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jeidafei · 5 years

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D.Gray-Man Chapter 234 Translation Notes

I haven’t posted a note for many chapters, but this chapter dropped so many reveal-bombs I just can’t i just can’t aaaaaaaargh gurglegurgle

/regain composure /why am I listening to “Send In The Clowns” on loop while posting this?

Ahem. So, in short, this chapter is super LIT, but also a headache to translate. As with all reveal-heavy chapters, there is no knowing how disastrous the ramifications of one tiny misinterpretation can be on future reveals. Whoops!

So let’s peruse the story page-by-page, word-by-word, unraveling the story plus a little ramble on the Japanese language.

Warning: this post is incredibly long

(You can skip to 5 for my wild theory on The Pillar)

1. Gawd, I’ve always hated these opening captions T T

Because they always give me this feeling of I think I kinda understand what this means but I don’t know how to translate this so it makes sense!

紐解かれるかつての別離（わかれ）

I think I spent time on this one sentence even more than the rest of the chapter. Despite it being the first thing on the first page, this is honestly the last thing I translated this chapter.

Word-by-word, 紐解かれる (himo-tokareru) is the passive form of the verb 紐解く (himo-toku), which by definition means:

1) Unbinding and opening a new book 2) Unraveling (i.e. memories, history, the truth, etc.) 3) A flower blooming

紐 (himo) and 解く(toku) are also actually two separate words used normally in daily life. The first one means “rope” and the second means “to solve, to untie, to unravel etc.”

So, in essence, this word refers to something hidden, a secret being revealed. No surprises here, since we’re talking about D.Gray-Man.

かつての (katsute no) means “Once”, “Used to be” whereas 別離 (betsuri) means “parting, separation” but the furigana indicates must be read as わかれ (wakare) for some reason, and means farewell or separation as well.

I take it that as Mana and Nea were once separated by death, but now Nea has returned to Mana as he vowed to, the “farewell” is no more; it just used to be a farewell.

So now that we have all the pieces...

HOW ON EARTH DO I TRANSLATE THIS !!!???

You saw how it turned out above. To be frank, I’m still not satisfied with it, but as my period cramps are killing me and I’m literally typing this to distract my mind from it because I can’t sleep yet with this pain, and my brain is out of ideas, as always...

I’ll leave it to you guys to interpret freely!

2. Nea’s last words

Just when I thought I’d skip that troubling caption and start on the dialogue right away, manga-kun messes with me again! Who was Nea talking to? In the background, Nea is reaching up to Mana while decaying away. However, on the next page, turns out it is Cross recalling those words.

So I walked over to my bookshelf and picked up DGM volume 17 and 22.

In volume 17, in their last meeting before Cross disappeared, Cross told Allen that Nea promised him that he’d return to Mana if Cross kept watch over Mana.

In volume 22, however, Road reveals to Allen that “Don’t stop, keep walking.” were Nea’s parting words to Mana.

Um...so...which is it, exactly?

So if context doesn’t help, then should we turn back to the literal word? If it were some other language I might’ve said great idea! But this is Japanese; a douchebag of a language that assumes all parties must be native speakers and privy to the conversation beforehand. And thus omits subject, verbs, and objects whenever it pleases to screw foreign learners and outsiders alike.

Why, Nea’s sentence has no subject and object!

まってろ。必ずマナの元に行く。「アレン」が目印だ。それまでは立ち止まるな。

Literally this says “Keep waiting/Just you wait. (I will) definitely go to where Mana is. ‘Allen’ is the sign. Until then, don’t stand still.”

While Nea using Mana’s name might imply that Nea’s not talking to Mana, but to someone else, otherwise he would’ve used “you/your”. But in Japanese, usually people will refer to their convo partner by name as well, i.e. Lenalee and Allen refer to everyone by name instead of “you”. This is considered neutral and politer than the textbook pronoun “anata” (which is kinda condescending actually...so why do they still keep it in the textbooks!?).

In case you’re not that close with the person you’re talking to, and not sure which pronoun you should use, using their name is the safest bet to avoid offending them. (Don’t go calling your client omae, of course lol!)

So, back to Nea, going by this rule, he also could’ve been talking to Mana himself as well. See? Curse you, nihongo!!!

Anyway, Nea didn’t talk to Mana/Earl that way when they met in recent(? I dunno, my sense of time is already warped from too many hiatuses and hopeless waiting) chapters; Nea refers to Mana using the pronoun “anta” which is the shorter, more casual form of “anata”. And judging from his overall language, he’s not that polite or soft-spoken either, so the possibility is lower.

Also it’s kinda weird to tell someone who’s sitting right in front of you that you’ll “go to” where he is.

So, using my spidey sense plus all things considered, I finally concluded that since it’s Cross’ flashback, Nea was talking to Cross this time.

Looking back on this, I don’t know if I’d be able to translate DGM even with 50% accuracy had I not read the series from the start and have the volumes stacked on a bookshelf nearby just in case. Screw you, NIHONGO!

3. Pierrot, Clown, Auguste, Whiteface, Harlequin; What’s the difference?

In Lost Fragment of Snow, Mana is described as a Pierrot whereas Cosimo is a Clown. As I’m not well-versed in clown traditions, I did some Googling and Wikipedia, and learned the art is even more interesting and richer than I once thought:

In this informative blog , it’s explained that while in appearance, the Pierrot and the Clown are almost the same, there is one rule that sets them apart:

The Pierrot has tear marks under his eyes, whereas the Clown does not.

The Pierrot’s tear marks:

(I just noticed Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker also has tear marks)

The blog is long and detailed and very interesting, but in short, though both the Pierrot and the Clown are supposed to make people laugh by doing foolish things, while the Clown intentionally acts foolish to be laughed at, and can also joke back at and laugh at the audience as well, the Pierrot will always have to be laughed at and made fun of by the audience.

Deep down, though the Pierrot is hurt and sad, he must act as if he’s not, to conceal it from the audience. Thus the tear marks indicates a deep, profound sadness.

(*pause to sob for Allen and Joker*)

Back to Mana, we can clearly see he has a tear mark on his right eye. But Cosimo has what looks to be a tear mark and a star under his eyes as well.

So...aren’t they both Pierrots? Grrrrrrr! DAMMIT HOSHINO!!

Anyways, moving on. I think we remember that back in Allen’s epic showdown with the Earl in Edo, this scene happened:

The Earl compares Allen to the White Clown/Clown Blanc and himself to Auguste. In classic tradition, Blanc and Auguste are often paired together, and it is said that this originates from the pairing of the Pierrot and Harlequin.

No no no obviously I’m not talking about this one lol

Ahem, back to serious-ass clown lore:

Both Blanc & Auguste and Pierrot & Harlequin are similar in that the former (Blanc and Pierrot) is more sophisticated, stern, serious and melancholic, whereas the latter (Auguste and Harlequin) is the happy, clumsy, grotesque, sometimes rude fool that does the former’s bidding, to comical results.

In Lost Fragment of Snow, Mana is said to always be smiling and extraordinarily kind, and that he is an enchantingly elegant, beautiful clown, but when he smiles, he always looks as if he is actually crying, dying inside.

I mean, pretty much everyone has had that moment in their lives, no?

Okay, back to seriousness, again; Yes, Mana is the ultimate Pierrot, the Whiteface, the Blanc. The sad fool who must always be laughed at by the world.

And now Allen, who has taken on Mana’s personality, became the melancholic laughingstock of the world himself, constantly being pushed down and trodden on and used, but having no choice but to push on with a smile, hiding his pain deep underneath the white greasepaint.

Cue the music!

I started a joke, which started the whole world crying But I didn't see that the joke was on me. I started to cry, which started the whole world laughing Oh, if I'd only seen that the joke was on me.

(Bee Gees - I Started A Joke)

4. Great, Cosimo had a hard life too. One more confirmed-dead character I have to cry for!

I hated Cosimo. Still do. Heck, EVERYONE HATES COSIMO. I mean, until now, the guy totally has no redeeming qualities and no justifying reason behind his relentless cruelty.

But in the recent chapters, there are reveals not mentioned in LFS:

Cosimo was bought and forced to work as an errand boy, like Red, before he somehow crawled his way out and became the circus’s top performer. While drunk, Cosimo would also complain about how he was actually born a noble (this last one is also mentioned in LFS).

Imagine that. Your parents abandoned you for whatever reason (maybe he’s a bastard child?) and you ended up sold to slavery in a circus. After years of being worked to the bone and abused, you struck it big and thought you had it all, then new guy waltzes in with his stupid dog and takes your spotlight.

Heck, you don’t even have to live such a rotten life to feel bitter. In Toy Story, even brave and fair Sheriff Woody was reduced to a jealous wreck in the face of Buzz Lightyear stealing Andy’s attention from him, wasn’t he? And I think we can all relate to that. Most of us have been jealous of someone before.

Cosimo’s unforgivable actions towards Mana and Allen the Dog may have been fueled by insecurity, trauma and fear as much as jealousy. His abuse towards Red is a result of long years of being abused himself; his own way to cope.

While Red/Allen blames himself for his pain and not inflict it back upon others, Cosimo did the opposite, because everyone reacts and adapts differently. However, to be clear, both of these traits are not healthy.

There’s also the fact that Red was saved by the kindness of Allen the Dog and Mana while he is fortunately still young enough to regain faith; whereas Cosimo suffered alone all through his life, surrounded by selfish, two-faced scumbags like that guy handing out leaflets. Had things been different, who’s to say Red might not turn out the same as Cosimo?

In a nutshell, Cosimo is simply a product of his harsh environment. While I still despise him, I can’t help feeling some pity for him and understanding where all that evil had come from. I don’t believe he is inherently bad. Nobody is. Had he been raised with love, I’m sure he would have been a very different person.

5. The Pillar

I know, this is what y’all are actually here for. I mean who cares about Cosimo’s tragic life or the difference between a Pierrot and a Clown when there’s an honest-to-gods HOLY LIGHT SPLITTING THE SKY APART AND OBLITERATING THIS WHOLE WORLD FULL OF SINNERS!? And it’s even teased, like, waaaaay back in Timothy’s Arc (gawd how old was I back then?) !!

First, a recap of this chapter:

7,000 years ago, The Pillar destroyed the world (which seems pretty modern). The Noah survived and held a grudge against The Pillar for forever destroying their world, leaving them with nowhere to return to. Once they found the reborn Millennium Earl, they pretended to be his family, but instead are using him to exact revenge on The Pillar, because it is predicted the Earl will one day become The Pillar and destroy the world again. Cross however took pity on the Earl and chided Road for believing in that prophecy and causing the Earl so much misery.

Some IRL tidbits:

Hoshino-sensei revealed she traveled to Ground Zero of WTC for inspiration, now we finally get to know which scene that inspiration is for. And IMO, the instant obliteration coming out of nowhere on one fine day, the Pillar etching a line from sky to ground amidst the pile of rubble, reminds me of the A-bomb’s mushroom cloud over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And we all know which country Hoshino-sensei comes from, right? Could there be a link?

Now, my personal analysis (or rather, pointless rant with no answers coming out whatsoever):

This chapter both confirms, clarifies and also debunks important things we have believed from our time with the Order, listening to the Order’s side of the story.

1) In the very beginning, Komui tells Allen about the previous end of the world 7,000 years ago. The Bible calls it “The Great Flood”. The Cube calls it “The Three Days of Darkness.” However, we now learn it is neither rainy nor dark. Nope, one day all of a sudden, a blindingly bright shaft of light struck down from the sky, and The Capitol suddenly became The Scorch. How did it achieve that? No clue!

2) Komui tells Allen that the end of the world was caused by a war between the wielders of Innocence and the Earl + the Noah Family, and the ensuing flood that destroyed the world scattered the Innocence around the world.

However, in this chapter, we learned there was no war. There was no flood. Just the Pillar that appeared suddenly one day. And surprise, the Noah Family hated The Pillar for destroying their beloved world, their only home (wait, aren’t they supposed to hate the Innocence?).

Yet now the Noah are working with the Earl, who wants to destroy the new world and would someday become the Pillar and destroy the new world too? Yet Cross says they’re just using him for all this time?

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?

My super duper wild theory is that since 1) The Earl is the Pillar-in-Making, 2) The Noah show hatred for The Pillar as much as they do for the Innocence, 3) The Pillar, like Innocence, could trigger their Noah Memory to threaten to swallow them, then it’s kinda implied that;

Mana = The Millennium Earl = The Pillar = The Heart of Innocence

And the Noah, knowing this all along and wanting to prevent the end of the world from happening again, tricked the Millennium Earl into thinking they’re helping him fulfill his raison d'être of Harbinger of the End of The F***ing World (sorry, another reference, heh), not telling him that he’s actually the Heart of Innocence itself, watch him go after Exorcists he suspects are the Heart, and gleefully accept his orders to kill those Exorcists looking for the Heart, in order to prevent the Black Order from ever getting the Earl aka the Heart on their side.

They also let the Earl create legions of Akuma to fight the Exorcists and destroy all the Innocence shards, literally using the Earl to destroy himself, keeping him away from his true allies, chipping away at his lifeline one shard at a time, like Harry crushing Voldemort’s horcruxes one by one, not knowing he’s a Horcrux himself. Until finally, when there is nothing left but the greatly weakened Heart with no army to protect it, then will the Noah have the chance to defeat it once and for all.

And of course while they keep the Earl busy searching for the Heart, old man will never pause and think hmmm, maybe I am the Heart?

Perhaps this is why Wisely said that all humans who have awoken into Noah will accept their duty once they learned of Noah’s mission. Since Noah’s mission now seems to be preventing the end of the world at the hands of Innocence, which I take as God’s power, and God’s weapon for “cleansing” the world whenever he deems it too sinful.

After all, we have seen the horrors Innocence can do, the lengths Innocence will go to punish people it judged to have sinned. Innocence is said to be a crystallization of God, and like God, it has been foreshadowed numerous times to have that ruthless, merciless, unforgiving streak within it that could alienate even Allen himself.

Anyway, I typed this one without checking the earlier volumes that much. I expect there will be several loopholes, so be sure to point out any inaccuracies and also please, please do let me know what you guys think of these reveals as well! I’d love to hear differing theories!

Other tidbits

The Garvey Troupe, not Garbeigh. Sorry, everyone. Phonetically, Japanese does not have the “v” sound. Nowadays, you can write it out by adding the mark on the ウ (u) letter like this: ヴ, but most words would still transliterate it to the “b” sound, and most Japanese people will still have trouble pronouncing the “v” sound properly anyway. For example, “Violin” could be written both as (v)ヴァイオリン or (b)バイオリン, and most people would pronounce it like the latter.

Do you think Road’s memories of the End of the World has anything to do with Lenalee and Allen’s shared dream of the End of the World as well? Though Lenalee’s nightmare features the Black Order in ruins and not the modern skyscrapers of Road’s.

So Cross knew Nea and Mana from childhood!? I’ve always thought he met Nea by chance when they are grownups and he was forced to do Nea’s bidding. Interesting!!

So, that’s it for this chapter! Phew! That was uber long. Thank you so much for bearing with me this far. Hit me up in comments!

#dgm #d gray #d gray man #d gray man 234

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starchildrenofdustand-ashes · 5 years

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My Six The Musical Review

Once again nobody cares— BUUUT I saw SixChicago yesterday with Adrianna Hicks as Aragon, Andrea Macasaet as Bolyen, Abby Mueller as Seymour, Brittney Mack as Cleves, Anna Uzele as Parr. Here are somethings I noticed (essentially this is a rundown of everything you wouldn’t get just from listening to the album lol) ((Also im so tired and its 12.28 am and im sorry for any mistakes))

