#the episode was wild in its entirety

[asherlockstudy]

A moment for the ages x

[seven-snails]

i don't normally do new year's resolutions but i think this year i want to start and finish a new piece of media every month, and i'm probably going to start with ikuhara's filmography because i have been meaning to watch mawaru penguindrum and yurikuma arashi and sarazanmai for like. multiple years at this point. after that i don't know but i have like 30+ shows *just* on my anime watchlist so i shouldn't be running out of options anytime soon lol

[mozart-the-meerkitten]

*thinking about Battlestar Galactica against my will* So in the two part episode we’re watching right now there’s a theme running through of it that “no one is expendable”. It’s been said by Apollo a few times I think, Commander Adama implied it or outright said it, I can’t remember. But it was already a theme from the beginning of the episode.

See, Baltar, the human who’s leading the cylon chase to capture the Galactica, has nudged the Galactica into a trap between his cylon base star (with reinforcements on the way) and the original Ice Planet of Hoth (Battlestar came out two years before Empire Strikes Back) that has a giant gun of death on it capable of destroying the Galactica (a ship over 4,000 feet long, btw, this thing is MASSIVE) in a single blast. And they discovered this when one of their routine patrols lost three ships to this monster. And all three ships had cadets piloting them. Only one survived, and he was captured by the cylons, the rest were shot down.

And the leader of said patrol, was Starbuck. It was in no way his fault that they lost the cadets (they were VERY MUCH acting against orders) but he decided it was his personal responsibility to rescue the one who got captured. This man straight up hacked a supercomputer to get sent on a potential suicide mission on an icy Hell planet in the desperate hope that he could rescue this kid he felt responsible for. Like, yes I firmly believe that Apollo and Adama think that every life in their fleet is important but dang Starbuck’s over here taking it to another level. The rest of their team is on this planet to destroy this gun to stop it from blowing up the entire fleet and killing everyone. Starbuck is there to rescue this one guy specifically.

Idk where I was going with this I just really love all the “every life is important” stuff happening in these episodes, I wish I remembered what happened in part two.

[copperbadge]

I slept very poorly last night and thus had wild dreams but I only just remembered the wildest when I found a note I wrote after waking up from it. Reproduced here in its entirety:

I saw Chuck Tingle with his mask off and he doesn't want the world to know that he is secretly Trent Crimm.

Wild as a fanfic, wild as an episode of Ted Lasso, super wild as a conspiracy theory. Within me truly are legions.

[hellishfig]

just finished listening to episode 34 of worlds beyond number, "something to remember you by," which is the end of arc 3 of the wizard, the witch, and the wild one, and i feel sick from how incredible it was. the physical reactions my body made to some of the words and music in this podcast really took me by surprise. i'm still reeling.

some thoughts:

i'm so happy that suvi is questioning the citadel, her reaction to silver's letter was inspired, and i LOVED her interactions with the quartermaster. she's so clever and intimidating (holy shit that was HOT), but i'm worried about what's happening to silver. i have an inkling that the witches may have already started making moves alongside the man in black, and i wonder how that will affect suvi going forward. and going to try and save silver before returning their "precious cargo" to the citadel... i hope suvi can keep questioning, and that whatever she faces, she doesn't let the justification machine run its course any longer.

eursulon meeting up with tefmet was really cool. i enjoyed the return of the strongest man in silbury immensely. it was extremely funny. and then, when eursulon asked to help and succeeded on his persuasion checks, it was solemnly touching. i love eursulon's power being in steadfast support and protection, and how to him, it's not about opposing the citadel in its entirety, it's about saving spirits, great and small, from those who would use them. and that's something he can do while still protecting his true friends.

ame let the chaos OUT this episode, and it was delightful and nerve wracking and thrilling to listen to. she's very bossy and it's so funny to hear how immediately eursulon goes along with it, despite not knowing what "it" is. growing up watching grandma wren, she seems to have gained a natural authority that makes people who love her listen to her when she asks them to perform innocuous menial tasks. but that's also interesting, because her chaos is focused, if imprecise. she knows what she needs to do and will do it, damn the consequences. as long as she can get away, who cares what she leaves in her wake? that's a problem for future ame.

they stole some brass knockers and a lion! they kidnapped nif to save her from being killed by indri! tof burned bright to free a vrock! suvi heads to war, eursulon and ame TO TOMA! (i almost cried when eursulon said those words and the music swelled. what the fuck, lou. what the FUCK taylor and jared. i'm not okay!!!)

and then of course, brockvale. holly hill. the resting place of sir curran of the hawthorn, who unknowingly sent eursulon on a quest that would lead him to our story. the man in black, the pilgrim under stars, the king of knight, the stranger, holds sir curran's shield. he comes to make an offer. will this poor old guard bid a weary traveler to step over this threshold?

this is why worlds beyond number feels so different to me from other dnd shows and podcasts. these artists have come together with the shared goal of not just playing a fun game that they all enjoy, but with the express aim of crafting a brilliant story. i love a goofy campaign full of shenanigans as much as the next person, but i adore how every choice in this show is given weight and meaning. there are no decisions made for laughs. it doesn't feel like playing a game. it feels like living in the story.

and there are also moments like the ending of this episode. a snapshot of elsewhere in the world, something the players don't know, but the audience gets to. it fills out the edges of the story and provides a richer tapestry of lore and reasoning behind the machinations of those who oppose our heroes. it gives life to the tale.

my heart is beating so fast. this show is incredible. thank you, @worldsbeyondpod , for the world you're creating.

[helpimstuckposting]

TMAGP 30 Speculation

Now that it’s season finale time, I’ve got a LOT to say and a lot of ideas so I will ramble them here and either I’m horribly wrong or horribly right but unfortunately we have to wait to find that out

First, I can’t believe Alice had two mysterious talks with her friends saying they have something super important to say with a horrified quiver to their voices and she didn’t have time to listen to EITHER of them. Teddy and Colin are high high high on the list for ‘died off mic and we only find out next season’

Since Gwen was promoted (idiot) and Sam is… mmm… missing, it looks like the OIAR will need to fill at least one position, and I think it would be fun if Teddy came back to take his place as a main character. It’s possible that what he had to say was “This new job… it’s not exactly [working out]” and he was simply looking for a new one, and it’s no more ominous than that. If that’s the case, I can absolutely see him taking his position back next season. Colin’s probably dead, though, I’ll be shocked if he’s not tbh

Speaking of Colin, he called the system Freddy while talking to Alice. You know, the same guy that said “Don’t give it a personality. We shouldn’t even be calling it Freddy.” So the change up here is really blatant to me.

I’m still really attached to the idea that Jon and Martin (and Jonah’s) voices were stolen and they’re not actually trapped in the computers. However, I *do* think the voices are sentient, I just don’t think we’re right about who’s behind them. I think Freddy, the program itself, may be using the voices to push its own agenda and manipulate the decisions each OIAR employee is making. Alice gets a lot of JMJ errors, and is specifically the only person on staff who actively tunes the cases out and does not read into them.

OR, if it does turn out to be our guys, then I think it’s possible they’re working counter productively to Freddy, and the JMJ errors are a result of that — like they’re actively trying to work against Freddy. This could also be why Colin said he messed up, like maybe his attempts to deal with the JMJ errors made Freddy more powerful.

