#'wrong. wrong. out of character. this doesnt even make sense. wrong thematically'

[kissingagrumpygiant]

Solas notes on the randy dowager quarterly Inquisition Exposed (illustrated) but its just hundreds of "she wouldn't fucking say that" in the margins

[tillythemenace]

If you’re familiar with Schaffrillas, what are your thoughts on his take about HTTYD 2 being the weakest one and that 3 was stronger?

It pissed me off tbh.

VERY long post ahead.

That logic only works when you're looking from the End to the beginning, but even then you need to really try hard to see how it makes sense. If you consider the actual finale first, then the middle would make no sense. And Schaff said it himself, that with THW ending in mind, then the rest doesn't make sense, but that's not how things work. Cause the ending of THW DOESN'T make sense to the rest of the franchise. Dean clearly didn't know how to connect the 3 movies and totally retconned so much stuff to try and justify previous events. Some examples:

-Stoick knowing about the HW and being obsessed with it, and never mentioning it, plus going after the NEST instead of the supposed HW that contains all dragons. You'd think if you wanna permanent solution for ur Dragon problem on Berk, you'd go to the actual sourse huh??

-Grimmel EXISTING. Just him existing makes no sense. Cause him being THE known Night Fury Killer was never mentioned and therefor, him knowing Stoick also doesnt make sense sine in HTTYD1 NO ONE knew anything about Night Furies, You'd think that Grimmel being this famous person with SO MUCH INFO on Night Furies, wouldn't share that knowledge? specially since he was famous? People would ASK him to deal with Night Furies in their own islands, again another retcon that pisses me off.

-Dragons being treated as pets instead of sentient beings that have their own culture, habits, traditions and rituals. And therefore it gaslights u into thinking that the first movie was bad actually since Hiccup "chained" Toothless to him and it was not his own choice because of their bond, and THEREFOR they NEED to get separated

More examples in this post (and these are just within THW)

If you see the franchise THAT way you MAY be able to justify things but that's not how I view things.

Like I love Schaff and all his reviews but this one in particular genuinely shocked me... cause how can u justify SO MANY inconsistencies?? When it's CLEAR to me that Dean didn't have an actual plan for the third movie after the 2nd. Yes, he KNEW it was gonna be a trilogy but mf lied his ass off when he said "Drago was gonna come back, everything will make sense and HTTYD2 is the bridge for 1-3" cause no? HTTYD3 and 2 seem to not be connected at ALL but in a few instances: Their designs and Valka just being there instead of Stoick. Cause thematically, tonally, narratively? they couldn't be more apart. Again with that logic then yeah I see why Schaff would say HTTYD2 is not necessary. It's a dumb way to look at things but ok...

Now I'll pick apart some key critiques he had:

Most if his critiques are to me passable cause they're not really critiques, it's some things about the pacing and Valka appearing which fine I guess but dude if you have a problem with THOSE HOW are u not pissed off at all the rectons and pacing of the third one?? cause in WHAT WORLD is THW better at that??' Also saying Valka doesn't have an important presence in the story is just straight up WRONG. like HUH????! She's literally Hiccup's HALF, how his inner conflict about who he is, dragon protector or chief, which DOES get resolved at the end. not to mention if you're pissed about how she "didn't have presence in HTTYD2"!?!? LIKE YOU KNOW WHERE SHE DOESN'T HAVE PRESENCE LIKE AT ALL??? EVEN LESS??' IN HTTYD3!!!!!!!!!!!! She's legit BARELY THERE, all that she was in the second one is absolutely GONE -_____- We don't see Stoick's impact on her or how she reintegrated herself in society, how much has changed since she left, etc

Then he talks about Stoick's death and his character which again, HTTYD3 fails to mention or give any sort of impact so like MANY ppl that were HOPING to see that in the third movie, taking it out on HTTYD2 when they gave us THE most impactful scene in the franchise (yes even more than the "separation") is blaming it on the wrong thing..... And again, saying BOTH their parents aren't important to the story in HTTYD2 is just blatantly wrong. When they BOTH were supposed to represents the WORLDS Hiccup was supposed to unite. Vikings and Dragons, like thematically? that was done perfectly. And THW just ruined it all.

HTTYD3 was supposed to give us closure.. to give TOOTHLESS closure, if ANYTHING was gonna test Toothless and Hiccup's friendship in the third one was the aftermath of Stoick's death. But it wasn't. It's never mentioned it again, it didn't put a SINGLE stain in their relationship, it was just forgotten. We also don't see Hiccup's struggle with this failure AND his determination to keep going, it happens IN the second one a little briefly (again pacing issues that could be overlooked) but that's NOT on HTTYD2, it's on TWH 's FAILURE to address it cause THAT was supposed to be Dean's plan, he said it was going to make sense at the end but it didn't. We could've explored ALL that in the TWH to make it seamless but they just didn't...

Like it seems like most of his criticisms of the Second movie rely mostly on the fact that the consequences of events never got addressed but at this point, it was already on stone that it was gonna be a trilogy and those things (like Drago) WERE going to be addressed. By that point we all knew it was gonna be a trilogy, I for one, thought that it's ok if somethings don't get resolved cause we will have a third movie to make it all make sense, so imagine my disappointment when it didn't happen.

Also Schaff saying he doesn't like the secondary cast in the second one... like boy have u seen them in the third one??? you have to be kidding me...

Also saying Toothless is not a character in HTTYD2 is downright hilarious when you think just because Toothless's romance is the focus of the third movie, that he has any characterization at all... Toothless having more "focus" on the Third one is not good when his whole character is butchered to ultimately be the one that represents how the thematic narrative of the whole franchise went into flames...

Schaff says "the third movie establishes him (Toothless) as his own being and examines what he wants out of live independent of Hiccup" and THAT to me is fundamentally misunderstanding this whole franchise and Toothless as a whole. That there. Because Toothless was ALWAYS his own being and I think the first one AND the second movie established that more than any other. THW STRIPS Toothless of his individuality, not GIVES it to him. It legit makes him a SLAVE of his own instincts to legit forget about Hiccup and resent him out of NO WHERE to be with his supposed mate. "What he wants out of life"??? he HAS chosen Hiccup over and over and OVER again, WDYM what he wants out of life? He WANTS this life. He went AGAINST his instincts for Hiccup, he became the ALPHA to protect Hiccup. That's as HIGH in life as you could get as a dragon imo. like??? He wants a mate? cool give him one, that doesn't mean he has to separate himself from Hiccup forever because AGAIN - and I cannot emphasize this enough- HICCUP WAS NOT KEEPING TOOTHLESS IN CHAINS, HE WAS FREE AND HE STILL CHOSE HIM. JUST LIKE EVERY SINGLE OTHER DRAGON AND THE BOND THEY MADE WITH THEIR HUMANS. Ugh Missed with that one big time.

And Drago? He had more parallels with Hiccup and Grimmel ever will. Sorry not sorry I have tons of posts on why that's the case. His actions had MORE impact in the story than Grimmel and YES I count Stoick's death to be more impactful and better done than "the separation", it had SO MUCH MORE weight and if you're gonna have a villain that threatens Hiccup, Both Drago and Grimmel don't hold a CANDLE to Viggo anyways. Scraff says " Drago is the reason Hiccup doesn't TRY to change Grimmel's mind in the third one and ultimate let's dragons go cause he learned his lesson" makes me so mad cause no? that's not the reason, It's because the NARRATIVE PUSHED HICCUP TO DO IT, cause they spend the whole ass movie gaslighting him into thinking he was keeping Toothless and all dragons in chains! THAT'S WHY! not Drago! Not HTTYD2!.....

The sad part is... HTTYD2 NOW is the weakest of the franchise because it has to live under HTTYD3's shadow... the FINALE, the LAST INSTALLMENT. It has to live with the fact that given how HTTYD as a whole ended, it DOES become somewhat obsolete (and the first movie too tbh and that is an actual hate crime). Stoick was not mentioned but in passing, his death had no tangible impact on Hiccup OR TOOTHLESS, his death had no impact on Valka beyond sad faces, his legacy was based on a RETCON. His presence is forgotten and how everyone acts in the THW is SO contradictory to EVERYTHING, that ppl started to just accept it, when, if you have a brain, it makes no sense. HTTYD2 becomes obsolete because its MESSAGES become obsolete thanks to the gaslighting of HTTYD3. But that's NOT HTTYD2's fault. It's the writing of HTTYD3. Cause it undoes EVERYTHING. So if you DO take into consideration HTTYD3 as CANON, and the whole trilogy as one big story, then yeah HTTYD2 becomes the weakest. IF that's the way you choose to look at things... like Schaff... which again I DO NOT agree with. Cause FUCK httyd3 and how it ruined everything.

Sighs... Sorry if I went on a rant it's not against you anon or Schaff, just letting out my frustrations with the third one :'V

[vaniliens]

Long ass opinions / critiques on milgram under the cut before t3 actually hits

Im not even that mad / hateful of mlgrm at all tbh & I think & hope you can tell that from the fact that my main gripe with it isnt really "This project was awful from start to finish it never should've happened" but rather "There were better (& Arguably easier) ways to tell this story & get the point across"

i understand 100% why they thought, on paper, why this would've been a cool project to work on and It Is!! They did their best, i really love how it takes inspiration from the vocaloid community from the abstract symbolism filled MV's, the deco covers, how theres an interconnected story, and the potential of community guesswork & discussion of what this song and/or MV means. I might be a bit biased bc i got into it after being dissapointed in how lacking the virtual singers / vocaloid [community] feels in project sekai besides the commissioned songs but overall i think its really cute, even if its technically just what art as a whole is about 😭 You know, making you engage & think about The Implications. Getting the inspo from the voca synth community allows the project to stand out bc of how its presented. Its unique, its fresh, it keeps you on your toes.

I love how it (tries) to tackle well known & relevant issues in japan (& tbh the rest of the world), like ableism, misogyny, child abuse, call-out culture, homophobia, the entire prison system, etc. and how the victims and perpetrators react to it. Its very interesting. Its very clearly trying to humanize & sympathize even the "worst of the worst", and i appreciate how its one of the main themes in the story even if some of the audience didnt quite catch it. Its showing how simply punishing people who did wrong isnt the answer. Like theres SOOOO much nuance to unpack both in universe with the crimes & prisoners and in a meta sense through the way the story is presented, the way the audience reacts, the discussions, thoughts, developments, etc. Its so cool. They've clearly put a lot of effort into it.

At its core the Milgram Project has always been less about solving the crimes and more about asking the audience "Why do YOU think X happened?" Its basically a bunch of character studies!! You're peering through their hearts, examining their own version of the truth of their crimes, and drawing your own conclusions based on that raw, intrusive data that the system has given you. Aagh.

Unfortunately in my own humble opinion all these elements combined is exactly why it doesn't work as well as it could've And arguably should've for a project all about seeing the good or at least understanding eachother.

It asks "Why did X did it?" but it doesnt give us a platform to actually state Why they did it in any way, only to answer & play into the prisons b&w thinking, and you cant in any way reverse any of their verdicts once its been casted. And thematically it works. I mean its about a warden in a prison full of people who have taken lives, its doing its job to mirror the reality of real life Innocent (No punishment or otherwise legal consenquence) vs Guilty (Punish) verdicts, legally or non officially, as it should. But idk it doesnt really Help us understand why a character comitted their sin. It only introduces downwards spirals, which only makes the characters less willing to provide their actual motive(s) as time goes on. I get that the main thing its criticizing is the legal & prison system but its getting in the way of sympathizing with "Bad" people. Which again IS the point, thats EXACTLY what the prison system does and why its so harmful, it dehumanizes people to hell and boils down their entire personhood to "Guilty" but like???? It doesnt really provide an Out, or anything more Productive to think about. WHICH IS THE POINT & I KNOW THAT BUT IT KINDA FEELS LIKE IN THE END THERES REALLY NOTHING YOU CAN DO WHICH IS PRETTY NIHILISTIC???