❤️💚💛💗🖤💙

👑 So before the show, they were playing a ton of pop music, but it was on an instrument that kinda sounded like a lute or harpsichord. 👑 When the Queens walked out from behind the curtain in a single file line to take their place on stage, the crowd went crazy. They all came out through a tiny crack in the curtain,, but when they belt “LIIIIVE” the curtain falls to the floor as is dragged off stage. 👑During the dance breaks in Ex-Wives, they go from dancing hip hop, to dancing with each other in a style they would’ve done back then to the beat. It was cute. 👑It was so weird hearing their accents! I’m always expecting “divooced” but it felt like they were almost emphasizing the r “ divoRRced” 👑Before Catherine of Aragon starts singing in Ex-Wives she says “Remember us from PBS??” 👑When Jane Seymour sings her bit in the song she moves Stage Left and when the Queens all say “Hey!” She looks surprised and shrugs, continuing to sing 👑Anna really played up the “JA’s” during her bit and IT WAS SO CUTE (you will find I am partial to clever, bc my gay ass is in love with her.) 👑There is so much dialogue!! After they say “Chicago!! How’re you doing tonight!!” They say we are “SIIIIX” in their harmonies and “Welcome to our divorced, beheaded, LIVE TOUR” 👑Aragon says “WE HAVE SO MUCH IN STORE FOR YOU TONIGHT— WE HAVE THE RIFFS TO RUFFLE YOUR RUFFS” before she does a really sick riff 👑A few of the other queens add on to that,, I forgot what they said but then Howard says “AND A WHOLE LOT OF HISTORY” and Parr cuts her off and says “OR AS WE SAY A WHOLE LOT OF HERSTORY” 👑then they introduce their band (who are on the stage with then) as their ladies in waiting and I was soft 👑 So then they go on to explain the deal with the show; they are all competing against each other for the crown of the “ultimate” queen based on who had to put up with the most shit from Henry 👑 When they’re going down the line to explain why they say 💛Who lasted longest was the strongest 💚The biggest sinner is obvs the winner 🖤 I have no idea what Seymour said I don’t remember DX ❤️Who was most chased is first place 💗The most glorious will be victorious 💙The winning contestant was the most protestant (but she says it so it rhymes with contestant and then all the queens look at her like ??? And she sighs and says ‘protestant’ with its correct pronunciation 👑Aragon says “How in the purgatory are they gonna choose a leading lady??” 👑”The queen to take the crown will be the one who had the biggest, the firmest, the fullest…. LOAD OF BS TO DEAL WITH FROM THE MAN WHO PUT A RING ON IT 👑There is a reprise of Ex-wives but this time they change the lyrics to “welcome to the show to the coronation” 👑💛lol Aragon cut the reprise off and was like “It doesn’t matter, because I’m the winner” and then she asked the drummer for a beat 👑💛So with the beat, Aragon begins to tell her story, and the bass is strumming the baseline for no way 👑💛”Okay, I’m thinking its… a bit weird they want me to marry my… dead husbands brother”… 👑💛So then she continues recounting the story and she says “I saw lipstick on his collar and I’m like… okAY… so now he wants to annul our marriage and moves this sidekick into mY palace and wants me in a CONVENT” and she’s on a RANT so she pauses and breathes really heavily before smiling really widely and sighing “Now… I don’t think I look that good in a wimple so I said. No. Way.” And the song starts immediately after that 👑💛Idk what else to say except that Aragon was a total badass and Adrianna Hicks was a fucking QUEEN 👑💛When she asks him to name when she’s ever caused him pain, she’s all the way upstage on the same platform/semi circle that the band is on, and she’s on her knees kinda begging kinda. She pauses for a LONG time and waits for an answer and her face is smug when she’s like “no?” 👑💛She said “I had the most to deal with AND I hit that high c so that crown is mine,” 👑The other Queens stop her and are like theres another really REALLY IMPORTANT one… the one that overlapped with you who is she?? The famous one that people actually care about!” Then they all start chanting “The one you’ve been waiting for” and the lighting turns green,, while they’re chanting, Anne Boleyn looks really confused and shrugs and walks to the back of the stage and picks up her phone 👑💚The Queens eventually say “The temptresssssss” and they hold it out like a snake “ANNE BOLYEN” and they sing this very choir like 👑💚They all turn to her and Anne is just sitting there cackling at whatever is on her phone and she’s like “ Whoops sorry,,” and Don’t loose your head starts 👑💚Andrea Macasaet has SUCH a high pitched voice she was absolutely ADORABLE 👑💚When she said “get ahead” she smirked and everyone laughed 👑💚Instead of her voice going down on “Pret a Manger,” it got even higher almost In a mocking French accent. 👑💚She is pissing Aragon the fuck off this entire song lol 👑💚When she says “Are you blind??” She gestures between she and Aragon 👑💚 “What was I meant to do?” Is sung like a confused toddler lol 👑💚 So the bit where they play the wedding song, all the queens bow to her and she walks past, smiling and waving and she gets to the end of the line and is like “Hold up,, let me tell you how it went down HENRY’S OUT EVERY NIGHT …. Etc” 👑💚”Bro just shut up!” Instead of mate 👑💚She even asks the band what was she meant to do, and everyone is repeating her and she screams “OH MY GOD SERIOUSLY HE REALLY WANTS TO CUT MY HEAD OFF” 👑💚and then she grins again after a long silence and she’s all smug like “I guess he really liked my head…..” While kinda licking her lips lol 👑💚DEAR GOD HER RIFFS JESUS FUCKING HREHTTLTURHGUEHURL 👑💚And she was like “yeah… that was such a weekend… I like died… and it was so extra! So im clearly the winner. So now, I have to sing a song I wrote when I found out that Catherine of Aragon had died. Its called WEAR YELLOW TO A FUNERAL SING IF YOU KNOW THE WORDS. And the bass came in and Boleyn sings “Catherine was a massive C-” and the other Queens immediately shut her up 👑Aragon and Boleyn start arguing until Seymour is like “its my turn now…” 👑Everyone looks at het before they burst out laughing, telling her ‘bye’ and ‘girl, please’ 👑And Seymour is like yeah,, I was in love and I was really really lucky. 👑🖤 And Seymour goes into this really heartbreaking monologue about how she missed her songs future and how she had a picture of her family. She said that Henry was really sweet and that she loved him 👑Boleyn cuts her off and is like “yeahhhh,, there was this one really cute time where he, like, cut my head off :) 👑🖤Seymour said that Aragon and Boleyn were badasses. Then she said that she promised to always stay by his side and didn’t yell at him back like the other two because she loved him. Then she dedicated the song to him 👑🖤Heart of Stone started and honestly,,, its not my favorite song and I usually skip it. But mY GOODNESS. Abby Mueller is a fucking goddess wow. The amount of control she has on her voice is astounding 👑🖤(fun fact abt me— I have perfect pitch lol) they pitch changed it into A major and it transposes into B major which was SO BEAUTIFUL. It made me actually like the song lol 👑🖤Its not really eventful,, she just stands in the middle of the stage. 👑Seymour is like,, “what hurts more than a broken heart?” And Boleyn is like “A chopped off head” 👑Almost immediately after it transfers to Cleves and she’s like “soo he’s running out of options in England he had to expand his fields and adjust his location settings to find his next queen. We are Heading to Germany where he got the help of Han….. 👑At some point during the song, the other queens ran off stage to get their glasses and ruffs 👑They all run back on stage in their glasses and ruffs (Cleves still hasn’t said his last name yet) and they all whisper “Holbien” 👑WELCOME TO THE HOUSE 👑lol this song is SO funny… and Cleves is so fucking adorable (she was flossing at some point). The dancing was so… German…it was hilarious. 👑So after the song is done,, the girls still have their ruffs and glasses on and it kinda turns into a mobile app like tinder.. 👑Basically there are two queens before Cleves and they all stand up and walk downstage as they are introduced, they smile and their picture is taken and they wait for about two seconds before Henry swipes left or right. 👑The two in front of Cleves are played by Parr and Howard. 👑After Cleves is selected their is a Holbein reprise 👑❤️The other queens run off taking the ruffs and Cleves is left on the stage sighing comically several times. She’s at the back of the stage sitting on a makeshift stone 👑❤️”Its the tragic story of a princess-educated, savvy, young- deemed ugly by an ulcer-ridden, wheezing, winkled man 20 years her senior.” 👑❤️WHATS A MORE DEVASTATING FATE THAN BEING FORCED INTO A BEAUTIFUL PALACE IN RICHMOND WITH MORE MONEY THAN I COULD EVER SPEND AND NO MAN TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO WITH IT 👑❤️Get down is also key changed 👑❤️When she sings “I’m the Queen of the castle” she is skipping across the stage 👑❤️When she gives her fur to the footman, she actually takes off her coat and hands it to one of the queens. The crowd went crazy and she’s like “guys stop,’ and like acting all shy but secretly enjoying it-she says “Okurrrrrrrrr” . Then she’s like “AS YOU WERE” and everyone is quiet lol 👑❤️the part where it slows down and she’s like “SIT DOWNNN YOU DIRTTTY RrrrrrASCALLL” she opera sings it and I shat myself 👑❤️she uses her microphone as a lute lol 👑❤️YOU CANT (nope) STOP (nuh-uh) YOU CANT STOP ME 👑❤️At some point she squeezes her boob. I love her. 👑❤️after she kills us all by belting that last note she points to a girl in the front row and is like “YOU IN THE PINK DRESS!” and she gestures for her to stand up. And the girl stands up and they bop together with Cleves ad libbing in the background 👑❤️Eventually she says “Okay sugar this is my song, GET DOWN” 👑❤️And then after a moment of silence she’s like “So yeah it was really tragic…” 👑Aragon is like that doesn’t sound difficult at all and Ceves is like “oh… yeah.. I probably won’t win this thing… WELP BACK TO THE PALACE!” 👑the queens argue more and honestly it’s iconic 👑Seymour is yelling at Aragon and her voice is so loud and Cleves interrupts her and is like “guys,… I have the plague” and they all gasp and she’s like “HAHA JUST KIDDING MY LIFES AMAZING” they roll their eyes and Parr is like “our next queen! K HOWARD!” And everyone is like who??? 👑Aragon is like “ The least relevant Catherine,,” and Boleyn is like “Yeahhh i get it and I still don’t care,,,” 👑Howard is like “You’re right… I need all the help I can compete. What happened to you was terrible,, and so were you songs,,” Then she proceeded to roast everyone. She says “Anne you obviously had it worse I mean you lost your head……. Oh wait…..” 👑💗And then she says “but seriously Anna, getting rejected for your looks really sucks…. cant relate…I’m really hot…. So yeah. I can compete like this” or smthing and then all you wanna do starts. 👑💗At the beginning of the song the queens touch her everywhere and she leans into it willingly 👑💗Blowing the flute,, she winks at the audience and when she says C-D she puts her hand in front of her crotch and squeezes. 👑💗 “There was this guy… Francis and he asked me to be his little piece of aaaasssssss…istant! 👑💗The song goes from upbeat to upsetting very very quickly after Francis she starts to become less trusting and she gets more disoriented as the show goes on. 👑💗”Apparently men only hire women to get them into their private chamber… times were different then…” 👑💗When she says “He says we have this connection,” about Henry Seymour comes from behind her and touches her stomach — all you can see is her hand touching her sensually. She looks a little surprised and then she’s like “I guess its not so different..” 👑💗By the time we get to Thomas Culpepper she is flustered and VERY uncomfortable. The girls are all touching her now and she looks down and stares at their hand before pushing them away and finishing the end of the song. she keeps pushes them away but they keep coming back. She looks utterly heartbroken and you can see her unraveling. 👑💗THAT RIFF WAS SO GGHRSILGBRLGKJBJL 👑💗she screams “WHEN WILL ENOUGH BE ENOUGH” as they keep touching her and she fails as she pushes them away. 👑💗Eventually she gets them off but she ends up by herself on the stage with her face facing up and a dim pink spotlight is on her. 👑💗There is a chilling silence and then she’s smiling and says ‘YEAH and then I was beheaded and I won this competition!” 👑Then they get into another argument. Boleyn starts talking about how her beheading was more relevant because Henry humiliated her more and Aragon was like,,, um I won the humiliation game and she counts her mistresses 👑Then they start yelling about the miscarriages they had and Boleyn says she has three and Aragon says “You know what Anne BO-LOSER I HAD FIVE” and Parr is like “this is not okay, don’t compare miscarriages, thats hella insensitive” and they push her to the center and tell her to sing her song 👑Theres a random baseline again and Parr looks like she’s about to start singing but she stops and says,,”I’m good,” and tries to go off stage. They all accuse her of being a sore loser because she survived and knows that she had no chance of winning. 👑Parr is like,,, NO its pitting us against each other and the queens all groan and make fun of her and she’s like okay,, imma sing the song then. And Katherine Howard says “Are you sure?? Are you sure you dont want to stick to backing vocals where you belong?” 👑💙And Parr softly says “Queens take a seat,” before turning to the pianist and saying “Can you give me a Bb maj7, please?” 👑💙Parr shuts down all the queens and says her life wasn’t all rainbows because she survived. And she talks about her love tom, and I never realized that the song is a letter to tom. She starts off “Dear Tom, You know I love you boy,” 👑💙 Anna Uzele was so fucking good. And Tbh,, this is my least favorite song so I don’t remember much about the staging (I’m sorry) 👑💙Side note,, parr is such a badass and an amazing woman 👑At the end of the song, she turns to the queens and is like “without Henry we all disappear ,” and Boleyn is like “I don’t get it” and parr asks “How does anyone know who we are” and Boleyn is like “mY SiX fInGeRs-“ before Aragon cuts her off and is like “Put it away, baby” 👑Parr then asks Henry the 7 and 6’s wives names and nobody can answer. “but, when we get together as a group-“ Boleyn cuts her off and is like “EVERYONE NOTICES THAT JANE CAN’T DANCE!” “NO WE COMPARE OURSELVES” 👑when Boleyn finally gets it she explains the situation like she’s an encyclopedia and it was so funny and fast and oMG 👑”UGH if we had realized this before we started we could have done something else like make a fake competition to show everyone how messed up comparing us is and then we could reclaim our story and all become the leading ladies…” “:/ and they are all saying this dialogue its just split up and I dont remember it very well 👑IF ONLY WE HAD THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE 👑then they look at each other and smirk at the audience before reprising Parr’s song as “We don’t need your love,” 👑Which was so good bc THEY DON’T NEED HENRY’S LOVE YES 👑Then they point out “We might only be remember for marrying the same man,, but why does anyone give a sh- who he is? It’s because of his,,” then they all harmonize ’SIIIIIIX WIVES’ 👑AND WE ALL HAVE A ROYAL HAPPY EVER AFTER but Boleyn cuts Seymour off and is like “But we didn’t” 👑then they go onto explain how none of them had happy endings and they’re like,, but we can rewrite them! So they do and that leads into Six which is such a soft song. 👑Six, actually starts off very slowly. It speeds up after they say “we’re six” 👑It was such an energy ending I was speechless and gold confetti poured down on them and OMG I was shaken to my core.

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tev-the-random · 4 years

Text

A casual Sonic Forces rewrite + some headcanons, because why not

Part 1 – Infinite and Episode Shadow

Just a warning: none of the images used here belong to me! They all belong to SEGA – the game screenshots, the official art and the comic pages.

Next Part ->

I have yet to see the Sonic Movie, because the universe seems devoted on not letting me do so, for some reason. Being as desperate for Sonic content but as determined to not receive spoilers from the movie as I am, I decided to go for the next coolest thing: writing really long and random posts about a game that came out three years ago and no one cares about anymore.

This shall be fun!

(Update: as of posting this, I have finally watched the movie! But I don’t want to throw this away, so I’ll post it anyway. We can have a nice talk about the movie later.)

*“Fist Bump instrumental” intro plays*

*“This is Our World: a New Hero” plays in the background*

I’m the type of person to always try and see the best in every game, and Sonic Forces is no different. Despite its obvious flaws, I love this beautiful game! Mostly the concept of it is one of the coolest things I’ve seen this last decade, but the execution… lacks on a few things. I mostly just fill in the gaps with my imagination and enjoy it nevertheless, but, upon going through the tag and seeing that some of my concerns were shared by other people, I decided to try my hand at rewriting Sonic Forces juuust a tiny bit. Just for fun!

For this first part (and I have no idea how many parts we should have), I’d like to share some of my ideas about…

*Infinite’s Theme plays in the background as I try hard not to sing along*

Oh, my poor jackal boy, what do we do with you? Despite being so heavily promoted and having an undeniably awesome theme song, Infinite’s backstory and general development throughout the game came out as lacking, having the self-proclaimed edgelord become a laughingstock amongst most fans. Nevertheless, I still love Infinite, and it saddens me how much wasted potential he had; it’s like they were trying to write a really interesting character, but gave up halfway through.

So yeah, let’s talk about it. And let us begin with his origin story.

I believe you are all familiar with this scene:

I… I want to defend my boy here, I really do. But honestly, the way this was portrayed, it just sounded like he was throwing a childish tantrum. It seems as if his entire motive for becoming a villain was “Shadow beat him and called him weak”; dude, you’re not the only one: Shadow does this to basically everybody who’s ever crossed his way! We’re not given a reason as to why Infinite gets so bloody offended, nor are we given a reason why we should care.

So, how can we fix this? I think we should firstly focus less on “I’M NOT WEEEEAAAAK!!! URRAAAAGHH!!!” and more on:

It doesn’t need to be – and I don’t even think it can be – as sad of a situation as the Rivaille Squad in Shingeki No Kyojin or anything, but I believe that showing us that Infinite lost something important would already do wonders to his backstory.

The simplest way – that is, the way that doesn’t majorly change how things go, but does give the jackal a clearer motive – to do this would involve the ever so humble inclusion of two new cutscenes and one new in-game battle, plus a few tweaks to some already existing scenes.

Episode Shadow begins not with the usual reading introduction, but rather, with Shadow’s voice. “I was a couple of months before the Doctor took over the world. The first time I encountered him… I didn’t know what he would become.” Then we open with what used to be a couple of months prior (aka where they presented Infinite’s memory, aka where they screwed up), so we’ll go through things in a chronological order instead of having a flashback inside of a prequel, because that’s confusing AF.

Now, instead of starting the Mystic Jungle level immediately, we should get a small cutscene: Shadow gliding through the jungle, cool camera angles/lighting and all – maybe something similar to the opening scene of Episode Shadow in Sonic 06? –, on his way to invade Eggman’s base as a voice coming from the hedgehog’s communicator reminds him about his mission (yep, that’s some subtle exposition to the audience so we don’t think Shadow is there just because). My idea for said mission would be the simple task of retrieving a Chaos Emerald (yeah, remember those?) from Eggman. Nothing too serious; just another day, another emerald stolen like usual; we’ve seen this before, there’s no need for a long dialogue.

As the black-and-red blur crosses the screen, the camera pans to a group of people hiding above in the trees: Squad Jackal. Infinite is not among them. One of the jackals asks “where’ the boss?” to which another one replies that he’s on the other side of the base/talking to the Doctor/whatever and they have no time to waste; their mission is to take down the intruder and protect the base. We get something in the lines of “the boss is counting on us. Expect no mercy, show no weakness. Let’s go!” and the camera fades out as the squad drops from the trees and runs after Shadow.

I believe that having the phrase “show no weakness” – or any possible reference to “I’m not weak”, really – appear earlier as seemingly common and then have it become something the character gives a lot of importance to due to consequences and parallels sounds a bit more interesting than having Infinite’s inferiority complex come out of nowhere.

The Mystic Jungle level plays as usual, except the dialogue in the background doesn’t say that “the Defence Squad has already been completely annihilated”, but rather that “the Defence Squad is on the case. They’re the best mercenaries there are, Shadow won’t stand a chance!” because Doctor Eggman is naive like that.

Once we reach the end of the level there’s another change: a boss battle against Squad Jackal. You see, we don’t want to hear the squad was taken down like some sort of lazy exposition, because it feels incomplete; we want to participate, we want to be the protagonist and see with our own eyes just what is Infinite’s squad. This gives faces and voices to something that will become an important plot point instead of just telling us “yeah, this happened or whatever”. This could also play as some sort of sympathy point for Infinite, because we, while in control of Shadow, took down his squad; it makes the villain’s animosity towards Shadow and his general anger at least a bit more understandable.

The idea is that this battle should play as some sort of field fight – that is, differently than most boss battles in Sonic Forces, this is not a racing track where you attack your enemy while running, but rather a large secluded area, much like the one we get in the fight between the Custom Hero and the DeathEgg Robot –, where squad members would attack individually in different patterns before going for a group attack. The individual jackals would have both projectile (perhaps something like a wispon, knives or some Eggman invention to keep it family friendly enough?) and close-ranged attacks, while the group attack would consist of this mass of wild jackals changing at you, trying to run you over. The opportunity windows could be either the moment when the opponents switch or band together for the group attack.

(I don’t know, maybe some of you can think of better ways to fight the Jackal Squad? This is just a random idea! I’d like to hear different ones!)

Once the fight is over, we get another cutscene: Shadow stands among the fallen jackals – don’t worry, they’re… sleeping… yeah, there’s no visible blood, they’re not dead… except they’re totally dead – and looks around for a second or two. His expression is indecipherable, and he soon leaves without saying a word – one might say he feels bad for them, or maybe he doesn’t give a damn; we leave that open to interpretation. Not a moment passes and we get to see the leader of the squad arriving at the scene. The camera moves in a circle around him as he looks at his fallen comrades in shock. How did this happen? They were the strongest, how could his whole squad be dead? This is a rather touching moment, where Infinite sticks his sword (because in his origins comic he used to have a super cool red sword and I want to pretend we have a reason for it not existing in the game) to the ground; there’s a feeling of anger and vengeance going on as we get a closer look at the last standing jackal. He clenches his fists and faces the direction of Shadow. “Expect no mercy, show no weakness,” he says in an infuriated, strangled voice. He starts to run and the camera fades out.

(Look at his sword and his squad, man. I do wish we could have seen them in the game…)

When the camera fades in again, we get that exact same cutscene from the game. Blah blah, “destroyed my squad”, blah blah, “ultimate mercenary”, a legendary ass whooping and Infinite falls to the ground, weak, pathetic and defeated.

Now, I’d like to add just a few lines to their dialogue, because this:

Doesn’t really sound like Shadow to me. I mean, man: you beat this random guy to the ground, called him worthless and pathetic out of nowhere and then you just leave? I know Shadow is rather apathetic and he’s supposed to be savage and all, but this just felt kind of out of place…

So instead of going full rude mode, what Shadow actually says is:

‘You’re part of the Defence Squad, aren’t you? Why would a bunch of mercenaries work for the Doctor? What is he hiding?’

‘The doctor paid well enough to not have his secrets spilled,’ Infinite retorts while trying to get up. He’s too hurt to do much, but he’s still willing to fight. He looks at Shadow with fiery eyes as he continues, ‘My squad… you took them down like they were nothing… why wouldn’t someone as strong as you be a mercenary?’

‘Mercenary work is for the weak,’ the hedgehog states matter-of-factly. ‘I’ve sworn to protect, not to follow the dirty line of work you did.’

This blows Infinite’s mind and he simply stares at Shadow, dumbfounded. He murmurs, ‘weak? How dare you, I’m not… We’re not weak! We’re the squad o-’

‘Where’s the Chaos Emerald?’ The jackal’s statement is completely ignored. However, Infinite is having none of this, so tries to attack Shadow once again in a fit of rage, only for the hedgehog to give him a signature roundhouse kick free of charge.

(Image merely illustrative)

‘What a waste of my time,’ Edgelord Number 1 says, aware that he’s not getting any useful information from this. He steps closer and Edgelord Number 2 flinches, ‘here’s some advice: don’t show your face around me ever again, or else I will finish you.’

And with that, Shadow teleports away, leaving Infinite to his existential crisis. He wasn’t able to avenge his friends; he wasn’t able to protect the base; heck, he wasn’t even able to hold his title of ultimate mercenary! How useless of a leader was he? Were mercenaries truly weak? Everything they’ve done… was it all worthless? Show no weakness… what did it even mean? They were all defeated, and Infinite can’t shake the feeling that he’s to blame for it. Wasn’t he supposed to be the best?

