#i LIKE q who and best of both worlds but the original conception of the borg is very limited in scope

[tea-earl-grey]

you know it might be unpopular but i kind of disagree with the fandom opinion that Voyager mishandled the Borg. tng's portrayal of the Borg as a mass unknowable and undefeatable entity – a Collective that assimilates by force and eliminates individuality as a natural and perfect opposition to the Federation that expands through peace and is endlessly multicultural (at least allegedly) – is very good. there's a reason that Best of Both Worlds is still regarded as one of the best tng episodes. but the thing about villains that function through fear and the unknowability is that every time you meet them they become less scary and less interesting. (see what happened with the Weeping Angels in Doctor Who as an example.)

if the shows continued with the same portrayal of the Borg then it would have gotten very old very very quickly with a limited number of possible stories. but then if Star Trek ignored the Borg entirely after their few tng episodes it would have felt unrealistic – there's this all powerful alien race that's invaded half the galaxy and can easily overpower the Federation and we're just... never gonna bring them up again? that's not really gonna fly.

i actually think that Voyager's approach to the Borg is refreshing. we're not going to focus on them as the terrifying unknown entity, we're going to focus on their personal effects mostly through Seven. i don't think Voyager ever really treated the Borg as the generic villain because the Borg were presented on an interpersonal level and opened up the box for more stories instead of just constantly rehashing Q Who and Best of Both Worlds. Voyager followed up on tng's question (introduced in I, Borg) of "what if a Borg was separated from the Collective?" and continued to ask things like: "is it ethical to forcibly remove someone from the Collective against their will?" "how is a collective of humans better than the Collective of Borg?" "can a person ever fully lose their humanity?" "if humanity is lost then can it ever be regained?" "can an individual be responsible for deaths dealt by a collective group?" "if they are responsible then how do they live with themselves? how do they atone for atrocities they never chose to commit?" "is prejudice against the Borg just a reflection of our fear of loss of control and humanity?" "what even is humanity?"

i'm not saying voyager's (and other post tng shows) portrayal of the Borg was great in every way. it definitely wasn't. (i'm still like. mildly baffled by the idea of the Borg Queen and how she's written. there are definitely episodes that veer too much into the action flick genre. and even as much as i love Seven there's definitely an oversaturation of her episodes compared to the rest of the cast in later seasons.) but idk i've heard a lot of people say that Voyager ruined the Borg but from my perspective they just took a character based approach to exploring them rather than a science fiction based approach. some people might prefer one to the other but i think a lot of people missed that Voyager was never trying to replicate the Borg we see in early tng. yes they make them a bit toothless in comparison but that's because we're exploring them through the lens of personhood. it's a feature not a bug imo.

[studiodrydock]

Interview With a Werewolf - A deep dive into the character of Westley Vuk from Wylde Flowers

We've put together an in depth look at Wylde Flower's fuzziest romanceable character, Westley Vuk! 🐺💕

Westley, the romantic werewolf bookseller, is one of our most beloved characters, and we had the privilege of chatting with several members of the team involved with bringing him to life, including Iona Vorster (concept artist), Desiree Cifre (narrative director), Mike Taylor (animator) and Ray Chase (his voiceover artist).

We discussed all things Westley including his inspiration, design, and what makes him so popular (and dreamy)! Enjoy! ✨

Writing a Werewolf

Questions answered by: Desiree Cifre (Narrative Director)

Q: Can you start by telling us a little bit about Westley?

Desiree: Westley is a bookish werewolf originally from Alaska. He became a werewolf due to a case of mistaken identity. His identical twin brother, Lou, was a marksman for a logging company, and shot at a werewolf who then returned and attacked Westley one full moon. Once Westley turned into a werewolf, he vowed to keep his distance from humans to protect them and himself, and found safe harbor in the magical village of Ravenwood Hollow. He hopes to find a cure for his lycanthropy and in the meanwhile, prove that werewolves can be positive contributors to the magical community.

Q: What was your process like, including inspirations and challenges, when creating Westley?

Desiree: Our original scope for the narrative limited the characters to the members of the coven and the other, non-magical villagers, so I was delighted when Amanda and Alex told me we would have the budget for a magical village with four residents. I knew right away that I wanted one of them to be a werewolf and that I wanted him to be a romantic interest for Tara. A bookseller seemed like a natural fit so that he could sell Tara the parchment and incantations she would need for her spellwork, and when Iona drew up some concept art of our nattily dressed Westley we all knew that was the right direction for the character. Once I learned we could support him having both human and wolf forms, that opened up the space to create a little mystery around his first appearance in town, and then we got to dive into his backstory a bit more later in the game.

Q: Do you have a favorite line that you wrote for him?

Desiree: Well, I was expecting players to love Westley, but even I couldn't have anticipated how much of a fan-favorite he would become. I have to say one of my favorite lines is one that only plays if you are partnered with him: "Tara, you're looking ravishing today! Not that I want to, or would, I mean, you know." The actor who plays him, Ray Chase, gave such a hilariously brilliant reading of that line and it makes me giggle every time I hear it! The thirst is real.

Drawing a Werewolf

Questions answered by: Iona Vorster (Concept Artist)

Q: What was the process like for designing Westley? How did you incorporate his personality and backstory into his design? Iona: Initially I started with sketching out ideas for all the Ravenwood Hollow characters in tandem. I wanted to make sure they would sit well together, and since they are all (mostly) fae, I wanted to make sure they felt consistent across their designs while figuring out “what do the fae look like in the world of Wylde Flowers.” Once I had a good idea of what they’d generally look like, I took each character one by one to work out the specifics.

With Westley, the process was a bit more complicated because I also had to figure out what his werewolf anatomy would be like and how far we wanted to push it. Since Westley is a romanceable character, I wanted his werewolf form to still feel personable and able to emote like the rest of the characters, so going very wolf-like with his design didn’t feel like the best option!

As with all the characters, I did have a wonderful character background to reference for Westley, written by narrative lead Desiree! A facet of his personality is that he likes dressing well, so along with him being a bookseller, a suit seemed like the natural choice!

Q: Which did you design first, werewolf Westley or human Westley? Did you have to put any considerations into giving him a (relatively) consistent appearance between the two forms? Iona: I started with his human form, since I knew his werewolf form would need R&D on aspects of his anatomy like his face and legs. However, eventually I moved back and forth between the two, because parts of his werewolf form, like his fangs and his fur, informed design decisions on human Westley. I wanted to hint at his werewolf form when he was in human form, and vice versa/

I also wanted to keep consistency in his outfit, especially since there’s the comical details of his suit not quite fitting his massive werewolf frame, which accentuates the differences between the two!

Q: What is your favorite part of Westley's design? Iona: His fangs! Designing all of him was fun, but I love that he has fangs in human form.

Animating a Werewolf

Questions answered by: Mike Taylor (Animator)

Q: What did the collaboration (if any) look like between you, Desiree and Iona? Mike: I wasn't involved very much in the concept of Westley. As with all characters, I was asked for feedback on each concept, but the concepts are always so good, I have very little to add, and Westley was no exception. Soo-Ling (Wylde Flowers’ 3D Artist) and I would discuss his model more and especially the hair, since we knew that was a big part of his design. We would work together to decide how to structure Westley's hair so we could have the most movement as efficiently as possible.

Q: What types of personality bits or other considerations were you trying to showcase in his animations, and how did you achieve them? Mike: Desiree and Elizabeth put together Casting Notes for all the characters, citing specific actors and/or roles that best exemplified the character. I always started there as the basis. For Westley in particular, I know I felt that he should be a little withdrawn and maybe a little brooding. He's an intellectual who has been cursed with being a werewolf, after all. From that I thought his walk - which is the animation that gets the most personality - should be pretty subdued, compared to the other characters, and he should be looking at the ground rather than straight forward. It's subtle, but hopefully reads just a little.

Q: And for Wolf Westley? Mike: For Wolf Westley, the goal was to make him more feral, without going too far. To do this, I added some exaggerated chest breathing to his idle, arched his fingers and turned his hands inwards, then made his walk very 'stompy' to highlight the extra weight he was carrying around.

Giving a Werewolf a Voice

Questions answered by: Ray Chase (Voiceover Artist)

Q: Can you describe the direction you were given when portraying Westley? What types of personality traits, emotions, etc. did you need to convey? Ray: Westley is a really deep character - and one who I was immediately drawn to. Going back through my auditions for this game, it looks like I only chose to audition for him and the reverend! I love how genteel he is - there's a huge part of me that wants to go run my own bookstore in a small village, so I'm playing out my own fantasies when I'm playing him. :D The voice director, Krizia, was a big help in dialing in just the right amount of werewolf into this character. He shouldn't be frightening, but rather be a warm wolfy snuggle.

Q: Westley's fans have become quite passionate From an acting perspective, what do you think is the secret sauce that makes him so appealing? Ray: I'm definitely using my bedroom voice most of the time for this guy. I have heard that it can be...most enticing....

Q: Are there any lines or beats with Westley that stick out to you? Ray: I'm a vegetarian, so it's always quite alarming when I have to do his butcher shop quotes! I can't believe he eats that much meat... But I guess it's better that he buys from a friend than go roaming the woods at night… And that's a wrap! Thank you for reading! Victoria and the Studio Drydock Team Find out more about Wylde Flowers Here

[transformers-fan-continuities]

Spotlight: Ties That Bind

This one’s a doozy folks! If you missed the last spotlight you can go read it here, but strap in for The Ties That Bind, an absolutely brilliant take on humanformers. It’s hosted here at @tiesthatbind-tf​ created by @artsy-hobbitses​!

Q) Give us a run down of your cont! What's it about, what's it called, what's it like?

Ties That Bind is a humanformers-based original continuity which is part Science Fiction and part Alternate History where the invasion of Quintessons and introduction of their technology to Earth in 1920 sets the world and humankind on a completely different trajectory. The active narrative spans a period from 1920 to 2070, covering the First and Second Quintesson Wars, the interplanetary Antillan War (leading to the creation of Unicron on Mars) and the Great War which involves the Autobots, Decepticons and Functionist stalwarts, and how it affects the characters.

The cast is pretty sprawling and the narrative is mostly centred around human drama with bits of humor interspaced and a dash of horror (mostly centred around how the previous government often chose to utilize the technology left behind from the Quintesson Wars to create new systems of oppression, which affected many of the characters, in the name of worldwide rebuilding efforts).

Q) What characters take the lead here? Any personal favorites?

I will admit to this continuity being very much heavy on the relationship between Old Bastards  Optimus Prime and Megatron, which is given considerable weight as they were best friends who had known each other since childhood and were deeply intrinsic to each other’s growths as individuals, which makes it all the worse when guilt and betrayal enter the party. Despite being captains in two corners of this battle, there’s a part of them that just cannot let go of their pasts together and they need to reconcile with how this will affect their agenda (Megatron) and how they lead their team (Optimus) who don’t necessarily share their history.

Other characters with significant development include:

Starscream, a Cold Construct in a toxic working relationship with Megatron with whom he is hiding a dark secret, who struggles to balance the underhanded viciousness he believes he needs to gain power and his innate desire from his Senate days to make the world a better place. 

Windblade, a Camien native who fights her government’s apathy concerning the situation on Earth which they see as unsalvageable compared to their more Utopian society. 

Prowl, a Cold Construct raised from childhood to be a cop in a police state, who finds out that he was brainwashed several times  to ensure his obedience and efficacy as a government asset and is now working to reclaim some semblance of the humanity he was never allowed to feel and figure out how much of him is who he really is and how much is programming.

Hound, a sheltered Beastman who joined the fight to ensure that Beastmen the world over would have the same rights he did in his homeland of Shetland Isle, but is forcefully stripped of his humanity and faced with his animal side during the war and has to relearn what personhood means amid his trauma.

Q) Is there a bigger point to this, like a theme or some catharsis? Or is it just fluffy fun?

God with the amount of time I spent sleepless trying to figure out how the logistics of this or the semantics of that were supposed to work in universe, I cannot for the life of me say it’s fluffy fun, but I can’t exactly say it hasn’t been pretty engaging either!

There’s elements of war being messy for everyone involved where there doesn’t seem to be a clear line between friend and foe at times, but I think for most part it prescribes to  Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s belief that people are inherently good, but are corrupted by the evils of society. Despite its dark themes (Including but not limited to child abuse, torture, illegal experimenation  and brainwashing), love and friendships do prevail, kindness does beget kindness, found families are made, even the smallest actions matter, and things do get better because there are people on both sides who genuinely want to, and strive to make it better.

With Cold Constructs and Beastmen, it also delves heavily into what it means to be human; to have agency and personhood.

There’s also a strong undercurrent of taking responsibility for one’s actions, even if they were made with the best of intentions (Avoidance of this is what eats up Starscream and Megatron from the inside, and what Starscream eventually embraces).

Q) How long have you been working on it?

There’s two answers to this!

I’ve had a Humanformers-related universe going all the way back to 2007 around the time the first Bayformers came out---basically I had a choice between learning to draw cars or draw people (I was an anthro artist back then) and I immediately chose people.

The 2007 draft however had no worldbuilding or connective storylines and was mostly a fun little venture into character design and practice which were actually instrumental to me experimenting and learning how to draw humans properly.

I left the fandom for about a decade and when I came back to it in late 2020 around September via the War for Cybertron series on Netflix, I immediately got hooked on the 2005 IDW comics I missed out on and wanted to get around to updating my old designs as well find a way to translate several of the concepts I wanted to explore in a human sense, so the 2020 update became its own full-fledged original continuity with detailed worldbuilding and history.

You can see the artistic evolution of several characters from their original incarnation below!

Q) It’s incredible to see your artistic improvement too! Give us a behind-the-scenes look! Show us a secret ;))

Say hello to my workspace! I’ve been working exclusively on the Ipad Pro since late 2016, which is fantastic because I can basically whip up concepts and sketches on the go anywhere. Nowhere is too out of bounds to work on TTB!

Also, do enjoy this sneak peek at true!form Rung, whose synthezoid human body took years to perfect.

Q) YESSSSS alright I must admit this is one of my favorite Rungs, and certainly my fave within TTB. Amazing. Phew, anyway. Where did you draw inspiration from? What canons, what other fiction, what parts of real life?

TTB was initially conceived as a faithful retelling of the IDW 2005 narrative before it was transformed into its own continuity and as such, it borrows heavily from concepts and mirrored plot lines introduced in that run! I chose to have the series inspired off it specifically for the amount of history and worldbuilding it introduced to the franchise.

Anime like Gunslinger Girl and Beastars inspired the depictions of Cold Constructs, especially the more harrowing aspects of their upbringing as government assets instead of children, and Beastmen (Beastformers) in TTB.

I haven’t depicted the world itself in my art all too much, but the architecture from Tiger and Bunny, which has sort of a futuristic Art Deco feel to it, is what you’d usually see in major cities. There is an in-universe reason for that---with a Point Of Divergence set in 1920 followed by 25 years (an entire generation) of progress basically being kicked to the curb due to the Quintesson wars, mankind was basically in a time-locked bubble until the end of the wars, and by then their heroes were 1920s-style rebellion leaders, which lead to 1920s fashion (especially among the Manual Working Class---Megatron, Jazz and Optimus all rock 1920s fashion at some point of their lives) and architecture being celebrated and retained as sort of a reminder of how things were before The Invasion. This anime’s background design is also where I adopted the tiered system TTB’s major metropolises are often built on (with each tier being designated to a different working class) from.

The main artistic style itself is a love letter to 90s cartoons, in particular Gargoyles’ deep and drama-driven character narratives and designs as well as The Centurions’ take on body armor logistics.

I also take inspiration, especially armor-wise, from the characters’ given heritage and background. As an example, Hotrod who is depicted as Irish has the flames on his armor done up with Celtic knots. Welsh aristocrat Mirage’s armor bears olden knight-style filigree and has his Autobot logo designed as a coat of arms. Indonesian Soundwave’s armor and Decepticon logo takes cues from Batik and Wayang Kulit while their mask is based off the Barong.

Q) They are absolutely gorgeous! Show off something you're really proud of, a particular favorite part of your cont.

The worldbuilding in general! Most Humanformers I’ve seen tend to treat it like a fun exercise which it is and is definitely valid, but I found myself wanting a full-fledged world to lose myself in and I sought to try and make that world myself by drafting a detailed history and timeline of events which would affect ongoing narratives, having indepth worldbuilding to include almost all societal aspects of the universe and  expanding on the concept of Beastmen and Cold Constructs existing in a human setting.

I’m not so secretly proud of the research and diversity included to make the cast look like the multicultural, globally-based team that they were meant to be instead of being locked to a single region! My original draft from 2007 was, to put it simply, quite culturally monolithic and I wanted to improve on that aspect with TTB.

I’m also proud that I’ve kept to it this far! I’m a notoriously flaky person jumping from one idea/fandom to another and to have kept at this continuity for the better part of ten months is honestly a personal feat.

Art-wise, this scene depicting a young Megatron working alongside Terminus and Impactor (cameo by @weapon-up-wallflower​‘s OC Missit!)  is definitely one of my favorites since it helps build up the world they live in and plays to familial bonds and comfort found in one another despite their less than ideal circumstances.

Q) Everything has come together so beautifully, you absolutely should be proud. What other fan canons do you love and why? Would you like to see them interviewed?

I am dying to hear more from @iscaredspider​’s Sparkpulse continuity! Her designs are MIND-BLOWINGLY GORGEOUS and I want to hear more about what inspired her to work on it!

Also YOU. Yes YOU BLURRITO. LET ME HEAR MORE ABOUT SNAP.

Q) [wails and squirms away in the mortifying ordeal of being known but in a very flattered way] I WILL SOMEDAY I PROMISE aflghsdjg thank you QwQ

Well that was fantastic, Oni, thank you muchly! A magnificent continuity with so much to look forward to! Coming up next is another personal fave of mine, the first inspiration for SNAP, so stick around...

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales Comics: Spies Like Us and Dime after Dime or Weblena: The Preschool Days (Lena Retrospective) (Comissioned by WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy people and welcome back to Shadow Into Light, My Lena Retrospective, which fittingly has now come to Women’s History Month! I sadly do not have anything besides this arc prepared for the month. This month is pretty packed for me with two shows a week to cover, as while there’s only two weeks of Ducktales left final space starts up right after to take it’s spot, two arcs to cover, and two time specific movie reviews: animal crossing the movie and the 1990 TMNT film. I will try to get more than the currently planned top 12 superheroines list out there... but this month is very tight as is, so if I do not I deeply apologize.

Now that’s out of the way, it’s appropriate we start Women’s history month on some likely lesser known parts of Lena’s history, with some comics stories focusing on our faviorite emo lesbian duck and her 87 counterpart. Before I get started on that though Kev my patreon pointed out something intresting a few weeks back i’ve been forgetting to get to and since we’re looking into Minima, I felt this was the perfect time to do so: Lena’s Concept art. 

There’s quite a few things to gleam from this. For starters as pointed out in the reddit thread I got the image as a whole from this was made in 2015, meaning Lena was one of the first new characters designed for the series and was part of it from the VERY early stages, as evidenced by the fact that despite clearly having their new personalities established, Beakly and Webby still had the old designs. 

The other notable change is that her first design was way more like both Magica nad Minima, a bit more modern, but clearly far more obvious who she was related to. She also had all black feathers making the shadow twist a bit more obvious and was likely done away with both to avoid giving that twist away, the same reason for the fake lestrange name, and to avoid accidently black coding her, as while Lena being black would’ve been intersting, it also would’ve invited a firestorm of controversy given that their one black character in season 1.. woul’dve started off as a homeless, manipulative antagonist, and none of that would play well nor was it something the progressive crew of this show couldn’t spot from a mile away.  And even this early on they have an almost final design ready, simply changing the shirt to fit her personality more, and her hair to be pink because it honestly looked better She also had green eyes throughout, but for whatever reason they phased them out. That part I don’t quite get as they look nice but probably they were hard to translate to the reboot style once they settled on their own. Her purple eyeshadow and haircut though have stuck since and were good calls. 

One last VERY obvious note.. Webby was gay for Lena from minute one. While Dana helped it is now VERY obvious they gay coded this relationship from the design phase, and the crew was entirely aware the whole time and I gave them less credit than I should have. They clearly had this in mind, and it’s very likely ONLY subtext because Disney, while making more and more progress, is very reluctant to have queer characters as Owl House was a struggle and since they have a tighter leash on properites based on the sensational 6, that means Frank knew they had the same odds of making Webby or Della queer in anything but subtext that a pig has of suviving in a slaughterhouse. I bring this up because I fear the series getting accused of queerbaiting somewhere down the road instead of doing what they could with a bad hand and hoping they could make the show as gay as they could. Penny is as out as they posisbly could get her, and Violet and Lena’s dad’s got a full apperance, if no speaking role that made it obvious beyond a shadow of a doubt their gay and did it in a plot important episode. So they did their best and I want them to get credit for that. 

But while this is all intresting stuff, join me under the cut for the meat of today’s review as I dig into Lena’s only apperance in the tie-in comic that was never punished here, and the only apperance of her protoype Minima.

Spies Like Us:  As I mentioned this comic was never published here which is doubly weird to me because of how I knew this story existed. Since I follow comics weekly and buy trades reguarly, I read the solicits companies put out eveyr month to see what new series are coming, what the ones i’m currently reading are doing, and what trades are coming out. That sort of thing, and it’s something I love. I know their basically adds.. but their well put together adds that really pull you into the books you like. The big two and the indies are all very good at it and sometimes i’ts the only way to know a comic is coming if the company dosen’t make a press release for it ahead of time. 

So naturally given there are several comics I follow at idw, paticuarlly the TMNT comics, I read those solicits and found they were going to do an issue with Webby and Lena becoming spies, and was excited about it. I ended up forgetting about it and never really followed the Ducktales comic as it came out, and upon reading an issue or two recently, one for another comission by kev as one story, happy happy valley, was particularly terrible. For those who haven’t read the story or my review, it involved the family getting stranded on an island where their forced to partake in activites and smile..that somehow turned into an aseop about Louie wanting to be rich. It ended with this

Yes.. really. That actually happened. But even with this, I fully planned to cover the issue when I covered Lena, and brought it up to Kev when he commissioned the retrospective. He gave me the discord equilvent of a blank stare and had never heard of it. I soon found out why: the story was replaced as, and fair play to disney, it spoiled Beakly’s past from the agent 23 episode which wasn’t going to air in time.  What dosen’t work is they never reprinted the story in The US.. didn’t put it in a future issue and just swap it’s place didn’t put it in the nothing. And the story was fully complete as we’ll see, with a cover and everything so they had no excuse whatsoever to NEVER use it, even with what happened to Lena in the season finale, this clearly took place before that and it was weird to just shelve it because of that. But thankfully when a bunch of the stories were reprinted overseas, this and another one, also webby centric got published overseas. But not in english.

