#but instead of reading fun and insightful meta of this arc
Text
on my hands and knees, BEGGING the fandom to stop saying Qui-Gon abandoned Obi-Wan on Melida/Daan.
Look, if you haven't read the book, THIS is how the confrontation actually plays out:
I feel like even without the added context of the entire book, it's pretty clear that Qui-Gon is giving him a CHOICE, one that Obi-Wan seems pretty well-informed about what it means and the consequences for him.
But like, fine. Without context, it might seem that Qui-Gon isn't being fair because all Obi-Wan wants to do is help these people. I have two arguments against though, 1) other options as to how to help these people are brought up during the narrative, ones more in-line with how the Jedi operate, and 2) Obi-Wan's predominant reason for wanting to stay is not because he wants to help.
This is one of the very first options we encounter as to how this issue could be resolved, or at least helped:
This is shortly after they first meet the Young and comes from Cerasi herself, one of the leaders of the group. Asking for more Jedi support or at least broadcasting the situation so that maybe other organizations within the galaxy can help. Which is well-within their means as Jedi to at least try and get more support, and doesn't go against their roles as diplomats and peace keepers. (Obi-Wan, of course, doesn't even bother trying this route, nor does he bring up this possibility with Qui-Gon so we could at least see it being debated and how viable it would be.)
And of course there IS a more hands-on approach that they could take:
Qui-Gon himself tries to come up with a more diplomatic and objective way to broker peace. And the mission was already completed by the way. They were only supposed to rescue Tahl and MAYBE broker peace, but rescuing the other Jedi was the priority. Yoda even tells him before this moment to leave the planet with Obi-Wan as soon as possible because the situation is just too volatile, and he almost lost one Jedi in an effort to help. Qui-Gon is only doing this because he knows how important this has become for Obi-Wan. (And if anyone tries to tell me Qui-Gon doesn't love Obi-Wan, imma start swinging)
It doesn't work, of course. Everyone living on this planet has been steeped in so much anger, hatred, and revenge, that no side, not even the Young are actually willing to talk and really reach for peace. For all that Cerasi and Nield say they want Jedi support, they don't. Not really. Qui-Gon gets stonewalled by them. Both of them mock Obi-Wan whenever he listens to Qui-Gon. What they actually want is for the Jedi to join their army and help them make the Elders listen to them. This is why Yoda wants them to get the hell outta dodge and Qui-Gon feels uneasy and like they can't actually help here. No one actually wants to listen to reason, and the Jedi are not supposed to be soldiers fighting in wars. It gets incredibly obvious in the next book, especially on Nield's end that he wants revenge (a young little warmonger, his parents would be so proud), but honestly? I think we can see it even in this book.
Hey, did you guys know there's a bunch of kids living away from this war. Like, thousands of them, actually. They literally do not have to fight. Nield could take his group of kids (taking the factory working and conscripted kids with him) and fuck off and let the Elders kill each other, and only this generation would be left. They could ask for resources and protection for their new settlement from the Jedi or galaxy instead of manpower to back up their cause and help fight in a war. If Nield ACTUALLY cared about stopping the war and wasn't out for revenge, this would probably be the best choice.
But this possibility never gets brought up, ever, because Nield hates the Elders and wants "justice", Obi-Wan is too inexperienced to realize this is an option, and no one tells Qui-Gon until it's already too late and the Young have declared war on the Elders if they don’t agree to a cease-fire.
All of these options are a more Jedi way of handling the situation in my opinion. Unbiased and working towards actual peace and the end of violence instead of perpetuating it.
And as much as I love Obi-Wan and I know his heart is in the right place, Obi-Wan doesn't care about that, about doing things the Jedi way. Obi-Wan is very clearly taking a specific side in this conflict. I'm not going to put up all the screenshots I took because there are already a lot in this post (and there are. so many more i could put up), but I have quite a few where it's explicit that Obi-Wan is not taking the side of the Young because it's the objectively correct thing to do, but because he likes them. He feels a sense of community with them. He wants to help them, not as a Jedi but as a friend. He is getting involved. Attached.
And, look, I'm not here to argue the morality of that choice. Choosing a different way of life isn't a failure or flaw. Helping your friends in whatever way you can is good. Wanting to stop war and reach for peace is right. There's probably a bunch of people who think Obi-Wan is making the right choice here, and while I might disagree, I can certainly see where they're coming from. I just feel like there's a huge misconception of what actually happened on this planet and what Qui-Gon’s ultimatum is actually about.
Obi-Wan has snuck out time and again to help the Young.
Obi-Wan has used their starfighter, their ONLY transport off the planet, to help the Young on a mission that could very well have shot down the ship. They could have ended up stranded on this planet and might have lead to Tahl's, the rescued Jedi's, death.
Obi-Wan has not been acting like a Jedi. Qui-Gon knows this. Obi-Wan knows this. And in that moment, Qui-Gon is telling him "helping and supporting the Young in such a personal and attached manner is not the way of the Jedi. Do you want to continue on this path?"
And Obi-Wan makes his choice.
(And if anyone tries to argue that Qui-Gon should have brought Obi-Wan with him anyway instead of letting him stay on a war-torn planet, I'm going to start screaming. Yeah, no shit. In the real world, that's probably how he should have reacted.
But this isn't the real world. It's a kid's book. Where kids are the main characters and they go into dangerous situations. So the children reading can see themselves in them and learn how to be brave. How to navigate difficult situations. To learn it's okay to choose a path and maybe realize at some point it isn't what you wanted at all.)
#meta#jedi apprentice#if i see one more rancid take on Qui-Gon apparently abandoning Obi-Wan im going to start biting#and don't even get me STARTED on the Young#goddamn cult. the emotional manipulation they pull on obi-wan is insane#FUCK nield all my homies hate nield#''almost threw hands with a 13 year old''#the WORST part is that if fandom didn't have such awful takes on this arc#it would be my favorite i think#i LOVE the moral complexities going on here#i LOVE the destruction of propaganda and how insidious it is#it so beautifully illustrates the whole ''you are not immune to propaganda'' meme#but instead of reading fun and insightful meta of this arc#and what it meant for the relationship between Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan#im dealing with this shit#smh#i was going to add id to these screenshots just in case but it's like. 5 am#this is the second night in the row i've stayed up this late to write this post#i'll do it tomorrow
11 notes
·
View notes
Note
I just wanna say thank you for writing the recently analysis meta for Garou being an empath, that's an excellent explanation and I always enjoyed your essay about OPM or MP100 characters!
Tbh I think the OP's post is meant to be a lighthearted one, therefore there's no intention to slander Garou's characterization at all, I assure you. On the other hand, I also like your take on Garou about the matter, the way he understands Tareo and want to help him going through it.
My dumbass brain take is, Garou has clearly shown empathy for others and totally has capacity for emotional intelligence, he just didn't know how to say it right. Knowing his social skill beforehand is pretty much non-existent, and Garou also doesn't have anyone else to opened up about himself (no friends, his mentor basically doesn't want to listen to him, everyone was kinda afraid of him, Garou himself has trust issue towards others since the bullying happened, etc). He gets difficulty on how to deliver what he actually means. Thus Garou said some dumb things instead, even though he has well-intentions. Someone please give him more friends to interact with! :""(
Anyways, thanks alot for giving more of your insight about Garou, love it! ❤
Oh! :’) Ah, thank you anon! And no worries, everything was clarified in the responses of that post, so it’s all good~
But exactly, from such circumstances of his origins, here Garou’s always felt that much, both from witnessing and experiencing injustice himself, but he’s just...never allowed himself or gained/practiced the tools needed to properly process his anger. Which compels him to hastily react (even acting on others’, like Tareo’s, behalf) and often leads him down to make some very rash (dumb) decisions without thinking things thru (cause hey he’s young). And his ability to honestly face his feelings, or even openly express himself to others is well...oop, quite inexperienced. :’D He’s basically as ‘eloquent’ as Saitama is when it comes to explaining himself and articulating his thoughts/feelings well, aha. But even so, he still can’t help but feel (cause it’s part of who he is), even when his capacity to care that much upsets him. So his inner conflict (and part of his appeal on his journey to find/accept himself) is that he’s not the heartless ‘monster’ he believes himself to be, to the point of denying his true nature and forcing himself to perform as someone he’s not. :’) Cause as we see, in those other telling moments, his true self still shines through~
---
Anyway, witnessing and lightly teasing all his antics is fun, because he’s a silly dork yes, but (and this is addressing a separate, but general fandom observation I’ve seen over time) it’s another story when I see genuine character hatred for him over on reddit for ex (usually from incomplete readings of the story or misinformation about him, from people wanting him to die or hoping Saitama kills him at the end of MA arc in extreme yikes cases)...because then I honestly can’t tell anymore if some of the fandom’s common takes & ‘jokes’ about Garou are made thru fond endearment (simply poking fun), or are just veiled excuses for continued character bashing. o.o Blurring the lines and confusing me even more when I see fellow Garou fans going along with it like it’s accepted, or unknowingly(?) spreading it further like nothing’s amiss. Like...whoa wait, guys??? I thought we already knew and trusted his character more than this? D:
For example, most of the time things are pretty chill so it’s no big deal, but sometimes I see this strange trend of mean spirited & fatalistic ‘humor’ towards him even in the teen squad posts for instance, where Garou’s often demeaned or used as the butt-end of a joke. Making bullying ‘jokes’ at his expense in ways that are....truly unfunny (especially when considering his past, it comes off either tone deaf or unsettling in poor taste). Worst case, it makes me resent those fanon characters who’re portrayed perpetuating the same cycle that got Garou so upset in the first place. D: (Which is another ❌ for me when it’s Genos who’s used in this role. ;o; So I doubly don’t like it when the Garou-bashing ‘jokes’ have the adverse effect of making me dislike Genos too, noo!) So you see? :’) It’s sometimes hard to tell what’s up or considered ‘funny’ anymore, when it feels like the circumstances that made and shunned Garou in the first place, are ironically circling back around towards him again, but playing out in real-time (which I’ve become privy to notice, but I’m not sure if other fans are aware yet). Overall, when it comes down to a case-by-case basis of what content to look for, I think Tareo canonically summarizes that mindful feeling best:
#opm#garou#Anonymous#replies#long post#uwaah! i may as well unload the general observations i've seen over time (even on reddit)#cause then it concerns me when i see garou fans playing along like there's nothing wrong (like is -this- how the fandom truly sees him?)#confusing me or putting me out when the 'jokes' towards him fall flat or border on perpetuating the cycle that upset him in the first place#...when things stop being funny but mean then it's like...oh no what's happening here#(but again this is NOT directed at any specific post...just a trend i've felt for a while)#anyway ever since wc 133 and seeing the japanese fandom's empathetic response to him...#it feels like i've become receptive towards spotting this trend...but i don't know if other fans have noticed or felt the same so aaa :'D
25 notes
·
View notes
Photo
1t's Never 0ver
Hot take: Brain is the first Reiwa Rider. Still, for the first Reiwa series, Kamen Rider Zero-One was a great start. I've seen a surprising amount of kids shows tackle the idea of treating robots like people, and this show handles it pretty decently.
