#necrosis damage my beloved

[sleepyminty]

Sending out the final chapter of here a people sow event by having shu soloing the shit out of the final boss ft arturia earraping the enemies

[soullessseraphim]

For those who asked :D

LORE DUMP ABOUT ARCANA OCS🎉

Liam (my mc)-°-o-°-o-°-o-°-o-°-o.

Liam is my mc, meaning he's Asra's apprentice, and so, a magician. While he's been following Asra's teachings faithfully, he's found a liking in forbidden practices, and therefore necromancy. The practice of necromancy is actually forbidden amongst magicians, mainly because it is a type of dark magic that feeds on the magician's life essence to be more effective (meaning it has been deemed highly dangerous), and so he has to practice in secret. Hence why his left arm is bandaged : due to his frequent practice, necrosis has started to spread onto him. However, it isn't organic necrosis, but magical necrosis, meaning it doesn't smell nearly as foul, doesn't deal as much damage as if it were organic, but also cannot be cured by amputation or by removing the source of the infection or the necrotic tissues. It also means that bugs and maggots are not something to worry about. However, Liam can manage to keep the progression of the necrosis relatively slow by regularly changing his bandages and dipping them in a potion ; in addition, he wraps talismans around his arm, to give himself more time. Because yes, if he continues practicing or lets the necrosis spread too much, he will be gone as fast as in five weeks (without the bandages or talismans).

But why does he practice then ? Well, Liam has not felt a call / wasn't drawn towards any other type of more conventional (and authorized) magic. While he isn't incompetent, he was lacking that intimate link necessary to specialize in certain fields of magic. However, with necromancy, he feels as if he has to furnish much less efforts ; everything just flows more naturally, and it just feels... right, somehow.

In the context of the game, during the various books, the love interest (Julian) once they learn about Liam's practices will try their best to persuade him to quit (to keep him from fucking dying, obviously), however the outcome of that persuasion will variate depending on the endings :

Upright ending : Liam will eventually give up necromancy, and actually find another field of magic he is drawn towards (that is actually not forbidden or dangerous) : Conjuring magic (I've played Skyrim, can you tell?), although he will as well dip into Voodoo practices (and other types of 'pagan' magic), though safely since he's going to be watched closely by the love interest and Asra (he's got friends on the other side now too- ok I promise I'll stop my references there) ; and so he lives happily ever after with the love interest.

Reversed ending : (now, I've not finished any route yet, and so I don't exactly know how accurate to lore this is, so it's very possible that all this might be... impossible. But I bend reality to my will and I do whatever the fuck I want, I'm an artist) Liam, devastated by having lost his love interest in some way, will fully give in to his forbidden practices, but to survive and save them, he will actually find a way to become the new patron arcana of Death (or at least a second one) and wage war on the Devil with his undead troupes, in order to free his beloved from their deal and set them free, and hopefully keep everyone out of danger in the process by making the Devil busy fighting skeletons. He will find a way to save (Julian) them.

Delicatessen-°-o-°-o-°-o-°-o-°-o.

Victim of the Red Plague, Delicatessen's original name is unknown. If he's being honest with himself, he's forgotten it. He was simply another patient with a number attached to him. Patient n°056. He was "lucky" being in the first few batch of the victims, because in his final moments, doctors still had the patience and strength to accompany him. However, he did not want this to be the end. He may not have a cure, but he had something much more unique and morally ambiguous means to survive : if he was dying, then he'd be reborn.

Long ago, his father had saved a noble's life. In return, he'd gotten this gift, and intricately carved golden needle, with a sort of tiny vial at the tip of it, which contained a crimson liquid similar to blood. It was quite obvious that once poked with the needle, the blood would be transferred to whatever was poked... There was a letter as well, with the needle, inside the neatly decorated wooden box :

"in your last hour, after the sun has set, stare at your reflection, for it is the last time you will see it ; let go of who you were, for you will wither away ; place the needle to your neck, and rejoice in the sacrifice, for you know it will allow you to be reborn"

He remembered his father telling him he refused to ever use the gift, for he thought it was more of a curse. Delicatessen doesn't want to live forever either. But he certainly doesn't want the Plague to be his end. And so, Delicatessen poked his neck with the needle, and opened his eyes again as the moon rose high into the sky. He then left the room he'd been left to die in, and went into the streets of Vesuvia, leaving behind him an impossible to solve mystery for the doctors : "the vanished corpse of patient n°056"

After the end of the Plague, a new, more discreet disease hit the darkest streets of Vesuvia : people who'd passed out drunk during the night would wake up with missing limbs, only to find them later all dried of their blood in the streets. Naturally, it frightened absolutely everybody. Taverns were forbidden to open at night and the civilians were highly encouraged to stay inside no matter what. It went on for months, and the culprit had been nicknamed Delicatessen, because of how it looked like they were considering people as meat markets. Patient n°056, now a vampire, actually stuck with the name, finding it quite funny and fitting.

But as violently as those horrendous amputation started, they stopped. Delicatessen had disappeared, remaining a mystery to Vesuvia. Deli (yes you can nickname him that) had actually entered a sort of slumber, hidden away, and he wakes up around the same time mc arrives to the Palace for the first time. But he didn't go back to his life of crime. oddly enough, he'd found a new passion (which he suspects he always had, but his transition to un-death and his time as a sick patient might have broken what was holding him back from actually doing it (moral compass)) : in his hideout, he experiments, stitching animal parts together to make chimeras. His first successful experiment is Eve, a cat to which he attached great bat wings. She's his most precious creation.

Baron Vultur-°-o-°-o-°-o-°-o-°-o.

