messiest sketch imaginable but it is Them. Circus Husbands.

Predictions for Soukoku’s fate (BSD CH 109 spoilers!!)

How I be looking after dedicating two posts on the possibility of Chuuya not being a vampire due to the fact he was faceless for absolutley no reason during some chapters, thinking it was important: 

alright people, i wish i could express my embarassment further but instead of kicking my feet, screaming and crying over my miscalculations, i will proceed to (hopefully) redeem myself with my following predictions.  

Guys, first of all I need to tell you something that I think is absolutely obvious: Dazai is not going to die. 

thematically, it makes absolutley no sense for Dazai to die considering how many characters still depend on him, EVEN HIMSELF.

We still haven’t learned his backstory, we still haven’t had a cathartic moment between Akutagwa and Dazai, Atsushi is yet to learn more from his mentor, and he’s overall a very key character to foil others and develop them while he’s at it.

Even Dazai himself dying right now feels extremely weightless, we haven’t even learned anything about Dazai’s past and he’s already killed? without growing as a person? without fullfilling Oda’s promise?  I don’t know, personally to me, direction wise, development wise and plot wise killing him off is absolutley nonsensical.

Asagiri does tend to take a very unique and unpredictable route with his writing and characters, but for plots sake, I highly doubt Dazai is gone forever.

Also, Fydoor and Dazai continue throwing uno reverse cards at each other, always catching one another unexpectedly. I am still going strong on the idea that Double Black will catch Fyodor off-guard.

Fyodor during these whole prision sections has been constantly belittling and teasing Dazai over how shallow his bond with Chuuya is.

When that’s beyond the truth. Dazai and Chuuya’s trust is literally undying. Stormbringer, the double black chapter and dead apple show us this in the most obvious way possible.

Asagiri himself has quoted that Soukoku knows each others motives, which has also been proven plenty of times when they are working together. 

Dazai himself admited there really was moments where their hearts reached out to one another.

and I think that’s enough to understand, Fyodor is wrong. THEY ARE DOUBLE BLACK FOR A REASON!!!

So far in this chapter, I got various things confirmed. Let’s walk through them together. 

1. Dazai’s nullifcation ability works on vampires, confirmed by Fyodor himself.

So what does this tell us? That Dazai had been planning all along to get in contact with Chuuya. He knew his partner’s abilities will break him out of the water trap, he’s not dumb.

So Dazaj totally meant to get in physical contact with Chuuya in order to nullify his vamparism. And no, it’s not only because Dazai cares for Chuuya (which is a true statement, but not the main reason.) It’s because out of everyone in this room, Chuuya is the only one able to physically overpower Fyodor. 

And even if Chuuya somehow can’t overpower Fyodor, atleast Chuuya can be Dazai’s bodyguard considering well...Dazai’s countless of injuries. Chuuya is Dazai’s ticket to get out of the prision.

Dazai needs Chuuya in his corner. He needs double black in action. He needs Chuuya. 

2. Dazai is genuienly frustrated that his plan to bring back Chuuya didn’t work.

I can’t be the only one who ADORED seeing Dazai panicking. (I sound so masochistic but seriously, it’s rare to see Dazai unmask this way).

Anyways, Dazai’s panic and frustrating during these pannels are unfortunately proof that things did not go at all how he planned.

3. Aya is attempting to take out the sword that stops Bram from having full atonomy on his vampire abilty. 

If by any luck, Aya is able to detach the swoard from Bram, Chuuya and literally every other vamp will return to normal. (which honestly, let’s do hope Aya removes the sword bc this is getting too agonizingly dragged out.)

4. Chuuya and Dazai are destined to....

 kiss?? marry?? make out under the moonlight??

Nono my friends, Chuuya and Dazai are destined to die together.

Chuuya and Dazai dying together has been hinted since Fifthteen, but my theory of these two dying together strenghtened during Stormbringer when Mori teased Dazai about a double suicide with Chuuya.

I’m not saying they will die right now but in order to solidify the need for Shin Soukoku in Yokahama.....

This old married couple gotta go and make room for the highschool sweethearts/hj

5. Dazai took the L

Honestly, I won’t lie to you and say that Dazai’s way out of this situation is going to be hard. But Dazai has attempted to kill himself plenty of times, I wouldn’t be surprised if he has shot a bullet through his head in his early 20s. (Im not joking when I say this i swear).

Anyways, Dazai seems somewhat imune to death and honestly, his character is too important to die, especially in such a meh, anticlimatic way. 

Dazai said it himself best, him and Chuuya are destined to die together.

6. Vampire Chuuya’s expression

I mean,,,, what is the need for the random three little pensive speach bubble ?? we have been proven by Akutagawa that vampires are capable of some sort of sentinence, especially when it’s tied to their deepest desieres/mental strenghts.

I don’t have anywhere grand to go with this but, I just wanted to point it out lol.

ALL IN ALL

I can’t say for sure what is going to happen, but with Aya’s attempts of removing the swoard the possibility for Chuuya to become concious and do something to get out of there and save Dazai still remain pausible in my books.

I am not too confident on where this section of the story will go exactly but I am certain that Soukoku won’t die yet. MARK MY WORDS!!!

Hang on hang on your tags on "reverse queerbaiting" are excellent, please if you have the energy go into more detail on them doing "fanfic" romance tropes vs true romance tropes bc I think that's Exactly what I haven't been able to put into words

for context: POST: “I feel like we're almost in an era of like, reverse queerbaiting. Used to be that you'd be tricked into watching a show because the story implied there'd be gay rep, but now they're using gay rep to trick you into thinking there'll be a story.” TAGS: #tbh :/ #all the gay shows are pandering to like not even regular romance tropes but FANFIC tropes #and it's hollow af

Ok let me see if I can get my thoughts into some kind of order on this lol 

I mean to use the most egregious offender as an example, let’s talk about Good Omens s2. Like we come from s1 and the book which operate on a huge scale of time and across the globe with world ending stakes, even when it’s focused on Tadfield or London. There is a whole cast of characters outside of Aziraphael and Crowly with their own motives and agendas that intersect with each other and you can imagine existing before and after the story being told. Then we enter s2 and they’re all gone. God is gone. It’s Aziraphael and Crowley, Gabriel (and Beelzebub), and their neighbors who exist purely to be a Functional Couple oppose A+Cs dysfunctionality. This is kind of the first sin of fanfiction in this case, the world gets smaller and shallower and so do the characters within it. It’s all just feels like props and dressing to get two characters together. The whole Gabe and Beelzebub thing? The only reason I didn’t “see it coming” is because I thought there was no way they would just rip straight from the crackships of AO3 because I have READ THAT PLOT BETWEEN THESE CHARACTERS TWENTY TIMES JUST LIKE THIS. 

Gomens s2 and also the other big recent Gay Shows, Our Flag Means Death and What We Do In The Shadows, really fuckin abuse fanfic tropes to death in more specific ways too though like - a sassy lesbian couple to set the oblivious gays straight, a will-they-wont-they with completely forgone conclusion, everyone is a shy sensitive guy even when they’re ruthless killers everyone is kind of stupid and woobie and seconds from crying all over their soft little love interest, everyone talking in this self actualized therapy speak - SO much very direct TELLING and the SHOWING is just eyecandy, fanservice. The second sin the formulaic predictability and the third is prioritizing fanservice/shipping over storytelling. 

Because that’s the main thing I think? These shows - which I wanna be clear I liked at least at some point but have gotten really disappointed by as they continue - feel like they don’t have a story to tell. They’re just vehicles to get a Gay Couple together, regardless of character consistency or the way more interesting things implied going on in the world around them, and they just shed more and more detail and quality and idk variety? as the main ship’s relationship progresses and the world narrows further and further. It becomes boring, one-note. 

And to cover my bases here I don’t want to be misconstrued as believing these things can’t be or aren’t also true of straight romance shows (or movies, books, whatever) because I think we’ve all seen plenty of Boring Straight Romance, and I am being somewhat generalizing for the sake of what brevity I can accomplish here. But I think the noticeable thing with specifically these new queer romance shows is that they are being aimed at and HEAVILY pandering to yknow 18 - 30 year old chronically online fandom queers because people like Niel Gaiman and Taika Waititi and whathaveyou have witnessed first hand (and made a lot of money from) the absolute frenzy this AO3 donating demographic with go into over this exact kind of content. 

In short, people figured out you can make more money off of really dedicated weirdos with bad taste than you can writing something with depth and substance.

Not everything can be as good as Homestuck I guess!

10 first lines

share the first lines of ten of your most recent fanfics / wips

hi @teeteringpileofunusednotebooks and @nv-md! tysm for the tag + i’m sorry i’m so late!! mari – i’m ridic excited for your stupid number of WIPs – also i feel like you’ve started writing at least? two more? since you posted your version? i’m laughing, but with love. ali – your lines are all so perfect and make me miss ur writing so much! nv-md binge incoming!!! 

the last time i did this was exactly 10 published fics ago, so this is actually perfect timing! last time i also completely ignored the rules and talked in-depth about each line, and u kno what? tumblr is about the only place i feel comfortable being stupidly self-indulgent, so here we are again lmao 🙈

in reverse chronological order:

1. For Lack of Wanting (8.4k, E, unrequited drarry)

I was obsessed with him, you know.

(this line and also the entire first section is so tell-y but tbh i purposefully didn’t care. i just wanted to write some fucked-up unrequited roleplay sex, you know? sometimes you have to forget about writing good and just treat urself)

2. Still the pine-woods scent the moon (15.5k, E, remus/harry)

It seems like a reasonable idea, at first.

(so this fic actually started off as a sirius/harry after i went on a huge @lqtraintracks bender one weekend [and if u haven’t already, stop what ur doing and go inhale all 19 lqt sirius/harry fics immediately]. then i realised there was nothing i could really add to a sirius/harry fic that hadn’t been done already - but i came across this art and it lodged itself into my brain forever. it’s just the vibes, u know?? how soft remus looks but also the way he’s looking right at the camera?? that man is in CONTROL. so anyway then obv i needed to find a way to get him into grimmauld place so he could walk in on draco fucking harry in the arse. thus: first line.)

3. Ferrety Little Mouths and How to Snog with Them (5k, T/M, soft drarry kissing)

“And she lost her shit, can you believe it?”

(can’t rly take credit for this one; this whole section with draco talking about his ex is almost word-for-word a convo i had with a friend about their ex and their friend who was weird about it. not quite sure the phrase “she lost her shit” was used, but that was def the vibe.)

4. Two to Lie and One to Listen (85k, E, drarry fake relationship [sort of])

She’d got another letter from the Ministry that morning. It was from the Muggle Liaison Office this time. 

(god, this fic. in the very first draft, hermione was the legit villain: the sort of friend who is well-meaning and loudly supportive, but is lowkey bigoted and doesn’t think that queer relationships are as meaningful as straight ones. then before the first big rewrite i started thinking more about her motivations and had the idea of making her trans – both to give her a non-bigot reason for agreeing to help draco hide his sexuality and not tell harry about it [it’s all about the trauma, folks!!], but also as a nice little fuck-you to jkr. so then she needed more of her own storyline, bc it felt like a bit of a cop-out to be like “hey this character is trans i swear! anyway let’s mostly ignore her and have her get in the way of the main pairing” [which, honestly, is still sort of the vibe of the fic], so she got her big Let’s Change The World Campaign.

the first version of this prologue was from draco POV; the second version was hermione POV but she was sooo mean and angry; this one is the third attempt. i wanted to show her desperate attempts at making any kind of change, anywhere at all, so it’s a bit more plausible that when she runs into draco malfoy, she’s like “ok yeah sure let’s pretend to be boyfriendgirlfriend!” lol. also does it bother anyone else that there are three different tenses in this one line? everything about this fic makes me sick lmfao)

5. Per my last letter (I hope you choke on it) (10k, T, epistolary author!harry/publishing-grunt!draco)

CURRICULUM VITAE: Draco L. Malfoy

(can’t remember whose idea it was to start with a cv? it seems like the sort of lazy backstory shortcut i would do, lmao, unless it was actually @lastontheboat​’s idea, in which case it was a genius move to introduce draco’s work struggle and set the tone for his journey thru the rest of the fic)

6. An Auror Error (1k, T, stupid drarry auror fic written in tongue-twisters)

Harry shivered under Malfoy’s stern glare.

(1. wanted it to be left a bit ambiguous what harry’s actually feeling here [reality: he’s shivering bc he thinks draco is sexy when he glares, but also he could be scared bc he’s being interrogated?] 2. playing around a little bit with the s/sh sounds. easing into the nonsense to come.)

7. Eight o’clock, tomorrow evening (11.5k, E, drarry legilimency sex)

It was seven fifty-five, and Draco’s stomach churned.

(listen, i thought i was doing something with the title being a line from the end of The Four Doors, which this fic is a lil sequel to. this first line was (a) tying that together even more and also (b) establishing the POV switch from harry POV in 4D)

8. The Taste of Țuică (15k, E, ron/harry/draco)

Mum always says my problem is that I care too much. I think that’s nonsense, honestly—one of those meaningless things mums say to make you feel better about overreacting to stupid shit. But I can’t deny that I care about my friends. I mean, really care about them. You know?

(i’m including the whole first line here instead of just the sentence bc i was trying to do sooo much here, lmao. first, i wanted to really ground this fic in ron POV, and the weasleys are so very Family [u know??], so i wanted to get that in asap. i also wanted to get in ron’s maybe-demisexuality in there – i love love LOVE getting characters to explicitly state something about themselves while also simultaneously not realising it at all [seriously i do this all the time, promptly forget about this if ever u plan to read one of my fics bc it will be all u can see now haha] and this absolutely an example of that. poor old ron is going “hey i love my friends soooo much, i love hermione, and also i love harry, i just love them both SO MUCH. wait why tf did i kiss harry that one time???” what a chump.)

9. Belatedly Consummated (4k, E, drarry post-arranged marriage fuck)

The problem is: Harry can’t stop touching Draco.

(idk man i just really liked the thought of these two idiots having to cohabit and try to remain platonic while they get a magical boner every time they touch each other ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ this one also gave me a chance to do another thing i rly like to do, which is take the first line and make it the last line, except the last line is somehow Resolved. last lines are fuckin HARD, i use this trick all the time, pls also forget this one before reading any of my fics, ty)

10. Show them the night that they dreamed about before (6.5k, E, percy/harry/draco)

Draco’s first thought is, Huh, Potter’s here again.

