#I actually created him when I was making a character to interact with a Winnie Bosko AI...

[daylilifiedsundrewdrops]

OC POSTING

Juni, our local amnesiac 17 year old Age suspended

All the books in the library are empty.

There's nothing there.

There's nothing there.

And it's empty.

You're alone in there.

And you can't even find a single book with a memory inside.

[saltyr3mix]

Damien headcanons Damien headcanons ! !

I saw the user name and new exactly what you were going to ask lol.

I'm agian under the assumption your looking for the same thing I did with Winnie and Sara? If you guys want like cannon head cannons. Let me know! But for now I like that format of just comparison.

so. Damiens not my favorite guy. I have said some maybe regrettable things about him in fits if anger because I struggle with writing him. But there are a few au's, not many unfortunately, where I don't mind him as much. This list will likely be shorter than the other two.

to learn from the tragedies : he's gonna show up at some point. Haven't decided if it's in book one or two yet. But the vision here right? Oliver has like, imprints of memories. Damien doesn't have any memories of the previous timeline. Lewis and the Twins no everything. Oliver starts gushing about this guy he saw and they immediately know who it is and encourages Oliver to go reach out to him. Mean while Oliver is like, "what the hell all I did was see him in the store I don't even know his name! How am I supposed to contact him!? How do you all know who is!??"

"Not many people have a singular purple eye, dude."

"that was real?..... I thought it was like cosplay or something."

"nope he can see ghosts."

"I'm suddenly a lot less interested-"

"no no no you haveeeee to talk to him! Just....trust us. We'd never lie to you!"<------ has active lied to his face 6 times today about how bad the future actually was too experience.

So yeah! Television is an end game ship for tlfft. Hopefully it will get introduced soon.

Shattered Dreams: I mean he had some cool moments. But wasn't really thought out like at all. I thought giving him a prosthetic arm was cool! I don't know why I did but I did that. This fic was written before season two and so a lot of Damiens character had yet to be explained so I took him in my own very poor direction and had no idea what u was doing with him the entire time.

I will make them create my world: ooooo this ones fun. How do I explain this with out spoilers. He's a very background character in the twins centered chapter. But I've tossed around the idea of making him more prominent as a sort of antagonist? But I'm not sure if it would work. I have so so so many ideas for this chapter and I haven't finalized an ending for it but it could be anywhere from Damien and Oliver getting married happily with nothing wrong and them being completely ok and the horror focusing more on how the world moves on and is completely fine in your absence. Or we could mess everything up and have them die or twisted into toys in the horror of another world taking over and contortioning your loved ones into freaks of nature with out you being able to stop it. Either way Damiens safety is entirely dependent on which brand of eldritch existential horror I feel like giving the twins that day.

This happens in a lot of my fics actually-

Buried masks: ok. This is going to be hard to hear for some people. Damien. Never gets taken my Sara. She actually hates him. She goes out of her way not to interact or associate with him. The only time she acknowledges his existence is if Oliver is talking about him or like hes unavoidably right in front of her. She's crazy buts she's not a jerk. Anyway she hates him because he stepped in and took her job as Oliver's support system. She doesn't like sharing. She has this whole concept with saving people and wanting to be their angel and their light and their support. To the point she will force people into a position to rely on her so she can feel like she's helping them. When her best friend turns to someone else for that help? She is not happy about it. She traits with the same way, but needs him to help keep lewis under her control.

Oliver, as much as she loves him and hates that Damien also cares for him. Still feels confident that he would turn to her first. And thats all she needs. To be his savior.

So she doesn't drag him into it. He and Damien actually get to go out and enjoy the rest of their lives together. As long as Oliver keeps looking to Sara for guidance he won't be affected. She can help him with out all the added psychological torture!

That is unless. In the same vein wiatt is dragged down to control lewis.....she needs his help in calming and swaying over some....other members.

This was supposed to be about Damien. uh oh. Can you tell I like this au a lot?

On a less cryptic lore heavy note. Yeah Damien is our main outside the basement perspective. He's running all the cases trying to find the evidence and he actually does solve something that saves a lot of people!!! He followed all the clues and cracked open a terrible terrible story. But the victims in that story weren't his friends.

Steven universe au: I kind of made a post earlier explaining all of his lore today. But! If your looking for more I'd very happy send you over to Danger/Theater who loves Su!Damien very very much and could probably come up with some more head cannons or content for you.

Superhero au: where to fucking start. He was speficly designed to be the main character of this au. It was supposed to center around him.

And then they're were other opportunities involving human experimentation and angst and twins and like- come on those are my favorite tropes I had to indulge a little bit!..... Although maybe I did just actually completely switch the angle of the spot light-

STILL!!!! if consider him the core of the au. Maybe not the main character at times but everything comes back and ties back to his actions. He sort of has a lot of control over everything and so when he makes a decision the entire plot shifts with that. Even when not in focus when he decides he's going to start bothering Error on patrols that caused a whole chain of reactions that lead to Errors eventual spiral and breakdown and him finding out all the shit that's been happening and it's Ghost that comes back and takes him out of it.

And all that yapping barely actually talks about his character ok- so. I want to see HLTBM!Sara and Superhero! Damien get in a moral debate with one amoy. Cause they stand for a lot of the same things. Character was out through something very very traumatic and that manifested in ways that hurt a lot of people with out them really wanting it to. But of course there's the gray area with Sara knowing full well shocking and kidnapping people isnt very nice. And Ghost being just a straight up serial killer, homicidal, villain for the first half of the fic. Unlike Sara though Damien does get improvement. Although I personally won't call it redemption on my own morals. But he stops killing people pretty quickly once Oliver brings it up.

L to Hayden west who got in Damiens way before Oliver could bring that up.

But yeah superhero au Damien is very special to me. He's the only version of Damien i don't Loath writing, in fact I look forward to it! He's so fun!!!

this was still all very vague but I've said do much- shoot me another ask if you want more about just him because I could write essays on that man.

One shots/you will live until I die: die die die die die die . I'm sure Danger has screen shots some where of the things I've said about this man. Do you know? Do you know how fast I could have gotten any of these types of fics done. If I wrote him out?! Do you know how many times I had to go through and re-write singular lines for him!? Have I beef with this fictional character you can't even comprehend.

Buttttttttt in the end. I guess he turned out....... Ok-ish? i still want to light every scene with him in it on fire but it's not because of how he's written. UTS BECAUSE IF HIW LONG IT TOOK TO WRITE-

deep breaths. I really hope you enjoy them because when I say I dedicated an entire week to a single scene with him in it. I'm not kidding. It killed me.

For the most part I do what I always do with those fics and stick to cannon, which was the mistake, I only like Damien when he's evil and deranged. Cannon Damien does not match my writings level of freak.

maze au: he doesn't get to be cool. Sorry. Your man gets to be a sleep deprived, paid, stalker of Oliver while he's in the maze. Damien works for the maze and helps give reports on his assigned constant, Oliver! Who's actually really endearing and kind of cute .

Thinking about having him a vaguely similar role to ash and me like THE watcher, the clearing has to keep dealing with. Norman is already a Plant but like Starr doesn't actually trust him. So yeah Damien is the wall man. People just see him around on the walls and pretend that they didn't!

Maybe he'll come down and say hello today! Probably not.

The more I think about it I want to make him a half demon to. But not like full half demon. Like he has shaper nails and teeth and is scary good at seeing in the dark and can hear any whisper. But has absolutely no strength or speed or physical traits. He's a loser.

Oc au: umghhhhhfrgcadg so i play Damien. And I do really really bad at it. Cause I try to follow cannon and we've addressed that issue. Currently he's dealing with a ton of survivors guilt because he and Oliver were the only ones to make it out of the facility collapse alive. Both the kids he brought with him died, both to his own advice.

He told Shroud to stay put. And he told hunter to run. Not great for either of them.

There was a point he beat the shit out of Sara! That was fun! Their.....siblings in this au? Or at least very heavily implied that they are. And so they just started scraping.

Poor Vianca though. God if I was better at playing him maybe they could have had a cool sibling dynamic. But alas it just came of as very very awkward because for most of her lore I was playing her, Sara and damien, who all would have been siblings but I did it so bad at yeah- there are some reasons why this au is called the secret au. It's the silly one where I don't think about it like a writer just a Creator and im not supposed to care how pretty the final result is if I had fun. And I did have fun! But when it comes to Damien things just get messy.

THATS IT. IM DONE!!! THIS SHOULD NOT BE THIS LONG!!!! I DID UT BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE SHORTER!!! ITS NOT!!!! BUT I DID IT ANYWAY SO HA! I WIN!!!

[violethowler]

The Elephant in the Room

In my previous essays, I have covered how the Kingdom Hearts narrative follows Maureen Murdock’s template of the Heroine’s Journey, as well as how various characters and story elements tie in with the overarching themes of the framework. Before I can continue to dig further into other themes and archetypes, there is something I need to address first. While I have avoided directly touching on the topic in my previous essays, I have now reached the point where it is no longer possible to talk about the Heroine’s Journey in full without acknowledging the elephant in the room: 

Romance.

In ongoing serialized stories such as TV shows and video games, conversations about potential relationships in canon are often treated as inconsequential to the overall story. Something that is separate from the main plot. At worst, I have seen fans who openly center a ship in their analysis and theories be dismissed and criticized as biased - or worse, delusional. They are treated as being so obsessed with their pairing that they try to make everything about their ship and jump on any excuse to declare that it’s viable in canon. 

Among the Kingdom Hearts fandom in particular, this has often taken the form of someone trying to dismiss other fans’ hope for a ship to be canon by saying that the series is about friendship, not romance.

While friendship is absolutely an important theme in the Kingdom Hearts series, to insist that this is mutually exclusive from depicting the development of romantic relationships ignores the continued presence of canon Disney romances in almost every game in the series. In each “main” game where Sora is playable, he has directly or indirectly been involved in getting those Disney couples together in the KH universe. So it’s not out of the realm of possibility for the series to turn the tables and give some attention to his romantic interests for a change. 

A story having other major themes is not mutually exclusive from showcasing the development of a romantic relationship. There are many popular movies, shows, books, comics, and video games in which a romantic relationship plays a central role in the narrative but there are still other plotlines going on that are equally as important as the romance. This is especially true for Disney and Square Enix.

The reason why it’s impossible to fully talk about the Heroine’s Journey without acknowledging romance elements is best encapsulated by this quote from She-Ra showrunner Noelle Stevenson about her show’s endgame pairing in an i09 interview after the release of the final season:

“The show’s not a romance show. It is about a lot of things. It’s about choice, destiny, fighting, tyrants, you know, all of these other things. I grew up with so many stories—like sci-fi and fantasy—that I was so passionate about. And it would be considered no big deal to have the hero get the girl and to have a kiss at the end, without it suddenly becoming a romance or ‘Oh, the shippers got what they wanted.’ It was just a part of the story. And to actually see it be a central part of the plot and to fulfill the arcs of the characters in a way that felt satisfying. I really want to take it beyond ‘Oh, the shippers got what they want.’ Like, it’s not just a ship for me. It is a plot point. It is the necessary conclusion of each character’s arc, separate and together.[1]”

While not every story known to follow the Heroine's Journey features a romance for the main protagonist, those that do make the romance an integral part of the narrative. It’s not something thrown in at the end to please shippers, but a central component of the story. Therefore, when analyzing a Heroine’s Journey story, it is vital to acknowledge and discuss textual support for potential romantic relationships in order to have a full understanding of the narrative.

Even if one is not aware of the Heroine’s Journey, Sora’s repeated interactions with Disney romances indicate that there is a high probability that he will be in a romantic relationship himself by the end of the series. Every story I know of that follows the Heroine’s Journey broadly adheres to a pattern in regards to how the romantic relationships of a main character are set up.

By examining the series through these patterns, we can narrow down who Sora’s endgame romantic partner will be. 

Because the themes and character dynamics emphasize resolving internal conflict through balance, the Heroine’s Journey lends itself extremely well to Beauty-and-the-Beast, rivals-to-lovers, and enemies-to-lovers relationship dynamics. A major component of the Heroine’s Journey is the main character learning to accept themselves, and since the Animus as a Shadow figure can represent the parts of themselves that they haven’t accepted yet, it is simpler to symbolize that self-acceptance via a romance with the Animus rather than attempting to build a separate relationship on top of the existing story framework.

For these reasons, the Animus is more often than not the main character’s endgame love interest, their feelings for each other made into critical aspects of their respective character arcs. The only Heroine’s Journey stories with romance that I know of where this wasn’t the case are ones where executive meddling resulted in the finale being rewritten to kill off the Animus despite established narrative set up for them to have a happy ending together[2], while the protagonist was either forced into a relationship with a different character or left single.

And like I said in previous essays, the one character in the series who fulfills all criteria for the Animus role within this storytelling framework…. 

Is Riku.

[Image Description: Sora supporting Riku as they walk toward the ocean on the Dark Margin at the end of Kingdom Hearts II. End Description.]

As mentioned in my earlier analysis, this narrative framework emphasizes the importance of balancing contrasting attributes, which fits in extremely well with Kingdom Hearts’ focus on balance between light and darkness. For stories that follow the Heroine’s Journey in a visual medium, that dichotomy is often incorporated into the characters’ look. Height differences are common, while their color schemes and outfits are designed to make them complement each other. Further adding to the focus on balance between light and darkness, the visuals of the story frame the romantic leads with imagery associating each one with light or darkness to create Yin-Yang symbolism when they are finally in balance. 

In Re: Chain of Memories, Vexen openly calls Riku the “Hero of Darkness[3]” as a counterpart to Sora’s role as the “Hero of Light”, and their combination attack in Kingdom Hearts II utilizes moves that reflect both elements. In the Ultimania for the original game, Tetsuya Nomura said that Riku’s look was intentionally designed to balance Sora’s[4], and the contrast between their respective color schemes is maintained in each of their new outfits. In Kingdom Hearts II and Dream Drop Distance, Riku wears white and blue, while Sora in those same games wears black and red. Two different pairs of contrasting colors. Kingdom Hearts III has them both in outfits that are primarily black and grey, but still emphasize the blue and red that have been part of their respective outfits since the first game. 

In a Heroine’s Journey, the love interest is typically an active character in the story and usually serves as the deuteragonist. This fits with Riku having been a mandatory playable character in multiple games since 2004. In addition, series producer Shinji Hashimoto said before the release of the HD 1.5 Remix collection[5] that the main focus of the series is how Sora and Riku develop both as individuals and as a pair, which fits with how the central conflict of the Heroine’s Journey revolves around the dynamic between the Protagonist and their Animus. 

A common viewpoint held by many fans of the series is that Kairi is Sora’s love interest, and it’s not hard to see why people get that impression. He has sacrificed himself to save her in two separate games now. He’s charged enemies head on in order to rescue her whenever she’s been captured. He even got down on his knees and begged for her freedom when Saix demanded he show how important she was to him. Multiple characters have talked about how special she is to him, and Roxas refers to her as “that girl he(Sora) likes.” 

