#she was the first character i made who had a certain amount of depth

[galedekarios]

this is a personal vent post so please let me just get it all out without trying to come at me lol:

so many ppl saying they respect larian's decision to peace out and not deal with hasbro/wotc, but i have to be honest, i don't respect them at all.

they are leaving a game behind that is unfinished and a narrative mess.

they leave a game behind where everyone paid the same amount of money for it, yet depending on which character you prefer, you get less content.

the disparity between everyone else and their writer's pet ast*rion is insane. he has a half to a third more content depending on which character you compare him to.

they leave behind a sparse act 2, which is already so barren compared to act 1 and all it had to offer. act 3 is a narrative mess and lacks structure.

they leave a game behind where they made promises a handful of weeks before release where they ought to have known that they, in fact, will not be delivering said promises: access to the upper city, consequences for playing certain races across the acts (playing a drow is going to be different in act 1 and gives you advantages vs act 3 where it would give you understandable disadvantages), etc etc etc.

they leave behind a game where content was cut from the companions to make it seem like the origins have something to offer when that system is barely able to compare what origin playthroughs offered in dos2 and it hurts the game and the experience (like tara being cut for companion gale).

they leave behind a game where they promised to much variety and proclaimed in panels from hell how they struggled to show the width and depth of the game, but really? it's about as deep as a puddle. a lot of the choices do not matter. kill ethel? nah, she's alive and well in the city. no sister hags to be angry here. give karlach no infernal iron and never talk to her at all? doesn't matter, she'll survive until the end of act 3 and will still call you her bff. dissuade gale to use the orb? we'll make sure he'll still offer 3 more times just in case. send yenna away from camp bc you don't want her there? doesn't matter, she'll stay. and yes, i'm aware these are all small things, but they are part of a larger problem. almost nothing you do truly matters to the point of where i just skip most things in act 1 and 2 now.

they leave behind a game that they promise to still patch, but some things have been broken since early access / release to the point of where i'm like i'm sorry, but your word that you will continue to patch things means about as much to me as all the other empty promises. the dialogue about morena dekarios is still broken and it's been over half a year now. the astral sea scene has low-res body textures for months. i know from mutuals who love minthara that her romance is still broken. and i could go on and on.

and what gets me the most about this is all is that they have learned nothing at all from dos2: act 3 of that game was so bugged and all over the place that i couldn't muster up the motivation to finish it the first time i played. they neglected a character to the point of where he could have been removed from the game or made a general hireling (beast).

those issues were at least attempted to be fixed in the definitive edition.

with swen saying that there will be no new content anymore and stating that both bg3 and its characters are now property of wotc/hasbro, it seems unlikely we'll even get an attempt of a fix.

so what this boils down to to me is just another game company not delivering on their promises after overselling their product and more or less abandoning it after a year to move onto the next big thing.

i don't think i can respect that ngl.

[potions-of-dark-devotion]

Gotta Get This off my Chest

Severus Snape & HBO Series

Alright first off, I know you are generally expecting well thought out essays from me but here I’m going to Ramble Freeform. You’ve been warned.

I don’t know how I feel at all about another actor attempting to play Severus Snape. JK Rowling is the main producer and honestly this worries me a lot considering the amount of hatred she has for LGBTQ people and the amount of hatred Severus has gotten in the last years. This space is bad sometimes but generally we have a fantastic community of people in this snapedom who love the character as he is written positives and negatives. I for one liked Snape from the first book I read and the first movie I watched.

I’ll be the first to admit that my image of him is very much wrapped up in Alan Rickman, and tho I greatly respect other peoples images of snape and I love the fan art they make, the thing that made Alan such an amazing character actor for the part was the unabashed love he had for the character. Look at any interview of him about Severus and you will see that he went to bat for him at every turn. What if we we are given someone who sees Snape through the eyes of the marauders fandom? What if they erase all of Snapes goodness or heaven forbid write extra scenes of cruelty to Lily that didn’t exist, or have him creep over her, or physically attack her, or characterize him as the aggressor with James when we all know it was the other way around? These kinds of fears keep me from being excited about the new series and instead leave me anxious.

For one thing, I wish they had focused more on a different period of wizard history, or a different part of the 1st wizarding war or even marauders/young Severus era, because there is so much to explore. I would have liked to explore story lines that really could use more fleshing out, and if JK Rowling is going to be a part of this she could have easily written new passages or short stories to suit this new narrative. I also worry about the fact that yet again because she is a producer there will certainly be no LGBTQ characters in the narrative and that’s a waste to me. We already have a fantastic interpretation of the books, and if they are doing a redo why not cast people of color or trans or any LGBT characters in the mix? It will be the same story just perhaps fleshed out more? I’m not sure what this series will bring to the table that the movies did not unless they radically change some things.

Yet, with this interpretation we may see many thing in the series that we don’t see in the books. Severus has two big scenes at the end of POA and GOF that were totally left out of the movies, and if this was left in and the “prank” was explored more in depth we could get to see an even more complex narrative than Alan was allowed to portray in the movies (largely due to directorial choices).

Severus as we all know is a complex character that can be different or difficult to understand without a trauma informed lense and the last thing I want is for them to shove him into a gross stereotype, or give him attributes that don’t exist in the books in order to cater to certain fandoms. I’m genuinely worried about the prospect of this. I also don’t want our fandom safe spaces that we’ve spent years curating to be over run with Snape hate again just because of the series. I could be being pessimistic. It’s just been on my mind lately.

No hard feelings it’s just…Severus Snape is my comfort character and I don’t want the idea of it ruined by people who don’t really understand him or who wouldn’t bat for him the way Alan did. Please understand me. Does anyone else have mixed feelings this way?

[wikimb]

Devil Trigger 3.0 for Michael!

A 3rd attempt at designing his DT since 2021 when I made Michael (or rather revived and remade/fleshed out his character from a DMC fanfiction written in 2019...).

I could explain in length the ideas behind this DT, why such a theme, why so... tall. The ramble includes serious explanation of the origins of demonic powers he has as well. If you like to read about it then just check what's under the cut.

Below you have some drawings of his face and also his brother's (name's Gabriel) reaction to his DT form. Michael was more scared of Gabriel's reaction than he actually was and the relief he felt was quite overwhelming.

More in depth below. It includes links to the 2 older versions of his DT for fun comparison.

The theme of his DT is very birdy. The first time I designed his DT it was rather heavily inspired by pre-existing DT designs of our main characters. Nothing wrong with it but it didn't stand out and I also never really vibed with it. It didn't help that I had no experience with any kind of monster design to begin with. I still kinda don't but I can see I got slightly better seeing the 3rd version of his DT. You can check my 1st and 2nd attempts here.

Anyway there are a bit more specific reasons why it's so birdy-looking or angelic-looking (and not just because of his name). Michael was born a human in a family, which was never exposed to anything demon-related. They didn't know demons existed (to a degree... when it comes to his father but I think that'd deserve a separate post as his backstory is a bit wild and how it affected Michael in the end).

As a teenager he got lured into a cult and manipulated into abandoning his family eventually. He didn’t know how evil the cult was and didn't even realize they were a cult to begin with.

It was a cult worshipping Mundus with a leader being one his generals. Her name was Lilith and she was great at making Michael feel that she truly cared for him like a mother figure. She manipulated him into believing his family didn't care for him. Sadly, it was all a game and ever since he escaped the cult, he deals with a lot of guilt and regret. He is not sure if they're even still alive... and if they're dead... what if it's his fault?

The cult's purpose was to turn humans into demons, who would serve Mundus. To ensure that they were forced to undergo a ritual stripping them of all of their humanity, their human personality and replace all of that with Mundus overwhelming power. The power, which was great but taking away all of their free will they could have. These people were technically demons at this point. If the ritual failed then it was usually fatal. Thing is, the ritual was a stolen concept from the time when Lilith infiltrated Fortuna's Order of the Sword. In a way she influenced Agnus to come up with such a ritual, then she took the idea and modified it a bit.

Michael's case could be qualified as a failed ritual after, which he should have died but the amount of demonic power he received was not big enough to kill him (because human body would be able not to handle more) but instead keep him alive. And as a result it continued transforming/mutating him into a demon-hybrid like Dante or Vergil, but artificial.

Even if using demoning powers was causing various unpleasant side effects for him but with each use, it hurt less and less. He was reluctant to use his powers actively, fearing that they could make him loose his humanity. He still used the passive abilities such as sensing demon magic.

After certain events he unlocked his Devil Trigger. As a side note I do have 2 ideas for what these moments were but for now I am not sure which one is better.

Anyway, yes, Michael underwent a modified version of Ascension Ceremony! That's why he has such an angelic look, just like the guys from Fortuna. The demonic powers are originating from Mundus but failed to take away his free will, his personality, his humanity, his memories. In other words, he is the same like before - just juiced up with Mundus power (which he is afraid to use anyway). Certainly a result which a Demon Lord would actually hate to find out about as it has a potential to backfire. Not like he has to "worry" about three Sparda descendants already. But if you saw Mundus himself, he also looks rather angelic too. Or at least that "statue form" if that orange weird blob is meant to be really him.

Compared to DTs already seen, he is quite massive. I think it can be simply a feature of Mundus power, in which Devil Trigger state makes one much larger than in human form. Mundus is a titan-sized demon himself, while Sparda was shown to be rather human sized. Heh, maybe if Michael had Sin Devil Trigger form then he could be Mundus-sized.

Though, Michael has the ability to go Berserk (but it's not controlled by his will and it triggers under strong distress), which enhances his power in human form and in DT form. It manifests as blue fire instead of orange fire. Maybe Berserk DT can get this big maybe. Could wrestle demons like Goliath then xD

[metalgearkaiju]

Penny Character Critique Analysis: Death, writing, and her relationship with Ruby

ALRIGHTY so this is officially my first analysis post on Penny as a whole, being said a certain screen here prompted it and after reading into a lot of things and other analysis in the mix I feel like I finally can sort out my feelings about the writing of this beloved character. I want to particularly go in to depth about how she was recieved as a character as a whole, her relationship with Ruby and ultimately how her death was handled. Being one of my most favorite tragic characters I really just want to pin down some thoughts I've had that I feel it is vital I get out. There will be critique on the writing here and there and a little bit of nuts and dolts (because you gotta admit their relationship was one of the most wholesome in the show) but AHEM hear me out yall, and truly while this character holds so much importance with me, along with that comes the genuine criticism of how her arc concluded as a whole so far.

Now let me get this straight. I was not really a fan of her dying a bit. At least in the way she did and ultimately I have a lot to say regarding it after a lot of thought and more research. And this is not just because of her relationship with Ruby (not even talking about the shipping aspect, it genuinely adding a layer of humanity to her and brought out so much character development between the two which was super interesting to me) but I'll get into that in a moment.

To be clear, it is obvious that penny is written to be a tragic character. That much cannot be argued. From the beginning, Penny is shown to be under a strict amount of control from Ironwood, and even to an extent Pietro's worrying for her safety. Which is understandable.

Penny is the first of her kind, an AI that can generate an aura and sentience. She is a war weapon capable of extreme destruction, yet she is given this soft and innocent yet aloof personality that contradicts that. Ultimately, she in some ways is a walking oxymoron. What she was built for (by Ironwood) and who she truly is as a person is really interesting to me from a writing standpoint. We are shown very early on that Penny is just like every other teenage girl, she wants to sneak out, she craves relationships and knowledge about the world, but ultimately because of her differences, there is a hidden barrier she can never cross.

That barrier is broken when Ruby enters the scene. Initially hiding her synthetic identity, this topic is very sensitive for her. She looks thinks and acts like a normal girl for the most part, but isn't. And this is shown to be an extreme part of her insecurities.

We are shown the scene where Penny saves Ruby's life by stopping a car in mid traffic and drawing attention to herself, and ultimately fleeing out of fright of being found out. She's is instructed to by Ironwood to lay low of course, but this is also likely due to her insecurities about being perceived as different. This all changes when Ruby accepts Penny as her first friend, holds her hands and tells her that she is valid the way she is. I cannot describe how this scene made me feel the first time watching it, but the comfort from Ruby telling her that it doesn't matter what's inside of her, she still accepts her as a girl and a friend and won't abandon her. It's perfectly executed, and all in all a really interesting addition to the Penny Ruby dynamic as whole. Penny just wanted a friend, and Ruby accepted her and validated her in her humanity.

We see their relationship begin to develop a bit and ultimately season three hits. Penny is used as a plot device by the villians as a message and ultimately offed in one of the most brutal ways. This scene is very tragic in of itself, and while Penny and Ruby had not yet been able to get as close, it was for sure that their relationship was certainly unique enough to where it really devastating Ruby at that moment. And with good reason; she was killed in front of everyone in the tournament to villianize Ruby's teammate.

All in all, fraud, framing, and Penny getting dying overall seems to be a very prevent theme that adds to the tragedy of this character.

Season 7 hits, and we are all greatly surprised to find Penny is rebuilt, and the fans recieve this REALLY well for the most part. In her short time she was a really interesting and honest to god adorable and enjoyable character, and she was no exception to fans. There is something so interesting about how you can utilize exploring humanity with a robot character that isn't quite human, but deep down craves to understand others and acceptance. Penny from the start is put in this box that separates her from others, but as her relationships fold out the lines begin to blur. Is she really just a machine, or is she much more than that? Ruby is truly a character that helps her find herself and truly learn about the world and what it means to have human emotions and relationships, and that in itself is beautiful. We have this character that is almost akin to an innocent child learning about the world, what is right and what is wrong, and what it means to love. Ultimately, I still feel like love in a general sense is a big theme shown with Penny and her friends, along with the selflessness she shows when anyone she cares about is about to get hurt, and that gives her the humanity she craves.

