicked out of the house after she transitioned or something similar which is why she lives with the Everpetals.

Now that it’s more “fashionable” to to be trans (her mom’s words, not mine) she wants Sam to talk to her so they can get her back in the game.

Sam is having none of that and tells Rebecca to just delete her mom’s number. Then they have a cathartic session of burning her cheating husband’s shit before Sam leaves in Sebastian--her sentient, seafoam blue, self-driving car with a very hot male voice which I am extremely jealous of. She picks up Zelda on the way to school and they commiserate a little and have a heart to heart about adults and change and how much Zelda wants to body slam Sam’s mom.

Penny Luckstone

Penny’s house is a whirlwind of activity and her harried parents get her and her 19 young siblings ready for school (no wonder she’s such a good babysitter). We see where Penny gets her type-A ness from as her mom and dad both have this cheerful but overworked energy of “EVERYTHING IS FINE” like that Good Place sign. Her mom spares a second to tell her that she recently got a letter for The Society of Shadows which is like a super secret rogue college (which her parents assume is legit even though they haven’t heard of it cause they’re Mumple people and also, if you've heard of a rogue school, how good could it really be?) Penny is excited except that it would mean she’d have to move and leave her party. Her mom is like “hey it’s a full ride and there are 20 of you guys so just take that into consideration but it’s ultimately your decision” before she dashes away to get to work because it is always Go Go Go with the Luckstones. She texts Sam for a ride and Sam swings by to grab her. This is not plot relevant but she has a booster seat in the back of Sebastian with her name carved into it and it’s important to me that you know that.

Katja Cleaver

Next up is Katja who lives in a Richie Rich style mansion and comes from very old money as she is descended from one of the first adventurers in Solace. She is in the barn with Cinnamon and the bugbear farrier they have employed (her name is Gertrude and a farrier is someone who does horseshoes). She eats the same breakfast as Cinnamon (hot dry oats and berries baybee) wo she loves so so dearly. Cinnamon is a magical horse--basically like a Find Steed spell that’s on all the time. She’s modeled the horse in her fave book series--the Babysitter’s Horse of course. Lockwood, the staff’s hobgoblin butler, is also there and they get a fantasy Zoom call from Katja’s dad who is in the middle of the insane 20th level adventurer stuff which he says might make him miss her graduation. She is extremely disappointed but just barely hides it from her dad (who seems to really care despite his not being around). She can’t hide it from the staff or Cinnamon however and Cinnamon offers to give her a ride to school via the scenic route.

Note: We also learn two sad facts about Katja from the conversation with her dad.

Her mother is Disney Princess dead* and

She wears one half of a friendship necklace and it seems like she’s waiting for someone to give the other half to. It’s implied earlier that the way Penelope got her was by promising to be her best friend. Sad!

*Edit: Well, she’s gone and we’ll leave it at that until next recap.

Ostentatia Wallace

Ostentatia wakes up and goes downstairs to have a very high energy in both directions interaction with her very fantasy-Italian mom and grandma. Her grandma is concerned her beard isn’t coming in--not knowing she shaves it on purpose which her mom is like, “Listen it’s fine but don’t tell grandma it’ll kill her.” She clocks very quickly that her dad isn’t there and his mithril working tools are gone. Her mom tries to play it off but she knows she’s being lied to and her mom relents. Her dad is at a meeting with the other workers of the shut down mithril factory and negotiations have ceased. It looks like he’s gonna be long term out of work. That explains where her dad is but not why the tools are missing. She decides to go do some investigating on her own and ambushes her dad in his car where, with the inaugural nat 20 of the season, she realizes he pawned his tools to get her 5 revivify diamonds. She's upset by this and he’s upset that she’s, in his eyes, questioning his ability to take care of his family. She’s like, alright, you did a thing for me, I’ll do a thing for you and she casts Animate Object to make his stuff steal itself back in a sequence that involves an animated crowbar using another crowbar which is just wild.

Danielle Barkstock

I’m gonna be real, Danielle’s life is exactly how you assume it is based on Who She Is As A Person so this one will be real short. Eco-friendly off the grid geodesic yurt. One super chill peace and love elf sorc mom and one rough and tough human ranger mom. She also knows and helps the Cubbies with their anarchist machinations because yeah, duh. She gets some messages from school on her crystal--one being a message from the principal saying that she and the rest of her party have first period off to meet with him and the other being a newsletter from the school showing, among other things, a photo of the Druid class doing a project but she’s not in it for some reason. She texts one of the other druids to see if she can figure out why she wasn’t invited but fully gets left on read. Brutal. Of course, she hasn’t messaged that person in 6-8 months so maybe that’s why.

Anyway, with that, all seven of our maidens make it to school and are all exuberant to see each other in a very teen girl way before getting to the principal’s office and learning that their party will be broken up at the year!

Bad!

Superlatives

I wanted to do something a little different for these recaps than the Bad Kid ones so instead of Honor Roll/Detention we are doing Superlatives and the inaugural one goes to...

Sam: Most Like To Survive a Horror Movie

Man she woke up chained in a ritual magic circle and she was Ready To Go Immediately. You will not catch this girl doing horror movie victim BS like exploring the spooky house or giving the creepy obvious ghost the time of day. She is hyper-competent and her goal is making it out alive and dragging her friends with her. Love her.

Random Thoughts

The season immediately starts with a bang or I should say a bing with Izzy trying to say “bling bang” and accidentally saying, “bling bing” and immediately getting roasted by everyone. I love the authentic girl group vibes (which include everyone clowning on her then immediately hyping up Zelda to the max after being way more awkward).

Handshake meme with Danielle and Moonshine from Naddpod. Also, Cinnamon and Horse from Centaurworld.

I love that Rekha and Erika just straight up were like, “Our characters are Asian”. Like obviously, make your characters Asian coded in your fantasy world--all my D&D characters are black like me--but it’s funny that they completely disregarded the, “There’s no Asia in this world so I guess they’re this world’s equivalent to--” Nah just, “I’m a half-elf and I’m Asian.” You love to see it.

I absolutely LOVE the choices the cast made to flesh out their characters based on the little info Brennan had about them, none moreso than rich horse girl Katja. Rekha is a genius.

“I only want one thing and he’s working” KATJAAAAAAA

Man if I was in that flashback I would have been wilding out so much with my flashback plot armor.

I appreciate that the first thing that Aabria has Antiope do is extremely uncool. I love it when players aren’t concerned about just being cool and on point all the time. Sometimes (read: often) that’s the less interesting choice.

But on the exact opposite side, she’s a ranger and an arcane archer which I think is extremely cool. Lmao also I didn’t mention in the recap but she HATES dragons now which, understandable. I’m guessing they're her favored enemy.

I can’t wait to see another group of kids interact w/ madman Aguefort.

Also, as a known Aelwyn-stan, I am very excited for the possibility of the Seven interacting with her cause as much as I love her they are under no obligation to acknowledge her redemption arc and I would love to see them throw hands.

I love the Greek myth naming scheme of Antiope’s extremely cool family as with her on the spot nickname “L-Cab” short for long caboose since she’s the youngest by a mile.

Also this is out of character not in character but Sephie is an extremely cool nickname for Persephone.

I wonder why Brennan didn’t let Sam read the Primordial in the cave. He just glossed right past her saying that she speaks it and she didn’t push it. Would it have solved his entire plot in the span of a flashback or was he just keeping things moving?

Sidenote, if I was married to an elf man and worried about aging like Rebecca, I would simply become a druid (or a monk or up my wizard levels so I could learn True Polymorph or Wish or something).

I wonder what the deal with Ending is. She seemed relatively sincere in the mirror but that doesn’t mean anything. She could be sincere and also Very Bad News.

There is an offhand comment by Brennan about how the dwarf forge god gives spells but doesn’t talk to his followers which I think means that Ostentatia is gonna be getting a direct god call soon enough.

Also she mentions that her dad is doing some criminal activity on the side which seems like a Problem for later. Honestly all of the kids have some pretty rich parent drama happening which should be interesting to see explored.

No nat 1s this ep and 1 nat 20 as I mention from Ostentatia.

#dimension 20 #fantasy high #the seven #fantasy high spoilers #dimension 20 spoilers

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snowpiercer-recaps · 3 years ago

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Season 1, episode 1: What About his Dick?

Spoiler alert!!! This is a rewatch recap of Snowpiercer s1e1: First, the weather changed. Naturally, it is full of spoilers for that episode. However, it also contains spoilers for some other episodes of season 1 and season 2. You have been warned!

The show opens with André Layton reading us a nice bedtime story. In a shocking turn of events absolutely nothing like the real world, the 1% have caused a climate disaster. Layton explains that the great visionary Mr. Wilford foresaw that the attempt to reverse climate change would cause the world to freeze, in what sounds like a thinly-veiled accusation that Wilford actually caused the freeze.

Next, some of the main characters get introduced. They start as they mean to go on: Layton takes charge before he’s even come up with a plan, Zarah inexplicably avoids any fighting, Miles just hides away for most of the second half, and Commander Grey refuses to wear a helmet.

After the opening credits, we’re introduced to Melanie. As she walks through a calm, quiet, corridor, I’m relieved to discover that there is at least one set in this production that’s lit brightly enough that my laptop screen can actually display it! She makes the morning announcement in the overly-calm tone of voice of a person who is close to snapping. At the end of the announcement, she warns the passengers to be prepared to brace. Viewers should also take note of her warning.

For anyone attempting to keep track of the timeline (I have tried and failed), Melanie informs us that Snowpiercer is six years, nine months and twenty six days from departure.

Layton uses the announcement to make sure that his watch is synchronised to Snowpiercer Standard Time, and if anyone knows what brand of watch battery he’s using, please let me know. Meanwhile, some Jackboots begin to unlock the gates and doors, allowing room service waiters Till and Osweiller through with the day’s breakfast orders.

Santiago shows us all why he wasn’t at the revolution planning meeting, and starts a fight with an armed soldier. Till responds with her best impression of a substitute teacher, telling the class to “Sit down and calm down!”

Josie and Murray complain that there’s only one cart of gourmet barres de bestioles today. Osweiller’s a dick about it. When the room service team and their military escort leave, we get to see a bit of tailie life: Murray works as a lunch lady, Winnie works as a personal trainer, and Miles works as a competitive rat breeder.

Layton demonstrates some questionable parenting skills for a while, then attends a revolution meeting where the main item on the agenda is exposition! We find out the following:

Lights knows a lot about the electrics on the train (I’m calling it now: she used to be a Wilford Industries Engineer)

Old Ivan can tune pianos, but there’s no piano wire on the train

There hasn’t been a child born in the tail for five years...

... largely because tailie women are being sterilised

Murray is the last Australian

There was a rebellion in year three, and thirteen arms were taken as punishment

Layton then tries to convince the others that six and a half years of living in squalor isn’t long enough, and they should all stay in the tail for a just little bit longer! But Pike and Josie call him out on his bullshit, and the revolutionaries agree to launch their attack as soon as the room service crew returns.

Josie apologises to Layton, and then for some reason they repeat the exact same debate that they literally just had at the revolution meeting. When that’s over, he tells her that he doesn’t want her on the front line tomorrow. Josie has apparently had enough arguing for one day, so instead of telling him to go fuck himself she dodges the subject and gives him a little kiss on the head.

The tailies sing and pray and sharpen their weapons, while Old Ivan gives Layton a knife and a pep talk about how the train is a ‘fortress to class’. Layton is considerably more impressed by the line than I am.

Uptrain, Melanie wishes good morning to a First class iguana.

It doesn’t take long for us to understand why she does this: it’s the most enjoyable conversation she’ll have all day. She makes smalltalk with the human passengers, in both English and Cantonese. Then, because the iguana wasn’t enough evidence that life in First is fucking batshit, Lilah and Robert Folger complain to Melanie that they are being body-shamed in the sauna by scandinavian royalty.

To recover from that/prevent herself from exploding with frustration Melanie attempts some light chit chat with the Folgers' teenage daughter, LJ. LJ’s hobbies include petulance, obvious foreshadowing and eating third class noodles. Mr. Lam warns LJ of violence in third, and Ruth dismisses it as, “Nothing but track talk.”

