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belowzion · 10 months ago

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Below Zion: Rethinking Valentino

Hello everyone! Today I wanted to show you how we've been rewriting Valentino. As stated in my previous blogs, the characters are given different feels to make them as distinct from their show counterparts as possible so that eventually this can be its own thing. While still inhabiting the pimp lord aspects, Valentinos way of thinking, motivations and even what he does in his past-time should change how this character works and why I grew a fascination in writing about his character recently. Make no mistake, he is a villain and funnily enough, a stark contrast to Charlies ideas.

"Oh, the sex work is great! Tino is garbage. See, I haven't left the industry. I just ran from that self-rightous prick…" - Hip-Lash, one of Angels best friends, left the 'industry'. Hasn't seen Angel for 30 years. To understand where Valentino comes from and why he is the kind of person he is, some context is needed. In Below Zion, sinners are completely incapable of making pacts with other people. Their power instead depends on how sinful they were in life. If you sinned too much, you get thrown into Penance Machines, where you are excessively tortured and bleed out all that sinful energy for runes! Runes pass off as currency in Hell. But if you were not a cannibal serial child killer, you get to enjoy some amazing powers! Or if you got bailed out of these machines through some higher power. While nothing too crazy like what Alastor might be capable of, these sinners are still very powerful with the Wrath they possess. Valentino is no exception. His hazbin is an interesting case of a person hiding the true degeneracy that they possess deep within them. See, Valentino, known before as Mikhail "Milo" Tarentino, was a yoga teacher, originating from India! The guy, not really enjoying his position in India due to the fact that yoga was already quite popular there, decided to move to Italy where yoga wasn't as prevalent! Tarentino was a social butterfly, able to get many contacts and many students into his class! However, his true debauchery also began here. He would often have sexual intercourse with his own students, coercing them, grooming them and eventually fucking them! It does not help the matters that most of these women were married.

"Oh goodness, I did not expect to have a new neighbour! Welcome! I actually remember you, you know? You agreed to collect dirty things for Butcher Pete." Sledge nods. "So I did." "Gross job. Glad they had rubber gloves my size." He says, raising a paw, and wiggling his pudgy fingers… It reminds Alastor a little of one of those asian lucky-cats… cute. "Why ya callin' him 'Butcher Pete'?"

"Oh! No reason! There is just a very catchy song that I wish I NEVER paid any attention to the lyrics of!"

He says as he spins his microphone!

"Would you like to give it a listen? It reminds me of the kind of sinners that I find often here in Lust…" "Sure."

From Als staff - a combination of magical and technological - comes out a very upbeat tune! "Hey everybody, did the news get around? About a guy named Butcher Pete! Oh, Pete just flew into this town, And he's choppin' up all the women's meat!

He's hackin' and wackin' and smackin'! He's hackin' and wackin' and smackin'! He's hackin' and wackin' and smackin'! He just hacks, wacks, choppin' that meat!"

And also... this.

"Yeah, I see your point there, Al... but I got a question for ya~" He says with a sinister grin~

"Very well, i shall bite! Shoot!" "Say, have you ever had a pump and dump at a family reunion~?"

"[Oh no...]" The T.V Demon grows... concerned for what is about to be retold.

Velvette begins to giggle maniacally!

"I know Some of those words! Likely Not in the context You Want them to be in, though!"

"Then you do know the context I am referring to~ Don't worry Al, I am not talking about ones own family reunion, obviously, but somebody else's."

"You Are talking about FILTH then. No Val, i have done Nothing of the likes!"

"Oh come on, never had the fun? I had this one where I was invited to one of my students', I was a yoga teacher back in the day, you see? Anyhow, I eventually found myself banging different women. See, because they are all related, they had like, slightly different mommy boxes, but I was test driving 'em, right? Seeing how evolution has shaped each one a little differently so that you can find one that's just right?"

[No, Val stop, Al is already-]

"I call this goldilocksing~"

"And this relates to hunting... hoooow...?" Velvette seems perplexed...

Val thinks for a moment...

"I forgot what I was getting at, my bad~" He says as he takes a puff from his cigarette.

Al... looks grossed out. He thinks about this... And shivers in mild disgust again, a few moments after the first time.

As you can see here, Valentino kept his "trade" a secret in his human life, but he was also very good with it. Being able to get around fucking the entire female half of a family. Living in Italy though, he envied the mafia families that always seemed to be able to get what they wanted. More so because one day, one of those families caught Tino and his disgusting tendencies and... lets just say that he was never found on Earth again.

This eventually landed him in Hell. While he did sin quite excessively, it did not compare to the likes of Velvette, Alastor, Eve, Angel Dust or Agatha. However, he did gain one very prominent power from this... The red mist. The mist he puffs out whenever he smokes, the stench that leaves his body, the morphine that binds people to him like soul contracts!

Its an addictive substanance. Some people even describe it as off-puttingly as possible by saying that its his "musk". Valentino, while possessing not a terrifying amount of strength compred to some other powerful sinners out there, he possesses an ability that can dominate each one of them without trouble.

One such case being Angel Dust.

See, Angel, being the son of a ruthless mafia boss, when arrived in Hell, he wanted to become famous and wealthy immidietly! Get rich quick without much work! Well, with work he loves to do~

This is where Valentino steps into his life, offering him such opportunities while... making sure Angel inhales his mist as much as possible. Keep him addicted, don't let him get away~

Valentino is especially abusive towards Angel both sexually and physically. However, this stems not from his actual love for Angel Dust, but his hate.

Valentino, ever since he arrived in Hell, has gained a sick fascination towards punishing the sinners that think they are hot shit.

"He has a… self-rightous attitude lets say. If he thinks you had it too good and don't appriciate the stuff you have… he'll get ideas~" -Velvette

Valentino is the essence of Hell. He punishes the winners of hazbin, not the losers. Seeing Angel Dust, being this mafiaso that loved and CRAVED sex in every opportunity and got what he wanted without ever thinking about the implications, gives Valentino this certain feeling of moral superiority. He feels like a punisher, a true demon of Hell that is there to become Angels worst nightmare for all the horrible things he has done in his life.

It gets better due to the fact that Valentino knows he is weaker than Angel, yet due to his addictions, he wins over him. Its not some pact that binds Angel, its his own Lust... and Sloth. His desire for easy success and wealth led him to this disgusting mess.

When Charlie rolls around with the idea of redemption, of course he hates it. To him, punishment is well deserved and bad boys like Angel need to be made an example of.

This also presents the reader with an interesting question. Does Angel deserve what Val does to him considering that he was CERTAINLY not a good person in his own hazbin? Or does he deserve redemption? This is literally Charlies ideology, being asked to the viewer. Should the sinner be punished or redeemed? Angel was a despicable human being that murdered, tortured, raped and was bound to many external substances. Does he deserve punishment in the hands of Valentino? Or does he deserve redemption in the hands of Charlie?

Valentino is also not just doing this to Angel. This goes for ANYONE he thinks they had it too good for too long...

Welp, that was all! Valentino is an asshole pervert fueled by hatred!

Please do write feedback, I'd love to hear your ideas if you think of any!

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel criticism #hazbin hotel critique #hazbin hotel rewrite

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rius-cave · 9 months ago

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I'm so sorry but I saw the supernatural ask and I felt compelled to explain the Lucifer situation. Ignore if you don't care lmao

The base premise is that Dean and Sam are two brothers who hunt the monsters that go bomp in the night because their mom was killed by a demon when they were children and their dad (John) decided to make it his life's mission to avenge her, going as far as to basically make child soldiers out of his kids. Dad disappears so they start looking for the demon with yellow eyes (iirc Azazel) because they think he's the one at fault.

During the various seasons both brothers keep dying, but the other never accepts it and every time they find a way to resurrect each other. During all this Dena has got a reoccurring "sure, demons exist. But they're not like the biblical kind. It's not like God is real. It's not like angels exist" while Sam still believes that something good MUST be out there so he thinks angels exist.

Sam develops demon powers. Long story. It's like, very thematic in the context of the show. The yellow eyed demon fed him blood as a baby, now he has like. Telekinesis.

