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itsclydebitches · 2 years

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RWBY Ice Queendom Recaps: “Red, White, Black, Yellow”

Hello, RWBY fandom! It feels good to be back.

Technically I never left — still answering the occasional ask, just finished up "The Girl in the Tower" recap — but between the extra long hiatus and my continuing obsession with Our Flag Means Death, it feels like I've been out of the RWBY loop for a while. I wanted to start this post with that acknowledgement because I had assumed that's why I didn't realize that Ice Queendom had dropped the first three episodes. Sure, I got an anon asking my opinion of the reboot (AU? Rewrite? We're all a little unclear about that still), but I had thought that was just in preparation for the July 3rd premiere. So imagine my surprise when I did a bit of googling last night — just in case — and found a new trailer, then a three episode sneak peak, but it weirdly wasn’t on First, but it was on Crunchyroll, and (at the time) it was set to drop on YouTube at 1:00pm today, but only for a short period? Some fans had clearly seen the episodes already, yet there wasn't nearly the amount of posting I'd expect for a community-wide, anticipated drop, and official information seemed to be scarce ... but surely my confusion was simply a result of me taking a semi-break from keeping up with all RWBY info, right?

Ehhh...

This is an excerpt from MurderOfBirds’ tweet thread (URL posted at the end of the recap, in case tumblr is still being weird about links) and, if you've been in the RWBY community for any significant length of time, you'll understand my shock that he of all fans was calling RT out like this. To be honest, I don't have much to say beyond, "This is happening"? From what little I've gathered, fans seem to have enjoyed the IQ premiere — or at least, they haven't called for a salt and burning yet — but RT's relative success in that regard doesn't suddenly erase all the other problems surrounding RWBY as a franchise. RTX planning remains a mess, communication about upcoming projects is shoddy at best, RT's company culture is continually under fire, worries about Volume 9 and the upcoming video game haven't disappeared just because we've had little reason to discuss them lately, etc. Regardless of what we think about IQ as a story, it's coming into a tumultuous IP — to put it mildly.

Again, I fully acknowledge that I haven't been actively seeking out every bit of RWBY info lately, but the fact that I, someone who is generally working to keep up with the story, had to suddenly scramble to figure out how and when and why a big chunk of the new installment was releasing now is... not great. And apparently I'm not the only one who feels this way.

That said, let's get into the story proper. In case it's not abundantly obvious by the title, I've decided to keep these recaps separated by episode, despite 1-3 releasing as a single hour of content. You all know I can write enough for each, even with a lot of this plot being repeated. No sense in giving you all a dissertation to wade through lol.

Let's do it!

We begin, as we did originally, with Salem's voice-over telling us how the humanity of today came to be.

(Oh yay, a nice het-centric creation myth. Look, I really wasn't joking about being obsessed with OFMD right now. After months of canonical queer pirates, I'm feeling a little salty towards RWBY's version of queer rep. I won't get over it, sorry, but I promise I won't bitch about it too much.)

(Actually wait, one more point: I saw a post here — which I’ve now lost — where the author didn't seem terribly enthusiastic about IQ, but they said they'd forgive it if Blake and Yang made out in every upcoming scene and like yeah, joke-y posts are jokey-y, I love them, but AS IF. If IQ confirms Bumbleby I'll just straight up die of shock. You all can @ me in the afterlife.)

(But oh god can you IMAGINE if IQ confirmed the fandom's biggest ship before the webseries? Chaos. Calamity. An actual, defensible position for IQ being better. It would be a complete disaster, yeah... but potentially an entertaining one.)

Anyway, back to the plot. We go through a version of our opening speech and, frankly, I don't think the actress playing Salem sounds nearly as menacing as Taylor does. I've always cared more about the characters themselves than the actors playing them, so I don't have any big opinions on the casting here. This is just a little acknowledgement that, had I been watching IQ prior to RWBY, I never would have gone, "Oh, this is our villain" like I did during the webseries’ opening. At least not until the end of the episode when we get the more threatening dialogue. Regardless, the animation more than makes up for that, showing us not merely the paper-like history of humanity, grimm, and the rise of their combat capabilities, but far more visceral images like a man collapsing amidst a field of flames, very nearly succumbing to them. That sells the idea of humanity almost crumbling back to dust.

But then, “The smallest spark of hope brought forth a great light” and humanity discovers capital 'D' Dust, which allows them to maintain and spread civilization despite the grimm. Salem says that it was through their “power and ingenuity” that they secured it and I'm like... really? Because the animation just shows an almost-dead guy stumbling upon a glowing rock in the ground and presumably thinking, "Hey, that might be useful." Not sure there's much power and ingenuity in randomly finding a magic mineral lol.

With the history lesson out of the way, we find Ruby at Summer's grave with... a military-like march soundtrack? It's an intriguing choice and, combined with Ozpin’s introduction + Weiss' AU design, I'm curious to see how much this story will feed into RWBY's (badly managed) anti-military themes. Though introducing our simple soul protagonist with that vibe doesn't seem like a great start...

What is done well is the character work in this scene. Actually, that's something I want to praise about the episode as a whole: IQ is very good (so far) at developing the cast and the world, something it absolutely has over the original RWBY. Remnant feels lived in, the characters' stories are better intertwined — helped by making this episode a combination of the trailers and “Ruby Rose” — and I actually feel like they have internal lives they're living, rather than just existing as archetypal puppets under the Rule of Cool's strings. Sure, RWBY gets better at that as time goes on — I wouldn't care about the early Volumes like I do if the characters didn't feel engaging to me — but IQ nails it right from the start.

Case in point, Ruby isn't just staring at a mysterious grave that was added last minute because hell, why not. She's really talking to Summer, telling her all about how Yang made it into Beacon Academy and that she "always said she wanted to be a huntress." Such a small line of dialogue and yet suddenly Yang’s motivations better align with Ruby's. Rather than being the party girl just out for a good time (the club scene doesn't even make it into this episode, if it shows up at all), Yang always wanted to be a huntress, specifically — just like their mom. It stabilizes Yang's career path and helps sell the idea that one primary, personal conflict is how Ruby will break away from her sister's shadow: she's talking to Summer primarily about her "sis," she wants to be a huntress just like Yang, she's kinda jealous that Yang is already on her way — a nice detail that makes Ruby feel like a legit person with complex emotions — Tai is worried about his youngest standing on her own, and meanwhile Ruby is asking her mom, “What can I do to be more like [Yang]?” Frankly, this scene sells the idea of Yang raising and influencing Ruby far more than the entirety of Volumes 1 and 2 did. We can see how Yang has become the mother figure that Ruby is desperate to emulate, even as she says she also wants to follow in Summer's footsteps. From Yang and Tai talking about Ruby like they're the parents waiting on their wayward child, to the hug where Ruby is positioned more like the child as Yang holds her and looks to Summer —

I feel like the show has visually told me that Yang helped raise Ruby, episodes before we get to that talk with Blake. Sure, they're absolutely still playful sisters — and Yang calls Summer "Mom." No Raven complications just yet — but IQ changes the dynamic slightly, making Yang come across as more mature and, consequentially, more of a mentor figure for Ruby. Yang is someone Ruby needs to eventually step away from in order to forge her own path.

Also, love that they give them the exact same wink. Again, they're close and we can see Ruby mimicking some of Yang's mannerisms:

However, this is perhaps as good a time as any to admit that I don't really like the character designs? Outside of their normal outfits/distinguishing features, of course. I mentioned weeks back that I find their eyes to be creepy as hell and though I realize now that's a visual staple of the creator's... it doesn't change that I think they're creepy lol. Worse, there's something very doll-like about the models that makes my skin crawl. It's not too bad when we've got a fight sequence going on, but when Ruby is just standing there with her unnatural eyes, glossed lips, painted cheeks, kinda shiny skin like she might be made of porcelain...

Yeesh.

I don't know. I'm assuming this is purely a me problem (no doubt born from too many horror movies in my youth) and not every shot is bad! But some definitely make my brain go, "Nope, nope, nope, NOPE" in a very Uncanny Valley kind of way.

I mean sure, the animation quality is undoubtedly better, but original Ruby just looks more... real to me? You know? Does anyone else get that?

Yeah, I can't explain it well. It’s fine. Just don't let IQ!Ruby into my room at night, please.

We cut to Weiss standing before the garden monument — which I've only now realized is kinda weird. Who gives a snowflake wings? — and she's approached by Klein who is, for all intents and purposes so far, a totally different character. There's no sign of his semblance (no real loss imo) and he's far more formal — deferential — towards Weiss than he’s ever been in the webseries. Gone is the chaotic, buddy-buddy dynamic they had and in its place is the far more common “Play-by-the-rules butler has a soft spot for the young mistress, allowing for a bit of parental love to shine through.” Think Carson with Lady Mary. Or even Alfred with Bruce. Though I’m personally a big fan of this character type—I’m an absolute sucker for love pushing up against class/social expectations/job formalities—this is a case where IQ arguably moves backwards. Rather than introducing a bit of depth like we saw between Ruby and Yang, we’ve reverted to a far simpler setup. Which, I want to emphasize, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I don’t think Klein is important enough to necessitate that creativity when being a fond, long-suffering butler serves the story just as well. It’s just an observation that they have stripped him of what made him stand out from the butler crowd.

He tells Weiss that the “arrangements” have been made and they walk together to the ballroom where her final test is to take place. On the way we spot a day-drinking Willow from behind and the shot reminds me a bit of the comic panels:

and we also run into Whitley, still leaning smugly against the wall like he did in the webseries. This time though I’m reading him through the lens of the kid he is, rather than the scheming, Jacques Jr. that both stories seem to be going for. See: Whitley smirking from the shadows while Weiss walks through beams of beautiful light, finally settling between the pillars in the full sun. It’s not subtle.

This is one of a couple split-screens in our opening episode and though it’s a technique the webseries has made use of recently (think the Team RWBY vs. Ace Ops fight), personally it’s something that I think should be used sparingly. Like here, do we really need to get Klein’s reaction and, in the process, see the awkwardness of Weiss with half a face? Or, in a moment, a shot of her boots?

Next to the contrast of Weiss and Whitley, which actually serves a narrative purpose, these just feel unnecessary. Technique for the sake of technique.

We also get a shot of the family portrait as Weiss passes by. Nothing detailed unless you pause the episode, but it's a glimpse of that supposedly picture-perfect family right before we see it unravel. Whitley questions Weiss’ ability to pass this test, she tells him to just watch her do it, and then we get what I think is a damn solid line:

“I’ve always watched you, my fearless, foolish sisters."

We’ve got the story introducing that there's a third sibling before we see Winter at the test. There’s Whitley's quiet admission that yes, he's been watching them (looking up to them) for, presumably, years. Also an acknowledgement of those complicated emotions tied up in their choice to not just become Huntresses, but to use the career as a means of escaping their father's abuse when he, someone without combat skills, can't follow them. Is it foolish then, or fearless? Depends entirely on whether you have that option to begin with. This is a Whitley who, right from the start, feels like a kid struggling under an inability to follow in his sisters' footsteps, despite how the animation paints him as the shadowy antagonist, with the concept of paths and having to carve out your own tying in nicely with Blake's story.

Weiss arrives at the test where both Winter and Jacques are waiting for her. It puts them on fairly even footing — both watching this dangerous battle with detachment, both taking up the same position on opposite sides of the room — despite the fact that verbally Winter is more supportive of Weiss than Jacques has ever been in his life. Still, that parallel combined with Winter being "too busy" when Weiss leaves for Beacon and her cold approach to training her in the flashback makes this version of Winter seem far less welcoming than the original. “The powerless return to dust. That is the law of this world” she tells Weiss after she fails to defeat all of her summons (as seen in the Volume 5 short) and while that is a very cool line that hints at how Remnant's history has influenced the peoples’ philosophy, it’s also a damn bit more dismissive than Weiss promising to do better and Winter saying only that she hopes she can — she'll need it to escape. I can't imagine this Winter playfully batting Weiss' head and demanding information about the friends she's made.

I do want to emphasize that Weiss' entire story is much clearer for the audience though. We're told exactly who all these people are (at least in relation to one another). We've established that Weiss is undergoing a test to get into Beacon. We have a line about Klein releasing the grimm, right on the heels of our intro explaining wtf grimm are, and oh look, now she's fighting it. All of "Red, White, Black, Yellow" flows together more smoothly than the trailers + "Ruby Rose” do, meaning there's no mad scramble to, say, explain to the community that this is a flashback, Weiss got that scar during her fight—look, there’s a bit of blood—she’s singing on her father’s orders, yeah idk why exactly it’s just a thing she does, mhmm the fight is a test to get into Beacon, etc. I didn’t come into RWBY until Volume 3, but I remember finding old posts that worked to clarify the iffy canon of our trailers (and, indeed, acknowledging that some details like Ruby’s strength against the grimm remain in the realm of “Not canon, actually”) as well as explaining what precisely happened in each. None of that is necessary here. The only thing the scene doesn’t clarify is how a suit of armor is also a grimm, but failing to get into the possession abilities is small potatoes compared to the potential confusion we started out with.

Yet despite the obvious benefits of that clarity, the fight itself is just… fine? Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing bad about it—except, perhaps, the weird glyph sound effects that I personally hate—yet even following much of the original choreography, I didn’t have an emotional investment in this fight like I did the White Trailer. I think a great deal of that comes down to the music. Though I’ve always agreed that the soundtrack is a huge part of RWBY’s personality, I didn’t realize quite how much of the emotion it carried until it was gone. The generic battle music of IQ just can’t compare to hearing

Mirror, mirror

Tell me something,

Who’s the loneliest of all?

…I’m the loneliest of all.

while Weiss is framed in front of the broken moon, expression stony, this epic moment inter-cut with her future self belting this lament, all right before she drives through the knight and lands, perfectly confident in her victory.

IQ!Weiss technically has the same combat beats of the original fight (with the exception of the knight’s sword nearly crushing Klein??), but it’s a completely different vibe. IQ!Weiss feels frantic at the end to me and her getting to coldly demand the Beacon reward from her father is a one-up moment that doesn’t jive with, say, Weiss later trying to muster up a fake smile in the elevator to convince her family that everything’s fine. She feels too confident, like she’s already won against Jacques and RWBY!Weiss’ journey (marred as it was by Volume 8) isn’t even on the table anymore. And, you know, maybe it’s not. Though the changes are subtle so far, this is already a very different version of Weiss. Personally, I prefer the theme of loneliness in the original: Weiss standing as the knight is obliterated behind her, bloody face fading into someone who, despite this victory, is still left standing there, alone on stage, performing for her father. She won the battle, but is still fighting the war.

(Gotta love shots like this though. The size difference! The scale! The seemingly insurmountable challenge!)

With a red leaf that looks a lot like a rose petal flying by—nice—we transition to Blake who is…

…Naruto running with Adam?

alksdfjalsjfa okay, cool.

Their section is pretty similar to the Black Trailer, though this time around Blake’s decision to leave feels like it’s really coming out of left field. I mean, she questions whether they’ll be fighting actual people, but Adam reframes that around Blake’s courage and there’s no visual cue from her that he’s wrong about that. Then we get a seemingly sweet moment where she doesn’t even look at the Atlas soldier behind her, knowing Adam’s got her back

and though she’s clearly not happy about Adam crashing the train when there are people on board, Blake doesn’t have that much of a reaction to it. She just walks over to the next car and severs the connection, leaving the audience with Adam’s supremely awkward line, “Are you betraying me? Betraying the White Fang?”

Easily the worst part of the episode for me 😬 You know you haven’t written a scene well when a character has to spell things out in the most heavy-handed way possible.

