#some of the plot holes are significantly lore-breaking

[paper-star-ships]

Secrets Of Dum//bledore was SO bad y’all 😭😭

[therealvinelle]

You've said before that you think Meyer is a good writer. I'm neutral to her myself but you're the first person in the fandom to say that that I've seen and I was wondering what your reasons were.

Sure thing.

First of, some referential links. In this post I explain why I like Meyer’s worldbuilding, and in this one I explain (in the last reblog - you can get away with skipping the previous posts) why I think her character creation is well done, and in this one I talk about why I like Twilight in the first place, though that post got a bit off-topic.

So, let me first do the disclaimer that I do not think Meyer is perfect.

Her greatest flaw, I’d say, is that what she intends to write isn’t always what ends up on page. Edward is for instance supposed to be the ideal man, chivalrous and the very antithesis of toxic masculinity. His relationship with Bella is supposed to be a love story on part with all the classics. Jacob, too, is intended as a dreamboat. Alice is the ideal BFF, Rosalie is the bitchy Regina George, Esme is the ultimate mother, and all the Cullen relationships are wonderfully happy. Aro is supposed to be a sinister villain and the Volturi are all corrupt.

Now, all of the above is how Bella perceives things, and I’m all for unreliable narrators. All narrators are, to a point, unreliable, and inferring things from fiction is one of my favorite things to do (as you can probably tell if you’ve been following this blog). However, so far as I can tell Meyer didn’t intend for Bella to have no clue what’s going on at any given time.

As it happens, I also think this is one of her strengths. This woman is living on a different planet, her mind is on a level I can’t follow at all, only spectate in silent wonder. What I’m saying is, no author in their right mind would write Twilight. No one would write Edward as delightfully unhinged as he is, for starters, not without toning him down significantly (just look at how the movies toned him down). To say nothing of how Bella would be a much more functional person, and in turn much less interesting. Aro would be an actual villain, and Twilight as a whole would not be so overwhelmingly bleak.

Her strengths come through in that she’s consistent about it, and while she interprets things differently than I do, she is still the creator of this bizarre universe and one who knows it intimately well. Does she think Edward is great, yes. Did she also write Midnight Sun without pulling any punches, also yes.

I’d put it this way, the flaw of hers that I’m trying to get at is that she creates this rich and horrifying universe and gets full credit from me for that, but she views it through rose-tinted glasses. Which in turn leads to some interesting writing and plotting decisions.

She has one other significant flaw that comes to mind. She’s not good at cutting things.

This goes for both scenes and plotlines. There’s a lot of filler in these books, from Bella making enchiladas in Twilight, to New Moon taking far too long in Jake’s garage and with Bella’s depression before things start happening again, to Breaking Dawn being 2/3rds filler (the wedding, honeymoon, and vampire euphoria especially come to mind.) There’s a lot of stuff in these books that weren’t necessary to the plot. The Host suffer from this as well.

To say nothing of the bigger things she should have cut, like Jake’s involvement in Breaking Dawn. He’d played out his part, Bella chose to become everything he hated, we were done. The book had more than enough story with Renesmée and the Volturi happening, and Jake’s involvement only served to lower the book’s overall quality. And introduce a pedophilic storyline, which, Meyer no.

Then there are decisions she made where I would have chosen differently, such as Bella returning to Forks at the end of New Moon.

However, this all being said, I am a very difficult person to please. Meyer was never going to tick all my boxes, and while I have points of contention with her, my overall impression is a positive one.

(Just to stress how difficult I am to please: I read Good Omens a few days ago. I liked it very much, but it wasn’t perfect. Shadwell, Madame Tracy, Newt Pulcifer and the Them could all have been cut, for starters.

I’m too critical of everything, and it’s not just Meyer that I think should have cut significant parts of their respective stories and made them into something fundamentally different.)

So, now that I’ve torn her apart, what do I like about her? What, for that matter, do I think constitutes a good writer?

To list a few things I like about her as a writer:

She’s good at writing Her prose is very good, her characters are interesting and engaging people, she’s very good at establishing a scene or a character, and she’s evocative. Her prose never bores me, and it makes me feel things.

She has good ideas Self-explanatory,  really. Her lore is extremely original, her characters are interesting, and she comes up with great backstories and worldbuilding. The Southern Wars, for instance, brilliant.

She’s consistent She’s described this herself - she doesn’t get to decide what her characters do, sometimes they do things she very much does not want them to do and she’s quite put out about it. And that, I think, is the key to why her characterization is so consistent - she doesn’t do that dreaded thing where the author forces a character to do what they must to force the plot along, like cramming a square through a triangular hole, she just lets her characters decide for themselves. As her characters are already delightful people, this works out beautifully (Edward conspiring with Jacob that they should forcibly abort Bella’s baby so Jake can then impregnate her comes to mind. Or Aro, whom she views as a powerhungry maniac, showing up at the battleground and being absolutely devastated about that fact.) as they never do anything they wouldn’t do, and their characterization does not change from one book to another. (Counterexample: look at how Kylo Ren in The Rise of Skywalker turns towards the light when we’re closing in on the end of the movie. It’s unconvincing, to say the least, and runs contrary to what has previously been established about him. The movie does not bother to explain why this happens now, what it is that’s so special about one chat with Han and a duel with Rey that makes him turn his life around, nor why it couldn’t have happened sooner. He is redeemed because the trilogy is nearly over, not because it made sense for his character.)

