#but it does give me a singular line of dialogue that is fun to think about. would jason kill tim if he thinks it would help.

[spiritsglade]

Having many many thoughts I am trying and completely failing to articulate about Jason's canonical moral code so instead have a series of panels relevant to that conversation and some incoherent rambling after them.

Batman: Under the Hood #7

Batman: Under the Hood #10

Batman: Under the Hood #11

Red Hood: Lost Days #6

Green Arrow #72

Robin #177

Some of my personal takeaways:

There's this general idea that fear doesn't work and you need to get your hands dirty to get what you want. Alfred's monologue goes on to talk about how "power could be levied with the threat of murder" but lowkey Jason does not think a mere threat is enough.

It is interesting that he looks down at Black Mask for the way he rules. Because Mask is entirely okay with murder and has absolutely been up close and personal and has done it himself.

He is willing to kill people out of practicality, if killing them means he can get to whatever his goal is. From above: people who stand in his way, the henchmen who would be less suspicious if they were dead instead of missing, and Tim, allegedly.

[lilliezzzzz-fics]

Mario Karting

including: alex albon, yuki tsunoda, dino beganovic, lance stroll + isack hadjar author's note: blame my mario kart addiction for this <3 also finally writing for dino, which is great because i love him, but also means i have a chance to include swedish in my writing! hooray! reader is gn, no use of y/n <3 warnings: mentions of food (yuki). minor swedish dialogue (dino), i think that's it? just fluffy ! word count: 1.3k (200-ish each)

★ Alex Albon

he always—and i mean always plays yoshi

if anyone else tries to take him from him, he gives them the dirtiest glare

whenever he and you play against each other, somehow one of your pets always end up in the way

either sitting in his lap or yours, or maybe even sitting in front of the screen somehow

then, when he makes his kart he does speed > acceleration > grip > handling > weight

his favourite cup to play with you is the lightning cup

he gets to first and then gets red shelled like twice in a row and falls down the pack to like 7th

gets so, so stressed but he hides it well, just lets out a heavy sigh when the race is over

he's very competitive too―he probably uses all his items on you whenever you're in front of him

lets out such a laugh when you get mad at him

it's the funniest thing ever according to him

although, if you get above him he gets very happy because you seem very proud of yourself

probably complementing you with a smile on his face

but when you threaten to steal his seat at williams he takes it all back

“Mate, that's just not fair, now is it?” Alex exclaims, his hands gripping the controller.

“What happened?”

“I just got fucking red shelled twice!” He groans, “I swear, like, they're targeting me or something.”

You laugh at him, softly bumping his shoulder with yours, “maybe you're just bad.”

“Take that back!”

★ Yuki Tsunoda

i think he'd play like tanooki mario or baby mario

his karts always priorities speed over all else, less weight too―he probably doesn't have too much acceleration on them though

he loves the shell cup, he is actually godlike at moo moo meadows

and he is so incredibly competitive, like he starts kicking you whenever you get too close to his character―ending up in a semi-brawl against each other

he's surprisingly strategic too, like purposely falling back a little to get the bullet, then getting to the front with mushrooms and just dominating

takes it super seriously. it's his life on the line, actually

oh and he makes sure to have snacks for you two ready 

dried fruits, chocolate, chips―pretty much anything that you want, he has on the table

even homemade snacks if any of you are craving them

though he denies that he made it for you, for his pride, he insists

he actually screeches whenever he gets hit by a projectile, blabbering curses to whoever threw them

even at you

but in the end it's all just in good fun, he never actually gets mad nor do you

except when he throws a blue shell when you're in front, of course

then it's over for him

“Haha!” Yuki grins as he flies to the front with his items.

“How did you get that?!” You pout, eyes still locked on the screen, watching as he passes by you with a golden mushroom.

“Strategy, obviously. You're just not Mario Karting on my level.”

★ Dino Beganovic

he mains koopa troopa for no reason other than “he’s funny”

and his favourite cup is the egg cup, he just really likes dragon driftway

talking about drifting

he is actually incredible when it comes to drifting and doing tricks

he never misses a singular one, and you have zero clue how he does it

it’s like magic or something

but he also gets terrible luck when it comes to items, and he’s not particularly good with them either

the number of times he's either a) thrown a bomb and proceeded to drive into it, and b) thrown a green shell that just ends up hitting him couldn’t even be counted on two hands

not only that, but he fumbles or gets shelled so much

it’s kind of pitiful, like you feel so bad when you see his number just fall from 1 to 3, to 4, and even 6

and he doesn’t rage much, but when he does he rages in swedish

he does refrain from doing so majority of the time, but it is fun to witness

either way, when you do start to feel bad when he falls down the pack, it usually doesn’t stay that way long

somehow he always manages to climb back into top 3

it gets irritating sometimes, however, that never lasts because he just looks so pretty when he’s proud of himself

give him a little victory smooch for me, please <3

“Men asså! Din jävla—ugh, gud…” Dino groans as yet another shell flies into him, “Jag svär om det kommer en till-”

There’s a brief pause, and you can’t help but snicker at Dino’s dramaticism.

“Calm down, it’s not like it’s the end of the world.”

“But it is!”

*translation 1: "oh my! you fucking—ugh, god..."

*translation 2: "i swear if there's another one-"

★ Lance Stroll

he’d main rosalina, maybe? or maybe lakitu or shy guy—any one of them

his favourite cup by far is the flower cup, mainly because first off, it’s not too intense

and secondly, he just thinks it's cute

whenever you play, it’s usually very casual—you mostly play on either 100cc or 150cc if you’re feeling a little competitive

the two of you just laze on his couch with your limbs entangled, eyes trained on the screen and just having fun

it’s genuinely very sweet 

he never really rages at mario kart either, he doesn’t take it serious enough

although whenever he wins or gets top 3, he does get happy (even though it is almost every race that he does)

just this silly cute grin plastered on his face

especially when you’re also winning with him!

just smiling softly while saying, “did you see that drift?”

and you just smile back

he’s so cute!!! how could you not?

The two of you are sitting on Lance’s couch, in his living room, your head resting on his shoulder, your eyes glued to the screen as you drive around the Mario Kart racetrack. 

There’s only you, him, the TV, and the game's sound. It’s comforting, warm, and Lance’s heartbeat is a steady rhythm beating by your ear.

“Ooo! Did’ya see that?” he murmurs against your scalp, his voice is soft—barely audible as he presses a soft kiss against your head, “that drift was insane.”

“I’m sure it was.”

★ Isack Hadjar

he’s a toad main, and i feel like further elaboration is unnecessary

playing mario kart is basically him driving f1, it’s life or death for him, and he will play as competitively as possible

in a boyfriend™ way, of course

the two of you play on 150 or 200cc at all times, always fully locked in

his favourite cup is also the triforce cup because he thinks it is hilarious when you either fall off the map or something

(he gets mad when he does, though)

when you get too close, just like yuki, he will kick you 

it’s all fun and games, though! he only does it when he knows you don’t mind

oh whenever he sees you in front and he just happens to have a projectile—he throws it immediately

just to see that grumpy expression 

he genuinely just says something like, “tough luck, babe” and laughs

karma is a bitch, though, and like ten seconds after you see him fly past your screen but backwards because he got hit by lightning and then red shelled

he also swears in his mother tongue, like yelling because this game is broken! 

afterwards, the two of you make up with a soft exchange of kisses and watch youtube, muttering truce? truce.

A wave of pride washes over you as you see the number in the corner turn into a one as you overtake Princess Peach for first place. You let out a triumphant yes! and the exact moment you do, you hear a mischievous laugh from Isack.

You feel doom approaching as you hear how a shell approaches. 

“You are fucking with me, Isack! Seriously?”

“Blame the game, not the player.” He laughs.

©lilliezzzzz-fics: please don't copy or distribute my work on any platform

[meraki-yao]

RWRB Full-Cast Audiobook Imaginations

So with the sequel on the horizon, we’re not that far from a full-cast re-recording of the audiobook, right?

I listen to the audiobook more than I read the book, mostly because I can listen to it while doing other stuff, and no offence to the original narrator, but while it’s good, it’s not the best. I kind of cringe at his British accent for Henry.

So I have a lot of thoughts.

The thing is with an audiobook, we can get both the wonderful vocal performance of the movie cast, and the iconic book lines, the ones that didn’t, and frankly, could never have made it into the movie due to format restrictions:

Sexy explicit sex scenes

Sexy explicit sex lines “For fuck’s sake, man, you just had my dick in your mouth, you can kiss me good-night”, “I want you to fuck me”, “I’ve been thinking about your mouth on me all well”

Emails in their entirety

Email openings and endings “Huge Raging Heache Prince Henry of Who Cares”, “First Son of Shirking Responsibilities”, “Horrible Revolting Heir”, “First Son of Founding Father Sacrilege”, “Haplessly Romantic Heretic Prince Henry the Utterly Daft”

Email historical quotes “The whole is a mass of fools and knaves; I could almost except you”, “I meet you in every dream”

Swearing and explicit language “fucking shit” “I fucking love you, okay?”

Internal Struggle

Iconic lines that didn’t make it into the movie for adaptation and story purposes “I’m never gonna love anybody in the world like I love you” “I love him on purpose”, “America, he is my choice”

Like, imagine hearing all of this in Taylor, in Nick, in Sarah and Uma and Ellie and Rachel and Thomas and Aneesh and Cfiton etc etc 's voice. Just imagine it!!!

Another thing to add is that to put it in simple terms, the current version of the audiobook does the dialogue lines closer to theatre acting: more enunciated, more inflection, and slower. Which is fine in its own right (I’m a theatre kid). But with the cast audiobook, hopefully, we can get them to do something closer to film acting, i.e. closer to reality, reading the lines as they would if they were to shoot those scenes.

Which is gonna make big moments like sexy times and confrontations a lot of fun :D

And something really entertaining to think about is now that we also know the cast and their dynamic is thinking about how much fun they would have while recording the book, especially when they have scenes together. And it’s not necessarily just Taynick, it’s group scenes with the whole Super Six, like the karaoke scene in chapter seven, or the Texas Holiday Scenes with Firstprince and Junora.

Like, Imagine it, the actors in the same recording studio, maybe even on the same couch:

Taylor and Nick laughing while reading off the insults from the earlier frienemies days of their relationship

Taylor and Nick squirming and playfully hitting each other when recording lines for sexy scenes like the first night, or the tack room, or Wimbledon

The cast shouting and booing (playfully) whenever someone messes up a line in their group scenes

The chaotic fun that is the LA karaoke scene, everybody’s laughing, Ellie gets to be the singular sober person while everyone else acts drunk, Nick singing Don’t Stop Me Now shittier (Nick has the voice of an angel but book Henry can’t sing for shit),

Taylor and Nick giving each other hugs after screaming at each other for the Kensington confrontation

Nick grinning smugly at every book height difference mention (:<

More of Taylor speaking Spanish!!!

Thomas gets to be a proper asshole villain who later turns into awkward older brother who's trying

Ellie gets to do the pie metaphor grief monologue  

Taylor gets to do another speech (he’s really good at delivering speeches)

 I want to quickly reiterate that I am in no way unhappy with what we got in the end for the movie; I love it to pieces. However, as Matthew and Casey said, there are two “canonical” versions of the story now, and since audiobooks are an option, it would be really nice to connect this aspect of the movie verse with the book verse in some sort of middle ground.

So yeah Audible? Amazon? Get on with it!!!

@almightaylor this was the long post I mentioned, I literally started this in July lol

[frostyblustar]

First off: I absolutely LOVED „stray, the wolf will eat your head“!!

Second: PLEASE DO TELL ME MORE ABOUT THE DETAILS AND SYMBOLISM IN IT!!

Oh my god where do I even start with this fic?? I’m just gonna talk about random things that pop in my head as I scroll through (this is gonna be long)

The Path is literally called ‘dull’ ‘straight’ and ‘boring’ but also ‘safe’. This alludes to the Path being a metaphor for straightness.

Why is the forest filled with seemingly random objects/places-? They pertain to Nico’s identity, but also queerness can seem confusing.

The singular boot represents Nico’s initial loneliness. They come in pairs, and he has no Bianca or Percy at this time. He feels utterly alone, and feels alone in his own struggles and initial feelings about the forest.

Why is Bianca mentioned to have a more gray dress than white when she’s based on the Girl in White from The Path?… Because it would make her ‘The Girl in Gray’ but I don’t think anyone has catched on to that. Also she represents a sense of innocence before venturing into the world/experiencing a traumatic event, similar to The Girl in White from The Path.

The wolf will eat your head is essentially saying if you trust a wolf, you’re brainless. They take away your wits. There is also the scarecrow with no head in the flower field that is kind of a mockery of this.

Where is Bianca’s body?

Her bones are in the scarecrow in the flower feild. Since she serves as a strawman for a lot of people arguing against the forest. She was stuffed in there by one of those people long after her death. She is resentful of her lover who left her body to rot.

How did she die?

Dirt. A mudslide. Yeah the line ‘You make it sound like the dirt killed your family.’ is supposed to be irony, but since Bianca’s death is never mentioned it’s not really anything you’d catch onto, just background info.

The sword in the stone reference is just based on Nico’s love for stories, but he also gains a means of defending himself through it if needed. I believe this could mean he finds stories like these fuel his curiosity and give him wits to hold up on his own? But really it’s just a fun thing.

Dianthus and green carnations are the two flowers in the flower field. Dianthus mean ‘Flowers of the gods’ while green carnations represent homosexuality.

The powerlines between two poles represent Percy and Nico having a connection.

Piano and flute. The piano is supposed to represent Italian heritage while the flute is a symbol of nature. Also, I looked up ‘gay instruments’ and a lot of people think flute players are stereotypically gay so… Yeah…

Why does Percy wear blue? Well cause boy in blue cmon I CANNOT PASS THAT UP! Blue also represents a lot of things like freedom, open spaces like the sky, and a lot of the times sadness.

Who is Percy referring to when he says he knew someone who knew flowers well? Honestly, probably Calypso, but it’s 100% an ex he had to leave after being treated like shit for being bisexual. That’s all I had written out for that. If you don’t like Calypso, I also thought Jason might fit this ex role.

Spotted feathers, from what I found, represent a scattered mind (which is why they bother Nico specifically after Percy is talking) I also used removing them as a way of showing Nico rebelling against society/tradition.

A lot of the language used is supposed to be transferrable into a different context. Replacing the forest with homosexuality makes things super obvious. Honestly too much of the dialogue is supposed to be like that.

Anyways that’s all I got off the top of my head, thanks for reading. Ask any more questions if you want, start a thread even! I can definitely elaborate on even things I’ve already brought up if you want that.

The link to the fic I’ve been talking about by the way.

[beevean]

I keep not understanding what exactly are Lenector shippers seeing in their "dynamic". At least they agree that it had poor development, but then what is the appeal?

If you like the abusive, toxic, manipulative, imbalanced, BDSM, "good boy" part of S3, there's none of it in S4. Hector and Lenore talk like good friends, without a hint of their previous sexual tension, unless her puerile dick jokes are what passes as tension now.

If you like them as foils, if you see Lenore as the only person who has ever been kind to Hector, if you think it's romantic that the two want to protect each other in S4, then you have to ignore or justify Lenore's previous physical, mental, emotional and sexual abuse of Hector.

And if the appeal is the "development" (which one of these commenters called "enemies/lovers", literally where, Hector was never Lenore's enemy, he was her victim)... then it sucks majorly. There is no development. There's a switch! Like someone changed the radio station! It's jarring! And there is no good way to fill in the gaps without downplaying the horrible things Lenore did to Hector, or without justifying them because "she only meant well 🥺 it was the best solution 🥺", which makes me want to tear my face off my skull.

In fact... Lenore really didn't develop at all. I talked before about Hector in S4, who regressed to the point where he'd want Dracula back just to feel better about his mistakes and never addresses his apathy towards humanity or his tendency to cling to people who give him scraps of appreciation, but a similar thing happened to Lenore. Remember these wonderful lines:

"Oh, shush, you were having fun."

"I'm sorry for everything you went through."

Lenore doesn't care. She doesn't care that she has hurt Hector, that she has used his feelings to lie to his face and force him into an arrangement he hadn't consented to. She doesn't apologize for her own actions. She doesn't even try to explain herself, only retorting Hector's understandable irritation at the ring against him - "well you got hard, what are you complaining about?". Because that's what relationships are in this show: nothing but "cute" banter meant to camouflage abuse.

Oh, she wants to "protect him"? Big deal. She still doesn't seem him like a person who can be hurt by her actions. She still fits the description of vampiric love Carmilla gave in S2. He's still her pet in her eyes, even if she does nothing with it. Nothing has changed. She has just lost sexual interest in him, because now it's no longer fun to put a leash on him and talk to him like a dog. She got what she wanted, so now there's no point in flirting and being nice to him :)

Lenore is nothing more than a power-hungry coward when you read between the lines, less interested in power over the world (which she dislikes) and more in power over singular people. She's happy to beat Hector to an inch of his life when he's weak and in a cell, to prove that she's not to be underestimated, but when she is in a cage, she won't attempt a damn thing to flee it or protect herself from Isaac. She stops molesting flirting with Hector once he gains more confidence, because flirting for her is a mere weapon to psychologically bend someone to her will. After she "solved Hector's problem", she does nothing but whine because she doesn't know what to do, because she feels useless - her spending time with Hector seems nice on the surface, but it might also be seen as her going to be a brat to the only one willing to tolerate her. And, of course, the dialogue frames her choice to kill herself not as her being horrified at her own nature and what it has lead her to do, because villains in this show get to be painted as tragic without doing the work to earn it (*coughcoughdraculaandisaac*), but as her wanting to flee her cage - her position of powerlessness. Not even spending a few more decades with Hector, the man she supposedly has grown to care about and who only wants her in his life, is worth not being in total control.

