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voidcat · 3 years

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— to yearn, and apricate

characters: albedo, you

wc & genre: 1.4k ops & modern au of sorts

a/n: hi hey hii so i've been pestering aqua (@pen-observing) with a genshin mafia au since forever n its like a plan of ours going on?? so it was gonna b one big thing with routes for various characters in the sense of romance, and maybe some 'extras' to follow... this was supposedly be an extra for albedo,, i got ahead of myself

Albedo is watching from afar, as he always does.

A man of logic and science, he watches with a keen eye at all times.

He observes, examines and when the time comes, he builds a hypothesis, only to test it out and follow a course of actions according to the results he receives.

Respected by many in Ordo Favonius, though more rumors and assumptions arise at any place he sets foot, Albedo is nothing if not careful and deducting.

Eyes fixated, he watches once again, turquoise eyes now trained on you.

To talk of or define your relationship with Albedo would be a rather tricky one.

Long past the “hello – hello” basis and few conversations here and there, be on foot or not, occur when needed. But that’s all there is to it: when needed.

Not that either of you seem to mind it; to some, it’s even a story of success that the blond doesn’t ignore or scoff at your presence before him.

And right now, Albedo is watching as you and Sucrose talk by the corner of the main hall. At one thing you say, she lets out a loud and cheery laugh, one not everyone gets to hear personally, (he would know, as he is one of the few lucky ones) and sees the way she looks at you.

Albedo wonders quite often what’s it like to feel.

He sees the way Kaeya and Sucrose look at you and wonders how they feel as they do so, how you must feel. Surely, you must’ve noticed the looks, as you return them in your own way too. Maybe, except for the times Sucrose longingly stares at you from the laboratory, as you converse with someone else on the other side of the room, unaware of the world going around you.

Albedo cannot help but wonder if there was ever a way he could possibly harbor those feelings his friends did, even just for a moment. Not necessarily on the same intensity, and definitely not necessarily toward you.

He thinks back to the night when Sucrose had too much to drink and talked about her university days; filled with joy, a hidden love somewhere and a grief that follows afterwards –as well as a hint of anger directed toward a third party, which piqued Albedo’s interest a little bit.

And though Albedo is bothered at how you appeared out of nowhere only to set your roots in deeper, your existence fits into the empty slots of the puzzle that was Sucrose’s, presented before him that night. The hicks, shaking hands, fists and the sudden change in her voice, hazy eyes staring at nowhere as if reliving a memory long gone. More spirited than ever; with such strong emotions carried in her chest and on her shoulders.

When it comes to Sucrose and you, the pieces fit into place. But for the rest, it only falls deeper in the light of day.

And it’s quite intriguing; how you first entered with a whim, only to display a sense of familiarity you shouldn’t be carrying, no, not when you’re new to all of these, to the people of Mond as of today, to Kaeya’s little side project Albedo prefers not to think about.

Your explanations to these only make way for more questions, even if you don’t mean so.

When Albedo observes Kaeya and you, he can see how his advances stand out more. Flirty banter back and forth, he never holds back his gaze. In his star kissed eye, Albedo can see hints and tints of some emotions, for you and only you.

It’s the way they look at you that makes Albedo grow more and more curious.

To Albedo, the phrase “love makes you blind” has never meant anything. He has seen and heard of people claiming to fall victim of it, that’s as far as his knowledge goes. Albedo has never experienced it himself, no. Yet in their eyes, he sees the truth to the saying.

Some days, when he thinks on it, he fears he will never have the bare necessities to experience it.

However Albedo knows better, as he doesn’t need to experience such emotions to see how blinding you can be.

And for this very exact reasoning, he doesn’t allow himself to be, for he’d be damned if his blindness, even for a blink of time, caused despair upon those dear to him.

And so Albedo keeps watching, not with a devotion like Sucrose’s or something more carnal like Kaeya’s.

He is on the watch, noting and analyzing even the tiniest speck of dust that shall land on your body. As a man of science and logic, it’s only expected of Albedo to be skeptical of things, and wary of you, the newest entry to the equation that surrounds him.

The state of research carries until all of his gathering shatters with a single presence that makes his way into the precinct.

It doesn’t take him long to connect the dots; though the way you’ve frozen up as Sucrose is running around in a frenzy, split on what to do, is more than telling that the balance has been meddled with.

Reaching out a hand on your shoulder, he meets your gaze with a nod and tilts his head toward the direction of his laboratory. Sucrose follows right after, trying to tidy up a bit and making place for you to sit. Turning the lock with a click, Albedo shuts the whole world outside. Yet he manages to catch a glimpse of the man entering.

Baizhu’s name has spread far and wide, known for all kinds of things, though Albedo knows about the shadier side of his business, –all thanks to Kaeya’s little secret project going.

Still, it begs the question how or why you’d be associated with a man such as him, and to end up badly on your end, clear from the way your brain and body reacted.

Just as Albedo assumed he has started finding the answers to his questions regarding you, you bring him a handful more, a new challenge.

He shrugs off the thought for the time being and makes way to you; who is still standing up, eyes fixated on the blurry green.

Placing a hand on your arm this time, he guides you to the spot Sucrose cleaned out already. Slow steps, one at a time, it’s hard to beat the rigidity of the body so quickly.

Sucrose’s concerned gaze heavy on you, yet your eyes seem blank, your expression says you’re out of it, out of this reality.

Helping you sit and leaving Sucrose to settle right beside you, Albedo walks back, closer to the door and leans against one of the counters, arms crossed. For the time being, for your sake, he’ll put aside the theories and the questions that are filling his brain.

By the time Baizhu has left, you’ve come back to your senses; although still acting rather cautious, you’re not disassociating.

Yet what captures Albedo’s attention the most is the look you give him.

Not like the ones you’ve offered Sucrose or Kaeya, or the irritating ginger who won’t stop sticking his nose into everything he sees.

This one you are offering outshines others in more ways than one. Even if it carries a hint of love, Albedo doubts he could recognize it, but he spots emotions of equal value, and gratitude.

For offering the laboratory as a sanctuary or for refraining from asking the questions about a time you’re trying your best to avoid and move one, he is not sure. Maybe it’s this mutual understanding and shared silence the two of you have held since the beginning.

Yet he can’t help but feel content all the same. And before he can notice, a smile creeps up to his face. Though it’s often loving gazes shared between others that catch his eye, only to make him yearn for such experiences and a chance to feel complete; the one you are carrying, for him, feels heavy on him, a feeling in his chest spreading.

Not sure what, exactly.

Even so, he doesn’t need a name to appreciate this rare opportunity, one not even Sucrose or Kaeya had seemed to live.

Albedo has never understood the phrase “Love makes you blind.”

Yet in that moment, he decides he wouldn’t mind going blind if it is your light that’ll caress his eyes.

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ichika27 · 3 years

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Mairimashita! Irumakun s2 ep11

Alright... this is late again lol. There’s more than 15 images gonna be on here, I think. Like 2 or 3 more which usually causes errors if I try uploading that much but the twewy finale post miraculously handled more than 20 so maybe it’ll be fine.

This episode has 2 parts!

The exams are finally over and everyone is worried about their grades. Kalego-sensei very disappointedly tells them that... they all passed! He was hoping they won’t lol.

Some of the students ranked up because of their exam results and Iruma got praised for being the one to have improved a lot. While everyone is celebrating, Azz tells Iruma this all happened thanks to him. Iruma is confused as to how and Asmodeus tells him that the others saw how hard Iruma was working on studying that they got inspired to work hard to. Iruma is amazed by this information.

(While I do appreciate Azz being a one-man cheer squad for Iruma, I do hope he doesn’t inflate the guy’s ego too much cause it feels like it’s actually slowly happening and it scares me cause in other stories, such a thing would be a red flag signaling something bad happening. That’s just me though.)

Iruma runs off to look for Baram-sensei so he could tell him about the exam results and the stuff Azz said. He bumps into the guy on the way and sees that Sensei is now sporting a new haircut. (I think he looks better this way. More teacher-looking.)

Sensei is happy to know Iruma’s hard work paid off and spins the boy around happily. Iruma thanks him for all his help but Sensei said Iruma did his best and it’s why the results were good.

He gives Iruma a congratulatory present which made Iruma panic a little as he recognized the plant as a salamander flower. This made Sensei happy as this meant Iruma’s studies were successful and that the boy could recognize these stuff now. All of these knowledge would help Iruma survive living in the Demon World which is what Sensei wanted. He then mentions the flower he’s holding is made safe.

They talk a bit and Iruma tells him about Azz’s observation. Sensei then tells Iruma about why he changed his hairstyle. He says it’s to make himself look less scary so he could try and get along with other people. Iruma asked if it was because of him that he wanted to change (like Azz said earlier about how he affects people) and Sensei answered that it’s not exactly the case. It was thanks to Iruma that he wanted to change because Iruma’s words had a good impact on him especially cause he knew Iruma was sincere and not lying.

On the way back, Baram-sensei passed by Kalego-sensei who immediately notices the hairstyle change. Kalego-sensei laughs a bit and says he’s glad that Baram-sensei’s new hairstyle made him look more regal as it fits their ranking. It is now revealed that only the two of them in the school have the khet rank which is the 8th highest.

It’s also revealed what Baram-sensei’s ability is: Buzzer. He can tell when people are lying and could detect when someone is cheating which is why it’s impossible for students to cheat on the exams. He has the entire school covered, too and will immediately have any cheater caught.

Iruma and friends had their mini celebration for passing the tests by the way! Iruma asked where their Senpai is and Asmodeus informs him that the guy got caught cheating and is now taking remedials.

On the 2nd part of the episode, Ameri is waiting for Iruma so she could hold a mini celebration of her own as Iruma passed the tests but Clara shows up instead to tell her the bad news: Iruma had been dragged by the others to their own happy get-together at a karaoke... er, screaming room.

We then see the boys having fun and one is singing season 1′s OP!

Ameri reads Iruma’s text apologizing about not being able to come. She’s disappointed but she understands although she’s confused as to why Clara had to show up to tell her about it when Iruma could just text her like he had actually done. Clara then drags her, alongside the tea and snacks she prepared for Iruma, and brought her to the other girls.

Awkward.

They decide to do an introduction to start things off. Elizabetta also decided to finally talk to the popular Student Council President and ask a question she had been wondering: what shampoo does Ameri use? This started their little convo about shampoo and conditioner.

After Kerori tells what she uses, she remembers the commercial she did for said products (lol she’s sponsored) and is embarrassed. Ameri sees this and is confused as to why Kerori looks like she’s panicking.

Clara reveals that hers is soap. She uses just soap on her hair and body and everyone is surprised and kinda horrified by this information. They offer to give her some extra shampoo they have so she could try them out next time.

Meanwhile, back to the boys! It’s Iruma’s turn to sing and he can’t just say no. He worries as he doesn’t know any song... except one.

He then chose to sing the Kuromu song he sang with the idol last season - complete with dance! Everyone cheered on and sang along as well! No one suspected anything and just thought that Iruma is probably just a big Kuromu fan.

Back to the girls... it's time for the inevitable: talks about romance!

Elizabetta asks who they all like and Clara didn't miss a beat and answers "Iruma-chi". Ameri is shocked and also worried since she now realizes she has a rival who is closer to Iruma than she is (and one who is more feminine than her to boot!).

When it’s Kerori’s turn to answer, she suddenly remembered Iruma in his evil cycle (being the cool edgy boy that he is). Ameri is internally pissed and is wondering how many other girls might be into Iruma.

She is then reminded of a scene from the manga Iruma reads to her and realizes she can now relate to the female rival lol.

Hang in there, President! You’re better than this haha.

Everyone then continues with the love talk and assumes Ameri probably has some romantic experience with her being popular and all and asked for advice. Ameri, not actually having any and not exactly knowing what to say just answered the only things she know: stuff she’s read from a shoujo manga.

Kerori on the other hand is confused. Is it that hard to get a guy’s attention? In her experience as an idol, even just smiling at a guy would get them to like you. after all.

Clara later mentions how she likes Iruma... and everyone. Ameri then had to ask for clarification and explains the “like” they've all been talking about all this time is romantic in nature. To explain, it’s like wanting to marry Iruma.

Clara’s imagination quickly went to work and she thinks of her wedding with Iruma. Here’s a cute picture of Clara realizing her feelings lol.

Kerori and Elizabetta starts arguing about the whole marriage thing. Kerori thinks they’re too young to even think of marriage (yeah, like, aren’t they all 14-15?) and Elizabetta thinks that it doesn’t matter cause love is love. Ameri gives her own perspective and says proposal and being engaged first would be good (and she thinks of Iruma). In the middle of their argument, they wonder why they all suddenly got aggressive about this. It is revealed (to the audience only) that it’s the effect of the relaxing tea. They’ve become too relaxed that they were able to say what’s on their minds easily.

They finally calmed down later that afternoon and realized they actually had fun and got along. Ameri then tells them that if she’s not on student council duty, they may call her by her name which made the others happy. The girls exchanged phone numbers afterwards.

This episode is pretty peaceful. I like all the little things that happened and the conversations that let us learn a bit about many characters. The boys having fun at the karaoke was nice to watch and the girls becoming friends is so cute!

So, I usually don’t really mention the “Interval” chibi segments of the show but the one for today’s episode gave a bit of behind the scene at something. Eiko, the girl who has a crush on Iruma (and Ameri) wanted to help Iruma study so she did what she could: she herself studied and made easy to understand reviewers. She had Asmodeus pass them onto Iruma (in a past interval segment, the two became friends due to their shared love of Iruma).

Come exam results, Eiko got really high marks from all the studying she did for Iruma’s sake. :)

Nothing too intense happened this time around so this is pretty short. If I had known I wouldn’t get errors, I would’ve gotten a few more screenshots. I wonder what the next arc is gonna be like though?

Well, thanks for reading!

#welcome to demon school iruma-kun #Mairimashita! Iruma-kun #anime #sana_post

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whitleyschn33 · 3 years

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RWBY Volume 8 Episode One: Quick Thoughts

Or not so quick, seeing how long it took me to write this and how much I ended up having to say. Spoilers (duh) under the cut, as this thing got insanely long.

So we open with a maid scrubbing a floor, a shot that lasted long enough I was starting to wonder where it was going before we cut to Cinder. So, Cinder backstory - interesting way to open the volume, but I’m not sure if it’s a good way. At the very least, I would have cut it a couple seconds, or have it flash between Cinder’s face and the flashback. Same information, but given in a quicker manner that lets us know exactly what we’re seeing instead of wonder who this random maid is for 10 seconds.

Whale aircraft carrier. The design is interesting, if looking a bit too clean for my taste. I would’ve liked to see the bones and muscles of the Grimm incorporated into the design a bit more, the surfaces less smooth and more textured, but it looks good.

Facial acting on Neo is good - I appreciate being able to see what’s running through her head, even if it also makes me wonder why Salem isn’t picking up on the obvious tells.

Emerald and Mercury are back and with new outfits; I can hear the diehard EmMerc fans screaming from here. Would’ve liked a better look at the whole outfits (I don’t think there’s even one close up of their entire bodies), but I like Mercury’s! Emerald’s model feels off to me for some reason, like it’s wider or more padded (?) than before, but it’s not a big deal and is probably just a result of her wearing a jacket now.

Oh, yeah, Hazel got one too, don’t care.

Why does the whale have a screen? A connection to one of those seer orb Grimm?

Cinder is still not interesting to me, but I am curious - can one woman hold multiple maiden powers? What happens if one woman holds them all? If they can hold multiple powers, what happens when they die? Do they both/all go to the same person, or would they split?

I like the Faunus that gives Oscar the soup. His design is pretty cute to me (I think he’s a mole Faunus?), and I feel like he’s based on something, but I’m not sure what. Getting a Narnia vibe for some reason, which I’m always on board for.

How did Ruby know where Oscar ended up? Did he call?

Weiss’s braid looks much better! I’m still not a huge fan of it, but this model is an enormous improvement - it actually looks like hair instead of rope, it’s slicker, and doesn’t look as heavy. Nice job, animators. Blake’s looks better, too, more fluffy, but it’s not as drastic a change to me.

Nice to see the Happy Huntresses actually doing something to help Mantle, and having Joanna(? that’s her name, right?) take charge and be helping Ruby get Oscar back in exchange for their aid is nice. It feels realistic for a situation like this.

And more secret keeping, but in this case, dropping the Oz bombshell would actually probably be a bad idea. There’s enough going on, bringing up Oz being back can wait until tensions aren’t as high.

Why would Ironwood stop evacuation? That makes no sense for his character, and there’s no reason to stop them. Until he gets Penny back, Atlas isn’t going anywhere. Might as well keep evacuating until you can find here, get as many people to safety as possible before getting away. I’d assume the Doylist answer for this is that Mantle still needs to be a factor in any decisions made after this and it can’t be that if we can get everyone evacuated, but that doesn’t make the Watsonian explanation make more sense.

Actually a good plan, getting everyone into the crater if it is in fact warm (why, I wonder? Thermal vents? Heat coming off of Atlas?) solves the cold problem (that people should’ve probably already died from) and having to defend one smaller location is strategically a good option. Corralling people would also make any eventual evac to Atlas easier. There is the small problem of, you know, Atlas literally crushing anyone in the crater if the staff is used on anything else, and Salem is known to be after that Staff, sooooooo -

Okay, maybe a nitpick, but I thought Pierto’s specialty was prosthetics and robotics. Doesn’t seem like something that necessarily overlaps with what’s needed to convert Amity into a satellite. I guess maybe the engine/whatever is going to propel it into the air could be similar to Penny’s boosters/whatever lets her fly, but it doesn’t seem like something that he would be involved in raising Amity. Whatever - I know we need a scientist person to tell these things to RWBY+Co and Pierto is the most likely candidate to be in a position to do that.

It seems like, from Ruby’s dialogue, she both wants to warn the other kingdoms and ask for their help. This has been trampled to death, so I won’t rant, but - there is no one that’s going to be able to help. Argus is hours away, will take time to assemble, and isn’t a very large force to begin with. Mistral is still weakened from V5 and has next to no huntsman, and is even farther than Argus. No idea what’s going on with Vale, but they’re probably still nursing their wounds from the Fall. Vacuo is the only kingdom likely to be able to muster up a force, but they’re on the other side of the map and will take hours, if not days, to get together an army - and that’s if they decide they want to help at all. The other objective was warning the Kingdoms about Salem. Ignoring that Salem is immortal and can just throw as many Grimm as she pleases until the defenses fall, ignoring that the other Kingdoms might not even believe Ruby, what’s to say they won’t go “F*ck Atlas, they’re on their own” and recall every available Huntsman and Huntress to shore up their own defenses? Or what if the other kingdoms just fall into anarchy? Learning an immortal witch with an endless supply of Grimm will come knocking on your doorstep soon tends to cause chaos. Or is Ruby going to leave the whole immortal part out again? I just can’t see what this will accomplish.

Holy shit, it’s actually happening. Dissent from WBY, and it’s coming from Yang of all people - I love it. I wish Yang had gotten to finish her sentence, say something along the lines of “Maybe if we’d told the truth immediately things wouldn’t have gone this way” since that would fit with her “hate secrets” thing she had going on in V5/6, but the fact that Yang is actually questioning Ruby’s leadership and choices - yes yes yes, more of that please, less of the hive mind. I wish it’d come a little earlier, but at this point I’ll take what I can get.