Dean dies as a result of a shitton of things, spends 40 years in Hell (about 4 Earth months) until Castiel the angel "gripped him tight and raised him from perdition" (actual quote. This was season 4. They spent the rest of the 11 seasons denying he's in love with Dean).

Surprise! Angels are real!

Less of a surprise! They're jackasses! Also God is an absentee father!

Blah blah blah parallel between Cas' faith in God (his dad) for whom he's a soldier, and Dean who only sees himself as a weapon blah blah blah

War!!! The angels explain that the Winchesters were basically manufactured. The whole show has a theme about free will and predestination and defying faith. So here they discover that the angels manipulated events, like their parents getting together, their grandfather dying, their mom dying, etc. To ensure the brothers existed.

Why? Because Armageddon is near and Lucifer and Micheal are destined to fight against each other. However they need human vessels to do so. Both angels and demons do (Case is inside the body of a guy called Jimmy Novak. He dies at one point but Case keeps using his corpse. He had a daughter and wife). And apparently the Winchesters are the perfect ones.

And that's where they come to play! Dean cannot escape the destiny of only being useful as a weapon, cause that's what he is for Micheal. And remember the demon powers shit Sam went through? Also connected to this!

The one caveat is that Micheal needs permission to inhabit Dean's body, while Sam gets possessed by Lucifer. So Dean keeps denying it and postponing the battle trying to free his brother. Sam comes out of this hallucinating Lucifer for a while.

Their half brother also gets possessed by Lucifer at one point. He was also a rock star and I think the president? At one point? Iirc.

So no Sam doesn't really BECOME Lucifer. Still. Show's wack. Cain is kind of still alive in the show lmao. I only watched up to season 13. That's when they lost me.

It's so hard to crossover Hazbin Hotel with other Bible inspired stories because of the wild differences in Lucifer's personalities and stories. There's no way to reconcile whatever is going on with Supernatural Lucifer and Hazbin Lucifer.

I think Good Omens is the only one where I could kinda see it? But then there's Beelzebub that kinda fucks it up, and also Crowley having been the one to give Eve the fruit.

Sorry for the off topic ramble!

-🐇

#ask

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vermillioncrown · 2 years ago

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@punderfulfandoms (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ) this is what i strive for, getting deep reading of my fanfic lmao, thank u and bless

these are all very good points!

i have not been forthcoming with everyone's age (except you now have a reference point with korvin and dick, re: ch3). jason's closer to korvin in age than he is to dick, but that's still a bit of range to play with (the math has been left as an exercise for the enterprising reader lol)

whfagt and my recent teaser snippet has little hints of the jason & korvin dynamic. i personally think it's wack wild and hilarious but who knows how it'll be received

bc you're signing up for my academic rants (in the tags, but they can happen anywhere if relevant)...

another gripe i have w common cliches is the stem/math vs english major false dichotomy

yes, that's pretty true at the lower levels of those fields. but at the higher level, it's all critical thinking. the tools may be different, the common language and operations might be different, and the context too.

my advisor jokes (w a whole rice bag of truth rather than just a grain) that a phd in anything is still a philosophy major flavored with whatever we're obsessed with. PhD -> doctor of philosophy, yeah? logic, rhetoric, argumentation, ontology--these are concepts that can be applied to any field. in fact, that's the point of phd dissertations in stem, esp in such an applied field like aerospace engineering. we are to take a concrete problem, abstract and formulate a fundamental subproblem from the application, and demonstrate rigor in handling the subproblem such that a generality can be formed and contribute to a larger understanding of the field.

is that not the same with literature analysis? i just deal with shitty greek letters most of the time rather than prose, is all.

@rozaceous and i would be that english vs math major thing, yet we have the exact same brainrot and nitpicks, house on fire status of getting along.

(it's because she's also a philo minor, technically could have been a philo double major)

#on tpac #opinionated verm #academic jerky #whatever the case may be i just hope everyone stays entertained #and that the narrative continues to have a low buy-in for its coherency #the real dichotomy is us vs the business bros okay #critical thinkers vs the econ majors #no i'm joking (or am i)#also dw guys i'm finishing up ch 5; should be good by monday the latest #i got so much work to grind out this summer whew

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ruthlesslistener · 2 years ago

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Yeah I get what you mean. I do find other people's more animal based analysis of the HK gods really interesting but my knowledge on animal behaviour is very limited so I can't engage in it much, typically leaning more into the Man Vs god side of analysis because of that.

I wasn't raised Christian either but I always found that Christian symbolism is an easy way to discuss religious trauma without really going into specifics of my own bullshit. But one of the big things that I grew up with was the importance of submission before the almighty so I decided that thk should have that, as a treat.

Also the Jesus Vs Adam comparison was based on how (from my knowledge) Jesus is a part of god separated temporarily while Adam is an imperfect replica of god, with his imperfection shown through his ability to sin (this may differ depending on denominations so if any Christian disagrees shut up). This comparison was drawn because while hollow is fully a god created from pk (and White lady) they view themselves as an imperfect reflection of godliness due to their sin of thought.

Sorry if I'm not very coherent, what I'm saying is that your analysis is really cool I just don't understand bugs despite being really into this bug game

It's actually something that has hindered my enjoyment of xenofiction on a whole despite thinking xenofiction is really cool? The different ways of understanding and perception between species is rather difficult for me to wrap my head around (honestly just different people having different perception is wack) .

It's one of the reasons I enjoyed hollow knight so much, because it attached religious coding and these themes of death, rebirth, stagnation and eternity that different faiths have pondered to these big territorial animals that are the higher beings and that helped me gain a better understanding of the conflicts presented.

Tldr: them

Again, sorry for answering this so late! This quarter has been going really fast for me so it's a bit difficult to form long responses on time.

I wouldn't worry too much about not understanding bugs much, honestly, because despite you explaining the Jesus-Adam comparison, I still don't really understand it. I mean, I understand it in the context of Hollow Knight, but not in an overlapping religious theme- the thought of lumping Jesus in with God when he's technically a demigod son is a bit mind-boggling to me in an irl context (I was taught that Jesus was holy but not to pray to him bc hes simply the son of God, and he has enough problems to deal with already- why go to the prince when you should address the king in his house) so I'm just gonna go with the flow here and say 👍I get that there's a Christian mythos element in Hollow Knight's storytelling and the overall themes going on in the game, but I'll never be able to fully explain it/intimatly understand it- and that's okay! It means that I have a different perspective and reading on it than what others do, so reading other's analysis remains as interesting for me as mine do for others. It's a win-win scenario!

So! I'm basically where you are about religion in terms of knowing bug/animal behavior and perspectives. That's the view that makes the most sense for me, an evolutionary biologist, but that doesn't mean that it has to make sense for you, because in all honesty animal behavior and the evolutionary reasoning behind it is super complex and variable. Again, the fun is that our gaps in knowledge leads to two different interpretations of the same topic, each which give an engaging, deep, and thoughtful starting point for discussion about Hollow Knight. And hey! A biological perspective on the game doesn't necessarily have to be entirely seperate from a theological one. It's all good and interesting and all contributions are important as long as they're considered deeply and done in good faith. We still end up getting the end result of a traumitized Hollow either way, lol

So yeah. Them :)

#random-tree #hollow knight #maybe I'm missing the point a bit here but!!! differential interpretations my beloved #i love to compare and contrast my interpretations with those of others #its so fun and interesting and educational #reply

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cryptidapprentice · 8 months ago

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List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox for the last 10 people who reblogged something from you! get to know your mutuals and followers (ू•‧̫•ू⑅)

I FORGOT TO ANSWER THIS but I really need it rn bc this week has been Wack so here goes i guess:

1. a good harmony in a song (and honestly music in general!!)

2. dogs. if i see a dog anywhere, doesnt matter the context, i am dropping everything and muttering 'pubby...' while staring reverently, i love dogs

3. finding new hobbies n crafts i wanna try lol i keep telling myself i wanna try whittling but the tools... and im Broke 🥲 same with glasswork. like stained glass n like,, making glass beads n stuff... it looks so cool...