And the clincher? This doesn't sound bad for a villain! Selfish and pathetic at the same time, under a veneer of "kindness" or "good intentions": that's interesting! And if this had been intended, good job for not spelling it out like I'm stupid, allowing me to put the pieces together? Problem is, the story and its fans insist that actually Lenore is a great person and she really liked Hector no really they should have stayed together and married each other because aren't they so uwu and 🥺 and why couldn't the story give the abusive rapist a second chance 🥺

And I can't see it. I can't. The deeper I look into this story, the more rot I unearth. And it's definitely not because I don't like unhealthy ships; in fact it's precisely because of it that I think this example is terrible. I haven't even touched other issues such as how I don't care for the power imbalance because I'm prevented from caring for the lump of flesh in the shape of Hector in S3 lol.

And to be honest, the more I see fans complaining about the lack of screentime, the more I suspect that the appeal of Lenector is the same as Trephacard's: you get to make shit up in your head and ignore what the screen shows you. Which sure you can do that, but then the actual story doesn't deserve praise, does it?

[nyalisa-landale]

I think my main problem with dawntrail's writing is that none of the characters have ever read a science fiction novel in their entire lives, because science fiction hasn't been invented yet on etheirys, so obviously they can't tell what's going on from a mile away even though I, the player, can. (more of me thinking through this, spoilers for the whole damn msq):

the problem is that my main wol is "me if I got isekaied into the game a year after I started playing it", and I have read several science fiction novels in my entire life, in addition to having been raised on a steady diet of farscape, stargate: sg1, and star trek: enterprise supplemented by tng and tos. so she's got plenty of "educated guesses", to borrow a phrase from the msq, about where all this is going.

but the story has to constantly repeat itself because gamers can't fucking read and a chunk of the playerbase still thinks garlemald was the good guys and a lot of the audience probably wasn't raised on the early sci-fi channel's offerings or the japanese equivalent (which I suspect is a steady diet of gundam). and the wol has never been written as one of the educated adults in the room; that's what we have the nerd squad for. and the wol waits around for them to do all the smart people stuff, except sometimes for a dialogue choice where one option is to prove you've been following the conversation just fine and the other is to ask alphinaud to explain in little words.

the game's always kind of been like this, and I like it just fine, but then you combine it with all the little stuff like how when the group splits up to do stuff, we're always paired with lamaty'i and never anyone else, with the Singular exception of shaaloani, which is also the most attention the story pays to erenville for its entirety even though his home was destroyed and his mom's fucking dead and now only lives in the matrix (I have not yet been to the matrix but I do know that it's zone 6, and I'm not hopeful of erenville getting the focus he should there). and krile! she was supposed to be a big player here, we literally learn about her past and where she came from, and she gets like five lines of dialogue per zone and all of them are super generic.* what's she thinking? how does she feel about all this? idk, maybe we'd find out if the story ever let us hang out with anyone other than lamaty'i!

and to be clear: I like lamaty'i! you can tell because I consistently only refer to her as lamaty'i instead of wuk lamat! I wanna take her on a world tour, ostensibly for Diplomacy but mostly because I think she'd have a great time and it would be super fun!

but like, I would like to be able to check in with all my other friends, too! and I know she's Extremely Orange Cat Coded but I'm pretty sure she, at the very least, should be like. checking in with erenville, her childhood friend???? the story keeps telling us they're friends, but it feels more like they're two kids whose parents were friends and who were therefore forced into each other's company a lot, but not like actual friends. like we know erenville was a fussy kid so him being really snarky kind of tracks, but when you combine it with lamaty'i's general lack of... idk, care? checking in? I mean, nobody's really checking in with erenville and seeing how he's handling things, and maybe it's because the scions just generally don't really know him very well but they do know he's pretty private and therefore think giving him space is best, and that if he's struggling he'll reach out. but lamaty'i and him are supposed to be actual friends, and until about three years ago when he left for sharlayan they seem to have been spending a lot of time together, even if it was just because erenville's mom dumped him at the palace so she could go run off and have adventures (cahciua doesn't seem to have been a very good mom tbh, but maybe zone 6 will change my opinion). like. lamaty'i should know erenville well enough to feel comfortable actually checking in on him and making sure he's all right. but she just. doesn't do that. which leaves the lingering impression that they're not actually friends.

(part of this is that nobody ever fucking touches anyone in this game. it's super super rare - see me yelling about somebody finally fucking hugging gulool ja earlier. I get that they don't like to rig anyone physically interacting with the wol, because they could be anywhere between lalafell and roegadyn or hrothgar-sized and that's fucking awkward and a pain in the ass, but lamaty'i reads as a super physical person and even her just bumping shoulders with erenville once or twice and like. having one singular moment with erenville where she's like "I'm here for you" and gives him a reassuring bicep squeeze would go a long fucking way to establishing them as people who actually like each other.)

* literally nothing about the story so far would change if krile had been like some random orphan from the isle of val and just. found an old letter to her grandpa from gulool ja ja containing the earring and decided to go see what all that was about. if the two lalas from alexandria had just smuggled out the key and the earring, instead of those AND their baby. hell, she doesn't even have to be galuf's adopted granddaughter, she's just The Only Person Who Survived Val Disappearing so she's in charge of the students now! here's this letter to our organization's founder from across the globe, let's go see what that's all about! but she is his adopted granddaughter, and also g'raha's foster sister, another relationship that dawntrail has seemingly entirely forgotten about. although I suppose it doesn't matter, since krile sure doesn't seem to have any kind of emotions or even really reactions to learning about her original parents or where she came from, so what would she need reassurance from her literal older brother for? (unrelated I hate hate hate that krile's one of the youngest scions even though she's so extremely older sister coded. she's only older than the twins and maybe tataru? it just doesn't make sense to me.)

SO ANYWAY I think my ultimate conclusion for alisa being so blasé about plot developments and probably being stoned the whole msq because goddammit she's on vacation, is that aside from zoraal ja thinking he's zenos and definitely not being zenos, alisa has correctly identified sphene's entire deal as being shadowbringers writ small, and sphene's definitely not emet-selch, so alisa can just kinda hang out and let lamaty'i prove her mettle and only jump in if she asks to use a lifeline. this is a problem to be solved by having eight warm bodies to throw at it, not a problem that actually Requires the warrior of light. I almost even wanna take off her serious title since she's not taking this very seriously, but I know it's going to become relevant later because I couldn't stop clicking on spoilers lol

[aurata-rin]

Fate/Grand Order Gudaguda 2021 (Ryouma Close Call) - Final chapter summary

Buckle up friends this is a long one because there was so much good dialogue I wanted to include.

Arrow 1

The giant robot towers over the city of Saitama. This is the thing Takasugi had in the works. The Grail, Nobunaga's head, and Ama-no-Sakagami were all part of the plan. An artificial god to rewrite the Singularity. Ama-no-Sakagami protests; Takasugi's part of their deal was to create a body for it. And he did -- but he never said Ama-no-Sakagami would be able to use it as it pleased. Takasugi's specialty is vague negotiations, after all. The artificial god, Arahabaki, absorbs Ama-no-Sakagami. Takasugi then turns to Chaldea's Master. He seeks to create a true Restoration; a world in which weakwilled leaders cease to be, and only an absolute king remains. But such a king can't be a human, otherwise the nation won't change. Thus, he concluded it had to be an king that is eternal. That is his creation, the Arahabaki.

Takechi disagrees with Takasugi's ideals, but Takasugi stands firm in that the imperial court would never bring true change. Neither would Tokugawa. It's all futile as long as a human stands at the top. Humans cannot regulate humans. Master points out that thing does not have the will of a person, and Takasugi knows. He knows it might be stupid. But, well, if it's amusing, that's fine for him. Takechi thinks he's lost his mind, or that he's fallen under the influence of Ama-no-Sakagami. He can't completely deny it -- but that's fine, too. In any case, he'll test his new god out on this rabble. Takechi asks him if he likes persimmons, giving way for an old proverb: "planted peach and chestnut trees bear fruit in three years, persimmons bear fruit in eight." It takes times for one's actions to bear fruit. He's reluctant to steal given Takasugi's worked so hard for this... but he'll be taking those persimmons.

A magic field actives above the city. Okuni is up there. It's a grand sealing boundary field handed down from the Age of Gods. She'll be sealing away that Arahabaki. Takasugi laughs; there's no way a single Servant such as herself can seal it away. Which is exactly why Okuni has brought a guest! The so-called first shrine maiden, the queen of Yamatai; Himiko. Arahabaki can't move now that team Chaldea has stolen away all his magic furnaces to supply it. They've used that gathered magical energy to create the boundary field. Takasugi is angry; he thought they destroyed the furnaces, but they pillaged them instead. Takechi reminds him he did say he'd have those persimmons. This was all Ryouma's plan. Okuni bids everyone look to the sky. Is it a bird? A UFO? No, it's the star of Ranmaru that lights up the night sky! Mysterious Ranmaru X! A light travels across the sky and plummets towards the ground. Ranmaru has Chacha and Nagayoshi with her. They're going to charge into Arahabaki. It's no match for Nagayoshi's spear. He uses his Noble Phantasm. Chacha grabs the box with Nobunaga's head while they're inside the machine god, and they swiftly exit. Takasugi, on the other hand, is pleased. Had everything gone as he'd planned, it'd be dull. It's time to settle things. He'll wager everything on Arahabaki. A battle starts.

Arrow 2

The Chaldea team continues to try to bring down Arahabaki. Takasugi is getting frustrated. He wants them to let him enjoy this fully -- and then he coughs blood.

Takechi: "Takasugi...?" Takasugi: "...What's this? Hey, don't tell me it's this again? You've got to be kidding me. Why, when I was just about to have some fun?" Takechi: "Don't tell me... your body..." Takasugi: "Is this as far as I go towards becoming a Heroic Spirit? Couldn't it at least have waited a little longer? Let me die fighting. I've never heard of an evil boss dying from illness." Takechi: "This is the end of the line, Takasugi. In the end, we're deceased bodies. Creating a new world should be left to people who are alive like her, after all." Takasugi: "... Dead people can't make a country, huh. Takechi, you're really not a funny guy."

Takasugi coughs, then admits defeat. He's happy with what he managed to do. However, he doesn't get to bow out that easily. Ama-no-Sakagami manifests behind him, unleashing a series of strikes at him. Thanks to Chaldea beating down Arahabaki, Ama-no-Sakagami was able to escape from its spell. Takasugi is weak, but he doesn't need to worry; Ama-no-Sakagami will become his god and make the amusing world he so desires. He takes over Arahabaki, making it unleash its true power under the name of Ama-no-Sakagami. Who cares about a human era, Loyalists, or the Restoration. Ama-no-Sakagami will have the humans under his feet. His final coming as a god is at hand--

???: "Can't let you do that." Ama-no-Sakagami: "...? What was that voice?"

A light emerges below his foot. It's coming from Sakamoto's spear. This can't be. he should have fallen down the hill to the underworld. Why is he here?

The scene ends.

Arrow 3

The scene fades in to the bottom of a lake. A black serpent sleeps in the background. Ryouma is here, but he has no idea where 'here' is. Maybe he did end up on the hill to the underworld.

Ryouma: "...No, that's not it, this is--?!"

We zoom in on the serpent. Black and purple. It sleeps.

Ryouma: "This is... perhaps Oryo's--" ???: "Indeed. An unruly aberrant that was chased from the heavens, fed on lives, and eventually fed on entire nations." Ryouma: "Ama-no-Sakagami... No, that's not it. I didn't think it possible, but are you a real god?" ???: "It doesn't matter to me who I am. You have a duty to be rid of this aberrant. You who pulled out the spear Ama-no-Sakahoko." Ryouma: "What are you on about, Oryo is already..." ???: "Not dead. The aberrant you brought along is no more than a copy of the aberrant sleeping within this abyss. Eventually this aberrant will awaken, become an evil god that devours nations, and lead Japan to ruin. To prevent this, the Ama-no-Sakahoko was dropped from the heavens." Ryouma: "Sleeping within the abyss? I see... Ever since the day I died, Oryo was always in this abyss..." ???: "Now, be rid of this aberrant. Ama-no-Sakahoko is a remnant of the Age of Gods that descended from the heavens. The only thing that can bring destruction upon an unruly aberrant is this spear from the same Age of Gods ." Ryouma: "Oryo, I really made you wait." ???: "What are you doing." Ryouma: "I never said it. That day, the day I died -- the words I wanted to say to you in the end." ???: "..." Ryouma: "So I'll say them now."

Ryouma starts to cry.

Ryouma: "Oryo... I'm sorry." ???: "Foolish human. You've been enthralled by the unruly aberrant." Ryouma: "To me, Oryo has always been Oryo. Oryo was always waiting for me here, so I'll also..." ???: "...I see, that's the human's -- no, Sakamoto Ryouma -- that is your answer." Ryouma: "...Alright, off you go. I'll remain here by her side until this body rots away." ???: "They're such strange things, those humans. Even when they know they're making a mistake, they can't help but go through with it. Even though they know what's right, they can't bring themselves to do it. That is how things differ between gods and people. The unruly aberrant was so drawn to you, loved you so, it stopped trying to ascend to the heavens, and came to this abyss to slumber." Ryouma: "..." ???: "I acknowledge you, human who threw away the path to godhood. I shall teach you the true meaning of the Ama-no-Sakahoko. That spear's true power is not to bring destruction to evil spirits. No, it's not even a spear, at that. It fell from the heavens for the sake of greeting this aberrant into the heavens as a new god; a sign of my atonement shed from the heavens for this thing that was abhorred as an aberrant long ago." Ryouma: "...Then this spear was really meant to return Oryo to the heavens." ???: "Now, turn the spear to the skies! Now is the time for this unruly aberrant to be reborn as a new god -- no, as your guardian! And a new god needs a name given! The White Orochi of Takachiho!" Ryouma: "The spear is making Oryo..."

A flash of white. The serpent's eyes shine.

Oryo: "... What's with this familiar scent. Is it... Ryouma? Is that you?" Ryouma: "Yeah, I sure made you wait, but it's me, Oryo." Oryo: "Ryouma! I've waited for you for so, so long! There are so many things I need to say to you. I always thought I should apologize. I'm sorry I couldn't protect you. I always thought I should thank you. For saving me, for giving me a name -- I've-- There's something I always wanted to say to you!" Ryouma: "Yeah, I've kept you waiting. There's also something I've thought I should say to you, too."

Oryo's humanoid form takes shape next to Ryouma.

Ryouma and Oryo: "I'm glad I got to meet you."

Another flash of white, and the two transform. Oryo turns white, and Sakamoto wears a new uniform with a white blade. They're ready to go. To the plains of Wadatsumi. The voice calls out.

???: "...I see. After a long... long time, that unruly aberrant has truly found something important to it. Something more important than ascending to the heavens and becoming a god. Human, no, Sakamoto Ryouma. ...I leave my daughter in your hands."

The scene fades to white, and we return to Saitama. Oryo and Sakamoto have come back, much to Ama-no-Sakagami's surprise.

Ryouma: "Kept you waiting, Master. Everyone." Izou: "What do you mean, kept you waiting, you idiot! What do you mean, kept you waiting... you idiot...!" Nagayoshi: "Geh, took you long enough." Ranmaru: "We've been waiting, Sakamoto husband and wife." Chacha: "Husband and wife, Ranmaru?!" Okuni: "Well well, if this isn't the star performers taking the stage." Zanzaburou: "Zaaaaaaaan!" Ama-no-Sakagami: "What is that power flowing from your body?! Is it the power of Ama-no-Sakahoko... No, it is something entirely different." Ryouma: "That's right, it's the power of love, so to speak."

Ryouma and Oryo are ready for combat; a Kaientai of the two alone. The final battle begins.

After the fight, Oryo and Ryouma unleash their new Noble Phantasm: My Dear, Conquer the Fields of Wadatsumi. Ama-no-Sakagami cannot believe a human would be capable of destroying a god. Takasugi is laughing at him, now separated from the evil god. Oryo catches him before he can fall to his demise. Ama-no-Sakagami, however, is not quite done yet. He lunges for Takechi to possess him. Unfortunately for him, Takechi has engraved a seal into his very body to drive away the entity. He knew the god would aim for him, whose heart is the weakest of those present. Takechi will see this to the end, as something he alone needs to do. For his brethren, and for Tanaka. He brandishes his blade and drives it into himself. Finally, the entity is banished, brought to ruin with Takechi himself. Izou has a tearful farewell with his old leader; Takechi tells him his sword is to protect people, yet Takechi made Izou kill people. He asks for forgiveness. That this time, Izou will use his sword to protect. And he tells Ryouma to help this country, and those young ones. With that, he's gone.

Takasugi ushers them on their way; the Singularity will soon cease to be. Turns out being a Heroic Spirit wasn't all that interesting; he's still sick even as a Servant, which is the end of the line for him. He hands the Holy Grail to Master as a souvenir. Ryouma is glad they managed to meet again; Takasugi is still the prodigy child (kirinji) he met in Edo -- no, rather, still the same qilin. Takasugi remarks that if the dragon soaring through the heavens and the qilin were together, they could probably do anything. He laughs at his own joke, and bids goodbye. The Chaldea team heads off.

Takasugi, left on his own, is soon joined by Okuni.

Takasugi: "What, weren't you going with them?" Okuni: "No, I still have my contract with you. And well, this is a rare chance, I figured I'd do a single dance to your shamisen." Takasugi: "Heh... The Izumo no Okuni and my shamisen... Sure sounds fun. Right... where did I leave it... Ah, there it is. Let's see."

Takasugi plays the shamisen and Okuni begins her dance. The various areas of the city are shown on the screen, before returning to the two.

Takasugi: "...Say." Okuni: "What is it?" Takasugi: "Now that I take a good look, you're kinda cute." Okuni: "Is this the time, company president? But also, 'kinda'?! Holy shit de gozaimasu yo! Quite the words for me who's made plenty of the people in power in my time weak in the knees!" Takasugi: "Hahaha, in that case, I wish I'd slept together with you until late in the morning at least once. I think..." Okuni: "...Rest. Please, rest well. Hero of the Restoration, Takasugi Shinsaku."