I’m slightly confused at the sides that Ren and Nora are taking here. I like that we’re splitting them up here (we never get to see them separated, and after last volume, I am more than on board with letting Ren get some breathing room), but Ren going with Yang, Jaune, and Oscar to help evacuate Mantle while Nora goes on the “bigger picture” team to get Amity up and running seems weird considering where they were last volume. Nora was always screaming about how the big picture stuff was hurting Mantle, while Ren was pushing to keep training, keep working, support Ironwood and try and work at the big picture problem, so it would seem like they should be on opposite sides. I’m not saying it makes no sense - I can absolutely see Ren feeling protective of towns under attack from Grimm with no Huntsmen in their corner - but it feels like a bit of a 180 from their last positions.

Did Oscar just call Jaune “John”?

Yeah, if nothing else, don’t let Penny get anywhere near Salem or her cronies. Salem can absolutely not be allowed to get her hands on the Staff, especially with the whole “get everyone to the crater” plan. Squish.

Yang and Blake splitting up, maybe we can actually get some conversations on what the hell is up with them that we should have gotten in V6/V7 instead of petty showing off and Nora projecting.

“But what about Mantle?” “Oh, I’m helping Mantle.” with the same thing you spent all last volume complaining about. Uh-huh, that’s not annoying.

Weiss has an idea on how to get up to Atlas - Winter’s ship, maybe? That one she came in on in V3 was her personal ship, wasn’t it?

Ironwood calls Penny. From the music, it sounds like they were aiming for foreboding and manipulative, but Ironwood just sounds tired, the poor man. Love how Ruby doesn’t even try for a comeback for Ironwood’s argument, really convincing.

Dead Clover, and I hope that he stays that way, because if he’s brought back to life, so much of V6′s themes of life and death and the natural cycle is just going to be spit on (again). Clover is dead, and there should be no way around that save interference from a literal god. Any attempt at bringing him back needs some kind of drawback - some prevision of life, a body that moves but his soul isn’t there, something, please RT, don’t double back on your “Death is permanent” thing again.

And Ironwood did lose his arm completely. It’s an awesome looking prosthetic, but the fact that it’s black when the rest of his prosthetics are silver, combined with the comments made by the CRWBY about Ironwood’s humanity, make me very afraid they’re going to go for some sort of bullshit parallel to Cinder’s black Grimm arm. I do like the orchestral version of Hero playing here, though.

I like Winter’s new hair style - similar enough to her previous one, but looser. Not exactly happy about what that might symbolize, but it looks really good. It looks like she might have nerve damage, though, which would mean she might be off the battlefield until she can get her hands (hah) on some sort of brace to help her move her hands (which might be hinted at in the OP~)

I do really like Ironwood and Winter’s relationship, please don’t f*ck it up, CRWBY.

Is the only thing CRWBY knows how to do to make Ironwood seem like the bad guy shoot people for no goddamn reason? Ironwood was surrounded by loyal soldiers after declaring martial law, there was no reason for him to not just order Slate detained (that one was Slate, right? Not that it matters). The man’s annoying and probably in cahoots with Jacques, but shooting him is out of character, excessive, and makes no sense when he could just be arrested. “It shows he’s slipping -” No. It’s lazy writing meant for shock value and to give characters a reason to go “Oh, he’s going evil now, I better question my loyalty to him” (based on the look Winter and Harriet share) rather than any actual flaw in his plans maybe because CRBY realized that Ironwood’s plans are rational and the best one on the table right now, so they can’t use that to turn people against him. F*ck that.

Salem sends a bloodhound or whatever after Oscar, we already saw this bit in the trailers. No comment.

TLDR: Once again, RWBY sets up a lot of stuff that I find interesting and want to see more of. However, their treatment of Ironwood doesn’t make me optimistic for them to treat him right, and RWBY has a track record of setting up good concepts/plots/characters/arcs and then failing to execute them well or at all. We’ll have to see if V8 actually lives up to the promise or falls flat due to the issues that plagued V6 and V7 .

Going to make a whole new list for the OP because dear Lord, this thing is dense.

This song is definitely more in line with RWBY’s usual sound than Trust Love, and I’m all for that. The beat is a little hinky to me - it’s going to take a few re-listens to get used to it - and once again I wish the lyrics were clearer, but I know people that weren’t as happy with V7′s sound will be happy with this return to form.

Establishing shots of Mantle going to hell, nice use of red and contrast, but I wish there was a bit more use of shadow to really sell the red coming from fires and emergency lights.

Ruby standing alone, turning to find the others standing at the ready to fight, but away from her and with their backs turned. Any chance of more dissent? Will we actually get some growth from Ruby, in regards to her leadership in particular? We can only hope.

The four girls, on a blackish/blue background with floating warm lights, with images of their V1 selves in their clothes/hair/weapons. I really love the animation in the portion, the girls look so good. It also makes me wish we’d get some sort of flashback to V1-3, because I want more of their Beacon designs in the new animation style. The fact that this background/setting shows up again later in the trailer makes me wonder if it might be what the interior of the Atlas vault looks like. No basis for that, just a random thought. Couple minor nitpicks, focused on Yang. The fact that she’s the only one not in a more dynamic pose (and this is Yang of all people) seems odd, and the way her hair flows looks weird to me based on the angles and whatnot. Putting her in a different pose like a charge would fix this, letting her hair flow more naturally and giving them the space they need to to add in her past self. Otherwise, gorgeous.

Ironwood with Atlas inside him, slowly being overtaken by the red as he looks up. No real comment other than beautiful.

Clover dropping his pin, with the AceOps and Qrow in the leaves, before transitioning to Qrow taking Robyn’s hand in prison. It looks like Harriet will be taking over as team leader. I don’t have a lot to say here - Marrow’s the only AceOp I’m interested in, and Qrow and Clover’s relationship has never been compelling for me. Robyn, similarly, is not a character I like, so a Qrow/Robyn team-up jailbreak isn’t something that I’m interested in unless Watts is involved. Already teamed up with one villain, Qrow, why stop there?

Oscar in pain holding his head, while Grimm eyes surround him and then Salem with wyvern wings comes out and looms over him preparing to grab him. I like the visual of Salem as the Wyvern at Beacon, but her face looks almost doofy in this shot. I think it’s the lack of expression mixed with the eyes. If she had a more menacing expression, I think this would work a lot better.

The falling weapons of the girls, Crescent Rose with Myrtenaster and Gambol Shroud with Ember Celica. Cue the shippers.

Jaune with his sword in front of his face, pulling it down to be at the ready, with Nora and Ren in the far background, their backs turned on each other but looking sad at their positions. I know Jaune’s thing is probably generic, but it gives me Mulan vibes, which is funny considering. Hey, hint that Martial Arcs will become canon now that Renora is on the rocks? fingers crossed More of Ren and Nora’s rough patch, and I really hope that that gets some focus. Their kiss last volume left a bad taste in my mouth with how it went down, and getting into these two as separate characters and their relationship. Ren not requiting Nora’s romantic feelings towards him would be a really interesting place to go with these characters that everyone’s pegged together since episode 4 (in no small part due to their lack of interaction with anyone else, but I’ll get to that).

Winter and Weiss walking towards each other on the Schnee symbol, passing each other by with Winter getting her new hairstyle and a brace of some sort. She’s actually wearing this brace in the hospital, but on the other arm, while now it’s on the arm she couldn’t bend her fingers with. Interesting, and it looks all looks really good!

The Schnee snowflake falls between Whitley and Willow, before shattering onto a chessboard. YESSSS, Whitley’s in the intro again! That’s more than I could’ve hoped, and I really really hope that him looking contemplatively like that means something - that’s he’s figuring things out, coming up with a plan, something! Still no new design though T-T CRWBY, what do I have to do to get my boy some new clothes?

From the chessboard, Salem rises up, turning the other black pieces into Grimm to attack the white where Ironwood stands. His pieces turn to dust, the board blowing away entirely. Nice callback to V1. Ironwood stands alone - no allies, and no space to move forward. He’s a king with nowhere to move - check or checkmate.

Smug Watts hacking while leaning against a mirror, rotates to show Pierto doing the same, his reflection looking over its shoulder at him, then a pan to Penny to show the same thing before the mirror breaks. I’m not sure what this might symbolize. Inability to trust yourself, maybe?

A snowflake flies through the air and lands in Ren’s palm. It turns into a flower petal, (or scraps his hand, I can’t quite tell) then Yang, Jaune, and Oscar join him, Ren smiling to Jaune. Another flower petal flies by to transition to Nora, who reaches out but can’t catch it, looking dismayed until RWBP comes in to join her. I assume the symbolism is straight-forward - the snowflake turns to a petal when caught by Ren (lotus guy), then flies to Nora who can’t catch it. Really living for the Ren focus in the op~

Pans to a shot of the whole group in the middle of everything - Atlas and Mantle overrun with Grimm on one side, Salem’s whale and Grimm army on the other, and Amity in the middle, which Penny flies up to hover below. Penny is going to be vital to launching Amity, and probably for reasons other than the terminal.

Then Ruby and Yang looking at each other with a smile and nod before the girls jump into fighting some Grimm. Interesting bit when the volume opens with the sisters starting to have disagreements.

The entire thing freezes, Cinder strolling cockily past the crew to walk in front of a bored/disgruntled Neo and Emerald who starts to wave but looks dejected when Cinder ignores her. Not much to say here - I don’t really like the freeze frame for some reason, no idea why. This also doesn’t give us any new info on the dynamics between these three characters.

Cinder grabs her Grimm arm in pain as fire flares up behind her, transitioning into Merc, Tyrian, Hazel, and Salem with the lamp in her eyes, transitioning to the lamp and staff twirling around each other, both emitting smoke like they’re being used as they come together. I wonder if this means that the last question and the Staff are going to be used, and maybe together? Once again, though - Atlas falling, people in the crater die.

Smoke clears up to reveal Ruby, looking up to Atlas first in invasion mode, then peaceful. Turn to a shot of the group standing looking to the left, Yang and Ruby looking like they’re posed but the others just kind of standing there. It’s a weird shot, and I’m not sure what to make of it, honestly.

The ice breaks beneath Ruby’s feet, sending RWBY falling into a void, their bodies trailing those lights that we saw before. Ruby opens her eyes to see the brightest light, the Staff. She reaches out to it, but Grimm paws and hands drag her down. V6 callback?

The word Happy? flashes only to be crossed out, a sketchy Grimm roaring, then the words Ever then Never as it’s crossed out, with a sketchy Penny lifting her head and her eyes then face going red, then the words After Again being crossed out. I’m not really of the words - I think it’s going for a Happily Ever After Happy? Never Again thing, but there’s no Happily that I can see, and it just kind of comes across as a bit emo to me. I like the sketches of the Grimm and Penny - I think it might be a Wyvern Grimm or something like that, and the red spreading from Penny’s eyes to her entire outline is interesting. I wonder if it’s connected to the Maiden powers and how she’ll use them.

Sketches of RWBY’s weapon fall into the snow, Crescent Rose falling with the tip stuck in the snow, then a flash and a pull out to Crescent Rose in the snow in full animation, framed by the broken moon as rose petals fly by with the “Created by Monty Oum” credit appears. I really like this as a reference to the Red trailer, and compared to the very cluttered ending shot of V7, this is a nice change of pace.

I like this OP. It’s definitely above V7′s for me, with a good song and some beautiful animation in it’s visuals. If I had to criticize it, I would say that it feels very long and cluttered. My breakdown of the opening feels as long as everything I mentioned in the actual episode. I realize one was going almost shot by shot, while the other summarized, but the point still stands that this things feels longer than it needs to be (I’d have to check time stamps to see if it is actually significantly longer).

A more promising start, all in all, than I’d hoped for. Things irritate me for sure, Ironwood’s treatment, Ruby’s plan, all that stuff, but I know I would have those bones to pick going in. The shake-up of the usual teams and the promise of inter-group conflict is enough to get me to want more, and I look forward to seeing how my favorite characters will be utilized.

What are your thoughts on the episode? Reblog and comment down below, and we’ll start a convo.

Until next time~

#rwby #rwby8 #rwby volume 8 #rwby8 spoilers #rwby 8 spoilers #ruby rose #weiss schnee #blake belladonna #yang xioa long #episode breakdown

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diversetolkien · 4 years

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Hey yal! Below is a submissions I received regarding my Eol and Maeglin post. My responses are indented with the grey line! OPs are not!

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First of all, it is absolutely necessary to draw attention to the things you’re drawing attention to. Whether you are “right” or “wrong,” or whether anyone is “right” or “wrong” is beside the point of the argument in my opinion: these issues simply need to be addressed! We need discussion and different points of view and they all need to be considered and we need them now more than ever. There are clear examples that are sketchy to say the very least: good guys are fair-skinned but the evil men ((, Haradrim) are not; orcs, clearly bad guys, are “swarthy” and “slant-eyed”. However, I do believe your point about Eöl and Maeglin on June 10 are off the mark. I believe you get too carried away by the title “dark” and hang your entire argument up on that. As far as I know, there is no textual evidence that Eöl was a dark-skinned elf at all.

Hello there! Thank you for the message. I do want to emphasize that I’ve been incredibly reluctant to answer this. As of resharing my meta I received a terribly racist message from a user on the website, and will tread cautiously with addressing any messages regarding Eol and Maeglin due to that. I completely agree that we do need discussion, and I’m open for it. This is the only way we can progress. But I won’t tolerate blatant racism.

I’m not accusing you of doing such, but for future references I want to make this clear.

While you believe I may get carried away on the aspect of dark or ‘swarth’, I think it may be important to explain what racial coding is, and also to remind you of Tolkien’s history with coding and with people of color. I talked about coding on my twitter, but in short coding is ascribing real world traits to fictional characters.

This includes attributing the historical and social context to the text to prove a point.

We’ve discussed how Tolkien has borrowed from cultures aside from his own, and with The Silmarillion published in the late 70’s, it’s not impossible to see how influence from America and racial influence there have played a role in his writings.

I also wouldn’t call it being ‘carried away’, when, as we both agree, Tolkien has a history of racism directed at people of color.

And at the same time, I think it’s important to note that while you dismiss the possibility of Tolkien considering Eol dark despite the use of swarth, you ascribe swarth to the orcs and their skin tone in the same breath. I don’t see why it’s impossible for the two to mean the same thing. Not when we do have a racist author who grew up in a very racist society already using dark skin to describe evil characers. Not when Eol’s narrative of the brute mirrors that of the orcs (ie: Celebrian and the Orcs).

And regardless if it is explicit or not, Eol is still coded. Again, we know this because we have canon stories that mirror his completely. This being, again, Celebrian and the Orcs.

We can also accept that Tolkien’s constant use of “dark” to describe evil things, and “light” to describe good things comes from a place of racism. So why is there such push back when we analyze that further?

Tolkien was known to ponder about problems, such as missing words in the Germanic languages. The term asterisk-word is coined by August Schleicher for exactly this purpose: words that should have existed in a (dead) language but aren’t recorded and needed therefore to be reconstructed. For example, Tolkien doesn’t have a recollection of how he came upon the word “hobbit” but to make it fit his Legendarium he made the asterisk-word *holbytlan, supposedly an old English word meaning “hole-builders” because hobbit language was akin to Old English. This word doesn’t exist in old English but could (and maybe should) have. Tolkien also wrote a long argument about a particular difficult passage in the Beowulf-poem which you can read in “Finn and Hengest.” Now normally I would never try to talk straight what’s curved, but Tolkien is a bit of a different case as I hope the above examples show.

The case of Eöl is a trick(s)y problem that stems from the “Prose Edda” written by Snorri Sturluson, an Icelandic poet who lived in the 12th century. This is thoroughly explained by Tom Shippey in his essay “Light-elves, Dark-elves, and Others: Tolkien Elvish Problem”. A quick summary is (but one really ought to read Shippey’s essay to understand it) that there are light-elves, dark-elves, dwarves and black-elves in the “Prose Edda.” Germanic scholars such as Nikolas Grundtvig and Jacob Grimm bent themselves in all kinds of shapes to explain the “error” that Snorri made. Are the black-elves the same as the dark-elves? Are both black-elves and dark-elves dwarves? What about twilight-elves? Tolkien pulls all the different strands of this one problem together and called it Eöl the Dark Elf. He could never have done this in an academic work if he wanted to be taken seriously, so his fiction seemed a great outlet to deal with this. Maybe it was all a private amusement because Tolkien never mentioned it as far as I know.

I personally can’t recall Eöl ever being called dark-skinned. He is considered “black” due to the armour he’s wearing made out of the metal galvorn that he made himself after coming into contact with dwarves (which also ties in masterfully with the whole elf-problem, again, see Shippey’s essay), but it’s not skin colour. Eöl was called the Dark Elf because he lived in a place where the sun never came. It was called Nan Almoth, the valley of the star pool, and he loved the stars, and loved to live in the twilight. The twilight-part is important in the above discussion as well.

I understand you are trying to be informative but please don’t be patronizing. Please do not explain to me what I already know. In the future, I will not be answering messages like this again. This is incredibly rude. You are assuming I don’t know about what I made a meta about, and that’s an insult to what I’ve written.

Please read my blog fully before you attempt to whitesplain something I already know. I understand debate, but there is a clear different between wanting to have a healthy discourse, and flat out patronizing me and treating me like a child.

Back the the point; The same, again, can be applied to the orcs. The orcs wear dark armor, were tortured by a creature who is often described as dark, reside in dark areas—but we know clearly that they are coded off of people given the description of them being swarthy.

The same attribute that’s given to Eol. And again, we have a clear historical context and in-canon context. And we know that Tolkien borrows from American history, and that England itself had a huge role to play in that history.

Finally, the citation from the Book of Lost Tales (BLT) where Maeglin is called swart is problematic to me. I think it’s as much proof against your point as it is in favour of it. Many, many things have changed since the BLT was written and turned into The Silmarillion (I mean Sauron was a giant cat at first!). The BLT version of Maeglin being “swart” is a discarded version and in The Silmarillion, a way later revision, “his skin was white”. I think it would be wrong to conclude Tolkien discarded the swart skin of Maeglin as he realised it was racist. I think he simply hadn’t figured out the elf problem of the Edda when he wrote the BLT.

I think this is all negated by the fact that Tolkien has canonical characters of color, and that they have been coded. I’m having an incredibly hard time wrapping my head around why that’s accepted, yet when it comes to Eol and Maeglin it isn’t. We can accept that Tolkien has a history of racism with people of color, based on evidence far less than what I’ve provided. Maeglin’s light skin can be attributed to the fact that his mother was light. It’s possible to have a dark parent and be born light.

And regardless if it was changed or not, it’s incredibly important to discuss it due to the fact that it was racist, and deserves to be brought to light.

I want to stress, again, that I think your work and thoughts are important, no matter if I or anyone else agrees or disagrees. It is of the utmost importance to address issues of racism, genderism and any other kinds of ism that is out there. Discussion is what matters!

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cheerystarlightwish · 4 years

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Millionaire Detective Balance: Unlimited Episode 9 Thoughts

Hi guys! Episode 9 got me thinking and though I didn’t want to create theories or analyzations about Fugou Keiji because we are nearing the end already, I simply can’t help myself. To be honest, I wanted to create some earlier and chat with people but my schedule didn’t side with me for the past three months. Nevertheless, here I am better late than never and excited to read other peoples’ reactions, analyzations, and theories as well. Anyways, For those who haven’t watched the recent episodes yet, there are spoilers ahead as I share my thoughts so please be cautioned! Thank you, have a nice day, and stay safe!

(Disclaimer: Any similarities with other posts are purely coincidental. Moreover, if that does happen, I am glad that there are many who think so too because that increases the probability of the statement, thought, analyzation, or theory being somewhat true.)

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Oh.my.goodness.

If I were to summarize my reaction for Ep.9? it would be those. It was nothing short of thrilling and is a perfect stepping point before we get to the climax of the show. Be that as it may, I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that we only have a few episodes left before it ends. Oddly enough, it feels as though we just began due to the pacing of the revelations. Yes, it allowed us to answer some of our previous questions but at the same time, it created new ones as well.

