#so this is like a chronology of probably my biggest personal obsessions going back to like 2012-2014 or so | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

stupid-stew · 3 years ago

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character names keep me alive, toh is my lifeblood.

i am literally obsessed and this show really does provide (i still have to add more smh my head dana terrace why do you do this to me jk i love it so much please never stop) COPY AND PASTED FROM DOC UNDER BREAK

NAMES INCLUDED:

FIRST NAME

LILITH

EDA

LUZ

KING

WILLOW

GUS

ASSORTED BLIGHTS

LAST NAME

BLIGHT

CLAWTHORNE

NOCEDA

PORTER

PARK

BUMP

MISCELLANEOUS

BELOS

HIERONYMUS AND BOSCHA

ADEGAST

HOOTY

OWLBERT

KIKIMORA

GWENDOLYN

RAYNE

NOTE EVERYTHING BEFORE GWENDOLYN AS OF 6/24/21 WRITTEN WITHOUT SEASON 2 KNOWLEDGE, TO BE REVISED, REVISIONS IN BOLD!

Hello and welcome to the ramblings of a mad man. Before we get into it I think you should note that I do write like I talk because I think like a talk and I write how I think, so if you are confused as to why it sounds like i’m not making sense its because I'm not making sense also my capitalization and punctuation suck so sorry about that but we don’t have time for technicalities in this house. TO ADVENTURE!

FIRST NAME

LILITH

EDA

LUZ

KING

WILLOW

GUS

ASSORTED BLIGHTS

LAST NAME

BLIGHT

CLAWTHORNE

NOCEDA

PORTER

PARK

BUMP

MISCELLANEOUS

BELOS

HIERONYMUS AND BOSCHA

ADEGAST

HOOTY

OWLBERT

KIKIMORA

GWENDOLYN

RAYNE

GILBERT

FIRST NAME

LILITH

Ok so because I'm lilith’s bitch we are gonna start with her because her name is so cool and I love her and we should be besties Lilith hmu. Anyways as most people know Lilith is a pre existing mythological character which makes this very much good because that means it’s all outlined. Most people know her as a demonic figure, which I very much dig but similar to our lovely queen of curses out here, that's not all she is. There isn’t going to be a chronological explanation of similarities and conclusions, cope. The basic gist is that Lilith was this chick with fiery red hair (this is important iykyk) who refused to be beneath or below adam, more specifically to subjugate to him, funny because of the tapestry with belos what says subjugation on it, probably a coincidence but I do not believe in coincidence right now. Anyways basically she runs off and becomes this chick who like snatches children and will make them sick if they don’t have an amulet with the names Senoy, Sansenoy, or Semangelof on them, thats a different story but what I find interesting is this one passage,

“(12) Her nobles shall be no more, nor shall kings be proclaimed there; all her princes are gone. (13) Her castles shall be overgrown with thorns, her fortresses with thistles and briers. She shall become an abode for jackals and a haunt for ostriches. (14) Wildcats shall meet with desert beasts, satyrs shall call to one another; There shall the Lilith repose, and find for herself a place to rest. (15) There the hoot owl shall nest and lay eggs, hatch them out and gather them in her shadow; There shall the kites assemble, none shall be missing its mate. (16) Look in the book of the LORD and read: No one of these shall be lacking, For the mouth of the LORD has ordered it, and His spirit shall gather them there. (17) It is He who casts the lot for them, and with His hands He marks off their shares of her; They shall possess her forever, and dwell there from generation to generation.”

And there are separate part of this that I find relevant, especially the description of the location, i’m not all that familiar with symbolism of animals in religious texts, so i’m gonna take it at face value and say that this is more or less a description that could be given to the physical owl house itself, sort of a place for people who don’t fit in, its a little messy and I guess one could say overgrown, but it’s a place for anyone, a place to rest now hopefully for Lilith away from the coven, there shall the Lilith repose. On top of that we see the “the hoot owl…” and you’re probably thinking what that so crazy wacko because like why are they referring to Lilith as the hoot owl isn't Eda the owl lady, yes she is. That’s why the actual meanings of lilith’s name that come from her mythological depiction as a demon lady are so important. We have night monster, night owl, night spectre, vampires, night hag, night creature, nightjar (which is another kind of bird), and night bird, all of these seem to fit lilith’s dark aesthetic very nicely which is very good for her, but there are two other ones, hot owl and screech owl, which draw her closer to Edaand away from the coven and her depiction in the mid-later episodes of the show as a monster for cursing eda, but also the name night monster could come into play if while sharing the curse Lilith acquired some of its traits, similar to Ed aas the owl beast. Ultimately, we have this little red head girl who eventually fights back against the men who are attempting to get her to be under them, for the character that is belos, for the other Lilith that is adam, god, and his angels, and now hopefully both of them will find solace and repose among the owls in a place they never thought they’d belong. All this talk of owls and god brings us into the other clawthorne baddie:

Lilith did find her repose! I love her staying in the owl house, get it queen oh yuh.

EDA

For this I'm going to use her full name edalyn, because you know like that’s just how it be it is her name. There isn’t a wiki page for her name like there is for Lilith which makes this a little bit harder but the general consensus seems to be that it means something along the lines of “gift of god”, which I find very interesting. If you are going to name a child gift of god i’m assuming that you are referring to the child themselves, but I don’t think that really applies to eda. I’m not religious, but its my impression that someone who lies, cheats, pranks, and steals their way to the top and isn’t exactly the most responsible witch on the isles and might not be the best gift god could give. I do really love Eda though, her character flaws are still a part of her character, but I think this refers to her powers. Eda considers herself to be the boiling isles gift to magic, which I mean like, have you seen the woman. In agony of a witch we see her at what probably 30% of her power with how much the curse was already tolling on her and how much magic she was probably using to fight it off, and like goddamn. She was almost beating lilith, definitely beating the shit out of her, but she was almost defeating Lilith who was at her full power, and that is just a fraction of what she used to be able to do. Her powers were a gift of god, and I think that the loss of them will greatly affect her. She’s already admitted that she doesn’t know how to do much without her magic, and I think going straight from the second most powerful witch on this isles to having no power at all is going to be incredibly taxing on her, physically and mentally.

Luckily for her the name edalyn also means patience, another thing about her name is that it not only means gift of god, but also similar things like gifted by the gods or even goddess, and this draws a connection to Lilith who is named after a demonic figure, casted out for having defied god, they are quite literally polar opposites on the name spectrum, and we see that a lot in the show, they are completely different people, I mean have you looked at them they don’t even look related, but the funnier thing is that their personalities do the same thing. You’d expect Edain her youth to be a gift from the devil, just ask principal bump, and Lilith seemed to be a goody two shoes who worked her ass off, their names could be switched based off their characters alone.

A random baby name site I found said that :

“Persons with the name edalyn are usually highly flexible and well equipped to making and accepting change throughout their life. They always seek excitement and are sometimes a bit of a risk taker. They are imaginative, and often, through their unconventional way of thinking, are naturally able to solve complex problems with ease. They are quick thinkers and observers who are clever, analytical and versatile”

Which I mean like very much applies to eda, she takes change like a champ, either genuinely or by pretending she’s ok with everything, and is always seeking excitement. Like literally all of the time. Always. I think she takes felonies as a compliment, and one of the biggest changes in her life that she genuinely was able to adapt to and appreciate was

OH MY GOD HER LEARNING THE NEW GLYPHS WAS SO CUUUUTTTEEE, I love her being able to adapt, she really is doing well. As the beginning of separate tides shows, she’s working around it, and is doing a damn good job, living up to her name.

LUZ

Ok I think at this point everyone knows that at this point the name Luz means light, and if you didn't, oopsies now you do. The character Luz was named and designed after a real life person the miss dana terrace knew at the time she was starting to really think about the show, Luz ’s personalty comes more from dana herself and we love that, but the character has really started to grow into her name. This is made most obvious when the first spell Luz learns is the light glyph, not only coming into her own as a witch, but also starting to live up to her name, which along with light also has to do with “Our Lady of Light”, which is the virgin mary, fitting her right in with the other biblical names we got going on here. I really want to stress that I know next to zero about religion, and all of the connections I am making come from wikipedia, so bare with me here. But most of the time mary seems to be this pure, saint like figure, which I think is what a lot of people see Luz as, especially on the isles. I’m going to flat out say that this is in no way meant to pass off Luz as simple minded, pure, or oblivious, because we have seen what that girl is willing to do, she faced death and poked him in the with an ice cicle. In terms of life on the isles, however, she is more or less pure and sheltered, she’s completely new to the world she’s in, but she does quickly adapt, and shows more of her strong side, and remains a good person throughout all of it, taking losses as they come, and not letting them remain losses at the same time.

Back to the whole light thing, we already touched on the whole literal bit of her and the light spell, but can you think of a better way to describe Luz ? She literally brings light everywhere she goes, even Eda admits that she’s changed things for the better, for everyone around her too. Willow got a new friend, probably the first friend she’s had in a long time, and even got to begin repairing her relationship with amity, and got placed in the plant track so she could do the things she loves, all because of Luz . Edagot to grow as a person and a mentor, and finally got someone willing to accept all her eda-ness, unconditionally, someone to really care about that really cares about her back, all because of Luz . Amity got a friend who cares about her, not just her family name and money, someone who supports her and will do anything for her because she is her friend, and a bit of self discovery along the way for amity, all because of Luz . Not a single person on the isles who has had more than 2 minutes of interaction with Luz hasn’t had their lives improved, even belos got his portal, and the thing is that even characters who people might not even consider changed have been, characters such as

Luz my beloved, she seems a little bit less of a light this season, and i do mean little. That’s totally fine though, it’s expected, i didn’t want her to just be this bright shining star after the events of the last two episodes of season 1, and appreciate her going and starting to take the fantasy of the isles with more than just a grain of salt. Obviously like in escaping expulsion, she’s still trying her best to make everything better and make friends with everyone, but there’s something a little different about it and i’m here for it tbh.

KING

The name king itself is obvious, he is royalty, the king of demoNS HIMSELF ASMODEUS hahahaha pulled a sneaky on you now accept my ideas as your own. I am on a mythological name kick, deal with it. The most important thing here is in the bible, asmodeus poses himself as a false god, which I know is something we have all considered with king, that he might be a full on liar, not be a king of anything and is just your ordinary street demon, it’s even come up in the show with him calling himself the king of artists and Luz asking him if he was just making it up at this point. It’s a good theory, I can see it, and this could be used as proof. There is also another legend that paints him as a good natured dude, who eventually banishes the king by literally throwing him, and then he loses his powers and is banished, but this is also the same legend where he marries Lilith and that is not something I am down for. There is another text in which he tells the king (the same one he threw in the other one) that his kingdom will one day be divided and the king does not believe him, and this is the same text where he admits to hating water and birds because they remind him of god. Lets think class, who has the god name and is related to birds here? King’s name by itself holds true to his character, who (regardless of if it is truthful or not) holds himself as if he is a king, and he isn't the only one with a name like that, there is also

WILLOW

Ok I know we all thought it, willow, the plant girl, how fiendishly clever. This also happens to be the only descriptor for her name I could find, which is totally fine because I think it’s a very cute name and willow is also very cute. This means we get to go into the symbolism of the willow tree wwwooooOOOOO aren’t you so very excited I know I am. Its kind of interesting, willow trees seem to match the character, understanding, warm, a safe space really, but most of all the ability to let go of pain and suffering, sometimes outright ignore it, and move on. Willow does always say out of sight out of mind does she not? She is willing to ignore, even excuse people bullying her, be it bosha or even amity, and the moment she got the chance her inner willow decided to try and literally burn the painful memories she had, willing to cause damage just to forget. Willow as a character is very willing to move on like nothing happened most of the time, key word most because another thing about willows is the ability to grow from the pain. Before understanding willow, we never really saw willow stand up for herself until she really had to, but hy the end of the episode she is willing to tell amity that she isn’t willing to fully forgive her, but she’s willing to grow and try. Heck, we see this over the entire first season, we see this little girl who can barely pull it together long enough to stand up for herself grow into this amazing character willing to publicly oppose the emperor and break into his castle for her friend, she tried to full out attack Lilith when 19 episodes earlier she wasn’t able to stand up to amity for bullying her. And I am in no way calling willow weak, she never was, she just needed to find the ability to show everyone that she’s strong, god I love willow so much, you wanna know who else loves willow?

GUS

Gus, my main man, love you but for this we are gonna have to use the full on augustus sorry babes. The name augustus means majestic, or venerable, which while I must say that the illusion of kiki doing the worm was probably one of the most majestic things I have ever seen, I’m going to focus on venerable a bit more here. Venerable is a big word, it means “accorded a great deal of respect, especially because of age, wisdom, or character.”, which for gus the age part might play a smaller part here, but he is good as what he does, Luz and willow both respect him, Eda Respects him, he’s this little dude who is younger than everyone and has to rely on his ability to succeed, not only with his power but with his personality. Gus seems to be confident in himself, communicating with everyone regardless of who they are or what power they hold, similarly to willow he was willing to do anything to help Luz , leading into the second description of venerable, “heroic in nature”. Now, you might be wondering, bestie where ever did you get that description, it totally wasn’t from a religious page okyesitwas but that's fine because being pronounced venerable guarantees a spot in heaven so get it bestie. Overall, the general meaning for augustus is that they are strong, respectable, and powerful, which takes us right into the

Gus, shawty, ily but please stop the obsession with death babes ur starting to scare me. I hope with the upcoming Gus content in TTLGR we will see more of him growing into his powers and such.

ASSORTED BLIGHTS

The blight first names bring me joy so I am putting amity last because I think its really funny, starting off with alador, the name alador evokes diplomacy, correctness, and confidence. We know zilch about alador, but if the vibes of the blight family have anything to say it’s definitely something along those lines. The name odalia means wealth, which I mean like have you seeeen blight manor? Also back at it again with the fact that it’s a variant of the name odilia, like the saint olilia which I don't have ties for you right now because again, we know nothing about her. Edric also means wealth, fortune, riches, powerful, you get the vibes, same thing with emira which means commander, or prince, princess, leader, or star. So you know like we have all these super powerful names happening, and then, oh boy and then we get to little miss perfect herself, amity blight. It means friendship, or harmony. If I was her I would be so mad at my parents like yall have these mad powerful names and I got stuck with friendship? Hand me the emancipation papers. You know what they say, friendship is the real magic (even if no longer taught in schools due to budget constraints). I hope that this leads more into season 2 with amity working on her friendships and ultimately her relationships in general, which we got a bit of already with her working on repairing her relationship with willow, and making the moves to cut off old toxic friendships and moving into more genuine ones with willow, Luz , and gus. I guess you could say that the only thing ALL the blights have in common with each other is their

They are rich assholes, alador is a little wacko, odalia is hot asf dana seriously what the hell man that was out of pocket. The only thing about alador that lives up to his name is his money, odalia seems more obsessed with image and money, and i too am obsessed with her image literally boy what the hell boy.

LAST NAME

BLIGHT

The word blight by itself means a plant disease which boy oh boy can you believe how nicely that fits into amity bullying willow because I sure can. Outside of just the plant bit it overall just means like something that damages another thing, and this works beautifully for each member of the family. The parents are damaging their children, the twins just causing general damage, and amity and her goddamn relationships, but fortunately that whole plant thing brings us into the next couple of last names

CLAWTHORNE

The last name clawthorne means “cold or exposed thorn tree” which had me kind of like what the heck so I went off and had some fun and got you some presents that I think are funny, so there was this guy right, his name was joseph clawthorne, and he created the term whiffenpoof, which is the name for a wildly fictitious animal, things like a jackalope, or even a griffin with spider breath, though I guess that would be the work of a

NOCEDA

Back again with the trees good lord, it means field of nut trees, so again I went into prominent people an found this guy named jorge noceda sanchez, he was a painter and some of his works are kinda baller actually it seems like something that would fit in on the isles, but also not all of the names have a deeper meanings, names like

PORTER

Ok I am like pretty sure this was just meant to be a play on the fact that gus’ dad’s name is perry and is a reporter, get it, perry porter, perry porter, reporter, but nonetheless I did some digging because why the heck not, it means doorkeeper, or gate keeper, someone who guards something like an important building, which honestly I think this would be a good last name for hooty if he ever gets one, but again not all of these are important names at the moment, or maybe they won't ever be at all, names like

PARK

At first I was kinda like l m a o willow park plant girl hahahahah plants in the park parks have trees willow is a tree but then I remembered that someone pointed out that park is a traditionally korean surname and then like a week later disney posted about it for aisian pacific american heritage month which kind of confirmed it, and I don’t know if the whole intention behind it was to establish willow as representation or not, but the surname park by itself means gourd and willow I am so sorry that is so unfortunate LMAOSIFN

BUMP

To be honest I was not expecting bump to have a last name that meant anything but it means swift walker and I think thats funny so you have to know it now

MISCELLANEOUS

BELOS

BIIIITCH LISTEN UPPPP there is a butt tone of mythology surrounding his name and its mostly a different form of it, belus, that is referenced, but same thing different shape. Most of his depiction is as a great king or ruler, in babylonian mythology being the equivalent of zeus of jupiter, which liiikkkkkeeeoajolnjojnkjakjavnjfvdfkjf but its fine everything is great its all ok most importantly, he is recognized as the god or ruler of war, and in that same mythology he lived in babylon, which “... was originally water, and called a sea. But Belus put an end to this, and assigned a district to each, and surrounded Babylon with a wall; and at the appointed time he disappeared.” and idk about you but the smell of him assigning a divide and disappearing smells sour like funky to me babes

HIERONYMUS AND BOSCHA

I am only putting this here because the fact that it’s totally a play on hieronymus bosch makes me cackle and you all have to know it thank you

ADEGAST

B-but brevyn he was only there for like one episode, yeah ok and? Radegast is the slavic god of hospitality, and there is no host like a host that pretends to take you on a mythical quest and then tries to eat you and your mentor and her deranged cat demon, ok? His name translates to “dear guest” or “welcomed guest” and I mean I think if my host tried to suck me into some fantasy would delusion i’d feel pretty welcomed

HOOTY

He is an owl

OWLBERT

He is also an owl

KIKIMORA

First and foremost, she is a little night gremlin who hates children and I think that really fits her, but she is also a little house demon, who is very difficult to get to leave, have we seen her outside the castle? Will she be a spy along with the mask next season? She also has a name that means nightmare or night demon, similar to a certain other night creature we might have heard of a while ago. She tried to strangle children and I love that for her,and she is described as a little old ugly messy haired lady and I feel like her current character has the personality of one so i’ll take it, but what really gets me is her villain origin story, which is that she "grows up with a magician in the mountains. From dawn to sunset the magician’s cat regales Kikimora with fantastic tales of ancient times and faraway places, as Kikimora rocks in a cradle made of crystal. It takes her seven years to reach maturity, by which time her head is no larger than a thimble and her body no wider than a strand of straw. Kikimora spins flax from dusk and to dawn, with evil intentions for the world.”

GWENDOLYN

Ok, the queen herself, haven’t met her yet but like who knows. Not really a whole lot here (my ears are ringing oops one sec ok i’m back hi) anyways um uh rings? Her name right off the bat has a lot to do with rings, and really that only applies to eda, because her ring was a big thing for her, she gave it to lilith, we all watched wing it like witches you know what’s up, but i mean like was that gwen’s ring? I really wanted the hand on eda’s wall to be gwen’s, very upset to see she has all of her body parts so far. I am also not sure if that’s how it’s spelled, but it means the same thing anyways. Also meaning fair or blessed, any woman who created both eda and lilith is probably mad powerful and we love to see it, also she’s a beastkeeper and i like i want to talk about that with eda’s curse but now is not the time for shenanigans (that’s a lie every time is the time for shenanigans i’m just exhausted)

RAYNE

Bitch, sorry, ok listen like um sidebar I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS CHARACTER AND YOU ALL NEED TO KNOW IT but also at this point i’m not really sure about this character, is this their name, is that even how it’s spelled, girl idfk but like whooptydooo I do what I want so cope. Right now, we are assuming that they are the new bard coven head character, and like let me tell you the way that I am fully pissing my pants atm like bestie, anyways, if spelled rayne, then it means counsel or song, and this is why, do you see why this is why we spell it like this? It’s also scandanavian which means like nothing but it’s cool. This spelling fits because like counsel, head of the bard coven, you get it it’s fine, and then song, also head of the bard coven, you know. It fits so well, especially since this is supposed to be a friend from eda’s past, and like is supposed to try and recruit eda for a rebellion against the emperor in the episode eda’s requiem, i cannot convey to you how goddamn excited I am like there are not enough words in this realm or any others to tell you how prepared i am for this character to rock my world.

GILBERT

I AM S O B B I N GGGGG apparently one of willow’s dad’s names is gilbert and that is literally so cute I cannot like actually this knowledge makes up for coronavirus anyways it means bright promise and idk what that even has to do with anything but I love it and you should to omg

Now i have to go update the other characters see you in hell <3

#the owl house #luz noceda #lilith clawthorne #eda clawthorne #gwendolyn clawthorne #amity blight #alador blight #odalia blight #blight twins #willow park #gus porter #principal bump #rayne #hooty #character names

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borat123 · 4 years ago

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Analysis Pro NH Anti NS

Naruto Manga Part 2

Part 5

Naruto is seen thinking about Sasuke and seems sad that Sasuke doesn’t wanna come back to the village. After their encounter with him in Orochimaru’s base, it was obvious that Sasuke was a lot stronger than Naruto and that he needed to be more powerful to fight him. (But it is said that Sasuke actually used drugs to speed up his training, so he was probably a bit stronger than he should have. Also Naruto was weakened after his transformation into the four tails.) Anyways his thoughts get interrupted by Sakura and Sai.

