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steve0discusses · 3 years

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The Fullmetal Alchemist Live Action Movie Part 7: More Philosopher Stones than their PC Farm Can Possibly Render

So last we left off, a bunch of weird stuff was happening. Mustang just set Envy on fire, Lust and Gluttony kind of walked up from stage left, and Ed and Hawkeye just broke out of bougie jail and barged through a chain link fence on some Jeep. Good thing Mustang is here to explain it all to us:

(FYI I am so bad at spelling homunculus. I don’t even know which way is real anymore.)

What is incredible about this movie is just how much everyone else already knows, while Ed knows freaking nothing. Also, if you know about homunculi, then you know about sorcerer stones, and you’d know about...most of the things in Fullmetal Alchemist. Assuming that Mustang, who can look at a homunculus tattoo and be like “yep that’s a homunculus” doesn’t know anything else is kind of a big leap.

This actor had fun. I legitimately enjoy the actor who plays Mustang, I really do.

Anyway, we do get a little bit more explanation at this point by going back to the part where Hughes dies and just...showing it a second time but with this extra reveal:

(see Hughes die yet again under the cut because this movie did it not just once but twice)

It’s at this point that Hughes turns to the phone and in his dying breath is like “It’s lab 5, go to the old POW camp, at lab 5” but not only did I think that the person on the line was the general (Because Hughes originally said it was the general) apparently now the person on the line is...Mustang? And that’s why Mustang knew about lab 5?

Like it’s...it’s just kind of confusing. I know this plot because I’ve seen the anime, but if you have not seen the anime beforehand or read the books, you’d be so freakin up a creek right now about why we saw this scene twice, and why it was completely different both times.

To make things even more confusing, that whole Tucker side plot is so random, that not even our baddies know what is going on with that whole Tucker side plot.

Anyway we have to give Gluttony and Envy have to do something in order to make their presence make sense. Honestly Gluttony just needs to have a single line in this movie.

Just everything is that same shiny neutral Phong. Look at all that Phong. Like other parts of this movie are passable, this was just so hilariously overlooked.

And like I dunno if this was a teeth harness or not but damn. Damn that looks stupid from the back, hahaha. He kind of lumbers slowly after these 9 dudes (same extras we’ve seen everywhere else, ps—this is still just the same guys) and it’s not all that scary because like...they can easily outrun him. The only way you can die to Gluttony is if you trip and then take a nap for a little bit.

Mustang gets hurt and it’s kind of funny how they shot it. It was actually rough to cap because they have to do so many tricks to not show us exactly what is happening, so they rely on sounds, on zooming in on people’s shocked expressions, because they Do Not Have The Budget to do more than this.

I don’t remember if this happened in the anime, too. Like from this point forward everything is kind of like “can you spot the source material?” because it’s just become so jumbled at this point.

Ed, who as you can imagine is a bundle of emotions by default, suddenly gets really protective of his mean Dad although like...we’ve barely made Mustang seem like a Father. Hell, we’ve barely made Ed seem like a kid. Why would he get weird and conflicted now?

Just the awkward teenage energy that only occasionally stems off of Ed is very unpredictable.

This is a full grown man.

Finally, we make it to Lab Number Five, the correct one this time. It’s got an alchemy circle…

It’s got a ceiling full of...zombie corpses, if you squint real good because I have to shrink all these images (Yes, they fit in the zombie corpses, but could not fit in the North or Father or Ling Yao or like anything Armstrong) It’s got everything that we need to put that nail into that Fullmetal Alchemist coffin, but ran out of time to fully explain or do.

It’s even got Al!

Yep, this is happening now, this part of the show. Ed is just having a WILD TIME trying to keep up with it and so are we.

So apparently Shou could just turn Al “off” this whole time. This explains why Al was just chilling under a blanket for 36 hours, but like...doesn’t really explain how Shou can do this or why he is bothering to do it right now.

But we need Shou because...well someone has to tell Ed what the plot is and what he should be doing at this very moment.

