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sleepymarmot · 1 year

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Crimes of the Future (2022)

Short non-spoilery review:

If you love to be grossed out and scared by movies, this one might be a disappointment. If you don’t, it might be more watchable than you’d expect. I would not classify this film as “horror” at all — it’s fairly tame speculative fiction with a surprisingly optimistic portrayal of the world and the main character. The horror aesthetic is wrapped around non-horror events; there is upsetting stuff, but it’s in the realm of tragedy or crime fiction. The premise of the film is that “pain has all but disappeared”, so the gory visuals and sounds are not accompanied by suffering — in fact, quite the opposite. My own description would be something like “transhumanist erotic sci-fi noir about having a conflicted relationship with one’s body”. If that sounds relevant to your interests, the film is worth watching regardless of its shortcomings. I thought that the execution of the concepts didn’t live up to their potential, that the worldbuilding and dialogue were weak — and it still inflicted days of intense brainrot on me. I can’t in good faith call it a great film, but it sure is thematically rich.

Below are ~9k words of my spoilery thoughts about bodies, health, age, art, gender, sex and some other things. I started writing this post as a review, but I’m not sure it counts as such by this point. I went into full fandom mode and poured two weeks’ worth of obsessive discourse blogging into a single text document. Warning: I have (hopefully temporarily) lost the ability to stay in my lane or shut up about my personal subjective experiences. I also made an abridged version that you can read instead.

Since the “review” got so long, I changed the usual order and put it before the liveblog. I assume that if anyone’s actually reading this post, they’d be more interested in something I at least tried to make coherent than in a long string of unfiltered first reactions.

Review

General thoughts

I’d been quietly obsessed with this film for a week before I had the opportunity to watch it. This means I knowingly stole from myself many if not most of the good experiences I would have had as a first time viewer. I’d seen the key scenes in gif form, and had a general awareness of the characters, themes, and plot. So by the time I got around to watching, I’d already been done feeling the positive emotions about the aspects of the film that directly catered to my tastes, and had too much time to feel dissatisfaction with their execution.

A bit of TMI: as someone who had spent the week before watching the film constantly coughing and able to sleep only with a raised pillow for several nights, and who is in general not on great terms with food and “the old sex”, I found Saul relatable in a rare way — much more than the characters close to me in gender and age (the usual criteria for representation). Sure, the plot is about him growing new organs and transforming into different species, but a major part of the character are his realistic health issues and alienation from the body. He has trouble eating, he needs to manage his pain constantly, he has to use special mechanized furniture, he has to sit down after walking somewhere, he gets (and, as far as the characters know, needs) regular surgeries; he compensates for the vulnerability of being exposed during invasive medical procedures by wrapping himself in black cloth from head to toe when in public, he struggles with conventional intimacy. The film is frustratingly vague about his experience of pain, but it seems like he’s immune to pain from cutting etc. like everyone else — and yet suffers from pain originating from chronic illness; the former makes him fantastical, the latter keeps him relatable. The elimination of pain and infection is by itself a futuristic power fantasy about health and physical wellbeing, of course. Speaking of fantasies, have you ever wished you could cut yourself open and remove a hurting internal organ? Well, Saul gets its done by the loving partner, and they get a career out of it! A good romance is always a plus, but I particularly appreciated a visibly chronically ill character who is in a functional and fulfilling long-term relationship, and is seen as attractive not only by his partner but also by someone who just met him. You don’t often see focus on health issues in genre film protagonists (unless it’s a disability+superpower blend), and for me, a character whose health is in worse condition than mine feels more real than a character with a flawless body that never gets in their way.

In other ways, though, the filmmaking perspective is all too familiar. The protagonist is a man, his love interests are women; conversely, the man is allowed to be old and sick, but the women have to be young, beautiful, and healthy. In a film about transhumanism and the meaning ascribed to human bodies, it’s conspicuous that the main characters are white and cis. Where are the people marginalized via race or ethnicity relative to whatever society this is set in, if there’s talk of some people being less human than others — and why the hell is the fascist cop the only black character?! Where are the intersex people who were subjected to violence for their bodies in childhood, like poor Brecken was? Where are the transgender people showing up to say “We fucking told you so, having a non-normative body and modifying it as you please is good actually”? Obviously I’m not against the very idea of a story that could be interpreted in multiple ways and compared to the experience of multiple existing social groups, but if you don’t acknowledge the existence of these groups within your narrative, it’s as if they don’t exist in the fictional world; it’s like making a fable about gay rights without showing a single same-gender couple on screen. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying “shoehorn in a token minority because it’s better than nothing”. But surely there are other ways to convey that they exist somewhere in the fictional world! In a film where a lot of the dialogue consist of philosophical exposition, it’s mostly about the characters’ personal opinions, rather than the positions of social groups and factions. There’s one tantalizing mention of “escapist propaganda”, but that’s the only hint at the larger discourse I can think of.

I knew I would ask all of these questions about representation long before I pressed play, but what I realized with the context of the entire film was that it was a general problem of the lack of worldbuilding and social awareness. The film’s scope is very small, restricted to the sphere of the protagonist’s personal reach. It’s about the body hidden in a black cloak or exposed in a surgical theater, about lying on a bed and sitting on a chair, about having a meal (or failing to), about taking a political stance or having sex in private vs in an auditorium full of people. But what is the society around that? What exactly is legal and what isn’t? Why is the National Organ Registry like that? What happened to the normal computers, why is digital technology used only in medical devices and one (1) kind of camera? How does the organic technology fit into all this? Is this post-apocalyptic future or alternate history? What exactly are all the different factions in relation to each other? If pain and infection have “all but disappeared”, what about Saul’s “pain centers” and the commercially produced equipment meant to manage them? If “only a lucky handful of us experience pain in our sleep”, how does LifeFormWare’s business stay afloat? Is there an inherent difference between acute and chronic pain in this world if the former is nowhere to be seen but the latter remains? How does elimination of pain and infection change society and its largest institutions — what happens to the army, police, prisons, healthcare? How do the standards of hygiene or access to clean food and water change when infection is not a concern? When did pain and infection disappear, was it both at the same time, was the process sudden or gradual? How long ago did that happen, how many people remember the world as it was before, how did living through the change affect them? What language are the film’s characters speaking in-universe, what is the geopolitical situation? You can see that lack of interest in the wordbuilding even in the UX of the surgery/autopsy remote: seems like nobody cared to make the buttons correspond to specific movements of the SARK’s limbs, so the actors just stroke them in whatever way is the most sensual.

Someone’s review said that the film feels like a mediocre adaptation of a good novel. I agree: the unfulfilled worldbuilding potential makes the film seem like a part of something bigger. We all like to complain about franchises and profess our love for standalone stories these days, and yet I can’t help but want to get more out of this premise. I can easily imagine it in a book (or series), a prestige TV show, a tabletop RPG setting. The film just came out, and I am already ready to fantasize about a remake or an adaptation that would fix all my problems with it! And not only problems, to be honest. I want to know what happens next: does Saul ever talk to Timlin again, do Saul and Caprice make his evolution known to public, are they able to escape persecution? Conversely, as much as I love the established romantic relationship, I’d also not mind seeing how they “unleashed things in each other”. (That could work just as well in fanfiction form, though.)

But the almost nonexistent worldbuilding is only my second biggest problem with the screenplay. The problem number one is dialogue. It’s bad. Star Wars prequel trilogy level bad. Sometimes perhaps worse. (Actually, the comparison with George Lucas might be more accurate than originally intended: this is the work of a visionary who really should have found a co-writer who would have reshaped his cool ideas into decent dialogue.) There’s an enormous amount of exposition, and yet it’s often unclear what history characters and organizations have with or what they know about each other (I’m thinking of the first scene in the National Organ Registry in particular). At times, neither sentence structure nor the word choices sound anything remotely like what a real person would say aloud (maybe their brains evolved first and they never noticed?) A couple of examples a very short time apart from each other that I just had to write down: - “I’ve heard that some of the Sarks that were modified for performance surgery have been really brutally hacked around, but this one was converted by someone with a very delicate touch.” - “Seeing you here, is like a lightning bolt from the blue. It strikes you very hard and very convincingly.”

The weird thing is, there is one exception: the dialogue is consistently effective when it’s humorous. The clearest example was when Kristen Stewart spent about two minutes straight on fighting for her life against the most forced monologue of all time, then a few more minutes later Viggo Mortensen closed the scene with a single very effective quip.

My top 3 of the funniest dialogue in the film:

“I’m sorry. I’m not very good at the old sex.”

“Careful. Don’t spill.”

“Why is he a corpse?” (two lines later) “You have the body of your son?” “Yes, of course I have the body of my son. He’s my son.” “Wow.” “Yeah, I know.”

Not only the dialogue, but the internal logic of the scenes and their staging are often illogical too. One particularly bizarre example: the scene that reveals that the purple bars are toxic. Why are the two technicians talking to some random guy? Why is Lang leaving his secret and deadly plastic bar on the table? Why is the random guy picking up someone else’s food and eating it? Why does Lang not bother to stop him?

Of course, there were also scenes where the way characters existed in their space drew my attention in a positive way. Some physical comedy highlights:

An instance of dark/hypocritical comedy where a character rants about human evolution that makes people too perfect with the lack of pain and infection, while Saul leans on the door, sinks to the floor in exhaustion and stays there. Nobody offers him a chair! Even Caprice leaves his side just as he slides down, and doesn’t bother to help him! Either this is thoughtless direction (which was my initial thought, tbh), or the characters are all assholes.

Timlin after the performance laser-focusing on Saul, quickly finishing her drink and getting rid of the glass without taking her eyes off him, and beelining to Saul’s seat to ask him “something intimate” without so much as a hello.

The scene in Timlin’s office is hysterical from start to finish. Her very awkwardly advancing and him somehow even more awkwardly moving out of range and hiding his face. Her prying his mouth open with considerable effort and looking inside like he’s a goddamn horse as he stares at her in mild confusion.

Kristen Stewart needed more screentime — I expected a full-fledged love triangle or maybe something more :c Her acting style is completely different from anyone else in the film. In her very first scene we see her on the left side of the screen while Seydoux is on the right, and they have a conversation like two characters who came from entirely different genres. But I can’t be mad at her overacting because everything she does is completely unhinged sex comedy. She has got to be one of the horniest characters I have ever seen on screen. She almost literally says “rearrange my guts daddy” at one point. Initially I wanted to open the review with the sicko meme but that’s redundant because Timlin is already an embodiment of it.

Whatever was happening to Saul and Caprice’s relationship never coalesced into a coherent storyline for me. I think they were supposed to have Marital Problems™, which is unsurprising when one of the partners is also the other’s collaborator, assistant, caretaker, and doctor. Caprice was clearly dissatisfied with her professional role: “Saul likes me to do the techno dog work. Keeps me in touch with my roots,” she says with clear resentment. That, I guess, was supposed to be solved when Caprice declared her intent to engage more creatively and actively in the shows’ planning and performance — but Saul reacted to that with a surprising lack of enthusiasm. You’d think he’d show more pride and interest in his girlfriend’s personal growth, but instead they both seem uncomfortable, and she even defensive. Another question: are Saul and Caprice in an open relationship, or are they cheating on each other? (I feel like whatever happened with Odile would count as a fling, even if it wouldn’t in our world.) They seem to talk honestly with each other (Saul says he finds Timlin attractive, Caprice repeats Odile’s “desire to be open” line), but in both cases the other reacts like they hate to hear about that. This also seemed like a natural starting point for a storyline that never happened. Perhaps I should take these scenes as a good sign: the two are communicating their honest feelings like adults they are, instead of suppressing themselves and putting on a mask even for the person closest to them. There was at least one undeniable, glaring communication issue, though: Saul going behind Caprice’s back to secretly work with the goddamn fascist cops. I was sure he’d come clean at the end! It’s not like I require characters to be pure and unproblematic, but the way these threads were left hanging made me feel unsure whether I imagined them or was just missing what the film was trying to tell me. I guess it bothers me specifically because otherwise the relationship is very sweet and romantic, and found myself strongly emotionally attached to it. What’s better than finding the one person in the world who understands and accepts your weirdness because their own weirdness perfectly complements yours!

I’m not really a fan of horror, body horror in particular; I’ve seen gifs from some of Cronenberg’s earlier work and found the special effects repulsive, and not in a fun way. I’m also a romantic who prefers uplifting endings. The only Cronenberg film I’d seen before was Videodrome, which had one of the most despicable protagonists I’ve encountered in recent memory and a very cynical perspective on sex and romance. It felt like a gift to me personally that the same director’s new futuristic sci-fi was centered on a heartfelt romance and took such a hopeful stance overall. Humanity will evolve past the problems that have plagued it since the beginning, and even direct that evolution. Nature and technology will find a new balance as humans gain the ability to lessen the damage their industry has done to the planet. People will adjust to their changing bodies and find new forms of pleasure and intimacy. Grotesque alterations of human flesh will be painless and consensual, even desired. And one man will be able to handle the tense antagonistic relationships both with his own body and with the world that demands different things from it, and he will have a supportive partner by his side.

About bodies, surgeries, and age

This is a film about eating plastic and enjoying surgery. Plastic surgery. Haha get it?

No, seriously, was the surgical CGI supposed to look plastic? It was pretty unconvincing, even before I went to look up some real-life videos. It’s not just the visuals but the procedure, too; as this review points out, “there’s no question of infection or, for that matter, of blood flow. Caprice sterilizes nothing, cleans nothing, suctions nothing, and closes up Saul’s wounds with a mere heat seal”.

Cronenberg himself commented on the previous point in this interview: “In the surgeries that we show, there’s not much blood, and in the real surgery, there would be much more. Of course, they’d be sweeping it away so that they could see what they’re doing, so it’s a little bit of a fudge factor — I’m sort of pretending that’s what’s happening. Yes, it’s open-abdomen surgery, but I think the context in the film is so specific and artificial fantastic that the gross-out factor is really diminished.”)

The same interview also highlights some important connections: the fictional old artist representing the old artist who created him; old age as the time when it becomes more common for human bodies to become reliant on and intertwined with technology, changing their senses and relationship with the world; the shared the experience of modifying one’s body as basis for interpersonal connection.

I’ve talked about the age gap before; Caprice didn’t have to be young, but it’s crucial that Saul is old. Even one of the first things we hear from Saul and Caprice is, on a thematic level, a conversation about his age: “I thought I was all tapped out. Dried up.” “You always think that, and you're always wrong.” “One day, I’ll be right.” “Not today.” His body’s biological productivity is the basis of his art which is the basis of his sex life. These are the words of an aging man dreading the approach of artistic and sexual impotence, knowing that deterioration is coming but not knowing when. The formation of new organs holds two thematic symbolic meanings: it is a disease that he seeks to get under control, but also the foundation of his lifestyle that he’s afraid to let go; both the presence and the loss of that process can be a metaphor for aging.

Many metaphorical interpretations can be made for Saul’s antagonism with his body. An old person trying to hold back the deterioration of their health. A young person horrified and disgusted by puberty. (I came up with this and then a few hour later realized I’d been halfway through an article titled “Art Is the New Puberty”, haha.) A public figure promoting plastic surgery and/or dieting, making a career out of fighting their body’s natural growth and removing the parts that don’t fit their idea of normality. And of course there’s the trans reading, which people more qualified than me have already written about. There’s even a connection with the more traditional horror trope of monstrous transformation: the body not accepting human food, the growing pains, the grotesque new organs.

There’s something I really like about Saul’s transformation as this film’s secret true horror element. The “body horror” that can be seen in trailers and screenshots is not associated with fear, suffering or violence — the qualities of the horror genre. On the other hand, the slow painful transformation of a human into a frightening, mysterious entity is a classic horror trope… But the way it’s represented in this film is via its most naturalistic element that I have praised above as representation: the protagonist’s health issues. When a character in a horror story transforms into a monster like a vampire or a werewolf, it is normally signified by outside characteristics like fangs, fur, inhuman eyes etc. But Saul’s transformation happens inside, invisibly to the viewer! It’s his internal organs that are transforming! Because it’s a film about the internal organs, about the hidden truth beneath the surface! Which lets the film hide its true horror content in plain sight. We see Saul’s food problems twelve minutes in! And we see Brecken eat plastic long before that. That should be enough to connect the dots, and I’m sure there are viewers who do. But there is so much else going on, and the performance is so naturalistic, that the side of the character that is most relevant to the main plot and to horror as a genre seems deceptively mundane.

Another contrast is the conflict between the best and the worst things about embodiment. The body as a conduit for pleasure, human connection and artistic expression, vs the body as a torturous and exhausting malfunctioning cage and the target of external violence and control.

The differences between our real world and the world of the film sometimes mean that the viewers’ and the characters’ ideas of normality are the reverse of each other. Something like tattooing a person’s internal organs (while they’re wide awake, too!) would be completely horrifying in our world, but for the characters with “plastic”, invulnerable bodies it’s intimate and domestic. Conversely, Caprice is shocked and horrified at the sight of a child’s dead body and the thought of doing autopsy on it, and she’s the person who regularly cuts her boyfriend open as sexy performance art.

That last point is actually very important for the theme of people ascribing meaning to bodies. I’ve seen people voice discomfort with the “surgery is the new sex” film culminating on a child autopsy, but I think that’s the point. There’s nothing inherently sexual in cutting someone open even in the film’s world. The meaning of the action is ascribed to it by its participants. This is something I see discussed pretty often in the real world, in relation to things like kissing on the lips or having a bath together. Or, within the film: the entire basis for Timlin’s statement that the surgery was sex is a simple projection on her part. She really walked up to a celebrity and said with her whole chest “what you just were doing in front of me was sex because I thought it was hot”. Okay!

Another thing about the child autopsy I’ve seen people comment on was the body’s nudity. I was a bit surprised by that myself, because in my memory of famous art pieces depicting autopsies the body was always covered. The same film takes pains to preserve its adult stars’ modesty, having them fold legs strategically, so this was a deliberate artistic choice. I felt like it dehumanized the body, treating it as just flesh on a slab… Which was probably the intention of the film’s director, but my question is: why would that the people directing the show in-universe, Saul and Caprice, want that effect? Doesn’t that contradict the humanizing message of Caprice’s speech? Either way, this is very effective at making me not want to post screenshots or gifs of this very important scene in case the platform takes it the wrong way.

More about the autopsy: Caprice only started taking the job seriously when she encountered the saw the child’s body with her own eyes. The moment it became real for her, she started crying reflexively and never really stopped. Do you think she felt guilty about the erotic “rehearsal” she had earlier?

Caprice’s lines about her sudden “desire to cut her face open” confused me, especially because she proceeded to add horn-like mods instead of something that evokes openness. I think I understand better now. That conversation starts with Odile saying “Oh, you have no idea how hard it's been for me to find plastic surgeons who understand that I do not wish to be made more beautiful.” Caprice in her performance looked like a very beautiful, very normal woman. Saul’s body gets to be interestingly gross and weird, but she could be seen as “normal” (if you don’t pay too much attention to the unabashed look of lust on her face, at least.) Altering her face and speaking during the performance makes a statement that she’s also a freak and proud of it, that she doesn’t want to be aligned with normality and palatability. The unblemished pretty face was a mask, and to put a crack into that mask it’s enough to make the face weird. In this interpretation of openness, it’s not necessary to literally show the inside of her body to the public like Saul does.