4. making sonas and self-insert ocs that are also basically sonas LMAOO i love me a world that lends very nicely to personalization if that makes sense. like classpects in hs or like figuring out your godly parent in the pjo universe or whatever. i think that shit is SO fun. im cringe but i am free

5. speaking of cringe (not to sound like a shonen anime protag but-) my friends!!! i love my friends theyre so cool and unique and we mesh so well, i love the different dynamics i have w people i guess haha

#about me #cryptic ramblings #cryptic answers #ill get to the asking part when im not at work lol #WHICH so proud of me for not calling out no matter how much i really REALLY wanted to #dont get me wrong im usually a very strong proponent of 'ur own wellbeing over ur job' but i. rly need money. n i cant rly callout rn 😭#so im proud of myself for coming in even though i feel Mad Crummy. hence why i needed to like 5 Nice Things rn 🥲

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claire-starsword · 1 year ago

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Shining Force 2 Pre-release Coverage

Post on the first game here

Let’s continue our deep dive on old magazines. Again most of my info here are from the Beep! Megadrive magazine, but I did manage to find some footage from old Sega videos as well.

For context again, the game released in Japan on October 1993.

June 1993

Unlike the first game, which showed very few regions during pre release, this one is eager to show a bunch of new places, probably because it can’t generate hype about a unique battle system anymore. Bowie and a parade of peculiar placeholders take a good tour around the continent.

Save for the wall decoration and possibly the colors, it’s hard to judge on print, New Granseal’s castle is pretty much the final version. Same for Arc Valley's escher-like dungeon, as the magazine puts it.

Volcanon’s shrine is also here, and the magazine claims to have seen “a huge monster” on the top of the shrine, so Volcanon is likely already there as well. They wonder if it could be a boss but I think it’s just baseless speculation since it’s clearly not a battle scene, and little story was revealed at this point.

The monument looks wack, the shop signs are huge, and doors are different, but otherwise Hassan looks very close to the final version.

Bedoe is dark, that particular torch is also not in the final version, although there are torches in the town. Would be a pain in the ass to navigate, but might be just a test of the dark effect.

HQ already has the same vibe, but lots of different details, like different tables, cups and flowers vases on them, no stone walls, etc.

But enough of that, let’s stop pretending the Placeholder Force isn’t the wackiest and most amusing thing in these screenshots. What do we have there.

Bowie seems mostly complete, which makes sense as I’ll show in a second that his design was already announced. There are still a couple differences though, his clothes are blue instead of white and his cape has a golden line. His design might have been quickly revised at some point?

There’s a bunny girl NPC. Because of course the first thing these devs hopped to make was a bunny girl NPC. I’m actually more shocked that they did not keep her. Also I’m saying NPC with some certainty because as you can see comparing with Bowie, playable characters tend to have one less pixel between the eyes. So I don’t think she’s a scrapped character or anything.

Mae is here! Because of course it makes sense to use a character from the previous game as placeholder. As opposed to, you know, drawing a whole bunny girl. Her lower body was recolored to orange/yellow for some reason though.

There’s a wyvern sprite that does make it to the final game as an enemy. Curiously that shot of New Granseal shows more wyverns flying around as well. It makes no sense to use flying placeholders for the soldiers that should be there, so I wonder if there were supposed to be birds flying in the scenario or something, it would be neat.

There’s a cute little girl NPC with twintails who sadly didn’t make it. I don’t have anything to say about this.

Finally, true nerds like me fans of this blog will have certainly recognized the warrior sprite as an unused sprite from the first game:

From the side however, it was clearly edited, the helmet losing detail, getting shorter horns, and the whole guy getting shorter as well. My theory is that this guy was on the process of becoming this:

and maybe later Jaha, as this NPC is already very similar to him, and his design was already announced as well. In fact, that’s what we’ll talk about next. Besides these screenshots, there are four characters introduced in this article.

This kid is the protagonist!?

He is the protagonist who will represent you and travel through the world of Shining Force II. It seems he lives in the castle town of Granseal, but has no adventuring experience yet. From here on the both of you will have an exciting journey together!

The princess of Granseal!?

The princess of the country of Granseal, where the protagonist lives. She seems to be the main female character for Shining Force II. Her long hair and beautiful dress are nice. How will she get involved with the protagonist? We look forward to see it.

Jaha

“We’re the side characters!?“

Wielding a huge axe, he’s a bad influence for the protagonist, and a hobbit warrior. Just like the protagonist, he’s still in training and has no adventuring experience. Really bad at studying in school.

Slade

The greatest thief in Granseal. He shares the stolen treasures with poor people. Clearly a kind of Nezumi Kozo.

As the link above says, Nezumi Kozo (rat brat) is the nickname of a japanese thief who later became a kind of Robin Hood-esque folk hero as it was assumed he helped the poor as well with his crimes, and also apparently never hurt a victim. There’s an obvious inspiration here.

Producer Hiroyuki Takakashi doesn’t reveal much of the story at this point, only that it will be a different continent than the first game, and also have more events happening one after another unlike SF. He also says that there would be battles different than the army vs. army setting of SF. There are also talks of how certain details of the system and graphics were being reworked, and already talks of being able to choose between promotions, but it’s all very vague.

Later in this month, a demonstration of the game was presented at the Tokyo Toy Show. I couldn’t confirm it as there doesn’t seem to be a recording of it anywhere, but it’s likely a lot of the footage from here on is from that.

July 1993

Article opens up with an interview with the Takahashi brothers, but there’s not much to note. They mention being in the point of writing the game’s ending, and when asked about the presence of robots and such in the previous game, mention that while the Ancients are always a part of the Shining Series since SitD, this game would lean more into the fantasy vibes.

Also, up to this point, they had been working on both SF2 and Gaiden 2 at the same time. Gaiden 3 released in early July so from here on they’re free to focus on SF2. Or maybe not, because there’s already talks of a Gaiden 3 being planned. For better and for worse, these people could not stand still a second.

(To digress a bit, it’s also peculiar because the Final Conflict strategy guide mentions the game was originally planned for the Mega Drive. The Gaiden series was a Game Gear thing, so perhaps there was a whole different game being considered at this point which got shelved to make way for Final Conflict.)

Back to the topic, we get a few more screenshots with the Placeholder Force.

Most places seen like the final version, but this house/village in front of the ancient shrine was removed.

We then get pictures of what is likely a later build with more familiar characters being worked on.

The Caravan debuts, and we also finally get the first battle scenes.

Taros is already here as the most eye-catching part for the 90′s kids. I on the other hand am loving a lot more how the platform neatly informs you it is a test only. The UI also does not show the character’s class, even though it will in the final version.

And Luke is here! Except maybe not. His name onscreen says Nick. Obviously this could be an issue of them using the rename cheat, but that doesn’t happen for any other character in these pre release footages, and would be a bizarre move. It’s possibly a placeholder name derived from Sonic Co., (like Max is likely derived from Climax Entertainment, now you know). The interesting thing is that this sprite and its palettes in the final game don’t quite match Luke nor Skreech’s design, and Luke is also the only character to not get a sprite change upon promotion, so it’s easy to believe that was some delay or complication in finalizing these guys.

We also get a look at the Grans-Parmecia Shrine map, which is very much done as well. The monsters on the top however is frustrating me to no end because they look very familiar but I can’t remember where from. Anyway, definitely didn’t make it to this game at least.

We also get our first look at Sarah and Kazin, except Kazin is so cut off on this screen it’s not worth mentioning him now, there will be plenty of time to talk about Kazin later. Sarah on the other hand is easy to see, and she’s clearly not herself yet. Her outfit is what will become hers and Karna’s vicar outfit in the final version, but she also has a hat, which only the vicar battle sprite will have in the end.

It’s okay, she’s an important character so i’m sure they will sort this out in a timely manner. Anyway! We do see someone else there who is also from the starting gang and with a complete design. Chester’s design is indeed announced at this point, though with little character info. There’s also a small synopsis of the story by now, which is basically “Slade steals a treasure in the shrine and bad stuff begins to happen”. We then get a map of Parmecia.

