#so yeah. maya main blog reveal
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anyways. whatever. my main is @randomfandom815. I really don’t know why I was so reluctant to share it, I know that’s weird. I went by a different name because I thought it was cool and I liked a lot of stuff that I’ve almost completely phased out of. and I was kinda… I guess embarrassed about being into tennis the way that I am (in all its rpf glory lol) which is why I didn’t actually join tennisblr until after wimbledon. I don’t really feel like the same person who used to run that blog, and I didn’t want to associate this with that or that with this. but… I wanna send you guys boops <3
#I’m sorry for being so dramatic about it#and if any of my old mutuals see this… hi. sorry for disappearing. sky feels like a person I made up now but I’m still her. I think#so yeah. maya main blog reveal#and now I’m getting all emotional about it. what is this
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Playable Persona Poll ROUND 1
Alright let's get this show on the road!
It is time for the tournament for the best playable party member in the mainline games! The purpose is to vote for your favorite, but I don't really have a way to enforce that so... have fun ig lol!
Because of the weird amount of playable characters, some will just have to wait until they can be introduced to the tournament. However, it should still give everyone a fair shot!
I know the naming is inconsistent, but I went with what I refer to them as, as well as making sure there was no confusion. If I just remember their real name more (i.e. Hidehiko instead of Brown), or use their last name more than their first (i.e. Nanjo vs Yukari), then I wrote that down instead. Also I know that a certain persona 5 royal character's name is a spoiler in itself... I guess I wanted to be clear who I meant? idk
Ahem anyways I think each poll should only last 24hrs just because I don't have the patience to wait a whole week for each victor to be revealed lmfao
If this all looks familiar, that is because I already ran a nearly identical poll on my main blog. I just figured the premise was simple enough that I could try again here, where it has a dedicated space!
Once the polls are set up I will edit this post with links to each one. I think they should be ready on April 7th...? That should be enough forewarning, yeah? Additionally, each one should be tagged as #playable persona poll so it can be found that way as well
Reiji Kido vs Chie Satonaka Masao Inaba vs Ren Amamiya Koromaru vs Ann Takamaki Fuuka Yamagishi vs Futaba Sakura Naoto Shirogane vs Kotone Shiomi Maya Amano vs Haru Okumura Sumire Yoshizawa vs Lisa Silverman Eikichi Mishina vs Akihiko Sanada Tatsuya Suou vs Kei Nanjo Makoto Yuki vs Jun Kurosu Yukari Takeba vs Yuka Ayase Yusuke Kitagawa vs Ken Amada Ryuji Sakamoto vs Yosuke Hanamura Rise Kujikawa vs Yukiko Amagi Makoto Niijima vs Goro Akechi Baofu vs Morgana
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What changes do you think would be made between your muse as they exist in your head vs how they would be treated as part of canon?
If your character had a breakout show/film/comic, what would the plot be? Who would be in their supporting cast?
What headcanons/theories do you believe fandom would invent about your character?
Is your character the subject of ‘imagines’ or ‘x reader’ style blogs?
What do you imagine the most popular ship(s) for your character would be?
What is the wildest crackship you can imagine for your character, whether in-universe or in crossover?
META ASKS: If Your OC Was Canon. ((under the cut because I completely rambled sfdgksfd))
What changes do you think would be made between your muse as they exist in your head vs how they would be treated as part of canon?
well, the biggest thing would be that Carter would either get a different mother so she'd still be born in '96, or she would be born in '00, since, in the movies, Tony and Maya meet at the end of '99, while I have them meet a few years earlier at the end of '95/start of '96. I mean, I know... nothing of the comics ahah, so idk if maybe that could work? but yeah! Definitely the biggest change.
the next biggest could easily be who she grows up with. It could be changed so the hansen au is canon, so Carter would grow up with Maya and Tony doesn't learn of her existence until im3 (if it's put together in general), or it could just stay the same where Maya dumped her with Tony, that way im1 picks up with an already established familial relationship with them. Which I think would be the easiest way to go, since I already have her shuffled around between carers (Pepper, Happy, Obadiah, Rhodey) while Tony is off doing Tony things lol, and also it doesn't need any build-up or major explanations. Plus, then getting into im3, it could be revealed then that Maya is Carter's mother, and there could be tension there between Maya and Tony because of that. Especially when getting into Maya's obsession with Extremis, since that was one of the main reasons for her leaving Carter with Tony in my canon to begin with.