The chapter ends.

[kuboism]

Bleach Canon Vs. Studio Clown Episode 1

Intro to the series

WARNING: Long read but theres plenty of pictures

The first deviation we’re greeted with is what the anime presents as the arrival of hollows into the human world. With a likely artistic rendition of them forming from the shadows of Hueco Mundo and dripping/bleeding over into the human world like splotches of ink, after which they disappear - unable to be perceived by humans.

A/N: Which, kubos to the anime, is rather neat.

The anime also decided to incorporate the first volume poem which is the thematic beginning and a great establisher of the mood/themes of Bleach, which roughly translates to: 

我らは 姿無きが故に それを畏れ

“We fear that which cannot be seen”

And then they curiously add a line to this poem? 

姿無き故に敬う

”We revere that which cannot be seen"

A/N: Which, initially seems on brand with the spiritualism of that “which is not seen” - the shinigami, DEATH itself if you will. However, unlike the themes of “fear” and “fear of death/the unseen”, “reverence” is not really a theme prevalent or definitive for bleach. Reverence is not particularly reserved for death or death gods, but antagonists with themes of divinity/the Soul King himself, but I digress.

Next off the bully scene has a couple of missing/reworded lines, as well as some of the delivery changed, but overall it’s not significant enough to mention.

I also wish they’d kept Ichigo’s shit yourself scary face from this moment right here, since it really underlines how serious and personally invested Ichigo is in bringing small justice to the souls of the departed, but I can only pray a future remake does include it.

^ I am disappointed in y’all :/

vs.

v Karma delivery, bitch

Then for some reason the next scene is changed significantly:

In the manga, it builds up slowly to Ichigo’s reveal of supernatural abilities with the iconic TM character profile intros (which I can see why weren’t recreated in the anime, but I sure wish they put them in....)

with him spooking the bullies off with the ghost girl right behind him

Versus his scary face doing the job instead.....

It’s a small change, and I can see why it would be opted for - we don’t really know if they even saw the ghost in the first place (then again you could argue that would spook them anyway). There is a tonal difference in the long run though. The manga emphasizes once again *why* ichigo is scolding them in the first place - he sees the people disrespected by them knocking down the vase, he wants them to acknowledge their actions *because* in his mind, there are real victims he knows from it. While in the anime, since the ghost is not yet introduced, it feels more like “you are disrespectful to the dead” in a more generalized way vs. him actually being acquainted with the dead and treating them like the living. 

(Again, not sure why change it so much at all........the suspense and reveal are in the manga just the same.... but ok)

As well as cutting off this small moment where you can see Ichigo’s very human (and cute!) interactions with the ghosts. To him they’re just as real as the living, and he lends them a hand whenever they ask for help.

Also lmfao this 4kids level of censorship.....

It goes on rather faithfully for a while, no significant omissions, then Pierrot decides to randomly replace Yuzu’s lines with Karin??

Manga:

Anime: 

Which is an odd choice, given that not only does Yuzu sense ghosts just fine (albeit at a much lesser level than her family) and that later comes into play with Fishbone & Grandfisher, but Karin literally later admits that she doesn’t even want to acknowledge their presence, so why the change....?

They also cut short Karin’s little talk about Ichigo’s stats, which is a fair change for screentime’s sake, but mentioned for the record.

There’s a bit of a divergence with Yuzu lore, when the manga explicitly states she sees them, but not “clearly”, the anime focuses on her barely sensing them. I guess it doesn’t matter that much in the long run, since she is not that prevalent in the story, but it’s here for the record nonetheless.

Anime: 

vs. 

Manga:A

Also this next bit was removed, probably for the sake of pacing (which, totally fair!!), but it’s funny and I love the Kurosaki family so here it is:

It does make the flow a bit better in the manga, since this talk of selling his talents distracts Ichigo and creates an opening for his father to strike, in the anime, the same is done with Ichigo just randomly saying 

and thats where his father attacks him, which isnt really an issue, just kind of funny of how the manga is like:

Ichigo’s distracted by his sisters plotting to sell him out and hence Isshin has his chance to strike back

vs the anime being like:

Ichigo randomly thinks about dinner mid convo about ghosts and thats what distracts him from play-fighting with his dad 

gfdkhlgfdg okayyyy....moving on 

In the manga this scene is interspliced with Ichigo’s inner monologue about the nature of his powers (with hip jargon like “for real” courtesy of Viz ) 

(but my beef with Viz translations are for another day)

Also the line about “He told me more ghosts than ever have been haunting me” has been given to Karin for some reason, probably to make her feel more included in the scene/Ichigos life.

Notably, Isshin’s response is changed from “What?! He talks about stuff like that with you (Yuzu, singular)” to “What?! He talks about stuff like that with you guys?” as well, again probably to include Karin more into the dialogue. (Mmmm ok....)

Minor detail, but Karin’s lines has been changed to more “boyish” speech structure in the Japanese dub, which may seem insignificant, but ...... that is for later. 

.....

This little exchange

 is replaced with: 

Which, seems innocuous adaptation differences, but Yuzu’s lines keep decreasing and it’s a short enough moment to like....include and establish how motherly Yuzu is acting towards Ichigo.....but ok...huh. 

And now we get into the big boy changes.

So, probably for the sake of grounding the supernatural element of the series, the anime decided to skip time to the next morning and introduce the hollow attacks with a news report.

Which.....is an interesting choice. I am assuming this is addressing how the real world perceives the hollow attacks, which Bleach doesn’t put too much effort into addressing, but very soon after this we learn about stuff like memory replacement and other various technology to keep things under wraps so this is either redundant or implying that shinigamis have not been doing their job, which hm......

Next off is the bizarre choice to paint Isshin out of the picture for the night

Not sure why, but ok

Again, where’s the shinigami with their Kikanshinki (memory replacement devices)??? Pierrot where’s the lore coherence......

Anyway, Ichigo goes to replace the girl’s vase, but suprise-surprise she’s gone-zo. Wonder what happened to her.....

(And....again, people vehemently don’t want a reboot when the anime looks like this? )

So Ichigo hears a scream and a hollow scream and follows the sound (Ok?).

Totally random hollows attack. Which Ichigo somehow has never seen so far? Mind you, this isn’t like in the manga, where Fishbone was sent by Aizen specifically after Ichigo to make him aware of it. These are random-ass hollows attacking people, so how come Ichigo suddenly sees them. Ya coulda played it safe Pierrot, and stuck to the book, but we got plot inconsistencies episode one so let’s party.

The girl is, of course, not eaten and they run away.

She trips at the most inconvenient moment. (can ghosts trip? Ghost don’t even have legs in japanese lore and Kubo draws them floating around so okkkkkkkk)

(ok ok, im just being petty, bUT YKNOW)

(convenient tripping on deadass levelled ground is convenient)

(also God I really want that bag Ichigo’s got on his shoulder, it looks so nice)

Random-ass hollow closes in and 

BOOM

Rukia

(Now, if the rest of Bleach and the manga didn’t exist I would like this moment. We get a glimpse into Rukia’s abilities, into shinigami as a concept and we don’t really get to see her slice and dice hollows that much overall so the moment itself is rad in isolation.

Now, unfortunately for Pierrot’s screenwriters, Bleach manga exists and so does it’s lore, which again, would not be inconsistent with each other if the adapation was faithful. Now, Ichigo sees a shinigami, for some reason, for the first time in his 15 years of life. All of a sudden. 

You could argue, that much like in the manga, this is all part of Aizen’s plan TM, but like, she literally leaves right after leaving Ichigo gaping in awe ghfkjgdf. Why’d Aizen give him an appetizer, I really don’t understand how this change is benefitting the narrative in any way. It’s ....dare I say....generic.)

Rukia yeets the hollow

(why is this kid suddenly not wearing shoes?)

and goes off on her merry way, leaving Ichigo shooketh

ALSO RUKIA MA’AM THERES A FUCKING STRAY GHOST RIGHT AT YOUR RIGHT????? ISNT IT YOUR LIKE....JOB.......... TO HELP GHOSTS MOVE ON??? i know killing hollows is the fun part, but like ghjkfdlgfd ??? are you gonna ignore her???

( his fucking face ghfjdkgdlfgfd)

So after this wholeass pointless detour (you’ll see why it’s pointless in a moment)  we timeskip again (the filler is strong in this one. These 6 minutes were worth not coming up with something cohesive and removing scenes that actually make sense ah yes)

Ichigo is in deep thought TM about who tf is the stranger he’d just seen. Likely mulling over the monsters and how this person was able to slay said monsters. Probably thinking how unusual they are.

and as if on cue

the stranger makes their presence once more

(my God these faces gfhgkldfg)

....

Now let’s briefly address what happens in the manga instead.

Instead of the whole timeskip scene with the fight, Ichigo simply returns to his room on the same day, and oddly enough recognizes the species of the butterfly he sees? (nerdy boi! nerdy!! boi!)

rukia arrives much the same

(With the little text emphasizing how he’d never been aware of soul reapers, which is unsurprising given their secrecy, and makes sense in the long run since their first meeting is specifically orchestrated by Aizen. Two species that werent meant to interact brought together by his schemes.)

Back to the anime:

Ichigo pauses to ponder who tf they are and why the fuck they’re there.

and then the anime has the gall to suddenly revert to sticking to the manga, which like.... Ichigo kicks her for no reason? I guess because she isn’t answering? Even though Ichigo knows she has a sword and can wield it? Reckless boy.

Manga Ichigo thinks she’s a burglar, therefore, unsurprisingly, is comfortable kicking her outta his house. It’s a silly moment, but it also shows how accustomed or stupidly brave he is with the supernatural.

In the anime Ichigo asks her who she is instead of all that, and she responds pretty similarly to the manga

AND THE NEXT SCENE IS WHERE IT CLICKS WHY THEY WENT OUT OF THEIR WAY TO REMOVE ISSHIN FROM THE HOUSE.

(Ichigo and Rukia addressing the pointless filler, this leads nowhere)

Rukia check him out like she’s checking if the oranges on sale dont have mold on them 

slapstick ensues

and Rukia decides to answer his question.

Vs. the manga in which Isshin doesn’t leave his children home alone for some random conference and is actually used very efficient for two reasons:

1) building up on the burglar gag with actually funny slapstick that is based on a previously established joke

2) Instead of Rukia just saying “oh usually people can’t see me”, we get an actual demonstration of it, the reader gets to see “oh Isshin can’t see her - she must be a spiritual entity,” which further clicks with her surprised reaction at him being able to kick her in the first place.

The next scene is the classique Pierrot censorship.

Ghost girl runs away from what I’m assuming is Fishbone.

Aside from not showing her get eaten, the scene is pretty much delivering the same message, 

bUT

BECAUSE OF THE STUPID ASS FILLER WITH THEM MEETING RUKIA BEFORE THIS, I CAN ACCUSE RUKIA OF NEGLIGENCE.

UNLIKE THE MANGA, where Rukia arrives the night before and is specifically seeking Fishbone, therefore having no time to help this girl pass away, 

This vvvvvvv

could have been prevented if SOMEONE DID THEIR FUCKING JOB THE DAY BEFORE VVVVVVV

(I rest my case. Thank you Pierrot for making Rukia either negligent or an idiot. Awesome, And mind you, these changes were unnecessary. The manga’s pacing is fine. They could’ve extended scenes. But nope, had to go for making them meet beforehand.)

Anyway, we get to see some actual stakes in the manga

The next scene which is this in the manga 

has two changes to it. Firstly, obviously Isshin being consoled by Yuzu isn’t included since he isn’t home in the anime, and even if he were, I can see why that would be removed, cute as it may be.

And secondly, due to them having met prior Ichigo asks two additional questions:

And Rukia nods at both, which means she acknowledges that she had seen the girl the hollow was after and yet did nothing to help her pass on. 

(Reminder the Bleach anime was in production WAAAAY past the first 4 volumes, which gave a good general idea of the series, which y’know, was fine to adapt as is.

You’ll see these changes add up into becoming inconsistent with further Bleach lore. There’s a reason people call Bleach a hot mess, and I’m afraid Kubo ain’t really it.)

(Volume 14 Note from Kubo where he talks about the anime being announced)

Back to the series

Pet peeve time: Wish the anime was half as expressive as the manga

These scenes are supposed to represent

This panel:

(Nitpicking? Perhaps, but idc)

So uh, this scene is odd

Again, because of the addition of that filler with the hollow

Ichigo has seen her in action

And they even added Rukia trying to convince him 

even though, yknow???

LITerally the previous day???

Anyway  in the manga, where Ichigo has reason to be distrustful of her and her claims since y’know hes never seen her or a shinigami in action, but has enough proof that she’s a ghost bc his dad didn’t see her, he simply dismisses her before she can reply, and instead of just getting angry for being called a pipsqueak

she shows both Ichigo and the audience proof of her spiritual powers by binding Ichigo and forcing him to quietly listen to her explanations.

(To reiterate - Anime Rukia  has to verbally try to convince Ichigo WHO SAW HER FIGHT A HOLLOW THE OTHER DAY that shes no ordinary ghost. And because of that, she has no other reason to use Sai on him other than that shes mad she was called a pipsqueak bc she just tried to verbally convince him shei is a shinigami. When they could just adapt the manga and have her both demonstrate her powers and put him in his place at the same time. Wild.)

Also CRIMINALLY BORING SHOT, WITH CRIMINALLY BORING RUKIA

#NotMyRukia

LOOK AT THE MANGA

LOOK AT HER SMUGLY OWNING ICHIGO’S IGNORANT ASS #FuckYeahRukia

Also the subs may not show it if you’re watching it on Netflix, but anime Rukia says “I am not allowed to lay my hands on humans outside orders,” which like, you ARE LITERALLY DOING THAT. Manga Rukia is fine with bullying Ichigo, but she draws a line at killing him, but man Anime Rukia, you give no fucks about the laws huh.

why so cheerful?

(also Rukia be right tho)

(specifcally compared to hell you could say Soul society is a resftul place lmfao)

Also anime salary man gets to rest in peace, even like, pray and shit

Meanwhile the manga

YEET TO SOUL SOCIETY

(also notice how we’ve been robbed of ichigo’s silly socks

I swear the anime knows how to suck the soul out of the manga 

Get it? Soul! haha ....moving on.)

Really Rukia? One of your jobs?

GUESS YOU WERE OFF DUTY HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(I’M SORRY BUT LIKE, SEE HOW POINTLESS THIS FILLER IS UGH!!!)

(Again pet peeve but look at how ugly this screen is COMPARED TO THE MANGA)

(What have they done to you, queen)

(also they never mention the name Konso ( or as Viz calls it here -”soul funeral”, thanks Viz)

Next on, not a pet peeve, but an observation:

Anime Rukia keeps her sketchbook in her kimono

Manga Rukia keeps it at the titty

Yep, which you neglected to do the day before,

she literally says “With the konso I did just a  moment ago” like she used the word before. Like you can contextually get it, but why cut that line out of the dialogue if you don’t change the next line it’s referenced in?

There’s also a dialogue change from the manga’s well, Viz uses “vaporize” which is not a bad choice given the specific wording Kubo uses, but the original says 

昇華 • 滅却

sublimate/convert • extinguish

which is a clever little nod/foreshadowing to the nature of souls in bleach and that they can be “converted” in and out of a hollowfied state. 

While the anime just says “to slay hollows”, and albeit it lacks the little nod the manga has to offer, I can’t see how they’d include it in the anime at that stage so I’m fine with them simplifying it to like, an exorcism.

A better question then Rukia - WHY DIDN’T YOU SEND OFF HER SOUL????

also WAIT THE GIRL IS STILL ALIVE?? she’s dead-dead by this point in the manga.

BULLSHIT !!!  YOU LITERALLY EXPLAIN LATER WHY!! ACTUALLY YOU EXPLAINED EARLIER WHY!!! YOU LITERALLY SAID THIS, 1 MINUTE AGO :

Anyway, Fishbone almost grants her the priviledge of escaping this God-awful anime, but is suddenly stopped?

AND CAN TALK??

wait WHY DOES FISHBONE TALK?? GHFJD isnt this supposed to be  a juicy reveal for later when Ichigo realizes “hey theyre not actual complete monsters - but used to be humans!” Hm, ok.

Also leaves her alone? Damn ok...

Reminder:

Moooving on...

Speaking of the manga, this little moment is missing:

Since there is no pointless filler that would make him ask about the ghost girl therefore exposing Rukia’s slacking off of her duty, Ichigo realizes that there must be a hollow nearby bc in the manga he actually has braincells to spare. 

Also wiping off the Baron’s moustache moment is gone 😢

Missing and dearly missed is also this moment, which consolidates how protective Ichigo is of his family. He only needs to hear Yuzu scream to click that the hollow is nearby and his family is in danger. I feel like anime Ichigo should be even more worried since his sisters are alone but ok??

Also foreshadows their dynamic of Rukia trying to stop his reckless attempts at pushing himself to protect his family, bc yknow....she has her own Kaien trauma to process.

Next off....

This is .... a choice....

They were very eager to give Yuzu’s lines to Karin just a couple of moments ago but now this whole exchange:

Where we see a very pragmatic yet soft side of Karin

She doesn’t know what is happening, and doesn’t expect her brother to fight it - he just wants him to be safe, because she loves her family. At least warn him before it gets to him and hurts him.

is replaced with this:

Yuzu, sweetie, what do you think he can do to achieve that.

I guess at least Anime Ichigo tries to get Rukia to do her job as she looks down on Yuzu in silence. 

But compare it to the manga:

#MyRukia stops by Karin to check for a pulse and reassures Ichigo that his sister is alive.

Manga Ichigo is NUMBER ONE oniichan in town and doesnt have time to call out to a stranger to save his family - HES BEYOND READY TO GO FIGHT, RECKLESS AS IT IS, EVEN THOUGH HIS OWN FAMILY BEGS HIM TO JUST RUN. because he cant let himself be unable to protect them. He cant live with himself if he doesnt try his darnest to protect them.