The Good: Aruto was surprisingly funny and competent. I was optimistic when they presented him as an unfunny comedian turned CEO in the preview material, but I'm impressed by how well he turned out, with full credit to the actor for nailing most of his deliveries. One of my big problems with both Build and Zi-O was that I couldn't always get behind the characters, but Aruto was definitely a step up, being the first Rider since Drive to really grab me.
Considering we just came off Zi-O, with a large cast of stoic characters, it's amazing how much Izu, the emotionless robot, pulled it off better. (Actually, credit to all the Humagear actors for outstanding mono-emotional performances. They all did very well.) I think a big part of that was the fact that they allowed her to make jokes and do silly things with a straight face, instead of being purely dour. And it was an excellent payoff, seeing her slow progression from a very basic personality to a much more lively one as the series progressed.
I really liked Fuwa, and his was another character that underwent several shifts during the run of the story, those the moments where he started turning are more evident than Izu's (but he's also not portrayed as very bright, so that makes sense). His entire arc is him overcoming his hatred for Humagears, eventually reaching the point where he wants to help them, with the final expression of this being him declaring his will to carry on Naki's dream and using his Progrise Key to transform. And he was just pretty fun, being the serious character who likes bad jokes, and often ends up the butt of them himself.
Yua is a troublesome character. There was a lot of untapped potential there that I feel wasn't reached, but there was some good, too. Her arc was seeing Humagear as people rather than tools, which isn't as well executed as Izu or Fuwa as she took a back seat for about two show arcs, but is ultimately satisfying. Most of her development in this department seems to comes from her interactions with Izu, but her experiences during the Fire Fighter training were also a big push. And her resignation was amazing. I feel most of her issues could have been solved if they didn’t push her so hard in promotional material at the beginning.
I disliked Gai for most of this show, which I think was the point. He was a total butt for the majority of the runtime, but it's also amazing how quickly I 180'd on him after his dog showed up. He was very functional, and I wasn't really interested in him as a character until, again, Dog Thouser showed up.
Jin was definitely the villain I had the most investment in throughout the show, even if that started waning near the end when he was just sitting around and letting Horobi do whatever he wanted. Still, he was very similar to Izu, being a Humagear that we see slowly obtain his own singularity and ideals, but taken from a different perspective. He was also a lot of fun. I've found my favorite characters are usually the ones with positive attitudes and outlooks, even if he was aiming for mankind's extinction.
I know a lot of people like Horobi, but it took me a while to warm up to him, and even then I wasn't the biggest fan until his changes in the final episodes. When Gai replaced him as the main antagonist of the series, I wasn't sad to see him go, but I am glad he eventually came back because they did good things with him. It's also cool how he sparks Jin's first major development with his death, and Jin sparks his final changes with his own.
I found myself very invested in the story, especially since this series was very good at not letting a status quo settle for very long. As soon as the Aruto VS A.I.M.S dynamic was set up, he reveals himself to them. As soon as Metsuboujinrai.Net is defeated, Gai shows up. After 4 "nice" contests between humans and Humagear where the humans learn something through the competition, we get one where the villains win and Aruto is ousted as CEO. And I think that was to the show's benefit. A lot of Rider shows will wait half the show before a shakeup, but Zero-One was constantly keeping the viewer interested with new story lines and revelations.
Oh, and every belt chant was amazing.
The Bad: Going in the same order, Yua had a lot of unused potential. I remember how much hype her character had out the gate, being the first female Rider to start a series. She even got a form change, which is a first. However, she only got one form change, and as I mentioned when discussing LupinRanger and Ryusoulger, power-ups in Tokusatsu shows are often used as physical representations of a character's growth. Yua's second form showed up before episode 10. Yes, she also had Fighting Jackal later in the show, but that was a monster form; it's made to represent her fully giving in to Gai’s will, which is why we don't see it after she quits ZAIA. I would have loved if she had used Fighting Jackal in the ShotRiser and had gotten a new form as a representation of her moving on from those painful memories, or forgiving Gai. It sucks, because we got a ton of short-use Riders and forms in this series, so you'd think they could swing it. Just in the last few episodes, we got Arc-One, Arc-Scorpion, Vulcan Japanese Wolf, and Eden. At this point, I think Toei's just not sure what to do with a female Rider. At least they treated her better than Poppy and Nico.
I really didn't like Gai. And I know that's the point, but there's a difference between there being a character you're supposed to hate for the whole show and a character you're supposed to come around on. You can have a despicable character become a good guy, but there has to be something about them that makes you want them to become one in the first place, otherwise it's just jarring. Dan Kuroto is a great example of this. He was also a despicable character, but he had this humorous over-the-top attitude to him that made him fun to watch, and you want him to join the main cast to see how that persona bounces off everyone else. Gai didn't have anything like that; he was just dislikable. If they had hinted at all to his past, it would have worked, but they waited until the episode where he face turns to do it. And that just doesn't work.
This is also a personal nitpick, but when they were teasing stuff for the finalé, I thought Aruto was going to use Rocking Hopper, not Realizing Hopper. Thematically, that would have been awesome, but I'm ok with what we got.
There were also quite a few episodic plots I'd wished they'd covered in regards to the Humagears. We covered quite a broad range of topics with them, but there were a few big things they missed. One of them is about Humagear choosing new careers. It's cool that Humagear have dreams, but they're all in regard to their predisposed profession. The manga assistant wants to write a manga, the coaches want to teach the best athletes, etc. But no one wants to change jobs. We don't get a farmer Humagear that suddenly wants to become an artist or anything, and I would have liked to see how Aruto would handle that. And what about love? It was briefly brought up, but what happens when a Humagear falls in love with a human? Or when two Humagear fall in love? How did they have sentient robots and not talk about love!?
I also can't help but wonder what the show would have been like if we hadn't lost 4 episodes due to current events. I have a feeling we might have had a Gaim Finalé situation with Eden and that's why they had the costume on hand. Who knows; maybe we'll get some interviews down the road that will give us some insight.
And lastly, spoilers, I want top talk about the death of Izu, because that's the one thing I see the most that people disliked about the ending. It's not that she died at all, because we've had that before with characters like Ankh, but because Aruto created a new, identical Izu, with the same name, and proclaimed he was going to retrain her.
I had to think on this for quite a while, but I'm ok with this. Don't get me wrong, I would have preferred an ending where Izu was restored like Jin, or where Horobi becomes Aruto's new assistant, but the thing is this was foreshadowed. In the early episodes, every time Metsubojinrai.Net corrupts a Humagear, and Aruto or Fuwa or Yua has to destroy it, what happens? The owner gets a new Humagear of the same model and retrains it. Aruto is following his company’s policy. And yes, it’s painful. You can see him well up as he’s reminded of the first Izu, but he smiles and moves forward.
There is a form of Japanese pottery called kintsukuroi. In it, you take a piece of broken pottery, and along the cracks you piece everything back together with gold. It's not an easy process, it takes time, and the cracks are still there, but the end result is far more beautiful that what you started with. Aruto is always going to remember the first Izu, and living with the second Izu is going to be painful, but there’s the potential for this new relationship to be even greater than the one he started with. Or at least that’s me reading too much into it.
The Next: (At the time of writing this,) Saber premieres this weekend. Love the designs, as I'm big on the knight motif. I think the belt gimmick is cool, and might get it if they reveal some interesting power-up books. I think a story about story is very fun, very meta, could be great, but could also go horribly wrong if not given to the right writer. We'll have to see. After how well Zero-One was handled, I'm excited to see how the rest of Reiwa will go. They probably won't all be winners, but I enjoyed most of Neo Heisei, with only the last few entries being bad-to-ok in my book, so here's to hoping we'll get a repeat of that trend, without repeating their themes.
Overall, this was a good season. Not my favorite, but certainly in the upper half of the show's library. Looking forward to the movie, whenever that happens. Looking forward to Saber, too.
"A Rider Kick to the sky turns to take off toward a dream!"
7 notes
·
View notes
Note
hi! 6 and 20 pleaaaase
6. What character do you have the most fun writing?
Lately, I have had a lot of fun writing Cho Beom-pal, my favourite loser from Kingdom, a korean show about a zombie epidemic in the early Joseon era. What is fun about writing (about) him is that he serves as a comic relief in the show : he’s a coward, a whiner but he means well and he’s entirely devoted to one of the woman of the group he’s in, the badass Seo-bi. She’ just kind of annoyed at him because he’s kind of stupid and useless at times but she saves his ass at least three times because if not her, who will? He’s the kind of character when you see him and you’re “Gosh, you’re so fucking stupid... I love you.”
But what I also take a lot of fun in with him is that he has a beautiful character arc in the show (the best in the show imo) and he’s not just a priviledged coward. His whole arc, to me, is about taking his destiny into his own hands (it’s kind of a common theme with different characters) and learns to do what is right instead of what is expected of him. I could go on and on and go more in depth in my analysis but this character arc allows me to use the different layers he has to play with it and give him more depth, expand this depth we see in season 2. In fanfics, he is sometimes reduced to his role of the comic relief (and he IS, don’t get me wrong) but kind of forget his whole arc and it’s a shame because working on his depth is what is the most fun imo. Because comedy is serious business. And a comedic character within a heavy drama is even more serious business. And it just hits that much harder when you see he’s not just... the stupid coward himbo he is. That he also has trauma, and desires and disapointments and a lot of heart.
20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)
I have re-read don’t grow tired of me (in the dark come find me) recently, thanks to @blindbatalex and his review (I will forever be grateful). And I’m still damn proud of it. It has a bit of everything. This fic began is a drabble project with the word prompt “death”. And as I was reading Robbie Fowler’s autobiography, I found an article about his last pro experience in Thailand which was very insightful and gave me the inspiration to use death as a metaphorical one to compare it with the retirement of a professional football player.
I went for a couple biblical metaphors because of Robbie’s nickname (God) which is too tempting not to use and play with. There is also this contrast about Robbie’s destructive habits, trapping himself into this sense of dread and desperation, too afraid to talk to his best friend and he’s not sure why exactly.
There’s also this progression with the beginning, a bit out of the story and then halfway through the fic there is the summary, the very first piece of dialogue I had, the “What does it feel like ? Retiring.” “Dying.” And then by the end this “death” finally happens and slowly the narration takes a distance from the story, there are less details as if the camera is panning out of the scene and slowly the characters are just silhouettes, etc.
I just really like this fic and, without giving myself too much credit, I truly think it is underrated (but I guess it’s because it’s so niche) and needs more love!!