other than that... I could see her and Tony keeping their dynamic, the "careful daughter of a careless man", since I have seen that play out before (like in Castle! When the show was still good! but actually I do like the comparison with Carter and Tony to Alexis and Castle), or they could completely change her character and have her be a mini Tony, which... I could see but I don't like sdgkhjsdf
though, they might keep her relatively the same, but throw out most of her trauma by not acknowledging it since we know how much the mcu loves downplaying trauma or outright ignoring it ahah
I think... honestly, Carter would stay relatively the same? I did my best to keep her from wildly changing the plot of everything (in her main verse lol, since the ikau does the opposite and I do tweak eg with my not today au), so she could easily just be shoved into the background and not really. need major adjustments. Like, I really either add to existing plots (her trying to intervene when Obadiah steals Tony's reactor) or alter minor plots (her stepping between Thor and Tony in aou, so Thor doesn't grab Tony in a chokehold), so I feel like it should be easy enough to just. have her exist. She's only the focus because she's my oc and obviously she's going to be the focus because of that, but overall, in the bigger picture, she's just there.
If your character had a breakout show/film/comic, what would the plot be? Who would be in their supporting cast?
oooh, I don't think a breakout film would work for her, but, I think a one-shot comic or her being tossed into a show like aos could work! Now... hmm, I'm not sure about the plot, tbh! Actually, no, I think it would be either a mini-series or one-shot comic dealing with the aftershocks of eg. Maybe her stepping in and being kind of a mentor to Peter?
OR it could be a lil mystery spinoff!! Maybe involving Mysterio? I think that could be fun! Like her trying to figure out what's going on with these drones and why Peter's suddenly involved and all that, and maybe ending up with Happy in England? I feel like a lil mystery with her would be fun sgfdkhjd
but honestly I think it would be better for her to have like. an episode or two in aos revolving around her (kinda like how they did with Sif) than her having her own show/comic, since... in her main verse, while I'm always down to explore any aspect of her background, I don't know if any of it would either generate enough interest with fans across the board or be considered financially feasible. Like, I could see her just getting brushed aside because they don't think it would make any money, y'know, like how they were saying with Natasha in delaying a bw movie for as long as they did, but them actually having a genuinely good point with that for Carter sdfgkhjsgfd
anyway, going back to my aos thing, they could easily have her be involved with them figuring out the centipede serum since extremis was used to create it, especially if her canon became her being raised by Maya instead of Tony. Or even if she somehow took interest in her mother's work! Plus I love the aos cast, so I think it'd be a lot of fun to have her interact with them!
edit: WAIT THE IKAU THEY COULD DO A COMIC RUN FOR THE IKAU I DIDN'T THINK ABOUT THAT SDFGKJSDFHJ
What headcanons/theories do you believe fandom would invent about your character?
*rubs hands together* okay, so if canon were to go the route of it not being known who Carter's mother is until im3, then I absolutely believe there would be a popular hc/theory that her mother is Pepper, and since in Carter's canon she stays at Pepper's place in im2 during Tony's party, I could see that being a decent piece of evidence to back up that claim. Though maybe a theory of her being Maya's daughter could come up before im3? again, I don't know comics, but, I'm sure there could be hints/easter eggs hinting to that that could be thrown in, and anyone who knows Maya from the comics could toss it in as a possibility!
umm... I'm sure the hc/theory that Carter will take Tony's place as Iron Man would crop up, especially in eg since I do have her getting involved in the fight with her own suit, though with my canon that was really a one-time thing that Carter doesn't want to make a habit of using, since that's definitely not something she wants to do
I... honestly don't know if there would be a whole lot of theories that would develop in fanon with Carter? I'm sure there would be a bunch of lil hcs, but otherwise I don't think there would be a lot of major ones! I think the biggest would be her possibly becoming the new Iron Man and who her mother is pre-im3
Is your character the subject of ‘imagines’ or ‘x reader’ style blogs?
yes, I absolutely want to believe she would be because I think that would be both incredible and hilarious sdfgkhjdg
anyway, uh, I think it'd be mostly shippy things, especially with the reader inserts since those seem to lean in that direction? but I could also see imagines popping up with her, maybe more au things? like kinda touching upon the ikau without it being the ikau? I actually don't. really remember how imagines work outside of them being reader inserts sfdgkhjd
but yeah! I want to believe she'd be the subject of those sort of things, but I doubt it would ever be to the extent of a major character like Tony. Probably just a few here and there!
What do you imagine the most popular ship(s) for your character would be?
other than the Maximoff twins, a popular ship would definitely be Steve/Carter, because I know how much the mcu fandom loves pairing Stark ocs with Steve sfdgkjfsgdhkj
I think, though, a ship with Bucky and a ship with Quentin could be close contenders? I feel like I've seen those as ships with Stark ocs enough to be considered a popular pairing, but I think the three above would be the main ones!
