#their narrative arcs were planned in advance but probably had a hole (like ���what is cinder hoping to get out of this specifically’)

[bestworstcase]

Anything from Volumes 1-3 that is setup that you don't think is given enough attention or respect for good setup?

Sidenote to this:

Open seat with no person in it + Salem having someone looking for the Choice Relic was hinting at Summer Rose. Did we have anything hinting at her pre Beacon's Fall or just things that she fits given additional context?

regarding summer specifically, while i wouldn’t call them hints per se, there are a handful of beats in v1-3 that smell like foreshadowing to me:

the first is “she was right about you; such arrogance.” – cinder might well be referring to salem here, of course. however. what strikes me about this remark is that arrogance is not a characteristic that salem seems to perceive in ozma; rather she describes him, in her soliloquies and songs, as a self-destructive, deceitful, manipulative fool blinded and trapped by his faith in the old gods. cowardly. fallen from grace. think of what she says to oz in 8.9—look how you’ve diminished, how you’ve lessened yourself—she sees him groveling at the feet of tyrannical monsters and sees debasement.

does it follow for salem to characterize ozpin to cinder as, primarily, arrogant? i’m not convinced it does. but summer rose? well… hm. consider, also, that the full line is “this whole time, right beneath our feet… she was right about you; such arrogance…” <- i think it is more likely than not that “she” is someone inside the brackets of “our,” and in context “our” is either [cinder + ozpin] or [cinder + her associates physically present at beacon].

in the event that “she” is not part of “our” the more naturalistic phrasing is “beneath our feet… salem was right about you” – because “she” otherwise has no antecedent. of course, some allowance here for this to be a narrative choice not to name salem yet, but we’re one (1) episode off from revealing her face and by this point we’ve known for a while that cinder works for someone else, so the choice to drop the name here or in the volume credits is of fairly trivial importance. unless of course cinder isn’t talking about salem.

second: “Oh! We've also stopped some bad guys, too! I guess it's like they say: "like mother, like daughter"! I still wonder why Ozpin let me into the school early…” [laugh track] – obv this part of ruby’s address to summer’s memorial headstone foreshadows ozpin’s conspiracy and team strq’s involvement therein. but it also foreshadows this exchange:

RUBY: We don’t have to kill you to stop you, and we will stop you. SALEM: Your mother said those words to me… she was wrong, too.

and i think it bears pointing out that ruby is wrong here, and later in the volume qrow specifically calls attention to this and lays out why she’s wrong. team rwby didn’t stop the bad guys; they cut off one avenue of attack and cinder circled around from a new direction that took advantage of torchwick’s imprisonment, and this also resulted in the public break between ozpin and ironwood which eroded the cohesion of the inner circle. ergo, ruby thinks she stopped the bad guys but in the long run the consequences of the breach all benefited salem.

looks into the camera like im on the office.

like mother, like daughter!!!

further, that sequence of events ultimately leads to the final confrontation between her and torchwick – wherein he declares “if you can’t beat them, join ’em,” and shortly gets eaten by a grimm right after making it clear that he intends to kill her. torchwick’s death is thematically motivated – a narrative rejection of his cynical every-man-for-himself, dog-eats-dog outlook – but consider that:

summer rose, if she is indeed salem’s willing agent, is certainly at beacon tonight – because she’d be the one who stayed behind to hold the fort.

summer is thus the one salem instructs to “reinforce our numbers at beacon,” meaning the grimm; that instruction only makes sense if the person receiving it can communicate with or command grimm. ergo, summer must have some degree of control over grimm.

ruby is disarmed and on the ground getting beaten by a man who fully intends to kill her, and a grimm swoops down out of nowhere to eliminate him faster than he can blinks. and then… the grimm rears up, roaring at her, and comes down with a sweep of its wings that creates a blast of air that pushes her away. that isn’t aggression!! that’s a defensive threat display!! (the feilong in v4 does the exact same thing – trying to push the boat away). it’s ruby who charges the gryphon, and while it lunges forward in reaction to her charge, all that happens is she gets her feet on its head and pushes off to leap over it, and the grimm goes fucking flying so hard it crashes into the ship’s interior and never emerges. the point being,

math.

it’s plausible that the grimm was drawn to torchwick’s murderous rage. but the way it behaves immediately after it swallows him – that very clear “get away from me please” body language, and ruby -apparently- kicking a grimm the size of a goddamned clydesdale dozens of feet and then through the hull of a literal warship? ruby is strong, but she’s not… that strong. but if the grimm didn’t want to engage her and propelled itself under and past her at the same time as she vaulted off its head? that would explain what happens perfectly – ruby’s kick altered its launch trajectory just enough that it crashed.

minutes later, someone loyal to salem scraped a very badly injured cinder off the top of beacon tower and left ruby alive where qrow would find her. salem’s vested interest in keeping ruby alive is VISIBLE throughout the battle for beacon, and notably include a perfect opportunity to capture her while she’s in a coma atop beacon tower that isn’t taken – suggesting that salem makes her singular attempt to capture ruby solely to reassure cinder that Something is being Done.

and if summer rose has command over grimm and was at beacon that night… the gryphon’s behavior is exactly what i’d expect if all the grimm had marching orders to insure this one girl in particular – the spitting image of their commander – doesn’t come to serious harm. there’s a nonzero chance that gryphon did in fact save ruby On Purpose!

…and that happens in the context of a fight between ruby and the bad guy she thought she stopped (but she was wrong), who joined salem because “if you can’t beat em, join em.” (salem voice) she was wrong, too…

also

<- like mother like daughter. summer had a nevermore’s eye view of the battle for beacon, in this essay i will –

third: this one is something i didn’t really Think About until v9 and specifically the v9 ost dropping, but some of the things cinder says in v2-3 strike me as like – she got that from summer im sure of it. for example, in midnight, cinder’s view of huntsmen is that they’re free, they have power, they can go anywhere and do whatever they want, and rhodes never contradicts this. where did she get “huntsmen and huntresses should conduct themselves with honor and mercy”? who taught her the aspirational moral ideal?

summer rose, maybe.

but in the deeper sense,

where did cinder get the ‘destiny’ conceit? her underlying beliefs about how the world is are a product of her childhood, but the overt framing of fate/destiny isn’t present in midnight; nor has salem ever spoken of destiny and her philosophical views are in many ways a rejection of destiny – salem does not believe in fate, she is the woman who dedicated her life to toppling the gods.

and on close examination this looks like yet another suspiciously summer rose shaped hole!! “you’re special, ruby […] special the way your mom was special […] it was said that those born with silver eyes were destined to lead the life of a warrior.” – in after the fall, ozpin gives coco an entire pep talk whose central conceit is embracing and submitting to the turns of fate – sacrifice “show them gods and deities/blind and keep the people on their knees” & guide my way “you were born to hypnotize them all/they all said their prayers/can you hear me up there?”

cinder, of pyrrha: “people assume she’s fated for victory, when she's really taking fate into her own hands. interesting. add her to the list.” & “it’s not about overpowering the enemy; it’s about taking away what power they have.”