Cursed to eat human flesh to survive, Baron Vultur is a relatively new face in Vesuvia. As a new courtier, he raises a few suspicions amongst the others : who the fuck is this guy and what the hell is he doing here? (he's just a lil guy) Hailing from abroad, Vultur had to flee his unfortunately crumbling kingdom, and so his previous Court. Nadia was kind enough to welcome him to the court, despite the initial disapproval of the other courtiers (how dare this guy bother our devilish schemes hrhrhrggrrhg) ; however, they quickly realized that Vultur might not be too much of a bothersome asset. As a demon himself, he actually has a few things in common with them. Like being kinda funky in the brain. Or having sharp teeth. But he's a lil fucked up, like all of 'em. Initially not very talkative and simply letting his new environment sink in, Baron Vultur eventually warms up to the other courtiers, having a few more affinities with Valdemar and Vulgora, with whom he hangs around more from then on.

As they grew more friendly, Vultur actually mentioned the lung surgery he went through, months back. His old kingdom now crumbled, it's only natural he has no doctor to have routine checkups with. And so he asked Valdemar who, to his surprise, accepted. However, the Quaestor did NOT expect Vultur's stitches to be so... uhm... it wasn't in a good state. They'd even commented "I don't know who was your doctor before, but this is butcher work", before proceeding to schedule an appointment with the Baron where they'd fixed the previous intervention's damage. And so, Vultur now has frequent checkups with them. It is also during one of those checkups that he was forced to explain his peculiar diet, since he'd gotten a rib stuck in his throat, and had asked Valdemar for help. He'd went outside that night, finding fresh corpses to scavenge on, and his demonic form for some reason had not thrown up the full skeleton. This is how it was brought to the Quaestor's attention that Vultur needs to consume human flesh to survive.

That does explain his carnivore like teeth. But what- who does he feed from? Baron Vulture actually attends weekly public executions, and once the crowd has cleared out, steals the criminal's body to feed off of it (whether it's during the daytime or the evening) ; sometimes he saves it for later, when he wants the meat cooked in a particular way, or just feels like eating a fancy dish. This is why servants have seen him in the kitchen a few times, making his own meals for dinners, instead of taking those already prepared. But he does like it raw at times ; Vulgora had surprised him devouring a piece of meat (which they didn't know was human, it was impossible to guess) ravenously, drenching his chin, neck and the collar of his clothes in blood once. That did stir unknown feelings in them.

But what about his demon form, then ? Baron Vultur actually turns into a sort of chimera : easily the most massive and imposing of the demon courtiers, he has a humanoid face, though he still has carnivore like teeth (just like in his humanoid form) ; he has panthera front paws ; vulture wings, hind legs, and tail, and a long feathery neck as well, like one of a vulture (because... because his name is Vultur haha get it ? Ok I shut up). He can actually fly, though due to his size, it would most likely get the attention of more than one fellow, so he doesn't do it often. (I actually plan on drawing it later jehehehejjehej)

___________________S_m_a_l_l___B_o_n_u_s___________________

Do they all know each other ?

Liam and Delicatessen actually came to know each other in one stupidly on time coincidence : they had both sneaked into Valdemar's dungeons. Liam needed a corpse for his necromancy practices, and Delicatessen needed blood to feed as well as surgical equipment. And Valdemar found the both of them. Stupidly on time coincidence I was saying. That means there are actually only two people that know of Delicatessen (and honestly maybe it's better like that). Baron Vultur does know of Liam, but isn't exactly invested in getting to know him too much, unless it's absolutely necessary.

Tag for those who asked🧡@lunumochi ; @mosssummoner Disclaimer ! : I haven't finished the first route yet, so if there are lore inaccurate infos, it's not on purpose and I apologize

[thegreatyin]

1 and 4 and 25 for Arturia Giallo

1 - Why do you like or dislike this character?

Arturia my beloved!!!!!! There's honestly a lot of things I could say about her because there's just a lot of things I like about her but to name just one... her gameplay is great. I love her kit and I love using her. She's basically a deployable poison swamp and it's so satisfying to set her down and watch her go Silly Billy with it. Also she's got some Ebenholz synergy with necrosis damage, so, y'know, there's that as well

-

4 - If you could put this character in any other media, be it a book, a movie, anything, what would you put them in?

I'm gonna go out of left field and say we should isekai her to Eorzea. Yes, this is mostly just because Arknights × FFXIV is my dream crossover. Yes, it is also just because her arts would probably be really goofy in the context of that universe for spoiler reasons I won't get into. Yes, it is also also just because I think she'd frolic there.

-

25 - What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

At first: Huh, that's a cool Sankta design in my unrelated sad goat event. I wonder if she'll show up later. What's this? CN says she's problematicque??? Even better.

Now: that's my wife. the silly.

[neriumdelusion]

omg hi uhmmmm so i noticed u say your interested in entomology...............do u have any facts to share:]

Hi yes hello omg twirls hair!!!! Yes!!i do enjoy entomology a great deal!!

I actually don’t know that many facts about insects, unfortunately most of my knowledge is on Myriapodology (which is centipedes and millipedes and suchlike which are not in the same classification technically!!)

Okay so first thing this is more of a complaint. Centipedes do not bite! Wrong terminology, they sting!! it’s a sting because instead of jaws, they use a pair of specially modified hollow front legs to pinch prey and deliver venom!! Which is very cool of them!

Okay also, Scutigera cave centipede (Scutigera also being Scutigera coleoptrata which is the common house centipede, the cave ones are a lil different) are well, cave centipedes! And they are very good predators, and have reaaaally long legs. And that’s part of how they do it! They tap their legs every couple of steps to check their surroundings!!! Hence why they’re so long! And well all centipedes have pretty poor eyesight in general and it’s just so cool of them!!!