His second thought is, What is he doing, bent over the desk like that?

His third thought is, Oh. Weasley is fucking him.

(i think this was the first thing i wrote for this fic and i lowkey still love it. i think it’s maybe a bit confusing? clunky? i feel like one of my beta’s didn’t like it? but it makes me laugh and also i enjoy the mental image of percy going to town on harry and draco standing there experiencing a whole-ass face journey while otherwise completely motionless, so.)

BONUS WIPS:

1. 10k/15kish written, E, silly drarry vagina fic

As soon as Harry wakes up, he knows that Something is Not Right.

(i feel like this might stay the same in the final version? this wip is about 5 years old lmao but i’ve been playing with this beginning section a bit recently. have made it 100% sillier and imo it’s improved it so much. still not sure i’ll ever finish it.)

2. 27k/50kish written, M, drarry polyjuice clubfic

In general, Harry is grateful for Hermione’s efforts to keep him alive.

(i strongly suspect i’m going to rewrite this entire first scene once i actually finish the fic and realise there are secret themes that currently elude me. atm it works as a way of getting them to where they need to be [on a brisk morning walk!] and also as a joke later on in the fic, but there’s nothing else really going on with it.)

-

god i’m so sorry for hijacking a simple tag game to talk about myself at such obnoxious length ;_; hope it encourages more writers to talk about their processes tho, i need more fic writing meta content now galla’s bonus podfic episodes are offline. tag me if u do this / come across this pls!!! love u ❤️

I’ve been reading your posts about Cass and her dad, and I was a bit confused, because I always thought it was the king’s order to send Cass to the convent. Could you maybe clarify that?

it’s vague enough that “king frederic orders the captain to send cassandra to a convent” is as plausible a reading as my own interpretation, which is “king frederic orders cassandra to be relieved of lady-in-waiting duty and the captain makes the decision to send her to the convent” BUT i favor the latter reading for a couple different reasons 

1. early on cassandra implies pretty strongly that her dad would be the one pulling the trigger on the convent (“my dad would have me taken off princess duty and we’d never see each other again” and “i would be sent to a convent” - like she doesn’t say in so many words that her dad will send her to a convent but when she does talk about consequences she names him, not frederic, as the one who would be doling them out)

2. the captain in general strikes me as more comfortable dealing with cassandra through the framework of a commanding officer rather than a parent, which would overall i think incline him toward strict disciplinary actions bc that is how he would handle a misbehaving recruit. 

3. the clear lack of security cassandra feels in her father’s affection / approval / regard for her underscores this. 

4. in SOTS, when rapunzel and eugene discover that she’s been demoted to stable duty, cassandra explains it like: “seems like your dad found out that i was the one who snuck you out of corona before your coronation, and... here we are.” which implies very heavily that frederic is the one who ordered this demotion. but then when rapunzel declares she’s going to persuade frederic to change his mind, cass says “don’t waste your time, raps. this is just temporary—i’m being sent to a convent tomorrow.” 

which could mean that frederic’s orders were “send her to a convent and until then she can work in the stables,” but could also equally mean “your dad demoted me so my dad is sending me to a convent tomorrow.” personally, i think the latter makes more sense because - if i were a king, and i wanted a woman sent to a convent for endangering my daughter, i would not give her the grace period of a day working in the stables during which she could potentially talk to my daughter and convince her to do something crazy like sneaking out again! i would simply say, pack your things and leave. like the fact that cassandra has this assignment in the stables mandated by the king and then the next day she’s going to be sent to a convent implies to me that something more complicated was going on than just frederic’s orders. 

+ if the convent is the captain’s decision then “don’t waste your time” has this additional layer of meaning ie “don’t bother talking to your father, because my father has already made up his mind”

5. the captain sends her off by saying “you should know, the decision to send you off brings me no pleasure. perhaps after this threat has been quelled and some time has past, we can... revisit the arrangement.” which - like, if frederic is the one who ordered this, and the captain wasn’t happy about it, he could Explicitly Say That. he could say “this isn’t my choice” or “i tried to persuade the king not to send you away,” which would give the follow up statement of “perhaps we can revisit this later” more of an implication of the captain is going to continue trying to convince frederic to let cass come home. but he instead says “this decision brings me no pleasure” which to me, does read as the captain himself made this decision, he just feels bad about it. 

6. cassandra responding to this by telling her dad that he’s a disappointment to her reinforces that imo - her disappointment in him comes in part from his mealy-mouthed refusal to just own the fact that he’s choosing to destroy her life. i feel like that’s a stronger/more compelling source for her disappointment than the alternative “the king wants me sent away and you didn’t change his mind” because like - the king is the king and cassandra has been shown to be very aware of what that means and i think she would be, while still upset, much more understanding of the captain himself if it were a “king said she has to go, cap protests but ultimately has no choice” situation.

7. if the captain is the one who chooses to send her away, that gives his reversal in ready as i’ll ever be when he puts cassandra in command of the guard a LOT more of an emotional punch, which i like.

8. in islands apart, when the captain meets cassandra for the first time in over a year, he jumps straight to “why have you turned against the princess,” doesn’t listen to her explanation or her feelings, and ends the conversation by commanding her to surrender - like, this is a man who is loyal to the bone to corona, for better or worse, so much so that he can’t even bring himself to ask his own daughter if she’s okay when he finds her in the middle of a huge mental breakdown. which like is not direct evidence either way but i feel like this squares with him being willing to personally send her to a convent if she fucked up badly enough that the king himself demoted her, yaknow?

9. this is in no way evidence but if cap is the one who decides to send her to a convent, that gives the three main dads (frederic/quirin/cap) each a singular, uh, Point Of No Return so to speak - an action that they take wrt their child which irrevocably alters the nature of their relationship. for quirin it’s the “that is enough, varian” “...yes, sir” moment in QFaD, which shatters varian’s trust in his father and leads indirectly to the amber incident. and for frederic it’s the decision to lock rapunzel in her tower, which leads to her both literally and figuratively breaking through the chains of overprotectiveness he’s wrapped around her. and for the captain it’s finally following through on this lifelong threat to send cassandra to a convent, which i think snaps her out of craving his approval and ultimately becomes the death knell for her ambitions of becoming a guard and is a key factor in why learning about gothel makes her spiral so hard. and i just like the character parallel here. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

so tl;dr there’s no hard proof one way or the other, but based on the overall situation and the dynamic between the two characters both before and after this decision, the captain being the one who makes that call rather than frederic is what makes the most sense to me, and that obv colors how i read him and their relationship in general. 

what’s the issue with elisop? is it just bc you hc aesop as ace? im so concerned by seeing ppl adamantly opposed to mlm/wlw ships but im also genuinely curious about why you dislike it and other lgbt ships so much lol

hmm. that is a strong accusation, n i find it just a bit odd. are you new here? or perhaps you are taking personal offense at my dislike towards a favourite ship of yours and using the lgbt argument as moral high ground?

whatever the case may be, i thank you for asking. if u r truly looking for an answer, its below the cut n it is very very long. mind u these are all my personal opinions n i am in no way policing how others enjoy ships. just in case this wasnt clear; i dont wish to start discourse on this blog, especially since my takes are probably... unpopular.

firstly i would like to address the “disliking lgbt ships” bit, because this has very strong implications in itself. i have nothing against lgbt ships. i enjoy them, even. if the two characters have chemistry between each other, i ship it. however, the moment characterization is broken for the sake of romance, i lose interest. this is generally my stance on ships in general, n this applies for both straight n lgbt ships. 

the ships themselves are fine. however, i do have issues with the ship dynamics, so ill let u in on that.

i want to touch on mlm ships in particular; i believe u are familiar with the top/bottom dynamic that is rampant in these kinds of ships? (i wont deny that this dynamic can be found in other types of ships, but for arguments sake i will be focusing on gay ships because i feel that this occurs more commonly here) its such a popular dynamic that is prone to stripping the personality from one if not both characters, only for them to be reduced to being dominant/submissive. for a character to be pigeonholed into a stereotypical category based on... preferred sexual positions? its just downright insulting, never mind the larger more problematic implications of it. top/bottom is not indicative of someones personality, by the way. flattening multi dimensional characters into these stereotypes is so so so insulting.

unfortunately this is The Most Popular portrayal of just about any gay ship around. ive seen it being used everywhere in so many fandoms n it just about becomes apparent to me that ppl come to stories looking for a Ship. not the stories, nor the characters, just a ship. while id like to say theres nothing wrong with that, keep in mind not everyone is just looking for 2 characters that look pretty next to each other. if i ship something, i see interesting n meaningful interactions between 2 characters, which is so often not the case once u bring in the top/bottom dynamic. why is it so popular? because somehow this is what ppl like from a gay ship n hence it sells. ppl want the drama, characterizations be damned. ppl want to see the big kiss that happens in the end, n maybe the sexy parts that come after. characterizations be damned.

so u can say im a little wary of gay ships when they cross my feed. hell, as a joseph aesop shipper i see this trope everywhere n im pretty disappointed as well. small tangent but i feel like this is the reason why zh0ngli n ch1lde is so popular in g3nshin. i try to see the appeal, i really do, but after a long while of analyzing their respective characters i dont think they have as much chemistry as ppl think they do. dont even get me started on how incredibly ooc they make either of these very interesting n unique characters in ship portrayals. all because of the top/bottom dynamic that ppl want to see. i say this for that particular ship, but this is pretty much the case for a lot of ships out there, n the latter part is painfully true even when the 2 characters do have potential between each other. ill say it again im disgusted by the blatant disrespect to the characterizations if all ppl ever want is 2 pretty puppets to mush lips together. cos thats what theyre essentially reduced to this way.

n its so obvious to see when an artist subscribes to this rhetoric, because u can so clearly see it in the way they draw their characters. the “top” generally has sharper features to go with their “dominating personality”, while the “bottom” has disturbingly softer, feminine, dare i say sometimes child like features “to submit”. n thats where the uwu soft gay trope comes from, i believe. which, in case u still dont know, i hate with a burning passion.

so again for ppl with impaired reading comprehension, im fine with ships, including lgbt ones, but the moment u break characterization for the sake of the ship, im not that okay with it. u want to do it for a short crack comic? fine. but if thats the only way ur portraying the 2 characters then im immediately wary of ur content. ill still look at it cos usually the art is really good, but im very very wary. so im not “adamantly opposed”, just very critical of how the ships are being portrayed. if other ppl want to enjoy their ships like that, sure. just dont expect me to join in on something i dont agree on.

.

now id like to address not shipping “because i hc aesop as ace”. for ppl who are new to the blog (hello there), im an ace in a romantic relationship, so thats definitely not the reason i dont ship elisop. its more of being in a relationship has largely shaped my views towards romance as a whole. even before i met my boyfriend, i hated the romance genre in stories n media. most of it comes off as incredibly forced, especially those love triangles they seem to love putting into teen novels. thats one reason why i stopped reading when i was younger, but i digress.

did i partake in shipping when i was younger? i did. for a gay ship too (if anyone really wants to know, its kurotsukki from haikyuu. at least this was one that i can remember, i was mostly working on my 20 odd ocs for the longest time). i also used to write little short romance ficlets that i never posted anywhere cos i hated (n still do hate) my writing. but writing romance when u dont have experience was really just a way of projecting n probably a way of coping for myself, not that i knew at that time. but after i actually started a relationship with my boyfriend (whom i love n cherish a lot thank u very much), i began to see how much all these have skewed my views towards romance n have actually done some harm to our relationship. the bullshit that the general media feeds u constantly doesnt help in the slightest either.

quick topic shift to elisop in particular (about time, right?). i already stated that i only ship characters if i sense chemistry between the two personalities, n if u have seen the part where i dont ship elisop then u must have seen how agonized i am over not being able to have a concrete personality for eli. that is the main problem i have with elisop: eli does not feel like a solid character to me. n that is a huge problem, because if he doesnt have any defining characteristics besides being mild n nice, then he can be whoever i want him to be. (i have done this in my exorcist comics, i will admit this. n the fact that i can just do that... it really does not sit well with me personally.)

n that is dangerous.

back to young me doing lil ship things. i think its also pretty safe to say when u really do ship 2 characters, chances are u kinda really relate very very hard to at least one of them. that very quickly can turn into projecting, n shipping therefore is not “exploring the relationship between 2 characters” n it becomes “my preferred dating simulator 101″. of course this isnt always the case, but at least it was for me, n subconsciously it might be for lots of ppl too. n since this is ur mental playground, u call the shots, n there is no consequences if u slightly (or even entirely) alter one or both personalities to fit ur desired narrative. n u wouldnt even notice or know, cos ur blind to ur own biasness.

we bring our perceived notions into real life, im sure u know that. so when ur partner does not become that perfect knight in shining armour, or when they get upset at things that u do (which is a very normal thing by the way), n u think (very subconsciously), That isnt what my otp would do, something is wrong here (nothing is wrong, actually its just ur skewed perception of a stable romantic relationship). why wouldnt ur otp do this? because u are both halves of ur otps, there is no hidden secrets between them (apart from the pining part but thats irrelevant), n again they have been altered to fit ur preferred narrative. 

a real relationship requires a lot of communication between parties, because newsflash, liking someone doesnt mean that u have to like every single thing they do, they will make mistakes n it will hurt u, n guess what, the reverse is also true. if u do go with absoutely anything that they would do with 0 objections whatsoever, ur not crushing on someone, ur idolizing them, n that power imbalance is detrimental to a relationship. these things are not obvious to ppl, especially when the whole climate is hell bent on getting into romantic relationships by a certain age or some bullshit. communication is key n is pretty much the only way to solve relationship issues, because the other person has a lot that u r not seeing n vice versa. as similar as 2 ppl can be, i doubt u can have 100% the same thoughts on all things. i dont make the rules.

so in ur mental playground u focus on the fluffy parts, maybe there is communication, but rarely is there any meaningful conflict. thats unrealistic, n if u bring that mindset to an actual relationship, thats not going to end well. i say meaningful conflict, because yes, generally u shouldnt have conflicts with ur significant other. but inevitably when ur with each other for long enough, u will realize that there are habits that u must change in order to be with the other person. habits that are harmful to the other person directly, or harmful habits towards yourself that indirectly harm the other person. these are meaningful in a sense that if left alone, it will manifest into larger problems that will harm u, the other person n the relationship as a whole. its meaningful to the relationship.