About bodies, comfort, pain, and furniture

More about contrasts and extremes: the smash cut between Saul and Caprice melting into a kiss so tenderly and comfortably to Saul painfully trying to force down a single spoon of breakfast, straining in his wobbly wheezing chair.

This furniture looks sooo uncomfortable btw 😭 As does the way Saul uses it. The bed doesn’t have a mattress and seems way too firm, there’s no blanket, Saul sleeps in his day clothes. (In fact, I’m pretty sure he spends the entire film in the same set of clothes, day and night…) The chair, too, would be a great idea in theory, but in practice we don’t see a single character who is helped by it, and I can’t imagine what good it could do except making the owner carsick in the middle of their meal.

At the beginning of the film, we see Saul and Caprice eat breakfast separately, and I thought it was a bit cold of her to sit comfortably in the sun while he struggles alone. But in a later scene Caprice keeps Saul company in the evening while he’s trying to eat. So maybe it’s Saul who doesn’t want to watch her easily eat normal tasty food while he can barely force down his dreadful purée.

Speaking of LifeFormWare, I don’t understand how the bed is supposed to interact with Saul’s pain. At first I thought it was simply pain relief. But at one point one of the technicians says: “Creation of art is often associated with pain, and pain, as we know, is always associated with sleep. We at LifeFormWare specialize in manipulating and modulating the pain of artists, and, to us, Saul Tenser is the greatest challenge, so intimate and involving in his art, and the nature of his pain. A good night's sleep is a hard thing to define when you're an artist and you seek pain.” (By the way, yet another endless sentence that no living person would under any circumstances say spontaneously aloud.) So what exactly is it supposed to do? Nothing about Saul’s onscreen relationship with his chronic pain seemed to me like he sought it…

To stay on the topic of pain, it’s remarkable that the justification for the society where people use surgery as sex and are obsessed with body mods is not “everyone is masochistic” but “nobody can feel pain”. These are two very different things! I’m glad the film went with the latter: it’s more original, more alien, and allows pain-as-the-general-audience-knows-it to be a negative presence in the protagonist’s life without making a distinction like “good pain” and “bad pain” (which would have been very confusing in a screenplay).

The practicalities of the body mods had me straining my suspension of disbelief. Sure, there’s no pain, but there are still other concerns! Even normal zippers are a pain in the ass when they catch on your clothes, imagine one doing the same to your intestine! Even if infections aren’t a problem, yikes! Is there a horrible little flesh flap inside to help prevent that? And how is that random woman going to walk after having her foot cut to the bone, is giving her a disability actually the point here, or if not then what is?

I want to talk again about Saul not changing clothes for an unknown length of time, unlike any other character. Is this part of his characterization as a sick old man, implying that he can’t keep up with with regular standards of hygiene? If he doesn’t change clothes, I assume he doesn’t shower either. Or is that more normative in a world where “nobody washes their hands anymore”? What other forms of personal hygiene have become obsolete? We see Brecken brush his teeth, so that’s still a thing at least. On another note, this is another example of the gendered double standard I mentioned before, where the male protagonist is not held to the same standards of physical perfection and glamorousness as his female love interests; both Caprice and Timlin wear a selection of distinct outfits.

About art

After all that, I still don’t really see how Saul is an artist. How isn’t he “just a glorified organ donor”, as the film’s primary antagonist (and the only black man, ugh) put it?

In the interview with Letterboxd, Cronenberg says: “It’s a movie about an artist who gives everything, including the insides of his body, to his art. […] When I step back, having made the film, I can say, ‘Yes, this is what art is to me: that you are really giving everything you have.’ And for me, “everything” is the body. That’s the most that you can give. I’m interested in performance artists, because they do that. A performance artist who alters their body in a permanent way is giving a lot. It’s a real commitment to your art.” Maybe I just disagree with his views on performance art in general… If Saul and Caprice were thinking of the extra organs as tumours, and of their removal as necessary and life-saving, how can that count as “giving” or “commitment to art”?

Cronenberg also gives similar explanations in this interview with Vanity Fair: “So the performance artists here are the avatar, the template of any artist who is passionate and aggressive and ambitious, opening himself up, opening themselves up, completely exposing themselves, their most intimate inner workings, offering them to an audience which makes them incredibly vulnerable to rejection to misunderstanding, to anger, and it basically, therefore, is the model of what an artist is.” This argument is more understandable to me, it works on a metaphorical level — but I still don’t really see how it makes Saul an artist in a literal way. By this logic, anyone who exposes themselves to an unusual extent to the public is an artist!

Artists other than the main couple didn’t present a coherent picture either. Someone who grafts ears all over himself but can’t hear through them as a hack, but someone who has gills cut on her face and says “What I do to myself is very traumatic” even though she can’t feel pain is brilliant and exhilarating?

The most convincing argument that I can see for Saul being a true artist is that there’s a theatricality in their performances we haven’t really been shown. In the post-Odile conversation, Saul says “You want to take over the Brecken show,” and Caprice responds “I want to perform”. Then they discuss the show’s structure. Earlier, Timlin says Saul “creates theatre out of” “the rebellion of his own body”. Perhaps there’s more to the usual performances than the surgery, but we haven’t been shown that because the film chose a different focus. We also see Saul work on the SARK, and the technicians praise the quality of his alterations, so maybe his contributions as a mechanic count too?

While Videodrome is about media and its power to influence the masses, the Crimes of the Future world has no media at all. Partially it’s a consequence in the film’s disinterest in institutions and large-scale worldbuilding, but it has an interesting effect on the main characters, making them truly independent artists. It seems that they are just famous enough to have the audience they need, and executives breathing down their necks are not a concern. Everything in the film points to their art being noncommercialized and authentic — including its erotic component, which in another situation could have been a cynical “sex sells” (or, as the closest thing to a villain in this film put it, “sexier means easier funding”).

On a more light-hearted note: Saul’s amused reaction to Timlin’s confession is very funny in the light of him being an author avatar. I can only imagine how many people told Cronenberg “Your films awakened something in me, thanks”!

About sex and also art

It’s nice to see characters in a healthy long-term relationship who don’t need to negotiate something they’ve done before many times (the surgery), but when improvising something new they either communicate verbally (Caprice clearly says what she wants in the naked scene) or successfully read each other’s body language (Saul shows off his zipper and Caprice doesn’t need to ask before proceeding). There’s very little drama in any of that (as opposed to films where sex scenes are used to show characters getting together or growing apart), just character development and worldbuilding.

I’m pretty sure we never see the main couple kiss until the very end of the film. The progression of what the viewers are shown: sex in public, then sex in private, then a romantic kiss. It’s a fun reversal, and makes sense for an established couple.

Do these scenes form a storyline that decouples Saul’s identities as an artist and a lover? The starting point is the big scene that establishes the status quo: performance = surgery = sex. Then there’s the scene at home with the role reversal and the “this is just for us”. Then there’s the zipper scene where Saul and Caprice have a conversation about art and sex (which is, frankly, not the best written or most coherent dialogue in the film):

Caprice: Have we just been made obsolete? Saul: No, of course not. It’s just a functional thing. It’s a zippered fly; it’s not art, It’s not sensual. Besides, remember what our Registry friend said: sex is surgery. A zipper can’t replace our Sark. Caprice: I think she said “surgery is the new sex”. Besides, zippers have their own sex appeal.

I can’t follow the train of thought very well, but it seems to me that Saul is making the argument that only something artistic and high-effort can be truly erotic, and Caprice provides a counterargument in words and in action. Once again it’s Saul who is fixated on the artistic performance and Caprice who advocates directness and spontaneity (aligning with the more traditional gender roles in this, unlike their roles during the surgery).

Then there’s Caprice’s epiphany about wanting to be even more direct and in touch with her emotions (to which Saul reacts with strange, almost dismissive coldness). After that comes the kiss with Timlin who is desperate to be in his show but loses her nerve after a couple of seconds of awkward coughing from him. And finally, an opposite of that — the big romantic kiss with Caprice in the middle of the night in his bedroom, placed between the two scenes where he chooses his side in the ideological/physiological battle, which implies that his artistic period of pruning his “rebelling” body is coming to an end. Perhaps Caprice’s recording of his plastic meal will become his last performance.

(I haven’t mentioned whatever Timlin was doing to Saul during their first scene together because it doesn’t really feel like a part of this storyline. But. I just want to give a quick shout out to that moment so that you don’t think I missed or forgot about it.)

The phrase “surgery is the new sex” is also interesting because the wording here implies that surgery is not a type of sex, but “the new sex” i. e. a different thing that eclipses the original in popularity and is used for similar purposes (intimacy and pleasure, in this case) but doesn’t necessarily achieve them in a similar way.

It’s really a shame that we never hear how Saul and Caprice defined what they were doing before a creepy stranger came along and they started using the “new sex” phrase she coined. What language had they been using the entire time before? I am once again asking: where is the discourse, what do the various groups of people in this world say about the new developments in human sexuality? We see people cutting each other in dark alleys instead of making out etc., are they outliers or is this a general trend? “It’s time” for “the new sex” for what reasons exactly — only cultural or also physiological? Did the shift in the human perception of touch also lead to the collective loss of interest in the previously common sexual practices? If that’s physiological, where does that evolutionary road lead in terms of reproduction? How have the changes already affected the relationships between genders, the institution of marriage, the industries that deal with health or sex? Does this solve the problem of abortion access? Saul and Caprice’s thing is remarkably healthy, but how many dark counterparts do they have in people who are pressured into unwanted mutilation to keep the interest of their partner or commercial audience? Or is that escalation held back by the lack of mass media and advanced communication, making Saul and Caprice pretty extreme by the entire world’s standards? What are the communities, identities, common points of contention in this world? It seems like the world changed within a single lifetime, so how did people handle that? Are there bestselling memoirs like “I was a masochist for 30 years and then there was no more pain in the world”? What do people like that think of our main characters?

Of course I have a similar question about the opinions from the real world. So far I haven’t seen any serious discussions of this film as kink representation, and I want to know what people are saying. Certainly this feels astonishingly more positive than the scaremongering I saw in Videodrome. Also curious how this film and Cronenberg’s work in general compares to ero guro as a genre, I’m not familiar with it at all.

This film is the latest example of the very fun kind of media that makes me feel like I’m an alien in a human sexuality college class. *taking notes* Seems like some humans find the concept of touching one another’s bodies on the inside and not just on the surface erotic by itself, instead of only practicing penetration for pragmatic purposes! Weird, and even weirder that it’s news to me at this age, but okay! Or maybe it’s just Cronenberg, who can tell, certainly not me!

Every scene in the film where something erotic is happening passes every criteria I can think of with flying colors. They’re all important for the plot, themes, and character development; they’re not vulgar or violent or offensive; they’re not unexpected. Still, I couldn’t help but feel slight irritation at how much trouble R-rated films are logistically if you don’t live alone, regardless of the quality of adult content. Took me a few days to find a good time window…

The order of events in the film is one hell of an icebreaker. Usually I get a bit squicked when camera gets right into the characters’ faces to show kissing, but the scene with Timlin was so far into the film that by that point I was like “I’ve already seen this guy’s liver. I don’t care if I see his tongue, actually. Whatever.”

About genital symbolism

Viewer who has only seen Videodrome, watching her second Cronenberg: if I had a nickel every time this guy’s movies featured a stomach pussy I’d have two nickels so far, is that a coincidence or am I going to be rich?

To be serious for a second: in both films, the addition of an orifice resembling a vulva to the protagonist’s body is supposed to unsettle and disgust the audience; it is meant to be unnatural for a viewpoint character to have such a thing on their body, and its presence disturbs the bodily integrity and creates an image of vulnerability. Here are some features that the yonic orifices have in both films: a body part that does not belong on a “default” body; artificially and invasively produced for someone else’s benefit instead of being an integral part of the body; a hole instead of a functional organ; an orifice for inserting things, and not for either having things come out of it or even not being disturbed at all. In other words, the way yonic wound imagery in used both of these films reveals a patriarchal perspective in which people without vaginas are the default/the subject, while vaginas and the people who have them signify the Other/the object and exist in relation to the former.

Years ago, I complained about similarly misogynistic writing in “The Thirty-Six Lessons of Vivec” from Morrowind; in it, the cis male writer gives the androgynous (and often interpreted as intersex) protagonist a weapon that symbolically represents their genitals, with the phallic shape (a spear) and the yonic name (“Milk Taker”) — except, as you can see, the supposedly yonic part is also phallocentric because the misogynistic writer could not conceptualize a vagina beyond its utility for a penis. Same thing as the misogynistic real life etymology of the word “vagina” as “sheath, scabbard”, or, conversely, the “-ussy” words.

To give credit where it’s due: in this film, the yonic slit is created consensually and used for mutually enjoyable sex with a woman, unlike the violent insertion of the cassette and whatever was happening in there with the gun in Videodrome. Progress! But this is the brand new latest work of a very old and prolific artist, and I wonder how long it took him to get here. Hopefully I’ll have better informed opinions when I’m more familiar with Cronenberg’s filmography. Though I kind of spoiled his entire body of work for myself when two weeks after writing this part of the post, I came across an academic article about this exact topic… (Sounds like his early films were horrifically misogynistic, ouch.) If anyone has other good links with analysis of “offputting vagina” imagery in cis men’s art, I’d be interested, too.

About gender roles

On a similar note of the man as the default subject — this time in the sense of being allowed more interiority. I really love the tender scene at the end where Caprice and Saul have nightmares after the autopsy and comfort each other. It took me several rewatches to notice that it’s only Saul who talks about his nightmare. The only thing Caprice says about her own is “I almost thought I was feeling,” and it isn’t even clear what she meant (at least to me). Because it’s important to show the viewers what the man is thinking and feeling, the contents of the woman’s mind don’t matter so much, just infer them from the context! I understand he’s the protagonist, but I also think the audience is supposed to think of them as equals, and this approach undermines that.

The artistic collaboration between Saul and Caprice involves a refreshing role reversal. Usually the woman would provide the body, be it as a model or as a canvas, to represent the unthinking, instinctual, sensual side of the process, and the man would be the one holding the brush, purposeful and intellectual. Here, it’s the man who grows new organs without control or intent (but perhaps out of subconscious, repressed instinct) and provides his body as raw material that is tattooed and surgically sculpted by the woman while he lies back passively — and it’s the woman who holds the tools and even calls them her paintbrush on screen. For the audience of the surgery, it’s the man who is reduced to a collection of objectified body parts, his torso exposed (stripped not only of clothes but also skin) and face irrelevant.

Saul’s black outfit has many ambiguously gendered connotations. The masculinity of Aragorn’s hooded or Batman’s masked silhouette in the dark and Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, plus the femininity of black clothing covering him from head to toe and leaving only the eyes exposed like a niqab, plus the genderlessness of a monk or a nun’s robes. The mysterious heroism, the Romantic loneliness. The type of body that becomes the subject of ideologically-driven government control and public debate. The denial of the body and its sensuality, its removal from the gendered paradigm.

Saul’s black clothes also mirror Caprice’s white clothes, and in the kiss scene their bodies almost form the Yin-Yang symbol. The roles are reversed: the woman is Yang (light, active) and the man is Ying (dark, passive).

About “natural” and “artificial”

In a previous section I used the phrase “artificially and invasively produced” in the negative context of sexism in art. I wanted to make a note that the film actually celebrates the artificial and the invasive, but immediately realized it was more complex than that.

The motivation for Saul and Caprice’s invasive procedures is to preserve the “natural”, original state of his body by removing the growth presumed to be invasive and hostile. On the other hand, there’s what the government fears and the plastic eaters want: the results of surgeries being preserved and passed down genetically. Both sides use the same word: respectively, “It was all natural. He was born that way” vs “The first to be born with a plastic processing digestive system. To be naturally unnatural.”

These two threads intersect in the pivotal scene where Saul and Caprice defend the former worldview and Lang Dotrice defends the latter. It is not only a theoretical ideological clash; one of the two arguments is backed by nature itself, and it’s Lang’s, even though he doesn’t live to see it. Body is reality. The reality cannot be denied. Saul has to either die or accept what nature has chosen for him. Or has he done it, subconsciously, himself? The film asks the question of how much input Saul has on what’s “cooking” inside him, but never gives a definite answer. What is clear, though, is that the film takes the side of accepting the “natural” state of one’s body, of growing past the futile attempts to control and fight it. The relief and joy of finally being at peace with one’s body is portrayed as a transcendent, spiritual experience in the final shot of the film. Does that mean that the film’s position is ultimately against surgery? After the happy ending, the couple will probably stop removing new organs, so their performances must end or at least change in a major way — does that mean the film presents the surgical sex of the performances as a distraction or even a mistake? The assistive chair goes quiet, not needed anymore as the protagonist is transformed by the acceptance of his body — does that count as a miraculously cured disability? I’m not sure, but the film’s position is definitely more complex than it seems at first glance.

About the cinematography

When we see Saul’s room for the first time at the beginning of the movie, the visuals of the shot just bother me. The blurry landscape outside looks greenscreened in. The light is supposed to be coming out of the door to the balcony, but the room and especially Caprice’s body are much more noticeably lit from the front, from a secondary light source or a huge reflector.

In the window kiss scene, whenever Timlin raises her hands, for some reason it throws a soft rose/red light on her neck and face. Very distracting.

Nice parallel: Caprice looking intensely at Saul during the first surgical scene we see (when she’s operating on/having sex with him) and during the last one, the autopsy (when she says “Let us not be afraid to map the chaos inside. Let us create a map that will guide us into the heart of darkness” to him and about him — her mind clearly changed since the argument with Lang and her line “We’re making art out of anarchy” in it).

Great excuse for shifting into black and white for the final shot. I haven’t seen The Passion of Joan of Arc, but I think I get the idea. Actually I’d seen the screenshot comparison before the film itself, and it had me very concerned about Saul’s fate — so getting to the end of the film and realizing the real context was a relief.

About genre and similarities to other things

I said above that I don’t see this film as a horror film, but there’s a caveat. Horror does have a presence in it — not just drama and tragedy and revulsion but the actual emotion of horror. The main characters are not monsters or survivors — but they witness horror. And it leaves a mark on them: Caprice is inspired to “not be afraid to map the chaos inside”, Saul chooses a side. We watch them pull each other closer after the destruction of someone else’s family gave the both of them nightmares. Saul and Caprice are also themselves artists of the horror genre, creating gory spectacles that shock and unsettle the audience. So the autopsy is a multi-layered horror event: other people do something horrific and violent, Saul and Caprice make a spectacle out of showing it to public, and their roles shift from the creators of fake tame horror to the audience of real violent horror.

