listen i know we all love fratboy kate very much and she's our son and no one like him but there's something just so.......*CHEF'S KISS* to me too about RICH BITCH femme kate who is just good at being...rich and hot and dumb. i mean we know she doesnt have two brain cells to rub together no matter what but...hmmmm...i just have a soft spot for it

I was wondering, what are some things about LO that you included in LR that you regret including, be it minor or major, if at all?

Krokos and Withy, not the characters themselves, just like, their names LMAO Because I really don't think there's any logic behind why they have those names in the original comic, the name Krokos was clearly derived from Crocus who was a male lover of Hermes and it uh... wouldn't be the only time Rachel's taken a queer character and genderbent them or changed their characters entirely just to "write the gay away" (ugh I hate that I just wrote that lol). I'm not the judge of whether or not she was deliberately trying to straightwash queer icons from Greek myth, but I do think it's at least a pattern of behavior that's worth examining and discussing (and I've definitely discussed it here before) because... yeah, it keeps fucking happening.

But alas, I kept their names as is because there's only so much I want to change from the original comic before I feel like I'm straying too far from the point of retelling it in the first place, it's the double-edged sword of taking on a project like this, I'm not just inheriting what could have been, I'm also inheriting what is and that includes some of Rachel's odd decisions that I then have to work around. Many of them I dropped entirely, there are some ideas and decisions she made that even I can't be bothered to try and work with, but Krokos and Withy are strongly intertwined with the Act of Wrath plotline which was the BIGGEST one I wanted to tackle and do justice in Rekindled. So, their names stayed. I don't know if I regret that per se, I'm just kinda more like grumble grumble "Rachel whyyyy" LOL

That said, I'm hoping to at least include Cyane down the road as she was a nymph who actually existed in the text and played a role in some versions of The Hymn to Demeter.

Other than that, sort of TGOEM, and again, not even its purpose, just its name, I could have come up with a new name for it, but it's yet another one of those things that I wanted to find new ways to work with while still keeping it familiar to the original source material. So I'm working with that one as best as I can as I plot out the story and scripts.

So yeah I think that's it! If I think of any more worth sharing I'll definitely edit / reblog but honestly most of the things I kept from LO I kept for good reason with a greater plan in mind so anything that I wasn't comfortable with keeping or couldn't find a way to work with I just left on the cutting room floor. So there's very little so far that I've 'regret' keeping in, anything that would meet that criteria just isn't there, period.

MHA Dr #3

Name: Apollo Kamiyama

Birthday: January 24th

Height: 5'7"

Appearance: Low-key just a pretty boy. Imma add some art breeder photos at the bottom for more visuals of like my facial features. I combined multiple ones into a few that I liked. But yeah, I'm really pretty and I have freckles and curly hair 😻😻 me and midoriya twinning 🫶🏾🫶🏾 scripted that I remind people of the actual God Apollo if he was a human on Earth

Backstory: This one is a very interesting backstory lol. Long story short, my parents were devoted worshippers of the Greek gods. To show their devotion, they allowed the gods to bless me, aka their first child. So I have the blessings of the gods, like Percy Jackson type blessings, as if I were their child. They named me Apollo in honor of the first god they worked with. But that's not all 😏. They wanted me to become one of the greatest heroes. I was born with no quirk, so they gave me an advanced version of my parents quirks with some blessings of course. And that's how you get the gamer system, but the version from the web novel "Solo Leveling". I was born in Nigeria, but moved to America and did school there. I moved to Japan to do highschool at UA of course 💪🏾💪🏾. Don't know if imma actually script siblings, I already have some here 😭

Quirk: My life is mostly like a RPG player. I have quests I receive from the 12 gods themselves and some others. I can do anything a RPG player can do. The gods can open gates like in the webnovel solo leveling which the Gods open the gates to help me get stronger, with mythical greek monsters too. After my first gate, which the Gods use to test me, I get the skill shadow extraction, like from solo leveling. Anytime I defeat a monster, I can resurrect them to join my army under my command. In the original they are black and blue, but I scripted them to white and gold. The gates that the gods spawn can only be seen by me, and if I want others to see them then they could. The blessings I got from the gods show up as passive skills in my system (This whole quirk makes more sense if you read up on the main character's power).

Voice claim: Probably more higher than I sound in my other realities. I scripted something around Kenma Asmodeus (obey me), and Milo thatch combined. Just soft, pretty and angelic. "I sound like a beautiful tune from the instruments that the God Apollo would perfectly play" quite literally from my script

Extra info-

here are all the blessings and what they actually do (I don't get them all at once. There are six I get first, then I get the rest later on. They can grow from there too)

Zeus ⚡- power to control all elements (I start with the 4 basics, before moving into Lightning, metal, etc.)

Hera 🦚 - blessed with a loving relationship in my family

Poseidon 🔱 - power to breath underwater and and summon water beings on command

Hades 💀 - (couldn't really decide on one from him. But just something not over the top.)

Aphrodite 🦪 - the gift of absolute beauty and power to uncover the emotions hidden deep in one's soul

Apollo ☀️ - blessed with the voice of an angel and the powers of healing. My smile is like a beacon of light and shall illuminate the darkest of nights and usher hope for anyone.

Artemis 🌙 - blessed with the instincts of the best hunter, when needed. I shall radiate with calming light, soothing the ones around me.

Athena 🫒 - blessed with the gift of knowledge and learning capabilities. I can solve any puzzles and learn anything very quickly.

Hephaestus ⚒️ - blessed with the ability to forge anything with the right materials. I know how to use any weapon.

Hestia 🔥 - blessed with the burning desire to bring justice and gifted with the eternal flame.

Hermes 🪽 - blessed with the ability to tell if a person is pure of heart and tell if they are lying. I have the movements of water and can build up to the speed of light.