The first answer we were able to infer is with regards to Shigemaru Kambe. As we have gathered from the previous episodes, he was alive and supposedly went into hiding for the past 19 years after he killed his wife. Throughout that period, he was believed to be dead by both Daisuke and the world. This is with great exception of his mother who had known of this fact for a long time and even kept it secret to the point of trying to dissuade Daisuke from investigating further. Second, Daisuke's parents were both scientists who were researching an "element" called “adolium”. Such a thing was considered to be dangerous by Sayuri and despite her husband's claims that he will not use it, she completely did not trust him. This could only mean that "adolium" is something that people, powerful people, would want to have for their benefit. Unfortunately, this argument of theirs led to Sayuri leaving the house which prompted her husband to kill her because as he said, he has invested too much on the project to let it be for naught.

Though we were able to answer the question regarding the culprit of Sayuri's murder, it raises the question of what is the true purpose of “adolium”? From the last episode, it was hinted that it had something to do with energy. When it was introduced head on, it was used in a way that caused several nearby electronics to malfunction. The weird aspect of that event is that the ship itself was unharmed, and it only specifically targeted those Shigemaru's group considered to be "enemies". This realization is alarming because it basically means that they have advanced in their research, against Sayuri's efforts to prevent them from doing so, and can now utilize the "element" in a destructive method. Now, what exactly will they use it for? I deduced that it would be applied in creating some kind of set of weapons. The reason I thought so is because of that episode with the president of a country from Central America. The one who visited to resign an agreement for further collaboration with the Kambe family. He was apparently affiliated with them when the latter provided resources for that president’s country’s “development”. A “development” that turned out to have caused or will cause harm to a community, as evidenced by an attempted assasination of their lives by someone who belonged to that group of people. One thing to note though is that there are similarities between the machines seen in episode 5 and 9 in that they both interfered with a specific set of electronics. Therefore, I think it is safe to assume that the machine in the earlier episode contained the aforementioned “element” as well. This theory raises new questions in how that person from that community got their hands on those technology, which seemingly belongs to Shigemaru’s group as backed by Daisuke’s discovery of it in Laboratory 3. It makes one wonder, is the family involved in some kind of civil war and profiting from it? No matter what though, we cannot deny the detail that the Kambe family provides resources, technology, and weapons to their “customers”.

Moving on, another key aspect of the mystery is why the higher ups seem to be bent on not being involved nor further investigating the case of the Kambe family. I first thought that it is mainly because they are afraid for their own lives but looking back, that doesn’t seem to be all there is to it. With all the information we have been given, I have two, maybe three if I combine them both, thoughts or theories on this. The first one is that the superiors themselves have invested on this project and are benefiting from it as a whole. It is possible that they too may have a stake in it and will be used by them to acquire future advantages. The second one is that the ones on top contain Kambes or their puppets and alliances. I pondered on this because of the Kambe family picture and how Shigemaru has been described to be the eldest child.The latter seems a little far fetched because if that were the case, why would Daisuke not know about them? Unless, it is specifically being hidden from him as to continue the image that their corporation or conglomerate is “good”, a high probability.

The last facet of this mystery so far is what they could want with Daisuke and the identity of the newly introduced characters as well as the location they are currently headed to. With regards to what they want with the former, I’m not quite sure. Daisuke obviously disapproves of whatever this “adolium” business is because of its contribution to his mother’s death and its evident dangerous nature. Shigemaru himself is aware of this, and yet why did he say that he has been waiting for Daisuke for a long time? Why did he instruct Frantz to keep him alive? With these set of questions, I could only gather three possibilities. The first one is that they could be trying to silence him about the matter at hand. They will probably try to kill him too or at least make it so that he would not want to further delve into the issue. Second, they will try to get him in on the business itself by reasoning with him as they might have supposedly did with the higher ups. The last one is that they will let Daisuke take the fall of whatever downhill event is bound to happen next, another high possibility. It cannot be denied that Daisuke is known by the world to be the head of the Kambe Conglomerate. Therefore, it would not be farfetched to think that they might be saving him for future use in taking the fall for the result of whatever they are planning to do. On the matter of the identity of the new characters, we have yet to know more. The only thing episode 9 told us is that Frantz is a multinational weapons merchant on top of being Thomas Matheson’s bodyguard. From that little introduction, it is no doubt difficult to hypothesize the extent of their role in the mystery. Nevertheless, I do have some ideas I would like to share. Frantz’s characteristic of being a weapons merchant aligns with the certainty we had that the Kambe family produces and sells weapons. It would then make sense for them to be related, but what intrigues me is his listed job as a bodyguard which could be some sort of coverup for his true job. The question is, is he the boss or is he just a representative of his true boss? Additionally, is Thomas aware of Frantz’s involvement with the Kambes? Is he another leader of a country? or better yet, is he himself part of the masterminds or true bosses? We can only know for sure in the next episode. As far as I can conclude though, it would seem that Frantz is an underling, given his actions, of an even bigger persona and that the Kambes are profiting from discords and strife.

With everything they have given us, there are quite a lot of ways it can go. So in consideration of all these notions and ideas, we can only wait for future revelations, confirmations, and validations. To be completely honest, I cannot wait for this mystery to be further unfolded.

Predictions:

Based on a post (link) I saw earlier, it seems that Episode 10 will contain epic scenes. According to the source, the FKBU team apparently called in the director for Shingeki no Kyojin and Kabaneri Fortress to aid in this specific episode. As a result, they themselves are still in awe of how it turned out when they all worked on it together. Now given this information, it fuels my curiosity to the brim and I simply can’t wait for tomorrow. It seems to me that the scene wherein Daisuke and Haru fight side by side in the opening is about to come true. Imagine that sequence and the possibility of the background music being the OP Navigator, and we will get one hell of an iconic scene. Moreover, I can’t wait to find out who are the other people involved in this scheme and what is “adolium” going to really be used for, because as far as we know, it has something to do with energy and interference. Additionally, we are already aware that the ship is headed for Panama, a famous country that is known for its transit through the Panama Canal. Is it their destination or is it simply a stop over? I guess we'll just see tomorrow!

#fugou keiji balance: unlimited #fugou keiji #fkbu #kambe daisuke #daisuke kambe #katou haru #haru katou #kato haru #haru kato #the millionaire detective balance: unlimited #im really excited guys

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rallamajoop · 4 years

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Some musings on symbiote morphology (AKA when size does matter)

So, back when Venom was still in cinemas, I saw it with a friend who (like me) enjoyed it mightily -- though said friend did roll her eyes pretty hard at the She-Venom scene, because of course the female!Venom has to be skinny and sexy. Of course she does.

I mean, the sexual dimorphism on display here is, uh... pretty extreme.

Usually, this would’ve gotten to me too. Few issues in genre film stick in my craw like the double standards applied to male and female bodies (ask me my thoughts on the likes of Wonder Woman or Gamora at your peril). So it was a little surprising to find that this was one I was mostly willing to shrug off.

Why? Well, that requires a bit of backing up and some more context. But mostly, it’s the perfect jumping-off point for a whole lot of rambling about visual shorthands and how symbiote morphology has been handled in the comics over the years, which apparently I had a whole essay’s worth of thoughts on. So here we go.

Now, Comic!Venom =/= Movie!Venom. They aren’t the same character, don’t have the same history, and their biology doesn’t follow the same rules. But one is still the basis for the other, so we’re going to start waayyy back at the beginning.

Since the symbiote's introduction back in '84, precious little about the species has remained consistent through the many writers and retcons, but one detail that Marvel was -- mostly -- consistent on back in the early days is that the shape a symbiote takes depends a lot on the body of its host. So when Spider-man was wearing the symbiote the result was (by design) literally just Spider-man-but-in-black:

But Venom's next host did not have the muscularly-lean body of Peter Parker, he had the jacked-up muscle-mountain that was Eddie Brock’s -- and the result is the Venom we all know and love.

Whereas when completely-normal-human-woman Anne Weying first bonds with the Venom symbiote in Sinner Takes All, we get a much slimmer She-Venom.

You can see the same trends at work with the Life Foundation Five and various other examples. So, in the comics at least, there’s some internal consistency explaining why He-Venom and She-Venom should look so very different. (Why Eddie and Anne should be such wildly different sized humans is a whoooole other topic, but best left in the Don’t Get Me Started pile for now.)

Of course, when the guy you've cast as Eddie has the physique of Tom Hardy rather than, say, He-Man, the logic of why Venom looks so huge falls apart.

⬥ Venom and She-Venom, actual size comparison.

While comic book writers of the 80's may have been able to convince a generation of fans not to question why a professional journalist would be jacked enough to dwarf Captain America, film adds a layer of realism and audience expectations that would make that a much harder sell (not to mention limiting your casting options to a much smaller pool). Casting Tom Hardy was inarguably the right call.

If Eddie no longer looked like Venom, the other solution would have been to make Venom look more like Tom Hardy--but good luck getting that past the existing fanbase. When it comes to pleasing the longtime fans, it's safe to say that Venom, not Eddie, is the character who has to look the part. Plus, Venom is entirely CG, so casting and realism no longer have to matter. Fanboys can have their giant Venom and tiny She-Venom, and the fangirls can have Tom Hardy getting all prettily roughed up. There are worse solutions.

Don't get me wrong: they could and absolutely should have evened up the difference on screen by giving She-Venom some extra body mass (she is on screen for like ten seconds, the fanboys can effing deal). But when the key decision that fucked up those ratios is making Eddie so much slimmer and sexier than he was originally supposed to be, I am unusually willing to give them a tentative pass. I mean, I love comics!Eddie too, but I can’t see him working on screen.

While I’m talking symbiote-bodies, it’s worth going into some of the other reasons to make Eddie+symbiote so huge, the obvious ones being to a) make him more threatening, and b) emphasise that Eddie's bonded with the symbiote in a way Peter never did. As a shape-shifter, Venom can make his host look bigger but not smaller (which is presumably why Rad Eddie may look younger than regular!Eddie, but is still suspiciously large for a skateboarder hanging with teens).

But size isn't the only way to make a character like Venom threatening. Compare Carnage, who is much more dangerous than Venom -- but (along with his host) fairly consistently drawn as smaller and leaner than the original.

He's still plenty threatening, though -- not because he's huge, but because he's completely bugfuck nuts and into murder for recreation. His design gets this across with a texture less like skin than a mass of veins and tentacles. Size is a good visual shorthand for danger, but it's not the only shorthand that works for symbiotes of the 90′s heyday.

You can see the same logic at work in Toxin too (a lesser-known and sadly mistreated Carnage-spawn from the early 00's). Precious little about Toxin's look remained consistent from one creative team to the next, but the impact of the host body is still there. His first host, Pat Mulligan, was a pretty average-sized dude, which is reflected in his bonded form (left), but when Eddie gets the Toxin symbiote later on, we get a much bigger Toxin (right). And Eddie's Toxin has more tentacles and rougher skin, so we know he's not going to be friendly (Eddie was really not in a good place at this point in his history).

Perhaps the most interesting example is Agent Venom, who turns up when the military bonds the Venom symbiote to Flash Thompson: disabled vet and card-carrying Spidey fan. His Venom-look is a brilliant bit of storytelling-through-design: the face and overall build hearkens back to Spider-man's time in the symbiote, the equipment signposts his military connections (past and present), and black will always be the signifier of a guy working black ops.

Perhaps most important, there's no mouth (compare both Spidey and Toxin #1), which is our sign that the symbiote's under control -- drugged into submission by the military, in fact.

But key to Flash's time in the role is that the Venom symbiote doesn't always stay drugged and docile, and whenever it starts to break free, Agent Venom morphs into Venom's traditional look -- gaping mouth, no belts or shoulder pads, and lots of bulky muscles a la the original flavour Eddie Brock (you can see him mid-transformation on the left below).

Does that make sense, when Flash is the host? Probably not, but comic book logic, as usual, is suspended for the sake of visual shorthand: fans know what Venom is "supposed" to look like, so that's what he looks like when the comic wants to telegraph that Flash is losing control. And that, I suspect, is why Lee Price's Venom (above right) looks more like Eddie's, even though Lee Price looks more like Flash. Price may be the one in charge, but he’s also a madman, so his Venom has to look out of control. The comics have officially hit Tom Hardy territory: Venom is huge now because people have come to expect Venom to look like the original Eddie-Brock!Venom, regardless of who’s inside.

There are bigger exceptions to the rule, however -- two of the more interesting turned up almost simultaneously in 2015, when both Venom!Flash and Toxin!Eddie got significant redesigns in the pages of Venom: Space Knight and Carnage (2015). Now Flash's Venom is the bulky muscular one, while Eddie's Toxin looks slimmer than Eddie has ever been before or since. What's going on here? Did the artists just screw up?

Well, not entirely -- the characters haven't just flipped looks, they've flipped roles. Now Toxin's the one being drugged into submission by a US agency (and we can only assume those drugs somehow prompt a symbiote to produce pouches, because we're two-for-two on that front). Meanwhile, Venom's been "purged of corruption" and has finally bonded with Flash as a full partner, which may be why they opted for something closer to his original look. Note that Venom has no mouth, and Toxin's is positively restrained by symbiote standards, which tells you a lot about the temperament we can expect from both of them.

That said, I don't think either design really works. Venom's new look is a real step back in creativity from his Agent Venom days, and the helmet-face would be better suited to a mech design than a symbiote who's being treated as a real character for the first time. Meanwhile, Toxin’s look doesn't really work for Eddie, for all the same reasons it did work for Flash: Eddie isn't a trusted agent in this scenario, he's more like an intelligent animal on a short leash. It isn't just the builds that are wrong -- none of the story comes across well in these designs.

All in all, the longer Venom’s been around, the less the standard host=symbiote rules seem to apply. Venom is huge because his look is sufficiently iconic that that’s what the fans expect, regardless of who’s on the inside, or whether we’ve just rewritten his entire backstory and made the jump to film.

Speaking of which, it’s worth pointing out that there is actually precedent in the comics for female symbiotes who aren't drawn like a bikini model in a layer of black body paint. One is Patricia Robertson, who bonds with the "Venom" symbiote (read: not actually the Venom symbiote) in the 2003 Venom series.

Though Trish is a woman of fairly average build, her "Venom" is virtually indistinguishable from Eddie's (too much so, if anything -- it's very hard to tell which is which when they clash). Unfortunately, the 2003 series is otherwise an ugly, incomprehensible mess of a comic, containing almost nothing that has ever been referenced again. I can really only recommend it to absolute completists.

Somewhat better handled is Tarna, a skrull Agent of the Cosmos who appears in Venom: Space Knight. Tarna's symbiotic look is not remotely feminine, and one suspects that's the point: it's ugly, threatening, and gives no clue as to who's inside. (Her symbiote can also separate from her while maintaining form, making the comparison pic unusually easy for me).

But as a shapeshifting alien bonded to a shapeshifting symbiote, Tarna perhaps doesn't make the best example for general principles. It’s worth keeping in mind that every design has a storytelling function too: Patricia’s Venom needs to be mistakable for the original Venom for plot reasons, and the reveal that Tarna is a humanoid woman under her symbiote is set up as a surprise. But the creators of the film wanted us to know that was Anne under the symbiote from the moment she appeared, so sexy!She-Venom it is.

All that said, at the very end of the day, I’d much rather not have to make these excuses for the film. I’d much rather see more Tarnas and fewer She-Venom’s, and both film and comics have a long way to go before we get there yet.

#Venom #Tom Hardy #She-Venom #Eddie Brock #Spiderman #Toxin #Flash Thompson #Lee Price #Tarna #Carnage #Venom: Space Knight #Anne Weying #Venom meta

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tfw-no-tennis · 3 years

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mtmte liveblog issue 11

and here we have to conclusion to the shadowplay arc...

clearly prowl hasn't seen national treasure smh

prowl, what exactly is confusing you about ‘secret government-sanctioned brainwashing facility’

the fact that prowl was willing to go so strongly against his morals to protect chromedome...oof bro

so the senator is basically professor x and all the outliers are mutants. got it

senator shockwave was just a sexy thot who wanted justice....poor guy

so there ARE gloves on cybertron...am I to just assume that the doctors don't like using them for some reason????? I mean tbf I've known a few medical professionals who don't wear gloves during certain procedures, like giving shots which, imo, yikes I would never, even simple vaccines can cause bleeding, but to each their own...are ppe rules not strict on cybertron, or is there a low risk of infection transfer due to the nature of cybertronian diseases? ah, the real questions

anyways. I should stop going on extremely off-topic medical rants

I relate to tailgate in his tendency to misspell. these liveblogs would be unreadable if it weren't for spellcheck

ouch, the fact that cd ‘never really forgave’ prowl for leaving the heist party w/out a word, even tho it turns out prowl stormed off w/a final request to keep cd safe and out of it all....cd and prowl are just a big tragic trainwreck huh

its interesting that skids used to be religious, when it seems like he isn't now. Wonder What Could Have Caused That Shift In Ideology! Hm!

oh my god I love how ironfist’s fanboy ranting about the primal vanguard is cut short just as he’s saying ‘a bomb disposal kit once used by-’ bc its like Oh I bet he was about to mention tailgate, yknow, the guy who (claims he) was the primal vanguard’s bomb disposal guy...that's such a great little detail

the stuff we hear from roller about senator shockwave is super interesting - it sounds like he’s been pretty aware of the state of society for a while, and has been trying to combat it from the inside...which isn't going so great, it seems, considering the state of society at the time.

also the whole ‘modifying people to hold the matrix (sometimes without their consent?)’ thing he’s got going on is. interesting. again, is there any sort of ethics laws on cybertron, seriously guys,

oof, op cares so much abt senator sw :( they were in love okay

red alert :(

rodimus is such an interesting character AUGH the fact that he takes red alert’s potential suicide to be a personal failing on his part as a captain...which, yknow, that idea has merit considering rodimus’s part in the whole overlord thing, as well as rodimus having told red alert that ‘everyone thought he was losing it.’ yeahhhhh, that's not quite the approach to take w/someone clearly suffering from a paranoid breakdown

poor magnus has no idea about all the overlord stuff, which is what triggered red alert’s breakdown

tho, magnus, idk that putting red alert in a cryofreeze chamber or w/e is the solution here. although maybe they’re all just at a loss bc cybertron’s only mental health specialist is current hanging out comatose in a bar

are we supposed to (retrospectively) read into rodimus and drift’s agreement to put red alert in storage as a way of covering up the overlord stuff? did they deduce that he figured out about overlord and that's what caused his breakdown? rodimus seems genuinely distressed about the whole cold storage situation, but is there more to it than ‘I failed as a captain bc this guy had a breakdown under my command’? I genuinely do not remember a lot about the overlord plot bc I was so confused the first time I read it and the second time I was too busy being extremely sad, so.

genuinely shocked that cybertron even has ‘health and safety inspections.’ it just figures that the one ratchet conducted wasn't an actual inspection, but an excuse to prepare for some good ole fashioned heisting

man I love a good heist/break-in

ok so skids rlly is just here for his grappling hook hvbhksddfjbjkdf my man

UH OH SENATE GOONS. never good

whoa, cybertronians have glenohumeral joints?? tho, ratchet says ‘glenohumeral socket,’ which doesn't exist in humans - we have a glenoid cavity/fossa/socket that articulates w/the head of the humerus to form the glenohumeral joint, so, close enough

anyways, that sure was a nonsequiter. ratchet busting out his lock picking skills is dope. do they teach that sorta stuff in cybertronian medical school? maybe its in place of the patient confidentiality lesson

seriously, ratchet sure knows a lot about bombs for a doctor. maybe they also cut out the courses on ppe and patient consent to make room for the cool stuff like BOMB CLASSES

op really DOES like jumping off stuff, doesn't he

oh no senator :(

JK HERES OP BUSTIN THRU A DUDES CHEST

oh no roller :(

‘remember me how I was’ NOOOO IM GONNA FUCKING CRY. SW AND OP MAKE ME SO SAD. GOD

op yeeted that matrix bomb like he was trying to make a touchdown or...something. not sure why I chose football, the only sport I dislike, as my metaphor here

lol it blew up a police station, nice

god, that reveal that the institute that we saw last issue was just one of many....and the one we saw was strikingly awful enough, so the fact that there's a ton more like that....oof

also, again, super interested in the fact that cd was involved in this arc where they see how scary and evil the institute is and then ended up working for the institute - well, the ‘new institute’ - later on

I'm weeping at the ‘big reveal’ for tailgate being that orion pax is optimus prime....its so funny that he didn't know that so it was a huge twist for him and absolutely nobody else hvbakdjhfbksjdf I love tailgate

also. is that the picture somebody drew of op for tg lmao

:D and then skids manages to wake rung up!!! all by getting his name wrong lmao. tho, maybe all the storytelling helped!

oh shit its zeta (prime?), here to talk to op, presumably about becoming the next space pope

HHHHHHHHHHHHHH GOD THAT REVEAL!!!!!!!!!!!!! BROOOOO the senator shockwave reveal slapped me right in the FACE the first time I read this, and that's saying something bc I seriously only understood like 40% of the shadowplay story my first readthru. but the shockwave reveal still had me SHOOK like oh god that was so fucking brutal. jesus

like the fact that the emotionless decpeticon shockwave used to have a completely different look and personality is already crazy enough, but then the tie-ins of empurata and shadowplay? brutal and amazing

like, this is the kinda retrospective backstory stuff that I love. it gives a lot of cool depth to both the characters and the world. I feel like it really helped cement concepts like empurata and shadowplay in the world

and just, AUGH The Reveal still gets me...im pretty sure in my first readhtru I only picked up the fact that the senator PURPOSELY hasn't been named during this issue, and I was kinda ready for some sort of reveal but also figured it could be someone I didn't know bc of my limited tf lore knowledge, but even I knew who shockwave was and phew that blew me away

that full-page art spread is fuckin banging also

anyways, shadowplay arc! I really enjoy this arc and all its genre-hopping goodness, and the framing device of the characters telling a story is a lot of fun. plus we get to see a lot of cool backstory for many characters, and got tons of great worldbuilding for jro’s pre-war cybertron.