*elevator music playing as ichigo tries to get rukia’s attention but she fucks off downstairs, but instead of doing shit he just does the worm on the floor*

which I guess is more realistic for a teenage boy, but Ichigo is literally traumatized by being unable to protect a family member. Y’all think a ghost he’s never seen before is gonna stop him? 

Yooo, pathetic. #NotMyIchigo

[gebtoons]

my contribution to the bapo timeline discourse bc i’m just gonna propose a timeline and will not be taking criticism <3 (under the cut bc this is gonna be a long post probably) 

ok disclaimer I am quite stupid, however I’m gonna use my knowledge from my own 12 years in american public high school and what little info I have about american boarding schools/catholic schools that I have from my friends lol. so. idk. 

i’m also gonna date songs/major events and i’m gonna be taking some “just trust me bro” liberties bc y’all are right it does NOT make that much sense. 

January 6: Epiphany; this is like an actual holiday lol. like its always on the sixth. idk its good that this is the starting point bc its an actual date yknow? For the purposes of this timeline were going with that its early in the week, so lets go with Monday idk

January 6-13: You and I, Role of a Lifetime; so we’re all kinda in agreement that this timeline (at least the beginning) only really makes sense if you and i/role of a lifetime aren’t like. a singular moment and are instead multiple days. so yeah, of this first week, this is like. monday-next sunday ish yknow. 

January 14: Auditions, Plain Jane Fatass; ok so having auditions for a spring musical right after kids get back from break actually makes perfect sense to me, like i can see it being like “ok take break to prepare so as soon as you come back we can have auditions so we can jump right into rehersals” yknow? and since the rave is clearly on a friday (”we’ll meet in tanya’s room on friday night”) so i’m going with the monday before.  

as for pjf, i know it doesn’t make a ton of sense for them to get a two week late birthday package their first few weeks back from school, but hear me out it makes sense. the implication throughout this entire show is that the twins have decently shitty parents. from bits of dialogue (in this song in particular lol) i’m kinda inferring their the “only concerned with how their kids make them look to others” kind of neglectful. so I don’t think it’s too outside the realm of possibility that they went away for the holidays, didn’t bring the twins, and instead mailed them a birthday package and having it show up two weeks late. realistically the timing of this isnt that important and the explicit “two week” time frame could’ve been an exaggeration on nadia’s part to mock her shit parents (idk its in her character) basically ppl are a little two fixated on this imo but anyway. moving on. 

January 18: Wonderland, A Quiet Night At Home, Rolling, Best Kept Secret; a very agreed upon point in the timeline. its the friday following the auditions. moving on. 

January 21: Confession; also very agreed upon. the monday following the rave. moving on again 

January 23: Portrait of a Girl; the date here is kinda arbitrary, but bc sister chantelle says “ok lets try to put yesterday’s rehearsal behind us” and i for the life of me cannot think of a scene she could be referring to (there’s none in the script either) that implies it wasn’t the same monday as confession (bc even in a boarding school i think holding extracurriculars that aren’t sports over the weekend (especially when they are no where near crunch time lol) is weird and not common) so i just picked a random day during the week

January 25: Birthday Bitch!, One Kiss, Are You There?; from matt’s line in wonderland, ivy’s birthday is a week after the rave. in my timeline that’s january 25th (an aquarius queen). 

btw given all grown up’s “17, how will i manage?” ivy is 16 during 17 at her party, which is strange given shes a high school senior and seniors are typically 17 during 18. so either a) she skipped a grade, not an unheard of thing. or b) shes not a senior, shes just a junior who hangs out with a bunch of seniors, which is also pretty common. and looking through the script i can’t find any mention that she is also a senior, other than yknow she graduates with them, but she isn’t mentioned during the class ranking scene? so idk not that it really matters just a fun detail 

February 3 (at night): 911 Emergency!; ok controversial. i know i like the joke about how its funny that peter having a weird dream when he was high prompted him to want to come out and really ruined his relationship with jason. BUT. i think the dream (despite it’s weirdness) would have a lot more meaning if it wasn’t the result of being really high, but if it was a dream he had like a week later as a result of a building sense of guilt/anxiety bc he told matt. also it fits better given later timeline things. (this timeline literally only exists if there are weird jumps in time that don’t make a ton of sense) (EDIT: I forgot one line about Jason crashing at ivys but fuck it forget that bitchass line this makes for more drama its staying this way)

February 4: Reputation Stain’d, Ever After; the next day following peter’s dream, idk what else to say, moving on. 

February 25-28: Spring; another jump! i’m sorry but the only way for this to make sense logistically is for there to be quite a few time jumps! however, i also think this one works bc i think it gives time for everything from around ivy’s party and peter and jason’s break up to stew emotionally. like obviously a musical only has so much time to tell a story so the audience cannot see every realistic beat, but honestly i think it makes the whole thing a little more dramatic™ if there’s space for everything to settle, and for ivy to come and apologize and such. also, the reason it’s multiple days is bc in the script, ivy is trying to study (presumably for some sort of midterm) while nadia is playing, so that probably takes place a few days before they move out, so before finals. but in the script, jason and peter are packing and peter is leaving, so that part of the song/staging takes place on the 28th. yes, that’s weird, but we are clearly thinking more about the logistics of this school than the writers were so. 

March 1: One; assuming st. cecilia’s works kinda like boarding schools here, they probably do staggered move out/move in, just bc that would be a lot to have people coming and going at once so it makes sense that peter left the day before, while jason and ivy are leaving the next day. also, given that peter is trying to call jason while he and ivy are banging, it’s probably been a hot minute since the actual break up, since peter was clearly very hurt by the whole thing, it would make sense (at least to me) that peter would reach out a month ish later, rather than like a few days later (you have to make so many assumptions to make this timeline work granted they aren’t super out there assumptions but still this is annoying) 

March 1-25: Spring Break. the coworkers I have who are in boarding school work over their school breaks, which are longer than the public school breaks (which are only a week) so i put their spring break at 3 weeks. it makes sense, and it makes the later part of the timeline make sense. 

I know i’m already halfway through this, but to me it makes sense for their to be quite a few time jumps in the story bc its a musical. they cannot show every day. there are a lot of other shows (particularly shows set in high schools) that are set over a whole school year, but if you just look at the events of the story that doesn’t make sense, so you have to imply that obviously they are not showing every little detail. moving on. 

March 25: Wedding Bells, In The Hallway, Touch My Soul; peter wakes up from his nightmare in the church, so im assuming he fell asleep in church (like he almost did during epiphany). also it makes sense that class ranks are announced in late march-early april, I know my school announced ours in like, the first week or so of april? so yeah. moving on.

(from this point on i was giving myself a headache trying to make it make sense so its all weird from here!!)

April 4: See Me, Warning; the date doesn’t really matter here, I picked a random day in early april. the script said peter is calling from him and jason’s old dorm room, as he was picking up the last of his things, so he clearly made the roommate switch after school started (makes sense to me). 

April 15-20 (approximately): Ivy finds out she’s pregnant. look google tells me on average people find out they are pregnant around 5-7 weeks after conception. i went with around 7 just so this timeline makes a tiny bit more sense given the later stuff, so yeah here we go. 

May 4: Pilgrim’s Hands, God Don’t Make No Trash, All Grown Up, Promise, Once Upon A Time, Cross; a rough night for our heroes. so given sister chantelle saying “again? wonderful.” and nadia saying “i can’t believe you missed rehearsal again”, clearly ivy has been missing quite a few rehearsals, so for dramas sake maybe from when she found out she was pregnant? also i know i’ve been saying they wouldn’t have rehearsals on weekends, and given my weird timeline this would be a saturday, but its tech week so i’ll allow it. 

May 5: Two Households, Bare, Queen Mab, A Glooming Peace; pretty self explanatory, and it makes sense to have the spring play in early may. rip jason. 

May 11: Absolution; the day before graduation peter goes to confront the priest. gives him a small amount of time to start processing, and it makes sense it would be the night before, at least to me. 

May 12: No Voice; i fucking hate this. “peter, we graduate next sunday” i hate that stupid fucking line. do you know that this timeline literally would be fine if it weren’t for that stupid fucking line? bc then, the school play would be in early may and graduation could be in late may-early june (when most high schools hold graduation) but no. keeping with continuity, they have to graduate the sunday following the school play. “peter we graduate in a month, are you really never gonna talk to me again?” would have been fine. but no, now we have beef. literally everything else about the end of this timeline being kinda weird would work itself out, except for the fucking graduation. god damn. anyway, may 12th, the graduate on may 12th which is really fucking weird bc of that one fucking line. whatever. i didn’t write the damn thing bc if i did i wouldn’t have written that fucking line. (i’ve been at this for over an hour and a half, so i’m a tad annoyed, can you tell?) 

anyway, that’s it. that’s my long as hell proposed bare timeline. if there’s anything glaringly wrong with it i don’t care bc this timeline literally cannot make sense. but honestly, now that i think about the Popular Tween High Schooler Musicals (heathers, bmc, deh) the timelines of those (especially heathers and bmc) don’t make tons of sense either. that’s just the way it is, that’s the way its gonna be. and we have to live with it. 

this post is so long it is actually slowing down my laptop as i type it

[thedevilliers]

Hey, I've been reading your story for a while, and I'm enjoying it very much. Following the De Villiers has been so fun, and you've inspired me to create my own royal Simblr!

Can you maybe share some tips about what to do with your royals? I'll be posting my family within the next few weeks, and I have already planned out several engagements + events, including visits to parks/schools/hospitals, parties, and news surrounding a royal pregnancy. I've also planned out the first arc. I don't know what else to do, and I've barely started! If you have any tips related to the beginning of your Simblr that you didn't cover in your other post, I would so appreciate them. I want to get all this nailed down *before* posting, so my blog is the best that it can be.

Also, if you have any advice on how to make things as efficient as possible (especially regarding posing sims, editing/writing posts, etc.), I would love that! I want to cut down on time wasted wherever I can.

Thank you!! :-)

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 me?!!?!?! ME ??????? omg 🧍‍♀️ thank u for reading my story 🥺 and AAAAAAAAAAAA your own royal simblr !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ill answer everythin under the cut !!!!! spoilers: it got long sorry

first of all, remember we ALL started somewhere. you can look at my first like... fifteen and even MORE posts and they are BAD. oh my gawd idk why i thought they were good, but hey! i learned things from them. you will more than likely change your mind about certain things from the beginning of your blog to who knows, four months from now. don’t focus and worry a lot on ‘perfection’ and setting up ‘high standards’ from the beginning. treat it like a learning curve! this is something we all do for fun, so don’t get stressed a lot on it. you can always change and adapt things and that’s no problem!

i love lists, so im gonna list a few things of advice/tips basing myself on what you said!!!

i personally don't do engagements anymore, so i can't really help you in this regard of even more activities you could do 🧍‍♀️ what i could recommend for people to get to know your characters' personalities and private lives and grow attached to them, add in BTS posts.

continuing on my BTS’ post thing, they are a GREAT way to show more than what the public sees for your royals. because from a press and public point of view, you don't really know 'what goes on behind closed doors'. they could be all happy in public, but in privatE??!??!!?!?

as i said in my starting out guide, i did have around ~15 drafts done before i started posting. just so i could not stress about “oh my god i dont have any posts for tomorrow”. a LOT of ppl do posts and queue them as they go, and they have MANY posts done and usually they start accumulating and they are MONTHS in advance compared to what they’re currently posting. if this method works for you, you can definitely use it!

please, please please read your dialogue OUT loud. is it possible to say a 2093023902 word sentence without a singular use of punctuation? do people in this age and era really talk this way? also please if possible use correct grammar. just a little pet peeve, it can take a reader out of the immersion your story gives them.

we all have our lil dialogue habits. mine is starting sentences with “oh” and the infamous dash “—”. others use ellipses. just make sure you aren’t overdoing it. for example, doing a sentence like “oh— there you are. i was uhm— looking for you. how—how are you? its—i mean where have you uhm— been? yes—ive—ive been fine. you? i mean— your mom” ....just no 😔 it doesnt read well at ALL

you can always do lil filler posts, dont tell anyone tell you otherwise. post a little simstagram post, a little family portrait, updated portraits post, family hanging out, kids hanging out, etc.

for posing sims, i do try and remember where MOST of my poses are in the ingame list. usually creators’ correctly naming the poses helps a lot. for example i need a Mel Bennet pose; hers are usually ALL in the same spot and have the same lil aqua bg so i can easily find them. sometimes, i dl pose packs VERY specifically for a certain scene. am i gonna use them again? no. so i open the .package file in sims4studio and rename them to “00 for emi scene [rest of the og name” so when i open my game, they are around the top of the list! no more scrolling and i easily know what i need it for.

dont be scared to plan things that are happening MONTHS from now or anything in detail. some ppl dont like planning things in detail, or even dont like planning things AT ALL or things that arent happening say, in over 2 weeks because idk, they get bored. i recommend at LEAST having a list of things that HAVE to happen so you have ‘goals’ and you slowly plan out how you’re gonna get there. at LEAST theres some level of planning there. if you’re posting and PLANNING as you go, there’s gonna be holes. and it’s gonna be obvious.

editing wise, i don’t do much. my reshade does most of the work, i just add in my psd, add text and done! this is easily the fastest thing you will ever do.

if you get inspired by someone else doing, idk, a certain layout for the portraits, them adding little things to their captions, a certain edit, etc. if you want to do something similar and you ARE very much aware you were inspired by them, credit them in the caption. i beg. its free, its the nice thing to do, bc if not its rude.

if you get inspired by a certain storyline someone else did and you notice yours is gonna be similar, go ahead and send them a message to let them know and if they have any tips or feel uncomfortable with you doing this. simply put, if you don’t, you’re gonna look bad. we are all bound to do same storylines, such as assassinations, shooty shooty’s, stalkers, first loves, accidental babies, etc. but what changes is how each person approaches it. no ones gonna do it the same way as you and others. if you CONSCIOUSLY start copying else, stop it. and you could even be unconsciously be inspired by someone else too. it happens! just make sure you are able to look at the bigger picture and realize “hey, i’m doing something wrong”

same thing with dialogue. you like a line someone else said in their story? don’t just... steal it and incorporate it into yours word BY WORD

OVERALL: you can be inspired. give credit where it’s due. and don’t copy because someone else is doing ‘something others like’ and you want others to like your story. no no no !

im adding this AFTER i posted it but, be yourself. in the way you interact with others and send questions, etc. don’t try and copy someone else’s personality because they are liked and essentially absorb them. be yourself and i’m sure a lot of ppl will like you the way you are : D

for my writing dialogue etc, this goes back to my point 8. i use milanote, its free and you get 200 free thingies to use, and i plan out how every single one of my posts is gonna go. so i just have to go ingame and i already know what im gonna do. no thoughts, just taking screenshots. for example, this is how a part of my part 2, chapter 3 posts layout looks like. every square is a post that has what is happening, who is in it, what is gonna be said very vaguely, etc:

11. and the most important tip! don’t compare yourself to others. i did it at the beginning. i think we all did at one point. its not good for you at all. please always remember we all are here for share our lil stories with each other and it’s not easy get a following. you’ll get there and its gonna take time. be patient, be nice!!! and i cant wait to see your story!!!!!!!!!!

[brentwatchesmovies]

Brent’s Top 10 Movies of 2019

Scorsese is probably my favorite living filmmaker, but I’ll be honest, when I heard that Scorsese was making this movie, and *how* he was making it (heavily digital de-aged actors) I was a bit skeptical. De Niro and Pacino haven’t been turning in interesting performances in quite awhile, and Pesci came out of a decades-long retirement for the movie as well. On top of that, the first trailer released did little for me. All that to say I was an idiot to doubt the master.

Scorsese returns to the crime genre that he re-invented many times over the years, this time with the eyes of a man in his 70’s, looking back on his life and career. The movie is very long, but in my opinion, it needs the length. The viewer needs to *feel* the totality of a life, and as is his intent with The Irishman, the *consequences* of this specific life. The final hour or so of this movie feels like a culmination of Scorsese’s career in many ways. The energy and entertainment of a crime/mob epic, with the fatalism and philosophical leanings of a movie like ‘Silence’. It’s a 3.5 hour movie that I’ve already rewatched, and actively want to again, so that alone ought to speak volumes.

Harmony Korine made one of my favorite movies of the 2010’s, the neon-soaked and often misunderstood ‘Spring Breakers’, so I was already in the bag for whatever he did next. When I heard it was a freewheeling stoner comedy where Matthew Mcconaughey plays a guy named ‘Moondog’ costarring Snoop Dogg, I reserved its location on my top 10 list.

This movie doesn’t have the empty heart at its core that defines Spring Breakers, opting instead for a character study about a ‘Florida man’ poet after his life pretty much falls apart. It’s basically plotless, stumbling from one insane, borderline hallucinatory sequence to the next, but I just loved living in the world of this movie. Beach Bum almost feels like a deliriously fun VR simulation of hanging out with Matt McConaughey and his weirdo friends down in the Florida keys. This is one that probably won’t pop up on many top 10 lists but I really adore, and will surely rewatch it a dozen times in the years to come.

Let the record show, I’ve been a huge fan of Bong Joon-ho since I first saw his monster movie/family drama ‘The Host’. Some time later, he went on to make ‘Snowpiercer’, one of my favorite movies of the last decade. All that to say, I think Parasite is probably his best movie, and a true masterwork of thriller direction. It also has his usual brand of social commentary and a script filled with darkness and humor, following a South Korean tendency to juggle multiple tones throughout, sometimes all in one moment or scene.

Parasite also follows a big 2019 trend of commenting on class and social dynamics between the rich and the poor. I think that’s part of why it’s done incredibly well at the box office (especially for a Korean language film), the fact that people can relate in a huge way, regardless of which country your from. Parasite is one of the most entertaining movie viewing experiences I’ve had this year and I’d recommend everyone check it out.