However, there are multiple elements in the narrative that point to them not being the endgame romance. Kingdom Hearts III foreshadows the final shot of them sitting on the paopu together at the end of the game with Sora disappearing from the cover of the 100 Acre Wood storybook, textually framing Winnie the Pooh as a parallel to Kairi. While many fans regarded their sharing paopu fruits in the base game as the beginning of a relationship between them, he still only refers to her as a friend in Re:Mind, and even compares his bond with her to the bond between Ventus and Chirithy. 

Sora also does not treat his promises to her with the seriousness he would if they were going to end up together. The promises to return her lucky charm and to come back to her that he makes in the first game are never treated as anything urgent when he awakens in Kingdom Hearts II. Instead, he declines the opportunity to return to the islands and check in with her in favor of searching for Riku. When Kairi says in The World That Never Was that they’ll be together every day, Sora agrees, yet he was content to spend the rest of his life on the dark beach at the end of the game as long as he was with Riku. 

Meanwhile, the most consistent theme regarding Kairi in relation to the Destiny Islands trio is the idea of childhood friends drifting apart as they get older[6][7]. This is particularly highlighted in Kingdom Hearts III, with Kairi writing letters to Sora that she never sends, thereby keeping her thoughts to herself. Merlin also emphasizes this when he talks about forging new connections after Sora’s visit to 100 Acre Wood. This parallel frames the ending of Re:Mind as the two of them recognizing they’ve drifted apart and choosing to put in the effort to renew their friendship by spending time together.

On a structural level, her portrayal does not fit with how love interests are typically depicted in the Heroine’s Journey, both as an individual and in relation to the main protagonist. There is no contrast between her and Sora’s designs or roles the way there is between his and Riku’s. Her color scheme is predominantly pink, which does not have the same contrast with Sora’s red as Riku’s blue. Because she’s a Princess of Heart, there is no dark and light contrast, and the combination attack she shares with Sora in Re:Mind only utilizes light-based moves. It took 17 years after her first appearance in the series for her to be made a playable character, and even then, playing as her is not mandatory. They are never portrayed as equals, and she is not an active force in his emotional growth. 

The Heroine’s Journey was crafted for narratives revolving around identities that have been Othered by society for one reason or another. Murdock designed her template as a tool to help women deal with being shamed by society for expressing and pursuing their desires. In a similar way, LGBTQ+ people also face stigma from society for expressing and pursuing their desires. So it makes perfect sense that a framework for narratives of people overcoming internalized stigma against important parts of themselves would be ripe for stories featuring LGBTQ+ protagonists of any gender.

As mentioned in previous essays, stories that follow the Heroine’s Journey challenge the biases and blind spots of the audience. A relationship between Kairi and Sora does not challenge anything because she has largely been regarded as the endgame love interest by default since the beginning. Meanwhile, a romantic relationship between Sora and Riku challenges players to recognize heteronormativity within themselves and in the media around them. It challenges people to examine the lens through which they perceive the story and rethink how they look at what’s happening in the narrative.

In summary, the portrayal of Kairi and her bond with Sora is not consistent with how love interests are commonly depicted in the Heroine’s Journey, while the portrayal of Riku and his bond with Sora is. If Sora’s story is going to continue on this storytelling formula to the end, the structure of the Heroine’s Journey narrative leaves Riku as the only thematically viable candidate for the role of endgame love interest. 

Now, as some people bring up in conversations about Soriku, there is a potential obstacle in the form of corporate executives. It is entirely possible that Disney will drag their heels and try to force the development team to downplay or remove any open same-sex relationship the series may try to depict. They do not have a strong track record of LGBTQ+ representation that isn’t a minor character who only appears for one scene. Given that their last IP to follow the Heroine’s Journey - the Star Wars sequel trilogy - crashed and burned at the end, executive meddling is my greatest fear for this franchise.

But the thing to keep in mind is that Tetsuya Nomura is stubborn as hell. One of the reasons the long gap between Kingdom Hearts II and Kingdom Hearts III was because he was holding out for permission to include Pixar movies in the game, outright refusing to start work on KH3 until they were given that go ahead[8]. If you want further proof of how stubborn he can be, this is how he described the meeting where he first pitched the series to Disney in a 2012 interview with the late president of Nintendo[9]:

Iwata: Their ideas were different from yours, naturally…

Nomura: Yes. They appeared to believe that we would make whatever they wanted us to make and came up with rather specific requests such as, "We'd like the game to feature this character." They were really excited, explaining their ideas... To be honest, though, I wasn't really interested in any of them. (laughs) 

Both: (laughter)

Iwata: You wanted to borrow Disney's characters in order to make a new game that could compete with Mario 64, and you already had a vision of what this game would look like. I suppose their ideas didn't fit in with this vision.

Nomura: They didn't, no. In the end, I actually stopped a presentation halfway through. We didn't have that much time, and it looked like it was all going to get taken up by various Disney presentations. So, I interrupted them and told them the conclusion by saying, "I won't make such games."

Talk about nerves of steel. This man basically said “we do this my way, or we don’t do it at all” TO MOTHERFORKING DISNEY, AND. HE. WON. If there is any human being with enough force of will to make the Mouse House cave in and allow the depiction of an openly LGBTQ+ relationship in the Kingdom Hearts series, it is Tetsuya Nomura.

I cannot say with 100% certainty how things will go. But everything I know about storytelling patterns and narrative structure is telling me that Kingdom Hearts is a textbook Heroine’s Journey with a romance between Sora and Riku at its core. A relationship between the protagonist and the Animus does not truly begin until the “Integration” stage at the end of the Journey, and we are rapidly approaching the point in the narrative where the two leads traditionally become aware of and acknowledge their feelings in order to be on the same page for the finale.

Sources: 

[1] “She-Ra's Noelle Stevenson Tells Us How Difficult It Was to Bring Adora and Catra Home” May 18, 2020

https://io9.gizmodo.com/she-ras-noelle-stevenson-tells-us-how-difficult-it-was-1843419358

[2] “Death of a Dark Youth, Desecration of the Animus”; December 20, 2018. https://www.teampurplelion.com/death-of-a-dark-youth/

[3] Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories. Square Enix, 2007. 

[4] “A Look Back: Kingdom Hearts Ultimania Gallery Comments Part 1″; August 30, 2019;

https://www.khinsider.com/news/A-Look-Back-KINGDOM-HEARTS-Ultimania-Gallery-Comments-Part-1-15519

[5] “How Kingdom Hearts III Will Grow Up With Its Players;” September 24, 2013.

https://www.ign.com/articles/2013/09/25/how-kingdom-hearts-iii-will-grow-up-with-its-players.

[6] “E3 2018: Tetsuya Nomura on If Kingdom Hearts 3 Is the End of Sora's Story”; June 14, 2018.

https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/06/14/e3-2018-tetsuya-nomura-on-if-kingdom-hearts-3-is-the-end-of-soras-story

[7] “Character’s Report Vol. 1 Translations”; Jul 16, 2014

https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/characters-report-vol-1-translations.195560/

[8] “Edge Magazine Features Kingdom Hearts III Cover Story”; January 9, 2019. https://www.khinsider.com/news/Edge-Magazine-Features-Kingdom-Hearts-III-Cover-Story-14331

[9] “Iwata Asks: Nintendo 3DS: Third Party Game Developers, Volume 12: Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance], Part 2: It’ll definitely be fun”; April 2012. 

https://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/creators/11/1

[excusemewhileiplaykh]

“Is Any of This Real... or Not?”: Exploring the Possibility that Kingdom Hearts is Set in a Meta-Reality, Pt.1

“Is any of this real… or not?” 

This is one of Sora’s first lines in the series and it starts off the opening cinematic of Kingdom Hearts 1 with a sense of mystery. Of course, the very concept of the series, a crossover between Disney and Square Enix, already invites a sense of wonder. 

The awe caused by the crossover nature of the series, however, is an exciting one, whereas this opening line comes off as foreboding and existential. We are made to believe that Sora questions his reality because of those “weird thoughts” he’s been having lately. Those weird thoughts presumably being based on the strange dreams he has surrounding the Keyblade, such as the dream he has right at the beginning of the game where Sora appears at his Station of Awakening. 

But what if there’s more to Sora’s existential crisis in the opening cinematic of Kingdom Hearts 1? Could it go beyond Sora’s struggles in awakening as a new Keyblade Wielder? Could all of Kingdom Hearts be set in a meta-reality? In other words, are all the worlds, including the Disney worlds and original worlds, we visit in every game, not just Coded or Chain of Memories, really just “fake”? Is all of Kingdom Hearts a simulacrum, a video game in itself, an orchestrated data creation? To parrot Sora once more, “is any of this real… or not?” More importantly, is there evidence to support this theory?

I’ll be using the word meta-reality a lot throughout this discussion so let me define what I mean by it more clearly before I delve into this analysis. When I say meta-reality, I am referring to the fact that if all the worlds in Kingdom Hearts are “fake” or “constructed”, it would be a wink to the fact that the series itself is “fake” and “constructed” since it is a video game, hence the use of the word “meta”, meaning “self-referential”. 

Let’s look at some of the games in the series, particularly, Union χ, Kingdom Hearts 1, Kingdom Hearts 2, Re:Coded, and perhaps most crucially, Dream Drop Distance. Each of these games handles there own sorts of “micro” meta-realities, in which there exist worlds based on the Data from the supposed real world. Re:coded would be the most obvious example, but we also experience these “micro” meta-realities in Kingdom Hearts 2, such as with the digital Twilight Town. 

Thus, in order to understand how the “marco” meta-reality of the series (that is the meta-reality of the series itself and not just smaller instances of digital, data, projected, or even dream worlds), we must understand the “micro” meta-realities, how they function, and how they impact the story. There are many more examples, but let’s start with the ones in Union χ first.

In Union χ, much like Re:Coded, it is explained that the worlds the player traverses are made of Data, particularly the worlds the Player visits after the events of the Keyblade War. Again like Re:Coded, “real” people are inserted in these Data Worlds/Dream Worlds much like how Mickey is able to go inside the Datascape or even how DiZ, Axel, Riku, and Roxas can enter the digital Twilight Town. Yet, we can conclude that the worlds explored before this tragedy are also Data Worlds of sorts, although they are not specifically talked about in this way. It is explained that the Disney worlds the Player visits are projections from the future made by the Book of Prophecies. 

How could these projections manifest themselves, however? Well, it would have to be through Data, much like the worlds constructed from Jiminy’s journal in Re:Coded. In a sense, Mickey projects the information from the journal onto his computer in the form of Data. Data then can stem from writing, precisely the type of writing you would find in a book. These books may be non-fiction like Jiminy’s journal and the Book of Prophecies or maybe even fiction, like in the case of the book of Winnie the Pooh, which creates the world of 100 Acre Wood.

100 Acre Wood is probably one of the strangest worlds in the series. Whereas, the contents of Jiminy’s Journal and the Book of Prophecies must be projected out of its physical bonds, the world of Winnie the Pooh exists within the book. Sora can only explore this world in both Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 by physically acquiring pages of the book and physically walking around within the bonds of the book. In essence, this world really just is a book which was authored and made up. Yet, Pooh and his friends act as if they are real. Sora interacts and cares about them as if they actually exist. It is inconsequential to Sora that they exist within a crafted narrative because he sees they have hearts nonetheless (Also Sora may just lack the critical skills to understand that Pooh is just a storybook character and that he, in theory, does not really exist, despite having a heart. Love the kid, but he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed). 

How do I and Sora know they have hearts? Because they have friends. Having the ability to make friends automatically makes you a candidate for a heart. For instance, in Days, Xion develops a heart and becomes a real person with a face once she becomes friends with Roxas and then Axel. Similarly, in Coded, Data Sora acquires a real heart and a real keyblade after recognizing the power of his friendship with Donald and Goofy at Hollow Bastion. This teaches us that while Data may necessarily be manufactured or inorganic, it can still possess “realness” in the sense that Data people can have hearts. There are, of course, other examples of Data acting “real” throughout the series.

Another obvious example of a Data world in this series is the digital Twilight Town at the beginning of Kingdom Hearts 2. Much like how we can assume the book of Winnie the Pooh has an author, the “author” of sorts of the digital Twilight Town is DiZ, who manipulates and contorts what happens in this Data World. Things can come in and out of the digital Twilight Town, as DiZ, Riku, etc. go in and out as they please and things from within the digital world, such as Olette’s wallet, can be brought from outside of the digital world and be identical to its “real” counterpart. 

We again have data characters who behave like they have hearts, i.e. Hayner, Pence, and Olette who have a seemingly genuine friendship with one another. So much so that you would not be able to differentiate between the data versions of Hayner, Pence, and Olette and the real versions of them. In Kingdom Hearts 2, we also have Space Paranoids which similarly has an “author” or creator. In this case, the creator of the Hollow Bastion OS is Ansem SOD. In his absence, however, Sark controllers this world, but the people who should real dominion over this world are Users, such as Ansem SOD. That is, people outside of the Data. This is also the case with the digital Twilight Town and in Union χ and something similar occurs in Re: Coded. 

In Re:Coded, Mickey, in essence, is able to manipulate what occurs in the Datascape, though not the extent of DiZ or Sark. In addition, Mickey also communicates to Data Sora as a disembodied voice, much like the voice that only Sora can hear in Kingdom Hearts 1 that speaks to him near the end of the game and in his heart's station. 

Strangely, this voice only chooses to make itself heard by Sora. This voice, much like Mickey in Re:Coded, is one of the first catalysts for Sora in the first game and subsequently throughout the series. Perhaps this disembodied voice could have significant control over the events of the game.

So with that analysis, we have concluded a few things about these “micro” meta-realities and how they function. First and foremost, they are based on either pre-existing narratives, such as those in Jiminy’s journal or the Book of Prophecies. They can, however, also be based on fictional narratives such as in the case of Winnie the Pooh. In this Data Worlds, people can have “hearts”, even if they themselves are just data. Moreover, these Data Worlds can be controlled or influenced by outside forces, or perhaps “real” people. Although with the case of Sark, people inside the Data World can also have control.

I have thus outlined how “micro” meta-realities function in the Kingdom Hearts series, but I have not gone into evidence that could suggest that the entirety of the series is set in a “macro” meta-reality. For that, I’ll have to turn to Dream Drop Distance (in the next part).

[operationrainfall]

Title Woven Developer Alterego Games Publisher Alterego Games Release Date November 15th, 2019 Genre Adventure, Puzzle Platform PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One Age Rating E for Everyone 10+ – Fantasy Violence Official Website

I really wanted to love Woven. After all, I was one of the original backers of the unsuccessful Kickstarter project, and was duly impressed by Alterego Games’ decision to self publish the project afterwards. The premise of Woven was really compelling and different, taking place in a soft world of woolen yarn and fabric that is being invaded by strange mechanical insects. Our hero is a goofy elephant named Stuffy, and he quickly comes across a new friend, a firefly-shaped robot named Glitch. Together, they set out to discover the truth and explore this world, transforming and reweaving Stuffy to scale various obstacles along the way. If only the adventure had lived up to that fantastic premise.