Continuing on with season 7, Ruby and Penny get a little closer, and the relationship is expanded on. Unfortunately however, Penny still has a duty to Ironwood as the protector of mantle, and that is her primary purpose. We are shown that the authority over Penny still has not quite loosened and that she is still ultimately regarded as a weapon, not a free willed person who should be doing teenage girl things (making friends, learning basic social skills and going through normal teenage experiences). Even with good intentions as a caring father, we still see some of that worry and protectiveness from Pietro as he is afraid of losing her again. Aside from her interactions from Ruby and gang, Penny isn't really able to just live as a normal girl, but is faced with a huge amount of expectations and responsibility as a powerful and dangerous machine that was built to stop evil.

Back to the point I was bringing up earlier, Penny is tragic, and we definitely see this in volume 7, and Penny still isn't getting a break. She is framed on live TV as a volatile killer and is immediately despised by the public. This of course is all a political scheme to sway an election, but Penny is just a tool for their propaganda. And we are shown how Penny's feelings aren't really regarded in all of that, and even Ironwood cares more about how he looks than Penny's feelings (and trauma) on the matter. This leads to the whole fiasco where Penny's decommissioning comes up for debate due to the fact that she is just immediately regarded as a volatile threat. This attack on her humanity hits hard, and weighs very heavily on Penny's heart.

Season 8 comes, and it just doesn't end with the tragic shit. This season however is really vital for Ruby and Penny getting closer and we finally see their interactions bloom, as well as getting some of those more sentimental scenes where Penny is reminded that she doesn't have to be like everyone else to be human, because she is accepted the way she is and not for her purpose or expectations. NND share a lot of hugs this season and truly bring out a lot of soft moments between the two showing how impactful their friendship is.

Ultimately as I said above, the bad guys aren't done. And this time, Penny is hacked and used as a tool to open the vault. The entire virus scenario is really hard on Penny and with the whole fiasco with Ironwood and his treatment of her she is really distraught throughput most of the season (rightfully). Through her expectations with higher ups, as well as quite literally suffering a slow and painful infection leading to her self termination Penny is in an extreme amount of agony. This doesn't help when Ironwood basically held the life of an entire city over her head should she not leave her friends and return to him to do her duty as a machine. And all of those expectations and choices are placed on what is ultimately just a teenage girl who is new to the complexities of humanity.

The points I'm mainly trying to make here is Penny cannot get a break whatsoever, she's under an immense amount of pressure and expectations probably 24/7, and once again she is used as a tool with no regards for her consent or humanity because everyone sees her as a soulless machine.

And I cannot tell you how frustrating that is to see such a sweet and innocent character be treated that way, but like I said initially, she was written to be dramatic, tragic, and excruciating.

Now let's get to the big topic on hand here, Penny's second death.

Now don't get me wrong, I love my share of tragic characters, and I fully believe there are ways death can be a necessity in a character arc to convey powerful imagery. Ultimately this comes down to my opinion as a creative writer, and I in all honesty am not a fan of how Penny's death was handled in hindsight.

Within minutes of becoming human and being saved from the virus, Penny is brutally killed by Cinder (once again) and dies in assisted suicide from Jaune. When I say this scene almost made me cry it was for mixed reason. While I saw this coming, it did make me a little sad considering she was ONCE AGAIN used as a tool by Cinder to get what she wanted. And while she risked her life for thousands, the only ever autonomy she had was choosing her own suicide in that scene, and that is extremely tragic and upsetting in of itself.

I can go on and on about wasted potential because that is a thing but characters arcs can be cut short sometimes. That happens.

But my issue with all of this is ultimately the aftermath.

We have this really important character character brought back from the dead, given character growth, hopes and aspirations only for her to be forced to choose suicide the only time she is given a choice for herself. And I'm not sure about how others feel, but as she is quite literally miserable throughout V7, V8, (and even shown to some extent that she was suicidal to an extent when she asked Ruby to kill her when she was infected with the virus). Giving us her final wish to die so that she isn't a burden or tool to be fought over conveys in all honesty a really sad message about her character and in of itself does a lot of injustice.

But once again, she is written to be a tragic character that doesn't get the good ending.

How that is treated after her death though is really where I have my issues however.

We see in volume 9 that Penny's death is somewhat relevant, Ruby hears her, faints yada yada, but immediately wakes up and there isn't much discussion beyond it. And what's truly annoying is that there was commentary released by CRWBY that the audience was supposed to assume there was an offscreen discussion about how Penny dies, and we are supposed to understand that. Of course we get that vital scene between Neo and Ruby that have illusion Penny tell Ruby that she meant the world to her to try and sway her emotions. I feel like that was a very critical moment in Ruby and Penny's relationship considering Neo weaponized pure emotion from Penny to hurt Ruby, and we are seen she is greatly affected by this. A lot of fans even took inspecting that this meant Ruby held deep hidden away feelings for Penny, which a lot of CRWBY (even Miles Luna himself) acknowledged.

In the end though, V9 doesn't really allow enough grieving time for Ruby and her death isn't really discussed and given closure. And that in itself isn't an issue, but it's where we go from here that I am really going to be critical of.

So we have some pivotal points:

Penny's death is never really a discussion, it's just washed over by team RWBY aside from Weiss's brief mention of it

Ruby's reactions to Penny's death (and ultimately the discussion of her method of death) is brushed over a bit, although not entirely

As CRWBY said, we were expected to have assumed it happened off screen, and that in itself feels disrespectful to the amount of character relevancy Penny had as of late

We actually got some really nice scenes from Ruby regarding Penny, however something feels off

And I want to talk about what exactly that off feeling is, because I truly feel like yes, it wasn't the time to completely mourn Penny in this strange new world, however if she is never mentioned significantly beyond this and brushed under the rug, I can truly say I'll be mad as that is a disservice to her character.

So no, I am not against the killing of characters, or tragedy for the matter, but I care about the messages you convey when you do so as well as what you do with it after.

Upon Pyrrhas death, we got the closure between Jaune and her we needed, the statue scene happened, conversations were had, and the discussions that needed to occur did. This just has not happened with Penny (yet) and I am honest to god just hoping we will see more of this in V10 (if that will even go into production) because Penny's relevancy doesn't feel finisher yet. With all the alluding to it all across V9, and the unresolved issue between Jaune and Ruby, I feel like there needs to be a genuine discussion about Penny to honor her character and give the closure to Ruby and Penny's intimate friendship. It's only fair to Penny's character, sacrifices, and the overall message RWBY wants to portray if they truly plan on keeping her permanently dead this time.

And regarding that, while I feel it is unlikely she will come back (I just don't want to get my hopes up because I'm kind of upset in general) I feel like RWBY has set themselves up to where they could do anything at this point so I say do it well. If you are going to keep her dead, address the themes, honor the character and give it realistic closure with Penny's close relationships (primarily Ruby). If this is in any way setting up a future scenario where mentions of Penny will be relevant (I don't even know at this point because we still have to deal with Pietro just having to deal with his daughter dying twice and just having to suck it) I will be interested to seeing how it is handled, because in the end the care into the writing is what I and others seem to care about the most and how you honor that character. For some that is honoring her death, and for a lot of people, it is that killing her at all was a stupid message utilized for torture porn with no real sentiment or closure to such an important characters commencement.

If the writers ever truly bring her back though, I hope they can finally honor Penny's wishes to have her own autonomy instead of consistently stripping her of her choices and using her as a plot device. And if she is to be dead, for God's sake give the closure needed for the intense and sensitive themes you wish to portray on a teens show. It's only fair to as someone who fell in love with this characters charisma and positivity.

I personally am okay with Penny coming back down the line (as it's been kind of set up to unintentionally imply Penny's relevance is not concluded or over yet, and her dying permanently opens up a lot of responsibility to properly address the themes RWBY chose to utilize) but whatever they choose for the love of god do it right. Penny in all honestly though should never have been brought back just to end her own life, I feel like how abrupt it all was and the immediate (presumed) moving on from it was weird and not considerable but that is simply my opinion.

That's all I have to say on the matter, I hope her relevancy is not truly gone and that Penny and Ruby can get that proper closure over everything that's happened because after all they've done to build eachothers characters and become the most tragic pairing in the show, its owed for sure, however it's gone about.

[butterflydm]

wot rewatch (book spoilers edition): 2x3

And here are my additional thoughts that contain spoilers through all the teasers and the books through book 13: A Memory of Light.

I was watching show-only reviews to try to figure out if it's safe to call Ishy 'Ishamael' yet but reaction seems mixed on whether or not Moiraine's words clued people in on the situation, so I'm going to stay ambiguous about him in my book spoiler-free posts for now.

I loved the changes that the show made to all Nynaeve's tests. They all make sense in context of the show and Nynaeve's character, they all tell us something about her, and there's also some great connective threads between them. We've known for a while (or guessed) that her first test would take place when she was a kid because her mom appeared in the casting lists... quite a few months ago. Ages ago. But I definitely prefer this one to the book version. It was so heartrending and touching.

2. The crimsonthorn strand throughout the tests is very interesting to me. I talked about this in the other post, but on a more spoilerly note, I like that the show is not defaulting to "all the Wondergirls feel a draw towards Green because They Like Men" and that Nynaeve is actually getting tugged between Yellow and Red in these last two episodes, as Liandrin tries to influence her. It makes me wonder if maybe they'll have Elayne incline towards maybe Brown ("I like to tinker with things") instead of Green. Though Nynaeve did put Egwene in the Green Ajah in her personal AU (which did such a good job in only using elements that Nynaeve was aware of when she went into the arches! No Elayne in Nynaeve's AU; and no Rand because she believes him to be dead).

4. Side note: thrilled that Nynaeve does not have to be naked for the test. The amount of times that women have to strip down for rituals in the books gets pretty ridiculous (especially when men doing the same kind of ritual -- ex. going to Rhuidean -- does not require them to strip). Stripping down to her shift makes the point well enough.

5. A thought I had about the people attacking the Two Rivers -- could this have been happening during the Andoran Succession Crisis that led to Morgase being Queen? And so the Queen's Guard, instead of keeping the roads clear of bandits, were busy with the civil war among the nobility, which let bandits get even as far as the Mountains of Mist. That could actually serve as a really good reason for the Two Rivers to basically nope out of being part of Andor -- "you were so busy squabbling amongst yourself that you let bandits rove the lands and kill innocent people". I'm not certain if the timeline matches up, but I will put it out there as a theory.

6. Her second test is based on the same worries that she had in the books -- that she's abandoned the Two Rivers and she won't be there when they need her and someone who isn't a good Wisdom will have taken over for her -- but shifted the details to hit harder in the show version, and to use characters that the show viewers are already familiar with. It really worked for me. I also liked them essentially using Perrin's lies about Rand to Tam in the books for Nynaeve here instead, where it makes a lot more sense -- she doesn't want to steal the only comfort that she can give a dying man by telling him that his son is dead.

7. Liandrin genuinely got herself invested in Nynaeve! I liked seeing that. I really like that the show is giving more emotional depth to our Darkfriends. Both Sheriam and Liandrin come across as very genuinely upset that Nynaeve hasn't returned through the arches. Because they both think of themselves as the good guys! Liandrin's motives in the show seems to be along the lines of "You need to have power so that others can't have power over you" while Sheriam's in the books were about being Black Ajah essentially to get ahead in the Tower but never expecting that she would actually need to do anything TOO terribly bad in exchange. Neither of them wanted Nynaeve to die or get hurt (they were both probably hoping to turn her to the Black Ajah). It's also really funny that it's entirely possible that they do not know that the other one is also Black Ajah.

8. Theory: being able to sense latent channelers may be a Talent rather than something either everyone or no one can do. Because it's one specific damane who comes out to point out the individual women to get dragged off to be damane, rather than it being the two women who were used to attack the village.

They are hitting the dehumanization angle hard. Egwene's 'training' is going to be so hard to watch.

9. Ishamael doesn't seem like he was expecting to find Perrin here, so I don't think Ingtar has been in regular contact with him. I really do wonder where exactly the Darkfriend social happened, timeline-wise, to the rest of the season thus far.

10. Ah, goodbye, Uno. I'll miss you, but you went out like a boss. Given the changes that were made to the plot, this does make a ton of sense -- Uno is not a man who backs down easily and he's also not a plot-relevant character really... ever, at any point. He's a fun character for flavor but someone who can be sacrificed to illustrate a narrative point without needing to change any of the story in the future.

11. Changing Logain to being able to see men who can channel as opposed to ta'veren makes a lot of sense on a practical level -- Mat was sitting right next to Rand, so if he saw ta'veren, then he would have seen both of them glowing; making it about Rand being a channeling focuses Logain's attention and memory in on Rand specifically.

12. Rand being kept out of the knowledge loop here kinda cracks me up because "Rand is on an information diet" is something that kept coming up in the books and it frustrated me so much because, in the books, it was consistently a result of his allies just never being willing to tell him a fucking thing ever unless he bullied them into it or spied on them. It makes a lot more sense here that he doesn't know what's going on with anyone else's plotlines! Taking something frustrating from the books and making it make sense is a really good habit that the show has been doing.

13. Lanfear continues to be the funniest girl in the world. She is just on cloud nine so far in s2, cruising along living her best life. Also, we see that her inn cheekily has her personal symbols as their sign.

14. Given how much Rand is experiencing the class divide in Cairhien and how much he's seen the poor get mistreated and looked down on by the rich and titled, I almost wonder if he isn't going to get a bit of Mat's arc from the books when he finds out that Elayne is a noble and needs to realize that she's not like the Cairhienin nobles.

15. Mat escaping from one abusive situation only to land right into another one definitely reminds me of the Tylin->Tuon pipeline in the books, of course. The main difference being is that we're dealing with mother figures in the show and not 'romances' (please take that word with a very large grain of salt). Possibly the biggest way that they can set Mat x Tuon up for success is actually showing us her relationship with her mother and how toxic and cruel the environment that she grew up in is. I feel like not killing off the old Empress at all and instead having Tuon take over a faction of the people and split off them off from the Empire would give us a sense that she really IS Not Like The Other Seanchan, instead of just wanting people to believe Mat when he says it despite there being no evidence in Tuon's actual behavior (I'm trying to remember who originally suggested that idea, but it was a while ago, so I have forgotten; I'm sorry!).