If you were to ask me what the funnest movie-going experience I had in 2019 was, I’d have to pick Rian Johnson’s ‘Knives Out’. Hot off making one of the best Star Wars movies ever made (don’t @ me) Johnson decided to make a passion project in the vein of classic Agatha Christie style murder mysteries, and the results are a total blast. Filled with clever twists and turns, weaponizing the structure of murder-mysteries against the audiences expectations, it stays one step ahead of you the entire time.

Aside from the clever mystery of it all, it’s the actors performances and chemistry that really sell this thing. Jamie Lee Curtis and Toni Collette are expectedly great per usual, and Daniel Craig is having the time of his life as Mississippi private-eye Benoit Blanc, but the heart of the movie is relative newcomer Ana de Armas. She brings an emotional weight and anchor to the movie that always keeps you emotionally invested amidst the terrible, money hungry backstabbing by the other heightened characters. I hope everyone sees this movie and Johnson is able to give us another Benoit Blanc adventure somewhere down the line, I’ll be there opening day.

Nobody makes an upbeat, feel-good movie like Ari Aster does! After last years light and breezy ‘Hereditary’ (which I liked a lot but didn’t totally love) he’s back with a completely riveting and emotionally draining (not to mention horrific) masterpiece. What I connected to most in Midsommar is the journey of Dani, played incredibly by Florence Pugh. The way the film portrays the relationship between her and her dog shit boyfriend played by the (usually) charming Jack Reynor keeps you invested in every twist, perfectly paced out over the movies admittedly long runtime.

I won’t get into spoiler territory, but where this movie goes in the end is what makes this a fully 5-star movie for me. After putting you through hell, like Aster loves to do with bells on, Midsommar ends in a euphoric, psychedelic orgy of music and violence that I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Midsommar rules so hard and I can’t wait for whatever twisted thing Aster cooks up next.

One of my increasingly favorite brands of movies is a finely crafted, primo slice of dad-movie cinema, and James Mangold has made one with Ford v Ferrari. The story chronicles the partnership of ex-racer and designer Carroll Shelby and racer Ken Miles as they work to make a Ford that can compete in the 24 hour race of Le Mans. Bale and Damon are a blast to watch bounce off each other and the race sequences are pretty damn thrilling, combining (what I expect is) a solid amount of great VFX with practical racing to great effect.

I also didn’t expect it to have as much to say about the struggle to create something special by passionate people and not committees while also inside the very machine that churns out products on an assembly line. Just a random note, this original movie was just put out by 20th Century Fox, now owned by Disney but that’s completely unrelated and I’m not sure why I’d even bring that up??? Anyway, I love this movie and dads, moms and everybody else should check it out.

If you saw my list last year, then it must appear like I’m some diehard Mr. Rogers fan. I don’t really have many memories watching his show as a child, but what the documentary ‘Won’t You be my Neighbor’ and this film by Marielle Heller have in common is a shared fascination of his immense empathy and character. It’s only right that America’s dad Tom Hanks should play him, and I was surprised at the end that I was able to get over his stardom and accept him as Rogers. He’s not doing a direct impersonation, and I think it’s all the better for it, instead opting for matching his soft tone and laid back movements.

On a pure emotional level, this movie was a freight train. It didn’t help that the movie covers a lot of father stuff, from losing your own to becoming one yourself (2 big boxes on the Brent bingo card). Heller’s direction is clever in its weaponizing of meta/post-modern techniques, such as one incredible fourth wall break in a diner scene. It literally breaks down the barrier between Mr. Rogers, we the audience, and the films intent to make us feel something.

I cry a lot at movies, that much is well known, but it’s rare that a movie makes me weep, and this one did. Even thinking about scenes right now, days later, my eyes are welling up with tears thinking about the messages of the movie. Mr. Rogers and his lessons of empathy and emotional understanding have rarely been as vital and important as they are right now in our world.

Robert Eggers first film ‘The Witch’ from 2015 is one of my favorite movies of this decade, possibly of all time, so my hype for his black and white, period piece two-hander ‘The Lighthouse’ was through the roof. Even with sky-high expectations, it still blew me away. With dialogue reminiscent of The Witch in its specific authenticity to its era, to the two lead actors giving all-time great performances, It was one of the most entertaining film viewing experiences I had this year.

There’s something about both of Egger’s movies that I really keyed into watching this one: his fascination with shame and the liberation from it. Where Witch was from the female perspective, Lighthouse literally has two farting, drunk men in a giant phallic symbol fighting for dominance. It’s less a horror film than his first, but still utterly engrossing, demented and specific to his singular vision. I can’t wait to see 20 more movies from this guy.

This is another big movie of 2019, like The Irishman, where you can see the director looking inward, at what his films mean and represent. It initially caught me so off guard that I really didn’t know how to feel about it, but after seeing it again, it’s one of my favorites of the year, and probably Tarantino’s filmography overall. More akin to something like Boogie Nights or Dazed and Confused, letting us live with and follow a small group of characters, it mostly doesn’t feel like a Tarantino movie (until the inevitable and shocking explosion of violence in the third act, of course).

‘Hollywood’ is the most sincere and loving movie Tarantino has made, interested in giving us a send off to an era of Hollywood and artists that have been lost or forgotten (Some more tragically than others). In the end, the movie functions similarly to ‘Inglorious Basterds’ in it’s rewriting of history to give us catharsis. “If only things could have worked out this way.” Luckily in movies, removed from the restrictions of reality, they can. And once upon a time in Hollywood, they did.

Uncut Gems probably tripled my blood pressure by the time the credits rolled. A slice-of-life story about a gambler/dealer in New York’s diamond district, the movie follows Howard Ratner, played by Adam Sandler in easily the best performance of his career. Ratner is basically addicted to living at the edge of a cliff, being chased by violent debt collectors, juggling a home life and a relationship with an employee, and fully relying on risky sports bets to stay afloat. It makes for a consistently tense and unique viewing experience, expertly directed by the Safdie brothers.

Something that might not work for everyone but that I personally loved, is the chaotic way in which the movie is shot. What feels like loosely directed scenes, with characters talking over each other and multiple conversations happening at once, adds an authenticity and reality lacking from most other movies. It’s more adjacent to Linklater (thanks to Adam for the comparison) or Scorsese’s earlier films (also fitting, that he’s a producer on this). Following Howard Ratner as his life descends into chaotic hell was one of the best times I’ve had watching a movie this year.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

AVENGERS ENDGAME

DOLEMITE IS MY NAME

BOOKSMART

JOHN WICK CHAPTER 3

THE FAREWELL

AD ASTRA

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 264: You Either Die a Hero...

Previously on BnHA: The kids of 1-A sat around waiting for something exciting to happen, and then it did happen, and they were all “!!” Over on the front lines, the heroes charged the Ol’ Villain Hotel with poor Kaminari crying the entire time, but we’ll excuse him since he is only in the second grade. Tokoyami gave him some gentle encouragement by reminding him of how hard he can slappa da bass, while Midnight told him to think of his one true love in order to find his inner courage, so he immediately thought of Jirou and everyone was like WHOA DID THEY REALLY JUST, and yeah, they kind of did? Anyway so Cementoss ripped the building open and Kaminari got all Thor on us and started battling this other electric guy, and then we cut to Hawks and Twice, who were having a friendly conversation similar to the friendly conversation Hawks had with Best Jeanist on the very same day that Jeanist abruptly went missing and was never heard from again! Hey, wait a second. You guys don’t suppose...??

Today on BnHA: Re-Destro gathers in the basement with all his followers and they’re all like “Re-Destro!!” and he’s all “what??” and they’re all “the heroes are attacking!!” and he’s all “:) :) :) the fuck??!” Outside, the heroes continue to wreak havoc, and between Edgeshot, Midnight, Honenuki and Toadette, I’m pretty sure they have actually killed some of these guys. But that’s silly though because heroes would never actually kill someone. Speaking of heroes not killing someone, back in the hotel, Hawks is all “(Ò‸Ó)” and Twice is all “(இ‸இ)” and then Hawks is all “I’m gonna arrest you but I’ll help you get through this and get back on your feet again afterwards because you’re a good person” and Twice is all “WHAT THE FUCK NOT THIS SHIT AGAIN” and does the whole Sad Man Parade thing. And Hawks is all “I don’t want to fight you!” and Twice is all “TOO BAD” and meanwhile Dabi is running up the stairs all “time to start some shit” and then the chapter ends. So while I’m relieved on behalf of Hawks’s soul, I can’t help but be a little concerned on behalf of his, uh, life. Shit.

okay, so! I finally have time to read this damn thing. but before I start, a couple of holdover thoughts from the prior chapter!

firstly, I want to go on the record now and say that I’ve decided once again that Hawks, in spite of all appearances, is not a murderer. you hear that Hawks. I’m putting my neck on the line for you. gonna look like a real stooge if you go and murder Twice before going on to fight Dabi to the death while we cut to Noumu!Jeanist taunting Bakugou

but in all seriousness, I just can’t reconcile it with what we know of Hawks’s character. his behavior during the fight against Hood almost got him exposed because he couldn’t bear to let anyone get hurt or to let Endeavor get killed. I know the HPSC got their claws in him at a young age, but in spite of that I don’t think he’s harboring a dark side. to me he always just comes off as tired and struggling to do the right thing even though he never asked to be put into this kind of position. he’s smart enough to understand the whole “needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” thing, but he’s also young enough to still hold to a certain idealism, and juuust cocky enough to have faith in his own cleverness and convince himself that he can somehow achieve this mission without sacrificing anyone else’s life

so in short, I don’t buy the dark!Hawks theories. I just can’t. but I guess we’re about to see! and my guess is that Horikoshi will probably have Dabi interrupt before Hawks can reveal his hand either way, because Horikoshi is just like that. what a troll

(ETA: I forgot that sometimes Horikoshi also likes to troll by giving you exactly what you want but in the most painful way possible. shit.)

now, moving on, the other thing I wanted to quickly address is Viz’s translation of this very important line from last week! so as a reminder, here is readheroaca’s version

and here is Caleb’s

I’m actually really glad I’ve been reading the fan translations first, because it made me more aware of the potential nuances in this scene. so is KamiJirou actually being confirmed here, or not?? and I spent 20 whole minutes digging into this more the other day because I have no life, so here are my findings!

first, here is the actual Japanese panel

and while I don’t speak Japanese, I can read hiragana well enough that I was able to plug it into a couple of translators to basically figure out what was being said. so here’s the full dialogue:

どこかの誰かじゃ

難しいなら --

今一番大事なものを

心に据えな

so the part in bold there is the line in question -- 大事なもの (daijina mono). “daiji” means “precious” or “important”, but the thing is, “mono” for whatever reason is written in hiragana and not kanji. and the word mono (which can be singular or plural btw) can hilariously mean either of the following depending on the kanji used:

lmao. so basically the bottom line is that from what I can see here, Horikoshi purposely didn’t specify! now I could be completely wrong; maybe this is a common enough expression that Caleb felt comfortable deciding that he meant “person.” or maybe he just guessed based on the context. or maybe he just said “fuck it, you only live once” and just went there because why the heck not

anyway, so that was fun, and for me it reinforced the fact that I really do prefer to have at least two different translations to compare in order to get the most complete picture of what exactly is going on here in this stupid manga that I obsess over week after week! so now let’s finally get to reading this thing

oh my

I have so many thoughts whirling around in my head right now, such as “oh my god look at all these secret entrances/exits the villains apparently had” and “wow the heroes are so thorough” and such, but ngl, right now the biggest one is “why are they all entering so slowly??” seriously though. let’s just gradually meander on in single-file. no rush. meanwhile 800m northwest and 1 km east, Cementoss is literally tearing the building in half and the other heroes are charging full speed all “ARGGHHHHH.” and over in Jakku, Miruko kicked a door open so hard it killed a guy. but we’ve all got our own styles I guess??

at least this one guy 800m north of the hideout is doing some doorbusting. sheesh. be more exciting please

oh hey it’s this place

behold. the great realm and dwarf city of Dwarrowdelf. well there’s an eye-opener and no mistake

LMAO THESE GUYS DON’T KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING YET OMG

oh my god. first of all wtf is that shirt. and second of all oh my fucking god, let me just shut up and read this is amazing

SDKLFJLSJK

LMAO

oh man. Re-Destro is one of the few characters whom I really want to see die. come on Horikoshi. don’t be a fucking coward. he’s had it coming ever since he killed that little mouse. and let’s not forget Giran. JUSTICE FOR GIRAN

oh we’re actually cutting back to this fight!

I wasn’t sure if we would! shounen authors have this habit of showing the start of a really cool battle only to then cut away to a bunch of other stuff and leave us hanging for a dozen chapters, so yeah. of course, that may still happen. I’m just lucky that I’m invested in virtually every single thing that’s going on right now, so it’s a win-win for me no matter where we cut to next

(ETA: lmao there really wasn’t much more to this fight to speak of. but what do you want to bet Horikoshi will try to pull this shit with Dabi and Hawks next week though.)

holy shit

this looks like when I attempt to build a gingerbread house. that’s uncanny

lmao Kami

YOU’RE DOING GREAT BUDDY. KEEP IT UP CHAMP

(ETA: Kaminari’s ridiculous smiling face is the balm we all need in these troubled times. tempted to ask him if he wouldn’t mind heading up to that telenovela happening over in Twice’s room and telling them all to lighten the fuck up.)

Lefty is all “does he have an absorption quirk?” because apparently he’s one of the two people that never watched the U.A. Sports Festival? how does anyone in this day and age manage to come across one of the 1-A kids and not know what their quirks are. and you’re a fucking general or whatever too, aren’t you? god you suck

so now he’s all “I BET YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO HANDLE... A FEW MILLION VOLTS” jesus christ. I bet you he can! but still, that’s awfully murdery of you. and to think, he’s on your side!! Kaminari are you really sure you want these guys as your friends

YOOOOOOO FUCKING KAKASHI ALL UP IN HERE DOING HIS HUMAN YONDU ARROW THING WHAAAAT

straight up prepared to be massively disappointed in Viz when they inevitably translate the “Ninpo” part instead of leaving it alone and letting everyone bask in these sentimental Naruto vibes. and also ngl I prefer for Edge’s lines to be as close to the original as possible so I can better imagine them in my head. stupid sexy Edgeshot

holy shit “I’ve pierced a small hole in each of your lungs” !!? WELL ALL RIGHT THEN, YOU SADISTIC WARRIOR OF THE NIGHT. YOU HEARD HIM BOYS. I’M SORRY, BUT HE’S ALL OUT OF FUCKS TODAY

OH HEY Y’ALL, MIDNIGHT HEARD YOU WERE KICKING ASS AND DECIDED TO JOIN IN, HOPE THAT’S ALL RIGHT

and if it’s not all right, well. tough

can you imagine. you’re just a simple villain, chilling out in your Hilton Garden Inn HQ and minding your own business when all of a sudden the walls come to life and some fucking shinobu busts a small hole in your lungs, and then you just fall asleep. sometimes life comes at you hard

now Kamui Woods is doing his whole Lacquered Chain Prison thing, but we’ve already seen that one so I’m not gonna bother showing it! tough break Kamui!!

OH MY GOD IS THIS WHAT I THINK IT IS

HALF OF THESE PEOPLE ARE ALREADY UNCONSCIOUS WITH HOLES IN THEIR LUNGS, SO SURE, HONENUKI, LET’S GO AHEAD AND FUCKING DROWN THEM TOO LMAO

LOOOOOOL OH CHRIST

CLASS 1-B WITH NO REGARD FOR HUMAN LIFE!!!

LMAO AND NOW SHE’S STANDING WITH HER ARMS UP OVER HER HEAD ALL SMILING LIKE ERI AT THE FUCKING CONCERT. A COLD GOD IN AN UNCARING UNIVERSE. WHAT THE FUCK

oh shit everybody shut up we’re cutting back to Hawks!!

but you pulled it off because you’re so damn smart. so now let’s stand around and explain your plan to everyone. what the fuck, Hawks

(ETA: and the thing is, now I’m thinking that by “incredibly difficult” he doesn’t mean that it was the cipher part that was difficult lol. that part was child’s play. any simpleton could do that. no, the difficult part was betraying his new friend. anyway so how’s everyone doing? what a fun chapter!!)

hey everyone I still have unwavering faith that this man is not a killer just FYI

what does that say about me I wonder. let’s just completely ignore everything being presented on screen here. also what the heck happened to all this furniture? did he upend the entire room with his crazy feather attack, or is that damage from Cementoss’s shenanigans?