Lucky for me, I was able to find an english translation of an english story which you can read RIGHT HERE. It was translated by @neopuff and I thank them for it as without them this review would not be possible and want to give them all the credit. So was it worth all their hard work translating it? Well let’s take a look. 

We begin at the Manor where Lena is skulking around suspiciously.. though it turns out she and Webby are just playing hide and seek. Though Lena accuses cheating. The dialouge here is pretty flat though that’s not Neopuff’s fault at all. As I can attest from reading other stories a lot of the early IDW comics are just this flat in dialoguge no matter the writer as they were likely given character descriptions and basic info about the show they likely had written up for merchandising and Frank and Co were given no involvement and likely weren’t made avaliable to consult on the comics to help them be a bit more fleshed out. It’s very obvious to me Disney just tried to get these pumped out so they’d have a series in stores to tie in without carring about qualities and given Scrooge debuted in comics, their lack of care toward that side of things in general, but especially in the first american published original duck comics in a while, bothers me a lot. It’s inexcusable. 

That being said the story isn’t half bad nor is the setup as the two hear a beeping and find it’s Beakly’s phone going off with a mysterious message from Q, Webby thinks she’s been reactivated, and is encouraged by Lena to go look after her while she stays along. While Webby says in response

It just feels grossly out of character for both. Lena is far more subtle about manipulation as shown five minutes ago and Webby blindly trusts her. Because she has a massive crush on her and is naïve about how the world works. It just seems very odd of her to get suspicious as she never does on screen, and again it comes off as Disney having barely given the writers any materials on them when i’m sure Frank or Matt would’ve been happy to write up a thing for them to help outside of the usual press materials they were given. 

Though hte last line isn’t all that out of character and has an obvious answer as within a jumpcut Launchpad’s taking them to London and is told to blend in.. which he does with an australian flag and accent.. good gag. 

So our heroines do some heroic breaking and entering and look for the package, but soon find while hiding it’s already in transit.. and had obvious bows on int. Whoops. Our heroes trie the old follow tha tcar bit and refreshingly, it dosen’t pan out as the guy stops and tells them to get out. A nice twist. Unable to follow, our heroes instead find launchpad lost, as his map is upside down

So Lena dares him if he can follow that plane, a nice bit of character for both. I will give Joe credit. While the dialouge’s a bit flat and there was that out of character moment.. for the most part he does nail the actual character down and does use it decently enough. He’s just not given enough page room or actual details to work  with is all. 

So while our heroes follow they end up having to crash as they run out of fuel.. lucky their with the expert but end up near home where the package is delivered to. Turns out this wasn’t a spy thing, this was just a thing with her aunt. That’s fine and a nice gag.. it’s just ruined by just sorta.. ending. Lena leaves disapointed and Beakly scolds webby for “playing spy” and she’s sad. That’s it that’s how it ends. Which dosen’t fit the characters, as while Beakly would defintely scold her, it just dosen’t FIT that she’d be that tearse or not appricate the effort or give her an actual lecture and it feels like Joe had no idea how to end this after the gag and just.. ended it. 

Final Thoughts for Spies Likes Us: This was okay.  It is a bit of a disappointment as for the only story not available.. i’ts just okay and not really above an average Ducktales comics story, with some nice character bits but feeling a bit weak overall, as do at least the first half of the idw comics. I haven’t read the later stuff to see if it got better. It’s worth a read if you like Webby and Lena as characters and it’s not BAD, it’s just not anything impressive and is a simple hyjinks filled misunderstanding story. 

Dime After Dime:

So now  we go back a bit to the original. I didn’t do these in chronological order because frankly, Dime after Dime is the better story of the two and the bigger one at that, so I have more to work with here. But the original also had comics and honestly from the few i’ve read much BETTER comics. I chalk this up to two things: The Ducktales 87 comics seem to have come out AFTER the series was already a hit, and since Ducktales is pretty close to the original uncle scrooge comics minus it’s own tweaks here and there, it’s easy enough to just write the stories like you would a regular uncle scrooge story, just with Webby and Launchpad added, whereas the idw writers were staffed with writing for all new versions of the characters with noticable differences without much to go on.  It’s why to me with tie in comics you have two options: Wait long enough so you can put your story inbtween the episodes like the Steven Universe and Regular Show comics did or just make your own continuity entirely like the Adventure Time Comics and the Archie TMNT Adventures series did. The ONLY time i’ve seen a comic work like this is the Bravest Warriors comic, which had a talented writer and fit well enough in the margins until it sadly ended.. and honestly is BETTER in some cases than the series. I might get to it someday. The point is this comic shows why you need to have a deft hand adapting something instead of just falling your arms about and hoping it’ll work. 

So today’s comic was part of some Disney Series called cartoon tales, which clearly repackaged comic stories from wherever, and put them together. I don’t know much about it and the only other issue avaliable collects the disney adventures adaptation of “Just Us Justice Ducks”, which I might cover at some point. This book does have two other stories which i’d be happy to do on comission or on my own at some point, one involving gladstone the other gizmoduck, but for now, i’m just sticking to the title story and the reason you all came here. 

So we open with Magica gazing into her crystal ball from her Mt. Vesuvies base saying that Scrooge will never know what hit him I know exactly what and who wiil hit him thank you very much. 

Scrooge is seeing Webby off to her first day of day camp, getting all teary eyed which is touching. Beakly apparently goes with her as the story never SAYS Sshe does but she’s not also not around when the story moves on, as Launchpad says it looks like rain. Scrooge dismisses him, though Launchpad turns out to be right. Scrooge had good reason for once though, instead of just being a dick good on you comic for making me not want to punch him in the face, trust me that is a high bar to clear with the scrooge comics, as the weather was fine just a minute ago. Naturally it was Magica All Along! Nothing scrooge can do now that eveyrthing has gone wrong! Her entrance though is sadly not a catchy earwormy tune, but .. this confusing line

I think your thinking of Gladstone. And he’s still single so.. have at that but no Scrooge is the one who values hard work over anything else and brags about THAT or being rich. I .. I don’t get this line and frankly I don’t want to. Even in stories where the dime is supernaturally lucky and the source of his wealth he dosen’t boast about it because he’s not stupid and dosen’t want everyone knowing how to bankrupt him instantly. This line will baffle me until I die, presumably, given my life’s tragetctory, after reviewing an episode of mighty ducks and slipping on some a jerky wrapper. 

Scrooge asks what she wants... 

No this isn’t that kind of story sadly. Her plan is to.. zap the bin with lightning and take the dime. Really just went with your first draft didn’t you magica? But as stupid as this plan is Scrooge has prepared for it. He installed a lightning rod on the bin to save on power, and to power his new super soaker traps. So all Magica did was save him money. She flies off and nothing is acomplished. 

So we get back to Webby at the Teenie Weenie Day Camp.. and just so you don’t think that was a terrible joke on my part...

My theory for how this name got approved at all is the editor KNEW how that sounded and just wanted to see if Disney would actually print a comic with the phrase Teenie Weenie without getting what it means in slang or how hilariously inapproriate it is to namme a children’s camp after it. 

Your probably wondering who that grown woman calling Webby a dweeb is. Well story wise, she’s SUPPOSED to be another kid at the camp around Webby’s age. In practice, she looks like THIS in closeup

So it looks and plays like a 30 year old woman snuck into the day camp and no one’s noticed she’s not actually a children. Or their just humoring her because she had a week to live. I don’t know. I do know she doesn’t get to judge on names. 

Snippy Von Glitz, proof rich people really do hate their kids and this this comic is trying personally to give me material. Snippy is your average alpha bitch, taking a chair from Minma and being obnoxious and classist and all that jazz. Minima gets hers back by making the chair bouncy then returning it to normal so Snippy gets in trouble when she makes up things about the chair, with the lady in charge getting ready to call her Dad. You cannot convince me that her “Dad” is just what she calls her husband, this is how they both get off, and that the lady at the preschool only tolerates it because they pay her a lot and so far the kids haven’t noticed Snippy is 30. Webby likes minima finding her name pretty, proving that the ho yay is alive no matter the webby and magica relative, and Minma returns the favor by saving her from a block. 

Minma is reluctant to make an actual friend, finding they aren’t worth anything and given most of the kids here apparently pick on her and her aunt is well.. Magica, it’s understandable why she’d be so cold. But Webby presses on and says something from Scrooge about friends. Which given Ducktales scrooge has none goes weird but it gets Minma to find out she knows and lives with Scrooge, so she cons webby into taking the dime for show and tell, showing that she can manipulate them with her powers, and that he won’t notice it’s missing, getting her with “I thought you wanted to be friends” 

So let’s pause for a second and compare and contrast the two: Both are the niece, or at least sorta in Lena’s case, of Magica, both manipulate webby, and both are her first real friend: The 87 boys are little monsters and I don’t consider them friends or even brothers, while the 2017 ones are just that: brothers. Their her siblings in all but blood, not friends and have hteir own long complicated history. 

But otherwise the two are vastly different. Lena is a far more complex character as she’s been abused her whole life, is a rebel because Magica hardly gave her agency, and while she starts wooing webby out of self interest it’s clear even as far as the first episode she cares. Lena would gladly be part of the world if she could and this whole scheme is to gain that choice. 

Minma is still sympathetic but very different: She walls herself off because the other kids laugh and mock her for being herself and lashes out at them.. not unreasonably mind , but still feeling she needs no one else.. but as we’ll learn later she’s only helping Magica to finally feel accepted, to get all the fancy clothes and stuff that will make her popular instead of that grown woman masquerading as a kid for disturbing reasons. Minma is at her heart just a hurt kid desperate to fit in. And while Lena shares the desire for a place to belong.. it’s at it’s core much sadder. Lena.. wants a family. Someone to love her and to care about her and actually look after her. Minma has that she just wants to be loved. it’s similar but very diffrent and I can see why Lena evolved into what she did, as Frank and Matt ended up going in a far darker but ultimately more interesting direction. Minima is not a bad character at all though and without her I don’t think we would’ve had Lena, but at the end of the day the 87verse is just not that complicated, so the reboot needed something more and that more evolved into who we have now. 

Both kids excitedly talk about their new friends, with their respective guardians being distracted. Scrooge is distracted by the fact his car is a bit bumpy and Launchpad offers to fix it up for free with some parts from a buddy, which given the sentence “This won’t cost you anything” makes him erect, Scrooge agrees. Magica meanwhile, whose watching Minima while her mom is away which raises a LOT of questions we don’t have time for like who she is, is she’s poes wife or does Magica have other siblings... it’s a lot of questions we’re never going to get answers to. 

The next day Webby got the dime easy as Scrooge was distracted. so Minima swaps them while she’s distracted. But while swiping it was easy, which to be fair Webby is likely approved in his security so it woudln’t match her.. or the story just needed to progress. You make the call. 

Magica does the logical thing and goes and get sthe dime and the story ends there.. and i’m shitting you, she of course brags to scrooge, reveals minima as her spy, and offers to RACE him for it shortly after he realizes he has a fake.

The only major flaw in this story is Magica’s overconfdience, which isn’t BAD persay, but here has gotten to dumbass proportions. She just can’t plan for anything and a CHILD has a better plan than her that only dosen’t work for reasons we’ll get to. And that plan is almost ruined by Magica taunting scrooge!

So a race is on but Launchpad has transformed Scrooge’s old Model T into this

Damn that’s cool. Scrooge of course dosen’t like it, but honestly you get what you paid for. Oh that’s right you paid nothing for something you NEED to use every day for transportation. 

At  the rickity thickity bridge, Steve Buschemi’s worst roll and her minion ask Webby to roll with them and Minima mistakes this for betrayal planning to soak them all.. only for Webby to DEFEND HER, pointing out minma’s her friend, how she dresses is fine and she loves her no matter what.. the last part’s implied. The 30-year old asshole and her minon leave Webby and Minma is genuinely touched, as no one’s done that for her before. She put up so many walls... she didn’t realize someone could ACTUALLY care about her, so obessed with thinking she had to be like that soccer mom in preschoolers clothing, she just had to be herself: kinda werid but in that fun adams family way. Webby says she knows Minma would do the same.. so while she prepares to let’s get back to the race. Magica realizes Launchpad’s roadster is actually gaining and spreads some tacks, but Scrooge counters with some money.. because of course he has a lot of money in the trunk. But Magica takes out the bridge and while scrooge awesomely JUMPS IT... he’s still too late. 

As you probably guess though, Minima had a change of heart, and gave Webby the real dime back, and Scrooge confirms it. Minima TRIES to tell Magica, and Magica is horrified her niece is a goody goody “I”ll never hear the end of it at my astral aerobics class”.. I.. I want to see that. Let’s raise those spirit ladies and kick kick that soul, doge that shadow king punch them in the soul. Yes! Now eat it eat it and absorb it’s power!

We end on a button joke as Webby apologizes for taking the dime., Scrooge accepts it and Webby tells them magica learned to carpet and they gulp for some reason. 

Final Thoughts on Dime after Dime: This story was decent. It has problems, some jokes don’t land and Magica is made horribly incompetent, but minima’s character arc is endearing, and Webby herself is precious as always and her winning Minima over feels genuine. And Scrooge is in prime adoring uncle mode with her and i’ts just so cute. And the roadster race is pretty awesome to watch honestly. It’s an exceptional and enjoyable tie in story.. and not the last ducktales 87 story we’ll be covering here. Wink wonk. 

Next Time: Things get DARK as Lena and Webby head into the depths of Scrooge’s hidden bin and Lena heads into the depths of her own soul. 

Tommorow: Woo-Ooo mofos as we go back to the very beginning of the reboot! A family restored, a lost city to explore, and a glomgold rises! Be here or be square. 

[unproductive-software-blog]

I Just Played Every Mega Man Game on the NES and Have Reviewed them All For You, Free of Charge.

TLDRFAQS:

Q: Are these games even any good?

A: For the most part, yes. Even without a fetishistic sense of “duty to the series history”, they are alright. Megaman 6, an oft overlooked entry in the series for being an NES game released well into the SNES lifespan, is easily more enjoyable than the majority of directionless open-world action games released today. They are mostly visually striking, making the most of the NES’s limited color palette, and the later games even feature a few animations more reminiscent of modern “old-school” indie games than most of the NES library. The music alone is iconic for a reason, and if you need to be sold on the series, just listen to this and decide for yourself:

Additionally, I shed tears during the ending sequences of games 2 and 3, and after shedding said tears, rested on the end-screens of both games for a few heart-mending, contemplative minutes. Your mileage may, of course, vary.

Q: Where do I start?

A: If you’re sincerely wondering, I recommend you play Mega Man 2, and don’t hesitate to save-state before the Wily stage bosses (this can be achieved through the legacy collection’s “save” feature). This is heresy to the series “hardcore” fans, but anyone interested in appeasing said fanatics wouldn’t ask where to start in the first place. If that strikes you as too archaic, try playing Mega Man 6, the game in which the developers actually fixed most of the series hair-tearingly obvious design flaws. My personal favorite is Mega Man 3, when played with heavy use of save states, as that game’s potential far surpasses it’s designers’ willingness to make any accommodations for the player, leading to a frustrating mess that left me crying like a child the first time I completed it.

Q: How can I access these games?

A: The Mega Man Legacy Collection by Digital Eclipse (available on switch, ps4, and whatever you guys are calling Microsoft’s current generation game console), is the best legal option. It allows for a single save state per game, decent CRT filter options, and the ability to replicate the NES’s lag (or not). It also features a “turbo-button” which removes the need to mash for anyone worried about carpal tunnel or some similar injury. Those unconcerned with the possibility of such an injury should at least try to play the games without the use of said button at first, as it does change their general feeling. I increasingly used it as I proceeded through the series, given its usefulness in “just getting through” the sections I’ve successfully proven to myself that I am above having to clear without taking damage yet again. I may be a gamer, but I am also a flesh and blood human with limited time. I do not recommend the playstation 2 anniversary collection. The emulation quality is simply off, and modifications seem to have been made (to the sound effects most notably) which, in my opinion, completely spits in the face of the concept of a classic games collection.

Realeased as Rockman on December 17, 1987 for the nintendo family computer in Japan, and just 12 days later in North America for the nintendo entertainment system, Mega Man is a game where you play as a robot who walks, jumps, and shoots other robots in screen-based, sidescrolling 2D. Anyone interested in similar details of objective quality should check out the Wikipedia article on the game. I’m not even kidding, it contains some pretty neat information in the “development” section, like how the bosses’ weaknesses were literally inspired by rock-paper-scissors, or that the American title was invented because “Capcom's then-Senior Vice President Joseph Morici… did not like the original name”.

This, 6, and rockboard were the only games I played without the use of save states, though I did abuse a glitch to beat the “yellow devil” boss. For anyone seeking a similarly “pure” yet “not quite maddening” experience with the game, if you use elecman’s weapon and pause the game without opening the menu (select) repeatedly as it passes an enemy, it can damage that evemy multiple times in one shot, once per pause. The pause seemingly cancels the breif invincibility granted to bosses upon taking damage, and the weapon in question is just big and indestructible enough to still be overlapping them when you unpause. Programming “quirks” like this are part of the fun, and frustration of the original Mega Man.

More on point, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this game. For all it’s fidgety awkwardness, largely blank backgrounds, and brutal level design, I found the process of mastering each stage to be incredibly rage-conqueringly satisfying. Though limited life systems are often lambasted for punishing players by making them replay content in order to win, I find that the experience of working up to not only beating a checkpoint’s-worth of stage, but the whole thing as one well-practiced run (with good performance early on leading to more opportunity to learn the boss, and poor performance early on increasing tension toward the end, punctuated with righteous fist-pumping moments of 1-up collection), lends the game a distinct sense of pacing that many modern “hardcore” platformers in the vein of Super Meat Boy trade for a constant flow. While those games have an addictive sense of instant-feedback and game feel, so does any well-crafted digital slot machine, the majority of which fail to tell any story worth experiencing firsthand.

Mega Man is the story of a blue guy who struggles tirelessly to assasinate one of his 6 evil brothers, before consuming that brother’s essence, empowering him to steamroll all the others by exploiting their weaknesses to one another’s power. Told wordlessly, this story matches exactly with that of a typical adult’s experience going back to the game they loved as a child looking for that “spark” (such an adult could, using more colorful language, be described as a “blue guy”) and subsequently realizing that said game is Mega Man, and that any meaning to be found within Mega Man lies guarded below layers upon layers of icefields, gun turrets, and even subterranean passages under icefields. WOW!

Yeah, what story was here got kind of mangled by the localization team. They tried too hard to turn something with the cute-yet cool appeal of the yet-to-revolutionize-marketing Pokémon into some GI Joe manliness measurement software (as though the title alone wasn’t “for boys” enough already). Mega Man is basically a tool for preparing children for adulthood, however. Within it’s “dated” and “backwards” game design are meaninful life lessons. The initial 6 stages go from hard to easy as you accumulate weapons. Similarly, one of the hardest parts of pursuing neaely any real-life goal is summoning the willpower to go from “doing nothing” to “gaining experience” to “actually making progress”. In physics this is called “inertia”. As my father would say “a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step”. He would also sometimes say “ancient Chinese proverb” in a voice I assume he learned from television, so I never quite trusted him. I did, however, love playing Mega Man 9 with him (watching). He was a great coach despite not having played the game, I assume, because being good at Mega Man requires so many skills expected of a businessman (patience, willpower, and most importantly, keeping your cool under immense pressure). He also made sure to yell at me whenever my health neared 25%, so I would remember to use my E-Tanks. I was 12 years old.

Upon beating Mega Man on the nintendo wii’s virtual console (look it up, children of today, and despair at how good we had it, and when you’re finished despairing, cancel your nintendo switch online plan (unless you’re on someone else’s family plan, ideally a strangers’)), I was treated to a beautiful, humanizing cutscene, showing our hero’s armorless (he still has a t-shirt and pants underneath) return journey. Something about witnessing this robot child I’d, attempt after attempt, watched slowly transform into a perfect killing machine, go “home” with their hair flowing freely in the wind, struck me as inexplicably moving. I will attempt to explain it. As one grows older and faces the hardships of life, they accumulate layers of defense mechanisms, habits, emotional callouses, and other useful tools in the name of strength and productivity. Sometimes these tools are gigantic, snaking lightningbolts you painstakingly grind, frame by frame, through the presumed invincibility of the people you call your enemies. Sometimes they’re just a helmet your father made for you to wear so you won’t get hurt, possibly with the added benefit of hiding your messy hair, which, as your mother incessantly reminds you, makes you look like a homeless person. To “save the day” our impressionable child brains are shown, wordlessly, is to earn the right to let your hair down at the end of the day, to remove one’s armor as an unquestionably deserving member of the human race, with feelings that, finally, you can let flow beautifully out.

This is the game most people like best. It takes the aesthetic elements of the original game (rock music and shounen anime-style action) to a more extreme level, with striking color palettes, giant midbosses, 2 more bosses (a total of 8 new robot masters to fight), an overpowered rotating saw you can throw in like 7 directions that makes the most aggressive sound effect on the NES other than Dr.Wily’s ear-destroying alarm which hideously heralds in every one of his castles in every game. It also features what I once heard called the “most remixed song in gaming history” (a title which almost certainly no longer holds true), a timeless anthem made perfect with the lyrical cover Okkusenman, a cover which has itself been covered many times. No cover, no vocal performance, musical or orherwise, will ever match the level of sincerity that the pained screams of the original Okkusenman convinced me of when I first heard it as an 11 year old on my family’s iMac computer.

The game also features an iconic opening cutscene which employs text to summarize the previous game’s events as the “camera” pans up the side of a skyscraper in the year we’ve just been told is 200X, a year so baffling we can’t even discern whether it’s intended to be in base-34, or if the game is set 200 times some unknown variable years AD. At the top of this tower gazing down at the black void of the city he returns to after believing to have saved, is none other than our hero just as we left him, glorious black hair vibrating in the breeze.

Dr.Wily has created his own set of 8 robot masters, each designed via a fan character contest (which is an awesome idea you’d expect from a kickstarter game, not a capcom game), for the sole purpose of assassinating Mega Man back. Our hero must don the helmet once again!

Then you press start and play it. It’s pretty good. Much easier than its predecessor in the early phases. Lots of new level design elements are tested, some of which, like Quickman’s… deadly accordion tubes, were too “hardcore” to ever be attempted in any game since. Either that or they’re a tad rough. One strategy I employed repeatedly in this game is to simply run forward, unconcerned with whatever harm it may bring to my character. This would get you annihilated in the original, but works perfectly well for massive chunks of this game thanks to the level design and invincibility frames. I won’t pretend to know whether this was “intended” or not, but it works and feels oddly fitting for the Mega Man aesthetic to push straight through the pain (a bull charges into the storm, etc.).