I don’t think I’ve posted an official map of Parmecia before, so here it is for comparison. They do look pretty much the same already. Volcanon’s shrine is weirdly not marked in the map, but is mentioned in the text. Lemon and Creed’s names are mentioned as well.

August 1993

The article of this month explicitly mentions the Tokyo Toy Show so that’s nice for reference. While I couldn’t confirm it, by comparing the footage I also think this Sega video (the Shining Force part starts at the 6 minute mark) is from the same month, so I’ll be using footage from there as well.

The demo showed an early version of the jail cutscene with Slade. While the dialogue seems to be same as the final version, Sarah does not have her portrait nor her final sprite yet, and the other characters seem to be just following Bowie in line as opposed to having their own places in the cutscene. The old man NPC also has different colors, and there seems to be someone else in the room.

If you watch further in the footage you’ll see everyone keeps following Bowie, even hilariously clipping through walls at points. I’ve joked about it before but turns out I was right, they did put some good effort into coding the followers’ movement, because they might have intended to use it more, if not through the whole game.

Lemon’s sprite was not done at the time, and the event of the Galam army’s departure was likely simplified since the final version involves not only Lemon, but the king as well, who seems to have no placeholder here.

The Caravan scene is also shown, although using the dwarf village theme, and having Jaha instead of Peter. Given that it’s just one character as opposed to the big team you would have at this point, it’s possible he’s just standing in for Peter and not actually intended to be in the scene. The next one raises further questions though.

The Kraken scene is also shown, and the whole starting team is here. Slade’s text is very much in same vein as Oddler’s in the final version, warning everyone of the Kraken’s appearance, but it’s still different text, as Oddler speaks more politely, so this version was written for Slade himself, no placeholding.

It deeply hurts my heart to consider Slade was supposed to have a bigger role and got scrapped, though I feel I know why this happened. This series really likes to take its gameplay deaths seriously for some reason, and it would probably be too costly to constantly check which characters are alive and have alternate versions of a cutscene to adjust for that. That’s why the first game mostly has just Nova talking (though characters still show up for the ending at least). The Gaiden games go around this a bit more by reviving everyone at the start of every chapter and on endings, and also using characters who just joined the force in the cutscenes as they can’t have died already.

This game made Peter and Lemon, two immortal characters who carry most of the conversations from the moment they join alongside Astral. It also seems to delay some characters joining as playable characters for this reason. For example, Kazin is not playable through the path to Hawel’s house even though he’s following you, because he has to be alive for the cutscene there. Pretty much every instance of a character following you instead of joining the force seems to be because of this.

There are a few instances that show they might have considered other approaches though. There are numerous instances at the start of the game where characters revive automatically, since there’s a lot of dialogue with them. After the first battle, before the jail scene, upon leaving Grans Island, and during the one year timeskip. Of course, they all resurrect during the time Princess Elis is asleep in the ending as well. There’s also as far as I remember a single instance where you must have a particular character alive to progress, if Elric is dead he won’t open the passage to Creed’s mansion.

Of course, they might have felt that characters would have to be constantly revived for do more scenes with that, and it would ruin their game design, and it’s not intuitive to know that you must revive a particular someone to proceed, so they might just have scrapped this kind of plot. Still sucks given that it’s kind of a self imposed limitation, plenty of games just treat defeat in battle as different to death and let the characters take part in the story as needed. But alas, back on topic.

Plenty of other battle maps are shown, albeit with different enemies and different stats. A very minor detail is that the golem sprite has red eyes. In the final version they have green eyes except for Claude.

Sorcerer spells are in, although they don’t seem to be fully implemented yet, in the footage Kazin uses them through the attack command as opposed to an actual spell. Perhaps because of that it is also single target.

Speaking of Kazin, I did say we have to talk about him, now’s the time.

His sprite seems to be much like the final one, but blue. It is possible there are small differences though, because his staff, not in the final version, seems to use at least three colors besides black and white, when all final weapons in the game use only two. This is because the game loads the character and weapon colors into a single 16 color palette, so to have more colors in one you sacrifice colors of the other. Weapons in the first game did have three colors so this might be a leftover.

Small details for big nerds though, as I said the design is pretty much complete, including details like the bag and the feathers he carries around, which are less generic than I’d expect for a placeholder. Perhaps he already had a tentative design floating around.

More than that, the map sprite seen in all these pictures did make it to the final game. As his sorcerer sprite.

It looks nothing like the sorcerer design, so it’s easy to accept it was designed for something else. Let’s compare with the final mage sprite.

Hair changed to be spiky, but everything else is basically the same, including the green staff which matches his final artwork. It’s likely he had some concept art already around, though it wasn’t officially revealed so perhaps there was some intention of changing it. But it’s noticeable that he shows up in plenty of footage while nothing is seen of Sarah, who is not finalized either. He was at least further in the development.

The color thing is also interesting. Kazin does get to be blue as sorcerer, and also as wizard... in the map, and the game’s cover, a rare case of official illustration of a promotion. In battle however his sprite is brown. That palette, though? Is the last one set for the wizard sprite, even though he should be the first wizard. And the first palette for it? That’s right, blue. In the final version it is used for Chaz, who does have the exact same clothes but is the last wizard in the game. It would not surprise me if there was a swap at some point. And of course it makes sense to not use two blue palettes for the same sprite. The question is, why design the characters with the same colors then? I would love to get an answer.

September 1993

Signs of progress, every picture is this article is from a different build, since character classes now show up in the UI.

Sarah still does not have her map sprite.

Her battle sprite and finished design do finally show up in the next pages though, so they might have just not got to it at the time, even if it feels silly to me as map sprites are simpler, perhaps exactly because of that they weren’t top priority. Either way, it just feels wild to me when compared to how Chester and Jaha and even Kazin seem to have been done.

As for the actual point of the picture, that’s Bowie casting Freeze level 4. Normally I’d chalk this up to debugging shenanigans, as the first game and Gaiden I as well give the heroes extra spells in debug mode, but, that generally also comes with jacked stats including 99 MP. Bowie here is at max unpromoted level but his stats look normal.

For further consideration here’s another screenshot of him at level 4 knowing Egress and Blaze level 1. Everyone’s stats look normal so this looks like his actual intended progression. Also while drafting this post and having it blasted to oblivion because tumblr can’t save properly apparently, I realized this explains a bit of the wackiness when it comes to magic progression in this game. Did you know that the Kraken is weak to ice? Have fun trying to exploit that weakness. In the final game, you go a big stretch of the game without access to Freeze. If you promote Kazin to wizard and don’t pick Tyrin at Creed’s, you’re basically locked out of ice spells for most of the game, until you finally find Chaz. That always struck me as very weird, and I’m realizing now it might be because they might have stuck with magical Bowie here for a good time, and didn’t rebalance things when changing it.

Sarah debuts with a proper sprite for once.

Blue Kazin however remains undeterred. You might also notice his staff is switching colors weirdly during animation. I’ve had this problem on my first hacking attempts of the game due to not setting up proper Mega Drive colors, and it’s amusing me to no end that it happened to the actual devs as well. Though I don’t know that much on how animations are done so the problem might have a different origin as well. Anyway, fun.

We also get to see Kazin’s full spell list, and while mostly the same, he has the Attack spell instead of Desoul, much like Tao was the only wizard to have it in the first game. In the final version, only Frayja learns this spell, making this the only classic Shining Force game where it is a priest spell instead of a mage one, so it doesn’t surprise me at all that Kazin was meant to have it.

It’s also worth noting that in the final game, Kazin is the only character who learns Desoul. Either the spell wasn’t in (the article mentions every other wizard and priest spell except for it), or someone else was meant to learn it, or they hadn’t even planned that far ahead.

We get our first character bios in a long time.

Protagonist - Bowie

A boy who lives in the castle town of Granseal. He used to be a mischievous boy, but nowadays is well behaved (?) and studying hard as Astral’s pupil. He’s friends with Jaha and Chester, and they play together almost every day.