“Ruth!” Melanie snaps, “Stop trying to make track talk happen! It’s not going to happen!”

Melanie sends Ruth to investigate the track talk. Despite the fact that the rumours are about Third, Ruth has to go to the Tail (??). Ruth complains that she was hoping to avoid the Tail, so Melanie placates her by flirting.

“You know you love an excuse to wear your fur.”

Do you hear that? It’s the sound of a thousand lesbians typing Mel/Ruth fanfiction.

Next up, the tailies are preparing for the revolution. Pike is on lookout, and he reports that hospitality are overseeing today’s room service! Perhaps the tailies' complaints about portion sizes are finally going to be taken seriously? Due to hospitality's presence, the tailies put the revolution on pause; they want to hear what Ruth has to say.

A hush descends as Ruth takes to the stage - which is technically just an IKEA stool, because they're in the apocalypse.

Initially, Ruth suffers from a little stage fright. However, like all good divas, she quickly recovers by blaming her assistant. Then, she announces that they have a removal request for Mr. André Layton.

The ‘removal request’ turns out to be more of a ‘kidnapping order’. Layton is dragged away by Jackboots as soon as he’s identified. We get a montage of him undergoing a creepy medical checkup and a very public shower, before being led uptrain by Till, Osweiller and some Jackboots. Layton asks them what’s going on, and Osweiller’s a dick about it.

Till guides Layton’s head into the rickety little open air subtrain like it’s the back of a police car, which is probably sensible, but makes me laugh every time.

Their little meta train journey takes Till, Osweiller and their kidnap victim head to the third class mess hall. Layton, of course, promptly hisses at the sun as he enters.

Do you hear that? It’s the sound of a thousand ex-twilight fans typing Vampire!Layton fanfiction.

Lead Brakeman Roche gives Layton some soup and a grilled cheese, and I cannot wait to get a side-by-side of the way Layton looks at that sandwich vs the way he looks at his baby next season.

Roche also finally tells Layton why he was kidnapped: there’s been a murder on the train, and Mr. Wilford forgot to pack a homicide detective! It's a good job they treated the one they had in storage for 6+ years so nicely!

Back in the Tail, Miles tells Josie that he packed Layton’s worldly possessions: a book, a chain, a spoon, a photo and a badge. Miles also says that people don’t come back to the Tail. Perhaps this is supposed to be true, but my main takeaway is that the kid needs to listen more carefully to Old Ivan’s story about fixing a piano once.

From Miles and Josie's cosy chat, we cut to a frozen, dismembered torso stashed under the floor. Osweiller’s a dick about it. Till uses her Cop Skills to give Layton the details about the murder victim, Sean Wise. Then, she asks the great universal question:

Layton, quite rightly, cannot fucking deal with these incompetent baby cops. He walks off.

Osweiller tries to tell a joke, but unfortunately he’s no better at stand-up comedy than he is at law enforcement. Instead of asking for constructive criticism of his work or graciously accepting his small failure, he decides to deal with his disappointment by kicking the shit out of Layton. If only there was a train therapist in episode 1, to help him deal with his complicated grown up emotions!

Till does a half-assed job of getting Osweiller to stop kicking the shit out of the only surviving homicide detective in the world. However, before she's particularly successful, they get caught by their dad boss. He tells them they’re grounded for a week and sends them to their room the Tail.

Next up: some more exposition! It turns there was another dickless murder victim two years ago. Uh-oh! Before he'll consider doing his pre-freeze job for the people who have kept him in slavery for the past 6+ years, Layton asks for some basic human rights for the Tailies. Instead, Roche gives him a xenophobic anti-Tail rant.

To make things weirder, iiiiiiit’s creepy doctor time! Klimpt is brushing someone’s hair with his pants half down, and that’s all I want to ever say about that scene.

After some uncomfortable chit chat with Klimpt, Melanie tells Layton that, if he can prove drawer prisoner Nikki’s innocence, then she’ll give him a job he doesn’t want and move him away from Josie and Miles! She might know a lot about engineering, but our girl has some things to learn about bribery.

Roche then takes Layton to Snowpiercer’s queer, poly commune: The Chains. He calls the people living there a bunch of freaks, to remind us that he’s even more of a dick than his son employee. Layton meets the murder suspects, who are Sean Wise’s partners and... surprise! One of them is Layton’s ex-wife, Zarah!

Layton finally does a bit of detective work, and pieces together that Zarah must have been the one who told the cops that there was a spare homicide detective stored in the tail. He wants to question her first. She kisses her partners goodbye and, spoiler alert: that’s the last we ever see or hear of them again!

Layton and Zarah quickly cover why she outed him as a cop, and then they get into the real argument that’s been brewing: he’s pissed at her for taking the upgrade to third, and she’s pissed at him for making them survive the apocalypse just to live in the tail. They shout at each other for a while, and this might be Zarah’s best scene in the whole damn show? He takes a dig at her for moving on, to which she retaliates that he probably “bunked with Josie the moment [she] was gone.” He denies it, and then we cut to… Josie, holding Layton’s possessions, in what appears to be their shared bunk.

Pike’s got his tin foil hat on and visits Josie to accuse Layton of knowing all about the kidnapping. He makes a vague threat that doesn’t make any sense. Then, he asks her if she gets it, and she replies that she got it all. After watching this episode four times, I still don’t get anything! Seriously: what is going on in this scene?

In Ag Sec, despite the fact that Layton was in handcuffs and under military guard earlier that day, Roche is now happy to allow his charge to crash a school trip unrestrained. Layton accuses Melanie of using Zarah as leverage, but Melanie brushes it off: she just came here to talk about her strawberry garden and give Layton a load of useful information about how the train works.

Downtrain, the Tailies are singing. It’s Old Ivan’s birthday! In true grandad style, all he wants for his birthday is some peace and fucking quiet. The Tailies leave him alone for a few minutes, and Ivan plays some Rachmaninoff from a smartphone that’s juuuust about still working. Miles mimes along to the piece on a mockup of a piano keyboard, some other people dance together, and everyone seems about as happy as they could be under the circumstances.

Then, the music stops.

Because Ivan used the phone charger to hang himself.

How does a TV show bounce back from a graphic suicide scene? Nudity!

Jinju goes for a swim in the aquarium car wearing nothing but a knife strapped to her thigh, like some kind of Scandinavian royal. Apparently she didn’t want to borrow one of Lilah Folger’s sauna bathing suits.

There are a lot of shots of naked asses in this show. Let's count them!

Jinju has made some lovely, fresh sushi to share with her boss. Melanie - because of course she does - immediately enquires about Jinju’s love life.

Who is the head of HR on this train, and why aren’t they keeping better tabs on Melanie Cavill?

Mama Grande tells the Jackboots about Old Ivan. Melanie makes an evening announcement. The revolutionaries get kitted up. And then, it all kicks off.

Till and Osweiller (who are still grounded working their double shift) come into the tail to collect the body. The tailies walk around the body to say goodbye. Osweiller’s a dick about it.

Josie, proving that she’s one of the few characters with any common sense, hides her face with a bandana.

Till and Osweiller go to move the body, and surprise! Z-Wreck switched with Ivan! He swiftly punches both Brakemen in the face, and the revolution begins.

There’s some cool fighting, but it’s all far too dark and fast for decent screenshots. One of the Jackboots picks Osweiller up by his collar and tosses him from the tail like a Simpson's character being thrown out of Moe's bar.

Till, meanwhile, is dragged back by the tailies. They’re right: of the two Brakemen available for hostage taking, she’s definitely the most tolerable.

The revolutionaries block the doors with ramps. At first, I can’t figure out why that’s necessary. Then, Strong Boy runs up the ramp and launches himself out of the Tail, landing with his fist in a Jackboot’s face. It all becomes clear, then: the ramps are for dramatic effect!

Apparently nobody sees any reason to prevent a five year old child from running through a battlefield. So, Winnie watches Strong Boy slice a Jackboot’s hand off, and then races to pick it up. She makes it all the way to the next doors, chips them open, and squeaks in terror. She’s met by a solid wall of navy and black uniformed Jackboots, punctuated only by Grey’s ever-helmetless head.

Melanie is about to enjoy her leftover sushi, when an alarm starts ringing.

She does what we’d all do in that situation: she leaves her fancy dinner on a random windowsill, and goes back downtrain.

Grey wants to use Layton as a hostage to get Till back, but Melanie arrives just in time to remind him that, actually, they need the detective uptrain to solve the murder. Instead, Layton is appointed as lead negotiator. They send him in to talk with his comrades, unsupervised. Great plan, guys!

For a reason that I still cannot fathom, Pike, Z-Wreck and Strong Boy apparently decided to bring their hostage out of the Tail. Till is, as she so often will be in this show, covered in blood. Layton and Pike have a standoff, until Layton finally comes up with a plan: he’s going to harm the hostage! He also sees an opportunity to get rid of Pike, and suggests that he, Strong Boy and Z-Wreck surrender themselves to the drawers. Ruth and Grey don’t think it’s enough, but after a bit of haggling, they land on a compromise: Grey won’t kill any more tailies if Layton solves the murder for Melanie, and Ruth takes "a significant arm" in the morning.

And now, finally, Melanie can eat her damn sushi! She chips into her validatingly-messy bedroom, gets out of her work uniform, and puts on a hoodie. Then, she walks into the engine and grabs a drink. She tells someone - who at the time we do not know is just Bennett - that he’s in her chair. They have some flirty banter, and I am yet again left wondering about HR on Snowpiercer.

And then, after a mouthful of sushi, we get one of the best reveals I’ve ever seen on TV:

And that’s it! The end of series 1, episode 1!

#snowpiercer #snowpiercer s1e1 #snowpiercer 1.01 #snowpiercer recap #incorrect snowpiercer recap #snowpiercer season 1 #snowpiercer rewatch #snowpiercer netflix

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stillness-in-green · 3 years ago

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MVA In Memoriam (2/5)

The Comprehensive Account of the Butchering of My Villain Academia

(Introduction and Part One, Episode 108: My Villain Academia)

Part Two, Episode 109: Revival Party

Chapter 224 – Revival Party

• Mr. Compress’s side comment about how the distance Re-Destro wants them to travel means he must know they have warp capabilities. Also shortens his subsequent line, removing the bit about how their position has been locked onto, leaving only the marveling about the dude on the phone being the kind of person who has access to a satellite camera. Not a major cut, but it did strip out a bit of reiteration on how very Seen the League is. The warp line is another nod to how the MLA’s been doing their research—in particular, it ties in nicely with RD’s observations about the Noumu. He talks, there, about something Dabi said after the High End fight, which means he must also know that Dabi was warped out by an “Ujiko-san.”

• Also Mr. C’s observation that they haven’t broken Machia yet, and his posed question about what to do. Mr. Compress, I’m so sorry that you’re so wordy and lose so many quips and asides because the anime was set on brutally scything out every line of non-essential dialogue it could find.

• Ujiko’s extremely hilarious, “Listening to Villain Radio is my new favorite hobby,” line. Why would you cut this; this line is hysterical.

• The bit where Mr. Compress has the bright idea to use a High End Noumu like the one Dabi used, Ujiko rejects the suggestion out of hand, citing production woes, and Shigaraki says that he wasn’t going to ask for one of them anyway. Aside from being more cut Compress content (or “Comptent,” for short), it helps center the timeline somewhat at a point where the manga is jerking it around all over; it also shows that the League has been keeping up with news from the outside world. It also shows that at least one of them thought about using the Noumu—and since we know Re-Destro did some rationalizing on that scenario too, it’s good to see that it is at least briefly on the table. Further, Ujiko provides a few rare details about the Noumu creation process. Firstly, that AFO is normally involved, so his absence makes the procedure much more difficult (though not, apparently, impossible). Secondly, that Hood-chan was the only Noumu who’d actually reached the testing stage. This will be important later, for Ujiko’s agonizing about unleashing them early/Mirko having to fight four of them at once. Also, I just miss Mr. C’s funny little head wilt when Ujiko immediately turns down his “use some Noumu” idea. Ditto Shigaraki’s blasé shrug and little grin. Again, not to harp on the art too much, but man I wish the anime had kept all the fierce little grins and tight, incensed smirks Shigaraki has through the majority of this and the phone call sequence.