(Winry is here too)

So, with the threat of Winry getting shot in the head, Shou Tucker demands that Ed make it impossible to do any magic, because magic is very expensive and hard to animate. I could be wrong...but I’m pretty sure he also took off his right arm in the show at some point nearish to the end...I think? Forgive me, everything before 2020 is kind of a haze in my memory.

PS him ripping his hand off with all these sparks everywhere gave me serious Star Wars prequel vibes that I can’t explain. Something about the CGI, something about this contrived mess was like “Ah, I’ve felt this insanity before...long ago in a simpler time” and it was kind of nostalgic for me.

GOL LOOK AT THAT.

This Mickey Mouse glove just hot chilling on that sparking end. Hahaha I love it so much!

Shou just...delivers one of the most important reveals, sending Ed on a bit of a spirit journey because the stones he’s wanted for so long are actually very bad.

As you can imagine, because Ed likes to freak out, he has a big ass freak out, to top all freak outs. This actor spent like sooo much of his time just screaming at the ground. Which, I mean this is a shonen, so that checks out.

I’m just letting you know in case you decide to watch this movie and you have some epilepsy issues--skip this part. Just skip it. I don’t personally have it, but like...they went kind of extra in this part.

Now unlike the show, this movie has like...no apology for Dr Marcoh. Freakin stabbed him through the chest and was like “I don’t care if it means we can’t have the original FMA ending I freakin hate this guy” and you know...good on you, movie. Dr Marcoh was a really bad person. Thank you for not even attempting to justify this godawful man.

This crazy ass fanfiction movie.

Anyway, Shou directs Ed to look 10 feet up to get the rest of that juicy content. That Juicy FMA DLC that was within eye distance this entire time but youknow...cropped offscreen so it just didn’t exist.

Can’t believe this wasn’t the FIRST THING you’d notice when coming into this room, since Ed has been hardwired for red stones for like 10+ years. But youknow.

Anyways, we’re getting a ton of visual elements from FMA, just checking off that check list here in the last 1/3 of the movie. But wait, it gets weirder.

What I love about this is that Shou tells us all of this stuff because I guess Ed asked for Philosopher stones once, and even Shou is like...heyyy I figured it out! But like...hell would anyone even want to do this though?

Because that’s what happens when you have Shou freakin Tucker reveal the big master plan when he is not the big master. Like this explains nothing about Father, about Ed’s Dad, about the homunculi, about the corpses in the ceiling, like there’s just no explanation, other than just –“hey! Look at this atrocity I found just now!”

There is actually a horror element to that, where you don’t need to explain everything if you’re doing horror. If this were a horror movie, this would probably...be fine. You could have a fully explained movie by just saying “they turned POW camp people into rocks and now the zombies are here!” and that would be fine.

But it’s just...that isn’t this movie. I had so many expectations. And honestly...I expected way too much from 1.5 hours of content.

So Shou pulls a gun on Ed, which makes sense. Ed is lookin to make stones, and if stones are made out of people—then it’s time to kill Ed. First thing that make sense in this movie, but I don’t know if it makes sense coming from Shou freakin Tucker who made it seem like he just wanted to kill Ed because Ed got him arrested that one time.

It may have been just the translation on my end but like...Shou’s reason for pulling a gun out here was a little nonsense. But Shou himself is already a little nonsense anyway.

So we say goodbye, for the last time, being honest—he’s fully dead—he’s not coming back—to Shou Freakin Tucker. You were a mess Shou. I won’t miss you.

And if I forgot that this guy comes back, I fully apologize ahead of time, but I am 99% positive that I remembered that this guy never comes back.

(He might come back.)

And then Lust is like “Hakuro why did you do that? Like what are you even doing???”

And everyone else is like “Oh, the General. Of course. Why didn’t I uhhh….see that coming?”

Because they had to condense a whole bunch of corrupt Generals for this movie into one character, and so I guess Hakuro took it for the team?

Also these guys are here.

Just every single person standing in this room is pretty confused, as you can imagine. No one really expects to open up Volume 2 of FMA and it’s accidentally printed the last page of the entire series.