16. Liandrin grinding in to Mat how worthless and what an awful friend he is will, presumably, be some pretty good setup for him to show himself to be both loyal and vital in the final episode, though there will probably be more pain for him in the upcoming episodes (maybe involving what happens with Min's viewing about him stabbing Rand).

17. Lanfear is buzzing on such a high of getting show off of her Personal Dragon to a fancy group of lords and ladies at the start of this party.

18. Rand's conversation with Moiraine's sister is particularly fascinating! There's a queen of Cairhien but I suspect that it's not a Damodred (maybe I'll be wrong and Anvaere is the queen! We'll see!). That Anvaere reaches out to the mysterious ~outlander lord~ and shares so much with him is very intriguing, especially if we end up seeing her again later in the season (once Moiraine arrives in Cairhien?).

18. Here is where the cracks in Lanfear's illusion of perfect happiness with her New Lews Therin are beginning to show: he's keeping secrets from her, he's doubting her, and then he just leaves her behind. She is probably getting some very unhappy flashbacks right about now.

19. I wonder if Rand's bad experience with Logain here will inform his choices in the future. In the books, there isn't really a good reason for him to give Taim free rein over the school, but if it's more of a "Taim vs Logain" situation and he already doesn't trust Logain (and Taim appears less affected by the madness), then him trusting Taim might make more sense.

20. Mat being released from a prison cell and not knowing where to go and then (temporarily in this case) returning to his prison gives me echoes of "Mat inexplicably appears by magic in Ebou fucking Dar, a place that treated him like shit for months" from A Memory of Light, lol.

21. Perrin feeling wary about getting too wolfy because of his encounter with Ishamael feels like a much better reason that we got in the books... though I wonder if we'll follow it up by having him meet... shit, the guy who lost himself to the wolf; do not remember his name. But I'm thrilled to have him hanging out with Elyas and the wolves (Hopper?) for now.

22. Liandrin calling Mat Cauthon, agent of chaos, "nothing if not predictable" feels like it needs to bite her in the ass at some point.

23. Yeah, on rewatch, the sex dream is definitely Lanfear feeling like she can finally show her possessiveness and anger in Rand's dream. She is MAD at him for keeping secrets and leaving without her, but she can't show it when he's awake because it doesn't fit her carefully crafted persona. She does NOT like her men with an air of mystery -- she wants to know every tiny thing that he's thinking and feeling. I wonder if Rand actually did light the roof on fire or if Lanfear helped it along -- she's definitely taking advantage of his vulnerability in the aftermath of the fire. "If you ever leave me like that again, I will kill you." Yeah, that's absolutely Lanfear.

And, you know, her inn burning down does mean that she doesn't have to worry about dealing with it anymore. Now that she's had a taste of Rand in fancy coats, I think she probably wants to try to figure out a way to make it happen again.

24. Nynaeve's dream does have a couple of painful easter eggs in it -- Mat gets a wound over his eye; Perrin gets killed by an axe.

Nynaeve does forcibly bring back the arches in the books too, just without so much happening in the illusionary life. But I liked this a lot because of how much it gave us from the other characters who believed that Nynaeve was dead.

25. So, my theories about what we might get in episode four. Wow.

Rand's trajectory... I don't think he's done with Logain. But I feel like ep4 is going to be a big one for him, based on the title (Daughter of the Night). Rand may find out the truth about Selene in this episode, which would be a. be a pretty big betrayal but also b. might make him realize that it's not likely that the Dark One is actually dead.

Moiraine is presumably on her way to Cairhien right now, but it doesn't seem like she thinks Rand himself is there, but more that she's investigating the poem situation, so they may run across each other by accident.

Everyone is going to get to react to Nynaeve powering her way out of the arches (like a boss). I am very curious if Lan is going to spend an episode in the Tower before going after Moiraine... but if Actual Lan goes to the Tower... hard to imagine he wouldn't tell Nynaeve, at least, that Rand is still alive. He knows how deeply Nynaeve cares about the Two Rivers kids.

Unless Liandrin tricks Nynaeve, Elayne, and Egwene into leaving the Tower before Lan arrives there?

Where are Mat and Min going! Mat can't be going after Egwene & co to save them because... nothing to save them from at the moment. Where would Liandrin want him to be led? Falme? I mean, maybe, but he can't channel, so it's not a secure prison for Mat like it would be for the girls.

Perrin's storyline is going to teach us more about the Seanchan and wolfbrothering, I imagine. Maybe some scouting. He can truthfully tell any Seanchan soldiers (if he runs across any) that he's taken the oaths.

Will we follow right on from episode 3 or is there going to be a timeskip to give the characters some time to travel to new locations?

[artbyfinnbrown]

I Read the Re: Zero IFs

I’ve got thoughts on each of them. Some of these thoughts are more in-depth than others.

Wrath IF: What is this guys deal even? 

The two other “Evil” Subarus (Pride and Gluttony,) while certainly unhinged, had very clear goals (getting Emilia on the Throne, and patching together [Natsuki Subaru], respectively).  But I can’t even tell what this Subaru wants. And to be honest, I don’t even know if Subaru knows want Subaru wants. 

Also, how exactly Subaru became a crime lord? I don’t doubt that Subaru COULD become a crime lord, but I’m curious as to the step-by step process that got him to this point.

Sloth IF: Rem should have been allowed to girlboss more.

Overall though, a very fun story about Subaru, Rem, and their 2 roommates, the wolf ninja who can clone himself, and half of a great spirit. Compared to all the other IFs, this one feels so disconnected from the main story. I don’t think anyone mentions what’s been happening in Lugunica once during this IF.

This also means that the characters form this IF are still around right?  I know Halibel shows up at some point in the main route. But is main route Zarestia still around? Does she still want to kill people? Or is she stuck separated for her light orb? Also, there’s technically another surviving member of the Oni tribe who may be alive? She was alive at some point, maybe not anymore. 

Pride IF: What a drama nerd. This guy can’t do anything with a given situation except escalate it. Ranting at a man about how much you want to be him, and then wishing him a happy birthday, as the city burns around you, was pretty funny. From a certain perspective.

(I make these jokes because what he’s doing is really sad. I’m pretty sure that Greed Subaru is the only one who has Pride Subaru beat for having died the most. He really threw everything away - including his life - for the sake of one girl who was nice to him)

Lust IF: I’m disappointed in myself for reading this, but not as disappointed as I am that this IF exists in the first place.

 

Greed IF: The Tragedy if the AU is greatly increased by the events of canon. Technically this is applicable to all of the IFs, but a few small changes to canon could have easily made this if one of the “Good” ones.

There is a world where Canon went a little differently, and Main Route Subaru was able to save almost everyone, but not everyone at the end of the Arc 4. And he would have accept that no matter how many times he tries, he can’t save everyone. If that had happened, Greed IF could have been hopeful, in a rather depressing way.  “Oh, Subaru may have destroyed himself mentally, but he got to save everyone!” But that’s not how canon went. Main Route Subaru did save everyone, which in turn invalidates everything Greed IF Subaru believes.

Subaru didn’t need to abuse return by death. He didn’t need to stretch his relationships to the limit to keep people safe. He didn’t need to make a deal with a witch. Subaru didn’t have to do any of this. But he has to tell himself that that he did, otherwise the small amount of mental stability he has left will shatter.

Gluttony IF: I expected Subaru to be much more unhinged.

Obviously his actions are incredibly messed up. Everyone around him knows this, and even Subaru knows this, but believes his actions are an entirely necessary evil. But he never acts “crazy”. In all the interactions through the IF, he acts “normal”. If anything, seems less eccentric than Main Route Subaru. In all of the conversations he as, even if the other people act increasing confused or angry, he alway acts calm and rational, even when he’s talking about things like flooding an entire city.

And that honestly makes him even more unsettling.

[arceespinkgun]

Oh it's 100% about people not seeing Elita One as a character deserving to be an equal to Optimus. Arcee is pretty much the poster girl of Transformers and while I love that she's both a warrior and maternal figure, she's not a leader and nowhere near Optimus in terms of authority. People objecting to portray Elita One as an equal to Optimus or feature her at all in media feels almost reminiscent of when women were starting to get jobs, there were CERTAIN jobs for women and practically none of them were leadership roles. Transformers can have well written female characters but they won't be well treated by the narrative or creators, Transformers can have more than one female character in a comic/show but they will be pitted against each other (whether or not they're on different factions). Transformers can even have female leaders but they will never be perceived as equal to Optimus. That's pretty much the message that I've been getting from both Hasbro and fans

I totally get what you're saying, and I would've agreed 100% about ten years ago, but I actually think this is a fandom problem and not so much an issue with the shows/comics themselves now!

Cyberverse and Earthspark have the best ratio of genders ever in the franchise so far (Earthspark's seems practically 1:1 for women and men) and have a wide variety in relationships between women, from supportive friends to enemies. In Cyberverse, Windblade and Slipstream began as enemies but then found a lot of common ground, and the majority of Windblade's character development had to do with her grief over Slipstream's death—and Windblade and Chromia were nothing but close the whole time. Obviously in Earthspark, the Maltos are a supportive family, and the main villain of the series was a woman for a long time. While I still feel really bitter about Slipstream's death in Cyberverse, I didn't feel like any other woman was treated poorly by the narrative, and so far I feel like all the women in Earthspark have been treated very well by the narrative and have had a lot of strong development. I also want to note something about genderswaps in these shows—there were many, and I think they were all successful: Clobber is way more three-dimensional than Lugnut, Frenzy was almost never even in anything or given development until Earthspark. Plus, I feel like for me personally, I just respect the characters way more post-genderswap. I always thought Skywarp was totally boring, but her being a woman in Cyberverse, and both a woman and given more depth in Earthspark, made me see her even in other media in a new light. Same with Frenzy—post-Earthspark, I was actually excited to see the character do stuff in my Marvel read-through when I would not have cared at all before.

And sure, there only seems to be one Matrix, but Elita-1 in Earthspark as second-in-command is an authority who seems to be more respected by the Maltos than Optimus is in a lot of ways. Dot also seems to have the most authority within the Malto family, and among the Terrans, Twitch seems to have taken on a leadership role and has been getting a large amount of development. In Cyberverse, Shadow Striker ends up becoming Decepticon leader, and I think she may have been the first female leader of the Decepticons in the whole franchise?

I don't like the IDW comics overall, but in the first IDW series, Windblade becomes leader of all of Cybertron, but it's rarely mentioned. Arcee was basically second-in-command of the Autobots (also, she has a supportive relationship with her love interest who's also a woman!) for most of the later comics in that series, which are the ones most often discussed, but a lot of fans ignore that. Okay, there was a ton of room for improvement, but Elita-1 in the 80s cartoon was successfully portrayed in my opinion as an equivalent authority to Optimus Prime, especially given she must've been holding out for millions of years! Oh, and the Skybound comics have only been going for seven issues so far, but I noticed we already see Elita being an authority and a dynamic staring to form between Carly and Arcee.

I think something I've noticed is that all the problems you mention were absolutely severe in TFA and TFP, and those are often what fans on this site have seen. IDW also seems really popular here, but notice how IDW2 is almost entirely ignored, when that was the series that handled women better... and how in the instances where the first IDW series did make some improvements, people on here ignore the women to focus on dudes? As an IDW Elita-1 fan, I can't help but notice that all the big scary evil violent disabled queer-coded guys have tons of fans on Tumblr, but Elita is usually ignored or derided despite being better developed in the end than most of them. And Earthspark and Cyberverse, the shows I think did things best, often either get totally ignored on here, or criticized way more intensely than other, worse series.

TL;DR Totally agree about the fandom and about a lot of series, but I think newer series have been improving a ton and that it's good to note that improvement! Plus even when earlier series succeeded, people on here ignore the women a lot, unfortunately. I think this is more the perception issue and not so much about portrayal.