Demeter 🌿 - blessed with the power to control plant life and animals. Anywhere I go, the place shall prosper

Dionysus 🍷 - blessed with the ability to create anything only when in need. I can always find food

Ares ⚔️ - blessed with the power to solve any crisis and instill chaos when needed.

i have a more androgynous beauty in this Dr. Got a lot of beauty from Aphrodite of course 🙏🏾

I can also communicate with the gods as well and they come like little inboxes in my gamer systems.

I might script that we are rich, but just depends on how I'm feeling.

I have the same skills from the other drs obviously.

Welp that's it for this reality. This is also a really good way to reconnect with myself in my other realities too. Below are the art breeder pics of me. One more to gooo

-Honey out 🍯🍯🍯

So I watched Furiosa

Furiosa Road: a Star Wars Story. It wasn't likely to live up to Fury Road, and it didn't. It would have been a tall order. While it was well worth paying to see in theaters, I was still a little disappointed; I'm going to explain why, without spoilers, and then after a very visible cut I'll comment on a few specific things in the movie.

First of all it felt long, but not two hours long so I guess it speaks to its quality. Going through the cast, everyone did a good job, although I wasn't blown away by the on screen chemistry of Anya Taylor-Joy and Tom Burke. More on that later. Chris Hemsworth as the overarching antagonist is this movie's standout performance, in a way that I'm somewhat conflicted about. More on that later too.

Overall it feels as if, after making Fury Road a trim and thrilling movie, the creatives behind it strung together all the piles of amazing ideas they had left on the cutting room floor into another complete movie, but not a very cohesive story with a beginning middle and end with enough connective tissue to captivate an audience. There's no shortage of props, costumes, characters, stunts and just straight up visuals, although the music is not up to the standards set by Fury Road. What's really missing is a tight knit script.

I'd say watch it if you like the franchise, otherwise I'd just wait for it to release on small screens.

My biggest complaint with this movie is that it's split between two relationships, between Hemsworth as Dementus or Tom Burke as Jack with Furiosa, when really with how it's paced it could barely afford one. I am just completely confused by people saying Jack and Furiosa's relationship was the highlight of the movie, it was vague, bland, and Jack died before I could really care about him. All this relationship did was explain how Furiosa became so good at driving a war rig, despite the fact that by this point in the movie she'd fended for herself just fine, presumably using what she'd been taught by the vuvuzela tribe. Likewise Dementus as a character is extremely simple, in a good way, and is the a better representation of time passing in the movie than literal text onscreen telling you it's been fifteen years or some such. It's on the nose, but Chris Hemsworth is acting his heart out and it's always a joy to see him on screen. He's spiraling his way through the movie in a perfect exemple of what Furiosa must avoid becoming. So knowing that, the main plot should be about Furiosa having to lose her way home (the star map tattoo on her arm, which we know she lose by Fury Road) and choose to stay at the Citadel to kill him, setting up a bitter ending where she's gained nothing and is stuck killing more people instead of letting go of revenge and going home. Unfortunately Furiosa: the video game: the movie very much lives in the shadow of its 2015 sequel, and so the plot is split further to set that up. I've talked about how it hurts the pacing and how much screentime the other characters could have gotten, but I think it actually greatly diminished the ending. The end of Furiosa has her catch up to Dementus, bind him and beat him up, asking him to give her her childhood and mother back, only for Dementus to refuse to play along in anyway. He tells her that revenge achieves nothing, that he knows from personal experience and that she can kill him however she wants, that he doesn't particularly care. I don't do it justice it's a pretty good end to his arc this movie. Instead of Furiosa killing him there and then and validating that speech for a cohesive theme to the movie (keeping the hope stuff for Fury Road where it works), the history man voiceover tells us that although the true end of Dementus is disputed, Furiosa told him the truth, that she kept him alive with a peach tree growing out of his dick ?? And then she brings the peach to Immortan's wives in the Citadel, and then the credits are interspersed with shots from Fury Road. I can excuse the impossibility of keeping someone alive while a tree is growing on them for the sake of Mad Max movies very much being wasteland fairy tales, but I think directly linking Furiosa: Road One with Fury Road like that is both pointless and very hamfisted, on top of being a big disappointment when it comes to Dementus' character. Like the guy was clearly fucked up from losing his daughters just kill him and be done with it. Anyway yeah I don't think I'll rewatch this movie nearly as often as I rewatch Fury Road. Shoutout to the Octoboss though, he's the Most Valuable Sidecharacter of this movie.

alright, now that i've finally done the homework of the 4 90s-Batman movies, let's actually pick back up with the DCEU watch and get seated for Andy Muschietti's The Flash.

what i know about this is that it brings back Michael Keaton, that Christina Hodson wrote it (which is the only reason i'm even mildly excited to see this movie, because she also wrote the best DC movie which has a practically perfect screenplay), that there was some bullshit face transplant of dead people — i think one of them was Christopher Reeves, i am not watching those Superman movies for this (haven't seen any of them, might watch them after i'm done with the DCEU), i don't even have access to them, i'm not doing that shit for a cameo anyway, and fuck DC for that, obviously, but i'm going to try to give the movie the best shot i can.

i've heard mixed things about this one as well, i know a few people who really liked it, and a lot of people who really fucking hated it, it's been called every fucking insult i can think of, so i'm not optimistic but Christina Hodson wrote it so it can't be terribly written at least. it may look like shit (from the two clips i've seen: microwave baby, and the shot of Flash and Supergirl zooming into frame, oh that's another thing i know, new Supergirl is in this) but at least hopefully it's well written. and he cannot have fucked up Christina's script that bad.

i'm just hoping that if this is bad, it's at least fun. and that it's not soul-crushing like The Rise of Shitwalker. i know the people at Disney are fucked up, i also know the people at WB are even more depraved somehow, if their track record in these last 4 years haven't shown you that already, but i hope this is as free from their shitty tendencies as possible. i can't do another TROS.

also, have to do the disclaimer: fuck Ezra Miller, i hope their victims get the justice they deserve. don't fucking misgender Ezra, they won't fucking care because they are a celebrity, other non-binary people like myself will. if you say you're an ally and your allyship is conditional, you are just a fucking bigot too <3

for the purposes of this watch we're gonna try to pretend Ezra aren't who they are, bc otherwise i'm gonna be here all night and it's already almost 1 am and this movie is 2 and a half hours long.