Her plotting is generally good Her plots make sense, I’m invested in them, and they’re reasonably adapted to her characters’ power levels (The clusterfuck that was the Department of Mysteries showdown in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is an example of the antithesis of that).

Of these virtues, I’d place the most emphasis on Meyer’s writing and character creation.

As for what makes a good writer…

It’s difficult for me to pin down.

It’s chiefly whether I think their writing is good, and that means prose, characters, and plot. As Meyer fulfills all of these three, that puts her in my “good writer” box. She’s not perfect, but she has earned her place as a published author.

More, I enjoy reading her books and care about the story and characters she creates. This is a matter of personal preference, but I’m down for what she’s putting out. It would be disingenuous for me to do that and then say “... but of course, she’s a terrible writer”, in part because I feel that’s become a bit of a disclaimer when it comes to Meyer. It’s like the Emperor’s New Clothes. Stephenie Meyer is a bad writer, everyone knows that, if you think otherwise you have bad taste. She has written things, I’ve enjoyed them all, and I’m giving her full credit for that.

[theharellan]

// Dragon Age Questions

Tagged by: no one but i stole it from @dalathin​ Tagging: @hopewrought, @apocryphorum , @shiftysmugglerlook, @andrastegraced, @felandaristhorns,@deathsreflection,@ghilannainguideme, @snowmcid, @youriinquisitorialness,@nxthero​,@willbeshot, , @ofrevas, @theshirallen, @pentaghasted​, @valorcorrupt​

01) Favourite game of the series? Inquisition, without question. I love all the games but the themes and characters of Inquisition are most important to me.

02) How did you discover Dragon Age? I’ve been playing Bioware games since Jade Empire, although Dragon Age I picked up just b/c it was summer break from university and I was bored, and then I got hooked. I originally wasn’t going to play DA2 b/c it was the same year it came out that I picked up DA:O and it wasn’t getting great reviews. Luckily my dad’s a terrible listener and bought it for me, and unlike the time he bought me AC:Unity despite me saying I didn’t want it, it worked out.

03) How many times you’ve played the games? At least six for DA:I, and then somewhere between 4 and 5 for the other two.

04) Favourite race to play as? Dwarves or elves. I came into the series as dwarf trash and the writing for the elves was rly interesting for this series so I also became elf trash.

05) Favorited class? Mages, except in DA:O where I hate playing anything, but mages the most. Between the spell effects being ugly (why does rock armour look like ur flaking dry skin???) and the AOE effecting everyone even on casual (who decided it was ok to shake the screen THAT MUCH during earthquake) I’m............. not a fan. But I love it in DA2 and DA:I, although in DA:I archer/rogue is a close second.

06) Do you play through the games differently or do you make the same decisions each time? I make different decisions based upon which character I’m playing. So like, Thora will make the same decisions (with slight divergences like I’ll break up with Thom so I can experience Josie’s romance) and then Ruth, my pro-Templar Inquisitor, will be designed to make different decisions from her. Same goes for my Hawkes and Wardens, although I have a significantly harder time justifying some of the alternate decisions in DA:O/DA2. I let the Dalish clan die in DA:O for one jerk Warden and I’m still like “this is a bit overboard.”

07) Go-to adventuring group? DA:O - Zevran, Alistair, Wynne. DA2 - Carver, Varric or Isabela, Merrill in Act 1 and then after that either Aveline in place of Carver or I’ll take Varric, Isabela, and Merrill just so I have a party that likes one another. For DA:I - Solas, Sera or Cole, Blackwall. Although like with my decisions I vary companions, except for Solas who I keep around even when my Inquisitor is doing everything he hates.

08) Which of your characters did you put the most thought into? Of my PCs, Thora. I don’t tend to develop them much unless I’m writing them, beyond really basic motivations and reasons for their decisions. Since I’ve been writing Thora for a while now tho she’s obviously gotten the most development.

09) Favourite romance? Zevran, probably, which is a shame b/c I’ve only done it once.

10) Have you read any of the comics/books? I’ve read Masked Empire and some of the comic issues.

11) If you read them, which was your favourite book? I rly enjoyed Masked Empire.

12) Favourite DLCs? For its drama, Trespasser. Overall, Mark of the Assassin. I may not like Felicia Day (sue me) but oh my god that DLC is fucking gold.

13) Things that annoy you. In-game uhhh... the writing for Oghren and some banter for Zevran, I’m glad Bioware improved the writing for their more sexual characters b/c the banter with Iron Bull is overall less uncomfortable. At this point tho half the time I’m more annoyed by the fandom and its like relentless negativity or misuse of the word “plot hole.”

14) Orlais or Ferelden? Ferelden.

15) Templars or mages? Mages.

16) If you have multiple characters, are they in different/parallel universes or in the same one? With Wardens, there’s the assumption they died with their origin story if Duncan isn’t there. For my Inquisitors, Thora has a companion verse that I pretend is in effect if I’m playing not-Thora. Obviously Hawkes are a parallel universe. I would not wish four Hawkes onto Carver or Bethany.