To be honest, I’ve always found the Black Trailer to be the weakest of the bunch and I don’t think IQ has succeeded in improving on it. If anything, I think having Blake sneak away while Adam is busy with the mech, only for him and the audience to both realize she’s on a different, separated car works better than… this. I suppose neither version really sells me on the idea that this was a breaking point for Blake and if it wasn’t, why leave now, right in the middle of a mission? Compared to the clarity of our other stories, Blake’s remains lacking in some respects.

We get to Ruby’s Dust shop robbery and, given that we’ve just gone through two of the trailers, I’m a little disappointed that the Red Trailer wasn’t included. Certainly it’s the least plot connected of the four and yes, they’ve done away with Yang’s too, but Ruby taking out a horde of grimm under a shattered moon is the defining image of the franchise—at least for me. It’s not just what IQ decided to cut out though. Like Weiss’ fight sending a very different message thanks to the time spent on clarifying her test and its consequences, the development of Ruby’s character pre-robbery means that we’ve lost the appealing surprise of who she really is. What I mean is, outside of the Red Trailer, the moment Ruby turns—tiny, bright-eyed, sporting headphones and a weapons magazine—is our first introduction to her and that particular image contrasts wonderfully with her kicking that goon to hell and back. I mean sure, we already know how such “surprises” work (especially in a combat webseries. It’s not really a surprise), but I still love the (supposed) shock of this child being cornered, but then turning around and kicking ass.

That doesn’t happen in IQ precisely because the show does a better job of developing Ruby beforehand. We’ve already watched her tell Summer about how she might be getting bad grades, but she’s an expert with weapons. She’s already visited a weapons store before popping into the Dust shop.

She’s already gushed over the weapons magazine and even quoted from it, rather than that existing purely as a background detail for the audience to catch. Hell, we’ve already seen Crescent Rose, at least in its compact state, which makes the robbery “reveal” no longer a reveal at all. There’s no, “Oh cool the vulnerable kid is actually a badass fighter! And she’s got a scythe!!” reaction because the show has established that as a firm part of Ruby’s characterization. We know about Yang and Beacon and Ruby’s long-term combat goals. This

just doesn’t have the same impact anymore.

It’s the same with Zwei. Do I love seeing my favorite pupper right in the first episode? Hell yeah. Have we now lost the opportunity to introduce him through the mail—another iconic RWBY moment? Also yeah.

Which, again, is not automatically a bad thing. This isn’t a case of “Choice A works, but Choice B doesn’t.” Although IQ’s timeline is arguably a more productive way to write a long-term story, in inevitably comparing it to the webseries, I can’t help but notice that we’ve lost a certain absurdity and, well, fun that’s a part of RWBY’s charm.

(That’s an awesome shot though. Love the lighting.)

So Ruby works her way through the goons—a combat sequence I quite enjoyed. Very liberal on the crunchy faces. Looked painful—and Roman runs through most of his original lines. This time he does comment, “Semblance? A Beacon Academy student?” when Ruby busts out the window, which both hints at the fact that semblances might be comparatively rare (remember that Roman doesn’t have one) and, by extension, highlights Ruby’s innate abilities. The fact that Roman assumes she must go to Beacon implies that only someone two years older than her could pull that kind of control off. Ruby, as the talented protagonist, has managed this early.

Roman throws his smoke bomb, runs up the building, Ruby follows him… calls him a thief even though technically he didn’t take any of the Dust with him lol. While they’re on the roof, Tai, Yang, and Zwei arrive on the scene, having grown worried when Ruby failed to return home at a normal time.

(Why is that clock so cool and why don’t I own it.)

Again, IQ does a really great job of fleshing out the world and the characters’ relationships, especially in just 20 minutes. I love that Ruby was out looking for a present for Yang (still bitter we never got to see what she bought her in Volume 6), that Yang and Tai have this conversation about Ruby’s growth, Zwei is being used as a bloodhound to track her, the fact that yeah, of course there are other civilians about and the police were called on scene.

Personally, I think there’s a nostalgic charm to RWBY’s shadow people, but it’s still true to say that animating actual characters responding to situations goes a long way towards making your world feel lived in.

Also, can I just SHOUT FROM THE ROOFTOPS that Tai is out looking for his daughter? I never cared about his character much until post-Volume 3 when the fandom started dragging him for… well, everything. How dare you make a joke your daughter clearly loved. How dare you tell her the truth in an effort to keep her from losing another limb—or her life. (Which, I will always point out now, happened! Yang stupidly jumped in front of Ruby, just like she stupidly charged Adam, and Neo killed her!! You have a ranged weapon, Yang, oh my god—) How dare you fail to follow one kid while the other is at home with severe depression. How dare you not follow both when [checks notes] you’re not a part of the primary plot. Tai really went the way of Ozpin and Ironwood (pre-Volume 8 Ironwood, anyway) where potential mistakes are declared unforgivable sins and… that’s it. You’re Remnant’s #1 Worst Dad. Sucks to be you.

So hell yeah, good on IQ for reminding everyone that Tai, even an AU Tai, is of course worried sick over his missing kid and will do whatever he can to help her. Double kudos for managing that alongside a slight increase in mom!Yang energy.

Glynda (my beloved) shows up and does her thing. Cinder never comes out to fight them, but we still see her piloting the airship, which is interesting. At least, it is to me given that I’d assumed going into IQ that a lot of the larger plot-lines would be dropped in favor of the new story: the White Fang, Cinder’s lust for power, even Salem herself. Obviously that’s not the case, so now I’m wondering if IQ is like an interlude type story? We get a mostly-the-same Volumes 1-2, then a totally new adventure, then the implication that the characters go back to a version of the original tale with Relics, Maidens, la de da? We’ll have to see.

After Ruby DOESN’T ask for Glynda’s autograph (tragic) and she’s getting her lecture while Tai and Yang wait at the station, Ozpin shows up to… salutes?

That’s a choice.

You know how I was saying that Whitley’s characterization feels more in line with where he’ll end up several Volumes later? Well, Ozpin’s characterization feels more in line with where the show says he ends up several Volumes later… even though they never actually wrote that. Meaning, this is an Ozpin introduction that actually implies an ulterior, morally gray motive. This is a guy that does feel sketchy to me.

Let’s tally the details.

Ozpin arrives at the station—now overtly a police station and not the ambiguous closet of the webseries—and is saluted by everyone there. He doesn’t wave the formality aside with discomfort or anything, but takes it as a given. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that was Ironwood walking into the room.

He still gives Ruby cookies, but this time we see that he didn’t arrive with them. Meaning, he must have made one of the officers scrounge them up which, while still potentially just a nice gesture, feels like it has more potential for manipulation. More “Do the work for me so I can look good to the kid” rather than, “I heard Glynda had you in her clutches and brought cookies from home to soothe that :D”

Ruby never gives her passionate speech about wanting to help people like her parents taught her to and how Beacon is her plan to do that. So although the fandom has long assumed that Ozpin invited her partly due to her Silver Eyes—an assessment I agree with—that motivation feels far more prominent without Ruby overtly wanting to come. At least, she doesn’t tell Ozpin she wants to come. Now, instead of making Ruby’s wish come true (with the added benefit of assisting Ozpin’s war) Ozpin offers a place seemingly out of the blue, still putting some focus on Ruby’s combat skills, far more on those special, Silver Eyes. This feels like a recruitment now, not a benevolent gesture towards a family friend’s kid.

Going off of that, there’s no playful banter between Ozpin and Glynda about Ruby getting in early. This Ozpin has very little of the kind, fatherly energy of the webseries.

Finally, we see Ozpin talking to Tai afterwards and though Tai is quite taken with Ruby getting to skip two years, it’s not like Ozpin is asking his permission here. Sure, sure, we could get into the question of how much agency Remnant kids actually have—Blake’s parents are cool with her going off to Beacon after being missing for a time, no one is looking for Oscar, etc.—but the point is that twice, once before meeting Ruby and once after, Ozpin has the chance to offer Tai this opportunity for his daughter, but very overtly does not. He says that he will be speaking to Ruby. He says that she will be attending Beacon. He’s in control here.

The combination of this creates a far less approachable, more calculating Ozpin. AKA, the kind of Ozpin that RWBY failed to write, but the fandom insists is there in an effort to make the fury in Volume 6+ make sense. I’m not sure how I feel about it? On the one hand yeah, I’m glad to see IQ setting the stage for future reveals. This is an Ozpin who really might be puppeteering this war in a way the cast can be justifiably disgusted by. Yet on the other hand, it doesn’t feel much like Ozpin to me. Though small changes have been made to all the characters, they still feel like themselves (Klein being the exception). Ozpin though… there’s no interest in Ruby’s passion, no teasing Glynda, no intimacy with Tai. Seriously, go back and watch “Ruby Rose.” We’ve got Ozpin’s dad-like concern over Ruby using one of the “most dangerous weapons every designed,” his clear fondness for his “dusty old crow,” offering the cookies only after Ruby has explained herself a bit and her actually eating them (comfortable in his presence/trusting what he gives her), the eye-twitch when she talks with her mouth full, fond smile as Ruby gushes about her uncle, laughing a little at her karate chops, “adorable girl,” the very stern “You want to come to my school?” which forces Ruby to clearly state her own goals and desires (that oh so conveniently align with his), THIS

I mean, Ozpin is a dad. I feel like that’s a very crucial part of his characterization. He’s a romantic who settled down, had kids, does the stupid voices while reading his beloved fairy tales… and then his life went to absolute shit. He’s an exhausted dad who is still fighting because he believes wholeheartedly that the world is worth fighting for. He’s exactly the kind of guy who would bring a talented kid cookies and let her skip two years, all while ensuring her happiness benefits humanity somehow.

This guy feels like a creep—and that’s not just because of the weird doll features.

So good for the fandom, finally has a legitimately suspicious Ozpin to embrace? Yay IQ laying the groundwork for future plot-points? But as my favorite character, I wish we had Ozpin back. Especially since he’s only existed as an extension of Oscar for the past five Volumes, one everyone uses as a punching bag.

Maybe his characterization will change in the upcoming episodes? :(

We near the end of “Red, White, Black, Yellow” with a bit of additional worldbuilding slapped onto the trailer content. Weiss learns from Winter that there are hard rules to their totally-not-magic system—“Your Aura can only take a direct attack once or twice at most. The moment you’re hit, you’re finished”—and that’s reiterated by Glynda to Ruby: “Is your Aura strong enough to stop every bullet they fired?”

Cue me CACKLING at, like, every single RWBY fight ever. Will IQ do what the webseries couldn’t and actually stick to its own rules? We’ll have to see…

Blake is off in a… barn? Some isolated place with a bag of supplies now. She gets her admission notice from Beacon and I have to wonder when she took that exam. Was it before she left Adam, thereby making her leaving him feel a little less random? Was it after her escape and she’s been, what? Just running through grimm infested territory since then, popping into Beacon once for a quick test? Why didn’t she ever go home?? Yeah, there are still aspects that don’t quite add up for me. Regardless, Blake gets teary and says that now she’s really able to follow a “different path.”

Klein sends Weiss off with faith that she’ll carry on the legacy of Master Nicholas Schnee and, after Ruby tells Tai that she’ll make a ton of friends at Beacon (that’s a change in characterization), we finish with them all boarding the same transport. We then get a really lovely moment where both Weiss and Blake stare at their reflection on opposite sides of the ship, mustering up a smile.

Watching OFMD grow as a fandom these last few months, I’ve gotten to see a lot of people question certain fandom trends that have popped up, including asking, “Wait, people ship that?” Ignoring for the moment that you obviously don’t need a reason beyond, “I like it,” we can usually pinpoint why fans end up liking that particular duo (or trio). The important takeaway here is that it doesn’t take much—at ALL—to spark that interest. This moment is a perfect example of that. Blake and Weiss are set up to parallel and contrast one another. One is the rich heiress harming the faunus. The other is the (right now reading as) poor faunus fighting the heiress. They’ve got that Romeo and Juliet potential—two houses not meant to join—and yet we also see, right here, that they’re so much more alike than either will initially believe. They’re separated now, haven’t yet met, are literally on opposite sides of the transport, and yet they both go through the exact same motions of sighing in relief at making it in time, catching sight of themselves in a reflective surface, considering who they are, and then smiling. There’s so much potential there! We in the RWBY fandom know that Bumbleby and White Rose are the two heavy-hitters, but right now Weiss hasn’t met Ruby and Blake hasn’t met Yang. I guarantee that if IQ were its own show and we were waiting a week for the next, totally original episode, fans would be all over Monochrome as the primary ship. It would have sunk its teeth into the community from that alone and even if IQ went the way of RWBY, splitting them up and starting numerous moments of other shipping potential (Weiss slowing coming to care for Ruby, Yang opening up to Blake, etc.) there’s a good chance that Blake/Weiss would have hung on like whoa, just from this moment and a week of theorizing alone. Never doubt the power of fans to imagine up the most epic romances from a single, thematically loaded shot.

We’re given our first glimpses of Jaune (vomiting), Nora (hanging onto Ren), Ren (suffering, but he likes it), and Pyrrha—taking up most of the screen as Salem says that “even the most brilliant lights eventually flicker and die.”

I can’t go through this again 😭

At least that’s a WAY better introduction for Pyrrha than being Jaune’s background, quirky girl...

And, of course, we end on a close-up of Ruby as Ozpin talks about small sparks and simple souls igniting the most change.

(I’m sorry she looks so creepy here hOW IS THAT NOT A MURDER DOLL??)

So, just to summarize, there's really good character work throughout this episode. Not only are the introductions tighter and better interwoven with Remnant's worldbuilding, but IQ does a decent job of setting up future themes, conflicts, and — if the plot circles back to canon — foreshadowed events like Pyrrha’s death. Basically, this is what happens when you take your story through another draft. This is RWBY with an eye towards what did and didn't work the first time around.

Yet for all that praise... I have to admit that a certain spark is missing. Yes, the animation is so much better, but as said, there's something charming about RWBY's janky movements and shadow people. Yes, the characters' introductions fit more neatly into the story-world now, but it was exciting to get individual action trailers, unsure at first how they would develop into a plot-driven narrative. No, there's no reason to waste time on silly things like Jaune being Vomit Boy, but the lack of stupid humor in this premiere makes me feel like a crucial part of RWBY is missing. There's no disappearing cookies, or Ruby being chill about Yang kicking men out of club windows, or karate chops, or (and this is a real travesty imo) a cringey "Can I have your autograph??" towards Glynda. Maybe it's that we're nearly a decade out from the original air date and tastes have changed, or maybe it's just straight up nostalgia on my part, but for however good IQ is so far, it doesn't feel like it has the same heart that RWBY did — and I don't think it's capable of recreating that. RWBY was a specific storm of Monty + 2013 + the appeal of a group of fans doing something fun in their basement over something objectively "good," and who knows what else thrown into the mysterious pot of success. You literally can't recreate that, especially when so much of RWBY's fanbase are adults now, unable to return to their teenage years — or even just the eight years younger version of themselves if they were adults the first time around — and the headspace of when they first fell in love with the story. That doesn't make IQ bad by any means (and it may well get its own fanbase of first-time viewers). I really enjoyed this first episode... but I enjoyed it in the way I enjoy lots of other well-made, but kinda generic anime. Without it already being a RWBY story and without RWBY having caught my imagination back when it did, I don't think I would have gotten hooked on IQ in the same way. The premier is good, arguably far, FAR better than "Ruby Rose" ever was, and yet, whether due to time, nostalgia, or something else entirely, RWBY still feels like it comes out on top. It’s just got... something that IQ lacks.

Not that it's a competition, of course, though certain members of the fandom seem to believe quite strongly that it should be. More because they’d like a built-in reason to drag anyone with a criticism of IQ/RWBY than because they actually believe two versions of a story can’t co-exist.