Its like "Theres no point in examining why these people are the way they are bc everyones gonna suffer no matter which button you press in the end!! No you cant gain deeper optional insight either bc we're permanently rolling with THIS now." and what doesnt help are the extra contents like the voice dramas & interrogation questions where the characters themselves add more fuel to the fire by threatening eachothers or the wardens lives??? and it leads to people discussing 'Which Verdicts to Vote [to minimize the in universe damage so these fictional definitely-not-representatives-of-real-life-issues-&-its-consequences characters can be safe]' instead of 'Actual Insightful Character Analysis [to help eachother find our own conclusions no matter what it is & to improve ourselves as a person through examining fictional scenarios]' and it leads to COMPLETELY unproductive discussions and flame wars and its so upsetting to see.

Its fucking tearing itself (& the fandom) apart by making ITSELF perpetuate the black & white "Theres a CORRECT answer to this EXTREMELY morally gray & heavily nuanced situation!!!" thinking for the sake of criticizing (More like making a parody of) the prison system. Like wow who would've thought that the system designed so that literally everyone in it is turned into mere "GOOD" VS "BAD" caricatures of themselves would be a good sytem to EXAMINE PEOPLES COMPLICATED LIVES with. Does that make sense. Like isnt it ironic how what we call "Meta voting" is, in the end, more about these fictional characters lives than it is about us, as the actual living breathing audience who are capable of accepting things outside the dichotomy and are able to self reflect before its too late? us, the humans whos lives are more fragile and thus require more care from eachother than mere 2d drawings? Isnt that so ironic

AND I WANT TO MAKE IT CLEAR I GENUINELY, WITH ALL (or none in this case) OF MY HEART, DON'T AND CAN'T EVEN BLAME ANYONE WHO META VOTES. BECAUSE THE PRISON. THE PROJECT ITSELF. ENCOURAGES IT. AND IN THIS TRIAL AND EVEN THE PREVIOUS ONE WITH KOTOKO'S BEATINGS, PROVES THAT IT HOLDS WATER. MORE THAN ANY CHARACTER ANALYSIS. MORE THAN GENUINELY UNDERSTANDING WHERE THESE CHARACTERS ARE COMING FROM.

And the beautiful thing about it is that theres ALSO a discussion to be made about this, intentional or not, about how our actions weigh more than our thoughts / feelings which is ofc correct. This also ties in it with its theme, of taking people's lives and under what conditions is it considered something "Neutral" (even "Positive / Good") vs "Punishable" and ofc also the punishing & restraining that comes with getting a guilty verdict part, an action that leads to someone else's forced in-action.

Still though, in what way does this really help support the Actual Main Theme, which is understanding eachother / the prisoners, people who youve seen arguably the worst of? Its grappling between wanting to make the audience GENUINELY THINK and self reflect vs a show about people going through hell and you CAN be both but again!! with way milgram is run, because of the active audience participation it needs & encourages & the way it boxes the audience into these 2 choices, it was always going to snowball & sway more to the latter. Its becoming less of a thinkpiece & more just a shocking spectacle where everything is in "Superhell"

"Oh anyone can die in this prison if the audience messes up badly enough" do you think thats a good way to send your message. Just kill off a character whos arc wasnt even finished yet. When their deaths only serve to make things worse and thus more shocking and "High Stakes"? When their deaths are only punishing the audience who wanted to understand everyone in the prison by

1. forever 'Locking' said dead character(s) out of any new developments

2. Possibly make things more muddy & unclear in the trial, as the rest of the characters would be affected by the death(s) and would most likely close themselves off even more to cope with the trauma?

And. Like. Again I cant even get that mad bc can you blame the writers when theyre all forced to write shit on the fly based on OUR unpredictable reactions??? Ex. Did they expect Amane to get a guilty in the 1st trial despite the sympathetic MV which features a child repeatedly being abused?? They also have to choose and try to balance between making the horror of the situation clear while also providing a way for these present horrors to bring out the characters past crime. Its so complicated.

I really really hate how this happened. Please. If milgram had no audience participation and if it was instead just a linear story or 2 this wouldn't have happened.... everything would've been in the writer's control and thus we would've been guaranteed a more fulfilling story even if it lacks the explicit audience complicity to the violence & abuse. See: come on man, THE OFFICIAL PREQUEL NOVELS.

Alternatively, seeing as the trial 3 curtain call is LITERALLY called 'Route: Your [Curtain] Call,' implying that there were other routes we could've went on, it could've been a video game or better yet a visual novel. Then we'd be able to fully explore the characters as much as we want, even if, by resetting the game multiple times to get the routes to FULLY understand these charaters, it lessens the emotional impacts the deaths will have.

I dunno man i just wish it didnt get this complicated I just wish it was presented better....

"So what do you think happened? Was this justified or not?" I dont know man we're busy making sure people dont die so we dont miss out on any new info even though the act of 'making sure people dont die' is making us Waste the opportunities we have to get said new info. WE'RE in storytelling superhell.

[bigskydreaming]

That last reblog inspired adjacent thoughts that had me rambling on in the tags longer than I initially thought that tangent would carry me. And then I was like mmm no, feels too hijack-y so I just reblogged as is. But I still wanted to post the adjacent thoughts but my want wasn't sufficient to motivate me to turn said thoughts from tags into a proper post so voila, I give you: tags sans context. I mean, it still mostly makes sense. I'm pretty sure. You can probably see the vision.

#So I definitely can think of some infamous examples of this in every fandom Ive been in

#but the first thing that popped into my head here was actually the adjacent point where people claim their

#entire basis for disliking a character is every character is constantly singing their praises

#and they personally think that character doesnt deserve them

#and then the exact same people in every fic or headcanon they write: meanwhile

#in the group chat where everybody except that one character checks in at least once a day to bitch about that character

#and how much they all hate them.....

#And its like lol. How can you complain about how much other characters love and appreciate this one particular character

#with it LITERALLY recurring as a character beat and thematic point that many of them regularly reference this character

#as an inspiration or someone who totally changed their life in some way....

#and then....convince yourself that you're writing all these other characters IN character....even though.....under your pen.....

#they all hate and demean this character constantly and since they cant possibly be deserving of credit for inspiring or helping

#other characters that YOU actually like.....now there's just a huge character shaped void in everyone else's character arcs and storylines

#where that character who influenced and helped them so much....SHOULD take up space due to their impact on other characters development

#anyway. My fave examples of this are TW....every character in canon constantly cites Scott McCall as inspiring them/changing their life

#TW fics: *all the other characters gather in his BFF's basement for their weekly Here's Why We Should Totally Kill Scott McCall meeting

#or in DC comics.......countless characters habitually refer to Dick Grayson as the closest thing to a universally trusted

#and respected hero aside from Superman and hold him in high esteem as one of the most skilled heroes out there

#Countless fans of other DC characters: If every instance of another character mentioning that fugly bitch Dick Grayson doesnt include at

#least one insult, one thing they blame him for and claim ruined their life and one joke about his inability to master even the most basic life skills let alone

#be a competent hero hence clearly hes an overrated HACK who had to nepo baby his way into the hero community

#then Im doing it wrong and they might revoke my Here's Why We Should Totally Kill Dick Grayson club membership and I might DIE

#so. I gotta. Really its life or death.

[softness-and-shattering]

About the Mean Girls musical movie

I know Ive had conversations before about the cultural context stuff, that it seems like the message was not as effective as the first movie when the stuff its talking about, how girls are wrong whatever they do and everything is up for criticism and filming, and you have to pretend to be sweet and kind fairy princesses instead of being allowed to be human. And Id have to go back and find those posts to see what I do and dont agree with now. Because I just saw the movie. And honestly, I liked it. A lot of the visuals were really fun and interesting, which I think is impressive in a movie that mostly takes place inside of a high school. Regina more than once looks like she's in a music video, and that works because shes so hyped, its like she lives in a reality where not only do people break into song, but she's always in a music video. She really sells the character, self-assured and in charge and perfectly manipulative, and even when she's being vulnerable you're like, but is this another deception? She's more villainous in this version, and by the end maybe more human as well. (also the costuming is phenomenal, that Halloween angel dress?? The entire Halloween Someone Get Hurts sequence might be my favourite. )

Also Renee Rapp, who plays Regina, is just incredibly hot. She also played Regina on Broadway so it makes sense she has the character down. Thats not film critique thats my personal admiration. Its almost a little silly with the "oh no Regina is gaining weight she cant fit her clothes" because she looks amazing. [Edit: She's also obviously - I was gonna say she seems older than the other "teens" but actually she's 24, so Im having a moment of feeling old. And she's actually the same age as Auli'i Cravalho who is a lot younger in my mind because holy shit Moana came out EIGHT years ago?? Angourie Rice/Cady is 23, Jaquel Spivy/Damian is 26, Avantika/Karen is 19, thats more the age I thought they were but not the cast seems to be mostly 23-26. Its so weird when times moves the same for people while your image of them in your head stays the same. So Rapp isn't older she's just a bit bigger (neutral/positive). And she's been playing the role for a long time. And Im allowed to find her hot because she's a goddamn adult and so am I. This paragraph is not critique it is me blogging on my blog. Now Im annoyed at myself for Caveats of Fear but Im gonna stop dwelling on that now.]

On that note, though I originally liked the musical quite a lot, the significant fatphobia in it soured it for me. And Im happy to say in the musical movie, they changed or omitted those lines. I was waiting to cringe and they just sang something else. So that was great. I think the only fat character was Damian (why does that suddenly look like a vampire name?) - Jaquel Spivy - and he seemed comfy and cool, no self deprecating fat jokes or anything. Generally the lines/jokes that were uncomfortable or a bit bigoted have been changed. Though there isnt any disability rep, and theres a random character the burn book claims puts alcohol in her inhaler, like a 3 second joke.

And the big thing is that a lot of the meanness is shown in montages of vertical video and comments - no-brand tiktok obviously - and I think thats pretty realistic, and also in the original theme of not being mean to peoples faces but talking all kinds of shit behind their backs. And I think the montage format is effective in mimicking that endless scroll eyes glazing over stuck in the doom scroll/stuck in the spectacle. The music was good. I really liked how they overlaid the Spring Fling/thematic music with the math competition. If anything, Cady is not as good of a character, her Plastic switch is basically overnight, the scene with Aaron at the party is still kinda of awkward, she doesnt get as much room to breathe, while almost everyone else comes off really well. Heck even the candy cane/glen coco guy did well, I was actually suprised at how differently and yet excellently the actors acted their lines, compared both to the previous movie and the musical. Auli'i is fantastic, scary Janis is *scary*. And I simultaneously want to be her best friend. (It certainly helps that her art is augmented with embroidery and she's carrying embroidery hoops in multiple scenes. Fiber arts my loves.)

When I first saw a trailer my thoughts were "ugh we dont need another movie of this," but I think Ive changed my mind. Its similar enough and different enough that for me its a good adaptation. Also - I almost forgot to say - Janis gets a girlfriend for Spring Fling. Its not a plot point, we're just montaging getting ready and Janis goes to pick her up (in the lavender suit), and Damian is taking photos with two other sapphic couples. And he gets a crush/admirer who again, is just there to be there and doesnt interfere with the main story. I might change my mind again once its had time to settle in my thoughts, but initial impression is that its a fun movie I would watch again. Maybe we want the social commentary to be more incisive than it is, and in the end it is entertainment that needs to not be too boring to hold peoples shortening attention spans. (also neutral). Maybe thats wishing for it to be a movie that its not trying to be, and thats always a recipe for disappointment and also not great or fair analysis. What a fantastic line to end on*.