17) What did you name your pets? (mabari, summoned animals, mounts, etc) I remember only a couple of my mabari names but uh... Fenrir was one, Butters was another, and then one was just Dog b/c i downloaded the dlc half-way through DA2 and it didn’t let me name it at that point, but it was IC for that Hawke so it fit. Thora has a war nug named Moroc.

18) Have you installed any mods? Yes god. A few key ones are Skip the Fade, giving me Warden armour in DA:O, giving Merrill’s romance armour a scarf so I don’t gotta look at her neck, and then the Bi Solas mod.

19) Did your Warden want to become a Grey Warden? Most didn’t, no. I think the only one with positive feelings about it was my Brosca, whose life was kind of over at that point anyway.

20) Hawke’s personality? My main Hawke (Sylvia) was Purple with some Blue, b/c it’s just not appropriate to joke in front of the Viscount when his son’s body isn’t cold, and after Leandra died she got Redder but still overall Purple. My second most developed Hawke, Leland, was mostly red unless Fenris brought up slavery or he was talking to Merrill. Or Anders. Basically he was just grumpy when he had to talk to strangers.

21) Did you make matching armour for your companions in Inquisition? I sometimes try to match colours, but also have preferences for different characters so don’t always.

22) If your character(s) could go back in time to change one thing, what would they change? Thora already went back in time and changed one thing, next question. I have no answers for anyone else.

23) Do you have any headcanons about your character(s) that go against canon? Not particularly, at least not for my PCs, obviously I have some for Solas. At worst Thora’s status as a Beserker is non-canon, but there’s no lore-reason why she couldn’t become one so it’s more that they just didn’t program it.

24) Who did you leave in the Fade? Depending on the pt. Thora leaves behind Alistair and let me tell u I cried a lot. I think I tend towards the Warden in most pts, the only one where I didn’t was my pro-Templar Hawke vs Loghain. Loghain was saved. I actually have only had Stroud once so it’s always been a choice between former companions and Hawke

25) Favourite mount? I like the Wild Hart and the Nuggalope.

[missjackil]

@lilith-the-ancient Id like to address your comment here. You said : “ As a Sam girl and wincest shipper who binged 12,5 seasons in 6 months: to me the writing is just significantly weaker: plot holes, characted assasination/oocness for the sake of plot, retcons. Important, emotional scenes becoming utterly inconsequential because death has no meaning anymore and trauma isn't dealth with propperly.” I will agree there have been some problems, but as a Sam girl wincest shipper who binges the show constantly, I dont see much of the later problems as new problems, but problems that have always been there. Death was made to mean nothingm on our level, in “In my Time of Dying” S2x1 reestablished in All Hell Breaks Loose, 2x21 and 22 and driven home, in Lazerus Rising 4x1. This is not a new late season problem. We were supposed to recognize this very early on, that Sam and Dean (and others) will die, and come back to life. Its the manner of death, the reaction of the surviving brother, and the story that comes about because of it, that is important. To this day, Sam’ first death, Dean’s 3x22  and 9x23 death, and most recently Sam’s death in 13.21 bring me to tears. Not because I dont know theyre coming back, but the brother’s reaction is excruciating, and drama always unfolds around it.   I think the writing, as well as the acting has improved overall, save for a couple dumb stories, but Ill take dealing with the BMOL over the S3 Lilith chase any day, and was there actually a storyline in S2? Oh yeah “Dad said I might have to kill you” There were a lotof plot holes and retcons in the early seasons, remember when “Christos” would bring out demons? Or they could see ghosts on their cell phone cameras?  Anti posession tats that appear conveniently out of the blue? (sure they could have gotten them after getting the charms off Bobby, but if they both suddenly had an angel warding tat on their chest too, everyone would bitch about the retcon) Emotional moments got boring by S3. Which brother is going to cry today? Why will Dean punch Sam today? Which one is gonna pin the other to the wall today? Im really lad they moved from that, because now if either cries, or punches the other, theres a reason behind it, not just for the sake of “chicks dig crying guys and physical altercations” The only OOCness and character assassination I have witness in all 13 seasons was Sam at the beginning of S8. However, Sacrifice was the single most important episode in Sam and Dean’s relationship and wouldnt have been so meaningly and touching, if Sam hadnt felt a guilty as he did. Justified guilt or not, had he not felt so much like he let Dean down and Dean had others more important than him, Deans words wouldnt have meant anything.  I dont see any other actions by the brothers as OOC even if it was ugly for the moment.  Trauma isnt dealt with properly, Ill agree there. But most of the time I think its us, the viewers, that put more into the trauma than the story actually does. Ive read a lot of meta, and I see a hug amount of projecting going on, but surely, some truama should never have been brought up if they werent going to deal with it.  Like I said, the early seasons have many flaws too, and one huge one IMO is bad acting, maybe not BAD as much as the boys trying too hard to become these characters, that it looks/sounds forced a lot, and sometimes a bit cringey. Once they got comfortable with the characters, the show got much better. Once writers got ballsy enough to write more than folk lore monsters and missing Dad... and added things like addiction, sex with demons and angels, Hell, insanity, and so on, I was full on obsessed. Also, not stepping foot into the fandom made it better. I wasnt tainted by what other people had to say about anything, and formed my own opinions. And figure, there are almost 300episodes and new show runners and writers, its inevitable things are going to get missed... its sad though that it was happening even before they had 100 episodes and all the original writers.