Either way, it seems the OIAR is in a huge bind going into season two. Colin probably did something buck wild and pissed the computer off, he’s probably dead, Sam is missing and they’ll need a new hire, Lena is gone (the only person who presumably knew anything that was going on) and Gwen just got promoted to boss despite having 1) absolutely no idea what’s going on with anything at all, 2) an inability to handle the externals and several panic attacks, and 3) no clue what Lena’s job even was, with no direction from the man who promoted her. It seems like even the PM has no real clue what the OIAR does, how it functions, or who it employs (“I’m sorry, do you hire a lot of murderers for contract and consultancy work?” - the answer is Yes, actually, several!)

Picturing the team next season as Alice, Teddy, Celia, and their boss Gwen is… a comedy of errors (or comedy of [ERROR]s? … Sorry) like that absolutely cannot go well. Although, we are pretty used to people being hired as a boss while they have no qualifications of the sort (also did not go well)

As for Sam, the Archivist, and Hilltop Road, I have a few questions about what could possibly happen. First, if the crack in reality was specifically calling for and tugging Celia toward it, we can probably assume that it’s the TMA universe on the other side, right? Which means Sam and the Archivist are now in our original beloved universe. I’m curious to see if Sam is just going to be MIA for the entirety of season two, or if we’ll get tape recordings of him at the same time as our TMagP friends, and we’ll have updates between both universes. I could see that being very interesting if some voice actors appear as two different people in the same episode (their TMA part, and their TMagP counterpart) but that would probably be really complicated to pull off in an audio format.

Also, we know the TMA fears cannot be separated, and that they’re possibly just one entity and have been one entity the whole time. That’s why they couldn’t start the apocalypse without all of them participating, and that’s why when Annabelle opened the crack in reality they all left the TMA universe. “Any attempt to separate the fears is doomed,” is what she said. She also said, “I would either travel with them, or I would die. I do not know which... Most would simply lose whatever power they have been gifted.”

So, if an archivist travels back through the crack in reality, what would happen to them? They’d be cut off from the entity that gave them power, right? So either the archivist will die, or maybe we’ll find out who Beth Eyre (the voice of [ERROR])’s character really is? Who they were before they became an archivist?

I don’t think they’d introduce [ERROR] and then just get rid of them without any resolution, which leads me to believe we will eventually find out what happened to Sam. I don’t think Sam’s just going to be dead or missing and never come back, I don’t see how there’d be any point to that. He is still the only person we know of who’s survived telling their whole statement, and even though he had a headache I feel like that must be significant. The janitor turned into a rock, I really don’t think a normal person would just walk away with a headache. Like, for all intents and purposes, Sam probably should have had his skin ripped off if we’re following the pattern of [ERROR] related deaths.

I hope next season focuses on Hilltop Road, because the lore in this episode was amazing. First of all, it was hard not to notice how each shop had a different danger. The custodian mentioned the drunk man walking into the newsagent and then he “ignored the smell of burnt hair and charred meat”. Then there was the shop that turned a woman into a mannequin, and Sam and Celia walked past the appliance shop where doors kept opening and closing, and the dentist that wanted peoples teeth. There was also the antique shop from episode 7 that almost buried the manager alive, plus the institute also used one of the units. I could be reading too much into it, but it feels like each fear from TMA has uhhhh… set up shop?

It’s also interesting to me that Annabelle said every owner on Hilltop Road in TMA was marked by the Spider, and died a grizzly death.

“So many schemers and spiders and full-throated monsters. Twisting manipulators and furtive liars. Each meeting a violent, grotesque end.” (TMA 196)

And the owner of Hilltop Center was no different.

“I found the owner dead in his office, with every blood vessel stripped from his body and strung around the room in a grim cat’s cradle.”

Not only did he die a violent and mysterious death, but his blood vessels were strung up ‘in a cats cradle’, which is pretty web-like if you ask me.

Anyway, I’m really really hoping to learn more about Hilltop Center next season, that’s the ONE thing I’m super latched on to post-finale

[lactoseintolerentswag]

Rise Characterizations Pt. 6!!!!!!

After the turtles and Splinter, here we have the girl Ever. She's pretty spunky, I had fun analyzing her for writing.

April O'Neil Character Notes

Language Habits:

Uses bae/aave, something she could have passed on down to Raph and Mikey as they also use bae/aave

Most notably uses "mm-kay" in place of "okay"

Uses a lot of filler language, interjections, or onomatopoeia. Think "mhm", "uh huh, uh huh!", "oh yeah!"

"Ah nuts" is her go-to disappointed phrase

Grits and or strains her teeth when she's frustrated

Uses her own name (the full "April O'Neil!!!!") as a battle cry, or brings her name as a motivator i.e. "the one and only April O'Neil will solve this case!"

The more worked up she the louder she tends to be, this extends to stronger emotions such as passion or panic

Over text uses emoticons

Refers to splinter as "splints"

Refers to the turtles as "the fam"

Refers to villains/antagonists through insults rather than their names

Personality:

Adrenaline junkie, as she's often the first to jump into a fight. She also laughs in the face of danger, and was seen maniacally laughing and smiling the entirety of the gumbus episode

Jack of all trades. April has a lot of skills she's picked up from various jobs or personal adventures she's seeked out (like canoeing through the sewers in a hazmat suit and earning a crane license)

Wild and blunt. April is Loud, and rarely ever afraid to share her opinion. This can either make people draw back from her bluntness or be drawn in by her excitableness

Self-conscious. Despite her strong sense of self-esteem, April is still often motivated to impress the popular kids at school or at least fit in. She doesn't want to be seen as the weird kid, or associated with the weird kids

Persistent. April is always quick on her feet to hit back whatever comes at her. She has a good set of problem-solving skills that she's gained from all the skills she's picked up

Loyal. She's always willing to back up the turtles, and goes out of her way to keep Splinter happy with her company. Once she finds a friend it's hard to pry her away

Unlucky. Mostly in absurd or mundane ways. She has that whole curse with her birthday, but things don't often tend to go right for April O'Neil, which contributes to the disasters that cause her to get fired all the time

Miscellaneous:

Code-named "yellow submarine" by raph

Tends to have information on wifi passwords, secret exists, and access to keys from all the jobs she's been hired and fired from

Has a preference for blunt objects as weapons (most commonly bats, clubs, pipes)

Uses the environment in a fight in general

She's been part of the "warren stone fanclub" since 2010, and keeps all her ids in her wallet

Likes unicorns and cats (as seen through her brief texts with sunita and her pajamas)

Loves laser tag

Can beat Donnie at video games (if he didn't use cheat codes)

"sherlock_corn" is her handle online

Lives in an apartment/flat with her mom (showed onscreen briefly), that has its own bathroom

Has a subtly mentioned interest in fantasy, as noted by Donnie she tends to download fantasy rpgs and freaks out over cosplay wizards

Just an end note to all of you who aren't black, some offensive tropes I would stray from is making April the angry black girl. This is one of the most common stereotypes of black women in media. I wouldn't mistake April's passion or loudness for aggression. It would be a disservice to dilute her lively character into familiar but ultimately harmful tropes in media.

I am in no way saying you cannot portray April as angry, this is a powerful emotion and it should be explored with black characters, but I am saying that should not be the base of her character. Because well that's not even April's base. She's centered around fun and thrill-seeking.

Wikipedia (yes I know, But they have proven to be more dependable these past years) has a good article on the angry black woman stereotype, so that would a good place to start research on what to Avoid. In my splinter post I also provided some links on doing research on writing poc.