Anyway, that’s all for this 15 minutes (It was actually a little short 15 because there was ton of caps) I’m very tired because I did this workout routine with bro that was like 300 squats and I don’t know what day it is. I wrote “update blog” in my bullet journal (because it’s January, so I’m bullet journaling) so I’m just gonna do that because I want to use this green sparkly jelly pen and cross off all of today. Mm. Satisfying.

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/fma/chrono

#FMA #Fullmetal alchemist the live action movie #live action #fullmetal alchemist #recap #photo recap #ed elric #al elric #though putting al as a credit in this one seems like a stretch cuz he just freakin sat there the whole time #hawkeye #colonel mustang #maes hughes #shou tucker #just can't have enough shou tucker #Can you even believe that this went so quickly when I finally just did it? Amazing. Amazing how little productivity I had last year wow.#Hopefully this year I can get this blog back up to old productivity #we'll see what happens because it's still a bit of a weird situation outside

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winryofresembool · 5 years

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Edwin family fic: Don’t Forget

Summary: The Rockbell-Elric family has a new reason to not forget October 3rd.

A/N: I know, it’s been 3000 years and more! But here it finally is, a new fic in honor of the FMA day :) This fic is sort of a “collaboration” with @criis55 who did this totally adorable piece of art of our fankids. Go check it out if you haven’t!

A little info on the fankids: I (and Cris) HC that Edwin has 6 kids. Here are their ages in this fic:

Alan: 16

Emma: 14

Elena: 11

Arthur: 10

The twins (Henry & Erika): 5

If you wanna know more about them, feel free to check my art/fic tags or ask about them directly from me :D I am always happy to share some info!

Genre: Fluff. Oh, I’m back to my ol’ habits.

Words: 1600+

Warnings: none

...

“Hey Ed”, Winry tried to catch her husband's attention once they had put their kids into bed. “I was wondering...”

"Yeah?" Ed asked curiously.

"You know what day tomorrow is, right?" Winry asked a bit hesitantly.

"It's October third… The twins' birthday. And the day when..."

"Yeah, the day when you and Al... Left for your journey." Winry said carefully, not really wanting to bring up what else the boys had done that day.

"That's one way to put it..." Ed sighed and sat down on the bed. "It's been 24 years since then..."

"A lot has changed. For the better."

"You're right." Ed nodded, a bit absent mindedly as he was recalling the events from his youth.

"That's why I would like to do something special for that day,” Winry surprised him.

"Hmmm?" Ed asked. "What do you have in your mind?"

"You... Remember that family picture your family took when you were just little kids?"

"Oh course, it was when my father...."

"My point is,” Winry stopped Ed before he could start his usual rant about his good for nothing father. “That old photo caught my eye the other day and I realized we haven't taken one of the 8 of us after the twins were born. They turn 5 already so it would be about time, don't you think?"

"Mmmm... Sure, why not,” Ed agreed. “But you know there's a reason why we haven't gotten them into a picture? Because one moment they are sitting on the sofa petting the dog, and then you pat your eyes once and suddenly they are throwing the dog's food at each other like it was a snowball fight."

"Maybe we have better luck this time. It's worth trying, right?" Winry asked.

"Yeah, of course," Ed admitted, although still slightly skeptical.

"This is gonna be good. I promise."

The next day started pretty much the way Ed had expected. Alphonse and Mei had gotten the twins a birthday cake because Winry had been working long hours on a new automail and teaching Alan some new techniques she had learned, while Ed had been busy babysitting and writing his new book. However, they had unfortunately forgotten that the twins hated all the dairy products, even more than their father. That’s why, when the birthday kids saw that the cake had a cream frosting on it, instead of something that tasted a little less like milk (like chocolate), the hell broke loose.

“Dad! I’m not eating this!”

“I want a chocolate cake!!”

“Henry, your uncle brought it, you’d better be more polite! Erika, chocolate has also milk in it, it’s no different than this!” Ed scolded his kids.

“You’re mean, dad!” Erika screamed, the 5-year-old brain of hers shocked about this information.

“Hey Rika, if the cake is not edible, then no one can eat it, right?” Henry asked slyly.

“Yep, you are right, brother!” Erika nodded, with a gleam in her eye that usually knew nothing good.