This film being classified as horror because of its painless gore is also funny to me because “icky and uncomfortable to watch, but the characters enjoy it so at least the empathetic reaction is positive” is that how I usually react to entirely ordinary sex scenes in media. Welcome to my world!

Weirdly, this film reminds me of Stalker. Both because of the general aesthetic and atmosphere, and because the plot is thin and the characters are mouthpieces delivering author’s opinions on abstract discourse with little personal touch. Stalker is way better visually (at a horrible real-life cost) and has smoother direction and dialogue, but despite its reputation I found Crimes more thought-provoking (as evidenced by the length of this post) even if less articulate. Curious how the philosophy of the two films is directly opposed: Stalker is a Christian’s complaint about “the victory of materialism” while Crimes of the Future is an atheist’s rumination on “body is reality”. The former declares viewers like me to be its ideological enemy, the latter resonates with my own worldview (which is why I went so unhinged with this post). Now that I think of it, there’s also something that reminds me of Dostoyevsky: the contrast between gloomy naturalism and characters who are deep within their own heads (or up their own asses).

Things I didn’t understand

The purpose of the beauty pageant subplot — I think it went nowhere.

The meaning of Caprice’s speech during the autopsy — did she also realize that the organs were faked by the government, or did she play right into their hands? To be honest, the autopsy scene didn’t work for me on most intended levels — I was confused by the organs, and Caprice’s speech didn’t make sense ideologically or emotionally. It’s supposed to be the film’s Big Dramatic High Point but it feels like a misfire.

Had Saul and Caprice interacted with the Registry before? How much were the two bureaucrats familiar with them by the time they met in person? There’s a lot of contradictory information in the relevant scenes.

What was Timlin’s worldview? How come she was the one to actually coin the film’s “Surgery is the new sex” motto, seem to be actively interested in futuristic bodies and modes of interacting with them — and she still ended up working against the most futuristic faction?! How did she expect that to improve her chances of “being Caprice for him” and not to completely destroy them?!

When Timlin talked to Saul, Caprice asked “What was that all about?” and he said it was about art, did she hear the conversation and joke about how weird it was, or did she not hear it, ask him about the content and get a lie as a response? Oh wait, found the answer to this one myself: in the zipper scene, Saul quotes Timlin’s words from that scene inaccurately and Caprice corrects him. So she heard everything. Leaving this one in, in case someone else has the same question.

Caught rewatching the scene: at the beginning of the film, the National Organ Registry guy tells Saul and Caprice: “Our fear is that some of these neo-organs might establish themselves genetically, and then be passed down from parents to children, who would then no longer be, strictly speaking, human.” At the end of the film, the plastic-eating guy says that’s what happened to his son, Saul says that “sounds insane”, and Caprice doesn’t argue. Were Saul and Caprice also not paying attention?

If the plastic eaters became plastic eaters after “the same elaborate surgery” “developed over years of collaboration”, and the only other known way to acquire the mutation is to inherit it genetically, how did Saul spontaneously and independently gain the ability to eat the exact same material as they do? We see Dr. Nasatir have struggle with his food in the same way — has this mutation started to occur spontaneously in people who are messing with their insides in other ways?

What is the goal and ideology of the two technicians? Is LifeFormWare a separate faction with its own ominous goals, or are these two women New Vice’s moles within LifeFormWare?

Why is Saul sleeping on the floor at the end? Did the technicians sabotage Saul’s bed? Did he decide he can’t trust them and their technology? Did the bed malfunction all by itself? Did he roll off because of the nightmare? My first assumption was that the bed threw him out, which is pretty scary honestly.

When Caprice says “I almost thought I was feeling” at the end, what does it mean? Was she dreaming about physical pain? Or is it supposed to be a last-minute reveal that pain wasn’t the only sensation/emotion that people lost? If people completely lost the sense of touch and can feel only what in the real life would be agonizing, that should have been established early because it would affect everything about the way characters interact or simply exist on screen.

Here’s one not about the film, but about the audience reaction. I don’t understand why people keep calling the setting dystopian. It doesn’t seem much more oppressive than real life — in fact, the authorities seem absurdly powerless. The one step back compared to our world is the lack of computers — but even as an extremely online person, I think I would have given up the internet in exchange for no pain or infection for every single human being worldwide. Please, where can I find a devil to bargain with and sell TikTok in exchange for no COVID? If anything, I actually thought this world was almost utopian, and a pretty interesting take on the concept at that; not a sustained utopia, not one built on a cracked foundation and currently in decline like a certain podcast season, but a world on a rocky road to becoming one. This is the future liberals (me) want!

If you’re still reading the post, thank you! The “review” is over now. Next are the notes I took during the first viewing. (Obviously, I had to look up so many scenes while writing this post that I rewatched almost the entire thing already.)

Liveblog

I’ve read all the warnings and was prepared for this scene. Wasn’t even as bad as I feared. Very sad though

Haha the horror music for the high-tech bed Is the balcony greenscreened in? The lighting doesn’t look right

Wait is she just having a look or tattooing his insides?

What is this chair even doing future assistive technology sucks

“National Organ Registry” in a place like this?! What is the state of the world here, is it post-apocalyptic? Or just a small poor country? I Don’t Believe That Man Has Ever Been To Medical School. Or law school for that matter

The difference between Seydoux’s realistic performance and Stewart’s overacting is hilarious. They’re on screen at the same time but they belong to totally different genres. Stewart’s character is so unbelievably horny on main from the first second we see her lmfao

Stewart’s quite literally playing the “haha yes” sicko

Is he upset about the tattoos in general or the specific one Caprice gave him?

Are we gonna get any worldbuilding details because it’s wild. High tech medical devices with seemingly organic elements but pre-computer paper documentation… Tiny ring-sized digital cameras but also uhh film cameras?

How does the audience even see anything? I see only one screen it’s transmitted to, and it’s tiny

Whatever genre everyone else is in, Stewart is in a sex comedy

Why does the new character look so much like the murder mom

“Why is he a corpse?” (two lines later) “You have the body of your son?” “Yes, of course I have the body of my son. He’s my son.” “Wow.” “Yeah, I know.”

Did he leave it on autopilot or something? Doesn’t that defeat the point? I’m no expert, but I’ve always assumed that if your partner says “keep going”, your next step shouldn’t be to stop what you’re doing and lie down to cuddle.

“What I’m saying with that body-art stuff is that I don’t like what’s happening with the body. In particular, what’s happening with my body, which is why I keep cutting it up.” Aw :(

Do I want to google wtf a “stoolie” is

“I’ve heard that some of the Sarks that were modified for performance surgery have been really brutally hacked around, but this one was converted by someone with a very delicate touch.” “Seeing you here, is like a lightning bolt from the blue. It strikes you very hard and very convincingly.” WHAT IS THIS DIALOGUE. DID GEORGE LUCAS WRITE THIS

Where are they? Did she catch him in a random alley on the way home?

Does the bearded dude want him too?

I still don’t understand what is supposed to be legal and what isn’t. Anyway why is Stewart’s character crying “I’m sorry. I’m not very good at the old sex.” How come every normal line the worst writing I’ve ever heard but every funny line is comedy gold?

Do Caprice and Saul have an open relationship or are both of them just very willing to cheat?

This is at least the second time I see Greek alphabet. Are they just in Greece?

“Has it ever occurred to you that you might simply be interfering in a fantastic natural process that you should surrender to?” I’m desperately trying to remember where I’ve seen this story before

Alright, so the moral dilemma for the protagonist has finally crystallized: does he deny his nature and betray the other “mutants”, or does he stand with them?

How many goddamn factions are there

Hold on, didn’t Caprice want to be the one cutting?

I don’t get it. How are there tattoos on the inside? Why is this supposed to be ugly if the tattoos on Saul’s internal organs weren’t?

Oh okay the tattoos were faked and in truth the kid was “all natural”. So the film isn’t siding with the fucking eugenical police. That’s a relief

Ohhh I think I see what is going to happen in the remaining 13 minutes. Saul will publicly cut himself up to reveal what the plastic-eating bodies actually look like.

Noo, Timlin did this?! Why?! I thought her bad vibes were in the opposite direction!

“It’s going to make him a martyr. Just what the cause needs.” Well that’s good news at least

I like the fakeout where at first it sounds as if the two are having “old sex”. Did the technicians sabotage Saul’s bed?

She really should use a normal stationary camera. How the hell does it look when she opens the plastic bar while the camera is on her hand, it must be just shaking footage of the wall!

Yay for self-acceptance! I’m glad the couple remained a team until the end, I was really rooting for them.

Wait, what was the beauty pageant subplot for?! And what was the meaning of Caprice’s speech during the autopsy — did she also realize that the organs were faked by the government, or did she play right into their hands?

#crimes of the future #liveblogs and reviews #gender and sexuality #blah blah blah #can't believe i am finally posting this...#never putting all my thoughts into the same post again #i've been editing this for three weeks

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inonibird · 3 years

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Sahuldeem/Kaleesh Q&A #6

Holy shit, a backlog of asks to address! Let’s DO it! (questions bold; answers italic) — I love all your Kaleesh stuff so much aaaaaa. Have you ever played Star Wars the Old Republic? Thoughts on Xalek? Thank you! I’ve never actually played it, but I’ve watched clips of Xalek interactions and he seems like a swell fellow, all [Sith] things considered. Curious if anyone’s written in-depth about him, fanfic or otherwise! More Kaleesh content, please and thank you. <3

Who’s your favorite original character from Sahuldeem? Ooooh, that’s a doozy. Hmm. Can’t pick just one. In terms of characters y’all have met so far in the story, I’d say Jindra is a personal favorite, if partially for the fact that she’s one of the most-developed. There’s another enjoyable minor Kaleesh original character who will arrive in the next part. We have quite a while before we meet my favorite original character overall, who we will not see until Part SIX of Sahuldeem (and who plays a rather important role for such a late showing). And then, yeah, okay, not an ORIGINAL character, but I think my absolute favorite character to write for is the insufferably snarky sassy smugness that is Chairman San Hill of the InterGalactic Banking Clan. God I want to punch him so badly. He’s great. Can’t wait for him to show up.

I noticed Sahuldeem hasn't dropped the name Qymaen just yet... Does he ever formally forsake it, or does it just get to the point where he doesn't have anyone to be on a first-name basis with and his forename just... fades into irrelevance? Short answer? No. Long answer? No, and also sort of yes, but not really, because it’s sad and complicated and you’ll just have to wait and see.

So, Huk is also the home planet of the Yam’rii. How did the Kaleesh even hear the word, much less come to associate it with the Yam’rii themselves, to the point it means soulless insect? Oh, boy. Yes. Exactly. It is the most ridiculous part of Kaleesh/Yam’rii “established canon” and something I almost immediately said “yeah no” to; it’s one the few flat-out changes I made for this fic. Within the universe of Sahuldeem, “Huk” is purely a Kaleesh word meaning “soulless bug” and NOT the name of the Yam’rii home planet (which I haven’t referred to by name in the story, but might as well simply be “Yam’rii”). And that’s it. Otherwise you’d have to assume that somehow Huk is a word both in Yam’rii and Kaleesh and just happens to mean what it means in Kaleesh and—yeah, no, that’s nonsensical. I don’t care. No. Bad.

Is fashioning kakmusmal from the skulls of other Kaleesh unheard of? I’m sure it’s taboo, but has anyone ever crossed that line? Way, WAY back in the day such things were done (like prehistorically speaking, before certain theological practices were finessed and upheld), but at least for the past few thousand years, yes, calling it “taboo” would be accurate. That’s not to say it HASN’T been done recently, but such a person would be considered a sociopathic monster.

Something something, Ronderu is taller than Qymaen, something something, I wonder how often Grievous thinks about how that wouldn’t be true anymore You assume Grievous thinks about such things post-crash…

Were any Force-sensitive Kaleesh discovered by the Jedi during the Bitthævrian War? Personally, I think that the relatively small number of Kaleesh that the Jedi would have encountered/exploited during the Bitthævrian War would mean that the sample size simply wouldn’t be enough to include a Force-sensitive individual, since such a thing IS pretty rare on Kalee. But that would be a heck of a fanfic. ;)

We know Shahulla was taken alive— is it possible she’s survived this long? Certainly possible. But I can confirm she’s out of the picture.

How did you go about designing your (iconic!) versions of Qymaen and Ronderu, since they differ visually slightly from the only canon images we have? I don’t think I changed them TOO much, but, uh, thank you for thinking of them as iconic! I took cues from the official Kaleesh art out there + the only art of Ronderu we have + various concept art of Qymaen, made my own lazy shortcuts when it came to costume design (since I was thinking this might end up being a comic, aka, oh-god-simplify-this-shit), and picked out some clear key colors for each of them (bluish-grey + red for Ronderu, gold/beige/brown for Qymaen). Ah, and I think I mentioned before that I was just looking to design something “different” than what we saw in concept art when it came to Qy’s hair. Still probably my favorite part about drawing him!

(oops, made myself sad)

When is Part Three coming? Haha, joke’s on YOU, no one actually asked me this!! …I’m still answering. Part Three is the hardest part to write (it was also originally the hardest part to script), and I’m STILL struggling to get past the more challenging aspects (between staging space battles and the overall more grim tone). I’ve got a schedule drafted up to see how long it will take to post what I have already written, and…though part of me is worried I’ll catch up to myself too quickly, even with a biweekly posting schedule, I also recognize that giving myself deadlines is going to help me push forward instead of wallowing in the uncertainty of some of these chapters. So, ASSUMING I can haul myself out of this rut, it’s possible I may start posting by the end of the month. And possibly no longer on Friday. Stay tuned and thanks for your patience. Hopefully it will be worth the wait~

#Inoni Answers #Inoni Writes #Sahuldeem #Star Wars #Kaleesh #Kalee #Qymaen jai Sheelal #Ronderu lij Kummar #General Grievous backstory #Sahuldeem spoilers #fanfic #Inoni Art

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imo-chan-imagines · 4 years

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『 Haikyuu!! Week 2020 | Day 3 』

· Sept. 27th → Irresistible Force ·

Characters: Karasuno team

Prompts: A. favourite team + B. crossover/AU

Tags/warnings: Haikyuu!! (anime), PG, fluff, crack, a teensy bit of angst (because who doesn't love a sad superhero backstory), headcanons, AU, superheroes, HaikyuuWeek2020

A/N: Again, I love all the teams and didn't want to pick, but life is cruel, so here I am. This is headcanons about my fav team (Karasuno) in an AU (superheroes). I was thinking of a Hero Association, kind of like in 'The Boys'? But less corrupt... Maybe more like in 'One Punch'? I think you get me.

All of my Haikyuu Week 2020 posts will be SFW, but I have NFSW content on my blog if that butters your biscuit. Feel free to check it out! Thanks for reading! Please enjoy ♡ Imo~

Karasuno / Superhero Association AU

☆ Sawamura Daichi ☆

Powers: nigh invulnerability, super strength, enhanced healing

If he's not the ordinary cop that somehow befriends the heroes I was tempted then he's definitely the leader of the superhero group

Kind of like Superman in the old-school Justice League, just not as OP lol

Looks damn good is spandex those thighs *sweats*

Cape!! so ✨majestic✨

Probably wears dark-ish, neutral colours with a dash of blue

A bit serious. Not the kind of hero to go around making quips all the time, but will make light of his own suffering like Captain America

Takes younger heroes under his wing like the true Dadchi he is

Strong moral compass. Unbreakable

Won't hesitate to lay down his life for others

Who am I kidding. He's basically Captain America with a cape

Poster-boy for the Hero Association

☆ Sugawara Koushi ☆

Powers: telekinesis

A soft, pearly aesthetic with his suit, hair and skin. Lots of white and silver

A favourite among the ladies he's just too pretty, damm it T T

Very plucky and adorable

People in the vicinity will literally faint when he goes all serious to concentrate and use his powers

Has a duo move with Daichi where he literally throws him like a missle YEET

Has the most followers on Twitter and TikTok and his fans can be pretty nuts

Has a perfume line named after him and models for the adverts

Will smile like an angel right before bringing a building down on top of you fuck, I find this one really funny

☆ Azumane Asahi ☆

Powers: regeneration, enhanced stength

Kind of like Wolverine or Deapool but, like, much, much softer on the inside uwu

Wears green and black

Messed up big time back in the day and dropped off the grid out of guilt some people died :(

Was convinced to come back when his old teammates finally found him again because they needed his help in a crisis

Literally shed tears of relief when heroes and citizens alike welcomed him back instead of hating him mah heart *sniffs*

Can withstand seemingly anything and fully heal within a matter of days

Doesn't know the full extent of his powers himself. How exactly do one test it? 🤔

Still has to psych himself up for a fight, though big softy, really

☆ Shimizu Kiyoko ☆

Powers: electrokinesis, flight

Powers like Storm from X-Men, and kicks ass like Wonder Woman

Refuses to wear a revealing suit, but looks bomb af anyway

Kiyoko = absolute queen

One of the most powerful heroes, but doesn't throw her weight around unless she's kicking bady-guy booty

Stella gynamast, and has mastered several martial arts

Can literally throw a guy three times her size, all without any strength powers Tanaka: 👁👄👁

Somehow has perfect hair all the time secret superpower??

Is active on the political stage as a human rights activist, headlining women's rights yes, yes yes

Will strike you with lightning for sexual harassment

Comes up with really good mission plans

Is a soothing balm for Tanaka when he loses it

Black and gold aesthetic✨

Asymmetrical cape! super fashionable

Poster-girl for the Hero Association

☆ Tanaka Ryuunosuke ☆

Powers: fire generation and manipulation

Tanaka brings the heat literally

A bit of a chaotic-good, but what's new there?

Can get out of control if he loses his focus, so his friends have to keep him grounded Kiyoko is a literal angel when that happens

Kiyoko: Sun's getting real low...