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Woven is the sort of game that would have made my childhood self smile. It plays out like a live action Winnie the Pooh, in a calm and mellow land where all that matters is relaxation and finding flowers. At least at first. Stuffy is a very amicable protagonist, but not the brightest bulb. A fact that is repeatedly referenced by the game’s narrator. The narrator’s tenor sounds very British, and at first I enjoyed how his paired sentences usually rhymed. It does grow old rather quickly though, especially when you realize that the narrator is not gonna help you much with direction. If you get lost at all, he’ll start reminiscing like a grandfather with dementia, talking about the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea. None of which is helpful. Which wouldn’t be a problem, except for the fact that getting lost is a regular occurrence in Woven. Or at least it was for me. I managed to get stuck about 5 minutes into the game, in what would be considered the tutorial area. That’s because the game doesn’t hold your hand much, and trusts you’re clever enough to pick up on the clues in your environment. Sadly, what Woven thinks is plainly evident very rarely is. Case in point, the very first blueprint machine I came across gave no guidance how to operate it. I eventually figured it out, but it was a sign of things to come.

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There’s dozens of blueprint machines spread across Woven’s 5 regions, including meadows, deserts and jungles, and each blueprint gives Stuffy new transformation options. To unlock the blueprint, you play a little musical mini-game by operating mechanical levers to select notes. Though this was confusing initially, I grew to enjoy the mini-game. At first I assumed that each animal form would have set limbs, but you can mix and match after you acquire several, creating bizarre chimeras. Case in point, you can pair Pig legs with Lion arms and a Rhino head. You can even have two different arms or legs simultaneously. Each body part has different capabilities that allow various actions. You’ll need these to solve puzzles and make your way through the game. Though Woven is nominally a linear experience, the world is so wide open it’s easy to not immediately know where to head next. A good example was when I came across a short hilltop ringed with mountains, with a circular passage full of cranky yak creatures. I could stomp my foot to force the Yaks to move, but after moving in a complete circle, I wasn’t sure what to do. I eventually found the solution online in a very helpful playthrough, but it was frustrating being on the cusp of a solution and having no idea where to go next. This was due to the fact many of the puzzles in Woven are time based, but they don’t tell you they are. If a clock had showed up indicating I had a certain amount of time, I would have known to hurry up. And the farther I got in the game, the more complex and active the puzzles got. I much preferred the puzzles that required thinking but not fast reflexes.

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While it’s clearer why you would want to transform Stuffy to progress, it’s less clear how to use color palettes called patterns. You’ll find tons of flowers as you wander about, and by stomping your foot, they’ll open up and allow Glitch to scan them. You can also scan some animals for these, but they rarely sit still, so you’ll either need to be quick or find a way to distract or incapacitate them. Lastly, there’s patches you’ll randomly find on the map to unlock patterns. Patterns do a couple of things. On the one hand, they let you decorate Stuffy at the knitting machines, making him look as fancy or hideous as you please. You might be more surprised to realize you need some for puzzles. An example are giant snakes that block your progress unless you match their pattern. There’s another cool segment where a mechanical spider will pounce on you unless you blend in with the background. I don’t mind using patterns strategically, but it’s very easy to not scan the right one, and then be forced to backtrack until you find it. Some sort or an indicator of where key items resided would have helped, but there’s no such thing. And given the wide open format of Woven, it’s rather easy to get lost and miss the proper patterns. Oh and did I mention there’s more than 100 of them spread across the entire game? Which makes it even more daunting when you manage to pass one without realizing it.

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You may be wondering what Glitch does, and the simple answer is he operates every mechanical device you interact with. He turns on the blueprint machines and knitters, scans items and can also use his light to illuminate dark caves. The little firefly is pretty helpful, and his backstory ties directly into the plot of Woven. You’ll find lots of nodes that reveal bits and pieces of his lost memory as you go. I won’t spoil it, but suffice to say there’s a reason Glitch feels so strongly pulled by the planet’s moon. I wish I could say Stuffy’s backstory was as interesting, but he’s almost an incidental character. He could literally be anything or anybody else, and it wouldn’t change the course of the game. I never knew much about the elephant, other than he was apparently simple, cowardly and loved flowers. It’s not clear how long he’s been around, what he did before Glitch or anything really. He’s just there to progress the story, and that’s a shame, especially since he’s nominally the main character.

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Not everything in the game works poorly. I did find it handy how the different Joy-Con controlled Stuffy and Glitch, respectively. And I appreciated visual prompts indicating what abilities I needed to get past obstacles, and found the camera easy to operate. The problem was primarily with the game’s physics. Woven is a wide open 3D world, but often what seems a clear path forward ends up tripping you up with invisible stage geometry. Bushes often kept me from moving forward, which was awkward. As a fan of platformers, I found this made Woven a lot harder to enjoy, since I was never clear if I could progress or not. Sometimes you do actually need different abilities tied to animal parts, such as jumping or pushing, but you never know in advance. So if I came to an area with a puzzle and had the wrong parts, I would have to backtrack all the way to the nearest knitting machine and reweave my elephant friend. I really think it would have been much easier if Stuffy could fast travel to these, since they’re spaced rather far apart and it’s not very fun walking about. Failing that, I would have loved a mini-map, since that would have cut down how often I got lost in Woven dramatically.

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Visually, Woven has a cute storybook aesthetic. There’s lots of bright colors and soft details. While I have no problem with that, I do have a problem with the graphical fidelity. I will mention I played the Switch version of the game, and from what little research I’ve done, it runs far better on other consoles. I normally don’t complain about things like framerate or the like, and usually find most games I play on Switch run great, but oftentimes the graphics here were muddy and fuzzy. Simply put, this game suffers from Bloodstained syndrome, meaning every other iteration of the game plays better than the one on Nintendo consoles. Which is truly a shame, since this is the perfect sort of all ages game that would otherwise appeal to a lot of Nintendo gamers. Musically the game is frankly dull, and quite muted musically. Sound effects lack punch, and actions often don’t have the proper impact as a result. When Stuffy punches a box out of his way, it just slides quietly out of place. Much like the rest of the game, aesthetically Woven is a very mixed bag.

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While I hate to add onto my other complaints, I have a few more. For one thing, I find it completely awkward how Stuffy always looks at Glitch as he runs forward, contorting his head to follow the firefly everywhere. That’s minor, but a more significant issue relates to the linearity of the game. If you miss any collectibles or achievements, you can’t get them until the next time you play through the game from the beginning. Once you reach a new area, there’s no backtracking, and the game auto saves. So if you’re one of those people that loves to platinum games, best of luck. And finally, while I don’t mind the general lack of combat in the game, it makes it that much more challenging when you have to contend with the final boss.

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Much as I wanted to love Woven, I left the experience quite disappointed. There was promise here, but for whatever reason it wasn’t met. If you don’t mind clumsy physics and very complex and vague puzzles, you might enjoy what’s here. Even then, it’s a hard pill to swallow at $19.99. Though you can beat the game in less than 5 hours, it took me around 9 due to getting lost repeatedly. So at least you’ll get some bang for your buck. This is one of those games I recommend you pick up on a sale. Hopefully Alterego Games has more ideas they can breathe life into in the future, cause I’d honestly like to see them succeed. In the meantime, I’ll lament this tale of an elephant and his firefly buddy.

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[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”1.5″]

Review Copy Provided By Publisher

REVIEW: Woven Title Woven

[jeanjauthor]

The Sound of the Spider-Verse

Okay, I don’t often promote music, musicians, etc...but when it comes to soundtracks, the music can be as much a part of the storytelling as the script and the storyboarding of the action--and in this case the animation--of the actors following that script and its storyboard.

We can actually do motifs like the leitmotif mentioned above in mediums like art, such as how a certain character is always drawn with something evoking butterflies in his or her proximity or clothes or whatever.

We can also do this in writing via certain turns of phrase in both dialogue and in narrative  Or in certain ways that the surroundings are described by the current point-of-view character...which can be done not only in first person perspective inner monologue, but in third person limited via what the character notices and interacts with, as well as via their inner monologue even if the narrative part is third person.  And it can be conveyed in how they talk and what they talk about in dialogue...and not just accents or whatever, but literally what they talk about.

Take the characters from Winnie the Pooh.  Piglet talks in a very specific way, one where his choices for conversational subjects are distinctly different from  Pooh’s, and from Tigger’s, and from Eeyore’s...from everyone else’s, really.  They don’t necessarily have different accents, but they definitely have different outlooks on life, and it shows in the things they do, the way they phrase things, the subjects that they discuss first, and so forth. 

These characters don’t always repeat the same subjects over and over, but it’s clear their perspectives have them approaching a certain topic from a certain angle.  You can bet that Pooh and Tigger will be looking at something from the metaphorical sunnier side of that subject than Piglet and Eeyore will.  Tigger will be looking at something in full-on blaring sunshine, whereas Eeyore will be looking at it from whatever position exists where the object eclipses the light source, leaving him only seeing things from whatever reflected or refracted light makes its way into the shadows to dimly illuminate his perspective.

All of these characters work so well together in their stories because their perspective motifs gives contrast and comparison, a (sometimes subtle, sometimes overt) way of injecting tension into a specific scene. You don’t always want to have the glaring sunshine vs deep shadow playing off each other.  Sometimes you want the worried Piglet and the depressed Eeyore talking about how they’re concerned that Winnie the Pooh is missing.

...Anyway, music is a critical component in telling the story of a movie (or tv series), its characters, its action sequences, everything.  Xena: Warrior Princess had themes for Xena, for Gabrielle, for Ares...  Heck, there was even a leitmotif for Xena coming home to Amphipolis; literally, they had their own theme song that the harvesters in the fields almost always sang during those panning shots...or used sometimes when Xena was thinking about her youth, her home village, her lost chances and regret-filled mistakes.

Music can also be used in non-fiction for documentaries to help set the mood. Music is an audio viewpoint cue, as much as lighting and color palette themes are for artists, and as much as word choice is for writers.  In the first Avengers’ movie from the MCU, the script writers chose to have Thor speaking in a sort of archaic, formal way to help set him apart from all the other characters. I suspect this was done because there were several main characters to keep track of, and by throwing that audio clue at the audience, and included Loki in the same sort of dialect style, it conveyed without having to go into any depth the fact that these two characters were from a completely different culture than the Earth superheroes.

So...enjoy this discussion of how to create characterization through indirect means & repeating themes!

[that-shamrock-vibe]

2018 Round-Up: My Favourite Movies of 2018

Disclaimer: 2018 has been another feast for movie goers all year round, so with the new year just around the corner I have decided to disclose my favourite movies of the year. Careful for spoilers for movies that have recently come out as a couple are on this list.

#10. Love, Simon

As I mentioned in my review, I enjoyed this movie. I still think it accurately captures a teenage coming out story, not THE teenage coming out story because everyone has their own story and the endings aren’t always good but this one definitely showed the good without over-fantasizing it.

I mean okay, I still think this movie doesn’t do enough to show the dangers of emailing virtual strangers outside of the fact that you get your private information shared but again that balances out with the fact it is only a school-centric forum so I give the movie a pass on that. Also I do feel bad for saying there are “better” ways to come out because as I did follow immediately up with saying, everyone has their own story.

But overall I do really think this is a great movie and an underrated one at that. The characters are all likeable and relatable, Nick Robinson surprisingly proves himself as a leading man and Keiynan Lonsdale gives his best performance.

#9. Venom

I always had in mind that Venom would make my favourites list. Not only is Tom Hardy finally getting the chance to shine in a superhero role, but I finally get to see one of my favourite anti-heroes brought to life in the right way on the silver screen. I loved this movie, I thought this was a great spin-off in the Spider-Verse and a great start to Sony’s Universe of Marvel Characters.

I know for a fact this movie has problems, Riot as a villain isn’t the most compelling, the movie does play like it’s set within the 90s Spider-Man Animated Series and that Carnage tease was a let down in the casting department. However, this movie gives us Venom and allows him to be Venom. Yes the comedy is slightly damp at times but Tom Hardy sells himself as an action hero, comedy star and stunt performer. I do hope this movie gets a sequel because I really want to see more.

#8. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

I am in the minority of people that enjoy this movie, but am in the majority of people that feel the end reveal was completely nonsensical. However I am giving J.K. and the team a pass on this movie and that is why it takes the #10 slot.

It is a great movie visually, it has all the traditional sceneries and locales that you would expect from a Wizarding World movie, the world building of exploring not just the British but also the French Ministries of Magic was a fun addition, Grindelwald shrouding Paris as a way of summoning his followers was visually appealing and of course seeing Hogwarts again brings back all the nostalgic feels a Potter fan could ask for.

I will continue to defend Johnny Depp in the role of Grindelwald as I feel he is very well suited to the role and that he was one of the better things about this movie. Like I said in my reviews he kind of book-ended this movie with two great scenes first when he escaped captivity and then when he addressed his followers, both were well acted, well shot and largely counted of Depp’s performance which he mastered.

My biggest complaint with the movie is that I did expect more of a mythos built movie than the focus being on characters we already said goodbye to in the first one, but that’s not to say what I did get was bad it was just not how I would have taken the story going forward.

Eddie Redmeyne and the cast from the first movie are all still charming and have more character development to carry them through to the next movie, while Jude Law and Zoe Kravitz are both really great additions.

I will wait and see what the third installment in this franchise has in store before deciding my final opinion on the movies as a whole but I do think J.K. has some work to do to keep people on board.

#7. Christopher Robin

This was a complete nostalgia trip for me, I really had a good time watching this movie. Not only did it really hit at the emotional core of anyone who grew up with Winnie the Pooh but it was just so charming, so quaint and made me feel like a kid again.

Ewan McGregor as an adult Christopher Robin was very well cast, not only did he go through the arc that apparently every working adult goes through in losing his child-like wonder only to be reminded of it and realizing what is truly important in life, but Ewan is an actor who can do it with such charm that a tired old story like this seems fresh.

Also this story is made fresh by the fact that it does centre on the characters of  Winnie the Pooh. The visual effects used to bring these characters to life are so well done. I loved the behind the scenes knowledge of knowing that they created toy replicas of these characters and then digitally animated them throughout the movie. It just adds a sense of realism to the movie and makes it more enjoyable.

Mary Poppins Returns did a similar story arc with Michael as they did with Christopher but in my opinion this story is told a lot more organically. I’m happy with the movie and glad I now own it.

#6. Incredibles 2

14 years in the making and still worth the wait. I had a blast watching this movie. Not only was it a direct follow-up to the first one but I felt the story managed to progress our favourite characters in an organic way that still kept in theme with this being a superhero family franchise.

I thought the focus being on Elastigirl being the focal superhero as opposed to Mr. Incredible this time around was a fun change of pace and didn’t feel like a cry for feminism as other movies and TV shows do.

Meanwhile having Mr. Incredible being the stay-at-home dad learning to cope with his teenage daughter’s drama and super-baby discovering his powers was a lot of fun and led to some very comedic moments.

Also the hilarious moments in the first movie were still here in this one from Frozone and his wife to Edna Mode. The whole movie just felt that, even though it had been over a decade since the first movie, it just felt like coming home it was so inviting.