What is the wildest crackship you can imagine for your character, whether in-universe or in crossover?
uhh... idk?? I feel like her with one of the gotg characters? like Drax? But honestly I,,, have no idea sdfghjsdf - I'm drawing a huge blank on this one
I'm not gonna even think about crossovers because that's gonna hurt my brain sfdgkjhdf
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for the aa game, questions number 16, 19, 20, and 21? im kinda curious about your thoughts on those
yeyyyses aa asks thank you nonnie :DD
(somehow, these answers are even longer than last time. proceed with caution)
16. If there was anything you could change about the series, what would it be?
ohhh man there is SO much to discuss on this one. for starters, id probably keep shu takumi as the director for aa5 and aa6 because yeah. yep. while the characters were written really awesomely in those games imo, the plots execution kinda,,, ruined all that potential. soo many holes, and nothing made sense DLJLDK
next, id actually like!! keep the focus on whatever new characters are supposed to star in the games!! i talked about this too on my meta blog. phoenix is great and all, but bringing him back as a protag in everything just for the Brand(tm) was,,, a really bad choice. so give apollo the spotlight, athena her own game, and keep phoenix off to the side plEase.
same with edgeworth!! we need more focus on the other rivals (klavier, franziska, etc etc). love him and all, but his arc ended ages ago back in the triology. and it really bugs me when they use him for everything, because like, we know capcom has the ability to write great character arcs!! edgeworth is a great sign on that!! but they just forgot about SO many other people for his sake!!
oh oh also, they just need to bring back other characters in general. gumshoe, lana, klavier, yknow like. give other characters CRUMBS of what phoenix and edgeworth get pl
and finally, i just want them to talk about what happened in previous games. in the og triology, it was good cuz YES it was annoying when we got a flashback of dl6 every time but ALSO. also!!! dl6 is like, a crucial part of edgeworth and mayas and a couple other peoples development!!! the issue in aa5 and aa6 mostly, is that theyre SO scared of spoiling previous games, which reallllyyy hindered any possible development we couldve gotten :(
19. Favorite character design?
i talked about this more in emas opinion thingy, but definitely hers. everyone else kinda goes bloo blah on keeping the same outfit for literal decades,,, but hers actually changed a lot, while still keeping the lab coat and goggles!! theres also a lot of easter eggs in her design? like the pink princess pin? and the badge thingy as well, b/c those appeared on other peoples outfits and plot and that was just a really nice detail imo
20. Worst motive?
hoo boy. okay. i cant reeeally think of anything off the top of my head, because most of them were pretty cool, but yknow whos really sucked? ambassador albas!!!!! aai was SUPER fun and i loved a lot of the reveals!!! but the drug dealing subplot was,,,, really boring and gave me a headache. it took me an actual week of gameplay to finally convict him, all because he didnt want to be found out as the leader of the smuggling ring. really stupid
21. Favorite backstory?
hmhmhmhm,,, tbh, a lot of the main people have super fascinating backstories? i wont say edgeworth for this because it does get kinda tiring hearing it, apollo has 50, klavier has none and phoenix just gets like. 3 big things that happened in the past and we dont know anything else
after all that,,, probably lanas. i know she only appears for ONE case, but since i already answered ema, i really liked hers. because shes a strong person!! but even after all that, she couldnt do what she really wanted,,, and when she became a prosecutor it was gants fault,,, and everything was getting corrupted right in front of her,,, but she couldnt do anything cuz ema,,, yep. top tier stuff. itd be even better if we could get some context on intellectual attraction tho,,, :(
oh my GOSH i can fit so much rambling into these i apologize <//3 but thank you thank you thank you for wanting to hear these!! it means so much that people dont mind me talking this much dfkmgkfdm
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Animation 102: Part 9
27th March 2020 – 2nd May 2020
I have tried to do a couple of things here, to catch up on lost work, develop my knowledge on working with Maya by looking at tutorials and helpful website/articles, to see the best way for beginners to learn and helpful tips to save time when carrying out tasks, just as a nice touch and reminder for future progress and projects. These are some of the exercises I have tried to carry out during this times, whilst updating this casebook, blogging online about my progress and attempting to analyse and evaluate my progresses on them, by saying what I liked, disliked with them, what went well / array etc.
Exercises: Emotion to Emotion
I tried to create a way that the Buckid rig would move and then realise what he had done, which then came up in the resultant of him being upset. This animation would only last around 10-15 seconds, but could cost me around 400 frames of animation to process and alter in, so I would have to see some of the finer details that the rig may try to do automatically, creating inaccuracies, but I would have to change them manually, so that it may seem more realistic.
These are the 3 main emotions I wanted to focus on, due to the fact they reveal a small narrative.