The Wily stages are mostly gross, aside from music of course. There’s no Yellow Devil, but there are puzzles requiring specific weapons that have limited ammo, ammo that is often not provided by the level itself, and some of these puzzles require your ammo supply be nearly full, meaning, unless you get a series of very lucky drops, you often must get a game over to continue. Forgive my overuse of boldface, but I feel the need to stress the point as this issue will not be resolved until the main series’ sixth entry. This is why I not only condone, but highly recommend the use of save states for this game as well as the next several. The stages aren’t even particularly hard with the exception of these puzzles and the bosses (several of which operate as ammo puzzles themselves, including the final boss, whose stage is very short, but features no items or checkpoints).

The final stage is actually excellent. It begins with a straight drop down three screens; there’s no floor to speak of on the first screen. For those who haven’t played one, you fall very quickly in these games, and several stages feature segments where falling from the wrong horizontal position between screens can get you instantly killed, making this the level design equivalent of a jump scare. It’s also the only level to feature no music. The fact that, in actuality, nothing is even capable of hurting you during your fall, gives a feeling of unease, like you clearly should have died there right? So you’re basically living on borrowed time and surely something up ahead must rectify that soon. It doesn’t though, instead you slowly pass through a tight corridor where admittedly heavily damaging but easy to dodge blood drips from the ceiling. Blood? In a game about robots? You find yourself before the boss gate, and rather than take you to the usual pre-boss safe room, it spits you out into the black void of space, where a floating dr.Wily grotesquely transforms into an alien that, for some reason, is only vulnerable to bubbleman’s bubble-shooting weapon (forgive me, I forget the name, and am on an airplane, unable to look it up). Defeat him and get ready for more aural blood-letting; a horrid siren blares and the scene strobes out of existence, revealing the whole thing as some sort of hologram with the real Wily as the helpless man behind the curtain.

Then this happens:

I find it thematically similar to the ending of the original which I already expounded upon. That said, I like how he changes with the seasons, it has a coming of age feeling to it. I also love how Mega Man fights his battles in the techno hellscape city, but lives in a peaceful village on the countryside. It’s… wholesome.

Hopefully nobody is saying these games “don’t have” or “aren’t about” a story at this point. Forget anything I’ve said here, that cutscene alone proves “text” is not what makes a “story”.

I really hate what the American localization team did with this one. In their quest to make Mega Man as dark and hardboiled as childishly possible, they paint the enemies as (violent) labor rights activists and Mega Man as some kind of pinkerton come to stop the proletariat from rising up. It really grinds my gears. It’s like they played these games and tried to extrapolate as much as possible from the little details, without addressing the obvious emotional appeal at the series’ core.

That said, Mega Man 3 is still, undoubtedly, the dark one. Maybe the creepy alien stage in 2 was popular, I don’t know, but Mega Man 3 takes the neon greens, blues, and pinks of its predecessor, and smears all over it with hard, black, pixelated textures, and stark white steel platforms. Snakeman’s and hardman’s stages are pretty whimsical, but many of the other stages take place at night, in dark subterranean lairs, and not even ones under ice fields this time. Magnetman’s stage features unnaturally colored smog, geminiman’s stage has you blasting your way through what seems like a nest of fertilized alien eggs, and shadowman’s stage features intermittent segments where the lights go down and your dodging suicide-bombing grenade-shaped robots in pitch darkness. The music, in my opinion, is easily on par with the iconic Mega Man 2’s, if a bit less “epic” in tone. Mega Man 3 has plenty of rocking tracks, themes are more varied. Gemini and needleman’s stages feel downright perilous, and the game’s opening theme (the first song linked in this post) is like the grand, brooding 8-bit equivalent of The Beatles’ and George Harrison’s “While my Guitar Gently Weeps”.

Unfortunately this game is also the beginning of the end for a lot of people. Put bluntly, this game is the most padded in the series. Mega Man gets a dog in this one, and he is basically a “cute” streamlining of the platforming items in 2. Unfortunately the designers are way to proud of him, and so the accursed item puzzles from 2 are back stronger than ever, this time with at least a tad more ammo than you need. It still sucks to be deep into a long segment of riding your dog around, only to find that the run was doomed from the start because no, they weren’t going to give you the little boost you needed that time. You fight the mysterious “Break Man” in several stages, a midboss that feels like he’s preventing the game from having actual cool midbosses like the last game, even though he isn’t. He just kills you until you learn his pattern and then he never hurts you again. The fight still lasts too long. You also repeat half the original 4 stages. They have some new sections, and reused bosses from 2. It sucks, because the bosses in 2 are mostly beaten by spamming their weaknesses while they galivant around the arena wailing on you, only you don’t know which of the new weapons they’re weak to, so you have to die a few times testing weapons. Unfortunately the item puzzles turn each death into a game over because for some reason, they left out the checkpoint before the boss of needleman 2!! Sorry, but I will never get over this; it’s the reason I gave up on this one as a teenager, which is a shame because I would’ve loved the ending even more then.

The Wily stages in this game are the best so far. Yes they have item puzzles, but you know what, flying around on the rush jet is pretty fun. More importantly the bosses are difficult without being Yellow Devil or Dragon levels of hopelessness-inducing pain. On top of that, the visuals gradually get darker, more serious, and more muted, while the music does the same, eventually culminating in this excellent suspense building track:

The final boss proceeds without error and ends in Wily’s castle collapsing. The debris crushes Mega Man and Wily. We see Mega Man lying down, wounded, in a sprite the appears nowhere else in the series, and he is saved by breakman, who, after what is for this series a massive dialogue heavy cutscene, is revealed to be protoman. Upon hearing this, Mega Man immediately storms out of the lab and roams the countryside, searching in vain for the brother he, one can only assume, has always longed to know (especially after destroying all his others in the first game). His reasons for leaving the family are yet unknown, but as Mega Man gazes at the empty sky, one thing is clear, Protoman is out there; he might even be watching us right now.

I wept, like a child, at the saddest song ever written in 8-bits:

Just a quick aside, I did play the first of the gameboy Mega Man games. It was decent. The bosses are mostly reused, but the stages are unique. With there being so many games in the series, I don’t see a real reason to play this game today. The NES games are simply better from an aesthetic and narrative perspective. The selling point here is portability, but a difficult action game like this doesn’t work that well portably without a sleep mode or save file, it simply demands too much of your attention. Future spinoff games would reformulate the formula to work well on gameboy advance and nintendo ds.

It at least ends in space, which is always cool.

This game returns the series tone back to “squeaky clean Mega Man”. No sections reminiscent of the pre-boss areas in Killer 7, just “4 Megs” of “metal-mashing” action (yeah, they actually used to advertise the ROM’s file size). The major exception being dustman’s stage, with a song that starts out haunting and becomes a relatively average Mega Man 3 song (read: excellent). The stage is a massive waste treatment facility wherein you mostly climb around scrapmetal. The whole stage is black and grey with a few pixels of random color here and there representing random debris. It’s crazy to think there are the parts of the real world that look like this, and it’s a whole different kind of crazy to think that Megaman himself is a robot and will probably himself end up here when/if he dies. He’s basically climbing on corpses, which you more literally do in skullman’s bone-platform stage. I like the extreme color contrast of the bones with the blood-red sky, but the whole thing is so unrealistic that it mostly just feels funny and cool, not really spooky.

Anyway, my point is, other than dustman’s stage, this game is basically as bright, colorful, and pop as you can get. There’s even a brightman, whose stage has you running across rainbows through a sky blue… sky. Foreground and background elements change color, the backgrounds are more detailed, and nearly all the weird technical issues of yore have been smoothed over. It’s essentially Capcom using SNES-era technology to make an NES game that clearly outshines most of the system’s library in sheer style and playability. The next two numbered entries in the series will proceed to 1-up themselves using this same method to the point of absurdity.

When I say this is the “pop” entry in the series, I’m also referencing how easy the game is compared to its predecessors. It’s actually possible for a normal human, having played some ammount of the series up to this point, to beat stages on their first try, a feat that would have been nearly unthinkable in the original game. I personally love this. The original Mega Man is the biggest challenge to surmount, and every other game is intentionally and meaningfully different. Would the average diehard fan seriously call 2, the breakout hit of the series, a lesser experience because of its decreased challenge? Of course not. As with 3, some people consider this game to be the beginning of the end (I promise those are the only games I will attribute that secondhand title to in this retrospective), however that has more to do with the story than anything.

In short: Dr.Cossack is not Dr.Wily, but is doing more or less the same thing (causing urban mayhem with robots, particularly involving perfectly circular explosions on the sides of buildings that somehow don’t seem to do any visually apparent damage). Fly through his wonderfully Kremlin themed hideout (the easiest “castle” levels thusfar, featuring less item puzzles as well), and eventually get to my favorite level in the entire series, to which I have dedicated a much shorter twitter-tier post to.

Then you fight Dr.Cossack’s capsule machine and reveal that Wily had kidnapped Cossack’s daughter, Kalinka, and forced him to commit crimes.

This scene is surprising the first time you see it, not for any plot reasons, but because it transitions immediately from boss battle to dialogue cutscene without any kind of screen transition (eat your heart out, Final Fantasy VII). Then you do 4 trollishly frustrating Wily stages, some of which deprive you of pre-boss checkpoints. It’s as though Cossack represents the game’s more friendly sense of challenge, and Wily, the true evil, goes back to the worst of Mega Man difficulty. In execution, however, it feels more regressive than clever.

The game ends with a scene of Mega Man riding home atop a train. It’s pretty beautiful, and the music is somber and good. At the end he returns to his home in the country with Dr.Right and Roll (his creator and sister) there to welcome him. It’s a pretty sweet reinforcement of the Mega Man as salaryman parallel, seeing him ride the train home. It gives the impression that after saving the world 4 times, the game’s events feel like business as usual to our hero, and the end cutscene is, once again, his return commute from a long day at the mechanical skull-shaped office.

Overall this game falls a tad short of its full potential because though the graphics and mechanics are more refined, the twist isn’t very meaningful. Cossack never gets much characterization so it doesn’t really feel important whether it was him or Wily truly behind it all, and the ending also fails to surprise. It’s the first game in the series to feel like “another one of these”, and the sense of Capcom playing it safe is amplified in the eyes of many fans, perhaps unfairly, as an NES game released soon after the SNES.

That said, the game’s opening cutscene is excellent. It basically establishes Mega Man’s origin story as Rock, a lab assistant who asked to be converted into a killing machine in order to fight for justice. I really love this. It’s inspiring that Mega Man wasn’t born a hero; he chose to become one. It also makes all those past hair flowing scenes feel more meaningful, emphasizing the true discrepancy between his public and private faces.

I’m writing this section a few days after having finished the last section. The truth is, Mega Man 5 is the most functional game so far. It’s smooth like butter and sweet like milk. The easiest game in the series thusfar, Mega Man 5’s level design often feels generic. I beat several stages on my first try, loudly declaring to my friend in attendance “this game is fucking trivial!” upon annihilating my sixth robot master within what couldn’t have been even two hours.

A handful of stages make up for this by being drastically more difficult and unique than the others: Starman’s stage uses floaty space physics, waveman’s stage sees Mega Man riding the waves in an auto-runner style segment that controls unlike anything else in the series, and gravityman’s stage has points where the direction of gravity changes for Mega Man and his enemies a la Super Mario Galaxy, or Metal Storm, from which it likely draws inspiration. These stages alone nearly justify the game’s existence, but if you’re going to focus on new, innovative mechanics, why not do so using the power of the snes to create something on yet another level? This doesn’t mean much today, with both the consoles and these games being “outdated” and all the more charming for it, but I can empathize with a fan’s desire to see this series “make the transition already”. On the other hand, the game is really fun, and hey, isn’t a developer making their games available for people without the latest and most expensive hardware a good thing (Cyberpunk 2077)?

The story of this game is the weakest, even moreso than the original game’s. Protoman is acting like Dr. Wily. Treat him the exact same and get treated with a cutscene at the end of his castle wherein Mega Man refuses to fight his brother and nearly dies, before being saved by the real Protoman. The fake one was, of course, made by Wily, who must be stopped in his castle. The castle levels are extremely tolerable in this game, but lack the major stage gimmicks discussed above, and thus, like much of this game, feel a bit generic. The castle bosses especially feel generic, with “Protoman”’s being variations on the same normal-sized robot. The fights are effortlessly easy and forgettable. The game ends with Mega Man saving the day and being saved by the real Protoman again. Protoman then sinks off the screen, in a move that is legitimately starting to feel like pure shyness at this point. I mean come on, we know Protoman’s our friend by this point, why can’t he just, I don’t know, actually say hello for a change? Frankly this whole game’s plot is built on the unbelievable lie that Protoman was shockingly behind it all this time, but it’s just a more groan-worthy version of the last game’s twist with Dr.Cossack. The games in this series haven’t been 13 stages in length (as the back of this game’s North American box wrongly claimed it was), since the second installment. If they’re going to pad the game like this, they should make those extra stages fit the story, instead of writing a weak story to justify the added game length (especially when the added stages ignore the game’s most interesting new mechanics). It’s reminiscent, or perhaps a harbinger of, the worst modern day open world game plot-points (i.e. spiderman hiding 50 backpacks from himself over the course of years before one day deciding he needs them all back, etc.).

Actually, speaking of game-padding chores, Mega Man 5 is the first to offer a hidden power unlocked by collecting the letters in MEGAMANV throughout the first batch of 8 stages. Most are easy to find, but slightly difficult to get, offering a reward for taking on extra challenge beyond e-tanks and 1-ups, even though those items encourage you to take on the challenge more often, not being one-of-a-kind items. Also, the phrase MEGAMANV contains 2 letters repeated 2 times, which makes finding those letters occasionally confusing if you’re not paying much attention to the treasure hunt. I also think the exploration needed to find a letter you missed in a cleared stage is tedious and mostly aimless. It’s not super hard or anything, but Mega Man just isn’t the kind of game where I want to replay stages after beating their respective bosses; it saps the experience of it’s deadly tension and uncertainty, not to mention most of the fun in these games is in proving to yourself that you can, in fact, do it. Once “it” has been “done” the whole thing begins to feel a little toothless.

Overall I had a good time playing this one because of how quickly I could play through all of the new content, but I just as quickly moved on from the experience and forgot its details. What you see on the poorly-localized box is essentially what you get with this one, “secret” Wily stages or no.

Even so, this is pretty bold.

This is the entry most readers will likely be unfamiliar with, so I implore the crazed Rockboard-addicted otaku to please bear with me as I explain to 100% of this post’s audience (rounded up to account for the fact that the total views of my posts do not exceed 100) how it works.

It’s actually kinda cool. You have a functional monopoly-like 8-bit board game complete with options to trade, auction (egregiously the feature requiring use of the second controller port on the NES; I un- and then re- plugged my single controller for those breif sections), and offer properties to other players. It actually feels quite impressive, given the console’s limitations. Additionally, one character may build property (labs) on another character’s land by paying the landlord, causing them to share profits. It’s a clever system, with many levels of development, and the strategic considerations of which plots you do or do not need to completely own (merely owning a lab or plot neighboring another of yours will raise the value of each).

The game also features many playable characters, none of which, insultingly, are Mega Man or his cool brother with the sunglasses. As the Mario and Luigi of this series, it makes no sense not to include them. The explanation I came up with to allow myself to enjoy the game in a state other than pure, blind, unrelenting, confused rage is that this game is about what the series’s other characters get up to while the boys are off saving the world. Each character has their own unique dialogue upon witnessing or participating in certain in-game events. You see them constantly, but the game’s “fast” text option more than lives up to its label. I’ll break down each character and who I imagine they were designed for below:

Dr.Right - Trying to bring peace to the world with his inventions and occasionally giving gifts to players who land on his spaces. This one’s for dad. Helping the other players fits his character and therefore is a really sly way of applying a handicap your children can look up to, instead of feeling coddled by. He’s so polite and adorable. I felt bad when beating him.

Roll - My character of choice. Her goal is to build hospitals, and her lines really emphasize that she’s doing this solely for those less fortunate than herself. This is the best choice for mom, even though she’s a robot child (there are NO adult women (man or machine) in the series up to this point. Her property effects are neutral.

A quick aside: I like that the above two characters play what is nearly modern day monopoly with altruistic intentions. Like, yes, they might financially ruin the Kalinkas, Cossacks, and Wilys of the world, but hey, in this world real positive change takes money. It’s not politically perfect or anything, but it’s better than whatever you can ethically surmise from Mario Party.

Dr.Cossack - Basically playing normal monopoly. Essentially a self-interested character who still gives you a chance to roll again when you land on his space. He wants your money, but he’ll help you out in other ways because in his mind he’s still a good guy. I can’t really imagine anyone wanting to play Cossack unless they wanted to play a boy and the others were taken, or Right was taken and they don’t want to play a villain. Maybe your atheistic teenage brother who actually wants to be a scientist would choose him.

Kalinka - Not even advancing a career, just amassing money and building castles to feel like a princess. I guess this is my house-flipping mom? Can’t really see anyone wanting to play her other than maybe a young girl or series fan who was fascinated with her inclusion as such a minor character. I do like that she’s here, and she adds a little chaos into the mix by transforming other players into robot masters that have special powers, but no ability to buy property they land on.

Dr.Wily - Taking over the world as in any Mega Man game. He’s the only one literally trying to establish a monopoly, and his spaces can drain an extra 300 zenny from you. I kind of like how playing the easy character also makes you the game’s villain, but I imagine the kind of player that chooses Wily would suck to play with anyway. Probably an obnoxious brat with something ever-so-slightly wrong with them. The kind of kid your parents make you hang out with because they just can’t accept your 11-year-old brain’s earnest revelation that other people just aren’t worth the time of day. You wish you could just play as Rockman in this Rockman game and kick his ass like an awesome hero already.

I didn’t get the chance to play this multiplayer, but I will give my opinions regardless. The beginning of the game is too slow and makes you feel like the game will last forever, but because the game ends when a player earns enough money (an appreciated change to the formula) and the rate of money-earning increases exponentially, the proceedings will end in a manner that feels sudden to the winning player (“things were just getting interesting!”). The other players will probably be pretty out of it at that point, as their doesn’t seem to be much opportunity to make a major comeback, but it’s hard to tell, since I only played against the game’s less than incredible CPU players. I also really dislike how many items and transformations in the game take down the other players, rather than giving the user a boost. That and the way the new character Reggae laughs at the last-place character after the winner is announced gives the game a mean-spirited edge that is the opposite of what anyone should want from a party game.

That’s basically the game. It’ll probably make everyone slightly less bitter than monopoly or Mario Party, but also feel the need to discuss why you keep insisting on playing as Kalinka or why your little brother would rather play as a hideous supervillain without an ounce of coolness than the only iconic playable robot character in this Rockman game who just so happens to wear a dress.

The final installment of the series on famicom/NES, Mega Man 6 mechanically perfects the formula while essentially disregarding the series breif history of hard-hitting cutscenes. I encoutered no bugs and only once experienced what I would call an “oddity” of programming. I joyously annihilated the game without the use of any save states, and still found the overall level of challenge greater and more consistent than the previous game’s. The new Rush-Adapter powers change your platforming and combat abilities without consuming ammo, allowing the game to actually vary the platforming by requiring their use without being infuriating. There are also many optional paths through this game’s stages which make use of the adapters. That and the indication of which stages contain collectibles on the menu solve Mega Man 5’s aimless search problem, and make finding the secrets quite fun. The animation and sound gives the common enemies more character than previous entries, and the internationally-themed stages provide a sense of aesthetic diversity beyond its predecessors. Flameman sounds like a rehash, but his stage is Saudi oil tycoon themed. Centaurman is insane. He teleports, disappears, stuns you, and shoots what look like fireworks just over your head. His stage takes place in the city of Atlantis, begining above the water, diving into it, and ending in the city itself, with the water (and its physics) above you. It’s a great twist on the usual water stage, and had me laughing and smiling quite a bit.

The story is the same-old Cossack twist for the third time, with Mr.X, who claims to have been manipulating Wily all along, revealing himself to actually just be Wily. This is the worst iteration of the trope because it actually lowers the stakes for the final castle. At best it makes you more annoyed with Wily, and want to put a stop to him for good just so he’ll stop preventing these games from being more interesting. You sort of maybe do that because the epilogue shows a newspaper declaring he’s in prison now. It’s sort of a bland ending except for the hilarious scene wherein Mega Man chases the helpless doctor to some comically frantic and breif music.

And then it has a sequence showing tihe game’s robot masters which goes on way too long. The last few games had similar sequences, but they were more appropriate in length. Either way, I’d much prefer seeing the series recurring characters, even if it’s just in a tiny slice of life scene. It would bring back the sense of releif games 1-4 so righteously bestowed on players in their endings.

IN CONCLUSION:

The Mega Man series had 7 installments on nintendo’s first video game home console. The intellectual property rights to all these games belong to Capcom. The people who made these games claimed to have worked their hardest to outdo themselves. Their efforts were rewarded with funding for sequel after sequel.

I enjoyed these games enough to write this article in part because I have a nostalgic connection to the series which helps me appreciate its best qualities. I played all of these games because as a middle school kid, I discovered the Mega Man guitar cover scene on Youtube and decided that classic Mega Man was the epitome of hardcore and something of intense, head-banging, tear-jerking, childhood-defining importance, despite my only experience with the games at that time being a laggy port of Mega Man 2 on my flip phone. I vowed to someday play them, and now I have. It was not the best use of my time, and the sleep I lost staying up all night to finish games 2 and 3 caused me to feel depressed during work, and my performance suffered. At the same time, my respect for Mega Man’s tireless effort in the service of the greater good in those early games despite the difficulty of the road ahead, and the fanmade album embelishing and re-telling the series’s story The Protomen inspired me to quit that soul-sucking job and pursue the more socially-just career I had imagined when I first became interested in the series. They’re not perfect games, and they make you experience a real kind of loss when you lose, the loss of real world time, wasted. However, that wasting of time is a tool used to drive home the game’s emotional and thematic experience! It makes you realize just how much you value your limited time on this Earth. However, you only get that out of Mega Man if you really take it in and think about it, as opposed to enjoying it as a superficial distraction until you get frustrated or “bored” and go play something you can turn your brain off and either “excitingly” overstimulate or “relaxingly” understimulate yourself with.

The people who love Mega Man love it so much because we are the kind of people who get deeply invested in our entertainment. We get deeply invested in our entertainment because we find it fun to play with our brains on full blast, as the original game’s difficulty demands of us. We enjoy difficult video games because we want to be in the habit of pushing our limits, but still feel we occasionally deserve a break from the harshness of reality and from the work required to make it better. The most zealous of us might even say that pretending to be heroes who overcome great adversity and oppose evil at every turn makes us more likely to try our best to do good in the real world by aligning our minds with the mindset of the character before bed each night. I am myself the most zealous of said fans.

Being the change you want to see in the world begins with acknowledging the desire to see said change, and the best art helps draw out the best in us.

All else is distraction.