---

Anyway!!! We've ended our analysis trip of the main cast in s1. Next I'm thinking of picking apart our antagonists :]. Gonna take a break to work on my own fic, but stay tuned if you found any of my other posts helpful! It's been a fun ride with you all <3

[ender1821]

session was fine (/lh) highlights for me were gem's power being one of the coolest feeding the "associated with the watchers" allegations and her almost succesful escape of a practically impossible trap (yes im gonna ignore pearl's comment about gem's eye, i want to smash pearl with a hammer after that). and also gem is so obsessed with pearl it’s maddening, sadly pearl is the most oblivious player on the server 💔

so now lets focus instead on the potential of superhero!gem whose body practically dies when she projects her soul and superhero!pearl who excessively worries and protects her in that state while fearing one day gem won't come back to her body :D

we got a session with relatively normal gempearl moments!!! (well. as normal as they can be. anyway)

glad that watcher lore enjoyers are getting fed with watcher-leaning Gem and listener Martyn, i dont go here often but god thats some good material

the wild card this session is honestly very fun!!! mostly banger episodes, i would’ve taken a whole season of just this gimmick ngl but i also see why it’s only for a single session (currently watching Martyn’s ep and god it’s amazing if you ever were/currently are a bnha fan), also Gem trying to get joint custody of the zombies is. peak. gemrot enjoyers get your food

THE PEARL COMMENT…girl…she’s trying so hard to justify failing that trivia bot question it’s just funny. sorry to all the fic writers who have to find a way to justify Pearl not noticing/remembering the eye of ender situation. somehow simultaneously down bad and horrible at remembering what Gem’s done

like i said, the superhero AU stocks are skyrocketing… i dont do superhero AUs that much but if i were to spitball one rn it would be interesting to explore both superheroes Gem and Pearl, who aren’t on the same team/agency but know of each other and have this ongoing rivalry, where their powers are both useful in intel gathering (Gem by projecting and Pearl by flying nearby and listening in on conversations, though Gem’s probably better at it), but they’re also fighting villains on the field, and Pearl’s ability gives her an advantage in combat, while Gem makes up for it with her on duelling expertise

and yeah. maybe sometimes Pearl would fly by and spot Gem using her powers by herself. and maybe Pearl would hover around the area just to make sure nothing happens to her while she’s out of it… she doesn’t really know how Gem’s powers work in its entirety, but better safe than sorry, right?

(one time Gem finds out that Pearl is watching over her body while she’s astral projecting, and she decides to scare the ever living hell out of Pearl by suddenly jumping back into her body with no warning— Pearl nearly falls off a building with how much of a spook that gave her and Gem has never let that go since)

[jadecantcreate]

curse of strahdanya has officially taken over my brain! alongside arcane…season two is SO GOOD SO FARR please go watch it if you haven’t. holy shit yall it does not disappoint

spoilers for up to and the entirety of episode 7 of cos — ill mainly be talking about character dynamics (mostly shepnax) but major events and plot developments will be explicitly discussed as well, so, if you’re not there yet, please don’t keep reading (getting spoilered for this stuff is not worth it i promise)

im sorry in advance. im not even done writing everything yet and its already very long

the way i see it, episode 7 is a major turning point for not only the whole story but inter-party relationships as well. i’ll be organizing this a little bit so it’s less text-wall-y (hopefully)

shepherd

there’s the raven mother they find nailed to the wall — the culprit being strahdanya. this definitely fueled the hate that all of the party had for her, but especially shepherd. he literally screams out in anguish and, later, calls strahdanya a coward and bitch — something we’ve never seen shepherd do before.* i think the events in the beginning of ep 7 is what really cemented his and the party’s objective: destroy strahdanya. before, i sensed some kind of ‘wiggle room’: the party would be willing to work with her a bit, though only for a very short amount of time and would probably backstab her. but after witnessing all that? strahdanya is irredeemably evil, not worthy of consideration / sympathy / courtesy, and i think it finally fully dawned on them all

*i also love how much raw emotion shepherd expresses throughout the campaign. the rest of the party has their moments too (i can immediately think of kana and victoria, but im not remembering any significant ones for clayton or sarnax though i know they exist), but shepherd consistently reacts to the hellhole that is barovia in such a genuine way that it grounds the whole narrative and, to me, makes barovia that much more horrifying. in other stories or discussions of stories ive seen like this (and even in the cos party itself), the characters are largely untouched by the horrors that occur in such a setting. which, fit the characters/purpose as it might, distances the audience at least a tiny bit from the happenings of the narrative. but when you have an otherwise grounded, calm, capable individual like shepherd crack? that’s when it really hits you i think. like, the whole thing with sarnax reviving the mother? shepherd being so relieved and overcome with a multitude of feelings that his voice cracks as he holds back tears, begging the mother to rest and not do any work? it made me feel the same way, and it really drove home how wonderful this act is and how dire their situation is. shepherd (and andy by extension!) have drawn the most emotion out of me in my watch, and its possibly the main reason i enjoy his character so much

him being seemingly chosen by the silver dragon (which, again, another turning point) is very compelling in a narrative sense too because shepherd doesnt want power, he doesn’t seem to even like the idea of leading (or at least being pushed into a position of leadership). i’ll touch on it later in the shepherd and sarnax segment (if i dont forget lol, my mind is running wild while i write this)

victoria

i think strahd’s infatuation with her and the physical effects it has (kana’s cleansing ritual failing because the water becomes blood as it touches victoria) is so interesting, especially her inner conflict with her heritage and wickedness (and the distrust it sows between her and the party, at least initially)

i really enjoyed how victoria was vulnerable with kana, and how kana handled it with such care and compassion. this is also a turning point, i think, when it comes their relationship: kana promises to protect victoria, and victoria promises to fight the darkness within her; they definitely got closer after that, and their bond was deepened. i dont imagine strahd would be very happy about victoria not being enamored by her and being helped by her party, though it’s very possible that she enjoys ‘the chase’ (for the lack of a better term)

when they came across the dusk elf in the order of the silver dragon estate-thing, it’s a pretty clear parallel to victoria given her appearance, heritage, and reason for being in barovia. i could be very very wrong about this but its heavily implied victoria’s elf half is a dusk elf, which makes sense considering, again, that she’s in barovia to learn about her lineage and that dusk elves are the only elves mentioned so far. i think this is the first time she’s genuinely made progress in her goal

sarnax

sarnax’s identity revolves around gherix: his whole life is devoted to the fire lord; he’s used to communing with and praying to his god. it’s likely what kept him going in such a terrible place with such terrible odds of survival, let alone returning (which he’s convinced he will not). so when strahdanya intercepted the augury spell he was so clearly shaken. it was one of the few moments, if not the only one, where sarnax was in genuine, utter panic — the whole time shepherd repeatedly asked him if he was alright and he didn’t seem to hear those words at all. suddenly he learned that strahdanya could damage or possibly sever his connection to his god, the being his life is centered around. (kana’s comment certainly didn’t help)

but what happens after — the augury spell reading ‘weal’ and sarnax being able to revive the mother — strengthens his faith. it was tested, but he prevailed. i think he was also filled with a newfound sense of purpose, knowing that, no matter what strahd does, his god considers him worthy enough

about him and kana: episode 7 is the culmination of their slow development towards not only tolerating each other’s beliefs but to understand and embrace them, specifically with kana saying that she trusts in sarnax and his god

sarnax and shepherd

the conversation between them was my favorite moment in this episode by far. there are so many layers,

shepherd so clearly doesnt want to embody his namesake and be a leader, but the silver dragon and someone he trusts so much — sarnax — and fate itself push him in that direction, so he just does. shepherd says:

“sarnax don’t”

“no why would you-“

“why- why- why would you put this on me, why?”