In the first image, I wanted to make it look like the Buckid Rig is gleeful, happy and enjoying his time, but then due to the slight mistake of myself not correctly timing how many frames it would take for a jump to occur and show It looks out of place. Luckily, I decided to embed my mistake into the narrative, therefore the jump would seem intentional and would end up leading to my next emotion being revealed. The next one shows the buckid rig in shock, as he gasps and covers his mouth, knowing what he did, almost like he was becoming self-aware, which leaves me to the third picture. Buckid goes into a small, curled up position, most likely shocked and sad, as he knows what he did and feels ashamed as he didn’t want to be spotted out or reprimanded for what he has done, so he tries to subconsciously protect himself. This then concludes my 3 emotions that are linked with a small story, in terms of how he feels. I have also got this link showing the transitions of emotions on my vimeo:
https://vimeo.com/414974558
Buckid Lifting exercises:
Tried to get a way to make buckid to pick up a heavy object, with the help of trying to do it myself as a guided to understanding how the skeleton and muscles would pick it up step by step, when doing so practically. I would also take photos of myself and draw out some chronological way on a bar / storyboard to convey the intent, I wanted the motions of buckid to look like.
I also looked at a tutorial but ended up bailing on it because I got frustrated about how the program wouldn’t copy the instructions I tried to follow on the Youtube tutorial and I tried to follow it as best as I could, only ended up with half a play blast, but for the first half it seemed okay as it didn’t seem like the basics, needed to be changed much, maybe some more realistic movements could be shown like strain and shake, but because of the way I tried to follow the tutorial, everything just kept going out of place, literally, like when I tried to pair, parent, unparent etc. things would go flying everywhere, so I tried to stick with what I could do, without getting frustrated and at least tried giving it a go, instead of giving up on it.
At least what I like about this, was that I was able to make his body feel more realistic, due to the feet and hand movement controls as he doesn’t seem as stiff and robotic now. I did this by curling his hands/fingers more to make it seem like he’s gripping on to the weight, as best as possible and arching his back to give him some strain as he attempts to pick up such a heavy weight.
In the end, although I gave up on that part of the exercise, I did make a play blast of what I got and at least attempted to give a go on the task but try it with the things I knew and learnt how to do. So, I attempt to make a box, where buckid would pick up a box, straight up, drop it and then react to it.
I managed to complete, due to a different tutorial that explained parenting controls and releasing them differently and in my opinion, managed to aid me when I completed this task and it was better because the effect I wanted to get during the first exercise, wasn’t able to be completed, but in this one I was able to do it, much more effectively, and this is the result that I ended up with. As for the box, I managed to try my best by adding the location of the box, in comparison to the hands and as for the box being dropped I managed to add a little bit of weight and bounce to add to the effect. I had learnt the effect and the environmental factors prior, during my animation 101 projects, where I had to show different items (in my case, it was like sports balls), being dropped from a certain, to see how they would react to the floor and how would they bounce too, so that was helpful too.
https://vimeo.com/414974662 - Buckid lifting box and reaction.
SIDENOTES
Now from looking at this, I might try and attempt the original task, if I have time or want to experiment with some other things. Atleast with this video, it is a clear indication of how I tried, experienced and completed the task, alongside some difficulties along the way.
Yeah, I know i haven’t got much of my feelings out about said work and tasks, but thats mainly due to bad scheduling and bulk working... trust me, I have not slept in 36 hours...but I have also completed more work than attempting to work for the last 2 weeks, mainly because catching up on stuff with Netflix, is what I’ve doing, but stressing and putting my brain under some strain, actually makes me analyse some situations to get work done, like I have done now....