‘What is this? I’m…’ He looks at his hands, which are trembling ‘I’m shaking? I flinched? I... We failed… How pathetic… All because…’

Infinite stops as if he’s just gotten a moment of clarity. He then gets up and starts walking inside Eggman’s base. ‘I’m not weak,’ he says in a decided, chilling whisper; it’s almost scary. The view is set at the entrance, right in front of the jackal so that he starts blocking the light from the outside as he slowly walks towards the camera - while saying in that scary voice, “No mercy, no weakness”.

(I can totally see Liam O’Brien delivering this line perfectly…)

Then the last expository narrating happens about the same, except that Shadow narrates it – giving continuity to the fact that he was the one who started narrating this episode for a reason I will talk about later –, so we change a few words to match his speech more; it’s all in the third person and very husky and brooding, but with a subtle note of dread (oh, if only Jason Griffith would voice it… No disrespect to Kirk Thornton, but he just doesn’t hit Shadow’s perfect voice like Jason did; for me, at least. His Orbot voice is fantastic, though).

Now, instead of having Infinite looking forward for a few seconds before he gets the Phantom Ruby out of nowhere and places it in his chest very anti-climatically, we’ll do something different: as soon as he puts on the mask, he starts walking away, and we change settings to a dimly lit room, where we see Infinite from behind, fitting the frame perfectly. Following the beat of the background music, the camera changes to a close shot of his masked face as he’s holding the Phantom Ruby, which is glowing, reflecting on his mask and giving us a beautifully red-lit scene; it’s possible to hear very low, indiscernible whispers coming from the jewel. We then hear a small, evil chuckle from the masked jackal – he already sounds rather different from the guy who stuck his sword to the ground in honour of his friends earlier. The screen goes black, the whole “I was… Reborn!” thing dramatically happens in Infinite’s echoing voice and the not-flashback is over.

(I know this last part was quite specific and oddly detailed, but I had the scenes very clear in my head I wanted to try conveying how intimidating it looked to me o3o)

Ok, now that that’s done, prepare yourselves for an intermission. And by that, I mean prepare yourselves for a long analytical commentary on what I just wrote.

*”This is Our World: Phase 2″ plays in the background*

(Who is Shadow working for again? I don’t even know, man…)

Shadow isn’t just the guy who called Infinite pathetic. He’s the guy who killed Infinite’s squad (his friends) without any apparent remorse – and to be hypocrite as to say he’d sworn to protect when he just did something like this (yeah, Infinite doesn’t know any context of Shadow’s life, so of course he doesn’t understand what he meant); the guy who ruined everything he had going with his new job as leader of the Defence Squad; the guy who put him several levels under what he thought he was; the guy who questioned his entire way of living and the guy who put him under a lingering threat; “don’t show your face around me ever again” feels more intimidating now. Not only that, but, despite how Infinite might hate Shadow, he recognizes him as strong, admirable even – “why wouldn’t someone as strong as you be a mercenary?” Remember that Infinite himself is a mercenary; to actually acknowledge someone would be good at something you’re good at, specially someone you don’t like, has to be a sign of admiration, albeit a frustrating one. All of this puts a lot more of weight on how Infinite thinks of Shadow and why being stronger than the hedgehog is so important to him.

I made it so that “expect no mercy, show no weakness” is something like the Jackal Squad’s motto, their philosophy. I like to think it means that they should never count on someone’s mercy, for their enemies won’t spare them; they should always go into battle aware that they might actually be fighting for their lives. At the same time, they should always stand their ground and never let anyone think they can take advantage of a squad member. This is what the jackals live for. But seeing as Infinite’s world has just been shattered and he failed hard on everything, he revises his mentality. “No mercy, no weakness” is what he’s going for now, as he wants to be above everyone, he wants to effectively be the strongest and for people to know that; he will be the one who doesn’t spare others, and he won’t be weak at all. Never again would a failure cost him that much, for never again would he fail.

To have Infinite place the Phantom Ruby on his own chest in Episode Shadow contradicts the opening scene of the main campaign. Remember the episode is a prequel to Sonic Forces’ main game, so it shouldn’t be completely detached from it; things must make sense when put together. As the main game begins by showing us Infinite inside of a tube in Eggman’s lab, we can assume one of two things: he’s either a robot/biological experiment created entirely by the scientist, or he’s a guy who’s been experimented on, thus Eggman was the one who placed the Phantom Ruby on him. With this in mind, it wouldn’t make sense to show us Infinite doing something if you’re going to tell us that he couldn’t have possibly done it on his own. But to have him hold the ruby as someone who deeply desires its powers and who listens to its ominous whispering? Not only does it line better with the aforementioned scene, but it also makes Infinite seem more prone to the ruby’s power (instead of just… you know, “random angry dude”).

As this intermission has gone on long enough, I’ll only make a brief commentary on the Phantom Ruby: I like the idea of the ruby being somewhat alive and exerting influence over Infinite. Now, I won’t say it’s the kind of influence where it justifies his horrible behaviour or the awful things he did. It’s less “mind-control” and more “that best friend who always encourages you and never calls you out on your bullshit”. Its grooming Infinite’s ego and just nudging him to keep making bad decisions, to keep shutting himself in this new reality where he’s all powerful and above everyone else. So it’s the jackal’s pride, spite and grief, along with Eggman’s overall encouragement and the Phantom Ruby’s influence all put together that, in a general sense, make Infinite what he is. (I can go into more detail about this idea once I make a Part 2.)

Mission Accomplished: “angry bitchy boy turned edgy, OP and unimpressed” changed his status to “tragic boy turned edgy, bitter and extremely power-hungry”.

Intermission’s over, let’s get back to the story!

With Infinite’s backstory slightly redone (or rather, shown under a different light), I could stop right here. But I don’t want to, oh no! I say we take this a few steps further and just finish Episode Shadow! Yeah, I told you this was going to be a long post.

*”Battle with Infinite: Second Bout” plays in the background*

Ok, now we cut to a few months later, where Episode Shadow would originally begin. Rouge comments that Omega was on recon mission in that “unknown base of operations that seems to be totally outside the chain of command for Eggman’s army” (whatever that is supposed to mean) when he spotted an unidentified masked person with strange energy readings and an unknown battle ID. Omega reported a “large scale troop” and… that’s it, he just stopped talking. Rouge then talks about that “new weapon” Eggman was supposedly developing and sends Shadow to the base to investigate along with Omega. She makes a remark about how they should get the entire Team Dark together for this (“It should be fun”), but Shadow dismisses the idea, saying that he’s enough on his own. “Omega said the same thing. You two go together like chilli and hot dogs.”

We can keep this at the whole “dialogue on screen” thing. I don’t really mind and it sure spares the budget.

The City stage plays as usual, except the dialogue in the background changes a bit, because Team Dark bickering (or just talking in general, I love this team so much) is my jam.

‘E-123 Omega here. Extermination proceeding without incident. No problems to report.’

‘Omega!’ Rouge exclaims, ‘Why have you stopped responding earlier? We- wait, extermination? This is supposed to be a recon mission, what are you doing?!’

‘I was spotted. Priorities conflicted; therefore I decided to eliminate the enemy altogether. New Mission Objective: Defeat Eggman.’

‘But you can’t go making a scene like that!’

‘See, this is what happens when you send the giant killer robot for this kind of op,’ Shadow sasses. And I’ll imagine Jason’s voice for this too, thank you.

‘I have several reports of recon missions where you retaliated, Shadow.’

‘I might have to join you boys soon enough. I turn my back for five seconds and this happens…’ Rouge comments in a tired voice.

Omega is ready to start robotically recounting the reports of failed recon missions where Shadow retaliated, but he is suddenly cut by static and the vague sound of the Phantom Ruby. Rouge tries to contact him again and we get small bits of his original lines here – “All sensors offline”, “Casualty report”, “Unidentified system intrusion. Emergency withdrawal!” and “I am E-123 Omega, the most powerf-sjfpstswq”, that stuff – before his communication is completely cut. Shadow asks something like “what’s going on?”, but his communication with Rouge is cut as well. We play whatever’s left of the level in silence (except for the sweet background music).

(Oh yeah, this happened or whatever…)

Now, I know the next scene is a screen dialogue again, and I know I just said I don’t mind it, but watching this:

… Is so bloody uncomfortable. This feels dumb. This is so dumb. I feel like they robbed us an epic scene in exchange of some awkward reading with absolutely no context. What the hell is “!” supposed to mean?! What did Infinite do?! If I wanted to imagine the action scenes all on my own, I’d spend my time daydreaming! What, did they not know what to do here so they just threw in some random lines to fill the gap between this and the next level?!

… Sorry, I got a little carried away. This simple scene frustrates me a lot by not existing. So yeah, we’re throwing in a cutscene.

(I just noticed how salty this post is getting. This was not my intention at all, I still love this game, oh dear…)

Shadow reaches the edge of the city and encounters a dark silhouette hovering just above the flames that cover the ground; there’s debris scattered everywhere. The figure has its back turned, and the world seems to glitch ever so slightly around them.

‘The world’s most powerful robot is no more a challenge than crabmeat. Even the Doctor’s most daring designs can’t compete with my power… It is without peer,’ the figure chuckles to themselves.

Shadow starts approaching silently, analysing the situation. Despite this being Omega’s location, he can’t see the robot.

‘Wonder how easy it would be to end this entire planet. Don’t you…’

Suddenly, the voice speaks close to the hedgehog’s ear:

‘…Shadow?’

He turns around to see that the unknown person has appeared behind him, which throws him off. The hedgehog takes several steps back and puts himself in a fighting stance.

It’s hard to see past the jackal’s mask, but he seems amused as he looks down on Shadow. Twistedly so.

‘How wonderful to see that our not-so-tall, dark and brooding guest has arrived. I’ve been waiting for you, Shadow~’

‘Tell me what you did to Omega. Now,’ the agent demands.

‘Oh, come now, Shadow. Our long-awaited reunion and still you spout such nonsense.’ Infinite floats down to stand a few meters away from his enemy.

‘I don’t know you,’ Shadow states. The masked jackal tilts his head, but doesn’t say anything, so he asks again, ‘what have you done to Omega?’

‘Only what is ought to be done when someone stands in your way. Weaklings like E-123 Omega are of no consequence, don’t you agree?’

‘The only thing of no consequence is that big mouth of yours.’

Shadow launches himself at Infinite, who easily avoids his attack. The jackal starts laughing manically.

‘Ah, I suppose you would think so,’ he states. ‘After all, it’s not so funny to be the one losing the battle, is it? I am Infinite. You say you do not know me, and yet I remember you so very well… I’ve lost all I was, I’ve become what I am because of you. Savour that thought as I return the favour.’

Guess what happens? That’s right, we get another boss battle! I think it’s only fair that Infinite gets to have his rematch with Shadow. Besides, it establishes a comparison with the “old” Infinite and how much stronger he’s now – from Shadow’s perspective, that is.

I have no idea how this battle would play out. Maybe something similar to his second battle in the main story (no, don’t worry: we’ll talk about the exceeding amount of Infinite battles in the next part), with the 2D layout. Let’s say Infinite is surrounded with his Red Cubes of Doom while he’s not attacking, so you can’t touch him. Maybe he makes the fire glitch and get closer to you at some point. Maybe he makes clones and you have to defeat each of them to get to the real guy, I don’t know! Tag your ideas, I’d love to see them! ^^

Anyway, once the battle’s over and Shadow “wins” (because Infinite is not defeated, he’s just done with this fight), the jackal might say something in the lines of “I suppose I’ve let this duel go on for long enough. I have other matters to attend to, Shadow the Hedgehog.”

We get back to the cutscene and Infinite is glitching a bit, quickly recomposing himself, laughing. Shadow is panting.

‘What’s the matter, Shadow? Can’t take down a measly jackal anymore?’ The masked one says sarcastically. ‘It seems like I’ve overestimated your strength. You’re no fit to be a mercenary at all.’

There’s a beat and Shadow realises what this is about. He looks at Infinite, frowning. ‘It’s you… Defence Squad Jackal…’

Infinite stares at the hedgehog. He doesn’t seem to be as amused anymore. His golden eye’s glowing under his mask, and so is the Phantom Ruby on his chest. A tense background music plays as Infinite answers dryly:

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve spared you, but now you’re going too far. It’s time to finish this! Chaos Spear!’

The spears of light simply go through Infinite as if they didn’t exist. Shadow goes for a spin dash/homing attack/kick to the face or whatever you can think of, but the masked villain glitches out of the way with ease and lands an almost perfect copy of Shadow’s roundhouse kick.

The hedgehog glides across the floor, almost falling over. Infinite scoffs.

‘This new “me” has limitless power. I have no mercy; no weakness! I am the true ultimate force that will tear this world apart, and what may have worked to bring me down before…’ the jackal starts floating again; thousands of red cubes start dancing around him and, as he raises a hand, they all group in the sky not far above them. ‘… No longer does.’

(Why yes, this is a reference to Mephiles the Dark and that time he destroyed the Sceptre of Darkness!)

Infinite throws his “Take THIS!” and Shadow does the “!” – which is him frantically trying to get out of the way as the thousands cubes of doom come crashing down on him.

The screen goes black.

Scene ends.

The Virtual Reality level should play as usual from there. I don’t even want to change the background dialogue, because I really like it: it’s confusing, it’s weird, it’s unsettling and it slaps Shadow in the face in a way that we rarely see. I love it! (Although, I do think the gameplay should have a tiny little bit more of 3D parts. We love Green Hill, but we also love the freedom to move on more than two directions when playing as the Ultimate Life Form. But it’s cool)

After that, we could get another cutscene (we’re full of cutscenes, huh? Well, this is a hypothetical rewriting with a hypothetical budget. Also, Episode Shadow is more of an exposition episode anyway). In this cutscene, we would start with some shots of different known locations: Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Crisis City, Mystic Jungle, Kingdom Valley, Babylon Garden, you name it! And all of these places are somewhat “corrupted”; they’re glitching out, full of those red cubes, and there’s just this ominous atmosphere in them, as if they’re abandoned, desolated despite looking roughly the same as ever. We then see a black-and-red blur cross the screen, and a short narration takes place:

“I’ve been here for longer than I can remember. This… alternate reality, this fake world. There seems to be no escape. Rouge and Omega talk to me occasionally…”

We see Shadow leaning against a wall. His communicator plays only white noise, then Rouge’s voice comes in; it’s strangely echoed as it calls out to him. Shadow throws the device far away and sighs.

“… They’re fake too. No matter where I go, no matter how much I run…”

Shadow is skating through Pumpkin Hill or something, when the world suddenly starts to glitch out massively; we hear the Phantom Ruby’s noise and suddenly, we’re on the ARK.

“It’s like this place was made to torture me. Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case.”

‘I’ve moved on from this a long time ago,’ Shadow says to the void of the Universe as we hear gunshots in the distance. He’s not being completely truthful. ‘Putting me through this scenario dozens of times changes nothing. Don’t you have anything more creative at this point?’

There’s silence, except for the shouts in the Space Colony. A voice calls out to Shadow, and he promptly ignores it, albeit with a pained look in his eyes. He’s visibly tired, almost hopeless, if one could ever describe Shadow the Hedgehog that way.

He sighs.

‘Alright, how do I get out of this one?”

We then get a start of a short level in the ARK. Don’t worry, it’s not one of those hellish mazes that usually haunt every ARK level there ever was; this is more straight forward, with doors closing all around you so that you know where you shouldn’t go, and some G.U.N. robots trying to kill you, simple thing.

The catch happens when you’re halfway through the level: as you’re crossing a long corridor, the game begins to “crash” – in the sense of you losing control of the character, the visuals beginning to glitch and the soundtrack going weird, all in a way that makes the soul leave the body of the player for a terrifying four seconds of “HOLY SHIT, I BROKE THE GAME”. But nope, you didn’t break the game: the Phantom Ruby is trolling you. We soon find that out as the signature noise plays and the glitching effect on screen disperses to show a new scenario: Mystic Jungle. The real Mystic Jungle. Congratulations: you get to play in a totally different zone for the rest of the level.

‘My head…’ Shadow murmurs to himself. ‘That was too quick; this can’t be right, it- ugh, why is it so bright here? Where are all the red things? This place seems too normal… is it… am I back in the real world?!’

We then finish the level, get our nice score and head to the last scene of the episode.

Shadow is going through the jungle, taking in everything that isn’t an illusion. He passes by a red sword stuck to the ground and leans against a tree, still a little out of it, still struggling to believe that anything is real anymore. The hedgehog then takes his communicator – surprisingly intact; hadn’t he thrown that away? – and tries to make contact. There is static for a moment, when suddenly…

‘Shadow? Oh my- Shadow, is that you?!’

He’s startled for a moment, but so relieved to hear Rouge’s normal voice again.

‘It’s me, Rouge. What’s the situation? Where’s Omega?’

‘Omega? We lost contact with him months ago; the Resistance says he must have been shut down after the Doctor took over!’

Shadow raises both his non-existing eyebrows in surprise, barely holding a gasp. He then frowns.

‘Shut down? Resistance? What do you mean “the Doctor took over”? What the heck happened?’

‘What happened? What happened?! I should be the one asking you that! You’ve been offline for six months! Everyone keeps saying you’re working with Eggman and Infinite, and I couldn’t contact you or Omega, I thought… I thought we’d lost you for good…’

‘Nonsense,’ Shadow states. We start hearing voices in the distance, and the hedgehog starts looking around while still talking ‘I’ll tell you the details later, it’s long story. What’s the current situation?’

‘Shadow…’

The (Tired) Ultimate Life Form spots something from behind the trees. Still in hiding, he looks closer only to see the Custom Hero holding the prototype Phantom Ruby they just found and talking to Tails and… Classic Sonic, much to Shadow’s confusion.

‘… We’re at war.’

Shadow takes a moment to process what’s just been said. He doesn’t even pay attention to what Rouge says next (neither do we, as the background music starts getting louder than the bat’s voice). He still watches the avatar, Tails and Classic Sonic as they leave; he focuses on the Phantom Ruby.

‘Meet me in the City. I’ve got a lot to tell you,’ Shadow says.

And with that, he leaves, the scene fades out and Episode Shadow is over!

*”The Light of Hope: Menu Version” plays in the background*

Now, a few more analytical notes before we close this ridiculously gigantic thing:

The immediate reason why we have Shadow being stuck in the Virtual Reality for six months is to indicate to us why he doesn’t show up earlier in the main game. It’s not like he was being useless this whole time and just decided to show up whenever it was most Ex-Machina of him; much like Sonic, he was trapped by the enemy. A mental trap that put Shadow on survivor mode for months without any way of communicating with anybody; with twisted versions of his friends trying to get to him and remind him that, hey, they’re still out there, probably in high danger; with these illusions mocking him, reminding him of painful memories, isolating him in familiar places… I say: if you want to emotionally hit a character, hit them hard. And this experience is bound to leave Shadow with some emotional scar, alright.

(Ever heard of conveniently coming out of nowhere?)

Shadow is bound to lose his sense of reality and sometimes it should be hard for him to acknowledge that this is the real world. I hope I can showcase some of his reactions in the later parts of this o3o

The Virtual Reality isn’t all glitchy by mistake. No, no: Infinite is perfectly capable of making a “perfect copy” of the real world, but he doesn’t want to. He wants Shadow to know this is a fake world and to know that he’s completely trapped in it while his real friends and allies are out there doing who-knows-what in a world run by the enemy. He wants to throw Shadow off-balance as much as he can, because he’s spiteful and doesn’t just leave the hedgehog to the side without a second glance.

In the game, Infinite says that they didn’t really have time to tune his power yet, so we can tell putting Shadow in the Virtual Reality was more of a practice of sorts. But man, I think this is too much of a cool concept, so I’ll say Infinite did put his power to the test before all of this; because Eggman, sir: you don’t simply throw your super-secret, amazing, unparalleled weapon in the battlefield without testing it first. This is something that can be inferred, it doesn’t need to be directly told, it just- I’m telling you this right now, ok?