[nautilusopus]

I’m feeling angry today so here are all the entries of the Compilation listed from least terrible to “Nojima and Nomura are incompetent hacks and should be fired”.

8. The Case of Denzel OVA is the most bearable entry in the Compilation, because it does what a sequel is supposed to do: expand upon the lore of the established setting while showing us more about the characters in it. It's a shame, because I think this also might be the least acknowledged entry in it, apart from maybe Before Crisis, perhaps partially because it has no official English dub. In this case, we get to see Denzel finally fleshed out beyond "the littlest geostigma patient that Cloud needs to win the big game for!" He joins up with a group of salvagers, and we see everyone trying to piece the world back together following the complete collapse of the government, the economy, their primary energy source, and the deaths of millions, where they're immediately set upon by disease and societal tensions between what used to be the "upper class" and the slum dwellers that have always had it this way, more or less. 

What the fuck, this is what Advent Children should have been entirely. Except with Cloud and his friends, and not Denzel, because screw Denzel, I wanna see what Avalanche has been up to. (We never get to see what Avalanche has been up to, and we never will.)

That being said, even Case of Denzel didn't manage to not fuck up royally, and it has a giant huge plothole in the form of forgetting to account for an entire goddamn year because it forgot Advent Children was set two years after the OG and not one. Whoops.

7. Advent Children Complete, which I'm treating as a separate entry from Advent Children -- Advent Children is a fucking mess with a nonsensical plot and wonky character motivations that, word of god, were literally just there because they figured it's how the fans wanted to be pandered to the best and not because they thought the motivations would be good or interesting (nothing like a content creator that openly states he thinks his target audience are morons!). It's slightly lower on the list than Advent Children vanilla because A) it looks slightly less ugly due to the Bluray release, B) Denzel's and Marlene's child actors got too old and they had to find younger ones for the redub, and these newer actors are actually better and significantly less obnoxious, and C) it has My Chemical Romance doing the theme song. 

These are all very shallow reasons, admittedly. You'd think it'd be lower because the added scenes help fill in some plot holes, but they were badly added scenes that meshed very poorly with the story at large, and because of that they actually created about as many new plot holes as they filled in. Shite movie. 

6. Advent Children vanilla. This is a good place to discuss why they're both on the bottom of the list, since they're pretty much the same movie. Shitty plot, characters are a sad shadow of what they used to be, and they did some weird thing with Cloud where he unlearns everything from the original game for the sake of cheap conflict and the fans try and defend it like it's actually deep and coherent. Not to mention some more bad decisions: Renu and Rude are good guys now and friends with Cloud and Tifa despite murdering their friends along with everyone else in Sector 7, Marlene is no longer Barret's daughter because ewwww, black people, and Tseng and Rufus are retconned back to life for literally no damn reason at all (they contribute nothing to the movie. Nothing. They even waste the dramatic reveal with the sheet by having him say "yeah it's me Rufus but I'm gonna wear this sheet for no reason and rip it off dramatically revealing ME, RUFUS SHINRA"). As far as I'm concerned they both just died again right after this movie. 

Basically, Advent Children was bad and stupid, but it was pointless as well, which in this case works to its advantage: we relearn the exact same lessons but in a shittier, more juvenile way, wind up at the exact same point we started at by the movie's conclusion, and get confirmation that there were, in fact, zero fucking stakes. At least it didn't take a scalpel to the franchise lore at large, like everything else on this list. 

5. The Last Order OVA is basically Square Enix frantically trying to save face after they've realised that, "Oh shit, our complete inability to proofread the first drafts of the scrips we've been running with have resulted in every single bit of VII lore introduced in these things wildly contradicting one another!" Basically, Last Order is a very pretty fight scene with Zack in it animated by Madhouse that occasionally tries to have a plot. This is the entry that began the handwave of "oh, all the entries in the Compilation are different because they're all told from a difrerent point of view! It's up to you do decide what really happened!" Lazy, bad, the beginning of the end. It looked nice, but I can't even enjoy the fight scene in the reactor properly because Zack doesn't immediately get bodied like he should've, which wouldn't have been very much fun to watch but at least would've made more sense; as well as the weird bit where they tried to imply Cloud was always infected with Jenova and mako-enhanced from birth? Somehow?

Also, the "Last Order" in question seems to be Zack telling Cloud to run. Cloud, who is in a vegetative state, and even if he weren't, can't even walk. Sure, he'll get right on that.

4. Case of Novels. These things suck and are terrible and look like they were written by a third grader. That's not just a "lol these are terrible" jab, either. I mean they literally read like they were written by a child with a very basic grasp of how to put sentences together. All of them are structured like so:

Tifa was very sad, because Cloud wasn't talking to her. Tifa thought that maybe Cloud felt sad because his friends were dead. Then Tifa thought about her adventures with her friends from Avalanche, the friends that she was best friends with two years ago. Cloud and Tifa had lots of adventures with them, but they were sad by the end of it because Aeris died, and then Tifa thought that Cloud was probably thinking about that too. Tifa felt bad about that. 