• Spinner’s line, “Without knowing squat about what we’re up against?!” A minor cut, as these things go, but it reiterates that there’s a chance RD is bluffing and the League has no way to know one way or the other, and demonstrates that the League can give Shigaraki some pushback on his decisions without having to worry about getting dusted for the temerity.[1]

• Takes one of Spinner’s lines—“Wait. I get it. Wherever you go, Shigaraki, he’ll sniff you out and hunt you down.”—and gives it to Shigaraki instead. Because fuck Spinner’s growing understanding of Shigaraki and the way his mind works, I guess! It’s especially notable that Spinner figures this out when Mr. C had completely the wrong idea about Shigaraki’s intentions—it demonstrates the way Spinner is gradually aligning himself with Shigaraki’s way of thinking, which we’ll see even more clearly during the War Arc. Also, again, it’s good to see the moments where the League weighs in on Shigaraki’s plans.

• The visual of Twice lashing out at Dabi with his razor-edged tape measure over Dabi’s dismissal of Giran, though all the relevant dialogue was there. Possibly this is because, having cut the CRC bit, the audience has no way of knowing that Twice’s tape measure is razor-edged, so why bother raising the question, “Why is Twice trying to attack Dabi with a tape measure..?” Possibly it’s because showing that attack would require animating movement, and MAN ALIVE, did Episode 109 ever want to do everything it could to avoid animating movement.

• Slidin’ Go’s line about how Deika isn’t usually his turf, but today is a big exception. This makes the hearty affirmative with which Trumpet announces himself a response to Shigaraki’s half-phrased observation about the reason behind the city’s emptiness, rather than a response to Slidin’ Go. It works, more or less, and probably even flows more clearly, all things considered. I’m always sad to lose lines from the vanishingly few named/characterized MLA members we have, though. I like, too, that it hints at the machinations that have to have been involved with setting things up for the Revival Party, and the way those plans were carried out with confidence that Re-Destro’s “bait the League into coming for their broker” plan would work despite the total absence of a response from the League in any of the time Giran was missing/his fingers were cropping up on the nightly news reports.

• A few shots of cameras in the city, which foreshadow Skeptic’s watchful eyes and ability to track the League through the city. In retrospect, this isn’t surprising, since the anime went on to cut basically any indication of Skeptic’s entire plan re: the footage of the League attacking, so why bother keeping the cameras? (Oh, right. Skeptic’s whole thing is cameras and information/disinformation. Skeptic for second-most screwed-by-the-anime MLA member.)

Additions

• Showed Toga having stood back up somewhere during Shigaraki’s explanation of their throw-Machia-against-the-MLA plan. A simply appalling choice. In the manga, she stays crouched down by Twice the entire time Shigaraki has his mask pulled off, because Toga cares about reassuring Jin-kun when he’s in a bad way.

• Rephrased Compress’s dialogue somewhat, also giving him a new line about the MLA’s forces in Deika when the League was still in the hills looking down at the city: “The so-called Meta Liberation Army has a force of 110,000 here.” I assume it was because the scene falls in a different episode than the tactical discussion did (in the manga, they’re the same chapter), so the anime was reminding the viewer of the stakes, but it’s potentially awkward because, er, no, the MLA categorically did not bring their entire army to Deika. We’ll find out as much for sure later, with the note that the regiment advisors weren’t in attendance because they were occupied at the bases they command, but even with only the knowledge we have here, Re-Destro’s statement about his numbers is that they’re scattered all over the country—hence the shot of Japan with a bunch of lights scattered across it to represent said numbers. That said, to be (briefly) charitable, there’s no particular reason for the League to assume that, and they did discuss the possibility that there were going to have to fight 110,000 people. So it makes sense that Mr. C might state as much when recapping for the audience.

Chapter 225 – Interview with a Vampire

• Re-Destro talking about Deika’s geography and why they chose it strategically. The anime dropped so much about the MLA’s planning and information-gathering beforehand; it really made the MLA look ludicrously overconfident. And while they don’t lack for that trait, certainly,[2] this is also an organization that has meticulously grown its membership for generations right under Hero Society’s collective nose; you don’t get to where they are by being unduly foolhardy. Erasing so many scenes demonstrating their caution and forward-planning undercuts the threat they represent to both the League and society at large. Also too, the descriptor of Deika as a nice, quiet, isolated little town in the mountains gives us some hints about how the MLA has avoided notice for so long, when you consider how the Hero business works: because so many people who get into heroism want to make it big, like celebrities, they don’t want to stick around small-town beats, and so the rural areas are understaffed.[3] That’s presumably why groups like the CRC and the MLA grow their numbers out in the boonies: much less attention from the Powers That Be. You can guess at some of that from how Spinner describes the place—“not too small, not too big”—and what Trumpet says about the percentage of the population that’s MLA, but RD adds that key “isolated” descriptor, and says that it’s a place where they “lay low.” That gives us some potential insight into how many—likely the majority—of the MLA came to their beliefs: by being raised to them, because their hometown was infiltrated by the MLA generations ago and they have literally never known anything else.

• RD’s phrasing, “Counter to point one,” when he makes his second point about the Noumu. He acknowledges that it’s counter-intuitive to his first argument, that he knows it would normally be an argument against that opening point, not in support. It’s just conversational padding, really, but “conversational padding” like that does a lot to distinguish character voice, so that not everyone talks the same way.

• A panel showing a trio of unnamed MLA warriors strategizing about how to divide their forces now that the League has split up. It’s the little cuts like this that gradually remove the agency of unnamed characters, such that they’re left looking like unthinking puppets instead of real people with the ability to register and respond to their circumstances. It also points towards the truth of what the MLA warriors are and one reason they’re so dangerous (for all that the manga itself will neglect this most egregiously later on): they’re trained in regiment tactics and accustomed to working in groups. This contrasts them both with villains, who might group together, but certainly don’t usually fight that way, and heroes, who are so unaccustomed to working in groups that it’s cited as part of the reason to have named super moves.

• Curious’s little pageboy-cut middle school kid line telling Toga to back off when Miss Curious is on the job. This is an early example of how defensive the MLA are of people above them in the hierarchy, an important thing Spinner will pick up on and attempt to use against Trumpet. Again, it’s little moments like this that both add some welcome notes of individuality to the MLA warriors (if only by virtue of Horikoshi and his assistants’ traditional talent for distinctive character design) while also fleshing out who the MLA are as a group, and contrasting them with the League.

• Deleted Toga’s line IDing her “on-the-go suck-suck mask,” but did insert a nice little bit of her expression shifting when she whipped it out. It lost a bit of the self-conscious silliness of her support item name in exchange for a cool little animation beat. I don’t dislike it, particularly, but I am, as previously stated, very leery of edits that make the League more polished in their villainy at the cost of their human foibles.

• Curious’s line about having come prepared to counter Toga’s moves, which was supposed to further reiterate that the MLA has done their research on the League; they didn’t just decide out of the blue to target the most notorious Villains in the country without studying up on them first and planning accordingly!

• Curious’s line about how she’s going to get started with some background info while her people use their meta-abilities to keep Toga and her buddies on the ropes. A marvelously characterful line! It speaks especially to that edge of formality the MLA brass observe that even as she’s ringleading this attack, Miss Curious is still set on going through her interview process step by established step.

Framing Shifts

• Made some of Curious’s lines spoken dialogue instead of internal monologue. That’s probably fine for when she’s waxing enthusiastic about Toga’s lack of hesitation in committing murder or how she’ll use Toga’s story to further the MLA’s agenda. It’s less fine when she’s rattling out the entire name, brand and patent status of her support item for no particular reason when Toga is already halfway through trying to knife her (that’ll be next chapter).

• The anime implied pretty firmly that Curious’s bombers died. And like, yeah, that’s always made more sense than the idea that anyone could survive something like that, but I hate it anyway. For one thing, it makes it even harder to credit the idea that Toga’s still on her feet afterward if Curious’s supposedly not-very-lethal explosions merk all her own people. People in this series survive ludicrous amounts of damage, and these random MLA devotees are no exception! For another, it leans into the narrative that the MLA higher-ups throw away the lives of their minions without the slightest care. It’s a lot harder to make that case when it’s explicit in the manga that Curious’s people survive the blood explosions—the blonde in the tracksuit is unharmed enough to snicker about it, and the noodle chef is even doing well enough to continue attacking! I’ve always been of the opinion that the MLA are, yes, willing to spend the lives of their underlings on attaining goals, if that’s what they think is necessary, but that is not at all the same as gleefully throwing them onto the pyre to watch them burn.

Additions

• Some individual shots of Mr. Compress, Dabi and Twice fending off or fleeing from various MLA types. A nice try on getting the group split up, but it feels kind of budget save-y, when we could have gotten actual animation of those fights instead.

• Inserted a quick shot of a headline about Toga’s first attack as Curious was rambling on about why she’s interested in Toga but not the League in general. Actually a fairly reasonable insertion, given how much text is crammed into her talk bubble in the manga while the dude standing next to her is already getting a knife in the neck.

Chapter 226 – Bloody Love

• A panel of interviewees talking about Toga’s first victim being sociable and popular. It gives a bit of context on what he was like, what people thought of him, but given that we know enough about Toga at this point to know that his popularity was entirely incidental to what she liked about him, it’s not a huge loss.

• The detail of the broadcasted interviews censoring Toga’s name. Considering how Japanese media normally treats minors accused of crimes, this is an eyebrow-raising change—the manga censors it because Japanese media outlets would have done the same. No idea why the anime didn’t, unless it’s another of those places where it would feel too “real,” to have something that so closely mirrors real life treatment of criminals?

• Everything about quirk counseling, and whoo boy, that is a loaded cut. There is exactly one other mention of quirk counseling anywhere in the manga, and, curiously enough, it also comes up in relation to a villain: in the U.A. faculty meeting after the USJ attack, Midnight muses that maybe Shigaraki never received quirk counseling in elementary school. It’s a weird little non sequitur there—exactly what sort of program did she expect could single-handedly make the difference between a well-adjusted adult and a gleefully murderous manchild with aims on killing Japan’s Number 1 Hero? Just over two hundred chapters later, we get a hint: a program designed to fit people “neatly into society’s little boxes.” Quirk counseling, then, is not about helping children find healthy ways to process their quirks, but rather, about teaching children what is and is not acceptable in terms of quirk use—and as Curious says, Toga’s admiration of blood was never going to be acceptable.[4] This explanation doesn’t just tell us a lot about Toga—that she wasn’t only failed by the hysterical condemnation of her parents, but also by a society that had no interest in helping her if it didn’t see a use for her—but also provides some insight on the viewpoint of the Meta Liberation Army vis-à-vis mandatory state-funded programs that dictate what “normalcy” looks like to impressionable children. Curious is, of course, not a particularly trustworthy narrator in this, as one might expect of someone who uses language like “society’s little boxes,” but it does track with Midnight’s earlier musing of, “Maybe the anti-social dude never took the program intended to make sure he was a functioning member of society.” That kind of statement—“State-sponsored educational programs are there to program children into becoming unthinking cogs of society, actually.”—is one that it’s all too easy to imagine the people with an eye on broadcast standards taking issue with, even coming as it does from the mouth of a villain.