Bonus points if you get the reference

Is terrified of hurting innocents if he gets out of control

It rarely happens, but if he loses his self confidence, his powers don't seem to work

Shouts cringy lines at the villains before roasting their asses lmfao

Wears a black and orange flame-retardant suit, and actually looks pretty fine in it 😌👌

Literally head over heels for Kiyoko just imagine it. Biggest hype man

☆ Nishinoya Yuu ☆

Powers: animal metamorphosis, enhanced speed

Think Beast Boy from 'Teen Titans', but less green he's more likely to be yellow or orange, lmao

Handy in lots of different situations. Very versatile

Incredibly cheeky and joins in with Tanaka's cheesy jokes and one-liners

Absolute maniac, but the people love him, especially schoolkids lmao

Has his own energy drink flavour, and he's STOKED about it

Yellow and black suit, kind of like his hair

Has a surprisingly large following of fans

Laps up the attention, but it doesn't really go to his head

Quiet and serious when he's on a mission/fighting

☆ Hinata Shouyou ☆

Powers: self replication, super speed, levitation

His powers took a while to properly manifest, which left him feeling isolated as a teen

Was pretty lost until Ukai helped train him

Got into a fight with Kageyama in an alleyway when he first met him MET HIM IN THE STREET, LMAO

Argues with Kageyama a lot at headquarters, but they work together like a dream when taking down bad guys

Has a heart of literal gold precious baby

Is contantly amazed when he helps significantly

Was inspired to become a hero by his idol, the Little Giant and it's his dream to inspire someone else 😭😭

Uses his replication ability to confuse the bad guys ULTIMATE DECOY

Levitates around the room when he's excited like Aang from ATLA, hahaha

Wears an orange, white and yellow suit with little wings on his heels cuuuute

☆ Kageyama Tobio ☆

Powers: water/ice generation and manipulation, breathing underwater, superhuman reflexes

I was tempted to give him fire/ice powers like Todoroki, but I didn't want to detract from Tanaka

Has problems focusing his powers, and can be quite turbulent in the heat of battle

Finds it hard to work well with others initially, but really makes an effort

Has hurt people close to him by accident before and never wants to do it again it would tear him apart

Becomes a power duo with Hinata when Ukai helps train them, even though they don't seem to get on well at first

Broody boi on the surface, but a cinnamon roll deep down

Wears a dark blue and deep purple suit that has fins to assist in underwater escapades which are his forte

Freezes Hinata's feet to the floor when he pisses him off or anybody's feet, tbh

Can dodge almost anything because of his reflexes don't ever try to punch him. You'll look stupid

Is surprised by the number of people in his fan club especially the number of women asking to marry him??

☆ Tsukishima Kei ☆

Powers: telepathy, superhuman intellect, mind control on weak-willed individuals

Prefers to outwit his enemies rather than getting into a brawl

But his self-designed gadgets and tech help him out if he has to a bit like Tony Stark, wink wonk

Sometimes makes you question if he's really a hero or not Tsukki, please

Doesn't take orders well

Baits villains by insulting them and getting the better of them with his words it's hilarious

Comes up with good plans, but improvises well with whatever he's got

Probably wears suits over his spandex most of the time fancy shmancy

Is prepared to die to protect Yamaguchi waahhh

☆ Yamaguchi Tadashi ☆

Powers: invisibility, force fields, teleportation

Susan Storm with added teleportation, lol

Often finds it hard to value his powers because they're not as visually strong and impressive as other people's

Rather than squaring up to a battle, he often has to 'hide' from it by literally going invisible

But he gradually becomes aware of how vital his powers can be, and learns to control them and make them as advantageous as possible

Is a highly important and valued member of the team

Soft bean that gets nervous and throws up before a fight

But he's hella determined and won't back down

Honestly, just wants to protect Tsukki and make him proud PROTECT HIM

☆ Yachi Hitoka ☆

Powers: size manipulation

She can shrink and enlarge herself and objects she touches at will, including other people

Sometimes shrinks really small to avoid social situations she doesn't want to be in samez, honey

The clumsiest and least experienced on the team

But she tries her best, gradually getting to grips with her powers

Sometimes uses her powers by accident, like when she's nervous

Once touched a watermelon slice on the refreshment table and accidentally blew it up to the size of a car Hinata, Kageyama and Noya fully dug in with their faces 😭😭

Nearly passed out when Daichi, the literal god of the Hero Association, told her she had great potential

Don't worry, Yams teleported and caught her

☆ Ukai Keishin ☆

Powers: laser vision, metal mimicry

The has-been hero who lost his enthusiasm for hero-ing and retired some years ago

Was really cool back in his hayday. Big hot-shot with a fan club

Has been working as a convenience store attendant to pay the bills and is bored out of his mind but refuses to admit it

Was convinced to get back in the game when he found Hinata and Kageyama fighting, both struggling with their abilities. He broke up the fight and agreed to coach them

Doesn't do much of the flashy hero stuff anymore, but will occasionally get stuck in when he's needed must protecc his children

Is only, like, ten years older than the other heroes, but they treat him like some fossilised sensei out of Natuto, or some shit

Tbf, he has the back problems of one 😭😭

☆ Takeda Ittetsu ☆

Powers: power absorption

Transferred from being a hero to hero management after having having issues with the effects of his powers he has a conscience :(

He felt guilty and responsible for permanently taking the powers of others, even if they were criminals

It was like removing a piece of their souls it kind of broke him

These days, he makes sure nobody knows about his powers, so it can't be used against him

He helps in any other way possible

He would only use his powers again in dire circumstances he knows he'll eventually have to

Is generally chipper and good natured, though

If he was ever captured by a villain, they'd probably send him back because he talks too much omg, hahaha

Helps gather info for the team and direct them on missions and in fights

Gives bomb inspirational speeches ✊

57 notes · View notes

hanniiesuckle17 · 4 years

Note

i would like to bless your followers and dash, sooo can you give me a crash course in noir 😊😊

OMG YES OFCCCCCC💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

OKAY SO HERE IS THE DEAL

NOIR is a nine-member boy group under Luk Factory

(Not really pleased with how they are promoting my boys but imma get over it one day!)

Our fan name is Lumiere (or Lumi) and we don’t have any official colors or a lightstick yet.

Noir debuted on April 9th of 2018. With the mini-album Twenty’s Noir. Their title debut song was Gansta (SUCHA GOOD VIDEO)

They also had a predebut song called As a Star and it makes me so soft.

Their next comeback is on the 27th (THIS MONDAY!!!!!!) The album is called Up the Sky and the title track is called Lucifer

IM SO FUCKING EXCITED YOU HAVE NO IDEA

MEMBERS

Shin Seunghoon

Shin Seunghoon is our precious leader!!!!

(He was what got me into Noir. I saw a video about the best leaders in kpop and I was like)

He is 27 years old. His birthday is May 30th, 1993 (He is a Gemini)

Boy is tallllllllllllllllllllll

like he’s 5′10.

but in pictures by himself he for real looks like he is 6′2

istg he is like 65% legs.

ALSO MAN AS A RIPPED CHEST SORRY BACK TO REGULARLY SCHEDULED NOIRING

He is the leader, main rapper, and also sometimes a vocalist (but the rappers in this group pretty much fo everything)

HE SPITS FIRE when he wants to.

Really good at freestyling

He makes mixtapes on youtube on Noir’s channel. (I think he has 5 out now)

He is a college-educated man!!!! (He went to Korean National Open University

He took taekwondo when he was younger

The man trained for 8 years

He and Hoyeon compose and format a lot of their songs with a team of producers from LUK

(I often think he and Chan from skz are really similar.)

Seunghoon is legit a father of 8 soft crackhead kids. istg he is so done with them most of the time

We call him our koala because he looks like one <3

Seunghoon is obsessed with accessories and wearing them to the point where stylists literally have to take them off of him. (I have never not seen picture of him not wearing jewelry. )

he is actually in the military right now and i miss him so fricking much TT

All in all hot boy on screen and soft dad in real life

Kim Yeonkuk

this boy I cant

Kim Yeonkuk. Damn.

he was on Produce 101 season 2

he was eliminated on ep.5 :(

He is the lead dancer and a vocalist

Yeonkuk is 25 years old. His birthday is February 8, 1995 (An Aquarius)

is totally the aegyo king but denies it

he seems cold at first but has a big ass bright personality its so freakin adorable

my personal favorite clip of him is and the boys dancing around on vlive to big bang and him saying fantastic baby (its sounds so cute when he says it)

He is also a 5′10 tall boy

he trained for 3 years

THIS BOY IS SO FREAKING SKINNY SOMEONE PLEASE EGIVE HIM A HAMBURGER OR SOMETHING TAKE HIM TO TACO BELL

not kidding

his waist is so fucking small its scary.

Yeonkuk=stringbean

literally a walking meme.

pause in any interview and he is pretty much gonna give you a memeable face

this boy is so loveable and goofy

also if this boy doesn't post like 8 photos of him doing something on insta im convinced he thinks that it just didn’t happen

he never posts just one photo its always like 6-8

also I was highkey afraid he was gonna go bald last comeback when they legit turned his hair into smurfs pubes

Lee Junyong

Lee Junyong. When i say i love this man with my whole heart

also 25 years old

his birthday is March 1st 1995 (Pisces)

another 5′10 king

Main vocalist.

he is a former member of INX

his brother is Seungyong from N.CUS

he trained for 4 years

THIS MAN IS TOO ATTRACTIVE FOR THIS EARTH

vocals for days. VOCALS.FOR.DAYS.

Did a cover of BTS’s The Truth Untold with Siha and literally gives me chills.

He has little crooked front teeth so when he sings he has this tiny little breath in some of the words so his voice is even more distinct

BUT LIKE JUNYONG HAS THE CUTEST SMILE EVER (I love his teeth in that's a weird thing to say but i think they are so cute)

he is 1/2 of the Highnote Belting Club

talks. all. the. freaking. time.

he goes live alot

boy is obsessed with Yunsung someone save yunsung from him

total crackhead when not doing real interviews

never fails to make me smile

he is said to be the moodmaker of the group

APPARENTLY HE WAS IN ONE EPISODE OF MY FAVORITE DRAMA AND I HAD NO IDEA

he was in episode 6 of The Liar and His Lover

overall he is just so sweet and funny and its so easy to love him

Nam Yunsung

Yunsung is the Lead vocalist and Visual

24 years old His birthday is August 29, 1996

He is a virgooo

MAN IS 6FT EVEN

lead vocalist and LOOKS IT

he is the king of intense eye contact with the camera

he looks like legit prince charming

2/2 of Highnote Belting Club

weird af

istg he is the biggest crackhead

very extra. (as you can see in gif)

he calls himself a vampire because of his super pale skin

he trained for 4 years

he raps part time

HE ACTUALLY ENJOYS EXCERCISE

he hides snack between his bed and the wall but apparently daewon and junyong steal them

I think he rooms with junyong? not sure

Someone save him from junyong. boy is going to be smothered to death

ngl their relationship is really cute

he was also in Produce 101 S2 but left bc of health issues.

cutest thing ever and then turns into a devil onstage

a literal puppy

he is big fan of ateez and he and another member actually went to the groups first concert in korea

he is just so precious and weird

Kim Siheon

oml this smol bean

Kim Siheon god damn

He is 23 years old

Birthday is December 23, 1997 (Capricorn like meeeee)

also 5′10 babyy

Vocalist but also a rapper (he rapped suga’s part in their remix of BTS Fake Love)

LIKES TO BIAS WREKC FREAKING EVERYONE

Beware the Siheon

He has a hot older sister, Hanbit, from a group called Hot Place (Their debut song is called TMI and its pretty good.)

HOTNESS RUNS IN HIS FAMILY

he trained for 5 months

he really likes drawing and does caricatures of his members

he is the eyebrow king

idk his eyesbrows are just....

stylists do things to his eyebrows anf it just fucks everyone up

high key has the best fashion sense

others boys willshow up to vlive in like hoodies and he is wearing a freakin casual suit

BOY PLAYS TO WIN’

he is like a boss at every kind of game

claims himself to be sweet like “Heonie”

“Hi! I’m siheon! Heonie Heonie Siheonie!”

he is a litter quieter than the other guys

BUT he is so funny

he doesn't like spice on his food for some reason

yeah he's crazy

he trained for 5 years

he's just precious and hot and hot and really hot

Ryu Hoyeon

THIS MAN HAS GIVEN ME SO MANY PROBLEMS

Ryu Hoyeon.

So he is my bias wrecker. Boy climbed up my bias list so freaking fast

He is the main dancer, vocalist, and a rapper (he also composes and arranges with Seunghoon)

He is 22 years old

His birthday is February 6, 1998 (Aquarius)

anontherrrrr 5′10 babbyyyy

cheekkkkkbooonnneeeessss

SHARK BOYY

He says he looks like a shark and i agree

HE HAS A NICE FUCKING TORSO

There was a predebut photo of him half shirtless it was awesome

he was also on Produce 101 S2

eliminated on ep.5 :(

he trained for 2 years

He, yeonkuk, and seunghoon were in the Japanese tour of the musical Altar Boyz with Teen top’s Niel,2PM’s Chansung, and many others

he has a semi viral video of him

when he was a trainee / on produce 101 he was dancing to nct127 cherry bomb and had an unfortunate but quite hilarious accident (just look it up its funny)

sucks ass at games. every game. ever.

he is a low-key crackhead. he is a calm crackhead lol

VERY ATTRACTIVE

he used to have a youtube channel

you can still see his insta (leaderyoo) its so freaking cute and has predebut stuff of all the boys

he made their entire remix of fake love

he choreographed their song Diamond and also their cover of Taki Taki (which was very hot)

becomes a beast when dancing

he has an original chore to WEight in Gold that is very.......(insert eyebrow wiggle here)

has that dorito torso

(tiny waist and broad shoulders)

also thighs god damn

He is also a HUGE Vixx fanboy

Alter ego is DJ Ironman

He is very close with Siha, Siheon, and Yeonkuk

they turned him into a traffic cone for the Doom Doom comeback

he speaks a little bit of English (just a little bit)

all in all I'm completely in love with this man

Yang Siha

THIS MAN IS SO FINEEEEEEE (he's my bias btw I have never been so in love with a man other than jisung)

Yang Siha is just uugghghhh god damn

22 year old babyyyy

Birthday is March 9, 1998 (Pisces)

Lil baby is 5′7″ oml i love him

MAIN VOCALIST AND DESERVES IT

he likes watching youtube videos and anime

He trained for 1 year and 1/2

looks good in every freaking hair color

his voice does NOT MATHC HIS FACE

but not like in a Felix level way

He says his most attractive features are his “feminine features” (he says his unpronounced Adams apple and his small noes and doe eyes

HE HAS SMOL EARSSSS and i lovethem

close with Hoyeon and Siheon

but like his voice though

its so freaking pretty

it gives me chills

everything about him is perfect

he has tiny lips lol

he can play guitar

legit i swear his entire closet is black he rarely wears color

legit EVERYONE LOVES HIM

if someone is hugging anyone in a vlive or something

its siha

its always siha

everyone cuddles siha

i wanna cuddle siha. fuck.

for some reason I've just noticed this

the boy likes to wear long sleeves idk why

he also always seems to wear this one necklace Idk why but its so pretty and i really love that he does idk

he says his favorite song by NOIR is Travel (its also my favorite. its on their debut album and omg his part <3)

he is just so pure oml everything he posts on insta just makes me so soft

he is just so freakin cute and makes me switch lanes so fast

Kim Minhyuk

ooooof this cutie

Kim Minhyuk is something else

i just don't know what he is lol

Lead rapper and lead dancer

22 years old

His birthday is March 18th, 1998 (Pisces)

5′11 boy yes sir

ALSO A COLLEGE EDUCATED MAN

He went to Seoul Arts College

he has an older brother

apparently he cooks in the dorms

he trained for 1 year

he likes to play basketball

he really loves taking photos on his camera

he HATES bugs. its kind of funny ngl

he also is deathly afraid of balloons (i will not apologize for laughing at this one)

He and yunsung loooove ateez. they went to their first concert.

HE SERVES LOOOOKKKSSS

I think he is the most versatile member (look wise) because sometimes its hard to recognize him with each comeback because they change his style

he has these really cute big circle glasses he wear and just uwu

he kinda looks like Simon or Theodore from Alvin in the chipmunks in the best way.

he has a thing about jumping

like whenever he gets excited or happy he just starts jumping

he smiles like sunshineeeeee

even though he is the second youngest a lot of the members say that they go to him for advice

(probably cause he has permanent hold of one of the 3 braincells noir has)

he looooves girl group dances

especially twice

TIKTOK KING

He owns Noir’s tiktok pretty much. also their insta

he's a precious chipmunk

Kim Daewon

Thhis baby oml

Kim Daewon is the cutest thing since that fluffy little dog whose name i cant remember

20 years old

Birthday is April 18th, 2000 (Aries)

Lead Dancer, vocalist, maknae

PROTEC THIS BABY BOY

In pictures he looks tall af

actually...

5′7″ but looks like 5′4″

the cutest thing everrrrr

HIS CHEEEKS

the biggest fluffiest cutest cheeks

everything about him is smol except for them thighssss

trained for 1 year

he has one older sister

THE BOY NEEDS MORE LINESSSS LUK FACTORY GIVE HIM MORE LINESSSSSS

he goes off in the chorus of their b-side track “Between” though like fuuuuuuucccckkkk (lowkey one of my favorite songs by them)

literally one of the funniest people you will ever see

extra crackhead energy

makes all the boys laugh

he loves chicken and snacks (gotta keep those cheeks in top shape)

literally the softest boy

he's good at everything i swear

he likes to shimmy.

has a cute butt lol

he talks in tiny

literally the cutest maknae ever oml

I hope this helped guys!!!!! I really hope you can stan noir and support them in their comeback this Monday! I hope this helped @distrikt9 if you need videos or anything feel free to ask! I love sharing my boys. They really are so underrated. I did this so fast ngl. I've never typed so fast

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x0401x · 4 years

Text

WHAT’s IN Interview with Jizue

“Darkness is too deep” in the TV anime “Hoshiai no Sora”, which no one could have imagined just from looking at its adorable art style. We have paid a visit to the world of the music that amplified its unusual charm.

These fourteen-year-old teenage boys, who are burdened with all sorts of pains and worries, get closer to each other and grow up through their activities in a soft tennis club. The TV animation “Hoshiai no Sora” is a series that aspires to explore real-life problems, such as the suffering of children who are abused by their parents or have monster parents, as well as LGBT issues, which had until this point never been addressed directly in sports animes.

The ones in charge of this work’s soundtrack was Jizue, an instrumental band from Kyoto, which produces technical and emotional, groove-like and lyrical melodies and assemblies that have a sense of jazz, rock and post-rock to them. Their music provides a freshness that was not present in anime music until now. Coupled with the individuality of the series itself, they achieved a collaboration between the animation and the sound, which remains firm in people’s ears and hearts.

Jizue claims this is their first time making soundtrack. We have asked the guitarist Inoue Norimasa, the composer of all the tracks, and the pianist Katagi Kie about the productions’ behind the scenes.

Raw || Index

A series of surprising developments… “What will this story be about?!”

――First of all, how were your impressions when you actually watched the animation of “Hoshiai no Sora”?

Inoue Norimasa: Before we made the tracks, the staff told us that “it will be roughly this kind of story”, so we had imagined our own versions, but it had a “darkness” to it that went far beyond our expectations, so to say…

Katagi Kie: Right, like the father of the protagonist, Katsuragi Maki-kun… He has a deep darkness inside him.

Inoue: Really disturbing things come with each episode. I thought that was amazing. “This kind of worldbuilding is also possible in anime!” I thought, and became intrigued by in it every week.

Katagi: When I was showed the key visuals for the series, my first impression was that it was a beautiful work. But when Inoue-kun showed us the soundtrack production’s order sheet that he had brought back with him to Kyoto, containing the images of each track that the director and the others had written, we found that there were many words expressing very disconcerting feelings in it. “What kind of story will this one be?” I thought. When I watched the broadcast, I was surprised that there were several even more shocking things in it.

――What was the most impressive scene to you?