Naruto says that he was ”devising a plan for them to look like they were going on a date”. But that’s not true, he was just thinking about Sasuke so why would Naruto say this? Also his face is not very serious at all either. Well first of all Naruto knows that Sakura loves Sasuke and he knows that he doesn’t actually have a chance with her (He knows this since part 1, probably even after chapter 3). He probably just says this to get a reaction from her and/or to piss her off. We all know Naruto used to be a prankster and he annoyed people to get their attention because it was better than to be ignored. The deeper reason behind him wanting to become Hokage is actually because he thinks that they hold the biggest amount of respect and then everyone would acknowledge his existence. He probably did more serious pranks on Sakura in the Academy and that’s probably why she used to hate him. He probably did pranks on everyone in his class except for Hinata who he probably thought was too nice.

Sakura is probably just joking but still, this girl calls him an idiot ALL THE TIME. Naruto even says she’s overdoing it. But maybe he’s indirectly saying that his previous statement about that date was also a joke? Naruto is also finally opening up more to Sai so that’s good.(i’ll be honest i didn’t like Sai when he was first introduced since i didn’t understand his point in the story, but he’s grown on me and he’s actually one of the funniest character and i like him for calling out on team 7:s bullshit).

Sai called her ugly. He’s right, she got an ugly personality. Also Naruto continues with the overdoing it thing (he probably thinks everyone is still joking). No but seriously when i first watched this in the anime i literally laughed out load and i never really do that. (Sai is awesome).

After their talk with Kakashi in the hospital Team 7 and Team 10 go and eat barbeque. Sai knows about Sakura’s reaction when he honestly told her what he thought of her. So he says the opposite to Ino and Sakura gets very mad since she wanted him to say the same thing to Ino (i know they are rivals, but what kinda friend genuinely wants that?). Anyways look at Naruto’s face, he KNOWS how she’s gonna react (he knows she’s a huge bitch).

I’ll be skipping the Rasenshuriken arc since there isn’t any important things regarding these topics there (just fighting and training arc).

We continue into the Second Sasuke Retrival Arc where Naruto is teamed up with Hinata. Naruto seems pleased with teaming up with her and he gives her a gentle smile. Look at how pissed and serious he was before but then when Hinata showed up he calmed down and looked happy. Its like her very presence makes him serene. Honestly if he got teamed up with Sakura (or anyone else) he would have still looked pissed and serious and just said ”Yeah!”.

A little of topic here but its relevant in chronological order for the story.

I’ve heard alot of people say that Jiraiya was weak because he lost against Pain. The thing is had Jiraiya known the same intel that Naruto did about Pain he probably could of defeated all of the paths EVEN the deva path and i’ll explain why. Since they were fighting in the rain village, Nagato wouldn’t have gone all out and used chibaku tensei or shinra tensei to avoid destroying his village. And that’s what Pain meant with that statement above. Had the deva path used all those jutsus though Jiraiya would have lost. Jiraiya should not be underrestimated though, to even take out 3 paths with no intel is still a huge feat since Pain is EXTREMELY POWERFUL. (Nerd rant over)

I’ll skip forward to here, Naruto hears about Jiraiya’s death and is angry over Tsunade’s decision of letting him go to the Rain Village. Naruto doesn’t show it, but he loves Jiraiya like a father figure and his death hits him hard. Also why is Sakura trying to scold Naruto here? She should know that Naruto spent alot of time with his former master and that he is upset over his death. Also if Naruto and Sakura were so ”close” then why didn’t he open up to her later about his grief over Jiraiya’s death, instead of just ignoring her? Honestly for being teammates they are actually very distant from each other. Naruto cant even be himself around her and acts stupid most off the time. There is no denying that Naruto didn’t even open up to any of his teammates first (not even Iruka). He actually opened up to Hinata about acting tough and putting on a bravado and how he actually was angry all the time because he saw himself as a failure. (It was probably her calm demeanour and charm that made him feel comfortable to open up to her, also because he sees her as a kindred spirit that would understand).

But after 3+ years he cant even open up to Sakura? For being teammates they are actually very distant from each other and you can tell that its a forced friendship just by reading the manga alone. It would have been easy for Kishi to give a better relationship but he did this on purpose for a reason. Naruto cant even act like himself and just acts stupid around her because they are so distant from each other. The only thing that brought them closer was their obsession with Sasuke.

Naruto wants to avenge his master and wants to beat Pain and thus wants Shizune to hurry up with the investigation of one of the Pain bodies. Look at what Sakura was saying too. She might be in the right Naruto shouldn’t stress her work but Sakura seriously doesn’t need to say the things she does to him. ”Throw him through a wall” da fuq?! He just ignores her again because as i’ve said in a previous part, if he talks back she is gonna hurt him.

That will be the end of this part. Next time we’ll be going over the Pain Arc, probably my favorite arc in the series. There is a HUGE NaruHina Moment there and i’ll have a lot to say about it so it will probably take more than just one part.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 6

#naruhina #pro naruhina #anti narusaku

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fockingnice · 4 years ago

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Ohh another blog for fics 🙌 y'all are doing God's work just so you know, get ready for me to send you a lot of asks, I could talk about fics all day 😂 to start I think, some of your favorite Sobbe fics? It can be any genre, but just a small list with the ones that come to your head, I'm curious and I probably read all of them 😂

heyy!! hahah i’m the same

ok so the ones that come to my mind first are mostly multi chapters ones because i tend to remember them easily but here are a non exhaustive list of some of my fave fanfics:

- run and score by robbesanderx @robbesdriesen (amazing, brilliant, chef kiss, super cute, love it so so much, 10/10) [Robbe Ijzermans is the star goalie of Antwerp U’s football team, naturally blocking shots as if it were his sixth sense. Sander Driesen is their star striker, having an eagle eye for the goal at all times. Robbe always had a distaste for his bleached-blonde teammate and the annoying way he carried himself, but Robbe can never mask how much he admires him from a distance. When they finally begin to learn more about each other, there is no going back for either. With the looming playoffs in jeopardy for their entire team, will Robbe & Sander be able to manage it together? All while falling in love with each other at the same time?] (finished)

- eastwood liberty by @fockinglevendcliche (amazing amazing amazing!! i’m completely obsessed with this fic! i can’t wait for the next chapter!!) [Eastwood Liberty students had only one mission: to always be on top, at everything, no matter the cost. It took Robbe just a day to realize that people there only cared about two things: money and power. But that was no surprise to him. What he didn't expect was to be confronted by this group of rich and spoiled boys, who used to always get what they wanted, especially their leader, Sander Driesen. Sander made the rules, but unfortunately for him, Robbe had never been really good at sticking to them.] (not finished)

- visitations by @lucidpantone (my fave fic ever!! i love it so much!! i actually never read the last chapter because i’m too weak to handle it but i’m planning on doing it one day lol!! this fic makes me cry so much!!) [Does Robbe and Sander's relationship survive into adulthood. This fic takes place in two simultaneously timelines: the past and the present. The present occurs in one entire day. Both timelines are completely out of chronological order. Everything is in clips.You can be dropped in at anytime of the day in any timeline. So clip by clip you will need to piece together what happen to Sander & Robbe and why the present looks the way it does and what happened in the past that got them there. This love story is a journey. So be prepared. In the words of one of our Even's. It’s a complicated love story between complicated people.] (finished)

- purple lips (underwater) by moya_chin @croissenne (love this one so much too!! basically i love them all bc they are my fave but this one is really amazing!! one of my fave one shot ever!!) [it’s a sunny, warm friday at the beginning of march, and sander wants them to go for a swim.]

- rotten work by @aholynight (this one is kinda popular and understand why because it’s just amazing!!) [Robbe is a college freshman whose reckless habits and excessive drinking are starting to look an awful lot like calculated self-destruction—though his loneliness might be the thing that kills him first. Sander is a visual arts major a few years above Robbe, with a face nobody can forget and a fuck boy reputation he can't seem to shake. Everybody warns Robbe to stay away from the Sander, unless he wants to get burned. But Robbe's the kind of boy who likes playing with fire.] (finished)

- vrijdag 21:37 by wasteourdaysdreaming (idk their tumblr) (i love love this one too!! everything is so in character!! 10/10 but unfortunately it’s not finished and i don’t think it will ever be finished) [The same party one Friday night in February, told from different perspectives.] (not finished)

- Put your head on my shoulder by Aniloracat @anicocat (also great fic!! i really really love it!! very realistic!! i’m a sucker for roommates au + stuck in quarantine) [Because of some past mistakes and communication issues, Robbe and Sander can't stand each other anymore, until they are "forced" to stay in quarantine alone and face their feelings.] (not finished)

- you know i'm always at your shoulder (take your heart out of its holster) by wafflesofdoom (idk their tumblr) (this is one of the first i read!! i haven’t read it again since but i remember really really loving it!! unfortunately i don’t think this fic will ever be finished) [learning how to be in a real, actual relationship isn't the easiest thing in the world, and robbe is very new to it all, and he's got a lot to figure out when it comes to being in actual, everyday love with sander. the first six months of a relationship are the best - and they're some of the hardest, too. these are the first six months of robbe and sander's relationship.] (not finished)

- ground control to us by @hopelessromanticvirgo (i binge read this two days ago and omg i’m obsessed i love this social media au so so much!! really amazing!!) [Sander is a singer and does a lot of covers and has a band with his best friend Senne. One of his hobby is drawing and he often posts his work on his social media. He’s quite famous and has a YouTube channel for his music and also for fun with Senne. Robbe is a pretty normal kid, he’s going to high school and he’s just trying to survive. It’s not a secret that he has the biggest crush on his favorite singer but the thing that nobody knows is that he has a fan account which is his personal diary to confess his love to this boy. Their world is about to turn upside down when Senne suggests doing “going undercover as a fan” video for their channel. Sander thinks that it’s pretty cool idea but what happens when he will start messaging to the most followed fan page of his and realize that he never wants to stop talking to them.] (finished)

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Darkwing Duck Quadruple Feature! (Beauty and the Beet, Whiffle While You Work, Jurassic Jumble, Something Fishy)

Welcome back! It’s been a bit since I visited St. Canard and my march to watching Just Us Justice Ducks by watching one episode, with the exception of Megavolt the first chronological appearances of, each member of the Justice Ducks and Fearsome Five. The Megavolt exception was so I could, by comission, cover the one and only appearance of the OTHER Negaduck if you were curious.So far besides Negsy and Volty, i’ve covered both of Morgana’s first chronological episodes, Liquidator’s and (SIgh) Gizmoducks. But with only 6 left to go.. I put the seires on hiatus to work on ride of the three cabs and my minty fresh retrospective of life and times. At the TIME it didn’t seem like a bad idea, I could get to this any time and what not.. but in hindsight.. yeah putting an almost finished project on hold till two much larger projects, that at the time of this review have 10 and 13 installments left, WHILE also starting two more projects... was not my best move, especially since I have a comission, and an episode needed to properly review that comission AND a valentine’s day episode to review.. all of which come AFTER Just Us Justice Ducks chronlogically and 2 of which involve Negaduck. So yeah I whiffed it bad on this one and this mini-marathon is my way of fixing that, finsihing up the last few episodes before the big event. The episode i’ve waited almost a decade to watch and one of the most loved in the series history: Just Us Justice DUcks, which is coming up next week. Then LIfe and Times will be right back where it was and I promise to get that out weekly. But yeah with logisitcs out of the way and 4 episodes to go, I don’t know how to go slow so let’s get dangerous shall we?

Beauty and the Beat:The Misplaced Batman the Animated Series Villian

We open with one of the first Darkwings I watched via my old Darkwing Duck DVDS, rewatched a while back and easily one of my faviorite episodes and the first apperance of my faviorite Darkwing Duck Villian, though Liquidator and now Quackerjack are giving him a run for his money. But yeah I love Reggie and part of it is he’s something far diffrent than what Darkwing normally fights.

While he still fits in with the Rouges gallery: someone with either powers or a good gimmick whose intresting, engaging and most importantly to this show, Reggie is still diffrent in that he’s an inherently tragic figure. While the rest of the rouges have sympathetic qualities theier still not really good people: Quackerjack chose to lash out at what drove him out of buisness instead of starting over again, Megavolt is your standard wants money bad guy, and Liquidator was a massive asshole. And if you add in the other villians i’ve covered, Taurus Bulba was basically Marvel’s Kingpin as a bul and Splatter Phoenix while having a noble goal of funding her arts does so via framing an innocent child and stealing. They aren’t unsympathetic, some of them anyway, but they are still ruthless because they choose to be. Reggie.. didn’t get that choice. We see from the start of this episode his life has just been being everyone elses punching bag: His boss dosen’t respect him, his cowowkers not only don’t respect him but actively bully him and only the newsest researcher has ever paid him the time of day much less told the two assholes, Gary and Larson, a nice shout out, to stop. And given I reviewed Wonder Woman 84 yesterday i’ts NICE to remember a version of a “geek becomes a supervillian’ story that’s.. actually good. This is basically the same sorry, a disrpsected scientest trnasforms and gets revenge.. just you know done right.

And SOMEHOW Reggie’s life only gets worse as asshole one and asshole two sabotage his work, he gets fired and is forced to experiment on himself. While that’s a classic mad scientst and supervillian trope what’s notable is Reggie didn’t go immiedtly to world domination. He just wanted to cure world hunger and get some respect. He just wanted to be treated like a human being for once. Instead he got turned into a plant and despite this being a miracle.. he gets MOCKED by gary and larson and runs away, feeling like a freak. And since after that the transformation has clearly made his brain unstable.. he goes from a sweet, put upon guy who just wanted help to people.. to an obsessive plant monster.. who still just needs HELP. He needs therapy and a warm blanket and to turn his life around. And his motivation.. is just not being alone. While his kdinapping of the one scientest who liked him, and he assumes has feelings for him, is bad, and selfish.. it’s clear by that point Reggie is just not himself anymore. He’s Bushroot now. He’s lost himself and were this a diffrent show maybe he could’ve gotten the help he needed and some empathy. But what adds to the tragedy is Darkwing himself. This episode really showcases one of Darkwing’s biggest weaknses: his inablity to see crime other than in black and white terms. To him it’s just a game of heroes and villians. Nothing more nothing less. Villians can become heroes, as he hopes for Morgana, but to him there’s just good guys ,him and bad guys, everyone breaking the law. For someone whose often seen as an outlaw himself.. he still can’t see things in any other terms. However instead of just being lazy writing... it’s a clever character quirk, at the center of this episode and our final one, as well as one that pops up a little in Stegmutt’s first apperance. It nicely parodies/deocnscruts the whole good guy badguy dynamic by making it clear that sometimes while the person may be doing bad things.. they have a reason for it and sometimes the law just dosen’t work. It’s something I do wish they’d dug into more but given this was more of a comedy, I get why they didn’t, but what they did with it is great and it adds to this episode tremendously: Darkwing just sees Reggie as another villian to stop and not as a very unstable man who needs his help, but also needs tobe stopped for his own good. It’s why this is such a good episode, besides some great comic set pieces: it has a really tragic and moving story that , with some tweaking woudln’t of been out of place in batman the animateds eires. It’s still a bit goofy in places, as it should be giving the show it’s in btu at i’ts heart it’s just a relaly godo really tragic supervillian origin story.

Whiffle While You Work: The Saving Grace of an Okay Episode This one’s more of a mixed bag. For the good... Quackerjack is fucking awesome. While I already loved him from the comics, I hadn’t met his more lightehearted tv counterpart yet.. but boy was he a delight. From his it’s play time catch phrase which despite being repeated a LOT never got bored to his really invenitve use of toys. While a vilian with a toy gimmick is not new, Toyman has been around for.. 80 years? Damn. I should do some Superman TAS episodes this year to commemerate that. Point is between him and the joker the gimmick isn’t “New” but Quackerjack still feels unique from using actual jacks, to a motorized hula hoop, to a GIANT CRYING BABY DOLL TO FLOOD A CITY. Jackie is just a delight every minute he’s on screen, and his motivation is solid: wanting to get revenge at the Whiffle Boy video game and i’ts insuing phenmonin and merchandise deals for squeezing him out of buisness. It makes him mildly symathetic enough to be intresting but not enough to override his terrible actions. He’s just fun to watch, and Micheal Bell is phenominal in the roll. easily one of my faviorite vilians thus far and it’s easy to see why he showed up quite a bit.

Sadly the rest of the episode.. is not very intresting. It starts with your standard “Adult gets child away from the video game only to play it” plot which is belivieble, my dad was a gamer back during my childhood and probably still plays games ocasionally to this day. He fucking loved Starcraft, Ultima ONline, Super Metroid, Warcraft II and III.. and swearing. He really loved swearing at the games. And the idea of the episode isn’t bad, Drake is jealous that Gosalyn is in the limelight for once.. the issue being a grown man competing with his own daughter just makes Drake really unlikeable. He at one point tries to use his parental authority to take her out of the contest, lies about being in the competition, and dosen’t apologize or learn enough to make up for his being a dick about this. THe episode really suffers from Launchpad not being around to be a buffer between the two and as ssuch it’s just uncomfortable. Hell Gos threatens to reveal Drake’s identity to .. someone.. but she still comes off sympathetic as when Drake presses her on it.. it’s very clear she made the threat on the spur of the moment out of hurt.

Also the whole Whiffle Boy game craize extending to a city is delightfully batshit, and plausable given i’m pretty sure if nintendo could afford their own city we’d have it over in japan and for a video game episode in the 90′s, this one isn’t all that bad. It actually seems to get games on SOME level, and seems based more on an arcade game, which drake plays whiffle boy on at one point and the 80′s arcade competition craze, and since arcade comeptitions were still a huge thing in the 90′s, it’s very clear this si written by people who actually know what a video game is and don’t just fear it as some strange doodad their kids are into. Trust me I’ve been around animation so long this plot has become tiresome. So not a BAD episode, just held back by drake being written even more dickishly than usual. P.S. there’s apparently an ultima level to the game.. so either Lord British is finally putting Chuckles down or someone needs to know what’s a paladin.

Jurassic Jumble: Two Great One Shot Characters that Taste Great Together Well okay Segmutt does get one more episode but this is still his only episode on his own just like Neptuina next, so I count it well enough. Point is this episode is pretty good. It does have some weaknsses: It starts with Drake not beliviing Honker’s theory about a recent theft of acountants, one he’s only on the scene for because he happens to really need help with his taxes because, contrary to what Wesley Snipes thought, Superheroes still need to pay taxes. He dosen’t belive it’s dinosaurs.. he dosen’t belivie it’s dinosaurs despite the foot prints, honker being smart and HAVING FOUGHT A DOG MADE ENTIRELY OF WATER.

I just get annoyed when superheros in a superhero universe don’t hav ea logical reason for dismissing something.. or random citizens.. it was fine if reptitous in the stan lee days because it’d been 20 years, at the time, since superheros were active and people can be stupid but it gets grating when someone says somethin’gs not possible in a superhero universe. Given we’re currrently dealing with an outgoing president who refuses to accept an election is real and his followers who think masks are a polical issue i’ts not exactly unrelasitic, dosen’t mean it’s enjoyable to read or watch.

Still it works here because it splits the plot nicely and Gosalyn’s disbleif is less grating as she just wants it to be martians and dosen’t bully her friend or anything over it, just makes a few snyde remarks. The episode also wasn’t helped at first by the fact there’s a really reptitive bit where Darkwing bungies down to investigate the crook he thinks is responsible, but is actually just chilling at his minium security prison. It’s just not funny and takes up too much of the episode. But the episode picks up towards the second half when we meet our dinosaur: Stegmutt, a dumb but kind and friendly child like former janitor turned stegasaurs, whose unwittingly kidnapping people for his “friend” Dr. Fossil, the professor who turned him, and genuinely is not a bad soul and likes gosalyn and honker. He’s just clumsy and destructive and working for someone he dosen’t know is evil. Speaking of which.. Dr. Fossil is really damn awesome and i’ts a shame he never came back in the comics or cartoon and hopefully Frank does him better in the reboot. Seriously he’s enjoyable, a bit nebbish but delightfully insane, deciding to wipe out all non dino life because he’s tired of getting panicked screams in the street and of all the dino merchandise like those puzzles with the pieces missing. He’ sjust delightfully nutty, with his love of saying bin bang boom and his having to put up with Stegmutt’s antics, as well as the whole joke that he TURNED HIMSELF INTO A DINOSAUR, yet gripes about being a dinosaur and acts like it’s humanity’s fault , balking when Gosalyn suggests he just.. turn himself back. Plus Ptetrodacytl’s are awesome so tha’ts a bonus. Seriously his showing up turns the episode from okay to fucking amazing. Seriously bring him back for the reboot.. and get Rich Fulcher to voice him. Seirously Bob Fossil as Dr. Fossil... it’s too perfect NOT to do casting gag wise, and he frankly perfectly fits the charcter down to the nasily voice. Plus Rich does voice acting quite a bit, so he’s already likely in Frank’s Rolodex.

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Stegmutt himself is also not too shabby, your standard child like moron, but he’s got a sweetness and niceness to him and we get some good gags like his habit of breaking off handles, his opening sodas with his tail and Fossil getting rid of him by telilng him to check if he left the bathroom light on...

And the climax with Darkwing.. turning.. into this

I don’t get it either but i’ts still a fun climax. Also forgot to mention Dr. Fossil can do that blow you away by flapping his wings thing Storm Eagle can do. Neat. All in all while not the series BEST outing, it has some flaws holding it back, it’s a damn fun one and one I highly recommend. Okay one more.

