#vs guy who wins everything at the cost of the people around him

[mynabirb]

unlucky idol and fortune's chosen one

[dirtbra1n]

WAIT I FORGOT ABOUT KRISNIX VS WRIGHTWORTH

HI SUNNFISH it’s been eight days and I’m not getting any work done right now anyway. Ha ha ha ha. I’m gonna go dig up some of my nutjob krisnix hashtag #Posts

okay that done I’m actually gonna talk about wrightworth first. baby’s first yaoi probably It makes sense and it compels me.

really really beautiful thing about wrightworth is how many people go into the first ace attorney thinking that the prevalence of attorney yaoi is a result of typical fandom behavior and get blasted with the concentrated blast of shu takumi’s vision of how chronically strange normal guy phoenix wright decided to completely change the trajectory of his life for one of his boy best friends from the 4th grade. unnecessary feelings and its ramifications. miles edgeworth choosing death gate. the ugly ways phoenix does not cope with this, on account of his many issues. redacted hospital scene. sundry textual instances of phoenix’s well-adjustment re: edgeworth shot at the player point blank. miles edgworth That man… gate. wrightworth is so fucking much you guys……..

I do not see either of these two biting the bullet to establish a formally romantic relationship in any capacity until they are well into their thirties. they need to be extraordinarily strange at and about one another for decades on end and then elope on a thursday afternoon, which will not ease up the strangeness but will grant them various legal benefits. love wins! Longer post would talk about how and why they’re weird. but I need to talk ab

sunnfish when I tried the media tab first for collected krisnix miscellany I passed this and it made me cry laugh

I need to talk about krisnix

trying to pin down my deepest rooted beliefs is like pulling teeth. You know there was a time where apparently I saw nothing interesting about kristoph. I’ve become a better and weirder person in the meantime. it makes sense. it compels me. ha ha ha ha.

^ 2dirt2brain krisnix breakdown of december ’23. of which we’re all very aware I’m sure. kristoph wants control of the world around him and is as incapable of fulfilling that desire as any mortal man. phoenix has a lot more free time nowadays. regular dinners together. seven years. play hooky, get hooked. unkillable phoenix wright. you can’t fake an affection that long—seven years. come on, now. get back to the office after they take him in and slump a little. you ought to say, now or never, that you kinda like the guy.

you’ve (🫵 not him) got to know that phoenix wright is a hard as hell guy to know We’ve compared him to tashiro before sunnfish I know this. he doesn’t open up. clam shut tight of course I think we should give kristoph a paring knife to try and crack him open. just can’t trust him with knives bigger than that one.

like of course the psychosexual warfare is the main thing. but seven years together and zero reason to believe that the guy who cost you your attorneys badge would murder anyone means seven years of some of the heartiest insane appealing-directly-to-me Situation the world has ever, ever seen. some of this is psychosexual warfare. everything else is a secret worse thing.

I think flawed attorney and devastatingly loyal man phoenix wright should try to save kristoph’s life. bet you never thought you’d care this much about capital punishment, huh, phoenix?

also kristoph should be time looped

now considering the VS. statistically I trust more people with wrightworth because the sheer numbers go crazy. I trust myself and my friends with krisnix more however because krisnix is fundamentally custom built for me to chew on and bite into. two cakes. we should put edgeworth and kristoph in a cage match. I think they just WOULD NOT get along, separate from phoenix entirely. tear each other’s dicks off!!!!!

as a bonus here is a short list of things that remind me of krisnix

boris by lo-fang

that myth about a dog locking its jaws as it bites into you

magnet poem I spent actual hours laboriously stitching together whilst listening to kristoph’s solitary confinement theme

Also munchausen by proxy have I said that already

and of course the second bonus:

[cloudywriter]

camp staghorn - 1

Okay here is the official first chapter of Camp Staghorn! I know it’s long and maybe not the most entertaining but gotta have that building up first. Now things will start to pick up just you wait. Thank you for all the love on the snippet too! Let me know if you would like to be tagged!

my masterlist

~~~

Aelin sighed as she finally got off the bright yellow bus, her three bags weighing heavily on her arms and shoulder. The sun was already high in the sky and beating down despite Terrasen’s usually mild temperatures. Lysandra hopped down on the gravel path the bus had stopped in front of with a huff, Dorian and Elide followed. 

They were all about to spend the next week as camp counselors for a huge group of kids all in 1st-6th grade. She was just glad they had 6th graders. While Aelin loved kids but she wasn’t particularly looking forward to what she knew would be a long and tiring week. But, being a camp counselor would look great for her college applications. It was the summer right before their senior year, school had ended only a week prior. 

A number of other people who looked around her age shuffled about the area already convening into their respective friend groups. A few sat around old wooden picnic tables that were set up outside of the camp’s entrance. A huge sign was erected overhead with the words Camp Staghorn painted in white block letters. 

Chaol finally exited the bus and came to stand by Aelin.

“Really, Aelin? Three bags?” Chaol commented, shifting his singular black, duffel bag on his shoulder. 

Aelin shrugged, “I didn’t know what all I would need.”

Chaol only half-heartedly shook his head. Although Aelin and Chaol had broken up in the middle of junior year their relationship was still relatively amicable. 

Lys quickly shoved between Aelin and Chaol. “Aelin, look!” She whispered loudly into Aelin’s ear, pointing towards a group of boys occupying the grass near the entrance. 

At that, Aelin perked up, especially when she laid eyes on the group. Seriously, four of some of the best-looking high school boys she had ever seen were huddled there. 

A boy with tan, golden skin and blonde curly hair piled on his head seemed to be the focal point of the group, Aelin could hear his voice all the way where she was but couldn’t discern what he was saying. The boy immediately next to him looked to be his brother but with a brown mop of hair instead. Two other boys were there too, one with long, straight brown hair and a grumpy demeanor radiating off of him. The other boy was who Aelin really noticed though, his hair was a unique blonde, it appeared almost silver and was cut shorter, his skin had a healthy glow. He was in the circle with the other boys but she could tell his mind wasn’t. He was looking out at the expansive, blue lake that could be seen just through the trees with a thoughtful, pensive stare on his features. 

Dorian stepped up behind Aelin, following Lys’s finger to the gathering of boys. 

“Oh, they go to Mistward High. Chaol and I have had a few lacrosse games against them,” Dorian offered nonchalantly. 

“They’re gorgeous,” Lys giggled. 

Aelin shoved Lysandra’s shoulder playfully, “You’re dating my cousin!”

“I know, I know, but maybe you could have a summer camp fling. Oh, my gods! Like Camp Rock, you hear him singing your song, or whatever happened, and boom it’s love at first sight.” Aelin laughed and rolled her eyes. 

At her laugh, the silver-haired boy turned his eyes in her direction and they made brief eye contact, Aelin gave him a small smile and the boy looked away immediately. Well, that was rude. 

A man suddenly stepped up onto one of the empty picnic tables, a clipboard in hand. His hat was embroidered with Camp Staghorn and he wore a matching t-shirt in a deep green hue. 

“Alright, everyone listen up please!” He clapped his hands a few times to grab everyone’s attention. 

“My name is Gavriel, I’m the director of Camp Staghorn so if you have any questions, comments, or concerns I’m the guy to come to. Now, you all have signed off on behaving and being camp counselors who will set a good example but let’s just go over a few ground rules. First, no funny business between boys and girls camps especially at night, stay in your cabins after lights out. Second, remember to clean up after yourselves and your campers. Third, stay on top of your respective schedules. And really, just use common sense please, you’re all seniors you know the difference between right and wrong I don’t want to have to stand up here and list out a bunch of rules for a bunch of hypothetical scenarios, understood?”

A few head nods and murmurs of yes rippled through the crowd. 

“Great, then I’ll skip over that, you all know what’s expected of you. I’m going to call up names and give you a packet and a t-shirt. In that packet will be a list of your campers, your camp number, your cabin number, a map, and your camp’s schedule for the next week. The schedules are very packed so remember to stay on top of things, okay?”

More nods and murmurs of acknowledgment. 

Gavriel began to call names and people milled up to him to grab their new belongings. 

“Fenrys Moonbeam.” A few snickers went through the group and the blonde boy from earlier proudly made his way up to Gavriel. 

A few more names were called, Aelin remembered hearing the other two boys were named Lorcan and Connall but she was focused on learning the silver-haired boy’s name. 

“Rowan Whitethorn.” At that, the boy - Rowan - approached the table. Aelin thought the name fit him. 

“Elide Lochan.” Elide quickly made her way to Gavriel as Dorian, Chaol, and Lysandra got called too. 

“Aelin Galathynius.” Aelin made her way up, her heavy bags hitting her legs as she walked. She acquired the packet and shirt from Gavriel. 

A list of around twelfth names of girls looked back at Aelin. She skimmed them and saw written across the top was her camp number and cabin number with her schedule and map attached. Camp number 6 and cabin 3B. Lys peeked over Aelin’s shoulder.

“Oh, good you have 3B, Elide has 2B and I have 4B.” 

Aelin smiled but the three girls were a little put out when they noticed their schedules didn’t really align besides the designated meal times. “What are Dorian and Chaol’s cabins?”

“I don’t know they were in the E ones, they put the boys and girls on opposite sides,” Elide answered. Aelin nodded her head. 

“Okay, everyone should have everything now. The kids should arrive in about an hour, so make your way to your cabins and get dressed in your camp shirts. Then we will have a get-to-know-you activity and a little kick-off game when everyone arrives,” Gavriel spoke again.

Once they were dismissed everyone headed towards the cabins and mentally prepared themselves for an incoming army of children. 

+++

The introductions had gone fairly well, Aelin could probably name at least seven of the girls’ names off the top of her head. They all appeared friendly and like they would be a solid group, Aelin found herself looking forward to the week surprisingly. 

The girls and Aelin had all gotten settled in their cabin and were dressed in matching deep green shirts with the number 6 printed largely in white on the back. They made their way to the center of the camp which accommodated a large wooden stage and matching benches lined up around it in a semi-circle. It was clear at some point the stage and benches had been painted with bright colors and patterns but the paint had begun to peel off with time. 

Aelin directed the girls to all sit on the middle bench in the third row as she surveyed the area, looking for any sign of Elide and Lysandra. Most groups were finishing up their introduction games and convening in the main area now as instructed. 

Elide appeared from around a group of trees, her girls trailing closely behind. Aelin smiled when she saw her and waved her over. They all quickly settled in and waited for the second part of the day to start. 

“I’m already sweating through this shirt,” Elide sighed, fanning herself with the packet given to them earlier. 

“Do you know what the kick-off game is?” Aelin asked Elide curiously. 

Elide only shook her head.

A few minutes passed and the benches started to get pretty packed with people all chatting noisily. 

A cough into a mic alerted everyone, a dozen heads shifted towards the stage. 

“Alright, I believe we have all the 6th-grade groups here so why don’t we get started,” Gavriel spoke with enthusiasm. 

“So, get ready boys and girls for the great Staghorn mud race! Groups will be pinned against groups, boys vs. girls until there’s only one undefeated girl’s team and one undefeated boy’s team remaining and then we will have the final throw down!”

A few whoops went through the crowd. Fenrys was close to the stage pumping his arm in the air, hyping up his collection of young boys. 

“Follow me to the track and we will announce the beginning brackets!” Gavriel hopped off of the stage, he and a few other officials of the camp led the way down a dirt path steering away from the stage. 

They all stopped after a short trek, huddled around a middle strip of field complete with obstacles. 

“Here you can see what you’ll have to face. First, you have to high knee through the tires, then climb up the wooden wall using the rope and slide down the net on the other side, next crawl through one of the tunnels, and hop from log stump to log stump and book it to the finish line! Of course, you have to do all of that in slippery mud, it will be messy. The first team to get their counselor and all their campers through wins and moves on to the next round,” Gavriel explained. 

Aelin could feel the anticipation and eagerness radiating off of counselors and kids alike. Even Aelin was feeling excited, her overly competitive nature boiling to the surface. 

Aelin swiftly turned to her small army of 12-year-olds. “Okay, girls, I want every single one of you to be booking it the whole way through, we will come out the winners at all costs, I don’t do losing.”

The girls looked up at Aelin with wide eyes, many nodding their agreement.

“Oh, I forgot to mention the overall winning camp gets ice cream after dinner tonight!” Gavriel interjected.

The stakes were high, not only was Aelin competitive to a fault but she also loved sweets. “Yup, that only confirms it, no losing!” 

“We’ll give it our all, promise,” spoke one of her campers. A girl with long brown hair contained in two long braids named Borte, if Aelin remembered correctly. 

Aelin smiled, “That’s the spirit,” and offered Borte a high-five. 

Gavriel called out the first two camp numbers, both boy groups, that would be competing. 

Aelin watched the match closely, noting areas she thought seemed best to avoid and strategizing in her mind. After the race concluded two other camps occupied the starting line, those being made up of girls. 

A few more matches came to a close when Dorian and Chaol’s respective groups were called up. Aelin, Lys, and Elide all gave a little whoop, Aelin patted Dorian on the back as he passed her, he flashed back a dazzling smile. 

Unfortunately, one of the boys on Dorian’s team fell in the mud and tripped a good number of his fellow campmates, wrecking Dorian’s chances of winning as Chaol and his boys slipped by. 

“C’mon Dorian!” Aelin screamed, cupping her hands around her mouth. A few of her girls did the same, encouraging them to get a move on despite them not knowing Dorian; it made Aelin smile. Chaol’s team took the victory and Dorian trudged past Aelin in defeat, his body covered in mud. 

At one point Fenrys’ camp and Rowan’s camp went against each other. Aelin subconsciously watched that match like a hawk. Rowan was fast despite the mud and the t-shirt he had changed into seemed to be a bit small, it clung to his upper body, highlighting his muscles. Not to mention, the green complimented his hair and skin tone beautifully. 

Rowan was effective in herding his campers through the course, offering a helping hand and encouragement the whole way through unlike Fenrys who completed the obstacles first and resolved to yell at his campers to hurry. Unsurprisingly, Rowan and his camp crossed the finish line as a unit, Fenrys did not look happy but Aelin saw Rowan crack a smile, it was small but it was there.

As time went on both Lys and Elide had gone. Elide’s group had lost against a random camp while Lys had won. 

“Alright, last up for the beginning bracket we have camp 6 and camp 9!”

Aelin cracked her knuckles, she had been waiting for camp 6 to be called impatiently. 

“Okay, girls, now is our time to shine. Get out there and make me proud, remember stick to the sides, the middle seems to be the most slippery. If you slip it's okay just get right back up, don’t leave anyone behind.” All of them nodded in response. 

“Hands in,” Aelin said, sticking her hand in the middle of the huddle, “On 3, 1, 2, 3!”

As Aelin yelled three she and all her campers screamed camp 6 and raised their hands in the air and then took their spot on the starting block. 

The counselor of the opposing team seemed snooty, her nose was upturned as if she couldn’t believe she would have to get dirty in a few seconds. Her bright, almost white, blonde hair was braided down her back and she had her arms crossed. 

Aelin didn’t have a chance to say anything before Gavriel blew his whistle signaling the start of the race. 

Aelin exploded forward, focusing on her footing as she went. Luckily, she was athletic and had played a multitude of sports, including track, throughout the years. Aelin easily made her way through the rows of tires, turning back to check her girls’ progress. They all were keeping up and moving as a unit. Aelin didn’t waste the time to check the other group’s position. 

Aelin made it to the wall and grabbed the thick, coarse rope now caked with mud. Her hands slipped but she gritted her teeth and made it to the top of the platform. Borte was right behind her climbing, Aelin reached and grabbed Borte’s hand pulling her up the rest of the way. 

Aelin continued that cycle with the rest, offering support when the girls struggled with their grip on the rope then she slid down the net once they were all over the top. 

“You got it, girls, keep going!” Aelin encouraged. 

Aelin crawled through one of the large, black, plastic tunnels, getting covered with mud in the process. Then she jumped from log to log though they too were coated with mud. Aelin finished off strong, leading the last of her girls across the finish line. Aelin turned her attention back to the course and saw the other camp’s counselor still on the track. 

She was truly taking the time to scrap some of the mud off her shoe on the edge of one of the log stumps. 

“Remelle! It’s a race, you have to run!” Fenrys screamed from the side. Remelle, apparently, didn’t deign to respond, she only wrinkled her nose. 

“Well, camp 6 will be moving on!” Gavriel declared. 

Aelin and her girls cheered, jumping at each other forming one big mud hug. 

The cycle continued, camps faced off until the brackets grew smaller and smaller. By the time Aelin and her girls went for a second time, the mud on her body was drying uncomfortably. 

They succeeded in beating the other group once more using the same strategy. 

Before Aelin knew it Gavriel was announcing the final match-up. 

“Let’s get a drumroll please for our final throw down,” Gavriel stated, drumming his hands on his knees along with the crowd. 

“Representing the boys we have camp 12 and representing the girls we have camp 6!”

The crowd yelled and clapped wildly, Aelin knew she was smiling uncontrollably and was ready to claim her sweet, cold prize. 

“Aelin! Aelin! Aelin!” She heard Lys, Elide, and other girls screaming rhythmically. 

The boys started up their own chant, which Dorian and Chaol joined, Aelin would punish them later. It was then Aelin fully realized who she was facing: Rowan. The adrenaline had blinded her the last few rounds and she had barely processed who was winning and losing. Now, Rowan Whitethorn was staring back at her from the opposite side of the start. 

Even with mud covering much of his body and splattered across his face he was still insanely hot. Aelin hoped the same could be said about her. 

Too soon Gavriel announced the beginning of the final race, a loud whistle filled the air and they were off. 

Once again, Aelin and her girls stuck to the less muddy sides, navigating the course expertly but it seems Rowan and his boys were doing the same. Aelin didn’t spare much time analyzing their positions but she could tell it was much closer than the previous races. Once again, Aelin fought her way up the rope and dangled off the platform to pull up strugglers. She spared a glance at Rowan, he was doing the same. She huffed, “C’mon girls, it's the last time you have to climb this, you’ve got it!”

Aelin finally got the last one over and flopped down the net which was saturated with mud at this point. Aelin was really looking forward to washing this all off later while she ate her ice cream. She then dove into the tunnel, slithering through at a record speed. Next came the home stretch, all she had to do was jump across the logs. She hopped from one stump to another until she was almost at the end. But on the second to last log, the mud that gathered atop it faltered and she stumbled. Cursing, Aelin regained her footing and prayed it was still enough.

Little did she know Rowan had had his own little tumble. Now, they were neck and neck making a final dash to the finish line. Rowan was probably a bit faster than Aelin and she panicked, her instincts to win at all costs taking over. It just so happened that Rowan was just close enough for her to give him a little nudge, to maybe upset his balance just enough that she could pull ahead. Aelin did just that and Rowan went down, his foot slipped into a small ditch of mud water. In hindsight, Aelin felt dirty but not enough to feel particularly remorseful when she heard the roar of victory from the crowd and her camp. 

Aelin turned back and saw Rowan was glaring at her, his foot still submerged in mud. She halted her victory dance and made her way over to him, offering him a hand.

Rowan took it, his large hand dwarfing hers but the feeling of mud squishing between them did ruin the moment for her a bit. Instead of using her hand as leverage, Rowan pulled Aelin towards him and she stumbled, slipping back until she was next to him in his mud pit. 

Aelin saw red, although she realized she probably deserved it and was already covered in mud anyway her temper rose. Aelin was just naturally wired to explode at any moment like a nuclear bomb. 

Rowan, however, kept his grip firm on Aelin’s hand and he drew her forward until his mouth aligned with Aelin’s ear. 

“You’ll pay for that one, Aelin.” Rowan’s breath caressed her ear and a shiver traveled down her spine. Despite the fact he was literally threatening her, Aelin’s heart skipped a beat and her breath hitched.

She kept her bravado about her though and only smirked in response, “It’s on.”