HAHA!! FUCK YEAH

I KNEW YOU WEREN’T A KILLER YOU STUPID ASSHOLE!!

fuck yeah. of course, I realize that by betraying Twice so harshly like this, Hawks has still found himself on lots of people’s shitlists. but I would just like to put out a friendly reminder that Twice, despite being the nicest and most loyal guy you will ever meet, is still a terrorist who was going to kill a lot of people because he’s friends with a guy who wants to destroy the entire world. so basically there’s just no clean way out of this and it’s all very tragic

but anyway if it’s any consolation, I fully expect Dabi to turn up in the very next panel and be all “BLARGH! IT’S ME!” before we commence with the single sexiest battle in this manga to date

lmao Horikoshi. “but before we get to the sexy battle let me just twist that knife up in there real good!” jesus

friendly reminder that despite all appearances, Hawks is still objectively the good guy in this scenario. anyways for real, how are we all doing this afternoon. how many death threats has my bird son gotten today. I’m afraid to check. poor Twice is so trusting and I really hate to see him cry like this, poor baby. but I’m sure it’s also tearing Hawks up inside as well but we’re just not seeing it

and here we have Hawks, about to unleash his Mangekyou Sharingan

“are you sure you don’t think this sinister maniac looming in the shadows with the deranged look in his eyes is a ruthless killer, makeste?? are you really sure?” Horikoshi asks while pouring every last inch of malice he can into a single chilling panel

and yes, you bastard. I am sure. fuck you, how long are you going to make me sit here looking like a complete ass. look, we get it!! either way, Hawks is clearly a compelling actor! but the question is, which one is really the false face? is it the smiling, easygoing Hawks who always seems to have a faint hint of sadness in his eyes? or is it this menacing figure stripped of all mercy? is it really so crazy to go ahead and say that it’s the latter? huh?? [pokes Horikoshi in the chest] huh?????

anyway so Twice seems to slowly be progressing his way from despair to anger, which is probably not good. heh. fuck

maybe I was wrong about Dabi showing up and saving Twice, maybe his arrival will actually save Hawks instead lmao

anyway Hawks is still being all cold and creepy, and he’s all “you have my thanks.” and Twice is still crying, so maybe he’s still more sad than angry. well this is starting to drag out now though so if a certain spicy flame boi wants to make his grand entrance now, he’s welcome to do so anytime

oh shit Hawks is throwing me a bone!!! yessssss

YOU SEE!! THE SAD LOOK. HE DOESN’T WANT TO DO THIS. HE’S A GOOD BOY. oh my god I just realized how tense I was. hahaha what is this chapter

FINALLY OMG

NOOOOO I THOUGHT IT WAS DABI SNEAKING UP BEHIND HIM. OH MY GOD I CAN’T. WAS THIS HORROR MOVIE SERIAL KILLER ANGLE REALLY NECESSARY THEN, HORIKOSHI. WHAT THE FUCK

TWICE SHUT UP YOU ARE DIGGING YOUR OWN GRAVE!!!

fuck!!! this is why I was so sure he was going to die! because he won’t go quietly; he’s not the type to ever betray his friends. to him the League are basically the only family he’s ever known, so of course he’s not going to just be all “okay sure I’ll go to prison and let you reform me”

so then what, Hawks?? you didn’t fucking think this through you stupid kind-hearted punk!

sob!!!!

is that one of Hawks’s feathers slicing open the mask. sing it with me guys. to the tune of Jingle Bells: fuck fuck fuck, fuck fuck fuck, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuuuuck

OH MY GOD NOOOOO

I WEIRDLY WANT TO COVER MY EYES LOL OH GOD. I DON’T WANT THIS BUT I CAN’T LOOK AWAY HELPPPPP

FUCK ME, IT’S REALLY HAPPENING. HE COULDN’T BRING HIMSELF TO KILL HIM AND NOW HE’S SCREWED HIMSELF AND EVERYONE ELSE OVER, FUCK

FOR FUCK’S SAKE HAWKS YOU COULD HAVE JUST KNOCKED HIM OUT THEN!! YOU JUST HAD TO GO AND FUCKING TRY TO EXPLAIN YOURSELF. DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED IN DEIKA CITY, HAWKS. DO WE REALLY WANT A REPEAT OF THAT. SURE, WE’VE GOT CLASS 1-B OUT IN THE BACKYARD MORE THAN READY AND WILLING TO KILL ANY NUMBER OF BITCHES BECAUSE THAT’S HOW THEY DO, BUT STILL

oh shit!?!

lol excuse me are you really just going to end it there? fucking seriously. Dabi running up the stairs with the crazy eyes while Hawks regretfully thinks of himself and his side as “hero scum”?? fff

and that last part! holy shit! again, I don’t buy into any of the dark!Hawks theories, and that includes the theory that Hawks will turn on the heroes and end up siding with the villains (because, again, it has nothing to do with him liking the villains, or secretly resenting the HPSC; it’s strictly on account of the whole “the villains want to destroy the entire world” thing. like. unless you think Hawks is cool with all of that of course). so I have to admit this was very startling for me to read

but I do think this is probably just some of the inevitable self-loathing finally spilling over after being forced to play this role and do all these things for the sake of the greater good, rather than him hinting at a desire to turn against the so-called “hero scum.” but still, that’s probably as dark as we’re gonna get from him, and ngl, it’s some heavy stuff

goddammit. feel like we need to cut to some wholesome class 1-A antics or something after all of that. as always, angst is a double-edged sword that I always anticipate and love but am also destroyed by sigh

[letterboxd]

Beautiful Day: The Don Hertzfeldt Q&A.

In which the singular creator of It’s Such a Beautiful Day and the World of Tomorrow trilogy answers 57 questions put to him by the Letterboxd community, about death, gills, snacks, back flips, the best time of day to watch a movie, and the sick pleasure of emotionally destroying people.

Since his first animated outings in the 1990s, filmmaker Don Hertzfeldt has had a way of staring deeply into humanity’s soul via a humble stick figure, and his skill at blending existential questions with situational humor breeds intense reactions. To browse Letterboxd reviews of Hertzfeldt’s animated works is to meet film lovers at a rare, collective gathering point: heaping great piles of love for films that do “the exact opposite of helping with depression”.

There’s something optimistically anti-feel-good in Hertzfeldt’s works; a bleak view of the future, and a frank appreciation of death’s inevitability, that makes viewers urgently want to fix the way they’re living right now. “I’ve built a lot of my life philosophy on the messages of this film,” writes Misty, of his acclaimed It’s Such a Beautiful Day. “It has kicked my ass completely,” writes Dirk of the first, Oscar-nominated World of Tomorrow instalment, “making me angry at myself for letting trivial stuff take over things I love and making me happy I have so very, very much in my life to enjoy and be grateful for.”

The filmmaker’s magic lies as much in the process as the content: “Hertzfeldt is able to make every moment count,” writes Artpig, of the second WoT instalment, The Burden of Other People’s Thoughts, “every line of dialogue, every moment of silence, every note of music, every line of animation.” The World of Tomorrow films, says animation expert Toussaint Egan in our Letterboxd Show animation episode, are “some of the best science fiction films, period”.

And his timing. Oh, his timing. Just as the northern hemisphere days were turning cold, and the drawn-out misery of the pandemic was really taking hold all over again, Hertzfeldt tweeted:

WORLD OF TOMORROW EPISODE THREE everywhere october 9 5pm est 🚀

— don hertzfeldt (@donhertzfeldt)

October 8, 2020

And like that, World of Tomorrow Three: The Absent Destinations of David Prime was ours, an overnight gift to the quarantined and bereaved-weary, on Vimeo for all to rent or own. The gifts, they keep coming: a master list of movies that have their fingerprints on the World of Tomorrow universe, and now, in recognition of our community’s love for his films—and in his signature lower-case—the answers to questions asked in an exclusive Letterboxd Q&A.

To make things easier for Don, we grouped similar questions (and have noted which members asked what). Read on for more than you ever thought you might get to know about Hertzfeldt’s process, brain, heart and influences.

Filmmaker Don Hertzfeldt.

From “holograms that yell at you!” to the stunning colors, textures and folds of the blue mountains, to attributes David progressively deletes to make room for memories, would you please give us an insight into World of Tomorrow Three’s world-building process? —Letterboxd in the grand scheme of the series, episodes one and two still felt like baby steps to me. episode three was my first chance to really start blowing things up and exploring this universe. when i’m writing, i don’t want to worry about going over the top or think about structure or meaning or really much of anything yet. writing is playtime, it should be fun and messy. i want to go over the top. there is no top. i don’t want to start thinking too much until i’m rewriting and sorting through it all. thinking too much too soon can get in the way, like being too aware of when you’re trying to fall asleep. when you write a diary entry or a text to a friend, there’s no self-consciousness or creative blocks, you just write. it’s casual and fluid and automatic. but if you’re asked to write a term paper or a screenplay, suddenly all those lights turn off. it can be paralyzing. it’s hard to get to that place of truly not caring what anyone thinks and approach all forms of writing just as freely as writing those immediate thoughts in your diary. but that’s what i try to do.

When you start writing a new piece, do you usually start with a plot idea, a thematic idea, one uniform philosophical notion, or a little bit of each? —Kodiak J. Sanders, Trenz, Mr. Tables i don’t think i ever write in a straight line. i’ll jot down a hundred stray ideas over time, and one day i’ll sit down and see what connections might be made out of them. i really want this scene to be in the movie, so how do i get there? this is a good line, how can i get a character to say it? so the actual story usually only starts to reveal itself when i sit down to logic all these bits and pieces out. hey, in order to connect this strange idea to that strange idea, suddenly there is a very interesting third scene.

I’m astounded by how much the animation and the visuals improve with each instalment of World of Tomorrow. What have you done differently for each one? —Aske Lund, Cringetacular the characters needed to physically perform a lot more in episodes two and three so there were more demands put on the animation. when emily 4 dances or david staggers up a mountain, those sorts of scenes were animated in “ones”, which means doing 24 drawings per second versus my usual twelve. it’s still all 2D hand animation, just more of a classic disney approach that gives the movement a smoother look and a little more room for nuance. and obviously it takes a lot more work. but i hesitate to call such things improvements because i’m not sure i like the idea of different techniques being thought of as good or bad. it’s just another way of doing things. it really depends, sometimes super limited animation can be more effective.

Likewise, Part Three’s sound design is incredible. What conditions did you create it in, and what are all those sounds, and how do you have such an incredible command of the cut-to-silence trick?! —Letterboxd thanks, the sound design is always my favorite thing to do. other than julia’s lines, it’s easy to forget that all the animation starts with dead silence. obviously there’s no sound coming from a live-action set. so adding sound and music to everything, usually pretty late in production, is when all the stuff i’ve been working on suddenly starts to feel like an actual movie. this is not a future that works very well—particularly david’s, which predates everything else we’ve seen so far by a century or two—so you’re hearing a lot of creaky old hard drives booting up, electric distortions, and bent circuits from broken toys.

Emily and Emily Prime in a still from ‘World of Tomorrow’ (2015).

World of Tomorrow used to fill me with existential dread, but now with the current state of the world it’s become more and more comforting in a strange way. Do you feel that at all as you make new episodes? —mariano gg i wish that were possible but when i’m making something i’m usually so close to it i’m unable to see anything but all the things i need to fix.

Can you talk a little bit about sourcing the photo-realistic images for the backgrounds in Part Three? —Jack Moulton most of the environments were 2D images i built in photoshop, usually starting from close-up photos of different textures (like sandstone), all sort of reshaped and puzzle-pieced into something new. an easy to see example was david’s cockpit, which was cobbled together from all sorts of different old aircraft engine and machine parts. the trick in building and lighting these locations was always figuring out where the line was drawn in making these places realistic, but not too realistic for minimal characters to inhabit. i kept landing on a sort of painterly looking middle ground.

If the cloning process in World of Tomorrow existed right now, would you go through that process and create clones of yourself to prolong your life? —tim probably not, that process doesn’t seem to work so well.

If you were put into the world you’ve created, would you buy gills? —Lauren Torres i tend to avoid putting my head under because i almost always get water in my ears so i guess i wouldn’t need them. gills also seem like they’d be a real nuisance to keep clean.

What does love mean, and why do your characters go through so much effort to find it? —Andrew Michalko oh man.

In this year of years, what do you hope people will understand about death and its inevitability (or is it all there on the screen, and if so, that’s okay too)? —Letterboxd understanding death and its inevitability is maybe the most valuable thing a person can do for themselves.

Was the absence of Emily Prime in Part Three a practical decision [Don’s then-four-year-old niece Winona provided Emily’s voice] or an intentional departure from the first two films? —Michael it was both. i couldn’t find a way to fit her in naturally and i also felt like the series needed to start growing in other directions and not rest on the past. episode two had also been really difficult to write, it was so reliant on winona’s recordings, and it felt like the dam was really broken when i was finally able to write without any restrictions this time.

In a series like World of Tomorrow, where you headed in a direction that is a lot more plot-driven than your previous work, how far in advance do you plan? Did you always know this was in David’s past, or are these stories told one at a time? —Ryan Welch, Kodiak J. Sanders, julius, Alex Leon i could tell early on that this wasn’t a story like it’s such a beautiful day with a clear beginning, middle and end, but a much wilder thing that could continue to grow. the openness of it is still what makes it so interesting to me. i have all sorts of notes for the next episodes but if i already knew what would happen in episode nine i think that would take a lot of the air out of the tires and i’d start to feel like i was just connecting the boring dots. while writing, i’ve also had to be aware that there someday might be an episode nine so i can’t go wrecking the timelines before i get there.

What were the rocks and the gas pump that Emily fell in love with meant to represent? —Ekaneff she was learning how to love, and like all of us, in her youth she gravitated to a bunch of individuals that were wrong for her.

Aside from the ability to release more frequently, is there something about the episodic structure that you prefer/appreciate, as opposed to creating one larger feature-length film? —SiddFinch1 there’s just more freedom. the traditional running time of a feature film, 90 to 120 minutes, is a totally arbitrary number.

Have you ever considered writing a World of Tomorrow book or graphic novel? —Jay Smith the earliest ideas for world of tomorrow were sloshing around in a graphic novel called the end of the world that came out in 2013. but i don’t have any talent or much confidence in making another book like that. it’s a different world. when i look at someone like chris ware and then look at something like the end of the world, it’s like, “wow, baby made a mess”.

A page from Don Hertzfeldt’s graphic novel, ‘The End of the World’ (2013).

What attracted you to the unique style [of minimalist stick figures]? Is there a sense of intimacy that you feel you can achieve with this simplicity? —Evan Whitford when i was little, before i wanted to make movies i wanted to be a newspaper cartoonist. i think my drawings today might have more in common with newspaper comics than the sort of characters you usually see in animation. comic-strip panels were always composed in a very reserved way because they were generally intended to be skimmed. you needed to be able to read the strip in five seconds so you could be off to read the sports pages and obituaries. the comics pages were also under constant size and space restrictions. so they were minimal by design and the artists reduced their characters to only their most essential parts. there was no room for fussing. charles schulz said “i only draw what’s necessary”. and that’s actually incredibly hard to do. you’re accomplishing so much more with so much less.

i’ve also found that if there’s a scene that’s not playing right and bothering me, most of the time it’s because my composition was too cluttered. i almost always find myself removing things from the frame and trying to pare it down to only what’s necessary. very rarely do i ever think ‘i need to add more stuff in here’. because this shot is only five seconds long and i want you to be looking over here when this moment happens and this character says something, and if you’re distracted by this other flickering junk i put in the corner it’s going to throw everything off.

Animation-aside, which creative medium do you resonate with the most? —Bronkdan music.

How much did you pull from real-life experiences to make It’s Such A Beautiful Day, if any? What research did you conduct into memory? —Gunnar Sizemore, David Sigura, Micah Smith whenever i got a little stuck writing it’s such a beautiful day, i’d go back and reread my journal and pull more things out of it. dreams, conversations, small scenes. reading the journal now, it seems like i stole something from it every few pages. i also heavily researched neurological problems. it’s never said in the movie what exactly’s going on with bill, but i needed there to be a real diagnosis to base the medical writing on. so all the things he’s going through are real treatments or symptoms based on an actual condition. i didn’t want to ever come out and say, “he’s got terminal brain clouds”, or whatever in the movie, because then it becomes a “brain-cloud movie”, and that’s too easy for the audience to compartmentalize and distance themselves from… “brain clouds are so rare, that will never happen to me”. but not being told exactly what’s wrong with bill might help make the story more relatable and universal.

In what ways have you kept your mind fresh creatively? How do you keep yourself from slipping into complacency? —Watchmoviez, Drew’s reviews most creative blocks or stagnation come from anxiety, second-guessing and doubt. over the years i’ve learned to just sort of calm down and trust myself more. it’s like the old aesop fable: when you stop thrashing around in the water, the water becomes clearer and you can see more. if a scene isn’t working right, i can more easily chill out about it these days and trust that i’ll eventually figure it out—because i’ve figured these sorts of things out a hundred times before and i know by now that i’m not the sort of person who’s just going to allow a scene that isn’t working to remain in the movie. there’s a little more panic about that sort of thing when you’re young: “oh no, the movie sucks right now, will it always suck?!” i’ve reached the point where i know that i will not let it suck. and that sort of thinking allows all the movie gears to turn more easily.

Do you have a specific thematic, emotional or other miscellaneous motive in mind when including classical music pieces? —James Y. Lee when i’m listening to music and suddenly the right piece arrives, it’s usually blindingly obvious to me: there’s just no doubt this needs to be in the movie somehow. it’s like the idea has always existed and i’ve just finally uncovered it. it’s the same with writing. when the right thing floats along, it is striking and obvious and into the pile of notes it goes.

How much of your animation style lends itself to experimentation, such as discovering new tricks and pretty shots, that is then discarded if you learn it doesn’t work as intended? —Adam, Jacob i think i’m always experimenting. i figure if it doesn’t work, at least i’ve learned something.

What is the strangest compliment or critique you’ve gotten personally or of your work? —Elliot Taylor i’ve always remembered this one. i am so proud of you came out a couple years after everything will be ok. it was a continuation of that story, so it was basically the first time i had ever made a sequel. and everything will be ok had done really well when it came out. it won sundance and got all these great reviews. so i am so proud of you comes out and i remember reading this review that says, “everything will be ok was probably my favorite animated short of all time. it honestly changed my life. it was funny, sad, beautiful and just so wonderful. everything will be ok, boy did i love it. incredible. two thumbs up. truly, best thing ever. wow. so, unfortunately, its sequel, i am so proud of you, just feels like more of the same.”

A still image from ‘It’s Such a Beautiful Day’ (2012).

Are there any pieces of fiction that have influenced your work that we probably wouldn’t think of? —Gyani Wasp, Mikolaj Perzyna, Aaron McMillan, Harrison, Axel, Cringetacular, The25centman, Hunter Guidry one thing that pops to mind is the phantom tollbooth. my favorite children’s books were the ones with all the fun metaphors and clever wordplay. when i was plotting out episode two i wanted to lean into that, where visiting different sections of emily’s brain would be like milo visiting the land of math, the land of letters, the land of sound, with different looks and logic to it. so we had the bog of realism, glimmers of hope, broken memories, the logic center, and all the stuff in triangle land and square land. i guess that’s a lot but i wish there had been a bit more.

How did your friends and family respond to the “my anus is bleeding” part of Rejected? —Alex Tatterson they were pretty used to me by then.