Something Fishy: The Better Submariner This is a simple but good one: St. Canard beach has gotten trashy.. literally there’s trash everywhere. And while Drake is ambilent to it, Gosalyn is taking up the crusade to take out the trash and the garbage people... and gets her dad beaten up over it by dumping trash on some guys head but frankly, he deserved it. Things go up a notch though when some sea creatures invade and .. clean up the beach and beat up darkwing. And while they destroy some property.. they aren’t exactly wrong? This is where that flaw I mentioned comes in though. Drake just.. can’t see things in shades of grey and insits he must be the good guy and whoevers doing this must be stopped. However it becomes clear when we meet the antagonist that while her methods are wayy to extreme.. she’s in the right. Neputina is an awesome character, easily one of the series best and esaily horribly underulitized. She was a simple fish who thought a toxic waste barrel was a new friend.. and learned the hard way by becoming a sexy fish woman. Yeah I said it. But her motive is understandable thanks to her origin and just how BAD it’s gottne, with piles of trash all underwater and the laws Drake cites agianst this sort of thing not doing squat. It’s a nice take on the old enviornmental message , something I dreaded going in as it makes a valid point; sometimes diong things the “right” way isn’t enough.. but it still dosen’t justify harming innocent people in the process, as Nep’s ultimate plan to flood the city would. Launchpad ends up being the voice of Reason as drake is too caught in his games of good guy bad guy to get Neptuina ISN’T a bad person, just one fed up with people hurting those she cares about. Neptuina is a unique villan in that unlike Morgana, who while having a sympathetic motive was out for herself, Stegmutt, who didn’t reailze he was on the wrong side, and Gizmoduck.. wellll

Neptuina.. is just misguided. She has the right idea but the wrong methods and Darkwing’s too stubborn to admit it.. but he’s also seen as in the wrong with Launchpad realizing DW just.. isn’t the good guy this time, but in the best scene of the episode talking Neptuina down by pointing out innocent people will get hurt. It’s a good, nuanced episode about envrionmetnalism with a throughly charasmatic and intrersting, acted wonderfully by Sussan Silo, antagonist. Neptuina is a better version of Marvel’s namor the submariner: she goes against humanity.. but I don’t want to punch her and dosen’t have one of her constnat character traits as “I want to bank your wife richards BANG YOUR WIFEEEEE”

So overall.. a good batch of episodes. Only Wiffle While You Work was all that weak, and even it had it’s charms and Quackerjack. It shows the series overall quality: even the just okay episodes here are still really fun to watch. It’s just a solid show overall and whie not without flaws is a classic to this day for a reason. Next week we’ll wrap this up with JUST US JUSTICE DUCKS! Until then stay safe and goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

#darkwing duck #drake mallard #gosalyn mallard #launchpad mcquack #honker muddlefoot #neptuina #stegmutt #doctor fossil #dr fossil #justice ducks #quackerjack #regenald bushroot #bushroot #whiffle while you work #beauty and the beet #something fishy #jurassic jumble

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charliejrogers · 4 years ago

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I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Or, What Many Will Think About Midway Through This Movie)

You may be expecting a long review for this movie. I mean, let’s be honest, I dissected the shit out of Birds of Prey, to the point that it was almost inappropriate for the kind of movie it was. But this movie? The arthouse classic-to-be from the much-revered Charlie Kaufman (both writer and director here), I’m Thinking of Ending Things? A movie filled to the brim with symbolism and which refuses to commut itself to any one point of view or plane or reality? This guy’s gonna write about it for fucking eternity.

Well, no. It won’t be the case. Why? Because I don’t think I really got it. Sure, I could try to wax poetic about my thoughts on aging, time, whether there’s meaning in relationships, meaning to our lives (all themes the film raises and which serve as its central core) But it would just kinda sound bullshit coming from me.

So, yeah, this isn’t much of a plot movie. It starts with a young woman (Jessie Buckley) waiting in the street of a snowy quiet country town’s downtown for her boyfriend, Jake, (Jesse Plemons) of one month (or longer?) so that the two can join Jake’s parents for dinner. Despite taking this proverbial big step in her relationship, she’s wondering (evoking the film’s title) whether she should end things. Or is that really what the title is about. Like everything in this movie, every piece of dialogue every character, every suggestion of a chronology, things are laden with a second meaning. Part of your enjoyment from the film will derive from whether or not you enjoy being strung along for 135 minutes without ever really understanding what’s going on, what’s really being said, who these characters really are, or when/where the hell are we in the world?

Despite those tantalizing and exciting questions, I’m here to warn you now, nothing big or exciting happens in this film, at least by conventional movie standards. We watch the couple drive to the Jake’s parents’ house and that takes about 25 minutes of film time. We’re in the house with his parents for probably about 45 minutes. Then the drive home takes another 20-25 minutes. The scenes about driving are just that: two people in a car talking to one another without much event. It’s like the car ride scenes from your favorite buddy/road trip movie but with all the fun adventures taken out. Instead what we get are long, confusing conversations more akin to Matthew McConaughey’s time spent in a car on True Detective.

But one thing becomes exceedingly clear when we finally get to Jake’s parents’ house: the film’s banal settings (a country road, a farmhouse, a rural high school) belie a truth about the film. It is not set in our reality. Jake and the woman’s conversation on the car ride is full of reflections on the nature of time, aging, depression, and life. Jake is a slightly insufferable intellectual. He’s the kind of guy who says he doesn’t know a whole lot about musical theater and then proceed to list 15-20 musicals of various fame and obscurity. The whole scene feels as quirky and just-shy of overwritten, i.e. par for the course of a pretentious art house film such as this. But the mannerisms of Jake’s parents are more than can be attributed to a quirky film. His mother is a jealous, possessive neurotic played by Toni Collette in a way only she could and a twitchy, and his father is a lecherous rival obsessed with his girlfriend played by David Thewlis (a favorite actor of mine). And throughout the meal, the confident, know-it-all we knew from the drive regresses into the behavior of a weak, embarrassed child. These are caricatures taken word from word from a textbook on Freudian psychology more than they are believable humans. The film admits and confirms the Freudian aping rather explicitly.

But just when you think you understand what the film’s up to, it switches course. After dinner, the woman starts to explore their house and starts a journey through time (but, again, with none of the excitement that sentence would normally imply.) It’s my second favorite sequence in the film (the first being an interpretive dance that occurs towards the film’s end… yes, it’s THAT kind of film). It’s filmed and framed in the trappings of a horror movie, but there’s no jump scares or horrible truth to be found. It’s how I imagine someone would adapt the tone of the superb video game Gone Home (yes, I’m one of THOSE people). But yeah, there’s no horrible truth… except if you consider the inevitability of human decay and disease to be a terrible truth. Every room the woman stumbles upon finds Jake’s parents appear to be a different age and health than when she first got to the house, ranging from a mother decked out in 50s/60s apparel to old, feeble gentleman. From there the movie continues to refuse to stay in one place and becomes odder and odder. It’s then I realized to think of this movie of a totally abstract piece of art, like the dream sequences of The Sopranos or Buffy.

So what do I think is going on? Obviously spoilers for here on out. Despite getting the majority of the screen time, this is NOT a movie about the young woman. At the very beginning of the film we are introduced, briefly, to an older, portly gentleman in his late 70s, looking out a window. The film cuts back to that exact same room and window 30 seconds later, but in the old man’s place is Jesse Plemons’ Jake. From that I take it to mean the two are the same person, with Plemons representing the older Jake younger self (or imagined younger self). Alongside the main plot, we occasionally get images and short scenes of the older Jake, a janitor at a rural high school who lives alone. The intellect (or perhaps false sense of intellect) of his younger self is clearly not meeting its potential. He is mocked by students for his age and fragility. What I think we’re watching is this older Jake trying to make sense of what it means to be old and who is currently on the verge of suicide unable to see its meaning. Although I compared the film to a dream sequence, I don’t think it’s fair to reduce the whole thing to Jake’s dream. More I feel like we are seeing a manifestation of Jake’s subconscious thoughts on screen play out.

Who is the young woman then? I’m not sure. I doubt she represents any actual woman – she’s given a variety of names. She almost plays the part of our (and his) guide into Jake’s subconscious like Virgil to Dante, but she’s more than a void. I think she represents what Jake would want in a woman in his life, a confident woman who can see through Jake’s faults (but notably sees them and sees them clearly). She’s not overtly sexual like the women at the ice cream who clearly make Jake uncomfortable. But yet, it’s telling that even in his deepest, most private thoughts that I think we’re seeing, he cannot imagine that even his ideal woman would want to be with him.

We get lots of reasons for why Jake thinks things are like this. Clearly he holds resentment for his parents, even if he feels like it’s cliché to do so. But time is his true nemesis. For me the most telling scenes for my understanding of the movie comes at the end with the interpretive dance, which shows Jake and the young woman (or, at least, stand-ins for those two) engage in a beautiful display of courtship, love, and marriage, only for the young Jake stand-in to be violently by a representation of the older janitor Jake. Clearly Jake thinks of his current self as something wholly distinct from his younger self, and that the creature he is now, a creature created by time, has destroyed who he once was. Like many of us (or as many of us think), he peaked in high school, the last place where people gave him awards for being who he is. This detail adds a sadness to the fact that he works as a janitor at one now. And it is notable that the film’s journey ends there, at a high school, where inexplicably he is being awarded a lifetime achievement award. Achievement in what? It’s unclear. What is clear that the person receiving the award is not the janitor Jake, but the younger Jake (Jesse Plemons) with old-age make-up on. With his dying breath he is able to see the self he loves, his younger self, grow up and live the life he wanted. There’s no sense at all of his present circumstances or person. Then we cut to a shot of janitor Jake’s truck buried in snow, presumably (on my interpretation) with janitor Jake frozen inside, dead.

So ultimately whether or not you like this movie depends on your tolerance for head-up-its-butt dialogue about the grand questions of life combined with its purposefully obtuse presentation. As one of the biggest douchebags I know, I liked it, but didn’t fall head over heels for it. The only other associated Kaufmann production I’ve seen is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but from what I understand, this movie is Kaufmann at its Kaufmann-iest. I have a great respect for the planning and thought behind every second of the film and I can honestly say I was never not entertained. I loved the film’s mood and atmosphere and that I was always on my toes. It’s a movie that truly has gotten better as I’ve continued to think about it over the last three days. But still, I don’t think I always understood what was going on and it’s a little too obtuse/abstract for it to be an all-time classic. I respect that for some people this may be their favorite movie of all time, and for others it may be a crock of shit. I’m somewhere in the middle, and cautiously recommend this film to those of you who are open to some abstract art in film. If you are, definitely try it out, you won’t forget it. If you are not open to it, skip it; you will have no qualms about endings things early.

***1/4 (Three and one-fourth stars out of four)

#charlie kaufman #i'm thinking of ending things

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nightwving · 5 years ago

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i was tagged by @mollyweasly to answer these questions, tysm!! i did most of them the other night but got distracted and am posting them now lmao

1. on a scale of 1-10, how excited are you about life right now? idk, i’ll say maybe a 7 or so? honestly i’m feeling pretty decent for the first time in a while

2. describe yourself in a hashtag? #ohfuck

3. if you could do a love scene with anyone, who would it be? that’s tough... i would never want to actually subject anyone to the horror or doing that with me, but i guess either tom holland or sebastian stan??

4. if your life was a musical, what would the marquee say? “a juxtaposed comedic disaster”

5. what’s one thing people don’t know about you? shit man i usually overshare pretty much everything, but i guess one thing would be that i got hit straight in the head by a golf ball while on a course with my parents when i was in middle school?? it came from way far out but miraculously didn’t seem to crack my skull or give me too bad of a concussion. my dad said it hit so hard that it sounded like it hit the pavement. now i have severe anxiety near golf courses and when things are flying near my head in general lmfao

6. what’s your wake up ritual? i check my phone real quick and then immediately go to pee and brush my teeth. depending on the day and whether or not i’d be late for class back when things were normal, i might shower lol. then either get dressed real quick and go to class or, these days, play video games or get on my computer

7. what’s your go to bed ritual? i’ll usually wrap up whatever i’m doing, make sure my fan is on, lock my door (when i’m at school), strip, take some melatonin, lay down, set my alarm, plug in and then get on my phone for a while until i (hopefully) get sleepy

8. what’s your favorite time of day? i love the evening around sunset or so but i also just love the night in general, especially when things get quiet in the am

9. your go to for having a good laugh? tiktok

10. dream country to visit? ummm... honestly canada 😂 or germany or something

11. what’s the biggest surprise you’ve ever had? last spring i spontaneously won an award in the department that i work for at school because my friends insisted that i get one for all the work i do on the newspaper and for my work study and stuff. they had to work some stuff around because i’m not actually a major and that’s who the awards are for, but they all agreed to give it to me at the ceremony and i was NOT expecting it whatsoever. it was one of the most amazing moments ever especially since i struggle with finding a niche and having faith in myself

12. heels or flats/sneakers? sneakers!!

13. vintage or new? i love vintage but that shit can be hard for me to find

14. who do you want to write your obituary? probably a friend idk i feel like my family would say some dumb corny shit lmao

15. style icon? i have quite a few but slash or duff mckagan from 80s GNR would be a couple ok don’t judge me. and john bender from the breakfast club

16. what are three things you cannot live without? internet, my ps4, and friends

17. what’s one ingredient you put in everything? chili or garlic powder

18. what 3 people living or dead would you want to make dinner for? i don’t even make dinner for myself lmao but if i really had the motivation, probs stan lee, carrie fisher, and my tiny son josh bassett

19. what’s your biggest fear in life? being institutionalized against my will and/or death before i’m ready/feel like i’ve done something worthwhile.

20. window or aisle seat? depends tbh

21. what’s your current tv obsession? i’m not really on a kick with it right now, but i’m slowly making my way through the clone wars in chronological order.

22. favorite app? tiktok

23. secret talent? uhh... i guess a lot of people would assume that i’m not athletic because of my weight but i’m actually naturally pretty sporty and can still be when i really feel like it

24. most adventurous thing you’ve ever done in your life? well i’ve tried to summon spirits in multiple different places, attempted to break into an asylum with my ex, done a pregnancy test with an old friend in a burger king bathroom... idk if those count as “adventurous” but that’s about all i got as of right now in my life

25. how would you define yourself in three words? eclectic, resilient, and real

26. favorite piece of clothing you own? my denim jacket

27. a must have clothing item that everyone should have? also denim jacket lol

28. a superpower you would want? i debate this often... i think shapeshifting would be cool but also telekinesis

29. what’s inspiring you in life right now? movies and stuff i guess

30. best piece of advice you’ve received? probably that it’s okay to do things at your own pace and to not be so hard on yourself when you aren’t doing things the same way as others

31. best advice you’d give your teenage self? wear some better fuckin clothes lmao

32. a book everyone should read? bruh idk i don’t really read anymore, harry potter i guess 😂

33. what would you like to be remembered for? being honest and real but also someone that would’ve been there for you, or to have a good laugh with

34. how do you define beauty? beauty is like something that fills you with wonder and a sense of life or something

35. what do you love most about your body? uh... i have nice legs i guess 😂

36. best way to take a rest/decompress? find something that distracts you and makes you forget about all the shit. get lost in another world in movies/music/etc or just laugh with someone about anything

37. favorite place to view art? i like seeing it in the studios at school when people are still working on it

38. if your life was a song, what would the title be? “somethin’ else”

39. if you could master one instrument, what would it be? ugh i would love to be a full blow pianist but i ain’t got the patience for that. i made it through a few periods of lessons throughout my life and three classes in college but i don’t have the capacity to do more than that. but i would also love to get even better with my voice. i’ve been taking classical lessons for the past couple of years but quit recently because of the anxiety that studio recitals and master classes give me. music major shit is rough

40. if you had a tattoo, where would it be? i have one janky one behind my right ear that i got when i was 16, it’s a bird. but if i wasn’t a fatass bitch, i’d like to get more in different places on my body

41. dolphins or koalas? dolphins

42. what’s your spirit animal? it used to be a coyote according to a quiz years ago lol but it’s probably something different now

43. best gift you’ve ever received? probs my shitty first car that my dad got me last summer. but it’s a hell of a lot better than nothing

44. best gift you’ve given? shit i can’t even remember. i love doing personal little gifts for my friends. ACTUALLY i’d probably say the playlist i made for my friend last christmas because listening to music late at night was our thing

45. what’s your favorite board game? secret hitler is the BOMB

46. what’s your favorite color? yellow

47. least favorite color? probs brown

48. diamond or pearls? diamonds

49. drugstore makeup or designer? drugstore bitch, i’m broke

50. blow-dry or air-dry? air dry preferably but i’ll blow dry if i need to

51. pilates or yoga? neither lmao

52. coffee or tea? coffee unless it’s sweet tea

53. what’s the weirdest word in the english language? all of them

54. dark chocolate or milk chocolate? dark

55. stairs or elevators? elevators bih i got bad knees

56. summer or winter? winter, FUCK the sun

57. you are stuck on an island, you can pick one food to eat forever without getting tired of it, what would you eat? potatoes

58. a dessert you don’t like? a lot of things, i eat like a picky five year old. but i don’t like anything minty

59. a skill you’re working on mastering? singing. but also design-y stuff and videography

60. best thing to happen to you today? i went on a short walk with my mom earlier and there’s always a man across the street from us who sits on his porch every evening and sings with his guitar. i love it

61. worst thing to happen to you today? sitting through my zoom class lmao

62. best compliment you’ve ever received? idk, just when someone has generally called me beautiful? that makes me feel really nice

63. favorite smell? i love the smell of cookies or brownies in the oven. i’m also weird af and love strange things like basement smell and gasoline. also sharpies

64. hugs or kisses? hugs probably

65. if you made a documentary, would it be about? idk probably something about a niche community/town or some cult-y shit

66. last piece of content you consumed that made you cry? avengers: endgame

67. lipstick or lipgloss? i don’t usually wear either very much but probably lipstick

68. sweet or savory? savory

69. girl crush? ana de armas or margot robbie

70. how do you know your in love? i feel like you’d do anything for that person even if it hurt you, and you think about them all the time and want to protect/be there for them

71. a song you can listen to on repeat? i usually avoid listening to things on repeat, but if i had to choose something... idk maybe africa by toto 😂

72. if you could switch lives with someone for a day, who would it be? probs someone like elon musk or bill gates to see what it’s like to be that fucking rich and successful

73. what are you most excited for about this time in your life? just enjoying it and maybe honing some skills with all this extra time. also watching some movies on my watchlist

i’m tagging @verafarmiga, @northuldrra, @tmhnks, @spaceoddly, @breaksfastclub, and anyone else who wants to do it!! but feel free to ignore or just laugh at my answers

#tag game #about

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nadziejastar · 6 years ago

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The reason Lea and Isa's relationship in KH3 was unsatisfying was the same reason a lot of other things in that game were unsatisfying. Nomura was so focused on sequel baiting the next saga that he didn't bother to try and wrap up the current saga properly. Wrapping up all the plot threads was an obligation, not something he actually wanted to do.

The Sad, Butchered, Unfinished Xehanort Saga: Just Tie It All to Union X and KH4!

“Nomura revealed that the theme of Kingdom Hearts III is “resolution”. It is the final battle against the main series antagonist, Master Xehanort, so his story is finally reaching its resolution. But because it is the theme, there will no doubt be many emotional resolutions to the journey’s we have taken with Sora over the years.”

Without a doubt, one of my biggest issues with KH3 is that the game seemed way more concerned with setting up future games and plots instead of wrapping up the plot threads in the Xehanort Saga. Lea and Isa’s story is just one of the many, MANY issues I had with the game’s story. The main theme of KH3 was supposed to be “resolution”. Resolution, my ass.

Everything is being left for the next game. IF there’s a next game. Nomura never acts too sure if there even will be a next game. It was rather heartbreaking to wait for such a long time, and then realize that THIS was the only “resolution” we were getting. It really pissed me off. Just look how many unresolved plot threads there are, which are now being haphazardly tied to Union χ:

The Seekers of Darkness

—When Marluxia is fading, he says, “I am on the cusp of reclaiming my identity, my purpose for being.” Did he remember that he was from the distant past?

Yes. I think if you play KH Union Cross to the end, you will learn his purpose for being.

—When Larxene said, “I was really just along for the ride,” she must have meant with…

Marluxia. It’s not certain whether Larxene has her old memories, but she was interested in Marluxia to a degree for some reason, and became his partner in his plan to overthrow the old Organization XIII.

Why are the rest of the old Organization members even part of the new Organization? They spend the whole game helping Xehanort, then act confused and grateful after Sora beats them. Why? This seemed so weird in canon. It’s clear from their dialogue after they are defeated and the giant pillar of darkness that exits their body, that Luxord, Marluxia, and Larxene were supposed to be completely controlled by Xehanort.

— What happens to the hearts of those who have had Master Xehanort’s heart planted within them?They’ll gradually be swallowed by it. As for Master Xehanort, he plans to control them completely. The planted parts of the heart are captured rather than disappear.

Which is exactly what Nomura said happens to people who become vessels. I’m sure there was another explanation for their presence which probably would have been revealed in BBSV2. It would have showed how they were made vessels against their will and were being controlled. We’d actually be able to sympathize with them finally. But now it’s revealed that Marluxia and Larxene joined willingly because of Union χ stuff. Who knows if we’ll ever find out why Luxord was there.

—We never would have guessed how important Xigbar ended up being when he first appeared in KH2, either.

I hear that a lot, but on the inside I meant for Xigbar to be a character with a special position from early on, which is why I had him do suspicious things. During voice recording for KH2, while listening to Hochu Otsuka’s voice (Xigbar’s voice actor), I felt that there was no way Xigbar was just an ordinary soldier in the system—he definitely had something going on behind the scenes—and midway through production the setup developed into what we have now. That kind of thing does happen sometimes: the setup behind a character transforming as I bounce off a voice actor.

This really pissed me off. Xigbar was such an interesting villain. He always knew so much more than he let on and had his own agenda. I think the weapons in 358/2 Days actually tell the story of the character. They reference important events in chronological order. One of Xigbar’s final weapons is called “Crime and Punishment”, and I believe this was a reference to his role in the final battle. Braig hurt so many innocent people in his quest for the Keyblade. He helped turn Terra into a vessel and participated in mind control experiments. He was haunted by Ven’s glare when he looked at Xion.

He sold his soul to the devil—to Xehanort. I think once Sora beats him, and he finally gains his heart back, he is filled with shame and despair. The end of his arc was to commit suicide. Even though he was a terrible person, there was nothing to celebrate. He committed so many atrocities, yet he gained nothing. Sora and Riku look on with nothing but sadness.