I understood a lot more of the story upon my second (and now third) readthru of the series, which was super rewarding bc the first time I wasn't able to follow a lot of stuff (1st readthru I tended to assume that me being confused about something was due to my lack of previous knowledge of lore/story, so I didn't often analyze stuff seriously, or even employ critical thinking skills lmao).

also some gnarly stuff went on w/the red alert b-plot, which we’ll pick up with later....

#lj rereads mtmte

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cienie-isengardu · 4 years

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My little OP Theory: Zoro saving Supernova(s) from drowning?

Since I catched up with recent OP chapters my hopes and expectations to see Zoro interacting with other Supernovas have increased significantly. We already could see a bit of how Zoro and Law relationship changed between Punk Hazard and later story arcs; from keeping distance to shared drink and how it’s different from the rest of (male) Straw Hats). I still hope to see more of them together, because Zoro and Law are very similar in many ways and together are entertaining characters and, like I said once, they play the same role as “cool-headed” to Luffy’s chaotic craziness and Sanji / Eustass Kid’s hot-headed tendencies in their respective TRIOs.

Since the Wano arc brought Eustass, Killer, Law, Luffy and Zoro into the same conflict with Kaido (with Drake, Appo, Hawkins on enemy’s side), I expect to see more of their interaction in future. Right now Eustass, Luffy and Zoro seems to be on the same level of, well, reckless stupidity, what suits them just fine. But Wano arc, due to what happened to Killer, makes Zoro the only one from Worst Generation that did not eat devil fruit/SMILE and by extension is THE ONLY ONE THAT STILL CAN SWIM.

And here comes what I hope think we will see in nearest future: Zoro saving from drowning other Supernova(s).

In One Piece it is pretty common for the strongest heroes to fight the boss and his/her/their inner circle of the most dangerous & loyal “officers”. With so many Supernovas in one place, it makes sense to assume the final battle will involve all of them in this or another way. Since the group of allied pirate crews are once again separated into smaller groups, Supernovas may be forced to rely on other members of the Worst Generation instead of their “normal” (weaker) crewmembers. Which means if one of Supernovas will be thrown into water during battle, he A) will become powerless and B) has smaller chance to get help from his own friends.

Up until Wano, Luffy and Eusstas always could rely on Zoro and Killer, respectively, to be saved from drowning, since those Supernovas are their loyal comrades. With Roronoa there is no doubt he would do everything to protect Luffy. And I mean really, everything. The bond between Eustass and Kid, so far is presented as strong as that of Straw Hats duo. What made Luffy and Eustass the only Supernova captains that were supported by other Supernova-level no-devil fruit user that secured their weak point.

Right now, Luffy still doesn’t have to worry because Zoro is always there to pick him out from water. Law - whatever he likes it or not - is recognized as a friend of Luffy and I have no doubt that Zoro would jump into sea after him without second thought if Law was in danger of drowning. I’m not sure how much Law himself is aware of that, but he and Zoro seems to be on friendly terms, so it may not be that surprising reaction after all. At this point, Trafalgar should known that Straw Hats takes care of those they befriended.

Now, Killer, as a SMILE failure, can’t swim thus will not be able to save drowning Kid, if situation turned that way. As a hammer, he can’t save himself either. In time of such eventual danger, both will be (again) powerless to save a friend. After what both suffered so far, the feeling of helplessness will sting as hell.

Killer and Kid don’t seem to like rely on strangers. Eustass especially does not like taking help from others, even when situation is very serious. Sometimes I think he just don’t believe in people’s good will. Frankly, looking how Kid Pirates are known for their ruthlessness - starting with Eustass’s impulsiveness and ending with Killer’s title “Massacre Soldier” - it makes sense they accept stranger’s help with suspiction. Even more if the help comes from other pirates like Straw Hats.

Zoro saving Luffy’s enemy/rival from drowning is nothing new. It happened with Smoker and I will not lie, I love that moment very much. It sets an interesting relationship between Smoker and Straw Hats, not truly allies, not really enemies. Something similar to what was between Gol D. Roger and Monkey D. Garp.

Of course, Kid and Luffy are rivals with the same goal: finding One Piece and becoming Pirate King what makes them both very competitive and agressive toward each other. Their relationship is much more complicated than those of Luffy and Smoker’s or Luffy and Law’s is. They are rivals but they are already tangled into one big mess with Kaido that forced them to ally against common enemy. An alliance that did not stop their passive-agressive behaviour toward each other.

We know Luffy isn’t a guy that let’s other people - even enemy - die and despite his harsh relationship with Kid, he already showed he cared for rival captain and Killer when they were tortured in prison. He was affected by Kid’s rage for what happened to his partner. So there is no doubt that Luffy will want to save Killer and Kid if they were thrown into water and started drowning.

Zoro so far has more or less neutral relationship with Kid, but already fought against Kamazo the Manslayer (Killer) who tried to kill little girl O-Toko. Not the best way to start relationship and it is hard to tell how much Zoro knows about Killer’s state as “pleasure”. During fight when Zoro, Luffy, Kid and Killer teamed up, someone already said aloud that Killer ate SMILE and is one of failures and Kid started wrecking havoc for making fun of his comrade. So, there is a chance Zoro already learned that about his temporary ally and we know from previous chapters how angry he is about the SMILE that take away people feelings leaving them only with laughter. More, Roronoa could understand Killer’s pain; being too weak to save your captain, to be with friend when he needed you the most. So, if Kid is gonna be drowing, saving him would be the right thing to do (approved by Luffy, because no rivalry is worth someone’s life). Because if the roles were reversed, if Luffy were in such danger and Zoro couldn’t save his captain, he wouldn’t forgive himself if something happened to his friend. As the first mate, he can understand Killer’s feelings, because he - like all Straw Hats - already experienced that moment of powerlessness.

I have no doubts that Zoro would be willing to jump into water after both Killer and Kid, if the situation called for such action. I do wish for such thing to happen, partially because there is something magical about such moment; saving your (or your captain) potential rival that build some understanding and respect and maybe even trust between characters. Partially, because such action would definitely allow both pirate crews to celebrate together victory at the end of fight, putting aside their rivalry and ambitions for another day and just drink together and laugh and be happy to be alive.

Is Zoro meant to save other Supernova(s) from drowing, especially Kid or Killer? I sincerely hope that yes.

Becuase really, why else erase Killer “normality” without giving him any additional powers? I mean, beside putting him and Eustass in emotional hell?

Killer ate that damn SMILE to save his captured captain, and most likely was forced to work as Orochi’s assassin that wasn’t sent just after powerful/dangerous enemies but after little girl like O-Toko too. As a SMILE Failure, Killer can only laugh all the time when he hates his own laugh and he endured all of this for saving Eustass. Him, not being able to swim, when Kid may need to be fished out of water in fight full of Emperators and Supernovas and other dangerous being is just creating such possibility. And well, Zoro is the only Supernovas not tainted by devil fruit or SMILE that is gonna be in centrum of the battle for sure.

There is also X-Drake who works undercover and I guess depending on what he is planning to do in upcoming fight, he may be also saved from drowning.

#one piece #roronoa zoro #monkey d. luffy #eustass kid #killer (one piece)#trafalgar law #supernovas #the worst generation #my theories #my thoughts #zoro saving devil fruits users from drowning #gives me so much life #i kinda love to see devil fruit users being thrown into water lol #but seriously #saving smoker was such awesome moment #and now both kid and killer may need saving #especially kid who can't count on killer anymore because of SMILE #and good lord they care of each other so much #i can't wait to see after party between straw hats hearts and kid pirates #just let zoro jump to save one our supernova anchors and i will be happy as hell #one piece spoilers #okay there is also #There is also X-Drake who works undercover and I guess depending on what he is planning to do in upcoming fight he may be also saved from dr #drowning too if he turn out to be ally

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murasaki-murasame · 4 years

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Oh boy that sure was a whole lotta stuff going on in the 1.5-year anniversary digest video, huh?

I was hoping to post some of my predictions and hopes for it beforehand but life stuff got in the way so here we are, lol.

Anyway there’s a lot I wanna talk about across the board so it’ll go under a cut.

When I saw that this digest was like 20 minutes long I figured it’d be padded out, but lol it’s actually even more dense with material than the last one we got. This really makes up for the recent drought of news and content.

Firstly, they immediately showed off Gala Alex, since she’s a given at this point and we all knew it was gonna happen. Funnily enough she actually seems like she might more or less be bait for the banner happening afterward, which also seems to be a shadow element banner.

In general Gala Alex is a weird and complicated character and I’m not sure what to make of her. At first glance she doesn’t seem super essential or game-breaking, but she has poison infliction and buff dispel, so I’d probably benefit from getting her since I don’t really have good units with that sort of utility in my shadow team yet. But I’m not gonna bother doing more than the free daily tenfold summons on this gala, since as a whole she doesn’t interest me much and I think I could live without her.

On top of her weird skill chain mechanic which I’m struggling to wrap my head around, she also introduces the chain co-ability feature, but I’ll get to that later since it’s a whole big thing.

Hopefully she’ll at least let people start accepting sword units into eKai, lol. That fight has a very open and accepting meta, unless you’re a sword unit in which case you’re fucked because there’s currently no meta shadow sword units people want for that fight.

We’re also getting two separate platinum summons for this gala that cover the past gala units, which is honestly kinda tempting to me since I still don’t have Gala Elly, but I’d just have a 1/3 chance of getting her instead of the other two gala units on her platinum summon, who I already have, so it wouldn’t be worth it.

Then there’s a whole bunch of free summons and wyrmite from new endeavors and co-op rewards getting reset. Which will be helpful in building my stash back up, but I’m probably still gonna avoid spending any resources on this gala.

I’m happy that this gala seems like one I can skip, since I went all in to get Tobias, and I didn’t want to end up regretting that.

Anyway, we also got a look at the next raid event, which will start at the end of this month. It looks like it’s another shadow element one, which just reminds me even more how much we need another wind element raid event, but it looks cool. Aldred has a fun, edgy design. I hope he’s actually worth using. As a shadow unit, he’ll at least be competing with the most stacked element in the game. It also looks like the event’s story is gonna involve the Syndicate, which we’ve actually known about via wyrmprint lore since the game came out, but they’ve never come up until now, so that’s interesting.

They also showed off the banner units, who look cool, but it’d take a lot for me to want to summon for them since I have so many good shadow units as it is. They also said it’ll be another two-part banner, which is getting really annoying.

We’re also getting a rerun of the FEH collab event, along with some sort of a new part two event for it, so that’s cool. I started playing the game at the tail end of the FEH collab originally, but I didn’t actually take part in it since I had performance anxiety about doing any of the co-op stuff, lol. So this means i’ll at least finally be able to get Alfonse.

I think the part two event is probably gonna involve more Fire Emblem characters who’ll be on their own banner, but like with the existing FE units, i don’t really have any attachment to that franchise so I probably wouldn’t be interested in pulling for them.

Though on that note, they did say that all of the four existing FEH units will get mana spirals, which might be interesting. But since I already have Euden and Xainfried at 70MC, as well as Gleo, I don’t think I’d be interested in pulling for Marth, Fjorm, or Veronica, lol. It’s at least interesting to set up this precedent, though. I guess we can assume that if Megaman ever gets rerun, he’ll get a mana spiral too.

If we get new FEH units in a part two banner for the event, I feel like they might end up being a bit underwhelming, since they probably won’t come with mana spirals built into their kits, but we’ll see how it goes.

We also got teasers for the next three main story chapters, which isn’t what I expected at all. We already knew when they’d be coming out since they’re on a fixed schedule now, but I didn’t expect actual teasers of the story content in them. Though tbh the thing that intrigues me the most is the gameplay clips of chapter 14 that involve unique maps based around the Alberian capital. I didn’t think we’d get to actually do stuff there, so that’s cool.

Also, them teasing at Leif showing up in chapter 13 is making me think that either he’ll be the next gala unit, or a welfare unit. Hopefully the latter, since he’s obviously a light sword unit and we already have Gala Euden as a light sword. If he’s a welfare unit, though, I hope he’s not super weak like Laxi.

We’re also getting the event replay feature, but sadly it seems like there won’t be any raid events in it at first, and the facility events included from the start are ones that have gotten reruns relatively recently. So that’s a bit lame. I’m glad they said that they plan on adding raid events to it, though. It looks like you can at least get the facilities from the facility events, so I hope we can also get the welfare units from raid events.

With the new version update they’re also apparently introducing a new currency called fafnir medals which can, to some degree or another, be exchanged for different materials. There’s a whole list of them, but let’s be honest here. The only one that actually matters is the gold testaments, lmao. Unless there’s a really rigid cap on how many of them you can trade for each week/month, that’ll probably be the main thing people trade for. Hopefully it can help address the need for more testaments [especially now that co-abilities are a bit more important]

Then there’s a few bits and pieces to the 1.18 update that they didn’t even mention in the digest. Like how there’ll be adjustments to daily endeavors, the addition of normal endeavors related to using skip tickets on your daily stages, and the ability to check your summon history. But the biggest deal they didn’t mention is how they’re standardizing drop rates in e/mHDTs, and adding horns to the weekly bonus chests for eHDTs. Which is basically exactly what people had been asking for.

We’re also eventually gonna get our encyclopedia feature, which will be nice, especially since it apparently comes with rewards based on how much stuff you have. Which will probably provide a huge batch of rewards to old players right off the bat.

They also showed off two more Agito bosses, who will probably be the next two ones. They didn’t say which would come out next, exactly, but we at least got their names and full designs, which also spells out what elements they are. I can’t actually remember their names at the moment, but the Sylvan lady is water, while the twins are flame. Since wind units have been getting some attention lately, I think the Sylvan lady will be next, and then the flame twins afterward, but we’ll see. One way or another I think the final Agito is gonna be the shadow element one. Which is a bit lame, since my light team really needs a boost. Oh well.

Oh, and they also teased at the Agito, or at least Volk, being formally introduced in chapter 14 of the main campaign, so that’s interesting.

And of course one of the biggest things in this whole update is the huge changes to co-abilities in general. Chain co-abilities are the main thing, but I’m also really intrigued by how in co-op matches, you’ll now take on the effects of your own team’s co-abilities, rather than the co-abilities of the main units your team-mates are using. On the one hand it means you can more comfortably run multiple units of the same weapon type in co-op without feeling like it’s a waste, but I feel like it’s also gonna introduce new ways to cheese some fights, like how 4-Gleo comps can now benefit from stuff like defensive co-abilities from AI units. I think that sort of situation was an intentional choice on Cygames’ part, though. It seems like their way of helping to make end-game content easier and more accessible. It also means that you have to depend less on your team-mates if you need stuff like defensive coabilities to survive an opening blast or something. So you can control that yourself and not worry about what co-op room you end up in.

But the real star of the show, whether or not it ends up being more game-changing than the change to how co-abilities are applied in general, is the chain co-ability feature. Which basically just seems to be a straight up second co-ability that every unit gets, but with the unique quality that they can stack with each other. I don’t actually know how often you’d bother stacking them, though. I looked through all the units I own and what chain co-abilities they have, and it seems like in each element, it’s usually units of the same weapon type that have overlapping chain co-abilities [like Mitsuhide and Fritz getting combo time]. So most of the time I don’t think you’d bother. It also looks like they’re kinda under-tuned, stat-wise, probably to compensate for them being stackable, so I think they might ultimately not be a huge deal, but hey, it’s just a straight up bonus set of stats on top of everything else, lol.

It’s a bit overwhelming since literally EVERY character has a chain co-ability now, and there’s way more variety in them than with regular co-abilities, but there are a few that stick out to me.

-Water seems to be the only element with units that have buff time chain co-abilities, from what I can tell, with Renee, S-Estelle, and Cibella having it. I think this might make S-Estelle a more valued AI team-mate for water teams, since buff time is a pretty big deal, and she also brings the skill damage coability.

-Light seems like one of the main cases where you might stack chain co-abilities, since S-Luca, Annelie, and Fritz have the same one that gives a strength buff whenever you get an energy stack [with a cooldown]. Which I think has a lot of potential, depending on how exactly it works.

-On a similar note, Lucretia has one that gives her a chance to get inspiration stacks when she gets energy stacks [I forget if it applies to just her or the whole team, though], which is interesting. I had a feeling they’d start adding inspiration mechanics to light to complement the amount of energy mechanics going on with them.

-OG Xainfried gets Dragon Claws VI, which seems like it’ll probably be a pretty huge deal for him. Pipple also gets about 18% dragon haste when he’s maxed out, which seems like it’d complement really nicely with Xainfried’s kit.

-Mitsuhide and Fritz’s combo time chain co-ability is gonna be REALLY nice for Gala Luca, since he kinda struggles to keep a high combo, but part of his kit relies on it.

-There’s a whole lot of units who get defensive chain co-abilities which will probably help people get by in HDTs even more. Including units with offensive co-abilities like Mikoto and Valerio.

All in all it seems like a really overwhelming and potentially game-changing mechanic. I also think it’s gonna be just about impossible to properly reflect the implications of it in the DPS sims, lol. This introduces way too many variables. And even then, the DPS sims won’t account for any of the more defensive ones, which have their own value.