Inoue: The most disturbing scene… Sorry for starting it with a disturbing one, though (laughs), but to me, that would be the flashback scene where Ameno Itsuki-kun’s mother poured boiling water on his back when he was a baby. It made me sad, like, “Don’t come with something so realistic in this age where child abandonment and abuse are in the news”. Another one was the part where they decide on new front-rear pairs for the club. I like the way it portrays Maki-kun’s genius throughout the episode. It’s also good that all the characters are adorable.

Katagi: To me, as expected, the most impressive one was the last part of the first episode. The one where Maki-kun says, “Then will you give me money?” in exchange for joining the club. I was like, “Eh? What’s this drama about?”. Like, “I did sense that some parts would have obscurity in them, but you took a full swing, huh!”. “You’re attacking so head-on!” was the spirit I felt from it.

Inoue: “Hoshiai no Sora” has scenes that definitely make people go, “Whoa!” in episode one.

Katagi: I think the fact that each character bears some sort of issue with their families and themselves also makes it a present-time drama.

――For starters, what was the cue for you guys to be put in charge of the OST of “Hoshiai no Sora”? I believe that you taking on anime soundtracks is already rare enough, and for you too, Jizue-san, it is your first time producing soundtrack, right?

Inoue: To tell the truth, it seems that when someone from the music staff of “Hoshiai no Sora” was having a meal at a curry restaurant, there was a Jizue song playing by coincidence. It all began when they took a liking to it and then brought it up to the director, asking if it could be used in “Hoshiai no Sora”. It was a fateful encounter (laughs).

Katagi: We, the other members, heard this story from Inoue-kun and were also surprised.

Inoue: Ever since then, the thought of wanting to produce a work that coordinated with the animation was always strong for us. So having our music accompanying the animation would be a great honor. Hence we replied, “Please let us do it!” immediately.

――By the way, do the two of you often watch anime?

Inoue: To be honest, I am not the type to watch anime that much. I have only watched what my generation did, like “Dragon Ball” and “One Piece”.

Katagi: As for me, on the topic of anime, I really like Kanno Youko-san’s music. Whenever I think that “this music is good~” while watching “Sakamichi no Apollon” and other such animes, it very often turns out to be the work of Kanno Youko-san. Thus, I am extremely happy to be involved with anime through music.

Being able to harmonize well with the animation even while doing something complicated music-wise is amazing!

――I believe you had meetings with director Akane and the sound director, Aketagawa Jin-san, regarding the making of the soundtrack, so generally speaking, what kind of orders did they request?

Inoue: Other than for the order sheet, there were nearly no requests regarding the nature of the music. On the contrary, the director told us that we did not have to think too hard about it. He said it was okay for us to show the colors as the band Jizue, so we could make what we wanted. We were very grateful for it.

――Jizue-san, even while doing band music, irregular time is your special feature, and the genre so-called post-jazz rock is strong in your music style. In the music scene, it is a slightly maniac and difficult sound. Strings are normally the focus when it comes to anime soundtrack, and using a band’s sound for anime aside from the ones that are about music is already rare enough, so the soundtrack of “Hoshiai no Sora” feels truly fresh. What kind of comments do the fans of “Hoshiai no Sora” send you?

Inoue: Every now and then, I hear people who probably did not know Jizue and people who usually do not listen to instrumental reacting to our tracks, and I am very grateful for it. As in, “even music like the one we make can be welcomed by anime fans”. Indeed, we do some pretty difficult stuff musically speaking, so our music might be hard to listen, but when paired to the anime, it can harmonize quite well.

Katagi: And this reminds me, Akeboshi-san made one of the “Naruto” ending themes (“Wind”), and if I am not mistaken, that was a five-beat song. Since we also use irregular time as our signature feature, I thought it was very fortunate that our band’s sound, which has a bit of a sense of misplacement to it, was able to fit into an anime.

――If anything, anime fans might be able to accept music itself more easily than music fans who are well-versed about the standards. After all, there are many compositions more aggressive than average J-pop in anime songs (laughs).

Inoue: I see; that might be it.

Katagi: If so, I am really glad that our first soundtrack was for anime (laughs).

Inoue: Also, when I actually watched “Hoshiai no Sora”, I had a strong impression that “they sure use the music very well”. There were many tracks that had me like, “So they used this track here!” or, “They’re using it for the opposite of the scene I had imagined!” but they matched super well with the situations on top of that, so I was surprised.

――Like having tracks that were made under the assumption they would be used for sad scenes show up in easygoing ones?

Inoue: That’s right. There were also times when I thought, “My piece sounds like a better track in this one scene” (laughs). Like, they thought carefully about the sense of volume depending on each situation too, and it made me think that the power of the sound director and animation director was incredible.

Katagi: There are also times when they use the tracks by extracting bits of them. Makes me go, “So they connected this and that!”. But they sound like a single track without any sense of discomfort. Lots of magical things happen there.

Things that a pianist would definitely never come up with!? A sixteen-note high-speed arpeggio.

――There are thirty-eight tracks by Jizue in the “TV anime ‘Hoshiai no Sora’ ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK”. Which one left a particular impression on you?

Inoue: The one that took up most time was “W -Hoshiai no Sora-”.

――That is a track often used in soft tennis match scenes, right? As a melody, it is the closest one to the original Jizue compositions.

Inoue: Yes. At first, in accordance with the order sheet, this track was split into four or five short ones to match the development of the games. But I discussed that I wanted to link them up into one track and make it into the flow of the game, from beginning to end. It would be great if it could be split up here and there and used depending on the situation.

――So this was the reason for it to become a long piece for a soundtrack, with three and a half minutes. What kind of developments were you thinking about?

Inoue: This is something that also happens when I go into the stage carrying my guitar, but first of all, when the characters are standing in the court before the game starts, I believe they are very nervous. This sense of nervousness is represented by the initial piano phrase that goes “dun, dun, dun”. From that moment on, there is the feeling that they get heated and fight recklessly, taking points and having points taken from them, and I wanted to expand this sensation with the hook.

――So this heated and exciting melody was depicted with a groove-ish climax filled with Jizue’s live concert energy.

Katagi: I also thought this track was very Jizue-like. Jizue has a variety of tracks, from mild ones to intense ones that reek of masculinity, and this turned out to be close to the strongest kind. To the point where I wonder if it is all right to play it in an anime (laughs).

――When you have been watching “Hoshiai no Sora” for a long time, you can get cheered up by the initial piano solo’s 16th note in the first arpeggio.

Katagi: That is right. This kind of arpeggio is also our strong point. We Jizue call it “dun dun phrase”. But it is a phrase that pianists could most certainly never come up with. Because there are difficulties in the fingering. This melody exists precisely because Inoue-kun, who is a guitarist, made it by pounding his fingers in, so it is always hard to play (laughs).

――Could you point out other songs that you like?

Inoue: I like “ickle”. They use it a lot in daily life scenes. The main point is the acoustic guitar, but we normally almost never use acoustic guitar as Jizue, so we redid it several times. We wanted it to be a gentle tune, so since it would sound a little cold if piano keys come in, we changed it to electronic piano.

Katagi: I like the track titled “euphoria”, which consists of nothing but a piano solo. The clear and loud Jizue-like melody matches the changing Inoue-kun-like sound, and I think it is really good. The invasive way with which Inoue-kun patches up the sound of the piano that I had played live is interesting.

Inoue: In the order sheet, “euphoria” had the keyword “sunset”. It is a sad track, but it is used for heartwarming scenes in the anime, and the fact that it instead listen sounded like a gentle melody left an impression on me. We positioned it as second place from bottom to top in the album’s track order, and I really like the way it connects with the ending theme (“Kago no Naka no Bokura wa”/AIKI from bless4), which is the last track.

――The resounding of the free jazz-like trumpet from the 13th track in the album, “sole male”, is quite impressive. The completely different taste it has from the other songs is interesting.

Inoue: I think this one was on the dark side of the order sheet. Katsuragi Maki-kun’s “obscure dad series” (laughs).

Katagi: His dad is quick to bring over the darkness with him, after all (laughs)!

Inoue: Hence why we had wanted to insert the unstableness of free jazz into it. We thought the only thing that would match it was definitely the trumpet. The one who performed it was the owner of Doctor Hasegawa-san, a tavern that I adore and Kyoto musicians love.

Katagi: It is a person who played a 10-feet trumped at a festival named “Kyoto’s Big Plan”, performed together with the band Insist, and is very much loved by the musicians of Kyoto.

Inoue: The melody of this track was also recorded after I asked him to “please play this line”, but his amazing ad-libbing quickly came about, so we left that as it was. As expected of him.

About the titles of the OST’s 38 tracks, to be honest...

――This soundtrack has jazz, rock taste, beautiful piano tunes and electronic tracks with interesting stereo images, so it is worth listening to it even as independent music, and when you listen to it alongside the animation, you are submerged into new sensations. I believe it has turned out as an album that can be enjoyed as a Jizue one and a soundtrack one.

Inoue: It makes me happy when you say that. This goes without saying for the compositions and performances, but we also obsessed quite a lot over mixings, so if there is anyone who became even just a little interested in our music from watching “Hoshiai no Sora”, I would like them to come hang out at our concerts.

――By the way, what was it that you struggled the most with in this OST?

Inoue: In a sense, what gave us the hardest time was… the track titles (laughs). We are an instrumental band, so we do not make lyrics. Which all the more reason why we do not want to give them meaningless names. As expected, coming up with titles for 38 tracks was a hassle, and since I was going through the trouble, I coded hidden messages within them.

――“Coded”!? Where have you hidden them?

Katagi: I also want to know! Still, although most of the track titles are written in English and lower case, there are tracks here and there with upper case mixed in them. I believe that is the key. By the way, how will people feel if they break the code?

Inoue: I guess they will be amused and happy. This is a message that I aimed at everyone, so please feel free to solve it. The day after this album came out was the one when the last episode of “Hoshiai no Sora” aired, and the truth is that we did not know the ending of it at all. We watched it with our heartbeats racing while thinking that we wanted it to continue for a bit more, so it would make us happy if other people could also watch it with their hearts pounding hard.

#hoshiai no sora #hns #stars align #sportsanimedaily #fysportsanime #katsuragi maki #jizue #inoue norimasa #katagi kie #interview #my translation

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crusherthedoctor · 4 years

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The Lutrudis Hadeer Characterization Masterpost

A while back, I made a big post about the thought process that went into the design for Lutrudis, as well as her name, species, and choice of weapons. In the midst of doing a bunch of other stuff (like the Eggman Sweet or Shite review, which is definitely still coming guys I swear, please don't leave me D':), I recently figured I could do the same for the character's... well, character, and provide some further insight into how her personality was shaped together. Cause why not, right?

Obviously, we won't be covering literally every single personality trait that Trudy has, like her hobbies and whatnot. If we went over all of that, we'd be so far into the future that Tumblr's search system might actually start working again. No, we'll just be keeping it to the central ingredients that make up the overall package.

1. A cool head? In my Sonic OC?

The recurring cast in the Sonic universe is filled with fiery, hot-blooded sorts in one way or another. Sonic might as well be the love child of Mentos and Diet Coke with how full of energy he is, Knuckles and Amy are both prone to letting their temper do the talking, Eggman... is Eggman, and the list goes on. And while there are a number of characters who are more low-key or even outright introverted by comparison, they still tend to exhibit a trait or two that makes them more in-line with the rest of the crowd, be it youthful excitement (Tails, Cream), a fiery temper (Blaze), or the odd bit of cockiness (Shadow).

So what better way to help make Trudy stand out... than by not really having anything like that at all? Contrary to most of the hot-blooded cast, it takes a lot to truly enrage her, and even then, you'll be lucky to get anything past tranquil fury. She's not particularly hammy either - flowery with her language at times, certainly, but not hammy - nor is she a cocky type, even against the weakest or most ridiculous of opponents, and although she does grow as a person over the course of the story she's involved in, all of this remains fairly consistent.

That's not to say that Trudy is not a passionate person. Far from it, in fact. She has a lot of passion. She just shows it in a different way than the average Sonic character.

2. Lutrudis? More like Unsureofdis.

Uncertain characters are also somewhat rare in Sonic's recurring cast (at least in the game universe), and just like with the previous point, even when they're there, they'll usually have something to counter it. Blaze may have been a bit insecure before meeting and befriending Sonic and Co, but as mentioned, she’s got a fierce temper, and even when she started off on her own, she felt that only she could take care of the threat of Eggman and Inferior Eggman Nega. Likewise, while Silver may have doubted himself about Leslie the Crack Dealer’s Iblis Trigger ruse cruise, he still got cocky when he had Sonic on the ropes, and he could be quite full of himself in the Rivals duology as well.

The point being, they still tend to show some semblance of the same “yep, I'm the one for the job, no questions asked” confidence and swagger that nearly everyone else has, no matter the flavor. Trudy, suffice to say, does not have this mentality. Trudy accepting Sonic and Co's help in dealing with sinister affairs in Viridonia without any haughty protest on her part isn't just because she knows they can handle it, or because they're Sonic Heroes and they'll show 'em the real superpower of teamwork... it's also because she's genuinely not sure if she would be able to take care of the matter on her own.

When she saved Cream from the wrath of the Wraith for example, she wasn't thinking “This looks like a job for Miss Hadeer!”

She was thinking “This could very well get me killed, but I have to help the poor bunny somehow...”

In other words, Trudy doesn't consider herself to be some sort of destined protector who has to do this herself. She constantly second guesses herself, and frequently believes her friends are more qualified and competent than she is. Her only reason for doing her best and helping out regardless is simply because she wants to.

3. A light at the end of the tunnel.

For the sake of tact, it's not shoved in your face relentlessly, but reading between the lines, it can be easy to get a sense of melancholy from Trudy. Particularly due to past experiences, she does indeed have an element of depression within her, and this can occasionally show in her body language and facial expressions, even if she's currently feeling positive emotions.

And yet, notice how she continues being a friendly pony. Notice how regardless of her experiences, and her thoughts on said experiences, her actual behaviour is (mostly) free of bitterness or cynicism, and that she doesn't hide the joy that her new friends make her feel. She's not outright ignoring her experiences or pretending they don’t affect her, because they clearly have affected her, and she's never ignored her scars (metaphorically and literally, the latter being a permanent side-effect of her condition), but she knows better than to let it consume her, so she tries her best to look at the bright side of life even during the darkest days.

It's Sonic's opinion that Trudy's inner spirit is a lot stronger than she thinks, with or without his help. Her refusal to give into misery and lash out at the world foreshadows that he's not unjustified in that belief. That, and it ties into the franchise’s usual taste for optimism and idealism against the odds.

4. Hadeer? More like Hadork.

So, everything thus far helps set Trudy up as a mellow, down-to-earth sort of personality. So far, so good. However, it's still the Sonic the Hedgehog universe we're talking about, filled with many colorful characters of all shapes, sizes, and eccentricities. When a franchise has a larger than life cast in a larger than life world, the characters who are meant to be grounded often risk coming off as boring and could end up easily overshadowed, because the creators or writers often neglect to give them any quirks of their own, usually out of fear that it'll disgrace the character's gracefulness. In fact, I personally feel this was a common problem with Sally, in both SatAM and Archie (mostly pre-reboot admittedly).

IMO, these writers are just being plain old silly. Just because a character is quirky doesn't mean they forfeit all their dignity altogether. Like a lot of things in life, you just have to balance it out, and that's what I did (or tried to do...) with the green equine.

So yes, Trudy is elegant, but she's also a really goofy dancer. Yes, she's gentle and motherly, but she also goes back and forth between being a heavy sleeper and being an insomniac. Yes, she serves as a warmhearted auntie figure for Cream (and a big sister figure for Amy), but she also spends a quarter of her time looking like a ninja with the way her bandana covers her face (whether it be due to cold weather, strong scents triggering her sensitive nose, or doing it in the presence of villains as a mildly theatrical way of visually conveying her disdain for them).

And of course, in the right situation, she can be just as much of a dork as the titular blue hedgehog is.

Which leads me to my next point...

5. “You might know everything I'm going to do...”

Trudy was created with the intention of having a character who is actually like Sonic himself in a lot of ways, but it's not apparent initially.

This sort of yin-yang contrasting routine has been done before a few times in the series, with Knuckles, Shadow and Blaze being the most obvious examples. But with them, their similarities are easier to spot from a distance. Knuckles is more earth than wind, but you can tell he's as stubborn as Sonic is. Shadow's methods and outlook differ, but you can tell he's still a mirror of Sonic (cause you know, he looks like him). Blaze is more distant, but you can tell how she can easily be just as worked up and angered as Sonic.

With Trudy however, if you take her at face value, you would think she's the exact opposite of Sonic. She's an introvert, he's an extrovert. She's got a calm temperament, he can get impatient even at the best of times. She's quite fancy, he's more rough and tumble. She takes things slowly, he leaps ahead without a care in the world... You would think that, outside of them both fighting for good, they would have nothing in common, and that their dynamic would be more akin to Sonic's relationship with Sally, which although they were friends, their relationship could often be somewhat rocky due to their differences in... basically every area and opinion imaginable.

But then you get to know Trudy, and the unfolding of the adventure reveals the rest of what she has to offer. The aforementioned soldiering on in spite of any depressed moments is in itself a small hint that Trudy shares Sonic's philosophy of never giving up. She believes that most people are good at their core, and while she won't excuse especially evil people or actions and will punish them appropriately (albeit with regret that it had to come to that), she's willing to give a chance to those who are willing to take it, just like with the Blue Blur. Not only does she NOT find Sonic's jokes and hijinks annoying, she actually has a similar sense of humor herself. And while reasonable people generally tend to loathe injustice and oppression, Trudy shares Sonic's uniquely intense contempt for it, and believes in one's own personal freedom just as much as the hedgehog does, let alone freedom in general.

In short, Trudy is what you get when you take Sonic's deeper qualities and general outlook on life, and apply them to a more introverted and taciturn personality. The exact same beliefs, but from a different perspective, so to speak.

6. A different kind of intelligence.

Tails and Eggman are the resident kings of scientific prowess in Sonic's world, and it goes without saying that I wouldn't want to do them a disservice by having Trudy one-up them in that department. But that doesn't mean your character can’t be talented in other areas, right? Contrary to what all those Mary Sue tests dictate, your character can in fact have a high IQ without intruding on an official character’s territory.

Therefore, Trudy is pretty good at innovation and craftsmanship in her own right, but whereas Tails and Eggman do it through technology, her field of expertise is more to do with arts and crafts, and to a lesser extent geology. For example, both her bow and her whip were crafted by the lady herself, using nothing but her decorative knowledge and flair.

Outside of that, she tends to know a fair bit about a lot of things in the world, largely attributed to her photographic memory, meaning she's bound to have a few answers no matter the subject of discussion. Granted, she's unlikely to be the absolute number one expert on any of those things, but she's at least a useful jack of all trades in that regard.

7. Feeling a little horse.

I very much approve and flat out adore the idea of Sonic characters having characteristics that remind the audience of what species they're supposed to be, so I made sure that Trudy had a wide selection of little mannerisms that would reveal her for the little horsie that she is. These include, but aren't limited to...