~suoly

[curious-menace]

Arkham Scarecrow SFW Alphabet

im really enjoying writing arkham scarecrow. maybe ill do something similar to my random riddler headcanons posts with some scarecrows

long post under the cut

 A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

Uhhh, the short answer is no. Jonathan is almost wholly incapable of what most people would term “affection”. His idea of loving is not using you for his experiments, only giving you small doses to build up your immunity( not that that will stop him from enjoying watching you panic). Jonathan leans heavily on gifts and words of affirmation as his language of love ( assuming he can even feel that emotion). He calls you  “my dear”  and “my darling” or once “my pumpkin” if he had too much to drink. 

B = Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)

Jonathan would make a good friend if he could ever be wrangled into admitting it. He’s a complete bastard, but he's a loyal bastard. He always goes above and beyond for his friends but it's always in a “aw shit. My favorite idiot needs help AGAIN?!” begrudging , kind of way. You probably met in university/college and if you've stuck with him this long he’d be hard to get rid of.

C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

He never asks for cuddles and is pretty touch adversed as a rule. Sometimes though, He simply plonks himself in your space and expects you to know what he wants. Usually it's gentle backrubs/strokes like you would with a child. Sometimes he just wants your warmth to sooth his aching body. He’s heavier than he was in Arkham asylum but still very underweight so you shouldn't have too much trouble moving him into a comfortable position.

D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

Absolutely not. I'm not convinced this man owns more than his books and the burlap sack on his back ,never mind a home. He has plans to take the cloudburst on tour, to go cross country and then across the world spreading fear. That would be a little difficult if he had gotham mortgage sending him nasty emails every other day about missed payments. While he can cook and clean, I doubt you'd want to eat anything he made. Ignoring his filthy hands, he's probably laced it with fear toxin or a lethal amount of hot sauce.

His homemade cleaning chemicals are pretty stellar mind you. They can get blood, piss or tears out of anything. 

E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

Scarecrow really is a ride or die kinda guy. If you've wormed your way into his life then he’s going to do literally everything and anything to keep you in it. He’s not above making you dependent on him for safety just to keep you around longer. He’s not a total monster to the people he cares about mind you. If you really didn't want to be with him, he’d let you go….eventually.

I'm not sure he fully understands the concept of a “breakup”on his end. He gets that you don't see eachother anymore but I don't think he quite grasps that it's not because one party is dead. There's a 99% chance he’ll use you for his fear toxin experiments as a way of kicking you to the kerb. If you wake up in a ditch with a text that says “we’re through” you should consider yourself lucky. 

F = Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

I canon arkham scarecrow as having been engaged at one point in his life, possibly around the time of origins. I can imagine his partner gave him a “me or the fear toxin” ultimatum which has led to the man you know now. Despite how he looks, how he speaks and acts, he’s still open to the idea of a partner. He’s a loyal man who can't stand backstabbers, he’d appreciate someone like a spouse/husband/wife to have his back. If he decided he wanted to get married he’d propose almost immediately. It might be more of a business or thesis type proposal with lots of talking rather than flowers and wine and you're likely to be married as soon as you said yes. 

He has a tiny pumpkin ring saved for the occasion. Something like this (image credit https://www.banggood.

G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

He’s gentle, in a creepy way unsurprisingly. He was a little stronger than the average man before the incident with croc, all that cardio and fighting with batman made him a skinny legend amongst the rogues for how well he could fight. Now? He couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag. Mostly he's calm and soft, especially when you wouldn't expect him to be.  He can still be an emotionally manipulative person but chances are good you're smart enough to see right through him. Calling him on his bs is actually a good way to endear yourself to him. He likes a challenge and he loves it when people think they can outsmart him.

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

Hmm. yes and no. Scarecrow is severely touch adversed, but...It's not like with Riddler; Edward is on the autism spectrum and genuinely gets overstimulated by a lot of physical contact, he doesn't usually enjoy it unless under specific circumstances. Scarecrow WANTS to be hugged and held on occasion, but the mere thought of someone in his personal bubble sends his hackles up. 

When he first woke up after the asylum, he clung to you like a lampent. Scarecrow gives and recieves hugs like someone who needs them to breath.Your warmth soothes the aching pain when even drugs couldn't . By the time of Arkham Knight he’s grown cold and distant. His hugs are few and far between and unusually half hearted even when he initiates them. Maybe he’s just preoccupied with batman.

I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)

I doubt he’d ever say the words ``i love you” but he’s absolutely going to quote love poetry at you, recite lines from his favorite literature  “shall i compare you to a summer's day” and all that. That’s far better than a simple “i love you” right?

J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

Jonathan is sort of one note when it comes to expressing frustration. Coffee machine not working? Melt it down into fear toxin vials. Line at the grocery store? Gas everyone out of his way. He doesnt get mad, he gets even. He’s not a super jealous person, he’s probably the most secure in himself out of all the rogues in Gotham bar Selina and ivy. But when something does hit his jealousy bone just right? LORD HE IS TERRIBLE. 

Unless you were the instigator, you are 100% safe but the poor soul who made the mistake of flirting with you will never see the light of day again.

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

He can't really kiss to be honest. He lacks a lot of lip tissue and tongue dexterity for deep smooching. He’s quite happy to give you little pecks on the cheek but anywhere else will get sloppy and he's not a fan of that. Jonathan has actually started to bump you with his head like a cat in lieu of kisses. Rare as it is, when he wants kisses he has a tendency to nuzzle into the crook of your neck or rest his head on your shoulder. He likes to be kissed on the cheek , forehead and top of his head. Most other places are covered in scars and lack the sensitivity to enjoy it.

L = Little ones (How are they around children?)

He likes to scare kids. It's not as malicious as it is with adults, he just likes to yell boo at them, smiling as they scream and giggle and run away. It's probably the most innocent he’ll act around other people. He still doesnt like them per say but he’ll tolerate them in small doses. 

M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)

Scarecrow , like most rogues, is not a morning person. He doesn't sleep well and he is hella grumpy when he first wakes up. Expect to watch him shuffle around his hideout like a zombie, still wearing a quilt and his dressing gown as he complains about everything from the weather to the loud creaking of the floorboards. You should present him with food and coffee and then retreat to a safe distance until he’s fully awake, otherwise he’s liable to turn on his grumpy old man routine on you. If he's feeling particularly sore or needy, he’ll ask you to help change his bandages and dressings .

N = Night (How are nights spent with them?)

It really depends on what he feels like in the moment. Sometimes he’ll leave you at home while he goes out to cause general mischief, sometimes he’ll bring you along as a look out. Sometimes it's a low-key night at the hideout reading and sometimes it's a caffeine fueled frenzie of experimentation and lab work with you as his trusty lab assistant.  He doesn't sleep well at night, the aches keep him up. If he were ever to actually go to bed he might find that you make a great pillow.

O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

As much as he resents people having the upperhand with information, it's hard not for people to see his past. His scars are so easily visible, inside and out. He doesn't talk about his past unless prompted. But if you do he’ll quite happily answer all your questions; he’s not afraid of discussing it. 

P = Patience (How easily angered are they?)

Jonathan is a very patient man, not just when it comes to revenge.It takes quite a lot to make him fly off the handle and he cools off again quickly. That's not to say he doesn't hold a grudge like he’s being paid for it, only that it's more of a simmering anger rather than a boiling one.

Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

He remembers most things about you, he has an excellent memory. But that being said he never lets on that he knows these things. He likes to hear you talk about the things that interest you, even if you've told him about it before. Watching you wax lyrical about your chosen subject makes him feel close to you. 

R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in your relationship?)

I don't know if it's a favorite or even a positive memory but when he first woke up from surgery after croc you were lying beside him. He was understandably confused, maybe even afraid, but seeing you there brought him great comfort. He didn't know what was happening because of all the meds, but as long as you were with him he was confident things would work out for him.

S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

He means well, you should always keep that in mind  before you snap at him. He brought you to the arkham knights HQ to protect you from his plans, he’s given you micro doses of fear toxin to build your resistance and by the time of arkham knight you can hardly move for the amount of guards he has following you around. He’s overbearing bordering on controlling but I think it's because he simply can't admit the thought of losing you scares him, even just a little. You aren't a rogue, you don't know Batman like they do. He just needs to keep you safe from batman, from the police and from the ugly world outside.

Given how weak he’s been viewed practically all his life, I believe he’d resent the accusation he needed protecting. deep in his mind he knows no one man is an island. He appreciates little helps even if he won't say it. He doesn't need protection per say but If nothing else, after being injected with his new toxin, he's going to need someone who’s corpus mentis in his corner for court and medical proceedings.  

T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

His idea of a perfect date is you two working on your respective projects in comfortable silence, maybe a trip to the museum if he feels like the exercise. Obviously that suits some people down to the ground, myself included, but he gets that it's not for everyone. He’s probably ok with you planning the activities provided you warn him beforehand. 

Given everything he’s been planning for batman, things like important dates and even everyday tasks have a tendency to get lost in the fray. He's not doing it on purpose, He’s glad to celebrate these things with you if you remind him, He's just got his priorities in a funny order.

U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

He shuffles his feet when he walks and is one of those people who always has conversations in doorways. You can never be sure he isn't aware of these habits and is doing them on purpose. He also used to smoke quite heavily but has since given it up due to his throat and lung issues.

V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

It's sort of a mixed bag with him. On the one hand he knows he’s ugly, that's the point. You're MEANT to be scared looking at him, he’s leaning into it. But on the other hand his “look” is a carefully maintained visage; if it slips it might lose the intended effect. He might not be as scary to look at or worse, people might look at him in pity. It's not ordinary vanity or narcissism but yes, he is concerned with maintaining the way he looks 

W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

The concept of feeling whole is somewhat lost on him; He’s clearly missing a few screws even in his most lucid moments. That said even in the depths of madness brought on by his toxin, he still notices your absence. Still incredibly distressed In his cell in blackgate, he can often be heard crying out to you for comfort  but is lacking the wherewithal to understand why you're not there. 

X = Xtra (A random headcanon for them.)

Given that he has pretty extensive facial injuries, eating is pretty difficult for him. He used to really enjoy bagels and cubanos from gothams many deli’s. His favorite was a kosher deli in The Cauldron, before Joker ruined it. They’ve since rebuilt and while he can't eat many solids anymore , he still enjoys their matzo soup and smoothies. 

Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

Like most of the rogues, he absolutely can't stand bullies.He also can't stand physically aggressive people; if you're going to even TRY and intimidate him maybe you could use your words like someone with more than 2 brain cells to rub together, rare as that is in gotham. Back when he was a psychiatrist he hated people who were chronically late. Not his patients, most of the time it wasn't their fault  due to executive dysfunction or traffic, but people who kept HIM back and made HIM late were the bane of his existence. 

Z = Zzz (What are their sleep habits?)

Crane is a back sleeper who snores because of his damaged septum.He knows he makes a noise akin to a flip flop in a lawn mower but there is literally nothing he can do about it besides sleep on his stomach. He squirms around a lot in his sleep so even if he starts on his stomach, he’ll be on his back snoring like a dead horse in no time. The only thing that could keep him frontwise is if he were to sleep on you and have you hold him in place. 

[qwertyfingers]

Not to be too forward but please drop your TNG watch order.

okay tng is. complex. here’s how i’d do it I think. I’m jumping about a lot, and I’m also struggling to remember a lot of it because my first watch was 7 years ago and my rewatch w friends we just did Sherlock Holmes and then went straight into chronological order. so this is like, combo of a handful of eps I remember being plot important and just stuff that makes me laugh.

Elementary, My Dear Data (S2E3) and Ship In A Bottle (S6E12). a) introduces you perfectly to the concept of holodeck episodes, which will be important later b) DaForge married gay energy off the charts c) Picard is really fun. the only failing of this as a start is the tragic lack of Guinan

ALL of the Q eps. Speedrun the Qcard nonsense and get a lot of the overall show plot

Encounter at Farpoint (S1E1 and S1E2)

Hide and Q (S1E10) - unnervingly babyfaced Riker. you could skip this one but it lays some good basis for who the Q continuum are, but it’s kind of fun

Q Who (S2E16) - borg introduction! absolute must watch. The insanity of ‘to learn about you is frankly provocative… but you’re next of kin to chaos’ as a line alone, let alone the voice Patrick Stewart gives to it. Iconic episode.

Deja Q (S3E13) - Q getting turned into a human as punishment for being a naughty boy. V funny, must watch

QPid (S4E20 babeyyyyy) - MUST WATCH one of thee funniest episodes and experiencing the QCard speedrun from farpoint to qpid is a very special kind of brainworms

True Q (S6E6) - this one is skippable tbh, but it is pretty fond and I’m personally fond of running a full Q supercut

Tapestry (S6E15) - this one isn’t as fun as most Q eps but it is VERY TNG-ish and therefore a must watch. If you’ll forgive the pun, it really gets at the heart of Picard’s character

All Good Things (S7E25 and S7E26) - as with most Star Trek finales it’s not the best. You don’t have to watch this here but it can be a fun bookend for the Q speedrun

You could also go watch DS9’s Q-Less (S1E6) if you’d like to see Q get punched in the face, it’s really very satisfying

You kind of have to watch The Best of Both Worlds (S3E26 and S4E1). If you’ve seen TNG before, you don’t need to worry about when you watch it. If you haven’t seen any TNG yet, watch it here.

Darmok (S5E2) - THEE most star trek of all star trek’s. hmu if you ever want me to rant about Darmok I have a whole badly-structured personal essay about it ready to go at all times

Disaster (S5E5) - Geordi and Crusher teamup is really fun, and ‘executive officer in charge of radishes’ is the best line in all 7 seasons of TNG

Schisms (S6E5) - you could just watch from the opening until Data’s poetry recital ngl. The ep is decent and I’d personally watch it all but this ep is mostly about Data’s poetry.

Sub Rosa (S7E14) - Crusher fucks a ghost. iconic behaviour

Dixon Hill eps! They’re fun and silly and much like watching TOS’ A Piece of The Action

The Big Goodbye (S1E12)

Manhunt (S2E19) - Lwxana. I’d do anything for Lwxana

Clues (S4E14) - Guinan as Gloria is so much fun I love her and she should have got a full episode!!!!!

The Measure of a Man (S2E9) - important Federation and Data lore. Very emotional.

Yesterday’s Enterprise (S3E16) - Tasha’a back!!!!!!!! Just a very cool ep imo

Hero Worship (S5E11) - Extremely good Data ep, good content about Federation attitude to mental illness

Datalore (S1E12) - another important Data ep, and Lore is laways fun

The Offspring (S3E16) - Data wants to be a dad!!!

I, Borg (S5 E23) - HUGH!!! IT’S ALL ABOUT HUGH!!!!!!!!! (I like to watch this right after The Offspring because it’s direct parallels of geordi and data just wanting to take care of people)

Brothers (S4E18) - more Data (And Lore) content

Descent (S6E26 and S7E1) - not required watching, but Lore is fun and evil

Fistful of Datas (S6E7) - EXTREMELY SILLY GOOD FUN ALLROUND. CAN NEVER GO WRONG W ACOWBOY EP

Sarek (S3E23) - I can’t remember the plot I just know Sarek shows up in a lavender robe and has mad chemistry with Picard. I’m  pretty sure they mind meld really hard??? Lord help me the old men you put on this spaceship to do politics are exploring eachothers’ minds in the most intimate manner possible <3

Unification (S5E7 and S5E8) - Spock attempts to re-unify Romulus and Vulcan. Iconic 2-parter, but definitely the kind of episode that benefits from watching with a friend so you can add commentary

if you like Romulan episodes you could watch the full Sela arc before this one (The Mind’s Eye S4E24, Redemption S4E26/S5E1, Unification)

Face of The Enemy (S6E14) - I can’t remember the entire plot but I’m pretty sure it was good and I love a good Romulan ep

The Host (S4E23) - Trill introduction!!!! So good.

The Game (S5E6) - profoundly stupid but worth it for how funny the graphics for the game are

Cause and Effect (S5E18) - just a pretty cool one

Time’s Arrow (S5E26 and S6E1) - One of TNG’s strongest plots imo

The Inner Light (S5E25) - another banger plot; Picard gets hit by a psychic probe and lives an entire life in a history that has already happened. there’s a really good Spones fic based on this episode and I could read an au like this for any ship I swear

Relics (S6E4) - Scotty!!!! It’s fun

Chain of Command (S6E10 and S6E11) - another one of TNG’s strongest plots. The origin of the ‘there are FOUR lights’ meme.

Birthright (S6E16 and S6E17) - this is an infamous double parter but all I actually remember is Julian Bashir appearing and meeting Data

Ensign Ro’s intro ep Ensign Ro (S5E03) i LOVE her

The Next Phase (S5E24) - cool ep where Ro and Geordi get stuck out of phase and are invisible from the crew, pretty fun

and the end of her arc with Preemptive Strike (S7E24)

I personally love Barclay and just choose to live in a universe where the misogyny wasn’t happening and he was just a weird little man, but if he bothers you, you can skip his arc. Don’t skip Genesis tho it’s good

Hollow Pursuits (S3E21)

The Nth Degree (S4E19)

Realm of Fear (S6E2)

Genesis (S7E19) - perfectly batshit star trek fake science. I love it

Masks (S7E17) - extremely silly and therefore fantastic

after this point I’d go back and watch in order all the way through, or look up a watch order for eps that are actually important plot-wise :’) 

[spectraldragon2024]

Finding Peace Q/A

Questions and Answers: (WARNING: Many of these questions and answers have spoilers for Finding Peace.)

Q: How did Whiteout find out about the Realm Between and the Dream World? I thought only Adder and his close contacts knew.

A: A personal headcanon of mine is that the NightWings were one of the few tribes in Darkstalker’s era that focused on advanced theories in the same way scientists today have theories about Darkmatter. In Finding Peace: One of these theories was about the concept of there being worlds that existed parallel to the world dragons inhabited. Even when the NightWings relocated to the volcanic island, NightWing philosophers did not abandon these theories overnight since it’s implied the volcano did not become active until centuries later. In her twilight years, she would learn about this theory (which came from a NightWing philosopher’s circle that was formed by the students of the Seer Omniscience, a controversial Seer in NightWing history.) While Whiteout was not a Somnus, not knowing the full nature of these worlds, she eventually gained access to the Realm Between. How she exactly gained access to this realm is something I plan to explore in later stories. However, I can explain how she managed to communicate with her brother across the centuries. In the Realm Between: Time is a concept, not a law. This means those who enter the Realm, whether physically or mentally, can communicate with individuals from across time. But to do so requires two individuals to be in the same location of the realm. By sacrificing her foresight, Whiteout was able to use the Realm Between to communicate with Peacemaker through various times. The final time Whiteout speaks to Peacemaker is a month before her passing.

Q: Are we going to see Moon have that important conversation with Qibli? It was left open-ended in the final Winglet.

A: Yes, I can say with absolute certainty that we will see this conversation. However, what will happen after this conversation will be up in the air. Going into the Winglet: I wanted to show that even though characters like Moon and Qibli have their “Happy Ending”, that does not necessarily mean all trials are done when a relationship begins. In Darkness of Dragons, I felt that there were some unresolved points of concern in Moon and Qibli’s personalities that I imagine would cause their newfound relationship to suffer if those concerns aren’t addressed. Ms. Sutherland once said that because both Moon and Qibli are young dragons, anything can happen between the end of Darkness of Dragons and fifty years later. Some core issues that have caused Moon and Qibli to hit a bump in their relationship stems from differing priorities. Moon is a representative and the only active Seer in the world. Her word is valued by not just the Queens of Phyrria, but Pantala as well. But she knows this isn’t just going to be her future, that there is more on the horizon. She wants the perfect ending with Qibli...but she focuses too much on that ending and tries to take steps to make it perfect.

On the other talon, you have Qibli. Despite his love and loyalty to Moon and his friends, Thorn remains the big centerpiece of his world. After all, Thorn was his mother figure who brought him out of an unstable life. He owes everything to her. That means he will be what Thorn needs him to be: An advisor, a soldier...he will be any of those. Unfortunately, this means he puts a lot of other things on the back burner, his relationship with Moon in particular. This causes a lot of distance between the two. Into the Darkness and Our Sanctuary will not show this much-needed conversation, as these stories will follow Turtle, Kinkajou, and Winter’s storylines respectively. But as I write Braving the Tempest, I do hope to write a story that runs parallel to it that shows Winter, Qibli, and Moon...and how their subplot resolves.

Q: In the Winglet that focuses on Tempest's POV: You have her meet Clearsight. During the conversation, it looks like Tempest blames Clearsight for what happened to Darkstalker. I was wondering if you believe this and if you think Darkstalker did nothing wrong?

A: Do I hate Clearsight? No, absolutely not. I thought she was a very intelligent dragon with a good heart. She loved Darkstalker and tried to turn him from the dark path he was on. I do not blame her for Darkstalker's descent into madness. Darkstalker's actions were his own, he had every opportunity to turn back and be happy. He was the only obstacle to his happiness (as Peacemaker pointed out.) That being said, while Darkstalker is the cause of his madness and sadness, I do believe Clearsight could have helped convince him to abandon his ambitions and to just be happy. The scene in question was not meant to be a sign of hatred, but rather a critique of Clearsight's decisions leading up to Darkstalker's descent. When I originally wrote the scene, I wrote it with something in mind that Tui herself once said in a Q/A Biohazardia was in and posted on their Deviant Art page. The Question asked was along the lines of what could have Clearsight have done to turn Darkstalker away from his path. Tui answered that she believed that Clearsight did love Darkstalker, but deep down she did not trust him. That was the point of the earring she had Darkstalker give her in order to keep him from reading her mind. Tui thought that, if Clearsight had shown the visions she was afraid of, then Darkstalker could have chosen a better path. I admit while Darkstalker was to blame for his actions (nobody else made him kill Arctic, that was his decision, and his alone.) I do think things could have been different as Tui said. But I like to think Clearsight knew that if she had trusted him enough to share her visions, then maybe Darkstalker could have changed. Instead of focusing so much on the future Darkstalker (good or bad) and focused on the dragon, she loved in the present, then maybe things could have been different. When Tempest and Clearsight did meet in Tempest's limbo state, Clearsight used the personality she had while she knew Darkstalker as a way to test to see how far Tempest would go for Peacemaker. The reason she tested Tempest, was because the SeaWing had a personality Clearsight wished she had when she knew Darkstalker: And that was to focus on the present. That was the basis of Clearsight's personality after she arrived on Pantala. She urged her descendants to live their lives, day by day. The future was theirs to write. With Tempest, she needed to make sure that she held firm in her beliefs, that she could save Peacemaker even if the future was dark. So while I believe Clearsight could have done things differently, I want to make it clear that I do not consider her responsible for Darkstalker's own actions

Q: Will you explore quantum mechanics in future stories? (i.e. Time Travel.)