[wirtsroom]

a digital circus review but its kind of long and complainy lmfao

tldr: i wish it was good but i didnt like it, may hold hope for the future episodes

okay so. ive been semi following digital circus for a while cuz like. i like gooseworx' stuff! shes got a good flow, sense of style, yadda yadda. and same goes for kevins stuff too!! when they released the mini trailers i was intrigued!

but like. the pilot is. okay how do i start this

the plot: i know its just the pilot, but its really showing its cards way too early and completely unsubtle. its supposed to be all "ahhh ur in the pc scary!" but its so hamfisted in its existential delivery we cant even begin to immerse in the world. like. we have an interesting premise of being in an environment akin to early pc games for kids! theres a whole fun circus! but rarely in the episode do we go for a romp in those ideas, rather we are all just "oh no were all crazy here. mwahahahah" and thats BORINGGGGG. the pacing feels also way to fast for us to truly be unsettled. bam, youre here, the clowns evil, youre in the backrooms or whatever, done. it goes too fast and shows too many ideas at once to be honest.

the characters: theyre standard as far as 00s inspired characters go. they all fit a certain trope in modern psychological horror and nothing is left to the imagination really. jax is your bitchboy tumblr fave, pomni is the fish out of water, ragatha has to be the Nice One, zooble is. well she was there. the fucking chess piece guy was there to allude to viewers the horrors or whatevr and then the comedy face character is just for comic relief. while again this IS a pilot, i have no idea how these characters will be you know. interesting to the plot. like jax is going to just be the depressed self aware guy i can see that but is there anything else he can give? do we have interesting connections to these characters? will any of them have thematic pieces for their designs? I dont know i want them to hit but they feel kind of surface level with little allusion.

the aesthetic: sorry im kind of a cunt for this THEY ARE NOOOT USING THE SETTING TO ITS MAXIMUM POTENTIAL!!!!! THE WHOLE PC GAME THING IS JUST SET DRESSING AND LITTLE ELSE!!!! LIKE "OHHH ARENT YOU SCARED BC THIS IS THE HAPPY PLACE WHEN ITS EVIL?" LIKE COME ON!!! WHERES THE JANK! WHERES THE WEIRD PUZZLE GAMES! DOES NOBODY HERE ASIDE FROM THE RINGMASTER DO ANYTHING? WHY IS IT SO HUGE? and also the animation is. kind of now clashing witht the style. Like not really- obviously all the directors on the animation aspect ARE talented, have industry level experience, but its smooth and modern approach sort of makes the setting even less connected. and in some cases the intentional breakage can be really good!!! but it feels too polished, too clean for its chosen period.

an aside?: i dont know see cuz it has a good idea! horror set within my moms old pc, but it doesnt want to even test out a twist or anything. Everyone here is trapped, everyone is crazy, theres liminal spaces, its all stuff i come to expect with an analog themed horror series, and its horror is very minimal. it has no grip on anything, it just wnats to make you feel sad for pomni and go Oh no isnt it scary? Awww nooo scary void wahh! Like it feels almost on the nose, too empty and too big to really utilize it. also im salty theyre selling 40 dollar tshirts for a pilot like. come on

but yeah i didnt. i dont know as i try to remember it now i cant think of anything that stood out. sure it was pretty looking but nothing horrific is staying with me at all. and AGAIN it IS just a pilot!!!!! things can change!!! i might be wrong!!!! but i dont see any horror in the stuff they are providing me bc it feels too safe

[dekusleftsock]

To take a page out of Rukasu’s book regarding this, if these moments were supposed to showcase a lot of vulnerability/hiding emotion, then there would be a follow up. But… there hasn’t been.

And if there IS a follow up then I can still eat my words about this for 430. I’ll even admit I was wrong I just… I have a feeling about this that hasn’t changed for genuine weeks. Last two most recent chapters only highlighted to me that all these “izuku is sad/repressing” moments were mostly if not entirely about Ochako’s sadness.

Look this is something I’ve tried to subscribe to. But every time I do I don’t know what it is about my brain, I just can’t see it that way. It doesn’t feel in character at all for him to suddenly be back to the way it was.

EVEN THEMATICALLY IT DOESNT MAKE SENSE; for izuku to NEED Katsuki all over again to push him to open up about how he feels? That’s textbook “every chapter leading up to the final fight” izuku Midoriya right there.

Because even in the beginning izuku was opening up the most to Katsuki. The most. Is it going to end that way? With every theme around them being everything but familiarity?

I think that there’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what exactly is…happening with Izuku’s character. Specifically in regards to chapter 425.

I’m glad that a lot more people generally recognize that Izuku is not a character that can be read at a surface level, given that he’s both a repressed person with built up emotion of basically everything and also a very glaringly HUGELY unreliable narrator, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I agree with the ways I’ve seen this most recent chapter spoken about.

I see posts, comments, etc with ideas like “Izuku don’t suppress your emotions! Open up with people! It’ll be okay I promise!” When that’s fundamentally not what is happening here.

There’s always always ALWAYS been a distinct difference in character throughout horikoshi’s writing when he is showing that a character is:

A—Avoiding emotions, thoughts, ideas less than ideal for them. Not opening up when they probably should about their problems given that they’ve been handed the space to do so. Just genuinely not acknowledging, feeling, or expressing emotions that they don’t want.

B—Reflecting on the ways they feel about the world, themselves, or other people given their new perspective on a situation. Not outright reaching out to others to talk about these problems/feelings, but instead waiting until the moment they feel they have the most confidence to do so with their new outlook on their own life.

And genuinely, guys, to grab your BkDk attention rn, this is the exact reason why Ochako’s reflection on her feelings for Izuku and thereafter decision to pull away from them WAS NEVER GOING TO END IN OCHAKO EXPLODING WITH HER LOVE FOR HIM.

This was another common interpretation I saw of Ochako and Izuocha for a long time. That because she pushed these feelings away, they were somehow going to explode in this unbelievable way and she would “get the boy” because of it. That her arc would surround accepting her romantic feelings and that she can’t just push away how she feels for a career.

But yk. That didn’t happen. At all. Nowhere close even.

The same kind of goes for Katsuki, allmight, etc. They all had moments in their arc where it was spent genuinely reflecting, and the only reason we as the audience never connected it in the same ways we do ochako or Izuku was ALWAYS BECAUSE the narrative showed their inner thoughts while doing so (mostly because Allmight’s arc after losing OFA and Katsuki’s arc on what it means to be a hero were so intrinsically tied, both starting at the same time and ending at the same time during the final war. And because they were so tied this caused their own reflections, development, and thought process to be broadcasted to us frequently throughout their arcs… to each other. They also somewhat shared aspects with Izuku, but these were cherry picked more often than not, like dvk2 for example).

To us Katsuki never seemed to be.. idk, suppressing his anger in any way because we were always told what he was doing and why (side note: this is why I’ve always thought arguments against Katsuki were so weird, bc unlike characters like endeavor or Ochako he wasn’t like… hiding who he was and how he was changing. Ever. Like the audience knows at all times past basically season 3 what Katsuki is thinking and doing. Like how do you watch this happen, stare me dead in the eye, and tell me how much of a terrible and awful teenage boy he is. Like damn I didn’t think we were this dumb. This is also my theory as to why he’s most popular, his arc is very… in your face if that makes sense). Katsuki’s entire mini arc on reflecting his mistakes and his childhood and his future is spent TELLING YOU that it’s what he’s doing. (I’m referring mostly to the endeavor internship arc, the provisional license exam makeup, and basically everything in the war arc related to him leading up to bakugou Katsuki rising here)

And see, Horikoshi will stare you dead in the eye, tell you “this girl has taken into consideration that she doesn’t want to waste her time training her career focusing on a boy because he kinda caught her fancy”, and y’all will still say that this will explode in her face.

Y’all this is a series about learning how to manage emotions, maturity in relationship to one’s emotions, how to feel an emotion, but in a way that is helpful. Horikoshi isn’t telling you “go buck wild, feel everything all the time and always express it”, in fact he explores why you DONT do that! Through Toga or Shigaraki, they show how grief and anger can genuinely consume you. But he also shows why you shouldn’t just put everything in a box to never look at or acknowledge, or why you shouldn’t just let your grief destroy the world around you, or pretending that some emotions simply don’t exist.

I can’t say this enough, so let me say it now, mha is about the extremes of your psyche. That you should control something, but not too much. Everything can be harmful. Everything can be good.

Izuku is not controlling too much, he’s expressing just enough.

I LOVE shaming this dickhead at all times in all my posts. I love saying he’s an ignorant dipshit with a weird amount of distaste for a girl who just confessed to him. I’ve joked that chapter 348 is basically an entire chapter spent on Izuku calling Himiko a mean dyke. And yet I also believe he’s doing nothing WRONG here.

In fact, I’ll even say that this moment right here?

ISNT EVEN IZUKU DOING THE SOCIALLY APPROPRIATE THING ABOUT IT! But he’s still TRYING to reach out to someone he thinks MIGHT be able to understand. (And frankly, this moment is far deeper than what it’s being made out to be, to me it reads more like an unrequited friendship that Izuku both desires and has thought of them to have, while simultaneously showing the distance Ochako has successfully wedged between them for her own sake. Maybe it was always there though, maybe in weird, miscommunicated Horikoshi fashion, this is a representation of how Ochako always read all those “fun friend hangouts” as a little more than that, and without those feelings the friendship never really held any substance to her in the first place. Where Izuku saw his first real friend at UA, she saw little more than acquaintance)

Simultaneously, Izuku is genuinely reflecting on what it means for the world to change, to be a hero, to live after loss—and trying and failing to gain the connection he desires from individuals who can not and will not afford him that.

Izuku is ready for the world to change, a few select characters are also ready for the world to change (mirio, for example), but not nearly enough are. So maybe I’ll have to take this back if I’m proven wrong and I accidentally looked into this far past what everyone else did for no reason, but I genuinely believe with moments like this

And this

Aand this

That Izuku has come forward with that aspect of his character development. He’s reflecting on his new beliefs, not repressing his emotions for them.

[rottingraisins]

what’s your favourite scp article?? or a few, if you have such

HELLO PUT TOGETHER A FUCKING. NO PARTICULAR ORDER TOP 15 sorry theres just so many of them.

SCP-3515 “Unearth”

Did you also have that one really specific childhood fear of falling asleep and waking up buried alive?? Yeah??? Then this one is so fucking scary! Its usually the one I recommend to people just looking for a good standalone horror story. Also love the odd sort of sense of nostalgia permeating the piece.

SCP-1958 “Starmobile”

This one really gets to me and i dont know why, sometimes I’ll just sit on the train to uni and think about it. The stars are so fucking beautiful out here man…

SCP-2006 “Too Spooky”

Hehehe I love the ones where the actual gimmicks in the containment procedures and this ones my fav one 4ever its so silly

SCP-5733 “Return of the Suburb Slasher”

This one is kind of hammy and melodramatic down to the twist ending that doesnt make any sense but its supposed to be a hommage to like 80s popcorn slasher flicks and it fits that sort of tone wonderfully, not every scp needs to take itself seriously I think. Also love how crazy the experiment logs get they straight up just teach her magic

SCP-3999 “I Am At The Center Of Everything That Happens To Me”

TALLORAN my friend Talloran… This one hits a lot harder if you’ve read a few other SCPs and especially if youve gotten somewhat entrenched in the community so if you read this one fairly early on and didn’t feel like you really got it I implore you to give it a reread. Normie pick but probably my favorite piece among all these if I had to pick just one it is that good

SCP-4205 “In The Eyes Of The Beholder”

To be fair its been a while since I read this one but I remember it making me really emotional the first time around, scps that are about like tragic little stories happening to people exposed to them are always gonna hit me harder than the most clever out there of concepts tbh

SCP-5320 “The People's Church Of The Fish That Just Goes On Forever “

THIS ONES LIKE THAT A BIT ALSO though its not tragic and more silly but so profoundly human. raddagher in general is rlly good at like. Immersing you in the workplace culture of a setting as inherently bizarre as the foundation and im such a sucker for it

SCP-166 “Just a Teenage Gaea”

LISTEN. LISTEN I wasn’t gonna put any scps on here just bc I like the characters attached to it but meri BARELY appears in anything else than her file tbh and also its a good fucking rewrite I absolutely love all the implied lore about the goc and procedure clockwork blackchild havilah and how they leaned more into the estranged familial relationship between her and clef which was always the emotional core of the piece to me

SCP-0166 “I Was A Teenage Succubus”

The other really good 166 rewrite. Manages to very thoroughly deconstruct the original piece and everything that was wrong with it without being weird abt it and even gets a little meta! I love one (1) tuberculosisgirl yes you should GET to feel righteous anger at how the narrative has treated you!!