~~~

Hope you’re as excited as I am! All comments, likes, and reblogs are greatly appreciated, thank you. 

taglist: @live-the-fangirl-life

[danzinora-switch]

Typing the Turtles (ROTTMNT) Part 3 - Leonardo

This started out as an investigation into the turtles’ insecurities, because one thing the show does so well is demonstrate that they are still teenagers. And being a teenager is a confusing experience - there’s angst, drama, exploring one’s identity, a lot of growth, and overall figuring out who you are. That’s a messy process, too! And we see this mess in our turtles: they mess up, they’re learning, they self-doubt, they have fears and insecurities, but they’re also discovering their strengths and how to overcome their inner obstacles.

So after thinking about all this way too long, here’s my psychological breakdown of each turtle (I’ll be referencing MBTI and the Enneagram a ton, but will include links for more general information on those if you don’t know what I’m talking about). 

Parts One and Two found on the links for Raph and Don.

Leo: ESTP, 3w2

The Achiever, the Entrepreneur, the Charmer, the Explorer

I’ve wanted to say this for a long time: Leo is such a 3, he is such a 3 it hurts, oh my goodness. Read this: https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/type-3 and tell me that isn’t Leo to a T.

It took me a little longer to figure out the MBTI for him, but he has a lot of similarities with the ESTP. This does mean we need to step away from the ‘frat bro’ stereotype of ESTPs, though. They are a lot more keen than convention would suggest.

Really, a big thing with Leo is his need to be The Best. What that means, to him, is normally something physically-related. He needs to be the best at sports or performing certain moves, which we see in episodes like The Longest Fight where he bets he can pull off the impossible skateboard move, or Shell in a Cell where he asserts he can out-perform Ghostbear. Additionally, episodes like Air Turtle really showcase the ugly side of his competitiveness. But he also desires physical perfection. He is rather image-conscious, fretting about his body in Stuck on You, and routinely referring to himself as the team’s Faceman. The biggest example of this was his idea for a disguise in Hidden City Job: the Turtle Adonis. An adonis is considered the peak physical ideal, handsome and attractive to boot. If this drive doesn’t scream Enneagram Three I don’t know what does.

Leo at his worst: Leo’s competitive side can certainly get the best of him. We see this in episodes like Air Turtle, where his ‘win at all costs’ attitude starts to alienate him from the group. Raph has also described him as a ‘poor winner’ which refers to his tendency to gloat when he does beat out the competition, or was proven right (Bug Busters, The Gumbus, You Got Served, LAIR GAMES). He’s smug, gloating, and when he does lose tries to wiggle out of it through technicalities. The one time he says something isn’t a competition is after Mikey beats him at Skateball (You Got Served). And when he ‘loses’ the Lair Games, Donnie’s win comes with a catch that Leo built in.

Threes do this for approval and validation, though, and we see that underlying his need to be the team’s Champion in Minotaur Maze and Portal Jacked! “I’m nothing without them!” he cries to Hueso. “What good is a team with just a Faceman?” Threes have a need to distinguish themselves from others, to be admired, to have attention, so that they then feel valuable and worthwhile. Other people, then, are necessary. When Leo wants to get on the Wall of Champions in Minotaur Maze, his brothers factor in to his unmet needs. “...because what good is being a Champion if you can’t rub it in your brothers’ faces?” Leo doesn’t just need to be The Best… he needs others to acknowledge it, as well.

Average Leo: He’s got a practical eye for situations and the quickness to adapt and act as needed. The ESTP is known for being bold as well as perceptive. We see this in fight scenes such as Battle Nexus: New York when he is quick to determine that physical comedy is the key to making the sprite laugh and immediately changing his approach.

He also displays a remarkable amount of common sense when making decisions. In Origami Tsunami, as the guys discuss becoming heroes, he’s the one who shoots down ideas until they reach a more achievable goal: taking on paper thieves. And he’s got a point, can you imagine the turtles taking on a spine-breaker or mangler at that point in time? When everyone else is blinded by ideals concerning fixing the Mutant Menace, he’s the only one who asks “anybody down for staying home during the anti-mutant panic?” Of course, he still goes along with their adventure, because ESTP’s live in The Moment, so why not?

Something else that I want to mention is Leo’s appreciation for the Machiavellian. He has an incredibly intuitive grasp on it, and actively appreciates twists, turns, betrayals and deceptions. His love for magic probably stems from this (The Clothes Don’t Make the Turtle) and he is the only one enjoying the series of betrayals in Warren & Hypno Sitting in a Tree. Hidden City Job also expands on the fact that Leo doesn’t have a problem with betrayal, as he revels about brotherly betrayal happening all the time. He’s cool with being betrayed… just know that he can betray you back. It’s all fair game.

This can have upsides and downsides. On the upside, his understanding of trickery can lead to brilliant plans and solutions such as what we saw in Many Unhappy Returns, where he was able to outsmart Big Mama herself. On the downside, this kind of behavior is not always the best move - his family does not appreciate being left out of the loop of his schemes, or actively being manipulated as part of them (Leo’s plan in Many Unhappy Returns worked, but he still left his brothers alone and exhausted, and did not consider the emotional effect it would have on Splinter being sent back into the arena). At that point it’s no wonder he asks “why does no one trust me?” Because you tend to have an angle, ‘Nardo. Be careful how you use that.

He is also incredibly persuasive. This is partly why I feel he is a 3 wing 2, ‘The Charmer’ because he knows how to communicate to get what he wants. When used for the right reasons, we see him settle discord such as cooling the mobs in You Got Served or apologize when he knows an apology is needed (Todd Scouts, Air Turtle, Hidden City Job). We see it used neutrally (and a bit skeptically) in Many Unhappy Returns when he declares he’ll just go to see Big Mama and “turn up the Leo”. It can also be used deceptively, however. Todd Scouts shows this when Leo is the one who convinces Todd that they’re ready to kick things up a notch by going out alone… when really they just want to get away from him. He’ll also use words to get under people’s skins: dismissing Warren Stone in Stuck on You, but also pointing out Donnie’s beach ball fear in Mind Meld. He knows which words will get the responses he wants, for better or for worse.

Leo at his Best: Leo is the team’s motivator. He’s the one giving the others the pep-talks and encouragement they need to continue (Origami Tsunami, Finale: Rise). Donnie said it best after Leo’s redemption in Air Turtle: “your confidence is giving me confidence!”

Because that’s the healthy thing about Threes: they strive to reach their own full potential, which also inspires others to reach theirs. Leo doesn’t like to fail/lose, but he won’t let anyone else succumb, either. He has the most confidence in each Mad Dog’s ability. “I knew you guys could handle it!” he says in Many Unhappy Returns, and points out with amazing accuracy just what his brothers are capable of. He not only believes in himself, he believes in those around him. And he’s able to inspire them when they’re feeling down about their own abilities or not enthused about the task (see his speech about standing up for the paper men in Origami Tsunami).

This also includes encouragement and compliments in other areas. Regarding the Shell Hogs: “Donnie, these are amazing! And I know everything I say sounds sarcastic, but I’m being completely genuine this time” (Stuck on You). When Mikey isn’t sure Hypno will like him: “What? Of course he will, you’re adorable!” (Newsworthy). To Raph, “Does this place have smoke detectors? Because you’re on fire, Big Daddy!” (The Clothes Don’t Make the Turtle).

He’s also able to step in and take charge when Raph falls because he can see what action needs to be taken (that practical and observant, yet bold ESTP side coming in). When Raph gets separated in the sewers, Leo’s the one who doesn’t treat it casually and gets the others moving to find him (Man vs Sewer). When his older brother is hypnotized by Hypno in Stuck on You, he quickly reacts and tells Mikey and Donnie what the plan is and enacts it. We see this leader potential grow bit by bit, and his awareness of each individual’s role on the team allows him to step back from areas that he knows aren’t his forte: Raph can handle the ‘teamwork’ stuff, Donnie has got the technical know-how, and Mikey takes care of positive outlook for any situation. Leo can keep things fun and inspire confidence. His puns help lighten the mood, his jokes break the ice of tense situations, and he never stops believing in their own abilities, which keeps them all going (Donnie’s Gifts, Many Unhappy Returns).

Leo Relationships:

(While Leo has a competitive episode with each of his brothers: Shell in a Cell, Lair Games, and You Got Served, there is more going on than just that).

Raph: Both Leo and Raph have strong gut feelings that can be blindsided. Leo picks up immediately that Big Mama is not trustworthy while Raph is more than happy to believe her, but Leo is blinded by his fan-love for Jupiter Jim to realize that Marcus Montcrief is a crazy and suspicious adult, which Raph becomes aware of early on (Bug Busters, Jupiter Jim Ahoy!). They both can be a little too head-first when diving into plans, such as checking out the creepy bus in One Man’s Junk or doing their best to help April in Hypno: Part Deux. But they do trust each other to have each other’s backs, and there’s (thankfully!) no Leo vs Angst in this version of their characters. It really allows them to be comfortable with each other (and egg each other on with more than just missions: see the pizza pigeon in Mind Meld).

Donnie: In some ways Leo acts like a foil for Donnie. His own natural confidence counterbalances a lot of his twin’s insecurities. They butt heads over it, sure, with Donnie perhaps taking things too seriously and Leo seemingly not taking them seriously enough, but I like I said in Donnie’s typing: one’s chill and one’s uptight. There’s a ton of back and forth between them: they are the epitome of siblings fighting one minute and getting up to no good together the next (Example from The Mystic Library: Leo grooves out with Donnie’s rap one moment and tries to get him kicked off the team in the next scene). They may antagonize each other in Lair Games, Smart Lair, the beginning of Snow Day and Hidden City Job, and so much more, but also demonstrate brotherly love (and antics) in Operation: Normal, the end of Hidden City Job and Smart Lair, and, of course, Battle Nexus: New York. “For Donnie’s honor!”

Mikey: Leo sticks up for Mikey a fair amount, especially to Raph. He supports Mikey trying to open the portal in Mystic Mayhem, and going out on his first solo mission in Hot Soup: The Game. We actually need more Leo and Mikey episodes; of the two we have one is a competition episode (You Got Served), and The Gumbus has Leo tag along intent on proving Mikey wrong. It seems they like to hang out during the down time a lot, as they play in the arcade and skateboard off-screen in episodes such as Mrs. Cuddles, You Got Served, Mind Games, and Sparring Partner. And of course, we have the gripping image of Leo protecting Mikey’s shell with his own in Battle Nexus: New York. I’d really like to see them get up to more shenanigans, though. (hint, hint @nickelodeon​, @netflix​).