The thief Slade

The self proclaimed great thief of justice. But he’s not much of a bad guy, and shares his stolen treasures with poor people. He seems to main culprit behind the story’s beginning!?

Warrior Jaha

Bowie’s friend, and a hobbit who hates studying the most out of all of Astral’s pupils. Really strong in battle.

The knight Chester

Bowie’s friend, and another pupil of Astral’s, but while he’s a gallant centaur, his one flaw is that he’s not very assertive. He often comes up as just a yes-man to Bowie. Don’t you have friends like that too? Treat him well.

Priest Sarah

An elf girl and also Astral’s pupil. She’s helpful and likes taking care of others, being kind of a big sister to Bowie and the others. Pulling out that sisterly authority at times, she might be kind of annoying?

Sometimes I wonder if Sarah went through some kind of rewrite during development since none of her official descriptions bring up her being the actual mischievous kid who plans to sneak into the castle and is not even apologetic about it, but then I remember that this series is uhhhh, ah, erm, oof, hmmmm, about women, so yeah, I don’t think that’s what’s going on here.

Sage Astral

Currently retired, he has now taken Bowie and the other kids as pupils. He’s also a notable person who knows the king personally. At the story’s beginning, he berates these troublesome kids while also giving them a chance to go on the adventure.

Sheela

A mysterious and beautiful human girl. She used to train under Astral, but left for some reason. While she doesn’t have much relation with the story, we look forward to see just how will she and Bowie meet. She’s quite sexy!!

King Granseal

King of the country of Granseal at the south of Grans Island. Bowie and the others live in its castle town. Because the queen passed away too soon, he dotes a lot on Princess Elis. Ooh.

Princess Granseal

The princess of Granseal, she’s a happy girl loved by the king and her people. We’re quite curious to know how she’ll be connected to the heroes. Maybe in the end she’ll be a party member!?

OOF

Kiwi

A new character appears!

The green turtle Kiwi is the mascot-like character this time. Of course he can take part in battles, but he’s not very strong. But he seems to hide some special talent!? What exactly is still a secret for now. He’s kind of cute, maybe.

-The previous game had Yogurt, of famous sayings (?) like “do you like my helmet�� and “I don’t get it”.

After the magazine, we get more Sega footage (starts around the 4:45 mark).

The intro seems pretty much done, except for a Gizmo attacking the king instead of Geshp. And it’s easy to think “oh it’s a placeholder”, but in the final version the king is really possessed by a Gizmo and Geshp doesn’t show up until much later, so I’m not sure? It’s not a very important change at least.

Sarah finally has her final sprite and portrait, so this is a different build. This does mean I can finally go bully the final graphics of this game a bit more.

Sarah’s final priest sprite is not based on her artwork, and is instead just a recolor of the vicar spritesheet, which as I mentioned, is from the placeholder sprite we’ve seen all this time. You can even notice some leftover grey shading that doesn’t quite fit with the blue. Compare it with Blue Kazin’s robes that I’ve posted earlier, which use only the two shades of blue in the palette.

This sprite was a massive rush job, is what I’m saying. A lot of map sprites in this game feel the same, learning how to edit graphics is both a blessing and a curse because you can’t unsee these things.

This footage shows up a lot of final battle sprites not seen until now, especially promotions, like Wolf Baron Gerhalt, Hero Bowie, and so on. I find it hilarious that it also brings up Kiwi when everywhere else they were trying to be coy about Kiwi’s promotion.

The weird thing though, is that the footage ends with the sorcerer spell display from the old builds. Did they not have footage of the final sorcerer graphics? Likely. Let’s bully the final graphics some more.

No fingers! Misplaced weapon! His ass was not designed in a sane and timely fashion!

So yes it is fully possible that the sorcerer sprite was not done even as the game was already like halfway through the door.

The funniest part? In this later build footage we only get a vague glimpse of Kazin.

I’m sorry the screenshot is horrible since it goes by fast, but that’s Blue Kazin.

Of course, most characters in the scene seem to be promoted, even special promotions like Brass Gunner Elric. At the same time May and Slade remain unpromoted. So is this Blue Kazin already repurposed as the sorcerer sprite? Or is the mage sprite still not done?

We might never know the truth, but the fact is that the pre release coverage ends here, and we didn’t get a single glimpse of his final artwork. In a sense he might have been a bigger mess than Sarah.

I have more to write but tumblr has already messed up this draft four to five times and I’m tired, so I’m splitting this into two posts even though i didn’t want it just to see if the problem is post size.

#shining force #shining force 2 #shining series #sf2 bowie #sf2 jippo slade #sf2 jaha #sf2 huey chester #sf2 kazin #sf2 sarah #this was fun to research but tumblr is making me want to kill something very hard not gonna lie

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bigblueoctoling · 9 months ago

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Splatoon 3 did Deep Cut dirty to an absurd degree: An Analysis

So, for starters, context on my general opinion on everything in splatoon 3: They kind of did everything dirty besides Side Order.

It isn't to say that Splatoon 3 only had bad ideas- Looking through the art book, they were cooking like crazy, and moreover, there's stuff in the final game that feels like, yes, this is really a step up for the franchise!

Splatsville itself is a GORGEOUS town. Moreover, it's easily, with NO competition, the best plaza. Frankly, the Inkopolis plazas always just left me feeling a little disappointed, wishing desperately to be able to explore the city, but you're cooped up into the absolute smallest space necessary. This doesn't feel like the heart of the town, this feels like a sad little strip mall. But SPLATSVILLE finally really lets you feel like you're in the heart of the city, surrounded by massive buildings, kinetic movement everywhere with the train overhead and the waterway in the back.

That being said, it's... not really utilized. At all. Like... There's one more store than normal, with Hotlantis, but that's really it. You can't sit in chairs or buy stuff from the stands and such. Splatsville is great, but it's kind of just going unused, underappreciated. Not strictly to say that adding little actions in particular would mean everyone would love it, but point being, it only just meets the mechanical standards of the series without feeling like a step forward, despite there clearly being a desire to make a larger, more meaningful area.

Tableturf Battle is a HUGE deal- splatoon gameplay that is going out of its way to diversify itself and spin off from the traditional shooter gameplay. I've been starving desperately for splatoon spin-offs, this was a huge deal to me in particular.

...But tableturf battle itself is genuinely an unbelievably boring game to me, this coming from someone who LOVES card games, and especially this abstract kind of card game. But there's no variety to the gameplay- there's very very little variety in deckbuilding strategy, the core mechanics are extremely straightforward and don't exactly leave much room for different game experiences, and there is virtually no room for skill expression because the entire thing is just a combination of card-drawing RNG and the RNG of where your opponent will place their turf.

Lockers were a huge deal- one of the things I want more desperately in this world than anything is a splatoon life sim, ever since the splatoon 1 loading screen I've wanted a little apartment you can buy stuff for and decorate and this is VERY close to being that.

...But, of course, it's not that. You have a microscopic amount of space, there's not exactly any reason to keep coming back and redecorating it- once you're satisfied with your locker you're kinda done, you can't save it and there's not enough room to really have multiple areas of your locker to any significant degree.

I have more examples, but my point is, these things are all great base concepts- they make me excited for the future of the series. Excited to see bigger locations, excited to see more spinoffs to splatoon gameplay, excited to be given my own space in this setting- but Splatoon 3 itself feels like it's not dedicated to actually making the things inside of it matter.

Case and point, Deep Cut.

Deep Cut are genuinely my favorite idols design-wise, and that's a stunning feat when I have ADORED every other set of idols. They are so unique looking, and they're deeply culturally inspired, and they bring that into everything they do, they are FANTASTIC.

But Splatoon 3 does NOTHING with them.

I was speaking with my friends on this- the way I put it was that the power balance of the idols are RIDICULOUSLY out of wack. In this context, "strength" refers to their overall impact as characters.