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Book Blogging
A Tyranny of Queens by Foz Meadows. The sequel to the portal fantasy I read last month. Most of the plot here is fallout from the climax of that book: Saffron has returned back to Earth from the fantasy world of Kena, but can she re-adjust to a 'normal' life? And if not, what choices will she make? Yena's adopted sister died in the final battle, but can Yena reclaim religious rights for her sister's funeral and learn more about her mysterious heritage? The evil king has been overthrown, but escaped – where is he and what caused his actions? What's up with the mysterious magic artifact he left behind in the castle? Sadly, I didn't like this book nearly as much as its predecessor. The biggest problem is simply a shift in the use of characters; whereas the first book divided its pages fairly evenly among a vast cast, A Tyranny of Queens is hugely dominated by Saffron and Yena. And I'm sorry to say it, but they're the most boring characters in this series. Both are an example of the 'normal teen girl dealing with events outside her experience' archetype, which is a fine enough archetype as far as it goes, but not one that's particularly exciting unless you give her some sort of distinctive personality trait, anything other than 'determined', 'hard-working', 'smart'. Buffy wanted to date boys and wear cute clothes; Katniss wanted to be left alone and was unexpectedly ruthless; Saffron wants... ? The characters who did grab my attention in An Accident of Stars are pushed mostly off-screen here. Yasha, the grumpy, staff-wielding elderly matriarch who was revealed late in the first book to be an exiled queen, gets something like ten lines of dialogue in this entire book. Viya, the young, spoiled but trying hard to improve noblewoman who is named co-ruler of Kena at the end of the first book, and thus should be navigating the delicate balance of maintaining equality of power while still learning to handle so much responsibility, gets literally two scenes out of three hundred pages. And so on through a whole list of really cool characters. Instead we get multiple chapters of Saffron arguing with her guidance counselor, then her parents, then her social worker over whether she should apologize to one of her high school teachers over a minor incident caused by a bully. Exciting fantasy! My second problem with the book, unfortunately, is much more fundamental. The plot revolves around discovering that the evil king wasn't really evil after all, but was brainwashed. I'm sure this is an attempt to do an interesting redemption arc, or to look at how even the worst-seeming villains have their reasons, but it didn't work for me at all. It felt like a cop-out to remove blame from the king by passing it on to a historic figure from centuries ago (who never gets an explanation for his evil actions, so Meadows hasn't really complicated the role of villains so much as pushed the question a few steps outside the main narrative). None of the many people who died in the wars he started or were tortured in his pursuit of knowledge get a voice in this second book, so I kept feeling as though the suffering he caused was conveniently being swept under the rug to get readers to feel sorry for him. In addition, for a book that tries so hard to be progressive, ending with 'it's not the king's fault! He was manipulated by a foreign woman who made him fall in love with her!' is, uh... not a great look. All in all, a disappointing book. But there was enough good about the series that I'll give the author another chance. The Written World: How Literature Shaped Civilization by Martin Puchner. A nonfiction book that makes its way through human history via the medium of literature. Each of sixteen chapters focuses on a particular classic and shows how it both influenced and was influenced by contemporary events, from Homer's Odyssey giving Alexander the Great a hero to model himself after to The Communist Manifesto inspiring revolutions across the world. A subthread is the development of the technologies of literature itself – the inventions of the alphabet, paper, the printing press, ebooks, etc. It's a pretty neat idea for a book! Unfortunately the execution is terrible. I started off being annoyed that Puchner never seems quite clear on what he means by the term 'literature'. He implies it only includes written works (in the Introduction he says, "It was only when storytelling intersected with writing that literature was born."), and yet many of the pieces he choses to focus on were primarily composed orally (The Odyssey and the Iliad, The Epic of Sunjata, the Popul Vuh, probably the Epic of Gilgamesh, certainly at least parts of One Thousand and One Nights). And yet there's never any discussion of what it means to go from an oral mode to a written one, a topic I was eagerly awaiting to see analyzed. It's just... never addressed beyond a passing mention here and there. Okay, fine, I thought to myself, Puchner means 'literature' as in 'stories'. But that doesn't work either, since once again many of his choices don't tell any sort of narrative (Saint Paul's letters, Martin Luther's theses, Benjamin Franklin's 'Poor Richard's Almanac', Confucius's Analects, Mao's 'Little Red Book'). So what does Puchner mean by literature, the central organizing principle of his whole book? God alone knows. My irritation with the book deepened when I got to Chapter Four, where Puchner claims credit for inventing the concept of the Axial Age: "It was only in the course of trying to understand the story of literature that I noticed a striking pattern in the teaching of the Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, and Jesus. Living within a span of a few hundred years but without knowing of one another, these teachers revolutionized the world of ideas. Many of today’s philosophical and religious schools—Indian philosophy, Chinese philosophy, Western philosophy, and Christianity—were shaped by these charismatic teachers. It was almost as if in the five centuries before the Common Era, the world was waiting to be instructed, eager to learn new ways of thinking and being. But why? And what explained the emergence of these teachers?" Sure, dude, sure. You came up with this vastly original idea all on your own. (To be fair, if one choses to read through the endnotes, Puchner does cite Karl Jaspers, though he still insists his own version is ~so different~.) He then proceeds to get basic information about the Buddha completely wrong. For example: Some form of writing may have existed in India during the Buddha’s time (the so-called Indus Valley script may not have been a full writing system and remains undeciphered). This sentence. I can't even. I almost