<- that second statement is salem’s strategic doctrine, through and through. but the ‘power’ cinder is talking about here is derived through manipulating the perception of destiny; the self-fulfilling prophecy. the invincible girl cannot be touched because she makes subtle adjustments to insure that no one is able to try. it is pyrrha’s belief in destiny that destroys her, as it destroys ozma. ozpin invokes fate to justify and explain his choices. those born with silver eyes are destined to lead the lives of warriors.

summer rose was destined to live and die fighting the grimm – so the world promised her. maybe she believed, maybe she felt like she had no choice but to accept her prescribed fate. until she met salem, and took fate into her own hands. made a choice. broke the chains. it’s about taking away what power they have, like salem did when she tore the scales from summer’s eyes, like summer did when she refused her destiny and joined hands with the grimm instead.

what does summer rose look like through cinder’s eyes? she was a huntress. she was literally destined to be one of the greatest huntresses in history, a hero, the shining pillar upholding the world order that chose the enslavement of children as a fair price for peace. fate dictated that she be the icon, the idol, the embodiment of the system that brutalized and subjugated cinder – she had every privilege cinder could ever dream of, freedom and security and a home, a loving family – and she chose to walk away.

and if they talked about that like, ever, and specifically if summer talked about that warrior’s destiny as a cage, a curse she had to escape – is it any wonder that cinder would adopt that framing to make sense of what happened to her? if summer rose was fated to stand at the pinnacle, then does it not follow that cinder fall was fated to be ground into the foundations? and likewise, if summer rose can shatter her pedestal and fall from grace, then cinder fall can shatter her chains and rise. summer proves that the idea of destiny is powerful but not inviolate. and it is hollow, it is a lie, a fiction, and that means it can be taken away. revealed as a deception. destroyed.

anyway

to the broader question

i think people really, really do not give the jaundice arc enough credit for the long-term set up it’s doing.

(or the very overt textual statement from THE HISTORY PROFESSOR! placing the blame for the violent radicalization of the white fang squarely on human bigotry and persecution of faunus in general; the white fang arc is clunky and hamstrung by the inadequacy of its vocabulary, but the fandom talking point that the narrative perspective on this subject has “evolved” or “improved” is just. not true. v1 is very emphatically clear that 1. terroristic violence is not activism, 2. ascribing the terroristic violence of a few to an entire minority group to rationalize bigotry is bigoted in and of itself and completely unacceptable, and 3. violent radicalization is created through relentless discrimination and hate, which creates a self-reinforcing circle wherein the justifiable outrage of the persecuted outgroup and the extreme violent reactions provoked by the persecution are distorted into a justification for further persecution by those of the in-group who materially benefit from perpetuating this cycle!!! all of this is explained in an almost afterschool special manner by the main character faunus rights activist and the history professor!!! in volume one!!! what changed is that the writers developed the skill and vocabulary necessary to weave these ideas into their storytelling in a more effective and more cogent way!!! literally begging the rwby fandom to start listening to the actual words the characters say)

ahem. the jaundice arc lays so much of the groundwork for jaune’s and ruby’s character arcs reaching all the way to v9 and undoubtedly beyond; it sets up the first pieces of the ozlem fractal; it foreshadows the white fang arc and sets up blake’s character arc of self-reclamation and figuring out how she wants to use her voice as an activist; it draws attention to the misogynistic cultural norms that define and are defined by the history between ozma and salem; it lays the foundation for the scene in v2 where ozpin questions blake, which hits the way it does because we have the context of anti-faunus harassment occurring openly at ozpin’s school and nobody doing anything about it, and by extension is the first stroke of the salem-faunus connection that is almost certainly the keystone holding the entire narrative together because it is her relation to the faunus that provides the key to decipher the lost fable.

the jaundice arc is a crucial load-bearing pillar that supports the entire narrative and people revile it because nobody in this fandom can be fucking normal about jaune. lmao

[ettawritesnstudies]

18 and 19 for get to know the writer asks!

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

Sanderson influenced a lot of my worldbuilding for Laoche! I don't know what specifically sparked my style for epic political conflicts but starting Storge as a high school sophomore readying dystopia in 2016 English class probably had something to do with it. Fairy tales, and A Wrinkle in Time are the biggest inspirations for my most recent short stories!

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

ahahaha you found my favorite topic, all my narratives are complicated :D I apologize in advance this is going to be long haha

For my outlining process, I wrote up this post so I wouldn't have to retype it every time I get this question, but a quick overview goes:

Brain dumping/idea chasing

Throwing everything at a whiteboard/conspiracy board with a copious amount of sticky notes. I try to draw connections to fit the misc. plot points and character/worldbuilding details into some semblance of a narrative

Put whiteboard outline into a word doc so I can carry it with me and fill in the holes as I go. I like using the "document outline" feature to put it into a story structure I think is going to work best for the story so I can quickly navigate between parts. This is mostly just focusing on plot holes at this point, figuring out the beginning, middle, end, and figuring out how subplots fit

alongside this process: create side documents of brain dumps/outlines for my character arcs and worldbuilding and filling in holes as needed

Make a NEW word doc outline with EVERYTHING, color coded, probably 15+ pages long

For editing, I wrote up this post, but I've added an extra step in between the Read Through/Developmental Edits and DE part 2. called Spreadsheet Time! (sorry this is so tiny I wanted people to be able to see the whole thing)

The idea with this is similar to making edit lists but to make it color coded and focus on pacing and balance. The edit lists are for the BIGGEST problems: writing out or adding whole characters or subplots & radically changing major plot points to fit a better narrative. This takes place after you've turned your Hot Mess into Respectable Mess, and then realize that you're leaning really heavily on a certain character or lost a subplot along the way.

you can see here that Luca's pov leads for the first 3 chapters, so I need to change that up and give the girls the spotlight. I can also see how many chapters go between checking up on the villain subplots, and how long the chapters are in terms of words/pages. The goal isn't to make their lengths all equal, but to make sure that I'm spending an appropriate amount of time on each type of chapter.

Transitions can be shorter, major plot points can be longer, but this keeps it in perspective and tells me if I should break up or combine anything. It's a little more objective pacing than just "ehhh it feels right" which I like. There's also a column to keep track of timeline, any skips, what events happen overnight, and how much time is left if there's a countdown or plan or something similar.

Then once all the structural stuff is fixed, I'll start filling in the empty columns and evaluating character arcs and worldbuilding to fine tune the details. Now, every scene is accounted for and in the right spot for the story, but maybe some need to be more emotionally impactful or I missed some details.

Those are things to take care of during the 2nd or 3rd draft depending on how clean the manuscript is to begin with and how much you can handle fixing at once. There are some chapters I completely rewrote (hence why this exists now), but I will need to do a reread of the 2nd draft and make sure that all my changes are consistent.

I hope that makes sense! Thank you for the ask!

[astrologista]

so that was An Episode.