Callie and Marie are obviously enormously strong- the Calamari Inkantation is, bluntly, THE song of Splatoon. It means everything, both to the players, and to the setting, being a folk song of calamari county, and being the song that inspired so many octarians to fight for their freedom. They have all of Splatoon 1's campaign to be characterized, and that continues in Splatoon 2's campaign. The final splatfest of Splatoon 1 was the first titanic battle of the series- Bomb Rush Blush and Tide Goes Out were the encapsulation of their entire identities, it was perfect. I won't tell you that Splatoon 2's campaign is a masterpiece, I'll never stop complaining about fighting the same Octavio fight over and over- but Callie and Marie are perfect within it, the perfect resolution to the divide that the final splatfest split between the two.

youtube

I'm a total sucker for this, so pardon me gushing, but like... as Whatever as the fight was, the song was EVERYTHING. Callie's silly peppy song twisted by Octavio's usual desperately-imposing style of music to create this twisted mirror of Callie's song, taking her energy and turning it back on you in a childish tantrum.

youtube

And then Marie is there- After that, the entire energy of the song changes. The daunting backing of Octavio's contribution is warped back into a triumphant orchestra as Marie sings, her mature, calming voice settling what broke and making everything okay... And then, after all this time, the two songs join together, these songs that are so different existing side by side again, like they always should have.

(And then they get EVEN MORE SPOTLIGHT in Splatoon 3's campaign. It's not particularly amazing because Splatoon 3's campaign is terrible, but I'll get back to that later.)

What I want to highlight here is that one of the things that makes a group special in Splatoon is having moments like these; titanic, legendary moments that permanently take the song and imbue them with great importance in the history of the game. Splatoon songs don't have actual lyrics- their meaning kind of needs to be given to them by context, and songs like these, Calamari Inkantation, Bomb Rush Blush, and Tide Goes Out, have extremely moving context.

Off The Hook has a RIDICULOUS amount of importance. I mean, obviously, right? You aren't a splatoon fan if you do not care deeply about Off The Hook. They're core to the entire message of the franchise. They have Splatoon 2, and then Octo Expansion, and then Side Order- each of these layers onto themselves over and over. Ebb & Flow, their introductory song, has been given so much importance as time has gone on. Octo Expansion shows Marina's demo for it- the part of Ebb & Flow in particular that hits me is that, this is Marina's song. It perfectly encapsulates Marina and Pearl's relationship- The final song doesn't exactly include a *lot* of Pearl. To me, it feels like the point of Ebb & Flow isn't merely that it is Marina And Pearl's Song: Pearl in this song feels like a hype man. Pearl didn't make Off The Hook just to make herself famous- she would phrase it like that, but Ebb & Flow feels to me like it's Pearl saying: Look at how talented this girl is! She's going to rock this world and I'm taking her to the top no matter what it takes!

And that continues with the later versions of Ebb & Flow- Fly Octo Fly will genuinely always make me cry listening to it. Fly Octo Fly is Eight's song- In the same way that E&F was to heighten Marina, Fly Octo Fly is there to hype up Eight- She's gone through hell and back to earn her freedom, no apocalyptic force is strong enough to deny her of that.

And while I'm on the topic of Octo Expansion, there's also Nasty Majesty, that song that ripped through that legendary trailer for Octo Expansion- the song emanates unstoppable force. Nothing can stop Eight, she's going to tear this place to the ground.

Into The Light is such a gripping song. It's so warm, gentle, smooth, after the chaos of fighting for your life... it represents to me the warmth of Eight, finally on the surface, finally able to see the sun. Finally able to live in the world you fought so long to achieve.

And frankly I could be here all day talking about the songs in Side Order with immense gravity- Maybe I'll go through them at a later date, but, while Fly Octo Fly is still my #1, Side Order manages to have even more massive dynamic song-moments like this.

Point being, Marina and Pearl are fucking insanely stacked. They make Callie and Marie look like fucking nobodies in terms of how much impact they have had on this series. And, for the record, this isn't a complaint to say that they have too much attention- I fucking LOOOOOVE them. They deserved every moment, and quite frankly, I still want more. I will never not love them. They are everything.

Deep Cut exists

Like. It's heartbreaking. It's really not the fault of their music- Anarchy Rainbow is a gorgeous song. But like... It doesn't carry the weight of the other idol 'intro' songs; it doesn't feel as though it really stands for anything in particular, and that's not because of the song- it's because Deep Cut has never really stood for anything in particular.

The story only really tells us one meaningful thing about Deep Cut, and that's that they are looters, for the sake of helping the many, many less fortunate people in this injust world. And that angle is fucking awesome- like the other positive things I've said about Splatoon 3, this is a GREAT first step.

And that's just kind of the only thing we've heard on the matter.

Like... yes, there is a general sense of pride, togetherness, and that's great, but that isn't really "context", those are just general positive vibes. I don't listen to Anarchy Rainbow and think about how this song ties into Deep Cut, because Deep Cut has never done anything.

And this goes for all of their songs. Like, they're mechanically great songs, but they don't make me feel anything. The only thing I really associate Deep Cut with is how fucking toxic people in the Splatoon 3 fanbase are about splatfests. It takes a lot to make me have a negative association for a Splatoon song, but Deep Cut are just like... totally pointless.

I think it really, really speaks to how truly fucked Deep Cut are by Splatoon 3, that these are the only idols that have THEIR OWN FUCKING BOSS FIGHTS, but they don't even get their own songs for the fights. Like, the Deep Cut boss fight theme is a good video game song, but it's not a meaningful song in any way. This is amplified by the fact that Deep Cut's entire presence in the story feels like it's solely out of pity. Like, they couldn't be in Side Order, And they already set up Callie and Marie as your main companion characters, so they just needed to have Deep Cut in there SOMEHOW. Like... There is nothing there. Their entire motive is just that they want to steal the Ambiguous Things. This isn't a fight with any meaningful stakes at all, they don't even know what these Things are, they're just taking them because they are an object that they can take.

And they don't even get to sing their own fucking song in the final boss! THIS is the most aggressive robbery in the entire series; it's just fucking Calamari Inkantation again. I love the Calamari Inkantation, but it has literally zero relevance to this fight at all. This fight has literally nothing to do with it. And, for the record, the fight has nothing to do with Deep Cut either, but they don't even get to sing their fucking song! They just sing a song that's been recycled in every single game up to this point! Like, no, the context of Calamari Inkantation is not going to be about how Neo 3 went to space to fight Mr. Grizz, sorry- this moment isn't even important enough to leave an impact on a new song, how the fuck could you ever think it could leave an impact on literally the most important song in the franchise?

Shit's just fucked. They really really really deserve so much more. Like... it's bad enough you got stuck having to deal with being in Splatoon 3, you don't even get an ounce of attention in your own game, and half of the fanbase hates one of the members for dumbfuck reasons. It's truly miserable.

Despite how much I don't care for Splatoon 3, I really, really, really, DEEPLY pray that the final splatfest gives Deep Cut... SOMETHING. Whatever happens, I just pray that they get to have their own spotlight for the first time. But, since it's a splatfest, I can't help but fear it'll be bogged down by how fucking toxic this fandom is about the splatfests in this game. It's such a shame...

Deep Cut simply needs to have an enormous focal point in the next Splatoon game. Like. I will truly weep if Splatoon 4 comes and passes without Deep Cut getting the justice they deserve.

#bluetext #splatoon #splatoon 3 #deep cut #Youtube

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7-ratsinatrenchcoat · 2 years ago

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GUYS

I figured it out.

HOW TO REDEEM HAWK: A CHARACTER ANALYSIS

I've said in the past that Hawk the pig is one of my least favorite characters ever in media. I hate the motherfucker. I have a more in-depth analysis on why he sucks here if you're interested. I gave some examples of ways he could be redeemed within the show, but neglected to mention ways similar characters have been redeemed in other shows.

On that note, I present to you: Zenitsu.

This guy is technically introduced during the Final Selection arc, but we don't really get to know him until the endless mansion. His first real scene is him begging a girl on the side of the road to marry him, because he's hopelessly convinced he's going to be killed by a demon soon. Our main character Tanjiro, being the guy he is, pries him off the poor girl and convinces him to leave by offering him food. Seems like a cool way to introduce a comedic relief, right? Pretty much.