ANYWAY, let's get into the fucking movie already.

oomph i know i'm definitely really early with this ask (changing time zones for vacation is weird o.O) but I was thinking about it over the past few days

for the lights, camera, sing your sins au, are the interrogations somewhat scripted where the prisoner knows what to say and Es is mostly just reactions or questions to that? I feel like we've talked about this but I have forgotten jandjnf o.O

because all i can think about is Es getting beaten up or close to tears in the first voice dramas and man if it's scripted, i feel bad for the prisoners who have to do this to es o.O

Hi Mug :D No worries, a slightly late reply because I was on vacation too haha! 🍂

And I mean it's whatever works best in people's minds, but I always pictured there being very little scripted, actually! I'd hoped that everything was as natural as possible. The prisoners just have to make the little shift to act as if they did follow through with the murder instead of talk about how close it came -- other than that, everything that happens is the characters' honest questions, answers, and reactions.

When explaining the no-violence ban to everyone, Fuuta and Kazui (and later Amane) tell Jackalope how they would think during their interrogations. Jackalope instructs them all how to act in order to stay consistent with the barriers/losing strength stuff. I think the only explicitly scripted action is Mikoto's violence, since Red admits he may resort to that if Blue felt threatened. Jackalope tells him to get to the point of violence no matter how the interrogation goes, as it's necessary (to proving Mikoto's situation, to driving home the central ideas of Mikoto's case, to reveal Milgram's process and 'limits,' etc).

And yeah, it definitely tears him apart to actually do it -- he has to verify that Es signed up for this several times (which they did), and it still takes a lot of resolve to follow through with hurting an innocent kid like that. I imagine that's one of the reasons he's not really upset that Kotoko surprised everyone by intervening: he felt so guilty about the attack and was grateful someone came in to stop it.

Although it wasn't physical pain, Mahiru is also really upset that she brought Es such emotional strain. She thinks it's cruel to fool them into feeling bad for her when she's okay, and it takes a lot of reassurance from the others to convince her it's for the sake of the experiment -- every part of the process has toyed with everyone's emotions, she's not a terrible person for doing so.

Whether in the middle of the trial or the final executions, I think any characters who die next trial will also feel awful for making Es mourn for them when they're still alive. It's not all one-sided guilt, though. It's balanced by anger/sorrow towards Es for condemning them to death in the first place because of their decisions. Any time they get too caught up in thinking "I'm so cruel for tricking them like this," they have a moment of "well, they did specifically order my death, so..."

When I'm looking for a pure fix-it, I'll let those emotions go pretty easily <3 But unfortunately my writer ass is never free from The Themes asdfsdf and sometimes I still get caught up in the project's major focus -- not only is Es facing the original Milgram dilemma of choosing whether or not to follow authority, but now the prisoners are faced with the exact same decision. Do they physically/mentally hurt this child "for the experiment?" Because someone in authority told them to? They're doing this to prove a point about justice and fairness, but where should they draw the line? At what point is it not for the greater good and they are just causing more harm?

I think I mentioned it before but in this au the prisoners are extremely motivated by the promise that this experiment will help others like them. Yuno wants to make a statement about society's views on abortion and sex work. Muu wants to make a difference for bullying victims. Kazui hopes to be a voice for all those who have had to keep theirs quiet about something. Mikoto hopes his story creates more awareness and acceptance for people who are usually terribly stereotyped and feared. Kotoko wants to bring to light the problem of corruption and what can be done about it, and so on. In the end, they can always justify causing a little emotional/physical harm because they are doing it for a good reason.

I feel bad for Jessie because their screen time as Alina was cut for the Crows that are the SB writers' favorite characters. They confirmed this in an interview. Also, they worried Alina wouldn't seem as likeable in S2. They liked her corruption arc, but they still wanted her to seem genuine. Along with blatantly trying to promote the Crows spinoff over Alina's story, the writers also claimed Ben lied about there being a cut scene where Aleks gave Alina his powers as added protection. 🙄 Yeah, I believe Ben and Jessie over them any day of the week. It's obvious that the writers desperately wanted the Crows spinoff and neglected SB S2 for it. But, now it's backfired, because without strong viewer ratings the Crow Show won't happen.

Yeah I also believe ben and jessie over the writers any day, I don't see why ben would lie about that cut scene, what would be the point? The only thing I can think of is that the scene they cut wasn't written in the script and was an idea that was bounced around on set that day, they filmed but ultimately decided not to use it, possibly why the writer said it didn't exist because they didn't write it but I don't know I'm just spit balling here.

It does make me both sad and angry that they cut so much of Alina's story for the sake of the crows and the new characters. Like they rushed through books 2 and 3 and Alina's story just so they could get to the crows story and it really did damage the show in the process. The irony is that because they rushed season 2 now no one trusts them to do the crows story proper justice, it backfired in a huge way. I think they were hoping that the popularity of the crows would mean viewers wouldn't care about Alina's rushed storyline, they wrongly assumed that the viewers too wanted to get to the crows story as quick as possible. But they forgot about a couple of things. One is the viewers who have only read the S&B Trilogy and therefore cared about that story, maybe not more than the crows, but just as much as them. And also the show viewers only who haven't read any of the books and so were expecting a well paced, well written story and instead got a rushed, muddled mess of a story.