“how can you say that?”

“this was just a job. i mean this was just to make sure we all got here and back safely…how did this happen?”

then, later…

“alright, alright i…okay. i…dont know what to say”

“alright…alright…okay, understood”

“sure, sure. lead the way” and, after sarnax says “no, shepherd. you lead the way, i will light the path,” “…fine.”

essentially, he sucks it up. and that’s interesting to me since shepherd shows so much emotion, so it’s clearly not a ‘men dont cry’-type ideology thing. i think it’s probably related to his desire to do good, and as well as the good doc. after all, the doc gave him his virtue name: shepherd. it only makes sense that he would be written by fate as one: a person who guides the lost through the darkness. so that’s my guess as to why he so readily accepts this burden

i think sarnax being the one to say this also played a role in it^. shepherd witnessed firsthand the power of gherix and sarnax’s wisdom, so much so that he prayed to gherix. shepherd, who was originally averse to anything religious, prayed. and i also think sarnax is shepherd’s only true friend in the party. his relationship with clayton, victoria, and kana feels like professional acquaintances — they’re comfortable with each other and certainly growing closer, but he seeks out sarnax (and sarnax does too) and both have called the other a friend or good friend, on more than one occasion for shepherd and at least one for sarnax. it’s obvious that shepherd values what sarnax has to say and cares for him.

because of that, sarnax saying that he will die in barovia (specifically that he doesn’t “believe [he has] a place back in avantris” and that “whatever it is that [they] achieve here will be [his] end” because he has “seen it in the flames”) and shepherd’s reaction hits even harder for me.

shepherd says “i’m not gonna leave you. i’m not gonna leave anyone.”

and sarnax replies “then it will be i that leaves you.”

it’s the shortest exchange, but it holds so much weight. sarnax has accepted his fate, possibly long before this. but when before sarnax took charge and led the group, shining his light, he steps back, realizing shepherd is the one who (he thinks) fits that role. he still guides, but he doesn’t lead, and he believes shepherd should. but shepherd doesn’t. shepherd’s used to following orders, as we see so many times with him and clayton (but also him and sarnax), and struggles to make decisions for the group — when they ask him where they should go, shepherd seemingly blanks and he just picks whatever as fast as he can (to get the pressure off him, i assume). and despite this, shepherd’s line reinforces what sarnax thinks: a good shepherd doesn’t leave his sheep behind, he goes after and, well, shepherds them.

and honestly the whole relationship between shepherd and sarnax. them being regarded as monsters by others, being dehumanized by, for example, vascha [?] thinking shepherd is a devil and esmeralda calling sarnax shepherd’s pet ->

shepherd answers, understably upset, “he’s not my pet, he’s a person!” i figured sarnax felt the same way, but when he was praying to gherix, he referred to shepherd as “a vessel for [gherix’s] wrath.” so that raised a question to me: does sarnax truly care for shepherd (in the way shepherd does), or does he view him as a tool? it’s interesting to think about. it could be him truly caring about shepherd and seeing him as a capable person who will have a great role in his god’s plans which, i imagine, is among the highest of honors — the first possibility in the question, but filtered through the lens of sarnax’s religious perspective (which i think is the most likely and most compelling)

and there’s the parallel with them being connected to gold and silver dragons: different, but the same. (unrelated tangent but there’s also a very interesting parallel between shepherd being chosen by the silver dragon [‘good’] and victoria being chosen by strahdanya [‘bad’])

sarnax saying “silver will unite with gold” is, on the surface, about the two dragon-gods involved in the story. but i think, on a deeper and probably unintended level, it also applies to shepherd and sarnax growing closer (as they have been since the prologue, following in the footsteps of their respective dragons, and shepherd connecting the two dragons by his faith in gherix and affinity to the silver dragon.

i think that’s everything! hopefully i wont post this and immediately remember something i didn’t mention

thank you for reading all of this <33

[bonaesperanza]

Rewatching Peaky Blinders in its entirety for the first time since like 2017 and

a) wow, the early episodes are so overly mannered, the first one in particular feels very style over substance. Does this continue? To be quite frank, I don't remember

b) Lizzie's introduction is WILD in retrospective when you know what will happen

c) man it's really obvious Tommy and Grace wouldn't have worked out long term even if she'd survived - 90% of their relationship development happens under false pretenses and it's really clear that Tommy is infatuated with the idea that she's selling to him and not with her as who she is

d) I really don't understand why the crossover between PB fandom and Lymond fandom isn't greater - there's so many similar things? The operatic tone of it, the clever scheming, the uncommunicative magnificent bastard with PTSD, the protagonist trying to solve his problems with his magic dick that convinces femme fatale women to get on his side, "we're all whores, we just sell different parts of ourselves", the complex family and especially sibling relationships, the narrative starting out as competence porn and slowly shifting more and more of its focus on the lead's self-destructive mental health issues?

e) is Tommy/Freddie a Thing in fandom? Because for all of Freddie's insistence that he loves Ada, it really feels like he's with her to provoke Tommy or send a message to him, and that it's Tommy he's fixated on

[jjs-brainrot]

And finished Girls band Cry.

Is it the best band anime of all time? Yes. Is it up there with stuff from Studio Orange as one of the best 3DCG anime? Yes. Is it absolutely my contender for anime of the season? Hell yes!

It's honestly been a long time since I've seen a completely original series just keep up such a consistently high production value and writing quality through out its run time. Like what ever you choose for the "weakest" episode would still basically be the highlight episode in any other anime.

The CGI genuinely might be some of the most expressive and fluid I've seen in a 3DCG anime. Like not even just in terms of framerate or character movement, I mean every scene each character has so much detailed and intricate facial and body language going on at every moment. It doesn't translate well into screenshots but it genuinely feels like you can just get how a character is feeling and what their personality is like in any given scene based purely on body language a lone which is incredibly impressive.

Writing-wise, it's hit after hit after hit. While some episodes are higher then others, there's never a moment where the series isn't doing everything in it's power to hit the emotional beats it's wanting to hit. The writing also just fully commits to feeling just really well grounded? Like nothing feels too out of left field or unearned and it just feels like a pretty natural story about a band coming together to try to make it in the modern music scene.

The entirety of the main cast is just fantastic.

Nina is easily going up there as one of my all time favorite protags. She's brash, goofy, has a sense of justice she never strays from even when it actively does her harm, she's angry af and she genuinely acts like how a teenager who's been though some shit would act. She's a flawed person (an outright hypocrite at times even) but that's what makes her such a relatable character.

Momoka comes across as a hot headed but confident rocker girl, but the reality is she's a bit of a coward. She sees herself as a complete failure and the only reason she hasn't already run away is the angry little hedgehog girl, whom she sees so much of her younger self in (even if a lot of that might be projection), keeps stopping her at every turn.

Subaru: the actress, the liar, the goofball, the hedgehog wrestler. So much of her personality is being as blatantly fake as fuck as she can every scene before someone calls her out on it. And so much of her fakeness just crumbles anytime she has to deal with her bandmate's antics (Nina especially) to the point that she can just be herself around them. She also has the funnest facial expressions and body language. She just has to be extra in every scene she's in.