SPOILERS SPOILERS MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD

DO NOT CONTINUE IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN S3E1 THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING

i’m sorry but i have to write these down right now before the thoughts go out my mind. i swear to my lord i it’s 4:17am and i’m compromised here we go

where do i even START.

so cass. that was definitely. not what i expected. or what i wanted, really. i feel that this origin is somewhat low-hanging fruit in my opinion just based on the context of how it was explained and cass’s positioning within the narrative. at the same time i completely understand it, and it was executed very well and heartbreakingly. the song was in-cred-i-ble. and tbh i’m glad they got the heck out of the dark kingdom so quickly, because it would have crippled the ep time-wise for them to stay even a few seconds longer.

adira is 100% going after cass now and nothing can change my mind

i imagine edmund will prolly team up with adira

HERE’S THE THING THOUGH HERE’S WHERE I GO OFF

when they showed that emblem of saporia, i honestly freaking thought they were gonna give us the ol’ tee-hee again and that we weren’t going to see any varian in this ep.

well.

i am glad to be wrong. because DAYUM.

varian has a beautiful new outfit. it’s like a steampunk cosplayer with sort of a pirate alchemist motif. it’s really nice. he’s got some thanos gloves and this amazing little bandanna he wears that has a print of an evil looking smile with sharp teeth. very fitting for him.

he also had a goatee which i in my infinite hubris actually thought was like a real goatee that he had somehow grown lol because puberty. but actually he just scribbled it on his face with a marker. that’s such a varian thing a ha. WHY’S HE SO CUTE

so andrew said they were CELLIES OH GOD I KNEW IT. I KNEW IT. if that’s true it means king frederic threw him in gen pop jail. good goin’ fred.

now quite honestly i never thought that varian is the type to team up with other villains. and i was right, because he did have his own plan going and was ready to betray his whole gang as soon as he felt like it. but it does seem like andrew was super playing into varian’s affection-starved side lol and was doing a BAD job of trying to play big brother. like. he tried it lol. and i need to know more about this. i’m hoping to god more will be revealed.

varian named his new compound quirinium. so now no one will ever forget.

but oh wait. actually everyone’s gonna forget. because his plan is to pump out gas to literally make everyone forget everything he’s ever done because he’s got a GUILT COMPLEX THIS CHILD HAS A GUILT COMPLEX THE SIZE OF TEXAS Y’ALL

and i know i missed a bunch of details and i have to go back over it but now i understand. I UNDERSTAND NOW AND I’M SO SAD... the way he was listing off offenses on his fingers it’s like. he must have had a long time to think it over and he’s been rolling each one of those around in his mind for basically months. we need a flashback. give us a flashback.

i’m 99% sure the group of saporians hanging out with andrew are commies and also possibly meth addicts and i don’t think they’re a great influence on varian. not just because they’re villains but because they’re so low-tier he’s beyond them really. i get the sense he could do better.

i really honestly wanted this arc to happen... slower. i wanted there to be more time, more of an organic change, more of everything. but how it turned out, i’m glad. varian is a variable character, and just as quickly as he can turn villainous, so too can he turn to the light, as long as there’s someone there who cares about him. he still don’t give a darn about morality, he just happens to be on the side of good again? yay?

someone needs to cap that scene when they’re in the jail cell and varian is just sitting there looking like a sad, kicked puppy because that shit gave me a Feel.

when lance wiped off that magic marker goatee all of my crops were miraculously watered. oh varian.

and then i watched it again and became sad because he just looks so shocked and then DEPRESSED like “well. there is goes. what’s left of my manhood. gone in an instant. it’s over” also i think he looked a tad scared of lance because. he’s a big guy. who reminds him of his dad

don’t TALK to me about how sad he looked when eugene didn’t trust him oh MY GOD eugene i know this kid almost killed several people... and kidnapped the queen and went berserk... but like. look at him. how can you not trust him. he wants to be trusted. TRUST HIM EUGENE

by the way speaking of TRUST oh my GOD. HE REALLY WANTED THEM TO TRUST HIM AGAIN TO THE POINT WHERE HE WAS WILLING TO ERASE EVERYONE’S MEMORIES. varian. baby. you don’t go around erasing peoples memories to reinstate your social standing in the community. whatchu doin. i think we established that mass mind control is a big no-no

RAPUNZEL COMPLETELY TRUSTED HIM SHE IS PURE. SHE IS PURE.

blah blah some action scene with some cute/funny moments

varian be making BATH BOMBS good god. lush could never. someone get on manufacturing those for purchase.

where the F IS RUDDIGER OH MY GOD

ANDREW WENT IN FOR THE KILL LOL DISNEY. y’know FOR KIDS. but seriously this cements my hatred of andrew/hubert forever and ever. amen. not only is he a d-bag, he also tried to kill a kid. a kid who trusted him to some extent. nice

VARIAN ACTUALLY TOOK RESPONSIBILITY FOR SOMETHING. i’m gonna cry. he’s BECOMING A MAN. proud of him.

and THEN i freaked it. because um. YEEEEAAAAAAHHHH.

so i honest to god was NOT prepared for quirin in this episode. i was not at all prepared. i was gearing myself up for that close to or in the finale. but no. no they hit us right in the FACE, friends. they simply did not wait.

yknow i could say i wish they had extended this scene, and i do, because it could have used a little more, but the way it was executed was REAL GOOD like i LIKE liked it. i have 2 think it over a little bit more but quirin’s VA did THE MOST too. he was GOOD you can really hear the emotion in his voice and i’m crying now ha ha

oh yeah btw VARIAN JUST HEARD EXACTLY WHAT HE’S ALWAYS WANTED TO HEAR and that makes me sad in a way because to me, that essentially completes his arc. he will appear in more episodes but his arc is like, done because QUIRIN SAID THE THING! THE THING! AAHHHHHHHH HE SAID THE THIIIIIIING

he said the thing

and also i’m kinda glad that they didn’t wait any longer to yknow. free him. varian’s been jailed for a long time at this point and it’s just not good for him to make him wait any longer. HE NEEDS HIS DAD AAAAAAAAHHH

as an aside, i’m 99.9% sure that that note said WAY more than just “i’m proud of u son” but quirin was NOT up to having that convo in that scene so he just made shit up lol. good ol quirin still lying as usual lol. but this leaves something to be said here because VARIAN STILL DOESN’T KNOW THAT HIS FATHER WAS A FREAKIN GENERAL IN AN ARMY THOUSANDS OF MILES AWAY HELLO???? hello.

in closing i am so glad varian & quirin showed up for that last song because it looks like they may actually be getting re-integrated into the community and none too surprisingly, it didn’t look like any coronans were going for varian’s throat. because he’s paid his debt to society. he’s good now. he learned that you always win when you are good. or something. idk about how they left this. the end of this ep really feels like the end of s3 except. we still have a whole freaking season ahead of us. and the main lingering plot point other than the king and queen’s memory loss is cassandra. because andrew & co. are jailed, remember?

this episode is full of plot holes some of which will be addressed in this season and some of which we will never receive full disclosure for. i understand why they did it, and fwiw the way this episode was implemented in EXECUTION is VERY satisfying to me and i enjoyed it like a LOT. but at the same time a lot of people are gonna be crying foul about wanting to see a more developed varian arc and cassandra’s origin and what was going on with varian and andrew and uhmygod. this is too much for me to process and it is now 3 minutes to 5am, and i need to get in a 30 minute nap before a full work week. so i have to end it here but i am NOT done talking about this you guys.

i know the storyline for this season was set in advance but something about this episode makes me feel like they made a few adjustments based on things people said? that’s probably not the case but idk i wouldn’t mind if it was.

so in short, 10/10 great episode you guys. it all really happened. tune in tomorrow for more. ahhh

[christianslaterreview]

Way of the Wicked (2014) dir. Kevin Caraway

Synopsis:

Christian Slater portrays an excommunicated priest who has been tracking and studying a young man named Robbie after Robbie mysteriously killed one of his peers when they were both children. Father Henry (Slater) believes Robbie to be an incarnation of some cosmic and spiritual Evil that he subsequently dedicates five years of his life to researching. Vinnie Jones, portraying the town's local detective, joins forces with Father Henry to stop Robbie from wreaking demonic havoc after Robbie becomes the prime suspect in a murder of a local high school boy.