They are bad to look at, just objectively, regardless of the content in them. Case of Barret's is by far the worst in that regard, to the point where I'm not entirely certain I didn't read a bootleg fake version of it, because there is no way Square Enix would charge actual money for a product that was meant to be released to the masses and presented as canon to Final Fantasy VII. Except that they did. (I can also believe it because it further works towards the goal of erasing Barret from the story entirely, more on this later.)

As far as the actual story content, I'd probably have to say Case of Lifestream White/Black are the worst, due to some weird nonsense where Aeris just hangs out in the Lifestream and watches people like it's a spectral break room, and Sephiroth grumbles and pines over Cloud like a jilted ex-boyfriend because Nojima forgot there was anything else to his character. These, like Advent Children, are pointless, but they’re pointless to the extent that it’s absurd they even exist -- there's apparently an entire third Shinra bastard running around out there, and he has zero bearing on anything ever, and never will again. What Shinra bastard? Who? Kadaj murdered a whole town offscreen or something, but I guess it wasn’t relevant, don’t know why we brought it up.

3. Before Crisis. Japan-exclusive mobile game where Square stops even bothering trying to hide their contempt for anyone not in the "marketable niche" (i.e: all the white male characters ages 16-27) and begins writing them out of the story. It's not enough that they take his goddamn daughter away from him on the basis that he's prospecting oil, which is fucking stupid in and of itself -- this is the story that decides Avalanche, the group Barret founded in response to Shinra murdering everyone in his hometown because they didn't want any competition in the form of coal, wasn't actually even Barret's. It was some other guy's, and grrrr he was a terrorist even more terroristier than OG Avalanche was because moral ambiguity is gonna go over our audience’s heads so let’s just make it nice and cleanly black and white for them. I've ranted about this before, but it's even worse that the fans seem to have no problem incorporating these changes into everything, because who gives a rat's ass about Barret, right? There was some dumb thing about Nanaki finding a girl catdog to have those babies he has in the epilogue, and the Ravens, but it's all just more of the same introducing samefaced teeny boppers that the fans love so much at the expense of everything else.

2. SPEAKING OF WHICH, Crisis Core, the king of samefaced teeny boppers consuming the franchise. I flipflop a lot on whether this one is the worst or not, but in addition to having the same problem as Before Crisis times fifty, I consider it as bad as it was because you could tell it could have been really good, and that's honestly heartbreaking. The first hour or so kicks things off with a really good start, introducing Zack as this cocksure jackass trying to make a name for himself, and his mentor Catchphrase Man. Then around the point where Banora gets firebombed it all sort of goes downhill, and you realise a lot of the credit you were giving it wasn't actually due. Zack being a gloryhound for Shinra and believing Soldier to be a bastion of good wasn't supposed to be a character flaw like it should've. Genesis almost singlehandedly ruins the entire thing by eating all the screentime in the word with his obnoxious motivations that made zero sense, and in a flashback we see he was always a fucking tool so there's no reason to feel sorry for him in the first place. He's actually secretly responsible for the iconic Nibelheim scene, of all fucking things (GENESIS DID NIBELHEIM would make a good bumper sticker). Tifa gets thirty seconds of screentime. Cloud doesn't fare much better, which is a seriously huge problem considering he's the goddamn protagonist of the entire franchise. He gets a single 49 second cutscene of them establishing "okay he's best friends with Zack" and then nothing else, ever, unless you want to count the three emails he sends him that you could tell were supposed to lead to more bonding cutscenes that were ultimately cut for more GENESIS, YOU LOVE HIM SO MUCH RIGHT GUYS??? Aeris fares even worse than Cloud and Tifa combined, being barely in it, and Square having decided that Zack actually made all her life decisions for her. That's right -- literally everything about her character? Zack did it. Fuck you. 

It's also this high up for what it represents, I suppose -- in the fanbase, you see a whole lot of "Well, Cloud lost Zack and Aeris so now he has no friends and nothing else to live for in this world because he didn't really care about anyone else besides them". It seems everyone forgot that not only was there more to Cloud’s character than "his friends are dead so he’s sad” and his friends being dead was only a small part of it, but that there were seven other people we spent about sixty hours establishing in no uncertain terms that they loved him unconditionally and that he felt the same way. Crisis Core is what finally got people to start disregarding the rest of the main fucking cast from the OG, and it was very, very deliberate. An old unwashed man in his late thirties jaded about his future in spaceflight, a catdog with daddy issues, a black man with a character arc revolving around fatherhood, a triple agent paper-pusher that had a furry phase right in the middle of his midlife crisis, two women that are both alive and have agency of their own, and hell, even a young man with severe psychological issues that had a very strong bond with all of these people even though most of them aren't young and attractive white people and realises he can count on them all for support, are not as marketable as the cast of Crisis Core. Square knows this. You can't wring any sex appeal out of "happy supportive environment" or "female characters", since most of the fanbase tends to be straight women in their late teens and early twenties. So, everyone in both those categories gets shafted. And, as mentioned, the fans seem all to happy to run with this, given the overwhelming amount of material that seems to disregard everyone else in Cloud's life that wasn't Zack (and sometimes Aeris gets acknowledged because all she's good for anymore is a corpse to motivate Cloud) as unimportant, and not really his friends. 