Ultimately, Leo is a confident, competitive turtle striving to reach his full potential. He is normally great at encouraging his brothers to do the same, and devising grand strategies, but tends to forget the emotional effects his actions can have on them, especially if he gets carried away on his quest to be The Best. He’s still learning, and these traits will likely flesh out as he grows into a more leader-like role.

For more information on the ESTP and Enneagram 3 personality types, click here:

https://www.16personalities.com/estp-personality

https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/type-3

https://www.crystalknows.com/enneagram/type-3-wing-2

https://ih0.redbubble.net/image.155775924.2701/flat,800x800,070,f.u5.jpg

[aion-rsa]

Squid Game’s Scathing Critique of Capitalism

https://ift.tt/3kOEMpF

This Squid Game article contains MAJOR spoilers.

From the very first game of ddakji out in the real world with Train to Busan actor Gong Yoo, Squid Game poses the question: how far would you go for money? How much of your body, your life, would you trade to keep the wolves at bay and to get to live the life you’ve always dreamed? Once you start, could you stop, even if you wanted to? And in the end, would it even be worth it? While Squid Game depicts an attempt to answer these questions taken to the extreme, they are the same essential questions posed to everyone living under capitalism: What kind of job, what terrible hours, what back-breaking labor, what level of abuse, what work/life imbalance will we tolerate in exchange for what we need or want to live? Unlike many examples of this genre, Squid Game is set in our contemporary reality, which makes its scathing critique of capitalism less of a metaphor for the world we live in and more of a literal depiction of life under capitalism.

Squid Game’s Workers

At the most basic level, the entire competition within Squid Game would not exist without extreme financial distress creating a ready pool of players. It’s no coincidence that Gi-hun’s hard times started when he lost his job, followed by violence against the workers who went on strike. Strike-breakers and physical violence against striking workers may feel like an antiquated idea to an American audience. South Korea, however, has something of an anti-labor reputation, with only 10% of its workers in unions and laws limiting unions to negotiating pay, among other restrictions. In the US, the anti-labor fight is alive and well, though transformed, where it takes the shape of the deceptively named “Right to Work” laws, which benefit corporations and make it harder for unions to operate.

As noted in our review, (most of) the players choose to leave and then willingly return to the arena, which separates Squid Game from other entries in the genre like the Hunger Games series and Escape Room. This element of volition contributes to the series’ primary critical goal. As Mi-nyeo and others brought up early on, they’re getting killed in the real world too, but at least inside they might actually get something for their troubles. 

As an anti-capitalist parable, the only ways to fight back or upend the game in some small way are through acts of solidarity or by turning down the allure of the cash. The final clause in the game’s consent form states that the game can end if a majority of players agree to do so. After the brutal Red Light, Green Light massacre in the first, they do exactly that. The election might as well be a union vote. It’s shocking that the contract for the game included an escape clause at all, but it seems the host and his ilk enjoy at least allowing the illusion of free will if nothing else. The players who didn’t return after the first vote to leave the game, though unseen in this narrative, are perhaps the wisest of all. 

Read more

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Squid Game’s Most Heartbreaking Hour is Also Its Best

By Kayti Burt

TV

Squid Game Ending Explained

By Kayti Burt

During tug of war, Gi-hun’s team surprises everyone by winning. Their teamwork, unity of purpose, and superior strategy help them defeat a stronger adversary, which is a basic principle of labor organizing, albeit usually not at the expense of the lives of other workers. Player 1 (Il-nam) and Player 240 (Ji-yeong) each find their own way to beat the game by essentially backing out of the competition during marbles. In exchange for friendship and choosing the circumstances of their own deaths, Ji-yeong and Il-nam each make their own, ethically sound choice under this miserable system. Il-nam gets an asterisk since he was never going to die, but he still found a choice beyond merely “kill” or “be killed” by teaching his Gganbu one “last” lesson and helping him continue on in the game. 

In the end, Gi-hun confounds the VIPs and the Front Man by coming to the precipice of victory and simply walking away. Under capitalism, this group of incredibly rich men simply could not understand how someone could come so close to claiming their prize, and choose not to. But for Gi-hun, human life always had greater value. Gi-hun followed (Player 67) Sae-byeok’s advice and stayed true to himself, refusing to actively take anyone’s life, especially not the life of his friend. 

Squid Game’s Ruling Class

Since the competition only exists because of the worst aspects of capitalism, it’s not surprising that in the end, it is itself a capitalist endeavor. Ultra-wealthy VIPs, who mostly seem to be white, Western men, spectate for a price and bet on the game. In their luxury accommodations, they lounge on silent human “furniture” and mistreat service staff. In one notable example, a VIP threatens to kill a server (who the audience knows to be undercover cop Hwang Jun-ho) if he doesn’t remove his mask, even though the VIP knows it would cost the server his life. 

Perhaps most enraging of all is what Player 1, who turns out to actually be the Host, has to say to Gi-hun a year after the game ends. It all circles back to the game’s existential connection to economics; on the one hand, there is the unshakeable link to a population in which a significant portion of people suffer from dire financial woes. On the other hand, there is the Host and his cronies, the ultra-rich who are so bored from their megarich lives that they decided to bet on deadly human bloodsport for fun just so they could feel something again, as though they were betting on horses. 

In spite of the enormous gulf between the two, the Host attempts to draw comparisons between the ultra-wealthy and the extreme poor, saying both are miserable. His little joke denies the reality of hunger, early death, trauma, and many other ways that being poor is actively harmful, both physically and mentally. It’s the kind of slow death that makes risking a quick one in the arena seem reasonable. He and his buddies were just kind of bored. Moreover, the Host denies the role of economic coercion in players taking part in the game, insisting that everyone was there of their own free will. But what free will can there be for people who owe millions, with families at home to care for and creditors at their back, when someone comes along and offers a solution, even a dangerous one? Anyone who has taken a dodgy job offer to get away from a worse one, or because they’re unemployed and the rent and college loans are due, knows that there is a limit to how truly free our choices can be when we need money, especially if there’s little to no safety net. 

Read more

TV

Why Are Squid Game’s English-Language Actors So Bad?

By Kayti Burt

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Best Squid Game Doll Sightings

By Kayti Burt

Throughout the series, it is clear that someone had to be funding Squid Game at a high level. Unlike science fiction or fantasy takes, the show is grounded in our current reality, so the large-scale, high-tech obstacles and the island locale must have cost a pretty penny. Of course for any who see it as unrealistic, consider the example of Jeffrey Epstein, a man who bought an island from the US government and ran a sexual abuse and human trafficking ring not entirely disimilar (though far more pedestrian in its purpose) from this one. 

The Host is able to pay for everything because he works in – you guessed it – banking. It’s a profession where he gained wealth by moving capital around. Given the Korean debt crisis – South Korea has the highest household debt in the world, both in size and growth – his profession makes him a worthy villain, in the same way the Lehman Brothers were after the 2008 crash. The bank executive calls in Gi-hun to offer him investment products and services, because of course someone with 45 billion won can accrue significantly more money passively, and who wouldn’t want that? Gi-hun’s decision to walk away is a callback to his earlier attempt to walk away from Squid Game when millions of dollars was within his grasp.

Throughout the series, the people running the game actively pit the players against one another in much the same way capitalism pits workers against one another. Whether they’re giving the players less food to encourage a fight overnight, the daily influx of cash every time another player dies, or giving them knives for the evening, the mysterious people pulling the strings want the players to fight each other like crabs in a barrel so they can’t work together to figure out what’s going on or take on the guys in red jumpsuits. Though there are notable examples of the players working together to succeed, it is always within the rules of the system. It is never treated as a viable or likely option for the players to team up and take the blood money literally hanging over their heads or to prevent death, merely to redirect it or choose how they will die. No, to win that, they must play the Squid Game’s rules. 

In our society, this kind of worker-vs-worker rhetoric takes the form of employers telling workers their workload is harder or they can’t go on vacation or get a raise because of fellow employees who leave or go on maternity leave.. In reality, these are all normal aspects of managing a business that employers should plan for, and their failure to do so is not the fault of their workers. Much like in Squid Game, it benefits managers and owners if workers are too busy being mad at each other to have time or energy to fight the system and those who make unjust rules in the first place. 

Squid Game’s Managers

The Front Man insists the game is fair, gruesomely hanging the dead bodies of those involved in the organ harvesting scheme because they traded medical knowledge for advanced intel on the game. However, like capitalism, there are many ways that the system is clearly rigged, no matter what the people at the top insist. There’s the obvious corruption in the organ harvesting ring, but even at its “purest” form, the game is not equitable. Sometimes the managers and soldiers in red jumpsuits stand by when unfair things happen, like Deok-su and his cronies stealing food. At other times, the people in charge intervene in player squabbles, like enforcing nonviolence during marbles and elections but encouraging violence at other times. They especially set things up to their own advantage, such as cutting the lights so the players couldn’t see the glass in the penultimate game, or the way they set up the election. Everyone knew how everyone else voted, they shared the total amount of money immediately beforehand, in an attempt to sway votes, calling to mind Amazon’s scare tactics before the recent unionization vote.

Read more

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Squid Game Competitions, As Played By BTS

By Kayti Burt

Movies

Squid Game: Best Deadly Competition TV Shows & Movies to Watch Next

By Kayti Burt and 3 others

Ultimately, much like any manager/employer, the Front Man’s insistence on fairness has nothing to do with the actual value of equality, but rather the capitalist need to ensure betters are happy with the stakes and their chance at a favorable outcome. 

Even the workers, soldiers and managers in red jumpsuits, who seem to be in charge, are ultimately only in power (and alive) so long as they serve the needs of the system. Like so many low-level managers, many wield their tiny amount of power ruthlessly, shooting players with impunity or running their organ harvesting side gig. It soon becomes clear that they’re as expendable as players, if not moreso, and the Front Man shoots them without hesitating. A player asks (and it’s too bad we never learned) what “they” did to the people in red jumpsuits to get them to run this game, but it’s not too hard to guess. They seem to be very young men, who likely needed money and wouldn’t be missed if they never returned. 

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The biggest trick capitalism ever pulled was convincing workers it’s a zero-sum game, that anything we want but don’t have is the fault of someone else who “took it” from us. Within the game, that means every player was a living obstacle to the money, and that Gi-hun should kill his childhood friend to succeed and celebrate when he’s done. But as we see after he “wins,” even without taking Sang-woo’s life himself, the money isn’t worth it. The greater success would have been both men walking out of the arena alive.

The post Squid Game’s Scathing Critique of Capitalism appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3CUfVXz

[dreamwatchpro-wrestling]

Dreamwatch Blood Crown Tournament Night 1 (Match 7)

Ryuji Katagiri vs Ren Kanzaki

Katagiri looks to regain some momentum after his shocking world championship loss to Adrien Gutierrez at Dreamwatch: REMember. With his skillset, you can say that this style of match and this tournament is the best possible for for Katagiri. Considering that Katagiri even in traditional pro wrestling matches has proven himself to be able to beat the best of the best, his ceiling here in theory would be astronomically high.

He faces off against a newcomer to Dreamwatch, Ren Kanzaki. Ren definitely isn't new to the world of pro wrestling though, with all of the hallmarks of a grizzled veteran badass etched all over his body. Kanzaki and Katagiri are very familiar with each other due to Katagiri's upcoming and training in the JTW dojo. You could safely assume that Kanzaki taught Katagiri everything that he knows. If there's anyone that could not only beat Katagiri but utterly decimate him, it would be Ren Kanzaki.

This match was one of the most fascinating things I've seen in Dreamwatch for some time. It starts off with some very excellent fighting from two men with high caliber combat expertise. Tons of kicking and grounded submissions that both men were forced to adapt too. I feel like under most circumstances, people would be intimidated by a man like Ren Kanzaki. He looks like he's spent decades breaking people in half. Katagiri, however, showed no fear whatsoever (which makes sense considering Katagiri is pretty intimidating himself) and spent so much of this match walking forward into Kanzaki and attacking with a seemingly endless supply of energy. That's where things got realy fascinating. Katagiri had an endless supply of energy, and Kanzaki definitely did not.

At around nine minutes into the bout, Kanzaki was seemingly completely spent. He slowed to a crawl, practically unable to maneuver around Katagiri at all, which Katagiri took advantage of with a spinning heel kick. Most amateurs would be unable to do anything here, but Kanzaki was somehow able to sit in place and defend. Kanzaki's iron fortress-like defense was extremely impressive and honestly extremely hard to penetrate, Katagiri going in for offense and getting countered and struck down for his trouble while Kanzaki was gaining his breath. This incredible display went on for five minutes!

Eventually, Ren was firmly back in the game. Obviously hurt, and his stamina wasn't at 100% or anything, but he was able to move around at least. Katagiri, though, was unfazed. Katagiri kept marching forward, refusing to be denied, refusing to be intimidated, refusing to back down. Katagiri decided to truly end it in spectacular fashion, landing one of his signature hard punches and completely knocking Kanzaki out, resulting in a referee stoppage. With a single punch through the ironclad defense, Katagiri moves on to the next round!

Ryuji Katagiri: Ren Kanzaki. It's been so long since I've seen him, and he's as tough as he's ever been. Ren likes to be hard on me, and I knew he would try to decimate me out there. I can't afford that right now, I had to avoid losing at all costs. Not that I really care all that much, but all of the conversation backstage about me is about my championship loss to Gutierrez. It was my first defense, and now none of us have seen the title since its out of the country being held by someone who isn't actually in Dreamwatch. I don't want to enter a slump, I don't want to be a flash in the pan, so this match was a must-win for me to shut down the conversation. Kanzaki is a hard guy to beat, though. I've fought him many times, and the best way to beat him is to practically break his face with a strike, otherwise he's smart enough to survive any situation you can put him in. Maybe he was mad at me too for my championship loss and wanted to knock some sense into me. That's something he would do. You don't need to check on me, Kanzaki. I'm good here. I'll crush you if you test me again like this, but it was nice seeing you. See you all in the next round.

Ren Kanzaki: Katagiri... What the hell do you think you're doing out here, idiot?! Losing your title in your first defense? A joke. You make your title look like shit! Then I sat here and beat the shit out of you practically standing still until you started flailing your limbs like a child! Is this what you learned from JTW? Is that all? Stop slacking, dickhead. This is why I hate having my name linked to yours at all, you're going to make me look bad. You wont care about anything I'm saying, but you're a disappointment to yourself, I can tell. You can't fool me, I can tell when you're wallowing on the inside. Stop being a fucking baby, it makes me sick. Don't even get me started on the rest of that group. Those slackers haven't done a single thing. I've done more than them and I'm not even signed here! The fuck is wrong with all of you? Whatever, I'm not your father. If you want to waste your career, I'll take all of your places here.