Observations, Excerpt 3

It seems this body, this name will be my last…Until now, I have watched over the course of events from a distance. Perhaps the time has come to intervene. I need only play the role of a fool desirous of the Keyblade’s power. I will don the mask of his ally in order to keep watch over my Keyblade from close by.

But now…he’s Luxu! His suicide now means nothing. It was just a ruse. There’s no emotional impact whatsoever because his Xigbar persona was all just an act. Braig’s entire character arc was sacrificed so he could be a vehicle to bring in Union χ characters for KH4.

The Chamber of Waking

Why is Aqua’s armor in The Chamber of Repose?Because Aqua tried to save Terra.When she tried to retrieve Terra’s heart from Terra-Xehanort, they both fell into the realm of darkness, and she gave him both her armor and keyblade which allowed him to escape. Because of this when Ansem the Wise picked up Xehanort, he still had the armor and keyblade, which Xemnas then put in The Chamber of Repose.Why is Xemnas searching for The Chamber of Awakening?To find Ventus. The Chamber of Awakening is the room where Aqua leaves Ventus sleeping in Last Episode, and is a part of Castle Oblivion. As you can see from Xemnas calling Aqua’s armor “friend”, it seems Xemnas has Terra’s memories and so is searching for Ventus, and is making the other Organization members look for The Chamber of Awakening. The only one who can solve the mysteries of Castle Oblivion is Aqua, so the Organization was never able to find it

— So then, why is Xemnas of Organization XIII searching for Ven?Well, there’s still some time between the ending of ‘Birth by Sleep’ and ‘KHI’, so…

Xemnas was obsessed with finding the Chamber of Waking. It’s why he created the Chamber of Repose. He had Terra’s memories and thought if he could impersonate Terra, she’d tell him where the chamber was. Nomura implied that the reason he became interested in Ven was related to the time period between BBS and KH1. This was undoubtedly a reference to BBSV2.

—Were Marluxia and Larxene also the Keyblade wielders of old that Xemnas was searching for?

It hasn’t been made clear yet, but I believe those who play KH Union Cross can guess. By the way, Xemnas was also looking for the Chamber of Awakening in KH Days because Ventus, who was sleeping there, was a Keyblade wielder of old.

—So that means Xehanort was aware that Ventus was a Keyblade wielder of old?

Regarding that, I think I definitely have to show sometime how Ventus and Xehanort met.

I loved how Nomura just brought this up in such an offhand manner. Oh yeah, by the way…the reason he was looking for that chamber? The one that was hinted at ever since KH2FM+? The one that was a HUGE ass deal in Days? The one Saïx was obsessed with, since it would tell him everything about Xemnas’ secret ambition? The one Axel kept getting sent to Castle Oblivion to look for? Yeaaaah. That was actually all about Union χ.

Xehanort: “Today, all of my selves throughout time were meant to gather here, and to welcome you, Sora, as our thirteenth member.”

Xemnas wasn’t thinking Ven could be used as a vessel. Oh, no. Xehanort tried to turn Sora into a vessel, proving how desperate he was to get a 13th member. But actually he had Xion the whole time. And now he has reserve members, too! The whole time, Xemnas was looking Keyblade wielders of old. The Chamber of Waking actually had nothing to do with Xemnas’ goal in the Dark Seeker Saga or even any of the characters from this story arc. Give me a break…

Ansem’s Research

Ansem: “So many are still waiting for their new beginning, their birth by sleep. Even me…and even you.”

After KH2, Ansem the Wise was cast into the Realm of Darkness, forgetting all of his memories except those regarding Sora. He said he was waiting for a birth by sleep. It was actually pretty sad how nobody seemed to care about him or inquire about his well-being. Even after Aqua is revived, she doesn’t mention him, despite him telling her about Sora. “Ansem" just walks right up to him, and takes him back to the Realm of Light, as the plot so requires. And the reason is connected to a time-traveling mystery girl Ansem is keeping secret. It’s never explained when or how Ansem regained his non-Sora related memories.

Ansem: “Maybe he can set things right. A boy like him who touches so many hearts–he could open the right door, and save all those people whose lives I managed to ruin.”

In Re:Coded, 3D, AND the secret ending of BBSFM+, we are told Ansem felt very guilty about ruining countless people’s lives. As DiZ, he conducted research on the heart and emotions, and put the results of this research inside of Sora’s heart, as a way to clear his conscience. He still hated Nobodies and didn’t believe they had hearts. And he still wanted revenge on his apprentices at the point that Sora was sleeping. Why was he so remorseful? Well, we know that Ansem did experiments on Apprentice Xehanort, allowing him to regain the memories of his past.

The Heartless appear in groups, and are multiplying rapidly. I’ve provided them both living and nonliving samples. They’ve responded only to the living.

After regaining his memories, Apprentice Xehanort conducted experiments on darkness that resulted in many casualties, according to “Ansem’s Reports”. Xigbar even calls the place where the experiments on darkness were conducted a “graveyard”. Xemnas unsealed the graveyard as soon as Ansem was banished. Yet in KH3, Xehanort’s Heartless is accusing Ansem the Wise of sacrificing children in the name of his research? Um…talk about the pot calling the kettle black. When did Ansem the Wise sacrifice all these children anyways?

We are not meant to interfere in the depths of another’s heart, no matter what our reasons for doing so…And my error plunged me into despair. A visitor from another world soothed my dejected soul.

After finding out about the experiments his apprentices were doing, Ansem blamed himself. He felt horrible. It makes perfect sense that this is what he was referring to when he said he wanted to atone. He feels personally responsible for the lives that Xehanort ruined, because he interfered in the depths of his heart. Xehanort did go around calling himself “Ansem,” after all. This was probably due to the influence Ansem had on his heart. Xehanort’s Heartless has orange eyes, just like Ansem the Wise. Saïx also has orange eyes in all games after the original KH2. This was done in anticipation of a major plot revelation, of course. I’m sure Isa was one of the ruined lives that Ansem felt bad about, especially after he learned that he was in Organization XIII, along with his apprentices.

Xemnas: “Our experiments creating Heartless were attempts to control the mind, and convince it to renounce its sense of self.”

The apprentices conducted experiments in an attempt to control the mind, to get it to renounce its sense of self. Isa just happened to be trying to sneak into the castle with Lea, during the exact same time period these experiments were being conducted. Now he is a Seeker of Darkness, has a big Recuasnt’s Sigil scar, and his personality turned into Xehanort 2.0. But Isa had NOTHING to do with the mind control experiments. Oh, no. His association with the apprentices is all connected to the mystery girl. She’s Subject X. And despite being named “X”, she doesn’t have anything to do with the mind control experiments, the X-blade, nor the creation of vessels. She has nothing to do with the Xehanort saga at all.

Memoirs, Excerpt 1

The castle was a wonderland to us children. Within its walls, Ansem the Wise conducted his research, and the fruits it bore allowed everyone outside to live in peace and happiness. That alone was enough to stoke our interest, though not all of the rumors that escaped its walls were so benevolent. By night, the muffled sounds of human wails emerged. There was talk of dangerous human experimentation. Lea and I couldn’t help but hatch a plot to steal inside and sate our curiosity…

…But we did not find her inside on that day or the next, or any of our subsequent visits. Had she been moved? Had we simply imagined her? Lea and I knew there was only one way to be certain. And so we stand before the castle gates today, not as trespassing children but in order to become Ansem the Wise’s newest apprentices.

So the screams are so loud, even two random kids are aware that something unsavory is going on in that basement. And Ansem did not know? And how were Lea and Isa able to constantly sneak in and out of the castle to see this girl? Did the apprentices not bother to keep their horrible secret lab secure?

When Ansem the Wise finds out about the horrible experiments his apprentices were conducting, he releases the prisoners and takes “Subject X” away. When two children show up on his doorstep asking to become apprentices, he instantly says yes and allows them to be around Xehanort? How does that make any sense?

Organization XIII

Ansem the Wise had six apprentices, the best of whom called himself Xehanort. The real Ansem abandoned his studies of the heart, but Xehanort could not let it stop there. He and the other apprentices betrayed Ansem and cast their hearts away to continue their master’s research.

—KH3D Glossary

Oh, right. Because Ansem only had SIX apprentices. Lea and Isa were NOT apprentices.

Axel’s Past

— Even though Axel had been eliminated in Kingdom Hearts II, since that time, had you considered having him appear again in his human form Lea?I thought a lot about that. Should I leave him as he was or should I bring him back again? However, when I considered the people that Lea wants to bring back, his existence plays a big role. I think Lea has successively become a key character.

Along with “resolution”, the main theme of KH3 was “healing pain”. Well, Lea’s pain was never healed. KH3 tried its absolute hardest to downplay Lea’s relationship with Isa. KH3 was a much more high-profile game than any of the previous ones. And I cannot help but think the original idea for Lea and Isa’s relationship would have been considered “too intimate” for two guys, in a mainstream high budget game. I suspect this was a major reason it was altered so heavily, along with accommodating Skuld. Because it was really not necessary to alter their story so much.

– On to the Kingdom Hearts III questions, what new worlds can we expect in Kingdom Hearts III?

I’m not allowed to say what will be coming in Kingdom Hearts III, but each time when I select the worlds for the game I choose some stable choices that are accessible for the game and the story, and I try to insert surprising factors. I want everyone to be surprised to see that particular world. For Kingdom Hearts III I want to make sure that there will be a lot of surprises.

I mean, after 3D ended, everything was set up perfectly. It wouldn’t have taken that long to go to Radiant Garden and have Lea learn that his friend was Xehanort’d using a few cutscenes and Secret Reports. Just in general, not being able to explore Radiant Garden is inexcusable. Nomura wanted to have hub worlds in KH3 for story purposes. Well who needs ‘em when there’s hardly any non-Disney story anymore, right?

If Lea went back to Radiant Garden, he could have had more of an emotional connection to the final battle. There was a reason he was always staring into the sunset. There was a reason he awkwardly dodged Kairi’s suggestion to change clothes. Days showed that Lea’s pain was connected to his past. It weighs heavily on his heart. He’s hurting and needs closure. Downplaying Isa and Lea’s relationship just doesn’t work. It robs Lea of his main source of emotional conflict.

— I see… Roxas appears dressed in the black coat in Castle Oblivion among other worlds too. Was that something else that Namine had not added intentionally?Right. Since Roxas and Sora together make up one existence, if there is a Sora made of Kingdom Hearts I data, then data of Roxas must exist too. Roxas says, “It’s my personal duty to check whether or not Sora is ready to take the pain.” However that role was not assigned by Namine, Roxas personally decided that goal and acted upon it accordingly.

I maintain that it was supposed to be Sora’s job to deal with Roxas. That’s his Nobody. That was the entire point of Re:coded and Sora’s ending in KH3D. His job was to confront the painful memories sleeping inside of him, and to find a resolution. KH3D, BBS, and Days set up the idea that lsa was going to be the focal point of Lea’s character arc and his main objective going forward.

BBS showed Lea was really close to Isa. Days showed that Axel was really sad about losing something precious from the past. In KH3D, Lea woke up and couldn’t find Isa. He was revealed to be a vessel in a dramatic fashion at the very end of 3D, and then Lea summons his Keyblade. Like the other Guardians of Light, Lea needed to master the power of light and learn to use the power of waking. He lost out on an entire character arc designed to help him grow as a person. His role in KH3 was just NOT compelling, and his pain was left totally unresolved.

–Many people who have finished KH3 are interested in the “girl” that Lea and Isa were looking for, and the existence of the “NAMELESS STAR” in the Final World. Can you give us any kind of hint about the truth behind these girls? Are they characters who have already appeared in the series?

I think this is also possible to figure out for yourself if you look at all the secret reports, but yes, they are characters who have already appeared in the series. You will find out who “NAMELESS STAR” is if there is a next time.

But on top of that, his personal backstory was not explored. It was heavily implied to be a very tragic backstory, too. He said memories are nothing but baggage, and he didn’t wanna tell Roxas all his “dark secrets”. But he still said that his memories of the past were the one thing he couldn’t bear to lose. There was a time when he was truly happy. Axel was deeply miserable during his time in the Organization. The reveal of his past should have been for the audience to empathize more with him. It should have been the time for Sora and friends to better understand his complex personality—to finally learn why a former Organization member is worthy to be their friend.

In a short span of time, he loses is heart, becomes an unwilling member of Organization XIII, and is forced to follow Xemans’ icky orders or get turned into a Dusk. When his backstory finally is revealed, the focus isn’t even on him as a character. It became all about a sequel-bait mystery girl. The focus is not on Lea’s pain, his experiences dealing with Xehanort, how he lost all semblance of a normal life, or how he felt about the change in his best friend’s personality. There was no emphasis on the personal tragedy of his life: changing from an innocent frisbee-playing kid into a ruthless assassin. His past became simply an excuse to shoehorn Skuld into the timeline. Lea was just a means to an end: Union χ and KH4.

Subject X

— By the way, Braig’s dealings with Master Xehanort in Birth by Sleep make sense now, as he was to become a vessel.

There is a certain reason for Braig to proudly exclaim, “I’m already half Xehanort.” Isa (Saïx) is included too. I think you’ll understand the details about their circumstances eventually.

I have spoken a lot about how Subject X took Isa’s backstory, which I 100% believe to be the case. It really pissed me off. Everything about Isa was intentionally kept a mystery. In Days all we learn is that Saïx is really cold and nasty and he used to know Axel as a human. We don’t know why he cant “see” Xion. We don’t know why he and Axel are plotting to take over the Organization. We don’t know why Xemans has taken such a liking to Saïx, that he ignores Axel and Saïx’s plot against him.

He was mysterious! Look how many times it’s pointed out that Saïx can’t “see” Xion. Just in the Reports, it’s pointed out FOUR separate times by four different characters!

Day 150: Dealing with Xion

As expected, the Duplicate is starting to show its limits. The Program showed promise, but a puppet is just a puppet: something to be toyed with until it breaks. I am utterly at a loss as to what Roxas and Axel see in that thing. How best to dispose of it merits my consideration going forward.

Saïx says he doesn’t know what people see in Xion.

Day 172: Meaning Behind the Words

There has to be something to what Saïx said. Why isn’t Xion qualified to be one of us? He said to just look at her, but at what? The fact that she looks like Naminé? Xion and Naminé must be connected. Whose Nobody is Xion, anyway? What is Saïx hiding?

Axel doesn’t know what Saïx is talking about, but thinks there has to be something more to it.

Day 255: Final Stages

Xion’s appearance should vary based on the relation of the viewer to her. Saïx sees her simply as a puppet. The Program approaches completion. Through Roxas, Xion is assembling a copy of the hero of the Keyblade. As proof, she sometimes appears to take on his form to my eyes.

Xemans is intrigued that Saïx merely sees Xion as a puppet.

Day 256: Who We Each See

Xion’s disappearance is fascinating. If she really is breaking from our control, it’s a sign of her approaching the essence of the hero. It seems Saïx doesn’t truly “see” her. I’m curious to know how she appears to the others. I see her as…him, though I suspect that Xemnas sees entirely something else in her.

And Xigbar is also intrigued that he can’t “see” Xion. This was extremely important!

In BBS, we don’t know why Isa was so…normal compared to his Nobody. And we didn’t know why Lea and Isa were so dead-set on sneaking into the castle, even before Terranort became an apprentice and started human experiments. In KH3D, we don’t know why he wasn’t there when Lea woke up, and we don’t know why he attacked Lea at the end. We don’t know why Young Xehanort chose to retrieve him and not any of the other apprentices. It was a very intentional set up filled with mystery and intrigue, spanning many years and multiple games. And it all amounted to a hill of beans.

When they came up with the idea of Isa being best friends with Lea and sneaking into the castle, OF COURSE they had a whole story in mind. And OF COURSE that story was going to explain his pointy ears, orange eyes, his scar in the shape of a Recusant’s Sigil, and Axel’s constant laments over how much his personality changed. It was SO blatantly obvious. Isa had a very tragic backstory. And Nomura seemed excited for the time when we would get to learn all the details on it.

–There are several Organisation members whose original names are still unknown. Will we have a chance to learn them someday, or to find out about the scar on Isa’s face?

If there is a sequel, then that chance may come. But in my heart right now my desire is a blank page.

BBSV2 and KH3 was supposed to be Isa’s time to shine. We’d finally learn the truth about him, and Lea would finally know that his friend never stopped caring about him. He has a new goal. He has to save Isa, too. Yet Isa’s backstory and tragic past was simply a means to introduce Skuld. At least Lea had a decent amount of development from the other games. He felt adequately fleshed out thanks to his strong personality. People care about him and he’s popular.

Isa was reduced to being a plot device instead of an actual character. And now we are not even going to learn about how he got his scar. He’s just there to obtain some replicas and bring up the new girl in the most awkward and contrived way possible. “Oh yeah, before I clobber you tomorrow, remember that girl we never mentioned? Did you find out where she is yet?”

I arose today and decided to walk out in the square, my first outing in some time. Yet my stroll was interrupted when a surprising visitor appeared with an unexpected offer. Though younger than me, he’d risen to become Xemnas’s right-hand. I accepted his terms and became a Nobody once more—easier to gain access to the old Replica Program that way. Whatever it takes to atone.—Vexen

Saïx was 100 times more villainous than Axel. Lea had to do a lot to get Mickey, Sora, Kairi and the others to view him as a friend. Axel’s redemption spanned multiple games. Kairi was afraid of him at first and Donald was insistent that Yen Sid shouldn’t allow him to wield a Keyblade. In KH2, Axel is portrayed as sympathetic. He’s lonely and sacrificed himself for Sora. Saïx is not portrayed sympathetically. He spends the whole game hunting Axel, kidnaps Kairi, and dies fighting Sora.

Axel got an entire game focused on his friendship with Roxas and Xion to humanize him to the audience, before he was fit to became one of the good guys. Saïx is never humanized in this way. Quite the opposite, actually. He’s made out to be as nasty and inhumanly cold as possible. He shows no redeeming qualities whatsoever. He’s portrayed worse after he was envisioned as Axel’s friend.

If you get rid of the mind control angle, you destroy whatever sympathy Isa could have gotten. You literally ruin the entire basis of his character. In KH3 Isa’s “redemption” happens entirely off-screen! Yet, as soon as the final battle was over, Isa was immediately treated as one of the good guys; on the same level as everyone else. He was in the epilogue playing on the beach and eating ice cream right alongside all the heroes. None of the characters found this the slightest bit strange or objectionable. And people think Isa’s story was always planned in advance this way? Yeah, right…

OF COURSE they originally had a very good explanation for why Isa is immediately accepted and why he isn’t held responsible for the awful deeds of Saïx . Because Isa in NOT Saïx. He deserved a normal, happy life after everything he went through. But Isa got tossed aside to make room for Skuld. So, instead of people being happy that he got rescued, we see debate about whether he deserved to be forgiven by Roxas and Xion. What a disrespectful way to treat one of your characters. Seriously. If you ask me, Nomura didn’t sound very happy in his response to that question.

The Power of Waking

“Believing light and darkness must remain in balance, Master Xehanort seeks to spark war against the ‘tyranny of light’ to restore equilibrium.

In an effort to undermine Xehanort’s plot, Sora, Donald and Goofy search for seven guardians of light and the “Key to Return Hearts,” while King Mickey and Riku search for previous Keyblade wielders.”

—Kingdom Hearts III press release

This was shortly after the game was announced in 2013. The story obviously changed after this. The Key to Return Hearts. Ansem’s data. This was all about the ability to use the power of waking. It’s supposed to be about restoring a sleeping heart to normal. The key is light. The power of waking was the main goal of KH3. This was the “key” to healing all the characters’ pain. Even the Disney worlds reinforce this theme of restoring a person to life with light and love.

In KH3, pretty much all usage of the power of waking was cut out. Sora was supposed to use it on Aqua. He was supposed to dive into her heart, just like Riku did for him in 3D and wake her up. But he doesn’t. She wasn’t even shown to be asleep. She was with Ansem the Wise and then falls in the water. This power is barely used. I think that’s why there’s countless scenes of the characters getting knocked unconscious. They were supposed to be using the power of waking, but those scenes just got taken out completely. I think everyone was supposed to use it and have character development. They are all the Guardians of Light, after all.

Mickey and Riku are the only ones to remember the previous Keybade wielders. Riku remembers Terra and Mickey befriended Aqua and Ven. They feel guilty, fall to darkness, and use it on each other. Their friendship comes full-circle. Aqua keeps her promise to Ven to wake him up. Ven keeps his promise to Terra. Lea keeps his promise to always bring his friends back, and he is able to resurrect Isa, which fits with his Phoenix Keyblade. Sora, being the one who Ansem said was special, uses it on everyone. Kairi saves him, and is no longer pegged as a damsel. What was the main purpose of the power of waking in KH3?

—When we leave the Final World, we are back to the point just before Sora and his friends were defeated. Why is that?

The power of awakening is essentially “the power to put sleeping hearts back the way they were.” But the impact of forcing his friends’ fading hearts back the way they were rewrote reality, and created a singularity. The rewrite caused the chronology in which they were destroyed to have “never happened.”

It turned into a time travel gimmick. There probably WAS no Terranort fight at the beginning. Terranort is obviously going to be one of the final fights, along with Saïx. Then Ven and Lea use the power of waking on their friends. The Heartless swarm comes and they all get wiped out. Sora saves them and Kairi saves him. No time travel required. This “singularity” is no doubt gonna be used as an excuse to let Union χ characters come into this timeline.

Where Did It All Go Wrong?

– Mr. Nomura, since you are the one that is writing the scenario this time, how is the progress coming along?

Since we are arriving near the conclusion of Xehanort in KINGDOM HEARTS III, the outline of the story has been solidified but not necessarily the direction where the KINGDOM HEARTS series is continuing to head. We are still trying to decide where to go from several choices.

But why did the story turn out this way? I agree that Nomura’s heart just was NOT in it. But personally, I do not think KH3 turned out the way it did by design. I am not convinced that Nomura was always more concerned with sequel-baiting than offering resolution. I doubt he always felt that wrapping up the plot was an unwanted obligation.