- When she’s fascinated or concerned by something, she’ll lean a little forward with her hands close to her chest, which subtly mimics the act of prancing.

- When she wakes up, she briefly stretches her arms and legs (albeit not too recklessly so as to risk straining her sensitive limbs).

- Her tail has a number of quirks. If she's happy, it might slowly swish to and fro. If she's REALLY happy, it might flick...

- And if she doesn't approve of someone or something, it might stiffen and raise a little bit, as if to helpfully inform the bad guys where they can kiss, if ya know what I'm saying.

- When she's being affectionate with her friends, she might give them the ol' nuzzle.

- When she's in a playful mood, there might be a little skip in her walk, the anthro equivalent of trotting.

- When she's annoyed, she might humorously let out a snort that sounds identical to a real life horse snort. And while she certainly doesn't neigh in the traditional sense, when she finds something hilarious or Sonic's making her laugh with his antics, her laughter can't help but take on a neigh-like touch to it. (The latter was actually a headcanon suggested by @darklightheart, and I immediately agreed with it because it's cute and funny in equal measures.)

Naturally, she gets all shy and embarrassed when the neigh-laugh comes out, thinking it sounds silly. At least Sonic finds it endearing.

Note that I'm well aware that some of this differs from how real life horses react to certain things. (Eg: tail swishing tends to happen when a horse is agitated rather than happy.) But I freely admit that it's more for the sake of giving the character that extra bit of soul than it is for utmost accuracy. That's the way it goes with fiction sometimes. :P

Interestingly, Trudy tends to get Sonic indulging in a funny hedgehog characteristic of his own. That being, he might curl into a ball if Trudy's being particularly... ~complimentary~ towards him.

And there we are! These are the core elements that make up Trudy’s characterization. If you ever wanted a general list of what makes her tick, then hopefully this post will help in scratching that itch. And if it doesn’t, then hopefully it still proves that more thought was put into her than Scourge. :]

#Lutrudis Hadeer #Sonic Character Design

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noddytheornithopod · 4 years

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Holy shit my thoughts on Mind over Mutant got surprisingly complicated so uh here’s a massive discussion under the cut, lol.

Out of all the main post Naughty Dog games... this might be my favourite after all? It’s far from perfect, but I think I had the most satisfying experience overall.

To start, visually everything looks pretty good. Granted I’m using the PS2 version which has a few visual bugs because it was designed for Wii and X360 graphics more, but generally I like how it holds up? Shame 360 emulators aren’t a thing as of now, and I’m not buying some old console just for one game, lol. Speaking of PS2, there’s no Coco option because apparently her moves were too complex for the system, RIP.

To start... yes, fuck the backtracking. It’s perfectly reasonably why this pisses people off. For me, it’s mainly the transition between Wumpa Island and the Ratcicle Kingdom since you have to go through AND back twice, with little variation. Other paths at least have you only needing to retread once for the story or there’s a new extra path in it that unlocks. At least some of the enemies change up I guess? But honestly, I think what bugs me more is that it’s not exactly consistent in its implementation. Because for a while, yeah you’re going back and forth retreading old ground, but then you get the key for the Junkyard on Wumpa Island and you’re just teleported to the Junkyard gate. Same thing happens when you get the Uka Uka bones. And of course, there’s the teleporters to find said bones, which is kind of striking a middle ground. Basically... it’s kinda inconsistent. Tedious when it is, but when you suddenly start to get used to it, you’re given massive leaps lol.

There’s stuff from Titans that was changed that I don’t really understand why? For example, the block with Crash no longer has a dodge, and dodging is now purely responding to mutant attacks. I like the addition to help even out things between Crash and mutants, but why no dodge normally? There’s no board sliding anymore, nothing calls for it obviously so it may have been pointless but it is kinda funny. Also Crash’s glide is replaced with the spin drill, which of course has its uses, but I miss having that glide too (you could have both, maybe the drill is by holding square or even pressing triangle, IDK).

On the topic of Crash, I kinda feel like Crash’s gameplay is oddly sidelined? I think it’s because of the mutant storing. Even if there’s less combat, much of the platforming now uses the mutants, and because there’s only some sections where you have to be Crash, it means you end up being Crash rather sparingly unless you really want to stick to him. Like, mutant storing is a good idea and works with the kind of game, but compare to Titans where even if it was more combat focused, the fact you had to use Crash in more parts meant you end up playing as him more than this game, and thus it feels like he has more of a presence with his own move set.

The combat felt off at first, but I ended up realising it’s because I became used to the Titans system... to start, it’s less intense and slower paced. You’re rarely gonna be swarmed so you actually have a chance against enemies. There’s also the mutant mojo upgrades, which means your mutant actually grows stronger with each upgrade, making combat different each time.

I like how they use mojo... for the most part. I like that the mutants can now be upgraded, and Crash of course grows stronger. My one reservation is that the upgrades don’t feel that diverse? In Crash’s case it’s probably because he keeps most of his moves from Titans, but still, only strength and spin upgrades isn’t the most exciting. Same with the mutants, getting stronger and the occasional special attack boost is cool, but it’s not the most exciting. I guess I need to view it like a Ratchet and Clank situation, because that’s what this is more like... including the multiplier. Including a multiplier with your combo level to make mojo worth more helps a lot with upgrading.

Because mutant gameplay is now more diverse instead of just a few classes that do their job, it also comes across as more inconsistent? I like that there’s improvements like them being able to jump now and more attack variations eg from when you block or jump and hit attack, but I also find some of it a bit awkward. Like, many of these attack variations are cool, but the tutorials give fuck all clues to them, so it’s hard to figure everything out.

For example... seriously, it took me ages to figure out how to use the TK in combat. TK is a pretty fun mutant, but until you figure out how to shoot and combine attacks with their telekinesis, you’re gonna be stuck to slow heavy attacks and awkwardly throwing enemies around.

I also find the Rhinoroller awkward. Because of the new moveset compared to Titans, it’s on one hand less slow, but on the other, it can get pretty annoying to control.

Ratcicle feels kind of overdeveloped. They can freeze stuff AND surf on shallow water. I mean, it’s great, but it kinda makes the other mutants look less exciting, lol. But yeah, one of the best mutants in this game because they definitely thought of much.

There’s a few mutants that are fun to play as like Spike, Sludge, and Battler, but unless you go outside the main story, they don’t really feel like they have much of a presence. The introduction pacing feels off, basically.

Snipe and Stench are back as ranged mutants. Snipe suddenly gets an upgrade and is pretty fun to play. Stench I’m not so crazy about, like now their special attack isn’t ranged anymore so that kinda messes up the gameplay with them, and while the fire rate is improved from Titans, every now and then they do a reload animation which I assume was meant to add detail, but all it does is slow the gameplay down and make the rhythm of firing off.

Magmadon is around, and while they aren’t underused, I do think it’s a bit of a missed opportunity with this game’s increased platforming focus that it doesn’t have any fire/lava abilities. There’s only one place that’s too hot for other characters and thus making them necessary too. Like, imagine if you could use it to melt through ice or even metal, eg a door that must be melted down to progress. Sludge’s shrinking ability is only used like two or three times (and I think only one is mandatory), so I think there’s missed opportunities there too. The shapeshifting and extendable arms stuff could’ve made for some cool mechanics. Adding more platforming abilities for mutants might overcomplicate the game of course, but... still. Especially with Sludge, give them some more use, even for secrets and such. Speaking of secrets... Spike needing to use the special attack on that one spiky part on the way to Mt Grimly is pretty random, huh?

Scorporilla and Yuktopus serve their role as the massive powerhouses (and Scorporilla even gets a beefed up melee combo), though I must admit it’s odd Yuktopus is now demoted to a regular enemy/sub-boss class (seeing two in the minigames was surreal when I was young lol). And I mean, random changes in design and stuff is something I find odd in general. I mean, the returning mutants mostly have improved designs, but for others I’m not as sure on, eg Rhinoroller looking less rhino-y, and Sludge suddenly being a boar instead of an frog or chameleon or whatever it was in Titans. Guess some is NV mutations but whatever, lol.

On the topic of enemy design, one thing I miss from Titans is the colour and outfit variations. Maybe they had less time to do it and at least the single models they get look good, but still, it’s a shame. We do get the hero mutants, but the PS2 version fucks up their looks for some reason, lol (and for some reason their mojo upgrades separately from the standard of their species, which is weird, especially since it’s not counted in the game’s completion).

Grimlys are cool, probably my favourite mutant in the game. Kinda funny how they don’t have a block and instead a lock on function, but it makes sense given they’re meant to be used faster than other close range mutants. But yeah, time slowing is so cool it’s even back in Crash 4 with one of the new Quantum Masks. Really helps you rake up that combo count to get all that mojo too.

The minions are... interesting. They mostly do their job, but then suddenly you have Doom Monkeys and Znu that have these massive stun attacks that can get annoying if there’s a lot of them. Slap-Es can block but as long as you’re not Crash they’re as quick as any others. The Doom Monkeys are less annoying in speech too, thankfully.

I get a few audio bugs. Most annoying of which is being unable to hear enemy conversations. But sometimes I just got sound effects cut out for no reason. On the inverse... some of the mutants are very noisy and need to shut up. Aku Aku also sometimes adds commentary when unnecessary, making him feel a bit handholdy. Yes, I’m going to the damn roller village, be patient, dude.

Probably the thing to impress me most revisiting the game is actually the continuity and worldbuilding. I mean, to start, you have all the mutants becoming free and forming their own societies, only for the NVs to turn them into evil warriors again. Said societies are pretty interesting as well.

Wumpa Island is mostly the same (sans all the stranded Ratinicians gone wild lol), but then you have the Ratcicle Kingdom. A Kingdom formed mostly out of ice, and also near Cortex’s evil public school. Nothing like this was in Titans, so was there always a cold part of Wumpa Island, or did the concentration of Ratcicles allow them to make enough ice to form a cold climate and society despite this being tropical nearby? All the designers and stuff are cool, and some of the characters are quite peculiar (I love that one masochist Ratcicle lol).

Then there’s the Ice Prison and Evil School. IDK how the Ice Prison was made, but it seems like it’s Cortex’s doing since the Brat Girls run it AND Evil School (while also being students?). As one of those lore junkies that headcanons Wumpa Island is the second island from the original Crash games, this fits oddly well, because in Twinsanity Cortex suddenly has a massive floating Iceberg lab. Maybe Cortex also made the school and prison nearby, and the Ratcicles took their Wumpa Island residence and connected Cortex’s base. Yeah, I’m getting crazy with my speculation, but the game letting you fuel this is fun. Also cool how the Brat Girls leave Nina after she loses in Titans and end up as Cortex’s grunts, ironically.

The Wasteland seems new, and I assume it’s the evolution of the Lumberyard from Titans. We also have rhinoroller elders even if it’s only two years of existing lol.

The Junkyard is apparently born out of the remains of N Gin’s weapons factory (I heard somewhere the Weapons factory was apparently on N Sanity Island but IDK if that was ever confirmed, it makes more sense it was on Wumpa Island TBH but if it was imagine all that junk moved there lol, TBH Cortex Island could work for the weapons factory too, it would make things less cluttered and it’s possible there’s still unpolluted beaches but whatever). It’s a pretty cool setting, and the Doom Monkeys being in the remains of their old location but under new leadership (and somehow with rockets removed from their heads... maybe they were merely aesthetic? lol) is nice continuity. Judging from the concept art it also seems to be around that volcanic area in Titans, which makes sense given that had more machinery.

Mt Grimly is completely new. Surprisingly it’s not an evolution of the Uka tree (though there is one creepy tree place with the hero Grimly on Wumpa Island), and as a result it’s much harder to work into my 2nd island headcanon (I mean, at least that island always had a giant tree lol). Cool location, but unfortunately we don’t really learn much about its normal state compared to the other worlds, unless it’s permanently inhabited by evil dudes, lol. Also I still wonder what the heck the Znu and Grimlys are. Are the Znu supposed to be the same thing as Grimlies? Are the Grimlys NV transoformed Znu??? Who knows.

Even the changing enemies in revisiting locations relates to the story. For example, the sludges in the Junkyard will say how Slap-Es and Stenches have appeared from “the sky”. Besides random occasional appearances from different mutants in various locations, you also have the Znu and Doom Monkeys moving out of their home levels to the previous ones after you make it through said levels the first time. I’m very perplexed by the sudden increase of Battlers when you revisit evil school and the ice prison paths though... either they’re also favourites of Cortex, or the Brat Girls disappointed Cortex after he saw Crash break into school and Nina helped him and he... used NVs on them to make new Battlers. Other stuff like Snipes in the Wasteland because of the Snipe hero are clear enough, but this one is... interesting.

There are some inconsistencies that bug me though. For one, it feels like nobody acknowledges Cortex’s blog video. Aku Aku acts surprised that N Brio is back and working with Cortex, and later wonders how Brio gets dark mojo even though Cortex explicitly says he’s using Uka for that. IDK, I guess Aku Aku doesn’t like watching internet videos and expected Crash and Coco to do everything, lol (I mean, he doesn’t really acknowledge it after watching anyway). Also a bit confused on how evil school works... it’s implied the Brat Girls are the main students, especially when one NPC says it’s all girls, but the intro video includes all genders and shows non-Brat Girls so... something’s up (maybe the NPC misheard or the ad was lying and only had girls because EVIL). Also apparently there’s another evil school somewhere besides Madame Amberly’s (is it also public? how is it public, is there a government funding these evil schools? did Cortex declare some regime?).

The humour and cutscenes are mostly pretty fun and there’s many funny moments. There are a few jokes that are... questionable at best (Uka I know you’re evil, but you don’t need to be ableist), and some of it probably seems outdated, but I actually appreciate most of it. The 2D cutscenes in different styles simulating changing channels like you have an NV is cool and has some pretty fun jokes with them, though it does suck you don’t see some character models well if at all as a result. The whole satire of consumerism and the latest tech fads was a nice addition (between this and the different mutant powers and stuff, it’s almost a classic Ratchet and Clank type game), not to mention wild stuff like evil recycling (and I mean, green movements ARE co-opted soooo) and many edgy but still mostly jokes I doubt would pass today.

Bosses are fine. Cortex was fun, but Coco was too easy (plus she’s freed from NV control a bit too soon, they could’ve saved her for the Ice Prison or even Evil School or something to raise the stakes, I mean if you’re not gonna fully commit to playable Coco then you may as well go the N Tranced route). Crunch wasn’t as hard as I remember, in fact he was kinda underwhelming. If anything the Scorporilla and Yuktopus acting as sorta sub-bosses in-story were better fights than saving the bandicoots (also one of the sludges says Crunch is Crash’s brother... confirmed?). Also small nitpick but why doesn’t Coco have her evil model in the enemy profiles, even as she has her boss lines?

Music is legit one of my favourite soundtracks in the series, Marc Baril doesn’t get enough credit. He manages to have such a range and it all works so well even as it has a distinct and fitting style.

Voodoo doll collecting is more involved which is cool, and there’s also golden wumpa now serving as health upgrades because we don’t have lives anymore. Yeah, Titans and MoM did gold wumpa first, not CTR:NF and Crash 4. At this rate I wouldn’t be surprised if it showed up even earlier. Minigames are optional too which means less stress for 100% completion, though there’s also the arena minigames (oh hey, more Ratchet and Clank similarities), and they unlock enemy skins... unfortunately unlike Titans which had skins for every enemy, there’s only a few skins here (one for each world’s games), which is disappointing.

Anyway... yeah. Mind over Mutant isn’t as polished as Titans and is a bit messy and inconsistent in some places (most likely because this game has less time than Titans), and some of the backtracking is tedious, but in general I had a pretty good time with it, and was actually pleasantly surprised by some things.

#crash bandicoot #crash: mind over mutant #mind over mutant

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big-girl-toaster · 5 years

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Emily Sonnett - player analysis

A compilation of Sonnett‘s strengths, weaknesses (cause everyone has them) and general observations from Portland and USWNT games (mostly from 2018 and 2019) ft. my irrelevant opinion.

Enjoy!

Before I’ll start a few notes:

I’m obviously not a professional soccer analyst person or whatever, so please don’t come for my ass. These are just patterns or reoccurring things in Sonnett’s game I observed while rewatching tons of PTFC and USWNT games.

I will focus on a few key points, that doesn’t mean that she has deficiencies in other aspects, sometimes it’s just hard to show them and I tried to avoid stating arguments without giving visual evidence. (All the links and credits are below the gifs)

I would love it if you gave additions, feedback or criticism to this post but all in all I just hope that you enjoy reading a bit about Sonnett’s more professional side and soccer tactics in general.

Please let me know if the format is weird, I’m still figuring out how to make big posts.

I sincerely apologize for the low quality of gifs, as I said, I’m figuring things out and I wasn’t able to upload proper clips.

And lastly, Sonnett is a precious little bean and I enjoyed making this more than I should have. Also, did I use this as an excuse to spend days on end rewatching old games? Yes I did.

I will start with three main strengths I think she brings to the pitch:

Communication / Leading the back line (this is in regards to her position with the Thorns, I will talk about the differences between PTFC/USWNT later on)

As a center back you naturally have a more responsible role in terms of shifting players that are in front of you and communicating things to them they can’t necessarily see. Sonnett embraces that role completely and at 25 years old she is at the level of world class CBs in that regard. A lot of players take on that role much later in their career. Her college coach Steve Swanson for the University of Virginia said about her:

"There is a standard of focus and intensity that Emily demands of the players that play around her. She’s not afraid to hold her teammates accountable in that regard. That was one of the unique aspects of our team dynamic this year, is that Emily's style of leadership is different than the team was used to. I think the team has recognized that the qualities Emily has, we need.“

http://www.espn.com/espnw/news-commentary/article/14100802/virginia-emily-sonnett

This clip I wanted to show you is from a situation that is very common for a defensive line but overlooked bc we as viewers naturally tend to look at the movement of the ball. It’s the intentional shifting of the back line in the exact right moment to let an opposing attacker run into offside. In the original video you can hear Sonnett shout “DROP THE LINE“ and Menges and Kling follow her movement which results in Alex being successfully caught offside at the side line.

((Tumblr won’t let me upload video clips, so here’s a crappy gif (look at Sonny and Menges), click the link to get to youtube, it’s at 21:30))

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JGM6Nju0b4

A simple moment but a very crucial part of back line coordination.

2. Box positioning

A.k.a. one of the most important parts of good defending. Sonnett covers runs from attackers almost always with textbook precision. She anticipates passes and is able intercept balls which makes her a proactive rather than a reactive player. When she does have to go for a tackle she brings a feistiness that she probably learnt from a certain Kelley O’Hara I can imagine. She usually opts for slide tackles and that decision could be debatable if you’re the coach but it’s just so good to look at tbh

(credit to @geekmythologys for the last gif)

But anyway, her box positioning. Having watched a lot of games with my eyes glued to number 16, I can of course safely say that Sonnett knows what she’s doing. But I’ve been thinking more and more that she often has a sort of intuitive approach when it comes to box positioning in particular. For this next clip I’m gonna need your opinion. Normally I wouldn’t tell Sonnett to abandon her player in that moment, especially bc it creates a 3v2 situation on the attackers left side and also considering the angle in which Dunn is facing the goal. However, she steps in and is able to block the ball.

to see it properly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ev3SFCmbqQ at 15:40

What do you think?