6 notes
·
View notes
Text
you look pretty, too.
first off: spider-man: far from home is a lot of fun. much like the end of homecoming, it left me feeling warm and happy and already making plans to watch it another time. it doesn’t hang together quite as well or quite as coherently as homecoming, but it takes more risks and displays more ambition, and honestly, how could i not appreciate that?
far from home is absolutely FANTASTIC as another chapter in the mcu saga, much more so than any other film in the series (bar homecoming). it gives a great ground-level perspective on all the mind-bending cosmic shit that goes on in the other movies and does a fair bit of world-building. because it’s so interlocked so organically with a larger narrative, it serves to both bolster that larger vision and provide snide commentary on it. there are so many wonderful moments in this film that deal with the extremely bloated and extremely complicated legacy of iron man, and one gets the feeling that, even by the end of the film, spider-man hasn’t completely shaken off the spectre of tony stark.
maybe because far from home functions so well as an episode of the mcu, spider-man doesn’t get to own even his most heroic moments. there’s still nothing here that i can brand as Iconic on the scale of some of the most memorable shit from other entries in the franchise. it also means that there are so many extra-textual pressures from so many directions on this movie, that the writing often comes off as sloppy.
anyway. i have a veritable fucking dissertation brewing in my head right now, so let’s get right on it.
SPOILERS ahead. if you’re on a device/app that doesn’t recognise the ‘read more’ cut i’m about to insert here and don’t want to be spoiled on basically every aspect of the film, please scroll past as fast as you can.
1. sorry to start off with a bummer, but the premise of this movie is bullshit. i see no reason why this whole shebang couldn’t have been set in new york. there could’ve been more time to deal with endgame-aftermath, we could’ve had more aunt may (criminally underused both here and in homecoming), and peter’s emotional arc could’ve had more set-up. the european locales contribute nothing beyond being pretty backdrops; all of the vital players in the story are american; a lot of the jokes revolving around them being tourists just. don’t. land.
1.25. i appreciate the impulse to be Different given how many Spidermen have appeared on screen just in the last couple of decades, but the european setting is wholly incidental to the plot and wastes valuable time, so.
1.5. apparently a fair bit of footage setting up the vacation was cut so that we could get into the action faster? but honestly, regardless of pacing, the vacation could’ve used some set-up; the jump straight to the holiday was jarring, and i can’t help but feel some vital foreshadowing regarding peter’s spidey sense was sacrificed as collateral. that wonderful moment in the climactic fight when peter realises he can trust his spidey sense to work around mysterio’s illusions feels like the end-point of an arc that never began in the first place.
2. honestly, what a genius way to work in somebody as goofy as mysterio, tho!
2.25. *flails* ok. a little digression here, because my love for this character needs actual build-up, and the build-up needs to start with how much i disliked captain america: civil war. there’s an intriguing ideological conflict that’s set up at the core of the movie that never gets followed-up in any meaningful sense and ends in a facile little brawl between two sets of superheroes who, in any case, are way, way too close to the situation to give us any interesting insights about it. what the two spider-man movies have ended up doing, however, is giving us actual glimpses of the legacy of having superheroes at all instead of just talking about it. the vulture swooped in on the carnage left behind every battle between the avengers and civil war, selling alien tech to anybody who would pay for it, from small-time weapons dealers to desperate people looking to arm themselves in a world that experiences cataclysms every other week to shady-ass governments and secret agencies. a lot of silent and potentially catastrophic damage has already been inflicted by the time spider-man takes him down. similarly, mysterio zooms in during a particularly vulnerable time, playing a world both ravaged and rebuilt by ineffable cosmic forces to build himself up through fancy smoke-and-mirrors work. as always, mcu’s spider-man delights me over and over again with just how organically it both manages to feed off and enrich this larger universe it belongs to.
2.5. mysterio talking about how people these days tend to believe flying people in capes more than technology used in more traditional ways--about how people would believe anything these days--is a bit of snide commentary on the state of the mcu itself and perhaps the world in general. there are now more and more ways to construct narratives and bend lies into almost-truths. social media, ‘deepfakes’, clever editing: you can build yourself into whatever you want the world to see you as if you just have access to the right tools. and it isn’t just mysterio that’s indulging in deception here--so are the ‘good guys’. nick fury getting skrulls to impersonate him and other shield agents to handle missions on earth is a quieter, more insidious kind of unsettling. it’s a mode of deception that is so much more complete and effective than mysterio could ever dream of achieving: you are being lied to by your enemy, but perhaps it is the lies that are being told in the name of your protection that you must be truly wary of.
2.65. quentin beck walking around in a cgi suit while orchestrating and editing big, fake spectacles where a cgi-ed mysterio fights a cgi-ed monster? fucking. brilliant. i thought i would crawl out of my own skin with how fucking meta that was.
2.75. mysterio’s motivations aren’t entirely clear and his ‘toast’ to his team midway through the movie is one of the cheesiest infodumps i’ve seen on film, but jake gyllenhaal makes it all fucking work. there’s a seething, manic energy just bubbling under the surface, and he puts it to brilliant use. he had me totally sold on both his intent to kill peter dead and his grudging affection for the kid. few actors could’ve pulled this off like jake gylly.
3. aah, tony stark. we see iron man’s face multiple times through the movie, to the point where it’s less a tribute to the man and more a depiction of a spectre that’s haunting peter parker wherever he goes. he looms so large that honestly it seems like peter’s biggest battle here is fighting his legacy as iron man’s protege.
while ensemble films like civil war and the avengers movies were content to let the tony/peter mentor/mentee relationship play out without bothering to interrogate it at all, having tony stark so integral to this universe’s peter parker’s origin story is something the solo spider-man movies have to grapple with. there was always going to be tension between tony’s sweeping, big-picture perspective and peter’s focus on being a friendly, neighbourhood hero; between tony as a symbol of the corporate elite and peter being relatable to the everyday, common man; between iron man in his ivory tower and peter painstakingly cutting holes in a sweatshirt in an apartment in Queens. both of spidey’s supervillains so far are born out of tony’s actions--and not even through a deliberate misstep, like creating ultron or trusting secretary ross. they are born out of callous indifference--people who fell to the wayside as tony stark’s corporate behemoth pushed on, oblivious. both toomes’ and beck’s anger is justified, even if what they choose to do with that anger is not.
even when it comes to peter, tony is spot-on in his judgment of peter’s potential, sure, but there’s something awfully... glib in the way he thinks about peter’s life outside of being spider-man. bequeathing him EDITH is a shockingly irresponsible thing to do--and the decision nearly kills both peter and his friends multiple times! i know the saying goes, ‘with great power comes great responsibility’, but as mature as peter is, i don’t think anybody ought to be solely responsible for controlling a super-advanced AI that can summon drones and engage an entire planetary defence system. it’s bonkers, and something i absolutely believe tony stark would do.
so, yes--both homecoming and far from home have no choice but to deal with iron man’s legacy, but they also do a good job in showing how complicated that legacy is. another thing that the solo movies have to contend with from the ensemble films is the clear love and respect tony and peter have for each other--if in civil war peter was utterly starstruck, by infinity war and endgame he’d begun to see tony as a father-figure. their relationship struck among the most resonant emotional chords in both movies, and it would have been near-impossible to have peter interrogate his relationship with his just-deceased mentor in the light of all of that. so while the actual movies complicate and darken tony’s legacy, peter never gets to acknowledge any part of it, which is a pity.
(having iron man appear as an actual zombie in peter’s trippy mysterio-induced vision was a great touch, tho: the words ‘next iron man’ followed him through the movie not as a privilege but as a noose cinching closer and closer around his neck)
3.5. all of this aside, tho, i do feel like something vital about spider-man was lost forever when, lost and hurting and alone, peter could summon a private jet and build himself a new suit in tony’s fancy 3d printer. i realised when i was watching this that i’d been expecting peter to fashion a plan entirely out of his own ingenuity and determination, but this peter... has all of stark industries on call.
4. tom holland’s peter is as charming as ever and i hope he gets to play him for as long as possible--it really does feel like peter’s still in the beginning stages of a very long and fruitful arc. here he’s traumatised and exhausted, pulled by the allure of avengers-level fame and pushed away by the burden and trauma that being an avenger truly entails. he’s wide-eyed and wholly likeable when he’s chilling with his friends or pining after mj, but his bone-deep exhaustion and grief and guilt shine through the cracks in his veneer at exactly the right moments. peter’s put through the wringer here, both emotionally and physically--and holland plays it all perfectly.
given how much is going on in this film, a surprising amount of time is devoted to peter and mj’s budding romance? and almost every second of it absolutely works?? their sweet, tentative kiss on the bridge after the climactic fight feels absolutely 100% earned, and i’m HERE to see them grow as a couple.
5. the fucking mid-credits scene, man. the entire theatre gasped as one, followed by excited chatter and scattered ‘oh my god’s as the end-credits rolled--i’ve never seen anything like it. this is an incredibly bold new direction for spider-man, and it hit me absolutely out of left-field. i can’t wait to see what happens next.
6. honestly, i could go on for longer, but i’m super-tired rn and need to re-organise my thoughts. ultimately far from home is a fascinating consequence of the burden of both extra and intra-textual legacies--funny, wild, and imaginative, but always aware that it can’t run too far away from all of its responsibilities.
#mcu#spiderman#spiderman far from home#far from home spoilers#SPOILERS#peter parker#quentin beck#mysterio#tony stark#this kid is So Important#meta
33 notes
·
View notes
Note
I think i fell into the trap of villains being more interesting than the heroes in bnha. I find tomura more entertaining. The kids in 1-a aside from bakugou and maybe todoroki are too nice? What are they’re flaws?
Hiya! Thanks for this cool question! I’m sorry, but you’ll be getting a looong essay from me!
And yeah, same!! Though I don’t think its that the UA kids are boing/too nice/flawed. When I first started watching MHA, I was on the lookout for a favorite character to stan. Uraraka, Iida, Eraserhead, even Snipe(???)… I actually didn’t care for Shigaraki Tomura at first, tho I did like his creepy vibe. When I finally did take notice, it was a delight trying to figure him out because he’s so contradictory and still mysterious. Making sense of it all/using all of the pieces to discover a characterization that made sense, was just fun and rewarding.
IDK exactly what changed to make me like him, but I think it was that I got interested in the worldbuilding, how exactly quirks and heroes and villains exist. Villains are a really cool perspective to look at the society from, and who better to use as an example than hand man?
…Which is also the main flaw I perceive about MHA.
(Everything here is my opinion! I’m a huge sci-fi/fantasy fan so that’s the angle I’m most interested in, and also I read the non-villain arcs like once and that information has largely been crowded out by the ever-expanding and all-consuming thoughts of the League of Villains, so I will get somethings wrong)
IMO, Worldbuilding is a bit weird, in that it’s not enough to establish the norms - which is hard enough - but often you must also establish the taboos. Figuring out how things function includes examining the dysfunctions. Sometimes you create a world only to tear it down.