Actually I think it might be the opposite. Nomura wanted to make BBSV2. He wanted to tell the full story and wrap up the plot correctly. After it was cancelled, I believe there were a lot of factors at play during KH3′s development that Nomura simply had no control over. To me, his desire for a “blank page” appears to be motivated by his profound disappointment with how the Xehanort saga ended.

– What is that specifically?

In the KINGDOM HEARTS series, I don’t think there has been an actual happy ending. KINGDOM HEARTS II is close to it. Since most of the titles have ended in cliffhangers, we’re worried about what we should include in KINGDOM HEARTS III.

It sounded like he wanted to keep things open for more games, but he wanted to be careful that KH3 had a happy ending without cliffhangers. I really think that behind the scenes, development must have been a disaster, much like it was with Versus XIII. Square’s console game development has been a disaster since FFXII. The development of FFXIII and FFXIV were disastrous, interfering with FFVsXIII development. XIII took members from the FFVsXIII team.

Then Square took Nomura off of VsXIII completely to work on KH3. And they completely changed Nomura’s vision. They made FFXV a lot more “mainstream” while VsXIII was more “weird”. They probably also cancelled BBSV2, because they wanted all the focus to be on KH3, the highly anticipated big budget $$ maker. I get the feeling Nomura wasn’t allowed to do what he wanted with KH3. I honestly don’t think he was sequel-baiting because he lost interest. I think he’s sad and bitter and made everything connect to the future to distance himself from the Xehanort Saga.

– What do you say to the segment of Kingdom Hearts fans that believes the increasingly complex storyline of Kingdom Hearts stands at odd with the child-focused Disney element of the franchise?

First of all, this series is not intended to be child-focused, and so the complexity of the story is purposefully made prominent. That being said, with a series being around so long, there are a few items I have in mind so that a wider audience range can enjoy the experience. For the time being Dream Drop Distance, there is a new function called Mementos, and in the section called Chronicles, the player can read a summary on each of the titles from the Kingdom Hearts series. Whether you are just starting out or you have played all the games before and need a refresher, it has all of the key information summarized.

Nomura wrote the story for KH3. He is a smart and creative guy. His desire isn’t to make something simplistic for little kids. Sakaguchi told him unless KH1 had complexity, it would fail. This is why I liked the series. It was complex. It’s supposed to be complex. Nomura wanted to include summaries, to catch people up. Yes, the complexity can be a barrier to many people. But…it’s a saga. You can’t expect a decade’s worth of story to be something anyone can jump straight into, unless they put in some effort to catch up.

But KH3 seemed to want to do just that. Make it for anyone and everyone. I suspect the game’s story was forced to be massively simplified to make it more accessible to a wider audience. Look how bare-bones the non-Disney world story section of the journal is, compared to the other games. When I actually looked at it, I was marveling at how little there was to summarize. It’s so…empty.

I think this is why the power of waking was cut out. For most people who are not die-hard fans, it’s very complicated. It’s all about altered states of consciousness and Jungian psychology. Different aspects of the psyche acting on their own, all taking place in a world of dreams. “So, there’s Terra’s Lingering Will, and Xemnas is his Nobody, and his heart is the Guardian, and..there’s his shadow self? But none of these are the REAL Terra? He’s asleep, but we have to collect his soul fragments? Wha? ” I think Square and Disney were afraid this would be too much for people.

– So, it’s not that “once Sora’s story is over the story of a new hero will begin”, but that the series will always have Sora as the hero, isn’t it?

Yeah. One of the concepts of the series is that the hero Sora isn’t some special being, but a normal boy. Sure, his heart is connected to Ventus and the others, but other than that, he’s a normal kid that could have come from anywhere, that hasn’t inherited anything from anyone. I want to make Sora a character that will give the player the feeling that “even if I’m not some special being, I have the possibility buried inside of connecting with many others to accomplish things”. In Birth by Sleep, I wish for all the fans to hope to see that Sora reappears. The secret cutscene is what symbolizes this, and so please work your way there, and wait for Sora’s role in the future.

Nomura had a positive attitude circa 2013. He said Noctis and Sora were his favorite characters. He wanted people to look forward to Sora’s return.

“I actually don’t sympathize or empathize with Sora at all,” Nomura says. Instead, he relates to the game’s mysterious villains, Xehanort or likely Ansem, anyone who’s fallen prey to their dark natures. “I think I’m closer to those characters, so Sora is like my enemy,” he says.“How I always think of him is I would unleash my attacks on him, and then I draw him in a way that I think he will be able to make a comeback at me. In that sense, I really think that Sora is just like an opposite personality character to who I am.”

Before KH3 came out, I wondered what caused his change in attitude. Now I think I get it.

Riku: “I just wanted you to see that you always make the right choices. On the road ahead, more than one truth will come to light. You’ll forget things, lose things that you care about, and it won’t always make sense. It may hurt so bad you’ll feel like you’re about to lose yourself. But you won’t. Not you. You’re like a sponge. No matter how much pain they throw at you, you’ll suck it up, squeeze it out, and leave things a little better. Just follow your heart, and you can change lives. You don’t have to do anything special. Just do what you do.”

Nomura had more interesting things in mind with Sora. He has been kind of a simple character for the most part. I think this is why he wanted Sora to face everyone’s pain. Experience darkness in order to understand his true strength. Dealing with everyone’s painful memories shows the strength of his empathy and love. It allows him to have an actual character arc, and grow as a person. This is why everyone calls out to him in Blank Points, and why Ansem left his research data inside of him.

– Those previous projects as director were the Kingdom Hearts games, which are much lighter than what we know of Versus XIII. Is the darker concept you have outlined a necessary change for you as director?

The world of Versus XIII might be a little closer to my personal taste than Kingdom Hearts, but the entire project owes something to Kingdom Hearts as well. When I first began KH I was part of the FF core team, and tried to bring elements of that into the development. The KH team was always inspired by FF, and I’d like to see that reversed. But as for the differences between KH and FF, KH is a lighter world of magic, fantasy, and people doing good things. I’ve been in that world for a very long time - perhaps too long.

In KH3, Sora is still too Saturday morning cartoonish. He doesn’t develop much. I think he was restricted to keep Sora as more of a simple cartoon hero by outside pressure. And he started to resent him, because that’s just not his taste.

—The story’s endgame where all your friends and foes gather at the Keyblade Graveyard was a masterpiece.

I know each fan has their own different beloved character, so I wanted to give each one an appropriate moment. But in the end there was too much story that had to be told then, and I ended up being restricted to the minimum necessary to move Sora forward. The truth is, the Keyblade Graveyard was the toughest part I faced when writing the scenario. Shining the spotlight on each character one by one allows you to depict the unfolding developments with time and care, but the flow of the game requires the player to control Sora and fight battles. Ideally, I should have had characters with connections fight it out one by one and settle things that way, but that would have required too much exposition. On the other hand, I did think of limiting the number of enemies you actually battle and finishing others with cutscenes, but it didn’t feel right. At the end of deep worry and thought, I narrowed my aim and ended up with the way it is now, which prioritizes rhythm.

Nomura didn’t sound pleased with how the Keyblade Graveyard turned out. Everyone was supposed to fight their own battles. He mentions he was restricted to moving Sora forward because apparently there was “too much story” otherwise. And the end result is that Sora comes across like a black hole Gary Stu who steals everyone’s moment of glory. It made me so annoyed with his presence. He had no business freeing Terra’s heart, for instance. That was Ven and Aqua’s job. I just wanted him to go away. I get the sense that feeling “restricted” was a constant problem Nomura had.

– Will we see any new FF characters? Will we get a chance to play as King Mickey?

The appearance of FF characters is pending. For a while, the previous titles didn’t have any FF characters, and I think it’s time to include some. I know everyone wants to play as King Mickey, so I will take that into consideration. Of course Sora will be the main character to play; it would be nice if other characters are playable as well.

This response was from June 2013. Nomura seemed very interested in adding FF characters. I don’t think he really thought they were unnecessary or just a crutch. I think the production was just so difficult that they weren’t able to be included. He had too much to try and resolve since BBSV2 was cancelled.

—Was there a reason that no FF characters appeared in the game this time?

It was simply that there was no room. There were so many characters appearing in the main story that in the end I wasn’t able to create opportunities to use the FF characters. Although, I did have the team make polygon models of Leon and some others just in case. They also made the Fairy Godmother from Cinderella and a few others, but by the end I just couldn’t find a place to use them. The production staff were mad at me.

I’m sure there was pressure from the Square-Enix side. KH3 was a huge cash cow, and they wanted the game out as soon as possible, since it had taken SUCH a long time already. I think he was rushed and simply incapable of accomplishing everything he wanted.

— Given how long the game has been in development, fan expectations for it are incredibly high. Do you ever worry about not meeting those fan expectations and how does that impact you as you’re developing the game?

I just naturally don’t really feel pressured and that’s always been fortunate for me. That’s been leading me to successes, but at least for Kingdom Hearts 3 the fan excitement was a lot more than I had expected. So for the first time in my life I did feel some kind of pressure from it.

–In the recent E3 footage, there was some interesting dialogue about Roxas and I’m concerned about the development of KINGDOM HEARTS III.

Because there are too many characters that are appearing, the storyline has become complicated. There are quite a number of main characters that have appeared in the series, and every character will appear in some form.

I also think he felt pressured by fan expectations. He actually said this was the first time he felt pressured in this way. To what extent this potentially affected the story is all speculation. But I think since BBSV2 was cancelled, leaving a lot of unresolved issues, Nomura felt very pressured to come up with a story that would not cause a mass fan riot. Whether he was successful or not is…debatable.

“I do have a general storyline in my head,” he tells The Verge. “What is the most confusing is that, because there are so many characters in this storyline now, it’s hard to keep track of who actually met who already,” he says. “I’m always like, ‘Okay, so who knows who in this situation, and who’s meeting this person for the first time?’ And that always gets really confusing.”

“Because most of the original Kingdom Hearts characters are going to appear in Kingdom Hearts III, that’s just already too many characters to begin with. When I was writing the scenarios, I started to be confused with it as well myself. It is kind of complicated in that sense. It’s just been difficult for me to create a storyline that doesn’t involve those characters.”

This is just my opinion, but given how much he complained, it sounds like he didn’t necessarily want to bring everyone back, at least permanently. He speaks like he resents how “complicated” the story has become. I mean, if you can’t even remember who’s met who, is your heart really into writing this story? Doesn’t sound like it.

— You mentioned that Monsters Inc. had many more guidelines than Toy Story. Was that the one that had perhaps the most guidelines or was there one that had even more?

Frozen had the most.

And then there’s Disney. They are so strict with their IP’s, it’s a miracle this game even exists at all. In Arendelle, Sora was essentially spectating from the bleacher seats. Time has to freeze and Sora has to go to a different dimension, whenever the Organization members show up. It was so jarring and contrived, it was actually pretty funny. Sora is never allowed to “interfere” with the story. I highly doubt Nomura wanted it to turn out like that. All the Disney worlds were heavily tied into the power of waking, yet it was really not evident in the writing of the story at all.

— What’s the relationship with Disney like? Disney’s attitude to games has changed in recent years to become focused on mobile and social games. Have you noticed their attitude change much?

The relationship with Disney has remained the same. Actually the contact person at Disney is still the same person from Kingdom Hearts 1, and Disney has given us lots of requests in terms of the Kingdom Hearts franchise and they did mention some smaller titles for other platforms, but our common, most important goal was to complete Kingdom Hearts 3. So it’s the same.

This is also from June 2013.

— Disney has changed tremendously since 2006. Obviously Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, totally different style of animation. How your relationship with Disney and its properties evolved over the past 10 years or so in the context of Kingdom Hearts?

I can say that it has actually been increasingly difficult to get approvals from Disney. That’s mainly because in the past Kingdom Hearts titles, the creator wasn’t around anymore or the team that used to create those titles wasn’t there anymore. There was just this one person that we would just have to go to and they would approve it and we’d be fine and good to go. But because we’ve been featuring recent titles, they still have existing teams for existing creators that are still working in Disney and still working on a certain title.

That feedback process just has been a little bit more difficult than before. And each team would have a different set of rules and guidelines and they would say different things, or they would look at different things. It’s just been a little different that how it used to be because Kingdom Hearts is a bigger title than it was before. I think that whenever we would bring our previous titles, a lot of people at Disney, and this is my assumption, but I do assume that they probably didn’t know what Kingdom Hearts was. They’d go, “What’s Kingdom Hearts? I have no idea.”

But now that it’s become a bigger title, a lot more people have been involved in than before. In that sense the relationship with Disney has changed quite a bit. Emotional changes I don’t really know if there has been any changes emotionally for me. But at least physically I can say those were the changes that we had with Disney.

Compare that to 2018. A lot had changed. Approvals became much harder and they weren’t dealing with just the one guy anymore. Also, he says he “doesn’t know” if there were emotional changes. But I think it’s clear that he’s trying to hide just how much his feelings have changed. Why do I say that?

— You’ve grown up as a person and as a designer alongside the players and it’s been so long since the last Kingdom Hearts was released. How has your perspective on making the game changed over time? Do you still have that passion for it? Or is it just like you feel more of a responsibility to people to make it and end it?

I’m getting older now, so my body really can’t take all that difficulty anymore. When I was younger I was definitely more aggressive and I was the one pulling everyone forward, but now there’s a lot more energetic staff around me who are more aggressive, so I feel like I’m more like a sage now. Like I’m in the sidelines just telling people what to do. The Kingdom Hearts series has become a huge title nowadays and back then it was more like I was making it secretively in the corner, but now that a lot more people are involved I do feel that it’s not my title anymore, it’s everyone’s title. And just talking about all this … It actually kind of makes me really sad.

Because he says very similar things again in a later interview, and he’s more honest about his feelings. Again, he mentions that he used to think the series was more obscure to Disney and he was just quietly working on it in the corner. But now it’s gotten so big and so many people are involved. Now the title isn’t really his title anymore. It’s everyone’s title. And he admits it makes him really sad. And that is just what he admits to in public. Imagine what he thinks in private. My conclusion: I really don’t think Nomura had as much creative freedom on KH3 as he did on the others games. And it really shows.

#kh meta #kingdom hearts #anti-kh3 #kh theories #kh3 theories

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so-shiny-so-chrome · 6 years ago

Text

Witness: Livia_LeRynn

Creator name (AO3): Livia_LeRynn

Creator name (Tumblr): Livia-LeRynn

Link to creator works: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Livia_LeRynn/works

Creator name (other platform- please specify): I am also So-Shiny-So-Chrome on Tumblr. Witness me interviewing myself.

Q: Why the Mad Max Fandom?

A: The Mad Max franchise has a few of my favourite things (I should write this song...) like: deserts, obsessively detailed world building, post-apocalyptic setting, women being gritty, weird religions, and characters that hit the right combination of badass and broken. You have all this angst in the characters, but then there's this great sense of fun with how extra everything is. I'm a real sucker for deep social and philosophical concepts hidden behind explosions and cool fight scenes. Fury Road also came out at just the right time for me. I was just really ripe for so many of the themes and aesthetic components.

Q: What do you think are some defining aspects of your work? Do you have a style? Recurrent themes?

A: Stylistically, I like to change things up. I kind of oscillate between long, descriptive sentences and almost obnoxiously pithy ones. I break rules, start sentences with 'but' and 'and;' I use commas like breath marks, especially in dialogue to give it the rhythm I hear in my head. I also world build to an obsessive extent.

A frequent one for me is being female in the wasteland: relationships between women; portrayals of women finding themselves and their strengths; and the trade-offs women make to keep themselves safe. I also work a lot with religion in the wastes. Most fic have their own themes that come from the characters and their emotional struggles. For example, “Stranded” is about Furiosa being stuck between her past and future selves. “Blood and Breath” deals with a lot of different themes, but one of the more prominent ones the struggles that come with being in an unexpected and sometimes undesired position of power; it’s another theme that pops up rather frequently.

Q: Which of your works was the most fun to create? The most difficult? Which is your most popular? Most successful? Your favourite overall?

A: I really enjoyed writing “Stranded.” It was just so different from anything I'd written for the fandom before. For me personally, it's still a good read.

The most difficult was “7000 Days,” both because I was new at fanfic in general but also because both parts I and II are really raw, dark, and personal. I needed to take breaks while I was writing it and shift gears to something lighter. It also doesn't get much reader attention, probably because it is so heavy, and that always makes writing harder for me. This one just felt like I was shouting into the void for a lot of it.

Currently "Daughters of the New World" is a struggle for me. The premise is a bit out there, what with Wonder Woman coming to town and being romantically attached to K.T. Concannon. Diana is a difficult character for me because she is complex but seems simple, and the whole thing is from the perspective of Furiosa who just doesn't get her. I worry that I've bit off more than I can chew because I want to explore some heavy stuff.

My most popular overall is “Blood and Breath,” which I kind of get because it scratches a lot of different itches. “Little Mate is my most popular short, which surprises me because it definitely is not in my comfort zone. It's cute; it's fluffy. It's just not something I would seek out to read.

My most successful might be “Crux.” Being a remix, I had set parameters to follow, which I find creatively useful. The author of the original was also quite please with it, so: success!

I think the fic I have written that most closely aligns with my personal tastes right now is “Wasteland Jukebox.” It probably helps that it is also my most recent. It bounces from angsty to fun to bittersweet to campy and back again multiple times over, all the while showing really intimate character portrates.

Q: How do you like your wasteland? Gritty? Hopeful? Campy? Soft? Why?

A: All of the above. I like my wasteland realistic where everything hurts, but some things are still funny, and big wins are possible, but they come at a cost. Even when I'm filling my wasteland with ghosts and vampires, I still want it to feel very grounded in reality and populated with realistically complex people. This especially applies to medical stuff; if I'm going to write about something I want to portray it accurately and realistically within the context of the story. All the injuries, diseases, and treatments are based off of real things.

Q: Walk us through your creative process from idea to finished product. What's your prefered environment for creating? How do you get through rough patches?

A: It depends. Sometimes I can just crank something out. These are typically shorter, more atmospheric pieces. More often I have one or more specific scenes, and the rest of the fic grows off of them. Like for “Daughters of the New World,” it's Diana riding on top of a bonnet/hood while Furiosa is trying to shoot out the window, and they keep getting in each other's way. None of my longer fic is written in chronological order. For “Blood and Breath,” I have scenes that I first drafted probably two years ago, but I still haven't gotten to them in fic. Most of my first drafts are dialogue. Then on second pass I add or replace those words with body language.

Getting to the finished product is the hardest part for me, especially when I already have all the major parts of the puzzle figured out, and I just have to polish them up. I also tend to have that writers' curse where I think of what to write when I can't possibly write it, like in the shower or a work meeting. I'm also very much the type of writer where I live off of interaction with my readers. I love it when people question the choices I make in my fics. I don't really have a preferred environment for writing, but I know I can't do it if there's the slightest chance anyone near me might be reading over my shoulder. I just get paranoid. If I'm on an airplane, I have to wait for my neighbors to fall asleep.

Q: What (if any) music do you listen to for help getting those creative juices flowing?

A: Lots. Too many to list. I make playlists for each of my major projects. I listen to them mostly when I'm not writing so the stories stay in the back of my mind. They're all public on Spotify so just ask if you want a link.

Q: What is your biggest challenge as a creator?

A: Finishing my long projects, especially when there isn't much reader response. I can lose interest quickly, but I want to be reliable; if I know someone is looking forward to updates on my fic, I will keep writing for that one person.

Q: How have you grown as a creator through your participation in the Mad Max Fandom? How has your work changed? Have you learned anything about yourself?

A: I think I've found a writing voice for myself. My early work tends to have a lot more of a throw shit against a wall and see what sticks approach. In my working with Furiosa especially I've definitely found some of myself in her. For example, a few interviews about Fury Road have stated that Furiosa avoids learning names to protect herself from emotional pain when people move on, die, betray her, she betray them, etc. I realised that I do that do. Of course, my situations aren't quite as extreme. :)

Q: Which character do you relate to the most, and how does that affect your approach to that character? Is someone else your favourite to portray? How has your understanding of these characters grown through portraying them?

A: Right now I relate most to Furiosa, and that answer shouldn't surprise anyone, but initially I felt more like Toast. I thought Furiosa was really cool, but I didn't feel worthy to compare myself to her. It took me a few months to go - fuck it, I want to be her for Halloween. Of course, that wasn't enough. I wanted her backstory. I wanted to spend more time in the costume, and make the costume better. I choreographed a dance about her so I could wear the costume more, but I really needed to get to know her as a person to really feel comfortable taking on her persona, not to mention I needed make the dance make sense in character (”She Used to Dance” is that fic.) The more I got to know her, the more I took apart all her insecurities and neroses, the more I found her in me and myself in her.

I relate to her being a woman caught in the middle of a lot of things: being both young and old, hero and villain, masculine and feminine, strong and weak... The list goes on. I relate to how she has spent most of her adult life in a predominantly male environment, and how that manifests as difficulty relating to other women like in the, "Everything hurts," exchange with Angharad.

My favourite character to portray is whomever I'm currently writing once I find their voice. I enjoy the process of getting to know these people. Dag's POV is especially refreshing to write after working with characters who are super guarded like Max and Furiosa. I can just ramble and take weird turns in the narration. I need to write more of her. Capable is the hardest for me of the franchise ones I've tried.

Q: Do you ever self-insert, even accidentally?

A: I'm full aware of it. There is a bit in 7000 Days Part II where it's mentioned in memory that a the Vuvalini get ahold of some vaccines from Melbourne, which in my chronology falls significantly later than other cities. Furiosa is a little kid, and she is so determined to not get the shot that a couple of adults have to hold her down. This was me. This is literally a story from my childhood. Mostly little things like that. There's also the bit about Furiosa reading "Dune;" I fucking love "Dune," and her being trapped in the Vault while she's reading it, how can she not imagine a giant worm coming out of the sand and eating the whole damn place? On a larger scale, I use fic to explore themes and issues that are going through my head.

Q: Do you have any favourite relationships to portray? What interests you about them?