stopped reading the book right here, it's so incredibly incorrect. It's like saying, "Thomas Jefferson may have been literate, but since we find no Latin engravings in his house, we can't be sure." Let me lay out the problems. The Buddha lived around 500BCE; the last known well-accepted use of the Indus script was in 1900BCE. That's a gap of nearly two millennia. The Indus script was used on the western edge of South Asia, in Pakistan and the Indian states of Gujarat and Haryana; the Buddha lived on the eastern edge, in Nepal. At minimum, they're 500 miles apart. There is no chance in hell the Indus script was remotely relevant to writing about the Buddha. And in fact, we don't need to guess at the script of the Buddha's time and place. It's called Brahmi and it's quite well attested – though Puchner doesn't once mention it. He does include a photo of an Indus seal, because why not waste more space on utterly irrelevant information. Let's quickly go through the problems on the rest of this single page: What mattered above all were the age-old hymns and stories of the Vedas, which were transmitted orally by specially appointed Brahmans for whom remembering the Vedas was an obligation and a privilege. Though the Vedas do have an important oral history, they were certainly written down by the time of the Buddha, and possibly as early as 1000BCE. The oldest Indian epic, the Ramayana, was also orally composed and only later written down, much like Homeric epics. The Mahabharata is generally considered to be the older of the two epics. Despite my disillusionment at this point, I continued on with the book. And to be fair, I noticed many fewer mistakes! Though possibly because I know much less about Renaissance Germany or Soviet Russia than I do about Indian history. I did hit several problems again in the chapter on the Popul Vuh, the Mayan epic. To begin with, the chapter opens with a long dramatic scene recreating the Spanish conquistadores' capture of Atahualpa, the Incan emperor. Incan. Who lived in Peru, in South America. The Classic Mayan culture was based in Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize – North America and a bit of Central America. This time Puchner is literally on the wrong continent. Once he finally makes his way up to the Mayan homeland, he focuses his narration on Diego de Landa, a Spanish priest who did indeed write an important ethnography of the Mayans of the 1500s. The Classic Mayan Era was over by 950CE, introducing a discrepancy Puchner does not deign to acknowledge. Even aside from that small problem, Puchner describes Landa's writings multiple times as "an account [...] that has remained the primary source of information on Maya culture." This entirely ignores not only the Popul Vuh itself; but the multiple other Mayan codices that survived Spanish colonialism; the many Mayan writings carved on their pyramids, palaces, and stele, and painted on their pottery; their murals of war, sport, and history; the enormous archaeological record of their cities, technology, and diet; and, oh yeah, the fact that Mayan people are still around today. Oh, my bad – Puchner does remember the Mayans still exist. Here's what he has to say about them: "My journey began in the Lacandon jungle. A bus dropped me at the border of the Maya territory, where a beat-up truck picked me up at the side of the road. The village of several dozen huts was located in a clearing in the jungle. Everyone but me was dressed in what looked like long white nightgowns. Men and women both wore their black hair shoulder length (I thought of the shipwrecked sailor who had gone native), and most of them walked around barefoot, sometimes donning rubber boots." That's it. That's literally the only mention of the modern Mayan people. (Puchner's in the area to learn about the Zapatista uprising, to which he devotes the rest of the chapter.) I'm so glad he spent ages detailing that and de Landa's biography instead of devoting any space at all to the contemporary persistence of Mayan beliefs, language, or rituals. When I first read its blurb, I looked forward to the rest of The Written World. Unfortunately it's the closest I've come to hurling a book at the wall in a long, long time. I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
[DW link for ease of commenting]
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Comparing Shoumetsu Toshi eps 5 and 6 to the game
Warning for *SPOILERS* and possible (probable) bias
So I definitely think episodes 5 and 6 of the Shoumetsu Toshi anime are my favourite so far. There are just so many Easter eggs for fans of the game to find, the plot makes sense, and the pacing is actually not a complete wreck.
I’m going to note down some of the parts I really enjoyed, that referenced the game and involved changes that I actually agree with. I’m also going to mention the bits I didn’t quite like, why I think they made those decisions, and maybe what I would have done instead?
Tsubasa and Yoshiaki
I’m going to straight up start with the biggest Easter Egg I enjoyed. They referenced the Clock Tower!!
An anime original scene is Yuki and Yoshiaki bonding over having siblings. This is not only a sweet scene that gives us a break from all the (melo)drama, but also closely relates to a core theme of the anime (and the games to an extent). There are many instances in the game of Yuki referring to her relationship with Souma when she sees tragic family situations (Eri and Maya, for example), but the anime makes this even more explicit. I particular like the conclusion they reach: that there are things even siblings wouldn’t understand about each other.
Yoshiaki and Tsubasa have the same power instead of opposing ones. I talk about this more in my blog post about Tsubasa’s 9* Trance advent but this makes a lot of sense for the anime, and means an otherwise very convoluted plot becomes so much more succinct. That said, we miss out on a lot of really wonderful possibilities with the limited situation in the anime. For example, we barely see Tsubasa interact with the Kaitodan or Yoshiaki (both of which are super important to his character development). Also he straight up dies at the end. So rip character development entirely. However, considering the limited format of the anime, it would not have been possible to keep focusing on these characters for more than two episodes anyway, so I can see why they just decided to kill him off.
Yoshiaki and Tsubasa’s flashback is a direct reference to the game, where Tsubasa made a flower disappear to cheer up Yoshiaki who tripped. In the anime it’s a rock, which is just so much faster to explain visually. Even better, it is used as a plot point illustrating how their powers work, so it’s not just pure fan service. Win-win.