Okay more centipede related things which isn’t even technically entomology if you dislike centipedes I’m so sorry bestie<3

umkay so!!! Seychellonema gerlachi is a quite recently discovered species of centipede! They are classified as endangered ::( and can only really be found in quite specific locations! Their appearance resembles that of Scutigera a little! In the way of unreasonably long legs, but they have like dots on their main body! Very cool of them! Also if you google them there’s like two sources on them they are not talked about much and that’s mean.

Bad stings from Scolopendra heros (giant desert centipedes) can cause tissue necrosis! Which literally kills that area of your body tissue! But usually they don’t, however stings form them are excruciatingly painful they usually don’t cause much lasting damage. But they can cause some bad stuff if you’re immune compromised, young, elderly or already ill. Meaning they’re not at all harmless and shouldn’t be taken lightly, also it’s just very painful even without lasting damage and the short term damage isn’t nice either, but man they look coo.

Centipedes are called pathologically unsociable and that’s very funny to me

Okay so actual insects now, stick insects! My beloved! Mmm themm. Okay so this species is not at all uncommon and they’re quite popular pets but mmm THEM! And that’s the jungle nymph stick insect!! Even their name is lovely! They’re very big, in fact the largest stick insect! And can be spikes sometimes so that’s cool!! They’re regarded as some of the most beautiful stick insects and I’d have to agree, but I love them all!

Thorectes hispanus is a type of beetle on the red list for endangered animals. There’s many other beetle and other invertebrate species on that list and it’s upsetting that even I don’t know them all. And many don’t care, and like you can’t care about everything but it would be nice if more people were bothered!

Moths overall are declining in population in the UK, declining by 28% since 1968. The situation is especially sad in southern Britain, where moth numbers have declined by by 40%. Many individual species have declined dramatically in recent decades!! And over 60 became extinct in the 20th century. The V-moth is down by 99% !!! (they’re still around by holy shit it’s a dramatic decrease in population) They’re very pretty by the way but that doesn’t matter, the worth of an entire species doesn’t depend on whether they’re aesthetically appealing!!!!! The main issues for them is loss of habitat and climate change. Which isn’t particularly shocking but still very upsetting!

Psyllobora vigintiduopunctata are yellow ladybirds and there are also plenty of other species that are not your typical red and black, i just think people should know that!

There’s probably more but silly brain won’t work!! I hope you enjoyed the silly invertebrate facts! I fact-checked this before I wrote it down but if anyone has heard different on anything I mentioned please do let me know!

I really appreciate the ask!! You’re such a delight and thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about invertebrates at you<3<3<3 /gen

[meikuree]

:eyes emoji: ??? (please share a snip! maybe TLT???)

You were equally crass to everyone. You made nobody your exception, not even your beloved, idiot sister, and if anyone had expected you to in that moment just because you were faced with the bloodstained gruss of ravaged viscera and laboured heaving that passed for Harrow’s body in the doorway, daring you to invite pity from within yourself, you would have called them the shining apex of imbecilic shitassery in the entire universe.

Or so in theory, at least.

“Get up, Harry. You’re in an utter state,” you said. But you did not sound, to your regret, as unkindly as you had intended, did not sound as if you had meant the damage. You had not added on to your words with a mocking one that is beneath you, hissed through your teeth and infused with the same disgust you would reserve for a slug, out of some misplaced sliver of mercy. You prodded at her instead with one unflinching, uncaring toe of your dark boot.

[rest of the fic happens here]

Only hours later in the insomniac quiet of your room, did a small shred of contrition make its way to you: it occurred to you that you might have made things worse.

(more commentary below the cut)

thank you dearly for indulging me with a tlt request! <3 this is a snippet of the harrow/ianthe fic i’ve been toying with, set in an au where ianthe doesn’t walk away when harrow’s been attacked by the Saint of Duty and she actually does do the thing of whoring herself to ianthe as necrosis to a wound, or something. in theory.

it is, uh, in its very early stages as you can tell because i am an embarrassment and have not been writing.

the objective plot will be simple: ianthe walks in and, somehow, tries to lend whatever form of half-assed, callously inflected assistance she would-- but im giving the wip a breather because, as i was discussing with someone today, the tricky part about it is understanding ianthe’s motivation for why she turned away in the original canon, and plausible other reasons she would have come to help instead + how harrow would have feasibly responded. i’ll spare people the banal details/my thoughts, but the last sentence you see is what started the fic idea in the first place -- i was tempted early on to lean full-on into the idea that ianthe would totally attempt to help and simply do something bad, because that sort of circumspect/depressing scenario fits with ianthe “always makes things worse” tridentarius’s profile. but there are other directions i’m considering where ianthe is kinder... as potentially ooc that may be.

i have to say my writing is slow with this one because i’m taking care with this one in general to write ianthe carefully. a lot of it is because i don’t think she’s a straightforwardly or blandly, boringly “evil” person. like, she’s absolutely irredeemable and incorrigible, and i love her precisely because of that, but she’s also someone who lets harrow sleep in her room (her idea. not harrow’s) when harrow is feeling unsafe and shows some other kindnesses to her, and i’m so, so fascinated by that weird capacity for mercy (low-hanging mercy that is a very low bar for a decent human, but still) alongside all the moral transgressions/callousness she commits or exhibits.

[illustrious-rocket]

Eureka Seven Hi-Evolution 2: Anemone (review)

Score: * (out of 4)

Summary: A creatively bankrupt film that represents a new low for a beloved yet beleaguered franchise, Anemone is an epic misfire that begs comparisons to, of all things, The Room.

Long review (spoilers):

The story of the Eureka Seven franchise has been a long, and unfortunately, often troubled one. I have a separate post in development documenting its history through my eyes as someone who got into the series long after its original airing, so many of the matters relating to that subject will not be in this post. What this post is, however, is a breakdown of what makes this one film a failure.

Strap in, this is going to be a ride.