• Curious’s line, “Let’s turn your death into a legendary tragedy, shall we?” and its accompanying visual of two different papers with imagined headlines. The dialogue doesn’t strike me as crucial—Curious’s fervent belief in Toga’s story is amply demonstrated elsewhere and her intent to turn that story into a legend reiterated in the line immediately following—but it is a shame to lose the headlines. They tell us, in Curious’s own words, exactly the tack she was planning to take in telling Toga’s story to the general public, without the constant namedropping of the Liberation Army that she does when talking about it in person. One headline in particular—The Price of Suppression: A String of Bloody Murders—is an especially useful reference for discussing whether the MLA actually wants, as is popularly claimed, completely unhindered quirk use, even for people like e.g. Muscular who want nothing more than to murder people with their quirks.[5]

• Curious’s initial wait what response to getting Floated, and her people’s focus shifting away from Toga and onto Curious instead. On a surface level, that focus shift helps explain why Toga’s able to zip around the ground and touch nearly twenty people before they even react: because they’re afraid for Curious. It also hurts the ongoing characterization of the MLA rank and file as being fanatically devoted to their higher-ups which, again, is something Spinner is supposed to notice later. It’s the worst kind of plot device if that devotion is completely told to us rather than consistently shown!

• Toga’s internal reflection that she’s seen Ochaco use her quirk, and knows how to use it. It’s obvious from the panel that she knows how to use it, but the manga implies that Toga transforming doesn’t automatically grant her an understanding of peoples’ quirks; it’s only in observation (and possibly love) that she can reach this particular unlock. Leaving out that information leaves open the possibility that she can just do this all the time now, with anybody she transforms into.

• The reaction from the surviving crowd to Curious’s death. See above re: STOP FUCKING ERASING HOW MUCH THE MLA CARES FOR EACH OTHER.

Framing Shifts

• When Toga bolts, Curious in the anime sounded serious, her expression alarmed, like she was actually worried that Toga might escape, even though her dialogue said just the opposite. Maybe you could say that she was afraid Toga would die before she got her statement, but given that she tried to kill the girl herself moments later, I’m skeptical of that claim. Regardless, in the manga, she never loses her smile, and she flashes a Liberation salute as she stands up to give chase. It’s a characterization note, that she’s so wildly confident about this that she never stops being completely enthralled with whatever Toga has to show her.

Chapter 227 – Sleepy

• The last of Toga’s conscious dialogue, about how she’s lost a lot of blood, is fading out, can’t move—but more notably, the way that this state of things makes her feel closer to “them,” that it’s “the same sensation.” And who is “they” here—her victims? The people she loves? More alarmingly, why does the line sound like she’s been this beat-up before, and remembers the sensation? Does that tie into e.g. her comment during the training camp that she doesn’t want to fight too many hero students at once because she doesn’t want to die? Has she actually been subject to this kind of violence before in the past? Does that tie into her still-unexplained ability to erase her presence? It’s an interestingly loaded little line, for being so vague, and illustrative of Toga’s mentality on becoming the people she loves. Which also lets the scene segue nicely into Re-Destro’s observation that, in Toga Himiko’s world, there’s no such thing as “other people.” On which note, guess what else the anime cut?

• The entire fucking scene where Re-Destro actually reacts to Curious’ death, the motherfuckers. This lost: 1. RD’s talk about the way Toga sees the world and how that led to society casting her out, which he points to as evidence of said society clinging to old ideals even though the nature of humanity itself has changed. It calls back to his methodology with Detnerat, marrying his lines from the commercial to his overarching ideals; it also shows that he understood very well what Curious saw in Toga, and demonstrates that he can express that understanding and empathy even in the face of losing one of his closest allies. 2. Skeptic’s reaction to Curious’s death, which is pretty sparse, but at least present. He says she never should have been on the front lines—an excellent reminder to the people who’re always going on about how the MLA brass thinks themselves so above their followers: Curious was on the front lines, against the wishes of some of her peers!—and calls her a valuable resource.[6] You can theorize about Skeptic not caring for her beyond her usefulness to the cause, or just that Skeptic is a huge autist who processes his emotions differently than most, and isn’t going to stop to do that when there’s still a battle going on, but either way, you need this scene to do it accurately. 3. Speaking of people who process their emotions in unusual ways, as I said above, this scene also shows Re-Destro openly crying over the deaths of Curious and each and every warrior diving into battle with their hopes for the future. They’re not crocodile tears, either. As was the case with Miyashita, there’s no one in this room that Re-Destro would need to perform grief for: Skeptic clearly doesn’t see a use for tears right now, so I don’t see him expecting them from Re-Destro, and the only other person in the room is Giran, a hostage who the MLA—very probably Re-Destro himself—maimed! It’s not like RD’s tears are going to change Giran’s mind about him (indeed, Giran gets a comedic reaction beat at the absurdity of the dude who started all this up here crying about it)! But RD says life is precious and he cries anyway, briefly, before he ruthlessly turns it off. RD’s valuing of human life—especially his own peoples’ lives—crops up in roundabout ways twice more, both leading the fight with Shigaraki (“It angers me.”) and ending it (“Any more would bring about meaningless death.”). This, though, is when he’s most open about it, to the degree that—as with Machia’s grief—it’s kind of off-putting and strange. Cutting it makes it that much easier for people to get entirely the wrong impression of RD as a character. 4. The delightful scene where Skeptic berates Giran about asking brainless questions and then answers his question anyway. Fuckin’ hell, why cut this?? So much of Skeptic’s character is in this scene! You get moments of his neuroticism later on, but never in so concentrated a burst as this (there’s one other sequence that could compete, but—spoilers—the anime cut that one, too). The exchange also explains the cameras placed throughout the city—which are visually referenced early on—and what the MLA is planning to do with their footage. Without that explanation, the audience has no idea how, exactly, the MLA was planning to use wiping out the League as a springboard for their grand return to the spotlight. That footage is the crucial part of how the rest of the country reacts to Deika in the Endeavor Agency Arc, and the anime never even mentioned it! The audience was just left to assume that all the media came in afterward, not that there was the slightest whiff of footage from the battle itself. 5. Once again brings up Re-Destro’s belief in the power of the heart to move other hearts. We get a bit of that in Curious’s flashback, but here he says it in his own words—as he will also bring it up to Shigaraki. Once again, Shigaraki is going to be challenged about his conviction, which ties back into what Spinner and Ujiko demanded from him earlier in the arc. With so

many people set to be grilling Shigaraki on this front, it tells us again what the arc is for: Shigaraki’s conviction, and him demonstrating it to the people who think he lacks it.

• The panel of Spinner asking how long they’ve been at it and Mr. Compress responding. This line helps manage the pacing, giving the audience an idea how much time is passing as we cut around to different places. It’s also, you know, more cut Spinner dialogue, and shows the beginnings of Shigaraki and Spinner getting split off from the rest by Shigaraki’s sleep-drunk staggering angling him off in a different direction. The rest of the scene is moved to after Toga’s fight with Curious, but not otherwise tampered with.

• The other big reaction to Curious’s death, which is Trumpet using it to rile up the crowd. The group that attacks Shigaraki isn’t just some free-roaming mob—they’re coming at him in a grief-stricken frenzy, which they’ve been goaded into by one of their leaders. This sequence also introduces the campaign van—a vehicle that will have several more appearances—to events, and hints at Trumpet’s meta-ability. Further, it’s one of the scenes that outright states that the MLA is less an army than a religion, in Mr. Compress’s line about how Trumpet is like a preacher rallying his flock. That understanding—that the MLA may style themselves as an army, but what they really are is a cult—is key to the way the MLA members act, from the very bottom to the very top.

• Trimmed Shigaraki’s flashback down, cutting—among other things—the very first lines Hana speaks, and her namedrop. This moment is the first one Tomura gets back, and the very first thing we find out is that he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing. The anime also failed to identify Shimura Nana’s relation to Tenko/Tomura and Hana—helpful to remind the audience of a plot thread they haven’t heard about since Kamino. It also cut out the silhouette of chubby baby Tenko and Tenko’s first line, asking why Hana’s showing him this, a line which clues us in that Hana was the impetus here, not Shigaraki as he was back then. Still not satisfied, it also cut the phrase, “Daddy said all that stuff,” which is a clear and ominous warning that there was some conflict going on between young Shigaraki and the Father whose dismembered hand he now wears on his face.

• Left the dialogue but cut the silhouette of an airborne Geten with his enormous ice fists coming in hot behind Dabi when he was smarming about it not being his style to take the pacifist route. It’s not crucial, since we see the fists again shortly (it’s the end of the chapter page, whereas the anime rolls right on into the continuation of the scene), but it’s a shame, since framing Dabi from below with this sudden presence behind him is a much more fun, dynamic angle than the dead-boring medium shot the anime used. Also too, it’s good foreshadowing for the fact that Geten can fly, since he certainly didn’t get that kind of air by jumping off the roof of the mini-mart across the street.

Framing Shifts

• The crowd attacking Tomura came at him from the back of the shot, whereas in the manga, they’re surging forth from the front; that is, the anime had Shigaraki between the crowd and the POV of the viewer, whereas the manga has the crowd interposing between the viewer and Shigaraki. It makes a huge difference in the impact! Running up from a nebulous background distance, the crowd looked small and futile. Crossing directly in front of the viewer as they attack Shigaraki makes them look like the crashing human wave that they are. But, you know, coming in from the front would mean they’d have to be animated with more detail, and again, Episode 109, more than any other episode in the arc, clearly didn’t have the budget to spare on such things.

• The moment Shigaraki first uses the spreading Decay is horrifically clear in the manga. It’s full of speed lines, Shigaraki moving so fast he decays a dude mid-word, but the impact itself is spread over two pages. We watch his hand literally cleaving through the leading attacker’s face, and then are encouraged to linger on the oversized panel below, the intricately drawn crowd, full of individual faces, still intact on the left, scattering to dust on the right, all fully lit, with Shigaraki—still drawn with speedlines to emphasize his movement—the focal figure in black at the center. The anime rendered this moment in two stills—Shigaraki’s hand about to hit the lead attacker’s face, and then the crowd already decaying. There was virtually no movement to it, the crowd was so heavily silhouetted against a glare of daylight that it was difficult to tell what was going on, and the moment stayed on screen for only two seconds before Shigaraki landed and threw up, both actions favored with more animation than one of the signature moments of the entire arc. Hell, it even left the walls on either side of the alley intact, when the manga shows them dissolving into ash as well, decay traveling through the ground in a deadly, destructive radius around Shigaraki’s attack. The anime ever-so-graciously allowed Spinner his line to explain to the audience what just happened, but I think that’s mostly because it would be genuinely difficult to parse if he didn’t. It also gave him a flashback to what we had literally just seen, except this time it wasn’t silhouetted for some reason, so at least the audience got another chance to look at it, I guess? “Am I seeing things? Just now, his decay effect spread to people he wasn’t even touching!” Well, I guess we’ll have to take your word for it, Spinner.

Additions

• A quick shot of a camera, there and gone almost too fast to register. I want to compliment the anime for adding a camera back in, since it removed the shot of the cameras earlier, but honestly, given that it cut all the scenes about how and why the MLA was gathering footage, I really don’t know why it even bothered. Also too, the camera was gone so fast it felt more like a marker for a scene change—which it also was, segueing the scene from Toga collapsing (only to cut back to her later staggering down an alley) to Spinner and the rest still trying to hold their own—than it did something the audience was supposed to really notice.

Chapter 228 – Wounded Soul

• Twice in the opening pages left out scattered members of the MLA that were around for the start of the Dabi/Geten fight. Leaving them out raises the question of where all the people attacking went, but it’s also the first demonstration that Geten is a danger to his own allies. We don’t see any of them dying on-panel or anything, but we do see them having to dive frantically out of the way because Geten demonstrates no care to the collateral damage of his attacks.

• Cut a small flashback, presumably from Twice’s perspective, of finding the site where Toga and Curious’s fight concluded. You can see the ground covered in blood, and a body that looks a bit like Curious if you squint (distinguishable by the sleeves of her jacket), as well as a small group of people kneeling on the ground in various poses suggesting mourning and a paying of respects. Yet another shot demonstrating the depths of care these people have for their leaders, that they’ve completely let the battle fall by the wayside in favor of their grief.

• Drops the “those zealots” phrase from Twice’s, “I’ll rip those zealots limb from limb for this!” line. Damn, the anime really was determined to erase everything that even hints at the Liberation Army being something much creepier and more damaging than just an underground militia, huh?