The fact that the entire game seems to undermine the original's tone very badly almost seems like a nitpick at this point next to very intentional racism and sexism and pandering, but I'm gonna bring that up too. The new version of Zack's death scene flies directly in the face with how they were handled in the original game, and is more in line with Cait Sith's than anything else's -- that death isn't heroic, or glorious, or profound. It's just sad and fucking hurts, and it's something that happens. They made that pretty clear the first time around when he just gets gunned down on a cliff in complete silence. You can practically hear the "so it goes" in the background. Naturally, this time around they gave him an entire speech about dreams an honour and then when he dies he goes to heaven (on a planet with no heaven) and he's successfully become a hero. Fucking bravo. Or the bit where, as has been pointed out, you have a wacky scene where Zack meets a young Yuffie, and she skips off amongst the corpses of her people that Zack himself just finished making in the name of glory and imperialism (not a character flaw, though! He’s a good guy!). There's an astounding lack of self-awareness in everything the game does. 

AND IT COULD HAVE BEEN SO GOOD, and that's why I still debate whether or not it belongs in the Worst spot or not. It could have been great to see a non 49-second version of the friendship that eventually motivated Zack to die for Cloud, but then they forgot to write it, because why write that when you could have these four cutscenes with Genesis? It would've been great to see Aeris and her relationship with running from Shinra that caused her to grow up street smart and how that caused Zack to maybe question Shinra's motivations, but them they forgot to write it because HEY LOOK HERE'S SOME MORE WING SYMBOLISM WITH ANGEAL DO YOU GET IT THERE'S ONLY ONE OF THEM AND HIS NAME IS SPELLED ALMOST LIKE ANGEL, I'M WORKING WITH GENESIS NOW HIS NAME MEANS BEGINNING LOL. It could have been great to see Tifa getting her start with Avalanche, but after her obligatory cameo in Nibelheim she's swallowed into the void again because they forgot she was ever anything besides Cloud's love interest, and fuck you we gotta show you this Genesis scene in Modeoheim. It could have been great to meet a younger Barret, and wonder how at odds he would've been with Zack, a man who's been drinking the Soldier kool-aid for years, but instead we got Genesis reciting poetry. It could have been great to see the workings of Soldier before it all went to shit, but instead we got fucking goddamn Genesis. Genesis Genesis Genesis. 90% of the screentime in this game that should've gone to developing Zack's character for one fucking second, let alone other things, just gets eaten up by Genesis. God I hate Genesis.

1. Dirge of Cerberus.

I'll try and keep this brief because I can go on about Dirge of Cerberus all fucking day if you let me. 

If Crisis Core is terrible because it had the shadows of great ideas that were terribly mishandled in the name of turning a profit, Dirge is sort of its opposite, in that at no point did anything even remotely resembling a good idea come anywhere near the building this was being written in during the entirety of its production. It's bad. Thoroughly bad. There are no redeeming qualities. It's ugly, it plays badly, 90% of it is cutscenes* and the remaining 10% is invisible walls, the plot is a fucking mess by anyone's standards whether you're familiar with the franchise or not, it is the reigning fucking king of tone issues, the design choices are the worst of what Nomura has to offer by a country mile, and the characters are the worst Square has ever made in the Final Fantasy series. 

Vincent is the protagonist, and since he just wants a nap and is too cool to care that means you don't really give a rat's ass about what's going on either, which you wouldn't have anyway, because Dirge's plot isn't so much rife with plot holes as it is a giant, gaping hole, where bits of plot occasionally drift by, mangled beyond recognition by the plane crash in 1976 that claimed their lives. Did you know there was an even more secreter army living under Midgar that somehow survived the entire city being demolished with cosmic hellfire, a pandemic with no cure, and a giant sword battle dropping more debris on them? Did you know Hojo actually didn't die, he invented the internet in 30 seconds in his death throes and then invented the technology to upload minds to computers, AKA created a fucking goddamn technological singularity, and then uploaded himself in a .zip file until he could blow up the world for shits and giggles completely unrelated to anything even remotely having to do with Jenova? Did you know Lucrecia wasn't actually a terrible person that willingly carried Hojo's child and injected it with science juice for the sake of their careers, but was actually a really nice lady and is really sorry you guys, and was just an unwilling womb for Sephiroth to be birthed from, and was pretty much the Madonna? Did you know that apparently the Actual Goddamn Apocalypse wasn't enough to convince the Planet it was dying, but someone stabbing a few thousand people was? Did you know Reeve decided to call the events of the main game the "Jenova Wars" because he doesn't actually know what a war is? Did you know mako actually makes you live forever instead of giving you brain damage and killing you? Did you know the Lifestream is pretty much the same thing as the internet? Did you know Vincent was a paedophile? Did you know someone decided Genesis still needed to be fucking alive? 