The main problem is the reveal of the villain because anyone with half a brain would be able to tell that while they tried the red herring of Win Deavor being the evil Screenslaver, the fact it was Evelyn Deavor wasn’t a shock. Evelyn Deavor...Evil Endeavor...it was obvious.

But overall a really enjoyable movie and hopefully we won’t have to wait another 14 years for the threequel.

#5. Avengers: Infinity War

The movie event of the year but that doesn’t mean it was the movie of the year. This was such a spectacle and celebration of 10 years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that I could not get enough of it.

Everything worked well in this movie, all the characters we’ve seen throughout the last ten years working together was such a treat and a promise that only Kevin Feige’s MCU could deliver on.

There are so many things right about this movie, I thought the plot for the movie really brought a genuine threat and splender to the MCU that managed to almost fix the MCU’s villain problem, Thanos was a genuine threat despite the fact that he had not been shown as formidable in any of the previous movies, then there’s the Black Order who present both a brilliant and fun henchmen group.

The heroes all coming together for the first time isn’t as big of a deal as made out because aside from the Guardians teaming up with Iron Man, Spider-Man and Doctor Strange, everyone else who teams up has teamed up before aside from a brief interaction between Shuri and Bruce Banner.

Regardless, this was such a fun movie, a slight complete deviation from the comics event as the key characters aren’t in play for the MCU just yet. However, this was very much the movie of the summer and definitely an event everyone was talking about. I loved it and roll on Avengers: Endgame.

#4. Bohemian Rhapsody

I love Queen, I love everything about the band and more to the point I love Freddie Mercury. I love everything that he stands for and everything that makes him an icon for the LGBT community. Throw in Rami Malik and you have everything I am looking for in a movie like this.

A Star Is Born did not make my list and in fact almost falls into my Least Favourite Movies list because I just didn’t really like it as a movie and the two movies are often compared. But while A Star Is Born had okay songs and an okay story, Bohemian Rhapsody had fantastic songs and a fantastic story because they all came from a raw and talented source.

I get there is some controversy with the movie as the remaining members of Queen tried to make it more of a Queen origin story than a Freddie Mercury biopic but the best thing about this movie is it is a perfect blend of both stories because you can’t have one without the other.

Also, the movie recreated Live Aid in such a mirrored way that it was almost like a straight-up recording with the actors in place of the actual people. This movie should definitely garner praise and accolades for that alone.

It’s just such a fantastic movie and provides such a potent love-note to all Freddie fans, I can’t say enough good things about it.

#3. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Best Spider-Man movie ever! This is a statement I found myself saying throughout this movie and a couple of days after seeing it I still think it, this is the best Spider-Man movie ever created. I’m not including Venom in that because it’s from the same material but is more of a spin-off from the mainstream Spidey movies than what has come featuring the red and blue webslinger.

But yes, I had reservations about this movie. Not only do I not know Miles Morales that well but I genuinely thought they were going to go down the Spider-Man origin route again and to be honest I don’t think I can sit through another retelling of that. Now this movie has one trope that goes in line with the traditional Spider-Man story which doesn’t exactly damage the movie but doesn’t seem necessary for the movie.

Also this is an all-age animated movie, that is very hard to do without pandering more to one age demographic and traditionally if they go down the adult animation route it’s often offensive and vulgar whereas this had none of that. Instead it dealt with several mature themes, mixed with some brilliant action sequences and quite hardcore violence. I mean it, Kingpin goes all out here.

In terms of the overall movie, there is a disclaimer right at the start before the opening credits that is specific to this movie saying “Do not copyright”...In the first 4 minutes you understand why. This movie is choc-full of twists, spoilers and treats for any Spidey fan and I personally guarantee there is something for everyone to enjoy.

Furthermore, because it is an animated movie, the entire story plays out like a comic-book practically like a live motion comic partially because of the use of captions used just they are in comics. The movement of the characters and the artistic scenery adds to what makes this movie so unique and so special.

Voice talent wise, Chris Pine makes a surprising vocal appearance as the Peter Parker of Miles’ Earth who dies towards the start, but then you have Jake Johnson, Nicholas Cage, Liev Schreiber, Hailee Steinfeld and Mahershala Ali all providing great support to Shameik Moore who himself is brilliant.

All in all, as everyone has said, this is the best Spider-Man movie to be released, I am very much looking forward to seeing where this movie takes the universe in the future.

#2. Aquaman

This movie came so close to being my #1 because I genuinely believe it is the best movie of the year, however #1 is my favourite and that’s what this list is about.

If someone had told me Aquaman would be DC’s best movie since The Dark Knight I would have laughed in their face. I cannot believe how much I enjoyed this movie. Visually stunning, there is not a lot more I can say about how gorgeous this movie is that everyone else has not said.

Jason Momoa takes to this role like Gal Gadot takes to Wonder Woman and Hugh Jackman took to Wolverine. He has so much joy in this movie and you can tell he, Amber Heard and the other cast members love being part of this world.

I will reiterate what I said in my non-spoiler review, this movie essentially showed us the scenary of a live-action Little Mermaid complete with Ariel in Amber Heard’s Mera and yet we are still looking forward to Disney’s live-action version of the movie. I guarantee you there will be a lot of comparisons between these movies, even if Zendaya gets cast because she will be compared to both Mera and Aquaman as both the lead and lead female.

This movie does what Wonder Woman could not and that is nail the final act and the climactic battle sequence. Oh my god it was like watching Lord of the Rings underwater it was so magnificent.

What they set up for a hopeful sequel is very juicy, you have Nicole Kidman as Aquaman’s mother still alive, you have Aquaman and Mera finally together, you have Orm still alive so there’s potential for either redemption like Loki or a return to form in a future movie. Also Black Manta will hopefully become more formidable in a future movie considering he was essentially a side-villain in this movie.

I want a sequel, I want a sequel for Aquaman more than I want any other DC Movie coming out. I cannot wait.

#1. Black Panther

Without question this movie outshines most movies in any genre. I still think Aquaman is the best movie because it is solidly brilliant from beginning to end, but Black Panther is miraculous in terms of visuals, music and the representation of African culture.

It is in some ways an origin movie because it’s how T’Challa adapted to becoming king of Wakanda, however because we already met T’Challa during Civil War, much like Spider-Man it wasn’t a question of needing to know their origins it was more about exploring them as individuals and what makes them superheroes.

However, surprisingly, Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther was not the most compelling part of this movie. Don’t get me wrong he’s still a brilliant actor and an integral part of the movie, but the way Ryan Coogler accurately portrays African culture, from the tribal combat tradition of earning the mantle of king, to the styling of each tribe to make them distinct, even with what the inclusion of the superhero angle brings with Wakanda being a technologically advanced nation and the visuals that they bring.

Just like Aquaman, this movie had a great main villain but a somewhat weak side-villain. Both Orm and Killmonger were brilliant but Killmonger outshines Orm because what he stands for divided audiences and even created a social media storm with the hashtag #Killmongerwasright. Yes Ocean Master also had a sense of righteousness because of what he stood for with believing the surface world to be the sea inhabitants enemies which sparks an environmental debate but Killmonger struck a core with African history. His final line of “Bury me in the ocean, with my ancestors that jumped from the ships, because they knew death was better than bondage.” is still probably the best line in any superhero movie for the power of the message it gets across.

Also T’Challa has been often critiqued for being outshined by his female supporting characters Shuri, Okoye, Nakia and Ramonda. I personally agree with this critique but again it’s not to the detroment of T’Challa or the movie because if anything it makes the movie that much better for having strong female characters who aren’t just “the love interest” or “the family” because yes that is what they essentially are but they’re celebrated for that.

Also, Letitia Wright is the breakout star of this movie, I would say Danai Gurira but she has The Walking Dead under her belt. Shuri is not the stereotypical princess character as not only is she 18 and head of the science and technology division of Wakanda but she has the personality and drive to easily take over the Black Panther mantle as she did in the comics.

Overall, this is not quite a perfect movie but it is definitely one of the best movies of the year, century and MCU in total. Not only is it a cultural milestone in terms of movie representation but also it is a movie that has earned numerous award nods and deserves to win all of them.

So that’s my list of my favourite movies of 2018, as I said it was a truly brilliant year for movies and I cannot wait to see what the new year has in store for us. In the mean time you can check out more Movie Reviews and other posts.

Happy New Year to all!

[ultraericthered]

So, I finished my watching of Nisekoi (Fake Love) a while back. Gonna post some of my scattered thoughts about the series, it’s execution, and all of it’s core components here.

Let me start off by getting the obvious out of the way...the main story is awful. This series seriously has some of the worst storytelling I have seen in a manga/anime in quite some time. Apparently it was mostly just made up as it went along, which explains a lot, but even the whole premise starts to get less and less interesting the more it comes up and the more thought I give it. NOT the “two kids of gangsters with feuding gangs must pretend to date each other in order to keep peace and prevent a gang war” premise, that was the actually interesting set-up that I wish they’d done even more with. I mean the “childhood marriage promise” premise of the story’s overarching “mystery”. There are just way too many holes in this story - like, how the fuck did Raku, Chitoge, and Kosaki all forget that one summer when they all knew each other as little kids? If the connection Raku had with both Chitoge and Kosaki was so super special, how come they all forgot yet Marika remembered everything about Raku and dedicated her entire young life from then on out to becoming a worthy bride for him? If Chitoge wrote of that summer in her diary, why didn't she ever write "the boy's" name, cause surely she had to have known it if they were such good pals? If she wrote those diary entries when she was FIVE, how did teenage Chitoge understand the handwriting? (I would NOT be able to make out anything I wrote at that age!) Why does Raku have this one locket but there are three keys, and why are there three keys if there was one childhood promise made with one locket?  Why does it take so long to get to the truth about the promised girl when it could've been reached easily through basic communication? Why don't the characters use basic communication with each other more often? AAAAAAAARGH!

So with such a dismal main storyline, you might wonder what the heck kept me coming back to this series, watching episode after episode with gleeful anticipation about what might be in store for me each time? Well for this series, it’s absolutely the characters and the comedy created with them that are the real stars. The way the characters express themselves, their interactions, reactions, and especially the priceless facial expressions and vibrant animation from them makes them ideal for situational comedy. I don’t like to quote Doug Walker, but to borrow his words from his “Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh” Disneycember review - “you really enjoy spending time with them. You don’t care if not much is going on, you could have a conversation with any one of these characters and probably end up very satisfied.” I’ll go into the individual characters and my favorite comedic moments in the series later on.

The 20 episode Season 1, I felt, was stronger and better put together than the later OVA episodes and the 12 episode Season 2. There was actually a sense of forward momentum for the story in episodes 1 through 8, which led to an increase in focus on the overarching mystery arc in the next 7 episodes...and then the plot was completely discarded for the last 5 episodes, but since it wasn’t that good a plot as I already covered, I didn’t mind and they really pulled out a worthy series of events to end the season on. Especially the finale, oh my God was that fun. And the whole reconciliation between Raku and Chitoge in both final two episodes, and the part at the end of episode 20 with Raku and Kosaki on the school roof? Got me in the feels, hard. Though this is just me personally, I would’ve preferred it if in the former Raku had been a bit more honest and forward by telling Chitoge that not only did he not hate her at all, but she’s kind of his best friend now. That would’ve made that moment all the more powerful for me. I did, however, think their last exchange of the season was entirely appropriate for them. “I just abhor you.” Only you could make that sound romantic, Chitoge.

The OVAs and Season 2, due to having less story to work with, changed the format of the series so that we usually got two story segments in one episode, with only five exceptions during Season 2. And while I enjoyed it for the most part, there were some glaring issues with the structure and contents. First off, the third OVA episode was aired right before the second season started, so I watched it in that order, and was taken aback by Paula, Haru, and Fuu-Chan being present when they hadn’t been properly introduced yet. This led me to my belief that the OVA episodes were produced as Season 2 episodes but taken out of it’s rotation and aired early. The season’s structure wasn’t that good either: while the opening was kept consistent, the end credits tended to change depending on who the focus character of the day was, with some end credits songs we’d never see and hear again after only once. The full story episodes tended to come in at random, with one of them having no reason to have the length that it got (The one about Valentines’ Day chocolate. Really? This is something we needed to dedicate a full 23 minutes to?) And I don’t care about faithfulness to the manga’s order of events, placing the Christmas two-parter with Chitoge’s mother as the third and fourth episodes of the season even when it felt like a finale-worthy event was a huge mistake. Not only was that the most emotional point the anime ever got to (I was almost on the verge of tears at points), but the “Kosaki has Chitoge’s old picture book” cliffhanger NEVER got any follow-up. If they’d ended the season on that note, it could’ve raised intrigue and left things open for a third season. But by ending it on a random set of Chitoge-centric fillers, they only ensured that interest died and the anime adaptation, for the time being, has been abruptly discontinued. Oh well, it wasn’t going anywhere interesting any time soon anyway. I still had fun with the anime and. some quibbles aside, I enjoyed all the episodes and stories....well, all except one. The segment titled “Change” in the second OVA episode. Yeah, the “all the main girls get drunk from Whiskey Bon-Bons” incident. God, I fucking hated that segment. It made me feel dirty watching it. Sexually titillating, erotic fanservice for girls who are technically still child characters is always uncomfortable and it popped up in Nisekoi before, but this was just crossing a line. The whole atmosphere was nightmarish and unpleasant, it ended on a note that seriously suggested that rape had occured here, and I literally only laughed once, which was the bit with drunken Ruri rambling about economics rather than engaging in any sexual activity, and even that was later done better in the Magical Girl parody. It doesn’t help that the subs for that one were awful and it was coming off of a much better Marika-based segment. It was just a vile, disgusting, despicable story and the only part of the series I’ll never re-watch.

Now for the characters, let me first focus on the best one - Chitoge fucking Kirisaki. I had heard a lot of things about this character before watching the series, with them ranging from “Chitoge is Best Girl(TM)!” to “Chitoge’s alright but I like some of the other girls better”, to “Chitoge is a psychotic, horribly unlikable and violent abuser, and a stereotypical abusive Tsundere bitch who the main character should not get together with!”, and even “Chitoge is the Helga G. Pataki of manga/anime”, which could be meant as praise OR condemnation. Personally, I feel the anti-Chitoge sentiments could not be more wrong about her. Her violent tendencies weren’t nearly as bad as I was bracing myself for ‘cause for one, the level of aggression and abusive behavior from Chitoge peaked in episode 1 - once she and Raku actually got into their fake romantic relationship, she cut down on that considerably, could better reign herself in, and her moments of spontaneous Tsundere violence amounted to kneeing, kicks, slaps, and uppercuts and punches to unspecified parts of Raku’s body (the anime is smart enough to usually not show the hits landing) that seemed to hurt him more on the inside than on the outside, as there’s no serious bruises or signs of lasting damage to his body afterwards. And for two, when the abusive treatment WAS present in episode 1, it was portrayed through Chitoge doing things like throwing large blunt objects at Raku that would realistically kill him but never do, meaning the series was telling me that this world operates with cartoon physics and inviting me to not take it the least bit seriously. With that put aside, Chitoge is just a fun, lovable, compelling, and immensely endearing heroine. Being the daughter of a mob boss and growing up in a gang-dominated environment where her mother was often away, busy with work, and acting so cold and emotionally abusive towards her, just does so much in explaining why she is the way she is and making her interesting. Much like other Tsunderes like Taiga Aisaka, she’s never too verbally or physically aggressive that she becomes an abuser - she’s simply tough,temperamental, foul mouthed yet all too vulnerable, actually friendly and secretly soft-hearted, and also hilarious and expressive as heck. She more than earned that “Best Girl(TM)” reputation she has among many fans, as she’s the one character I find next to nothing wrong with. She even has the best song out of all the girls!