Framing Shifts

• For all my complaints about the material, I generally like the voice acting quite a bit. I don’t love the first exchange between Dabi and Geten, though. It’s not a fault of the voice actors themselves, but rather the delivery. Geten was very cool and level-headed throughout, which is all right to a point, but he’s a gremlin under that troll parka, and this fight is where we hear him as close as we ever will to how he is before the multi-layered humbling he’s subject to over the course of this fight. It’s a bit of a shame to play him totally straight, without any of the snark he’s so clearly capable of—and without the tick upwards in vehemence his talk bubbles indicate in his last lines. Meanwhile, it’s fine for Dabi to get more heated as the scene goes along, and indeed he does, but he also plays it pretty cool at first. You can tell in the shape of his talk bubbles that he’s completely unruffled during his delivery of that, “Consider this a freebie, just for you: ice melts,” line. The anime had him raising his voice for it, and it just loses a lot of the humor of Dabi’s own snark to have him yelling it instead of just laughingly stating it, voice barely raising enough to give his talk bubbles some straighter lines instead of being all undisturbed curves. (For comparison’s sake, it’s about the same level of angular as Geten’s, “You’d best not think your little campfire can melt my ice!” line, but the anime had Dabi shout his line, while Geten continued at the same unperturbed volume he’d maintained since the beginning.)

• As with Shigaraki’s first mass decay, the shot of Geten’s ice dragon did not make the impact on me in the anime that the manga did. I think it’s mostly the way the ice was colored? The claw’s pretty good, but the head looks blobby and indistinct, more like blue soft-serve than the shifting, sharp-edged, brilliantly bright sculpture-in-motion of the manga.

• Twice’s voice actor did his best to sell the scene of him finding Toga, but I wish they’d kept that tight close-up on his mouth when he says, “Give it up. The girl’s dead.” They animated him leaning closer to the camera, but that doesn’t have the sharpness of that sudden cut to being right there on his lips, like some malevolent thing is using them to speak words so terrible that they can’t even be associated with the rest of his face.

---

Come back next time (and hopefully in less time) for Part Three, Episode 110: Sad Man's Parade.

FOOTNOTES

[1] We would, of course, have an even clearer idea of that had the anime not cut the scene of Spinner shouting in Shigaraki’s face.

[2] It seems particularly strange to me that Curious and RD both mention quirk evolution as a thing they know can happen in extreme circumstances, but didn’t predict that backing the League into a life-or-death corner might provoke one or two members to undergo exactly that evolution.

[3] Mount Lady is the obvious example, but you can look to places like the island in Heroes Rising, too: one hero, and when they retired, a group of high school kids had to go sub in for a while until a replacement could be arranged. It’s not like retirements just happen overnight; the Commission had to have known it was coming. Still, they had to scramble to find someone. It doesn’t suggest they had anybody just champing at the bit to take the post, you know?

[4] In Chapter 140, we see a young Tamaki Amajiki in a class called “quirk training.” It’s uncertain how connected this P.E.-like class is to quirk counseling, but Toga wouldn’t have been getting much help there, either, seeing as it’s all about figuring out how to use one’s quirk in a way that’s “useful to society.” I can think of some ways, but nothing that I expect would be very popular or liable to be explained to a grade schooler in a country with as long a history with ritual cleanliness as Japan. To a Shinto mindset, Transformation isn’t just off-putting or unhygienic; it’s spiritually unclean.

[5] The answer there being, no, obviously not, or Curious wouldn’t, in all apparent sincerity, be trying to characterize Toga using her quirk to murder people as an undesirable outcome, a cost society is paying for its current stance on quirk use. Yes, you can gather that much from her calling Toga a tragic girl, and Re-Destro concurring later, but listen, I will take every line I can get that I can use to push back against the wretchedly widespread idea that the kid whose name means Apocrypha is the be-all-end-all source on MLA ideology, somehow more reliable and trustworthy than every other MLA character combined, including Destro himself. I would very much like it if the anime had not deleted a bunch of my talking points while making good and sure to leave all Geten’s most damning lines intact.

[6] Not that an anime-only person would fully understand why some random reporter was all that valuable a resource, since the anime cut the explanation of what Curious actually does for a living.

#my villain academia #bnha #bnha meta #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #my writing #stillness has salt

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turboacek-blog · 2 years ago

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What a Naruto remake/Kai would do/be

So they released some illustrations and a video to celebrate the anime’s 20th anniversary

youtube

And it was said more was coming in the celebration

Leaning a good number of to think that they’re going to remaster or at least do a Kai version of the anime

I don't think is going to huh happen but I did want to explore what if?...

So first what would this mean?

Filler would be reduced, so all those filler arcs would be cut including those that can be argued added to the story like Kaguya’s backstory

That would cut the 720 episodes to about

88ish (Naruto) and 192ish (Shippuden) making at least 270 episodes cut (rounded down from 280 from my potential bad math)

So reducing 720 to 450 already improved the pacing and such

But then there’s the actual pacing of the episodes

Like there are episodes called “mixed” canon as in it had a decent amount of filler moments to go with canon/manga stuff

Like side characters' backstories for example and even some fights

And if that gets cuts that could reduce it by about half (exaggerating but you would be surprised how much anime filler was thrown in episodes)

For simplicity, I’ll say 300 episodes with the mixed filler and recaps and such cut

This may seem low but again rough estimate could be closer to 400 depending on what they would do

And to be safe could make it stay at 300 or make it lower when you improve the pacing

Pacing as in that almost all 2000s anime and media, in general, were slower paced compared to today

So if that pacing is sped even just to meet today's standards one episode back then could be half an episode now

For example, the bell test was 2 episodes that could easily be made into 1 episode now

Let alone the more “annoying” aspects that were in the show like the moments they repeat a “punch” or something to sell the epicness or when they pause on something or a shot too long (like when it could be 1 second but it’s 5 seconds)

There’s also the seasonal route where they do it in bunches of 12/24 episode seasons

The beginning to the end of the land of waves was 19 episodes

But that could be cut to be 12/13 having that be a “season”

Chunin exams were from around episode 20 to about 50 for the preliminary and 68 for the transition into Konoha Crush/end of the finals

If that could be reduced to 24 episodes (and if possible 12) that’s another bunch of episodes cut/reduced

Like without checking literally every episode count for arcs

Land of waves 12 episodes

Chunin exams 24 episodes

Konoha crush 12 episodes (including Naruto vs Gaara)

Tsunade arc 12 episodes

Sasuke retrieval 24 episodes

Naruto total: 84 episodes

And for Shippuden

Kazekage 12 episodes

Tenchi Bridge/Sasuke and Sai 6-12 episodes

Hidan and Kakuzu 12 episodes

Itachi (pursuit, Jiraiya, Sasuke vs Itachi) 24 episodes

Pain 12/24 episodes (depends on where you want to cut off the lines between this and Itachi's)

Five Kage 12 episodes

War 24 episodes

Ten tails and Kaguya 24 episodes

Ending 12 episodes

Shippudden Total: 138-156 episodes

So based on this at most 240 episodes

Obviously, this isn't me rewatching every episode and rereading every manga chapter to see the exact percentage of filler canon, etc

But everyone knows the filler in naruto was a problem and that it's just a common thing to skip it now so having a version that reduces it naturally without having the weird attempts the studio did to weave the filler into the canon (like the three tails arc)

As for the animation part, I've seen that they loved the updated look from the video and a whole anime looking like that would be marvelous

I agree, but I don't think original naruto and especially Shippudden are “outdated” yet

Like yes some fights like the infamous Naruto vs Pain an update could be nice but in general, the animation and art are still good

And I do understand people that don't like the updated look, it's like with Dragonball the cell-shaded look was normally for specials and such but now it's the norm

Like now it's the Boruto look but was the movie style previously

I think it's one of those we all just got to get used to it as we're never getting back to the 80s-00s look mostly just because of the workload

So should they make a Kai/remaster?

Yes just having a “definitive” version would be great

Now?

No, doesn't feel like enough time has passed, at most Naruto would get updated and not Shippudden, plus Boruto is still ongoing and would rather that conclude or reach a time skip otherwise we'll be having 2 Naruto's

Also random but I would like if it's called Naruto: Chikara / Naruto: Power to play off the filler arc that most liked

(I know Kai means updated so Kai still works)

#naruto #naruto shippuden #naruto rewatch #naruto remake #naruto 20th anniversary #naruto Kai

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itsclydebitches · 4 years ago

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RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Ultimatum”

Welcome back, everyone! We had an unexpected break last week due to the horror going on in Texas. I'm glad we did. Not because of any salty "RWBY is bad right now yay free Saturday" feelings, but because keeping to a schedule for a fictional webseries should never take precedence over peoples' safety. I can't believe I need to type that sentence out, but it's true! Over the last seven days I've seen fans who are not merely disappointed by the mini hiatus (understandable) but outright hostile towards the crew because they... were ensuring everyone survived during an unprecedented emergency? Yeah. Given the highly critical nature of these recaps — including today's! — I want to be clear that my thoughts towards Rooster Teeth's creative choices are distinct from any thoughts about the crew itself, including the most basic forms of compassion like, “I sure hope everyone is okay over there.” In an age where it has become horrifically common to harass creators and even send them death threats over stories, it has likewise become necessary to remind people: Don't do that shit. Never do that shit. If I can teach anyone anything at all, let it be that!

Anyway, dark fandom reminders out of the way, let's dive straight into our delayed episode. It was certainly a doozy. Titled "Ultimatum," we open on a trigger warning for flashing lights. Good on Rooster Teeth for including that, though I do wonder if creators shouldn't be including time stamps as well? Or perhaps a note that you can find those time stamps in the credits, avoiding any (minor) spoilers for everyone else? I'm not photosensitive myself, so I certainly don't mean to speak for that group, but my first thought was, "So how would I watch this episode if I was? Hand on the pause button, hoping I stop fast enough as soon as the lights start?" Hard to do given the surprise nature of the scene. Really, my answer would be, "Wait for the fandom to post warnings of their own, likely including where it happens so I know when to skip" which is perhaps an indication that this information that should be included from the get-go.

But I am glad the warning exists, regardless. The episode itself begins with a shot of Ironwood looking down at the kingdom. He's used his windows as a vantage point since Volume 7, so that's nothing new, but something about this particular shot reminded me of Ozpin, looking down from his tower. I'm sure the response from many would be simply, "Ah yes, the two power hungry dictators watching over their victims," but I think there's a much more nuanced reading here about leaders being expected to fix the literally unfixable and what that responsibility does to an individual. Of course, it's a nuance that is absolutely obliterated by the episode’s end, but the implication existed for a hot second!

Two other soldiers are in the room with Ironwood, reporting that Cinder has helped Watts escape. They try to soften this with news that they still have Jacques in custody, but receive only a, "I don't give a damn about Jacques Schnee." Which, fair. He's pretty useless at this point. It's when Ironwood learns that both Qrow and Robin escaped too that he really gets mad, something his subordinates have been expecting given their scared expressions.