[pocketgalaxies]

okay i have a confession...i never liked ashton...i tried, especially when we found out he has chronic pain and a legitimate reason for being an asshole...but i just can't get on board with him and often roll my eyes at his scenes. and that last convo with laudna made me so frustrated bc it seemed like he was totally emotionally dismissive and wanted to play the "i had it worse" olympics. i've never disliked a cr character before and i don't know what to do about it. any advice? or anything that you particularly like about ashton that could help me get on board a little?

hi anon thanks for asking! unfortunately i can't help you a huge amount because i also! have never liked ashton and have historically had trouble finding reasons to like them. but i will try my best to help

well the first thing i'd say is i don't think you need to find reasons to get on board with ashton. interrogating your feelings about a character is always good to take in the full depth of their behavior, but if you go through that whole process and you STILL don't like them then maybe they just aren't your cup of tea. which is totally valid and acceptable!!! and i know it's not easy to dislike something about a show you love so much, but i'd say just try and sit with that and tell yourself that you're allowed. there are so so many fish in the cr sea and you're far from expected to love each one

that being said if you still want to hear my thoughts here they are! (it got very very long)

i've seen a few people mentioning that ashton might've intentionally started that conversation with laudna because he knew she specifically would be in the position to shoot them down. a sort of self-inflicted scolding, i think. watching the ep, i also got the sense that he was intentionally trying to upset her by bluntly phrasing things to dig into her trauma and i think it makes sense based on what we know about them. maybe he wanted someone to yell at him and tell him he's being weak (in a lot of ways similar to early-c2 caleb's pervasive self-hatred driving him to intentionally seek out places/people with which he is made to feel like shit). or maybe he needed someone else to look him in the eye and tell him "stop hiding and let the people around you help you." maybe they needed a reason to say out loud that they're only with the hells bc they're using them, because that's the only way they can hear themself and how ridiculous and false that sounds. who knows! regardless, i think it's uninformed to say that tal wasn't doing this on purpose. it means something, and it opened up something that will most certainly have some growth and ultimately resolution later

this is kinda separate but we could also get into the details of his word choice, like what did he mean by "i know a loneliness that you don't" was he just talking about a certain kind of loneliness that he perceives to be distinct from the loneliness that many other of the party members have experienced? (worth pointing out that bells hells is a party full of people defined by their loneliness in many ways. food for unrelated thought) is it true that ashton's loneliness is unique to them and no one else in the party? is it even meaningful to put people's loneliness into different boxes? how has loneliness affected the way they distance themself from some people vs. the way they latch protectively onto other people? maybe those questions are of interest to you!

i think ashton is a very meaty character with a lot of complicated stuff going on and tal loves to create characters like this, characters defined by arrogance or a self-aggrandizing belief in their own suffering, or characters who are intentionally and unrelentingly abrasive. they become likable and compelling because of the underlying context and past and often conflicting and changing behavior over time.

it's just that those types of characters will always be a little polarizing, and i personally have a LOT of trouble enjoying tal's characters, because that's just my personal preference. they are complicated and juicy but they historically just do not do it for me. i was very incensed by that conversation with laudna because i am a laudna stan above all else and i thought ashton was being Awful to her, even if i can understand that they knew they were being awful and had reasons to be that way. the important thing is that i recognize it's a double-standard in my own mind and i know that about myself, and i'm not being a willingly narrow-minded jerk to the fans who like ashton and were thrilled by the convo. but i don't have to feel forced to like them and read/reblog meta about how sad they actually are etc etc. you know what i mean?

anyway at the risk of going on a tangent where i complain about that convo for no real reason related to your question, i will stop talking now. hope this helps in some way or another! your feelings are valid and you definitely are not alone in struggling with this character, if the posts and tags i've seen the past few days are any indication. just be nice to people and it will be all good. cr characters are fictional but cr fans are not <3

[fishesmaniack]

SPOILERS for Murder Drones ep 8!!!!

I think the episode wasn't the greatest, not going to lie, for many reasons. I'll go into each of them in-depth, and hopefully, I can articulate my opinions in a slightly above-average way. This will also be somewhat of a retrospective of the series as a whole because, right now, episode 8 is the last episode, and because of that, it is the combination of everything that's built up to it. --the series' pacing as a whole-- A lot of people say the show's pacing is all over the place, but I think the way it handles its serialized plot structure is pretty well done. The first episode introduced the audience to the world, and subsequent episodes went into depth about certain aspects of the world, such as the main villain of the series, how worker drones can have powers, and the lore of humans before their subsequent eradication. Two big highlights of this for me would be how episode 3 bleeds into episode 4 really well. It introduces the audience to drone witches, their abilities and drawbacks, which are creepily similar to the disassembly drones. The 5th episode explores more of that concept and also puts a sense of distrust in the narrative as it's been told so far. This distrust boils over to its absolute peak in episode 7, which is by far my favorite episode because of how it recontextualizes the entire series with its big twists and turns to the narrative thus far. Now, I was hoping this momentum would be kept for the final episode of the series, but it felt so messy and rushed with how it was just an overextended action scene for the most part, and the plot armor didn't help, which made the said action scenes feel really strange. There were way too many times when someone should have died, but they just didn't. This wouldn't be as bad though if the episode wasn't just a giant action scene though. --wasted potential-- And that segways into the (probably) last segment of this post, which will go into detail about how I felt like the potential we had with the narrative leading up to this point was squandered. The biggest example for me would be how I wish they just actually killed off V because bringing her back along with Beau in the body of a sentinel brings up way too many questions like "how did Beau take over the sentinel's body?" "why was he still trying to kill them" "How did V and Beau fight off the other sentinels" and more but also completely overshadowed Khan, Thad, and Lizzy aka the side characters who were built up to having more screentime at the end of the last episode. This trio of characters had the least amount of screen time in episode 7, but it was still enough to build intrigue for what they would do in episode 8. But then they just didn't really do anything when the time arrived.

Then this was made worse by how I thought we were going to have them at first teamed up with J of which is another character with way too little screen time in the series. Before she would be tricked by The Absolute Solver because of her not being helped by Uzi in episode 5 but no, in the end she was just completely fine with helping someone she was shown to not be all that fond of that is wearing the skin of someone who is the only person we know of that she actually liked. And this brings us to how I hate that Uzi and N just immediately reconnected, which brings up the question of why they were separated in the first place at the end of the 7th episode. Like I was really thinking Uzi would be in some Majora's Mask pocket space thing where she would reconnect with her mother before learning about the secrets of Cyn/The Absolute Solver. Like Cyn would have been a worker drone with her own life before being thrown away or something. And she would be just as much of "Cyn" as The Absolute Solver is. This would segway into Flesha getting a sneak attack on the three of them, like what happened with the Nowhere King from Centaurworld. Now, this mostly came from amazing art I saw of a transferm Cyn concept (which was by @/the-mighty-e), but it still felt really probable to happen for real in the plot. --the final segment for real-- Okay, so the last section was way too long so I made this its own segment. Now to start this off I want to say I really disliked how Doll only had one small cameo at the end showing her lifeless body as a joke of which is pretty cold because Lizzy was never even able to see her best friend/possible girlfriend again since the 3rd episode let alone what came of her in the end. Now that we're on the topic of the final episode's ending, fusing Cyn with Uzi feels really weird because of how Cyn and N were coded as siblings. Like I have no idea why she would refer to him as her brother if she didn't see him as such. And before you say that was only to manipulate him, it is implied that The Absolute Solver wasn't faking their Cyn persona 100% because of her love of bows, which is something intrinsically connected to Tessa. That was a sign of how much she cared about Cyn and probably was the reason why Cyn wanted to be her to the point of skinning her alive and masquerading as her. And this isn't even bringing up how I don't buy the theory she was this mastermind manipulator from the start or was completely fake either way, but either way, I just find this an extraordinary move. Just as much of a strange move to have J just completely fall out of the plot literally, never to be seen again. But to be fair, this was probably set up for like a season 2 if that ever happens, and all those disassembly drone hearts Alice had would make sense to go along with this, but we don't even know if there will be a second season or not. And this isn't even mentioning how I feel it would have been better if the series ended on episode 9 instead because there was way more setup needed for a big finale. Anyway, thanks for reading my big huge rant thingy. Again, hopefully, it wasn't too messy, and I want to clarify that I still liked the episode for its animation, but I just feel like everything else wasn't the greatest. edit: Okay final thing for real, my brother brought up it made no sense how that V just knew N and Uzi were in that hallway but didn't know Flesha was there. Along with how she even knew Cyn was Tessa in the first place.....Also she was fighting J before that point so did Beau just pull an Omega from Sonic 06 and blast J to high hell when V went to go talk to Uzi and N?

[danganronpasurvivoraskblog]

Mod Talks #1: The Progression of Toko Fukawa.

//So, as you all no doubt have noticed, for these last few days, we’ve been having very in depth discussions about Danganronpa 3, and certain writing choices in the series that we agree with or disagree with, and it got me thinking about a new idea for a short side-series I could do on this blog.

//Introducing Mod Talks. Which basically involves me doing two things.

Me giving a comprehensive analysis and opinionated discussion on certain characters, story points or writing decisions from the main series.

Explaining my thought process on how I carried that over to Danganronpa Survivor.

//What I aim to achieve with this is that I want to hear more people’s thoughts and opinions on the topics that I carry over. I’m not necessarily looking for feedback on how I write Kodaka’s characters, or necessarily looking for comparisons. I really just want to have more in-depth discussions with the followers like we’ve been having recently.

//You might have thought that I would start this series off with an analysis on Kuripa, since I did already mention I would be making a long post exploring his backstory (or what is known of it) and my thought process behind his character and his goals. But I decided I actually wanted to start on a different note and get to Kuripa eventually later down the line.

//The main reason being that he plays a significant role in this arc, and lots of things related to his character happen in this part of the story, so I want to wait until we get to that point to discuss it further. For now though, as you can see by the title, I’ll be putting my attention on the protagonist who seems to have the last amount of time in the limelight for now: Toko Fukawa.

//And Genocide Jack as well of course.

//Because if I’m being perfectly honest, Toko losing the first weekly poll kind of made me sad. It’s not that I don’t get it, but I’m actually proud of how I’ve done Toko of all characters in this series, and I want to talk about my thoughts and feelings.

//This discussion will be going over her history, and how she has changed as a person from when she was a lonely young kid, and now in Survivor as an adult mother.

//I also want to hear yours, so don’t hesitate to give feedback. Like I said, the main purpose is to discuss thoughts, feelings and opinions with you guys, because I’ve come to find that I really enjoy it.

//Let’s get started.

Toko in THH.

//The first question I think people would like to know with my discussion is what my opinion of Toko is in the canon games. So I’ll start with Danganronpa 1, when she’s first introduced, and I’ll just be straight up with everyone...

//I didn’t like her AT ALL.

//Frankly, Toko was my second least favourite character in that game, and one of the worst in the series for me for a long while. 

//To me, the only thing in Danganronpa 1 that Toko was involved with in any significant way was the Genocide Jack twist in Case 2. Everything else she did in this first game was pointless and annoying. And not even having Genocide Jack as an additional character in the roster saved her.

//Talking about them both individually, Toko on her own had a lot of things wrong with her. She had multiple negative personality traits that to me made her extremely unlikeable, the main one’s being that she lashes out at anyone regardless of what they say to her, she’s generally rude and nasty to people for little to no reason, and she’s also insanely dirty minded and her words make me really fucking uncomfortable.

//On top of this, her whole thing about falling in love with Byakuya and dedicating herself to him got really old, really fast, and I was not about it. Following Chapter 2, to make things worse, it basically became her whole character: Byakuya’s sole follower, who he treated like shit. And aside from that, there really wasn’t much else.

//Genocide Jack on the other hand is a bit more fleshed out, since she’s got much more personality than Toko. However, she suffers from the complete reverse problem, since she has TOO MUCH of it.

//Those who read the blog’s story might notice that the amount of times that Genocide Jack appears in the main story over Toko is severely minimal, and I’ll say right now the reason for that is because I don’t really know what to DO with her. There’s so much to unpack, and since GJ is just pure craziness, it’s really hard to fit her into any sort of social situation. 

//On top of that, Toko is also incredibly hypocritical, and not in the good kind of way. She explains at intervals in DR1 that she does honestly want to make friends. However, every time anyone (Hina being our prime example) tries to compliment her or be genuinely nice, she pushes them away and shoves words in their mouth. All the while feeling sorry for herself.

//I know that this is probably the point and she’s written this way for a reason, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. And I most certainly DON’T. It’s not like I don’t think self-deprecating characters in media and games shouldn’t exist, but this is an inhuman level of self-loathing. 

//Given her backstory, it’s clear Toko had a major fear or rejection, which explains why she acts the way it does. What it DOESN’T explain, is why she continues to pursue Byakuya for a LONG TIME even after DR1 ends; who as a reminder, rejects her CONSTANTLY.

//I don’t attribute my dislike for Toko to being poor character writing however. There are few holes in her overall backstory and it’s not like her attitude goes unexplained. However, even explaining it, while it does make it more well-rounded, doesn’t make her a character that I can sympathize with.

//With that in mind though, I’d like to start talking about my thinking process when it comes to Toko’s backstory, and a lot of elements that happen within it.

Toko’s Backstory and the Existence of Genocide Jack. 

//One of the interesting things about Toko’s backstory compared to every other DR backstory we know of is that her’s actually can be traced back to the moment she was born.

//I’ll try and lay it all out as best as I can, but right from the get go, I’ll say that Toko’s past and the life she’s lived before she first met Makoto and the others in DR1 was just as unstable and messy as she is herself.

//When Toko was born, she was born at the same time as another child in the hospital. This other child was born with a severe medical incapacity, that ended up taking it’s life the very same day. 

//This kind of situation isn’t necessarily uncommon in the real world, however, another aspect was discovered about the situation, being that the two women who gave birth to the two girls had both slept with Toko’s father. And due to a mix up with the hospital involving this, the professional’s were not able to figure out which mother was the one that gave birth to Toko, and which one gave birth to her late half-sister. 

//When Toko explains this to Komaru in UDG, Komaru points out that a blood test may have been able to resolve the issue. While this is correct, Toko affirms that both mother’s declined the exam. As a result of this decision, Toko ended up living with a father and two mothers.

//The normal expected decision to not taking the blood test would usually be to not live with the guilt that your child could have died. This however, is not the case, and Toko very quickly came to realize this; in reality, both mother’s WANTED their child to be the one that died, not the reverse.

//It’s never explicitly stated why, but the obvious conclusion to reach, and the one that I go for with Survivor, is to do with Toko’s father. Neither of Toko’s mother’s were aware at the time that their two girls had the same father, until the day of the birth. Thereby, the child that they were carrying had the DNA of a man who had cheated on them. 

//However, based on the way that Toko talks about her parents, and her specific phrasing when she explains her childhood to Komaru, I don’t think that’s really the case. I came to think about this from Weeby Newz’s character analysis of Toko, hence why I used the screenshot above, so let me reiterate her point.

//For one thing, Toko explicitly states that her father wasn’t married, or even in a real relationship, with either of the two women. At least not to her knowledge. It’s also important to note that Toko’s specific words about the supposed “affair” are “They also discovered that both women had slept with the same man”

//“Slept” i.e. not SLEEPING with. In my eyes, the more likely scenario was that Toko’s father had a one-time fling with both women, and accidently got them both pregnant.

//And as much as that sounds like a reach, it’s also important to note that the conversation in that exact same scene starts like this:

Toko: It’s my mothers fault that she was born inside me. I never thought of them as my real mother’s, not even once. Komaru: Wait, “them” as your “mothers?” Don’t you mean your mother and father? Toko: I’m a novelist, I wouldn’t misspeak like that. I said “them” and I meant it.