SCP-2721 ”Eli and Lyris”

...I used to have really bad internalized cringe @ myself and my dumb fandom shit when I was younger so theres something very very sweet to me about homestuckposting saving the world. Also love the implicit character development in Eli going on to become bones gaw. Whenever its in anything I’m like. Points at it

SCP-2508 “The Long Wait”

Listen I don’t know what’s really going on in this one either but the tone and concept of it never quite let me go

SCP-3001 “Red Reality”

Robert :(

SCP-2000 “Deus Ex Machina”

WHO KNEW A FUCKING THAUMIEL COULD HIDE ONE OF THE WIKIS MOST DEVASTATING COSMIC HORROR CONCEPTS HUH. In a lot of ways feels like a thematic predecessor to yesterday and resurrection as a whole which. I dont know if youve noticed but im not normal about that canon whatsoever. Also shoutout to clef for making a cameo as a decomposing mummy you go girl!!!

SCP-3309 “Where We Go When We Fade, Fade Away “

Leans really heavily on its meta twist but its really a very clever idea to be fair and the emotional writing hits just hard enough to make this another one i like. Sit and think about sometimes

SCP-3002 “Attempt To Assasinate Thought”

Kind of long and all over the place but it somewhat needs to be to keep you from figuring out whats really going on until the end. YES OK this gets bonus points for the author having revealed on reddit that this is an au version of iris/scp-105 on her posthumous final revenge campaign against the foundation which adds another layer of emotional depth to it that it probably wouldnt have made it on here without but its my list. I can do what I want

[anghraine]

Hope you dont mind me asking, but what's your take on the idea that Eowyn and Faramirs arc in the steward and the king happening too quickly and doesnt make sense for her character arc? Personally i think the timing of it all is a function of the timeline he set himself up with more than anything else, but as for the second I'm not so sure because I see multiple sides to it. I'm always curious to hear your thoughts!

I don't mind, though it takes me some time to get to things!

I think it mostly makes very good sense for Éowyn's character arc and is far preferable to the other ideas Tolkien considered for her (iirc, marriage to Aragorn or death in battle).

It is very fast, and I think that's a fair criticism of the narrative development in itself. The in-story speed doesn't bother me, but it's basically wedged into one chapter of a long book and reads very quickly. I do think it's abbreviated mostly because there's so much going on in ROTK and so much ground to cover in the later phase. But I do think it's a bit overly abbreviated, yes.

For me, one of the spots that feels the most underwritten is the development of Faramir and Éowyn's friendship. I can believe that they would rapidly become friends! It fits thematically and all. Their interactions after that point are lovely. But it has to be taken almost entirely on faith and it's the most fundamental development in their arc IMO, so I'd have liked to see more of that transition, at least a little.

The other spot that's a little dubious for me is Éowyn's declaration that she'll stop vying with warriors and become a healer, something she has shown no interest in up to that point. If it were foreshadowed in her character, it would be a little easier to buy for some people, I think.

Also, yes, it fits Tolkien's value for healing and peace, as seen in characters like Aragorn and Elrond—but they aren't required to give up warfare altogether. Éomer isn't. Éowyn is her own person and you could argue that it fits her specific arc, but mediating that through the only female warrior (and female major character) in the entire book is always going to rub a lot of people the wrong way.

But to me, Éowyn finding happiness with someone both gentle and iron-willed, and who gets her in a way that nobody else (even Aragorn and perhaps Gandalf) really does, seems very appropriate. Nobody else fully grasped what she was going through. Something else was always more important. So someone who is willing to reach out to her where she's at and really focus on her, while also bridging the way to a life of vitality and healing and growth coupled with significant work to be done, seems very suitable to me.

It also helps for me that, while not a king, Faramir is a Númenórean prince and viceroy/chief counselor/leading minister of the king with a lot of family power and prestige—more than the kings of Rohan, according to Gandalf. And as an individual person, he's singled out from nearly all other men of his time as particularly unique and special. So while Éowyn does have to grow beyond her crush on Aragorn, it's not like she's railroaded into choosing a random ordinary guy or humbled in status or something, or that it's even Tolkien's usual woman marrying down/man marrying up dynamic.

So Éowyn's romance with Faramir doesn't even require her to give up much of what she was after in the first place—she gets a healthier (and more romantic!) happily-ever-after than she could have envisioned and she gets to escape her life in Rohan while gaining status. So she kind of gets it all, rather than being reduced to Faramir's reward, and I do find that satisfying.

(If anything, I feel like Faramir is a reward for her and it's his narrative that is cut short to enable the romance more than hers.)

[herobrinna]

ok so ive spammed my friend with toh thoughts a bit to much so time to ramble here i suppose. (sorry in advance thisll be very disjointed and go from one random point to another).

my main take away from the finale is that it felt a bit... hollow?

like dont get me wrong, the animation was so fucking good. getting more titan and collector lore was also so cool (and hellooo The Titan being such a genderqueer royal? absolutely love how natural toh rep is, like its just thrown out there and no one questions it, just how shit is, absolutely bangers- *gets shot*). and aaaa, the aged up re-designs of all the characters are so good, especially like the detail how all the hexsquad have a flapjack tattoo.

yet there are so many bits that just feel off? like they couldve been handle better (even with the cut runtime the show had).

first lets start with the Collector who just got done dirty, like their whole arc was about the fear of being alone again, yet at the end they decided to leave? just like that? like would it not make more sense for him to stay with Eda, to learn to control his powers better and make new friends. especially them leaving to "mature" or whatever doesnt really make sense, like how can they grow as a person if they dont interact with others, if they dont get exposed to different opinions and believes and all that.

and i dont really like Collie, but it still feels like he deserved better, especially after taking up so much runtime.

actually you know what wouldve made the show better? not introducing the Collector in the first place.

no but think about it, why waste so much runtime on a character that didnt even exist before the show was cut (and thus had very little foreshadowing and buildup to his introduction) and then to not even give them a sweeter ending?

if anything the show shouldve stuck with the Day of Unity being the true finale. like honestly if DoU happened over the 3 specials they actually had plenty of time to flesh out all the existing characters further, maybe there could have been even a little more time for more slice of life moments. but then the whole bit with Collie just feels likes taking away precious time, that his character could have only worked if the show wasnt cut, but if it wasnt cut he wouldnt have existed in the first place, so man idk.

and on the topic of the DoU, holy shit Belos got done dirty, im actually mildly mad at his demise.

like it just overall doesnt make sense thematically.

like, ok this is gonna be hard to phrase, and i would like to straight away say i dont think Belos should ever be redeemed, just gonna use other characters redemptions as example.

so toh throughout its enite runtime is really set on showing that everyone deserves a second chance for as long as they want and are willing to change. we see this with Lilith who was pretty much immediately redeemed at the beginning of s2, and whilst many people say it was rushed, or she didnt deserve it, i think otherwise. like throughout s1 she only tries to get Eda into the Emperor's coven out of the belief that Belos will cure her, cuz yknow, she feels really fucking guilty for cursing her sister, and even then she doesnt really force Eda that much into joining, like there are many moments of weakness were Lilith couldve dragged Eda to the emperor, but she didnt, she gave Eda many chances to join on her own. and again the only reason she even wanted Eda to be in the coven was to right her mistake of cursing her. so after going through that guilt for years of course shed be forgiven quickly, as she showed that she wants to change, be better and all that.

we see this with Hunter as well, though his redemption was more gradual, yet still his past wrongs arnt brought up, like how he patronised Eda and Luz during his first meeting, or attacked Amity in eclipse lake, cuz he was also doing shit out of the belief of helping people, and clearly wanted to change for the better, so why bring up his past wrongs when hes a better person now and all that.

why bring this up?

well with Belos toh brought up an interesting dilemma, what do you do with a person that doesnt want to change, thats stuck in a loop of his short sighted beliefs in a system thats ready to accept and help anyone that tries to change regardless of their past?

and the answer to that being to just kill him?

like how does that solve anything? he died thinking he was in the right, that witches are still spawns of satan or whatever tf. it just feels like it goes against what the show established.

now dont get me wrong, the scene of him trying to manipulate Luz for the millionth time and her just staring him down completely unfazed is amazing, it says more than any actual words could ever. what isnt is then Raine, Eda and King immediately stomping him afterwards, which again, just proofs Belos' point that witches are "evil" from his perspective. (how did he even die from that when even mf Collie wasnt able to kill him? and ne got hit by a car and that *still* didnt kill him either, it just feels like he shouldve survived that)

so imagine if instead of them stomping him down they decided to imprison him, that will of course also have the effect of saving him from the boiling rain. so now Belos has to live with the fact that it was witches that saved him, the same witches he'd never show that kind of mercy to, the same witches he would murder the second he got the chance, and what makes it worse is the fact that the human, the one he oh so creepily obsessed over didnt even do anything, wouldve left him suffer in the boiling rain if she had the choice.

and just generally, letting him actually *live* with the consequences of his actions would have been so much more fitting. like dying is easy, wayy too easy, an escape from consequences, but actually living with said consequences, well thats delightfully horrific.

and his death isnt the only way that they done him dirty, the Titan also basically just said that Belos is just evil and theres nothing more too it, when there literally is?? like hello what were all thos Hollow Mind paintings for if not to show that Belos aint just pure evil, how he is a victim of shitty circumstances, yet how despite that it doesnt excuse the extent to which he took shit to.

and the just forgot about that?

... oh right, they forgot the memory paintings even existed untill someone posted their own redraws of them, no wonder they fucked Belos' character up so much :/

man im getting tired from rambling this much lol

but overall its just toh has so many missed opportunities, i could go on and on about them, although not like my rambles make any sense probably, and many people have def explained similar point much better so im just gonna shit up now.

(and of course im gonna rewrite this for my oc x Belos au <3 )

[toskarin]

a lot happened in UBW, and like. im definitely finishing it tomorrow (i thought i was gonna today but there are 16 days, not 15 :( ) and. i have really complicated feelings? some of it might be like. simply disproven tomorrow, yknow - but i think my biggest complaint is that like. this doesnt feel like a route about and for rin - it really feels like. a route devoted to archer, which i like, but i feel like. maybe should not have been,,,, what this was

to me this feels like. a route where they wanted to do a lot of cool as fuck stuff with archer, and then rin is also there? like,,, i was really excited to get a lot of rin hanging out and talking with shirou, but i feel like that didnt happen. maybe im just wanting there to be as much one on one time with her as there was with saber in fate, but again i feel like! rin ended up being a vehicle for the other half of the story, and not her on person.

what i will say is that. the archer side of the story really really worked for me. i think part of it is that i was 100% unspoiled on his identity, which RULED to put together on my own, yknow!!! and even if it. maybe doesnt make sense with the rules that They Set Up asidfushf, i think that it worked on a "wow this is cool" level, and a thematic one as well?

do you have any thoughts, if i can ask? do you think im just wrong? iashfiuashf - sorry if this is long for a girl who hasnt even finished the route yet aidsfhsuf - i kind of wrote it in a fervor

you're actually right to catch that!

a big part of UBW is that it's making something important clear that comes in later on, which is that shirou is actually the heroine of the route and not rin! some of this is on account of shirou's role originally belonging to a female character when the story was written as an otome game, but it morphed into a more deliberate subversion when the concept changed

but yeah, UBW is actually much less of Rin's route than it's originally presented, but rest assured she gets more focus later on, since Heaven's Feel is the second half of her character development

also rest assured there's lots more Rin content in Hollow Ataraxia and Emiya Gohan, on top of the rest of UBW. UBW is just a bit of a subversion route as a whole

[nobody-knose--archive]

i’ve been aching to commentate spirit phone’s commentary for ages. glad i finally got around to it, this was an ejoyable experience. liveblog below the cut

-i'm like half certain i've heard this commentary before. maybe not the whole way through & it was probably actual years ago

-nice hearing stuff like this. in-depth personal view of the album-making process. makes it seem like more of a real thing i could do myself someday

-neil cicierega real person momence

-i could probably go real in depth about neil cicierega/tally hall parallels specifically concerning like. the arc of their musical careers. but i won't, here

-wild how i legitimately don't care much about micheal jackson

-didnt we get a bunch of spirit phone stems from the needlejuice release/his patreon? we could probably hear the funny track he speaks of here in that

-i love hearing musical artists, especially neil cicierega, talking about the meanings of their songs. like, not only has this song been claimed to hell & back by the tumblr gays, but with later ones i just can't see where he gets these ideas from. also, claiming there's any one meaning or plot to a song just seems silly to me

-shoutout to neil reusing a midi from like, 1998, that he made at 12 years old, whose entire melody was reused for the main verses of everybody loves raymond. loved finding that out on my own 2 years ago. now it's common trivia in this fandom. not bad times

-it'd be neat if neil did individual trans tracks here like he did with view monstel, those things are half of why i consider it my favorite album

-it's a lot easier to ignore the creator's intended meaning behind a song when he can't even remember it. thanks neil

-seesaw effect

-and there's my joke all but 1 of my followers wont get. moving on

-what kinds of movie theater lobbies has neil been to where there are arcade machines. i mean im not one to talk but that does sound rather strange

-why do songs' titles even need to be taken from the lyrics. ive never seen that as any sort of requisite. it's like titling any form of prose you can just give it whatever name ya like

-"this part sounds pretty cool right"

-is neil's vocal range only mildly better than mine? with training i could change that

-oh i haven't processed any of the last 25 seconds hold on

-god. a shit ton of vocal modification in this song. it's like neil returned to his roots but with quality this time

-i, as an ace/aro, have never related more to an allohet guy in my life. what is the point of eyes!