all these is made even worse if ur neurodivergent. maladaptive coping practices, self sabotaging behaviours, inherent disabilities. all these must be adjusted n addressed. im so incredibly thankful for my boyfriend for being incredibly patient with me when working all these out, n it has not been easy for me to work on myself n all my problems, n im still not done working on them. this aspect is often not explored in romance in general (or properly), n there is a very good chance i would have still been stuck in the unhealthy mindset of “this isnt like my otp, maybe we’re not meant to be”. because loving someone is a choice. no one is made for each other, it is a conscious choice made between 2 ppl to make things work. this is how arranged marriages work, i am told, n i do see the appeal, not that it actually does appeal to me culturally.

special mention to the kurotsukki ship, cos from there i found a very, very good fic that explored their relationship before n after getting together, n it actually showed aspects of this problem in the incredibly slow burn of (at that time) 20+ chapters. it was just one fic (n a very good one at that, i believe it was called Leviticus), but it had a lesson i never thought i needed to learn, n learn it i did, with a lot of help from my dear. 

this is also probably the reason why i dont really want to delve too much into romance now. i know its a lot of work, n everything (mostly) that the media feeds u is really false advertising, but ppl eat that shit up n so it remains one of the most popular genres to date. im just very wary that if i do start on a romantic story, i want to be able to show it in a way like that fic did, the truths of relationships, because i dont want to make something that sells, i want to make something that meaningful to me, if a little indulgent. n that also includes being very careful in how the respective characterizations will change in a relationship. almost too careful now that i think about it, but its not something that i mind. i was never one for romance from the start, n now im very careful about shipping because of what happened to me persoanlly.

okay enough about me, lets talk about aesop. in any au u put the character in, the essence of the character must remain despite the change in environment. so lets say we have ur typical modern au. dead mom, check. shitty mentor doing illegal stuff? also check. autistic boy with social anxiety? we’re good to go. all these have implications on aesop as a character, n while ppl are aware of this, again the way they go about portraying it can go, in my personal opinion, very wrong. ppl who immediately woobify aesop completely because he has autism annoy me. ppl who reduce him to uwu soft boi cos he has social anxiety do not know how the disorder really works n as someone who has that i hate it to the core. ppl who do all these for the sake of ship have lost my respect. its insulting.

remember the top/bottom dynamic? not that elisop is completely free from that (even if i dont know much about eli, to put him in either one of those stereotypes feels very insulting to his character. i wont even say anything about doing it to aesop its so upsetting), but its not entirely made up of either. but now i want to introduce another trope i am very wary of, which is “i can fix him”. im sure u guys have seen the meme going around poking fun at this trope (for those who havent, its along the lines of “u can fix him? well i can be his worst nightmare”) n no doubt yall would have seen it n gotten sick of it in some forced hetero romantic bullshit. we have one damsel in distress with a saviour that solves all their problems just by existing n being romo with each other.

remember “my preferred dating simulator 101″? this is not mutually exclusive n from my point of view this is dangerously close to this trope. lets be real, if it was actually a thing that all ur deep rooted trauma magically disappears if someone were to waltz into ur life, we would want it. definitely. no painfully dissecting ur own problems n constantly facing them head on. real life states that this is not the case, but it will not stop us from dreaming. n so this trope is born n lives n will go on.

(finally) pulling aesop n eli into this, at least in my mind, u have one severely traumatized boy with lots of issues n u have this. nice mild guy who can be anything u want him to be. i hope u can see where im going with this, n thats the direction i see some elisop heading towards (i dont read a lot of elisop to be fair). if u came from my eli character talk, i mentioned that it is incredibly one sided. this is exactly what im talking about.

putting it all together in case u havent already, aesop is the damsel in distress, whose problems magically disappear because of elis godly kindness n little to no work on improving himself, n they lived happily n gayly ever after.

can u tell how much that does not appeal to me. 

never mind the butchering of character that inevitably happens somewhere somehow, the unrealistically perfect themes n implications of this trope makes me so viscerally uncomfortable. this is, of course, due to personal reasons, n i definitely see the appeal of this dynamic because i would probably have been interested in this once upon a time as well. but as i am now, with everything i have explained up there n everything i have been through, i would politely rather not.

n its difficult to think of another dynamic, because of how little i know about eli apart from him being this saint, which easily makes him a candidate for being aesops trauma panacea. never mind aesop rarely, if ever, does anything for eli as a character in return, n its so damaging to buy into this rhetoric, where a person like this who would solve all ur issues no strings attached exists somewhere in the world. they really dont. a relationship has to be mutually benefitting, or it will be draining n disastrous. maybe u say, Oh its nice to imagine it once in a while. n yeah, i agree, except once in a while is a little difficult to keep track of n that is sort of what happened to me. id rather stay as far away as possible from this kind of unrealistic fantasy, i just got this shit sorted out with myself n my boyfriend.

i have some other reasons, but theyre more personally problematic, so i wont go into them here. but this is mostly n generally why i do not ship elisop romantically. if u do, u do u, and have fun, but again dont expect me to join u. thank u for coming to my ted talk, this took a lot longer than expected.

WoW Q and A

Elaborate on the Chains of Domination cinematic: Story of Anduin and Sylvanas/relationship with the jailer is foundational to Shadowlands. Anduin was dominated. Jailer needed someone like Anduin to be able to walk into Bastion and claim the key. Brief moment of Anduin gaining control in cinematic, so still in there. Chains of Domination will explain more.

When he (Anduin) walks past Uther, did Uther know what was happening or did he feel bad? Couple things going on. His hand touches his wound, made by a weapon of the maw. Uther recognized on some level that power, as well as stirring memories seeing this blonde, kingly figure. Confrontation with Sylvanas in the raid one of the biggest moments in WoW.

Moving from classic to BC while keeping a copy. Whats it going to look like for gold, items/banks. Am I going to see differences or is it two separate entities for all time? Logging in at pre patch will snap a copy of your character. There will be an option to move onto BC classic, or stay in vanilla classic. Can pay a fee and activate “clone” to put them on BC classic if you choose to stay Vanilla. Beta is around the corner. 

How will high population  numbers be handled in TBC classic? How will you handle bottlenecks, sharding, dailies etc. Recognize high population, want to make sure experience is enjoyable. Optimization improvements to help stabilize servers. Experience of rare material and multiple people going is part of the game. Willing to make targeted changes if there is particular problems. 

 Will there be more race/class combinations? Player agency and choice is major theme. Customization key, but also want to reinforce differences. Want to maintain a world that doesn’t have exact symmetry. Have gone back over the years to change things. For now, think they’ve gone about far enough. Nothing planned, but never say never.

 Surprise on Covenant armor? Based on heritage armor. Pure aesthetic, want to give players more and more options. Gameplay reasons to not tmog the entire range (warrior wearing cloth for example)

Workflow change during pandemic? Happened very suddenly. Team reached to each other to find comfort. The isolation found purpose for devs. Making Shadowlands/games help to reconnect friends and people.

Any plans to address faction imbalance? What happened to cause it? Something talked about a lot. Know there’s a very real problem, particularly high end. What caused the problem? Imbalanced in racials allowed to persist too long. At this point, don’t think racials are imbalanced. People staying Horde however due to social reasons now; compounded issue from all the way back from MoP etc. No real answer. Social issue requires social answer.

Have you ever seen a swing in either faction direction due to story elements? Across the game as a whole, faction balance is pretty good. Its raiding/high end PvE that the imbalances really emerge. Have seen faction switches/more cross faction alts in BfA for example. 

If I play BC, when I decide to play on main char and a classic era realm at 60, will I have to name change? You have your name in both places. Ensure people don’t park on names forever.

Any plans to connect more realms? Had to do survey across all populations in all realms. Essentially have to copy an entire realms database onto another. Not a flip a switch thing, lot of work. Have been able to address a large amount of the very low pop. realms. Had to pause for Shadowlands launch due to launch and Shadowlands had huge effects on server populations. Last time they connected realms was right before WoD, and realms had a LOT of queue problems. Watching and waiting for populations to go down before making the jump.

Never gonna have cross faction raids, dungeons etc? Not gonna say never. Essential to hold onto identity but...

Will our amount of Anima be increased later? Is it possible for sanctum upgrades to be account wide? Lot to collect. Hotfixed Anima drops so far. Looking for new sources of Anima for next patch. Over all looking at the costs. Cosmetics are generally account wide. Anima is designed to span the bulk of Shadowlands. 

Sire Denathrius is an eternal one and imprisoned. What will he do? Will we see him again? Best laid plans can adapt. During BfA, intended Bwonsamdi to be a one off. There, but no big deal. Once they heard the VA they went “we need more of this character”. Planned for Sire Denathrius to be there, you kill him w/e. Then heard the VA and went “this guys awesome we love him.” Changed plan to keep Sire Denathrius alive. Will find some other role for him to take. Watch fan feedback to see how community responds/gravitate to. He is in that sword, there may just be allies of him that would be interested in liberating him from the sword...

When will we see more Heritage Armor? As each one was released, got more and more excited from response/enhanced feel of the game. Working on further Heritage Armor. Some coming to near future updates, some more in the future.

Any plans to bring back the AH app? Not as you know it perse. It got turned into a lot of automation. Revamp removed app, then change of the AH. Meant to be more of a socialize thing then accumulation of gold by automated system. Recognize however convenience factor. Consider getting back into some form, but not like how it used to be.

Will there be more new character customization options for Shadowlands? None in Shadowlands. Tend to be fairly big projects. Release them when it’ll be very good for players. Lot of work to juggle. Felt like they got good feedback and support from it. Want to invest going forward when it makes sense.

What are actual requirements for flying in Shadowlands? Where can we fly? Can we fly across the realms? Shadowlands pathfinder no rep grind. Just requires completing full covenant campaign (9.0 and 9.1). Cannot fly from zone to zone. Once unlocked, alts will be able to fly freely. 

In the BC classic, will there be class tuning that would make it notably different than 2007? Broadly no. Want to keep the authentic behavior of final patch, like classic had. Seal of blood

Is there work being done on new Torghast Anima Powers for later patches? Spec specific, when can we see? WIll be done through all patches/future patches. new powers etc. As for powers working outside Torghast, keep OP nature of them inside Torghast.

Difference between passage of time in Shadowlands and in Azeroth? Salanar the Horseman in DK order hall said he was in the veil for what felt like days and it was between WoTLK and Legion. Meet characters for whom time doesn’t seem to have meaning. What is time a construct of? Order. On Azeroth, understand the passage of time because of influence of titans/order. Outside of the influence of order, time loses meaning. A lot more fluid. Shadowlands about eternities. Can have it perceived differently by different characters even going through same thing.

Bringing back 10-man content, either as different difficulty or different instances for smaller groups to tackle. All raid basically is/can be 10 man. These days its the 5 player mega dungeons that fill the role. In BC, ZA and Kara filled that niche of the smaller group doing the BIG, raid like content. Fulfills the spirit of 10 man content.

Will summoning stones be available at launch of BC or come later? Will have them at launch.

What’s Bolvar up to and where is his story going? Will he have a major role to play? One of the fun parts of Shadowlands was getting Bolvar back into the mix. We saw him be pivotal in Torghast and getting into Shadowlands. Saw there was a price to pay for visions with Torghast. He will be front and center in Chains of Domination. Good rallying figure.  

In BC, how will pvp titles be handled without battlegroups? Originally, reward was made for the best player in each battlegroup due to technical reasons. Now that they have better technology, fair way is % based, though still want to keep it small amount. 

In Stormwind, Darnassus refugees mention going back once the smoke clears. Does this mean Teldrassil can grow back and become habitable again? The damage was pretty definitive/lot of lives lost. Don’t want to reverse on a whim. The story of the souls of the Night Elves however is not yet done, nor is Tyrande’s story going into Chains of Domination and beyond.

Will fresh classic servers be added in addition to TBC servers? For the timeline of BC classic, no new classic servers. Eyes on it however for the future. Will discuss once BC launches.

How do you get the Wandering Ancient Mount? Got to have Shadowlands. Will be in 9.0.5 patch update next month (March). 

hi! ive been following your writing for a few years now and i drop by periodically to check if you have anything new posted, and im really surprised that you seem to be enjoying the untamed? im curious what you think about the show - its story and characters, the acting, the production, etc. idk if you know, but the untamed is the most successful example of a current trend in chinese entertainment, where popular online novels centered around a gay romance is adapted into a 'safe' drama.

continued:

due to the many explicit and implicit restrictions imposed on creative media in china, many crucial plot points have to be changed (often badly) or removed, including the nature of the relationship between the main characters. the untamed is considered the most loyal adaptation so far, but like all other works in the genre, it received criticism for weak acting and queerbaiting. that's why im really curious about what you think of the show as it is, as itself, free from its context.

if you're interested, you could also check out guardian! it features much better performance and chemistry by the leads imo, but the story was heavily botched bc the original incorporates and reinvents a lot of classic chinese folklore beautifully and stuff like that is considered disrespectful and not-pc. i think it's really sad how so many great pieces of writing with complex world-building and plotlines are simplified into... idek what to call them, but just, less than what they are.

im sorry this turned into a rant. as a mainland chinese person with oh so many frustrations about our current society, it's hard to comprehensively describe my feelings about the untamed's popularity. it's the first mainland chinese show/movie to gain this much organic interest abroad so i should be glad? but, but. anyway, yes, im sorry.

There’s no need to apologize for ranting, but I admit to some confusion as to whether you want your question addressed or the rant. Because I’m me and tend to be thorough, I’ll address everything, in reverse order.

First of all, I’m sorry that this show is sad to you. I’m sorry that the popularity of it is difficult. I’m also deeply sympathetic to your frustrations about your society, as I too am deeply frustrated by my own.

Secondly, yes, I’m aware of the context of The Untamed. I’m aware that the book it’s based on is a BL novel, and that, in order to align with Chinese politics, overt queerness was erased from the adaptation. I’m aware of the censure laws of gay media in China. I’m also aware that some aspects of necromancy and morality were adjusted to make the show more palatable for general audiences, but I’m fuzzier on those details. Lastly, I’m aware that the popularity of the show calls attention to certain things, such as fanfic, and that attention results in more censorship,

The fact of this erasure and this censure provokes a lot of questions: by consuming this product, which contains erasure and censure, do we engage in the erasure and censure? By posting gifs and writing fanfic and talking about this product, do we increase its popularity, thereby encouraging additional erasure and censure? By increasing the popularity of this product, do we diminish the popularity of the original gay morally gray canon, thereby decreasing representation? Do we discourage other authors in China from writing explicitly gay morally gray material? In short, are we allowed to enjoy this media?