A: Well, we've already established that I have a bit of a crush on Furiosa. I ship her with Max in my main continuity and with Valkyrie and Angharad in a couple of side projects. I'm interested in Furiosa with Max because of how they relate to each other. Yes, they are both terribly fucked up people, and who knows if the relationship would actually work, but that tension is a big part of the interest for me. It took me about six months in the fandom to open up to the possibility of there ever being any kind of romantic or sexual relationship between them, and in my chronology that's about the amount of time it takes for them to move from one time plautonic snuggle buddies to romantic/sexual partners. I do most of my writing in that time frame. The fact that they massively respect each other definitely is something that shouldn't be squandered, and I think they recognise that. I don't headcanon either of them as asexual (though my Furiosa is demi), and I think that the best shot they have for a happy partnership is with each other. They are both fundamentally good people who don't think they are worthy of kindness, let alone an actual relationship, but they both look at the other and see all the wonderful things about that person. I'm interested in how they navigate this dynamic and how they eventually come to the decision that even if it does end badly, which it probably will, it's worth trying. Everything hurts, right? Easy relationships are boring anyway.

Q: How does your work for the fandom change how you look at the source material?

A: Sometimes I watch with specific details in mind, like to see the details of a prop or costume piece. Other times I'll watch something and see a detail I forgot but suddenly becomes an inspiration for a fic. For example, the Crazy Diamond chapter in “Wasteland Jukebox” came from me rewatching the first movie and seeing Jessie with her saxophone.

Q: Do you prefer to create in one defined chronology or do your works stand alone? Why or why not?

A: Most of my stories are in the same chronology. Setting change AUs and “Crux” are the exceptions. Part of the fun for me is keeping tracker of the chronology. I don't expect my readers to work that hard though; every story stands on it's own.

Q: To break or not to break canon? Why?

A: I do not break canon; I bend it to my will. Setting changes are an exception of course. I just work better within the structure that canon provides. If I change canon, I change one thing and only allow other changes that are a result of that first change. I develop and justify my interpretations of canon so that I find enough wiggle room for my headcanons to comfortably coexist with it. Where canon contradicts itself, e.g. video game vs. comics, I chose my preferred version. I even take little blurbs from interviews and try to work them in as lore.

Q: Share some headcanons.

A: Pretty much all my fic are based around headcanons. There are many, many of them. Some are the premises for fic while others are big reveals. Others are back story or missed scenes or just what was going on in someone's head. Here's one that's not a spoiler and doesn't make too many fic appearances:very Rockatanskyup name. Max's original last name was Patansky, and Jessie's was Rockwell. They're parents were millennials; of course they were raised to value gender equality :)

Q: If you work with OCs walk us through your process for creating them. Who are some of your favourites?

A: I rarely work with real OCs for anything other than side characters, but I often use characters who have little (Miss Giddy) to no screen time (K.T., Mary) or no canon name (Promise the Milker). They effectively become like OCs. K.T. had the most of a design process because all I had to go on were her name and Vuvalini affiliation. I made her black to bring more racial diversity to my 7000 Days cast, and I made her American because I wanted to have an instory explanation of Furiosa's accent not being Australian. Warboy Kai exists because I felt Furiosa needed an ally among the War Boys cuz fuck if the Imperator pumps her own gas. He will eventually become the History Man we see in the comics so he's still not a true OC. My true OCs follow the same process: 1) identify a logical gap or role that needs filling, 2) establish the character using canon reference points, 3) fill in the character's appearance, personality, etc. not already established by 1) or 2).

Q: If you create original works, how do those compare to your fan works?

A: I'm not doing originals at the moment, but when I look back now at what I was doing pre-Fury Road, I realise just how fannish it all is. We're talking many thousands of words of world building, character development, angst, and pining. So yeah, not much different.

Q: Who are some works by other creators inside and outside of the fandom that have influenced your work?

A: I learned a lot about working with themes in different sub plots from "Wishbone." Seriously, if you've never seen that shit go check it out. A cute doggo dresses up and tells stories from classic literature while his human learns similar lessons in the "real world."

I consciously avoided other fic when I first started writing because I didn't want to accidentally injest headcanons and not be able to remember where I got them. Once I found the story I wanted to tell, I dove into the wealth the fandom had to offer. I owe @sacrificethemtothesquid for paving the way in making these characters as gross and gritty in fic as real humans. I owe @lurkinghistoric and @fuckyeahisawthat for warming me up to Maxiosa first through their less and then through their more explicit fic. And of course @youkaiyume for drawing the art that inspired many of those fic. Really the whole of the Smuttyartfic group got me writing smut again after a good decade away from it.

Q: What advice can you give someone who is struggling to make their own works more interesting, compelling, cohesive, etc.?

A: I'm gonna go with the good ole, "Write what you know; so know interesting things." Show off your passion and the depth of your knowledge.

Q: Have you visited or do you plan to visit Australia, Wasteland Weekend, or other Mad Max place?

A: Yes to all of the above. I really like deserts and tend to pick them for my vacation spots. I stopped in Sydney on my way to New Zealand a few years back, but I didn't get to go outback; crossing the Nullibor is in my to-do list. If anyone plans a fandom-cation count me in. I've been to Wasteland Weekend twice and intend to be back, but probably not this year because this summer I will be going on a camping safari through Namibia. Don't worry, there will be pictures. And yes, I will be asking our guide obnoxious questions.

Q: Tell us about a current WIP or planned projectThis is my year of finishing projects. I'm also signed up for Fandom Trumps Hate. Bid on my listing and you can choose my next project.

Thank you @livia-lerynn

#Mad Max Fandom Creator Spotlight #Mad Max Fandom Spotlight #mad max fic #fury road fic #mad max fandom #fury road fandom #mad max fanfic author spotlight

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langernameohnebedeutung · 7 years ago

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Ask the Author

I was tagged by @78669! Thank you! ok!

1) is there a story you’re holding off on writing for some reason?

A third installment for Un/Hurt - I have a pretty good idea what it would be about, but I started about five times and I was never. quite. happy. I feel a bit guilty because I hinted at a third one. I think the longest version I’ve written about it is about 2k words so. not much.

2) what work of yours, if any, are you the most embarrassed about existing?

Aaah. aaaaaaaah. That one. Snow White.

ok. So if I ever critise other writers - professionals or friends or anyone ever - I do so in the full knowledge that I gave life to a monstrosity.

Okay, let me talk about Snow White (a title that - in retroperspective, also describes the main-cast pretty well)

One story I started writing in 9th grade.

It basically ticked all the edgy-teen stereotypes. Little village: check. Edgy teen protagonist who’s Not Like The Other Girls: Check. Dumb parents who JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND: Check. Lots of casual drug use and alcohol: check.

I guess the only strong point was that she didn’t have a love interest (because she was Too Smart for anything but casual sex with her best friend). Oh and her neighbour was a murderous, torturous rape-y cult member and if I had finished the thing she would have killed him and gotten arrested for it and stayed quiet about her (pretty valid) reasons for killing him because in prison she would be away from her parents who I don’t think ever did much wrong except tell her that she’s got issues. Oh I think one of her teachers was a spy or something. Also there was a lot of references to Japanese stuff in there because again. I was in 9th grade and I loved to plaster Kanji on things. (Although now that I looked at the document again, WHICH I DID, I ACTUALLY OPENED THE KURSÉD DOKUMENT FOR YOU) the Kanji chapter titles are gone. So I came to my senses about that one.

So far you’re going to say: Wow so you wrote an annnoying, slightly problematic story when you were That Age we all did, big deal. That doesn’t make it a monstrosity.

Well.

The thing is -

The whole story might even have had potential if I had thrown out some of the bullshit and given the main-character some sort of personality, but unfortunately it’s also basically almost unreadable. Like. At that point of my writing, every tip I ever gotten from teachers and advice books was: “Take your time, don’t rush! Describe!” Because that’s young writers tend to do - rush - but unfortunately they didn’t expect Josie’s dumb ass, who quickly concluded:

The Longer The Story - The Better!

and that was the downfall of the entire story. Because bitch, I can talk for ages without saying anything and the result was:

464 pages of Word Document,

Times New Roman 12pt, smallest possible spacing. 257k words. And it wasn’t nearly finished. There hadn’t even happened much.

Just to give you a sense of how unreadable it is. I’ll allow you (if you speak German) a peak at my greatest shame. Or at least the opening.

What 9th grade me wanted to say: “It was warm outside.” What 9th grade me actually wrote, because she’d been told not to rush and to describe:

The entire scene is just about Protagonist and Friends being angst-y in the garden. Literally nothing plot-relevant happens (like in most scenes). Aaaah.

Just to make you realise the extent of this catastrophe, I randomly just scrolled for a while and then here we are at page 264.

What 9th grade me wanted to stay: “Main Character is lying on her bed. She’s looking at the ceiling. Probably looking for a personality.”

What 9th grade actually wrote:

(Did I mention that this goes on for almost 300k words? Like. These days I’m proud when I write 20k words. Ninth Grade me, where did you find this much energy and why was this what you invested it on??? this giant chunk of text with no content - like yeah there’s characters and stuff happening but it’s mostly just...endless mind-numbing descriptions of things happening in metaphor)

3) what order do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenes first? something else?

Usually chronologically, but ever so often I jump ahead to a scene that I really look forward to writing. The problem is that sometimes when I get there, something changed inbetween - because I’m a bit too spontanous and I love details - and then usually I have to re-write it anyway.

4) favorite character you’ve written

Usually the current one. And at the moment I’d probably answer the story from my latest original work - because they’re pretty fun and feral and also pretty simple. But with some distance this Victorian Demon Detective who gets hired by the murder-victims to avenge them was pretty fun. Was a giant dick. I enjoyed the entire 20 pages I wrote with him in them, before my attention wavered and I moved on.

5) character you were most surprised to end up writing

I’m pretty much suprised every time I write a nice, likeable character.

6) something you would go back and change in your writing that it’s too late/complicated to change now

I wish I’d ever really bothered to learn how to right good transitions. Mostly it’s just: Scene SMACK Next Scene SMACK Another Scene. Also I wish I could describe the passing of time more naturally.

7) when asked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?

I don’t talk about it with strangers much. Except you people on tumblr.com. Depends on how it’s going. When I got a project I’m excited about and it’s going well, I’ll talk about it. If it’s not going well, I will pretend I haven’t ever written aything.

8) favorite genre to write

I don’t really have one. Although I don’t do Romance much and Crime/Thriller isn’t my cup of tea either. Mostly I beat the trope: Unlikely partners forced to work together - to death.

9) what, if anything, do you do for inspiration?

Buy notebooks and scribble into them.

10) write in silence or with background noise? with people or alone?

I usually have music on - I got a Spotify playlist for my current story and listen to it on Shuffle - but I can write anywhere, university - even on the underground I type on my phone (when I’m in the mood). In school I got called out for writing in the lessons so often I learnt to write Kurrentschrift so that the teacher wouldn’t be able to tell what I’m doing lol.

11) what aspect of your writing do you think has most improved since you started writing?

I feel like I used to be better at some point in the past, actually. But mostly the characters?

12) your weaknesses as an author

I can never really stick to an outline, so I will go into one direction with the plot and then I’ll have another idea and I sometimes worry there isn’t enough of a red thread.

13) your strengths as an author

Hmm...I can throw a lot of problems at my characters at an astonishingly efficient rate?

14) do you make playlists for your current wips?

For the last one I did, as I said. It’s a very weird mixture of Viking music, Electro-Synth, Opera and pop-songs.

15) why did you start writing?

I just always did, I think?

16) are there any characters who haunt you?

Most of my major characters while I’m writing them, but it’s usually the current one. So at the moment it’s Nith, the main-character of my current story, because they deserve so much better and everyone fucks my magic child over and they just want to be accepted but at the same time the thought of living around actual...people terrifies them, because they’ve been considered cursed and were rejected for the biggest part of their life and now they’re kinda twisted and due really dubious shit so that they don’t have to be alone in their icy wasteland. Then they met a literal prince and they were forced to work together (because that trope is my jam) except Nith panicked and poisoned him so they’re in even deeper shit now.

17) if you could give your fledgling author self any advice, what would it be?

YOU CAN’T WRITE COLD CASE FANFICTION IF YOU NEVER WATCHED THE FUCKING SHOW AND DON’T EVEN KNOW THE CHARACTERS’ NAMES oh, ok you already did. And they go to Mars. ofc.*

(No, but serious advice: Don’t let anyone ever tell you it’s useless. As long as you enjoy yourself, just keep writing.)

*yep that’s a thing 11 year old me did. I liked the blond woman in the trailers on Kabel1 ok?

18) were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? what were they?

When I was about 18 we had Tauben im Gras in school and I got obsessed with writing like that. I got pages after pages just filled by me writing in that style. It’s like a dubstep remix of what my 9th grade self wrote, but I won a price for one of those so there’s that.

But usually, whatever I’m currently reading influences me. Like, not even because I want it to. For example I was once switching to and fro reading fanfiction and writing something of my own. But the fanfiction was in English and my writing in German and I first adopted the same tense, then the POV and suddenly my brain insisted I need to write this in English. fuck.

19) when it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?

- I take a lot of notes in a document which are mostly written as me dragging and insulting my characters

- then I split it up into scenes and write down plot-points for every scene

- I also note what it does for the characters individual storyline.

- then I start writing and ignore all of that because the character saw a butterfly and it sparks an entire dialogue with another character and they decide not to save the princess at all but to start an ice-cream truck.

20) do you write in long sit-down sessions or in little spurts?

Little spurts are usually draft-versions of scenes. Long sessions happen when I’m really inspired. What works best for me is putting a bowl of snacks in front of me and having a chip or a peanut every 100 words and to keep writing until the bowl is empty (at that point, usually there’s a sunrise outside)

21) what do you think when you read over your older work?

I don’t ever do that much. but since you made me look at The Cursed One, I was actually surprised that it was not quite 100% as horribly cringy as I made it out to be in my soul. I didn’t want to spoon my eyes out of my skull.

22) are there any subjects that make you uncomfortable to write?

Not really. Nothing I would want to write in the first place.

23) any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped your writing?

not really obscure, no

24) have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?

At the moment a lot of norse mythology stuff

25) copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud of

I’m never really proud of anything I write, but I’m kinda fond of the opening for one of my story-ideas, because I think it’s pretty efficient when it comes to world-building and setting the scene and explaining how the people in that place tick:

#nonfandom #personal #writing #WHOEVER WANTS TO PLS FEEL FREE!

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duhragonball · 7 years ago

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Babbling about Comics

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to get back in gear with my plan to read my entire collection of X-Men comics. I had this big plan to do it in 2015, but I only made it about halfway, which put me around Uncanny X-Men #280 (September 1991). That’s about 29 years’ worth of comics, though, so my plan was probably unrealistic.

Ever since I reblogged this, I’ve been thinking about how I used to be big into American comic books, but not so much anymore. One person in that thread jokes about how complicated it is to start reading X-Men and Wolverine, and the thing is, I actually know how to do that, because I spent maybe a week in 2014 obsessively studying the Marvel Chronology Project website to come up with a good reading order. Honestly, it’s kind of fun, but only because I’m a maniac. I can’t see how any normal person would even want to bother untangling that mess. The system was designed for only two kinds of immersion.

1) You bought the comics when they were published, and read them in more or less their intended reading order, because you had no other choice.

2) You’re a maniac like myself, who accumulated all this stuff after the fact and you’re determined to go back and figure out what happened.

Nowadays, it’s a lot easier for a new fan to dig into the past, because so much of Marvel’s back catalog is available in digital format, but it’s still a pretty big paywall when you think about how many X-Men comics they’ve made. And even if you download torrents, you still have to read the whole thing, and who has time for that? Generally, Marvel’s marketing strategy has been to try to make the new stories accessible enough for new readers to follow, while only reprinting the older material that’s important or popular. As a collector and a completist, this always frustrated me, but I think I’ve finally begun to see the wisdom of that approach.

See, the real gateway to a franchise like this is to stick to the greatest hits. For me, that’s Uncanny X-Men #94-167, which spans 1975-1983. Then you jump all the way to Wolverine’s solo book, which started in 1988. The first thirty issues of that are really, really good. I like the stuff that Larry Hama did with Wolverine later, but it’s not for everyone. If you want to read a crossover, I’d recommend “X-Tinction Agenda”, since it provides a decent snapshot of where the X-Books were at in 1990. Now, I’m skipping over a lot of other material from the period, but a lot of it was pretty awful, and the good issues of X-Factor and New Mutants were kind of inessential. The point is that you have to sample the best stuff first, then decide if you care enough about the characters to go dumpster diving through the rest of it. You’ll find some gems, but you have to be willing to put up with some real crap to get at it.

For example, right now, I’m in the middle of 1992, which was sort of a defining period for the X-Men franchise. Chris Claremont had ended a 17-year run as the writer, and they were trying to build everything around superstar penciller Jim Lee. I don’t know what went wrong exactly, but by the end of the year Lee had left to start his own company, and a lot of the X-Men comics from that year have a long list of co-plotters, co-scripters, and guest artists. The flagship title, X-Men v.2, held up reasonably well, but it’s sister Uncanny X-Men suffered from neglect. UXM #281 was supposed to herald this bold new era, but instead it just looks like a tire fire, one that continued to burn until #293 at least. But, those issues are notable because they introduce Lucas Bishop to the franchise.

I never cared much about Bishop, except that he looks pretty cool, and he had a cool voice in the X-Men cartoon. Otherwise, I only knew he was a guy from the future with a gun, just like the dozen other future-guys-with-guns in 90′s comics. But when Bishop was introduced, he hailed from the year 2062, where he’s part of a Judge Dredd-style security force. Bishop revered the X-Men as legends, but once he meets the real deal he quickly finds out they’re not what he expected. Bishop sees himself as a peacekeeper, and he’s honored to join the X-Men, but he keeps finding his violent, hair trigger methods at odds with the X-Men’s rigid protocol.

The thing is, I identify with the guy. I used to write him off as a knock off of Cable, or one of the other loose-cannon hardcases the X-Men keep recruiting, but they actually found a way to make Bishop stand out from the crowd. He loves the X-Men in theory, but he really doesn’t understand what makes them work. Which is sort of like me trying to read all these comics I only know by reputation. A lot of of the things fans praise the X-Men for are vastly overrated or completely misrepresented. The conventional wisdom I always got from the fans was that the X-Men were only great when Claremont wrote them, and then Scott Lobdell took over and Ruined Everything(tm). The reality (from my perspective) is that Claremont ran out of mojo around Year Eight of his 17-year run, and he was running on fumes from ‘83 to ‘91. I’ve seen fans carry a torch over what happened to Madelyne Pryor, but as far as I’m concerned Madelyne Pryor’s introduction was when the Claremont run jumped the shark. Her whole character arc was a no-win scenario and their biggest mistake was in not ending it sooner. I used to think the X-Men comics of the early 90′s were a creative train-wreck, but somehow it managed to generate Bishop, and that gives me hope.

Also, there is something oddly comforting about reading these old comics. Nothing ever really changes with the X-Men. If a character gets killed, they just come back a few years later. If a character quits or turns evil, it’ll get reversed later. The X-Men never really win or lose any battles. They just sort of show up and fight, and then something else happens and they get distracted by that for several issues. Last night I read the issue where Forge gets upset because he’s in love with Storm and he hasn’t even gotten five minutes alone with her to rekindle their feelings from 1988. He awkwardly proposes to her, and she punts, telling him she’ll think about it. In the very next scene they have together, he leave the mansion before she can even give her answer. Forge is convinced that Storm doesn’t really love him, and that she’ll never set aside her X-Men career long enough to make time for a serious relationship. As he slams the door, she mutters “I would have said... yes.” That’s classic X-Men for you. All angst, all turmoil, no resolution. We don’t know if Storm is sincere or not, and Forge won’t even stick around to find out. Is he right about her, or is he just too afraid of rejection? Maybe we’ll see in a later issue, but I bet we don’t. It’s Schrödinger’s ship. Everything sort of hangs in midair.

Now, I might have said that this is why I’ve come to prefer anime lately, because the stories are more decisive. Goku married Chi-Chi and that’s it. Done. There’s no hotshot editor trying to split that up or retcon it to clear the way for a fresh pairing. The real tragedy of Storm is that she’s trapped in Comic Book Time, so she couldn’t have a long term relationship even if she wanted to. If she had married Forge in 1992 they would have inevitably been divorced a short time later, because Marvel likes to rotate romantic partners around every few years. Storm actually married the Black Panther later on, but I’m pretty sure that’s over now. But Goku’s marriage to Chi-Chi is absolute. I like certainty. It helps make the characters feel more genuine, and less like imaginary dolls driven by editorial whims and sales charts.

But, having recently finished Revolutionary Girl Utena, I find the X-Men’s open-endedness kind of soothing. I didn’t get what I wanted from the ending of the Utena TV series. I’m not sure what I wanted, exactly, but what I got wasn’t completely satisfying. I may warm up to it later on, or I’ll watch the movie version and see if that’s more to my liking, but that’s pretty much all I’m going to get. With the X-Men, I’m not particularly invested in the characters, and I have a general knowledge of what happens to them, and that anything that happens to them is mutable and transient. It takes a lot of the punch out of Forge walking out on Storm, but it’s still decent theatre, and I’m not in the mood for dramatic punch right now. Utena was like getting dramatically punched by Star Platinum for five pages. I’d watch one episode and then I’d have to take a break before moving to the next one. Not everything needs to be like that. Sometimes it can be Bishop possibly getting Storm on the rebound, only to discover that she’s not as good in bed as the history books said she was.