But I digress.

With that, we've completed "Red, White, Black, Yellow"! At a measly 6,000 words, no less. (I’m apologizing now for the inevitable typos. It’s past 1:00am now and I can’t read through this again...) As is abundantly obvious, these recaps take a long time to write and this sneak peek has, quite unexpectedly, dropped the equivalent of three weeks worth of RWBY content into my lap all at once. Normally I'd have no problem buckling down to write the next episode, but I have a number of fic commitments at the start of July that I can't afford to ignore. So writing time will be going towards those, first and foremost, with me continuing to work on Ice Queendom on the side. I hope to have the next episode recapped in the next few days — at the latest — but that depends entirely on how kind the writing Gods are to me this week.

So stay tuned and, as always, thanks for reading! <3

MurderOfBirds' Twitter Thread: https://twitter.com/MurderofBirds_/status/1540414268457340928

#RWBY #RWDE #mymetas #rwby: ice queendom #rwby recaps

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armenianwriterman · 1 year

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OKAY Final guesses for the RWBY Volume 9 Finale!

Ruby Rose: Gets to meet with a vision of Summer and accepts that she doesn't need to bottle everything up and that she doesn't have to be a perfect leader, she needs others to help share the burden so she can truly lead at her best. With this, she returns from the tree, not in some sort of "Uber Ruby/Summer 2.0" form, but as herself. After helping her team defeat CC, she offers a chance to help Neo find a new purpose and connections. After all that is done, she opens up about everything to her team and has a big emotional moment with them before they all go to Remnant

Weiss Schnee: Doesn't have a big role but at least one big moment where she has a moment of guilt over Atlas to set up her Vacuo Arc...arc. Other then that, she helps Ruby defeat CC and has that emotional moment with her at the end.

Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long: Don't really have anything for them that isn't covered in Weiss and Ruby's sections. (Except they have one more kiss to tie us over for the hiatus)

Jaune Arc: During his ascension process, he encounters the Blacksmith, who reveals herself to be Alyx and the two have an emotional heart to heart. I think that it will be revealed that Jaune died from the poison and ascended to the Rusted Knight form, explaining how he could still be alive if TGTFTTW is as old as its implied to be previously. Then Jaune ultimately accepts that he can be a protector even in spite of his failures, and the Blacksmith repairs his sword and he goes back to his teenage self (keeping the longer hair), and eventually exorcises CC from Neo with his semblance.

Curious Cat: Creates illusions of various past characters to assist them in the final battle before being defeated and exorcised. Gives some exposition/cryptic warnings about the gods before the Jabberwalker comes back and forces them to retreat (highly doubt this volume is the end of them or their villainy.

Neopolitan: After being freed from CC, I think Ruby will offer her a chance to change and to move on from her obsession with vengeance. But unfortunately, I don't really see Neo going in a positive direction at this point, so I think she's gonna reject her offer and try to kill Ruby one last time. Whether this ends with her dead, alive or ascended I can't say, but I don't see a happy ending here.

Little: They get a quick moment of deciding what they want to be before appearing in the final battle to turn the tide against CC. If they do ascend to be Penny, they will go with Ruby back to Remnant in the end. If they do not and instead ascend to a larger form like some have theorized, I suspect they will stay in the Ever After

Juniper: It will be revealed that Alyx created them from her broach to be a friend to Jaune. Ends up following him to Remnant.

Blacksmith/Alyx: Helps Ruby, Jaune and Little with their ascensions and maybe even summons the Jabberwalker at the end.

Penny Polendina: Either we get the Penny resurrection tomorrow, OR we get an explicit hint that it's gonna happen.

Other: I don't think we'll actually see Vacuo until V10 (unfortunately). I think the post credit scene will reveal/hint at present day Summer working for Salem.

Overall, this finale is gonna be freaking bonkers and I cannot wait to see what it has to hold.

#rwby #rwby9 #rwby spoilers #ruby rose #weiss schnee #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #jaune arc #curious cat #neopolitan #rwby little #rwby juniper the bunny #rwby blacksmith #rwby alyx #penny polendina #summer rose

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cream-and-five-sugars · 2 years

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ok kinda gotta rant here real quick

people complain about volume 9 being released in the far, far away year of 2023. or later, whatever, the point is it’s not getting released this year.

angy fans cry about how it’s suddenly taking 2 years or more for crwby to produce the content, and that the hiatus is so long and so unbearable and oh my gosh we all will die if we’re being deprived of new episodes for one more day.

like, i get it. we’re all suffering here. but let me tell you something:

rwby still not airing a new volume this year isn’t unusual - airing one volume every single year was.

i don’t know how many people actually know shit about animation. i myself am no expert, god forbid, but i’ve done it. i did 3d animations from scratch and it takes a long ass time and good lord it’s so much work. so fucking much.

i won’t go into details because nobody gives a damn about that anyway. just google “animation pipeline” or something similar, and then mentally add additional tasks like, i don’t know... coming up with the story or post production or sound design or recording the lines with the voice actors and - oh would you look at that, that’s a shitload of time and effort you need to put into each and every episode.

the fact that rwby managed to pump out their new seasons so quickly, in an almost assembly-belt-like manner, really spoiled us, if i dare say.

look at big animation studios like pixar or dreamworks. even they - with their big budgets and buildings full of experts - need sometimes years to complete a movie. rooster teeth is obviously not playing in their league by far, they are producing a show which has an overall longer runtime than a movie, and rwby is not their only focus. like, what do you expect then?

i can only say it again - one season per year is not the norm and it’s not sustainable in the long run. especially when you steadily improve quality all around and grow outside of the main show, providing additional content.

also, just a quick reminder that i am well aware of rooster teeth’s layoffs and whatever other work-related issues have surfaced. and i do care about it, and i’m not trying to defend rooster teeth or justify any of their wrongs here. it’s just the fact that people are really out there, thinking they know better and can do better, when they are just impatient and have no idea how literally anything in the world of media productions works on a professional level.

#not using the main tag because i'm literally just being a whiny bitch #personal

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shadowdianne · 3 years

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Fic writer review [Or a fic writer tag game if you prefer]

I was tagged by @naralanis and I can already see her grin all the way from where I am xd Thank you, dear, for the tag, let’s see what are my answers, shall we.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

*bursts out laughing* Adding both pseuds I have… 535 according to the account info but by counting them all I’m reaching 541 so I’m guessing it’s counting some drafts I need to re-find.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

I seriously hated you for this one xd I was going to do it by hand by I decided one-third there that I value my mental stability a little bit more xd according to the stats page back at a03 that number would be 1257884. It may be wrong. I think there should be a few more numbers up there but the majority of my works are one-shots so *shrugs* There’s also the fact that counting my ao3 things only is shaving off like half of it Xd Anyway, can we laugh at the fact that I’m a pain in the ass and that I’ve written a lot? More than I should have, that’s for sure

3. How many fandoms have you written for?

Trick question because I haven’t crossposted everything I wrote back in ffnet and I actually erased some fics from my account back there so the numbers are a little blurry there.

When I had the entirety of my work posted both in ffnet and a03 I had written for: Twilight (Bella/Alice) Glee (Faberry and there were a couple Pezberry and I don’t fucking remember the pairing name for Santana and Quinn), Harry Potter (Hermione/Ginny, Hermione/Narcissa, Hermione/Bellatrix) OUAT (SwanQueen and several oneshots focusing on the mad hatter and the blue fairy solely back at ffnet that were written in Spanish and never translated), I actually had a veeeery old au prompt of Frozen (Elsanna in where I wrote them as non sibilings), Rizzoli and Isles (Rizzles), Dishonored 2 (Emily Kaldwin/Alexi Mayhew), Lara Croft and Wonder Woman, Supergirl (SuperCorp/Supercat) I had a 100 one -or maybe two??- (Clexa), The Shannara Chronicles (Amberle/Eretreia [Or Princess Rover], Rwby [Blake Belladona/Yang], The Worst Witch (Hecate Hardbroom and Pippa Pentangle), The Half of it, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (Madam Satan/Zelda Spellman) and… I think that’s it(?) I may be forgetting some but probably nothing important if I’m not remembering it lol.

4. Top 5 fics by kudos?

Ah, we are going to go there, uh? Xd My works are not the kudos and comment getting type Xd So I was quite surprised when I went to check this.

1: Cracked it I wrote this one back in 2017, it was a prompt done by an anon: Lena is nerding with one of her projects at home, mumbling mostly to herself because she’s stuck and Kara casually mentions how to solve the problem like it’s nothing. I really had some fun with this. It was back when some us, SQeeners were fully doing the jump between OUAT and SuperGirl (I mean, there had already been some crossover as for fandom is related but this when the girls were actually getting their conjoined voice within the fandom)

2: Dateless I honestly needed to check what this one was about but I think I can see why this one shot has the amount of kudos it has. It’s a short and sweet idea and responds to the Teachers Au that went SO well with SQ. Everyone thinks they hate each other and try to set them up with other people whilst they, in truth, are dating. I don’t remember if I wrote them as married rather than dating but despite being from 2017 as well is one cheeky enough to be cool Xd I probably would edit some lines now *shudders*

3: After you I truly didn’t expect this one to be top 3. Makes me think of a lot of things, if I’m being honest Xd. After you was a one shot written almost feverishly as an answer to the fabulous drawings that Sejic did of both Lara Croft and Wonder Woman back at 2018 or something. It’s just Lara and Diana being himbos but not at all with each other.

4: How about… How about is one I remember perfectly, it was my answer to the ending of the Half of it film. I had SOME thoughts about it, let’s just stop there Xd I really liked the film itself but I think and I thought at the time that my response to wishing for a final scene at the very end of the credits responds to me being in a different personal moment than the characters. I really wanted to explore my feelings about it and so I wrote about them finding each other again after some time passes. It was also something I wrote after quite the hiatus so I took it as something I could write about without focusing too much on the why.

5: Come to me

Ahh, SuperCorp Xd I remember this one actually. A friend of mine and I were talking about descriptions, and she mentioned quite off-handedly how she wanted a fic in where Kara’s back was described. I complied… more or less.

Fun tidbit, despite the big volume of my work is obviously set in ouat there’s only 1 SQ fic there as you can see, the others are either SuperCorp or the random one shots I created for Wonderwoman/Lara Croft and The half of it. *sighs in deep thought* I’m also not going to look too much into how almost all of the fics were posted and written back in 2017. Nope, not at all.

*Small voice screaming you peaked in 2017 and everything else is garbage jumps back and forth*

5. Do you respond to comments? Why/why not?

I tend to always respond, yup. I truly value comments. I might have gone for spells of time in where I didn’t have the mental capacity to check in old fics because I truly didn’t know what to answer but I treasure every single comment and you all who comment know that I can start to ramble in the answers xd -sorry about that- I really really REALLY love interaction.

6. A fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending:

Ok, Nara, come on, this one is a catch for me. I’ve written angst in far too many fics to remember the angstiest one :P I have the most recent one, though, that is the easy one to think about: Goodbye.Written for @delirious-comfort. I’m just going to say “Kisses with their last dying breath” as an idea of what awaits inside but I’ve written about death and loss and angst quite a lot. There were some I wrote back to SQ with Regina needing to kill Emma during the Dark Swan arc that, to this day, I still love and some others in where Regina is the one that dies, again and again, trapped by magic while Emma watches. I have the loss in mental destruction form and… I REALLY like my angst y’know xd

7. Do you write crossovers?

Not counting Lara and Wonder Woman not really! I think it comes from the fact that I loooove worldbuilding as a whole and some pairings would require all my focus into making the world perfect which in turn would make me self conscious on the OOCness of it all.

8. Ever received hate on a fic?

*snorts* I’ve received hate due to the pairing I’ve written about, how I’ve written about it, the amount I’ve written, how slow or quick I can be, the usage of some tropes, the lack of usage of those same tropes… Let’s just go with: yuuuup.

9. Do you write smut?

I’ve written smut, yeah! But I can already see the pointed looks of some so let’s elaborate Xd I write smut when asked and sometimes when not asked but there’s a part of me I like to call a terrible tease that prefers writing the beginning of a scene, taunt it, focus on what happens before the sex scene per se as I find it more enjoyable to write. The process of escalation is always the best for me to see what can I do it by using both dialogue and descriptors tbh, so I tend to tease more than show.

9. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

A few weeks ago I’d have said: Maybe(?) But trying to follow the trail of some other fics that had been stolen from some friends -I think it was me trying to find more about the page that stole something from your Nara!- I found some pages in where my fics had been reposted. In some it was stated that the person posting the fic wasn’t the author but I had never been contacted in order to see if I’d say yes to such a thing and in some others the page was locked up but I could still see someone was pretending to be the author. I did the thing and got some of those down.

Pointed note: Ask me if you want to post or translate or anything. I will look into you and answer you if you seem honest about the thing. But despite every joke and self-deprecating comment those 500 and then some fics represent MY time so very kindly I say fuck off to those who wish to steal from me and if I catch you… you don’t really want to see me angry, trust me.

10. Ever had a fic translated?

I’ve given permission to some, yeah, but never heard it back from them so I’m guessing it didn’t stick.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic?

I’ve written series alongside other authors as @stregaomega for example. And some others that are unpublished -looking at you @carsonnieve - I’ve also done collabs… but fics co-written in the sense of two authors same chapters I don’t have anything posted I’m afraid :P

13. All-time favourite ship?

*snorts*, I guess the obvious answer is SQ uh? And I do think they were the ones that allowed me to read and write SO much. The one I feel more strongly about, however, is Bering and Wells from Warehouse 13.

14. WIP you want to finish, but don’t think you ever will?

All of them counts as a valid answer? But if I only could finish one that would be Arcadia. With A forgotten Promise second and the one I did as an Assassins Creed AU third. (I don’t remember the name so there’s no link, sorry xd)

15. Writing strengths?

Uhhhh, you REALLY want me to say that? I don’t fucking know!! To me everything I write is garbage. I always try to go for the feelings so I guess. Dunno xd I’ve been told I’m good at worldbuilding and to be honest is what I enjoy the most.

16. Writing weaknesses?

Everything Xd Pacing? What I hate the most sometimes is dialogue, I would count it as a weakness but I’m always far too focused on description rather than dialogue. I don’t think it’s a bad thing per se but it’s something that I don’t do as much.

17. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

I’m conflicted. Always. Majorly because I think that having bilingual characters in fanfiction is portrayed and expected in a way that I don’t feel it’s honest with how bilingual people -us- talk. So if I go by what I know I do I think it’s not what readers hope to see when it comes to that and if I go for how canonically is hoped to be found I don’t think it’s logical. But that’s me and my overthinking Xd If I have the option I like to do it.

18. First fandom you ever wrote for?

Belice! Or Bella/Alice. Worst first fic ever but oh, well, I’m always saying that :P

19. What’s your fav fic you’ve written so far?

Uhh… Don’t make me do this XD Agh, I don’t know. I’ve always been very vocal about Metallic Ink because I let myself enjoy the process of creating a magic system almost out of zero and that was fun. Despite hating some of the writing process and that I’d do it differently now I think I’m going to stick with that answer. Or anything that had any steampunk-based undertone. To be honest I like more thinking of concepts, I had one in where Emma was a thief and it involved the robbery of a ring that was Regina’s one way ticket to freedom I then later repurposed that I adored thinking about so let’s go with…. Yeah, I love having the option of changing things up a little and focus on how characters would fit in different aesthetics for this one Xd

Annnd… these are four pages, gods. I’m just going to tag @waknatious @carsonnieve @stregaomega here and see what they do- Enjoy the questionnaire ladies :P

#taggie thingie #this was a monster

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rwbyconversations · 3 years

Note

Still shitting your pants over V8's popularity and the fact that being an obsessed psycho won't stop people from enjoying a show?