-professional humming/whistling takes skill. it's different from the recreational or casual stuff. i'd know

-there's a name for the way sound (especially music) gets distorted when moving past you and i can't remember it but it's probably what neil's referring to here in the way he recorded the intro

(- update: it's the doppler effect no need to tell me cas already did)

-as someone who hasnt seen the rugrats or take me there by blackstreet i'll just say it sounded like a bouncy music box melody. nice to hear a song that messes with the typical scales though. lydian & diatonic.

-that's a rather specific thing to be glad about, but given what he talked about in his last full audio commentary about the jew harp i suppose i'm not surprised

-i know that tmbg song now. listened to it & saw the music video too. yep they're different alright

-where the hell does neil get all these instrumence from anyway

-huh. hadnt heard this part of the commentary before making my oc concerning this song but i like to hear neil's approval concerning part of my interpretation

-i love how ive heard a billion different tellings of this mellified man story from lem dem fans talking about this song and neil's is by far the wildest

-good god that does only make it worse neil

-i love making liveblogs of lemon demon albums. with the fullerenes or tally hall i cant name a specific dude to take out my woes on generally but with lemon demon i can just say neil all the time. i like being on a casual first name basis with this dude ive never interacted with once ever

-is sweet bod the one other than cabinet man with a demo in the bonus tracks? i forget

-holy shit the boston molasses disaster someone call up soapy if it doesnt already know, it'd love this

-two thousand nine. god i miss the fiddle solo. the ver with it is truly the best one

-he pronounces it jeff? i've always read it as gef with a hard g. that's what i get for knowing words that are never spoken aloud

-that's a fun meta interpretation of this ghost story that's over a century old. i like that

-i've noticed neil generally does the same synths across a whole album. it's especially more clear in the earlier ones, and does mean i occasionally mix up songs between clown circus & live from the haunted candle shop

-ah! ancient aliens! my least favorite track on this album. i cant even claim to have the least interest in a popular one i've just generally not liked this one much from the beginning. so im curious to see what neil's got to say, i think ive been in ~new commentary zone for a while now

-anyway. newest update on the loolin not realizing a song's funky time signature front: i think this one's in 6/4. or at least switches a lot between time signatures. granted i dont listen to it very often for the reasons stated above

-see the way neil describes it. eldritch horror upon being visited by the unknown at a time when humanity'd hadn't even yet had a chance to imagine such a thing occurring. should be right up my alley. but the sound itself & many of the lyrics simply turn me away.

-must i specify i don't dislike it? spirit phone is neil's best album it not being my favorite doesn't mean i think it's bad yadda yadda nobody should be surprised by this it's not like anyone in these fandoms reads my liveblogs <3

-granted i think this is. the first bit of spirit phone content i've made on my blog ever. so who knows things can change <3

-the transitions in spirit phone are much less view-monster transition tracks & more extended outros. view-monster's were a bit more intro than outro sure but they also seemed directed upon making a 2-way rather than 1-way bridge between tracks. or something like that

-.............soft fuzzy man is an incredible nickname for a cat. i'd steal that if i werent afraid of introducing my relatives to lemon demon

-jirls

-an underlying metaphor is good enough. the literal side of the lyrics are fun. nothing but agreement here neil my good man

-the transition into as your father i expressly forbid it from soft fuzzy man is the best one in this album

-buddy you ask if a musical idea has been used before odds are the answer is yes in this day & age the question is has it been used in the way you're using it. like sure this soul jazz record from the 60s that was sold out in kansas stores for a week used this bassline that youve found yourself copying. but seeing as youre using it in some angsty garage rock ballad type tune does anybody actually care

-doesn't everybody like to say things in an unhinged manner from time to time

-imagine having a guitar dad, i say, with my dad being a folk accordion/fiddle dad, which is infinitely worse in every way

-i think he was in an actual folk band at some point. idk the 90s were weird

-iron my life?

-m-more intimate? there are a lot of ways i'd describe this song but intimate isn't one of them. granted as your father is negatively intimate so from there i guess you've got nowhere to go but up

-...still glad to see his interpretation kinda supports my oc at least

-the way he says characters in songs shouldn't worry about death really strongly makes me think this is some sort of. thematic continuation of stuck from dinosaurchestra, even if there's no real death in there. interesting. would also mean that the dad from these past 2 songs is named carlos betty (no last name)

-i literally never assumed this was a flute solo. piccolo at best. it's pretty clearly a recorder

-my mom plays the recorder. i wonder if she can play recorder better than neil cicierega

-we can throw a party in honor of the crushing weight of responsibility! i simply won't be the one throwing it because i have enough on my plate already <3

-what the hell does "a sense of intent" mean

-i've never heard rush before however i disagree with neil's understanding of 6/4. 6/4 is meant to have emphasis (onbeat or another term i can't remember) on the 1st & 4th beat of every measure, which is greatly different from a measure of 4/4 then a measure of 2/4. it's why his 5/4 always sounds weird, because while it's recognizable in sequences of 10/4, it's more 2 measures of 4/4 with one of 2/4 tacked on the end. that's also how it's different from 3/4. i don't know much music theory but what i do understand i will fight to the death about

-"canonized" that's. a very interesting term to use when referring to a former president

-from now on i will interpret every love song directed at some unseen "you" to be inviting me to marry them for tax purposes. thanks neil for being an aromantic icon

-ah hell yes hell yes man-made object is my favorite goddam song on this album

-short & sweet & good damn vibes. neil's thoughts on it all are only making it better

-wild how he uses very few vocal effects for a song that he clearly is straining his vocal range for. go off neil

-the qualifier of man-made is a wonderful thing. oldest or biggest thing? oldest or biggest man-made thing? what a incredibly important specification. a world of possibilities lie between the two. oh i love it

-just gets me thinking yknow! what we consider weird/impressive in another species, in our own species- what kind of equivalent to that would there be from an outsider looking in? are there alien versions of the significances we place upon things, that we could never imagine? the limits of the human imagination mean we could never conceive of something else in the world that isn't, in some way great or small, just like us- and are we wrong for thinking that? such a juicy topic i wish there were a name for it because it's kinda hard to explain concisely

-spiral of ants. my second favorite song from this album, in fact. a good one to experience

-the vocals are just another instrument. they really truly are. i wasn't going into this commentary expecting to feel solidarity for neil cicierega in this chili's tonight on more than one occasion but here i am.

-like, his whole stance on interpreting songs is something i agree with almost entirely. you can take it at face value, you can dig to their very depths, you can listen to songs without caring what the lyrics mean whatsoever, and those are all fun. & yeah while any of these people can be annoying as one of the types who enjoys gliding on the surface more than anything i find those who dedicate themselves to figuring out the whole meaning of a song over anything else to be both slightly scary & slightly annoying <3 keep up the good work

-i want to make songs for my siblings the way neil makes songs for his sibling(s)

-spinch

-neil really shouldn't be allowed to be this funny like this whole album youre thinking golly! he's just a normal man this neil cicierega! and then he starts listing the cat hacks jokes & you remember he's had ridiculously consistent viral success with all his humorous endeavors and holy shit it's neil cicierega in action talking about his music. god bless you neil

-you're welcome, no problem, my pleasure. good eveternoon, radio audience!

[terramythos]

uhhhh liveblog reactions of the newest october daye book, #14, a killing frost. don’t look @ me. don’t @ me. 

monumental spoilers for this book & the entire series 

-aw tybalt is taking toby's last name

-SUS AF looks at Patrick and Dianda. 👀 I knew there was a reason we established that Patrick very close to Simon before he went crazy and evil. I feel like that was in Once Broken Faith (#10)?

-LMAO I straight up forgot Rayseline exists.

-great to see sylvester's still a dick.

-still endlessly funny to me that Sylvester's Literal Evil Twin Simon replaced him as Toby's father figure and now sylvester's just like, some asshole who randomly shows up sometimes

-great to see Luna's still a bitch.

-great family

-well it's interesting from a purely academic perspective to see what happens to May when she's literally missing organs. Usually it's Toby!

-hi Simon

-Simon: *is evil*

Toby: you know what? This dude is way more trustworthy than Sylvester!

(She's... not wrong)

-Simon: *is evil*

Toby: come oooon simon you're a good guy cmoooon this is getting boring

-oh cool we're going on a road trip with evil!Simon, that cant possibly go wrong

-*shit goes super wrong like right away* ok

-toby calling may her sister constantly in this book awww

-walther shows up :D I love him

-yaaay the Luidaeg finally my absolute fave absolute queen

-toby: so I went on this big quest on my own and now Quentin is kidnapped and May got elf-shot. It seemed like a good idea at the time so me and/or simon wouldnt get caught in some weird magic contract with you

The Luidaeg: wow, you're a fucking idiot

Toby's narration: this hurt on a personal level because she can't lie so i knew she like REALLY meant it

-ok so theres this weird bit where we learn Stacy is ultra protective of her kids dating. There is some discussion about how that is super weird and doesn't make any sense to toby. Then some more discussion about how a lot of Stacy's past doesn't add up. Specifically, stacy's grandparents were purebloods (who hated her), which actually makes zero sense biologically considering how little fae blood Stacy has. Also worth considering, though not mentioned, TWO of stacy's children are powerful seers which makes no sense from what we know about thin blood in canon.

I think this *might* connect to my ongoing suspicions of Marcia as a character, who is a thinblooded changeling who consistently keeps showing up. Including in this book when she really didn't need to. At this point she has met multiple Firstborn and they initially seem alarmed/disturbed when they see her for no apparent reason. 14 books since her intro and we know nothing about her past or even her heritage, which is unheard of in this series. When that kind of info is obscured its always because there's a big twist associated with it. There is something going on there.

-speaking of. Um. Simon and Sylvester's bio mom was a human? Excuse me? What? Hello?

-sylvester refused to claim her as their legal mother so simon (angry about it) had to reject her too. A whole new layer to the "fuck Sylvester" cake and brings some interesting perspective to him stepping in as a paternal figure for toby, a homeless changeling? What the fuck, Sylvester?

-this is also one reason why not evil!Simon isn't a total asshole to Toby.

-anyway. Toby being turned into an otter and biting The Luidaeg was fucking funny

-wow, evening REALLY sucks.

-dang the tree thing is pretty creepy :( big fuckin yikes

-OK so toby's sacrificing her way home to keep Simon from doing more damage? I guess is the plan? Fuck?

-toby seems to know names of some Roane she's never met and I'm not sure if that's a mistake or not

-oh Quentin is big mad at Simon. Even if this all goes well a lot of people are gonna hate him. Also, he hurt Dean which is gonna piss Patrick and Dianda off

-though it was basically mind control so. SHRUG????

-god, fuck evening

-WAIT. Something was just implied that. wait... if that's where this is going I'm MAD.