Now, I'm treading lightly here because I realize how this is going to sound given the end of our episode, but I still want to note that outside of that ending... this is a weird take? Just hear me out. Since Volume 7 the show has worked very hard to make Ironwood seem scary and unstable — bad setup for what we end with today — but the problem is that none of it works in context and it certainly doesn't work when compared to other characters' actions. They are literally in the midst of an unwinnable battle and thousands of his people are dying. If the audience wants a human being — who also just lost a limb and was betrayed by half his allies — o remain perfectly poised and polite during that, sorry, but that's not how human beings work. But even beyond this, what’s the message here? Ironwood raises his voice, so does Yang. Ironwood hits his desk, Qrow hits a child. If we're going to examine how Ironwood handles his stress and anger, he often handles it better than many of our heroes. Namely, by continually taking that anger out on inanimate objects. I kept waiting for him to attack his subordinates or attack Winter this episode, especially given where we end up, but it never came. Ironwood always has enough control to break the desk or punch the wall, not the person in front of him. Which, of course, would not be a good thing in the real world. I want to be clear given these sensitive subjects that if someone is breaking things in your presence that's a major problem to address. But this isn't the real world. This is a fantasy world in the middle of a war, populated by other characters who express their anger by punching people, slamming them into walls, or screaming at them until they run away. The story wants us to fear Ironwood long before he makes his objectively horrific choices and it tries to achieve that by showing us characters who are clearly terrified in his presence, by giving us a string of broken objects in his wake. But those details don't land well when we compare them to other instances of stress. In the same volume I have watched Ironwood take a deep breath to calm himself down when things have gone horribly wrong. I've also watched Weiss start a conversation by threatening her defenseless brother. So again, what’s the message here? It can’t be that acting violently towards someone = villainous behavior because, as established since Volume 6, that’s common for the heroes. Why are these subordinates terrified about Ironwood slamming his fist on a table, but Whitley has no problem hugging the woman who threatened him? Obviously there is a HUGE difference between our main group and Ironwood when it comes to other actions (cough-bomb threats-cough), but these day-to-day moments don't match up. The show wants to use violence as a way for us to easily identify the Bad Guy while ignoring all the times when our heroes do the same thing.

All of which isn't meant to be a defense of Ironwood. As we'll see in a bit, there is no defense for what he's done. Rather, it's a way of acknowledging just how badly he's been written. Why does a man who consistently reins in his anger and takes it out on objects suddenly shoot a councilman for literally no reason? Why does a man defined by wanting to save as many people as he can suddenly threaten to bomb his city? Ironwood's characterization is all over the place, in the sense that they keep writing him as the morally gray, sometimes harsh, but ultimately compassionate man he started out as... up until they need a villain. Salem isn't here yet, so Ironwood can shoot Oscar. Salem isn't attacking yet, so Ironwood can shoot the councilman. Salem is currently reforming, so Ironwood can threaten YJR and Mantle. He's the B-plot villain whenever Salem is out of commission, which is a problem for both their characterizations. This filler doesn't make sense for Ironwood and it severely undermines the threat of Salem. You finally introduce the Magical Big Bad and our heroes are facing more of a threat from a guy with a broken army and three loyal allies left? Hmmm.

The tl;dr is that Ironwood's arc is a disaster and, frankly, it's gotten old reading simplified takes of, "It's just a realistic look at what white U.S. men will do in power sweetie :) " RWBY does not have the context capable of conveying that sort of critical take because our world is not besieged by literal monsters and an immortal witch, to say nothing of how real life good guys do not get deus ex machina canes that fix the problem instantaneously. Ironwood is not an example of anti-U.S. imperialism, he's an example of writers who don't know how to write.

Anyway, I'm getting severely off topic. Obviously Ironwood is a major part of this episode, but the problems demonstrated here are two years in the making. This is the culmination of things I've been discussing for months across hundreds of posts... so I should probably stop trying to summarize it all in a few paragraphs lol. Perhaps when RWBY is over — or Ironwood has died — I'll do a single meta on his character, try to pull everything into one, unified argument.

For now though, we have an episode to analyze.

While Ironwood is receiving this news we get flashbacks to Qrow and Robyn. Qrow attacks a soldier in his bird form, which is hilarious. Someone GIF that please. It does raise some interesting questions about this magic though: does Qrow retain his aura and strength in this form (something I thought given his choice to transform during the explosion), or was that soldier just so shocked at being attacked by a crow that he went down easy? We'll never know, because that would require establishing concrete rules for this world. The point is Qrow is going feral in his freedom, throwing punches left and right — did he kill that guard? — while Robyn watches it all from under a rock. They're apparently still somewhere in the facility since all the exits are guarded, but that's not the good thing Ironwood seems to think it is. After all, Qrow is out to murder him. He wants to be there.

We all see where this is going, right? The show is going to ignore Qrow's crazy belief that Ironwood got Clover killed in favor of a "Qrow saved Mantle by murdering Ironwood"/“Qrow got revenge for Mantle by murdering Ironwood” ending. Who cares why Qrow wanted to kill him in the first place now that Ironwood has his finger on the trigger? If RWBY is good at anything, it's writing moments that encourage you to ignore everything that came before it. We'll be seeing more of that in just a bit.

"Damn it!" Ironwood yells, because the show is leaning into its cursing. He orders that the subordinates not return until "you have Qrow Branwen in custody." Here we have another great example of the show conflating what the audience knows with what other characters know. See, we know Qrow has a vendetta against Ironwood. We know their relationship is the important one to the story and that Robyn is incidental. Ironwood doesn't know that. There's no reason for him, as a character, to specify that they only bring Qrow back, but it makes sense for the audience who has the whole, thematic picture. Our understanding of the situation is influencing Ironwood's dialogue, which is... not great.

This entire scene we've had creepy music to hammer home just how evil Ironwood is. Except, as said, he takes a breath to calm down and the music fades. Instead of flying into a rage, hurting someone, or doing anything the music suggests he might, Ironwood calmly calls in for an update — which is when the explosion hits.

It's MASSIVE, seeming to originate from a lightning strike, which is weird, since it's coming from inside the whale, but whatever. The animation is very dramatic and pretty, as we've come to expect of RWBY, but the actual plot is lackluster at best. It's funny though because I thought for a hot second, when Winter and the Ace Ops were caught in the blast, that RWBY had actually done something exciting. I mean, holy shit! There are the deaths we expect from a battle like this. My god, what is everyone going to do when they realize that Oscar's needless attack took out five characters, including Weiss' sister —

No wait, never mind. They're fine.

Let's talk about that "needless" descriptor for a moment though. Do you all remember, two weeks ago, when I went, "Hey, why isn't anyone telling Oscar that that Ace Ops are approaching with a bomb? They're on a time limit! If someone would just mention that Very Important Information then Oscar wouldn't keep standing around to fight Salem." See, at the time I was frustrated because of how the plot was needlessly allowing Oscar to put himself in danger (especially when the whole point of this mission was to rescue him). Now, I'm frustrated because that same plot needlessly wasted the most powerful weapon the group had. There was no reason for Oscar to use literal lifetimes worth of stored energy when the heroes already had a bomb to do the same job! What was the point of that? I guess he took out the other grimm too, but without the whale that still would have been a challenge with a finite end, one Ironwood's army and the remaining huntsmen should have been able to handle. It doesn't feel justified to have Oscar use a weapon kept on the bench for lifetimes when there was another option literally minutes away.

There's so much wrong with this I need another list. So:

Ozpin's cane supposedly stores kinetic energy, which may contradict what we've seen from it before. Regardless, we’ve never heard about this. The all powerful weapon comes out of nowhere

It also begs the question of why Ozpin wouldn't use that power at Beacon and why he wouldn't insist that they try to get their cane back while captured. You had an out this whole time! But we’re going to ignore that because Oscar is a little hesitant?

Which makes YJR's presence even more useless than it originally was, which was already pretty useless. Oscar essentially rescued himself

This kinetic energy miraculously doesn't hurt any people or buildings, just grimm

So what is the point of Silver Eyes? That's been their MO since they were first introduced. Sure, Silver Eyes can be used far more often than Ozpin's cane, but it still feels like a let down to learn that the Big Secret behind this weapon is... the exact same thing Ruby has been doing for years

Like Ruby, Oscar likewise didn't need any practice or training. He just set off this massive attack perfectly and without issue

We have now eliminated the biggest threat to the cast instantaneously — the whale and the other grimm — with no effort from the rest of the heroes. Like the Hound, the stakes are obliterated with no satisfying work on the part of our protagonists

Instead, as said, the actual plan already in place never happened. The bomb just... goes back. Kind of like how Cinder attacked and then just went back to Salem. Penny woke up and then just got knocked out again. We continue to go in circles

This is because no one took two seconds to tell Oscar, "There's a bomb on the way"

Because this threat is gone the show needs a new one, hence Ironwood randomly threatening Mantle with said bomb

The one way we might have justified Oscar blowing up the whale instead of Winter is if he did it to save Hazel, but Hazel is implied to be dead

Maybe he's alive, but if he's not that happened off screen and we're not sure how. It couldn't have been because of the blast itself — everyone else is fine — so what, Salem somehow killed him before she was blasted to bits? While he was holding her?

And there's no body?

Salem was torn apart multiple times during that fight and reformed instantaneously, yet now, conveniently, she's taking her time

None of the characters mention the issues above. None of them admit that there was no reason for Oscar to waste LIFETIMES worth of power when they already had a solution in the works. Fantastic

I need to take a moment to acknowledge that so far this recap feels... bad. Disjointed. Bit all over the place. Which makes a certain amount of sense because that's where my thoughts are at. There's so much going on in this episode — so much wrong with it — that I don't know how to boil it all down into a few, neat claims. This episode is a mess! We're barely a few minutes in and the combined issues of Ironwood's characterization and Oscar's choice have left me reeling. So if you're still reading this, bless your patience, I think we'll both need it for the rest of this journey.

Let's snag a neater plot-point to discuss. Amidst all the chaos Neo literally skips away with the Lamp, clearly thrilled at how her own life is going. Later in the episode she'll text Cinder with the obvious: Salem is going to be pretty pissed when she realizes this is gone. “If you want her name you know what you owe me."

So wait... what is Neo leveraging here? Is she agreeing to give the Lamp back so Cinder doesn't get in trouble with Salem? Give Salem the password she's been looking for? Or give Cinder the password to use the Lamp for herself? What would Cinder even want the Lamp for when she's after the Maiden powers? I'm confused about what Cinder is being blackmailed with. Regardless, she needs the lamp for something and presumably what she "owes" Neo is Ruby. We get a cut to her just to hammer that home.

(Side note: both pictures of Neo are hilarious.)

Before that though, back at the whale, everyone is taking stock of the situation when Marrow cries, "Hey, they were still in there!" I feel like this is another scene meant to make him look like the one good guy in the group — he cares about YJOR while the others can’t be bothered — but as always, that reading doesn't fit well with the situation as a whole. The others have barely had time to realize they're alive. I don't think it's a moral failing that they didn't instinctually worry about four betrayers, one of whom attacked them, while they're still checking that they have all their limbs intact. Besides, why does Marrow assume they're dead? The Ace Ops were caught in the blast as well, yet miraculously came out unharmed. They clearly didn't set their own bomb off, so it's logical to assume that YJOR did something themselves. It feels weird to have a "Marrow mourns them and Winter is the only other character who cares" moment when everyone is recovering from bomb shock and no one even knows if the others are dead. But, of course, the show is out to portray only two of these characters as good people, so ignore the logic and run with the emotion of the scene.

All of which is bolstered by Elm pulling away when Vine puts a hand on her shoulder. Why is she acting cold towards him now? Because they're not friends, remember?

While we get more ridiculous relationship dynamics, Ironwood calls in and congratulates them on the bomb working, but tells them to get back because they have another problem in the works. That would be Qrow and Robyn. Winter decides to tell him about the bomb in person.

We cut to Watts and Cinder watching the remnants of the blast from a rooftop. Cinder has tried calling, but no one answered. Unsurprising, given that Salem doesn't have any other allies left. Cinder says that the plan hasn't changed, she's still going to take the Winter Maiden's power for herself, and Watts can help her by bringing Penny here. He explains that he doesn't have full control over her. Rather, he implemented a virus that is setting her on a single path: open the vault, then self-destruct. Cinder, as one might expect, is furious.

She snags Watts by her grimm arm and threatens to toss him over the side of the building. Thus begins the best part of the episode, hands down. Despite the danger he's in, Watts throws common sense out the window in favor of dragging Cinder in the most satisfying manner possible.

“You think you’re entitled to everything just because you suffered, but suffering isn’t enough. You can’t just be strong, you have to be smart. You can’t just be deserving, you have to be worthy! But all you have ever been is a bloody migraine!”