After several years in dormancy following the ill-received Eureka Seven AO, a new film trilogy titled Eureka Seven Hi-Evolution was announced. Immediately, this news begged comparisons to other cinematic reboots to well known franchises, two examples being the recent Code Geass reboot series and, more notably, Rebuild of Evangelion. I know when Hi-Evolution was announced, I was apprehensive. I dropped AO halfway through, and the installment of the franchise prior to it (Pocketful of Rainbows/Good Night, Sleep Tight, Young Lovers) was an average at best alternate universe. I was curious to see what the Hi-Evolution trilogy would do, but I had little faith that Tomoki Kyoda and Bones would produce something to redeem the series after AO.

The first film would later be promoted as finally telling an untold part of the story: the First Summer of Love, an incident in which main protagonist Renton’s father Adrock gained hero status for saving the world during an incident involving the alien Scub Coral. Unfortunately, this proved to be a bait and switch. The new animation depicting the First Summer of Love - which came about as the result of the military’s Operation Necrosis, a mission to use a weapon called Silver Box to destroy the Scub Coral and liberate Earth - comprises only a fraction of the film. The rest is made up, somehow, of footage recycled from the 2005 series with new audio dubbed over it to tell an altered story. As a result, the first film was mostly a failure.

Then the second film was announced to focus on Anemone, an immensely popular supporting character from the original series. Not only that, it would portray an angle of the Eureka Seven universe never seen before: for the first time, the story would take place in the ‘real’ world, being set in Tokyo. This represented a greater ambition on the part of the production, but also was a concept that could easily go wrong. Prior to the release of the film, I was expecting it to be another sort-of-retelling, this time focusing on the psychadelic nightmare depicted in the infamous original series episode “Acperience 1.”

If only that was what this film actually was.

I admit, when I saw this film, I had already been spoiled on its plot. I am glad I was, because had I not been, I would have found the movie incomprehensible. Tomoki Kyoda’s attitudes going into producing it have also been troubling, particularly remarks about “auteurism” in one interview. When the words “A Tomoki Kyoda Film” appeared on the screen at the beginning of this film, I gulped. I knew I was in for something.

The film opens with a flashback sequence introducing Anemone as a character and explaining some of the context of the movie’s story. Two problems immediately become apparent. One, this sequence - and all flashbacks to similar moments throughout the film - is rendered in full 3D CGI that looks extremely cheap. The colors and shading create the image of dull, flat figures created by a 3D printer moving around on CGI backgrounds. Worse, the mouth movements in these 3D CGI scenes do not match the dialogue. Viewing this movie, you will see mouth flaps regularly desync from the audio.

Worse yet, this movie is titled “Eureka Seven Hi-Evolution: Anemone” and was promoted as being an Anemone film, but Anemone is not in it. The “Anemone” in this film is, in fact, a new character named Fuuka who looks like her and has the nickname Anemone. She isn’t Anemone, though, because her character is completely different. It couldn’t be any more unlike the original Anemone’s. She’s an exact polar opposite of who Anemone actually was. The fact that this film is an even bigger bait and switch than the first one was is bad enough. But even if you roll with the idea of Anemone being a totally different character, it introduces problems that undermine the film internally. Let’s put a pin in that for now.

Anyway, the movie establishes Fuuka/Anemone’s backstory as a military brat whose father, Ken, was killed during an operation to fight an “Eureka,” one of several phenomena that destroyed the planet over time, eventually annihilating many nations and killing nearly three billion people. She is an inoffensive character, but does not have much at all of the spark the original Anemone had, instead sacrificing it for more typical tropes. Once the flashback concludes, the film jumps forward to the present day. Here, the first thing we see is a long battle sequence in which military forces battle “Eureka Seven” (the seventh Eureka), which attacks with a manifestation of the Nirvash. This sequence is drawn out and poorly plotted, making the action difficult to follow. That’s a problem throughout the film, in fact - we see cuts to similar battle scenes many times, and they always feel like incoherent sequences where things just explode to fill space.

Once this incoherent battle sequence ends, the true plot begins to kick in. Anemone consults “Dominic,” an app installed on her phone by Ken during the earlier flashback, for advice during the battle, and Dominic’s advice leads the military to decide to send Anemone “diving” into Eureka Seven using a special device. This device greatly resembles a virtual reality setup, but when activated, it sends Anemone into flashbacks to the original series. Here is where the recycled 2005 footage comes back in, but this time, it is executed better thanks to the context of it being in an “alternate world.” Anemone is sent to a moment where Nirvash and theEND battled in the original series and manages to destroy Nirvash, catching a glimpse of Eureka holding Renton’s clothing before being ejected from the dive. This causes a portion of Eureka Seven to be destroyed in the real world, which is humanity’s first victory against the phenomena.

There are several things we need to unpack here. First, the Dominic app. This is a bizarre reinvention of the character Dominic Sorel from the original series, who was a military officer that usually served as Anemone’s handler, often found himself on the receiving end of her abuse, and ultimately became her love interest. He had a story arc alongside Anemone where he came to doubt his role in the military and had his views evolve over time until he changed sides to join the heroes. Here, he is nothing but an annoying app with no real characterization. Worse, the avatar of his face rendered on the phone is depicted with CGI even worse than the flashbacks. Many of his sentences will begin with Dominic’s mouth moving, only for him to stop moving his mouth halfway through and yet continue to talk. It is a jarring sight to see every time it happens.