If by some miracle they do get a season 3 then I hope they learn from this lesson and actually take their time with all of the characters, especially Alina seeing as she is supposed to be the main character and so you shoudln't really be cutting her story down, and the plot points and give as a good story.

i was curious what you thought of the live-action One Piece now that season one is out! personally, i have the same compliants as Geoff of Mother's Basement (youtu.be/43K-H_dtQ9g?si=2n0MLLPmdw0vARk7) where, personally, my main compliants were (1) how clean some of these well-worn outfits and set-pieces were and the bigger one was (2) how Garp was altered but i, like Geoff, have my hopes that s2 can fix that by showing that this is the experience (mostly part from Mihawk) that changed Garp into more of the Garp we see in the manga. "a high 8 or low 9 out of 10" indeed. overall, i think its okay as an adaptation! i like Sanji's perviness being toned down, i dont mind most of the shuffling and changing because it is an adaptation with timeslots and seasons unlike a limitless manga with arcs however long it wants. i can understand if you or others dont like the live-action adaptation though! i just like that it was a good gateway to help me turn some of my friends into One Piece fans, less scared of how BIG One Piece is now the live-action has given them a limited taste, towards the manga or the OnePace.net-editted version of the anime (though i do still plan to have them watched some of the anime-only filler that is fun lmao maybe ill throw a sleepover or something, idk, i just like how OnePace fine-tunes the padded-out pacing problem the later One Piece episodes have) thats the main plus of the live-action adaptation to me

but im curious about your thoughts if you have any?? its okay if you never plan to watch it, i know a few other fans like that and i dont mean for my wuestion to be all peer-pressure-y or anything ♡

i've never heard of onepace until now! i'm in the same boat, i've been watching opla with my sister who's kind of interested in starting one piece but is also intimidated by the anime's episode count. maybe we can watch onepace instead. thanks for letting me know ☺️

i've only seen the first two episodes (but don't care at all about spoilers and have seen a lot already). i didn't like the first episode, zoro particularly, but the second was fun! well... it was camp. combined, i would give it the verdict of "aggressively okay" but this isn't a judgement on anyone who liked it. if you did, i'm happy you had a good time. i just have cinema brain.

what i liked so far: helmeppo's >:O face and his puma trainers. the vfx team in charge of luffy's rubberyness. buggy's "surprise, shithead!" nami's den den mushi earpiece/cellphone.

the rest:

zoro’s zombified no energy go girl give us nothing monotone. 😐 <- why did they tell him to make this face in every shot

they cut the scene where luffy gives zoro his swords back and replaced it with helmeppo ass

"a man needs to be strong. but he also needs to be good.” you are going to cut off a pirate rookie's arm and then obliterate his ship and crew later 👍

what is this whole thing about being "morally good" and "one of the good guys" and "a good pirate" it's ICKY

justice for silly winky vain nami. how are they going to do the personality shift into broody serious arlong park nami when she's been broody and serious the whole time

nami spent like 30 minutes unlocking one (1) locked cage. i guess it's because she and zoro needed to talk/get some exposition in, and i'm not going to suggest a better option because i don't want to rewrite half the script. i just found it amusing because normally it's "suspend your disbelief when a character does something amazing for the plot" and not "when a character is noticeably worse at something they really have no business being this bad at. for the plot"

i'm starting to think that zoro and nami lost core personality traits because the writers wanted them to be luffy foils instead of their actual characters

i did hear taz was the best/most charismatic actor out of the straw hats. i'm assuming this is because they let him be sanji instead of making him into a luffy foil since they have enough luffy foils

cameraperson's love affair with low angle closeups and fisheye lens. i don't hate it (it's camp) just pointing it out

i'm literally so serious about mackenyu's insufferable zoro voice. whenever i hear him talk in that joyless southern california kardashian vocal fry my blood pressure shoots through the roof. who made him do that

even though i have issues with the writing, i think objectively opla has done a decent job of pleasing fans. i'm not one of them but i know there's a lot. but on a technical and artistic level... deep sigh palms pressed together listen... i was hoping for spellbinding artistry from the showrunners. beautifully lit scenes, beautiful camerawork, excellent technical chops, lingering shots of luffy's bruised knuckles, the slightly frayed fabric on zoro's swords, a super close-up of a log pose with the crew talking behind the compass needle, their bodies distorted by the glass. fingerprints on kerosene lamps. barnacles on rotting wood. a searingly hot-blue summer sky (super saturated in post) over shells town or wherever. i wanted lush gorgeous rich interesting artistic ideas from the directors and cinematographers. i haven't seen any of that so far, and what i have seen doesn't compel me to watch more. i'm not saying the actual cinematography was bad! just. okay. it was okay.

(but also some of the nighttime/underlit scenes are bad. put a dang key light on your actors 🤺)

concluding thoughts: at the end of the day, if netflix wants to keep throwing millions per episode at tomorrow studios, i'm fine with overlooking mediocre filmmaking and storytelling. i want everyone in the production crew to get their bag. i hope this show runs for another 50 seasons and is powered by union labor forever and ever until the end of time amen

Teaser for 2024!! Chapter 1 might have ended but the horrors continue.

Where to read my comic! LINK (coming to tumblr sometime this year hopefully)

I'm going to put some personal thoughts regarding chapter 1 below, it's there if you want context on how I see this story, but it can be ignored if you don't want to read a wall of text! I hope the teaser looks nice and spikes interest! I think this next chapter is going to be a fun one.

Arc 1 Chapter 1 was written when I was still in highschool, I have graduated college by now :' ) So needless to say, I am very excited to be jumping into the second arc of this story and be done and over with the stuff my teenage self wrote. 

I scripted Arc 2 Chapter 2 relatively recently (almost done scripting Arc 2 Chapter 3 too), so it has my current writing style and pacing! I'm really proud of it personally, I think its fun but I guess there is that underlying fear of people maybe not liking my current approach to the characters. Specially because I know this comic seems to be the favorite amongst my current two because of how long it's been around! Even if I made little edits on the way, Chapter 1 was basically the same script my teenage self wrote... I had to follow the planned pacing and events, and oh gosh there are so many scenes I would write differently (all the ones before we meet Noriel, basically.)