But that's not all.

Zenitsu is, for the most part, a whiny little bitch who is less useful than an overcooked spaghetti noodle. He can't fight- he says so himself- and will not shut up. He's set up to be funny, yes, but also annoying as hell.

Until they get separated in the mansion and Zenitsu passes out in fear of a demon, and then sleepwalks his way into badassery. Okay, so he's weak when he's awake and strong while he's asleep! Cool trope reversal, but seems a little one-dimensional.

Yeah, except...

He isn't.

(For context: Tanjiro's sister, Nezuko, was turned into a demon. She can't be exposed to sunlight or she'll die, so Tanjiro carries her in a box to keep her close during the day. He left the box behind to protect the two kids outside the mansion, but they ended up following him inside, so Nezuko was left alone.)

Zenitsu does not know what is in that box, other than it is a demon, nor why said demon is so important to Tanjiro.

All the context he has is a passing comment from Tanjiro that what is in the box is more important than his life. That's all it took for Zenitsu to but himself between Inosuke (a dude we don't really know yet, but who is attacking the box) and this wack ass backpack his new friend is strangely attached to. It's very clear that Zenitsu has been getting the shit beat out of him for a while now, but continues to prevent Inosuke from harming the box.

Cool story, Rat, but what does this have to do with Hawk? Great question!

Zenitsu could very easily have become the same kind of character as Hawk- intended to be comedic relief but coming off as annoying, as well as being a convenient plot device for the author by getting the gang into unnecessary trouble and creating conflict solely to serve the narrative. Super annoying and wholly unappreciated.

But this moment- this brief conflict- gives him significantly more depth. He's willing to undergo intense physical torment to protect a belonging that is important to his friend who he met just a few hours ago. This is where he differs from Hawk, who takes every opportunity to create problems for Meliodas and the Sins and be a general inconvenience with no redeeming qualities.

Does Zenitsu still have the capacity to be annoying? Of course. Is he mostly useless? Yeah, but don't hold it against him. The point is, he's given the potential to be better, and actually acts on that potential when given the chance.

This has been a TED talk. Thank you for coming.

#demon slayer #kimetsu no yaiba #seven deadly sins #nanatsu no taizai #zenitsu #hawk sds #character study #tldr; zenitsu is hawk done right

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meeblo · 1 year ago

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TBWF Reread Ch0

Here it is, the start of my reread of the The Boy Who Fell, with analysis and an accompanying drawing or sketch each chapter. I'm doing this as a combination of a few things I want to do, namely reread TBWF and get better at art.

Not sure how I want to order this in the future, for now I'll do art first and then analysis.

Chapter 0 is fairly short so I don't have much to say. The striking solid red cover does a great job establishing the tone and prevents readers from getting the wrong impression from the majority of chapter 0 before Ren is pulled off the roof. Even while the basic school plot is happening, the reader wonders what that chapter cover was about and what the deal is with the ominous past tense narration.

It's interesting seeing Yuu's characterization here. You don't learn a ton about him in this one short chapter, but he's definitely different to how his characterization is later solidified in Springtime of Yuuth. Visually different as well, not just in art style which obviously shifted over time but in terms of body language and posing as well.

Ren's characterization is very nicely introduced here. Throughout the chapter, the narration in Ren's voice is going back through the events that transpired and trying to think over what he could have done differently. The nervous self-doubt is mixed with self deprecation, as Ren states that he is "simply bad luck". Ren stating that "Yuu had nothing to do with it" and that it was just his own bad luck shows him solely blaming himself for negative occurrences that are—though not entirely out of his control—decidedly influenced by other factors; this stays true of his character up to late in the series, where he finally starts to accept that the things he was pushed to do are proof that he is a victim too, not that he has committed unforgiveable acts. This isn't to say that Yuu is at fault here; the roof edge was precarious, but an eldritch tendril from hell pulling Ren off is the problem, Ren would not have fallen otherwise. This is just an early indication of a larger part of his character. Ren is also shown to be someone with little to no social connections and a pushover when it comes to someone with more self confidence than him, other aspects of his character that are relevant early on though not as long lived as his self-deprecating blame.

My favorite panel of the chapter is the last one on page twelve. The composition is very striking, with the directly top down view as Ren is being pulled off the roof and is now parallel to the ground facing up at the sky. This wonderfully recontextualizes the very first page, the only color page of the chapter, which is devoted to a full view of the sky. Though not the exact view Ren would see when falling, page two (as the copyright notice is technically page one) definitely conveys a different tone with the context of how the chapter ends. Page twelve is also the best view of Ren in the chapter, providing a full body depiction. This is the moment when you see Ren in the most detail in chapter 0: right as everything goes to hell.

My Art

I was definitely overambitious here for my first time ever drawing a scene in a digital art program. The perspective proved to just be too tricky, so Ren and Yuu's sizes don't quite match up; Ren in particular has a massively wide chest, strange proportions I was not intending. I wanted to try and shade things with screentone to replicate somewhat the look of the comic earlier on, but I didn't actually reference and see how star tended to use screentone so it's not quite the same. Overall though, I think I had a good concept for the piece and that the composition is fine even if the anatomy and proportions are all out of wack. There are things I decided to not go back and fix because I don't want to strive for perfection on every piece; I feel like I'm more likely to improve faster if I keep making new pieces rather than tweaking one until I'm absolutely satisfied with it. Real missed opportunity though to just make the sun the sun, I realized afterwards it would have been really cool to have made it the Hell Kitchen logo.

I gained a lot more familiarity with shortcuts and navigating layers, so it's nice to already have noticeable improvement even just from when I started this drawing to when I finished.

#tbwf #the boy who fell #tbwf reread #tbwf ch0 #meeblo art

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stray-tori · 1 year ago

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trigun stampede reaction compilation & thoughts

it is trigun stampede time. <- can't watch new link click ep

funfact: I called Meryl Merelyn for like. the entire watch. I can't hear :)

finally watching trigun stampede. i enjoy it a lot so far. sometimes the animation is a bit too overly animated (lol) but that's my only nitpick so far.

Meryl going "!!! journalistic integrityyyy, don't flatter meeee" was so cute, she's very endearing.

I didn't think it'd hook me that well, I just kinda wanted something to distract me a bit.

(insect bomb thingies) JESUS CHRIST

(idv reference) breaking wheel crossover spotted.

i like that the antagonist is just in this wack-ass clothed hood (how is it so big?) and is just.... slowly walking across the desert to the goal, like dude you couldn't get... a vehicle or sth? damn

a funny dude ominously terrifying but kinda funny

nvm absolutely terrifying the hood is still a lil goofy

why's there another kid that has the same hairstyle as the other two as kids......

(Kni obliterating the town) ok but why tho dude

oh hey wolfwood. oh. he ded. epic.

lmao his speech to god with that deadpan voice and wide kneel is sending me he is kinda creepy- i get that hes being nice to this traumatized child. but he comes across. as so creepy lol- "hey kid WANT A LOLIPOP" (this is even weirder in hindsight, like did he know?? he being an actor out here)

well. they ded. rip NO SPLITTING THE PARTY this show is genuinely creepy

???? they were too busy with the flir compliment to notice Roberto just fucking vanishing in front of them?? okay okay i see how it is

Wolfwood: "you fool!!" (proceeds to keep standing in front of the worm too)

HIS NAME IS NIKOLAS???

fellas does it mean sth to take the words of your thematic foil to heart and eat something again?

awww they're both sleeping in the back of the car lol, adorable

Meryl: im dying of a heat stroke Meryl: (in jacket)

Hello Norton from the 4vs1 asymmetrical game Identity V.

ooh it was a flashback :0 smooth ... mAN :( NO THIS DUDE. NOT THIS DOCTOR DUDE

why did his death actually bring the wind back i dont understand... like uh, I get that there's some religious theming going on here; but is the show saying that it's actually true and he was needed as a sacrifice? idk about that one chief. Maybe it's "sth sth natural order restored" but hmmm

Subtitles sure would be nice for this silent movie segment (dub was too incompetent to add subtitles for the text, so i had both sub and dub open and alternated as the segments happened. fun times. tbh it probably wasn't that relevant but oh well)

this artstyle and animation of this orphanage segment is SO NICE

that was adorable and way more "eyo?" than i expected from this show. dude smoked as a toddler too though, goddamn.

i…… what about wolfwood being against the cult until they blackmailed him made blue-hair think killing everyone they can blackmail him with would make him a better devotee. Like I guess he's not genuine now but I feel like killing everything he's trying to protect by helping them, is just.... kinda counterproductive.