It's true! You know what else is true? This speech could apply to our heroes as well. Accusations of entitlement and reminders to be smart as opposed to just strong hit hard, considering those are the same flaws our protagonists are struggling with. The difference is that Cinder, miraculously, listens, pulling Watts back to safety and going to cry by herself. That moment is simultaneously more growth than Ruby has gotten and more sympathy than Ironwood has gotten. The woman who murdered Pyrrha is treated more kindly by the narrative than one of our initial heroes and our very first villain has taken more time to reconsider her choices than our title character. You know a show is falling apart when excellent choices are applied to the worst possible character.

So Cinder is crying while Watts looks guilty and we cut back to YJOR's group post-blast. Yang is finally able to answer a call from Blake who is obviously overjoyed to see her. Weiss gives them directions to the mansion and they ask what in the world they'll do with Emerald, currently on her knees, mourning Hazel.

Thus begins the third most frustrating part of this episode. See, on the way back the group continues the conversation about what to do with Emerald, with Yang and Jaune distrusting her vs. Ren and Oscar encouraging cooperation. I can't believe I'm saying this after's Ren's speech and Oscar's entire existence... but I'm team Jaune and Yang here. Look, what Oscar and Ren say — the literal words coming out of their mouth — is nonsense. Ren goes, “We can’t let all of our actions stem from fear," as if Yang and Jaune are being ridiculous for mistrusting Emerald, one of the established villains, after years worth of harm from her. It’s weird that Yang points to her arm as something Emerald is responsible for, rather than being framed or the deaths at Beacon, but the general sentiment of, “She’s done horrible things!” is true. Ren’s perspective is the same simplification that was applied to Ironwood last volume, wherein everyone acted as if he was crazy for fearing an attack on his kingdom... post an attack on another kingdom and pre an attack on his kingdom. Putting generic lines in Ren's mouth about not being afraid makes him sound willfully ignorant, as if choosing to believe that someone is good will magically make them so, to say nothing of thinking it will erase all the harm they've already done.

Oscar at least acknowledges the difficulty here, but then follows this up with, “You don’t have to forgive her… just give her a second chance."

Oscar, honey, that amounts to the same thing in this situation. Allowing Emerald a second chance means working with her, which means trust, which means emotionally reaching a point where these characters can put aside the harm she's done them in an effort to give her that chance in the first place. This actually ties into a post I saw last night, one I've come across before, that claims redemption arcs don't require any suffering on the part of the person who has done wrong. I agree in theory, that prolonged suffering doesn't help anyone, but the problem is that people tend to conflate suffering with consequences and someone who has done this level of harm should face consequences for their actions. The problem with redemption arcs is not that the bad people suffer too much — emotionally and physically beating on them as a form of revenge — but that the people they've harmed are put into situations like this one. If Yang and Jaune let Emerald go like she suggests, they are agreeing that she doesn't have to face any consequences for the damage she's done (which, keep in mind, involves multiple deaths, not including all the lost lives here in Atlas). If they agree to give her a second chance, they are forced to jump straight to some level of forgiveness. We might claim they don't have to forgive Emerald to work with her, but from a practical perspective how are they meant to function, especially during a warzone? Anything she provides them with — information, watching their back in a fight, undertaking missions, etc. — requires trusting her enough to allow those things to happen: working with that info, letting her protect them, allowing her that responsibility. It's all about trust, trust she has yet to earn. In order for a redemption arc to be successful, the power has to be in the hands of the victims. They need to be able to see some justice for what was done to them, be offered some proof that the person in question has truly changed, and have the ability to walk away if they decide no, I don't forgive you, glad to hear you've improved, but please stay out of my life. Jaune and Yang have none of that. There are currently no systems in place for Emerald to face consequences for her choices, she has offered them no proof of her remorse or true motivations, and the other half of the group is pressuring them to give her that second chance without closure or reassurance. None of that makes for a good redemption arc and reducing that to, "So you want to see poor Emerald suffer, huh?" ignores the suffering she has already caused. The group are her victims and they are under no obligation to give her a second chance, particularly under these circumstances, which makes the story's choice to have Ren and Oscar act like Yang and Jaune are being stubborn or inconsiderate a problem. The conversation boils down to, "Give the woman you know to be a liar, manipulator, murder accomplice, and servant of our enemy a second chance based entirely on unfounded faith. If you don't you're letting yourself be ruled by fear."

RWBY's touchy-feely themes really don't sit well within its realistic, morally gray premise. We cannot continually have these characters go through hell one moment and then have others accuse them of being paranoid the next. The fact that all of this is wrapped up in the group trusting Robyn, Emerald, and Hazel over their established allies remains beyond frustrating.

Because yeah, you know how Oscar finishes his speech? “I’ve already gotten a lot of help today from someone I don’t exactly trust right now." Meaning Ozpin.

The story is trying to compare Emerald and Hazel to Ozpin.

"Oh hey, I kept a secret from you after lifetimes of watching that secret lead to betrayal and death. I keep apologizing for my mistakes while ignoring that I had no reason to trust a bunch of kids with such world-shattering information and also that you tore it from me in the most traumatic way possible."

"Oh hey, I willingly joined our world's version of the devil and helped her destroy your school, leading to numerous deaths including your friend and headmaster. It was his death that put Oscar in this position in the first place! I then continued to attack your group, leading to another near death of a friend, and a kidnapping, and the destruction of Amity, until I became scared enough to make a run for it."

Which one of these characters is granted an instant second chance? You'll never guess who!

And I do think the word "instant" is important here because just like Jaune and Yang have the right to have distance and justice from Emerald, they had that right with Ozpin too. The difference is they got it. They had the power in the situation, as evidenced by their use of the Lamp and physically attacking him. Ozpin heard what they needed from him — leave us alone — and did that without complaint. They were given months to come to terms with the secrets he kept. They were offered apologies and acts of service to demonstrate intent: saving them in the airship and continually saving Oscar. I don't believe Ozpin ever needed a redemption arc, but even if we think he did, he had it. After three volumes of material Oscar's perspective is still "I don't exactly trust [him] right now" but Hazel and Emerald have earned at least the same amount of trust in a matter of hours? They're really having my boy look at the guy who has tried desperately to do right by him despite unimaginable circumstances, and the guy who tortured him to get information for Salem, and went, "That first guy. He's the one we need to watch out for."

To make things even worse, Oscar tells the others that Ozpin took on all the torture so he wouldn't have to. So he did that and they still don't trust him? If you had told me back in Volume 6 that two years later the group would still be hostile towards Ozpin, while simultaneously urging one another to trust Emerald, I would have said you were lying. RWBY has its problems, but it's not that bad. Yet here we are. I suppose the one silver lining here is that Ren smiles when he realizes Ozpin is back? So at least one of them isn't prepared to draw their weapon at the mere mention of his name.

Both these moments raise more questions though. How in the world did Ozpin take on that torture when we clearly saw Oscar getting pummeled for a good portion of the kidnapping? Is that a weird merge thing the story hasn't bothered to explain? I wouldn't be surprised, considering Oscar said last episode he didn't want to use magic because it hastened the merge, he uses the biggest explosion of magic we've ever seen, and nothing has changed. Ozpin is still in the back of his head, thanking him for the tinniest shreds of decency they get. Ren, meanwhile, seems to be back to mindreading. How in the world does he know that Ozpin is back? I assume it has something to do with his semblance, but we don't know what. They could have shown us Oscar from Ren's perspective, perhaps with two distinct emotions swilling around to imply that he sees two different people now, not a useless shot of Emerald with purple flower petals, whatever purple means.

Oh, but no, we shouldn't have gotten either of these scenes. Remember that Ren's aura broke a very, very short time ago? Is it back already? Can he use this part of his semblance without it? Considering it was near impossible to see Ironwood's aura breaking in the Watts fight and we were then mistakenly told he used his semblance in the office, I'm going to go with, "The writers forgot."

Oscar explains that the cane had "lifetime after lifetime" of power in it and though there's still some left, "we have to be careful with how we use the rest." He says that Ozpin trusted his judgement and of course he did! Ozpin also didn’t know that there was a bomb on the way. Yet funnily enough, no one else mentions that, whoops, your choice made in ignorance was a waste and that's due entirely to us prioritizing hugs over basic mission information.

Also, all these explanations take place in front of Emerald. Half the group doesn't trust her, but they'll freely discuss their powers and limitations here. Remember how the group once wanted to talk about magical relics in front of the old lady they'd just met? Yeah, they've learned nothing.

Combine all this insanity with the fact that Ozpin's magic saved the day before Ironwood's bomb could do the same... while Ruby sat in a mansion drinking tea. Who's our hero again?

So things are a hot mess, to put it lightly. Their conversation finally ends when they hear voices and round the corner to find all the Atlas citizens huddled in the subway. For once the show actually writes them in a sympathetic manner, emphasizing how terrified and helpless they are. This image doesn't lead the group to any revelations though, certainly not anything that would tie back to Ren's earlier speech in the snow. No, once again the justified criticisms here are ignored as we hear that “However this fight ends, we could really use someone like you, [Emerald.]” That's it then. Discussion over. We knew as soon as it started that blindly trusting her was being presented as the "right" thing to do and now here we are, deciding that conclusively, despite Jaune and Yang's complaints. By the time the group reaches the mansion, Oscar is defending Emerald from Ruby. We're supposed to just accept that she's a part of the group now, only minimal pushback allowed.

Before that though we return to Ironwood getting news that their bomb never went off. He briefly wonders who else could have done that, but puts the currently unanswerable question aside for what he does know. They still have the bomb and it could be "useful." See, this moment — like shooting Oscar and the councilman — is when Ironwood just randomly goes off the deep end. One minute he's talking about what they've lost and cradling his new arm,

the next he's saying that he should have tortured Qrow to get Penny to obey him! Which doesn't even make sense since I'm pretty sure Penny hasn't ever spoken to Qrow. She wouldn't want anyone to suffer, true, but it's not like Ironwood had a close friend like Ruby to use as leverage. Qrow is just Some Guy to her. Regardless, he thinks Yang, Jaune, and Ren are decent replacements, despite Penny also having no relationships with them. This is what happens when your characters only start breaking up their teams eight years into the story, the response to Ironwood wanting to torture Ren to hurt Penny is, “Does Penny know Ren exists?” But, you know, torture is torture, right? Maybe. Probably not. I mean, if they're going to turn Ironwood into a cartoon villain, they could at least keep him smart.

Because all of this is just the height of stupidity. Ironwood wants to torture people Penny barely knows to make her listen (so just grab some civilians? It would do the same job...). Ironwood wants to shoot down empty ships, even though no one, including us, knows where in the world those ships would have gone. Ironwood wants to destroy an entire city to try and save another city. He wants to use a bomb meant for a comparatively small whale and acts like that alone will take out the majority of a kingdom. None of it makes sense! And I know the easy comeback for that is, "Well yeah, Ironwood is crazy and evil" but he's not. I mean he is. Threatening torture and bombings is obviously evil, but he's never been insane, or stupid. As said before, his arc (or lack thereof) is an absolute disaster. The fandom assumes so many things about Ironwood given the opportunity — the whale is a suicide mission. He expects the Ace Ops to die on his order — and the writing hints at so many things that never happen — he's going to hurt his subordinates, attack Winter for disobeying him — and every time what we actually get is a far more compassionate, level-headed character... until he randomly does a 180 and goes, "Let's murder a whole city now!" I never wanted Ironwood to be the bad guy, but they could have at least given me a persuasive decent into this level of horror.

So... yeah. Ironwood has got to die by the end of the volume, yeah? Between Ruby warning the whole world about him and him going into full villain mode, there's no coming back from this.

Neo sends her text to Cinder and the group makes it back to the mansion. Remember Yang's criticisms of Ruby's leadership? The ones she conveniently forgot about when Ren started to agree with her? Yeah, those are entirely gone as the sisters hug it out and, presumably, forgive one another for... daring to admit that things are bad? Look, I'm not going to deny that Ironwood's scene with Winter was creepy as fuck,

but I'm not of the opinion that the heroes are any better when it comes to the theme of obedience. They've attacked one another, screamed at one another, and any dissent from Ruby's leadership results in the questioner being left behind in the snow. We'll accept you again when you fall back in line. I used to adore the relationships in this show, but watching them now is just discomforting. The show might be 100% more obvious with Ironwood, using creepy music, a smile, and that hand on Winter's shoulder, but the concept of, "Sorry I dared to question you before! We won't ever do it again :)" isn't healthy either. The fact that the show keeps erasing theses problems with hugs — Weiss hugs Whitley now, Yang hugs Ruby, someone will probably hug Emerald soon — doesn't make the circumstances any less uncomfortable.