[silver-wield]

I’m sorry in advance. This is a long rant. I think the main reason I can't accept this "SOLDIER!Cloud loves A” thing is because I've always felt that the whole love triangle nonsense was introduced solely to make the players invested in A. Let's face it, the biggest reason people were devastated when she died is because they were invested in her potential romance with Cloud. It was the easiest and cheapest way to make sure the devs achieved their goal. (1/5)

But in their desperation to reach that goal at any cost, the devs ended up damaging other things along the way. Having Tifa in the background until A was out of the picture was such a dumb move. It’s obvious they didn’t want any other character to outshine her. Creating this illusion of Cloud loving A served no purpose in the story. And Aerith herself didn’t bond with anyone save for Cloud. These among many other things. To me, all that wavering thing was so unnecessary to the narrative. (2/5)

Things felt rushed, and A was put on a pedestal and shoved in the players’ faces along with the potential romance with her. It was clear to me that the devs just wanted people to like her so that they’d be devastated when she died. But I guess you can’t ask for too much of games/stories back in 1997. I’m sorry, but I just can’t accept people saying that SOLDIER!Cloud loved A. They hadn’t known each other that long, and 95% of the time, they had other things on their plate than romance. (3/5)

It’s not like they were dating or getting to know each other during the brief time they spent together. Also, I don’t mean to offend anyone, but saying the LTD is now ending because A is stepping out and pushing Cloud onto Tifa sounds so insulting. Like Tifa can’t win unless her competition steps out and hands her the man on a silver platter. This time around, I feel that the devs are trying to do things properly. A is finally taking the time to bond with other characters, especially Tifa. (4/5)

Her world doesn’t revolve around Cloud only anymore. Tifa is not in the background anymore, so now people can get to know her and get attached to her even early on. The romance with Tifa isn’t something that feels like it’s come out of the left field about 2/3 of the way in. There might’ve been hints but they were too subtle. Among many other improvements. Whatever the devs do, I just hope they give us the best version possible of the story this time around. Thanks for listening to my rant.(5/5)

Death to the LTD 1

Death to the LTD 2 (dialogue evolution)

Death to the LTD 3 (soldier Cloud’s acceptance)

Cloud’s hyper vigilance

That would be because the concept absolutely was introduced to make the players more invested in Aerith, so her death had a harder hit when it happened. It was a new thing back in 97 to have a love triangle and pretty much everybody was starting to do it. There’s tons of movies, tv series and books out during that time that showcase the trope.

And having 2 heroines, Aerith and Tifa, and having the hero waver between them, at the time that was something new. ~Kitase,  FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania pg. 11

I think everyone forgets the difference in technology between FF6 and FF7, not just graphically, but narratively, too. Back then, everything was new and everyone was still trying to find their feet and figure out evolving technology. I mean, it’s still evolving now, but those building blocks that form the base are still the same. Just because there’s now millions of polygons involved doesn’t take away the fact they’re still polygons. 

FF7 was Square’s first foray into using more sophisticated methods of game development and that impacted how the story came across. In previous games, the optional content or hidden story arcs that had to be found to be appreciated made the game more fun. The player had to wander around more and talk to everyone to get the full picture and since it worked before, they thought it’d work again. That people would replay and swap party members around to trigger the other scenes and gather the rest of the puzzle pieces for the fuller picture.

But, they forgot they were trying to make everyone love one specific character, which meant the best way to do that was to keep her in the party over everyone else. Which meant people cared less about the others until the point she leaves the party for good. And by that point, when these people replay they just want to spend even more time with her, so they still miss the other dialogues and scenes with other characters that build their storyline alongside this other character they’ve pressed everyone to care about.

And that’s how the LTD got started because they chose not to play the game fully and only focus on one character, they didn’t see the entire picture. And the guides out at the time didn’t help much on that side of things because they didn’t give narrative canon party suggestions so that players got the most out of the story in each location. 

Soldier Cloud loved Aerith?

Really? When they’ve been saying for years that soldier Cloud didn’t even exist or that we said he was really Zack and that’s why he’s into Aerith? It’s funny how the moment the devs confirm that real Cloud emerged to embrace Tifa they decided they could claim the dominant persona for their own, even though they also said that it was soldier Cloud who complimented Tifa, despite real Cloud not being the dominant persona. We even see visible evidence of the two aspects at war with each other in the honeybee inn scene before Cloud dances. That eye movement back and forth and expression of “fine, for Tifa” is an internal argument with the two aspects that soldier Cloud isn’t aware enough of to realise that’s what it is. If we take Soldier Cloud as the only personality then there’s no way he’d do that because it’s not cool, and soldier Cloud is always cool. He’s being made to dance because of real Cloud’s desire to rescue Tifa. 

Aerith steps out...

Yeah, I wouldn’t phrase it like that, but the overall sentiment is that Aerith is refusing to do what happened in OG.

More importantly, though, and the thing I focused on in my death to the LTD, is Cloud’s behaviour and reaction and feelings. Because he’s soldier Cloud. Real Cloud isn’t part of the LTD because he already chose Tifa. Soldier Cloud is the focus of the LTD because he’s the one who misinterpreted real Cloud’s feelings and focused them on the wrong girl. This time, we see clear evidence throughout all of his interactions that he is also choosing Tifa.

In the train tunnel, while it’s real Cloud’s motivation to protect Tifa, Soldier Cloud is the one who carries out the roll. Then, it’s Soldier Cloud who kisses her cheek, the same as it’s Soldier Cloud who calls her beautiful. Because he’s the one flirting. Real Cloud’s desire is the motivator for him to do it, but it’s Soldier Cloud doing the thing.  Same with every single flirty interaction. Real Cloud’s emergence is only confirmed by the devs twice in the game and both times relate to Tifa. Real Cloud’s hand twitches with the urge to comfort her and then real Cloud hugs her. 

Everything else is only motivated by his love and desire for her, which means everything else is Soldier Cloud acting on those feelings.

The single moment of wavering from him is literally within the LTD nod scene in the train graveyard when Aerith grabs his arm. He doesn’t react when she does it, stays silent, leans away. He’s not showing her a preference. Then, he looks at and agrees with Tifa, which is showing a clear bias towards her. 

Then right before Tifa grabs Cloud’s arm, his eyes start to shift towards Aerith. This is the reference to OG Cloud wavering, but then before he can even look at Aerith, he spots Tifa’s hands in his peripheral vision, gasps, then looks at and smiles at her. 

That’s the result of Cloud’s wavering. He chose Tifa. After that, there’s zero LTD scenes and in fact, there’s a humorous shot of Tifa looking towards the camera after Cloud leaps on her to save her from the falling train carriage and Aerith thanks him for saving both of them. He didn’t save both of them. Didn’t even try. 

I don’t think there’s gonna be anything to worry about going forward because one thing Nojima learned from letting things be “open for interpretation” is that his work gets butchered. 

Since FF7, other FF titles he’s worked on -

FF8: Squall and Rinoa kiss.

FF10: Yuna and Tidus kiss.

FFCC: Aerith and Zack hug

FF13: Snow and Serah kiss and get engaged.

FF15 (when it was originally vs): Noctis and Luna kiss.

If anyone learned their lesson from this LTD mess, it’s Nojima, but he’s been restricted when it comes to 7 by the suits - which is one of the hidden graffiti meta messages in the train tunnel that refers to why Cloti was never made more explicit. 

“They tell you to go with the flow so they can keep the status quo.”

Since this is the last of the FF7 compilation the suits have relaxed the reins on the LTD, so that Nojima can write the story as he sees fit, which I would guess is down to the fact they did sales projections and figured out that FF7 would be massively successful and has in fact also boosted sales of PS4 consoles because people specifically bought the console to play FF7R. With the new mysteries and twists to keep fans talking about the game until the next installment is out, they don’t need to hold onto this outdated LTD concept that everyone hates and isn’t anything the company wants to associate with because of how toxic and nasty it is. They’re a Japanese company having to hear these so called fans talking about how Tifa is a “typical Asian girl” or whatever tf they call her. It’s disgusting. Square yeeted the guys behind Genesis because of the controversy around them, so to have fans like this associated with one of their most popular and iconic titles? Yeah, that ain’t happening. 

[noethicalconsumptionunderdisney]

Hogwarts Sorting Profile: Alex Russo

Alex Russo is the quintessential Disney Channel Anti-Heroine of my generation, and a fascinating character to look into, so who better to start this series?  Here I’ll be using the SortingHatChats system so I can really dive deep into how characters think and act.

I’m gonna start with Alex’s Secondary for this one, because it’s the easiest to argue for, it’s something she wears on her sleeve very proudly, and something a lot of viewers pick up on pretty easily.  Alex Russo is a Slytherin Secondary par excellence.  

It’s not so much the fact that she’s good at talking circles around people, manipulating them, and “winging it” in general, it’s the fact that she revels in it.  She’s in her element when she does it, and you can tell she’s a natural at it.  For a few brief examples, she tricks the dragon-seller into taking the wrong case in “Curb Your Dragon,” she talks her dad into letting her learn to fly the magic carpet, and she convinces Justin to let her be an understudy in the school play by twisting him taking their dad’s advice into “Dad’s making all your decisions for you,” and that’s just in the first few seasons.

But Alex doesn’t see herself as duplicitous or immoral for this.  When Brad, another Slytherin Secondary, might get to go to the World Summit instead of him, Justin calls Brad a kiss-up and a schmoozer, but Alex sees it a little differently:

“He’s not a kiss-up, he’s just good at getting what he wants.  That’s one of the things we have in common.”

For her, it’s about knowing what you want and knowing how to get it, nothing more and nothing less.  Saying whatever you have to say is just what you do.

Another, big way this manifests is a preference for improvisation over preparation, specifically when it comes to magic.  Knowing the right spells certainly helps, but Alex doesn’t see the value in reading or studying, often preferring to throw herself into a situation and use whatever spell she can think of to get out of it.  When she thinks Uncle Kelbo is offering to be her teacher, she jumps at the opportunity, and when her dad is upset, they have the following exchange:

“Dad’s great with Justin and Max, but I don’t think I’m reaching my full potential with him.”

“Well!  I don’t wanna stand in the way of your full potential.  Maybe Kelbo should teach you!  Maybe you’ll actually show up on time for his lessons!”

“I will, Dad, because you know what I was thinking, is that I learn more by doing than I do by learning!”

Of course, Kelbo doesn’t want to do it, and Jerry is a better wizard than him, but I don’t think Alex was wrong for wanting to try a new approach.  After all, in The Finale, she takes all the points in the round dedicated to solutions to situations she’s had to get out of, and she’s the one who ultimately thinks of a way to defeat the griffin when they are thrown into a bad situation to save Harper and Zeke earlier in the episode (more on that later).  “Not thinking” works for her— that is, thinking on her feet rather than thinking ahead.  Alex isn’t about to waste her time untangling a complex knot, when cutting it will achieve the same result.

So anyone whose single-house sorting for her is Slytherin, I understand.  She’s definitely adaptable enough, and certainly cunning enough, to qualify for it. 

However.

Alex Russo is NOT a Slytherin Primary, and I will fight you on this.

Sure, she is definitely self-serving a lot of the time, and has loyalty to her loved ones in spades as well.  In many lower-stakes situations, you can see her taking the “easy way out” instead of doing the responsible thing, and she certainly has little use for rules a lot of the time.  But in high-stakes situations, she sacrifices her own well-being with very little thought to what consequences she’ll have to face later… or even when she knows she’ll be punished.  Hell, sometimes her schemes go so terribly wrong that after finally setting them right, she’s relieved when she gets a scolding, grateful that the balance has been restored… and that the world is just again.

(Now, I personally don’t believe the Wizards of Waverly Place world is a particularly just one, but Alex trusts the world she lives in more than I do, so I’ll save my own thoughts and feelings about that for another post.)

Not only is she not a Slytherin Primary, she has a fundamental issue with people doing “good” because they’re expecting a reward for it.  Good is something you do for its own sake, not because there’s a ribbon waiting for you on the other side.  The speech she gives the Happy Helpers in “Alex Does Good” says it all, really:

“You guys think you’re helping the community, but you’re hardly doing anything.  And you do it for selfish reasons.  Now, I know I can be a little selfish too because I don’t help a lot of people.  But I know when I do.  I do more than this, and I don’t expect anything in return.  I don’t even do it to make myself feel better.  I do it to make the other person feel better.”

So where does this selfless streak come from?  For Maggie in that episode, or her friends, her family, or love interest, you could still argue there’s a Slytherin loyalty at play.  But many instances of her saving the world contradict this.  In “Wizards Unleashed/Alex Saves Mason,” she tells Justin, within earshot of the country wizards, that there’s nothing she won’t sacrifice for Mason… but it’s a ruse.  She doesn’t sacrifice her family’s portal; instead, she finds a way to bring Mason back without sacrificing anything, her cunning Slytherin Secondary coming in handy once again.

We see another, even clearer example of the same phenomenon in “The Good, The Bad, And The Alex.”  I have a lot of issues with this episode, as I’ve expressed previously and will probably express in the future, but it does, IMO, firmly establish Alex Russo as an Idealist at heart, cutting off a close friend when she “realizes she’s evil” in a way that is literally ice-cold. (And no, I do not apologize for that pun.  Lbr, if y’all are watching Disney Channel, you’ve heard worse.)

Which leads us away from the question of what Alex isn’t, and back to what she is.  I would argue that while self-preservation and self-interest are not necessarily the core of her morality system, her morality is based from her inner self: her thoughts, feelings, and moral impulses.  Deep down, often buried intentionally under a “devil-may-care” persona, Alex is a Gryffindor Primary who believes that when the world needs her to, she has an obligation to do the right thing no matter what the cost.

“Alex Tells The World” is the perfect example of this.  She’s led to believe that the government has captured countless wizards, and she is told to lie low and do nothing by her family.  But this bothers her too much, and unable to leave the fate of the wizard world to chance, she defies the rules and the people around her and exposes magic, believing it’s the only way to save everyone.  

Her Gryffindor Primary is far from unblemished or naïve— she often doubts herself, internalizes the criticism from those around her, or believes that other people are better examples than herself of “The Right Kind Of Person To Be” (namely, Justin).  Why not consider her Burned then?  

The thing with Burned Primaries is they tend to act differently, change their behavior based on those doubts.   Alex doesn’t.  So while she may be a little charred, possibly teetering on the edge of burning at times, she never quite does it, because she still goes with her gut when the chips are down, even if she’s a bit more hesitant than some of her counterparts.  

And while Justin may often try to convince Alex to follow the rules, there’s also been plenty of instances where Alex is the one trying to convince Justin to do what’s right — the Rosie arc, The Movie when he forgets her, The Finale when their friends are in danger — and all self-doubt and comparisons aside, she’s still not afraid to disagree with him when she knows in her heart what’s right and she wants him to do it.  He may be someone she looks up to, looks to for guidance oftentimes, but he’s not the basis of her morality— that still comes down to her.

One last thing I want to touch on: Alex has a saving-people thing.

Now, a lot of the time the thing Alex is saving people from is something she caused in the first place. But I’m not getting into that because we’d be here all day.  Thing is, though, even when it’s not something she was responsible for, she still feels a moral obligation to set things right.  