A: While I think time travel would be an interesting concept in Wings of Fire, unfortunately, it's not one I will be exploring in The Darkest Eclipse AU. My thoughts on time travel as a plot device are that it is a can of worms, one if not handled correctly can leave the readers confused (I know I have left many unanswered questions in Finding Peace, but that was simply because the answers to those questions I felt would be better explored outside of Peacemaker's POV). While there are ways for individuals from the past to communicate with someone in the future (such as Whiteout reaching out to Peacemaker throughout the story) there is no way for individuals from the future to physically travel to the past. The Darkest Eclipse prophecy focuses more on the Paranormal and how it relates to established magic and laws of physics in Wings of Fire canon (like how Somnus magic interacts with Animus magic.) That being said, if I were to explore Time Travel: I would follow the theory that time is a closed loop (as in the past cannot be changed, it has already been decided, and that any changes done to the timeline must occur in the future). This, I feel, can be properly explained and leave little confusion for the reader.

Q: TempestMaker or PeaceCliff?

A: Wait, there are ship names?

Jokes aside, I will say that at the end of Finding Peace: Peacemaker does not view Cliff or Tempest in a romantic light. He does love them as much as he loves his mother and Moon, they are important dragons to him and he cannot imagine his life without them. But he does not love them romantically. Will this change in the future? Likely. But for now, Peacemaker is not in the right space mentally to have a romantic relationship. He needs to discover what he wants with his life now that he is free to make it, discover what he wants to do with his future. Once all of the uncertainty in his life is cleared up, that could change.

Q: Apple Juice or Orange Juice? Also: Any tips for keeping a decent writing schedule?

A: I like both, but I lean heavily towards apple juice (always nice to start and end the day with something sweet to drink, but nothing too unhealthy.)

When it comes to writing schedules: What I did with Finding Peace was setting up deadlines for myself. I have always worked well under the knowledge that I have a deadline that I need to meet. Now, that being said, my preferred deadlines may not be for everyone. One of my best friends and colleagues, DONOVAN94, is able to get chapters for her stories out in a single week when she has everything planned out and ready! But that is because she has chapters outlined, and afterward all she needs to do is write in critical info. This works for her, but I always focused on posting one chapter a month. Now I explored posting multiple chapters in a month during the tail end of Finding Peace. While it worked out okay, it left me exhausted...and honestly, I am still tired after doing it.

All in all: My biggest advice to writers (whether fanfiction or writers who want to become published) is to work at your own pace. Set deadlines for yourself that you think you can meet, and never hesitate to experiment.

Q: Who is Omniscience? He is only mentioned at the end of the story when you posted The Darkest Eclipse Prophecy.

A: Omniscience was a NightWing seer who lived during the founding of the NightWing tribe, many centuries before Darkstalker’s era. During Darkstalker and Clearsight’s generation: Omniscience is regarded as one of the wisest seers in NightWing history, as well as the most controversial. Omniscience was born on a night when all three moons were full, but entered a “Thrice Lunar Eclipse'', with each moon eclipsing the other. Instead of receiving both mindreading and foresight NightWing abilities, Omniscience received only the power of foresight. However, because all three moons were technically full that night: The eclipse basically “overcharged” Omniscience’s foresight. This allowed him to see multiple millennia into the future with clarity even Clearsight did not have. However, despite this great power: Omniscience suffered from severe psychosis, causing him great difficulty in his early life to tell the difference between his visions, tricks of the mind, and reality. It’s because of his friends and family’s support did Omniscience learn to embrace his entire self, and became one of the wisest seers in NightWing history. He was controversial because of his philosophy that a wise Seer is not one who tries to map out the future for other dragons, but those who embrace the unknown of the future. In his prophecies he did not address large audiences, but instead, his prophecies addressed dragons in the future, offering them wisdom in difficult times he saw them face. The Darkest Eclipse Prophecy is one of his two final prophecies, alongside another prophecy. These two prophecies have long since been stored in a secret archive, somewhere in Phyrria.

Q: Which character was difficult for you to write in Finding Peace?

A: This might come off as strange, but the one character that was difficult to write throughout Finding Peace was actually Peacemaker himself. The reason this is the case centers around the circumstances of his “birth.” While, in canon, he is not the first year-old dragonet we have seen: But he is the first that was born out of Animus magic and his personality was made from that magic. While we have witnessed the perspective of those influenced by Animus enchantments (when Winter very briefly became Pyrite), Peacemaker is different as he will be living his life following an enchantment. Throughout Finding Peace, I had to balance the enchantment’s dictations and, yet, try to write Peacemaker so he was not simply someone being dictated by magic. In the end: I settled for the enchantment is in place in certain areas of his personality, while making Peacemaker strong-willed enough to actually have a choice of what he likes (as seen when he starts to show interest in food outside of strawberries or standing his ground when his friends were harassed.)

Q: Which is strongest: Animus or Somnus Magic?

A: At their core: Animus and Somnus magic are equal and capable of the same things. However, because of the rules around magic in the AU: It is too dangerous to use Animus magic in the Dream World, or Somnus Magic in the Waking World. As shown in Finding Peace: If you use them in worlds where they are not meant to exist, those worlds will seek to eliminate the magic and its user. The only place both magics can coexist safely in is The Realm Between, where it’s believed both magic originated from. In Finding Peace’s climax this happens, and from there: The power of the magic all depends on the skill of the user. So, long story short, neither magic is stronger than the other. While both magics have advantages and disadvantages depending on the realm of existence the user is currently located in when they are on the same playing field both magics would be left at a standstill.

Q: Most Peacemaker centric fics have Peacemaker be best friends with both Prince Cliff and Princess Auklet, why wasn’t Auklet in the story?

A: Truth is, Auklet was originally going to be one of Peacemaker’s friends in the Quartz Winglet. In my original outline: The main trio would have been Peacemaker, Cliff, and Auklet. Tempest was going to be The Jade Mountain Academy’s counselor, in which she used her Somnus magic to see what bothered the minds of the students. However, the more I thought about it, the more I felt Tempest would have a better role as a Clawmate of Peacemaker and Cliff.

Q: Are Tempest and Cliff reincarnations of Clearsight and Fathom?

A: Yes, Tempest and Cliff are both spiritual reincarnations. While they do not physically resemble Clearsight and Fathom, their spirits are connected to the two dragons. When I drafted Tempest and Cliff’s interactions with the spirits of the two dragons who had such a significant impact on Darkstalker’s life, I drew inspiration from the belief that reincarnation is spiritual, rather than physical (like pouring water from one cup into another cup.) Now, it’s important to note that while they are reincarnations of Clearsight and Fathom, this does not mean Tempest and Cliff are actually those two dragons. Rather, it just means their souls are similar. This allowed Tempest to speak with Clearsight, and Cliff speaks with Fathom when they were in a state of limbo.

Q: Where were Turtle, Kinkajou, and Peril during Finding Peace?

A: Peril is currently living in the Sky Kingdom. While she and Clay live together in the Academy, for the last few months Peril has been staying in the Sky Kingdom...waiting for an important day to occur. Once this day happens, she will be returning to her home in Jade Mountain.

As for Turtle and Kinkajou: Their whereabouts during Finding Peace will be addressed in Into the Darkness. But I will say that what is happening by the climax of Finding Peace is not good for Turtle or Kinkajou.

Q: Why did you include Somnus magic in Finding Peace?

A: When writing Finding Peace, I took into consideration how I could allow bits of Darkstalker’s memories and personality could bleed into Peacemaker. Given the nature of the enchantment, it would not be as simple as putting on a copy of Qibli’s enchanted earrings (Tui confirmed that Peacemaker would die if he put on the earrings.) So I needed to come up with a way that could allow Peacemaker’s slow rediscovery of his past life: And that was with the inclusion of Somnus magic and Adder, while also implying Peacemaker’s strong will allowed only part of the enchantment to take effect (it’s been shown that dragons with strong wills can overcome Animus enchantments.) With Adder tormenting Peacemaker’s dreams by pushing memories of Darkstalker into his mind via dreams, Peacemaker would still be Peacemaker, but the Somnus magic allowed that anguish and confusion in his mind to occur. Needless to say, I was nervous about the introduction of Somnus magic, as I felt readers might think I was “Jumping the shark.” In order to make Somnus magic make sense, I focused on the rules and limitations of this magic and how it interacted with Animus magic. This way Somnus magic is not instantly more powerful than magic from canon.

Q: Why did the group of bandits refer to Lynx and Bobcat as “Cursed ones” in the Winglets for Finding Peace? Why is there a group dedicated to killing them?

A: In the Darkest Eclipse AU there exist multiple secret societies that are aware of the paranormal of the world (such as The Dream World and Realm Between, though they are typically named differently depending on the organization.) As for this particular group, the Bandits that raid the border between the Sand and Ice Kingdoms hunt for the paranormal while seeking to make a profit off of them. As for why this organization targetted Lynx, in particular, has less to do with who she was as a dragon, but everything to do with her ancestry. As Qibli and Hailstorm discovered: Lynx is descended from the Somnus bloodline, making her a very distant cousin of Surf’s family. When she traveled from the Ice Kingdom to Sanctuary, the bandits targetted and killed her because of this bloodline...and the fact that she was married to Winter, who has ancestors from a line of animus dragons. As for why the bandits would want to kill Bobcat: in essence, he is a dragonet of the Somnus and Animus bloodlines. While Lynx does not have an active Somnus Gene, and Winter does not have an active Animus Gene, the bandits viewed this union as cursed, as no dragon has ever seen an Animus or Somnus descendant have a dragonet. Fearing what they do not understand, the bandits killed Lynx to prevent the hatching of a dragonet of the Somnus and Animus bloodlines. Ultimately the bandits failed in the objective of killing Bobcat before he hatched: As the last act Lynx did before succumbing to her wounds, was hiding her son’s egg in a place Qibli would find when he, Hailstorm, Winter, and guards of the boarder arrived.

As for if Bobcat’s existence will remain secret to the bandits and other groups like them: That remains to be seen.

Q: Are there any more stories planned for The Quartz Winglet? Will we see Peacemaker’s life in the Sky Kingdom with Cliff, or the Quartz Winglet reuniting during the Winter Solstice festival in the Sky Kingdom?

A: Yes, to all.

Sometime before the summer: I plan to do a short story that takes place two weeks after the end of Finding Peace, in which we see a day in Peacemaker’s life in the Sky Kingdom and how he is faring. I feel this short is important as it will show one last POV dedicated to Peacemaker and how he is starting to rebuild his life.

We will definitely continue to follow The Quartz Winglet in future stories. Braving the Tempest will follow Tempest’s point of view and show the Quartz Winglet reuniting in the Sky Kingdom during the winter solstice festival. The relationships between these young dragons will continue to progress in the sequel to Finding Peace, named Braving the Tempest, and I look forward to showing you all what new adventures they will have in the future.

[beautiful-de4mity]

A9 “PLANET NINE” Interview with Visulog 2018.04.25 (Part 3)

Disclaimer: I’m translating for self-learning purpose and for fun, if you happen to read the original article and find mistakes, feel free to correct me☀  Click this link to read the original article.

A9 be like, “Let’s fight that stereotypical rock concept!” 

Q: Since we have heard the recent report from these two, I would like to hear yours too about “GIGA”.

Shou: Thank you for your hardwork. My previous meeting finished early so I came straight here.

 Q: Shou, please join the interview. Whose original song is “GIGA”?

Shou: I wanted a song with a beat-feeling resembles to "The Beautiful People" by MARILYN MANSON, so it was a song that Saga arranged based on what I wrote. At that time, I felt a Japanese-style world view, so I thought it would be nice to incorporate the good old taste that I had cherished since the early days of A9, so I named it "GIGA" after "Choju-Giga". Note: Choju-jinbutsu-giga, commonly shortened to choju-giga, is a famous set of four picture scrolls, or ‘emakimono’, belonging to Kousan-ji temple in Kyoto. (Courtesy of  Wikipedia).

Q: It’s the simplest song with a band feeling in the album.

Tora: I agree. This song was easy to read, wasn’t it?

Q: Furthermore, it’s not an exaggeration to say that it expresses the most artistic side in the album and it proceeds to “ASYLUM”. Is this song, of course, Saga’s original song?

Tora: This is a song that only Saga can write.

Shou: The demo from Saga contained the rain sound in the sampling, and to me, the place where rain falls is Batman’s Gotham City. There is a mental hospital named “Arkham Asylum” in the Gotham City and the title “ASYLUM” was inspired by it. Note: This is new for me! 😯 I know that Shou loves fantasy and stuffs but I just found out that ASYLUM was inspired by Batman. It’s kinda make sense now.

Q: What “ASYLUM” lyrics is trying to convey?

Shou: The lyrics that say, “Don’t lose” for what you should fight, right? When creating "PLANET NINE", we talked about what kind of band A9 again is according to the members, we concluded that we want to make a band that 'makes everyone happy' for both those people who have supported us so far and those who we will meet in the future. But if a small mistake is made, we might be mistaken for a rock band who is only pondering on the fans, right? It seems like "fans can follow us around as they please" attitude is the image of rock. A9 be like, “Let’s fight that stereotypical rock concept".

Q: It’s like an antithesis to the existing concept as A9.

Shou: When we made people we met happy, that's called rock, right? I'm thinking so. For example, as we have twin-guitar band concept, the sound should be like this (stereotypical). As a result, the band becomes average and boring.

Q: And the album is ended firmly with the single sing “Re:Born”.

Tora: There could be no place to put “Re:Born” except at the end. It's a pop song with a lot of developments, but it's a difficult song, but when we arranged the album, it feels like it was recorded on the album as "I want this song to be put in the last."

Shou: When I told Saga that I wanted a bright song suitable for the celebration of the 13th anniversary, a unique progressive pop song came up. It was difficult to interpret whether it was a pop song or a difficult song in the band, but when I came to the last of the album, I realized again that it was a very good song.

Q: How do you feel now that you have completed “PLANET NINE”?

Nao: I feel that in the future ahead, we're still going to be a fun band. I think we can make the songs of "PLANET NINE" our own and be even more excited about the future. 

Tora: I've been doing it for 14 years and it's no use releasing a similar album, and I'm glad I was able to make a new one again. I think it was an album that was inspiring for us as well.

Shou: With the upcoming A9 who had created "PLANET NINE", we will end the tough period of visual kei.

Q: And finally the tour will start, "STAIRWAY TO MOON”～Invitation to the Moon～, “STAIRWAY TO MARS”～Invitation to Mars～, "ALICE IN CASTLE”～Prince of the Stars and the Castle of the Moon～. Please tell us the meaning of dividing them into three blocks.

Shou: First of all, "MOON" as the entrance to the album. From there, we're raising the level into "MARS". Furthermore, the annual anniversary live is meant to have independent world view but, I would like to present "ALICE IN CASTLE" as a festival that everyone involved in A9 can enjoy.

Q: Finally, please tell us your enthusiasm for the upcoming tour.

Tora: I will do my best not to get sick. Note: If I’m not mistaken, Tora got cardiac arrest previously so he said this😥

Nao: I think the drum set will evolve as the tour progresses, so please look forward to that as well.

Shou: This is the first large-scale tour for A9 in a long time, so if you are watching this, please check the schedule on ViSULOG and come visit our lives.

Yay, that’s a wrap from “PLANET NINE” interview with Visulog! I had hard time translating this one because basically it’s difficult for me to comprehend Shou’s language style 😣 Please do correct me if you find any mistakes or misinformation in this interview translation. Have a nice day!

[glenngaylord]

OUTFEST 2020 FILM REVIEWS:  The Rest Of The Fest

As the curtain closes on another Outfest, this one presented under extremely unusual circumstances, I sit in awe of the filmmakers and of the staff who put together not only a great group of films, but managed to creatively bring them to its audience online and at drive-in screenings.  Typically, you find yourself having to choose one film over several others, but with this new format, you have a great chance of seeing everything you want.  In past years, I found myself lucky if I saw 15 films.  This year I saw 23 features and 4 shorts programs out of the 160 on the schedule.  

As it’s impossible to get full reviews submitted for everything while the festival is still chugging along, I wanted to write capsules of the remaining films not covered at TheQueerReview.com .  Please visit the website for all the other reviews I wrote as well as those by my colleagues.

THE OBITUARY OF TUNDE JOHNSON ★★★★★

Melding a Groundhog Day-style concept with police violence against black people, this stunning film could not be more prescient and emotionally overpowering.  A black gay teenager relives his moment of murder over and over again, with slight shifts in the narrative taking us to someplace unexpected and earned.  Director Ali LeRoi directs his first feature as if he’s been doing it all of his life and has interpreted Stanley Kalu’s ingenious script with a great cinematic approach.  Gorgeously framed, beautifully acted, written, and directed, this is one of the most powerful films of 2020.

TWO EYES ★★★★★

I can’t form sentences here so I’m gonna vomit out words:  Instant classic. Glorious. Set over three centuries seamlessly melding a triptych of stories about gender identity.  I’m a blubbering mess.  Fantastic and very funny last line.  Travis Fine is a very gifted filmmaker who screams love child of Terrence Malick and Kelly Reichardt.  Heartbreaking. Inspiring. Unforgettable.  Montana is so beautiful.  Barstow is not.  A perfect film for anyone who wants to find their place in the world. I wouldn’t complain if TUNDE and TWO EYES both received Best Picture Oscar nominations.  

DRAMARAMA  ★★★★

Theater nerds rule in this incredibly endearing, early 90s set film about a group of high schoolers discovering themselves in one night at a ridiculous Murder Mystery-themed party.  Hilarious script, vivid and wonderful performances, and the opposite of a “Coming Out” movie in the best possible way.  Jonathan Wysocki has given us The Breakfast Club for air-kissing, mid-Atlantic accented freaks and geeks. 

CICADA ★★★★

What happens when a traumatized, bisexual man who has more sex partners than any standard montage can contain slows things down to concentrate on one kind but also traumatized young man?  This elliptically told film has a fun, flirty side but carries its heaviness with great ease.  A terrific feature debut for director/writer/editor/lead actor Matthew Fifer. 

THE STRONG ONES (LOS FUERTES) ★★★★

From Chile comes this sexy, moving story of two men at cross purposes who form a beautiful bond.  Set against some stunning scenery and mining the chemistry between its two leads for everything it has, I am half-jokingly calling it Brokeback Andes.  It’s so much more than that trite, hackneyed comparison.  

MONSOON ★★★1/2

Director Hong Khaou’s followup to Lilting sets its sights on modern day Vietnam as Henry Golding’s character visits to find a suitable place to distribute his mother’s ashes.  It’s a terrific mediation on a gay man finding a sense of belonging in a place he’s never been and Golding proves himself to be a subtle, compelling actor.  Perhaps a little too quiet and reflective, the film makes up for what it lacks in narrative drive with its awe-inspiring cinematography and immersive qualities.  

P.S. BURN THIS LETTER PLEASE ★★★★1/2

What an unexpected surprise.  Michael Seligman and Jennifer  Tiexiera’s documentary about a treasure trove of letters dating back to the 1950s brings us into the world of drag queens from almost 70 years ago.  With many of its subjects not only alive but in fine form telling their stories and the dishiest voiceover readings ever to grace a film, I was not only thoroughly entertained, but I didn’t expect to weep like Laura Dern at the end.  Oh, this is so so so so good. 

MINYAN ★★★★

Eric Steel’s feature debut has its own unique tone and a star making performance by Samuel H. Levine, a spitting image of a young Al Pacino/Sylvester Stallone hybrid.  With its 1980s Jewish Brighton Beach backdrop, this powerful yet subtle film about a young man coming to terms with his sexuality as well as his place within his religion, it’s a stunning debut.  Ron Rifkin is stellar as Levine’s charming grandfather and Alex Hurt (William Hurt’s son) has his father’s intensity.  Fantastic, lived-in production design which feels like its decade without resorting to the usual candy colored tropes and a evocative score makes this a memorable experience.  Reminiscent at times of On The Waterfront, this film puts a fresh new spin on a coming of age tale and finds so many moving moments from first sex to an elderly gay couple hiding in plain sight.  A must-see. 

SHIVA BABY ★★★★

Writer/Director Emma Seligman must have studied Rosemary’s Baby quite a bit with this angsty story set mostly at a memorial service.  Rachel Sennott is fantastic as a young lesbian who moves from one cringe-worthy moment to the next in an attempt to avoid as much conflict as possible.  The great supporting cast includes Polly Draper, Fred Melamed, Dianna Agron, Molly Gordon, and Jackie Hoffman, all note perfect.  Less a comedy and more of an emotional horror story, Seligman knows how to make the best of a cramped space and throw up an endless variety of obstacles.  You just want Sennott’s Danielle to get her goddamned bagel with lox and cream cheese, but the fates have something else, something better, in store. 

COWBOYS ★★★★

Steve Zahn gives a career best performance in this moving story of a father with mental health issues and his trans son escaping into the Montana wilderness.  Sasha Knight makes an impressive debut as Zahn’s son and Jillian Bell expertly walks that fine line between villain and empathetic character.  Its comparisons to Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid are not coincidental.  Not perfect by any stretch, it may feel fairly conventional, but it’s tackling a vibrant subject matter.  Extra points for giving Ann Dowd a role where we don’t hiss at her. 

BREAKING FAST ★★★

Solid romcom with a Muslim backdrop, this very tight, deceptively simple script provides just the right amount of sparks between its charming leads, Haaz Sleiman and Michael Cassidy.  While structurally not breaking new ground, the entry point into a world we don’t see enough of on screen coupled with food porn for days makes this a fun, funny, goes down easy delight.

ASK ANY BUDDY ★★★1/2

Q: Daddy!  Daddy!  What were the 70s like down at the Piers in NYC?   A: Oh shut up and watch this movie.  

An experimental collage of vintage gay porn and archival footage from the disco, pre-AIDS heyday gives this film a mesmerizing, museum installation quality.  While technically without a story, you feel like you’ve gone on a journey nonetheless.  Would pair well with William Friedkin’s Cruising. 

DRY WIND ★★★1/2

Slow cinema meets voyeuristic gay porn in this one of a kind Brazilian exploration an arid small town, a workers’ union crisis, and a man obsessed with the Tom Of Finland drawing come to life who motors into his life.  Overlong and a little too obtuse as it goes along, it’s worth watching this Alice In Wonderland takes a quaalude, gets a very hairy back, and has a lot of sex in the dirt. 

NO HARD FEELINGS ★★★★

This year’s Teddy Award Winner at the Berlin Film Festival, Faraz Shariat’s film uses its backdrop of a refugee camp in Germany to tell the story of Iranians and Irani-Germans searching for a better life.  Its three leads bring a spark and youthful energy to a story with devastating undercurrents.  A wrenching glimpse into the emotional effects an oppressive culture has on its people, yet told with a driving pulse. 

LILY TOMLIN: THE FILM BEHIND THE SHOW ★★★

A look behind the scenes as Lily Tomlin and wife Jane Wagner workshop their legendary 1980s Broadway show, The Search For Signs Of Intelligent Life In The Universe.  It’s great to see these two at the top of their game and get a glimpse of their creative process, but this documentary is almost devoid of incident and feels more like a sweet gift to the fans than a fully realized film. 