Tomo and Rupa did feel like they got a little bit shafted in the series if I'm honest. A lot of that is because they really didn't get to get much screen time until the half way point though the fact that the series is much more focused on Nina and Momoka's storyline so the other three got less focus. Tomo tended to act like the band's straight man but she def got her own goofy moments. Rupa is the friend mom of the band. She does have the most depressing backstory but she always has to keep the mood lively (especially if there's beer involved).

The Music in GBC is absolutely fantastic. If Bocchi the Rock! is an homage to the current J-Rock scene, referencing bands like Asian Kung-Fu Generation, Tricot and 88Kasyo Junrei, Girls Band Cry is much more focused on paying homages to J-Rock from the 90s and 2000s, referencing bands like Yura Yura Teikoku, Gingnangboyz, Spitz and Eastern Youth.

Togenashi Togeari themselves might be my all time favorite J-Rock band now. Their music just absolutely hits and I just can't stop obsessing over them. What's particularly wild is that the VAs/musicians comprising Togenashi Togeari are all first time VAs who were all hired through an audition process that was specifically looking for women who never sung in public, played in a band, or played rock before. The series is just that committed to being grounded that it forms a band of nobody's who didn't know about each other before becoming a band to play a band of nobody's who didn't know about each other before becoming a band.

So anyways, I've rambling for far too long. Girls band Cry is amazing, you should all watch it in whatever way you can and then listen to all of TogeToge's songs on endless repeat like me.

[box953]

I followed you recently and would love to hear all your W359 opinions!! Which episode is your favorite? Which side character do you wish we saw more of? What's your favorite silly moment? Which is your favorite of the mini episodes or the mission mishaps?

You obviously don't have to answer any/all of these but I'm sitting here with my listening ears on for your opinions!!!

-Favorite episode is Happy Endings. Ive talked one million times about how hilbert and Lovelace are my favorite characters both separately and as a duo. This episode is literally everything i could want. They make me sick. I spent an entire afternoon live-blogging my thoughts about it in a discord server. If no one is talking about Isabel Lovelace and Alexander Hilbert i am dead.

-i dont know if she counts as a side character but? I really wish we could’ve gotten more Maxwell before she died. I find her really charming, but lacking in much substance as her own character. I love her relationships with Jacobi and Hera but we just dont get that much about her on her own, which is wild because i feel like we get that with just about every other character on the Hephaestus and in the si-5. Yes all the other characters have relationships that greatly define them but i feel like they can still be observed independently and i have a hard time feeling like you can do that with Maxwell. And then she dies so theres really not much left for her and what we do see is again, how her relationships affected Jacobi and Hera post death.

I like her very much!!! Which is why i wish she could’ve had more going for her.

-I think the entirety of the funzo’s ep was a great silly moment. I lost it when hilbert showed up to referee the game.

-Variations on a Theme is my favorite mini episode also. Again because i just really like Lovelace. I just cant not be so fucking torn up about her relationship with the Hephaestus station. Its home and no its not. Ugh. Another thing ive talked about over and over im sure and something i will keep talking about until I’m blue in the face.

[tetsunabouquet]

Alright, I've been rewatching MLB for the shitshow it is for my hopes with the upcoming S6. I really hope Astruc finaly taking a backseat will save the potential of this show because so many episodes since S3 have been hot garbage. Which is why I want to rant about one of the S5 episodes because it needs to be said about my best girl Juleka: HELLO?! That record label dude is so stupid! He wants to milk out Luka for nepo baby reasons, but Juleka is also right there! If he had just even tried to pay attention to her and didn't had a trash taste in music, he would have realized she's also a potential nepo baby cashcow. Not only that but if he paid attention, he would also have realized their absent keyboard player is Adrien Agreste! Kitty Section literally has 3 nepo babies in their line-up and they're actually talented! How often do you find something like that in the wild?! If Bob had taste as well as intelligence, he would have known Kitty Section was worth keeping in its entirety because who in-universe wouldn't be interested in the band of Jagged Stone's two children and Gabriel Agreste's son? With Juleka and Rose being a couple, there's already shipping material in the band itself and potential for a loyal sapphic following. Plus, there is Adrien's past as a model. Sure, he doesn't wants to be one anymore but hello? My girl Juleka? She stated she wanted to be a model in earlier seasons and let's be honest, Adrien is kind enough to be able to be manipulated back into modelling, at least a couple of sessions for the sake of propelling Juleka's career as a model. That's more of a short-term strategy, but it would work and once that's over you have Juleka's modeling career to make profit off! That's what I would have done if I had been Bob. I hope Juleka finally gets some appreciation in S6.

[adarkrainbow]

Neverafter notes (1)

I am re-doing my Dimension 20: Neverafter notes. However I will go in a slightly different direction – since not many people are interested in these posts, and I do them mostly for me anyway, I’ll go with a… drier listing style I guess? Here my notes covering the three first episodes – aka the first arc of the season – aka the entirety of what we have with the first version of the Neverafter multiverse. Episode 1, The Time of Shadows. Episode 2, Mirror, Mirror. Episode 3, No Place for a Prince or Princess.

THE CHILDREN OF DESTINY:

Rosamund du Prix is Sleeping Beauty. More precisely she is a take on Disney’s Aurora – between her backstory involving three good fairies and a wicked one (the good fairies being recognizable by their colors, the third being dressed in blue) and the character herself being played like your “typical Disney princess cliché” (and twisted around – the whole thing of animal handling and survival in the wood being a D&D Ranger, or how her gifts of beauty and grace are about maintaining good-looks despite living in the wild and having agility bonus). There’s however some brothers Grimm points thrown into it all – such as the focus on “briars” and how the thorns killed all the princes that tried to reach

Gerard of Greenleigh is The Frog Prince (aka the popular culture take on the brothers Grimm fairytale “The Frog King”). Frog humanoid= D&D Hobgoblin.

Pib is Puss in Boots. From the French fairytale of Charles Perrault. Talking cat scoundrel = D&D’s Tabaxi Rogue. By episode 3, Alphonse (the mule from the original fairytale) turns out to be an actual talking animal too and to still be around the Neverafter.

Pinocchio is… well Pinocchio. Talking puppet = D&D’s Warforged. Is a Warlock, with his broken nose as his wizard’s staff and the Stepmother as his patron.

Timothy “Mother” Goose. Mother Goose. Famous figure-of-speech/title expression thanks to Perrault, but only became its own character in England, where she became the British “mascot” for nursery rhymes and fairy tales. Even got a nursery rhyme of her own, “Old Mother Goose and her son Jack”, of which Timothy as a character derives from. The Jack from this nursery rhyme is also the Jack of the game which is ALSO the “Jack be nimble” rhyme. Timothy’s husband, Henry Hubbard, is also from the nursery rhyme world – “Old Mother Hubbard”. Storyteller witch and caretaker = D&D’s Bard.

Ylfa Snorgelsson. Is Little Red Riding Hood: the Perrault version (since there was no Huntsman or Woodsman to save her, and she was “eaten” in the end – more here bitten and turned into a werewolf), but with touches and dashes of the Grimm version (the axe evoking the Woodsman, the whole thing about “not straying from the path”). Turning Little Red Riding Hood into a werewolf story has been made very popular thanks to the first influential work of fiction who did it: Angela Carter’s Gothic collection “The Bloody Chamber” which contains three short stories interweaving werewolves and Little Red Riding Hood (The Werewolf, The Company of Wolves, Wolf-Alice). These three tales were mixed in the cult classic movie “The Company of Wolves”, which added to Carter’s plotlines an exploration of the symbolic puberty of a young girl – something that is also explored in how Ylfa’s lycantrophy is treated. Werewolf Little Red still a popular take (the 2011 movie).