When Jenny Majorheely begs her to help undo a curse TJ caused in “Art Teacher,” Alex isn’t even supposed to let her know magic exists, and yet she still dumps “undo” dust onto her just in case her story is true (which, of course, it is, leaving her without an art teacher and causing the conflict for the rest of the episode).

When Alex has done everything she can in “Wizards vs. Angels” to save her brother and stop Gorog’s plan, Rosie convinces her to come back by saying, “There’s still good in you.”  Alex reluctantly agrees that there is, and can’t ignore it, coming in guns blazing with a pair of rental wings and a hard landing, and even battling her brother, all to get the world’s Moral Compass back where it should be.

Nothing shows this better than The Finale, though.  While Alex is warned that she could risk her spot in the Wizard Competition, all she can think about is getting Harper and Zeke back safe.  Justin and Max are more reluctant to risk their powers, but Alex’s certainty sways them.  Not only that, she distracts the griffin by taunting it to attack her, before cuing her family to tie it up together and defeat it.  Later, when the competition is back on, Alex helps Justin out of a tree root instead of running through the finish line and tells him, “I don’t wanna win this way,” once again choosing heroism over self-interest.  Far from expecting anything for it, she tries to stop Justin from telling everyone what happened.  I don’t believe it’s because she doesn’t care about the Wizard Competition, though.  It’s because other things matter more to her (and possibly, on a subconscious level, she’s internalized the idea that he “deserves it more,” but this is getting pretty long, so I’ll save that for another post).

And while “Alex vs. Alex,” aka the Epilogue, is another example of her fixing her own mistakes, she fixes that mistake by wishing away her wizard powers, cancelling out the existence of her evil self.  Although she comes to the crystals later fully expecting her powers to be reinstated, in the moment, she’s only thinking of stopping evil.  In the words of Steve Rogers, she “makes the sacrifice play” when there’s no metaphorical wire to cut, or when that wire-cutting requires great personal sacrifice in order to happen.

Conclusion:

Alex Russo is a Gryffindor Primary and a Slytherin Secondary.

Her Slytherin Secondary, “the end will no doubt justify the means” method of resourcefulness, quick wit, improvisation, and yes, deception and manipulation, is what she thrives on, relies on, and what gets her out of (and into) most situations. 

Her Gryffindor Primary is her moral core and what drives her towards her more selfless and heroic endeavors, and what reins in her more selfish tendencies, even if choosing what feels right over what others tell her gets her in trouble sometimes.

In an earlier (I think now deleted) post on sortinghatchats’ tumblr, they talked about the “volume” of Primaries vs. Secondaries having an impact on characters as well.  I think this absolutely applies to Alex.

Her Slytherin Secondary is extremely loud, and comes across in pretty much everything she does.  Her Gryffindor Primary is a small, quiet ember burning inside her at all times, covered up by ten layers of irony, sarcasm, and selfishness, occasionally flaring up into a full-on inferno when there’s been great injustice or when people are in danger and need help, and then quieting down back to that little flame again, to be covered up and put back in her (metaphorical) pocket until she needs it again.  One side may be easier to spot than the other, but both are equally important to understanding who she is.  She may be unapologetic about her own self-interests, but when the chips are down, those interests come second to her sense of right and wrong and she’ll drop everything — her powers, her life, and sometimes even a friend — in service of the Greater Good.

(Justin, on the other hand…)

[ranma-rewatch]

Episode 11: Ranma Meets Love Head-On! Enter the Delinquent Juvenile Gymnast!

Aaaaaaaaand we’re back! It’s a new story arc on the Ranma Rewatch, and we’re more than halfway through Season 1 of Ranma 1/2. I honestly did not remember that the focal character for this arc was introduced now, I thought she wouldn’t be a thing until at least Season 2. To be honest, I’m also not super excited, just because this new character is probably my least favorite main member of the love dodecahedron. But hey, maybe I’ll like her more this time around! Next paragraph, I’ll have watched the episode, and we’ll see what I think.

So, uh, before I start the recap for this episode, one thing I feel like I have to say first.

CW: Attempted Sexual Assault played for humor

For now, make of that what you will. Anyway, the episode starts off with Ranma having just used his cursed form to score some extra sweets for what money he had, and is heading home. But he runs into three girls from his school facing down another girl from somewhere else. The Furinkan High girls are all injured, but still try to fight, only to be thrashed by the other girl’s ribbon and then sadistically assaulted by her.

Not liking that, Ranma intercedes, easily able to dodge the girl’s attacks, showing this newcomer that he can hold his own. She gives her name and title, Kodachi the Black Rose, throwing Ranma a literal black rose before leaping away and laughing. Ranma takes the hurt girls to Akane, who hears what’s going on.

The girls are all from Furinkan’s gymnastics club, and they were scheduled to enter a Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics tournament. Only problem: Kodachi and her team ambushed and injured them badly enough that they can’t compete. With no other hope, they ask Akane to fight in their place, to which she accepts.

There’s only one major problem there: Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics requires the participants to use Rhythmic Gymnastic items as weapons, and while Akane tries to train with them, it becomes clear that she doesn’t have the skill necessary to use them. Think of Akane as a Fighter with high STR but low DEX. She gets angrier and angrier as she continues to try to find something she can do, only to be met with failure after failure.

Ryoga, as P-Chan, was hanging around watching, but can’t take it anymore. He runs into the bathtub, currently occupied by Mr. Tendo, and jumps into the hot water, changing back in front of him and heading back to the training hall to help Akane. He does everything he can to improve Akane’s skills, for which she’s grateful, but at the end of the session it’s clear Akane’s about as rubbish as she had been at the start.

As Akane goes to bed, Ranma tries talking to Ryoga, annoyed that he’s still trying to worm his way into Akane’s life. Ryoga’s reply is to insinuate that Ranma is getting jealous, something his immediate reaction makes look pretty accurate. But then before they can talk more, Ryoga jumps into the pond to return to being P-Chan, eager to snuggle up with Akane in bed again, something Ranma doesn’t want to let happen.

While Ranma chases the piglet around the house, Akane returns to her room and tries to sleep, only to realize that Kodachi was waiting for her, holding herself up in the ceiling, ready to attack. They start to fight, but just as Kodachi gets the upper hand Ranma enters in his chase of P-Chan, giving Akane the ability to break free of the ribbon. After they dart away again, Kodachi decides it’s enough for the night, and tells Akane they’ll finish the fight in the tournament.

As Kodachi runs along the Tendo families roof, she runs right into Ranma’s kettle of hot water, knocking her off the building. Seeing that, Ranma catches her, and she falls for him instantly. She uses a paralyzing powder to completely freeze Ranma in place, and then tries to kiss him while he can’t resist. The only thing that stops her is Akane investigating the noise on her roof, finding the two, and assuming Kodachi and Ranma were about to do the do over her bedroom. She sends Kodachi packing, but leaves Ranma up on the roof, unaware he had no say in the matter.

That’s the basic idea of the episode. Like I said at the start, this is the first episode to the next arc, so it’s mostly set-up. For the most part, it works to set up the character of Kodachi, and it does that well. She’s clearly eager to win at any cost, and a lot of attention is spent contrasting her aristocratic way of speaking with her underhanded and deadly actions. She is something unique, though there are hints of what will later connect her better to what we’ve had before.

She’s also the first rival Akane gets, and we see already that she’s into Ranma. It’s also shown that, specialties aside, she’s probably around Akane’s skill level in combat. Of course, it’s also shown that she’s way below Ranma’s strength, which is a bit disappointing. I don’t like that they chose to make Akane’s rival weak enough for Ranma to handle easily, instead of giving her a stronger opponent that she would have had to work harder to overcome. But of course, that would have meant giving Akane’s martial arts skills more of a focus.

Speaking of focus, can we talk about why I had a content warning in this? I can see why some people might feel it may be a bit over-the-top to use such a warning, since Kodachi seemed to just be after some lip-to-lip action, but I felt it was a good idea regardless. Kiss or no, Kodachi wanted Ranma utterly helpless so she could do whatever she wanted to him, and it’s hard not to look at it as sexual assault, or at least attempted sexual assault. I’m a little iffy on that as a thing to use to set up the bad guy, and we’ll see if that’s a trend that continues with her.

I’m not doing a Character Spotlight this week because I feel it’s too early to talk about Kodachi just yet, and I don’t think there are any other characters I’d like to cover more in-depth. Genma Saotome is the only regular so far I haven’t covered with a Spotlight, and that’s because I’ve wanted him to actually be a bit more involved in an episode’s plot, which we haven’t had in a while.

As for my thoughts on this episode as a whole, I’m not totally against it. It does a good job setting up what’s to come next, Kodachi gets a decent introduction as a villain, and there were a few moments I liked. But aside from the uncomfortable rooftop scene, on the whole the episode was mostly just sort of “there”. I don’t mean that in a bad way, I’m actually putting it exactly in the middle of what I’ve covered so far. Room for improvement, which I hope to see next week.

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’

Episode 9: True Confessions! A Girl's Hair is Her Life!

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know

Episode 8: School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga

Episode 11: Ranma Meets Love Head-On! Enter the Delinquent Juvenile Gymnast!

Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love

Episode 10: P-P-P-Chan! He's Good For Nothin'

Next time I’ll be covering Episode 12, the midpoint of this arc, titled “A Woman's Love is War! The Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!” Once again, I love this kinds of titles. Hope to see you all then!

[thedeaditeslayer]

'The Evil Dead' in Memphis: Star Bruce Campbell talks horror, Elvis, more.

In 1982, author Stephen King attended an early screening of "The Evil Dead" and was flabbergasted by its no-holds-barred (no-veins-stanched) splatter slapstick, its demon-possessed "shaky cam" cinematography, its shoestring ingenuity. He called it "the most ferociously original horror film of the year."

Almost 40 years later, King's famous encomium — which became the movie's most effective sales pitch during its original release — still applies. "The Evil Dead" might be the most ferociously original horror film to be booked in theaters in 2020, too, although its novelty may be harder to appreciate in the context of its two sequels, its 2013 remake, its three-season Starz network television series and its countless spinoffs and imitations in many types of media.

Friday, "The Evil Dead" returns to Malco's Summer Quartet Drive-In, as part of a nationwide revival organized by distributor Grindhouse Releasing, a cult-movie company co-founded by Sage (son of Sylvester) Stallone and Bob Murawski, the Oscar-winning film editor of "The Hurt Locker" and a longtime associate of "Evil Dead" director Sam Raimi. In a process supervised by Raimi, the film for this revival has been scanned from the original 16mm camera negatives, and its original sound mix has been restored.

The Summer booking (with a new horror film, "Followed," as the second feature) represents something of a homecoming for "The Evil Dead," if we can loosely define "home" as "same state." Although Raimi and his young key collaborators — producer Rob Tapert and actor Bruce Campbell — were natives of tiny Royal Oak, Michigan, they shot "The Evil Dead" around an isolated cabin in the backwoods of Morristown, Tennessee, east of Knoxville.

"I'm glad 'Evil Dead' can return to Tennessee where it all began," said Campbell, 62, in an interview from his home in rural Oregon. "I hope Memphis enjoys it while screaming their brains out."

In fact, Campbell has directed a movie titled "The Man with the Screaming Brain," which he brought to Memphis in 2005 for a screening at the Malco Paradiso. Although he will make a few public appearances in connection with the return of "The Evil Dead," the coronavirus shutdown has curtailed the actor's typically peripatetic promotion schedule, and he won't be coming to Memphis.

"Everything I do relates to crowds," Campbell said. "You want hundreds of people in the theater. You want thousands of people at Comic-Con. I counted it up, and in the last three years — 2017, 2018, 2019 — I've been to 99 cities. This year — one city."

The downtime, however, did enable Campbell to finish his latest book, "The Cool Side of My Pillow," a collection of essays due later this summer.

A product of not so much beginner's luck as beginner's pluck, "The Evil Dead" was made for about $350,000 when Raimi, Campbell and associates were barely out of Michigan State. (In comparison, "Spider-Man 3," which Raimi directed in 2007, cost $350 million.)

Although many of its participants have gone on to bigger if not always better things, "The Evil Dead" has — like the demons released from the Sumerian Book of the Dead by the movie's vacationing college students — haunted its makers ever since. No one is more closely associated with the franchise than Campbell, who has transformed the original film's hapless cipher of a hero, named Ash, into a distinctive, increasingly comedic and even beloved creation — so much so that he received top billing in the gore-soaked Starz series, which was titled "Ash vs. Evil Dead," the better to showcase the actor's hambone baritone, formidable chin (his first memoir was titled "If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor"), instinct for self-parody (another book is titled "Make Love! The Bruce Campbell Way") and demon-dismembering prowess with a chainsaw.

"The first 'Evil Dead,' in my opinion, is a melodrama," Campbell said. "There is not a lot of winking at the camera because we were not sophisticated. And some stuff is funny because it's either bad dialogue or poorly delivered dialogue or poorly delivered bad dialogue, which is the worst of all.

"The second is more humorous, we really perfected the 'splatstick.' The third one (1992's 'Army of Darkness,' in which Ash is transported to the Middle Ages) is a ridiculous adventure, it's almost like a Ray Harryhausen movie."

Of course, all these movies found some of their first fans via that all-American and free-range cinema innovation known as the drive-in.

"Drive-ins were crucial to the history of 'The Evil Dead,'" said David Szulkin, film booker for Grindhouse Releasing, which also handles such films as Lucio Fulci's "The Beyond" (1981) and the hippies-with-rabies shocker, "I Drink Your Blood" (1970). "Drive-ins were the market that created the opportunity for movies like this one to be made.

"The drive-ins are personally important to us as well," he added. "Everything we do goes back to seeing all of these movies at the drive-in for the first time when we were growing up. Beyond the movies themselves, it was the bigger-than-life presentation at drive-ins and the showmanship of the old film distributors that made us horror movie fans. We want to keep that tradition alive."

And drive-ins continue to be crucial for horror. Due to the COVID-associated nationwide shutdown of most indoor theaters, the unlikely top film at the U.S. box office for five weeks in a row, from May to early June, was "The Wretched," a low-budget chiller booked mostly in drive-ins and directed by Brett Pierce — whom Campbell, like a proud papa, identified as the son of Bart Pierce, co-creator of the special effects and stop-motion animation on the first "Evil Dead."

Looking back on four decades of "Dead," Campbell said what has changed most dramatically over the years is "the visceral nature of filmmaking."

"In the first 'Evil Dead,' " he said, "Ash hears a noise outside his window, swings his shotgun, and blows his window out. And the way you do that in 1979 is you put a shell in your shotgun and blow the window out. By the time Ash in 'Ash vs. Evil Dead' raises his shotgun, there's no shell in any gun, not even blanks... There's a digital flame. ... So it's incredibly safe as opposed to really reckless, but the visceral nature has been removed."