I’m tagging this in RWBY proper because I know this is a problem a lot of people who’ve spoken frankly about the series and their issues have with it so I wanna highlight that this, this toxic positivity, is a genuine problem in the community. But seriously:

Why do you care.

Why are you still obsessing over a random person on Tumblr who occasionally checks in and talks about a mediocre web anime instead of actually living your life anon? You have been doing this now for nearly a year. Are you still spreading that toxic positivity instead of actually doing something productive with your time like... engaging with people on Tumblr whose content you actually enjoy?

This song and dance has been going on now for like. Eight months. Do you literally have nothing better to do with your time than check in with these constant YOU’RE A LOSER SHIT YOUR PANTS WA WA WA crap? Do you not have friends? Or like... a pet that needs water and food? Parents? A partner? Am I literally all you’ve got? Man that’s sad.

Keep in mind by the way: I’m done. I’m not watching Volume 9, I have officially dropped the show. You don’t get it that you’ve already won, I don’t plan on watching the show after this and it’s partly because of pasty basement dwellers like you defending your favorite 3D waifus. I’m gonna write a few more bits during the hiatus about Volume 8 and its weaknesses, and that’s it! I’m gone! You don’t have to worry about me after Volume 9 starts! You’re harassing a person who’s already decided to leave the fandom over harassment!

Like seriously. Get off my fucking blog if my content is so upsetting to you. I’m not making you read my stuff, I’m not going up to people on street saying READ MY BLOG. If you don’t like it... you don’t have to read it. Go do something worthwhile instead of stalking random people you fuckin’ incel. Y’all love preaching about DON’T LIKE DON’T WATCH but fail to ever take it into account when it’s something you love to shit on. And I know it’s not just me given a lot of other people have been saying that talking critically about the show post-Volume 8 has only led to a direct uptick in freaks like you harassing them. You have people saying “I can’t talk about why I didn’t like it because I’m too afraid to say why.” And it’s your fault. You’re a toxic fan. And you don’t even realize it!

People like you are why normies shit on the RWBY fandom. Because folks like you only perpetuate the stereotype that the fandom cannot take a shred of criticism to save its life without throwing out the kitchen sink. You wanna go on and on about how good the show is, but you can’t let people just say what they didn’t like about it without flying into such an incoherent white male gamer rage that you have to resort to shitty anons?

If you’re so sure about yourself, if you’re so confident in your beliefs? Get off anon and tell me to my face what you said there. Go on, I dare you. Prove what a big bad man you are and stop using anonymity as a shield. Make my day, prove to me, my followers and inevitably your own friends what an awful person you are. Come off anon and talk to me. I know you won’t because you thrive on anonymity. You’re a coward, and your mother probably cries herself to sleep at night knowing what you are.

Touch grass anon. Or just get therapy before you shoot up an old folks home because your grandma said “I tried out that RWBY thing you suggested. Didn’t like it.”

#rwby #rwde #anonymous #ask rc #i'm gonna need a tag for my stalker anon at this point #rwby fandom #Anonymous

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psyga315 · 3 years

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Some Roses Will Never Bloom: A Rewrite Of Volume 8, Part 1

Never before have I felt so disappointed with the turnout of a RWBY Volume. It had the potential to be extremely good, but it chose mediocrity. Again. It felt like Volume 5 all over again.

I know I should probably wait for the final two episodes, but let’s be fucking honest here. Atlas is done. The plot is finished. These two episodes, if people are to be believed, are to hype for the next Volume and even then, given how RWBY did its “hype” and “payoff” in Volume 8… No, fuck that noise. Those last two episodes will get their own segment called the Volume 9 Character Short. If anything, only scenes with Emerald from those two episodes will be brought over to Volume 8 and if they’re big scenes, like her interacting with Cinder, I’ll make an addendum.

Before we begin, keep in mind that this is not a complete rewrite. If there’s a scene I haven’t mentioned, that’s because it’s good as is and can be left in. Length wise, I’ll try to aim for the same 14 episodes, but minutes wise… Who even counts these anymore?

So, let’s get into the meat and potatoes with a Meta-Rewrite. If this does not interest you, skip ahead to when I start talking about the episodes.

Grimm Expectations

Let’s rewind the clocks back to the hiatus of Volume 7-8. Rooster Teeth is proud to announce a new contest where Grimm entries are submitted and the winner would receive a prize. There was controversy the minute it began and it only got worse when the finalists were called.

So, let’s fix that. In this Meta-Rewrite, Rooster Teeth decide to instead broadens the prize pool to include five winners instead of the one, with no popularity contest to determine the winner. Of course, this doesn’t fix the contest results, which includes a controversial figure. However, because there is no voting involved, it instead becomes a flame war over the design that, let’s be honest, wouldn’t have mattered in the grand scheme of things.

So, yeah, RT uses all five Grimm winners, disregards any fucks that the fanbase has (again) and the only thing I could see happening is if the artist personally reached out to Rooster Teeth and requested it to be removed, to which RT will word it so that it doesn’t backfire in their face.

Alright, now let’s do it.

Divide

We’ll start right where the show left off, with Oscar witnessing the Whale arrive onto Atlas. However, curiously, it is stationary. Oscar asks what’s up with it before Ozpin cryptically tells him that’s what she wants it to do. We don’t need to see a huge montage of Oscar getting to the Crater, but just enough to know how he got there.

We cut to RWBY and co discussing what to do now, especially with Salem making good on her threat. Ruby tries to contact Qrow and Oscar, but she can’t reach them. Pietro and Maria pilot the aircraft down to the same discreet spot they parked in Volume 7. However, as they get off, they’re ambushed by soldiers. Just then, Johanna, May, and Fiona barge in and beat them with an ambush of their own.

“What the hell just happened!?” Johanna barked at Ruby. We’ll cut to fifteen minutes later where they all discuss what happened

“So, Ironwood’s finally lost it.” May mutters. They hear the news and see their wanted posters. Most notably, they see that Robyn and Penny are added to the list and that she and Qrow have a big “ARRESTED” sign over them. However, with Oscar, there’s a clear big red X over his face, causing Ruby to fret. Jaune gets upset and punches a wall, blaming himself for leaving Oscar behind on both occasions.

I don’t think Jaune would blame Ruby at this point, since 1) he, at this point, knows better than to point fingers and 2) it’s more his character to beat himself up rather than someone else.

It’d still be Yang, but she’d be joined by Ren. Yang brings up how Ruby’s leadership led them to this situation and Ren mentions how they destroyed Ironwood’s trust, not knowing what was really said up there back in “Gravity”. Ruby told Yang about how they not only went behind Ironwood’s back but also theirs by telling Robyn about the Amity Tower and thus burned their bridge with Ironwood, only for Blake to go on full blast and say what Critics have been saying for the entire hiatus:

“YOU GUYS ARE ACTING JUST LIKE THE WHITE FANG!”

She explains how they’ve done the exact same things that the White Fang had done, taking lives, stealing vehicles, but she adds the extra caveat of bringing up how they’ve also borrowed from Ozpin’s playbook. She confesses to being the one who planned on telling them about Amity.

However, Johanna breaks up the fight and tells them flat out: doesn’t matter what they did, they need to worry more about what to do. This is when they argue more about what’s important: Amity or Mantle. The team splits up the same way, since it is integral for their arcs to be like this and not go with the obvious “Ren cared about saving the world so he’s going for Amity and Nora cared about Mantle so she will help Mantle.”

Ruby frets more, since “this is what Salem wants”, only for Yang to retort: “well, she’s already getting that right now…”, which stings Ruby since she feels like it meant her splitting off with Ruby while she actually meant what happened with Ironwood. We’re not gonna do the “future” stuff. I feel like that should happen naturally instead of confusing people.

Just before they go, though, Ironwood calls Penny and tells her that Salem is here. Penny is about to answer when Ruby takes the phone away and tells him to fuck off, only for Ironwood to go “hey, people are going to die if you’re acting like a doofus about it!” Ironwood tries to talk more, but Ruby hangs up on him.

We smash cut to Ironwood growling in frustration, looking at the arm he lost in order to stop Watts. He gets a solemn look, pondering to himself about how far he must go in order to save the world. His arm trembles and thinks back to shooting Oscar. He begins to have second thoughts about what he had done, though they’re brief as the Councillors came in. During their rant, Ironwood grabs Sleet by the throat and drags his ass out to a window where they see the whale.

“YOU SEE THAT!? That is what we tried to protect the world from and now it’s at our front door. That’s why I’ve enacted Martial Law.” He then tosses Sleet to the guards and tell him to lock the Councilmen up. “You two have gotten in my way before. I won’t let it happen again.” As they get dragged away, he looks over to Winter and apologizes. Had he not arranged for her to be the Winter Maiden, she wouldn’t have been injured.

Winter reassures him and tells him that he was the only person who has given her purpose in life after her father ruined it. Ironwood is both touched and horrified with that comment, especially once the Ace Ops come, having done their grieving for Clover. Harriet also affirms her faith in Ironwood and tells him that Clover died for his Kingdom. Ironwood gives a moment to think… Closing his eyes.

“So… If I’ve led you all onto the path of hell…” He opens them as we see the light in his eyes disappear, followed by the sound of a loud, distinctive click. “Then there’s no other choice but to keep moving forward.”

And as we get our first official look at Mettle, the opening plays out.

Refuge

The villain scene from Episode 1 is moved over to here, but Cinder brings up why they haven’t made their move yet. Salem brings up that Tyrian’s report of the situation has confirmed that Ironwood has taken her bait and is now the greatest weapon they have. Let him destroy Atlas from the inside out and then clean up the mess. She then brings the relic to the Hound and has him sniff for Oscar’s scent.

The rest of the episode plays out like usual, with Ruby and Yang’s teams doing their thing, but with Oscar at the Crater, he’s not there for the scenes. He does still have his chat with Ozpin about how they’ll be one soon, however. He sees Yang, Ren, and Jaune arrive with people and he is elated to see them. He is elated to see them and asks what happened with the others. Yang sums up and then Oscar asks what happened to Qrow, Clover, and Robyn.

Cut to the jailbirds and Qrow saying how he wants to murder Ironwood. The Councilmen are tossed in while they extract Watts.

The Hound Scene gets changed somewhat, as we see it attacking Oscar in the middle of the Crater, bringing people to harm against the Hound. This furthers the reason why they couldn’t just shoot the Grimm, since the Hound threatens the lives of the refuges in the Crater. We end our episode there.

Strings

So, here’s where I think we’re going to make the big changes and axe a subplot. While the premise of Penny being hacked and her aura resisting it is good, I feel like, of the subplots that need to be cut, this would be the one. We can dedicate more of this time to her conflict with being the Protector of Mantle and now being the Winter Maiden, in other words being the Protector of Atlas.

Meanwhile, Nora, Ruby, and Blake all have their doubts. Ruby and Nora are obvious, but Blake has trouble deciding if she made the right call in returning to RWBY. Weiss, in a Tsundere way, brings up how she is a very integral part of the team. Blake then brings up how, if it weren’t for her, then they wouldn’t have had a hard time getting to Atlas, blaming herself for both their rejection at Argus and how Adam ruined their plans in the hijacking.

Weiss, however, wants none of that. While this was Ruby’s plan, Weiss takes charge of the operation due to Ruby being emotionally compromised. She gets a taste of being a leader in this episode, one she had wanted in Volume 1.

During this, Ironwood discusses matters with Watts, where they talk about the possibility of hacking Penny. For this rewrite, I think keeping the ‘Watts is working with Ironwood’ angle, complete with Ironwood having guns pointed to him, would benefit Ironwood’s arc and show how low he’s going. Not just working with one of Salem’s thugs, but also holding them at gun point. Ironwood justifies it by saying that this is Watts’s ‘punishment’ for the crimes he’s done. Watts, however, plays it by ear and waits for the opportune time for a backstab. That and he wants to stick it to Pietro.

The rest of the episode plays out like normal, but we get that ‘made a deal with the darkness’ scene as Watts is dragged back to his cell, Harriet has a hissy fit, and Robyn is like ‘you’re looking for someone to blame’. As the Ace Ops and Guards leave, Watts brings Qrow’s ‘we kill the man who put us here’ idea back to him and says he’s interested in his offer.

Fault

We open right where we leave off, as Watts reveals that he’s only getting close enough to Ironwood to acquire the right tools to escape. He then proceeds to dangle the carrot in front of Qrow.

“We’ve all been screwed over by Ironwood in one form or another. He disrupted your business, abandoned your town, betrayed your Headmaster.” The last part gets to Qrow and he lashes out. “We all want him dead, so… are you in or are you out?”

“Preposterous!” Jacques, to Robyn’s surprise, beat her to the punch. “Let’s not forget that you’ve done your fair share of screwing. Believe me, I had my experience. I know better than to trust you.”

“You’ve trusted Ironwood, right? And look where it got you. All of you.” That comment hangs in the air.

“We wanted Ironwood out for some time, but not like this! Are you mad?” Sleet asked. Robyn is visibly horrified at what Watts is suggesting and is the next to speak up.

“Jacques has a point for once in his life. Why should we trust you when you’re the reason Mantle is in this mess in the first place?” Then Qrow raises his hand.

“I want to hear him out.” Qrow said.

“What? What do you mean? You realize he works with-”

“I know! But remember who we’re dealing with. This prison… It’s not like the kind of prisons I’ve seen, especially in Atlas. No other people but us, only the top of Ironwood’s army are allowed to check in, and I’m pretty sure the guards aren’t allowed to give you that shiner. No… This isn’t our holding cell. It’s an execution cell, and we’re just waiting for Ironwood to drop the axe.”

We end on that implication as we see the episode play out like normal. While I like to have Ren bring up Pyrrha, I think the “cheated into Beacon” thing is big enough and we’ll need to unravel that bundle of worms. Instead of the “yeah, Ruby” scene, we could have Yang ask Jaune what he meant and Jaune reveals his fake transcripts. He also reveals that, for a time, he blamed Pyrrha’s death on his inexperience and that he knew about Pyrrha using her Semblance on his shield some time later. Yang, however, isn’t really in a position to pat Jaune’s back.

Meanwhile, the group crash at Whitley’s mansion, but Weiss doesn’t immediately point a sword at him. She’s tempted to as Whitley complains about having to harbour criminals without an explanation as to what’s going on, but then she notices that… he’s afraid. She then remembers Willow’s words to her and calmly goes “If you’re willing, I’ll explain everything. Please. Just help her.”

And we end on the Grimm River.

Amity

This episode is mostly the same, but with two exceptions. One, Ironwood does not, in any way, try to interfere with the broadcast. This had been the thing he was working on the whole time and, albeit without the Ironwood could no longer be trusted bit (which he looks solemnly away to), is pretty much what he wanted. And two, Watts ‘fakes’ hacking Penny.

He later reveals to his coup that there’s no way to hack Penny, bringing up how they had her schematics back in Volume 3 but were unable to activate the virus for her. What he really did was force a reboot and lied out of his ass about how it was a failed attempt. He then reveals the broken phone and offers the escape plan one last time.

Midnight

Here we are. One of the biggest episodes in Volume 8. The big backstory reveal for Cinder…

And we’re instead going to make it about Hazel, so instead, it’s going to be…

Gingerbread

We open with twins, lost in the woods. The elder reassures the younger that everything will be fine. They were abandoned by their parents to line their bellies and forced to fend for themselves. There, they come across a house that looked like it was made of gingerbread, with eagled eyed viewers being able to spot a young Cinder being carted off.