My biggest personal complain with chapter 1 is that I don't think I was clear enough with the theme of the story nor did I give it much justice : ( and that in part goes with my younger self just, not having enough experience writing heavier topics at the time. This story is based on my personal experiences with xenophobia, it's about xenophobia, back when I scripted chapter 1 I knew how it FELT like, but now as an adult I have been able to go deeper and analize why I feel that way, why people treat me the way they do, and much more that I plan to properly explore going forward. This doesn't mean that other people connecting with this story through other forms of bigotry like racism, transphobia, homophobia etc is wrong, though! I have seen your explanations for why and it's sooo so fair, I don't mind this story reasonating with how general bigotry feels like at all, intersectionality is a thing for a reason. But I wish to explore xenophobia as it was intended :]! It's personal to me. And the world of Ales is so HUGE! Chapter 1 did not give the worldbuilding justice either! There is so much to explore and I'm excited! I can't believe my younger self wanted to end the story here, man. Insane.

The only thing that's closest to my current writing style in chapter 1 is actually the flashback with Noriel and Kana we saw this year! That wasn't part of the original script, and I added it in preemptively, knowing I would need it for context in the new chapters but that I wouldnt have space for it later, it needed to happen Now or never. So I guess that's a good reference for what to expect! But fear not, just because chapter 2 and onward is technically an updated approach to things, that doesn't mean what happened in chapter 1 wont affect anything! Quite the contrary oh boy! What happened in chapter 1 is a big catalyst for so many things that happen in this story, and why Noriel and Kana act the way they do. I think it's going to be great and I can't wait to share it, I just hope other people like it as much as I do!

random thoughts about castaway diva, episode eleven

(read more because i always get carried away lol and this post might contain spoilers)

We're starting this episode with woo hak making me angry. Why are you contacting mok ha when the whole family agrees it's best to leave her out of the messy situation with mr jung? WHY???

... I take back what I just said. At least he's helping her with the press conference so I guess he's not that bad.

The whole press conference scene had me on the edge of my seat. So many conflicting feelings. Mok ha not following the script and trying to defend ran joo no matter what. Yoon ran joo just keeping her head down and accepting any accusation thrown her way. Eun mo rae seeming to side with mok ha and wanting ran joo to pursue her career so she feels better about being compared to ran joo (a desperate has-been singer who can no longer sing). All of that feels like a lot.

Talking about ran joo, it's frustrating to see her deny all of mok ha's wishes because it descredits the chunsam island singer. I understand she's trying to ease the tension but still, part of me feels like it's unfair to contradict mok ha like that. Because, in the end, mok ha will also be ridiculed for her statements.

I don't think it was a good idea for mok ha to participate in the press conference but I commend her will to defend those around her.

I'm glad the reporter let the truth out because now ran joo knows she was manipulated into signing the termination contract. I mean, she did it on her own will but had she known lee seo jun thinks of her that way, she might have thought twice before signing it. I wonder if there's a way she can nullify the contract? I feel for ran joo because she's been through a lot and there aren't many people on her side.

YES RAN JOO!!! Tell him how he would be nothing without you. He deserves it. He's trash, not you.

When I'm telling you I feel for ran joo, the fate of a tree metaphor is what I'm talking about. She's always given and hasn't taken a lot. People are taking her for granted. They milked her fame until the last drop and now she's treated like trash. I really wish there was a way to make her get her revenge. She doesn't deserve that treatment.

The scene between ran joo and her mom = saddest scene of the drama. I shed so many tears 😭😭😭 I'm relieved ran joo knows why her mom calls herself that and that they could talk to each other. This scene was beautiful 💖

MOK HA FINALLY CONFESSED HER FEELINGS TO KI HO AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Dae woong (i think that's his name) woke up. I hope his story can make mr jung guilty of at least one thing (if he's innocent for the family case).

Lee uk is a good man. I keep repeating myself but I want everyone to know how amazing he is. He's ready to go to prison to defend the family. He's even saying if he could turn back time, he'd follow the mom sooner. I'm so happy the mother found someone so caring after spending years with mr jung.

I was so happy when the judge called mr jung following his family stalking.

I'm so happy the judge decided to believe the real victims instead of siding with mr jung. And dae woong could give evidence of the accident to the judge. Karma came and bit you in the a$$ mr jung!!! HAHAAHAHHHHAHAHAHA

Seo mok ha helping ran joo and her mom <3 She's one of the best people on earth. So kind and thoughtful.

YES! Ran joo wants to keep singing!!!

I'm relieved ran joo could read great articles about her to her mom. About a song that just got released (and not some old song).

So yoon ran joo sold 20 million albums a long time ago? Please make her magically appear during the shares meeting so everything is nullified 🙏🙏🙏

Justice was served for the family and yoon ran joo. I couldn't be any more grateful.

WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT? We got a happy ending for everyone finally and you have to ruin it with mr jung st*bbing lee uk? I can't believe it.

I'm giving this episode a 9/10

So I wanted to make a video on why Robo Ky is my favorite fictional character period but I don't feel confident enough with my skills to do this sort of thing justice so I'm scrapping the project for now. I'm gonna upload the script here but be warned, it's my first ever script so sorry about that. Thank you for reading.

Introduction

Robo Ky. a character that first appeared as a story mode exclusive boss only as a palette swap of Ky and was only made fully playable in the 3rd entry into the series, is my favorite character in media. But…why, why is this random one off character that usually places around C tier on tier lists and was relegated to cutscenes and spin off games past his debut game my favorite in all of media, especially when Guilty Gear has so many amazing characters like Faust or Sol or even Johnny or Slayer. Well today I intend to tell you why and frankly, i'm not trying to win anyone over with this one or spark a new “Robo Ky revolution” or anything, i just really REALLY wanted to get this out there and this was the only way i knew how to do it. I hope you all or even if you dont, i hope you learn something new about one of guilty gears most original characters.