Beyond "Evil Dead," Campbell has appeared in many television programs and films (notably for Raimi and the Coen Brothers), and been a voice actor on such movies as "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" and "Cars 2." But his Memphis relevance is most closely connected with "Bubba Ho-Tep," a surprisingly sincere and even elegiac 2002 movie from "Phantasm" director Don Coscarelli that cast Campbell as Elvis, now a resident in a nursing home (where no one believes he is Elvis), who teams up with a man who claims to be John F. Kennedy (Ossie Davis) to battle a resurrected Egyptian mummy. (Yes, that old plot again.)

Campbell admits he wasn't an Elvis fan as a kid because "when I graduated high school in '76, he was over the hill, and he was dead a year later. But then you go back and look at that early '70s Las Vegas footage and you realize the guy was on fire, nobody could touch him."

"Bubba Ho-Tep" ends with the promise of a sequel, "Bubba Nosferatu," but Campbell says that project, after many attempts at an acceptable script, is dead, and his aging Elvis hero has "officially retired." Meanwhile, Campbell keeps on keeping on, and so do the demons of the Evil Dead: Ash will be absent, but Campbell will be working behind the scenes as a producer on an upcoming "Evil Dead" feature film from Irish director Lee Cronin ("The Hole in the Ground").

[thecompostpile]

On Orange Cassidy vs Chris Jericho

Orange Cassidy is undoubtedly the best wrestler in the entire world. I don’t know how you couldn’t love this guy. I am not going to lie and pretend I wasn’t stoked for this match. I am stoked for every Orange Cassidy match. This was probably his best AEW match. 

Everything he does is just so perfectly in character for this world he has invented. Taking apart ORange Cassidy as a persona would actually be a great study in how to write characters. He exists in this awful universe where everyone is always screaming and fighting and he just can’t be bothered to care. He lulls you in to thinking he is a loser but really he is bored because he is a much better wrestler than anyone else. THat’s why he had to bring his A game for Jericho because Jericho is as good a wrestler as Orange is. 

Cassidy starting the match by telling the Best Friends to go to the back was really interesting. I am going to come out and say that AEW has too many managers. Every single person comes out to the ring with a parade of people. Cody is a good guy who comes to the ring with half the roster backing him up. Every wrestler has an old man helping them. It’s just too much for me. Orange not having his boys with him even though Jericho did makes him an admirable babyface. 

Orange from the start is not messing around. He dives with everything he’s got giving Jericho his all. Even if it costs him crashing into the guardrail for the 4th times. Orange Cassidy spends most of the match either hitting big moves on Jericho or doing weird lucha roll ups on him. Excalibur even namedrops Skycade as on of Cassidy’s trainers. Cassidy hits Jericho with everything he has flopping off the top rope on him, the Stundog Millionaire. One of the best moves of the night was Orange did the two ankle kicks only to hit Jericho with a huge superkick. I couldn’t even imagine how loud a crowd would be if they were there. 

Sure Orange didn’t win but he did look like an absolute star against one of the most legendary wrestlers in wrestling. Jericho is the last of a dying breed a true star and he knew how to make Cassidy look good, probably because he liked Cassidy because everyone likes Cassidy. It has been established that Jericho and Orange Cassidy hate each other. This feud isn’t going away even if it does possibly go to the backburner. Jericho cheated to win and so there could always be a rematch this time in front of fans. Just think of the crowd reaction when Orange is able to finally beat Chris Jericho. For now him and Best Friends can feud with Jericho and PnP for a while maybe leading to a big trios match or something. Hopefully AEW know that have something special here and take care of it. 

[devianta]

MDZS/Persona 5 xover that literally no one asked for

I just feel like there’s so much potential for this. Think about it, both of these works have themes surrounding the damage gossip can cause, getting punished for doing the right thing (no good deed goes unpunished), what constitutes justice, and the consequences of shitty parenting, amongst other things. 

Mostly I just want to run wwx’s palace. He has a palace, there’s no doubt about that, and I want to run it. I’d kill 500 men for the opportunity. Also, pretty sure his treasure would be his lost golden core. Meaning, that if you successfully steal that shit you get to give to it him and then he’d have a new one without 1) him having to die and be brought back in a new body or 2) having to fuck anyone else up. (Phantom Thievery ftw!) You’d just have to successfully complete the palace. That’s all. 

Can you imagine wwx as a boss? Like, can you imagine that boss fight? He’d have at least 12 health bars. I mean, this is the guy who got shot by an arrow, pulled it out, and threw it back, instantly killing the bitch who shot him. This is the fucker who got disemboweled by his brother, stuffed his intestines back in, and then went and bought potatoes. This guy got a super experimental operation done on him, got stabbed with his own sword by wen chao (at least in the donghua, can’t remember if this happened in the other adaptations), and was then thrown into burial mounds. Like after all that, he was literally thrown off a cliff and he was still able to move around. Wwx is not unlike a termite: there’s really not much that can kill him. During the Sunshot Campaign he managed whole battlefields on his own. He played the flute days and nights on end without rest. 

His boss fight would be near impossible but I would be so willing to try. BTW, I’m imagining this taking place after he’s moved into Burial Mounds with the Wen Remnants but before jzx gets dead. You know, before everything gets irreversibly fucked. So the Stygian Tiger Seal will definitely feature in the boss fight. Most likely it’ll be something you need to steal it during the fight. I’m imagining that he uses to summon endless waves of corpses that prevent you from getting any hits in so you have to distract him in order to steal the seal off him and finally be able to deal actual damage to him. That’ll be stage one of the fight. Stage two will be fighting wwx and shadow wen ning. You have to defeat wen ning before you move on to stage three. Wen ning exclusively uses physical attacks. Wwx never uses physical attacks. He mostly commands wen ning but throws out curse and almighty attacks every one or two turns. Stage three is just wwx and he starts hitting you with a crap ton of curse damage with some almighty mixed in to spice things up. He repels most physical attacks and all curse moves. He’s weak to bless skills but has a 50% dodge rate for them. Beating wwx earns you no money (b/c he’s poor af) but he drops 2x Shijie’s soup (restores full sp to all party members), 5x wen qing’s needles (cures any status condition), 5x curse talismans (does 50 dmg), and one (1) golden core. 

What does wwx’s palace look like? Where is it? I want to say Lotus Pier and the distortion (what he thinks of it as) is a graveyard/mausoleum/something along those lines. But an argument could be made for burial mounds. I’m not sure what the distortion would be though in that case. I feel like wwx sees burial mounds pretty clearly. No, I think wwx’s distortion revolves around Lotus Pier and his family there. Mini bosses? Jiang Cheng definitely. Maybe Madame Yu? Shijie would show up (his palace wouldn’t be complete without her) but she wouldn’t be a shadow you’d fight. She’d offer guidance or healing items. Lwj’s shadow would definitely be there but I’m not sure what his role would be. At that point in the story, wwx’s unknowingly in love with lwj and sees him as a nice guy who asks wwx questions he can’t answer. He believes that he and lwj will inevitably end up on opposite sides of the battle field but ultimately wwx does not want to fight him. He feels that a death at lwj’s hands would be a good death. So he might be a shadow you have to impress or prove yourself to before receiving help. I feel like wwx’s palace would be a bit like Futaba’s in that he wouldn’t have full control over it because he no longer has complete control over himself or his demonic cultivation. Which is why I think there would be shadows in wwx’s palace that act counter to his purpose of pushing others away (not unlike in Futaba’s palace). If anything, I feel like his palace would be like a weird mix of Futaba’s and Nijima’s palaces. Because wwx has that distinct self-blaming loneliness that so permeated Futaba’s pyramid but he also has that single-minded determination and overbearing hubris that featured so strongly is Nijima’s casino. I don’t know. Nijima, in her boss battle, repeatedly yelled “I must win! I must win at any cost!” and I can kinda hear wwx saying something similar but it would be more along the lines of “I must protect them! I must protect them no matter what!” “Them” of course being his family and the Wen Remnants. 

 Other palaces to conquer in the MDZS universe? (It might be easier to list the people who wouldn’t have palaces.) 

Jiang Cheng definitely has a palace. A very purple palace. Lotus Pier, the Revenge. But what does he see his home as? An empty house? Jyl did say in the Untamed that three of them must remain together forever. And what happened? Wwx ran off with the last of the Wens and Jyl got married and left. If anything, jc is lonely. All he wants is his family back. So his palace would either reflect the state of his existence: alone in an empty home with no one to call his own, or it would reflect his deepest desires: his whole family returned to him. What sort of palace ruler would he be? He has that inferiority complex and brother and mother and father issues. (So. Many. ISSUES.) I can see his wwx shadow being completely obedient, because that’s sort of what he wants. He wants his brother home again and fulfilling his promise, to be the other half of the twin heroes of Yunmeng. It might be fun to fight shadow!jc and shadow!wwx at the same time. The Phantom Thieves vs the Twin Heroes of Yunmeng, loser gets sent to the Shadow Realm! (Just kidding. Unless...?) The other possibility is that wwx is completely absent from the palace but his absence is blatantly obvious to anyone that gazes upon the palace, like walking into a bedroom with no bed. There should be a bed there. Everyone knows a bed belongs here but there is no bed. Jc’s palace should have a wwx but wwx is not here. But he should be.

What would jc’s treasure be? His original golden core? Probably not. As far as he’s concerned (at this juncture) the golden core in his body is his original, restored by baoshan sanren. So it’s not that. The puppies that he lost as a boy, that he was forced to trade for an errant brother? A possibility. That was seemingly the start of jc’s problems. First he lost his beloved dogs, then he lost the love of his parents. Jfm focused on wwx to the detriment of jc and madame yu wouldn’t shut the fuck up about how jc couldn’t compare to wwx. If wwx hadn’t come to lotus pier, jc’s parents might’ve been satisfied with him. But I sincerely doubt that. There were clearly problems between J-fucking-M and Mad-Yu’s (can you tell that I think nothing of these two assholes god what I wouldn’t give to kick their asses in the metaverse I’d tear their fucking hearts out to quote ryugi) marriage prior to wwx’s arrival. Wwx’s presence there only brought those problems to the surface. Whether jc is capable of recognizing that truth is another matter. (Sorry, jc but your parents are shit and their marriage was doomed to failure before they even made their bows.) 

Or would wwx himself be the treasure? Jc’s parents are dead; they can’t be returned to life and therefore are unattainable. Jyl didn’t necessarily abandon jc and I doubt he sees her leaving as a betrayal. Jyl’s marriage was more or less inevitable. She’s able to easily visit. There’s no real conflict there. Wwx, on the hand, defected from Jiang sect. Jc has to pretend to loathe him, to not want him back when the opposite is in fact the case. Most of jc’s problems, wishes, and desires center around this one person. It wouldn’t be inaccurate to say that wwx is the locus of jc’s world, the axis upon which all turns: the triumphs and failures, tragedies and victories. When wwx is missing, jc looks for him. When wwx drops his sword, jc picks it up and returns it to him. Whatever happens to one brother affects the other. Even if/when wwx isn’t obviously present in jc’s life, he’s still there, even if you don’t see one brother next to the other. Even though jc doesn’t know it at that point in the story, wwx is the core of jc’s body and, therefore, it would make thematic sense for him to the be the core of jc’s palace.

Other palaces? Well, Jin Guangshan and Jin Guangyao obviously. Su She is debatable. I feel like he’d be a Mementos run. Besides, he’s not important enough to warrant a palace. Likewise, Jin Zixun would be a Mementos case. Wen Ruohan would have a palace but we don’t get to really know him as a character so I can’t say what his palace would like look except that it would encompass the whole of Ancient China. Wen Chao would likely have a palace even though he doesn’t deserve the attention ripping his palace apart would require. Most likely it would be a cross between Kamoshida’s and Kanoshiro’s. Jgs’ palace would probably look like Kamoshida’s and Jgy’s would probably be like Shido’s. 

Am I missing anyone? What do you think the characters’ palaces would look like? Whose palace would you most like to run? Let me know! 

[wrestlingisfake]

G1 Climax final preview

Man, New Japan likes making me wait super-late before they post the card for this show!!

Kota Ibushi vs. SANADA - This is the final match in the G1 Climax tournament.  Ibushi won A Block on October 16, and Sanada won B Block on October 17.  There is no time limit; there must be a winner.  Whoever wins this match will get a trophy, a neat flag, and a briefcase containing a contract for a title match in the main event of Wrestle Kingdom 15 in the Tokyo Dome.

This is the third year in a row that Ibushi has advanced to the final; he lost in 2018, he won in 2019, and he’s looking for a back-to-back win here.  He’s declared his intention to be capital-g God, and I feel like that’s not the kind of thing you say in a wrestling promo if you’re going to come up short.  In contrast, Sanada is the shy, quiet one in Los Ingobernables de Japon, and he’s been humbly building momentum over the past year to break through from the midcard.  A month ago I was unsure who could win this thing, but when I saw people suggesting Sanada I was like “wait, really?”  But now he’s made it.

The psychology of this match has been defined by the bizarre war Ibushi fought with Taichi on 10/17.  Lots of New Japan matches feature spots where two guys dare each other to stand in the middle of the ring taking elbows to the neck for a couple of minutes.  But Taichi and Ibushi exchanged kicks, and almost nothing but kicks, for seventeen minutes.  I’m not some shootfighting expert who can tell you if these kicks were stiff or if they were super good at selling.  All I know is that, at least in kayfabe, Ibushi’s right thigh is thrashed from doing kicks, and his left thigh is thrashed from taking kicks.  Basically, Sanada's not going into this match and working over the arm, unless he’s stupid or something.

I have no idea how they’re going to lay out a match where one guy can barely walk.  Then again, Ibushi is known for a) insisting that some scary landing didn’t actually hurt at all and b) hulking up during matches and playing like nothing hurts him.  So he might come to the ring limping or acting like everything is A-OK.  However, I am very confident Ibushi can get in some kind of offense that levels the playing field.  Just one crazy spot that absolutely wrecks a body part on Sanada would make it feel plausible that the match could go either way.  Or maybe Kota will just challenge Sanada to another kicking contest, because he’s nuts.

I could see either of these two going on to challenge Naito for the title at the Tokyo Dome, but given the choice I think Sanada is a more interesting challenger.  That doesn’t mean he has to win, but I think the stars are lining up for him.  But he’s in for the fight of his life against one weird-ass son of a bitch.

Tetsuya Naito & BUSHI vs. EVIL & Yujiro Takahashi - Evil failed to make it to the G1 finals, but at least he won his block match with Naito, which puts him in line for a title shot.  Naito lost a total of three matches during the tournament, setting up three potential challengers, but I get the feeling Evil is first in line.

In the back half of the tour, Evil and Jay White started making all these weird comments towards one another in their backstage post-match comments.  That’s pretty unusual, since they weren’t scheduled to face one another, and now we know they weren’t even booked to meet in the final.  It feels like the destination is a Bullet Club vs. Bullet Club feud, but somebody has to make the first move on that.  I don’t know why it’d happen here, but it’s got to start somewhere.

Assuming Evil is getting the next title shot, he should win here, probably by pinning Bushi.  Then again, I suppose if Naito pins Evil, maybe that would avenge the earlier loss without the need for a title match, and he could move on KENTA or something.  We’ll see what happens.

Kazuchika Okada & SHO vs. Will Ospreay & Great-O-Khan - So the big angle on the October 16 show was that Ospreay turned heel on Okada and aligned with O-Khan.  Obviously Okada is looking for some payback.