“DON’T DO IT!” Ed yelled, but too late. The twins had already dug into the cake and caught big pieces of it in their small hands, and they were now throwing them at each other. The blue shirts their parents had picked for the photograph later that day were covered in cream, and the cake was ruined.

“And what are we supposed to eat now?!” Ed growled after taking an entire minute to calm down a bit. “And what are you gonna wear for the photo? Your mum is gonna kill me when she gets home.”

…

Thankfully, the household was full of helpful people. The twins had been bathed and changed into clean clothes (green ones this time), Alan had cleaned the kitchen, and an apple pie courtesy of Al, Mei, and Elena was in the oven by the time Winry arrived from running her errands. She looked at her family a bit suspiciously when they were sitting so peacefully at the table but said nothing about it at first. She did, however, notice the new shirts on the twins and couldn’t not ask: “Ed, what happened to the blue shirts? Didn’t we decide…”

“They messed them up, mum,” Emma said, tired of everyone trying to keep a poker face. “… Started playing with the cake…”

“Cake… I thought… I thought this was what you guys brought…” Winry gestured towards the apple pie with confusion.

“Sorry, Winry… It was my fault, I should have taken better care of them,” Ed said before she could raise her voice at the kids.

The mother of 6 took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment.

“Let’s just… forget about it for now and try this pie instead. But twins, you will apologize to uncle Al and aunt Mei once we’re done. They got the cake for you to eat, not to destroy.”

“Don’t worry about it, Winry,” Al waved it off. “Kids will be kids. I should have remembered they have my brother’s blood in them, and they can’t handle cream.” He threw a sly look towards Ed.

“Hey!” Ed barked back. “It’s not like I /taught/ them to hate dairy products!”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you had,” Al retorted and the rest of group started laughing.

…

“OK, is everyone ready for the photo? Alan, why are you still in your working clothes?! You don’t have time to change them anymore. Emma, why are you wearing black? Didn’t we agree on blue? Elena, sweetie, you are the only who is dressed up decently. Yeah, yeah, Ed, you look nice too. Have I told you I like your beard?”

Winry did her best to make sure everyone was looking their best in the picture. Sure enough, most of the kids didn’t have the clothes they had originally planned, but she knew her family and she knew that if she started nitpicking, it would take the photographer at least an extra hour to get his work done. Besides, wasn’t it better that they looked like their usual selves rather than some people they were not?

…

Here’s how the photo ended up looking:

Before the photographer had arrived, Alan had been practicing the new automail model his mother had taught him earlier, so he was, while a bit tired and dirty, also very content in the picture after a successful day of working.

Emma, on the other hand, looked like she wanted to be anywhere but in the picture, but she had managed to make her parents promise that her dog Key could be in the photo as well, so she couldn’t talk herself out of it.

Elena was used to being in front of camera, and to her mother’s relief she had also picked a cute dress as her outfit, so compared to everyone else, she looked like a model citizen in the photo.

The music loving Arthur had just read from some magazine that artists should try to stand out, so instead of blue, he had picked a red shirt, and he was trying to do the pose he had seen many young musicians do in the PR photos.

The birthday kids stood out with their green shirts and lively expressions, but the parents were happy they had managed to get them to calm down for a moment. Or maybe it was the photographer who had promised the kids sweets once he was done.

All in all, Ed and Winry thought the photo was a success, and worth the trouble they had seen.

…

“Can you believe?” Ed asked absentmindedly while looking at the brand-new photo on Winry and his nightstand.

“Believe what?” Winry asked with confusion, sneaking her arms around her husband’s torso while peeking over his shoulder.

“That this is our life now? Who would have thought 24 years ago…”

“Hmmm?”

Ed was a quiet for a while, but finally he opened up a bit: “I was a lost kid, with just one goal in my life: to get Al’s body back. I couldn’t let myself think of anything else. That’s why I also…”

“Burned down your house…” Winry said quietly.

“Yeah…”

“I don’t think I’ve ever told you this, but… while I was so scared for you two that night, I also… I think I also admired you a bit,” she confessed.

“Why? We did an awful thing!”