Since the chain co-abilities seem to be tied to the regular co-abilities with how they get upgraded, it sounds like this is gonna incentivize getting more people’s co-ability nodes, which will also involve more use of testaments.

The chain co-abilities are one thing, but there’s also some interesting uses for how you benefit from your own AI members’ co-abilities in co-op. Mainly for characters with unique co-abilities like Tobias, H-Mym, and V-Melody. I think Ezelith is gonna basically always want to have an H-Mym on her team, Lin You is gonna want V-Melody on her team, and any wind buffer other than Tobias is gonna want a Tobias on the team to give them more buff-time.

Oh, and I almost forgot that they also casually mentioned that they’re gonna be bringing back defensive battle event types in the future. They didn’t go into much detail about it, but I assume it means that we’ll get more random events once in a while with the same sort of format as the FEH one. Hopefully that’d help alleviate the feeling of stagnation that comes with constantly alternating between raid and facility events endlessly. Since I didn’t actually participate in the FEH event I don’t know what that whole event type entails, though.

I’m probably forgetting lots of stuff they talked about, but they talked about a LOT of stuff, lol. It’s hard to keep track of it all. I wasn’t expecting such a substantial update for the 1.5-year anniversary, but I’m happy with it.

#murasaki rambles #dragalia lost #no thoughts in my head only mini zodi u_u

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makeste · 5 years

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BnHA Chapter 196: Beastmode, Brainwashing, and Batrachian Bullshit

Previously on BnHA: Everyone said hi to their new brother Shinsou. Aizawa and Vlad announced the specifics of the day’s training exercise. Each class was split into 5 groups of 4 which will be pitted against each other one at a time. The goal of the exercise is for a team to successfully capture all 4 members of the opposing team and throw them into cute Rat Principal jail. Shinsou was randomly assigned to join one team each from class A and class B. He just so happened to be teamed up with class A’s first group, which also includes Kirishima, Kaminari, Kouda, and Tsuyu. They’re up against class B’s team of Shiozaki, Sabretooth Shishida, Tsuburaba, and some guy with a braid and a visor that reminds me of those Kanye glasses. The battle began and the 1-A kids pondered how best to sic Kaminari on the 1-B group. But before they could figure something out, Shishida -- who has a literal beastmode quirk -- and Tsuburaba came barreling at them in a surprise attack. They were just about to strike a finishing blow when Shinsou suddenly shouted something using Tsubu’s voice, revealing that the weird mask thing he’s been wearing is actually a voice changer, oh damn.

Today on BnHA: Shinsou uses his quirk on Shishida, but a quick-thinking Tsuburaba traps him inside a soundproof air box and then quickly snaps Shishi out of it. Shishi proceeds to slam Kaminari into a wall but gets himself zapped in the process. Tsuyu takes advantage of the chaos to snag Tsuburaba with her frog tongue and haul him off to jail. When Shishida lumbers after them, Kirishima and Kouda intervene, but Shishida uses his beastmode to fling Kirishima like 50 feet into the air, where he’s then captured by Shiozaki’s vines. Shishi grabs Kouda and takes off, giving B Team a 2-1 lead. The teams regroup, and Shinsou apologizes to Tsuyu and Kaminari for failing to capture Shishida more quickly. The other two reassure him and Kaminari declares his friendship, before Tsuyu announces that she has a new plan. Turns out that Kaminari fired his pointer disc thingy earlier and planted it on Shishida, which means that they can now track his location. We then cut to Team B and Shishida, who is sniffing around unawares trying to track the rest of Team A. Suddenly he announces that Tsuyu is heading towards them... and there are apparently three of her.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my mostly-unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’m caught up with the manga now at chapter 222, so any ETAs will reflect that.)

awesome, a flashback explaining Shinsou’s quirk! I know some of this already because it was mentioned in response to my speculation about Izuku being AFO’s son and potentially having the AFO quirk. but it’s still cool to get to this point in canon

so basically, Shinsou just concentrates and thinks “brainwash that person” and then tries to get the target to respond, and if they do then he gains control over them and they’ll do whatever he says (unless they can snap out of it like Izuku did; it takes a “certain degree of force” to accomplish that)

and he says that although he’s never tried, he doesn’t think he would be concentrate enough to brainwash more than one person at a time

now that part I did not know, and it makes this fight much more interesting! because I assume he’s targeting Beastmode who is the biggest threat here. but it means that they still have to deal with Tsuburaba though

also doesn’t this contradict what we saw in the sports festival, though? he had multiple people brainwashed at once for sure there. “never tried it” my ass

(ETA: I think what this means is that he has to brainwash them one at a time. he can control multiple people at once, but if he were faced with four different un-brainwashed people and he tried to get them to all fall under his control simultaneously he wouldn’t be able to handle it, basically.)

and this is interesting too

so much for any fleeting hope that Shinsou could potentially serve as a truth serum character in Nemoto’s place. damn

wow he’s really getting detailed here

this is actually encouraging to me, because it means that Horikoshi is taking steps to add more checks and balances to Shinsou’s super OP quirk (making it so that he can’t just interrogate villains that easily for instance), which suggests that he’s getting ready to add him as a full time character. bring it on!

so flashback!Kaminari, who really isn’t as dumb as everyone always makes him out to be -- having the lowest test scores in a class full of geniuses is hardly anything to be ashamed of -- is saying that it must be tough now that everyone knows how Shinsou’s quirk works from the sports festival

and now flashback!Shinsou is pointing to his voice changer mask and explaining its purpose

...hold up, what? it loses its effectiveness? than what is the point

okay I just went and found Mangastream’s translation which makes much more sense, here it is

looks like I’m gonna have to go back and forth between these scanlations today. or maybe I’ll just stick with MS for now because this is the third issue the JBox translation has had in as many pages, so

(ETA: yeah, aside from this one panel I ended up just using MS for everything because it’s easier and I don’t have to worry as much about inaccuracies.)

that sounds like some bullshit as far as the explanation for how this thing changes his voice, but it’s The Future so I’ll roll with it lol

anyway so Kaminari is thoroughly impressed and says that with that he’s basically unbeatable

he’s not, though. as long as the opponent takes care not to respond to any voice, no matter who they think it is, they’re safe. though it does hamper their ability to communicate with each other

but anyways, I suppose situations like that are where the capture weapon comes in, though I imagine he’s still very much a novice. I seem to recall that it took Aizawa a number of years to master it himself, and Shinsou’s only had about six months

so flashback Shinsou is saying that whether the voice changer is strong or not depends on him

and as he says that, the flashback is ending and we’re cutting back to the present

and he’s unveiling the capture scarf! yessssss

-- uh oh

lol well that’s one effective way to shut him down

and now Tsubu is smacking Sabretooth upside the head to snap him out of the brainwashing

damn, class B. not bad

and now they know what’s what

but this must have given the other class A kids a few essential seconds to regroup, right? Kami where are you, let’s do this

why does this panel make it look like his attack is focused in his hand. the human stun gun method would work just as well in this case so long as you’re quick. though I get why you’d maybe want to keep your distance from Beastmode there

nooooooooo

MY BOY SACRIFICED HIMSELF

or Beastmode sacrificed himself. because he must have known what would happen if he touched him, but by doing so he took out class A’s queen in exchange for a measly pawn or knight or bishop or whatever you want to make him in this stupid chess metaphor I pulled out of my ass lol

(ETA: actually THEY’RE BOTH FINE SOMEHOW so never mind! April Fool’s, I guess.)

meanwhile Tsubu jumped off of his back just in time to avoid being stunned himself

Tsuyu you better take this guy out. he’s too good and you’ve still got Shiozaki and Braidvisor to deal with on top of that

oh thank god, he’s still in one piece. I know, it’s just a training exercise, but y’all know how brutal this school can be, and what with them having access to Recovery Girl, they’re probably cool with letting the kids take a fair amount of punishment before they’d actually consider stepping in

(ETA: listen, these supposedly responsible adults were apparently cool with everyone potentially burning to death two fights from now, so I feel like I was absolutely right to be concerned here.)

ahh, there we go!

yes Tsuyu yessss, you know I love it when characters actually listen to me lol

-- oh shit

YEAH WHAT GIVES

Kouda and Kirishima are stepping in to give Tsu some cover though!

I’m a little worried about Kouda but at least Kiri is in Unbreakable mode. sure hope his time limit on that has increased

oh snap!!

[theme from Ant-Man intensifies]

look who got over his fear of bugs! I’m so proud of you Kouda

HEY WHAT

THAT’S CHEATING

son of a bitch. I really ought to be rooting for class B here because they need to win at least two of the first three in order for this to play out the way I want it to with Bakugou and Deku’s matches both being do-or-die, everything-on-the-line. which means only one of the other 3 class A teams can win, and so I want that to be Momo lol

but it’s just so hard to go against that natural instinct to root for class A, man. these are my children, give me a break

anyway, Shishida says that Kiri is the only one who can pose a threat to his ability, and that’s why he’s...

...punting him into the sky oh good lord

KIRIIIII

oh snap he’s remembering their intel about Shiozaki coming at them from the left

and he’s looking to the left and AHHHHHH

JESUS CHRIST CLASS B I WAS HOPING TO GET A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP TONIGHT

and now Shishida is free to kick Kouda’s ass oh shit

Kami’s running over to try and save him, and he’s firing his disc weapon!

Shishi’s dodging but that’s okay since as we know, this is a two-stage attack

Tsuyu’s descending on Shishi from behind, but it seems like he’s aware of her presence

these guys have a counter for everything, goddamn

and now he’s bounding off with Kouda in tow

and just like that, the formerly outnumbered class B is now tied with class A in terms of available manpower

but class B actually has the advantage now because they’ve captured two of class A’s members whereas only one of their team was captured. meaning that if they just wait out the clock, they’ll win

so now class A has to go on the offensive, which is gonna be tough because Tsuyu is more suited to rescue operations than combat, and Shinsou is still just a novice. so they really only have Kami, and they’ll have to be very careful with how they use him because if he gets taken out they’re screwed

seems like the odds were in class B’s favor from the start for this battle. their team is all powerhouses, whereas this is arguably class A’s weakest team in terms of combat quirks. damn

why is he guarding the cells? once they’re captured they’re out. there’s no rescue element to this game as far as I recall, he should be out in the field with the others

lol meanwhile the captured Tsuburaba is trying to figure out whether he accidentally got to first base

the answer is no but good try kid

also who’s commentating. this definitely isn’t Aizawa or Vlad, or All Might either. the only other teacher there is Midnight, as far as I know, but this doesn’t quite sound like her either. did Mic skip out on his afternoon classes in order to come watch too. is there anyone left to actually teach school right now

now Tsuyu is busting through Shinsou’s air prison with a lead pipe

she says the air barriers are much stronger than they were back at the sports festival when Bakugou was able to break through with his bare fist

and now she’s all “class B sure is strong” and YEAH

LOOOOOOOOOL

SO IT WAS VLAD OH MY GOD ARE YOU SERIOUS. THIS IS A WHOLE NEW SIDE OF YOU AND I LOVE IT

sorry Mina but this is class B’s day today honey

Sero and Satou are discussing Shishida who seems to be the breakout star of class B so far in this battle

but meanwhile Deku’s focus is on Shinsou, which is smart given that he’s going to have to go up against him in just a little bit

and meanwhile Kami is turning to Tsuyu for leadership now

yeah, you really didn’t play that out so well. you already knew his quirk going in, basically. you could have spent that time coming up with a strategy

poor Shinsou

he has very expressive eyes. I can’t believe we had to wait nearly 200 chapters for this boy to finally become one of the main characters

Tsuyu says she should be the one apologizing

well. yes, you guys should have had a plan. but I’m not so sure about the not-having-him-on-the-front-lines part. you all are so good yourselves precisely because you’ve been on the front lines from day one. trial by fire runs in class A’s blood, so let him get a taste of that too, maybe

Kaminari says it’s impressive that Shinsou did even as well as he did, and that he saved his ass

Kaminari honestly gives Kirishima a run for his money as the goodest boy in 1-A. this kid is affectionate with everyone

Shinsou is brushing off the compliment like a good tsundere and he’s all “...whatever” and says they should come up with a plan

EWWWWW

TSUYU WHY

she’s telling Kami to “look at his pointer.” what?

and now we’re cutting to class B again

actually they’d really be better off just booking it out of there and hiding someplace to wait until the time runs out now. the 1-A team has no trackers left and like I said earlier, they currently have the advantage. there’s no point in confronting the rest of them and risking getting caught

I was waiting to see if someone would point this out like they usually do, but it appears this time they’re not! Horikoshi is this a plot hole or are they just not thinking this through

you can actually avoid him either way, dude. seriously

ah, looks like he smells something all of a sudden

what the hell is going on

how is he amazing for having failed to notice something lol

(ETA: or, duh, it’s sarcasm doy)

so okay, now Kaminari is running somewhere and he’s all charged up and thinking back to when Mei first made his little stun gun

-- oh!

how did he not notice that lol omg

this means that if Kami gets in range he can take him out with one shot!

holy shit!!

SINCE WHEN IS THIS SOMETHING A FROG CAN DO

but now Shiozaki is stepping up to bat oh shit

my dudes are we actually going to get the Tsuyu battle we were robbed of back during the internship arc. holy shiiiiiit

and that’s it for today! tune in tomorrow to find out what kind of bizarre frog shit our beloved Froppy will pull out of her hat next

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natsthinkitythinkthinkthonk · 5 years

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Kiznaiver - Thoughts

I just finished Kiznaivers and despite people on both sides saying that they love it or hate it, I can say that it fits the niche that I was looking for, so I really liked it. I like shows where romance is prevalent but not the most relevant plot point of the show. The cast wasn’t as bad as I thought they were going to be, and I ended up enjoying this more than I should’ve. I’m about to get hyper-critical on a show that was given a 9/10 on MAL because that 9 was purely based on enjoyment.

Pros

Voice Cast

Good cast of characters (at times)

Good concept

Good script (at times)

Amazing art

Stunning music

Cons

Some of the characters aren’t that great

Lots of things are left hanging or just never got addressed ever

Story and writing can leave some things to be desired

Was not done to its fullest potential

Spoilers and full thing below!

Story

I separated stories and characters this time because I felt like I wanted to address both on their own.

The script was written by Mari Okada who’s known for writing the script for other sob stories like Anthem of the Heart and Anohana. I really like her writing despite criticism saying that her style is melodramatic. The script was a bit stuck at times during its idle moments, but when it was trying to hit, sometimes, it truly resonated with me. But I’ll admit, the tone of the show had a few mixed messages at times that took away the impact of her writing. It was unfortunate but between the mascot things and the Trigger art style, I understand how people think that the show can’t be taken seriously.

The story itself... needs to be taken with a large grain of salt. Or maybe a small pile. Heck, just take the whole bag of salt. It establishes more questions than they could ever answer within their run. While you can mount most of this to humans and their stupid ideas, I have a hard time believing that this happened in modern-day Japan with kids under the government’s eye with mascots roaming about. Yeah... it gets off to a bit of a rough start.

Characters

In this kind of show, characters are vital to the show’s success. This show takes the classic “seven deadly sins” and spin them off using a mix of classic anime tropes. We have the “lifeless kid”, “tsundere”, “thug”, “eccentric freak”, “ikemen”, “cold bitch”, and “insane masochist”. We also have the “mysterious girl” to top it all off, but I found her annoying throughout the duration of the entire story. It didn’t even matter once her backstory was revealed, I didn’t like her.

But want to know the weird thing? I liked the tsundere and thug. Chidori and Tenga were my favourite characters. This cast was written pretty well. Maki the “cold” one gets the development she deserved. We barely touched upon the other characters besides Noriko, Katsuhira, Maki, and the environment. Maki’s development had so much potential, and luckily, they used a lot of it. However, as I mentioned before, too many ends were left undone. We see characters have issues that are never addressed. One character arguably has an eating disorder, and I was waiting for them to come out, say, it, and show us that it’s okay to come out. And for a male character at that. Why couldn’t we have that? And Maki’s development, she’s bisexual. It’s canon. Nice. I think they could’ve gone further into it. Where and how did Chidori and Kacchon meet if he wasn’t “always like this”? I felt that the romantic connection between Niko and Tenga was kind of forced within episodes eight and nine, but that scene in episode eight and nine was so well done by all standards. Given the certain circumstances, maybe it didn’t hit that hard, but for me, it gave a pretty good impact. The love confessions were so well acted that even if the feelings flew over my head, I still felt bad for them.

The way I see it, Noriko and Katsuhira go way back and their past is the reason why they wreak havoc on these other people’s lives (I weirdly didn’t like either of the leads). Noriko does it because she’s in pain, and Katsuhira is like this because he never got over his childhood crush and doesn’t understand anything. Chidori deserves better than she got, I don’t know why she gets so much hate. Her design is cute, she has the perfect voice, and she’s transparent making her very easy to read. Tenga is super transparent too. He’s the kindhearted thug, and I like that trope. His genuine liking towards Chidori comes across easily. I also like the whole “trying to set people up but falling in love along the way” when it’s done right (look at Toradora). Yuta is good, but we got nothing on him. Maki is great. She got the development she deserved, and even though it took a whole chunk of the show, it was one of the best parts of the series. Hisomu is just a messy insert character who is a masochist because it fit the niche of the series. He also spews wisdom at times because he’s a plot device. I didn’t strongly hate any of the cast.

Art

Yuzuru Tachikawa has worked on Death Parade and Mob Psycho 100. And with Trigger’s style, the anime turned out great. The OP and ED were stunning in their own right. Even when the anime got emotional, it was still good! The art did its job great and showed the eccentric side of their characters in a way that made me believe them even more.

Sound

This is one of the strongest parts of the anime. The OP by BOOM BOOM SATELLITES was so catchy, fitting, and I know they won’t ever make a song like that again because of the tragic death of one of the two members but this song was such a high note. The ending was great and with the visuals, I liked it! The score was done by Yuki Hayashi which I didn’t find out until after I watched the show, and if you don’t know what he has worked on, he has done Haikyuu, My Hero Academia, and more. When they use the soundtrack, it’s really good. I just wish they let it showcase a little more.

The voice acting! Where do I even start?

Another role for Kaji, and honestly, I have heard too many main characters by him now. My outlook was like Katsuhira. It was so bland. His performance as an actor was great leaving little to ask for, but I almost wish this role was given to a smaller voice actor to get their big break.

Tomoaki Maeno has blown me away quite a few times with his performance in Death Parade and Hak in Akatsuki no Yona. He was also really good as Doujou in Library Wars and the White Blood Cell in Hataraku Saibou. However, he has had quite a few misses for me. One of the biggest misses was the main character role as *cough* Dino (*STOMPS FOOT*) in Blend S.

Nobunaga Shimazaki is quite a capable voice actor too, but he is mostly known for a certain niche with his higher voice. Ironically, this character in Kiznaiver doesn’t hesitate to swim. One of his most notable roles is Haruka Nanase from Free. I personally know him for playing Shinichi in Parasite and Kaidou from Saiki. I would say something more, but as his character wasn’t developed much, what can I say? A voice actor only gets as good as the writing does.

Ironically, both Yuka Terasaki and Hibiku Yamamura are known for voicing the child versions of a lot of main characters but don’t get as many main characters themselves.

And I tried to see whether there was any other Terasaki role that I would want to watch, and honestly, there wasn’t anything (since I hold general consensus and genre above voice actors). I wanted there to be, but there wasn’t any. Her performance for Chidori was so powerful, innocent, pure, naive, and raw that I was genuinely surprised. Terasaki got married a little while back. Congrats! Maeno and Terasaki both gave me surprises performance-wise.