A blind woman greets the kids and brings them into the house. We know the schtick here, though instead of fattening the kids up to be eaten, she toughens them up to be sold to wealthy people who use them as child labourers. Gretchen finds out about this but she gets captured and is about to be killed to be silenced. Hazel, in a fury, ends up awakening his Semblance and, using a Dust Crystal, sets the house ablaze as they escape.

A montage plays out of them surviving however they can, even joining some bandits and raiding towns. However, during one such raid, they’re stopped by a young Qrow and have them be brought to Ozpin, which plays out similarly to how Ruby got inducted into Beacon.

We cut to Oscar chatting with Ozpin about Salem’s plan and how it seemed to be working before getting the idea to do the same to her. As Hazel walks in and gets upset that Ozpin casually says hello, Ozpin asks: “Why? Why do you follow Salem?”

“You know why. Did you tell him the full story?”

We cut back to another montage where we see that Hazel and Gretchen are part of the same team and they were the best years of their life. Unfortunately, they go on a mission to Mountain Glenn where it just so happens to be the time a mad scientist was fucking around there. They try to stop the Grimm from overrunning it, but it seems hopeless. Hazel, as the team leader, pulls the team back. However, Ozpin gives them the order to not run away and to hold the line. Gretchen follows this to a T and sacrifices herself in vain.

This devastates Hazel and causes him to drop out of Beacon, bearing a grudge against Ozpin. Not only that, but it paints some parallels between Hazel, Qrow, and Jaune, as all of them had friends they lost to the orders of a Headmaster who they despised. Qrow teeters in the middle (he talks big about killing Ironwood but hasn’t committed to it yet) between Jaune (who accepted Pyrrha’s choice and lets go of his hatred) and Hazel (“OZPIIIIIN!”). It also presents a dark parallel to the current story, since Atlas and Mantle are currently undergoing a similar siege, but it’s Ruby who insists on holding the line.

Ozpin admits that this was just one of his many mistakes, but asks again why he decided to work with Salem because of it, when she was the one behind the Grimm. Hazel then answers the obvious:

“I tried to kill her.”

We then get to see Hazel beat her senseless in a flashback, only to reform from dust and taunt him. Eventually, he gave up as Salem comforts him before revealing that Ozpin has sacrificed people like him for one huge lie (as she does this, Sacrifice plays). He then swears his allegiance to her if it means there’d be no more Gretchens.

Ozpin cuts the flashback by retorting that she’s planning to bring-

Salem comes in. The show’s about to start.

Cut to Weiss as she enters Whitley’s room. She notices that he just finished calling someone and suspects he’s ratting out on them. Whitely denies this and calls Weiss out for being overtly protective. Weiss counters by saying that she grew up in a hostile home and can’t really trust any Schnee but her sister, which she begins to doubt.

Whitley brings up that she barely had it as bad as he did and talks of his turmoil of living with the parents alone while Winter was at Atlas and Weiss was at Beacon. Between his mother’s drunken rambles and his father’s angry rants, he barely had time to live his own life. He just lets Weiss have it for ditching him before he breaks down and realizes that, no, he’s just jealous because she got to be free while he was still stuck in the cage. Weiss remembers when she was grounded and stripped of her title and realizes “oh… shit.”

Then the doorbell rings and, surprise, it’s Klein. Whitely explains that they need a doctor for Nora and without Jacques, he figured to invite the person he fired just to further spite his ass. He and Weiss begin to rekindle an old flame that they never ignited.

Back with Salem, the scene plays out like normal, but when we see Cinder get tortured, we see flashes of Cinder having a shock collar, hinting to her big backstory event. Then Salem has a small speech.

“It would appear that we have been brought forth into the light as monsters and villains. So, why not play that part and show them why dear old Ozma had to keep me a secret for so long… It’s time.”

Suddenly, Beringels fly out of Monstra and Zerg Rush the shields while the Grimm River activates and rushes forth, destroying the hut that RJY were at and almost killing them. Jaune sends out a distress call with his scroll as they try to avoid getting washed away in the water. They see that it’s heading to Mantle and that the plan by Salem is a two-prong attack to further force the division between Mantle and Atlas by putting them both in peril.

During this, Ren tries desperately to activate his Semblance, but just couldn’t. He panics, he worries, he sees Grimm emerge from the River to try and kill them and he just can’t make his Semblance work. He asks why now of all times must this happen. He closes his eyes and tries to think… Then sees petals on himself. Before he has any time to figure out what happened, they see a plane arrive and blast the River, stopping it in its tracks. Just before Jaune is about to thank their savior, they see that it’s Winter and the Ace-Ops…

War

The Beringels break through the shields and invade, destroying much of Atlas and overrunning the city, killing people on-screen. The rest of the scenes play out, however, when we cut to RWB, we see Weiss is trying to restrain Ruby from running out there, saying that she could be arrested or killed and Ruby responds with wanting to do the right thing. May interjects and asks why they bother saving Atlas when all they do is laugh at the misfortune of others. She’s basically the “Let Atlas Fall” part of the fanbase.

And this is where RWB give their counter arguments.

Weiss says how, even though the elite are snobby twits, Atlas is not exclusive to just them. May and her were just born with silver spoons in their mouths but that doesn’t excuse them from leaving everyone else on Atlas to die, bringing up how the Mantleans they saved were also on Atlas.

Blake brings up that, yes, Atlas has done bad things in the past, but so did every Kingdom at one point or another, bringing up Mantle’s role in the Great War, so to say that Atlas deserves to burn is to basically say Mantle deserves to burn.

Ruby then uses her “there are no sides” bit, but also blurts out that the whole situation was her fault and that she’s at the very least trying to fix it. And that starts by heading straight to the Whale and beating Salem herself.

The whale scene plays out the same, as does RJY’s scene right up until they plan to blow up the Whale. Yang and Jaune argue against it while Ren vouches for Atlas, saying how this may be the only chance they have at beating Salem, proposing to Winter to go ahead into the whale to scout it. This leads to the argument about replacing Oscar which pisses Ren something fierce as he finally drops the Pyrrha bomb on their ass.

“You say that like we haven’t lost a team mate before!” Boom. In a flash of light, Ren could see clearly. While muted colors were around him, he can see the petals around everyone. Jaune has blue petals, Yang has red petals, and Harriet has burning crimson petals. He could hear what each petal represents. He hears crying when he sees blue, he hears screaming when he sees red, when looking at Winter, he hears a bunch of different things as he sees multi-colored petals.

He sees that most of the Ace Ops don’t have a consistent feeling. Not even Vine and Elm, who he can’t help but see himself and Nora in their places. Then he looks to his own petals. Pure white as he hears exhaling: calmness. He’s reached a zen state, making peace with what he had felt in Volume 7: A desire to stop Salem and prevent what happened to him and Nora from happening to other people.

Hopefully that gives a slightly better explanation at what his Semblance does without directly telling the audience. However, he doesn’t use this to basically read the script and tell the audience what people feel because, reading the dialogue, it just feels forced. “You’re going to be a good guy because I have magic petal seeing powers!” Instead, he plays therapist.

“I understand why you think people are replaceable. I guess it comes with the territory of being in the army.” “If you can’t even gauge what your partner is feeling, you can’t work as a full team.” “What did you hope to accomplish when you joined the Ace Ops?” “Who are you trying to prove yourself to?”

I feel like that’s a lot more in character for Ren. As for Winter, she doesn’t go “I outrank you” but rather appeals to Harriet’s blood thirsty nature by saying that they’re basically sentencing them to a trial by Grimm, even tricking Harriet into agreeing that, should they survive and free Oscar, that they’d be let go, kinda playing into how she’s the Hare.

Back at the manor, Weiss gets ready to accompany Ruby. Willow approaches her and they have a small chat about what to do now that Jacques is arrested. Willow brings up that Jacques was promptly fired from the SDC due to his treason and, as a result, his previous rulings are called into question, including stripping Weiss of her title. She lowkey implies that Weiss should return and become the proper heiress to the SDC once more, even resisting the lure of the bottle to prove that they can make it right.

Weiss, however, looks to Ruby and Blake getting ready, then says to her “thanks, but… I think I’d rather be a team player than a team leader.” The two have a small, proper mother-daughter bond before BOOM!

It’s Penny, and she says that she’s sorry.

And that’ll wrap up this half of the rewrite. There are a lot of unaltered or even minor altered stuff, I know, but the front half of Volume 8 was alright to say the least. I think the back half of Volume 8 will be where major changes for this rewrite will happen. So, tune in for part 2.

#RWBY #Rewrite #Volume 8 #RWDE #Semi-RWDE

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theseerasures · 4 years

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Conspicuous Media Consumption, 2019

i mean, everyone's doing these write-ups, right? might as well hop onto the bandwagon

towards the end of last year i had one of my typical existential crises about my media consumption: am i slowly disappearing up my own ass because i no longer care about most of the pop culture people like to discuss ad nauseam? but on the other hand, isn’t it more responsible to find the niche items made by non-mainstream and marginalized creators? on the third hand, wouldn’t i be much happier if i just watched FMA Brotherhood over and over again, preferably while starting a new Mass Effect playthrough at the same time?

the answer to all these questions is probably “yes,” but i decided to try something different going into 2019. for every week of the year, i would try to get through a year’s worth of content for some kind of media, be it comics, video games, TV, etc--they didn’t all have to be recent, or even new to me, but once i was done with that week i’d be done, even if i didn’t finish the content, and i’d make a judgement based what i’d seen on whether i want to continue. mostly, i was trying to avoid what happened to me with video games in 2018, when i was hating every second of playing Uncharted but still felt obligated to finish because everyone and their houseplant liked Uncharted or listlessly doing the Master Hunter achievement in RDR2 because the main quest made me miserable.

the actual outcomes of this Project(tm) are a little more complicated than anticipated--some media i could finish in a day, while trying to play through ALL THE CONTENT OF AN MMO understandably took much longer than a week--but it all kind of evened out. in the end i did 48 weeks of this, and used December as my catch-ups month to follow up on some things i didn’t get to finish. i thought i’d give my thoughts on each of the things i consumed this year as part of this project below in a concise manner--and yes, i know the people who’ve read even one (1) thing i’ve written are probably laughing right now, particularly given how long i took in this introduction just to get to me point, but i really am going to try!! it’s all an exercise in shameless self-indulgence, basically, but hey: if any of you want to chat at length about any of this stuff below, hit me up.

(quick note: you’ll only find media that i chose for this particular project below, so things i watched socially with friends--like certain film properties slorping me back into Disney’s gelatinous monolith--are not included)

Devilman Crybaby (anime, finished 1/5/2019): honestly i should have twigged onto what the year was going to be like when the first thing i drew from the metaphorical barrel was demon tiddies and apocalyptic existentialism. i was determined to dislike it for most of the year due to fundamentally disagreeing with its main thematic thrust, but i kept THINKING about it even months after. at this point i’ve kinda mellowed out. it’s definitely not a must love, but there’s enough queer metaphor and philosophical richness in it to make it worth checking out.

Attack on Titan (manga, 3 volumes finished 1/12/2019): this is the second time i’ve tried to get into this franchise and...yeah, no. i still don’t see the appeal. the fascistic overtones juxtaposed with absolutely no one having a sense of humor wigs me out to no end.

Young Justice (TV, 2.5 seasons finished 1/31/2019): honestly, what even is there to say? they’re my kids. they’re back and grown up and making even more terrible decisions. i screamed when i saw Babs in her wheelchair.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf (book, finished 2/10/2019): i tried VERY HARD to like this book, given how much i liked Brief History of Seven Killings, but it just...didn’t click for me. which honestly is fine, since i don’t think it was made for me either.

Dragon Age (3 games, finished 2/28/2019): i feel like there’s always a part of me that’s going to think of this series as “the other one,” but y’know. it’s good. it’s my second playthrough (as a mage for all three) and it’s good! i even went around killing all the dragons in Inquisition because Knight Enchanter was a blast. appreciate the higher queer content vis-a-vis Mass Effect, even though i couldn’t care less about any of the plot. Dragon Age II is the best one, do not @ me

Bitter Root (comic, 4 issues finished 3/1/2019): i love intergenerational dramas and i love stories about vampire slayers, so this was aces. my only complaint is the pacing was a little slow for a story that was going on hiatus after five issues.

Pearl (comic, 6 issues finished 3/3/2019): i know that he’s done great things and grudgingly admit that he’s probably a net positive in the industry but Brian Michael Bendis can suck my entire dick

Lazarus (comic, 5 trades finished 3/ 4/2019): i really thought this was going to clench the position for comic of the year. it’s Rucka doing Highly Relevant Dystopia! it’s a corporate Lannisters AU! it’s a highly personal story about a woman with high privilege and little agency! what more could you want

Immortal Hulk (comic, 2 trades finished 3/ 4/2019): i vibed with the horror feel, but i don’t honestly think it’s THAT exceptional. being set in 616-verse means there was still ton of baggage i didn’t know or care about, since i’ve now swung more to the DC side of things

thank u, next (album, finished 3/5/2019): didn’t Ariana Grande get canceled this year for some reason? oh well, i liked her album

When I Get Home (album, finished 3/13/2019): i vividly remember listening to this for the first time and feeling vaguely disappointed that it wasn’t more like Seat at the Table until i realized that i was covered in goosebumps. still don’t understand the magic but it is Good

The Bird King (book, finished 3/23/2019): pretty much everything you’d expect from a G. Willow Wilson book--spirituality, the female lead finding Themselves and the Answer and learning they’re the same thing, etc etc. i’m slightly resentful that her Wonder Woman was so lackluster while this was so good, but whatevs

Psychodrama (album, finished 3/29/2019): possibly my favorite album of the year? dense and emotionally raw in a way i really appreciate. Dave has a Mercury and he’s younger than me

Mass Effect (4 games, finished 4/7/2019): wow guys did you know that Mass Effect is good! it is. all of it is actually, even the Mass Effect 3 ending, another controversial finale to a big franchise that i will obstinately defend. even Andromeda, which isn’t AS good as the trilogy but still has a lot of heart. all its bugs have been exhaustively patched since launch anyway

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV, 4 seasons finished 5/13/2019): i’m...still kind of mad about this finale, but can’t exactly deny that this show is one of the best things to ever happen to me, or television probably. i didn’t even mind new!Greg that much! tho he was probably the nail on the coffin of me jumping onto the Nathaniel train.

Knights of the Old Republic/The Old Republic (3 games, finished 7/4/2019): did you guys know that KOTOR II was my first ever video game? i feel like that...explains a lot about me. anyway, the first game is a classic and the second is a deconstructive classic and playing either of them is basically a fun way for me to turn off my brain these days. even the MMO wasn’t as much of slog as i worried it would be. the Imperial Agent storyline had some nice surprises and i dig the general atmosphere of ruthless pragmatism and crushing loneliness.

Wanderers (book, finished 7/13/2019): Chuck Wendig is a very well-intentioned man in dire need of a strict editor. still good tho! some VERY punchy emotional bits and an ending that still leaves me with vague existential terror.