//And it’s important to keep this in mind, because it explains my writing process for Toko’s father.

//For those who might have missed it, one of the chapters of “The Life and Lies of Akeru Yozora” Toko opens up to Komaru, Leon, Sayaka and Makoto about how her life with her parents really was, and why it’s making her determined to rescue Akeru from the same childhood.

//In said chapter, it shows the birth of Genocide Jack, at the hands of Toko’s mothers constant abuse. In said chapter, when Genocide Jack is finally born, both of Toko’s mothers succumb to the serial killer, being her first victims and only FEMALE victims.

//Toko’s father on the other hand, is not only spared, but after Toko runs away from home, he decides to take the fall for her. This is my way of saying that Toko’s dad is not the piece of shit that Toko’s mother’s were. He’s still a bad parent for not sticking up for his daughter, but it’s also important to note that he didn’t want the situation he was in just as much as Toko or the mother’s did.

//In context, the only reason why Toko was even living with two mother’s in the first place is for legal reasons. And if the scenario of them both accidently getting pregnant is true, it also explains why they were such awful mothers, since it implies they were both, for lack of better words, hussies, who’s lifestyle’s would be severely interrupted by the burden of a child.

//Putting more focus on Toko’s mother’s however, this same line, Toko practically confirms that it’s because of the abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother’s is what gave her second personality life. Hence the existence of the chapter where Toko opens up to her friends and classmates.

//If someone is not born with Dissociative Identity Disorder like Toko has, usually an alter would be created as a coping mechanism to abuse and trauma. And from my perspective, this is the exact cast for Genocide Jack. It’s already pretty clear from Toko’s personality alone that she’s had to put up with a lot of emotional abuse and bullying, but to have a split personality, the trauma has to be EXTREMELY severe. Undergoing something like this causes your brain to form barriers that allow a distinct identity to develop and the individual to cope with the trauma by repressing the more distressing details of it.

//And as stated multiple times already, it’s very clear that neither of Toko’s mothers were kind to her even slightly. One of the things she mentions in UDG is that she was once locked in a closet for three days, without any food or water, which developed in her a severe fear of the dark. Going by that same logic, I also attributed Toko’s fear and dislike of taking baths back to the abuse of her mothers, and came up with the idea (which again is mentioned directly in the chapter where she exposes her past to her friends) that her mother’s would scald her arms with hot showers. 

//However, Toko’s life with her parents wasn’t the only issue. Her life outside of home was equally as bad since, as I mentioned, she had to deal with a lot of bullying and abuse from other people too. For example, the time she was framed for a theft she didn’t commit, and as punishment, was tied to a jungle gym with a garden hose. 

//Hence why throughout all of it, Toko’s most valued companion and the one that was taken hostage in UDG was her pet stinkbug Kameko. Since Toko figured the bug didn’t judge her for being herself, like everyone else did. 

//The next important part of Toko’s backstory is the story with her first love. It’s important because it explains, at the same time, how both Toko and Genocide Jack got their Ultimate Talents. 

//The full story is that Toko met and fell in love with a boy in elementary school, who was the only person she ever felt comfortable talking to. When she finds out that he and his family are moving away to a different part of Japan out of her reach, she gives him a sendoff by sending him a love letter confessing her feelings. 

//The result of this was said boy revealing that he actually hated how much Toko used to talk to him, and that he was ridiculed for it often, deciding to get back at Toko by pinning her love letter to the bulletin board to shame her, giving her even MORE emotional trauma to deal with.

//When this happened, one of Toko’s teacher who had read Toko’s love letter reassured her by telling her that she had a real talent for writing. This teacher’s words are what prompted Toko to pursue a career as a writer. 

//At the same time, once learning of Toko’s rejection, Genocide Jack chased the boy all the way to his knew home, and murdered him, thus marking the beginning of Genocide Jack’s killing spree, murdering any boy she came across that she thought was attractive. She confirms this in her own FTE’s.

//There’s a lot to unpack with each aspect of her full backstory, and this isn’t even all of it. Even after Genocide Jack’s birth leading up to becoming an Ultimate, there’s so much more emotional abuse and trauma that this girl went through and was forced to overcome.

//In a later section of this analysis, I will explain a little bit more about how all of this ties into Toko’s character for Survivor, namely her role as a parent herself, but now I want to move onto the most integral part of the discussion, where Toko was arguably at her pinnacle.

The Unspoken Theme of Ultra Despair Girls.

//One of the things about Danganronpa that is consistent throughout the series is that each game has a different main theme. Usually along the lines of “Ideal A VS Ideal B” And I’ll quickly walk through them.

//Danganronpa 1 obviously has the sole theme of Hope VS Despair. And that theme has become a staple of the entire Danganronpa series, arguably being the series most important.

//Hope and Despair are two sides of the same coin, in many senses. Hope is defined as a feeling of expectation and desire about a result and despair is defined as the lack of hope, or lack of such a feeling of expectation and desire about a result.

//If hope is associated with an expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen, when we hope we are essentially concentrating on a result. If that result doesn’t occur, then we may fall into despair, which is the lack of the expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. We cannot have hope without despair. They go together. If you can feel hope, then it is equally possible to feel despair.

//This is best represented in the dynamic between Trigger Happy Havoc’s main protagonist and main antagonist -  Makoto Naegi and Junko Enoshima. A boy who believes his one redeeming quality is his overwhelming optimism, and a girl who’s a natural genius talent with many redeeming qualities, but applies it to literally watching the world burn.

//Danganronpa 2 also plays with the idea of Hope and Despair, but it also has another theme that plays very well on the game, especially at the finale. A Terrible Past VS a Better Future.

//It ties into DR1′s theme of the battle between Hope and Despair by elaborating on what comes after it. The moment that defines this is Hajime’s final decision to abandon his past actions and face it’s consequences, while fighting to redeem himself and live a better future for him and his friends.

//Given their past actions as Junko’s terrorist cohorts that were wiped from their memories, this is how they choose to deal with it.

//V3 is a lot more complicated, because there are actually two running themes across the whole game, all of which are different from the typical Hope Vs Despair dynamic: Truth against Lies, and Logic VS Belief.

//The first idea is best represented through the main protagonist, Shuichi Saihara, and his arch-rival, Kokichi Ouma. Kokichi being a consistent liar and Shuichi being a detective who fights for the truth. The penultimate conclusion to this theme is that Truth VS Lies does NOT constitute to Good VS Evil. Sometimes a lie can be a white lie designed to protect people, while finding the truth can lead to a terrible outcome (i.e. Shuichi’s backstory exposing a man for a crime done to avenge his family.) Shuichi even states in the game “Some lies can lead the world to hope...Some truths can lead the world to despair...So I don't think anyone can really say which is more right in the end.”

//Logic VS Belief meanwhile. is best represented in characters like V3′s deuteragonist, Kaito Momota, who doesn’t base his assumptions off anything other than his own assurance and faith in the people around him. While this is narrow-minded at a glance, Kaito repeatedly proves that his assumptions and belief are well-placed. Not always of course, but often enough that Shuichi considers his belief’s when it comes to his accusations. On the other hand, there are characters like Angie Yonaga and again, Kokichi Ouma, who’s assumptions are grounded more in logic and facts, sometimes making them overlook the bigger picture at hand, but also the only sure basis for a grounded conclusion.

//It’s never explicitly stated, but the way I see things with the spinoff game, and what ties it back to Toko, is that Ultra Despair Girls has it’s own secondary theme to the typical Hope VS Despair 

//And that is...Companionship VS Solitude.

//And going further with that, Trust VS Betrayal.

//Elaborating on both for a moment, here’s how I see it. Both Toko and Komaru at the start of Ultra Despair Girls are both in a poor position, and neither really know how to cope. Toko has barely changed from the horrible person she was in DR1, while Komaru starts off as a weak-willed, vulnerable girl.

//By the end of the game, Toko’s attitude has drastically changed, and she opens up to Komaru in a way she never did to Makoto or anyone else before her, and Komaru becomes a much stronger person, both physically and mentally, going from being the one receiving the rousing speeches to the one giving them (like she does for the adults in the secret encampment.)

//And the obvious conclusion to reach is that the development of both these characters can be attributed to one another. Komaru is made a more responsible and down to earth person, taking matters into her own hands and resolving the problem in her own way thanks to Toko’s influence on her. At the same time, Toko, an extremely pessimistic person with little faith in her fellow human, is made to become the voice of reason for Komaru, simply because she NEEDS it.

//And despite their bumps along the way, and how they don’t start off as friends and work together more as allies than anything, the companionship between these two girls is the one and only reason they were even able to Survive the demon hunting game.

//The PARALLEL to this, is Monaca and the Warriors of Hope. Who if you think about it, have the EXACT REVERSE DYNAMIC.

//When UDG starts off, you see as the game progresses just how close these kids are to one another right from the get go, having been through a similar experience to the girls in working together to overcome a shitty situation that they all have been through.

//And for most of the game, their friendship seems strong and genuine, but then you get to the conclusion of the first boss fight against Masaru. Where his defeat against the girls results in him being pulled under and out of sight by the masked Monokuma kids; a scene that obviously reminds Toko of an execution.

//And as the game progresses, this continues happening, and when it does, the other kids really hardly bat an eye, and try to move on. But the more it happens, the more concerned they begin to grow, Nagisa especially who even tries to resolve the situation, strongly desiring to protect the dream he and the other kids share.

//At least that’s what he believes, only to find out that Monaca has been playing him and the other Warriors from the start, never truly intending to be their friend, or helping them create the paradise she promised she would.

//In comparison to Komaru and Toko’s strengthening bond, the Warrior’s who seem to have a strong bond at the start, weaken as a result of Monaca’s secret betrayal. Something I believe goes overlooked often by most people.

//Another thing that people can see from this, is that by the end of the game, Toko has gained every trait she needs to pass as a true Danganronpa deuteragonist, fitting the same traits and actions as the others before her (and no, slapping Komaru to knock some sense back into her doesn’t count as part of it). Doing what all of them did at some point, and rescuing the main character from a truly awful situation.

//Who was it that not only rescued Makoto from the garbage heap, but also kept his spirits raised when things started to look bleak? Kyoko.

//Who was it that restored formality to the group and saved Hajime from falling in Despair forever in DR2? Chiaki.

//Who were the one’s who rescued Shuichi when he gave in and tried to hide from facing the truth? Kaede and Kaito.

//And who was it that saved Komaru from the burden placed on her that she didn’t deserve? Toko.

//Before this point, Toko would not have ever been able to fit that role, but by the end of Ultra Despair Girls, she’s become attuned to being by this girls side, and being the moral compass she needs. And she is GOOD at it. And it’s only BECAUSE she’s grown to care for Komaru, putting herself on the line for her sake, that she is able to do this.

//Toko has lived a life of abuse, bullying, betrayal, doubt, sadness, and unjustness. But none of that matters when someone who truly cares about her is falling into Despair. Meeting Komaru, while she wouldn’t openly admit it even after the fact, was the best thing that could have ever happened to Toko.

//And meeting Toko was the best thing that ever happened to Komaru as well.

Toko in Survivor. How has she changed?

//Now we’ll actually get into my own personal thought process for Toko in this blog. How much she has developed PAST the last time we saw her in Ultra Despair Girls and DR3. And there are three main things to focus in on here:

Her progressing relationship with Komaru.

Her role as a mother.

Her change in lifestyle.

//Keeping in mind what I said about Komaru and Toko having changed and developed one another plays a big role in their characters from the start of Survivor, and how much they’ve changed in the 8 year timegap.

//On Komaru’s side, she’s obviously become a much more confident and eager person. Someone who screamed and cried while fighting for her life back in Towa City, now greets fights with open arms and ready trigger finger. She’s no longer afraid of the threats she faces, and now with Toko by her side, is actively ready to stand against them.

//Toko’s changes are obviously a lot more integral. She doesn’t stutter her words or needlessly blame others anymore, always thinking about the situation at hand before she starts putting words in each other’s mouths. And while she still cares for Byakuya, she no longer idolizes him in the way she did, nor does she have any dreams of pursuing a life with him, instead sticking with Komaru and trying to sort herself out. Even Byakuya admits by this point in time, Toko has become a woman worthy of his attention. Which is why it was so nice to write that one segment of Into the Ocean where they teamed up together, just the two of them.

//I also believe that Toko and Komaru would have started to develop feelings for each other during the timegap. Most people would think it a little odd that they decide to get married almost immediately after confessing to one another, but to me, it’s not that strange.

//They would have had a lot of time to spend together, and they would clearly recognize their love for each other. After all, if you think about it, Toko and Komaru’s dynamic is basically the EXACT SAME as Makoto and Kyoko’s. The Naegi siblings have a lot in common, as you might expect, with both of them being strong-willed people at the core, as well as one’s who have the power to inspire hope in others, but also each having a fair share of inferiority complexes. Toko and Kyoko on the other hand, are more down to earth and logical, and balance their respective partners out.

//And if one of them can grow to care for each other beyond a point that canonically is implied to be more than a friendship, why can’t the other?

//Toko hasn’t completely changed of course. There’s still a lot about her that remains relatively the same from the canon games, mainly that she’s still quick to frustrate, and still isn’t immediately trusting of anyone she meets, however being more willing to give them a chance to prove her wrong.

//But the primary way in which Komaru has influenced Toko is simply by being a genuine friend, partner and companion, teaching Toko how to be more confident in herself, as well as overcoming all of her past trauma’s, slowly but surely. This in turn, would have led to Toko living a much healthier lifestyle than the one she had before, and as of Into the Ocean, it certainly shows.

//Toko’s redesign as of Into the Ocean sports her signature purple, but also a much brighter and happier blue in contrast to her previous designs where her clothes and outfit are much darker all around. She’s also discarded her glasses for contact lenses, and started wearing shorter skirts and leggings, showing her change in attitude and character, and how she’s a lot more self-assured, and confident in herself.