Review:

Christian Slater's ability to give a convincing performance despite a total lack of compelling dialogue, well developed characters, engaging cinematography, and an overall concise and trackable plot was the only small mercy that helped make this 1 1/2 hour film feel like 3hrs instead of 6.

My first disappointment was how little screentime Slater actually got during the course of the movie. With his face displayed on every poster and with every summary claiming Slater "stars" in the film, Slater probably only got about ten minutes of screen time total. Although every character felt entirely undeveloped even by the third act, Father Henry, despite being one of the characters with the most narrative potential, was regrettably left by the wayside for much of the film; only hopping on screen for a minute or two at a time to help quickly advance the plot. Every brief scene he was in his only purpose was to toss convenient morsels of context and information for the rest of the characters to wax expositional about in the next few scenes.

Father Henry is the first face that we see in the movie, but he spends the first and second act being a peeping Tom; never fully in shot and spying on all the other characters through leaves just to make sure the audience hasn't forgotten this character that has yet to be useful.

It's only after the plot begins to accelerate that Father Henry steps in with information about the evil entity, which the audience should have been provided in the beginning. Slater portrays one of the most interesting characters in the movie, but none of it is ever explored or used as a narrative point of view to create emotional stakes. We find out that Father Henry was exiled from the church (probably for his beliefs about Robbie) and has spent the last five years of his life consumed by his obsession with Robbie. But none of this is mentioned more than in passing! Additionally, he's just a bad fucking researcher, and for someone who should be an "expert" on whatever evil is inside Robbie (or is Robbie?) he sure does get himself easily killed off by being fucking strangled by his garish, solid gold rosary that's 9x bigger than it has to be.

His death scene was supremely disappointing 1) because I never want Christian Slater's characters to die duh, but 2) because it was tensionless, unnecessary, and over in the blink of an eye. His meaningless death only served to seal Father Henry as an impotent, half baked character although he was advertised as being some badass demon killer with explosions going on behind him.

aside: if this movie had focused solely on Father Henry and closely followed his character arc throughout the story, the plot twist reveal and his death would have been so much more emotionally impactful and compelling.

Besides the shortcomings of Father Henry in terms of character development, the writers did the audience a further disservice by making him the sole vehicle by which we get information about the evil.

For instance, when he meets up with detective Elliot he can't provide a clear answer to any one of Elliot's questions nor can he seem to provide any actual evidence of his claims (he just keeps repeating shit about how these "dates line up"). So, after impressing on Elliot that time is running out, he gives the detective volumes of assigned reading to do since he's incapable of explaining what he has devoted five years of his life to.

aside: the complete lack of any indications of organization and research (margin notes, highlights, color coded tabs, a goddamn corkboard with pictures and string) by Father Henry were some of the details this film was missing that made it feel so depthless and cheap.

As I said above, Slater's performance was the saving grace of this movie (only because I love him sm), which really is saying something as there wasn't really a well of rich dialogue or captivating cinematography for him to use (every shot of this movie was so boring and straightforward. The whole thing was visually reminiscent of a reality TV show). All the other actors performances were tolerable and probably would have improved considerably if the script was better. Almost all of the movie is tedious, expositional dialogue, resulting in all the characters feeling rehearsed. I didn't form any kind of attachment to any of the characters because each of them felt so formulaic and contrived. And I know it's not his fault, but I can't take Vinnie Jones seriously with his accent and he'll always ruin every serious role he's in (sowwy Vinnie).

Sadly, the backstory that actually got the most exposé was the obviously cloying backstory of detective Elliot's wife and Heather's mom (whose name we don't even learn) who died when Heather was a child. The mother's death does become relevant late in the third act of the film, but its reason is as convoluted and half baked as the rest of the film.

Which I think is my main issue with this movie: there is no trackable plot, defined stakes, or clear point of view. The movie begins with a scene that takes place while Robbie is still a boy, right after the murder of one of his peers. Father Henry opens the film by questioning Robbie and his mother about the incident, clearly convinced that Robbie murdered the other boy with his powers. After the opening, I was expecting the movie to follow Father Henry throughout. Showing us his research, giving us a consistent storyline to follow, providing us with a character to invest in to give the film more depth, etc. But no, the plot jumps forward in time five years (the time jump also wasn't super clear to me, but that could have just been because I was high) when Robbie has moved back into town and then jumps back and forth between Heather's, detective Elliot's, and Father Henry's respective storylines. The result is jarring cuts and sporadic shifts in pacing. Certain scenes seem to drag on forever although they're contributing nothing to the plot while pivotal moments feel rushed and secondary.

Overall, the plot felt like following the writer's train of thought, darting back and forth between plot points to fill in the holes left earlier. Rather than using Father Henry to establish the signs and clues the audience should be looking out for and following (such as the "two angels"), he just keeps popping up every two scenes to give information we should have had right off the bat. The whole "two angels" shit doesn't come in until the last fucking five minutes of the film, but this crucial part of his research is never explained in the start nor even really at the end. It could have been a clue that would have kept the audience guessing and interested, ultimately setting up the plot twist at the end. But nope, this shit that Father Henry should have memorized like his own address, he can't even bother to explain until the scene before it becomes relevant (if we get even that much notice).

In the end, we're never really given any info from Father Henry about what precisely this Evil is, why it chose Robbie, what ancient texts predict it, or even what the hell this demon thing wants. The stakes just seem to be that Robbie's going to do somethin' bad. He isn't even given a lazy motivation like "he wants to end the world" or "he needs a womb to spawn his demon army." We literally have no clue what the specific stakes are, which in turn, means that Father Henry and Elliot have no plan on how to stop him. They just kind of stalk Robbie and threaten him. There's no exorcism they need to perform or esoteric ritual they need to perform to banish him to The Demon Realm™️. The only concrete info we're given is that two angels are supposed to be relevant somehow ("one of the stone and one of the flesh") and somehow Father Henry knows the two angels are the stone angel at the cemetery and Heather herself. Unsurprisingly, he does not offer any evidence of why he thinks that is. We also never really know what qualifies as an "angel" since neither Heather nor the statue are celestial benevolent beings. This is one of the many things that could have been established at the start of the film, giving the audience a puzzle to solve.

And then there's the plot twist.

The plot twist you had to know was coming because this film had no choice but to make one last, desperate grab for the audience's imagination within the last two minutes. Ooooh shit ooo ahhhwooww oh fuck hoooo mybiggiantbrain is explodinggg because Heather was the Evil THE WHOLE TIME AHHHHHH !!!!!

This is the shit that really offends me. I can't believe the audience is deliberately mislead with zero clues that allude to the truth and then we're shit all over with a cheap underwhelming plot twist that never previously existed in the story or actors' performances until the moment of the reveal. If you're gonna do a plot twist, you have to unveil the story in front of the audiences eyes while sincerely attempting to mislead them, all while giving them a chance to discover the twist for themselves! Audiences don't like being tricked, they like being surprised.