Code Geass (anime, 2 seasons finished 7/20/2019): i feel like this is on the polar opposite of the spectrum as Devilman Crybaby, because i don’t think Geass is GOOD on like, any basis, and i actually find its central moral message kind of abhorrent? but some part of my lizard brain LOVED the High Imperial Family Drama (it’s been a good year for me and Lannister types, hasn’t it? well, with the obvious exception of--never mind), so...yeah. have i discovered the true meaning of guilty pleasure

The Farewell (movie, finished 7/23/2019): how could i not a) watch this and b) love this and c) feel emotionally cold towards this at the same time because the situations depicted were so similar to mine that i ended up feeling kind of alienated

The Nickel Boys (book, finished 8/8/2019): i STILL haven’t read Underground Railroad, but here i am a book late and a dollar short to appreciate Whitehead’s new book. the man’s stylistic versatility is jaw-dropping and i appreciate the plotting in contrast to like, 90% of the litfic out there that’s just “protagonist sad in different milieu”

Durarara (anime, 2 seasons finished 8/31/2019): it’s fucking bonkers and i loved pretty much every second of it? even the second season, where i finally got the BruceNat AU i deserved??? the first anime i’ve seen where everyone was relatively soberly dressed. the answer was love and having feelings and asking your middle school best friend to hurl you like a projectile so you can chop your girlfriend’s head off with a demon katana

Lover (album, finished 9/1/2019): i feel like with all the Discourse surrounding Taylor Swift re: she’s the devil incarnate or re: she’s good, actually the fact that she makes fucking bops gets kind of lost in the conversation. i have no vested interest in her as a person but i liked Lover, even though London Boy was “what if Style but stupid”

Are You Listening (comic, finished 10/2/2019): my actual choice for best comic of the year if i were giving out awards like that. it’s coming of age! it’s grief! it’s queers! it’s trauma! it’s magical realism! it’s cats! it’s expressive gorgeous art! Tillie Walden has an Eisner and she’s younger than me

High School DxD (manga, 2 volumes finished 10/10/2019): i don’t even know how to talk about this series?? i actually kind of came around to the whole “main character is a perv but goes hard for consent” by the end of the second volume, but it’s still...bad. i only can have lingering conflicted feelings about one Japanese adaptation of Christian mythology per year

Ghosteen (album, finished 10/18/2019): much like Immortal Hulk i thought it was fine but over-hyped. it’s Nick Cave doing his Nick Cave ethereal music thing. i still can’t tell what any of the lyrics mean, except Jesus is there sometimes

Watchmen (TV, 2 episodes finished 10/29/2019): i am nOT FUCKING CAUGHT UP so please watch out for spoilers. it is on my high priority list of things to be caught up on tho--i appreciate that the plot is blatantly unsubtle but still manages to give me aneurysms and i appreciate the political overtones just kinda...balances on a razor thin wire and also gives me aneurysms. i wanna say i have no expectations and would be fine if it does a full dive into the horrible bland depths of the both-sides porridge, but i’m sadly a fool who wants to believe in Damon Lindelof

Syllabus/Making Comics (2 comics, finished 12/24/2019): it’s funny--even before Making Comics came out i was like “man i miss Lynda Barry” and then BAM. it’s incredible how her work just makes me feel taken care of, even when we’re wrestling with tough topics or she’s demanding that i draw a Batman in 30 seconds. kudos for immediately shooting to the top of my gift list for my sister also

Allegiance/Choices of One (2 books, finished 12/24/2019): fun and largely inoffensive, but i was honestly hoping for more. the level of Empire apologia going on was too much for me, someone who thinks Mara Jade is the best Star Wars character of all time (still?????? still). it reeked a little of Zahn believing his own hype as the only valid guy in Star Wars Legends of whatever

Aldnoah.Zero (anime, 1 season finished 12/24/2019): turns out i also can only have “trash but my trash” feelings about one Japanese mecha show with higher art pretensions and patriotism verging into jingoism per year, and this one ain’t it. it’s not as good as Code Geass and Code Geass ISN’T GOOD. at least Geass attempted character complexity and moved at enough of a breakneck pace to distract me from its questionable bits. Aldnoah is just...bland, and nothing gets accomplished or revealed in 12 episodes, except the baffling and contradictory motivations of the main bad guy.

Baldur’s Gate (game, unfinished): yet again something i really wanted to like, given *gestures at all the BioWare above*. i think it’s mainly the Seinfeld issue, where it actually predates my own experience with video games and was so formative for the Western RPG genre that what was innovative just comes across as kind of staid now. i didn’t DISLIKE it, and will probably play the sequel since it’s supposed to be more character-driven, but by the time i finished the vanilla campaign i just didn’t have it in me to squint at more tiny avatars on the screen, so the expansions ended up a no-go.

most prominent thing i noticed about this list is that only one 2019 movie made it on the list and ZERO 2019 video games did so. the former i’m okay with because i currently live with two film people with whom i’m happy to tag along to the cinema. the latter bums me out a little more, because there WERE a few things i wanted to play this year, but all of them came out just as my semester was reaching its catastrophic boil, so i had no time. maybe i’ll use my free time after the New Year festivities to catch up on those.

to conclude: this worked out pretty well! i ended up finishing all but one of the things, and only a few were bad enough that i have no interest in seeking out more content. i’ll probably do this again in 2020--we’ll see if the scheduling can withstand a full year of grad school hell

#let's break out a new tag for this since this isn't really meta #conspicuous media consumption

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hello-vampire-kitty · 5 years

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On the matter of translations

OK, so I had a pretty awful week and the recent event was just another thing added on my plate, so, I’m here to say a few things. I have seen a few discussions, I got a few anon hate messages because of my previous post, and now, since I’ll be inactive for a while, I’m gonna leave this message here until I come back, sometime next month.

Alright, first off, yeah I was a bit upset over this matter even though I know there was no bad intentions from this, because it was something unexpected that messed up my schedule a bit. In all the almost 2 years since I took over to translate the monthly chapters which was a pretty big decision back then, I didn’t see anyone else taking their time to handle them, so of course, I had my own pace when making the chapters. When the RAW comes out, I have times when I can immediately begin on writing the translation at least, and I leave cleaning pages (which in some chapters I really had to work on to redraw parts) later. In this matter, when I was too overwhelmed due to my job and IRL problems, I asked others for help if it was possible to help me out and I did receive help for which I’m grateful. I’m not alone on the translation part, I also ask for help on proofreading to ensure everything is alright because I want my translations to be of good quality (I facepalm at the state of the official English editions, especially the first volumes). Servamp had many translators before me, the last person being hatmirror who translated most of the chapters out there, and to which I reached out after a very long hiatus from her, happy to get a chance to talk to her for a while, until I haven’t heard from her again for a long time, but she had her problems so I understand. So yeah, I was kinda left alone and wondered if there’s gonna be someone who will handle the future chapters of this manga that I loved o much (I began to translate from chapter 64 and helped out on some of the previous ones) until I managed to find another Servamp fan who also knew Japanese. Thus, since I began, I started to bring as much info as I could for Servamp’s story, through many notes explaining stuff, like name meanings and references in the story, or to point out huge differences from the official editions, because there might have been some that got to know Servamp through those versions and I wished that new fans got to know in more detail what actually happens in the story. So, while there’s no rule saying that no else could have also also tried their hand at translating, you gotta think a little about those who have apparently handled a project for a long time. @animenotaizai let me tell you of my own experience from years ago, when I did the same thing. I also translated a few chapters from one of my other favorite manga, back then I actually had much more free time than now. So yeah, translated a few chapters because the team who usually made them updated kinda slow, but I realized I did a mistake, even if no one told me, not even the team who handled the manga. I realized myself that I indirectly insulted the long time team who handled that manga which had by then about 70 chapters, so I kinda intruded at a point when the story of the manga was so far ahead. From then, I backed off and only contributed with a few extra comics from that manga because those were not done and some people wanted them to see them translated. You see, if there was someone who handled a project for a long time, you can expect they have their own pace and ways of editing and writing. When it comes to writing and making adaptations, you get to have certain words and phrases that you will use on a regular basis, which can become iconic phrases for example and defines their character. I too have certain words that use for particular characters, that I try to adapt to be as close as the original if possible in the target language, in this case, English. Thus, when I translated stuff long ago and came with my own set of phrases or particular words in a middle of a story, I realized that was not such a great move to make, because I disrupted a bit of the usual and long-time adapted dialogues that fans were accustomed to. Now in your case or anyone else for that matter who wants to improve on their language learning skills, you can try and take on something that wasn’t done. That’s what I did when I started my main blog, I made doujinshi translations that no one else did. There are websites with digital versions of manga or novels from where you can get free previews or on certain occasions, even full length manga volumes for free, for a limited time. You can check out many of your favorite manga even for the first few pages if you never saw their RAW version, who knows you might get to see different things even from the first pages. This is my suggestion, this is what I’ve done to learn more, by taking on series that weren’t made and not just barge in on someone or a team that was handling it already for a long time, because I learned from my mistake. Since I kinda established myself for quite some time and translated every month, even though it takes a while, but then again I spend 9 hours a day at work, I do fandom related stuff when I can, I was a little distraught over this matter because it caused a change in my plans, knowing that no else did this and I will do it at my regular pace like usual. So this is what I had to say and hopefully it’s more clear for some why I was a little affected by this. (I’m gonna leave this message here until I come back next month or so, by then I might have my version made and I’ll either post it before chapter 82 comes out or release it together with 82, since now I no longer have to make chapter 81 a priority)

#servamp #kitty posts

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knifeonmars · 6 years

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Desert Island Comics, Part 1

I'm moving this month, for the fairly exciting reason of attending graduate school, and one of the stranger and more distressing things in the lead up to that is that I've had to put the vast majority of my unnecessarily sprawling library of comics into storage. I have been able to fit a small amount into my luggage to take with me, so I thought that I might write about what I've taken with me and why. The comics I chose to save also probably say something about my tastes and who I am as a person, so there's that. In paring things down I was primarily concerned with stuff that I could read over and over as well as lend to anyone who might be interested. Sexcastle - Kyle Starks I'm a huge fan of Kyle Starks, and while I had a few options to choose from, I went with Sexcastle for the reason that it was his first big book and as such is a great encapsulation of his whole approach. Silliness and violence masking deep introspection and a genuine unironic appreciation of action tropes. Through the Woods - Emily Carroll Emily Carroll is a complete rockstar and this book is gorgeous and creepy and endlessly engrossing. I love revisiting it and it's a great book to give to someone who doesn't have much interest in comics as most people know them. HP Lovecraft's The Hound and Other Stories - Adapted by Gou Tanabe I'll be honest, this one isn't here so much for any personal connection, more that I've only read it once and I think it could merits rereading. Also, as my Masters program is English, it's somewhat pertinent to my interests. Godzilla: The Half Century War - James Stokoe I just love James Stokoe's work so much. I had a few of his books to choose from, but I went with The Half-Century War because while it's a licensed work, it still feels passionate and personal, and unlike the awesome but sadly incomplete Orc Stain, it's a complete story. It's also a pretty easy sell to lend to someone, which while unlikely, is something I consider important. Superman: Secret Identity - Kurt Busiek, Stuart Immonen, Todd Klein Probably the second best Superman story ever in my opinion, even though Secret Identity, strictly speaking, isn't really about "Superman" at all. But it so beautifully gets to the heart of the character, the humanity and the responsibility of it, that it's very much a definitive take on the character for me. It's also a largely relaxing read, free from misery and angst, and despite what the rest of this list may suggest, I do actually like a nice comforting read once in a while. Batman: Year One - Frank Miller, David Mazzucchelli, Todd Klein, Richmond Lewis Of Frank Miller's much vaunted Batman work, Year One holds up best. It's gorgeous, human, and oh so memorable despite, or perhaps because of, how low key it is. There's no big name supervillains or anything, but this is the ur-example of a pseudo-realistic Batman and also the best execution of that premise. It's such a classic that it barely needs elaboration, so I couldn't leave it behind. Extremity - Daniel Warren Johnson, Mike Spicer, Rus Wooton Daniel Warren Johnson's recently concluded creator owned series might not be on everyone's radar, but it certainly should be. Described by critics as Mad Max meets Naussica in the Valley of the Wind, it's a bold, brutal, and lavishly drawn epic with an instantly compelling world and characters. It might not be for everyone, but it's also a book which I know I'm going to be revisiting and thinking over for quite a while, and given how it wears its influence on its sleeve, it's a great series to loan out. Batman: Superheavy, Batman: Bloom, Detective Comics: Blood of Heroes I wrote about this before in my 2017 roundup, but these Batman vols 8 and 9, and Detective Comics vol 8, are a great character reinvention which I warmed to somewhat slowly but now love. Jim Gordon as an in over his head version of Batman who's largely cut off from the somewhat unwieldy mythology of the Bat-Family was a great and totally unexpected concept. I often wish there had been more of this era, but as it is it's a fun if short read that I like to revisit because it reminds me of how fun superhero comics can be. Moon Knight - Warren Ellis, Declan Shalvey, Jordie Bellaire, Chris Eliopoulos This shot in the arm reinvention of Moon Knight is one of the 2010's greatest revamps, and I wanted to bring it along purely as an all time great popcorn read. That's the thing about the revamp, despite how drastically it revises things, the six issues of From the Dead are in substance compulsively readable action comics. It's the kind of book that I find gratifying to take down from the shelf and revisit once in a while for the pure joy of it rather than any emotional resonance. All-Star Superman - Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, and Jamie Grant What can I say? All-Star Superman is potentially the greatest Superman story ever told, and it's a personal favorite, so I had to bring it along. I considered getting a smaller version since I only have the giant Absolute edition, but even I have limits when it comes to frivolous purchases. Anyway, Morrison, Quitely, and Grant's opus was a formative read for me, possibly one that I read earlier in my relationship to comics than is necessarily recommended given how much it riffs on continuity and deep cuts, but nonetheless one that I've always connected with and which is something of a gold standard for me. American Barbarian - Tom Scioli Tom Scioli's a beast, and American Barbarian is an incredibly fun and weird comic that I like revisiting. It's also pretty long as these things go, a veritable epic, and I love the various phases and sections of the story. Nowhere Men - Eric Stephenson, Nate Bellegarde, Jodie Bellaire, Fonografiks I'm continuously aggrieved that Nowhere Men has slid into permanent hiatus one issue sort of completing a second volume, but as it stands volume 1 is one of the best superhero adjacent comics out there. It reads something like a stylish update of the Fantastic Four concept with a group of doomed astronauts developing bizarre, at times horrifying powers, but it's so much more than that. It's a strange alternate universe when science is placed alongside popular culture, with rogue celebrity scientists and text pieces throughout expanding on the strange world. It's a ride, one I'm always eager to finally see more of, but even with just the single volume it tells a satisfying story which I like to revisit with some regularity. I also decided to pack a couple of monthly comics, just stuff that's currently ongoing and I want to be able to read as a whole. Mister Miracle I wrote elsewhere about having mixed feelings on this book, but I decided to bring it along because I do enjoy Tom King's writing and I have a hankering to read it in one shot once it's wrapped. I've actually just been sitting on the issues since around #4 for that very purpose. Batman: Creature of the Night Superman: Secret Identity is on this list, so I don't think it ought to be much of a surprise that its companion series made it as well. I've been loving Creature of the Night, though it's a very different beast from Secret Identity, and I can't wait to see where the conclusion takes us.

#comics #moving #personal #words

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hazlouquitefinished · 6 years

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A SJPR Case Study: Hiatus to Early 2017

Since the “how do we know that SJPR is really fucking Louis over?” anons have been going around again, I thought I’d make a bit of a timeline/case study with some observations about SJPR’s promo tactics. We all know this stuff has been happening for years, but it’s pretty wild to see everything compiled into one place.

@theyrereallyawful made a great couple of posts that inspired me to look deeper into this arena of thought, so check those posts out if you haven’t seen them yet.

Some of this is going to analyze the 1D promo that happened around the HJPR split, and some of this is going to compare Niall/Louis SJPR promo.

For more of an in-depth post about Louis and Niall’s SJPR involvement, check my other post in this tag. I recommend reading both posts to get the full perspective.

Information/observation dump below the cut! All of this is speculation and shouldn’t be taken as 100% fact - I just wanted to throw some food for thought into the void. This is a really long post, be warned.

Have a happy Louis before you start. Look at that sweet sunshine-y smile!

We’ll start briefly at the beginning!