- Toby: *takes on the curse*

Simon: *is suddenly not evil*

Simon: toby what the fuck no why did you do that :(((

-i like Simon 😬

-"apparently, the thought of Patrick being angry with him was even more distressing than I'd expected it to be. Interesting." UM. UMMMM. 👀👀👀👀👀

-seeing Toby briefly turn into her book 1 version was funny. Immediately pointing at tybalt, the literal love of her life, and screaming "you FUCKER". Ah, memories.

-ok. Ok yeah that's where this was going. Fuck me. Fuck.

-i am SO MAD. a fucking THROWAWAY LINE ...

-ok so officer Thornton is Oberon. That's cool. Ok.

I immediately went and skimmed the two books he was in and caught two instances of foreshadowing.

In Ashes of Honor (#6) when toby meets him she describes him as familiar in a generic way. Like, she recognizes his voice and face immediately but can't place it.. This is never brought up again. In the final chapter of this book he is described the same way, as generic yet strangely familiar. So. A closer reading might be in order to see how other fae behave around him. It's possible Toby has a stronger reaction since he's her grandfather (and is the perspective character.)

And yeah, the fucking THROWAWAY "lady, let alone" line from The Brightest Fell (#11). At the time that just seemed awkward, or I guess a gratuitous Tam Lin reference. Fuck me. Also explains how he didnt implode or die from being trapped in Annwn.

-and it makes sense there isnt much more than that because it seems "officer thornton" doesnt know he's oberon. Like it's basically the situation Simon was in??? There's a throwaway "why in the world was Oberon disguised as a human and couldn't remember anything?" line but it isn't explored, so I assume its addressed in a future book.

-(oh my god Riordan kept him as like. Some sick pet. For a YEAR. she didn't know he was the literal King of Faerie. Fucking hell.)

-his fucking name. Thornton. THORNton. Perfectly human character here hahahaha fuck off.

-and this makes the whole fucking series setup of "toby will be the one to find oberon" way more funny because. Man, mission fucking accomplished. 8 books ago.

-thematically makes sense that he returns in The Brightest Fell, too. Fuck me. fuck me! Bitter irony that Simon is given the impossible task/curse to find Oberon in that book and he was literally like, zonked out two rooms away

-list of "minor/background" characters in this series who later reveal themselves to be Huge Lore Gamechangers: Evening, The Luidaeg, May, August, Janet, and now FUCKING Oberon.

-an entire chapter of Simon apologizing to everyone

- holy fuck? Canon ot3???? Simon/Patrick/Dianda??? OT3? HELLO?????

-the October daye series has a fucking canon ot3 and they're getting married. Alright. Ok. Thanks seanan for my life

-"simon, amandine is just the worst and doesn't deserve you. Come marry me and my wife" is not where I was expecting this to go but like okay I am on board

-so the divorce happens and toby unsurprisingly picks Simon as her legal parent. But August does too. Amandine is pissed... I'm sure that'll be a whole Thing.

-THIS BOOK LITERALLY ENDS WITH SIMON AND PATRICK AND DIANDA GETTING MARRIED I'M

-"I now declare you husbands and wife" asdfhdkskxj

-well that book was a fucking ride. Holy christ. Toby accidentally found Oberon. That was sort of the big overarching thing. Not sure where the story goes from here. Theres some loose ends I already discussed and Evening is still a threat but yeah!

-ok we still have the novella "Shine In Pearl" which seems to be about Simon and Patrick and Dianda pre-series

-this is mostly VERY angsty (but well written) but 👀 at this novella mentioning Dawn as a character who exists outside of like, an offhand mention in the first book. Also referring to Riordan like she's not a minor background character

-calling tybalt an asshole too lol

-christ. Poor simon. Even more context of literally everyone screwing him over. :(( I'm glad it's better now.

[tumblunni]

hey uhhh YKNO WHATS GOOD brainstorming potential headcanons for a character you know NOTHING ABOUT

i guess its less headcanons and more like.. wishes? hopes? what i think would be cool to do with this dude and like ALL I KNOW is that he is a cool dude and apparantly he doesnt have a backstory or sympatheticness SO consider what if he did and maybe thatd be cooler. like dude he owns THE SINGLE BEST BOSS BATTLE THEME IN ALL VIDEOGAMES EVER and that is ALL I KNOW ABOUT HIM and i just want him to deserve it, yo. also if he turned good i could be his friend and some of the badassness would rub off on me

ANYWAY

COOL SQUID PRESIDENT

i would vote for this man as squesident

seriously the design is SO GOOD!!! how did they manage to get such a cool colourscheme out of his entire Thing being that he has no colours?? like damn i like white being used as an evil colour for once, thanks. it symbolizing emptyness and emotionlessness is like BIG YES and i really hope thats what they were going for cos apparantly the wiki says that all the yokai who join his “we should never be friends with humans” gang turn colourless to match? but like the dude himself is less plain white and more very light shades of blue, grey and gold. MAYBE REFLECTS THAT HE IS A MANIPULATIVE DOUCHE WHO MAYBE DOESNT REALLY CARE ABOUT YOKAI AND JUST WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD PERHAPS dammit why does everything about him scream “great 100% evil guy who is very scary” when man I WANT TO LIKE HIM, DAMMIT!!

ALSO SERIOUSLY the visual effect of the wild spirally red yellow eyes against an otherwise “peaceful” colour whose entire point as an evil is “peaceful” taken to a bad extreme. it REALLY immediately sells that “tries to pretend to be calm, collected and fancy but is actually an angry mofo at heart” vibe i got from his theme song??? I REALLY HOPE THATS ACTUALLY HOW THIS COOL BOSS BATTLE GOES DOWN cos man the best villains are smug asshles who Always Win and then when you FINALLY win you get that much of a better ending!!! but AGH another part of me is like “i hope im wrong because he looks like a Cool Dad and i want him to be good”. Maybe his true design concept was to betray me personality with using all his cool dad power for evil...?

ALSO im not gonna spoil you guys on it cos it is JUST AS AMAZING AS HIS SONG but i was toooootally right that he has some sort of super intimidating second form and its got THE COOLEST DESIGN EVER HOLY SHIT! and also apprantly there’s a recoloured bonus boss called Minister Squisker who’s like a colour swap in a really creative way?? it swaps him being all “blank” themed with scary bright eyes and instead his entire body is a wild ye olde mythological illustration style paint job in every colour ever. okay COOL HEADCANON NUMBER ONE thats actually the regular colour of the species and mckraken is the white sheep of the family lol

also UHHH i dunno it seems kinda weird to me that theyd have this dude running a goddamn political party about humans being bad yet he doesnt seem to have any motivation whatsoever for it? unless it really is just supposed to be ‘he only pretends he wants to protect yokai from humans so he can manipulate and rule the yokai’. but like HYPOTHETICALLY in some universe where he actually lives up to his Grumpy Dad Who Has A Hidden Soft Spot potential, maybe he has an understandable backstory that raises legitimate concerns about how humans are destroying the natural and mythological and forgetting their roots, or other reasonable reasons why yokai could think humans are dangerous and all. i mean we ARE dangerous, we’re just a wide group of people that contain evil bastards and also good people, yknow. And thatd resonate well as a plot probably, cos well the whole point of the series is “in real life ur scared of yokai but theyre actually all goofy pranksters who will be your best friend forever”. Both sides being afraid of each other could lead to some good plotness! and it could be really effective and sad if after hours of joyous childhood wonder the protagonist bumps into the first yokai they couldnt befriend. the first one thats scared of them. the first member of this weird colourless political party who accuses them of committing crimes against yokaikind, of obviously only enslaving these yokai friends cos you have an ulterior motive, just like all humans! it could be effective if its something that shakes up the whole way you saw the world and establishes that hey its not all fun and happiness, and there’s some people you are powerless to convince. maybe even some people you are powerless to save...?

ANYWAY possible idea for ‘what if the dude originally had a sympathetic motive but it got twisted over time and now he’s just a fuck BUT maybe he could still be redeeminated someday ok thanks” What if he’s the spirit of.. like.. ocean pollution? Like there’s some yokai who are ghosts of a mortal person but theres some that are just nature spirits or personifications of concepts. What if he’s the personification of the dying screams of all the wildlife killed in a particular tragic oil spill? hence squid = thematic, and blank white colourscheme = even more thematic reflecting the stain the oil would leave on a pristine ocean and also the blank emotionlessness he was left as after witnessing that tragedy. Cos like his entire Purpose would have been born out of avenging anger but i mean he was just a kid, the only one left alive on a ruined beach and seeing just how powerful humans were and how pointless it would be to try and fight them with his weak power. like he was born to avenge all these souls and he just keeps failing!! his entire reason to live and he’s just too small!! so he ends up becoming bitter and cynical and learning how to use his silver tongue to manipulate others into becoming his weapons, and he vows that someday he’s gonna come back when he has the power he needs to complete his mission. and he’s just forever had this anger seething inside that he’s been unable to get any catharsis from, so when his cold and collected persona cracks he’s really damn scary with all these years of a man who’s grown old fearing he’ll never be able to avenge his ocean friends and just AAAAAA! itd be really good cos itd be a way he could still be intimidating and high stakes as a boss fight but also sympathetic!! also it could make sense why he’d only be redeemable after defeating him? like this entire time he’s been hidden behind a million layers of politics and minions and stuff and its very easy for him to not see the reality of the fact that he’s terrorizing human children just like how humans scarred him as a child. so like his whole big second form transformation super anger mode time would be sort of a last ditch attempt to deny what he already knows, the doubts that have been eating away at his soul now he’s getting close to the end of his life goal. but also like.. he doesnt even know who he IS, under the lies! its been his entire purpose for existing. like he probably uhh.. didnt have much plans after his victory. he probably wouldnt have much will to live left. so yeah you basically beat up this guy’s emotional walls and make him face the face of the people he’s been hurting, when he’s been trying to avoid it for so long. and he gets to see how much all the other yokai genuinely trust you and how much youre personally sacrificing to protect them so maybe you really arent just lying about being a good person...

oh also i was thinking about the inherant hypocrisy present in the fact that this guy is a big spoopy REALLY WELL DESIGNED squid monster that spends all his time in a depowered humansona instead, despite his whole Thing being hating humans. and, yknow, ‘i’ll solve this using a carbon copy of human politics instead of any more traditionally magical way of fighting the humans’. Yeah. So THEORY of SADNESS maybe he like never actually met any other yokai for a long time? I dont think it really makes sense that he’d be hypocritical because he secretly likes humans or something, that wouldnt jive with this backstory idea. So im thinking another explanation could be that he genunely doesnt know much about yokai culture? Like cos of his backstory he just poofed into existance on this destroyed beach in the human world and spent the first few centuries of his life completely alone except for the terrifying monsters that haunted every second of his life, and the knowledge that it was his purpose to defeat them but he didnt know how. And he was a nature spirit of the sea but his sea was empty of everything except death, so he couldnt even hug a cute fish sidekick or something- OH GOD WHAT IF HE DID HAVE A CUTE FISH SIDEKICK AND IT DIED COS OF HUMANS!!! very tiny sad squid monster child holding a dead pet, oh god why did my heart did this to meeee!! so yeah he didnt even know he was a yokai or wtf yokai are, he didnt know anywhere outside the tiny rock pool he would hide in on this barren beach. And then someday he gets found by an older yokai and adopted and like he feels like he owes them so much cos they gave him a reason to live, and a connection to the nature that he was supposed to protect, and.. well.. any companionship at all ever. So thats how his directionless “humans are bad” turned into “yokai are good and i need to protect them from humans like i failed to protect the beach” which turned into “i need to get more power to do this” which turned into manipulating other yokai and seeing them as nothing more than tools to take down the humans, his revenge consuming him until he barely remembered the reasons he originally wanted to do it...

and blablabla thats where we bring in the recolour bonus boss also, and say thats the nice grandpa figure who adopted him when he was all lost and trapped in the human world. and cos he was sorta adopted into nobility thats why he’s so over the top with his pompousness, its like a hint of IM LOVV MY GRANDEPA shining through his grumpface. ALSO maybe a sad situation where the gramps saw his kid growing up into this scary extremist and he tried to reason with him that humans dont need to be destroyed and that led to them fighting and him getting sealed off in recolour bonus boss land. and mckraken sees it as the biggest betrayal of his life and it totally threw him off the slippery slope to feel like the one man he trusted the most was a traitor to yokai all along. but even at his most evil he couldnt bear to actually kill his beloved gramps so he just imprisoned him and tries to stop thinking about it but like THE CONSTANT SPECTRE OF THE GUILT HANGS OVER YOUR HEAD THAT YOU DID YOU GRAMPS WRONGGGG So yehmaybe protag could find the gramps guy and hear about the sad backstory via him and then defeat mckraken and make him realise he was wrong and he apologises to his gramps and atones and all the humans and yokai are friends again and BUNNI CRIES FOREVER the end

cos seriously man this guy’s design is too good to be wasted on a hateable!! srsly he’s like that archetypical goofy big beard chubby pirate dude BUT INTIMIDATING AND BADASS AND COOL FASHION AND DAVY JONES SQUID BEARD SQUEARD I LOVE HIM he is too round to be 100% evil

*slams fists on the table* IF YOU DONT LIVE UP TO MY EXPECTATIONS I AM GONNA CRY

aaa i need to stop just sitting here theorizing about this game and actually friggin play it lolllll

[booksandchainmail]

nanoha vivid liveblog: episode 9

We left off in the opening rounds of the competition, with Vivio and Miura slated to fight each other at some point. 