Nevertheless, I think this is something the comics industry needs to address. I got fed up with following comics because the new ones are expensive and inconsistently produced, and nothing worthwhile ever happens in them either. They keep relaunching series with new #1′s, or renumbering them every time they get close to a Big Round Number, so it’s probably even harder to keep the reading order straight than it was twenty or thirty years ago. So it’s a lot of the same hassles you get from back issues, except my back issues are already bought and paid for, so I might as well waste my time reading them instead of paying for overpriced new stuff. Their best bet is to introduce new characters, especially female, POC, and LBGT+ characters that are tough to find in the back issue rack, because that’s something novel they can use to draw modern audiences. Because Thor’s dealt with Ragnarok about a dozen times already, and the X-Men haven’t accomplished anything tangible in 30 years, so eventually no one’s going to fall for the same corny “Nothing Will Ever Be the Same!” gimmick.

#disclaimer: i don't know if storm and bishop hook up or not #but the last issue i read sure seems to want me to think they could #but even if they did i know it wouldn't last because she ended up marrying t'challa in 2006 #but i have no idea what she was up to in between so maybe bishop had a shot #and that's what's neat about delving into a long run of comics #to find out if something just didn't happen or if it did and fans just never talk about it

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takaraphoenix · 7 years ago

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Shadowhunters?

I feel like that show is like nearly unfair to ask because I feel like I already put all the thoughts into the A/Ns of my Shadowhunters fics. Like, if you’d go through them chronologically, you’d probably get the answer. But sure, I got a couple hours to spare to do it in one go :D

And sorry for the long wait, but I knew from the moment I got this ask that this one was going to be the longest. Gotta find the time to write that down too.

I, quite obviously, love the show. But it might also be one of the most flawed shows I’m currently watching.

The thing is, when I started watching it, I binged the first season after it first aired and then turned my back on it because it was just Not Good. Like, at that point I was 100% convinced I would not tune in for season 2.

About nine months later, my parents were interested in watching it - we have those family TV nights, it’s a tradition - and I figured, oh well, won’t kill me. And what can I say? I actually liked it more.

That is a hundred and fifty percent thanks to Amelie Plaas-Link.

Amelie lends her voice to Clary in the German dub - and she completely saved that show for me. Like, there’s a lot of plot that bothers me a lot about this show - and I will get into that in a moment - but my rule of thumb is “If I can’t stand the main character, I’m not gonna force it” (that rule was established when I finally managed to give up on Grey’s Anatomy after too many wasted years of trying to watch it for the sake of everything else).

Now, in the German dub I realized, she’s not that bad, it’s Katherine McNamara. Like, yeah, she’s a cutie and she looks good in the role. But she does not act well in that role. At least not in season 1. Season 2, she’s gradually getting better at acting, but oh dear, her performances in season 1 are downright painful. Her constant flat whining and the line-deliveries were so nerve-grading that not even the gloriousness that is Dominic Sherwood could have saved season 1 for me.

But Amelie Plaas-Link gives Clary a more grown-up feeling. She delivers the same dialogue, but with more conviction, more feeling and definitely less childishly high-pitched whining.

Where Katherine’s line-delivery makes Clary feel like a whiny, entitled brat, Amelie gives Clary the feeling of a traumatized, scared girl, which she should be.

So that rewatch in German? That was what ultimately got me hooked and made me watch season 2 in English - and yes, Katherine does get better in this season, thankfully enough.

Now let’s talk plot.

Season 1 forced the “Love at first sight” trope way too hard. Between Clary and Jace, as well as Magnus and Alec and even to an extend Simon and Isabelle gave the same vibe for like the first half of season 1. It’s like the writers instantly decided that to write a plotline that includes characters falling in love would be too exhausting to write?

I’m very grateful - but also confused - about the turn Simon and Izzy took. Where the first half really made it look as though he was instantly hooked on her and she was interested in him, they didn’t push that. I think they could have, you know, still let the two have screentime with each other in 2A because completely dropping all interactions between them was also not the best move, but I appreciate that they took 2B and have the two now slowly inching closer together again. To make this one love-story maybe an actual falling in love slowly thing instead of the love at first sight.

I don’t have the malice to get into why I dislike Clary and Jace as a couple. I just do. And that Jace instantly was so obsessed with her that he basically threw everything else over board for the sake of helping her just made the “hook” for that couple really awful for me. Like, you do not treat your family and friends like shit just because you’re busy mooning over a chick you literally just met. And yes, Jace is my favorite character, but his behavior in the first half of season 1 in particular was just not good.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I do love the show and I had my “hook”. My hook being Jalec. That’s also the reason I started watching this show. If I’m going to repeat everything I said in A/Ns before, I’ll also repeat that part.

I watched the movie, back when it came out, and instantly adored Jalec and was hyped about it. Then there was no second movie. By the time the show rolled around, I only have vague recollection of two things - there was a female lead who seemed badass and there were a dark-haired grump who was canonically in love with a very cute blonde twink.

Show!Jalec are just such an improvement to movie!Jalec, to be honest. And yeah, every single parabatai-magic scene in season one had me at the edge of my seat squealing with OTP feels. When even Clary commented that that looked awfully intimate, I wildly agreed. They were just so precious, I loved it.

And then there was Malec. I was aware of its existence - after watching the movie, I went to the fandom sure that it must be flooded with Jalec, but instead there was only Alec with this guy who had like five minutes screen-time in the movie and wait what? So yeah, bit disappointed when I read online that Jalec was not endgame. And thus I also knew what to expect in the movie.

But it was, again, this love at first sight thing. At least on Magnus’ end. I do like how it took Alec some convincing, but generally their plotline was what I disliked the most about season 1 - not due to my personal feelings about the ship but due to how badly it was written.

It was the cheapest rom-com plot of all rom-com plots. “Let’s invent a female OC just for the sake of drama! And oh, let’s squeeze a wedding in here even though we are waaay too busy with actually important stuff!” and that Magnus literally came in the “Speak now or forever hold your piece” moment and Alec dashed over to him to kiss him.

I’m pretty sure this fandom would have at least a 100 better Malec fanfiction of how they could have gotten together, but the show just turned it into such an overused rom-com trope that was also so poorly executed.

Let’s be real, the “Malec” episode was a giant Malec fangirl using her old fic plot. It was so over the top, they should have gotten together on a private level and not in public literally in front of the whole Institute. It was way too rom-com… as Simon even points out afterward and yes, Simon’s reaction was exactly what I picture the writer must have squealed like when pitching the plot.

I really wish they had given the ship a more dignified way to set sails instead of such an over-the-top squeaky fangirl fanfiction way. And yes, I’m aware I’m hitting a stone-wall with the shippers there because they’re just happy their ship sailed, but what I’m saying is there could have and should have been a better written way to make them sail.

Not to mention the reactions. I’m sorry, but… Robert and Maryse took that shit like fucking saints! Like. Seriously. This isn’t even about Alec being gay, this is about Alec being the one to propose to someone, Alec being the one to try and better their family’s image by doing so and then Alec kissing someone else in the middle of the wedding with everyone watching.

As a parent, I would have been furious. It was Alec’s idea to rush this proposal. Yes, a political marriage was the idea of his parents, but Alec chose Lydia and Alec was the one who decided to rush this whole thing.

And then they have this glorious wedding where I’m assuming everyone with a name and who is important was present because the whole purpose of the wedding was to better the Lightwood name and to do so you gotta show off. And then Alec just rans off into the arms of not just someone else but a male Downworlder.

And even without that “male Downworlder” part, this would have already been a publicity nightmare for the Lightwood family, but considering their society and what we heard and learned of Shadowhunters to that point, the “male” alone would have been an outrage but the “Downworlder” part on top of it should have like… caused at least some outrace? A little bit? But it was all totally polite. And yes, the Lightwood parents expressed their distain but let’s be real for a second, that was justified.

If my kid came out to me like that and then introduced a centuries old guy to me with the word “No, no, we’re not dating, it’s love” - because it wasn’t at that point, it wasn’t about the true love get together but about Alec admitting to his own sexuality and I do like that addition and that they acknowledged it instead of looking at it through pink-tinted glasses, but honestly that must have been such an additional blow? Like, “Okay, you just ruined our reputation. For a guy. Who’s a Downworlder. But at least it’s True Love, right?”, grasping for straws but then to have your son essentially laugh in your face?

Holy shit, during that whole scene, Robert and Maryse were saints, in my eyes. I mean, this could have gone down way different. On a homophobic level, on a racist against Downworlders level, on a ruined reputation level. There were a lot of angles that could have been used to have either or both Lightwoods lash out and for Alec to face serious reprecussions, but instead he just got a mild warning about how he should watch out because the guy he chose had quite the reputation. And like? Wow, you had more luck than brains there, Alec.

So yes, as someone who loathes rom-com movies because they’re brainless and have the most ridiculous excuses for loads of drama that could be avoided if people talked to each other, the way they handled Malec’s getting together was just not satisfying to watch.

On that note, I want to talk about Magnus for a moment. I love the guy! Magnus was literally my biggest surprise in this show, because going in, I was semi determined and sure Magnus would end up being a character I wouldn’t like because he gets in the way of my OTP and I get very protective over my OTPs. Instead, he became my second favorite character within the first season.

His flourish, his charms, his wit, his smirks, his outfits, his magic, his personality - literally everything about him. Magnus Bane is amazing and I love him - and Harry Shum Jr only makes him all the better. He plays him so brilliantly, I was baffled. I only knew Harry from Glee and he didn’t get a lot of chances to really act there because he was such a background character, but oh boy, that guy can act.

And thus my OT3 for this show was born, because is Jalec is OTP and Malec is canon, let’s just throw them all together and see how Magnus and Jace work (spoiler: they work so well and Jagnus fast rose up to become my second favorite pairing for this franchise).

So, as you might have noticed at this point, this particular review is a bit of a mess and all over the place, but let’s stay with the characters for a while.

Simon didn’t really do enough to get me interested in him until season 2. Like, he was just… there. Like in the movie (I legit do not remember a single thing about him in the movie). And while the same could be said about movie!Izzy, she did really get me hooked in season 1 already.

I love it when the gorgeous, sexy girls are also smart and can kick ass. It’s normally either only one of those three very amplified or a “You can have two out of three”-kind of deal. Very rarely *cough* Buffy *cough* do you get all three of them. And boy, is that woman gorgeous and deadly.

Let’s circle back to Lydia for a second. I know she’s a show OC and she was really literally only created for the above mentioned rom-com drama, but she shot up to become my third favorite Shadowhunters character. Particularly due to the “Malec” episode, because she took that was so much grace and kindness.

I would have slapped Alec in the face? Like? No matter that it’s a political marriage and neither of them are in for the fuzzy feels. If I get a wedding dress and got important people watching me… and then my groom-to-be runs off with the High Warlock? Wow. That woman definitely has more understanding than imaginable. The way she handled and took that made me admire her for her strength and kindness and it really made me headcanon very hard that Alec and Lydia would become the best of friends (Lydia needs to return to the show).

Since we’re circling through characters here; Luke. Luke was the first thing that really got my attention in the show, because Oh my gosh, it’s the Old Spice Guy! I love that guy! And his voice! *squeal*. Which, yes, that was exactly my reaction when Luke first showed up. I really like Luke and I love the change they did from the book, that he’s a cop here. It just… fits really well, to get them involved with those cases, to have an in into all the supernatural attacks through the cop investigating them.

I just wish that, down the road, that would have been a bit more fleshed out. With Luke and Alaric being partners, both being wolves, I kind of assumed that the precinct was crawling with Downworlders and that they were… organized. Which would just make so much sense, world-building wise. You infiltrate police, hospitals and fire departments with Downworlders, you have a network of them to control Downworlder business leaking into the mortal world. But if they’re not aware of each other, or end up partnered with a mundane, that’s just… chaos. And aren‘t Downworlders really around long enough to actually organize this?

I would have expected the captain to be a Downworlder, who keeps track on the Downworlders on his force and specifically asigns them the Downworld-related cases and keeps the mundies busy with mundie stuff. That is what would make sense, to me. And that is what’s lacking. They started the police-thing with a good idea behind it, but they didn’t flesh it out in a way that would have made more sense in the context of this world.

Now, the last character I want to get into is Camille. Camille doesn’t make sense to me. She’s the powerful leader of the vampires of New York, which sounds like a good deal. She’s been around for a long time so she must know how to survive.

But… still she just randomly decides to turn a totally random mundane into a vampire, even though she must have known the price it’d cost her? Why would she risk that, aside from “We need it for plot because we need vampire!Simon”? That was one of those writing decisions again that just happened for the sake of plot.

Other things about season 1 that bother me and were poorly put together/written out (to wrap season 1 up and move on to season 2):

Circle members frolicking outside of cells. This is a point that will be proven by season 2 again and again too, but we already encounter it in season one with not just Hodge but also the Lightwood parents. They’re essentially the Shadowhunters equivalent to Nazis and terrorists, Circle members I mean, but… they get off with a slap of the wrist? Because they… changed? Imagine real life news about someone involved in the Third Reich and who pleads he got better. Yeah, no, you going to jail for crimes against humanity, man. That those three not just didn’t get thrown into the City of Bones, but also get to walk around freely and that, on top of that, the Lightwoods seriously are the heads of the Institute? Like? Imagine that. I mean, really truly imagine that, former terrorists get to basically work in the White House. Something just doesn’t feel right there. And yes, the Lightwoods did change… but Hodge didn’t. And if they had fucking thrown their former terrorists into cells to rot in, then the entire thing about the Mortal Cup wouldn’t have happened. It’s just, and we’ll get back to this for season 2A, the juridical system of the Shadowhunters is juridiculous.

The fact that no one questions anything in this show, if being oblivious fits the plot. Like, when Clary and Jace went to that parallel world where they were dating and then moments later, learn that they’re siblings. And neither of them pause and think “Mh, how utterly strange that Valentine was a good guy and good dad to Clary in that alternate reality, but that Jace wasn’t raised as her brother then? And that they were dating and neither Jocelyn nor Valentine had any problem with that? Mh. Maybe that is worth investigating. Maybe we should like make a blood-test to see if the sociopathic manipulator really told us the truth.”. I mean, science exists in this world. How does no one make a test but instead just take the words of the genocidal maniac at face value? How is that a thing? Aside for the purpose of plot and tension.

Same goes for the reveal of Michael Wayland being alive slash not alive. Like. “Oh, wow, we found a guy in a closet in Chernobyl where we were brought to find Valentine and changing faces is A Thing Shadowhunters Can Do Easily, but we won’t question it at all” - even without the thought that Valentine could have been Michael Wayland all along.

Which brings me to the first time I legit was impressed by Clary. Because she actually didn’t buy it and she didn’t let Valentine fool her into giving him the Mortal Cup and I was Very Relieved by that because at that point, the story-telling was just too many convenient closed-eyes and turned-aways to allow plot to continue. It wasn’t clever writing, it was forced writing - and I’m not a fan of that.

If you have to force your characters to do Stupid Shit that doesn’t make sense if one were to use at least half their brain, just for the sake of creating obstacles and making the plot last longer, then I got some bad news about your writing abilities. They are not good. Because a good writer would be able to achieve those things in a natural flow and create tensions that fit the plotline instead of forcing a square through a hole, so to speak.

So yes, all the things I just mentioned as badly written character and plot decisions in season 1 were the reason I decided that I wouldn’t put up with season 2, topped off by my dislike for how Clary being played.

Then I rewatched season 1 with a superior dub for Clary and that improved the show a lot - seriously, the main character is a very important key-figure and it’s supposed to hold the show together if that falls flat, then the whole show might come apart by the seams. I also really fell even more in love with Jace when rewatching it and by the end of season one, when he sacrifices himself to keep his friends safe, I was left thinking “Okay, I really wanna know what happens to the puppy and if he’ll be safe”.

So I watched season 2.

I genuinely feel like they switched writers for that season, because season 2 has an entirely different feeling than season 1.

Where season 1 had a lot of awkward writing, it at least did have better pacing. Season 2 had more evened-out writing, but awful pacing (particularly in season 2B).

Season 2. Let me start off by what I said earlier I’d get back into; the juridiculous system of the Shadowhunters. The above mentioned unpunished terrorists aside, they throw Jace in jail. Like. He got abducted and tortured - and you see the torture on him when he arrives, he was not having a fun trip with daddy dearest. But they just… torture him even more and then throw him in jail? A society that fails to punish its own terrorists throws a victim into jail? And something just really went very wrong there.

And let me stay on the note on how ridiculous the Shadowhunters’ society and particularly their politics really are.

They change leaders more often than some people change their socks, for fuck’s sake. We started season 1 out with Robert and Maryse in charge. By 1x08, Lydia Branwell arrives and takes over. By 2x01, Victor Aldertree is the leader. But that changes when in 2x11 Imogen Herondale takes over, but no worries she passes on the mantel to Jace in 2x13, who instantly passes it on to Alec.

They have a total of seven leaders of the New York Institute within two season. Seven. That’s pathetically ridiculous. Whenever one thing goes wrong, their immediate solution is “put a new boss in charge” and their preferred method of doing so is “get someone who has no idea about the NY Institute”, like Lydia or Victor or Imogen. I mean, holy shit, how is that a thing? They’re in the middle of a war and instead of reinforcing their troops and helping out, they just change the leader to confuse everyone and make their own troops even more unstable? Wow.

Not to mention that, while personally I think Alec is a very good leader, he should have never gotten the position? I mean, Jace was more of a stand-in appointed by Imogen and how did neither she nor the Clave have any protests when Jace appointed Alec Lightwood, after the entire point of this game of musical chairs was to remove the Lightwoods from their position in power? Within two episodes of him being head, the Clave should have come knocking at their doors and, considering their track-record so far, put a new envoy to the Clave as the head instead of Lightwood Junior.

Moving on. Let’s get back into characters, because another major player is introduced this season. Maia Roberts.

I’m inclined to say that I don’t like Maia’s character, but then I feel like I can’t really say that because she doesn’t have a character. She is the single best example of this show’s inconsistent writing. It baffles me. I want to like her and I like the idea of her and I like how fanfiction interprets her, but her show version?

It’s ridiculous. She is introduces as “I don’t give a fuck about laws, I will downright murder you even though I have no proof at all that you’re actually the killer of my friend and even after it’s revealed you’re innocent, all you get is a lot of shit from me”. Then she changes into this cool character as a friend of Simon’s, who’s understanding and sweet. And then she flips the switch back on as she goes onto “I don’t give a fuck about laws, I will downright murder you because you could potentially active that Soul Sword and I don’t care that you’re my Alpha’s daughter, essentially, and that we could look for a better solution”. And then she switches right back to Simon’s friend who is cool. But then she goes back to being a total bitch toward Jace once again and acts like she really hates him - which, okay, I could live with because not everyone has to be friends with everyone - but then she sleeps with him.

Most of the time, show!Maia feels like they should have invented a second character and split her plotline up into the homicidal maniac bitch OFC and Maia, the good friend of Simon and loyal pack-member of Luke’s. Because those two characters squeezed into one? They clash. Trying to murder Clary clashes with being absolutely devoted to Luke, as she has been at literally every other instance of this show. Sometimes, I’m convinced show!Maia might be bipolar or schizophrenic, because those manic phases and mood swings kind of remind me of that.

Let’s talk about Victor Aldertree. While not being a Circle member, he’s is not a good guy either and he should have never become head of the Institute to begin with.

From his questionable methods of torturing one of his own soldiers who got abducted by the enemy, to randomly torturing Raphael a little later and best of all, getting one of his soldiers addicted to drugs.

I mean. There is? No fucking way? That Victor didn’t know how addictive Yin Fen is? He literally warns Isabelle about it, but he warns her in a “This stuff is addictive, watch out. Here, have the entire jar of it, I totally trust you not to get addicted and use it moderately even though it would have been ethically correct to order you to come to me or the infirmary once a day to have it applied”-kind of way that’s just really not right? And I have literally no idea why. If he were a Circle member and if this was a method to sabotage the good guys - getting her not just hooked on drugs but preventing her from entering the citadele - that would have made sense. But Aldertree isn’t a Circle member, so what exactly was his motivation behind this…?

And while we’re at it, let’s talk about Jocelyn.

I do not like Jocelyn. I mean, that woman is a walking Bad Decision after the other. From the moment she decided that having her daughter’s memories wiped instead of telling her truth would be a good idea? Even if she never introduced Clary to the Shadowhunters, she could have at least taught her that it was real and that Clary needed to watch out. Particularly as a child, Clary was vulnerable to attacks and she would have been safer if she too knew what to look out for. Not to mention the incredibly invasive decision to wipe Clary’s memories.

But hey, at least she’s a bad mom to all her kids, so there’s that. I mean, in that brief time she thought Jace to be her son, she shot him with the intention to kill him. Not based on anything Jace - or Jonathan - did recently, but solemnly based on the fact that baby!Jonathan had the ability to kill plants.

Based on something a toddler who couldn’t even talk or walk or use the potty did, she decided that her son was irredeemable. That he never learned how to control his powers - just like he never learned how to talk or walk or use the toilet, right? Because we have completely reached our full potential as toddlers and can not be taught anything anymore, right? Especially not control, of course.

Even if Jace had been Jonathan, there was a huge chance that he could have learned to control his powers over the past eighteen years. Because I actually believe that if Jonathan hadn’t been raised by the cruel, soulless and heartless Valentine, he too would have had a chance to learn how to control his urges and powers.

Not to mention, killing a couple plants is not exactly evil incarnated. If he had used his powers and accidentally killed like… the neighbors. Oh yeah. Heck, even just the neighbor’s cat would have already been more justified. But it were just a couple flowers that a baby who could not even control his bladder yet had killed.

Holy shit, you’re the worst mother on this planet. A good mom would have tried talking to her son first, would have clung to the smallest chance of hope that her son wasn’t the Antichrist. Instead, she doesn’t take any of the very valid doubts that sprung to my mind instantly even remotely into consideration and immediately decides to kill her own son.

Yeah no, I’m not sad that they killed her character off.

Let’s move on to happier topics, because I’m already getting a headache here.

Jace moving in with Magnus will forever be the best decision this show made and I will always cherish it and to my dying day, Jace is living with Magnus at the loft in all my fics and no one will ever take that away from me.

Ithuriel looked pathetic when we first met him. Like, I get that he was run down and exhausted, but his wings were the cheapest props I’ve ever seen. You can literally go to any convention ever and you’d find at least two cosplayers who made more convincing and realistic wings than that cheap shit and I am quite frankly embarrassed by what the show pulled there.