Do you know of the work of David Firth, the internet animator? His work is also surreal and has dark humor, but more sinister than whimsical. Would you ever consider making an animation in the realm of horror in future? —KEVIИ HДWKIИS i’m afraid i don’t know him. i’d love to make a horror movie. from a certain point of view though maybe it could be argued that most everything i’ve made is a sort of horror movie?

My first tattoo is of Billy from Billy’s Balloon hanging from his ankle and it was the best decision I’ve ever made. How do you feel about people having your work tattooed and do you have any ink from other creatives that have meant something to you? —Elias it really fucking enrages me when people get my stuff tattooed on them. no just kidding. mostly i feel embarrassed but i’m glad you haven’t changed your mind about it yet. sometimes i wonder how many people have.

Have you ever thought about directing live action? —Abeer, Noah Thompson yes.

Is there an update on your feature film Antarctica? —Rylan California it’s one of many things swirling around.

Will you do a remake of Robocop and why not next year? —Simon no, because robocop is already sort of perfect.

Do you ever see yourself directing a large studio film? Or working with a large team to make something with a higher budget, maybe through a crowd-funded project? Or do you just strongly prefer working on your own? —Vteyshev, Monotone Duck sure. i’ve never preferred working on my own at all. it was usually just the only way to ever get anything made. i haven’t had the funding to pay a big crew, or really much of a crew at all. there’s the old saying: you can make something good, you can make it fast, and you can make it cheap, but you can only pick two. if you make it good and fast it won’t be cheap, if you make it cheap and fast it won’t be good, etc. so my only route in hoping to make something good and cheap has been to totally forget about making it fast.

What did you find digital animation added or took away from your work, and what did those changes do for your storytelling? Will you continue using the digital medium when/if you decide to move on from the World of Tomorrow project? —Alec Lai, Slipkornbizkit, Aldo digital just sped everything up. it’s still one person drawing everything, so we need to remember that speed is relative here, but i felt like i went from riding a bicycle to driving a car. there are many pleasant, wonderful things about riding a bicycle but you’re not going to get anywhere very quickly. and i’m not in my 20s anymore, in fact my 20s and 30s were mostly entirely devoured by making movies in what was maybe the slowest way possible. so these days i am appreciating the speed of digital.

If you could have a conversation with any filmmaker, dead or alive, who would it be and why? —ToBeHonest, Cringetacular if i could resurrect one of my heroes from the dead i think i would feel terrible wasting his time forcing him to have a conversation with me. he might also just sit there, covered with graveyard dirt, screaming in horror.

What is the best time of day to watch a movie? —Sammy night. i always feel a little nuts coming out of a movie and the sun is still up.

What’s your all-time favorite science-fiction film, and why? —Letterboxd 2001. because come on.

What is your favorite of Julia Potts’ films, and why? —Letterboxd i like the one with the severed foot.

Are there any animated films that you felt had a profound impact on you as a child? —Sprizzle probably fantasia. and ray harryhausen stuff. whenever there was a sunday-afternoon movie on TV, my brother and i learned that if in the opening titles there was a credit for “special effects” we should keep watching because we might eventually see something cool.

Which one of your movies is your personal favorite? —Jakob Böwer, RodrigoJerez i don’t know. sometimes it’s the newest one because it’s usually the one with the most experience behind it and therefore feels like it has the fewest mistakes. but then over time i realize they’re all riddled with mistakes. of the it’s such a beautiful day pieces, i think my favorite has always been i am so proud of you. and then i’ll see reviews that say “clearly the second chapter is the weakest one”, and i’ll think, man you guys don’t know what you’re talking about.

One of Don’s layout sketches for ‘I Am So Proud of You’ (2008).

What’s your favorite Pixar film? —Jordan inside out.

What film would you want to be the last one you watch before you die? —Gavin honestly if i’m in the process of dying i hope i won’t be watching movies at all.

Do you have faith in humanity? —Connor Kriechbaum not often.

What is something that worries you about where humankind is headed? —Felix_Bouchard social media.

What is the most valuable thing you have ever lost? How often do you think about it? —Siminup well now i’m getting sad.

Can you do a back flip, mister Don? —Doug maybe with the help of a catapult.

What is your take on the after life? What do you think happens to us when we die? —Luisdecoss i guess that it’s probably a lot like our memory of what the year 1823 was like.

Do you want anything from McDonald’s? —Andrew Rhyne only if i’m in an airport and desperate.

What’s your favorite meal or snack? —Pfitzerone, Evan lately in quarantine i’ve been discovering this particular breakfast burrito.

How’s your quarantine life, Don? —Ivan Arcena it’s okay thanks. eating lots of breakfast burritos.

Hi! I can’t believe you’re going to read this. I am currently filled with an unparalleled amount of joy, wow. This is a long shot but here I go. I’m 17 and your (self-proclaimed) biggest fan. I’ve seen It's Such a Beautiful Day eight times now and every single time I pick up on more details. I’ve watched a few of your interviews and in the AFS one about Rejected you said that the louder you play a movie, the funnier it is. On my seventh watch of It’s Such a Beautiful Day I hooked my laptop up to three huge speakers and I must say—you were so, so right. I made a video essay about the movie. Lol, I’m not sure if this will get to you but Michael Jordan once said something about missing shots or not taking shots or maybe about tequila, I am unsure but I know it was important. Thanks MJ. Not you, Mr Jackson. I’m sorry Ms. Jackson…

I actually do have a question, sorry about the rambling. Every single time I watch the guy at the payphone flip his pencil and go “fantastic, fantastic” I cry. And I think what really does it for me is that “we’ll finally have our day”. Earlier in the movie, Bill’s co-worker talks about how all of time is happening at once. So what I constantly ask myself is if the guy at the payphone is simultaneously having his day and waiting for it. And I’m no longer speaking to that one specific example or even to the movie as a whole but I guess I’m wondering if the idea of all events happening at once comforts you?

In Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut writes: “The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist.” When I read this I immediately thought about your movie. I think the idea of all of time happening at once makes all of life feel less important but more special. You know? Anyway, I suppose I’d just like to know what inspired the lines about time in the office scene. This isn’t much of a question, more an incoherent ramble but thank you so, so much for all you’ve done. I feel so incredibly inspired and so deeply moved by your work and I know that so many people in this comment section and around the world would agree. I can’t believe I’ve been given the opportunity to ask something. It really is such a beautiful day. :) —Eli Osei (co-signed by Vooder) that old guy at the payphone was someone i saw at the laundromat once and he borrowed my pencil and the whole thing just played out like in the movie. i just thought it was such a perfect little scene that i’d just witnessed. anyway, the idea of time being a landscape and everything taking place “at once” just came straight out of a science magazine. i don’t know how, but apparently it’s been more or less proven to be true? we perceive time in one direction, but the past and the future are always all around us. think of it as though we’re driving our car through a landscape. even though the mountains we saw ten minutes ago are behind us now, it doesn’t mean those mountains have ceased to exist. they’ve only ceased to exist from our point of view. we’ve only just driven past them. the mountains, like your childhood, are still going on back there. anyway, i had never heard of that before and thought it needed to be in a movie.

A still from ‘World of Tomorrow Episode Two: The Burden of Other People’s Thoughts’ (2017).

Are you a fan of Kurt Vonnegut by any chance? It may be coincidental, but I love how you both utilize science-fiction settings and concepts like being “unstuck from time/memory” to explore the human condition. I feel his writing and your animation are both capable of making me laugh wholeheartedly one minute and weeping genuine, sorrowful tears the next. —Vooder i’m embarrassed to say i’ve never read him and i’m told on a regular basis that i should. that all started after i am so proud of you came out with those discussions about time being a landscape. but i almost only ever read non-fiction. it’s a long story. but now i’m almost afraid to ever read vonnegut after all these years of build-up.

Hey Don, this is really cool. I don’t have as much of a question, more of a comment. It’s Such A Beautiful Day has gotten me through a lot of hard times, being in middle school sucks, I think everyone knows that: and your movie has made life just a wee bit better for me. It also gave me the inspiration and motivation to finish my first feature! Thanks lots. Love from Indiana —Blood Mountain: Experimental Cinema <3 hey thank you. yeah middle school was pretty much the deepest pit of hell. there’s this old saying, “if you find yourself in hell, keep going”. and i’ve never understood that saying. “keep going”, because, i guess, you can always just go deeper into hell?

Hi! Has the vitreous humour in your eyes started to deteriorate and have you experienced floaters within your eyeballs? If not, that’s okay. Just remember it’s part of life, so don’t get scared when it happens! Just keep moving on! But if you do have them, follow-up question: Do you think it’s funny that the body of vitreous fluid that allows your sight to be clear is called the vitreous humour, and when it detaches it’s anything but humorous? I find that pretty humorous myself, in, like, an ironic way. —Clbert1 i actually blew a blood vessel in my eye a couple weeks ago and the whole thing turned bright blood red. it didn’t hurt or anything, i just walked into the room all disgusting and my girlfriend was like, “what the fuck?!” and then the next day i had further weird eye problems. i just went to the eye doctor yesterday. i think i will be fine but i was thinking, wouldn’t it be like the most heavy metal thing ever for my biography if i just suddenly went BLIND? “and then in 2020, HE WENT BLIND.”

Will Intro ever be released to the general public outside of theater screenings? —Melissa okay yes you’ve talked me into it. on that note, i noticed that the poster of intro used on letterboxd is a weird fake and i’m not sure where it came from. someone just used a picture from rejected. if fake posters are to be made i would prefer it if they used a picture from raiders of the lost ark or something.

Do you have plans to combine the World of Tomorrow shorts into one feature-length film à la It’s Such a Beautiful Day? —David Sigura, Sam Stewart, An_Person no, it’s going to be much longer than a feature-length.

Will we ever get a ‘Hertzfeldt 4K Collection’? Or at least a Blu-ray with It’s Such a Beautiful Day and all episodes of World of Tomorrow? —Teebin, HippityHoppity there is actually already a blu-ray for it’s such a beautiful day. up next we’ll do some sort of world of tomorrow blu-ray of the first three episodes. but 4k is too many k’s. you don’t need that many k’s.

Would you ever consider comprising an OST album of all the songs you used and mixed from your films? —PhiloDemon i don’t think so. i read that for many years cat stevens resisted releasing his original songs from harold and maude on any records because he thought they were more special if you could only ever hear them in the movie. i like that.

Do you get a sick kind of pleasure from emotionally destroying people with your movies? —MaxT26 yep.

What’s been your ongoing experience of the outpouring of joy and love of your work? —Henry gratitude. how sad for me if, after all this work, nobody was watching at all.

Related content

Don’s invaluable Twitter thread about “old-school animation camera stuff”

A Few of the Fingerprints on the World of Tomorrow Universe: a list of influences curated for Letterboxd by Don Hertzfeldt

Modest Heroes: the Letterboxd Showdown for indie animation

The Drawn Cinema: Analena’s list of rough animation, pencil textures, watercolor effects, dynamic brushes and other poetic artistry.

Beloved Indie Animation: a list by Gui

Animated Sci-Fi and Fantasy: an extensive list by Stonefolk

‘World of Tomorrow Three: The Absent Destinations of David Prime’ is available now through Bitter Films on Vimeo.

[kinetic-elaboration]

October 9: 1x18 Arena

Today’s ep is Arena, which isn’t my favorite type of narrative generally--I don’t tend to like very sparse man-versus-nature type stories, and this is pretty close, except there’s a singular opponent--but this one is good. I mean...Gorn??

What the heck kinda conversation is this lol? Kirk and Bones all excited for some good food. Spock being suspicious.

This is a tough ep for a Kirk stan such as myself but Spock sure does come across well.

“Doctor, you are a sensualist,” Spock says as if he weren’t ALSO a sensualist lol. I’ve seen those big red curtains you have in your room bitch, don’t tell me you’re not a sensualist.

DeForest Kelley was so good... that smile. It’s so beautiful.

Kirk’s smile is pretty good too, especially that very specific “my two favorite people are interacting” soft smile. Same, Kirk, I love it too!

Well, so much for that good non reconstituted meal.

Kirk, Spock, Bones, and a redshirt beam down to a planet...what will happen?

“There are living creatures here... not human... cold-blooded.” Like Spock!

Sulu is really running the whole show here. Definite Captain material. He is an experienced combat officer. But it’s not the military right lmao.

Honestly kind of love that all of this is being done by big lizards. Like the mystery of the unknown alien is great for a first watch but it’s just as satisfying to know they’re big reptiles.

Also speaking of Sulu his eye shadow is great today.

“Protect my ship!” aka today in “Kirk loves his ship more than anything.”

And their goes their ride.

Spock: “I’ve got to get to the captain!” Sure do bb. He’s so much ganglier and more awkward than Kirk when he runs and rolls around.

The lizards are very smart, locking onto Spock’s tricorder and turning it into a bomb, apparently.

I legit through azimuth was a sci fi word they made up rip me. It’s a real thing but in my defense it has to do with math.

Spock came SO close to patting Kirk’s ass there.

So I guess their grenade launcher worked or whatever? Kind of missed something there but they’re back on the ship.

In some ways this is a hard ep for me because Kirk does not come off great at this point, and a part of me is like “well he does respect alien life though!” but realistically....he respects life unless his own people are threatened: when it’s ship, crew, or the Federation, he’s ready to throw down. And this was a pretty big attack, and apparently merciless. Spock is right that it isn’t necessarily true that the Gorns are invaders--that’s the best part of the ep for me, they both interpreted actions on the other’s part as invasions and neither was right, so it was a perfectly parallel misunderstanding, two Captains that are both opposites and identical--but it’s understandable for Kirk to think so. He believes so strongly in the Federation and its peaceful, good faith missions to make alien friends, that aliens showing up and just decimating everything, even killing civilians, would of course anger him and make him kind of lose his mind a little.

And Spock knows he’s wrong but he also trusts the Captain and believes in the chain of command.

Also I’m a Kirk apologist so!!

Strange signals...unrecorded... space legends--there’s a whole other story right in those lines tbh!! Spooky space hauntings!

Even this angry, he still sounds soft when he says “Thank you Spock.” Shatner is a more nuanced actor than people give him credit for.

“The destruction of the alien vessel will not help that colony, Jim.”

I love how they keep saying “alien.” I mean what else are they going to say--but it’s a great word.

It’s just so obvious that Kirk needs to Learn a Very Important Lesson today...

Oops, ran into a space wall!

Scotty’s real accent is so much more subtle than Simon Pegg’s insane Scottish accent lol.

The Metrons. “You are bad, violent aliens. We hate violence ourselves, so we shall now have you fight to the death.”

Spock’s like “Uhura, get out of the way. This is fascinating.”

Yes CAPTAIN GORN what an entrance!

Kirk’s not even surprised, he’s like, well...he’s a lizard, I guess!

“This is an intelligent, highly advanced individual, a captain of a starship, like myself.”

Kirk needs a bigger stick, I guess.

This fight sequence is so odd. It’s so obvious that the Gorn’s skin is not his skin, and there’s a weird kinda delicacy/awkwardness to his movements. This isn’t even a criticism of the costume or actors, I think it’s impressive--and frankly more fun than any alien consume in more recent sci fi. Just very odd. And actually in a way I LIKE it being odd because it seems more alien.

Scotty’s like, “Mr. Spock, I have obviously already tried everything you’ve thought of. It’s ME we’re talking about here.”

Spock and Uhura so obviously in love lol. The chemistry. Wow.

I guess Starfleet exists now. And the Federation.

“If I could help him, I would.” Spock’s so sad.

So I wasn’t really clear here if the Gorn was listening to Kirk with a translator or not but apparently he was. Kind of confused why Kirk didn’t bother listening in on the Gorn. Or more specifically why his hisses weren’t automatically translated at the beginning.

Sneaky, sneaky Gorn planning something.

“Diamonds....beautifully crystallized and pointed...Spock would love them.”

Kirk definitely spends his retirement writing a memoir. “Captain’s Log: Adventures on the Final Frontier.”

Gorn’s building something still....

I love when they pretend to push styrofoam as if it were really heavy.

Ah, no, he fell right into the Gorn’s trap! Being dramatic as always.

Lol, Kirk, the Metron said there were MATERIALS for weapons, not whole-ass weapons. Put it together. Literally.

Spock in the Captain’s chair again oh yeah.

Rolling his eyes at McCoy again lol.

Spock: “Feelings for the Captain? Me? What?” *sweats nervously*

Uhura is the only one with a realistic reaction to the Gorn.

Kirk following that very human instinct to figure out what something is by licking it.

Just to drive the point home, the Gorn specifically refers to the Federation as invaders, just like Kirk referred to the Gorns as invaders. “You established an outpost in our space... We destroyed invaders.”

And Bones having a crisis over here. Could we have been.... wrong? The whole time?

This situation needs diplomats, not soldiers. Perhaps... Sarek?

Spock’s so proud of Jim. And so excited by the narrative. “Everyone out of my way, gotta sit in my fancy chair to better enjoy this quality entertainment.”

And so Kirk learns his lesson.

I find the Metron kind of hilarious. 

There’s a moment with Kirk on the bridge, in profile, where the physical similarities between Shatner and CPine are very strong.

“Where we are! I mean, were! I mean!” Sulu lol.

Quality final talk between Kirk and Spock. Bones is so obviously tired of all this lol--he just gives Kirk a quick cuddle, then off for a post-adventure drink. While Kirk and Spock do their post-adventure flirting.

I kinda want to see what’s happening on the Gorn ship tbh. Like Kirk learned his lesson but he never really established any kind of dialogue with the Gorns. We don’t know what the Gorn reaction to his mercy was.

Also I want to see Sarek interact with the Gorns.

Another very tightly plotted episode, focused on its main theme/lesson. Very satisfying.

Next up: Tomorrow Is Yesterday, a CLASSIC D.C. Fontana ep.

[cavesalamander]

My brief thoughts on this season of anime!

Just a quick review of the ones I’d recommend and/or keep watching. I managed to find all of the below on Funimation or Crunchyroll or Youtube!