But that’s the heart of speculative fiction - imagining different ways of living, different ways the world could be, taking aspects from our world and dissecting it. “Fantasy — the fantastic, the imagination that I love so dearly and that I’ve used to try to construct my own work — is everything that helps to expose more clearly and more powerfully the reality that surrounds us,” Julio Cortazár said. The classic sci-fi stories of exploration and invasion, othering, transhumanism - all are already issues irl: colonialism, discrimination, disability. The lives and conflicts in those stories can exist because of the lives and conflicts of real people as sources to build upon.
@dabistits has said this much more eloquently and comprehensively than I ever could, so go read her meta!!
It’s obvious Horikoshi has put a lot of thought into figuring out his world, with all sorts of details to flesh it out - he writes into it issues like the accommodation of bodies that deviate from the supposed norm; what if people had innate differences, some of which are seen as dangerous; discrimination; self-determination and the right to bear arms affecting the social contract. You can say, ‘Nal, you’re looking too deep into this, it’s a comic for 8-year-olds’, and it’s true! But the first words the begin the story are ‘People are not born equal’; I’m taking it as invitation to examine that.
So we have a world with its many dysfunctions and flawed systems. Everything that happens hinges pretty much on quirks. I think a great way to explore that is using plot and characterization. It’s not characters being plopped into the world; the world produces the characters. Development occurs as a response to trying to live under these conditions, trying to grow and push the boundaries, or accept and pass it on.
But I feel like Horikoshi haven’t done this with the UA kids?
These students are in the contained environment of school and not really interacting with the people they are to protect and serve, and their goal is to get stronger and more powerful but that’s kinda indistinguishable from any other shonen manga and not Hero-specific. Instead of just ‘use my quirk to punch a bad guy and save the day’, I wanna see situations where the kids learn that they cannot use physical methods, I wanna see the moral dilemma of arresting a person who punched out someone discriminating against them, I wanna see them having to accept failure and death as part of the job, dealing with the compassion fatigue. The Hero-specific things. Also, we don’t get to enter the headspace and background of the rest of Class 1A. It’s not the kid’s flaws.
So the questions Horikoshi brings up about society isn’t actually usually answered by the heroes (some of the exceptions are, as you point out, anon, Todoroki and Bakugou). They’re answered and navigated by the Villains. The Villains are the ‘failed’ products of the world, their grief and discontent is due to being unable to function in this specific society. Their motivations are specific to Hero-society and quirks. And I love that! I love that we get a better sense of the setting and society through their stories - Twice is the one who gets to show us the effect of All Might’s retirement, Spinner introduced us to mutant discrimination, Detnerat gave us some important info about the economy and quirk-usage rights.
The Heroes don’t get that? Not really? At the beginning of the manga, we do, though! Todoroki and his family, Shinsou and his quirk, Tenya and his brother. But after that, iirc, an issue is brought up, then usually quickly resolved. Kouta hates heroes? Midoriya becomes his hero and Kouta has a change of heart. The media rightfully rips into UA for the camp fiasco and the public agrees? The AFO and All Might fight overshadows that. Aoyama and Midoriya share a moment over quirk-incompatibility, but nothing more than that.
It’s not that I just side with the Villains completely. I love Vigilantes, and I love the characters that try to do good. Vigilantes explores the dysfunctions and idiosyncrasies. Doing good despite breaking the rules; the desire to use your quirk but having to suppress this innate part of yourself; questioning the Hero system but keeping the ideals.
Koichi, the main character, is very sweet, ‘too nice’ as you might describe, very mild-mannered, his adventures limited mostly to the streets of his neighborhood. He is not flashy like Shigaraki, but I like him a lot. His growth is in response to him learning to be a citizen of his world - what it means to do good, having to interact with the community and its people, finding a niche to make use of his quirk. Making a lasting effect on the every day of the streets. The ‘trigger drug’ storyline works really well because it’s both giving us some insights about how official investigation works and the legal definition of ‘Villain’ (Tsukauchi), the use of social media and Pop’s influence to detect the villains, the biological mechanism of quirks and things people use to enhance it, along with Knuckleduster’s history and developing the relationship between the vigilante trio.
So yeah! I feel like the full potential of the story Horikoshi wants to tell - this world that’s still dealing with the consequences of quirks appearing, the law enforcement system that arose from having to govern millions of individual with a million different abilities and needs, all of who has to learn how ‘great power comes with great responsibilities’ applies to them, and villain created by these circumstances, who is fated to be in a century-old battle that came to be because of the advent of the extraordinary, a wild fantastical full circle - hasn’t been shown through the UA kids and heroes. Instead, it comes across better from the Villains, and that’s why imo I find them more interesting.
#so sorry for the late reply!#thank you for asking!#this was a really fun one to think about#nalslastworkingbraincell#Anonymous#got kinda messy tho towards the end sorry!!#worldbuilding#kohei horikoshi#mha#bnha#heroaca#Villains#writing
56 notes
·
View notes
Note
why do your analysis make it sound like ogata never did anything wrong?
Hello there anon,
I will do my best to answer your question. So, you are curious about why my analyses do not focus on all of terrible things that Ogata has done in the manga?
Well there are several different ways for me to answer your question.
1.) Ogata is my favourite character. I find him fascinating and even when he shot Wilk and Sugimoto, I was like “interesting.” What was his reasoning? In part he was working with Kiro and also shooting Sugimoto was a sound strategic call. Prevent the relay of info from Wilk to Sugimoto etc etc. This is the lazy answer - he gets a free pass from me b/c he’s my fav. Asirpa is my #2 and Kiro is my #3. I have a tendency to love morally grey characters - they fascinate me.
2.) I want to understand Ogata’s actions. Many of my meta focus on trying to understand how a damaged individual would deal with his personal history. Noda starts out with backstory that makes him look very questionable (chapter 103) but over time you learn more and more about his pain and suffering and it starts to make more sense. Chapters 164, 165 and 169 all made me cry. That is amazing writing by Noda to get that reaction out of me as a reader.
3.) I connect with Ogata as a character on a personal level. He’s an introvert. He was/is bullied. He is smart but frequently blown off or ignored. He buries his feelings and emotions. He’s a very relatable character to me as a reader and personally makes me feel like he is misunderstood.
I wrote a deeply personal meta that touches on that here:
https://chibivesicle.tumblr.com/post/182930219597/ogatas-behaviour-is-contradictory-during-the
4.) I want to see him grow and change over the course of the series. The end of the Karafuto arc was hard on me. I knew something terrible was going to happen to him based on his actions up until that point. When Ogata started lying I could only facepalm and be like “goddammit Ogata… .”
The best way that I approach the series is to try to determine why all the characters doing what they are doing. But those who are more similar to you personally are easier to connect with than the ones you would not be friends with in real life. Sugimoto is at times very hard for me to understand or connect with … he’s so emotional, he bullies other characters, he’s overconfident at times … he intimidates me. He makes me uncomfortable.
So back to how i approach writing:
I put a lot of time and effort into what I write. I will not disclose the number of times I’ve read the manga all the way through, but there are some chapters or panels that I’ve read 20+ times for sure. You always notice something new or get a new insight into a character or event.
It takes anywhere from a few days to a few months (my Kiroranke meta) to come up with ideas for metas. I write a rough draft of a chapter summary when I first see the raws. I then sleep on it and start to edit it further and add in images. I finally post it when the english translation posts. For more serious topics, I may mull over it for awhile, I may talk to others for their feedback and opinion. Sometimes I just do it all by myself and put it out there.
With anything that one writes, it always has your opinion or flavor to it as well as your feelings on the topic. I do this for fun; my real job is stressful enough that I don’t need to replicate that here. I always remind myself that I feel so strongly about a character like Ogata or Kiro b/c it shows how well written they are and I give Noda full credit for such a good story. But I do not wish for a certain character to say die, just out of spite that someone else may really love that character.
I can’t speak for all Ogata fans, but a lot of them don’t want Ogata to get a “free pass” card in the series. Everyone recognizes he’s made a lot of poor decisions, but instead of condemning or judging him for them, they want him to change and to heal as a character. Many of these individuals also connect with Ogata on a personal level. Maybe you do not find Ogata relatable? And Ogata fans don’t find Sugimoto relatable. These are all valid feelings but each reader will approach the manga for his or her own experience and viewpoints.
Going back to how I personally felt about Ogata at the end of chapter 187.
Here is the end of one of my analyses here:
https://chibivesicle.tumblr.com/post/182337609272/golden-kamuy-chapter-187-part-2
Golden Kamuy isn’t a good vs bad, light vs dark manga. I am upset that the anime tried to simplify it and do what I call “shounen-fication” of the series. This manga has much more depth to it and it also shows basic human interactions. Some characters get away with more bad behavior than others. As Ogata began to lose it on the ice with Asirpa, his behaviour becomes downright childish … and it made me upset but at the same time, that was what he was doing. And his behavior made sense even if it made me cry.
This is such a well written manga… all of the main characters have a lot of depth and they are all deeply flawed in some regard. But the manga is showing us if they are growing and changing or if they are running away from their problems. This is also a very political manga - as a result it will also have vary strong and polarizing opinions on it. I find the best way to approach it is see how you feel about it and how you rationalize it and then if you are interested in someone else’s opinion read that as well! But if not, you don’t have to, remember it is just a really really well written manga.
24 notes
·
View notes
Note
as soon as dirk took over the meat route i was so infuriated by everything he said i ended up barely skimming 90% of the meat route and only reading it when it caught my interest. the repeated fucking outright abuse done to jake literally makes me so angry, the fact that they made jade into a horny plot device, and Oh Ny God jane is a fascist now? i am so fucking mad. i havent read candy yet. thats all
Just wrote my thoughts on Jane here, and to me she’s the worst part of this mess, I struggle to see how they got this from her character and even if the development made sense it would still be boring. Like wow, here comes Condesce 2: Now With Ten Times More Sex.
(rest under readmore cause it got too long)
I ended up forgiving a lot of Dirk’s behavior because 1) any references to Detective Pony consume me with too much emotion to think straight, 2) it’s not like the narrative is defending his behavior, 3) I genuinely love the idea that the last step of characters ascending to godhood is an awareness of narrative structures and a loss of self. It’s a tragic but fantastic concept and the kind of thing I expect from Homestuck.
Unfortunately instead of going interesting places it just destroyed any immersion I had in the story by portraying the characters as being just words any narrator can warp. Pour one out for Kanaya fellas, turns out she’s a fakey thing that can be turned into a hysterical wife or a useless sad thing or whatever the hell the plot needs with a flick of a wand. How dare you get attached to the fictional personalities and behaviors of a character, it’s all fake. Now pay attention to what really matters: the author’s ego represented by a few narrators and clever narrative tricks.
Lost track of where I was going but, Epilogue!Dirk is enjoyable if you want more meta on Dirk’s selves and Bro and their flaws, and kind of a good insight into an abuser’s mind at least in my opinion. If you wanted a closure of Dirk’s arc hinted in the original ending you got stomped on in the worst way possible. I’m sorry.