I don’t know the answer to these questions. However, I do know that boycott is a very effective tool when it can inflict economic pain on the producer, or when it can exert pressure on an entity to change. That said, I feel like a lot of the calls to boycott certain media these days are a lot like telling people to stop driving their cars to stop climate change: it’s suggesting that individuals can solve the problem, which presupposes individuals are the problem, and therefore fails to address the scope of the problem, or present the possibility of a real solution. Not watching The Untamed isn’t going to change laws about portrayals of homosexuality onscreen in China, partly because the laws in China are a much bigger problem.

The other part of it is that The Untamed is coded queer, so if you run a successful boycott against it, you end up with . . . less queer TV. I know a whole lot less about China than I do about the Hays Code, but if you had told gay people during the Golden Age of Hollywood that they couldn’t enjoy movies that were coded queer because they weren’t explicitly queer, they’d have said you were crazy. In fact, many people will tell you that media that was coded queer was a big reason we got more explicit queer stuff later. And as I’m sure you’re aware, the US is still fighting that battle . . . partly because it wants to sell movies to China.

So then there’s a question about whether me, an American in the US, liking something coded queer from China but not explicitly queer--does that encourage Chinese censorship? Should I only support texts that are explicitly queer? But the answer is the same--it’s not addressing the scope of the problem, and by supporting texts that are coded queer, you could be paving the way in the future for something brighter.

But you weren’t talking about boycott! You were talking about your discomfort with the popularity with this show, which I accept. I understand feeling uncomfortable. I can only hope it makes you a bit more comfortable to know that plenty of fans are deeply aware of the context and do wrestle with the question of what liking this show means in the context of a society that would never allow aspects of the original to be portrayed onscreen.

Thirdly, I’m not against trying Guardian at some point, but by comparing the acting and chemistry of the leads to The Untamed, I feel like you prove our tastes are very different in these regards. I love the acting of the leads in The Untamed; I found their chemistry off the charts. It’s okay you don’t feel the same.

Lastly, you asked my opinion of The Untamed: its story and characters, the acting, the production, sans context of the canon upon which its based and censorship laws in China.

a. I love the overall story, but the plot has deep plot holes. Quite a few segments do not actually make sense to me, because the plot is so haywire. However, I’ve never cared that much about plot, except when it gets in the way of characters and themes, and for the most part, this plot serves its characters and themes, except when the parts they leave out are so confusing that I cannot follow the story. As for the story, it feels like it’s built for me, because ultimately it’s about moral decisions and how to make them; it’s about guilt and paying for mistakes; it’s about learning, changing your mind, and remaking yourself. Really, I’m not sure there are many stories I love more--except they killed my favorite character, and I almost quit. So, that certainly put a damper on things.

b. I love the characters most of all, although the villains are really two-dimensional. However, large parts of the plot are not Hero vs Villain, they’re Hero vs Society, and then some Hero vs Himself in a way that suggests the Hero is no longer a hero. I could talk about the characters forever, but suffice it to say I think they’re really strong. Also, the relationships are really exquisite, particularly when it comes to family dynamics. Unfortunately, they killed my favorite character off. Also unfortunately, there are six women in this show, only two of them are main characters, and every single one of them dies. It disgusts me.

c. I think the two leads are exceptional, in particular Xiao Zhan . . . when he’s not being too broad, which he is quite a bit. However, I do wonder how much of this is direction and production style, because in many instances, he’s quite subtle, and the choices he makes are astounding. Then there are times where it’s like they needed more footage, or wanted to drive home a point, and he turns on the extra, and it’s awful. It could just be him, but I actually feel it’s the case with most of the actors, which does make me think it’s a directing issue. Meng Ziyi never really has that problem though, because she is the most perfect of all. But then take He Peng, who I actually thought could be incredible, but every scene was just SO BROAD that I began to feel sorry for the poor dude having to act that part. But there is nothing to be said for Wang Zhuo Cheng, who really is just terrible, which is sad, because it’s a great part.

d. Production-wise, it’s really hit and miss. So much of the locations are truly beautiful. A lot of the costumes are too, unless the shot is too close. I actually don’t mind the wigs; I love the long hair. The CGI is terrible. And then while a lot of the shots are beautiful, some of them are awkward, and the pacing is really difficult, imo. It really seems like they wanted to drag it out, and there are so, so many scenes where I’m sort of embarrassed that we’re in the same scene or that we’re still looking at someone’s face, or that everyone is just standing there waiting for the shot to finally end.

I will say that film is a language that does differ from culture to culture. It could be that both the broadness of the acting and the awkwardness of the editing are my cultural lens based on American and a lot of western film. When I watched older Hollywood films, the acting is a lot more broad and maybe a little less “true” feeling, but I understand that it’s not the case everyone in the past was a bad actor. It was just a different style, so I’m not sure I’m equipped with the cultural knowledge of Chinese acting, cinematography, and editing to be able to really judge the value of these things.

I do know how I feel, which is that the editing is the biggest hurdle for me while watching the show. However, I feel that the beauty of it makes up for a lot, and the strength of the characters and themes really carries it.

I hope I addressed your points adequately, and I wish you well.

a concept

U know how in the comics Aang starts rebuilding the air nation with ppl who are basically converts to their religion? By like teaching them about the air nomad’s ways and stuff?

What if he gave some of them air bending using energy bending? And they could start re-building the air nation and it’s culture by teaching them everything!! They could even start moving back into the temples now that they could fly and rebuilding

They’d even have the bison!! According to the wiki aang found a living herd after the war !!

Idk just. As a Jewish person genocide stories are really really personal to me. And the thought of being the last of my people is terrifying

I just really want the air nation to have a chance to rebuild in a natural way. And I think that like letting ppl choose to convert and gifting them with air bending would probably be the best way

Ik aang’s kids and grandkids have air bending but trying to rebuild an entire nation from one bloodline is.... not the best idea

And I also know that in lok a bunch of ppl are given air bending, but that whole story really rubs me the wrong way (no hate to lok though!! There are parts I like!!)

Under the cut is basically an explanation as to why I take issue w/ it and find it mildly offensive/an essay about cultural appropriation in general lol. but i don’t wanna kill ppl’s dashes so if you wanna see the explanation check there 

but i really think that aang like.... allowing ppl to convert, and teaching them, and gifting them w/ airbending in the most natural/best way for that story to go and i wanted to share that!! :) 

anyway time for a whole essay because i.... apparently need to explain and justify every single one of my opinions. i’ma blame the adhd. 

I have 2 main issues w/ the new air bender plot. a) the air Nomad religion/culture is pretty explicitly seen as a closed one and b) it’s sort of a cop-out.....

so... first:

 Air bending is pretty explicitly a huge part of the air nomad culture and religion and is extremely spiritual. bc of how religious and spiritual it is the idea of ppl just.... randomly being given it really rubs me the wrong way.

It’s really really hard for me to explain this or come up with an irl example, bc these ppl didn’t ask for air bending, or try to gain it in anyway. So it’s not really their fault. But to me it feels almost like accidental cultural appropriation? If that makes sense

Which like. cultural appropriation is obviously bad. Even in the comic I originally referenced (the promise) Aang is initally really really offended by the people practicing the air Nomad religion when he first finds out!!! Which he should be!!!

There’s a difference between cultural appropriation, culture appreciation, and sharing culture. The first is bad, and the second 2 are good when done correctly.

Ima use an irl example w/ Judaism just bc using this personal experiences is apparently the only way my brain knows how to explain things

Scenario 1: Amanda (who is xtian) decides to research the Jewish holiday of Passover and the traditions behind it just bc she’s interested in it

This is cultural appreciation! She’s just learning about smthn she finds interesting. This is generally ok! although in some cultures there is knowledge that you are not supposed to know or discuss if you are not part of that culture and you should 100% respect that if it is the case 

Scenario 2: Amanda learns about the Passover seder and decides to throw one herself

Dont fucking do this omfg. This is cultural appropriation. Passover is a super important and religions holiday! It’s one of the high holy days and celebrating it on her own isn’t ok! 

Scenario 3: Amanda asks her Jewish freind Alex if she can come to his Passover seder

This is cultural appreciation and cultural sharing!! It’s totally valid!! She respectfully asks to join in and be included! 

it’s diffrent from cultural apropriation for one huge reason. she is joining in, rather than celebrating it on her own with no jewish ppl present 

Scenario 4: Amanda eats gefitlefish just bc she likes it 

this is appreciation! even though there are no jewish ppl involved! bc gefiltefish isn’t a holy/religious/spiritual thing. 

different aspects of different cultures have different levels of importance. as a general rule, if smthn is holy/religious, you should not do anything with it, unless invited by someone of that culture. if it’s not then you can generally do it on ur own (though there is some grey area there. ie, moccasins are smthn that aren’t religious to native americans, but if ur not native you shouldn’t be producing and selling them. if you want moccasins by them from actual natives) 

scenario 5: amanda contacts a rabbi and starts the conversion process 

this is...... just conversion lol. when she is finished with the process (which can take months/years) she’ll no longer be xtian and be jewish!! just as much as anyone who was born into judiasm. she’ll be able to host her own seders and any of her children will be jewish as well :) 

sorry for the really long thing!!  but i felt it was necessary to show the difference between some concepts that seem similar but are actually vastly different!! 

anyway, i hope y’all understand the difference between cultural appropriation/appreciation/sharing. if ur asking urself “ok why does it matter tho” friendly reminder that alot of irl ppl have been murdered for trying to peacefully observe their cultures/religions :) 

including the air nomads! (hey segway...) 

they are literally hunted to extension because they are part of one culture/religion. you could argue it’s a racism thing (which it is) but race, culture, ethnicity and religion are all inherently tied. see: almost every non-xtian religion worldwide 

SO. when you consider that a) the nomads were killed for their religion b) airbending was incredibly significant part of that religion, isn’t it weird that random people who have 0 connection or interest in that religion suddenly have airbending?? 

again it becomes like accidental cultural appropriation. which you can’t really blame the characters for in-world

but, these aren’t real ppl. they’re characters in a situation that was written by real ppl, real ppl who can and should be criticized 

not that i’m trying to call the creators bigoted in anyway! this dosn’t seem like anything that was meant to be offensive. and it’s not really that offensive unless you think about it. to me it just seems like a plot point that wasn’t fully thought through. i don’t bring it up to shame the creators, just as a way to show others why it’s smthn not to be repeated 

and, to show a better way to do a similar story 

the reason i went so in depth w/ the explanation of cultural appropriation vs appreciation vs conversion is bc i wanna show why a different way of approaching a similar story would have been better

the reason i think my whole idea (of ppl basically contacting aang or the air nomads, converting to the religion, and then being gifted air bending through energy bending) is better than ppl being randomly gifted it is bc conversion takes work 

to convert to any culture or religion you a) need a connection to someone in that culture (usually made by reaching out to a religious leader) and b) need to actually be accepted by that group in order to be considered one of them. it takes work and dedication. it’s a literal transfer of culture!! it’s just... ack i’m not good at explaining it 

but dosn’t it make so much more sense that ppl who actually worked to integrate themselves into the culture and become one of them are givin airbending? not because it’s a privilege but bc they need to first become part of the culture in order to have any right or claim to it 

but by just giving it to random non-benders it’s basically the reverse!! yes they later learn the culture and religon, but???? thats not how that works??? wtf??? 

i feel like i’ve been talking in circles and i’m sorry if i’ve bored everyone to death but i hope u understand my point. 

anyway! next thing! (i swear this part will be way shorter) 

by just making a bunch of random ppl airbenders it basically retcons one of the longlasting effects of the 100 yr war and almost just... erases the impact of the air nomad’s genocide 

which. is gross and uncomfortable. genocide stories are touchy subjects and smthn that need to be treated with respect 

just giving random ppl airbending it’s almost like the genocide didn’t matter at all. which i take a huge fucking issue w/ ok and i don’t feel like i need to explain why 

instead of a natural rebuilding of the air nomads it’s just fixed with spirit magic. it’s just... an insult to the really compelling and well written genocide story that was in atla and an insult to the irl ppl who related to that story 

so. yeah.... again i’m not trying to call out the creators, i again think this plotline was more accidentally insulting than purposefully 

i already propsed a better way to do it by allowing converts to gain the ability to airbend. (hell it dosn’t even need to come from energy bending or aang. the air nomads were incredibly spiritual, maybe a spirit gifted it to the ppl who earned it instead of random fucking ppl) 

but the other reason that converts instead of just.... random ppl gaining the ability is better is bc there aren’t gonna be that many ppl to convert!! there’s not gonna be some sudden boom in the airbending population!! theres would still be a story of the nation slowly healing and rebuilfing itself instead of the insulting sudden magic fix

oof. sorry for the long freaking thing. i literally went into this just wanting to share an idea and instead spent over an hour analyzing this stuff lol.... 

i hope this was coherent but if anyone’s got questions about anything i said feel free to @ me or shoot me an ask :) as long as ur polite and stuff i’ll answer to the best of my ability 

Ok so, my thoughts on the VR ending and VR overall as the 6th entry.

Also because most of my thoughts aren't...complimentary im editing the names so they dont appear in the general tag. This also got LONG so readmore.

The Good:

- A//i's character still managed to be the one thing that saves VR as a show for me. Even with all the weird...contradictory plot issues, A//i still manages to be a compelling character who brings up the question of the right to live. I actually do like how he made it so itd be an ultimatum that he loses in either way, even if the ending kinda ruins the weight behind the action (which I will get to in a bit).

The meh:

-the ending was left somewhat open to interpretation which for a show as...empty as this was works out but honestly it was so vague as to A//is fate is that it may as well not exist.

The Bad:

-The main conflict behind the entire show is...simulations. No joke. Every conflict in the show can be traced back to someone doing a simulation and deciding to lose it. Even if they gave the (rather stupid) explanation that AI experience simulations like actual life (which btw the first villain wasnt an AI so this reason doesnt work), the fact that Yu//sa//ku took a bullet for one of A//is robot bodies that he literally has millions of is...just stupid and there solely for the "uwu drama".