While the use of 2005 footage is better contextualized this time, and there is even some new footage animated in original 4:3 style, other things happen that bring down anything good that could come of this. Because all the leaps take Anemone to various battles between Nirvash and theEND, a plot hole is created: if Fuuka is the real Anemone, how was theEND there battling Nirvash before she leaped into it using the dive device? Worse, still, because of how different Fuuka and original Anemone’s personalities are, there is abrupt shifting back and forth in her character within the same scenes. Fuuka is, to put it mildly, an average anime girl who hits the usually expected tropes. Original Anemone was an ill-tempered, mentally damaged person with a violent streak and an addiction to drugs given to her by series antagonist Dewey Novak, who abused her and took advantage of her depression and need for validation to benefit himself. The problem comes in the fact that some of the recycled footage from 2005 includes showing Anemone piloting theEND in battle. Because Fuuka and original Anemone are so different, she suddenly becomes much more bloodthirsty and violent and then reverts back depending on when the individual moment was animated. It’s not consistent and takes the viewer out of the film. Another inconsistency in this same place comes with Dominic, who manifests as Dominic Sorel while inside Eureka Seven. He is present inside theEND’s cockpit while Anemone pilots, but even while new footage is animated for these sequences, Dominic is not present for the Anemone combat shots. He appears and disappears between individual shots.

Moving on. This basic setup drives much of the film. Anemone makes more dives into the world within the Eureka Seven, each time returning back to a battle between Nirvash and theEND that ends with a portion of Eureka Seven in the real world being destroyed. Because she is responsible for humanity turning the tide in the battle against the Eurekas, Anemone is turned into an idol by the military for propaganda purposes. This element is severely underplayed and has little real signficance in the plot. Her primary motivation is to come to terms with Ken’s fate battling the Eurekas, and thanks to this and intelligence gathered during the missions, the military decides to bring Anemone to meet a familiar face: Dewey Novak. Unlike the rest of the characters in the film sans Eureka herself, Dewey is the real one, having been ejected from another world heavily implied to be the world depicted in the first Hi-Evolution film. He was captured by the military outside Eureka Seven and placed in restraints that cover his eyes, while his legs are trapped in the other world and fade away to nothing.

Dewey’s presence in this film accomplishes little other than give tastes of what it could have been and provide sequel bait for a future installment. Many of his scenes are merely him saying mysterious and vaguely threatening things, none of which really make sense in the context of this movie alone. Further, because he is the Hi-Evolution 1 Dewey and Anemone is Fuuka, the reunion of the two ends up having no emotional resonance at all. In the original series, Anemone suffered terrible physical and mental abuse at Dewey’s hands, through his administering drugs to enhance her performance in battle and dispensing praise and attention in measured amounts to ensure her compliance. The idea that Anemone would be reunited with Dewey, who is now (apparently) a ragged, powerless old man at the mercy of his captors, could have been an opportunity for great mental catharsis as Anemone finally obtains closure for what Dewey did to her. But because neither one of them knows the other, this ends up being a false start. They merely speak about the mission against the Eurekas and therefore the dialogue could be between any two people. It is not something only Anemone and Dewey together could do, and feels wasted.

As her mission continues on, Anemone eventually destroys enough of Eureka Seven to expose its core. The core has a design that was clearly intended to be frightening, but instead is laughable; it is covered with small eyes and has one big one whose expression makes it look tired and unhappy about having to show up. Suddenly, Anemone gets trapped in “PLAY BACK” during her dive, a phenomenon that rewinds time back through the events in the earlier dives. She ends up being brought to a time just prior to Ken’s death, where she is confronted by Eureka.

The film was not good until this point. At this exact moment, it completely falls apart.

Eureka is no longer the naive but well-meaning girl from the original series, or even the mother who would go to any lengths for her children from AO. In fact, those Eurekas never existed at all. The “true” Eureka is a psychopath who became this way after accidentally killing Renton when her powers were awakened by her exposure to Silver Box (thus implying the event took place in the Hi-Evolution 1 world.) Since then, she has been using Silver Box’s power to rewind time and try to create new worlds where she can have her happy ending with Renton, but they all go wrong, forcing her to “PLAY BACK” and start over again. These actions were responsible for creating every other part of the franchise - the original series, manga, light novels, Pocketful of Rainbows, AO, all of them were nothing but dreams made real through Eureka’s use of Silver Box’s power, in the process releasing the Eurekas in the real world and killing billions of people.

Needless to say, this twist is appalling and fails in more ways than one. First of all, it renders the entire plot of this movie and the trilogy dependant upon knowing the events from the previous installments. If you don’t know anything about what took place in the previous installments, this twist is meaningless to you. It only lands if you have an attachment to the events now revealed to be false worlds. But if you have this attachment, the movie then steps squarely into the same mistake AO made by revealing that what you liked in the past didn’t end up the way you thought it did and wasn’t real. Worse, though, it makes it hard to care about any form of the franchise anymore, because at this point, it becomes apparent that every character can be whatever the demands of the plot dictate. When no character has an actual consistent personality that won’t change on a dime depending on the whims of the plot, there is no reason to get invested in them. Eureka is now essentially Monika from Doki Doki Literature Club, killing innocents and erasing entire worlds out of an overwhelming selfishness to get her own happy ending. It’s a complete betrayal of the central character. This twist also disrupts the logic of the timeline even further - because Anemone was leaping into battles between Nirvash and theEND, theEND already had to be there, but since Anemone didn’t meet Eureka until this point, how could she have created a world where Anemone was her enemy prior to meeting her?

Eureka offers to create a world in which Ken survived, but Anemone refuses, and after Anemone leaves, this happens.

There is little to say about this image, as it is the downfall of this franchise encapsulated in a single picture. The scene itself is even worse, rendered in the CGI and as awful to look at in action as it is in a still image. Worse still, Eureka’s dialogue in this scene has her saying that she is willing to become “the devil itself” to get her happy ending, which just butchers her character even further.

When Eureka Seven is destroyed and Eureka falls into despair over being unable to reach Renton, a new monster appears and goes on a rampage. At this point, Dewey suddenly reveals he has superpowers by breaking out of his restraints, manifesting his legs and showing that his eyes at least temporarily turn black. He telekinetically escapes from the prison, displaying powers similar to those of Truth, the main antagonist of AO. I strongly suspect he will be treated as a Dewey/Truth amalgamation in the final film of this trilogy.