“It was because you were so determined,” Winry answered calmly. “I trusted that with that determination – or stubbornness – you’d manage to do what you were set to do. And you did.”

“Yeah… You know we got a lot of help, though,” Ed tried to shrug it off.

“And none of it was undeserved. You tend to see your mistakes, but you did a lot of things right, as well. Look at your kids, for example. They may have inherited the Elric way of showing it, but… I know they love you a lot. And… so do I, of course.”

“Thanks, Win… However, I wouldn’t have been able to do two of my proudest accomplishments without you. One, kicking that Father guy’s ass without your automail, and two, these little brats.” He pointed at the photo, smiling.

“Well, I admit that latter could have been a bit hard without me,” Winry chuckled, “but that’s why we make a good team. We created some pretty great kids, didn’t we?”

“Yeah. Even the twins,” Ed said jokingly.

“Even the twins,” Winry laughed. “Now,” she pushed Ed down on the mattress playfully, “would you like to share with me why they hate milk so much?”

“I can’t explain it, it’s in their genes!” Ed yelped before starting a wrestling match with his wife.

#edwin #edxwin #fullmetal alchemist #edward elric #winry rockbell #my fics #woop woop

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stylinbreeze60 · 5 years

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My “WIPs”

Thanks @sugaandyams. I don't get tagged too often, so thank you!

“The Rules: Post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous.”

Oh my goodness. I had stuffed saved in all different places. I’ll start with the folders that contained fics that are incomplete. Welp, here I go!

Great Galactic War - this folder is the dump for my Haikyuu space/war AU, one of three or four fics I may focus on writing in the near future (first chapter is already published); the folder has very little atm, but I have about two dozen different scenes on my phone that aren't saved on PC

Kenma Project - the dump for my actively ongoing Haikyuu next gen captain war AU. I have a file in here further titled Ennoshita chapter. I wonder what that’s about? ;)

Three Kings - the dump for my Haikyuu samurai AU starring Hinata and Noya, the second possible fic I may commit to writing (first 2 chapters already published); there’s a chapter outline (which is dated because I’ve updated it in my head so much), and there are notes and many chapter tidbits on my phone too

Vice - the dump for a canonverse Haikyuu fic that was borne from a desire to write more Nekoma, so I subjected them to debilitating angst. There’s a rough chapter outline in here, and there are a couple of chapter drafts saved as emails on my phone. It’s the third fic that I might commit my time to (first 2 chapters, starring poor Inuoka, already published)

March of Justice - this folder was the dump for my aborted One Piece/My Hero Academia crossover, in which a couple of One Piece villains travel to the BnHA universe to conquer it

And here’s the rest I found. Some of these are just notes on fanciful ideas I had for a day and then never revisited. Others were never intended to see the light of day whatsoever

Abe dake ga Inai Machi - Oofuri-Erased - oh goodness. I had to stare at that title for a while to figure out what was wrong with it. An Oofuri/Big Windup fanfic that I didn’t play with for very long, but I was surprised to find I actually wrote the first chapter. Like Boku Dake ga Inai Machi (Erased), there’s a murder and then Abe finds himself transported back to the start of the Oofuri series, 10 months earlier. I reread some of this first chapter, and by my standards, it’s awful

Ace of Diamond - scandal fanfic - one of the ones never intended to see the light of day. It’s just notes. Basically Seidou pulls off its own Black Sox scandal and gets nailed, with some drama over whether Eijun is actually guilty

Ace of Iron / Ace of Swords - a Diamond no Ace samurai AU, mostly notes but also including drafts of a first chapter. It grew so huge there was no chance I could ever write it as a fanfic, so I actually converted it into an original story idea that I may do something with some day

Big Windup - cheating ploy disaster - this one is just notes and also never intended to see the light of day. An Oofuri idea in which Nishiura’s defeated rivals suspect them of cheating and kidnap the club boys to force them to confess. It goes even more downhill. (I’m very glad that, since discovering Haikyuu, I now conceive fanfics I actually want to write.)