Horymia: (Yes) This is looking to be a very funny romcom slice of life style anime, and seems to be a fairly good one! Had me laughing a lot. The Main couple are a nerdy quiet boy who’s actually dumb as a sack of bricks using his disheveled appearance to hide his tattoos and piercings, and a popular pretty girl who’s actually a total homebody. Their friends seem to have a lot of potential to be fleshed out as the series progresses and I look forward to seeing how it goes!

So I’m a Spider, So What?: (Yes) Whooo another isekai (excited)! This time a girl and her entire class!? Get isekai’d in a massive explosion. The main character reincarnates as a trash monster in a dungeon and must fight her way up the food chain just to survive. Meanwhile her friends who have mostly reincarnated as Cool Humans or the occasional elf or baby dragon, have mostly found each other, and want to figure out what happened/why and if they’re all okay. It’s genuinely pretty funny, though leans a little too hard sometimes on the gamey aspects of this new world. I think it may get darker as it goes along too.

Mushoku Tensei: (No) Whooo another isekai (derogatory). 34 yo old man gets reincarnated and uses his worldly experience to Learn Magic Fast and creep on his mom and prepubescent tutor. If you can stomach that stuff, it actually has a fair amount of potential? It did set itself up to touch on some interesting stuff down the road, but I’m kind of Over the horny toddler/young boy trope and it kinda just seems like the protagonist is Just Awesome At Everything but not in a remotely charming way.

Cells at Work Code Black: (Yes) If you liked Cells at Work, this is that but dingier, and is able to tackle some darker themes - like what stress, smoking, drinking, and probably eventually STDs can do to your body.

Kemono Jihen: (Yes) I don’t wanna explain TOO much about the plot of this one because it looks to be a mystery series, and the first episode sets it up the characters very very well. A man from the city is called to a rural town where animals are being mysteriously killed and found rotting. He’s tasked with finding and killing the perpetrator, assumed to be a monster of some kind. It does the horror very well, and even in the first episode manages some twistyness.

The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can Enter: (No) Even for a blatant fan service anime this one is just......... stupid. It might have a scrap of joy to it if the protagonist were anything other than a boring sycophant. His harem just all seems to be random girls who’s singular personality traits are to be in love with him in various stereotypical ways, that he just uses to min max his Cool Stats. But like, it’s not even self aware enough to make that into an interesting premise.

Sk8: (Yes) It’s a racing anime that seems super stylish and fun and very well animated. The protagonists have some cool chemistry already, and it really leans into the Underground Illegal Racing part of the fun - all the various characters who battle in death defying races through this abandoned mine, all have seemingly ordinary day jobs. Definitely worth a shot if that sounds up your alley.

Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies moved to a starter town?: (Probably) Okay so the premise is just there in the title and is actually pretty fun. Think: a random NPC who is considered pretty weak where the monsters are lv 50 moving somewhere where the monsters are scary at lv 5, shenanigans ensue. The MC boy is hilariously oblivious to the fact that anyone with a shred of sense can see he’s insanely over leveled to the area, and just trying to be nice and polite to everyone ^u^. The tentative nature of my recommendation is that it is kind of leaning harder on the Girls are Obsessed With Him train than is ideal. How much it depends on that as opposed to utilizing the premise to its fullest extent will have an enormous bearing on how fun the show is to watch going forward.

Ex-Arm: (Absolutely not but yes) It’s a fucking train wreck.

Heavens Design Team: (Yes) God decided to outsource creating animals to a team of angels, and works as a client giving weird ass requests for the angels to fill. Hilarity ensues, and it is peak edutainment to boot. It’s so much fun learning weird shit about animals, or trying to guess the animal these seemingly random train of failed attempts leads to.

Dr. Ramune -Mysterious Disease Specialist-: (No) It has a promising premise and some good moments. The main characters are solving these weird “diseases” that people get by finding the actual emotional cause and using magic of some kind to monkey paw it into a resolution. This could be really fun and interesting, but something about the execution just... falls flat? Like maybe it picks up as the season goes on but for now it’s not rly worth it.

Vlad Love: (Yes) I was going through the list of anime this season and was like wtf is this and literally just now watched episode 1. It’s about a girl with a blood donation kink and her vampire girlfriend. Literally. It’s rly funny and over the top ridiculous but like, gay vampires.

Back Arrow: (No) It’s like... fine. It’s about these two warring kingdoms surrounded by a wall with a mountain range between. They worship the wall as god, and occasionally get gifts from beyond it, in the form of mech suits they use to fight each other in. One day a boy shows up from beyond the wall in one of those suits and no memories of anything and he wants to get back. Which... could be promising I guess? But something about the show just didn’t grab my attention.

Skate-Leading Stars: (No) It’s like Yuri on ice if it was less gay and less well written I guess...? The first episode set up the Drama competently enough, but I just... couldn’t give a shit.

Project Scard: (No) For some reason part of Tokyo has been turned into a post apocalyptic hellscape where people just murder each other. They also have super powered tattoos and use them to fight each other. Animation is very similar to Handshakers - which is an Aesthetic that may not appeal to some. The first episode didn’t rly do much for me but I could see it going somewhere if it tries.

Wave!!: (No) Might have been a tentative yes if I hadn’t gone on and watched the second episode. First ep went hard with the queerbaiting cause they want to be the new Free! but with surfing, but Ep 2 just forgot all about that entirely. Dialogue is mostly boring and there’s like 3 sets, which becomes painfully obvious very quickly by ep 2.

Idoly Pride: (No) Literally looks like they ripped off the waifus of a bunch of other more popular anime and made an idol anime with the most basic ass idol plot. Nothing exceptional here.

Gekidol: (undecided) It’s an idol anime... set after a mysterious apocalyptic event? It’s mostly so far seemed intriguing as hell but not my jam. Mysterious craters destroyed parts of Japan, and its rebuilding and the MCs wanna bring light to the world. Maybe aliens exist? Idk! I’m intrigued.

I*Chu: (No) Another idol anime but this time it’s cute boys! Idk maybe this is a decent idol anime but it rly didn’t grab me and idol stuff isn’t usually my jam. I couldn’t tell anything exceptionally unique about this one from just the first episode.

WIXOSS Diva: (No, but) I don’t normally watch spin-offs of series but I didn’t realize until halfway into this that it was one cause Crunchyroll didn’t attach it to the core line. It’s like... magical girl battle idols in VR! Which honestly if you’re a fan of that it might actually be worth checking out.(edited)

Idolls!: (No) Another idol anime! But this one uses mocap 3d models. Phoned in plot line delivered by a weird tiki statue that tells the girls what to do. Seems extraordinarily low budget, and more just a way to sell music. The whole episode happened in a single set and  was basically just... girls want to make it big as idols... oh no... gotta book a stage! Yay they got one! Now must get an audience! Like... ok

Hortensia Saga: (No but) Sword and sorcery fantasy setting that’s mostly sword, main character is a princess masquerading as a male knight alongside the son of her dead parents’s also dead bodyguard. The first episode is very lore heavy and felt kinda like the prologue to a video game. So it ended up feeling a little expository and trope laden, but it has potential. Seems a bit Game of Thronesy? Wasn’t like... bad or anything, so if it’s your thing you might enjoy it.

Otherside Picnic: (Yes) I think it’s gay first of all, two girls going exploring / treasure hunting / monster hunting in a bizarre mirror world to their own. Girls are cute, it’s very interesting premise and writing seems solid.

Wonder Egg Priority: (Yes) It deals with some HEAVY themes? But it’s... a bit of a psychological horror but in a way that feels very like it’s dealing with some of the real life issues. The main character girl comes across as neurodivergent, and it’s just... idk man the first episode was good and left me wanting more.

[kaialone]

Spirit Tracks Translation Comparison: Battle Atop the Demon Train

This will be a comparison of the original Japanese version and the US English localized version.

Specifically, this will cover the cutscenes before and after the battle with Malladus and Cole on top of the Demon Train.

You can also watch these cutscenes for yourself in English and Japanese. If you want, you can check out the EU English version, too.

For the comparison, the usual points apply:

Bolded is the original Japanese text, for the reference.

Bolded and italicized is my translation.

Italicized is the official NOA translation.

A (number) indicates that I have a specific comment to make on that part in the translation notes.

As you read this, please keep in mind that with translations like these, it’s important not to focus on the exact literal wordings, since there is no single “correct answer” when it comes to translations.

Rather than that, consider the actual information that is being conveyed, in which way, and why.

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Characters in this part who had their names changed between versions:

Kimaroki = Cole, Mallador = Malladus

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Before the Battle:

Zelda:

ここまでです キマロキ！ もう あなたの好きには させません！

This is as far as you go, Kimaroki! We will no longer let you do as you please!

You've gone far enough, Cole. This is where it ends.

Cole:

…言いましたよね？

私 あなた方に 言ったはずですよね？

魔王様の完全復活を 震えて 待っていなさいって…

それなのに わざわざ自分から 乗り込んでくるだなんて…

...I told you, did I not?

I most certainly did tell you, no?

I kindly asked you to tremble in fear as you wait for His Majesty's complete resurrection...

And in spite of that, you have the gall to force your way up here...  (1)

You again...

The Demon King's return is nigh, you know.

Yet, here you are, making a nuisance of yourselves!

Cole:

最近のガキは言いつけも満足に 守れねーのか？ あぁ！？

You brat can't even properly do as you're told anymore these days, huh?!

You insolent little fools!

Cole:

上等だ ガキ共！ てめえらに きっついオシオキをくれてやらぁ！

Well, bring it on, brats! You pests got a hefty dose of punishment coming your way!

It's time you received the punishment you deserve!

Cole:

さあ  魔王様 融合は もう完全です！！

Now, Your Majesty, the amalgamation has been completed!!

Your Majesty! Your resurrection is complete!

Cole:

……やっちゃってください！！

...Smash them, if you would!!

Please use your power to destroy these two!

Zelda:

…行きますよ！ リンク！！

...Here we go, Link!!

This is it, Link!

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During the Battle:

Boss Title:

魔王マラドー

Demon King Mallador

Malladus

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Zelda, when rats appear:

リンク！ 助けて！

Link! Help!

Help, Link!

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Zelda, when rats are defeated:

ありがとう！ リンク！

Thank you, Link!

Thank you for saving me!

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Zelda, when taken over:

リンク… 逃げて…

Link... Run...

You have to get away, Link!

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Zelda, when restraining Malladus:

今です！ 光の弓矢で 貫いて！

Now! Pierce him with the Bow of Light!

Shoot Malladus with the Bow of Light now!

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After the Battle:

Cole:

ま 魔王さま…

Y-Your Majesty...

Your Majesty...

Zelda:

に 逃がしません！ マラドー！

I... I am not letting you get away, Mallador!

You won't escape this time, Malladus!

Malladus:

ハナセッ! ハナセェッ！！

LET GO! LET GO OF ME!!  (2)

RELEASE ME!

Zelda:

リンク！ き 危険です！

Link! I-it is not safe here!

Link! Be careful!

Zelda:

わたしに構わずマラドーから 離れてください！

Please, do not mind me, just get away from Mallador!

Don't worry about me! Just get away from Malladus!

Translation Notes:

The phrase I adapted as “force your way up here” is 乗り込む/norikomu in Japanese, which can also mean “get on” or “board”, as in boarding a train. However, it can also refer to breaking in, or climbing on someplace by force. In this context, arguably both meanings could work.

In Japanese, Malladus uses no ひらがな/hiragana characters when speaking, only カタカナ/katakana and 漢字/kanji. This is a visual indicator that’s sometimes used for a character who speaks in a strange way, like for example sounding robotic, in-human, or even having a heavy accent. In Malladus’ case, it’s likely meant to invoke a very loud, booming voice.

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Comparisons & Thoughts:

Since both of these cutscenes are especially short, I included the text from during the battle as well.

Like with his previous appearances, the biggest differences here come from the changes made to Cole’s character, so discussing those will make up the bulk of this section.

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As we’ve seen in previous scenes, a big alteration to Cole’s character in the English localization is the fact that his habit of abruptly switching between talking formally and informally has been removed.

So of course, we get more examples of that here.

In the Japanese version, when Cole begins to talk in the pre-battle cutscene, he first starts with a slow build-up, speaking in a passive-aggressive, but still quite formal manner.

There is some rising tension here, as Cole goes on almost a bit too long for comfort, about something that obviously should make him angry, while still keeping up that faux-polite speaking style.

Then, he turns around suddenly, now clearly yelling, having switched to his crude and informal style again, adding some impact to this moment.

In the English version, there is much less of a contrast or change in the way Cole talks, as always.

The set-up of the scene itself, its movement and audio, still get some of the intended effect across. But from the perspective of the dialogue, it’s weaker.

They even shortened the build-up to the moment Cole snaps, lessening the tension.

It’s another example where the Japanese version uses Cole’s outbursts for dramatic effect, which in turn doesn’t quite have the same energy in the English version.

-

Continuing from the last point, there also things worth mentioning regarding the actual content of what Cole says here:

…I told you, did I not?

I most certainly did tell you, no?

I kindly asked you to tremble in fear as you wait for His Majesty’s complete resurrection…

And in spite of that, you have the gall to force your way up here…

You again…

The Demon King’s return is nigh, you know.

Yet, here you are, making a nuisance of yourselves!

In the Japanese version, Cole is specifically calling back to what he told our heroes at the end of their previous encounter: “Now please tremble in fear as you wait for that moment!!”

Meaning that Cole’s anger here is not just due to Zelda and Link getting in their way again, but also because his order was defied on purpose.

The English version has no such callback, even though they did adapt Cole’s line from back then fairly accurately as: “I would suggest you tremble in fear!”

I’m not sure if this connection just went unnoticed, or if it was omitted intentionally.

In any case, I think it’s a missed opportunity, since acting petty over this adds to Cole’s character, makes the individual cutscenes feel more connected, and they did have a good set-up for it in their version, too.

-

Next is the line Cole says right after.

It’s short, but I think the differences are kind of important:

You brat can’t even properly do as you’re told anymore these days, huh?!

You insolent little fools!

First of all, in Japanese, this line continues to show how Cole really is genuinely pissed off about the fact that his order was defied, as ridiculous as that is.

But it also goes a bit more personal.

Here, Cole again refers to Zelda as ガキ/gaki or “brat”, which he also called her when he revealed his true nature. And while singular/plural is usually ambiguous in Japanese, the context here makes it a lot more likely he is addressing Zelda specifically with this line.

Adding to that, we also see Cole express frustration at the fact that Zelda has stopped listening to him. And that’s a nice detail, serving as a reminder of the history between these two characters.

For years, Zelda grew up with Cole acting as an overly controlling, malicious authority figure, who was only raising her to use as a sacrifice one day, and thus tried his hardest to stomp every last bit of confidence and agency out of her.

And from what we can gather, she did act obedient to him for the longest time, until the recent events moved her into action.

So now Cole is not just facing some child that is about to throw a wrench in his plan, he is facing a child that he himself raised to never defy him like that, who has broken out of his control in a way he never thought she would be capable of.

By comparison, the English version feels a bit more generic, not really alluding to the personal history between Zelda and Cole as strongly.

It comes off more as your standard annoyance with meddling kids.

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When Cole calls out to Malladus, in the Japanese version he says that the “amalgamation” is complete, rather than just the “resurrection” like in the English version.

This is referring to something that has come up occasionally, namely that Malladus basically has to completely “coalesce”, i.e. merge with Zelda’s body in order to make full use of it.

I’m assuming the English version changed this line to make it a bit simpler. The fact that Malladus is now fully accustomed to Zelda’s body is already evident from the context, so the exact details aren’t needed.

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Another small detail about this line from Cole:

…Smash them, if you would!!

Please use your power to destroy these two!

As usual, the English version has Cole be more consistently fancy when he talks, but there is something funny about his line in Japanese here.

In this line, Cole mixes his different speaking styles in a kind of amusing manner.

He starts it off with the informal, almost childish やっちゃって/yachatte, but then ends it with the proper and polite ください/kudasai.

To me, it gives off the vibe that he is very giddy at the prospect of destroying these kids, but still manages to keep enough self-control to not accidentally insult Malladus by using an improper ending for a formal request.

Either way, it’s a fun little moment that plays with his odd speaking habits.

-

When the battle begins, the English version has the boss title simply read “Malladus”, rather than displaying his full title like the Japanese version does.

They did the same thing with Byrne’s battle earlier, so I already talked a bit about this.

Just like in that instance, I don’t know if I would consider Malladus a character who warrants having such a reference to the Ocarina of Time battle with Ganon.

I think Malladus’ battle here is probably a better choice than Byrne’s battle, but I still don’t feel that comparing him with Ocarina of Time’s Ganon like that works.

And even if it did, doing this reference twice in the same game makes it lose its impact.

If they really wanted to do this, they should have picked one of the two battles, rather than doing it for both.

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Finally, Malladus gets to speak his first real words at the end of this battle.

In the translation notes I explained the unusual way his dialogue is written in Japanese.

As I mentioned there, I think in his case it’s likely supposed to show his voice feeling unnaturally loud and booming, like something you would expect from a powerful demonic being.

The English version seemingly adapts this here by writing his dialogue in all caps, which I think works well enough.

However, they’re not consistent about this, since they drop it the next time Malladus speaks.

As a result, Malladus’ English line here just seems like he’s simply yelling in hindsight, not like there is something inherently different about the way he sounds.

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All in all, the localization in these cutscenes is another mixed bag for me, but different from the last part.

I think pretty much all of Zelda’s dialogue in this one was localized perfectly. The problem is that she only makes up about 30-40% of it.

Cole takes up the majority of the dialogue here, and while I normally think the English version’s take on him works well at being itself, in this scene it’s just not as good as the original.

In this part, we aren’t just dealing with his basic characterization being changed as usual, he also doesn’t have a comparable amount of energy in the English version.

Since this is the final direct confrontation with him, acting as somewhat of a climax to his dynamic with Zelda, it’s a bit of a disheartening note to end on from a localization perspective.

The English version’s take on Cole has his own style of splendor, and it would have been nice to see it utilized better in these cutscenes here.

But that’s the end of this part. Feel free to check out the next one!

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