Raku Ichijou, our other lead character who’s the son of an old Yakuza boss, is also a very endearing character who I enjoyed following. Again, just his background and how you realize it must’ve effected him growing up goes a long way in making him more uniqe and interesting than your typical male Harem Genre protagonist, and many of his comedic reactions to the insanity that goes on in his life are to die for. I also loved just how quickly he managed to adjust himself into his life’s status quo and his relationships with Chitoge and all the other characters from her life that she brings with her into his, it really helped make him likable and at times admirable. His finest moment had to be episode 4 of Season 2 - without spoiling much, he was BAD. ASS in that one and really gave me a deeper appreciation for him as a person. If I had two points of contention with Raku, it would be that the ways in which he expresses his hormonal lusting for attractive girls, mainly Kosaki Onodera, could get a little annoying after a while, and he takes “oblivious to girls’ feelings and unable to really read other people” to ridiculously dense levels. I mean, this is a Mark from “The Room” sort of clueless, and it makes him look way too dumb. But otherwise, I was totally on board with him.

Kosaki Onodera....I really shouldn’t like this character. She hits off so many tropey marks for your generic Yamato Nadeshiko character, she often seems there more to contribute to Raku’s story and development than advance her own, and the whole aspect of her almost obsessively crushing on Raku (who just happens to crush on her the same way) but being too painfully shy to actually take initiative and confess her feelings to him, and constantly blushing and freaking out whenever she’s put in a position where she could or when Raku seems to be coming onto her in some way, reminds me of certain characters I’m not a fan of, namely Serena from the “Pokemon XY/Z” anime. And don’t get me wrong, her indecisiveness and how so much of her goals in life seem to revolve around her love for Raku are serious problems I have with the character, along with how often she’s exploited for fanservice and her cute appeal (clearly she’s cute, we get that, you don’t have to have Raku outright telling us this!) Yet I ended up really fucking loving her! For why that is, I think it’s because she does have a family and a home life shown to us in a pretty in-depth way, she has friends that she’s known for a while and makes new friends with whom she interacts greatly with (her and Chitoge as a pair is particularly precious), she has her own unique quirks such as being a master at decorating sweet foods but not so much at making them which contributes a lot to the series’ comedy, she’s just an awkward, adorkable mess of a person who has very sincere emotions and relatable qualities that make her so endearing. She’s a character of substance beyond just being a love interest, and many of her overdramatic reactions and the gags at her expense that make her out to be a clumsy loser actually serve to make her more lovable.

Seishirou Tsugumi is probably my least favorite among the main girls, which is not saying much because I really like and enjoy her as a character too. I love how badass she is as a young professional hitman for the mafia and how it’s contrasted to how much of an easily flustered, overly emotional mega dork she is in her social life at school or elsewhere. Her dynamics with other characters, especially Chitoge and Paula, are also very sweet. The whole arc she had going on where she finds herself constantly torn between the side of her that is every bit the cold-blooded killer she was raised to be and the side of her that’s naturally emotion-driven and embracing of her femininity, which is a side she’s repressed for years and probably would’ve ceased to exist had it not been for Chitoge’s influence on her, was just so intriguing and I wish more could’ve been done with it. But the thing is...she didn’t have to be a potential love interest for Raku in order for it to work. It was fine early on, but the more her having a sexual attraction towards Raku got teased, the less sensible and the more unnecessary it became. We had four girls crushing on Raku by the middle of the first season and got another one in the second! If one of them should’ve dropped out of the running early on, it should have been Tsugumi. She just wasn’t cut out for this kind of Harem role.

Marika Tachibana would have to be my second favorite girl in Raku’s harem. Yeah, I’ve seen this type of character in a lot of Harem anime and RomComs - the bitch in sheep’s clothing who conceals her true self from others, wants to win the heart of the main character just to pleasure herself, and gets off on being a romantic rival to the main heroine. I also tend to love those characters, and there’s a lot to love about Marie here. Given her childhood history with Raku, her desire to become his ideal bride and win his heart comes from a very innocent and understandable place. Never did I think that she objectified Raku or had any malicious intentions for wanting to be with him, even if she is very clingy over him and a teensy bit possessive. She just really adores her “Master Raku” due to how he was there for her during her time of illness in childhood and wants to repay him by becoming a fiance and eventual wife who can make him as happy as he makes her. The way the contrast between her true self and her facade of a sweet, courteous proper young lady was depicted, especially in the subs with how they distinguished two Southern accented ways of talking (Southern Belle vs Southern Hick), was freaking hilarious. And I absolutely love her friendship with the other girls. I’d thought that she and Chitoge, after butting heads very early on into knowing each other, would take a while to really warm up to each other, but they achieved “vitriolic and competitive yet clearly caring and fond of each other best buddies” status surprisingly fast, with their moments together being amusing and adorable almost every time. The moment at the start of Season 2 where she teases about Raku’s locket possibly having a wedding ring inside it and then watches the reaction it gets out of Raku, Chitoge, and Kosaki, thinking to herself “You all are so funny”, sums her up so perfectly. She’s a delightful little troll. My only problems with her would be that, like Kosaki, she lives most of her life in relation to her love for a guy, which sends some unfortunate messages, and the whole business with her “terminal illness” which, going by manga spoilers, isn’t even terminal in the end! WTF?

Ruri and Shuu, the two notable supporting players, friends to Kosaki and Raku respectively, were alright with me to start with, but if there were any characters who were improved in the OVAs and second season, it’d be them. I gained so much more appreciation for their characters and the roles they play for their friends. Ruri’s actually kind of an audience surrogate in how she’s constantly trying to get the characters to be straight with each other and expresses clear exasperation over being surrounded by people who don’t think or act smart like her. Despite this, she cares for all these people and wants to help them find some meaning and contentment in their lives. Her special ED Credits demonstrates the role she’s chosen to play perfectly - she’s the umbrella who’s there for her friends whenever the rains of life gets hem down. As for Shuu, while he’s largely comic relief, he does have his moments of being insightful and serious about what he’s talking about, and his focus episode in Season 2 was shockingly heartfelt and emotional, making me feel for him and see him as a good guy.

Paula McCoy, Haru Onodera, and Fuu-Chan were alright characters. Paula was particularly memorable and endearing, and I felt they didn’t do enough with her in the season given how she was introduced and promoted. By contrast, I think we got WAY too much Haru in the later parts of the season, with her being yet another not-love interest for Raku’s harem, this being even worse than Tsugumi since Haru, a girl supposedly notorious for her distrust of the opposite sex, pining for some mystery “prince” she doesn’t really know was just nonsensical, and her reasons for hating Raku and trying to “protect” her big sister from him got less reasonable the more she got to know Raku better, with her attitude towards him already being far disproportionate to his supposed crimes from the start. I don’t hate Haru as a character at all, but I can kinda see why she attracted so much ire from so many fans at first. She’s a lot more fun when she’s just bouncing off of other characters like her sister Kosaki, her classmates Fuu-Chan and Paula, Chitoge, and even Raku in their friendly moments.

The characters I feel got the most shortchanged were the adults in these kids’ lives. Chitoge’s mother at least got a two episode story dedicated to her (and was one of the most massive cases of me turning around on how I felt about a character between the end of Part 1 and the end of Part 2 - I’d hated her by the former but liked and appreciated her better by the latter), but Mrs. Onodera only showed up in about four episodes for a limited amount of time, Ms. Kyoko didn’t get a whole lot of character to work with before getting written out, and the fathers of Raku, Chitoge, and Marika were especially wasted. Issei Ichijou runs the district’s Yakuza, Adelt Wogner Kirisaki is a mob boss who runs a Yakuza/Mafia family fusion, and Gen Tachibana is a scary, thuggish police commissioner with a complicated history with Issei. All such interesting set-ups for characters yet barely anything was done with them. Tachibana got it especially bad, as he only appeared once. The manga apparently gives them more eventually, but still not the amount I would’ve liked. In general, the “cops and gangsters” backgrounds of the main characters is one angle I really think should’ve been better utilized and delved into more in stories, as it helps the series stand out amongst others in it’s genre.

OK, there was one single character who I just flat out disliked, partially by design and partially due to other reasons - Claude Ringheart, the mafia enforcer and Chitoge’s bodyguard. He’s the closest thing to a villain that the series has, but all things considered, he’s a pretty damn arbitrary presence in the ongoing narrative. Raku and Chitoge being forced into a fake relationship in order to keep their families appeased even though Raku likes Onodera and Chitoge doesn’t have any romantic interest in Raku at first only to start to fall in love with him later, to say nothing of the whole childhood marriage promise drama, has enough material to create conflict already there. Why give us this villainous character to stalk the protagonists, spy on them from trees and every now and then attempt to sabotage their relationship because he suspects Raku’s insincerity? What does his outrage over a guy like Raku dating “the young mistress” offer that characters like Tsugumi and Haru already don’t? And on top of that, there’s just nothing remotely likable about him! Even for an antagonist character who we’re meant to boo and hiss, he and his smarmy, unreasonable, judgmental, stalking, misogynistic, borderline pedophile ways were too much at times. I didn’t care for his design, I’m not crazy about his voice acting, I didn’t enjoy the things he did - nothing about him felt remotely appealing or even human to me. But here’s the conflicting part: I immensely enjoyed the payoff that his role got in the Season 1 finale, he’s apparently given similarly spectacular comeuppances later in the manga, and his sole OVA episode appearance was pretty fun. So clearly something about his part in the series worked, ‘cause aside from that one segment, he was not present in Season 2 and the rest of the OVA episodes, as though they’d finally gotten the hint that he wasn’t needed....and I actually kind of missed him. I guess having a Hate Sink antagonist in the story had it’s own charm to it after all, even if he’s not as effective or necessary a villain as he probably should be. Aside from him, it sounds like the only other thoroughly, irredeemably awful character in the series is Marika’s mother. Holy shit, lady!

Oh yeah, this is a romantic comedy series, so I guess I gotta talk about the romance, huh? Long story short, Raku/Chitoge is not only endgame in the manga, but is the OTP as far as I’m concerned. Raku/Onodera, a romance of two childhood friends who’ve always loved each other but never told each other their true feelings, becoming endgame would’ve been boring, even more so thanks to the obvious reveal that Onodera was the girl whom Raku promised to marry all those years ago in Summer. Raku/Marika was largely one-sided, and Marika getting rewarded for changing herself for the love of a man would be a horrifying resolution with a bad message to send girls, so it couldn’t be endgame. And Raku/Tsugumi? Raku/Haru? Raku/Yui Kanakura? Raku/Shuu? Never stood the remotest of chances. So clearly, the titular “Fake Love” (which, as it turns out, has a double meaning that indicated Raku’s final choice hidden right there in the title) was the way to go and rightfully so - Raku and Chitoge actually challenge each other, actually do things that seriously impact each other’s lives, actually balance each other out and improve both as themselves and as “them”, actually fall in love, developing mutual feelings of attraction, affection, and true love with one another that they came to on their own through an actual ongoing relationship process rather than just having crushes from the start and/or a bunch of people pushing for them to get together. and are overall perfectly matched, compatible enough to develop into an actual healthy romance. Having read details about the manga’s end, the part where Raku acknowledges all the flaws Chitoge hates about herself and that she just cited, and says he loves her even with those, is a perfect example of pure, unconditional love looks like. Bean Sprout/Gorilla Girl 4 Life! 

The ONE drawback to the conclusion of the main romance is that poor Kosaki gets the shaft. Yes we know she ends up with someone and has a child in the future, but the way in which she got written out of the equation despite all she meant to the story and to both Raku and Chitoge’s characters, and her last scene being not even a full panel where she’s baking Raku and Chitoge’s wedding cake? It just seemed thoughtless and kind of mean of Komi to do. And all the drama that went down with the romances, which ultimately just boiled down to a love triangle in the end, really just reminded me of much I appreciated the way Star Driver handled it’s ships, particularly it’s main romantic triangle. There was pressure on Wako to “choose one” between Takuto and Sugata, the two guys she loved, but Wako very clearly didn’t want to choose and didn’t feel a need to, because she loved both guys equally and just being with them both, “having” them both equally, was enough for her, and the narrative did not position her as wrong for feeling this way. While Sugata. despite being betrothed to Wako, expressed no entitlement to her and vocalized the belief that actual feelings of love should trump any romantic commitments and obligation, and Takuto also showed nothing but respect for his two friends’ feelings and choices. The “threesome” romantic option and life style was framed and depicted as being valid, and for me that’s the ideal antidote for love triangles. Now when it comes to marriage, I think it should be a sacred union of two, so I don’t believe in polygamy for that. But in terms of love relationships on the whole? I’m all for it, even if two of the three or more involved are married. So even with a Raku/Chitoge endgame, I’d have preferred to have gotten a Raku/Chitoge/Kosaki threesome, with some Marika and Tsugumi in there too!

As for the comedy aspect, the comedic highlights in the series for me were: Everything at Chitoge’s birthday party in “Celebration” especially the nonchalance from Kosaki, Ruri, and Shuu about Chitoge’s family being gangsters and the whole scene between Raku and Chitoge over the locket and key. The meeting between Raku and Marika’s dad in “Three Keys”. Damn near the entirety of “Temple Festival”. The hilariously butchered Romeo and Juliet play in “Showtime”. The whole situation at Marika’s job in “Work”, especially it’s resolution, The entirety of “Service”, “Please Notice”, “Master Raku”, and “Magical Girl Kosaki”, and the part in “Good Morning”.where Kosaki turns into graffiti art out of depression.

All in all, this series will not be remembered as a good storytelling endeavor or even the best, most original romantic comedy/Harem Genre anime. But (except for that one story that can burn in Hell) it was well worth the watch for the fun characters and the comedy they create. 

Final Verdict: Chitoge Kirisaki is Best Girl(TM).