-They actually killed A//i off but wait hes actually alive, so like the final duel literally had no purpose aside from...drama??? The episode is called Compromise and yet A//i had to lose just to keep Yu//sa///kus win streak and theres no compromise whatsoever. Yu//sa//ku litetally destroys the CompromA.I.se card so its just, no comrpomise in any way.

-This....wasn't a happy ending??? I have no idea why both the show and the fanbase frame this as a happy ending bc think about it in context: A//i pretty much loses everything, so does Yu//sa//ku who just isolated himself from everyone else for 3 months in order to comb the network for whatever remnants of A//i exist.

- So many of the supporting characters are just...there. Like, there is no side/supporting character who actually has a character arc in this show. Lets go through the list: Ao//i is pretty much the same character as when she started and goes through 2 unnecessary costume changes for a character growth that isnt there because she has literally ONE victory against an opponent that was stated multiple times to be weak and faulty and have her lose and tortured multiple times for no reason whatsoever, G//o had this weird deterioration that may have lead to something but ultimately didn't, Ak//ira is pretty much the same, J//in has ALL HIS TRAUMA ERASED SO THERES THAT, literally the only side characters who have some sembalnce of an arc are Sho//ichi (the best one anyways) from his "betrayal" in S2, and E//ma with her reconciliation with her brother. Outside of that, nothing. Yu//sa//ku, Re//volv//er and Ho//mu//ra are pretty much the only characters with an arc and even then they're not too solid? Which brings me to-

- Yu//sa//ku has been so wildly ooc since the end of S1. Ive seen so many say that his enphasis on bonds and friendship are character growth but actually looking at the sequence of events he suddenly just like. changes completely around his first duel with Ea//rth. Plus, the message of "revenge is good" was always so weird? Like, he got his revenge so all his trauma is ok now and never brought up or explored again aside from within the first 20 episodes. Theres nothing about it after that and its never built upon. The whole point of a revenge arc is to show that its BAD and yet he starts preaching that revenge is wrong AFTER he successfully gets revenge??? And even then its not exactly a revenge as it is more lashing out since it was Ko//ga//mi who was behind it all. Yu//sa/ku was definitely at his strongest characterization in S1 where we see how badly the Lo//st Incid//ent hurt him but S1 had its own share of problems that led into S2 and so many random plot threads that never went anywhere (such as the Anot//her Incid//ents, the Cy//berse deck being irl despite that A//i didnt have a physical body before then, The Bl//ue Mai//den meetup that was repeated by Nao//ki like 10 times in S2 which seemed to be leading up to something but never did, and the fact that theres 4 recap episodes in S1 already spelled some early problems). So much of the supporting cast function to just say "he turned this whole situation around...with ONE card..." i kid you not watch back every Yu//sa//ku duel I GUARANTEE you'll see someone saying hes a great duelist and serve only that purpose. ALSO THE END OF THE SHOW IS JUST MORE DRAMA?? They make him suffer for no reason other than that they can??? What purpose does his suffering at the end serve aside from just "uwu...poor baby..."???

-Re//volv//er is not a good rival. At all. He's so incredibly bland because much like Yu//sa//ku he was at his strongest characterization in S1 where he actually had some solid motivation in continuing his fathers work and being unable to accept that his dad was evil, yet most of that just flies out the window with all the collateral he's willing to inflict with the K//O//H?? All his character amounts too post S1 is "yeah i told you robots are evil and YOU didnt believe me". The most we got of him growing out of this mindset was calling A//i by his name exactly one time and nothing ever again. Also the fact that in the end we see him and his crew working for S//O//L despite the fact that they were gonna turn themselves in for their crimes just. leaves a rotten taste in my mouth. hes not a good rival at all. All he proves to me is that a good design can get anyone to like a character.

- Ho//mu//ra is...there. I literally cant say anything about him because he absolutely has the strongest motivations of the three but then the show jumps through hoops to push him to the back of the other two. He also has a bunch of early victories I do feel are undeserved (ESPECIALLY the A//oi duel that one pissed me off so much). Also the fact that the show just made him Yu//sa//kus friend immediately whereas it took Sho//ichi several months to get Yu//sa//ku to warm up to him just had me :/.

-The speed duels were a cool concept but they just became these huge cheat fests? Seriously Play//Maker uses StAccess literally every speed duel to pull out a new monster from whatever plot holes the writers need to patch up. I am not kidding. You can go back to every single speed duel Yu//sa//ku was in and youll see this. Skills just werent a good mechanic because when a protag pulls a new card its supposed to be representative of some growth/characterization but he stays the same pretty much throughout the entire show up until S2 where he wildly just switches personality. Plus the fact that Que//en could literally use a skill whenever just shows that it was cheating???

- The villains were overall lackluster. Boh//man was the best because Re//volv//er is just flat whereas A//i struck me more as an anti hero. And again: simulations are the enemy. Light//ning ran one and decided to go ham. Kog//ami ran one and decided to go ham. A//i ran one and decided to go ham. The conflicts are all the same and it just makes things happen rather than following a consistent plot thread? I will say that Boh//mans characterization of a hive mind to become perfect does strike my tastes but thats more my personal preference in villains rather than any merit he has.

- This is a bit of a personal pet peeve but I've seen some of the praise to this show about being the "darkest Y//G//O to date so therefore its good" and im just...no? Edge does not make a good show and just because they lightly focused on the tragedy in Yu//sa//kus life (and it IS lightly because its barely touched upon after mid S1) most of the stuff that happens in this show is pretty tame in comparison? The most that happened here was an attempted global hack of everyones minds from S2 and destroying the internet in S1, with a few references to the torture that happened during the Lo//st incid//ent. To compare: the previous series had this huge interdimensional war that, even if they could reverse the carding of people (which makes Den//nis' attempted suicide even more tragic), ended with an entire dimensions full of brainwashed soldier children, a dimension with huge class inequality that was still being heavily worked upon since there were canonically slaves, and a dimension that was savaged by a genocide and total global destruction. Hell, the series before that had a huge war where the arc actually did focus on the tragedys the characters faced and held consequence (even if they pulled a dbz revive everyone at the end). And as far back into the very first series there were even more graphic depictions of war and death? Idk i feel like people are overplaying the edge here just to find a way to complement this show.

Overall:

I'm...genuinely dissappointed. VR really had so many strong starting points but it all just fell apart at execution. Really the only reason I even bothered to watch it as kong as I did was because Im a longtime fan of the series and wanted to give it a chance rather than jump on whatever love/hate train the show has. Its been rated poorly on the JP side and most of the approval is a vocal minority. Just to be clear: this isnt me bashing the show, my opinions are mine and you can agree or disagree to any capacity, and even if a show isnt well written you can still find a reason to enjoy it despite the flaws.

But if Im being perfectly honest? I do not like this show. It's rushed, choppy, has no consistent or clear plot threads, most of the genuinely interesting characters are wasted for the protagonist to look better and he never really does because he ALSO has an interesting idea behind him but it never goes anywhere. It started strong but ended so poorly. Id be angry but im more dissappointed because Ive watched this show from day 1 and wanted to see the good things it has rather than focus on the negatibes but. yeah. This show really had potential and yet it just fell flat.

ENDGAME SPOILERS!!

Okay I saw Endgame last night and I need to vent... AHHHHHH!!! haha I have so many mixed emotions and I don’t even know. Also I typed this on mobile so sorry for any typos. 

So I first saw Iron Man when I was 11, and it was so cool. I grew up watching all of these movies. At first, Cap was my favorite bc he was ~cute~ and I was a young teen girl and so were all my friends. I also loved Loki for this reason haha. Then I saw Iron Man 3 and LOVED IT. I bought it on DVD as soon as it came out. Tony Stark was amazing, but also he dealt with anxiety and panic attacks? His and Pepper’s relationship was everything as well, and also his and Happy’s and Rhodey’s friendships. Tony felt real and human and relatable, and it was cool he was able to overcome so much even with all of his trauma. In AOU he just wanted to protect his team, and no one truly listened to or respected him or tried to understand him, and he ended up with more trauma and guilt. I just wanted him to have a happy ending. Then he met Peter and it brought me hope, after all the Civil War crap. Infinity War was crushing but not completely because I knew another movie was coming out, so there was still some hope. But then Endgame. Honestly... I’m still processing, but I don’t think I’m happy with it. And for more reasons than just Tony, though I’ll talk about that first. His storyline just seemed... blah. He gets back, gets to yell at Steve, and then goes and lives in seclusion with Pepper and has a kid. Yet you know that even with that life he’s still depressed and guilt-ridden. It’s how Pepper knows he won’t stop. So he does his best to help, time travels or whatever (honestly that whole part is still kinda confusing to me- it created alternate timelines, but what are the implications of that- and also for the rest of the MCU??) and then Tony comes back and it looks like they’ve succeeded. I was expecting him to notice something off about Nebula, tbh. But anyway, final battle, and we all know what happens. He makes the sacrifice play. He dies. Pepper says it’s okay, but I just can’t agree. He already made the sacrifice play in the first movie. I think it should have been Steve or someone else in this one to do it. If all Tony’s pain and trauma has been building to this- I just feel empty inside. It’s not a satisfying end. Sure, he saved the universe, but I feel like Strange literally could have like left a message saying don’t send Nebula to the past and all of that would have been avoided. It felt so pointless. They’d already won. Tony also only got to reunite with Peter for like 30 mins, which is lame, and will bring a whole lot more trauma to him. He didn’t even get to see Morgan again. Ughhh I’m just annoyed. And then Steve?? He just goes to live in the past?? The whole movie he’s been saying he doesn’t move on, and then he literally never does, he never grows from there. He doesn’t really develop at all. It’s true- he never truly moved on from the past, and so that means... he’ll just go live there??? I think a better move would be to have him grow to accept his life and try to be happy and actually move on. Or, like I said earlier, he could have realized he can’t move on and made that sacrifice play himself in order to allow others to live and move on. I think that would have been a more satisfying arc to his story. And it would show the love he actually has for Tony- to allow Tony to live with his family and show that he heard and understood what Tony said at the beginning of the movie. (Also, they never had a real conversation where they made up. It was like they kind had that “do you trust me” moment but Steve never truly apologized and I feel like we got jipped out of a good heartfelt moment between those two.) Also- the Natasha sacrifice was sad, but I’m not totally surprised by it. It feels like a very her thing to do, to save her family and Clint’s. But then after everyone got mad and had a quick moment of silence, it was kind of forgotten?? Like they could have even had a memorial or small tribute at Ton’s funeral or elsewhere but like put something in?? It feels like she was just kind of brushed aside. (Also- I didn’t like BruceNat at first but grew to be okay with it, but then it never became anything? Bruce made himself into Professor Hulk and there was no real closure or conversation between him and Natasha? So like... what. was. the. point???) Again, everything with her just wasn’t that satisfying, but it’s something I may grow to view differently. I did enjoy Clint’s arc and I actually think they did a great job with him. Probably the strongest arc of the movie, actually. The way they handled Thor kind of annoyed me. I think it’s perfectly understandable that he would end up like that. He’s lost his family and most of his kingdom, and he feels responsible. I don’t have a problem with that. I have a problem with how the movie and the characters responded to that. Judgmental looks and jokes... like I’ll be honest, I did chuckle at Rhodey’s Cheez Whiz joke, but now I regret that. Like being fat is funny, haha look at Thor, he’s out of shape! Uhh yeah he’s depressed! And Rhodey should know better, being friends with Tony, he should know how to handle anxiety and depression. Nobody was really trying to help or even talk to Thor much, they really just wanted him to help them. Like he was clearly struggling, and yet that was used as a joke... it makes me sad. And also Thor never even looked back at Loki? The convo with his mom was nice though. But that reminds me? Was Loki’s infinity war death actually real then? Bc ugh. I’d be more willing to accept him being permanently dead if it wasn’t in such a lame way. Daggers, seriously?? Loki has freakin magic, and he’s smart!! He could have duplicated himself or something, and that type of lame death is so unsatisfying. Also. Captain. Freaking. Marvel. I went to the movie in a Captain Marvel T-Shirt, hers is one of the first actual comics I read, and I loved her movie. I was soooo excited to see her in this movie and become part of the team and to have some really fun banter with everyone. But then she just... disappears for basically the whole movie and hardly speaks at all (thinking about it- I think all the female characters speaking overall was wayyy low compared to mens which is sad) and she blows up the big ship at the end and that’s basically it. She didn’t really join the team, and she could have been so helpful! You’re telling me they didn’t make a way to communicate with her and they didn’t want to include her in their time travel adventures?? She could have had a funny interaction with Nick in 2012, or stopped Nebula from getting taken in 2014, or helped out more overall, idk. But she should have been a bigger part of the team. They hyped her up so much when she was hardly in the movie at all, which was extremely disappointing. Like I feel so cheated about this. This is something I’ll probably be bitter about for a while tbh... ugh she’s a queen and deserves so much more haha. Also Okoye and Wong would have been useful assets for the time travel and yet they were hardly in the movie at all? So many underutilized characters smh.... (Also I know this would be impossible and the point of the movie is for the main Marvel characters but you’re telling me that in 5 years, there was no random like French or Chinese or any other country’s scientist that could have developed time travel or another method of reversing the snap? Or someone from one of the bazillion planets out there? Like there have to have been other smart people/aliens who went all Liam Neeson after the snap and were out for revenge and solutions and they could have come up with something in those five years. But again, I know that wouldn’t work for the movie...) I just feel that a conclusion to the first real era and characters of Marvel should be more satisfying. But that’s just me, I know there are people who are plenty happy with it, and I think that’s valid. These are just my thoughts. Also, that was a long rant but I don’t want to be completely negative. Here’s some things I did enjoy. -Clint’s arc. Again, I felt it was really strong and emotional and hit all the right notes. They did a good job with him and I’m glad he got to go back to his family. -Nebula. She’s grown so much y’all. I do wish she got the final blow on Thanos, and that she clicked the button to go to the present faster so Thanos couldn’t come after them, but other than that I thought her storyline was great. She’s awesome. -That moment with all the female characters after Peter got hurt. I cheered. Marvel has so many amazing women and it was great to see them all together. I kinda wish they were given more lines and screen time though but this moment was super cool. -Morgan was adorable and I love her. -Pepper’s understanding of Tony was also great. She knew he needed to do something if he could, especially for Peter, she’s grown so much and she loves her mans I love her. -Almost the whole 2012 time travel thing was great. Some good humor and nostalgia, it was fun, I really liked it. The Loki alternate timeline would be cool to explore and I wonder if that’s what the show will be about. -Wanda had a great moment against Thanos. -Okay, while I do think that whole final battle was ultimately pointless and could have easily been avoided, the moment when T’Challa and the Guardians and everyone came in through the portals was amazingly epic and beautiful and powerful. The audience cheered and I did too. It was a cool scene. -Tony and Nebula in the ship at the beginning was great. -If Steve isn’t gonna be Cap anymore, Sam deserves it and I’m glad they went with him. -The Ancient One, Frigga, and other’s cameos were pretty cool. I liked those moments. -Tony’s convo with Howard was great. I like that he got a little bit of closure with his dad. There’s probably more but I’ve written a lot so I need to be done haha. Let me know your thoughts!! :)