With nothing left she can do, Anemone calls out an unheard phrase Ken once told her to call when she needs him. This causes Dominic to reappear, and he summons a new form of theEND that resembles Gulliver, her pet badger, into the real world. Together, they resolve to enter the monster so Anemone can try to save Eureka, and engage it in battle. This sequence is the only truly good portion of the film, offering a stunning example of what an Eureka Seven movie could have been and finally truly recapturing its magic. Contrary to the previous battle sequences, this one is well choreographed, exciting, and is enhanced by the presence of Ballet Mechanique during it. Unfortunately, this dizzying high is fleeting. When she reaches the inside of the monster and dives into its world, Anemone finds Eureka at the apartment complex from Fuuka’s childhood. This means we’re back into the awful CGI again. Eureka confesses her actions and motivations to Anemone, but Anemone refuses to give up on her and honor her request to kill her now that she no longer can use Silver Box’s power to make more worlds. This being Fuuka instead of original Anemone, and the alterations to the timeline, end up leaving no relationship between Eureka and Anemone in the “real” timeline. Like the interactions between Dewey and Anemone, there is little emotional resonance. Anemone manages to convince Eureka to leave, but before they can escape, the most stupefying event yet begins.

Millions of giant Gullivers begin pouring out of the apartment building and eating the entire world, forcing Eureka and Anemone to escape from them. If this sounds like a dumb visual, it is. The Gullivers also have the voice of Larva Nirvash from Pocketful of Rainbows for some reason. Yet this scene is treated completely seriously, with heroic music and everything, creating an embarrassing sequence that is impossible not to cringe during.

Eureka and Anemone escape, destroying the monster and causing it to drop a giant egg. Everything that happens after this point feels like a post credits scene placed in the wrong point of the film. Somehow, the Gekkostate members, Dominic Sorel, a giant Gulliver, and Charles and Ray Beams all appear in the real world despite their worlds being false. Dewey, having gotten to the surface, says more mysterious comments to set up the sequel. Anemone and Eureka talk, and Anemone says she thinks Renton may still be alive after all. Suddenly, the egg cracks open to reveal a new Nirvash model, whose drive displays Eureka’s name inside of it. Eureka realizes someone is searching for her, and the final shot of the film reveals Renton on another planet, using his Compac Drive to call out to Eureka.

Now that the plot is fully picked apart, I feel like I have to finally sit and really address one of the major elephants in the room when it comes to this film. In both broad strokes and smaller, more specific instances that would not be notable if the context of the more blatant examples didn’t exist, this film heavily copies things from the various installations of the Evangelion franchise. I don’t mean this as a reference to mere inspiration from Evangelion, which is widespread. This film is blatant, Darling in the FRANXX Episode 19-levels of copying things from it.

One doesn’t even need to actually view a single second of the film to see this, either. The teaser poster sets a trend the rest of the movie follows by brazenly copying the imagery of the Evangelion 2.22 poster.

Needless to say, this image sets the stage for what you see within the film itself. Within just the first 10 minutes, it becomes immediately apparent that Anemone lifts stylistic choices and imagery wholesale from Evangelion. Throughout the film, but most plainly in the early scenes, the scenery and composition of camera shots are directly lifted; when I first watched it, it was mere minutes into the film that I stopped and said “oh my God, this is ripping off Eva.” Smash cuts into title cards and scene transitions abound at the beginning (the first thing that made me notice the copying) and the first battle sequence is not just ‘inspired’ but flat out stolen from the well known battle sequence featured at the beginning of Evangelion. It steals the imagery of tanks and battleships engaging the enemy wholesale, and the story’s lead character (Anemone/Shinji) is being driven through the battle to an important location by a female character in a position of authority (Mischa and her crew/Misato), where the main character is coerced into piloting a weapon (the dive system/Eva Unit-01) against the enemy (Nirvash & Eureka Seven/the Angel) that nobody else can defeat.

Things don’t really improve for this topic after getting through the first battle. The unit “ASSID” that Anemone enlists and serves in is more or less a copy of NERV, both being paramilitary units ostensibly under affiliation with the United Nations to battle the enemy creatures. This might not be a big deal on its own, but in the context of the more obvious copying elsewhere in the movie, it is an example of something that is made worse by the rest of the film. We reach another shamelessly stolen point a little while later, when Anemone goes to visit Dewey. First of all, Dewey is held in a complex whose design - from the vast open spaces to the elevator to Dewey’s cell deep underground - is blatantly ‘inspired’ by Terminal Dogma, a chamber of similar design concept deep underneath the NERV base where the Angel Lilith is restrained on a cross. Accordingly, Dewey’s personal state is seemingly copied from Lilith’s. For no reason, Dewey has his arms pulled back onto a cross-like structure on the back of his wheelchair, giving him the appearance of being crucified sitting down; meanwhile, his eyes are covered with a blindfold, in context seemingly mirroring Lilith’s mask. Most notably, however, is one of the oddest things about Dewey’s appearance in this film: his legs fading away into another world. Lilith’s legs are also significantly malformed, barely forming stumps before splitting into dozens of tiny human-like legs. Both having such a specific, unusual similarity is hard not to notice. He even regains his legs after an important event related to him - the defeat of Eureka Seven and emergence of the Eureka monster - takes place, much like how Lilith regrows her legs in the original Evangelion series after the Spear of Longinus is removed from her body.

Also notably, the way Nirvash is suspended in the real world as it fights the military forces clearly mirrors the way Evangelion units are transported by air, save for the blatant crucifixion imagery being removed. This is depicted on the poster for Anemone I posted above. There are other smaller, more nitpicky examples of the specific cribbing from Evangelion I am excluding from this review to more highlight the significant ones.