I know Shadow is supposedly “over” this conflict with what happened in the ARK and it probably feels over-used to add it in again, but… it’s a thing the games haven’t tackled in such a long time, I feel like this would be a nice call-back. Besides, Infinite would want to know what would bring distress to Shadow; what happened in the ARK isn’t exactly a secret, especially if he’s working with Eggman. And Shadow can be as “over it” as he wants: it’s still a scar that will never truly leave him. Even if he watches it happen dozens of times, it’s still at least a little bit of an emotional rollercoaster.

ALTHOUGH! I also think this ARK level could be easily replaced with some other random level if you want to argue that Forces happens in Mobius or something, where Gerald and Maria and G.U.N. maybe never existed and whatnot.

What brought Shadow back, you ask? Well, it probably has to do with a certain someone spontaneously activating a Phantom Ruby. Maybe the avatar was thinking of Shadow and how it’d be nice to have him on their side again? Maybe they were thinking of undoing Infinite’s evil deeds? Maybe the raw power of the Phantom Ruby prototype being suddenly activated by the Custom Hero just crashed something another Phantom Ruby user did, like magnetic waves interfering with each other? Who knows?

I also find it important to show the Custom Hero here not only to show that there’s a connection between Shadow’s sudden freedom and their actions, but also to establish the tiniest amount of early familiarity between Shadow and the original character. Then maybe (maybe) I’ll give them a bit more of interaction in the main game, because it’d be nice to have a cool interaction with Shadow; and as endearing as his smile after the avatar does their thing with the sun of destruction is, it feels like it comes out of nowhere, if you think about it…

(I mean... Does he even know who we are?)

Infinite’s sword stuck to the ground goes completely over Shadow’s head, as he has no idea what that is or who it belonged to or what it means. It’s really just there for the viewer to reminisce the beginning of the episode and have a slight existential crisis.

When playing the main campaign, we get some pretty convenient information from Shadow once he finally shows up. Episode Shadow should give us a sense of how he knows those things. Want it or not, he did spend a long time studying the Phantom Ruby’s power far more closely than anybody else – well, maybe Sonic spent almost as much time as Shadow in a similar state, but that’s something to cover in another part.

The fact that Shadow is the one narrating this entire episode is supposed to allude to him telling Rouge exactly what happened during those six months he was gone. But if you want to read it as him talking to himself in the Virtual Reality as he slowly descends into madness, then be my guest!

I don’t know if it’s noticeable, but I’ve tried to tune Infinite’s cheesiness down a bit. I don’t think I can rid him of it entirely – after all, he is somewhat of a pompous, edgy, over-the-top character in general; he’s a full-on drama queen 24/7 and the only character cheesier than him is Sonic. Now, what we do with Infinite is to at least give a base to what he says. Also, I wanted him to sound a bit more like he lets the power get to his head. Oh well, I surely hope we’ll be tackling more of Infinite in the future!

Episode Shadow is extremely short, even for a DLC. I mean, it’s about only 20 minutes long – even less, if you’re good at it! With the addition of the cutscenes, the small changes, the boss fights against Squad Jackal and Infinite, and the added levels, the episode shouldn’t get overwhelmingly longer, but longer enough for it to feel more satisfying!

And with that, we’re done! I hope you enjoyed this massive thing. Despite me really liking Sonic Forces, I do think a few things could be improved. It’s not like it will happen, but rewriting is a lot of fun!

And why, no: I don’t take myself seriously.

#Sonic Forces #Episode Shadow #Sonic the Hedgehog #Infinite #Shadow #Rewrite #Headcanon #Character Analysis #Word count: why do I even bother?#phew that was a lot #I'm so tired

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tessatechaitea · 4 years

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Cerebus #3

Time for some good chafing gags!

I love Cerebus. Once I began buying the monthly issues, I stuck with it until Issue #300, no matter how bored I had become with Cerebus's explication of Genesis. I stuck with it because it had entertained me so much and because I loved the idea of a comic book series with a character who grows and changes and eventually dies as an old, decrepit, huge delusional mess. Or was he delusional? Yeah, I think he was. By the end, I think we're supposed to realize Rick was the protagonist? Whoops! I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm still in the issues where I don't have to think too hard about anything and can just sit back and laugh at jokes about chain mail bikinis and a woman who will only fuck somebody who overpowers her physically! What I meant to say before I interrupted myself like usual, I kept with the series because I loved so much of it. Not all of it, of course. Who could love all of it?! Dave Sim was writing things that kept himself interested and wasn't too worried about, say, keeping the audience that loved Church & State while writing Melmoth, or expecting people who loved Guys to be enthusiastic about Coming Home. I appreciated this comic book so much that it's the only reason that I kept purchasing monthly comic books as I entered my thirties. I had gotten to the point where my brain was having too much trouble remembering all the different comic book story lines with a full month long gaps between each twenty-four page bit of story. So at some point just past the year 2000, I decided I'd stop reading monthly comics altogether after March 2004, the final issue of Cerebus. After that, I kept up with Fables and Walking Dead via collected editions. But I was done reading monthlies (until The New 52 somehow dragged me back in to do that blog project!). So yeah. I was (and still am!) a huge Cerebus fan. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to be critical of the series and the writer. Dave Sim makes a lot of mistakes and I'm going to have a lot of fun pointing them out! You might not think they're mistakes but I ask that you hold your comments until the end (you know, my review of Issue #300!) because why would I want to argue on the Internet with other huge comic book nerds? We're the worst! One person I'll never criticize because I don't think they ever do anything wrong: Gerhard! That fucking work horse nails it throughout the entire series! Nothing much to say about Deni's "A Note from the Publisher" since all she says is how she has nothing to say. I was hoping she'd admit to rubbing one out over one of Dave's finished Red Sophia pages but my horrible male nerd projections about how women act once more didn't come to fruition. How is it everything I learned about women from female comic book characters turned out to be so wrong?! I refuse to believe it's because most of them were written by men. Men are so rational and logical! They wouldn't have steered me wrong!

I should probably do a little research on Frank Thorne.

Frank Thorne was best known for his work on Marvel's Red Sonja. Yes, I lifted that directly from Wikipedia. But I typed it myself! Another thing I learned from Wikipedia (I'd do more research than just Wikipedia but I don't want to wind up on YouTube where I'll not only learn about Frank Thorne's artistic history but also that the American Democratic party runs a pedophile sex traffic ring and also something about cannibals? I mean, it sounds like something I'd like to believe!) is that Thorne wrote a book called How to Draw Sexy Women. So, you know, he's probably one of my heroes? Frank Thorne is currently 90 years old and he might have the most adorable picture of anybody on Wikipedia.

I want to be best friends with him right now. Six year old me would have been over the moon in love with him (I had a Grandfather Fixation when I was really young that probably had nothing to do with my father leaving when I was two).

This issue not only introduces Red Sophia but also the wizard Henrot. That's an anagram of "Thorne"! Red Sophia is an anagram for "Hi! Do Rapes." I don't agree with that at all. I'm just the anagram messenger. I'm also not suggesting that Dave Sim knew what he was doing anagrammatically! I mean with the Red Sophia anagram. He definitely meant the Henrot/Thorne one! Cerebus has returned to civilization but now needs some quick cash because one thing Cerebus always needs is quick cash. He's only wealthy a few times and those times don't usually last long. He goes to see Henrot (who allegedly gets his power from two of the five Spheres of the Gods! So now we kind of know more about those things even if it is just a rumor) to question him about any paying mercenary gigs.

You might think the missing word in Henrot's dialogue was a mistake by Dave Sim but later we'll probably learn in, I don't know, Issue #143 that Henrot's first language is Borelean to account for this seeming error.

Cerebus doesn't usually take assassination or torture jobs because he finds them distasteful but he needs the money. Sure, he'll take any job that has him killing people in battle or invading private wizard's towers to murder the owner and steal the owner's stuff. But assassination and torture? So wrong! Once Cerebus takes the job, he learns that he was to take Henrot's daughter, Red Sophia, along with him. The target besmirched her honor so she needs to watch him die slowly and painfully. Is this where the MeToo hashtag goes?

Red Sophia drawing tutorial: Draw some big tits, some big lips, and a big mass of hair. Connect them with some kind of woman shaped lines. Ta-da!

Red Sophia chatters incessantly and dances around while Cerebus carries all of the gear. It's funny because female characters get to represent all women instead of being a unique character! Ha ha! Women really do talk a lot, right? And they're always all, "Carry my purse for me!" And guys are all like, "Stifle your emotions like a normal person! Carry your own purse! Stop dancing around whimsically and try to act tough and cool like regular people do! Play some sports already! Take care of me like you were my replacement mother!" In the "A Note from the Publisher," Deni wrote that since the first issue (remember the first issue? So many issues ago!), Dave had wanted to write a story where Cerebus interacts with a female. She doesn't say Dave wanted to write a female character. He just wanted Cerebus to interact with a female. So I guess that's what this is! Cerebus interacts with a female stereotype who is also a sex fantasy. Not because she's hot but because she constantly tries to fuck Cerebus throughout their adventure! What sword and sorcery reading nerd didn't dream of that three or four times a day in a dark room? I'm being harsh on Sim because it's more fun than lavishing praise on him. You can tell Sim realizes the inherent problems with Red Sonja because that's the bulk of his parody. The problem isn't Dave's take on the character; the real problem is simply the character Red Sonja! In 1978, Sim was already commenting on the ridiculous armor artists draw on women (there will be chafing jokes!)! And in this story, Dave Sim expresses how ridiculous it was to create a female character who was raped and then given great fighting skills by some Goddess with the catch that she can never fuck a man unless he beats her in fair combat. Just looking at it from a guy's point of view, I'd probably be all, "You know what? I don't want those powers. Could you maybe just strike down the asshole who raped me and let me not have to attempt to beat up every woman I'm attracted to?" Is that enough hot takes on Red Sophia? Cause I want to get to the part of this review where I can admit that I fucking love her so much. Later Cerebus meets Elrod who is really just Foghorn Leghorn. I'm pretty sure Red Sophia was less Red Sonja than Pepé Le Pew. I know, I know! There are probably some sensitive reasons why I'm not supposed to like Pepé too! But he was my mother's favorite Looney Tunes character! Anyway, I can't blame Dave Sim for making his first female character about 75% stereotypes of women. He's still a young writer! You've got to give him about another 183 issues to really clarify his stance on the interactions between genders! I'm sure it'll be more layered, nuanced, and rational.

Cerebus might be an Earth Pig but he's not a chauvinist pig. He doesn't take sexual advantage of Red Sophia here; he just makes her carry all the gear. It's a good joke that I'm ruining by explaining it instead of scanning in the punchline!

Just for comparison, let's take a look at a modern interpretation of Red Sonja by Ed Benes. I bet just that artist's name alone gives male comic book nerds a chubby. Not a full on hard on though. Those are probably reserved for hearing the name "Frank Cho."

What do they teach in art school? Women can turn 180 degrees at the waist? Not that I'm complaining! Dark room, here I come!

Oh shit. I forgot I was reading this comic book! Okay, um, so Red Sophia attacks Cerebus for besmirching her honor. Or Cerebus attacks Red Sophia for knocking him into a bush with her ass. Maybe it's a little bit of both. Anyway, Cerebus defeats her so Red Sophia begins throwing her ample bosom at Cerebus every chance she gets. Cerebus is not interested for some reason. Maybe it's because he stuck a sword in his vagina when he was younger? That happened, right? Or was that a flashback about him having his period? Now that I'm thinking about it...what the fuck is this comic book? I think maybe I hallucinated some of it! Cerebus isn't a fucking slut, man! He doesn't just fuck any hot woman whom he defeats in battle! He needs to fall in love and/or get completely wrecked on Peach Schnapps. So he has no interest in Red Sophia. I suppose a woman trying to kill you is a bit of a turn off. And then later, when she gets you into a fight with Thugg the Unseemly, it's less of an aphrodisiac than you might think.

I think Borelean might be Red Sophia's first language as well. I mean, she is Henrot's daughter.

The Letterer part of Dave Sim has already fucked up twice this issue. I bet he was too busy having his sword and sorcery fantasies in a dark room to pay close attention to the script. This is probably why Dave Sim eventually gave up masturbation. Later, Red Sophia feeds Cerebus granola and it totally cracks Dave Sim up. He said so in the Swords of Cerebus essay! Didn't you read it? I, for one, prefer the joke on the following page about Cerebus being a cannibal. Or an aardvark who eats human meat, anyway. I think that's close enough to cannibalism. We learn later that aardvarks can have offspring with humans so I feel like the aardvarks in this book are less sentient funny talking animals and more severely deformed human beings.

Red Sophia's tent. If this we were well into Mothers & Daughters when this tent made an appearance, I'd think Dave purposefully drew it this way. Since we're only on Issue #3, I think he was just feeling horny when he drew it.

If at any time during this review I've referred to Red Sophia as Red Sonja, just remember that English is my second language. I'm Borelean. I apologize to Dave Sim for earlier suggesting that Red Sophia was simply a bunch of female stereotypes mashed together into a character. As I said, I love her. I figured I probably started loving her after she makes several more appearances but I'm pretty sure this is the page where I knew needed more Red Sophia in my life.

How can you not be completely charmed by the "I'm pretty good at hand-holding" line?

This is a good reminder that I shouldn't be judging early Dave Sim by Issue #186 Dave Sim and beyond. He should always get the benefit of the doubt and, even after #186, he should retain it. I need to be reading the material both with fresh eyes as if reading it for the first time and with the knowledge of the whole in an attempt to understand it better. This scene is just so fucking charming that I hate that it might be ruined for many people based on their "knowledge" of Dave Sim. I put knowledge in quotes because, really, how many people who think of Dave as a misogynist have actually read Cerebus or Tangent? How many have just heard they're supposed to despise him because he's been called a misogynist? I mean, sure, you just have to read a bunch of his Biblical explications to understand you're dealing with something other than neurotypical! But it'd be nice if more people came to their Dave Sim conclusions themselves instead of just jumping on the bandwagon. I'm not saying people who think he's a misogynist aren't automatically wrong! Dave thinks they are but come on. He eventually gives out a lot of slack with which to make quite a few nooses to hang himself with. Um, okay, back to not judging Cerebus based on future Dave's rants about the Marxist/feminist/homosexual axis! Cerebus and Sophia finally reach the target where Cerebus discovers that the target, Tanes Feras, loves Sophia. And just like that, he figures out how to get rid of Sophia while also torturing Feras (possibly to death? Time will tell!). He commands Sophia to marry Feras because she must do whatever he asks. Sure, she thought it would involved his super long tongue and her metal-chafed butthole. But that's the great thing about love! It doesn't care what you want. Henrot seems to accept this conclusion for now. He'll definitely be back later. And so will Red Sophia. I can't wait!

The map of Cerebus's world by Deni's brother, Clovis. He ran out of ideas when he got to "Ocean Sea."

I'll have to remember to keep referring back to this map throughout the series. Although I'll probably only need it for the first twenty-five issues. And then maybe after Mothers & Daughters. Nothing noteworthy in Aardvark Comment this month. Just some Canadians saying things like, "Glad to see a Canadian comic book from Canada about Canada!" Which is confusing because I didn't realize how much of Cerebus was representative of Canada. I've really got to rethink my Canadian stereotypes. Now I'll be sure to picture Canadians as 50% Cerebus and 50% Joey Jeremiah. Cerebus #3 Rating: B+. Sim's art remains a bit more on the amateurish side than the professional side. But that's to be expected. Already you can see improvements in the consistency of Cerebus's look and I think maybe his snout is already getting shorter and girthier. This was the first issue where he drew a woman so I can't fault him for drawing a blow-up doll in a chain mail bikini. Why would I? I'd never fault anybody for drawing a blow-up doll in a chain mail bikini! I also just thought up a new category to search on eBay. This issue begins to show where Sim really excels: his characters. The first two issues basically highlight Cerebus dealing with a few generic characters. But Red Sophia (and Henrot to a lesser extent) captures the spotlight this issue. Ignoring some of the shallow aspects of her character creation (if you even believe those exists. Don't take my super-professional critical opinion on it!), she's really rather charming and a competent foil for the Earth Pig. Just knowing that she's the tip of the iceberg in the gallery of recurring characters excites me more than those fantasies I keep having in my dark room.

#Cerebus #Dave Sim

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comicteaparty · 4 years

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November 18th-November 24th, 2019 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from November 18th , 2019 to November 24th , 2019. The chat focused on Daemon by Akreampuff (Alyce Sarich).

Featured Comment:

Chat:

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Week Long Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on Daemon by Akreampuff (Alyce Sarich)~! (https://tapas.io/series/Daemon-Akreampuff)

You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Remember, though, that while we allow constructive criticism, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic. Below you will find four questions to get you started on the discussion. However, a new question will be posted and pinned everyday (between 12:01AM and 6AM PDT), so keep checking back for more! You have until November 24th to tell us all your wonderful thoughts! With that established, let’s get going on the reading and the chatting!

QUESTION 1. What has been your favorite scene in the comic so far? What specifically did you like about it?

QUESTION 2. Who or what do you think caused the fire at Billie’s house? What do you think the motive was behind it, and can Billie even find the culprit? Even if Billie finds the culprit, what do you think will happen then?

mariah (rainy day dreams)

1. I'm not sure if it counts as a scene, but I really love the Zeke Magical Girl transformation joke page. It gave me a good chuckle. http://daemon.smackjeeves.com/comics/2603823/bonus-comic-zekes-alternate-transformation/ Besides that, I also really enjoyed the kind of world building, creation of the different worlds mythos section. I thought the dialogue and visuals in that section were really well done and communicated the ideas really clearly.

mariah (rainy day dreams)

2. At this point I'm kind of suspicious of everyone as the possible fire starter X') I feel like it probably wasn't Zeke, but I also wouldn't be surprised it he was revealed as the culprit later. He seems like a good boy, but I could also see him having done it if a higher up had ordered him to. I definitely think Satan had some hand in the fire happening in general though I don't think she personally set the fire. Generally I feel like the motive for the fire was to trigger Billie's transformation. Since the hybrids are supposed to be the key to fighting the angels, Satan stands to profit from having one more soldier. Especially since Billie has strong Chosen One vibes. But also, now I'm super suspicious of Jess since on the most recent page she has the daemon's protection sigil behind her door. http://daemon.smackjeeves.com/comics/2858373/page-147/ Either way, I think at some point (probably soon?) the culprit is going to come to light. I feel like that reveal is going to come along with some kind of good, dramatic betrayal, but I guess I'll just have to keep following to see! XD

RebelVampire

QUESTION 3. At the moment, who is your favorite character? What about that character earns them this favor?

QUESTION 4. What do you think happened to the daemon who disappeared to somewhere Zeke doesn’t know? How are they involved with events in the story, and how will this effect Billie’s opinion of daemon’s in the short and long term?

mariah (rainy day dreams)

3. I don't know if I have a favorite character yet, but Billie did score some big points for basically telling Satan the whole angels vs demons war is dumb. http://daemon.smackjeeves.com/comics/2791188/page-127 Part of me hopes that she end up fighting against both sides and forms some kind of Earth Defense Squad.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 5. What has been your favorite illustration in the comic so far? What specifically about it do you like?

QUESTION 6. What do you think the story has to stay about destiny and fate given Billie’s desire for one was somewhat fulfilled? How do you think Billie will balance her newfound destiny as a hybrid with her free choice to pursue a normal college life?

RebelVampire

1) My favorite scene right now at least is probably when Billie meets Satan. So many expectations thrown out the window, and I kind of like how gray Satan is. I couldn't really get a feel for what she was aiming at, and I could really gel with Billie's uncooperativeness. There was a good amount of do I trust her or not, and I like scenes like that that really keep you on your toes. Plus, I also like Satan's design. 2) I sincerely think it was either a) the missing daemon or b) In agreeance with @mariah (rainy day dreams) Jess. I'm especially leaning towards Jess right now, cause this whole situation screams betrayal to me. There was too much ominous warnings about humans sucking. As for motive, I also think it was to trigger Billie's transformation, cause like, Billie clearly needed some inspiration there. As for what will happen if Billie finds the culprit, probably go overboard trying to hurt them, get stopped by Zeke, and then cry and cry cause no amount of revenge brings people back from the dead. ;_;

3) My favorite character is definitely Zeke. I like I don't know whether I should trust Zeke or not. Not that I think he's done anything bad persay. But I think he's been brainwashed/biased towards daemons so much he'd turn a blind eye to awful shit they do. And I like that despite his seeming toughness, there is this underlying vulnerability to him where I feel like he gets easily taken advantage of. Long story short though, he has a lot of complicated and interesting dynamics that I like. 4) The daemon who disappeared is probably up to no good. Maybe they're some sort of spy for the angels and they left to report that whoops, it seems another hybrid has awoken. Either way, I am waiting for some sort of bombshell hear that vindicates Billie's opinion that daemon's can't be trusted and that she should convince the other hybrids of this as well.