//This is the face of a woman who’s been through a lot of trauma, and through the power of love and companionship, has overcome it. That’s all it ever took.

//And then of course, there’s not only Komaru as her wife, but the newest addition to their family - Akeru. Who the girls decide to adopt as their own daughter.

//Upon finding out her true backstory, Toko gravitates almost immediately towards Akeru when she finds out just how similar the two of them are. Having both been raised by abusive mothers, and having murdered them as a result of the trauma.

//Even after her mothers died, Toko’s life did not get better. If anything, it only became worse. So when Akeru was finally saved from the clutches of Narumi Osone, Toko endeavored to make it so that Akeru didn’t go down the same path...By giving her a family and a new life that she could learn to love.

//Toko has been through some shit, but thanks to this natural progression and strength she has found, she’s able to become the exact authority figure that a young girl needs. Though she lacks in real experience, Toko goes out of her way to do whatever it takes to make sure that her girl grows up happy and healthy in the way she never could, without deflecting her own childhood trauma on this equally damaged girl.

//In a way, she’s doing for Akeru exactly what she did to Komaru. Hence why the chapter of her exposing her past to her friends is so important. Simply to emphasize just how much the girl’s suffering means to her.

Where are we now?

//To end this, I need to make a quick observation of the blog’s current events, and analyse where every main protagonist, the one’s that carry this story, are standing right now.

//First of all, most obviously, Makoto and Kuripa are both HOT MESSES right now. Not just in the wake of the death of Mukuro, but with every bad thing after bad thing that’s been thrown their way, they’ve been severely wittled down to the point where both of them are barely hanging onto sanity. 

//Kuripa obviously isn’t new to this attitude or feeling, but when Makoto is at a point where he’s not only lashing out at the people who love him, but is physically assaulting the wrongdoers; something usually out of character for him, you know he’s going through some shit.

//Hajime is not much better. Obviously he’s currently in an indefinite coma while Izuru takes control of his body, but even before that he was clearly suffering at the hands of a situation out of his control, that he still wholeheartedly blames himself for. 

//The actions of both Ayumu Fujimori and Nagito Komaeda he attributes back to his own incompetence, and believes that most, if not all of what the Future Foundation is currently going through, is his own fault.

//Shuichi and Kaede seem relatively fine, but it’s clear they’re both struggling with their own issues. Shuichi’s will be elaborated on, but Kaede is so severely traumatized by her past, it makes her act out stupidly, and she’s beginning to have severe doubts about herself.

//And Shuichi feels like a fish out of water, having a branch to lead but not quite sure how to take charge when it counts.

//Even Komaru isn’t quite sure what to do, and has made her own handful of stupid decisions. On top of not being there for her brother and being blissfully unaware of the Future Foundation’s fall in wake of her own family’s interests, she also gets so desperate, that she takes matters into her own hands and makes a fucking mess of things.

//I.e. blaming the entire mess on Kuripa with little to know grounds on such an action, and kidnapping and trapping Makoto for “his own safety.”

//And the amazing thing throughout all of this, is that looking at all of these protagonists and comparing to Toko...She is the ONLY ONE who has remained relatively sane throughout the entire pandemic of Despair.

//In Into the Ocean, she comes through as a mediator and protector for Komaru, Akeru and Byakuya on multiple occasions, comforting them when they’re in a difficult situation (very physically in Komaru’s case ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)) and having their back, even when they try to go solo on dangerous missions.

//And in The Monster in Me, she’s the first member of the Future Foundation who defects from Komaru, her own wife’s, authoritarian methods to stop Kuripa and Katagiri, simply because she remains in her right mind and realizes that something is not right, and Kuripa isn’t the sole person to blame.

//This is the same woman who always jumped to conclusions and put words in others mouths out of her own self-loathing whenever anyone tried to have a basic conversation with her. But now she’s thinking more rationally than any of the “heroes” and seeing things for what they are, taking it on herself to sort things out and help them just as she did to Komaru back during Ultra Despair Girls.

//Toko Fukawa over the course of her life has gone from being one of the weakest-willed and traumatized heroes in Danganronpa...to easily one of it’s most confident, rational, and strongest.

[manlyquail]

Netflix Avatar

I've got many thoughts I want to get out and so why not just make a "nobody asked and nobody cares" word vomit about my opinions on the Netflix Avatar series!

It'll be below the cut, but let me say I thoroughly enjoyed it but am on the fence about if it did need to exist or not given how perfect the original is. I could go either way honestly, and would watch more if more came out, but I'll explain more stuff in spoilers below.

I'll break this into a few sections, Positives, Negatives, Neutrals, and some sort of summary for my thoughts, but there is probably going to be some overlap since some things could fall into a few categories.

Positive First:

So this could stem from trauma from the last time things came around, but I thought the bending in the series looked way better (for the most part...). The opening scene alone felt like an atonement for how done dirty Earthbenders were in *that movie* and everything felt really fluid.

The characters in general all felt really true to themselves (again, for the most part). I was skeptical at first when news came out about Sokka's removed sexism, but honestly with the way his character arc played out based on the pressure to be a leader and a warrior I think it still worked out fine.

There was a surprising amount in the series that I thought would be material that would just get cut out, which was simultaneously a pro and a con. It was good to see a few certain story elements (SECRET TUNNELLLLL) but the way they overlapped in order to get several things in at the same time makes some of them a pro and some of them a con.

The payoff for "MY CABBAGES" had me rolling. 10/10

For the most part, every time I saw a character I knew immediately who they were. Costume and character design were great, sets and backgrounds were beautiful, everything on this front felt good.

One highlight is tied to the changes made around Zuko's backstory and his crew. His belief in not sacrificing the soldiers and them being assigned to him (and Iroh's telling of this fact to the questioning soldiers) was a great addition in my opinion. It added more depth beyond just the sympathy originally given to Zuko because of his scar.

Each (recent) Avatar getting their own spot in the light was fun. Roku's personality was enjoyable even if he was only around briefly.

Finale was super fun to watch, the effects of the moon changes across all the characters and the spirit rage had me pretty hyped.

In general the balls to burn so many people alive caught me off guard as far as ratings go, but I won't complain!

The sexism addressed in the North was a good bit of development for a few characters, although without Sokka's sexism through the early parts and a moment that really felt close to 'She has help' I'm a little on the fence about the impact it had there.

Absolutely loved June.

There's probably a few smaller things I missed here or there but in general lots of positives, thought with those comes

Negatives:

I'll get this out right away because this was honestly the biggest gripe I had out of anything else. I was not entirely sold on Azula, Ty Lee, and Mai. For me they personally looked too young, the rounded cheeks felt too innocent didn't sell me on the fierce and sharp features Azula demonstrates in the show, but I'm really trying not to get too hung up on this element. Azula is honestly an impossible standard, and I think what was demonstrated was still okay, but I'll be brutally honest that her victory at the very end over Omashu took a lot of the wind out of my sails, especially following the dramatic war of the North. I think maybe the actresses could grow into the characters, but when I picture scenes like the desert standoff with everyone versus Azula it just doesn't vibe.

Airbending when it was first shown felt a little too 'wee I'm on a wire and special effects!' which was somewhat painful. The combat aspects of it felt a lot better and the glider scenes worked, but I was pretty nervous when Aang first made his way down from the towers.

The Kiyoshi scene while cool at first felt brief and somewhat underwhelming. We saw some guys get grabbed by water tentacles and then a big swirl tornado of all the elements but that was really it. People got tossed around and the instant they retreated the state ended. It was cool to see Kiyoshi but I feel like the badassery could've come through at least a little more.

They really nail over the head 'Friendship is magic!' almost too much. Each Avatar basically told Aang not to have attachments or get too close to people because its bad juju, and the lesson 'I only got this far because I work with my friends' got old fast.

Aang additionally didn't do any learning with Katara during her waterbending training headed North. I'm on the fence about this because a lot of extra drama was cut out (no Bato, no pirates and the questioning about morals of stealing a scroll, no jealousy of Katara from Aang's training, etc.). Additionally one weird change (I know I noticed this as a positive earlier), but the Cave of Two Lovers was entirely a Sokka / Katara scene, and the narrative was compressed a little bit so that their 'sibling love' on an emotional level was the reasoning the badgermoles escorted them out, as opposed to either music or following the lights (which they brought up the lights but then made it a red herring?). On that note this cave appeared in Book 2 on the return trip to Omashu, but here it just showed up to get Katara and Sokka into the palace (warned about Palace Guards which I guess also weren't a problem, and this was at the top of the city but tunnels under... anyways...).

A small nitpick but something I remember laughing at; Katara does a training scene where she hits herself in the face with water and proceeds to try and wipe it off, but she's entirely dry, so that... just felt funny.

Avatar Roku didn't get much time in the light either (not even a dragon), and several spirit moments were crammed into one. Yue is a fox spirit that was randomly in the forest, Wan Shi Tong was there to (only heard by Aang) give an ominous warning that his friends would be in danger, and then Koh was also there to... just be a creepy cannibal centipede? These all showed up during the Hei Bai plot thread which didn't even get resolved (the villagers got brought back but I don't recall ever seeing the spirit again; cut for time?). The Koh thing felt out of place as well because this was the motivation for Aang to go all the way to the fire nation to see Roku, who told him to just let them die before Aang took an idol from Koh's mom back to trade for a whole bunch of people. During this 'Koh will feed soon' period Aang made it all the way to the fire nation, did his Roku meditation, got kidnapped by June and turned in to Iroh and Zuko (presumably all the way back on the mainland?), got kidnapped from his kidnapping by Zhao, spent time in prison, then the entire Blue Spirit rescue, with Aang hiding out even longer from fire nation patrols before making sure Zuko got back to his ship safe, and then made it back in time to save everybody from hungry hungry Koh. Honestly just so much here that it made the whole segment feel a tad clunky.

Neutral:

Now this is a list of things that I'm on the fence on and could probably go either way on.

Bumi being the biggest thing here.

Now Bumi's character changes at first were jarring. His identity being revealed immediately was a surprise, but his throwing a big fancy party and seeming like a weirdly hedonistic bad comedian felt off. His original personality I think showed through just enough to keep this from being a negative, but the fun of Bumi was how he was messing with Aang to try and provoke a memory from him while also just being batshit crazy. This would sometimes crop up, and the fight between the two was pretty slick, but otherwise it felt like Bumi was more of just a jaded old man. It became about Aang teaching him a lesson and not the other way around, which in the way felt justified with Bumi being consistently at war for 100 years, but on the other didn't feel like Bumi. I guess I leave this neutral purely on the grounds that this is a reimagining and not just the same story vomited back out in live action, but it's still one of the tougher changes to adapt to.

Another small change is that Aang did zero bending of any of the other elements outside of the Avatar state. He didn't train with Katara as I mentioned, nor did he have his interaction with Jeong Jeong to give him mini trauma about fire bending. Not the biggest deal but still noticed, which makes me wonder how they'll handle his bending in the future.

Azula being Zhou's contact and source of resources felt a little off, as did his learning about the spirits. Zhao was downplayed so much to be a random nobody in the live action version and then he 'needed an edge' and learned about the spirits (and how to kill them with a spirit knife?) right before the siege. Honestly the original of 'I stumbled upon this information unintentionally back when' wasn't great justification either but still.

Several of the Ozai scenes were a little offputting as well. Right before dying (to Iroh instead of the spirit, which again, random change) Zhou mentioned that Zuko only existed as the flames to forge Azula, but there was a lot of sorrowful emotion in Ozai's actor that made him seem oddly sympathetic in a lot of scenes. Lines as well which change context after the 'revelation' are hard to get a feel for as well, such as Ozai's reminders to Azula that it was Zuko and not Zhao that discovered the Avatar. In scenes like this it feels like Ozai is actually trying to defend and support Zuko, but with the motivational thing for Azula was this just him poking the bear? Either way, maybe a subsequent watch will change my thoughts on this, so for now its neutral.

Summary:

Overall I honestly had a good time with the series, but it really just drove me to go back and start the original all over again. It was by no means bad, I'd recommend it as a watch even if just for the numerous easter eggs, but I really don't know if it's good enough to justify existing. There were some changes I really liked, such as the change with Zuko's crew, and some others that I think have potential as reimaginations such as Bumi's narrative, but others like the cave, the Koh stuff, Yue being a fox that showed up in the forest felt like they should've just been left out.

Anyways, I do recommend watching it all the same, especially to get you in the mood for the original and to at the very least set a different standard for live action Avatar than what we had in the past.

Thank you all of nobody for coming to my TED talk. I really just wanted to get this all down somewhere for my own sake but I'd be interested in other's takes on it too!

[patorosa]

Warning long ass text ahead

So, before I dive in with my own version of the series I just want to rant about my thoughts of the og series, mainly around three points, story, characters, and relationships between said characters.

Overall story

If you have seen the series you may have noticed that it doesn't follow a certain course and the pacing is uneven and weird, to illustrate my point with the story I'm going to show the main arcs of the story and their respective problems

The begining: The main characteristic of this part is it's focus to presenting new characters and there relationships over establishing the main plot. Around half of this first part goes around giving introductions to characters, and later the plot with the main five characters is left at the end, with a lot of things happening off screen.

The camp: After the end of the first plot, the (summer, spring? Idrc) camp is introduced. The series is now mainly focused on silly little camp shenanigans with the cast, while cutting the main storyline (the battle of the bands), it tries to give a new storyline, but in the end gives up and keeps the focus on the silly funny moments until the end of the season.

Second season: In this one they finally tried to focus more in the main plot, while giving more depth to the main cast. Due to this a lot of the cast is left aside. Tbh I do appreciate the effort to fixing up the messy story, though it shifts to Freddy in the end,( who has a really weird storyline imo).

There's of course some problems in common with these phases, like having a REALLY slow start, an the whole deal of having the fans dictate the future of the series, with almost no idea how to follow up from the part of the creators.