Oh and this is just excellent clearance work. AD was certainly hyped about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvcOuadyFu4

3. Offensive effort

Sonnett is one of the highest scoring CBs of the league but her offensive efforts aren’t measurable in just goals. For corner kicks she likes to do the near-post run Julie Ertz style and has been successful in the past, most notably the 2-0 in the semifinal 2017 against Orlando (which resulted in this gem of a gif):

She likes to stay up top for a bit when her position is covered by someone else and tbh I’m living for these moments.

Here she encourages quick playing and would have gotten through with it if the nwsl had good refs. She didn’t even touch her. (get it? haha)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOIDLJ4ZL1A

Here she drives the ball after winning it, even if her teammates are pushing up late and then she stays up front to participate in the counter attack. Unfortunately nothing evolves out of this situation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ev3SFCmbqQ

Right. Those were the strengths, in terms of weaknesses, I don’t wanna pick apart the smallest things but this is what I found:

Misjudged midfield positioning

We’ve talked about her excellent positioning in the box, however, a huge part of modern soccer is having the Center Backs pushed up to the half-line (as well as inverted outside backs but that’s another point). And what I’ve noticed is that sometimes during turnovers Sonnett goes in to put pressure on the player and with that an even wider space opens up behind her that the opposing team could exploit. Like in this picture.

Blue is the ball movement, red (Sonnett) goes in when in my opinion green (Lindsey) should have been the one putting pressure on the ball bc now Daly can run into that open space.

Luckily Sonnett’s speed prevents Houston from getting anything out of it but Daly tried it several times during the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOIDLJ4ZL1A

My second example is that iconic tactical foul against ARod that we all remember.

Her positioning isn’t optimal, Klings pass isn’t the best, ARod gets her off of the wrong foot, she can’t turn around fast enough and has to stop her with a professional foul which is (I’ll say it again) demanded by coaches in situations like that. But anyway, tumblr has talked enough about this game rip

2. Determining the biggest threat

This is a minor one, because Sonnett is usually really good at reading the game and making the right decisions. However in this game against Australia, she tries to cover the space behind Dahl which is technically reasonable but considering how wide open the Australian is, she should have closed her in earlier. That little hop inside the center of the field made the difference and the opposing player was able to score.

I think it’s safe to say that stuff like this comes with age and experience. And again, Sonnett is only 25!

(The whole game against Australia is awesome for spotting strengths and weaknesses, plus we get tons of Sonny close-ups thus I can recommend rewatching it) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBNvE3owllY

Two more things I wanted to include are two risks that could be relevant in the future.

From time to time she doesn’t control her arm movement in the box.

This is obviously the natural thing you do when you make a move like that but with the new rules by Fifa, defenders are more and more limited and this would have been a penalty if it had hit her arm. Idk it could bite her in the ass at some point.

2. Intuitive positioning

We’ve talked about this and people might have different opinions on it. I personally think though that this might make the difference between a great and a world class defender. So I say go for it Sonny.

Phew, I’m almost done guys, congrats for getting this far, I hope it’s interesting at all.

The last thing I wanna mention is this: The difference between Portland Sonnett and National Team Sonnett, a.k.a. CB Sonnett and RB Sonnett.

Even though as a right back your role is more offensive, I feel like Sonnett has to be pushed to go for it. She rarely does those runs in behind the winger and towards the end line. When she does it it’s great but compared to Kelley she simply isn’t there yet. It also seems to me like for Portland she takes more liberties in pushing forward which maybe is a confidence thing as well. She is a given for the Thorns but had to fight to regain that roster spot for the NT in 2017 after not being called up for several months. Maybe the fear of making mistakes bc of being out of position hinders her a bit? (I’m saying this while being aware that I of course don’t know what the coaches want her to do and what the different game plans require of her.) Anyway, I love her 1v1 defending as RB. I think she is underrated and absolutely deserves a spot on the Olympic roster next year.

One last low quality gif because we gotta stay on brand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBNvE3owllY

Well that’s it, I hope you enjoyed it. Again, I’d be grateful for additions, opinions, feedback, whatever.

Thanks for reading :)

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bazz-b · 4 years

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THE MEGA RP PLOTTING SHEET / MEME.

First and foremost, recall that no one is perfect, we all had witnessed some plotting once which did not went too well, be it because of us or our partner. So here have this, which may help for future plotting. It’s a lot! Yes, but perhaps give your partners some insight? Anyway BOLD what fully applies, italicize if only somewhat.

MUN NAME: Thomas/Tom AGE: +25 CONTACT: IM, Ask, Discord

CHARACTER(S): Bazz-B, King Baraggan Louisenbairn, Kurosaki Ichigo, Ichibei Hyosube

CURRENT FANDOM(S): Bleach

BLEACH FANDOM(S) YOU HAVE AN AU FOR: I have an ATLA and LOK AU for Bazz-B, but no Bleach AUs for external muses

MY LANGUAGE(S): Passable Japanese, Survivable Italian, Fluent English

THEMES I’M INTERESTED IN FOR RP: FANTASY / Science fiction / Horror / WESTERN / ROMANCE / Thriller / MYSTERY / DYSTOPIA / ADVENTURE / MODERN / Erotic / Crime / MYTHOLOGY / Classic / HISTORY / RENAISSANCE / MEDIEVAL / Ancient / WAR / FAMILY / POLITICS / RELIGION / SCHOOL / ADULTHOOD / CHILDHOOD / APOCALYPTIC / GODS / Sport / MUSIC / Science / FIGHTS / ANGST / Smut / DRAMA / etc. (what Bazz-B wants is reflected in italics)

PREFERRED THREAD LENGTH: one-liner / 1 para / 2 PARA / 3+ / NOVELLA.

ASKS CAN BE SEND BY: MUTUALS / NON-MUTUALS / PERSONALS / ANONS.

CAN ASKS BE CONTINUED?: YES / NO only by Mutuals?: YES / NO.

PREFERRED THREAD TYPE: CRACK / casual nothing too deep / SERIOUS / DEEP AS HECK.

IS REALISM / RESEARCH IMPORTANT FOR YOU IN CERTAIN THEMES?: YES / NO.

ARE YOU ATM OPEN FOR NEW PLOTS?: YES / NO / DEPENDS.

DO YOU HANDLE YOUR DRAFT / ASK - COUNT WELL?: YES / NO / SOMEWHAT. (usually but I need to catch up at the moment)

HOW LONG DO YOU USUALLY TAKE TO REPLY?: 24H / 1 WEEK / 2 WEEKS / 3+ / months / years. /DEPENDS ON MOOD AND INSPIRATION, AND IF I’M BUSY I

I’M OKAY WITH INTERACTING: ORIGINAL CHARACTERS / a relative of my character (an oc) / duplicates / MY FANDOM / CROSSOVERS / MULTI-MUSES / self-inserts / people with no AU verse for my fandom / CANON-DIVERGENT PORTRAYALS / AU-VERSIONS.

DO YOU POST MORE IC OR OOC?: IC / OOC.

ARE YOU SELECTIVE WITH FOLLOWING OTHERS?: YES / NO / DEPENDS.

BEST WAYS TO APPROACH YOU FOR RP/PLOTTING: You can IM me or send an ask, but the tumblr messaging systems SUCK so I encourage y’all to add me on discord and then just go ham. I’ll only turn down a plot if it’s OOC for Bazz-B, but otherwise I’ll usually try anything. If it’s not working out I’ll typically let you know, but I’m game for most things.

WHAT EXPECTATIONS DO YOU HOLD TOWARDS YOUR PLOTTING PARTNER: Honestly, not a lot. You can be as invested or as chaotic as works for you. You get the urge to suddenly write a specific theme? Hit me with it. The urge goes and you lose interest, that’s fine. Four weeks later and the muse hits you again LETS DO THIS.

WHEN YOU NOTICE THE PLOTTING IS RATHER ONE-SIDED, WHAT DO YOU DO?: I don’t typically struggle with this issue. If anything, I’m the lackluster end of the plotting side. I typically run things through Bazz-B as their happening, rarely looking forward. Unless there’s an overarching story we’re specifically working towards I’m pretty weak sauce. Sorry people!

HOW DO YOU USUALLY PLOT WITH OTHERS, DO YOU GIVE INPUT OR LEAVE MOST WORK TOWARDS YOUR PARTNER?: I’ll typically propose an idea and then see where our muses take us. If my partner needs a rough road map, I’m happy to negotiate what we’d each like to see happen. Generally speaking I let Bazz-B take the wheel.

WHEN A PARTNER DROPS THE THREAD, DO YOU WISH TO KNOW?: YES / NO / DEPENDS. - And why?: If you want to drop a thread, I’m completely fine with it. The only reason I’d want to know is so I don’t start panicking and think that I forgot to reply you your latest response to it.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY LEAD YOU TO DROP A THREAD?: If I lose the thread, or if I think it’s reach a natural conclusion. I don’t typically abandon one in the middle on purpose.

- WILL YOU TELL YOUR PARTNER?: YES / NO / DEPENDS.

IS COMMUNICATION IN THE RPC IMPORTANT TO YOU? YES / NO.

- AND WHY?: I don’t require a constant, nor deep level of communication, but it’s important to voice concerns. People tend to internalize problems until they become these big ordeals. A friendly message every now and again can save everyone a lot of drama later.

ARE YOU OKAY WITH ABSOLUTE HONESTY, EVEN IF IT MAY MEANS HEARING SOMETHING NEGATIVE ABOUT YOU AND/OR PORTRAYAL?: I BEG for negative feedback. Even if you feel like your nitpicking, it’s the number one thing I crave from writing partners. Tell me what you dislike and I can work on it.

DO YOU THINK YOU CAN HANDLE SUCH SITUATION IN A MATURE WAY? YES / NO.

WHY DO YOU RP AGAIN, IS THERE A GOAL?: To tell a story. Bazz-B is my primary muse, and his entire tale is so interesting to me. The foundations of his identity are flawed and I want to explore that as much a I can, throw him into as many situations as possible and watch him evolve.

WISHLIST, BE IT PLOTS OR SCENARIOS: My left arm for an entire roster of Sternritter, of course. Bazz-B and Liltotto surviving after the war. A reality where Bazz-B finds happiness and acceptance in himself. A healthy bond with a Shinigami.

THEMES I WON’T EVER RP / EXPLORE: I’ll not write rape, it’s understandably triggering for a lot of people and writing it glorifies it, I think. Also racism in a real world setting? I’ve come to terms with it in regards to Shinigami and Arrancar, but they’re fictional groups. I wont engage with it outside of that. Finally, trans-phobia. If a guy like Bazz-B doesn’t engage with that sort of vile nonsense, none of you should either.

WHAT TYPE OF STARTERS DO YOU PREFER / DISLIKE, CAN’T WORK WITH?: Starters that provide a setting and a purpose are great. The sort of starter that turns it back at the recipient with something akin to “Why are you here” are confining. Also, if in the starter your muse is already pushing away mine.. Bazz-B might just nope outta there.

WHAT TYPE OF CHARACTERS CATCH YOUR INTEREST THE MOST?: Despite my main muse being Bazz-B (or perhaps in favour of it) I typically write as old men cemented deeply in their ways. Yamamoto Genryuusai Shigekuni, King Baraggan Louisenbairn and Ichibei Hyosube are just some examples. Bazz-B kinda fits the bill too.. I GUESS.

WHAT TYPE OF CHARACTERS CATCH YOUR INTEREST THE LEAST?: Cold, distant, dispassionate sorts. I could never write as the likes of Ishida, Ulquiorra, Haschwalth, etc. They’re all very nuanced characters, they just don’t mesh well with me.

WHAT ARE YOUR STRONG ASPECTS AS RP PARTNER?: I typically respond lightning fast, my last two weeks or so a poor example of that. I’m passionate, you’ll not find another person so desperately in love with Bazz-B as this fool. I’m easy-going, you can take as long as you want and I’ll still be ready to rumble.

WHAT ARE YOUR WEAK ASPECTS AS RP PARTNER?: Tumblr confuses the hell out of me, I don’t understand a lot of lingo and the big CARDINAL LAWS of writing. I struggle with scene transitioning and limb placement, and my tags are a mess.

DO YOU RP SMUT?: YES / NO/ DEPENDS.

DO YOU PREFER TO GO INTO DETAIL?: YES / NO / DEPENDS.

ARE YOU OKAY WITH BLACK CURTAIN?: YES / NO.

- WHEN DO YOU RP SMUT? MORE OUT OF FUN OR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT?: What I want and what Bazz-B want are wildly different things. This man is planting a flag in the middle of bonezone whether I agree or not. I commonly write smut because it’s what Bazz-B wants, but I prefer to do it for development.

- ANYTHING YOU WOULD NOT WANT TO RP THERE?: I am personally the most vanilla dude you’ll meet. I can google things but it might not translate very well.

ARE SHIPS IMPORTANT TO YOU?: YES / NO A characters growth should never be locked to a specific person, but exploring a character in isolation can only get you so far. As people, we grow from one another. Romance is a key factor in formulating a person’s ideals, but that’s no the only form of ship. The eventual friendship between Bazz-B and Liltotto and Giselle is one of the most interesting things to me. A romance surviving Silbern is incredibly powerful in my opinion. The bond of a teacher and a student. There are so many situations that force a character to change how they would typically react.

WOULD YOU SAY YOUR BLOG IS SHIP-FOCUSED?: YES / NO. More and more I’ve been thinking that I’ve been writing Bazz-B in more ships, but that is not the blog’s focus. Ultimately I’m exploring the character of Bazz-B, and that just happens to be inclusive of ships. Some of my most active writing partners also happen to be muses that Bazz-B has excitedly/begrudgingly/unexpectedly fallen for.

DO YOU USE READ MORE?: YES / NO / SOMETIMES WHEN I WRITE LONG STUFF.

ARE YOU: MULTI-SHIP / Single-Ship / Dual-Ship — MULTIVERSE / Singleverse.

- WHAT DO YOU LOVE TO EXPLORE THE MOST IN YOUR SHIPS?: Individuals who challenge Bazz-B, who force him to rise above what he is, what he thinks he should be. Who tear down complacency and demand better of him in all ways. Whether overtly, intentionally, whatever!

ARE YOU OKAY WITH PRE-ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIPS?: YES / NO. - If you come to me and sell me a story, I’m in. I’m easily swayed by visual art, written lyrics (my ears don’t work so good with music for some reason) and themes.

► SECTION ABOUT YOUR MUSE.

- WHAT COULD POSSIBLY MAKE YOUR MUSE INTERESTING TOWARDS OTHERS, WHY SHOULD THEY RP WITH THIS PARTICULAR CHARACTER OF YOURS NOW, WHAT POSSIBLE PLOTS DO THEY OFFER?: Bazz-B is a fun guy to taunt, and to cause havoc with. But he’s more than just a hothead, you can read any one of my many rants if you wanna find out about that. With a plot to kill God spanning 1000 years, a burning fury and misguided ideals dragged through the mud of “the lesser of two evils”, he’s a real party trick.

- WITH WHAT TYPE OF MUSES DO YOU USUALLY STRUGGLE TO RP WITH?: Muses who, from the start, wish to disengage with Bazz-B. I understand it might be in character, but both Bazz-B and I are gonna struggle to engage if there’s not some allowances made.

- WHAT DO THEY DESIRE, IS THEIR GOAL?: His ultimate goal is the death of Yhwach. In a perfect world that would coexist with a Quincy victory over the Shinigami, vengeance for genocide. But he’ll take the former over the latter.

- WHAT CATCHES THEIR INTEREST FIRST WHEN MEETING SOMEONE NEW?: Style, first and foremost. If a Quincy had modified their Wandenreich uniform he’s gonna take notice and make some judgement calls. The rest comes after.

- WHAT DO THEY VALUE IN A PERSON?: Honesty to themselves, and a drive to survive. Not to be buried by what’s expected of them, or what they should do. Free will is one of the fundamental truths of the world.

- WHAT THEMES DO THEY LIKE TALKING ABOUT?: Motorbikes, Pop-culture, Fashion, Movies, Himself.

- WHICH THEMES BORE THEM?: History, loyalty beyond all else, the importance of leadership and hierarchy, lectures of all kinds.

- DID THEY EVER WENT THROUGH SOMETHING TRAUMATIC?: His family was burned alive by the man who claimed to be their God. Entering a war on the losing side, his kind facing extinction. Hiding in the shadows, surrounded by a extremist military cult.

- WHAT COULD LEAD TO AN INSTANT KILL?: After a certain point in his life, it’s really only Hollows that should fear indiscriminate murder. Unless you threaten his fragile peace, or claim Yhwach was just.

- IS THERE SOMEONE /-THING THEY HATE?: Bazz-B hates Hollows, and any Quincy loyalists that stand by Yhwach post-Aushwalen. Anyone who saw the true colors of their progenitor and still deluded themselves into thinking him right.. it’s disgusting.

IS YOUR MUSE EASY TO APPROACH?: YES / NO. - Best ways to approach them?: Stoke his ego and you’re usually set for a good few hours.

SOMETHING YOU MAY STILL WANT TO POINT OUT ABOUT YOUR MUSE?: Nothing you cant already find on one of my many ramblings about that greatest Quincy that every lived, Bazzard ‘Bazz-B’ Black!

CONGRATS!!! You managed it, now tag your mutuals! ♥

Tagged by: @equipollency (I got a phantom notification so I rolled with it)

Tagging: @diepower + @zombiequincy + @verzinken + @cheonsaaui + @bleachsthetic + @senboago + any other quincy reading this

#meme: answered #I dunno who has done this so take a mass quincy tag

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withered-rose-unbreakable-lotus · 4 years

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Tag Game: Get To Know The Mun

Answer the questions below and tag 11 people you want to know better!

The post was kind of long so I am answering in a new one. Thank you @sweet-strawberry-blog for the tag. ^^

1. What do you prefer to be called name wise?

Honestly, no idea. My name is Maria and that’s how everyone calls me. I don’t like my name nor any of its variations so I just go with it.

2. When is your birthday?

Not telling. :3

3. Where do you live? (You don’t have to give a city, you can give the state if you’re USA or country if you are overseas)

I live in Greece.

4. Three things you are doing right now?

Answering these questions while having ihascupquake playing on youtube on the background. I don’t do anything else. ^^’

5. Four fandoms that have your peak interest right now?

Visual kei & Danganronpa. Nth else at the moment.