5) My favorite illustrations are Billie's transformation/de-transformation scenes. Love the facial expressions in those moments, cause you can really feel Billie's pain. I also love just like the effects and how the transformation is shown in steps in a way. It makes the whole thing look really gruesome without needing to be super graphic. So even without Billie's expressions, I cringe everytime thinking how I would never want that to happen to me ever in a million years. 6) I feel like the story, at least so far, says that destiny isn't great when it's just handed to us. I really like the irony that, right before Billie finds out she has some grand destiny, she was complaining that she wanted it. But the story really turned that on its head immediately and showed us and Billie that nah, destiny can kind of suck and you're probably not gonna get a destiny you expect or want. And that at the end, we are dealt circumstances in life and have to make our own destiny. I feel like Billie is, down the road, gonna give up her pursuit of a normal college life. I feel like Billie is gonna discover that college is pointless if you don't actually have an aim with it, and will instead find new pursuits. Not necessarily with the daemon's, but new pursuits none-the-less. Although I kind of feel like she's gonna end the war first, but we'll cross that bridge later. XD

snuffysam

I really really like Billie. Like finding out you were born to be a soldier and are "special" among your peers may be comforting to some people, but completely rejecting it is a natural reaction too. Like sure, she doesn't have many friends, but that isn't enough to reject her humanity. And why would she want to fight in a war she just found out about? It's why I also really hope that Billie just keeps trying to stay on her path to a good college, even if she's pushed away. Like why should Satan get a say in her life?

Jess is pretty suspicious, especially with that symbol in her house, but on that same page I also see a bunch of moving boxes. Maybe this house used to belong to Zeke's partner or someone else aligned with the daemons?

mariah (rainy day dreams)

I second Rebel, Satan's design is great I'm looking forward to more of her. 5. I really liked the page that showed the goddess pulling her body apart and all the different worlds spilling out. I thought it was a super cool way to show the idea of multiverse creation. The De-transformafion page was also very cool. Like Rebel said, it was really effective at showing how painful switching between forms is.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 7. Which characters do you enjoy seeing interact the most? What about their dynamic interests you?

QUESTION 8. Who do you think Billie’s father is considering he was not unknown when Billie first arrived? Do you think Billie will meet him? If she does meet him, what do you think will happen? How will having a father in her life affect her given her mother is gone?

mariah (rainy day dreams)

7. I enjoyed watching the development of Billie and Zeke's relationship so far. I like seeing characters stuck together in less than great circumstances move past that and start to get along with each other. I'm looking forward to seeing how their relationship continues to develop.

snuffysam

Yeah I second mariah on that dynamic. Like, Zeke starts out kinda annoyed by Billie and Billie doesn't like the idea of following Zeke, but they have no choice but to move past that. And that leads to a lot of interesting interactions.

mariah (rainy day dreams)

8. I feel like Billie's dad is someone important. Honestly, I wouldn't be super surprised if he was like, the Apollyon or something. But I could also just see him being an influential warrior or something. Assuming he isn't dead, I figure he'll show up at some point. Or at least I hope he does. I feel like it's one thing to keep having female daemons and hybrids talk about the whole breeding program, but I for one really want to hear an actual participant answer for it. I feel like Billie would, rightfully so, have a lot of anger towards her father. I for sure don't see them having any kind of parent-child relationship the way Billie and her mom did, but honestly I don't imagine he really wants one given that he didn't stick around to be in her life up until this point. But yeah, if the two of them do end up meeting, I'm really looking forward to what I can only assume will be a good, drama filled, "I want answers!" time

RebelVampire

QUESTION 9. What sorts of art or story details have you noticed in the way the comic is crafted that you think deserves attention?

QUESTION 10. Why do you think the war between the angels and the daemons started? Do you think the hybrids can tip the balance? Also, what do you think the angels are like compared to the daemons? Lastly, is violence the only answer here?

RebelVampire

7) I am thirding the sentiment that I like seeing Billie and Zeke interact the most. I find their dynamic to be super intriguing, especially during the scene where Zeke completely bashes down Billie's biased view of how every hybrid's life was. I feel like we're going to see a lot more of that where they both challenge each other's world view, and I love when characters do that for each. 8) From the reaction, I can only assume Billie's dad is a high rank. Maybe the former Satan or something. But assuming he's alive, yes. I will weep if the two of them don't meet, cause that is so much drama potential. And I also picture it being like an unexpected meeting where someone is like "BTW BILLIE THIS YO DAD." But I really think it needs to happen, not just for story drama, but because I feel it'll be important to Billie's emotional development as a whole. Especially as she probably discovers her father is not super evil, but instead a lot like her. And I feel that's gonna give Billie lots of things to think about in regards to how she views everything again.

9) I really like the details paid towards power balances. I love this concept that the daemon's have super forms, but it comes at a cost and is super duper painful. I love when stories pay attention to make sure those sorts of things have actual consequences. So you don't have to pull a LOTR moment later and ask why they didn't just use the eagles use the super forms. 10) I feel like the war probably started due to a misunderstanding more than anything. Cause I feel when we meet angels, were gonna find out they view events as totally different than how daemon's see it. And probably it doesn't even matter how it started. It might be one of those things where its so old, nobody remembers. All they remember is grrr angry grrrr. I actually don't think the hybrids are gonna tip the balance that much tbh. Not to say they won't be effective for a time, but I think the angels will easily come up with a counter. What I do think the hybrids will provide is a different non-grrr angry grrr perspective. Where they can sit both parties down and slap sense into them for being stupid. And I think it has to be them since they are humans at the same time they're part daemon.

mariah (rainy day dreams)

10. I agree with Rebel for pretty much all of this X') I feel like it's like in the Great Divide episode of Avatar the with the two feuding clans where they both have slightly different stories for how the feud started but it was so long ago fighting is just tradition at this point. I don't see the hybrids tipping the favor so much as complicating things. Like, part of me does kind of hope Billie just rallies all the hybrids into a third faction but also I'm kind of hoping for angel hybrids. I feel like when we do finally meet angels they're going to just as complex and grey as the deamons are compared to the classic idea of what an angel is. I don't think it's too far of a reach for them to also have had the same hybrid idea. And I'm also kind of hopeful that there'll be some half-daemon half-angels XD that's probably just my inner 7-grade oc maker talking, but I think more types of hybrids generally speaking would be cool. I could totally see a twist where the war was actually sparked by a Romeo-Juliet style deamon-angel romance that's been covered up for thousands of years. I don't think that violence is the only solution and I definitely second the feeling that hybrids could actually be the key to opening up diplomacy. For the moment that seems like things are still too tense for talking so I'd imagine there will be more violence to come before the characters reach that point.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 11. What do you think are this particular comic’s strengths? What do you think makes this comic unique? Please elaborate.

QUESTION 12. Given what we find out about Zeke’s past history, what do you think life was like for some of the other hybrids? Do you think Billie will meet these other hybrids, and if so, how might that change her world view?

mariah (rainy day dreams)

11. I think the writing does a really good job at building suspense and tension. Like I said in one of my first responses, I'm super paranoid that any of these characters surrounding Billie could be about to stab her in the back.

RebelVampire

11) I'm gonna second Mariah a bit here. I think the comic really shines with suspense and how you really don't know any characters real intents. Like I want to trust Zeke and Satan and all the others. But I don't know if I should cause Billie's life has basically already shown to be 90% a lie in a lot of ways. But this creates a really tense read cause at any moment, whoops, maybe betrayal. 12) Honestly, I think most of the hybrids probably had a much shittier childhood than Billie. If not just for the fact being a single parent is hard and just frankly not everyone can do it. Although I'm sure there's at least one other hybrid who probably had a good childhood, maybe even a step family. And if such a hybrid exists, I think they could play a big role in showing Billie daemons aren't so bad. I do think Billie is inevitably going to meet them though, and find out that there's a lot of reasons to go around about why humans suck. And I think Billie will have to tackle some real world issues that there are worse issues out there than not having friends at school.

Q @CecilieQMT making WAYFINDERS

1. I liked Billie's transformation scene a lot. That pain felt real. I also quite like the explanations scenes; the ones that explain aspects of demon-angel politics or how the worlds work. That stuff is easy to mess up, but it works fine here, I think! 2. I think since Billie suspects Satan and her goons, it probably wasn't them. The culprit is whom you would least suspect, right? Perhaps it was Billie herself, accidentally? Or a third party we have yet to even meet? 3. Currently, I quite like Billie. She has some good reactions to the problems around her. Also like the blond lady, even though she's very over-the-top. She seems fun! 4. I'm not sure about this one, sorry. ^^' 5. I actually super liked the gag comic of Zeke's magical girl transformation.... but also I really liked Billie in the bathroom with the surprise from-above angle. Very fun! 6. I don't think Billie will get to do normal college life at all. I think she has been thrust on her hero's journey and that's what we're gonna see from now on. She won't have time to balance the two lives at all, is my prediction.

7. I mean, Satan is great to watch interact with anyone. She's so fun, but you sense there might be something hiding under the surface. I like her the best in relations of all the other characters. 8. Billie's dad was probably the former Satan, right? Or at least her former watch-daemon. There's gonna be some complicated feelings when she meets him (and she will meet him) for sure. I predict some yelling from Billie's side. 9. Billie's train of thought-passages makes a lot of sense to me and cements her uncertainty in all this. I hope that style will continue, because there's something lovely about reading the "I can't trust anyone" and knowing where that feeling comes from in Billie and how that affects her. 10. So, I was thinking, since this seems to anchor itself in the humans' myth... Is Lucifer, aka the first Satan, a big player here? They say "an angel started trouble", but what if that angel was Lucifer and what they did was turn sides or do like an angel genocide or something? I think both sides have hybrids and it's only a matter of time before we meet more. I think the demons have ulterior motives and the angels are just as human as the demons are; normal when they need to be, scary when they want to be. No. Violence is never the answer. Except in Lord of the Rings.

11. I think the world building is nice and thought out. We've seen "angels vs demons" before, but this comic has built some structure around that premise, which I think works nicely. 12. I think Zeke is right and Billie is one of the lucky ones. I can't imagine hybrids having easy lives. And if we look at, say, the blonde girl, who is probably a hybrid, she seems very untethered and possibly troubled. I think Billie will definitely meet more hybrids and I think they'll all have individual perspectives, which will be interesting to read about.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 13. What are you most looking forward to in the comic? Also, do you have any final thoughts to share overall?

QUESTION 14. Do you think Billie will find companionship and understanding in the human world, or was Satan right about her inevitably return to the daemons’ world? What events do you think will influence her choices? Do you think Billie can trust Satan?

RebelVampire

13) I am looking forward most to finding out who Billie's dad is. As I said earlier, that's gonna be some fun and interesting drama, as well as character growth moments for Billie. So I intend to thoroughly enjoy it when that happens. 14) I think Billie could find companionship among humans, but not right at this very second. I think there's a lot more character growth she has to go through, including returning to the daemons, before she is properly able to pursue any form of companionship. As for events, I think it's gonna be betrayal and the overall realization event Billie will have that she doesn't really have a concrete life direction any more. And thus she'll go on the journey that allows her most able to self discover her purpose in life. I think Billie can trust Satan in some regards, but not every regard. Like I trust Satan enough not to let Billie die, but I don't trust Satan to tell Billie the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about Daemon this week! Please also give a special thank you to Akreampuff (Alyce Sarich) for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked Daemon, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

Read and Comment: https://tapas.io/series/Daemon-Akreampuff

Akreampuff’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AkreampuffArt

Akreampuff’s Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/akreampuff

Akreampuff’s Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/AkreampuffArt

Akreampuff’s Redbubble: https://www.redbubble.com/people/Akreampuff

Akreampuff’s Amazon Books: https://www.amazon.com/Alyce-Sarich/e/B07DH62T8X

Akreampuff’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/Akreampuff

#ctparchive #webcomics #comic #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #book club #bookclub #webcomic bookclub #webcomic book club #comic tea party #ctp #daemon #akreampuff #alyce sarich

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thatdarnblogagain · 5 years

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Captain Marvel Review

This...this is awkward. *Ahem* How does one put this gently? The Captain Marvel movie, kind of sucks. Like “oh my gosh this is bad” sucks. That sentiment comes from an objective viewpoint; well as objective a viewpoint one can have after watching whatever Marvel’s, Captain Marvel was.

I paid little attention to the calls for the film to be boycotted or whatever controversy surrounded the lead of the film, Brie Larson. All I wanted was a good film as Marvel is accustomed to delivering. Sadly, I was let down. Why you ask?

.Carol: A tale of Two Leads - One of the biggest problems for me is not the character of Captain Marvel but what Marvel is trying to do with her. It is in some way similar to what happened with Iron Man in his first live action film.

Robert Downy Jr took a C to B list character at best and gave a performance that shot him into the upper echelons of comics. However that was more of an unintentional thing. There was no one saying how great Tony Stark was. We saw this with his ingenuity throughout the film but more than that we saw it by how vulnerable he was by being captured, and left for dead more than once, thus having to learn or rely on others. Why? Because Tony is a genius and he is genius enough to know he needed others to help him in his plight. Yes he has an ego but that falls away when he knows his or others’ lives depend on it. He makes mistakes and comes out of the other side stronger for it. That’s relatable.

In Captain Marvel from the first exchange of dialogue in the movie, we are told how strong Carol is though she is “emotional” (Something we see little of). We have constant scenarios of the character being lauded by others for how brilliant she is, whether as a pilot, warrior or hero. There is no fall for her beyond brief moments of being captured...twice. In each scenario she manages to get away with ease and gain little from either. Yes she “falls” in the movie during montages as Marvel tries to hamfist the idea of rising up into the plot line but Steve Rogers did that already and without needing to hammer it home that this was a Psuedo-motivational moment.

Again let’s look at Tony. In his workshop Tony goes through countless tests to get his suit to fly or do what he wishes and we see him fail before he succeeds. But Tony does not give up! He keeps going till he gets it done and even then, he keeps upgrading his suits for any possible situation because he knows he is not invincible. Anything is possible and he needs to be prepared. Whether this is caution or his need for control it shows us Tony’s mindset which almost seems neurotic at its worst.

Carol...falls from space, closes her eyes and decides to fly. That is a scene meant to be empowering but I instead just groaned. Marvel seems to want us to buy into Carol being the cornerstone of the Marvel Cinematic Universe but I think it can be argued while not nearly as strong as Carol, Black Widow deserves that spot.

(This picture has more charisma than the cast)

.The Attitude - Carol is cocky. Not quite Tony Stark or Namor cocky but she has an ego of sorts. She is a woman who knows she is powerful, knows she has the means to take control and is not afraid of doing so. However she has an attitude of no nonsense but also of being able to empathize with others, such as when Scarlet Witch returned to her senses after the House of M storyline. Carol in her Ms.Marvel guise along with Spider-Woman come to her aid before taking Wanda to the Avengers’ Mansion and in those few pages we see a range of emotions. Joy at seeing her friend. The jubilant yet skilled approach Carol takes to fighting the threats facing them. The pain on her face when Vision turns Wanda, his wife at the time, away.

Those are organic expressions and it hurts to say those pages carry more emotion in them than Brie’s portrayal. It is wooden and has no real character behind it. Yes she is soldier but so is Captain America, Bucky, Falcon and Black Widow. Yes she has amnesia, so did Bucky and in Civil War he still showed the emotion of someone who felt like they could not even trust themselves, worry, fear, wariness of all around him besides Steve. Brie really only has one emotion throughout. Stoic. Stoic in happiness, sadness and anger.

She does stoic well but nothing else. For example, upon realizing all she knows is false, Carol in the movie has no moment of breaking down that others face. T’challa upon seeing his father’s transgression confronts him and completely changes his mindset about aiding the outside. Charlize Theron as Furiosa in Mad Max - Fury Road upon realizing what she was fighting for all along no longer exists, this bastion of strength walks into the desert, takes off her prosthetic arm and screams into the distance. Carol has none of that besides saying, “I don’t know who I am!!!” which is quickly countered by her friend saying, “You are Carol Danvers....”. And...that’s it. She has a moment at the end where she echoes this and ordeal over. Yup.

.Missed Opportunities - Yon Rogg, Korath, Ronan, Agent Coulson, Mar-Vell and even the Skrulls feel like they were wasted in this movie. Some are glorified cameos and that sucks. Korath especially feels like he could have had backstory to show how he became what he was in Guardians of the Galaxy. Oh and Mar-Vell...what did they do to Mar-Vell!?!? Moving on!

Nick Fury feels like he got some of the worst of it all. Many wanted to see how he got those Scars but the pay off is so bad you wish it was instead a moment better left to our imagination. While it is fun seeing a younger Nick Fury at work with a different attitude to his older self, there seems like he deserved a subplot that paid off the speculation of him losing his eye.

Skrulls + He trusted someone he should not have + Lost an eye = Easy Subplot. Imagine going through a movie with Nick having faith in a character only to see that is not who he thought it was and pays a huge price before painfully having to take that person out? That would have explained the Nick Fury who we know so well.

(Annnnnnnd...lack of common sense starts now)

.Plot Twists - NO! That’s all I will say! NO! I understand trying to subvert expectations but there are some things in the Marvel Universe that should stay as such. This is not like changing, M’Baku to a anti-hero/hero or the Mandarin into an Actor (Who was not even the real Mandarin). This is like taking the Red Skull and making him a hero. It just does not work. That is all I will say to avoid spoilers.

.What Genre am I? - You know something? Winter Soldier is a Spy Thriller movie. Ant Man, a crime comedy. Thor-Raganarok a Sci-Fi Comedy. None of them are really the same despite being hero flicks. Each has its identity. Each understands what it wants to do. Captain Marvel does not.

It shifts from bad action movie, to bad drama to bad comedy. It is jack of nothing and the ace of nothing. Captain America understood it was a period piece and played up the aspects of this. It was essential but Captain Marvel only has this is spots before the film does away with them.

It is no rite of passage tale like Homecoming was or even Shazam. In those films the heroes fall due to their own errors and must dig themselves out of it, in one case literally. Captain Marvel has none of that. Brie is powerful at the start and becomes more powerful at the end. It has the spy of spies in the MCU, Nick Fury but fails to use him nearly enough.

A depowered Carol, (Thanks to a power cancelling chip on her neck) on the run with Fury trying to understand her past sounds like an amazing prospect, making me want to see her regain her powers after gaining better understanding of how to utilize them. But nope, she whoops ass and will make sure you know. Even if you don’t want to.

(I’m the badass female of the MCU...after Black Widow, Okoye, Shuri, Peggy Carter, Valkyrie, Gamora, Frigga, Pepper Pots, Aunt May, *Aunt May Into the Spider-Verse* Nebula, Sif, Sharon Carter, Nakia, The Ancient One...yeah after all of them!)

Rating: 1 out 5

.Boring Screen Play and action

.Bland Lead

.Misguided attempt at a powerful female lead (Wonder Woman & Furiosa did it far better even if they were flawed as well)

.Convoluted plot

.Goose is awesome and so is Nick Fury.