SOURCES OF INFLUENCE FOR THIS SEASON:

Into the Woods. Definitively. They make it very obvious. The giants being one of the main threats crushing everything ; the way the briars talked to Rosamund about keeping her safe (the Witch’s “Stay with me”), how Brennan and the gang repeat “Into the woods” in episode 2.

The Book of Lost Things – very possible. The Time of Shadows works so much like how there’s this cyclical corruption of the fairytale world in this novel. And both are about a magical quest to restore the land centered around a magical book supposedly containing all of the answers…

Fables. Maybe? I have never seen anywhere else the idea of “The de-transformed prince slowly turns back to his cursed form as the love of the princess wanes” (Gerard and Elodie, Beast and Beauty). Also the use of “living archetypes” within a collective fairytale world – something that Fables also became very famous for. Plus the Snow Queen being shown as an antagonist and an invading force.

Guillermo del Toro’s Pan Labyrinth. Maybe? The moment of “let’s all touch the book” in episode 2, especially when some drawings started appearing out of blood, reminded me of the magic book of this movie. Plus, it is a classic of “dark fairytale” movies, or “fairytale horror” if you prefer.

Terry Pratchett’s Witches Abroad. Almost certain, if not definitively. The entire sequence of Rosamund meeting the traumatized mice and talking to them reuses almost word for word the ideas that Pratchett brought in his novel about animals in fairytales being driven mad at being forced at acting humans. The entire thing of the Fairy Godmother and her transformed minions seems pulled out straight of the “fairytale horror” of this novel and of Genua’s fairy godmother tyrannical rule.

Shrek. Probably? After all it is the most famous piece of American media to deal with fairytales outside of the Disney movies… At least it is frequently referenced by the players.

FAIRYTALE CLICHES PLAYED AROUND WITH:

# “Happily ever after”. What happens once the fairytale ending is reach. The case of Elodie and Gerard is an especially fascinating case of exploring the metaphysical and human consequences of this idea. Elodie can’t stand the feeling that her life is supposed to end after her marriage, Gerard’s belief in happily ever after makes him passive and delusional, and the logical consequences of such a strange case of “meet-and-match” lead to the lovers with incompatible desires and personalities to fall apart. Logical consequences also evoked with Stephan, Pib’s owner, an illiterate miller son will have a hard time passing off as royal nobility.

# Magical things happening to royals naturally.

# “Do not stray from the path”. Pretty much unique to Ylfa’s fairytale, but still heavily discussed and played around (The important thing is that we stray together ; is it still straying from the path if a magical one opened in the woods).

# Bandlebridge is tricked by the old rule of “You must grant every demand of the magical being to get your reward”.

# Not a fairytale trope, but I love how the idea of “fireside stories” is reinvented with this magical silvery log that wards off the camp from “goblins and boggarts” as long as someone tells a story as it burns. Is it a real D&D item?

# The “dark forest” motif. Of course there is the “Black Wood” of Grimmweir… Though it is said to be but one of the several “primeval forests” filled with dangers on this continent. Averted with Rosamund’s ranger talents which turn a deadly travel into a pleasant stroll by episode 2.

# Some characters not having names in fairytales (The Stepmother lost her name, nobody can remember it).

# Emily asking to specify if it is “mother blood, stepmother blood, godmother blood, grandmother blood” is a good joke on how fairytale trolls and giants can somehow smell very specific types of blood “Smells like Christian blood”, “Smells like an Englishman’s blood”.

"Once upon a time". The answer to the total party kill that Ylfa gets from the Big Bad Wolf - "the end of the story" embodied revealing to her the "wicked beings" are all motivated by preventing the "turning of the pages" - and thus that the book isn't here to "restore" the world by returning into the past. It isn't about clinging to what once was, it is about moving forward and telling new tales - not returning to the happy ending as the Fairies obsess over but rather move forard to a new "Once upon a time..."

KINGDOMS AND HOW THEY FELL

# Rêverie. Sleeping Beauty’s kingdom (fitting name). Fell due to the Sleeping Beauty curse, as the briars overtook everything – because a thorny wilderness.

# Greenleigh. The Frog Prince’s kingdom. Fell due to a war as the Snow Queen’s armies invaded.

# Snowhold. The Snow Queen’s kingdom. Invaded Greenleigh for unknown reasons.

# Marienne. Puss in Boots’ kingdom. Fell to giants that crushed everything. It is unclear why, but given later episodes evoke the Ogre of Carabas as the giants’ little brother, it might be revenge. Also contains Amanti, Pinocchio and Gepetto’s village – so Marienne seems also to be the main country of Pinocchio’s adventures.

# The Lullaby Lands. As the name indicates, the place of all nursery rhymes. Not a kingdom as it has no central government and is more of a collection of autonomous communities – which already is a sign that it does not “fit” into the “Grimmweir” continent and was added to this fairytale world where everything is a kingdom. Pottingham is the village of Mother Goose and Ylfa – making it also the village of “Little Red Riding Hood”. Hasn’t much fell, but has known all sorts of horrifying manifestations (the Gander, the Wolf) ending in death (turned to skeleton, house and family blown away) plus recurring bad weather and persistent rain causing flooding.

# Jubilee = realm of Old King Cole. Fell to a war, though the details are unspecified. Given Jubilee was right next to Greenleigh it might have been the same war launched by the Snow Queen.

# Shoeberg = the Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe. A “festering boil” and one of the last thriving places in the Neverafter.

# Tapestry. Snow-White’s kingdom. Fell for unknown reason. See the Magic Mirror entry.

# Elegy. Cinderella’s realm. Also fell for unknown reasons – though we do know Cinderella’s hometown and the area around it “fell” due to the insanity and the spells of the undead Fairy Godmother. One of the symptoms of this kingdom falling is that the “courts of the sun and the moon” seem in disarray or conflict, leading to a very bizarre sky which is not in day nor night, and where the sun shines in a purple starry twilight (might be an Alice Through the Looking Glass reference – The Walrus and the Carpenter). Had a “burgeoning” middle-class of merchants, traders, artisans and craftsmen to which Cinderella’s father belonged, and the hunt of the prince with the shoe became the hot-gossip of neighboring royals (such as Gerard).

FAIRIES TALK

# So we have five confirmed fairies in this version of the Neverafter, plus a possible sixth one, and an ambiguous seventh. Rosamund had three good fairy godmothers – given the third one has a blue dress, and she asks about the undead fairy’s dress-color to identify her, we can assume going by the Disney code these fairies were the Red Fairy, Green Fairy and Blue Fairy. Plus the Wicked Fairy, dressed in black – who also was the Wicked Fairy involved in Pinocchio’s return-to-being-a-puppet as she came to just… kill all the fathers of Amanti I guess? She is clearly meant to be the archetypal “wicked fairy” (plus Disney’s Maleficent).

# The Fairy Godmother of Cinderella is stated to not be the same as the fairies of Rosamund’s story. Purple gown. Driven mad as Cinderella’s shard caused her to be stuck in a state “neither alive nor dead”, constantly bleeding out both blood and magic. Started turning every item she could meet into half-servants (and even before she was said to have gone on a spree of forcing people to fall in love and having animals turned into humans). Kept repeating Cinderella’s storyline to various degrees (help them win the “Mayfair queen”). The same way Rosamund’s fairies are a take on Disney’s fairies in “Sleeping Beauty”, this fairy is very clearly Disney’s Cinderella godmother (she even says her magical line) ; interestingly her having a crown on the head seems to be a nod to the enchantress/fairy of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, especially since the description of her minions (such as a bouncing armoire) are very clearly reminiscent of the sentient furniture in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. Episode 3 confirms that she was the fairy who turned Gerard into a frog when he was a little boy to make him “learn manners” as she thought he was “rude” – again reinforces my theory that she has “Disney’s enchantress from Beauty and the Beast” vibes.