I’m about to unleash a LONG review of HTTYD3: The Hidden World RIDDLED with spoilers sooooo... (this is probably trash, it’s been several days since i started this so idk the flow and my thought process was a mess but i better post this now before i forget)

Spoiler free review: 9/10, I did cry, personally felt it was on par with HTTYD2 butttt I like it in a different way to HTTYD2... the animation? ferguckin’ gorgeous, there are fracking LEVELS to the beauty of the Hidden World (the actual place and the movie)...and Astrid’s hair??? mmmm yeah goals

OK SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT (and it looooong yall)

Ok so time to explain the 1/10:

the flow wasn’t as smooth?? as it could have been... it all made sense why things happened and where the motivations came from but...the transitions from sequence to sequence seemed...a little disjointed??? there were parts (maybe it was because i had a kid with me so I got distracted in like two parts) where I was like “oh wait something is happening?? oh wait no yeah I get it sure...so it took me second to realise how one scene got to the other (but again that might’ve been because i was distracted.)...and as a result of the slightly jarred flow, the pace seemed a little disrupted??? maybe it’s just me wanting more, but it felt like things could’ve been a bit...meatier??

also, this was a very Hiccup and Toothless film (I mean obviously, and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and I intend to discuss how great it is later), and so it sorta left little fulfilment or finality for the side characters...they all had their moments sure, and somewhat of an end, but i feel like just a minute here and there more to give them a more satisfying character ending would’ve been nice...

NOW ONTO THE 9/10, and since we’re here already, let’s talk side characters

OUR DRAGON SQUAD

Tuffnut finally got a chance to shine for more than a second of screentime, and while he remained the comedic relief he’s always been (in the films, haven’t seen the shows or short films), it was fun to see him branch out and engage with Hiccup directly...the continuous through-line of him and his beard and trying to impart wisdom on Hiccup was great... Ruffnut also got some solid screentime and she finally made her choice of man (when really she didn’t have any for reasons I will explain later) and “accepted” Fishlegs...but idk didn’t care about that, her scene when she was “captured” by Grimmel was fantastic...Kristen Wiig delivered perfectly from intonation to comedic timing, loved her work! 

Snotlout...I literally had to pause a few seconds just now after typing his name bc *sigh*...we all know Snotlout’s has mild braggadocio...he spitting words with no follow through...annnd that doesn’t much change??? He’s still trying to front and compete with Hiccup and then Eret, and that was originally his charm point...but I would’ve liked to see him find validation in himself rather than an intentional compliment from Valka...and speaking of Valka??? Snotlout just latching onto the closest woman likkkkeeee Snotlout calm down you’re like 40 years younger than her??? maybe not 40 but point is Valka is a badass dragon momma who really isn’t going your way...I just wanted Snotlout to have his moment... 

Fishlegs...yeah he was all dragon daddy carrying his baby Gronkle around and also enjoying his baby Gronkle and that big dragon’s friendship...also Ruffnut has claimed him...bc Snotlout is chasing Valka...so there’s no real option for her (she moved on from Eret and her self-confidence is kinda dope)

HOMIE ADULTS

Eret, son of Eret...I wanted more of him...he just hanging around making passing comments and being the knowledgeable other about Grimmel...and then he had a little something something implied with Gobber??? they had some scenes that had me side-eyeing hardcore... Gobber basically has the same relationship he had with Stoick, but with Hiccup...general calling him out, questioning his lack of planning...just sorta done with everything...true sassy queen...and also yeah him and Eret??? suss

Valka, my queen, my dragon wizard lord who floats through the clouds... maintains her badassery and voice of wisdom role but again steps back to make way for Hiccup and Toothless...and she encouraged Snotlout, for which I am not down...like sure support him but ugh you know he’s into you so just...just...no

MAIN CHARACTERS

Grimmel...definitely a more fleshed out villain than the Red Death and Drago...not necessarily a complex villain, but he was a lot smarter and impacted Hiccup in a way the other two didn’t...rather than using blood and fire to cut to Hiccup’s core, he lured Toothless away and forced Hiccup into a sobering reality that he and Toothless can’t always be together...that said, his “death” was kinda lame...could’ve had more of a bang than probably drowning

The Light Fury was used in an interesting way...she’d already been captured and was used as bait, not just stumbled upon in the wilderness as I had assumed from the trailers...I enjoyed how she was so clearly a wild dragon...from the way she responded to Toothless and his attempts at flirting, spurred him to tap into his true potential and abilities that Valka had alluded to in HTTYD2, to how she always trying to get him to come away into the sky and away from the humans...that said I love how she gradually warmed up to Hiccup...not in the way Toothless did, but in a way where you knew she acknowledged that Hiccup was someone who was important to Toothless, and had no desire to harm her or other dragons and the fact she was the one who saved both Toothless and Hiccup at the end was great...

Astrid, once again, is the only one (aside from Valka, and apparently Eret) with any real sense, both common and fighting...she’s kept to her roots as a skilled fighter in her own right, as opposed to the others relying heavily on their dragons...her chemistry with Hiccup continued to be adorable and flirtatious and pure and wholesome and with all the mad banter...her being so firm against being married so quickly bouncing off Hiccup’s clearly apparent willingness to tie the knot was an adorable under-plot...her character was probably the most consistent of all the characters imo...and she got a fulfilling ending...plus once again, her hair, ESPECIALLY IN THE WEDDING SCENE WAS SO FRIGGEN GORGEOUS AND BEATS ALL ANIMATED HAIR EVER

And now the boys of the hour, Hiccup and Toothless

This was a Hiccup and Toothless film. No side story about his mom and dad, no arbitrary villain just there to cause conflict. This was a film about two best friends in an increasingly complicated world realising that in order to tackle that world? They’d have to separate. It’s the same feeling as realising that the people you grew up with or the friends you made in school won’t be able to stay by your side anymore. You each have a path to take and it’s not one that can be shared...maybe run parallel at times but not the whole way. This is what our boys had to face. 

I love love LOVED that there were sooo many parallels to the first movie...ugh to have that footage so I can count and display all the moments that just brought you back to all the charm and things you fell in love with in the first movie, but with more meaning, more stories to tell...it’s like when I saw Miley Cyrus sing The Climb again many many years after the Hannah Montana movie...there was suddenly more depth to her performance...this was the vibe I got..and it was obviously intentional in bringing so many parallels to the first movie...bringing the story full circle and all that, and of course it culminated in the most perfect moment, the moment that started us all on this journey...

BUT IN THE MOTHERFRACKING REVERSE!!! this was the moment that let those tears slip...I had gone in expecting to cry, but had far and away found myself having more fun and slowly accepting that maybe...maybe I wouldn’t cry in this movie...we got to the big goodbye, and I embodied my inner Jake Peralta and was like cool cool cool no tears yet, I can make it through and then BAM! they did the reverse hand touch and tears were spilled, and my friends were just watching me with unbridled glee in the dark as I got emotional...I’d been watching with increasing suspicion as moment after moment echoed the first movie, but somehow I didn’t realise they would do the reverse hand thing...maybe it’s because the hand thing had been embedded in every moment that Hiccup and the dragon riders encountered new dragons that I did not expect he would ever have to do it to Toothless again?? but in reverse???? because he was letting GO?!?!?!?!?! god it hit me hard...

But then a downside: they started to overuse it in the prologue-y sorta bit with the kids and meeting Toothless again...liiikkkeeee we already had that major impactful, emotional moment...why overuse it??? i would’ve much rathered they just gazed at each other for a bit before Toothless suddenly gives his signature toothless grin...or he swoops in and grabs Hiccup by the pegleg into the air, freaks everyone out, only to do the upside down grin thing- that would’ve been great...I mean they had that moment with the Light Fury but I wouldn’t have minded if they used that one again...

my mind is wandering and this probs doesn’t make any sense at this point sooo: the separation thing! good they established the over-reliance on the dragons and Hiccup’s thinking he can’t do well without Toothless, and Astrid, my QUEEN, coming in and telling him what’s what...and also not marrying him until he was more certain of himself because she knew if he wasn’t ready to face the world alone, he wasn’t ready to face the world with her (at least that’s my interpretation and again idk where I’m going with this thought process)...also love that Hiccup was lowkey jealous of the Light Fury...also also glad she never got a name...keeps her wild, as she should be...

I think this was definitely an incredible ending to an incredible trilogy of films...maybe not Toy Story perfect, but it was full of heart and emotion and continuously brought you back to all the wonder of the first film. Literally, there were so many parallels to the first film it was insane...while I talked about disjointed flow earlier, this incorporation of these callbacks was so well embedded, becoming just a natural proceeding of events... 

I’m coming back to this review after several days so idk where I was going with this soooo just gonna wrap this up:

ASTRID’S WEDDING HAIR WAS GOALS. THE END.

So about that reversed apotoxin au, since they'd have some idea of what Shinichi's actual age is how differently do you think characters in the know woild treat him? Also how would people like Vermouth, Amura, or Kid treat him?

(Hi I still love this dumb AU where junior detective 7 year Conan Edogawa was the original who was then turned into a 17 year old Kudo Shinichi when he was poisoned)

I’ll go through all the people who canonically know Kudo=Conan

Yuusaku and Yukiko are, obviously, very unhappy about the situation. Conan was only supposed to with Agasa with a short period and then they come home and find he’s been targeted by a secret organization and turned into a teen?? Yukiko damn near forces Conan to leave with them but the boy refuses, saying he needs to see this through. They don’t leave him in Japan but instead stick around in disguise to watch out for their wayward 7 year old son now pretending to be 17.

Heiji went from ‘what is up with this weird teen detective’ to ‘holy fuck this is an ACTUAL CHILD’ so fast. He used to quietly complain about Shinichi but once he became in the know fell into the overprotective big brother role so fast. Conan gets annoyed by it, one of the better things about being Kudo is that people finally take his ideas/opinions seriously and here’s Heiji kind of holding him back. It takes a few cases before Heiji backs off and finds he genuinely likes Conan’s childish charm. Heiji is calmer and friendly with Kudo than he is others but truly likes and respects his junior by ten years. 

Vermouth would be a bitch, blatantly manipulating little Conan and using him to her benefit but at the same time so help ANYONE who tries to hurt him. Not only does she try and shield him from BO dealings but any time ‘Kudo Shinichi’ gets injured on a case the perp gets an welcome vistor in their hospital room (cause you know Ran has already fucking destroyed anyone who hurts sweet Kudo-kun). Initially planned to bring him in the BO, now wants him as far away as possible.

Ai went from big to small and is fascinated that Conan’s physical age caused the opposite reaction the apotoxin than it did her. She studies him a lot in order to remake the apotoxin and find a cure. Conan isn’t in as much of a rush to return to his original body but doesn’t plan on being Kudo forever. She’s pretty much his main ‘voice of reason’ in the know and her, Heiji and Agasa his main support on how to act like a normal teen. 

Akai figures it out pretty quickly, this so called high school detective is clearly just a mere child. Unlike Heiji, Akai didn’t write off Conan for his youth but saw all the potential the boy has. Actively tries to challenge and improve Conan’s critical thinking/detective skills with clear intentions to train him for the FBI. For this reason, the Edogawas and Heiji *really do not* like Akai (even when he’s Subaru) and try to keep them separate as much as possible.

Kaito switches violently between ‘aw just bc you gained a few meters you think can can challenge me’ to ‘dear GOD who lets you out of the house? there is a literal body over there please go home small child.’ So he’s either a smarmy dick to Kudo or is internally panicking over preserving the boy’s innocence. Still is always careful on heists when he shows up to make sure everything goes smoothly and the little detective can have fun chasing him around

another thing i have to get off my chest from kh3

i really felt like the main trio was.................. really off...... like they felt so strange to me? like.... kind of ooc? like i didnt get why sora seemed to have literally no character growth whatsoever?

like i felt like riku got to have all of this change, but also hes like still fine w/ leaving sora behind after doing ALL THIS SHIT? TO BE BY HIS SIDE? like i get it was to protect him and he was following yen sids orders, but it felt strange for him to have like literally no faith in sora. i think maybe like its bc sora did just kind of fuck up, but i dont understand why everyone acted like sora fucking up in DDD was a bigger deal than riku fucking up in kh1, like i guess b/c riku did so much atoning, but sora literally didn’t even like... do anything wrong, he just got really sad b/c he didn’t believe in himself because like literally all of his closest friends call him useless w/o them around so obv its easy for him to believe that?

and then everyone just like goes and like fucking tells him ya u are a piece of shit you dumb little bitch and im like WHY!?

and sora like slipping to EVERY FUCKING WORLD they go to about the fact they’re not from there. im like. hes been doing this for fucking years and this is still something that he has to have like someone to stop him from talking about. like he wasn’t like this in DDD, he like.... actually avoided the topic like b/c he fucking knew he wasn’t supposed to just tell everyone everything? like yea he slipped up b/c he was confused w/ like mickey and stuff but thats fair b/c he didn’t know fully what was going on at that point. he thought it was still part of the test.

like they just made sora probably the stupidest fucking person on earth. and riku tried to keep him out of danger all the time. then fucking? when it comes to the end of the game? he doesn’t stop him? and lets sora just fucking get himself killed? i guess he’s like “oh well lol soras lucky” but REALLY?!??! YOU JUST BROUGHT HIM BACK NOT THAT LONG AGO?!?!? AND YOU’RE JUST LIKE?!?! “there’s no stopping sora when he wants to do stuff lol” EVEN THO THEY JUST LITERALLY FUCKING SAID?!?!? EARLIER IN THE GAME?!?!? THAT RIKU IS THE ONLY PERSON SORA LISTENS TO?!?!? 

i guess it was like “oh he’s really fucking serious about kairi this time” BUT?! IT JUST FELT STUPID OK IM SORRY THE WRITING SUCKED. AND SORA HAD REVERSE GROWTH. 

kairi i wouldnt say was OOC, but i still do think it was just...... pointless to have her there when all she did was be like “ah. my love is so strong it gives a man power to be stronger” b/c thats... all the girls could fucking do. like lol thats what riku did last game anyway? like literally what riku did. like riku did everything for sora in DDD that sora and kairi did to each other in kh3 but for some reason its more romantic between two characters with no interactions and all of their interactions are just like them vaguely talking about the future in a foreshadowing kind of way and nothing else. i just really want a better life for kairi.

even aqua, the strongest fuckigng keyblade weilder in the entire fucking game..... had to like beat vanitas, just to lose to vanitas, just so ventus could wake up and save her. like fuck you kingdom hearts. aqua literally is the last character to need saving and that was cheap. and eraqus being like “terra take care of them” BITCH HE FUCKING KILLED YOU? HES LITERALLY SO IRRESPONSIBLE? MEANWHILE AQUA HAS BEEN DOING THIS SHIT FOR SO LONG? MAYBE PUT YOUR FAITH IN HER???? WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!

also like i know that kairi was like writing letters to sora when she forgot about him cause she was like trying to remember him and shit but i still think its weird how she just like finds it comforting to write in her diary but like shes talking to sora. like i think it was supposed to seem like “oh they’re really close, she feels comfortable talking to him about everything” but shes not ACTUALLY talking to him so its like. not actually showing that in their relationship. because like they’ve literally spoken to each other directly like 10 times in the entire series. because why would you like validate a girl by letting her talk about things other than a boy lol.

i love kairi for what she could have been and not what she is.