Characters

The bigass cast that is in the series was made originally for promoting the fact that it was a FNAF au. Problem is that the characters serve almost no purpose to the story and are given a cliche personality, and, with the amount of characters fighting for screentime, almost none of them were given any growth (or thew had growth offscreen but that doesn't count). I have certain thoughts on various characters but I'm not putting them in here to not make this longer than what it needs to be xd (I will put them when I redesign each character)

Relationships

This is the big deal, since the other selling point of the series was the shipping possibilities, the creator never closed the possibilities to any ship that could happen, even if she had preference to a specific ship, giving the community freedom to make their own headcanons about the characters with all the freedom. Though this meant that almost all the relationships of the characters were uncertain, resulting in every relationship being possibly romantic, leaving many characters (that already had very little to do in the story) just for shipping, and ultimately, being forgettable.

Just to clarify, I don't hate edo0chan, I respect the approach that she took to get attention towards her proyect, and getting the community to participate in something. These are just things that personally bother me, again, I really like the series.

[eldrichfuck666]

For Lucinda 61%. Describe a scenario that has impacted your character and caused them extreme happiness.

Thank you so so much for sending an ask for her! I really wanted to talk about her more, so thank you for giving me such an opportunity! 💗 She is my second favorite character and I feel so connected to her, considering she's my first sim ever & my almost simself! :') And also, that's my first ask about ocs that's not going to be about something tragic skskssk

Lucinda is my only not-so-tragic character, so she has a really great amount of happy moments in her although there's one that made her the way she is right now. It was the moment when her future love of all her life, Karina, was said to be cured from the bloodline curse - they didn't know each other very well, actually, it happened not so long after they first met and lat me tell you... It's an interesting story, but first, I have to explain their backstories a bit. The moment when she realized that Karina's entire future depended on her, when she realized that she could heal her herself, only by her own efforts… Thanks to her, Karina was able to be fully human for the first time in her life. This influenced Lucinda, because she realized the importance of her powers and found someone with whom she would spend a certain part of her life and who would really die for her (this is a fact, it has already happened - Karina is dead), no matter how much Lucinda would not like it to happen.

Lucinda fell in love with a knight errant who served an order that was engaged in the extermination of vampires - they fell in love with each other not at first sight, but at the second for sure - they have different temperaments and stories, very different upbringings, but they are ready to sacrifice everything for each other.

Karina was cursed from her very birth and because of her curse, she was unable to feel anything but hatred and bloodlust, which would make her an ideal knight - unable to experience anything human, being cold and detached, to whom human desires and feelings are alien. She was born into a family whose goal in life was only to serve the dying kingdom and the clan of the merciless and incapable of human feelings and regret. She lived her whole life before meeting Lucinda without seeing the real colors of life, she did not know affection and any love - only endless training and service, hunting (which she really hated, it was always terribly painful for her to kill animals in the depths of her locked soul, rushing and not understanding why she did not hears herself) and fencing. Nothing else. She may have found herself in poetry - but how is it possible to write poetry without feeling anything? They met one cold moonlit night - Karina was looking for Lucinda to kill her, because she had great power over other vampires and was being very influential and It wasn't something Karina's order was ready to deal with anymore. But she couldn't kill her. She didn't even try, as soon as she got into Lucinda's castle, she felt something new - she could resist. She no longer heard the echoing voices in her head telling her that she had to kill someone again - they fell silent the second she crossed the threshold.

No, it wasn't the moment when her curse was cured - it's still a long way off! But it was then that she realized for the first time that she was alive this whole time, that she was real, she was human. She felt warm blood on her cheeks and chin - she touched it and realized that she was really bleeding. The curse had less control over her, but it was gradually killing her -mercilessly and very slowly, because she was so useless to the order and could probably do more harm to them, then do what they told you to. Lucinda found her on the threshold of her castle, right on the night when the light cast by the full moon illuminated her steps and fell on the beautiful hair of an unexpected guest. Lucinda knew who she was dealing with - she had seen knight's armor, on which were the symbols of the order that had brought her so much pain and loss, which, however, did not bother her - she was determined to help the fallen knight who had come to her only to kill. She didn't think she could change her - she didn't want to do it, she just wanted to heal her wounds. She did not expect anything in return and knew that the knight could kill her after that - and she was willing to die from the hands of a beautiful stranger, she was ready to sacrifice herself. She wasn't in love with her instantly - but she knew that the moment will come when she'd be so in love with Karina. Just... not as soon.

[derekbnerdy]

I truly one hundred percent believe that Andor, if it hasnt already, is gonna be known as THE BEST Star Wars television content. Some people will argue that title would go to either The Mandalorian or The Clone Wars and honestly if I didn't follow Andor as faithfully as I did then I would be one of the people saying that The Clone Wars Is the best. Andor some very intense depth to it and it felt the most real. Cassian's friends on ferrix feel like they could be your friends or family especially in the season finale. Just like Maarva, Cassian's friends still love him despite some things he's done and respect him so much for wanting to come to his mother's funeral even though he's a wanted man and honestly, my friends would do the same.

The Character development in this show is absolutely amazing, not just the best in any Star Wars Television series but the best in any piece of Star Wars content period. Every single thing Cass goes through helps him to grow and gives him a similar journey Jynn went through to realize just how important it is to fight against the evil of the Empire. I really think his experience in the prison is what set him on the path to truly be a rebel. Sure he was against the empire before but he only did things that benefitted him like when he took the job to rob the imperial payroll. It's when they arrested him as a "tourist" for just witnessing something and sent him to a prison where he witnessed more of the empires cruelty that convinced him that there's more to fight for than just himself and his mission to find his sister. (which was never talked about again after the first two episodes for whatever reason) Speaking of the prison episodes, that was one of the most inspiring and also most heartbreaking parts of the whole show. Kino Loy went on the second best character developing journeys in the show. He went from an ass kissing supervisor to a man who's had enough and showed just how much he cared for his fellow inmates and led a prison break so these people could go back to living a normalish life. Watching him go through that growth made it so heartbreaking when he couldn't escape with everyone else just because he couldn't swim but in the end he was happy because his fellow inmates were given a second chance and he was the one who gave them that chance.

Let's talk about Luthen for a moment... I FUCKING LOVE LUTHEN. From his upbeat persona as a shop keep to a man who has sacrificed more than we'll ever know to be a contributing party to starting a rebellion in order to free the galaxy from tyranny. That speech he gave to the dude in the elevator... Wow that shit gave me chills.

It was also interesting to follow Mon Mothmas story. I like to think of her story in this show as an origin of a rebellion leader and like Luthen risks everything including her life and that of her families for a cause she believes in. Im really hoping we'll be able to see her and saw meet and eventually have a disagreement about how each of them do things.

The places we go to and visit in this series also makes this show feel more like star wars than anything else since the clone wars and possibly rebels. I think by far my favorite place in the show is ferrix because of how close everyone there is and how moving it is when they all come together in the end.

There's alot more to say about this show but I feel like if I don't stop here I probably never will. Over all I give this show a 9 out of 10. Everything about it is very well done however, the packing at some parts gets a little slower than necessary and after a certain amount of time it feels like we're made to stop wondering or caring about what happened to Cassian's sister.

Im very much looking forward to season two. I feel like the second season is when shit is really gonna go down. Now Ferrix has really had enough of the empires shit and Maarvas speech at the end was enough to light a fire in their hearts. I can't wait to see where we go and what we do next.

[nehswritesstuffs]

Inherited Will, Destiny of the Age, Graveyard of Ambition and Dreams - Part 1

Also crossposted on FFN and AO3.

Forty-two years ago, the Great Pirate King, Gold Roger, was executed in front of a crowd in Logue Town. The place of his birth was raucous and electric with excitement, rage, fear, and disdain, not only for Roger, but for the government executing him as well. He spoke his final words loud and clear, daring the world to find his treasure with a laugh, kicking off the Great Age of Piracy.

Decades have passed since then. The world has fallen into the hands of monsters. A government once strong lay shattered. Tenuous treaties and fragile alliances have fallen. Despots and tyrants have taken their place, leaving the rest of the world to either pick up the scant pieces that remain, or shut themselves off for their safety.

People pray to the Sun God Nika. Their salvation shall never come; their god is dead.

This is the story about those who are left.

This is the story of the Straw Hat Pirates.

(Notes under the cut.)

Okay! So! Context! This is actually a rehabbed story that I originally began back in high school… which was fifteen years ago. For context, I originally started writing this during the Thriller Bark Saga, before Brook even joined the crew, and last updated it pre-timeskip. Ace died while I was writing the first version of this. It took such a toll on me that I just dropped this thing cold a month later, saying that I’d pick it back up again when I was up to it.

Well, I’m up to it.

Thankfully, the amount of time that has passed is enough to make me able to really take a critical look at the original version and the one that’ll be posted here. If you’ve been around enough to recall my original back on FFN, don’t worry: I’ve been able to excise a lot of what comes off now as just weird and thematically wonky. It aged very poorly. That’s okay though, as it shows how much further I’ve come since then. One can do a lot of learning in fifteen years. The original also felt very empty, in a sense, but I now know that’s also because I was literally working with only, what, a third of the series when I first laid everything out? There’s more depth now, amongst other things, despite the fact I’m keeping some beats/elements while changing others, so it won't be a complete rehash. Language will be a big part of this, as well as characters and factors we’ve learned about in-canon during the interim. This past summer (plus some) has been almost all prepwork for this, so hopefully that will show. I will also take this opportunity to say that the original actually predicted a couple really specific things I’m not proud to have predicted, but hey… sometimes you write teenage edgey garbage, and sometimes your teenage edgey garbage is a window into the future of not only your favorite series, but the state of your generation. Them’s the breaks, I guess.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

One – Romance Twilight

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

A pale, calm dawn broke on the horizon, washing the small spit of an island in its soft glow. Its solitary resident crawled out of her makeshift shelter and stretched herself awake—there was no sleeping while the sun was up. She took the straw hat from her neck and placed it upon her head as she made her way down to the beach. There was nothing she could see in the distance, so she shrugged and got to work on getting some breakfast. Before long she had a fire going and freshly-speared fish grilling—she needed to conserve the fruit on the island without knowing when someone else would get there.

When indeed; she had been stranded for a week. Without any of the tools to fix it, she glared at her broken dinghy with a disdain she wasn’t entirely certain she wanted to process at the moment. The woman threw another plank from the boat on the small fire—at least it was still good for something.

Eventually, the mouth-watering smell of grilled fish began to reach the woman’s nose. She was excited—her catch was larger than before—and it appeared as though she might actually get to eat her fill for once. One bite when they were done and it tasted as though the cay was actually heaven. She squealed in delight; at least she wasn’t going to starve any time soon, and her water barrel was far from running dry thanks to the gentle rain from the night before.

As she ate, the woman kept watch on the horizon. She was on her last piece of fish when she noticed a dark speck and stared it down. There had been many traitorous dark specks on the horizon before, though eventually, she realized that this one was the real deal. Jumping and hollering, she tried to get the craft’s attention, with it coming ever closer.

Slowly… it was headed her way on the current alone.

No one was shouting back, or visibly trying to reach shore, or visible period.

Something was very, very wrong.

“Shit,” she cursed when she realized she wasn’t being answered. She pulled a length of rope from her ruined dinghy and made a lasso, throwing it once the boat was close enough. It took a couple tries, but she was able to snag the small craft and pull it up to shore. She looked inside and grimaced: three men about her age were laying there, looking sunburnt, half-dead, and definitely worse for wear. They seemed thin and malnourished, with faded, ratty clothes that were in just as bad of shape as their frayed, ventilated sail. One even seemed to have many scars—more than her, which was an accomplishment—and another’s eyeglasses were cracked and chipped. Pulling them ashore, she put her ear to their chests to check for heartbeats—at least they were still alive.

Getting them out of the sun and beneath the trees, the woman took the water she had gathered and poured a little bit into each of her guests’ mouths. When it seemed to go down, she grabbed her spear and went to go catch more fish on the other side of the island. By the time she returned with fish in-hand, one of the men had woken up and was marveling at the fact he was still alive.

“You speak Eastern?” she asked. The sound of her voice spooked him, making him nearly jump out of his skin. He ran a hand through his black hair when he realized she had likely been his rescuer and chuckled weakly.

“Yeah, we do.”

“Then don’t move,” she advised. “You’re still kinda weak.”

“I thought we were goners,” he admitted. Then it dawned on him. “You… uh… live here…?”

“Temporarily, as of late,” she shrugged. She took her cup and filled it with water, handing it to him. “Soon as you three are better again, I’d appreciate it if you could help me get out of here considering how your boat works and all.”

“I’m sure that can be arranged.” He watched as she tossed a couple more planks on the fire and began gutting the fish. She could tell that he was watching her motions and not her, which meant that the old childhood scars on her limbs and face did not frighten him or make him nauseous. It was actually a rather novel reaction. “You cook?”

“Under better circumstances, yeah. I’m not a cook, but I won’t starve.” She looked at him and let out a chuckle. “I’m Rika.”

“I… uh… I’m Piiman; you can call me Manni. Tamanegi, Ninjin, and I were trying to reach Shells Town. Do you know how to get there?”

“Yeah… don’t.”

“We hear if someone just lays low—”

“Just trust me: don’t.” She poked at the fire and embers crackled into the air. “I just came from there.”

They stayed quiet for a while, the sounds of the ocean and fire contrasting against one another. Piiman sipped the water cautiously while he watched Rika, embarrassed that he was at this stranger’s complete mercy. His head throbbed and he felt cold—he was definitely in no position to argue much.

“Where are you headed, then?” he wondered.

“Logue Town.”

That caught his interest. “Why there?”

“…because, that’s going to be my first step to fixing this mess.”

“This mess…?”

“Yeah—don’t you remember when we were little and things were weird, but not… well… total shit?”