Oh, Jake. Jake. I remember being pissed when the credits came out on how Jake was treated as a sex icon despite previously showing discomfort on that, and how he was being punched around by Dirk again even though that was uh, literally everything that went wrong between them the first time! But then I thought hey, it’s okay, it’s just a little fun and memes and something for the Dirkjake shippers for credits. It’s all over now. The ending that matters are the last convos and Act 7.
Boy.
Boy how I wish it was over.
I legit don’t know what to say okay if you laugh at Jake’s treatment you’re wrong. I’m extremely sick of how Jake and Tavros are treated by both writers and fans as it seems to think bullying is funny as long as it is with someone who’s not smart, or if whoever’s doing it is cooler than you. Not that what happened with Jake in the epilogue can be called bullying.
It was so much worse.
Also have no idea when you sent this message and how much have you read by now so just pressing an F for you because if you hated Meat!Jade then Candy!Jade will be hell for you. Candy!Jade is my worst nemesis, it is likely a parody of bad love triangle fics but it is somehow worse.
I’m conflicted about Meat!Jade because on one way I don’t mind Jade being overtly sexual as a sign of her social problems, and there are some good insights on her character sprinkled along the way, but in the end she’s too much a davekat satellite, I don’t get why they thought romance should be the focus on her character when in HS 99% of the time it was the boys who were too into her not the opposite.
Also she gets manipulated by someone else again in the end so yeah. This epilogue is only a rehash of old plot points. Even for those who weren’t offended by it I can’t understand how weren’t them bored by it.
9 notes
·
View notes
Text
THEY’RE GONNA WRECK IT: A “Ralph Breaks The Internet” Review
I don’t know that I ever would have told you that the original “Wreck-it Ralph”, one of the more pleasant surprises of post-Pixar-merger Disney, “needed” a sequel; the original’s story was compelling and complete enough on its own. But the characters were so much fun to spend time with and the world felt so intrinsically interesting that it also seemed like a prime candidate to give a sequel to anyway. And to its credit “Ralph Breaks The Internet” starts from a premise clearly designed to keep it from simply being a needless retread of the original, trading the halls of an old Arcade for the world wide web. Unfortunately, the resulting film, while not exactly a TOTAL wash, also feels like it’s learned all the wrong lessons from its predecessor, taking an anted-up version of the first movie’s playful Video Game in-jokes that were there a mere garnish and here turning them into an inescapable aspect of the entire story that severely compromises its narrative integrity.
(SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT)
(SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT)
(SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT)
(SPOILER SPACE)
(SPOILER SPACE)
(SPOILER SPACE)
Said narrative picks up six years after the events of the original, with Ralph happy as can be with his lot in life nowadays: thanks to his friendship with “Sugar Rush” superstar Vanellope Von Schweetz, he’s more than content to just do his job and hang out with her goofing off all night. Vanellope, however, feels increasingly constrained by the repetitive limits of her closed-off racing world, leading Ralph to try and give her a new surprise or two to cheer her up; unfortunately that just leads to "Sugar Rush” getting broken. Ralph and Vanellope thus decide to venture into the arcade’s newly connected Wi-Fi system to reach The Internet in hopes of finding the part necessary to fix the game before it’s permanently unplugged.
Which kind of sounds like a bit of an overcooked premise, and indeed the number of contrivances the movie throws at you more or less right out the gate to get to where it wants to go speaks to the problem at the heart of the whole thing, but to start things out on a relatively positive note: Ralph and Vanellope remain a great pair of characters, and if nothing else the opening few minutes of the movie honestly do make for a pleasant little coda to the first movie. More to the point, there actually IS something admirable about how this movie chooses to dig into how their characters have changed and where they stand: now that he has an anchor of affirmation in Vanellope, Ralph is able to find acceptance and fulfillment in the same places he once felt rejected by...but once that anchor is threatened (as it is when Vanellope finds herself increasingly attracted to the idea of staying online in the wild and unpredictable world of an online racer called “Slaughter Race”), all of his old insecurities begin to surface. Meanwhile the same drive to strive for something greater that drove Vanellope in the first movie has now begun to slowly but surely push her out of “Sugar Rush”; this one’s a bit shakier (and the movie fumbles it pretty much completely in the execution but we’ll get to that) but you really can see the emotional logic it works on in a way that adds up, especially because the movie genuinely has the courage of its convictions and chooses to pursue it to its most logical conclusion rather than try to hedge its bets or chicken out at the last minute.
As well, basically all of the new characters work. The obvious highlight is Gal Gadot as Shank, the Boss Character of “Slaughter Race”; even as her presence in the movie overall is surprisingly limited given her importance to the main emotional arc that (eventually) reveals itself as the heart of the story, she is nonetheless an immediately enjoyable presence, at once tough as nails and On The Edge (one of the movie’s better sight gags is how the world of “Slaughter Race” is bathed in the reds and browns that dominated Video Games for most of the mid-00′s and Shank feels right at home in that tone) but also a caring figure who looks at her job with a genuine sense of Duty and Honor. Likewise Taraji P. Henson’s Yesss is delightful, a beaming bouncing presence whose constantly-changing look is a consistent delight (and who may have the most enjoyably subtle details of animation of any character in the movie with the way her coat lights up whenever she gets excited being a personal favorite). But even minor characters like the Search Engine curator Knowsmore (our now-traditional Alan Tudyk role) and Bill Hader’s J.P. Spamley are genuinely fun new additions to the overall cast. You do find yourself wishing they could maybe get a bit more screen time or else be better integrated into the overall story, but even so I really liked just about all of them and they do a lot to buoy the whole thing.
Unfortunately none of them, nor the movie’s clever-if-not-especially-original conception of what “The Internet” would mean to this kind of world (my personal favorite touch might be portraying pop-up ads as old-school Newsies), can really add up to much in the face of the larger problem here. See, even though they’re a relatively minor presence in the overall movie, the original “Wreck-it Ralph” hyped up the presence of its various Video Game character cameos (many of whom return here), and the attendant in-jokes that came with them. “Ralph Breaks The Internet” apparently seems to have the mistaken belief that it was this wink-wink nudge-nudge meta-humor at the original’s margins that was in fact the key to its success and thus, using The Internet as a launching pad to broaden its range of targets, has made that element much, much more prominent this time around. Sometimes that does make for amusing gags; the extended (and heavily-touted) scene where Vanellope meets the other Disney Princesses is indeed a particular highlight, and the one sequence where the movie comes even remotely close with reconciling its desire to indulge in fairly tired meta-textual snark with actually trying to tell any sort of real story. Far more often we have to deal with things like how a joke about Ralph making the age-old mistake of reading the comments stands in for any kind of actual attempt to show how his old anxieties are resurfacing (in a moment that fails to land almost completely; it is honestly impossible to tell while watching it how seriously the movie expects us to take it), or even more frustrating how Vanellope’s realization that she wants to stay in “Slaughter Race” is told to us through an incredibly ineffectual and far too self-aware parody of the old Disney-style “I Want” song. That Vanellope would in fact choose to leave Sugar Rush behind is already the biggest buy-in the movie asks us to make of its characters, so that failed short-cut proves especially harmful to the overall arc here. It all leads to a finale that feels like it could, indeed even should, work for how frankly it chooses to tackle the underlying emotional problems at the heart of the story, but it ultimately can’t because the movie just flat-out has not done the work to really earn it.
There are other smaller problems as well; Fix-it Felix and Calhoun, the primary side-characters from the first film, are here given what feels like it should be the lead-in to an enjoyable and inspired B-story of their own but instead wind up being nothing more than glorified cameos. I’m also not super fond of how the movie actively begs the audience to question the logical nature of its world and characters as often (and seemingly without much thought) as it does. But the real fundamental issue here is that “Ralph Breaks The Internet” just plain cannot square its two competing impulses; the desire to actually try and tell a story that meaningfully expands on the original’s characters in some genuinely-daring ways is ultimately undone by the far-stronger drive to weigh it all down beneath a lot of knowing referential humor that feels far less relevant and insightful than the writers think it is. There really is something good deep in the heart of all of this, but, sad as it is to say, it basically gets wrecked this time around.
21 notes
·
View notes
Text
if you want: you enjoyed the original season and wouldn’t be annoyed by some more unusual elements / love Teko and Pikari’s relationship / wanted some more insight into the side-characters
This is Amanchu’s second season, I’d suggest reading my review of the first one (x) cause I’ll be addressing most issues I brought up there.
So, based on reviews you will see that fans of the original series were dissappointed in this one but ironically that was the thing that made me hopeful. So what was different?
Diving truly takes a backburner in this season and we mostly only get to see it when it has to do with Teko’s advancement in diving. Which I was fine with now, I learnt to lower my expectations regarding this aspect from S1.
The biggest change in Advance was something I don’t think I’ve ever seen a purely slice-of-life anime do which is the introducing of supernatural elements. These scenes are almost always shown through dream sequences. The very first time they used it, it felt a bit quirky and interesting and didn’t really feel like it was that out of the norm as it could’ve been explained away in a way to fit the universe. However, a bit later they went all out on it with group dreaming, an actual ghost and some sort of weird time travel/paradox thing. This was also an entire arc and took up multiple episodes.
My opinion of this direction seems vastly different from normal fans’ of the series as I actually liked these scenes. As I mentioned before, I didn’t think that the side characters were interesting enough to carry whole episodes on their backs and this change of rather putting them into situations and learning about them through their actions was much more fun for me and I’ve grown to like the rest of the cast more.
To wrap up: the artstyle and animation was great as usual and the dream sequences gave great opportunities to show us unique and interesting visuals. The music was more or less the same as season 1 with a bit more variety instead of purely instrumental tracks. The new characters managed to spice up the show just enough to keep things interesting. They also used the quirky “emoji faces” and “personal ticks” much less here which was a breathe of fresh air for me. ( and Teko and Pikari were literally so fucking gay and I fucking love these girlfriends uwu.) One negative for me would be that almost every time charcaters talk they need to say something “deep” and ”philosophical” which just made conversations very unnatural and stilted.
However, if you were in LOVE with the original season of Amanchu! you may not enjoy this. The experience of this season is vastly different from the original. [7/10] (x)
Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents
if you want: RANDOM/meta/violent humour / cute girls???
I do not wish to talk about this much as Jashin-chan is a quite unremarkable anime.
Our setting is that Yurine (who’s a witch but not?) summons Jashin, a demon from hell, but can’t send her back. The only way for her now to go back to where she came from would be to kill Yurine.
Err...yeah, that’s it. We also have the recurring cast Medusa and Minos, Jashin’s friends from Hell who come to hang out, and Pekola, an angel who has lost her halo and can’t go back to heaven.
This is supposed to be a dark comedy I guess. Each episode consists of 2-3 short stories. Almost all of the anime consists of the same things: Jashin trying to kill Yurine, failing and then getting horribly punished for it (with cartoonish gore and all), Jashin spending all her money that she gets from Medusa and/or hurting Medusa’s feelings and Pekola being hungry...