Early SJPR

On December 1st, 2015, HJPR split up. They were a UK PR firm that represented One Direction, among other acts. The split wasn’t very widely reported, aside from some PR-specific news outlets.

From PR Weekly:

Simon Jones, the “J” in HJPR, took One Direction with him as his client.

I’m going to compare the UK online press from before and after the HJPR split, just for kicks.

All of these screenshots were taken from google.co.uk.

Before the HJPR split, when HJPR had control of 1D UK promo:

September 20, 2015 to October 3, 2015:

A few filler articles, but most of them stick to the plot and talk about the AMF performance and MITAM. Not bad.

Earlier articles from August 2, 2015 to August 8, 2015:

That’s an entire page of the top results, and it only has a single baby article and two Zayn articles. Again, not too bad.

**To clarify: I’m not making broad generalizations of 1D PR under HJPR overall. This is just an analysis of the PR immediately before and after the split.

Let’s look at the post-HJPR-split articles.

At this point, SJPR was the one doing the UK promo for 1D.

December 20, 2015 to December 26, 2015:

As you can see, the top articles are quite a bit different from the ones before the HJPR split. All of them focus on the Simon Cowell & Zayn feud, and Louis’ stunting.

Here’s some from a little while later, after the HJPR split had “settled”:

January 4, 2016 to January 11, 2016:

Aside from the few articles about the Family Guy appearance, most of them are, again, about stunts.

The focus shift is pretty clear from the pre-HJPR split to post-HJPR split coverage. Pre-split, HJPR covered music/career news. Post-split, SJPR immediately began to cover primarily stunts.

Let’s look at the official SJPR site.

SJPR Site

The “news” section of the site is a very interesting place to make observations. This content is directly from SJPR - they publish news on their more important clients, presumably to show how good they are at doing their jobs. (suppress your laughter, I know.)

It’s abundantly clear, however, that certain clients receive much more of SJPR’s effort than others.

I’m going to zoom out on most of these articles so that this post doesn’t get too long - I just want you to get an idea for how much content is put into each article. The lengths differ quite obviously. I’ll link each of them if you want to read the body of the article.

The first article about 1D was posted on December 30, 2015, a month after the HJPR split. It’s about “History” dropping as the new single:

It’s fairly short, only a few paragraphs. In all honesty, it’s the best 1D article that’s posted for the entirety of 2015 and beyond. The rest of them go far downhill, as you’ll see.

It covers the fact that “History” was chosen as the single and throws in an X Factor mention. This is also the only 1D article that has SM links included.

The article was published a bit late, as the single was chosen halfway through December, but maybe SJPR was still having growing pains with the recent HJPR split on December 1st, 2015.

We’ll give them the benefit of the doubt for now, because this article doesn’t seem particularly odd......until you compare it to the previous article, the very first article posted to the SJPR news section.

This article, about Ant and Dec meeting the Prince, is WAY longer than the 1D article. It’s probably three to four times the length.

Sure, Ant and Dec meeting the Prince is a big deal. But it’s a little odd that the final 1D single before their hiatus gets so little coverage in comparison, no?

And besides, it’s not like 1D getting the short end of the SJPR promo stick is a trend, right? Right??

Oh.

1D gets a brief article - literally only a few sentences - for the Family Guy appearance, with no SM links, and Fearne Cotton gets a much longer and more involved article for a new gig.

Okay, so maybe that was just a one-off coincidence? Right?

One Direction, biggest pop band on the planet, gets a three-sentence wrap-up article for the success of MITAM, History, and the release of the History MV. No SM links included.

Meanwhile, Emma Bunton gets a 9-paragraph article for hosting Too Much TV.

The trend continues.

One Direction gets a two sentence article for winning a Brit in 2016. No SM links provided.

By comparison, All Saints gets a far longer article for their single.

So the trend is fairly obvious - One Direction always gets the short end of the promo stick as far as SJPR’s site goes. I get that this isn’t the most earth-shattering information, but I think it speaks volumes if you listen.

Think about it: if SJPR isn’t even willing to put effort into news articles about arguably their biggest client, then how much effort are they going to put into the actual PR SJPR provides?

SJPR and Louis

Let’s go back to the press from the Feb ‘16 time period, and let’s start looking at Louis-specific press now.

Feb 14, 2016 to Feb 29, 2016 - The Brits happen on the 24th and 1D takes home an award with Liam and Louis present to accept. Here’s the press that results, using both “Louis Tomlinson” and “One Direction” search queries.

Yes, that’s a grand total of three articles about the Brits, which could’ve been a really great publicity point for 1D to have early on in the hiatus. The rest of the articles are about the baby, the girlfriend, the baby “mama”... You name it.

Let’s move on to the press that happens later in the hiatus.

Late 2016

SJPR’s 1D/Louis/Niall content in the news section dropped to radio silence after February ‘16, aside from one Niall and one Louis article about Soccer Aid. These two were actually uncharacteristically good - lots of info about the cause, and the only good Louis article in the entire news section.

I assume that’s because Soccer Aid was tied to Niall. In my other post comparing Niall vs. Louis, you’ll see that Niall receives much better treatment from SJPR. This is enforced by the Brits article from SJPR’s site. Louis is tied to Liam, a non-SJPR client, so it was only two sentences long. As long as Louis is directly tied to Niall, he gets Niall’s level of SJPR promo. Otherwise, it’s back to radio silence.

Now, I don’t know if anyone took over for the UK promo from Feb to September of 2016, but SJPR did not cover 1D, Liam, or Harry - they only covered Niall and Louis for Soccer Aid, as I just mentioned.

I’d assume that SJPR just dropped Niall and Louis to “low priority” while the guys’ solo projects were still being completed. They also could have been on temporary management of Louis/Niall while deals were being finalized, so they weren’t exerting as much effort as they usually would have. (I use “effort” loosely, of course.)

This makes some sense when you remember that lots of the big conspiracy articles about babygate slipped through the cracks and gained momentum during these few months of official SJPR site silence. I’m thinking of the Buzzfeed one in particular, which gained extremely widespread publicity and reached a lot of the GP in early April 2016.

On September 29, 2016, Niall signs to Capitol Records and UA’s report that his SJPR involvement will officially continue. “This Town” is released on September 29 as well.

Let’s take a look at Niall’s press from just prior to the single release, just for comparison’s sake. This was before SJPR officially took over again, so they were still possibly on “autopilot” or “temporary” privileges. Most of these articles are driven by other sources that would’ve had their own teams to drive his indirect promotion - Ryder Cup, Shawn Mendes, etc.

September 25, 2016 to September 28, 2016

All positive articles.

Onto the articles from the days immediately after the single release, and therefore the continuation of official SJPR involvement.

September 29, 2016 to October 1, 2016:

There’s no obvious shift in tone here - all positive articles about the single (aside from the “retrogressive” comment from The Guardian), and the stuff that’s not about the single is still positive cross-promo.

SJPR finally broke their 1D radio silence and posted a news article about Niall on the day of the release. It sets the tone for all of their subsequent Niall articles - most of them are involved and well-written, and SM links are always included. More on that in the other post I made comparing Louis and Niall’s SJPR experiences.

As I just stated, there was no obvious shift in Niall articles between pre-SJPR continuation and post-SJPR continuation.

Louis, however? That’s a different story.

His official continuation with SJPR happened on January 7, 2017.

Here’s some of the press from just prior to the continuation - that’s all I’m looking at right now, the press immediately before it, not overall.

November 20, 2016 to December 3, 2016.

Oddly good, right? No stunting to be found, aside from a single baby article that’s from a celeb baby site. There’s even an article about Niall apparently confirming Larry, which we’d probably never see now, lol.

January 7, 2017 - SJPR continuation is made official. Now to look at the press that resulted immediately after SJPR took Louis on as a client again.

January 7, 2017 to January 10, 2017:

Ah. So that’s what a focus shift looks like.

January 22, 2017 to January 27, 2017:

Rather night-and-day from the pre-SJPR news coverage and the “Niall confirming Larry” article, no?

And just for continuity’s sake: later on in the year, the trend was still the same.

April 16, 2017 to May 9 2017:

Stunts galore, and not a single mention of music.

I think the “promo” from Summer 2017 and beyond is still fresh in our minds, so I won’t recap that. The same press trends continue to occur - all stunts, all the time.

Conclusions: TL;DR

One Direction’s HJPR promo immediately prior to the HJPR split was generally good

As soon as SJPR took over, stunting clearly became the focus of UK online promo

SJPR dedicated very little time and energy to 1D accomplishments on their official site, but they seemed to have BUCKETS of energy to spare when it came to their other (far less famous/successful) clients

From Feb to Sept 2016, press control was generally more lax - babygate conspiracy articles gaining widespread publicity - but stunt coverage still continued (this may have tied into one of the prior possible end dates of BG that was likely extended)

Niall promo and Louis promo began to diverge after Niall officially continued with SJPR

There was a brief lapse in stunty content just before Louis officially continued with SJPR, but they quickly made up for it with the months of bullshit he’s been enduring in the UK promo world since then

As I mentioned before, this post is merely a collection of observations and patterns, nothing more. In my other post in this tag, I talk more about how Niall and Louis’ SJPR support clearly differs.

If anyone actually read this whole thing, props to you! I didn’t think anyone would get this far - I genuinely enjoy doing this kind of research and was compiling it more for my own thought process than anything. So if you got through everything, then you deserve another happy Louis:

By the way, if you’re angry - like many of us are - then I encourage you to (respectfully & kindly) tweet the link to LTHQOfficial.com to SJPR and co. It can’t hurt to show them that we have a successful fansite, and it makes me happy to know that his notifs are flooded with fans who promote his client far more effectively than he does.

#PR Fuckery #simon jones #SJPR #louis tomlinson #niall horan #one direction

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psiscans · 6 years

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I've been following you guys for about a year and I've been wondering... How did PSI Scans come to be? What made the you decide to start the group? Do you still have all the members you started out with?... Etc. I'd just like to know more about the history behind your group, if you're ok with talking about it.

Thank you so much for asking!

We've just passed the two year mark from when this group was first created- so here's a timeline of PSI Scans history under the break:

Late October, 2015: eyfey received an anonymous message saying:

"A small (and by small i mean BIG) part of me wants you to translate saiki kusuo cause nobody's donating for it on spinyback to get translated (no i don't have the money to donate either) but that be dependent on whether YOU want to do it"

SpinyBackTeam was the group scanlating Saiki at the time, but it had been months since their last release, and no one was sure when the next release was coming out, if ever.

eyfey said they'd be on board to do translations if someone else would handle redrawing/typesetting.

October 27th, 2015Shortly after that message, seirui and milaza contacted eyfey, and the three of them formed a team and began working on chapters.

Sadly neither seirui or milaza stayed around past the first couple releases- leaving eyfey as the only founding member who's still currently working on the scanlations. Without seirui and milaza though, this group never would've been created and we never would've made it to where we are today

Late November, 2015At some point as we were working on the chapters, Spinyback re-did their website and ended up removing Saiki completely. We thought they had dropped the series for sure at this point, so we kept working at our slow slow pace.

December 9th, 2015Before we could make our first release, SpinyBack released a new chapter out of the blue! We has 4 chapters translated at this point and weren't sure whether or not to continue with the scanlation or just give up and let SpinyBack handle it... We decided to wait and see if they would start updating more regularly.

December 24th, 2015 Just for fun, eyfey solo'd chapter 33 for a special christmas release. (SpinyBack still hadn't released any new chapters since the one at the beginning of the month)

December 29th, 2015Spannersq joined the team to help with cleaning! (and did basically all the cleans for - Spannersq is still on the team today!)

SpinyBack still hadn't released any new chapters, so we decided to just go ahead and do it ourselves. (I still regret not messaging SpinyBack about it though. It didn't occur to me at the time, but it hindsight it was pretty rude to just start on a project someone else was already working on... we just desperately wanted people to be able to read more of this amazing manga.)

December 31st, 2015This was the day Spannersq came up with the name PSI Scans for our group! With a name we were finally ready to release some chapters!

Janurary 5th, 2016Our first official release! After 3 months of uncertainty, we finally released chapter 31~ ...in pretty poor quality. At this time, we were using low quality magazine scans as our raws and no one on the team really had any experience with cleaning or redraws.

Luckily! Shortly after our release, Otafreek joined us: bringing high-res raws and informative typesetting/cleaning guides, causing the quality of our scans to skyrocket. Otafreek also had raws for volume 0, so we were able to go back and translate those chapters as well.

...and that's not all! We also got another new member that day: Snazzyhelmet! Who joined as a translator!

Otafreek only stuck around for a chapter or so, but Snazzyhelmet has been doing translations ever since and is still one of our current active translators!

January 15th, 2016We released the first chapter of volume 0: our first high quality chapter!

March 26th, 2016No new chapters yet... eyfey and snazzyhelmet had been keeping up with translations (we were already done with vol0 and about 6 chapters into vol4) but unfortunately life had gotten busy for both Spannersq and Otafreek. Spannersq ended up taking a break for about a month, and Otafreek retired completely. In their absense eyfey took over typesetting, purchasing/scanning raws, and cleaning/redrawing.

March 28th, 2016We released the 2nd chapter of vol0! This was also the end of month long gaps between releases.

May 2nd, 2016The Saiki anime was announced! Spannersq was back cleaning at full speed and we'd been keeping up a steady release speed (about one chapter per week)

May 7th, 2016Le joined the team as our new typsetter, and took care of typesetting for most of the chapters in volume 4 + the first half of vol5 before retiring~

May 15th, 2016As we were getting close to the end of vol4, we decided to go back and re-do the first couple chapters of vol4 before starting on vol5 - it meant a few more weeks without "new" chapters, but this way we could have decent quality versions of all our releases.

This was also the day a Meho7 very generously donated raws for vol 7-8~

May 20th, 2016Misterquire joined as a redrawer - providing us with beautiful beautiful redraws for many months, but eventually retiring ;v;

July 4th, 2016The anime was released! This doesn't really have anything to do with the manga scanlation, but hype was up and the number of Saiki fans was increasing! (the anime managed to overtake us pretty fast though, and soon it was releasing episodes of stuff we hadn't translated yet TvT )

June 8th-9th, 2016Sroa joined as our 2nd designated redrawer, and a day later LAR joined as a cleaner! (Sroa was a huge help with redraws for the next couple months until they retired, and LAR is still an active cleaner today!)

July 16th, 2016Teleport-teapot joined as our 3rd redrawer! They brought us beautiful, fast redraws for months until they eventually retired~

July 18th, 2016Nashi joined and took over typesetting for Le and has been creating beautiful typesets for us ever since~(Nashi is currently one of our two active typesetters.)

July 20th, 2016Kamo joined as a 3rd translator- working hard until January, when they had to take a 10 month hiatus for computer problems, but that hiatus has just ended and now Kamo is back as one of our current active translators!

August 3rd, 2016Six joined as a translator, stuck around for a handful of chapters, and disappeared as mysteriously as they came~

August 19th, 2016On this day: Sisselwolfgang and maou-shoujo joined the team as beautiful beautiful beautiful redrawers. This truly was a golden age of redrawing for PSI Scans TvT

Sisselwolfgang worked for a good long time before eventually needing to take a break from scanlation, but Maou-shoujo is still consistently creating godlike redraws with us today!

October 31st, 2016Dollyl joined the team as a second typesetter, bringing gorgeous speedy typesets to us all~ Dollyl is still typesetting today alongside Nashi as one of our 2 current active typesetters!

At this point, we'd also passed the one year mark for the group! In that first year, we'd made it all the way to chapter 65- meaning we finished about 45 chapters total, if you include vol0 + the one shots~

To compare that with the previous groups working on Saiki: DarkMurmur = 11 chapters per year (2 years to finish the first 22 chapters)SpinyBackTeam = 12 chapters per year (technically they only did 8 chapters, but their pace averaged out to about one chapter per month)

So we were working at a pretty good speed- especially considering that we didn't actually release anything for the first couple months, haha.