The other belkan girls!

I think I remember them being friends

Soft music and slow-mo here, as we get our first look at sieglinde’s eyes

... which are entirely ordinary

huh, i was kinda expecting more heterochromia

… RIGHT SHE HAD A DUMB NICKNAME 

THEY BOTH DID

look I know youre overdramatic teenagers but I promise you giving yourselves nicknames about how good you are at fighting doesn’t actually make you seem good at fighting

also, i like to imagine that victoria’s been trying to get people to call her victor for most of her life, and sieglinde is the only one who will. victoria gave her her own nickname in thanks, and sieglinde was so happy about having a friend to give her a nickname that she didn’t care about the theme

have you considered losing the waist long twintails?

awwwww

weirdly wholesome considering the subject matter

who’s this boss? Presumably one of the other competitors we’ve seen, and I’m guessing harry as the only one who runs a thing (as well as one of the only returning successful contestants)

please tell me she didn’t pick that nickname/title herself

theyre cute together

and sieglinde pulls her hood back on as soon as more people arrive

i guess i shouldn’t be surprised that the ojou and the delinquent dont get along

at least it looks like it runs both ways

i really do like this dynamic of harry and victoria constantly trying to fight, and meanwhile sieglinde’s just there in the background trying to calm down her friends

oh hey the last unintroduced girl from the op! presumably she’s a returning fighter considering she seems pretty familiar with the others

… I can’t tell if “violator restraints rule master” is one skill, two skills, her job, or her personality

would they be wrong?

let the fangirling commence!

oh gods shes trying to hide behind that popcorn

it is very much not working

i feel like this scene should be one of those draw the squad memes

also, these four are great together, more scenes with them please

I do like how in the returning champions we’re presented with three people who all hate each other, and then one person who they all like. it’s a good setup for comedy and shipping

awwww, even while being shy, she’s still nice to einhart

come to think of it, i wonder if she also has memories of belka, and if so does she recognize einhart

sdjklaghklfaghlj

those chains were completely ineffective i guess

i like to think that harry and victoria didnt break out immediately because they didnt want to hurt els’ feelings

gods

els is extremely indignant and harry is just having a good tiem

okay that’s cool, they edited the OP now that we’ve seen sieglinde with her hood down

how do these two know each other? I mean I’ll believe it, but I’m curious now.

so what were the fights we saw last episode? 

I guess prelims for the qualifiers? Which explains how some people are seeded already

this tournament sure has a sense of the dramatic

she is actually a rule master school president

and brought her council with her i guess

OH THIS IS THE PERFECT MATCHUP

I mean, I would take harry fighting just about anyone, but this is an excellent clash of anime character archetypes

The fact that there is canonically Japanese immigration to midchilda is one of the weirdest things about this setting to me. I mean, Nanoha and Hayate just moving to another planet with magic and magitek and spaceships is weird enough, but Subaru’s family immigrated generations back. How the fuck did that go? Can you imagine being a random Japanese peasant circa the 1700s and then suddenly you’re on a different world that has magic and also computers.

oh gods

she looks so happy and i love her but her nickname is so stupid

and thats saying a lot considering the competition

extremely on brand

… that is the most “go ahead please” face I have ever seen

and theeeeres the competition making an abrupt return

i mean, she could still totally call you that even if you win

“tension”

i dont know if she planned it in advance, but letting harry see and underestimate her power beforehand was pretty smart

A ranged attack?

OR NOT I GUESS

she just... blew up her own arm

That’s kinda clever. And also really metal.

WHAT THE LITERAL FUCK HARRY

Thank you for the reasonable reaction

the kind of attack name you expect from a girl called buster head

Well that was fast

Oh okay they have a set time to get back in the ring. makes sense considering how easy it is for a lot of them to send people flying

nove suddenly has competition as the best punchy redhead in this show

shes so good

…you entered a martial arts competition without looking up the injury rules

I’M STARTING TO AGREE WITH ALL THE NUNS WHO DIDN’T THINK YOU WERE MATURE ENOUGH TO ENTER

i cant decide if this is smart and practical or really creepy

that is some powerful simulation

Idk if it’s just saving on fight animation, but while their powers are cool, the actual fighting technique doesn’t seem equal to what we’ve seen from vivio and einhart

gods

please get hurt less

where did that bandaid come from?!

~tempting faaaate~

SHES BITING THROUGH CHAIN?!!!

Oh no wait shes pulling on it with her teeth

That’s… more reasonable, I guess?

Still fucking badass

this is gonna be brutal

yup.

also, anime nosebleed

awwww

i love harry’s emotionally supportive girl gang

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT YOU HURT YOURSELF

this idiot

For some mysterious totally not screen-time related reason

That said, I do like them establishing that vivio&co are unusually talented even by this competition’s standards. I’d have a hard time buying that there are that many fighters on their caliber in the tournament

because as is well known the inter-middle tournament involves fighting buses

she’s just from a completely different samurai anime than everyone else

magic infused or something?

...no

Oh fuck. 

Okay, scary sword girl vs. the wolkenritter’s student

…and whichever of them wins, vivio still has to fight

I feel like I have a lot in common with this announcer man

Is this like a general shyness thing, or an actual issue, or something minor that you’ve made into an actual issue…?

come to think of it, she mentioned leaving the tournament a year ago before she could fight victoria. did she also skip out on fighting mica? or was something in her fight with mica why she left

also, kudos to micaiah for having a sensible nickname

call and...

... response

the purpose of having a gang is to force your friends to be supportive of each other

How many times do you think vita’s gotten mistaken for a contestant? Actually, how many times do you think she’s got asked if she’s old enough to compete?

aww

in nanoha terms, i’m pretty sure this counts as a love confession

Oh yeah, vivio&co have a personal connection to both contestants. That’s gotta be awkward

Also, does everyone bring an entourage to this tournament?

Actually, considering zafira and vita are there, it looks like you get a couple helpers (which I think is a thing in actual fighing tournaments), and presumably most people have a coach or friend or parent, we just happen to have seen a bunch of fighters with minions

~tempting faaaate~

Okay, I get the whole “magic doesnt cause actual injuries, we just simulate them” but like micaiah isn’t using magic. That’s a real sword.

Well that’s a hell of a lot of damage from one attack. I don’t think Miura can afford to be hit again at all. 

I mean, I don’t know about her but I’m definitely thinking that

haven’t mentioned this before, but miura’s outfit with the heavy shinguards is really cool and well-suited to her fighting style

pot meet kettle

miura backstory! and yeah, this makes a lot of sense. she’s very cheerful, but the way she’s nervous all the time and latches onto team nakajima so quickly makes her seem pretty isolated form her peers

and here we can see a demonstration of why carrying swords of different lengths is useful. Miura’s within the reach of Mica’s longer sword, so she switches to the shorter one to drive her back

fancy kick coming up!

Sword draw? Since she doesn’t seem to have one, I’m guessing it’s a kick that uses similar principles. Now the question is, is Miura’s secret weapon a technique that happens to be similar in principle to Mica’s fighting style, or is it a copying technique?

1) this is a very pretty shot

2) it would be really funny if instead of powering up her own sword draw, mica just ran over there and stabbed miura before she can power up the breaker

Didn’t seem to do a whole lot of damage for a special move

Oh ok, she can keep kicking like that for a while

Disadvantage of using a weapon: it can be broken

its pretty interesting that the show sets up various rematches and rivalries and thematic fights that can’t all happen by the design of the tournament. it makes the fights a lot more suspenseful when there would be plot and character reasons for either side to win

...remember what i said about how wanting to fight people in nanoha is basically a love confession?

[elizabethrobertajones]

Hello u, i was wondering about s/t destiel meta there is a lot of significance placed on the show making distinctions between sam and dean reacting to Cas like very obvious this season, but this doesnt happen vice versa does it? As in Cas usually isnt shown to react differently to Sam and Dean if something happens to both of then like when they were taken in s12 or when he was in the empty "dam and dean need me". Why do they show dean worry more about Cas than Sam but Cas doesnt about samndeN

Hi!

It’s definitely not about making a statement that Cas doesn’t love Dean any more than he loves Sam. 

I think there’s very different standards that apply. Basically that there’s ALWAYS inescapably the entire substance of these two relationships which always apply and very often are called out by the narrative in these moments anyway. That their relationships are incomparable even when they’re compared and lumped together. That Cas and Dean forged their relationship through actions which are wholly different from how he forged his friendship with Sam. We saw him barely interact with Sam for the *longest* time. 

I honestly can’t recall him getting alone time with Sam between Sam laying into him in 4x16 and Cas being drunk and surly at Sam in 5x17 (though, tbh, I consider that an excellent forward momentum episode for both Cas and Dean AND Cas and Sam’s relationships that we got basically nothing of that quality for for miles around). Between 5x17 and 5x18 Cas and Sam work together to find Dean, but it’s off-screen, however it IS the first and for a long time only time they seriously work together, alone on sometime. 

Through season 5 it’s implied Cas is working with them both off-screen with no specifics given but enough that his loyalties are obvious and he calls Sam a friend in 5x13, not to his face. He continues to majority interact with Dean only or Sam n Dean, and I think 5x21 is his only mission on screen without Dean but with Sam and Bobby, until much much later (I mean, am I wrong or is 10x17 the only other episode with this specific dynamic right down to Dean hanging with Crowley on the other side of the story?). 

9x11 is the first time Cas and Sam SERIOUSLY hang out and discuss their relationship and work out where they stand on everything, emotionally bond over their connected story arcs they’ve been running alongside each other the whole time since season 6, and finally get in the bonding time and hug we deserve. I’m pretty sure it’s the only time they’re seriously alone since season 5… With a passing moment in 8x10, perhaps, and their conversation in 7x21 which seemed important to me but the camera chooses to focus on Meg sneaking out and the sound fades out so you have to strain to catch some of their words - the fact they talk is literally a background detail. 

I remember 9x22 airing and being in fandom at last, and how much of a DELIGHT we all took it that Cas and Sam worked together, and in season 10, building on that, it was the first season they routinely had scenes together without Dean, and their own subplot based on actual interaction, and multiple episodes they were alone in a situation together. TFW having all branches connected back to each other for regular interaction and well-established non-fraught and genuinely connected relationships, literally dates to the Mark of Cain, and honestly *since* it, Cas has gone back pretty much to a default Dean-connected character, though his relationship with Sam is clearly better and more routinely shown to exist beyond the fact they keep fighting side by side. 