But you know who else surprised me? Kuno. Misaki Kuno. I only know her for voicing children or babies or the token mascot pig. This was genuinely surprising. I had already heard Sugita and her having a heart-to-heart conversation, and I heard her interview saying that she had a hard time with this role, but it came out beautifully.

Rina Satou is a very, very, very strong voice actress. She’s almost as old as Sugita and Nakamura. She’s married with a kid, and this role was done just a year before that news came about. In fact, this anime came out in 2016, but within that same year, she revealed she had a kid and was married. You probably heard her voice somewhere, but she doesn’t have a whole lot of mainstream leading roles. She does have a seiyuu award for Best Leading Actress though.

And Koutarou Nishiyama... right... him... his BL career (assuming he has one) is paying off because you can certainly see it shine? I don’t know. The writing didn’t let this character go far. Maybe another role will make me respect him as an actor.

This show had a strong voice cast, and it’s one of the strongest parts of the show.

#kiznaiver #anime thoughts

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sugar--pie · 6 years

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Recently I made a post talking about Barlee’s recent tweets and how I personally believe it doesn’t kill off Klance. I recommend reading it before you continue reading this HELLA. LONG. POST. As I might refer back to it a few times.

Edit: just want to add in here, that Barlee said those tweets weren’t about Klance, and that they were about Shiro being Rep. She also said she doesn’t know the end result of the series though... so I’m still gonna keep this post. But a lot of the things I talked about in that post about Klance in general, I’ll still refer to. Please remember to read my edits at the end too! Thanks :)

Okay.

So even after I made that post, I still had a major panic attack and slowly lost hope in Klance again. Idk, I’ve fallen way too deep into this it’s not even healthy probably, it felt like literal heart break. And I’m not even LGBT, I have another reasoning behind why I’m not really for Allura/Lance... and Season 7 kinda fuelled it a bit more. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. That post will be made after Season 8... if I manage to somehow be horrifically incorrect about what I’m going to talk about here. Which... I highly doubt I will. But I’ll keep a cushion to be safe.

I’m going to make bullet points:

One of the biggest problems the Klance fandom had before was that they put the Klance GogglesTM on for everything. Some specific things in the show were obvious yes, or at least it should be to everyone, but some things were stretched out way too far.

One of these scenarios is the theory (yes theory, this was never confirmed to be true, it’s just an assumption) that Hunk was given what was meant to be Lance’s arc with his family.

Reason why this became a theory was because of Barlee’s Tweets. And this is kind of where I started to lose hope again.

If Hunk was given Lance’s arc then that must mean Klance was written out. Because it was all about Keith and Hunk, when it “should’ve been” Keith and Lance.

However, I was seriously thinking about it as my last few morsels of hope started leaving me during work UNTIL BAM! IT HIT ME!

Yeah. Klance gogglesTM. Fans have grown to projecting Klance on to everything. And that includes Hunks arc, but trust me when I say this. Hunk was never given Lance’s arc. This is meant to be Hunks arc, through and through.

Keith was also included in Hunks arc because he is the one who didn’t have a family from the start. Including Keith in Hunks arc is demonstrating the growth Keith has had throughout the series.

Hunk was admitted to being the most underdeveloped character in the show. I remember it from an interview (video I believe) where Joaquim and Lauren say they had trouble with Hunk when creating him because, comparing him to his 80’s counterpart, was a lot different and they had trouble putting him in certain roles.

That is really lame, don’t get me wrong, but this explains why Hunks arc in Season 7 felt rushed and out of place. Hunk only mentioned missing earth or “not wanting to be a paladin” once in the beginning. And he wasn’t super upset about it.

Lance on the other hand was. He was vocal about missing earth, He was shown getting upset, leaving the room and opening up to Coran about it. This is where I think people mistook what Lance’s arc was meant to be. Even I misunderstood because of this scene.

however, this is where I’m going to point out, that yes, this is the start of Lance’s arc (“Lance and Keith’s arcs have been the only two that have lasted the entirety of the series” - incorrectly quoted by Joaquim)(I’ll expand on this a little later), but Lance’s arc isn’t about family.

I know, shocker. And it should’ve been obvious from the get go. But oooooh nooo, it wasn’t because we focused too much attention on Lance missing his family here. But let me ask:

How many times in the show has Lance voiced about missing home besides this scene? Yeah... try making a list for that lol. That’s because we took it way out of context and made it a bigger deal for Lance’s character when... it isn’t. Lance’s arc was never about family or missing earth.

Writing a show, you need to make sure the characters move into the spot they’ll need to be in. They used Lance missing earth in order to make him go off on his own, and have Coran follow.

Why you ask? It should be obvious. This could be a stretch but a very realistic one: Lance needed to be by the Crystal with Coran when it explodes, to ultimately, lead to the Bonding moment. Boom.

Lance’s Arc started here. Lance’s arc is a Romance Arc and it’s been in our faces the whole time.

He’s had more scenes voicing his charm and making it known from the get go.

He’s flirted.

It’s canon he wants to fall in love with someone.

His blog talked about crushing on Allura and wanting to be called pretty.

He’s the most feminine coded character as he enjoys generally feminine tropes like taking care of his appearance, even more so than Allura, who has only ever referenced being “girly” by having her hair done by mice(?) and wanting something sparkly.

This is also why Lance’s romantic life is such a focus not only for us, but when being talked about at Conventions. He’s the only one to have a canon romantic endgame. Gee, should’ve been obvious there what his arc is about.

And what finally made me realize Lance’s arc is a romance arc, is remembering when Lauren and Joaquim told us during a discussion that “Lance doesn’t know what he needs. We know what Lance might look for, but it’s not necessarily what he needs.” Lance being the only one known to have a canon endgame, ties into this.

This, made me realize. Lance’s arc, will be him realizing what he needs. I think it’s already leading up to it, personally because of this season alone. But arguably, it started picking up once Keith left in Season 4.

So No, Lance’s family arc was never given to Hunk because Lance was never meant to have an arc based around his family in the first place. We knew Lance missed his family and earth, but it wasn’t the main focus for him so that’s why all we saw was this glorious reaction to seeing his family again. And why the only lead role out of his family is Veronica.

(Keep in mine Keith is made out to be a focal point within this scene as well. Hunk too. I’ll bring this back up.)

So... now that I’ve covered the ground work in this long ass essay. Let’s continue the essay!

Now that we know Hunks arc was never meant for Lance, and Lance instead has a Romance Arc, let’s consider his endgame options:

In my post about Barlee’s Tweets, a lot of people assumed she was referring to a lot of things implying Lance will just end up in a rushed relationship with Allura, and I was one of these people too at first. But then it made me think. There was a lot, and I mean a lot of Keith and Lance interactions, and most of those, as I said in the Barlee post, demonstrated the trust and teamwork between the two right away, as well as had undertones and subtlety towards romantic intentions. Keith also has been a focal point in generally Lance centric moments, like above when he runs to hold his family. Hunk makes sense of being present because it starts the “family” portion of his arc this season. Keith however, only makes sense if he has purpose in Lance’s Arc, otherwise he wouldn’t be a focus and made apparent that he’s watching Lance reunite with his family. Make note that Allura was not.

The game show for example, If Lance liked Allura so much and was meant to end up with her, he would’ve picked her to leave. But instead, he chose Keith and also had a very sweet reasoning behind why, including a very dopey fond look on his face.

That’s why I love Pidge’s reaction in that scene because she practically sums up pretty much everyone’s reaction. Even mine. All of them were probably expecting him to pick Allura, (maybe even himself) but nonetheless, they weren’t expecting him to pick Keith, even Keith himself.

That’s why Keith reacts the way he does. I guarantee you he panicked.

Filler episodes in Voltron have always foreshadowed in some way, I wouldn’t be surprised if having Lance and Keith choose each other isn’t blatant foreshadowing.

Overall, there was more Keith and Lance interactions that included romantic subtext, compared to Lance and Allura, this season alone.

This is why it confused me a lot if the showrunners did write out Klance. They wouldn’t have included such strong scenarios with the two in this season if that’s the case. Not only this season but also the smaller ones that implies something more between the two in season 4, and season 6.

This is the point I’m going to bring in something interesting I read in this post. The OP said it’s probably a reach (when are they ever not?) but this is where I think Allura randomly having feelings for Lance, comes into Lance’s Arc.

Like we’ve been saying since the beginning, Allura has been what Lance has wanted from the start. But in OP’s post, they mentioned how the only time Lance had shown insecurity and being unsure of himself this seaosn, was right after his scene with Allura (and Veronica teasing him about it). That was the only scene that caused insecurity.

THIS IS SUPER IMPORTANT TO POINT OUT YALL.

Lance had been secluded from season 4-6. He started getting closer to Allura, but then Lotor came along and changed that.

This is where I believe “what Lance wants isn’t necessarily what he needs,” makes sense. Allura has started having feelings for Lance, but then ending up together would be, as said by Lauren, “a disservice to both their characters.”

Allura getting feelings so soon kind of proved to me after realizing all this, that, no she isn’t Lance’s endgame. Like we’ve been saying Allura is what he wants. But not what he needs.

But who... pray tell.. is what he needs.

Keith.

I know, I know. This is the part where the typical Klance Goggles would probably come in. But I’m serious about this guys.

The moment Keith came back into the picture, Lance had been put into a more important role.

Keith listened to him, trusted him immediately and asked Lance to take over multiple times. Lance never had a moment of insecurity because everything fell back into place, and Keith made him feel useful again. Lance was once again the Red Paladin and Keith’s Right hand.

Tying in Lance being vocal about Keith “running away”, I don’t think people are far off from thinking Lance actually opened up to how he actually felt when Keith Left. And even showing worry when Keith said he’s going back for Acxa. Might as well put it in a present and wrap it up with a little bow.

Keith is ultimately what Lance had been needing the whole time. And Lance, I believe, will realize it. He’ll figure out that Allura isn’t what he needs, and because his moment of insecurity stems from an interaction he and Allura had, is also foreshadowing it too.

Throwing back to when I said Lance and Keith have had the longest arcs since the beginning, (quoted by Joaquim himself), this would explain why Lance’s finality to his arc hasn’t happened yet. It’s because it includes Keith, and Allura (possibly even Acxa which I explained in the Barlee post) and will most likely happen in season 8. The ultimate slowburn endgame.

This is where the bonding moment will be acknowledge.

They’ll also acknowledge two important scenes; Keith’s almost sacrifice, and Lances actual death (which included parallels to their season 1 bonding moment with Lance and Allura.)

And also “the other part” to Keith’s reason for leaving the team for the BOM.

Parallels are for a reason. And oooh boi.

Did my brain manage to restore faith back in Klance. Yup. Even if I’m the ONLY ONE LEFT IN THE FANDOM, I know what I’m talking about here. And if Allura/Lance do end up canon after all when it really makes no sense to, I will be one confused fucking bitch.

I believe I covered everything my jumbled brain puked out. So please, keep the faith Klance fandom. There is more story to unfold!

Edit: and technically I’m already again a really confused bitch. The Barlee post might be useless now, since she specifically stated she was referring to Shiro. And he was the intended rep.

I’m not upset again I’m just downright confused once again. Butttt... at this point. Maybe stuff will be answered in season 8. But overall, a lot of my points in this still stand!

Edit 2: Ultimately (I say this a lot), the one thing I knew from the start, is that Keith and Lance would have something to do with eachothers arcs, and arguably, they have, considering Lance and Keith’s arcs have been the longest arcs in the show. So even if Klance isn’t endgame. At this point, they have definitely become best friends and have grown on their own and with each other. And that, is still a very, very beautiful thing. No they don’t have to be together romantically. But they can and will be by each others side for a long time after the series ends.

Because that’s what Klance is. Lance and Keith, back to back. Thank you for reading. :)

#klance #laith #voltron #vld #voltron legendary defender #voltron crew #voltron s7 #voltron season 7 #keith #lance #kogane #mcclain #faithinlaith!#voltron season 8

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probabltbry · 5 years

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Carole & Tuesday [Rants/My Opinion/Controversy]

THIS TOOK SO LONG TO WRITE, PLEASE SKIM IT AT LEAST (T.T).

This is very different than what I usually post and I want to begin by saying that I may not have all of the facts! I am basing this on what I’ve seen other people say on this site (and others) and fact checking. I am open to learning and understanding more, and I will read any and all comments (if this post gets any lol). If this changes anything, I am making this post through the lense of a black bisexual female, so my view on things may be different. :)

I try to keep this spoiler free in general, but since I’m going to talk about characters and episodes that have released that’s a little impossible, so I will warn you if there are any spoilers in the section I discuss. I want people who haven’t seen the anime to get a taste of what it is!

In this long post I will touch on the following; LGBT+ representation, POC representation, exposure of the anime(streaming and where to find it), the community/fandom of C&T, Cybelle????!!, and other characters. Remember- this is my opinion and that is always subject to change.

For those of you who don’t know about Carole & Tuesday, it’s a Spring 2019 anime directed by Shinichiro Watanbe in association with the popular Bones studio. Shinichiro is well known for his other successful series such as Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloos and Space Dandy and Bones studio has produced many popular animes like Noragami, Soul Eater and Ouran High School Host Club, etc. [Fun fact, Cowboy Bebop and Carole & Tuesday are said to be set in the same universe and I died when I heard this.]

The plot of Carole & Tuesday, as provided by wiki is:

Set in the future on a partially terraformed Mars, teenager Tuesday Simmons runs away from her posh lifestyle as the daughter of a politician and makes her way to the populous Alba City to pursue her dream of being a musician with just a suitcase and her Gibsonacoustic guitar. On her first day in the city, she crosses paths with Carole Stanley, another aspiring musician who plays the piano, and the two decide to team up as a singer-songwriter duo under the name Carole & Tuesday.

Where can I find this? Why haven’t I heard of it?

I actually discovered Carole & Tuesday through google since I was looking at new and upcoming animes for the Spring and Summer of 2019. Sadly, the website I used show that Carole & Tuesday was an anime many people weren’t looking forward too- but that was only a handful of votes. Personally, I had been super ecstatic since, just from the promo poster, I assumed Carole and Tuesday would possibly be a couple, there’s a person of color as a main protaganist, and they’re both SUPER CUTE. This all made me happy beyond words.

As of now, Carole & Tuesday should only be available on Japan Netflix. Japanese viewers tend to prefer weekly released episodes whereas Americans prefer to binge shows. I am assuming that once the show has completed airing in Japan (there are going to be 24 episodes) it will appear on other Netflixs around the world.

I believe that’s why the promo for it has been severely lacking and the fanbase appears non-existant. The fandom is there, if you squint (which is why I’m surprised there’s already controversy). The fact that I had to look through a list on an unknown website and scroll to the bottom to find this anime is very showing of how unknown this anime is.

I also saw a post comparing Yuri!!! On Ice to Carole & Tuesday and I personally believe that OP took the wrong approach. I forgot the posters name (I will edit and tag if I find it again) but the post said something along theses lines; YOI is so popular because it’s a mlm show whereas C&T isn’t nearly as popular because it’s a wlw relationship with poc.

While this can prove to be true in the future, there are some major differences that were overlooked. I was into the YOI hype when it was first released but it didn’t truly become popular until Yuri and Viktor were canon and everyone was speculating whether it was a kiss or a hug, etc. Yuri!!! On Ice is also a relationship with a person of color, Yuri, and the anime was also supported by Crunchyroll, a major streaming service for Americans/others. It has had two years to become popular, grow and this is one of the very few animes that had positive lgbt+ representation since the relationship grew just as normally as any other type of relationship. It also wasn’t labeled a yaoi/shounen ai (though this sadly didn’t stop the fetishization of the characters and No.6 did it first but let’s move on-). It felt like a big step in the anime lgbt+ community and it won’t be forgotten!

Carole & Tuesday has just started off! Not much promotion is being shown in other countries outside of Japan and the first episode premiered in early April this year. I believe it’s harsh to compare C&T to such a popular anime when it’s literally just begun. It’s also exclusively on Netflix (besides pirating sites) so there is a little foreseeable loss since it won’t be available on Crunchyroll. But despite that I know there’s hope! Though mlm couples tend to be more popularly viewed, and any pairing that doesn’t have completely white/asian/white-presenting people in the relationship they tend to not garner much interests, but I don’t think C&T will fall into that pit. There’s simply not much promotion of it yet but it still has defied odds and has a fanbase with people from many different countries already!

Though I do see the OP’s point and concerns and they have facts on their side (look at fandometrics popular characters/couples, they’re mostly male) I think it’s too soon to point fingers.

Just imagine how large it’ll get when it has proper streaming (because many people do choose not to pirate in order to directly support the anime and it’s creators!). I think this is where our patience comes into play because if you have seen Carole & Tuesday already, you are most likely not using the most legal means. We are all early to the party.

LGBT+ and POC Representation (spoilers in part of this section, read first line):

I will say this, and this will only be the only spoiler free line, I think it has decent lgbt+ representation and that there’s more to unfold. If you’re going to watch exclusively for lgbt+ representation then I don’t think you will be too disappointed but the anime has a ways to go before it’s finished so my opinion can change.

But the most recent episodes and commentary has caused a ripple in viewers beliefs.

Anne and Marie

I literally adored when Marie kissed Anne whilst Carole and Tuesday sat there blushing. Then, Marie was careful to ask if either of them had a boyfriend or girlfriend not assuming C or T’s sexualities at all. This happened on in an early episode so this left me to believe that more casual representation was on the way!

Cybelle

This was where it began to become uncomfortable for me and a few others. I actually couldn’t figure out whether Cybelle was a female, male or left to be ambiguous intentional (I just concluded she was non-binary until they used she/her pronouns). But many people concluded that since it was clear Cybelle was a female with an infatuation (not a crush, an infatuation) on Tuesday people simply labeled her as lesbian. A few are labeling her interactions with Tuesday and Carole as a harmful and negative commonly used trope when involving wlw characters.

Cybelle was being creepy and aggressive towards Tuesday, constantly touching her abruptly and without consent and going as far as biting Tuesday’s neck and leaving a mark. Actions like these feed into the trope that is commonly used in anime/television shows and it actually demeans real lesbian couples. It’s like a scapegoat; saying ‘here’s your rep’ but it’s very, very, very bad rep.

The controversy comes in since there are people defending Cybelle’s actions because she’s a girl, and people are literally calling others ‘homophobic’ because they choose not to ship Cybelle and Tuesday despite their ‘canon interactions’ but they still want Carole and Tuesday to become a couple.

My personal stance is that none of Cybelle’s actions were consensual and I will never want her and Tuesday to become a couple. I think the creators fed into a bad trope (I’m not sure if intentionally or not), and the real only development we got from this was Tuesday learning to stick up for herself. I also think that Cybelle is simply a crazed fan who is not in a sound mental state and that her gender may not necessarily play into this; maybe she was meant to just be an aggressive fan that overstepped boundaries and made people uncomfortable and just happened to be female. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be representation and should not be labeled as such.

But these are just thoughts!

Mermaid Sisters - Galatic Mermaid

I was personally pleased that the Mermaid Sisters blatantly said they weren’t male or female, just like mermaids aren’t fish or human. Non-binary representation is my fucking jam!

But there are worries that this group was used as a comedic affect due to the way the characters were dressed and how they presented themselves, and the fact that they were POC who were interrupted, immediately lost and were shown to be aggressive directly after.

When I first viewed this I was more focused on the fact that they were non-binary, had amazing voices and had sang a song that was clearly not the most appropriate for Mars Brightest. Now I understand that how there were presented can be damaging and as a person of color, I am disappointed but I’m still conflicted. This scene caused people to ‘cancel’ the show and they’re trying to discourage others to not view it but I want to watch until the very end.