O-Khan was once Tomoyuki Oka of the Young Lions until 2018, whereupon he went on excursion in the UK, where he became “The Great O-Kharn.”  I’m not sure they’ve settled on the official English spelling of this gimmick, but the website says “Great-O-Khan” right now.  I haven’t seen much of his current character, but I expect we’ll get showcase when he tags in. 

It would be fairly shocking if Ospreay defected to one of the heel factions (Bullet Club or Suzuki-gun) but the possibility that he’s just going to build a new one from the ground up raises a lot more possibilities.  Ospreay would almost certainly have to recruit turncoats from one or more existing factions.  He might very well start with Sho, during this match.  There are a lot of ways this could go, and this match is our first chance to start to find out more.

Assuming they don’t do some big angle or clusterfuck run-in at the end, I’m thinking O-Khan gets to show off some cool finisher and pin Sho.  Or, if New Japan really wants to make a statement, he’ll just pin Okada.

Hiroshi Tanahashi & Jeff Cobb & Juice Robinson & Master Wato vs. Jay White & KENTA & Taiji Ishimori & Gedo - White’s team represents Bullet Club, whereas Tana’s squad are all from Hontai, the babyfaces who are too purehearted to join a real faction.  All of these guys were on the rest of the tour except Wato and IWGP junior heavyweight champion Ishimori.  Could Wato pin Ishimori and turn around his rather disappointing first few months back from excursion?  I won’t hold my breath.

Honestly the most interesting thing about this match is the possibility that some important angle could happen near the finish, or afterwards.  Like, what if the tension between Jay White and Evil causes the Bullet Club team to come to blows?  Or what if they air a video from Jon Moxley vowing to come to Japan and give Kenta his shot at the US title?  I probably shouldn’t get my hopes up for stuff like that, but it could happen.

Regardless, I’m thinking White and Gedo are having some problems, and that will cost them the win here.

Minoru Suzuki & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Shingo Takagi & Hiromu Takahashi - Suzuki is the NEVER champion and Takagi just pinned him the other night, so they’re on a collision course.  I don’t expect much of anything to get settled in this one, so look for Kanemaru to do the job to one of the LIJ guys.

Zack Sabre Jr. & Taichi & El Desperado & DOUKI vs. Toru Yano & Tomohiro Ishii & Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI - Sabre and Taichi are the IWGP heavyweight tag team champions.  Despy is one of the junior tag champions.  Douki ain’t got shit.  Yano is the provisional KOPW champion and his partners are the NEVER trios champions.  So there’s a lot of hardware in this one, even before you get into all the pipes, microphone stands, staffs, and spray bottles these guys lug to the ring.  The finish of this match could be used to set up a title match for the next tour, but it might just as easily be a lot of nothing.

Okay, I gotta talk about Taichi.  Like, that kicking contest with Ibushi was weird and didn’t make a ton of sense, but it reminded me of that deal where the ECW fans didn’t accept Tommy Dreamer until he took a zillion cane shots from the Sandman.  It’s like, on some level Taichi is trying to prove he’s done with the cheap heat stuff from a year or two ago, and even if he’s still a heel he’s a legit heel now.  Like, he gained Ibushi’s respect and stuff.  I dig that kinda stuff.  Anyway, I sure hope Taichi gets to just sit in the corner for most of this match.  But either way, his team’s at a prety big disadvantage (aside from just having Douki there).

[phoenix-downer]

Sora and Xehanort: The True King vs. The Pretender to the Throne

Sora fighting Xehanort in Scala ad Caelum was kind of like watching a king reclaim his throne from a pretender who caused nothing but havoc in ruin in the king’s absence. Credit to @rapis-razuri​ for first making the connection and then telling me about it.

Let’s back up a bit first, though. Verum Rex, the video game featured in Toy Box, means True King in Latin.

And while yes, this is no doubt a reference to Versus XIII, I also want to consider the idea of true kings in the context of KH3. 

Sora has his first confrontation with Xehanort in Toy Box (albeit Young Xehanort). The true king (Sora) goes up against the pretender (Xehanort), and Sora doesn’t even hesitate to attack him in a sequence that shows that no, Sora is not over what Xehanort tried to do to him in DDD...

...but unfortunately Xehanort manages to grab him...

...and casts him out/banishes him, i.e. throws him into the video game where the gigas are. 

Fourth wall? What fourth wall?

But Sora fights his way out and makes his way back to his friends... much like how later in the game, he is cast out of the realm of the living... 

...and then fights his way back to his friends and rescues them.

In San Fransokyo, Sora meets Xehanort again after he finds all his friends’ hearts... except Kairi’s.

Look how hostile he is right off the bat towards him:

He just glares at him even while Xehanort... tells the truth for once and warns him what’s going to happen to him?

Sora’s not having it though and is sure to sass him:

And Xehanort’s parting words are chilling:

And then Sora goes back to the Keyblade Graveyard and... well, we all know how things went from there.

Xehanort wants power, no matter what the cost... and he’ll sacrifice whatever it takes to get it. Including Kairi.

And by the time we get to Scala ad Caelum... there’s a marked change in Sora’s interactions with him. No more sass. No more discussion. Sora doesn’t take Xehanort’s BS at all.

Seriously, almost every time he looks at Xehanort, he’s glaring at him or regarding him with the contempt and disgust he deserves. This is the man who killed the girl he loves enough to become a Heartless for - and later on in this very game actually died for! - and it hits Sora where it hurts. Like a king losing his queen when the pretender tries to take over his throne, Kairi’s loss wounds Sora deeply.

And, of course... the game of chess isn’t over if the queen’s gone - the king must be captured for that to happen - but all the same, the king’s left a lot more vulnerable without her.

But, queen at his side or not, he still has to win and beat the guy who made his friends’ lives hell and has made his life hell, too.

His eyebrows are furrowed and he has his hand on his Keyblade, ready to fight:

Xehanort is dressed in goat/ram armor for one of the battles, and goats... well, they’re associated with the devil, among other things, so the parallel is very fitting here. Sora probably felt like he was fighting Satan at this point.

Shoutout to Donald for being equally disgusted/angry with him:

The sky starting to go dark reflects Sora’s mood pretty well here:

Sora just looks at him with utter loathing and disgust, which is such a huge change from his usual friendly/cheerful demeanor:

Even when he’s looking up at him it’s with his head pulled back to make himself look as big/tall as possible. In other words, he isn’t giving Xehanort any sort of deference because he never in a million years deserves it.

Donald and Goofy are equally pissed and it really shows:

Even when Sora’s surprised/unsure about what’s going on he’s still glaring and gritting his teeth:

And when Xehanort took Sora’s light, I’m pretty sure I gasped. Not just because I really liked Rage Form in this game and love any sort of exploration of Sora’s darkness, but because...

Well, Xehanort already took Sora’s light from him. Kairi. Kairi’s his light. This moment really drives that point home. Sora’s still feeling rage and fury and grief over her death, over losing her, and that comes out all at once and boy was it satisfying to wail on Xehanort like this:

Fight darkness with darkness!

Even when he’s desperate and about to die, he’s still just furious at Xehanort and that’s reflected in his demeanor:

And finally, FINALLY, he wins. Xehanort is no longer towering over him. They’re on equal footing now. Sora has dragged him off his high horse and defeated him. Not only that, he’s actually managed to get him to collapse to the ground when before Sora had collapsed to the ground over his grief at losing his friends and then his grief at Kairi’s death. But not here. He’s the one standing over Xehanort for once. 

And he’s so tired and so done with him at this point and it was so satisfying to see someone call Xehanort out on his BS and for Xehanort to finally have to listen:

Sora demands to know what’s going to happen because he doesn’t want to hear any more lies, half-truths, or beating around the bush:

Side note: foreshadowing? 

Sora, in a way, is the World’s hope, and he is likewise lost at the end of the game, and the camera very deliberately chooses to focus on him here...

But anyway, as the scene continues, you can still really just see his contempt and disgust with Xehanort. This is the part where he basically tells Xehanort he’s not cut out to be a true leader because he thinks he can control destiny, and his contempt for Xehanort just oozes off the screen. Bonus points for them having a discussion about destiny vs. free will, where Xehanort blathers on about dictating people’s fates for them while Sora comes down hard on the side of giving people free will even if no one can really control their own destiny:

I love Sora’s line here: “A real leader knows that destiny is beyond his control... and accepts that.”

He tells it like it is, not at all afraid to mince words. Because yeah, Xehanort doesn’t deserve to rule one single bit. And in doing so Sora proves he is the one who truly deserves to rule. What do you bet he will become the eventual ruler of... something, eventually. Kingdom Hearts, maybe? 

This moment is like when the true king tells the pretender to get off his throne, an idea @rapis-razuri​ first proposed:

Yep, I’m definitely getting a “Get out of my kingdom and leave my people alone” vibe from this scene, even if Sora doesn’t know his true destiny yet. Foreshadowing? Especially when his shotlock in Second Form was called King of Hearts?

Probably. After Xehanort banished him and caused endless destruction and ruin, he’s casting Xehanort out and he’s going to make things right.

Goofy gets a moment to look disgusted, too:

And Xehanort tries to make a big show about how he’s handing over the χ-Blade because Sora did so well, blah blah blah, which... at least he acknowledges that Sora is the one who truly deserves this power?

Sora takes the χ-Blade from him:

And to Sora’s infinite credit, even though he has such a powerful weapon at his disposal, even though he could use it to summon the door and open Kingdom Hearts for himself and take full power of whatever lies beyond and be reborn as something greater than human and remake the World how he desires, if Xehanort’s reports in BBS are to be believed...

He doesn’t do that. He doesn’t want that power, and by doing so, shows he is truly worthy of it in a way that Xehanort never was or will be.

But Sora doesn’t take it for himself. He doesn’t because he despises the χ-Blade and what it represents, despises the fact that Xehanort murdered Kairi to create it, despises the fact that it was completed with her death and created by so much pain and suffering.

He could remake the World however he wishes and he chooses not to. He wants the old world back, flawed as it might be, because he wants to give people a chance. Wants to give them a choice.

And instead of trying to go it alone like Xehanort did, he calls on his friends to help him close whatever realm Xehanort opened up:

Then lifts the χ-Blade in the air...

And we get this shot. My friends are my power, indeed:

“Good riddance, I’m destroying this awful thing that represents everything I hate about what happened to Kairi plus all the crap Xehanort put my friends through, and I’m gonna do it with my bare hands.”

Must’ve been so satisfying for Sora to finally see that thing gone. In the next scene the worlds are safe, the χ-Blade is gone, and Kingdom Hearts has been sealed once more.

But even though he fought all night and it is now morning, the king isn’t through with his mission. There’s one last person he still has to save. His queen. And in sharp contrast to how he felt like he was worthless without his friends before, here he feels worthy enough to go after her alone. And he pulls it off and saves her, too.

And for my game, at least, I got this image of Sora sitting on a throne at the end. 

Sora won. He might not be king yet, but he stopped Xehanort from becoming king and restored the worlds and rescued his friends and saved Kairi, and that’s what’s important for now. The rest can happen later. Nomura does like to play the long game, after all, and he’s been drawing Sora slouching around on thrones since... KH1 days?

And... until the next KH game... we’ll just have to wait and see how this theme will be further developed...

[pigtailedgirl]

Tony Stark Ends My MCU in Endgame

Just sharing some stuff I did on dreamwidth with a few updates. I’m new to tumblr, give me patience.

Here is why I'm never watching another MCU film or giving money to them or Marvel if I can help it. Tony Fucking Stark. The capitulation to and adoration of both RDJ and that character shows me that their brand of heroism is nothing I want to do with. Endgame validated his worldview and I can't reconcile. Look. I'm no big fan of Tony or Iron Man. Been tolerating since Avengers. Been outright thinking he deserved a tell off and comeuppance since Civil War. Did not believe he'd get it, but thought, well, thought at the least he'd still be not outright unchallenged or proven right. Basically, I was wrong in that I thought the films were conscious of his flaws they were highlighting, and that even if they could never be confirmed or explored while RDJ was onboard, because I think RDJ would never consent to looking bad because he's a narcissist and he has star power, they were there, canon, and recognized with subtlety. And I had other models of heroes in Steve and Thor to say Tony is not the only version of hero to emulate. Iron Man as a character through his movies and the Avengers film is a hero born of guilt and mired in a complex selfishness. I thought this always but especially with repeat viewings. He's fascinating because he does help people, and commit good acts, but it is born not from a desire to care for others. It's often a side-affect of his overwhelming ego. That is the kind of hero Tony is. A selfishly, not selflessly motivated one.

I eventually got very tired of Tony not seeing others around him that were hurt instead of helped by his brand of heroism. A replacement for his brand of weapons at Stark Industries or his rock-star persona. Or seeing others at all. It's something that regardless of results, I think society needs to re-examine the strength of. The ego. The self. An American world doesn't need more internal selfishness to admire. It should wear Tony down in a very different way than the MCU reflects. It should have a foil and a cost. Endgame has erased and ignored this, validated and lionized Tony as a hero role-model, to an awful degree. To start Tony is made weak in the opening and given his monologue goodbye to Pepper to garner sympathy. For him. Not for Pepper. Not for Nebula do they have kindly interaction together; we are squarely with and in Tony POV. It's re-occurring, this sainted POV of Tony in this film. You'll notice it especially in his funeral, when he’s already dead, as on-lookers who have no connection or tenuous relation to him gather and mourn because to the film he's the icon of the MCU and the hero.

This POV is not extended to others, say Natasha’s loss. The film has a central character it is focusing and idenitfying with, and it’s Tony Stark.

The main thrust of argument in the film is also weighted in Tony's favor. Tony gets off the ship on Earth. To be hugged and comforted by his foil Steve. He is fragile and we linger on his emaciated frame in his argument with Steve and the others. We linger on him in bed after, surrounded by caring loved ones. Held back by Rhodey. Our sympathy is supposed to be centered squarely on him. Yet his argument itself is devoid of logic or reason or compassion for others that are not himself. 1) Ultron was evil and the Iron Legion was causing civil unrest even before and is gone through no others decision. Tony never rebuilt it. 2) The reason the Avengers were not working together in Civil War and after was entirely because of Tony. It's Tony who got the olive branch of a phone Steve sent and hasn't used it. Indeed Steve came as soon as Bruce and Rhodey phoned. It's Tony who went to space and left the others behind. It's Tony who lost trust and therefore tracking of Vision causing him to go off-grid. It's Tony who agreed with the accords, has since broken the accords, and has since not done anything to demolish them. Accords which Ross wanted to use to stay hands in Infinity War as well. 3)Tony is in a room playing photos of the dusted, came with a woman who's sister is murdered, and can only focus on his hurt about the Snap. On losing Peter, because of what it means to him. Of the others not being with him to comfort him in his time of battle and loss. His priority is his pain alone. It's supremely selfish. It's given no rebuttal because the narrative agrees his pain is what matters. So characters feel sad for him instead of anger or their own hurt. If they don’t agree with him, no time is devoted to seeing that.This is where you expect an argument. A reflection by everyone. A hash-out on the priority of one's personal pain versus the whole universe's losses. None ever comes. The film avoids another interesting conflict on selfishness vs selflessness to approve of onlyTony when in the five year gap it celebrates in Tony's family, at the expense of everyone else refusing to move on. Only Tony gets happiness in time through his not thinking about others. Now Tony does regret Peter. So Tony decides to help reverse the Snap. But he is given zero push back on the decision to do so entirely for his benefit, that it is his alleviation of feeling Peter's loss, and not for the world's losses, or Peter's loss independant of Tony. Again it’s a selfish and self-motivatied choice. 