(And honestly I got some flak for saying once a long time ago during season 10 that Cas and Sam weren’t properly shown to be friends until 9x11 but fuck it, we’ve had seasons of them actually seeming to be friends with their own proper connections since and it’s nothing like it was before 9x11 and now I have all of seasons 9-13 to compare to what came before I’m doubling down on that hard, and insisting that Cas saying Sam was his friend in 5x13 was a very symbolic but not particularly real gesture. Like, you’d die for him but do you even know his middle name? Carver era established Sam and Cas as real friends, not just guys who occasionally fight alongside each other and care about Dean a lot as their ONE common purpose aside from saving the world from whatever, and given the wealth of better interaction between them and how different it feels, I’m sticking by that. They NEEDED an arc that shoved them together to work on things WITHOUT Dean to build up any REALISTIC sense they were friends and give us the actual meat of a relationship to base a dynamic on.)

Edlund points out the difference between Dean n Cas and Sam and Cas a couple of times in season 6 in very bad lines which feel horrible but tell a truth nonetheless, and one that persists in better times - the “more profound bond” line and the awful awful use of “raised you from perdition” on Sam. One directly tells us that Cas considers that he and Dean have spent more quality time and have more in common, and the other is deliberately taking a MEANINGFUL and high intensity line between Dean and Cas, and applying it to Sam and Cas in a way that could ONLY fall flat and suggest more horror and awfulness than good, and lacked all of the interpersonal importance that Dean took from meeting Cas. 

In season 7 when Cas saves Sam it’s easy to connect to Cas’s pleas to Dean in 6x20, 6x21 and 6x22 that it’s ABOUT Dean and finally 7x01 where he promises DEAN personally that he will redeem himself to him, followed by choosing to save Sam in 7x17 with a strong thematic implication that he’s doing it for Dean and Sam’s just the object of doing it, and only in 7x21 (muffled and unimportant) and 9x11 does Cas actually relate his experiences TO Sam and begin to feel direct empathy to him and relate to him. 

You know, meanwhile *gestures back at 4x01 and then fast forwards through all the DeanCas stuff that happens in between there and now* More profound bond blah blah blah.

I mean at no point do I doubt that Cas doesn’t CARE for Sam, even in a very abstract way to begin with. But it’s an uneven playing field even if by the second half of season 9 I think they’re comfortably friends and consider each other family in a very meaningful way beyond the kind of brother-in-law family obligation they had via Dean. It’s just still a Thing that Cas and Dean are different in a fundamentally powerful way that Cas can’t compare to for Sam, and when it WAS compared in the “raised you from perdition” line, it’s in a way that deliberately feels AWFUL in context. Especially as saving Sam *meaningfully* was engineered by Dean and done by Death in 6x11, which Cas played no part in whatsoever and actively argued against doing, out of concern for Sam, but by 6x20 with Sam at least upright and restored for the time being, certainly looks even worse on paper, BEFORE we get to Sam’s fear that Cas brought him back soulless on purpose.

Meanwhile, Cas has always reacted to protect Sam and Dean equally when the two of them are in trouble, whether it’s for Dean’s sake or for both their sakes, things tend to happen to them *together* and so it would be pretty horrible to show Cas not caring about Sam when both he and Dean need saving. In some ways this is avoided by the story by just always setting Cas up in a way where it’s either an easy “SamnDean” statement, or having him *with* Dean in Purgatory. When something horrible happens to Sam, in 9x01 Cas is separated and unable to help; 9x09 has Cas realise something is terrible wrong with Sam beyond what Dean knows, and react by stealing grace and it’s set up so he has to call Dean, has to go to Dean in 9x10, and it’s awesome. I already covered that he saves Sam in 7x17 ostensibly for Dean and only later considers Sam on a personal level. 

I think the big examples are the season 12 set ups on Cas’s side to protect “the Winchesters” (all of them including and especially Mary in 12x09) and the “I love you - I love all of you” in 12x12 which definitely involves Dean first, then the rest, as a form of clarification, with 12x10′s message in between which is specifically about who Cas loves, and that specific message is in 13x04 as well, while the main message is a “sam and dean need me”, that’s specifically called out as the Bad Reason To Go Back, and I think put to bed at that point. Cas has to choose to go back for his own reasons, for what he loves and hates and all the things he has in his life he values on their own individual purposes, and what he stands to gain or lose, which is a hugely different message, and links back to 12x12 that this is where what he “loves” was made clear…. or not made clear. But “for SamnDean” was trounced utterly. That he can’t act on stock phrases about how much he cares for an abstract blob of Winchester and ties to that which is only an obligation which has been killing him for years. He has to WANT it and be accepted and understand it’s not just for what he can do for them, but that they accept him as family and he doesn’t have to feel that obligation to help them in order to deserve it. (And I think 13x06 was really important that Cas WASN’T required or necessary except that Dean wanted him there. That only his obligation to Jack affected anything.)

And the Mark of Cain arc which to me as a fandom newbie for season 10 as my first full season with everyone, and the end of season 9 just in time for all the big Destiel build up at the end, seems to tell it on Cas’s side that Dean is utterly different to Sam. There’s no fair comparison to Sam being in massive trouble and Cas reacting this way, but it’s hard to imagine he would, if Dean was still there to panic harder. 12x01 gave us that set up and Dean LET Cas worry “more” but he was still the one who snapped a guy’s phone in half in a panicked rage. Sam was once left with Cas and Dean in Purgatory and it was to emphasise his total loss. Dean’s never had to save Cas and Sam together and be put in that position. But season 9 and 10 put Cas and Sam together against Dean’s dark arc, and THAT was fascinating.

Breaking the format to make Sam and Cas work together about Dean gives us Sam and Cas talking constantly about Dean together, expressing their concerns and reacting in their own ways. It’s implicit in the first part of the arc and then clearly laid out in the last act with Cain’s list making the Colette comparison undeniably canon, but Cas and Sam are deliberately put in different places to Dean’s struggle, and react in their own ways - Sam right up in the sharp end of it dealing with being the potential Abel to Dean’s Cain (which, yikes, I can’t believe he SLEPT for a season and a half with Dean in the same Bunker as him :P) and Cas as the wife that a disproportionate amount of time was spent on in 9x11 to tell us Cain’s story.

Obviously, Sam and Cas are both invested in saving Dean, and frequently work together to do so, or work to a common purpose, e.g. Cas splitting off to deal with Metatron or find Cain in 9x23/the middle part of season 10, is easily decided common purpose and not weird or particularly telling in their character dynamic, but then when the pay off comes, obviously puts them in radically different places in their own narrative (the conclusion of Metatron’s “in love… with humanity” thing, or Cain sorting Sam, Cas and Crowley into his life story).

To me there are a few places which show up either Sam or Cas’s different level of investment in Dean which were really, really fascinating. 

In 9x18 and 9x22, Cas seems to know waaay better than Sam the danger of the Mark but Sam is in semi denial, and it takes a looong time - maybe even seeing Dean shout at him in the end of 9x22 - to really understand, while Cas is on high alert from the moment he finds out Dean has the Mark and asking Sam about it or to keep an eye on Dean. You can explain Cas knowing more about the Mark by being an angel, but Sam’s reaction of denial is part of his current relationship troubles with Dean, so Cas is being played off as being far more personally concerned (this coupled with Dean asking after Cas on the phone was a real shipper novelty in 9x22 - and the conversations at the end of that episode of course). It’s presumably a contrast to make us worried about Sam’s denial and how he’s been missing the cues all season, with the danger of Abaddon as well, as they’re the core relationship, but showing Dean irrationally furious with Sam but chill with Cas at the end of the episode is a strange note when you swing the camera around from focusing on the brothers and the tension of a brother-killing curse, and look at how Dean n Cas reflect in it.

In 10x01 we get a shot I am never going to be over forever:

Sam and Cas are separated, and taking their arcs about saving Dean personally and through their own hurdles (Sam’s hurdle, unfortunately, kinda sucks and is borderline unwatchable these days for external reasons >.>) Cas gets this amazing arc with Hannah confronting everything about humanity and being an angel, and love and feelings and being tied to Earth… And it’s all focused down in Cas having an extremely romantic pining reaction to Dean going missing, this damsel in distress lying in bed with one knee poking out shot, conveniently fragile in this moment… (And they didn’t have to make him ill like this - they could have made him driven but burning up visibly a la Lucifer in season 5.)

This is contrasted to Sam’s montage of frantic action the season opens on, but for Cas it narrows down to “I miss him” and he’s allowed the emotion in that moment. His story is told separately and focuses on what he stands to lose and gain by choosing Dean, at a point in his story where that choice is not just there for him to make again, but defining his entire place in the universe after that choice. He chooses Dean, repeatedly, at the repeated loss of Hannah, who also represents Heaven, while Dean represents Earth and Humanity, and what all THAT means for Cas.

I love that Sam and Cas have separate storylines - I love the entire open of season 10 BECAUSE TFW are separate and each thing they do represents their own place in their journey. And the overlap between Cas and Dean’s stuff is pretty hilariously obvious, thematically and with “subtle” clues like them both getting told off by their respective romantic false leads for flashing them :P The narratives for all of them are different, but Cas and Dean’s are folded together to show the connection. Sam’s story is radically different, and lacks this entirely, whether it’s connections to Dean (he’s lost his) or mirrors to Cas’s search - they’re on entirely different paths.

The rest of season 10 builds up the Colette narrative, and I think we’ve written enough on 10x22 and 10x23 but suffice to say it had the “she asked me to stop” moment, and Cas making several sweeping declarations of eternal love that Dean was in no place to accept, while Sam went to confront an entirely different part of the story working on an entirely different personal level. And there ends a season and a half of comparing Cas and Sam’s reactions to Dean in emotional distress.

And there’s all the other obvious stuff, all the choices Cas is made to make for Dean against Heaven, or things where they just SAY Dean is his human weakness and single him out from Sam, or tbh should we really be over Cas saying “Dean” when ALL the Winchesters walked into the house in 12x23, or how Sam disappeared from the montage all about Cas and Dean in 13x05, while Dean and Cas got their well-earned stares at each other. That was a two way street - Dean obviously led the way in, but Cas was staring back at him without looking over at Sam all through that, and it was Dean he chose to call…

I don’t really know how to separate all this context of Cas’s story with Dean from Cas speaking in general about the Winchesters - of course he cares when Sam is in trouble, and if it’s a scenario involving both of them, he WILL mostly react to care about both of them. But in other situations when it’s not generic action but focused emotional moments, he gets a disproportionate amount of them about Dean, and still defaults to thinking about Dean first, because of course they have the much more developed and fascinating relationship. 

There’s also the fact that in MANY cases “the Winchesters” is code for “Dean”, particularly when angels are talking to Cas about them. 11x02 is a good example specifically because Dean calls and them snarking about it makes it clear the angels have Thoughts about Dean and Cas, shortly before they begin torturing him for information about the Winchesters in general. There’s no plot reason they’d specify Dean, in the way 9x22/9x23 is still about Cas trying to save Dean from the Mark and Dean’s death is plot relevant to all that, but this time Dean’s brought into it as an additional feature via the phonecall, and then Cas gets suggestively tortured >.> 

In 12x10 it’s the same deal - Cas and Ishim talk about humanity affecting them, but at the end of the day the story separates Dean out as the human weakness maybe just because he’s the one who showed up, but also there’s a WEALTH of their history implicit in the fight and its staging, and it means more to them personally, building on that arc, than it could ever if it had been about Sam and Cas. This is the season of it being persistently shown that Dean and Cas react far stronger about each other than Sam getting involved in their crap, in 12x10, 12x12, 12x19, 12x20 and 12x23, and a season which involved saving Sam in the first 2 episodes, and Sam and Dean in the middle, Cas in the late-middle, Dean in 12x11 for Sam and Rowena to deal with, and Mary at the end, we have a LOT of contrasts to how they all react to each other, and Dean and Cas already took the cake *before* Cas died and sent us into the 6 episode Destiel nonsense season 13 started on dealing with Dean’s grief. I don’t think 13x01-5 is any more important than 10x01-3 for Sam and Cas dealing with Dean, or 12x01-2 for Cas, Dean and Mary to deal with losing Sam. They all show us various things about the characters, and not things that disappear in other contexts. 

I mean, I am pretty sure I can find posts explaining why it’s still Destiel for almost *any* moment Cas is challenged over or defends “the Winchesters” as a group unit. Because Cas feels that relationship most keenly of them all, even if they have become his very strange little family and he loves all of them.