“Well, of course, but…”

“…but what…?”

“How do you propose on doing that? You’re one person.”

Rika grinned widely and stabbed a fish-laden stick by the fire.

“I’m gonna be King of the Pirates.”

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

It took a while for the other two castaways to wake up, but once they did, all three men bounced back from near-starvation and overexposure rather quickly as the day progressed. Ninjin seemed the largest and strongest—a quiet man of few words, as she imagined someone with as many scars to be—while Tamanegi was particularly chatty once he got going, the bespectacled man saying less than his friend in dozens as many words. Piiman appeared to be the glue that held them together, with his mediation assistance being more than necessary for one to be able to talk while the other had to take a breath.

“It’s down-right decent to be able to interact with someone who remembers and liked the world as it was before,” Tamanegi said. They were sitting around the campfire, eating some scavenged fruits before they went to sleep, for in the morning they would be setting sail for the nearest island. Rika already had a course charted and all the trio needed to do was let her steer their ship.

“It’s weird sometimes, talking to someone younger than us, and realizing what we know as wrong they think as just… normal,” she shivered. “I mean, you don’t look that much older than me, and I was nine when the Summit War happened.”

“We were ten,” Piiman supplied. He hugged his knees as he stared at the fire. “It’s hard to believe that it’ll be twenty years next year.”

“You really want to make it like before then?” Ninjin wondered. Rika nodded.

“It wasn’t perfect, I know that, but if we can get close enough, then it’s an improvement on now.”

“Plenty of things can be considered an improvement to the present day,” Tamanegi mentioned. “What makes you think that you can bring order to the world if you become Pirate King? It won’t be restarting the Government or anything like that…”

“No one has held the title since Roger, and that commands respect,” she explained. “I can put my foot down and get the East Blue Bosses in line, open up places like Wano and Dressrosa, connect people from Germa to Briss…”

“I didn’t think places like that were common knowledge anymore,” Tamanegi frowned. “The movement of such information is restricted.”

“She’s not an idiot, Tam,” Piiman groaned. “Most people can learn about those places, even if it’s just stuff from old books, or stories from old neighbors. We all still had school when the Summit War happened.”

“How did you know, if you are aware that is difficult information to come across?” Rika asked. The men glanced amongst one another and shrugged.

“Our island was on an information lockdown for a lot of years—nothing in, nothing out—but I was able to find things out through discarded newspapers and overheard conversations that the bosses had with visitors,” Tamanegi said. “It’s bad when it’s accurate to say that the Grand Line is potentially less of a mess.”

“You’re pretty strong though,” Ninjin noted. “You came from Shells Town. No one comes from Shells Town.”

“I saw an opportunity and took it; I’m just lucky,” she shrugged. “You three are pretty much the same in that regard, aren’t you?”

“In a way,” Piiman admitted. He took a bite of the fruit he was holding and smiled at it. “This stuff is the best we’ve tasted in a long time.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Rika nodded. She then grinned. “I know I’m a one-woman-act right now, but would you three like to join my crew?”

“…and become pirates…?!” Tamanegi’s eyes bugged, absolutely mind-boggled. “Pirates were what ruined our lives to begin with!”

“The Captain didn’t,” Ninjin replied simply.

“Yeah—he was all about living free and doing what was right, even if he lied a lot,” Piiman said, voice soft. Tamanegi relaxed and took off his glasses to wipe tears from his eyes.

“When we were little, there was an older boy in the village… we looked up to him,” he explained. “He’s… well… even one of the best pirates in the world can’t handle a bunch of enemies at once.”

“I looked up to someone too,” Rika said. “He ended up kicking the spoiled wolf that was the pet of a high-ranking military man’s son. I didn’t know him for very long, but he did that for me after the wolf attacked me… and…” She gestured to the hat upon her head. “This used to belong to him—it blew my way right before he was executed as an example.”

“Morgan…?” Tamanegi asked. Rika nodded.

“He’s dead now, so I saw the opportunity while there was a power vacuum and bolted.” She saw the men grow tense—they knew the name well enough.

“Morgan is dead?!” Tamanegi marveled. “How?!”

“In front of the whole town, the Axe-Hand turned towards the wrong throat,” she said. “That was months ago… the end of last year, actually, if I’ve kept time right.”

“We’ve been kinda drifting for about that long,” Piiman said. “We’ve been surviving on others’ leftovers on the varying islands and sandbars that we come across.”

“Then let’s stop surviving and live instead,” Rika grinned. “You can be the first three recruits to the Straw Hat Pirates.”

“More like a founding member of the Straw Hat Pirates,” Tamanegi said, rolling his eyes. “You can’t be a crew of one.”

“You can… it just doesn’t work very well.” Rika held out her hand, palm down. “What do you say?”

“Can’t be worse than before,” Ninjin shrugged, placing his hand atop hers. Hesitantly, Piiman put his hand on Ninjin’s, and then all three looked at Tamanegi.

“What…?”

“It won’t work unless you do it too,” Ninjin frowned. “Come on.”

“Fine…” He placed his hand atop of the pile and Rika’s grin grew wide.

“From this day on, we are the Straw Hat Pirates—we are the ones who are going to fix this age into something more livable, for us and all the ones after us! There is nothing that will stop us from being the best force to hit these seas in nearly fifty years!”

“You’re definitely going to need someone to write this stupidity down if anyone’s going to believe you in the future,” Tamanegi deadpanned. Rika just laughed.

“Shishishi—says one of the guys named after vegetables—if we don’t do it, then who will?” Everyone took their hands back and Rika threw another piece of wood on the fire. “Soon as you three are able, we can set out.”

“Tomorrow,” Tamanegi decided wearily. “If we don’t set out, the harder it will be when we do, and then we’ll run out of provisions here… or worse… get caught by someone who’d rather us not be out wandering on our own.”

“It’s decided, then!” Rika said. She stood and placed her hands on her hips triumphantly. “In the morning, we’ll head on over to the nearest island chain and get more provisions so we can make it to Logue Town and the Grand Line!” She pointed off in the distance, signaling where it was they were headed. “I already have the course—we just have to get on the right current!”

“...like how you found yourself here?” Piiman smirked. Rika pouted in response.

“Listen: I got caught in a storm. That’s why my boat’s wrecked and how come it didn’t wreck anywhere near people. It’s not like you three were able to do much better.”

Only Ninjin snickered at that.

“Look out, six seas!” she said smugly. “We might be late to start, but you will be ours!”

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

A/N: Since I'm writing in English and we start in the East Blue, the "default" is going to be "English = Eastern". We're gonna have a punctuation nightmare from here on out in order to differentiate between all the meta-translated dialogue, so I'll keep y'all abreast of what's going on with that front.

[bobgoesw00t]

Top 10 Video Games of All Time: bobgoesw00t Edition (Part 07)

We’re getting down to the nitty gritty of this list and it’s time to reveal my Number 4 game:

I had a REALLY hard time picking which entry in the Tales of Series to use as there are SO MANY GOOD GAMES IN IT!!! It was a tie between Abyss, Vesperia, Xillia, Xillia 2, Zestiria and Berseria but I ended up going with this one in the end for a few reasons.

The first one being that other than Symphonia and maybe Vesperia, this is the entry I’ve played the most and I have a blast with it every time. Secondly, combat in Abyss is one of the best IMO and literally every game after it has payed homage to it in some way. The last reason is something I’ll get to a bit later, as I want to talk about the overall gameplay for a bit.

Abyss took the Multi-Line Linear Motion Battle System from Symphonia and amped it up to 11 with the Flex Range Linear Motion Battle System. Giving us the Free Run ability added a new layer of depth to battles, and they simplified how Mystic Artes work from the last game that was released outside of Japan with the AD Skills. When you throw in the Field of Fonon system that can alter the various artes if you use a certain one while it’s active, battles get even more explosion than before. Not to mention this is the first game IMO were every character controls well and is fun to use. Luke and Guy are your typical melee users, while Tear and Jade function as the healer and elemental DPS and kick ass at it. Natalia can dish out large amounts of damage with her bow and she also functions as the main buffer with strong single target heals, making her a worthy addition to the party. Lastly, Anise and Asch (who is playable for a small portion unless your playing on the PS2 and know about a certain glitch which I’ll get to in just a second) are cool hybrid characters that have decent melee attacks and can harass foes from the back line with offensive spells.

I HAVE to address the black sheep (in a manner of speaking) of the cast that is Asch, who is actually (I feel like I can spoil this twist as it’s revealed fairly early in the story) the real Luke who is playable for about…two hours or so in the main story depending on how much time you spend on other things and is kind of awesome. Some people prefer using him over Luke due to him being a bit faster and him having the ability to use offensive spells mid battle and in the original PS2 release of the game, there was a glitch that allowed you to actually have him replace Luke for the remainder of the game. The Map Glitch let you run to other areas before they could be accessed and was rather useful over all but they ended up patching it for the 3DS re-release as the game will crash if you remove the game card without properly closing it.

Which is something else I want to mention. I actually think the 3DS version of the game is better than the PS2 version due to the original having a glaring number of bugs (most of them weren’t game breaking but there is one that made it almost impossible to use one of the more powerful Mystic Artes in the later stages of the game without the entire thing crashing) and stupidly long loading times. The change from a PS2 DVD to a 3DS Game Card shrunk the load times MASSIVELY and most of the bugs ended up being addressed to better polish everything and while I’m not 100% sure, I think they removed the bug I mentioned earlier when you try to use Lost Fon Drive.

OK, enough about the gameplay onto the story. Some people say the story moves slowly while others think it goes by quickly. I’m in the opinion that it moves at a decent pace and there are indeed points where the pace fluctuates but there aren’t very many to be honest. The game does a good job explaining various aspects of the world, there are a variety of locations and the cast is INCREDIBLY well acted with special shout outs to Kirk Thornton as Jade and Melissa Fahn as Anise for being able to switch between being serious and cracking a joke a second later. Not to mention how hilarious the banter between Jade and Dist is at various times…especially the bit before the part goes to Mt. Roneal and Dist is passed out at the Inn. I also love how a good chunk of the reoccurring bosses (the Six God Generals) also have sympathetic backgrounds, Sync being my favorite. I JUST WANT TO HUG HIM AND TELL HIM EVERYTHING WILL BE ALRIGHT!!! HE DIDN’T NEED TO DIE IMO AND I STILL GET MOPEY AT THE LAST BOSS FIGHT AGAINST HIM!!!!! Speaking of the ending, this is the one ending in the franchise that still causes me to tear up at the very end no matter how many times I’ve seen it. The way the last scene starts with Tear singing with the rest of the party around her and then Luke shows up to keep his promise is just GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH MY HEART CAN’T TAKE IT!!!!!!!

Lastly have to mention how Abyss has one of my ALL TIME FAVORITE scores in the Tales of Series with Motoi Sakuraba delivering some of the best tracks ever, the first battle theme “An Arrow was Shot” gets you into a frenzy and ready for a fight. “Awkward Justice”, the God General boss theme is intense and epic, while “Everlasting Fight” which plays during the cameo battle in the coliseum is the previous track with the intensity blasted into space. Lastly, we have the theme song for the game “Karma” by BUMP OF CHICKEN. This was the first time were the theme was kept the same internationally with the only difference being that they replaced the vocals with Electric Guitars making the song a bit more intense IMO.

This was nice as the next two games to be released in the West kept the vocals with the lyrics being translated into English while still being sung by the original artist. Xillia and Xillia 2 took that one step further and ACTUALLY KEPT PROGRESS AND SONG 4 U AS THE THEME IN THE WEST WITHOUT TRANSLATING THE LYRICS which was the right call cause I don’t think using an Instrumental version of those songs would have worked in the end. Which is why when it was announced that Zestiria was going to be the first entry to have a dual audio option, I had a tiny nerdgasm…which quickly flew out the window when it was discovered that the west would NOT be getting the original version of White Light by Superfly, but an instrumental version in the same vein as Karma for various contract issues with Superfly and their agency. I was pissed but thankfully the PC can be modded to play the original so I ended up getting it on Steam. BUT ENOUGH ABOUT THAT HOOHAA AND ON TO THE SCORE!!!

Tales of the Abyss is the first game to have a truly 3D real-time battle system which is still one of the best versions of the Linear Motion Battle System to date, a strong story with an ending that makes me shed tears of joy EVERY DAMN TIME I GET TO IT, a cast of party members that are outright hilarious at times, and one of the best soundtracks Motoi Sakuraba has composed for this long running franchise. bogoesw00t here gives it a 5 out of 5: 5/5

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Tales of Zestiria: Even with the whole bullshit of them giving us a shitty instrumental version of White Light that doesn’t work as well as it did for Karma (due to the latter being a fast-paced song and White Light being more slow and intense), this is still a great game with one of my favorite cast of playable characters (Sorey is so adorkable, Edna is fucking hysterical and Meebo/Touchy-Feeleo IS TOTALLY IN LOVE WITH SOREY GO AHEAD AND @ ME BUT SORMIK IS CANON), a unique combat system (the complaint that the game FORCES you to Armatize is a load of bullshit as it can actually hurt you to use it in every fight for various reasons which I’ll get into if I ever review it) and a really cool villain.

Tales of Berseria: The prequel to Zestiria addressed a good chunk of complaints people had about the last game, fixed them, and helped flesh out the world the games are set in, gave us one hell of a BADASS protagonist with Velvet Crowe and a colorful cast of allies to join her (Magilou can be totally broken in battle and is even funnier than Edna IMO while Laphicet is THE MOST PURE AND PRECIOUS CINNAMON ROLL THE FRANCHISE HAS EVER HAD), a battle system that’s easy to learn but can be difficult to master, and a villain that you just want to CRUSH after he shatters Velvet’s world (even more so if you’ve seen the original, uncensored cutscene when he kills Velvet’s little brother. They tried to keep the impact the same in the west, but it doesn’t hit nearly as hard IMO)