This anime has apparently garnered quite a fanbase and even got renewed for season 2 (which I’ll have to watch cause of my perfectionism sigh) but really I’m pretty sure you could find much better stuff similiar to this out there. The animation is ok, the music is ok, the characters are ok, the humour is ok...just O K. Nothing that’d warrant the average viewer to spend time watching it.
(Oh, and I was bored out of my mind throughout the whole thing...the only saving grace is that characters are cute and that there was no fanservice) [5/10] (x)
Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents
if you want: close-knit main female cast / beautiful visual presentation where it counts / somewhat complex and interwoven story / really good (musical) numbers
This anime is very, very difficult to put into words but I’ll try.
Our main cast consist of 8 (then 9) girls who all study at a quite well-known art school where they teach actors for theater (Class A) and all the background work needed for putting up a show (Class B). Our focus will be on the aforementioned girls from Class A who, based on the how things play out, are the best in their class.
And I know, I know. 9 main characters for 12 episodes! Well, that’s where the anime first shines as by episode 3 or 4 you can more or less recognize everyone and by the end you can also name them all and know something about them! From watching quite a number of 1 cour anime with huge casts I know how hard this is to achieve so I can only applaud SKRV.
So a bit about the story. Our first main character is Karen who’s one of the more lacking in this group. Suddenly after long, long years of studying abroad her childhood friend Hikari shows up at her school which gives us some flashback and one of the driving forces of the anime. The 2 made a promise that they’ll become stars together after seeing a play of Starlight (more on that later). However, it turns out they have something standing in their way.
This is where SKRV turns from a faux slice-of-life to a...not sure what to call it. Karen accidentally stumbles upon a lift in school which takes her down to a hidden stage where she sees 2 of her classmates fighting with weapons. These are the auditions. The winner will become the “star” what all stage girls desire.
And this is where I’d like to talk about the play enveloping the story, Starlight. This play is put on each year by the students. Each year, to show how much they improved through the same play. However, you’ll notice that the play and its story gets mentioned a LOT. And that is for a reason. I refuse to go into it much cause it’s best to experience it yourself. The play appears in 3 places: the stage, life and the auditions.
Each audition is special and woven into the story in a very intriguing way. An episode usually starts with 1 or 2 characters inner struggles and problems. The anime goes about in a normal slice-of-life way about these until we get to the audition process. These are the climax of the story and the episode. Each audition is a revue, an act from a play. While the girls are fighting with weapons, the outcome isn’t dependant on their physical strength. The revue acts as a conclusion to the girls’ inner troubles.
Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight is a somewhat abstract anime. It gives you pieces of information in small doses and lets you connect most of the puzzle pieces so there’s quite a bit of “what’s going on???” in the beginning.However, the music usage, the visuals, the story and the end result is what I’d call “artistic” and it’s rare to find stuff like this nowadays. (Plus, there’re numerous ships skksks) [9/10] (x)
Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents
#dusty reviews#Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight#Amanchu#Amanchu!#Amanchu! Advance#Amanchu Advance#Jashin chan Dropkick#Dropkick On My Devil!
2 notes
·
View notes
Photo
Group Discussion: Love, Hate & Other Filters
A searing #OwnVoices coming-of-age debut in which an Indian-American Muslim teen confronts Islamophobia and a reality she can neither explain nor escape–perfect for fans of Angie Thomas, Jacqueline Woodson, and Adam Silvera.
American-born seventeen-year-old Maya Aziz is torn between worlds. There’s the proper one her parents expect for their good Indian daughter: attending a college close to their suburban Chicago home, and being paired off with an older Muslim boy her mom deems “suitable.” And then there is the world of her dreams: going to film school and living in New York City—and maybe (just maybe) pursuing a boy she’s known from afar since grade school, a boy who’s finally falling into her orbit at school.
There’s also the real world, beyond Maya’s control. In the aftermath of a horrific crime perpetrated hundreds of miles away, her life is turned upside down. The community she’s known since birth becomes unrecognizable; neighbors and classmates alike are consumed with fear, bigotry, and hatred. Ultimately, Maya must find the strength within to determine where she truly belongs.
Review copy: ARC via publisher
Welcome to the Rich in Color discussion of Love, Hate & Other Filters.
**Beware, there are some spoilers ahead.**
Crystal: There are so many reasons for me to love this book. Maya’s voice had me from the very beginning with the words, “Destiny sucks.” Her wry humor had me smiling so many times. Her passion for creating movies is also awesome.
Jessica: Seriously, what an opening line. Maya’s voice definitely grabs you from the get-go. I didn’t think of this until you brought it up, but the way Maya’s passion for filmmaking provides yet another lens for her life is fascinating. I’m looking at the cover (what a great cover), and what the title means is finally registering. I know, I’m a little slow on the uptake. Maya see her life through the filters of love, hate, and the narrative bent of filmmaking. And, on a meta level, the reader sees Maya’s life through her romance, the Islamophobia that harms her, and the snapshot moments of other people’s lives leading up to the terror attack and its aftermath. It really paints a complete picture.
Audrey: I agree, I really enjoyed Maya’s voice and the frequent camera/filmmaking references. Her little asides about how things would go if this were x sort of movie were fun. I really enjoy reading about characters who have passions that seep into many corners of their lives, and Maya’s habit of filming things was a great way to establish her character (and plot-relevant). Sometimes the best way to get to know a person is to dive deep into the things they geek out about, and Maya’s passion for filmmaking was a great way to get to know her.
Karimah: I liked Maya’s voice as well and agree with you Audrey that her “teen movie” asides were great. It gave us a great insight into who she is and how she sees the world, and I truly connected with her. I giggled a couple of times at some of her comments and loved that she had a great sense of who she truly at such a young age.
Crystal: Maya is facing several challenges because of family expectations. Her dreams do not exactly match up with their dreams for her. The love in the family is easy to see, but that doesn’t mean there is smooth sailing. In some ways it makes it even more difficult. It’s hard to go against the wishes of people who love you and want the best for you. I adored Maya’s aunt. If we all had a Hina in our lives, what a wonderful world it would be.
Jessica: I think what really grabbed my heart early on is Maya’s introduction of Hina, where she says that despite being so different, Hina and Maya’s mother are actually best friends. This really set the tone for me of how much love Maya had in her family. Her parents may have had very specific ideas and goals for Maya, but you knew that in the end, they would come to accept what made Maya happy — just like how Hina and Maya’s mother are best friends.
And of course, on the surface, Maya’s parents seem unreasonably strict, and Maya struggles against those restrictions. But when her parents shut down and rule out Maya’s dreams, not out of a desire to control her, but a desire to keep her safe in the aftermath of a terrible event, you can again tell that they do it out of love, even if they aren’t necessarily right. I think anyone – especially anyone from an immigrant background – can recognize that parental instinct, those warnings to keep your head down, do the safe thing, don’t stand out, stay safe. That really hit home for me.
Audrey: As an adult, when I’m reading YA, I often find myself torn between the parents and the teens. On the one hand, I totally get why Maya’s parents have those expectations for her and why they’re so upset when she springs her own desires on them; on the other hand, I sympathize with Maya wanting to forge a life outside of those expectations. Hina was a great character, not only because she often took Maya’s side, but because she established a model for Maya to follow. Hina is living proof that Maya can build a life that suits her while–someday–forging a more equal relationship with her parents.
I really empathized with Maya’s parents’ fears after the terrorist attack and how immediate the backlash was for their family. They remembered the Islamophbic outbursts of violence after the September 11, 2001, attacks, so of course their first instincts were to protect their daughter. While I wish they would have listened to Maya more, I can’t entirely fault them for their reaction.
Audrey: Were there any other characters you particularly liked besides Maya? I was very fond of Violet. She was close to everything I want my YA heroines to have in a best friend. She didn’t have as much screen time as I’d hoped, but I appreciate her support for Maya and how she cheered her on all the time.
Crystal: I totally loved Hina. Like Audrey said earlier, Hina proved that it was possible to carve out a life that fits your own dreams. She knew what she wanted and worked on maintaining relationships in spite of the hurdles.
Karimah: I liked Violet as well. I’m glad that she knew how to best support Maya in her budding relationship with Phil and was completely supportive of her after the terrorist attack. She was a great best friend for Maya and I love that she was written in such a manner. I also liked Phil as he was much deeper than the typical romantic lead. Usually the romantic lead is this idealized version the “popular hot guy” but he was actually the total opposite. I mean, the way Maya described him he seem attractive, but he had a secret himself and had the same family tension as Maya. He was also so sweet to Maya and supportive of her as well.
Crystal: The format of the book is a little unusual. Maya’s story is sequential, but it is interrupted with brief moments from another perspective. These interstitials (a new word for me) definitely add mystery and suspense. Some of them are also very unsettling. What did you think of this choice in the storytelling?
Jessica: At first, I was a little on the fence about it, because I knew where the story was going. I didn’t know how I felt about portraying someone about to commit a terrible crime. It was haunting and beautifully written, and definitely added a layer of suspense. It was, ahem, a great filter for the book. At the same time, I still am not sure how I feel about the portrayal of the terrorist in the aftermath (spoilers ahead, stop reading if you haven’t finished the book) — I guess, I’m always a little leery of narratives that show an abused child becoming a criminal when all too often, people who commit hate crimes are the privileged and angry, not the people who are most vulnerable in society. The terrorist had a mix of privilege and resentment, along with a terrible upbringing, so it’s certainly not a black-and-white narrative that I’d condemn. But it does unsettle me.
Anyway, that’s my long-winded way of saying, I think it added a lot to the book, while also shaking up my preconceptions about a lot of things.
Karimah: Since my WIP has interstitials (didn’t know that is what they were called) has them, I really enjoyed them. I felt like it gave us an insight into the terrorist’s mind as he leads up to the act. I like how they allowed us to connect to different people who were affected by the act as well. It brought the terror of the act, aside from how Maya’s family is affected, to life. However, like Jessica, I was a bit annoyed by the narrative of the abused child becoming a criminal. I felt like it was an “easy out” for the terrorist instead of being real with that he just had hate in his heart and a desire to cause destruction. I get it was trying to humanize him, but with so many terrorists of his ilk called “lone wolf” and humanized when Black and Brown victims of police are demonized, it hurt.
Audrey: The interstitials felt very cinematic for me. Maya’s the main character of this movie, if you will, so the camera mostly sticks with her, but the interstitials were brief cuts to the danger that had been building unbeknownst to her. That ramped up the tension for us as a viewer/reader, and then afterwards we got to see the truth unfold on the periphery while we stayed with Maya (because her story was the emotional center of the story). I think it was a fitting narrative device for this book.
But like you said, I was really disappointed that the abused child backstory showed up. Maybe I’m just bitter and angry and frustrated (hi, all of last year), but I’m entirely uninterested in any story trying to mitigate angry white men’s hateful actions, especially when we saw how much Maya and her family were hurt because of it.