Wolfwood: ILL SKIN YOU ALIVE AND PLAY WITH YOUR BONES UNTIL YOU BEG FOR DEATH Vash: 🥺

(the context does make sense but this fucking killed me)

ik that its literal for him bc he doesnt need it but saying he wont eat the food bc its "a waste" just hits different for me.... hng.

im gonna cry bc this "home" segment is so nice and im sure soon ill cry bc its gonna get RIPPED AWAY

LUIDA SURVIVED THAT??? HOW DID SHE SURVIVE THAT- Halleluja.

NO HIS HAIR- UNDO THIS RIGHT NOW. WHAT IS THIS- WHERE'S SOFTIE- epic callback tho (? idk what the relation to the other trigun media is.)

apparently it's sort of an semi-divergent prequel? according to the comments at least..... which..... probably means the hair is gonna stay... *sob*

okay, what is even happening-

goddamn the fucking burning animation on Knives.... they went insane, that looked so good.

I- what is happening-

I'm assuming the name of the newbie Meryl will take on is meaningful to the franchise bc it was framed like that but I just sat there like... "w-who? should i know them?"

where's vash :(

On characters and dynamics

So, some stuff I didn't really comment on but the whole plants thing is very cool, lots of interesting philosophical arguments. Even if the whole... scientist shows journalists around thing was a little.... well, damn, aren't you nice, huh? IDK THAT WAS SO RANDOM WHAT DHSAJD-

Also the imagery of Vash having cords to all of the plants sure was something. (not negative)

I... was really confused on what was going on with his vine thingies at the end. I'm pretty sure both him and Knives got 1 wing each with their... tentacle... thingies, but they never really focused on it well (or maybe I was too tired to notice) so I was like "?? what is this noise behind him" for like... 2 minutes.

I think the show peaked with everything except the end for me (like all the plants stuff, like everything going on with the morality aspects and all that)- which might be my lack of trigun investment going into it to be fair. I feel like.... they did set it up but then didn't really deliver on it in a way that felt impactful to me, things were just kinda... happening and people were just kinda... there. Which like, i get this is kinda beyond anyone's capabilities but. YOU KNOW-

Maybe I just don't get it (likely), but I feel like it was kind of set up well, but then also not really resolved with the same "pieces"?

Like uh. we had wolfwood and vash redirect the cannon from the orphanage, which is very similar to vash redirecting the core-space-cube-thingy from the city in the end.

And we also had the whole "reach the person inside" aspect with livio, which then kind of came back with vash. But Meryl... idk, her part in the climax felt kind of unearned or... not as impactful to me? She wasn't really involved in the livio stuff at all.

I'm not saying Wolfwood would have made sense to be there in her stead, not rly, but her being there just didn't really do anything for me. She even already had her moment of not running away in the orphanage arc too. And she also didn't really have a huge impact in the end either, because it was mostly Rem's memory? Which like, you could argue makes my whole problem irrelevant which is fair, but idk. felt strange.

So yeah, I do think that i find it a jarring that the ending kinda had this whole Meryl->Vash and Wolfwood->Meryl rescuing thing going on, when I feel like the show almost exclusively focused on Meryl+Roberto and Vash+Wolfwood.

#tori talks #trigun stampede #tristamp #tori has opinions

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williamaltman · 2 years ago

Text

My full IWTV thoughts/feelings/"review" (Part 1).

Ok for a while now I have been wanting to do like a big post talking about all of my main thoughts about the show. I think I went into the show in kind of an odd position because, I'm a book reader, but not a longtime one. I literally just got into them right before the show started airing. I started watching when it started airing and I had finished IWTV and TVL, but then I stopped and decided to at least finish TQOTD before I continued the show.

So, I'm gonna start with all the things I like and then what I didn't.

First of all: The way they just said fuck subtext or lowkey representation and made this fully romantic and horny. One of my issues with the books is that, at least in IWTV (but in a lesser extent the others too?), they keep things in this realm of plausibe deniability where even though things are obviously gay they still don't make it fully explicit. I get that it was 1976, but that doesn't fully change how I feel reading it, you know.

Besides the material itself, from what I understood AR loved to give some vague answers and "let things speak for itself", along with an idea in both books and her comments that vampires don't "need to worry" so to speak with sexual orientations, that in a way it doesn't really count, which is wack imo (though she did also full-on say that Lestat is bisexual which I appreciate).

But I think what bothered me the most in IWTV, wasn't even the subtext itself, but the way that Louis essentially didn't express any love for Lestat. The story is written like he just hates him from the beginning save for the first moments where he saw him to when he was turned. They are obviously coded as a couple down to HAVING A CHILD TOGETHER, but Louis' narration just never acts "accordingly" and gives it this weird no homo vibe. His love for Armand is a bit more clear which is better, but also not totally? Especially cause when they're saying stuff like "I/you want him to be my/your companion" it usually has the context of him as a replacement for Claudia.

Anyway this isn't a book review, so what I mean is basically that it was just VERY satisfying to see Loustat being clearly in love, especially from Louis' part. I love to see that sort of initial attraction especially when it comes from someone who doesn't want to be feeling that and all the angst that comes with it. Also, THEY FUCK. I kinda appreciate the concept of vampires not having regular sex in the books, but I'd still rather have them fuck. As a treat.

The fact that they also explicitly established Louis as gay instead of staying ambigous about his sexuality was also incredible. I do like works where that just isn't brought up and it just works naturally like if they were straight, but it's not my favorite approach. I like when they actually deal with it.

And on the topic of Louis' changes: Anything from slave-owner in a plantation is a glow-up. Making him also a black man is like, downright reparations. If you're upset about that you're dumb and possibly racist sorry. I understand that Louis' "race-swap" is different from most other characters since him being white actually is relevant, but it's relevant in a bad way. The upgrade definetely needed to happen to tell the story in current times.

And since we're talking about these types of changes, Claudia. I have A LOT of issues with how Claudia's story was handled, but Claudia herself, as in Bailey and her acting? Great. She's just amazing. The change in her age makes for a different story, but one that still works. And Bailey is just so charismatic and fierce. To see her slowly change from the cute daddy lou girl (which as I said, was way more fun and charismatic than book Claudia) to whom she has become in the latter episodes? Incredible. She truly embodies being the baddest bitch in the house, she INVENTED girlbossing.

And kinda going from this, the acting. The acting of all three is great. They have great chemistry, both Sam and Jacob and the two of them with Bailey. Even appearance wise, Claudia still looks like a living doll, and Jacob is still a soft pretty boy in a way that fits my own standards for a babygirl-coded character. Sam Reid might actually be too hot to be Lestat, tbh. I joke but wow, I'm actually attracted to him now. Armand's was like particularly genius cause even though he's not a auburn-haired white teenager he still looks just like Armand when it comes to his actual features?!

Also, the vibe, the atmosphere. It actually took me a while to get into it. I had whiplash from reading the book and seeing the movie where it was like 1 or 2 centuries behind the show, but once I got into it I loved it. I don't know how to explain this better but I just like how everything looks and "feels". The set and costume designers ate. The cinematography is great too and gives it the final touch.

#Interview with the Vampire #IWTV #IWTV TV #IWTV 2022 #AMC IWTV #Loustat #Claudia #Vampire Chronicles #The Vampire Chronicles #VC #TVC #Review #Rambling

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