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bigskydreaming · 5 years

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LOL in all honesty though I’m way too amused by my own Jack Frost joke and its literally from a Bobby/Christian fanfic I wrote like, twelve years ago or something. It was right after Morrison introduced the idea of Christian in his run for purposes of Emma angst, and then they had that Emma solo, and I took that and ran with that fueled entirely by Rage and Spite, as I am wont to do. I now have no idea where said fanfic is, sadly. This was definitely way before Ao3. I think I only posted it on LJ, on an account where my friends list was like....entirely people from an entirely different fandom soooooo probably why that fic never really caught on. Whatever, I write fic more for myself anyway lmao.

It was pretty good though, think it would’ve held up well. The basic premise had to do with Dark Beast, the AU version of Hank from Age of Apocalypse. See, in the comics, when the few survivors of the Age of Apocalypse reality ended up in the 616 reality after it was destroyed, not all of them ended up in the present. Dark Beast, for example, ended up like twenty years in the past. And he didn’t have most of his memories, amnesia from trauma from the cross-dimensional travel or something. Which is when he met a then teenage Emma Frost, who’d just run away from home after everything that happened with her dad and Christian, and she ended up restoring Dark Beast’s memories with her telepathy, so they actually have history in the comics.

So I went with the idea of, okay what if you let Christian have agency in his trauma instead of giving it to Emma, who lbr, has PLENTY of story material on her own. So my premise was that it was Christian who ran away from home and ended up meeting Dark Beast and restoring his memories. And then Dark Beast, who has always been just as obsessed with creating the perfect mutant as Mr. Sinister is, if not more, because he’s like....equally obsessed with proving he’s better than Sinister....well instead of experimenting on the Morlocks, which is what he went on to do in the comics, he looks elsewhere. He never went after Scott or Jean, because he’s also a coward and Sinister scares him shitless, and DB knew damn well there was no such thing as a reality where Sinister hadn’t already called dibs on Scott and Jean’s genes. BUT, Dark Beast also knew from his own reality who all the other most powerful mutants would end up being....years before their powers even manifested in this reality. And since I’m me, of course I wrote it so that like, DB decided to focus on the other one of the 05 destined to grow up to be an omega mutant.

And so he had Christian, who was young and easily manipulated because Love Me, I Need External Validation, My Last Name is Frost as In My Family’s Credo is What If We’re All Frosty All The Time....he had Christian use his telepathy to like, prompt Bobby into running away before the actual event that led to Xavier and Scott finding him and saving him and him joining the X-Men. Where Bobby of course ‘happened’ to bump into DB, who took him in along with his other young protege Christian, so he could like, secretly conduct experiments on Bobby blah blah you get it.

But eventually Christian and Bobby fell in lurv and Christian was like what no, this is wrong, bad, not doing this anymore, so they run away together, and then it was basically just me writing them as a mutant Bonnie and Clyde who are gay and do crime together and say like, fuck all the adult mutants who try and manipulate them and other kids like them. Like Xavier, who eventually tried to get Bobby to join the X-Men and Bobby was like lol no, hard pass. Or the Hellfire Club, who eventually tried to recruit Christian except he was like lol no, hard pass. And then they were basically like this Chaotic Good power couple that just popped up here and there fucking shit up in a well-intentioned way that made half the X-Men grind their teeth and the other half snicker, and same with the Acolytes and other various groups. And there wasn’t really anything anyone could do about it because its canon that Bobby’s only real weakness is to psychics and having a world-class psychic as your boyfriend really kinda nips that weakness in the bud. Unless you come up against like, a cosmic-class psychic like Jean Grey, but lucky for them, she just thinks they’re adorable and tends to go whoops, missed them again every time they slip through the X-Men’s fingers.

And ultimately they decided their real mission in life was to rescue really young mutants whose powers manifested early and put them in danger, and make sure they get a chance to grow up without the various factions going ‘we’ll protect you, but only if you grow up to support our agenda and be One of us, shhhh, don’t fight it, just sign your life away on the dotted line, all the cool kids are doing it.’ And also me being me, and it being like 2004 ish? I think? Maybe 2005. Anyway. So my other preoccupation of the time was the Academy X kids so of course we’re talking like Julian and Josh and Cessily and the like, who were all like, adorable little ten year olds at this point in time, but also V. Beyond the Capacity of These Two Hapless Gays to Handle Without Help. Like, apparently omega powers and world-class telepathy do not actually qualify you to effectively parent a mob of young mutant menaces when you’re only 21-22 yourselves, who knew. So they ended up just showing up on the doorstep of one of Emma’s properties, mutant menace mob in tow, as she was the White Queen by now, and Christian greeting her facepalm moment with ‘Hey Ems, remember how you always wanted to be a teacher?’

And then there was this bit where Emma was something like “I’m a bit busy trying to take over the world, darling, try me again after my mid-life crisis.”

And Christian was all: “You can teach and take over the world at the same time, y’know, some of us are capable of this little thing called multi-tasking?”

And Bobby helpfully piped up: “I can pat my head and rub my stomach at the same time.”

Cue Emma’s wrinkled nose and accusing stare at her brother: “What on earth do you see in him?”

But Bobby just turned around and was like: “Umm, for starters, my ass is amazing. Have you not seen it? Here, touch it. Go ahead, you can squeeze it.”

Emma: .....

Christian, shrugging: “Well I mean, he’s not wrong.”

Emma: “If I agree to this idiotic plan of yours will you leave immediately and never come back?”

Bobby, stage whispering: “Tell her we still want holiday visits, so we can be the cool gay uncles who show up and spoil them rotten and thus they love us more than her. But don’t tell her that last part.”

Christian, dutifully: “We want to still come by for holidays so we can be the cool gay uncles who show up and spoil them rotten and thus they love us but no more than you, an equal amount only.”

Emma: “I’m standing right here you imbeciles.”

Bobby, still whispering: “Make sure that includes Easter. I’m pretty sure if I show up in a bunny costume I can make her head explode.”

Christian: “Just to be clear, that includes - “

Emma, a vein in her temple throbbing: “Just give me the children already.”

Bobby, gathering up the kids in a crowd around him, all noisy and giggling and clamoring for his attention: “Okay kids, so here’s the plan. From now on, you guys are gonna stay here in this big old house with Auntie Em!”

Emma, appalled: “Oh. My. God.”

Christian frowns: “Emma, please stop trying to fry my boyfriend’s brain. I’m not going to let you.”

And then the kids swarmed through the door past her into the hallway and there were the sounds of stuff breaking, distracting her for a bit before she like, glared at Bobby and was all: “This is all your doing!”

Bobby, hurt: “Only mostly! Chris and I are a team. A united front. It was a 60/40 split.”

Christian: “Well....”

Bobby: “Okay, 70/30.”

Christian: “You said you were going out to get some waffles to make breakfast in the morning and you came home with waffles, ice cream, and Julian on your shoulders.”

Bobby: “He followed me home!”

Christian: “That’s not how he tells it.”

Bobby, whirling on the ten year old Julian Keller who’s playing a Gameboy and looking entirely unconcerned: “You little traitor.”

Julian flipped him off.

Bobby, scandalized: “He did NOT learn that from me.”

Julian, still not looking up from his game: “Yes I did.”

And that was when Christian started dragging his boyfriend back to their car, before Bobby can get into an actual fight with a ten year old, yelling back over his shoulder at Emma: “Okay, great, thanks so much for doing this, let us know if you need us to bring anything when we come back in a few days with the second batch.”

Emma, distracted and trying to do a headcount: “Yes, fine, be gone already. ...Wait. What second batch? DRAAAAAAAKE!!”

But it was too late as the car is halfway to her big mansion gates by then, Bobby cackling: “Hey, we should totally get a dog. Like a little foofy one.”

Christian, knowing better than to ask but asking anyway: “And why is that?”

Bobby: “Bet you anything I can get her to say “I’ll get you and your little dog too!’”

Christian: “I’d appreciate it for both our sakes if you never do or say anything to suggest to my sister you’ve ever compared her to the Wicked Witch of the West. I mean, not that she’d protest on moral grounds, but she takes her color schemes very seriously. And you do know you don’t actually have to provoke her quite so much...”

Bobby: “Mmmm....agree to disagree. It’s the principle of the matter.”

Christian: “What principle? What matter?”

That was the gist of that scene anyway. Dialogue’s probably different, but you get it.

Ugh, I probably have the whole thing sitting in an old email account somewhere because that’s always been my main way of backing stuff up, is emailing it to myself. Problem is, I think I had a specific fandom email account back then and I don’t know what it is anymore lol.

#kalen writes things sometimes

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tumblunni · 5 years

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Okay I know that kingdom hearts has a bad reputation for sticking crucial plot information on obscure spinoff games but HOLY SHIT I just finally watched a lets play of the fuckin digimon tcg game and found out it ACTUALLY HAS A GODDAMN CONCLUSION TO ANALOGMAN FROM DIGIMON WORLD 1

like 90% of the damn game has no plot whatsoever let alone indicating its a digimon world sequel! and then suddenly in the last battle without being foreshadowed whatsoever analogman returns and gets possibly the best boss battle ever IN A GODDAMN TCG GAME

holy shit his whole fight is framed as ‘this is literally the same guy from digimon world 1, hacking another game’, the interface wigs out and a bunch of fake command windows pop up with rapidly scrolling code of the game supposedly falling apart. And then his boss battle flips the entire gameplay system on its head by giving him fourth wall breaking special moves that pull overpowered effects by “hacking the engine”, with cool animations to fit. Fuckin badasssss!!

and it also fuckin FINALLY EXPLAINS THE DAMN PLOT LIKE GEEZ

digimon world’s conclusion was so rushed, you never even meet the villain until the final battle and it ends all weird with just “something” going wrong that causes him to get sucked into a portal or something while screaming dramatically in weirdly high resolution terror faces??? the tcg game confirms that this was him attempting to flee back to the human world after you defeated him, but one of the stray attacks from the battle damaged his machine and it caused him to essentially commit accidental suicide when he turned it on.

and HOLY SHIT MY FUCKIN OBSCURE HEADCANON IS TRUE????

the game had some sequel bait hints that maybe analogman is somehow still around and that the portal explosion just turned him into “corrupted data” so he can never return to the human world. and i always thought it would be super ironic if he actually got turned into a digimon aka the thing he hates more than anything

WELL OKAY I GUESS CRITICAL LORE IN A TCG GAME IS OKAY WHEN ITS A BIG YES BUNNI U THEORY BE CORRECT

he appears in this game as a malomyotismon who does a damn good vexen face during the fight, lol. And he’s all “gahh that stupid kid ruined my plans but this accursed body at least improved my hacking abilities!” Tho its implied that his corrupted state is more like a bodyless cloud of data that can possess/copy different digimon, which would be REALLY FUCKIN CRITICAL to explaining the goddamn plot of Digimon World Next Order!

Seriously wtf is up with this series? Digimon World 2 is not the sequel to Digimon World 1, all the numbered games are entirely separate individual stories with wildly different genres from pet sim to roguelike strategy. The real sequel is fucking DIGIMON THE CARD GAME THE GAME and then Digimon World Next Order a bazillion years later for the ps4. In which i am STILL REALLY SALTY that they have a FUCKIN RAD remix of analogman’s boss theme yet he doesn’t appear in the game. The added context of this damn tcg game confirms once and for all that the Ambiguous As Fuck Ending actually WAS him appearing in the game, this unexplained “oh wait the villain was good all along and he was just possessed by an evil virus” was supposed to be corrupted-digi-analogman and seriously WHY DONT THEY JUST FUCKIN EXPLAIN IT!!! this tcg game wasnt even released in europe!! and even american fans probably had no clue it was linked to this entirely separate subseries! You have to friggin piece it together with context clues like the battle music and the fact analogman’s signature mon was machinedramon. I mean vjesus christ Next Order is a litera; sequel with the grown up version of Digimon World’s protagonist as a badass home ec teacher who still defends the digital world in his free time yet you couldnt spare ONE LINE OF DIALOGUE mentioning the name of the villain?? and summarizing the fuckin tcg game everyone missed??? AND CONFIRMING THAT THE VILLAIN IS INDEED MAKING A REAPPEARANCE POSSESSING THIS GUY??? oh god everything makes SENSE, thank you terrible card game adaptation. ehh but i do still love Next Order for making Hiro/Mameo’s canon partner Mamemon, he’s even more badass as this big tough bishie version of himself with a tiny adorable pal that can shoot rocket fists through space and time. (its funny tho cos the DW1 intro movie showed metalmamemon and metalgreymon and the american boxart flipped a coin and decided metalgreymon must have been the one the protagonist was using in that scene. Whoops!)

anyway even with the added context that IT WAS INDEED GODDAMN ANALOGMAN, the final boss fight in Next Order was as terrible as the rest of the plot. So I’m glad trash gramps got a suitably badass boss fight after all, even if it was a CARD GAME VERSION! lets all celebrate the awesomeness of this obscure fuckin spinoff game’s obscure fuckin intercontinuity cameo with the boss fight music that other game wasted

youtube

seriously fuckin hell the biggest challenge in that final boss was that i was so distracted by SHEER OFFENDEDNESS at the cool music not matching it that it was hard to keep focused

its not just a great boss theme for a terrible boss, its a really fuckin EMOTIONAL song for anyone whose childhood was fuckin defined by the first game!!!

and look you had a PERFECT FUCKIN EXCUSE for a REALLY GOOD boss battle against MY MAN GRUMPY GRANDPA OF THE COOL DAMN NAME. Seriously guys analogman was THE FIRST digimon villain! digimon world came out before the anime, digimon world was the BETA FOR THE ANIME! this was the first place they had the ideas for file island, so much of the areas in the game are awkwardly mistranslated versions of stuff that would later appear in the anime in a different form. before this digimon had never been anything more than a fuckin 2-bit graphics tamagotchi and this was (after the manga) only the second goddamn time these monsters had an actual full colour character design! all of those charmingly janky 90s gross out show styled tcg illustrations? that was concept art that this game was working from! fuckin hell this game thought up the idea for metalgreymon’s changed design that ended up becoming the iconic partner of tai in the anime. (you can also see beta tai in the manga with a beta veemon as a partner instead! o_O)

SO LIKE...

JUST....

I HAVE FEELINGS ABOUT ANALOGMAN OKAY!!! he’s a badly written guy with only like five sentences across all the videogames but fuckin hell he was such an Iconique part of the development of this series that they named him fucking ANALOGMAN

like dude you could have SO EASILY made me scream at my tv in a more positive way by bringing him out as the surprise villain and showing us wtf his deisgn is even supposed to look like cos god all we have is a blurry faceless early ps1 model buried under the glow filters of Mt Infinity’s funky background effects.

AND FUCKING

IF IT IS CANON

THAT MY FUCKIN

STUPID THEORY

IS CANON

slap a fuckin O on this man and LITERALLY LET ME BEAT HIM UP

like dont even give him a team or anything, just let me fight THE MAN HIMSELF

you canonically fuckin said he’s a digital ghost now and basically the same as a digimon

let me beat the shit out of a regular businessman in a suit and tie while he pulls his badass ‘i’m hacking the game i’m in’ bullshit from the GODDAMN TCG GAME THAT WAS MORE CLIMACTIC THAN YOUR SHITTY CASH GRAB FAKE SEQUEL

man god i didnt expect a fuckin TCG GAME to revive my righteous fury from back when i first played that piece of shit. i hate it cos Next order is so pretty and its gameplay is so good and i really loved my twin digis but there were SO MANY bugs and cut corners and missing content and really bad writing and GOD it made me so sad that the dub team really really tried, they tried so hard that they got fuckin renamon’s original voice actress back even though the renamon in this game has nothing to do with the anime one. THE DUB WAS REALLY GOOD BUT IT COULDNT SALVAGE THAT SCRIPT!! THE MUSIC WAS REALLY GOOD AND THE ART WAS REALLY GOOD AND THE DIGIMON THEMSELVES WERE MY BEST DAMN FRIENDS FOR THAT MONTH OF MY LIFE BUT THE GODDAMN FUCKIN SCRIPT!!! the postgame was MORE FUN because FINALLY everything opened up like the sandbox of the first game and you could just fuckin hug u digis without being distracted by constant cutscenes butchering your childhood nostalgia

man i wanted to write a fic/draw a comic about my headcanons on how to fix it but i never managed to do it cos holy shit it was basically “throw everything out and make a different game geez” I COULD RAMBLE FOR HOURS ABOUT THE ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SEQUEL THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN!! and a fuckin!! tcg game!! was closer to that sequel!!!

and fuckin MY THEORY WAS RIGHT AND MY BETTER GAME IDEA ACTUALLY WOULD WORK IN CANON

fuck it im gonna do draw myself decking business gramps in the face

oh! and the female protagonist design! thats another rare good part of that thing! i loved the pixellization effect on her ponytal, way better than the male equivelant having a very ordinary costume design just with a pixel corner taken out of his jacket. also why did the plot never actually make a thing out of that? like you’d think that ‘unlike every other digimon tamer i’ve got this scar of my digitization’ would be a plot point. like they didnt give everyone else a cool pixel squares mark! they could have at least used it as an excuse why the protagonist is the Only Chosen One who can do all this plot shit. or if it was me i would have made it early foreshadowing for the Return Of Business Gramps, like you were partially infected by the Oooo Mysterious Unexplained Digi Virus (seriously why did they not just have ONE SENTENCE explaining its the fuckin original villain returning????) during the prologue and i dunno somehow that gives you powers to break analogman’s control on the digimon he possesses. or maybe the pixel thing is like a tracking device he put on you? or just give that cool design trait to the protagonist of digimon cyber sleuth instead, whose entire plot is that theyre a digimon human hybrid with literaly the power to pixellize themself into computers.

ALSO!!! actually do something!!! with mameo!!!

they really fuckin hyped up in all the prelease materials that the digimon world 1 protagonist was gonna be in this game and he’s all grown up now. and then he does NOTHING in the plot except babble exposition and stand around your home base. and has one line about how he’s a badass teacher now and his partner is mamemon but hey we made a bullshit excuse for why his digimon is sealed away and he never gets to fight :<

give me an actual cool teamup of new protag girl and her cool teacher dude beating the shit out of business trash with their bare fists and also their digimon’s bare fists while THE BEST DAMN MUSIC GOES UNWASTED

...fuck i sure do Feel Intensely about nostalgic games lol. i wonder if i’ll be so rambley when i play kh3? maybe itd be a really shitty lp, aaagh...

#no gramps shall go unappreciated in the bunni house

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britesparc · 3 years

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Weekend Top Ten #499

Top Ten Everything Ever

Four hundred and ninety-nine. That’s how many weeks I’ve been doing this four. Four hundred and ninety-nine.

Next week is the big five-oh-oh and I’m doing something typically stupid, but I wanted to make it a real celebration. That means for the next three weeks you’re going to get some rather meaningful and special Tops Ten; lists that have been long in the making, or that are just bonkers-level awkward for me to do. Like this one.

I mean, I’ve ranked films, games, fictional guns, and robots that made me cry. How much longer can I do this for? How many more weeks am I going to put myself through this?

Give me a barrel with bottom unscrap’d.

There’s nowhere to go but up, ladies and germs, and so I present to you the list to end all lists. The most definitive list possible. A list of everything. A list of my favourite things in all of time and space. A list of the official best things ever.

I mean, what more is there to say? This covers everything. I’ve tried to avoid it being really specific to one film or one person. And, of course, it doesn’t include people I know in real life, or events that have happened to me. These are, in their own way, big, sweeping things; film series, franchises, bands, stories that have in their own way changed my life. Just the greatest things I’ve come across in my nearly 40 years on this planet.

And you can’t say fairer than that.

The Transformers comic: this should be obvious to anyone who knows me well, but there’s no greater influence in my life, in terms of storytelling or entertainment, than Transformers. And of all the variants branching off from the Prime Timeline (pun very much intended), it’s the comic that’s greatest. Whether it’s the melodrama of Simon Furman or the intricate plotting of James Roberts, I’ve been addicted to the Transformers comic for the vast majority of my life. It has fundamentally shaped how I consume fiction and the sorts of things I’m into. It’s also really changed how I write, and, in fact, the original Marvel run is at least partly responsible for the fact that I write at all. I drew Transformers comics as a kid. I planned out elaborate multi-issue arcs before I was a teenager. I wrote detailed synopses and snatches of scripts for Transformers movies that would never be made. And I robbed, wholesale, motifs and lines of dialogue for the original books and comics I was working on too. It changed my life. It’s not hyperbole to say Transformers is the single biggest piece of fiction I’ve ever touched. Till all are one indeed.