Crystal: One last note about the romances. I had to smile with her first love interest. The actions were fairly innocent, but the descriptions were still quite sensual. The second romance was filled many roadblocks, but was a unique set of circumstances. It was complex and I also appreciated the ending that seemed very realistic. (Trying not to spoil too much here, but it’s not a fairy tale.)
Audrey: I thought it was great that Maya had two love interests and how both of those stories came to different conclusions. It was nice to see how messy feelings could get and how Maya tried to navigate both romantic options. (As a side bonus, I really liked the fact that the guys didn’t know about each other, so we didn’t have to endure any jealous posturing.) I’m really happy we got to see Maya exploring her feelings and sorting out what her heart really wanted.
Karimah: I really, really loved both romances because they were just so real and I feel that Maya handled both of them so well. She was honest with herself and her feelings and rightfully made the right call with her first romance and I loved the slow burn that was the second. It was refreshing that all of them were honest with each other and were able to talk through their issues. It’s so healthy and teens need to see what healthy relationships can look like. And I like that the end was more about Maya being in love with herself, standing up for herself, instead of a “happily ever after” with a significant other (sorry for the spoiler).
If you’ve already read Love, Hate & Other Filters, we’d love to hear your thoughts! If you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, we recommend you get it soon.
8 notes
·
View notes
Text
The Adventure Zone: From Three Points of View
https://ift.tt/30NcKNH
Three of our contributors review The Adventure Zone, based on their familiarity (or lack thereof) with the source material
facebook
twitter
tumblr
This post is sponsored by First Second. All opinions expressed in this post are based on the writers' personal views.
The Adventure Zone series is a unique storytelling experience—a graphic novel series that began life as a game of Dungeons & Dragons played by podcasters Justin, Travis, and Griffin McElroy and their dad Clint, it has evolved into something much, much more. You don't have to have listened to the McElroys' podcast or to have played D&D before to enjoy this tale of adventure and intrigue.
Den of Geek reached out to three of its regular contributors—one of whom is a McElroys podcast fan, one of whom loves D&D, and one of whom is neither—to get insight into their respective experiences reading The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins and The Adventure Zone: Murder on the Rockport Limited!, the first two installments of The Adventure Zone series.
Here's what they had to say...
The Adventure Zone Review #1
Reviewer: Megan Crouse, a fan of The Adventure Zone podcast
You’ve probably seen the McEloy family’s influence online, even if you don’t know it. Griffin McElroy founded video game journalism site Polygon, and he and his brothers’ sense of humor has become the new voice of the internet. They’re known for games, memes, and podcasts, including The Adventure Zone.
As a Dungeons & Dragons podcast, The Adventure Zone starts out as a stock fantasy quest, albeit lead by bumbling heroes. Later arcs branch off the established format. Murder at the Rockport Limited, the second arc collected as a graphic novel, is a murder mystery on a train, and later arcs diverge even more dramatically from dungeon-crawling. My primary window into McElroy World is the most recent The Adventure Zone arc, "Amnesty." For the release of the latest graphic novel, I returned to the earlier arcs.
Some of the references, jokes, or information in the episodes is moved around in the script, and clearly a lot of work went into making them feel like a story instead of a conversation while also preserving the most well-known moments. The art varies from beautiful and easy on the eyes (the lush Rockport Limited and the lands it travels through) to humorously pinched and distorted to a Dr. Suessian degree (most of the elves). Details in the background and the funny names of places reward a close look. But some of the art was flattened by color choice—there’s a default pink hue that my eyes tended to skim over.
Like the podcast, it takes its time getting good. Unlike the podcast, the book spends less time on the stock fantasy adventuring of the first arc and zooms to the funnier, more creative stories. There’s still a hurdle to jump, because some in-jokes aren’t explained or don’t work as well without delivery. Character voices likewise don’t translate as well.
But the stories are still funny. Clever and unexpected and raunchy, the group has a charming rapport with each other. Adapting writer Clint McElroy and artist Carey Pietsch know when to sparingly drop Griffin McElroy in to break the fourth wall as the DM. The Bureau of Balance and the Rockport Limited are both unique concepts that bring new flavors to the fantasy.
Whether you like the characters will depend on your tolerance for irreverent, canonically annoying protagonists with rapid-fire jokes. There are deeper relationships in these stories, and glimmers of those show through, but most of the best and most serious character work comes later in the podcast series. The collection editions offer the delight of official art and skim over the podcast’s more tedious sections, but an established fondness for this particular brand of humor may be a requisite for reading.
The Adventure Zone Review #2
Reviewer: Alana Joli Abott, a Dungeons & Dragons fan
Reading the first two volumes of The Adventure Zone feels a lot like sitting down at a table with my high school gaming group. In some ways, that's great—it's incredibly nostalgic and definitely brought back memories of my early days in gaming.
During those early years, we worried less about world building and our characters being consistent in their fantasy knowledge and included things like Fantasy Quickie Marts where our characters could snag a pack of gum along with a healing potion. The McElroy's world is full of those kinds of jokes, and while it makes for inconsistent world building, it joyfully breaks the fourth wall with references readers are sure to appreciate. Griffin McElroy as DM is, by turns, long-suffering and cacklingly evil—as a frequent DM myself, I can identify with both aspects, and I cheered with the characters in triumph when he makes a call breaking the rules for the sake of the story.
In other ways, that echo of real game tables hit some sour notes: a lot of the familiar tropes (particularly the evil drow wizard with the ginormous spider) are overplayed, and their familiarity was irksome rather than enchanting. Despite the inclusion of some really fantastic female NPCs, the story is entirely drive by the three male main characters, whose humor has a more masculine turn ("Man, it's nothing but dick jokes with us"). That's not a problem in itself (and it makes complete sense given that the players and DM are all male), but it did frequently make me feel like I wasn't the target audience for the story, and recalled the many times where I've been the only female player at a table.
That said, the story itself, particularly starting at the end of the first volume, when the larger world context is introduced and departs from some of those more heavily trafficked D&D tropes. The second volume's combination of train-bound murder mystery with swords and sorcery felt like sitting in at a really excellent game table, particularly the inclusion of an underage detective (although a few contextual jokes about that NPC felt a little uncomfortable to me as a parent). Pietsch nails the artistic tone (especially in one cute chibi page that references another Hasbro toy line), but I'll note that the child-friendly appearance of the covers, which drew both of my kids like moths to a flame, belies the adult language inside (there's plenty of cursing, as you'd expect from a raucous game table).
Not many non-game works out there really capture the spirit of playing D&D. While I may have nit-picked about the target audience flaws, but I recognize here that the McElroys and Pietsch are doing something really cool that stands alone without my ever having listened to the podcast. The Adventure Zone doesn't quite overtake The Gamers (which has some of the same issues I mention above) as one of the best representations of D&D in other media, but I think it's a close second.
The Adventure Zone Review #3
Reviewer: Natalie Zutter, previously unfamiliar with Adventure Zone or Dungeons & Dragons
Reading The Adventure Zone graphic novels as someone who has neither listened to the McElroys’ podcasts nor played D&D (aside from listening in on my husband’s weekly games) is constantly feeling not quite in on the joke. That’s not the fault of illustrator Carey Pietsch, who remarkably translates four voices into a rich visual fantasy adventure; nor Clint McElroy, who worked with Pietsch to adapt the audio campaign in fourth-wall-punching ways, like including Griffin as a long-suffering DM providing helpful context. Regardless, something never quite clicked for me.
Strangely, what I found myself missing most was more D&D structure. Completely skipping character creation and jumping into the action—with brief stat/proficiency explainers via tongue-in-cheek cue cards—made for a very sitcom-y feel, as if these three players have always been adventuring together. But without any background, the characters felt shallow; I knew plenty about their foibles (Magnus’ poor impulse control, Taako’s self-servingness, Merle’s evangelism) but not enough of their wants. It’s also unclear how meta they’re intended to be, accepting the presence of their omniscient DM so readily that it seems as if they must be aware that it’s a game, yet treating their quests as life-or-death.
As someone who initially bounced off D&D gameplay precisely because of how dice rolls dictated every possible movement, I was surprised to see how sparingly rolls were used in the fight scenes. Instead, Magnus might get a mighty swing of his axe in, or Taako might get knocked down a peg by a more powerful wizard—but these felt like moments typical to any fantasy story, instead of being susceptible to the randomness that controls the rest of the outcomes in D&D. Another pet peeve was the constant asides: the trio ribbing NPCs instead of using conversations to learn more about quests, and especially out-of-universe references to Star Wars and Paul Blart: Mall Cop. On a podcast, it’s probably snappy and fun; on the page, it just feels like tedious wheel-turning.
These criticisms aside, the world is incredibly inviting. Once our heroes got rid of that pesky static at the end of the first volume and got to join the Bureau of Balance, it gave them some much-needed artifact-of-the-week structure combined with “these might be the good guys, but they’re not telling us everything” levels of intrigue.
I vastly preferred Rockport Limited to Gerblins because of how it sharpened the stakes: a locked-room mystery with a countdown clock; gender-stereotype-challenging NPCs; and a truly clever twist for a story set within so many constraints. Beyond the titular train murder, the scenes set at the Bureau evocatively step outside of the podcast narrative and utilize the graphic novel format: nonverbal moments where the Director ponders some undisclosed regret, and Taako considers conspiracies, lay curious groundwork as to future clashes.
Even if The Adventure Zone isn’t for me, I can’t deny the power of the McElroys’ reach—wonderfully illustrated in the fan art galleries that make up the back ends of both volumes. Each piece is imbued with the listeners’ delight in the story, and their own particular headcanons for each character reveal just how much they care about this world.
The first two installments of The Adventure Zone are now available for purchase. You can find out more about The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins and The Adventure Zone: Murder on the Rockport Limited! here.
Read and download the Den of Geek NYCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!
facebook
twitter
tumblr
Review Natalie Zutter Alana Joli Abbott Megan Crouse
Oct 3, 2019
First Second
from Books https://ift.tt/32ZJaWT
0 notes
Photo
GENERATION X #5 REVIEW **SPOILERS**
Writer: Christina Strain
Artist: Alberto Jimenez Alburquerque
Colorist: Felipe Sobreiro
Letterer: VC’s Clayton Cowles
Cover Artists: Rachel Dodson, Terry Dodson
Publisher: @marvelentertainment
NCBD: 8/16/17
Review by: Anthony Mullins ( @antwonito )
SUMMARY:
During a test of skills with Jubilee, Eye-Boy’s abilities begin to run haywire. We learn that some personal items around the school have gone missing, and Eye-Boy reveals his problem to Lin (Nature Girl), the only person unaffected by whatever is happening to his sight. After witnessing a robbery, Eye-Boy and Nature Girl head deeper into the park, where the park’s wildlife reveals a grand scheme of tyranny unbeknownst to the world around it.