Who is Robo Ky

Robo Ky made his first appearance in Guilty Gear X Plus for the Playstation 2 in 2001 exclusively in cutscenes. He was portrayed as a palette swap of ky and to play as this version of Robo Ky, you had to select ky’s gg version which had different attacks. This version of Robo Ky looked way different as he was portrayed as having tan skin and a much slimmer frame, looking more like regular ky. This also applied to guilty gear petit as he works exactly like this in that game as well. I actually played this game on an emulator once and inputted the code to play as Robo Ky right away and even got his ending, which is probably one of my favorite photos of the funny man. After these two middling appearances, we finally see Robo Ky take on a full move set in guilty gear XX released in december of 2002 in japan and march 2003 everywhere else. In the first installment of the game, he is unlocked by completing Story Mode or via time release (96 hours). This is the only version of the game Robo Ky is an unlock in and in all future versions he is unlocked right at the start, as perfection should be. Its moveset and gameplay is surprisingly different from ky and if you know anything about Robo Ky, this is probably it. His gameplay revolves around maintaining your heat and battery gage as when you use certain moves, the corresponding bars will increase or decrease, if the heat gage fills up too much, you overheat and explode, if you run out of battery, you can't do specials until you get the energy for them, think of it as tension that empties and fills faster. For example, his special skill fires a bullet from his elbow which increases the heat gauge and his DON'T GET COC-KY! Uses up a bit of power. Heat goes down naturally and your main tool for rebuilding energy is gimmicky, no that's the actual name of the move, Gimmic-KY. He even has a delayed get up which can really throw people off and he even talks shit at you while he is getting up. Now why am i explaining any of this, to most people none of this even matters, but i thought this was really important to explain because Robo Ky does not play like anyone else in the entire cast, not even ky himself. They may share some of the same moves, around 9 or 10, but Robo Ky plays so differently thanks to his gauges and his weird attacks that i was drawn to it as soon as i saw it. His uniqueness is truly what makes him stand out and while he isn't the BEST character in accent core (thank you zappa), he is my absolute favorite to play and i will die on that hill.

Story reasons

In the guilty gear universe, Robo Ky was created by the Post-War Administration Bureau as a sort of assassin robot to take care of anyone trying to get in their way. This is his main objective throughout his entire story, to eliminate someone who is in his way, but that is the most barebones way of explaining it so let's go more in depth. The way fighting game canon works in general is….questionable as everyone has multiple endings and routes, it's hard to know what is canon and what isn't but i will give my best interpretation on what is Robo Ky canon.

In X’s story, Robo Ky actually scans ky and stalks him throughout his chapter until they fight and surprisingly he actually gets the jump on the defective original as when you play this story, you will always have a portion of your health missing.

Unfortunately, Robo Ky does canonically lose but this is one of the most intimidating scenes we see Robo Ky in and one of the only times he is taken and shown off as a legit threat. The next time we see a Robo Ky unit is in XX where the number of Robo Ky are actually quite thin and because of their middling performance, they’re up for discontinuation.Nevertheless, this guy named crow who has been working on the Robo Ky’s for awhile decides to send one particular Robo Ky on a mission to gather combat info as a sort of last mission.

Throughout the mission, Robo Ky argues with crow, is generally rude and dismissive and just goes on fighting, collecting data, all that until crow essentially decides “hey bud, your insides are acting real FUN-KY so get back here” and you actually get a choice as a player for if you want to return to the lab or not but for this overview we will be looking at the ending where you do not decide to return to the lab.Robo Ky must have only heard the word KY when crow said he was acting FUN-KY as he only has eyes to kill the defective original, much to crows dismay. Eventually, you actually do find and fight ky but the prince gets away and robo-kys damages are too severe so he gets back to the lab…only to be met WITH A COPY OF JUSTICE WHO IS ESSENTIALLY AN ULTRA POWERFUL KILLING MACHINE.

(Here is pt 2)

I feel the same way you did about the movie. I was eating up the promo, I lost sleep last night because I was so excited, and I was happy while watching it (I cried several times) but by the time the credits started to roll i just started seeing all of it's flaws and I just got so sad. I've been a fan of this book for the last 2 years. This book is so important to me in so many ways and I'm so sad that the movie didn't make me feel the same way the book did. I think it was because they advertised it to be heavily inspired by the book when it really wasn't. I know I'll rewatch it a few more times but it just feels bland and empty and I'm lowkey angry bc i do see Taylor and Nick as Alex and Henry and I ADORED Zahra but I could honestly go so far to say that I hate it and I'm angry that I feel that way. I don't want to be the person that goes "the book is better 🤓👆" because i know that people outside the book fandom are going to eat it up but it is and i feel betrayed bc they kept saying it was for us but it just doesn't feel like it (sorry for this long ass message literally no one else in my life cares about this story bsbsjsgsj)

Don’t apologize because I DO CARE about this story more than anything else and I agree! Personally, I was stop and start throughout the movie, I’d love a scene because it captured Alex and Henry, and then I’d hate the next because it bore no resemblance to something I loved. The moments when it was good, it was GOOD, but to me that almost just highlights the flaws because you know they were capable of executing this story well and there were moments when the script and direction just flat out chose to do otherwise.

Like, they did the texts and phone calls so well and then ignored the emails almost entirely??? Your format was RIGHT THERE.

They allowed Alex and Henry and Ellen and Zahra to embody their characters, but Nora, Pez, and Bea had no smidgen of their personalities? No fault to the actors, but where were the characters I fell in love with? Nora is a human supercomputer and she’s queer and proud. Pez is flashy and absurd and Henry’s best friend and I think I heard him speak MAXIMUM two lines??? Bea was the perfect princess younger sister and I HATED IT.