# The Sugarplum Fairy was possibly the sixth fairy of this world. When Herr Drosselmeyer turned into text, there were references to “sugarplums” and “a fairy”. If he had stayed longer perhaps we would have met her.

# The ambiguous seventh is the Fairy with Turquoise Hair. She is present and involved in Pinocchio’s backstory, as I write this I can’t recall if she is meant to be the same as the “Blue Fairy”. If not this makes her the sixth or seventh fairy of this world.

# Fairy blood smells like cinnamon, spice, sparks and ambers.

# The Fairy Godmother’s comment that “Magic was never yours, it is ours”: fairy monopole on magic?

MORE CULTURAL REFERENCES

# The Gander is the inversion of the traditional Mother Goose imagery + a twisted take on the “Goose Laying Golden Eggs” motif + a reinvention of the trope of the genie granting you three wishes, but in a horrifying and/or deadly way. Literal embodiment of the Time of Shadows as we will later learn, and not just one spirit among it (as such parallels The Crooked Man from The Book of Lost Things – also an evil wish-granter). Tumblr user lostsometime evoked how the Gander using the verb “wander” while taunting Timothy might be a reference to “Goosey Goosey Gander”.

# It will later be confirmed but we know here (especially from how Ylfa gains the power to blow away with her breath people and houses) that the Wolf is both the one from Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs (British fairytale, Joseph Jacobs).

# The town of Shoeberg and the family who runs it, led by a 107 matriarch, is from the nursery rhyme “There was an old woman who lived in a shoe”.

# What was the Chandling Caravan/Company named after? The Rub-a-Dub-Dub/Three Men in a Tub nursery rhyme, because “chandler” is candle-making… Or maybe the old British children song “Tommy kept a chandler’s shop”? Or maybe none of this and I’m reading too much. The leader of the Caravan is of course from “The Little Red Hen” story (American “fable”, from Mary Mapes Dodge).

# Old King Cole = the nursery rhyme of the same name.

# Herr Drosselmeyer (“magician, clockmaker and godfather”) and the characters surrounding him are, of course, from “The Nutcracker” ballet. The Nutcracker himself is evoked in various ways as someone Drosselmeyer pursues: at first he is presented as a “clockwork man” and one of the magical creations of Drosselmeyer that got away and run off on its own ; later he is revealed to be Drosselmeyer’s godson: “driven to rash behavior by grief” he is now working on a revenge that worries Drosselmeyer. As he dissolves into text, there are mentions of the Sugarplum Fairy and the Mice King, “or King of Rats with seven heads”. Is the alternation “Mice King/King of Rats” important? If this season is indeed inspired by Pratchett’s fairytale twists, then it might have leaned into something akin to “The Amazing Maurice”, where the myth of the “rat-king” was mixed with the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Maybe the same here? Herr Drosselmeyer also seems to have been more than just a Nutcracker character… Everybody pointed out that him driving around in a teapot pulled by a giant rabbit, and having a magic mirror in his collection, gave off strong Alice vibes (plus there is a clock with a cat symbol on it that stops time… Cheshire Cat and Mad Hatter?). I also thought about how it was insisted that he turned into an owl upon touching the book, and his comment that he was not a “kind man” before – given he seems to come from a world of fairytale ballet (and has strong link to birds, he captures the ostrich) maybe Von Rothbart from The Swan Lake? The character of Drosselmeyer and the Swan Lake plot had already been mixed in another fairytale-deconstruction work: the Princess Tutu anime. Also there is an insistence upon “winter time” in his “dissolving text”: maybe Snow Queen ties?

# The Magic Mirror was first suspected to be the one used by the Snow Queen – due to the low temperature around it, Zach even asked if it was snowing near the mirror. However it is revealed to be the mirror of the evil queen from Snow-White, answering questions if asked the rhyme (“Mirror, mirror, leaning against a wall”). Very likely created by the dwarves of the kingdom, since Tapestry is known outside of its fine crafting to be a place of magical items created through “spell-craft” and “enchantments” by dwarves. Also interestingly, the Mirror seems to encourage people to ambition (“do you want to be the wisest, richest, fairest in the land?”) and wants to be returned to “her”. Given it asked Pinocchio, it seems the Mirror wants to return to the “evil queen” (absorbed/covered by the Stepmother).

# Cinderella. Her story went wrong when she returned to investigate what her Stepmother did to her step-sisters and what happened to her. Fairy Godmother tried to force her to return to the castle and her prince and ignore all that. She stabbed her with a broken heel of her glass slipper, turned glass spear ; now is a warrior dressed in a “crystalline glass armor” and part of the “Sisters”. Her backstory is basically Disney’s plotline (the Fairy Godmother even uses the Disney Godmother magical line) but with elements of the Grimm version added (the sisters cutting off toe and heel).

# The Stepmother started out as Cinderella’s stepmother before… becoming all wrong. As we will learn later she became the “Stepmother” archetype, but so far all we know is that she used to be Cinderella’s human stepmother, did some foul magic by devouring her daughters (ogress motif), and then became this otherworldly spirit serving as Pinocchio’s stepmother. Plus, has ties (yet unknown) to Snow-White’s witch-queen of a stepmom. (silhouette in the door to check), and of course when Pinocchio uses her magic she manifests as a puppet-master using him as a puppet to enact her revenge against Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother (episode 3).

OTHER NOTES

# The list of threats for the Time of Shadows is given as “giants, witches, wizards, and creatures of the sea”. We meet all of them except for the wizards. Maybe it was something up Herr Drosselmeyer’s plotline?

# Time of Shadows is a cosmic/metaphorical storm AND a literal set of storms that cause bad weather everything (the pouring rains causing flooding in Pottingham is described by episode 1). Got huge King Lear vibes from this – especially since King Lear is THE fairytale-play of Shakespeare.

# The book is clearly about restoring the Neverafter into its peaceful, happy, “regular” state from before the Time of Shadows, however it is shown to work differently for the different types of stories it is confronted with. The book “activates” itself by nursery rhyme-characters (creates sounds as Old King Cole speaks, makes Timothy tingle upon hearing about the Old Woman who lived in a shoe) and ultimately absorbs them ; with fairy tales-characters it seems to mostly show them *where* their story got broken (Rosamund sees her flickering prince, as her prince did not come ; Pinocchio sees the island of toys which is a big part of the adventure ; Ylfa sees the wolf in the wood which is also the point of her story switching). With nursery rhyme characters it just restores them back to their original state and sends them back to a nursery rhyme world (makes sense as we learn later how the nursery rhyme universe was forced into the Neverafter) ; but it needs in the fairytale side of things an “early part of the world that was broken off” in the shape of specific items that it “hungers” for. All items reflecting famous stories, and tied to the Princesses, but warped in the Time of Shadows. Two are confirmed: Cinderella’s glass slipper, turned into a broken shard of glass then glass spear ; and Elodie’s golden ball, turned into golden mace in the times of war.