SHORTS: WHAT A BOY NEEDS ★★★1/2

A mixed bag here of people searching for excitement, I found a couple of gems here nonetheless.  Not to take away from the shorts I don’t mention, I want to single out two exceptional films. Ruben Navarro’s Of Hearts And Castles looks great, has a beautiful vibe, and shows us a lovely connection forming right before our eyes.  Kiko’s Saints proves highly original as we follow a female Japanese artist on assignment in France become obsessed with a gay couple who have a lot of sex on the beach.  Combining animation with fairly explicit sex, I loved seeing the male gaze from a female perspective. 

THE CAPOTE TAPES ★★1/2

I love Truman Capote. I grew up at a time when smart authors found themselves on talk shows and were treated like superstars.  I’ve read his books and always have been in awe of his ability to be himself.  Featuring never-before-heard tapes of Capote’s friends being interviewed by George Plimpton, unfortunately, I don’t think this repetitive documentary gave me anything all that new.  It’s still touching at times and for the uninitiated, this is a great overview of his life, but I was watching the clock. 

OUT LOUD ★★★1/2

A moving look at the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles as they prepare for their first public performance.  With its ticking clock storyline, director Gail Willumsen expertly interweaves storylines of its founder and members.  As such, you really learn what’s a stake and what it means to them.  I was lucky enough to see the chorus perform David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust a few years ago and basked in the power of its mere existence…and was also ridiculously entertained. 

TWILIGHT’S KISS (SUK SUK)  ★★★1/2

This quiet charmer form Hong Kong shows us something we almost never get to see on film - two elderly gay men meeting and falling in love.  The fact that both have been married to women doesn’t stop them from exploring their feelings.  A little to gentle by half, I still was in awe of this rarity.

[sepublic]

Ideas for potential future Hazbin Hotel episodes...

So in the event that Hazbin Hotel gets greenlit by some outside studio, or continues to function and thrive with fan support, I think there are a couple of important ideas/concepts that are worth exploring and forming episodes and subplots around;

-An episode about a second visitor (Alastor doesn’t count as he’s a benefactor and Niffty and Husk are employees, not guests) would be VERY important and I feel a good starting point for the next episode. We already have Angel Dust, but he admits that he only signed up for a free room (not that this won’t change...). For the show’s themes of redemption, we need to actually see someone else, probably someone who saw Charlie’s ad on TV, actually sign up to stay at the hotel. By having this happen, it’ll show that, yes, there ARE people who are legitimately interested in the Hazbin Hotel and its offer of redemption, and this can pave the way for more guests. Having the Hazbin Hotel gain traction (along with reactions from other demons to Alastor’s sponsorship) would move the plot along.

Based on the official art by Vivzie, I think characters such as Mimzy, Crymini, or Baxter would work. Rosie is a demon lord, so I don’t see her signing up anytime soon, Arackniss is unrepentant, and I think Molly might be saved for later. We’ve already had cameos of Mimzy and Crymini (the latter even watching Charlie’s advertisement), and considering how prevalent the aforementioned three are in art, they’d probably be good starting points for the hotel. Likewise, Cherri could possibly join later, but I’m not entirely sure.

-It’s mentioned in a Q&A that Demons can actually ‘level up’, increasing their rank and power in the process. Considering Alastor seems to be vying for the spot of a demon lord (or at the very least started off concerningly powerful for someone who hadn’t yet leveled up), this would be a good subplot to explore not only Alastor and his motives and abilities, but also introduce Rosie and potentially Lillith, Valentino, and Vox. Ideally, we’d be introduced to leveling up as a concept, and see how it works and what it does.

Likewise, we could also explore the demon hierarchy in general, and how it works. How does Lucifer, Lillith, Satan, and Beelzebub’s authority extend? How do other demons feel about them? Have there been attempts to overthrow them, and how loyal are the Demon lords, assuming they have any allegiance whatsoever? We see a Bat Demon Lord and Dinosaur Demon Lord with Lillith when she looks at Charlie’s fireworks, so it seems THOSE two at least have it good with the ruling family.

-Having an episode dedicated to a new arrival at Hell would also be interesting, as we’d see what it’s like to suddenly die, only to be reincarnated as a demon (potentially as an animal you hate, no less) immediately afterwards. Having a subplot of the Hazbin crew welcoming in a new demon would be a neat way of exploring how Hell works, how one gets introduced and acclimated to the area, and the lifestyle. It could also be used to explore the origins of other characters, or at least the circumstances in which they died and/or arrived. Additionally, it’d be in Charlie’s best interest to immediately invite new arrivals to Hell, as presumably they’d be in a vulnerable, disoriented state and want to leave Hell ASAP. It might be taking advantage of someone else’s predicament, but it’s probably in anyone’s best interests to leave Hell, and we can also explore Charlie’s character flaws later.

-Speaking of arrivals and new guests, having the story focus on how the redemption and rehabilitation process actually works would be pretty important. 

-Character backstories and origins are pretty key, and exploring Angel Dust’s family and mobster origins would be vital regarding his redemption. Likewise, a proper introduction to Valentino (and the Hazbin crew possibly dealing with him, a bit VIOLENTLY might I add...) is begging to be animated. We could answer various questions, such as what exactly ARE the Egg Bois, Vaggie’s hostility to other demons, the origin of Alastor’s power, why Niffty seems rather obsessed with men, and so forth.

-Twice, Alastor has offered Charlie’s hand, and both times she’s declined a handshake/deal. This seems like foreshadowing towards an inevitable ‘deal’ she’ll make with him, so an episode about this (probably later in the series) would be an interesting concept.

-Similarly, Alastor always smiles because he sees anything else as a sign of weakness; So obviously, preferably as late into the series as possible, we need to have the show’s most major ‘All hell is loose’ moment in which Alastor frowns.

-More Sir Pentious antics... that’s really all I have to say. Presumably these would be Wile E. Coyote subplots as he attempts to destroy the Hazbin Hotel and repeatedly fails, with some plots failing without the main cast even being aware Pentious was trying.

-Charlie backstory, alongside her family dynamics with Lucifer and Lillith, as well as her thought process in creating the Happy Hotel. A meeting with Vaggie and explanation of the two’s relationship origins would also be neat, and the introduction and clarification of Satan and Beelzebub as separate entities from her father is also neat.

-I think an episode actually showing if it IS possible to be redeemed and go to heaven would be very important regarding, again, the show’s themes and Charlie’s motives and goals. Perhaps it’d happen later in the series, or earlier, depending on the answer to the age-old question; If you CAN go to heaven, we’ll definitely need an episode exploring a demon that rehabilitates, and the process of ascension. If you CAN’T go to heaven after redemption, then this would probably be revealed as some devastating reveal later down the line that forces Charlie to question herself.

-Likewise, an episode(s) focusing on Charlie’s flaws and misunderstanding of redemption would be great for her character. Charlie is definitely well-meaning and optimistic, but at the same time you get the idea that she’s a bit naive and doesn’t quite fully understand how people end up in Hell, and how tricky of a process it is to actually rehabilitate oneself. Charlie learning that she can’t push people into becoming better just by being all happy and sunshine-y would be relevant as a character arc, and it’d motivate her into approaching redemption more subtly. People can and ARE messed up in Hell and are dealing with intense issues, and Charlie needs to learn to recognize this and give people the space they need to improve.

-We see the results of the Exterminator Angels’ annual massacres, but we have yet to see one in action. Thus, an episode that showcases what an extermination actually looks like would be both fascinating and also utter nightmare fuel as the characters try to survive and protect the guests at the Hazbin Hotel, who may not be any more exempt from extermination than anyone else. Likewise, seeing how the Demon Lords and others prepare for an extermination would be neat world-building.

-Mobster, crime-ring shenanigans with Angel Dust, Cherri, Arackniss, etc., would also be fun to see. It could be used to explore what the demon underground looks like, what ‘laws’ there are in Hell, if any, and how society functions. It could also explore the idea of Exterminator weapons being a major thing in the black market due to their ability to actually, permanently kill a demon.

-What happens if a demon dies from an Exterminator weapon? Vivzie may or may not answer this, but going into speculation, I think a slain demon might actually reincarnate into a new life outside of Hell, thus given another ‘chance’ but as a different person entirely.

-Somebody dies permanently; Again, we know demons can be taken out completely by the Exterminator weapons. I think this could make for some interesting drama, or it could just be reserved for some one-off, one-shot character in order to explain how Exterminator Weapons work.

-An episode about Charlie just completely, UTTERLY losing it and revealing her true demon form in all of its hellish entirety would also be amazing.

-More Niffty and Husk interactions! 

-Another musical number isn’t NEEDED, but it would admittedly be pretty great. Potentially, there could even be an entire musical episode dedicated to all of the characters singing, which explores their motives, backstories, etc.

-Additionally, having filler subplots of the cast trying to deal with and rehabilitate the episodic, demon-of-the-week and dealing with said demon’s flaws and making them a better person could be entertaining.

-How much of Hell IS there? Overpopulation is an issue, so presumably there are boundaries... And if so, what ARE those boundaries? Does Hell just end at a cliff hovering over an empty void, or is it contained at the bottom of a giant pit?

[secret-engima]

Are you in the One Piece Fandom? Wait what fandoms are you in? Overlord?? Akatsuki No Yona?? (THAT ONE IS A GREAT READ AND WATCH TBH—its so underappreciated!!) Undertale?? (Throws hands up)

Uhhhhhhhhh depends on your definition of “in”. If by “in” you mean “have consumed the canon content enough to know what’s up” then I am in a lot less fandoms than you’d think. If you mean “have absorbed enough of the canon and fanon via osmosis to kinda get the gist and enjoy the fanfic while ignoring the actual source material” then I’m in … enough fandoms I literally can’t remember them all off the top of my head but here’s a list of what I can think of rn:

Transformers (Animated, Prime-verse, Bay-verse, SORTA G1 but only for like- two fanfics and a couple one-shots)

Final Fantasy XV (obviously)

Final Fantasy 7 (this is one of those osmosis ones, the only canon content I have actually owned is the Advent Children movie. Have watched Crisis Core walkthroughs tho)

How to Train Your Dragon (movies only)

My Hero Academia (manga, anime, and vigilantes but I’m not up to date so no spoilers pls)

Katekyo Hitman Reborn (osmosis that led to watching some of the show. The fanfics are better. Hands down. Still glad the show exists tho, otherwise the fanfic would not.)

Harry Potter (solely via crossovers, I don’t tend to enjoy straight HP fanfic, but yeeting Harry into fandoms I do know is funny)

Naruto (I have watched exactly three eps of the original and up to the Diedara mocking Naruto with Gaara’s body in Shippuuden. Everything else is pure fandom Osmosis.)

Boruto (counting this as a separate thing because Naruto fans tend to be mean over the show (????). Which is a shame cause I adore it. Ninja school/youth slice of life with end of the world drama thrown in for flavor? Heck yeah. Also Mitsuki is My Bby Boi™ and I will hear no dissent)

Akatsuki No Yona (anime, slowly collecting the manga, it is The Best™)

One Piece (pure fandom osmosis. Have watched maybe the earliest eps before I got a headache from the animation/voice acting, after that I quit and live in fanfic only)

Undertale (have never played the game, no desire to, have absorbed plot through wiki entries and fanfic osmosis. Mostly I just adore the concept of a character who knows about save points and uses them for good or evil, as well as the whole “different runs” thing and the potential Angst and Hurt/Comfort having a Frisk with multiple runs under their belt could bring. Also Papyrus and Sans are the cutest things and I love them even though I hate skeleton characters as a general rule).

Sword Art Online (this is the anime that got me into fantasy anime. Period. My Fairy Tail fanfic would not exist without this anime making me interested in non-Case Closed and Detective School Q anime. SAO Progressive Light Novels are *chef’s kiss*.)

Log Horizon (anime is fun. I like the more political/economic take that makes it so different from SAO. Also the potential Shenanigans between Adventurers and Landers and the Lander POV potential is cool).

Star Wars (I have watched all the movies at least once barring Rise of Skywalker so no spoilers, am working through older Clone Wars seasons and gleefully have enjoyed Rebels and several of the games. I do NOT write for this fandom as a general rule because I have no desire to get involved in the flame wars, especially since the original trilogy was not my entry point? So I actually really enjoy a lot of the characters and shows outside the original trilogy and apparently my ability to like content that isn’t *raises imaginary holy grail* “the OG trilogy” is a crime against Star Wars and nature and possibly humanity. Let me enjoy my blind jedi and his crew of misfit pseudo-kids you puritans. Also Rey.)

Fairy Tail (anime, have yet to watch the last season, love this show with all my heart).

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood (have yet to watch more than a few eps on the show, for all its on my reading list, so most of what I know is fanfic osmosis).

Fruits Basket (I … actually have not read fanfic of this? But I adore the books with all my heart and am so stoked to see the remade anime).

Case Closed/Magic Kaito (anime and fanfic. Treating these as the same since they’re in the same universe and spot of timeline, just have different MCs and premises).

Detective School Q (My first anime! Thank you youtube for the collection of pirated anime eps I got to binge before they all got deleted. As far as I am aware, there is no fandom still living for this show, which is a shame because it was good).

Rurouni Kenshin (the original anime! Never got past the arc with the burned villain but I still enjoyed it up to that point. No idea what the arcs after it are like. Don’t really care.)

Hobbit/LOTR (read the Hobbit, have watched all the movies. AU fanfics ftw.)

Bleach (this … is pure fanfic osmosis. I blame @wolfsrainrules @north-peach and @akaluan they got me curious. Still a little iffy on the show itself but like- I enjoy the fanfic. I’m a sucker Akaluan’s Dragon Eclipse fanfic especially.)

Princess Tutu (haven’t been in the fandom in forever? But I have a few fav fics and the show is *chef’s kiss*).

Voltron: Legendary Defender (started with the fanfics out of accident and curiosity, then hopped over to the show because the crossover potential it had with TF got me interested. Am currently in the second season so pls no spoilers).

Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes (show, fanfic, I enjoy crossovers. Someone did the world’s most epic TF:P crossover with this show and I have loved it ever since.)

MCU (osmosis that led to watching the movies. I think I liked all of the ones I watched barring Guardians of the Galaxy and Antman. Tellingly, I have made a point not to watch Endgame, Infinity War, GoG 2 or Antman 2. I can tell that the first two are just- no. I haven’t seen a fandom go up in fire that fast in years I have no desire to experience WHY.)

Edit: AVATAR. Why did I forget Avatar: The Last Airbender? hgdhgf. Anyway I like both A:TLA and Korra.

Uhhhh that’s all I can think of atm. I’m definitely missing some but yeah. Brief rundown of fandoms I am able to at least hold a basic conversation about and a brief bio of how/why I know them.

[altimys]

Zero Escape Thoughts

I just finished playing all the Zero Escape games over the course of the past three weeks. Some thoughts.

Overall, I really liked the series. Most of the characters are well-written and dynamic, the plots entangled and unpredictable, and the ties to science, psychology, and sci-fi quite well done. I’d been dying to play these games since high school when I first heard about 999, and I’m very glad to be able to finally accomplish that goal. Spoilers ahead, of course.

999

999 is by far the best one in the series, maybe because it was planned as a single game and the series wasn’t anticipated. I’m a fan of the visual novel style, and the puzzles in here took advantage of math and cryptology, which was really cool. Junpei was an excellent protagonist, because he had the right balance of naivete, heroism, and wit to pull through the story. The banter with all the other characters made him feel a lot less shounen protag and more like a real person, someone who could say a lot of silly stuff at odd times, or slyly try to make Akane say perverted things. The other characters were also quite charismatic!

When the reason for the Nonary games was revealed, the impact was unforgettable. Unintentionally dragged into a plot to reach across time to save the one you loved. Like fated lovers, though it felt more than a simple romance because of how everything was entangled, and the fact that Junpei was not exactly saving adult Akane but the Akane that was a child. The true end was really great, with Aoi and Akane on the run (felt like noble outlaws), but the hope that Junpei could and would catch up with them.

Virtue’s Last Reward

I admit, initially I was not impressed with VLR, because the mechanic of the AB game and the overly mascot-like Zero III felt like some contrived death game rather than a masterfully crafted plot like 999. As the game progressed however, the mystery of the bombs, Radical-6, and the killer on the loose really got me engaged, wondering what the heck was really going on.

Sigma was also a pretty fun protagonist to play as, with his clueless nature and his sometimes perverted lines (ahaha). I felt like his relationships with the other characters were much more developed (as compared to Junpei), and his banter with Phi was more fun and relaxed as compared to Junpei and Akane in 999.

They really latched onto the multiverse theory with the jumping and everything, giving it more of a mechanic than 999, which was okay, but it kind of makes the “fate” of 999 lose a bit of its impact. Otherwise, the jumping mechanic was really cool, and did reasonably frame the reason the Nonary game here was started in the first place. However, the weakest plot points here were that somehow Hongou was said to have done the original Nonary game as a Free the Soul experiment, which was a weak excuse for a connection to the first game (no mention of FtS whatsoever then) and Akane being so cold as to never contact Junpei in that history and help conceive a game that *had* to kill people before it achieved its goal. Also, who is ? in the last scenario, and where did K go? It felt like it was implied to be the player, but the question is never answered.

The game introduced Luna, and I really came to like her a lot. I felt extremely hurt every time I had to betray her. I cherished her ending with Sigma, and did kind of ship them a little (LOL). Little did I know...

Zero Time Dilemma

The tone of this actually was more of a contrived death game than VLR, because it was implied that there was no chance at all nine characters surviving whatsoever, unlike 999 or VLR. Luckily, they got rid of the mascot and just went with a sinister Zero. The deaths were much more gruesome than the previous two games and definitely showed more blood. Shock value?

The fragmented timeline both adds and subtracts from the overall experience. It helped me as the player experience firsthand the disorienting gaps in time and memory that the characters were going through. However, the lack of a chronological timeline, or at least following different timelines in a more organized or linear fashion made decisions lose their impact. Every event felt transient.

Junpei and Akane were written far too out of character from what I would imagine them being like one year after the events of 999. Within one year, would it be possible for Junpei to be that jaded and edgy? Would he not try to revert to parts of his old self and at least be neutral, if not nice? Akane also had some serious yandere bits, which were bizarre because I didn’t think someone who is so focused on saving humanity would be that unhinged, especially if it was the death of someone she steeled her heart from interacting with. I would have expected her to show frustrated disappointment or even disdain, not straight up crazy murder time.

The new characters were difficult to get to like. You could like Carlos through his friendly banter with C-Team, and Diana because you could tell she was kind and synergized with Sigma and Phi, but Sean, Eric, and Mira were difficult to like, because no rapport was really built between the three of them at all. Almost all the Q-Team interactions were wrought with tension and misunderstanding. I also felt like Mira was supposed to play the role of The Killer (like Ace or Dio), but since the teams were so separate and memory so limited, it was incredibly difficult to rouse the same kind of suspicion and fear, so she just because a lackluster pretty killer. Not really much of a satisfying redemption arc for her in her post-game files either.

D-Team was simply my favorite, probably because Sigma and Phi were still true to their VLR personalities, and as mentioned before, the whole team synergized very well. The two bombs that were dropped in this team were the parts that make this game redeemable for me. The first reveal, that Diana was the one Luna was based off of, made me drop my jaw, but it also did not prepare me for the second reveal, which was the entire Sigma/Diana/Phi/Delta thing. Suddenly, everything made odd sense, even though it was kind of fucked up. No wonder the D-Team chemistry was there. Even now, I’m still kind of shocked at how unbelievable it is...

Well, the true ending was okay, but it felt largely unsatisfying, since Zero was portrayed to be some kind of anti-hero/anti-villain, but really it came across as just a big asshole who didn’t really care about justifying the means. Even with the “we will save the world because of this” mentality that was induced in the participants, it really felt like a letdown that we wouldn’t be able to serve justice for all the horrible things that happened to the characters, nor actually see the foiling of the future terrorist’s plan. Really felt like a cop-out. Other post-game complaints are (1) where the fuck is my post-game D-team files and (2) where is ? and K???

I do think ZTD is the weakest by far, but the writing that surrounded team D was emotional and well done, and is my favorite part. Without that, I don’t know if I would really have liked everything else that happened in ZTD.

Erhhh well, thanks for reading, I guess! Despite its faults (like overexplaining concepts like jesus shut up sometimes), I do like this series a lot!

[blackkudos]

Luther Vandross

Luther Ronzoni Vandross Jr. (April 20, 1951 – July 1, 2005) was an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. Throughout his career, Vandross was an in-demand background vocalist for several different artists including Todd Rundgren, Judy Collins, Chaka Khan, Bette Midler, Diana Ross, David Bowie, Ben E. King, and Donna Summer. He later became a lead singer of the group Change, which released its gold-certified debut album, The Glow of Love, in 1980 on Warner/RFC Records. After Vandross left the group, he was signed to Epic Records as a solo artist and released his debut solo album, Never Too Much, in 1981.

His hit songs include "Never Too Much", "Here and Now", "Any Love", "Power of Love/Love Power", "I Can Make It Better" and "For You to Love". Many of his songs were covers of original music by other artists such as "If This World Were Mine" (duet with Cheryl Lynn), "Since I Lost My Baby", "Superstar" and "Always and Forever". Duets such as "The Closer I Get to You" with Beyoncé, "Endless Love" with Mariah Carey and "The Best Things in Life Are Free" with Janet Jackson were all hit songs in his career.

During his career, Vandross sold over 35 million records worldwide, and received eight Grammy Awards including Best Male R&B Vocal Performance four different times. He won a total of four Grammy Awards in 2004 including the Grammy Award for Song of the Year for a song recorded not long before his death, "Dance with My Father".

Early life

Luther Ronzoni Vandross, Jr. was born on April 20, 1951, at Bellevue Hospital, in the Kips Bay neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. He was the fourth child and second son of Mary Ida Vandross and Luther Vandross, Sr. His father was an upholsterer and singer, and his mother was a nurse. Vandross was raised in Manhattan's Lower East Side in the NYCHA Alfred E. Smith Houses public housing development. At the age of three, having his own phonograph, Vandross taught himself to play the piano by ear.

Vandross's father died of diabetes when Vandross was eight years old. In 2003, Vandross wrote the song "Dance with My Father" and dedicated it to him; the title was based on his childhood memories and his mother's recollections of the family singing and dancing in the house. His family moved to the Bronx when he was nine. His sisters, Patricia "Pat" and Ann began taking Vandross to the Apollo Theater and to a theater in Brooklyn to see Dionne Warwick and Aretha Franklin. Patricia sang with the vocal group The Crests and was featured on the songs "My Juanita" and "Sweetest One".

Vandross graduated from William Howard Taft High School in the Bronx in 1969, and attended Western Michigan University for a year before dropping out to continue pursuing a career in music.