Next let’s move on to something you’ve likely been waiting to see if you’re reading this review: the comparison to The Room. I’m sure that will likely cause some controversy, but I feel it’s on solid footing. As I mentioned, Kyoda remarked about having reached a point of “auteurism” with this film. That comment implies a certain mentality on his part that he absolutely failed to live up to, and it is hard to not see shades of Tommy Wiseau and his fanatical belief in The Room in Kyoda’s belief in his film’s quality. There is one point where they diverge that is troubling, though - Tommy Wiseau, after releasing The Room and seeing its reception, realized how people saw it and decided to roll with the reputation The Room acquired even though it wasn’t what he intended. Kyoda, on the other hand, seems to believe that his movie is the masterpiece he thought it to be and everyone else is wrong about it. To me, this represents a self-fulfilling prophecy in which Kyoda doubles down on previous mistakes in each new installment because they were poorly received the first time, as if he believes doing so will eventually force people to “get” what he’s doing. You can see in Anemone a doubling down on three of the worst aspects of AO: time travel/dimension hopping, butchering Eureka/past characters, and the inclusion of boring and irrelevant “real world” politics. It is like if Tommy Wiseau, instead of becoming self-aware after The Room was treated as a joke, decided to teach the public why his filmmaking style was right by getting the rights to make an adaptation of War and Peace with his style in it.

The continual doubling down on mistakes is something that can be traced through the franchise all the way back to the very first followup, the 2009 film Pocketful of Rainbows. As someone who only got into the Eureka Seven franchise many years later, my relationship to that film is different from that of people who were fans during that era, so I sought out opinions from a friend who was an original-era Eureka Seven fan. As it turned out, topics I was already honing in one turned out to have been controversial or poorly received back then, too. While Pocketful of Rainbows was ostensibly set on real-world Earth, it continued to feature the fantasy political structure from the original series, so that problem was at least partially dodged. One big flaw of Pocketful of Rainbows we did agree upon was its extensive use of recycled footage, with my friend pointing out that it also had an ugly gray filter applied to it, giving the film a “darker” look. Comparisons to what was released in 2018 are almost painfully obvious, and arguably even uglier than the filtered footage in 2009 was because of the fact the recycled footage is now 4:3 in a 16:9 film. Pocketful of Rainbows also drastically changes its characters, turning Gekkostate into the villains, Anemone into an elderly priestess/prophet of the Scubs, Dominic into a bit character who appears briefly as Renton and Eureka’s mentor before dying ten minutes into the film and popping up again later very briefly, the Scubs themselves becoming the “robotic” “EIZO,” and most notoriously, derailing Eureka in a fashion to which I will simply quote my friend:

For example, Eureka was made into this tsundere childhood friend of Renton, which felt cliche and unnatural. Not only that, but Eureka was completely helpless for much of the film. She didn't do any fighting and was just a broken bird for Renton to save. Some people took it as an insult to her character, a huge step down from the capable girl she was in the original.It's a common theme in these other entries, really. Eureka is consistently disrespected and derailed as a character to just fit the narrative. 

Another point about Pocketful of Rainbows that comes back in AO and Hi-Evolution is its use of alternate realities. While the original did establish such a concept existed, the followups have increasingly abused the idea of alternate universes to retcon previous installments, retcon themselves, and ultimately in Hi-Evolution 2, completely delete the entire franchise from existence.

As someone who came into the series late, I have always felt that Pocketful of Rainbows is an average, watchable film that fails to live up to its excellent predecessor, but I can easily understand why fans in the original era would not have liked it. It is not a good Eureka Seven film, but unlike AO and Hi-Evolution, it still feels like Eureka Seven. In my opinion, it includes enough of the spirit of the original in its fairytale-esque story (including the use of one, singular parallel universe) to still capture the whimsical tone that distinguishes the original series. That is where Tomoki Kyoda’s constant insistence on doubling down on the same mistakes over and over and over has destroyed the franchise since then, and the Hi-Evolution Anemone film is the pinnacle of that collapse. It tops all its predecessors in terms of alternate universe abuse, character derailment, and boring and irrelevant politics, choking out the soul of the franchise. As I said earlier, the Ballet Mechanique sequence is the only moment in this film that truly feels like Eureka Seven. That may be because at the core of Kyoda’s discernable vision, it would appear he wants Eureka Seven to be a darker story with a much more bittersweet ending. The problem comes with the fact that even if it was childishly naive, the unambiguously happy ending of the original series was a big part of its unique identity landing so effectively. I have mused before that what made Eureka Seven stand out was the fact that it combined a mecha anime with themes from 1960s counterculture, which effectively worked hand-in-hand with the fairytale tone of the story to create something unique. Even as childishly naive as it may have been, it was always at its heart about fighting for the right thing and for love, no matter what the odds or the forces opposing you. This wasn’t what Kyoda planned for it to be, it is what the series evolved into once other minds placed input into it. Now don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of respect to be had for a creator who sticks to their vision, but Kyoda has doubled down on the same ideas so many times now while remaining stubbornly closed-minded to the merits of the original’s evolution that any goodwill has burned away. Pocketful of Rainbows still felt like Eureka Seven because it still captured that idea of fighting for the right thing no matter what, but it did have a bittersweet ending. People criticized that movie, and Kyoda followed up by creating the grim, depressing Eureka Seven AO that retroactively inflicted damage on the original, as if it wanted to retcon what he was unhappy with. AO was rejected by fans, so he takes the same ideas and makes them even worse, flat out retconning the entire franchise out of existence with a film that barely has any identity of its own beyond undoing Kyoda’s dissatisfaction with his past work.