God knows I love going back and trying to find all the things I missed that I could have noticed the first time around. Even better, I love when I pick up on them and end up predicting it correctly.

But in Way of the Wicked, the audience isn't given any of this. From the start, the story is played out exactly like Robbie is the anti-christ (or whatever), and the audience who hasn't been given any information, has no choice but to blindly believe the director. But in the end, our trust is shit all over and our intelligence insulted by a cheap "gotcha" ploy that we didn't even have a chance of besting. Even worse, the plot twist adds nothing to the story or the characters at all. Already I don't care about any of them because we've barely gotten to know anyone, so I still don't care about the plot twist because I was never invested to begin with.

Then literally a minute after the reveal, the movie "wraps up" and it's curtains. Detective Elliot straight up murders Robbie and the only tying up of that loose end we get is him nearly inaudibly explaining to another officer that it was self defense as we zoom out into an arial shot. And that's it. We have no idea how Elliot deals with his daughter being a fucking demon or if Heather's mom's death had anything to do with it or not.

This actually could have been an interesting story and it probably could have actually been a horror movie as Way of the Wicked was advertised (lmao) if they had any idea how to organize a plot, write dialogue, and create compelling visuals. Instead Kevin Carraway gave us a teen drama about a young woman navigating a life in high school after the death of her mother, which just so happens to take place while this wild af demon shit be happening.

Way of the Wicked gets a total of 0 Slaters out of a possible 10 Slaters. For no fault of Christian's by any means though. I was prepared to give it 3 Slaters but then they killed off Father Henry so I was pissed whoops

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

Reeve’s birthday + mini character profile!

Hey People of Earth!

So it’s become a bit of a trend to use my characters’ birthdays as an excuse to post mini character profiles for them, ha, so here we are again with another one! I’ve written this in advance (on the 12th) because I’ll be at a Current Joys concert for most of the 13th (her actual birthday). Hope you enjoy getting to know the MC of the FOSTERED books. (who I strangely don’t talk about nearly enough lol)

This is her:

This is also her (both by @sarahkelsiwrites):

This is Reeve’s aesthetic that I just whipped up lol:

Name: Reeve Aldaine

Age: 15-19 over the courses of books 1-6

Nicknames and from who: I think she was only ever called Evie by her older sister who isn’t in the books for very long.

Favourite restaurant: East Side Mario’s according to @sarahkelsiwrites (or Five Guys) lol

Favourite candy: Sour skittles or wine gums (according to @sarahkelsiwrites)

Favourite type of cake: Vanilla

Favourite hobby: Being salty for no apparent reason, being that toxic (TM) friend who lowkey knows it but if u bring it up is like whut no how am I toxic

Favourite colour: Purple

MBTI type: ISFP

Favourite cereal: Mini wheats

Favourite breakfast food in general: Crepes

If she had a job in real life, what would it be: Anything in retail (Sarah says at a perfume counter) because she’s rather adaptable and not picky though I think she’d really enjoy being a barista, lol. 

Favourite thing to do: Reeve loves salting about other people. She isn’t an outwardly bitchy person, per se, but she likes toying with potential scenarios of what people could be thinking of her and why. She isn’t a particularly creative person, so she doesn't have any sort of concrete hobby, for example, but if there’s salt involved, she’s down. 

Does she like The Strokes or does she not like The Strokes: Yaaaaassss join the clubbbb (her fave song would probably be You Only Live Once).

Her actual aesthetic: Looking out a gloomy window while it’s raining, chipped black nail polish, the smell of rain on pine trees, the subsequent smell of the sap, maple syrup in clear, labelless bottles (so weirdly specific but truu), sprigs of dried lavender

If she was a gum flavour: Juicy fruit cuz she got all dat riiiipe juicy teaaaaa

Would she write books: No, ha. Although her voice itself is hella poetic. 

If she were a donut flavour: Sprinkles 4 dayz

If she were a beverage: Coca Cola in those vintage coke glasses or a glass of wine

If she had a favourite band: Daughter, but she’s also definitely into rock further along the alternative spectrum (and Whitney. Whitney for dayz).

Songs that remind me of her: 

(I would say all of Daughter but to specify)

- The End by Daughter

specifically these lyrics

They say there's something in my house That I should just get out, get out I don't want to be escaping No, I'm too busy moping around I'm too busy moping around I'm too busy moping around I'm too busy moping around I'm too busy moping around

- Smother by Daughter

I should go now quietly For my bones have found a place to lie down and sleep Where all my layers can become reeds All my limbs can become trees All my children can become me What a mess I leave To follow

- Shallows by Daughter

Let it all rain down From the blood stained clouds. Come out, come out, to the sea my love... And just Drown with me

- New Ways by Daughter

Washed out brain I have a dirty mind Oh, I need, I need new ways To waste my time I need new ways

- Numbers by Daughter

Chemically enlaced faces Black out nights and tight spaces We'll feel distant embraces Scratching hands 'round my waist, yeah I'll wash my mouth but still taste you

- Made of Stone by Daughter

What if I'm made of stone? Feeling is not a system Nervous I'm caught in a hold Hoping I'm over thinking I should be feeling more Draped over your bones Paint colours up the walls To spread our inspirations You are the likely cause Of what will be my demise

- A Hole in the Earth by Daughter

It's like an old ruin Your father's a liar while my father's lying down In a hole in the earth there And I'm scared I'll forget him I'm still haunted by those open wounds I won't express them truly to you

Likes: 

- Sitting in front of fireplaces + the sound of crackling wood

- The smell of smoke

- Rain

- Skipping rocks (she’s also v/ good at this)

- Melancholically reminiscing about her childhood

- Anything purple

- Swing-style rock

- @sarahkelsiwrites says Corn Pops

Some other stuff: 

Reeve out of all my characters, has probably had the most major character flip in terms of her arc. I’ve described her before on here as poetically existential, and I think that’s personally an excellent way to describe her. In the initial stages of the series, she was quite pessimistic, but there was very much still a tangible spring in her. She’s never been particularly warm, but as the series progresses, namely from book four onward, this becomes much clearer. Her morals (especially in book six) also take a turn in what I’d basically describe as moral decline. She’s had a bit of ‘anti-character-development’, by which I mean she’s sort of progressed backwards (and most likely will continue to). Because of this, she reads incredibly ambiguously, and in a lot of ways, like the antagonist of the story, due to her extreme perceptions of people in both her judgements, and interactions with them. (Thus she’d probably rub the reader as unlikable.) She’s a very direct person, who doesn’t quite understand her moral faults, but simultaneously exploits them. So for example, she might know she’s being judgemental, but not quite understand why (or why that’s not a good thing) and continue to impose that on others. 

She’s a very turbulent, negative person, mostly towards the latter half of the series. Whilst she’s always had these issues (such as jealousy and pettiness), they’ve almost been under the surface kind of issues. It’s kind of funny to think of it now, but @sarahkelsiwrites, and @imdisappointed (and myself) have always pointed out Reeve’s unlikable characteristics from the beginning. I always thought this was because I was doing something wrong, and only realized when writing book six, that these characteristics are actually a part of her character, making her incredibly morally grey (and sometimes, morally wrong). Because of this, the narration (since it is first person) often reads morally grey as well. She’ll often state something she doesn’t believe in as if she does believe it, which oftentimes feeds into her constant inner conflict. 