Another Tsubasa-Yoshiaki parallel to the game is that Tsubasa ran away in order to protect Yoshiaki. In the game it was because the organisation was chasing him. In the anime it’s because he wants to destroy all the AFs before Yoshiaki’s power awakens. I quite like the resolution too: how Yoshiaki uses the power he and Tsubasa share, to make the AF disappear, bringing an end to the fight, but also erasing Tsubasa in the process.
On that note, I find it interesting that the anime decided to only make Tsubasa a tamashii. I mean, we definitely would not have the same level of tension if Yoshiaki, and all of the Kaitodan were tamashii too I guess.
Kaitodan
Kana hacking Geeks’ computer is a really great way to introduce the nature of her character. Very cute too. Unfortunately she gets barely any screentime :(
Sumire uses a gun to puncture a tyre. They totally could have just made Rui do it with his knife but they didn’t. Why? I think it’s a deliberate reference to Sumire’s past.
Jack speaks English. Jack is great. But he didn’t speak enough English. Enough said.
I think the most controversial thing (for me at least) were the changes they made to Kaitodan’s backstory. It’s not Tsubasa, Rui and Kouji helping each other out and finding a sense of belonging in the process. It’s purely Tsubasa leading a couple of delinquents (well, just Rui and Jack) to do “greater things”, and man it just feels like so much of the charm of the Kaitodan is missing just like that.
That’s not the only thing missing. Yayoi, Kouji and Saori straight up didn’t make it into the anime at all. This is not even controversial, it’s a straight up sin.
One final very small nitpick. Sumire’s chainsaw is like, not threatening at all. When she uses it to knock the AF out of Souma’s hand, she’s basically using it more like a blunt weapon…
AF
They gave artefacts (AF) a backstory. Honestly I wasn’t too keen on it at first because it seemed too simple and a little tacky. However I will admit it does make their inclusion in the anime seem a lot more natural and, to an extent, I guess I am glad they made an effort to explain the weird thing Souma has been holding. Which is not a canon AF btw.
They made up an AF. Hoshi’s Tears complement Tsuki’s Tears and Taiyou’s Necklace from the game (although none of those are actual AFs either). It’s also a pretty subtle way of including Hoshi in the anime (but does this mean he won’t appear at all then?).
My problem then, is that the AF backstory they came up with doesn’t actually match the events in the anime…They don’t really explain why Souma/the organisation have their hands on both Hoshi’s Tears and Tsuki’s Tears. Additionally, even though there seems to be a lot of information about AFs on the Internet, we haven’t seen anybody except Souma use one. I just think they needed a more legit explanation regarding their use, and maybe should have fed us a little bit more information about them sooner, rather than giving us a whole information dump through a news report at the very start of ep 5.
Look, I’ve mentioned it before: making an anime adaptation of a game with a plot as complex as Shoumetsu Toshi’s is no easy feat, and I commend the anime for achieving what it has done so far.
In my personal opinion, they handled Yoshiaki and Tsubasa very well, tying it in with main character Yuki’s conflict with Souma, and having it mean something important. Though some fans may not have liked the changes, personally I think it fits the narrative of the anime very well, and I would not change it at all unless I could change the whole plot of the anime (more on this later).
However I do not think they handled Kaitodan nearly as well. Throwing two incredibly beloved sets of characters into the same arc was a risky move. There was definitely favouritism for one set over the other, as Yoshiaki stole the show, leaving the Kaitodan dangling from the sidelines. The Kaitodan are risky enough by themselves, because there are so many distinct members. Even with the anime literally halving the group and depriving them of their leader, there was just not enough screen time for each of them to shine.
How to do this though? I actually think Takuya’s flashback of him chasing Tsubasa could be a good place to start. The way it was done in the anime was just so random, creating a connection between Takuya, Tsubasa and Yoshiaki out of thin air. That’s too much for a newcomer to handle at once.
Bring up this memory earlier. Use it as a tool, maybe to explain how Takuya and Yumiko used to work together. Then when Yoshiaki mentions Tsubasa in a later ep, the audience will actually know who he is.
Also, give the Kaitodan just a little bit more screentime. Particularly the chicks. Rui and Jack get quite a bit more screentime, including in their flashback, but Sumire is relegated to damsel in distress and poor Kana probably doesn’t even get more than ten seconds on-screen across both episodes.