None of this even gets into the Blake and Yang hug. First of all, why is Blake acting like they had a fight and Yang might not want to see her? She's hiding inside rather than rushing to greet them, ears down in a devastated expression until Yang touches her. Combine this with Yang's "Do you think she's mad at me?" and it feels like the writers cut a fight in the final script and then didn't bother to remove the fallout from that. Seriously, where did any of this come from? You can't just have characters act like they've been fighting when they haven’t.

Also, can't forget this.

At this point there's nothing more I can say in regards to RWBY's almost-queer baiting. Is touching foreheads more intimate than the hugs Yang gave the others? Absolutely. Is that an appropriate stand-in for overt representation? Absolutely not. This would have been a perfect time for them to kiss. Take out Blake's nonsensical fear and replace it with them both reuniting after their first separation since Volume 5, working under the knowledge that either one could have been killed, finally admitting their feelings. Hell, they don't actually have to kiss. Not all girlfriends are interested in kissing! But they could use the terminology that makes things unequivocally canon. Another forehead touch when we got that in Volume 6? It's not enough, especially not when our straight couples have all been allowed their rep.

Ren at least wants to know where Nora is. He's presumably told what happened off screen as Oscar tells Ruby that Emerald is their friend now.

Then an emergency call from May interrupts the reunion and the group learns that Ironwood is bombing the Schnee ships. “Those ships… they were going to save people” Weiss whispers. How? Tell me how they were going to save anyone. Where were you going to take these people where they would be safer than where they are now? RWBY continually asserts things without explaining them, meaning there is precisely zero emotional weight here. Again, Ironwood is far past the point of defense, but I'd be a whole lot more critical of this particular action if I had a better sense of why it's bad. He appears to be endangering the people given May's shout to run — falling debris? — but the further implication is that Ironwood has doomed the people of Mantle by denying them these ships. It's that part that makes no sense based on what we've been told.

Which finally comes to the ultimatum of our episode title: Penny opens the vault, or Ironwood bombs Mantle. Great! So glad this plan is wicked smart and works well for his characterization. It's definitely not a nonsensical, unfounded, overblown change that feels like it belongs in a child's cartoon, complete with dramatic spotlight. Nope. Excellent writing choices all around.

Our final line of the episode is, “I hope you live up to the title I gave you," referring to Penny's job as the Protector of Mantle, and you know what? That line could have been very cool if it was delivered by an Ironwood with a persuasive fall and a halfway decent plan in place. I love that we've twisted the concept of a protector and turned the title into a horrifying, rather than honorable responsibility... I just hate everything surrounding those details.

So, usual RWBY fare.

(At least we get to see that Nora is awake!)

Will things get better over the next four episodes? I doubt it. We're still expecting the rest of the Ace Ops + Winter to ditch Ironwood, someone getting the vault open, the fall of Atlas, now the potential destruction of Mantle, and none of that includes Salem who should reform at any moment. Frankly, I'm not looking forward to any of it. The final leg of a season should make its audience excited to see how everything turns out, not dreading it. I've heard from multiple people that this is the volume that finally got them to drop the show and honestly? I'm not surprised.

As a final (happier?) note: we've finally got a bingo! I completely forgot our board last time, which was a terrible oversight, but we can update it now.

Our army of grimm can't kill anyone now that it got KOed by Oscar (that is the third one hit defeat of a major enemy we've seen this volume. Yes, I'm including the Hound considering it was obviously on its last legs after Ruby's eyes.)

I'm likewise including "Ozpin apologizes for everything including his existence" because he's done nothing but apologize since he came back. The emotion is there even if the literal words are not. Oscar reminded everyone of how untrustworthy he is, but kept the group from jumping them again. And Ozpin thanked him for it.

Neo didn't literally backstab Cinder (shame), but the Relic still counts.

So a triple bingo! Is that how bingo works? Idk, I've never played. I feel like I should have thought up some sort of humorous prize, but sadly I've got nothing. If you think of anything, let me know lol

That’s all then, folks. Until next week! 💜

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #rwby ultimatum #rwby recaps #mymetas

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steve0discusses · 3 years ago

Text

S5 Ep 15 Pt 2: Don’t Trust Anyone Who Wears a Floor Length Robe Over Their Casuals in Yugioh

Hey, it’s my birthday, so I’m gonna release this early because the rest of today I just have to work like an adult and that’s no fun.

In the first half of this episode we dunked the worlds smallest plane into a lake and so this second half of the episode involved the kids running as far away from their only responsible adults as they could.

Which like...took whole of less than a second for them to peace out and enter mortal danger.

...I’ve never been in a jungle in India but...I have seen the Jungle book many times...and there’s like tigers and stuff in there, right? and tons of monkeys that are hella mean? And freakin snakes? They sing jazz and scat? That’s some terrifying stuff.

Like these city kids have to learn at some point to fear the woods. But they just freakin don’t. And strangely, the most dangerous thing in these woods isn’t even a snake or something, but a human man just being as suspicious as possible lying prone on the ground.

(read more under the cut)

The card cultist happens to have a British accent, because this voice acting team freakin loves to pull out their British accents. It’s not as lowbrow as Valon, but it’s not as...well whatever Bakura is supposed to be. He’s a lot more tame than Bakura’s, but still very British.

I don’t know if this is because British English tends to be taught instead of American sounding English in many parts of India, but, most likely they just wanted to do an accent. And like...he’s an archeologist...and so the stereotype is there...but honestly, the decision of making this guy British gets weirder and weirder as this episode goes on, get ready for it. None of you are ready for what I assume is the very obvious plot twist of this freakin guy.

Catfish of the century, this freakin guy, I’m pretty sure.

Yugi immediately believes this completely out of place white British stranger in the Indian backwoods next to this inaccessible lake and immediately thinks “yes, my Grandfather crash landed in India EXACTLY where I’m standing right now, and now I must save him.”

Thankfully, Yami exists to gently and politely tell Yugi to hella stop.

Also, I like that Yugi has finally stopped wearing his school outfit out of school. But, he is instead wearing a jacket that is so close to his school outfit I honestly couldn’t tell until the end of this episode. It’s like...I think one shade more purple, it has white piping, and his undershirt has a center seam. It’s nice Yugi has 3 versions of the same black sleeveless undershirt, and this show cares enough to show that tiny factoid about Yugi’s closet.

So, because Yugi is a dumbass and Pharaoh has to just sit back and watch this happen so he can say “told you so” later, they follow this random cultist they found in the woods. Much like Hansel and Gretel, we snack on cake crumbs all the way to the witches house, which in this case, is an undiscovered monolith you would have easily seen from outer space.

HMMMMMMMMMM.

And so get ready for this:

Hey guys.

Remember how Alexander the great was buried in a pyramid?

Now because they’re name dropping Alexander, that’s actually kind of helpful, because Alexander the Great’s favorite damn horse in the entire world died while he was at war with India so he named a city after it. It’s believed to be in Punjab, which is in the Northern part of India

Which means we first of all, definitely crossed the tallest mountain range in the world to get here, and also means that we are like...in some really disputed territory of India right now, and it is crazy that these kids went here for a vacation completely unsupervised.

Another fun fact about Alexander is that when he died, it took 6 days for his body to decompose. At the time, they thought it was because he was a God (or in Yugioh’s case, Extremely Cursed) but nowadays historians think it’s because it took him 6 days to fully die. He just wasn’t dead yet. Had to give it a minute and the ancient Babylonians just got way too excited.

Anyway, Alexander super died in Babylon so I don’t know what the hell he’s doing in India. There is a fun spot in History where his body did get dragged to a couple different places, meaning we probably did lose the original Alexander and there’s a lot of people just guessing at where he ended up...but putting him clear up in India sure was a choice when one of his assumed burial sites was literally Egypt, which would be a more fitting location for a Pyramid and a more fitting location for this show.

Especially since Alexander was trying to invent a new race and culture...it seems a little strange he’d be buried in such a massive pyramid, but maybe he got a really, really good pyramid deal from the funeral home when he was like 28 and just figured he’d change it before the time he died at 32.

Which...now that I’m older than 32, how crazy is it that Alexander the Great died at freakin 32? You blink twice and you’re 32. Is history seriously trying to tell me this guy wasn’t like secretly 62? That maybe he just celebrated his 20th for like 20 years in a row as a royal mandate? I just feel like history is playing pranks on me with Alexander.

Anyway, our weird shady new archeologist guy is named Alex and so take that as you will.

I sure hope Alexander the Great was revived to wear khakis and bother children. Guy conquered the world once and was one of history’s Freakin Worst so he does deserve it, but also...it would explain why he thinks it’s normal to wear a Darth Maul robe over your business casual.

Anyway, lets enter the obvious trap pyramid.

Joey just wanted a nice time running around Northern India. He just wanted to eat some yummy chaat and look at some tourist destinations and maybe glance at a Bollywood star or two. But instead he’s gotta deal with spike floors because Yugi couldn’t say no to a cultist.

Also...one of those spikes clearly went through Tea’s feet, right? And she is absolutely fine? Just checking on Tea’s godlike strength and clearly it is still godlike.

Alex gives us a very long explanation of how he went upstairs and Grandpa went downstairs, and there was a door or something so Alex turned back around and Grandpa was gone.

All of those steps were probably plot relevant and I’ll probably forget all about it in 2 episodes.

The thing is Alex...literally thinks he evaporated. Literally thinks that. But how do you disprove it to this freakin guy who like...might have named a city after his horse once and thinks that’s a normal and acceptable thing to do?

and so Joey immediately leaps onto the haunted playing floor.

the way Yugi said this line was sort of hilarious to me so I may cap it. If I remember to do it (I’ve been a little busier lately, with things opening up, as you can tell because my update schedule is in the toilet.)

So, if Joey jumps in...everyone else has to, also.

And we say good bye to Alex and enter the new forest zone, which looks a LOT like the other forest we were just in.

Nice Protoss armor.

We get some hijinks from the local wildlife, which are all cards but real (but not real because we’re in a board game...don’t think about it) and the off brand Sheikah tablets have helpful monsters in them if you touch em.

This season may have been better off as a video game, being honest.

Joey has gone somewhere else, despite going onto the same game tile, and he’s too busy on a mountain range to really help anyone out. So he’s just gonna vibe up here for a bit.

Tea got up after this point and said along the lines of “k, what’s next?” Because mortal danger does not affect her and she fears nothing.

At a beach somewhere, Tea and Tristan spend some quality time together forming a new family with whatever these creatures are.

And Tea’s love of her winged angel comes full circle and now I will suffer this winged orb for the rest of this arc, pretty sure.

Please admire the number of belts on Tea. Her outfit is like max 00′s and I appreciate that. We’ve had a lot of questionable fashion on Yugioh, but they actually dressed Tea pretty on point this arc. Like I often feel like 00′s fashion is hard to define or describe, but it’s Tea right now. That’s it. She did it, it’s right there.

Yugi gets a new flagship card for this arc, and this time it’s Celtic Guardian. Hell why? I feel like his defining card changes every single arc, and they need to like focus and just give him one. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s still Dark Magician...and maybe the show forgot?

Anyway, if you just got here, this is a link to read the rest:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

I think I forgot that link in the last recap because yo it’s kind of been a while since I’ve updated, I feel. (well I had a graveyard post and those don’t count really) But, we’re back, we’re still going, slowly but surely.

#YGO #yugioh #Yu gi oh #episode recap #photo recap #S5 #Ep16 #yugi muto #yami #capsule monsters #tea gardner #tristan taylor #Joey Wheeler #Alex Brisbane #Alexander the freakin great #and a pyramid in the middle of Northern India #And lets just make it an isekai for kicks

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