[yournewhappyplace]

Full PlayLew: Kingdom Hearts

hey so it’s been a while since i really wrote anything about games but recently i bought the Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 - ReMix - collection (not to be confused with Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue you silly goose) which is a collection of Kingdom Hearts, Re:Chain of Memories, Kingdom Hearts II, Birth by Sleep and full cinematics for the two early DS games...that’s a lot of Kingdom Hearts...and because i only owned my first PS2 in 2013, i missed out on the whole Kingdom Hearts shabang! so let's document my first playthrough of the game that started it all; Kingdom Hearts! depending, i might write up a post about all the games as i play them and tell you all what a Birth by Sleep is but for now, let’s keep this Simple And Clean and start with the first game

(warning: spoilers for the game and full on rambling)

So there's a reason why I wanted to get into Kingdom Hearts, asides from Millenial Peer Pressure to understand what Simple And Clean means, cus there's one cutscene I saw from the second game where Goofy gets smacked with a rock and Mickey Mouse in a super hot topic zipped jacket gets really upset and the entire scene is both super melodramatic and absurd at the same time and I REALLY liked that. I really liked the idea of this crossover series from the two biggest giants of it's day, just going 100% extra and hopefully taking its premise to the next level...and it does.

Like, one of the first things you do in this game is meet Wakka from FFX and smack him with a wooden sword and there's a cutscene not further on where Aerith is having a serious discussion with Goofy and Donald Duck about a metaphorical darkness and...it's great. i'm going on about this aspect so much immediately because it's my favourite part of the game. the charm and the balance of touching tribute and ridiculous revelations that Kingdom Hearts achieves with merging its properties.

The actual game itself isn't the showstopper here but it's still worth talking about. It plays like a third person action game where you have all the bearings of it's Final Fantasy brethren with random encounters, leveling up, a party system and summons but the game doesn't load in and out of battles, you just get straight into a brawl on the map and there's no turn based battle system. I gotta give the team credit for wanting to make a different combat system than a lot of similar JRPGs at the time because it really helps give the series its own identity from minute one, with both the system and the keyblade weapon that you use to melee and cast spells with. At first it can be a bit jarring and hard to play. Sometimes the camera feels too tight behind Sora (the dude you play as) and processing the 3D space between you and the enemy can be a bit difficult to judge. Also the tightness means you'll get hit by off-screen attacks quite a bit more than you'd feel fair but once you start to get the hang of fighting through tough battles and slowly gain new spells, like a self heal, and a fuckin roll (!), it starts to click and becomes an enjoyable fighting system. The enemy variety in the game could've been upped to keep it more interesting in the later stages but it feels satisying to blow enemies UP with your keyblade (god I love the keyblade's design so much)...and it's hard not to admit the satisfaction of the one-on-one rival battles. When you're up against a dude the same size as you and he's got a melee weapon as well...it is Fire 100 Turn Up The BBQ.

It's a shame that those type of boss fights only really appear near the end because, for the first half at least, the boss fights aren't too great. The worst boss fights that show up in this game are the ones where the hurtbox of the enemy is on a head or a high part of their body, so as Sora you have to jump up and do an air combo at their hurtbox, hoping the hits connect or that you get your full combo out or the enemy doesn't move as you're jumping or the enemy just doesn't knock you out of it...but most of the time that stuff happens and it makes those boss fights some of the most annoying and unsatisfying. There's one boss fight in perticular, at the end of the Wonderland level, which is pretty much the first proper level of the game, that is really tall and his hurtbox is his main body which is propped up on two huge legs and trying to HIT IT is so tough. If you're on the ground, you have to make sure to jump and start attacking at the height of your combo otherwise you'll hit his legs which means that your attacks will literally bounce off him and you'll be flung to the ground. Even when I did get hits in on his body from jumping off the ground, i'd usually only get one or two hits in before I just hit the ground again and...that's not fun! There's a table in the middle of the arena you can climb onto that gives you a platform to jump off and smack him with but ONE that's just as annoying. having to keep climbing up this table to get three or four hits in, fall to the ground and repeat is bad and TWO the table is destructible by the boss! So he can just destroy it and make it even more annoying! Also he takes reduced damage from the 1 out of 2 spells you have at that time. Ahhhhh!!! And whilst no other boss comes close to being as annoying as that, there's still other bosses that use some of it's Anti-Fun Kata Techniques and they can be pretty unsatisfying.

Also some of the worlds in this game can be hit or miss. In Kingdom Hearts you travel between levels that, at most times, are Disney themed worlds like Neverland, Pumpkin Town and Olympus Collesium. Some of them are literally just 3 or 4 rooms, some are bland and some are downright barbaric like the Tarzan level that makes you travel up and down the level several times to trigger new cutscenes or events to progress the story and it can get really frustrating ESPECIALLY when the game doesn't make it all that clear where you need to go or what you have to do, so you're just hopelessly running around, entering in and out of buildings hoping something changes!

So okay, i've talked about what didn't work in this game BUT worry not, positive vibes are coming in the form of my early point; presentation! The game is a Disney and Final Fantasy crossover and the game's use of those licenses helps prop the game up massively. The Wonderland level, whilst not the most interesting level design wise, is propped up massively by just the very idea of it being Wonderland and everything that comes with it. Fun, colourful imagery! Gimmicks involving being huge and small! Twisted geometry spaces! A purple talking cat! Like the way they use their licenses to create these distinct, colourful, imaginative worlds with a diverse set of characters feels like cheating since they're using already existing brands but it's no lie that this all helps create a game that really feels like you're playing on this large Disneyland rollercoaster that shows you the world! And you're not just going by saying “I recognise the thing! I clapped!”, you're fuckinnnng in the thing! You're interacting with all the things! Sometimes you even kill the things and just twisting the properties onto their heads! Remember that time Clayton from Tarzan got fucking killed by a chameleon crushing him?? Yeah! Me too! It's rad!! Remember that time Hades from Hercules hired Cloud to kill you?? Yeah!! That's what makes this whole thing feel fun and worthwhile and not a simple nostalgia grab or whatever. Cus Disney gave them full license to do whatever they wanted and guess what W E D O  I T said Nomura.

I also love how in certain worlds, aesthetics or even entire systems will change to match it. Like how in Little Mermaid level, you play it completely underwater. They could have made you stick to the bottom of the seabed and play it like a normal level or put you in a sub or whatever but they didn't, instead they change Sora and your parties models so you're a mermaid and you have to instead move using square and circle to go up and down through the water. That's cool! In the Neverland level, you get to fly like Peter Pan through the level and fighting flying pirate ships in the sky as you float is wonderful! And the part at the end where you go to a city level and you fly around the equivalent of Big Ben as the music swells up is one of my highlights from the game...cus it just FELT good in my hands. Even the smaller changes like Sora getting a new, gothed up, halloween costume for the Nightmare Before Christmas level is a cute touch! In a perfect world all of these changes would have happened for the majority of levels but alas.

There's also this Winnie the Pooh world that's probably my favourite. At a part of the game, you get a book that you can access and as you open the book, you find yourself walking around 100 Acre Woods and meeting Winnie the Pooh but the rest of the pages are missing. So as you go through levels, you find these pages for the book and for each page you get a new level of 100 Acre Woods that feels like a light, adventure where you're hanging around with Winnie the Pooh and friends. There's no combat in the levels, it's all just mini-games and talking with Pooh and the cast...and it's wonderful. Not only does it fit the tone of the license, cheerful fun, but the feel of the level from the writing and the adventures just feels...Pooh-like. And then when you get that last page and you get Pooh and all his friends together and they bid you farewell and the book closes to show a picture of Sora holding hands with Pooh...i got emotional man...i really did.

And then there's the other side of the spectrum, from fighting off tears over a really well done, careful use of it's properties to grinning like mad with tears of laughter at the ridiculous use of its property. Okay so like the end of the game is, the greatest. After you defeat the main bad guy (he was a scientist trying to use darkness for power blah blah), you get this scene where Sora and friends find the door to the Kingdom Hearts! The source of all hearts! And in it there are Heartless (the enemies) coming out of it so you have to go and close the door BUT doing it on your own isn't enough so you have to use the help of your friend Riku (he was a friend-turned-rival-turned-back to friend by the end)to shut it BUT! He has to shut it from the other side of the door which means locking himself in with the Heartless and the darkness within it. So he's basically gonna get fucked. And Sora realises this and after refusing to shut the door at Riku's request, he obliges and in an emotional moment goes to push it shut….BUT SHUT THE FUCK UP, DONALD DUCK PEEKS IN THE DOOR AND GOES “WUHHHHH” AND YOU NOTICE MICKEY MOUSE'S ICONIC EARS AND HEAD CAST A SHADOW AND IN AN EXTREMELY MICKEY MOUSE VOICE GOES “HEY SORA!” AND IT'S LIKE FUCKING AWESOME. FUCKING GREAT. EMOTIONAL MOMENT -DEFUSED-, PREY SLAUGHTERED CUS MICKEY MOUSE TALKED. I couldn't stop laughing the whole time and then mickey mouse shuts the door and all is saved. BUT THEN because of complications, Sora has to leave behind his childhood sweeheart Kairi that he saved to go back to her world whilst Sora gets left behind in wherever he is and then Simple And Clean, the main theme, just blast with its cheesy super early 2000's musical sheen as a closing FMV plays where Kairi is crying about missing Sora and everyone is all happy cus they get to see their friends again and it's so...innocent and perhaps naive at what it's doing but it fills me life man. I was singing the lyrics to this RnB track as I thought about the events that just occurred and seeing Pinnochio turn into a real boy and Cloud meet back up with Aerith and maaaaaaaan

That's why I really like Kingdom Hearts. The gameplay is generally fun despite some dips, there's some rewarding treasure hunts despite the level design being bland….on a purely Game perspective, it isn't that special and is probably worse than other 3D platformers of it's time BUT where it really shines and where the charm gets to me in this game is just how much it celebrates and lets you engage with it's crossover. Whether it's trying to evoke a feeling of sadness at a childhood gone by or drama through laughable scenarios involving Disney and Square Enix characters...it's just got real charm and i'm so happy this game exists. I'm even happier that it was successful enough to spawn an entire franchise that still has young kids and grown adults getting hyped for it's next installment. It's a weird kinda magic that I don't think any other game or series has fully replicated. Will the charm wear off I play through more and more of these games? I dunno, we'll see...but for now, Kingdom Hearts, thank you for being really Goofy.

P.S: Simple And Clean is so good

[justanothercinemaniac]

Epic Movie (Re)Watch #162 - The Adventures of Ichabod And Mr. Toad

Spoilers Below

Have I seen it before: Yes

Did I like it then: Yes.

Do I remember it: Yes.

Did I see it in theaters: No.

Format: Blu-ray

1) During World War II, Disney produced a number of “package films” of which this was the last. The war took a number of Disney animators and put a strain on the studio, meaning they had a lot of half ideas which weren’t short enough for a short nor long enough for a feature. So Disney decided to group them together. The results included Fun and Fancy Free, Make Mine Music, Saludos Amigos, The Three Caballeros, Melody Time, and this film. It was after this film that Disney would return to full length stories with 1950′s Cinderella.

2) They key to this working as a package film and not some strange double feature is the live action connecting tissue. Scenes in a library with two disembodied narrators (Basil Rathbone for “The Wind and the Willows” and Bing Crosby for “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”) is a simple thing to help the film feel like a total picture.

The Wind in the Willows

3) As with most Disney films, the supporting characters of Mole, Rat, & Badger are well established through initial introduction and design.

4) There is a nice establishment of Toad’s wild character before we even meet him.

Badger: “What good are his promises when these wild manias take him?”

And then “Merrily on Our Way to Nowhere in Particular” is a strong visual introduction to how nonsensical and merry Toad is.

Toad is largely a selfish character bust still likable and charming. As the narrator observes himself at the end of the segment, we all wish we could be a bit more like him. Enjoy life more, have more adventures, and just have a merry good time. Toad is a wonderful introductory character, with moments like the setting in of his mania being wildly enjoying to watch. But there’s always a bit more to him than we expect. A bit more cleverness and later in the film a bit of regret. A fun character who may not be as much of an icon as Mickey Mouse but still a Disney great nonetheless.

5) One of the ways the “Wind in the Willows” adaptation stands out to me among other pieces of anthropomorphic animals interacting with humans is that the animals are their standard size. I’m so used to a Mickey Mouse being the same size as Donald Duck and such but these creatures are all their normal sizes. It was a small thing but it struck me.

6) It was when Mr. Toad defends himself in court that I remembered an old adage I heard from a lawyer: only an idiot defends themselves.

Toad certainly is that. A little too sure of himself, a little too trusting. Having a real lawyer probably would’ve helped his case.

7) The Weasels.

The weasels have become one of Disney’s most prominently reoccuring bad guys, having memorable roles in Who Framed Roger Rabbit and “Mickey’s Christmas Carol” to start. They might be better remembered for Roger Rabbit than they are for this film, but without the weasels being a standout element in this movie they would not have been in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

8)

Narrator: “Yes, once again it was a White Christmas...”

So Rat and Mole must be visiting Scrooge to ask for some charity at this time.

9) Ah, that 2017 feel.

(GIFs originally posted by @fantasia1940)

10)

Rat [after Badger tells him he found evidence supporting Toad]: “Then Toad was innocent this whole time?”

Was that ever in question? This is a Disney movie. Unless you’re Robin Hood, the title character is not going to be stealing a car.

11) I like how Disney could be a bit more “edgy” back in their early years.

Mole [upon seeing the weasels]: “Oh look, they’re all asleep.”

Badger: “Aye lads, they’re DRUNK!”

12) The chase for the deed to Toad Hall through Toad Hall is a fun bit of animation and includes some great classic gags to it.

(I don’t think the quality of this video is great but it gets across the cartoony slapstick fun I’m talking about.)

13) I find it a tad dissatisfying that Toad ends basically where he started emotionally, but again the narrator observes that we all wish we could be as adventurous as he.

14) This note is less about the film and more about the ride it inspired. “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride” is an attraction which first opened in Disneyland in California (it used to have a twin in Orlando but it was replaced with a Winnie the Pooh ride a believe) where you board a motorcar and ride through town hall...before you get hit by a train and go to hell. That’s right: a Disney ride sends you to hell.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

15) The format of the “Sleepy Hollow” segment of the film relies more heavily on Bing Crosby’s narration than ��The Wind in the Willows” did on Basil Rathbone’s. In fact, it plays out like Crosby is reading out of a storybook with animation put to it. He even voices all the male characters (since they only speak in song).

16) Ichabod Crane.

I am actually very impressed and very grateful with how close this version of Ichabod Crane is to Irving’s original character. In most adaptations of the story (1999′s Sleepy Hollow, the recently cancelled TV show “Sleepy Hollow”) he is made more heroic. Nothing could really be further from the truth from the original source material. His physical ugliness (not so ugly in animation but it is intended as such from a design standpoint) reflects his internal ugliness in a strange way. Ichabod Crane is a glutton. A man full of greed who bases every decision in life on how it will help him get ahead. Even his wanting to be with Katrina is EXCLUSIVELY based on how rich she is and how a marriage to her would give him stature. There is even a theory out there that says Ichabod is the villain of the peace - as his greed and desire for status reflect many other Disney villains such as Jafar from Aladdin and Ursula from The Little Mermaid - while Brom Bones is meant to be the hero.

17) Brom Bones.

One of the earliest lines about Brom Bones is this:

Narrator: “There was no malice in his mischief.”