The films of Steven Spielberg, 1975-1982: Spielberg is my favourite filmmaker, but it felt a bit weird to just say “Steven!” as one of the entries here. So instead I’ve decided to hone in on his early career, despite the fact that knocks out one of the biggest influences of my life, Jurassic Park. But everything I love about Spielberg is in these movies. His skill with a camera, his love of light, his great eye for casting, his way with actors; I mean, Close Encounters, which I probably first saw aged about twelve, is just a microcosm of all my interests in my teens: aliens, government conspiracies, determined men going on a crazed quest, and above all a pervasive sense of hope and optimism. Spielberg’s craft is exemplary, but that’s also true of many of his peers. His flair for action scenes and love of spectacle is entertaining, but there are many directors of whom you could say the same. What I love about him – what keeps bringing me back to him – is his warmth and optimism, his belief in the best of us. Even in his darkest movies, in Schindler’s List and A.I. and Munich (which has one of the bleakest endings of his career), there’s still joy and warmth and something worthwhile and wholesome to fight for. And whilst Raiders is a thrill-ride and E.T. an emotional tour-de-force, all of his preoccupations are encapsulated in Jaws, a tense horror film, a buddy-comedy, an entertaining rollercoaster, an acting masterclass. But it’s still Jurassic Park that made me want to make a movie.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe: so when I was a kid I was reading Transformers and Ghostbusters and other Marvel-published adaptations, but not really any actual Marvel comics. However, as a result, I became very loosely familiar with who Iron Man and Doctor Strange were (and Spidey of course) through references and back-up strips, and that time Death’s Head fought Tony’s nephew Arno Stark. No, when I started reading “proper” comics – mainstream superhero stuff – it was DC. I loved Batman, so I bought Batman, and that was a gateway to the rest of the DCU. However, despite the successes of the various DC movie adaptations, it’s the MCU that really, really got its hooks into me. For one, they’re really good adaptations, well-cast, with some great set-pieces. But the interconnected stuff is what really sings. Not just the characters popping up in each others’ movies, or even the overall arc leading up the crossover events; no, it was the actual shared-ness of it, the way the destruction of SHIELD had an impact, or the Sokovia Accords, or Asgard, Skrulls, magic… everything has an impact, an effect. And sure, it’s incredibly good fun to follow the breadcrumbs and try to work out where things are heading. As we enter a new phase – literally and figuratively – I just can’t wait to find out what’s next.

Grant Morrison’s Batman: talking about interconnectivity, no one does it better – or weirder – than Morrison. His Batman arc – and I’m referring to the character not the title, as it spans multiple series and even, arguably, includes work he did on JLA years earlier – is a web of connected theories, images, themes, events, and references. What does the Zur-En-Arrh graffiti in Gotham mean, not just in the here-and-now, but also as a long-standing reference to decades of Batman’s past? The anticipation of uncovering the next breadcrumb, the excitement of deciphering the next reference; it was long-form storytelling as a form of existential theatre, and it was sublime. But he also did two things that have utterly changed my view of the character. On the meta level, he presented a Batman where everything was canon; the grim thirties Shadow-inspired vigilante, the goofy fifties space adventures, the hairy-chested love-god of the seventies… it all happened to one man over a span of about 15-20 years. Fair enough; that’s cool storytelling. But his idea that Batman was not a miserable, psychopathic loner, that he was not insane or struggling to cope or still traumatised by his parents’ death, that Bruce Wayne was a nice guy with friends and family, who’d used his pain as a weapon, who’d gotten past his rage and grief and turned all the negative stuff outwards. Batman was what was built from all that, and Batman allowed Bruce to grow. And what did he do? He found other lost children and saved their lives, allowing Dick Grayson to take over. Batman is a force for good, in a similar way to Superman in Morrison’s All-Star book, making people better by association. And his confrontation with Darkseid in Final Crisis is extraordinary; brilliant as-is, as a piece of comicbook badassery on the page, but the metatextual resonance it’s given – Batman as a good man versus the font of all evil, David versus Goliath, Theseus and the Minotaur – is brilliant. How it ties in to Morrison’s wider Bat-epic, the whole Black Glove stuff and the devil and time travel and the myth of Batman’s creation and all of it… and just the simple thing of Batman’s last act being shooting the embodiment of evil, saving a human life, and then saying “Gotcha,” before dying, is perfect. Perfect.

The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge: when I was little, I played Spectrum and C64 games at my cousins’ house. Then I got an Amiga – I think maybe I was ten? – and I started playing Amiga games. And it was fun and all, but then I read a review in Amiga Action, and my life changed. It was something called an “adventure game”, and it let you walk around chatting to people and interacting with the world, with great big colourful graphics and characters whose mouths moved when they spoke. And then I played it. My love of the medium and its possibilities was cemented then; and, fittingly, it was through the wordy, hilarious dialogue and comedy antics of a wannabe pirate who may, or may not, be selling these fine leather jackets. It’s not overstating things that my gaming tastes were defined by this game and its technically superior sequel. The quirky set-pieces, the weird puzzles, the playing with form (like when you “die” in Monkey 2), and the smart use of Lucasfilm in-jokery. The first game’s “How to Get Ahead in Navigating” gag/puzzle will live with me forever, as will the second game’s bonkers, nightmarish, beautifully constructed ending. As good as they were, none of the subsequent games could hold a candle to it, especially as the whole aesthetic changed into something much more cartoony. But these two? They’re my Big Whoop.

Star Wars: I imagine I know a lot of people in real life who would be surprised – nay, astounded – that I would list my ten favourite Things of all time, and yet Star Wars would not manage to break the Top Five. That’s because that as much as I love Star Wars – and I do, I really do – it didn’t hit me, didn’t speak to me, apart from one brief and weird moment in my late teens. It was games that made me fall in love, I think; games and toys. And, I have to confess, it was the prequels; the intricate digital visions of gleaming cities and impossibly acrobatic Jedi. I love the goofiness and ultra-seriousness of Lucas’ vision, sadly muddled now by the earthy chaos of the sequels. Star Wars is cool; for a while, it defined my idea of cool in cinema. An exciting sci-fi reimagining of ancient and endless myths, a confusing smorgasbord of weird stories and arcane philosophy. Plus spaceships and rapscallions and laser swords. So yes: whilst it was never my faith, so to speak, it’s still one of the coolest and most original pieces of fiction in my lifetime, and to this day there are very few things at all that I find more exciting and evocative than the thought of a Jedi pirouetting through the air with their ‘saber lit.

Middle-Earth, in print and film: one of my most vivid memories of childhood is my mum reading me The Hobbit (and also Macbeth, funnily enough). Then I bought myself my own copy, read it as a kid, read it again as a teenager, wrote (aged about 12 or 13) a sequel in which Gollum comes back to reclaim the ring. I remain to this day baffled that my teacher did not think to tell me that there actually was a sequel to The Hobbit. Eventually I did hear about it, watched the Ralph Bakshi version, and – when I read in Empire that it was gonna be a film and Sean Connery, of all people, was gonna be Gandalf – I thought it best to take the plunge. And I adored it. whilst there’s something about the lyrical simplicity of The Hobbit that I prefer, the depth and scope of The Lord of the Rings – and Tolkien’s subsequent, more disparate writing – that moves me on a profound level. It’s not just the epic nature of the work – the story itself, with its grandiose tales of heroism and adventure – but the sheer balls of the man to make such a thing, to craft wholesale an entire mythological ecosystem. And then the films! I can’t believe they managed to do that; it was pure lightning in a bottle, and we know that because they didn’t quite manage to do it a second time with the Hobbit movies. But all those glorious moments: “Fly, you fools”, “For Frodo”, “I can carry you”, “Go away and never come back” – bloody hell.

Empire magazine: it feels a bit weird, for some reason, citing a magazine as a Favourite Thing. It’s a magazine, a periodical, a journal; it tells you the news and recommends films. it’s not supposed to be part of the culture, part of the fabric of one’s being. But whilst you could debate whether criticism itself is culture, Empire definitely has a culture. It’s a club, nay, a family; something that has been entrenched in recent years through its podcasts and live shows. But for me it began as an education. I started reading it, really, to find out more about Jurassic Park (there we are again, the secret eleventh part of this list). But it went on, showing me more films and filmmakers, introducing me to esoteric industry concepts, broadening my horizons. I always liked film, but Empire made me love film. It reflected my tastes but then it enriched them, codified them, offered me new flavours. It was the first magazine to put Lord of the Rings on the cover; it celebrates Spielberg and the MCU; it had articles about The Greasy Strangler, for goodness’ sake. So much of what I love about film I learned from Empire over the last (nearly) thirty years, and so much of what I love about Empire now is because of what I learned. Bangily-bang.

Traveller’s Tales’ LEGO games: the games that did not make this list, I don’t know. Halo; man, I love Halo. Or what about classics like Lemmings, Worms, or SWOS? What about Mass Effect, Deus Ex, or Fable? What about Mario Kart, what about Civilization? They all deserved a place, really. But there’s something esoteric, timeless even, about the heights of the LEGO games. I remember playing a demo – on the first Xbox, I think – of the first LEGO Star Wars, and being blown away by the fact that, well, it was good. When the games started coming out on the 360 – Star Wars II, Batman, Indiana Jones – I was in the gloriously fortunate position of getting a lot of them for free at CITV, and I devoured them. The simple mechanics, the generous, forgiving gameplay, the satisfying tactile feel of smashing objects and collecting studs. There was something just so rewarding about playing them. And the fan-service! Giving you all those beloved characters, all those worlds, all those genuinely funny in-jokes, references, and cut-scenes. Plus they’re great to play with kids. Time went on, some games were better than others; I feel they reached their peak with the first LEGO Marvel Super-Heroes game, presenting us with an open world New York to play in and a collection of comic book characters that fitted the gameplay perfectly. Subsequent games have either put new restrictions on play, or given us more complicated stories and mechanics, or – really – just over-egged the pudding slightly. I’m really, really optimistic and excited for The Skywalker Saga, long overdue, and promising something of an overhaul. it began, really, with Star Wars; and I feel with Star Wars they’ll have their greatest hour.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: fun fact: finding the tenth spot on these lists is very hard. How about a brand I love, like Xbox, or the BBC, or even Disney? Or another writer or director – what about Aaron Sorkin? Or a TV show – Doctor Who, perhaps, or Star Trek? Or how about, oh I dunno, Shakespeare? I like him. But I’ve not talked about music, so let’s do that; we’ll go out on a number. I’m not a musical person; I didn’t grow up frequenting record shops or listening to mix tapes in my room. I liked songs, but mostly I came to music through film. That was even true with Nick Cave, who I first heard in an episode of The X-Files, and read about in the X-Files magazine. But he remains one of the few artists, The Bad Seeds one of the few bands, that I continue to seek out and listen to regularly (rather than just saying “Alexa, play nineties rock”). I love the different styles, from the distorted noise of the early, post-Birthday Party years through the sombre melodies of Nocturama. I love Cave’s lyricism; his evocation of myth, his use of imagery. I love how he manages to get phrases like “morally culpable” into a song. I love the humour as well as the tragedy, the references to things both real and mythological, the sadness and eloquence of it all. I love how so many of his songs are about sex but are also really moving and meaningful; how much of the music is infused with pain and sorrow but is also uplifting. The horrible evocations of Cave’s own abuse in Do You Love Me, through to the references to his son’s death in Girl in Amber. I love Cave’s voice. I don’t know if this has come through in this list, but something I really like is stuff that makes me cry but isn’t necessarily sad. I cry when I read Sandman, when he wins the Oldest Game by challenging the end of everything by becoming “hope”; I cry when Donna tells Josh, “if you were in the hospital I wouldn’t stop for red lights”; I cry when Steve Rogers jumps on that dummy grenade. I think it’s hope and heroism and love. And that’s something that I get constantly, mainlined, intravenous, from Nick Cave. As Morgan Freeman says in Seven, “The world is a fine place and worth fighting for – I agree with the second part.”

God, there’s so much stuff not listed here. So many things I love that I feel are core; no Pixar, no West Wing, no other filmmakers cited, really, apart from Spielberg. But ten’s not a big number, and I contain multitudes.

Thanks for reading.

#top ten #everything #499 #nine years #lists #my life

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lokgifsandmusings · 7 years

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Definitive Ranking of Book 4 Episodes, #1/13

1. 4x02 Korra Alone

Non-linear all around perfect episode that explores Korra’s struggles with PTSD and I can’t even be funny about this. Oh and Toph.

This is a post that’s taken me some time to write, because addressing the perfection of this particular episode is a daunting task. I mean it. It’s not just the best episode of Book 4, it’s the best episode of the franchise. The most daring as well.

For a little bit of context, there’s an incredibly popular episode from Avatar: the Last Airbender called “Zuko Alone.” It picks up after he leaves Iroh in “Avatar Day,” because his uncle kind of pointed out that the hunt for the Avatar might be a tad on the futile side. His brain can’t reconcile this, so the episode instead shows him trying to blindly stick to this task, while feeling as though he has no place in the world, and being rejected by anyone who finds out who he really is. He struggles with inner darkness, inner pain, and the whole time his story is punctuated by flashbacks of his relationship to his sister, his mother’s disappearance, and his father’s ascension to Fire Lord.

I’m not sure I’d call it the high point of ATLA (“Crossroads of Destiny” gets that honor), but it is kind of everything with regards to Zuko, easily one of the strongest characters Bryke have ever written. Also it did a great job of not endorsing his self-destructive tendencies or making excuses for him.

“Korra Alone” was announced (and screened) at the 2014 New York Comic Con, and when Bryke first said the episode title, the audience screamed. Smugly, from the comfort of my couch, I shook my head at the livestream and declared that there was no way this could measure up.

Well, color me dead wrong. I forgot that it was starring Korra, and she not only measures up, she creates a new goddamned reality the world didn’t know it needed.

Just thinking about the episode for first-time viewers, it does exactly what it needs to do. It’s impactful coming off the [mostly] Korra-less “After All These Years” to not just see her, but feel what she’s going through and feel that isolation, even when she’s surrounded by her parents and other loved ones. Though it somewhat takes on the travel+flashbacks format of “Zuko Alone,” even Korra’s present-day plot isn’t strictly sequential—most notably with us learning the real reason she entered the earthbending cage-match, with the flashes moving faster to get her to the swamp. It gives the entire episode a very ungrounded feel, which for the viewer does two things:

You desperately begin to want Korra to connect and be stabilized, because there is an inherent discomfort from the loose form for your brain (not a bad thing...an effective discomfort)

It REALLY gives the impression that time is passing in this episode

The second point is especially striking when you consider the scope. We’ve got in one “plotline” (for lack of a better term): Korra underground fighting, following a ‘dog’, and getting sucked into the swamp where she meets Toph. This alone covers significant ground. Then we have her flashbacks of leaving Republic City, not improving in her home and Senna begging her to go to Katara, Katara’s first healing session, the letters from friends that paint time as passing, Katara’s ‘wiggle your toe’ session, Tenzin visiting, Korra’s narrated letter to Asami while she meditates and trains, her leaving the SWT, her failing to apprehend the thieves, turning from Yue Bay, cutting her hair and donning new clothes, the tree of time scene, then traversing every possible landscape.

HOW WAS THIS ALL IN A 22 MINUTE EPISODE?

Yeah. This is three years, no question about it. It’s visually stunning, but there’s also this extreme sense of loss that the viewer is clued into, and the aimlessness that is heavily felt. Korra’s physical appearance changing was the external manifestation of this, and the symbolism surrounding it was as clear as when Iroh and Zuko did the same nearly 8 years prior. Toph popping out at the end is the one bit of relief, and it *really* shines, especially given her voice actor being perfect and sounding instantly familiar to us (did Philece Sampler just watch hours and hours of Jessie Flower footage or something??).

I can’t see this not landing for someone the first time through, to be perfectly honest. It sets up Korra’s journey for the season, and with her still out of touch from Raava and still away from friends and family, there’s a lot that needs resolving, and that the audience should definitely want to see resolved.

Placing “Korra Alone” in the context of the entire season, and the series at that (or even the franchise) is a different ballgame. Not a worse one, but it certainly means that you can consider this in Korra’s healing arc as a whole.

I’ll fully admit I was not 100% on-board with Dark!Korra being the representation for PTSD at first, even though this is, at the end of the day, a Y7 show that needs to break down these concepts to children. However, it worked within this episode, and given how the whole thing was resolved through mindful meditation (plus how the little bit of metal Korra extracted didn’t end up being a cure-all), I think it justified itself in a general sense.

In the case of “Korra Alone” alone (lol), it worked in a sort of 3rd person omniscient way, to quickly convey Korra reliving this moment and having a ton of anxiety each time it occurred. What had the potential for being a bit of a cheap visual metaphor instead mostly landed, giving us a kind of visceral understanding of that anxiety (and as someone who’s had to explain what that feels like to people who’ve never experienced it, that’s really no easy task).

When it comes to Korra’s healing arc as a whole, I’m going to have to be an asshole and tell you that Gretchen ( @theonewithpurplehair ) and I are planning on writing something about it when she gets back from South Africa. It will be lengthy and emotional and talk about THEMES and how important this is. We do that.

But even in advance of it, I think there’s a point to be made about Bryke choosing to have a healing arc in the first place. They didn’t have to, you know. And for some, especially in light of the indelicately worded “I needed to suffer” quote from the final episode, having two white men use a bisexual indigenous woman to explore a story about recovering from extensive trauma is uncomfortable, which is absolutely a valid tension.

However, something I think @glamourweaver highlighted best back when fandom dialogue was more...heightened, was that like it or not, Korra’s gone through major traumas throughout the show. In Book 1, she lost most of her bending and was so affected there was not-subtle-at-all suicide imagery included. Then Aang’s magic touch fixed her depression! Yay!

In Book 2, she had Raava ripped out of her and lost her (admittedly newfound) connection to her past lives, calling into question her very identity as the Avatar. The whole astral-projection thing she did? That was just Korra’s strength of soul, separate from anything to do with reincarnated powers. So yeah, reconnecting with Raava and becoming the first Avatar of a new spiritual age would totally be healing, but the idea that there’s no trauma she’d need to explore? Book 3 is near and dear to me, but in many ways it almost feels like a new show, complete with not bothering to tap into implications of the first 2 seasons. Whoops!

It’s yeah, not great how much she was put through the wringer when you get down to it. But Bryke are conscientious and tend to fix their mistakes. In a lot of ways, Korra being given PTSD—like...realistic PTSD—and an ensuing healing arc in Book 4 was the direct answer to everything previously glossed over.

The result? To that, I’ll just go ahead and quote @beccatoria’s essay (seriously, read it), because it lays out the meaning so well:

“This brings us to the final part of my argument: forming new meanings. The therapies I have mentioned so far focus on the physiological issues. The brain blows a fuse and can't process what it has experienced, so if you fix the fuse, you fix the processing problem. This still leaves a person who has been through an extremely traumatic event. PTSD almost always presents alongside issues such as depression and can lead to feelings of isolation and guilt. Individuals may either feel emotionally disconnected or emotionally out of control and have often internalised damaging messages as a result of their trauma. There is often a focus on creating new meanings as these memories are re-examined. We see this in Korra's evolving attitude to her own experiences.

Zaheer asserts that her power is limitless. She should never have been able to survive the poison. He offers her an opportunity to recontextualise her survival as evidence of her enormous resilience and strength rather than as a failure because she did not survive unscathed. While she is recovering, Katara tells her about Aang and how he chose to find meaning in his suffering. “What will I find?” Korra wonders. “Won't it be interesting to find out?” Katara asks. The answer comes in her final conversation with Tenzin. Korra chooses to form new meanings for her experiences, and chooses to find a message of compassion and empathy.”