Overall I am super happy with the POC representation in the show! Especially since various races and skin tones are show quite frequently.

Dahlia

The same can be said about Dahlia. People feared the a negative trope of transgender females was being displayed though it’s stated that Dahlia is currently male but their sex varies from time to time, on the official website!

The Community/Fandom

Honestly besides the few odd balls who stir the pot and clearly use harsh words when not needed, the fandom is chill. The artworks are sooo cute and a little scarce but you can find Carole and Tuesday content here, on twitter, on YouTube, Deviantart- literally where you would find any other fanbase! Most people are friendly and (NEED) are willing to talk with you! If you’re still hesitant to watch just message someone who constantly tags Carole & Tuesday because I assure, they’re dying to rant to someone about what goes on lol.

Here’s my last little tid bit on whether or not to watch!

You should watch this show because you want to. Don’t do it because someone else keeps saying you have to because it has representation, or because they think Pyotr is hot or whatever. Of course I am the biggest hoe for Carole & Tuesday and if someone wants a new anime to watch I will suggest this one!! But!! Watching a show just because you feel you have to and you have no genuine interests will dull the experience! You should watch and support the show if it makes you laugh, feel love and genuine enjoyment. That’s the point of anime and that is definitely the point of Carole & Tuesday.

I have already seen so many people drop the show because they were forced into it and promised things that weren’t delivered (it’s still early on) and then they bad mouth the anime. If you want to start watching when there’s more hype and a fandom, then wait!! If you’re unsure and want more convincing, message me!! If this doesn’t seem like this anime suits your tastes and, then why did you read this far (kidding)?!!! Regardless, I just want everyone to have a good experience when watching so we can have more good vibes all around.

I would definitely give this anime a shot if you love music, beautiful voices, dancing, poc/lgbt+ rep, suspense and just amazing animation all around, though! It’s has a baby fandom but it’s surely going to grow and I can’t wait to see the outcome of the anime and what becomes of our lovely Carole and Tuesday! <3

I’m also in love with Roddy, just look at him~ | I’m still not super fond of Angela but I am wishing her the best to achieve happiness in the end!

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go-diane-winchester · 5 years

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Could Travis and Ty's scandals be linked to Misha?

Thank you for the ask. Let me point out that these are merely my theories. Although there is information that is unavailable to the public because in Travis's case, the investigation is still ongoing, my theory is based on the information that is available. I am also a victim of abuse, so I am not being unsympathetic to Ty's victims, because Ty's victims really are victims. Travis's victims are a little suspicious.

Travis Aaron Wade:

I know what predators are generally like. Because of being a victim myself, I was on the side of Travis's victims until I looked into the case. There is more issues to pinpoint, but I am keeping the topic only to Misha here, because I have dedicated a few posts to both Travis and his ''victims''. These are some notable points in the case.:

They were claiming that he was abusing them during breakfast panels and Saturday night concerts, in front of too many people, and yet they had no witnesses.

Two of the victims confessed to lying.

All the victims were destiel shippers and Misha minions.

Misha, Briana, Kim and Matt Cohen know a few of the people involved personally, follow them on SM and leaving voice messages for them. I heard Briana's voice message.

One of the victims, Sara Burnhope, who knows Misha and his parents personally, told Travis on social media, that Misha hates him.

One of them, Lua James aka Theresa Cotter [@Poptivist on Twitter], stabbed a knife into Travis's door and then fled California. She is Kim's friend. They were spending time outside of con.

Why did Misha hate Travis

Misha has two babies as far as his work on SPN went. One is Destiel, and the other is the Wayward daughters. These two babies ensured that he was always employed on a show that kills off every other non lead. One of them, Wayward Daughters, derailed because Misha is wrong.

Destiel

Travis threatened destiel because he was gushing over J2's friendship during his panel saying that he had never met two people more in love. He described their friendship so much, that he was pulled out of the next con by Clif, the resident drama queen. Way to be suspicious, Clif. That is exactly what you do when you don't J2 Tinhats to become alert, blithering idiot. In none of the gushings did Travis say anything regarding Jensen and Misha or Destiel. Misha didn't want that. Notice how destiel-positive Osric and gang are. Even Alex is becoming destiel positive now, because when he wasn't, the hellers bashed him on SM. They did the same thing to Samantha Smith. But Travis not only didn't acknowledge Destiel. He was elevating J2's friendship above all the other relationships on SPN. And Misha was getting livid.

Wayward Daughters

Wayward Daughters was something that only Misha and his hellers pushed. I always wondered why he did it, because I consider him to be a liberal poser. He pretends to supports something if it benefits him or his reputation. Crusading for women's rights and then calling them perverts for having a love for shipping, seems hypocritical to me. I think he pushed Wayward to secure a future for himself. There is rumor that's been going on since last year and the Js want to finish of with SPN completely. They want to long hiatus from acting. Nobody knows when. If that happens, Misha doesn't have a job, and we all know that other than the hellers, nobody else is impressed by his acting. He gets laughed at. If there is a spinoff, Castiel is likely to have a home there, because most of the fans will be Misha fans. Misha would have still been able to bait his fans, by 'reminiscing' about Dean in a suggestive manner and if CW was on board, showing scenes between Dean and Cas. He might have even confirmed Destiel because Jensen wouldn't have been around to stop him. The bottom line is he would have used destiel to keep that job as well.

Kim and Briana were on his side, because they had vested interest in the project and are fake militant feminists. Unfortunately, Cole [Travis's character] became so popular that some fans wanted a spin off for him, and when Cole was pitted against Jody and Donna by Geekiary, for best spinoff candidate, Cole won. I can just imagine how angry Misha and gang were. And it now makes sense, for Kim and Brianna to know the accusers and the implicated parties personally. My theory is that they all got together and set Travis up to get him out of the way. Until the case goes to court, and reaches a conclusion, that is all my assumption will be. A theory.

Ty Olsson

In his official response, Ty admitted that what he did was 100% wrong. And he was. Fans had cause to complain and feel violated. I am not taking away from their grief. They really are victims. I think that, just like Travis, this guy is a complete idiot. Travis was causing too many ripples because of his big mouth, and Ty was sipping from other people's drinks. He said it was not enough to get drunk with. He said that he was roofied. Why do I believe him? Because someone who had such habitually bad behavior would have a reputation to match. He would have misbehaved at other cons and set environments. Consequently, he would have not gotten hired for projects. He would be blacklisted because he would cause terrible PR for any studio.

Ty has worked on SPN before. He played a bartender during the earlier seasons. That means, that J2 and co have known Ty for years. There are women on that set too. He has never misbehaved with any of them, but he chooses one event, especially when there are witnesses and victims have cameras and can film his bad behavior, to just go nuts? Does that make sense? Ty has also worked on other projects before and since. In fact, after the scandal, he worked on 14 projects and even won an award in 2017. He's around women on these projects too. How come he isn't misbehaving now? How come he lost total inhibitions and professionalism on one night? And how come nobody is stabbing a knife in his door? How come the fans are all a mixed group of people, and not just Misha's fans. Who would roofie him and why?

There are only two drugs that he could have been roofied with. Rohypnol and GHB. Rohypnol can cause euphoria, reduced inhibitions and reduced ability to make judgments. Users may slur their speech. That is why people thought Ty was drunk. GHB effects begin 15-60 minutes after use [like in the Green room] and typically last up to six hours. Just about enough time to do photo ops. It can be detected in the urine up to 12 hours after ingestion. This is why I agree with Ty, that he is a completely idiot. He only guessed that he might have gotten sick [symptom of both drugs is nausea] because of roofies and only then did he do a urine test. By then the GHB was undetectable.

Ty guessed that one of that one of the fans roofied him. But they were all drinking from their flasks, and none of them exhibited the same symptoms that he did. So it had to be someone who had access to the Green room and Ty's beverage. Time wise that would make sense.

So who would benefit from Ty being out of the way.

Misha, is my guestimation. Why did Ty bother Misha so much? Because of Destiel. Destiel is Misha's floatation device. When Benny came on board, he had a strong connection with Dean. And Jensen enjoyed working with him, according to what he said during his panels. Ty even got to do a panel with Jensen. Misha only gets one panel a year, on average with Jensen. No other person, neither Rob nor Richard, has ever shared the stage with Jensen. Ty got that chance. I think Jensen was missing Jared but then why not get Misha to join him. Why choose this guy? That must have bugged Misha. And no, he doesn't love Jensen. He is not obsessed with Jensen. He just loves riding Jensen's coat tails.

People were even shipping Benny and Dean together, which is baffling because Benny and Dean were on screen while Cas was still there. Purgatory was supposed to be a big moment for Misha and Destiel because Misha would have had Jensen all to himself without Jared being around to take the limelight away from him. Misha probably assumed that this vampire was not going to pose any problems. Misha doesn't know how slash works, does he? At one point during Jibcon, Ty tried to make Jensen laugh, very provocatively. He felt bad about making Jensen feel uncomfortable so he came back awhile later and apologized to Jensen in front of all the fans. Jensen was shocked [as I was] and quickly said: '' You don't have to...are you kidding me? I loved it.'' He sent him off with a butt smack and a ''I love you, man. No worries.''

Misha apologizes for none of the horrible things he has done, no matter how uncomfortable he makes Jensen feel. Watching that footage again, especially Jensen's genuinely shocked and moved reaction, actually made me tear up a little. Whoever roofied Ty, acted alone, did it in the Green room and the effect lasted a solid six hours or so. So who has access to the Green room other than the actors and their handlers? I will leave that up to debate. Roofieing someone is dangerous because it can kill a person if mishandled.

I hope this answers the question.

Below are citations and links

Ty apologizing to Jensen - 2013

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NutNcJH4JbA

Citation for roofie drugs

https://www.narconon.org/drug-abuse/signs-symptoms-rohypnol-use.html

Complete investigative report on Travis Aaron Wade

http://www.spntrollsvstravisaaronwade.com/

Ty's official response

http://ty-olsson.com/response.html

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skyhooks-notebook · 5 years

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My John Wick/Jason Bourne movie which will never be made

(Bourne, of course, is a brutally disillusioned idealist. He had no idea he was signing away his soul. Wick likely sold his soul with his eyes wide open, though he probably only understood the ultimate cost later on - a naive pragmatist.)

I don’t post much at all, but here is a thing that happened on my computer. I was thinking about how John Wick and Jason Bourne could be brought together. My thoughts became long, and I started writing it down. This isn’t a story, just a sketch of how I think such a movie could be made. It’s not really edited either, this is all off-the-cuff.

[I only know what’s in the movies. I don’t know other canon from either ‘verse.]

So, if I were making a movie…

The universes of John Wick and Jason Bourne have very different styles, creating a problem.

Problem: - Bourne lives in a Universe where government is large, powerful, knowledgeable and nearly competent. - Wick lives in a Universe where a vast and elaborate criminal underworld exists, where we’ve never seen those major criminal figures worry about law enforcement or government.

The discrepancy must be resolved.

Simple.

Jason Bourne has never dealt with crime. Everything has been political and confined to the intelligence community.

Wick has never dealt with politics or the intelligence community.

So.

We must assume that the intelligence community is perfectly happy to leave common crime in the hands of law enforcement.

- Law enforcement has an unwritten and fatalistic attitude that there will always be some level of crime no matter what you do because it’s innate to human nature. And if you’re going to have crime, it might as well be organized. Let the strongest and most dangerous criminals accumulate power and influence, because they will go a long way to controlling the stupid, the excessive and the disruptive crooks. Better to have one major weapons trafficker controlling the traffic than have a thousand slightly smaller and more disruptive dealers completely out of control. (You can strongly hint that there’s an uneasy, unwritten and largely unspoken agreement between crime and law enforcement, and that it’s often a two-way street.) And if the big crime gets too big, it’s easier to knock it back down to “acceptable” levels because you’ve got bigger targets, which are easier to hit and which make a large and impressive splash across the front page when you throw RICO charges at them.

Plus it would also illustrate that Wickian Law Enforcement at its highest levels is just as dirty, amoral and underhanded as the Bournite Intelligence community.

- So, with a little work and willing suspension of disbelief (which wouldn’t be hard, because who wouldn’t want to see Wick and Bourne on the same screen provided it’s done with at least half an ass), it’s possible to bring the two Universes together.

- We start with Bourne. Someone else, like an hard ass, experienced reporter, is snooping into the government’s history of creating conditioned assassins. Maybe because a public face, like a former intelligence director, has left the shade to become a politician. And many strongly suspect that he’s dirty as fuck, but our snoopy reporter is just figuring out how deep the rabbit hole goes. Our politician was, of course, instrumental in developing programs like Treadstone, Blackbriar, et al.

- The Snoop finds out, one way or another, that one of the earliest failures of these programs was an “asset” who experienced a psychological break, went “off the res”, starting killing people and still turns up now and then to kill more people. To our Snoop, it appears that the government has created an uncontrollable monster who is still on the loose and possibly lurking right outside the White House, dear reader, are you scared now?

- The story, scanty, incorrect and harshly spun, gets printed as above. A few names are named, but mostly dead people (and maybe someone who has already been publicly discredited.) Our politician is not named because our Snoop doesn’t yet have absolute proof linking Mr. Politician to the Treadstone/Blackbriar/etc. machine.

- The evidence still exists. Witnesses still live, in numbers too great to be cleanly eliminated.

- Mr. Politician is sweating bullets.

- The Snoop isn’t done. He wants to find Bourne so he can say, “Here’s your monster, where’s my Pulitzer?” As investigation continues, the story becomes clearer to the Snoop, and the monster starts to look like little less monstrous and little more victimized. Which is an even better story.

- Now Mr. Politician is not only worried that he will be named, he’s worried that if Snoop makes contact with Bourne, or simply as a consequence of Snoop stirring the shit, Bourne will find out who our Politician is and how complicit he was in the program that destroyed David Webb. Mr. Pol knows this is likely to be a death sentence.

- It has become obvious to everyone who isn’t deeply deluded that Jason Bourne is practically indestructible and that sending more valuable and increasingly scarce ‘assets’ against him is just going to result in the loss of those assets. Agents available may be trained and conditioned to within an inch of their lives, but Bourne’s psychological break caused him to exceed his limits, training and conditioning in a way Black Ops programs haven’t been able to replicate. Those with a pragmatic attitude believe that they have no agent who can measure up to Bourne. Politician believes this as well.

- But Mr. Politician knows some things that the intelligence community has never concerned itself with. In his many years of government service, Mr. Pol was also involved with Law Enforcement at various times. Maybe he did a stint with the effa-bee-eye. Whatever. He knows about the Criminal Underworld, he knows that to maintain the ugly equilibrium, the Underworld may be influenced to comply with certain requests. And he knows a name. John Wick.

- Mr. Politician is also savvy about recent developments in the Underworld. He’s got a friend who’s still in the business of monitoring organized crime and keeping tabs on what’s going on down there. Mr. Pol has listened to recent stories with fascination because of certain similarities to a well known government failure who has haunted his dreams for decades. It has become a fact in Mr. Pol’s mind that the CIA will never be able to take down Bourne, but maybe there’s another way.

- Mr. Politician approaches a major Crime Lord and tells him point blank to activate John Wick by any means necessary and set him on the trail of one Jason Bourne. If Wick can’t be activated, Crime Lord will receive his own personal set of extensive criminal and RICO charges, delivered to his doorstep by the entire FBI

- Crime Lord knows if he gets charged, he probably won’t survive because other crime lords are going to want to make sure he doesn’t talk - about them. Also, his family will be endangered no matter which way the sword swings; either the FBI will be targeting them or his fellow criminals will be.

- Crime Lord knows John Wick. They’re old friends. Crime Lord feels a bit conflicted about it, but his first loyalties are to his family and his own hide. So he swallows his fondness for John Wick and commits falsehood, deception, a calling in of favors, maybe a little blackmail and the old Rock-And-A-Hard-Fuck-You-Up-Place on Wick. An elaborate, manipulative lie, that sets a misinformed John Wick on the trail of a man potentially as dangerous as himself.

- Now, we’ve got Jason Bourne being hunted by the Snoop, which has him on alert. We have John Wick hunting Bourne because he believes, once again, that he has no choice.

- We also have a Jason Bourne who is somewhat confounded. We need the scene where Bourne finds out, before contact ever takes place, that someone has taken out a contract on him with an Underworld assassin. Bourne doesn’t know much more about the Criminal Underworld than Joe Schmoe from Kokomo, just what he’s seen in the news and largely ignored, because it never had anything to do with him. Even in all that training years and years ago, there was this gap, because organized crime wasn’t the CIA’s beat. Maybe at first, Bourne even assumes that this Wick character isn’t a threat because he’s just a murderer, a thug, and not a highly trained government operative like himself.

- So in a riveting scene where Bourne and Wick first come into contact, we see Bourne - under the influence of his ignorant assumption - nearly getting killed by Wick and making an extremely narrow escape by use of desperate measures. We also have Mr. Wick limping away, suitably impressed with the skills of his opponent.

- Now we have that stretch of the story where Wick is on the hunt, Bourne is on the run and Bourne is trying to uncover any information he can find about this assassin. Wick doesn’t research much, though, because that’s not how he works. Bourne is a machine; the gears must grind. Wick is a force of nature, like a tornado; most of the info he gets he just picks up along the way, either paying for it or having it given to him by friends.

- Bourne discovers that Wick had a military past, Special Forces, maybe he was fucked over by the military/government in his own way. Or Bourne sees it that way. Bourne finds out about Helen and her death, and maybe not the whole story, but quite a bit about how John cut through a small army of Russian mob mooks for vengeance. He identifies with Wick’s grief and anger. He sees something of himself in John Wick. He sympathizes with the devil.

- John hasn’t done the heavy research. He understands that Bourne is dangerous, perhaps more dangerous than anyone he’s ever met. He consolidates his resources and finds someone else to do his research. He is awaiting a report on Jason Bourne when…

- Bourne stops running, goes to confront Wick and ends up trying to explain, while fighting of course, what he knows about the Dirty Politician and the Crime Lord who has called John out of his troubled retirement yet again, and how Wick has been used and betrayed (this time) until he says something that causes Wick to call truce long enough to hear it all.

- Bourne can see the beginning of a way to solve the whole mess. After some persuasion, Wick is on board and has some ideas of his own.

- Now we’ve got our boys on the same side and it’s only left to decide whether the war will be conventional or nuclear.

- There are two victories we need to see. We must see the destruction of Mr. Politician and Mr. Crime Lord.

- You might-could send Bourne, who doesn’t really give a shit about the covenants and conventions of the criminal world, to the Continental - probably breaking in, instead of checking in. Luring the Crime Lord out into the open, perhaps on the intimation that Mr. Politician is about to take up backstabbing. Draw the Crime Lord out to confront the Politician. Bourne’s plan, reluctantly agreed to by Wick, is to draw the Politician and the Crime Lord together, get evidence and even a full recording of the meeting and expose them both to the world.

Or course, this backfires. Bourne finds himself in a position where he has to kill either Crime Lord or Mr. Politician in self-defense. Probably the Crime Lord.

- It would also be immensely satisfying to see Wick take out the dirty politician with a head shot. Bourne would, of course, be stoically pissed about it all, but it also illustrates the difference. Bourne is willing to let even unrepentant bastards live because he’s tired of having blood on his hands. Wick doesn’t let anybody live who’s fucked him over. Bourne is still conflicted about who and what he is. Wick has come to terms with himself. Bourne believes in atonement. Wick believes in damnation. Bourne still cares. Wick doesn’t give a fuck. Bourne still dreams of inner peace. Wick would settle for a little peace and quiet, would you motherfuckers just leave me the fuck alone already. Get off my lawn. And stop teasing my dog, you bastards.