She’s a very critical person, to the point of being overtly so, and thus, will overstep her boundaries in judging you if she feels you’ve either wronged her, or wronged someone she cares about. Though, she doesn’t vocalize these opinions, they almost reach the point of vulgarity through the narrative as they’re rehashed for the reader. 

She also harbours a lot of self-deprecation, and blames herself a lottttt for many a things, namely the various complications within her family, even if she couldn’t necessarily fix these things. She’s a fixer by heart, and not being able to patch up holes continuously bothers her. I’d describe her as self-loathing. I wouldn’t say she hates herself, I just think she hates the pawn of herself (sort of the persona she puts on), and hates what that person let her become. 

Ha, all of this was uber negative, but that isn’t all there is to her! She’s also an intensely emotional person (which can lead to baaare melodramaaaaa), so this really allows her to connect with other people on a really deep level. She doesn’t trust easily, due to her various traumas, but if she does trust you, you’ll feel it. She cares intensely about people (which can sometimes be a bad thing), but will try her hardest to be a supportive friend. So she does have a lot of stuff bogging her down a lot of the times, but will remain by your side (and hopefully not make the situation about her oops). 

I mentioned this before, but she’s also a very distant narrator. It’s sometimes hard to achieve this especially in the scenes I need her to be even more distant in (hence so many clarity issues haaaaha), so I’ve toyed around a bit with form in her POV. Some bits of these books are in verse, some in second person, and some in third. She is a first-person narrator, but I do enjoy experimenting a bit (especially in dissociative scenes). She’ll also insert herself into other characters’ situations (almost like pseudo dissociation lol) a lot, and go through possible events they may have gone through.

I think her development is the main reason these books went from YA to vaguely adult maybe, because she’s definitely gone down a viciously explicit emotional path (which I didn’t actually plan for, but am happy about). So yeah. Lots of things go on in her head, and I think she really does need a lot of time to dispel all of it, but she’s getting there. 

So that’s it for now! I haven’t really done an extensive profile for Reeve, even though I talk about her a lot, so hopefully this helps in getting to know her a bit better!

Thanks for reading!

--Rachel

[midnight-in-town]

Recap post: why Undertaker may not be the mastermind behind the blue sect

A/N: this is just a theory, please let me know if you think I forgot something or if there is a point that’s not clear. Very long post, heavy with spoilers.

First of all, I think we can all agree that, whoever the mastermind is, there isn’t any doubt that they are a supernatural character...

...And narratively speaking, after the Campania and Weston arcs, it’s indeed logical for both the readers and the characters to initially assume that the most likely suspect when the dead is brought back to life (here: real!Ciel aka Lord Sirius, as well as maybe the other Lords) is UT himself.

However, are we really sure at this point that Yana will go for the same ploy for the third time? Well, obviously this theory is here to propose that Yana won’t play the predictable card after such a complex and long arc. :) Onto the hints:

A different motus operandi...

Different “bizarre dolls”...

...Thus a different mastermind?

real!Ciel vs our!Ciel

UT in ch108 & ch120

Additional links

1) A different motus operandi...

...Which for now creates a plot hole if UT is the mastermind, because what we were shown of the blue sect’s method (= blood transfusions + ???) doesn’t fit with UT’s previous technique to bring back the dead during the Campania (= editing cinematic records with fake memories) and Weston (= editing CRs with “episodes” aka yearning for the future) arcs.

One argument would be to say that he changed his method of editing cinematic records to base his project on blood transfusions (+ something else) instead after Weston, but...

...He seemed to find Ryan’s attempt of using science to bring back the dead laughable during the Campania arc, so for now it’s hard to think he would have ended up using science as well. 

Another argument I’ve seen would be to say that the BDs we saw during the Campania/Weston arcs were from old experiments and that he actually changed his method a while back, but as brilliantly put by @thedarkestcrow [x]:

If he had known all along how to make a perfect Bizarre Doll, why did he wait so long? And why would he risk being found out and risk that the twin (if he really hid him) would be found by creating the failed Bizarre Dolls? No one suspected Undertaker of anything until the Campania arc so even if he did indeed hide the twin it may have been much easier if he had hidden his true identity and his experiments, too.

Besides, as pointed out by @hitsugikuro​, assuming that Othello and UT do know each other (”50 years ago”)...

...it’s possible that Othello was speaking of UT in ch119 when he mentioned someone (a deserting Shinigami?) who wasn’t “very knowledgeable in this [science] field”, thus reminding us possibly once more of UT’s opinion about bringing back the dead through science and crossing him out of the suspect list.

Secondly, there is also the fact that the blue sect has been existing for at least a year and a half, because we know that Bravat was regularly transfusing old Lords from the Parliament until recently...

...which indicates a switch in the sect’s purpose (researching about blood transfusion and helping the old Lords => bringing back the “star Lords”) from the moment Bravat opened the Sphere Music Hall and used the ex-prefects to attract the masses & start massive blood collects during Summer 1889.

Of course, UT could have been a part of them but, again, he doesn’t seem to favor science that much and, even when he was “a part of” the Aurora society, he was pretty much working alone on his bizarre doll project. 

Finally, there is a significant item to mention...

...because surely UT’s “treasure” has to be relevant and maybe even the primary reason he’s trying to bring back the dead. However, there is one interesting thing to notice: if we’re assuming that these lockets represent people UT was fond of, then Vincent and real!Ciel should be on this chain too and yet they’re not.

The explanation for this is rather simple thanks to ch105 though, at least where Vincent is concerned:

So maybe it was the same for the twin: UT didn’t think that his method could bring Vincent and the twin back as bizarre dolls (because the circumstances of their death damaged their bodies too much?), hence why he had no locket for either of them.

TL;DR if UT’s motus operandi in the Campania & Weston arcs is signficantly different from the mastermind’s motus operandi in this arc then it means...

2) Different “bizarre dolls”...

This part is assuming that Seb indeed never lied and that he was summoned through real!Ciel's sacrifice (after a stab in the heart) and eating his soul, meaning that real!Ciel died at 10 years old and yet...

He definitely looks as if he never died and is going to turn 14 (?), like our!Ciel. 

Again, the difference in methods is probably the reason real!Ciel looks/acts so normal (compared to even Agares, UT’s last masterpiece) and all grown up, when it shouldn’t be possible since there aren’t many doubts that he died and Seb ate his soul, 4 years ago (unless Seb was somehow fooled?). 

Secondly, aside from real!Ciel, we probably only saw Lord Polaris so far (since Polaris is Sirius’ butler, real!Ciel is Lord Sirius and Agni’s killer used knives like Polaris)...

...and Agni, who was a very strong human himself, commented on his killer being unusually strong. So could Polaris’ abnormal strength be the result of these blood transfusions or, more generally, of how the blue sect brings the dead back? 

In the first place, only demons should naturally and abnormally be stronger than humans in Kuro!Verse (Shinigamis aren’t). However we know that, just like science is apparently currently used to bring the dead back, it was also used before in the story to introduce abnormal strength for humans...