In the end, all these problems, in my opinion, come back to Tomoki Kyoda and his stubborn, singleminded obsession with executing a vision and forcing it to be liked. The first screening of this film in the United States, at the recent Anime Expo, was a very telling moment for it. As per my friend (original post at this link https://historyman101.tumblr.com/post/186188741243/so-i-was-talking-with-my-friend-pantsunugerumon), the Anemone screening was attended by only enough people to 1/3 fill the hall, and the film was met with silence for almost its entire runtime, the only moment eliciting cheers being the appearance of Gekkostate, Renton and Charles and Ray at the end. When the credits rolled, there was more silence followed by polite applause when the audience realized it was over. Kaori Nazuka, Eureka’s seiyuu, was in attendance and made a comment during the Q&A section of the presentation that also did an excellent job encapsulating the reason Kyoda’s approach brought the film and the franchise down. Accoring to Nazuka (voice clip provided by my friend via his friend who attended AX https://historyman101.tumblr.com/post/186190292840/kaori-nazuka-strikes-me-as-someone-who-is-just), Kyoda told her not to worry about Eureka being so different in this film because as long as she provides Eureka’s voice, it will always be Eureka. While it is true that a voice is an important part of an iconic character, it demonstrates a mentality that characterization, development and logical progression doesn’t matter. Those are key factors for any work, but especially for a character-centric story like Eureka Seven that lives and dies on getting you to care about the characters and what they experience. If characters become completely fluid and change on a dime to suit the director’s whims, the entire backbone of the story collapses.

I could go on for ages about this film, but I’ll finally wrap this review up. Since I reviewed a film that was ruined by its director’s obsession with executing a specific vision, next time, I will review a movie whose director was able to carry out their vision with exactly the creative control Tomoki Kyoda wanted himself.

[originalfunphilospher]

O.F.P.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5549367/ 

Pain has long been characterized as a subjective experience encompassing sensory-physiological, motivational-affective, and cognitive-evaluative components.18 Approximately, 100 million U.S. adults are encumbered by chronic pain19,20; pain motivates greater than 50% of all annual physician visits,21 and recent estimates indicate a pain-related financial burden in excess of $600 billion in annual healthcare costs and lost productivity.19 The three main pain systems are nociceptive, neuropathic, and central.22Nociceptive pain is caused by damage to body tissue and is usually described as sharp, aching, or throbbing pain. In response to tissue injury, invading immune cells secrete histamine, serotonin, bradykinin, prostaglandin, elevated levels of tumor necrosis factor alpha, interleukin 1 beta, interleukin 6, and interleukin 17.23 Signals of tissue injury are carried by fine C- and A-gamma peripheral nerves to dorsal root ganglia, up the spinothalamic track to the thalamus, and then on to the cortical area.24 It is important to note that this is the only nociceptive system by which the survival value of pain to alert the organism to potential or occurring tissue damage exists. Nociceptive pain has warning and defensive properties. The other two pain systems, neuropathic and central, involve nonfunctional pain signals with disease involving the interpreting system.25,26

What are people especially in States such as GA supposed to do? The MMJ card just registers them as users, I have watched my beloved Owner have the shakes at night, Insomnia and everything else behind not being able to obtain her medicines. Why make these people spend all of this money and undergo all these test adding to their anxieties, and pains to close the doors for obtaining the better strains and oils for treatment? @cali-budzz this must be shared light I apologize but we are not here to hide we are here to help and it will help if your people know what you are going through like many others, what about Prince? Rich ass people just playing with your lives.

[shxnwei]

Pick 3 questions from the BL ask you wanna answer!

23. Your prefered skill tree for said character?

Context: Character of choice in Borderlands 2: GAIGE // mechromancer. She’s just?? so cute?? and adorable?? I love her build - she’s such a good? idk it’s easy to use her as a sniper and hang back while deathtrap does all the heavy work and together you rack up a good number of kills so that dt can still float around and help and he heals you and your friends’ shield which is awesome and her lines are always so cute?? She’s such a nerd. A huge engineer nerd. She’s such a darling and I love playing her alskjd as for a skill tree, i’d have to say Best Friends Forever, which is the dt tree. it bulks up dt and makes dt extra strong so i don’t have to do any work so that he’s really good help haha and also there’s a skill that regens my health while i have a full magazine which is beloved and keeps me from dying fufu after that, i like ordered chaos b/c it gives me +250% damage and whatever the hell discord is. I still have figured it out tbh kjqlwkrqrw it just looks really trippy 

46. Favourite skins and heads?

i’d never forgive myself if i didn’t choose mechromancer’s necrosis for favourite head because i actually spent money on it orz. also it is, indeed, my favourite. i think gaige looks very very cool without hair and the hood up and eyes glowing bright green hehe. i can’t be a gaige hoe only tho so for maya, my favourite is the widewinder. it’s very cute and chic! i love the asymmetry. for zer0, there’s a tie between g0ry gh0ul and murder of cr0ws. the former b/c it invokes the inner nerd in me like look at that shit it’s so shiny and green and ghost like and also definitely ripped off from lotr and i love every damn pixel askljqr the latter i like because it’s a good amount og creepy i guess. i like axton’s goddess of wisdom head and his default head a lot (wow i’m boring) and i... kind of don’t like any of sal’s or krieg’s sorry not sorry lqwkjrqwr 

as for skins, my absolute favourite is gaige’s bye bye baby. it’s a default skin with navy blue and washed out beige-gold and i use it all the time because i just feel it works so well?? also i’m trash and i love hyperion heroism so much. it was my default skin for the longest time except it doesn’t look as good on gaige as it does on maya so i’ve permachanged (for the better some might say oh my). last favourite is gaige’s stark raving (striped and strapped) skin. i’m too lazy/not knowledgeable on other characters so i’mma stay gaige trash oops 

48. Something you for EVERY playthrough, no matter what?

idc how fast I have to run, I’m jumping into the lava and becoming Jack’s bitch. Peace.