If we subscribe to the theory that Brom is the real hero of the peace, you can see how it might work. He is a friendly guy even if he is a bit brutish. And he moves against the greedy Ichabod Crane. However, it’s hard to get past his initial bullying of Crane for just existing in the town or the fact he only moves so hard against Crane just because they’re both interested in Katrina. Either way, he’s a solid addition to the film (and even reportedly inspired some of Gaston in Beauty and the Beast).

18) Bing Crosby’s skills as a vocal musician are well featured in the film, with one of my favorite (and underrated) songs being “Ichabod”. It’s a simple toe tapper elevated by Crosby’s skills and serves to very clearly introduce Crane to the town of Sleepy Hollow.

19) Katrina Van Tassel.

So Katrina is...pretty much a female shaped object. She never speaks or sings or anything. Her purpose in the film is literally to be something Brom and Ichabod fight over, and she is “written” as a vain manipulative creature who delights in men fighting over her. And that’s it. That’s her “character”. Usually I try to look for the good in older Disney animated heroines, but I can’t really with Katrina. Ah well.

20) “The Headless Horseman” is another strong example of not only Crosby’s vocals but also the best song in the entire film I think.

According to IMDb:

The song "Headless Horseman" is considered one of the darkest songs written for a Disney film. It, much like "Worthless" from The Brave Little Toaster (1987) and "Hellfire" from The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), was nearly cut from the film.

I’m not familiar with “Worthless” but I do love some dark Disney songs (with “Hellfire” being one of my all time favorites). The song was originally meant to be sung by Thurl Ravenscroft (“You’re a Mean one, Mr. Grinch”, Fritz in The Enchanted Tiki Room, and the lead singer of the Singing Busts in The Haunted Mansion ride) and you can still hear his version on "Walt Disney Records Archive Collection, Vol. 1". Or it’s on YouTube right here.

21) The build up to the final encounter with Ichabod and the Headless Horseman is great. There is an excellent sense of darkness, dismay, and fear. Strong imagery bleeds through the scene (a cloud blocking out the moon like a hand, all the creatures of the forest seemingly saying Ichabod’s name, the reeds beating out like horse hooves) and creates a wonderfully tense buildup to the climactic finale.

22) The Headless Horseman.

According to IMDb:

The Headless Horseman is often cited as being, along with The Horned King in The Black Cauldron (1985) and Chernabog in Fantasia (1940), as one of the scariest villains in the Disney canon. Disney still receives complaints from parents about the character frightening their children.

You can definitely see how that’s true. The sheer design of the Horseman is brilliant. He is dark, ominous, but towering and powerful. He is someone/something you would not want to run into alone on a dark night. His mad cackle and wild horse - along with the iconic flaming pumpkin - just add to the terrifying design. For a character with such a brief amount of screen time, the Headless Horseman is one of the most iconic characters in Disney’s canon.

23) The final chase with Ichabod and the Horseman is incredible. It is tense, scary, filled with action, but still featuring some of the signature cartoony fun that Disney is known for. This isn’t suddenly an R-rated horror film, it’s a Disney film but what Disney looks like when things start to go haywire! The final image alone is iconic in and of itself.

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad is a fun Disney film. A good way to kill only an hour of your time (seriously, it’s just 68 minutes), it features iconic characters, wonderful visuals, strong humor, and a surprising amount of freights. Particularly good for a Halloween viewing, it’s a wonderful piece of animation all around. Give it a watch if you’re ever looking for some old school animated fun.

[saltyr3mix]

Okay someone asked about Winnie in your AUs could I ask about another character?? Maybe Sara?

sure! I'm assuming you want the same format where it's just explaining the sort of role she plays in each au? I think she appears less than Winnie but when she does she plays a stronger role.

To learn from the tragedies: she's just a girl. Shes a bit pushy but that's because she's stressed and fear is influencing s lot of her decisions. (Some one else also might be influencing her decisions in a bit tho) i think the plan is to have her redeemed by the end.

Shattered dreams: uhhh she dies in the end if? That's about it.

I will make them create my world: has the world's most tragic sob story of all time and she was angry about it so she cursed the world to have other people face just as bad a fate she had because she's petty like that.(I only jest about this because I still haven't actually figured out what her tragic backstory is, only that there is one)

Swap au/Skating in silence: she takes Oliver's role and is just tried. Some one let her go home. She doesnt want to be here. She wants her friends back but ends up with a tv on her head with only the hope that maybe her ex boyfriend will be looking for her because every single other person she knows is dead.

One shots/you'll live until I die: she killed people. Ussaly feels bad about it. Possessed by litho during the time most of these fics take place. The Refer to themselves as a singular entity Sara definitely was the one most likely to get redeemed but the others are just sort of there. Doing my best to follow cannon.

Steven universe au: she's a pink diamond in yellows role. She uses her healing powers to preform really crazy experiments in an attempt to save their kind. She's doing what she thinks is helping, but she lacks empathy for the ones she's hurting in the process. Also just kinda crazy.

Superhero au: FINALLY I SWEAR U DINT AKWAYS MAJE HER A VILLAIN GUYS!!! she did like- not bat an eye to the child experimentation and torture and was ready to straight up kill Glitch with out knowing it was Oliver at some point but she learns and has some charter development. When Error starts switching places at stuff she starts to realize her mistakes in her faith to the hero organization but can't find the courage to say it. If error was replaceable who's to say she isn't? Lewis is a little more empathic but she's the rational one most of the time and the pair do their best to save people but can save everyone so it looks bad on them that all the shit that happened to the acrimonies could be traced back to their neglect but their human and didn't know what to do you can't really blame them. Any way her hero name is Pulse and she can control peoples blood!!! :D

Here lies the burried masks: this in my opinion is the most villainous and messed up version of her. Just thinking about some of the stuff she does makes *me* sick. But she also has a reason for it that hasn't been explained yet. Really really really tough backstory that gathers a lot of sympathy to understand her actions but not excuse them. I also love her? She's so fun to write. She's so bonkers it's awesome.

Secret au/Oc au: So. With Winnie it was easier to explain because I have full control of him at all times and I play him. With Sara we kinda pass her around like a doll! We both play her and so she's a little silly type of inconsistent. Uhhhhh I think the major thing about her thats differ from cannon is we accidentally wrote litho out of au. We weren't sure if we wanted him there or not and kept being really vague about it. So he's not there any more? But Sara also isn't.... Evil? Well she's a murderer and a mastermind and most recent interaction was bringing a knife to a fist fight with a 15 year old from another dimension and then breaking his soul so hard he became 3 different people. (That was actually more Winnie's and slightly his sister's fault)

BUT ANYWAY SARA! yeah a lot of character in this au stems just off interactions with others. She and clove had a dynamic. She and joy have a particular dynamic I think. One of my favorite scenes in the whole au is just straight up gaslighting Eric and Lewis. Wiatts dead so I think that's another thing sorta different from cannon is that she won. And so she has a lot more if a ego and is a little more reckless cause there isn't anyone opposing her at the moment.

Maze au: (sorry I forgot about this one with Winnie. Haven't decided where he would be yet only that he's 10000% a half angel and would have been a terrible person to be stuck in the maze with) ANYWAY MAZE AU MAZE AU MAZE AU?!!?! I like the Minecraft series "The outsiders smp" a normal amount I swear- but!!! What would happen if all the wtdw cast were put into a clearing together!!! I don't have a lot of details but I have Sara's design and I love her. She's a half demon who got sentenced to the maze for the murder of three of her co-workers who had been harassing her for years. She's not even all that upset about it. She feels guilty and like she deserves to be there once she gets her memories about it back, but before then she's one of the more energetic faces in the clearing. She says she's a runner and will take maze trips occasionally but does more help in the clearing leading and organizing everything.

Andddddddddd i think that's all the Sara's at the moment? If anyone has any specific aus they want to hear more in agian just shoot me an ask!

I have like 4 other similar ones in my box rn and I'm looking forward to sharing! And I'm glad you guys are liking my aus! But don't be discouraged not to send stuff. I love y'all's asks and plan to answer all of them! It just takes a while!

[ladystylestores]

Edtech is surging, and parents have some notes – TechCrunch

Unlike most sectors, edtech has been booming over the last few months. Flashcards startup Quizlet is now a unicorn, digital textbook company Top Hat is finding unprecedented surges in usage and student success business Edsights raised nearly $2 million from high-profile investors, all from inbound interest. Investors are so confident that homeschooling might become a trend that they just invested $3.7 million in Primer, which creates a “full-stack infrastructure” to help parents get started.

But as tired parents juggle work, family and sanity all day, nearly every day, they say edtech is not a remedy for all education gaps right now.

Parents across all income groups are struggling with homeschooling.

“Our mental health is like whack-a-mole,” said Lisa Walker, the vice president of brand and corporate marketing at Fuze. Walker, who lives in Boston but has relocated to Vermont for the pandemic, has two kids, ages 10 and 13. “One person is having a good day. One person is having a bad day, and we’re just going throughout the family to see who needs help.”

Socioeconomically disadvantaged families have it even worse because resources are strapped and parents often have to work multiple jobs to afford food to put on the table.

One major issue for parents is balancing a decrease in live learning with an uptick in “do it at your own pace” learning.

Walker says she is frustrated by the limited amount of live interaction that her 10-year-old has with teachers and classmates each day. Once the one hour of live learning is done, the rest of the school day looks like him sitting in front of a computer. Think pre-recorded videos, followed up by an online quiz, capped with doing homework on a Google doc.

Asynchronous learning is complicated because, while it is not interactive, it is more inclusive of all socioeconomic backgrounds, Walker said. If all learning material is pre-recorded, households that have more kids than computers are less stressed to make the 8 a.m. science class, and can fit in lessons by taking turns.

“Even though I know there’s a lot of video fatigue out there, I would love there to be more live learning,” Walker said. “Tech is both part of the problem and part of the solution.”

TraLiza King, a single mother living in Atlanta who works full time as a senior tax manager for PWC, points out the downside of live video instruction when it comes to working with younger children.

One challenge is overseeing her four-year-old’s Zoom calls. King needs to be available to help her daughter, Zoe, use the platform, which isn’t intuitive for kids at that age. She helps Zoe log on and off and mute when appropriate so instruction can go on interrupted, ironically enough.

Her 18-year-old college freshman could supervise the four-year-old’s learning, but King doesn’t want her older daughter to feel responsible for teaching. It leaves King to play the role of Zoom tech support, and teacher, in addition to mom and full-time employee.

“This has been a double-edged sword; there’s beauty in it that I get to see what my girls are learning and be a part of their everyday,” she said. “But I am not a preschool teacher.”

Some parents are finding success in pretending it is business as normal. The moment that Roger Roman, the founder of Los Angeles-based Rythm Labs, and his wife saw that there was a shutdown, they scrambled to create a schedule for the children. Breakfast at 6 a.m., physical education right after, and then workbook time and homework time. If their five-year-old checks all the boxes, he can “earn” 30 minutes of screen time.

The Roman family’s schedule for their child.

Technology definitely helps. Roman says he relies on a few apps like Khan Academy Kids and Leapfrog to give him some time to take work calls or meetings. But he says those have been more like supplements instead of replacements. In fact, he says one big solution he found is a bit more low-tech.

“Printers have been a godsend,” he said

The kids being at home has also given the Roman family an opportunity to address the racial violence and police brutality in our country. The existing school curriculums around history have been scrutinized for lacking a comprehensive and accurate account of slavery and Black leaders. Now, with parents at home, those disparities are even more clear. Depending on the household, the gaps around education on slavery can either inspire a difficult conversation on inequality in the country, or leave the talk tabled for schools to reopen.

Roman says he doesn’t remember a time where he wasn’t aware of racism and injustice, and assumes the same will be true for his sons.

“The murders of Ahmaud, Breonna, and George have forced my wife and me to be brutally honest with my five-year-old about this country’s long, dark history of white supremacy and racial oppression,” he said. “We didn’t expect to have these discussions so soon with him, but he’s had a lot of questions about the images he’s been seeing, and we’ve confronted them head-on.”

Roman used books to help illustrate racism to his sons. Edtech platforms have largely been silent on how they’re addressing anti-racism in their platforms, but Quizlet says it is “pulling together programming that can make a real impact.”

What’s next for remote learning?

In light of the struggles parents and educators alike are seeing with the current set of online learning tools and their inability to inspire young learners, new edtech startups are thinking about how the future of remote learning might look.

Zak Ringelstein, the co-founder of Zigazoo, is launching a platform he describes as a “TikTok for kids.” The app is for children from preschool to middle school, and invites users to post short-form videos in response to project-based prompts. Exercises could look like science experiments — like building a baking soda volcano or recreating the solar system from household items — and the app is controlled by parents.

The first users are Ringlestein’s kids. He says they became disengaged with learning when it was just blind staring at screens, leading him to conclude that interaction is key. Down the road, Zigazoo plans to forge partnerships with entertainment companies to have characters act as “brand ambassadors” and feature in the short-form video content. Think “Sesame Street” characters starting a TikTok trend to help kids learn what photosynthesis is all about.

A preview of Zigazoo, a “TikTok for kids” and its video-based prompts“As an educator, I’ve been surprised at how little content exists for parents that is not just entertaining but is actually educational,” he said.

Lingumi is a platform that teaches toddlers critical skills, like learning English. The company began because preschool classes are packed with so many students that teachers can’t give one on one feedback during the “sponge-like years.” Lingumi uses another startup, SoapBox, and its voice tech to listen and understand children, assess how they are pronouncing words and judge fluency.

“Edtech products were designed to work in the classroom and a teacher was supposed to be in the mix somewhere,” said Dr. Patricia Scanlon, the CEO of SoapBox. “Now, the teacher can’t be with the kids individually and this is a technology that gives updates on children’s progress.”

Another app, Make Music Count, was started by Marcus Blackwell to help students use a digital keyboard to solve math equations. It serves 50,000 students in more than 200 schools, and recently landed a partnership with Cartoon Network and Motown records to use content as lessons for followers. If you log onto the app, you are presented with a math problem that, once solved, tells you which key to play. Once you solve all the math problems in the set, the keys you played line up to play popular songs from artists like Ariana Grande and Rihanna.

The app is using a well-known strategy called gamification to engage its younger users. Gamification of learning has long been effective in engaging and contextualizing studies for students, especially younger ones. Add a sense of accomplishment, like a song or a final product, and kids get the positive feedback they’re looking for. The strategy is found in the underpinnings of some of the most successful education companies we see today, from Quizlet to Duolingo.

But in Make Music Count’s case, it’s forgoing gamification’s usual trappings, like points, badges and other in-app rewards to instead deliver something far more fun than virtual items: music that kids enjoy and often seek out on their own.

Gamification, much like technology more broadly, is not all-encompassing of the deeply personal and hands-on aspects of school. Yet that is what parents need right now. We’re left with a reminder that technology can only help so much in a remote-only world, and that education has always been more than just comprehension and test-taking.

The missing piece to edtech: School isn’t just learning, it’s childcare

At the end of the day, if the future of work is remote, parents will need more support with childcare assistants. Some startups trying to help that include Cleo, a parenting benefits startup that recently partnered with on-demand childcare service UrbanSitter.