Day of the Countercoup - I had to dig to find this one cos I knew it existed, but it wasn't a file. It was a tab in an Excel doc I used for my Haikyuu political AU, Coup d’Etat. It’s notes for an aborted sequel (Coup d’Etat’s original title was “Night of the Coup,” hence this contrasting title) that I scrapped soon after starting work on it. So glad too! Coup d’Etat got its due, and that AUverse shall be left to itself now

Haikyu - Gospel of Shouyou - oh goodness. I’m not gonna explain this one. Me experimenting, not intended to see the light of day

Haikyu - Nightmare from Heaven - this one may be the fourth candidate for continuation as a long-term fic but is currently unpublished. A war/occupation fic in which Miyagi Prefecture is conquered during a contemporary World War III, and the Karasuno boys must now live under foreign military occupation. The first chapter and part of the second were written, and I've got several notes on my phone and PC about subsequent chapters. Thank goodness tensions in that part of the world have simmered down since I devised it

Life Hereafter - Chapter 6.5 alternate ending - oh no. Life Hereafter is my darkest and most sensitive fic, published only on FFN, written to process a RL tragedy I was distantly affected by. I struggled with the ending of Chapter 6, which covered Tsukki and Yamaguchi’s coping with the canonverse tragedy. One draft (called “6.5″ in case I ever wanted to publish it, but I likely never will) featured Tsukki, seeking solace and desperately wanting to console Yamaguchi, giving in to poor judgment and kissing him. Only to then learn Yamaguchi doesn't have the same feelings back. Topping off their hurt with this was far too cruel and painful, and even before I started typing it, I knew I wouldn’t actually publish it. Rereading the draft even now made me feel uncomfortable which is why I kept it because it’s perhaps the best friendship-ruining moment I’ve ever written

Oofuri fanfic - Sakura Conspiracy - I thought I wrote a chapter 1 draft too, but this is an outline for a WWII Oofuri AU in which Nishiura, after winning Koshien in the late 20s or early 30s, moves on to military and political careers, one of their former teammates dies under suspicious circumstances, and Mihashi fears one of his old teammates may be responsible. The story stretches from 1937 to 1945

I'm actually surprised I found no notes on my Haikyuu mafia AU idea. I guess I never actually transcribed any, even though the plot is substantially complete in my head!

These four are all notes for gigantic crossovers:

Periods of World fanfic - This was an experiment, in which each century from 2000 BC to 2000 AD was listed out, a different part of the world selected for each century, and then a different anime or manga assigned to each part of the world. The idea was to write a chapter set in that century in that area starring those characters. The last chapter, for the new millennium, would have covered all parts of the world. The file is dated 2013. It never became more than this list

Periods of World fanfic 2 - and so it seems I tried again! This file is dated 2014 and shows just a teeny bit more dedication, with the 20th century further subdivided into decades, then every year from 2000-2009, and then every six months for 2010-2014. There are some different anime choices than the 2013 version. Never went anywhere with it, never gonna

Reborn epic crossover anime tribute layout - yes, that’s the literal filename. This is from my days as a Katekyo Hitman Reborn fan, and I don't even recognize most of the character names anymore. Apparently the villains of Reborn travel to seven other anime universes to kidnap major characters to sacrifice them as part of some weird magic scheme that I can’t properly decipher now

Random multi-anime WWII fanfic plan - yes, that’s also the literal filename. This is an outline for a 50-chapter crossover set before and during World War II, where the main characters of Naruto are Russian, One Piece are British, Bleach are French, Katekyo Hitman Reborn are German, Blue Exorcist are Italian, Fairy Tail are Japanese, and Ed and Al from FMA are American. The plot is emotionally devastating, doesn’t pull the punches on all sorts of WWII-related triggers, and frequently and cruelly denies catharsis.