# Greenleigh has “wise women” in charge of medicine, tonic and other products of the sort. Grimm fairytale nod.

# Here “Carabas” was the title of the ogre-lord before Pib can in and made Stephan a Marquis.

# Gerard and Rosamund’s families are closely related: just a joke, but they are still cousins “three different times”.

# Trollsons are a thing in this world, a name for descendants of trolls (pun on “son”, as the Nordic suffix).

# Lord Bandlebridge’s comment, while a classist statement, confirms that witches, fairies and ogres have an habit of disguising themselves as beggars.

# We never get to know who the “young teenage girl” of the caravans was.

# We’ll see if the whole witch system in the Neverafter is clarified. Because we have your usual, random, human witch living in their tiny corner of the world and performing humble magic (Timothy Goose), and we know that later there are big, evil, powerful witches of multiversal scope. So… I’ll keep this for later episodes.

# Has Drosselmeyer’s giant rabbit’s name any signification? Eidelgrin? Probably not…

[karaloza]

What If They Rebooted the Zelda Cartoon?

I recently binged the entirety of the 1980s Legend of Zelda cartoon on YouTube over the course of an evening. It's basically as cringey as I remember, though there are the occasional genuinely funny zingers. The thing is, it was entirely standard for cartoon series in the 80s--cheap animation, low-effort, repetitive writing, so episodic that you could play the episodes in any order and it would still make just as much sense (in fact, we suspect that the last two episodes were swapped for airing), and 100% comedy with no actual tension or real stakes. The amazing thing is that the production team clearly cared about what they were making--they just didn't have the resources or freedom to make it well.

So what if someone tried again, now, with another ~35 years of Zelda lore to draw on for material AND the corresponding advancement in the medium of TV animation? Think of the possibilities!

I'm envisioning not the same tone as the original, but the equivalent tone for this decade--still generous with the humor, but with genuine stakes and a more serialized story line. Also less blatantly horny--Link constantly demanding kisses from Zelda is both annoyingly repetitive and makes him look like a creeper by modern standards. There are better ways to portray teenagers who are into each other but too proud to show vulnerability and too stubborn to admit that they don't know what they're doing.

It would not be Individual Zelda Game(s): The Cartoon, but its own thing that uses ideas from any and all games as appropriate.

Spryte could still be in it, but now she'd have a Navi-like role of identifying monsters for Link (who can be new to the hero business) and spotting for him when he fights them. And she can still have a thing for him...in fact, go ahead and make Link a chick magnet who's too young and inexperienced to know how to handle it gracefully, which is a source of friction between him and Zelda. That gives us ready-made plot complications for characters like Malon, Ruto and/or Mipha, Nabooru, Midna, maybe even Saria.

Three words: Link's Awakening episode. (Or few-episode arc.) Link goes missing during a storm at sea and the action is split between him, navigating Koholint Island, and the rest of the gang back in Hyrule, trying to find him.

We also need an episode introducing Zelda's alter-ego as Sheik. But not "Everyone tells the girl she can't do the thing because she's a girl, so she disguises herself as a boy and does the thing, and then unmasks herself at a dramatic moment and they all eat crow." That sort of thing went out with the 90s. Maybe more of a Breath of the Wild situation where the king insists Zelda needs to spend more time developing her magical princess powers at home and can't go on adventures with Link, so she develops the Sheik persona in order to sneak out.

Link gets to say "Well, excuuuse me, princess!" once in the entire runtime of the series, as a throwback gag.

I could probably keep going, but you get the idea.

[beesmygod]

JJBA PART 5, VENTO AUREO IS THE UNDERBAKED MESS I CAN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT FIXING...PART 2

FIX 2: WHAT DO YOU DO WITH A PROBLEM LIKE GIORNO?

thats the homo photo of my dad

answer: i dont know.

the unfortunate and honest to god truth of the matter is that the protagonist of JJBA part 5, giorno giovanna, fucking sucks.

what if that little shithead from the twilight zone episode "it's a good life" was gay and watched "goodfellas". you might think "wow that sounds great" but, well, somehow it's not.

it is months later and i have been struggling with writing this for a bazillion reasons: i got sick, real life events occurred, i had to work on comic, i died, etc. but the most strenuous reason of all in the end was facing the impenetrable, tangled, and deeply complicated gordian knot that is the little ladybug loving bitch named giorno and not knowing where the fuck to even begin.

i had to think long and hard about how to approach the problem of "giorno giovanna". he is like a diamond of sucking ass: multi-faceted and beautiful in his perfection but is, ultimately, just a stupid fucking rock from the dirt. he completely lacks the innate charisma and personality inherent in previous jojo protagonists AND antagonists; despite having both the joestar AND brando gene pools to pull from, he manages to snag a net total of 0 personality traits. this problem is multiplied 100 fold once he starts actually doing things to move the plot along and the universe repeatedly bends itself like a pretzel in order to gift him undeserved and unrewarding (to us, the audience) win after win after win.

his theme goes hard as hell tho

if you were to ask me what is wrong with giorno, i would have no problem making a long and detailed list of why i want to slap the little cinnamon rolls of his head. i have no idea how to organize that list into a more coherent form of criticism that points at the overarching structural weakness of part 5. part 5 really, really wants you to like and root for giorno. it hinges on it. his victories are explicitly supposed to be emotionally and morally gratifying. they are instead trite and annoying.

for years, YEARS, my only experience with the entirety of part 5 outside of infamous panels and the most basic information about the story, was this incredible, evergreen and laser targeted tweet:

i thought this was a funny shit post. all i knew giorno had some kind of "life creation" power. what i didnt know was:

giorno says this exact line and then turns cars into frogs so that they (the bad guys) cant catch them (they do catch them)

giorno's power IS fucking stupid

i fucking hate him

he should stop using it

abbacchio was right. he was right about everything

how DO you talk about giorno? giorno's blandness permeates any situation he has the misfortune of attending and the parts of the narrative where he's missing for one reason or another are significantly improved by his absence. in comparison with the deuteragonists (bruno bucciarati) and tritagonists (the members of bruno's squad in the mafia family passione), he has all the flavor of a communion wafer. his character arc is non-existent. emotionally, he might as well have just gone to the store and back by the end of the story.

and, look, araki likes to play fast and loose with how powerful a stand is or what its abilities are. im not here to measure power levels or fucking whatever stupid shit people get up to. the more wild and insane he gets with his incredibly "unique" ""understanding"" of science and geometry, i'm 99% on board for. but giorno's stand, gold experience, is whatever the narrative needs it to be at any given time with no consistency. it's OP as hell long before he gets the 11th hour power boost; his stand has the extra trans-dimensional ability to remove any tension from a fight scene. through this, gold requiem can destroy the psyche of the audience, truly making it the most powerful stand of all time.

people used to love to bitch about not understanding how the villain's stand works in this part, but if anyone tells you they understand what the fuck THIS means they're lying to you.

anyway, there is only one solution i can think of when it comes to how to approach this: assess the major story beats in order. i think jumping around in the progression of events to highlight individual flaws in the character will not adequately impart the suffering one feels as an audience member while the narrative yo-yos between being rollicking good fun and being at the mercy of the little 15 year old twink with god mode on.

and so, having made it past koichi's tiny ass role (and his tiny ass) in the story and addressing how we can proceed, we can cover bruno (a genuinely wonderful character), polpo, and the wasted character building opportunity of the piss drinking scene, which vexes and infuriates me to this day. [thinking about the piss scene and getting mad again] ooooh!!!!