- You must also show Wick taking an active role in planning, because if Bourne does all of it and says here’s what we’re going to do, then 1) he’s just using Wick as a tool or weapon, instead of treating him like a person and an equal and 2) Wick once again is being controlled by someone else instead of doing what he does best, which is take matters into his own hands (shooting Santino may have looked like a misstep, but who in the audience didn’t love it?)

- I’ve forgotten our Snoop reporter.

We could let Bourne track him down, in which case he will almost certainly die, because going by canon everybody who sympathizes with Jason Bourne must die.

We could let Wick find him, in which case he probably has a much better chance of surviving to publish his Pulitzer Prize winning story provided he’s not armed when he meets Mr. Wick. Hell, Wick could give him a coin, which could buy him entrance and protection at the Continental (even the government doesn’t want to mess with that bunch - like stirring a hornet’s nest with a stick; you might survive, but it will be excruciatingly painful and you’ll look like an idiot the whole time with all the screaming and flailing and jumping around in a panic.)

John Wick’s name will not appear in the story. Only a vaguely defined “other sources”.

- And after all is said and done, Bourne and Wick part company, with mutual respect and recognition. Though they really don’t like each other very much.

So that’s my John Wick/Jason Bourne movie which will never be made. But I had fun.

P.S. Please excuse crappy photoshop, I just wanted something there.

#john wick #jason bourne #matt damon #keanu reeves #movies that will never be made

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lawlessfowling-blog · 6 years

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Okay, so like... Can we talk about Ignatius’ ridiculously deep understanding of the criminal element in Gotham? Like, it’s damn near encyclopedic, the way that he quotes facts about some of these people - Up to and including the Batman.

( Forewarning that this kinda goes off topic a lot. I’m just throwing out things about my boy, Ignatius, here ).

So, like, before I get into this - Just so people don’t come ‘round saying that I’m making my muse too OP or anything like that - I wanna make a couple disclaimers. While a lot of these things that I’ve mentioned here are incorporated into his character, my muse specifically is usually still a child. He is only just starting to make a place for himself in the criminal world and that is going to greatly affect a lot of his knowledge about it. While playing him in his future verses, Nay is gonna have a lot more of this kind of information, but I will always be making a point to adjust accordingly for when he’s still a teenager.

On top of that, even in times when he’s incredibly knowledgable about something, Ignatius isn’t going to know anything that no one else does. In fact, I would argue that he probably is even a step down from what Batman and his usual detective skills can discover. I believe Nay has some level of access to police files and possible even Arkham files, due to Cobblepot’s connections, but it’s not going to reveal everything to him. He isn’t going to know things that no one does, like the origin story of the Joker or that Batman is Bruce Wayne. He’s not going to be a mind reader or anything like that. He’s just a guy who pays attention to things with a lot of access to them.

With those disclaimers out of the way, I want point out some examples of his extensive knowledge and then list several major points on how I believe he came into possession of all this information and how he’d gotten so good at implementing it.

( For the sake of this argument, I will mostly be using images and story taken from Detective Comics Vol. 2 ).

The Bat

First and foremost, let’s talk about the Batman. In one of his first appearances, we get a chance to see Nay taking on a heist with a new recruit. This man, from Miami, talks about how he didn’t believe Batman was real. Nay assures him that he is, with a scar to show for it.

As they’re carrying on their heist, this new recruit - Martin - tells him not to kill the guard. He warns that leaving bodies will put Batman on their trail. A simple robbery or heist will go unnoticed by the Bat until he has time - Which he never does because of everything else going on in Gotham. Already, we can see that Nay has at least a basic understanding of Batman’s patterns and habits. He can see the way the guy prioritizes things and does not make the mistakes of underestimating invisibility.

In this same page, Nay first makes the point about needing to be smart in order to survive in Gotham. This belief is one of the first points I contribute to his extensive knowledge about the criminal world. It’s my personal interpretation that Nay has had the incentive to learn as much as he possibly can to use for later from very early on - At least after his parents died, if not sooner. His father used to talk about not rocking the boat, sometime that he believed to be the smart way of doing business in Gotham, and it’s obvious that Ignatius took some part of that lesson to heart.

As for how he got to be that smart, there are a couple of ways that can happen. Obviously, newspapers, hearsay and - In his later years - police accounts of the Batman all contribute to his knowledge. Besides all those things, however, I think one of the most valuable tools that he came across was first hand experience.

Carrying on in this scene, Ignatius talks about the fact that, in their line of work, encountering batman was not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when and how hard. He tells the story of his first encounter, as a kid working as a lookout, and how he understood even then the exact nature of their relationship going forward. If he was going to be involved in crime like this, then Batman was always going to have to be a question on his mind.

And he makes a point to do that. Ignatius does his research and he does it well. Not only is he made aware of the Bat’s patterns, but even goes as far as to learn the Batman’s weaknesses - Something that many others have failed to do in the past. By the time that Ignatius eventually makes his stand to take over Gotham as Emperor Penguin, he has the strength and knowledge to kill Batman. Many others have tried to do this before, but for a random thug off the street this is an incredible feat.

One he would have eventually succeeded with if Oswald had not arrived at the opportune moment to save him.

Just as a side note, I’d like to note that the foreshadowing for this save in the early parts of this run when Oswald stopped the assassin he’d hired to save his own skin was?? Really cleverly done. Both times, men under Oswald’s own employment had gotten him into this mess, but he managed to make the most of the situation by offering a flipper to a man that could only be described as his enemy and rival in every way.

The Rogues

The masked crusader is not the only one Nay has to worry about, however - Nor is he the only one that Nay has done his research on. As portrayed in the screenshot up above, his knowledge extends beyond the underworld of gangs and mobsters and all the way to the rogues and other themed villains, themselves.

In the above example, he showcases his knowledge of Poison Ivy, her motives and everything else about her painfully clear in his plan. He knew where she would strike, how she would do it and even had the foresight to recognize that Batman would be a player in that scene as well. Although Bruce had gone out of his way to mention that it was fairly simple to figure out where she would strike next, I think that it is the simplicity of the plan that really showcases his ability of application.

He also has the scene where he buries and then, subsequently unburies her. After rescuing her, he mentions that his decision to leave her with plant really was what saved her life. There are a couple things about the way that this scene is delivered, especially in conjunction with those around it, that I’d like to point out.

In the way he talks to Ivy, using the phrase “Whether you know it or not-”, we immediately learn that this is not something that Nay has been told by her directly. After he reveals his plan that’s saved her life, she then asks him who he is. Although I personally like to believe that he’s at least been in the presence of many of the other rogues ( backed by the fact she can at least recognize who his employer is), we know that Nay has never had any kind of real interaction with her.

Additionally, we know that this was not something that he learned by being told by Oswald. There is the possibility that an exchange happened between them prior to this one, but the fact that Ivy is notorious for usually having some kind of plant life with her at all times and Oswald made no comment on it when checking the status of her death, only asking about the container she was held in being airtight.

Additionally, I’d like to argue this cannot be a well known fact about Ivy if Nay was questioning whether even she knew it. If he’d learned this from Oswald and the bird later discovered that she’d survived because Ignatius hadn’t bothered to strip her of her plants, then he would have known immediately that Nay had betrayed him. Given Oswald’s temper and his readiness to end even such a trusted employee like Ignatius for just about anything, it would be foolish to make such a big risk before he was ready to enact his coup. Ignatius, based on his previous precautions with Batman, does not seem like the type to take such risks.

Given these two things, we can only determine so many other sources for his extensive knowledge on her;

He knows enough about plant biology and her specific abilities to determine the exact amount of plants she would need to survive.

He has spoken about Ivy and her abilities with another rogue or individual who might have that kind of knowledge, like perhaps a scientist that is particularly interested in Ivy’s brand of abilities. This individual did not pass along the fact that they had spoke to Ignatius on the matter to Oswald, who would then know that he knew Ivy’s ability to create oxygen.

He has bore witness to or heard about an incident where she has survived near suffocation and come to the conclusion on his own as to why she’d been able to do that.

He read that she was able to do this after acquiring a file on her from a source such as Arkham or the GCPD

In any of these scenarios, he had to have shown a great deal of initiative and/or intellect. It can only be assumed that he had this level of thoroughness with the rest of the rogues, resulting in his extensive knowledge on them.

Some other individuals of note that we are certain he has some knowledge about include but are not limited to;

The Joker

He understands the nature of the Joker and his followers enough to mimic it and make the gang related hits he pulls look like random acts of chaos. He even has the ability to recreate a close enough copy to the laughing gas - If not enough so to fool Batman, then certainly to fool the GCPD and most other people who come in contact with it.

His attempt to mirror the Joker is so convincing, in fact, that he is able to return to the scene of the crime without being suspected at all. He is there as one police officer even resigns on the spot.

For The Joker, I hesitate to believe that he’s had much if any contact with him. The man is too chaotic and unpredictable to see it being much help, not to mention the dangers that puts him in. I don’t see Oswald bringing along his assistant in most instances where he’s interacting with the madman. I don’t see the Joker taking very kindly to having a spokesperson sent in Oswald’s place, which would have gotten Nay killed and probably put the Penguin as a target - At the very least.

Instead, my theory is that he mostly used second hand information about the Joker and acquired samples of his laughing gas to reverse engineer. Additionally, he may have gotten in touch with some of Joker’s followers, since the run made a point of saying there was no shortage of them in Gotham.

Victor Zsasz

There’s not as much mystery with this one, but he is also aware of the motives and strengths of Victor Zsasz. Based on a previous interaction, we know that Ignatius not only knows about, but was present when Zsasz vendeta against Oswald was born. It doesn’t seem unlikely to me that he has also had to deal with the assassin wanting to do Oswald in in the past, probably setting up safety measures and such specifically meant to stop the other if need be and otherwise distract him with different targets.

As far as whether or not Nay has worked with Zsasz directly in the past is up in the air. On one hand, if Oswald did want to try and use Zsasz for any one of his prospects, he would have to send Nay in his place for his own safety. An assassins whose only motivation is to kill people for their own sake can be quite a valuable asset, if not a dangerous one, and he would be the kind of guy that’d be good to keep in one’s back pocket.

On the other hand, Nay’s preparation in dealing with Victor is not as sound as the others. He shows up and basically goes “Lol here have a knife so you can kill people”. He understands Victor’s motivations enough to bring them up and he’s a sweet-talker at the best of times, but his attempts to persuade him don’t exactly hit me with the flow of practice. Additionally, Victor did not seem to really remember Nay all that much, which he probably would if they had any exchanges of note in the past.

Personally, I’m of the opinion that they had not interacted directly and that most of his knowledge about Victor in on the hearsay of Oswald. Other arguments can be made, but that’s just my personal headcanon on the matter.

Man Bat

As far as Manbat goes, I think most of Ignatius’ knowledge is about the serum and less about the man, himself. He makes a deal with Anya Volkova for the Manbat Serum, with the intent to use it for his own formula, later. In order to do this, he had to have at least a basic understanding of it’s capabilities and how they could be applicable for his own use, later.

As far as how he came to know this information, I think he had done some basic research on properties of it he’d liked and then consulted with scientists on the matter.

Talia Al Ghul

Based on his conversation with Anya, I am to believe that he has some basic knowledge about Talia - Some of her motivations, her capabilities; Things like that. If he didn’t already know about her prior to Anya showing up at his door, he certainly did afterwards.

I am not really sure the extend of his knowledge on her, nor where that knowledge would have come from. I can, however, imagine at least some of it was told to him by Anya, herself. I do not believe that they’ve interacted to any extent, nor do I think Talia even knows who he is.

???

Although it doesn’t directly connect him to any one particular villain, there is this line that Ignatius says that further establishes an opening for him to have interacted with plenty more. Although I believe that most of his interactions with other villains has been with those that are considered below him, we also know that Ignatius isn’t just a high ranking member of Oswald’s organization, commanding all the people below him to keep order. He is a direct mouthpiece for the man; Which makes him all the more likely to have delivered messages to more notable individuals and those outside the crime ring when Oswald was otherwise busy or unwilling to take them, himself.

Riddler, Scarecrow, Hatter, Catwoman and the other more socially capable rogues probably have interacted with Ignatius and dealt with Oswald through him - Be that by delivering messages, offering aid to a project or simply handing over some kind of package. Although, I hesitate to say that he is close to or even thought of as being on the same level as them, they would probably at least recognize him as one of Oswald’s employees.

And if they have had enough time to do that, then I think it’s fair to say that he could easily learn about them through direct contact as well. None of those aforementioned individuals ( bar maybe Catwoman in some instances ) are strangers to monologuing their motives and evil schemes to just about anyone who will listen. It wouldn’t even be beyond some of their characters to go around chattering about their weaknesses - Even if indirectly or unintentionally. Pair that with his usual methods of learning about anyone of interest and he probably has a fairly strong grasp of how to use most of these individuals for his own purposes, if the need were to arise.

The Penguin

Now, of course, there is one rogue that his knowledge of probably far outweighs that of the others and that is none other than Oswald Cobblepot. In the comic, Ignatius mentions both that he had been working for Oswald for five or so years as well as that he’d been working for the man since his parents died. I hesitate to say that Ignatius is 15/16 during the events of Detective Comics Vol 2. ( he end up in the general part of Blackgate, after all. Plus, some of the flashbacks tend to make him look more like a teenager than his modern appearance), but I do believe that he was telling the truth in both of these instances.

For that reason, I usually assume that both were referring to his working for The Penguin in different ways. By that point in time, he’d been working directly as Oswald’s assistant for 5+ years, but his dealings with the organization as a whole was closer to 10 - 15. That gives him a solid decade of learning about Oswald, how he ticked, what made him happy, his weaknesses and everything else that has to do with the bird. This is all assuming that Nay is somewhere in his early to mid-twenties during the events of the comic. For those that might put him older, that number only gets bigger.

Given that timeline, the number of years to study the bird alone would probably be enough to learn all kinds of important things - Many of which I believe he implemented to get to his current position as Oswald’s assistant, anyways. He worked in so many facets of the man’s organization - All of which had different experiences and belief about the Penguin - and has learned important skills from all of them before making it up to the bird, himself.

Once there, however, his understanding of Oswald becomes much more personal. He need not rely on hearsay and speculation for how the man will react to anything or everything - He can see that reaction in front of him with his own two eyes. Additionally, I think that their years of working together has definitely opened Oswald up. If he has gotten to the point by this time that he trusts Nay with complete and unrestricted control over his empire without any supervision, then I think Oswald is gonna be okay with this guy standing around while he drinks a little too much and talks a little more. He’s gonna be okay with complaining about people in his life who infuriate him and why they do.

Not only that, but we also see Oswald playing the role of a mentor to Nay, their relationship close enough that he is able to not only spot his unasked question, but is even willing to entertain them, for a bit. While still respectful, there is a level of casualness in the way Nay speaks to Oswald that one cannot imagine most of his employees would get away with. Even when nearing the time when he is supposed to be overthrowing the man, Nay has to put on appearances about being concerned for Oswald to keep up appearances, giving to the idea that their relationship definitely is more than just an employer/employee one. No doubt that time and betrayal have hardened Oswald, but this is perhaps the closest the bird is going to get to having a real, honest friend at this stage.

With all of these things, It seems unlikely that Oswald hasn’t welcomed Ignatius in quite a bit; certainly more than most others. He’s probably told him stories, taught him lessons, given him advice. Everything that Oswald believes is important, Ignatius grew up in. It became important to him for the last five years of his life. Does Oswald tell him everything? Of course not; That be unrealistic. But so too would it be to assume that he does not confide in his assistant and right hand a lot. It is this intimate understanding of Oswald that eventually presented Ignatius as such a noticeable threat to him.

The very depth to which he knows someone determines how much of a danger he is to you. Knowledge in this man’s hands should be scarier than any weapon - And there is no one he knows like he does Oswald.

Application

Of course, knowing someone isn’t necessarily enough to do them in; One must also have a plan for applying the things he learns. First and foremost, I think that Ignatius probably is just naturally a very bright individual who works exceptionally well when it comes to recognizing patterns. In the previously mentioned heist with Martin, Ignatius mentions the dangers of being too smart. He mentions that they are a threat because they tend to have their own ideas.

Sounds an awful lot like the situation with one penguin in particular.

From the reader’s perspective, it only makes sense that we are meant to assume that Ignatius is some kind of genius. He understands advanced sciences enough to create a new formula that enhances his abilities based off the work of several people before him. He is incredibly socially capable, using both other’s initial opinions of him and his charismatic charms to sway people in whatever direction he wants them to go. He’s a quick thinker, able to problem solve in seconds, even with highly stressful elements at play. He’s a master of deception, capable of playing whatever role best fits a situation.

It’s obvious from all his various interactions and behaviors that he thinks, moves and interacts on a level that many would consider profoundly advanced - Particularly for someone probably only in their early to mid-twenties.

( This is actually one of the contributing factors as to why I made him HOH in my verse, because his superior intellect and cleverness reminded me a bit of my best friend ).

Additionally, he was given tutelage ( even if indirect ) from one of the most notorious criminals that Gotham has ever seen. The Penguin is essentially a normal man who is so capable and so good at what he does that he stands on par with what could only be described as gods and monsters. Not only is Oswald Cobblepot the obvious definition of a criminal mastermind, but he is ridiculously skilled in working the system to the point that he has spent next to no time in Blackgate or Arkham - Especially when compared to other villains of note in Batman’s sights. A villain like the Joker gets out and it’s a big deal because of all the chaos he causes and the difficulty it takes to put him back in his box, but there is no box that can contain a man like Oswald Cobblepot, whose reign over Gotham is every single night. He is so powerful, so completely in control, that even Batman - Who could care less about the boundaries of the law - has to let him walk.

This is the kind of guy that Ignatius has spent the last several years learning from and imitating on more and more grandiose scales. He wanted to be the Penguin but better because the Penguin was already a sizable villain in his own right. Anything that Ignatius knows, he’s applying in a very Cobblepot-esc way. He plays everything he has at the right time in exactly the right way to get his desired outcome. Additionally, I can only imagine that being the new and improved Penguin would consist of learning from his mistakes. Not only has working at Oswald’s side given him a great example of what to follow, it’s also provided him with a step-by-step guide of what not to do.

Lastly, I think that Nay has just had a lot of practice. Using the fact that others over or underestimate him and his ability to turn mistakes around into opportunities, he’s probably had several instances in the past where he tried a certain tactic or make a decision that nearly blew up in his face. It’s not so much that he’s always been perfect as he’s just very good at the whole “I meant to do that” thing. Being able to do this also provided him with the ability to learn from his mistakes, however - He learned to try new things until he came upon the steps that were the least amount of work and heartache in the end. He learned to work smart instead of hard and he was rewarded greatly for it.

All in all, I think the thing this whole rant of a post comes down to is that Ignatius Ogilvy is incredibly smart. So smart, in fact, that he can completely manipulate and dismantle whatever he puts his mind to. If he’d been on the side of the good guys, there would be no telling the kinds of things he could accomplish. Probably would have ended up being a Batman 2.0.

I dunno what it is about watching your parents get shot in an alley behind the theater, but damn if that doesn’t come with some astronomical problem-solving perks.

#( ᵇᵘᵗ ʸᵒᵘ ᶜᵃⁿ ᶜᵃˡˡ ᵐᵉ ᵉᵐᵖᵉʳᵒʳ ᵖᵉⁿᵍᵘᶦⁿ || ignatius ogilvy )#( ʸᵒᵘ ʰᵃᵛᵉ ᵐʸ ᵃᵖᵒˡᵒᵍᶦᵉˢ || headcanons )#( ᵃ ᵗᵃˡᵉ ᵒᶠ ᵈᵉᵃᵗʰ || comics )

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