Thinking on it, I cry at least like 8 times each time I reread (which has been countless times), and while I found myself in tears last night watching the movie, it was rarely for any of the reasons I might have thought. I think this first watch served as an immunization of sorts, and hopefully the next time I watch it I can immerse myself into it more fully rather than feeling like my watch is taken up by Noticing.

Anyway; i agree with you completely and I’m glad you’re getting to share your feelings. This story was and IS so so SO important to me, and I’m sad that it isn’t shown on the screen. There’s too much gone. And I don’t get WHY. I don’t get how anyone could look at that book and think they could do it justice in 2 hours. I don’t get why you take source material you love enough to adapt it and then pick out only certain parts like you’re a picky eater at a buffet.

I especially don’t get why you would treat so much of this story with care and love and discard the rest. The entire team of people who worked on this film had it in them, and just were only given the freedom to give it their all for a fraction of the total story.

Now this is long, too, sorry.

I hope we both grow into enjoying it as a separate entity, but until then, I think it’s okay to feel our feelings in a respectful manner.

Welp, Bucky confirmed for Thunderbolts… This is troubling lol. I feel like there might be ways to make it work but I really just have no faith in these people so I guess I’ll watch it, hate it and die mad about it. Excellent!

I was avoiding all MCU news in the hopes this wouldn't eventuate =/

I'm going to attempt to look at this as objectively as I can. Firstly, neither Zemo nor Sharon were announced. This doesn't necessarily mean Zemo won't appear, but if he does this probably means it's a smaller role, which is good.

Secondly, it's a decent team of actors. I mean, in general the MCU has been blessed with fantastic actors, but I'm sure Seb will enjoy playing off people like Florence Pugh and Wyatt Russell, who are both capable of such nuance and pathos. Before anyone jumps down my throat - because fandom has a propensity to do this - I'm not saying Seb's previous co-stars were not capable of them, but Seb has talked a lot recently about how much he enjoys working with new people and learning things through that experience.

Third, the main writer announced is Eric Pearson, so let's look at his track record. On the positive side, he was one of the head writers for Black Widow, which managed to acknowledge that the Widows were victims of brainwashing and could not be blamed for what they did under that brainwashing. The script also alluded to the fact that the Winter Soldier program was working on removing the subject's voluntary control over even basic motor functions such as breathing, and drawing a parallel between that and the Widows. If I looked purely at Black Widow's script, I would be cautiously hopeful that the Thunderbolts would do justice not just to Bucky, but to Yelena and Ava as well, who were both also victims of having their autonomy taken away from them.

What worries me, though, is that Pearson was also on the team for Thor Ragnarok, which didn't deal too well with nuance and grief. He was also the writer for at least 8 episodes on Agent Carter, and I haven't seen any good neutral writing (particularly where Bucky is involved) recently from Carter fans in the MCU writers room. And finally, it's unclear just how much his Black Widow script was polished up by other writers - after all, wasn't he the one that came up with the god-awful "are you on your period" joke, and ScarJo talked about how she, Florence and Cate Shortland were all horrified when they did their first reading and felt compelled to turn it into a statement?

What really grinds my gears about the concept of the Thunderbolts is that for the last few years the MCU has gone by protagonist-centered morality. Neither Yelena nor Bucky had a say in what they chose to do, Ava was indoctrinated in a similar way to Wanda was, and you could even argue Walker was too by military propaganda and Alexei by Russian propaganda. These are not people who made a moral decision to be grey, and I don't see why they get to be called a bunch of reluctant antiheros who have to be conscripted to do something good when many of them have been wanting to do good...when rage-driven mass murderers like Clint still gets the hero treatment. Thunderbolts would be a fantastic way for people like Bucky and Yelena to address their tormentors, and for people like Ava and Walker to make a statement against large military/para-military organisations indoctrinating their people by dehumanising both them and their enemies.

But let's be real, Disney won't do that.

(Tumblr glitching again D=)

I hope I have appeased whatever ocean spirit possessed me this summer. Here is the final list of everything I read/watched/listened to/played/etc over the last several months while my entire personality became about the ocean. (Almost - planning on watching Deep Star Six (1989) after I finish writing this post and making dinner!)

The Deep, Nick Cutter | Our Wives Under the Sea, Julia Armfield | “Fear of Depths” + “Fear of Big Things Underwater”, Jacob Geller | Into the Drowning Deep, Mira Grant | Underwater (2020) | r/thalassophobia + r/submechanophobia | The Deep House (2021) | 47 Meters Down (2017) + 47 Meters Down: Uncaged (2019) | The Toilers of the Sea, Victor Hugo (trans. James Hogarth) | Dark Water, Koji Suzuki (trans. Glynne Walley) | “Fear of the Deep”, Nexpo | Sea Fever (2019) | The Abyss (1989) | Open Water (2003) | From Below, Darcy Coates | Love, Death + Robots, “Bad Traveling” | “The Fog Horn”, Ray Bradbury + “A Descent into the Maelstrom”, Edgar Allen Poe (collected in Stories of the Sea ed. Diana Secker Tesdell) | Subnautica (2018) | Breaking Surface (2020) | They Came From the Ocean, Boris Bacic | The Cave (2005) | Sphere, Michael Crichton + its 1997 adaptation | “Thalassophobia”, Solar Sands | Whalefall, Daniel Kraus | Sanctum (2011) | The Rift (1990) | Leviathan (1989) | Sand, Salt, Blood: An Anthology of Sea Horror, ed. Elle Turpitt | 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne (trans. Mendor T. Brunetti) | Moby-Dick, Herman Melville

So that's 12 books (including 2 anthologies), 13 films, 4 video essays, 2 short stories, 2 subreddits, 1 game, and 1 TV episode.