November 22nd-23rd, 2016Miyo-sai joined the team as a translator, and Toumikasa joined as a cleaner!

Miyo-sai stuck around and translated a handful of chapters before moving on in life, but Toumikasa is still working as one of our active cleaners today!

Dec 15, 2016Ichi joined the team as a redrawer! They did a number of redraws over the next couple months before going on indefinite hiatus~

January 1st 2017,We decided to make the switch from ouph to offu starting in vol 9- since the author released a chapter with it spelled out as OFFU in English. So long ouph~ You will be missed~

April 1st + 11th, 2017Ykun and Jeddle joined as a translators! Both of them are still translating with us today!

May 10th, 2017Rupali joined as a redrawer- by this point maou-shoujo was the only other active redrawer.

Rupali is still with the group today, but is on a sort of semi-hiatus while they're busy.

May 22nd, 2017sefway3 joined as a redrawer! They're one of our few current active redrawers!

June 16th, 2017We finally reached the last chapter that was featured in the anime ;v; (almost a year after the anime first aired)

July 22nd, 2017peaceful-waldeinsamkeit joined the team as a redrawer! Hooray!

September 4th, 2017vulpi111 joined as a cleaner! Hurrah!

September 10th, 2017femalecorpse joined as a redrawer! Huzzah!

Peaceful-waldeinsamkeit, vulpi111, and femalecorpse are all still active members of the team today~

And that brings us to where we are today! We've just passed the two year mark of when the group was founded, and we've just released our 142nd chapter (including oneshots + omake chapters).

It's also worth mentioning, there are many many more members not on this list that have joined and left our team over the years: Some only doing one or two chapters before moving on, some who have joined recently but haven't started working yet, and some who joined and then left without ever finishing their first chapter...

Scanlating is hard work and it takes up a lot of time, plus most people who work on manga like this are also trying to balance school and/or jobs, so it takes a very dedicated person to be able to start scanlating and then stick with it. But even those who only finished one or two chapters before needing to retire were a huge help to getting us to where we are today! (but if I listed all of them this list would be way too long, so we're sticking to just the people who stuck around a little longer for now~)

But yeah! That's the history of this group!There's still a little over 100 chapters left to go, and more coming out every week, so it looks like we've still got at least another year at this rate before we catch up (though that could be much much sooner if we got more redrawers and translators...) But in any case, we'll keep doing our best to work hard until the day all of Saiki Kusuo has been translated into English!

Thank you all for reading!

#mePSIges #Anonymous

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icharchivist · 7 years

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What if hxh was monthly? Would it be more beneficial or detrimental

I think it really depends on the arrangement with the editors and how Togashi would handle the different pacing tbh.

Monthly chapters are supposed to be a little longer, but you can arrange yourself with your editors about that. On average it can be 40 to 80 pages depending on the author’s stamina. If he’s in fear of hiatus, it also gives the author the time to actually explore more personal scenes of pure character development, while still advancing the plot quite well.

Fullmetal Alchemist was a monthly manga. On average a chapter could go from 30 pages to 50 pages long or so. (If you go by a weekly release, and considering Togashi’s chapters are 15/20 pages long, it’d make about 60/80 pages a months, to compare). Because you had to have a full plot by chapter and that you could allow therefore a slower pacing, FMA allowed itself a lot of very more personal moments all while developping the plot at a normal pace.

I bring it up because eventually, while hxh is an amazing story i love, it does feel like some of the personal moments have slightly taken a backseat ever since some of the big hiatus. Especially with the set up for the next arc it does feel like eventually Togashi is trying to do enough exposition every chapters. Now I personally don’t mind that much, I rather take anything Togashi gives us, but I don’t know if it can help him? Or maybe it’s on purpose. I shouldn’t judge about it tbh.

Then again, it must really be something to be seen with the editors. Some editors would press him to get the same amount of pages for the months that he would if he was still in weekly. It’s still a lot of works.

Besides it does require the plot by chapter to be paced differently. Togashi’s chapters have a good pacing, that works over the 15/20 pages a week we get. The pacing for longer chapters could be tricky to get a hold on.

In a way, I don’t know if that’s the solution plotwise, it really depends on how comfortable Togashi can be with it.

And It depends also healthwise, depending on how the editors would want to press it.

If I brought up the fact I’m surprised he came back for a weekly parution despite his health, it’s because one of my favorite manga, D Gray Man, is in a similar situation.As in, the author was working weekly on the manga until her health got really bad in 2008 (around volume 19). Stress, but also major wrist problems on the hand she uses to draw. At first, the manga started to move to a monthly magazine, and because of her health it was arranged that she would publish between 25 pages to 40 pages every months, depending on how well she could work on the chapters and the pacing.

Her health didn’t get better, we had a few hiatus in between chapters (like one month without chapter or smth) until the parution got too irregular and she stopped the manga for 3 years. She came back recently, but only on a pacing of one chapter every 3 months. A chapter being usually around 35 to 40 pages at this point. But her health is still not okay and even recently, we got kind of an unanounced 9 months hiatus (or well... 6 months, a chapter of 7 pages, and 3 more months before an actual chapter. To be fair she was likely working on the fanbook at that point.)

Is it better? Most people would tell you no. Storywise, we had had some huge advancement, but the plot didn’t move forward a lot, it was mostly lore stuff. The fandom dies out during the months of waiting. Usually each chapters bring enough good stuff to discuss about and feel really fullified every chapters though.

Imo, her health is more important than anything, and we are frankly really lucky she even decided to come back while her health had been a wreck like this.

I think eventually we get something, and it won’t put too much pressure on the author. It gives also them more time, and meanwhile, we usually know when we’ll get a new chapter (unless the editors hates you enough to not announce it but that’s another story).

I mean, there’s a difference between having a chapter every week and it suddenly stopping, without knowing at all when the manga will come back, could be months, could be years, and knowing that we will get one chapter every months, even at slow pace, even if less pages.

But there’s a lot of cons and it can really depend only on the author and the editors at this point.

Moreover, hxh is kinda a milkcow for Shounen Jump. I think that when it gets back, they want it at its peak so they can really show this series off. And eventually I think that they wouldn’t want it out of their weekly magazine while it brings so much profits (especially considering the end of two of their big series, Naruto and Bleach, recently enough).

so I really don’t know, it would really depend too much on how the author and editors would work around it. For the fandom, it can be as benefical as not, again it can really depend.

As for me all I really care about is the Health of the Author, so anything that makes him more comfortable on that case would be welcomed. I don’t really have answers, and especially i’m not exactly as familiar with all of it to be completely sure about my points.

So.. ye. Don’t know. Eventually? ;;

#kjdhfkj this reply is a mess i'm sorry #i ramble a lot #ichafantalks hxh #Anonymous #ichareply

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shattered-tranquility · 7 years

Text

When SuG announced their first ever Nippon Budokan concert to celebrate their 10th anniversary, there weren’t many fans who expected it would also be their last show ever – perhaps even the band themselves. But the dreaded announcement came just weeks before the big show, and needless to say, they turned their first Budokan show into a show that fans definitely didn’t want to miss.

If you’ve read our translations of SuG’s indefinite hiatus announcement, you’ll know exactly what kind of show they wanted it to be. It’s a bittersweet ending, with some members claiming they’ve failed or they haven’t done enough. But more than their feelings of regret, they wanted to express their gratitude to their fans that supported them over the last 10 years, despite their ups and downs and even their breaks.

It’s fitting, then, that they titled their show in a way that sums up the very essence of SuG: “HEAVY POSITIVE ROCK.” Over 7,000 fashionable fans crowded into Nippon Budokan on the evening of September 2, 2017. A small platform on the stage, meant for vocalist Takeru, read “HEAVY” in bold letters. A large screen lined the back of the stage.

A video signaled the start of the show. An EDM-inspired back track played as the characters “1/12/2007-9/2/2017” were shown across the screen, indicating SuG’s start date and their end date – today. Despite the dramatic start, things picked up on a positive note quicky. Red lights and purple lasers accompanied the catchy beat of AGAKU, the opening track. The members dressed in monochrome for this part of the set, letting the music and graphics speak for them. The audience put their hands in the air, pumping their fists to the beat.

HELLYEAH brought even more color and energy to the stage. Takeru jumped on and off his mini platform as he pleased. Both heavy and positive, one could say HELLYEAH is a great representation of SuG’s final period. Fukanzen Beautyfool Days followed, the first “older” track of the set. Takeru’s face lit up in a huge smile more than once. Chiyu moved around the stage a lot, too, hyping up the standing crowd in the arena.

With that track finished, Takeru delivered his first MC of the evening. He thanked everyone for coming and asked if they were doing okay. Then he launched into a brief account of SuG’s blessed history. When SuG first started out, he said, there were maybe five people total who supported them. After only 6 months of playing together—by some miracle, Takeru said—they were able to sell out Meguro Rockmaykan, a venue that can squeeze in about 300 people if they try. The second miracle, he said, was that this Budokan show attracted a staggering 7,000 people when they thought they would only be able to pull in about 3,000.

Of course, with 7,000 people watching, SuG had to do something big. Starting with Toy Soldier, the next few tracks in the set featured a full dance team that filled in the space on the huge Budokan stage. Children danced expertly in simple black and purple T’s, then adult dancers came out for songs like Koakuma Sparkling, B.A.B.Y., and Mugen Style.

Later in the set, SuG performed their member introductions (not that they needed any) with instrumental solos. Starting with drummer Shinpei, a small team of dancers moved to the beat of each instrument; then followed bassist Chiyu, guitarist Yuji, and finally, guitarist Masato.

All dancers returned to the set for a more classic SuG song, sweeToxic. The catchy guitar and vocals were accented by some of Takeru’s own dance skills. The jazzy tones of Keiyaku Kanojo, Ikenie Kareshi followed, then the whole audience got up and jumping for FRIDAY!!.

A brief MC followed in which all the members thanked the audience for coming. The upbeat tones of gr8 story, ☆Gimme Gimme☆, and the excellent Japanese and English word play of SICK’S got the audience worked up in a sweat. mad$hip gave the setlist some contrast, adding just a touch of darkness to the otherwise totally positive set.

SuG’s fans were in for a rare, final treat next: a medley for their 10th anniversary. Song after song drew excited cheers from the crowd, such as R.P.G., Vi-Vi-Vi, and Crazy Bunny Coaster. 39GalaxyZ closed out the main set with dancers, energy, colors, lights, and even paper stars that fell gently from the ceiling of Nippon Budokan.

When the members came back for the encore, Takeru had swapped his dark clothing for a bright, red leather jacket. Rainbow lights lit up the stage for dot.0. After the song ended, though, the hard part began. It was time for the members to say what they had prepared to say in farewell to the fans, staff, family, and friends that had supported them over the past 10 years.

The members said their piece one by one, beginning with Shinpei. He had mentioned on Twitter that he hadn’t prepared what he was going to say at their last show; all he could think of was preparing for this last show to be the best. He couldn’t think past it. Despite that, he explained his unease at this being their last ever show and what he would do. There were a lot of people, he said, really a lot of people that helped them over the last 10 years. From fans, to staff, to friends, to family, to fellow bandmen, a lot of people had supported them and made SuG possible. Tears welled in Shinpei’s eyes and his voice broke as he said, “I never thought I could be this happy.”

Chiyu had said what he wanted to say already on Twitter prior to the show because he wasn’t confident in keeping thoughts in his head while delivering an MC on stage. He had mentioned how he wanted to express not their guilt, but their gratitude towards their fans at their final show. A lot of fellow bandmen, staff, fans, etc. gave him support over the years. For a while, he had contemplated quitting the bass completely. However, he said, thanks to the advice and help of his senpai bandmen, he ultimately decided that he would continue on with bass playing in one form or another, most likely support. It was a statement that lifted the hearts of the otherwise forlorn fans in the audience.

Yuji had prepared three things to say—well, after the second one, he revealed that he had actually only prepared two. He thanked those who supported them over the last 10 years. He also talked about how he knew many fans who became friends just by having the mutual interest of SuG. “Even after SuG is over, please take care of those friendships,” he said. “They’re important.”

It was Masato‘s final MC that put most of the audience in tears. Where the other members smiled, Masato clearly struggled with his emotions, frequently pausing during his MC to find his voice again. “I��m not angry, but I’m definitely feeling a lot of emotions right now,” he began. He was grateful for all the support they received over the past 10 years despite their pause. When he learned the Budokan show would be their last show, he explained, he felt hurt and guilty. He had wanted SuG to do so much more, he lamented. More than his regret, though, he ultimately wanted to express his gratitude.

Takeru came last. He reiterated his feelings starting with the announcement of their Budokan show in May, leading up to the day of the historical show. He explained how the band realized that you can’t just make it in the music business with music; there were still some things that the band wasn’t skilled enough at to keep going on. He was sorry he couldn’t keep his promise to go even further with SuG.

The first Budokan show Takeru saw, he explained, was 13 years ago. He said somewhere in the back and watched HYDE live on stage. He decided then that he wanted to perform on that stage some day. Life isn’t like a manga or a movie, he said, but “if I, a normal teenager, can get to the point of standing on the Budokan stage for myself, then you can, too. All of you!” he yelled into the audience, fervor adding volume to his words.

This passionate ending to the MC led into teenAge dream, a song Takeru wrote to his teenage self. The PV played on the back screen, drawing the audience’s eyes to that image of Takeru’s teenage self rather than the Takeru that stood on stage now. CRY OUT followed, then the first encore closed out with the audience singing along to Smells Like Virgin Spirit. “Louder! This is what you came here to do!” Takeru egged on the audience. The song ended and the members bowed and left the stage once more.

SuG had two more songs for the audience: LOVE SCREAM PARTY and Tokidoki Suteki na Kono Sekai, both positive and heavy songs that allowed SuG’s final show to end just the way they wanted to. All the members of the band and the dance teams came out to take a final bow. The band also took time to thank their staff—some of which had supported them the full 10 years—and most of all, the fans. Even after the show ended, it took ages for the members to properly say goodbye to their fans for the last time.

Setlist

1. AGAKU 2. HELLYEAH 3. Fukanzen Beautyfool Days (不完全Beautyfool Days) 4. Toy Soldier 5. Koakuma sparkling (小悪魔sparkling) 6. B.A.B.Y. 7. Mugen Styles (無限Styles) 8. Sakura Ame (桜雨) 9. Mujouken Koufukuron (無条件幸福論) 10. Howling Magic 11. Instrumental solos 12. sweeToxic 13. Keiyaku Kanojo, Ikenie Kareshi (契約彼女、生贄彼氏) 14. FRIDAY!! 15. gr8 story 16. ☆Gimme Gimme☆ (☆ギミギミ☆) 17. SICK’S 18. mad$hip 19. 10th anniversary medley 1. Alterna 2. Oreshiki Continue (俺式Continue) 3. R.P.G. -Rockin’ Playing Game 4. Vi-Vi-Vi 5. 武士度-bushido-FREAKY 6. Fast Food Hunters 7. Crazy Bunny Coaster 20. 39GalaxyZ

-Encore- 1. dot.0 2. teenAge dream 3. CRY OUT 4. Smells Like Virgin Spirit

-Second Encore- 1. LOVE SCREAM PARTY 2. Tokidoki Suteki na Kono Sekai (ときどきすてきなこのせかい)

[Live Report] SuG's Last Live "HEAVY POSITIVE ROCK" at Nippon Budokan When SuG announced their first ever Nippon Budokan concert to celebrate their 10th anniversary, there weren't many fans who expected it would also be their…

#SuG

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