Oh yeah, and also there are such stellar characters such as Red the Red, Blue the Blue, White the Clean, Black the I-Have-A-Jockstrap-Taped-Over-My-Mouth-Because-Fuck-You-Why-Not, and Orange the Clear, who is physically 9 years old but mentally 19 so it's totally not paedophilia if we have a weird romance between her and Vincent (never mind that if we're going by that logic, you now have a 19 year-old dating a 61 year-old, which is... not a whole lot better.) 

And hey, remember that one scene where Shalua completely unnecessarily died by holding a door she could've easily ducked through, and then she pissed herself upon death, and the game took the time to show the piss puddle, and Yuffie was super upset about it despite the fact that they never interacted even once but the writers forgot about that, and then after all that shit she didn't even die in her own melodramatic death scene, and then she did die anyway at the end of the game and all you can think about is the piss and god Shalua is so fucking pointless and looks so fucking stupid. Look at this hot mess: 

She’s a scientist! Or something. 

Even by Final Fantasy standards these designs are fucking ridiculous.

There is nothing redeeming about this game. It's like a gift that keeps on giving -- every time I look back at it, I discover a new plothole that I didn't catch the first time before. It's easier to hate than Crisis Core, though, which just makes me sad. At least Dirge never had anything going for it in the first place. I paid two bucks for my copy and I still feel ripped off.

* Okay, that’s an exaggeration -- 50% of it is cutscenes. Four hours out of an eight hour game is cutscenes. Do you realise how fucking many cutscenes that is? It’s a lot. (And yet not one of them has any plot in them HEYOOOO)

[sparda3g]

The Ancient Magus' Bride Manga Impression - Sparda's Lounge

The Ancient Magus Bride is a series that I took interest without knowing people’s opinions. The first volume cover left me intrigued, yet I don’t really know why. It could be the artwork or how it was addressed to be whimsical. It made me curious enough to pick up and read. I owe all the volumes that are currently released at this time, with an included bonus. With the advent of the anime debut, I am anticipated to see how this universe will translate. That all said what is it about this series that compels the audience that will soon expand significantly. Let’s take a closer look into this magical world of a bride.

Story

A sixteen-year-old Hatori Chise is a poor lost soul in an empty shell of her former self. She has no family to return to, no friends to seek for help, and no hope for ever receiving a gentle life. Auctioned out like an object, a Magus named Ainsworth Elias buys her out and offers her a new beginning. Despite his appearance leans towards a demon than human, Chise may have found a new path to light that she has longed seeking for. Will she find it?

I have to come out and say it. First and foremost, this is not an action series. I appreciated the thrill of the anime trailer, but people shouldn’t think this as an explosive action genre. It is a slice of life series that explores the entity of its universe. The magical beings like fairies, the alchemy use for experiments, and the exploration of characters. It’s similar to another series, Natsume: Book of Friends, even the concept. Both protagonists can see mythical creatures, but no one else can, and they are miserable by it. It’s quite similar; only this one is Shounen.

I can’t help but think that because of this series is adapted by Wit Studio some would assume that it is action heavy. Going by my research, the studio has worked on plenty of action genre recently with very few other different genre projects. Seraph of the End, Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, and the most notable one, Attack on Titan. I was surprised that they will be the one to adapt this, so I am hoping people can understand the actual nature of the series; as they should.

There are plenty of majestic materials to explore in a well-developed lore. It covers the small yet significant aspect, because it wants to exploit that life is precious with cherish memories. Even in the darkest time, the light will glow. Step-by-step, the transformation becomes apparent and it is rewarding.  It takes its time to give you a reason to care, even for a simple task that should be easily dealt with yet challenging for the fallen one. The more it progresses, the more you start to wish more happiness along the way.

There is a main plot behind it as well, antagonist and all, but it will arrive when it is ready to exploit. It is slice of life first, plot later, and it’s not a bad thing. Once you begin to understand its world, it will take you for a deeper journey. It’s appealing with its sheer nature. It may take time to develop as it carefully explains the lore detail-by-detail, but you eventually will start feeling right at home.

Characters

Chise is the protagonist, so naturally the focus of her is to regain humanity. She starts off looking like a lifeless doll, but regains life as many depths explored. It doesn’t take long for her to appear differently, which is good since I could imagine people wouldn’t like a lifeless or robotic character for a protagonist. It’s not that she will transform immediately; it portrays that one piece of humanity can make a massive difference than nothing at all.

She’s a character that has my full attention; because the narrative drags us to feel like we are learning again. How to be gentle, how to help others, how to understand the environment, how to live again. She doesn’t stay mute or broken for long, so the more she developed, the more you begin to connect. You understand her lessons, hardships, and cold reality the more she begins to feel human again.

She will start off clingy to Elias, but understandably so. It’s not because of romantic love, at least not yet maybe. It’s the feeling of opportunity to relive again under his offering. She grows more at home and become more independent to her own decisions and actions. It only made me feel proud, but worried. She is a gentle character that slowly learns to cherish life and feel the change that she long waited for.