Career

While in high school, Vandross founded the first Patti LaBelle fan club, of which he was president. He also performed in a group, Shades of Jade, that once played at the Apollo Theater. During his early years in show business he appeared several times at the Apollo's famous amateur night. While a member of a theater workshop, Listen My Brother, he was involved in the singles "Only Love Can Make a Better World" and "Listen My Brother". He appeared with the group in several episodes of the first season of Sesame Street during 1969–1970.

1970s: Back-up vocalist and first groups

Vandross added backing vocals to Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway in 1972, and worked on Delores Hall's Hall-Mark album (1973). He sang with her on the song "Who's Gonna Make It Easier for Me", which he wrote, and he contributed another song, "In This Lonely Hour". Having co-written "Fascination" for David Bowie's Young Americans (1975), he went on to tour with him as a back-up vocalist in September 1974. Vandross wrote "Everybody Rejoice" for the 1975 Broadway musical The Wiz.

Vandross also sang backing vocals for artists including Roberta Flack,Chaka Khan, Ben E. King, Bette Midler, Diana Ross, Carly Simon, Barbra Streisand, and Donna Summer, and for the bands Mandrill, Chic and Todd Rundgren's Utopia.

Before his solo breakthrough, Vandross was part of a singing quintet in the late 1970s named Luther, consisting of former Shades of Jade members Anthony Hinton and Diane Sumler, as well as Theresa V. Reed, and Christine Wiltshire, signed to Cotillion Records. Although the singles "It's Good for the Soul", "Funky Music (Is a Part of Me)", and "The Second Time Around" were relatively successful, their two albums, the self-titled Luther (1976) and This Close to You (1977), which Vandross produced, did not sell enough to make the charts. Vandross bought back the rights to those albums after Cotillion dropped the group, preventing them from being re-released.

Vandross also wrote and sang commercial jingles from 1977 until the early 1980s, for companies including NBC, Mountain Dew, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Burger King, and Juicy Fruit. He continued his successful career as a popular session singer during the late 1970s.

In 1978, Vandross sang lead vocals for Greg Diamond's disco band, Bionic Boogie, on the song titled "Hot Butterfly". Also in 1978, he appeared on Quincy Jones's Sounds...and Stuff Like That!!, most notably on the song "I'm Gonna Miss You in the Morning" along with Patti Austin. Vandross also sang with the band Soirée and was the lead vocalist on the track "You Are the Sunshine of My Life"; he also contributed background vocals to the album along with Jocelyn Brown and Sharon Redd, each of whom also saw solo success. Additionally, he sang the lead vocals on the group Mascara's LP title song "See You in L.A." released in 1979. Vandross also appeared on the group Charme's 1979 album Let It In.

1980s: Change and solo breakthrough

Vandross made his career breakthrough as a featured singer with the vaunted pop-dance act Change, a studio concept created by French-Italian businessman Jacques Fred Petrus. Their 1980 hits, "The Glow of Love" (by Romani, Malavasi and Garfield) and "Searching" (by Malavasi), featured Vandross as the lead singer. In a 2001 interview with Vibe, Vandross said "The Glow of Love" was "the most beautiful song I've ever sung in my life." Both songs were from Change's debut album, The Glow of Love.

Vandross was originally intended to perform on their second and highly successful album Miracles in 1981, but declined the offer as Petrus didn't pay enough money. Vandross's decision led to a recording contract with Epic Records that same year, but he also provided background vocals on "Miracles" and on the new Petrus-created act, the B. B. & Q. Band in 1981. During that hectic year Vandross jump-started his second attempt at a solo career with his debut album, Never Too Much. In addition to the hit title track it contained a version of the Dionne Warwick song "A House Is Not a Home".

The song "Never Too Much", written by him, reached number-one on the R&B charts. This period also marked the beginning of songwriting collaboration with bassist Marcus Miller, who played on many of the tracks and would also produce or co-produce a number of tracks for Vandross. The Never Too Much album was arranged by Vandross's high school classmate Nat Adderley, Jr., a collaboration that would last through Vandross's career.

Vandross released a series of successful R&B albums during the 1980s and continued his session work with guest vocals on groups like Charme in 1982. Many of his earlier albums made a bigger impact on the R&B charts than on the pop charts. During the 1980s, two of Vandross's singles reached No. 1 on the Billboard R&B charts: "Stop to Love", in 1986, and a duet with Gregory Hines—"There's Nothing Better Than Love." Vandross was at the helm as producer for Aretha Franklin's Gold-certified, award-winning comeback album Jump to It. He also produced the follow-up album, 1983's Get It Right.

In 1983, the opportunity to work with his main musical influence, Dionne Warwick, came about with Vandross producing, writing songs, and singing on How Many Times Can We Say Goodbye, her fourth album for Arista Records. The title track duet reached No. 27 on the Hot 100 chart (#7 R&B/#4 Adult Contemporary), while the second single, "Got a Date" was a moderate hit (#45 R&B/#15 Club Play).

Vandross wrote and produced "It's Hard for Me to Say" for Diana Ross from her Red Hot Rhythm & Blues album. Ross performed the song as an a cappella tribute to Oprah Winfrey on her final season of The Oprah Winfrey Show. She then proceeded to add it to her successful 2010–12 "More Today Than Yesterday: The Greatest Hits Tour. Vandross also recorded a version of this song on his Your Secret Love album in 1996.

In December 1985, Vandross filed a libel suit against a British magazine after it attributed his 85-pound weight loss to AIDS. He weighed 325 pounds when he started a diet in May that year.

In 1985, Vandross first spotted the talent of Jimmy Salvemini, who was fifteen at the time, on Star Search. He thought Salvemini had the perfect voice for some of his songs, and contacted him. He was managed by his brother, Larry Salvemini. A contract was negotiated with Elektra Records for $250,000 and Vandross agreed to produce the album. He contacted his old friends - Cheryl Lynn, Alfa Anderson (Chic), Phoebe Snow and Irene Cara - to appear on the record. After the album was completed, Luther, Jimmy, and Larry decided to celebrate. On January 12, 1986, they were riding in Vandross's 1985 convertible Mercedes-Benz on Laurel Canyon Boulevard, in the north section of Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles. Luther was driving at 48 mph in a 35 mph zone when his Mercedes veered across the double yellow center line of the two lane street, turned sideways and collided with the front of a 1972 Mercury Marquis that was headed southbound, then swung around and hit a 1979 Cadillac Seville head on. Vandross and Jimmy were rushed to the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Larry, who was in the passenger seat, was killed during the collision. Vandross suffered three broken ribs, a broken hip, several bruises and facial cuts. Jimmy, who was in the back of the car, had cuts, bruises and contusions. Vandross faced vehicular manslaughter charges as a result of Larry's death, and his driving license was suspended for a year. There was no evidence Vandross was under the influence of alcohol or other drugs; he pleaded no contest to reckless driving. At first, the Salvemini family was supportive of Vandross, but later filed a wrongful death suit against him. The case was settled out of court with a payment to the Salvemini family for about $630,000. Jimmy Salvemini's album, Roll It, was released later that year.

Vandross also sang the ad-libs and background vocals, along with Syreeta Wright and Philip Bailey, in Stevie Wonder's 1985 hit "Part-Time Lover". In 1986, he voiced a cartoon character named Zack for ABC's Zack of All Trades, a three Saturday morning animated PSA spots.

The 1989 compilation album The Best of Luther Vandross... The Best of Love included the ballad "Here and Now", his first single to chart in the Billboard pop chart top ten, peaking at number six.

1990s

In 1990, Vandross wrote, produced and sang background for Whitney Houston in a song entitled "Who Do You Love" which appeared on her I'm Your Baby Tonight album. That year, he guest starred on the television sitcom 227.

More albums followed in the 1990s, beginning with 1991's Power of Love which spawned two top ten pop hits. He won his first Grammy award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance in 1991. He won his second Best Male R&B Vocal in the Grammy Awards of 1992, and his track "Power of Love/Love Power" won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Song in the same year. In 1992, "The Best Things in Life Are Free", a duet with Janet Jackson from the movie Mo' Money became a hit. In 1993, he had a brief non-speaking role in the Robert Townsend movie The Meteor Man. He played a hit man who plotted to stop Townsend's title character.

Vandross hit the top ten again in 1994, teaming with Mariah Carey on a cover version of Lionel Richie and Diana Ross's duet "Endless Love". It was included on the album Songs, a collection of songs which had inspired Vandross over the years. He also appears on "The Lady Is a Tramp" released on Frank Sinatra's Duets album. At the Grammy Awards of 1997, he won his third Best Male R&B Vocal for the track "Your Secret Love".

A second greatest hits album, released in 1997, compiled most of his 1990s hits and was his final album released through Epic Records. After releasing I Know on Virgin Records, he signed with J Records. His first album on Clive Davis's new label, entitled Luther Vandross, was released in 2001, and it produced the hits "Take You Out" (#7 R&B/#26 Pop), and "I'd Rather" (#17 Adult Contemporary/#40 R&B/#83 Pop). Vandross scored at least one top 10 R&B hit every year from 1981–1994.

In 1997, Vandross sang the American national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner", during Super Bowl XXXI at the Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans, Louisiana.

2000s

He made two public appearances at Diana Ross's Return to Love Tour: at its opening in Philadelphia at First Union Spectrum and its final stop at Madison Square Garden on July 6, 2000.

In September 2001, Vandross performed a rendition of Michael Jackson's hit song "Man in the Mirror" at Jackson's 30th Anniversary special, alongside Usher and 98 Degrees.

In 2002, he performed his final concerts during his last tour, The BK Got Soul Tour starring Vandross featuring Angie Stone and Gerald Levert.

In the spring of 2003, Vandross's last collaboration was Doc Powell's "What's Going On", a cover of Marvin Gaye from Powell's album 97th and Columbus.

In 2003, Vandross released the album Dance with My Father. It sold 442,000 copies in the first week and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 album chart. The title track of the same name, which was dedicated to Vandross's childhood memories of dancing with his father, won Vandross and his co-writer, Richard Marx, the 2004 Grammy Award for Song of the Year. The song also won Vandross his fourth and final award in the Best Male R&B Vocal Performance category. The album was his only career No. 1 on the Billboard album chart. The video for the title track features various celebrities alongside their fathers and other family members. The second single released from the album, "Think About You", was the number one Urban Adult Contemporary Song of 2004 according to Radio & Records.

In 2003, after the televised NCAA Men's Basketball championship, CBS Sports gave "One Shining Moment" a new look. Vandross, who had been to only one basketball game in his life, was the new singer, and the video had none of the special effects, like glowing basketballs and star trails, that videos from previous years had. This song version is in use today.

Personal life

Vandross was never married and had no children. His older siblings all predeceased him.

Vandross's sexual orientation was a subject of media speculation. Jason King, writing in Vandross's obituary in The Village Voice, said: "Though he never came out as gay or bisexual, you had to be wearing blinders." According to Gene Davis, a television producer who worked with Vandross, "Everybody in the business knew that Luther was gay". In 2006, Bruce Vilanch, a friend and colleague of Vandross, told Out magazine, "He said to me, 'No one knows I'm in the life.' ... He had very few sexual contacts". According to Vilanch, Vandross experienced his longest romantic relationship with a man while living in Los Angeles during the late 1980s and early 1990s. In December 2017, his friend Patti LaBelle confirmed that Vandross was, in fact, gay.

Illness and death

Vandross suffered from diabetes and hypertension. On April 16, 2003, Vandross suffered a severe stroke at his home in New York City and was in a coma for nearly two months. The stroke affected his ability to speak and sing, and required him to use a wheelchair.

At the 2004 Grammy Awards, Vandross appeared in a pre-taped video segment to accept his Song of the Year Award for "Dance with My Father", saying, "When I say goodbye it's never for long, because I believe in the power of love" (Vandross sang the last six words). His mother, Mary, accepted the award in person on his behalf. His last public appearance was on May 6, 2004, on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Vandross died on July 1, 2005, at the JFK Medical Center in Edison, New Jersey, at the age of 54 of a heart attack.

Vandross's funeral was held at Riverside Church in New York City on July 8, 2005. Cissy Houston, founding member of The Sweet Inspirations and mother of Whitney Houston, sang at the funeral service. Vandross was entombed at the George Washington Memorial Park in Paramus, New Jersey. He was survived by his mother, Mary Ida Vandross, who died in 2008.

Voice

Possessing a tenor vocal range, Vandross was commonly referred to as "The Velvet Voice" in reference to his exceptional vocal talent, and was sometimes called "The Best Voice of a Generation". He was also regarded as the "Pavarotti of Pop" by many critics.

In 2008, Vandross was ranked No. 54 on Rolling Stone magazine's List of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. Mariah Carey stated several times in interviews that standing next to Vandross while recording their duet "Endless Love" was intimidating.

By popular vote, Vandross was inducted into The SoulMusic Hall of Fame at SoulMusic.com in December 2012.

Tribute

In 1999, Whitney Houston sang Vandross's "So Amazing" as a tribute to Vandross as he sat in the audience during the Soul Train Awards. Johnny Gill, El DeBarge, and Kenny Lattimore provided background vocals. On July 27, 2004, GRP Records released a smooth jazz various artists tribute album, Forever, for Always, for Luther, including ten popular songs written by Vandross. The album featured vocal arrangements by Luther, and was produced by Rex Rideout and Bud Harner. Rideout had co-authored songs, contributed arrangements and played keyboards on Vandross's final three albums. The tribute album was mixed by Ray Bardani, who recorded and mixed most of Luther's music over the years. It featured an ensemble of smooth jazz performers, many of whom had previously worked with Vandross.

On September 20, 2005, the album So Amazing: An All-Star Tribute to Luther Vandross was released. The album is a collection of some of his songs performed by various artists, including Stevie Wonder, Mary J. Blige, Usher, Fantasia, Beyoncé, Donna Summer, Alicia Keys, Elton John, Celine Dion, Wyclef Jean, Babyface, Patti LaBelle, John Legend, Angie Stone, Jamie Foxx, Teddy Pendergrass, and Aretha Franklin. Aretha Franklin won a Grammy for her rendition of "A House Is Not a Home", and Stevie Wonder and Beyoncé won a Grammy for their cover of "So Amazing".

The violin duo Nuttin' But Stringz did a remix of the song "Dance with My Father" for their album Struggle from the Subway to the Charts, which was released on October 3, 2006.On November 21, 2006, saxophonist Dave Koz released a followup to the earlier smooth jazz GRP tribute album, this time on his own Rendezvous Entertainment label, an album called Forever, for Always, for Luther Volume II, also produced by Rex Rideout and Bud Harner. Dave Koz played on all the featured Luther Vandross tracks, which were recorded by various smooth jazz artists.

In 2007, Deniece Williams included "Never Too Much" on her Love, Niecy Style CD. Williams said that she recorded the song to say "I love you" to her old friend. In the music video "Bye Bye" from Mariah Carey Vandross's picture appears in the closing images. His image was included as a tribute along with various other deceased people with whom Carey had collaborated.

In 2008, Keyshia Cole sang the outro to "Luther Vandross" on "Playa Cardz Right", which featured rapper Tupac Shakur from her 2008 album, A Different Me. Guitarist Norman Brown did a rendition of "Any Love" on his 1994 album After The Storm. R&B band 112 sampled Vandross's "Don't You Know That" to make their song "Love Me" on their second album Room 112. Saxophonist Boney James covered his rendition on his final track "The Night I Fell in Love" on Backbone in 1994.

Vandross has been cited as an influence on a number of other artists, including 112, Boyz II Men, D'Angelo, Hootie & the Blowfish, Jaheim, John Legend, Mint Condition, Ne-Yo, Ruben Studdard, and Usher. Stokley Williams, the lead singer of Mint Condition, has said that he has "studied Luther for such a long time because he was the epitome of perfect tone." On his influence, John Legend has said, "All us people making slow jams now, we was inspired by the slow jams Luther Vandross was making."

In 2010, NPR included Vandross in its 50 Greatest Voices in recorded history, saying Vandross represents "the platinum standard for R&B song stylings." The announcement was made on NPR's All Things Considered on November 29, 2010.

Author Craig Seymour wrote a book about Vandross called Luther: The Life and Longing of Luther Vandross. The book includes numerous interviews with Vandross.

New releases

J Records released a song, "Shine"—an upbeat R&B track that samples Chic's disco song "My Forbidden Lover"—which reached No. 31 on the Billboard R&B chart. The song was originally slated to be released on the soundtrack to the movie, The Fighting Temptations, but it was shelved. A later remix of the song peaked at No. 10 on the Club Play chart. "Shine" and a track titled "Got You Home" were previously unreleased songs on The Ultimate Luther Vandross (2006), a greatest hits album on Epic Records/J Records/Legacy Recordings that was released August 22, 2006.

On October 16, 2007, Epic Records/J Records/Legacy Recordings released a 4-disc boxed set titled Love, Luther. It features nearly all of Vandross's R&B and pop hits throughout his career, as well as unreleased live tracks, alternate versions, and outtakes from sessions that Vandross recorded. The set also includes "There's Only You", a version of which had originally appeared on the soundtrack to the 1987 film Made in Heaven.

In October 2015, Sony Music released a re-configured edition of its The Essential Luther Vandross compilation containing three unreleased songs: "Love It, Love It" (which made its premiere a year prior on the UK compilation The Greatest Hits), a live recording of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" with Paul Simon and Jennifer Holliday, and a cover of Astrud Gilberto's "Look to the Rainbow."

Discography

Luther (1976)

This Close to You (1977)

Never Too Much (1981)

Forever, for Always, for Love (1982)

Busy Body (1983)

The Night I Fell in Love (1985)

Give Me the Reason (1986)

Any Love (1988)

Power of Love (1991)

Never Let Me Go (1993)

Songs (1994)

This Is Christmas (1995)

Your Secret Love (1996)

I Know (1998)

Luther Vandross (2001)

Dance with My Father (2003)

Tours

Luther Tour (1981)

Forever For Always For Love Tour (1982–1983)

Busy Body Tour (1984)

The Night I Fell in Love Tour (1985–1986)

Give Me the Reason Tour (1987)

Any Love World Tour (1988–1989)

Best of Love Tour (1990)

The Power of Love Tour (1991)

Never Let Me Go World Tour (1993–1994)

Your Secret Love World Tour (1997)

Take You Out Tour (2001–2002)

BK Got Soul Tour (2002)

Awards

Grammy AwardSoul Train Music AwardsAmerican Music AwardHollywood Walk of Fame

Inducted: Star (Posthumous; June 3, 2014)

See also

List of quiet storm songs

Luther Burger

Craig Seymour

[juicemitio]

Alright I went to Louisville Galaxycon and saw Travis and Clint twice, for their worldbuilding workshop and their Q&A. Here's some interesting stuff I learned (I didn't include stuff they talked about that's pretty common knowledge or they talked about on the last ttazz)

Graduation 

Fitzroy was originally going to be a jock that was weak bc he no longer had a team, Travis told Griffin that that didn't really work for the world so they reframed it as him training to be a hero, was great academically and behaviorally, but had a problem no one had seen before and no one felt like dealing with. It specifically wasn't "barbarian fails bc he can't keep his rage in check," it was that no one was willing to deal with his magic so they shipped him off

Someone asked Travis to explain fitzroy's magic, so from the DM's mouth- he's a barbarian subtype with elemental magic which has a random effect while raging, which we haven't seen yet (path of the wild soul if you want to look it up and see what he can do) and he took a feat which gives him the ability to cast 3 cantrips of his choosing. What I thought was interesting was that Travis described Fitz's magic using the word "elemental" twice, even though that isn't specifically stated in the path of the wild soul entry

Travis knows Argo's secret and is very excited about it 

Clint has a pirate fiction book he reads every night before they record to get into the headspace to play Argo, he told us the name but I forgot it 

There is one small little concept that made the whole of graduation make sense to Travis and is what the arc will be about, and he only figured it out a few days before recording. Obviously he didn't tell us what it was

Originally it was going to start with everyone starting at age 11 and slowly killing the other kids off, but Justin didn't feel comfortable playing a game surrounded by kids dying 

The accounting scene is already one of Travis' all time favorite taz scenes

The pegasus scene informed Travis on exactly how he was going to treat the firbolg

Also Travis referred to Justin's character exclusively as "the firbolg," which means "master firbolg" is solely a thing going on with the npcs in the game which I find hilarious. They just all decided to give him a dope title bc he deserves it, meanwhile no one will call Fitzroy "sir"

To Fitzroy, social threats are an extremely real and serious thing, like the Biggest thing to him (we were talking about what characters found threatening in the workshop, for context)  

There's some big concept/idea that comes up in the next episode that travis almost let spill and had to quickly stop himself from saying it

Someone mentioned eating breakfast in their question in the workshop and Travis goofed on it for a second, then said "cereal world" suddenly, and Clint had to pick up the question bc Travis had to take a second to make a note of it in his phone 

Travis started brainstorming graduation in March and they recorded the first episode in October, and his main job in that time was working on graduation 

Before Buckminster was adapted for graduation he could not fight at all, if he got into a fight he would die, he poured everything into charisma and could talk his way out of any fight (even the big bad of the game he crit 20d his check and the big bad walked away from the fight) 

Travis is really into psychology and how if you assign a label to someone they're going to act more like it (ie you tell a kid they're amazing and smart and talented and they become more like that, you tell a kid they're annoying and dumb and a problem they become more like that), and how that was a major contributor to play into hero/villain/sidekick/henchperson dynamics, you get assigned this arbitrary title of good/evil/subservient and you become like that to fit the role, and then the inevitable pushing against that mold

Travis is fully aware of his story being compared to harry potter and he doesn't care bc it's apt (people in a school arbitrarily divided into four groups and one of them is the Bad One), also he knows people describe it as "sky high meets Harry Potter meets my hero academia" and he actually finds that really flattering bc he thinks that sounds cool and like something he'd want to watch 

On that note, Travis is a self-identified Slytherin and he's always upheld that the reason Slytherin is depicted in a bad light is bc Rowling decided she didn't like them, and he's always sympathized with the idea of a first year Slytherin working their ass off following the rules and doing their work and getting points, and Dumbledore rewards three idiots for breaking like every rule and pulls the trophy away from you. This was a big inspiration for graduation, of one group getting a bad rep and being portrayed as evil for literally no reason 

Amnesty

Clint & Travis's favorite scene they've ever done together was Ned & Aubrey's final scene together 

Aubrey and Dani do move in with each other at the end of amnesty

Balance

Travis' main emotion around taz is pride and he's most proud of the scene in stolen century with the spirits in the robots, bc they had to record it a second time bc it got way too dark and ended in a really grim way and about 20 min after they finished they all decided that they weren't happy with it, that it didn't fit the tone, he's really proud they didn't just leave it be and they took the second pass at it to make it right

I'm pretty sure he's talked about wanting to kill Magnus off at the beginning before but he mentioned that it was only at the end of petals to the metal he actually realized he wanted Magnus to live, bc Hurley had to sacrifice herself to save Magnus bc Magnus had been so reckless, that hit Travis really hard. Travis realized that Magnus' recklessness was getting people hurt and so Magnus did too, so Magnus become a bit more cautious and took up rogue training to try not to get anyone killed again 

Dust

Dust wasn't designed to be anything more than a one off and the workload was completely unsustainable, the document of notes for dust was about 100 pages and only about 10% of it got used

The reason Travis loved it so much was bc it was a mystery and he found it really fun

Commitment

Clint would love to revisit commitment, but probably not in podcast form bc he didn't find himself really being in the moment as much bc of all the different things he had to keep track of, he'd like to see a comic adaptation/continuation if possible

It was based of a comic he wrote that never got published bc the company producing it failed (he still cashed his paycheck) so he reused it bc he still liked it a lot, it was about how America was founded as a monarchy instead of a democracy and what that changed in the usa's (united sovereignty of america's) history, and how people now were fighting to establish a democracy. Also there were cowboys and spaceships and other cool stuff he put in there bc he liked it

General adventure zone

The reason why they're are able to do romantic relationships w/o being weirded out by it (they joke about it but they don't actually care) is bc it's never done in an explicit or sexual way and since it's the decision the characters would make to pursue the relationship then that's the decision they make. He reframed it as it wouldn't be weird if a family were writing a script together and there was a romance and one person wrote lines for one character and the other wrote lines for the other. He did mention that two siblings playing characters in a relationship as actors on screen wouldn't be cool though

They sometimes get comments that some of the stuff they do is "fanservice," but they feel that they owe their success to their fans and they owe some to them 

They are both aware of and proud that Justin is the best at character creation, Clint specifically really was talking about how Justin's strong suit is definitely character creation and characterization

General mcelroy stuff

They walked pretty close to me when they entered the stage room for the q&a and like… they're short, like shorter than you think

Travis referred to his unborn child as "baby dod" (I'm not 100% certain but I'm pretty sure) which I looked up and is a nickname for George, and given with their older kid being named Barbera and nicknamed BeBe and Travis talking before about how he and his wife like classic names with cool nicknames it makes sense

Travis had an earing in his right ear, I didn't get to see his left ear and I couldn't tell if it was an actual piercing or a fake, it looked really good though. Also his tinted glasses look a lot cooler irl than they do in pictures

Clint told the teenage mutant Ninja turtle story with the signatures that griffin told on mbmbam, but Clint remembered it as happening at King's Island, not Disney. This story was prompted by the question of the biggest lie he ever told his kids, and he only came clean about this a few months ago

Travis told a story about how he finished a videogame when he was younger and was so excited that he picked up a plastic knife, yelled "throwing knife!" threw it directly at Griffin who dodged it and it hit and shattered a window

[shenlongshao]

Aerith & Jam: The Eastern Appeal of Two Similar Women

February has came so fast! I thought it would be fun to a post to celebrate the upcoming birthdays of my two, all-time favorite characters; Jam Kuradoberi from Guilty Gear and Aerith Gainsborough from Final Fantasy 7. I'll be explaining in detail the surprising amount of similarities between them, why these characters are widely loved in Eastern more than Western audiences, etc. I hope you enjoy reading!^_^ Let's begin by looking at Aerith's and Jam's design!