Better Call Saul Rewatch, Part 1/30: They Called Him Slippin’ Jimmy

Late last month, I decided to rewatch all of BCS and post about it, one episode at a time, every day during the 30 days leading up to the premiere. The elements of this plan that proved problematic were “post” and “one episode at a time”, but we’ve still got three weeks, so let’s do this. I’m not much of a critic; this is going to be mostly just a bundle of thoughts and observations. There will also be a key to references in the dialogue, notes on locations and the timeline, and probably a lot of gushing over beautiful frames, because there are many (see above! look at that! look at it!!!). The tag will be #bcs rewatch, for your following/blocking needs.

Uno (Season 1, Episode 1)

Written by Vince Gilligan & Peter Gould / Directed by Vince Gilligan

If the Cinnabon sequence constitutes fanservice, I don’t care, because it’s brilliant. 

BCS uses a lot of intense chiaroscuro, and it starts in the scene at Gene’s apartment. Details— the ice in the glass, the white label on the bottle of Scotch— are highlighted, the rest of the picture is subdued. There’s also a gorgeous softness to the black-and-white images. Overheard on the TV as Gene pours: a woman cheerily saying “Well, from time to time, people make mistakes, that’s okay!”

There’s a bit of Breaking Bad-style handheld camera here, which stands out because it’s mostly absent from the rest of the show. In Gene’s living room we have the first appearance of glass block windows, about which blogger Marc Valdez wrote an excellent piece (Streamline Moderne and Jimmy McGill).

“No charge is too big for me!” says Saul, on the tape that Gene is watching in hiding with his blinds closed. :(

(In this episode, Jimmy’s personae are introduced in reverse chronological order: first Gene, then Saul Goodman, then James M. McGill Esquire, then Slippin’ Jimmy.)

It’s May 13, 2002, and the courtroom scene— beautifully paced, by the way— is one of the most distinctly Vince Gilligan scenes that ever Vince Gilliganed. The stenographer loudly slurping on her Big Gulp, the attorney using her legal pad to draw a shirtless man on a unicorn, the prosecutor silently wheeling in the TV in response to Jimmy’s argument, and most of all, the horrifying punchline.

When we first encounter Jimmy— as opposed to Gene or Saul— he’s pacing in the men’s room, muttering about how people shouldn’t be punished for whatever stupid things they did when they were young. Hmm. The three defendants sit there, chastened and nervous in ill-fitting ties, as Jimmy does an excellent job of talking around what it is they actually did. No one got hurt! It wasn’t trespassing, the business was open day and night! “I don’t think they deserve to have their bright futures ruined by a momentary, minute, never-to-be-repeated lapse in judgment,” he tells the jury.

I’m jumping ahead here, but where do you think Jimmy would have ended up if the whole Chicago sunroof incident never happened? I mean, he wouldn’t have gone to Albuquerque, he wouldn’t have become a lawyer… do you think he was happy just running small-time cons and smoking weed at age c. 30?

Anyway, as soon as we see the boys in the mortuary, let alone hear the sawing, we know the case is unwinnable. Jimmy collects his meagre paycheck and stalks out to his car. The show teases us a bit by putting a white pearlescent Cadillac front and centre in the frame before panning across to a battered 1998 Suzuki Esteem (aside: that car is awfully beat up for being only four years old). I love the car, by the way. The colour and the mismatched door are perfect.

The Kettlemans, who could have stepped straight out of an episode of Fargo (as Julie Ann Emery in fact did!), introduce the theme of denial of reality. They’re the innocent victims of a misunderstanding, you see. Craig’s business practices are “beyond reproach”. The missing money is a “discrepancy”. While Craig is amenable to hiring Jimmy, Betsy won’t have it; needing a lawyer would imply guilt, after all. Bob Odenkirk plays Jimmy’s barely-hidden desperation very well. He looks literally and figuratively hungry as Craig prepares to sign.

I want to take a moment to comment on Dave Porter’s score, which helps set Better Call Saul apart from Breaking Bad. The two scores are similar enough to provide continuity, but where Breaking Bad’s music is full of mechanical sounds, drones, saws and reverberations, the music of Better Call Saul has a much warmer timbre, more traditional instrumentation and a more naturalistic sound. (The best side-by-side comparison I can think of is “Dead Freight” versus “Border Crossing”— similar themes, similar rhythm and tempo, completely different feels.) The use of flute and harp stands out in particular— you’d never hear those instruments used in the same way in an episode of Breaking Bad.

One of this episode’s most effective individual beats is Cal coming out of nowhere and hitting Jimmy’s windshield, which manages to be startling even when you know it’s coming. It’s the distraction factor: preoccupy the audience with new information (Jimmy’s card was declined) and then fling a skateboarder into the frame. Jimmy, his windshield broken (can we call that a Breaking Bad reference?), limps home.

The lighting in Jimmy’s office is just gorgeous. This show unreasonably romanticises broke lawyers living in salon backrooms. We learn that Jimmy has a host of “past due” bills— wireless, Visa, library, Diner’s Club, phone— and then get a brilliant hook in the form of a check for $26,000 (dated May 9, 2002, for those of us tracking this stuff) that he promptly rips up, scowling.

Everything about the offices of Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill is so composed, right down to the five-note elevator chime. Blue and wood panelling predominate. I’ll have more to say about colours later on.

The boardroom scene is a beautiful piece of exposition, establishing characters and relationships bit by bit without spelling anything out. Chuck is someone close to Jimmy, and Hamlin, a senior partner at HHM, is giving Chuck money. He’s paying it into Jimmy’s account because Chuck isn’t capable of going to the bank, for some reason. Chuck helped build the firm, but he doesn’t work there any more and Jimmy thinks he never will again. Hamlin, on the other hand, believes Chuck can overcome his situation, and Jimmy dodges the question when asked whether Chuck really wants to be cashed out. The words “brother” and “illness” aren’t even used.

“If Chuck can call this an extended sabbatical, so can we”, Hamlin says— it’s not just Betsy Kettleman who’s engaging in a degree of denial (though the whole situation with Hamlin and Chuck’s illness becomes much more shaded and more complicated later on).

Let’s take another look at this incredible frame:

Kim and Jimmy share a cigarette. Seven words are spoken. Thus, their relationship is sketched out. See above re: exposition. We also see Kim literally clearing up after Jimmy after he takes his frustration out on the trash can, illustrating how they respectively deal with unfairness; he lashes out, she sets things straight.

Again in darkness, Jimmy arrives at Chuck’s house, stashes his phone and keys in the mailbox, and grounds himself on a piece of metal. (The air in Albuquerque is so dry that it’s very easy to build up a static charge. I was constantly getting zapped by door handles.) Chuck, noticing Jimmy’s discontent, instinctively asks him if he’s “in trouble”, which must sting.

Good Lord the lighting is beautiful.

Chuck does have a point about what would happen if he were to cash out of HHM. Jimmy doesn’t seem to see past the initial payout. What they’re really arguing about, beyond money, is whether or not Chuck is ever going to recover from his unspecified illness. The way his voice breaks on “I’m going to get better!” is rough. 

“Your friend Kim— a promising career, over and done with.” Not to read too much into this phrasing, but it sounds almost like Chuck thinks that if Kim lost her job at HHM it would be the end of her entire career. As if the firm is only keeping her there out of charity.

“But Jimmy, wouldn’t you rather build your own identity?” Oh, Chuck, if you only knew.

The next scene plunges us into sunlight. Jimmy has tracked down the skateboarders and we get a foundational piece of his backstory: he used to make money running slip-and-fall scams on the icy sidewalks of his hometown, and now he wants the boys to take a hit from Betsy Kettleman so that he can parachute into her good graces. Jimmy, apparently, has been observing Betsy closely enough that he knows where her kids go to school, what time she leaves to pick them up, and what route she takes. I mean, okay.

The hit-and-run happens at 7th Street and Tijeras Avenue, very close to the school where Jimmy & crew film the flag in season 2, and a short distance west of the courthouse district and the Civic Plaza. This whole sequence is such a glorious comedy of errors, and it showcases perfectly Jimmy’s ability to think on his feet. I mean, it’s also true that if he’d aborted the plan when “Betsy Kettleman” had driven off, he never would have ended up hog-tied in the desert pleading for his life, but those are unknown unknowns, I suppose.

“You felonied my brother!" is possibly one of my favourite lines of the season.

Who among us saw Tuco coming? None. None of us. I gasped. It was very considerate of the show to release the next episode immediately.

Miscellaneous

While most of the addresses shown on screen in BCS are fictionalised, the address shown on Jimmy’s mail—160 Juan Tabo Boulevard NE— is the actual IRL location of the nail salon.

Items in Gene’s shoebox: the videotape, an old Band-Aid container, various photos including one of a man standing in front of a 1940s-style car, and a photo packet from a film lab in Portland, Maine

Broken windshields: 2

New Mexico Statutes violated: 3— § 30-28-2, conspiracy to commit felony fraud (Jimmy, Cal and Lars); § 66-7-202, failing to stop after an accident causing damage to a vehicle (Mrs. Salamanca); § 30-3-2, aggravated assault (Tuco)

Timeframe: May 13 to May 25, 2002 (see next post)

Music

“Address Unknown” by the Ink Spots (1939), during the Cinnabon sequence

“Milestones” by Shook (2014), as the twins attempt to scam Betsy

References

Network: a 1976 film about a news anchor who begins ranting about the state of the world during a broadcast. The character whom Jimmy quotes (”You have meddled with the primal forces of nature...!”) is a man who berates the protagonist for speaking out against his network’s corporate owners. Bryan Cranston starred in the 2017 stage adaptation.

Peter Minuit: a Dutch trader who purchased the island of Manhattan from the Lenape people for a sum equalling about $1,000 in today’s money

“Ergo, a falsis principiis proficisci”: “therefore, you proceed from false principles"

Trichinosis: a parasitic disease most often spread via undercooked pork

Starlight Express: an Andrew Lloyd Webber rock musical performed on rollerskates 

> NEXT EPISODE: MIJO

Face Recognition and Skin Extraction under a Dynamic Video- Juniper Publishers

Abstract

As society develops further, the demand for more complex information increases. With this in mind, the use of the naked eye becomes unsatisfactory, as the desired information may present itself in a manner that requires more advanced technology in order to capture it. Therefore, we need to understand how to capture and confirm what it is. For the reason, in this paper, we demonstrate first how to capture the video information, deal, and store each frame as an image then by comparing the current frame with its previous frame, finally return a histogram matching algorithm value (Bhattacharyya Coefficient) for their similarity, meanwhile determine whether it is a fast-moving object. As an object appears on a dynamic video, the first frame differential dichotomy processes the image and disregards the background. The object then appears again in a second image via the same processing while a background image is taken simultaneously. These steps allow for the corresponding regions to be analysed so that the object is identified via a collaboration of the two separate images. Afterwards, face recognition and skin pigmentation are extracted and detailed. By using Face ++ interface for face and skin recognition experiment, after some tests, in the case of a good picture resolution, the recognition rate is about 70%; the skin color extraction is one kind of relevant color extracting, when it has a well-lit background, so the effect will be better.

Keywords: Similarity; Frame differential dichotomy; Face recognition; Skin color extraction

Abbrevations: FLD: Fisher Linear Discriminator; DLA: Dynamic Link Architecture; PCA: Principal Component Analysis

Introduction

Nowadays, the human vision is more and more limited with the development trend of the world. For observation, when an object flash too fast or small in some cases, the human’s eye sometimes is unable to catch these things due to its structure and characteristics [1]. Because of these limitations of human eye, however people still want to acquire and understand these information, we need to take our eyes to observe things through the computer.

Scientists and researches utilize this study to detect, determine and track the video (static background) of dynamic objects. Video object recognition and tracking for the purposes of this aspect of computer vision research is not an alien concept, and then in recent years to identify objects and real-time tracking of the object of everyone’s attention more and more technology, and now are usually intelligent wisdom under the circumstances, for the city, it is hoped that more and better urban environment, crime rates drop, so they know we are not satisfied with the recorded data, extract information not satisfied, we want to tap the regularity of the content in the video, for example, through a person’s posture we can see this is a good man or a bad man hovering waiting crime of opportunity there that we need to face life video recognition. Do people face security control, you need a video device on the grade. This includes human face acquisition, data extraction and expression, and so on. By these methods, it is possible to recognize facial expressions more clearly [2-4]. There by understand this technology has a broad space for development and market, and thus produced for this research and understanding of the idea.