...when Ciel met Finny while on another (older) mission for the Queen in Germany. 

TL;DR if UT is not the mastermind but someone else is: what if real!Ciel and the other star Lords came back as some sort of perfect equivalent to UT’s original bizarre dolls, because different scientific methods were put together to achieve such a “perfect” result? 

Of course, this only works if, instead of UT, the mastermind is...

3) ...Thus a different mastermind?

At this point, there is only one possibility amongst the characters we already know, because there is only one person who showed interest in UT’s bizarre dolls...

...when Ciel told her about it, in June 1889, after the Weston arc. Of course, Victoria most likely isn’t a supernatural being, so she was surely helped by her loyal John Brown who would do anything for her (remember that his eyes are always conveniently hidden => there is a good chance he could be supernatural).

The mastermind behind the sect being supernatural!Brown and following Victoria’s wishes works in regards to the whole timeline too:

Bravat’s blue sect was originally used to experiment about blood transfusion until summer 1889...

“if this method can be made to work, it will be a ‘miracle cure’ that can bring the mortally wounded back from the brink of death. I’ve heard that the army is actively conducting experiments to discover just what is necessary to make it a success” => Wolfram, ch114.

...until Victoria and Brown learnt about UT’s bizarre doll from Ciel himsef in June 1889.

Brown then started to experiment by himself, not knowing about UT’s own method, giving the “star Lords” to Bravat’s sect and switching its purpose to using blood transfusion (+???) in order to bring them back from death:

that’s why the Sphere music hall was apparently opened during Summer 1889 and why the massive blood collects only started then

+ knowing about the incident at Weston would also be how Brown tricked the ex prefects and had Bravat using them to attract the masses.

Secondly, Othello said that the technology used by the sect was very advanced (and proof of supernatural involvement)...

and as @hitsugikuro pointed out before, it does look similar to Sieglinde’s own "lab” given to her by Queen Victoria and we know that war against Germany is the reason Victoria was so looking forward to Sieglinde working for “England’s future”.

War against Germany is probably also the reason Ciel was sent two years ago in Germany to take care of those researchers who were experimenting about artificially enhanced strength, which is when he met and saved Finny, by the way. 

We don’t know what happened then, but maybe our!Ciel brought back the formula for this “abnormal strength” to the Queen, or maybe England developed their own, which might explain why Agni described his killer (Polaris) as abnormally strong, if this technique was used on the “star Lords” as well.

Finally...

there might be a political aspect to the plan with the blue sect, which is to say that Bravat might have also gotten rid of those lords from the Parliament (ch125) so that it would be more difficult for the Parliament to refuse Victoria’s plans for war. Remember...

...the Queen might not rule but...

...she has some loyal helpers.

TL;DR the whole point to keep in mind is that Victoria is getting ready for war: that’s why she wanted Sieglinde and her SuLIN, why she sent Ciel to destroy that German lab where Finny was experimented on, why she wants zombie war weapons through bringing back the dead and why she might have assassinated parlimentarians who stood in her way. 

The blue sect is simply here to get her what she wants through first mastering the blood transfusion technique (to lose less soldiers), and then a way to experiment about bringing the dead back (to eventually turn more of them into war weapons). 

4) real!Ciel vs our!Ciel

Or why Brown and Victoria would bring back the twin now, in order to antagonize the current Watchdog.  There again, there is a possibility for an answer, but first of all, let me insist on why this part for now also makes no sense if UT is the mastermind.

To this day, I do not think that real!Ciel’s actions are particularly predictable to anyone (please check this post by @akumadeenglish​). Seeing the latest chapters before the flashback, it’s evident that he’s not exactly in his right mind and there are many possibilities as to why that is, but for now he’s definitely supposed to be antagonistic. 

Meanwhile, UT is literally one of the few characters who has no reason to wish harm on our!Ciel: it always was noticeable in the way he used to give him advice, to watch over him, to imply that he wouldn’t let Seb have his way with his soul, because of UT’s long attachment to the Phantomhive family.

And since UT probably feels/felt the same attachment towards the twin (and doesn’t favor him, by his own words), it doesn’t make a lot of sense to think that he was hoping for real!Ciel and our!Ciel to fight against each other, or for our!Ciel to be isolated from anyone but Sebastian (since the sect took Lizzie away and real!Ciel almost took Soma away).

Back to the Queen and Brown though, they’re the ones who actually have a few reasons to be crossed with our!Ciel, since:

After the curry arc, he more or less sheltered Agni (one of the culprits) despite his crimes 

During the circus arc, he burnt those children, which led to him lying to the Queen about his report

but the Queen found out and organized a murder party as a punishment (@ thanks Grey)

After the green witch arc, he made sure that Sieglinde wouldn’t give or produce for the Queen anything like the SuLIN gas

but the Queen and Brown weren’t fooled, which led to Brown comparing his efficiency to Vincent’s, who is dead.

So for all we know, the current arc might partially be the result of Victoria seeing through his lies about the SuLIN gas in ch108 and being fed up with him for not being a very obedient doggy. Thus why...

real!Ciel came back as an absolutely similar copy of the Queen’s current watchdog (same age (?), same height, no change of identity, same earrings), so that she would replace the bad doggy with a more obedient one (who might be dependent on those blood transfusions and thus more loyal to her), without having to explain what happened to the previous one since the twins are now exactly similar. 

And if somehow you think that it makes her heartless to treat someone who works so hard for her that way, well, maybe it’s time to consider the idea that she has something to do with happened to Vincent and Rachel (and maybe Claudia too, who knows...). xD

TL;DR UT would have no reason to create a feud amongst his beloved Phantomhive family, considering he’s always been more of an ally to them than anything else, which leads to the final part of the explanation...

5) UT in ch108 & ch120

Or, if this theory is accurate, the red herrings that Yana showed to make us think UT was initially behind it all for the third time, since UT was with the twin in these two chapters. However, first please consider the settings of both meetings:

it’s at night

UT is creeping around, as if he wants to be undetected.

Then onto what supposedly happened...

I’ll quote @thedarkestcrow​‘s words once again to explain (A+ writing <3):

Instead of being the mastermind of the sect and supporting it I could rather see him trying to prevent or delay the sect’s success. The one time we saw him he gave one of the Ciels (and it was probably the twin) some liquid and remember his words? (see above)

When he visited the twin/Sirius that night the twin’s condition seemed quite well. Afterwards, however, we saw him having these arms (see above).

So UT may have intentionally worsened the twin’s state. Not with the intention to kill him, of course, but he may have tried to delay his full awakening in order to get time to maybe solve this situation in order to help both twins, not just one.

An idea which would in turn explain why he was checking the twin’s wrist (as if looking for any needle mark, to assess what was going on, maybe?) ...

...as well as that single panel from ch120 that showed him as very affectionate.

Because remember what I said about UT’s “treasure”? If real!Ciel and Vincent didn’t have a locket, it might be because UT’s own method of bringing back the dead (through editing the cinematic records) didn’t make it possible for them to come back (too damaged bodies?). So seeing the twin “alive” again must have felt like a shock to UT who cares a lot about the P family (hence the affectionate gesture of ch120), even if he probably tampered with the twin’s “well being” anyway... 

because he wanted to stall for time

because he couldn’t bear the idea that the twin too was used as another of the Queen’s pawns (since he dislikes her a lot).