Yes, the landing was not 100% perfect, but the recontextualization of her suffering and subsequent empowerment through that was clear. Korra ended the series hopeful about the future, and more at peace than we had seen her—certainly more at peace than that flailing teenager who was more willing to demand a duel with Amon than admit fear. She had grown and found ways to reconcile what happened into how she wanted to lead her life.

Do you mind if I get personal for three seconds? I have general anxiety, as well as a very specific (and admittedly mild) trauma associated with driving, and though I’ll never equate my experience to Korra’s brutalization (seriously, mine just involves a hangover, a large cup of coffee, pizza, and a bridge), there is something about that terror of being out-of-control I identify with, and it features so strongly in Korra’s arc. I also know what it’s like to want to will something away and fight against everything that’s happening. Why can’t my stupid brain just STOP?

But the thing is, like beccatoria said, it’s about contextualizing it. Anxiety never goes away, and it certainly can’t be willed out of the forefront. But you can choose to look at things with a new point of view. To be able to sit with a feeling and recognize what it is, even if it’s massively uncomfortable or puts your body in flight-or-fright mode. Personally, I’ve come to look at my anxiety/intrusive thoughts as a very badly behaved cat. The cat is weirdly trying to protect me, and truly thinks this is what will help keep me safe, but well...it’s an idiot:

Still, it’s *my* idiot, damnit, and now when I drive, I can just picture her in the passenger seat chewing on the emergency brake. She’s also the survival mechanism my brain came up with to shield me from more chaotic forces in my life, and that’s kind of neato, when you get down to it.

*Kind of*, okay? (I still need to replace this chair, though Trystane Nymeros has done more damage to it with his many toes).

The point is, Korra’s story is powerful and salubrious because she just...goes through hell and back, she really does. But she not only finds meaning in it, she finds positivity and hope. She is at her MOST secure when she flings herself in front of that spirit gun, and then talks down the season antagonist with a few words. It’s uplifting, without pulling *any* punches on how ugly and terrifying and isolating PTSD can be.

There were punches thrown outside of “Korra Alone” too, but that was the episode that waded in most deeply, and somehow did it in an appropriate fashion for a Y7 show. I can’t sing its praises enough, truly.

Having laid this all out, it seems almost trite to mention the Korrasami aspects of the episode. It didn’t escape the fandom that Korra telling Tonraq and Senna she wanted to go back home read like a coming out conversation, and the “Dear Asami” sequence is without question the most stunning of the episode. Though @queertoonqueertoons lays out why there’s other reasons for that as well. But like, what can be said? Korra lets herself be vulnerable around Asami in a way she won’t with others, and Asami asks for very little in return. It was a nice, continuing thread, but it never became a focal point of the episode, or the series, so shame on me if I buck the trend.

I can give overall thoughts on Book 4 when I pull together the final post for this ranking, but like Korra, I think I’m ending on a pensive and positive note. “Korra Alone” will do that for you, even though it may be the darkest episode of the franchise. What a masterpiece.

#13: 4x08 “Remembrances”

#12: 4x11 “Kuvira’s Gambit”

#11: 4x09 “Beyond the Wilds”

#10: 4x07 “Reunion”

#9: 4x06 The “Battle of Zaofu”

#8. 4x12 “Day of Colossus”

#7 4x01 “After All These Years”

#6 4x03 “The Coronation”

#5 4x04 “The Calling”

#4 4x05 “Enemy at the Gates”

#3 4x10 “Operation Beifong”

#2 4x13 “The Last Stand”

Book 2 ranking/essays found here

#korra #lok #lok meta #korra alone #book 4 ranking #meta #korra 4x02

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ladyloveandjustice · 7 years

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999/ZERO ESCAPE SPOILERS

My gf and I have been playing the zero escape/999 games together and we’re on the third one. I like, narrated the entire first game myself (INCLUDING THE SUPER LONG SECTIONS DESCRIBING DEAD BODIES IN GRAPHIC, WORSHIPFUL DETAIL, I THINK THE AUTHOR HAS A THING. I DON’T KNOW WHAT BUT THERE IS DEFINITELY A THING). (the second and third games don’t have that though so maybe people complained or maybe that was supposed to be a specific personality trait for the first games narrator.)

I just voiced the investigation parts of the second and third games, since the cutscene/novel sections are voiced in those. It’s really my greatest contribution to the gameplay experiences since my girlfriend ends up solving most to the puzzles (she can math and I can’t).

I’ve liked the first game best so far- I really didn’t like it much at the beginning, but then the twist ending was really well done and ACTUALLY THE TWIST I WAS HOPING FOR. How many times during the game did I say “I hope our girlfriend is zero, the mastermind” and “I hope our girlfriend is the one who murdered this guy” just because I wanted there to be more to Akane’s character than “our generically sweet love interest”. THEN she turns out to be a Machiavellian well-intentioned extremist mastermind and the real narrator of the game (Akane why do you like dead bodies so much) and i was like “YES”.

The second game was all right. I like Phi a lot, but god Sigma was an annoying protagonist. Me and gf kept saying we wanted Junpei back.

Junpei was a fairly generic protag, but only annoyed me a few times (I did come to like him a lil bit when it was revealed Akane was the mastermind and he...did not mind at all. Like there was no “my sweet innocent helpless Akane was a lie oh no” he’s just like “ok whatever i still love her even if she stuck me in a deadly game and arranged the deaths of a bunch of assholes”. Like not only is that is an incredibly unhealthy way of thinking, which is interesting, it’s also just kind of nice he apparently likes Akane for who she actually is, Machiavellian scheming and all)

Meanwhile Sigma was just super creepy to all the girls and filled with machismo and ugh. The twist at the end also was nowhere near as effective for me, like how the fuck did Sigma never notice he was 67 years old instead of 22 and that he had a really obvious cyborg eye thing YOU WOULD BE ABLE TO FEEL THAT. how did he never run into any reflective surfaces and see himself. he has to be the least aware person on the planet. This is further proven by the fact he talks to Akane for FIVE MINUTES at the end of the game before looking down and realizing he has skeletal metal arms now. I LAUGHED FOR LIKE 20 MINUTES AT THAT.

As for the rest of the second game, i totally called that Tenmyouji was future Junpei btw, which i was very proud of. i like that Akane continued being a Machiavellian asshole but still seems to have mostly good intentions- like she seems to care about Junpei in a way, but also just. does not give a fuck about his feelings or anyone else's if its to serve her plan for revenge/the greater good. it's rare to see female characters get to be really morally grey and puppet-master-y like that.

I also liked that future Junpei drew the line at Akane putting his ten year old adopted child in a murder game and also deliberately infecting him with a deadly disease that made him want to kill himself. He didn’t want anything to do with her after that .

It actually makes me like Junpei a lot more to know he's sort of obsessively protective and dedicated to anyone he really forms an attachment to, not just Akane, so her endangering someone he considered family, especially a kid, actually pisses him off.

Other than that aspect though, the characters in the second game didn’t really feel as strongas they were in the first game overall. I overall liked Lotus, Snake and Clover’s development in the first game, but in this game it’s like...Luna, Clover and Alice were okay? But just kinda eh. And everyone else was urgh.

Now we’re on the third game and i have no idea wtf is going on. Junpei is like emo/goth now and being mean to everyone, even Akane, and being like “LET’S JUST KILL PEOPLE YO”. Akane said something happened to him in the last year and he changed, so i guess at least it will be explained. JUNPEI’S IN A GOTH PHASE. Also the third guy in Akane and Junpei’s team looks just like Steve Rogers so I’ve named him Captain America (his real name is Carlos). Which just leads to me being very annoying when a lot of the dialogue ends up fitting that

Junpei to Carlos: So you’re like a hero of justice, aren’t you

Me: DUH JUNPEI IT’S CAPTAIN AMERICA

Akane: (describes how Junpei used to be really nice and always like “I will rush 2 ur aid no matter what Akane”)

Carlos: He sounds like a hero from a comic book

Me: I RECOGNIZE FELLOW COMIC BOOK HEROES OF COURSE, AS CAPTAIN AMERICA

Carlos: I don’t really date or hang out with people much...

Me: MY ENTIRE BARBERSHOP’S QUARTET IS DEAD

I also tend to “enhance” Akane’s dialogue by having her mention constantly how she’s an asshole mastermind and I feel the game is better this way.

Akane: st-stop Carlos! I can’t possibly tell Junpei how I feel!

Me: I CAN ONLY EXPRESS MY AFFECTION FOR JUNPEI BY KIDNAPPING HIM AND PUTTING HIM IN LIFE THREATENING SITUATIONS, YOU KNOW THAT, CARLOS

Akane: let’s solve this puzzle zero set

Me: BTW WHEN I WAS ZERO MY PUZZLES WERE MUCH COOLER. THIS ZERO IS THE INFERIOR MASTERMIND

I don’t know how my gf puts up with me.

Anyway Junpei ended up getting like. decapitated in the fragment of the game we just played. also i guess we found his body parts all over the room before hand but Carlos kept insisting it was a model. WOULDN’T YOU BE ABLE TO TELL IT WAS REAL??? ESPECIALLY AKANE WHO HAS SEEN SEVERAL AND DESCRIBED THEM IN GRAPHIC DETAIL?

but nope. So upon this revelation Akane assumed Carlos killed Junpei. She was not at all impressed with his tragic “i have an ill little sister and America’s healthcare is fucked” backstory and WENT AFTER HIM WITH A CHAINSAW. I wanted to see if I could get an ending where she actually got him with the chainsaw but ended up making him improbably kill himself with an axe instead. WHOOPS.

And that’s where we are with this series. I’m glad I finally documented some of this because wow have these games been an overly convoluted wild ride. But kind of a cool one! We’ll see how things end.

#zero escape #zero escape spoilers #suicide cw #nev plays zero escape #akane kurashiki

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comic-movieheroesranked · 7 years

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Cinematic Comic Characters Ranked! (Year 2001)

Today's ranking is covering comic book characters introduced in Cinematic film in 2001. Our three contenders are Josie and the Pussycats, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, and Ghost World. I had no idea each one had a comic series. I never heard of Ghost World, but I knew that the Pussycats had a TV show and that Tomb Raider is one of the most iconic games in history. Although each movie had some boring moments, I really enjoyed watching them. So let's get to the spoilers and rank these characters!

Cameo Appreciation: Melorra, Bus Man, Weird Al Waiter (Ghost World)

Since I've never seen Ghost World before I did some research and was happy to see that the movie included favorite minor characters for some quick cameos. We got the waiter who looks like Weird Al, the old man who waits for a bus that's out of service (or is it?), and a girl from high school that's so bubbly it drives Enid and Rebecca crazy.

Cameo Appreciation: Eugene Levy (Josie and the Pussycats)

Not a comic cameo but a celebrity cameo! Actor Eugene Levy showed up in a educational video that explains how and why kids are being brainwashed by the top artist's music. Even though it's random, it's fun and totally matches the lightness of the movie.

19. Ms. Roberta Allsworth (Ghost World)

“Oh. I thought maybe it was supposed to be your father.”

Starting off on our list is someone I didn't think was going to be significant in the film but just kept showing up as it went on. Ms. Roberta Allswroth is teachers the Remedial Art class Enid has to take after initially failing in high school. I went to a performing arts college and my playwright teacher was exactly like her. I never read a single play that was assigned and would completely bullshit my way through our discussions and she bought every second of it. Goes to show that some people really just want you to believe in what you're saying or, in Roberta's case, creating. She even manages to get Enid a scholarship but Enid screws that up when she doesn't show up to defend her controversial art piece at the gallery.

18. Fiona (Josie and the Pussycats)

"You can kiss my cellulite-free ass for all I've done for you!"

OK on the real, I have no idea why Fiona was in the movie. In fact, I'm still scratching my head at the whole "control the minds of the youth because I wasn't popular and had a lisp!" thing. I didn't even think that whole dialogue exchange where she would mumbled under her breath was necessary. Like I get why they put it there, but honestly they should have just cut her out and make the movie about Wyatt just trying to screw them over or something.

17. Manfred Powell (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider)

"Lady Croft, tell me, is there a good reason why I just kept you alive?"

I've always said that in a good movie, if the hero is worried about the villain the audience will too. And if the hero isn't worried...well there's probably a reason for that. The whole movie Manfred Powell is trying his very best to show that he is this intimidating person who knows what he's doing and during the whole movie Lara just proves that he isn't. At the end he manages to surprise Lara by killing Alex, but she quickly fixes it and he ends up dying from his own knife throw.

16. Seymour (Ghost World)

"I can't relate to 99% of humanity."

Seymour, Seymour, Seymour. He's probably the only real outcast in the entire movie. He looks and does things in a different way which quickly leads him to this lonely lifestyle when Enid finds him. Of course he falls for the girl after she shows interest in him and sleeps with him because what else is he expected to do? Like the rest of our characters, we don't know what's going to happen to him when the film ends, but you won't hear any complaints from me.

15. Dejour Boys (Josie and the Pussycats)

"Dejour means friendship!"

The boy band that's on everyone's lips at the start of the movie. These four white dudes are at the top of their game when Wyatt and Fiona decide to pull the plug. It probably has nothing to do with the fact that the dudes are spoiled as hell, especially the monkey. It's assumed they met their demise in a plane accident but they appear at the end of the film, revealing they survived but not after getting jumped by a Metallica crowd. You think they're there to save the day, but they don't. They don't really do anything since they're all in casts.

14. Josh (Ghost World)

"That's a vanilla milkshake."

He's the boy that's too nice to stick up to his asshole boss and too nice to say no to Enid and Rebecca's ridiculous plans. Seems that Enid and Rebecca both had a thing for him at some point which is why they keep bringing him around and involving him in their adventures. Josh, being the nice guy that he is, just puts up with it, which earns my respect.

13. Alex West (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider)

"Now for a cold shower."

Alex seems to be having an on-again off-again thing going on with Lara, who seems to be the in charge of their relationship's guidelines. Makes sense, they're both always traveling the world separately, why make it complicated? He's always there when Lara really needs to release some stress and she returns the favor by bringing him back to life when he gets knifed followed by getting crushed by some giant planet machine. It's a win/win situation for both of them.

12. Enid (Ghost World)

"I just hate all these extroverted, obnoxious, pseudo-bohemian losers."

You know how in high school there's that one person in your group of friends that you know you wouldn't be friends with if it weren't for both of you having mutual friends? Well my person was exactly like Enid and I couldn't stand her. I made it my life goal in high school to constantly call her out on her pretentious bullshit which is exactly what someone needed to do with Enid. Like my person, Enid is trying very hard to be something she's not. She's the type to act like being popular was overrated but if the popular kids wanted her to hang out with them, she'd do it in a second. It was annoying to watch her and I'm a little bummed the movie focused on her more than Rebecca.

11. Alan M. (Josie and the Pussycats)

“Josie McCoy, I love you!!!”

I really liked that when Alan M's car was acting up he went to Josie instead of acting all macho and trying to fix it himself. After I knew I was going to like him. He's a good boyfriend that supports the band and their success even when he's still trying to make something of his folk music career. At the end of the film he ends up crowd surfing to proclaim his love to Josie and then runs off to the side of the stage to continue supporting her as she performs her concert.

10. Bryce (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider)

"Well, I'm a free spirit, me."

The gadget man responsible for all the cool tech Lara sports throughout the movie. He's always cracking a joke and he's always reluctant to join in on whatever crazy adventure Lara is doing next. I also don't understand why he doesn't live in the mansion with 81 rooms that's only hosting Lara and her butler but to each their own.

9. Alexandra Cabot (Josie and the Pussycats)

"I'm here because I was in the comic book."

I never expected a character from Josie and the Pussycats to break the fourth wall. Alexandra did it so well that I mentally gave her a standing ovation (because I didn't feel like standing up from my couch). Because of her answer it doesn't bother me that she's always around despite no one wanting her around. I also appreciate the digs people constantly take on her, mainly as a response to the digs she tries to throw at them.

8. Alexander Cabot III (Josie and the Pussycats)

"I want a vintage tee...and Heath Ledger."

Either I wasn't paying attention or the movie never says who's actually older, Alexander or Alexandra. Are they even twins? Besides that Alexander is the manager of the girls even though he never does anything to actually manage them. He mainly just hangs around and spoils himself on his 15% commission until the end of the film when he realizes that all the superficial things in life do not matter.

7. Hillary (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider)

"I'm only trying to turn you into a lady."

If Lara Croft was Batman, Hillary would be Alfred Pennyworth. The similarities are ridiculous. Hillary takes care of Lara as her butler and doesn't hesitate to grab a shotgun and do damage when a threat arrives. He doesn't seem to mind Lara Croft's lifestyle, only wishes she'd do it in a very lady-like gown. I would've liked to see a little more tenderness between the two but Hillary serving Lara her pistols on a food tray will do just fine for the time being.

6. Wyatt Frame (Josie and the Pussycats)

"Eye Contact. Hand."

Despite being the secondary villain in the movie I thought Wyatt was way more interesting to watch than Fiona. He's a no nonsense kind of guy and knows how to get things done. I can't blame him for working for the dark side when he had to take care of the Dejour boys but I also can't say I felt sorry for him when his evil plans went to shit. Him punishing the Dejour boys was probably one of the funnier moments of the movie but I still wish they just rewrote the script to make him the main villain with a different (maybe even simpler?) evil plot.

5. Valerie Brown (Josie and the Pussycats)

"Wyatt, you messed with the wrong pussy."

In the TV series, Valerie made history as the first African American female to be a regular character in a TV show. In the movie she's the "mom friend" of the trio. She's always there when Josie's feeling down and she's quick to save Melody from whatever danger her naive self is about to get into. She also plays a mean bass guitar. We also see her insecurities when she seems to be an afterthought that comes with the other two pretty white girls. When the girls resolve all their issues, she serves a can of ass-whooping to Wyatt before performing the concert of their dreams.

4. Rebecca (Ghost World)

"Some people are OK, but mostly I just want to poison everyone."

Rebecca was easily my favorite character in Ghost World. While Enid doesn't try to fit in with the popular crowd because she thinks that somehow makes her cool, Rebecca doesn't because she genuinely doesn't feel the need to. While Enid doesn't go to college because she thinks it's uncool, Rebecca doesn't go to college because it really just isn't for her so she gets a job and starts earning a living. She starts calling out Enid more and more (like when she dyed her hair green) and eventually just gives up and starts becoming her own person. I really wanted the movie to focus more on her instead on Enid struggling to keep pretending to be something she's clearly not.

3. Josie McCoy (Josie and the Pussycats)

"It's cool if you like it, it's okay if you don't, just decide for yourselves."

The leader of the band, Josie is the only one who's name is promoted in the group's title. She sings, writes, plays guitar, and knows her way under the hood of a car. She has her insecurities, like every normal teenager does, but she's always there for her girls no matter what. She learns to share the spotlight and encourages their finds to like them for them, not because they're part of the next new fad.

2. Melody Valentine (Josie and the Pussycats)

"The tough makes lemonade!"

This precious cinnamon roll is too good for this world. She's literally always in a good mood, except for when she's being attacked but even then she throws in a few smiles here and there. Melody is the glue that holds the band together, always looking at the bright side of any situation. Despite Valerie being my favorite of the trio, I can acknowledge that the movie was as good as it was because of Melody. In the end she shows us just what a little ass kicker she is before rocking out on the drums for their dream concert.

1. Lara Croft (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider)

"I woke up this morning and I just hated everything."

Is anyone surprised? Lara Croft is one of the most iconic women in pop culture. When I was young, so many people were pumped for the movie. Despite the film being a bit of a bore, one thing most people agreed on was that Lara Croft was everything! The first scene with her against the robot literally felt like I was sucked into the game itself with her flipping around and sporting her signature dual pistols. She's unimpressed by the film's villain the entire time and easily outdo's him in literally every scene they share together. This badass proved early on how awesome a woman can be...and only in a tank top and shorts!

2000's list was dominated by the cast of X-Men and this list was dominated by awesome female characters from three different universes. The next list will cover all comic book characters that showed up in cinematic film during the year 2002. Can't wait to get started!

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