That Tony refuses to give up his 5 year family, which will come at the expense of 5 years lost to the returned, of the collateral we saw take place in Infinity War, at the deaths and changes since is not examined because the narrative doesn’t care to disagree with Tony. I'm not saying erasing Tony's family is right, heroic, or a choice he or the film should advocate for. But there is zero thought or discussion to the idea that Tony's family or pain is not all there is to consider in this plan. Where is Thor, saying how dare you value your happiness over all the dead of Asgard? Where's Natasha mad at her effort to keep everyone together, including world crisis prevention? Where is Carol with the universe as a whole perspective? Where is Banner saying help me at least not kill ourselves trying? Where is Clint not wanting to be a killer when his family comes back? Where is any nuance that just because Tony wants this in this way, it's not the only way everyone would feel. This film never puts anything above Tony's feelings. This extends to his heroic sacrifice at the end. The final two ways the film absolutely prides Tony's view versus anything else are his death and mourning. Tony is treated as the ultimate hero. Out of 14 million scenarios, it takes him alone to win. Him using the stones barehanded when all others couldn't. Him saving the world. His ultimate sacrifice and entirely his choice. All about him. It's not selfless that way. It's killing yourself yes, it’s saving others, but you are the ultimate universe saver. The ultimate avenger. You defeat the bad guy. Not bring people back in an act of return, but in an act of rightfulness you fix what you've been complaining others wouldn't let you and defeat evil all by yourself. Your entire motivation is rewarded, because you protect the universe by killing all your bad guy enemies. Rooted in how you feel and what you want. His final line "And I am Iron Man" a rebuke to anyone who doubts the greatness of him. Tony was right and perfect everyone. Listen up.  But there is no self-sacrifice here, because it's not about him losing. Oh, fans will mourn him. Lament Tony's lost family and happiness. Rally against his pain in dying. But Tony doesn't. There is no reflection in the film from him on the potential cost or the reality in the moment. No care is extended to the daughter's feelings or Pepper's or his friends. Nothing is about the impact or loss he'd feel of leaving them. Instead he's, like always, the focus. The film is entirely about losing him and how it's the worst for you and the world. That is what the film wants you to be sad about in these moments. Every character props him. Steve's tears. Peter's "Mr. Stark we won", and Pepper's "You can rest now." It's all about making Tony look good. This continues with the funeral. Morgan talking to Happy being about a callback to cheeseburgers Tony loved. Tony Stark 's first reactor is “Proof Tony Stark Has A Heart” floating away, wreathed in flowers. It's all tribute to the man and only about him. That's not selfless, it's self-aggrandizing. The character has gained no humility or grace. Just more fame. I'm not interested in that. In fact I'm angry. The overarching message of his rightness also destroys his foil, Steve. Who stands behind Pepper at the funeral? Steve. Who stands with Tony throughout the film? Steve. As his character's end, Steve adopts Tony's mindset of not being a selfless hero and chooses to do as Tony did and think only of what Steve currently wants. Peggy. In the past. At others expense. Steve chooses to be a selfish hero. As does Thor going off the rails in film and off with the guardians and abandoning his people. Marvel thinks that's the right way. A summation of all their films and a thing to look back on and celebrate as Tony hologram's monologue tells us. All heroes are reduced to the Tony Stark role model. It tells me they never thought Tony's world-view was a problem. And I disagree. Or they wanted to honor him so they warped everything else to work it. If they do it once, twice, always...well, what next? So I'm done.

[thesportssoundoff]

“Pitcher X brings Y” A look at 10 options for the Yankees in the upcoming off season

Joey

October 28th

The Yankees have plenty of reasons for not playing games into the final week of October. Unfortunately for them, it boils down to not being able to hit more so than any serious pitching deficiency. Unfortunately x2  there's not a lot of options for them in terms of upgrading their offense (You've got maybe one infield position open, maybe one outfield spot available, no real room for a full time DH) so chasing the mythical ace will be at the top of the agenda. The Yankees have implied that they're ill-prepared to spend beyond their means but let's say they DO drift into the starter pool. I'm going to take a peek at ten different starters and discuss what they would offer the Yankees in 2020 and maybe even going forward.

Gerrit Cole- Peace Of Mind

Simply put, you can pick whatever metric you want and Gerrit Cole tops any Yankees pitcher. There's maybe 4-5 guys better than Cole at this point in his career as he finally has taken the step up from where he was in Pittsburgh. There's really no point in writing an endless wall of words to descibe how special of a player Gerrit Cole is. He's likely to comfortably blow by the contract that David Price got (7 year, 215 mil) after a superb season where he outdueled his own teammate to become the ace of the Astros staff. Cole is the best player on the market, arguably the best pitcher to hit the open market since Cliff Lee did it in 2010 and is the youngest proven no flaws ace to hit the free agent market since a 29 year old CC Sabathia did in 2009. The Yankees got that guy and got 10 years of superb production including a World Series ring so why not do the same with Gerrit Cole? Cole gives the Yankees the no questions asked #1 starter they seem to be dying for. He would give this team (or any team really) a set it and forget it ace who you can rely on given his stuff, mental makeup and durability. For the Yankees, Cole + Severino + Tanaka + Paxton gives you the workhouse anchor who allows the Yankees to take some of the pressure off of Tanaka (a stud in the postseason but a guy who has struggled with injuries and inconsistency), Severino (coming off an injury marred season and poor in the playoffs with a small sample size) and James Paxton (struggled with injuries throughout his career). For 235 to 250 million dollars, the Yankees can buy peace of mind.

Stephen Strasburg- The prototypical Yankee arm

I'd like to imagine every team would want a Stephen Strasburg. For the Yankees though, Strasburg is pretty much what they draw up a starting pitcher to look like. The Yankees historically like big tall pitchers and Strasburg fits that bill. Knowing the dimensions of their park, they prefer guys who can go out there and pitch as close to no contact as possible. Strasburg led the ML with strikeouts in 2019. They aim to amass pitchers who if they DO get hit can pitch to soft contact. Strasburg does that as well. When healthy (and that's a serious maybe) with Strasburg, he's got Cole-esque properties. The Yankees have gotten to watch him pitch deep into the playoffs as a capable #2 (and at times #1) behind Max Scherzer. One of the bigger philosophies inside the organization is that pitchers throw less fastballs  (the Yankees were last in 2017 and 2018 in fast balls thrown as a staff) and Strasburg throws his fastball less than 50% of the time. There's a lot to love here if you can overlook the age with Strasburg being 31 and the injury history. Strasburg fits the current Yankees mindset despite having two serious flaws that traditionally has not worked out well with this team. This feels less like a marriage of love a la Cole and more a marriage of convenience but those can absolutely work too.

Hyun Jin Ryu- A potential ace IF

It would take a tremendous lying effort to convince people that the options after Cole and Strasburg are sure things. That said there's plenty to like about the names going forward. If you start with Hyun Jin-Ryu, you're talking about a guy with ace like qualities. The three times where Ryu has had an extended opportunity to show his stuff, he's been pretty much everything you'd want a pitcher to be. In his first year in the majors, he put up a 14-8 with a 3.00 ERA and 1.20 WHIP across 192 innings. In his sophomore campaign over 152 innings he pulled up a 14-7 and 3.38 follow up. The problem is that from 2014 to 2018, there's a lot of dead space within that resume. A lot of injuries and so-so production taint Ryu's overall free agent profile. In 2019 he returned to form as pretty much the same guy he was when he showed up; relying on a lot of ground ball outs, minimal walks and minimal hard contact to cruise in with a 14-5 record and a 2.32 ERA. Behind Walker Buehler and the resume of Clayton Kershaw, Ryu saw the mound in game three of the NDLS and cooked up a 5 inning start (a rare start where he didn't give the Dodgers length) with only 2 runs on his ledger when he left. Ryu is a potential ace IF you can overlook the injury concerns, the advanced age and are willing to err on the side of optimism that switching leagues will not lead to you regretting the deal two years down the line. A lot of ifs but a supremely talented arm to consider as your potential #2 behind Severino.

Madison Bumgarner- An October Answer

No pitcher figures to have a weirder stock than Madison Bumgarner. From 2013 to 2017, he was among the the premier arms in major league baseball. We're talking about a four time All Star who garnered Cy Young votes with an ERA+ that never fell under 115. Even in 2018, considered the start of the decline, he was a pretty damn solid arm. Since 2018 though, the years and the innings have begun to rack up and Bumgarner has entered into this weird Verlander in Detroit-y "I'm not sure if he's done but he's not who he once was" middle ground. That said the Yankees wouldn't be bringing in Bumgarner for what he does from March to September. If they sign him, they're probably going to carry his elevated HR rate and declining stuff to a mid 4-ish ERA and they'll probably tolerate him shouting at home run hitters who aren't jettisoning it out of the box because a Bumgarner signing is entirely about postseason prestige. We ARE talking about a pitcher who pitched to a 5+ ERA on the road with middling stuff who would be going from San Francisco to a park with arguably the worst dimensions possible for his skill set. It's not about that though. If Bumgarner is pretty damn good in the summer, he's insane in the fall when the games count a hell of a lot more. We're talking about a career 2.11 ERA in the post season and an era UNDER 1 in World Series play. The Yankees would be getting Bumgarner almost for the same reason they'd be getting Cole; there's a peace of mind in having a guy like that in big games. There's something to be said for the Yankees to slot him in as a game 2 or game 3 starter knowing full well that the history of the player indicates he's going to handle business. Even if Bumgarner is an innings eating #4 from April to September, he would step in and inspire insane confidence in October just on the years and years of work he put in already. In many ways, he's another Masahiro Tanaka. Is one month of greatness with five months of meh worth 15 mil or so?

Zack Wheeler- An Illusion?

I'm already getting tired of the takes about Gerrit Cole and Zack Wheeler having enough similarities that Wheeler is a poor man's Cole. I'll let MLB do the hard work there (https://www.mlb.com/news/zack-wheeler-has-potential-comp-in-gerrit-cole) and you can read for yourself all of the comparisons. Zack Wheeler has been in the Mets rotation in some form or fashion since 2013. Despite that, he's been historically a pretty okay-ish pitcher who is more of a tease than a sure thing. He's an illusion of what may be; electric stuff, stretches of inconsistency, stretches of #1 type performance and the reputation of being a guy who gets better as the year goes along. It's believed the Yankees had some interest in Wheeler (even if at this point, it feels like their focus was more on Bumgarner, Minor and Boyd) and the general rule of thumb is if Cashman wants you once, he'll do what he can to get you eventually. For me though Zack Wheeler represents another AJ Burnett. He's about to turn 30 years old and has been in the majors longer than Gerrit Cole has. He just might be what he is but teams are going to pay for what he may be. It's an illusion of a cost controlled (in theory) ace with elite stuff that can work anywhere. He's the most overly reliant of all the names mentioned so far and has the worst injury history as well. There's always going to be a belief that if you get a guy like him out of a bad spot, he'll wind up achieving his potential. That's the illusion. What you can pay for the illusion is the debate. 

Jake Odorizzi- Familiarity

Odorizzi figures to be the favorite fallback option for teams who don't want to pay/miss out on Cole, Strasburg and Wheeler. Like Wheeler, he's another pseudo what if guy. He was a prized arm who moved around as the key piece in trades for a while before landing with the Rays who got some good burn out of him before he just fell apart. He struggled in the famed failed free agent class of 2018 and then found himself this year as probably the 2nd best Twins pitcher going into this loaded pitching class. Odorizzi gives the Yankees some familiarity. He's pitched against their team (nearly 100 innings to a 4.71 era) and in their stadium before (an unsightly 5.4 ERA) and thrice against them in 2019. He started game 3 of the ALDS against them and gave the Twins a shot to do something had they been able to score any runs. He's pitched in the AL East before with the Rays (4.70 ERA vs the Red Sox). Odorizzi may be a bit too fastball and line drive happy for the Yankees but familiarity + upside tends to win out when desperate measures come into play.

Jose Quintana- Potential stability at a moderate price

Once the ultimate chest thump for Cashman detractors, former Yankee Jose Quintana has been pretty solid since leaving the organization. He was an under the radar great arm for the White Sox and the Cubs jumped the Yankees in 2017, snagging him when the Yankees were trying to make a determination between Quintana and Sonny Gray. Since going to the Cubs, Quintana has been....alright I guess. His peripherals are basically the same, he was still a pretty reliable innings eater but the results haven't matched up well in the end. As the Cubs are teetering between going all in and going into a soft rebuild, Quintana may be on the market. In his worst pro season ever, Quintana was probably just a smidge behind Masahiro Tanaka overall. He had a slightly higher whip due to elevated walks, struck out batters at a slightly better clip and ceded a few innings to Tanaka overall.  At 11 million dollars, Jose Quintana may not be a sure bet to rebound but he's still got plenty of value if he can get his walks under control. He's never been a big strike out guy but again, neither has Tanaka recently. Maybe having two Tanakas isn't a bad thing.

Dallas Keuchel-  A Sabathia replacement

Listening to Brian Cashman speak throughout the year, you get the feeling he really thought the Yankees had Dallas Keuchel in the bag. On a number of occasions, he made implications that he felt like he had a deal in place and somebody (either Boras or Keuchel) needed to step up and get it done. In his post season presser, he said they just missed out on Keuchel with a deal that was barely above theres IE: he would've topped it had he known. Keuchel wasn't great with the Braves but he was more than solid enough as a back end of the rotation guy with playoff experience. He wasn't great shakes at the beginning of his hyphenated season but once he got his sea legs under him in August, he had a 3.68 ERA which includes a game where he gave up 8 runs. Remove that game up and he has a 3.33 and remove the game before that where he went 5 IP/3 ER and it drops to a 2.55. He was absolutely what the Braves needed and then folded in the playoffs. The Yankees JUST lost their Dallas Keuchel; a soft tossing lefty who had a bevy of playoff experience and was reliable and durable for a playoff team. I don't know if Keuchel has the same leadership qualities that CC Sabathia has but he'd be a worthy enough successor as the heir to the crusty lefty throne.

Tanner Roark/Michael Wacha/Kyle Gibson/Gio Gonzales- Innings

Long story short; this would be all about depth and amassing names and faces. None of these guys pitch a meaningful inning in a playoff rotation. They're there to eat innings and prevent your team from having to use a bullpen game. The Yankees could've used that when they were trudging out the likes of Nestor Cortes, Johnny Lasagna and Chance Adams hoping like hell they had something to offer for 3-4 innings a clip.