REVIEW:
Particularly following Eye-Boy throughout, we see him struggle with losing control over his abilities. This grants an unfamiliar reader with further insight as to how his abilities function, while developing the potential of his abilities. Done in a smart and entertaining way, we are able to better understand past knowledge while expanding on it in the process, all wrapped up in a story that lets the reader become more familiar with a character. Furthermore, the entertainment of the issue is increased by the more human aspects of Eye-Boy that Strain presents the reader with, learning the way he thinks and views the world through his abilities and his narrated thoughts. Being able to blend such obscure characters and tones with a more human approach lends a unique relatability for the reader. We see Eye-Boy’s insecurity in his thoughts, yet see him flourish in rallying animals in a forest to obtain their freedom - the duality and development present help shape Eye-Boy’s courage and potential.
Nature Girl also shines within this issue, lending Eye-Boy a hand in his side quest. These two have been together in past series; it was fun to revisit their dynamic and develop it for a newer audience. Nature Girl is the only one that Eye-Boy’s erratic sight remains intact for, showing us how different the two are in his struggle to understand Lin on a deeper level. After the two team up and rectify the situation within the forest, they discuss the tale of their journey. Nature Girl is affected, upset, by her actions in attacking Eye-Boy under The Rat King’s influence. Trevor and Lin decide to keep the details of their adventure between themselves, showing how close the two have grown in that they are able and willing to compromise to help keep Lin’s reputation safe. This shows a lot of heart on Trevor’s part - their adventure helps display him as a brave and heroic character, yet he is willing to downplay his actions for the sake of making Lin happier. At the start of this series, I underestimated Trevor’s bravery and strength, but this issue helps define him as a force to be reckoned with, teaching us that even the most seemingly strange person can be a hero when they put their heart in to their goals.
Through Trevor’s perspective, and with the use of his abilities being on the fritz as a story device, we see the rest of the team interacting as well. We catch a moment of Trevor hanging out with Nathaniel and Benjamin while the two talk about movies, and a scene of Jubilee and Chamber comforting a sad Roxy; these small aspects from Eye-Boy’s perspective give us insight to the group growing as a family of sorts, and offsets the tension of the previous issues with a slice of normalcy at the Institute. It was also a lot of fun to see the students gather for lunch, it really felt like the kind of high school lunch table experience from childhood, but with mutants instead (plus it was a lot of fun to see other familiar and previously present X-Men members in the background). Trevor gives a motivational speech to the animals of the forest, and I felt the zany and humorous tone was delivered so well! The most meta humor in this issue was with Eye-Boy commenting about The Rat King being a d-list villain and not caring about his backstory - it was just another way to better endear Trevor, and it was comedically unexpected.
Alburquerque takes over on art for this issue. There are definitive differences from Pinna’s work in previous issues, but it still maintains a quirky and offbeat style and tone within every page. This issue develops certain smaller plot points and themes leading up to it but generally acts foremost as a side story of sorts, making the art switch up flow more seamlessly. Strain’s writing and dialogue lend a whimsical and underdog tone to the story. Paired with Alburquerque’s visuals, the two create an exciting viewpoint for the character of Eye-Boy. From the way Eye-Boy’s abilities are presented to the interactions he has throughout, there is a relatable tone in struggling with insecurities and public opinion that is told to the reader in a very fun and upbeat style.
OVERALL:
While Alburquerque’s art on this issues adds a unique flair, Christina Strain’s writing continues to thread the series together in tonal clarity and with smart dialogue. With focused development on a couple particular characters who may be less familiar to the reader, we still gain glimpses of the teams interactions as a whole with slight nudges towards the family style sanctuary that the school can offer its students. For being a calm before the storm of sorts (the next issue is the first arc’s end), this was a really fun read that helped create layers to the Institute and the relationships involved within it. Major props to Christina Strain for continuing to think out of the box with her style of storytelling.
8/10
Hear more discussion of Generation X #5 on the X-Men Monday Podcast, here.
#generation x#x-men#x-men comics#eye boy#nature girl#jubilee#christina strain#alberto jimenez alburquerque#felipe sobreiro#rachel dodson#terry dodson#marvel comics#marvel
3 notes
·
View notes
Note
Why don't you ship Captain Canary?
That’s a complicated question with a complicated answer.
It’s hard because I’m compelled to be honest because I respect my anons enough to give a serious, honest answer to pretty much every ask I actually take the energy to respond to, but I feel like any person who would ask this doesn’t actually want my honest answer from it. Last time I answered a question about CC, I was accused of attacking the anon because I summarily disagreed with the points they were making and explained why.
So, if I say this question feels a bit like an accusation, I hope you understand that it’s because it makes me nervous to go into negative detail about another ship and to know that it can ruffle feathers even with the best intentions. I’ve always been 100% disinterested in bullshit like ship wars and I don’t consider CC as in any way counter to anything else. I just… don’t ship it.
But I’ll answer my reasons for why honestly, leave it out of the ship tags, and hopefully you respect my answer.
The reason I don’t ship CC is a mix of on-screen chemistry, characterization, Sara’s seeming genuine dislike of Len at the outset and lack of attraction to him throughout, and… the shippers.
To go into detail on those. Their on-screen chemistry is amazing, and to a certain extent, I do ship them. I ship roguecanary (len x mick x sara), or Len and Sara for a fling, a dirty make-out in a dark corner sometime, a quickie in a supply closet sometime. I also ship them in the sense that they could, in theory, be a much much slower burn. I genuinely thought they might have a slow progression across two seasons or so, back when it first looked like there might be something between them, that they had some mild flirting. I think I might of liked that, and I certainly wasn’t against it. Killing off Len kind of accelerated that timeline though, if it existed.
But what I don’t ‘ship’ about their on-screen chemistry is that it feels so much more like friendship to me than romance. And that’s fine for some people. But the same way I don’t ship sn*wb*rry because I literally cannot see them as anything other than friends, and simply do not see romantic chemistry there at all, I also don’t see any genuine romantic chemistry between Len and Sara. That they become friends is sort of undeniable and I loved to see them playing cards and having insight into one another, but I didn’t feel that needed to be romantic and I thought it was better off being what it was, simply.
Characterization-wise? Well, this isn’t anyone’s fault, but I was a pretty hard Nyssara shipper, so Sara’s prior characterization made me not want to ship her with anyone other than Nyssa for a while. I’ve finally relaxed off that after it became clear I’d never get to see them together again, but it was hard letting go of that canon ship. I also found the logical ship for Len to be with Mick, because of their amazing dynamic. I found their chemistry to veer more toward romantic than Len and Sara’s did half the time. Moving in sync, the angsty break up, literally willing to die for each other, having a little memento ring, inside words, Mick being the only one Len seemed to initiate contact with.
So none of that helped. But none of that made CC a nOTP either? I mean, it’s not really a nOTP across the board. like i said, i do ship roguecanary or len and sara for a fling or an open thing, a casual understanding.
But Sara disliking Len at the outset did make give me an anti-romance sense. And throughout the entire season, she seems disinterested in him romantically.
Contrary to people with shipper goggles on when they watch that deleted scene from the pilot, I see her being annoyed by him and like she finds him distasteful. they get along for a drink by the end of the episode and she’s teasing him, they get closer, but she also says that she literally doesn’t like him when they’re dying of the cold. teasing? maybe, idk, but it’s not really something you say to someone you’re crushing on. it just seems so very platonic and also like the notion of being with him makes her uncomfortable. it’s hard for me to read her otherwise. he alludes to his feelings about her when he’s deflecting talking about mick and she looks surprised then impassive, completely shutting it down. he mentions thinking of a future with her when she’s already upset and doesn’t want to talk to him and she… well she basically tells him to fuck off? but as a “soft” no instead of a hard no, because maybe she doesn’t have her feelings sorted out but now is obviously not the time and she’s not interested in pursuing things with him with how things stand.
but basically, she never demonstrates reciprocal interest in him at all. and we know that she’s not especially shy when it comes to expressing herself, her attractions, or her intentions. i know it would be more complicated with a teammate, but i don’t think she’d be dishonest about her feelings either; she values honesty far too much for that.
and this makes him a pursuant of a person who is totally uninterested in him, and that’s a place i’ve been? people uncomfortably trying to pursue their attraction to me when i’d shut them down already? it’s not a pleasant position to be in, after a while. and i trust that len’s not so much a creep that he’d push it after getting a clear answer from her, but it still wasn’t something i found… romantic? endearing? a little cute in the scene where he says “my feelings about you” when deflecting, but if he were pursuing it further after she gave him that “have to steal a kiss” line without getting a clear signal from her that she’d changed her stance, it would have actually pissed me off.
anyway… so there’s all that.
there’s also… if you look at that ask i linked above, that’s the type of thing that really pushes it into… i have the ship tag blacklisted because stuff like that annoys me. and look, it happens in the coldflash fandom too, and i ignore it then as well. i’m never a fan of reducing a character down to a ship, attributing their development to a single romantic relation, saying they’re “so in love” when they’re literally really not. and look, gifset edits for your fave ship are cute af, i get it. it’s fun to speculate how your ship’s characters are going to feel when they see each other again.
but i get asks about ‘don’t you think len would have died for sara as well as mick?’ and my answer is… literally no. i don’t. i don’t think that’s how they saw each other, or how deep they felt about each other. and given that the producers have literally said sara has basically moved on, posts making her arc this season about len, or about how him coming back is going to affect her, just make me sigh. but i’m a canon-compliant asshole with my meta even with shipper goggles on, most of the time.
and i’ve seen a lot of those shippers try to reduce len’s relationships with lisa, mick, and other characters (including, yes, barry, who was important to his arc preceding legends) to being lesser than his friendship with sara. that’s so discomfiting to me. and it’s even more discomfiting to me how they reduce all of sara’s best emotional moments to being about len? her overcoming the order to kill martin was aided by len but not about him. her decision to talk to mick in the brig and that awesome conversation and the emotional insight she had? i’m tired of seeing people make that about her feelings about len. that was a great moment for her. she has so many great moments like that. so many great relationships i wish the fandom would explore more, rather than focusing on just a single romance.
and… look, i’m a person who prefers things when they don’t go canon half the time. my canon vs. non-canon ships are radically different. i love WA in the flash and wanted it to be canon and it is, but i love CF just as much and would never want it to be canon. with CC, the ways i would’ve wanted it to be canon never happened, and the ways it’s romanticized and populized in the fandom tend to rub me the wrong way maybe because of that.
So… long answer there. but it’s really honest. i don’t hate CC, and i do respect the fandom and genuinely wish them all the best. these generalizations, as with any generalization, are obviously not going to apply to every shipper or every fic or every meta. but they’re trends i’ve personally encountered and opinions i’ve either seen in the tags or had to interact with and eventually, it slowly turned me off the ship as a major romantic pairing.
#long post#long post for ts#and no i'm not gonna go look up posts or sources to support any of this#or gifs or anything#this isn't a meta#it's a completely subjective and personal post#even if it is a long one#and i'm completely uninterested in arguing about it or in people trying to convince me otherwise#let me know if this needs more tags for anything#Anonymous#replies#anti captain canary
33 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