The object recognition is a very easy thing due to its real applications related on human vision, however, it is not an easy thing for a computer system [5-6]. Since the object recognition scene is complex and would change at any time, thatwill cause some difficulties for object identification and tracking by a computer. In addition, the most important thing is the recognition accuracy will drop a lot. So for this reason, this studymainly focus on understanding and exploring a dynamic video under a static background.

The main processes of this study first is through the video analysis and background information to calculate these image in video, then re-take the image of each frame by comparing their degree of acquaintance among images in video to determine whether there has been an object can be identified, and then after these return-related information, which will be marked on the feedback moment in the image frame for easy observation. If the object is identified and recognized the facecase, it will make a different kind of feedback information such as a color recognition or the number of individual appearing in the video.

For the above process described, this paper will analyze and use a number of different algorithms and methodologies to deal with the various stages in order to understand each algorithm and compare the rate and efficiency of operations, and then improve them after summarizing conclusions. The operating platform is selected on the PC online using Open CV and MATLAB caculation.

Methods and Experiments

The present trend of object recognition

Identifying object in a video is belonging to aspects of the image recognition, for the purpose, it needs to experience three development stages: character recognition, digital image processing and recognition, object recognition. Text recognition began to be studied from 1950, and became more and more strong after the digital image storage capacity promoted, it has a convenience and a huge advantage to usbut is easy to distort, so people began to study the digital image processing and recognition methodologies to tackle it. The main object recognition refers to the three-dimensional world of objects and the environment perception and understanding, it is an advanced computer vision scope [7]. In the image recognition mode, there are three kind of development process ways to have been identified: statistical pattern recognition, structural pattern recognition, fuzzy pattern recognition [8].

In the past ten years,the objectrecognition in video has been the study core for many researchers. Up to nowdevelopment, there is indeed a great achievement, such as domestic face ++ and HW Cloud for the study of face recognition, and there are some domestic companies for the image recognition in the text and the image recognition for studying bank card numbers and other identification strings, even the network has a lot of relevant information.

It means that the image recognition technology at home and abroad is growing fast, however, for object recognition in video, this research is not very mature, because most of the studies are not very complex at specific scene collection and analysis, and do some non-specific or random scene still existing a certain degree of difficulty, that is, an adaptive performance is poor, if the target image has a strong noise, or a larger image defects, it will has usually no desired results [9- 11]

Video deal & image similarity

When identifying objects in video, we first need to deal with the video, the video needs to be converted to the corresponding frame picture output which can be learned by image processing and recognition.When one image in video is converted into each frame, because the object may not always be necessarily to appear in the video, when detecting whether it is an object, many frames without the object appearing will be also included in the detected queue, for example, if a period of 20 s video only has 1swith an object appearing, then this will be the case many unnecessary image framesare detected, and thus will have a longer run hours and be inefficient. And we need to understand how to filter out these unwanted image frames. To solve the above problem, in this research,we comparetheir acquaintance between theseimage frame to filter out some useless image frame.

Image similarity algorithm introduction

Histogram matching

Histogram matching must first be a gray-scale, then transfer it into the desired histogram. It has the following three steps: 1) the histogram of original image is equalized of gray; 2) form the desiredhistogram; 3) reverse the first step conversion [12-14] .

When comparing the acquaintancedegree uses thehistogram matching, it usually calculates Bhattacharyya distance and Bhattacharyya coefficient,where the pasteurized factor is used to measure two discrete probability distribution. The pasteurized factor is the amount of overlap of two statistical samples’ myopia calculation [15-16]. Why it is used for the processing image similarity,because its effect on the image acquaintance degree is the best. These formulasare the followingEquation (1) and (2). Bhattacharyya distance:

where q and p refer to the two discrete probability distribution in the number domain, BC refers to the pasteurized factor, Bhattacharyya coefficient as follows：

where a and b are for the two samples, n is the number of sub-blocks, ai and bi are the a and b number in section i.

We start histogram based matching approach to compare their image acquaintance by the above description. Theimage must be first gray-scale processing, here we use MATLAB fuction to transform as the following statement: I = rgb2gray (M), where M is theinput image andI is the grayscale image referredto M. Then use the statement [Count, x] = imhist (I) to read the grayscale image histogram information, where Count is the histogram data of vector grayscale image and x is the corresponding color vectorrespectively, then go through the calculation of distance and coefficientformulas. Another method instead of MATLAB for grayscale images are as follows: For grayscale images, the image is actually through the weighted average of RGB three components to acquire the heaviest gray value as the following standard formula: gray = 0.11B + 0.59G + 0.3R, where is just a one kind of weight from the perspective of human physiology. As Figure 1(a)-(b) show the original image, then got the results as shown in Figure 2 observation.

As shown in these results, the hitis their respective histogram data referringthe pasteurized factor as the similarity of the two images. But the method is indeed obvious weak point, for example,one picture with above white color and below black color compared with one picture with aboveblack color and below white color, their similarity is 100, hit = 1.00, this is an apparent error.

Sift Transform Algorithm

Sift is also known as scale-invariant feature transform, which was developed by [9], and made further advance in 2004; its application includes object recognition, robot map perception and navigation, image stitching, 3D modeling, gesture recognition, video tracking and motion match; this algorithm has been patent and ownedby the University of British Columbia.Sift algorithm consists of four steps:  

a) detection of the extreme value in scale space;

b) use the neighborhood pixel at key points for the distribution parameters of gradient direction as each critical point in the specified direction, so that the operators pose rotational invariances;

c) generate the sift feature vector and rotate the axis of feature point to ensure its rotational invariance;

d) do the feature matching [17].

Perceptual hash algorithm

This is a kind of method that it will generate a ‘fingerprint’ string after each image is processed, and then make a comparison with it, if it is closer to the result, it would has much more similarity. Usually the first step of the algorithm is for image size shrinking to reduce the differences caused by the different image scaleand then simplifies color to gray image and compares each gray pixel again after calculating the average of gray value, If the mean greater is than or equal to the average, denoted by 1, others by 0.5, more thanassemblesas the above results, it is a so-called image ‘fingerprint’, finally followsup the same rule for the different images. The advantage for this method is that no matter how you deal with any image, change its size or color, its ‘fingerprint’ will not change.

With the above three algorithms, the latter two algorithms havea more powerful calculation and higher accuracy for these high complexity image than the first algorithm, howeverour study does not fix on the high image acquaintance, andwe just want to know whether there is an object in the video on the line, so that this study uses and implements a simple histogram matching algorithm.

Video background extraction

There are lots methodologies for video background extraction [18], for example, the time average, the multiframe average, the codebook method [19], and the Gaussian mixture background model method [20]. Here we use to interframe difference method to realize it, which uses to images adding plus meaning to deal the video background extraction. Assuming the taken all image in frames are designated picture (N), where N refers to the N-th frame of video, specific implementation as follows:

For N=1：NumberofFrames

Backg=Backg+picture(N)

End

Backg=Backg/NumberofFrames

But when we have some real-time requirements for the background processing, then do as follows：

For N=1：mov.NumberofFrames

If（N<=NumberofFrames）

Backg=Backg+picture(N)

Else

Backg=Backg+picture(N)-picture(N-NumberofFrames)

End

End

Backg=Backg/NumberofFrames

The video background extractions can update real-time through the manner described above.

Mark motion objects

The object recognition is carried out by determining the differences between two images to confirm the object; it can be performed as follows:

C=picture（N）-Backg；

Here it is described by two images as shown in Figure 3 & 4, and the result is shown in Figure 5. The image will be binarized after image subtraction, which uses iterative method based on the approximation value, first find the maximum and minimum gray value recorded as Rmax and Rmin, then make the threshold T = (Rmax+ Rmin) 2 , divide it into two groups R1 and R2 based on the mean gray value after the threshold value, then obtain two average gray value of μ1 and μ2, finally obtain the new threshold value T = (μ1+μ 2) 2 . Furthermore, let f (x, y) is a function of the input gray-scale image, and g (x, y) is a binary image output as follows:

Figure 6 shows the display after the manner described above, then extract the inside information from the image binarized result and feed back to the picture (N).

Mark the recognized objects

By the manner described above, we have successfully found the objects in video meantime label them, so now we want to identify items. Because each object has its own characteristics, even the same thing for basic terms that have different forms, for this reason, we will mainly fix the recognized object marks for face recognition.

Face Recognition

The researchers have a lot of attention for face recognition in the recent studies. Because the recognition from the image of a person’s face is a much challenged project, the face size, orientation and posture in a image have different changes; even also some special cases, such as too bright and object occlusion cases; the above situations will affect the recognition efficiency. Here we introduce the definition of face recognition: it is to determine the location size and posture of all face in the input image if present; face recognition is a key technology of face information processing in recent years, and it has become a research subject within the field of pattern recognition and computer vision [14].

Principal components analysis

Principal Component Analysis(PCA) is for the optimal orthogonal transformation in image compression, [15-16] proposed the first PCA for face recognition application based on the Eigen face concept using the main component vector to reshape human face. The principle is based on the optimal orthogonal variation to expand network recursive manner to achieve its recognition. For this mode, it is assumed there are X categories in face gallery, and each category has Y face training images. Each image will be treated as a sample Pij (the jth people image in the ith category), where 1≤i≤X, 1≤j≤Y, and image is N * N, first the image icon will be vectorized into N2 * 1, then the average training vector in X face image is as follows:

uses Pij-μ to acquire the mean difference vector eij, after that forms a N2 * XY dimension matrix as follows:

extract the eigenvalues and orthonormal eigenvectors of total scatter matrix AAT through this matrix, denoted by B = AAT, then introduce R = ATA, and find out the corresponding eigenvalues λi and eigenvectors vi, so can obtain the feature vector:

Finally sort out i λ , and select the corresponding eigenvector subspace according to requirement, thus complete the dimensionality reduction and feature extraction purposes [16], PCA uses the described above mathematics for face recognition. However, this approach has some shortcomings, such as light and size, etc., which will degrade its recognition rate.

Neural networks face recognition mode

Artificial neural network is a set of brain science, neural psychology and information science crossover studies, its algorithm is a mathematical model to simulate the human brain systems and applications; it is a lot number of processing units support each other with non-linear, adaptive information processing system [12-13]. This method can be for a lowresolution face image, partial autocorrelation function, and partial second-order matrix. The main advantages for this method are

a) simulate a person’s thinking in image;

b) have a massively parallel and collaboration processing power;

c) strong self-learning ability and adaptability;

d) has a good fault tolerance;

e) have a non-linear mapping.

Elastic image matching face recognition

Elastic graph matching method is based on dynamic link architecture (DLA) method, which presents the face with a trellis sparse diagram, nodes in image use the Gabor wavelet of image position to obtain the feature vector mark called the jet, and the image margin is tagged with the distant vector. Its matching process flowchart is shown in Figure 7. Wavelet analysis is characterized by a time-frequency analysis, when the point in space at different frequencies in response to the surrounding area constitutes the point feature string, the high-frequency portion will correspond to the small details within the scope, and the low frequency part of the point will be a wide range around the scope. The wavelet transform elastic image matching algorithm takes into account both the face local detail and retains its spatial distribution, therefore, Gabor function is often used as a wavelet base function [9].

The Gabor transform is generated by an analog of the human visual system. The retinal imaging can be decomposed into a set of filter images by simulating the human visual system; each image can be decomposed to reflect these intensity changes in frequency and direction within the local area. The texture features can be obtained by a set of multi-channel Gabor filters, which actually is to design Gabor transforms, where fisher linear discriminator (FLD) refers to an improved feature face. Although this method can tolerate a certain degree of change in posture, facial expression and lighting, etc., but due to the high complexity of time and space, it is difficult to meet the requirements of large-scale real-time face recognition.

Face recognition method summary

At moment, there are many different algorithms for face recognition, not only just above described, for example, the Hidden Markov model, support vector machine (SVM) for face recognition [6], the line segment of Hausdorff distance for face recognition and human face recognition methods are based on skin color. Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages, however the present study, we tend to mix a variety of methods.

Experiment Tests

Main process

Here the main study is to implement whole operation for some complicated tests like multi-faces recognition and multiskin color extraction under a video flow, the main process flowchart is shown in Figure 8. After each experiment, we will explore their effects.

Video processing

Because this test video has no fast-speed objects, we use second speed rate for image processing in video and intercept their background by a few frames in a second. Now the video in seconds is intercepted, then their background is updated for image display in real time. In this research, the video is mainly static background, so we can directly use the background of this scene as the background, and it is updated in one second time in several frames of video as it relates to the quality of the background image and the entire experimental results. Table 1 shows the image similarity rate for the filtered image collection after the moving object is identified.

The next recognition test is by the face ++ interface, we found that some time they still cannot be identified from these results and thus it is needed to do more processing. When it is confirmed in the previous image, in the frontal face appearing, and then if no face appears again through the process at the current image, then confirms it is in the different frame and identifies it. Furthermore, when the received human face number of Jason data from the face++ interface does not return 0, then put this frame as the current output. Therefore, we make a further process based on the modified process as Figure 9 shown and the processed output is shown in Figure 10 (a). When these faces are recognized by the above-described manner, the skin color region extraction is followed up and the results are shown in Figure 10 (b). Because the background color and the body color are somewhat similar, so some part of the background sometime will be also extracted.

The experimental tests show a more successful set of results. In general, the method described above is for the PC base, it can be seen in the study there is still some effect, although fast object recognition marked area is sometimes not very obvious and face recognition in many people’s situation cannot be fully recognized and skin color is not very complete extracted. The main reason is that the software process speed cannot match with the hardware’s.

Conclusion

In the study, we demonstrated some characteristics of the image operations in a video through some simple algorithms and methods and made some improvement such as a sift transform algorithm and perceptual hashing algorithm to fulfill. The face recognition rate can be promoted by increasing the image resolution, and then takes into account the speed, so the video resolution is set on 640 × 360. We can extract more background in frames by summing and averaging them, then the effect is better. For recognizing object in video, we try a running marked in real time, and face recognition and skin color extraction have been realized by extracting a video image to observe their effect and implemented some algorithms, the experimental tests show a more successful set of results.

Acknowledgement

This research was supported by HuaQiao University, Fujian, P.R. China under the HuaQiao Scientific Research Foundation for Talents plan.

Authors’ Contribution

First demonstrate how to capture the video information, deal, and store each frame as a image then by comparing the current frame with its previous frame, and then analyze the object corresponding region marks on images then determine what the object is and meanwhile do the face recognition and color skin extraction.

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