6. How has this pandemic been treating you?

I am fine, I am staying inside and all but most people don’t so I am afraid it will get worse soon and like Italy we’ll lose many people. Especially since summer is here, the quarantine days are lifted and every idiot who was looking forward to vacation is going to come here cause partying in Mykonos is more important than everyone’s health, obviously. I worry about my mother cause the pandemic has made things harder for her and her health and she couldn’t visit doctors etc, but well...(it’s not corona, it’s other things but now i am worried about that too).

7. A song that you can’t stop listening to right now?

Any Halsey song really.

8. Recommend a movie:

Oh I am bad at this, I am more of a music person xD. I have watched so many films ever since I was a kid that new ones don’t impress me easily and I rarely watch new stuff. If you don’t mind about when it was made though, I’d suggest the Addams Family movies. It’s cute, it’s fun, I love it. For horror films I’d say the basics, like Saw, Silent Hill, even REPO! The Genetic Opera if you are into musicals too. Other movies, well I like Charlie’s Angels (not the most recent one, it’s awful in my opinion), any Tim Burton film, I love them. What else? I think it’s enough.

9. How old are you?

26. Though I am acting like a 16-18 year old most times and when we get to deep conversations I might sound like an old lady about some things.

10. School, University, Occupation, Other?

I guess I will die locked up in the hell that my informatics uni is. I absolutely hate it and I wish to drop it, but unless I get a job, I am having severe fears to do it, to announce it to my parents, since I am living with them, I got to be doing sth with my life you know? I am a loser, not much to be said. I am also studying Japanese, I am good at this, dunno if it’s good enough to pass the proficiency tests but it’s the only thing that’s moving forward in my life and I am holding on to it tight. I don’t have a job but I like considering myself an artist. I do photomanips and can edit videos (though I haven’t touched the latter in a long time). Generally graphics and stuff I can do but where to find a job for that in a country like mine that still lives centuries behind most countries and is mostly conservative as fuck. :D

11. Do you prefer heat or cold?

Cold. Always cold.

12. Name one fact about you that others may find unusual?

Well I am generally considered unusual here, due to my opinions, beliefs, tastes etc. People from other countries I am talking with seem to find me way more normal than Greek people, I don’t know. I guess being straight and supporting LGBTQ+ people is crazy here. Liking horror is crazy if you invest yourself to it past watching movies for the scares (like, people have asked me why i like it so much if I don’t get scared and I am like “aesthetic xD“). I like very revealing clothes too (never wear them though cause i hate myself and also hate people’s attention) which many people find extreme here....what else. Oh and I loooove guys putting on makeup and having long beautiful hair ever since I was a little shit. These things are very unusual here for some reason. The question asked one fact I know but I feel like ranting so here you go xD.

13. Are you shy?

Yes, but it doesn’t always show. (luckily) And I hate it cause it deprives me of many opportunities. Being shy i mean, not its not showing.

14. Do you have preferred pronouns?

She/Her

15. Biggest Pet Peeve? Lies, ungratefulness, being late repeatedly, cheating on people, girls ignoring their friends to spend more time with boyfriend (find a middle ground or bye bitch xD)

16. What is your favorite “dere” type?

Yandere. Dunno why. Maybe because I am leaning more towards Tsundere myself. I tend to like crazy people. Though I don’t think I would be able to deal with Yandere people in real life.

17. Rate your life 1-10, 1 being really crappy and 10 being the best it could ever be.

Taking into consideration my health is generally good, that I have my basic necessities met, my mother is still around and I have access to a lot of music I’d say 4-5. But only due to these. I most definitely hate my life and don’t really want to be alive but I can’t be ungrateful and say that I don’t have those very basic things. I am grateful I have a roof above my head, food to eat, a mother who cares and lots of music to listen to.

18. What is your main blog?

The one I am answering this from.

19. List your side blogs and what they are used for.

I have around 15 locked blogs I never finished xD. Aaaall of them fanpages besides one I have for the graphics I use in my blogs and one for promoting a story I am writing. The open ones are REIGN’s fanpage @club-reign , the Valentine’s fanpage (which also has a couple of ex bands of the members) @fi-ance-trust-thevalentine both of which are mainly inactive and act as archived blogs for any fans who get to like these bands after their disband and for old fans to have sth to remember. My writeblr is @dotr-rose-love . Everything else is locked.

20. Is there anything you think people need to know about you before becoming friends with you?

I am a very pessimistic person who might go over and over the same subject if you ask to listen to me. So if you feel drained by people being sad about the same things often, don’t ask me to open up to you :P. We can talk with just you opening up ^^. Other than that I am a good listener but if we are not veeery close, I might not always be as responsive as you’d like me to be or as warm. I need time to show warmth. I am an open book about other things but yeah. And if we don’t click easily it might literally take years xD. I am fine with simple chats too just not too much small talk cause I suck at this. xD At some point you might feel like oh she doesn’t want to talk to me, but honestly it’s me having no idea what else to add. I’d rather us get straight to a deep conversation or sth xD. Sometimes I might also not have the energy to speak to anyone so I might take a day or two to reply, but definitely not a month. Oh and since this is a big theme I had an issue about before, I am pro-choice, so if we speak of love and you start trying to tell me to change my mind, you will most likely have me barking and in a really bad way.

#mdp

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kierongillen · 5 years

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Writer Notes: The Wicked + the Divine 1373

Spoilers, obv.

(I say I do these before the next issue came out. I was posting this yesterday and my tumblr account died. As in, my tumblr account was terminated.There’s a couple of things which make me think it’s a glitch (not least there’s no reason for it I could think of, unless Tumblr really loathes writer notes about a lucifer nun. I contact them going “Huh?” and come the morning, it’s back. Hmm. Anyway - here you go, and the next special - Wicdiv: the funnies is out today)

The final historical special, which seems to require my notes to pull them together and talk about the larger intent. Sitting here and writing, I’m not sure I want to. The backbone of the specials have been the relationship between various Lucifers and Ananke across the centuries. You get a chance at least get acquainted with four Lucifer’s, and get to compare and contrast, and you get to see more developed portraits of what Ananke has been up to across the centuries. As the last one in the printed chronology, that means this one ties all that together, plus (as the other one) introducing some key ideas for the next arc.

It differs in another way – while that’s how the reading order will work for anyone working in single issues, in trades, it’s another story. These are going to be gathered together as Volume 8 (OLD IS THE NEW NEW) and printed chronologically (as in, 455, 1373, 1833, 1922). That’s how people in trades are going to first experience them, which creates a different spin and will bring different elements to the surface.

To state the obvious, the big thing in this one is “oh – here’s how bad Ananke can be.” By implication, it raises the stakes for the final arc in terms of what she could do if her back is against the wall.

I admit, I’ve always been a bit worried when I see a handful of people assume the specials aren’t essential to the story. I don’t believe we’ve ever said that, and it’s simply not true. You can skip them, sure, but it breaks the story as much as skipping any individual issue of WicDiv. What we’ve said is that trade readers don’t need to buy the specials to follow the story. I’m trying to think of anything I could have said that could have been misconstrued? Possibly the “anything we use will be reintroduced”? I dunno.

Anyway – this is simultaneously the biggest and smallest of the special. The idea came to me early – a Lucifer having escaped to a nunnery, repented and lived past the end of her two years. Then Ananke and Minerva catch up with her. Apart from that, I knew that it would give the clearest statement of what Ananke has been doing, and that it would end in fire. The rest of this issue was a process of discovery.

(I’ve talked influences here. Ken Russell’s the Devils. Carrie. The Seventh Seal. Black Narcissus. The Sound Of Music. One of these is a lie.)

To get it up front: I was raised Catholic. This issue caused Katie and Chrissy to basically glance side-eye at me, as if encountering an alien. I’ve done something similar to this before, with Generation Hope’s Idie, but this is a far deeper, darker dive into that.

Fun time, for everyone. The response has been interesting. The people who loved it adored it. Catholic Guilt fist-bump.

Jamie/Matt’s Cover: This is just a stunning one. Jamie’s ability to switch modes is something we rarely push in WicDiv (mainly in icons) but doing stained glass is a hell of a thing. But Matt comes out with something else, and actually making this thing glow. Numinous. Totally Numinous.

Ryan’s Cover: Ryan and I first worked together in Three, and I’d first really fell for his work in his Northlanders arcs, so there’s historical fiction previous. This is a particularly grimy issue of WicDiv, and he’s leaned into it. Lucifer, penitent, looking up – at us, but as we go further, we realise her Father. This is the only place we see with her horns. Clearly, having this on the cover and seeing what she looks like inside has an implied story.

IFC

The icons were oddly tricky here, and Jamie had to work for a period drawing of Satan to riff on. However, the Minerva is a delight. If anyone has seen my attempted drawing of a Minerva symbol when signing Volume 7 will know, this is about my level of physical accuracy.

One thing about the specials I find interesting is what’s the minimum of historical data we have to give to make a story make sense. Obviously “It is thought to be the greatest natural of all time” is loaded. Especially the word “natural.” I wish I tweaked it to make it clear I was talking about the Black Death’s effect on the world rather than just Europe though. The Black Death devastating Europe isn’t the biggest natural disaster – it’s the Black Death full stop.

Page 1

I wrote this issue sparsely. It’s designed to be mediative. As such, a slow long pan opening, setting up the themes visually.

The host… well, do I have to explain Catholicism here? The Host is transformed in the ceremony into the body of Jesus Christ. In this period, however, the actual eating of the host was relatively rare. As such, most ceremonies were more about the simple act of observing the host – the holding up in the modern ceremony is a hold-over for that, as well as the larger size of the host itself so folks can see it better.

Of course, that the observation was the key things make this scene possible – it’s possible for someone to observe the host without actually entering the church, as this long slow pan back from the divinity of the church to the rats on the streets show.

Avignon was home of the Papacy in this period. Generally speaking, there was less research in this special than any other one. I read enough to get the Black Death details I needed, to trace its path and various other things, as well as hitting up period Catholicism. However, it’s also the special that’s most based on my own actual pre-existing knowledge.

Page 2

Size is meaning, as always, and an intro to Lucifer’s cheery catchphrase for the issue.

Oddly, getting period Nun garb for lucifer was hard. I wanted originally for her to be a noviate (as in, Novice)but I couldn’t get reference I trusted, so I went full Nun. FULL NUN. Or NUN MORE GOTH as several excellent people put it.

Page 3

By this point we should realise that Lucifer wants her Father To Forgive Her. I am subtle and elegant in my writing, so you may have missed this.

Good stern mother superior here. The choice of the reds in the eyes is strong. And the reveal of the sawn off horns, which says everything about her.

Page 4

From Ring a ring o’Roses, which folks say is about the plague, but apparently dates from far too late.

Page 5-6

And hello, Minerva. You’re having a bad century too. Trying to signal that she’s falling apart but it’s not the plague was a tricky thing, and we obviously do a lot of pointing in the dialogue.

It’s only here that you start getting the weird and uncanny cleanness of the mud-rolling Lucifer. That she’s addressed as the Girl Who Walks Through Plague makes it even odder. This is an unusual notes for me – I haven’t looked at the issue in a while, so some odd stuff is striking.

“None of us are irredeemable” – god, this issue is king of the loaded lines.

The dispensation thing is a reach, but not an impossible one – during the plague there was a dispensation given in various areas where layfolk could hear each other’s confessions when there was no access to a Priest. This seemed a logical enough extrapolation.

Lucifer’s last lines… oh, I’ll save that. She’s got more WTF ARE YOU SAYING ones in a minute.

Page 7-8-9-10

The Two Days Later loc cap reminds me of what I was doing in terms of setting the date of the story – it’s the Sunday before lent kicks off. That google lets us easily find the calendar for the period and work out when Lent would start is A+.

So much mud! Matt is known for the hyper-bright effects, so to go into something as low-key as this is great. See how it works with Ryan as well.

Flagellants are one of the bits of the research which tweaked the story a little. Self-mortification was on my mind – it’s a key thing in The Devils – and the Flagellants are the avatar of religious injuries, so I was thinking of them anyway. After all – they’re a great image, this mass of people whipping themselves and lamenting loudly. Anyway, I do the research, and discover that as well as travelling the country lamenting, they also were basically a wandering lynch mob killing Jews. Which takes the fun out them, y’know?

“A ditch of god’s good earth is closer to paradise than I deserve” – that’s the kind of line that had me looking at my fingers as if they were alien beings. This issue was structured loosely – Lucifer is called, experiences things on the way, and hears Ananke’s confession” with me writing to explore the setting and characters. As such, it was a surprise half the things Lucifer said about the world around her. This shouldn’t surprise me though – I had a similar experience with Idie, in terms of just being afraid for her.

That Lucifer is THE GIRL WHO WOULDN’T BURN is another connection to Idie, of course. And also foreshadowing.

The nudity is the hardest thing to do, especially when you add whipping to it. I wanted it objective, nature of fact. I have no idea if we pulled it off or not. I do like the space that Ryan puts between the head flagellant, Lucifer and the rest – as if they’re a little intimidated, not wanting to be involved.

And then Lucifer’s judgement. Lucifer’s pride and self-hate are fascinatingly intertwined. I’m not sure if I could have dealt with writing much more of her, but part of me would love to have.

(God – just had the image of Lucifer as my crucifix, which is so OTP I laugh)

The silence at the end of the page makes it linger. The expression Ryan gives Lucifer at the end of the scene – utterly ambivalent to the violence behind her – is one of the more quietly chilling things in the book.

Page 11

I could have just had Lucifer find Ananke here, but I wanted something to show her heading through the town – as well as a chance to look at the plague symptoms. The idea of Ananke having arranged all these corpses to guide the way seemed both chilling and very Ananke.

Worth noting – these are the wrong symptoms for Plague circa 1373. This is the original Black Death symptoms, because Ananke is still carrying the O.G. Plague. It’s not the sort of thing I suspect anyone would ever notice, but it’s there.

Lucifer entering the hut on the last page is a great one – Ryan modulating tone towards Lucifer. This is a straight horror shot.

12-13

And hello, Ananke. You look well, how are you, what have you been up to?

YOU DID WHAT? ANnnnnakkkke!!!!

I like the central framing of this. Purely Objective.

The core question of the issue right at the end of the issue – I do like how Ryan has Ananke pushing up the villain here. Ananke knows how this is going to go. Anankes always don’t really want to die, but I suspect this one may be an exception. This has been no fun at all for her.

The Harrowing Of Hell is basically when Christ went down to Hell to free all the souls from Satan. In short. I’m really not sure how much of this stuff I have to say – a lot of you are Americans, and a far less secular culture than us Brits. Most of my readers didn’t know any of this, which did lead to dialling back the allusions a little.

From now on the issue is basically two women talking in a room, one of whom spends the whole time weak in bed. This is not exactly dramatic comics, so we have to work to keep it visually interesting. To be honest, I always like the challenge. One of the most fun issues I wrote at marvel was just Cyclops and Wolverine in a cell, arguing, with just a six pack for company.

Anyway – some great expressions here from Ananke. Look at panel 5 on page 13. Such contempt!

Page 14-15

For those working out what’s up with Minerva, 14 would be the page to go into. We already know from issue 36 what happens if she can’t complete the ritual.

The flashback to Lucifer’s transformation is an interesting one – the pink colouring really makes me think of 90s Vertigo, and the non-pop-comics they put out then seem to be the closest to this issue.

I like the steel in Lucifer’s glance in panel 2 of page 15, and how uncomfortable that makes Ananke.

Page 16-17

The main thing to try and keep this scene less static is Ananke’s Knife. For these two pages it’s a “Oh – Lucifer’s picked it up. That implies something.” The second is “is she going to use it”. Keep things interacting.

These pages are the simplest explaining of Ananke’s methodology. A lot could be extrapolated, but this ties it together. The other side of this pushes forward what I originally conceived for the historical specials - as in, seeing how Ananke’s desires twist a little across the centuries. Frankly? She hits the beat again later, but this is a snapshot of how she’s feeling circa 1373.

Page 18-19 “Adieu” is the one bit of actual french in it. I’m not normally a big one on this. It just sometimes feels right.

The tension of the previous page turns is born of the knife, but here’s it’s all about Ananke’s questions. The pauses panel on page 18 is the thing which lends the question weight. I’m fond of “Frozen” panels where you don’t really get to see someone’s face.

The Father on Earth/Father in Heaven enters the story, of course. This is at the heart of the book.

Yet more dead parents on issue 19. WicDiv, eh?

Wherein, Lucifer has the world’s worst superhero origin story. It’s… like, Guilt? I’ve always had a sort of twinge of “Hmmm” towards Spider-man. Guilt is a motivation that has to be unpacked.

Anyway – Lucifer’s fundamental tragedy.

Page 20-21

Here’s a thought experiment for writers – try re-arranging the statements in the first panel here, and realise why we did the order we did and the implication it would carry if we did it in another way. “The Flagellants” is yet more precision to make sure you demarcate stuff.

The plague traveling comes from the research, and as far as I can work out, is accurate. Of course, there’s far better theories to explain this weirdness than “An invulnerable Old Lady was driving the ship”. People will come to respect my genius in years to come, I’m sure.

Ananke is laying it on a little thick, of course. Like… this is a very strange confession. Confessions are strange. There’s a question of what power is.

This is one of those pages which I suspect will become more important when collected with the other specials and read as the eighth volume before the conclusion.

Page 22-23

Great building rage here from Ryan, and what Matt does with the mood is also A+. The arrival of the wet, gore reds after an issue of the mud and old blood is something else. Compare and contrast to the reds and oranges in Lucifer’s eyes.

I look at this and think about page turns. In an ideal world, the 22-23 would be a page turn – you can see she doesn’t stab Ananke, and the self-inflicted injury by glancing to the right. But space is always a premium, and frankly every page could do with being the reveal-turn in this sequence. It’s that or pad it, right?

Ryan added a panel to draw out the pulling away the flesh, which I love.

“this is my body” is about the point where we realise THIS IS REACHING PEAK CATHOLICISM.

Page 24-25-26

I’m feeling if I explain the sacrament here, I’m patronising folks, and if I don’t, these notes kind of are missing the point. I say a bit earlier here, but Google Transubstantiation if you don’t know it. Suffice to say, this is a particularly blasphemous flip of the core regular miracle of the Catholic mass. Bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Lucifer’s body into fire.

I can’t remember where I had this idea from. I knew it ended in fire initially, but didn’t realise it would be this. It was just there when I needed it. It made sense, and that it makes sense worries me. Comics!

Anyway – everything goes Carrie, as the fire consumes them both. The full horror stretching out and out as much as we can, and we return to the “father forgive me” which haunts this book. Which, by this point, everyone knows is loaded.

I like this Lucifer. She’s one of my favourites. I’m glad I got to write her.

Page 27

And Minerva heads off, with her bag of you know what, into the future.

Page 28

Yes “Transubstantiation” pushes the WicDiv design to breaking point.

That’s enough. Thanks for Ryan to join us on this one – he’s an incredible talent and we were lucky to have him. As I write, WicDIv: The Funnies drops tomorrow, with WicDiv returning for its final arc in November.

Thanks for reading.

#WicDiv #ryan kelly #the wicked and the divine #writer notes

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