6) Additional links

This part is just an addendum for me to add several links to posts that belong with this theory but that I didn’t particularly include in the explanation (otherwise I would have died):

A reason for the slow pace of this arc by @thedarkestcrow (it works with UT or with Brown)

why didn’t Tanaka look surprised about the twin coming back? 

The Undertaker playing chess against the Queen by @hitsugikuro

About Sebastian not being the Undertaker’s main enemy by @hitsugikuro​

About the Undertaker trying to thwart the Queen’s war plans

My personal interpretation of the Undertaker’s words in ch105 (to explain why he’s probably not after harming our!Ciel)

Please feel free to ask if anything is unclear, I’m so sorry that this was so long to read but I really believe that, if this arc is taking so long to be finished, it’s because it ties with older arcs/different subplots (besides the 2CT that’s taking a large place of the arc, obviously), hence the gigantic theory. xD

Thanks for reading so far. ^3^ 

[fighterxaos]

Ultraman Geed is nearly a third way done with its series, and it has been an odd rollercoaster ride thus far. The series has started off in a weird way, and it is not entirely the best, nor the worst especially following Ultraman Orb. However, I am still hopeful it will be great since today might mark Ultraman Zero’s first full-length battle in the series. Then again it could be just another darn tease like the Thunder Killer fight…

  Summary:

Kei Fukuide plays chess with himself, as he plots Zero’s demise. Meanwhile the manager for the Galaxy Market is upset he lost the chance to attend one of Kei’s lectures. Reito appears with his family to introduce them to Riku, and Laiha. There they discover the manager, and Lumina are huge fans of Kei, as he himself arrives to invite them as guests to the event. Reito becomes briefly suspicious, as well as Laiha of the invitation. Later that night Reito, tries to get out of attending the lecture, but one of Kei’s books catches Zero’s attention; the book’s cover is literally an illustration of his fight with Arc Belial. Zero forces Reito to assist him in reading Kei’s books, to realize something is strange about Kei’s coincidental series based on his life.

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The following day at the event Zero is unamused at how he is the villain of the books, but seeks to learn more about Kei. Pega even assists in Zero’s suspension, as Kei can see him. Riku is in denial when Zero informs him of the situation, so Zero most confront the issue alone. Kei’s lecture begins and during the lecture it is to reveal the next book in the Cosomo Chronicle series. This new installment in Kei’s series will feature the death of the iconic villain, Zora (Ultraman Zero) however, he seeks to make an attendee be the basis for his new villainous Shining Knight. Kei immediately chooses Reito, and Zero takes control as the two meet up on stage. There Kei informs Zero to play a part in his act, which is to reveal his villainous intent to Zero, Riku and Laiha; the attendees are hostages for his Galactron to kill.

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Riku, Laiha, and Zero attempt to confront Kei as the other attendees flee. Yet, Zero informs Laiha that if they attempt to kill Kei, they will be recorded on camera and framed for murder. Riku realizes he needs to confront the Galactron, as Ultraman Geed and leaves. Meanwhile, Kei convinces Zero that he will stop the attack, but only if Zero offers himself up to be executed by Galactron. Zero accepts this as his fate, and rushes out to the area. There Zero stands before Galactron, as it chokes Geed, and takes the execution shot; Zero is killed and Reito is sent flying as the Zero Eye turns to stone. In this moment Riku realizes what it means to be a hero, but questions why it had to happen at a time like this…

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  My Thoughts:

Episode seven is probably the best episode thus far for Ultraman Geed. It really helps to build off the already established rivalry between Ultraman Zero, and Ultraman Belial. However, these battles are only lamented about through the books Kei wrote, which rewrites the history to make Belial the hero. The idea of Kei’s books making Belial to be the hero seems like an interesting propaganda stunt to make the public hate Zero or other Ultras, but it was not the case. Now, had the series approached that idea, the show would have more possibilities to advance the story. The only issue though with that idea I suggested is that it would have also revealed Kei’s true intentions sooner to the main cast.

  Yet, some would say Kei should have been an obvious character to suspect, since in an earlier episode a tv report mentioned how Kei allegedly was saved by and lived with aliens during the Crisis Impact. One would have thought even Laiha was already trailing Kei to begin with, especially with how the story was going. Instead Laiha just begins suspecting him upon meeting Kei at the Galaxy Market, which goes against her whole backstory of searching for the monster who turns into man. However, that gripe was put to rest when Zero had to stop her from murdering Kei on the spot, due to the fact they were being recorded at the lecture. The scene proved to show her detective-like skills were still inexperience. Whereas, Riku being in denial until Kei called out Reito, and revealed an Ultra/ Kaiju Capsule to the audience just with the narrative that he is an idiot.

  Now, what I love and hate about this episode was the actual lecture, as well as Kei’s overall plan to kill Ultraman Zero. The dialog between Kei and Reito/ Zero is wonderful, even when Reito (Yuta Ozawa) was dubbed over by Mamoru Miyano. It overall featured Yuta’s depth in acting, and gave me a Kamen Rider Den-O vibe, with the combine portrayal of the actor and voice actor. Whereas, Kunito Watanabe finally had his moment to shine! I say that this was his moment to shine because up until now many of Kei’s scenes either features him being just a mysterious figure, or a down right villain. Here the character of Kei finally had several scenes devoted to him, scenes that would show his public persona and his true self. Kunito even possess that sophistication needed to pull off both sides to Kei the author, and Kei the disciple of Belial. However, Kei’s overall plan had significant plot holes that should not be overlooked. The first issue was witness saw the Galactron Capsules, and Kei summon the monster; if any witnesses manage to escape he is screwed. Furthermore, if Laiha killed Kei in attempt to Galactron who was going to edit the records to make it a full malicious murder? Pretty much everything that occurs with Kei’s gamble is too convenient, while being badass at the same time.

  Bringing back Galactron is a cheap ploy by the studio, but it is still a relevant monster that also is considerable strong. Having Galactron selected to battle Geed easily put him into a disadvantage, which he would not be able to overcome alone. Yet, I did like that Ultraman Geed was able to damage the monster slightly in their initial confrontation, unlike Ultraman Orb’s fight with it. Personally, how Galactron executed Zero was anti-climactic since the episode title foreshadows the event, much like most tokusatsu programs do. However, some or most of the deaths in the modern era of tokusatsu that are foretold are never permanent, especially when we all know Ultraman Zero will return as Ultraman Zero Beyond.

  Never the less, a part of me is eager to see Ultraman Zero’s revival in the next episode! Yet, a part of me is becoming indifferent towards series, in a similar fashion when Ultraman Ginga aired or when I revisit Ultraman X. I really want this show to be another Ultraman Orb, but I am highly doubtful that it will occur. Maybe if this was Zero’s show it would have better chances…

  Rating: 4 out of 5

Ultraman Geed Episode 7 – Sacrifice Review

Ultraman Geed is nearly a third way done with its series, and it has been an odd rollercoaster ride thus far.

Ultraman Geed Episode 7 – Sacrifice Review Ultraman Geed is nearly a third way done with its series, and it has been an odd rollercoaster ride thus far.