Top 5 (in no particular order)

Our Wives Under the Sea, Julia Armfield -- beautiful, both in the descriptions of the deep sea and in its depictions of grief. Florence Welch blurbed it and Florence + the Machine takes 3 spots on the playlist so this definitely set the vibes of the summer.

Whalefall, Daniel Kraus -- reminded me of NOPE (2022) and that's a high compliment. It's also about grief but the kind of grief where there should have been a reckoning, and you'll never get that closure. Truly excellent, honestly I still have the library book because I'm not ready to give it back.

Sea Fever (2019) -- obviously owes a lot of its plot to the 1989 slate of ocean horror films coming out that were in imitation of Alien (1979) and attempting to preempt James Cameron's The Abyss (1989), in that it's about a creature from the deep that possesses the crew of a fishing trawler off the west coast of Ireland...but a moody atmosphere, gorgeous cinematography, and mythological inspiration just makes this a good watch.

"Fear of Depths", Jacob Geller -- honestly all the youtube videos on this list are worth it but I'm highlighting this one because I just love it when youtubers go on field trips. Like yes Jacob go stand in that cave and read your script for our entertainment and edification, yesss

The Toilers of the Sea, Victor Hugo -- ok the thing about Hugo is that his novels often carry social messaging - about poverty, class, the nature of justice, investment in cultural hegemony - and Toilers' thematic messaging is just: what the fuck are you doing in the ocean why are you going in there, don't you see how fucked up the ocean is, leave it alone- (...perhaps a more relevant text for billionaires than Les Misérables? XD) Ok, I'm mostly kidding but truly his depictions of the sea are some of my favorite bits of Hugo prose, I really think this book is underrated in the anglophone world.

Please feel free to ask me for more reviews of the other works on the list and I can give more thoughts! For now I'll just say that I had a lot of fun with the cheesy 80s/90s movies (the later ones don't quite carry the same charm but were still pretty fun even if they weren't 'good'), the books are pretty solid with the exception of They Came From the Ocean by Boris Bacic, which is my only 'do not recommend' on the list. (It wasn't well written, didn't use the setting very effectively, and got weirdly homophobic towards the end in a way that was impossible to tease out from a character decision and made me feel kind of weird?) There is also a smaller, slightly less cohesive list for the second part of this series but it gives away the thematic shift so I'll stick to ocean horror for now. This was an interesting summer. I guess I should probably...read something other than ocean horror now. XD

letterboxd film list | playlist on spotify

Bonus:

Books on (or…near in one case) the beach

Article about season 2 of series Furia. Season 2 of the series is among other things, about right-wing extremism and threats to democracy. Main roles are played by Ine Marie Wilmann and Pål Sverre Hagen. Maria Mena makes a debut in the role of Minister of Justice and Tarjei plays political advisor and Ine Marie's brother.

Part of the article mostly translated by Google Translate:

"Tarjei Sandvik Moe (24) has hijacked the role of political adviser, which is also the role of Ine Marie Wilmann's brother .

– My character really seems like a nice guy in this. He can probably do some stupid things too, but he seems like a nice guy in a dreary environment.

Sandvik Moe is best known for his role as Isak Valtersen in the NRK series "Shame". He also played in the much talked about erotic thriller "An Affair" .

In "Furia" he therefore plays a more serious character.

- He is mostly a guy who is dressed up, and the theme is not about sex or anything, so it was a bit drier than what I usually do.

- Here I didn't have to be naked. He was just a guy walking around in... Or now I realized - I'm in my underpants somewhere.

Mostly dressed, Sadvik Moe hopes to dress the role.

- I hope that I can appear credible as a political adviser in the series, but if I were to do it 24 hours a day and stand for it, I might have been seen through eventually.

"Furia" season two is produced by Monster Scripted and Viaplay Studios, and premieres on April 19 on Prime Video Nordics."

So I study Chinese, and some language learning methods use "condensed audio" for a listening practice resource, which is when you can listen to audio from say a show but without the pauses between dialogue. So it kind of sounds like an audiodrama with a touch less music breaks. It's nice to do I think in the bg for stuff you've heard before to practice listening comprehension better, and a notch easier than using an audiobook since dialogue is easier then full on narration. About as easy listening practice as any audio drama you've listened to with a transcript before.

Anyway fun fact. So I made a Guardian condensed audio once and the eps were usually 11-15 minutes condensed audio to just dialogue. I have Ice Fantasy condensed audio too from a site that made some, and they're also around 10-20 minutes per ep.

I decided to make Justice in the Dark condensed audio, since I found a new program to do it with minimal effort (just drag the program folder into the episodes+subs folder and click the "run me" file - I can link people to the program if you want). And lmao it REALLY shows how utterly dense the Justice in the Dark script is. These condensed audio files are all 35-40 minutes!! Out of 50 minutes episode run time, 35-40 is spent on dialogue! It makes sense since the novel is information dense, and the show is Information Dense af. But it's just really funny to see how much. I am really impressed with the scriptwriter efforts and video editors efforts to put together such a dense story into a fast paced but understandable story.

I critiqued the scripts handling of Case 1 but also like? Honestly on rewatch the necessary details Are included. It's just such a struggle for the show to highlight some details when it's moving at such a breakneck pace, and the script clearly prioritized slowing down and holding on the Pei Su/Luo Weizhao moments and key Action/development scenes from the cases. So I get why case details got the least highlighting. They are There, but there's no handholding to make sure the audience caught them all - only the key ones (like the cigarettes, the business card, the borrowed clothes, the similar hometown, the fight with Zhang Donglan and his sister and her bf). I do get in retrospect they did magic with the challenge upon them. I think the final product is still near My Fave Kdramas in terms of script execution so I'm okay with it. I do think case 2 with the girls in dresses does Better at Highlighting clues to the audience, so I'm hopeful the case presentation stays tightened in which case it won't even be a critique from me by the end.