Not to mention, those angelic powers are Really Plot Convenient. Once again.

Clary and Jace share the same angelic blood. But the angel only calls out to Clary. Because if he’d also call out to Jace, then we might get suspicious that he doesn’t have demon blood, so conveniently that only works on one. And conveniently, Jace’s angelic blood powers only kick in after he is told that he even has them - and never-ever before in his entire life. Sure.

I do not support the show’s decision on making Raphael feed on Isabelle. He is old and experienced and asexual enough to deny her. And yes, that last one also plays into this, because if Raph was just a straight horn-dog, then I would have bought the old and experienced vampire being tempted by young, gorgeous, sexy Isabelle into feeding her and then also having sex with her. But since that angle falls flat, I really don’t see why that old and experienced vampire would have been weak enough to be tempted into that.

Robert and Maryse. Oh gods, I’m so angry about this, I don’t know if I have the energy to type it out.

I hate Maryse Lightwood and fuck you, show, for attempting the cheapest, flatest, dumbest redemption-arc in the history of redemption-arcs! Just fuck you!

Maryse Lightwood is Not A Good Mom and Not A Good Person.

She made Isabelle’s life a hell so far by emotionally abusing her. And yes, I see the way Maryse treated Isabelle as abuse. She has hugs and warm smiles for her sons while she treats Isabelle like… Cinderella, essentially. She has nothing but coldness and disappointment for her daughter and I’m sure that emotionally crippled her.

Maryse told Alec, when Jace was still on board of the Morning Star, that he should abandon his parabatai. Not just his adopted brother and best friend, but his parabatai. She, who she adopted Jace and should view him as her son, tells her biological son to cut all ties. She also can’t make the time to be at her son’s bedside when he is literally dying because he’s trying to use the parabatai-bond to find Jace.

Maryse repeatedly tells Max that Jace isn’t his brother, because a child that age doesn’t pick shit like that up after only once. She said it often enough to warp Max’s mind to the point that Max flat-out tells Jace to his face that he isn’t his brother.

And after Jace’s fears manifested thanks to that demon at Magnus’ loft during the runeing party, and he actually apologizes as though he has done something wrong, she needs to be arrogant about with that high-and-mighty “No, stop. I don’t want to hear your apologies”, visibly deflating Jace just to continue as though it’s a grand gesture “I’m the one who should apologize to you”. Fuck yes, you should? You gave up on him when he was abducted and tortured, you didn’t stand at his side when he was thrown in jail and you told both his brothers that he’s not their brother like he’s not even part of your family.

And then the show puts the weakest excuse ever up as a reasoning? A sob-story on how Robert cheated on her? Oh, if you know me a little you know where I stand on cheating - cheats are the scum of the Earth. But being cheated on does not justify that kind of behavior. Fuck, it doesn’t justify any of it and even though cheating should not have been the solution - a fucking divorce would have been - I completely understand why Robert sought out love from someone who, I don’t know, doesn’t have a heart of ice? Yes, he should have gotten divorced from her and cheating is Not Okay, but just because your husband cheated on you, that doesn’t make you as The Victim all of a sudden a good person? The whole “Something bad happens to character and suddenly everyone coddles character and everything is forgiven”-plotline is the most pathetic cop-out imaginable and neither of her four children should have that easily forgiven her past wrong-doings just because she sobs a little.

It is not a justification for child neglect or child abuse when your husband cheats on you. It is not.

Robert, I don’t give a flying fuck about. Like, in season 1 he was set up to be the better parent of the Lightwoods, but now he’s sorted into the category of scum of the Earth, so yeah. I vote for Luke to adopt the Lightwood kids and be done with it.

The reveal that Jace is not Clary’s brother was, again, so forced and awkward. Like, touching the sword makes you say the truth but only if you’re actually asked something and Valentine essentially blurts out all the things even though he doesn’t have to? Just for the sake of reassuring Clary and Jace shippers that their ship would still be able to sail? Really?

The entire eleventh episode of season 2 is just one giant fucking mess, if I’m being honest. Like, if you’d ask me to point out the most flawed episode of the show? This would be it. “Mea Maxima Culpa” even beats “Malec”, because that episode was only messy due to an overdose of forced rom-com elements. This episode however is a total mess.

First we got Isabelle, who’s trying to get over her addiction but still Alec leaves her unsupervised in a fit of Very Bad Withdrawl, which was already Bad Decision 1.

Then Isabelle goes out to find vemon, is attacked by the demon and decides to go home with total stranger Sebastian Verlac, Bad Decision 2. For all she knows, he could have been a Circle member, for heaven’s sake. His story was so shady and that odd coincident of “Hey, I was addicted to Yin Fen too!”.

Sebastian offers her a wonder-drug that’s supposed to help her overcome her addiction faster, but she never heard of it - and she still takes it. She takes a drug from a total stranger that’s supposed to speed up recovery. That is literally how her Yin Fen addiction started, for fuck’s sake. Bad Decision 3.

Isabelle stays with Sebastian instad of immediately returning, or at the very least instantly calling her brothers to let them know that she was alive and safe. After all, she was attacked by that greater demon so she knows there’s something dangerous going on and she should have known that Alec would notice she left. Bad Decision 4.

They don’t track her fucking cellphone. She disappears and they don’t track her cellphone - which regular mundanes can do, for heaven’s sake - and we see her having her phone at Sebastian’s. Bad Decision 5.

They don’t track her runes. In a later episode, we learn that the Clave can track all their Shadowhunters via their runes. So how do they not use her runes to track her? Bad Decision 6.

No, instead of any those things, they of course decide to go and as Valentine for help. That sounds like it should be more than just Bad Decision 7, really.

But it’s instantly followed by Bad Decisions 8 and 9 - because both Clary and Jace, out of everyone, think that listening to Valentine of all people is in any way or shape a good idea. Out of all the characters in this show, those two should really know best not to trust the manipulative asshole, who also happens to be locked into a cell so why should he know anything about what is going on outside.

Bad Decision 10 goes to Magnus for actually helping the idiot Shadowhunters in summoning a Greater Demon. That in itself sounds like such a bad idea, but considering that idea was suggested by Valentine, how in the world does the High Warlock not nope out of that and whack them upside the heads?!

So, yeah, I consider season 2 episode 11 to be the lowest point of the show, because its writing has more plot-holes than is justifyable for an entire season of a show, much less for one episode. It comes off as so forced due to the bad writing and they should have worked through this in a way that would have made at least a little sense.

How exactly is ‘Sebastian Verlac’ not instantly thrown into the City of Bones? He literally abandoned his Institute. Isn’t that high treason? Like, the exact same thing Jace got thrown into jail for? At the very least they should have questioned him? A lot? About why he abandoned his Institute and why he came to New York. And if not the Clave, at the very least our Shadowhunters should have been so much more suspicious.

But what I legit hate is how they reveal from the first episode on that he’s not a good guy. I haven’t read the books so when this new character came dashing in, saving Isabelle, he could have been a good guy. But they had to ruin it - in episode 11 already - by showing how Sebastian burns his own hand over the stove and you instantly know “This guy ain’t sane or good. Something’s seriously wrong with him” and that just… it completely ruins the reveal of him being not a good guy. Sure, the show caters to the book-readers, but couldn’t we like pretend that a lot of people actually have their first contact with this story through the show? And it would have been an amazing reveal later on, if we had Sebastian introduced as just this random new good guy, in the same way Lydia had entered the show later in season 1, to just join the cast. If we came to trust him like Isabelle did.

But instead, they instantly ruin the surprise and then they just… don’t really use Sebastian? I mean, he really doesn’t do a lot in the whole infiltration thing? They could have really used him better, made him actually a part of the team, have him properly befriend - or more - Isabelle, have him properly try to get to know Clary and Jace. But he just… awkardly stands in the background and then pushes himself onto the missions. The entire Sebastian-Jonathan plotline could have been written so much better so it’d have been an actual huge surprise.

I really don’t wanna get into the racism debate of 2x13, to be honest. It was handled and written so poorly. The message was clear, but… it felt so entirely out of place and forced. If those killings of Shadowhunters would have started a couple episodes before then already and we’d have build-up to this, but to squeeze it all into one episode and have the Shadowhunters instantly snap from “We’re supposed to protect mundanes and Downworlders” to “Let’s racially profile all the Downworlders and also right away start chipping them like dogs” was just… too much. It would have come off as a slightly more… believable reaction if the panic about the attacks had been looming for a little longer, but this way it was just far too forced and came off as a very strong over-reaction from them and not as something those characters would believably do.

I dislike how Aline was treated like such a throw-away character. They introduce this new Shadowhunter and have her barely be in any scenes before she leaves again. The lack of recognizable non-main character Shadowhunters on the show is one of my big problems with it, actually.

I mean, Isabelle, Alec and Jace grew up in that Institute. But aside from Raj… there’s kind of no Shadowhunter who actually gets a speaking role? Did they never make any friends? Like? I want to see casual interactions between them and other Shadowhunters, I want reoccuring faces with names. I want Alec to send not just the main characters on missions, but like have nine people on the meeting and Alec assigning teams and us seeing other Shadowhunters being sent out there too. Because the show mainly feels and comes off as “We have Alec, Jace, Isabelle and Clary. They handle All The Missions, while all other Shadowhunters just aimlessly walk around in the background”.

And when they introduced Aline, I thought we’d get another reoccuring Shadowhunter who is friends with them and who has, even if just brief, interactions with them. Instead, she’s right away sent off again.

The Seelie Court was also painful to watch. That Clary was doe-eyed enough to let Simon tag along, I’ll buy. But that Jace can’t stand his ground was just ridiculous. And that Simon was actually dumb enough to think that being vice-class-president in middle school qualifies him to meet a millennia old supernatural queen is pathetic. That episode would have been more believable if they hadn’t written in that clause about how only Jace and Clary were supposed to go on a mission. If they had just set it up as a regular mission and Simon as part of the team would have made this feel so much less forced.

Also, that episode and what followed was what officially made me dislike Clary. In season 1, she just annoyed me due to the actress’ shortcomings. In the German dub of it and then in season 2A, I actually grew very fond of Clary.

But Clary dating Simon, who has been pathetically in love with her for so many years, just to try and get over her feelings for Jace, but then failing and still being hung up on Jace, but not enough to actually give him a chance, was just… a sign of bad character, really. And I mean “personality”-character here, not “fictional character”-character.

How she had to tell Jace that it meant nothing and then just… avoided him from there on out was so childish and annoying. And the return of season 1′s whiny, entitled Clary when she kept bothering Simon and trying to cling onto Simon and force herself back into his life was just so not appreciated by me. Like. You just broke his heart? And you expect him to right away be okay again and be there for you? Holy shit, you really are an entitled, self-centered brat, no, stop it, I had grown fond of you, damn it, keep it together, Fray.

I feel like I should also mention Dot before I get closer to the end of this. Her character doesn’t make much sense too. Like, to me, she already died like four times. Every single time she appears, I am literally surprised because I thought she died the last time we saw her. But still, she always returns and it confuses me so much? Because if she keeps living, how is Clary not more determined to save her from Valentine?

And then she finally is freed and suddenly, she’s… Magnus’ ex-girlfriend? Whut? That was a really weird moment to me, personally. Because the two of them felt more like old acquaintances, certainly not like friends and especially not like former lovers, back when we saw them first interact in season 1. When she nearly kissed Magnus, knowing he had a boyfriend, she completely fell through for me. As before mentioned, cheats are the scum of the Earth - and that goes for both parties. If you tempt someone who’s in a relationship and you know that other person is in a relationship, you’re a fucking asshole who’s deliberately hurting the person the cheater is actually dating so fuck you too. I’m really glad that Magnus pulled back before kissing her, that his integrity was preserved there.

I hate that it even got that far - because Magnus can’t talk to Alec at all. Like. Malec is an unhealthy relationship in the sense that they completely lack communication and that is the key element to a healthy relationship. They don’t talk about anything. Ever. It takes Alec far too long to push Magnus about the body-switch trauma. Magnus never voices when something is bother him - like how Alec was seriously rude and unfair to Magnus when he learned about Isabelle’s drug addiction, or how Magnus was obviously not a fan of separating their work and romantic relationships. But instead of talking to Alec about these things, because Alec has never been in a relationship before so a few guidance pointers would be appreciated and communication is key to a healthy relationship, he just swallows everything Alec says and does with a sharp not of the head, until it all becomes too much and he explodes and breaks up with Alec. Which, yeah, everything considered and topped off by the lie about the Soul Sword, totally reasonable conclusion to be honest.

It was obvious they’d get back together because they’re canon’s endgame, but I don’t think they should have gotten together before the end of the season already. That should have been one of the hooks for season 3. “Stay tuned to see them get back together again!”, because you can not tell me that any Malec fan watching was seriously heartbroken in the sense that they believed this to be the end of their ship. Of course will they get together again, but I’d have preffered for it to be a slower process of actually talking about their feelings and mending that they broke in the course of season 2B, because both of them made mistakes. Instead, it’s again a rushed mess of “And they’re back on track! No worries!”, even though there really was never anything to worry about, because everyone knew they were going to get back together.

And on the note of rushed things toward the finale, let’s talk about the Mortal Mirror.

This show and its characters have an amazing track-record of missing the obvious. It took them decidedly too long to figure out where the Mortal Cup was, it took them way too long to realize the Soul Sword was not “in the citadel for cleaning purposes” (what the fuck kind of bad lie was that anyway? Like? How did not everyone instantly know that while Valentine had been captured, the Soul Sword had been stolen by a third party?”.

But Clary instantly knows that not only was the pocket-mirror a ruse, she also right away realizes that the real Mortal Mirror is a lake - and she even instantly figures out it’s Lake Lyn?! Particularly that last one was downright unrealistic for her to already realize. That was, really, an act of “We’re on episoe 18 of 20 so we need to make something happen that moves plot forward because we don’t have the time for them to slowly and realistically figure out where the Mortal Mirror is”.

Personally, I think the entire second season had the potential to be two seasons, if you had stretched it to twice the size and for that, slowed down the pacing and had the twists and turns more realistically. It’d also have given for more character interactions and sub-plots, like for example on Luke because until the last fourth of the season, him being pack Alpha and having wolf-problems really fell flat.

Okay, three more things and I’m done.

First of all, the Seelie Queen. Her obsession with Simon is just creepy. And Simon is a total moron for not just provoking her and thus leading to Maia’s abduction, but for then striking a deal with her to free Maia instad of consulting Magnus and Luke and literally anyone else for help first.

The main characters believing that Sebastian|Jonathan died when he was stabbed and pushed off the bridge was just embarrassing. I mean, not to sound like Simon, but do Shadowhunters not watch movies? At all? The bad guy never dies when pushed off a bridge, they always manage to crawl on land. Not just did the show use such an overused trope here, but they also didn’t have scouts out to find said body? Really? Really?

And the very last thing is Jace’s death. The death itself was good. I liked how he was literally stabbed in the heart by his father-figure. All the angst. Love that.

Clary has a serious problem with letting people stay dead though. Let’s turn Simon into a vampire. Let’s owe a shady warlock some kind of unknown favor so she brings back mom. Let’s ask the angel to bring back Jace.

Not to mention that I find it nearly baffling that, considering unlike in the books, the show killed Jocelyn first, Clary wouldn’t wish for her mother to be back. Or, at least phrase the wish differently “I wish those I love would be back”, or something along those lines.

Way too fast. Jace’s death, just like Malec’s reuinion, should have been left hanging for season 3. It should have ended with a cliffhanger as Jace lays dead and we see Alec’s reaction to that death.

Because - and say it with me, children - it was obvious that he wouldn’t stay dead. As obvious as the fact that Magnus and Alec would get back together. He’s literally the male lead of this show and that kinda status keeps you safe from permanent death. Especially with a franchise taking place in a supernatural world where virtually everything is possible.

Instead, Jace is brought back like three minutes after dying. And it’s such a let-down. Those would have been two huge hooks for viewers to keep them on their toes for season 3, without being risky hooks, aka hooks that run the risk of chasing viewers away and making them stop watching out of protest. Because everyone who seriously thought Jace would stay dead or Magnus and Alec wouldn’t get back together, well, I marvel at their ability to completely turn off their brains while watching a TV show. Safe but suspenseful hooks for the next season.

And that, to sum it all up briefly, is one of the show’s biggest problems. It doesn’t know how to handle suspense. Every time something happens that is potentially suspenseful, they ruin it somehow - by the instant reveal of Sebastian being not a normal guy, by instantly bringing Jace back, by rushing all of their big reveals all the time.

I am praying so hard for the pacing of this show to be better in season 3. For them to take things slower and stop rushing them, keep suspense to give it the chance to properly build up.

Don’t get me wrong, I love this show. I truly do. Among all the shows I watched, it easily climbed up to my number 5 spot of favorite TV shows. But I don’t believe in the concept of blindly loving anything. I need to be able to see its flaws even if I love it. And this show is very flawed.

#ask me a show and I shall rant #TV Rants #Fandom Rants #Shadowhunters #I love it but it's flawed #it's so flawed #comet13

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stupid-stew · 3 years ago

Text

My Obsession With Character Names Pays Off Right Here Right Now

I have literally never posted here but I decided that since I spent today writing about the the name of the characters in The Owl House instead of prepping for finals, someone should see it. Included are Lilith, Eda, Luz, King, Gus, Willow, Amity, Alador, Odalia, Emira, Edric, Belos, Adegast, Kikimora, last names Blight, Noceda, Clawthorne, Park, Porter, and Bump, and briefly Hooty, Owlbert, Hieronymus, and Boscha.

FIRST NAME

LILITH

And there are separate part of this that I find relevant, especially the description of the location, i’m not all that familiar with symbolism of animals in religious texts, so i’m gonna take it at face value and say that this is more or less a description that could be given to the physical owl house itself, sort of a place for people who don’t fit in, its a little messy and I guess one could say overgrown, but it’s a place for anyone, a place to rest now hopefully for Lilith away from the coven, there shall the Lilith repose. On top of that we see the “the hoot owl…” and you’re probably thinking what that so crazy wacko because like why are they referring to Lilith as the hoot owl isn't Eda the owl lady, yes she is. That’s why the actual meanings of lilith’s name that come from her mythological depiction as a demon lady are so important. We have night monster, night owl, night spectre, vampires, night hag, night creature, nightjar (which is another kind of bird), and night bird, all of these seem to fit lilith’s dark aesthetic very nicely which is very good for her, but there are two other ones, hot owl and screech owl, which draw her closer to Edaand away from the coven and her depiction in the mid-later episodes of the show as a monster for cursing eda, but also the name night monster could come into play if while sharing the curse Lilith acquired some of its traits, similar to Edaas the owl beast. Ultimately, we have this little red head girl who eventually fights back against the men who are attempting to get her to be under them, for the character that is belos, for the other Lilith that is adam, god, and his angels, and now hopefully both of them will find solace and repose among the owls in a place they never thought they’d belong. All this talk of owls and god brings us into the other clawthorne baddie:

EDA

For this I'm going to use her full name edalyn, because you know like that’s just how it be it is her name. There isn’t a wiki page for her name like there is for Lilith which makes this a little bit harder but the general consensus seems to be that it means something along the lines of “gift of god”, which I find very interesting. If you are going to name a child gift of god i’m assuming that you are referring to the child themselves, but I don’t think that really applies to eda. I’m not religious, but its my impression that someone who lies cheats pranks and steals their way to the top and isn’t exactly the most responsible witch on the isles might not be the best gift god could give. I do really love Eda though, her character flaws are still a part of her character, but I think this refers to her powers. Eda considers herself to be the boiling isles gift to magic, which I mean like, have you seen the woman. In agony of a witch we see her at what probably 30% of her power with how much the curse was already tolling on her and how much magic she was probably using to fight it off, and like goddamn. She was almost beating lilith, definitely beating the shit out of her, but she was almost defeating Lilith who was at her full power, and that is just a fraction of what she used to be able to do. Her powers were a gift of god, and I think that the loss of them will greatly affect her. She’s already admitted that she doesn’t know how to do much without her magic, and I think going straight from the second most powerful witch on this isles to having no power at all is going to be incredibly taxing on her, physically and mentally.

A random baby name site I found said that :

LUZ

KING

WILLOW

GUS

Gus, my main man, love you but for this we are gonna have to use the full on augustus sorry babes. The name augustus means majestic, or venerable, which while I must say that the illusion of kiki doing the worm was probably one of the most majestic things I have ever seen, I’m going to focus on venerable a bit more here. Venerable is a big word, it means “accorded a great deal of respect, especially because of age, wisdom, or character.”, which for gus the age part might play a smaller part here, but he is good as what he does, Luz and willow both respect him, Eda Respects him, he’s this little dude who is younger than everyone and has to rely on his ability to succeed, not inly with his power but with his personality.Gus seems to be confident in himself, communicating with everyone regardless of who they are or what power they hold, similarly to willow he was willing to do anything to help Luz , leading into the second description of venerable, “heroic in nature”. Now, you might be wondering, bestie where ever did you get that description, it totally wasn’t from a religious page okyesitwas but that's fine because being pronounced venerable guarantees a spot in heaven so get it bestie. Overall, the general meaning for augustus is that they are strong, respectable, and powerful, which takes us right into the

ASSORTED BLIGHTS

LAST NAME

BLIGHT

CLAWTHORNE

NOCEDA

PORTER

PARK

BUMP

To be honest I was not expecting bump to have a last name that meant anything but it means swift walker and I think thats funny so you have to know it now

MISCELLANEOUS

BELOS

HIERONYMUS AND BOSCHA

I am only putting this here because the fact that it’s totally a play on hieronymus bosch makes me cackle and you all have to know it thank you

ADEGAST

HOOTY

He is an owl

OWLBERT

He is also an owl

KIKIMORA

#lilith clawthorne #eda clawthorne #luz noceda #amity blight #willow park #gus porter #king of demons #blight siblings #the owl house #character names

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