To be perfectly honest though, rereading it, I swear this is the best story I have ever invented! It has a heartrending blend of tragedy, poignant poetic justice, subplot causality, and social commentary and contains few of the traps I sometimes fall into like cheap shock and subplots going nowhere. I really wish I could do something with this narrative now

And I’ll count the hefty handful of TV scripts I’ve written in an effort to practice and hone my scriptwriting skills. All but the last one of these are hypothetical new seasons of real anime:

Blue Exorcist s2 - 1 episode. My attempt to write the Impure King arc, years before they actually produced the Impure King arc. This was not my best work

Noragami: God’s Secret - 2 episodes for a manga-based Season 3. These were pretty decent imo

Oofuri/Big Windup: The Coming of Fall - 17 episodes. I got really into this one. A speculative season 3 assuming three cours (imo we probably won’t be blessed with that many episodes if season 3 comes), covering everything up until the end of the fall tournament. The first 13 episodes covered the story up to chapter 84 minus the Kasukabe match, followed by an OVA (ep 13.5), and then I was working on the Kasukabe match told in hindsight before planning to continue with the big game of the fall prelims. The third cour would have covered the fall tournament itself

Mekakucity Actors XX - 4 episodes. My own idea for a season 2/alternate ending. Because I was very conflicted with how the anime ended

School Babysitters - this was an original episode idea for Gakuen Babysitters that I enjoyed writing very much but turned out too long (40 pages) and features the babies turning into insects. I wouldn't mind publishing it somewhere actually!

I am going to tag @wire-pudding and @kemoiunder! Anyone else who reads this and wants to explore the abyss that is non-started WIPs, be my guest too!

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gamesception · 6 years

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You know, for all I love the kingdom hearts series, I never did get around to watching this, or even reading up on the lore from the phone game on wiki or whatever, so I know basically nothing about it. I guess it’s about the olden days keyblade war? I don’t know. It’s probably terrible, but maybe in an enjoyable way. Let’s give it a try.

Ok, so, fucking first of all, in like the very first seconds of this, I’m being assaulted with a boatload of exposition in awkward sentence fragments confusingly and distractingly arrayed over images from this phone game in like seconds at a time, and, like, am I expected to even be reading this? Like, I can’t imagine I am, but whatever, lets pause every 30 seconds and write it out:

The world was pure darkness. But I was born into a radiant world enveloped in a brilliant light.

Ok, yes. This is that good kingdom hearts bullshit I was looking for. Nice to see we’re off to a good start here. But anyway...

From within that light, my master gazed upon me and smiled. Before he disappeared, the one who made me bestowed names on his 6 apprentices, and passed down the Book of Prophecies to 5 who came to be known as the foretellers. The 5 read the manuscript and were shocked by the final entry. The fated land will be the battleground for a great war. Light will see defeat and expire, while darkness prevails evermore. They decided to draw on the powers of the book to prevent that from happening. They harness unimaginable forces from the future to protect light and keep the world safe from darkness. You should know that they share the same goal,but they don’t follow the same path. Don’t lose sight of yours, okay? The world was pure darkness. But I was born into a radiant world enveloped in brilliant light. From within that..

ok, now it’s just repeating itself?

While all that exposition is happening, there’s different clips playing from the phone game and... well, I’m glad I don’t have to play it. It doesn’t really look super good. The art style feels very off brand from Kingdom Hearts generally. Has that sort of paper-doll sort of animation that one associates with cheap app store games. I mean, clearly with more work/production value put into it than went into ‘Princess Frozen’s first Tracheotomy’ or whatever, but still.

And, I mean, I know what I’m getting into here. I watched the ‘movie’ recaps of days and coded, even though I actually played both of those games on the DS. So I know this is going to be a series of cut scenes sort of taped together with clumbsy exposition dumps rather than an actual cohesively presented narrative or whatever. I just hope that the cut scenes involved aren’t in this same style, and that the narrative dumps aren’t all going to flicker past in this unreadable, random-font business.

the same text keeps flickering by over scenes from the Disney films and characters the series has already visited. Is that the gimmick of the game? The ‘book of prophecies’ or whatever lets the game rehash old narrative territory through precognition the way the way castle oblivion did in chain of memories by revisiting sora’s memories? So the game actually takes place in the pre-fall world leading up to / during the original keyblade war, but the game contrives a way to spend all its time rehashing material covered in previous games instead?

That /would/ be a pretty KH move, if that’s what I’m in for. Would also pretty much negate the point of liveblogging it.