I think the whole stealing AF thing could have been used better. Show the Kaitodan doing the actual heist, utilising Kana’s hacking abilities (which are bullshit in the first place because nobody actually knows how hacking works). But yeah, get her to open security doors or some shit, and show her face on the computer. I actually think it is better to use more time leading the Kaitodan on a useless goose chase, because it shows how capable each member can be, even with their leader missing. Hell, have Takuya and Yuki chase them and try to beat them to the AF. This would serve to show how much good they actually are, especially given how they’ve been built up to be this really skilful group of thieves. It also gives us the chance to see some character interaction (like Rui hitting on Yuki, and Sumire actually using her chainsaw). The tone shift would keep the episode interesting, without tiring the audience by having too much drama.
Also, it’s more dramatic of a reveal if they spend all this time trying to steal the AF, only to realise at the very end they’ve been duped by Souma.
Finally, with the AF backstory…look, they did it to fit the story they’re going for with the anime. I may come back to this after I’ve seen the whole thing to decide what changes I would make. Definitely introduce it earlier, and not just as this strange weapon Souma uses to terrorise our MCs.
Sorry this ended up turning into a rant (and semi-fanfic??). I’ve actually got a whole list of things about the anime I would do differently, but I’ll see how the actual thing pans out first before I make a judgement on what changes I would make.
I know there are so many restrictions the creators have to work with, I just think they could have made some better compromises.
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Hi there! I was just curious on how your views on specific ships (haleb, Ezria, etc.) have changed since you first saw PLL. Did specific events change your opinions or did you just slowly start to like/dislike a ship over time? Are there any ships you still like? Im not much of a shipper lately myself. I loved Emily and samara and after they broke up I was done haha
This is such a great question!
I started watching when I was 20, I was still in an abusive relationship and living with my abuser, and I wasn’t really involved on tumblr, not until I was about 22.
I’ll put how they’ve changed and why under the cut! Most of my opinions are fairly negative so if you’re a big fan of the main ships, like, you probably shouldn’t read. Or if you’re okay with other people having opinions about it, then you can read it :p
The opinions I had at the start of the show have definitely changed, without a doubt. I actually loved Ezria to begin with which might be surprising considering how anti-Ezria my blog has been recently. I think my dislike of them was both specific events and just slowly disliking it over time. I hadn’t really come to terms with my own sexual abuse, and frankly, I was still uninformed politically. I hadn’t realized how much fiction had influenced me in the past and how much it could influence me in the future. Eventually I realized the ship wasn’t cute, it wasn’t romantic, it wasn’t some tantalizing forbidden love -- it was literally illegal and he had preyed on a teenage girl. That’s not something I want to look up to, and it’s not something I want others to look up to and think “hey, this is a great relationship”, because it’s not. So many people fell in love with the ship because of the “passion” between Ezra and Aria but seeing “passionate” relationships on television is what helped land me in an abusive relationship. Because no one tells you that a lot of the passionate relationships in books or on tv or in movies are actually abusive disguised as passion.
Interestingly enough, Sp*by was my #1. They were my babies. I was devastated with Toby’s A reveal. You can go back through my archives and see how much I loved them. But around his reveal and then throughout season four, I started noticing some behaviours he had that were identical to my ex, and they were behaviours that were abusive, and truthfully, it started to give me flashbacks. And I think that’s really tragic because I thought T*by had such potential as a character. But yeah, so after coming to terms with my own experiences, it was easier to see abusive traits in fictional characters and now that I can identify them, I stay...far away from them.
Haleb I never really had any issue with at the beginning! They weren’t my fave, weren’t my otp by any means, but I did consider them the healthiest ship on the show for a while. But I just never related too terribly much to Hanna (tbh I relate more to S1-5 Caleb) so I didn’t care too much. Post time jump, Hanna is an asshole and so is Caleb so meh.
Never been a big fan of Paily -- I know people who love Paige want everyone to get over the almost drowning of Emily, especially because other love interests have done much worse and that’s true, but just for me, like, I had a swim instructor hold me under water to try to make me comfortable putting my head under and it was extremely traumatizing for me, I can’t get water in or near my eyes, even in the shower. But I also respect the fans of the ship because Paige was a closeted lesbian and I think a lot of people related to her and identified with her and I think that’s super important regardless of how I feel about Paily!
Not the biggest fan of Emison either, like, I’ve liked them a bit more over the last season or so, but there was a point where I really hated them because I felt like Emily regressed every time she was near Alison and it really bothered me. And now I feel like they’re getting to a place where they could be good together. All in all, I’m rooting for them to be endgame mostly on the grounds that if they aren’t, it’ll have been some real fucked up queerbaiting. If they had advertised and teased Paily the way they tease Emison, I’d feel the same, like, it’s just queerbaiting and it sucks and lgbt fans don’t deserve that shit.
I super loved Emily/Samara too!!!!! I also really like Emily/Sabrina but we all know that won’t be endgame :p I didn’t actually like Maya to begin with but as I’ve grown up and changed, I actually quite like her a lot!
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