Elias is a mysterious creature. While there are plenty of missing holes to fill in with his background and agenda to “rescue” Chise, let alone marrying her in the future, he is pretty amusing. He can look menacing by design, but charming and comical when called for one. He is best described as a man-child or a child in a man-sized demon body. He can be thoughtful and wise in many cases, but his curiosity is seen like a child.

What evaluates the chemistry between him and her is the fascination of understanding their worlds. Chise is regaining life within her as well as adapting to the supernatural environment with magical entity as Elias is teaching her the basics and explore depth of humanity. Essentially, they develop the student-teacher relationship as both play both roles, creating a pleasant bond. Elias can be intimidating, but it makes you wish that he could handle himself better. He’s charming and smart, but then, he has flaws that wish to be erased.

There are other kind characters that add more to its environment. It may not have everyone involved with the main plot, but for slice of life, it can bring in the heartwarming foundation. Like Silky, the housekeeper, for example; there’s a chapter that is nearly completely mute, but it has a good amount of meaningful display that set the tone of depression but ends on a tender note. That alone had me surprisingly touched by her character.

There are many more to explore, including the one that will only show up once in a while and many if not all are kindhearted. Excluding the antagonist; at least from what I have read so far. Even there are characters that should be evil or cruel, but there’s more to them than their initial impression. It could be from humans, fairies, or even demons. As slice of life goes, it nails the core of its nature.

Content

Despite the writing is slice of life style, it does contain action with the use of magic elements and science such as alchemy. The series does a swell job to explain each of its lore functionality. There will be items that put a special cast, there will be set of rules of tributes and limitations, and there will be many different ways for whimsical use.

Because Chise is learning magic for the first time, we start from the basic and progress further to the more advanced stage at a steady pace. Elias is the teacher, so we are following the lessons along with her. It leaves us enough time to digest the functionality and begin to appreciate its lore. While there are more potential for other type of magic, so far, it has been done in a compelling way. Even a simple magic use such as Link to Mind and Memory can be demonstrated in a meaningful connection. There is alchemy use as well, though it’s done by side characters, so it’s not highly focus. When it does explore, it is interesting to say the least.

I have once heard that the world building and the use of magic can be described as Harry Potter-esque. In my opinion, it does seem that way, regardless of obvious differences. There may be no school as of this time, but it certainly has the learning process. That all said the use of magic in the action scenery is done in a slow and steady process for the most part; meaning that it won’t be as frenzy as battle shounen series.

As mentioned before, the trailer portrayed it as intense and fast paced. While it can be intense, it is not the main objective to be explosive. You can’t expect the action to be on the caliber of Full Metal Alchemist, Fairy Tail, or Black Clover. It plays more on the emotional and tensed aspect, which could be a breaking point of that character’s action. It’s nothing wrong with the said series and its action pace; it’s not this series’ protocol.

My favorite perk is how much of an emotional impact it has towards the character; whether it is from Chise, Elias, or anyone in general. By the time the main plot begins, you already gain enough senses of who they are and what they are capable of. It has that great sense of accomplishment of what they have learned and at what price they paid. The saddest time can bring in the rewarding feeling because not only you learned the morality, but the character grows with you.

The cooperation of its world with magic and alchemy and real life aspects are profound. We can learn a deep meaningful lesson as well as escaping reality to its world. Despite the title with bride in it, the romance isn’t really focused; it is taking its time to develop the chemistry and perhaps one day, it will. It is appealing to explore further with its expandable magical elements. The series is not too young, but it has plenty of room to dive deeper. The recent development shows new promises, so you can bet that we are only getting started.

Presentation

It’s reasonable to count on the artwork to be visually impressive to exploit its delighting world. Fortunately, Yamazaki does a terrific job. The environment can be delightful on one hand, then the next, horrifying. Since it’s magical, it’s expected to see many mythical creatures. Each of them stands out differently and has its own identity to separate from other creatures. It opens for plenty of imagination to add in for the future.

The detail can be really pretty to look at, including the living beings. Dragon design can never look old. It has that larger than life feeling that passes through you. The atmosphere tone is easily noted with its light and dark nature. It’s not afraid to go really dark on life including drug use and serial killer. The action is steady, so it’s easy to pick up on what’s happening. The world is welcoming to any who wishes to learn more. In the volume, it has descriptive interior area to make you feel right at home.

The real perk is the sublime design of the character’s expression. Chise is easy to notice since her character begins as a loner. Each time you see something new from her reaction, you grasp the warm feeling just by seeing it. These characters can be expressive and bring a tender feel. Even character like Elias who has no real expression, but the body language and monologue can bring just about the same meaningful length as expressions. There are other moments that will send you to feel something strong, which is the beauty of a good writing slice of life. It could make you teary, but much like hardship path, the end can bring you happiness.

As of Now

As of now, The Ancient Magus Bride has been a really great series. From what I have read so far, it has many new promises to explore new magical elements and new challenges. Beyond that, it is not easy to say that the series will grow stronger or weaker, but if it keeps up the writing quality, it can be very charming series in the end. I recommend it; that is if you are fine with the slice of life style. Believe me you will be glad with its focus before entering the main plot. I cannot wait for the anime debut; I’m happy to see how far it has come and begin to bloom to a wonderful work. The world is vast but it’s worth entering for its whimsical charm.