WHAT JAM AND AERITH HAVE IN COMMON ====================================

Besides having light brown hair, Jam and Aerith share the color scheme of red and pink. These two colors perfectly represent Jam's and Aerith's personalities along with their outlook on life.

The Color Red (https://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/color-red.html):

The color red is a warm and positive color associated with our most physical needs and our will to survive. Red is energizing. It excites the emotions and motivates us to take action. It signifies a pioneering spirit and leadership qualities, promoting ambition and determination. It is also strong-willed and can give confidence to those who are shy or lacking in will power. Being the color of physical movement, the color red awakens our physical life force. It is the color of sexuality and can stimulate deeper and more intimate passions in us, such as love and sex on the positive side or revenge and anger on the negative.

The Color Pink (https://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/color-pink.html):

The color pink represents compassion, nurturing and love. It relates to unconditional love and understanding, and the giving and receiving of nurturing. A combination of red and white, pink contains the need for action of red, helping it to achieve the potential for success and insight offered by white. It is the passion and power of red softened with the purity, openness and completeness of white. The deeper the pink, the more passion and energy it exhibits. Pink is feminine and romantic, affectionate and intimate, thoughtful and caring. It tones down the physical passion of red replacing it with a gentle loving energy.

Pink is intuitive and insightful, showing tenderness and kindness with its empathy and sensitivity. In color psychology, pink is a sign of hope. It is a positive color inspiring warm and comforting feelings, a sense that everything will be okay. 

An interesting part about Jam's earlier concept art is she didn't always have hazel brown eyes....

(Note: Image cropped to save space. Originally posted from https://gear-project.tumblr.com/ )

She has green eyes! Specifically, the same shade as Aerith's~.

Jam and Aerith's birthdays are only a day apart from each other. Aerith's birthday is February 7th while Jam's birthday is February 8th, making them both Aquarius. This further proves both Jam and Aerith are givers, since the symbolism of the Aquarius is a picture showing water being poured heavily from a container(The Water Bearer), giving life, wisdom, etc. to everyone. Aquarius women are typically known to be Independent, eccentric, humanitarian, and free-spirited. This is true for both Aerith and Jam, but let's examine a little deeper on what it says about an Aquarius.

Aquarius Personality (https://labyrinthos.co/blogs/astrology-horoscope-zodiac-signs/the-zodiac-sign-aquarius-symbol-personality-strengths-weaknesses):

One of the most obvious traits of those born under the Aquarius zodiac sign is that they are kind, friendly and generous, though later you may find that they are quite guarded and may choose to keep some emotional distance. Alongside this, they are quite subversive and rebellious - filled with many quirks that make them memorable characters of the zodiac.

Despite their friendly nature, they have a reputation for being outsiders - ones that cooly observe society, while sometimes also feeling detached from the systems that run it. Although they can be quite aloof, they are also deeply concerned with humanitarian causes. Aquarians tend to care very much for the welfare of others and society as a whole. This means as humanitarians, you can usually see them fighting power structures and campaigning against oppression.

With their eccentric nature, Aquarians find connections with others to be very easy to make, and will not find it difficult to meet up with friends or family members that they have not seen or heard from in a long time. Having a real zest for life, Aquarians tend to have a lot of energy and have a great curiosity for new experiences. Being very sociable, they can drift towards groups when working and in their social lives rather than having one or two friends. They like to experience new things, and will always be the first to try something novel.

Aquarians are one of the most friendly and entertaining signs of the zodiac, and thus they can be  fun to spend time with. Their eccentric and empathetic nature leads them to be great advice givers, always happy and excited to help those in need as well as to have a listening ear. They make great friends, and work hard so that more introverted signs can come out of their shells. Their curiosity with the world and energy mean that they are always willing to accompany friends into new adventures, and are always up for the next exciting experience. They are also generous givers, so if you are ever in need, an Aquarian will not hesitate to share whatever they have with you.

When it comes to love and relationships, Aquarians can be great partners - as long as they feel they are not trapped. Because they expect and need their own freedom and privacy, they are also just as giving of that freedom to their partners. They are rarely ever the type to get jealous or nag you repeatedly about something, rather choosing to give you your own time. Because they crave stimulation, they seem sometimes to be drawn to what is mysterious in love and relationships - looking to solve the riddle. Once they do commit however, they tend to be very loyal, the more empathetic and vulnerable side of their characters being open to you.

In love, they desire intellectual stimulation and friendship above all - and in partners they search for those that are not just lovers, but best friends too. A relationship with someone born under the Aquarius zodiac sign can be filled with surprises; their love of life means that yours too will be fun, exciting, and unusual.

Both Jam and Aerith are the same height( 163cm = 5 FT. 4in).

Both Jam and Aerith grew up in harsh, less fortunate environments. Jam lives on the poorer side of China with daily struggles of maintaining a place to live and achieving her dream of being a chef. If you watch GG Revelator 2 of May's Instant Kill, one of Jam's lines is "The lights are off again?" GG Revelator also reveals Jam has experienced tragedy according to Bedman's Instant Kill where Jam says "A black umbrella...? What are you doing here?" In China, a black umbrella symbolizes someone close to you has died.  Meaning Jam did lose someone important to her, it's just hasn't been stated who(my personal guess is a family member).

Aerith also experienced tragedy of losing her parents at a young age. Her father was shot for refusing to give his wife Ifalna(Aerith's mom) and her to Dr.Hojo, so he got shot by Dr.Hojo's henchmen. Ifalna died from her fatal injury and left to be raised by her adopted mother Elmyra. Aerith grew up in The Slums(Sector 5) of Midgar, where criminal activity and danger is common. Aerith and Jam had no help from outsiders or had millions of friends, all they have is themselves to rely on. Yet despite the harshness of their experiences, they maintain a optimistic outlook and happy attitude along being very street-wise.

Although Jam is a martial artist and Aerith is a magic user, there's some similarities with their abilities. They were both even targeted for it by corrupted organizations. Aerith was targeted by Shinra because she's one of the few remaining Cetra, and Jam was targeted by the P.W.A.B(Post-War Administration Bureau) in GGX2 because of her borderline inhuman gift in Ki. I'll show you by providing information on both.

About Cetra(https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Cetra):

The migrations of the Cetra were a Planet-reverent pursuit of the fabled Promised Land conducted by traveling and cultivating life. The Cetra could commune with the Planet, an ability regular humans lost once they gave up their close relationship with the Planet in favor of leisure and convenience. The Cetra could guide the flow of the Planet's spiritual energy, this being the means by which they cultivated life on the Planet's surface. According to legends, Ancients could use magic without Materia, and had an advanced magical civilization.

About Ki(https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps2/562111-guilty-gear-x2/faqs/21874):

Q. What is magic? What is ki? A. Magic is a source of incredible energy that began to be studied seriously by humans in the 21st century. There are five elements of magic: fire, lightning, water, wind, and ki. The first four are now well understood and can be amplified and controlled, but the use of ki remains unknown. Ki has its origins in the Orient. Testament is known to control some sort of magic, and the wielders of Jinki can also control magic to some extent. Axl too, for some reason, has been observed to use something similar to magic of the fire element. As for ki, some fighting masters of the Orient, such as Jam Kuradoberi, can use it; Kliff Undersn was the first non-Asian to be able to use ki, and now Chipp Zanuff has mastered its use as well.<

Here's another source about Ki in Guilty Gear(https://guilty-gear.fandom.com/wiki/Ki)

Ki is the Japanese on'yomi formatting of the Chinese character Qi/Chi (気 or 氣, pronounced as "chee"), and is one of the five elemental categories of magic. It is the oldest among all magical elements and is also considered the foundation of all magic. It has the ability to amplify the strength and effects of the other four magics. It is also the least understood among scholars of Magical Theory of Science.

In real-life, qi/ki is considered by Asian philosophy to be a type of life force or energy flow that literally often pertains to the atmosphere around oneself.

Jam may not be a special race, but notice how both her and Aerith's abilities relate to magic and spirit energy. This means their gifts symbolize life and spirituality.

Both Jam and Aerith have sadly suffered some "lost in translation" of their personalities. I've already mentioned how the English translation of the older Guilty Gear games had taken away alot of Jam's sweetness and empathy to being replaced with being rude and edgy to be "interesting" to Westerners. You can find my character analysis of Jam here(https://culinaryphoenix.tumblr.com/post/151953570662/character-analysis-of-jam-kuradoberi). Thankfully, the later games like Revelator fixed this. With Aerith, while not as extreme as with Jam, the English translation of Final Fantasy 7 took away some of her sweetness to focus more on her spunky side for the same reason; cause it's more "interesting" to Westerners. I'll show you a comparison of Aerith's dialogue when her and Cloud meet again with Reno and some Shinra henchmen arriving there.

English Version ---------------

Aerith: "Don't fight here! You'll ruin the flowers!"

Japanese Version ----------------

Aerith: "Please, no fighting here! You'll ruin the flowers!"

Cloud and Aerith quickly retreat to the back section of the church by going up the stairs. The platform is broken in half with Cloud jumping first then tells Aerith to follow. She immediately shakes her head in refusal. Let's compare the dialogue again.

English Version --------------

Cloud: *nods* "Alright, I'll hold them off."

Aerith: "Right. Make sure they don't get through!"

Japanese Version -----------------

Cloud: *Nods* "You'll be alright. I'll catch you."

Aerith: "Alright. Please make sure you catch me."

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGt8ua68xAM

The original context of the scene is totally different from the English version. Not only you see how while Aerith is spunky, she's also very polite. It also reveals her shaking her head was because she was scared of falling. Unlike the English version where it gives the impression she simply refused to jump and be like "I'm not listening to you! Go fight those henchmen!" Lol. Jam and Aerith can easily take care of themselves and have great emotional strength, especially from their experiences. At the same time, they're still people that show moments of being vulnerable and having a great need to be cared for, protected, etc. Which leads to the next part what they have in common; the traits of their love interests.

Aerith is in love with Cloud and Jam is in love with Ky. It's interesting how both Ky and Cloud are handsome men with blonde hair, radiant blue eyes, has blue as their main color, both are skilled swordsman and extremely strong, and both were in the military at a young age(Cloud in SOLDIER and Ky in Sacred Order of Holy Knights). They even have the same blood type(Both Cloud and Ky's blood type are AB)! Both men willingly take on the weight of the world upon their shoulders because they know others, especially their friends and loved ones are depending on them. They're protective over those they care for and go out of their way to make sure they're safe, cared for, etc. This is extremely important and special to Aerith and Jam because it's something they both want and need in their lives. Remember both these women's upbringing and how it's usually them having to be strong and do everything on their own, but now they meet these men are willing to do the same for them out of genuine care. This is the main reason why the two women are so in love with the two men. Let's look at the evidence starting with Aerith.

Note: Final Fantasy 7: DISMANTLED is an official Japanese book that tells the events through each character's personal monologue.

Aerith's Monologue in the Shinra building(https://www.finalfantasyforums.net/threads/vii-dismantled-book.43606/page-2) Aerith: *being excited now* Aerith: Cloud, you came! When I got to the Shinra Building I was handed over to a man called Hojo, I couldn’t help thinking that I won’t be able to escape anymore. I don’t know why but that man gave me the shivers. The way he looked at me was like measuring a piece of experimental specimen…. In short, he wanted a hybrid from Red XIII and….oh forget it, I don’t want to talk about it. Anyway, Professor Hojo is absolutely a weirdo! Although Red told me that “the acting was to throw Hojo off guard”, but he seemed quite serious at that moment. He does look like a savage beast, however, he is more human than most of mankind. Like what he tried to convey, we should cherish this Planet. It’s just…I can also feel the excessive strain— he seems to push himself too hard. And Cloud really is a hero! To Tifa, and to me as well, he’ll come wherever we’re in a pinch! Well, as for the one-date payment, I think I should make it two! Aerith gleefully enjoys and comments on how Cloud is a knight-in-shining armor to both her and Tifa. This increases her attraction and deepen her feelings for Cloud. This is also proof that Aerith knows the real him very early because notice how she says "Cloud really is a hero!" She knows this trait is truly part of Cloud and not something he's just pretending to be or copying from Zack. This leaves a strong impression on her because when her, Cloud, and the others finally are about to leave Midgar, Aerith admits it's her first time leaving. Cloud asks if she's worried, which at first she claims it's only a little then later admits she's worried alot. Instead of saying, "I'll be alright, though. I've dealt with worse." Aerith says... "But I have my bodyguard, right?" There's also the part when Barrett mentions of needing to assign an official leader for the team, Aerith automatically says "It should be Cloud." Once again, Aerith knows and sees Cloud's qualities not only as a person, but also a leader. She has so much faith in him and continues to do so throughout the game. She feels safe, deeply cared for, and happy with Cloud. With how much time they spent together(in-game time wise, it's likely a few months with all the traveling, etc.), Aerith realizes Cloud is the one for her. Next, is looking at the evidence with Jam. In the 3rd path of Jam's story in Guilty Gear X2, she later finally finds the one responsible behind the attack at her restaurant; Robo-Ky. Below is the dialogue from the original translation. Jam's Story Path 3(https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps2/562111-guilty-gear-x2/faqs/20666) Jam: You hiding over there... I see you! Robo Ky: Gigigi... you found me. Jam: Did you come to get beat up again? Robo Ky: Target's battle power has been analyzed. Robo Ky: Group attack... Robo Ky: ...would be most effective. Jam: Aiya! How many of them are there?! Jam: They're coming from all sides! (vs. Robo Ky) (vs. Robo Ky) (vs. Robo Ky) Robo Ky: Gigigi... Jam: Th-there's no end to them! Even though the gameplay shows needing to fight the Robo-Kys only three times, it's conveying Jam has been fighting an army of them for countless hours on her own. She's in great danger cause she's eventually going to get worn out and more Robo-Kys keep blocking her way. But then... Robo Ky: Gigigi... Give it up! Robo Ky: Everyone present! Robo Ky: Present! Robo Ky: Present! Jam: There's all of these?!Ky: That's it! Jam: A new one?! Ky: You're mistaken. I've come to save you. Jam: You're... from that time... Ky: I'm sorry I came late. Ky: Please leave these to me. Jam: Okay! Just like with Aerith, this leaves a very strong impression on Jam for many reasons. She didn't expect any help, especially from the man she thought she would never see again. She's exposed to how Ky's the type of person to go out of his way to save her and other people. She spends time with him for a while and getting to know just how caring, responsible, and noble is. This causes the result of her attraction and feelings for him deepens. She has her heart set on Ky.  Both Jam and Aerith are highly perceptive and give great wisdom than people think, which their detractors quickly label them being "insensitive" cause they totally miss the context. With Jam, I already gave an example with Haeyun in Revelator from my character analysis I linked to earlier. She also gave provided the same to Jack-O, whom spurred her to realize her purpose and place in the world. With Aerith, the notion of her being "insensitive" has even been stated as fact according to Final Fantasy 7 Wikia and some fans think this is her character flaw. Aerith's Personality from FF7 Wikia(https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Aerith_Gainsborough) Though she means well, Aerith can be insensitive to other people's problems, like when Barret is troubled in the Gold Saucer. I'll post and highlight the parts people are focused on. Aerith: "Hey, Barret! Cheer up!" Barret: "I'm not in a cheery mood. Just leave me alone." Aerith: "Really? That's too bad." *goes to Cloud and says* "Let's go" To get the full context, there's a video below that leads up to the group arriving at the Gold Saucer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS9JfjixzAI&list=PL85002125B482FF1B&index=34 Around 1:43 of the video, notice Aerith is the first one to ask what happened followed by Cloud. When Barret tells the group how his hometown isn't what it used to be. Aerith says, "But how could those people say such awful things?" with her hands on her hips in disgust. She definitely didn't like how the townspeople treated Barret. After he explained what happened and why he says it's all his fault, Aerith gives sympathetic silence. Red XIII does the same, Cloud is disgusted of what Shinra did to Barret's home and people, and Tifa tries to console Barret saying it wasn't his fault. But Yuffie says... Yuffie: "I'm not sympathizing with Barret! He shouldn't have trusted Shinra." Even though Yuffie has a point of he shouldn't have trusted Shinra, Barret didn't know at the time. She just plainly ignore how the townspeople and Barret's wife died along with the town itself burned to almost nothingness. So she's basically like, "Welp, that's what you get for being a dummy!" This is the very definition of being insensitive and not caring about people's problems. It's interesting how people ignore this yet claim Aerith is the wicked witch of the west all because she tells Barret to "cheer up" and "Really? That's too bad." lol. Below is the full context of the scene, which I'm using a better translation and not the given English one. Aerith: "Wow! Let's have fun!"  *Feels excited then turns to look at Barret from a distance* "I know it's not the right time to do this, but..." "Hey, Barret, cheer up!" Barret: "I'm not in a cheery mood. Just leave me alone."   Aerith: "Really? That's too bad." Tifa: *Whispers* "Aerith, doesn't that seem a little inconsiderate...?" Aerith: *Whispers back* "When situations like this happens, it's best not to push the issue too much." Tifa: *Whispers* "Really?" Aerith: *whispers* "Mm hmm~" *Aerith goes over to Barret again* Aerith: "We're gonna go play..." Barret: *blows up* "THEN PLAY! Mess around *curses*! Don't forget we're after Sephiroth!" *Angrily jumps inside Wonder Square* Aerith: "Oh, he's mad..." Tifa: "He'll be fine. He seems to be doing a little better now." Aerith's intention was to try to get Barret's mind off of his emotional pain by being playful and lighthearted. After seeing his reaction, Aerith decides to give him some space, though she did later wanted to let him know she and the others were going to enjoy the sights of the Gold Saucer. What Aerith explained to Tifa is some people just need time to sort out their problems on their own instead of forcing the person to. In the end, it started to work cause Barret started to jump in one of the attractions instead of standing alone and being silent. She has also given wisdom and compassion to Cloud many times when he would doubt or blame himself. WHY AERITH AND JAM ARE SO POPULAR IN THE EAST MORE THAN WEST ============================================================ There will always be fans who dislike these characters regardless, and there are Western fans who do like them(like myself). With Aerith, you could easily say it's because she's the main female character and vital to the plot of FF7. But with Jam, she's sadly just a supporting character cause in Guilty Gear, May and Millia Rage are the main female characters. Yet, she's so popular in Japan there was an anime called Genshiken where a character cosplayed as her.

The main reason both women are very beloved in the East both have traits of a leading lady. Their hardworking, determination, and free-spirit towards their goals and dreams make them admirable. Their outward display of emotions and not afraid to be express their romantic interest towards the men they love(devotion is a highly good trait in the East). Their femininity and how their strength is how they deal with life's trials and tribulations rather than strictly about their superpowers, etc. Both of their experiences are relatable to many along with their optimistic nature and playfulness, even their flaws makes them endearing and humane. I would call this type of leading lady "The Cheerful Optimist". Tifa and Dizzy also have traits of a leading lady, which the type I would call "The Strong, yet Gentle" type(going into detail about this would require another post, but wanted to give them an honorable mention~).

This also explain why I love these characters so much, especially how they easily disprove the notion that female characters can only be amazing if they completely abandon their femininity, viciously degrade men to "put them in their place", be Mary-Sues(meaning absolutely perfect with no humane and notable flaws), etc. I think people underestimate how much emotional strength it takes to remain positive and being inspirational to others when life and people have treated them horribly. It's a shame that instead of seeing the depth of these characters, it's easier for people to just label them as "weak, insensitive jerks, etc." But thankfully, me and other fans who do take the time to understand Aerith and Jam know how they are.

Happy early birthday to both Aerith Gainsborough and Jam Kuradoberi~