Oh, fuck, I’ve been at this for like 10 minutes, and I’m only 30 seconds into this mess, lets get on with it...

The master sounds like a bit of a douchebag. So I take it Luxu is the apprentice who /isn’t/ one of the 5 ‘foretellers’? Also, I thought mysterious keyblade masters in this period wore animal masks, do distinguish them from the cloaks worn in the modern period which is, what, centuries later? millenia?

So yeah, this takes place before all the worlds were split off into their own little planets. And this is ‘daybreak town’, ans we’re basically being told the same stuff about the master who can see the future, wrote it down in a book, and gave it to 5 of his six apprentices. I guess Luxu has a different job.

Not menacing at all.

Oh, and the cut scenes, at least in the back cover movie version, are not in the same art style as the game, thankfully enough.

Seriously, though, I would have expected this master of master’s (hft ‘mom’) guy to be more... dignified? Wise? It doesn’t come across in the still images, but he feels like a goofball jerk villain, like Xigbar or Axel. Or Greed from FMA.

Mom: You read my cool ass prophecy book? Fuckin sweet, right?”

Unicorn Fursona, distressed: Yes, master, but... is the world really going to be destroyed? Is there nothig we can do?

Mom: Oh, that? It’s a Bummer, huh? (like, no serioutly, a literal line from the fucking movie), nah, everything’s gonna disappear. Also, I’d never up and leave you all, but if I totally do exactly that you’ll keep it real, right?

So, if I’m gathering correctly:

kingdom hearts binds all the fairy tale worlds together into one world.

if kingdom hearts were lost they’ll split apart into different worlds, which we know from the other games in the series is exactly what happens.

Mom predicts the coming calamity, and is focused on what happens after.

Mom tells his apprentices about it, gives them keyblades, goads unicorn man into recruiting more keyblade wielders, with the apprentices’ efforts probably causing the war/calamity they’re trying to prevent, which Mom probably expects and is deliberately bringing about.

And he more or less says as much to Unicorn guy? I mean, minus the ‘I am manipulating you into causing exactly this disaster’ part, so as per usual in this series we’re not exactly dealing with the brightest bulbs on team face.

As for the plan and master himself... it’s a very Xehanort plot, to the point that I’d say this just is Xehanort in some fashion, but his attitude and disposition aren’t norty at all. Again, he reads much more like a Xigbar or Axel type.

Oooh, apprentice role call:

Unicorn guy is Ira, the designated leader of the group, chosen by Mom for his gullibility reliability.

Snake girl is Invi. She’s super virtuous. I guess that’s why her astral beast is a Snake. Her job is to watch over the others. Like a mediator for the group, I guess.

“fearless” Aced the Bear. Not much of a distinct role, he just ‘supports Ira’.

“prudent” Ava, with a fox fursona. Her job is to ‘prepare keyblade wielders for the world after’.

Gula the ‘cool headed’ the leapord, researches the book.

Luxu, the only apprentice who doesn’t have an animal mask, disappears, presumably sometime after the master. Who is definitely not hiding in that box. Luxu was ‘the first apprentice to be given his role’, but the narration doesn’t say what that role is. Hopefully the movie eventually will, and this won’t be another Kingdom Hearts spinoff game that introduced another tangled mess of unresolved mysteries and plot threads to a series that has too many of those already, without actually resolving anything.

whoops, I guess Mom isn’t in the box, since Luxu left first. Ok, whatever.

It’s getting late, so I’m going to take a break here, but so far?

The premise is interesting enough. I feel like I see where the overall story is going, but I’m still pretty invested in the ‘who exactly is the master’ and ‘what’s Luxu doing’ questions. Hopefully they actually get some resolution.

The designs at least for the main cast work well enough, though I wish mom and Luxu weren’t just dressed in exactly the same darkness robes from elsewhen in the series. I honestly would have loved to play a kingdom hearts spinoff game where these apprentices were the main characters. Unfortunately, that wasn’t what this game was. I hope this movie recap of the game focuses more on these characters and not so much on the army of generic phone game mmo protagonists.

#kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts back cover #sception watches khbc

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