“As working moms desperate for a solution to the crisis facing parents today, we were focused on developing a solution that didn’t just work for our members and enterprise clients, but also one that we’d use ourselves. After experimenting and trying everything from virtual care to scheduling shifts to looking for new caregivers ourselves, we realized the only solution that would work for families would require a new model of childcare designed for the unique issues COVID-19 has created,” Cleo CEO Sarahjane Sacchetti told TechCrunch in May.

Sara Mauskopf, the co-founder of childcare marketplace Winnie, said that tech companies trying to help remote learning need to remember that “it’s not just the education aspect that has to be solved for.”

“School is a form of childcare,” she said.

“The thing that irks me is that I see these tweets all the time that ‘more people are going to homeschool than ever before,” Mauskopf said. “But no one is going to feed my toddler mac and cheese or change their diaper.”

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[eurolinguiste]

Are you all ready for this month’s #clearthelist? For once, I definitely feel like I am!

If you’re new around these parts, #clearthelist is a linkup where we share our monthly goals, and by we, I mean myself, Lindsay of Lindsay Does Languages, Kris Broholm of Actual Fluency, and Angel Pretot of French Lover.

We’d absolutely love for you to a part of our community. You can join us by adding a link to your own goal post below.

So let’s get started, sharing our goals and motivating one another to #clearthelist!

Please feel free to tag your posts or photos with either #clearthelist on your favorite social media channels!

Last Month’s Highlights on Instagram

  A post shared by Shannon Kennedy (@eurolinguiste) on Feb 25, 2017 at 7:17pm PST

Last Month’s Blog Highlights

Travel

Mad Dumplings // This delicious new food truck I discovered in my area in Southern California.

  Language Learning

10 Ways to Motivate Yourself to Learn a New Language // Even when you don’t feel like studying.

How to Break Through a Language Learning Plateau // Tips for overcoming those brick walls in your study.

When You Hate Studying // How to fall back in love with language learning after experience burnout.

Last Month’s Goals

Continue filling the gaps in my Mandarin vocabulary I’ve noticed since Little Linguist’s arrival. // Yes, I did! I learnt all sorts of words about Dory.

Read one more language related book. // Still working on my Spanish grammar.

Keep playing Zelda Ocarina of Time in Mandarin Chinese. // Nope, not really. Why? This…

Get ahead reading my language reading challenge books. // Yes! I’m one month ahead.

Keep working through my YouTube Queue.  // I kept at this diligently, but because many of the videos are long, the number of items in my watch queue is higher than it was last month (again) because new lessons I want to work on are posted faster than the lessons that I complete.

Keep reading my other Pooh Bear book in Chinese // Four chapters down.In addition to reading four chapters of Winnie the Pooh, I also started reading the Hunger Games in Chinese and worked through and entire Finding Dory book for Little Linguist so he and I could read it together.

Finish adding in my sticky notes to the first Pooh Bear Book. // Yes! This was tough, but I did it.

Have something I’m reading that’s in French or Spanish. // I read a book about the history of Brittany in French and am reading my language reading challenge book in Spanish.

Do at least 15 Pimsleur Chinese V Lessons. // I did my 15 lessons, but didn’t get to Melnyk’s.

This Month’s Goals

Continue filling the gaps in my Mandarin vocabulary I’ve noticed since Little Linguist’s arrival. // As long as I’m still speaking to Little Linguist in Chinese, this one is here to stay. And it will always be a priority.

Read one more language related book. // Actually finish that dang Spanish grammar book.

Keep playing Zelda Ocarina of Time in Mandarin Chinese. // Probably won’t happen. So I’ll count this one if I at least work on transcribing the dialogues from what I’ve already played since I’m backlogged on this, too.

Stay ahead reading my language reading challenge books. // Because I like being on top of things.

Keep working through my YouTube Queue.  // At one point the videos were in the 400+ range. I’m at almost 800… Arg. So much good language content to see.

Keep reading my other Pooh Bear book in Chinese // This is probably the longest Pooh Bear book ever.

Add words from Chinese readings into my Memrise Chinese deck. // It’s one thing to make notes of the words you don’t know in your readings, it’s another to actually convert them into flashcards so you can learn them.

Have something I’m reading that’s in French or Spanish. // I am still working through the books from last month, so as long as I make sure I spend time reading, this is an easy one.

Do the last 15 Pimsleur Chinese V Lessons. // So then I can finally work through Melnyk’s.

Resources I Used This Month

A quick recap on the materials I am using.

What I Am Using to Learn Chinese

LingQ – my new favourite tool, I kid you not

iTalki Lessons – I have weekly Chinese lessons

Pimsleur V 

Memrise – I do 12,000 points minimum per day

ChineseClass101

Melnyk’s

Antosch & Lin email newsletters

FluentU – I watch anywhere from 3-6 videos per day and then work on the “Learning” section for each of the videos

DramaFever

Chinese version of the Nintendo 64

What I’m Using to Brush Up/Improve My French:

LingQ

Immersion (we speak franglais at home)

Reading books written by French authors

Listening to French radio/podcasts

Chatting with family

Watching movies and other videos in French

What I am Using to Learn Russian:

LingQ

Perfectionnement Russe

RussianPod101

iTalki Lessons

The penmanship practice books from Russian Step-by-Step (a lot of you have been asking me about these)

Memrise

Pimsleur

What I am Using to Learn Korean:

LingQ

Memrise

Assimil’s Korean Phrasebook

Pimsleur

Trial of 90 Day Korean

What I am Using to Learn Spanish:

LingQ

Lingoda (use code FM2J6Y )

Coffee Break Spanish

Schaum’s Spanish Grammar

What I’m Using for Little Linguist

Pooh Bear and Baby Bear

Little Pim

Finding Dory

YouTube

Day-to-day interaction

His Chinese lullaby is from Mantou Riji, I also sing him “You are my Sunshine” in Chinese, and his French is Une Souris Verte

The Biggest Lesson I Am Taking Away from This Month

In working through Pooh Bear, I found that I’m not really patient with parts of the process. When I come across Chinese characters I’m unfamiliar with, I don’t always know how they’re pronounced (some I’m able to guess based on the components), so the easiest way for me to translate them and learn their pronunciation is by using the Google Translate camera tool. By the way, this particular tool has been a godsend in learning Chinese. Regardless of it’s convenience, however, it’s a bit annoying to take photos, wait for the the text to scan, then click through for the pinyin. At least in my opinion.

But then I realized if I tapped the characters I was unfamiliar with, but didn’t actually click through for the full translation and pinyin that it saved those words in my history. So I started scanning full pages, clicking on the words, then going to my search history. The process was so much faster.

So what I learnt is that sometimes accidents become the catalyst for making your learning routine more efficient if you aren’t too quick to dismiss them. If anything like this has every happened to you, I’d love to hear about it!

Don’t forget that I would love to hear all about your goals for this month! Please join us by adding your post to the linkup below! 

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[that-shamrock-vibe]

Movie Review: Christopher Robin

Disclaimer: I am posting this review a week after the movie is released in the U.K, so if you haven’t seen the movie and want to go in with a clear mind then don’t read on.

General Reaction:

This movie is such a charming and emotional nostalgia trip to everyone who has grown up with Winnie the Pooh in their lives at some point that I am now thinking Mary Poppins Returns should be very worried, more-so than the worry it should already have for facing off against Aquaman because in terms of pure Disney, Christopher Robin has won the year for me.

Right from the start with that brilliant Disney Castle logo, which by the way when the music started for said logo I found myself asking “I wonder what they’re going to do with it this time?” because it is such a staple at this point for Disney to modify each castle for each movie, but when that logo led into that ingenious opening sequence where the book basically gave us a prologue, it is my favourite Disney opening since 2016’s The Jungle Book where the movie started by zooming out from the castle into the jungle.

As I said before, it is a nostalgia trip for anyone who grew up with Winnie the Pooh old or young. I myself grew up with the films, animated serials and books of Pooh, Christopher Robin, their friends and their adventures. I may not have been as interested in those books as I was the other Disney books because they were straight forward adaptations of the films, but I still enjoyed them at the time. It is also something I hope to keep alive by telling and showing my kids if/when I have them. Winnie the Pooh for me is the symbol of pure innocence and this movie highlights that beautifully, it and he epitomize the definition of childlike wonder which is not only an appropriate message for children but, as this movie points out, an appropriate message for adults who may have lost that childlike wonder.

For that reason, this is potentially a movie that probed more brooding questions than any movie I’ve seen, including Avengers: Infinity War. Walking home from the cinema with my partner, we did have quite a deep conversation about the things that Christopher went through in this movie; growing up, entering the real working world and losing that childlike wonder so then having to find it again. Also part the way through this movie during the scene from the trailers where Christopher and Pooh are on the train, my partner turned to me and said that they showed many similarities to the two of us with him being Christopher and me being Pooh.

Yes, I will admit I have never had a 9to5 job aside from one that lasted three days and my current part-time employment is once maybe twice a month, so I have not had that childlike spark squashed out of me by the working world. That’s not to say I don’t know the harsh realities of the world but I do keep that childlike spark alive in everyday life and that keeps me positive through the hard times. For a Disney movie no less to not only bring out that realisation but provoke it is something remarkable.

This movie is very much a sucker punch of emotion right the way through; not only the opening with a young Christopher Robin leaving Pooh and his friends to go to boarding school but also the neglect he shows his daughter and his old friend when Pooh returns for his help and Pooh asks Christopher “Did you let me go?” in response to Christopher talking about his job and having to potentially fire a bunch of people.

It was a real heartstring pulling moment and so relatable to anyone who has or has had an emotional attachment to a beloved childhood toy. Again, it is I am sure part of growing up and joining the real world and reminds me of another Disney classic Bedknobs and Broomsticks and the song “The Age of Not Believing”, but the beauty of this movie is it does show how to reclaim that childhood wonder.

I also love some of the great quotes this movie had, the writing by the way was very mature for a property aimed at children, but some of these expressions are very much life lessons for kids and adults. True life isn’t always balloons and honey but in the same line of thought doing nothing can often lead to the best something. For that reason, even though the main bulk of this movie is set soon after World War II but the movie feels timeless because of the messages and themes it brings out.

Now I said Mary Poppins Returns should feel nervous after this movie, but I think the first victim of this movie is Simon Curtis’ Goodbye, Christopher Robin released in 2017 and starring Domhnall Gleeson as Winnie the Pooh author A.A. Milne which is a biographical movie akin to Saving Mr. Banks but aside from one trailer I never heard anything more about it. This movie however like I said will go down as a timeless loveable telling of a Winnie the Pooh story.

Cast:

Now this isn’t an in-depth character analysis review like my blockbuster spoiler reviews, so I will not be talking about the cast individually and rather in groups.

The star is very much definitely Ewan McGregor in the starring role as Christopher Robin, Ewan McGregor is one of those actors like Hugh Jackman who just oozes charm and charisma. You can tell he’s a nice guy in his interviews and that likeability carries over in his performances even when he’s playing a not-so-nice guy. Yes when we first meet Ewan McGregor as Christopher Robin here he is a man beaten by the real world who has lost his childlike wonder and has a steel rod up his butt, but as the movie goes on and he regains that childlike spark you can tell it isn’t forced and it just comes effortlessly to him.

The fact he acted for most of the movie on-set with toys that were anthropomorphised in post was great, in fact in an interview he had he did say that he acted with the stuffed bear in different positions to get that feel of Pooh actually being there.

It was also great to see Hayley Atwell in a different role to what I’ve seen her in before, yes, I know she can be humorous, but Peggy Carter always had a short dry humour whereas here, one of my favourite lines was her first interaction with Eeyore it just made me laugh so much.

Also, Bronte Carmichael is the first child actor in a pure Disney movie who never has a cringe moment for me. I thought the fact Madeline was Christopher’s anchor to his childhood, but she didn’t realise it was a great realistic plot-point.

Then there’s Mark Gatiss and he is a typical pantomime kid’s movie villain like Nicole Kidman in Paddington complete with bad wig. He was terrible in the role and it was interesting to see Gatiss play a pantomime villain type of character.

Now before talking about the voice cast I want to quickly talk about the technology that went into bringing Pooh and his friends from the Hundred Acre Wood to life in live-action. Firstly, there were toy versions of Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Kanga and Roo created for the film and used in scenes involving them. Then they had a scanned virtual copy created of each toy and those versions were anthropomorphised and put into the final film. This is such a brilliant step forward in technology and also a great promotion tool by Disney because they now have exact toy replicas to sell.

Jim Cummings has of course been Winnie the Pooh since Sterling Holloway passed away as well as voicing many other characters including here Tigger. However, because Pooh and Kaa have always shared the same voice actor and both haven’t really done much to distinguish the characters apart from each other it was slightly funny in places to hear Pooh say one or two lines that I can’t think of at this moment that reminded me more of Kaa than Pooh. Also, I didn’t know Cummings voiced Tigger which shows his range as an actor.

Brad Garrett returns as Eeyore, purely because I think he, as well as Jim Cummings, are too distinct in their roles to be changed. I have always loved Eeyore, he’s always been one of my favourite characters of the bunch and the fact the character is essentially a depiction of depression makes for some rather funny lines.

Peter Capaldi is having an interesting time in these adaptations of beloved bears having also appeared in Paddington, here he voices Rabbit who I always saw either as a female or a very effeminate if not outright closeted LGBT character. Now that’s not to say he has to be effeminate to also be LGBT but how he was always depicted in animation was always angling that way. But Capaldi made his voice almost unrecognizable while still keeping Rabbit’s iconic eccentricities.

Toby Jones was quite an interesting choice for Owl, Owl was always depicted as the old and wise member of the group and that to me does not equate to Toby Jones, but I was overall happy with his voicework and it didn’t take me out of the movie.

Nick Mohammed was the only voice that didn’t fit for me as Piglet, the voice felt a little bit too forced to try and be the timid and nerve-wrecked sidekick that Pooh is the older brother/father figure to. Again, it wasn’t enough to take me out of the movie and I did enjoy his character, but it just didn’t click for me like it did with the others.

Kanga and Roo were the only two who weren’t that well developed for me but in a cast focusing on 11 characters there’s always bound to be one or two that get left in the background and Roo at least did get some good lines it just wasn’t enough to stand out amongst the crowd.

Recommendation:

This is a movie to be seen and enjoyed by everyone of every age. If you are in the generations who have grown up with the A.A. Milne stories or the Disney animated adaptations, then you will enjoy the nostalgia trip. If you are bringing infants who are being introduced to Winnie the Pooh for the first time I do think it is a great place to start. As I said this is something I hope to show my kids if/when I have them just as I hope they enjoy growing up with Winnie the Pooh and the adventures of the Hundred Acre Wood just as I and many others have done.

Overall I rate this movie a solid 9/10, it was a real feel good movie and something I recommend everyone to see who has maybe lost that childlike wonder in their lives because hopefully this will help them find it again.

So that’s my review of Christopher Robin what did you guys think? Post your comments and check out more Disney Movie Reviews as well as other Movie Reviews and posts.